[ 
 
 IH 
 
 ^i^^m 
 
 
 
 S^^ 
 
 £ dlRTi I 
 
 i. 
 
 r 
 
 1 
 
 m^ 
 
 ''A 
 
 • 
 
 ( 
 
 t- 
 f 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1, 
 
 r 
 
 '■I
 
 J TJ S T 
 
 FXIBILiISIIED 
 
 LIFE OF J. ADDISON ALEXANDEE, D.D., 
 
 Ret. H. C. ALEXANDER. 
 
 2 vols. cr. 8vo. $5 00. 
 
 Works of J. Addison Alexander. 
 
 Sermons (with portrait), new and cheaper edition, 2 vols, in one $2 50 
 
 Acts (Commentary) 2 vols. 12mo. 4 00 
 
 Isaiah " (abridged) 2 " 4 00 
 
 Mark " 1 " 2 00 
 
 Matthew " 1 " 2 00 
 
 Psalms " 2 " 5 00 
 
 New Test. Literature and Ecc. Hist 1 " 2 00 
 
 Works of J. W. Alexander. 
 
 Forty Years' Correspondence with a Friend. New and 
 
 cheaper edition 2 vols, in one. §2 50 
 
 Alexander, Archibald, Life of (Portrait) 
 
 Christian Faith and Practice (Discourses) 
 
 Consolation (Discourses) 
 
 Faith (Discourses) 
 
 Preaching, Thoughts on 
 
 1 vol 
 
 2 25 
 
 1 '' 
 
 2 00 
 
 1 " 
 
 2 00 
 
 1 " 
 
 2 00 
 
 1 " 
 
 2 00 
 
 ?' 
 
 )r. Archibald Alexander's 
 
 Moral Science 1 vol. $1 50 
 
 These ivo-Jn's sent post-paid, upon receipt of their price hy the Fuhliahers.
 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 BT 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER, D.D. 
 
 TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 BROADWAY. 
 
 1870.
 
 Ektkked, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 CHARLES SCKIBNEE, 
 
 In tlie Clerk's Office of tlie District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
 •^X F. TROW, 
 
 °EP., AND XLSCTBOTTPEX, 
 
 t, New York.
 
 A 'i 7 -. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 PAOl 
 I. 
 
 Mark 1, 1. — The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son 
 
 of God, 7 
 
 II. 
 
 Matthew 2, 2. — Where is he that is born king of the Jews ? . 27 
 
 III. 
 John 13, 7. — What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt 
 
 know liereafter, 46 
 
 IV. 
 
 John 1, 29. — Behold the Lamb of God, 66 
 
 V. 
 KoMANS 1, 25. — They worshipped and served the creature more 
 j^ than the Creator, 85 
 
 VI. 
 John 3, 36. — He that bclieveth on the Son hath everlasting life : 
 and lie that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the 
 wrath of God abideth on him, ...... 106 
 
 VII. 
 Luke 17, 32. — Remember Lot's wife, 124 
 
 i
 
 4: CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 VIII. 
 1 John 3, 2. — It doth not yet appear what vre shall be, . . '.44 
 
 IX. 
 
 Luke 11, 26. — The last state of that man is worse than the first, 167 
 
 X. 
 
 Romans 16, 27. — To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ 
 
 forever. Amen, 188 
 
 XI. 
 
 Luke 14, 17. — Come, for all things are now ready, . . . 209 
 
 XII. 
 
 PROTERns 22, 2. — The rich and poor meet together ; the Lord is 
 
 the maker of them all, 227 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Romans 11, 22. — Behold therefore the goodness and severity of 
 God ; on them which fell, severity ; but toward thee, good- 
 ness, if thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise, thou also 
 Shalt be cut off, 249 
 
 XIV. 
 
 I Corinthians 15, 33. — Be not deceived ! 264 
 
 XV. 
 
 Acts 28, 28. — Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation 
 
 of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it, 280 
 
 XVI. 
 1 Peter 1, 6. — Kept by the power of God through faith unto sal- 
 vation, 302
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 5 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. 
 Titus 2, 11-15. — For the grace of God that bringcth salvation 
 hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodli- 
 ness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
 and godly, in this present world ; looking for that blessed 
 hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our 
 Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave himself for us, that he nnght 
 redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a pecu- 
 liar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and 
 exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise 
 thee, 317 
 
 XVIIL 
 
 Luke 22, 32. — When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, 3c 5 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Luke 9, 60. — Let the dead bury their dead ; but go thou and 
 
 preach the kingdom of God, ...... 354 
 
 XX. 
 
 Mark 13, 37. — What I say unto you, I say unto s.\ : Watch ! . 377 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Mattuew 2i, 6. — The end is not yet, 896
 
 SERMO isrs 
 
 I. 
 
 Mark 1, 1. — ^The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Chiist the Son 
 of God. 
 
 AiioNG tlic incidental disadvantages attending tlie 
 inestimable privilege of early and life-long familiarity 
 witk. tlie "Word of God, is tlie habit of confounding 
 things really distinct, and especially of overlooking 
 the characteristic peculiarities of the sacred writers, 
 which were not at all destroyed by inspiration, and 
 a due regard to which is often necessary to their just 
 interpretation. In no part of the Bible is this error 
 more common or injurious than in the Gospels, which 
 the great majority even of devout and believing 
 readers are too much in the habit of regarding as pre- 
 cisely alike in plan . and pui-pose, whereas no other 
 books on the same subject could be more distinctly 
 marked by iudividual peculiarities, some of which aro 
 of the most minute and unimportant nature in them- 
 selves, but for that very reason less likely to have been 
 invented or contrived for any purposes of deception. 
 
 Many who have read the Gospels all their lives,
 
 g SERMONS. 
 
 would be surprised to liear that Matthew uses the 
 word " then " more frequently than all the others put 
 together — that Mark is almost equally exclusive in 
 his use of " immediately " — that John alone has the 
 double Amen Amen — and a multitude of other minute 
 differences equally unimportant in themselves, but 
 equally demonstrative of individuality and independ- 
 ence in the several wi-iters. The same thing is true as 
 to other diiferences more important in themselves, and 
 relating not to mere forms of expression, but to plan 
 and method. Thus Matthew cites the prophecies, 
 and points out their fulfilment so much more fre- 
 quently than Mark and Luke, that his gospel is by 
 some regarded, not so much as a history, as a histori- 
 cal argument, intended to show that Jesus was the 
 Messiah of the prophets. Mark is distinguished by 
 his use of Latin words and explanation of Jewish 
 customs, showing that he wrote immediately for Gen- 
 tile readers ; on the other hand, he frequently records 
 the Aramaic or vernacular expressions used by Christ, 
 with a Greek translation ; such as Talcumi, Ephphatha, 
 Corban, Abba father. Another peculiarity of this 
 evangelist is, that to him we are indebted for almost 
 all our knowledge of our Saviour's looks and gestures ; 
 as we are to Luke for many interesting glimpses of 
 his devotional habits; such as his spending whole 
 nights in prayer, his praying at his baptism, and 
 before the choice of his apostles, and in other cases. 
 John, besides the general differences, arising from the 
 commonly admitted fact that he wrote to complete 
 or supplement the others, dwells chiefly on our Lord's 
 discoursoe, and relates his actions chiefly as connected
 
 MARK 1, 1. 9 
 
 with. them. On the other hand, it is to him we owe 
 our knowledge of the chronology or dates ©f our 
 Lord's ministry — it is he that enumerates the pass- 
 overs and several other feasts included in that period, 
 and thus shows us that his ministry or public life on 
 earth continued for above three years. 
 
 These points of difference between the gospels are 
 selected out of many that might just as easily be 
 given, in illustration of the general statement, that 
 while all were equally inspired and all are perfectly 
 harmonious, each writer has his own peculiarities, not 
 only of expression, but of plan and method. This is 
 a matter not of learned criticism, but within the reach 
 of every careful and attentive reader, and if properly 
 noticed, would greatly tend not only to elucidate 
 the gospels, but to make them interesting — in other 
 words, to aid both the understanding and the memory. 
 A due regard to these peculiarities would lead to the 
 correction of another error, far too prevalent in refer- 
 ence to this delightful part of the Scriptures — that of 
 regarding the four gospels not as comjjlete histories, 
 but as mere collections of materials, out of which we 
 are to frame the history for ourselves ; a mistake 
 which has occasioned not only a vast waste of time 
 and labour in attempts to reduce the four accounts to 
 one continued narrative ; but has also contributed 
 directly to the disregard of those peculiarities which 
 have been already mentioned as belonging to the 
 several books, but which of course are overlooked and 
 confounded in the process of condensing four books 
 into one. 
 
 The simple truth appears to be, that God, for wise 
 
 VOL. I. — 1*
 
 10 SERMONS. 
 
 and lioly purposes, vrhicli are only in part visible to 
 us, or discovered by us, was pleased to put tbe life of 
 Christ on record for tlie edification of bis people, and 
 the glory of bis own name ; not in one, but in four 
 distinct accounts, eacb complete in itself, witb refer- 
 ence to its own specific purpose, and the definite im- 
 pression it was meant to make upon the readers' 
 mind, yet all completing one another in relation to 
 the general aggregate or sum total of the impression 
 meant to be conveyed. In this respect they have 
 been likened to four portraits, or four landscapes, ex- 
 hibiting one and the same object, but in difi'erent 
 lights and from different points of view, yet all of 
 course harmonious and consistent. As it would be 
 absurd to cut up and amalgamate the paintings, so is 
 it no less absurd to destroy the individuality of the 
 gospels by reducing them to one. They are, indeed, 
 to be harmonized in order to elucidate their meaning, 
 and exhibit their consistency, but not in such a way 
 as to destroy their separate existence, or confound 
 their individual peculiarities. 'No harmony can, or 
 ought to take the place of the original gospels, which 
 were meant to be read separately to the end of time, 
 and with a careful observation of their several charac- 
 teristics, even of such as in themselves may seem to 
 be wholly unimportant. 
 
 Among these is the way in which they open, and 
 the point from which they set out, in recording the 
 biography of Jesus Christ. Matthew begins with 
 his genealogy, and shows by a formal and authentic 
 pedigree, perliaps extracted from ofiicial records, his 
 descent from Abraham and David. Tliis is not so
 
 MAEK 1, 1. 11 
 
 mucli a part of Ms narrative as a documentary intro- 
 duction to it, after -wliicli lie sets out from the concep- 
 tion and nativity of tlie Saviour. Luke goes back 
 to the previous conception and nativity of John the 
 Baptist, his forerunner. John goes still further back, 
 to teach the doctrine of his pro-existence ; while Mark 
 omits all this, plunging at once into the midst of his 
 subject, and beginning with the official life or public 
 ministry of Jesus ; " the beginning of the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 These words admit of several constructions, each 
 of which has something to recommend it, and none of 
 which are utterly exclusive of each other ; so that all 
 of them may be allowed to suggest something to the 
 mind of the reader. 
 
 The simplest construction, and the one most proba- 
 bly intended by the writer, is that which makes this 
 a description of the whole book, or a statement of its 
 subject. This is the beginning of the life of Christ, 
 or here beginneth his recorded history. It is equally 
 grammatical, however, to connect the words with 
 what follows, as a part of the same context ; " the 
 beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was as it is 
 wi'itten in the prophets ; " or, " the beginning of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ was John the Baptist preach- 
 ing in the wilderness." These are not only positive 
 constructions, but suggest important facts in the life 
 of Christ, as will be afterwards particularly mentioned. 
 
 In the mean time I invite your attention to two 
 topics, suggested by the words themselves, however 
 they may be connected with what follows ; one of 
 which is reallv ii: eluded in the other, or is a mere
 
 12 SERM0N8. 
 
 specification of it. Tlie first and most general of these 
 topics is the gospel / and tlie second and more spe- 
 cific, is the heginning of the gospel. Either cf these 
 would be snflicicnt by itself to furnish ample food for 
 meditation and instruction, even if we merged the 
 mere beginning in the whole, of which it is the part, 
 or considered the whole only with respect to its be- 
 ginning. I prefer, however, to present the two pre- 
 cisely as they lie together in the text, only giving the 
 precedence to the general subject, and the second 
 place to its specification. Or, in other words, first 
 considering the gospel as a whole, and then the be- 
 ginning of it in particular. 
 
 In carrying out this suggestion, it may be con- 
 venient to resolve each of these topics into two 
 inquiries, imder the general subject of the gospel : 
 Considering first. What it is ? — then, Whose it is ? — 
 Under the more specific head. Of the beginning of 
 the Gospel, asking first, Where it began of old? 
 And secondly. Where it begins now ? By this 
 division and arrangement, I may hope to assist both 
 your understandings and your memories in the brief 
 examination which I now propose to make of this 
 interesting passage, not as a matter of mere curious 
 speculation, but as a source of instruction and im- 
 provement. 
 
 I. Our first theme, then, is the Gospel ; and our 
 first inquiry. What it is ! 
 
 This may seem, to some, too elementary a ques- 
 tion, and to others, too extensive ; but I merely ask 
 you to consider for a moment, and in quick succes-
 
 MARK 1, 1. 13 
 
 sion, the elements really included in this most familiar 
 term, which, like others of the same sort, often con- 
 veys very vagne ideas even to the minds of those who 
 most familiarly employ it. 
 
 There are few kinds of knowledge, and religions 
 kno-wledgc is certainly not one of them, in which it 
 Is not often both agreeable and useful to go back to 
 elementary ideas and first principles, and even to the 
 simple definition of the most familiar terms. I do not 
 scruple, then, to put the question both to you and to 
 myself ; What is the Gospel f — and to answer, in the 
 first place : (1.) That the word, both in Greek and Eng- 
 lish, originally means, good news, glad tidings — a 
 delightful phrase, expressing a delightful tiling; 
 awakening a thousand sweet and tender recollections. 
 Who has never heard good news ? "Who cannot call 
 to mind the thrill of joy which such intelligence once 
 darted through' him ? To some the experience may 
 be fresh, to others, faded ; perhaps dimmed and neu- 
 tralized by many an intervening alternation or vicissi- 
 tude of bad news and of mournful tidings. Yet even 
 in this case it is often possible to look back through 
 these intervening changes, and to reproduce in some 
 degree the exquisite delight occasioned at some dis- 
 tant period, by the reception of good news from some 
 beloved object, perhaps far removed. This is an 
 experience which never can grow obsolete. Increas- 
 ing facilities of communication only multiply its 
 causes and occasions. Even now, how many arc re- 
 joicing in glad tidings by the last arrival from some 
 distant shore ; how many anxiously, yet hopefully, 
 expecting to receive them by the next ! I appeal to
 
 14: SERMONS. 
 
 these associations, not for any rhetorical or sentimen- 
 tal purpose, but simply to awaken the appropriate 
 feeling which belongs to the very definition of the 
 gosj)el — good news — good news — not in some abstruse 
 or transcendental sense, but in the plain, homely, 
 every-day sense of the same words, as employed in 
 the dialect of common life. Why is it that the very 
 terms and phrases which inflame or agitate us in 
 our ordinary parlance, fall so lifeless on the ear and 
 heart, when uttered in connection with religion ? 
 Partly because our whole state of feeling on religious 
 subjects is too cold and dead ; partly because we wil- 
 fully divorce religious terms from their natural asso- 
 ciation, and treat them as belonging to another. 
 
 Gospel, I tell you, is good news, in exactly the 
 same sense that it was good news when you heard of 
 the recovery or escape of a parent or a child, a hus- 
 band or a wife, a brother or a sister, from some fear- 
 ful peril. Kecall that feeling, and then use it to 
 explain the phrase good news as a definition of the 
 gospel. If you leave this out, your whole conception 
 is a false one. Whatever else may yet be added, and 
 it is much, this is the original, essential, fundamen- 
 tal notion. There can be no gospel without good 
 news, though there may in a restricted sense be good 
 news where there is, alas ! no gospel. 
 
 (2.) Having settled this as the primary, elementary 
 idea of the gospel, as glad tidings — -just as the same 
 words are used to signify good news from man to 
 man — from house to house — from one place to 
 another, such as burdens our mails, and thrills along 
 our telegraphic wires, let lis now take another step,
 
 MARK 1, 1. 15 
 
 and add to tliis simple definition of tlie gospel, as a 
 term of Seriptnre and religion, that it is good news 
 from God to man — from heaven to earth — from the 
 infinitely blessed and the infinitely holy, to the low- 
 est depths of human wretchedness and sin. It is no 
 good news from America to Europe, or from the old 
 world to the new ; it is a voice from heaven, breaking 
 through the silence or the discord of our natural con- 
 dition. Oh, if we were half as sensible of this condi- 
 tion as we are of temporal anxieties, and fears, and 
 wants — instead of listening coldly to this news from 
 heaven, we should wait and watch for it, as eagerly 
 as any mother now lies sleepless listening for the 
 signal of a new arrival to relieve her fears and fill 
 her cup to overflowing by glad tidings from her dis- 
 tant child. Oh, could the tumult of this life cease 
 to fill our ears even for a moment, we might hear 
 another soimd, to which we are now. deaf — good news, 
 good news from heaven — from heaven to earth — from 
 God to man — to us — to you — to me — -glad tidings. 
 This is gospel, but is it the meaning of that word to 
 you, my hearer ? 
 
 (3.) Now let us make our definition more precise, 
 by adding still another tenn. Good news, glad 
 tidings, from the upper world, would be delightful if 
 they related only to our natural necessities. If the 
 voice of God were heard proclaiming peace instead of 
 war, abundance in the place of want, and health for 
 sickness — how might we rejoice, nay, how do we 
 really rejoice in the sure though silent pledge of 
 fruitful seasons and abundant harvests. But these, 
 however free and entitled to our warmest thanks, can
 
 1Q SERMONS. 
 
 never meet our chief necessitie-s — can never satisfy 
 the soiiL Its cravings are for spiritual good ; its worst 
 pains are the consciousness of guilt, remorse of con- 
 science, and a fearful looking for of judgment. These 
 may be smothered for a time, but not forever. 
 Worldly prosperity may hide theui from the view, 
 and drive them from the thoughts, just as the excite- 
 ment of business or of pleasure may distract the mind 
 of the diseased and dying ; but only to rush back 
 again with tenfold anguish, when the momentary 
 interruption shall have ceased. My hearers, no good 
 news is good news in the highest sense, unless it 
 reaches these necessities — supplies these wants, and 
 remedies these evils. "Without this, good news, even 
 though sent from heaven, even though uttered by 
 the voice of God, would be but like the good news 
 of some half-forgotten, social or political success, at 
 which your heart ^has long since ceased to beat, your 
 eye to sparkle, and your blood to boil. 
 
 "With such experiences, and who is utterly without 
 them, no good news is good news to your sober judg- 
 ment and your immortal soul — but good news in rela- 
 tion to your sins and your salvation, your future, 
 your eternity. Oh, if the mask could now be taken 
 from every heart, it would be seen that many who 
 appear engrossed with temporal and secular intelli- 
 gence, are really longing for good news of a very 
 different kind — for the glad tidings of forgiveness, 
 reconciliation, safety — for the joyful news that God 
 is not their enemy, that hell is not their portion, that 
 they may be, that they are entitled to a share in that per- 
 petual inheritance — that indefeasible possession which
 
 MARK 1, 1. yj 
 
 lies far beyond the changes, and panics, and convul- 
 sions of this present life. You must hear such news 
 sooner or later, or be wretched ; and such, such 
 news you may hear now, in " the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God." 
 
 2. This leads me to the second question under 
 the general topic of the gospel : We have seen what it 
 is — good news, good news from God to man — good 
 news of spiritual good, forgiveness and salvation ; but 
 even this view cannot be complete without consider- 
 ing whose, as well as what it is. It is not an imper- 
 sonal or abstract gospel ; it is not the gospel of man, 
 nor yet of an absolute and distant God ; it is the 
 gospel both of God and man ; it is described expressly 
 in the text as the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
 God. I know of nothing in the Scriptures more 
 habitually slighted and imperfectly apprehended than 
 the names or titles of the Saviour. I could scarcely 
 have repeated half a dozen words conveying less to 
 multitudes of minds than those just uttered ; which 
 some of you perhaps regard precisely as you would 
 the names and surnames of a friend or enemy ; or 
 even if you do admit the dignity of him who is thus 
 described, it is only in the general, and without any 
 definite perception of the importance of the terms 
 employed. So inveterate and hurtful is this habit, 
 that it may be well, occasionally, to remember what 
 we all know, if we would consider and apply it ; that 
 all names are originally significant — that divine names 
 are especially and always so ; that the names of the 
 Redeemer were designed to be descriptive and expres-
 
 18 SERMONS. 
 
 sive, not conventiona and formal ; and tliat when they 
 are aceumnlated and combined, it is not without mean- 
 ing, but every name is really suggestive of some great 
 truth or important feature in the person or offices of 
 Christ, and in the method of redemption. This, 
 which is true in general, is emphatically true of the sol- 
 emn nomenclature with which Mark begins his Gospel. 
 (1.) It is " the Gospel of Jesus," i. e., the good news 
 of a Saviour : " Thou shalt call his name Jesus," said 
 the angel who announced his birth to Joseph, " for 
 he shall save his people from their sins." Even 
 Joshua, whose name is identical in Hebrew, was so 
 called prophetically, as the saviour or deliverer of 
 Israel from enemies and dangers ; and in this he 
 was a type of him who was to come, not as a mili- 
 tary conqueror and earthly prince, though men so ex- 
 pected him ; not as the deliverer of the Jews from 
 Eoman vassalage, and the restorer of their ancient 
 independence ; but as a Saviour from a far worse 
 bondage, and a more terrific ruin, — from perdition, 
 from damnation, not of angels, not of devils, not of 
 men without exception or discrimination ; but of 
 those predestinated to belief in him ; his people, 
 the Saviour of his people ; not from temporal or 
 physical distresses, but from sin ; not from the sins of 
 others, but their own ; not from its effects, but from 
 itself ; not merely in the life, but in the heart ; not 
 merely in the stream, but in the spring, the source, 
 the principle, the essence. Yes, the gospel is not only 
 good news of a Saviour, but of him who came, of 
 him who was called Jesus, because he was to save his 
 people from their sins.
 
 MAKE 1, 1. 29 
 
 (2.) But the gospel is also tbe gospel of Cnrist ; to 
 many ears a mere tautology, an irksome repetition, an 
 unmeaning pleonasm or superfluity, or at the most, 
 a simple combination of inseparable names, like Julius 
 Caesar or George "Washington. But I rejoice to know 
 my hearers, that " ye have not so learned Christ," not 
 even tlie name of Christ. Tlie very children in the 
 Sunday School know better, for they know tliat 
 Christ in Greek, and Messias in Hebrew mean an- 
 ointed, and that anointing was the Scripture symbol 
 under the Old Testament for spiritual effusions, espe- 
 cially for those which qualifled men for the great repre- 
 Bcntative office of Prophet, Priest, and King, and that 
 these offices themselves represent corresponding parts 
 of the Eedeemer's work ; in other words, that he was 
 in the highest sense to be the Prophet, Priest, and 
 King, of his people. Their Prophet to reveal the will 
 of God respecting them ; their Priest to expiate their 
 guilt and intercede for them ; their King to govern 
 and protect them ; that in Him these offices before 
 divided among many individuals and generations, 
 were to meet and for the first time to be fully realized ; 
 all which is really expressed by calling him the Christ 
 or the Messias. 
 
 These are not scholastic subtleties or technical dis- 
 tinctions, as some would fain persuade you ; they are 
 real, real — essential to a clear and full view of the 
 office and person of the great deliverer ; the source 
 and subject of the gospel, who was called Jesus as the 
 Saviour of his people ; and Christ as the Prophet, 
 Priest, and King forever. 
 
 (3.) But who is sufficient for these things, or who
 
 20 SEKMONS. 
 
 is equal to tlie great work shadowed forth bj these 
 signs, and more than royal titles. If the highest 
 earthly wisdom is evinced in separating legal and ju- 
 dicial functions ; in dividing among many what would 
 too severely task the powers and try the integrity of 
 one, what human subject can combine in his own 
 person, all that is expressed by these names. It is 
 clearly impossible. Their very application excludes 
 the thought of mere humanity. The necessity of a 
 divine person to assume this trust would be apparent, 
 from the nature of the trust itself, even if it were not 
 expressly added, that this gospel is the gospel of the 
 Son of God, not in the attenuated sense which heresy 
 would put upon it, but in that which the unbelieving 
 Jews themselves attached to the expressions when they 
 charged our Lord with blasphemy, for calling God 
 his father, and thus making himself equal with God. 
 The Son of God, not merely as a creation, or an object 
 of affection, or a subject of adoption ; but as a par- 
 taker of his nature, one with him in essence, the same 
 in substance, equal in power and glory. This is the 
 last particular included in the description of the gos- 
 pel. It is good news, from God to man, of deliver- 
 ance from suffering and sin ; the good news of a 
 Saviour, of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, not 
 human but divine, the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son 
 of God. 
 
 II. Having thus seen what the gospel is, and 
 whose it is, it remains to consider still more briefly 
 its beginning, under the two distinct questions : 
 
 1. Where did it bemn of old ?
 
 MARK 1, 1. 21 
 
 2. Where does it begin now ? 
 
 In answer to tlie first of these inqniries, I remark : 
 
 (1.) That the gospel as a message of salvation, may 
 ""db said to have begun in the eternal counsel of the 
 divine will ; in the eternal purpose of the God who 
 sent it. There is no more injurious mistake than that 
 of looking on the gospel as a sort of afterthought, or 
 series of experiments intended to make good the fail- 
 ure of another method of salvation, and continually 
 modified to meet emergencies as they arose. Known 
 unto God are all his works from the beginning of the 
 world, and though it may not be expedient to expa- 
 tiate too freely in the bewildering mazes of this great 
 truth, and especially to speculate upon it as a mere 
 abstraction, aj)art from its connection with human 
 duty, character, and destiny, we neither may nor can 
 displace it as the deep and adamantine basis, upon 
 which alone our hopes are founded. The Gospel of 
 Christ could never terminate in our salvation, if it 
 had not first begun in God's decree ; let this then lie 
 at the foundation, and from this let us ascend to ex- 
 plore the superstructure, and inquire what was the 
 beginning of the gospel as a part of human history, 
 and a phase of man's experience. 
 
 (2.) I remark, ^hcn, in the next place, that the be- 
 ginning of the Gospel of Jesus Cln-ist, was not in the 
 New Testament, but in tlie Old ; it began in the sim- 
 ple first promise to our fallen parents ; in their sacrifi- 
 cial offerings ; in the bleeding lambs of Abel's altar ; 
 in the simple faitli and worship of the Patriarclis. 
 It began afresh in the Mosaic legislation, in the cere- 
 monial law, with its passover and pentecost, and great
 
 22 SERMONS. 
 
 day of atonement ; -witli its sabbatlis and its jubilees, 
 its priests and levites, its animal and vegetable oifer- 
 ings, its smoking altar and its shed blood. All these 
 were worse than useless, worthless to man and insulting 
 to God, except so far as they were typifying and sym- 
 bolizing the " beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 the Son of God." 
 
 Once more it may be said to have begun in tlie 
 predictions of the prophets, who declared in words, as 
 the legal service did in acts, the coming Saviour, and 
 not only foretold, but exhibited to all believers, " the 
 beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of 
 God." 
 
 (3.) Passing over the long interval between the Old 
 and New Testaments, and coming nearer to the ac- 
 tual appearance of the promised Saviour, his gospel 
 may be said to have had a new beginning in the pre- 
 paratory ministry of John the Baptist. If not ex- 
 pressed, it is at least implied and necessarily indi- 
 cated in Mark's introductory expression, that John 
 the Baptist's preaching in the wilderness the baptism 
 of repentance, with a view to the remission of sins, was 
 the beginning of the gospel ; its immediate precursor, 
 the appointed preparation for its full disclosure, so that 
 John's instructions and his baptisms derived all their 
 worth and meaning from the fact that in the verse 
 explained, they were the actual beginning of the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. We find accord- 
 ingly, that when John's ministry was closed, and that 
 of Christ himself succeeded, it was at first a mere con- 
 tinuation of John's preaching, that the burden of 
 both cries was, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
 
 MARK 1, :. 23 
 
 is at hand ! From this beginning, and from those 
 ah'eady mentioned lying fm-ther back in all the 
 prophecies, the ceremonies of the law, the religion of 
 the patriarchs, and the decrees of God, fi'om these 
 beginnings, the gospel in the hands and in the mouth 
 of Him who was at once its author, and its subject, 
 and its finisher, was developed by degrees — in his 
 divine instructions, in his miracles of mercy, in his 
 perfect example, but above all in his faultless obedi- 
 ence and atoning passion, in his crucifixion, resur- 
 rection, and ascension, in his session at the right hand 
 of God, in the effusion of his Spirit, the erection of his 
 church, the diftusion of his doctrines, and the con- 
 quest of the world ; that system whose l)eginnings we 
 have traced, became the glorious gospel of tlic grace 
 of God, even the gospel of your salvation. 
 
 2. Tills reference to the bearing of the gospel 
 upon human destiny, brings us to the last remaining 
 question suggested by the text, to Avhich the answer 
 must be still more brief than to the one before it ; 
 serving rather as a practical improvement than a fur- 
 ther explanation of the subject. 
 
 Wkei'e does this gosjpel hegin noio ? There is a 
 sense in which this question would be senseless and 
 irrelevant. The foundation is already laid, and neither 
 need nor can be laid again. The sacrifice for sin has 
 been already ofiered for all, and if that be rejected, 
 there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fear- 
 ful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, 
 which shall destroy the adversary. It were worse 
 than vain, my hearers, to seek any other gospel than
 
 24 SERMONS. 
 
 that wliicli has begun ah*eadj iu the divine decrees, 
 in the law, in the prophets, in the preaching of John, 
 and in the saving work of Christ himself. There are 
 other gospels, but of such, and of such as preach 
 them, though it were an angel from heaven, Paul has 
 said, let him be anathema. 
 
 But although tlie gospel can, in this view, have no 
 more beginnings, yet in the subjective sense of some- 
 thing which may be embraced in the personal experi- 
 ence, and must be so embraced to secure salvation, 
 we may ask in conclusion, as we asked before, Where 
 does the gospel hegin now f Without repeating what 
 has been already said as to its ultimate source and 
 indispensable foundation, I may say, 
 
 (1). That it begins for the most part in religious 
 education ; in that simple teaching at paternal knees 
 and on maternal bosoms, which in our happy, highly 
 favored times, supplies the place of those remote and 
 long protracted means by which the world was pre- 
 pared of old for the appearance of a Saviour. How 
 many children of the church forget, how many pious 
 parents insufficiently consider, that these lispings of 
 religious truth to infant ears, which may even seem to 
 be to themselves superfluous, may be intended by 
 divine grace and realized by those, who scarcely can 
 be said to hear them, as the beginning of the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ the Son of God. 
 
 (2). I say intended by divine grace, for I need not 
 add that even these distilling dew-drops of infantile 
 training can avail nothing without superhuman in- 
 fluence, without the moving of the spirit and the 
 waters : sometimes in immediate succession to the
 
 MARK 1, 1. 25 
 
 early training without any interval of vice or unbelief ; 
 sometimes after peaceful interruptions, during wliicli 
 tlie seed sown seems to liave long perished ; but no, 
 sometimes when least expected, a new life is infused 
 into the dead mass of apparently unprofitable knowl- 
 edge, the seed long buried shows itself, the tears of 
 the departed glisten still about the leaves of the plant, 
 and under heavenly culture and divine direction it 
 spi-ings up, first the blade, then the ear, and then the 
 full com in the ear. To that man the gospel has a 
 new beginning, as in one sense the original instruc- 
 tions of his childhood, so in another the first move- 
 ment of divine power on his heart and conscience, is 
 to him the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 the Son of God. 
 
 (3.) Lastly, in addition to these doctrines and gra- 
 cious beginnings, there are what may be called provi- 
 dential recommencements of the gospel, both to com- 
 munities and to individuals. I need not specify under 
 the latter head, seasons of afiliction, or under the for- 
 mer, seasons of revival. These I must leave with a 
 bare suggestion to your private meditations. I will only 
 nint in closing the subject, that to a whole church, 
 even trivial incidents or epochs in their history, mny 
 mark such a revival of the gospel in its power as 1 
 have suggested. A change of local situation, or of 
 pastors, the return of one after a temporary absence, 
 nay, the very reassembling of the people after periodi- 
 cal dispersion, though entirely insufiicient of them- 
 selves, may, imder the divine direction, be the signal 
 for new zeal upon the part of true believers, and for 
 new attention in the unconverted, and to both, in an 
 
 VOL. I. — 2
 
 25 SERMCTNS. 
 
 important sense of the expression, a beginning of tlie 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. That I may 
 not close without a word of application to the individ- 
 ual as well as the collective audience, let me say to 
 you, my friend, who may be here to day apparently by 
 accident, or if a stated worshipper in this place, yet a 
 stranger to the covenants of promise, that you have 
 only to accept of that which is so freely offered ; you 
 have only to repent and to believe and to throw your- 
 self into the outstretched arms of mercy ; you have 
 only to consent to be made holy and happy in the 
 way of your own choosing, and this favored hour, 
 this otherwise imperfect service, shall be remembered 
 by you to eternal ages, as having been to your soul, 
 through divine grace, the beginning of the Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ the Son of God.
 
 n. 
 
 Matthkw 2, 2. — Where is be tbat is born king of tbe rfews ? 
 
 When these words were originally uttered, the 
 Jews, tliough still a nation in the popular sense — i. c, 
 not only a people but a state, not only a distinct 
 race but a body politic — had for centuries had no 
 king of their own royal lineage. The throne of David 
 was still empty and awaiting his successor. He who 
 did reign over them was regarded by them as an alien 
 in blood and an apostate in religion. And even he 
 was the tributary vassal of a foreign state, the last 
 of the great powers to which the Jews had been suc- 
 cessively subjected. The first days of their monarchy 
 were in all respects its best days. It had scarcely 
 surmounted the horizon when it reached its zenith. 
 Tlie best and greatest of the theocratic kings was 
 David. Even under Solomon the symptoms of de- 
 cline began to show themselves. He was scarcely 
 dead before the great schism took away a large part 
 of his kingdom. The apostate monarchy of Israel 
 waxed worse and worse, and fell at last before the 
 power of Assyria. Its people were carried into exile, 
 and their place supplied by heathen settlers. The 
 captives themselves vanish all at once from history.
 
 28 SERMONS. 
 
 and are still sought after by tlie name of the Lost 
 Tribes. The kingdom of Judah lasted longer, but 
 the progress of decay was constant. ISTow and then a 
 king arose, who seemed to raise them for a time, bnt 
 it was only to sink deeper by reaction and collapse. 
 The Babylonian empire had supplanted the Assyrian 
 and become the mistress of western Asia. Before the 
 host of Nebuchadnezzar, Judah fell as Ephraim had 
 fallen long before. The holy city was disman- 
 tled, and the temple burnt with tire. The king 
 and the best part of the people went into captivity. 
 From this they were delivered by the fall of Babylon 
 and the rise of the Persian power on its ruins. Cjtus 
 the Great favoured and restored the Jewish exiles. 
 The temple was rebuilt in troublous times. But the 
 renovated commonwealth was weak and insignificant, 
 compared with the old kingdom, even in its latter 
 days ; much more when compared with its pristine 
 glory under Solomon and David. Tlic colony could 
 only exist by the protection of foreign powers. It 
 passed under the successive domination of the empires 
 which so rapidly supplanted one another in the inter- 
 val betwen the Old and Xew Testaments. First 
 the Persians, then the Macedonians, then the Greek 
 kings of Egypt and Syria. The oppressions of the latter 
 roused the old Jewish spirit and led to the erection 
 of a native monarchy. The Maccabees, or Hasmonean 
 Princes, united in themselves the kingly and the 
 priestly office. For several generations they main- 
 tained the independence of the Jewish state, even 
 against formidable foes. But they were not the 
 legitimate successors of David ; they were not even
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 29 
 
 children of Judali, but of Levi. At length a family 
 dispute was referred to foreign arbitration. 
 
 Tlie Eoman Empire in the meantime had become 
 the ruling power of the world. Syria and Eygpt 
 were already under its dominion. Its agents eagerly 
 embraced the opportunity of gaining foothold in the 
 land of Israel. Under the pretext of pacification, 
 Pompey the Great took possession of Jerusalem and 
 about half a century before the language of the text 
 was uttered, the Roman eagles were conspicuously 
 planted upon Zion and Moriah. With their usual 
 wise policy, the conquerors left with the conquered 
 the appearance of self-government. Their religious 
 institutions remained undisturbed. An Idumean fam- 
 ily, personally favoured by Augustus, was exalted by 
 the Senate to the royal dignity. Tlie first that took 
 the title was " Herod the king, in whose days wise 
 men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where 
 is he that is born king of the Jews ? " At this ques- 
 tion, we are told the king was troubled, and all Jeru- 
 salem agitated with him. But it was not the agita- 
 tion of mere wonder. Tlie very effect produced shows 
 that a corresponding expectation was already in 
 existence. The Jews still held fast to their ancient 
 Scriptures, though with many traditions. These taught 
 them to expect the restoration of the throne of David. 
 From them, or from an old collateral tradition, other 
 nations were now looking to Judea as the scene of 
 great events. Tlie world was agitated by a vague 
 foreboding. War for a time had ceased throughout 
 the Roman Empire. Men had leisure to attend to 
 predictions and prognostics. The Jews believed that
 
 30 SEEMONS. 
 
 the Star foretold by Balaam was about to come out 
 of Jacob. Their heathen neighbors shared in the 
 belief of and expectation of strange lieavenly 
 phenomena aimonncing the approach of great catas- 
 trophes and the rise of some extraordinary personage. 
 At this critical juncture in the history of the world, 
 when Koman power and Greek civilization had 
 attained then* height in the Augustine age, when 
 heathen religion and philosophy had both reached 
 the period of decrepitude and men began to feel the 
 need of better consolation, when the schools and the 
 oracles alike were dumb ; when the heathen were look- 
 ing for they knew not what, and the Jews expecting a 
 son of David to restore their ancient monarch}^ ; at 
 this very crisis wise men from the east : the cradle of 
 science and the home of occult superstition, came to 
 Jerusalem, saying, " Where is he that is born king of 
 the Jews ? 
 
 They did not ask for the actual sovereign of the 
 Jews. It was to him that they addressed the question. 
 But they ask for the hereditary rightful king, not one 
 to be born, but as born already. J^o wonder that 
 , the Edomite who held possession of the throne by the 
 gi'ace of a heathen sovereign, was alarmed. ]^o wonder 
 that his people were excited, when they heard these 
 strangers asking : ^' Where is he that is born king of 
 the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and 
 have come to worship him." The cpestion was not 
 one of local or temporary interest. It was to give 
 complexion to the history of all after ages. It has 
 received or been susceptible of various answers, as 
 the state of things has gradually changed. To some
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 31 
 
 of these I now ask your attentior, as a proof tliat 
 the demand is still u stirring one, '* Where is he that 
 is born king of the Jews ? " 
 
 When the question was originally asked, the 
 answer might have been, Li Bethlehem of Judah, in a 
 stable, in a manger. Yes, the hereditary king of 
 Israel, he who was to sit upon the throne both by 
 divine and hnman right, was born in poverty, and to 
 the eyes of men in shame. This was surprising in 
 itself, but it was more — it was the first in a long series 
 of surprises, of enigmas, of apparent contradictions. 
 He that was born king of the Jews not only passed 
 through all the pains of infancy and childhood, 
 in an humble station, but in mature age had not 
 where to lay his head. Dependent on the charity of 
 friends, despised and rejected by his enemies. These 
 privations and these sufferings become darker and 
 more complex as we trace his history, until at last, 
 betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, and for- 
 saken by the rest, we seem to lose sight of him amidst 
 a cloud th]-ough which the spears of Roman soldiers 
 and the TJrim and Thummim on the High Priest's 
 breast are seen flashing in unwonted combination. 
 From this scene of condemnation and disgrace we 
 turn away, saying, " Where, then, is he that is born 
 king of the Jews ? " 
 
 When the cloud has once more been dispelled, this 
 question may receive another answer. For on yonder 
 hill, without the walls of Jerusalem, three crosses are 
 erected. On these crosses three living sufferers are 
 even now suspended. Two of them are oi'dinary con- 
 victs, malefactors. — But over the head of him sus-
 
 32 SERMONS. 
 
 pended in tlie inidst there is a superscription. The 
 characters are legible enough, and that all who pass 
 by may comprehend them, they are written in the 
 three sacred languages of earth — in Greek, in Hebrew, 
 and in Latin. Draw near and decipher them. Is it a 
 record of some common-place iniquity, on whicn 
 society has wreaked its vengeance ? No, the words 
 are strange and seemingly misplaced — as if some wan- 
 ton hand had torn them from the walls of a palace, or 
 the canopy of a throne, and in mockeiy, transferred 
 them to this scene of execution, this Calvary, this Gol 
 gotha, this place of a skull — " Jesus of Nazareth, king 
 of the Jews ! " Yes, the very words ! — In vain did the 
 Jews plead for a change of form — Eome, the mis- 
 tress of the world, through the hand of her procu- 
 rator, has become witness to the truth, and the testi- 
 mony cannot be recalled. " What I have written I 
 have written ! " Read, then, above the head of that 
 expiring sufferer, the answer to the question — " "Where 
 is he that is born king of the Jews ? " — ^There, 
 there, upon that cross. 
 
 In this case too, the answer does but touch one 
 link in a long chain of paradoxical events, disappoint- 
 ing, blasting, the long-cherished hopes of Israel. In- 
 stead of a conqueror presenting them a sufferer, 
 accused, condemned, and put to death in due course 
 of law. Even his followers and friends could say, in 
 deep despondency : " We trusted that it had been he 
 which should have redeemed Israel." Even they are 
 slow of heart to learn, believe, and understand that 
 this redemption must be purchased by the sacrifice 
 of life — that Messiah must suffer these things before
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 33 
 
 lie could enter into Ms glory. Yes, the whole doctrme 
 of atonement and salvation by the death of the 
 incarnate Son of God is summed np and concentrated 
 in the answer given at this awful moment on the top 
 of Calvary, to the question — "Where is he that is 
 born king of the Jews ? " 
 
 But Calvary is not the only height about Jeru- 
 salem, There is another on the east called Olivet— 
 the Mount of Olives. On the acclivity of that hill 
 what do you discern ? — Eleven men gazing at the sky 
 — A moment ago and there was another with them, 
 and they might have been heard anxiously inquiring 
 of him — " Wilt thou at this time restore again the 
 kingdom to Israel ? " He has • scarcely spoken in 
 reply, when he is taken up ; a cloud receives him out 
 of their sight. At first perhaps they doubt the tes- 
 timony of their senses ; then indulge the hope 
 that he has only vanished for a moment — ^but they 
 are soon undeceived — and if the question were now 
 put to them ; " Where is he that is born king of 
 the Jews ? " they would with one accord point up- 
 wards, and reply, " He is in heaven ! " Yes, he who 
 once lay in the manger at Bethlehem, and lately hung 
 upon the cross on Calvary, is now in heaven, beyond 
 the reach of persecution and privation ; and the same 
 is still true. Even the youngest children who are 
 taught the name of Christ, know well that he is not 
 here now, as he was here of old — they know too, that 
 he is in heaven. Tliey know not, and the wisest of us 
 know not, where, or what heaven is ; but we Icnow 
 that wherever it is, he is there, and that where he 
 is, there is heaven. And thither our thoughts natu 
 
 VOL. I.— 2^-
 
 34 SERMONS. 
 
 rail J turn at the question — '" "Where is he th^.t is 
 born king of the Jews ? " 
 
 This might seem to shnt the door npon all lurther 
 mquirj, but it does not. Men mav think, as the eleven 
 thonsrht at first, that he is no"sv beyond our reach, 
 and we beyond his ; but, like them, vre may be mis- 
 taken. ISTo, before he left them he commanded them 
 to wait for the promise of the Father, and the baptism 
 of the Spirit, and when that had been received, to go 
 rtS witnesses of him not only through Judea and Sama- 
 ria, but to the uttermost part of the earth ; and they 
 were not to go alone — for he was to go with them, 
 and remain with them — " Lo I am with you alway, 
 even unto the end of the world." In some sense, then, 
 he is on earth — he is here — if we are indeed gathered 
 in his name. " For where two or three are gathered 
 in my name, there am I present in the midst of them." 
 Here then is still another answer to the question : 
 " Where is he that is born king of the Jews ? " 
 He is in heaven, but he is also upon earth ; not 
 visibly, yet really — and one day he will reappear, 
 and then another answer still — or the same, but in a 
 new sense, or at least with a new emphasis, must be 
 returned. 
 
 For look again upon the Mount of Olives, and be- 
 hold the eleven gazing steadfastly toward hea-veii. 
 Who are these that stand beside them, clothed in 
 white apparel ? and in what terms do they accost 
 them ? " Men of Galilee, why stand ye gaziiig 
 up to heaven ? This same Jesus which is taken from 
 you, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
 him go into heaven." And is this not still true ?
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 35 
 
 Did liis coming at the downfall of Jerusalem exhaust 
 this precious promise ? Is it not one of the great doc- 
 trines that the - Church through all vicissitudes, has 
 held fast as a part of her unalienable heritage that 
 Christ shall come again not in spirit, but in person, 
 to the eye of sense as well as that of faith. However 
 we may differ as to the time of this epiphany, we all 
 believe tliat it will certainly take place, and that when 
 we are asked, " "Where is he that is born l^ing of 
 the Jews ? " we shall no longer be obliged to point to 
 a far distant heaven, or to look fearfully around us 
 as if seeing one who is invisible — but with open face 
 beholding the bright cloud as it descends, and him 
 wlio sits enthroned upon it, we shall see amidst the 
 halo that surrounds his head, in living characters of 
 light, the same inscription that the hand of Pilate once 
 appended to the cross, " Jesus of Nazareth, king of 
 the Jews." — For when he comes he shall come in 
 glory — the cloudy throne will be only a figure of that 
 throne which he already occupies. His seat at the right 
 hand of his father. All power in heaven and earth is 
 already committed to him. We are assured not 
 only that he is in safety, but that he is in posses- 
 sion, and in the active exercise of power, of all 
 power, of infinite, abnighty power. He who was 
 humbled, is now exalted. He who lay in the manger, 
 and hung upon the cross, and ascended from Olivet, 
 and is to come to judge the world at the last day, is 
 even now at the helm, guiding the complicated move- 
 ments of God's providential government. Yes, he is 
 even now upon the throne of the universe, and to that 
 throne we may look up and to it dhect the eve cf
 
 36 . SERMONS. 
 
 others when they ask, whether as friends cr foes, 
 " "Where is he that is bom king of the Jews ? " 
 
 This question therefore, is of interest, not merely in 
 rehxtion to the place of Christ's abode at any period 
 of his history, but also in relation to his dignity and 
 office. Tlie question. Where is he? really means, 
 "What is he ? Where is he that is born king of the 
 Jews ? What part does he now fill ? In what char- 
 acter, imder what aspect, is he now revealed to us ? 
 In this, as well as in the local sense, we may ask, 
 Where is he ? We have seen already, in reply to this 
 interrogation, that he is upon the throne of universal 
 ecumenical dominion. But this thronC, though real 
 and exalted, is invisible. Hereafter, we shall see it, 
 but as yet we see it not. Yet even now, and even 
 upon earth, his throne is standing. By a strange 
 transmutation, he who was born king of the Jews is 
 now king of the Christians. He came to his own, and 
 his own received him not. The Jews as a race, 
 rejected him. They still reject him. After eighteen 
 hundred years, the language of their hearts, and lips, 
 and lives, is still the same that Christ, in one of his 
 parables, puts into the mouths of their fathers : 
 " We will not have this man to reign over us." Even 
 at the time, and to his face, they rejected his preten- 
 sions, crying, " We have no king but Caesar." Even 
 that they soon lost. Tlie Csesar whom they chose 
 to be their king was their destroyer. The successor 
 of Caesar levelled Jerusalem with the earth, threw 
 down its walls, and tried to obliterate its very 
 name, while no Jew was permitted even to tread the 
 soil. In course of time, the throne of the Caesars
 
 . MATTHEW 2, 2. $f 
 
 crumbled. The Eternal City lost its secular suprem- 
 acy. But the Jews continued, and do still continue 
 aliens to the land of promise. They have sought the 
 favor of Mohammedans, of Christians, and of hea- 
 then, and, in turn have enjoyed each. But all have 
 turned to be their enemies. Even now, when a better 
 spirit has arisen with respect to them, they are 
 without a country, without a government, without 
 political or national existence. Li them the prophecy 
 has indeed been verified. They have continued 
 " many days without a king, and without a home, 
 and without a sacrifice." Where then is he that was 
 born king of the Jews ? Has he been thrust out of 
 his inheritance ? Has the promise to David of per- 
 petual succession been completely nullified ? By no 
 means ! He who was to come has come and been 
 enthroned, and is at this moment reigning. He 
 reigns not only in heaven, but on earth. He reigns 
 over an organized and constituted kingdom. He 
 reigns over the Israel of God. The Christian Church 
 is heir to the prerogatives of ancient Israel. The 
 two bodies arc morally identical. It was the remnant 
 according to the election of grace, that formed the 
 germ of the new organization. The new edifice was 
 reared upon the old foundation. It was only the car- 
 nal Israel, the nation as a nation, that rejected Christ. 
 Over them as Jews he is not reigning. But he is not 
 a Jew that is one outwardly. All are not Israel that 
 are of Israel. They may still claim to be the chosen 
 people. But this is " the blasphemy of them which 
 say that they are Jews and are not, but the syna- 
 gogue of Satan." " AYe are the cii'cumcision, which 

 
 38 SERMONS. 
 
 worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, 
 and have no confidence in the flesh. Over snch Christ 
 does reign, and in reigning over snch he is really and 
 truly, in the highest sense, and in the true sense of 
 the prophecies and promises respecting him, " King 
 of the Jews." He reigns in the heart of every indi- 
 vidual believer. He reigns in the church as a col- 
 lective body. He is theoretically acknowledged as 
 the head, even by many who in words deny him. 
 By every pure church, and by every sincere Chris- 
 tian, he is really enthroned and crowned, acknowl- 
 edged and obeyed. He who was born king of the 
 Jews, has become the king of the Christians, without 
 any change of character or office, without any failure 
 in the plan or the prediction. We have only to 
 point to the throne of the Church and to the crown 
 of Christendom, when any ask, in doubt or scorn, 
 " Where is he that is born king of the Jews ? " 
 
 This kingdom, it is true, is not yet coextensive 
 with the earth, but it shall be. It is growing, and is 
 vet to grow. The kingdoms of the earth are to be- 
 come the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. 
 The mountain of the Lord's house is to be established 
 above every other, and all nations are to flow unto 
 it. The stone cut without hands from -the mountain 
 is to fill the earth. The watchword of its progress is 
 Overturn, overturn, overturn^ until he shall come, 
 whose right it is to reign. However the great men 
 and the wise men of the world may be affected by this 
 revolution, it shall come to pass. They may despise 
 the day of small beginnings — but the Lime is coming 
 and perhaps at hand, when the providence, if not the
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 39 
 
 voice of God sliall say to them, Behold, ye despiserSj 
 and wonder, and perish — they may imagine that by 
 constitutions, and by legislative acts, or by the reorgan- 
 ization of society, they have secured themselves from 
 all intrusion upon Christ's part. — But before they are 
 aware, his hand may be upon them, and his arrows 
 sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies. Resistance 
 and revolt will be forever unavailing. The heathen 
 may still rage and the nations imagine a vain thing — 
 the kings of the earth may set themselves, and rulers 
 take counsel together against the Lord and his 
 anointed. They may still say as in ages past they 
 have said, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast 
 their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens 
 shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. 
 Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and con- 
 found them in his hot displeasure. He has already 
 set his king upon his holy hill of Zion. He will 
 give him the heathen for his heritage, and the utter- 
 most parts of the earth for his possession. If rebel- 
 lious he will rule them with a rod of iron, he will 
 break them in pieces as a potters vessel. Let kings 
 then learn wisdom, let the judges of the earth be 
 instructed. Let them pay allegiance aud do liomage 
 to this sovereign, lest they perish in his anger, which 
 will soon be kindled. And as his grace is equal to 
 his power and his justice, blessed are all they that 
 put their trust in him. Christ's kingdom is not of 
 this world, in its origin or character. He came not 
 to be a judge or a divider, a secular ruler or a military 
 chieftain. But he must, even here, reign. His reign
 
 40 SERMONS. 
 
 must and shall be universal. And the prospect of 
 this issue is the hope of the world. 
 
 There is no more cheering anticipation than that 
 Christ is one day to be king of nations ; that his 
 realm is not to reacli, like that of David, from the 
 Eed Sea to the Mediterranean, and from the Euphra- 
 tes to the desert, but from sea to sea, and from the 
 river to the ends of tlie earth. To this vast empire, 
 and to Him who rules it, we, or they who shall come 
 after us, may one day point in triumphant answer to 
 the question, "Where is he that is born king of 
 the Jews ? " He that was born king of the Jews, and 
 who never literally carried even that crown, shall be 
 seen seated as jt were upon the throne of all the an- 
 cient emperors and imperial sovereignties — Sesostris 
 and Cyrus, Alexander and Caesar ; the lost empires 
 shall revive in him, and all the crowns of earth shall 
 meet upon the brow of him who was " born king of 
 the Jews." 
 
 To this general confluence of nations there shall 
 not be even one exception. Even one, however 
 slight, would seem to mar the triumph. There is one 
 esjDecially which could not but have this effect. The 
 people that rejected him — the seed of Abraham — to 
 whom were committed the oracles of God — to whom 
 once pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the 
 covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service 
 of God, and the promises — whose were the fathers, 
 and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, 
 who is over all, God blessed for ever. If these 
 should still remain aloof, the glory of Immanuel's 
 coronation might seem to be obscured or tarnished. 
 
 II
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. ^ 41 
 
 it^ot that the promises of God would even then fail 
 of their accomplishment. JSTot that the Israel of 
 God would even then cease to exist, or the perpetual 
 succession of its members be at all interrupted. But 
 the hearts that pant for the Eedeemer's exaltation 
 might feel something to be wanting. As thej stood 
 around his throne, and looked beyond the brilliant 
 circle that encompassed it, if they still beheld the lost 
 sheep of the house of Israel refusing to return to the 
 Shepherd and Bishop of their souls, they might recall 
 the promise, " All kings shall fall down before him, all 
 nations shall serve him ;" and then say, " all nations ? 
 Ah, yes, all but one, and that, alas, the very one that he 
 was born to rule. The kings of Tarshish and the isles 
 do bring presents ; the kings of Sheba and of Seba do 
 oiler gifts ; they that dwell in the wilderness have bow- 
 ed before him ; and all his other enemies have licked 
 the dust ; — but where is little Benjamin, and Ephraim, 
 and Manasseh ? where is Judah, with his lion ? where 
 is Levi with his Thummim and his IJrim ? where, oh, 
 where are the tribes of his inheritance? The Gentiles 
 are here, but Israel still dwells alone. Our King is, 
 indeed, the King of nations ; the King of kings ; — but 
 " where is he that is born king of the Jews V 
 
 Even in this respect, the answer will eventually be 
 auspicious. He that was born king of the Jews shall 
 yet reign over them. He shall be not only their 
 rightful but their actual sovereign. As such he shall 
 be acknowledged by them. As he reigns already 
 king of the Jews, over the Israel of God which is per- 
 petuated in his Church, so shall he one day reign 
 king of the Jews, over those who are such outwardly,
 
 42 SERMONS. 
 
 over Israel according to the flesli. Tliis tLe promise 
 of his "Word entitles and requires us to expect. It is 
 the cherished and exciting faitli of some, that the seed 
 of Abraham are to be literally gathered from tiie four 
 winds, and from all parts of the earth, once more to 
 take possession of the land bestowed by covenant on 
 their fathers. Whether this be expressly promised in 
 the Word of God or not — a question which will prob- 
 ably continue to be agitated till it is resolved by some 
 event — there are providential signs which seem to 
 point to such an issue. The land of promise almost 
 empty of inhabitants ; the Jews dispersed without a 
 country of their own ; their slight connexion with the 
 countries where they dwell ; the nature of their occu- 
 pations tending to facilitate a general removal ; and 
 in many instances their social position making it 
 desirable ; — all this, together with a re-awakening of 
 their interest in the land of their fathers, and the bii'tli 
 of a new interest in them upon the part of Christians, 
 may be plausibly intei*preted as providential indica- 
 tions of precisely such a change as some interpreters 
 of prophecy suppose to be predicted. If these antici- 
 pations should be realized, and Israel should again 
 take root downward in his own land, and bear fruit 
 upward, how conspicuously would the regal rights of 
 the Redeemer be asserted and established by the visi- 
 ble subjection of the Jewish nation to his peaceful 
 sway ? In every new accession to the swelling popu- 
 lation of the Goodly Land from other nations, we 
 should see repeated the acknowledgment of Jesus as 
 the Sen of David by his hereditary subjects, and his 
 kinsmen according to the flesh — ^from every caravan
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 43 
 
 and every fleet that bore them homeward — we might 
 hear the voice of Israel coming iDack to his allegiance, 
 asking, Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? 
 
 But however joyful such a consummation might be, 
 and on some accounts devoutly to be wished, the final 
 exaltation of our Lord is not suspended on it, even 
 with respect to his acknowledgment by Israel. 
 Though Israel be not gathered, and externally re- 
 organized upon the soil once gladdened by the pres- 
 ence, and still hallowed by the tombs of patriarchs, 
 and prophets, and apostles ; though perpetual exclu- 
 sion from that precious spot of earth be part of God's 
 irrevocable judgment on the race as such considered, 
 still, we know that they shall be restored to a partici- 
 pation in the honours and advantages which were 
 once exclusively their own, and from which they 
 have fallen by rejecting tlie Messiah, we know and 
 are assured that the exsiccated branches of that an- 
 cient olive, shall again be grafted in — and that in 
 some emphatic sense all Israel shall be saved ; and 
 in the glorious fulfilment of this promise, whether 
 accompanied or not by territorial restoration, Christ's 
 crown and sceptre shall be honoured. Every Jew 
 who names the name of Christ as a believer, whether 
 at the holy city or among the Gentiles, and in the 
 very end of the earth, will individually do* him 
 homage as the Son of David. As soon as the spirit 
 of inquiry shall begin to be diflnsed among that peo- 
 ple, and the veil to be taken from their hearts in the 
 reading of the Old Testament ; as soon as the eyes of 
 those now blind shall see clearly, and the tongue of 
 the stammerer speak plainly ; even though they
 
 44: SERMONS. 
 
 sliould continue still dispersed among the nations; 
 there will be something like a repetition of the scene 
 presented eighteen centuries ago, but on a vastly 
 wider scale, for the children of Israel will then be 
 seen uniting with the fulness of the Gentiles in the 
 question : " Where is he that is born king of the Jews ?" 
 Such, my hearers, are the answers which, at 
 different stages in the progress of Christ's kingdom, 
 have been, or might have been, or shall be yet re- 
 turned to the question originally asked by the wise 
 men, who came from the east to Jerusalem in the 
 days of Herod, Where is He, that is bom king of the 
 Jews 1 Where is he ? in the manger as a helj^less 
 infant. On the cross, as a sacrifice for sinners. On 
 the cloud, ascending into heaven. On earth invisibly 
 jDartaking in the prayers of even two or three devoutly 
 gathered for his worship. At the right hand of the 
 Father. On the throne of universal providental sov- 
 ereignty. On the throne of Christendom. On the 
 throne of the Gentiles. On the throne of Israel. 
 From every such view of his exaltation let us gather 
 fresh assurance that the purpose and promises of God 
 can never fail, that whatever clouds may hide the sky, 
 shall, sooner or later, be dispelled ; that, however 
 long the rights of the Redeemer may appear to be 
 ]-elinquished or denied or in abeyance, they shall yet 
 be openly asserted and universally acknowledged, 
 that he who was born to reign, shall reign, that his 
 dominion shall be endless, that the very .things which 
 seem to threaten its extinction shall eventfully further 
 it. If even the apostacy and casting off of Israel, 
 the chosen race with whom the church of old ap-
 
 MATTHEW 2, 2. 45 
 
 peared to be identified, did not prevent its continued 
 existence and progressive growth nntil the present 
 hour, what disaftection or resistance, personal, or 
 national, can now arrest its onward march to uni 
 versal empire. E"o, let Bethlehem, and Calvary, 
 and Olivet, and Paradise, and Christendom, and 
 Jewry all bear witness, that what he was born to 
 bring about must come to pass ; the day, though dis- 
 tant, shall arrive when the kingdoms of the world are 
 to become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
 Christ ; and when the jomt Hallelujah of angels and 
 men, of the church on earth, and of the church in 
 heaven, of Jews and Gentiles, shall proclaim the final 
 and eternal answer to the question, "Where is he that 
 is born kmg of the Jews ? "
 
 III. 
 
 John 13, 7. — ^^Vhat I do thou knowest not now; but thou shall 
 know hereafter. 
 
 These words relate to an astonisliing act of con- 
 descension in our Saviour just before lie suffered. 
 JSI'ot contented witli tlie proofs lie had already given 
 of his lowliness and willingness to be abased that we 
 might be exalted, at his last meeting with the twelve, 
 he crowned all by performing the most humble act 
 of service to his own disciples. He took water, as the 
 slaves in those days were accustomed to do for their 
 masters and their guests, and washed the disciples' 
 feet. It is impossible for us even now, to read of this 
 without a keen feeling of disapprobation. For a 
 moment at least, it seems as if the Saviour did too 
 much, as if he went too far ; no Avonder then that it 
 took the apostles by surprise, and that the boldest 
 and most freespoken of them dared to say as much ; 
 nay, even ventured to refuse compliance, saying. 
 Lord, dost thou wash my feet? And even after 
 Christ had answered this inquiry in the language of 
 the text, he persevered in his refusal,- saying with 
 some violence of feeling. Thou shalt never wash my 
 feet. ISTor was it till our Lord had solemnly declared
 
 JOHN 13, 7. 47 
 
 tliat, unless washed he could have no part with him, 
 that the bold and ardent Peter overcame his repug- 
 nance to this humiliating honour, and said. Lord, not 
 my feet onlj^, but also my hands and my head. 
 
 What I wish you to attend to now is not the par- 
 ticular design and meaning of his strange proceed- 
 ing, but the way in which our Saviour dealt with Pe- 
 ter's difficulties and reluctance. He knew that Peter 
 did not understand what he was doing, and because 
 he could not understand it, he was not willing to ex- 
 plain it to him. It might have seemed that the sim- 
 plest way to overcome his scruples was by telling 
 him exactly wliat he wished to know, by saying, 
 "What I mean by this preaching is to teach you 
 such and such a doctrine, or to produce such and such 
 an impression on you," But he gives him no such 
 satisfaction. He only intimates that it will be given 
 at some future time ; " What I do thou knowest not 
 now, but thou shalt know hereafter." This is in per- 
 fect agreement with our Saviour's customary method 
 of proceeding. He requires implicit confidence in 
 him and unconditional submission. What he did 
 on this occasion is precisely what he is continually 
 doing in his church. He requires his people to 
 walk by faith and not by sight ; to believe what they 
 cannot fully comprehend ; to do what they cannot 
 altogether approve except on his authority. This is 
 true of some of his most sacred institutions. What 
 he did to his disciples upon this occasion was not 
 meant to be repeated as a public ceremony of the 
 church, although many have imagined that it was, 
 and have continued to this day as a superstitious form.
 
 48 SERMONS. 
 
 But there are other things which were designed to 
 be perpetual, and which men are sometimes disposed 
 to slight or quarrel with, because they do not fully 
 understand their meaning or their use. This is the 
 spirit which has led some who call themselves Chris- 
 tians to tamper with the sacraments which Christ 
 himself has instituted and required to be observed 
 until his second coming. Some do not see the use 
 of washing with water in the name of the Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, and therefore discontinue it, 
 professing to rely upon inward spiritual baj^tism, al- 
 though many soon disj^ense with this, because having 
 once determined to do nothing and submit to nothing 
 which they cannot fully com-prehend and explain, 
 they are forced to give up every thing in turn, be- 
 cause in fact there is nothing at all which they can 
 fully understand and account for. In like manner, 
 some begin in changing the form of the Lord's Sup- 
 per, and end with setting it aside altogether as a 
 useless and unmeaning form. And some who do not 
 meddle with the administration of the ordinance, re- 
 fuse to partake of it, and thereby publicly profess their 
 faith, although they claim to be believers and true 
 Christians. They cannot see why such a form is 
 necessary, or what useful purpose it can answer, 
 either to themselves or others, if they have the right 
 religious views and feelings, not observing that obe- 
 dience to Christ's positive commands is one of the 
 most certain tests of true or false religious views and 
 feelings, and that if this obedience is withheld there 
 is no conclusive proof that inward piety exists at all. 
 The spirit of all such disaffection to the ordinances of
 
 JOHN 13, r. 49 
 
 God's house is that which actuated Peter when he 
 said " Thou shalt never wash my feet," and to all who 
 cherish it or act upon it, Christ himself may be heard 
 saying, " If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with 
 me," but yet adding, with a gracious condescension 
 to the weakness of the true believer, "what I do tliou 
 knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 Such is God's method of proceeding not only in 
 this case but in every other. We cannot live without 
 taking many things on trust, without believing and 
 obeying where we do not fully understand. What is 
 there that we do thus understand? The world is full 
 of mysteries and wonders. The very things that 
 seem most simple and with which we think ourselves 
 most perfectly acquainted are really beyond our com- 
 prehension. The heavens and the earth, the water 
 and the air, are full of strange and surprising objects. 
 Wc cannot explain fully how the slightest change 
 takes place among the thousands that are going on 
 around us. How does the grass grow ? or the fruit 
 ripen? or the seasons change? Because we know 
 that these things do take place we tliink we compre- 
 hend them ; but we only know that they arc, not how 
 they are. And those who have gone furthest in 
 discovering and explaining what are called the laws 
 of nature, only differ in degree from the most igno- 
 rant, and are- often the readiest to acknowledce that 
 they have not reached the bottom of those mysteries, 
 that after all their explanations and discoveries, there 
 is something yet to be discovered and explained. 
 This is the general rule and law throughout the uni- 
 verse, that what God is and what God does, is and 
 
 VOL. I. — 3
 
 50 SERMONh. 
 
 must be beyond the comprehension of his creatures. 
 We cannot find out the Almighty to perfection — such 
 knowledge is too wonderful for us — we cannot attain 
 to it— his counsels are unsearchable and his ways 
 are past finding out. He lets us know and under- 
 stand enough, not only to provide for our own safety 
 and enjoyment, but to make us anxious to know more, 
 and sensible how little we know now — and at the 
 same time to fill us with an awful reverence for Him 
 who is producing all these changes and carrying on 
 these mighty operations in our own world and in all 
 worlds, without even making a mistake or failing to 
 eflfect his purpose. 
 
 True, to us a large part of these wonderful works 
 are neither seen nor heard, and if we saw and heard 
 them, we should not comprehend them. It is not 
 certain how far we shall ever fully comprehend 
 them. Even after ages have elapsed, when we have 
 grown in knowledge and capacity beyond our highest 
 thoughts and expectations, there will still be much, 
 not only in God himself, but in his works which we 
 do not understand. We shall know more and more 
 to all eternity, but never can know all. And this is 
 one of the most gracious hopes set before us, that if 
 saved we shall never cease to rise and make advances 
 in the knowledge and admiration of God's works and 
 of himself If this was to cease, even millions of 
 years hence, the promise might seem to be imperfect 
 and misatisfying. But it is not to cease — at any 
 point which we can fix upon — however much we may 
 have learned there will be something to learn still. 
 And yet it is encouraging to know that much that
 
 JOHN 13 r. 51 
 
 now seems strange and unaccountable m the world 
 bj which we are surrounded and of which we form a 
 part will one day be made clear to us. If the uni- 
 verse, instead of being silent, had a voice, or rather if 
 we had ears to hear the voice of God himself speak- 
 ing to us in the winds, the waves, in the earth and 
 in the skies, in beasts and birds, and in the growth 
 of plants, we might distinctly hear him saying to all 
 these things which now surprise us most, " What I do 
 thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know here- 
 after." 
 
 This may be said to be a law of nature, but it is 
 also a law of providence. However often Ave may 
 witness or experience God's dispensations, they still 
 take us by surprise. Even those which are most fre- 
 quently repeated, and which seem most alike, still 
 have something to excite our Avonder. A destructive 
 fire still affects us as if no such had occurred before. 
 A prevailing sickness may appear, and disappear, 
 and reappear, and after all seem something new. 
 The wicked world in Koah's time was just as much 
 siirprised when the flood came as if they had received 
 no wai-ning. All this is really produced by a secret 
 unbelief. But besides this, there is always something 
 in these great calamities and general A'isitations which 
 is contrary to what we look for. "When we hear of 
 the pestilence as raging elsewhere and approaching, 
 we may expect it to arrive, but when it does arrive, 
 it takes a course or takes a shape which Ave were not 
 prepared for. We wonder why this place is visited 
 and that passed by. We try to ascertain the cause 
 of what we see, but all our speculations are in vain.
 
 5^ SERMONS. 
 
 Those who seemed likely tc be svrept away siii'vive, 
 and those who seemed safest fall the first. And so 
 it is in some degree with other great catastrophes. 
 A riot suddenly breaks out in a great city, and the 
 troops are called out, and the first shot fired strikes 
 the heart of one who merely happened to be passing. 
 An explosion takes place and destroys the lives of 
 some who did not know of the existence of the danger, 
 while those who knew it and perhaps produced it, are 
 miraculously saved. Disease invades a household and 
 destroys its members one by one, whilst all around 
 escape. The young, the healthy, those upon whom 
 most are dependent, fall by accident or sickness, while 
 the old and helpless, who have long been waiting their 
 discharge, still linger even when deprived of those by 
 whom they were sustained and comforted. [Examples 
 of this kind are continually occurring, and exciting, 
 even in the minds of Christians, a secret discontent 
 and inclination to find fault, which often lurks at the 
 bottom of their hearts even when they seem to ac- 
 quiesce in the divine dispensations, and indeed until 
 their minds are so far cleared, and their excited feel- 
 ings so far calmed that they can hear God saying 
 even in the fire, and the earthquake, and the tempest, 
 and the pestilence, " What I do thou knowest not 
 now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 And if this is the case of those who merely look 
 at the calamities of others as spectators, how much 
 more natural is such a feeling on the part of those 
 who are themselves the objects of these providential 
 visitations. Oh how hard, how hopeless, does the 
 task seem, to suppress all risings c f rebellious discon-
 
 JOHN" 13, 7. 53 
 
 tent, when we are tolched ourselves by what appears 
 to us to be a cruel and untimely stroke. How nat- 
 ural and reasonable does it often seem to say, as some 
 do say to themselves or others, " I could have borne 
 this without a murmur, a little sooner or a little later, 
 but at this moment it is hard indeed." Or the lan- 
 guage of the heart may be, I should not have re- 
 sisted or repined under a severer stroke but of a dif- 
 ferent kind. If it had been my business, not my 
 health ; or my health, but not my reputation ; or my- 
 self, but not my family ; or this friend, but not that, 
 and so on through a thousand suppositions of what 
 might liave been but is not true, I could have bowed 
 without a murmur. In all this there is certainly a 
 great delusion. Had the stroke been different, the 
 effect would still have been the same. And even 
 where there would have been a difference, that differ 
 ence may itself have been the reason of the choice, 
 because a stroke which is not felt, or which is felt too 
 lightly, would not answer the severe but gracious 
 purpose of the Lord in smiting us at all. But even 
 when this is acknowledged and believed, it may be 
 hard to see wherein the gracious purpose lies, and 
 therefore hard to acquiesce in the benevolence and 
 wisdom of that Providence which causes us or suffers 
 us to suffer. Such submission may be wrought and 
 is continually wrought by sovereign grace without 
 imparting any clearer knowledge of God's immediate 
 purpose by inspiring strong faith in his benevolence 
 and truth, so that the soul is satisfied with knowing 
 that it is the will of God, and therefore must be right, 
 best for his honor and his creatures' welfare.
 
 54: SERMONS. 
 
 Even siacli, however, may derive a pleasing solace 
 from the hope that what seems now so unaccountable, 
 will one day be intelligible even to themselves. And 
 when tliey look at the most doubtful and perplexing 
 circumstances of their case, at which perhaps their 
 faith was staggered, and their hope sickened, but in 
 which God has now enabled them to acquiesce, they 
 may find it easier to do so when they call to mind 
 that, although they are bound to yield whether they 
 ever knew the meaning of these strange dispensations 
 or not, they are permitted to believe that they shall 
 yet know at least something more, perhaps much 
 more, perhaps as much as they could wish to know, 
 or need to know in order to be perfectly contented with 
 their lot, and as this quieting persuasion takes posses- 
 sion of their souls, their ears are suddenly unstopped, 
 and made to tingle with these sweet but solemn 
 words, " "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." 
 
 The application which I have been making of 
 these words to God's providential dispensations when 
 they take the shape of personal or national calamities, 
 may all seem natural enough and be received with- 
 out a doubt of their correctness, not because the text 
 itself includes all this directly, but because the prin- 
 ciple, the rule which it lays down is not confined to 
 the original occasion, nor to religious rites and insti- 
 tutions, but extends to every case in which men can 
 be called to acquiesce and to obey from general trust 
 in God, or deference to his will, without fully know- 
 ing for what reason or what purpose in particular. 
 Now of this there are no examples more familiar or
 
 JOHN 13, 7. 55 
 
 affecting than t.iose fiimislied by severe afflictions, 
 whether such as affect only individuals and families, 
 or such as more or less affect a whole community, and 
 therefore there will probably be little disposition to 
 dispute the application of the text to all such cases. 
 
 But there is another application not so obvious, 
 to which I am anxious, for that very reason, to direct 
 your thoughts, lest the instructions and the warnings 
 here afforded should lose a part of their effect from 
 being too much confined in their application, so that 
 those perhaps in most need of the lesson which the 
 Spirit of God teaches, may depart without it. You 
 admit perhaps that with respect to God's works, and 
 the changes continually going on in nature, you must 
 wait for clearer light, and you are willing so to do, 
 perhaps are well content to wait forever. You also 
 admit that in reference to the meaning and design of 
 God's afflictive dispensations, with respect both to 
 the many and the few, both to others and yourselves, 
 it is right and necessary to be satisfied with knowing 
 in the general that God is just and merciful, that what 
 he does not only is, but must be right, not only right 
 but best, best for him and best for you, and. that 
 therefore you may rationally wait for any further ex- 
 planation or discovery. But has the thought oc- 
 curred to you that this is no more true of affliction 
 than of any other state or situation ? that the only 
 difference arises from the fact that suffering makes 
 men think of this and feel it, but docs not make it 
 any truer or more certain than it was before ; and 
 that this very circumstance makes it peculiarly im- 
 portant to remind men of the truth in question, when
 
 56 SERMONS. 
 
 they are not so reminded by theii outward cr cum- 
 stances. There is no time when men need less to be 
 warned against intemperance and imprudence than a 
 time of general sickness and mortality, for this very 
 state of things is a sufficient warning. But when 
 health prevails, we are peculiarly in danger of forget- 
 ting our mortality and neglecting the precautions 
 which are necessary to preserve us from disease and 
 death. So too in the case before us, when men ac- 
 tually suffer, either one by one or in large bodies, 
 they have but occasion to be told that God may have 
 some purpose to accomplish wliich they cannot un- 
 derstand at present, but which may perhaps be un- 
 derstood hereafter. 
 
 ]^ow let us ask ourselves the question ; May not 
 God have pm"poses to answer, of which we have no 
 suspicion, when he grants us undisturbed prosperity ? 
 Does he cease to reign as soon as men cease to suffer ? 
 Is his only instrument the rod ? Is it only the afflicted 
 that are subject to his government? And are the 
 rich, the healthy, and the honoured, the cheerful, the 
 thoughtless, and the gay, exempt from his control ? 
 Perhaps this is the secret of the coldness with which 
 most of us contemplate God's strokes till they touch 
 ourselves, despismg the riches of his goodness, and 
 forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the 
 goodness of God leadeth to repentance. And how 
 few really regard this as the great end of prosperity ; 
 to lead men to repentance ! How many do indeed 
 believe that health and wealth and comfort are all 
 means em2)loyed to bring men to repentance ? And 
 if this is so, how, seldom does prosperity accom*
 
 JOHN 13, 7. 57 
 
 plish its design : I mean its pui-poses of mercy ; for 
 alas ! it has a twofold tendency. It is like some des- 
 perate and potent remedies for bodily disease. It 
 either kills or cures. Are we sufficiently convinced 
 of this? Do we feel it as we should if God were 
 pleased to lift the veil that overhangs the hearts and 
 inner lives of men, and show us what is passing at 
 this moment, and to what results hereafter it is tend- 
 ing ? If you, my hearers, could be made to see that 
 your jjrosperity is just as much a state of discipline 
 as the affliction of your neighbour ; that your heart, 
 if not subdued and softened by God's goodness is 
 continually growing harder; that the frivolous and 
 exciting pleasures which engross you, or the violent 
 passions which inflame and agitate you, or the sordid 
 appetites which enslave and master you, are all com- 
 bining to prepare you for changes which you do not 
 now anticipate : if I could shew you God looking 
 . down upon this fearful process, and permitting it to 
 go on, as a righteous recompence of those who do not 
 like to retain him in their knowledge, but revolt from 
 his authority and trample on his mercy, and treat the 
 very blood of Christ himself as an unclean thing : if 
 I could show you that sleepless and untiring eye for- 
 ever fixed upon your individual heart, which neither 
 wrath nor mercy, hope nor fear have yet sufficed to 
 break, when breaking might have saved it, and 
 which, if it ever bleaks at all, is likely to break only 
 with incurable anguish and despair : if I could show 
 you how completely you are at God's mercy in the 
 height of your prosperity, and how severely he is try- 
 ing you by means of it, you might perhaps be brought 
 
 VOL. T.— 3*
 
 58 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 to liear liim say, as he does say with soltmn emphasia 
 " What I do thou knowest not no-^-, but thou shalt 
 know hereafter." 
 
 The dangers thus attending a state of high pros- 
 perity have led many, who were destitute of true 
 faith, to repeat the prayer, Give me neither poverty 
 nor riches. And some who hear me now may be 
 ready to congratulate themselves that the extremes 
 of joy and grief are equally unknown to their experi- 
 ence. They are glad perhaps that though they do 
 not suffer, they are not the slaves of passion. They 
 do not seek their happiness in violent excitement. 
 They enjoy tranquillity, and thank God for it. They 
 are comfortable and content with their situation. 
 Perhaps too contented. Yes, unless possessed of a 
 good hope through grace, they are certainly too well 
 contented. They have no more reason to be satisfied 
 than the sufferer with his sufferings, or the man of 
 j)leasure with his sinful joys. Especially is this the 
 case if they imagine that, while God directs the lot of 
 others, he is letting them alone, i. e. allowing them to 
 be at ease w^ithout those dangers to which others are 
 exposed. 
 
 There is a sense in which he may indeed be letting 
 them alone, giving them up to themselves, allowing 
 them to stagnate and to putrify, if not in vice, in self- 
 ish indolence, spiritual sloth, and carnal security. 
 Because they are exempt from sore distress on one 
 hand, and from gross sins on the other, they imagine 
 themselves safe and even happy. They forget that 
 although they may be idle, Satan is at work, employ- 
 ing every art to shield them from the light and make
 
 JOHN 13, 7, 59 
 
 them sleep more soundly ; that the world aroimd 
 them is at work to render them more drowsy by the 
 hum and murmur of its business and its pleasures, so 
 that when they open their eyes for a moment, they 
 immediately fall back again and dream on as they 
 have dreamed before. 
 
 Kor is this all. While evil spirits and a wicked 
 world are thus at work uj^on the stupid soul, it may 
 be said without irreverence that God himself is not 
 inactive. He is not an indifferent spectator, but a 
 sovereign and a judge. " Let no man say when he is 
 tempted I am tempted of God ; for God cannot be 
 tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. 
 But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of 
 his own lusts and enticed. Then when lust hath con- 
 ceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is fin- 
 ished, bringeth forth death." "Tlie sting of death is 
 sin and the strength of sin is the law." And the law 
 is the law of God, and neither men nor devils can 
 offend against it unless he suffer them. And when 
 he suffers them he may comply with their governing 
 desire. But at the same time will he take vengeance 
 on them. To a sinner no divine stroke can in this life 
 be so fearful as the stroke of letting him alone. As 
 God is not and cannot be the aiithor of sin, the worst 
 he can in this life do is to let men do as they please. 
 Beyond this nothing is required to ruin them. Their 
 native tendency is downwards. There is no need of 
 creating it. It is sufficient not to stop or change it. 
 Nothing can possibly do either but divine grace. 
 And in multitudes of cases it does both. And in the 
 case of all who hear the gospel it is offered. And In
 
 QQ SERMONS. 
 
 the case of some that offer is long continued and fre- 
 quently repeated. But its being offered even tD a 
 single soul, or for a single moment, is a miracle of 
 mercy. If no one has a right to it at first, much less 
 has any one a right to it forever. For then the 
 longer men refused God's mercy, the more would he 
 be bound to offer it, which is too absurd to be be- 
 lieved. And if this offer, even for a moment, is 
 an act of God's free grace, and might have been 
 ■withheld without the slightest imputation on .his 
 justice or his mercy, who will charge him with vio- 
 lating either if, when a man has long despised the 
 Son and quenched the Spirit, he should be permitted 
 by the Father to go on as he desu*es and is resolved, 
 to do precisely what he wishes, to be just what he in- 
 tends to be. Is this unmerciful, unjust, or cruel? 
 AVhat, unjust to let him have what he claims as his 
 right ? Cruel to leave him undisturbed ? When lie 
 has over and over refused to accept God's invitation 
 and impoi-tunately prayed to be let alone. Can he com- 
 plain that God should take him at his word, and now 
 withhold what he might have withheld from the be- 
 ginning? Such an abandonmeiit is doubly just. It 
 gives the man precisely what he claims, and at the 
 same time asserts God's sovereignty and vindicates his 
 justice by allowing it to take its course. 
 
 It seems then that of all conditions in the present 
 life, there is none more terrible than that of being let 
 alone. And when this is the secret of men's calmness 
 or contentment, they have just as little reason to con- 
 gratulate themselves that they are thus left midis- 
 turbed, as the drov\Tiing man has to congratulate him
 
 JOHN 13, 7. ^ 
 
 self that he is left to sink without the trouble and vex- 
 ation of seizing on the saving hand held out for his 
 deliverance, or the poisoned man that he is not re- 
 quired to take an unpalatable antidote, or the convict 
 on his way to execution that he is not interrupted hj 
 a pardon or reprieve, but suffered to continue his 
 journey in tranquil indifference. My hearers, if I 
 could convince you that the ease which you enjoy is 
 such as I have described, I am sure that you would 
 instantly hear him who would have saved you, but 
 who now perhaps consents to leave you to yourself as 
 you desire, saying, "What I do thou knowest not 
 now, but thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 In all these views we have been looking forward, 
 trying to anticipate that which is still future. But 
 the time is coming when we shall look back at the 
 same objects from a very different point of observa- 
 tion — and look at them no longer as mere possibili- 
 ties, but actual realities. It is a fearful supposition, 
 but it cannot make your danger any greater than it 
 is, to suppose, my hearer, that your soul is to be lost, 
 and that when it is lost you will still be able to re- 
 trace the steps by which you travelled to perdition. 
 When you thus look back — among the various feel- 
 ings which will struggle with each other for predomi- 
 nance in your soul, one of the strongest must be 
 wonder at your own infatuation in not seeing to what 
 end your purpose and conduct here were tending — in 
 not knowing that the world and the devil and your 
 own corruption were at work to make affliction and 
 prosperity and even tranquillity all contribute to your 
 ruin — and that God himself, by every gift and every
 
 62 SERMONS. 
 
 judgment, and even by his silence and forbearance, 
 was still warning you that, though the end of your 
 course was not yet visible, it certainly would have 
 one, and that every thing you did, enjoyed, or suf- 
 fered, was contributing to give that end a character, 
 to make it forever either good or evil. This, I say, 
 will be an astonishment to any lost soul — that he did 
 not see all this beforehand — if not as certain yet as 
 possible — and did not act accordingly. And in addi- 
 tion to this wonder at the general course pursued in this 
 life, there will no doubt be particular conjunctures, 
 with respect to which it will appear incredible and 
 almost inconceivable that any rational and moral 
 being should have still continued so insensible and 
 blinded when the gifts of God were so peculiarly 
 abundant, or His judgments so peculiarly severe — or 
 the comfort and tranquillity enjoyed so perfect, that 
 to one reviewing it from that distant point of obser- 
 vation it might seem that even sin itself could not 
 have plunged the soul in such insensibility, or roused 
 it to such madness, as to hide from it the fatal course 
 which it was taking, or to stop its ears against the 
 warning voice which was continually sounding from 
 the death-bed and the grave, and the devouring jaws 
 of hell, as well as from the cross and the throne, the 
 mercy seat and judgment seat of Christ. Ah, my 
 hearers, may it not be that among these recollections 
 will be that of the very opportunity which you are 
 now enjoying, and that, although now in looking for- 
 ward you may see no sufficient reason for alarm or 
 even for solicitude as to the end, a sovereign God is 
 now afflicting you or sparing you — yet when you come
 
 JOHN IS, 7. 63 
 
 to look back at the same things from the world of 
 woe, you will regard it as a prodigy of spiritual 
 blindness that you did not see what you will then see 
 so distinctly, and of spiritual deafness that you did not 
 hear what will then sound in your ears, in every echi. 
 fi'om the vaults of your eternal prison, " Wliat I do 
 thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know here- 
 after." 
 
 Having gone so far as to transport you into the 
 eternal world and to anticipate its solemn recollec- 
 tions^ let me not conclude without jiresenting the re- 
 verse of that distressing supposition upon which I 
 have been speaking. Thanks be to God the power of 
 recollection is not to be monopolized hereafter by the 
 lost. While it will, no doubt, add to the intensity of 
 future torment, it will magnify and multiply the joys 
 of heaven. Yes in both worlds memory will survive. 
 There will be memory in hell. There will be memory 
 in heaven. And on what will the blissful recollec- 
 tions of that holy, happy place be more intently fas- 
 tened, tlian those mysterious but effectual means, by 
 which a miserable sinful soul was stopped short and 
 turned round in its career of ruin, and while others 
 still refused to be arrested, or were arrested only long 
 enough to give them a new impulse in their down- 
 ward course, you, yes, my friend, it may be you, were 
 taken off from all corrupt attachments and from all 
 false grounds of hope that you might be saved tln'ough 
 Him who loved you. 
 
 If permitted thus to look back at the way by which 
 you have been lead, what occasion for rejoicing and 
 thanksgiving will be furnished by the thought that
 
 ^ SERMONS. 
 
 your Saviour did not suffer you to wait ti J you could 
 fully understand his requisitions, before trusting and 
 obeying liim. The difference between you and the 
 lost will not be that the lost could not see the end 
 from the beginning, and that you could ; but that the 
 ■ lost insisted upon seeing, and that you through grace 
 were satisfied with believing ; that the lost would only 
 walk by sight, and that you were enabled and dis- 
 posed to walk by faith ; that the lost could trust the 
 care of their salvation only to themselves, and sunk 
 beneath the load, while you had wisdom and humility 
 and grace enough imparted to you to think God 
 stronger than yourself, and a Saviour's merit greater 
 than your own, the Holy Ghost a better comforter 
 than the world, the flesh, or the devil. When Jesus 
 with divine condescension proposed to wash their feet, 
 they replied, with Peter, in his want of faith and of 
 understanding, "thou shalt never wash my feet;" 
 but you replied with Peter, in the strength of his re- 
 newed love, " not my feet only, but my hands and my 
 head." This is all the difference, but it is enough, 
 for it determines your eternal destiny. Happy the 
 soul that is now upon the right side of a question 
 which to men may seem so unimportant. Happy, 
 forever happy, he who shall look back and see with 
 wonder how his own plans were defeated, his most 
 cherished wishes crossed, his favorite opinions contra- 
 dicted, his highest hopes completely disappointed, and 
 himself entirely set at nought, if thereby he has saved 
 his soul ; for what is a man profited if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a 
 man give in exchange for his soul ? The loss of all
 
 JOHN IS, 7. 65 
 
 these tilings is to gain a new heart, to gain a heaven, 
 to gain a God. It is the loss of God, as a consuming 
 fire, to gain him as he is in Christ, a fountain of life. 
 When possession is secured, my hearer, it will be a 
 sweet or bitter recollection to our soul, that in this 
 place and at this hour, although some around you 
 still refuse to look beyond the immediate fruits of their 
 misconduct, or to be persuaded that its effects would 
 extend into eternity, the scales, through mercy, fell from 
 your eyes, and the veil was gathered up from off your 
 heart, and the noise of this world of a sudden ceased 
 to fill your ears, and in the place of it a still small 
 voice, a voice both of kindness and of authority, stole 
 in upon your spiritual senses, saying, " What I do 
 thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know here- 
 after."
 
 IV. 
 
 John 1, 29. — Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the ida 
 of the world. 
 
 How long our first parents remained innocent is 
 not revealed, and cannot be conjectured. The space 
 allotted to that portion of their history in God's "Word 
 is extremely small. But this is no proof that the time 
 itself was short. It is Bacon's maxim that the best 
 times to live in are the worst to read about, {. e., 
 the worst for entertainment as affording least variety 
 of incident. Certain it is, however, that we scarcely 
 enter on the history of man before his ruin is recorded. 
 But then, upon the other hand, we scarcely read of 
 his fall, before we read also of his restoration. The 
 gates of Paradise are scarcely closed, before the altar 
 of atonement is erected at the entrance. The flame 
 of the cherubic sword is blended with the flame of the 
 consuming sacrifice, Cain was a tiller of the ground. 
 His gentler brother was a slaughterer of animals. 
 The promise of salvation to lost man was sealed and 
 symbolized by blood— not the blood of bears and 
 lions, but the blood of sheep and oxen— not of vul- 
 tures, but of turtle doves. Was this accidental or a 
 mere caprice ? Is there any thing even in man's 
 fallen nature which disposes him to seek the death of 
 
 II
 
 JOHN 1, 29. 67 
 
 brutes for its own sake, witliout any view to food or 
 even to amusement ? And is this propensity so doubly 
 perverse as to choose the harmless and the unresisting 
 as its victims, rather than the fierce and ravenous ? 
 If not, the ancient sacrifices must have had a mean- 
 ing ; and they had, for they were meant to teach by 
 signs and emblems the essential doctrine that without 
 shedding of blood there is no remission — Blood being 
 put for life, and its eft'iision for the loss of life by me- 
 taphors so natural as scarcely to be metaphors. The 
 lesson taught by this perpetual spectacle of death, 
 was that nothing short of death could save the life 
 which man had forfeited by sin. And this implied 
 that sin incurred a penalty, because it Avas the break- 
 ing of a law, and that the penalty of this law could 
 not be evaded by the breaker, or by him who gave it. 
 It implied that the distinction between moral good and 
 evil was a distinction running back beyond all arbi- 
 trary positive enactments ; that the righteousness of 
 God made it impossible that sin should go unpun- 
 ished ; and that as the sinner's life was forfeit on ac- 
 count of sin, that forfeit must be paid by the sacrifice 
 of life. 
 
 But all this might have been revealed and under- 
 stood if no remedial system had been introduced at 
 all, if no Saviour had been promised. — There was 
 more than this implied in the ancient rites of sacri- 
 fice. They taught not only that man was a sinner, 
 and that sin must be punished, but what seemed 
 to be at variance with these truths, that sin might 
 be forgiven and tlie sinner saved. The very forms 
 of oblation taught this. Of these forms wc have
 
 gg SERMONS. 
 
 110 exact account -ii the beginning or throughout the 
 patriarchal age. But they were no doubt in essential 
 points tlie same with those which were prescribed 
 and practised in the law of Moses. And among these 
 there was one too clear t(f be mistaken if regarded as 
 significant at all, and if it was not, the whole system 
 became merely a confused array of vain formali- 
 ties. 
 
 Imagine that you see the host of Israel gathered 
 in that vast enclosure, with the altar smoking in the 
 midst, and by it the anointed priests in their official 
 vestments. — To some, perhaps to most, in the sur- 
 rounding multitude, the sight is a mere spectacle, a 
 raree-show ; but there were never wanting some who 
 walked by faith and not by sight; and even now, 
 though man may know it not, there beats among that 
 breathless crowd some heart which feels the burden 
 of its sin too sensibly to be content with outward 
 show, however splendid. It sees, it wonders, it ad- 
 mires, but is not satisfied. Its language is. Oh what is 
 this to me — how much of that oppressive weight Avhich 
 crushes me can this imposing spectacle remove or 
 lighten ? But the crowd divides. The offerer ap- 
 proaches with his victim. Mild and dumb it stands, 
 speechless it awaits its doom. But see ! before the 
 stroke can be inflicted, there is yet a solemn rite to be 
 performed. The offerer must first lay his hands upon 
 the head of the poor victim and confess his sins — a 
 simple rite, but full of solemn import to the mind of 
 the spectator burdened with a sense of guilt and 
 taught by God to understand the sight which he be- 
 holds. For he sees that in that simple act of imposi-
 
 JOHN 1, 29, 69 
 
 tion the believing offerer transfers his guilt, and in 
 that transfer he beholds the only possible alleviation 
 of his own distress. If the whole system be not 
 merely a theatrical display, its rites must be signifi- 
 cant ; and if that solemn imposition has a meaning, it 
 must signify a transfer of the curse and penalty from 
 one head to another ; and if such a transfer be con- 
 ceivable in one case, why not possible in all ? and 
 if in all, then in mine, and if in mine, then I am free. 
 For, all I ask is the removal of this burden from my 
 conscience — I care not whither it is carried, only let 
 it pass from me. 
 
 But here the question would suggest itself, how 
 can the guilt of my sin be transferred to a dumb ani- 
 mal ? Can sheep or oxen bear the weight of my iniq- 
 uities, or their blood cleanse the stains which sin has 
 left upon my soul ? It cannot be. The- voice of 
 nature and of reason cries aloud — It is not possible. 
 " It is not possible, that the blood of bulls or of goats 
 should take away sins," Heb. x. 4. And yet the 
 voice of the whole system cries in tones of equal 
 strength, that " without the shedding of blood there is 
 no remission." How shall these discordant sounds 
 be tempered into unison? How shall these testi- 
 monies, seemingly so opposite, be made to stand to- 
 gether ? How shall the burdened soul which has dis- 
 covered that its only hope is in the transfer of its guilt, 
 be enabled to go further and to see how that transfer 
 may be really effected ? Only by looking far beyond 
 the innocent but worthy sacrifice before him to 
 another tvhich it represents. Only by seeing in its 
 blood the symbol of a blood more precious than silver
 
 ijTQ SERMONS. 
 
 and gold, a blood speaking better things than the 
 blood of Abel ; not invoking vengeance but proclaim- 
 ing pardon, as it streams from every altar. It is in- 
 deed impossible that tlie blood of bulls and of goats 
 sbould take away sin : wherefore when He cometh 
 into the world he saith, " Sacrifice and offering thou 
 wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In 
 burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no 
 pleasure. Tlien said I, Lo I come, in the volume of 
 the book it is written of me, to do thy will, oh God." 
 Here is the doctrine of sacrifice expounded by the Sacri- 
 fice himself, by Him who is at once the great atone- 
 ment for our sins, and the great High Priest of our pro- 
 fession. He represented the death of animals as utterly 
 without intrinsic efficacy as a means of expiation, and 
 as utterly abominable in the sight of God, except as a 
 symbolical display of that great sacrifice which Christ 
 offered up once for all upon the Cross. And this is 
 the doctrine of the wliole of the Old Testament. It 
 furnishes the only key to those apparent discrepancies 
 which have been observed between the Law and the 
 Pi'ophets, where the latter use the language of indif- 
 ference, and even of disapprobation, with respect to 
 duties which the former had prescribed and rendered 
 binding by the most tremendous penalties. In Christ 
 these seeming contradictions are all reconciled. That 
 which was pleasing in the sight of God for His sake, 
 was abhorrent when considered without reference to 
 Him. The blood of bulls and goats which, as a sign 
 of his blood, speaketh peace to the perturbed soul, 
 that same blood, in itself considered, speaketh ven- 
 geance ; for it speaks of cruelty, and murder, and un-
 
 JOHN 1, 29. 71 
 
 expiated guilt. Tlie faitli of old believers was tlie 
 same as ours, only darkened and imjDeded by tbe use 
 of symbols from wliicli we liave been delivered by the 
 advent of the antitype. 
 
 It naturally follows from this difference however, 
 that their ideas of salvation were associated witli a 
 class of images quite different from those which in 
 our minds are connected with that great and glorious 
 doctrine. "Where we speak of the cross, the ancients 
 spoke of the altar ; and where we speak directly of 
 the great atoning sacrifice by which our life is pur- 
 chased, they would, of course, use expressions bor- 
 rowed from the rites by wdiicli he was to them pre- 
 figured, and especially from those appointed animals 
 by whose death his was represented. And among 
 these the one most commonly employed for this end 
 was the lamb ; partly because it was more used in 
 sacrifice than any other, partly because of its intrinsic 
 qualities, which made it, more than any other animal, 
 an apt though most imperfect emblem of the Great 
 Redeemer, as an innocent, uncomplaining, unresisting 
 victim. l!Tor are these two reasons to be looked upon 
 as wholly distinct from one another. The selection of 
 the lamb for the perpetual burnt-offering, besides its 
 frequent use in other sacrifices, is to be explained 
 from its peculiar fitness as an emblem of the Saviour. 
 It was because he was a lamb without blemish, and 
 because he was to suffer as a lamb led to the slaugh- 
 ter ; it was therefore that this victim was so promi- 
 nent an object in the sacrificial system. And because 
 it was so prominent not only in the ordinary rites, but 
 in the solemn yearly service of the passover, it nat-
 
 72 SERMONS. 
 
 urally followed that the lamb became the favourite 
 and most familiar symbol of atonement, and of him 
 by whom it was to be effected. 
 
 Tlie image which spontaneously arose before the 
 mind of the devout Jew in connexion with his dear- 
 est hopes of pardon and salvation, was the image 
 of a lamb, a bleeding lamb, a lamb without blemish 
 and without spot, a lamb slain from the foundation 
 of the world. We have no means of determining how 
 far the doctrine of atonement was maintained without 
 corruption in the age immediately preceding the ap- 
 pearance of our Lord. But we have strong ground 
 for believing that the great mass of the people had 
 lost sight of it, and as a necessary consequence, had 
 ceased to look upon the rites of the Mosaic law as 
 meaning what they did mean. It is not to be sup- 
 posed, however, that this loss of the true doctrine had 
 become universal. The sense of guilt and of necessity 
 could not be universally destroyed, and while it lasted, 
 it could not fail to lead some whose hearts were bur- 
 dened with it to a promised Saviour. Some at least 
 who felt their lost and wretched state still looked with 
 a prospective faith to the coming and the dying of the 
 Lamb of God. Some at least, amidst the sorrows 
 which they witnessed or endured, were waiting for 
 the consolation of Israel. Some at least, beneath the 
 chains and yoke of that hard bondage under which 
 they groaned, still looked for redemption in Jerusa- 
 lem. The hopes of such were naturally stimulated 
 by the appearance of John the Baptist. But he did 
 not satisfy -their expectations. He was a preacher of 
 righteousness, but not a sacrifice for sin. He was a
 
 JOHN 1, 29. Y3 
 
 prophet and a priest, but not a sacrifice. He taught 
 his disciples, it is true, to look with stronger confi- 
 dence than ever for the coming of the Great Deliv- 
 erer ; and wlien their desires had been excited to the 
 utmost he revealed their object ; when their sense of 
 guilt and of the need of expiation had been strength- 
 ened to the utmost by his preaching of the law, and 
 they were thoroughly convinced that no act of their 
 own could take away their sins, he led them at last 
 to the altar and the sacrifice, and said, " Behold the 
 Lamb of God, which taketli away the sin of the 
 world." 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the two to whom these 
 words were specially addressed, no sooner heard them 
 than they followed Jesus and continued with him ; a 
 sufiicient proof that they were waiting for him and 
 prepared for his reception. But in what did their 
 preparation consist ? Not in personal merit ; they 
 were miserable sinners. 'Not in superior wisdom ; 
 they were fishermen. In one point, it is true, they 
 were peculiarly cnliglitened, and in that consists their 
 peculiar preparation to receive the Saviour. They 
 knew that they were lost, and that he alone could save 
 them: so that when their former master said, "Be- 
 hold the Lamb of God," they followed him at once. 
 And so it has been ever since. The rich and power- 
 ful, the wise and learned, although not excluded from 
 the face of God, are often last in coming to the Sav- 
 iour, because accidental circumstances blind them to 
 their true condition, while the poor and ignorant, be- 
 cause they feel that they have nothing to be proud of, 
 in their personal character or outward situation, are 
 
 VOL. I. — 4
 
 74 SERMONS, 
 
 more easily convinced that tliey are in a state of spir- 
 itual destitution, and more easily persuaded to employ 
 the only means by which their wants can be supplied- 
 But when this conviction and persuasion is effected, 
 in Avhatever class or condition of society, its causes 
 and effects are still essentially the same ; its cause the 
 grace of God, and its effect a believing application 
 to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
 world. In all such cases, the same kind of preparation 
 for the Saviour must exist as in the case- of John's 
 disciples ; a conviction of the sinner's need and of the 
 Saviour's being able to supply it ; and where this 
 does exist, no conceivable amount of guilt or igno- 
 rance or weakness can disable or disqualify. 
 
 My hearers, are not you possessed of this essen- 
 tial requisite ? I know that you are sinners, but I 
 know not that you feel it. I know that Christ is a 
 sufficient Saviour, but I do not know that you have 
 seen him to be such. If you have, or if amidst this 
 large assembly there are any upon whom the load of 
 conscious guilt is pressing at this moment with a 
 weight which seems incapable of being longer borne, 
 and whoso most urgent want is that of something 
 which 'will take away their sin ; to them I would ad- 
 dress myself, and pointing, as the Baptist did, to 
 Christ, say to you, as he said to his two disciples, 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, Avhicli taketh away the 
 sin of the world." But why should I restrict the 
 declaration ? It admits of universal application. 
 Tliere is no one, from the highest to the lowest in the 
 scale of morals, whom I may not summon to behold 
 the Lamb of God. Have you repented and believed ?
 
 JOHX 1, 29. Y5 
 
 If you have, I need not tell you that you are a sinner. 
 The more you are delivered from corruption, the more 
 deeply will you feel the power which it still exerts 
 upon you. Do you never sin ? And have the sins 
 of Christians no peculiar aggravation. Is your con- 
 science never stained and never wounded by trans- 
 gression ? And to whom do you resort for reassur- 
 ance when it is so ? To your own religious duties ? 
 To your sighs and tears ? To the beggarly element 
 of legal righteousness from which you were delivered ? 
 " Have ye suffered so many things in vain ? if it be 
 yet in vain ? Are ye so foolish ? having begun in the 
 Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh ? This 
 only would I learn of you, received ye the Spii-it by 
 the works of the law or by the hearing of faith ? Oh 
 foolish souls, who hath bewitched you, that ye should 
 not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ 
 hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you." 
 Tour first hope and your last hope must be still the 
 same. To you, as well as to the sinner who has never 
 been converted, the same voice is crying : " Behold 
 the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
 world ; " of the world, not merely of the Jewish nation, 
 not merely of this class or that, but of the world. 
 There is peculiar pregnancy and depth in this expres- 
 sion which means both to take wp and to take away. 
 There can be no doubt that, according to the Scrip- 
 tures Christ did really assume and bear the sins of 
 those for whom he died. " Surely he hath borne our 
 griefs, and carried our sorrows." " He was wounded 
 for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniqui- 
 ties, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and
 
 76 SERMONS. 
 
 with liis stripes we are healed. The Lord laid on Mm 
 the iniquity of us all." " He shall justify many, for 
 he shall bear their iniquity." " He was numbered 
 with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of ii any." 
 These strong expressions, all contained in one short 
 chapter, do but sum up the Bible doctrine that our 
 Saviour took the sinner's j)lace, paid his debt, bore 
 his burden, and endured his punishment. But it is 
 equally clear that the idea of removing or of taking 
 away, as well as taking up, is really included in the 
 import of the term here used. Indeed the two things 
 go together. It is by bearing sin that Christ removes 
 it. It is by taking it up that he takes it away. It is 
 the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
 world. While we really recognize the truth that 
 Christ atones for sin by suffering its penalty, we 
 ought not to forget the other meaning of the word 
 used, as implying that he frees the world from sin and 
 from its consequences. This is the end at which 
 philanthropists are aiming. So far as they are really 
 enlightened, they are well aware that all the evils 
 which they try to remedy are caused by sin. And 
 hence their great end is, or ought to be, to take away 
 the sin of the M'orld. But in using secondary means 
 for the accomplishment of this great purpose, they are 
 too apt to forget that which is primary, and from 
 which all the rest derive their efficacy. Even wise 
 and good men in their zealous efforts to extirpate sin 
 and misery for ever from the world, may forget that 
 this can never be effected without some means of 
 atonement ; that there never can be reformation 
 where there is no expiation, or in other words, that 
 
 1
 
 JOHN 1, 29. f^fj 
 
 it is Clirist's prerogative to do both parts of this great 
 work ; that he is the Lamb of God who in both senses 
 takes away the sin of the world. 
 
 But while this view of the matter shows lis why- 
 some plans for the improvement of mankind have 
 been without success, it ought, at the same time, to 
 encourage us to hope for the success of others, and 
 especially for that of the great means of reformation 
 which has been ordained of God, and without which 
 every other must be ultimately vain, viz., the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel. Are we painfully affected by the 
 sight of a surrounding world lying in wickedness ? 
 And does this view excite us not to lamentation 
 merely, but to active effort for the universal renova- 
 tion of society ? All this is well ; but our desires 
 may so far transcend our own capacity and that of 
 other instruments which we employ, that we may 
 sink into despondency. But here we have the anti- 
 dote to such despair. Behold the Lamb of God, which 
 taketh away the sin of the world. 
 
 The same use may be made of this great doctrine 
 in relation to the evils which exist in a particular com- 
 munity. Tlie human heart is everywhere the same, 
 and if abandoned to itself without restraint, would 
 yield in every place, and always, the harvest of corrup- 
 tion and of misery. But even the worst men arc 
 under strong restraints imposed by Providence. And 
 these restraints are so diversified and interwoven that 
 they cannot be successfully controlled by man. His 
 wisdom and his power are alike inadequate to such 
 a task. Legal restraints and obligations are indeed 
 within the reach of human governments, and consti-
 
 78 SERIIONS. 
 
 tiite their most important office. But i:.>ese clieeta 
 are only one part, and a small part of that vast and 
 complicated system of control, which holds the malig- 
 nity of human nature under a pressure strong enougli 
 to save society from utter dissolution. The external 
 checks of law, moreover, useful as they are, not only 
 constitute a small part of the system of coercion under 
 which we live, but are themselves dependent for their 
 whole eiFect upon the moral bonds and ligaments of 
 which no laws take cognizance, and which are utterly 
 beyond the reach of all municipal provision. They 
 are in the hands of God, and he relaxes or contracts 
 them at liis sovereign pleasure. And it certainly 
 is not to be regarded as a matter of surprise that in 
 this, as in all other parts of his omnipotent and wise 
 administration, his counsels are inscrutable, and even 
 the principles on which they are conducted such, as 
 often to elude our most sagacious observation. Xow 
 and then the reins by which he holds the hearts and 
 hands of men in check appear to be relaxed, in order 
 to exhibit human nature as it would be if abandoned 
 to itself. This effect is sometimes answered by indi- 
 vidual cases of depravity ; by the commission of ap- 
 palling crimes for which it seems impossible to find a 
 motive. Such cases now and tlien occur in the heart 
 of the most peaceable commimities, where much re- 
 ligious knowledge is enjoyed, and where the provi- 
 dential checks upon depravity appear to be most 
 uniform and powerful. In such states of society, ex- 
 traordinary instances of crime have sometimes fallen 
 suddenly upon the public ear, like thunder in a cloud- 
 less sky. All eyes are riveted, all thoughts absorbed,
 
 JOHN 1, 29. 79 
 
 and for a time the heart of the coirmiinity aj^pears to 
 beat like that of one man, so coincident and nniform 
 are its pulsations. Out of such events the providence 
 and grace of God may bring the most beneficent ef- 
 fects ; but such effects can never be secured by man's 
 sagacity or goodness. Such is the wayward incon- 
 sistency of human nature, that the very action which 
 electrifies with horror may incite to imitation, or at 
 least to the commission of analogous offences. Ay, 
 and even among those who are seciire from any such 
 extreme effect, there is a dangerous illusion which 
 may easily exist. Among the multitudes who stand 
 aghast at insulated instances of awful crime, there 
 may be many who are not at all aware that they are 
 daily treating with contempt the very motives and 
 restraints which, in the case before them, God has 
 wisely but mysteriously suffered to be powerless. He 
 who despises in his ordinary practice the distinction 
 between moral good and evil, has comparatively little 
 right to wonder even at those acts of hellish malice 
 which mi<rht almost seem to indicate an incarnation 
 of the principle of evil in tlie being who commits 
 them. 
 
 But another error which luay easily arise in such 
 a case, is the error of supposing that these fearful re- 
 laxations of the usual restraint upon men's actions, 
 take place only in the case of individuals. Alas, my 
 hearers, it is frequently exemplified in whole com- 
 munities, not by the prevalence of such extreme de- 
 pravity as that referred to, which would be wholly 
 incompatible with any form of social order ; but by 
 a general sinking of the tone of public sentiment, a
 
 go SERMONS. 
 
 growing insensibilit}^ to moral and religious motivea. 
 a gradual or sudden dereliction of established rules of 
 order and decorum ; a progressive diminution of tlie 
 popular respect for age and elevated character ; a 
 sensible decay of that ingenuous shame which is at 
 once the safeguard and ihe charm of youth ; in cre- 
 ating boldness on the part of crime, and a proportion- 
 ate increase of timid caution on the part of those 
 whose work is to suppress it ; increase of influence in 
 those whose influence is all for evil, and an ominous 
 precocity of vice in youth, portending that without 
 the fear of God preventing it, the next generation 
 will be worse than this. Is this a fancy picture? 
 Have you never seen its counterpart in real life? 
 Have yoLi never even heard of such changes taking 
 place amidst the most unusual advantages, and with 
 an impetus so fearful that the general complexion of 
 society was quickly changed, the seat of order and 
 morality becoming in a few years the abode of wick- 
 edness which cannot blush, and, I had almost said, 
 the house of prayer transformed into a den of thieves ? 
 Such changes have been and, for aught I know, they 
 may be passing now. The question is not whether 
 they are possible, but whether they can be pre- 
 vented. 
 
 In a community which shows some symptoms of 
 this fatal process, what shall the friends of human 
 happiness attempt in opposition to its progress ? Shall 
 they aim their blows at certain special evils, inde- 
 pendent of each other, except so far as all sins are 
 committed, and attempt their extirpation? In all 
 such cases there are some specific reformations which
 
 JOHN 1, 29. 81 
 
 must be effected. There are social nuisances wMcb 
 ought to be abated. Tliere are fountains of corrup- 
 tion, some of which are capable of being cleansed by 
 the infusion of divine salt : others set purgation at 
 defiance, and can only be exhausted, choked, or ren- 
 dered inaccessible. But while these specific remedies 
 may be imperatively needed, they can never be sufti- 
 cient of themselves. It matters not how many foun- 
 tains of external vice are dried and stopped, unless a 
 fountain be opened for sin and uncleanness. It mat- 
 ters not how many voices cry aloud in warning to the 
 drunkard and the libertine, the gambler and the thief, 
 exhorting them to put away their sins by righteous- 
 ness, unless among them some voice cry to all without 
 exception, and without cessation, "Behold the Lamb of 
 God wliich taketh away the sin of the world." But 
 between these methods tliere is no contrariety or disa- 
 greement. Both are but parts of one harmonious whole. 
 It is only by attempting to divorce them that the one 
 becomes inefiectual if not pernicious ; let them be com- 
 bined, and let the same voice which exhorts men to 
 beware of those sins which most easily beset them, let 
 the same voice continually, earaestly invite them to 
 behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin 
 of the world. I know that by many he will be de- 
 spised ; but if this Avere any reason for withholding 
 the offers of the gospel, its glad sound would long 
 since have been hushed. One of the marks by which 
 he was identified in prophecy is this : " despised and 
 rejected of men," and you will bear me witness that 
 in this point the offence of the cross has not ceased. 
 And let us bear in mind that man's natural condition 
 VUL, I. — 4*
 
 82 SERMONS. 
 
 is a state of illusion, extending to tlie most flnportant 
 objects, and indeed becoming more profound with tlie 
 importance of the object ; that one of the most natural 
 effects of this illusion is to vitiate his estimate of 
 things and persons, so that he highly esteems that 
 which is abominable in tjie sight of God, and on the 
 contrary, despises precisely what he ought to love and 
 reverence. Under the influence of this illusion he can 
 despise his own best interest for time and for eternity. 
 He can despise the correct public sentiment by which 
 he is condemned. He can despise the hopes and fears 
 and affectionate solicitude of friends aiid kindred. 
 He can despise a father's counsels and a mother's 
 tears. He can despise the very fundamental princi- 
 ples of morals both in theory and practice. He can 
 despise the law of God. He can despise the means 
 of grace. He can despise the gospel. So profound 
 is the illusion which produces this contempt, that he 
 can even despise things while he thinks he hon- 
 ours them. The man who patronizes Christ and his 
 religion, who allows the church a place among his 
 sources of amusement, and permits the Bible to al- 
 ternate sometimes with his play -books and romances, 
 who admits in words that religion is a good thing, 
 and intimates his willingness to show it countenance ; 
 the man who does this may imagine that he really 
 respects religion, but, if ever he is brought to see 
 himself as a contemptible worm of the dust, a lost 
 and ruined sinner, whose only hope is in the very 
 gosj)el which he thus condescends to take under his 
 protection, he will also see that while he thought he 
 did it reverence he really despised it. And to crown
 
 JOHN 1, 29. 83 
 
 the whole, he can despise the cross. He can despise 
 the Saviour. He can despise the groans of Getli- 
 semane and Golgotha. And shall he who thus de- 
 spises the moet glorious and precious of all objects in 
 the universe, be still pursued with invitations to be- 
 hold the Lamb of God whom he despises ? Yes, it 
 must be so. Our Lord himself upon the cross not 
 only prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers, but 
 by his outstretched limbs and streaming wounds said 
 to all who passed by, in tones more audible than lan- 
 guage, " Behold the Lamb of God." 
 
 His servants dare not be less patient than himself. 
 They must pursue the most inveterate despiser of the 
 gospel with the same importunate and agonizing cry. 
 Behold, behold the Lamb of God. Let that call follow 
 him wherever he may hide himself. Let that call reach 
 him at his table and his fireside, in his closet and his 
 chamber, in his place of business and his haunts of dis- 
 sipation. Let it mingle with his music and his jovial 
 laughter. Let the rattling of his dice-box and the chink 
 of his dishonest gains be still drowned by the echo of 
 that distant cry, Behold ! Behold ! And though he still 
 continue to despise it while he lives, let it ring in his 
 ears upon his dying bed, and let the last look of his 
 fading eye be invited to the cross by that same word 
 Behold ! Behold ! and though he die despising it, he 
 shall not cease to hear it, for that word shall still ring 
 in his ears when his illusions are dispelled forever ; 
 when his soul, before it takes its final plunge, shall see 
 the objects which it once despised arrayed in all their 
 excellence and glory, and in spite of its endeavours 
 to avert its gaze, shall be compelled to see them as it
 
 84: 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 would not see tliem here ; then, then shall that de- 
 spised call be the last sound that strikes upon his 
 failing sense, Behold the La:mu of God that taxeth 
 
 AWAY THE Sm OF THE WOKLD.
 
 V. 
 
 Romans 1, 25. — They worshipped and served the creature more 
 than the Creator. 
 
 There is no fact in the history of the ancient Jews 
 more certain or familiar than their constant propen- 
 sity to lapse into idolatry. The particular form of the 
 transgression was dependent ni3on variable circum- 
 stances, time, place, foreign associations, special op- 
 portunities ; but still it was idolatry, the worship of 
 false gods, to which they w^ere continually tempted, 
 and into which they were continually falling, their 
 grand national offence, by which the dark side of their 
 history is uniformly characterized. Their periods of 
 corruption were all periods of idolatry, their worst 
 men were idolaters ; this was the standing form in 
 which their national and individual depravity con- 
 tinually showed itself. Their unlawful alliances with 
 foreign powers were almost invariably complicated 
 with participation in their idol- worship. The occult 
 arts which they are charged with practising, were 
 mere appendages of that same worship. In a word, 
 so far as they are said to be corrupt at all, it is in this 
 way more conspicuously and constantly than any 
 other. The sin of ancient Israel was idolatry. Tho
 
 86 SERMONS. 
 
 sinners of ancient Israel were idolaters. A every 
 recorded deviation from the service of Jehovah, we 
 come at the first turn to an altar or an image whether 
 of Baal, Ashtoreth, or Moloch. 
 
 This fact, however, would be less surprising when 
 taken in connection with the universal prevalence of 
 idolatry around them, were it not for another equally 
 certain and familiar which their history presents as 
 the counterpart of this one. I refer to the fact, that 
 after a certain crisis in their history this stigma is 
 obKterated. Since the return from Babylon, the Jews, 
 as a community, have never been reproached with 
 any tendency to idol worship. Amidst all the cor- 
 ruption which existed in the later periods of their 
 history as a people in their own land, amidst all their 
 persecutions and dispersions since, they have held 
 fast their integrity in this respect. "While a large 
 part of the Christian world has resumed the form 
 if not the substance of idolatrous worship, the de- 
 spised and scattered Jews have still borne witness 
 against their defection. In this the reformed churches 
 now nnite with them — so, likewise, do the Moham- 
 medans. Among the modern Jews and Moslems, 
 and in Protestant Christendom, the lea-st appearance 
 of idolatry is reckoned a sure symptom of corruption. 
 
 This extraordinary contrast very naturally prompts 
 the question, how and why is it so ? What has be- 
 come of the idolatrous propensity which once ap- 
 peared inseparable from the corruptions of the human 
 heart ? How is it that whenever ancient Israel went 
 astray from God, they went astray in this direction, 
 and that now even the most impious never seem to 
 
 I
 
 ROMANS 1, 23. 87 
 
 take it either by accident or choice? If it be said 
 that tlie continued existence of the same propensity 
 appears in the idolatrous cormptions of the Romish 
 and the Oriental chnrches, this affords no adequate 
 solution of the difficulty ; first, because the abuses in 
 question admit of a different explanation, or may at 
 least be traced to a very different origin, but second- 
 ly and chiefly, because it either takes for granted that 
 the whole amount of human corruption is now shut 
 up in these churches, or else leaves us still without an 
 explanation of the fact, that the corruption which 
 exists among ourselves never takes this form. Leav- 
 ing entirely out of view the worship of the Virgin 
 Mary, and of saints and images in other parts of 
 Christendom, how is it that among ourselves the same 
 propensity is now extinct, although the general corrup- 
 tion of the heart and of society is still so great ? Among 
 our many crying sins, why is there no idolatry? 
 Among our flagrant sinners, no idolaters ? There 
 might be less cause to propound this question, if a 
 corresponding change had taken ])lace among the 
 heathen ; if their false religions had been gradually 
 passing into new forms, we might then regard the 
 change among ourselves as part of a great alterative 
 process, to which the whole race had alike been sub- 
 jected. But it is not so. The hundreds of millions 
 of the heathen world are as idolatrous as ever. The 
 stupendous revolutions which have shaken the whole 
 structure of their civil constitutions, or resolved socie- 
 ty into its elements and wrought them into new com- 
 binations, have still left their images and altars stand- 
 ing where they stood before ! How is it then, the
 
 88 SERMONS. 
 
 question still returns, that in our catal Jgue of sins we 
 now find no idolatry ? Is it because we are too civ- 
 ilized ? But if by this we mean a higher degree of 
 intellectual refinement and extreme cultivation of the 
 taste, we have only to remember Greece, to look at 
 Athens, with all the learning and refinement of the 
 world concentrated in her schools and works of art, 
 yet blended, even there, with the insignia of idola- 
 try, her sages teaching wisdom in the portico of idol 
 temples, her artists vying with each other in the 
 decoration of her images and altars. Or is it civil 
 and political wisdom, military force, and practical sa- 
 gacity, that furnishes the key to this remarkable 
 phenomenon ? Then look at Rome, and see how far 
 her arms and laws produced the same effect. Ascend 
 the Capitoline hill, as you before climbed the Acropo- 
 lis, or enter the Pantheon as you visited the Parthe- 
 non. Survey the ruined temples which enclose the 
 area of the ancient Forum, and then separate, if you 
 can, even in imagination, the Roman idolatry from 
 the Roman greatness. 
 
 Again, if the difference be ascribed to the moral 
 elevation of our social state above that of the Greeks 
 and Romans even in their palmiest days, the reason 
 is fallacious, as it mistakes the cause for the effect. 
 In cultivation of mere taste and intellect, we certainly 
 have no advantage over those ancients whom we still 
 acknowledge as our models and onr oracles; so the 
 moral superiority which constitutes the difference in 
 our favour is itself the fruit of Christianity, and can- 
 not therefore be the reason why Christianity, at least 
 within the chosen sphere of our inquiry, is so free 
 
 I
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 89 
 
 rom idolatrous admixtures; why tlie unrenewed who 
 bear the Christian name, though unacquainted witt 
 the power of divine truth, do not fall into idolatry. 
 
 Since none of the solutions which have been sug- 
 gested, seem sufficient to account for this remarkable 
 difference of the forms in which depravity and oppo- 
 sition to the truth have shown themselves at different 
 times ; since it seems so hard to explain why idolatry 
 is now so rare or utterly unknown among ourselves, 
 it may not be without its use to look for a moment at 
 the question in another form, and to inquire whether, 
 after all, our religion or our irreligion is so free from 
 the idolatrous element as we have hitherto supposed ; 
 and if not, what are the appearances which bear the 
 most resemblance to the false religions of the ancient 
 world. In order to do this without confusion, or with 
 any satisfactory result, it will be necessary to consider 
 and determine what we mean by idolatry. We must, 
 of course, reject the definition founded on the etymol- 
 ogy of the word itself, which would restrict it to the 
 worship of material images. Then they who adored 
 the sun and moon, and all the host of heaven, were 
 no idolaters. They who invoked the winds, and 
 bowed down at the fountain-head of streams, and 
 whispered their devotions to the air, and called upon 
 the overhanging mountains to protect them, are ex- 
 cluded from the catalogue. How large a part of the 
 classical mythology would thus be shut out? — nay, 
 how large a part of the idolatry which even now ex- 
 ists among nations less refined and civilized ? The 
 idolatry of which we are in search, then, is not simply 
 the external worship of material images, of stocks
 
 90 SERMONS. 
 
 and stones, thongli this may be c( nsidtred its mos^t 
 palpable and grossest exhibition. On the other hand, 
 idolatry is not to be resolved into a purely spiritual 
 act, the preference of some other supreme object of 
 affection to our Maker. 
 
 This, though the soul of all idolatry, is not the 
 whole of it. This subtle essence of the sin exists now 
 just as much as in ancient times; just as much in 
 one kind of irreligion as another. Covetousness is 
 idolatry, but idolatry is not covetousness. It is not 
 the mere rejection or neglect of God as the object of 
 our worship, but the religious preference of something 
 else. Of what? "What was there common to the 
 false religions of the old world, giving them a com- 
 mon character ? jSTot image worship, in the strict sense 
 which, as we have seen, was far from being universal. 
 Much less the form, or name, or legendary- history of 
 the idol, or the attributes ascribed to it ; for these were 
 indefinitely various. What then? What was it that 
 imparted to the ancient jDaganism its distinctive char- 
 acter, not merely as an aberration or apostasy from 
 God, but as an outward realization and embodiment 
 of that apostasy — not merely as a sin, but as a reli- 
 gion? This is a cpiestion which has occupied the 
 thoughts and tasked the j^owers of some of the most 
 learned and profound historical explorers of the pres- 
 ent day, and which has led them to a laborious com- 
 parison of all that still remains to illustrate or exem- 
 plify the false religions of the ancient world ; and, 
 whether right or wrong, they are strangely unanimous 
 in the conclusion that the unity of these religions lies 
 in this, that they are all in origin, or tendency, or
 
 ROMANS 1 25. 91 
 
 both, avowedly or covertly, tlie "Worship of nature. 
 However they might differ in their symbols or their 
 rites, iu their theology or ethics, they are all reducible 
 to this at last. However far they may have deviated 
 from the first intuition — however far the crowd of 
 worshippers may frequently have been from compre- 
 hending the full import of the services in which they 
 W'Cre engaged, it is suj^posed that by a natural histor- 
 ical deduction, this pervading character may still be 
 traced in all of them — the worship of nature. 
 
 This view of the matter does not, of course, ex- 
 clude a vast variety of forms and of gradations in the 
 theory as well as in the practice of idolatry. The 
 lowest stage, above that of mere stupid acquiescence 
 in an arbitrary and unmeaning rite, may be described 
 as the religious worship of particular natural objects 
 or their artificial representatives. Within this limit a 
 diversity might still exist, determined by the nature 
 of the objects worshipped, and their rank in the scale 
 of existence, from the shapeless stone or mass of earth, 
 to plants, to trees — from the meanest brutes to the 
 most noble — from moles and bats to the lion and to 
 the eagle — from the clod to the mountain — from the 
 spring to the ocean — from earth to heaven. 
 
 A still more intellectual variety of such worship 
 would be that which, instead of individual sensible 
 objects, paid its adorations to the elements or to the 
 mysterious powders of nature, such as heat, cold, mois- 
 ture, light and darkness, life and death. By a still 
 higher act of philosophical abstraction, some who 
 were considered most enlightened and exempt from 
 vulgar prejudices, worshipped Nature itself, the ma-
 
 92 SERMONS. 
 
 terial universe, to ttuv, including all tlie power and 
 elements and individual objects which have been al- 
 ready mentioned. This was the highest reach of the 
 idolatrous theology, the worship of nature in its last 
 degree of sublimation ; but from this down through 
 all the inferior gradations, it was still essentially the 
 same religion — it was still the worship of nature — the 
 highest knowledge was the knowledge of nature — the 
 most sacred mysteries were the secrets of nature — 
 sin was a violation of nature — holiness was conformity 
 to nature — atonement was reconciliation with nature, 
 or restoration to a state of nature. This was the god, 
 or rather the divinity, whom they adored. When 
 regarded as one without personality — when viewed as 
 personal no longer one — a hideous choice between a 
 god without life, and an army of gods with it, be- 
 tween Polytlieism with its practical follies, and Pan- 
 theism with its abstract liorrors. 
 
 But amidst all these capricious alternations, and 
 under all these varying disguises, the same unaltered 
 countenance still glares upon us from behind its thou- 
 sand masks ; the same inflamed, yet lifeless eye still 
 follows us wherever we may turn among the altars, 
 and the idols, and the shrines of heathenism. The 
 endless confusion of the voices which ascend in prayer 
 and praise from these polluted sanctuaries, ever and 
 anon are heard in unison, at least in concord. Their 
 gods are many, but their god is one — their worship, 
 after all, is but the worship) of nature. "Whatever we 
 may think as to tlie truth or plausibility of these views 
 with respect to the essential character of ancient hea- 
 thenism, they derive at least some countenance from
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 93 
 
 the solution which they seem to afford of the phe- 
 nomenon already mentioned — the disappearance of 
 idolatry as one of the most frequent forms in which 
 the corruption of mankind once acted out its opposi- 
 tion to the doctrines and the precepts of the true reli- 
 gion. On this hypothesis, if on no other, it may cer- 
 tainly be said, that, though the impious among our- 
 selves no longer pray to stocks and stones, or beasts 
 and birds, or moon and stars, there is still a strong 
 taint of idolatry perceptible in our religion, science, 
 literature, business, — nay, om* very language. Yes, I 
 say our very language ; for, to what strange accident 
 can it be owing, that in common parlance and in cur- 
 rent literature there should be so constant, so instinc- 
 tive an aversion to the name of God as a personal dis- 
 tinctive appellation. That the names of Christ and 
 of the Holy Spirit should be shunned, is less surpris- 
 ing, these being so peculiar to the dialect of revela- 
 tion, not to say of the New Testament. But the same 
 considerations do not serve to explain the almost su- 
 perstitious care with which our irreligious writers man- 
 age to dispense with what would seem to be the most in- 
 dispensable of all words — the incommunicable name of 
 God. Can it be reverence, religious awe, that j^rompts 
 this suppression ? a feeling near akin to that which 
 led the Jews in early time, and ever since, to hush up, 
 as it were, the tetragrammaton, the dread name of 
 Jehovah, as too sacred even to be whispered in the 
 sanctuary by his own anointed priest, or breathed by 
 the heart-broken suppliant at the altar ? Is it this 
 makes our novelists and journalists as much afraid to 
 speak of God as if they thought he would appear be-
 
 94: SERMONS. 
 
 fore them at the call ? Alas, this exj-lanation is pre- 
 cluded by the levity with which the same men often 
 make that venerable name the theme of ribald jests 
 and the burden of blasphemous imprecation. ISo ; 
 the name seems to be shunned because it means too 
 much, suggests too much, concedes too much. ISTot 
 that they would deny the being of a God, or that they 
 have a settled creed at all about the matter, but they 
 feel, perhaps they know not why, that otlier modes 
 of speech are more congenial, and the choice of these 
 may throw some light upon the secret motive of the 
 change. 
 
 ]S[ot only is the grand and simple name of God 
 exchanged for a descriptive title, such as Supreme 
 Being — or an abstract term, the Deity — but still more 
 readily and frequently is God supplanted by a god- 
 dess, and her name is l^ature. It is nature that en- 
 dows men with her gifts and graces : it is nature 
 that piles mountains upon mountains in her sportive 
 freaks: it is nature that regulates the seasons and 
 controls the elements. There can be no doubt that 
 this language has a very different sense in different 
 cases, and that it may even be employed by the de- 
 voutest Christian without any intentionail dej)arture 
 from the truth. There can be no doubt that in some 
 mouths, this definition of nature is only a rhetorical 
 trope or a poetical embellishment — in others a eu- 
 phemistic substitute for God — in others a collective 
 abstract term, denoting the whole aggregate of second 
 causes and of instrumental agencies, without excluding 
 the immediate presence and efficient action of the 
 First Cause and Prime Mover. But whether these
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 95 
 
 exceptions are enough to cover all the cases, whether 
 these solutions are snflicient to account for the in- 
 creasing disposition in our popular and fashionable 
 writers, to let nature and her works and her gifts 
 and her graces usurp the place of God and His works 
 and His gifts and His graces, is another question. But 
 even if we give it an affirmative and favourable an- 
 swer, it is still an odd coincidence that this darling 
 figure of speech or philosophical formula should so 
 exactly tally with the spirit and language of idolatry 
 or paganism considered as the worshij) of nature. 
 
 But this coincidence, though strange, w^ould not 
 be so surprising as it is, if it were limited to literary 
 composition. All but the highest class of writers 
 have their mannerism and their affectations, which, 
 although offensive to a pure taste, must be borne with 
 and forgiven as inevitable. These are sometimes de- 
 rived from unsuccessful imitation, even of the best 
 models. And the modes of speech in question may, 
 in some, be the effect of classical studies, just as 
 youthful poets often introduce the classical mythology 
 for ornament, without the slightest faitli in its reality 
 as matter of belief. It may be said tlicn, that so long 
 as these imaginary traces of the old idolatry are only 
 found in word and phrase they are innocent enough, 
 and that they need excite no serious alarm until they 
 show themselves in deed as well as word, and in the 
 practical realities of life as well as in the fanciful 
 creations of romance or poetry. They wlio give tliis 
 challenge might perhaps be surprised to find it readily 
 accepted, and still more to be told that these analogies 
 are traceable in real life and its least romantic and
 
 96 SERMONS, 
 
 imaginative walks, in the labours of tlie field and of 
 tlie shop no less than in those of the study and the 
 library. The compulsory dependence upon seasons, 
 weather, rain, and sunshine, which accompanies the 
 culture of the earth, is a divine appointment, and is 
 therefore perfectly compatible with faith and a devo- 
 tional spirit. But when divorced from these, it takes 
 the form of an extreme anxiety, a breathless watch- 
 ing of the elements, a superstitious faith in something 
 quite distinct from God, although perhaj)S below him, 
 and a constant disposition to invest this something 
 with an individual existence and with personal attri- 
 butes ; although it may prove nothing with respect 
 to an}' formal opinion or belief, it certainly presents 
 another strange approximation to the spirit and the 
 practice of the old idolaters. The besotted fisherman 
 who on om* own coast feels himself to be the slave of 
 the winds and tides, without a thought of God as 
 their creator and his own, is not so very far removed 
 as we may imagine from the state of the old Greek or 
 Phenician who sacrificed to Ocean ere he launched 
 his bark. The mariner who spends whole nights in 
 whistling for the wind may do it from habit or may do 
 it in jest ; but he may also do it with a secret faith and 
 a feeling of dependence near akin to worship, and by 
 no means wholly diflerent in kind from the emotions 
 of the ancient pagan, as he poured out his libations 
 to Eolus, or his prayers to the i:)articular wind of which 
 he stood in need. The social and domestic super- 
 stitions which have lingered in all Christian countries, 
 as to signs of good and evil luck, and the methods of 
 procuring or averting it, are not always mere errors in
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 9Y 
 
 philosophy or morals, but religions aberrations, the 
 relics and memorials of a heathenism which Ave 
 sometimes look npon with too much confidence as 
 finally exploded. "We often hear, and are compelled 
 to acknowledge, that there is lieathenism among us ; 
 but it is not merely negative — the ignorance or unbe- 
 lief of what is true, it has always more or less a posi- 
 tive reality, the actual belief of what is false ; and if 
 we should be supposed to relapse as a nation into bar- 
 barism and idolatry — perhaps the first steps of the 
 retrocession would be found to have been already 
 taken in the cherishing of petty superstitions, and the 
 practice of devices, which have either been transmit- 
 ted by tradition from a heathen origin, or sprung di- 
 rectly from the same prolific principle — the natural 
 propensity of fallen man to the" worship of nature. 
 
 But here again an unfair advantage may appear 
 to be taken of the j)opular credulity and ignorance, 
 and the same objection may be made to sweeping in- 
 ferences from the errors of the vulgar, as before from 
 the affectations of the literary world. The very fact 
 that the disputed proofs have been derived from quar- 
 ters so remote and so dissimilar,- might seem to give 
 them new and independent weight. But even admit- 
 ting that the objection is again a valid one — that men 
 in general cannot be philosophers, and that the unin- 
 structed multitude must always embrace errors, some 
 of which may accidentally resemble those of heathen- 
 ism : let us ascend again into the region of intellectual 
 cultivation, and continue our inquiries there, not as 
 before in reference to modes of speech and styles of 
 composition, but in reference to scientific observation. 
 
 VOL. I. — 5
 
 9g SERMONS. 
 
 Here again we find the furthest reach of speculation 
 and discovery compatible, and actually blended with 
 the simplest faith and the lowliest devotion. But it 
 is not always so. The philosophical explorer does 
 not always "look through nature up to nature's God." 
 He often stops short of that glorious object. He often 
 looks upon God's place as empty, or as filled by an- 
 other — by another yet the same — for this usurper of 
 the throne and of the worshipper's affections, is still 
 that nature, the appeals to which by other classes 
 have already been explained away as forms of speech 
 or ignorant misapprehensions. I^o one supposes that 
 astronomers in Christian countries ever formally adore 
 the stars, or that geologists are worshippers of mother 
 earth, or chemists of the elements, or botanists of 
 trees and flowers. But let the evidence that some of 
 all these classes recognize a Nature, quite distinct 
 from God, by whose mysterious virtues these effects 
 are all produced, and whose authoritative laws are 
 independent of his will, I say let the detailed in- 
 dications of this strange belief be gathered from 
 the language, from the actions, and, as for as may be, 
 from the feelings of these votaries of science ; and 
 then weighed against the corresponding proofs of 
 their belief in one Supreme, Infinite, and Personal 
 God, distinct from all his works, and sovereign over 
 them, to whose inspection all things are open, and 
 without whose knowledge and permission not a hair 
 falls or a sparrow dies ; let those two testimonies bo 
 confronted and compared, and then it will appear 
 whether some who have deservedly been ranked 
 among the prophets and the high priests of material
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 99 
 
 wisdom were in heart and practice worsliippers of God, 
 or (like the blinded heathen) worshippers of nature. 
 
 The analogies which have been suggested may 
 be fanciful, or even if well founded they may be 
 restricted to the cases specified, and leave untouched 
 a multitude in Christian and in Protestant commu- 
 nities, who in neither of the ways described are wor- 
 shippers of nature. But of these a large proportion 
 may be comprehended in another category, as roman- 
 tic and poetical idolaters of nature, who adore her 
 not for her material gifts, nor yet as the object of 
 severe and scientific scrutiny, but as the source of sen- 
 sible and imaginative pleasure. These are the wor- 
 shipj)ers of beauty in its widest sense, to whom the 
 beautiful is the chief good, or its highest manifes- 
 tation. The keenest sensibility of this kind has been 
 found in combination with the strongest faith and 
 most devout affections ; nor is there any thing in 
 either to forbid their frequent, their habitual union. 
 But reason and experience alike bear witness that the 
 combination is not necessary ; that although the ele- 
 ments may coexist, they may exist apart ; they have 
 done, they do still, exist apart. The voice that whispers 
 in the trees or roars in the tornado, may to some ears 
 be the voice of God ; and every note of that grand 
 music may be set to words on record here ; — but they 
 may also utter other inspirations, and bring responses 
 from another oracle. Instead of calling us to God, 
 they may but call us to themselves, or to the place 
 where nature sits enthroned as God. This form of 
 nature worship far surpasses all the others in the 
 strength of its appeals to human sensibility. The-
 
 100 SERMONS. 
 
 ejc, the ear, the memoiy, the imagination, the affec- 
 tions, may be all enslaved. The spell requires for its 
 effect no scientific lore, no mercenary interest, but 
 only constitutional susceptibility of strong impressions 
 from the grand or beautiful. It requires the aid nei- 
 ther of superstitious fears nor philosophical abstrac- 
 tions. It only asks men to be pleased, excited, awed, 
 subdued. The more delicious the sensations, the 
 more irresistible the spell. It may be, and it is some- 
 times the case, that this extraordinary power is all 
 used to make God present to the soul. But how much 
 oftener to steep it in oblivion of him, and to bound 
 its views by that stupendous framework which was 
 reared to bring men nearer to their Maker, but when 
 thus employed forever hinders their aj)proach, and 
 even hides him from their view. 
 
 This form of idolatry has all the aid that art can 
 yield to nature. The idolater of nature cannot but 
 be an idolater of art. And here the coincidence with 
 heathenism is not one of principle only, but of out- 
 ward form. Tlie high art of the ancients was a part 
 of their religion. It was not an idle tickling of the 
 sense or fancy. In the perfection of their imitation 
 and the beauty of their original creations they did 
 honour to the god of their idolatry, not indirectly, as 
 the author of their skill, but most directly, as its 
 only object. It was nature that they represented, 
 beautified, and worshipped. The gradual return in 
 modern times to this view of the arts, and the impas- 
 sioned zeal with which it is pursued, if not among 
 ourselves, in other lands, is one of the most startling 
 analogies to heathenism that can be produced, and
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 101 
 
 promises or threatens, more than any other, to result 
 in an exterior resemblance corresponding to the essen- 
 tial one described already. 
 
 It may no doubt be said that this romantic and 
 poetical apotheosis both of art and nature has result- 
 ed by reaction from the barbarous neglect and the 
 unscriptural contempt especially of God's material 
 works, as suited to excite the powers and refine the 
 taste, not only without prejudice to faith and piety, 
 but so as to jDromote them. This is in some sense 
 true, nor is this the only case in which the errors of 
 the church have served to aggravate tlie errors and 
 abuses of the Avorld. Had Christians always exer- 
 cised a wise discretion in relation to the love and ad- 
 miration both of nature and of art, this poetical idola- 
 tr}^ might possibly have spared some of its most 
 extravagant displays. But the idolatry itself springs 
 from a deeper and remoter source. As long as man 
 retains the sensibilities which God has given him and 
 yet remains unwilling to retain God in his thoughts, 
 the voice of nature will be louder than the voice of 
 God. If God is not in the wind, the fire, or the 
 earthquake, these will nevertheless sweep the multi- 
 tude before them, and the still small voice of revela- 
 tion be heard only by a chosen few. AVhen certain 
 causes now at work have had their full eflcct, the 
 worshipper of God will again be like Elijah on Mt. 
 lloreb, while the vast mixed multitude arc worship- 
 pers of nature. 
 
 If the agreements which have now been traced be- 
 tween the spirit and practice of the irreligious world 
 and those of the heathen as w^orshippers of nature,
 
 102 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 really exist and are Vnat they lia^ e been represented, 
 it may reasonably be expected that the principle of 
 this idolatry will not only show itself in art and spread 
 itself as spiritual leaven, but avow itself in doctrine. 
 It has done so already in the pantheistical philosoj)hy 
 of Germany, and in the form w^hicli it has given, 
 there and elsewhere, to theology, to science, to ro- 
 mantic fiction, to rhetorical criticism, to the theo- 
 ry and practice of the arts. The taint of this infec- 
 tion may be traced by critical antopsis in places 
 where its name would not be foreseen. It may be 
 found adhering to schemes of doctrine highly evan- 
 gelical in general form as well as in profession. At 
 the same time it may be detected poisoning the full 
 flow of poetic inspiration, and insinuating its corrup- 
 tion into the enjoyment afforded by the imitative arts 
 in their least offensive and apparently most useful 
 applications. Guided in almost any direction by this 
 phantom, he who sets out as a worshipper of God, 
 may find himself before he is aware, a gross idolater 
 of nature. It would seem then that if we once as- 
 sume as an established fact that heathenism is in 
 origin and principle the worship of nature, we are not 
 so wholly free from all idolatrous propensities as we 
 might otherwise imagine ; and that although Jupiter 
 and Baal have no images or shrines among us, the same 
 spirit which once prompted and controlled their wor- 
 ship, may, at least, be faintly traced not only in our 
 forms of speech, but in the various walks of life and 
 classes of society— in the mercenary, practical, indus- 
 trial, utilitarian idolatry of worldly, money-making 
 men — in the learned philosophical idolatry of unde-
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 103 
 
 vout astronomers and men of science — in the poeti- 
 cal, romantic, and sestlietical idolatry of those who 
 worship art and beauty — and in the formal jDroposi- 
 tions or the indirect insinuations of pantheistical phi- 
 losophers and theologians. 
 
 With respect to the last cases, it is highly im- 
 portant to observe, that they are strongly distinguished 
 from the rest by the religious air which they assume 
 and their appropriation of established forms of speech 
 to new and very different objects. This tone and 
 dialect of piety have aided not a little in the progress 
 of these innovations. Like the child who thought 
 that any book was good in which the name of God 
 occurred, some children of a larger growth appear to 
 be persuaded that the formulas of Christian devotion 
 must be equally significant and equally demonstrative 
 of truth and goodness, whether applied to God and 
 Christ or to the woods and the waves, the lightning, 
 and the flowers. But this tone of deep religious feel- 
 ing, when divorced from the legitimate objects of 
 such feeling, only shows that this devotion to the 
 works of God or man is truly a religion — that it is 
 not admiration, but worship — that it is not good taste, 
 but rank idolatry. When one of the great founders 
 of this new religion, or rather of this resuscitated pa- 
 ganism, names, as the object of his love and trust, 
 God in his most intimate union with nature, it is easy 
 to perceive that the union he contemplates is a union 
 of identity, that God is still retained as a convenient 
 and familiar name, but that the true divinity, en- 
 ehrined and chanted, with such exquisite appliances
 
 104: 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 of i^aintiug, sculpture, poetry, and music, is not the 
 God of revelation but the goddess of Nature. 
 
 From all this it becomes us to take warning, that 
 whatever we do we do with our eyes open, to see to it 
 that we incur not the reproach, " Ye know not what ye 
 worship," and to see to it that we are not led into 
 idolatry b}^ any specious figments or delusions, lest 
 we be constrained to take up the lament of those 
 confessors in the times of heathen persecution, who, 
 though proof against all menace and persuasion, were 
 at last miserably cheated into acts of worship at the 
 altar of an idol, when they thought themselves kneel- 
 ing at tlie altar of their God. But against this fear- 
 ful issue mere precaution avails nothing. To the vo- 
 taries and victims of these " strong delusions," some- 
 thing definite and positive must be presented, as an 
 object of faith and of afi'ection. To the active mind, 
 excited and half frenzied by the vague but captivat- 
 ing dreams of a disguised idolatry, it is not enough 
 to say — be rational. The surges of that troubled sea, 
 the heart of man, when roused by these impetuous 
 winds of doctrine, can be lulled by no voice but the 
 voice of him, who from the storm-tossed bark upon 
 the waters of Genessaret, cried of old, in tones of ir- 
 resistible authority, " Peace, be still." And even 
 then the assuaging influence seems to come forth, not 
 so much from the command as from the personality 
 of him who utters it. To some who are already 
 drifting into the exterior circles of this soul-destroy- 
 ing whirljjoo], there comes not only a sound but a 
 sight — an unexpected sight. "Where all seemed dark
 
 ROMANS 1, 25. 105 
 
 and black with tempest, there appears a living form, 
 holding forth to yonr acceptance, something real, 
 something certain, something living, something last- 
 ing, something that may be seen, and felt, and known, 
 and loved, and trusted — a Father — a Saviour — a 
 Eedeemer and a Comforter. This, this, is life eter- 
 nal, to know, &c., falling down at the feet of this re- 
 vealed, this manifested God, and opening to him 
 yonr mind, your conscience, and your heart forever. 
 You may turn to the idolaters of every name and say 
 ■v^ith proud humility, " We worship, and we know " 
 
 VOL. I.- 
 
 Ji*
 
 VI. 
 
 John 3, 36. — He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: 
 and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of 
 God abideth on him. 
 
 This is one of the most evangelical verses in the 
 Bible, that is to say, one most strongly marked with 
 the peculiarities of the gospel, not only in sentiment 
 and spirit, but even in phraseology. In order to 
 understand this peculiar quality, we must in imagi- 
 nation change our own position. To us, who are fa- 
 miliar with the Bible from our infancy, its parts, in this 
 respect, seem all alike. "With all allowance for the 
 many advantages arising from this long familiarity 
 with Scriptm-e, it cannot be denied that there are also 
 disadvantages connected with it. While the general 
 system of divine truth is impressed upon our under- 
 standings with more fulness and distinctness, partic- 
 ular parts of it make less impression on our hearts than 
 if the whole were new. To those who have been 
 trained up in a knowledge of the Scriptures, the 
 method of redemption seems no more surprising than 
 those attributes of God which may be gathered from 
 his works. How diiferent the case of a new convert 
 from idolatry ! With him these splendid revelations
 
 JOHN 3, 36. 107 
 
 are as new as they are glorious, and if he believes, he 
 believes with Iiis heart. If he believes, his heaven 
 and earth are new ; he inhabits a new world ; he is 
 himself a new creature, and he feels it. Om* disad- 
 vantage, as compared with such a convert, is not 
 wholly irremediable, for although the evil is in some 
 degree inseparable froni our situation, and to that de- 
 gree compensated by immense advantages of another 
 kind, it is unquestionably aggravated by our own 
 remissness and stagnation in the study of the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 "Who does not feel that in certain states of mind, 
 he sees a freshness and vitality in truth, which at 
 other times are wanting ? And that these states of 
 mind are those precisely which he ought to cultivate ? 
 Are we not bound then to acquire the habit of thus 
 viewing truth, or rather are we not bound to seek the 
 aid of that quickening and illuminating Spirit whose 
 prerogative it is to give these glimpses of the truth 
 even to sinful mortals ? And may we not hope, with 
 his assistance, to approximate, if not to reach, the 
 freshness and the richness of impression made upon 
 the heathen convert by the grand discoveries of the 
 gospel ? 
 
 How such discoveries affect such minds, may best 
 be imagined by selecting some one passage, and sur- 
 veying it as if from the position of a heathen for the 
 first time brought to see it. For such a purpose there 
 is not a sentence in the Bible better suited than the 
 text which has been read ; for as already mentioned, 
 it is full to overflowing with the gospel. Let us sup- 
 pose an ancient Greek ; entirely unacquainted w^tli
 
 108 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 the Gospel, or the Jewish system which prepared tL« 
 way for it, but addicted to reflection and inquiring 
 for the truth, to have been present among John's dis- 
 ciples when these words were uttered. They would 
 have been to him a mere enigma. Interpreted accord- 
 ing to his own habitual views and feelings, they Avould 
 have conveyed ideas ; but hdw strange, how foreign, 
 how fantastic ! He that believeth on the Son. Who 
 is the Son? Why used thus absolutely as a title? 
 Who is this Son that must be trusted or believed ? 
 and why should he be trusted ? or for what ? For 
 everlasting life. All heathen nations are believers in 
 a future state, and this expression, therefore, would 
 be less surprising. But how inadequate, how false 
 the meaning, which the stranger must attach to it ! 
 How different an endless life in his elysium from the 
 gospel mystery of everlasting life ! The wrath of God 
 would also be a significant expression ; but here, if pos- 
 sible, the contrast would be greater still between the 
 Christian and the Gentile sense. Tlie God of the 
 Bible, and the gods of Olympus ! The wrath of Jeho- 
 vah, and the wrath of Jove ! The calm eternal pur- 
 pose of a holy God to punish sin, compared with the 
 base malice of an almighty sinner. It is needless to 
 observe how difficult it would be to prepare the mind 
 of such a person for the light of truth. And even if, 
 instead of being a blind polytheist, he were one of 
 those who sought and worshipped the unknown God, 
 how foreign would the doctrines and the terms of this 
 grand sentence be, from his vain speculations. It is 
 plain that it could not be made clear to him without 
 an exposition of the gospel as to all its leading prin-
 
 JOHN 3, 36. 109 
 
 ciples. This is apiDarent from tlie nature of tlie truths 
 which it expresses or involves. In order to evince 
 this, the doctiinal and practical substance of the text 
 may be reduced to four propositions or remarks. 
 
 The first is, that the highest good to which we can 
 aspire is eternal life. Ko heathen needs to be in- 
 formed that life is something more than existence. 
 There is a sympathetic feeling with what lives, which 
 cannot be excited by a lifeless thing. We cannot feel 
 for a stone or a clod, as we do for a tree or flower 
 which possesses life in its lowest form. Kor have we 
 that community of feeling with a plant which we 
 have with brute existence. We feel that they are 
 nearer to ourselves, and we respect them or the life 
 within them. But what is our sympathy for beasts 
 compared with our regard for human nature ? Indi- 
 vidual men we may despise or hate even in compari- 
 son with lower animals, but no man puts humanity 
 below the brutes. Because he feels that rational life 
 is better than irrational. Even this, however, is not 
 the highest sort of life. For we can conceive of reason 
 without the capacity of moral distinctions, without 
 the perception of moral good or evil. This it is true 
 we possess, and it adds so much to the rank of our 
 nature in the scale of existence. But alas ! even heathen 
 know that this moral life, if it may so be called, is quite 
 compatible with spiritual death. We are alive to 
 the perception of moral good, but dead to the enjoy- 
 ment of it. Is it not plain that a resurrection from 
 this death exalts us to a sort of life still higher ? Tliis 
 is spiritual life ; i. e. not merely the life of our spirits, 
 for in a lower sense they were alive before, but a life
 
 1X0 SERMONS. 
 
 produced by the Spirit of G jd. A-S this life consists 
 in our being alive to God, to the performance of his 
 "will and the enjoyment of his favom-, it might seem 
 to be the highest life of which a finite being is capa- 
 ble. In kind it is, but not in degree. Its imperfec- 
 tion results from the remaining power of sin. Lazarus 
 has come forth, but the grave-clothes of spiritual 
 death are still about him. The smell of the sepulchre 
 still stupifies and sickens him. He sees, but with 
 bandaged eyes, the glories that await him. He 
 doubts the reality of his resurrection. There is a con- 
 flict between life and death, as if the grave were loth 
 to give him up. Such is the spiritual life of man on 
 earth. From its own nature it is endless and pro- 
 gressive ; but from the circumstances of the case, 
 imperfect. 
 
 Look back now through the scale which we have 
 been ascending, and observe how each new degree or 
 sort of life towers above that below it. Each might 
 be thought the highest possible, but for that which 
 visibly surpasses it. And now having scaled the 
 heights of spiritual life, what can we desire or expect 
 beyond it, except that the evils which now mar it and 
 obscure it should be done away, and that its duration, 
 which appears to us precarious, should be rendered 
 sure ? This is eternal life, but is this all ? 
 
 There is one stroke necessary to complete the pic- 
 ture. AVe are too apt in thinking of eternal life, to 
 thinlv of it as an eternal abstraction, or at least as con- 
 sisting too exclusively in mental acts and exercises. 
 Hence perhaps that want of joyful expectation which 
 is too characteristic of our reliirious exercises. Even 
 
 I
 
 JOHN 3, 36. Ill 
 
 to true Christians, the transition to eternity &.ppear8 
 very often like a passage from a wakeful state to 
 sleep. And some whose love for Christ makes them 
 long for any change which will bring them nearer 
 to him, are apt to torment themselves because of th 
 enjoyment they derive from earthly and corporeal 
 things, however pure and innocent. But what if^ 
 these same sources of enjoyment are to be opened in the 
 other world, and rendered inexhaustible, subordinate 
 to spiritual joys, but not opposed to them. What if 
 all those exquisite delights which we derive from 
 sights and sounds shall be eternal, in a thousandfold 
 degree, and pure from all contamination ? Is there 
 any thing unreasonable in the supposition ? Ai'e we 
 not still to be complex beings, soul and body, through 
 eternity ? Is not the inferior creation adapted to cor- 
 poreal natures ? Is it not subject to vanity and groan- 
 ing until our redemption ? Instead then of striving 
 against God's appointment, and obscuring our own 
 prospect of eternal life, let us make our innocent en- 
 joyments all contribute to our hope of immortality, 
 and when we think of the life to come, think of it as 
 including all that now gives real happiness, refined 
 and sublimated and immortalized. Let us look upon 
 ourselves as sick men in a darkened room, just be- 
 ginning to be conscious of returning health, and in- 
 stead of turning away from every sunbeam that steals 
 into our chamber, and turning a deaf ear to every 
 bird that sings without, let us rather feast upon them 
 as ingredients of that exquisite delight which shall 
 attend our final and eternal convalescence. 
 
 But as the sick man knows by sad experience that
 
 112 SERMONS. 
 
 sights, and sounds, and sensible deliglits are nothing, 
 nay are torments without health to taste them, so let 
 us remember that these miAor sources of enjoyment 
 are dependent upon health of soul, and that they can 
 do nothing more than pour their tributary streams 
 forever into the ocean of eternal life. 
 
 Here agam we may look down upon the path we 
 have trodden, and like those who climb the Alps, see 
 diminished in the distance, what appeared stupendous 
 when we saw it near at hand. At every former stage 
 there was something to be added or desired. But 
 now what wait we for ? Do we desire life in its 
 highest and its purest form ? We have it. Do we 
 ask security from loss ? "We have it. Do we seek 
 variety and richness of enjoyment 1 It is here beyond 
 conception ; and to crown all it is endless, and not 
 only endless but eternally progressive. The spiritual 
 life which now beats faintly in the heart of the be- 
 liever, shall beat on with ever-growing vigor of pul- 
 sation, till the pulse of eternity itself stands still. 
 
 Let us suppose a serious heathen to have formed 
 this conception of eternal life, and to be filled with 
 admiration of its glories. He could not long continue 
 so absorbed in it as to lose sight of its relation to him- 
 self. He would soon leam to compare his own ex- 
 perience with this splendid picture, and if at all 
 enlightened by the grace of God, to feel that between 
 himself and this eternal life, there was a great gulf 
 fixed, and that its happiness could only make him 
 miserable ; just as we may suppose the sight of iJ^oah's 
 ark aff'ected those who caught a passing glimpse of 
 it before they sunk forever. JSTo man can form any
 
 JOHN S, 36. 113 
 
 adequate conception of eternal life without some con- 
 ception of that God in whose favour it consists. 'No 
 contemplation of the attributes of Jupiter, or Yenus, 
 or Apollo, could result in a just idea of eternal life. 
 That life presupposes the idea of a holy God ; holy 
 not only in himself, but in his requisitions ; the author 
 of a holy law, requiring perfect and perpetual obe- 
 dience, not in outward action only, but in thought and 
 desire. 
 
 The moment the pure light of this conception 
 flashes on the mind of the inquirer, it conjures up an 
 image of himself standing opposite to God, and odious 
 in proportion to God's excellence. Knowing, as he 
 now does, that eternal life is the eternal death of sin, 
 he feels the dagger at his heart, he feels his spiritual 
 death, and he despairs. But he awakes, and arises in 
 the fond hope of escape. As sin has been his death, 
 he now resolves that sin shall die. He will sin no 
 more. Here a new revelation throws its light upon 
 his path. He cannot cease from sin ; he is its slave ; 
 it dwells within him ; his evil thoughts and acts arc 
 from his heart, and his heart is dead in sin. Can he 
 give it life ? Can his own actions make their own 
 cause pure ? Here is a new despair, and it is deep- 
 ened by perceiving that even if he could cease from 
 sinning, the law already broken would not cease from 
 its demands. His intended reformation is both use- 
 less and impossible. 
 
 Left to himself, he can conceive but one other 
 method of escape. It is the hope that God will set 
 aside the law, forgive him by a sovereign act, and 
 make him a new creature. As he looks towards the
 
 11^ SERMOXS. 
 
 light inaccessible, where God resides, in search of 
 something to confirm this expectation, he is blinded 
 and dazzled, but completely undeceived. Ht sees no 
 dark spot in that blaze of living light, no shadow of 
 connivance or indifference to sin. He sees, too, that 
 this spotless brightness constitutes the glory of the 
 Godhead, and that the fulfilment of his hopes and 
 wishes would have impaired his reverence for God. 
 He withdraws his dazzled eyes and closes them, as he 
 supposes, in eternal darkness. But on this darkness 
 a new light begins to steal — a ray from the luminous 
 abode of God. He starts up in amazement; he con- 
 siders for the first time that all his former hopes were 
 centred in himself. His eye now follows the divine 
 light to a point exterior to himself; he conceives the 
 possibility of escape through another ; he forms the 
 conception of an intermediate object between God's 
 inexorable justice and himself; and, after many alter- 
 nations of despair and hope, it flashes on his mind 
 that both the ends which he considered incompatible, 
 may thus be brought about — sin may be punished, 
 and the sinner saved. 
 
 But a cloud passes over this celestial light. Are 
 not all men alike ? And if no man can make satisfac- 
 tion for himself, how shall any man make satisfaction 
 for another ? The resolution of this doubt is the most 
 astonishing development of all. Though man may 
 not make satisfaction for another, may not God ? The 
 thought seems impious tliat God should pay the pen- 
 alty of his own law, until the last veil is withdrawn 
 and the astonished soul beholds the great mystery of 
 godliness — God manifest in the flesh. The Mediator
 
 JOHN 3, 36. 115 
 
 is both God and man — the Son of God and the Son of 
 Man, and in both senses called the Son, a name no 
 longer enigmatical — a perfect man without sins to be 
 expiated. Here one difficulty falls away. At the 
 same time he is God, and his divinity gives infinite 
 value to his sufferings and obedience. They are, 
 therefore, available for others also. This resolves the 
 other doubt, the darkness rolls away, and the sun of 
 righteousness, without a spot or cloud, 
 
 "Flames in the forehead of the mornuig sky." 
 
 The work demanded of the sinner himself is only 
 hard because it is so easy. It is hard to do little 
 when we think we must do much — hard to do nothing 
 when we think we must do all — hard to believe that 
 we have only to believe, when we expected to achieve 
 our own redemption. When once the soul is brought, 
 however, to believe that this is truly God's plan of 
 redemption ; that the Son of God is able and willing 
 to save, and that this salvation is sufficient and secure ; 
 and, besides this general belief, accepts of this salva- 
 tion for himself; the work is done, the man is justi- 
 fied and safe forever. By some such process as that 
 just described, we may suppose a heathen to arrive 
 at the second proposition which the text involves, 
 namely. That eternal life may be attained by simply 
 believing in the Son of God. 
 
 From this he would readily infer that the converse 
 must be true, and that the want of faith involves the 
 loss of all that perfect and enduring blessedness called 
 eternal life. But here he would be liable to error. 
 As he himself was destitute of pure and elevated hap-
 
 IIQ SERMONS. 
 
 piness, he might imagine that continued mibelief 
 would leave men in jDOSsession of this -world's felicity 
 or its equivalent, and merely rob them of that more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is won 
 by faith. But this is not the doctrine of the Gospel. 
 The loss of heaven, grievous as it is, would not affect 
 the hearts of those who know it not. Their very 
 reason for refusing heaven, is that the}' love the pleas- 
 ures of sin. To deprive them, therefore, of that which 
 they despise, and give them that which they delight 
 in, would be rather to reward them than to punish 
 them. The doctrine of the Gospel is, that from him 
 who hath not, shall be taken even that which he hath. 
 He that believes has the promise both of this life and 
 of that which is to come. He that loses heaven loses 
 this world also. In the text it is declared not merely 
 that the unbeliever shall not have eternal life, but also 
 that the wrath of God abideth on him. This obvious- 
 ly means that the effect of unbelief will not be a mere 
 negation, but a positive infliction. The wrath of God 
 is a mysterious phrase full of horror. It is the array 
 of all his attributes against a single soul forever. 
 
 Vain as it is to attempt description of things inde- 
 scribable, there are one or two considerations which 
 may render our conception more determinate. What 
 makes a life of sin tolerable here ? Three things : — 
 1, A participation in the outward advantages of the 
 believer. 2. Positive enjoyment in sin. 3. Igno- 
 rance of any thing better which could make the soul 
 dissatisfied with sinful pleasure. Xow, these three 
 causes are to be abolished. The wrath of God will 
 separate the lost soul from the saved forever, and
 
 JOHN 3, 36. IIY 
 
 from all tlie advantages of order, comfort, mutual re- 
 straint, which now arise from the connection. The 
 pleasures of sin, too, are only for a season ; they shall 
 cease, and its native tendency to misery remain un- 
 checked forever. Finally, conscience shall awake, 
 and have sufficient light to plant its daggers with un- 
 erring accuracy ; and to complete the sum of miserj^, 
 the sinner shall in some degree know what he has 
 lost. Surely these considerations are enough to give 
 us definite, though painful ideas, of the wrath of God, 
 whatever may be our ideas of the material fires of hell. 
 It only remains to add, that, as in our estimate of 
 future happiness, we are too apt to preclude those 
 sources of enjoyment which we now know by expe 
 rience ; it is also true, and in a much higher degree, 
 that when we think of future misery, we think of it 
 as something generically different from what we sufier 
 here. But, if we would bring home the matter prac- 
 tically to ourselves, we must suppose the suflferings of 
 this life to be indefinitely aggravated and made eter- 
 nally progressive. The wretch who commits suicide 
 to shun the shame of public execution or exposure, if 
 he believes in a futurity at all, little imagines that the 
 very pang which he endeavored to escape by this act 
 of daring cowardice, shall wring his soul with ever- 
 lasting and increasing anguish. Let no unbeliever, in 
 his restless discontent, imagine that his disappoint- 
 ments, losses, or disgraces will be terminated by the 
 end of life ; but let him rather look forward to an end- 
 less propagation and recurrence of the self-same ago- 
 nies from which he hopes, by dying, to escape. The 
 dying sinner only exchanges a temporal for an eternal
 
 118 SERMONS. 
 
 hell — the short-lived -wrath of man for the eternal 
 wrath of God, not merely smiting, bnt abiding on 
 him. 
 
 These, then, are the three propositions which must 
 be included in the exposition of the text to one not ac- 
 quainted with the Gospel : — 
 
 I. The highest good to Avhich we can aspire or 
 attain is eternal life. 
 
 II. It cannot be merited or purchased by ourselves, 
 but must be secured by simple faith in Christ. 
 
 m. Unbelief incurs not merely a privation of 
 the positive enjoyments of eternal life, but the posi- 
 tive infliction of the wrath of God. 
 
 TV. To these I add a fourth, which is, that these 
 foregoing truths are of universal application. "What 
 they would be to a heathen they are really to us. If 
 to him they involve the whole way of salvation, they 
 involve no less to us. What more, indeed, could we 
 desire ? We have here the great end of existence set 
 before us — the glor}' of God and the enjoyment of his 
 favour, included and summed up in eternal life. Its 
 opposite, eternal death, is also set before us. Here, 
 too, is the way of life, by faith and nothing but faith. 
 Not he that worketh, but he that believeth, hath eter- 
 nal life. Finally, here we have the object of this 
 faith presented as the Son, the Son of God, the Son of 
 Man, God manifest in the flesh, a sacrifice for sin, the 
 Captain of our Salvation, the Author and Finisher of 
 our faith — the end, the way, the guide. What more 
 can we ask ? This is all our salvation and all our 
 desire. 
 
 By this let each man try himself. What are you
 
 JOHN 3, 36. 119 
 
 seeking ? Immediate gratification or eternal life ? 
 And if the latter, do jou Icnow what it consists in ? 
 Do you know that it inchides all forms of happiness 
 hot stained with sin, and that the loss of it involves 
 all misery, including such as you experience already? 
 
 And now, are you seeking everlasting life ? By 
 what law ? The law of works, or by the law of 
 faith ? 
 
 And last, not least, what is the object of your 
 faith ? Is it God's uncovenanted mercy ? — his mercy 
 as opposed to his justice ? Alas ! there is no such 
 mercy. It is not he that believeth in a lie shall be 
 saved, but he that believeth in the Son of God. Other 
 foundations can no man lay save that which is laid ; 
 for there is no other name given under heaven among 
 men whereby we must be saved. If you have not 
 this faith, with this exclusive object, your prospect is 
 eternal death, and that not merely loss of life, but 
 endless exposure to the wi'ath of God. 
 
 And here may be brought more distinctly into 
 view a remarkable form of expression in the text. 
 The threatening is not that upon the unbeliever wrath 
 shall abide, but it abides ah-eady. Here let the pro- 
 crastinating soul be undeceived. Distance of time 
 and place works strange transformations. Tell one 
 who violates the law of man that he will be con- 
 demned for it, and he may laugh the law and you 
 to scorn. But how few laugh when told that they 
 are condemned already. Look at the convict at 
 the bar, and see how different his aspect and de- 
 meanour from his aspect and demeanour when at large. 
 Such is your case. Tou are, perhaps, not yet arrested,
 
 120 SERMONS. 
 
 the day of formal trial is far distant; but, strange as it 
 may seem, when compared with human process, you 
 are already under sentence. You were born a con- 
 vict, and your past life has only served to aggravate 
 your condemnation. When you are warned, there- 
 fore, to escape the coming wrath, it is not that you 
 can escape conviction as a violater of the law of God. 
 You are condemned already, and reprieve or pardon 
 is your only hope. "What if the murderer at the gib- 
 bet's foot should prate of his expecting to avoid con- 
 viction, and talk of testimony, verdicts, and new trials 
 on his way to execution. Remember, remember, that 
 God's wrath abideth on you. 
 
 Here, too, may many an enigma in the life of man 
 receive a full solution. You are rich, perhaps, and 
 prosperous in this world's goods, and seem to the eye 
 of others destitute of nothing. But you yourself know 
 better. In the midst of your abundance there is empti- 
 ness ; starvation in your feasts, and in your cups un- 
 dying thirst. You cannot understand how, with all 
 the materials of enjoyment, you are joyless. Hear 
 the reason. It is the wrath of God abiding on you, 
 and distilling wormwood into every drop you swal- 
 low. 
 
 Or are you poor, but with an unblessed poverty, 
 striving with vain efforts to be rich, or brooding in 
 idleness with spiteful discontent over your neighbour's 
 wealth. Without the advantages of wealth, you have 
 its cares, its load without its strength. You can 
 neither attain the supposed felicity of being rich, nor 
 the more enviable peace of contentment. Do you 
 know the reason ? It is the wrath of God abiding on
 
 JOHN 3, 36. i21 
 
 you, from wbicli jou must escape before yon know 
 tranquillity. 
 
 The case is the same if you are sick, without the 
 sanctifying grace of sickness ; or in health, without 
 the grace which makes that health a blessing. You 
 have, perhaps, a feeling of perpetual insecurity. You 
 tremble when you hear of death, and turn pale at the 
 slightest pain in any of your members. And alas ! 
 you do not know that there is reason for your fears. 
 Look back, the avenger of blood is just behind you, 
 and the wrath of God abides already on you. 
 
 There is yet another case, which, though less com- 
 mon in reality than in appearance, must be mentioned. 
 It is that of the man who feels no changes and no 
 fears, and who, by means of a peculiar constitution, 
 or inveterate induration, draws from the materials 
 of worldly happiness their full supply, without admix- 
 ture. Some of you know, perhaps, how often the 
 appearance of this calmness is an artificial mask, put 
 on to hide the fearful writhings of the countenance. 
 You know what is meant by a life-time of hypocrisy, 
 not hypocrisy in religion, but hypocrisy in sin. "We 
 have much of false professions in the church, but we 
 know much of false professions in the world. The 
 profession of indifference, and peace, and courage 
 when ever and anon a gust of passion, or a nausea 
 of the spirit, gives the lie to the profession. 
 
 But let the man be what he says he is. Let him 
 neither feel nor believe the pressure of that deadly 
 burden which he bears upon his back. Let him 
 imagine, while he bends beneath it, that he walks 
 erect, and in proportion as it breaks his strength, let 
 
 VOL. I. — G
 
 122 SERMONS. 
 
 liim rise in liis estimate of humeri nature, and even 
 when he finally sinks under it, let him sink, believing 
 that he soars, and die in the belief that he can never 
 lose his life. Is this the sinner's consolation ? Oh, 
 is this the hope, for which he sold the promise of 
 eternal life? Is this your way of salvation? Oh 
 deceived soul, to escape the present consciousness of 
 wrath only by laying it up in store for your eternity, 
 by treasuring up wrath against the day of wi-ath, and 
 still not know that the amount of it is growing. Oh 
 what a settling of accounts will that be when tlic 
 vast accumulations of a life-time are brought out from 
 God's omniscient magazine, and attached to their 
 possessor as a mill-stone to precipitate his everlasting 
 fall. This, and this only, is the hope and consolation 
 of the man who feels no danger, and has no Saviour. 
 
 You gain nothing, then, when you gain a transient 
 respite from the sense of present misery, l^ay, those 
 who have it, are of all men most miserable, as their 
 insensibility will aggravate their future woe ; and 
 even now, in spite of it, the wrath of God abideth on 
 them. Execution is delayed, but they are condemned 
 already. 
 
 Instead, then, of aiming at this fatal stupor, strive 
 to feel your burden. Feel that the wi-ath of God is 
 now abiding on you, and will there abide forever, 
 .unless the Saviour soon remove it. Xo sense of this 
 oppressive burden, how intense soever, can increase 
 your danger. Nay, it will prepare you the better for 
 deliverance. To the careless and insensible the Gospel 
 has no j)romises. They that are whole, need not a 
 physician. But to the burdened and oppressed om*
 
 JOHN 3, 36. 123 
 
 Saviour uttered one of liis most tender invitations. 
 Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest. Here is the rest you should 
 seek. The rest, not of stupidity, but penitence. 
 While you continue as you are, the wrath of God 
 ahideth on you. But the moment you believe, it is 
 transferred to the great object of your faith, absorbed 
 in the vortex of his meritorious passion, drowned in 
 the many waters of his dying love, and lost forever. 
 Death is then swallowed up in victory, the victory of 
 faith, and life. Everlasting life becomes triumphant. 
 Behold, I have set before you life and death, blessing 
 and cursing. Choose life, therefore, that your souls 
 may live.
 
 VII. 
 
 Luke IT, 32. — Remember Lot's wife. 
 
 There seems to be a natural and universal dis- 
 position to commemorate remarkable characters in 
 history. ITot only are monuments erected, and books 
 written to perpetuate their names, but days are set 
 apart for the special purpose of remembrance and of 
 celebration. Where the anniversary of the birth, or 
 of the death can be determined, this is commonly 
 selected as the period of observance. But even when 
 these are no longer ascertainable, the disposition to 
 remember and commemorate must still be gratified, 
 and in the same way by the arbitrary designation of 
 certam times as sacred to the memory of certain 
 persons. This propensity is not confined to civil 
 history, but extends to that of the church, and of 
 religion. Or rather, it is here that it especially dis- 
 plays itself, as in its favourite and chosen field. The 
 civic calendar of patriots and heroes is a meager 
 catalogue, compared with the ecclesiastical calendar 
 of saints and martyi's. Some have usur23ed a place 
 there whose pretensions it would not be easy to 
 demonstrate ; but I do not know that Lot's wife has 
 ever found a place in any calendar. And yet, this is
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 125 
 
 the only case in which a solemn and exj)i'ess divine 
 command can be appealed to. Of patriarchs and 
 prophets, of apostles and martyrs, there is not one, 
 — no, not even Abraham or Moses, not even Paul or 
 Stephen — of whom Christ is recorded to have said 
 what Lnke describes him in the text as saying of a 
 nameless sinner in a half-forgotten age, " Kemember 
 Lot's wife ! " 
 
 The singular prominence tlms given to an otherwise 
 obscnre and nnimporant character in sacred history, 
 may serve at least to justify a brief inquiry how and 
 why the exhortation is to be complied with. In other 
 words, what is there in the case of Lofs wife to 
 be thus remembered ; and, of what use can the 
 recollection be to us ? These are the two points 
 wliich I now propose to make the subject of dis- 
 course : 
 
 I. What is there to remember in the case of Lot's 
 wife ? 
 
 II. Of what use can the recollection be to us ? 
 
 I. In considering the first point, we naturally turn 
 to other cases of historical commemoration, and recall 
 the circumstances upon wliich the attention is usually 
 fastened as the things to be remembered. These are 
 essentially the same in every case, that is to say, there 
 is a limited number of particulars, within which the 
 biography of all men may be circumscribed. But 
 these are indefinitely varied in their combinations 
 and proportions. The entire interest of some lives is 
 concentred in the birth and hereditary honours of 
 the subject. This is notoriously true as to the vulgar
 
 126 SEKMONS. 
 
 herd of kings and queens, and nobles, N^liose name 
 and titles are tlieir whole biography. In other cases, 
 of a higher order, this element of greatness is entirely 
 wanting. The name is a new name, and the birth 
 obscure. Whatever interest attaches to the person is 
 the fruit of his own doings, whether martial, intel- 
 lectual, or civil. There are others where the eminence 
 arises neither from position nor achievement, but 
 from character This is the charm of those biogra- 
 phies, in which a historical, and even a poetical — I 
 might perhaps say romantic — ^interest is thrown around 
 characters who never rose above a private station ; 
 who, beyond a little circle of acquaintances, were 
 scarcely known to live until they died, but who now 
 live in the memory and hearts of thousands, and, 
 when every meteor of profane celebrity is quenched 
 in oblivion, shall still shine in the firmament of his- 
 tory " as stars for ever and ever." 
 
 These are the customary topics of remembrance 
 and commemoration, illustrious birth, splendid achieve- 
 ment, and surpassing excellence not necessarily exclu- 
 sive of each other, but alas ' too seldom found in com- 
 bination, that among the " bright particular stars " 
 of human history, there are few constellations, and 
 but one stupendous galaxy. Let us now apply this 
 measure to the solitary case which our Saviour has 
 consigned to everlasting remembrance, and what is 
 the result ? In which, or in how many, of these sev- 
 eral respects was Lot's wife entitled to be snatched 
 from oblivion ? "Was it birth, or name, good works, 
 or evil deeds, extraordinary piety or unexampled 
 wickedness that gives her this pre-eminence ? Kamo
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 127 
 
 did I say ? Her very name has been forgotten in the 
 record that bears witness to the fact of her existence. 
 Of her birth we know nothing, and can learn noth- 
 ing, absohitely nothing, from a history distinguished 
 from all others by the fulness and minuteness of its 
 genealogical details. We know who Abraham's wife 
 and I^ahor's wife were, not their names only, but their 
 parentage ; but Lot's wife, so far as the inspired re- 
 cord goes, is without father and without mother, her 
 birth a secret, and her name a blank ! 
 
 There are cases, however, in the sacred history, 
 where no small interest attaches to the character and 
 deeds of those whose names are not recorded. With- 
 out going beyond the field of female biography, we 
 may cite as examples, the widows of Sarepta and of 
 Shunem, the woman of Samaria, and several others 
 for whom or upon whom our Lord wrought miracles 
 of healing. But in this case the anonymous and un- 
 known subject of commemoration is revealed to us by 
 no description, no characteristic actions, no glimpses 
 of her private and domestic life. She is not even 
 mentioned in the history of Lot's migrations or of his 
 residence in Sodom. She is not included in the ques- 
 tion of the angels who were sent to save him : " Hast 
 thou any here besides ? son-in-law, or sons, or daugh- 
 ters, or whatsoever thou hast in the city ; " unless this 
 last expression be intended to apply to her. She ap- 
 pears for the first and almost for tlie last time in the 
 brief but vivid picture of that hurried and compulsory 
 escape, when Lot still lingered, and " the men laid 
 hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife^ 
 and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord
 
 128 SERMONS. 
 
 being merciful unto liim, and they brought hiji fortli^ 
 and set him without the city, and said, Escape for thy 
 life, looh not 'behind thee, neither stay thou in all the 
 plain, escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed." 
 This is one-half of the history of Lot's wife, and tlie 
 whole of it contains no hint of her origin or educa- 
 tion, course of life, or character, except so far as this 
 may be gathered from her end. It seems, then, that 
 in this case, thus commended to perpetual remem- 
 brance by our Lord him&elf, every one of the accus- 
 tomed grounds or reasons for remembering is abso- 
 lutely wanting. 
 
 Is this blank, then, to be filled up by indulging 
 the imagination, by investing this anonymous, mys- 
 terious figure with fictitious qualities, and making her 
 the centre of poetical associations ? Certainly not. 
 We can remember only what we know. Tlie com- 
 mand is not to imagine or invent, but to remember. 
 And in this case we can only know what is recorded. 
 Our Saviour evidently takes for granted that his 
 hearers knew the fact which he commands them to 
 remember. They could know it only from the narra- 
 tive in Genesis. Had any thing beyond this been re- 
 quired, it would be expressed, as in other cases where 
 our Saviour and his followers reveal something not 
 contained in the Old Testament. Such additions to . 
 the history are the names of the Egyptian sorcerers, 
 Janncs and Jambres, not recorded by Moses, but dis- 
 closed by Paul to Timothy, and Jude's citation of the 
 prophecy of Enoch, and of Michael's contest with the 
 devil for the body of Moses. But in this case there 
 is no such addition, no completion of the history, but
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 129 
 
 a simple reference to what was already known be- 
 cause it had for ages been on record. It was to some 
 familiar and notorious fact that Christ alluded, Avhen 
 he said to his disci^^les, " Eemember Lot's wife ! " 
 
 This familiar and notorious fact could not be the 
 one already cited, namely, the angelic intervention 
 and deliverance of Lot's wife, with her husband and 
 her children, from the doomed city, because this was 
 not peculiar or remarkable enough to be appealed to 
 as a great historical example. Thus far, her experi- 
 ence was coincident with that of others more entitled 
 to remembrance. Had miraculous deliverance been 
 all, the wife of 'Noah, might have seemed to have a 
 better claim than Lot's to this distinction. We are 
 therefore under the necessity of going a step further, 
 and considering the other half of her recorded his- 
 tory, as furnishing the lesson which our Lord incul- 
 cates in the text. That other half is all comprised in 
 a single verse of Genesis, the twenty-sixth of the nine- 
 teenth chapter. " His wife looked back from behind 
 him, and became a pillar of salt." So soon and so 
 sudden is licr disappearance from the stage of history. 
 She only appears long enough to disappear again. 
 She is like a spectre, rising from the earth, moving 
 slowly across our field of vision, and then vanishing 
 away. Hence her history is all concentred in a single 
 point, and that the last. It has no beginning and no 
 middle, but an end, a fearful end. Its course is like 
 that of tlie black and silent train, to whicli the match 
 is at last applied, and it ends in a flash and an explo- 
 sion. Our first view of Lot's wife is afforded by the 
 light of the sulphureous flames already bursting from 
 
 VOL. I. — G*
 
 IgO SERMONS. 
 
 the battlements and lioiise-tops of tlie reprobate city ; 
 our last view, tlie moment after, by the same fires as 
 tliey mount to lieaven and light up the whole hori- 
 zon, revealing among many old familiar objects, one 
 never seen before, a pillar of salt upon the road to 
 Zoar. Tliat very pillar was the thing which the dis- 
 ciples called to mind when Jesus said, "Remember 
 Lot's wife." 
 
 But, my hearers, there are multitudes of other 
 cases upon record, where the whole interest of a life- 
 time is concentred in the hour of death. Some 
 scarcely seem to live until they come to die. Not 
 only in the case of soldiers slain in battle, or of mar- 
 tyi's dying at the stake, but on many a lowly and 
 neglected death-bed, a new character reveals itself, 
 new powers of mind, new dispositions and aflections, 
 as if a life-time had been needed to mature the char- 
 acter, and death to make it visible. It is not there- 
 fore merely in this circumstance tliat we must seek 
 the grand peculiarity of that event to which our Lord 
 directs the thoughts of his disciples. As it was not 
 her escape from Sodom that made Lot's wife a per- 
 petual lesson and memorial to mankind, so it is not 
 the extraordinary concentration of her history in one 
 point, and that point the last, for this, as I have just 
 said, may be seen in other cases. I proceed directly 
 therefore to point out the three particulars in which 
 her end was so peculiar as to render it a fit example 
 for the purpose which our Saviour had in view when 
 he told his disciples to remember her. In doing this, 
 I sliall, of course, make no appeal to your imagina-
 
 LUKE 17, 82. 131 
 
 tion, but confine myself with rigour to tlie brief and 
 plain terms of the history. 
 
 1. The first distinctive feature in the case of Lot's 
 wife is, that she was almost saved. The cases are 
 innumerable, no doubt, in which men have been de- 
 stroyed when apparently on the very verge of deliver- 
 ance. But the cases must be few, very few, if any, 
 where the alternation was so rapid and terrific, where 
 the subject passed so quickly through the startling 
 vicissitudes of life from the dead, and death in the 
 midst of life. First entire security ; then awful and 
 apparently inevitable danger ; then miraculous deliv- 
 erance ; then sudden death. The point to which I 
 would direct your attention first, is the extraordinary, 
 unexpected, and, to all appearance, certain and com- 
 plete deliverance, which Lot's wife had experienced. 
 In prospect and in expectation she was saved already, 
 and in actual experience she was almost saved. The 
 burning city was behind ; she had been thrust out 
 from it by angelic hands ; her husband and her chil- 
 dren at her side ; the chosen refuge not far ofi", perhaps 
 in sight ; the voice of the avenger and deliverer still 
 ringing in her ears, " Escape for thy life, look not be- 
 hind thee, stay not in all the plain, escape to the moun- 
 tain, lest thou be consumed." "With such facilities and 
 such inducements to escape, with her family on one 
 side, and her saviour on the other, Sodom behind and 
 Zoar in front; my hearers, who would not have 
 thought, as she thought, that Lot's wife was saved. 
 Had she been left behind to perish in the flames, tha 
 suicidal victim of her unbelief, her end would have 
 resembled that of thousands, and our Lord would not
 
 122 SERMONS. 
 
 have told us to remember her, as if cne oiii of the 
 multitude consumed iu that hot furnace were entitled 
 to be any more remembered than the rest. But when 
 actually brought without the gates, perhaps against 
 her will, and by such hands too, and already on hei 
 way to the appointed place of refuge, with the cry of 
 the angel and the cra,clding of the flames both impel 
 ling her onwards ; surely she was almost saved. 
 
 2. But secondly, though almost saved, she perished 
 after all. What I wish you to observe is not the bare 
 fact that she perished ; so have millions, both before 
 and since, but- that she perished as she did, and xolvere 
 she did. Perdition is indeed perdition, come as it 
 may, and there is no need of fathoming the various 
 depths of an abyss, of what is bottomless. But to the 
 eye of the spectator, and it may bt3 to the memory of 
 the lost, there is an awful aggravation even of what 
 seems to be incapable of variation or increase in the 
 preceding and accompanying circumstances of the 
 final plunge. He who sinks in the sea without the 
 hope or opportunity of rescue may be sooner drowned 
 than he who for a moment enjoys both, but to the 
 heart of an observer how much more sickening and 
 appalling is the end of him who disappears with the 
 rope or plank of safety within reach, or in his very 
 hand, or of him who slips into the bubbling waters 
 from the surface of the rock which, with his failing 
 strength, he had just reached, and on which for a 
 moment of delicious illusion he had wept to imgaine 
 himself safe at last! The same essentially, though 
 less affecting, is the case of those who escape one 
 danger only to be swallowed by another, like the sea-
 
 LUKE 17, S2. -133 
 
 man who liad braved all the chances of war and the 
 diseases of a sickly climate, only to be wrecked as he 
 was reaching home ; or the case of the soldier who 
 escapes the edge of the sword on many a battle-field, 
 and in many an " imminent deadly breach," only to 
 die a more ignoble death, as the victim of disease or 
 accident. Of all such cases in their infinite variety 
 of circumstances and degrees, the great historical type 
 is that of Lot's wife, of her who was almost saved 
 yet not saved, the article and crisis of whose safety 
 and destruction were almost identical, of her who per- 
 ished in the moment of deliverance ! 
 
 3. The third distinctive feature in the case of Lot's 
 wife is, that her destruction was so ordered as to make 
 her a memorial and a warning to all others. Tou 
 may smile at the credulity of those who imagine that 
 the monumental pillar is still extant, and may yet be 
 identified. Believe, if you will, in the pride of sci- 
 ence, or the pride of ignorance, for they are near akin, 
 and often coincide in their conclusions, that this is a 
 strong oriental hyperbole, a metaphorical description 
 either of perpetual remembrance or of a natural tran- 
 sient eflfect. Even supposing that the pillar of salt had 
 an ideal existence, or, that if real, it bore witness only 
 for a few days to the eyes of all who passed by, God 
 has re-erected it forever in his word, Tlie pillar of 
 salt may have vanished from the shore of the dead 
 sea, but it is standing on the field of sacred history. 
 The Old and New Testaments both give it place, and 
 as it once spoke to the eye of the aftVighted Canaanite 
 or Hebrew, who revisited that scene of desolation, so 
 it now speaks to the memory and conscience of the
 
 134: SERMONS. 
 
 countless multitudes who read or hear the law and 
 gospel, saying to them, and to us among the number, 
 as our Lord said of old to his disciples, " Remember 
 Lot's wife ! " Remember the mysterious and awful end 
 of one who seemed miraculously saved from a miracu- 
 lous destruction, only to meet it in another form and in 
 another place, the very threshold of deliverance, con- 
 verting her at once into a pillar of salt, and a perpetual 
 memento of the " goodness and severity of God." 
 
 11. This brings us, by a natural ti*ansition, to the 
 second point which I proposed for your consideration, 
 namely, the purpose to be answered, or the end to be 
 attained, bv our remembering Lot's wife. It is no 
 unreasonable question, if propounded in a proper 
 spirit, free from petulant levity or skeptical presump- 
 tion, what have we to do with this remote event of 
 patriarchal history, this incident attending the de- 
 struction of a place whose very site has been expunged 
 from the surface of the earth ? 
 
 In the first place, we may rest assured that the 
 narrative was not recorded for its own sake, or to 
 gratify a spirit of historical inquiry ; because this 
 would render unaccountable the fewness of the facts 
 recorded, and still more so the emphatic exhortation 
 of our Saviour to remember this particular event. 
 The only satisfactory solution is afforded by assuming 
 that the case of Lot's wife was recorded as a type of 
 God's providential dispensations ; or, in other words, 
 that the event may be repeated in the experience of 
 others, not in its outward form and circumstances, but 
 in its essential individuality. This supposition is not 
 only reasonable in itself, and recommended by the
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 135 
 
 readiness witliwliicli it solves the doubt proposed; but 
 it may be directly proved by the example of our 
 Saviour in applying this historical example to a dif- 
 ferent case, to wit, the siege and destruction of Jeru- 
 salem. After warning his disciples against such se 
 curity and self indulgence as prevailed before the 
 flood and the destruction of Sodom, and commanding 
 them " in that day " not to delay their flight for what 
 seemed to be the most necessary purposes, he adds, 
 " Remember Lot's wife ! " This can only mean that 
 similar effects may be expected from like causes ; that 
 the course of divine providence is governed by fixed 
 laws ; and that the same succession of events may 
 therefore reappear ; or, as our Lord himself propounds 
 the principle of application, in the conclusion of this 
 same discourse, when the disciples asked him, " Where, 
 Lord? and he said unto them.. Wheresoever the body 
 is, there will the eagles be gathered together." It 
 thus appears that, far from being forbidden to apply 
 the text to other cases than the one which our Saviour 
 had immediately in view, we are directly tauglit, by 
 his precept and example, to consider it as applicable 
 to ourselves and others, and to spiritual no less than 
 to outward dangers. For, if they who were liable to 
 be involved in a great temporal calamity might be 
 warned by the example of Lot's wife against security 
 and rash delay, and taught that men may perish in 
 what seems to be the very moment of deliverance, 
 how much more conclusive is the same example as a 
 warning against fatal security and procrastination 
 with respect to a danger as much more awful than 
 the one in question as the soul is more precious than 

 
 136 SERMONS. 
 
 the body, or eternitj than time; and, acccrdinglj, 
 with how much greater emphasis may they who are 
 exposed to this tremendous risk, be counselled and 
 exhorted to " remember Lot's wife." 
 
 I proceed, then, in the same order as before, to 
 point out the particular respects in which the strange 
 and fearful end of Lot's wife may be realized in our 
 experience, which, if it can be done, will be the best 
 and most effective application of the text, as an ex- 
 hortation to remember her and ]3rofit by her terrible 
 example. 
 
 1. The first point of resemblance is, that we, like 
 Lot's wife, may be almost saved. This is true in a 
 twofold sense. It is true of outward oj)portunities. 
 It is also true of inward exercises. If a heathen, who 
 has just been made acquainted with the method of 
 salvation, and who sees himself surrounded by innu- 
 merable multitudes still strangers to it, could be sud- 
 denly transported into this community, and see what 
 you see, hear what you hear, and appreciate your 
 multiplied facilities for knowing what salvation is, 
 and for securing it, he would, of course and of necessi- 
 t}^, consider you as almost saved. Regarding heathen- 
 ism as the Sodom, from which he has just escaped, 
 and from which we have so long been delivered, he 
 would hardly be deterred from looking upon us, not 
 as almost, but as altogether saved. The intellectual 
 and social influence of Christianity, apart from its sav- 
 ing power, the refinement, order, and intelligence pro- 
 duced by it, even in the lowest and the most degraded 
 classes of our people, as compared with heathens, 
 would inevitably lead at first to false conclusions in
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 137 
 
 the mind of siicli a stranger, and constrain liim to cry 
 ont, These people, although not yet in lieavcn, are 
 already saved ; and in reference even to that final 
 consummation, they are almost saved ! 
 
 We know, my hearers, how mistaken such an in- 
 ference would be, and how much the fair appearances 
 in question may resemble the smooth surface of that 
 hollow and bituminous soil before its crust was riven 
 and its secret fires enkindled by tlie lightning of God's 
 wrath. You need not be reminded how far these ex- 
 ternal advantages, precious as they are in themselves 
 and in their temporal eflects, may fall short of secur- 
 ing the salvation of the thousands who enjoy them. 
 In a word, you know, although a heathen convert 
 might be ignorant, that men may have all this and 
 more in actual possession, yet be neither almost nor 
 altoo-ether saved. You know how the deceitful sur- 
 face may be agitated and convulsed by outbreaks of 
 iniquity long cherished and concealed beneath the re- 
 finements and restraints of social discipline, and even 
 where the general decorum remains unimpaired, you 
 know how many individuals may go down from the 
 midst of it, like Korah and his company, if not into 
 the libertine's or drunkard's grave, at least into the 
 death-shade of a hopeless eternity. Yet, even here, 
 and even to ourselves, there is a sense, in which many 
 who are not safe, might seem almost saved. If we 
 could read the hearts of some who hear the Gospel, 
 and amidst the unbelief and opposition to the truth 
 which still prevail there, mark the strong though in- 
 effectual desires for something better, and the nascent 
 resolutions to repent and to believe which are perpet-
 
 J33 SERMONS. 
 
 iially surging Tip in tlie commotions of that sea wliich 
 cannot rest, we should be tempted to say, surely these 
 struoco-liiip; souls are almost saved. Yes, if we knew 
 how often childish levity, and stoical indifference, and 
 proud contempt, and even seeming spite, are but the 
 mask of an interior stiife which the subject would 
 conceal not only from his neighbors but himself, we 
 should be still more disposed to say of such, that they 
 were almost saved ; or, to say to them, in the words 
 of Christ himself, " Thou art not far from the kingdom 
 of heaven." 
 
 The grand mistake to which we are exposed in all 
 such cases is the error of regarding this approach to 
 true faith and repentance as peculiarly a state of 
 safety. In itself, it is a state of the highest interest 
 and moment. In itself, it is incomparably better than 
 a state of total opposition or of absolute insensibility. 
 But in reference to the future, it is not a safe state, 
 and the longer it continues the less safe it is. It is 
 not safe, because it is a critical juncture, a transition 
 state, a turning point, on which the future may be 
 finally suspended. It is safe to enter, but not safe to 
 rest in. The sooner we are brought to it the better, 
 and the sooner we escape from it the better, if we 
 only do so in the right direction. For alas, there are 
 two ways in which the doubt may be resolved and 
 the suspense determined, — by advancing or receding, 
 going right or going wrong, escaping to Zoar or turn- 
 ing: back to Sodom. 
 
 2. For the state described is, after all, like that of 
 Lot's wife, when, against her will, she had been 
 Drought out of the city. She seemed to be beyond
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 139 
 
 the reach of all immediate danger. She was follow- 
 ing safe guides, and in the right direction. Yet she 
 looked back, and slie perished ! So have thousands. 
 So may you. This is a second point of resemblance. 
 Those who are almost saved may perish — fearfully 
 perish — finally perish — perish in reach, in sight of 
 heaven — yes, at the very threshold of salvation. It 
 is -vain to quarrel with this fearful possibility and 
 risk. It is vain to say, are we not convinced of our 
 danger ? So was Lot's wife. Are we not escaping 
 from it ? So was she. Are we not near the place of 
 refup'e ? So was slie. But she looked back — no mat- 
 ter with what motive ; she looked back — no matter 
 how long or how short a time, though it were but 
 for a moment ; she looked back — whetlier from curi- 
 osity or lingering desire to return, we are not told, 
 we need not care, we only know that she looked back 
 — she violated the divine command — abjured the only 
 hope of safety — and you know the rest. Whatever 
 looking back may have denoted in the type, we know 
 full well what may answer to it in the antitype. 
 Whatever may have tempted Lot's wife to look back, 
 we know the multiplied temptations which lead sin- 
 ners to do likewise. And this terrible example cries 
 aloud to those who are assailed by lingering desires 
 for enjoyments once abandoned, or by skeptical mis- 
 givings, or by evil habits unsubdued, or by disgust 
 at the restraints of a religious life, or by an impious 
 desperation such as sometimes urges us to eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die ; to all such this ter- 
 rible example cries aloud, Ecmember Lot's wife — 
 her escape, and her destruction. However different
 
 140 SERMONS. 
 
 your outward situation, yet remember her, remember 
 her, for if, like her, you are the destined prey of 
 God's avenging justice, it will find you out, for 
 " wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be 
 gathered together." 
 
 3. Lastly, they who are, like Lot's wife, almost 
 saved, may not only, like her, be destroyed in the 
 very moment of deliverance, but, like her, so destroy 
 ed as to afford a monumental warning to all others, 
 that the patience and long-suifering of God are not 
 eternal. Looking back to the cities of the plain, they 
 may not only be involved in their destruction, but, 
 as " pillars of salt," record it and attest it to succeed- 
 ino; generations. To a certain extent this is true of 
 all who perish. God has made all things for himself, 
 even the wicked for the day of evil. They who will 
 not, as " vessels of mercy," glorify his wisdom and 
 his ffoodness, must and will " show his wa-ath and 
 make his jjower known," as " vessels of wrath fitted 
 to destruction." They who will not consent to glori- 
 fy him Avillingly must be content to glorify him by 
 compulsion. This is true of all who perish, and who 
 therefore may be said to become " pillars of salt," 
 standing, like mile-stones, all along the broad road 
 that leadeth to destruction, solemn though speech- 
 less monitors of those who throng it, and planted even 
 on the margin of that " great gulf" which is " fixed" 
 forever between heaven and hell. But in another and 
 a more afi'ecting sense, it may be said that they who 
 perish with the very foretaste of salvation on their 
 lips, wdio make shipwreck in the sight of their de- 
 sired haven, who are blasted by the thunderbolt of
 
 LUKE ir, 32. 141 
 
 vengeance after fleeing from the city of destruction, 
 and amidst their very journey towards the phice of 
 refuge, become " pillars of salt" to their successors. 
 What a thought is this, my hearers, that of all the 
 tears which some have shed in seasons of awakening, 
 and of all their prayers and vows and resolutions, 
 all their spiritual conflicts and apparent triumphs 
 over self and sin, the only ultimate eff'ect will be to 
 leave them standing by the wayside as " pillars of 
 salt," memorials of man's weakness and corruption, 
 and of God's most righteous retributions. Are you 
 willing to live, and what is more, to die, for such an 
 end as this ? To be remembered only as a " pillar of 
 salt," a living, dying, yet enduring proof, that sinners 
 may be almost saved, and yet not saved at all, that 
 they may starve at the threshold of a feast, and die 
 of thirst at the fountain of salvation. 
 
 It is not unusual for those who have outliveC 
 their first impressions of religion, and successfully re- 
 sisted the approaches of conviction, to subside into & 
 state of artificial calmness, equally removed from 
 their original insensibility and from the genuine com- 
 posure of a true faith and repentance. As yon 
 feel this new sense of tranquillity creep over your 
 excited senses, assuaging your exasperated con- 
 science, you may secretly congratulate yourself upon 
 a change of feeling so much for the better. But you 
 may not be aware that the relief which you expe- 
 rience is similar to that which often follows long 
 exposure to intense cold, when the sense of acute suf- 
 fering begins to be succeeded by a grateful numb- 
 ness, and the faculties, long excited by resistance, to
 
 ■^^2 SERMONS. 
 
 be lulled into a drowsy languor, far from being pain- 
 ful to the sense, but as surely the precursor of pa- 
 ralysis and dissolution, as if the limbs were already 
 stiffened and the process of corruption even visibly 
 begun. Or the change of feeling now in question, 
 may resemble that which came upon Lot's wife as 
 she began to lose her consciousness of pain and pleas- 
 ure beneath that saline incrustation which enchained 
 her limbs, suppressed her breath, and stopped the 
 circulation of her life's blood. Was that an enviable 
 feeling, think you, even supposing it to be exclusive 
 of all suffering ? Or could you consent to purchase 
 such immunity from pain by being turned into a pil- 
 lar of salt ? 
 
 It is not the least affectmg circumstance about the 
 strange event which has afforded us a theme for med- 
 itation, that although Lot's wife was fearfully de- 
 stroyed, and at the very moment when she seemed to 
 be beyond the reach of danger ; we have no intima- 
 tion that the lightning struck her, or that the fires 
 wliich they kindled scorched her, or that the waters 
 of the dead sea, as they rushed into their new bed, 
 overwhelmed her, or that any other violence befell 
 her. But we read that she looked back and became 
 a pillar of salt, perhaps without a pang of " corporal 
 sufferance," perhaps without the consciousness of out- 
 ward change ; one moment full of life, the next a 
 white and sparkling, cold and lifeless mass. If this, 
 my hearer, is the death which you would choose to 
 die in soul or body, then look back to Sodom, stretch 
 your hands towards it, and receive the death which 
 comes to meet you in your cold embrace. Turn back,
 
 LUKE 17, 32. 1^2 
 
 turn back, if yon wonld fain become a pillar of salt. 
 If not, on, on ! Escape for your life ! Look not be- 
 hind you ! Stay not in all the plain ! Escape to the 
 mountain, lest you be consumed ! And though you 
 feel a secret drawing towards the scenes which you 
 have left, yield not to it, but let memory do the work 
 of sight. Instead of turning back to perish without 
 hope, let it suffice you to Remembek Lot's w^ife !
 
 vin. 
 
 1 John 3, 2. — It doth not yet appear what we shall be. 
 
 These words admit of being taken either in a wide 
 and compreliensiye, or a more restricted and specific 
 sense, as referring to a blessed immortality beyond 
 the grave, or to futurity in general, including the as 
 yet unknown vicissitudes belonging to the present 
 state of our existence. It is in this larger application 
 of the language, and indeed with special reference to 
 a proximate futurity, that I invite yoiu- attention to 
 the fact that " it doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be." 
 
 There is nothing, in the actual condition of man- 
 kind, or in the method of God's dispensations towards 
 them, more sm-prising than the fact, that, while the 
 very constitution of the mind impels it to survey the 
 future with intense solicitude, futurity itself is hidden 
 by a veil, which can neither be penetrated nor with- 
 drawn. The light which glimmers through this veil 
 is strong enough to show that something lies beyond 
 it, and the demonstration is completed by the mis- 
 shapen but gigantic shadows which occasionally flit 
 across its surface ; but the size, and shape, and rela
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 145 
 
 tive position of the objects thus beheld ia shadow, are 
 completely concealed from view. It is in vain that 
 every artificial aid to the infirmity of sense is brought 
 to bear upon the tantalizing spectacle ; the light, the 
 shadows, are still visible and nothing more, except 
 that providential barrier, which at the same time 
 brings the shadows to our view and makes the sub- 
 stances invisible. 
 
 This seeming contradiction between Providence and 
 Nature, between human instinct and divine adminis- 
 tration, is exemplified with perfect uniformity, in all 
 parts of the world and all the periods of its history. 
 It matters not how little or how much is known as to 
 the present or the past ; men everywhere and always 
 long to know the futm-e. The historian in whose 
 memory events are gathered, as in one vast store- 
 house ; the philosopher, who looks into the actual 
 condition of all nature with a view at once minute 
 and comprehensive, can plead no exemption from the 
 restless and solicitous forebodings of the savage, who 
 knows nothing of the past, and but little of the pres- 
 ent, but whose darkened and confused mind swarms, 
 as it were, with visions of the future. Not a form of 
 idolatry or false religion has existed which did not 
 undertake to make its votaries acquainted with the 
 future. This has always been regarded as a necessary 
 means of influencing human minds, a strong proof of 
 the universality and strength of the original principle. 
 No pagan altar ever smoked without an oracle of 
 some kind near it. The diviner or the prophet is in 
 all such cases the companion of the priest, if not the 
 priest himself. Tlie occult arts of necromancy, sor 
 VOL. I. — 7
 
 146 SERMONS. 
 
 ceiy, and witchcraft, in their infinite variety of form, 
 are integral parts of one great superstitions system, 
 the religion of fear, in which ignorance is indevid the 
 mother of devotion. While the African bows down 
 before his Fetish, and the Indian mutters to his medi- 
 cine-bag, the Turk wears his talisman, the Egyptian 
 his amulet, even those who are called Christians 
 sometimes watch the clouds, the flight of birds, or 
 the most trivial domestic incidents, the breaking of a 
 glass, or the upsetting of a vessel, with as much secret 
 dread as ever terrified the most benighted heathen ; 
 nay, even educated men and women have been known, 
 amidst the very blaze of scientific and religious light, 
 to steal in secret to the haunts of the conjurer or for- 
 tune-teller, not alway in jest, but sometimes with a 
 studied secrecy, indicative at once of shame, fear, 
 misplaced trust, and inexpressible desire to know 
 what God, in wisdom and in mercy, has decreed shall 
 not be known. 
 
 The final cause or purpose of this determination 
 appears obvious enough. If sin and misery were 
 wholly foreign from the experience of man, this limi- 
 tation of his view might be complained of as a hard- 
 ship or privation. But since man is born to sorrow 
 and temptation, since his heart is deceitful and his 
 understanding fallible, since no foreknowledge could 
 efiectually guard him against sin or sufiering, without 
 the intervention of a power which can just as well be 
 exercised without his knowledge and consent as with 
 it ; since the pains to be endured would in multitudes 
 of cases be immeasurably aggravated by anticipa- 
 tion, and the most important duties often shrunk from
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 147 
 
 in despair, if all the preceding and accompanying 
 circumstances could be seen at once, whenever the 
 contrary effect results from the gradual development 
 in slow succession, urging only one step in advance, 
 and at the same time cutting off retreat as either 
 shameful or impossible ; for these, and other reasons 
 like these, the concealment of futurity is on the whole 
 to be regarded not as a privation, but a priceless 
 mercy. 
 
 We have only to look back upon our progress 
 hitherto, and some of us, alas, not far, to see experi- 
 mental evidence, which we at least must own to be 
 conclusive, that in hiding from us that which was be- 
 fore us, God has dealt with us not as an austere 
 master but a tender parent, knowing well how much 
 his children can endure, and in the exercise of that 
 omniscience determining not only how much they 
 shall actually suffer, but how much of what they are 
 to suffer shall be known to them before their day of 
 visitation comes. 
 
 But this part of God's providential government, 
 though eminently merciful, is not designed exclusively 
 to spare men a part of the suffering which sin has 
 caused. It has a higher end. By the partial dis- 
 closure and concealment of futurity, continually 
 acting on the native disposition to pry into it, the 
 soul is still led onward, kept in an attitude of expec- 
 tation, and in spite of its native disposition to look 
 downward, to go backward, or to lie stagnant, is per- 
 petually stimulated to look up, to exert itself, and 
 make advances in the right direction. The immense 
 advantage of the impulse thus imparted may indeed
 
 14:8 SERMONS. 
 
 be lost, and even made to aggravate tlie guiit and 
 "wretcliedness of those wlio disregard it ; but considered 
 in itself and its legitimate effects, it is one of the most 
 striking proofs of God's benevolence to man, that 
 when the soul through sin has acquired a fatal ten- 
 dency to sink forever and forever lower, or to rest 
 where even rest is ruin, instead of suffering this ten- 
 dency to operate without obstruction as he justly 
 might, he has created a new counteracting influence 
 and brought it to bear mightily, not only on the con- 
 science and the understanding, but upon instinctive 
 fears, and the natural desire of man to know what is 
 before them. 
 
 This view, partial and imperfect as it may be, of 
 the divine purpose is abundantly sufficient to vindicate 
 His wisdom and His goodness, in making men so 
 curious of the future and yet utterly unable to dis- 
 cover it except so far as he is pleased to make it 
 known. For I need hardly say that this concealment 
 of the future, is not, and cannot be, from the nature 
 of the case, absolute and total. In making us 
 rational, in giving us the power of comparison and 
 judgment, and in teaching us by the constitution of 
 our nature to infer effect from cause and cause from 
 effect, God has rendered us incapable of looking at 
 the present or remembering the past, without at the 
 same time, or as a necessary consequence, anticipating 
 that which is to come, and to a great extent with per- 
 fect accuracy, so that all the knowledge of the future 
 which is needed for the ordinary purposes of human 
 lift is amply provided and infallibly secured ; while 
 far beyond the limits of this crdinary foresight, he
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 149 
 
 has granted to some gifted minds a keener vision and 
 a more enlarged horizon, so that objects, which to 
 others seem to lie behind the veil c/ providential con- 
 cealment, are detected and revealed by the far reach- 
 ing ken of their sagacity. 
 
 I^OT is this all, for even with respect to things 
 which neither ordinary reasoning from analogy, nor 
 extraordinary powers of forecast can avail to bring 
 within the reach of human prescience, God has him- 
 self been pleased to make them known by special 
 revelation. Experience and reason are enough to 
 teach us that all men must die. Professional or per- 
 sonal sagacity may see the signs of speedy death in 
 one, whom others look upon as firm in health, and 
 sure, to all appearance, of long life. But neither rea- 
 son, nor experience, nor sagacity, could ever teach us 
 that the body now dead shall again live ; that the soul 
 now living shall yet die, the death, not of annihilation, 
 but, of perdition ; that this second death is, by nature, 
 the inevitable doom of all mankind, and yet that it 
 may be escaped, but only in one way. Much less can 
 that one way be distinguished or revealed by the ex- 
 ercise of any unassisted human power. Tliese are 
 things which neither eye can see, nor ear hear, nor 
 heart conceive, until the Spirit of God makes them 
 known. The light which shines upon the ordinary 
 duties and events of life, is that which glimmers 
 through the curtain of futurity ; the more extraordi- 
 nary sights which are occasionally seen by some minds 
 in the exercise of an extraordinary poAvcr, are the 
 vague and dubious shadows which appear and disap- 
 pear upon the curtain which conceals their cause ;
 
 150 SERMONS. 
 
 but the view wliieli man obtains cf heaven and Lell, 
 of everlasting life and of the second death, can only 
 be obtained through some opening which the hand of 
 God himself has made in that mysterious curtain, or 
 at some favoured spot where he has gathered up its 
 folds, and given man a clear, though partial glimpse 
 beyond it, free from all obstruction. 
 
 Revelations thus imparted do not change or mod- 
 ify the operation of that great law of concealment 
 under which God's dispensations are conducted. He 
 has indeed made known the way of life, the necessity 
 and method of salvation, but the personal futurity of 
 every man is still hidden from the view both of him- 
 self and others. And even with respect to that which 
 is revealed, there is reserve and limitation, so that 
 while men may rejoice in those discoveries which 
 through divine grace now belong to them and their 
 children, they are still constrained to say with Moses 
 of old, " Secret things belong unto the Lord our God." 
 
 Through one such opening into Futurity as I have 
 been describing, God has permanently brought within 
 the view of all, who have his Word in their posses- 
 sion, a long line of light, reaching like Jacob's ladder 
 from the earth to heaven, a path for the descent of 
 ministering angels, and the ascent of such as shall be 
 saved. Tlie points where it begins and ends are clear- 
 ly marked ; and all along its intervening course, the 
 line of its direction is identified by landmarks, by the 
 altar erected at the gate of Paradise, the ark of ISToah, 
 and the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, the tem- 
 ple, the manger at Bethlehem, the garden of Geth- 
 eemane, the cross on Calvary, the tomb of Joseph, the 
 
 fl
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 151 
 
 ascent from Olivet, the throne of God, and the seat 
 at his right hand. Along this pathway, from the 
 depths of sin and sorrow, thousands have made their 
 way through fire and flood, through the blood of mar- 
 t}Tdom and that of atonement, out of much tribula- 
 tion, and with fear and trembling, to that world 
 where there is no night, neither light of the sun, 
 where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
 are at rest. 
 
 That there is such a way and such an end, no one 
 can doubt who will use the light which God has given 
 him. Behold, oh soul, behold it for thyself. With- 
 draw thy curious gaze from vain endeavours to dis- 
 cover that which is concealed, or from the useless 
 sight of visionary phantoms ; let the veil still hide the 
 secret things of God until his hand shall rend it; 
 but behold that luminous and dazzling point, that ray 
 of light illumining futurity, an aperture through 
 which you may behold the life that is to come. See 
 that narrow pathway with its difficult approach, and 
 straitened entrance, scaling one mountain — then an- 
 other and another and another — till it seems to dis- 
 appear among the clouds ; and then again to be seen 
 through them, indistinct, but still unchanged in its 
 direction — still ascending, still surmounting every in- 
 tervening object, till the aching sense toils after it in 
 vain, or the view which was afforded you is suddenly 
 cut off. For here is an example of that limitation and 
 reserve which I have mentioned as acompanying even 
 the clearest revelations of futurity. If any thing is 
 certain it is this, that they who do escape perdition, 
 and by faith in the omnipotence of grace, pursue
 
 152 SERMONS. 
 
 this upward course, shall still continue to ascend 
 without cessation, rising higher, growing better, and 
 becoming more and more like God throughout eter- 
 nity. I say that this is sure — sure as the oath and 
 promise of a God who cannot lie can make it ; and it 
 is a glorious certainty indeed ; but when we task our 
 powers to distinguish the successive steps of this tran- 
 scendent change, to compute specifically the eftects 
 which certain causes will produce, and to anticipate 
 the actual results of the whole process, we are lost, we 
 are bewildered ; this is not yet revealed to us ; it 
 could not be without confounding all distinctions, and 
 making the present and the future one. Hence the 
 Apostle, who is speaking in the text, although inspired 
 to reveal the general fact that true believers are the 
 sons of God, and joint-heirs with the Saviour of a 
 glorious inheritance, even he stops short before at- 
 tempting to describe in its details what glorified be- 
 lievers are to be hereafter, even his tongue falters, 
 even his eye quails, he turns away dazzled from the 
 light which no man can approach unto, and which 
 even inspiration did not enable him to penetrate, say- 
 ing, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be," — we 
 shall be something, something great and glorious, 
 something which we are not, and never have been, 
 something of which we cannot form an adequate con- 
 ception ; this we shall be, tliis we must be ; but be- 
 yond this, as to the mode of our existence, or the cir- 
 cumstances of our new condition, " it doth not yet 
 appear^ what we shall be." So that with respect to 
 that which is most certain as a general truth, many at 
 
 II
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 153 
 
 least of the particulars included in it, may be still be- 
 neath the veil of providential concealment. 
 
 This vagueness and uncertainty, although at first 
 sight it may seem to be a serious disadvantage, is nev- 
 ertheless not without important and beneficent efiects 
 upon the subjects of salvation. It may seem, indeed, 
 that as a means of arousing and arresting the atten- 
 tion, an indefinite assurance of transcendent blessed- 
 ness hereafter is less likely to be efiicacious than a 
 distinct and vivid exhibition of the elements which 
 are to constitute that blessedness ; but let it be re- 
 membered that no possible amount, and no conceiva- 
 ble array of such particulars, would have the least 
 effect in originating serious reflection or desire in the 
 unconverted heart. Tliis can be wrought by nothing 
 short of a divine power, and when it is thus wrought, 
 when the thoughts and the affections are once turned 
 in the right direction, the less detailed and more in- 
 definite description of the glory which is yet to be ex- 
 perienced, seems often best adapted to excite and 
 stimulate the soul and lead it onwards, by still pre- 
 senting something that is yet to be discovered or 
 attained, and thus experimentally accustoming the 
 soul to act upon the vital principle of its new-born 
 nature, forgetting that which is behind, and reaching 
 forth to that which is before. 
 
 Tlie same thing may be said of the indefinite man 
 ner in which the doom of the impenitent and unbe-- 
 lieving is set forth in Scripture. The general truth 
 that they shall perish, that their ruin shall be total, 
 final, and irrevocable, and that their condition shall be 
 growing worse and worse and worse forever ; this is 
 
 VOL. I. — 7*
 
 154 SERMONS. 
 
 taught too clearly to be rendered dubious by any 
 natural or rational interpretation of the Word of G bd. 
 And in the truth thus clearly taught there is a fathom- 
 less depth of solemn and terrific import, rendered 
 more impressive by the vagueness and reserve of the 
 description, when the mind has once been awakened 
 to the serious contemplation of futurity ; but until 
 this is the case, the general threatenings of perdition 
 fall without eifect upon the heavy ear and the obdu- 
 rate conscience. No attempt, however, has been 
 made in Scripture to increase their efficacy by an ac- 
 cumulation of appalling circumstances. There are 
 fearful glimpses of the world of woe, but they are 
 merely glimj)ses, abundantly sufficient to assure us 
 that there is a future state of punishment, but not to 
 feed or stimulate a morbid curiosity. In this, as in 
 the corresponding case before described, if the mind 
 is awakened, such details are needless, and if not 
 awakened, they are unavailing. Tell a poor man that 
 he has suddenly been made rich by the bequest of 
 some unknown kinsman or a stranger, and so long as 
 he regards it as a jest or an imposition, you gain 
 nothing by the fullest and most accurate detail of the 
 possessions which have thus devolved upon him ; nay, 
 the very minuteness of your description seems to con- 
 firm him in his incredulity. But let him by some 
 other means be thoroughly persuaded of the fact that 
 he has undergone this change of fortune, and he lis- 
 tens even to the most indefinite and vague assurance 
 with avidity, and now, instead of slighting the par- 
 ticulars of which before he took no notice, he is eager 
 to obtain them, and pursues his importunate inquiries 
 
 I
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 155 
 
 until one fact after another has been fully ascertained. 
 So too in the case of warnings against some impend- 
 ing danger. Tell a solitary traveller, that in the 
 forest which is just before him there are wild beasts, 
 robbers, pitfalls, precipices, labyrinths, or any other 
 perils, and if he believes you not, it is in vain that 
 you exaggerate the evil, or depict it in the most im- 
 pressive and alarming colours. Every stroke that you 
 add to your description seems to make it less effective 
 than the indefinite assurance which preceded it. But 
 if a sudden panic should take hold of him, or, instead 
 of being fearless and self-confident, he be naturally 
 timid and accustomed to shun danger, even the first 
 vague intimation of that danger is sufficient to unman 
 him, and he either turns around, without waiting for 
 a more detailed description of the case, or else he 
 hears it with the eagerness of unaffected terror. 
 
 These familiar illustrations may sufiice to show 
 that in the wise reserve with which the Scriptures 
 speak of the details of future blessedness and misery, 
 there is no sacrifice of any salutary influence upon 
 the minds of men ; and that it does not in the least 
 impair the majesty, benevolence, and justice of God's 
 dealings with the souls of men — that while the cer- 
 tainty, eternity, and endless progression, both of future 
 blessedness and future miserj^, are clearly set forth in 
 the word of God, the minute particulars of neither 
 state and neither process are detailed, nor any at- 
 tempt made to describe things indescribable ; but 
 both are left to be made known by a glorious or terri- 
 ble experience, with the solemn premonition, clothed 
 in various forms, that in reference, as well to our de-
 
 J56 SERMONS. 
 
 struction if we perish, or to onr blessedness if saved, 
 " it doth not yet appear what we shall be." 
 
 In thtis extending what the text says of God'e 
 adopted children, to the misery of those whom he 
 shall finally cast off, I have merely held np to your 
 view the same great truth in two of its important as- 
 pects. It is the same pillar that is light to Israel and 
 dark to the Egyptians. It was not, howerer, my de- 
 sign to dwell upon the mere doctrinal proposition, 
 though unquestionably true and inconceivably impor- 
 tant, that neither reason nor experience nor imagina- 
 tion can, in this life, furnish us with any adequate 
 conception either of the joys of heaven or the pains of 
 hell ; nor can I be satisfied with simply pointing to 
 the one and to the other, and in reference to both, as- 
 suring those who now hear me, in the accents of encour- 
 agement and warning, that " it doth not yet appear 
 what we shall be." I desire rather to bring this inter- 
 esting fact of the text to bear with all its rightful power 
 on the character, interests, and duties of my hearers. 
 To effect this purpose, I have no need to resort to any 
 forced accommodation or arbitrary application of 
 the text, which I have chosen with direct view to the 
 use which I now propose to make of it. All that is 
 necessary for my present purpose, imder God's bless- 
 ing, is to lead your minds a little further in the same 
 direction which we have been hitherto pursuing, and 
 if possible, to show you the effect which the doctrine 
 of the text, if rightly "understood and heaitily em 
 braced, must have upon our views of human life, and 
 more particularly of its earlier periods. 
 
 If, my hearer, it be true, as I believe, and you be
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 15Y 
 
 lieve, and as God's word assures us, that in reference 
 even to the case of those who shall assuredly be saved 
 or as assuredly be lost, " it doth not yet appear what 
 they shall be ; " if it be true that even those who are 
 already saved, not merely in God's purpose, but in 
 fact, beyond the reach of all disturbing and retarding 
 causes, even they who are rejoicing at this moment in 
 God's presence as the spirits of just men made per- 
 fect, if even they are unable to enclose in their con- 
 ceptions that illimitable ocean into which they have- 
 been plunged but for a moment ; if it be true that even 
 those who are disembodied spirits and are now drink- 
 ing of the cup of divine wrath, can, in the anguish 
 of their torment, frame no definite idea of the volume 
 and duration of that stream of fire which forever and 
 forever fills their cup to overflowing ; if both these 
 souls, however difi"erent their actual condition and 
 their prospects for eternity, are forced alike to cry out 
 in a triumphant burst of grateful joy and a convulsion 
 of blaspheming horror, " it doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be ! " Oh, with what multiplied intensity 
 of emphasis may those whose future state is still un- 
 settled, who are still upon the isthmus between hell 
 and heaven, wavering, vacillating, hanging in terrible 
 suspense between the two, unable or unwilling to de- 
 cide their fate, and waiting, it would almost seem, 
 until some heaving of the ocean of eternity should 
 sweep them from the earth they know not, think not, 
 care not whither, Oh ! with what emphasis might 
 such exclaim, as they hang over the dizzy verge of 
 two unchanging, everlasting states, " it doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be."
 
 158 SERMONS. 
 
 But is it, can it be, a fact, that rational, spiritual 
 beings, godlike in tlieir origin, and made for immor- 
 tality, with faculties susceptible of endless elevation 
 and enlargement and activity, can hesitate to choose 
 life rather than death, and good in preference to evil ? 
 Yes, it may be so ; it is so ; such neutrality is possi- 
 ble, so far as a decisive formal action of the will goes. 
 The performance of that last act may be long defer- 
 red, and in deferring it, the dying soul may cherish 
 the belief that all is still at its disposal, and that by 
 one indejsendent act of will, the whole work of salva- 
 tion or perdition is to be begun and finished. Oh, 
 W'hat a delusion ! \vhen the cup, by long-continued 
 droppings, has been filled up to the brim, to imagine 
 that the last and almost imperceptible infusion which 
 produces its final overflow is all that it contains ; or, 
 that the withholding of that one drop, leaves it empty 
 and removes all danger of its ever overflowing. How 
 preposterous a hope ! and yet in no respect less ra- 
 tional than his, who lets his life not only run to waste, 
 but run to ruin, in the expectation that by some one 
 energetic act at last, the countless acts which have 
 preceded it, shall all be cancelled and their effect 
 neutralized. It is the crying sin and the stupendous 
 folly of our race, that while they own their need of 
 expiation, and repentance, and conversion, and ac- 
 knowledge, yea, insist upon God's sovereign right to 
 give them or withhold them, they not only make no 
 efforts to obtain them at his hands, but, as it were, 
 take pains to make the work which they acknowledge 
 to be necessary, harder, and the grace which they 
 prefer to wait for, more and more hopeless. Does 
 
 I
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 159 
 
 the man who looks to God for the productions of that 
 which he has buried in the earth, demonstrate his de- 
 pendence by introducing tares among his wheat, by 
 laboriously cultivating noxious weeds, or by violently 
 tearing from the earth the very seed on which he is 
 depending for a harvest ? Does the man who looks 
 to God for the recovery of health, presume on that 
 ground to drink poison, to court exposure, and to 
 plunge into the most insane and ruinous excesses? 
 Does the mariner who looks to God for a successful 
 issue to his voyage, throw his cargo and provisions 
 overboard, dismantle his own vessel, pierce its bot- 
 tom, or deliberately drive it upon fatal rocks ? Is 
 such madness possible ? or, if it were, would it be in 
 the least extenuated by the calm profession of a pur- 
 pose to do otherwise and better, at some future time, 
 when all the evil may have been accomplished, and 
 amendment irretrievably too late ? 
 
 Of all reliances, the w^eakest and the worst is a 
 reliance on the permanence of present motives, which 
 now have no effect, and may one day gatlier over- 
 whelming strength, and those which now seem all- 
 sufficient, and may be powerless. Because you now 
 wish to repent, and to believe, and to be saved here- 
 after, you imagine yourselves safe in your impenitence, 
 and unbelief and condemnation. "Why, the very dispo- 
 sition wdiich is now made the pretext for procrastina- 
 tion, may forsake you. The respect you now feel for 
 the truth, for God's law, for the gospel, may be 
 changed into a cold indifference, contemptuous incre- 
 dulity, or malignant hatred. The faint gleams cf con 
 viction which occasionally light up the habitual dark
 
 160 SERMONS. 
 
 ness of the mind, may be extinguished. The compunc- 
 tious visitings which now preserve your conscience 
 from unbroken stupor, may become less frequent, 
 till they cease forever, or give place to the agonizing 
 throbs of an incurable remorse. In short, the very 
 feelings and intentions upon which you vainly build 
 your hopes of future reformation, may themselves be 
 as evanescent as the outward circumstances which 
 produce them ; and when these have passed away, 
 the others may soon follow ; so that, even though your 
 judgment may be now correct, your feelings tender, 
 and your plans of future action all that could be 
 wished, " it doth not yet appear what you shall be." 
 
 How often, oh, how often, has some real or imagi- 
 nary sorrow touched the secret springs of your affec- 
 tion with a sympathy so exquisite that change ap- 
 peared impossible, and you imagined, aye, perhaps, 
 declared, that you would never smile again! Has 
 that pledge been redeemed ? In other cases, how 
 your heart has swelled with gratitude for some de- 
 liverance or surprising mercy, which you fondly 
 dreamed could never be forgotten ? Were you right 
 in so believing ? Oh, my hearers, where are the de- 
 lights of infancy, the sports of childhood, and the 
 hopes of youth, the joys and sorrows which absorbed 
 your thoughts and governed your affections but a few 
 years back ? Are they not all gone ? Have not their 
 very objects and occasions in many cases been for- 
 gotten ? And has not this process been repeated more 
 than once, it may be often, till you find it hard to 
 look back a few years or even months, without a 
 passing doubt of your identity, so changed are your
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 161 
 
 opinions, inclinations, habits, purposes and hopes? 
 Eecall that wish, and then consider whether its ful- 
 filment now would make you happy as it promised 
 to do then ; nay, does it even seem desirable, or wor- 
 thy of an effort to secure it ? No, the appetite has 
 sickened and so died. The object is the same, but 
 you are not ; your mind, your heart, your will, are 
 changed ; and do you, can you, dare you think, that 
 you are now unchangeable, or capable of changing 
 for the better only, so that what you now approve, 
 and wish, and purpose, will still continue to be thus 
 approved, desired, and purposed, and at last per- 
 formed. Alas, my hearer, if, when you look at what 
 you are, you can scarcely recognize what you have 
 been, surely "it doth not yet appear what you shall 
 
 be." 
 
 To some of you the period of childhood is so re- 
 cent that memory has not yet wholly lost its old im- 
 pressions. You can easily remember objects upon 
 which you then looked witli a solemn awe, perhaps 
 with terror. Do they still command your reverence ? 
 There were others upon which you looked with infan- 
 tile contempt, as far less interesting than your child- 
 ish sports ; and yet these objects have been rising and 
 expanding in the view with every moment of your 
 life and every handsbreadth of your stature. And 
 now, I ask you, what is the change owing to? to lapse 
 of time ? to change of circumstances ? to the growth of 
 all your faculties ? And are you not soon to be still 
 older than you are ? Must not your circumstances 
 undergo still further change ? Can you imagine that 
 the development and cultivation of your powers are
 
 IQ2 SERMONS. 
 
 already finished? Is it not then possible, at least, 
 that your future views and feelings may as widely 
 differ from your present views and feelings, as the 
 present from the past. And is it rational or right to 
 seal up your own destiny and character ? 
 
 Turn not away, then, from the gracious invitations 
 of the gospel, merely because you do not now feel the 
 need of its protection, consolations, and rewards. Life 
 is not only short but full. of change. If you could now 
 look back and see some golden opportunity of wealth 
 and greatness lost forever, through a freak of childish 
 levity, you would scarcely be consoled by the reflec- 
 tion that you thereby gained another hour of amuse- 
 ment. But, oh, how inadequate is this to give the 
 least idea of your feelings in that awful hour, when 
 you shall see eternal life forever lost for the mere 
 playthings of this passing scene. Try then to antedate 
 experience, to anticipate as possible, feelings the most 
 remote from those which you are now indulging. 
 For example, when I speak of consolation, there are 
 some perhaps among you who could smile at the idea 
 as entirely foreign from your present feelings. And 
 when you look before you and imagine scenes of sor- 
 row, they are mere fantastic images, on which your 
 stronger feelings rest but for a moment. This may 
 not be the case with all. Tliere may be some here 
 whose experience has made them prematurely old. 
 There may be hearts among you whose deep foun- 
 tains have been broken up and taught to gush already. 
 Such need no admonition upon this point. The heart 
 knoweth its own bitterness, and the stranger inter- 
 meddle th not with its joys. But you who are with-
 
 1 JOHN 8, 2. 163 
 
 ont experience of real and deep-seated scrrow, look 
 afar off at that strange phantasmagoria of darkened 
 chambers, desolated houses, beds of pain, dying 
 struggles, funeral rites, and broken hearts — and 
 amidst all these behold that human form, and tell me 
 whether you can realize yourself Now, as to out- 
 ward things, you may be far beyond the reach of such 
 considerations as a motive to repentance, but you 
 know not what an hour may bring forth. Whatever 
 you are now, " it doth not yet appear what you shall 
 be." 
 
 But your danger lies not merely in disregarding 
 motives which you are to feel hereafter, but in blind- 
 ly trusting to the performance of those which you ac- 
 knowledge now. I might go farther and excite your 
 incredulity and eVen your contempt, by holding up, 
 as possible, a total change not only in your feelings 
 and your principles, but even in your outward lives, 
 a change which you would look upon as utterly im- 
 possible, a change no less humbling to your pride 
 than blasting to your hopes. I might startle you by 
 holding up a mirror which, instead of giving back 
 the smiling aspect that you now wear, the counte- 
 nance of health and buoyant spirits, should confront 
 you with a ghastly likeness of jour present self, un- 
 der the strange and hideous disguise of an exhausted 
 gamester, a decaying libertine, a bloated drunkard, a 
 detected cheat, a conscience-stricken murderer. I might 
 present you to yourself, surrounded by the wreck of 
 fortune, family and character, seated amidst the ashes 
 of deserted hearths and their extinguished fires, gaz- 
 ing unmoved upon peaceful homes made desolate
 
 1Q^ SERMONS. 
 
 and foud hearts broken — the wreck, the refuse, the 
 unquiet ghost of all that you are now. I might pre- 
 sent all this, but you would shrink with indignation 
 from the foul aspersion. You may be unfortunate, 
 you may be changed, but this, but this you can never 
 be, never ! My heart's desire and prayer to God is 
 that you never may ; but what is your security? The 
 mere intentions which you cherish now, to be ful- 
 filled hereafter ? Ah, my hearer, go to yonder silent 
 dwelling-place of crime, and learn how many good 
 intentions have been cherished in those now degraded 
 and perhaps now despairing bosoms. Go to some one 
 haunt of vice, and trace the miserable victims who as- 
 semble there, back through their melancholy pro- 
 gress to the time when their intentions were as good 
 as yours, their external circumstances no less prom- 
 ising. Go to the gibbet, to the yard-arm, to the hor- 
 rid scene of horrid vengeance wreaked by man upon 
 himself, and learn that even there the deadly fruit 
 has often sprung up into a rank vegetation, from the 
 seed of good but ineffectual intentions. 
 
 It is high time for our youth to be aware that 
 they who die upon scaffolds, and pine away in prisons, 
 are not seldom such as once scornfully smiled at the 
 suggestion of tlieir ever being worse than they were 
 then ; and as they looked upon the kind friends and the 
 multiplied advantages by which they were surround- 
 ed, and then in upon the purposes of future good they 
 were intending, would have blushed at their own 
 cowardice or self distrust if they could have been 
 brought to say, " It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be."
 
 1 JOHN 3, 2. 165 
 
 When I recall to mind tlie countenances, persons, 
 manners, talents, attainments, hopes, and purposes of 
 some whom I knew in early life, and then consider 
 what they now are, my heart sickens at the sight of 
 early promise, not because it is not infinitely lovely, 
 but because the possibility of fatal change looms with 
 a ghastly speculation through the eyes of these en- 
 couraging appearances, as evil spirits may have glared 
 upon spectators from the bodies of the men whom 
 they possessed of old. 
 
 From such anticipations, rendered more distress- 
 ing by the growing frequency of such deterioration 
 and of awful crime, the heart is forced to turn away 
 in search of something to reanimate its hopes, and 
 this is only to be found in the immovable belief that 
 God's grace is omnipotent, and Christ's blood efiica- 
 cious. To this the true philanthropist must cling, not 
 only as the ground of his own hope, but as the only 
 som*ce of safety to the young around him ; and when 
 they earnestly inquire, as they sometimes do, how 
 these fearful perils are to be avoided, instead of mock- 
 ing them with prudential maxims of mere worldly 
 policy or selfish cunning, let us lead them at once to 
 the only secure refuge, to the only Saviour, to the cross 
 and to the throne of Jesus Christ. Turn ye to the 
 strongholds, ye prisoners of hope ! Press into yonder 
 gateway ! Cleave to those massive pillars ! Bind 
 yourselves with cords to the horns of yonder altar ! 
 And at every fresh heave of the ocean and the earth, 
 take the faster hold of Christ's cross and throne, and 
 you are safe. Whatever trials may await you here, a 
 glorious compensation is reserved for you hereafter ;
 
 Igg SERMONS. 
 
 final and eternal deliverance " from the bondage of 
 corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of 
 God." " Behold what manner of love the Father 
 hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the 
 sons of God ! " 
 
 But strange as the exaltation is, it is a real one. 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when 
 he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see 
 him as he is ! " Oh blessed sight ! Oh glorious as- 
 similation ! "We shall not only see him as he is, but 
 shall be like him ! Let this bright anticipation stim- 
 ulate and cheer us ! Let Christ be in us the hope 
 of glory ! But let every one that hath this hope in 
 him, purify himself even as He is pure ! 
 
 I
 
 IX. 
 
 Luke 11, 26. — The last state of that man is worse than the first. 
 
 Some of the most remarkable inventions and dis- 
 coveries, by which tlie present age has been distin- 
 guished, are of such a nature as to realize ideas which 
 were once regarded as peculiarly visionary and ab- 
 surd. The steam-engine, the daguerreotype, and the 
 electric telegraph, are all of this description. To our 
 fathers, these results would not only have appeared im- 
 probable or impossible, but as belonging to that class 
 of impossibilities which most resemble mere imagina- 
 tive fictions. That man should be conveyed upon his 
 journey by the vapour of boiling water ; that the sun 
 should be constrained to do the painter's work ; and 
 that words should be communicated instantaneously to 
 any distance by a wire ; are facts which, if predicted 
 a few centuries ago, would not merely have been dis- 
 believed as philosophically false, but laughed at as 
 fabulous inventions, or the dreams of a disordered 
 fancy. And yet these realized impossibilities are 
 now so familiar to our every-day experience, that we 
 scarcely think it necessary to distinguish between 
 them and the most ordinary processes of nature and
 
 1QQ SERMONS. 
 
 of art, to which the world has been accustomed for a 
 course of ages. The power of steam, however highly 
 valued, is now seldom thought of as more wonderful 
 than that of water, wind, or animal strength. The 
 instantaneous operation of the light in delineating 
 forms, seems scarcely more surprising than the tedious 
 process of the chisel ; and an instantaneous message 
 from the ends of the earth may one day seem as nat- 
 ural and common-place an incident as oral communi- 
 cation with our nearest neighbours. 
 
 The use which I would make of this extraordinary 
 change from a contemptuous incredulity to a faith so 
 unhesitating as even to exclude surprise, is to illus- 
 trate the position that a corresponding revolution may 
 perhaps take place in morals and religion ; that the 
 time may be at hand when some of those religious 
 doctrines, which are now rejected by the mass of men, 
 not merely as unscriptural or unphilosophical, but as 
 fanciful and visionary, shall begin to take their place 
 among realities too certain and familiar to be even 
 wondered at as something strange. K such a revolu- 
 tion of opinion and of feeling should indeed take 
 place, there is no subject with respect to which we 
 could expect its effects to be more striking than the 
 subject of evil spirits ; their existence and their influ- 
 ence on human conduct and condition. The predom- 
 inant feeling with which these are now regarded, even 
 by multitudes who hear the gospel, and profess to be 
 believers in the Bible, is a feeling of tolerant con- 
 tempt or compassionate indulgence, such as we all 
 entertain with respect to navigation through the air, 
 or the schemes of universal language, and such as our
 
 LUKE 11, '26. 1(59 
 
 fathers entertained witli respect to those familiar facts 
 of our experience ah-eadj mentioned. If to this sug- 
 gestion of a like change in men's feelings and associa- 
 tions with respect to demoniacal agency, it should be 
 objected that religious truth affords no room for new 
 discovery, being already fully made known in a com- 
 plete and authoritative revelation, it may be replied 
 that this is true of every thing essential to salvation 
 or even to the full development of Christian charac- 
 ter, but not of all things partially disclosed in Scrip- 
 ture. As the intimations which we find there of the 
 origin and structure of the universe do not preclude 
 physical investigation and discovery as useless, or for- 
 bid them as unlawful, because there are only inci- 
 dental and subordinate subjects of Divine revelation ; 
 so the knowledge, or at least the faith, of men as to 
 the fearful doctrine of a devil and his angels, may, 
 for the same reason, be regarded as susceptible of 
 vast increase. At all events, the very possibility of 
 such a change should lead us to receive with any 
 thing but levity or supercilious indifference, the faint 
 but solemn intimations of the Bible upon this myste- 
 rious subject. There is something sublime in the re- 
 serve with which it is thus treated. The views pre- 
 sented are mere glimpses rendered necessary by the 
 context. Sometimes the light is allowed to rest longer 
 on the object than at other times, as in the history of 
 Job's temptations. Even there, however, the unusual 
 distinctness of the view afforded, is counterbalanced 
 by the doubt which overhangs the question whether 
 the statement is literal or figurative, poetical, or 
 historical. Between the two testaments there is a 
 
 VOL. I. — 8
 
 lYO SERMONS. 
 
 great difference of clearness and minuteness in tLo 
 statements on this subject. Even in those of the Kow 
 Testament, however, there -S still the same appearance 
 of reserve, the same entire absence of a disposition to 
 indulge mere curiosity, by limiting the statement to 
 such facts as seem required for some specific purpose. 
 To the attentive reader there will everywhere be 
 visible a marked peculiarity of tone and manner in 
 the treatment of these matters which is well adapted 
 and no doubt designed to keep the reader in perpet- 
 ual recollection of the awful nature of the things re- 
 ferred to, and of the fact that their complete develop- 
 ment is yet to come. Some have inferred from this 
 reserve, that expressions so obscure could not have 
 been intended to convey important matters of belief, 
 and that they ought therefore to be looked upon as 
 strong oriental tropes or mere poetical embellishments. 
 This may seem plausible enough when looked at in 
 the general ; but it is not susceptible of a continued 
 and consistent application in detail. The further we 
 pursue it, the more clearly shall we see what may be 
 mentioned as a second characteristic of the teachings 
 of the Bible on the subject. 
 
 It is this, that while the revelation is reserved and 
 partial, it is so made as to convey an irresistible im- 
 pression of the literal reality of that which is revealed. 
 Whatever different conclusion might be drawn from 
 the language or the spirit of particular passages, it 
 is impossible to view them all in a connected series 
 without a strong conviction that these imperfect and 
 obscure disclosures of an unseen world of evil spirits 
 *vere intended to be strictly understood ; that the
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 171 
 
 Bible does distinctly teacli the agency of such a spirit 
 in the great original apostacy and fall of oui* first 
 parents, and his continued influence on fallen man, an 
 influence which, although it exists at all times, was 
 permitted while our Saviour was on earth, to mani- 
 fest itself with extraordinary violence and clearness, 
 in the form of demoniacal possessions, which afiected 
 both the minds and bodies of the victims, and afibrded 
 the subjects and occasions of some of Christ's most 
 signal miracles, designed not merely to relieve the 
 sufferer, nor merely to display his superhuman power, 
 but to signalize his triumph, as the seed of the woman, 
 over the adverse party represented in the first promise 
 of a Saviour, as the seed of the serpent, whose last 
 desperate struggles, not for existence but for victory, 
 were witnessed in those fearful cases of disease and 
 madness which the gospel narrative ascribes expressly 
 to the personal agency of demons, the history of whose 
 dispossession and expulsion is so prominent a feat- 
 ure in the life of Christ. 
 
 There are here two errors to be avoided, that of 
 denying the reality of these possessions, and that of 
 supposing that the influence of evil spirits upon men 
 was restricted to the time of our Lord's personal 
 presence upon earth. It existed before. It continues 
 still. Its nature and extent are undefinable at pres- 
 ent and by us. "We only know that it is not a co- 
 ercive power, destroying personal responsibility, but 
 a moral influence extending to the thoughts and dis- 
 positions. The true view of the matter seems to be, 
 that from the time of Eve's temptation to the present 
 hour a mysterious connection has existed between
 
 1Y2 SERMONS. 
 
 fallen man and fallen angels, the latter acting as tlie 
 tempters and seducers of the former, the influence ex- 
 erted being mental and insensible, or, so far as it is 
 corporeal, inscrutable by us ; but that at the time of 
 Christ's appearance, the physical effects were suffered 
 to display themselves in an extraordinary manner, for 
 the purpose of manifesting his superiority to the 
 powers of darkness, and showing forth his glory as 
 the conqueror of the conqueror of mankind. If he were 
 now to re-appear, the same effect might be again pro- 
 duced. The latent adversary might be forced to show 
 himself, and manifest at once his fear and hatred, not 
 only by the paroxysms of his victim, by his unearthly 
 shrieks, and spasms, and foaming at the mouth, but 
 by the repetition of that cry, so often heard of old, 
 " what have I to do with thee, thou holy one of God ? 
 art thou come to torment me before the time ? " Or 
 if the veil which hides the spiritual world could now 
 be lifted even for a moment, we might stand aghast 
 to see how large a portion of the moral history of sin- 
 ners is determined by satanic influence ; not such as 
 to extenuate the sinner's guilt, but rather to aggra- 
 vate it by disclosing that his sins are committed in 
 obedience to the dictates of such a master, and in 
 compliance with the suggestions of such a counsellor. 
 Tlie drunkard and the libertine, and every other class 
 of sinners, might be then seen attended by their evil 
 genius, smoothing the way to ruin and averting every 
 better influence. The moral changes now experienced, 
 might be then seen to have more than an ideal con- 
 nection with the presence and absence of these hellish 
 visitants. The apparent reformation of the sinner
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 3^ ^3 
 
 might then be found to coincide with their departure, 
 and his relaj)se with their return. Yes, and in many- 
 cases, the experience of such might be found to cor- 
 respond, not merely in a figure, but in literal truth, 
 with the fearful picture set before us in the text. By 
 means of a vision supernaturally strengthened, we 
 might actually see the evil spirit going out of this 
 man and that man, now regarded as mere ordinary 
 cases of reformation or conversion, and then returnincr 
 with seven others worse than himself, so that the last 
 state of that man is worse than the first. 
 
 Tliere is something fearful in the thought that such 
 a process may be literally going on among us and 
 around us ; that from one and another of these very 
 hearts the evil spirit may have recently departed, and 
 may be wandering in desert places, seeking rest and 
 finding none, until, despairing of another habitation, 
 he shall come back to his old house and find it swept 
 and garnished, rendered more desirable by partial 
 and temporary reformation, and taking with him seven 
 others, he may even now be knocking for admis- 
 sion, and woe to him who opens, for the last state of 
 that man is worse than the first. 
 
 But even granting what to some may seem too 
 clear to be denied, that there is no such process liter- 
 ally going on, and that our Saviour's words contain 
 a mere comparison drawn from a real or ideal case of 
 demoniacal possession, and intended to illustrate a 
 familiar fact in morals, that relapses into sin are al- 
 ways dangerous, and often fatal ; we may still gather 
 very much the same instruction from the parable as 
 if it were a literal description. Whatever horrors the
 
 •y/j^ SERMONS. 
 
 imagination may associate with, tlie personal invasion 
 and inhabitation , )f an evil spirit, is it really more dread- 
 ful, to the eye of reason and awakened conscience, 
 than the constant presence of an evil principle, not as 
 a mere visitant, but as a part of the man himself? Is 
 it not this, after all, which makes the other seem so 
 terrible ? The coming and going of good angels has 
 no such effect on the imagination ; nor would that of 
 neutral spirits, neither good nor evil. Apart from 
 their moral effects, their presence or absence is a 
 matter of indifference. And if the effects are 
 wrought, it matters little whether they are literally 
 brought about, in whole or in part, by the influence 
 of demons, or only metaphorically so described. It mat- 
 ters little wliether our Saviour meant to represent the 
 fluctuations of man's spiritual state as actually caused 
 by the departure and return of these invisible se- 
 ducers, or only to describe their fearful import and 
 result by mysterious figures borrowed from the world 
 of spirits. 
 
 The primary application of the words, as made by 
 Christ himself, was to his own contemporaries — the 
 Jewish nation — who for ages had been separated from 
 the Gentiles ; and from whom the demon of idolatry 
 had been cast out at the Babylonish exile ; but who 
 now, in their malignant persecution and rejection of 
 their born Messiah, seemed to be repossessed by 
 devils far more numerous and spiteful than those by 
 which they had been actuated in the worst days of 
 their earlier history, or even those which they be- 
 lieved themselves to be the gods of the heathen. Of 
 Buch a people — 30 peculiarly distinguished, and yet so
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 1Y5 
 
 unfaithful, who had proved untrue to a vocation so 
 extraordinary ; and, while boasting of their vast supe- 
 riority to the heathen, had outdone the heathen them- 
 selves in crime, and were yet to sink as far below 
 them in punishment — of such a people it might well 
 be said, that their last state was worse than their 
 first. 
 
 The same thing is no less true of other communi- 
 ties, distinguished by extraordinary providential fa- 
 vours, and by flagrant abuse of their advantages. If 
 we could watch the tide of national prosperity, in such 
 a case, until it ebbed, it would require no great 
 stretch of imagination to perceive the evil spirit, who 
 had seemed to forsake a people so enlightened and so 
 highly favored, coming back under the cloak of the 
 returning darkness, from his wandering in the desert, 
 not alone, but followed by a shadowy train, overleap- 
 ing the defences which appeared impregnable to hu- 
 man foes, or mysteriously gliding through the very 
 crevices of fast-barred doors, and unexpectedly appear- 
 ing in their ancient haunts, which all the intervening 
 glory and prosperity have only seemed to sweej) and 
 garnish for its repossession by its ancient master and 
 his new confederates, under whose united usurpation 
 and oppression the last state of that race, or society, 
 or nation, must be worse tlian the first. 
 
 But it is not merely to the rise and fall of wliole 
 communities that these terrific images were meant to 
 be applied. The same law of reaction and relapse 
 controls the personal experience of the individual. 
 This is, indeed, its most instructive and affecting ap- 
 plication. The vicissitudes of nations, or of other ag-
 
 176 SERMONS. 
 
 gregate Dodies, however imposing to the eye cf the 
 spectator, and however sweeping in their ultimate ef- 
 fects, do not, and cannot so excite our sympathies as 
 those which take place in a single soul^ and by which 
 the experience of communities and nations, after all, 
 must be determined. It is not as the invaders of a 
 country or besiegers of a city, that the evil spirit, with 
 his sevenfold reinforcement, rises up before the mind's 
 eye in terrific grandeur. It is when we see him 
 knocking at the solitary door from which he was once 
 -driven in disgrace and anguish. The scene, though 
 an impressive one, is easily called up. A lonely 
 dwelling on the margin of a wilderness, cheerfully 
 lighted as tlie night approaches, carefully swept and 
 garnished, and apparently the home of plenty, peace, 
 and comfort. The winds that sweep across the desert 
 pass it by unheeded. But, as the darkness thickens, 
 something more than wind approaches from that quar- 
 ter. What are the shadowy forms that seem to come 
 forth from the dry places of the wilderness, and 
 stealthily draw near the dwelling ? One of the num- 
 ber guides the rest, and now they reach the threshold. 
 Hark ! he knocks ; but only to assure himself that 
 there is no resistance. Through the opened door we 
 catch a glimpse of the interior, swept and garnished — 
 swept and garnished; but for whose use? — its right- 
 ful owner? Alas! no; for he is absent ; and already 
 has that happy home begun to ring with fiendish 
 laughter, and to glare with hellish flames ; and, if the 
 weal or woe of any man be centred in it, the last state 
 of that man is worse than the first. 
 
 Do you look upon this as a mere fancy scene ?
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 17Y 
 
 Alas I my hearers, just sucli fancy scenes arc passing 
 every day within yon or around you, rendered only 
 more terrific by the absence of all sensible indica- 
 tions, just as we shrink with a peculiar dread from 
 unseen dangers if considered real, and are less affected 
 by the destruction that wastes at noon-day, than by 
 the pestilence that walks in darkness. Come with 
 me and let me show you one or two examples of fa- 
 miliar spiritual changes which, if not the work of evil 
 spirits, may at least be aptly represented by the im- 
 ages presented in the text and context. To the eye 
 of memory or imagination, there rises up the form of 
 one who was the slave of a particular iniquity, whicli 
 gave complexion to his character and life. It was, 
 perhaps, an open and notorious vice, which directly 
 lowered him in public estimation. Or, it may have 
 been a secret and insidious habit, long successfully 
 concealed or never generally known. But its effects 
 were seen. Even those who were stranofcrs to his 
 habits could perceive that there was something wrong, 
 and they suspected and distrusted him. He felt it, 
 and in desperation waxed worse and worse. But, in 
 the course of Providence, a change takes place. "With- 
 out any real change of principle or heart, he finds 
 that his besetting sin is ruining his health, his repu- 
 tation, or his fortune. Strong as the power of temp- 
 tation, appetite, and habit is, some form of selfishness 
 is stronger still. The man reforms. The change is 
 recognized at once. He is another man. After the 
 first painful acts of self-denial, the change appears de- 
 lightful to himself. He seems once more to walk 
 erect. A new direction has been given to his hopes 
 
 VOL. I. — 8*
 
 178 SERMONS. 
 
 and his desires, and, like Saul, he rejoices that the 
 evil spirit has departed from /lim. At first he is 
 afraid of its return, and keeps strict watch against the 
 inroads of the eneni}^. By degrees he grows secure, 
 and his vigils are relaxed. The temptation presents 
 itself in some form, so contemptible and little to be 
 feared, that he would blush not to encounter it. He 
 does encounter it. He fights it. He appears to tri- 
 umph for a moment, but is ultimately overcome. The 
 next victory is easier. The next is easier still. He 
 tries to recall the feelings which preceded and pro- 
 duced his reformation; but the spell is over. He 
 knows that they have once proved ineffectual to save 
 him, and he trusts in them no longer. Even the 
 checks which once controlled him in his former course 
 of sin are now relaxed ; he is tired of opposition, and 
 seeks refuge from his self-contempt in desperate in- 
 dulgence. Do you believe a change like this to be 
 unusual in real life, or too unimportant to be fairly rep- 
 resented by our Saviour's fearful image of the dis- 
 possessed and discontented demon coming back to 
 the emancipated soul, and reasserting his dominion, 
 till " the last state of that man is worse than the 
 first ? " 
 
 Another man passes through the very same pro- 
 cess of reformation, but with different results. His 
 watch against the inroads of his once besetting sin is 
 still maintained. His jealousy and dread of it con- 
 tinue unabated. The appetite seems to sicken and to 
 die. He is indeed a new man, as to that one sin, and 
 rejoices with good reason that the fiend has left him. 
 As the habit of forbearance gathers strength, lie
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 179 
 
 learns to trust in his own power of resistance. He 
 naturally measures liis morality by that sin which 
 once so easily beset him. Freedom from that sin is 
 to him a state of purity, and he flatters himself that 
 he is daily growing better. But, alas ! in his anxiety 
 to bar one door against the enemy, he has left the rest 
 all open. A successful breach is made in his de- 
 fences by an unexpected foe ; perhaps by one whom 
 he had harbored and regarded as a friend. Before he 
 is aware, he finds himself a new man in another 
 sense. The evil spirit has returned, but in a different 
 shape, and taking unopposed possession, is again his 
 master. The reformed drunkard has become a game- 
 ster ; the reformed prodigal a miser ; the reformed 
 cheat a voluptuary. Such conversions are by no 
 means rare — conversion wrought without the trouble- 
 some aj)pliances of prayer, or preaching, or the Holy 
 Spirit. In all such cases the dominion of the new- 
 vice will probably be stronger than the dominion of 
 the old one. The reaction and relapse from a state of 
 self-denial is attended by an impetus which makes it- 
 self to be perceived. The man, as it were, makes 
 amends to himself for giving up his former sin by 
 larger measures of indulgence in the new one. The 
 limits which impeded his indulgence in the one are 
 perhaps inapplicable to the other ; and, from one or 
 the other of these causes, or from both, " the last state 
 of that man is worse than the first." 
 
 I have said, that in this case the anxiety to shut 
 one door leaves the others open. Hence, it often hap- 
 pens that the soul is invaded, not by one new spirit, 
 out by many. Imagining that abstinence from one
 
 180 SIHMONS. 
 
 sin is morality, the man, of course, falls into ethers ; 
 and the conquest of the citadel is frequej tly effected 
 by the comhhied force of the enemy. If you ask the 
 evil spirit which at first has possession : What is thy 
 name ? you may receive for answer : Drunkenness, or 
 Avarice, or Lust. But ask the same after the relapse, 
 and the response must be : My name is Legion. Have 
 you not seen in real life this terrible exchange of one 
 besetting sin for several ? Have you not known 
 men, who once seemed vulnerable only at a single 
 point, begin to appear vulnerable, as it were, at all 
 points, perhaps with the exception of the one first men- 
 tioned ? IS^ow, when this is the case, besides the 
 power exerted by each appetite and passion on the 
 soul distinctly, there is a debasing and debilitating 
 influence arising from the conflict which exists be- 
 tween them. Let the reformed libertine become at 
 once ambitious, avaricious, and revengeful, and let 
 these hungry serpents gnaw his soul, and it will soon 
 be seen by others, if not felt by the miserable victim, 
 that the evil spirit which had left him for a season has 
 returned with seven others worse than himself; and, 
 as we see them in imagination enter the dwelling 
 swept and garnished for their use, we may read, in- 
 scribed above the portal that shuts after them, " the 
 last state of that man is worse than the first." 
 
 Let us now leave the regions of gross vice, with 
 their seeming reformations and their terrible conver- 
 sions from one sin to another, or from one to many, 
 and breathe for a while the atmosphere of decent mor- 
 als, under the influence of Christian institutions. Let 
 me show you one who never was the slave of any vice,
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 181 
 
 and whose character has never been subjected to sus- 
 picion. Such are always to be found among those 
 "who have enjoyed a religious education and the 
 means of grace. Yet, so long as these advantages are 
 unattended by a change of heart, the evil spirit still 
 maintains possession. Methinks I see one who has 
 long held a high place in the public estimation as a 
 moral and conscientious person, but whose views are 
 bounded by the sensible horizon, who sees nothing 
 serious in religion, or deserving of profound regard. 
 All is sunshine. Even death, while distant, has no 
 horrors, and the world beyond is blank. The past, 
 the present, and the future are alike themes of jest 
 and laughter. But the scene is changed. A sudden 
 shadow falls across the countenance and heart. The 
 laugher becomes grave. He indulges for the first 
 time in serious reflection. Without knowing whence 
 his change of feeling comes, he yields to it, and it in- 
 creases. The realities of life are seen in a new as- 
 pect. What mere trifles seem momentous. Sin is no 
 longer mocked at, and the grave looks dull and dreary. 
 The question of salvation and the necessary means to 
 it, begins to be considered, and the world begins to 
 see that he who once was so light-hearted, has be- 
 come, as they correctly term it, serious. The dura- 
 tion of this state of mind is indefinitely variable. Most 
 men experience it for moments or for hours, many for 
 days or weeks, and some for months, or even 3^ears. 
 In many cases it becomes habitual ; the feelings are 
 adjusted to it ; it proceeds no further, and is equiva- 
 lent to a simple change of temperament. N^ay, in 
 some cases, while the appearance lasts, the feeling it-
 
 182 SERMONS. 
 
 self wears away. The shadows cast by some myste- 
 rious object on tlie soul are graivially mitigated and 
 reduced in depth, until the sun breaks through the 
 intervening obstacle, and broad daylight returns, 
 The sensation of this change is naturally pleasant. It 
 is welcomed, it is cherished, till the ancient habits of 
 the mind are reinstated in their full dominion. Even 
 supposing that the change is unaccompanied by any 
 moral renovation, and is merely an alternation or 
 vicissitude of gaiety and sadness, the return to the for- 
 mer state is not precisely what continuance in that 
 state would have been. There is now a sensitive 
 shrinking from all gloomy thoughts, a dread of soli- 
 tude, an instinctive shunning of the ordinary means 
 by which serious reflection is produced. Li itself this 
 state may be a pleasing one ; but with respect to its 
 effects, it is worse than the first. 
 
 But some go further. Having passed through the 
 change which I have just described — the change from 
 levity to serious reflection — they reach a new stage of 
 experience. Sin, which was heretofore a mere ab- 
 straction, or at most the name of certain gross enor- 
 mities, is seen in its true nature. The law of God is 
 seen to be what it is. The conscience is awakened to 
 a sense of guilt, a dread of wrath, and a consciousness 
 of deserving it. Every act is now seen to have a moral 
 quality. The man grows scrupulous. He who was 
 once bold to commit known sin, is now afraid to per- 
 form even innocent actions. The burden of unex- 
 piated guilt becomes oppressive, nay, intolerable. An 
 undefined anxiety torments him. He feels that some 
 great crisis is ap]3roaching. Earthly pleasures grow
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 183 
 
 icsipid. The cares of life are child's play. He be- 
 comes indifferent to life or death, except in reference to 
 the great absorbing question of salvation or perdition. 
 The intensity with which he seeks relief exhausts 
 him. He begins to grow languid. His alarm sub 
 sides into a stupid desperation. As this new sensa- 
 tion creeps upon him, he is conscious of relief from 
 the poignant anguish of his former state. The sooth- 
 ing apathy is cherished. Strong emotion is excluded. 
 Sin seems no longer so repulsive as it once did. 
 Words begin to have their ancient meanings, and to 
 awaken only old associations. One strong impression 
 is effaced after another. Conscience slumbers. Hope 
 revives. The noise of the world again rings in the 
 ears. The dream is past ; the spell is broken ; and 
 the once convicted sinner is himself again. He has 
 recovered his reason ; his false friends assure him — 
 for they see not that the spirit of delusion which had 
 left him for a season has returned and found his habi- 
 tation swept and garnished, and shall dwell therein 
 forever. Ah, sirs, whatever may have been- the first 
 condition of the man who has passed through all these 
 changes, there is little risk of error or exaggeration in 
 saying that " the last state of that man is worse than 
 the first." 
 
 But the evil spirit does not measure the duration 
 of his absence by any settled rule. He may return 
 before the truth has made the least impression. He 
 may wait until a serious state of mind has been in- 
 duced, but come back before the soul has been con- 
 vinced of sin. Or he may stay until a lively sense of 
 guilt and danger has been wrought upon the mind,
 
 184: SERJIONS. 
 
 whether the views entertained be false or true ; and 
 the anguish of distress, having reached its extreme 
 point, instead of gradually sinking into cold insensi 
 bility, is suddenly succeeded by its opposite — delight, 
 joy, happy wonder. At this most critical and inter- 
 esting juncture, when the soul seems ready to em- 
 brace and rest upon the truth of God, the enemy re- 
 turns, and substitutes a false hope for the true one ; 
 he encourages the false joy of a spurious conversion. 
 In the rapture of the moment, all suspicion and all 
 vigilance appear to be precluded, and the soul feeds 
 upon its apples of Sodom till they turn to ashes. Then 
 succeeds misgiving, unbelief, displeasure, shame, de- 
 spondency, temptation, a new thirst for sinful plea- 
 sure, weak resistance to the enemy, an easy conquest, 
 stronger chains, a deeper dungeon, and eternal bond- 
 age. He who once had his periodical returns of sen- 
 sibility, and his convulsive efforts to be free, now lies 
 passive, without moving hand or foot. But out of 
 the deep dungeon where he thus lies motionless, an 
 unearthly voice may be heard proclaiming, with a 
 fiendish satisfaction, that " the last state of that man 
 is worse than the first." 
 
 Even this, however, docs not seem to be the far- 
 thest length to wliich the soul, forsaken by the evil 
 spirit, may be suffered to proceed. The man, from 
 being gay, may not only become serious, and from 
 being serious, convinced of guilt and danger, and de- 
 sirous of salvation, and from this state pass into a joy- 
 ful sense of safety ; but he may long remain there, 
 and without suspecting where his error lies, may 
 openly acknowledge his experience and his hopes, and 

 
 LUKE 11, 26. 185 
 
 pass the bound which divides professing Christians 
 from the world. Methinks I see one who has thus 
 been forsaken by the evil spirit, not only brought into 
 the church, but made conspicuous in it, set in its high 
 places, drunk with its ilatteries ; but in the hour of 
 his intoxicating triumph, as he lies unarmed and un- 
 protected, in imaginary safety, the tramp of armed 
 men is heard without, the sacred precincts of the 
 church itself are suddenly invaded, his old master is 
 upon him — has returned to his old home — ^he smiles 
 to see it swept and garnished for his use. He takes 
 possession with his fellows, never more to be cast out. 
 Even such are not beyond the reach of divine mercy, 
 but it is not ordinarily extended to them, as appears 
 from the images by which the state of such is repre- 
 sented in the text. The oil is spent and the lamp 
 extinct. The axe is laid at the root of the tree. Its 
 fruit is withered, nay, it is without fruit, twice dead, 
 plucked up by the roots. Twice dead ! — oh, fearful 
 reflection ; dead by nature — then apparently alive — 
 and now dead by relapse and by apostasy. Twice 
 dead and plucked up by the roots. Surely such a 
 catastrophe is terrible enough to be the work of one 
 or even many devils, or whatever we may think as to 
 their literal agency in bringing it about, it is terrible 
 enough to be described by the figure which our Lord 
 here uses, and emphatically summed up in those fear- 
 ful words " the last state of that man is worse than 
 the first." 
 
 There is but one more view that I can take or 
 give you of this painful subject. Looking back to the 
 nonentity from which we all have sprung, and on to
 
 186 SEKMONS. 
 
 the eternity wliicli awaits ns ail ; tracing the down- 
 ward progress of the lost, from bad to worse, from 
 worse to worst, marking the aggravated guilt of each 
 relapse into iniquity, after a seeming reformation and 
 conversion, and remembering by whom and of whom 
 it was said, " it were better for that man if he had 
 never been born," — we may take our stand between 
 the gulf of non-existence and the gulf of damnation, 
 and comparing the negative horrors of the one with 
 the positive horrors of the other, may exclaim, as we 
 see the sinner pass, through so short an interval, 
 'from nothing, into hell, "the last state of that man 
 is worse than the first I" 
 
 If what I have been telling you is true, true to na- 
 ture, scripture, and experience, there is one applica- 
 tion or improvement of the truth, which ought to be 
 self evident. I mean its application to the young, to 
 the young of every class, and character, and station, 
 but especially to such as are peculiarly environed by 
 temptation, and yet prone to imagine, as a vast pro- 
 portion of the young do really imagine, that the 
 wisest course, is to secure the pleasm*es of the passing 
 moment, and reserve repentance for a distant future, 
 thus contriving, by wdiat seems to be a master-stroke 
 of policy, to serve God and Mammon in succession. 
 
 Instead of arguing against this resolution as ir 
 rational and sinful, let me hold up before you the 
 conclusion to which reason, scripture, and experience, 
 with a fearful unanimity, bear witness that the only 
 spiritual safety, is in present and immediate action ; 
 that a purpose or a promise to repent hereafter, is 
 among the most successful arts by which the evil
 
 LUKE 11, 26. 187 
 
 spirit drowns his victims in tlie deadly sleep of false 
 security ; that previous indulgence in a life of sin, so 
 far from making reformation easy, is almost sure to 
 make it utterly impossible. You who are, even at 
 this moment, on the verge of the appalling precipice 
 beneath which millions have been dashed to pieces, 
 stop, if it be but for a moment, and consider. The 
 comparative innocence of childhood, the restraints of 
 a religious education, the very resolutions you are 
 forming for the future, may all be looked upon as in- 
 dications that the evil spirit to whom you are by na- 
 ture a hereditary slave, has, for the time, relaxed 
 his hold upon you ; his chain, though still unbroken, 
 may be lengthened, but beware how you imagine 
 that, without divine grace, you can ever break it. It 
 may be that the unclean spirit has but left you for a 
 time, and is even now wandering through dry places, 
 seeking rest and finding none — roaming in search of 
 a repose which is impossible, and gaining in malignity 
 and craft at every moment — mustering new strength 
 of purpose, virulence of hatred, and capacity of tor- 
 ment and corruption, to accelerate your fall, embitter 
 your remorse, and deepen your damnation. At every 
 access of temptation from without, and every move- 
 ment of corruption from within, imagine that you 
 hear the foul fiend knocking for admission ; and dis- 
 trusting the strength of your defenses, fly to Christ 
 for aid. Without it you are lost. Without it your 
 best efforts, in your own strength, are unavailing.
 
 X. 
 
 Romans 16, 21. — To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ 
 forever. Amen. 
 
 Among the peculiar features of the sacred writings 
 are its numerous benedictions and doxologies. The 
 former are expressions of devout desire that man may 
 be blessed of God ; the latter, that God may be hon- 
 ored of man. They are the strongest verbal expres- 
 sions of that love to God and love to man, which are 
 together the fulfilling of the law. Doxologies are fre- 
 quent in both Testaments, benedictions chiefly in the 
 New, because so large a part of it is in the epistolary 
 form, affording frequent opportunities for the expres- 
 sion of benevolent wishes. A solemn benediction, 
 however, formed a part of the solemnities of public 
 worship under the old economy. The form pre- 
 scribed is still on record in the sixth chapter of Num- 
 bers (v. 22), — " The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
 Speak unto Adam and unto his sons, saying. On this 
 wise ye shall bless the children of Israel saying unto 
 them. The Lord bless thee and keep thee : The Lord 
 make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto 
 thee : The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and 
 give thee peace." 
 
 The use of the dpxology in public worship is ap-
 
 ROMANS 16, ST. 189 
 
 parent from the inspired liturgy of the ancient church, 
 the Book of Psalms. This book has long been di- 
 vided into five large portions, the close of each being 
 indicated by a doxology. Thus the 41st psalm ends 
 with these words : " Blessed be the Lord God of 
 Israel from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and 
 amen." The 72d psalm : " Blessed be the Lord God, 
 the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things ; 
 and blessed be his glorious name forever, and let the 
 whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen. 
 The 89th : Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen 
 and amen. The 106th : Blessed be the Lord God of 
 Israel from everlasting to everlasting : and let all the 
 people say Amen — Praise ye the Lord ! The 150th : 
 Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord : 
 praise ye the Lord ! Whether this fivefold division 
 of the Psalter is of ancient date, and these doxologies 
 were originally intended to mark the conclusion of the 
 several parts ; or whether the division was itself sug- 
 gested to the rabbins, from whom we have received 
 it, by the fortuitous recurrence of these formulas at 
 tolerably regular intervals, may be disputed ; but, in 
 either case, the familiar use of the doxology in wor- 
 ship by the ancient saints is evident. 
 
 But in the New Testament there is this peculiar 
 circumstance, that the doxologies, though still more 
 numerous than in the Old, occur in such connections, 
 and, as already hinted, in such kinds of composition 
 as to be not merely formulas for common use, but 
 spontaneous ebullitions of devout affection. As such, 
 they show more clearly than any other form of speech 
 could, the habitual bent of the affections, on the part
 
 190 SERMONS. 
 
 of the inspired writers, the favorite subject cf theif 
 thoughts, the points to which their minds instinctively 
 reverted, not only as the customary theme of usual 
 meditation, but as the great object of desire and hope. 
 As they never forgot, in care for self, the interest of 
 others, so they never forgot, in care for others, that 
 God was to be honored ; that of him, and through 
 him, and to him, are all things ; that to him must be 
 glory forever. 
 
 Of the twenty-one epistles contained in the !N"ew 
 Testament, seventeen begin with a solemn benedic- 
 tion, and sixteen close with one. Two others close 
 with a doxology, instead of a benediction, while one 
 concludes and two begin with a benediction and dox- 
 ology together ; and another substitutes a malediction 
 for the latter. But it is not merely in these solemn 
 openings and closings of the canonical epistles that 
 the doxology occurs. It is sometimes interposed be- 
 tween the links of a concatenated argument, or in the 
 midst of a detailed description. This is especially the 
 case when something has been said which seems to 
 savour of irreverence towards God, in order to express 
 the writer's protestation against any such construction 
 of his language, or to disavow his concurrence in such 
 language used by others, or his approbation of their 
 wicked conduct. Thus, in the first chapter (v. 25) of 
 this epistle, Paul describes the heathen as having 
 " changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped 
 and served the creature more than the Creator who is 
 blessed forever, amen." And again, in the eleventh 
 chapter, after indignantly repelling the suggestion that 
 man can add any thing to God, and argumentatively
 
 ROMANS 16, 27. 191 
 
 showing its absurdity, he winds up his argument by 
 an adoring exclamation, a triumphant interrogation, 
 and a devout doxology. " Oh, the depth of the 
 riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! 
 How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways 
 past finding out ! For who hath known the mind 
 of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor ? Or 
 who hath first given to him, and it shall be re- 
 compensed to him again? For of him, and through 
 him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory, for- 
 ever, amen." It is by these apparently misplaced as- 
 crijDtions of all honor to God, that are occurring where 
 the ordinary usages of composition lead us to expect 
 them least, it is by these that the habitual bent of the 
 Apostle's thoughts and feelings is most clearly mani- 
 fested. Such ejaculations, in the midst of ordinary 
 speech, may indeed be the mere eflfect of sanctimo- 
 nious habit, and have often been so ; but, where in- 
 spiration sets the seal of authenticity on all the emo- 
 tions and desires expressed, there could not be a more 
 unerring symptom of a heart overflowing with devout 
 affections. 
 
 There are two things included in a doxology — the 
 expression of a wish and the performance of a duty. 
 The writer gives utterance to his desire that God may 
 be glorified, and at the same time actually glorifies 
 him, and is the occasion of his being glorified by all 
 who read or hear his words, with understanding and 
 with cordial acquiescence in the sentiment expressed ; 
 for God himself has said, " Whoso oflfereth praise glo- 
 rifieth me." By these interruptions of their doctrinal 
 discussions, therefore, the inspired writers have not
 
 192 SERMONS. 
 
 only manifested their own dispositions, and actually 
 glorified God themselves, but led to the performance 
 of the same act by innumerable readers and hearers. 
 There is something truly ennobling and exciting in 
 the Christian doctrine that, although God is infinitely 
 blessed in himself, and man incapable of adding to 
 his essential excellence, there is yet a sense in which 
 he may be glorified or rendered glorious even by the 
 humblest of his creatures. To render God thus glo- 
 rious by manifesting and according his perfections, is 
 the very end of our existence, the pursuit of which 
 sets before us a boundless field of exertion and enjoy- 
 ment. The prominence given to this motive in the 
 Christian system, is one of the marks by which it is 
 most clearly distinguished from all others, and, at the 
 same time, of the strongest proofs of its divinity. 
 
 The constituent parts of a Christian doxology have 
 already been described. As another essential feature 
 may be mentioned that they are always and exclusiveh" 
 addressed to God. The jealousy of the inspired 
 writer, as to this point, is remarkable. Their doxolo- 
 gies not only include the name of God as their great 
 subject, but they always occur in connections where 
 he has already been the subject of discourse. To him 
 the glory is ascribed, to the exclusion of false gods 
 and of men, but especially of self. The spirit of these 
 doxologies is everywhere the same — " Not unto us, 
 oh Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give glory." 
 The very design of the doxologies of Scripture is to 
 turn away the thoughts from man to God, from the crea- 
 ture to " the Creator who is blessed forever, amen." 
 When they occur at the beginning of a passage or a
 
 KOMANS IG, 27. 193 
 
 book, they seem to remind the reader that, in order 
 to go right, he must set out from God. When at the 
 close, they teach him to remember the great end of 
 his existence. When they interrupt the tenor of dis- 
 course, they answer the salutary purpose of checking 
 the tendency to lose sight of God in the contempla- 
 tion of other objects. Thus, according to their rela- 
 tive positions, they continually teach us or remind us 
 that " of him, and to him, and through him, are all 
 things, to whom be glory forever, amen." It is not, 
 therefore, a mere incidental circumstance, but an es- 
 sential feature of the scriptural doxologies, that they 
 have reference to God and God alone. 
 
 The only seeming excej)tion to this general state- 
 ment, really confirms it. There are doxologies to 
 Jesus Christ, but as a divine person. It is because 
 he is God that glory is ascribed to him. In the pres- 
 ent instance, there is a singular ambiguity of con- 
 struction in the original. The literal translation of 
 the words is this : " To the only wise God, through 
 Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever." In the 
 common version the ambiguity is removed by the 
 omission of the relative. The true construction may be 
 this : " Glory be to the only wise God, through Jesus 
 Christ, to whom be glory likewise forever, amen." 
 As it stands, however, it seems doubtful whether 
 Christ is expressly mentioned merely as a means 
 or also as an end, whether merely as an instrument 
 of glorifying God, or also as an object to be glorified 
 himself. This very dubiety of phrase, however, seems 
 to justify us in embracing both ideas in our explica- 
 tion of the terms. It is highly probable, indeed, as 
 
 VOL. I. — 9
 
 194 SERMONS. 
 
 already suggested, that both were designed to be ex- 
 pressed ; that Christ was meant to be exhibited, at 
 one view, as, in some sense, the medium by which 
 God is or may be glorified ; and, as himself, entitled 
 to that glory which belongs to God ; and the anoma- 
 lous construction may have arisen, not from inadver- 
 tence or excited feeling, but from a desire to suggest 
 these two ideas simultaneously. The latter, it is 
 true, might be considered doubtful if this were the 
 only case in which he is the subject ofadoxology 
 But this is far from being true. When Jude, in the 
 close of his epistle, says, " To the only wise God, our 
 Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, 
 both now and ever, amen," it may be plausibly al- 
 leged that he is speaking only of God in his character 
 of Saviour or Deliverer, without express allusion to 
 the incarnation, and that the cases, therefore, are not 
 parallel. Even admitting this to be the fact, the 
 ^arae thing cannot be alleged of Paul's wish, that the 
 God of peace would make the Hebrew Christians per- 
 fect in every good work to do his will, working in 
 them that which is well pleasing in His sight, through 
 Jesus Christ, to" whom be glory forever and ever, 
 amen. Or, if it should be said that, even here, al- 
 though Christ is the immediate antecedent, the God 
 of Peace is the main subject of the sentence, and to 
 him the doxology must be referred, there is still a 
 case in which no such grammatical refinement will 
 avail to make the reference to Christ uncertain. I 
 mean tlie doxology which closes the second epistle of 
 Peter, where there is no double subject to confuse 
 the sense, or render the interpretation doubtful. The
 
 KOMANS IG, 27. 195 
 
 Apostle closes with a simple exliortation to " grow in 
 grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever, 
 amen." This text is not only unambiguous itself, but 
 serves to throw light upon those which are more 
 doubtful. If Christ, in this case, is the evident and 
 only subject of the doxology, there is no longer any 
 reason in explaining the one quoted from Hebrews, 
 for overleaping the immediate antecedent; and, with 
 respect to that in Jude, there is at least some ground 
 for regarding " God our Saviour " as descriptive of 
 the same blessed person. "While it remains true, 
 therefore, thatrthe Scriptural doxologies never have 
 reference to any subject less than God, it is equally 
 true that Jesus Christ is a partaker in these exclusive 
 divine honors. "VVe need feel no hesitation, therefore, 
 in adopting such an explanation of the text as will 
 exhibit Christ not only in the character of a revealer 
 and a glorifier, but in that of a glorified being ; not 
 only of creature but Creator ; not only man but God ; 
 God over all, blessed forever. 
 
 There is another circumstance to be attended to in 
 the doxologies of Scripture. Being ascriptions of 
 glory to God exclusively of all mere creatures, they 
 might seem to require nothing more than a bare 
 mention of his name, or the most general descrip- 
 tion of his nature. And in some cases nothing more 
 is given. But in others, the mind of the doxolo- 
 gist appears to have been fastened specially on some 
 one aspect of the divine character, some attribute, or 
 group of attributes, as the foundation of his claim to 
 universal and perpetual praise. Thus, in the case be-
 
 196 SERMONS. 
 
 fore us, while the text embraces the doxology itself, 
 the two preceding verses contain the preamble, or ex- 
 planatory preface, setting forth the grounds on which 
 the doxology is made to rest. The first of these is the 
 omnij)otence of God, or rather the omnipotence of his 
 grace ; for the allusion is not merely to the creative 
 and sustaining power of God, but to his infinite abil- 
 ity to perfect what he had begun in all believers — 
 the new creation of a spiritual nature on the ruins of 
 that righteousness which man had lost. " ISTow, to 
 him that is of power to stablish you according to my 
 gospel, &c., to God only wise be glory through Jesus 
 Christ forever, amen." A more general, but equally 
 emphatic, (declaration of the same kind may be found 
 in the third chapter of Ephesians, where the Apostle, 
 after expressing an importunate desire for the spirit- 
 ual progress and perfection of the Christians whom he 
 was addressing, adds : " Now unto him that is able 
 to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think, according to the power that worketh in us — 
 unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ 
 throughout all ages, world without end, amen." 
 
 Another attribute thus singled out to be the ground 
 of a doxology, is wisdom, the intellectual omnipotence 
 of God in working out his purposes by chosen means. 
 In rational beings, this view of the divine perfections 
 is peculiarly adapted to excite astonishment and ad- 
 miration. The universal jDresence and activity of 
 mind throughout the vast frame of nature and ma- 
 chinery of Providence, the triumph of that all-per- 
 vading mind over matter, over other minds, over ap- 
 parent difficulties springing from the natural relations 
 
 \i
 
 ROMANS 16, 27. 197 
 
 of one being to another ; the wonderfu. results evolved 
 from causes and by means apparently least fitted to 
 produce them ; the indisputable evidence contained 
 in such facts of one harmonious design and one con- 
 trolling power, through a series of events which, as 
 they happened, seemed fortuitous and unconnected, 
 independent of each other, and of any higher princi- 
 ple than this — this divine wisdom is indeed an ample 
 and satisfying reason for ascribing glory to the being 
 who possesses it, not only as considered in himself, 
 but as compared with others ; not merely as wise, but 
 as only wise, alone entitled to be so considered, since 
 the wisdom of all other beings is not only infinitely 
 less than His, but derived directly from him — the 
 gift of his bounty, the creature of his power, a drop 
 trickling from the ocean, a spark kindled at the sun. 
 Tlie only true wisdom upon earth is " wisdom that 
 Cometh from above." The wisdom that sets itself in 
 opposition to the wisdom of God, is earthly, sensual, 
 and devilish — is folly in the lowest and worst sense. 
 Tlie admiration thus expressed in Scripture for God's 
 wisdom, is an admiration which implies contempt of 
 all opposing claims — an admiration which belittles, 
 nay, annihilates all other in comparison. God is not 
 merely wise, but only wise ; not merely wiser than all 
 other gods — which would be saying nothing, since we 
 know that an idol is nothing in the world — not only 
 wiser than the brutes, than man, than devils, than 
 angels, but so far exalted above them, each individu- 
 ally, and all collectively, that when confronted with 
 the aggregate intelligence of all ages and all worlds, 
 He alone is wise.
 
 198 SERMONS. 
 
 This sublime description of Jeliovah. as " the only 
 wise God," is not peculiar to the text. It occurs not 
 only in other places, but in other doxologies, as an 
 appropriate and ample ground for the ascription of 
 eternal praise. The same apostle, writing to Timothy, 
 after speaking in the most affecting terms of his own 
 character before conversion, and expressing his grati- 
 tude that he should have been honoured with permis- 
 sion to preach Christ, adds, in the manner which has 
 been described already, as characteristic of his writings 
 and his spirit — " Xow unto the King eternal, im- 
 mortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and 
 glory forever and ever. Amen." (1 Tim. 1, IT.) And 
 another apostle, in a doxology already quoted, con- 
 nects an appeal to the power of God in his preamble 
 with a reference to his wisdom in the doxology itself — 
 *' Now unto him that is able to keep yon from falling, 
 and to present you faultless before the presence of his 
 glory with exceeding joy — to the only wise God our 
 Saviour be glory and majesty, dominion and power, 
 both now and ever, Amen." 
 
 AVe have seen that the doxologies cf Scripture, 
 though they sometimes speak of God in general terms 
 merely, often specify some attribute as giving him a 
 peculiar claim to the adoring admiration of his crea- 
 tures. "We have also seen that the attribute of wis- 
 dom is repeatedly thus singled out and rendered 
 prominent. It may now be added that it is not merely 
 the wisdom of God in general that is thus held up to 
 view. There is a certain manifestation of his wisdom 
 which is placed above all others — not the wisdom dis- 
 played in the creation of the universe, or in its sus-
 
 ROMANS IG, 27. 199 
 
 tentatiou ; not the wisdom displayed in the common 
 dispensations of his providence, or even in those ex- 
 traordinary methods which he sometimes uses to effect 
 his purpose. These are all recognized and repre- 
 sented as becoming subjects of our praise and medita- 
 tion. But none of them is set forth as the great, 
 peculiar, and decisive evidence that God alone is wise. 
 That evidence is sought in the system of redemption, 
 in the means devised for the deliverance of man from 
 the inevitable consequences of his own transgressions. 
 And this selection is entirely justified, even at the bar 
 of human reason, by several obvious considerations. 
 The first of these is the magnitude of the end to be ac- 
 complished. Tlie second is the difficulty of effecting it 
 — a difficulty springing, not from fortuitous or out- 
 ward circumstances, but from essential principles, 
 from the nature of sin, from the nature of God himself. 
 To the extent of this difiiculty, justice never can be 
 done by our conceptions. Its existence may be re- 
 cognized, its reality admitted, but its magnitude can- 
 not be adequately measured. The hypothesis of infi- 
 nite holiness and justice, as essential to God's nature, 
 seems to render the pardon of sin, if once committed, 
 and the salvation of the sinner so impossible, that un- 
 assisted reason reels and staggers under the attempt 
 to reconcile apparent contradictions. But this recon- 
 ciliation God has effected ; he has solved the problem ; 
 he has practically shown us how he can be just and 
 yet justify the vmgodly. Keason approves of this so- 
 lution when presented, but could never have discov- 
 ered it. No created skill or strength could have sur- 
 mounted difficulties so appalling.
 
 200 SERMONS. 
 
 This, then, is a second reasor for regarding the 
 method of salvation as the greates-- and most glorious 
 display of divine wisdom. A third is the absolute 
 success of the experiment, if such it may be called. 
 Where the end is so important, and difhculties so 
 great, a partial attainment of the end might be re- 
 garded as a great achievement. Failure, in some 
 respect, in some degree, might be forgiven, for the 
 sake of what is really accomplished. But, when all 
 is done that was attempted, and when all that is done 
 is completely done, the means being perfectly adapted 
 to the end, and the magnitude of the difficulties fairly 
 matched, nay, far surpassed, by that of the provision 
 made to meet them, this is indeed a triumph of wis- 
 dom — such a triumph as created wisdom never could 
 achieve — such a triumph as could only be achieved by 
 Him who claims and is entitled to the glorious dis- 
 tinction of THE OXLY W^SE GoD. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, tliat in those dox- 
 ologies which make the divine wisdom their great 
 subject, this pre-eminent display of it in the system 
 of redemption, in the person and the cross of Jesus 
 Christ, as the great centre of that system, should be 
 brought distinctly into view. It is not surprising 
 that in sucb connexions, the gospel should be repre- 
 sented as a stupendous revelation of God's wisdom, 
 as disclosing what the wisdom of man could neither 
 have invented nor discovered; that tbe doctrine of 
 salvation should be called a mystery, a truth beyond 
 the reach of unassisted reason, until made known by 
 a special revelation ; a demonstration, therefore, both 
 of human folly and of divine wisdom, a proof of what
 
 ROMANS 15, 27. 201 
 
 man cannot do, and what God can do. Thus in 
 ■writing to Timothy, when Paul breaks ont into that 
 grand doxologj already qnoted, " now unto the ELing 
 eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be 
 honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen," it is 
 immediately preceded, with the exception of a paren- 
 thetical allusion to the final cause of the apostle's 
 own conversion, by that memorable summary of the 
 gospel, " this is a faithful saying and worthy of all 
 acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to 
 save sinners." It was this appearance of the Son of 
 God for such a purpose that presents itself to the 
 apostle's mind as the masterstroke of wisdom, and 
 afibrds a ground for the doxology that follows, to the 
 o:jfLT WISE God. And even where the name of Christ 
 does not appear, as in the closing words of Jude's 
 epistle, the same idea is suggested by the epithet con- 
 nected with the name of God himself. It is not to 
 God our creator, our preserver, or our providential 
 benefactor ; it is not to God our sovereign, our law- 
 giver, or our judge, that supremacy in wisdom 
 is directly ascribed, but to the only wise God our 
 Saviour, be glory and honour, dominion and power, 
 both now and ever. Amen." The doxology which 
 closes the third chapter of Ephesians, is merely the 
 winding up of one long sentence coextensive with the 
 chapter, in which the apostle repeatedly mentions the 
 preaching of the gospel, and especially its open proc- 
 lamation to the Gentiles, as the revelation of a mys- 
 tery, concealed for ages from mankind in general, 
 but made known by the Holy Ghost to Prophets and 
 Apostles, a mystery which from the beginning of the 
 
 VOL. I. — 9*
 
 202 SERMONS. 
 
 world was hid in God ; a mystery, i. e. a triitli which 
 human wisdom could not have discovered, the dis- 
 closure of which, therefore, tends to illustrate and mag- 
 nify the wisdom of God, Precisely the same refer- 
 ence to Christ and the gospel of Salvation, as the 
 master-piece of wisdom, no less than of mercy, may 
 be found in the preamble to the text before us, where 
 the ascription of glory to God is founded on his wis- 
 dom, and his wisdom argued from the manifestation, 
 in the gospel, of a method of salvation, which the 
 human mind could never have discovered, and which 
 is therefore called a mystery, a secret brought to light 
 by no exertion of mere reason, but by direct com- 
 munication from above, from Him whose wisdom was 
 alone sufficient to devise and to reveal it. " JSTow to 
 him that is of power to stablish you according to my 
 gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according 
 to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret 
 suice the world began, but now is made manifest, and 
 by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the 
 commandment of the everlasting God, made known 
 to all nations for the obedience of faith, to God only 
 wise, be glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever. Amen. 
 From a comparison of all these passages, it is 
 evident that while the sacred writers no doubt re- 
 cognized the proofs of divine wisdom, furnished by 
 the works of nature, and the movements of provi- 
 dence, their minds were habitually fastened on the 
 method of salvation taught in Scr:pture, as the 
 grand decisive proof by which all others are sur- 
 passed and superseded. It was through Christ, 
 not only as the brightness of God's glory and the
 
 ROMANS 16, 27. 203 
 
 image of liis person, but as a saviour, a propitiation 
 set forth by God himself, a means devised and pro- 
 vided by him for the accomplishment of what ap- 
 peared impossible ; it was through Christ, considered 
 in this light, that the lustre of God's Avisdom shone 
 with dazzling brightness upon Paul and Jude and 
 Peter. Hence there is no absurdity in holding, as 
 some have done, that the words " through Jesus Christ," 
 in the text, are to be construed, not with " glory," but 
 with " the only wise God," by which, in the Greek, 
 they are immediately preceded. As if he had said : 
 " to him, who in the person, work, and sufferings of 
 his Son, has revealed himself to us as the only wise 
 God, to him be glory for ever. Amen." At the same 
 time, the unusual collocation of the words, and the 
 irregular construction of the sentence, seem to author- 
 ize, if not to require, that Jesus Christ himself should 
 be included in the description of the object to which 
 glory is ascribed. " To God only wise, made known 
 as such by Jesus Christ, and to Jesus Christ himself 
 as God, be glory forever." Nor is this the only sense 
 which may be put upon the pregnant phrase through 
 Jesus Christ. Tlie simplest and most obvious, and 
 indeed the only one expressed by the sentence in the 
 common version is, that Christ is the medium through 
 which the divine wisdom is and must be glorified. 
 Not only does he share, by right of his divinity, in 
 all the divine honours. Not only, by his mediation 
 and atoning passion, does he furnish the most lumi- 
 nous display of divine wisdom. But as head of the 
 Church, and as the father of a spiritual seed, to whom 
 that wisdom is, and ever will be, an object of adoring
 
 204 SERMONS. 
 
 admiration, and. as their ever-living and prevailing in- 
 tercessor with the Father, he is the means, the instru- 
 ment, the channel through which everlasting glory 
 shall be given to the only wise God, who has estab- 
 lished a church, and caused the gospel to be preached 
 for this very purpose, " to the intent that now unto 
 the principalities and powers in heavenly places 
 might be known by the church the manifold wisdom 
 of God ; unto Hjm be glory, in the church, by Jesus 
 Christ, through all ages, world Avithout end, Amen." 
 (Eph. 3, 10. 21.) 
 
 To this doxology, as well as to the others which 
 the word of God contains, the pious in all ages have 
 been wont to say Amen. This ancient expression of 
 assent to prayer and praise is, from its very nature, 
 full of meaning. He who says Amen to the doxology 
 before us, must be understood as giving the assent of 
 his judgment to the propositions, that there is a God ; 
 that he is infinitely wise ; that his wisdom has been 
 specially displayed in the provision made for saving 
 sianers, without the sacrifice of justice, through the 
 incarnation and atonement of his Son, that mystery 
 of godliness, the disclosure of which, by the Spirit, 
 through the prophets, in the preaching of the gospel, 
 is the most transcendent demonstration of God's wis- 
 dom ever given to his creatures ; that the being thus 
 proved to be the only wise God is deserving, in rea- 
 son and in justice, of eternal praise ; that of this 
 honour, though exclusively divine, Jesus Christ is 
 infinitely worthy to partake ; and that it is only 
 through him, and by virtue of his mediation, inter- 
 cession, and spiritual oneness with his people, that
 
 ROMANS 16, 27 205 
 
 their obligation to give gloiy to God can, in any sort 
 or measure, be discharged. All this may be consid- 
 ered as involved in the doxology, as interpreted by 
 the context and comparison with others. Let no one 
 who refuses to aclaiowledge and embrace all this as 
 time dare to re-echo the apostle's words ; but whoso- 
 ever does believe and hold these precious doctrines, 
 let him say Amen. 
 
 This act, however, is expressive of far more than 
 a mere intellectual assent to the righteousness and 
 reasonableness of ascribing everlasting glory to the 
 only wise God. It implies, moreover, an assent of 
 will, nay it expresses a desire that what reason and a 
 sense of right thus recognize as due to God, should 
 be actually given to him. This has already been de- 
 scribed as entering essentially into the structure of a 
 scriptural doxology. It is not the dry statement of 
 an abstract truth. It is the language of emotion, of 
 affection, of desire, of an earnest, an engrossing, a su- 
 preme desire, that God, to use the prophet's strong 
 expression, may not be robbed by his ungrateful 
 creatures. It is an actual rendering to God the things 
 that are God's, by actually giving him the praise that 
 is his due, not by constraint or grudgingly, not from 
 a mere intellectual conviction, or through stress of con- 
 science, but with hearty acquiescence, with affection- 
 ate delight, with joy, with triumph, with a sympa- 
 thetic sense of personal interest, of individual partici- 
 pation in the glory thus ascribed and given to another, 
 not because the giver counts himself as any thing in 
 the comparison, but for a reason diametrically oppo- 
 site, because he counts himself as nothing, out of God,
 
 206 SERMONS. 
 
 out of Christ, and as being something cnly so far aa 
 he is united and attached to Him, so that the more 
 God is glorified, the more the humble worshipper is 
 reallj exalted, as the drop, which by itself would have 
 been lost, may rise to heaven in the heaving of the 
 ocean. This is the secret of the only exaltation which 
 to man is safe or even possible. God resisteth the 
 proud, and giveth grace to the humble ; they humble 
 themselves under the mighty hand of God, that he 
 may exalt them in due time. Kot only then to those 
 who disbelieve the truths involved, is this doxology 
 a riddle or a profanation, but to those who embrace 
 the doctrines merely with the understanding, and with 
 no such enlargement of the heart, and going out of 
 the affections as the great apostle evidently felt in 
 writing it. Let all such hold their peace, and let 
 only such as can thus enter into the full meaning of 
 his language say Ameti. 
 
 But there is more than this required to a full 
 participation in the spirit of the passage. Not 
 only is the mere admission of the truth that God 
 is worthy to be glorified forever insufficient, with- 
 out a sincere willingness, or rather an importunate 
 desire, that he may receive the glory which be- 
 longs to him. Even this is not enough. Such 
 a belief and such a wish as have been just de- 
 scribed, either presuppose or lead to the reception 
 of the great truth that " the Lord has made all things 
 for himself," that his rational creatures, especially,' 
 have been created capable of serving and of glorify- 
 ing him ; and for the very purpose of so doing, that 
 they are consequently bound not only to acknowledge
 
 ROMANS 16, 27. 207 
 
 his just claims, and to desire that they may be satis- 
 fied, but to spend and be spent, to do and to suffer, 
 to live and to die, to live and move and have their 
 being for this end, not only passively, but actively, 
 remembering it, hoping for it, longing for it, looking 
 towards it, hastening towards it, making every 
 thought, and word, and act, so far as possible, con- 
 tribute to it. "We who have not yet reached the height 
 from which such views are possible, have reason to 
 lament that we are still unprepared to give a full as- 
 sent to Paul's doxology ; but if, through God's grace, 
 any have obtained, not only passing glimpses, but a 
 clear and steady view of the great end of their exist- 
 ence as revealed in Scripture, and have turned their 
 faces thitherward for life, forever, with a fixed and 
 hearty resolution to forget what is behind, and reach 
 forth to that which is before, with all the heart 
 and mind and soul and strength — ^let all such ' say 
 Amen. 
 
 The word fore'cer I have not supplied. It is in- 
 cluded in the terms of the doxology ; and as it is a 
 word of vast and deep and awful import, it becomes 
 us to consider it before we undertake to say Amen to 
 the apostle. For by so doing, in addition to all that 
 has been said already, we acknowledge that God's 
 glory is not only the great end to which we now look 
 forward, but an end to which we must look forward 
 through eternity; not only an object which ought 
 now to fill, and animate, and rule the soul, with all its 
 powers and afiections, but an object which can never 
 cease to do so. If we are still unwilling thus to take 
 God as the portion of our souls, and to seek our hap-
 
 208 SERMONS. 
 
 piness forever in his glory, our assent to Paui's dox- 
 ology is still imperfect, if not insincere ; but let him 
 who knows already what it is to have made God his 
 all in all, forever, say Amen and Amen. And as 
 this absolute assent can be produced in us by no 
 strength or wisdom of our own, let our hopes be 
 founded upon nothing in ourselves, but on the en- 
 couragement which the apostle's benediction and 
 doxology afford us : " The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ be with you all." "And to him that is of 
 power to stablish you according to my gospel and the 
 preaching of Jesus Christ, to God only wise, be glory 
 through Jesus Christ forever, Amen."
 
 XI. 
 
 LctE 14, lY. — " Come, for all things are now ready." 
 
 We have here, as in many other passages of 
 Scripture, a most precious invitation, and a reason for 
 accepting it. An invitation — " come ;" a reason — 
 " all things are now ready." The first of these re- 
 quires no explanation. In the spiritual sense or ap- 
 plication of the parable from which the text is taken, 
 " come" means, of course, come to the gospel feast, 
 to the provision of God's bounty, to the fountain, to 
 the cross, to Christ himself It is equivalent to say- 
 ing. Be ye saved, and includes the exhortation to re- 
 pent, believe, submit to the righteousness of God, and 
 accept of the salvation that he offers. It is therefore 
 the same call that is continually ringing in the ears 
 of those who hear the gospel, and which needs not so 
 much to be explained as to be enforced. For this 
 very purpose, it is added, because all things are now 
 ready. To this reason for yielding to the call of mer- 
 cy I invite your attention. " Come, for all things are 
 now ready." In the parable, it obviously means that 
 the precise time of enjoyment was now come, that 
 the provision was complete and the arrangements per- 
 fect. A little earlier might have been too early. A
 
 210 SERMONS. 
 
 little later was too late forever. Sucn a time there is 
 and must be in all human invitations. Such a time 
 there is in every invitation of the gospel. But be- 
 tween the cases there is this momentous difference : 
 In the one it may be equally amiss to come too early 
 or too late. In the other we need only fear to come 
 too late. It is impossible to come too early ; be- 
 cause the provision is already and completely made 
 for those who will receive it, and needs not to be 
 constantly renewed, as in the other case. Oh, if our 
 eyes could be unsealed, or these surrounding mists 
 dispelled so as no longer to obstruct our view of the 
 divine compassions, we might behold the banquet 
 hall of mercy rise before us " like an exhalation," 
 with its flashing lights, its music, and its odours, — 
 making the outer darkness more profound by con- 
 trast, and the cold and hunger of the gazing crowd 
 more keen and pinching ! Before such displays of 
 human splendour and festivity, the poor and wretched 
 often stand in envious admiration. For to them that 
 threshold is impassable. And even those who are 
 allowed to feed there because full already, must await 
 the appointed moment. But how diiferent this feast 
 of mercy. Those who do not enter will not hear the 
 call or cannot see the bounties spread before them. 
 If, when their eyes and ears are opened, they still 
 linger, it is only for a moment, in the first feeling of 
 incredulous surprise that this provision can be meant 
 for them, and that they need no preparation or delay, 
 but may partake of it at once. While they stand 
 amazed at the sights and sounds so suddenly present- 
 ed to their senses, as at something quite beyond their
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 211 
 
 reach, their hopes, and almost their desires, the doors 
 fly open, a fresh flood of light, new waves of melody, 
 new gales of odour, stream forth npon them, and loud 
 yet gentle voices cry to them — not merely to others — 
 but to them : Come and see ; eat and drink, oh be- 
 loved ; come, for all things are now ready. And from 
 age to age the call is still the same. As one genera- 
 tion sweeps another off" the stage, — some heeding, 
 some despising, some not even hearing the benignant 
 invitation, — it is still repeated : all things are now 
 ready. Yes, at whatever moment the poor sin-sick, 
 starved, exhausted sinner first begins to feel his want 
 and turns his dim and haggard eyes towards that 
 scene of splendour and festivity before unknown or 
 madly disregarded — however untimely the appeal 
 may seem — though the prayer be breathed at mid- 
 night, in the dark — from the beggar's hovel, the field 
 of battle, or the dungeon, or the scaflold, — the re- 
 sponse is still the same : come, for all things are now 
 ready. 
 
 The resort to this supply can never be too early ; 
 it should never be too late. It can never be too early ; 
 for the soul is never without consciousness of want — 
 a restless craving for enjoyments better than the best 
 it has experienced. It should never be too late — as 
 it is, alas ! too late for thousands — because all things 
 are now ready ; and when all things are now ready, 
 and the opportunity afforded of securing them but 
 transient, it is self-destruction to refuse acceptance ; — • 
 it is folly, it is madness, even to postpone it. Let us 
 theft consider the readiness of all things as a reason 
 for coming to Christ now. And as the simplest way
 
 212 SERMONS. 
 
 ot doing this, let us consider what it is that hindera 
 us from coming. I speak not to those who are still 
 utterly insensible — unconscious of their danger, or 
 unwilling to confess it — for with such it is impossible 
 to reason, and they must be left to the fearful conso- 
 lation of that solemn irony : they that are whole need 
 not a physician. But to you who own yourself a sin- 
 ner, and in need of mercy, and expect to find it one 
 day in the Saviour, to you I put the question — and 
 would pray you to put it yourselves : — what prevents 
 your coming now ? what invisible hand drags you 
 back when you are almost on the threshold? — holds 
 your eyes fast shut when you begin to see light; 
 stifles your very cries for mercy ; and chokes down 
 the throbbings of your bursting heart ; — what is it ? 
 No external force ; you act freely in refusing to come. 
 What inward cause, then, — why do you not come ? 
 what keeps you still away ? Alas ! I need not ask ; 
 for in the way of every sinner who knows what it is 
 to think, there always rises up one barrier which ef- 
 fectually stops his course till God removes it ; it is 
 guilt — the paralyzing and benumbing sense of guilt. 
 The very same thing that creates the necessity ot 
 coming, seems to render it impossible. God is a holy 
 God, a just God, and a Sovereign. His law is broken ; 
 we ourselves have broken it: He cannot but con- 
 demn us, — nay, we are condemned already. The con- 
 viction of this truth is like an iron yoke upon our 
 necks, and chains around our limbs ; we feel the pres- 
 sure, and we would be delivered, — but we cannot 
 move. We cannot willingly appear before the pres- 
 ence of our enemy — our judge — our executioner. As
 
 LURE 14, 17. 213 
 
 long as this relation still subsists, or seems to do so, 
 we will not, cannot, dare not come, whatever may be 
 ready. Oh, my hearers, is there none among you be- 
 fore whom this conviction has shot up into a massive 
 wall which you can neither scale, nor penetrate, nor 
 go round, — and at the foot of which you are now ly- 
 ing, neither able to go further, nor yet willing to go 
 back ? Would to God this might be the experience of 
 some who have not yet been brought so far, for they 
 might then expect deliverance. All that you need is 
 ready — even now ready. If you cannot look up, you 
 can listen. What is that sound which comes forth 
 from the darkness or the light inaccessible where God 
 resides ? Is it the muttering of distant thunder, or 
 the premonition of a coming storm ? It is indeed a 
 voice like the voice of thunderings, — sweet yet solemn 
 to the ear — but it speaks of mercy, not of wrath ; it 
 is a voice like the voice of many waters, saying: 
 Come and see ! Look up ! Above, beyond these 
 barriers, see the throne and Him who sits upon it ; 
 the cloud in which He wraps himself is not charged 
 with tempest, — it is radiant with light ; his diadem 
 is not vindictive lightning, but the peaceful rainbow. 
 He desireth not the death of the sinner, but that all 
 should turn and live. He permits, he commands, he 
 entreats you to be saved, — the strongest possible ex- 
 pression of his willingness. Oh, my hearers, if you 
 are deterred by a sense of alienation and estrange- 
 ment from your God, or by a doubt of his benignity, 
 his willingness to pardon and be reconciled, — if this 
 is what deters you, come, oh come without delay, for 
 all things are now ready.
 
 214 SEBMONS. 
 
 But, perhaps your way is not yet open ; your oL - 
 stacles are not yet all removed. Whatever you may 
 think of the benevolence of God, you cannot lose 
 sight of his justice. However his compassion might 
 consent, his holiness, his truth, his righteousness, 
 still stop the way. He cannot lie. His threat- 
 enings must be executed. He cannot deny him- 
 self. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The law is 
 broken, and its awful penalty must be discharged. 
 Whatever else is ready matters not while this vast 
 debt remains unpaid. All these are certain and ap- 
 palling truths. There is no danger of exaggerating 
 their reality or fearful import. You can never gain 
 relief from this discouragement by learning to exten- 
 uate the claims of the di\-ine law, or the turpitude of 
 sin, or the necessity of punishment, or the tremendous 
 nature of the penalty annexed to all transgression, or 
 your utter incapacity to evade it or to heal the vast 
 breach of the violated law. You may tamper as you 
 will with your understanding and your conscience, 
 but the only /ruit of such attempts, when most suc- 
 cessful, is delusion or despair. The dream of self-de- 
 ception must be followed soon or late by a fearful 
 waking ; and however often or however long you may 
 forget yourself in sleep, the awful truth will still rush 
 back upon your waking thoughts, only rendered more 
 intolerable by the brief oblivion which preceded. If 
 the i^ressure of pecuniary debt can rob men of their 
 sleep, embitter their enjoyments, mar their peace, 
 make life a burden, drive them mad, and even arm 
 them with the weapon of self-murder, so that cowards 
 against others become brave against themselves, and
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 215 
 
 tliey who shrink from the suiferings of this life rashly 
 venture on the next — if these are but familiar conse- 
 quences of the agony jjroduced by consciousness of 
 mere pecuniary debt beyond the man's ability to pay, 
 oh, what would be the issue, if the vast account-books 
 between us and God should be completely opened 
 and made fully legible ? by what arithmetic could we 
 compute, or in what terms express the terrible result ? 
 It is impossible ; and partly for the reason that it is 
 impossible, we shut our eyes, and stop our ears, and 
 turn away our thoughts from this confounding theme ; 
 and even when we do attempt to scan it, and to plead 
 the greatness of our debt as an excuse for not accept- 
 ing Christ, it is not because we have, but because we 
 have not, any adequate conception of that debt, which, 
 if we saw it as it is, instead of filling our mouth with 
 arguments against God, would strike us dumb, and 
 strike us blind, and strike us dead before him. In 
 this direction you are right in seeing no escape ; there 
 is none ; you are right in denying that this debt must 
 be discharged — it must ; and that you cannot pay it, 
 for you never, never can. If you are only partially 
 and superficially convinced of this, you will remain 
 wiiere I now leave you, and continue to excuse your- 
 self by pleading that your sins are inexcusable. But 
 if you are really and thoroughly persuaded that you 
 must and cannot pay this awful debt, the very dark- 
 ness of your self-despair may give you light or serve 
 to make it visible ; at first a dim spark, — then a faint 
 gleam, — then a glow — a flame — a blaze — and in the 
 focus of that blaze you may behold, — as the ancient 
 persecutor saw amidst the white heat of liis own de-
 
 216 SERMONS. 
 
 voui'ing furnace, a form like that of the Son of God, 
 standing erect beside the way which leads you to 
 the tlirone of mercy. You must pass by him, or you 
 cannot reach the footstool. Who is he that thus 
 awaits you ? his eye moist with pit}', but his features 
 pallid, as one risen from the dead. And in his out- 
 stretched hand the eye of faith can discern something 
 shining; something precious; something priceless; 
 not the glare of gold or silver, or the sparkle of inval- 
 uable gems, but something wet with tears and stained 
 with blood ; the blood still oozing from that stricken 
 heart. It is the purchase of your life ; it is the ran- 
 som of your soul ; it is the price which you could 
 never pay ; which men and angels could not have 
 paid for you ; in default of which you had resigned 
 yourself to perish. See, he holds it out ; he presses it 
 upon 3'ou ; and the turning point is — can you reject 
 it? If you can, oh let your lips be sealed forever 
 from all mention of the penalty of God's law, as deter- 
 ring you from mercy ; for, as you plunge into the 
 gulf of self-destruction, the last sound from above that 
 reaches you, may be the dripping of that blood, one 
 touch of which would have sufficed to cancel your 
 vast debt forever. Oh, if this alone is wanting to em- 
 bolden your approach to God, I say again, my hearer, 
 " come, for all things are now ready." 
 
 But now, perhaps, you feel another hinderance ; 
 one of which you took but little note before. Though 
 God be ready to forgive you for the sake of Christ's 
 atoning sacrifice, you find a hinderance in yourself, in 
 your heart, in your very dispositions and affections. 
 Besides being guilty, righteously condemned, just-
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 217 
 
 ly exposed to punishment, unable to atone for your 
 transgressions ; you are polluted, your yery nature 
 is corrupt, averse from good, disposed to evil. 
 How can you come into the presence of a holy God ? 
 How can you fail to be an object of abhorrence to 
 him? How can you love what you detest, or find 
 your happiness in that which is directly contradictory 
 to all your nature ? Here again the fact alleged is 
 true and awful beyond your worst conceptions. There 
 are depths, — there are abysses of defilement, which 
 you need not undertake to fathom ; into which you 
 cannot even look without bewilderment and sickness 
 of spirit. If God should lift the veil which hides 
 them, and permit the light to sliine directly on them, 
 you would be unable to endure it. Oh, look away 
 from that heart-rending spectacle. Here is another 
 object to contemplate. Over against that blood- 
 stained form which profiers ransom, what is this ? A 
 gushing spring, a flowing stream, a flood, a sea, 
 of purifying virtue. Plunge into it, and you are 
 cleansed already. You come up out of its waters 
 changed, and yet the same. Coercion is no longer 
 needed ; for your very dispositions and desires are re- 
 volutionized. Old things are passed away ; all things 
 are become new ; new without aud new within ; new 
 heavens and a new earth ; a clean heart and a right 
 spirit ; this is indeed a new creation, a new crea- 
 ture, a new birth, born again, born from above, 
 born of God ; the washing of regeneration, the renew- 
 ing of the Holy Ghost. Be not deterred then by the 
 sense of what you are, any more than by the sense of 
 what you cannot do, or what you have already done. 
 
 VOL. I. — 10
 
 218 SERMCiNS. 
 
 The provision of God's mercy includes this as well as 
 every other want. A new heart is as much his gift 
 as expiation and forgiveness. Come, then, and re- 
 ceive what he vouchsafes to offer. Come without re- 
 serve, without delay, for all things are now ready. 
 
 But I hear you say you cannot come alone, you 
 cannot struggle by yourself, you cannot brave alone 
 the thunderings and lightnings of Mount Sinai, you 
 cannot stand with Moses on the smoking and the 
 quaking summit, you must mingle with the multi- 
 tude below. You are not even willing to be saved 
 alone. Having followed a multitude so long to do 
 evil, you still feel the need of communion and exam- 
 ple, of mutual incitement and restraint. And you 
 shall have it. You shall have it in perfection if you 
 will but come. For ye are come unto Mount Zion, 
 and unto the city of the living God, to the general as- 
 sembly and church of tlie first-born, which are written 
 in heaven. The Church of Christ stands open to re- 
 ceive you, to protect you, and to nourish you. Her 
 institutions, her examples, her worship, her ordi- 
 nances, her communion, all, all are ready for you. 
 This is a want for which the grace that rescues you 
 has specially provided. You are not asked to be 
 saved alone, tliough that were surely better than to 
 perish. You may bring as many with you as you 
 will, and you will find many entered in before you. 
 When we bid you come, you are invited to a feast, of 
 which many, thanks be to God, are after all partakers, 
 and though many that are bidden make excuse or 
 even venture to make light of it, the giver of the ban- 
 quet shall be still supplied with guests ; for wliile tlie
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 219 
 
 broad way that leadeth to destructicn remains crowded 
 with infatuated victims, another concourse is seen 
 streaming from the bje-ways and the hedges to the 
 table of the Lord, where they shall sit down, clothed 
 and in their right minds, washed and beautified, en- 
 nobled and refined, while many who appeared to be 
 hereditary children of the kingdom, are excluded or 
 exclude themselves from all i)articipation in the ban- 
 quet. Of the company thus gathered and trans- 
 formed you are to form a part. The doors stand open, 
 open to receive you, and yet there is room. If all 
 obstructions have now vanished from without and 
 from within, if atonement, and forgiveness, and re- 
 new'al are accessible, and if the Church is ready to 
 receive you into its communion of saints, what remain- 
 ing pretext for delay can be imagined ? Come, for 
 all things are now ready. 
 
 Do yon still object that these are only temporary 
 institutions ? that they do not reach as far as your ne- 
 cessities and fears ? Do you ask. When these fail, 
 whither shall I go, and who shall then receive me 
 unto everlasting habitations ? I still reply, but in a 
 higher sense, that ye are come unto Mount Zion, to 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company 
 of angels, and to the spirits of the just made perfect. 
 Heaven is ready to receive you, and in that assurance 
 all is comprehended. Whatever local and material 
 associations you may have with heaven, they are but 
 the veil, the hull, the casket. We use heaven to de- 
 note a state, in which place other circumstances may 
 be comprehended, but oh how much more ! All 
 goodness and all blessedness. All wrong and suffer-
 
 220 SERMONS. 
 
 ing shut out forever. Let memory and imagination 
 do their worst in multiplying images of evil, and in 
 calling up before the mind the forms and the occasion 
 of distress ; then add that all these will be wanting. 
 Give mdulgence to your boldest flights and wildest 
 dreams of happiness, apart from sin, then add that 
 all, and infinitely more than all you can imagine, will 
 be yours and yours forever, without the fear or possi- 
 bility of change, or loss, or diminution. Every pure 
 wish gratified, all lofty aspirations more than realized, 
 and what is past or present still as nothing in com- 
 parison with what is yet to come. All attempts to 
 heighten such an object, only lower it, and leave our 
 apprehensions of it less defined and satisfactory than 
 at first. But if this inefi'able condition, this negation 
 of all evil, this perpetual fruition of the highest good 
 awaits you, stands prepared for you ; then surely it 
 may well be said to you, Come, oh come, for all things 
 are now ready. Expiation, pardon, renovation, the 
 grace of the Father, the merit of the Son, the influ- 
 ence of the Spirit, the Church on earth, and the 
 Church in heaven, safety in life, peace in death, and 
 glory through eternity ; a good hope here, and an in- 
 efi'able reality hereafter; all things, all things, are 
 now ready. 
 
 "Will you come ? If not, you must turn back, you 
 must retrace your steps, and take another view of this 
 momentous invitation. Higher we cannot rise in the 
 conception or the presentation of inducements. If 
 you must have others, they must be sought in a lower 
 region. Let us then descend from this exalted point 
 of observation whence you have surveyed the glorious
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 221 
 
 things now ready to receive you, and surveyed tliem, 
 it may be, witliout emotion or effect ; let us descend, 
 and from a different position, take a momentarv view 
 of certain other preparations no less real in them- 
 selves, and no less everlasting in their issues. I have 
 already mentioned one important difference between 
 the ideal feast and others, namely, that at these we 
 may arrive too early, while at that, the only fear is, 
 we may be too late. Another striking difference is 
 this, that the refusal of an earthly feast involves at 
 most the loss of some enjoyment, or at most the aliena- 
 tion of the giver. But in those parables of Christ, 
 where this is the predominant image, the refusal of 
 the feast is represented as a crime, and they wlio 
 would not partake of the supper are cast into outer 
 darkness, where is weeping, and wailing, and gnash- 
 ine: of teeth. The reason is obvious. The feast is a 
 figure for salvation or deliverance from ruin. To re- 
 fuse it, therefore, is to choose destruction. This must 
 ])e taken into view, if we would estimate the motives 
 here presented. All things are ready, and in all is 
 included more perhaps than you imagine. There are 
 other things ready besides pardon, expiation, renova- 
 tion, the communion of saints, and the joys of heaven. 
 I shall mention only two. 
 
 Such is the brevity of life, and such the transitory 
 nature of the offer of salvation, that even the youngest 
 who decides this question, may be said to decide it in 
 the prospect of death, and on the confines of eternity. 
 However numerous and long the years that stretch be- 
 fore you may appear when viewed in comparison with 
 this world's trifling interests, they vanish into nothing
 
 222 SERMONS. 
 
 wlien confronted witli eternity. I say then to you, who 
 even now are balancing the reasons for consenting and 
 refusing to obey tho exhortation of the text, that you are 
 really so balancing with death immediately before yon, 
 that among the things now ready and awaiting your de- 
 cision, this is one. Of some this is doubtless true, 
 even according to your customary method of comput- 
 ing time. An eye endowed with supernatural per- 
 ception, might detect among those youthful forms 
 and beautiful countenances, some for whom the grave, 
 almost without a figure, may be said to be already 
 open. But of all, of all without exception, for the 
 reason before given, the same thing may be afiirmed, 
 because the space which intervenes between the fatal 
 resolution, to reject this gracious invitation either 
 finally, or till a more convenient season, and the ac- 
 tual close of your probation, will hereafter seem, and 
 ought now to seem, so short and evanescent, and con- 
 temptible, that he who now rejects Christ may be 
 fairly represented as rejecting him with one foot in 
 the grave, or with the body half submerged in the 
 cold waters of the river of death. Whoever you may 
 be, then, whetlier young or old, in sickness or in 
 liealth, I tell you plainly, that among the things 
 " now ready," and awaiting your decision, is the 
 grave, the grave ; the cold, damp earth, is ready to 
 receive you. If you impatiently repel this suggestion, 
 as untimely or irrelevant, this only shows how unj)re- 
 pared you are to meet the fearful spectre that it raises. 
 Even true believers may be all their lifetime subject 
 to bondage, through fear of death, even in this re- 
 stricted sense ; how much more natural and rational
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 223 
 
 is sucli a fear in you who are unwilling to obey tlie 
 invitations of the gospel. Death is the Icing of terrors, 
 and however we may hate his presence, it is better to 
 encounter it, when such encounter may be possibly of 
 use to us, than when all hope of victory or rescue is 
 extinguished. v 
 
 Look then, my hearer, with as steady and as bold 
 an eye as your philosophy can furnish, look into 
 those shadowy recesses which even poetry describes 
 to you as overhung by the funeral cypress, tenanted 
 only by the dead, and vocal only with the dirge, 
 the voice of weeping, and the solemn noises which 
 accompany the rites of burial. Look at that silent 
 shadow or the earth which it enshrouds, as your 
 appointed place, your long home, and at that narrow 
 chasm as the very bed in which your limbs are to re- 
 pose perhaps for ages. Claim it as your own, assert 
 your right to it, and give it place among the things 
 now ready for you and awaiting your decision. Do 
 you say that all this is as true of one as of another, 
 and that die you must, whether you accept or refuse 
 the invitation of the text ? This is indeed theoreti- 
 cally true, but it is practically false. Go tell the 
 prisoner, as he enters his dark dungeon for the last 
 night of repose before he mounts the scaffold, that his 
 cell is no whit darker, or his couch harder, or his 
 chains heavier than those of his next neighbour, whoso 
 captivity expires on the morrow. Go read the coun- 
 tenances of the two men as they enter the same com- 
 fortless abode of crime, each knowing that the morrow 
 is to break his chains. To both, the filth, and dark- 
 ness, and confinement may be now as nothing, but
 
 224 SERMONS. 
 
 liow diiferent the reason. To tlic one tlie filtli seems 
 splendour, and the darkness light, and the confinement 
 freedom, in the rapturous anticipation of deliverance, 
 and as he falls asleep, he hugs the very chains that 
 bind him, in the certainty that he shall never lie down 
 chained 'again ; while to the other, all these same 
 things are absorbed and annOiilated in the prospect 
 of a doom compared with which captivity itself seems 
 perfect freedom. Go persuade yourself that when 
 those two men enter their dark dungeons and lie 
 down to sleep, they are alike in their condition ; then 
 come back, and we will hear you say death comes 
 alike to all, and deny that the grave's being ready to 
 receiA^e you is a reason which should govern your de- 
 cision. Death comes alike to all ; but know, O vain 
 man, the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin 
 is the law. It is appointed unto all men once to die, 
 and after that the judgment ; but oh how different 
 the case of those who can abide that judgment, and 
 of those who cannot ; of those who die but once, and 
 of those who die self-doomed and self-predestined to 
 the second death. It is appointed unto all men once 
 to die, but some die twice, some die again, some die 
 forever, and if this is your doom, you may well shrink 
 back and shudder at the grave before you, as the ves- 
 tibule, the entrance to another. For, after all, it is 
 not the terrestrial sepulchre considered in itself that I 
 would set before you, any further than as shuttmg 
 the door forever on all choice. I look not merely into 
 it, but through and beyond it, into that mysterious 
 world which seems to yawn beneath it. There with 
 the eye of fancy or of faith, you may see a deeper,
 
 LUKE 14, 17. 225 
 
 darker, ghastlier grave, ready for your soul, and for 
 your soul and body when again united. You may 
 turn from this as a diseased imagination, but imagi- 
 nation as it is, the day is coming when to some it will 
 seem poor and weak indeed contrasted with the dread 
 reality. The grave is ready both for body and for 
 soul. I do not ask you to look into it, or listen to the 
 wailings that come up from it, or breathe its sulphur- 
 ous vapours. I only ask you to believe, and to re- 
 member that the grave and the abyss are as truly 
 ready if you will not come, as pardon, and redemj)- 
 tion, and sanctification, and the church, and heaven, 
 are ready if you will come. On both sides, therefore, 
 all things are ready. The world of bliss and the 
 world of woe spread out their motives in your sight. 
 If you will die, death is easy, for the grave is ready 
 both for soul and body ; it is hollowed for you both 
 in time and in eternity. The earth, to which you 
 must return, is open, and the narrow house already 
 yawning to receive you, while beneath — far off in 
 yonder shadowy world — a funeral pile begins to send 
 up its thick smoke, and to project its lurid flames into 
 the air. On that pile there is room enough for you, 
 beneath it, fire enough for your destruction. Tophet 
 is ordained of old, he hath made it deep and large, 
 the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of 
 the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. 
 These are strong figures, but if such be the figures, 
 what must be the reality ? "Whatever it be, know 
 that it is ready for you if you will not come, and if 
 you choose death rather than life. Are you willing 
 to live ? Life is no less' attainable. Your guilt, your 
 
 VOL. I. — 10*
 
 226 SERMONS. 
 
 weakness, your corruption, the justice, truth, and 
 holiness of God, are all against you where you stand. 
 But come, and all things that you need are ready for 
 you. Come, oh come, and expiation, pardon, renova- 
 tion, the church on earth, and the church in heaven ; 
 all things are ready ^ all things are yours, whether Paul, 
 or ApoUos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, 
 or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and 
 ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
 
 XII. 
 
 Proverbs 22, 2. — The rich and poor meet together ; the Lord is 
 the maker of them all. 
 
 This is a proverb, and must be explained accord- 
 ing to the principles and usages of proverbial lan- 
 gliage. An essential characteristic of this language 
 is its condensation, and the pregnancy of its expres- 
 sions, which often imply more than the same words 
 would in continuous composition, wliere there is not 
 the same effort to concentrate much thought in a few 
 words. This peculiarity is common, however, to the 
 popular or practical proverb and the scientific apho- 
 rism. The difference between them is, that while the 
 latter affects abstract and generic terms, the former 
 shuns them, and delights to clothe its lessons of wisdom 
 in the dialect of common life, from which its substance 
 is in fact derived — the genuine proverb being a sum- 
 mary expression of the result of long experience. The 
 same extent and fulness of meaning, which is given 
 to the philosophical maxim by the use of comprehen- 
 sive terms, is no less certainly secured in the case of 
 the popular maxim by a means directly opposite, viz., 
 the exhibition of particular examples to represent 
 whole classes. The specific terms employed in this
 
 228 SERMONS. 
 
 way are sometimes figurative, and CTeii symbolical ; 
 but ill a multitude of cases, tliey are to be literally 
 understood, with due regard, however, to tlieir repre- 
 sentative design as specimens or samples. 
 
 Of this kind of expression, we liave two instances 
 in the case before us, both clauses of the verse being 
 highly specific in their strict immediate import, yet 
 both generic in the whole sense which they were in- 
 tended to convey. " Eich " and " poor " are terms 
 properly descriptive of a single and familiar differ- 
 ence of external condition. Tet here, as in common 
 parlance, there can be no doubt that they are put for 
 social inequalities in general. And this interpreta- 
 tion is the more admissible, because the distinction 
 which the words immediately denote is not only one 
 of the most universal and most palpable, but also one 
 which, to a great extent, determines all the rest. 
 Knowledge and ignorance, grossness and refinement, 
 power and weakness, are, as a general fact, dependent 
 upon wealth or poverty ; i. e. upon the want or the 
 possession of the comforts and necessities of life with- 
 out the necessity of constant and engrossing labour 
 to obtain them. 
 
 It is true that the advantage of refinement and 
 of knowledge may be often found upon the side of 
 poverty. It is also true, not only in the case of in- 
 dividual exceptions but as a general fact, that they 
 who become suddenly i^ossessed of wealth, or who 
 acquire it slowly by their own exertions, may be sig- 
 nally destitute of that elevation and improvement 
 which is often found accompanying scanty means and 
 humble station. But these are only apparent excej)-
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 229 
 
 tions to a general rule, which they really illustrate 
 and confirm. In all such cases, wealth and poverty 
 have not had time to operate the change which they 
 naturally tend to produce, and what appears to be 
 concomitant of either, is in fact the fruit of an oppo- 
 site condition which vicissitude has not yet succeeded 
 in destroying. The vulgarity and ignorance of some 
 who have recently become rich, are not the eifects of 
 their new condition, but the exuviae of their old one ; 
 and the oj)posite qualities of some who are struggling 
 for subsistence, bear witness to the previous posses- 
 sion of advantages now lost. And even in the case 
 of those who have obtained an education and expe- 
 rienced its refining influence, without any such yicis- 
 situde of fortune, it is plain that this could only be 
 made possible by something, whether it be j)ersonal 
 exertion or the aid of others, which exempted them 
 so far and so long from the usual disadvantages of 
 poverty, as to put them in possession of advantages 
 naturally belonging to an ojDposite condition. There 
 is nothing arbitrary or caiDricious, therefore, in the 
 usage both of common parlance and proverbial dic- 
 tion, which puts " vich " and " poor," or " poverty 
 and wealth," for all the inequalities of social con- 
 dition. 
 
 Another example of the same thing is presented 
 in the other clause, which, in its strictest sense, 
 appears to relate only to the fact of creation, or the 
 character of God as the creator of all men without 
 exception. But the analogy of the first clause, and 
 the general usage of proverbial language, fully justify 
 us in supposing that this one relation between God
 
 230 SERMONS. 
 
 and man is put for all the rest, the rather as in this 
 case the related things are really inseparable, and 
 not merely similar, as in the other. The various 
 distinctions among men, as we have seen, are not 
 necessarily or invariably coincident. Riches and 
 knowledge, poverty and rudeness, do not always go 
 together. But the being who created us must of 
 necessity be also our preserver, our sovereign, our 
 legislator, our judge, and, if we are redeemed, our 
 Saviour. The possession of creative power implies 
 the rest. To say that " the Lord is the maker of them 
 all," is therefore equivalent to saying that " they 
 have one God," or sustain a common relation to him, 
 with all the fulness and variety of meaning, which 
 the clearness of the gospel revelation now enables us 
 to put upon these otherwise indefinite expressions. 
 
 The affirmation of the first clause, that the class- 
 es there described " meet together," may be best ex- 
 plained by reference to another characteristic feature 
 of proverbial language ; namely, its antithetic form. 
 Besides the parallel construction so familiar to the 
 Hebrew writers generally, there is a pointed oppo- 
 sition, both of thoughts and words, particularly fre- 
 quent in the Book of Proverbs. Of this usage we 
 have also more than one example in the case before 
 us. Besides the obvious antithesis between the " rich " 
 and " poor," there are two others not less real, because 
 residing rather in the thought than the expression. 
 In the first place, there is an implied comparison or 
 contrast between human and Divine, or temporal and 
 eternal relations ; between those which men sustain 
 to one another, and those which they sustain to God.
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 231 
 
 In the first point of view, tliey are described as rich 
 and poor, but in the second, as the creatures of one 
 maker. Under one of these aspects, there is variety, 
 under the other sameness. As members of human 
 society, men are unequal ; as creatures of God, they 
 are alike. This, though really a mere variation of 
 the one already stated, may with critical precision^ 
 be regarded as a third antithesis ; viz., that between 
 the inequality of men in one respect, and their equal- 
 ity in another. 
 
 This view of the structure of the sentence, will 
 assist us in determining the sense of the expression, 
 that " the rich and poor Tneet together^'' by showing 
 that it does not mean, as some suppose, that both are 
 mingled in society, that they oppose or encounter one 
 another, or as others understand it, they ought to have 
 more intercourse, for neither of these perfects the 
 antithesis ; but rather that they are alike, that with 
 all their differences there is still something common 
 to both, that with all their alienation and remoteness 
 as to some points, there is one, after all, in which they 
 " meet together." 
 
 But what is this common ground, this point of 
 contact and agreement ? IN^ot the bare fact of a com- 
 mon origin, for in this way all things may be equal- 
 ized, and therefore the assertion of equality would be 
 unmeaning. I^ot the fact that God has made men to 
 be absolutely equal, for in this sense the assertion, 
 although not unmeaning, would be false, and proved 
 so both by reason and experience. We know that 
 men are made extremely unlike in their caj^acities 
 and susceptibilities, we know still more certainly that
 
 232 SERMONS. i 
 
 tlieir condition is diversified by providence, beyond | 
 
 all variations for whicli they are lield responsible ; and 
 we have reason to believe that there will be as great 
 a difference in heaven and in hell as npon earth, not, 
 indeed, with respect to essential moral qualities, but 
 as to the degree in which the same essential qualities 
 will be possessed, and the amoimt of suffering and en- 
 joyment by which they will be punished or rewarded. 
 Tlie point of contact and assimilation, then, is not an 
 absolute identity of character or sameness of condi- 
 tion, but participation in a certain good common to 
 both, and independent of external qualities. And as 
 these latter are commonly regarded, at least by one 
 part of mankind, as evils, and are recognized as such 
 by the word of God itself, the substance of the whole 
 when stripped of its proverbial form, may be thus 
 stated : that the true corrective of all social inequali- 
 ties, so far as they are evil, must be furnished, not by 
 human institutions and arrangements, but derived 
 from a higher and an independent source. In other 
 words, the only practicable efficacious remedy for 
 social e^'ils of the kind in question, is and must be, a 
 religious one, i. e., one founded not in mere pruden- 
 tial changes of man's mutual relations, but in their 
 common relation to their common God, whether con- 
 sidered as their master and preserver, as their sover 
 eign and their judge, or as their SaAdour and Ee- 
 deemer. 
 
 In further prosecution of the subject, it may not 
 be unprofitable to consider how and why the religion 
 of the Bible is adapted to exert this influence ; and 
 that inquiry, in its turn, will be facihtatcd by a brief 
 
 I
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 233 
 
 enumeration of some other means, to wliicli men have 
 confidently looked, and are still looking, for the prac- 
 tical solution of the same great problem. These may, 
 with reference to our present purpose, be reduced to 
 three. The iirst is the idea of obliterating social in- 
 equalities by a coercive distribution of all property. 
 This method is condemned by its violent injustice, by 
 its doing evil that good may come. It is condemned 
 by the unworthiness and meanness of its aims, by 
 its assuming as the most essential element of human 
 happiness, the very thing Avhich may most easily be 
 dispensed with, if the other conditions of well-being 
 are fulfilled. 
 
 It is further condemned by the hypocrisy of its 
 professions, as betrayed in every case where there has 
 been an opportunity of trial, by the tendency then 
 manifested, not to extirpate social inequalities, 
 but simply to reverse them ; not to substitute univer- 
 sal competence and comfort for the actual extremes of 
 poverty and wealth, but by revolutionary and revenge- 
 ful process, to make the poor rich by making the rich 
 poor. And even if it were exempt from all these 
 fatal errors and defects, it would still be condemned, 
 as a practical expedient for removing evils actually 
 felt, by the proved impossibility of carrying it into 
 execution without sacrificing the very ends which it 
 engages to accomplish. No municipal contrivances or 
 constitutional provisions can repeal or thwart the 
 providential law, by which variety of outward condi- 
 tion no less than of character, is recognized not only 
 as an incidental evil, but as a necessary means to the 
 attainment of the divine purpose, as with respect to
 
 234: SERMONS. 
 
 man's condition in the present life, or at least in the 
 present state of things. 
 
 The remarkable provisions of the law of Moses, for 
 the relief and sustentation of the poor, are accompa- 
 nied by the no less remarkable declaration that the 
 poor shall not cease out of the land. If this providen- 
 tial arrangement was intended for the moral disci- 
 pline of God's ancient people, it is hard to perceive 
 why it should be discontinued now, when every reason 
 for it still exists in full force in the human heart, and 
 in the structure of society ; and Avhen we see, around 
 us, most conclusive evidence that neither Christianity, 
 nor civilization, nor political contrivance has succeed- 
 ed in abolishing the old distinction upon which the 
 Mosaic institutions rest. In what sense the commu- 
 nity of goods prevailing in the apostolic church is to 
 be understood, and how far in the sense which is 
 often put upon it, it affords a type of the future con- 
 dition of society in this world, when the power of in- 
 justice and of selfishness shall yield to that of equity 
 and kindness, as the governing motives in the mass 
 of men, may be still regarded as unsettled questions. 
 But judging the futm-e by the past, and by the proba- 
 ble design for which the world still stands, we have 
 certainly strong reason to regard it as a prophecy still 
 valid, that the poor shall not cease out of the land. 
 
 Another remedy, less violent, irrational, and 
 chimerical, but still inadequate, is that which aims at 
 the removal of the evil, by securing an equality of 
 civil rights, in spite of personal and social disad- 
 vantages. So far as this means has the negative effect 
 of hindering oppression, and delivering the weak from
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 235 
 
 the encroacliments of tlie strong, it is a priceless bless- 
 ing and a noble contribution to the sum of human 
 happiness. But when it is considered as a positive 
 means of rendering men actually equal, and correct- 
 ing the effects of providential inequalities, it is as 
 worthless as the other. Tlie poor man's right to vote, 
 or in any other way to control the power under which 
 he lives, on equal terms with his rich neighbour, may 
 be preventive of a thousand other evils, but it no 
 more suffices of itself to put him on a level with 
 his neighbour, as to knowledge, or refinement, or in- 
 telligence, or character, than an agrarian division of 
 all property. It may be said indeed, and said with 
 truth, that this political equality permits the poor 
 man to aspire to the possession of advantages from 
 which he would be utterly shut out if living under an 
 arbitrary or despotic system. 
 
 But here again the advantage is not positive but 
 negative, consisting in the removal of obstructions 
 and impediments, but not of itself, and necessarily, 
 affording either strength or stimulus, to positive im- 
 provement. The difference is like that between a 
 starving prisoner and one who starves at liberty for 
 want of work, or want of strength, or want of inclina- 
 tion to employ it. In the absence of these personal 
 disqualifications, freedom from all restraint is certain- 
 ly a vast advantage, but of what use is it when these 
 other difficulties all exist ? of no more than the nega- 
 tive security afforded by political equality, when 
 those enjoying it are endlessly distinguished from each 
 other in capacity, improvement, character, and dis- 
 position. They are safe from the oppression of their
 
 236 SERMONS. 
 
 neiglibours, but it may be only to oppress them- 
 selves. 
 
 Far superior to either of these schemes is that 
 which seeks to remedy the evil b}' means of intellec- 
 tual increase of knowledge and refinement of taste. 
 Unlike the first, its aim is nobler, good in itself and 
 wholesome in its influence, and this end it seeks to 
 reach without injustice, without violence. Unlike 
 the second, its eifect, when realized, is not merely 
 negative, but positive. It not only makes improve- 
 ment possible, but actually produces it. The objection 
 to this intellectual remedy, when aj)plied alone, is 
 that its influence, though positive and real, is not 
 necessarily or wholly good. It strengthens, but the 
 strength which it imparts may be used for evil as 
 well as good. It gives a capacity for higher enjoy- 
 ments than those of sense, but it may create the desire 
 without affording any thing to feed it ; it may render 
 lower objects distasteful, ■without really exchanging 
 them for higher. Mere cultivation of the under- 
 standing, taste, and sensibilities, may be carried so far 
 as entirely to disqualify the subject for his actual con- 
 dition without opening before him any other. If the 
 existence of the mass of men were limited to this life, 
 such refinement would be still more undesirable, be- 
 cause it would unfit them for the only world in which 
 they are to live. It would be like the laborious and 
 expensive education of a man for professional or lite- 
 rary labour, who is doomed for life to the drudgery of 
 mechanical employment. The same expense and in- 
 tellectual exertion would be nothing if it were pre- 
 paratory to a corresponding period and field of labom-.
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 237 
 
 out extreme intellectual refinement is not only useless 
 as a preparation for hard labour, but positively hurt- 
 ful, by directly tending to unfit the person for the 
 sphere in which he is compelled to move. !N"ow in- 
 struction, such as social reformers commonly rely 
 upon to revolutionize society, restricts its views and 
 those of its disciples to the present life, while at the 
 same time it directly tends to make its actual duties 
 and enjoyments more or less distasteful. So far then 
 as it operates at all on social inequalities, it aggravates 
 instead of healing them, by tending to make all, as 
 far as possible, alike in taste and capacity, but leaving 
 them as unlike as ever with respect to their actual 
 condition and enjoyment. If some men after all 
 must be rich, and others poor, some laborious and 
 some idle, is it not better upon mere utilitarian and 
 worldly principles, that their habits and their tastes 
 should correspond to these diversities, than that all 
 should desire and relish the same objects, wliile the 
 objects are attainable by only some ? 
 
 Even this imperfect view of the principal attempts 
 which have been made to remedy the real or imagi- 
 nary evils of external inequality, may aid us in our 
 subsequent inquiry, how religion, or the Christian 
 system, undertakes to accomplish the same end, or 
 what advantages experience has shown it to possess 
 over every supplementary or rival system. This, 
 as being the immediate subject of consideration, 
 must of course be exhibited in more detail than 
 either of the methods which have been described 
 already. 
 
 Tlie first particular to which I would invito your
 
 238 SERMONS. 
 
 attention, is tlie fact that Christianity distinctly 
 recognizes the existence and necessity of some provi- 
 dential inequalities in the external situation of man- 
 kind. It is characteristic of the Bible that it does 
 not address itself to an ideal class of readers, but 
 has reference throughout to the world as it is, and 
 to the actual condition of mankind. This is the more 
 remarkable because its standard of moral perfection is 
 so high, and its demands upon the race so large. It 
 neither keeps out of view the corruption of our nature 
 on the one hand, nor consigns us to it without hope 
 upon the other. It neither exalts earth to heaven, nor 
 debases heaven to earth. It places us in sight of the 
 one, but in tlie midst of the other. In short, the Bible 
 is as far as possible from that cheap and expeditious 
 mode of remedying social evils which begins by deny- 
 ing their existence. The picture which it gives of 
 human character and- condition, is one drawn from 
 the life with terrible exactness, and may be recognized 
 in any country and in any age. The evils which it 
 represents as calling for a remedy, are not ideal, but 
 precisely those which all men feel and know in their 
 experience to be real. This creates a strong presump- 
 tion that the remedies themselves will be adapted to 
 their end, and that a book which so faithfully de- 
 scribes a thing to be done, may be safely relied on 
 when it tells us how to do it. Let it also be observed, 
 that the Bible differs from human systems of reform, 
 by recognizing not only the existence of these inequali- 
 ties, but their injurious effects, so far as they are real ; 
 yet far from rej)resenting them as irremediable, it pro- 
 vides, as we shall see, the only practicable and efiec-
 
 PEOVERBS 22, 2. 239 
 
 tive remedy, consisting not in any one specific nos- 
 trum, but in a series and combination of corrective 
 influences, eacli of wliicli gives power and eflect to all 
 the rest, and none of wliicli can tlierefore either be 
 dispensed with or relied upon exclusively. 
 
 The first of these remedial effects, is the direct 
 mitigation of the evils in question by the change 
 wrought in the tempers and affections of the parties, 
 so far as they are brought under the influence of gos- 
 pel truth. Li this way the tendency of wealth to 
 foster pride, and of privation to breed discontent, is 
 counteracted and controlled, and thus the chasm 
 which divides the two conditions, meets with a 
 double diminution. The hardships of the poor are 
 greatly aggravated in their apprehension, by the lux- 
 urious abuse of wealth whiclx. they are forced to wit- 
 ness, or too ready to imagine ; while on the other hand, 
 the proud contempt of the rich and prosperous is em- 
 bittered by the real or imputed thanklessness and in- 
 subordination of the humbler classes. So far is a mere 
 equality of civil rights from rectifying these unhap])}/ 
 mutual relations, that it rather seems to render them still 
 more unfriendly, as appears from the unquestionable 
 fact that under our free institutions, Avherever these 
 distinctions have a well-defined existence, and are 
 brought into collision, it is with a deeper feeling of 
 inveterate hostility than in those countries where there 
 is actual experience of oppression, but less intelligence 
 or less freedom of utterance on the part of those who 
 suffer wrong. Tlie consciousness of independence and 
 of equal rights, instead of soothing the repugnance to 
 distinctions of another kind, beyond the reach of
 
 240 SERMONS. 
 
 constitutions and the ballot-box, necessarily exasper- 
 ates it where it is already felt, and may perhaps tend 
 to produce it where it is not. 
 
 Now the gospel operates upon the same materialiS 
 in a very different manner and with very different re- 
 sults ; instead of reconciling men to one kind of infe- 
 riority or disadvantage by abolishing another which 
 has no connection with it, Christianity applies its 
 alterative remedies directly to the part diseased, sub- 
 dues the pride from which revenge and discontent 
 invariably flow, creates a general and habitual dispo- 
 sition to forbearance, and a modest estimate of self. 
 How ? not by philosophical abstractions, but by con- 
 vincing men of sin and prompting them to accept of a 
 gratuitous salvation. However imperfect these effects 
 may be, they are produced and just so far as they are 
 realized in any man's experience^ just so far do they 
 tend to heal the breaches in society produced by prov- 
 idential inequalities. He who heartily believes him- 
 self to be a miserable sinner justly condemned, and 
 entirely dependent upon sovereign mercy for sal- 
 vation, must and will, in some direct proportion to 
 the strength of these convictions, lower his demands 
 upon his fellow-men, and rise in his demands upon 
 himself. If rich, he will, to some extent, grow liber- 
 al ; if poor, contented ; and if either, thankful. 
 
 For another thing observable in this whole pro- 
 cess of correcting social evils by the positive influence 
 of true religion, not of orthodoxy merely, but of en- 
 lightened spiritual piety, is this : that while it recog- 
 nizes these invidious distinctions as existmg, and in 
 some degree inseparable from the mixed condition of
 
 PKOVERBS 22, 2. 242. 
 
 society in tliis world, it attaches to the various degrees 
 of wealth, refinement, knowledge, influence, and lei- 
 sure, their corresponding measures of resj)onsibilitj. 
 The gospel, when it operates upon the rich man's 
 heart, does not force him to impoverish himself, but 
 it constrains him to discharge the obligations by 
 which wealth is accompanied. It does not necessa- 
 rily make the rich man poor, but so far as it operates 
 at all, it always makes him do the duties of a rich man 
 just as in the other case, it often leaves the poor man 
 poor, or makes him poorer, but it never fails to make 
 him feel that God requires of poverty contentment, 
 and submission, and frugality, as truly as he calls the 
 rich to Christian liberality. And so of ignorance and 
 knowledge, public station and obscurity, and all the 
 other contrasts and antitheses of our social condition. 
 
 It is not, however, by mere stress of conscience, or 
 a painful sense of obligation, much less by a slavish 
 dread of punishment, that true religion exercises this 
 corrective influence. Such a conviction by itself 
 would only make the evil fester in concealment, while 
 the conscience thus enlightened, makes the way of 
 duty plain, the renewed afi'ections move spontaneous- 
 ly along it, so that the rich and poor, the strong and 
 weak, not only own it to be right that they should 
 severally bear and forbear, and sustain each other's 
 burdens, but are inclined to do it by as natural a 
 movement as they were once inclined to reciprocal 
 envy and contempt. 
 
 This is the first step in the grand remedial pro- 
 cess, which the Christian religion is even now ap23ly- 
 ing to the evils of social inequality. It makes each 
 
 VOL. I. — 11
 
 242 SERMONS. 
 
 party, at least to some extent, eontenied witli hia 
 actual condition, aware of its peculiar obligations, 
 and spontaneously disposed to discharge tliem, while 
 by thus removing or diminishing on each side what 
 is chiefly provocative of envy or contempt upon the 
 other, it not only makes each better in itself, but 
 draws them nearer to each other. Now all this — and 
 it is much — might be experienced, though all the 
 original dUBference in point of wealth, or knowledge, 
 or refinement, still subsisted in full force ; because the 
 salutary change is in the moral sensibilities, disposing 
 them to overlook disparities of culture and condition, 
 and does not consist in the removal or material 
 diminution of the disparities themselves. 
 
 But in the next place Christianity contributes to 
 this great change in the very way which I have just 
 excluded from the first stage of the process. That is 
 to say, after making men willing to regard with 
 charity and even complacency those far above or 
 below themselves upon the scale of intellectual im- 
 provement and of social cultivation, the gospel 
 brings them nearer to each other upon that scale too — 
 first disposes them to mutual benevolence while far 
 apart, and then diminishes the interval between them, 
 not by equalizing property or bringing all parts of 
 society to one dead level, but by giving to each 
 rank or class, or whatever else you please to call it, 
 a high degree of relative refinement, i. e., of refine- 
 ment suited to the actual position, and conducive to 
 the right discharge of its peculiar duties. Here is a 
 grand mistake of every other system for the elevation 
 of what must be called, even among us, the lower
 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 243 
 
 classes of society, that they aim at an ahsolute and 
 uniform amount of cultivation, having reference to 
 some arbitrary standard, whereas Christianity gives 
 each class what is best for it and most conducive to 
 its harmony with every other. The kind of cultiva- 
 tion which some would bestow upon the poor, could 
 only serve to render them ridiculous, while that which 
 Christianity really imparts to them, tends, on the con- 
 trary, to dignify and elevate. However it may be 
 explained, the fact is certain that the gospel has in 
 some parts of the world, given even to the peasantry 
 a species of refinement which no other means has been 
 able to efi'ect without it, even under the most favour- 
 able circumstances. Compare what the arts and the 
 artistical attractions of the Romish faith have done for 
 Italy — with what an austere Calvinism has done both 
 for the Celtic and the Saxon race of Scotland, While 
 in the one case the eye and the ear may have been 
 trained, and picturesque attitudes and costumes ren- 
 dered almost universal even among beggars, in the 
 other case a poor laborious population has been 
 raised to a pitch of intelligence and real cultivation, 
 which the best advantages of education often fail to 
 produce among ourselves. 
 
 This is the other part of the great creative and 
 healing process by which the gospel is continually 
 bringing the discordant elements of society together, 
 and correcting the evils which would otherwise result 
 from providential inequalities. By a process of moral 
 elevation, men are first taught to surmount the disad- 
 vantages arising from this cause, and then by one of 
 intellectual elevation, the operation of the cause itself,
 
 244 SERMONS. 
 
 is circumscribed and weakened, tiJ in some cases it 
 appears to be destroyed, and in all cases the result of 
 this twofold influence exerted on the mind and heart 
 directly by religion, is a manifest reduction of the 
 difference between the various classes of society 
 arising from diversity of outward circumstances and 
 position. That diversity may still continue and be 
 formally as great as ever, but the evils flowing from 
 it will be neutralized exactly in proportion to the 
 action of the cause described. 
 
 If, in what has now been said, too much should 
 seem to be ascribed to religion in the abstract or the 
 general, without regard to precise fonns and systems 
 of belief, this has arisen from two causes — one of 
 which is, that even the most diluted form of Christi- 
 anity on one hand, or its most corrupted form upon 
 the other, will be found more efficacious for the cure 
 of social maladies, and more especially the healing 
 of these alienations which we are considering, than 
 any system of means which philosophers or j^oliti- 
 cians can devise without involving the assistance 
 of religion. The other reason is, that general terms 
 have been used for brevity, where more specific ones 
 would really have made the case still stronger. For 
 it is not more certain or susceptible of proof, that 
 religion is more potent in this matter than any other 
 principle, and Christianity more efficacious than all 
 other systems of religion put together, than it is that 
 among the various fonns of Christianity itself. Tlie 
 highest influence of this kind has been ever exerted 
 by the doctrines of grace, or what we are accustomed 
 to distinguish by the name of evangc-ical religion. 

 
 PROVERBS 22, 2. 245 
 
 This is no vain boast in behalf of wliat we hold to 
 be the present form of Christianity. Tlie fact itself is 
 a matter of history, and its causes easily explained. 
 If a graduated scale could be constructed, showing 
 the degrees in which the national intelligence and 
 character have been visibly affected by the direct in- 
 fluence of religion on the masses of the people, and 
 the evils of social inequality thereby corrected, there 
 can be no doubt that while the weakest influence of 
 this kind would be found to have proceeded from the 
 Romish and oriental forms of Christianity, or from 
 the most diluted systems of Socinian or deistical 
 neology, where these have been allowed to act, not 
 merely on the educated classes, or on very small 
 communities, but on a large extent of population, the 
 highest measures of the same efi'ect must be ascribed 
 to what its enemies delight to brand as Calvinism, 
 even where it has been mingled and diluted, as in 
 Holland or l^ew England, and the highest of all, 
 precisely where its purity and vigour have been least 
 abated, as in Scotland. 
 
 If a direct comparison is wanted, let it be furnish- 
 ed by the Scotch and Irish peasantrj' — the two most 
 signal instances in history of whole nations brought 
 almost entirely under the control of certain systems 
 of belief and certain spiritual leaders, yet, how dif- 
 ferent the moral, intellectual, and social fruits of these 
 contiguous experiments ! The very evils which in 
 one case have almost disappeared from the surfece, if 
 not from the interior of society, are even now menac- 
 ing the other with terriflc revolution. I have said 
 too that the cause of this notorious difference is easily
 
 246 SERMONS. 
 
 assigned, I mean a cause residing in the very nature 
 of the several systems. It is the combination of the 
 doctrines of individual responsibility and private 
 judgment with those of human corruption and gra- 
 tuitous salvation, that has produced the grand elixir 
 to which Scotland owes her healthful social state ; and 
 as the lower degrees of the same influence are found 
 to correspond to less degrees of purity and reform in 
 the maintenance of these same doctrines, it may safe- 
 ly be affirmed, as a lesson even of experience, that 
 this system of belief is demonstrably the best adapted 
 to exert a purifying, healing influence on human so- 
 ciety, and thereby to correct the evils flowing from 
 the unavoidable diversities and outward situation and 
 degrees of intellectual improvement, or, in other 
 words, that it afibrds the safest and the best ground 
 upon which " the rich and poor" may " meet together" 
 and acknowledge that " the Lord is the maker of 
 them all." 
 
 If these views be correct, they throw a welcome 
 light on a subject of great practical importance — I 
 mean the necessity of popular religious education, 
 not only as a means of personal improvement and sal- 
 vation, but also as the grand corrective and perhaps the 
 sovereign cure of the disorders which now prey upon 
 society and " eat as doth a canker." It is not enough 
 to believe that religious knowledge is a good thing 
 for religious purposes, and that it even may supply 
 the want of other knowledge and of general culti- 
 vation, where these last are unattainable. "We are 
 bound to believe, because experience leaves no room 
 to doubt, that religious education has a social and a
 
 PROVEKBS 22, 2. ■ 247 
 
 secular as well as an exclusively religious use ; and 
 that it is not merely a good thing, but the good thing, 
 the very thing, the only thing, by which the masses 
 of mankind can be extensively and healthfully af- 
 fected, so that if, with reference to them, we were al- 
 lowed to choose between a general intellectual refine- 
 ment and complete religious training, considered 
 simply as two rival means of social improvement and 
 conciliation, we should still be bound to choose the 
 latter, and to send it rolling as a mighty flood through- 
 out the earth " for the healing of the nations." 
 
 The other point which these considerations serve 
 to set in a clear light, is the importance of the minis- 
 terial office, in its relation to society at large, as the 
 administrator of this reconciling, elevating, purify- 
 ing system. It has been said of the English clergy, 
 that they belong to all ranks in society, enjoying 
 free access to each, without thereby forfeiting the 
 confidence of any. Of ministers, even among us, 
 the same thing may be said, or rather, that they 
 properly belong to no class, because their authority 
 and influence are not dependent upon human usages 
 or institutions, but on God's appointment and God's 
 blessing. Let those who seek the office bear in mind, 
 then, that, in more than one sense, they are called or 
 will be called to dispense " the word of reconcilia- 
 tion," first, by reconciling men to God, and then by 
 reconciling man to man — healing the breaches and 
 divisions of society, and rendering the evils which 
 they generate, as few and harmless as they can. This 
 noble end is not to be promoted by a partial and ex- 
 clusive self-devotion, either to the higher or the low-
 
 248 ^ SERMONS. 
 
 er ranks, by making common cause, as some do, 
 either with the rich against the poor or with the poor 
 against the rich, but by endeavouring to bring the 
 truth and power of God to bear upon the adverse 
 parties with a moderating, elevating, and uniting 
 influence, and thus preparing all, by mutual forbear- 
 ance and assimilation, for that better country and 
 those better times when these invidious distinctions 
 shall no longer be remembered, but " the rich and 
 poor" shall finally and forever meet together in the 
 presence of that God who " is the maker of them all."
 
 XIII. 
 
 Romans 11, 22. — Behold therefore the goodness and severity of 
 God; on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if 
 thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off. 
 
 There is sometliiiig sublime in the constancy of 
 nature. "We derive thence our sti'ongest impressions 
 of stability and uniformity. This association has be- 
 come proverbial in many languages. It is also re- 
 cognized in Scripture, and in the dialect of common 
 life. But there is another side to this grand picture. 
 The changes of nature are sublime too. Some of these 
 are rare and even recondite. Such as occultations 
 and eclipses. Some are familiar to men in certain 
 situations. Such arc the ebb and flow of tides ; still 
 more the changes in the surface of the ocean. When 
 calm, it seems immovable ; when roused, incapable 
 of rest. Thus it furnishes the most vivid types of 
 life and death. He who sees it in both states, might 
 almost question the identity of the object. But these 
 sights multitudes have never seen. There are other 
 instances of change more universal. Who has not 
 seen the cloudless sky ? Who has not seen it over- 
 cast ? What contrast can be more complete than that 
 between a bright and lowering day ? What more un- 
 
 VOL. I, — 11*
 
 250 SERMONS. 
 
 like tlian tlieir effect upon the senses, the iiiiagination, 
 and the nervous sensibih'ties ? But this is an occa- 
 sional and fitful alternation, which cannot be com- 
 puted or foreseen, at least in our climate. There are 
 others, and these the most familiar, which are abso- 
 lutely uniform, and from which our ideas of regular- 
 ity and constancy are chiefly borrowed. Such are 
 the vicissitudes of day and night, and the stated revo- 
 lution of the seasons. 
 
 As to all these, our earliest impressions may be 
 those of different objects. To the child perhaps, the 
 dark and clear sky may have no identity ; the smooth 
 and rough sea may be different oceans ; the world by 
 day, and the world by night, distinct parts of the 
 universe. Then when we learn to speculate and rea- 
 son, we may verge towards the opposite extreme. 
 We may suspect ourselves of some illusion, and con- 
 clude not only that the object is the same, but that 
 its changes are imaginary. The truth lies between 
 these two extremes. 
 
 All this may be used to illustrate spiritual things. 
 "Whoever seriously contemplates God, is startled by 
 aj^parent inconsistencies. While we gaze at the clear 
 sky it is overcast ; or at the serene ocean it begins to 
 lash itself ; or at the sunset, it merges into twilight, 
 and that into darkness. We fasten upon some view 
 of the divine nature and become absorbed in it, till it 
 is intercepted by another in a kind of occultation or 
 eclipse. The first effect may be like that of natural 
 changes on the child : we refuse to identify the ob- 
 ject. This is perhaps the source of polytheism. Un- 
 able to reconcile the various phases of the divine
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 251 
 
 nature, men regard them as appearances of different 
 objects. Philosophical abstraction goes to the oppo- 
 site extreme, and identifies the attributes as well as 
 the subject in which they inhere. Thus we are told 
 that wrath and love, justice and mercy, are the same 
 thing. But from this, common sense and natural 
 feeling alike revolt. We rest at last in the conclusion 
 that what we behold, are consistent because co-exist- 
 ent manifestations of one and the same substance. 
 
 "When Israel first saw the cloudy pillar growing 
 luminous at night, he might have thought it was 
 another ; when convinced of his mistake, he might 
 have suspected some illusion of his senses ; but a little 
 experience must have satisfied him that both these 
 conclusions were erroneous ; that the Lord his God 
 was one Lord, and that this one Lord did go before 
 him in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by 
 night. Especially must they have been convinced of 
 this in that night, long to be remembered, when the 
 Lord looked out in the morning-watch uj^on the host 
 of the Egyptians, through the pillar of fire and of 
 cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians (Exodus 
 14, 24) ; when the angel of the Lord which went be- 
 fore the camp of Israel, removed and went behind 
 them, and the pillar of cloud went from before their 
 face and stood behind them, and came between the 
 camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and 
 was a cloud of darkness to them, and gave light by 
 night to these. Some — however they may speculate 
 at ordinary times — may be brought into circumstances 
 where it is equally impossible to doubt, that tlic wrath 
 of God is something very different from his love, and
 
 252 SERMONS. 
 
 yet that the justice which we dread, an(i the mercy 
 we invoke, are co-existent and harmonious characters 
 of one and the same God, " glorious m holiness, fear 
 ful in praises, doing wonders." (Exodus 15, 11.) 
 
 Tliis is still more striking when historically viewed 
 in the actual exercise of those great attributes which 
 seemed at hrst to be in conflict. To one such ex- 
 ample Paul has reference in the text. The Jews had 
 been chosen from among the nations, and made the 
 depository of an exclusive revelation, not forever but 
 for a time ; not for their own sakes, but for that of 
 men in general. But as a race they proved unfaithful to 
 their trust. Tlie honour which belonged to God, they 
 arrogated to themselves. Tlie salvation given to the 
 world, they desired and hoped to monopolize. Hence 
 they were cut off from the church and deprived of 
 their national pre-eminence, while the despised Gen- 
 tiles, whom they looked upon as hopelessly rejected 
 took their place. This the apostle finely embodies in 
 the figure of an olive tree deprived of its own branch- 
 es, while those of a wild olive tree are grafted in. 
 In reference to this stupendous change, he exhorts 
 the favoured Gentiles both to thankfulness and fear. 
 " Behold the goodness and severity of God, on them 
 &c. ; " plainly implying that still further change was 
 possible, and that they who had so strangely ex- 
 changed places might again be restored to their origi- 
 nal position, and so give occasion to a new applica- 
 tion of the same solemn words, " Behold therefore the 
 goodness and severity of God." 
 
 In fact, this formula admits of an extensive appli- 
 cation to the history of God's dispensations towa,rds
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 253 
 
 his rational and moral creatures, and it is in this wide 
 view of it tliat I have selected it as the subject of dis- 
 course. We may even go back to the age before the 
 world began, and view the relation of Jews and Gen- 
 tiles as a mere type of that between men and fallen 
 angels. It is a fearful truth of which we have mere 
 glimpses in the Bible, that a portion of those unhappy 
 spirits who surrounded the Divine throne in the high- 
 est heavens, fell by their own sin to the lowest hell, 
 and that the same God whose goodness crowned their 
 first estate with glory, stamped the last with the in- 
 delible impress of his wrath. As his goodness had 
 been boundless, so his justice was inflexible. What 
 a lesson to those who kept their first estate ; how 
 plainly does this dispensation say to them, " Behold 
 therefore the goodness and severity of God." 
 
 But the same contrast soon presents itself again. 
 Man is created, made a little lower than the angels, 
 in the image of God, with dominion over the inferior 
 creation, holy and happy, yet capable of falling. 
 Wliat a spectacle to angels both in heaven and hell. 
 What an object to the malignant ambition of the 
 latter to destroy man too ; thus dishonouring God, 
 and extending the reign of sin and death : they are 
 allowed access to the new creature, in the paradise 
 where danger seemed unknown and sin impossible ; 
 yet God had warned them by a prohibition of the 
 possibility of evil. That possibility is too soon re- 
 alized. Seduced by one already fallen, man falls too. 
 It might have been imagined that a divine fondness 
 for this new creation would have stayed the exercise 
 of justice. Higher intelligences may be conceived
 
 254r SERMONS. 
 
 as waiting in suspense for tlie decision of this qnes ■ 
 tion ; Iialf-hoping that the skj "would still remain se- 
 rene, the ocean of Divine love still at rest, the garden 
 of Eden in the bloom of a perpetual spring. But 
 see, no sooner is the sin committed, than the spot- 
 less purity of God is vindicated ; the heavens become 
 black, and seem to meet the ocean as it rises in its 
 wrath, and mingles its tempestuous murmurs with 
 the thunderings from above while every flower in 
 Paradise seems blighted in a moment ; all its verdure 
 withers and a dreary winter overspreads the earth. 
 The change is fearful, but it teaches us a glorious 
 truth, that God is holy, just, and true ; that he is not 
 mocked, and that he cannot deny himself. To the 
 spirits yet unfallcn, this new demonstration seems to 
 say again, " Behold therefore the goodness and se- 
 verity of God." 
 
 In the first of these cases there is no vicissitude to 
 be expected, " The angels who kept not their first 
 estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved 
 in everlasting chains, under darkness unto the judg- 
 ment of the great day." (Jude 6.) There is no re- 
 grafting of exscinded boughs into the heavenly olive 
 tree ; they are not only " withered and without fruit," 
 but " twice dead, plucked up by the roots," (Jude 12,) 
 whose end, w^iose only end, is to be burned. 
 
 From this hopeless prospect, let us turn to that of 
 our own race, and consider the illustration of the same 
 great truth afi'orded by its history, or rather that of 
 God's most gracious dispensations towards it ; seeking 
 the necessary contrast, not in the comparative con- 
 dition of men and devils, but in the vicissitudes pre-
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 255 
 
 sented by the case of man alone. There could not be 
 a stronger exhibition of God's goodness, than in man's 
 creation and original condition. He was made not 
 only hajjpy, but holy. His physical, intellectual, and 
 moral state were all exalted, and yet all susceptible 
 of further exaltation ; he was in immediate contact 
 and communion with the source and sum of all con- 
 ceivable perfection. Beyond this, our conceptions of 
 God's goodness could not rise, but for the new dis- 
 closures which we meet with afterwards. True, man 
 was put upon his trial, and that not only for himself, 
 but for his children. But how could this detract from 
 the divine goodness in the case of one created holy, 
 and with nothing to complain of or desire, as wanting 
 to his happiness ? The very test prescribed, illustrates 
 the divine goodness. What seems to be its arbitrary 
 character was all in favour of obedience, and there- 
 fore illustrative of the divine goodness ; while in the 
 same proportion it must vindicate the justice which 
 inexorably punished the transgression. 
 
 Every stroke in the picture of man's pristine hap- 
 piness sets out in more prominent relief God's subse- 
 quent severity, not as conflicting opposites, but as the 
 lights and shades of the same picture. Whatever 
 selfish or morbid feeling might desire in an ideal case, 
 the severityof the divine dispensations, when man fell, 
 is as perfectly accordant with our highest concep- 
 tions of the divine nature, as the previous exhibition 
 of transcendent goodness. We might not be able to 
 obtain this view by any unassisted use of our own 
 faculties, but when presented, it approves itself to 
 reason, conscience, and aifection ; we not only feel
 
 256 SERMONS, 
 
 that sucli severity towards sin is reconcilable with 
 what we know of God, but that without it, we could 
 not now be satisfied ; the very goodness which con- 
 founded sin with holiness in indiscriminate indul- 
 gence, would no longer seem to be goodness, or at best 
 the goodness of inferior natures, not the perfect good 
 ness of a perfect God, The subsequent severity, in 
 stead of marring what precedes, throws back a new 
 and glorious light upon it. Once convinced that the 
 severity and goodness are the attributes of one and 
 the same substance, we are forced to admit that they 
 enhance each other, and even if the history of man 
 stopped here, we should be forced to own that in its 
 darkened mirror the divine perfections were resplend- 
 ent, and to cry out in the language, not of cavil or 
 complaint, but of profound adoration, " Behold the 
 goodness and severity of God ! " 
 
 But thanks be to God, the history of man does not 
 stop here. The dismal scene which we have just sur- 
 veyed is but the entrance to a new and strange spec- 
 tacle. As we gaze upon the darkness into which our 
 race was plunged by the great original apostasy, like 
 men who gaze by night upon the troubled sea, be- 
 neath which some great fleet has just gone down, the 
 day begins to dawn, light breaks upon the surface of 
 those heaving waters, and reveals to us, at first the 
 yawning gulf still open, into which the victims have 
 descended, but the next moment, by a strange de- 
 parture from the laws of nature, we behold them re- 
 appear, or at least some of them, many of them ; the 
 abyss disgorges its devoured prey, and the ascending 
 Bun illuminates the unexpected spectacle of life from
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 257 
 
 the dead ; mercy trinmpliaiit over justice. Yes, the 
 scene has again been shifted, or to use a figure 
 worthier of the subject, the unchanging orb of the 
 Divine perfections has again revolved, and as we 
 watch its revolutions, we recognize with joy the phase 
 of mercy, the same pure light which shone on Para- 
 dise, but heightened by the contrast of the intervening 
 wrath, and mellowed by the memory of sin and sor- 
 row, lately born into this lower world. 
 
 This reappearance of the divine goodness, when 
 it seemed to have been swallowed up in wrath for- 
 ever, may be likened to the rising of the sun in the 
 west, still dyed with crimson by his setting, to the 
 substitution of a fresh dawn for an evening twi- 
 light, and the prospect of a new day, when a long 
 night seemed inevitable. As such a change in the 
 order would affect our senses and habitual associa- 
 tions, so our hearts and consciences would be affected 
 by a clear, full view of this astonishing vicissitude. 
 That God, after all his lavish kindness to the first 
 man, should requite his first offence with such sever- 
 ity, might seem surprising, till explained by a correct 
 view of the divine holiness and justice as essential to 
 his very being, but that surprise, even in its first un- 
 rectified indulgence, could be nothing to the fresh 
 surprise of men and angels at the first announcement 
 of deliverance ; salvation, not from suffering only, but 
 from sin itself ; not temporary, but eternal ; not ca- 
 priciously or arbitrarily bestowed, but rendered pos- 
 sible, and actually purchased, by the humiliation of 
 the Deity himself, the incarnation of the co-essential 
 and co-equal Son ; his subjection and obedience to the
 
 258 SERMONS. 
 
 law which man had broken, his endurance of the 
 penalty which man had incurred, his substitution for 
 the actual offence, his complete satisfaction to the 
 Divine justice, his life, his death, for such an end as 
 this, showing the turpitude of sin in the very act of 
 expiating it, and the uttemess and hopelessness of 
 our ruin in the very act of retrieving it ; oh ! if this 
 is not goodness, where shall it be found ? or how shall 
 we conceive of it ? If this is not transcendent, per- 
 fect, heavenly, godlike goodness, let the word be 
 hushed up, and the thought forgotten. Look, though 
 it be but for a moment, at the cross, and him who 
 hangs upon it, and while in breathless silence you 
 count the drops of more than human or angelic blood 
 that fall upon the parched earth, cursed for man's 
 transgression, but now panting for deliverance; by 
 the light that streams from that disfigured brow, read 
 the old lesson written in new characters, " Behold the 
 goodness and severity of God ! " 
 
 No wonder that the angels bend with an inquiring 
 gaze over this display of the goodness and severity of 
 God ! We, too, may well regard it with adoring 
 wonder. But let us not lose sight of tlie great ob- 
 jects here presented. Let us not forget, in this new 
 exhibition of the divine goodness, that it also in- 
 volves a grand display of his severity. "We are liable 
 here to the same mistake as in a former case. Be- 
 cause God was so good to man at first, we feel sur- 
 prised that he should be severe when man had fallen. 
 And then, because of that most just severity, the ex- 
 ercise of mercy seems impossible. And now that 
 mercy has been exercised, free favour to the utterly
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 259 
 
 unworthy and the ill-deserving, we are apt to feel as 
 if all danger were escaped forever — as if ruin and 
 damnation were utterly impossible. 
 
 This seems to be the eifect of the j)reaching of sal- 
 vation upon many minds. The very grace of God in- 
 cites them to go on in sin. Since he has exercised such 
 boundless grace as to sacrifice his own Son for the life 
 of a lost world, they think it utterly incredible that 
 any should be lost ; or, if any, that themselves should 
 be among the number. Their whole life is a perpet- 
 ual practical abuse of the great gospel doctrine — " He 
 that spared not his own Son," &c. The language of 
 their lives, if not that of their lips, is that such tran- 
 scendent goodness shuts out all severity, as incon- 
 sistent and its opposite. Mercy has triumphed over 
 God's inexorable justice, and disarmed, if not de- 
 stroyed it ; so that henceforth it is only in recollection 
 of the past that we can say, " Behold therefore the 
 goodness and severity of God." 
 
 This is one of the great practical delusions of the 
 Christian Church, or rather of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion, which prevails among the hearers of the Gospel, 
 and is often nourished by the very advantages which 
 tliey enjoy, but which must be corrected, or it will go 
 on slaying its thousands and its tens of thousands — 
 the belief that because God is so merciful, he cannot 
 be severe ; that because his promise is so gracious, he 
 will not execute his threatenings ; that even the re- 
 jection of his offered grace will pass unpunished ; 
 and that they who refused to be saved through Christ, 
 will magnify the greatness of the divine mercy by be- 
 ing saved without him. The error is refuted by the
 
 260 SERMONS. 
 
 very nature of the fouudation upcn wliicli it rests. 
 That foundation is the proof of God's transcendent 
 sroodness in the g-ift of his Son to be a Saviour. But 
 that gift is the strongest imaginable proof that God 
 will not and cannot pardon sin without atonement. 
 How absurd, then, to regard it as a reason for expect- 
 ing what it proves to be impossible ! 
 
 It is also refuted b j the analogy of all God's pre- 
 vious dispensations, both towards men and angels. 
 If his goodness to the angels in their first estate only 
 sets forth in -a stronger light his terrible severity when 
 they had fallen ; if his goodness to man in his original 
 condition is enhanced by contrast with severity, which 
 doomed him and his race to everlasting ruin, how can 
 the goodness which provides a Saviour and salvation 
 even for the race thus ruined, exclude the supposition 
 of proportionate severity towards those who will not 
 thus be saved ? It does not ; it cannot ; even in theo- 
 ry the reasoning is unsound, because opposed to all 
 analogy ; and in practice, in experience, those who hold 
 it to the end, will one day be effectually undeceived. 
 Yes, the day is coming when those exhibitions of 
 God's goodness and severity, of which we have been 
 speaking, shall be, as it were, lost sight of and for- 
 gotten in the presence of a new, and to many souls, an 
 unexpected demonstration, when they who shall have 
 sinned on to the verge of life, refusing to believe 
 in God's severity as something inconsistent with his 
 ffoodness, shall be made to see both stare them in the 
 face with terrible distress, his goodness embodied in 
 the Saviour whom they have rejected, and on whose 
 blood they have tramj)led — his severity in that de-
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 261 
 
 ridecl hell which they regarded as a phantom, and 
 from which they would not let him save them. Be- 
 tween these two fires — the fire of divine love, and the 
 fire of divine wrath — the one, through their obstinate 
 impenitence and unbelief, beyond their reach ; the 
 other, opening its devouring jaws already to receive 
 them — they may cling convulsively to that which 
 is no longer theirs, even as a temporary resting-place ; 
 but, as they are thrust ofi:' from it forever, they shall 
 find their own perdition added to the numberless ex- 
 amples of the same great truth, and hear the voice of 
 a great multitude, like the rush of many waters, say, 
 " Behold the goodness and severity of God ! " The 
 solemn truth cannot be stated too plainly or too 
 strongly. The gospel is a savour of death unto death 
 in them that perish. To hear it is a blessing only to 
 those who believe and embrace it. To all others it is 
 a fearful aggravation of their guilt and their damna- 
 tion. Better never to have heard the name of Christ, 
 than to reject him ; better never to have tasted of 
 God's goodness, than to experience his severity. 
 
 The view which we have taken, of God's goodness 
 and severity, has reference strictly only to his deal- 
 ings with the race as such, just as Paul in the text re- 
 fers to the dispensation of God's mercy towards Jews 
 and Gentiles. But the truth involved may also be 
 applied to individuals. The general analogy holds 
 good, though not in all particulars. It is true, my 
 hearer, you were never in a state of personal proba- 
 tion. That was past in Adam, and, as his descend- 
 ant, you are not in danger of perdition, but are lost 
 already. What you want is not so much a way of es-
 
 262 SERMONS. 
 
 cape as a method of recovery. But in another sense, 
 you are in a probationary state. Salvation is oiFered, 
 and on your acceptance or refusal, hangs your ever- 
 lasting destiny. This possibility, tliis opportunity, il- 
 lustrates gloriously the goodness of God ; but the 
 neglect or abuse of it -svill no less conspicuously show 
 forth his severity. Instead of being mitigated by the 
 goodness which precedes, his ultimate severity will 
 by it be unspeakably augmented in intensity. 
 
 And, as this is the clearly-defined course of duty 
 and of safety for the preachers of the Gospel, so it is 
 for those who hear it. Let every person who is still 
 within the reach of mercy, look upon his preservation, 
 even thus far, as a signal proof of the divine goodness, 
 and beware how you abuse it ! Every gift, every ex- 
 emption, every prolongation of the period allowed 
 you for repentance and conversion ; every providen- 
 tial warning, every fresh appeal to your understand- 
 ing and conscience, every moment added to the long, 
 long respite of your fearful sentence, every gleam of 
 hope that you may yet escape its execution, every 
 motion of your limbs, every heaving of your lungs, 
 every pulsation of your heart, unless converted by 
 a true faith into priceless blessings, will infallibly 
 plant daggers of supererogatory torment in your ever- 
 dying soul hereafter. While you thank God, there- 
 fore, for the gifts which you enjoy, "be not high- 
 minded but fear " — " behold the goodness and severity 
 of God, on them which fell severity, but toward thee 
 goodness, if thou continue in his goodness ; otherwise, 
 thou also shalt be cut off." 
 
 I exhort you to depart, then, with a deep convic-
 
 ROMANS 11, 22. 263 
 
 tion that the goodness and severity of God are not at 
 variance, or exclusive of each other ; but reciprocally 
 magnify each other ; that we need not attempt to 
 make the one of these great attributes conceal the 
 other, but may look at them together ; — that we must 
 thus view them if we would do justice to the revela- 
 tion God has given of himself. The faithful presenta- 
 tion of the truth does not require ns to exaggerate 
 God's wrath by the denial of his mercy, or to magnify 
 his goodness by denying his severity, or to confound 
 essential distinctions by asserting the identity of both. 
 We can only declare the whole counsel of God by 
 holding up to view these two great phases of his infi- 
 nite perfections. The ill effect of gazing too exclu- 
 sively at one, can only be corrected by exhibiting the 
 other.
 
 XIV. 
 
 1 Cor. 15, 33. — Be not deceived! 
 
 To be deceived is a misfortune so familiar to tlie 
 every-day experience of all men, that some effort of 
 reflection and abstraction is required to recognize it 
 as an evil in itself, and irrespectively of its effects. 
 And yet it seems to follow from man's very nature as 
 a rational being, that deception, even in the least de- 
 gree, is both injurious and disgraceful, inasmuch as 
 it implies some weakness, or inaction, or disorder of 
 that faculty by which we are distinguished from the 
 lower animals — the brutes that perish. As the act of 
 deceiving is a certain indication of moral obliquity, 
 so the very liability to be deceived is symptomatic of 
 some intellectual infirmity or depravation. However 
 insensible the mass of men may be to this important 
 feature of their actual condition, there are not want- 
 ing partial and occasional perceptions of it, even 
 among those who are commonly regarded as the least 
 intelligent, or the least accustomed to reflect upon the 
 constitution and the exercises of their own minds. 
 Amidst the vast diversity of men's opinions and asso- 
 ciations, as to praise and dispraise, honour and re-
 
 I 
 
 1 COKINTHIANS 15, S3. 265 
 
 V 
 
 proacli, there is scarcely any thing more uniform or 
 universal than the disposition to resent a wilful fraud 
 or imposition as a humiliation and an insult, without 
 any reference to the injury inflicted, or the impor- 
 tance of the subject-matter, as a measure of the con- 
 scious degradation. To have been imposed upon or 
 duped, even in a trivial matter, or in jest, is often felt 
 more keenl}^ as a personal dishonour than the foulest 
 wrong or the severest loss, when otherwise inflicted. 
 There are some men, and perhaps some cases in whicl: 
 all men, if abandoned to the government of natural, 
 unsanctified motives, would prefer the imputation of 
 dishonesty to that of weakness ; and our Saviour 
 neither spoke at random nor in reference to a merely 
 Jewish custom, when he singled out " thou fool," as 
 one of the severest and least tolerable insults that a 
 man could off'er to his fellow. What is all this but 
 the testimony of m.ankind, so much the stronger if 
 nnconscious and involuntary, to its own intellectual 
 disgrace — the protest of the intellect itself against 
 those daily and hourly humiliations which belong 
 to its actual anomalous condition. 
 
 But this condition includes something more and 
 something worse than any depravation or deran ele- 
 ment purely intellectual. However humbling this 
 might be to man, considered merely as a rational be- 
 ing, it is awfully aggravated by its complication with 
 a spiritual malady, equally real and far more malig- 
 nant, involving deadly alienation from the standard 
 of all moral rectitude. However distinguishable and 
 indeed distinct this intellectual and moral deprava- 
 tion may be, and however subtilly philosophers may 
 
 VOL. I. — 12
 
 266 SERMONS. 
 
 speculate and reason as to their priority and mutual 
 relations, the most interesting fact to us and to all 
 men, as attested both by revelation and experience, 
 is the fact, that the two evils coexist in one case — 
 that to us, at least, they spring from the same cause, 
 and must be healed, if at all, by the same remedy. 
 
 That this is really the case, apart from other most 
 conclusive evidence, is proved by the mysterious ob- 
 liquities of human intellect, in reference precisely to 
 the most momentous subjects, where its genuine and 
 normal operation seems essential to the welfare and 
 even to the safety of the subject ; by the strange but 
 certain fact, not only that the weak in other things 
 are weak in these, though even that might be justly 
 regarded as surprising, but that those who seem 
 strong-minded and sagacious, as to matters of the 
 present life, so as to be beyond the reach of all de- 
 ception, are, in relation to their highest interests, not 
 only liable, but actually, constantly, ruinously, shame- 
 fully deceived. 
 
 Nor is this a mere accident of man's condition, 
 which might have been otherwise and yet have left 
 him, with respect to all essentials, as he is. A ra- 
 tional being could not be inorally depraved with- 
 out intellectual debasement, whether this bo regard- 
 ed as the cause, or the effect, or the concomitant of 
 that ; or if this abstract proposition be disputed, the 
 fact, in reference to our depravity, is settled by our own 
 experience, confirming the in-cessant exhibition of our 
 fallen state in scripture, as a state of culj)able but 
 pitiable weakness, folly, and irrationality — of constant 
 exposure and subjection to the grossest as well as the
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 267 
 
 most subtle and refined delusions. The mysterious 
 influence of evil spirits on the character and destiny 
 of men, is rej)resented in the scriptures, not as a co- 
 ercive povp'er, but as a deception, from the time of Eve, 
 who, being deceived, was in the first transgression, to 
 the day when the devil that deceived her, shall be 
 cast into the lake of fire. Through the whole of this 
 long interval, there is no description of the race more 
 true to scripture and experience, and at the same 
 time more completely humbling to the pride of man, 
 than that which represents them as "foolish, {dvorjroc, 
 irrational,) disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts 
 and pleasures" — or that which describes " evil men 
 and seducers" as " waxing worse and worse, deceiving 
 and heing deceived^ There would be something fear- 
 fully bewildering and confounding in the sight, if we 
 could view it in a clear light and without obstruc- 
 tion or optical illusion, of a world of intellect, thus 
 crazed and smitten with judicial blindness, mutually 
 leading one another into error and to ultimate perdi- 
 tion — a spectacle of horror from which no relief can 
 be obtained, except by looking up to Him who equal- 
 ly controls the world of matter and the world of mind, 
 and of whom it may be said, in this as well as in a 
 lower sense, that " with him (alone) is strength and 
 wisdom — the deceived and the deceiver are his?'' — 
 (Job 12, 16.) 
 
 Without pausing to determine or enumerate the 
 various instrumental agencies by which this mighty 
 process of deception is continually carried on, and 
 which may all be resolved into the three great sources 
 of delusion and of consequent corruption, our own
 
 2g8. SERMONS. 
 
 hearts, our fellow-men, and evil spirits, or, as the 
 scripture more empliatically phrases it, the world, 
 the flesh, and the devil, let me simply press upon 
 your notice and your memory, the intimate con- 
 nection which in all such scriptural delineations, is 
 established between human depravity and human 
 folly, so that they interpenetrate and mutually qualify 
 each other, making sin inconceivably irrational, and 
 foolishness unutterably sinful ; representing every un- 
 renewed heart as " deceitful above all things," to itself 
 as well as others, and, for that very reason, " despe- 
 rately wicked ; as hard, not by accident, or by an 
 arbitrary, inevitable effect ah extra, but "hardened 
 through the dcceitfulness of sin," and connecting the 
 perdition of the lost, on the one hand, indeed, with 
 " the working of Satan," but on the other " with all 
 deceivahleness of unrighteousness in them that per- 
 ish, because they received not the love of the truth, 
 that they might be saved ; for which cause God shall 
 send them strong delusions, to believe a lie, that all 
 might be damned who believed not the truth, but had 
 pleasure in unrighteousness." — (2 Thess. 2, 9^12.) 
 
 ITow this is the condition from which Christ re- 
 deems us. Of him, as a Saviour, no less than of God, 
 as the sovereign arbiter, it may be said, " the deceived 
 and the deceiver are his." Tlie effect of Christianity, 
 i. e. of personal regeneration, is, to put an end to this 
 perpetual deception, active and passive, to the habit 
 of deceiving and to the condition of being deceived. 
 Such is undoubtedly the actual experience of every 
 penitent, believing sinner ; but, as conversion, though 
 it breaks the power and destroys the dominion of our
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 269 
 
 natural corruption, does not utterly abolish it, but 
 leaves us to struggle with the remtants of it through 
 the present life, this new and strange condition of the 
 soul displays itself in that specific form, or part of our 
 corrujDtion which we have been now considering, as 
 truly as in every other. The fatal spell of sin is 
 broken, the great governing delusion of the mind and 
 of the life has been dispelled, and can never be re- 
 ncM'ed in the same form or the same degree. But it 
 would be a great and dangerous mistake to think that 
 all deception is henceforth impossible, even in refer- 
 ence to spiritual interests and objects. The contin- 
 ued danger of delusion, oven as to these, is one of the 
 peculiar circumstances of the Christian life on earth, 
 or the condition of the church militant, distinguishing 
 it from that of the church triumphant. The cause or 
 ground of its continuance, though certainly myste- 
 rious, is not more so in this case than in any other 
 part of tliat severe but salutary discipline, by which 
 the faitli and love of God's elect are to be purified 
 and strengthened before they enter into glory. Of 
 this discipline, for which multitudes who once groaned 
 under it are now thanking God in heaven, the con- 
 tinued possibility of error and deception is a consti- 
 tuted part, and may therefore be regarded as an in- 
 dispensable ingredient of that " much tribulation," 
 through which " we must enter the kingdom of God," 
 that " great tribulation," out of which they came, 
 who have already " washed their robes and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb," and which, 
 even in the mean time, " worketh patience, and pa 
 tience experience, and experience hope — a hope tha<
 
 270 SERMONS. 
 
 maketli not ashamed, because, even no w, the love of 
 God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
 which is given unto us," 
 
 Of the fact itself, that even true believers are in 
 danger of deception, which, though not allowed to be 
 destroying, may be hurtful and distressing to them 
 selves and others, if proof be needed, it is furnished, 
 besides others which I shall not stop to mention, by 
 the frequent v,'arnings against this very peril, ad- 
 dressed by Christ and his apostles, not to unbelieving 
 and impenitent sinners, but to our Saviour's own dis- 
 ciples, and through them to the churches which they 
 founded and instructed. " Take heed lest any man 
 deceive you," was a solemn form of words, employed 
 by Christ himself upon a solemn occasion ; and it 
 finds an echo in that phrase which Paul so frequent- 
 ly reiterates, that it has been called one of his fa- 
 vourite expressions, " Be not deceived," " Be not de- 
 ceived." Can this incessant warning be a false alarm, 
 or have respect to aji imaginary danger? If we 
 think so, we have reason to regard it as esj)ecially ad- 
 dressed to us, for to nothing more than to the danger 
 of delusion and deception are those warnings of the 
 same apostle more appropriate — " Be not high-mind- 
 ed, but fear" — and — " Let him that thinketh he stand- 
 Gth take heed lest he fall !" 
 
 This general view, however, of the danger to 
 which we are exposed, can be practically and effectu- 
 ally useful, only by prompting the inquiry, when and 
 where, or in relation to what specific evils, are we 
 thus in peril ? The attempt to ascertain these by con- 
 jecture, or by reasoning from abstract principles.
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 2Y1 
 
 would be not only endless, from tlie infinite variety 
 of cases wliich might be supposed, br.t unsafe, from 
 the doubts which might still be entertained, if not as 
 to the actual existence, yet as to the magnitude and 
 nearness of the dangers which might be described. 
 From both these disadvantages we may escape, and 
 at the same time be provided with a valuable safe- 
 guard against certain perils, by confining our atten- 
 tion, for the present, to the special cases which occa- 
 sioned the original utterance of these solemn warn- 
 ings not to be deceived, and which are all, without 
 exception, common to the general experience of the 
 church and to the personal experience of its mem- 
 bers. -By pursuing this course, the same passages of 
 scripture which establish the existence of the danger 
 as a general fact, may be employed as clues to guide 
 us in the application of the salutary knowledge thus 
 imparted to specific cases. 
 
 1. When our Saviour said, "Take heed lest any 
 man deceive you," the particular deception which he 
 had in view, was that in reference to his second com- 
 ing, and the assumption of his name and person by 
 pretenders or impostors. The experience of the 
 church has shown that tliis was not a temporary, 
 transient danger ; for although the appearance of false 
 Christs may not have been a frequent occurrence, this 
 is only the gravest or extreme form of the peril against 
 which our Lord forewarned his followers. The more 
 refined and specious form of the deception, consists, 
 not in the personal assumption of Christ's name, 
 but in the confident assurance of his near approach, 
 and the attempt to determine what he has left
 
 272 SERMONS. 
 
 indefinite, not as a matter of mere specnliv.tion, but aa 
 an engine of fanatical excitement, interrupting all the 
 ordinary duties and relations of society, withdrawing 
 men's attention from the claims of personal religion 
 and from preparation for their own departure out of 
 life, to fix it on a great catastrophe supposed to be at 
 hand, and to be dreaded only as the most impious and 
 impenitent of men might dread a deluge and an earth- 
 quake ; and driving some, through mere excitement 
 and alarm, to madness or to self-destruction. This, if 
 only known to us historically or by a remote tradi- 
 tion, might be thought incredible ; and yet it is one 
 of the most recent and familiar forms of popular de- 
 lusion, the effects of which are still felt in communi- 
 ties and families around us, while stimulating and pro- 
 ductive causes are continually seething and ferment- 
 ing in the caldron of fanatical religion, fanciful in- 
 terpretation, false philosophy, and social revolution, 
 Avhich is boiling up and bubbling in the very midst 
 of Christian churches and of learned institutions, 
 ready to boil over, when the necessary point of heat 
 or fermentation has been reached, with a fresh inun- 
 dation of insane disorder, to be followed by a fresh 
 reaction to the opposite extreme of spiritual sloth and 
 deadness. 
 
 l!Tor is the warning thus afforded, to be limited to 
 this precise kind of delusion, but extended to all other 
 enthusiastic and fanatical excitements, which produce 
 analogous effects by like means, and which educated 
 and enlightened Christians are too commonly con- 
 tented to despise as mere absurdities, from which no 
 danger can be appreliended. There is no intellectual
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 273 
 
 or moral feature of the age more striking and alarm- 
 ing than the frequency with which men of strong and 
 cultivated minds are carried away by forms of error, 
 which to others of the same class appear simply ridic- 
 ulous. It is not bad logic or erroneous reasoning that 
 produces these resuits ; it is delusion ; it is something 
 that prevents the proper use of reason, and by making 
 revelation a mere nose of wax, enables thQ subject of 
 deception to pass with equal ease over the smallest 
 and the greatest intervals, to leap from truth not only 
 into error, great or small, but into nonsense, contra- 
 diction, and fatuity, the practical negation of his own 
 intelligence, as well as the rejection of all previous 
 knowledge and belief. Among the victims of these 
 strong delusions are some who once securely laughed 
 at their pretensions as absurd, and therefore innocent ; 
 as most men do until they are bewitched by them. 
 The growing frequency of such irrational conversions, 
 even in high places, and among what we regard as 
 privileged classes, ought to teach us the necessity of 
 something better than intellectual attainments or ad- 
 vantages, to save us even from what now appears to 
 us the drivel of idiocy or the rage of madness, and 
 give us ears to hear the Master saying, even of these 
 things, and even to ourselves, " Take heed, take heed 
 lest any man deceive you." 
 
 2. Twice, in the same epistle, Paul says to the 
 church of the Corinthians, " Be not deceived ! " In the 
 first of these cases, (1 Cor. 6, 9,) the admonition may to 
 many, seem as needless and superfluous as that ad- 
 dressed by Christ to his disciples. If none of us require 
 to be warned against false prophets or pretended Christs, 
 VOL. I. — 12*
 
 274 SERMONS. 
 
 how mucli less can we need to be admonislied tliat tlie 
 joys of heaven are not reserved for those who practise 
 the most heinous sins, not only of a spiritual and in- 
 sidions, but of a corporeal and outward kind. "Who 
 is, or ever was, in danger of supposing that idolaters, 
 adulterers, extortioners, revilers, -thieves, drunkards, 
 and the perpetrators of enormities still worse, are to 
 inherit the,kingdom of God ? And yet it is precisely 
 this impossible delusion against which Paul warns his 
 readers, not only here but in Ephesians (5, 6,) where 
 a similar enumeration of the blackest crimes is fol- 
 lowed by the solemn admonition, " Let no man de- 
 ceive you with vain words, for because of these things 
 Cometh the wrath of God upon the children of diso- 
 bedience." It was not to uninstructed heathen that 
 this language was addressed ; for he says' expressly 
 in the verse preceding, (Eph. 5, 5,) Ye know that 
 no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous 
 man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the 
 kingdom of Christ and of God." It was not ad- 
 dressed to uninstmcted, impenitent or unconverted 
 hearers of the gospel, for he says in the verse follow- 
 ing, (Eph. 5, 7,) " Be not ye therefore partakers with 
 them ; for ye were sometime darkness, but now are 
 ye light in the Lord." And as in Ephesus, so in 
 Corinth ; after enumerating some of the most revolt- 
 ing forms of himian wickedness, he adds, (1 Cor. 6, 
 11,) " and such were some of you ; but ye ai'e washed, 
 but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." It 
 was to justified, regenerated, sanctified believers, that 
 the apostie addressed this apparently gratuitous as-
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 275 
 
 surance that those who continued in the practice of 
 gross vices could not be saved. 
 
 What was the error against which he meant to 
 warn them ? ISTot the mere theoretical or doctrinal 
 absurdity of believing that men could be saved from 
 sin, and yet continue in it, for of this paralogism the 
 Corinthian and Ephesian converts were in as little 
 danger as ourselves ; but the practical paralogism of 
 thinking themselves Christians when their lives be- 
 lied it ; the self-contradiction of a high profession and 
 a lawless life. Is this inconsistency impossible? 
 Alas ! it is among the most familiar features of re- 
 ligious life in every age and every country. Ashamed 
 as all would be to teach it or to hold it as a formal 
 -proposition, how many practice it and preach it by 
 example, without a scruple and without a blush ! It 
 is in vain to say the combination is absurd, it must 
 be an imaginary one. Precisely the same reasoning 
 might be used to demonstrate that there is no sin at 
 all, for all sin is irrational, and every act of sin ad- 
 mits of a reductio ad absurdum. But in tins, as in the 
 other case, it is not a mistake in logic, but in morals. 
 It is not weak reasoning, it is strong delusion of the 
 heart as well as of the head, and one to which the 
 highest are as open as the lowest, the wisest as the 
 weakest and the most besotted, if abandoned to their 
 own resources. Here, again, the instances of this de- 
 lusion are confined to no church, country, or con- 
 dition of society. Explain it or deny it as you will, 
 the fact is written in the records of the church, and 
 in the memory of the world, that men of eminent en- 
 (lownients and conspicuous position, whatever may
 
 276 SERMONS. 
 
 have been their creed or theoretical convic/ion, have 
 lived precisely as thej must have lived, if they had 
 really examined and believed the monstrous blas- 
 phemy, against which Paul so earnestly forewarns us, 
 saying, Be not deceived ! 
 
 3. But if this delusion, after all, should seem too 
 monstrous in itself, or too remote from our experience, 
 to be made the subject of a serious admonition to pro- 
 fessing Christians, let us look for a moment at another 
 case, in which the same apostle uses the same for- 
 mula. Be not deceived ! The readers immediately ad- 
 dressed are the Galatians, who had swerved from the 
 simplicity of gospel doctrine under the influence of 
 Judaizing teachers, and besides the fatal error which 
 they had embraced in theory by falling from grace, 
 i. e., from the doctrine of gratuitous salvation, seem 
 to have been betrayed, as might have been expect- 
 ed, into other false opinions, tending more or less to 
 vitiate their Christian character and course of life. 
 Among these there appears to have been one, grow- 
 ing rather out of the abuse than the rejection of the 
 doctrines of free grace ; the notion that, provided men 
 are saved, it matters little Iioay they live, since all are 
 to be saved alike, and tlie imperfections of believers, 
 nay, their worst neglects of duty, and most heinous 
 violations of the law of God, can have no effect uj)on 
 tlieir ultimate condition or eternal destiny. In oppo- 
 sition to this error, far more specious and insidious 
 than either of the others, and therefore not unlikely 
 to be harboured where the others never gain access, 
 he teaches that the laws of spiritual life are as deter- 
 minate and uniform as those of nature, that even true
 
 1 COEINTHIANS 15, 33. 277 
 
 believers will not be, by miracles, exempted from their 
 operation, and that although saved by sovereign mercy 
 from perdition, and made perfect in holiness, the soul's 
 capacity and actual experience of good hereafter will 
 bear due proportion to its progress here ; its growth 
 in grace, sanctification, union with Christ, communion 
 with God, separation from sin, and assimilation to 
 the divine nature. 
 
 Kthe subtle perversion of the Gospel doctrine, liere 
 corrected, is a natural and almost certain growth of 
 human weakness and corruption, even under the pre- 
 vailing influence of saving grace, and therefore not 
 confined to certain periods, or places, or conditions of 
 the church, or of society at large, but liable and likely 
 to spring up as tares among the wheat, wherever 
 men are men, and sin is sin; we should require no 
 special pleading to convince us, or impassioned ex- 
 hortation to persuade us, that the great apostle " be- 
 ing dead yet speaketh " unto us, as he spoke of old to 
 the Galatians, saying, '■^ £e not deceived j God is not 
 mocked ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
 also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of 
 the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the 
 Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (Gal. 
 6, 7. 8.) 
 
 4. To some of you, my hearers, I rejoice to be- 
 lieve that even this monition, although recognized as 
 resting on Divine authority and certain truth, may 
 not be specially or personally applicable, on the 
 ground of any present and immediate danger, or of 
 actual subjection to the several delusions which have 
 been described, and with which the apostle has asso-
 
 278 SERMONS. 
 
 ciated that remarkable expression, J3e not deceived ! 
 I need scarcely saj'' that this exemption from decep- 
 tion, or tlie risk of it is, even in the best and most 
 favourable case, restricted and precarious, since every 
 human heart, so long as any residue of its corraption 
 still remains is, in itself, exposed to all the evil which 
 that corruption is capable of producing, when free 
 from the restraints of sovereign grace. But since 
 that grace does operate, and those restraints are really 
 imposed, you may undoubtedly be free at this time 
 from the pressure of these strong delusions, from fan- 
 atical incitements and hallucinations, and from every 
 form of Antinomian license. K this be so, you will 
 acknowledge your peculiar obligation, not only to 
 thank God for his delivering mercy and restraining 
 grace, but also to abstain from every thing that 
 would endanger the security and liberty which you 
 enjoy. Among the dangers thus to be avoided, I 
 will name but one, and in the choice of that one I 
 shall still be guided by the apostolic warnings not to 
 be deceived. It is the danger of forgetting that the 
 lowest and most moderate degrees of Christianity, 
 though really distinct and distant, to the eye of God, 
 from the highest attainments of a mere morality, and 
 still more from the forms of hypocritical profession, 
 may resemble both in human estimation, and be 
 brought into juxtaposition with them in the ordinary 
 intercom-se of life. How natural and amiable is the 
 wish to make this intercourse as peaceable as may be, 
 and for this end to sacrifice whatever seems to be a 
 needless rigour and austerity, endeavouring to oblit- 
 erate or cover the invidious line of demarkation which
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 1 CORINTHIANS 15, 33. 279 
 
 unliappily divides tlie cliurcli and world; going as 
 far as the most yielding conscience will allow, in par- 
 taking of tliose pleasures whicli a more morose re- 
 ligion would proscribe, as dangerous, if not unlawful, 
 under the specious pretext of avoiding sanctimonious 
 preciseness, and of " winning souls " by wise accom- 
 modation and concession to the innocent or even to 
 the doubtful customs of society. K any of you are 
 now pursuing this course — as thousands have pur- 
 sued it in every age — you may not be prepared for 
 the suggestion, that perhaps you are mistaken after 
 all, and that if the warning voice of " Paul the Aged" 
 could now reach you from his grave in Eome or from 
 his throne in heaven, it might only be to say again 
 to you, as he said to the Corinthians 1800 years ago, 
 " Be not deceived ! evil communicaiioiis corrujpt good 
 manners. Awake to rigJiteousness and sin not / for 
 some have not the hnoicledge of God. I speaJc this 
 to your shameP (1 Cor. 15, 33. 34.)
 
 XV. 
 
 Acts 28, 28. — Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation 
 of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. 
 
 FAinLiAK as long practice lias now made it, tliere 
 is still something strange in tlie facility with which 
 we are accustomed to apply to ourselves and our con- 
 temporaries, terms that are strictly appropriate only 
 to a former dispensation. I do not here refer to the 
 prevailing practice of appropriating to the Christian 
 church the promises originally uttered to the house 
 of Israel ; for this, I doubt not, is in strict accordance 
 with their true design and import. But I mean the 
 habit of transferring to our own times what was really 
 temporary in design, and has in fact long ceased to 
 be. A striking instance is afforded by the way in 
 which we talk about the " Gentiles," as if we were 
 " Jews," and bore the same relation to the heathen that 
 existed between Jews and Gentiles under the restrict- 
 ive institutions of the old economy. Such is the force 
 of words, to influence as well as to express thought, 
 that by dint of constant repetition, men may actually 
 come at last to think themselves a chosen and pecu- 
 liar people, not only in the spiritual Christian sense, 
 but in the national external sense.
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 281 
 
 The very existence of this disposition to confound 
 things so dissimilar affords a proof that with all their 
 dissimilitude, there must be strong points of resem- 
 blance, and it may not be unprofitable, therefore, to 
 consider briefly what these points of resemblance are ; 
 in what sense, and to what extent, our tacit assump- 
 tion of the Jewish character and standing may be 
 justified, and also by what dangers and responsibil- 
 ities, or what advantages and honours this distinction 
 is attended. In attempting this comparison, it will 
 be found to favour concentration and precision to se- 
 lect some one turning point, some critical juncture, 
 in the history of Israel, at which the Jewish character 
 and spirit were peculiarly developed, and if possible 
 brought into immediate juxtaposition with the corres- 
 ponding traits of Christianity. Such a conjuncture 
 is the one at which the words of the text were uttered, 
 when the old economy had really been abrogated by 
 the advent of the Saviom*, and the Jewish world was 
 rent asunder through its whole extent by the great 
 dividing question " What think ye of Christ ? " In 
 consequence of this very agitation, Paul becomes a 
 prisoner and is sent to Rome. But even there he 
 preaches the gospel, in obedience to his Lord's com- 
 mand, "beginning at Jerusalem;" even there, the 
 first call is addressed to " the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel." He convokes the chief men of the Jews, 
 of which race and religion it would seem, from the 
 contemporary statements of Josephus, there were 
 thousands then in Eome. To this representative as- 
 sembly of his people, he addressed a vindication of 
 himself and of his master; of himself as guiltless
 
 282 SERMONS. 
 
 even with respect to Judaism, and tliongli ground- 
 lessly accused devoid of malice towards liis enemies ; 
 of Christ, as the " hope of Israel," for whose sake, 
 said he, " I am bound with this chain," thus connect' 
 ing, in the clearest and most striking form, his per- 
 sonal captivity with that great cause for which he 
 counted it all joy to suffer. 
 
 Being assured by those who heard him, of their 
 willingness to do him justice, and their wish to know 
 more of this sect or heresy which everywhere was 
 spoken against, he drops all personal considerations, 
 and to the many who assembled at his lodgings on a 
 day appointed, he " expounds and testifies the king- 
 dom of God," that is to say, the nature of the new 
 dispensation as distinguished from the old, "persuad- 
 ing them concerning Jesus," i. e., proving him to be 
 the promised Christ, the substance of the ancient 
 shadows, and in this sense, as in others, the " end of 
 the law ; " proving all this " out of Moses and the 
 Prophets," " from the morning till the evening." 
 When he found, as he no doubt had foreseen, that 
 they were not agreed among themselves, and that 
 " some did not believe," he parted from them after 
 he had spoken " one word," and a fearful word it was, 
 being nothing less than that appalling premonition 
 of judicial blindness, in the sixth chapter of Isaiah, 
 for which the Prophet was himself prepared by a 
 solemn vision and a symbolical assurance of forgive- 
 ness. To this application of an awful threatening he 
 adds, "Be it known unto you therefore," i. e., be- 
 cause you thus reject the hope of Israel, for whose 
 sake the Mosaic economy existed, and at whose ap- 
 
 i
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 283 
 
 proach it was to crumble, "be it known nnto yon, 
 that tlie salvation of God is sent unto tlie Gentiles, 
 and that they will hear it." In like manner, Taul 
 and Barnabas had said, long before, to the unbeliev- 
 ing Jews of Antioch in Pisidia, " it was necessary that 
 the word of God should first have been spoken to 
 you ; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge your- 
 selves unworthy of eternal life, lo we turn unto the 
 Gentiles." And again, when those of Corinth con- 
 tradicted and blasphemed, " Paul shook his raiment, 
 and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own 
 heads, I am clean, from henceforth I will go imto the 
 Gentiles." 
 
 The same oflfer, the same refusal, and the same re- 
 sult, are expressed or implied in the passage now be- 
 fore us. Its particular expressions need but little 
 explanation. Tlie " salvation of God," literally, his 
 saving thing, or that by which he saves, does not here 
 mean the actual experience of salvation, but, as ap- 
 pears from the last clause of the verse, in which it 
 is spoken of as something to be heard, the doctrines, 
 message, offer, or glad tidings of salvation ; the same 
 that Paul to the Pisidians calls " the word of this sal- 
 vation." The phrase " and they will hear it " might 
 perhaj)s be more exactly rendered, " they too shall 
 hear it." By a simple change of emphasis, however, 
 the expression may be made to convey these two 
 ideas, or modifications of the same idea, that they 
 shall and that they will hear the message of salva- 
 tion ; that they shall, in the dispensations of God's 
 providence, enjoy the opportunity of hearing ; and 
 that through the dispensations of his grace, they will
 
 284 SERMONS. 
 
 give ear to it. All this may therefore be considered 
 as included in the meaning of the text. 
 
 But the main point to which I would invite your 
 attention, is the contrast here exhibited between the 
 Christianity of Paul and the Judaism of his hearers, 
 under circumstances singularly suited to bring out, 
 in bold relief, the characteristic attributes of both, so 
 that if we would compare ourselves with either, we 
 could hardly ask a better opportunity. And as one 
 part of the comparison essentially involves the other, 
 let us inquire in what points, if in any, we may claim 
 affinity with these representatives of Judaism, at the 
 eventful epoch of its dying striTggle with the infant 
 church. 
 
 1. The first resemblance which I would suggest 
 is, that they, like us, had long been in possession of ex- 
 clusive privileges, and accustomed to siirvey without 
 emotion the great mass of mankind deprived of them. 
 This is the grand assimilating fact in their condition and 
 in ours, which has led to the habitual adoption of their 
 language, and appropriation to ourselves of what is 
 really peculiar to their insulated and unique position. 
 The ancient Jews were in exclusive possession of the 
 scriptures, a pure worship), and an authorized minis- 
 try. So are Christians now, as compared with mil- 
 lions of heathen, and the Protestant churches, in com- 
 parison even with millions of nominal Christians. 
 Hence it seems natural and not nm-easonable to re- 
 gard ourselves as bearing just the same relation to 
 the Gentiles of the present day, as that sustained by 
 Israel to the Gentiles of antiquity. But let us not, in 
 looking at the marked points of resemblance, over- 
 
 I
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 285 
 
 look the no less marked points of dirersity between 
 the cases. The exclusive privileges of the ancient 
 Jews, were theirs by an express divine appointment. 
 The barriers, which divided them from other nations, 
 although temporary in design, were reared by an 
 Ahnighty hand, and could be demolished by no 
 other. Their adherence to these old restrictions, after 
 the set time for their removal had arrived, was indeed 
 an act of flagrant unbelief and disobedience ; but until 
 that time came, they had no choice, they were shut 
 up to the necessity of standing aloof, and living apart, 
 and avoiding all communion with the nations as such. 
 Does our situation correspond with this? Are our 
 exclusive privileges forced upon us, as it were by ir- 
 resistible authority ? K not, our insulation from the 
 world is very diflerent from that of ancient Israel. 
 So far as the enclosures which have shut us in are 
 human structures, reared by selfishness and cement- 
 ed by apathy, they differ wholly from the walls by 
 which the ancient Zion was encompassed, and her 
 sons withheld from all communion with the Gen- 
 tiles. They had been taught, and by divine authori- 
 ty, to look upon the nations as excluded, for a time, 
 from the covenant of mercy. "We have been taught, 
 and by the same authority, that these in all respects 
 are heirs of the same promise. They, as a nation, 
 were in fact the chosen and peculiar people of Jeho- 
 vah. We, in this respect, have not, and never had, 
 the shadow of a claim to take precedence of our fel- 
 low Gentiles. In a word, considering the divine in- 
 stitutions out of which their prejudices grew, and the 
 want of an}^ corresponding pretext for our own, we
 
 286 SERMONS. 
 
 may saj, without irreverence or perversion, that they 
 were straitened in Moses and the Proj)hets, but that 
 we, if straitened, must be straitened in ourselves. 
 Let this essential difiereuce be kept in view, while we 
 still distinctly recognize the real similarity between 
 the cases in the long-continued undisturbed enjoyment 
 of exclusive privileges. 
 
 2. The other points of resemblance, which I shall 
 advert to, all arise from that just mentioned, as its 
 more remote or proximate eftects. And in the next 
 place I may specify the influence of long-continued 
 and exclusive privileges on the opinions, the doctrinal 
 belief, of those enjoying them. It is curious, yet 
 melancholy, to observe with what facility advantages 
 possessed by a few for the good of the many may 
 come to be regarded as prerogatives belonging to the 
 few, to the entire exckision of the many. Of this 
 fatal tendency to abuse, the rise of all despotic power 
 is an illustration. It was never more remarkably ex- 
 emplified, however, than in the case before us, that 
 of a particular people, made the sole depository of the 
 truth and of the promises of mercy, for a limited 
 time, with a view to their general diffusion afterwards, 
 and seduced by the very possession of this glori- 
 ous trust, first into forgetfulness, then into ignorance, 
 and then into denial, of the very end for which it was 
 created. That this perversion was facilitated by the 
 peculiar institutions which were necessary to secure 
 the purpose of the temporary system, cannot be de- 
 nied. But this efiect of the Mosaic institutions must 
 be carefully distinguished from their legitimate design 
 and tendency. With all their restrictions and exclu-
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 287 
 
 give regulations, tliey were not intended to create or 
 foster a contracted nationality and a contemj)t or 
 hatred of mankind. This might be presumed from 
 the divine authority by which they were established. 
 
 It may be more certainly inferred from many in- 
 timations in the law itself, and still more clearly read 
 in the discourses of the Prophets, its inspired expound- 
 ers. One grand design of the prophetic office was, 
 to guard the institutions of the law against abuse, and 
 to recall the people from the gross corruptions which 
 its outward forms were apt to generate to more en- 
 larged and spiritual views. A single instance of this 
 general fact, is the prophetic exposition of the sacrifi- 
 cial system, equally distant from fanatical rejection of 
 appointed rites and from superstitious worship of the 
 rites themselves. Tlie very terms of these inspired 
 interpretations seem to show, not only that they were 
 required, but that, with respect to many, and perhaps 
 to most, they were without effect except to blind and 
 harden. The great mass of the people, far from priz- 
 ing their peculiar and distinguishing advantages, as 
 present or prospective means of general good, valued 
 them only for their own sake, and by so doing showed 
 that they mistook their very nature, and instead of 
 deriving from them an exclusive benefit, were utterly 
 incapable of deriving any benefit at all. 
 
 This cardinal error, as to the very purpose of the 
 system under which they lived, could not fail to pro- 
 duce a general distortion in the doctrinal views of 
 those who held it. Tliey who did not know, or could 
 not be persuaded, that " the law must go forth from 
 Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,"
 
 28S SERMONS. 
 
 could never be expected to appreciate the truth, that 
 the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, 
 and his testimony sure, making wise the simple. They 
 who believed that the truth or mercy of Jehovah ex- 
 isted for themselves alone, could surely never have 
 obtained a glimpse of what his truth and mercy are. 
 Such was the doctrinal eifect produced upon the an- 
 cient Jews by their long-continued and exclusive 
 jjrivileges. 
 
 Now its tendency to this result, was not peculiar 
 to the ancient world or to the house of Israel. It may 
 exist and operate in us, and with a fearful force, pro- 
 portioned to the magnitude of our advantages. If 
 they, with an unfinished revelation and a heavy cere- 
 monial yoke upon their necks, could dream of an ex- 
 clusive right to God's compassions, what may not we, 
 without preventing grace, infer from our unclouded 
 light and our unshackled freedom? And if this 
 grand error had a tendency to vitiate their whole 
 view of divine truth, what security have we that an 
 analogous eficct may not be realized in our experi- 
 ence ? Here, then, to say the least, there is a possi- 
 ble, if not an actual resemblance between us and 
 them. Because they were favoured, for a time, with 
 an exclusive revelation, they forgot the very end for 
 which they had received it, and forgetting this, were 
 naturally led to take distorted views of that religion 
 which they thus regarded as exclusively their own for- 
 ever. So may wc^ perhaps I ought to say, so have we 
 reaped precisely the same fruit from precisely the same 
 seed so far as we have sown it. 
 
 3. This view of the matter maybe rendered clearer
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 289 
 
 by selecting from tlie whole mass of opinions tlius in- 
 juriously affected by the culpable abuse of long-con- 
 tinued and exclusive privileges, one or two peculiarly 
 important and peculiarly conspicuous m. the case be- 
 fore us. Take for example the great doctrine which 
 divided the Apostle of the Gentiles from his Jewish 
 hearers, at the interesting juncture when they went 
 their way after Paul had spoken to them " one word." 
 What was the relative position of the parties ? Com- 
 mon to both was a professed belief in Moses and the 
 Prophets, and in the promises of Messiah as the Sa- 
 viour of his people. But they fatally diverge at an 
 essential point. Paul believes that the Messiah has 
 already come, and that Jesus of IS'azareth is he, and 
 as a necessary consequence, that the restrictions of the 
 old economy are at an end, and the diffusion of the 
 true religion through the world the first great duty 
 of God's people. They, on the contrary, regard the 
 advent of Messiah as still future, and the barrier 
 between Jews and Gentiles as still standing. The 
 connexion of these doctrines in their several creeds is 
 not fortuitous. It was because Paul believed in the 
 Messiahship of Christ that he believed in the necessity 
 and present duty of extending the blessings of the 
 true religion to the Gentiles no less than the Jews. 
 Believing, as his countrymen at Rome did, that 
 Messiah had not come, they were consistent in believ- 
 ing also that the old restrictive system was still valid 
 and still binding. I say they were consistent, not 
 that they were right, or even excusable, in so believ- 
 ing. Their consistency was nothing but consistency 
 in error, error sinful in its origin and fatal in its issue, 
 >roL. I. — 13
 
 290 SERMONS. 
 
 Tbeir mistake was not merely ore of chronology. It 
 was not that they put the date of the Messiah's ad- 
 vent too low down. Their rejection of Christ shows 
 tliat they erred not only as to the fulfilment of the 
 promise, but as to the meaning of the promise itself. 
 Their expectation was not realized because it was a 
 false one. They had corrupted the very doctrine of 
 salvation, upon which all depends. They looked for 
 a Saviour who had never been promised, and could 
 never come. Instead of one who should destroy all 
 national restrictions, they expected a national deliver- 
 er, conqneror, and king. This dream of national ad- 
 vancement could be verified only at the cost of other 
 nations. Their mistake as to the Messiah, therefore, 
 tended directly to cherish a spirit of national exclusive- 
 ness, and to suppress all rising of a catholic charity. 
 And thus appears the truth of the position, that the 
 doctrinal error of the unbelieving Jews, with respect 
 to the Messiah, and their practical error with respect 
 to the Gentiles, were as really and closely connected 
 as Paul's doctrine with respect to the Messiahship of 
 Christ, and his practice with respect to the conversion 
 of the world. 
 
 And the same connexion still exists and will be- 
 tray itself between a Jewish doctrine and a Jewish 
 practice. For, although it is impossible that any 
 Christian, even one by mere intellectual conviction, 
 should embrace the very error of the old Jews as to 
 the Messiah's kingdom ; it is altogether possible and 
 easy to embrace one of a similar description, by un- 
 worthy and inadequate conceptions of the Christian 
 system, as designed and suited for a universal faith,
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 291 
 
 as well witli respect to its doctrines as its institutions. 
 There is no danger of our tliinking that Christ came 
 to be a "vvorldlj conqueror and not a Saviour, but 
 there is great danger of our thinking, or at least of 
 our acting, as if we thought that he came to save us^ 
 and to secure us in the undisturbed enjoyment of our 
 temporal and spiritual comforts, and that the rest of 
 the world must be .consigned to his uncovenanted 
 mercy. There is great danger of our looking through 
 the wrong end of the telescope, and seeing that di- 
 minished which we ought to have seen magnified, the 
 world reduced to a nut-shell, and our own house or 
 village swelled into a world. There is great danger 
 of our being taught and teaching others this great 
 doctrine as some children learn geography, beginning 
 at the spot on which they stand, and by degrees en- 
 larging their horizon till they take in a whole country, 
 state, or hemisphere, and at the last the world itself. 
 This lesson in geography the church has long been 
 learning, but has stuck fast in the elements. In order 
 to describe the larger circle, we must learn to reverse 
 the process, and begin as the apostles did with the 
 idea of a world to be converted, and from this descend 
 to the particulars included. There are great advan- 
 tages, no doubt, in rising from particulars to gen- 
 erals, and in making home the starting point of dis- 
 tant operations. 
 
 But however necessary this may be in practice, it 
 is well in theory at least to take the other course, and 
 to begin at the beginning, i. e. where the apostolic 
 preachers set tlie ball in motion, who, although they 
 obeyed their Lord's commandment by beginning at
 
 292 SERMONS. 
 
 Jerusalem, were careful not to end there, like the 
 eliarit J of those who in their zeal for the maxim, that 
 charity begins at home, not unfrequently forget to 
 let their own begin at all. This preposterous inver- 
 sion of the grand design of Christianity, by putting 
 first what ought to be put next, is a doctrinal mistake 
 to which the church is not a stranger, and which cer- 
 tainly bears some resemblance ; although far from 
 coinciding wholly, or at all, in its external form, with 
 that of the old Jews in relation to the kingdom of 
 Messiah, And with this resemblance in the causes, 
 we need scarcely be surprised at the analogy of their 
 effects, or wonder that a Jewish spirit should produce 
 a Jewish practice. If the unbelieving Jews of old 
 were led by false ideas of the Messiah and his king- 
 dom, to a spurious morality, an outside holiness, a 
 voluntary humility, and will worship, a deification of 
 the outward and material, and a laborious groping 
 in the darkness and the dust of mere observance, to 
 the neglect of the rain and sunshine and refreshing 
 airs of genuine religion, why should it be thought in- 
 credible that kindred errors among us may lead to 
 the exchange of spiritual life for dead formality, fac- 
 titious morals, and a senseless trifle-worship ? Would 
 it in fact be extravagant to state it as a lesson of our 
 own experience, that a similar contraction of the 
 views and feelings has been actually found to produce 
 a similar deterioration ; that the truth has not been 
 kept most pure by those who kept it to themselves ; 
 that the habit of leaving out of view the expansive 
 nature and design of Christianity has sometimes been 
 coincident with that of fjutting mere conventional
 
 ACTS 28, 25. 293 
 
 arrangements in tlie place of rital principles and ever- 
 lasting truths ? 
 
 But it is not on this general deterioration of the 
 religions life, however real and deplorable, that we 
 are led to dwell at present, as the most important 
 practical effect of long-continued and exclusive privi- 
 leges, and of the errors which they tend to generate ; 
 for in addition to all this, or in the midst of it, there 
 rises up, like a colossus, one practical abuse which 
 may, at least for this time, be allowed to overshadow 
 all the rest. Besides the influence exerted by this 
 error of the Jews, upon themselves, whether doctrinal, 
 moral, spiritual, or ecclesiastical, it led, as we have 
 seen, at the beginning of the Christian dispensation, 
 to a practical denial of the very end for which the old 
 theocracy existed, and a consequent refusal to extend 
 the true religion to the Gentiles, thus converting their 
 own boasted and adored distinctions into a mere his- 
 torical enigma, to perplex the generations that should 
 follow, by exhibiting the strange sight of a people 
 created to save the world, and yet fondly dreaming 
 to be saved alone ! How far it is possible for us to 
 occupy the same position before men and angels, must 
 depend upon the sameness of our opportunities and 
 consequent responsibilities, when tried by the avowed 
 rule of the divine administration, that of those who 
 have much, much will be required, and the cardinal 
 principle of Christian charity, freely ye have received, 
 freely give! 
 
 That a marked diversity exists between the situa- 
 tion of the Jews and ours, we have seen already. But 
 let it be remembered, that all the difference is in our
 
 294 SEEMONS. 
 
 favour. If tlie Jews, even while they were sechided 
 from the Gentiles by divine authority, were bound to 
 keep their e3'e upon the great ulterior end of that se- 
 clusion, and to cherish feehngs in accordance with 
 it, how much more does this same obligation rest on 
 us, Avho have no external disadvantages to hinder its 
 discharge. The Christian world, or, if you please, 
 the reformed part of Christendom, are not intrust- 
 ed with the oracles of God as an exclusive deposit, 
 even for a time. We have them that we may diffuse 
 them. There are no walls built by a divine hand 
 around us, for whose fall we must wait before we go 
 unto the Gentiles. The very dust and rubbish of 
 those old barriers have long since disappeared. A 
 great and effectual door into the heathen world is 
 opened, and the voice of God is calling us to enter it. 
 We have no doubts to solve, and no disputes to settle 
 — as to the fact of the Messiah's advent — as to the 
 question whether Jesus Christ is he. We have no as- 
 sociations with the old economy, or habits acquired 
 under it, to restrain our feelings or impede our move- 
 ments, even after the judgment and the conscience 
 are convinced. Every thing, both at home and abroad 
 — in the teachings of God's word, and in the leadings 
 of his providence — in the condition of the heathen 
 and our own — makes us as free to think and act for 
 their conversion, as the old Je-w^ were paralyzed and 
 crippled with respect to it. And yet, with all this 
 difference in our favour, may we not be still too Jew- 
 ish in our spirit and our conduct, with respect to those 
 less favoured than ourselves? The gospel has indeed 
 abolished national distinctions, but have we consent-
 
 ACTS 23, 28. 295 
 
 ed to tlieir abolition ? The old middle walls of parti- 
 tion have fallen at the blast of the trumpet, but may 
 we not rear up others in their stead ? and, if so, we 
 may imprecate a curse upon ourselves, like that pro- 
 nounced upon him who should rebuild the walls of 
 Jericho. 
 
 This leads me, in the last place, to consider 
 the resemblance which may possibly exist between 
 the cases, with respect to providential retributions. 
 We have seen the effects produced by these errors 
 on the doctrinal views, the afi'ections, and the lives of 
 the anti-christian Jews, and, through their neglect, 
 on the condition of the world. These results they 
 may have partially foreseen, and deliberately ven- 
 tured on. But there were others which they dreamt 
 not of, and which were, nevertheless, fixed in the di- 
 vine determination. AVhat means that solemn and 
 repeated declaration of the great apostle, that he turns 
 away from the Jews to the Gentiles ? Does it mean 
 merely that his personal ministry should now take 
 that direction? There is evidently more, far more, 
 implied. Does it mean that the Gentiles should, in spite 
 of Jewish prejudice and bigotry, become partakers of 
 their once exclusive privileges, or rather, of others far 
 superior? Even this is not enough. There is an 
 evident allusion, not only to a change, but to an in- 
 terchange of character and state — not only to the 
 grafting in of foreign branches, but to the excision of 
 the native boughs — not only to the culture of the 
 desert, but to the desolation of the vineyard. " Is it 
 not yet a very little while," said Isaiah, in prophetic 
 anticipation of this very change, "is it not yet a very
 
 296 SERMONS. 
 
 little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful 
 field, and the fruitful field shall be reckoned as a 
 forest?" Had this change literally taken place, it 
 could not have been more complete or striking, than 
 that which has been wrought in the relative condition 
 of the Jews and Gentiles. Left to his cherished 
 notions of hereditary sanctity and safety, and his 
 dreams of a Messiah yet to come, Israel has vanished 
 from his place among the living, to haunt the nations 
 as the restless ghost of a departed people, or to glide 
 about the graveyard where his hopes lie buried, wdiile 
 the dry bones of many nations, who appeared to 
 slumber without hope, have been raised again and 
 clothed with flesh, and new life breathed into their res- 
 urrection-bodies. They that dwelt in the dust awake, 
 and the dew of God is as the dew of herbs, and the 
 earth casts forth her dead ! 
 
 But where are they who once monopolized the 
 promises, and held fast, with a niggard grasp, the keys 
 of heaven ? "Were it not for prophecies still awaiting 
 their fulfilment, we might well say, in the words of 
 the same prophet, " they are dead, they shall not live 
 — they are deceased, they shall not arise — tliou hast 
 visited and destroyed them, and made all their 
 memory to perish. Behold the goodness and severity 
 of God ! Behold the vision of the Prophet verified ! 
 Lebanon has long since become a fruitful field, and 
 the fruitful field for ages reckoned as a forest! 
 
 But how shall I venture to present the other side 
 of this same picture, or to bring ourselves into com- 
 parison with Israel as I have just described him? 
 Without pretending to decide what weight is due to
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 297 
 
 such analogies, we can scarcely shut our eyes to the 
 analogy itself, or fail to see that the comparison 
 already pushed so far, admits, at least, of an ideal con- 
 summation. We are all disposed, as individuals and 
 nations, to exempt ourselves from the operation of 
 the rules which we apply to others. We can look at 
 the vicissitudes of other times, or of other subjects in 
 our own, without imagining that we or ours may bo 
 subjected to the same great providential law. What 
 the heathen called the wheel of fortune, we may call 
 the wheel of providence. However imperceptible it 
 may be on a small scale or within a narrow com- 
 pass, it is impossible to take large views of human 
 history, without perceiving that its processes are 
 extensively, not to say uniformly, marked by alterna- 
 tion. We may leave altogether out of view the ap- 
 plication of this statement to the case of individuals 
 and families. We may pass lightly over those vicis- 
 situdes of nations which have ever been the trite 
 theme of declamatory moralizers ; by far the most 
 remarkable of which is that presented by the contrast 
 of what Greece and Egypt were to the ancient world, 
 with what they are to us. 
 
 Let us dwell, for an instant, on the map of Christen- 
 dom, as it is and as it was — as it was at the death of 
 the last apostle, or even 1400 years ago — ^looking par- 
 ticularly at the western coast of Asia Minor and the 
 northern coast of Asia — comparing their innumerable 
 churches and multitudinous councils, not only with 
 their present desolation, but with the actual state 
 of Christianity in Britain and in Scandinavia; and 
 even in these nameless climes of which a Plato may 
 
 VOL. I.— 13*
 
 298 SERMONS. 
 
 have drecamed, and which Phenicians may nave 
 visited, but which have neither name nor place 
 npon the chart of ancient knowledge, is it cer- 
 tain that this process of rotation has been finally 
 arrested? or that its future evolutions will be left 
 to the control of what we call fortuitous or acci- 
 dental causes, which can neither be computed nor ac- 
 counted for ? Is it not possible, to say the least, that 
 the vicissitudes yet future may sustain the same 
 relation to extraordinary privilege and culpable abuee 
 of it, as those which are already past, and some of 
 which we have been tracing ? In a word, is it too 
 much to suppose that the prophetic vision may again 
 be realized — another Lebanon become a fruitful field, 
 and fields now fruitful be transformed into a silent 
 and forsaken forest ? What a view does this imagina- 
 tion, if it be no more, open far and wide before us! 
 What a change of absolute condition and of mutual 
 relations ! AVhat a levelling of hills and filling up of 
 valleys ! What fantastic confusion in the use of 
 names, and in the associations coupled with them ! 
 How strange may it yet seem, to remember that 
 Britain once ruled India — that America once talked 
 or dreamed of civilizing Africa — that Australia and 
 the isles of the Pacific once invited missionary labour 
 from the northern continents, instead of lavishing it 
 on them. Should this ever become more than an 
 ideal picture, he who surveys it, may retrace the 
 course of time, as we have done, and, as he speculates 
 on causes and efi'ects, and takes his stand beside the 
 turning point, the critical conjuncture, where the tide 
 of our prosperity began to ebb— he may imagine that
 
 ACTS 23, 28. 299 
 
 he sees Paul stanjling, as lie stood in his own hired 
 house at Rome, and stretching out his arms towards 
 the perishing nations, and saying to the Christian 
 Jews of this day, as he said to the Israelites of that, 
 " Be it known unto you, therefore, that the salvation 
 of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will 
 hear it." 
 
 I am far from venturing or wishing to put such an- 
 ticipations in the place of higher motives, and espe- 
 cially of love to God and love to man, as stimulants 
 to Christian eifort. But if the bare imagination of 
 such changes rouses us, and tends, in any measure, to 
 enlarge and elevate our views beyond the dull routine 
 of ordinary duties and of selfish interests, it cannot 
 hurt us, and may do us good. I see not, therefore, 
 why we should refuse to apply the last words of the 
 text to ourselves, in the way of warning. There is 
 no room here for invidious distinctions. None can 
 censure others upon this point without censuring 
 themselves. If we are conscious of inadequate exer- 
 tions and of cold affections in this great cause, let us 
 think of Israel according to the flesh, and of what he 
 was and what he is— remember that such revolutions 
 are still possible — that if we do not value Cliristianity 
 enough to share it with the heathen, they may yet 
 become possessed of it at our expense — nay, that while 
 the glorious gospel is so commonly neglected and de- 
 spised among ourselves, the word of this salvation is 
 already sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will 
 hear it — are hearing it. 
 
 But it is not only in the way of warning, that the 
 words may be applied. They are also full of conso-
 
 300 SERMONS. 
 
 lation and encouragement — of ccnsolation for tlio 
 eyes that weep and the hearts that bleed over our 
 . own spiritual desolations. Such, with all their zeal 
 for God, are prone to walk by sight and not by faith, 
 and to let their hopes and fears be too much governed 
 by appearances. They are sometimes tempted by a 
 spiritual pride, only more dangerous because insidi- 
 ous and unsuspected, to say, with the desponding 
 prophet of old, "I have been very jealous for the 
 Lord God of Hosts, for the children of Israel have 
 forsaken thy covenant, and I, even I alone, am left." 
 For such grief, and the unbelieving fears that breed 
 it, an appropriate remedy is furnished by the doctrine 
 " that God has visited the Gentiles, to take out of 
 them a people for his name ;" and that, although every 
 ear and heart in Christendom should be henceforth 
 and forever stopped against the word of life, "the 
 salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and 
 they will hear it." 
 
 But the highest, best, and most important appli- 
 cation of the words is yet to come. It is neither right 
 nor salutary to dismiss this subject, with the tones of 
 warning, and reproof, or even consolation, ringing in 
 our ears. We sometimes lose as much by excessive 
 or unreasonable lamentation over our defects and 
 failures as by sheer neglect and apathy. The world 
 is not to be converted, nor our quota of the work con- 
 tributed, by passionate regrets that it is not yet done. 
 The only profitable sorrow in such cases is that which, 
 like the sorrow of repentance, ends in joy, or leads to 
 it, by pi'ompting to exertion. Our grief, too, must be 
 mixed with gratitude, or it is selfish. Our paramount
 
 ACTS 28, 28. 301 
 
 duty, in contemplation of the future and the past, is 
 neither to presume nor to despair, but to thank God 
 and take courage. To a soul thus humbled and yet 
 excited, the tone of this scripture is encouraging, and 
 I may even say exhilarating. For the truths of which 
 it testifies are these — that this work is the work of 
 God — that the salvation which we preach is his — that 
 he has sent it, yes, and sent it to the Gentiles — and 
 that they will hear it. And though among them, as 
 among ourselves, many be called and few chosen, 
 still this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in 
 all the world, as a witness to all nations, before the 
 end come. As Christ died, not for a nation but a 
 world, so all kindreds, tongues, and peoples, must be 
 represented in that great assembly, to be gathered on 
 Mount Zion, when the kingdoms of the world shall 
 have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
 Christ. As a necessary means to this appointed end, 
 and as a pledge of its accomplishment, in spite of evil 
 omens and discouraging appearances, be it known 
 unto you, you who long for it and hasten towards it, 
 that "the word of this salvation," "the salvation of 
 God," is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will 
 hear it.
 
 XVI. 
 
 1 Peter 1, 5. — Kept by the power of God through faitli unto sal- 
 Tation. 
 
 This is only a fragment of a sentence, occurring in 
 the midst of one of the most pregnant passages in 
 the Hew Testament — one of the richest and most 
 copious descriptions of the fruits of saving grace, and 
 its effects upon its subjects. But, liowever undesira- 
 ble it may be in general to insulate the doctrines of 
 the Bible, and detach them from the context, upon 
 which their just interpretation must depend, there is 
 less objection here, because the clause selected, though 
 really one link in a long chain, is like a literal link, 
 complete in itself, as propounding a great doctrine of 
 the Christian system, which admits of being separate- 
 ly looked at, and, indeed, must be so viewed, if we 
 would see it distinctly, as the field of vision opened in 
 the context is too vast to be embraced at one view, 
 without painful effort and injurious confusion. With- 
 drawing our eyes, then, from the splendid but con- 
 founding spectacle presented in this passage, as a 
 whole, of the divine love to believers, and its influ- 
 ence upon them, let us fix our attention, for a short 
 time, on the apostolical description of them, as a class,
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 303 
 
 " kept by tlie power of God through, faith unto salva- 
 tion." 
 
 The odium theologicum is now a proverb. The 
 admiring crj of the old heathen — "See how these 
 Christians love another," is supplanted by the sneer 
 of the modern infidel — " See how these theologians 
 hate one anotlier." As usual, in the judgments of the^ 
 world upon the Church, there is here a basis or sub- 
 stratum of truth, with a lofty superstructure of injus- 
 tice and exaggeration. That earnest contention for 
 the trutli, once delivered to the saints, should be 
 mixed with angry passions, is undoubtedly a fruit of 
 human error and corruption. But that men should 
 be most ardent and exacting, in relation to religious 
 doctrines, and especially the doctrines of salvation, is 
 both natural and rational. To expect men to be zeal- 
 ous and enthusiastic, as to minor matters, as to ques- 
 tions connected with their worldly business, their po- 
 litical interests, or even their most frivolous amuse- 
 ments, but entirely calm and self-possessed, dispas- 
 sionate and even callous, when the points at issue 
 have respect to moral duty and to spiritual truth, to 
 God's glory and to man's salvation, is indirectly to 
 deny the value and importance of religion, as com- 
 pared with the affairs of this life, or at least to ques- 
 tion the sincerity of those who give the former the 
 precedence. If such sincerity exists, it must display 
 itself precisely in the way objected to, by zeal and 
 ardor in defending what is held to be the truth, pre 
 portioned to its absolute and relative importance. 
 That is to say, what men value most highly, they not 
 only may, but must defend most earnestly. And
 
 304 SEKMONS. 
 
 where this conviction and its natural effect exist, the 
 purest zeal is too apt to be mixed with passionate ex- 
 citement, and contaminated by some form of selfish 
 ness. 
 
 This is not suggested as an apology for such un- 
 hallowed mixtures, but simply as an explanation of 
 the fact, that they occur in the defence of great reli- 
 gious truths, which has been often made the ground 
 of an invidious charge against religion itself, as the 
 direct and necessary source of such impure excite- 
 ments, whereas it is only the occasion of their rising, 
 when they do exist at all, to greater heights of vio- 
 lence, because the subjects which produce them are 
 confessedly the most important that can possibly be 
 made the subject of discussion or dispute. It does 
 not follow, because angry brawls, in private life, are 
 sinful, and should therefore be avoided, that a man is 
 particularly blameable for being angry in defence of 
 those who are nearest and dearest to him ; or that his 
 passionate excitability in their behalf is justly charge- 
 able on his affection for them ; or that in standing up 
 for them he ought to be more cool and dispassionate, 
 than when contending for a stranger, or for some 
 trivial and indifferent matter. For the same reason, 
 it is not so unreasonable, as some have represented, 
 that when Christians lose their temper, or become too 
 ardent in contending for their own views, these weak- 
 nesses should show themselves especially in vindicat- 
 ing what they prize most highly of religious truth, 
 against weak misapprehension, artful misrepresenta- 
 tion, or malevolent aspersion. 
 
 Another fact often misrepresented in the same 
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 305 
 
 way, is the fact that theological disputes are often 
 sharpest, and apparently most angry, between those 
 who, as to all important points, except the one directly 
 in debate, are nearest to each other, and most per- 
 fectly agreed. This circumstance, though sometimes 
 used to aggravate the alleged tendency of Christianity 
 itself to stir up angry passions^ is as easily accounted 
 for as that already mentioned. It is natural, and not 
 at all irrational, to feel especially astonished and dis- 
 pleased at the errors or the faults of those who are in 
 other respects most exempt from both, because this 
 very exemption implies a degree of elevation and in- 
 telligence with which it is difficult to reconcile partic- 
 ular obliquities of faith or practice. There may also 
 be included, as contributing to this effect, the same 
 cause, whatever it may be, that makes, and always has 
 made, quarrels between near relations and familiar 
 friends, proverbially violent, if not irreconcilable. 
 Whether this be an effect of the same cause already 
 mentioned — an instinctive application of the principle 
 that from him who hath much, much will be required, 
 and that near approximation to the truth, instead of 
 extenuating, aggravates the guilt of any error still re- 
 maining, or the product of something in the state of 
 the affections, or their very nature, which we cannot 
 reach by our analysis or scrutiny, the fact itself is no 
 more strange in one case than another, and can no 
 more be alleged as a peculiar vice of theological dis- 
 pute, than of private and domestic alienations. If the 
 heat and asperity of family disputes ought to throw 
 no discredit on the family relation, as intrinsically 
 tending to foment such passions, with as little justice
 
 306 SERMONS. 
 
 can the warmth and even ranconr of religious contro- 
 versy, even and especially between parties otherwise 
 agreed, be justly charged on Christianity itself, or any 
 specific forms of Christian doctrine, as possessing in 
 themselves, or imparting to their votaries, the virus 
 of malignant animosity ; but as the intensity of feeling 
 in the one case may be traced to the very nearness of 
 their parties, and that intimate relation, which ap- 
 pears to make it most deplorable, so in the other case, 
 religion and theology, and even the polemic form of 
 Christianit}^, however vitiated by the presence of this 
 sinful element, is certainly entitled to the benefit of 
 just such explanations as we all admit to be allowa- 
 ble, if not unavoidable, in matters where religious 
 truth is not concerned at all. What we ask for our- 
 selves and our religion is not favour at the hands of 
 men, but " even-handed justice." 
 
 But while all this may justly be alleged, if not in 
 vindication, yet at least in explanation, of the violence 
 commonly ascribed to doctrinal disputes between the 
 great divisions of the Christian world, it still remains 
 a lamentable fact that such alienations should exist, 
 not only between those who are in most essential points 
 agreed, but in reference to what they respectively re- 
 gard as the most precious parts of Christian doctrine, the 
 very parts which they consider as most intimately inter- 
 woven with their own experience, and with that of all 
 believers. That alienations, both of judgment and of 
 feeling, should exist just here, however it may be ex- 
 plained, is still to be deplored as an anomaly, to say 
 the least of it, so painful and mysterious, that all af- 
 fected by it ought to rejoice even in the possibility
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 307 
 
 that it arises from misapprelieiision, and in all at- 
 tempts, however feeble, to detect it in specific cases. 
 
 A striking illustrative example of these general 
 considerations is afi'orded by that feature of the Cal- 
 vinistic system, which is commonly known as the 
 doctrine of final perseverance, as opposed to that of 
 possible defection and perdition on the part of true 
 believers and regenerated siimers. "While the former 
 of these doctrines has been cherished, in all ages, by 
 a great body of professed believers, as among the 
 clearest and most precious truths of their religion, it 
 has been rejected by another, not simply as untrue, 
 but as subversive of the Gospel, and as fraught with 
 the most dangerous tendencies, in reference to per- 
 sonal holiness and ultimate salvation. The sincerity 
 of many, upon both sides of this question, both in 
 general as Christians, and in particular as champions 
 of the doctrines thus contrasted, cannot be denied 
 without denouncing all belief in testimony, and indeed 
 in evidence on moral subjects ; but this only makes it 
 more desirable, if possible, to reduce the opposition to 
 a mutual misunderstanding. 
 
 "Without attempting any new or philosphical so- 
 lution of this ancient problem, upon which so many 
 mighty minds and pious hearts have spent their 
 strength for ages, let us look once more to the objec- 
 tions to this doctrine, as they seem to weigh upon the 
 minds, not of speculative theologians, but of practical 
 experimental Christians, whose belief is in purpose 
 and profession, founded on the word of God, and 
 the experience of his people. How are sucli, in many 
 cases, affected by the doctrine now in question ?
 
 308 SERMONS. 
 
 The objections urged to it assume a twofold form, 
 or may at least be readi] j reduced to two. The first is, 
 that the doctrine is unscriptural ; the second, that it is 
 of evil tendency. On close inspection, these two objec- 
 tions will be found to be further reducible to one, or one 
 of them at least so dependent on the other, that they 
 cannot be regarded as entirely distinct. That is to 
 say, the objection to the doctrine as unscriptural, has 
 no substantive existence or foundation, apart from its 
 imputed or alleged pernicious tendencies in practice. 
 It is not denied, or cannot be denied, with any show of 
 probability, that there are expressions in the word of 
 God, which do at first sight, and according to their 
 obvious and superficial import, strongly favor the ob- 
 noxious doctrine. It is also certain that the strong 
 presumption thus created, is not shaken, or at least 
 not nullified by any explicit allegation of the con- 
 trary, or by the clear and unequivocal assertion of 
 things plainly incompatible and inconsistent with the 
 odious dogma of a final perseverance. That neither 
 of these possible cases is a real one — that is to say, 
 that there is no categorical denial of this doctrine, 
 or any statement absolutely inconsistent with it, is 
 abundantly clear from the existence of so large and 
 so intelligent a class, both of interpreters and ordina- 
 ry readers, who are thoroughly persuaded that the 
 doctrine, far from being contradicted, is expressly and 
 dogmatically taught in Scripture. They may be mis- 
 taken in so thinking ; but the error would be incon- 
 ceivable if there were no ground or even colour for 
 maintaining it, much more if it were formally or cer- 
 tainly condemned. The true cause, therefore, of the
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 309 
 
 confidence with which it is rejected as unscriptural; 
 must be its real or imaginary tendency to practical 
 experimental evil ; or, in other words, it is believed to 
 be unscriptural because it is believed to be pernicious. 
 What appears to be said in its favour, is explained 
 away, and what is adverse to it is exaggerated, under 
 the impression of the foregone conclusion, that the 
 doctrine is of evil tendency. 
 
 Since, then, the scriptural objection really depends 
 upon the practical or moral one, the question now 
 arises, what the latter is, and wherein it consists ? 
 "What is the evil tendency imputed to this feared and 
 hated doctrine, not by its sjDiteful and deliberate ca- 
 lumniators, but by its sincere and honest adversaries 
 • — those who really believe that an opinion so perni- 
 cious in its influence on character and conduct, can- 
 not be a doctrine of the Bible ? When attentively 
 considered, the objectionable features of the doctrine 
 as sincerely viewed by this class, may be said to be 
 these two : That it assumes the final perseverance of 
 the saints, to be secured by a power inherent in them- 
 selves, or by something in the very nature of a saving 
 change, precluding all defection as a sheer impossi- 
 bility, entirely irrespective of the subject's own reli- 
 gious state and dispositions, or of any influence exte- 
 rior to him, over and above the impulse given at 
 conversion, or the vis inerticB of his new-born nature — ■ 
 a belief which may be justly charged with tending to 
 indulge a proud reliance upon self, and an habitual 
 security, alike dishonouring to God and dangerous to 
 man. 
 
 The other feature of this doctrine, as held by ita
 
 310 SERMONS. 
 
 opponents, is, that the only proof which it requires of 
 the saving change, from which it draws its proud se- 
 curity and absolute immunity from danger, is the 
 consciousness or memory of inward exercises, not sus- 
 ceptible of formal proof, and wholly independent of 
 the actual condition of the subject at the time when 
 he asserts his claim to this prerogative or privilege of 
 absolute exemption from the risk or possibility of a 
 fall from grace. Whatever may be the specific form 
 in which the honest opposition to this doctrine clothes 
 itself, and which may be indefinitely varied by fortu- 
 itous or incidental causes, it will always prove, upon 
 a close analysis, or even an accurate inspection, to in- 
 volve, as the essential grounds of condemnation and 
 rejection, the two assumptions which have just been 
 stated, as to an inherent independent power of self- 
 preservation, and the sufiiciency of mere subjective 
 states and exercises, to demonstrate the possession of 
 that power, as belonging to the doctrine of a final 
 perseverance. 
 
 Such being, then, the very grounds of the objection 
 to this doctrine as unscriptural, the reasons for be- 
 lieving that it cannot be propounded in the word of 
 God, whatever tends to show that it involves no such 
 assumptions as are thus imputed to it, and then made 
 the proofs of its pernicious tendency, must go so far 
 to clear it from the charge of such a tendency, as ne- 
 cessarily belonging to it, or proceeding from it, and 
 entitle its defenders to insist upon the plain sense, now 
 no longer admissible, at least in this direction, of 
 the places where it seems to be expressly taught. To 
 prove this negative, although the burden of the proof
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. - 311 
 
 might well be left to rest on those who make the af- 
 firmation, is still not difficnlt, and may indeed be sat- 
 isfactorily done by an appeal to any of the numerous 
 expressions which are reckoned by the champions of 
 the doctrine as decisive in its favour. Such a proof 
 may be deduced, for example, from the words of the 
 Apostle Peter, in the text, which has always been 
 classed among the clearest recognitions, if not among 
 the most direct and formal affirmations, of the truth in 
 question. 
 
 So far, then, is this scripture, as expounded in our 
 system, from referring the continued safety of be- 
 lievers to a power inherent in themselves, or necessa- 
 rily evolved in the process of regeneration, viewed as 
 a subjective change, that, while it clearly and em- 
 phatically represents them as securely • kept, garri- 
 soned, or guarded, as the military term in the original 
 denotes, suggesting the idea of complete and perjjet- 
 ual protection from the paramount dominion of their 
 spiritual enemies, this preservation is explicitly de- 
 scribed as the eifect of a power exterior and superior 
 to themselves ; nay, still more unequivocally and 
 expressly, as afiected by a sovereign, a divine, an 
 almighty agency, " kept by the power of God unto sal- 
 vation " — not merely capable of being so kept, but in 
 fact, and actually so kept ; not as a peculiar favour in 
 the case of some, but as a constant and a necessary 
 incident to the condition of all true believers ; not eb 
 a mere contingency dependent on the unrevealed de- 
 sign and will of God, but as an ascertained and veri- 
 fied reality, attested by experience at j)resent, and
 
 Q12 SERMONS. 
 
 secured for the future by the promised covenant and 
 oath of One who cannot lie. 
 
 Of such a doctrine, where is the pernicious ten- 
 dency? If all depends upon the action of Omnipo- 
 tence ; if perseverance is as much beyond our own 
 control as that original mutation of our spiritual state 
 in which we are said to persevere ; if we can no more, 
 in and of ourselves, secure our own continuance in 
 this state, than we could create it, or create ourselves, 
 or than we could create a world ; — if this is our posi- 
 tion, as defined by the very texts from which we 
 prove the doctrine to be true, "where is boasting 
 then ? It is excluded ! " 
 
 It may be said, however, that although the power 
 which secures our perseverance is entirely exterior 
 and superior to ourselves, and is, in fact, no other 
 than the sovereign and almightypower of God, yet if 
 we look upon its exercise as absolutely and irrevoca- 
 bly pledged for our protection, the tendency of this 
 belief to generate security and license, is as evident 
 and strong as if the power were inherent in ourselves ; 
 nay, more so, since the power, instead of being finite, 
 is now infinite ; instead of being human, is divine ; 
 instead of being ours, is God's ; and yet completely 
 under our control. This specious representation qui- 
 etly assumes that we ascribe the perseverance of be- 
 lievers to an absolute immediate act of power, without 
 the use of means or the prescription of conditions ; that 
 God has irrevocably pledged the exercise of his om- 
 nipotence to save from the very possibility of falling, 
 every sinner who has once believed and been con- 
 verted, be his subsequent experience and his actual
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 313 
 
 condition what it may ; and, as a necessary conse- 
 quence, tliat he who once liad satisfying evidence of 
 having undergone a saving change, may now and 
 forever claim tlie covenanted exercise of God's om- 
 nipotence to save him even from the just and natural 
 effects of his own evident apostasy and lapse into a 
 state of impenitence and unbelief; in short, that he 
 who once believed, or rather once believed that he 
 believed, will certainly be " kept by the power of God 
 unto salvation," whether now, or at any future time, 
 or through eternity, be he a believer or an unbeliever. 
 Of such, if any such there be, as live and die in this 
 faith, we may well say, in the words of an apostle, 
 " their damnation slumberetli not." 
 
 But see again, how this aspersion on the doctrine 
 in dispute, whether cast in malice or in ignorance, is 
 wiped off, and its foul stain utterly effaced forever, 
 by the simple but authoritative language of the text, 
 which, so far from representing this conservative 
 agency of God's grace and omnij)otence, as acting in- 
 dependently of faith in the preserved and persevering 
 subject, holds up faith itself as in a certain sense the 
 means by which the perseverance is secured, by which 
 the preservation is effected, " Kept by the power of 
 God through Eaith tjnto Salvation." 
 
 Now, Faith, as both the parties to this controversy 
 are agreed, is not a thing to be assumed at pleasure 
 or at random, but to be established by conclusive ev- 
 idence ; not that of consciousness or memory or fancy, 
 but of actual experience and practice. " Faith with- 
 out works is dead." The only true faith is the faith 
 that " works by love," and " overcomes the world,'' 
 
 VOL. I. — 14
 
 314 SERMONS.; 
 
 and " imrifies the heart," and brings forth "all the 
 fruits of the Spirit," which are also the " fruits meet 
 for repentance." " Bj their fruits ye shall know 
 them." AVhere these fruits are not, there is no evi- 
 dence of faith. "Where faith is not, there is no jDledge 
 of God's omnipotence to save from falling. It is only 
 those who have this faith and bear this fruit, that 
 have a right to claim a place among the happy souls 
 who are " kept by the power of God through faith 
 unto salvation." If this doctrine, as propounded in 
 this one text, and harmoniously exhibited in many 
 others, and frequently implied or presupposed where 
 it is not expressed, pervading the whole tissue of the 
 system of salvation, like a golden thread, not always 
 visible, but always there ; if this doctrine is perni- 
 cious in its tendency, then so is truth, and holiness 
 itself. If this view of God's sovereignty and man's 
 dependence, in the matter of salvation and of final 
 perseverance ; if this view of the absolute necessity of 
 faith, of vital, operative, fruitful faith, as the only 
 condition on which, the only means by which, the 
 omnipotence of God will act to save us from ajDostasy ; 
 if this doctrine tends of itself to Antinomian license 
 and security, then out of the same fountain may flow 
 salt water and fresh — then men may expect to gather 
 grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles, and may be ex- 
 cused for calling evil good and good evil, putting 
 light for darkness and darkness for light, putting 
 bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter ! 
 
 But, although the doctrine in itself has no such 
 tendency, its perversion and abuse has. It becomes 
 us, therefore, to consider in conclusion its liability to
 
 1 PETER 1, 5. 215 
 
 such abuse. That such a liability exists, is clear from 
 the fact which gave occasion to this whole discussion 
 — the flict that multitudes of seemingly devout and 
 humble Christians have learned to regard it with a 
 holy horror. Erroneous as their judgment may and 
 must be, it is far less likely to have been derived 
 from the weakness of the proofs by which the doctrine 
 is supported, than from the lives in which it is exem- 
 plified. There is also something in the very nature 
 of the doctrine which exposes it to misapprehension, 
 not only on the part of its opponents, but of those who 
 plead tor it and undertake to act upon it. It presents, 
 as it were, so many points of aberration, where the 
 mind is exposed to a centrifugal impetus towards 
 error. Tliere is so much danger of mistake, and so 
 much actual mistake, with respect to the very nature 
 of salvation, as deliverance from punishment and not 
 from sin, and with respect to perseverance, in the 
 very points which we have been considering, so much 
 danger of mistake as to the power by which it is se- 
 cured, and which is nothing more nor less than the 
 power of God himself, as to the means by which that 
 power operates, and whicli is nothing more nor less 
 than faith — a state of saving faith produced and per- 
 petuated by divine grace ; and finally, as to the evi- 
 dence that such a state exists, which is nothing more 
 nor less than holy living or good works, in the highest 
 and most scriptural sense of the expression, there is so 
 much danger of departure from the truth, at all these 
 points, that we who bold the doctrine as a precious 
 part of our religious faith, and as one of the clearest 
 and most unambiguous teachings of the Bible, are
 
 316 SERMONS. 
 
 under a peculiar obligation to preserve it from abuse, 
 not only by its enemies, but by its friends ; not only 
 by others, but by ourselves ; not only in our theory, 
 but in our practice ; not only in the statement and 
 defence of our belief, but in the commentary on it 
 which is furnished by our lives. To this circumspec- 
 tion we are called by a regard to our own safety, 
 which is jeoparded by nothing more than by the cul- 
 pable perversion of the most important and most pre- 
 cious doctrines. In this sense, none are more exposed 
 to danger than those who have within their reach the 
 most effective means of safety. Especially let us who 
 preach the gospel, or expect to preach it, see to it 
 that our example and experience afford no confirma- 
 tion of the old and profound saying : " Nearest the 
 Church furthest from God." We should also be in- 
 duced to use this caution by a jealous sensibility in 
 reference to the honour of our God and Saviour, lest 
 through our perversion or abuse of this great doctrine, 
 he should seem to be capable of winking at iniquity, 
 or even be a minister of sin. 
 
 And, lastly, we should be induced to use a wise 
 precaution, for the sake of those who hate the doc- 
 trine which we love, as soul-destroying error, lest 
 their misapprehensions should, through our unfaith- 
 fulness and indiscretion, be hopelessly confirmed, and 
 their antipathy to what they reckon false, embittered 
 into hatred of persons who, to say the least, are quite 
 as likely as themselves to be " kept by the power of 
 God through faith unto salvation ! "
 
 XVII. 
 
 Titus 2, 11-15. — For the grace of God that bvingeth salvation hatb 
 appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly 
 lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this prese.it 
 world ; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of 
 the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave himself for 
 us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself 
 a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, an-d 
 exhort, and rebukt? with all authority. Let no man despise thee. 
 
 The being of a God, with all tliat enters into tliat 
 conception, being once established or assumed as true, 
 the grand problem of humanity is to determine our 
 relation to him ; not as creatures merely, for that is 
 settled by the very conditions of our being, but as sin- 
 ners. Sin has disturbed and revolutionized the mutual 
 relation between God and man, and as the one is 
 entirely dependent on the other for his being and w^ell- 
 being, the inquiry into this effect of sin becomes some- 
 thing more than a curious speculation — it becomes a 
 practical question of the highest import, one of life and 
 death. All other questions, whether speculative or 
 practical, are as nothing until this is solved. !Not 
 what is God, but what is God to us ? in what aspect 
 are we to behold him ? as an absolute sovereign, an 
 inexorable judge, an irresistible avenger, or as a Sav-
 
 318 SERMONS., 
 
 iour, a deliverer, 3r friend ? "What have we to expect 
 from liim, wrath or favour ? 
 
 If man had never fallen, the answer to this ques- 
 tion might have been readily deduced from the essen- 
 tial attributes of the Divine nature, but the interven- 
 tion of sin seems to bring these into conflict, so that 
 what would otherwise be prompted by God's good- 
 ness is forbidden by his justice. The confusion thus 
 introduced into the subject gives it, when seriously 
 considered, an aspect of awful complication and un- 
 certainty, which may be likened to the struggle be- 
 tween light and darkness, clouds and sunshine, on a 
 doubtful day. That the sun is there, no one can 
 doubt, nor that his rays are bright and genial, but 
 between them and the eye of the spectator there is 
 something interposed, and how long this obstruction 
 is to last he knows not. Upon such a sky, the whole 
 race may be said to have been gazing, with more or 
 less attention and solicitude for ages after the fall, as 
 if they expected every moment to see the divine coun- 
 tenance revealed, but knew not whether its expression 
 would be one of unappeased displeasure, or of grace 
 and favour. 
 
 Tlie great event in the history of fallen man is, 
 that it was the grace of God that appeared, not 
 merely as benignity in general, but as favour to the 
 lost, the ruined, the condemned ; not as an inert 
 though friendly disposition, but as active favour, 
 saving grace, the grace that brings salvation or de- 
 liverance from loss, from danger, from actual ruin, 
 and from the wrath to come. Such is the grace of 
 God which has appeared or been revealed, and the
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 319 
 
 epipliany of wliicli is lierc alleged by the apostle tc 
 liave been voiielisafed to all men without national or 
 other accidental distinctions ; not to the Jews or any 
 other nation, not to the rich or any other class ex- 
 clusively, but to men in general, to mankind at large. 
 That this is the true sense of " all men " in the 
 text is clear from the connection. Li the foregoing 
 verses, he had urged upon servants their peculiar du- 
 ties, and assigned as a motive to fidelity, the honour 
 which it would put upon the true religion as revealed 
 and taught by God our Saviour. To some in their 
 exclusive pride, both Jews and Gentiles, this might 
 seem ridiculous ; as if the honour of religion could 
 depend upon the conduct of a slave, and therefore the 
 apostle takes occasion to remind such, that the mo- 
 tives by which Christianity operates on character and 
 conduct, are confined to no one class, but are common 
 to the human race, because Christianity itself as a 
 remedial system, as a vehicle by which the saving 
 grace of God is brought to us, has no respect of per- 
 sons in the sense assumed, but has appeared to all 
 men ; or, as the sentence may be construed, is saving 
 to all men; that is, adapted and designed to save 
 them without regard to difi'erence of rank or nation. 
 But as this " grace of God " is not inert but active, 
 so its efiect upon its objects is an active one, not only 
 efiicacious in itself, but such as to produce activity, 
 to make ihein act, not blindly or at random, but in 
 obedience to an active principle, and in due subjec- 
 tion to a moral discipline. The " saving grace of God 
 which has appeared to all men," is described by tlie 
 apostle as " teaching us," or rather educating, train-
 
 320 SERMONS. 
 
 ing lis in sneli a way as to secure the precious iruita 
 that follow. The meaninnc is not, as it mio;ht seem to 
 a superficial reader, that the gospel simply teaches 
 us that we ought to deny ungodliness and so on ; i. c. 
 makes us understand our obligations so to do ; this is 
 indeed included, but far more ; the full sense of the 
 language is, that Christianity subjects those who em- 
 brace it to a discipline, a systematic training, a moral 
 and spiritual education, so that, as a natural result, nay 
 a necessary consequence, they do in point of fact deny 
 ungodliness and worldly lusts. To " teach " men 
 that they " should" do this is something, it is much, 
 but it is far from being all that Christianity accom- 
 plishes. It is a characteristic and essential feature of 
 the gospel that it does men good by putting them to 
 school, by making them disciples, not simply for the 
 jDurpose of communicating knowledge, but for that of 
 forming and maturing character ; for education in the 
 highest, largest, and most emphatic sense. 
 
 This pedagogical design and character of true re- 
 ligion is stamped upon all its institutions, and legible 
 even in its phraseology. It is not by an unmeaning 
 figure of speech, nor with any attenuation of the pri- 
 mary sense of the expression, that Christians are con- 
 tinually called disciples, i. e. learners, pupils, and that 
 the ministers of Christ are spoken of as teachers. 
 Equally false, though false in opposite extremes, is 
 the opinion that knowledge, and consequently teach- 
 ing, are of no avail in spiritual matters, and the 
 opinion that perfect knowledge is a previous con- 
 dition of admission to the kingdom of heaven. Some 
 knowledge is indeed an indispensable pre-requisite,
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 321 
 
 "but woe to him wlio imagines tliat these elements of 
 wisdom are enough, and that he needs no further or 
 more complete indoctrination. Is the child sent to 
 Bchool because it knows so much already, or because 
 it knows so little, and in order that it may know more ? 
 Well in this sense too, it may be said to all who seek 
 admission to the body of believers, and a share in the 
 communion of saints, " Except ye be converted, and 
 become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven." The church is Christ's school ; 
 he who enters it must enter as a learner, a disciple, 
 with as real and sincere a deference to his great 
 teacher as the little child feels, when it trembles for 
 the first time in the presence of a master. 
 
 Such submission is the more imperative in this 
 case, because more truly than in any other case the 
 process of instruction is moral as well as intellectual ; 
 it is not mere teaching, it is training, education ; not 
 the mere acquisition of knowledge, although that 
 does lie at the foundation, but the cultivation of the 
 powers and affections, as a preparation for the joys 
 and services of heaven, as well as for the duties and 
 the trials of this present state. The " grace of God " 
 which has appeared as the only means and source of 
 salvation to all men, does not save them by a charm 
 or by a demonstration, but by making them disciples 
 in the school of Christ, by teaching them and training 
 them for earth and heaven, developing their faculties, 
 moulding their affections, forming their characters, 
 determining their lives. The design and the legiti- 
 mate effect of this disciplinary process are distinctly 
 stated in the text, with reference botli to the present 
 
 VOL. I. — 14*
 
 322 SERMONS. 
 
 and the future ; botli in a negative and j./Ositiye 
 form. 
 
 The negative design of all this training is that we 
 deny, repudiate, or abjure allegiance, to the sinful dis- 
 positions and affections which are paramount in fallen 
 nature, but the objects of which perish in the using, 
 being Ihnited to this world, so that they may be de- 
 scribed as " worldly lusts " or desires, and may be 
 said, so far as they predominate, to put man on a 
 level with the brutes, whose highest good is present 
 enjoyment of the lowest kind. By all who would be 
 saved, these worldly, temporal, and short-lived lusts 
 must be denied, renounced ; and this is never done 
 without a simultaneous or previous denial of ungod- 
 liness, of all indifference and enmity to God, which 
 is indeed the source of the other, for when human 
 hearts are not right towards God, the paramount con- 
 trol of worldly lusts becomes impossible. It is because 
 men do not love God that they love the world un- 
 duly ; it is therefore that the friendship of the woild 
 and that of God are represented by another apostle 
 as wholly incompatible. To this denial of the world 
 as our home, and of its lusts as our principles of ac- 
 tion, Christianity trains us; not merely informing 
 us of what is wrong, but educating ns to hate and 
 shun it. 
 
 This however is only the negative part of tlic ef- 
 fect produced by the spiritual discipline to which we 
 are subjected in the school of Christ. It has a posi- 
 tive side also. It teaches ns how we are to live. It 
 does not lose sight of the present state either in pro- 
 found abstractions, or in fond anticipations of the
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 323 
 
 future. It adapts and purifies tlie heatlieii maxim, 
 dum vivimus vivamus, wliile we live let us live to 
 some good purpose. Tlie positive effect of Christian- 
 ity as a system of discipline or training, is to rectify 
 the life in all its most momentous aspects and rela- 
 tions in reference to ourselves, our neighbours, and 
 our God. In reference to himself, the true disciple in 
 this school is educated to be sober or sound-mmded ; 
 the original expression denotes sanity as opposed to 
 madness, not in its extreme forms merely, but in all 
 its more familiar and less violent gradations ; all 
 those numberless and nameless aberrations of the 
 judgment which give character to human conduct, 
 even in the absence of gross crime or absolute insan- 
 ity. From these irrational vagaries, true religion, as 
 a system of discipline and education, tends to free us, 
 and so far as we are really set free, it is by this means 
 and by this alone. The errors thus insensibly cor- 
 rected are too many to be numbered and too various 
 to be classified. 
 
 Among the most important are those visionary es- 
 timates of self and of the world by which the mass of 
 men are led astray ; those " strong delusions," with 
 respect to good and evil, right and wrong, true and 
 false, happiness and misery, which, both by their ab- 
 surdity, and by their ruinous effects fully justify that 
 terrible description, " Madness is in their hearts while 
 they live, and after that they go to the dead." In 
 opposition to this "madness," the saving grace of 
 God trains its subjects to be rational or sober, and 
 thus in the highest sense and measure to be faithful 
 to themselves. But at the same time it trains them
 
 324 SERMONS. 
 
 to be faithful to others, to be just, in the wide sense 
 of the term ; one of constant occurrence in the Scrip- 
 tures, and especially in the Old Testament ; including 
 all that one can owe another; including therefore 
 charity and mercy, no less than honesty and rigorous 
 exactness in the discharge of legal obligations. Jus- 
 tice or rectitude, in this enlarged and noble sense, as 
 opposed to every form of selfishness, is no less really 
 a dictate and a consequence of spiritual training, than 
 sanity or soundness of mind, as opposed to the chi- 
 meras and hallucinations of our state by nature. But 
 " soberness " and "justice," in the wide sense which 
 has just been put upon the terms have never yet been 
 found divorced from " godliness." As we have seen 
 already, in considering the negative effects of training 
 by divine grace, it is man's relations to his God, that 
 must adjust and determine his relations to his fellow- 
 creatures. The symmetrical position of the points in 
 the circumference arises from their common relation 
 to a common centre. Set a man right with God, and 
 he will certainly be set right with his neighbours. 
 The remaining exceptions as to this point only show 
 the imperfection of his piety, but do not disj)rove its 
 existence. In spite of all such exceptions, it is still 
 true that the man who loves God loves his neighbour 
 and himself, not with a frenzied, but a rational attach- 
 ment, and that he who enters as a puj^il in the school 
 of Christ must lay his account, not merely in the 
 way of negative abstinence, to deny ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, but in the way of positive performance 
 to " live soberly, righteously, and godly in this pres- 
 ent world."
 
 TITUS 2, n-15. 325 
 
 Sucli are tlie objects and effects of Christian train- 
 ing, that is of the method by which Christ trains his 
 disciples, with respect to the present state or stage of 
 man's existence, as distinguished from those future 
 states or stages to which he cannot but look forward. 
 For although the sobriety of mind produced by the 
 discipline of God's grace, causes men of a morbid, 
 penurious disposition to lose sight of present duties 
 and enjoyments in a vague anticipation of the future, 
 it is so far from excluding expectation altogether, that 
 our very salvation is prospective. " "We are saved in 
 hope," and that hope is a blessed one ; a hope of bles- 
 sedness to be revealed and realized hereafter ; a hope, 
 i. e. an object of hope, not yet fully enjoyed, but only 
 " looked for," and to look for which is one of the ef- 
 fects and marks of thorough training in the school of 
 Christ. A religion without hope must have been 
 learned elsewhere. The saving grace of God instructs 
 us, while we " live soberly, righteously, and godly " 
 in this present world, to look for the fulfilment of that 
 blessed hope, in reference to Avhich we are said, by an 
 anticipation of our own experience, to be saved already. 
 
 This hope is neither selfish nor indefinite. It does 
 not teiTninate upon ourselves, our own deliverance 
 from suffering, and our own reception into heaven; 
 nor does it lose itself in vague anticipations of a 
 nameless good to be experienced hereafter. Tlie 
 Christian's hope is in the highest degree generous and 
 well-defined. It is generous, because it rises beyond 
 personal interests, even the highest, even personal sal- 
 vation, to the glory of the Saviour as the ultimate 
 end to be desired and accomplished. It is well-
 
 326 SERMONS. 
 
 defined, because, instead of looking at this glory in 
 the abstra(!t, it gives it a concrete and personal em- 
 bodiment ; it is glory, not in the sense of the meta- 
 physician or of the poet, but in that of the prophets, 
 saints, and angels ; it is manifested and apparent 
 excellence, a glorious epiphany, analogous to that 
 which marked Jeliov all's presence in the Holy of 
 Holies, but unspeakably transcending it in perma- 
 nence and brightness ; the glorious appearance, not of 
 any mere creature, even the most noble, but of God 
 liimself, and yet not of God in his essence, which is 
 inaccessible to sense, nor even in some special and 
 distinct manifestation of the Father, or the Godhead, 
 under an assumed or borrowed form of which the 
 senses may take cognizance, but in the well-known 
 person of his Son, who is the brightness of his glory, 
 and the express image of his person, in whom dwell- 
 eth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;, and there- 
 fore it is not the untempered brightness of the divine 
 majesty, and holiness, and justice which to us is, and 
 must be a consuming lire ; and yet it is the manifested 
 glory of God, of the great God ; great in all conceiv- 
 able perfections, but as the object of this hope, em- 
 phatically great in mercy, great in the power not to 
 punish and destroy, but to forgive and save, to save 
 tlie sinner, to save us ; the glorious appearing of our 
 great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. This hope is 
 definite and vast enough to fill the mind and satisfy 
 the heart, however vague may be its views and ap- 
 prehensions with resjDCct to the precise time, and 
 place, and form, and other circumstances of the epiph- 
 any expected. It is enough to know that it is Christ
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 327 
 
 onr Head wlio shall appear ; and thanks be to God, 
 that when he does appear we shall be like him for wo 
 shall see him as he is. These two considerations — 
 the personal identity of that which is to be revealed 
 in glory, and the prospect of personal assimilation tc 
 this glorious object — are enough to make us willing 
 to be ignorant of all that concerns merely the chro-^ 
 nology, or geogi'aphy, or poetry of that blessed hope 
 and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, which the word of God not only suffers, 
 but requires us to look for, as a sure sign, because an 
 unavoidable effect, of genuine, thorough, successful 
 training in the school of Christ, and under the edu- 
 cating guidance of that " saving grace," which, for 
 this very purpose, has " appeared," or been revealed 
 " to all men." 
 
 Let it not be overlooked, however, that the gospel, 
 while it sets Christ before us as an object of believing 
 expectation, sets him also before us an object of be- 
 lieving recollection, and thus brings into a delightful 
 harmony the hope of favours yet to be experienced 
 with gratitude for those experienced already. It is not 
 simply as a glorious person, human or divine, that we 
 look for his appearing ; it is not simply as a Saviour or 
 Deliverer from evil in the general ; it is not simply as 
 a potential Saviour or Deliverer, one who can save 
 us if he will, and will if we should need it at some 
 future time ; not merely a Saviour whose ability and 
 willingness to save are yet to be displayed and 
 proved, but as an actual deliverer, as one who has al- 
 ready done his saving work, by giving himself for us, 
 the highest gift, it may in a certain sense be said, of
 
 328 SERMONS. 
 
 which even lie was capable, for lis, his creatures, his 
 rebellious subjects, his despisers, and his enemies ! 
 Had he given infinitely less for us, it might have 
 been too much for justice, too much for mercy, for 
 any mercy but for that of God ; but he gave all that 
 he could give, for he gave himself to assume our na- 
 ture, to be degraded, to be mocked at, to be put 
 to death. He did not merely give his name, his 
 friendship, or his royal favour, but he gave himself ! 
 In the highest, strongest, most exhaustive meaning that 
 the words will bear, he " gave himself'' and " gave 
 him self yb/"ws." This he has done, and he has done it 
 for a purpose, and by every law of gratitude, as well 
 as interest, we are bound, so far as that purpose con- 
 cerns us, to do what we can for its accomplishment. 
 
 What then was his object ? To redeem us, to buy 
 us back from bondage, to save us by the payment of 
 a ransom-price, not only from the punishment of sin, 
 but from its power, from its love, from its pollution, 
 from its foul and hideous embrace, no less than from 
 its sword and from its chains. It was to set us free 
 from sin itself that Christ redeemed us ; not from some 
 sin, but from all sin ; not that we should still remain, 
 or afterwards fall back under the dominion of the 
 very tyrant from whose power he redeemed us ; not 
 that we should merely exchange one hard master for 
 another, or for many; no, he "gave himself for us," 
 he laid down his life for us, he died upon the cross 
 for us, " that he might redeem us from all iniquity.''^ 
 ISTor was this deliverance from sin as well as pun- 
 ishment intended merely for our advantage but for 
 His. He had an end to accomplish for himself. He
 
 TITUS 2, i:-i5. 329 
 
 died to purify us, not merely that we miglit be pure 
 and therefore happy, but also to purify a people for 
 himself ; a peculium, a possession of his own, a 
 church, a body of which he should be the head, a 
 kingdom of which he should be the sovereign. Over 
 none but a purified and holy kingdom could he con- 
 descend to reign. Of none but a purified and holy 
 body could he be the Head. Justification would 
 have done but half the work for which Christ died; 
 his end would not have been accomplished if he had 
 not redeemed us from iniquity as well as condemna- 
 tion, if he had not purified a people for himself, for 
 his own use and his own honour ; a people in their 
 measure like himself, his own exclusively, his own 
 forever, his inalienable right, his indefeasible posses- 
 sion, his " peculiar people." 
 
 How monstrous then the supposition or pretence 
 that the design of Christ's death is reconcileable with 
 Antinomian license on the part of those for whom he 
 died ; that because he died to make men holy, there- 
 fore they need not be holy ; that because he gave 
 himself for us, to purify a people for himself, there- 
 fore we may be his people, and yet not be pure ; that 
 because his " good works " have been set to our ac- 
 count, we need do no " good works" for him. The 
 very contrary commends itself as evidently true to 
 gratitude, to conscience, nay to common sense. Tlie 
 body, the church, the kingdom, the peculiar people 
 of Christ, without good works, without fruits meet 
 for rej)entance, without experimental evidence of 
 union to him by faith, is an absurdity, an odious con- 
 tradiction, a blasphemous aspersion ; as if God could
 
 330 SERMONS. 
 
 deny himself ; as if tlie Son of God could be the " min- 
 ister of sin." So far from dispensing with "good 
 works " on our part, he is not even satisfied with 
 good works practised or performed from stress of con- 
 science, or from habit, or from fear, or as a sheer for- 
 mality. To such works indeed he denies the attribute 
 of goodness, for they lack the very quality by which 
 alone they could be rendered good, at least in His 
 sight; It is not the moral or the physical effect on 
 others, nor tlie outward conformity to rule, nor the 
 solemnity with which the action is performed, that 
 constitutes it good. It must be wrought in faith and 
 love ; not only love to man, but love to God, and love 
 to Christ, or it is worthless. IS^ay, he asks still more 
 to make good works acceptable. He asks that they 
 be wrouglit with stroiig affection, with intensity of 
 spirit, with a burning zeal ; a zeal of God, according 
 to knowledge. The people whom he died to purify 
 for himself, must be not only pure and diligent, but 
 zealous ; not merely passive and submissive, but spon- 
 taneous, eager, emulous, to please him, " his peculiar 
 people zealous of good works." 
 
 All the doctrines here presented are, or ought to 
 be, familiar to our minds as household words, and 
 elementary ideas. The mode, in which I have en- 
 deavoured to exhibit them, is not, as I am well aware, 
 the most agreeable to that taste which prefers points 
 to lines, and lines to surfaces, and sm-faces to depth 
 and substance. It is well, however, at least some- 
 times, to contemplate the familiar truths of Chris- 
 tianity, not merely as they may be picked out, and 
 adjusted in an artificial system, but as they lie upon
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 331 
 
 the face^f Scripture, and as they were associated in 
 the minds of the inspired writers, and the primitive 
 disciples. The more attentively we read the word of 
 God, the more highly shall we be disposed to value 
 these original associations, the affinities as well as tlie 
 intrmsic qualities of saving truth, not merely the 
 more recondite affinities disclosed by philosophical 
 analysis, but those more obvious ones suggested by 
 juxtaposition in the letter of the Scriptures. In this, 
 as in so many other cases, we may learn from expe- 
 rience that " the foolishness of God is wiser than men." 
 But whatever we may think, as to the form of 
 presentation, let us guard against a mistake as to the 
 truths themselves. They are here exhibited, not only 
 as objects of belief, but as subjects of instruction. 
 The writing which contains them, is a pastoral epistle ; 
 filled with the advice and apostolical injunctions of 
 " Paul the aged," to a spiritual child and an official 
 representative, and through him to the ministry of 
 that age, and of this, and every other. In reference 
 to all the foregoing precepts, but especially to those 
 immediately preceding, which have been the subject 
 of discourse this morning, he says to Titus : " These 
 things speak," talk of them, both in public, and in 
 private, make them the theme of conversation, as well 
 as of formal preaching. Do not be content with think- 
 ing of them, understanding and believing them, but 
 s])eoli them^ utter them, impart them to your hearers, 
 to your friends and neighbours, to your pupils and 
 parishioners, your brethren in the ministry, your 
 equals and inferiors in office, to all with whom you 
 come in contact, or to whom you have access, " these 
 things speak."
 
 332 SERMONS. 
 
 But how ? As curious and interesting matters of 
 opinion, or tlic dictates of a mere theoretical wisdom ? 
 Not at all, but as matters to be acted on and acted 
 out^ as involving not merely truths to be believed, 
 but duties to be done, and to the doing of whieh, men 
 must be aroused and prompted. " These things speak 
 and exhort / " on the basis of sound doctrine rear the 
 superstructure of sound practice, in your own case 
 and in that of others. To yourself, to all who hear 
 you, to all who need the admonition " these things 
 speak and exhort ! " 
 
 But what, if men resist tliese humbling truths, 
 and angrily reject them ? No matter, only add reproof 
 to exhortation — not arbitrary and passionate reproof, 
 but, as the word here used denotes, reproof produced 
 by and founded on conviction. Convince them of the 
 truth, and convict them of their guilt, and then re- 
 prove them. Appeal not only to their reason, but 
 their conscience, " these things speak, and exhort, and 
 rebuke," not in your own name, nor in mine, but in 
 His name, whose you are, and whom you serve ; as 
 asserting his rights, and as holding his commission, 
 be not afraid or ashamed to speak the truth, but 
 whenever the occasion is afforded, " these things speak 
 and exhort, and rebuke with all authority ! " 
 
 But what if men treat you and your message with 
 levity. " Let no man despise thee." This sug- 
 gests two ideas, both of which are useful and appro- 
 px'iate to us. Let no man despising thee, prevent the 
 full discharge of certain duty. " He that despiseth you, 
 despiseth me, and he that despiseth me, despiseth him 
 that sent me." If men will despise God and Christ,
 
 TITUS 2, 11-15. 333 
 
 the human messenger may well consent to be despised 
 along with them. Let them despise thee, but let not 
 the eifect be caused by cowardly supression, or disin- 
 genuous corruption of the truth on your part. As a 
 faithful messenger of God and an ambassador of Christ, 
 let men despise you, if they will or if they must, let 
 them despise you at their peril. But as a traitor to 
 the truth and to its author, let no man despise thee. 
 " For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience 
 toward God endure grief, suffering w^-ongfuUy. For 
 what glory is it, if when ye be buffeted for your faults, 
 ye shall take it patiently ; but if, when ye do well, 
 and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is accept- 
 able with God. For even hereunto were ye called, 
 because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an 
 
 example that ye should follow his steps." " Who 
 
 is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that 
 which is good ? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' 
 
 sake, happy are ye." " For it is better, if the 
 
 will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than 
 
 for evil-doing." " If ye be reproached for the 
 
 name of Christ, happy are ye, for the spirit of glory 
 and of God resteth upon you ; on their part he is evil- 
 spoken of, but on your part, he is glorified." "If 
 
 any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, 
 but let him glorify God on this behalf." These con- 
 solatory warnings drawn from the experience of an- 
 other great apostle, and one who well knew what it 
 was to suffer both for his own faults, and the name of 
 Christ, may serve to illustrate and to qualify Paul's 
 pointed charge. " Let no man despise thee." To us, 
 my brethren, who preach the gospel or expect to
 
 334 SERMONS. 
 
 preach it, and especially to those of you who are 
 soon to enter on that difficult but necessary, dangerous 
 but blessed work, the words of the apostle have 
 peculiar interest; for in reference to these simple but 
 essential truths, which we have been considering, and 
 to the risk of error or unfaithfulness in teaching them, 
 " he being dead yet speaketh," saying, not only to 
 the church at large, but more directly to each one of 
 us, "These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with 
 all authority. Let no man despise thee ! "
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Ltjek 22, 32. — When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. 
 
 Theee is nothing in wliicli self-ignorance displays 
 itself more frequently than in men's estimation of their 
 own strength and weakness. It is enough that they 
 consider themselves strong when they are weak. They 
 go still further, and consider themselves strongest 
 at the very points where they are weakest. Hence 
 the easy conquest of the tempter by assailing men at 
 those points which require protection most, but which 
 enjoy it least. I^othing is more familiar as a trait of 
 human character, than the disposition to be vain or 
 proud of foibles and weaknesses. A striking historical 
 example of this error and its fruits is afforded by the 
 character of Peter. His intrepidity and self-reliance 
 might have seemed to constitute his strength, and yet 
 we find them lying at the root of his defections. This 
 was the case even in those minor aberrations which 
 incurred our Lord's rebuke from time to time. 
 
 But it is still more clear, in reference to his great 
 fall, the denial of his master. To himself this seemed 
 incredible, even when predicted, as it is in the pas- 
 sage whence the text is taken. But along with his 
 fall our Lord predicts his restoration or conversion.
 
 336 SERMONS. 
 
 " When thou art converted." This might seem to 
 impl}'- that Peter was before an unconverted man, or 
 that his fall was an entire fall from grace. Both these 
 conclusions are forbidden by the promise which im- 
 mediately precedes the exhortation of the text. " Si- 
 mon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he 
 may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee 
 that thy faith fail not." These last words prove (1) that 
 he had faith, and (2) that his faith was not entirely to 
 fail. Nor will the context bear any other explanation 
 of the word " faith " but as meaning that which con- 
 stitutes a true believer. The conversion, therefore, 
 here immediately referred to, is not the primary orig- 
 inal conversion of a sinner from his natural condition 
 to the love of God, but a reconversion of one who had 
 been before converted. 
 
 This reconversion is connected in the text with a 
 peculiar influence to be exerted on his brethren, i. e., 
 those in the same situation, exposed to the same temp- 
 tations, in danger of a like fall. " Strengthen thy 
 brethren," i. c, confirm their faith, preserve them 
 from the same disgrace which has befallen thee. This 
 strengthening eifect was not to be wrought by any 
 natural power of Peter, nor by any oflScial authority 
 conferred upon him. It was only to be the product of 
 a moral inflluence created by the very circumstances 
 of the case, i. e., by the very fact of his conversion. 
 And as this conversion may exist in other cases, 
 too, it will, perhaps, afford a profitable theme for 
 meditation to inquire what it is and how it operates. 
 The only division of the subject needed, is the one 
 presented by the text itself— (1) When thou art con-
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 337 
 
 rerted, (2) streng+Jien tlij brethren. (1) Conversion ; 
 (2) Strengthening the brethren. 
 
 In speaking briefly of the first, I shall begin with 
 conversion in general, and afterwards advert to re- 
 conversion in particular. The term conversion is so 
 familiar in its spiritual sense and application, that wc 
 seldom think of it as metaphorical. But the original 
 terms corresponding both to this word and its cog- 
 nate forms convert and convert, are applied even in 
 the ISTew Testament to physical as well as moral 
 changes. To this primary usage of the words it may 
 be useful to revert, not only for the purpose of deter- 
 mining their essential import, but to mark certain 
 gradations in their meaning as applied both to natural 
 and. spiritual objects. The essential primary idea is 
 that of a corporeal turning round, without any thing 
 to limit it. The act described may be that of turning 
 round and round indefinitely, still coming back to the 
 original position, and then leaving it again, in a per- 
 petual succession of rotations. But to this original 
 notion which is inseparable from the word, nsage in 
 many cases adds certain accessory notions. One of 
 these is the idea of turning in a definite direction, i. e., 
 towards a certain object. The difference is that be- 
 tween a wheel's turning on its axis and a flower turn- 
 ins: towards the sun. But in some connections there 
 is a still further accession to the primary idea ; so that 
 the words necessarily suggest not the mere act of 
 turning, nor the act of turning in a definite direc- 
 tion, but the act of turning from one object to another, 
 which are then, of course, presented in direct antithe^ 
 BIS to one another. 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 338 SERMONS. 
 
 Tiins the magnetic needle, if meclianically pointed 
 towards the south, is no sooner set at liberty than it 
 will turn from that point to the north. In this case, 
 however, there is still another accessory motion added 
 to the simj^le one of turning, namely, that of turning 
 back to a point from which it had before been turned 
 away. And this idea of return or retroversion may 
 of course be repeated without limit, and without any 
 further variation of tlie meaning of the term used, 
 which is still the same, whether the turning back be 
 for the first or second, tenth or hundredth time. All 
 these distinctions or gradations may be traced also in 
 the spiritual uses of the term. As thus applied, con- 
 version is a change of character, i. e., of principles 
 and aflections, with a corresponding change of out- 
 ward life. 
 
 Now, such a change may be conceived of, as a 
 vague, unsettled, frequently repeated revolution of 
 the views and feelings, without any determinate char- 
 acter or end. But the conversion spoken of in Scrip- 
 ture is relieved from this indefiniteness by a constant 
 reference to one specific object to which the convert 
 turns. It is to God, that all conversion is described 
 as taking place. But how, in what sense, does man 
 turn to God ? The least and lowest that can be sup- 
 posed to enter into this conception, is a turning to 
 God, as an object of attention or consideration, tm-n- 
 ing, as it were, for the first time, to look at him, just 
 as we might turn towards any object of sense wliich 
 had before escaped attention or been out of sight. 
 This is, in fact, a necessary part of the experimental 
 process of conversion.
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 339 
 
 To tlie mind in its natural condition, God is absent 
 or unseen as an object of attentive contemplation. 
 When a change is effected, one of the first symptoms 
 is a turning of the soul to look at him, to gaze upon 
 him, often with wonder at the blindness or stupidity 
 which kept him so long out of view. This change of 
 feeling can by no corporeal movement be so well rep- 
 resented as by that of turning round to look at some- 
 thing which before was out of sight. But the same 
 influence which brings about this simple contempla- 
 tion of God as an object before unknown or disre- 
 garded, gives it a higher character by fixing the at- 
 tention on the attributes of the object, so that wliat 
 might have been a gaze of curiosity, is deepened into 
 one of admiration ; and, as the absolute perfection of 
 the excellence admired becomes apparent, into one of 
 adoration ; and as the personal affections become 
 more and more enlisted, into one of love and confi- 
 dence and self-devotion. Thus the turning which the 
 word of God describes as necessary to salvation, is a 
 turning to God as an object of admiring and adoring, 
 loving and confiding contemplation. This may be so 
 presented to the mind as to exclude or swallow up all 
 accessory notions, by concentrating the thoughts upon 
 Him to whom the sinner turns. But sometimes, per- 
 haps commonly, the Scriptures so speak of conversion 
 as to suggest distinctly the idea of that from which, 
 as well as of that to which, we turn. "We do not turn 
 to God from nothing or neutrality. We turn from his 
 opposites, his enemies, his rivals. God is never the 
 first object of supreme affection to his fallen creatures. 
 The change is not from loving nothing, but from lov-
 
 340 SERMONS. 
 
 ing self, from loving sin. "When we turn, we turn 
 from darkness to light, from death to life, from hell to 
 heaven, from the power of Satan unto God. 
 
 The state from which we turn determines the 
 method of conversion, or defines what acts and exer- 
 cises are included in it. If our natural condition were 
 only one of ignorance or innocent infirmity, conver- 
 sion would involve nothing more than intellectual il- 
 lumination and increase of strength, both which it 
 really includes. But if our native state be one of 
 guilt and condemnation, and of utter impotence to all 
 good, then conversion necessarily imiDlies deliverance 
 from guilt by a power independent of our own ; and 
 this presupposes faith in that gratuitous deliverance, 
 while the very act of turning from a state of sin im- 
 plies a change of mind, i. e., of judgment and of feel- 
 ing with respect to it. Conversion, therefore, as ex- 
 hibited in Scripture, is inseparable from repentance 
 toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 because, from the nature of the case, without these it 
 is utterly impossible, in any truly scriptural sense, to 
 turn from sin and Satan unto God. 
 
 Sometimes, again, the idea is suggested that we 
 not only turn to God, but turn back to him. This 
 may at first sight appear inconsistent with the fact 
 just stated, that our first afiections are invariably given 
 to the world and to ourselves. But even those who are 
 converted, for the first time, from a state of total 
 alienation, may be said to turn back to God, in refer- 
 ence to the great original apostasy in which we are 
 all implicated. As individuals, we never know God 
 till we are converted. As a race, we have all de-
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 341 
 
 parted from Ilim, and conversion is but turning hack 
 to him. But this expression is still more appropriate, 
 even in its strict sense, to the case of those who have 
 already been converted, and are only reclaimed from 
 a partial and temporary alienation, from relapsing 
 into sin, or what is called, in religious phraseology, 
 declension, and, in the w^ord of God itself, backsliding. 
 .That the term conversion may be properly applied to 
 such a secondary restoration, is apparent from the 
 language of the text, where it is used by Christ him- 
 self, of one who is expressly said to have had fiiith, 
 and faith which did not absolutely fail. This usage 
 agrees fully with the nature of conversion as described 
 in Scripture, and with the primary import of the fig- 
 urative term itself. Suppose a person to have turned 
 completely round from one object toward another, from 
 the west, for instance, to the rising sun, and to be so 
 attracted and absorbed by this grand sight, that he 
 cannot wholly turn away from it, we may still con- 
 ceive of him as turning partially away, and even try- 
 ing to embrace both objects in his field of vision. 
 This is no bad illustration of the case in question. 
 The perseverance of the saints is not secured by any 
 thing inherent in themselves, nor even by the nature 
 of the change wrought in conversion, but by an al- 
 mighty intervention, rendered certain by a special 
 promise. They are " kept by the power of God through 
 faith unto salvation." Upon this same power, and 
 this same promise, they would be dependent even if 
 transferred at once to heaven ; how much more when 
 left to struggle w^ith temptation and the remains of 
 their original corruption. Tliey who have once truly
 
 342 SERMONS. 
 
 turned to God, can never wholly turn away from nim 
 so as to lose sight of him forever. But they may turn 
 partly round, they may turn half round, they may try 
 to look both ways at once, as all do who endeavor to 
 serve God and mammon, or who, like heathen settlers 
 in Samaria, fear the Lord and serve their own god. 
 They may turn more than half round, so as scarcely 
 to see any thing of that towards which they lately 
 looked with such delight, and so as to be reckoned by 
 the world with tliose who have their eyes and hearts 
 fixed upon it. 
 
 There is something fearful in the length to which 
 this retroversion may be carried, in the gradual ap- 
 proximation of tlie convert to his old position, and the 
 little that seems wanting sometimes to complete the 
 counter-revolution when he is arrested and turned 
 back again. Wlien thus recovered, he must pass 
 through m"iich of the same process as at first. His 
 second turning no less necessaril}^ involves repentance 
 and belief The object of his faitli is still the same. 
 The pangs of godly sorrow, far from being soothed, 
 are exasperated by the recollection of a previous re- 
 pentance and a subsequent relapse. It is a new con- 
 version, then, in all respects but one — the point at 
 which the convert sets out, and the distance over 
 which he passes. The neglect or rejection of this doc- 
 trine has a pernicious practical effect. The idea that 
 conversion can in no sense be repeated, and that err- 
 ing Cliristians must return to duty in a way generic- 
 ally difi'erent from that by which they came to God 
 at first, has a necessary tendency to foster spiritual 
 pride, by making all defection seem impossible ; and
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 343 
 
 tlien, wlien pride has had its fall to breed despond- 
 ency by leaving no means of recovery. 
 
 The truths opposed to these pernicious errors are, 
 that even true believers may depart from God, and 
 though, through Chnst's intercession, their faith can- 
 not wholly fail, they must experience a new conver- 
 sion — must repent, believe, submit, as really as if 
 they had been always in the gall of bitterness and the 
 bond of iniquity. Often, when men are using pal- 
 liative remedies or resting wholly on remote expe- 
 rience, what they really need is to be converted, to 
 repent and do their first works. Peter had faith, and 
 it was not to fail, even in that fiery trial, because 
 Christ prayed that it might not fail ; but it was to be 
 severely tried, and he was to experience a fearful, 
 ignominious fall, from which he could only be re- 
 covered by a new conversion, by a new repentance, 
 and new acts of faith. " I iiave prayed for thee, 
 that thy faith fail not ; and when thou art converted, 
 strengthen thy brethren." 
 
 This brings us again to the second point suggested 
 by the text, to wit, that conversion, whether primary 
 or secondary, total or partial, tends to the strengthen- 
 ing of others, i. <?., to their preservation or recovery 
 from the evils which the convert has himself escaped. 
 In answer to the question, how does conversion tend 
 to this result ? the general fact may be thus resolved 
 into .three distinct particulars : 1. It enables men 
 to strengthen others. 2. It obliges men to strengthen 
 others. 3. It disposes men to strengthen others. The 
 convert is enabled to confirm or rescue others by his 
 knowledge of their character and state. He knows,
 
 344 
 
 SERMONtl. 
 
 not only what lie sees in tliem, but what he feels or 
 has felt in himself. Take, for instance, the new con- 
 vert from a state of total unbelief and impenitence. 
 He knows the misery of that state, as it cannot pos- 
 sibly be known by those who still continue in it. 
 They know what he knew once, but he knows in ad- 
 dition, what he never knew at all until awakened and 
 enlightened by the grace of God. Their view of it 
 tends only to despair or false security. His, rouses to 
 exertion. He looks at the reality as well from their 
 point of observation as his own, and the very insensi- 
 bility which he perceives in them, excites him to 
 new efforts for their rescue, for he knows that he was 
 once as stupid and as much in danger. He knows, 
 too, the inefficacy of the means which they employ to 
 strengthen or to save themselves. For he remembers 
 his own struggles in the slough, and the momentum 
 with which every effort sunk him deeper and deeper. 
 This remembrance helps him to discern what is truly 
 needed in the case of others, and prevents his relying, 
 as he once did in his own case, upon any thing except 
 the true foundation. 
 
 On the other hand, he knows the sovereign virtue 
 of the means which God provides — the truth, the 
 blood of Christ, the influences of the Spirit. He ap- 
 preciates the freeness' with which these are offered, 
 and the simplicity of God's way of salvation, which, 
 without experience, men are always sure to under- 
 rate or misconceive. He knows too, by experience, 
 how their hearts are most accessible, what are their 
 difficulties, doubts, and scruples, what are the vulner- 
 able points at which they may be best assailed, as
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 345 
 
 tvell for evil as for good, as well by Satan as by 
 God. From this experimental knowledge of the evil, 
 the remedy, and the application, even the new con- 
 vert is peculiarly able to do good to others. It is 
 accordingly a lesson of experience that men are or 
 may be more particularly useful in this way to those 
 who are most like their former selves. 
 
 The same thing is true of the secondary, subse- 
 quent conversion from a state of declension or back- 
 sliding, to which the text more immediately refers. 
 The person thus reclaimed knows better than his 
 brethren who have not yet fallen, the peculiar dangers 
 which environ them, the weakness of their faith, the 
 strength of their temptations, the illusions of the ad- 
 versary. He knows the hideous shame of the relapse, 
 and the remorseful anguish of the first convulsive 
 movements towards repentance. He knows the diffi- 
 culties of the restoration — how much harder it is now 
 to excite hope or confirm faith, how much less effec- 
 tive, either warning, or encouragement, or argument 
 is now than it once was — how precarious even the 
 most specious reformation and repentance must be 
 after such deflections. All that tends to make him 
 watchful in his own case, and to arm him against those 
 insidious foes by whom he was betrayed or van- 
 quished, at the same time enables him to strengthen 
 others. This advantage of experimental knowledge 
 is accompanied, moreover, by a corresponding liveli- 
 ness of feeling, a more energetic impulse, such as 
 always springs from recent restorations or escapes. It 
 is a matter of proverbial notoriety, that young con- 
 verts, as a class, have more intensity of zeal and more 
 
 Vf»L. I. — 15*
 
 346 SERMONS. 
 
 promptness to engage in active effort. This zeal is 
 often indiscreet, but when sutficientlj informed and 
 guided, it secures to those who have it an immense 
 advantage over those whose hearts have been becom- 
 ing cold, in due proportion to the increase of their 
 knowledge and the ripeness of their judgment. It is 
 this elastic spring of the affections, this spontaneous 
 movement of the active powers to exertion, which, 
 united with the experimental knowledge before 
 mentioned, enables the new convert or reclaimed 
 backslider, above all other men, to " strengthen his 
 brethren." 
 
 Out of this increased ability arises, by a logical 
 and moral necessity, a special obligation. This is 
 only a specific application of a principle which all 
 acknowledge, and which the word of God explicitly 
 propounds, "To him that knoweth to do good and 
 doeth it not, to him it is sin." It needs not so much 
 to be explained or established, as to be exemplified 
 from real life. The recognition of the principle is 
 there unhesitating and unanimous. He who has been 
 recovered from the power of a desperate disease by a 
 new or unknown remedy, is under a peculiar obliga- 
 tion to apply it, or at least to make it known, to all 
 affected in like manner. Hence the unsparing, univer- 
 sal condemnation of the man who, from mercenary 
 motives, holds in his possession secrets of importance 
 to the health or happiness of others. The man who 
 Jias just escaped, as if by miracle, from the devouring 
 flames, often feels that, if he can, he is particularly 
 bound to save those who arc still unconscious of the 
 danger or unable to escape it. He who is mercifully
 
 LUKE 22, 32, 347 
 
 saved from shipwreck, often feels especially incum- 
 bent on himself the rescue of liis fellows. He must 
 do what he can, even though he be exhausted ; how 
 much more if he is strengthened. For there is a cir- 
 cumstance which makes the obligation of the spiritual 
 convert to confirm or rescue others, greater, even in 
 proportion, tlian that of the escaped from fire or ship- 
 wreck. These are often, if not always, more or less 
 disabled by the very circumstances of tlieir own de- 
 liverance from helping others. The one, though saved 
 as by fire, may be scorched and bruised, the other 
 stiffened and benumbed — both stupified — so that long 
 before they have recovered their capacity to act, the 
 opportunity of saving others is gone by forever. But 
 conversion is attended by no such contusions, swoons, 
 or burnings. On the contrary, it always strengthens 
 and prepares for spiritual action, so that they who do 
 not act for the deliverance of others, are without 
 excuse. 
 
 It seems to me that these considerations are suffi- 
 cient to establish the existence of the obligation, if 
 indeed there can be any disposition to dispute it. 
 But in this,, as in other cases, the bare conviction or 
 oppressive sense of duty is not always followed by an 
 inclination to perform it. And without this inclina- 
 tion, no effects of a salutary kind can be expected. 
 It is not the naked knowledge orbelief of what is right, 
 that prompts to virtuous obedience. Such knowledge 
 and belief may coexist with hatred of the thing re- 
 quired, and with a fixed determination not to do it. 
 This state of mind is probably included in the tor- 
 ments of the damned. The heart must beat in concord
 
 348 SERMONS. 
 
 "with the reason and the conscie.ttce. And H does so 
 in the case of the true convert, both in general and in 
 reference to this specific duty. For conversion moves 
 him to discharge it, first of all, by a general softening 
 of tlie heart and the excitement of benevolent affec- 
 tions. But this, though indispensable, is not enough. 
 There must be higher motives even, to secure good 
 will and charitable acts to men. There must be love 
 to God and zeal for Christ, as the grand motives even 
 to benevolent exertion, or the fruit will fail. 
 
 But we may go still further, and assign a more 
 specific principle of action prompting to the same re- 
 sult. This is gratitude for what the convert has him- 
 self experienced. You may possibly remember that, 
 when one of the great vessels which long maintained 
 a constant intercourse between the old world and the 
 new, had weathered what was looked upon as an ex- 
 traordinary storm, the passengers resolved to testify 
 their gratitude to God by establishing a fund for the 
 relief of shipwrecked seamen and their families. The 
 principle involved in this proceeding was a sound 
 one, and the feeling altogether natural. True thank- 
 fulness invariably creates the desire of requital ; and, 
 as God cannot be its object, it is natural to spend it 
 upon others, with a view, however, to glorify, please, 
 and honor him. There is reason to believe that a 
 large proportion of the \:urest charities of life are di- 
 rectly prompted by the gratitude of those who prac- 
 tise them. The mere conviction of right and sense 
 of obligation would do nothing ; mere benevolence to 
 others would do little ; and even a general desire to 
 perform the will of God and glorify his name M'ould
 
 LUKE 22, 32. ' 340 
 
 do less than it does, without the operation of that spe- 
 cial motive recognized in Christ's argumentative com- 
 mand : " Freely ye have received, freely give." 
 
 From all this it sufficiently appears that true con- 
 version, whether primary or secondary, tends to the 
 strengthening of others, by enabling, by obliging, by 
 disposing the convert to seek the rescue of the lost, 
 and the deliverance of those in danger. This view of 
 the subject sets before us an important test of character 
 and an invaluable means of usefulness. If it be true 
 that conversion always more or less disposes to the 
 strengthening of others, it would seem to follow, that 
 wherever there is no sense of the obligation, much 
 less any strong desire to discharge it, there is reason 
 to suspect that we have never been converted, or at least 
 that we need to be converted again. If, on the other 
 hand, so large a part of the efficient charities of life 
 depends upon the influence excited by conversion on 
 the convert himself, we may infer that the spiritual la- 
 bours of the unconverted are of little worth. This is a 
 general proposition, but admits of a specific application 
 to the labours of the ministry. Without this, genius, 
 learning, eloquence, may please, they may improve, 
 they may even in a higher sense do good, but how can 
 we expect them to be savingly efi'ectual, to strengthen 
 those who are ready to perish, to confirm in good, and 
 to deliver or protect from evil? • Perhaps much of 
 the unfruitfulness which we lament, proceeds directly 
 from this very cause. How shall we strengthen our 
 brethren, unless we are converted ? This applies even 
 to declension and backsliding — how much more to 
 sheer impenitence and unbelief. The consciousness.
 
 350 SERMONS. 
 
 or even tlie well-gi onnded appreliension of this grand 
 defect must paralyze exertion. Self-deception no less 
 certainly must make it ineffectual. N'ay, the very re- 
 collection of conversion as a past event, perhaps a dis- 
 tant one, although correct, may have the same result 
 by hindering the soul from turning back to God, how- 
 ever gross and long-continued its declensions. Instead 
 of seeking re-conversion by renewed acts of repent- 
 ance, faith, and love, we linger on in a condition half 
 dependant, half presumptuous, in expectation of some 
 special and extraordinary grace adapted to the case 
 of " Christians," as distinguished from those whom we 
 are wont to call " impenitent sinners." TVe forget 
 that every interru]3tion of repentance makes ourselves 
 impenitent ; that every lapse of faith converts us so 
 far into unbelievers ; and that from this new state of 
 impenitence and unbelief, the way of restoration and 
 recovery is the same as from the old. 
 
 It is easy to imagine the effect of this mistake, 
 whenever it exists, in rendering abortive the most 
 zealous efforts even of men really converted, but es- 
 tranged from their first love and their first works 
 through the deceitfulness of sin. -Through the Sa- 
 viour's intercession, their faith does not fail ; but 
 they must be converted before they can confirm their 
 brethren. Here, then, is the test, and here the 
 means before referred to. Would you prove yourself 
 converted? Strengthen the brethren. AVould you 
 strengthen the brethren ? Be converted. This last is 
 indeed the best and safest course in any case. "We 
 may err in our attempts to strengthen the brethren, 
 but we cannot err in aiming at our own conversion.
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 351 
 
 Let us secure this, and tlie rest will follow. We have 
 everj inducement, personal and public, to seek re- 
 conversion. There are always some conversions going 
 on among us and around us. The wicked are becom- 
 ing worse. The Christian, if not growing, is declin 
 ing. In the world one form of sin is constantly 
 exchanging for another. There are many conversions^ 
 from ambition to avarice, and from pleasure to ambi- 
 tion. And even in countries professedly religious, 
 there is scarcely any interruption of the same myste- 
 rious process. 
 
 The best preventive of these retrograde conver- 
 sions, is conversion in the right direction, turning 
 continually back to him from whom we have revolted. 
 Let not this be hindered by the evidence of former 
 conversion. As long as there is sin, there will be 
 something to turn from. And, thanks be to God, 
 there is always something to turn to. While we 
 change. He remains the same. Amidst all our fluc- 
 tuations, the capricious ebb and flow of our afiections, 
 there is no change or motion in the everlasting rock 
 against which they are beating. Through all our vi- 
 cissitudes of light and darkness, night and morning, 
 ■noon and twilight, lightning and eclipse, he still re- 
 mains the Father of Lights, with whom is no va- 
 riableness, neither shadow of turning. Even when 
 we wander farthest, if we look back, we still see him 
 where he was. It is this sublime immutability and 
 constancy that furnishes a basis for our hopes. If at 
 every fresh return to God, we found some change in 
 the attributes of his nature, or in the offers of his gos- 
 pel ; if we had to make acquaintance with another
 
 352 SERMONS. 
 
 Saviour, and to seek the aid of an nnknown Spirit, vre 
 might well despair. But, thanks be to God, there is 
 always something, and always the same thing, to turn 
 to, and the same altar, the same laver, the same mercy- 
 seat, the same Sovereign, the same Saviour, the same 
 Comforter — in one word, the same Father, Son, and 
 Spirit, God over all blessed forever. There is always 
 something to turn to ; and lastly, there is always 
 something to turn for. For the honour of Christ — 
 he may be glorified in our growth rather than in our 
 decay, in our salvation rather than our ruin. For 
 ourselves — that we may redeem lost time, and wipe 
 off the reproach which we have justly incurred upon 
 the cause. For our brethren — that they may be 
 strengthened ; if impenitent, converted ; if backslid- 
 ing, reclaimed ; if assailed, confirmed. 
 
 Let us give ear, then, to the two great lessons 
 which the text afi'ords. The one is. Be converted, for 
 the first time, or afresh. And oh ! when thus con- 
 verted, Kemember those whom you have left behind. 
 You who are raised up by the great Physician from 
 the bed of spiritual languishment, do not forget the 
 sufierers still lying there, fevered, or palsied, or con- 
 vulsed with pain. You who are plucked as brands 
 from the burning, oh remember the poor victims who 
 are still asleep beneath the curtain of that stifling 
 smoke, and with that horrid glare upon their eyelids, 
 or perhaps just aroused to a benumbing sense of their 
 condition. You who have reached the shore of mercy 
 from that scene of spiritual shipwreck, oh, look back 
 upon those still unconscious victims, lying just as you 
 lay but a little while ago, or on those pallid faces,
 
 LUKE 22, 32. 353 
 
 mutely pleading for deliverance, or those hands lifted 
 up above the surface of the bubbling waves, before 
 they sink forever. When you go hence, you will go 
 to witness just such scenes as this, to stand upon the 
 wreck-strewed shore, and there see thousands perish, 
 while perhaps you may be able to save one ! But 
 how precious even that one in the sight of God and 
 holy angels. How well worthy of your best exertions 
 and most fervent prayers. But forget not, in addition 
 to the training through which you are passing, and 
 which claims your most assiduous attention ; oh, for- 
 get not that without which, this must be forever una- 
 vailing ; forget not to prepare your hearts, yourselves, 
 for future toil and future usefulness, by giving present, 
 constant heed to the first great commandment of the 
 Saviour — " Be converted ; " and to the second, which 
 is like unto it — " When thou art converted, strengthen 
 thy brethren."
 
 XIX. 
 
 Luke 9, CO. — Let the dead bury their dead ; but go thou and preach 
 the kingdom of God. 
 
 The gospel history is distinguished from all others 
 by the intrinsic dignity of its subject — the sayings 
 and doings of our Lord and Saviour. In such a 
 record, if inspired, there can be nothing small or un- 
 important. The slightest hint or trace of the Ke- 
 deemer's words and deeds is precious to his people in 
 all ages. And yet there is a secret disposition to 
 regard these books as only fit for children, and to 
 slight tlie gems of godlike wisdom wliich are scat- 
 tered through them — always invaluable, although 
 sometimes, as, for instance, in the text which I have 
 read, they may be strange and enigmatical. These 
 remarkable words ai'e recorded by two of the evan- 
 gelists — i. <?., the words of the first clause — and in 
 precisely the same form, which shows how carefully 
 the apostolical tradition has preserved our Saviour's 
 very words there, while in the other clause the two 
 accounts agree only in substance. According to both 
 accounts, our Lord said, "Let the dead bury their 
 dead ;" but according to Matthew, he began by 
 saying, " Follow me ;" according to Luke, he ended
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 355 
 
 by sayins:, "Go thou and preach the kingdom of 
 God." Both these versions may be literally accurate, 
 though each has been preserved by only one historian. 
 Or both may be paraphrases, giving the spirit, not 
 the letter, of our Lord's reply. Or one may be such 
 a paraphrase, and the other a statement of the words 
 actually uttered. Upon any of these suppositions, all 
 of which are natural and easy, and according to 
 analogy and usage, the consistency of the accounts 
 may be completely vindicated. At the same time, 
 this diversity, however it may be explained, renders 
 still more striking the exact agreement of the 
 gospels in the other Avords. Whatever else our Saviour 
 may have said besides, he certainly said, " Let the 
 dead bury their (own) dead." 
 
 There is also a remarkable agreement and diver- 
 sity in the accompanying circumstances, as related 
 bj the two evangelists. Both connect this little 
 dialogue, in which the text occurs, with another of 
 the same kind, and both put this other first. But 
 Luke adds a third of the very same description, which 
 Matthew does not give at all. They also agree in rep- 
 resenting these brief conversations as taking place 
 upon, the road, or as our Lord was setting out upon a 
 journey. Luke merely says, as they went in the way, 
 or were proceeding on their journey, without speci- 
 fying time or place. Li the absence of all other in- 
 formation, it would be most natural to understand 
 him as referring to the immediately preceding con- 
 text, which is generally supposed to record the com- 
 mencement of our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem. 
 But observe, the writer does not say so ; it is a mere
 
 366 SERMONS. 
 
 inference, and more than half, perhaps nine-tenths, 
 of the alleged variations in the gospels, have arisen 
 from confomiding mere sequence or juxtaposition in 
 tlie record, with exact or immediate chronological 
 succession. All that Luke says is, that they were 
 journeying, or on their way. 
 
 If this were all we knew about it, we might Avell 
 infer that it was on the journey previously mentioned. 
 But that inference is gone when Matthew tells us that 
 this very conversation happened at an earlier period 
 of Christ's ministry, when he was just embarking on 
 that voyage across the sea of Galilee, which furnished 
 the occasion of a miracle, evincing, for the first time, 
 his dominion over nature and the elements, as well as 
 over demons and diseases. It was just before the 
 stilling of the storm that Matthew places this occur- 
 rence ; and as Luke's expressions are entirely indefi- 
 nite, those of Matthew must of course determine the 
 chronology, not in opposition to Luke's statement, or 
 even in correction of it, but in addition to it, as a sup- 
 plement or specification. 
 
 This view of the matter iiivolves no invidious dis- 
 tinction between Luke and MatthcM", as more or less 
 exact or complete in their statements, because Luke, 
 in other cases, supplies facts and incidentis omitted by 
 Matthew, and in this very case, it is only by a ref- 
 erence to Mark — who does not give the dialogues at 
 all, but does give what precedes and follows — it is 
 only by a reference to this third witness, that we 
 learn with certainty that all this happened on the 
 very day when Christ uttered that remarkable series 
 of parables beginning with the sower, or at least a
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 357 
 
 part of them. Matthew prefaces the dialjgne from 
 which the text is taken, bj saying that " when Jesus 
 saw great multitudes about him, he gave com- 
 mandment to depart unto the other side." This, taken 
 by itself, might seem to mean that what follows in 
 the narrative, held the same position in the order of 
 events. But he does not say so, and he may mean 
 that it happened on a different occasion, when he saw 
 a multitude around him. This possibility becomes a 
 certainty when Mark informs us that this passage of 
 the lake took place " on the same day, in the evening." 
 This is perfectly definite as to the time, as well as the 
 events. It cannot possibly be referred to any other 
 day or hour, without impugning Mark's authority. 
 There may have been a thousand days on which our 
 Lord found himself surrounded by a crowd, and 
 escaped them by embarking on the lake ; and this is 
 all that Matthew says. "We are, therefore, at liberty, 
 nay, bound to fix the date of this vague statement, in 
 accordance with the light obtained from other sources. 
 Such a source is Mark, and such a light is his ex- 
 plicit statement (4, 35), that the voyage across Genes- 
 saret, in Avliich our Saviour stilled the storm, occurred 
 in the evening of the same day — what day? why of 
 course the day of which he had just been speaking. 
 
 ISTow the immediately preceding context in Mark's 
 narrative contains a series of parables, beginning with 
 that of the sower, and ending with that of the mus- 
 tard seed — the same series that occurs, with some ad- 
 ditions, in the 13th of Matthew, long after lie has 
 recorded the dialogue from which the text is taken, 
 but which Mark, without giving it all, assigns to its
 
 358 SERMONS. 
 
 exact place in the order of events, by telling ns what 
 happened just before and after. Luke merely says 
 that they were on the way ; Matthew, more distinctly, 
 on their way to cross the lake ; and Mark, still more 
 explicitly, that they did cross it, and that Christ did 
 still the storm, upon the evening of the same day 
 when those parables were uttered. 
 
 This is only one out of a multitude of instances in 
 which one of the gospels gives the actual order of 
 events, while another gives them in another order 
 suited to his own immediate purpose. This deviation 
 from the order of actual occurrence is practised by the 
 historians of every age, and can only be condemned 
 as unhistorical by those who do not know the differ- 
 ence between history and chronology, or rather be- 
 tween dates and the events to which they owe their 
 value. This practice is peculiar to no one of the 
 evangelists, but common to them all, the attempt to 
 make one of them the standard in chronology, to 
 which the others are to be conformed, having proved 
 as impracticable in execution, as it is arbitrary and 
 gratuitous in theory. As Mark here furnishes a date 
 which neither Luke nor Matthew gives us, so in other 
 cases he receives from them the same additional 
 specification. The reason for departing from the rigid 
 chronological arrangement is not always the same, 
 nor always apparent; but the one most generally appli- 
 cable is, that the historian means to put together facts 
 resembling one another, although not immediately 
 successive in the order of occurrence. 
 
 Thus Matthew, in recording several parables that 
 ;M"ark gives, omits one and adds another, as more
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 359 
 
 suited to Kis purpose, and inserts the whole series at 
 a different point in the narrative from that to which 
 it properlj or rather chronologically belongs. Thus, 
 too, Luke, in giving the two dialogues between our 
 Lord and two new followers, which Matthew had re- 
 corded, not only adds a third, which may have hap- 
 pened at a different time, but places the whole series 
 in a different connection, yet without the slightest 
 intimation as to time, beyond the mere juxtaposition, 
 and therefore without the slightest contradiction to the 
 more specific statements of the other gospels. 
 
 A biographer of Washington, who wished to give 
 that great man's views on some important subject — 
 say the subject of religion — not only might, but must, 
 in order to attain his end, collect the -expression of 
 those views from different periods of his history, and 
 give them seriatim, without any risk of being charged, 
 as the evangelists are charged by shallow and dis- 
 lionest infidels, with contradicting those biographers 
 who give the very same facts or words, not together — 
 having no such purpose to answer as the one first 
 mentioned — but in connection with the times and 
 places at which they happened or were uttered. 
 
 Li the case supposed, too, no one dreams of charg- 
 ing the respective writers with mutual contradiction, 
 simply because, in illustration of the point which 
 they are proving, they may differ in the choice or the 
 arrangement of their proofs, because one passes over 
 what another has recorded, or repeats a certain part 
 of it without the rest. When will the same principles 
 and modes of judgment which experience and com- 
 mon sense are constantly applying on the bench and
 
 360 SEKMONS. 
 
 in the jury-box, and even in the ordinary ititercourse 
 of life, be fairly extended to the real or alleged varia- 
 tions in the gos]3el history or life of Christ? 
 
 These considerations are abundantly sufficient for 
 my purpose in proposing them, viz., that of showing 
 that the question as of time and order, in the case be- 
 fore jis, though admitting of an easy and satisfactory 
 solution, is of little moment as an element of sound 
 interpretation. Whether these three replies of Christ 
 were uttered on the same or on different occasions, 
 whether earlier or later in his public ministry, are 
 questions which can have no effect, either upon their 
 intrinsic value, or upon their mutual connection, which 
 arises from their common bearing on a single subject 
 of great practical importance. 
 
 It is also a subject of peculiar interest to such an 
 audience as this — composed -almost entirely of persons 
 looking forward to the ministry, or actually in it — 
 being nothing more nor less than the spirit which 
 should actuate those seeking this high office, and the 
 principle on which it should be chosen as the business 
 of a lifetime, and on which its claims should be ad- 
 justed, when apparently or really in conflict with at- 
 tractions or demands from any other quarter. This is 
 a subject which can never be wholly inappropriate to 
 us, and on which it may sometimes be expedient to 
 let Jesus Christ speak in his own way, however para- 
 doxical or strange it may appear when compared with 
 the maxims of worldly wisdom, or even with those of 
 casuistical theology. 
 
 Let this be my apology for asking your attention 
 to this text and context, just as it lies upon the face of
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 3gJ 
 
 Scripture, or with only such departures from the form, 
 as may render its consideration more convenient and 
 more practically useful. In order to secure all the 
 light which the connection can afford to the obscure 
 words of the text, I shall include in my j^roposed ex- 
 amination all the similar or homogeneous cases here 
 referred to, whether by one of the evangelists or both. 
 At the very threshold we are met, however, by a 
 striking instance of the way in which the gospels mu- 
 tually specify and supplement each other. 
 
 The first case mentioned, both by Luke and Mat- 
 thew, is that of one who volunteered to follow Christ 
 wherever he should go. Besides the unimportant va- 
 riation in the title, by which this man addressed him, 
 and which Matthew gives as Master or Teacher, Luke, 
 as Sir or Lord, there is another more material and in- 
 teresting difference, though not the slightest discrep- 
 ance or contradiction, the difference being only in the 
 degree of definiteness and precision. Luke's account, 
 by itself, might suggest the idea, that this volunteer 
 disciple was an ordinary man, of little knowledge or 
 intelligence, and his proposal a vague offer of disci- 
 pleship in general, without reference to any special or 
 official service. Both these impressions, although 
 perfectly legitimate and natural, if we had only Luke's 
 description, are removed by Matthew's statement, 
 that this " certain man," of whom Luke speaks, was 
 a scribe, or literally, "one scribe," — an unusual ex- 
 pression, which may either mean a certain individual 
 of that class, or more definitely, one of the scribes, 
 known to have been present then and the^-f^. Re- 
 membering, as we should dc, whenever sc- 
 
 VOL. I. — 16
 
 362 SERMONS. 
 
 mentioned, that tliey were not clerks or secretaries; 
 nor simple copyists of tlie law, but its official conser- 
 vators and ^professional expounders — the successors of 
 Ezra, withoat his inspiration, but aspiring to the same 
 high trust of guarding the Old Testament canon, 
 which he closed, from mutilation and corruption, and 
 unauthorized addition ; yes, and recognized by Christ 
 himself as the legitimate interpreters of Moses, al- 
 though grossly inconsistent in their lives, and forming 
 a part, either collectively or representatively, of the 
 Sanhedrim, the great national presbytery or senate — 
 you will see, at once, that this was no fortuitous or 
 vague proposal, from an unknown or unimportant 
 person, to enrol himself as one of our Lord's followers — 
 as multitudes were, no doubt, doing every day — but 
 an extraordinary overture, of which there seems to 
 have been few examples, from an educated student 
 and interpreter of Scripture, to assume the same posi- 
 tion in the new religion that he held already in the old ; 
 in other words, it was an offer to become what Christ 
 himself is elsewhere said to have described as " a scribe 
 instructed, or discipled, into and unto, i. e., into the fel- 
 lowship, and for the service of, the new dispensation or 
 kingdom of heaven," Matthew 13, 52; and that not 
 merely upon certain terms, or in a certain place, to be 
 selected by the oiferer, but wherever he, whom by 
 this act he owns as the Messiah, should be pleased to 
 lead the way. Upon every principle of worldly wis- 
 dom, or of selfish policy, or even of what some regard 
 as Christian prudence, how would this offer have been 
 received and answered? as a flattering compliment ? 
 a condescension ? a remarkable example of distin- 
 
 J
 
 LUKE i, GO. 363 
 
 guislied gifts and lofty station laid upon the altar of 
 religion, and entitled therefore to a high place in the 
 synagogue or church, and to a grateful recognition, 
 even at the hands, and from the lips, of Christ him- 
 self? 
 
 With such prepossessions and anticipations of our 
 Lord's reply to this attractive offer, how should we, 
 and how may some of his attendants upon that day, 
 have been shocked and startled, b}'" its seeming harsh- 
 ness and irrelevance ? Instead of thanks, instead of 
 praise, instead of courtly acquiescence, and a graceful 
 welcome, the poor scribe gets nothing in return for 
 his proposal, but that wild and melancholy sentence, 
 which has ever since been ringing in the ears of all 
 who read or hear the gospel, like the burden of some 
 funeral song, a snatch of some unearthly chant by 
 " airy tongues, that syllable men's names on sands, and 
 shores, and desert wildernesses " — " Foxes have holes, 
 and birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man 
 hath not where to lay his head." 
 
 Sublimely touching as the weakest intellect and 
 meanest taste must feel these words to be, consider ed 
 in themselves, how strange do they appear to most, 
 considered as an answer. How evasive, incoherent, 
 and unmeaning have they been declared to be by 
 many a pedantic critic ! Yet the world has never 
 heard, and the records of the world do not contain 
 a more direct, conclusive, and exhaustive answer — not 
 to the scribe's words; there is the error that gives 
 birth to all these false and foolish judgments, of which 
 every one of us has had his share — not to his words, 
 but to his thoughts, his wishes ; those desires and
 
 364 SERMONS. 
 
 purposes wliicli lay so closely coiled about Ms very 
 heart that he may have had no clear view of them 
 himself. ISTot to his lips, or to his eye, or to his ear, 
 but to his inmost soul, and to the hidden core of his 
 corrupt affections, to his proud conceit and secular 
 ambition, to his love of ease, and fame, and power, to 
 his sordid, carnal, and concealed hope of distinction 
 and enjoyment in the kingdom of this untaught 
 teacher, this unbribed benefactor, this amazing, won- 
 derworking Son of Man ; to these, to all these, as 
 seen by an omniscient eye to constitute the man, did 
 that unsparing, unexpected answer speak in articu- 
 late annihilating thunder. 
 
 But even in attempting to do feeble justice to our 
 Master's greatness upon this occasion, let us not be 
 led astray by any false interpretation of his language, 
 however natural, however common. Let us not im- 
 pair its simple grandeur by forcing quaint conceits 
 upon it, by supposing an allusion, in the foxes and 
 the birds, which he seems almost to envy, to the cun- 
 nino: or the other evil attributes of those who hated 
 him, but give the expressions their most obvious im- 
 port, as descriptive of familiar living things, perhaps 
 presented at the moment to the eyes of those who 
 heard him, or at least to their memory and imagina- 
 tion. Nor let us rush into the opposite extreme of 
 giving to the words that follow too obvious and easy 
 an interpretation, as expressive of extreme want and 
 privation, not only of the luxuries and comforts, but 
 of the necessary means of life. Such a description 
 would have been at variance with the known facts of 
 our Saviour's history, the apparent circumstances of
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 365 
 
 Ms nearest relatives and friends, including some at 
 least of liis apostles, and still more of his disciples in 
 the wider sense, the various comfortable liomes in 
 which we find him a most welcome guest, and the ex- 
 treme devotion of a few choice spirits, whose sub- 
 stance and whose lives existed only for his service, 
 and among whom, while none were poor, one was 
 connected with the royal household. Tlie glory of 
 the Saviour stands in no need of romantic or poetical 
 embellishment. Starvation, penury, formed no part 
 of his suflerings, though often gloried in as chief 
 points of resemblance by ascetic bearers of his cross. 
 His food and raiment seem to have been those of the 
 society in which he lived, and he expressly describes 
 himself as " eating and drinking " with his neighbours, 
 in contrast with the austere life of his forerunner, who 
 came " neither eating nor drinking," and was there- 
 fore thought to have a devil. 
 
 The idea of extreme want and a state of beggary, 
 is not suggested by his words on the occasion now 
 before us. To the scribe's ambitious expectations of 
 a long triumphant reign of the Messiah upon earth, and 
 of distinction and enjoyment in his service, he opposes 
 that of a mere transient visit and unsettled life ; the 
 absence, not of ordinary food and shelter, but of a 
 permanent and settled home, much more of a luxu- 
 rious court and palace, using the very figure long be- 
 fore employed by Tiberius Gracchus, when complain- 
 ing that the champions of Italian freedom were 
 compelled to lead a homeless life, and flit from place 
 to place, while the very beasts that ravaged Italy had 
 lairs and pasture-grounds. The spirit of our Lord's
 
 2QQ SERMONS. 
 
 reply to tliis deceived or hypocritical pretender is : 
 " Yon know not what yon ask or what yon offer ; you 
 are utterly mistaken in relation to my presence upon 
 earth and its design. Instead of being here, as yon 
 imagine, for the purpose of establishing a temporal 
 and worldly kingdom, I am only here to die and rise 
 again. I am here, not as a conqueror or a sovereign, 
 but as a servant and a stranger, less at home than 
 even the inferior animals ; " the foxes have holes, and 
 the birds of the air have nests," &c. 
 
 The next place, both in Luke and Matthew, is as- 
 signed to the discourse from which the text is taken ; 
 but it may be more convenient to reserve this till we 
 have considered the additional case found in Luke, 
 and closing his account of the whole matter. From 
 this we learn that, on the same occasion, or one like 
 it, another person offered to follow him, but asked 
 permission first to bid farewell to those at home. 
 This request was so much like that of Elisha to 
 Elijah, when he called him from the plough to the 
 prophetic office, that our Lord, with a beautiful ac- 
 commodation in the form of his reply to this designed 
 or undesigned allusion, speaks of his own service un- 
 der the figure of husbandry or plowing, recommended 
 also by the agricultural employments of the multi- 
 tude before whom he was speaking, and perhaps sug- 
 gested, as so many of his parables are thought to have 
 been, by the sight of some one Actually so employed. 
 That sight, or even recollection, was sufficient to 
 suggest the necessity of close attention, undivided 
 thoughts, and undiverted eyes, in order to accomplish 
 a straight furrow. The man, who with his hand upon
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 367 
 
 tlie plougli for siicli a purpose, could look idly back, in 
 sport or in stupidity, would be pronounced by every 
 ploughman present, utterly unfit for that humble but 
 important duty. Here too, as in the first case, the reply 
 is to the thoughts, or to the state of mind ; the charac- 
 ter or disposition, rather than the language. And to 
 those the answer is adjusted ; having reference, in 
 this case, not to proud ambitious hopes, but to dis- 
 tracted views, and a divided heart-wish, and purpose 
 to serve Christ, combined with a presumptuous de- 
 sire to continue the enjoyment of what ought to have 
 been sacrificed or left behind by one who sought his 
 service. To this very difterent, but perhaps more 
 common class of false professors and unfaithful ser- 
 vants, our Lord spoke once for all and forever, when 
 he said in answer to that new proposal, " 'No man, 
 having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, 
 is fit for the kingdom of God," 
 
 There is, however, still another question raised and 
 answered in these few words ; that of the comparative 
 or relative demands of natural afi^ection, duty and re- 
 gard to relatives and friends, when brought into real 
 or apparent conflict with the service of our Lord, or 
 with his positive commands. But this is a subject 
 still more clearly and impressively presented in the 
 third reply from which the text is taken. The person 
 speaking and addressed in this case is by Luke simply 
 called " another," but by Matthew, " another of his 
 disciples ; " in the wide sense of one who was already 
 a believer in our Lord's Messiahship, and a receiver 
 of his doctrine, but desired to sustain a more intimate 
 relation to him, as an attendant on his person, and a
 
 3G8 SERMONS. 
 
 messenger to cany his commands to otLers. Al 
 tlioiigli mere sequence or juxtaposition, as we lia"ve 
 already'' seen, is no sure sign of chronological succes- 
 sion, it is not perhaps unmeaning or fortuitous, that 
 this whole narrative in Luke immediately precedes 
 the mission of the seventy disciples, nor entirely im- 
 probable that these offers of service had respect to 
 that important mission. If so, this renders it still 
 more certain that the propositions and replies in all 
 the cases, referred, as they unquestionably did in one, 
 not merely to discipleship in general, but to preach- 
 ing in particular. If any thing were needed, this 
 would seem to be sufficient, to awaken our attention 
 to a passage, so directly bearing, not on Christian 
 character only, but on the very office which we seek 
 or hold already. 
 
 In one point, Luke is here more definite than 
 Matthew, taking up the conversation at an earlier 
 stage, and showing tliat the words which Matthew 
 puts into the mouth of this disciple were occasioned 
 by an express command from Christ to follow him, 
 {. e. to attend upon his person, with a view to being 
 sent out by him. The same command may be im- 
 , plied, though not expressed, in one or both the other 
 cases. Unless it be, we must regard the one before 
 us as a more direct evasion of acknowledged duty 
 than the others, where the proposition seems to be a 
 voluntary one, and not in answer to a special call. 
 Be this as it may, the proposition itself is not uncon- 
 ditional, as in the first case, nor on the condition of a 
 simple opportunity of bidding farewell to friends at 
 home, as in the second, but tnrns uj)on a still more
 
 LUKE 'J, 60. 369 
 
 solemn and affecting duty, that of burying a father ; 
 not of waiting upon him till he died, as some inter- 
 preters have understood it, for such a proposition 
 would have been absurd, asking to wait until his fath- 
 er's death before he followed Christ on this occasion. 
 Nor is it the natural meaning of the words, Let me 
 first go away and bury my father ; referring just as 
 j^lainly to a momentary and immediate interruption 
 as the following request to bid farewell to those at 
 home. Even this has sometimes been explained as 
 meaning to adjust or wind up one's affau'S, or dispose 
 of one's possessions ; but the only natural hypothesis, 
 in either case, is that which concentrates the attention 
 on a single act, and one connected with the tenderest 
 domestic ties and personal affections ; in the one case, 
 that of parting from the nearest living friends, and in 
 the other, that of burying the body of a father. 
 
 Here, again, a different answer might have been 
 expected, not by policy or selfishness alone, but by 
 the kindliest sentiments of human nature; and our 
 Lord's reply may therefore seem abrupt and harsh to 
 a much larger and more elevated class than those who 
 are offended by his former answer. Tlie difficulty 
 here felt has betrayed itself in exegetical expedients 
 to impose some other meaning on the words than that 
 which can be gained by any natural interpretation. 
 As a single but extreme specimen of such expedients, 
 I may name the monstrous supposition that the dead 
 first mentioned are those charged with the burial of 
 the dead, so that our Lord's words arc only a consol- 
 atory or encouraging assurance that this sacred duty 
 
 VOL. I. — 16*
 
 370 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 would not be neglected, even if the son slionld in- 
 Btantly obey liis call. 
 
 To the same class may be referred tbe supposition 
 tbat bis words bave reference to ceremonial defile- 
 ment, and that his refusal is no more severe than that 
 which would have been received from any priest, 
 whether Jew or Gentile. The total silence of the 
 narrative on this point, and the inconsistency of such 
 a meaning with the whole spii'it of our Lord's instruc- 
 tions, may serve as a sufficient refutation of this no- 
 tion, and of every other which supposes the permission 
 to have been withheld on any other ground than that 
 suggested in the accompanying words, viz., the para- 
 mount necessity of following Christ and preaching or 
 proclaiming the kingdom of God. 
 
 Of the enigmatical words " Let the dead bury their 
 dead," there are only two interpretations which ap- 
 pear in any age to have commanded the assent of 
 sober and judicious minds ; and of these two, one has 
 always had so great a majority of suffrages that it 
 may be regarded as established by the voice of the 
 church and exegetical tradition. This is the old in- 
 terpretation which assumes two entirely different 
 senses of the word dead^ in the two parts of the sen- 
 tence ; the first figurative or spiritual, the second lit- 
 eral or natural. " Let those dead in sin bury the 
 bodies of the naturally dead." Tliere are enough of 
 worldly, unconverted men or of men not called into 
 my immediate service, to render these last offices to 
 lifeless bodies, but do thou go and j)reach the king- 
 dom of God. 
 
 To this it has been objected, not without some 
 
 I
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 371 
 
 force, that the very assumption of a double sense 
 "svithin so short a compass is not to be assumed with- 
 out necessity, and also that the sense obtained is not 
 entirely satisfactory, since it is not consistent with the 
 letter or spii'it of Christianity, to devolve such duties 
 on the unconverted, to the exclusion of " devout men," 
 such as carried the first martjT to his burial. With- 
 out pausing now to shoAV how these objections may 
 be ans'svcred, I may simply state that they have led 
 some eminent, though few interpreters, to give the 
 same sense to the word dead in both clauses, and to 
 understand the whole as meaning, "leave the dead 
 to bury one another." This, it is objected, is impos- 
 sible ; but that impossibility is looked upon, by those 
 who take this view as constituting the whole force 
 and j)oint of the expression, like the camel passing 
 through the eye of a needle. It is then equivalent to 
 saying, and saying in the boldest and the strongest 
 form, " If necessary, leave the dead unburied, but at 
 all events, obey my call to go and proclaim the kiug- 
 dom of God." 
 
 According to this last view of the passage, it be- 
 longs to what have sometimes been, perhaps improp- 
 erly, described as the 'paradoxes of our Lord's instruc- 
 tions ; those unexpected and sui-prising forms of 
 speech, by which he first awakens the attention of 
 his hearers, and then states a principle or rule of 
 action, not in its abstract form, nor yet in application 
 to an ordinary case, but to an extreme ease, so that" 
 every other may be readily disposed of. Tlius instead 
 of laying down in general terms, the rule of charity 
 or Christian love, he commanded the yomig ruler,
 
 372 SERMONS. 
 
 wliom lie saw to be enamoured of his wealth, to sell 
 all that he had and come and follow him ; thus show- 
 ing him at once, by an extreme test, where his weak- 
 ness lay, which might have been imtouched by 
 requisitions of another kind or of inferior degree. 
 So too, instead of giving rules for the mortification 
 of sin in ordinary cases, he at once supposes the ex- 
 treme case of a choice between wilful indulgence and 
 the loss of a limb, and teaches, not that such a case 
 is likely to be expected to occur, much less that we 
 may lawfully produce it, but that if it did occur, we 
 ought to be prepared to sacrifice the body to the soul. 
 Instead of dealing out empirical prescriptions for the 
 regulation of our duties and regards to God and man 
 respectively, he assumes abruptly the extreme case of 
 our love to God excluding or forbidding that to any 
 relative, however near or dear, and then requires his 
 followers, in that case, not only to prefer God, but to 
 HATE even father or mother, l^ot that the case itself 
 is one to be expected, but because the principle of 
 paramount aftection to the Saviour reaches even such 
 a case, however rare and unexampled, and must there- 
 fore of course cover every other, just as every Chris- 
 tian at the present day is bound to suffer martyrdom 
 rather than deny Christ, although actual martyrdom 
 has been unknown, in most parts of the earth, for 
 ages. 
 
 This seems to me to be the true key to the enig- 
 mas of our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, and to the 
 fallacies by which so many Christian men have been 
 seduced into the eflbrt to convert the extreme cases 
 thus employed into formal rules of ordinary conduct.
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 373 
 
 In the case before lis, the same principle would lead 
 to the conclusion that the Christian should be willing 
 and prepared to leave his dearest dead unburied, or 
 to slight any other tender natural affection, the in- 
 dulgence of which would be in conflict with a plain 
 command or call of God, but not that such a conflict 
 commonly exists, or may be brought about at plea- 
 sure, which so far from being pleasing in the sight of 
 God, is really the sin committed by the hypocrites 
 who said, " Corban," when they ought to have sup- 
 plied the wants of their dependent parents. These 
 are the grounds on which the literal intei'pretation of 
 the words has been defended and explained, but as I 
 said before, almost the whole weight of authority and 
 long prescription is in favour of the other explanation, 
 which requires the follower, and especially the minis- 
 ter of Christ to leave all natural attentions, even the 
 most tender duties of affection, to the men of this 
 world, when they would conflict with his obedience 
 to the call of God. 
 
 As topics of reflection on this interesting passage, 
 I suo-ciest 
 
 1. That there is still a special call of Christ 
 to individuals, not only to believe in him, but to 
 preach his kingdom. Without attempting to define 
 this call at present, I may observe, that it is neither 
 miraculous on one hand, nor a matter of business cal- 
 culation on the other, but a complete judgment or 
 conclusion to which various elements contribute, such 
 as intellectual and physical capacity, without which 
 a call is inconceivable ; providential facilities and op- 
 portunities, opening the way to this employment
 
 374 SERMONS. 
 
 more than to all others ; the judgment and desire of 
 others, and especially of those best qualified, bj char- 
 acter and situation, to sit in judgment on the case. 
 I might add a desire for the work, which, in a certain 
 sense is certainly included in a call, but which is apt 
 to be confounded with a mere liking for the outward 
 part of the profession, for example with that mania 
 for preaching which is sometimes found in grossly 
 wicked men, and has been known to follow them, not 
 only to their haunts of vice, but to the prison and the 
 madhouse. There is also a desire which results from 
 early habit and association, the known wish, of pa- 
 rents, pastors, and other friends, or the fixed invet- 
 erate habit of regarding this as a man's chosen calling, 
 even Avhen every evidence of piety is wanting. The 
 desire which can be referred to any of these causes is 
 entirely distinct from that which God j)roduces in the 
 heart of his true servants, as a part of their vocation 
 to the ministry. 
 
 2. This vocation, where it really exists, is para- 
 mount to every personal and selfish j)lan, to every 
 natural affection, even the most tender, which, con- 
 flicts with it. 
 
 3. This conflict is not usually unavoidable, though 
 often so regarded by fanatics. The flrst duty of the 
 Christian is not to desire or create, but to avoid it ; 
 but if unavoidable, his next is to obey God rather 
 than man. 
 
 4. Our Saviour did not deal indiscriminately with 
 all cases of desire to enter his immediate service. 
 The remark is at least as old as Calvin, that in this 
 case he repelled the man who wanted to go with him
 
 LUKE 9, 60. 375 
 
 everywhere, and urged tlie man to follow liim at 
 once, wlio wanted to go home for what appeared to 
 be most necessary purposes. So far as his example 
 is a gukle to ns in these things, we are bound not only 
 to persuade, but to discourage as the case may be. 
 
 5. There is no more danger of excluding those 
 whom God has called by faithful presentation of the^ 
 whole truth, than there is of preventing the conversion 
 of his chosen ones, by showing them the true tests of 
 faith and repentance. The man who can be finally 
 driven back in this way ought to be so driven. He 
 whom God has called will only be confirmed in his 
 desire and resolution by such warnings against self- 
 deception, though he may pass through the discipline 
 of painful doubt and hesitation for a season. To you, 
 my young brethren, whose presence here to-day is a 
 profession that you believe yourselves called of God 
 to this high ofiice, my desire and prayer is, that the 
 Lord would speak directly as he sees your case to 
 need ; that if any of you are anticipating only ease, 
 and honour, and enjoyment of a selfish nature in his 
 service ; though you honestly believe yourselves pre- 
 pared to follow him wherever he may lead you, he 
 may say to you this morning, as he said to that de- 
 luded scribe of old, " the foxes have holes, and birds 
 of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not 
 where to lay his head ; " that if any of you, although 
 willing and desirous to engage in this service, have 
 your hearts divided between it and that which you 
 have left, the business or the i)lcasures of the world, 
 or its mere natural attachments and enjoyments, you 
 may this day hear him say, and say with a medicinal
 
 376 SERMONS. 
 
 effect, " No man having put his hand, to the plough, 
 and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." 
 And lastly, that if even one among jou is dis- 
 tracted and distressed by imaginary obligations to 
 your nearest friends, at variance -with your duty to 
 your Lord and Master, he may nerve your courage 
 and dispel your doubts, by saying as he said to him 
 whose father lay imburied, " Let the dead bury their 
 dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."
 
 XX. 
 
 Mark 13, 3Y. — What I say unto you, I say unto all : Watch! 
 
 The personal ministiy of Christ was limited to one 
 email country. On two occasions only do we read of 
 his having crossed the frontiers of Palestine. The 
 first was in his infancy, when he was carried into 
 Egypt, to escape the sanguinary spite of Herod. The 
 second was in later life, when he visited the coasts of 
 Tyre and Sidon in Phenicia, and there wrought a mir- 
 acle of healing on the daughter of a Syrophenician 
 woman, and in compliance with her urgent prayer, as 
 if to show, by one signal action of his public life, that 
 he came to be the Saviour of the Gentiles as well as 
 of the Jews. With these exceptions, his whole life 
 was passed in the land of Israel ; its earlier years 
 chiefly in the northern part called Galilee ; its later 
 years partly in that region, partly in Judea, partly 
 beyond Jordan. 
 
 "We read repeatedly in Scripture, that his fame 
 was spread, not only through these provinces, but over 
 the surrounding countries, and that wherever he went, 
 he was accompanied or followed by vast multitudes. 
 These multitudes were no doubt always changing, as
 
 378 SERMONS. 
 
 he passed from one part of the country to another. 
 There is reason to believe, however, that a large num- 
 ber followed him from place to place, forming a per- 
 manent body of attendants. These were influenced 
 no doubt by various motives ; some by vague curios- 
 ity, and a desire to see new and wonderful perform- 
 ances ; some by a desire to be healed, or to obtain 
 healing for their friends ; some by gratitude for such 
 gifts experienced already ; some by a wish to be in- 
 structed ; some by a conviction of sin and a desire of 
 salvation. Those who were governed by the higher 
 class of motives, the desire of instruction and salva- 
 tion, may be comprehended under the general de- 
 scription of " disciples," i. e. such as acknowledged 
 Christ's authority and received his doctrines. 
 
 Out of this undefined and shifting body of dis- 
 ciples he selected twelve, that they might constantly 
 attend him or be sent out by him. These were called 
 apostles. But even among these we read of three 
 who were admitted to more intimate and confidential 
 intercourse, as appears from the frequency and prom- 
 inence with which their names are mentioned in the 
 gospel history, and from the fact that they accom- 
 panied their Master upon some occasions when the 
 rest were left behind. The three thus specially dis- 
 tino-uished were Simon Peter and the two sons of 
 Zebcdee, James and John. In this point of view our 
 Lord appears surrounded by a succession of concentric 
 circles ; first, the narrow circle of his confidential fol- 
 lowers, then the wider circle of his twelve apostles, 
 then the still wider circle of disciples, beyond which 
 spreads the less, defined and constant circle of hia
 
 MARK 13, 37. 3'J'9 
 
 licarers and S2)eetators, like a circle on the surface of 
 the water spreading till it merges in the smooth face 
 of the lake or stream. 
 
 Corresponding to these various sets of hearers is 
 the various design of the discourses which our Lord 
 addressed to them. Some were intended for the ear 
 of the few nearest to him, some for the whole body of 
 apostles, some for his disciples generallj, some for the 
 vast mixed multitude who happened to be present. 
 In some cases, what was said had reference to the 
 wants of- his contemporaries generally, not of those 
 merely whom he immediately addressed. Sometimes 
 his instructions had a nniversal application to all 
 countries and all ages. Sometimes, though imme- 
 diately adapted to one purpose, they admitted of a 
 wider or a more specific apj)lication. Thus the text 
 has reference directly to the downfall of the Jewish 
 nation, and to the dangers in which Christ's disciples 
 were to be involved. It was against these dangers 
 that he meant to warn them. But the warninii: was 
 applicable to the case of all then living, as he inti- 
 mates himself, by adding, what I say unto you I say 
 unto all. 
 
 On the same principle, we may make a still fur- 
 ther application of the precept to ourselves and to 
 our spiritual dangers. For if such a warning was ap- 
 propriate in reference to temporal calamities hoAvever 
 fearful, it can be no perversion to extend it to perils 
 no less real, and as much more tremendous as the 
 soul is more important than the body, and eternity 
 than time. "We need not therefore hesitate to look 
 upon ourselves as comprehended in the wide scope of
 
 380 SERMONS. 
 
 our Saviour's exhortation, tliough addressed to his 
 immediate liearers, " What I say unto you, I say nnto 
 all. Watch! " 
 
 Let us consider then the duty and necessity of 
 watchfulness in reference to spiritual dangers. The 
 exhortation to watch may be resolved into two others ; 
 be awake, and be upon your guard. The last neces- 
 sarily implies the first. -'No one can be upon his 
 guard unless he is awake : but the converse is not 
 true. A man may be awake, and yet not on his 
 guard. Let us therefore consider them successively. 
 
 And first, what is meant by spiritual watchful- 
 ness ? Tliis again may be resolved into several par- 
 ticulars. In the first place, the mind must be awake, 
 the understanding, the rational powers. And in order 
 to this, it is essential that the powers should be exer- 
 cised ; in other words, that the man should think. 
 There is, indeed, a sense in which the mind must 
 always think. Thought is inseparable from its very 
 being. Li another sense, which although less philo- 
 sophical is equally intelligible, mind may be said not 
 to think. Hence the familiar terms, unthinking, 
 thoughtless, and the like. The thing required is not 
 the mere possession of rational fticulties, but their use. 
 The man must think in earnest, tliink with vigour, 
 think coherently. Some thinking is not so much ac- 
 tive as passive, not so much an exertion as an indul- 
 gence. Tliis dreamy, indolent condition of the soul is 
 the lowest stage of intellectual life, and that state of 
 opinion must be morbid and corrupt which represents 
 it as the highest mode of thought, and even as a kind 
 of inspiration. To be mentally awake, there must
 
 MARK 13, 37. 381 
 
 be life, sjDontaneous action and coherence in the 
 thoughts. 
 
 But this is not enough. Tiie mind may be awake 
 in this sense, and yet dreaming in another. It may 
 act, and yet the world in which it acts may be not 
 the present but another. Some minds operate too 
 fast, and some too slow. Some men's thoughts are 
 forever in advance of that which claims their present 
 attention. This is the case with those who habitually 
 dwell upon the circumstances of our future being, and 
 attempt to discover that which has not been revealed, 
 and therefore has no bearing on our present duties or 
 interests. The same is true of some who do not look 
 so far ofi", who confine themselves to this life, but who 
 constantly anticipate a state of things still future, and 
 do now what they ought to do hereafter. On the 
 other hand, some are either constitutionally or habit- 
 ually slow ; they are constantly behindhand ; they 
 think, but think too late, when the necessity for think- 
 ing has gone by. Both these mental states and habits 
 have analogy to sleep ; the first to the condition of 
 the fitful, feverish, visionary dreamer, the last to that 
 of the more drowsy slumberer. 
 
 Both however are asleep. The mind, to be awake, 
 must not only think, and think with vigour and co- 
 herence, but think seasonably also. Even this is not 
 enough. This may be done, and yet the mind remain 
 absorbed in spiritual slumber. For what can vigour, 
 coherence, or promptness avail, if the thoughts are 
 exercised on trifling or unimportant objects. IIow- 
 ever thoroughly the mind is roused, however actively 
 it may exert itself, however ready it be to act pre-
 
 382 SERMONS. 
 
 cisely at the juncture wlieii its action is required, if 
 it does not act upon tlie proper objects, it might just 
 as well not act at all, it may still be figuratively rep- 
 resented as asleep. This is the spiritual state of many. 
 Their powers appear to be in active exercise, but they 
 are spent on trifles. Even when they think of serious 
 things in general, it is not of the great doctrines of 
 religion — the substantial truth of God, but of enigmas, 
 difficulties, puzzles in theology, about which men 
 may speculate for ages, without reaching any satis- 
 factory j-esult, or doing any good to themselves or 
 others. Such minds may seem wide awake, but they 
 are walking and talking in their sleep ; just as in real 
 life we meet with cases where the person performs 
 certain acts with vigour and precision, but not such 
 as belong to his present situation : he is asleep. The 
 mind which is asleep in this sense, never proves itself 
 awake, imtil it turns away from its beloved theme of 
 speculation to the matters which deserve and claim 
 its attention. 
 
 Eut even when it does this, it may still come short 
 of the desired and necessary end, by thinking to no 
 practical purpose. We may think, think in earnest, 
 think with vigour, think coherently, think seasonably, 
 think of the right things, yet think of them merely as 
 themes of speculation, without any reference to our 
 own duty, or practical concern in them. This is the 
 case of those who hear the gospel, and read the Scrip- 
 tures, and think much of religion, but still keep it at 
 arm's length, or still further off from any personal 
 contact with themselves, or with any thing beyond 
 their understandings or their speculative faculties.
 
 ' MARK 13, 37. 383 
 
 Tliis leads me iii the next place to observe, that 
 tlie conscience as well as the intellect mnst be awake 
 — the moral as well as the pnrely intellectual facul- 
 ties. There must be perception, not only of what is 
 true, but of what is right. A power of distinguish- 
 ing not only between true and false, but also between 
 right and wrong ; and that, not only in the abstract, 
 but in reference to ourselves, our own duty, and our 
 own transgressions. If the conscience is asleep, no 
 liveliness of intellect can make up the deficiency. 
 We are but talking in our sleep. We are not spir- 
 itually awake. And lastly, in addition to all this, 
 the heart must be awake. There must be liveliness 
 of affection no less than of intellect. We must not 
 only feel bound, but feel disposed to do the will of 
 God. We must see the coincidence of what is rio-lit 
 with what is good and pleasant. When all these con- 
 ditions are complied with — when the mind, the con- 
 science, and the heart, all act, and act in harmony — 
 when the man thinks in earnest, and coherently, and 
 seasonably of right objects and to practical purpose — 
 when he feels his obligations, and his failures to dis- 
 charge them — when he earnestly desires, and sin- 
 cerely loves what he admits to be true and binding 
 — then indeed he maybe said, in tlie lilglicst spiritual 
 sense, to be awake. And being thus awake, he is a 
 proper subject of the second precept comprehended 
 in the text — Be on your guard ! 
 
 The figure is a military one. So much may de- 
 pend upon the vigilance even of a single soldier — so 
 many lives — so many personal and public interests — 
 so many subsequent and seemingly remote events —
 
 384 SERMONS. 
 
 that there is scarcely any situation in real life more 
 responsible. Hence the severity with which a 
 breach of trust or even an involuntary lapse of atten- 
 tion has been punished in all ages. To sleep upon 
 one's post might seem, at first sight, tO" be rather a 
 pitiable weakness than a crime — at least a crime de- 
 serving the extreme penalty of death, which has so 
 often been inflicted. But when the remote as well as 
 the immediate consequences of neglect in such a sta 
 tion are considered, the venial offence swells into a 
 crime of awful magnitude, and worthy of the highest 
 penalty. 
 
 But what is there analogous to this in the spir- 
 itual warfare ? At whose door are we stationed as 
 sentinels to watch, upon pain of death ? If I should 
 answer, at the door of every neighbour, friend, or fellow- 
 christian, some might be disposed to ask as Cain did 
 — Am I my brother's keeper ? For this cause, although 
 there is a real and important sense in which we may 
 be, figuratively, represented as sentinels over one 
 another, I shall confine myself to that watch which 
 every man is bound to keep over the citadel of his 
 own heart. The order given by the captain of our 
 salvation, is, " keep thy heart with all diligence, for 
 out of it are the issues of life." If a dereliction of 
 this duty were not liable to be j)unished by virtue 
 of a positive decree, it would still be punished by the 
 loss incurred, the total loss of that which can never 
 be supplied ; for what is a man profited if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a 
 man give in exchange for his soul ? 
 
 "With these views of the importance of the charge,
 
 MARK 13, 37. o§^ 
 
 let me again remind you that, altliongli it is essential, 
 it is not enough to be awake. This admits of illus- 
 tration from the case of literal, external watching. 
 See that sentry at the gate of an encampment or a 
 fortress — mark his measured tread, his martial i)ort, 
 his anxious though determined countenance — his 
 quiet and searching glance, as he repeats his constant 
 walk — that soldier is awake, but he is more — he is 
 upon his guard — his mind is full of his important 
 trust — he feels the weight of his responsibility. But 
 see — his frame becomes relaxed, his form grows less 
 erect, his movements lose their regular mechanical 
 succession — his look is vacant or abstracted, he no 
 longer looks afar oif and at hand in search of ap- 
 proaching danger, he has either forgotten it, or ceased 
 to reckon it so imminent. And yet the man is wide 
 awake ; not only are his eyes still open, but they see 
 surrounding objects ; all his senses are still active and 
 his mind, though distracted from his present duty, 
 is as much at work as ever ; for no sooner does the 
 slightest sound arouse him, than, as if by mao-ic, he 
 recovers his position, and the tension of his muscles, 
 he resumes his measured walk, his mingled air of 
 circumspection and defiance, and his look of bold 
 but anxious scrutiny. Even before, he was awake ; but 
 now he is awake, and at the same time on his guard. 
 Precisely the same difference exists between a 
 simple wakefulness in spiritual matters — a wakeful- 
 ness of imderstanding, conscience, and affection— and 
 the active exercise of spiritual vigilance ; this is im- 
 possible without the other, but the other does not 
 necessarily involve this. In both cases, ^. e., in the 
 
 VOL. I. — 17
 
 386 SERMONS. 
 
 literal and spiritual case snpfoscv, thert is a sensible 
 gradation of remissness or the opposite. We have 
 seen the sentry wholly losing, for a moment, the rec- 
 ollection of his solemn trust ; but this is not the only 
 "svay in which he may unconsciously betray it. Look 
 at him again. Every look, every motion, now betokens 
 concentration of his thoughts and feelings on the 
 danger which impends, and against which he is set 
 to watch. Perhaps he is now motionless, but it is 
 only that his eye may be more steadfastly fixed upon 
 the point from which the enemy's approach is appre- 
 hended. In that point his whole being seems to be 
 absorbed. And you can see at a glance that he is 
 ready, even for the first and faintest intimation of a 
 moving object on that dim horizon. But while he 
 stands like a statue, with his face turned towards that 
 dreaded point, look beyond him and behind him, at 
 those forms which are becoming every moment more 
 and more defined against the opposite quiirter of the 
 heavens. He hears them not, because their step is 
 noiseless ; he sees them not, because his eye and all 
 liis faculties are employed in an opposite direction. 
 While he strains every sense to catch the first inti- 
 mations of approaching danger, it is creeping stealthily 
 behind him, and when at last his ear distinguishes 
 the tramp of armed men, it is too late, for a hostile 
 hand is already on his shoulder, and if his life is 
 spared, it is only to be overpowered and disarmed, 
 without resistance. And yet that soldier was not only 
 awake but on his guard — his whole being was absorbed 
 in contemplation of the danger which impended ; but 
 alas, he viewed it as impending only from one quar-
 
 MARK 13, 37. 387 
 
 ter, and lost sight of it as really approaching from 
 another. AVe may even suppose that he was right in 
 looking where he did, and only wrong in looking 
 there exclusively. There was an enemy to be ex- 
 pected from that quarter, and if this had been the 
 only one, the sentry's duty would have been success- 
 fully performed ; but he was not aware, or had for- 
 gotten that the danger was a complex one — that while 
 the enemy delayed his coming, another might be just 
 at hand, and thus the very concentration of his watch- 
 fulness on one point, defeated its own purpose, by 
 withdrawing liis attention from all others. 
 
 By a sliglit shifting in the scene, I might present 
 to you the same man or another, gazing, not at one 
 point only, but at all, sweeping the whole visible 
 horizon with his eye as he maintains his martial vigil. 
 See with what restless activity his looks pass from one 
 distant point to another, as if resolved that nothing 
 shall escape him, that no imaginable source of danger 
 shall remain nnwatched. That man might seem to 
 be in every sense awake and on his guard — surprise 
 might seem to be impossible — but hark ! what sound 
 is that which suddenly disturbs him in his solitary 
 vigils? he looks hastily around him but sees nothing, 
 yet the sound is growing every moment louder and 
 more distinct — " a voice of noise from the city" — 
 "the voice of them that shout for mastery" — "the 
 voice of them that cry for being overcome ! " Doubt 
 is no longer possible — it is — it is behind him — yes, 
 the enemy for whom he looked so vigilantly, is within 
 the walls, and the banner which he thouijcht to have
 
 388 SERMONS. 
 
 seen waving at a distance, is floating in triumph just 
 above his head. 
 
 The cases which I have snpposed, are not mere 
 appeals to your imagination. They are full of instruc- 
 tion as to practical realities. They vividly present to 
 us, in figurative forms, the actual condition of the 
 soul in reference to spiritual dangers. It is just as 
 true of us, as of the soldier in the case supposed, that 
 we may fail of our duty and expose ourselves to 
 ruin, not only by actually falling asleep, but by want 
 of proper caution when awake — by forgetting the dan- 
 ger or by underrating it — by admitting its reality and 
 magnitude, but losing sight of its proximity and im- 
 minence — by looking for it from a quarter whence it 
 is not likely to proceed, while we turn our backs on 
 that from which it ought to be expected — by looking 
 for it with good reason from one quarter, but forget- 
 ting that it may proceed from others also — by looking 
 for one enemy instead of many — and above all, by 
 looking at a distance when the danger is at hand — 
 by exercising vigilance without, when the danger is 
 within — and vainly hoping to anticipate its first ap- 
 proaches, v.'hen the fight is finished and the bat- 
 tle lost. 
 
 If it be asked, "Who is the enemy against which 
 spiritual vigilance is called for, I repl}^, his name is 
 Legion. There is no end to the forms under which he 
 can disguise himself, nor to the arts which he can 
 practise — " We are not (wholly) ignorant of his de- 
 vices." But our spiritual dangers, although endlessly 
 diversified in their specific characters, may all be re- 
 solved into one, and that is sin. Indeed, all danger,
 
 MARK 13, S7. 389 
 
 wliethcr physical or moral, may bo traced back to 
 this source, for it is wholly incredible that suffering 
 could ever iiave existed without sin. But in reference 
 to spiritual dangers, it is still more emphatically true 
 that they are all reducible by ultimate analysis to 
 this same form. There is nothing to be spiritually 
 dreaded except sin and its effects. Whatever there- 
 fore tends to sin, not merely to the overt act, nor even 
 to specific acts of will, but to the love, the practice, 
 the dominion of iniquity, in any form or measure 
 whatsoever, is a danger to be dreaded and assiduously 
 watched against. And this extends not only to the 
 actual commission or indulgence, but to all exciting 
 and facilitating causes, such as are usually compre- 
 hended in the name temptation. However little you 
 may be aware of it, I tell you that temptation is your 
 danger, and the tempter your enemy. This danger, 
 this enemy, as I have said, appears in various dis- 
 guises, and assails us from a thousand different rpiar- 
 ters. Our vigilance must, therefore, be a constant and 
 a universal vigilance, or we can have no confidence of 
 safety. 
 
 To concentrate and define our vague conceptions 
 of a multiform peril, we may group the innumerable 
 dangers which surround us, under several descriptive 
 heads ; and these, in accordance with the figure hith- 
 erto adopted, and as I think implicitly suggested by 
 the text, may be enumerated as so many distinct 
 quarters from which danger threatens us, and towards 
 M'hich our vigilance must therefore be directed. 
 
 The first that I shall mention is the devil, both iis 
 an indiN'idual spirit and as representing the collective
 
 390 SERMONS. 
 
 hosts of hell, the aggregate of ^lie powers of dark- 
 ness. This, of all spiritual clangers, is the one which 
 most men look upon as most remote and least sub- 
 stantial. However readily they may assent to what 
 is theoretically taught upon the subject, they are 
 practically less afraid of this than of any other ad- 
 verse power. Nay, some professed believers in the 
 Bible are by no means loth to join in the derisive 
 language of the irreligious as to this mysterious sub- 
 ject. Be it so. Let those who can, derive amusement 
 from the doctrine of a fallen spirit, far superior to 
 ourselves in original intelligence, and now possessed 
 of faculties strengthened and sharpened by the malig- 
 nant activity of ages, allowed access to the minds of 
 men, and suffered to exert a moral influence upon 
 them, though deprived of all coercive power. But 
 let such, even while they laugh, remember that the 
 time may not be far off when they shall perceive their 
 situation to be that of the soldier or the general Avho 
 denies and even lauglis at the existence of a certain 
 enemy, until he is suddenly convinced, by being 
 crushed beneath the very force which he derided as 
 imaginary. If the sentinel be justly doomed to death 
 who jeopards his own life and that of others by ne- 
 glect, or even by too narrow an attention to his trust, 
 what shall be said of him -who does the same by 
 making light of the existence of the danger. With 
 this premonition of the change which may take place 
 hereafter in your views upon this subject, I am not 
 ashamed to say to the most incredulous among you, 
 in the words of the apostle Peter, " be sober, be 
 vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, like a 
 
 n
 
 MARK 13, 37. 301 
 
 roaring lion, goetli about, seeking wliom lie may de- 
 vour." 
 
 Another qnartcr from whicli danger is always to 
 
 be appreliended, is the World, a term by which the 
 Scriptures designate the complex influence exerted by 
 mankind upon each other, not as individuals merely, 
 but as elements of human society, whether this influ- 
 ence be brought to bear upon the opinions, the pas- 
 sions, or the appetites ; whether the bait presented 
 be that of sensual enjoyment, social popularity, offi- 
 cial rank, civil jjower or military glory, intellectual 
 fame, or mere inglorious ease and exemption from an- 
 noyance. The reality of this danger, few will dare to 
 question. Some may be ready to exclaim, we know 
 what this is, we believe in its existence, we have felt 
 its power. Whether there be an infernal devil or 
 not, we know that there are devilish powers at work 
 in human society. The young and inexjierienced, 
 who have not been sucked into this fearful whirlpool, 
 may swim carelessly around it, but you whose hearts 
 have been already blighted, and your consciences 
 seared perhaps as with a hot iron ; you know, although 
 you may not choose to tell, what depths of meaning 
 are contained in that one syllable — the world, the 
 world. You know too, that it is not, as the young 
 sometimes imagine, the enmity, the scorn, the hatred, 
 the oppressions, wrongs, or persecutions, of the wicked 
 world, that constitute the danger, but its smiles, its 
 blandishments, its friendship ; " know ye not," says 
 the apostle James, " that the friendship of the world 
 is enmity with God ; whosoever therefore will be a 
 friend of the world is the enemy of God."
 
 392 SERMONS. 
 
 But neitliei" world nor devil woidd be objects of 
 alai'in and appreliensioii, if tliey always remained 
 witliout ns and external to ns ; what makes tliem 
 dangcrons is tliat tliey get within ns, they obtain a 
 lodgment in our hearts, they are leagued with our 
 own corruptions ; hence the third and most alarming 
 source of spiritual danger is ourselves, the last to be 
 suspected and the hardest to be watched, and yet the 
 most in need of our suspicion and our vigilance, be- 
 cause one enemy within the camp or fortress is worse 
 than many foes without; because one traitor is more 
 to be dreaded than a host of open enemies. Yet such 
 is our condition, -exposed all at once to these three 
 dangers, any one of which would seem sufficient to 
 destroy us ; the World, the Flesh, and the Devil ; 
 seduced to evil by human example, urged to it by 
 demoniacal suggestion, and inclined to it already by 
 the very dispositions of our fallen nature ; assailed 
 without by the united hosts of earth and hell, be- 
 trayed within by our own corruptions, bound hand 
 and foot, and left to float upon the rapid current 
 which every hour brings us nearer to the judgment 
 scat of Christ. 
 
 "While such is our condition, how can we look for- 
 ward with joy to his appearing? This is a painful 
 thouo-ht, but one which cannot be avoided, that to 
 these three dangers which have been already men- 
 tioned, we must add as a fourth the coming of our 
 Lord. Is he then our enemy, from whose approach 
 we ought to shrink back in terror ? It may be so. 
 Let us see to it that it is not so ; let us so resist our 
 spiritual foes, and watch against them, as to meet him
 
 MARK 13, S7. 393 
 
 when lie comes with joy and not with grief. Let us 
 so live as to show that we are not of those who shall 
 hereafter call upon the rocks and raountains to con 
 ceal us from his view, but of those who sincerely love 
 his aj)pearing. We have surely no need of additional 
 inducements to obey the exhortation of the text. 
 
 The only question that remains is, how shall we 
 obey it ? We have seen the necessity and duty of 
 spiritual watchfulness and wherein it essentially con 
 sists, but we are like the sick man who is told of his 
 disease and of the remedy, but still looks round for 
 some one jto apply it. It is natural to ask : is there 
 not some safeguard, some appointed tried means of 
 spiritual safety, something that will at once secure our 
 vigilance and make it efficacious ? Tes, there is such a 
 talisman, and its name is prayer ; not the mere act of 
 supplication or devotion, whether audible or mental, 
 but that prayerful attitude or frame of mind, which 
 is ever ready to commune with God, and of which 
 Paul could say, without extravagance, and meaning 
 to the letter what he did say : " Pray without ceas- 
 ing;" that settled bent of the affections which makes 
 actual devotion not a rare experience, but the normal 
 condition of the soul, to which it naturally flies back 
 whenever it escapes from any temporaiy pressure. 
 This prayerful habit is repeatedly connected in the 
 word of God with watch ; " Watch and pray lest ye 
 enter into temptation." " Continue in prayer, and 
 watch in the same with thanksgiving." And Paul 
 in that sublime description of the j)anoply of God 
 (Eph. 6,) seems to add this as essential to the efficacy 
 of the rest, for after urging them to take the girdle 
 
 VOL. I. — 17*
 
 394 SERMONS 
 
 of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield ot 
 faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the 
 Spirit which is the word of God, he crowns all with 
 this closing exhortation, "praying always -vnth all 
 prayer and supplication in tlie Spirit, and watching 
 thereunto with all perseverance." Thus it seems we 
 must watch that we may pray, and pray that we may 
 watch. The influence which prayer exerts is easily 
 explained. It operates by keeping the mind ever 
 awake and in a state of healthful activity, by keeping 
 it in contact with the best and highest objects, and 
 bringing the affections and the powers to bear pri- 
 marily upon them. 
 
 If then we would watch to any good effect against 
 our spiritual dangers, let us pray without ceasing, let 
 us breathe the atmosphere of genuine devotion. And 
 in this way we shall do far more than escape injury. 
 The benefit of prayerful vigilance is not merely neg- 
 ative but positive, a blessing is suspended on it. In 
 the present state, the best of us are like men that 
 wait for their lord, that when he cometh and knock- 
 eth we may open unto him. Already the flashing of 
 hii5 torches is beginning to illuminate the darkness, 
 already the voice of his forerunners comes through the 
 silent night saying. Be ye also ready ; and amidst 
 those cries, his own voice may be heard still afar off, 
 saying, " What I say unto you, I say unto all. 
 Watch." "Watch and pray that ye enter not into 
 temptation." " Blessed are those servants whom the 
 Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching ; whether 
 he come in the second watch, or come in the third 
 watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants."
 
 XXI. 
 
 llATTnKAY 21, G. — The cud is not yet. 
 
 TiiE prophetical discourse, of wliicli this sentence 
 forms a part, has been the subject of confficting ex- 
 planation, ever since it was originally uttered. The 
 grand difficulty lies in the appropriateness of its terms 
 to two distinct and distant events, the end of the 
 world and the destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 But whether we assume, with some interpreters, 
 that the one catastrophe was meant to typify the 
 other ; or with another class, that the discourse may 
 be mechanically divided, by assuming a transition at 
 a certain point from one of these great subjects to the 
 other ; or with a third, that it describes a sequence of 
 events to be repeated more than once, a prediction to 
 be verified, not once for all, nor yet by a continuous 
 progressive series of events, but in stages and at in- 
 tervals, like repeated flashes of lightning, or the pe- 
 riodical germination of the fig-tree, or the re-assembling 
 of the birds of prey, whenever and wherever a new 
 carcass tempts them ; upon any of tlicse various sup- 
 positions, it is still true that the primary fulfilment 
 of the prophecy was in the dow]ifall of the Jewish
 
 896 SERMONS. 
 
 state, with the previous or accompanying change of 
 dispensations ; and yet that it was so framed, as to 
 leave it doubtful, until the event, whether a still more 
 terrible catastrophe was nc t intended. However clear 
 the contrary may now seem to us, there was nothing 
 absurd in the opinion which so many entertained that 
 the end of the world and of the old economy might 
 be coincident. This ambiguity is not accidental but 
 designed, as in many other prophecies of Scripture. 
 
 Another striking feature in the form of this dis- 
 course, is the precision with which several stages or 
 degrees of the fulfilment are distinguished from each 
 other, each affording the occasion and the premonition 
 of the next until the close of the whole series. Of 
 these successive periods or scenes of the great drama, 
 each might, considered in itself, have seemed to be 
 the last. And no doubt each as it occurred was so 
 regarded even by some who had been forewarned by 
 Christ himself. To correct this error and prepare tlie 
 minds of true believers for the whole that was to 
 come upon them, he says, at the close of the first 
 scene, " see that ye be not troubled, for all these 
 things must come to pass, but the end is not yet;" 
 or, as Luke expresses it, " the end is not by and by," 
 i. e. immediately. And again at the close of the next 
 stage of this great revolution, " all these are the be- 
 ginning of sorrows." 
 
 The same intimation, although not expressed, may 
 be supplied throughout the prophecy. At every 
 solemn pause, until the last, a kind of echo seems to 
 say again, " the end is not yet." When the predic- 
 tion was fulfilled, we may easily imagine the impres-
 
 MATTHEW 24, i 397 
 
 Bion wliicli this well-remembered formula v\'ould make 
 upon tlie minds of the disciples. As each new sign 
 aj^peared, they Avere no doubt ready to exclaim, the 
 end comcth, and as each gave way to another, the end 
 is not yet. And Avhat was thus true of the several 
 stages of this great catastrophe was also true of the 
 whole. The impression made on many by the very 
 structure of the prophecy, that the Jewish state and 
 the world would come to an end together, was no 
 sooner rectified by the event, than multitudes who 
 had been breathlessly awaiting the result, as they 
 again respired freely, cried out to themselves or 
 others, the end is not yet. The need of this caution 
 has not ceased. Men have ever since been and are 
 still too much disposed to precipitate the fulfilment 
 of God's purposes, and to confound " the beginning 
 of sorrow" with "the end." They are slow to learn 
 the lesson that " the believer will not make haste," 
 that an important element of faith in the divine en- 
 gagements is a disposition to leave time and every 
 other circumstance to God himself, a disposition per- 
 fectly consistent with intense desire and urgent im- 
 portunity. There is something curious in the diifer- 
 ence of men's feelings and opinions with respect to 
 the life of individuals, and to that of the race or the 
 continued existence of this present world. The great 
 majority of men live as if they were to live for ever. 
 The efi'ect of this upon their character and lives af- 
 fords a constant, theme to moralists and preachers of 
 the gospel. In all this there is only a misapplication 
 or undue restriction of a principle inherent in our 
 very constitution. Man is immortal, and was made
 
 398 SERMONS. 
 
 for immortality. He cannot, if lie would, look only 
 at tlic present and the past. He must feel and act 
 for the future also. And that not only for a definite 
 or proximate futurity, but also for one more remote 
 and undefined, the boundless field of what is yet to 
 be. The practical error lies in confounding endless 
 existence with an endless prolongation of the present 
 life. Tlie negation of all end is confounded with ex- 
 emption from all change. The more profoundly men 
 reflect, the more they are brought off from this illu- 
 sion. But so long as they are heedless and controlled 
 by natural feeling, they expect to live forever. Ko 
 extent of observation, no degree of familiarity with 
 death and its accompanying changes is sufiicient to 
 correct this practical error, for of course it can have 
 no theoretical existence. 
 
 But the most surprising fact of all is that these 
 views may co-exist with a strong disposition to expect 
 a speedy termination of the whole system under which 
 we live. The certainty of this fact is clear from the 
 effect of those fanatical predictions which at different 
 times have agitated Christendom. Li all such cases 
 the panic has had reference to the end of the world. 
 Let this be quelled, and all fear is extinguished. It 
 does not occur to the alarmist that however probable 
 the near approach of tlie event may be made by cal- 
 culation or by reasoning, it never can be rendered 
 half so certain as his own death in the course of 
 nature at no distant period. Xay, the probability of 
 this inevitable change occurring even speedily must 
 alM^ays transcend that of a speedy occurrence of the 
 final consummation. Yet the oldest and the least
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 399 
 
 prepared to die remain unmoved by tliis appalling 
 certainty, althoiigh tliey would be terrified by any 
 intimation that tbe world was to continne but a 
 twelvemonth longer. It matters not that they may 
 die to-morrow or to-day, if they can only be assnred 
 that the end of the world is not immediately at hand. 
 In some cases it is easy to refer these very diifer- ^ 
 ent effects to one and the same cause. The self-love 
 which forbids some men to look npon themselves as 
 mortal, makes them equally unwilling, when this 
 truth is forced upon them, to allow a longer term to 
 others. If they must die, let humanity die with them. 
 Something of this selfish feeling no doubt enters into 
 the strong disposition of some good men in all ages, 
 to regard their own times as the last, and to fix the 
 winding up of the great drama as near as may" be to 
 their own disappearance from the stage. As Herod 
 the Great is said to have ordered a large number of 
 distinguished persons to be massacred as soon as he 
 was dead, in order that his death might not be wholly 
 unaccompanied by mourning, so the class in question 
 seem to look upon the end of the world as a necessary 
 part of their own obsequies. The impression of ap- 
 proaching change and dissolution, which is perfectly 
 appropriate to their own case, is transferred by a nat- 
 ural association to the scene which they are leaving, 
 as if it were out of the question that the world can 
 get along without them. 
 
 This pardonable vanity, if such it may be called, 
 seeks, of course, to justify itself by the authority of 
 scripture. Hence the prophecies are tortured into 
 confirmation c»f the fact assumed, and every art of
 
 4:00 SERMONS. 
 
 calculation and construction is employed to bring tlie 
 end of the worll as near as may be into coincidence 
 with that of the interpreter. 'Nor have these been 
 barren and inoperative speculations. Their effect has 
 been immense and sometimes long continued, both on 
 individuals and whole communities. The most re- 
 markable exemplification of the general statement, is 
 afforded by the memorable panic which diffused itself 
 through Christendom at the approach of the year 
 1,000. The belief had been gradually gaining ground 
 that the close of this millennium, or first period of a 
 thousand years, was to be the final close of human 
 history. As the fatal term drew near, the supersti- 
 tious dread associated with it grew continually more 
 intense and powerful in its effects. These, as dis- 
 closed by the historical research of modern times, 
 have more the aspect of romance than of true history. 
 They might indeed be tliouglit incredible, but for the 
 like eftects of the same causes in our own times, on a 
 smaller scale and in less imposing circumstances. One 
 of the most striking facts recorded, is, that a large 
 portion of those massive, medieval structures which 
 now constitute the monuments of those times, were, at 
 least, i3rojected under the first impulse of recovered 
 hope, occasioned by the transit of the fatal era. They 
 who, a little while before, were throwing away treas- 
 ures and abandoning estates as henceforth worthless, 
 by a natural reaction, now rushed into the opposite 
 extreme, and began to build as for eternity. 
 
 However improbable the actual recurrence of such 
 scenes may now appear, the j^rinciple frcm which 
 they spring has been too often manifested, to be looked
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 401 
 
 upon as temporary or accidental. It continues to ex- 
 ist and to exert its power, not always with the same 
 effect or to the same extent, but so far constantly and 
 uniformly, as to make it an interesting subject of in- 
 quiry what we ought to think, and how we ought to 
 feel and act in reference to it, as connected with our 
 own times and circumstances. "What I believe to be 
 the true solution of this question may be reduced to 
 these two propositions : 
 
 1. So far as we have any means of judging, the 
 end is not yet. 
 
 2. So far as it remains a matter of doubt, it is 
 better to assume that the end is not yd., than to as- 
 sume the contrary. 
 
 1. So far as we ha\'c any means of judgixig, the 
 end is not yet. This may be argued negatively and 
 positively. The negative argument is this, that there 
 are no conclusive indications of a speedy end, afforded 
 either by the word of God or the condition of the 
 world. Such indications are indeed alleged, and that 
 with confidence, but they have no conclusive force, 
 because, in the first place, they rest upon gratuitous 
 assumptions. It is assumed, for instance, that a cer- 
 tain form or pitch of moral depravation is incompati- 
 ble with the continued existence of society. That 
 there is or may be a degree of Avickedness irrecon- 
 cilable with any social organization, is too clear to 
 be disputed. But it does not follow that the present 
 condition of the world is such. Such a conclusion is 
 not warranted by the mere degree of actual corrup- 
 tion, however great, because we do not know how 
 much is necessary t^ the end in question, and any at-
 
 402 SERMOXS. 
 
 tempt to determine it must rest on a gratuitous as- 
 sumption. 
 
 The same thing is true as to the real or supposed 
 predictions of the final consummation in the word of 
 God. That these were meant, not merely to assert 
 the general fact, and in some cases to describe the 
 attendant circumstances, but to afford specific indica- 
 tions of the very time of its occurrence, so that it may 
 be distinctly known beforehand ; all this is assumed 
 in the usual reasoning on the subject, but assumed 
 without proof. It is not more easy to affirm than to 
 deny it. Whatever plausibility there may be in the 
 sense thus put upon the passage in question, there can 
 be no certainty. It is not necessary to maintain that 
 this cannot be the meaning. It is enough to know 
 that it may not be. The position taken is not that 
 the proofs alleged are manifestly false, but that they 
 are inconclusive ; they prove nothing, because they 
 rest upon gratuitous assumptions. This, by itself, 
 would be enough to justify the negative position, that 
 we have no sufficient reason to believe that the end 
 is at hand. • 
 
 But the same thing is still clearer from experience. 
 These signs have all been misapplied before. There 
 is perhaps not a single indication now made use of 
 for this purpose, that has not been so employed in 
 former ages. Every striking coincidence, every verbal 
 allusion, has b^en weighed already in this balance 
 and found wanting. Nay, arithmetic itself, of which 
 it has been said, the figures cannot lie, has here misled 
 its thousands. The most positive numerical specifi- 
 cations may be varied indefinitely by the variation of
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 403 
 
 the term from which they are to be computed. The 
 millennium of the Book of Eevelation has by turns 
 been proved to be present, joast, and future. All this 
 argues no defect or error in the Scriptures, but onl}- 
 something wrong in the interpretation. When any 
 thing can thus be made to mean any thing, we have 
 reason to believe that it was not intended to reveal so 
 much as we imagine. In other words, the passages 
 of scripture thus appealed to, having been applied be- 
 fore in the same way and with equal plausibility, and 
 the ap])lication falsified by the event, we are naturally 
 brought to the conclusion, that they never were in- 
 tended to disclose so much as some are able to per- 
 ceive in them. 
 
 "We may reason in the same way, from experience, 
 with respect to the condition of society and the degree 
 of actual corruption. The extraordinary abounding of 
 iniquity at any one time, in itself considered, might 
 well lead us to believe that such depravation must be 
 preparatory to the final dissolution of society. But when 
 we find analogous appearances insisted on, from age to 
 age, with equal confidence, in proof of the same thing, 
 and the proof as constantly annulled by the event, 
 we may not unreasonably hesitate to rest upon such 
 evidence in this case, and conclude that tests, which 
 have always led to false results before, must be at 
 least defective, and their testimony inconclusive. 
 Whether we look, then, at the word of God or at the 
 world around us, or compare the condition of the one 
 with the predictions of the other, we have no satisfac- 
 tory or adequate ground for the conclusion that " the 
 end of all things is at hand " in this sense.
 
 404 SERMONS. 
 
 Let us now look lor a moment at tlie positive ar- 
 gument in favour of the same position, wb'.cli ttiAy be 
 conveniently reduced to this form, that the fulfibnent 
 of the Scriptures is still incomplete, and will require a 
 long time for its completion. 
 
 In support of this, we may appeal in general to 
 the grand and comprehensive scale on which the 
 divine purposes are projected in the Scrijjtures. The 
 natural impression made, perhaps, on all unbiassed 
 readers, is, that in the Bible there are vast beginnings, 
 which require proportionate conclusions even in the 
 present life. There are germs which were never 
 meant to be developed in the stunted shrub, but in 
 the spreading oak. There are springs in tracing which 
 we cannot stop short at the brook or even at the 
 river, but are hurried on, as if against our will, to the 
 lake, the estuary, and the ocean. Every such reader 
 of the Bible feels that it conducts him to the threshold 
 of a mighty pile, and opens many doors, through 
 which he gets a distant glimpse of long-drawn aisles, 
 vast halls, and endless passages; and how can he be- 
 lieve that this glimpse is the last that he shall sec, 
 and that the edifice itself is to be razed, before he steps 
 across the threshold. 
 
 This impression made by the very structure of the 
 Scriptures is confirmed by their j)eculiar j)hraseology, 
 the constant use of language pointing not to sudden 
 instantaneous revolutions, but to long-continued dila- 
 tory processes of change, decay, and restoration, dis- 
 solution, and relapse, which have as yet but had their 
 beginning, and the full course of whicb can only be 
 completed in a cycle of ages. And besides these gen-
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 405 
 
 eral considerations, fonnded on tlie structt re of tlie 
 dialect of Scripture, we can specify particular changes 
 whicli have scarcely yet become perceptible, but of 
 which the Bible leads us to anticipate the end and the 
 completion before " the end cometh," 
 
 One of these is the universal spread of the gospel. 
 Without insisting on particular predictions of this 
 great event, we may appeal to the general impression 
 made upon all readers of the Bible, that it must and 
 will take place before the end of the existing dispen- 
 sation. Closely allied to this, as one of its conspicuous 
 effects, is the regeneration of the race, the reconstruc- 
 tion of society, the realization of those glowing pic- 
 tures of the earth and its inhabitants, which can 
 neither be explained as day-dreams of an imaginary 
 golden age, nor as poetical anticipations of the joys 
 of heaven. ISTor do the Scriptures lead us to expect 
 a mere restoration, but a continued exhibition of the 
 race, and of society in its normal state, contrasted 
 with its previous corruptions and distortions. 
 
 To these and other mighty changes we must look, 
 not only as important means of human elevation, but 
 as necessary to the vindication of the truth of proph- 
 ecy. The longer its fullilment is delayed, provided 
 it is clearly verified at last, the stronger is the proof 
 of divine foresight. This is enhanced still further if 
 the fulfilment of the prophecy is gradual, or marked 
 by a series of gradations. The longer the intervals 
 between these the more striking the fulfilment, if the 
 several gradations can be clearly ascertained and their 
 mutual connection rendered palpable. Now there 
 certainly are such predictions even now in the process
 
 406 SERMONS. 
 
 of fullilnieiit, and the very fact of their existence is a 
 strong proof that tTie end is not yet. 
 
 Before this comes, there is still another object 
 which must be accomplished. This is the vindication 
 of the Scriptures generally from the doubts engen 
 dered by aj^parent inconsistencies not only with it 
 self but with history, with science, with the principles 
 of morals. These clouds are not to rest forever on the 
 word of God, nor are they merely to be scattered by 
 the brightness of the final conflagration or the clear 
 sunlight of eternal day. We have cheering reason to 
 believe that the reconciliations which have been ef- 
 fected in our own day between different forms of 
 truth, are but the foretaste and the pledge of what is 
 to be done hereafter and before the end cometh. 
 
 It may indeed be urged in opposition to this ar- 
 gument, that all these changes may be suddenly and 
 speedily effected, so that their necessity proves noth- 
 ing as to the nearness or remoteness of the final con- 
 summation. That such an issue is within the reach 
 of the divine omnipotence, cannot be doubted. But 
 it does not follow that because God can, he will pro- 
 duce a certain effect, or that his power is the measure 
 of his wisdom or his actual purpose. His wisdom, 
 on the contrary, controls the exercise of his jDower. 
 Such a sudden termination of the system, therefore, 
 although possible, is far from being probable, because 
 some of the proofs, by which the truth of the divine 
 word is to be established, from their very nature seem 
 to require time for their perfect exhibition. 
 
 If, for example, it is one of the great pui-poses dis- 
 closed in Scripture to exhibit human society in ita
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 407 
 
 normal state, and tlie effects of holiness compared 
 with those of sin, it is not easy to imagine how this 
 could he hronght ahout hy any sudden, partial, tran- 
 sient revolution, which, although it might illustrate 
 the omnipotence of God, could scarcely serve to show 
 the operation of moral causes. And even where a 
 longer period does not seem to be required by the 
 very nature of the proof itself, it may be necessary to 
 its full eifect, as in the case of prophecy, which, as 
 we have already seen, becomes impressive and con- 
 clusive, as an evidence of prescience, in proportion to 
 the number and remoteness of the points at which its 
 fulfilment may be verified. A prophecy fulfilled the 
 day after its date may leave no doubt as to its origin, 
 but what a cumulative increase in the clearness of the 
 evidence and in the scope of its eftect would be pro- 
 duced by successively enlarging the interval between 
 the date and the fulfilment to a week, a month, a 
 year, a generation, a century, a millennium! 
 
 Now if some signal prophecies have as yet been 
 but partially fulfilled, and the fulfilment thus far has 
 been marked by numerous gradations and divided by 
 long intervals, tliere is at least a probability that what 
 remains will exhibit the same aspect, and will there- 
 fore require time for its development. The sum of 
 these considerations, negative and positive, appears 
 to be, that there is no conclusive indication of a 
 speedy end ; that, on the contrary, there are strong 
 reasons for believing that it is remote ; but that even 
 these are insuflicient to decide the question absolute- 
 ly ; so that, after all, it is a doubtful point. Regard- 
 ing it as such, we may naturally hesitate between two
 
 408 SERMONS. 
 
 courses. Shall we, on the one hand, follow the pre- 
 ponderating evidence in favour of a distant consum- 
 mation ? or shall we, on the other, take what seems to 
 be the safer course of looking for that soon which onay 
 be still far distant, but which may be already at the 
 very door ? In other words, considering the case as 
 doubtful, is it better to proceed upon the supposition 
 that the end is near, or upon the supposition that the 
 end is not yet ? 
 
 This is a question both of principle and practice, 
 and the way in which it is decided may exert, as we 
 shall see, no feeble influence upon the character and 
 life. It is therefore worthy of a brief but serious con- 
 sideration, the result of which may serve as the prac- 
 tical improvement of a subject that might otherwise 
 seem rather to belong to the class of curious and 
 subtle speculations, than to that of experimental 
 ti'uths or Christian duties. To what quarter shall we 
 look then for an adequate solution of this question ? 
 
 The first consideration that presents itself is this : 
 that the A^cry doubt in which the Scriptures leave the 
 thing involved, creates a presumption that it was not 
 meant to influence our conduct by the expectation of 
 this great event as just at hand. This, however, is at 
 variance with the general analogy of revelation, in 
 which, though every thing of absolute necessity is 
 clear, yet many things of high practical importance 
 are left to be determined by laborious scrutiny and 
 processes of reasoning. There is nothing therefore 
 in the mere dubiety of this case to forbid the suppo- 
 sition that its practical design was to keep men in a 
 constant attitude of expectation. But the probability
 
 MATTHEW 24, 6. 4()9 
 
 of this is greatly lessened by the fact, already shown, 
 that the proofs are not in equilibrio, but preponderate 
 in favour of the negative conclusion, although insuf- 
 ficient to establish it. It can hardly be supposed that 
 in order to maintain a healthful expectation of ap- 
 proaching change, they would be so mentioned as to 
 favour the belief that they are still far distant. Noth- 
 ing indeed could warrant this assumption but experi- 
 mental proof that the belief just mentioned has neces- 
 sarily a bad effect. But so far is this from being 
 certain or admitted, that the contrary admits of a 
 most plausible defence. The expectation of a speedy 
 end seems naturally suited to enervate, nay to para- 
 lyze exertion, while the opposite belief invigorates it. 
 Ko less dissimilar is the effect of these two causes, 
 in relation to the credit and authority of Scripture. 
 The perpetual failure of the signs, which some see 
 there, of instant dissolution, though it only proves 
 the falsehood of the principle assumed, has a practical 
 tendency to bring the word of God itself into dis- 
 credit, as if these ever-shifting whims and fancies of 
 professed interpreters were really expedients necessary 
 to disguise or palliate the failure of predictions which 
 events have falsified. The existence of this danger is 
 apparent from the ill-concealed contempt with which 
 the irreh'gious argue, from the failure of fanatical 
 predictions, to the worthlessness of prophecy in gen- 
 eral. But no such inconvenience could result from 
 the other supposition, even if it should be falsified by 
 the gpeedy occurrence of the thing which it assmnea 
 to be remote, because the failure could occur but once, 
 and then in circumstances utterly exclusive of effects 
 
 VOL. I. — 18
 
 410 SERMONS. 
 
 L*ke those which have been just described as flowing 
 from the constant repetition of mistake and failure 
 on the part of those who undertake to fix an early 
 day and hour for the end of the world. 
 
 The other doctrine would seem therefore to be 
 safer, both as respects the honour of the Scriptures, 
 and the zeal of Christian enterprise. The only prac- 
 tical advantage of the same kind which can well be 
 claimed for the opposite opinion is that it leads men 
 to be always ready, as our Lord requires. This is, 
 in fact, the grand recommendation of the theory, and 
 that to which it owes its currency among some truly 
 devout Christians. Yet it rests upon a fallacy, for it 
 confounds the life of individuals with the existence of 
 the race on earth. The readiness which Christ re- 
 quires of us is a personal readiness to leave the world 
 and meet our God. This has existed in the case of 
 thousands who had no such expectation as the one in 
 question. The necessity of this individual prepara- 
 tion cannot justify the sacrifice of higher interests, or 
 dispense with the discharge of duties which we owe 
 not only to ourselves but to our successors, to the 
 church, to society, to human kind. 
 
 This preparation too for personal departm-e is not 
 secured by a belief in the approach of the great final 
 catastrophe. iN'o such belief has ever wrought it. 
 Where it really exists, it is preceded by a due sense 
 of the shortness and uncertainty of life, and the im- 
 portance of the interests suspended on it, without any 
 reference whatever to the subsequent continuation 
 or destruction of the world. The strongest possible 
 persuasion that this world is yet to last for ages, may
 
 MATIHEW 24, 6. 411 
 
 exist, because ii nas existed, in connection with tlie 
 deepest sense of men's mortality and need of con- 
 stant preparation for the great change which awaits 
 them all without exception. But if the two convic- 
 tions are thus perfectly compatible, we cannot of 
 course argue from the requisition of the one to the 
 exclusion of the other. The duty of constant prep- 
 aration for the end of our career, may be truly and 
 successfully performed by those who honestly believe 
 that the existing state of things is to continue perhaps 
 ages after they are themselves forgotten. 
 
 It may still be urged, however, that this state of 
 mind exposes those who entertain it to be taken by 
 surprise. What, it is sometimes said, if after all, the 
 great event should be at hand, how fearful the sur- 
 prise of those who fancy it to be still distant ! Here 
 again we may see traces of that same confusion of 
 ideas which has been already mentioned. If men are 
 unprepared to die, they will be just as much sur- 
 prised by death, as by the coming of the end while 
 they are living. If prepared to die, they are pre- 
 pared for any thing. However great or sudden the 
 surprise, it cannot be to them a fearful one. And if 
 divested of this attribute, surprise is not an evil. Joy 
 involves surprise as well as horror. Some of the most 
 exquisite sensations of delight which have ever been 
 experienced, have taken those who felt them by sur- 
 prise. Kay, exclude all thought of danger, doubt, or 
 fear from your conception of surprise, and most men 
 would deliberately choose it, in preference even to the 
 fullest opportunity of calculation, measurement, and 
 deliberate foresight. But whether this be so or not,
 
 il 2 SERMOXS 
 
 WO know that the catastrophe in question will take 
 most men by snrj)rise at last, and not only the un- 
 thinking and the reckless, but the sober, the eonsid 
 crate, the wise. 
 
 This seems to be a necessary feature of the provi- 
 dential scheme imperfectly disclosed to us in Scrip- 
 ture ; and among the means by which it is secured, 
 may probably be reckoned that very ambiguity of 
 Scripture which has given rise to so much fruitless 
 controversy, and to so many vain attempts to render 
 clear and definite, w^hat God has left obscure and 
 vague until the time for a fuller revelation shall have 
 come. There is no advantage, therefore, upon either 
 side in this respect, and if there were, there would be 
 nothing in the mere risk of surprise, even though it 
 were unavoidable, to make the state of the believer 
 less secure, or that of the unbeliever more so. 
 
 If it be true, then, that the supposition of a distant 
 end diverts the thoughts of men from this great 
 change, it is only by transferring them to one still 
 more momentous, because more closely connected 
 with the loss or gain of personal salvation, because 
 perfectly inevitable in reference to every individual 
 of every generation but the last, and because accord- 
 ing to the most indulgent computation, " not far from 
 every one of us." Whether we look then at the 
 absence of all certain indications that the end of the 
 world is at hand, or at the existence of some striking 
 proof that it is still far distant, or at the practical 
 effect of both opinions, we may safely rest in the con- 
 clusion, that so far as we can judge at all, the end is 
 not yet, and that so far as we are in doubt, it is better
 
 MATTHEW 24, G. 413 
 
 for ourselves and (.ithers to si.ipf£>se that the end is 
 not yet than to suppose the contrary. 
 
 Tlie practical conclusion to which these theoretical 
 conclusions ])oint is obvious enough. Let us first of 
 all prepare to die, and thus in the most effectual way 
 prepare to live. This preparation is of course not to 
 be made by needlessly anticipating cares which are ap- 
 propriate only to the time of actual departure, but by 
 the doing of our present duty, in reliance upon that 
 grace which provides for all emergencies, but seldom 
 grants to one the aid appropriate to another. Having 
 made this indispensable provision for the future, let us 
 cease to look upon our own salvation as the final cause 
 of all that God is doing. Let us look away from our 
 minute concerns to that stupendous whole, of which 
 they form an indispensable though humble part. In- 
 stead of feeling and acting as if all must die with us, 
 let us continue, until God shall teach us otherwise, to 
 cherish the belief and expectation of a glorious work 
 yet to be accomplished even here, of which the 
 changes which we now behold are not the end but 
 the bee:innini>r. Let us not shriiik even from the 
 thought that unknown evils are yet to be experienced 
 before the good can be finally triumphant. Through 
 the clouds of such anticipations we may still discern 
 the clear sky of better days to come ; nay even in the 
 mean time, we may see the storm and sunshine striv- 
 ing for the mastery, and although we may be forced 
 to say, as one disaster treads upon the heels of its 
 forerunner, " these are but the beginning of sorrows," 
 we may still console ourselves by looking further off 
 to still remoter changes, saying the end is not yet.
 
 4-14 BERMONS. 
 
 Lot this not only solace but incite us. At every 
 new stage of our course, when we are tempted to 
 imagine our work done, let this word rouse us, 
 the end is not yet. Let the same conviction follow 
 through life. "Whatever you may seem to have 
 already suifered or accomplished, still remember that 
 the end is not yet ; and from the midst of your trials, 
 your perplexities, your errors, your temptations, yes, 
 your doubts of God himself, still force yourselves to 
 look even on the beginning of sorrows as prophetic of 
 their end, and to take refuge from the worst that can 
 befall you, or the cause for which you live, for which 
 you die, in the fixed persuasion that with reference 
 both to labour and reward, " the end is not by and 
 by." The time, indeed, is coming when the same thing 
 can no longer be said equally of both. Yes, the time 
 is coming when these present light afflictions shall be 
 past, forgotten, " as a dream when one awaketh," but 
 at no point of your history more truly than at that, 
 will you be justified in saying as you look forward to 
 the glory that awaits you, " these are but the begin* 
 nings of an everlasting life, — the end is not yet." 
 
 IJID OF VOL. L
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER, D.D 
 
 TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO , 654 BROADWAY. 
 
 1870.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by 
 
 CHARLES SCKIBNEK, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 
 District of New York. 
 
 JOHN F. TROW, 
 
 rKIinKB, rTEREOTVPKR, AND ■LKCTROTTm, 
 
 50 Greene Street, New York.
 
 CONTENTS or VOLUME H. 
 
 EpnKsiANS 5, 14. — Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
 dead, and Christ shall give thee light, 6 
 
 II. 
 Mark 14, 41. — Sleep on now, and take your rest : it is enough, the 
 hour is come ; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the 
 hands of sinners, 30 
 
 III. 
 Matthew 11, 12. — From the days of John the Baptist until now, 
 the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take 
 it by force, 60 
 
 IV. 
 Isaiah 55, 1. — Ho, every one that thirstcth, come ye to the waters, 
 and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and cat : yea, come, 
 buy wine and milk, without money and without price, . . 69 
 
 V. 
 Isaiah 55, 2. — Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is 
 not bread ? and your labour for that which satisfieth not ? 
 Hearken diligently unto me, and cat ye that which is good, 
 and let your soul delight itself in fatness, ' . . .88
 
 4 CONTEXTS OF YOLUME JI. 
 
 FAGS 
 VI. 
 
 Isaiah 55, 6. — Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye 
 upon him while he is near, 106 
 
 VII. 
 
 PniLippiANS 3, 13. 14. — Brethren, I count not myself to have ap- 
 prehended : but this one thing I do, forgetting those things 
 which arc behind, and reaching forth unto those things which 
 are before, I press towards the mark for the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus, 126 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Luke 18, 1-8. — And he spake a parable unto them to this end, 
 that men ought always to pray, and not to faint ; saying, 
 There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither re- 
 garded man : And there was a widow in that city ; and she 
 came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And 
 he would not for a while : but afterward he said within him- 
 self, though I fear not God, nor regard man ; yet because 
 this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her con- 
 tinual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, hear what 
 the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own 
 elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long 
 with them ? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. 
 Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith 
 on the earth ? 141 
 
 IX. 
 
 2 Kings 17, 33. — They feared the Lord, and served their own 
 gods, 161 
 
 X. 
 
 PniLippiANS 4, 13. — I can do all things through Christ which 
 strengtheneth me, 183 
 
 XI. 
 Psalm 51, 1. — Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash 
 mc, and I shall bo whiter than snow, 199
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 5» 
 
 PAGB 
 XII. 
 
 Luke 13, 3. (and 5.) — Except ye lepeiit, ye shall all likewise 
 perish, 213 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Isaiah 53, 3. — lie is despised aud rejected of men, . . . 235 
 
 XIV. 
 Hebrews 11, 10. — He looked for a city which hath foundations, 
 whose Ibuildcr and maker is God, 252 
 
 XV. 
 
 1 Thessaloxians 5, 25. — Brethren, pray for us, . . . . 2Y4 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Revelation 14, 1 2. — Here is the patience of the saints ; here 
 are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith 
 of Jesus, 294 
 
 XVII. 
 
 2 Timothy 2, 9.— The word of God is not bound, . . .309 
 
 XVIII. 
 Psalm 8, 1. 9. — Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in 
 all the earth ! 331 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Jons 17, 3. — ^This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, . . 353 
 
 XX. 
 Psalm 51, 17. — The sacrifices of God arc a broken spirit : a broken 
 and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise, . . 368
 
 6 CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 
 
 piai 
 XXI. 
 
 James 1, 2-8. — My brethren, count it all joy when ye foil into 
 divers temptations ; knowing this, that the trying of your faith 
 worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, 
 that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any 
 of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
 men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given 
 him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering: for he 
 that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind 
 and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive 
 any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in 
 all his ways, . . . . • 891 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Isaiah 5, 20. — Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; 
 that put darkness for light, a id light for darkness ; that put 
 bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter, 409
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ephesians 5, 14. — Awake thou that slcepest, and arise from the 
 dead, and Christ shall give thee light. 
 
 If we would profit by the reading of the Scrip* 
 tures, we must not take partial, superficial views of 
 them. We must not be governed too much by the 
 form in which the truth is clothed. K that form be 
 poetical, we must not regard the passage as mere 
 poetry ; or if parabolical, as mere parable ; or if his- 
 torical, as nothing more than history. In like manner 
 it would be a serious mistake to regard the devotional 
 parts of Scripture as mere vehicles of individual sen- 
 timent. But the error of this kind, into which we 
 are most apt to fall, has reference to the doctrinal and 
 hortatory parts of Scripture. Our knowledge of the 
 doctrines of the Bible will be small, if we de- 
 rive it wholly from the formal doctrinal propositions 
 which the book contains. And on the other hand, 
 our views of Christian duty must be limited, if they 
 are formed exclusively upon the strictly preceptive
 
 g SERMONS. 
 
 parts of Scripture. Tlie truth, is, that the doctrinal 
 and practical run constantly into each other. Every 
 doctrinal statement involves a precept, and every ex- 
 hortation involves doctrinal instruction. For exam- 
 ple, in the doctrine, that except a man be born again 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God, what a lesson do 
 we learn as to our own interest and duty. "What 
 could be a stronger exhortation to the duty of seeking 
 admittance to God's kingdom by means of the new 
 birth ? As an opposite example, take the text which 
 I have read. It consists entirely of an exhortation 
 with a promise to encourage the performance. And 
 yet it is full of doctrinal instruction. AVhile it for- 
 mally does nothing more than call us to the perform- 
 ance of certain duties, it impliedly teaches us truths 
 to be believed. And as truth is in order to goodness, 
 it is vain to expect that men will practise the pre- 
 ceptive part which lies upon the surface, without com- 
 prehending and believing the doctrinal part which 
 lies back of it. 
 
 In order to illustrate this whole statement, let us 
 discriminate between the doctrinal and practical ele- 
 ments combined in the text, and inquire first what it 
 calls us to believe, and then what it calls us to do. 
 The doctrinal lessons which it calls us to believe may 
 be reduced to two. It teaches us, first, what is our 
 natural condition ; and second, how it maybe changed. 
 Let us look at both in order. 
 
 The text impliedly describes our state by several 
 figures, all of which are natural and intelligible. It 
 describes it, in the fii'st place, as a state of darkness. 
 I read this doctrine in the last clause of the verse;.
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 9 
 
 and Christ shall give thee light. If the change here 
 spoken of was to consist in the imj)arting of light, 
 then the previous condition of the soul was one of 
 darkness. This figure is so natural and common in 
 the Scriptures that it needs no explanation. Light in 
 the external world is the element or medium by which 
 we see other objects. Darkness precludes light, not 
 by extinguishing the sense, but by rendering it use- 
 less. So spiritual darkness destroys our power of 
 discerning spiritual objects, not by impairing the 
 substance of the soul, nor by destroying any of its 
 faculties, but by rendering them inefficient and un- 
 available. Tlie objects are still there ; and the nat- 
 ural powers of the soul are there ; but darkness cuts 
 off all connection between them, and therefore it is as 
 insensible to spiritual objects, as if they had no exist- 
 ence, or as if itself had no capacity to see them. 
 
 This, at least, is the case just so far as the spiritual 
 darkness reaches ; but in order to present the case 
 exactly, three gradations may be stated, three degrees 
 of darkness, as it affects the soul and its perceptions. 
 The first and highest is that which has been men- 
 tioned, and in which the soul has no perception at all 
 of spiritual objects or " the things of God," which are, 
 to it, as though they were not. llie second degree 
 is that in which it sees the objects as existmg, but is 
 blind to their distinguishing qualities and relative 
 proportions. The third is that in which the qualities 
 are seen, but not appreciated ; they are seen to exist, 
 but not seen to be excellent or the reverse. This, if 
 I may use so inaccurate a phrase, is not so much a 
 darkness of the mind as of the heart ; a blindness of
 
 ;[0 SERMONS. 
 
 the affections as to spiritual objects. Now it is not 
 necessary, for our present purpose, to make nice dis- 
 tinctions as to the existence of either of these degrees 
 of darkness in different cases. They may all co-exist 
 in the same case, but with respect to different objects. 
 There are some things of a spiritual and religious na- 
 ture, of which the natural man may form distinct 
 ideas, and about which he may reason, i. e. about 
 their existence and their attributes. But he is no 
 more able to perceive or feel their excellence, than a 
 blind man to enjoy varieties of colour. Well, there 
 are things of a still higher order which the natural 
 man may see to be real ; but he not only cannot see 
 the absolute or comparative excellence of their attri- 
 butes, he cannot see the attributes themselves. Tlie 
 objects are to him a confused maze without definite 
 figures or proportions. He sees them as trees walk- 
 ing. And above these there are others of the high- 
 est excellence which he neither appreciates as excel- 
 lent, nor recognizes as possessing an existence. He 
 is blind to them. So far as he is affected by them, 
 they might as well not be. And as these last are 
 thino-s which must be known, in order to salvation, 
 it matters little what imperfect vision he may have of 
 other matters. His darkness may be described as 
 total, because it destroys his view of those things 
 without which the sight of others avails nothing. In 
 this sense our state by nature is a state of total dark- 
 ness. 
 
 Kow darkness affects only the sense of sight. A 
 man may grope in darkness, he may feel his way, 
 and he may judge of what he cannot see, by hearing,
 
 EPHESIANS 5, U. H 
 
 smell, and taste. Such a condition is indeed incon- 
 venient, but it does not destroy the man's percep- 
 tions. K, then, spiritual darkness is analogous to nat- 
 ural, though it impair the comfort of the soul by 
 blinding its eyes, it may leave it other means of 
 knowing that which must be known in order to sal- 
 ration. But observe : a man can grope his way and 
 use his other senses to advantage only when awake. 
 There are somnambulists, indeed, but as a general fact, 
 the man who contrives to live in safety, though in 
 darkness, must be wide awake. 
 
 But alas ! our text teaches us that our spiritual 
 state is not only a state of darkness, but a state of 
 sleep. This I infer from the command in the first 
 clause : Awake thou that sleepest. Now sleep is 
 more than darkness. Darkness is included in it. To 
 him who is asleep the external world is dark. But 
 what is there besides implied in sleep ? The man 
 who is asleep has his senses sealed ; not his sight 
 merely, but his other senses. External objects are 
 to him as though they were not. So to the sleeping 
 soul, all that lies beyond this life and its interests, is 
 veiled from view. It might as well not be. But 
 while the senses of the sleeper are suspended, his 
 imagination is awake and active. The more insen- 
 sible he is of that which really surrounds him, the 
 more prolific is his fancy in ideal objects. Tliough 
 dead to the every-day world, he is alive to an imagi- 
 naiy world. So powerful is the illusion, and so vivid 
 the creations of the fancy, that he lives whole years 
 in a single hour, a lifetime in a night. Our spiritual 
 state is also one of dreams. The life of the natural
 
 12 SERMONS. 
 
 man is but a dream. He sees, lie hears, lie feels ; but 
 the objects of his hearing, sight, and feeling, are 
 imaginary. Tliey are either wholly fictitious, or dis- 
 torted and falsified by the imagination. That the un- 
 regenerate man enjoys a certain kind of pleasure, is 
 not more wonderful than that the dreamer has his 
 pleasures too. That the one despises the enjoyments 
 of religion is no more surprising than the other is 
 unwilling to exchange the joys of sleep for the real- 
 ities of waking life. In either case the judgment is 
 perverted or suspended. Who does not know that in 
 our dreams we form opinions and conclusions which 
 to our waking minds appear absurd ; and yet while 
 we are dreaming, we have no suspicion that they 
 want consistency or truth. Why should we wonder 
 then that souls, which are asleep, form opinions so 
 extravagant, so groundless, so preposterous, and con- 
 fidently hold them, till the grace of God awakens 
 them and shows them their own folly ? Here let us 
 learn too the absurdity of yielding our own judg- 
 ments, if enlightened by the grace of God, to "the 
 contempt or opposition of the sleeping world around 
 us. Will any sane man let his judgment in impor- 
 tant matters of the present life be afifected by the 
 babble of one talking in his sleep. 
 
 I have named as points of similarity between nat- 
 ural and spiritual sleep, the inaction of the senses, the 
 indulgence of the fancy, and the suspension of the 
 judgment. Let me add the inactivity of the whole 
 man, as to external things ; the sorrows, joys, and 
 business of the world around him. Tlie natural 
 sleeper is not more completely paralyzed for seculaf
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 13 
 
 concerns, tlian the sonl asleep in sin is for tlie busi- 
 ness of eternity. The existence of the sleeper is a 
 blank in either case. Tliis, then, is the meaning of 
 the text, when it describes us as sunk in sleep as "vvcU 
 as wrapped in darkness. Not only are our eyes sealed 
 to the truth, and to our own condition, but we are 
 the subjects of perpetual illusion. Darkness alone 
 would be a mere negation ; but a darkness full of 
 dreams and visions is a positive infliction. It mat- 
 ters not that the illusions are of a pleasing nature. 
 That can only aggravate the pain of our awaking. 
 Did you ever forget any of the pains of real life in 
 a delightful dream ? And do you not remember the 
 convulsive pang with which the truth rushed back 
 upon your waking thoughts ? And can you imagine 
 that the anguish will be less when the dream of a 
 whole lifetime is abruptly broken ? Or if you know 
 what it is to be aroused by harsh and grating noises 
 from a pleasant dream, do you suppose that your long 
 dream will be agreeably dissolved by the blast of the 
 gi'cat trumpet? It is related by one of those wlio 
 witnessed and experienced a late explosion, that when 
 it occurred he was asleep, and that his first sensation 
 was a pleasant one, as though he had been flying 
 through the air. He opened his eyes, and he was in 
 the sea ! May there not be something analogous to 
 this in the sensations of the sinner, who dies with his 
 soul asleep, and soars, as he imagines, towards the 
 skies, but instantaneously awakes amidst the roar of 
 tempests and the lash of waves, upon the ocean of 
 God's wrath ? The Lord preserve us all from such a 
 waking, yet it is to this that our condition tends — it
 
 14 SERMONS. 
 
 is a state of darkness and a state of sleep. Accord- 
 ing to the ancients, Sleep is the brother of Death ; 
 and the resemblance is too obvious to be overlooked. 
 
 In all the negative attributes of sleep which have 
 been mentioned, death resembles it. In death the 
 senses are effectually sealed ; the functions of the 
 judgment are suspended, and the active powers of 
 the man are in abeyance. It is frequently not easy 
 to distinguish sleep from death. The repose is so 
 profound, the frame so motionless, that one who looks 
 upon it feels that Sleep is indeed the brother of 
 Death. But I need not say that death is more than 
 sleep. And wherein is the difference? He that 
 sleeps may wake again, and the suspension of his 
 senses and his judgment may be terminated by his 
 simply starting out of sleep. But in death, the intel- 
 lectual and bodily inaction are continuous and per- 
 manent. There have Ifeen instances in which the 
 body washed and dressed for burial, has amazed its 
 watchers, by resuming its vitality ; but in such cases 
 the death was an apparent one. The man once dead 
 never starts again to life by a convulsive effort. As 
 the tree falls, so it lies. 
 
 In these two points Death differs from his brother ; 
 the suspension of the faculties is permanent, and there 
 is no power of self-resuscitation. Now the text teaches 
 that the soul by nature is not only dark and asleep, 
 but dead. It says not only, " Awake thou that sleep- 
 est ! " but, " Arise from the dead ! " And in every 
 point that has been mentioned, this death of the soul 
 is like that of the body. It is sleep rendered perma- 
 nent, as to the suspension of our ordinary functions ;
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 15 
 
 it is a sleep too sound to be disturbed, a sleep from 
 whicb no one rises of himself, refreshed in feeling and 
 renewed in strength. Even with respect to dreams 
 death may be described as a continued sleep. 
 
 " For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
 Must give us pause." 
 
 But there is one distinction between sleep and 
 death, whether natural or spiritual, that must not be 
 overlooked. In natural sleep, although the senses 
 are inactive, and the judgment in abeyance, and the 
 whole man dead as to external things, the body is 
 still under the conservative dominion of the principle 
 of life. That mysterious power holds the elements of 
 humanity in healthful combination, and the man 
 still lives. But in the sleep of death, this antiseptic 
 energy is gone ; the harmonious combination is dis- 
 solved ; the parts all tend to dissolution, and the 
 whole frame hastens to putrescence. This is a subject 
 too familiar and too painful to be dwelt upon at large. 
 It is sufficient to observe that on this point also the 
 analogy holds gooi,^ Tlie spiritual death to which 
 we are all heirs, is something more than a negation 
 of activity It might be said of the soul, as the dis- 
 ciples said of Lazarus : If he sleeps he shall do well : 
 he may arise from this lethargic state to life and ac- 
 tion. But in spiritual death there is a constant ten- 
 dency to moral dissolution ; or rather, since this ten- 
 dency begins to show itself as soon as we are bom, it 
 is forever growing, the majority of men exhibit not a 
 mere approach to it, but actual putrefaction. " Tliey
 
 1Q SERMONS. 
 
 are altogether become filthy." If our eyes could be 
 unsealed and disabused of all illusion, we should see 
 ourselves to be by nature inmates of a charnel-house, 
 surrounded by the shapeless remnants of dissolved 
 humanity, inhaling every moment the dank atmos- 
 phere of death, and feeling in our own frames the 
 first gnawings of' the worm that breeds corruption. 
 Yes, our state by nature is not only one of sleep, but 
 one of death and putrefaction. 
 
 Tliis might seem to be all ; but we must take 
 another step, and one of great importance. If men 
 are convinced merely that their condition is a 
 wretched and degraded one, they are prone to feel 
 a sort of satisfaction in the fact, as if their misery 
 entitled them to pity and respect. Tliis absurd and 
 pernicious feeling springs entirely from the false as- 
 sumption that our wretched state by nature is a 
 blameless one ; that our depravity is not so much our 
 fault as our misfortune. Hence you will hear men 
 converse fluently about their own con-upt and fallen 
 state, who would repel with rage any specific charge 
 involving moral guilt. To do away this false impres- 
 sion, we have only to observe tbmt, according to our 
 text, the state of man by nature is not alone one of 
 darkness, sleep, and death, but one of guilt. This is 
 implied in the whole exhortation of the text. Tlie 
 sleeper is evidently called on to awake, as that which 
 he was bound to do ; and the dead man is summoned 
 to arise, as though he had no right to remain in that 
 condition. Every exhortation to perform a duty in- 
 volves a condemnation of its neglect as sinful. 
 
 But the sinfulness of that estate whereinto we are
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. lY 
 
 fallen, is evinced not merely by the form of speech 
 which the apostle nses. It is also apparent from the 
 nature of the case. The will of God is to us the rule 
 of right, and every departure of our will from his, is 
 a departure from strict rectitude, and therefore sin. 
 Now the spiritual darkness, sleep, and death before 
 described, are nothing more than figurative statements 
 of our deadly alienation from the love of God, the 
 defection of our will from his, and consequently our 
 exceeding sinfulness. There is no true test of right 
 and wrong to which we can refer ourselves, that will 
 not show our natural condition to be one of awful 
 guilt as well as misery. 
 
 And if a state of guilt, it is a state of danger. 
 For guilt is our exposure to the wrath of God as a 
 consequence of sin. It may be said, however, that 
 this statement is at variance with the fi^nrative Ian- 
 guage of the text ; for though a state of darkness or 
 of sleep may be dangerous, a state of death can 
 scarcely be so called. The evils of tliis life terminate 
 in death, which cannot therefore be called dangerous. 
 But danger may be predicated properly of all the sit- 
 uations which are figuratively set forth in the text, 
 because they all admit of increase and progi-essive 
 aggravation. Dark as the soul is, it may yet be 
 darker. It admits, as w^e have seen, of difterent gra- 
 dations. To some objects we arc totally blind. 
 Others we see imperfectly, and others still distinctly, 
 but without a just appreciation of their real attributes. 
 Kow, by continuance in a state of darloiess, our per- 
 ceptions of this last class may become as faint as those 
 of the preceding ; and ultimately both degrees of twi-
 
 ;j^3 SERMONS. 
 
 liglit may be merged in midnight darkness ; a dark- 
 ness -wliicli not only destroys vision, but wbicli may 
 be felt, deadening the senses and bennmbing all the 
 faculties. There is something dreadful in the thought 
 of such a change, even in relation to the bodily per 
 ceptions. To see one source of reflected light after 
 another quenched, and at last to witness the extinc- 
 tion of the sun itself, and the annihilation of all light, 
 is terrible enough. But not so terrible in truth as 
 the removal of all spiritual light, and the gradual ad- 
 vance of darkness, till, like a funeral pall, it over- 
 spreads the universe, confounding all distinctions, and 
 commingling all objects in the chaos of a night that 
 has no twilight and no morning. Oh, it is one thing 
 to imagine such a state of things, while actually in 
 possession of a thousand radiating lustrous points, im- 
 parting the reflected light of heaven to our" souls ; but 
 quite another thing to see them all grow dark in 
 quick succession, and to feel the darkness creeping to 
 our inmost souls. 
 
 If such a change be possible, then surely a state 
 of spiritual darkness is a state of danger. And is not 
 spiritual sleep likewise a state of danger ? May not 
 that sleep become sounder and sounder, and the 
 sleeper more and more insensible of all surrounding 
 objects ? May not the chances of his ever waking be- 
 come less and less, until the case is desperate ? Have 
 you not heard of sick men who have fallen, to ap- 
 pearance, into sweet and gentle slumber, the supposed 
 precursor of returning health, and never waked again ? 
 Oh, there are doubtless many spiritual invalids who 
 come to a like end. After a life of irreligion and of
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 19 
 
 vice, they experience a few pangs of compunction, 
 and subside into a state of calm quiescence, equally 
 free from the excesses of gross sin, and the positive 
 exercises of a renewed heart. In this soft slumber 
 they remain amidst the thunders of the law and the 
 gospel, confident of their own salvation, and un- 
 moved by what is said to men as sinners. And in 
 this somnolent condition they remain, until the taking 
 of rest in sleep is followed by the sleep of death. No 
 waking interval seems to show them their true situa- 
 tion, and they are not undeceived until the first flash 
 of eternal daylight forces their eyes open. 
 
 Is not spiritual sleep a state of danger then ? All 
 this will be readily conceded, but the question still re- 
 curs : how can death be properly a state of danger ? A 
 man in the dark may be exposed to peril on the margin 
 of a precipice, and so may he who is asleep upon the 
 top of a mast ; for both are exposed to sudden death. 
 But when already dead, where is the danger ? Is not 
 death a state of safety as to temporal perils ? The 
 answer to this question involves a striking difference 
 between natural and spiritual death. The death of 
 the body, as it simply puts an end to all the vital 
 functions, is an absolute and changeless state, admit- 
 ting no gradations ; whereas spiritual death is some- 
 thing positive, and constantly progressive. The man 
 who died yesterday is just as dead to-day as he will 
 be to-morrow. But the dead soul becomes more dead 
 every day and every hour. The process of corruption 
 never ceases, and, if the soul continues dead, never 
 ■will cease. Tlie worm that feeds upon the carcass of 
 the dead soul is a worm that never dies, and the tire
 
 20 > SERMONS. 
 
 that decomposes, it is never quenclied. What we call 
 spiritual death in this world sinks from one degree of 
 putrefaction to another, till it gets beyond the reachj 
 not only of restorative, hut of embalming processes, 
 until it is resolved into eternal death. And even in 
 that lowest pit there is a lower pit of putrefaction and 
 decay, opening one beneath another into that abyss 
 from which reason and imagination shi-ink with equal 
 horror. Yes, the first is to the second death as a 
 mere point of time to all eternity. The soul that dies 
 once, dies forever, nay is forever dying ; not as in the 
 first death with an agony of moments or of hours in 
 its duration, but with a throe of anguish which shall 
 blend with all the dying soul's sensations through 
 eternity. And oh, what an eternity ! each thought a 
 pang, and every respiration a mere dying gasp ! This 
 is the second death : and will you say that spirit- 
 ual death, which tends to this, is not a state of 
 danger ? 
 
 If it be true that our natural state is one of dark- 
 ness, sleep, death, guilt, and danger, no one who 
 really believes it to be so, can fail to be aroused to 
 the necessity of doing something to obtain deliverance. 
 The real ground of men's indiflerence to this matter 
 is their unbelief. They do not really believe what 
 they are told as to their state by nature. Where this 
 faith really exists, it shows itself in anxious fears, if 
 not in active efforts. And the soul's first impulse is, 
 to break the spell which binds it, by its own strength. 
 It resolves that the darkness shall be light, that the 
 sleep of sin shall be disturbed, and that there shall be 
 a resurrection from the death of sin ; its guilt shall be
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 21 
 
 atoned for, and its dangers all escaped. Such resolu- 
 tions always have the same result — a total failure in 
 the object aimed at, and an aggravation of the evils 
 to be remedied. To save you from the pain of a 
 severe disappointment, let me remind you, that ac- 
 cording to our text, the state of man by nature is not 
 only one of darkness, and sleeji, and death, and guilt, 
 and danger, but of helplessness. 1 say, according to 
 the text, for although this doctrine is not taught ex- 
 plicitly, I read it in the promise added to the exhorta- 
 tion, " Christ shall give thee light." It might, indeed, 
 at first sight, seem, as if our compliance with the ex- 
 hortation were a condition of the promise which is 
 added. And so indeed it is, but like other conditions 
 in the system of free grace, it is dependent upon that 
 which seems dependent upon it. Repentance and 
 faith are conditions of salvation ; but the author of 
 our salvation is the giver of repentance, the author 
 and finisher of our faith. It seems as if God, in divine 
 condescension to the feelings of poor sinners, had 
 thought fit to clothe his own gratuitous bestowments 
 in the guise of acts to be performed by us. He for- 
 gives us freely if we repent and believe, but we can 
 just as well make expiation for our sins, as repent and 
 believe without divine assistance. It is as if a father 
 should offer to forgive his child's offence, on condition 
 that he pay a certain sum, and should then produce 
 "the sum required from his own purse. "When the 
 text says, therefore, " Awake thou that sleepest, and 
 arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light," 
 the analogy of gospel truth constrains us to believe, 
 that so the light which is promised in the last clause
 
 22 SERMONS. 
 
 is the means, the only means, by which the exhorta- 
 tion can be possibly complied with. 
 
 Nor is it only from the text that this appears. It 
 results from the very nature of the state in question. 
 "Would it not have been a bitter irony to call upon 
 the Egyptians to strike light out of the palpable ob- 
 scurity in which they were involved ? Would it not 
 have been worse than irony to wait till Lazarus should 
 raise himself? Above all, would you tantalize the 
 breaker of God's holy law by promises of pardon, on 
 condition of his perfect obedience for the future, and 
 satisfactory atonement for the past? Does he not 
 know that every effort for the expiation of his guilt 
 adds something to its depth and its enormity? That 
 having his face naturally turned from God, the fur- 
 ther he proceeds, the more remote he is from God, 
 and every impulse which he feels, instead of bringing 
 his soul nearer, drives it further from the centre of 
 perfection ? What a condition ! If it were possible 
 to sit still and do nothing, we should surely perish 
 through our own neglect. And if we exercise our 
 strength, we only stir up a centrifugal impetus which 
 drives us to perdition ! Surely this is helplessness in 
 the highest sense. And I appeal to any one who ever 
 was awakened to a sense of sin and the desire of sal- 
 vation, whether his own heart does not respond to my 
 description. If it does, we have experimental con- 
 firmation of the scriptural doctrine, that our state by 
 nature is not only miserable, dangerous, and guilty, 
 but pre-eminently helpless. 
 
 But will not this doctrine tend to paralyze the 
 efforts of the sinner for salvation ? And what then ? 
 
 1
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 23 
 
 The more completely his self-righteous strength is 
 paralyzed, the better. No man can trust God and 
 himself at once. Your self-reliance must be destroyed, 
 or it will destroy you. But if, by a paralysis of effort, 
 be intended a stagnation of feeling, and indifference 
 to danger, I reply that this doctrine has no tendency 
 to breed it. Suppose it should be suddenly announced 
 to this assembly that a deadly malady had just ap- 
 peared, and had begun to sweep oft' thousands in its 
 coui-se ; and that the only possibility of safety de- 
 pended on the use of a specific remedy, simple and 
 easy in its application, and already within the reach 
 of every individual, who had nothing to do at any 
 moment but to use it, and infallibly secure himself 
 against infection. And suppose that, while your 
 minds were resting on this last assurance, it should be 
 authoritatively contradicted, and the fact announced, 
 with evidence not to be gainsaid, that this specific, 
 simple and infallibly successful, was beyond the reach 
 of every person present, and could only be applied 
 by a superior power. I put it to yourselves, which of 
 these statements would produce security, and which 
 alarm ? "VVliich would lead you to fold your hands in 
 indolent indifference, and which would rouse you to 
 an agonizing struggle for the means of safety ? I 
 speak as unto wise men : judge ye what I say. Oh, 
 my friends, if there is any cure for spiritual sloth and 
 false security, it is a heartfelt faith in the necessity of 
 superhuman help. The man who makes his helpless- 
 ness a pretext for continuance in sin, whatever he 
 may say, does not really believe that he is helpless. 
 No man believes it till he knows it by experience.
 
 24- SERMONS. 
 
 The firmest believers in man's plenary ability, are 
 men whose hearts are hard through the deceitfulness 
 of sin. Those, on the contrary, who have been taught 
 to fathom the abyss of their own hearts, and who 
 know what it is to have leaned upon the reed of their 
 own strength until it pierced them, will be forward to 
 acknowledge that our state of nature is not only one 
 of darkness, sleep, death, guilt, and danger, but of 
 utter helplessness. 
 
 Here we may pause in our enumeration. Each 
 item in the catalogue has made our state by nature 
 more degraded and alarming, and we now have 
 reached a point, beyond which we need not, and in- 
 deed cannot advance. Darkness is bad enough, but 
 its perils may be shunned by men awake. But we 
 are also asleep ; and sleep, though it suspends our 
 powers, is a transient state. But alas! our sleep is 
 the sleep of death. Yet even in death some men take 
 pleasure, as a state admitting of no further change. 
 But our death is progressive, and therefore far more 
 dangerous than any state in life. Yet even here we 
 might take refuge in the consciousness of our own 
 innocence, and draw a kind of desperate consolation 
 from the proud thought that we have not brought this 
 ruin on ourselves. But even this poor consolation is 
 snatched from us. We are guilty! we are guilty! 
 This puts an end to all self-pleading, and impels us to 
 escape from a condition which is equally miserable, 
 dangerous, and guilty. But even here we are en- 
 countered by a last conviction. We are helpless ! 
 •we are helpless ! This is the death-blow to our hopes, 
 and we despair. Yes, despair may be described as
 
 EPHESIANS 5, 14. 25 
 
 the conclusion to which we are condnctecl by the text. 
 Not absohite despair, but that despair which is essen- 
 tial to salvation. For there is salvation, even from 
 this lowest depth to which we have descended. The 
 text teaches us not only what our state by nature is, 
 but how it may be changed. Our bane and antidote 
 are both before us. And what is this great remedy ? 
 Hear the answer of the text : " Awake thou that 
 sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 
 give thee light." Light, light is the specific for our 
 case. And as light is the opposite of darkness, the 
 description before given of our spiritual darkness, 
 will teach us what is signified by spiritual light, and 
 what are its effects upon the soul. 
 
 In the first place, it dispels that blindness of the 
 heart and the affections, which disables us from seeing 
 the true qualities of spiritual objects. That which 
 before seemed repulsive, becomes lovely : that which 
 was mean, is glorious. That which was j^leasing or 
 indifferent, is now seen to be loathsome. The beauty 
 of holiness and the ugliness of sin, are now revealed 
 in their true colours. Moral and spiritual objects 
 which before were undefined and indistinct, are now 
 seen clearly, and invested with their true proportions. 
 Things which, tlirough tlie mist of sin, were magni- 
 fied, distorted, and confused, fall at once into their 
 natural position and their real size. Nor is this all. 
 The light which beams upon ns, not only rectifies our 
 views of what we saw before, but shows us what we 
 never saw. We are like the prophet's servant, who 
 imagined that his master and himself were left alone, 
 until his eyes were opened, and he saw the mountain 
 
 VOL. II. — 2
 
 26 SERMONS. 
 
 to be filled witli chariots, and horses of fire. Have 
 you ever read, or heard, of the effect produced upon 
 the feelings by the sudden restoration of the sight ? 
 Those objects which to us are too familiar to affect 
 us, are to the blind man full of glory. In the mo- 
 ment of his restoration, a whole lifetime of enjoyment 
 seems to be concentrated. But what are these sensa- 
 tions to the feelings of the soul when the scales fall 
 from its eyes, and the curtain is withdrawn from the 
 spiritual world, and the intense light of divine 
 illumination, with gradual dawn, or sudden flash, 
 lights up the amphitheatre by which we are sur- 
 rounded, and shows us that, instead of standing by 
 ourselves in a contracted circle, we are a spectacle to 
 angels and to devils, and spectators of a universe ! 
 
 Light, then, is the remedy ; but how shall we ob- 
 tain it ? We are still driven back upon our helpless- 
 ness. We see that light we must have, but we see 
 not how it can be kindled by us. Here the text 
 teaches us another lesson. It teaches us not only 
 that we must have light, but that it must be given to 
 us. Christ shall give thee light. If it comes at all 
 it comes as a free gift. This harmonizes fully with 
 the sense of our helplessness, and indeed confirms it. 
 Think not that I lay too much stress upon this inci- 
 dental form of speech. This circumstance I hold to 
 be essential to the doctrine. It matters not how sen- 
 sible we may be of the need of light, nor how in- 
 tensely we may long for it, unless we know that it 
 can only come to us by being given. Thousands come 
 fihort of everlasting life, because they trust for light 
 in sparks of their own kindling. The light which we
 
 EPHES.ANS 5, 14. 2'? 
 
 need, is not from any earthly luminary. It is not 
 from any twinkling star, revolving planet, or erratic 
 comet. It is from the sun, the sun of righteousness. 
 And where is he ? In what part of the firmament is 
 his tabernacle set ? 
 
 This is the last question answered by the text. It 
 not only shows us that we must have light, and that 
 this light must be given to us by another, but it shows 
 us who can give it — who alone can give it. " Awake 
 thou that sleei:)est, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
 shall give thee light." Brethren, from whatever point 
 you set out when you trace the gospel method of sal- 
 vation, if you follow the Scriptures, you will always 
 come to Christ. And that way of salvation which 
 conducts to any other point, is not the way for us. 
 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every 
 one that believeth. This w^orld, to the believer, is a 
 dark, perplexing labyrinth, and in its mazes he would 
 lose himself Ibrever, were it not that ever and anon, 
 at certain turnings in the crooked path, he gets a 
 glimpse of Calvary. These glimpses may be transi- 
 tory, but they feed his hopes, and often unexpectedly 
 return to cheer his drooping spirits. Sometimes he 
 is ready to desj^air of his escape, and to lie down in 
 the darkness of the labyrinth and die. But as he 
 forms the resolution, an unlooked-for turn presents a 
 distant prospect, and beyond all other objects and 
 above them, he discerns the cross and Christ upon it. 
 Look to Christ, then ! look to him for light to dissi- 
 pate your darkness — to aroijse you from your sleep, 
 and to raise you from the dead ; for though these 
 figures are not carried out by the apostle, he obviously
 
 28 SERMONS. 
 
 means that tlie light here promised .s to be a cure, 
 not only for our darkness, but our sleep and death. 
 And, indeed, the perception and enjoyment of light, 
 implies that we are living and awake. If, then, you 
 would have this sovereign remedy for all your evils, 
 look to Christ ! Perhaps you have already looked 
 unto him and been lightened. Oh, then, look on, 
 look always ; for it is not enough to have looked once. 
 The believer's face must be fixed continually on this 
 source of light, and fastened there forever. Have you 
 not had your hours of darkness, nay, your days, 
 weeks, months and years of darkness, even since you 
 obtained light from Christ ? Ah, it was when you 
 turned away your steadfast gaze from the pillar of 
 fire which went before you, that it became to you a 
 pillar of cloud. To all who are now in darkness, I 
 hold up the only source of spiritual light ; and in the 
 ears of every one slumbering at ease within the 
 Church of God, I cry aloud, " Awake thou that sleep- 
 est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
 thee light ! " 
 
 But its exhortation is not only or chiefly to the be- 
 liever who is wrapped in darkness. Its voice is still 
 louder to the soul asleep in sin, dead in trespasses and 
 sins, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
 dead, and Christ shall give thee light ! " And oh, re- 
 member that you cannot shut your eyes upon this 
 light without an aggravation of your future wretched- 
 ness — without adding a deeper shade of blackness 
 to the darkness of your grave. It is said, that 
 in some of the great light-houses built on rocks lying 
 mostly under Avater, the brightness of the lantern
 
 EPHESIAXS 5, 14. 29 
 
 attracts multitudes of sea-birds, wliich dart headlong 
 towards it, like the moth into the candle, and are 
 violently dashed back dead into the sea. And oh, is 
 it not a fearful thought that the salvation of the gos- 
 pel, that the cross of Christ itself, may be a living, 
 yet not a saving sight — that souls may be attracted 
 by it only to perdition ? But that same radiant lan- 
 tern which sheds its saving beams upon the souls of 
 the elect, shines no less brightly upon thqge that 
 perish. But, alas ! instead of using its divine light to 
 escape the wrath to come, they only dash against it 
 with insane hostility, and fall back stunned into the 
 dark abyss which washes its foundations. God forbid 
 tliat you or I should die so terrible a death, and be 
 lighted to perdition by that very blaze which might 
 have guided us to glory.
 
 n. 
 
 Mark 14, 41. — Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough, the 
 hour is come ; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of 
 sinners. 
 
 The Bible is full of exhortations to awake ; but a 
 command to sleep is rare and paradoxical ; so much 
 so, that many interpreters have chosen to regard this 
 sentence as a question : Do you still sleep, and take 
 your rest ? you have slept enough : the hour is come, 
 behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of 
 sinners. This construction of the passage, though it 
 yields a good sense, is less consistent with the form of 
 the original than the common version, which is sup- 
 ported by a great majority of the ablest critics. 
 Viewing it therefore as an exhortation, or at least a 
 permission, I repeat that it is something rare and par- 
 adoxical. And this first impression is increased by 
 the reason which is given for the exhortation. Had 
 the language been, sleep on, and take your rest, my 
 hour is not yet come, it would have been at once in- 
 telligible : but it is, sleep on and take your rest, the 
 hour is come ; and as if to leave no doubt i:hat " the 
 hour " was that mysterious hour of darkness, towards 
 which the voice of prophecy and the finger of provi- 
 
 J
 
 MARK 14, li. 31 
 
 dence liad been so long pointing with incessant pre- 
 monition, " behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into 
 the hands of sinners." "Was there ever a command so 
 strange, supported by a reason so much stranger? I 
 call your attention to this singularity, because we are 
 too apt to overlook these striking points in the famil- 
 iar Scriptures, and because I see wrapped up in these 
 remarkable expressions, a rich volume of instruction 
 to myself and to my hearers. To um-oU it, and deci- 
 pher at least some of its most solemn lessons, is my 
 present purpose. 
 
 From the very nature of the case, however, it is 
 not by metaphysical or logical analysis that this leaf 
 in the book of life is to be rendered legible. So far 
 from it, that I design to call in the aid of your imag- 
 inations in pursuing my design. I know that the 
 very name of this unruly power is cast out as evil by 
 many sincere Christians. But I also know that al- 
 most every page of Scripture calls for its due exercise : 
 that neither prophecies nor parables can do their of- 
 fice without its assistance ; that even tliose who dread 
 it as an instrument of evil, habitually use it as an in- 
 strument of good ; and that mucli of our indiflference 
 to the word of God arisesfromthe want of a chastened 
 imagination giving colour and vitality to what we 
 read. But while I thus call in imagination to my aid, 
 it is with no romantic or theatrical design. It is not 
 to invent unreal forms, but to call up before us those 
 already in existence. The materials upon which she 
 is to work arc simple facts recorded in God's word, 
 and rendered still more tangible and real, to our ap- 
 prehension, by the minutiae of time and place.
 
 32 SERMONS. 
 
 On the east side of Jerusalem, between tlie city 
 and the Mount of Olives, flows a stream called Kc- 
 dron. Beyond this, at the very foot of Olivet, there 
 is a small enclosure, with a low stone wall, containing 
 a very few ancient olive-trees, the offspring and suc- 
 cessors of an elder race. This place is now called 
 Jesmaniah, but according to a tradition of the coun- 
 try, which there seems to be no reason to discredit, 
 it was called, in ancient times, Gethsemane. Into 
 this enclosure, on a Thursday night, there entered 
 four men from the Mount of Olives. I cannot de- 
 scribe their persons, but I know their countenances 
 must have been dejected, for their hearts were full of 
 sorrow. And on the heart of one among the number 
 there rested, at that hour, a load of grief, compared 
 with which the aggi'egated sorrows of the human 
 family, before and since, are nothing. Yes, if we 
 could collect the tears of widowed wives, and child- 
 less mothers, and forsaken orphans, the cries of every 
 battle-field, the groans of every hospital, the shrieks 
 of every torture-room, the unheard sobs which have 
 been stifled in the prison house, and all those deeper 
 agonies which never find expression — they would bo 
 as nothing to the single I3ang which wrung a single 
 heart, upon that awful night. 
 
 Here, if we chose, we might indulge imagination, 
 without any fear that our conceptions would transcend 
 the truth, or that the longest line that we could heave 
 would ever reach the bottom of that deep, deep sea* 
 of sori'ow. But such indulgence would be no less 
 vain than painful. Let us rather in imagination fol- 
 low the four men, till their forms are almost lost
 
 MAKK 14, 41. 33 
 
 among the olive-trees. Three of them sit upon the 
 ground, while the fourth passes on into a deeper 
 shade and a remoter solitude. Do you know him, 
 Christian brethren ? Oh, I believe that if that blessed 
 face should now appear among us, as it then looked 
 in Gethsemane, we all should know it. I am aware 
 that many wild imaginations have been cherished,^ 
 and that painters and poets have exhausted their in- 
 vention in conjectural embellishments. But if that 
 living countenance could now be set before us, I be- 
 lieve that in its aspect of benignant sadness, in the 
 lines of sinless sorrow w-hich had marred its surface, 
 we could read the name of its possessor no less clearly 
 than in Pilate's superscription on the cross. It was 
 the Son of Man. His companions were the sons of 
 men, but he the Son of Man. He sustained a rela- 
 tion to humanity itself, for in its coarse integuments 
 his deity was shrouded. The Son of God, by a vol- 
 untary act, became the Son of Man, and from the 
 bosom of the Father, where he dwelt before the world 
 was, took up his abode in the bosom of our fallen and 
 unhappy race. We cannot pierce the mystery of that 
 transition, nor explain how the divinity was held in 
 abeyance, that humanity might exercise its finite 
 powers ; but we know that from the moment of that 
 union, there arose an identity of interest and feeling 
 which shall never end ; that no sooner had the Son of 
 God become the Son of Man, than there began to 
 gush, within his human heart, a well-spring of sym- 
 pathy which angels cannot know ; that the pains of 
 his infancy were pains of human infirmity, that the 
 tears of his maturity were drops of human sorrow, 
 
 VOL. II. — 2*
 
 34 SERMONS. 
 
 that the sins for -which he suffered were the sins of 
 humankind, that he stood in our place not only as our 
 sacrifice, but also as our sympathetic fellow man, not 
 only on the cross, but in the lingering crucifixion of 
 a life of sorrow, from the stable in Bethlehem, where 
 we find him first, to the olives of Gethsemane, where 
 we see him now. 
 
 And in what position ? Prostrate on the ground. 
 See that blessed brow in contact with the cold damp 
 earth. See the convulsive agitation of the frame ; 
 and though the grief, which it betokens, lies too deep 
 for tears, see the sweat, like drops of blood, stream- 
 ing out of every pore. Sons and daughters of men, it 
 is the Son of Man ; it is the burden of humanity that 
 crushes his imspotted heart ; it is the heart's blood of 
 our race that oozes from him ; it is the Son of Man in 
 anguish for mankind. I need not ask you to recall 
 the words he uttered ; the vocal anguish of a broken 
 heart ; but I beseech you to imagine that you see 
 him rising, not refreshed, as we might be, by such a 
 burst of feeling, but, with that load upon his heart 
 still undiminished, see hun come back to his friends, 
 whom he had left, as if for sympathy. And does he 
 find them weeping ? or engaged in sad discourse, or 
 musing in sad silence ? Ko, he finds them sleeping ! 
 How does he treat neglect so shameful ? He arouses 
 them, but gently, with this mild expostulation : 
 " What, could ye not watch with me one hour ? " 
 He goes again : he falls again upon the ground : he 
 repeats that prayer which we ought never to repeat 
 without profound emotion : he returns to his com- 
 panions, and again they are asleep. He utters no se-
 
 MARK 14, 41. 35 
 
 vei'c rebuke, nor even a complaint, except hj asking 
 as before, " Could je not watcli witli me one hour ? " 
 He goes again, and for the last time, to his place of 
 prayer : he prays again : and with that prayer un- 
 answered, his distress unmitigated, he comes back to 
 his friends, and they are sleeping ! Does he spurn 
 them? Does he rouse them by contemptuous re- 
 proof? Or does he leave them in anger to their own 
 ignoble slumbers ? He does neither. 
 
 Tlie deportment of the Son of Man, on that oc- 
 casion, has a transcendent, a divine sublimity, which 
 no imagination could invent or heighten. 'No exhi- 
 bition of Almighty wrath, however grand, though ex- 
 ecuted by a legion of angels armed with lightning, 
 tempest, and the winds of heaven, could have invested 
 him with such a glory, as the air of serene sorrow 
 with which he at once rebukes, forgives, and warns 
 them of their danger. " Sleep on now, and take your 
 rest : it is enough, the hour is come ; behold, the Son 
 of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." And 
 as he speaks, the glare of torch-light is perceived 
 among the olive-trees, and the betrayer comes. You 
 know what follows : you know what went before : I 
 need neither ask nor tell you who the three men were. 
 I need not tell you that among the number was the 
 same bold spirit who, a little while before, had almost 
 sworn, that though all men should forsake him, he 
 would follow him to death, and who, a little after, 
 actually swore that he had never known the man. I 
 need not tell you, that another of the number was the 
 man who leaned upon his Master's bosom, and was 
 called his friend. You know the history, and I shall
 
 36 SERMONS. 
 
 leave it to your private meditation. Do not neglect 
 it. This is surely no unworthy tlienie for your reflec- 
 tions. I am afraid that it is not a common one I 
 am afraid that even Christians may grow weary of 
 their Saviour's passion. I am afraid that there are 
 men, and Christian men, who can allow themselves 
 the pitiable luxury of weeping over fiction, but who 
 have no tears to shed with Jesus in Gethsemane. 
 They regard it as a waste of time to dwell upon the 
 circumstantial statements of the gospel, which cannot 
 be reduced to abstract, systematic form. Or, at best, 
 they are contented with a cold, dry knowledge of the 
 facts related. They do not regard it as a matter 
 of feeling : they would be ashamed to do so. I 
 speak the experience of some who hear me. But 
 ought this so to be ? "We must go back to the simple 
 faith and feelings of our childhood. "We must, at 
 least in this respect, become little children. Those 
 same imaginations, which have so often been the 
 ministers of sin, must be used for better purposes. 
 By their aid we must stand on Olivet and Geth- 
 semane, mix with the rabble which surrounds the 
 master, hear the deep imprecation of the Koman sol- 
 dier, and the louder curses of the Jewish mob ; follow 
 to the house of the High Priest and the Pretorium ; 
 look at the false Procurator as he dooms the innocent, 
 and vainly tries to wash the blood away with water. 
 But I need not go further. 
 
 Fix your thoughts, I pray you, on these scenes as 
 real scenes, and try to see and hear as if the sights 
 and sounds were present to your senses. Having so 
 done, let us gather from this night scene in Geth-
 
 MARK 14, 41. 37 
 
 semane the lessons wliicli it teaclies for onr own in- 
 struction. That it teaclies such lessons is not the less 
 true, because the external circumstances of the case 
 i-ecorded are entirely different from our own. That 
 which renders the narratives of Holy AVrit instruc- 
 tive, is not identity of outward situation, but analogy 
 of motive and of moral relations. The same guilt 
 may be incurred by us as by the twelve apostles, and 
 in these ends of the earth as well as in Jerusalem. 
 ISTeither sloth nor treachery derives its moral quality 
 from time or place. In further illustration of this 
 statement, and in application of the text, let me call 
 your attention to a few thoughts which it has sug- 
 gested. 
 
 I. The first is, that the Son of Man may even now 
 be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Men are apt 
 to imagine, that had they lived in the time of Christ, 
 they would not thus and thus have treated him. This 
 is, for the most part, mere illusion. They who hate 
 Christ now, would have hated him then. Tliey who 
 despise him unseen, would have spurned him to his 
 face. They who maltreat his members, would have 
 persecuted him. Tliis is a test proposed by Christ 
 himself. That wliich is done to the humblest of his 
 followers, as such, is done to him. Tlie interests of 
 Christ's churcli, arc the interests of Christ. Tlie en- 
 emies of Christ's church, are the enemies of Christ. 
 Even in our own day Christ may be betrayed. He 
 may be betrayed by his own disciples. He may be 
 betrayed with a kiss. For such treason the ungodly 
 world is waiting. There are always sinners to receive 
 him at the traitor's hands and pay the traitor's Avages.
 
 38 SERMONS. 
 
 He can no longer be betrayed by the delivery of liia 
 person into hostile hands. But the disposition to sur 
 render him to enemies may still exist : a disposition 
 to procure the favour of the world at his expense. In 
 short, the same state of feeling may now operate in 
 various directions, and in various forms, which, if the 
 Saviour were now present upon earth, would cause 
 him to be first forsaken, then betrayed. 
 
 In this sense, for example, it may well be said 
 that the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sin- 
 nei'S, when the truth respecting him is given up to 
 errorists, or cavillers, or infidels ; when his divinity is 
 called in question ; when his eternal Sonship is de- 
 graded or denied ; when the sinless perfection of his 
 human nature is tainted by the breath of dubious 
 speculation ; when his atonement is disfigured and 
 perverted ; when the value of his cross and bloody 
 passion is depreciated ; when his place in the system 
 of free grace is taken from him and bestowed on some- 
 thing else ; when the purchase of his agonies is made 
 to be the purchase of our own good works ; when 
 faith in him, as a means of salvation, is exchanged for 
 mere submission to the government of God ; when 
 his present existence, as a man, is forgotten ; when 
 his personal presence, as a God, is overlooked ; when 
 his exaltation and his future coming are lost sight of 
 by his people. By conceding so m.uch to the unbe- 
 liever, we betray the Saviour to him to be bufieted 
 and spit upon. 
 
 To mention only one other example : Christ is 
 betrayed into the hands of sinners, when his gospel 
 is perverted, his example dishonoured, and him-
 
 MARK 14, 41. 39 
 
 Belt' represented as the minister of sin. The honour 
 of the Savionr is in some sense committed to the care 
 of his disciples ; and this sacred trust is shamefully 
 betrayed, when they give the world occasion, in de 
 spising them, to treat their master with contempt 
 O Christian ! have you ever thought, that every 
 inconsistent and unworthy act of yours is one step 
 towards betraying Him whom you profess to love ? 
 And if, while you thus habitually act, you hold fast 
 your profession, it is only adding the betrayer's kiss to 
 the betrayer's perfidy. My first remark, then, is that 
 even now, the Son of Man may be betrayed into the 
 hands of sinners. And let me add, that there are times 
 when such a disposition shows itself in more than com- 
 mon strength ; when, through the abounding of temp- 
 tation and iniquity, the faith of multitudes is sorely 
 tried ; and after the experiment is finished, it appears, 
 that many, whose profession was as fair as that of 
 Judas, have like Judas gone to their own place, and 
 that others whose pretensions were as high as those 
 of Peter, have like him denied their Master, and then 
 gone out and wept bitterly. For such times, when 
 the Saviour or his cause are in danger from betrayers, 
 it behoves us all, my friends, to stand prepared. 
 
 II. Another thought which I suggest, is, that 
 when the cause of Christ is about to be betrayed into 
 the hands of sinners, his disciples arc to watch, to 
 watch unto prayer, lest they enter into temptation. 
 Tliis is incumbent upon all disciples, but especially 
 on some. And among those there is many a bold, 
 self-trusting Peter, and many a Boanerges. Those 
 who are office-bearers in the Church, are the honoured
 
 40 SERMON b. 
 
 but responsible companions of tbeir Master in tbe day 
 of trial. He asks not for the exertion of tlieir strength 
 in bis behalf. He asks not for their sympathy ; he 
 asks not for their prayers ; but he does demand their 
 vigilance. When he looks upon the purchase of his 
 blood, spoiled and ravaged by the enemy ; his little 
 flock pursued and torn by wolves ; his vineyard 
 spoiled and trodden by wild beasts ; the great Inter- 
 cessor pours out his own cries and tears before the 
 Father, and although he says no more, " My soul is ex- 
 ceeding sorrowful, even unto death," he does say, and to 
 you, my brethren, " Tarry ye here and watch with me." 
 HI. Another thought, and that a melancholy one, 
 is, that when Christ's disciples are thus left to watch, 
 while he is interceding with the Father, they too often 
 fall asleep. Some, in the touching language of the 
 gosj^el, may be " sleeping for sorrow." But oh, how 
 many others sleep for sloth and sheer indifference. 
 And if any sleep for sorrow, they do wrong. For 
 when our Saviour found his chosen friends asleep 
 upon their post, he aroused them and reproached them 
 with that mild expostulation, " Could ye not watch 
 with me one hour ? " He said, indeed, as if to ex- 
 tenuate their guilt, that the spirit was willing though 
 the flesh was weak. But even admitting what is 
 commonly supposed, that flesh and spirit here mean 
 soul and body, it does not follow that their slumber 
 was excusable. Christ would not repeatedly have 
 roused them from an innocent and necessary slumber. 
 Much less was it excusable, if, as some excellent in- 
 terpreters have thought, spirit here means the better 
 principle, the new heart, and flesh the remnant of in-
 
 I 
 
 MARK 14, 41. 41 
 
 dwelling sin. If this be so, it was hardness of heart 
 and spiritual sloth that made them sleep for sorrow. 
 Oh my brethren, if your hearts are full of sorrow, be- 
 cause men make void God's law, it is no time for you 
 to sleep ! The Church, Christ's weeping bride, and 
 the dying souls of men, are at your pillow, shrieking 
 in your ears, like the shipmaster in the ears of Jonah : 
 " What meanest thou, O sleeper ? Arise, call upon 
 thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that 
 we perish not." 
 
 lY. But alas ! this warning voice is often heard in 
 vain. Amidst a world lying in wickedness, amidst 
 the untold miseries produced by sin, amidst the dying 
 agonies of unsaved souls as they go down to their per- 
 dition, amidst the fierce attacks of open enemies upon 
 the Son of Man, and the devices of false followers to 
 betray him to those enemies ; his friends, his chosen 
 friends, sleep on. Yes, even those who were the loud- 
 est in profession, and the boldest in defiance, when 
 the danger was far off, are found asleep when it ap- 
 proaches. And that sleep would prove to be the 
 sleep of death, if we had not an High Priest who can 
 be touched with the sense of our infirmities, and when 
 he sees us thus - asleep, comes near and rouses us. 
 Dear friends, there may be some before me now, who, 
 though sincere believers, have been overcome by 
 sleep. Your senses and your intellects may be 
 awake, your conscience has its fitful starts and inter- 
 vals of wakefulness, when scared out of its slumbers 
 by terrific dreams. But your aflections are asleep. 
 Your love to Christ, your dread of sin, your hope of 
 heaven, your abstraction from this world, your taste
 
 42 SERMONS. 
 
 for spiritual food, your zeal for God, your charity — 
 all tliese are exercises wliicL. you have exj^erienced ; 
 but alas, they are but " shadows, not substantial 
 things ; " the ghosts of past experience, the echo of 
 hushed voices : you hear the gospel, but it is like the 
 drowsy lull of distant waters, making sleep more 
 sound ; you see its light, but with your eyelids 
 closed, and so subdued its splendour, that it only 
 soothes the sense and deepens its repose. You feel 
 the breathings of the Spirit, but so gently, that they 
 only add illusion to your dreams. Is it not so ? JSTo 
 wonder, then, that your religion is a visionary and 
 ideal thing : I do not mean that it has no reality, but 
 that its outward actings are suspended, and its power 
 wasted in conceptions and imaginations never to be 
 realized. 
 
 If this is your experience, I appeal to you, and 
 ask you whether even in this dreamy state, you have 
 not felt the gentle hand of Christ at times upon you ? 
 Has not the most slothful and obdurate of us all, the 
 most absorbed in worldly cares and pleasures, some- 
 times, in his calmer and more serious moments, felt 
 that mild but potent pressure? Oh, is there one of 
 us so given up of God, so forgotten of the Saviom*, as 
 to be left to slumber with the blaze of the betrayer's 
 torch upon his very eyelids ? God forbid ! N^o, 
 there is not a man or woman here to-night, believing, 
 but asleep, who has not once and again been roused, 
 in one form or another, by the Son of Man himself. 
 Do you doubt it ? Let me aid your recollection by 
 a few suggestions. Have you not had your personal 
 afflictions? Has not your house been visited by sick
 
 MAEK 14, 41. 43 
 
 ness? Are there no chasms at your table or your 
 fireside ? Are there no shadows on the last leaves of 
 your history, no doubts, no darkness, no perplexity, 
 no pain of mind or body, no disgrace, no losses? 
 And do you wonder at these hard, these unkind 
 strokes of the Eedcemer's hand ? O sleeping Chris- 
 tian, he is but touching you to save you from per- 
 dition. And if the noise of this world would but 
 cease to fill your ears, you would hear the injured 
 but forgiving Saviour, saying in that same sad gentle 
 voice, with which he said to Peter, James, and John, 
 " Could ye not watch with me one hour ? " 
 
 But it is not only in personal afflictions that the 
 Saviour xouses you. Have you not felt his hand in 
 public trials ? Have you not felt it in the trials of 
 the Church ? Have you not felt it in the creeping 
 growth of error, in the strife of tongues, and in the 
 lacerating schism? Have you not felt it in the 
 abounding of iniquity, and in the waxing cold of 
 many a burning heart ? Have you not felt it in the 
 growth of a censorious, harsh, and bitter spirit, and 
 the exchange of kindly charities for ostentatious right- 
 eousness ? Have you not felt it in the decay of 
 Christian knowledge, in the prevalence of shallow, su- 
 perficial Christianity, and in the consequent triumph 
 of fanaticism ? Have you not felt it in the shock of 
 revolution, threatening the foundations of society it- 
 self? Have you not felt it in the leanness of your 
 own souls, and in the barrenness of your Master's 
 vineyard? And in each and all of these successive 
 visitations, can you not hear the accents of the Son 
 of Man, gently reproaching your long spiritual slum-
 
 44: SIEMONS. 
 
 ber, as the cause of all these evils ? Can you not hear 
 him saying, even to yourselves, as he said to his dis- 
 ciples, with a bursting heart, that night, " Could ye 
 not watch with me one hour ? " 
 
 But it is not merely in afflictions and in public 
 trials that he thus accosts us. If you have not seen 
 him in the fire of fanaticism, if you have not felt him 
 in the earthquake of commotion, if you have not 
 heard him in the whirlwind of intestine strife, you 
 may have heard him in the still small voice of mercy. 
 Have you had no signal mercies, since you fell asleep ? 
 No surprising deliverances or unexpected restora- 
 tions? No relief from sorrow, and disgrace, and 
 care ? No increase of substance, no additions to your 
 comfort, no enlarged opportunities of usefulness to 
 others, no occasional glimpses of heaven for yourself? 
 And can you hear all this enumerated, and yet fail 
 to hear the Master, in and through these mercies, say- 
 ing, " Could ye not watch with me one hour ? " 
 
 Nor is this all. Besides the voice of personal af- 
 tlictions, and of public trials, and of private mercies, 
 there is a voice in public mercies too. I ask not 
 whether you have felt Christ's hand, or heard his 
 voice in national prosperity, in the continuance of 
 national advantages, and in deliverance from national 
 calamities, too well deserved. But have you not felt 
 his hand in mercies to the chui-ch. I refer not to the 
 vmdication of her civil rights, however timely and 
 remarkable, but to those spii'itual mercies which are 
 apt to be forgotten, in the tumult of political and party 
 exultation. Has he not visited some forsaken spots even 
 in the midst of surrounding desolation ? Has hp ;Rot; 
 
 i
 
 MARK 14, 41. 45 
 
 appeared there, to heal divisions, to reform ibuses, to 
 arouse attention, to decide the wavering, to reclaim 
 "backsliders, to increase the spirit of prayer, to give 
 life and vigour to the preaching of the word, to make 
 temporal affairs look small, and eternal things as large 
 as life ? " To open the eyes of many blind, to turn 
 them from darkness to light, and from the power of 
 Satan unto God ? " And what is the language of these 
 signal mercies to us, who, all around, have stood still 
 and seen the salvation of God ? Stood still ! nay 
 rather, who have lain asleep. Is it not the voice of 
 God, reproaching our unwatchfulness and spiritual 
 slumber ? Is it not the voice of the Son of Man, in 
 sorrow not in anger, saying to us here, as he once said 
 in Gethsemane : " What ! could ye not watch with 
 me one hour ? " 
 
 These words were twice repeated, after the lirst 
 and second agony and prayer. But when our Lord 
 had for the third time fallen prostrate and arisen, 
 when He came a third time to his friends and found 
 them sleeping, he no longer expostulated ; he no 
 longer asked whether they could not watch with him 
 one hour. He aroused them indeed, but with another 
 form of speech : " Sleep on now," or " hereafter," as it 
 might have been translated. There is something far 
 more awful in this mild but significant permission to 
 sleep on, than in all the invectives or reproofs he 
 could have uttered. " Sleep on henceforth and take 
 your rest." Oh ! what a rest is that which must be 
 taken while our Master is betrayed, and scourged, 
 and buffeted, and spit upon ! " It is enough," or 
 rather, " it is finished ; it is now too late to watch."
 
 46 SERMOXS. 
 
 "Behold," and liere perhaps he pointed to Iscariot as 
 he drew near with his gang — " behold the Son of Man 
 is betrayed into the hands of sinners." Brethren, dc 
 your hearts swell with shame and indignation, as you 
 hear the Son of Man thus addressing his disciples, 
 who had slept, instead of Avatching to protect hia 
 sacred agony from premature intrusion, and to pro- 
 tect themselves from coining danger? What, then, 
 will be your feelings when he thus addresses you? 
 when after rousing you, reproaching you, and warn- 
 ing you in vain ; after saying, by afflictions and by 
 mercies, public and private, both to you and to the 
 Church, " Could ye not watch with me one hour ? " 
 and seeing you, in each case, relapse at once into a state 
 of slumber, he shall cease to visit you with salutary 
 warnings, give you up to the stagnation of your spirit- 
 ual sloth, and, by his providential dealings, say to you, 
 and those around you, " Sleep on now, and take your 
 rest ? " Can you bear it ? Can any of us bear it ? Yes 
 we can bear it^ without pain, and with indifference, be- 
 cause he will not say it till all other means have 
 failed, and till our hearts are hard through the de- 
 ceitfulness of sin. If we wait for this last, sad, terri- 
 ble farewell to break our slumbers, before we begin 
 to watch and pray, we wait forever. The only hope 
 is to anticipate that moment ; to hear our Lord, be- 
 forehand saying, " Sleep on now ; " to imagine, while 
 we have some feeling left, what we should feel, if we 
 heard him tell us now to take our rest, because it is 
 too late to watch, because the hour is already come, 
 and the Son of Man is just about to be betrayed into 
 the hands of sinners.
 
 MARK 14, 41. 47 
 
 I fear it is a growing sin and error of tlie Cliurcli, 
 to forget that the man Christ Jesus still exists ; 
 to act as if we thought that his humanity evapo- 
 rated, or became assimilated to the cloud which bore 
 him from the mountain to the skies. Or if we believe 
 in his continued existence as a man, we are too apt to 
 think of him as feeling no concera, no human sym- 
 pathy in our affairs. I dare not lift the veil which 
 God has hung around our Saviour's present residence, 
 or, with profane conjecture, try to penetrate its mys- 
 teries ; but as long as I believe the Bible, how can I 
 forget that Christ is still a witness of terrestrial things, 
 and that he has a heart to feel, not only for the sor- 
 rows, but for the sins of his disciples. Oh, if instead 
 of our jejune conceptions of an abstract deity, an ab- 
 stract Christ, and an ideal heaven, we could think 
 and feel about him as the twelve did when he was 
 absent from their sight ; when, for example, he had 
 just ascended, and their minds were stamped with 
 fresh impressions of his person ; if we could think of 
 him, not as a nonentity, not as an ancient half-forgot- 
 ten personage, but as we think of friends whom we 
 have lost ; then we should read his history with other 
 eyes, and other hearts. Oh, then, it would be easy 
 to believe that he, who was with the disciples in the 
 garden, is now here ; that he, whose heart was touched 
 by their neglect, may still be touched by ours ; that 
 he, who said to them, " Sleep on now," may say the 
 same to us. God grant that the time be not at hand, 
 when he shall thus speak to all or any of those pres- 
 ent ! God grant that the spiritual dearth which we 
 experience, and the multiplied evils which have vexed
 
 48 SERMONS. 
 
 tlie Cliurclij be not so many voices, in wliich Christ 
 is saying to ns, " Sleep on now, and take yonr rest ; 
 the hour is come." 
 
 That this may not prove to be indeed the case, "we 
 must arise and call upon our God ; we must come uj 
 to the help of the Lord against the mighty. But oh 
 remember, that the weapons of our warfare are not 
 carnal. When the presumptuous Simon was at last 
 aroused, and saw his Master's danger, he thought to 
 atone by violence for past neglect. And many a 
 modern Simon does the same. "When once aroused 
 they draw the sword of fiery fanaticism, to wound 
 themselves and others, and it is often not till they 
 have shed much precious blood, that they are calm 
 enough to hear the Saviour saying, "Put up again 
 thy sword into his place, for all they that take the 
 sword shall perish by the sword." And it is not too 
 much to say, that most of those who, in our own day, 
 have conspicuously grasped the sword of fierce vin- 
 dictive zeal, have perished .by it, not in their souls, 
 but in their character and influence. God's retribu- 
 tions are infallible and just. The torrent of fero- 
 cious zeal which recently swept over us, and threat- 
 ened all our ancient landmarks with subversion, has 
 subsided, or been hardened, like the lava, into rock, 
 while the landmarks, which it hid from sight, at one 
 time by its surges, still retain their ancient places, un- 
 consumed, unshaken. But is there no danger from 
 an opposite direction ? Is it any consolation that the 
 sword is in its scabbard, if the bearers of the sword 
 are fast asleep, instead of watching ? Is there no 
 cause to fear that, having vanquished error and dis-
 
 MAKE It, 41. 49 
 
 order, as we tliink, we shall fall asleep upon our arms 
 and laurels ? Oh let us remember, that the enemies 
 of Christ are still to be contended with, not only in 
 the Church and world, but in the hearts of men, and 
 in our own hearts individually. Let us bear in mind 
 that although every heresy were banished from our 
 pulpits and our schools, we may not cease to watch 
 and pray, lest we should enter into worse temptation ; 
 lest, in the midst of an unprofitable orthodoxy, soula 
 should be lost through our untimely slumbers. If 
 this is to be dreaded above all disaster, watch, breth 
 ren, watch and pray !
 
 m. 
 
 Matthew 11, 12. — From the days of J'ohu the Baptist until now, 
 the kingdom of heaven sufFercth violence, and the violent talie it by 
 force. 
 
 "What avg call the old economy or old dispensa- 
 tion, was a temporary and preparatory sj'stem, ex- 
 tending only to the advent of the Saviour, or, at most, 
 to the completion of his saving work. His appear- 
 ance necessarily brought with it a change of dispen- 
 sations, which had been foreseen and provided for 
 from the beginning. But this part of the divine pur 
 pose had been gradually lost sight of, and the Jews 
 liad learned to regard their temporary system as per- 
 petual, and its symbolical rites as intrinsically effica- 
 cious. To such a state of feeling and opinion the 
 abrogation of the ancient system seemed a monstrous 
 revolution, a calamitous catastrophe, the prospect of 
 which shocked their strongest prepossessions, and 
 seemed to blast their dearest hopes. In order to cor- 
 rect this error, and prepare the way for the event so 
 much dreaded, even by many devout Jews, it pleased 
 God to adopt a method which should symbolize, and, 
 as it were, embody the true relation of the old and 
 new economy, and the change by which the one was 
 to replace the other.
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 51 
 
 To secure this end, Christ did not come abruptly, 
 but was preceded by a forerunner, whose personal 
 relations to him, and whose public ministry, present- 
 ed, in a kind of type or emblem, the peculiar features 
 of the Law as contrasted with the Gospel — or rather, 
 exhibited, at one view, both the points of resem- 
 blance and of dissimilitude. These points are obvious 
 enough. As, on the one hand, both the old and the 
 new dispensation were alike from God, equally genuine 
 and equally authoritative ; as they were both intend- 
 ed for man's benefit, and, ultimately, for the benefit 
 of men in general ; as the grand design of both was 
 moral and spiritual, not material and temporal ; so, 
 on the other hand, while one was provisional, the 
 other was permanent ; one was preparatory to the 
 other, and by necessary consequence, inferior in dig- 
 nity ; the peculiar features of the one were, in a great 
 measure, arbitrary and conventional, those of the other, 
 necessary and essential ; the one was typical and 
 ceremonial in its character, the other spiritual and 
 substantial. The one was meant to teach the need 
 and excite the desire of what could be fully supplied 
 only by the other. 
 
 These resemblances and contrasts of the two great 
 systems, were to be embodied in the person and the 
 ministry of two individuals as their representatives. 
 Of the gospel, no such representative was needed ex- 
 cept Christ himself In the one emj^loyed to repre- 
 sent the Law, it might have been expected that these 
 prerequisites would meet ; that he should be person- 
 ally near akin to Him whose way he came to pre- 
 pare ; that he should be a person of high rank and
 
 52 SERMONS. 
 
 sacred dignitj ; that he should live secluded from the 
 rest of men, a life of abstinent austerity ; that the 
 moral tone, both of his doctrine and example, should 
 be high ; that his appeals should be directly to the 
 conscience, and intended to excite the sense of guilt, 
 danger, want, and weakness ; that for this very rea- 
 son, his entire ministry should be prospective and 
 preparatory, introductory to something intrinsically 
 better and practically more efficacious than itself. All 
 this might have seemed beforehand necessary in the 
 forerunner "who "was to symbolize the old dispensa- 
 tion, as distinguished from the new; and all this was 
 actually realized in the person and ministry of John 
 the Baptist. He was a kinsman of our Lord ; he was 
 a little older, both in person and in office ; he was of 
 sacerdotal rank and lineage ; the child of eminently 
 pious parents ; one whose birth had been announced 
 and accompanied by messages from heaven and re- 
 markable divine interpositions; a Xazarite from the 
 Avomb ; a dweller in the desert from early youth 
 " until the day of his showing unto Israel." 
 
 With the old dispensation he was clearly connected 
 by remarkable prophecies, as the voice of one crying 
 in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord — 
 as the messenger who should come before the face of 
 the Angel of the Covenant — as the new Elijah or 
 Elias, in whose ministry the spirit and power of the 
 old reformer were to be revived in Judah, scarcely 
 less apostate now than Israel was then. His con- 
 nexion with the old dispensation was made still more 
 clear and marked, by external coincidences, provi- J 
 dentially secured and made conspicuous. His locaM 
 
 i
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 53 
 
 habitation carried back the thoughts of those who saw 
 or heard him, to the forty years error in the desert, 
 and the giving of the Law upon Mt. Sinai. His minis- 
 trations at the Jordan called to mind the passage of 
 that river at the conquest of Canaan. His hairy gar- 
 ments and abstemious fare, reminded all spectators of 
 the prophets in general, and Elijah in particular. His 
 distant calls upon the people to go out to him, in- 
 stead of seeking them in their usual places of resort, 
 was perfectly analogous to the segregation and seclu- 
 sion of the chosen people under the law, and to the 
 local and restrictive institutions of the law itself. 
 
 With all this agreed his preaching, which was 
 preparatory. He called men to repentance, as essen- 
 tial to remission of sins, but he did not offer remission 
 itself. He preached the kingdom of heaven, not as 
 already established, but as at hand. He described 
 himself as a mere forerunner, inferior in dignity and 
 power to one who was to follow, and to whom he 
 was not worth}', in his own strong language, to 
 perform the menial office of unlacing or carrying his 
 sandals. 
 
 The same thing is true of the significant rite, by 
 which his preaching was accompanied, and from 
 which he derived his title. The baptism of John was 
 merely the forerunner of the baptism of Christ — the 
 baptism of repentance as distinguished from the bajD- 
 tism of faith — the baptism of water as distinguished 
 from the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. From 
 all this, it is evident that John's preparatory ministry 
 was perfectly adapted to its providential purpose, 
 that of embodying, and, as it were, personifying the
 
 54 SERMONS. 
 
 true relation of the old dispensation to the new, of 
 the hxw to the gospel, not as rival or antagonistic sj's- 
 tems, but as the beginning and the end, the inception 
 and perfection of the same great process. 
 
 That the resemblance of the type and the things 
 typified might be complete, it was ordered that John's 
 ministry, instead of ceasing when our Lord's began, 
 should be contemporaneous with it for a time, just as 
 the old and new dispensations, for important provi- 
 dential reasons, were to merge or fade into each other, 
 without any clearly defined point of transition or line 
 of demarkation, so that the Church, under both its 
 manifestations, might maintain its identity, and be, 
 like its master's robe, " without seam, woven from the 
 top throughout." (John 19, 23.) The consequence of 
 this was, that, while some rejected both, and some 
 passed through John's, as a preparatory school to that 
 of Christ, others remained in it after its preparatory 
 work M'as done, just as the body of the Jews eventually 
 clung to the j\Iosaic dispensation, after it had an- 
 swered its design and been sui^erseded by the dispen- 
 sation of the Son and Spirit. To such it is not, per- 
 haps, surprising that the j^roofs of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus should have seemed inconclusive. It is much 
 more surprising that the faith of John himself should 
 seem to waver, after his imprisonment, as some sup- 
 pose to be implied in his message, sent by two of his 
 disciples to our Lord : Art thou he that is to come, 
 or are we waiting for another? However easy it 
 may be to explain this, by supposing it to be intended 
 merely to confirm the faith or solve the doubts of his dis- 
 ciples, neither of these solutions is absolutely needed, or
 
 MATTHEW n, 12. 55 
 
 80 natural as that wliicli supposes that the message 
 was expressive of J ohn's own misgivings, not indeed 
 as to the person of Messiah, which had been made 
 known to him hy special revelation, and to which he 
 had repeatedly and publicly borne witness, but with 
 respect to our Saviour's method of proceeding, which 
 appears to have departed too much from the spirit 
 and the forms of the Old Testament, to be entirely 
 satisfactory or even intelligible to the last prophet of 
 the old economy, whose inspiration did not reach be- 
 yond the close of the system which was done away 
 in Christ. The person of Christ himself, as the 
 founder of a new dispensation, he distinctly recognized, 
 but he does not seem to have been prepared, by any 
 divine teaching, for the total revolution in the exter- 
 nal mode of serving God and saving souls, which be- 
 gan to be disclosed in the personal ministry of Christ 
 himself. 
 
 That this is the true solution of John's seeming 
 vacillation — namely, that he still stood on the ground 
 of the Old Testament, and still belonged to the Jewish 
 dispensation, and was, therefore, not prepared, with- 
 out a special revelation, which had not been vouch- 
 safed to him, to understand or appreciate the new 
 state of things which Christ liad partially begun to 
 introduce — may be gathered from our Saviour's treat- 
 ment of his message. After sending back the mes- 
 sengers, with a reference to the miracles which they 
 beheld, as proofs of his Messiahship, he seems to have 
 hastened to prevent any unjust or unfavourable infer- 
 ences, by the multitudes, from what they had just 
 heard, as if John the Baptist had retracted his testi-
 
 56 SERMONS. 
 
 mony, or wavered in his own belief. To this end, ho 
 reminded them, in lively figurative terms, peculiarly 
 adapted to afiect an oriental audience, that when they 
 went forth in such vast crowds to the wilderness, to 
 hear and be baptized of John, the man whom they 
 had sought and found there, was like any thing rather 
 than a reed shaken by the wind — a man of versatile 
 and fickle temper, or of uncertain, fluctuating judg- 
 ment — and like any thing rather than a softly dressed 
 and smooth-tongued courtier, who suppressed the 
 truth to flatter and conciliate his hearers. On the 
 contrary, they knew that John the Baptist was an 
 eminently bold, uncompromising, plain-spoken wit- 
 ness to the truth of God, and against the sins of men. 
 It would be folly, therefore, to suppose that his public 
 testimony to our Lord's Messiahship, was either given 
 insincerely, through the fear of men and the desire to 
 please them, or was now retracted, from a wavering 
 fiiith or fickleness of temper. This would be incon- 
 ceivable in such a man, though uninspired ; how much 
 more in a prophet — a prophet in the full and highest 
 sense of the Old Testament expression— a prophet 
 equal in authority to any who had gone before him ; 
 nay, in one respect superior to them all, as the im- 
 mediate forerunner of the new dispensation, as the 
 last in the long series of Old Testament prophets, in 
 whom the succession was to cease, or from whom it 
 was to pass and be forever merged in the prophetic 
 ministry of Christ himself. All the prophets of the 
 law, i. e. all the prophetic intimations of the old 
 economy, whether formal predictions or typical pre- 
 figurations — not excepting the general prospective 
 
 i
 
 MATTHEW 11, 2. 57 
 
 character wliicli stamped the system as a whole, as 
 well as some of its more salient points — all these, our 
 Saviour tells the people, j)rophesied as far as up to 
 John tlie Baptist; not that he was the great end to 
 which they pointed, — this was Christ himself, as John 
 had again and again solemnly declared, — but he was 
 the last of the forerunners, of the heralds who pro 
 claimed the advent and prepared the way of the Great 
 Deliverer: down to John the Baptist, and including 
 him, this preparatory and premonitory system still 
 continued, and in him, as the immediate predecessor 
 of the Saviour, it must have an end. 
 
 The very same considerations, therefore, which 
 exalted John the Baptist in the scale of the old econo- 
 my, proved that he belonged to it, and not to the new. 
 "While it was still true that there had never before 
 appeared a greater man, when measured by that 
 standard, it was equally true that the least in the king- 
 dom of heaven — the new dispensation — was greater 
 than he, i. e. more enlightened as to the nature ot 
 that dispensation, and the points in which it differed 
 from the old, and better able, both to appreciate and 
 carry into execution this new form of the divine ad- 
 ministration, than even the greater of those, who, 
 though invested with divine authority, were still but 
 ministers of the old restrictive system, and might, 
 therefore, be expected to feel some surprise, if not dis- 
 pleasure, at the sudden disuse of the ancient methods, 
 the neglect of mere externals, so inseparable from re- 
 ligion under the Mosaic institutions, and the casting 
 down not only of the barriers between strict Jews and 
 notorious sinners of their own race, but between that 
 
 VOL. II. o^
 
 5g SERMONS. 
 
 race itself and those from wliicli it had for ages dwelt 
 apart, a change already unequivocally intimated in 
 our Lord's instructions and his practice, and which, 
 viewed from the ground of the old dispensation, might 
 well seem to confound unchangeable distinctions and 
 to make Christ the minister of sin. 
 
 That such misapprehensions should exist in the 
 mind of John the Baptist, as a prophet of the old dis- 
 pensation, is certainly less strange, and in itself not 
 more incredible, than that Peter, even after the effu- 
 sion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, should 
 have still cherished the belief that, although the Gen- 
 tiles might be saved as well as Jews, through faith 
 in the Redeemer, they could only exercise that faith 
 by first becoming Jews, or conforming to the law of 
 Moses. Of this error he was disabused by a special 
 revelation ; and as none such seems to have been sent 
 to John the Baptist, it is not surprising that without 
 it, and in prison, he should have looked at what was 
 going on beyond the walls of the fortress where he 
 lay, with the eyes of an Old Testament prophet, rather 
 than with those of a New Testament saint. 
 
 This seems, as I have said, to be implied in our 
 Lord's vindication of him, as a true believer and a 
 great prophet, but still a minister of the Old Testa- 
 ment, not of the 'New, to whom the freedom and en- 
 largement of the course on which our Lord had either 
 actually entered, or prospectively marked out for his 
 apostles, might very naturally seem to be a general 
 removal of old landmarks, and a lifting of the flood- 
 gates which had hitherto shut off the appropriated 
 waters of the Jewish church from the natural stream
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 59 
 
 and current of the nations. Even in vindicating John, 
 onr Saviour seems to intimate that this distinguished 
 prophet had been led, by his peculiar position with 
 respect to the outgoing and incoming dispensation, 
 to expect that the kingdom of Messiah would be set 
 up by a methodical and formal process, perhaps not 
 witliout a large admixture of ceremonial services ; at 
 all events, with due conformity to ancient usages and 
 regulations; "whereas," he adds, as if appealing to 
 their own observation for the proof of the assertion, 
 " from the days of John the Baptist until now," i. e. 
 since the work of my forerunner was completed, and 
 my own begun, "the kingdom of heaven suflfereth 
 violence and the violent take it by force." 
 
 That this does not refer to persecution, is apparent 
 from the notorious fact, that the only persecution 
 whicli had yet taken place, was that of John himself, 
 who had just been excluded from the kingdom of 
 heaven in the technical, distinctive sense, or, at least, 
 assigned the lowest place in it, which, of course, for- 
 bids his treatment by his enemies to be regarded or 
 described as that experienced by the kingdom of 
 heaven. Equally incorrect is the assumption, that 
 the violence here mentioned in connexion with the 
 kingdom of heaven, is active, not passive — the king- 
 dom of heaven exercises violence or irresistible power 
 over men. This is equally at variance with the usage 
 of the words immediately in question and with the 
 other clause — the violent take it by force. The only 
 natural interpretation is the one which takes the 
 whole as a bold and strong, but striking and intelli- 
 gible figure, to denote the eagerness and freedom from
 
 60 SERMONS. 
 
 restraint, witli which men of every class and character, 
 Pharisees and publicans, reputed saints and sinners, 
 Jews and Gentiles, had begun or were soon to begin 
 to press into the kingdom of heaven, through or over 
 every barrier, moral, legal, ceremonial, or natural 
 distinction. 
 
 The particular image most readily suggested by 
 the words, is, perhaps, that of a fortress long main- 
 tained by a veteran garrison, but suddenly thrown 
 open by its new commander, and impetuously entered 
 by what seems to be a multitude of foes. To those 
 within, this might well appear to put an end to the 
 defence and to decide the contest. But after a while 
 it is perceived that those who have thus tumultuously 
 entered, are not enemies, but friends, and that this 
 violent accession to the strength of the defence is 
 more eifective than any which could have been se- 
 cured by gradual recruitings or occasional desertions 
 from the enemy, however necessary these resources 
 may be when the other fails, or in the intervals be- 
 tween these sudden and extensive movements from 
 without to the interior of the fortress or the besieged 
 town. In some points this comparison, like every 
 other, does not hold good ; but it may serve to illus- 
 trate the essential difference between John the Bap- 
 tist's expectations, and the course actually taken by 
 our Saviour, and referred to in the words of the text : 
 " From the days of John the Baptist until now, the 
 kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
 take it by force." 
 
 The circumstances of the case to which these 
 words had primary reference, were so peculiar, so in-
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 61 
 
 capable of repetition or recurrence, that it may seem 
 impossible to draw from them any lesson directly ap- 
 plicable to ourselves or to the actual condition of the 
 church or of the world. It is not, liowever, as a mat- 
 ter of historical curiosity, an interesting reminiscence 
 of antiquity, that this and many other similar dis- 
 courses of our Saviour have been left on record. They 
 were rather intended to exemplify the nature and dis- 
 tinctive character of his kingdom, as distinguished 
 not only from all false religions, but from all that was 
 temporary in the ancient manifestation of the true, 
 and thereby to preserve us from falling into errors 
 which were committed and corrected eighteen centu 
 ries ago. We are, therefore, at liberty, nay bound, 
 to apply these instructions to our own use, not by fan- 
 ciful accommodation, not by allegorical confusion of 
 things utterly distinct, but by a fair application of 
 the principle involved in the original case to any other 
 case, however distant and however different in form 
 and circumstance, to which that principle is natu- 
 rally applicable. Let us briefly inquire then, in the 
 present instance, wherein the essence of the error here 
 exposed consisted, and what analogous forms of error 
 may exist among ourselves. 
 
 That the old dispensation, while it lasted, was en- 
 titled to respect as a divine institution, if it needed 
 any proof, might be established, both by the ])reccpt 
 and example of our Saviour. Even after it was vir- 
 tually abrogated by the death and resurrection and 
 ascension of our Lord and by the advent of the Holy 
 Spirit, the apostles, acting by divine direction, still 
 paid a certain tribute of respect to the framework of
 
 Q2 SERMONS. 
 
 the old economy, until it was forever shaken down 
 and scattered bj a great convulsion. The error now 
 in question, therefore, did not lie in any undue def- 
 erence to the Law as a temporary system, but in 
 making it the standard and the rule of God's most 
 gracious dispensations under an entirely different state 
 of things; and more particularly in supposing, that 
 access to the Messiah's kingdom was to be as cir- 
 cuitous and slow and ceremonious, as the approach of 
 Gentile converts to the altar and the oracle of God 
 had been for ages, when, in fact, the kingdom of 
 heaven had already begun to suffer violence, and the 
 violent were actually taking it by force. 
 
 Into this identical mistake there is, of course, no 
 danger of our falling. The change of circumstances 
 already spoken of, has rendered it impossible. But 
 may not a kindred error, and one equally pernicious, 
 be committed now? God has appointed certain 
 means to be assiduously used for the extension of the 
 church and the conversion of the world. The obliga- 
 tion to employ these means is imperative, and can- 
 not be dispensed with. The very fact of their divine 
 authority entitles us to look for the most salutary 
 effects from their constant and faithful application. 
 We cannot err, therefore, by excess in the employ- 
 ment of these means. But may we not err by limiting 
 the Holy One himself to means — even those which he 
 has sanctioned and blessed? May we not err by sup- 
 posing, that because it is our duty to make constant, 
 prayerful, and believing use of these means, and to 
 watch for their effect, there is nothing more to be ex- 
 pected — even from the free smd sovereign operation of
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 63 
 
 divine grace ? In other words, by looking too much, 
 or, at least, too exclusively, at the ordinary results of 
 ordinary means, may we not cease to hope for those 
 extraordinary gifts, with wliich the Lord is sometimes 
 pleased, as it were, to reward the faithful use of the 
 stated and appointed means of grace ? 
 
 There is no doubt an opposite eiTor, into which we 
 are no less prone to fall, and from which the Church 
 has suflered. incalculable loss and. damage. Tliis is 
 the error of expecting all from God's extraordinary 
 gifts, to the exclusion of those stated means which he 
 has ordained, and on. which he has not only promised 
 but bestowed a blessing. This error, pushed to an 
 extreme, becomes fanaticism, and. is the fruitful source 
 of doctrinal corruptions, practical abuses, spiritual 
 pride, and. all the other evils springing from a violent 
 excitement followed by reaction towards the opposite 
 extreme of lethargy and deadness. The error which 
 produces all these evils, does not merely lie in the 
 denial or oblivion of the fact that God's extraordinary 
 blessings must, from their very nature, be occasional, 
 but also in denying or forgetting that extraordinary 
 gifts are, according to a law of God's most gracious 
 dispensations, not bestowed at random, but conferred 
 as blessings on the faithful use of ordinary means. 
 
 To expect an extraordinary harvest, without using 
 the means necessary to secure an ordinary one, would 
 be scarcely more absurd than ta concentrate all our 
 hopes and wishes on extraordinary spiritual visita- 
 tions, while we wilfully or negligently slight the stated 
 and invariable means of doing and obtaining good, 
 on which God sometimes sets the seal of his approval
 
 64 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 by remarkable outpourings of his spirit. As tlie 
 manna in the wilderness did not take the place of 
 ordinary food, but supplied its deficiencies, and fur- 
 nished special proofs of the divine presence and favour 
 to his people; so the greatest spiritual gifts to the 
 Church now, are not intended to supplant the use of 
 ordinary means, but rather to encourage it by signs 
 of the divine approbation; and the hope of such ex- 
 traordinary gifts is never better founded than at those 
 times when, instead of intermitting ordinary duties, 
 we perform them with redoubled zeal. 
 
 But no extreme of judgment or of practice is to 
 be corrected by another. While we shim the error 
 of relying on extraordinary gifts as a substitute for 
 ordinary duties, or as an apology for slighting them, 
 let us not lose sight of such extraordinary gifts alto- 
 gether, or regard them as impossible and hopeless, or 
 as inconsistent with the faithful use of ordinary 
 means. By so doing, we gratuitously throw away 
 one of the most powerful incitements to duty, and 
 most efficacious stimulants to hope and zeal. Noth- 
 ing is better suited to invigorate habitual exertion 
 than a firm belief that God bestows his most invalu- 
 able and special gifts on such as diligently seek for 
 those of a more ordinary nature. To relinquish this 
 belief and hope, is to cut the sinews of our spiritual 
 streno-th even in relation to our ordinary duties. At 
 the same time, this extreme of error and misconduct 
 tends more directly to diminish the amount of good 
 which we might otherwise accomplish. While it still 
 remains indisputably true, that the extension of the 
 Chruch and the conversion of the world are suspended,
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. 65 
 
 under God, upon the constant use of ordinary means 
 for the neglect of which nothing can compensate or 
 atone; it is equally certain that the aggregate result 
 of these means would be comparatively small, without 
 occasional accessions of divine and human strength, 
 making good, as it were by a single movement, the 
 arrears of many years; and giving a new impulse to 
 those means which, though they cannot be dispensed 
 with, are too apt, in human hands, to grow inert and 
 inefficient, unless frequently renewed and set in mo- 
 tion by a special divine influence. In other words, 
 and in accordance with the figurative language of the 
 text, although the kingdom of heaven, even now, as 
 when it was first visibly erected upon earth, must 
 grow by constant gradual accession, and although, if 
 this mode of increase should fail, its place could be 
 supplied by nothing else, yet even this increase is 
 stimulated, and the aggregate result indefinitely mul- 
 tiplied, by those occasional seasons of awakening and 
 commotion, when "the kingdom of heaven sufiercth 
 violence, and the violent take it by force." 
 
 I rejoice to know that I address some, I trust 
 many, to whom the extension of this kingdom is a 
 subject of intense desire and fervent prayer. But do 
 the hopes of such bear due proportion to their con- 
 scientious labours and their zeal for God? Are we 
 not, Christian brethren, too prone to despondency, as 
 well as to presumption and security ; extremes which 
 are continually found in close proximity, not only 
 among members of the same connnunity, but in the 
 vacillating, varying experience of one and the same 
 person ? And may not one of these extremes at least,
 
 QQ SERMONS. 
 
 arise from the mistake wliicli we have been consider- 
 ing, the mistaken notion that becanse Christ's kingdom 
 mnst be built np by a slow and sure increase, there 
 is no such thing to be expected as a general and 
 powerful commotion of men's minds, producing the 
 same result upon a larger scale and in a shorter time; 
 that because that vast reservoir of God's grace and 
 man's happiness is fed by rivulets and drops in or- 
 dinary times, there is no such thing to be expected as 
 the sight of an irresistible current impetuously setting 
 in the same direction ; that because we are accus- 
 tomed to see men gained over, one by one, from the 
 service of Satan and the world to that of God, there 
 is no such thing to be expected in our days as that of 
 the kingdom of heaven suifering violence, and the 
 violent taking it by force ? Oh, let us see to it, that 
 even our attachment to the stated ordinary means of 
 grace, and our well-founded fears of spurious and fanat- 
 ical excitements, do not unfit us for the reception of 
 extraordinary mercies, and betray us, for a time at 
 least, into unreasonable trust in accustomed forms 
 and methods, and a groundless dread of irregularity 
 and insubordination, simply because in this day, as 
 in that day, " the kingdom of heaven suffereth vio- 
 lence, and the violent take it by force." 
 
 Is there not still a class to whom I may, without 
 ofi'ence, address myself in terms of solemn warning 
 and entreaty, in application of the subject which has 
 been before us ? I mean such as have long enjoyed 
 the stated dispensation of God's word, but as yet seem 
 not to have experienced its power. To such I venture 
 to address myself directly, and to put the question,
 
 MATTHEW 11, 12. Q^ 
 
 Are you not, perhaps unconsciously, relying on tliis 
 passive enjoyment of religious privileges as a means 
 of safety, independent of all serious reflection or ex- 
 ertion on your own part ? Such a state of mind may 
 be produced by a misappreliension or abuse of the 
 doctrines which you have ever been faithfully taught, 
 of God's sovereignty and man's dependence. But 
 this only makes your error more alarming, and your 
 danger more imminent. God is indeed the only 
 Saviour, the alpha and omega of our hopes, the 
 author and the finisher of our salvation ; but he does not 
 save men in their sleep, or carry them to heaven stu- 
 pefied in deathlike lethargy. If he means to save you, 
 be assured he will awaken you. However various 
 the degrees and forms of that alarm which enters into 
 all evangelical repentance, or prepares the way for it, 
 you must experience some disturbance of your long 
 and deep sleep of security. If the absence of any 
 such emotion is the fault of God himself, derive Avhat 
 consolation you find possible from this blasphemous 
 apology; but do not forget that after all, whatever be 
 the cause, and wherever the blame lies, your deep 
 sleep must be broken or you never will be saved. 
 "With all allowance for the freedom and variety of 
 God's dispensations towards the souls of men, and for 
 the difference produced by constitution, education, 
 and the previous mode of life, it is still true that you 
 cannot doze or dream yourself into salvation ; that in 
 some sense, and to some extent, a vehement exertion 
 is required and produced in every soul to which God 
 has purposes of mercy; and that this is not peculiar to 
 one age or country, but characteristic of God's saving
 
 68 SEEM0J7S. 
 
 methods in all times and places. So that in a certain 
 sense it may still be triilj and emphatically said that 
 " from the days of John the Baptist until now, the 
 kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent 
 take it by force."
 
 lY. 
 
 Isaiah 55, 1. — Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 3-e to the waters, 
 and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat: yea, come, buy 
 wine and milk, without money and without price. 
 
 As Christ came to seek and to save tliat wliicli 
 was lost, liis servants must do likewise. Their work, 
 like their Master's, is to save lost souls. Thej cannot 
 save, like him, by their own power or merit. But as 
 instruments in his hands they may be the means of 
 saving. !Not the preacher only, but the humblest 
 Christian in his little sphere, is bound, in some way, 
 and in some degree, to seek and to save that which is 
 lost. With this commission we are all sent forth. 
 We are not sent to a world which is merely in danger 
 of being lost. It is lost. It is condemned already. 
 The gospel is not merely a method of prevention, but 
 of cure. Christ came to save that which was lost al- 
 ready, and to seek it, in order that it might be saved, 
 and we, as his instruments, arc bound to seek the lost 
 that we may save them. We are not to keep back the 
 salvation of the gospel till men seek it for themselves. 
 We must offer it to them. We must press it upon them. 
 We must not only spread the feast, but bid men to it.
 
 70 SERMONS. 
 
 It is our business to invite men to tlie Saviour. We 
 must therefore learn tlie art of invitation. And we 
 cannot learn it better than from God's example. Tlie 
 Bible is full of invitations, varied in form, but alike in 
 principle, proceeding from the same source, addressed 
 to the same objects, and conveying the same offer. 
 Let these invitations be the models of our own, and 
 let us, upon this occasion, take a lesson from the one 
 before us, which is among the most earnest, free, im 
 portunate, and touching in the "Word of God. 
 
 In order to appreciate and understand it, let us 
 look back for a moment to what goes before. After 
 various partial exhibitions of the Saviour as a prophet 
 or divine teacher, he is fully set before us in the fifty- 
 -thii-d chapter as a priest and sacrifice, who bore our 
 griefs and carried our sorrows, who was wounded for 
 our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, upon 
 whom the chastisement of our peace fell, and by 
 whose stripes we are healed, upon whom the Lord 
 laid the iniquities of us all, who was stricken for the 
 transgressions of his people, who made his soul an 
 offering for sin, who justified many by bearing their 
 iniquities, who poured out his soul unto death and 
 was numbered with the transgi'essors, who bare the 
 sins of many and made intercession for the transgres- 
 sors. These strong expressions, which are all coll- 
 ected from that one short chapter, leave no doubt 
 as to its subject. The utmost ingenuity of Jews 
 and Gentiles has been bafiied in the effort to invent 
 another. 
 
 Here, then, the foundation of the sinner's hope is 
 laid, the only one that can be laid, " for there is no 
 
 .
 
 ISAIAH 65, 1. 71 
 
 other name given nnder lieaven among men whereby 
 "we must be saved." In the fifty -fourth chapter, the 
 Church is assured that notwithstanding her afflictions, 
 she shall taste the fruit of this great expiation. She 
 is exhorted to prepare for an immense accession ; to 
 enlarge the place of her tent, and stretch forth tlie 
 curtain of her habitations, to lengthen her cords and 
 strengthen her stakes. She is told that her seed shall 
 inherit the Gentiles, that although her national pi'e- 
 erainence shall cease, her spiritual greatness shall be 
 vastly magnified by being rendered co-extensive with 
 the earth ; that her children shall be taught of the 
 Lord, and great shall be the j)eace of her children ; 
 that no weapon formed against her shall prosper, and 
 that every tongue which rises against her shall be 
 condemned. "This is the heritage of the servants of 
 the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saitli the 
 Lord." 
 
 Having thus assured the Church of her enlarge- 
 ment and prosperity, the prophet takes a wider range ; 
 he looks towards those from among whom this acces- 
 sion to the Church is to be gathered ; he remembers 
 the mixed multitude of lost men who are wandering 
 in the wilderness, aliens from the commonwealth of 
 Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise. 
 He sees them fainting there with spiritual thirst, a 
 sense of guilt, an undefined, uneasy longing after 
 something not possessed ; something as necesary to 
 refresh the soul as water to the panting hart, or to 
 the gasping Arab in the desert. He sees them not 
 only parched with thirst, but gnawed by hunger : 
 nature craves something to support as well as to re-
 
 Y2 SERMONS. 
 
 fresli her, and in obedience to lier call, lie sees them 
 labouring -^ith desperate exertion to dig wp some nu- 
 tritious root, or some buried fragment from the burn- 
 ins; sand. He sees them wadintr throu2:li that soil of 
 fire to some distant shrub which holds out the last 
 dying hope of food, and as they reach it, he beholds 
 them turn away from its barren stalk and withered 
 leaves, to lie down in despair, whije others scarcely 
 less exhausted, follow in the same vain search. 
 
 Such scenes are not imcommon in the deserts of 
 the east, where men are often found to choose be- 
 tween starvation and the use of food from which 
 nature even in extremity revolts, while the agony of 
 thirst is rendered ten times more acute by the deceit- 
 ful water of the desert which becomes hot sand upon 
 the traveller's approach. And yet all this is nothing 
 more than a faint image of the desert in which 
 men are born, and where they wander till reclaimed 
 by God ; a desert which is not without its hot 
 sands and its leafless shrubs, its weariness, its bit- 
 ter pangs, its thirst, its famine, rendered more tor- 
 menting by the cruel mockery of its illusions. This 
 is the picture which the world presents to every eye 
 from which the scales have fallen. This is the picture 
 which the prophet seems to have beheld in vision 
 when he stood upon the walls of Zion, and looked far 
 ofl' into the recesses of that desert stretching all 
 around her, out of which he knew that some were to 
 be gathered into Zion, and at which he therefore 
 gazes with a yearning pity ; not his own merely, 
 but the pity of that God whose Spirit gave him utter- 
 ance.
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 73 
 
 For as lie looks he speaks, lie cries aloud, as if to 
 persons at a distance. He no longer addresses him- 
 self merely to the church. His language is as wide 
 and comprehensive as the sins and wants of suffering 
 humanity. It is to men as men that he appeals, 
 " Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the 
 sons of man," without distinction or exception. " Ho, 
 every one that thirsteth ! " He does not say every 
 child of Israel. He does not say every godly prose- 
 lyte. He does not say every upright, blameless man. 
 He does not even say every one who repents, or 
 every one who believes, but every one who thirsts. 
 He presupposes nothing but a sense of need ; no 
 knowledge, but the consciousness of misery and help- 
 lessness ; not even a knowledge of the method of sal- 
 vation. Here then it is thus that God begins his 
 invitations. He appeals to that uneasy sense of 
 something needed, what or why the sinner knows 
 not ; to the spiritual thirst by wliich his soul is 
 parched, he knows not how. "Where this exists, no 
 otlier qualification is demanded. 
 
 Tliat so few accept of it is not owing to the want 
 of freeness in the offer, nor to the want of merit in 
 those whom it is made to. But they will not hear. 
 The voice cries in the wilderness, but those to whom 
 it is addressed refuse to hear. Or if they listen, it is 
 so incredulously that they hear in vain. If their at- 
 tention could be fixed but for a moment, they would 
 urely hear in earnest. When the starved and pant- 
 ing pilgrim, as he lies extended in the desert, hears a 
 distant cry, exhaustion may have stupefied him so 
 that he regards it not. Or if the sound arouses him, 
 
 VOL. 11. — 4
 
 Y4 SERMONS. 
 
 he may mistake it for tlie cry of the wild beast, or 
 the voice of other sufferers like himself. But if these 
 words distinctly fall upon his ear, " Ho, every one that 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters," unless despair has 
 made him utterly incredulous, he must be startled 
 and aroused. And even though he deem the tidings 
 too good to be true, he will at least put forth one 
 effort more to reach the spot from which the sound 
 comes. 
 
 But, alas ! in the spiritual desert it is harder to gain 
 the ear of those who are dying with thirst, even by 
 urgent calls to drink and live. They are the subjects 
 of pei-petual illusion. Tliey continue still to hope 
 for quick relief from some phantasma, some deceitful 
 sight or sound, in chase of which they will not listen 
 to the only voice which offers them substantial relief. 
 Think how constantly the offers of the gospel are re- 
 iterated in the ears of thousands who are really 
 athirst, whose life is spent in seeking to allay that 
 inward thirst by copious draughts of knowledge, 
 fame, or pleasure, or by filling their parched mouths 
 witli the burning sand of this world's gains. They 
 are partly conscious of a void within them which the 
 world can never fill, and yet the only voice of invita- 
 tion which they will not hear is that of God crying, 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 
 The only stream at which they will not try to slake 
 their thirst is the river of the water of life. "What 
 shall be done then ? Shall the offer be suspended ? 
 Shall the voice of invitation be less loud and urgent ? 
 No, let those who utter it cry aloud and spare not. 
 Let no deluded soul be lost, because the calls of sal-
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 7g 
 
 vation were too faint and few f It is true tlie cry will 
 never ])e obeyed, nor even listened to until the ear is 
 sujDernatu rally opened. Till then, the sinner will he 
 deaf as the adder to the voice of tlie charmer charm- 
 ing never so wisely. And the Christian's consolation 
 under all discouragement from man's unwillingnesf 
 to hear is this, that the call is God's call, and thaf 
 when he pleases, he can render it effectual. 
 
 But while we draw from this consideration all the 
 comfort which it is adapted to afford, let it not be 
 made a pretext for unfaithfulness or negligence in 
 doing our part as the messengers of Christ. While 
 it is certain that no soul will perish which does not 
 abundantly deserve to die; and on the other hand 
 that none whom God elects to everlasting life will fail 
 to hear the voice which calls them to the fountain of 
 salvation; it is also certain that the loss of some sin- 
 ners will bring aggravated guilt upon the souls of 
 those who should have called them and who did not; 
 or who called so faintly that it never reached the ears 
 of those to w^hom the word was sent, or if it reached, 
 their cars, it never touched their hearts, so calmly 
 and so coldly was the invitation uttered. 
 
 Let us ask ourselves this question : Arc the calls 
 and invitations of the gospel, at this moment, uttered 
 loud enough? Are there voices enough joining in the 
 cry, to make it audible ? Is it heard in the desert ? 
 Is it heard in those dark places of the earth wliich are 
 full of the habitations of cruelty ? Is our voice heard 
 there, tlirough the messengers wdiom we have sent? 
 Is it lieard at home ? Even among ourselves is the 
 cry as loud and piercing as it ought to be ? Even
 
 76 SERMONS. 
 
 where purity of doctrine is maintained, and wliero 
 the evidence of practical religion does exist, may there 
 not be a want of earnestness and fervour in proclaim- 
 ing that which is really believed? May not the 
 very dread of spurious excitement, which the church 
 has seen abundant cause to feel, be j)nshed so far as 
 to produce a coldness and apj^earance of indifference 
 in publishing the offers of the gospel, which amounts, 
 in practical effect, almost to a denial of the very 
 truths affirmed, and a retracting of the invitations 
 offered ? It is a question to be seriously pondered, 
 whether much of the indifference with which the in- 
 vitations of the gospel are received, does not arise 
 from the apparent absence of all lively feeling on the 
 part of those who make them. And this, not only in 
 relation to the public formal preaching of the Avord, 
 but also in reference to those private occasions upon 
 which the individual Christian may be called to say 
 to those who hear his voice, " Ho, every one that 
 thirsteth, come ye to the waters ! " Let the invita- 
 ■ tions which we offer in the name of Christ, be, like his 
 own, earnest and free, addressed to all who feel the 
 need of them. " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
 ye to the waters ! " 
 
 The figures here used need but little explanation, 
 and that little only to secure a just discrimination be- 
 tween things which differ. The same divine grace is ex- 
 hibited under three distinct aspects; water refreshes, 
 milk nourishes, wine cheers. To the thirsty soul the 
 prophet offers Avater, to the famished milk, to the de- 
 spondent wine. The same grace which relieves 
 our spiritual lassitude and weariness of life, re-
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 77 
 
 moves the cause of these distressing symptoms, by 
 supplying the materials of spiritual strength, feed- 
 ing the soul with knowledge — not only religious but 
 experimental knowledge — and the same grace which 
 thus strengthens, while it gives repose, goes further, 
 and produces holy joy. To all this the sinner is in- 
 vited in the gospel. Is he thirsty ? Is he conscious 
 of a want within him which must be supplied before 
 he can enjoy repose, and does he find that this vague 
 feeling of deficiency is more distressing, the more un- 
 defined it is? And does this exhaust and as it were 
 dry up the very fountains of his life, with an eftect 
 equivalent to that of parching thirst, until his so\il is 
 ready to cry out, My moisture is turned into the 
 drought of summ.er ? Even amidst the press of secu- 
 lar employments and the whirl of frantic gaiety, this 
 thirst of spirit has been often felt ; nay, it has been 
 itself the means of plunging men in business or in 
 pleasure, in the hope of extinguishing that fever in 
 the veins which will not let them rest. But in vain 
 do they drink at the polluted springs of pleasure and 
 the broken cisterns of man's wisdom ; the fire still 
 rasres — it consumes and exhausts them more and 
 more, until at last, the excitement of unsatisfied de- 
 sire subsides into a desperate apathy, beneath which 
 smoulder the remains of half-quenched passions, 
 which, if once rekindled, will burn unto the lowest 
 hell. 
 
 Society is full of those whose hearts have thus been 
 scorched and blasted in the vain attempt to satisfy a 
 craving soul with any thing but God. Tlie sense of 
 want remains, but it no longer stimulates to action;
 
 Y8 SERMONS. 
 
 it is^ ike the tliirst of those who have exhausted nature 
 in tae eftort to find water in the desert, and have 
 fallen down to die. The thirst which they before 
 felt, is now but one among; a multitude of symptoms 
 which premonish speedy death. Perhaps you know 
 such. If you do not, you at least know those whose 
 minds are restless under disapj)ointment, and a sense 
 of insufficiency in every thing which this world offers 
 to allay their inward thirst. If you know such, and 
 would act the part of Christians towards them, do not 
 foster their delusive hope of finding yet among the 
 untried springs and cisterns of the world, what they 
 have thus far sought in vain; but taking your stand 
 by the fountain of life which Christ has opened, cry 
 to them in a voice too loud and piercing to be heard 
 without attention, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, 
 come ye to the waters ! " Here bathe those burning 
 brows and steep those parched lips, and slake that 
 never-dying thirst which has become inseparable 
 from your very being. 
 
 There are few scenes in fiction or in real life 
 better suited to create a vivid impression of re- 
 freshment and relief, than those descriptions given 
 by some travellers in the great Sahara, of the 
 finding of a well, after an interval of terrible privation. 
 The delirious joy, the frantic struggle for precedence, 
 the impetuous delight with which the panting sufferer 
 plunges his head into the long-sought element — the 
 very picture brings refreshment with it ; but alas ! our 
 sympathies are few and faint with spiritual objects, 
 or we certainly should find what I have just described 
 an imperfect emblem of the icw life breathed into the
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 79 
 
 sonl, when plunged into the fountain opened for sin 
 and uncleanness, first, to be cleansed, and then, when 
 all impurity has passed away, to drink. Ah, my 
 hearers, is it possible for those who have once tasted 
 of those waters, to forget them ? " Will a man leave 
 the snow of Lebanon, or shall the cold flowing waters 
 be forsaken ? " Yes, such a thing is possible ; for if it_ 
 were not, we should not only come more constantly 
 ourselves to this exhaustless fountain, but should cry 
 more frequently to all them that pass by, " Ho, every 
 one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ! " 
 
 It is related by one who had experienced the hor- 
 rors of the great African desert, that the thirst which 
 had absorbed all other feelings while it raged, was no 
 sooner slaked, than the feeling of hunger was revived 
 in tenfold violence ; and I scruple not to spiritualize 
 this incident in illustration of the prophet's language. 
 The sensation of relief from undefined anxiety or from 
 a positive dread of divine wrath, however exquisite, 
 is not enough to satisfy the soul. Tlie more it re- 
 ceives, the more it feels its own deficiencies : and 
 Avhen its fjiculties have been revived by the assurance 
 of forgiveness, it becomes aware of its own ignorance, 
 and of those chasms which can only be filled with 
 knowledge of the truth. This is the sense of spiritual 
 hunger which succeeds the allaying of spiritual thirst. 
 The soul, having been refreshed, must now be fed. 
 The cooling, cleansing projjerties of water cannot re- 
 pair the decaying strength. There must be nutri- 
 ment, suited to the condition of the soul. And it is 
 furnislied. Here is milk as well as water. We are 
 called, not only to refreshment but to nourishment.
 
 80 SERMONS 
 
 The voice cries, not only " Come ye to the waters," 
 but " Come ye, buy and eat." If refreshment only be 
 supplied, the soul, though freed from thirst, will die 
 of hunger. Do you know any soul in this state, fresh 
 from the laver of regeneration and rejoicing in its 
 change ? Let us all hope to know many such. And 
 when we do, or if we know them now, let us see to it 
 that the first relief obtained from the waters of this 
 fountain be succeeded by instruction — by instruction 
 suited to the wants of babes in Christ — the sincere 
 milk of the word. It may never be known, at least 
 to us, in time or in eternity, how much of the fanati- 
 cal abuses which have followed what appeared to be 
 instances of genuine conversion, has arisen from neg- 
 lect, or error in this very juncture. The soul has 
 been refreshed, but it has not been fed, and inanition 
 has excited it more fatally than it could have been 
 excited by excess. 
 
 Has it not been a matter of familiar observation 
 that the same men who are most successful in alarm- 
 ing sinners, are not alwavs most successful in the 
 training of new converts or the edification of estab- 
 lished saints ? And has not this diversity of gifts been 
 made a reason for infringing on the order of God's 
 house, and multiplying orders in the ministry ? They 
 who pursue this course forget, that while the prophet 
 invites every one that thirsteth tc the waters, he in- 
 vites them at the same time to paitake of milk and 
 wine — of milk to nourish, and of wine to cheer. The 
 supply of nature's cravings, though the first thing in 
 order and necessity, is not the last. It is not all. The 
 man must not only be continued in existence — his ex-
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. gl 
 
 ietence must be lifippy ; it is for happiness that he 
 desires to live, and when that which is necessary 
 even to existence is supplied, he is not satisfied, he 
 must have more ; as the feeling of thirst gives way to 
 that of lumger, so the sense of hunger yields to the 
 desire of enjoyment. To be satisfied with mere life, 
 and with that by which it is supported, would be 
 brutal. The nobler instincts of our nature point to 
 something for which life is worth possessing, and the 
 very satisfaction of inferior necessities, renders those 
 which are higher more perceptible and urgent. As 
 the relief of doubt and dread is not enough without 
 the knowledge of the truth, so the knowledge of the 
 truth is not enough unless it yields enjoyment. And 
 it does, if rightly used. The gospel ofiers wine, as 
 well as milk, and water. Come and drink, not of 
 one, but of all, of all together. Come and slake your 
 thirst, appease your hunger, and dispel your cares ; 
 not by difl'ercnt means, but by the same abundant, 
 all-sutficient grace. God makes provision, not for one 
 want merely, but for all. If you are cooled, and not 
 fed — if 3'ou are fed, and not exhilarated, it is not his 
 fault, but yours ; his call is not to this or that exclu- 
 sively, but "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to 
 the waters, and he that hath no mone^'', come ye, buy 
 and eat. Yea come, buy wine and milk, without money 
 and without price ! " 
 
 I have already directed your attention to the fiict, 
 that thirst is the only qualification required of those 
 who are invited to the fountain. 'No merit, no pur- 
 chase money ; nay, the want of this may be consid- 
 ered as a negative condition. Merit and money are 
 
 VOL. II. — 4*
 
 82 SERMONS. 
 
 not only needless, they are exclivded ; for you see tlie 
 invitation is to those who have no money, who can 
 pay no price. " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
 ye to the waters, and he, (or even) he that hath no 
 money." It is true the word " buy" is added — " Come 
 ye, buy and eat" — but the Hebrew word is not the 
 usual equivalent to l)uy : it is a word used elsewhere 
 to denote no purchase except that of food ; and 
 even in that application may mean properly the mere 
 act of jprociiring^ by whatever means, though com- 
 monly applied to purchase, in the strict sense. If so, 
 it may here be understood to mean " supply your- 
 selves." But even granting that the word means huy 
 — and it must be admitted that it could not fail to 
 suggest that idea to a Jewish reader — it appears to 
 me that it is evidently used here for the very purpose 
 of expressing with more emphasis the perfect freeness 
 of the offer made. They are called to buy, indeed, 
 but who ? who are to be the buyers ? Why, those 
 who have no money ; and lest this should be misun- 
 derstood as implying that some other mode of pay- 
 ment would be called for beside money, all miscon- 
 struction is precluded by the paradoxical, but most 
 expressive phrase — buy wine and milk without 
 MONEY AND WITHOUT PRICE. This full and unam- 
 biguous description of the offer as gratuitous, is any 
 thing but needless or superfluous. It has its use, a 
 most important use, in guarding men against a natu- 
 ral and common error. 
 
 The offers of the good things of this world are all 
 made on a contrary condition : the calls of this world are 
 to those who have money, those who can render some
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 83 
 
 equivalent for tliat wliich tliey receive. So universal is 
 this rule, that it is often hard for men to be convinced 
 that the offer of salvation is gratuitous. They feel 
 that something must be rendered in return, and there- 
 fore they conclude that the forms of invitation, which 
 imply gratuity and freeness, are to be understood as 
 excluding merely some gross forms of compensation, 
 that if money in the strict sense be rejected, as it 
 must be, it is only to make way for some equivalent ; 
 and thus men, in the face of God's most solemn dec- 
 larations, feed the pride of their own hearts with the 
 delusive hope that they shall yet pay down the price 
 of their salvation. In others, the same error may 
 assume a humbler form. Knowing the principles on 
 which men are accustomed to distribute their gifts, 
 and imperfectly instructed in the principles of God's 
 most gracious dispensations, they are ready to infer 
 that, as they have no price to pay, they are excluded 
 from the offer. It is just as if the poor, exhausted 
 pilgrim in the desert, seeing others crowd around the 
 well or cistern, should imagine that the water must be 
 purchased, and, aware of his own poverty, relinquish 
 all attempts to reach it. 
 
 But suppose that, just as he has come to this con- 
 clusion, a voice is heard proclaiming, " IIo, every one 
 that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ! " and, as if to 
 preclude all possibility of doubt as to the freeness of 
 the offer, adding, " He that hath no money." How 
 would such a person be affected by tlie sound ? And 
 how ought thirsting, starving, and desponding souls 
 to be affected, when they hear the want of merit upon 
 their part made an express condition of the offer of
 
 84 SERMOTS. 
 
 salvation ? And above all, Iiow ouglit those who 
 make the ofler, to be watchful against every thing at 
 all at variance with this first principle of free salva- 
 tion. Shall the ignorance, or negligence, or shallow 
 experience of those who are sent forth to seek and 
 save the lost, be suffered to convert the free and gra- 
 cious invitations of the Saviour into legal bargains, in 
 which grace is bought and sold under some specious 
 pretext ? This is no trifling or unmeaning question. 
 There is a spurious liberality of feeling and opinion 
 upon this point, a spirit of concession to the legal 
 doctrine of salvation by works, as if there were really 
 a mere verbal difference between the two. And this 
 feeble, compromising temper, may gain access to the 
 pulpit and the press, without any formal dereliction 
 of the strictest forms of orthodox belief 
 
 The half-instructed youth who rushes hastily into 
 the field of labour, under a strong conviction that the 
 world is ready to perish for the want of his individual 
 services, is very apt to carry with him a confused, un- 
 settled view of this essential matter, and, by way of 
 shunning metaphysical distinctions and scholastic for- 
 mulas, to clog the glorious offer of a free salvation 
 with the pitiful conditions of a mere self-righteous- 
 ness. It has been done. It may be done again. But 
 w^ho will dare to do it ? Who will dare with his eyes 
 open to exclude from Christ those who are specially 
 entitled to approach him, for the very reason that 
 their guilt is great, their misery extreme, their own 
 strength nothing, and their merit less than nothing ? 
 for instead of meriting reward, they merit punish- 
 ment. Will you exclude them, or impede them, on
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1 85 
 
 the ground that a gratuitous offer will encourage sin ? 
 If jou do it at all, this will no doubt be jour motive. 
 And to what docs it amount ? Tliat you are more 
 afraid of sin, and more unwilling to encourage it, than 
 God himself. The necessary consequence of what 
 you do is to condemn your Maker. 
 
 " Snatch from his hand the sceptre and the rod, 
 Re-judge his justice, be the God of God." 
 
 Tliey who are good enough or bad enough for 
 Christ to save, are good enough for you to seek in 
 order to salvation. The objection is a merely theo- 
 retical objection ; it is utterly at war with all expe- 
 rience ; the abusers of God's grace have never been 
 the true recipients of gratuitous salvation. They have 
 been the cavillers and carpers at it. They have often 
 been the self-sufficient formalist, and the self-deceiv- 
 ing hypocrite. There is no danger in obeying God, 
 and following his example. And as he has made the 
 want of merit, and of all reliance upon merit a con- 
 dition of acceptance with him, let us go and do like- 
 wise. Let us not act the part of the ungrateful and 
 uncharitable servant, who no sooner had obtained 
 from his master the remission of his own debt, than 
 he cruelly exacted the inferior obligation of his fcllow- 
 ^ervant. In the parable, indeed, the debt exacted was 
 one due to the very man whose own debt had been 
 just remitted. But we may be sure that if he had 
 been equally severe in the exaction of debts owing to 
 his lord, although his guilt would have been less, al- 
 though his error might have sprung from an unen- 
 lightened zeal for the rights of Him by whose free
 
 86 SERMONS. 
 
 favour he had been himself forgiven, he would not 
 have escaped censure. 
 
 Nor shall ^ve, if we do likewise. No, my brethren, 
 it is not the will of Him, who, as we humbly trust, 
 has pardoned us so freely, that in publishing the gos- 
 pel of his grace, we should lay hold of our wretched 
 fellow-sinners by the throat, and say. Pay my master 
 what thou owest. It is not the will of Christ that 
 the salvation which he died for, which he bought by 
 death, and which he paid. for with his heart's blood 
 to the uttermost farthing, should be brought into the 
 market and exposed to sale by us, as if it could again 
 be purchased by the groans wrung from the heart of 
 the despairing sinner, who instead of being brought 
 to Christ is thus put from him, it may be forever. If 
 any perversion of the truth can be insulting to the 
 Saviour, it is this. It must needs be that offences 
 come, but woe to that man by whom the offence 
 cometh. The way in which that woe may be avoided 
 is too plain to be mistaken. It is one which brings 
 us back to the same point from which we started ; the 
 necessity of following God's own example in the offer 
 of salvation. 
 
 If we do this we are safe. Let us all then learn to 
 do it. Both in public and in private, as we have oc- 
 casion, let us open to the sinner's view the fountain 
 of life, and if he will not look, or if he be so far off 
 that he cannot see it, while he dies of thirst and 
 hunger, let us lift up our voices, and with piercing 
 accents bid him come and live ; let us tell him that 
 he must come or be lost forever ; but beware of add- 
 ing any other limitation ; let us call with special
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 ISAIAH 55, 1. 87 
 
 emphasis to those who are most destitute of all meri 
 torious pretensions to be saved ; to the ignorant, the 
 desperately wicked, to the heathen ; and as they pass 
 by, rushing madly to destruction, whether near us or 
 afar off, let us make their ears to tingle with the 
 memorable words of the prophetic preacher, "Ho, 
 every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and 
 he tliat hath no money, come ye, buy and eat : yea 
 come, buy wine and milk without money and with- 
 out price."
 
 V. 
 
 Isaiah 55, 2. — "Wherefore do ye spend money for that wLlch is not 
 bread ? and your labour for that which satisfieth not ? Hearken dil- 
 igently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul 
 delight itself in fatness. 
 
 Having set forth, in tlie first verse, the perfect 
 adaptation of the grace which is offered in the gospel, 
 to the wants of sinners, as a sonrce of refreshment, 
 spiritual strength, and divine exhilaration ; and hav- 
 ing, at the same time, exhibited its absolute and per- 
 fect freeness, by inviting men to buy it " without 
 money and without price," the evangelical prophet 
 now expostulates with those who are unwilling to re- 
 ceive it, and exposes tlie absurdity of thus refusing to 
 embrace the only real good, while at the same time 
 they are toiling in pursuit of that which is imaginary. 
 If it were possible for men to forego all desire of hap- 
 piness, and all attempts to gain it, such a course 
 would be demonstrably unworthy of a rational and 
 moral agent, whose entire constitution shows him to 
 have been created for the future. But in that case, 
 notwithstanding the stupendous guilt and folly of his 
 conduct, he would have wherewith to parry the at- 
 tacks of conscience, and evade the invitations of the
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 89 
 
 gospel, by alleging that he asked for nothing more 
 than he possessed, that his desires were satisfied, and 
 that it would be folly to disturb his own enjoyment 
 and exhaust the remnant of his days in seeking that of 
 which he felt no need, and the attainment of which 
 could not possibly afford him any satisfaction. 
 
 It is easy to perceive the self-deluding sophistry 
 of such a plea, assuming, as it does, the non-existence, 
 nay impossibility of all degrees of happiness not ac- 
 tually experienced ; an absurdity so palpable, as of 
 itself to be an adequate preventive of that stagnant 
 apathy which it defends. But the necessity of any 
 such preventive is excluded by the very constitution 
 of our nature, which has made it impossible for sen- 
 tient creatures to be wholly regardless of their own 
 well-being. Blinded and grievously mistaken they 
 may be as to the best means of securing it, and as to 
 the comparative amount of good attainable in that 
 course which they are pursuing and in others. But 
 they must pursue some course as the way to happi- 
 ness. The living creature clings to life imtil he finds 
 it insupportable, and even then he chooses death not 
 as a greater but a lesser evil. It is not against a 
 hatred of enjoyment, therefore, or an absolute indifi'er- 
 ence to it, that the grace of God and the salvation of 
 the gospel must contend ; it is against the most in- 
 tense desire of happiness acting in the wrong direction, 
 and impelling him who feels it to the use of means, 
 which must ultimately thwart the very end which 
 they are now employed to bring about. 
 
 The expostulation of the preacher is not, " Why, oh 
 why are you not hungry? why do you refuse to
 
 90 SERMOISS. 
 
 spend your inonej, and your labour in obtaining 
 food ? " but it is, " Why do ye spend money for that 
 which is not bread, and your labour for that which 
 satislieth not ? " Observe, too, that he does not seek 
 to remedy the evils which arise from perverted and 
 unsatisfied desire, by the extinction of the appetite 
 itself; — of that immortal, inextinguishable craving, 
 which can only cease by annihilation, or by full 
 fruition. This, indeed, is a distinctive mark of true 
 religion, as opposed to other systems. Since the evils 
 uuder which the human race is groaning may be 
 clearly traced to tlie inordinate indulgence of desii-es 
 after happiness, under the influence of " strong delu- 
 sions," as to that which can aflbrd it, we are not to 
 wonder that when unassisted reason undertakes to do 
 away with the effect, it should attempt the extirpa- 
 tion of the cause ; and you will find accordingly that 
 every system of religion or philosophy, distinct from 
 Christianity, either indulges, under some disguise, that 
 perversion of man's natural desire after happiness 
 wliich makes him wretched, or affects to cure it by 
 destroying the desire itself. 
 
 Between these Epicurean and Stoical extremes, 
 all systems of religion but the true one have been 
 oscillating since the world began. The one has found 
 favour with the many, the other with the few ; the 
 one has prevailed in society at large, the other has 
 arisen from the over-refinements of a vain philosoj)hy. 
 And thus these two antagonist errors have existed 
 and produced their bitter fruit simultaneously, and 
 under every outward form of practice and belief. 
 While the one has shown itself in the prevailing self
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 91 
 
 indulgence of all lieatlien nations, in the sensual creed 
 and practice of the Moslem, in the Papist's compro- 
 mise between his pleasures on the one hand, and his 
 periodical confessions on the other, and in a similar 
 but more concealed mode of compensation on the 
 part of those who hold the truth in unrighteousness ; 
 the other has appeared in the speculations' and self- 
 denial of the old philosophers, the austerities and self- 
 inflicted sufferings of heathen, Mohammedan, and 
 Christian self-tormentors. And with what effect? 
 that of plunging men in the bottomless abyss of self- 
 indulgence on the one hand, or in that of a desperate 
 unbelief upon the other. But while one voice cries 
 to the bewildered sinner, " Cease to hunger, cease to 
 thirst," and another from an opposite direction bids 
 him " Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," the voice 
 of God and of the gospel is, " Wherefore do ye spend 
 your money for that which is not bread, and your 
 labour for that which satisfieth not ? " 
 
 The question presupposes that the soul is hungry, 
 that it must be hungry until it is fed, that the gnaw- 
 ings of this hunger will constrain it to seek food, and 
 that the instinct of self-preservation, no less than the 
 desire of enjoyment, will induce it_ to give any thing 
 it has in exchange for the necessary means of its sub- 
 sistence and enjoyment ; that the fatal error lies not 
 in the seeking after something to sustain it and to 
 make it happy, but in imagining that this end can be 
 answered by the pleasures, gains, and honours of the 
 world, which arc not only brief in their duration, but 
 unsuited in their nature, even while they last, to sat- 
 .sfy the wants of an immortal spirit. It is tliis view
 
 92 MRMONS. 
 
 of mail's natural condition upon wliicli the invitations 
 of tlie gospel are all founded ; and the absolute coin- 
 cidence of this view with the lessons of experience is 
 among the strongest proofs, not only that Christianity 
 is better suited to the actual necessities of man than 
 any other system of belief, but also that it is a plan 
 devised by one who had an intimate and perfect 
 knowledge of our nature ; while the most ingenious 
 speculations of philosophy, even when aided by a 
 partial reception and appropriation of the doctrines 
 of the Bible, at every step have betrayed the grossest 
 ignorance of man's original and actual condition, and 
 of the only way in which his restoration can be pos- 
 sibly effected. 
 
 The Christian, in endeavouring to win men to the 
 Saviour, may proceed in full assurance, that the plan 
 which he developes and the offers which he makes, 
 are in perfect accordance with the natural capacities 
 and wants of those for whose salvation he is labouring, 
 and under this encouragmg conviction he may cry 
 aloud and spare not, to the starving souls around him, 
 " Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which 
 is good." 
 
 For let it be observed, that wliile the prophet 
 shows the insufficiency of temjDoral enjoyments or ad- 
 vantages as means of happiness, he is far from leaving 
 us to be content with this as a mere tlieoretical opin- 
 ion, which can lead to nothing but a painful con- 
 sciousness of want unsatisfied, and to that sickness of 
 the lieart produced by " hope deferred." But on the 
 contrary, he makes the utter insufficiency of earthly 
 good an argument, a reason^ not for ceasing to desire.
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. (JO 
 
 which is impossible, and if it were not, would be 
 wrong and foolish, but for fixing the desires upon 
 other objects, good in themselves, and adapted to our 
 nature. lie assures the disappointed soul that happi- 
 ness is really attainable; and while the last achieve- 
 ment of philosophy (falsely so called) is to make man 
 acquiesce with a sullen apathy in the frustration of 
 his dearest hopes, the gospel soars immeasurcably 
 higher, and assures him that his hopes shall not be 
 frustrated; that there is a good as perfect, nay im- 
 measurcably more so than his fondest wishes ever 
 yet conceived ; a good, substantial and enduring, aye 
 and satisfying too, at which he may, at which he 
 ought to aim, and aiming at which he shall not be 
 disappointed, because God invites him to desire it and 
 to seek it, holding it out as an equivalent, a substi- 
 tute, for that ideal and fallacious good, in quest of 
 which he is exhausting nature and despising grace. 
 To such, to all such let the voice of invitation come in 
 tender and persuasive tones. Let all who are em- 
 ployed in the laborious, but vain attempt, to feed 
 a spiritual nature with material good, hear God's 
 voice like the voice of a compassionate father to his 
 erring children saying, " Wherefore do ye spend your 
 money for that which is not bread, and your labour 
 for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently 
 unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your 
 soul delight itself in fatness." 
 
 But is this all ? Is this indefinite assurance that 
 there is a good sufficient and attainable, the highest 
 and best offer that the gospel makes to sinners? 
 Must the soul, disappointed in ifrs quest of earthly
 
 94 SERMONS. 
 
 good, be left to gaze at random on the infinite variety 
 of possible contingencies by wliicli the cravings of its 
 nature may be satisfied ? Alas ! if this were all, the 
 tender mercies of the gospel wonld be cruel. If the 
 sinner is to be convinced of the unsatisfying nature of 
 the objects he is actually seeking, only in order to be 
 tauo-ht that there is somewhere in the universe an ob- 
 jeet truly worthy of his choice and suited to his na- 
 ture, but without direction where or how he is to seek 
 it ; how can this tantalizing process be regarded as 
 a favourable change, or one promotive of his happi- 
 ness ? If he is never to know more than this, that 
 there is only one way of becoming blessed, and that 
 he has missed it, it were better for him to remain in 
 his delusion. But, mj friends, if Christianity has ever 
 left men in this state of mere negation, it is not be- 
 cause its Author or the word of God has thus revealed 
 it, but because the heralds who were sent forth to 
 proclaim it were mistaken in their own views, or un- 
 faithful to their trust. 
 
 But the voice of God himself has no such " uncer- 
 tain sound." He does not proclaim merely that there 
 is salvation somewhere, and exhort mankind to seek 
 it ; but he leads them to it : he stands at the fountain 
 of life and cries, "Ho, every oue that thirsteth, come 
 ye to the waters, — " to these waters. " Look unto me 
 and be saved, all ye ends of the earth." " Incline 
 your ear and come unto me : hear, and your soul shall 
 live." He does not merely tell the wanderer in the 
 desert that he has lost his way ; he does not merely 
 show him how he may regain it ; but he stands, and 
 calls him to come hither ; Come to me ; turn away
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 95 
 
 jour eyes from every other object, and especially from 
 those which have hitherto misled you ; listen no 
 longer to the voices which have tempted you astray, 
 and which are still loudly ringing in your ears. Ke- 
 gard them not, for they would lead you downwards 
 to despair and death. " I am the way, and the truth, 
 and the life." " Incline your ear and come unto me: 
 hear, and your soul shall live." 
 
 This direction of the soul to a specific and exclu- 
 sive object as its only ground of hope and trust, with- 
 out allowing any interval of doubt, or any liberty of 
 choice, is a distinctive feature in the gospel system, 
 and should never be forgotten in the dispensation of 
 the grace of God by his ambassadors. The soul, when 
 really convinced of its own error in resorting to tlie 
 world and to itself for happiness, if suffered to remain 
 witliout a fixed point of attraction and dependence, 
 ^vill infallibly revert to its abandoned idols, or to some 
 new form of self-delusion, more incurable and fatal 
 than the old, because adopted under the excitement of 
 a groundless hope, and amidst the raptures of a spu- 
 rious joy. The only safeguard against such delusions 
 is a full exhibition of the one way of salvation, and 
 in this as in other points already mentioned, we have 
 only to follow a divine example. For the prophet, 
 speaking in the name of God, after calling men to 
 come to him, to hear him that their souls may live, 
 annexes to this gracious invitation the si^ecific prom- 
 ise of a sure salvation ; a salvation not contingent or 
 fortuitous, but one provided by a gracious constitu- 
 tion on the part of God himself; a salvation promised 
 and confirmed by oath ; a covenant of mercy, eternal
 
 gQ SERMONS. 
 
 in its origin, and everlasting in its stipnlations, com- 
 preliending in its -wonderfnl provisions tlie essential 
 requisite of an atonement, a priest and sacrifice, an 
 all-sufficient Saviour ; not a Saviour whose perform- 
 ance of his office should be partial, or contingent, or 
 uncertain from the change of person, but the One, 
 the only Saviour, " the same yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever;" a priest forever after the order of Melchise- 
 dec, the Son of God, the Son of man, the Son of 
 David, who should sit upon his royal father's throne 
 for ever, who was promised to the dying king himself, 
 and of whom that expiring saint exclaimed, " This is 
 all my salvation and all my desire ! " It is to this 
 exclusive object that tJie sinner's faith and hope are 
 turned when God says by the prophet: "Incline 
 your ear and come unto me : hear and your soul shall 
 live : and I will make an everlasting covenant with 
 you, even the sure mercies of David." 
 
 Some suppose that Christ is here expressly men- 
 tioned by the name of David, an interpretation not 
 by any means so arbitrary as it may appear to those 
 who have not made themselves acquainted with the 
 remarkable variety of names by which the prophets 
 designate the Saviour. In the words before us, how- 
 ever they may be exjDlaincd, there is an evident allu- 
 sion to the promise made to David and recorded in 
 the first book of Samuel, (7, 16,) " Thine house and 
 thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee, 
 thy throne shall be established forever," viz., by the 
 succession of Messiah, of whom it was said, before his 
 birth, by a messenger from heaven : " He shall be 
 great, and sliall be called the Son of the Highest, and
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 97 
 
 tlie Lord sliall give unto liim tlie tlircne of ids fatlita' 
 David, and lie shall reign over the house of Jacoli 
 forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end."" 
 (Lnke 1, 32. 33.) 
 
 It was in the prospect of this glorions succession, 
 by which David was to live again and reign agaii' 
 forever, that the ancient prophets uttered some <'l 
 their most cheering and sublime predictions : (Jer. 
 23, 5. 6.) " Behold the days come, saitli 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 earth. In his days Judah 
 shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this 
 is the name whereby he shall be called, Jehovah our 
 Eighteousncss." In these words of Jeremiah, Christ 
 is represented as a branch which should be raised up 
 unto David ; in those of Ezekiel which follow, he ap- 
 pears in the character of David himself : (Ezek. 34, 
 22. 23. 21.) " I will save my flock, and they shall no 
 more be a prey, and I will judge between cattle and 
 cattle ; and I will set up one Shejiherd over them, 
 and he shall feed them, even my servant David ; ho 
 shall feed them, and he shall be their Shepherd, and 
 I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David 
 a prince among them : I the Lord have spoken it." 
 And again: (Ezek 37, 24. 25.) " So shall they bo 
 my people, and x will be their God, and David my 
 servant shall be king over them, and they all shall 
 have one shepherd : they shall also walk in my judg- 
 ments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And 
 .hey shall dwell in the land that I have given unto 
 Jacob my servant, wherein 3'our fathers have dwelt ; 
 
 VOL. II. — 5
 
 08 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 thej shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, 
 and their children's children forever, and my servant 
 David shall be their prince forever." These are clear 
 cases of the application of the name to Christ, and 
 will perhaps suffice to justify a like interpretation in 
 the case before us, even in the absence of all parallel 
 expressions in the writings of Isaiah. 
 
 There is, however, no necessity for any such inter- 
 pretation, as the words here used, unlike those of 
 Ezekiel, may be referred either to the future or the 
 past; and because, if taken in their obvious meaning, 
 as referring to the literal king David, they afford a 
 sense good in itself and perfectly coherent with the con- 
 text. There is less reason for departing from the ob- 
 vious and common-sense meaning, because, in either 
 case, the reference to Christ is clear, though more ex 
 plicit in the one case than the other. On the one sup- 
 position, he is spoken of as David ; on the other, as the 
 great blessing promised to David. In the one case, 
 the promise is : " Come unto me, and I will make you 
 partakers of the blessings promised in and through 
 the second David, the Messiah ; " in the other case it 
 is, " Come, and I will make an everlasting covenant 
 with you, securing to you the sic7'e inercies, the bless- 
 ings faithfully and irrevocably promised to the ancient 
 David, all w^hich blessings meet and terminate in 
 Christ." Li either case, therefore, the promise is 
 specific, and the offer made is not an offer of salvation 
 in the general or the abstract, but of free salvation 
 through the blood of Christ. 
 
 Upon these two points in the offer of salvation, 
 let us look with fixed attention, It is specific. It is
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 99 
 
 sure. It is not mercy in general that is offered, but 
 the mfercies of David, the mercies purchased by the 
 second David, the mercies promised to the ancient 
 David, which he hoped for, which he trusted in, and 
 of which he could say : " this is all my salvation, and 
 all my desire." It is this peculiar, special exhibition 
 of God's mercy to lost simiers that is here held forth 
 to them ; it is this that he offers to make theirs by 
 the provisions of an everlasting covenant, even the 
 sure mercies of David ; for the blessing offered is not 
 only definite but sure. It is a covenanted blessing, 
 and it therefore cannot fail ; it is a permanent bless- 
 ing, and can undergo no change ; it is a durable 
 blessing, and shall last forever. 
 
 These two attributes or qualities of Christ's salva- 
 tion, though to some they may appear of little moment, 
 seem not so to the convinced, alarmed, and half-de- 
 spairing soul, when after trying every source of nat- 
 ural enjoyment, but without obtaining rest or satis- 
 faction, while the vast variety of objects sought and 
 tried, sers'cs only to distract and Aveary it. Hope 
 faints and the heart sickens, till at last, through sov- 
 ereign mercy, the inviting voice of Christ and of his 
 servants gains access to the reluctant ear, and with the 
 ear the eye is turned to that quarter whence the voice 
 proceeds, and there, no longer roving among many 
 objects, fixes finally on one, and there abides forever. 
 
 But to this concentration of the sinner's hopes, 
 there must be added an assurance of security and 
 constancy in that which he relies upon, or he can 
 never rest. And this the gospel oflers when it calls 
 him to partake of " the sure mercies of David." It
 
 100 SERMONS. 
 
 is tbe glory of this great salvation that it is thus 
 " sure ; " sure, from the very nature of the cliange 
 which it produces in the relation of the soul to Christ, 
 and sure from the irrevocable oath and promise of a cov- 
 enant-keeping God. When the soul is awakened to a 
 sense of its condition, the first great object of its wonder 
 is the depth and aggravation of its guilt, which seem 
 to render its escape from wrath an impossibility. Soon 
 its wonder is excited by another and a nobler object, 
 by the revelation of the truth that God can be just 
 and yet a justifier of the ungodly. Nor is this its last 
 discovery, for after vainly struggling to acquire some 
 legal right to the salvation which is thus seen to be 
 possible, the soul is filled with new amazement as it 
 forms at last a just conception of the glorious . truth 
 that this salvation is as free as it is full and effica- 
 cious, that none can taste of it at all but those who 
 are content to purchase it on God's own terms, 
 " without money and without price." 
 
 But even after this conception has been formed, 
 and has become familiar, weakness of faith and a re- 
 mairiino; leaven of self-riorhteousness will often lead to 
 sceptical misgivings, and suspicions that, although 
 the gospel method of salvation be a perfect one, and 
 perfectly gratuitous, it may, like other favours be 
 withdrawn, and he who rested in it, perish after all. 
 But when it pleases God to throw the rays of his il- 
 luminating grace upon the soul and to dispel the 
 clouds of ignorance and error which involve it, one 
 of the first objects which stands forth to view in that 
 self-evidencing light, is the unalterable steadfastness 
 and absolute security of that salvation which is offered 
 
 I
 
 I 
 
 ISAIAH 55, 'J. 101 
 
 in the gospel. It is there seen, too clearly to admit 
 of doubt, that the believer's hope is founded, not at 
 all upon himself, but altogether on another, anl the 
 merit of that other always the same and always in- 
 finite. This " great salvation " is as sure as it is free, 
 sure as the merit of the Saviour and the covenant of 
 God can make it, and may therefore well be called, 
 as the prophet calls it in the text, " the sure mercies 
 of David." 
 
 And is it not an interesting thought that the same 
 sure mercies npon Avhich the dying king so confi- 
 dently rested, and in praise of which " the sweet 
 psalmist of Israel " aroused the farewell echoes of his 
 harp, that these same mercies are the song and re- 
 joicing of the humblest convert in the darkest spots 
 of Africa and Asia and the islands of the sea, and that 
 on this same foundation arc erected all the hopes of 
 those who name the name of Christ in these ends of 
 the earth ? 
 
 Was this extension of the truth foreseen by David 
 and Isaiah ? or did they imagine, with their carnal 
 and narrow-minded countrymen, that " Israel accord- 
 ing to the flesh " should continue to monopolize the 
 promises of God forever? There are some parts of 
 Scripture where the promises of God are so exclu- 
 sively connected with the name and local circum- 
 stances of his ancient people, as to furnish some 
 apology, at least, for the pretensions of the modern 
 Jews, and at the same time to divide interpreters, 
 who harmonize in other matters, as to the question 
 whether these predictions are to be literally verified 
 hereafter, or have already been accomplished in a
 
 102 SERMOXS. 
 
 figurative, spiritual manner. In all sucli cases it 
 may be disputed whether the promise, in its original 
 and proper sense, extended further than the Jewish 
 Church ; but in the case before us, the ungrateful ne- 
 cessity of such restriction is precluded by the lan- 
 guage of the prophecy itself; for the attention of the 
 thirstino;, starvino; sinner has no sooner been directed 
 to the Saviour as the Son and yet the Lord of David, 
 than the j)rophet, speaking in the name of God, as if 
 to encourage even us who are " sinners of the Gen- 
 tiles " to confide in the same all-sufficient Saviour, 
 says, " Behold I have given him for a witness to the 
 people, a leader and commander to the people. 
 
 The connection leaves no doubt that Christ is here 
 the subject of discourse. He was a witness of the 
 truth, but an authoritative one, because he spoke 
 what he did know : he spake on his own authority, 
 not that of others ; hence he was, at the same time, a 
 leader and commander of the people. To the mere 
 English reader, this important verse is shorn of half 
 its meaning and of all its emphasis by the unhappy 
 use of the word " people," which in English has no 
 plural, to translate a Hebrew word not only plural in 
 its form, but most emphatically plural in its sense. 
 It may be given as a general suggestion to the read- 
 ers of the prophecies in English, that in multitudes of 
 cases, where the very thing predicted is the calling of 
 the Gentiles, it is utterly obscured in the translation 
 by this idiomatical defect of form in the equivalent 
 selected for the word denoting " nations," a defect 
 which cannot possibly have failed to render that illus- 
 trious event less conspicuous and str'king to the mind
 
 ISAIAH 55, 2. 103 
 
 of the unlearned English Christian thai to the readers 
 of some other versions. In the case before ns, the 
 divine declaration is not merely or at all. that God 
 had set Christ forth as a witness and commander to 
 the Jews, but on the contrary that he had made him, 
 by express appointment, a witness and a leader to the 
 other nations, by whose convincing testimony and 
 almighty power, God's elect were to be gathered out 
 of every kindred, tribe, and people under heaven. 
 Christ is a witness of the truth, a prophet, a divinely 
 constituted teacher, not to this or that community or 
 race of men, not even to God's chosen and peculiar 
 people, but to nations, to all nations ; and his office 
 as a Prince of Peace and Captain of Salvation is no 
 less extensive. To the nations generally he reveals 
 the Father, and brings life and immortality to light. 
 This wide extent of his official influence is further- 
 more expressed in what immediately follows, where 
 the Pather speaks of him no more in the third 
 person, but addresses him directly, and assures him 
 tliat Lis saving power should extend to nations which 
 lie knew not in his human personality, to nations 
 which were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, 
 and strangers to the old restricted covenants of prom- 
 ise. To the carnal Jews, this doctrine was a stumb- 
 ling-block and foolishness, because they reckoned as 
 political and natural advantages those means which 
 God had used to prepare the way for Christ's appear- 
 ance and the calling of the Gentiles. Hence they 
 clung with impious folly to the means, when the end 
 had been accomplished, and imagined in their blind- 
 ness, that the system which they worshipped had
 
 104. SERMONS. 
 
 been framed for their sake, when the word of God on 
 every page, assured them that its object was t: glorify 
 Jehovah; and that when this great end could be an- 
 swered more eifectually by the abrogation of the 
 ancient system it should cease forever. And in view 
 of that cessation, and of Him who should accomplish 
 it by breaking down the middle wall of partition 
 which divided Jews from Gentiles, it is here said of 
 him, or directly to him, (v. 5,) " Behold, thou shalt call a 
 nation which thou knowest not, and nations that knew 
 not thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy 
 God, and for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glo- 
 rified thee." As Messiah was to glorify the Father 
 by revealing him not only to the Jews, but to the 
 other nations which had never known him, so the 
 Father was to glorify the Son by making him a wit- 
 ness and commander of the nations, and by granting 
 liim a glorious accession from tlie Gentile world; by 
 giving him the heathen for his inheritance, the utter- 
 most parts of the earth for his possession; by inviting 
 all the ends of the earth to look unto him for salva- 
 tion, and thus making good to all who hear the call, 
 the stipulations of that everlasting covenant which 
 seals to all believers, without national distinction or 
 respect of persons, " the sure mercies of David." 
 
 If, in addition to the doctrinal instructions of this 
 interesting passage, we would learn from it a lesson 
 in the art of invitation, let it be observed (1) that we 
 must not address our invitations to a nature of which 
 man is not possessed, but to his actual capacities and 
 wants, admitting or assuming their reality and 
 strength, and striving to convince him that they
 
 ISAIAH 55 2. j^05 
 
 never can be satisfied by any thing but that which 
 is so freely offered in the gospel. (2) In the next 
 place, let ns see to it, that this great offer of the gos- 
 pel be distinctly and specifically held up to the sin- 
 ner's view, instead of suffering his mind to rest in a 
 mere negative conviction that the world is not a 
 satisfying portion, or allowed to roam at large in 
 search of untried sources of enjoyment, which can 
 never prove more lasting or abundant than those 
 which have already been resorted to in vain. (3) 
 Let no man be invited to a general indefinite reliance 
 upon mercy as an attribute of God without regard to 
 that particular and only way in which it can and will 
 be exercised to fallen man ; but let him be invited to 
 a share in the provisions of that everlasting covenant 
 which God has promised to bestow upon him.* 
 
 * A few pages ^f the conclusion wanting.
 
 VI. 
 
 Isaiah 55, G. — Seek ye the Lord while ; e may be /ound, call ye 
 upon him ■while he is near. 
 
 Ik tlie preceding context these truths are taught : 
 that there is au abundant supply for the spiritual 
 wants of men ; that this supply is suited to their 
 various necessities ; that it includes refreshment, 
 strength, exhilaration ; that the constitution of man's 
 nature forces him to seek some satisfaction ; that the 
 multitude are actually seeking " that which is not 
 bread," and cannot satisfy the soul ; that instead of 
 this, the gospel offers them " that which is good," and 
 invites the soul to " delight in fatness ; " that this offer 
 is a free one ; that the blessings offered may be bought, 
 and must bo bought, "without money and without 
 price ; " that they can only be obtained by hearken- 
 ing to God, and coming unto him ; that there is only 
 one way of access to him ; that this one way is opened 
 by a covenant ; that this covenant is " an everlasting 
 covenant, ordered in all things and sure," (2 Sam. 23, 
 5 ;) that the Mediator of this covenant is the Son of
 
 ISAIAH 55, 0. IQij 
 
 David, the second David, the Messiah, in whom are 
 fulfilled the promises made to the Son of Jesse, so 
 that the mercies, which are secured to men through 
 him, may well be called " the sure mercies of David ; " 
 that these mercies are not offered to the Jews alone ; 
 that Christ is the Saviour of tlie Gentiles also ; that 
 his office is that of " a witness to the nations, a leader 
 and commander of the nations ; " that however -un- 
 likely the extension of the gospel to the nations might 
 appear, it must take place ; that Christ will call nations 
 which he knew not, and that nations which he knew 
 not will run unto him ; that this event must happen 
 as an appointed means of glorifying God and doing 
 honour to the Saviour. 
 
 All this was addressed, in the first instance, to 
 the Jews ; and now the propliet seems to press npon 
 them the practical question — What then ought you 
 to do ? If God designs thus to save the heathen who 
 have never known him, what efiect should a knowl- 
 edge of that purpose have on you, to whom he is well 
 known? Shall the Gentiles enter the kingdom of 
 heaven before you ? Shall publicans and harlots press 
 into the kingdom, while the very children of the king- 
 dom, whose inheritance it is, are excluded? This 
 would be a shame and a calamity indeed ; but how 
 will you prevent it? — by excluding them? — by gain- 
 ing possession of the key of knowledge, and neither 
 entering yourselves, nor suffering those who would to 
 enter? This, if it were possible, would be the height 
 of wickedness and folly. Ko ; the true course is to 
 enter with them, or, if you will, before them. Your 
 true course is to seek the Lord, his favour, his protec-
 
 IQS SERMONS. 
 
 tion, to call upon liim, pray to him, confess to him, 
 acknowledge liini, and that withont delay — before it 
 is too late — now, even now^ — now, while he may be 
 found, while he is near, while he is still yonr God by 
 special covenant. If you would not see the heathen, 
 whom you now despise, preferred before you, and re- 
 ceived into the kingdom of Messiah, while you your- 
 selves are shut out, use the only sure preventive — 
 " Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye 
 upon him while he is near." 
 
 This view of the meaning of the text is perfectly 
 consistent with the context, and with other passages 
 in which this motive is presented to the Jews, as an 
 inducement to be j^rompt and diligent in making 
 their calling and election snre. But it may well be 
 doubted whether this is the whole meaning. It may 
 be doubted whether this is even the chief meaning. 
 The terms of the text are in no respect more restricted 
 than those of the preceding verses, and especially the 
 first part of the chapter, which obviously relates to 
 the wants of men in general, and the best way to sup- 
 ply them. If the invitation of the first verse is gen- 
 eral, the exhortation of the text must be general also. 
 If it is to all mankind that the prophet cries — 
 " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the wa- 
 ters ! " — it is surely not to any one community or 
 nation that he here says ; " Seek ye the Lord while 
 he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." 
 Besides, if this address be restricted to the Jews, the 
 reason implied for the command is irrelevant. If the 
 words " while he is near " denote " while he continues 
 in a special covenant relation to the Jews," then the
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. 109 
 
 command would seem to imply that bj^ seeking 
 the Lord and calling npon him, that peculiar ex- 
 clusive covenant relation might be rendered perpetual, 
 which was not the case. Or if, on the other hand, 
 " while he may be found " denotes in a general way 
 the possibility of finding favour and forgiveness at his 
 hands, then the reason suggested is in no respect more 
 applicable to the Jews than to the Gentiles. In this 
 sense God was just as near to the one as to the other. 
 The principles on which he would forgive and save, 
 were just the same in either case. The necessity of 
 seeking, the nature of the object sought, the way of 
 seeking it, are wholly independent of external circum- 
 stances. As in the context, so here, the exhortation 
 is addressed to all who are in need. It is therefore 
 universal, or, at least, admits of a universal applica- 
 tion. Even suj^posing that it has a special reference 
 to the Jews, it is clear that the projihet says, and 
 that, in imitation of him, we may say likewise, both 
 to Jew and Gentile, " Seek ye the Lord while he may 
 be found, call ye upon him while he is near." 
 
 I do not scruple to address the call to all who hear 
 me. Are you disappointed and unsatisfied ? then 
 seek the Lord. Are you oppressed with a sense of 
 guilt ? seek the Lord. Are you careless and at ease ? 
 I warn you to seek the Lord. Sooner or later you 
 will certainly seek him. However careless you may 
 now be, the day is coming when you shall seek and 
 not find ; when you shall call upon him and receive 
 no answer. There is a limit to the oflcr of salvation. 
 If there were not, sin would be without control. If 
 the sinner could suspend his choice forever, there
 
 110 SERMONS. 
 
 vvonld be no punishment. The offer is limited to this 
 life. And even in this life there is a limit. There is 
 a day of grace in which men may be saved, and this 
 day may be shorter than the sinner's lifetime. There 
 is a time when God is near, and when he may be 
 found. There must be a time, therefore, when he is 
 no longer near, and is no longer to be found. Con- 
 sider this, you who are now asleep in sin. From that 
 sleep you must and will awake. You will either 
 awake to righteousness or to desj)air. However deep 
 your sleep may now be, and however long it may 
 continue, you shall awake at last, and in your terror 
 seek for God, wlien he is no more to be found, and 
 call upon him when he is no longer near, when he is 
 grieved, and has departed, when you shall " feel after 
 him " in vain amidst the darkness which surrounds 
 you, and shall be constrained at last to take up the 
 sorrowful and bitter lamentation, "The harvest is 
 past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." 
 If this be true, and it cannot be disputed, " seek ye 
 the Lord while he may be found." 
 
 But how shall you seek him ? l!*[ot in this or that 
 locality. Regard not those who say : " Lo here, lo 
 there ; " but go to him in secret, make confession of 
 your sins, renounce yourselves, accept the Saviour 
 whom he offers, devote yourselves to him, and thus 
 " call upon him while he may be found." Is this too 
 much to ask of a poor ruined sinner, as the price of 
 his salvation ? But is this indeed all ? Is no reforma- 
 tion, no change of life, required ? Kot as the merito- 
 rious cause of your salvation. It is purchased by an- 
 other. But you cannot avail yourselves of it, and
 
 IS.V-AH 55, C. Ill 
 
 continue as you are. Fou cannot be saved in sin. 
 You ma}^ be saved from it. The same A'oice which 
 Bays, " Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye 
 upon him while he is near," says likewise, (v. T,) " Let 
 the wicked forsake his way." He cannot continue in 
 that way, and be saved. " ]N^o man can serve two 
 masters ; " but " whosoever committeth sin, he is the 
 servant of sin." Between sin and holiness, between 
 God and mammon, he Qiiust choose. The refusal to 
 choose is itself a choice. To refuse to choose God 
 is, in fact, to choose sin. Li relation to this question 
 there is no neutrality — there can be none. 
 
 If, then, the sinner would indeed seek God, he 
 must " forsake his way," — a common figure for the 
 course of conduct. Life is a journey which may be 
 pursued by many distinct paths ; but the way of God 
 and the way of sin lead in opposite directions. He 
 who would tread the one, not only will, but must, for- 
 sake the other. How ? — by a mere external reforma- 
 tion? No; the change must be a deeper and more 
 thorough one. The law of God, which condemns the 
 sinner's life, extends, not only to his outward acts, but 
 to his thoughts, desires, dispositions, and affections. 
 The moral quality of outward acts arises from the 
 motives which produce them, and the reformation 
 which the gospel calls for, reaches far beyond the 
 mere external conduct. This is often an unwelcome 
 discovery. Men are at first hard to be convinced 
 that there is an}^ danger in the course which they pur- 
 sue. When this becomes too evident to be disputed, 
 they are prone to cling to the idea that the gospel 
 asks no change or reformation ; and when this truth
 
 £12 SERMONS. 
 
 can no longer be denied, tliej still delude themselves 
 with the belief that the required reformation extends 
 merely to the outward life. But this delusion is dis- 
 pelled, and they are made to hear the voice of God 
 not only saying, " Let the wicked forsake his way," 
 but, " the unrighteous man his thoughts." 
 
 This is merely negative. It cannot be, that what 
 God calls men to, is a mere negation, a mere absti- 
 nence. There must be something positive. There 
 must be commands as well as prohibitions. The mere 
 cessation of former habits would be insufficient ; nay, 
 it is impossible. An active being must have some- 
 thing to seek as well as something to avoid. Evil 
 courses can be really abandoned in no other way than 
 by exchanging them for good ones. If men would 
 " cease to do evil," they must " learn to do well." 
 This is a dictate of nature, of reason, of experience, of 
 revelation. It is the voice of God himself who says, 
 " Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous 
 man his thoughts, and let him return imto the Lord." 
 The fact is assumed that all have departed from him. 
 The words may seem strictly applicable only to back- 
 sliders — those who have falsified their own profes- 
 sions — who have ajDOStatised from a voluntary visible 
 relation to Jehovah, and who may with strict pro- 
 priety be summoned to " return," — to return to Him 
 from whom they have " so deeply revolted." To any 
 such now present I apply the words, however far you 
 may have gone back in the wicked way which you 
 appeared to have forsaken — however far your present 
 thoughts may be from God and righteousness — I call 
 upon you to give ear to God's rebuke and invitation :
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. Ij^g 
 
 " Let the wicked forsake his way and the mingliteous 
 man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord." 
 This is your only hope, and even this may soon he 
 gone ; therefore, " Seek ye the Lord while he may he 
 found, call ye upon him while he is near." 
 
 But it is far from heing true, that this appeal is 
 applicable only to backsliders. However strictly un- 
 derstood, it is appropriate to all mankind. It is true, 
 the word " return " is used, and this word certainly 
 implies departure from a previous state of nearness ; 
 and it may at first sight seem, on this account, inap- 
 plicable to the mass of men ; for how, it may be asked, 
 can they return to Him from whom they never have 
 departed, but from whom they have always been 
 wholly alienated ? But this view of the matter is ex- 
 tremely superficial. It is true, most true, that the 
 invitation to " return " implies a previous departure ; 
 and, can any departure be more real or deplorable 
 than that which involves, not merely individuals, but 
 the whole human family ? The terms of the summons 
 do indeed point back to that original apostasy under 
 the curse of Vvhich the whole race groans. When the 
 rebel is exhorted to return to his allegiance, the call 
 comes Avith emphasis enhanced, not lessened, to the 
 ears of those who are hereditary traitors, born in re- 
 bellion, inheriting the taint, and living in the practice 
 of notorious treason : such is our condition. It is un- 
 der this double burden that Are sink ; it is from this 
 double penalty that we must be delivered; it is there- 
 fore to us all, without exception, that this solemn call 
 is addressed — " Return unto the Lord " — " Let the 
 wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man
 
 114 SERMONS. 
 
 his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord." 
 All who are aliens from your God, to you he says this 
 day. Return ! return ! Return with penitent confes- 
 sion of your sins, with self-renunciation, with suhmis- 
 sion, with a solemn consecration of yourselves to 
 God ; but, above all, and before all, in the exercise of 
 faith, believing in the Saviour, and accepting him as 
 yours. This includes all the rest. Where this exists, 
 they follow, as a thing of course ; where this exists 
 not, they are null and void, without worth, nay, with- 
 out existence. In the exercise of this faith, and of that 
 repentance which has never yet failed to accompany it 
 since the world began, and of that zeal and obedience 
 which can no more fail to spring from such repentance 
 and such faith, than the fruit can fail to spring from 
 the prolific seed, " Let the wdcked forsake his w^ay 
 and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him 
 return unto the Lord." 
 
 But what is the inducement to return which is 
 here held out ? It is man's jDart to forsake his evil 
 ways and thoughts, to return to God, to seek him, 
 and to call upon him. Kone of these will he do until 
 God draw him. ISTone of them can he do until God 
 enable him. But this is true of every service which 
 man ever renders. Though unable of himself to do 
 these things, he is still bound to do them. It is his 
 part to do them ; and w'hen he has performed his 
 part, what does God promise in return ? What will 
 he do for man ? He will have mercy npon him. 
 " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unright- 
 eous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the 
 Lord, and he will have mercy upon him." Mercy is
 
 ISAIAH 55, G. 11^ 
 
 the inducement offered, and mercy is precisely what 
 the sinner needs. Nothing else can meet his case but 
 this. Without this nothing can be given, or, if given, 
 can do him any good. 
 
 Mercy implies two things, misery and guilt. In- 
 nocent suffering may be relieved through pity, but it 
 cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as an object of 
 mercy. And, on the other hand, if guilt could exist 
 unaccompanied by suffering, it might be pardoned, 
 and the sinner might, in that sense, be said to obtain 
 mercy. But, in strictness of speech, the term is ap- 
 plicable only to those cases in which misery and guilt 
 coexist. And, alas for us ! this is, without exception, 
 the condition of man. ISTo one sins without sufferino-. 
 ISTo man suffers without guilt. Individual sufferers 
 may be innocent in reference to those who imme- 
 diately cause their sufferings ; and, on the other hand, 
 guilt may, for the present, seem to be accompanied 
 by pleasure only. But in due time both these false 
 appearances will be removed. Everj' sin will be seen 
 to be the necessary cause of sorrow, and every sorrow 
 will be seen to flow more or less directly from sin. 
 And, in the meantime, we have no need to look 
 further than ourselves for objects upon which mercy 
 may be exercised. In us, in all of us, the two pre- 
 requisites are found abundantly — misery present and 
 prospective, the experience of it here and the dread 
 of it hereafter — misery not produced by chance, but 
 by ourselves — by sin, and that our own sin. To us, 
 then, this inducement ought to be a strong one. 
 To induce, then, "the wicked to forsake his way, and 
 the unrighteous man his thoughts," and to "return
 
 116 SERMONS. 
 
 unto the Lord," it ought to be enough to know that 
 that the Lord " -svill liave mercy upon him." 
 
 But, alas ! he is insensible of his condition. The 
 more he stands in need of mercy, the more blind he is 
 to that necessity. By nature, man is never prompted 
 to implore God's mercy on account of his iniquities. 
 He either asks nothing, or he cries for justice. While 
 he is prosperous, and life seems long, he is content to 
 remain always as he is. And when death stares him 
 in the face, or any thing compels him to think seri- 
 ously of his end, he assumes the character of injured 
 innocence ; he claims eternal life as the reward of his 
 obedience ; he appears before God not to plead for 
 mercy, but to demand justice ; and, with that demand 
 uj)on his lips, or in his heart, he is often swept into 
 eternity to get what he presumptuously asked for. 
 Then, then, if not before, he cries for mercy ; for that 
 very mercy which he spurned before, and with that last 
 despairing cry upon his lips, he goes " to his own place." 
 Such is the end of those who presumptuously ask for 
 justice and will not have mercy. But it often pleases 
 God to undeceive the soul before it is too late. And 
 then, when the sinner's eyes are opened, he beholds 
 with wonder what he never saw before ; he sees his 
 own condition, his own guilt — the misery to which that 
 guilt consigns him, and his utter incapacity to help 
 himself. Ah, what a change takes place then in his 
 feelings, and the tone of his addresses to the throne of 
 grace. He who once called for justice at the hand of 
 God, now sues for mercy. He who once stood erect, 
 and said, " I thank thee, God, that I am not like other 
 men," is now unable to lift so much as his eyes to
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. 117 
 
 heaven, but smites iii^on his breast, and says, " God 
 be merciful to me a sinner." Is it not better that this 
 opening of the ejes shoukl take place now than in 
 eternity ? " Seek ye the Lord then while he may be 
 fomid, call ye upon ]iim while he is near : let the wicked 
 forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, 
 and let him return nnto the Lord, and he will have 
 mercy upon him, and to our God^ Do you observe 
 that expression, " our God ? " — the phrase by which 
 the Jews expressed their covenant relation to Je- 
 hovah. As addressed to Jews, the phrase may be 
 understood to mean, that God was still their God by 
 a special engagement ; and that, notwithstanding their 
 departures from him, if they would forsake their evil 
 ways and thoughts, and return unto him, he would 
 have mercy upon them, as their God, as their own 
 God, and fulfil the promises made unto their fathers. 
 
 But is there any such encouragement to us who 
 are sinners of the Gentiles ? May we return to God, 
 not merely as an absolute and righteous sovereign, 
 but as our own God, bound to us by covenant, who 
 will not, cannot cast us off? Yes, we may, even the 
 vilest sinner who forsakes his evil courses and returns 
 to God, may trust not only in his sovereign mercy, 
 but in the faithfulness of his engagements. Even 
 such he is bound by covenant and by oath to save. 
 Even the poor, benighted heathen, who has never 
 been a sharer even in the outward privileges of the 
 Christian church, may come and, as it were, lay claim 
 to the salvation of the gospel, not in his own right 
 but in that of another. Yes, my hearers, whtjcver you 
 may be, and however ignoraut of God and of salva-
 
 118 SERMONS. 
 
 tion until now, if you will but come to him, and come 
 to liim in the way before described, if you will but 
 come to him, forsaking your sins and repenting of 
 them, seeking him and calling upon him, and believ- 
 ing in him, then he is yours, your Saviour, and you 
 have a right to say, not only that the Lord will have 
 mercy but that our God will pardon. He will not 
 only ])ity and relieve, but pardon ; he will not only 
 pity and relieve distress, but pardon sin. And this 
 is absolutely necessary ; without this there could be 
 no real permanent relief. 
 
 There is no mercy opposed to justice. In the na- 
 ture and the works of God, these attributes must har- 
 monize. He cannot exercise mercy until justice be 
 satisfied. He cannot be merciful to man until his 
 justice is appeased. But justice demands punish- 
 ment. And man, if punished, must be j)unislied 
 forever, because a finite being cannot exhaust the pen- 
 alty of the broken law. How then can mercy be ex- 
 tended to him ? Only by punishing another in his 
 stead. In this substitution lies the sinner's only hope. 
 God gives his own Son to be punished for him ; not 
 forever — ah ! how would tiiat impair the rapture of 
 forgiveness and salvation ; not forever — but long 
 enough to answer the demand, through the infinite 
 dignity and merit of the sufi'erer. In this way and 
 in this way only, God can be just and yet a justifier. 
 In this way he can pardon sin. In this way he "will 
 pardon all who come unto him. Is not this enough ? 
 Is not this a sufiicient earnest of his willingness to 
 save ? " He that spared not his own Son, but freely 
 gave him up for us all, shall he not with him also,
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. 119 
 
 freely give ns all things?" Come then, seek the 
 Lord and call upon him, and that without delay. Seek 
 him while he may be found ; call upon him while he 
 is near. The way you are in is a bad way — a destruc- 
 tive way, however it may now appear. " There is a 
 way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end 
 thereof are the ways of death. " But " let the wicked 
 forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, 
 and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have 
 mercy upon him." 
 
 What is there to prevent such a return ? Does 
 guilt stand in the way ? He has provided for this dif- 
 ficulty. Guilt is itself a reason for returning. " He 
 will pardon." Is your guilt too great ? Too great 
 for what ? To be atoned for by yourself? Yes, it is 
 indeed, even the least sin, such as you took no note of 
 at the time, or have long since forgotten ; even the 
 least of such sins is too great for expiation by your- 
 self, and unless otherwise atoned for, will rise up 
 hereafter to condemn you, aye, will seize upon your 
 soul and plunge it into endless ruin. You who are 
 wont to say or think that you are not a great sinner, 
 you shall yet be made to see that the most despised 
 and trivial sin, as you esteemed it, is enough to slay 
 your soul forever. But if you mean that your sins 
 are too great for divine forgiveness, that is anothei* 
 matter. Even if pardon were a mere sovereign, ar- 
 bitrary act of mercy, without regard to justice, you 
 would have no right to limit the power and compas- 
 sion of a God. Much less when pardon is in one 
 sense really an act of justice, not to you but to 
 another, when the penalty is paid and justice fully
 
 120 SERMONS. 
 
 satisfied for all believers. Is not tliis enousrli? Is 
 Christ not great enough ? Is liis blood not rich enough ? 
 Were his jDangs not keen enough to pay your debt, 
 however great and overwhelming ? Do you not see 
 that the fountain which is opened for sin and un 
 cleanness is the fountain of Christ's merit, and is, 
 therefore, inexhaustibly abundant, so that God, for 
 his sake, can not only pardon, but abundantly pardon ? 
 — that Christ's atonement is sufficient in itself for all, 
 however great the multitude, aye, and for all the sms 
 of all who ever sinned, however many and however 
 heinous? So that God, for Christ's sake, cannot 
 only pardon but ahundantly pardon ? And he will, 
 he will, if he pardons at all, " he will abundantly 
 pardon." Oh, then, hear the voice of invitation, 
 whether old, inveterate offenders or beginners in the 
 ways of sin — whether the burden of your guilt be 
 overwhelming or comparatively liglit — whether your 
 minds have hitherto been careless, or alarmed about 
 your state — you are all alike in danger and in need 
 of speedy rescue. " Seek ye the Lord while he may 
 be found, call upon him wliile he is near : let the 
 wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
 thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he 
 will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he 
 will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not 
 3^our thoughts, neither are your wa^^s ray ways, saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 These last words are connected with what goes 
 before, by the conjunction " for" — "^rmy thoughts, 
 &c." To what is this " for" to be referred — of what 
 does it assign the reason ? Some have thought that
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. 121 
 
 it relates to the national prejudices of tlie ancient 
 Jews, to whom the calling of the Gentiles and the ab- 
 rogation of the Mosaic system seemed impossible 
 events, and to whom the prophet may be understood 
 as saying — Do not imagine that because this dispen- 
 sation has so loDg existed, it will last forever, or that 
 because you are so blindly attached to it, I will not 
 be willing to annul it when the time for its cessation 
 shall arrive — " for my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 neither are your ways my ways." But however good 
 this sense may in itself be, it is far from being obvious 
 in this connection, and refers the 8tli verse to a remote 
 and doubtful antecedent. Besides, as we have seen 
 before, the terms of this whole passage cannot be un- 
 derstood as having reference merely to the Jewish 
 dispensation. Even if that were the primary and 
 obvious sense, we have abundant reason and authority 
 to superadd another more extensive and more spir- 
 itual. But it is not the primary and obvious sense, 
 as we have, seen, and it is therefore necessary to con- 
 nect the " for" with one of the clauses of the seventh 
 verse. If with the first clause, then the eighth verse 
 gives a reason for the call to reformation and repent- 
 ance — " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the un- 
 righteous man his thoughts — for my thoughts are not 
 your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." 
 Here the same two words are placed in opposition — 
 " ways" and " thoughts" — let the wicked, etc., — i. e. 
 You cannot walk in my ways and the ways of sin ; 
 you cannot think my thoughts, and yet cherish 
 thoughts of sin ; sin and salvation are irreconcilable, 
 and you must choose between them. 
 
 VOL. II. — G
 
 122 SERMONS. 
 
 This is, to many who would fain escape perdition, 
 " a hard saying." Having cherished the delusive hope 
 that free salvation implies liberty to sin, they are 
 painfully surprised at tlie disco-sery that God's ways 
 and thoughts are wholly incompatible with theirs. 
 They are afraid of hell, and they are willing to be 
 saved from it, but that is all. That slavish fear is the 
 sum of their religion. They must keep their sins. At 
 first they plead for all sin, then for some ; and as one 
 after another is torn from them by the hand of the 
 inexorable law, although their conscience, now en- 
 lightened, can no longer question or deny the truth, 
 they hate what they acknowledge, they would gladly 
 shut their e^'es upon the light which has revealed to 
 them this odious truth ; and in the vain hope of 
 escaping it, many, ah, how many, " draw back to per- 
 dition," and as they rush along that downward course, 
 they still hear that gracious but inexorable voice cry- 
 ing after them, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye 
 die." I have given my Son to die for sinners, and all 
 who come unto me through him I will abundantly 
 pardon ; but the wicked Tniist forsake his way, and 
 the unrighteous man his thoughts, for my thoughts 
 are not your thoughts, neither ai'e your ways my 
 ways — there is, there can be no communion between 
 light and darkness, between Christ and Belial. Ah, 
 my hearers, God only knows in how many ears this 
 expostulating voice has rung, and rung in vain ; how 
 many sinners on the verge of death have stopped their 
 ears against it, or at most have paused and listened, 
 with one foot upon the precipice, perhaps [toked
 
 ISAIAH 55, e. 123 
 
 back, and even ^vavel•ecl with a momentary impulse 
 to return, and then forever disappeared. 
 
 But there are others whom divine grace has ar- 
 rested, even those uj^on the dizzy verge of that abyss, 
 and made to hear the M^arning voice, and see the 
 saving light as it shines upon this fundamental truth, 
 that sin must be forsaken or the sinner cannot possibly 
 be saved. But this conviction often generates a new 
 doubt of another kind — I see it to be not only true 
 but right tliat sin must be left, or God cannot pardon ; 
 but can he pardon even then, or if he can, will he 
 pardon, will he pardon me ? Can he, will he, pardon 
 so abundantly that I shall be included ? This mis- 
 giving, under Satan's artful and malignant influence, 
 would drive men to despair, unless the grace of God 
 prevent. The soul admits the freeness and sufferings 
 of Christ's atonement as a truth revealed, but rejects 
 it practically against itself ; it makes a merit of its 
 unbelief, the cross ftides from its view, its light begins 
 to disappear, the invitations of the gospel are less 
 audible, and at this crisis, some who did not sink be- 
 fore, sink now forever; but to others, when the voice 
 of man is hushed, the voice of God becomes more 
 audible — a voice both of reproof and encouragement 
 — "Who art thou, O man, that rcpliest against God? 
 Thou thoughtest that I Avas altogether such an one as 
 thyself." It is not man who pardons, it is God. It 
 is not you who merit, it is Christ. As long as you 
 stay away from him, nothing is pardoned, not even 
 the least sin, it will sting your soul ibrever ; but come, 
 and all is pardoned, abundantly pardoned. " Let the 
 wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his
 
 124 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and hQ 
 will liave mercy upon him, and to our God, for he 
 will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not 
 your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith 
 the Lord." 
 
 Man may be unforgiving when he is not just. God 
 can be just, and yet not unforgiving. Oh, glorious 
 difierence ! Man can be himself unjust, and yet con- 
 demn the innocent. God can be just, and yet justify the 
 guilty. Judge not God by man. Judge not his mercy by 
 the compassions of his erring creatures. The tender 
 mercies of the wicked are cruel. "Well, then, may he 
 say to those who find such mercy too stupendous to be 
 trusted in, " my thoughts are not as your thoughts," &c. 
 God pardons nothing, or he pardons all. Let the con- 
 victed sinner cease to doubt — let him cease to linger, 
 for any reason or on any pretext — let him cease to 
 call in question either his danger or his guilt — let him 
 cease, on the other hand, to make its greatness an ex- 
 cuse for unbelief or a pretext for despair ; — but since 
 he is in danger, imminent danger — since deliverance 
 from it is so freely oifered — since the grace which 
 offers it is limited in time— since that grace will not 
 save men in sin, but will freely save them from sin — 
 since it will pardon sin itself to the believer, and 
 whenever it pardons at all, will abundantly pardon 
 even the chief of sinners — however foreign such for- 
 giveness may be from human passions and human feel- 
 ings, let the sinner hesitate and doubt no longer — 
 " Seek ye the Lord while he may bo found, call ye 
 upon him while he is near : let the wicked forsake 
 his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and 
 
 /
 
 ISAIAH 55, 6. 125 
 
 let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 
 upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly par- 
 don : for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
 are your ways my ways, saith the Lord : for as the 
 heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways 
 higher tlian your ways, and my thoughts than your 
 thoughts."
 
 VII. 
 
 Philippians S, 13. 14. — Bretlircn, I count not myself to have ap- 
 prehended : but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which arc 
 behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press 
 towards the niarli for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 Without attempting any formal exposition of the 
 text or context, and without enlarging on the obvious 
 allusion to the ancient games, from which the sacred 
 writers borrow many of their strongest figures, such 
 as that of pressing forward to a marli for a jprize in 
 the case before us, I propose to call your attention, 
 for a short time, to the doctrine here suggested by the 
 apostle's own example, and explicitly taught else- 
 where, that religion in the heart is a progressive prin- 
 ciple — a principle impelling to progressive holiness ; 
 and that not merely by a positive appointment, but 
 from its nature, and the nature of the circumstances 
 under which it operates — that this progressive char- 
 acter affords the only satisfactory evidence that piety 
 exists at all, and is therefore necessary, not to an ab- 
 solute assurance merely, but to a comfortable hope ; 
 and finally, that this new disposition to forget what is
 
 PHILIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. 127 
 
 behind, and reach forth to that before, is a chief 
 source of liappiness to Christians here, and is to be a 
 laro-e inirredient of their blessedness hereafter. 
 
 In alleging that progress is essential to true pietj, 
 it is not, of course, intended to affirm that this essen- 
 tial progress is at all times equally discernible and 
 marked, or that it can at any time be measured step 
 by step ;' but merely that the changes which the soul 
 is ever undergoing are, in the case of true conversion, 
 on the whole, in one direction — to deny which, on tho 
 ground of certain fluctuations, or because we cannot 
 measure and compute the progress with unerring ac- 
 curacy, would be as absurd as to remain upon the 
 beach at the mercy of a rising tide, because the mo- 
 tion of the waves, when separately looked at, is not 
 uniform. If it be true in this case, that in spite of all 
 apparent reflux, the sea is sfill encroaching steadily 
 upon the land, until it reaches that mysterious point 
 at which God says to it. Hitherto shalt thou come, 
 and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be 
 stayed ; it is no less true that genuine religion in the 
 heart, in spite of all its seeming fluctuations, rises and 
 still rises, and that this rise must at some intervals, 
 greater or smaller, become visible and palpable, and 
 may not therefore be assumed at pleasure, when ajv 
 pearances, not only in some one case, but in every 
 case, and always, are entirely against it. Let no man 
 therefore judge his neighbour as a hypocrite, because 
 he thinks he sees a retrograde movement as to some 
 particular, or on some occasion ; nor let any man ad- 
 judge himself a saint, and cherish the belief that the 
 standard of his piety is rising in the gross when it is
 
 128 SERMONS. 
 
 evidently sinking in detail ; but where we see another 
 making progress from year to year, or month to month, 
 if not from week to week, or day to day, let us thank 
 God for the grace that is given unto him ; and when, 
 on the other hand, we find ourselves from day to day, 
 or week to week, receding, let us not dream that at 
 tlie month's end, or the year's end, the defect will 
 cure itself, or even that past attainments will atone for 
 future losses ; but forgetting that which is behind, 
 let us reach forth to that which is before. 
 
 The authority of Scripture is sufficient to establish 
 that the fact alleged, as to the progressive nature of 
 religion, is so. That it must be so, may be further ar- 
 gued from the nature of the subject in which the 
 change is wrought — from the nature of the cause by 
 which it is eflected — from the nature of the means 
 employed in its production — from, the nature of the 
 end designed to be effected — and from the nature of 
 the change itself so far as it can be distinctly scruti- 
 nized. 
 
 And first, it may be argued from the nature of the 
 subject, which is man, an active being, one essen- 
 tially active. As the soul, anterior to conversion, was 
 in progress, going from one degree of evil to another, 
 strengthening its habits, settling its judgments, fixing 
 its afifections, so it may and must be expected to make 
 progress in the new direction given to it, unless there 
 be something in the very nature of a saving change 
 adverse to such a process ; but this, as we shall see, 
 is so far from being true, that what may be said of 
 the natural condition of the soul, may be still more 
 emphatically said of its new state — that it cannot be
 
 PHILIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. 129 
 
 happy witliout j^rogress ; nay, that whether happy or 
 not, it cannot exist without progress, because it can- 
 not exist without some exercise of its powers and af- 
 fections; and this very exercise gives strength, and 
 this increase of strength is progress. Because man, 
 then, is the subject of the change which takes place 
 in conversion, there is reason to believe that the new 
 character imparted to the soul will not continue as it 
 is, but constantly become more marked and perma- 
 nent. 
 
 The same thing seems to follow from the nature of 
 the power which effects the change. If this effect 
 could be ascribed to chance, or to a momentary im- 
 pulse, it might be expected to continue as it is at first, 
 or even to cease and disappear ; but when the power 
 of God, almighty and unceasing, is the sole efiicient 
 cause of what we call conversion, it seems unreasona- 
 ble to suppose that that cause is to operate forever, or 
 even for a time, with a view merely to the sustenta- 
 tion of these faint beginnings of a spiritual life which 
 we experience within us. If the spark which grace 
 has kindled had been left to itself, or to the feeble 
 breath of mortals to preserve it, wo might well sup- 
 pose that nothing more than its continued existence 
 was intended ; but when we find an unbroken current 
 of life-giving air from the breath of the Almighty 
 brought to play upon that spark, wc may conclude 
 with safety that it was meant to glow and kindle to a 
 flame, and that the flame was meant to rise and spread, 
 and to become a conflagration ; so that wliat at first 
 was but a seed of fire, smothered in ashes, drenched 
 in rain, or blown at random by the viewless winds, 
 
 VOL. II. — 6*
 
 130 SERMONS. 
 
 shall yet light up the M'hole horizon, and dye the very 
 heavens with its crimson. 
 
 Look again at the means which are emj)loyed for 
 the imj)lauting of religion in the soul, and jndge by 
 these whether it was intended to be shortlived or sta- 
 tionary. If we fonnd no other means employed but 
 those of a natural and ordinary nature, such as human 
 wisdom might devise and human power set in mo- 
 tion, then we might plausibly infer, that what we 
 now have in possession is the whole that God in- 
 tended to bestow upon us, and might strive to rest 
 contented with our actual attainments. But, my 
 hearers, could it be to keep alive such piety as you 
 and I possess, without improvement or increase, that 
 God the Father gave his Son to die, and that God the 
 Son assumed our nature, took our place, paid our 
 debt, and bore our chastisement? Was it that you 
 and I might be forever what we now are, even grant- 
 ing that our hopes of salvation were well-founded? 
 Is it for this that the Almighty Spirit bloweth where 
 it listeth, and though grieved from many a hard 
 heart, returns and lights again that spark which sin 
 quenched, and opens the blind eyes, and teaches the 
 poor stammering tongue of the wn*etched sinner how 
 to pray ; yea, itself maketh intercession for him, with 
 groanings, with groanings that cannot be uttered ? 
 Is there not in the seeming p)rodigality of means so 
 infinite, so godlike, a presumptive proof that these 
 efiects which we experience are but partial and in- 
 choate ; that the end is not yet ; and that it doth not 
 yet appear what we shall, what we must be, to attain 
 not only the great end of our existence, but the end
 
 PEILIPriANS 3, 13. 14. 131 
 
 for Y/liieli a soYereigii God lias moTed all lieayen and, 
 as it were, poured liimself out upon creatures ? O my 
 brethren, if such arc the means which God has nsed 
 to bring us thus far, we must not stop here, we must 
 go on, we must go on, wc must forget what is behind, 
 we must reach forth to that which is before. He- 
 member, too, that such an agent cannot use such 
 means without a purpose, and an adequate purpose. 
 
 AVliat then is the end for which this change is 
 wrought, if wrought at all ? Kot mere deliverance 
 from present pain. Tliat does not always follow in 
 fact, and if it did, wonld be wholly disproportioned 
 to the power working, and the means employed. 
 Not mere deliverance from future misery, for that is 
 still inadequate. Not even man's restoration, though 
 this is infinitely more and better than the others ; bnt 
 it is not all. If the ultimate end of all this were in 
 man, he w^ould usurp God's place : there cannot be 
 two Gods — there cannot be two last great ends to be 
 accomplished ; it is all for God or none — it is for God 
 — it is for God — it is for his praise and glory that the 
 whole work is accomplished. And, my hearers, can 
 it be that the whole tribute of our rational and spir- 
 itual natures to the honour of our Maker, is this feeble, 
 faint beginning of spiritual life which we profess to 
 feel within us? Is this all? O if Almighty power, 
 and benevolence, and wisdom have provided a sacri- 
 fice of infinite merit, and a spiritual influence of 
 boundless efficacy, and have brought these means to 
 bear upon our miserable souls, not for our own sakes, 
 but that God may be honoured by our restoration 
 to the knowledge and enjoyment of the highest good ;
 
 1^2 SERMONS. 
 
 where shall tlie limits of that knowledge and enjoy- 
 ment be assigned, so long as God is God, his praise 
 the end of our existence, and his desert of praise as 
 endless as his being ? O my hearers, if we are saved 
 to honour God, and if we can never honour him 
 enough, surely we may not, dare not think of remain- 
 ing as we are, if that were possible. Surely, if we 
 would answer the great end of our salvation, we must 
 forget that which is behind, and reach forth to that 
 which is before. 
 
 Once more the nature of the change itself^ so far 
 as Scripture and experience reveal it, shows that it is 
 but an incipient change, and must be carried on for- 
 ever. What does the change consist in ? ISTot in any 
 thing external, not in any thing corporeal, but in the 
 mind, and yet not in the structure of the mind ; not 
 in the creation of new faculties or in the destruction 
 of old ones, but in new desires, dispositions, and affec- 
 tions. Tliese must have their objects, and their act- 
 ings on these objects must increase their strength, 
 enlarge their scope, and stimulate their energies. If 
 God then has created new desires within us, or the 
 desire of new objects, to wit, holiness, and truth, and 
 God himself, and if these new desires from their very 
 nature reproduce themselves, and if this process can- 
 not possibly be cut short by the failure of the objects 
 which are infinite, then surely from the very nature 
 of the change which God has wi'ought upon us if we 
 are converted, we not only may, but must go on. If 
 we are changed at all, we must be changed still fur- 
 ther. K we are not what we once were, if we have 
 left as it were ourselves behind, we must forget our-
 
 PHILIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. 133 
 
 selves, we must forget what is beliind, we must recacli 
 Ibrtli to that which is before. Tlius from the natm-e 
 of the subject of the change, viz., the soul of man ; 
 fj-om the nature of the power by which the change is 
 wrouglit, viz., the power of God ; from the nature of 
 the means employed, viz., the death of Christ to save 
 from deatli and purchase life, and the influence of the 
 Spirit to produce life in us ; from the nature of the 
 end proposed, viz., the endless glory of an infinite 
 being ; and from the essential nature of the change 
 itself, consisting in such a new creation and direction 
 of the powers as must necessarily result in spiritual 
 progression ; from all this, as well as from tlie express 
 declarations of the "Word of God, confirmed by the 
 experience of all true converts, it is plain, it is certain, 
 that whoever has come thus far, must go further ; that 
 no one may, or can rely upon, or be contented with, 
 that which is bcliind, but must forget that which is 
 behind, and still reach forth to that which is before. 
 
 It seems to me that these considerations are abun- 
 dantly sufficient to evince, that the divine intention 
 in efi'ecting such a change as some of us profess to 
 have experienced is, that we should go on further and 
 forever glorifying God by new degrees jf holiness and 
 new acts of obedience. And uidess we are prepared 
 to disown the authority of that God who is not only 
 our Creator but our Saviour, we must humbly ac- 
 knowledge that a solemn and eternal obligation rests 
 upon us, no matter what we have attained or may 
 attain hereafter ; to forget, in a certain sense, all that 
 is behind, and to reacli forth to that which is before. 
 But it has pleased God to enforce those obligations
 
 134 SERMONS. 
 
 under wliich Lis sole authority suffices to lay us, by 
 showing us liow clearly our own interest depends not 
 only on obedience to his will in general, but on sub- 
 mission to his Avill in this particular, and on a cheer- 
 ful co-operation with it. In the case before us, this 
 is clear from the fact, that if progress is essential to 
 the very nature of a saving change, there can, of 
 course, be no proof of its havmg taken place, in which 
 this circumstance is not involved. The present is 
 transitory ; w^hat is future now will be past in a mo- 
 ment, and so on forever. Before us and behind us 
 stretch the future and the past. Our hopes and fears 
 from their very nature have relation to the future, yet 
 we seek to found them upon something in the past. 
 Even while we lean forward with intense anxiety to 
 scan tlie future, we still cast a longing, lingering look 
 behind, at something tliere on which to fasten as a 
 ground of hope. So, in seeking to satisfy ourselves 
 that w^e have undergone the change which is essential 
 to salvation, we accumulate and lioard up our exj^e- 
 riences, even when their emptiness is proved by sub- 
 sequent events : our native disposition is to. trust in 
 that which is behind, whereas the Scriptures teach us 
 to tread upon it, that we may rise higher, and instead 
 of believing that all will be well hereafter, because 
 we thought that all was well some time ago, to grap- 
 ple with futurity itself, to hasten towards the consum- 
 mation of our course, not by recalling what W'c once 
 thought and felt, but by thinking now and feeling 
 now as God requires us to think and feel with respect 
 to wliat is coming. 
 
 We are like one sailing down a rapid stream, in-
 
 PHILIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. 135 
 
 tensely anxious as to tlie issue of our voyage, and 
 fearful of the dangers wliicli await us, and yet turning 
 our backs on both, and trying to derive encourage 
 ment from gazing at that j)ortion of our course 
 already past, and every moment growing less and less 
 visible. Of what avail, to such a mariner, is even a 
 distinct view of some distant point long since swept 
 by, when his vessel is approaching some perilous pass, 
 or passing through some vast and foaming estuary 
 into the deep sea. O surely it is then time to forget 
 what is past, and to bend forward, to reach forth to 
 that which is before. My hearers, we may please 
 ourselves with other proofs of piety, but if we would 
 be well assured that we have moved at all from our 
 original position, we must move still further. We 
 may spend our lives in measuring or guessing at the 
 distance passed already, but the strongest assurance 
 of our having come to any given point in the ap- 
 pointed course, is furnished by our travelling beyond 
 it to another. Are you doubtful whether you have 
 come as far as you imagine ? then go further. Are 
 you doubtful whether you possess as much religion as 
 you fain would tliink ? then try to possess more, and 
 the attainment of the greater will involve the attain- 
 ment of the less. To you especially, my hearers, who 
 believe that you have lately found the entrance to 
 the way everlasting, and yet can scarcely believe 
 you have passed through it, make assurance doubly 
 sure by leaving the entrance door afar behind 
 you. K you would have a satisfactory persuasion 
 that the world, and the flesh, and the devil are for- 
 saken, you must attain it not by standing still, and
 
 23g SERMONS. 
 
 looking at your past course either with complacency 
 or doubt, but by forgetting that wliicli is behind, and 
 reaching forth to that which is before. 
 
 God, by making this the only solid ground of con- 
 fidence that yoTi are saved, has shut you up to the 
 necessity of progress, has compelled you to move on, 
 if you would know and be assured that you have 
 moved at all. And thus he brings your personal 
 anxieties, and care for your own safety, to enforce the 
 obligation of a duty which, although you could not 
 utterly neglect it, might have been too carelessly per- 
 formed. ISTot only because God commands it, but 
 because you cannot otherwise be sure of your conver- 
 sion, you must learn to forget that which is behind, 
 and to reach forth to that which is before. 
 
 But there is yet another way in which the same 
 thing is accomplished. All that has just been said 
 would be true, if stagnation or repose in religious 
 life were possible. I have hitherto proceeded on the 
 supposition that the only alternative is progress or 
 stagnation ; that the worst which can befall the soul 
 which will not go on is, that it must stand still. And 
 I have tried to show that even then it would be ag- 
 gravated sin and folly not to advance. But O how 
 unspeakably is this conclusion strengthened by the 
 fact which I have hitherto left out of view, that there 
 is no such thing as standing still, or resting on your 
 oars. Forward or backward, up or down the stream, 
 you must and will go. Yes, my hearers, reason and 
 experience but echo the instructions of God's word as 
 to this momentous truth, and I call them both to wit- 
 neas, to set to their seal, that God is true, when he
 
 PHILIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. jg'^ 
 
 declares that from liim that hath not, i. e. hatli not 
 more abundantly, who does not gain, who does not 
 make advances, shall be taken away even that he 
 hath. 
 
 It would be easy to show from the very constitu- 
 tion of our nature, and the circumstances in which 
 we are placed, the reason of this universal fact ; but 
 I choose rather to appeal to your experience, and ask 
 you when you ever wilfully neglected or ceased to 
 use the means of improvement without a positive de- 
 terioration. Let us take it for granted, as we safely 
 may, that the choice is not between onward motion 
 and repose, but between onward motion and recession. 
 Will the convalescent choose to be a convalescent all 
 his life, instead of seeking to regain his health ? 
 Does he not know that unless he soon regains it, he 
 may look for a relapse, and for peril of death greater 
 than before. He does, he does, and so may you, my 
 hearers. God has shut you up to the necessity of 
 going on, by limiting your choice to that or going 
 bf>,",k; by showing you that motion cannot be avoided; 
 that you must rise or sinlc ; that you must grow worse 
 •uv better ; that you must draw nearer to God, or be 
 driven further from him ; that 3^011 must love him 
 more than you do now, or love him less ; that you 
 must go on and live, or go back and die ; that however 
 unprepared you may have been for the necessity now 
 laid upon you, however far you have been from fore- 
 seeing the solemnity and j^eril of the juncture where 
 you now are, it is even so, it is too late to seek another 
 choice, another alternative ; you are shut up forever 
 to this one, you must either forget what is before, re-
 
 138 SERMONS. 
 
 trace your stops, repent of your repentfvnce, and go 
 back to tliat wliicli is behind ; or, on tlie other band, 
 forgetting that which is behind, you must reach forth 
 to that which is before. 
 
 And now, my hearers, how are you disposed to 
 regard this law of the new life, which forbids not only 
 retrocession but repose ; which insists upon perpetual 
 jjrogression, and accepts of nothing short of this pro- 
 gression as conclusiye eyidence of its own existence ? 
 Are you ready to say, as the disciples said of old, 
 " this is a hard saying, who can hear it ? " Are you 
 ready like some of them to go back from the 
 Saviour and walk no more with him ? Ah ! consider 
 w^hat you do, and if such thoughts rise within you, 
 crush them, I pray you, in their yery birth. For I 
 assure you that this, so far from being cruel, is a mer- 
 ciful economy, required not only by God's honour 
 but your interest ; a dispensation tending purely and 
 directly to your highest happiness in time and in 
 eternity, so that if you could but see its operation and 
 its issue you would rather die than be subjected to a 
 different constitution, i. e. one which should allow 
 you to go backwards and to stagnate instead of 
 urging you foreyer onwards. And you would thus 
 choose, not because you felt yourself constrained to 
 sacrifice a present and inferior good for a greater one 
 still future ; not because you were enabled by Diyine 
 grace to forego all ease and happiness at present, lest 
 you should finally come short of it foreyer, but be- 
 cause you would perceiye in this " hard saying," this 
 inexorable law of progress, an exhaustless source of 
 purest satisfaction, an unfaltering incitement to ex- 
 
 1
 
 PniLIPPIANS 3, 13. 14. 139 
 
 ertion, an ubinidant consolation under trials. Yes, the 
 trials of the Cliristian would be hard indeed to bear, 
 bitter alike in blossom and in fruit, if it were not for 
 this new-born and immortal disposition to know more, 
 to do more, to rise higher, to grow better, to grow 
 more like God, to approach nearer to him, and the 
 accompanying disposition to regard the past, not past 
 sins, but past attainments, as a mere fulcrum, a mere 
 stepping-stone, a round upon the spiritual ladder, by 
 which higher things may be attained. 
 
 But this conviction, reasonably as it might be 
 founded on the daily experience of its efficacy even in 
 the least affairs of life, cannot be felt in all its strength 
 until it is obtruded, forced upon the mind, by the 
 working of the self-same principle in great emergen- 
 cies and critical junctures ; as for instance when the 
 mind is first awakened by the Spirit to a sense of sin. 
 Kemember, O remember, when that light first beamed 
 into your soul with an intolerable brightness, and you 
 saw yourself, your heart, your past life, your innumer- 
 able sins, set before }'ou in a light which you could 
 neither bear nor shut your eyes upon. Eecur to that 
 point of your spiritual history, recall the feelings 
 Avhich that retrospect produced ; the shame, the sor- 
 row, the remorse, the self-abhorrence, and I do not ask 
 you whether you could then have consented to re- 
 main in that abyss of filth and darkness where you 
 saw yourself to have been rolling till the voice of 
 God aroused you, and a light from heaven showed 
 you your condition ; for with such views that would 
 be impossible. You could not thus repent of your re- 
 pentance, and become your former self again. But I
 
 X40 SERMONS. 
 
 ask you whether you could have consented, or whether 
 you can wish that you had been left to languish and 
 to stagnate till the end of life ; not indeed within that 
 slough, but just without it, on its verge, in sight of it, 
 in sight of nothing better ; safe, safe, but only safe 
 without the power or desire of onward progress ; 
 chained for a lifetime to the contemplation of what 
 you had been ; forced to look upon the hideous cor- 
 ruption of your former state, without relapsing into 
 it, but at the same time without getting further from 
 it than at the moment of your actual deliverance ; a 
 shipwi-ecked sailor chained to the rock on which he 
 had found refuge ; a convalescent leper, bound at the 
 threshold of the lazar house, whose poison he had 
 been for years inhaling. Could you have borne it ? 
 No, my hearer, you could not.* 
 
 * The conclusion of this sermon is wanting.
 
 YIII. 
 
 Luke 18, 1-8. — And be spake a parable unto them to tins end, that 
 men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a 
 city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man : And there 
 was a widow in that city ; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me 
 of mine adversary. And he would not for a while : but afterward he 
 said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man ; yet be- 
 cause this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual 
 coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust 
 judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day 
 and night unto him, though he bear long with them ? I tell you that 
 he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man 
 cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ? 
 
 All is not easy that appears so to a liastj, super - 
 iicial observation, which is apt to mistake the sim- 
 plicity of strength for the simplicity of weakness. 
 The most wonderful discoveries, when once made, 
 may seem obvious. The highest creations of genius 
 appear level to the humblest capacity. The pro- 
 foundest wisdom often shows no more sm-face than 
 the shallowest folly. Of this the parables of Christ 
 are eminent examples. Many a sage and scholar has 
 neglected them as only fit for children. Others have 
 looked npon them as befitting themes for first at- 
 tempts and young beginners in the work of exposition. 
 The best corrective of this error is experiment. As
 
 142 SERMONS. 
 
 few have failed to entertain it, few, perhaps, have 
 used this means "without being undeceived. What 
 appeared at first incapable of two interpretations, is 
 successively subjected to a dozen. Whatever this 
 may argue with respect to the interpreter, so far as 
 the Scriptures are themselves concerned, it is not a 
 fault, but a perfection. 
 
 These divine discourses were intended to accom- 
 plish more than one end, and to this variety of pur- 
 pose their structure is adapted with an exquisite preci- 
 sion. Some were to see clearly, more were to be daz- 
 zled. They were also meant, at least in many cases, 
 to be variously applied. A lesson crowded with al- 
 lusions to the actual condition of our Lord's imme- 
 diate hearers, is often so constructed that these very 
 points enforce its application to a thousand other 
 cases wholly different externally. Either from this or 
 other causes, there is sometimes an illusion, like that 
 produced b}^ a painting, seen from a certain point of 
 observation, while from any other it is a distorted 
 daub. The imagery of the parables, when seen from 
 a particular distance, may be definite in outline, fault- 
 less in perspective, jDerfect in colouring. But ap- 
 proach a little nearer, and the figures lose their sym- 
 metry, the tints their richness. This is often a key 
 to the correct mode of exposition. It forbids the 
 coarse manipulation of the little-souled grammarian, 
 no less than the cloudy indistinctness of the sj^ecula- 
 tive dreamer. It compels the one to stand back, and 
 the other to draw near, until they both see neither too 
 much nor too little, but precisely what they ought to 
 gee, and must see, if they would see to any purpose.
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 143 
 
 In tliis way, some of the most valuable lessons may 
 be learned as to the folly of over-refinement and ex- 
 travagant minuteness in the explanation of strong- 
 figures. 
 
 But sometimes this advantage seems to be pre- 
 cluded or diminished by a doubt as to the general de- 
 sign of the whole parable. This doubt may extend to 
 the very doctrine taught, or be restricted to its appli- 
 cation. The truth embodied in some parables is plain, 
 but it may be questioned whether it is predicted of 
 the Jews or tlie disciples, or some other class exclu- 
 sively, or meant to be applied to men in general. In 
 other cases, both the doctrine and the application 
 may be clear ; but there is something obscure in the 
 mode of illustration, an apparent incongruity between 
 the substance and the shadow. This appearance often 
 springs from a misapprehension of the image or its 
 use, and then occurs one of those instances of self-in- 
 terpretation which have already been mentioned. As 
 soon as the true principle is once applied, the incon- 
 gruity is gone. This proves tlie principle itself to be 
 correct, and furnishes, or may furnish, valuable aid 
 in solving other cases. 
 
 To this last class belongs the parable from which 
 the text is taken. There is no indistinctness in the 
 images themselves, nor any doubt as to what they 
 were designed to represent. The widow and the 
 judge stand out before the mind's eye as fidly and 
 clearly as the forms of flesh and bhtod which we re- 
 member seeing yesterday or expect to see to-morrow. 
 The widow's wrong, the judge's wickedness, his ecpial 
 scorn of God and man, the prayer, the refusal, the re-
 
 144: SERMONS. 
 
 turn, the ceaseless importunity, the selfish tyrant's rea- 
 soning with hiuDself — all this is like an object of sense. 
 We do not merely read — we see, we hear, we feel it 
 as a real, present living spectacle. 
 
 The moral, too, is not left to be guessed at or in 
 ferred ; it is explicitly propounded. This parable 
 was uttered for a certain end, to teach a certain les- 
 son, to produce a determinate effect ; and that was, 
 that they who heard it should pray always and not 
 faint, not give up, or desert their post — the Greek 
 word having properly a military sense and applica- 
 tion. As to the length which we may go in applying 
 it, the only question that has ever been raised is, 
 whether it had a sj^ecial reference to the prayers of 
 Christ's disciples after he should leave them, till he 
 came again for the destruction of their nation. But 
 even if it had been so intended, it is one of those cases 
 where the lesson taught to one class is evidently uni- 
 versal in its nature and the purpose of tlic teacher. 
 
 This is the more certain here because the terms 
 used are so comprehensive, and without any qualifying 
 adjunct. " He spake a parable unto them to this end, 
 that it is right or binding to pray always." If, then, 
 there is any obscurity or doubt, it is neither in the 
 images presented, nor in the doctrine taught, nor, to 
 any jDractical effect, in its application. But it lies in 
 an apparent incongruity between the illustration and 
 the thing which it illustrates. This may be rendered 
 palpable by placing type and antitype over against 
 each other. That the elect of God should be repre- 
 sented by the wronged and helpless widow, agrees 
 well witli the fact and with the usage of the Scrip-
 
 LUKE IS, 1-8. 145 
 
 tnres. But the prayers wliicli these are bound to 
 offer without ceasing, must he pra_yers to God ; and, 
 therefore, he would seem to be the object correspond- 
 ing to the judge of the parable. 
 
 But this judge is an unjust judge ; he neither 
 fears God, nor respects man. He has no restraining 
 motives either here or hereafter. In addition to this 
 general habitual corruption, he is actually guilty in 
 this very case of gross injustice. He is faithless to 
 his trust in refusing to discharge the solemn duties of 
 his office. He perverts the right by constantly re- 
 fusing to redress the wrongs of the injured. "When at 
 last he consents to do so, it is from the meanest and 
 most selfish motive. It is merely to escape trouble 
 and annoyance. "Lest by her continual coming she 
 weary me." Between this character, this conduct, 
 and this motive for a cliange of conduct, on one hand, 
 and the reasons for our importunity in prayer, upon 
 the other, what connection, what resemblance, is there 
 or can there be ? 
 
 To some the difficulty may seem hopeless, as their 
 rules of interpretation t'orcQ them to admit that the 
 unjust judge is here a type or i-epresentative of God 
 as the hearer of prayer, and that being such, there 
 must be a minute resemblance of the type and anti- 
 type. Tlicre have been those who would not scruple 
 to assume and carry out this monstrous notion. They 
 would say, perhaps, that the resemblance is a limited 
 specific one ; that God resembles the unjust judge only 
 in his turning a deaf ear to the petitions of his people, 
 and in granting their requests because of their unceas- 
 ing importunity. In order to sustain this view, they are 
 
 VOL. II. — 7
 
 146 SERMONS. 
 
 compelled to extenuate tlio guilt of the unjust judge, 
 and to exaggerate the supposed resemblance between 
 him and God, lest the comparison should be re- 
 volting. 
 
 But this is utterly at variance with the drift and 
 with the terms of the description. Why is it said 
 that the judge was an " unjust " one ? Why is it said 
 that he "feared not God, neither regarded man"? 
 These terms prohibit all extenuation. They are evi- 
 dently added for the very j)urpose of determining the 
 character. Injustice aiid contempt of God and man, 
 are not incidentally mentioned ; they are prominent. 
 They do not modify the character ; they constitute it. 
 It is as an " unjust judge " that he is held up to our 
 view; and, lest we should mistake his quality, we are 
 told that he neither feared God nor respected man. 
 This accumulation of condemnatory phrases makes it 
 certain that the Avickedness of the judge is an essen- 
 tial sti'oke in the description. The idea evidently is, 
 that the worse we make him out, the better we shall 
 understand the parable. We cannot, therefore, substi- 
 tute a merely careless, sluggish, or forgetful judge, 
 much less a weak, but honest one, without destroying 
 all the point and meaning of the apo ogue. 
 
 How, then, are we to reconcile this seeming incon- 
 gruity ? IIow can the conduct of this selfish tyrant 
 to a helpless sufferer, be any illustration of a just and 
 merciful God's dealing with " his own elect " ? One 
 thing, at least, is certain, that in this, and .by parity 
 of reasoning in all like cases, it does not follow, be- 
 cause two things are compared in one point, that they 
 must be alike in every ?ther ; nor even that they must
 
 LUKE IS, 1-S. 14^ 
 
 be alike in all the points which are specifically men- 
 tioned. For neither the character in general, nor the 
 condnct in this one case, nor the motive for reforming 
 it, can possibly have any counterpart in the divine 
 nature or dispensations. The only points of contact 
 are the mutual relation of the parties as petitioner 
 and sovereign, the withholding of the thing requested 
 and its subsequent bestowal. In all the rest there is, 
 there can be no resemblance ; tliere is perfect con- 
 trariety. 
 
 "Why, then, was this unsuitable image chosen even 
 for the sake of illustration ? Why was not the Hearer 
 of Prayer represented by a creature bearing more of 
 his own image ? AVhy was not the judge of the par- 
 able a conscientious, faithful magistrate, who, though 
 compelled to put off a compliance with the prayer of 
 the poor widow, still designed to grant it, and allowed 
 her to come often and return unsatisfied, in order that 
 her wishes might be kept npon the stretch until it 
 became possible to satisfy them ? Because this would 
 not have answered our Lord's purj^ose, but would only 
 have taught feebly by comparison what is now taught 
 mightily by contrast. The certainty of our prayers 
 being answered could not possibly be strengthened or 
 evinced by any similar proceeding upon man's part. 
 The ground of confidence here furnished is not the 
 similitude of God to man, but their infinite disparity. 
 The argument implied is not, that if imperfect good- 
 ness goes so far, that perfect goodness must go fur- 
 ther ; but, that if a certain good effect may be ex- 
 pected to arise fortuitously out of what is evil, it may 
 surely be exjtectcd to arise necessaril_y out of Avhat is
 
 148 SERMONS. 
 
 good. If even such a cliaracter, governed by such 
 motives, may be rationally expected to take a certain 
 conrse, however alien from his native disposition 
 and his habits, there can be no risk in counting on 
 a like result where all these adverse circumstances 
 favonr it. 
 
 This view of the parable, or of the reasoning in- 
 volved in it, as founded not on mere comparison, but 
 contrast, does away at once with the necessity of 
 strained constructions and unnatural refinements. In- 
 stead of trying to exculpate the unrighteous judge, or 
 even to extenuate his guilt, we are at liberty, or rather 
 under the necessity of, taking the description in its 
 strongest sense. The worse he is, the better for the 
 beauty and efiect of our Saviour's illustration. We 
 are also freed from the necessity of seeking points of 
 fanciful resemblance between this ideal person and 
 the Father of Mercies, to whom all flesh come as to 
 the Hearer of Prayer. "When the object is no longer 
 to assimilate, but to distinguish and confront as oppo- 
 sites, we may give the language of the text its full 
 force, without any fear of blasphemy or even of ir- 
 reverence. 
 
 The three main points of the antithesis are these 
 — the character, the practice, and the motive of the 
 judge — his moral character, his official practice, and 
 his motive for acting upon this occasion in a manner 
 contrary to both. His official practice is intimated 
 by the word unjust applied to him near the conclu- 
 sion of the parable. If this were meant to be descrip- 
 tive merely of his inward dispositi.ms, it would add 
 nothing to the previous description. It refei's more
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 149 
 
 probably to tlie habitual discliarge of bis functions, 
 to his exercise of power. He was not only destitute 
 of any love to justice or any wish to do it, but unjust 
 in practice. The interior source of this exterior con- 
 duct is then described in other terms. He feared not 
 God. He neither reverenced him as a sovereign, nor 
 dreaded him as an avenger. "Without this fear, jus- 
 tice is impossible. He only can command who knows 
 how to obey. He only can direct the fears of men to 
 right and wholesome uses, who is himself governed 
 by the fear of God. A judge who "fears not God," 
 is of necessity an " unjust judge." 
 
 But this, though decisive of the real character, 
 is not necessarily so of the outward conduct. If the 
 acts of men were always an unerring index of their 
 moral state, the world would be a very different world 
 from what it is. If human society depended for its 
 temporal advantages exclusively on genuine virtue, 
 it woidd soon come to an end. There are appear- 
 ances of goodness which, although abominable in the 
 sight of God, are highly esteemed among men, and 
 for that very reason, have a social, civil or political 
 value, wholly irrespective of their moral worth or 
 worthlessness. These outside virtues, having no pure 
 fountain in the heart, must spring from other sources. 
 They are not the fruit of politic contrivance and col- 
 lusion, being only overruled for civil ends by Provi- 
 dence. Their real source is in the selfishness of those 
 who practise them. 
 
 Among the motives which may act upon this prin- 
 ciple, not the least potent is the fear of man. This 
 may include the dread of h.s displeasure, the desire
 
 150 SERBIONS. 
 
 of his applause, and an instinctive shrinking even 
 from his scorn. Shame, fear, ambition, all maj cou^ 
 tribute to produce an outward goodness having no 
 real counterj^art Avithin, This is particularly true of 
 public and official acts. How many magistrates and 
 office-bearers, who have no right j)rinciple to guide or 
 check them, are controlled by a regard to the decen- 
 cies of life, to the conventional exactions of society, 
 in short, to public sentiment. Such fear not God but 
 man. They can brave the terrors of eternity, but not 
 the nearer retributions of the present life. They can con- 
 sent to risk their souls, but not to jeopard their re- 
 spectability. Under the influence of this selfish but 
 most salutary fear, they do what they would other- 
 wise leave undone, and abstain from what would 
 otherwise be done without a scruple. 
 
 There would thus seem to be three grounds for 
 expecting justice and fidelity in human society, and 
 especially in public trusts. The first and highest is 
 the fear of God, including all religious motives — then 
 the fear of man or a regard to j^ublic sentiment — and 
 last, the force of habit, the authority of precedent, a 
 disposition to do that which has been done before, 
 because it has been done before. These three impul- 
 sive forces do not utterly exclude each other. They 
 may coexist in due subordination. Tliey may all be 
 necessary to a complete official character. The first 
 in that case, must control the others, but the others, 
 under that control, may answer an important purj^ose. 
 The man who fears God, does not, on that account, 
 despise the judgment of his fellows, though it cannot 
 be to him the ultimate, supreme rule of his conduct.
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 151 
 
 The same is true of a regard to settled usage, or 
 even to personal habit, wlien correctly formed. In- 
 deed, these latter motives never have so po-u'erfiil an 
 influence for good, as when thev act in due subordina- 
 tion to the fear of God. It is only when this is want- 
 ing, and they undertake to fill its place, that they 
 become unlawful or objectionable. And even then, 
 although they cannot make good the deficiency in 
 God's sight, they may make it good in man's. 
 Although the root of the matter is not in them, a 
 short-lived verdure may be brought out and main- 
 tained by artificial means. In this case, the defect is 
 one which cannot be supplied. But even where- the 
 secondary lower motives fail or cease to act, the con- 
 sequence may be unhappy. The most conscientious 
 man, who disregards the public sentiment or ti'amples 
 on established usage, may do far less than he might 
 have done, though far more than the demagogue who 
 lives on popular applause, or the j)recisian Avho ac- 
 knowledges no higher law than custom. The want of 
 any one of these impulsive forces, may detract from 
 the completeness of the ultimate eftcct. How much 
 more the absence of them all ! 
 
 If the judge, for instance, v^'ho is governed by the 
 fear of God, and pays due respect to the opinion of 
 mankind, may fall short of the standard, througli a 
 want of fixed habit, or contempt of settled usage ; 
 if he who, in addition to this, sets at nought the judg- 
 ment of his fellows, sinks still lower in the scale, how 
 low must he sink who has not even honesty, much 
 less, religion to compensate for his minor errors ! In 
 other words, how utterly unjust must that judge be
 
 152 SERMONS. 
 
 who neither fears God nor regards man. It seemi? 
 then, that the few words which our Saviour uses, are 
 so hajDpilj chosen and so well applied as to exhaust 
 the subject, by affording a description of an abso- 
 lutely worthless judge, on whom none of the ordinary 
 motives to fidelity have any influence, and from whom 
 nothing, therefore, can be expected. "What could be 
 more hopeless than the case of the poor widow at the 
 feet of such a tyrant ? If he knows neither fear nor 
 shame — if there is nothing to restrain him either in 
 the present or the future — if she has not the means of 
 appealing to his avarice — how clear it seems that his 
 refusal to avenge her is a final one, and that con- 
 tinued importunity can only waste time aud provoke 
 him to new insult. 
 
 I dwell on these particulars to show that, in their 
 aggregate, they are intended to convey the idea of a 
 hopeless case. The petitioner was helpless — she was 
 poor — she was at the mercy of her enemies. The 
 judge was habitually un;'ust, and uninfluenced, either 
 by the fear of God or by resj)ect for man. What is 
 this but to say — and to say in the most graphic and 
 expressive manner — that the case is hopeless — that 
 her importunity is vain ? And yet she perseveres ; so 
 have thousands in like cases. Why ? Because there 
 is nothing more to lose, even though there may be 
 nothing to hope. And there always is some room for 
 hope. For hope does not depend on certainties nor 
 even probabilities, but on possibilities. "When there 
 can be no change for the worse, and a change for the 
 better is even barely possible, men will hope, from 
 the very constitution of their nature "When the
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 153 
 
 widow's case is said to be hopeless, it is not said with 
 respect to her own feeling, but with respect to any 
 rational, appreciable ground of hope. She hoi^es 
 against hope. An indomitable instinct triumphs over 
 reason. She persists in her entreaties. So have 
 thousands. 
 
 The ideal case was meant to bring before us a 
 familiar practice. It is equivalent to saying, Men in 
 such situations still confide in the effect of importu- 
 nity. When every thing seems plainly to forbid it, 
 they persist, because success is possible, and on that 
 possibility the natural repugnance to despair exerts 
 itself. Yes, even in the most discouraging condition, 
 men will pray to their fellow-men, so long as there is 
 a possibility of having what they ask. And in this 
 perseverance they are often justified by the event. 
 Of this fact too, the widow's case is but a type. "With 
 every reason to cease praying, she prayed on and she 
 Avas heard at last. "When every higher motive failed, 
 a lower one was still available. She could not bribe 
 but she could weary him. lie who neither feared 
 God nor regarded man, was tenderly mindful of his 
 own ease. He did not say, " lest God be angry" or 
 "lest man despise me," but he said, "lest b}^ her con- 
 tinual coming she weary me." This might have 
 seemed a frail foundation for the hope of the peti- 
 tioner, or rather it would never have occurred to her 
 as likely to decide her case, and yet, on this it turned 
 at last. Lest she should weary him he did her jus- 
 tice. Her continued importunity was therefore 
 justified by its success. She did well in continuing 
 to urge her claim, however little reason she miglit 
 
 VOL. II. — 7*
 
 X54 SERMONS. 
 
 Lave to look for its success. The wi(7ow in the para^ 
 ble and tliose of whom she is the type or representa- 
 tive, do right, act reasonably in thus persevering, 
 even where the case seems desperate and every ra- 
 tional consideration is in favour of abandoning the suit. 
 
 There is often a divine art in our Saviour's para- 
 bles, by which we are led unawares to pass judgment 
 on ourselves. This is sometimes recorded as the actual 
 effect produced upon the unbelieving Jews. But the 
 effect is often still more general. It arises partly 
 from the peculiarities of structure which have been 
 described. The indistinctness of the images present- 
 ed, seems at times to be intended to disguise the final 
 application of the lesson till its truth is fully recog- 
 nized. In this way the Pharisees were made to utter 
 their own sentence, and in this way we too may be- 
 come our own judges without knowing. The simpler, 
 the more natural the case supposed, the more tre- 
 mendous is the force of its recoil upon the real object. 
 
 In the parable before ns, we are all led irresistibly 
 to own that the widow's persevering application to 
 the unjust judge was rational and right, althongh ap- 
 parently the case was hopeless. Though there seemed 
 to be nothing in the character, the habits, or the cir- 
 cumstances of the judge, on which a reasonable ex- 
 pectation could be founded, yet we know that she 
 was right, becanse she gained her end, and that not 
 by accident, but in a way entirely natural and likely 
 to occur again. The true force and application of* 
 the parable may best be shown by varying the ideal 
 case presented, first a little, and then more, until it 
 merges in the real case it was intended to illustrate.
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 155 
 
 Tlie conclusion wliicli we liave already readied is, 
 that the widow in the parable did right, acted a rea- 
 sonable 2:)art, in hoping against hope, and still persist- 
 ing in her suit when every thing combined to prove 
 it hopeless. If so, the converse of the proposition 
 must be true; and by abandoning her suit or suspend- 
 ing her entreaties she would have been chargeable 
 with folly and with sin proportioned to the interests 
 at stake. If it had been her OAvn subsistence merely 
 that would be enough to condemn her dereliction, 
 how much more if that of others were dependent on 
 the same decision. She would have had no rii^ht to 
 sacrifice the comfort and tranquillity, much less the 
 life or the salvation of her children to her own de- 
 spondency or weariness of eft or t. All this is certain, 
 and will be at once admitted in the case which the 
 parable supposes, to wit, that of an unjust, unmerci- 
 ful, and selfish judge, " who feared not God neither 
 regarded man." 
 
 But let us suppose that he had been an upright, 
 conscientious, faithful judge, whose execution of his 
 oflicc was delayed by some mistake or want of infor- 
 mation. How much less excusable would she have 
 then been in relinquishing her rights or those of 
 others in despair! Suppose again that there had not 
 been even ignorance or error on the judge's part to 
 make the issue doubtful, but that his decision was 
 delayed by temporary circumstances which were 
 likely soon to have an end. The case would then be 
 stronger still, and the folly of abandoning the suit 
 Btill greater. 
 
 But advance another step. Imagine that the grant-
 
 156 SERMOSS. 
 
 ing of tlio widow's prayer liad been deferred for tlio 
 sake of the petitioner lierself, in order that the favour 
 when obtained might be enhanced in vahie. Suppose 
 that instead of knowing that the judge was in principle 
 and habit unjust, she had known him, by experience, 
 to be just and merciful, as well as eminently wise. 
 Suppose that she had been protected by him, and her 
 wrongs redressed in many other cases. Suppose that 
 she had, even in the present case, his promise, nay 
 his oath that justice should be done her. How easy 
 must it then have been to trust ! How doubly mad 
 and wicked to despair ! 
 
 There seems to be room for only one more suppo- 
 sition. Those which have been stated, from the low- 
 est to the highest, all imply the ])os%ibility of error or 
 delinquency, however strong the reasons for expecting 
 the actual exercise of wisdom and integrity. But 
 now remove this possibility. Exclude all chance of 
 intellectual or moral wrong. Enlarge the attributes 
 before supposed, until they reach infinity or absolute 
 perfection. What then would be left as the founda- 
 tion or the pretext of a doubt ? The bare fact of de- 
 lay? Under this pretence, suppose the suitor to 
 despair and to renounce his suit. Is not this indeed 
 a case of madness, too extreme to be supposed ? be- 
 cause it could not occur often, even if it occurred 
 once. Alas ! my hearers, this extreme case is our 
 0"s^Ti. It is to this view of ourselves, that the con- 
 summate wisdom of the Master brings us by a way 
 that we knew not. Just so far as we practically doul)t 
 the promises of God, or fail to use the means of his 
 appointment, we reverse the conduct of the widow in
 
 LUKE 18, 1-8. 3^5'j' 
 
 the parable, and that too under the most aggraYaiing 
 circumstances. If she was wise in hoping against 
 hope, what must we be in despairing against evidence ? 
 From this conviction we perhaps take refuge in 
 the false view of the parable before exposed. "We 
 would fain deny the possibility of arguing from one 
 case to the other. For this purpose we exaggerate 
 and multiply the points of difierence. She asked for 
 justice ; we for mercy or free favour. Her judge was 
 unjust, impious, and reckless ; ours is the infinitely 
 Holy God. She gained her end by exhausting his 
 jiatience ; but " the everlasting God, the Lord, the 
 Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither 
 is weary." How then can we be either bound or 
 condemned by her example? Because she at last 
 wearied an unjust judge into doing right in order to 
 escape a worse annoyance, what ground have we to 
 hope that we can weary the Most High into com- 
 pliance with our wishes ? It need scarcely be said 
 now, that this is not the true state of the case. The 
 true state of the case is this. If she would have been 
 chargeable with sin and folly in despairing of justice 
 from an unjust, impious, and reckless judge, Avho 
 feared not God neither regarded man, what may we 
 be charged with if we despair of mercy, freely offered, 
 dearly purchased, clearly promised, on the part of 
 God himself? If she was right in trusting to the 
 selfish love of case in such a man, how wrong must 
 we be in distrusting the benevolence, the faithfulness, 
 the truth of such a God ! 
 
 Every point of dissimilitude between the cases 
 does but serve to make our own still worse and less
 
 158 SERMONS. 
 
 excusable, by bringing into shocknig contrast mea's 
 dependence on the worst of their own species, with, 
 tlieir want of confidence in God. For what tlie 
 Avidow in the parable did, all men do substantially. 
 Tliey will not be deprived of any temporal hope, how- 
 ever great the human wickedness which seems to 
 crush it. On the contrary, they will not, in a multi- 
 tude, alas, a vast majority of cases, be persuaded to 
 trust God, and to prove their trust by importunity in 
 prayer, however ample the encouragement, however 
 strong and unequivocal the promise. 
 
 The extensive application of the lesson here taught 
 is apparent from the nature of the principles involved. 
 It is impossible to feign a case at all analogous, to 
 which it may not be as properly aj^plied as to tli& one 
 exjjressly mentioned. The only grounds of limitatioii 
 which have ever been suggested, are the supposed 
 reference to the downfall of Jerusalem, and an 
 alleged restriction of the parable by Chi'ist him- 
 self to the specific grant of vengeance on the enemies 
 of His elect. The first has been already shown to be 
 really no limitation, even if the primary intention 
 were the one supposed. The other rests upon a two- 
 fold misconception. In the first place, the avenging 
 here meant is judicial or forensic vindication ; the 
 redress of wrongs endured, and the assertion of dis- 
 puted rights. The adversaries meant, as appears from 
 the form of the original expression, are the adverse 
 party in a case of litigation. There is no allusion, 
 therefore, to the gi-atification of malicious or revengeful 
 passions. In the next place, even if there were, it 
 would belong to the type and not to the antitype,
 
 LUKE IS, 1-8. 159 
 
 and be no better reason for restricting tbe import of 
 the passage, than the fact that the petitioner is repre- 
 sented as a widow. Because the ideal judge says, " I 
 will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she 
 weary me,'' our Lord, adapting his expressions to 
 tlie case supposed, says, " Shall not God do likewise ; 
 shall not he avenge his own elect, which cry day and 
 night imto him, though he bear long with them?" 
 Tliis evidently means, shall he not at last hear their 
 prayers, though he long defer an answer ? So instead 
 of saying. Yes, he will surely hear them, he still re- 
 tains the costume of the parable in answering his own 
 demand : " I tell you that he will avenge tliem speed- 
 ily," i, e., he will do what they ask more certainly, be- 
 cause for reasons altogether diifereut, and from motives 
 infinitely higher than those for which tlie unjust judge 
 consented to avenge his helpless but importunate pe- 
 titioner. 
 
 But how shall it be speedily, when by the very 
 supposition it is long deferred ? Because the longest 
 term of expectation, when surveyed by an eye of 
 faith, and not of doubt or jealous apprehension, will 
 be short enough to the believer ; and because contin- 
 ued expectation of the right sort, while it fortifies his 
 faith, is constantly diminishing the period of its ex- 
 ercise. If we really Ijelieve that God will grant us 
 our petitions, we shall gladly acquiesce in his ap- 
 pointed time, and own, when he " avenges " us, 
 whether it be sooner or later, that he did it " speed- 
 ily." The only question is, have we that faith, to 
 which, as to the Lord himself, " one day is as a thou- 
 sand years, and a thousand years as one day ? " The
 
 1(50 SERMONS. 
 
 only difficulty of the case is in ourselves, and hence 
 the Saviour winds up his divine instructions with a 
 " nevertheless ; " i. <?., notwithstanding the immense 
 weight of preponderating reasons for implicit confi- 
 dence in God, expressed by importunity in prayer — 
 notwithstanding the gross folly, and the aggravated 
 guilt of that despondency which " casts off fear and 
 restrains prayer before God" — though the faith re- 
 quired is so simple, so reasoaable, so delightful — is it 
 common, is it ever to be universal ? The reasons for 
 believing are the most complete and satisfactory con- 
 ceivable. " Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, 
 shall he find faith on the earth ? " This solemn ques- 
 tion comes home just as really to us, as if we were to 
 meet the Lord on earth to-morrow. And if we would 
 answer it aright let us remember that the faith in 
 question is a faith that must be proved and exercised 
 by prayer ; so that if men would either have it or dem- 
 onstrate that they have it, they " ought always to 
 pray, and not to faint."
 
 IX. 
 
 2 Kings 17, 33. — They feared the Lord, and served their own goda, 
 
 " The fear of tlie Lord is the beginning of knowl- 
 edge " — " the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
 wisdom," are two of Solomon's most pregnant max- 
 ims ; * or rather two forms of the same, which is again 
 repeated in the book of Psalms, f The word " be- 
 ginning " in all these cases, may be strictly understood 
 as having reference to time. This is the point from 
 which all successful students of true wisdom must set 
 out. Their first lesson is to fear the Lord. If they 
 cannot learn this, they can learn nothing, to any val- 
 uable purpose. They can no more attain to high 
 degrees of wisdom without this, than a child can learn 
 to read without a knowledge of the alphabet. This 
 comparison, however, like all others, ceases to hold 
 good at a certain point of the application. Tlic el- 
 ementary knowledge, with which the culture of the 
 child begins, is afterwards left far behind, as some- 
 thing which no longer claims attention. But in spir- 
 itual culture the first elements of knowledge and its 
 ultimate attainments may be said to be identical. 
 
 * Prov. 1, 7 : 9, 10. t Tsalni 111, 10.
 
 162 SERMONS. 
 
 " The fear of the Lord " is as really tlie end as " tlio 
 beginning of wisdom," altliougli not in sncli a sense 
 as to exclnde progression, and a A'ast rariation of de- 
 gree in tlie experience of one and the same person. 
 
 " The fear of the Lord," which is thus both the 
 alpha and omega of the spiritual alphabet, may be 
 taken either in a generic or a specific sense. The 
 former is, in fact, coextensive with the general idea 
 of religion or true piety, including, either directly or 
 by necessary inference, every riglit disposition and 
 affection on the part of man, as a dependent and un- 
 worthy creature, towards the infinitely great and 
 holy God. All such affections may be readily de- 
 duced from fear, in its specific sense, as signifying not 
 a slavish but a filial feeling, not mere dread or terror, 
 which, from its very nature, must be always tinged 
 with hate, or at least with repugnance, but a rever- 
 ence impregnated with love. This genuine and spu- 
 rious fear of God, unlike as they may seem, and as 
 they are, have often been confounded, on account of 
 their having something really in common, to wit, a 
 sense of God's power, and an apprehension of his 
 wrath as awaiting all transgressors of his will. But 
 this common element, which justifies the use of the 
 word fear in reference to both these dispositions, is 
 blended in the one case with a consciousness of aliena- 
 tion and hostility, while in the other it is lost, as it 
 were, in the feeling of attachment, confidence, and 
 common interest. Tlie varying proportion, in which 
 these distinctive qualities are blended with the fun- 
 damental property of fear, determines the facility with 
 which a filial awe may be confounded with a slavish 
 cl resid .
 
 2 KINGS 17, 33. 103 
 
 To discriminate between tlie two miglit sometimes 
 be impossible, but for a practical criterion or test 
 wliicli the Word of God lias laid down, in accordance 
 with our Saviour's fundamental rule of moral diag-- 
 nosis, " By their fruits ye shall know them." In one 
 of the passages which recognize the fear of the Lord 
 as the beginning of wisdom, it is closely connected 
 with obedience to his will. " The fear of the Lord is 
 the beginning of wisdom ; a good understanding have 
 all they that do them, i. e., his commandments." * 
 " Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that de- 
 lighteth greatly in his commandments." f 
 
 This intimate connection between genuine fear 
 and obedience is recognized in the law itself, when 
 Moses' warns Israel " to do all the words of this law 
 that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear 
 the glorious and fearful name. The Lord thy God." :}: 
 The negative aspect of the same truth is exhibited by 
 Job, when he winds up his sublime inquiry after wis- 
 dom with the solemn declaration, " Behold, the fear 
 of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil 
 is understanding." § Here then is the touchstone of 
 a genuine and a spurious fear of God. The one dis- 
 poses us to do his will, from a sincere complacency 
 and acquiescence in it. The other prompts us rather 
 to resist it, except so far as our compliance may seem 
 necessary to escape his M'rath, which is the only real 
 object of this slavish dread. Tlie one is a fear of 
 punishment as th'e consequence of sin ; the other a 
 fear of sin itself, as intrinsically evil, or, which 
 amounts to the same thing, as opposed to tlie will of 
 
 * Psalm 111, 10. \ Tsalm 112, 1. X Dcut. 28, 58. § Job 28, 28.
 
 KJJ. SERMONS. 
 
 God, and to his very uature, wliicli is thus assumed 
 as the ultimate criterion of right and wrong, of good 
 and evih Only a filial fear disposes men to serve 
 God. Selfish and slavish fear disposes them to flee 
 from him. This nneasy sense of insecurity would be 
 relieved and gladdened by the assurance that there 
 is no God ; whereas the same assurance would be 
 anguish or despair to the affectionate and reverential 
 fear of the believer. These two things, then, are to 
 be regarded as inseparable, the fear of God and ser- 
 vice of God. He who will not serve God does not 
 fear him, i. <?., in any good sense of the term. His 
 fear, so far as he has any, is a slavish fear ; and slav- 
 ish fear is never free from some admixture of hostility. 
 This distinction, however obvious as it is in Scrip- 
 ture and familiar in experience, is not practically re- 
 cognized by all men. There seems to be a natural 
 proj^eusity to look upon fear, blank fear, as the es- 
 sence of devotion, as the whole of what is due to God, 
 the rendering of which absolves from all obligation 
 to believe, to trust, to love, or to obey. Among the 
 heathen, this idea of religion is perhaps predominant, 
 or certainly far more prevalent than we frequently 
 imagine. It may well be qiiestioned whether their 
 deities are ever the objects of their love, excepting in 
 those cases where the god is but a personification of 
 some darling lust. Beyond this homage rendered to 
 the unchecked sway of their own appetites and pas- 
 sions, there is strong I'cason for believing that their 
 devotion is nothing but the tribute of their fears to a 
 supe]'ior power which they hate, and which they look 
 upon as hating them. The service rendered under
 
 2 KINGS 17, 33. 1(55 
 
 the influence -of such a motive, is in no ease more 
 than they regard as iihsohitely necessary to secure 
 them from the wrath of the offended godhead. If 
 they could Le convinced that less would gain their 
 end, they would joyfully diminish the amount, and 
 still more joyfully receive permission to withhold it 
 • altogether. But this complete immunity is rendered 
 unattainable by conscience. They feel that they are 
 guilty, i. <?., justly liable to punishment, and cannot 
 rest without an effort to escape it. 
 
 But this universal and unconquerable sense of 
 guilt may coexist with an indefinite variety of no- 
 tions as to the means of propitiation, and the extent 
 to which those means must be applied. Some men 
 may feel it to be necessary to expend their whole 
 time in appeasing the divine wrath ; but by far the 
 greater number, under every known form of idolatry, 
 consider less than this sufficient, and rejoice to appro- 
 priate the residue to self-indulgence. Tliey give no 
 more than is extorted by their fears, and have no 
 conception of religious service as a voluntary, cheer- 
 ful, joyous consecration of the whole man to an object 
 which he venerates and loves, and in the doing of 
 whose w^ill he finds his highest happiness. The only 
 service of this free, spontaneous, and absorbing nature 
 that the heathen devotee pays, is the service rendered 
 to himself, in the indulgence of his OAvn corrupt de- 
 sires. He gives even to his chosen idol only M'hat he 
 is unable to withhold, his fears ; and by so doing 
 proves himself a stranger to all genuine religious fear, 
 which cannot be divorced from the willino; and de- 
 voted service of its object.
 
 166 SERMONS. 
 
 I have stated this as a grand practical error of the 
 heatlien, in order that we may be able to judge of it 
 impartially, and not at all because it is confined to 
 them. Of men in general it may be affirmed, that 
 they are prone to separate religious y<?ar, in their con- 
 ceptions and their practice, from religious service, and 
 by that separation to convert the former into a slavish 
 dread, as far as possible removed from the filial rev- 
 erential fear of genuine devotion. "Whether the prof- 
 fered object of their worship be the true God or a 
 false one, they naturally slide into this error. Hence 
 it is that the majority of men adore their god or their 
 gods with a divided heart, and try to obey two mas- 
 ters, serving whatever they love best — the world, 
 their fellow-creatures, themselves ; fearing whatever 
 they believe can punish or destroy them, which for 
 that very reason they consider as entitled, not so much 
 to love as liatred. "Wherever conscience is at all 
 awakened, and religious means, no matter what, are 
 used to 2^acify it, it will be found a brief but just de- 
 scri^ition of the multitude thus influenced ; that they 
 fear one thing and serve another. To the judge and 
 the avenger they give what they must, and lavish all 
 the rest upon themselves, their pride, their malice, 
 their ambition, their insatiable appetites, their raging 
 passions. 
 
 An apt illustration of this general truth is aftorded 
 by a singular and interesting passage of the sacred 
 history. The king of Assyi'ia had carried into exile 
 the ten tribes of Israel, and supplied their place with 
 settlers from his own dominions. TheSe were heathen, 
 and brought with them their own idols and idolatrous
 
 2 KINGS 17, 38. ] 67 
 
 rites. Having no knowledge of Jeliovah, ^Yllom their 
 predecessors had professed to worship, even under the 
 forbidden form of golden calves, they had, of course, 
 no fear of his displeasure, till he sent wild beasts 
 among them, and slew some of them. Regarding this 
 correctly as a penal visitation from the god of the 
 land, they procured from their own sovereign the as- 
 sistance of an Israelitish priest to teach them how to 
 worship him. He accordingly taught them, as the 
 narrative expresses it, " how they should fear the 
 Lord," and they acted promptly upon his instructions. 
 They took care, however, to provide gods of their 
 own, each tribe or nation for itself, while at the same 
 time they offered to Jehovah a worship of fear 
 prompted more by the recollection of lions than 
 by faith or reason. " So they feared the Loed, and 
 SERVED THEIR OWN GODS." How far the sacred writer 
 was from recognizing this as any genuine religious 
 fear at all, we learn from his saying, in the very next 
 sentence, " unto this day they do after the former 
 manners ; " they fear not the Lord." Why ? Be- 
 cause " they feared the Lord, and served their own 
 gods." 
 
 We maybe disposed to smile with some contempt 
 at the absurd and inconsistent conduct of tliese 
 wretched pagans. But wherein did their fully and 
 their sin consist? Certainly not in being afraid of 
 the displeasure of Jehovah and in seeking to avert it; 
 for in this they acted wisel3^ But it lay in their im- 
 agining that forms of worship, extorted from them by 
 their selfish fears, would be sufiicient to propitiate 
 the Most High and secure them from his vengeance ;
 
 Jg3 SERMONS. 
 
 •while their volnntarv service, their cordial and lia- 
 bitnal devotion, was expended on his enemies and 
 rivals. If this is the absurdity which we condemn, 
 our judgment is a just one ; but let us impartially con- 
 demn it wlierover we may find it, whether in ancient 
 or in modern times, whether in eastern or in western 
 climes, whether in heathendom or Christendom, 
 whether in our neighbors or ourselves. 
 
 To facilitate this self-denying process in your case 
 and my own, let us look for a moment at some ways 
 in which precisely the same folly, and with incom- 
 parably less extenuation, may be practised and is 
 practised now in the nineteenth century, and here, 
 amidst the blaze of gospel light. Let us not shrink 
 from the unwelcome truth, if it should be discovered 
 that this race of idolaters is not extinct ; that " unto 
 this day they do after the former manners ;" fearing 
 the Lord and serving their own gods ; " as did their 
 fathers, so do they unto this day." 
 
 To make the transition easier from the heathen to 
 the Christian world, we may begin with our own 
 heathen, the heathen at our ov/n doors, in our own 
 streets : I mean those who approach nearest to the 
 heathen both in the positive and negative circumstan- 
 ces of their spiritual state, their ignorance of truth, 
 and their enslavement to sin. Look at the worst part 
 of your population, as it pours its turbid streams along 
 in times of more than usual excitement ; hear its mut- 
 tered or vociferated curses ; mark the bestial character 
 of its propensities and habits. All this you have seen, 
 and as you saw it, you have been disposed perhaps to 
 say that here, at least, there is no divided worship or 
 
 I
 
 2 KINGS 17, 33. 1G9 
 
 allegiance ; here, at least, are men who serve their own 
 gods, but "who do not, even in profession, fear the 
 Lord. Xo, in profession, certainly not ; in form, in 
 purpose, not at all ; but do yon think they never fear 
 him, i. e. feel afraid of him ? Be not preci^Ditate in 
 drawing such conclusions. 
 
 In the vast mixed multitude of those -whom you 
 regard as the most ignorant and reckless and besotted 
 of your countrymen, observe, on some occasion of 
 extraordinary concourse, how many haggard faces, 
 and contracted brows, and strangely gleaming eyes 
 encounter yours. Do you believe all this expression 
 of anxiety and dread to be the fruit of poverty, or 
 sickness, or domestic cares ? If so, you are mistaken ; 
 for the same expression may be seen in those who are 
 not poor, who are not sick, or outw^ardly distressed at 
 all ; and on the other hand, its absence may be marked 
 in thousands who are poorer and who suffer more from 
 care and sickness than do any of those whom you are 
 observing. There is something back of all these 
 canscs to produce this uniformity of counteiumce, and 
 I will tell 3'ou what it is — it is fkae. Yes, even the 
 boldest and most insolent dcfier of all outward peril, 
 the ft)olliardiest ])rovoker of temptation and destruc- 
 tion, at tlie very moment when he is repelling, with vin- 
 dictive rajre, the cliaro-e of cowardice, is often chilled 
 with fear, unqualified, unmitigated fear ; and tluit of 
 the most paral3'sing kind, because it is a vague fear and 
 of an invisible object — a fear which is written in tlie 
 face of some as legibly as on the brow of the first mur- 
 derer. We sometimes speak 1 ightly of the fear of ghosts 
 and phantoms as a childish folly ; but it is often noth- 
 
 VOL. II. — 8
 
 170 SERMONS. 
 
 irg more tlian a disgnised fear of the great avencjer ; 
 the man slii'inksand trembles as seeing him who is in- 
 visible. Tell him of storms and earthquakes, and he 
 shudders, though the danger be distant or long past. 
 Tell him of sudden casualties, and he turns jale, 
 though the same form of accident, in his case, be im- 
 possible. Tell him of pestilence, of fever, plague, or 
 cholera, as slowly, steadily approaching, and judge 
 for yourself whether the emotion caused by this an- 
 nouncement can be all referred to dread of bodily suf- 
 fering or even of death as a physical change only. 
 No, his thoughts run onward to the dread tribunal 
 where he is to stand, and to which this may be his 
 summons. What he now feels is that " fearful look- 
 ing for of judgment and fiery indignation," which the 
 apostle represents as following the obstinate rejection 
 of an offered Saviour. I do not mean that this is 
 always present to the mind ; it may be rare, it may 
 be momentary. These forebodings may but occa- 
 sionally interrupt the ordinary current of the thoughts 
 and feelings, like a dark cloud swept across the sun, 
 or a lurid flash, making darkness visible. The at- 
 tempt to banish such reflections may be commonly 
 successful, and the man, instead of being weaned from 
 his accustomed cares or pleasures, may plunge into 
 them more madly and more desperately, for the very 
 reason that he wishes to avoid these fearful premo- 
 nitions. He may never cross the threshold of a 
 church — he may never look between the covers of a 
 I]il,le— he may shrink from the touch of a religions 
 book — he may rnn from the presence of religious men 
 as he would shun contagion — but he has that within
 
 2 KINGS 17, 33. 1^1 
 
 liim which he cannot flee from or forever silence; 
 he is guilty and he knows it, and he knows that God 
 will punish sin, and that his own time may be near 
 at hand ; and often, in the intervals of business, oi 
 the necessary lulls of his tempestuous enjoyments, in 
 the silent watches of the night, or on a sick-bed, oi 
 when some affliction forces him to serious reflection, 
 he hears that whisper which he heard in childhood ; a 
 mysterious voice syllables his name, as it has often 
 done before, and mutters of some fearful secret soon 
 to be disclosed. iN^ay, the same unwelcome premoni- 
 tion sometimes reaches him when all around is gay 
 and joyous, in the very moment of indulgence, with 
 the cup of pleasure at his lips, he hears that sound ; 
 he knows not whence it comes, he sometimes even 
 knows not what it says ; the very vagueness of the 
 warning makes it more terrific. His very ignorance of 
 God and of religion adds a strange, peculiar terror to 
 these pangs of conscience ; and the man, however 
 brave at other times, is really afraid ; he fears, he 
 fears the Lord, although he knows him not; he fears 
 him as the unseen and anonymous avenger who has 
 followed him through life, and now awaits his death ; 
 and if, in spite of all this, he still plunges deeper into 
 worldly cares or sensual indulgence, and vainly strives 
 to seek oblivion from them, this only shows that, like 
 the settlers of Samaria, he fears the Lord and serves 
 his own gods. 
 
 The case of which I have been speaking is the 
 case of those who are excluded, or exclude them- 
 selves from the operation of all ordinary methods of 
 religious influence — who are not permitted, or refuse
 
 1Y2 SERMONS. 
 
 to liear the gospel — who avoid association with its 
 preachers and professors — and who lead a heathen 
 life on Cliristian ground. Such may well be likened 
 to the foreign idolaters who occupied the territory of 
 the ten tribes, in immediate juxtaposition with the 
 chosen people ; and in such it may not seem surpris- 
 ing or unnatural that, like their prototypes in his- 
 tory, they should fear God and serve the Devil. But 
 is such a compromise or combination possible within 
 the precincts of the church itself — within the bounds 
 of even nominal Christianity — among the decent and 
 respectful hearers of the gospel and professed believers 
 in its truth ? Can they be charged with this stupen- 
 dous folly of dividing or multiplying what they wor- 
 ship — giving half to good and half to evil, believing 
 half in truth and half in falsehood, living half in 
 light and half in darkness ? Perhaps the very form 
 which I have given to the question, may suggest an 
 answer, by presenting no exaggerated picture of the 
 life which some of us are actually living. 
 
 You fear the Lord ; you are unwilling to provoke 
 his anger ; you acknowledge your obligation to serve 
 him, and you discharge that obligation by attending 
 on his worship ; but is he the master that you daily 
 serve ? "Where is your treasure and your heart ? By 
 whose will do you regiilate your life ? A man may so 
 far fear the Lord as to frequent His house, and join in 
 the external acts of worship there; but what if he has 
 other gods at home, and there bows down to Mammon 
 or to Belial? AVhat if the world is in his heart, and 
 the prince of this world on the throne of his affec- 
 tions? Will the s^ain of these habitual idolatries be
 
 2 KINGS 17, 33. 173 
 
 washed out by patiently cndurii^g the penance of a 
 Sabbatli service ? Will the Lord, who is thus feared 
 with a slavish dread of his displeasure, be contented, 
 for the sake of this, to pass by all the rest — all that is 
 done, or all that is not done, in defiance of his abso- 
 lute authority and positive command? My hearers! 
 let us not deceive ourselves. There are idol-temples 
 sometimes reared against the very walls of Jehovah's 
 sanctuary. There are heathen oracles which give 
 forth their responses " fast by the oracle of God." 
 There are those who seem to fear the Lord on one day 
 in the week, but during all the rest of their existence 
 are unceasingly employed in serving their own gods. 
 The charge wdiich is here brought is not one of 
 liypocrisy , It is one of delusion. I do not say that 
 those of whom I speak pretend to fear the Lord when 
 they know they fear him not. I say that they helieve 
 they fear him, when in fact they fear him not. Or 
 rather, which is really the same thing in another form, 
 they do fear him ; but it is not with a fear which 
 honours, or conciliates, or pleases him, as thc_y im- 
 agine ; and here, just here, is their delusion. They 
 are sincere enough in thiid^ing that they fear God ; 
 but they are terribly mistaken in supposing that they 
 fear him as they ought. This is a painful truth to 
 those of us whom it concerns ; but it is one which, 
 sooner or later, must be told. And it requires not 
 many words to tell it. It may be summed up in this 
 short sentence : If .you do not serve the Lord, you do 
 not fear him. You may attend upon his worship, 
 you may I'cspcct religion, you may believe the Bible 
 to be true, you may hope to be saved tl trough Christ, 
 you may expect to die the death of the righteous.
 
 174 SERMONS. 
 
 Ijiit how do yon live? TTow fire yon l.ving nov;] 
 From wluit source is your present liap})ine5S derived? 
 "What influence do you exert? What are yon dc.ing, 
 not as a weekly recreation, or a mei'e periodical so- 
 lemnity, but as a daily business, for the honour of 
 God and the good of j-onr fellow-men ? If your fear 
 of the Lord shows itself in tliese particulars, and 
 in the constant dispositions and affections of your 
 mind, it may be genuine. But if you fear God only 
 in the churcli, or only on the sabbath ; if ^-our life, 
 beyond these bounds, is atheistical ; i. e., if you live 
 precisely as you would if you believed that thei'e is 
 no God ; if your fear of him is nothing but a natural 
 nnwillingness to suffer at his hands, and a consequent 
 desire to avert his wrath ; if you joyfully redeem from 
 his service what you can, to be expended on the 
 world ; if you come before him reekino; from the sor- 
 did cares or frivolous pleasures of a selrish and nn- 
 j^rofitable life, and then leap back from the threshold 
 of his presence into the hot and steaming atmosphere 
 of that same world from which your fears had de- 
 tached ycni for an hour or a day ; — if this is your ex- 
 perience, or any thing like this, however clear it may 
 be to your own mind that you fear the Lord, it is still 
 more clear to others that you serve your own god's. 
 Is not this an object of compassion ? Has this 
 delusion no share in the pity which we lavish on 
 the heathen ? Yes, to those really enlightened there 
 is something peculiarly pitiable in the state whijb 
 I have been describing. The degree of knowledge 
 really possessed, and the hopes so fondly cherished, 
 only render their inevitable disappointment more
 
 2 KINGS 17, S3. J 75 
 
 affecting to the heart of one m'1 can foresee it. 
 Looking out from the inner sancti arj into which he 
 has found access by tlic blood of the everlasting cov- 
 enant, he compassionates not only those who still 
 wander in the court of the Gentiles, but those who 
 have penetrated into the interior enclosure, within sight 
 of the laver and the altar of atonement, or have even 
 found their way into the holy place, and there con- 
 tinue, unsuspicious that the holiest of all is still be- 
 yond them, that the mercy seat is not yet reached, 
 and that, without this, neither the loaves spread upon 
 the golden table, the light that streams from the 
 golden candlestick, nor the incense that rolls upward 
 from the golden altar, can be theirs, or made availa- 
 ble for them ; that notwithstanding their near bodily 
 approach to God, they are still far from him ; — over 
 such a sight the true penitent might weep even in the 
 presence of the ark and under the shadowing pinions 
 of the cherubim. Especially might this be the effect 
 if these deluding worshippers were seen leaving their 
 idols at the entrance of the temple, and casting many 
 a fond backward glance at these beloved objects from 
 the holy phice, or even bringing them in, half con- 
 cealed, beneath some flimsy pretext, or some i'air ap- 
 pearance, aiid then hastening ibrth to worship them ; 
 yes, scarcely waiting tHl the veil has again iiillen on 
 the sacred scene, before they drop down in the dust 
 before the gods of their idolatry. This, this is a spec- 
 tacle to draw tears at the very mercy-seat and under 
 the cloud of the divine presence. But, sad as is 
 this, Avould to God it were the worst! It were 
 Burely enough that we, who profess to Jiave found
 
 176 SERMONS. 
 
 access to the mercy-seat, should be compelled to 
 sorrow over those who, though externally almost as 
 near il as ourselves, are still, in heart, as far from it 
 as ever, and who serve their own gods in the presence 
 of Jehovah. But what if our lamentations should be 
 interrupted by a voice from the holy of holies, saying, 
 "The time is come that judgment must begin at the 
 house of God ! " * AVhat if the cloud should rise or 
 open, and disclose to ns the fearful sight of idols in 
 immediate contact with the ark of the covenant and 
 the mercy- seat itself! 
 
 This is no hideous imagination of a wild impossi- 
 bility. The thing supposed is not impossible at all. 
 It is a palpable reality. It has been, is now, and will 
 be hereafter, until human corruption ceases to exist, 
 or is no longer suifered to exert an influence on true 
 believers. False gods maj be brought into the holy 
 of holies. I speak not now of false profession, or of 
 total self-deception, but of those wdio give evidence of 
 having really passed from death unto life. Even these 
 may cling to idols; even these may give themselves 
 to other masters ; even these may fear the Lord and 
 serve their own gods; and in so doing, I should hesi- 
 tate to intend the possibility of Christians, even by 
 profession, being tainted w4th the poison of a literal 
 idolatry, did not notorious contemporary facts demon- 
 strate the existence of this monstrous combination. 
 In proof of this, we need not go to India, and contem- 
 plate the connivance of a Christian government at 
 heathenish abominations, and its violation of the rights 
 of Christian consciences, in order to maintain those of 
 
 * 1 Peter 4, 11.
 
 2 KINGS 17, 83. 177 
 
 a heathen population, which it ought to Iiave cnh'ght- 
 ened in the knowledge of the truth. We need not 
 join in the censure which the world has passed upon 
 these false concessions, or attempt to trace the marks 
 of the divine displeasure in the blood and ashes of 
 that great catastrophe, the sound of which has not yet 
 died away in Europe, Asia, or America ; because, ad- 
 mitting all that is alleged, or even all that is confer- 
 red, and rating at the highest mark the guilt of such 
 connivance or encouragement, it cannot, after all, be 
 justly charged with actual participation in the idola 
 try itself, but only -with a sinful and pernicious tolera- 
 tion of it, on the part of those who really despised or 
 pitied it, as the wretched but Incurable delusion of a 
 half-enlightened and inferior race. But what shall 
 we say of those who, nearer home, and in a Christian 
 country, and amidst the light of a reformed and puri- 
 fied religion — nay, perhaps with the profession of it 
 on their lips and on their conscience, can sanction by 
 their presence, or sustain by their pecuniar}^ gifts, a 
 worship which, though nominally Christian, they con- 
 fess to be idolatrous — crowding its sanctuaries even 
 with their children, led, perhaps, by simple curiosity, 
 but strengthening the faith of others by example, and 
 themselves incurrinc: the tremendous risk of learninfj 
 first to tolerate, and then to admire, and finally to 
 worship what at first they viewed with wonder and 
 contempt. Be not surprised, my brethren, if you 
 should encounter such phenomena in your fields of 
 ministerial labour ; and if you do, be not afraid to 
 tell those who exhibit them, that such compliances, so 
 far from being justified by simultaneous or alternate 
 vol. II. — S*
 
 178 SERMONS. 
 
 acts of purer worship, or by the conthiual profession 
 of a purer faith, are thereby only brought into a closer 
 and more hideous assimilation to the mixed religion 
 of these ancient settlers in the land of Israel, who, in 
 that consecrated soil, and not far from the temple of 
 Jehovah, almost in sight of its majestic rites, and 
 within hearing of its solemn music, while they owned 
 the true God as a God of judgment, and experienced 
 his wrath as an avenger — were so mad upon their 
 idols, that with fatal inconsistency " they feared the 
 Lord, and served their own gods." 
 
 But, returning to the figurative spiritual meaning 
 of idolatry, with which we are immediately concerned, 
 and to its fearful combination with the worship of the 
 true God, which I have described as introducing idols 
 into the most holy place — as a complete enumeration 
 of these idols would be neitlier possible nor needful, 
 let me sum up a vast number of them under the col- 
 lective name, so often used in Scripture, of the world 
 — the world, including all the various and complex 
 influences exercised by men, not only as detached in- 
 dividuals, but as an aggregate body, called society — 
 the various allurements by which true Christians are se- 
 duced into compliance with its questionable practices. 
 It may be under the pretence or in the hope of doing 
 good, without experiencing evil — the oldest and most 
 specious of the arts by which the tempter has achieved 
 his conquests, since he whispered in the ear of Eve, 
 " Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," and 
 displayed to her the fatal tree so " good for food," so 
 " pleasant to the eyes," and so " desirable to make one 
 wise." Here is an idol temple — vast, magnificent, in-
 
 2 KINGS n, S3. X79 
 
 viting, at tlie very threshold of our churches, — nay, 
 out of which idols are continually brought into Jeho- 
 vah's presence, not by false professors merely, but by 
 deluded worshippers, who fain would fear the Lord, 
 and w^orship their own gods. 
 
 But what are the gods which may thus be served 
 by those who, at the same time, seem to fear the 
 Lord ? Leaving wholly out of view, as I have said, 
 the case of those who worship self and the world, un- 
 der the mask of hypocritical profession, or the fatal 
 spell of "strong delusions," let us look exclusively at 
 those who seem, sincerely to feai' God, but who do 
 not serve him with a perfect heart, because their affec- 
 tions are divided and seduced by idols. What are 
 these idols? I might almost say, their name is Le- 
 gion. I can mention but a few of them. But leavino- 
 these and other more familiar forms of this idolatrous 
 delusion, let us glance at some less palpable, and 
 more compatible with light and even genuine profes- 
 sion. Such is the idol of self-righteousness, a very 
 different thing from self-indulgence. While the lat- 
 ter owns no obligation to obey any other master than 
 its own imperious lusts, the other recognizes God's 
 authority, consents to do his will, and thiiiks it does 
 it — yes, and makes a merit of it. Its very reliance, 
 or professed reliance, on the merit of the Saviour, is 
 transformed into an idol, and usurps the honour due 
 exclusively to Christ. It submits to the righteousness 
 of God in order to exalt its own. Of such it may bo 
 said, without injustice, that the}' fear the Lord, and 
 serve their own gods. 
 
 Closely allied to this idol is another — the idol of
 
 180 SEKMONS. 
 
 spiritual pride — a disposition to exn.t in the extent 
 and depth of our religious experience, and in the va- 
 riety of our attainments, a complacent estimate of our 
 own love to God, a zeal for his honour, and submis- 
 sion to Jiis will, as meritorious achievements of our 
 own, and not as the gratuitous products of his sover- 
 eign grace. Alas ! how many sincere Christians are 
 led far astray by this insidious seducer, till at last 
 they seem to fear the Lord still, but to serve their own 
 gods. 
 
 To the same race and famil}^ of idols belongs that 
 Pharisaical censorious spirit which regards the es- 
 sence of religion as consisting in vindictive opposition 
 to the sins of our fellow-men, and imagines that the 
 surest way to rise in the divine life is to lower our 
 neighbours, Avliether saints or sinners, drawing a mor- 
 bid satisfoction from this painful view of others as no 
 better than ourselves, and expending on this object 
 the attention which might better have been given to 
 our own defects, or better still, to the desire and pur- 
 suit of excellence. This, too, is to fear the Lord and 
 serve our own gods. 
 
 Further enumeration is superfluous. It is enough 
 to know the general fact that such things are possible, 
 are real. If we do know it, and acknowledge it, what 
 shall we do next? Let judgment begin at the house 
 of God. Let every image which defiles it be cast 
 j.own without mercy from its pedestal and dashed in 
 pieces, like Dagon on the threshold of his temple. 
 Let us, like Jacob and his hoi.sehold, put away our 
 false gods, before wc come to Bethel to renew our 
 vows. Instead of wxeping over the delusions of our
 
 2 KINGS 17, S3. 181 
 
 neiglibours, let ns first seek to liave onr own clisiielled. 
 Let those "\\ho gaze from without into the temple of 
 the Lord, or from its holy place into the holiest of all, 
 be under no mistake, or even doubt, as to the object 
 of our worship. Through the cloud of incense which 
 ascends from our altar, let not even the unfriendly or 
 malignant eye detect the semblance of an idol placed 
 above it. Let friends and enemies alike be constrained 
 to acknowledge that our Lord is one Lord, and that 
 we his people have no other gods before him. Then, 
 with our consciences cleared from dead works, to 
 serve the living God, we shall be able, with con- 
 sistency an'd good hope of success, to say to those who 
 hear the gospel with us, but have not yet avouched 
 the Lord to be their God — Forsake your idols, crucify 
 the flesh, die to the world, serve him whom you fear 
 already, fear him no longer with a slavish dread, but 
 Avitli a filial reverence, believe in him whom we trust 
 as our Saviour — "Walk about Zion, and go round 
 about her : tell the towers thereof, mark ye well her 
 bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to 
 the generation following; for this God is our God 
 forever and ever : ho will be our guide even unto 
 death." Yes, and then with this accession to our 
 strength, we may go forth beyond the precincts of the 
 sanctuary into the highways and the hedges of the 
 world, in search of those neglected and bewildered 
 outcasts who are trembling at the presence of an un- 
 known God, who have fearful forebodings of his wrath, 
 with no cheering anticipations of his mercy, fearing 
 the Lord, and serving their own gods. Yes, even 
 these may be compelled to come in, to join the pro-
 
 182 SERMONS. 
 
 cession of experienced saints and recent converts from 
 the M'oi-]d, as it draws near to the footstool of God's 
 mercy, and pointing to the fragments of forsaken 
 idols which lie strewn around it, sa}^, " O Lord our 
 God, other lords heside thee have had dominion over 
 US ; but by thee only will we make mention of thy 
 name. They are dead, they shall not live; they are 
 deceased, they shall not rise ; thou hast visited and 
 destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish."
 
 X. 
 
 PniLippiANS 4, 13. — I can do all tliiugs through Christ which 
 6trengtheneth me. 
 
 Chkist is revealed to lis in various cliaracters ; 
 that is to say, the relation he sustains to his. own peo- 
 ple is presented under various figures. Sometimes he 
 is represented as their redeemer, who sets them free 
 from bondage ; sometimes as their pi'ophet, who in- 
 structs them ; sometimes as their king, who protects 
 and governs them ; sometimes as their priest, who 
 makes atonement for them ; sometimes as the sacri- 
 fice itself, which is offered for them ; sometimes as 
 their friend, sometimes as their physician, sometimes 
 as their provider, sometimes as their strengthener. 
 It is in this last character that he is presented by the 
 text, which may be considered as expressing not only 
 the personal experience of Paul, but of all who are 
 partakers of the " like precious faith." In this char- 
 acter it well becomes us to contemplate Christ. MVe 
 all need strength ; we all need one to strengthen us. 
 "Whether conscious or unconscious of our weakness, 
 we a7'e weak. Our very strength is weakness. TVe
 
 184 SEKMOXS. 
 
 may trust it, but the more we trust it, the more com- 
 pletely shall we be deceived. This is a defect which 
 no effort of our own can supply. TVe have not strength 
 enough to be strong. The exertion of weakness can- 
 not produce strength. Imbecility, nay, impotence, in 
 spiritual matters, is a part of our hereditary curse. 
 We must look out of ourselves for its removal. • And 
 to save us from a vain search in forbidden and unsat- 
 isfying quarters, the word of God sets Christ at once 
 before us as our strength, our strengthener. What Paul 
 says, every true believer, in his measure, has a right, 
 and is disposed, to say : I can do all things through 
 Christ enabling me. Of myself I can do nothing ; but 
 through Christ I can do all things, all that is obliga- 
 tory, all that is necessary, either for my own safety, 
 fur the good of others, or for the honour of Christ 
 himself 
 
 In further- considering this gracious aspect of our 
 Saviour's character and work, as a source of spiritual 
 strength to those who have no strength in themselves, 
 it may be conducive to the clearness and distinctness of 
 our views, if we inquire (1) how he strengthens us, and 
 (2) for what he strengthens us, i. e., in what particu- 
 lar emergencies, or in reference to what specific 
 objects. 
 
 First, then, in what way, and by M'hat means, 
 does Christ strengthen us? I answer, negatively, not 
 by miracle or magic, not by acting on us without our 
 knowledge or against our will, but through our own 
 intelligent and active powers. I answer positively, 
 and particularly, in the first place, that he strengthens 
 by instructing us, enlightening our minds in the
 
 PHILIPPIANS 4, 13. 185 
 
 knowledge of himself and of ourselves, and especially 
 by making us to feel our weakness and to understand 
 its causes. He shows us that it is a moral weakness, 
 and connected with a universal moral depravation, 
 involving all our powers and affections, from the su- 
 preme control of which the Christian is delivered, but 
 not from its entire influence. lie shows us our de- 
 pendence on God's mercy for relief from this debili- 
 tated helpless state, and teaches us to seek it in him- 
 self Thus tlie Lord Jesus Christ, as our prophet, or 
 infallible instructor, strengthens us. 
 
 Again, he strengthens us by his example. It is 
 not b}^ precept or by doctrine merely, that he works 
 this necessary change uj^on us. He has not merely 
 told us what is rio-ht. lie has shown us liow to do it. 
 He has done it himself He has embodied in his own 
 life what might have been inoperative if set forth 
 only in theory. This is one of the unspeakable ad- 
 vantages arising from our Saviour's incarnation, the 
 community of nature which exists between us. lie 
 has set us an example ; he has gone befoi'e us. When 
 we liesitate, or go astray, or stumble, we not only 
 hear his voice behind us, saying, This is the way. 
 walk ye in it, but we see his form before us, some- 
 times nearer, sometimes further, sometimes more, and 
 sometimes less distinct, according to the keenness of 
 our vision, and the clearness of our spiritual atmos- 
 phere. But even when our eyes are dimmest, and 
 our heavens are haziest, if we are believers, we can 
 still see something. Through the mist, and smoke, 
 and dust, and over or between a thousand intervening 
 objects, we can still discern a form, like that of the
 
 186 SERMOXS. 
 
 Son of man, not merely pointing out the patli, but 
 often breaking it, clearing away obstructions, opening 
 nnexpected passages, surmounting obstacles, trans- 
 forming difficulties into helps, levelling mountains, 
 filling up valleys, bridging streams that seemed im- 
 passable. Oh, what a blessed work is this in which 
 the Son of God condescends to be employed for our 
 advantage. IIow can our hopes sink, or our fears 
 prevail, while this forerunner is in sight ; and even 
 when he ceases to be visible, because we fall so far 
 behind, or drop upon the earth exhausted, we can 
 still trace his footsteps where we lie, and sometimes 
 track him by the tears and blood with which the path 
 is moistened. At the sight of these, the fainting 
 Christian often breathes afresh, recovers new strength, 
 and starts up to resume his i3ainful journey, willing 
 even to take up his cross in imutation of his Master, 
 who has left us an example tliat we should follow his 
 steps. Brethren, Christ strengthens us by his ex- 
 ample. 
 
 But precept and example are not all. "We might 
 have these in perfection, and lie motionless. There 
 must be something to excite and prompt, as well as 
 guide. We may hear Christ's precepts, and yet not 
 obey them. We may see his examj)le, and yet not 
 follow it. With both in full view, we may still be 
 impotent to spiritual good, unless some new spring of 
 activity be set at work within us, just as a machine 
 may be complete and well adjusted, yet without effect 
 or use until the moving power is applied. But when 
 it is ap])lied, when all is set in motion, how distinctly 
 do the parts perform their office and harmoniously
 
 PHILIPPIANS 4, 13. 18Y 
 
 contribute to the aggregate result! In one particu- 
 lar, this illustration does not hold good. "We are not 
 machines, propelled by an external force, witliout o, 
 conscious co-operation on our own part. We are ac- 
 tive and spontaneous in our spiritual exercises ; but 
 we have no such exercises until set in motion. If we 
 can imagine a machine composed of living, conscious 
 parts, but perfectly inert, till started by an imjiulse from 
 without, and then performing its appointed functions 
 with entire precision, we may have an idea of our spir- 
 itual state. Or, to drop the questionable figure of ma- 
 chinery, imagine that you see a living man, set down 
 to the performance of a given task, with his materials, 
 his instruQtions, and his models, all before him, but 
 completely paralyzed, unable to move hand or foot. 
 He is a man ; he is a living man ; he knows, he un- 
 derstands, the work before him, and he has within his 
 reach whatever is required for the doing of it; yet he 
 neither does nor can perform it. That paralysis as 
 utterly prevents it as if he were dead or absent. But 
 suppose that fatal spell to be dissolved by skill, or 
 chance, or magic, or a sudden divine interposition, 
 and see how instantaneously the mind and body move 
 in concert, how they act and react upon each other, 
 till their joint exertion has accomplished in an hour 
 what before seemed likely to remain undone forever. 
 Such is our condition, even after we are taught, both 
 by precept and example. We are still not strong to 
 any practical effect, until we are constrained to move 
 by some new principle of action. And such a princi- 
 ple is actually' set at work in everj reiiuwed heart. 
 "The love of Christ constrainetU us," If love be
 
 188 S3RM0NS. 
 
 wanting, all is lost ; we can do nothing ; we are prac- 
 tically just as weak as ever. But let the love of God 
 be shed abroad in our hearts, and all the knowledge 
 and the motives wliich had long lain as an inert, life- 
 less mass, begin to move, and in the right direction. 
 All the powers and affections are aroused, and at 
 the same time checked and regulated. "What seemed 
 impossible, is now felt to be easy. He who once 
 could do nothing, is now able to " do all things." 
 Brethren, the power of Christ strengthens us, when 
 the love of Christ constrains us. 
 
 Again : Christ strengthens us by working faith in 
 us, and by making himself known to us, as the object 
 of that faith. In this life the most favoured have to 
 walk by faith, and not by sight. Christ is to all of 
 us an unseen Saviour. His word, and his example are 
 indeed before us. But the reason and the purpose of 
 his requisitions and his dealings with ns may be 
 wholly unaccountable. We admit our obligation to 
 obey him, and to follow him through evil and through 
 good report. But when our minds are. filled with 
 doubt and wonder as to the reality, or meaning, or 
 intent of his commands, how can we energetically do 
 them ? Such a state of mind necessarily produces 
 weakness. "We delay, we vacillate, we stop short, 
 we begin afresh, until our strength and patience are 
 expended. And as we cannot hope to see these diffi- 
 culties all removed at present; we can only become 
 strong by trusting, by confiding, by believing what 
 we do not see, by looking forward to what is not yet 
 revealed. Now "faith is the substance of things 
 hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." 
 
 \
 
 PHILIPPIANS 4, 13. 189 
 
 Faith therefore strengthens. To be strong, we must 
 believe, confide, and trust. The reason of this fact 
 is obvious. If we wait until we see and couiprehend 
 the solution of all difficulties, we shall never begin to 
 act, and such inaction is, of course, a state of weak- 
 ness. If we refuse to take any thing for granted, or 
 to receive any thing on trust, prompt and energetic 
 action is impossible. The emergencies requiring it 
 will pass away before we have put ourselves in mo- 
 tion. The corrective of this weakness is a well-placed 
 trust in something out of ourselves. A blind ca- 
 pricious trust is worse than weakness ; but a firm 
 trust in something or some person that deserves it, is 
 a source, a never-failing source of strength. 
 
 Xow Christ permits us, and invites us, and enables 
 us to trust in him. And what can be a more secure 
 foundation upon which to build ? Ilis abnighty power, 
 his omniscience, the perfection of his wisdom, truth, 
 and goodness, and the infinite merit of his saving work, 
 all warrant an implicit and unwavering trust. lie- 
 lying upon him, we may dismiss our doubts and fears, 
 collect our wandering and distracted thoughts, con- 
 centrate all our energies on present duties, and do 
 wonders of obedience, encouraged by the testimony 
 and example of " so great a cloud of witnesses," " who 
 through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous- 
 ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
 sword, out of xoeahness were made strong^ M'axed val- 
 iant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the 
 aliens." Out of weakness were made strong — ^j^recise- 
 ly what we want, and faith accomplishes it ; faith in
 
 190 SERMONS. 
 
 Christ, both as its object and its source ; that faith 
 of wliich he is the " author and the finisher." Christ 
 strengthens us by ^vorking in us faith. 
 
 Once more : he strengthens us by iTnion with 
 hmself. This is the office and effect of faith. "We 
 trust an unseen, not an absent Saviour. He is not 
 afar off, but at hand. We should seek the Lord, if 
 haply we might feel after him, and find him, though 
 he be not far from every one of us, for in him we live, 
 and move, and have our being. This is not more true 
 of the natural relation we sustain to God, than of the 
 spiritual relation we sustain to Christ. If we are time 
 believers, it is in him we live, and move, and have 
 our spiritual being. He is indeed not far from every 
 one of us. Nor are we merely near him. We are 
 united with him. We are ingrafted on him, we are 
 inserted in him. The nature of the union thus de- 
 noted by strong figures is to us inscrutable. We only 
 know that they express a great and glorious reality, 
 of which we can judge by its effects ; and its effects 
 are such as these, that the life we now live is no 
 longer ours, but Christ's, that the spiritual strength 
 we now exert is, in the same sense. His ; that hia 
 strength is made perfect in our weakness ; so that 
 when we are weak then we are strong ; and instead 
 of desjjairing, we can glory in infirmities. This new, 
 transcendent, real, though mysterious strength, is the 
 fruit of union with the Saviour ; and the union which 
 produces this strength is itself produced by faith. In 
 giving faith then, Christ gives union, and in giving 
 union, he gives strength. ISTo wonder that the same 
 Boul which desponded when cast upon its own re-
 
 PHILIPPIANS 4, 13. 191 
 
 sources, should feel strong as it grows conscious of its 
 union, its identity -witli Christ. In itself it could do 
 nothing. In him it can do all things. This is the 
 true sense of Paul's language. I can do all things, 
 not merely through^ but in Christ enabling me, not 
 merely by his help, but by spiritual union and incor- 
 poration with him, so that he lives in me and I live 
 in him. Brethren, Christ strengthens us by uniting 
 us to himself. 
 
 In all these ways, then, by instruction, by exam- 
 ple, by his love constraining them, by faith uniting 
 them to himself, the Saviour strengthens true believ- 
 ers, even the weakest, till at last in the assurance of 
 this strength they lose the sense of their own weak- 
 ness altogether, and can face the most appalling dan- 
 gers, and the most gigantic difficulties, saying, I can 
 do, not merely this or that, but all things, not merely 
 one thing, or a few things, or many things, bat all 
 things, in Christ enabling me. 
 
 Let us now consider more particularly what is 
 comprehended in the general expression " all things." 
 We cannot add to its extent of meaning, which is 
 already universal ; but we may give additional dis- 
 tinctness to our own conceptions, by observing sepa- 
 rately some of the detached particulars summed up 
 in the collective phrase, " all things." And as the 
 very strength of this expression makes complete 
 enumeration impossible, we must be contented to dis- 
 tinguish a few classes, among which the particulars 
 may be distributed. When the Apostle or the humblest 
 Christian, in the triumph of his faith, exclaims, "1 
 can do all things," he means, of course, all that is re-
 
 192 SERMONS. 
 
 quired or necessary. lie may, therefore, be naturally 
 understood as saying: "I can do all duty." Christ 
 came not to destroy but to fulfil. The Christian is 
 no longer under the law as a way of salvation, but he 
 is under law as a rule of duty. The Saviour freed 
 men from the heavy yoke of legal, ceremonial bondage, 
 but he did not free them wholly from restraint. For 
 he invites them to take his yoke upon them, and as- 
 sures them that his yoke is easy and his burden light. 
 The believer still has duties to perform, and the re- 
 mainder of corruption often makes them hard indeed. 
 He knows not how to go about them. He shrinks 
 from them. He would gladly evade them, or per- 
 suade himself that they are not obligatory, but in 
 vain. As soon as his sophistical reasoning is conclud- 
 ed, he reverts, as if by instinct, to his old conclusion. 
 He admits the obligation. He attempts to discharge 
 it. But a thousand difficulties spring up in his way, 
 until at last, despairing of escape, he manfully resolves 
 to brave them, in reliance on divine grace. And no 
 sooner is tliis resolution formed, than all his difiicul- 
 ties vanish. He beholds with astonishment the moun- 
 tain levelled to a plain. He is ready to ascribe the 
 change to outward causes, but he soon finds that the 
 change is in himself. He is conscious of strength, 
 but not his own, and knowing whence it comes, he is 
 ready to cry out, in the presence of the very obsta- 
 cles and perils which before unmanned him : " I can 
 do all things through Christ which stren^theneth me." 
 We may safelj^ appeal to the experience of every 
 Christian, for the truth of the assertion, that nothing 
 so efiectually overcomes the hinderances to duty, and
 
 PHIIJPPIAKS 4, 13. 103 
 
 supplies the want of strength for its performance, as 
 the teaching of Christ by his word and spirit — the 
 inciting influence of his example — the consciousness 
 of love to him as an impelling motive — the active 
 exercise of faith in him as the foundation of our hope 
 — and, above all, the controlling sense of oneness with 
 him — from the joint operation of which causes, the 
 most fearful and infirm of his true followers, who, 
 abandoned to himself, could do nothing, absolutely 
 nothing, " can do all tilings," in the way of duty. 
 
 Taking " duty" in the widest sense of which the 
 word admits, what has now been said may be con- 
 sidered as including all emergencies. For if the 
 Christian can do all he ought to do, nothing more can 
 be demanded or desired. Thus explained, this is not 
 so much a special case to which the text applies, as 
 an additional description of all cases. But if we take 
 the doing of duty in a more restricted sense, as signi- 
 fying active compliance Avith a positive command, 
 there are other cases left to which the doctrine of the 
 text may be applied. For they whom Christ thus 
 strengthens, are not only qualified to do his will in 
 the specific sense just mentioned, i. e., to perform the 
 acts which he requires, as pleasing in his sight, but 
 also to resist the evil influences which assail them 
 from another quarter. The believer is not only called 
 to the performance of d ity ; he is also tempted to 
 the commission of sin. He is therefore in danger of 
 offending God, both by omission and by positive 
 transgression. 
 
 This two-fold danger is enhanced by his own 
 weakness. As he has not spiritual strength to do 
 
 VOL. 11. — 9
 
 194 SERMONS. 
 
 ^yhat is riglit, 20 he lias not strength to resist tr avoid 
 e^il. This arises fi'om the nature of onr fallen state. 
 That state is not one of mere indifferonce or even of 
 repugnance to what God requires, but of inclination 
 and attachment to what God forbids. When left to 
 onrselves, therefore, we cannot remain in equilibrio. 
 The scale of evil instantly predominates. Our native 
 dispositions and affections are not neutral, but en- 
 listed on the wrong side of the controversy. This is 
 the case, even with true converts, just so far as their 
 corruption is permitted to control their conduct. That 
 control is no longer, and can never again become 
 paramount, much less exclusive. But it may con- 
 tinue and extend so far as to make resistance to 
 temptation one of their severest trials — so severe that 
 they are sometimes ready to despair of being able to 
 withstand. And yet, if such be truly the desire ot 
 their hearts, their own experience sliall effectually 
 teach them that what is impossible with man is possi- 
 ble Avith God. The same voice that says to them in 
 tones of solemn warning : " Let him that thinketh he 
 standeth take heed lest he fall, " (1 Cor. 10, 12,) shall 
 also say to them in tones of merciful encouragement: 
 (1 Cor. 5. 13.) "There hath no temptation taken you 
 but such as is common to man ; and God is faithful, 
 who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
 are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a 
 way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 
 
 Now what is this M'ay (eVySao-t?) of escape but Christ 
 himself, and how shall our weakness and corruption 
 become able to endure temptation, but through 
 Christ enabling us ? Here then is another great emer-
 
 PHILIPPIA^*S 4, IS. 195 
 
 gency to which the text applies ; and 1 put it to your- 
 selves, Christian brethren, whether you have, not ex- 
 perienced, in some degree, the efficacy of the means 
 which God has thus provided. Is there no well- 
 remembered juncture in your history — in that of some 
 among you have there not been many — when the con- 
 quest of yourselves and the defeat of your spiritual 
 foes seemed as hopeless as the conquest, nay as the 
 creation, of a world ; and you were ready, though un- 
 willing, to succumb, in sheer despair of a successful 
 resistance ? but precisely at the moment when this 
 self-despair had reached its height, it was transformed, 
 as by a miracle, into a childlike trust in Christ, for 
 which it seemed to be the necessary preparation ; and 
 before that new-born strength, the force of your 
 temptations seemed to melt and vanish, so that, as you 
 looked with a serene contempt ujDon what a little 
 while before appeared invincible, you could say as 
 Paul says, and as every true believer, in his turn is 
 called to say, I can do all things through Christ 
 enabling me. Yes, through him you can do even that 
 which seems most hopeless ; you can endure, resist, 
 subdue, despise, all, all temptation ! 
 
 In the two cases which have now been mentioned, 
 we have seen the Christian actively performing and 
 resisting through the power of Christ enabling him. 
 But there is still a third case which must not be over- 
 looked ; a case in which the Christian is not active but 
 passive. He is not called merely to performance and 
 resistance, but to patient endurance. This is in some 
 respects more trying than either of the others. Not 
 merely because it involves the painful sense of sufler-
 
 igQ SERMONS. 
 
 ing, but because it contains nothing to excite and 
 stimulate, and foster pride. To obey and to resist are 
 active duties which require an energetic exercise of 
 will. But to endure, to suffer, to lie still, to be inca- 
 pable of action or resistance — this is to many a severer 
 test — it is to all hard, hard indeed. "When this part 
 of God's providential discipline begins to be applied 
 to individual believers, they are sometimes ready to 
 repine and quarrel at its being used at all in their 
 case. They cannot see the need of remedies so pain- 
 ful, when a milder treatment, as they think, would 
 answer every needful purpose. At length, perhaps, 
 they are convinced of their error, and made willing, 
 by painful but wholesome experience, to believe 
 that the evidence of God's paternal favour towards 
 them would have been less clear and perfect if they 
 had not been thus visited. Their minds are satisfied, 
 at least as to this kind of spiritual discipline being 
 adapted to their course. But still they may be ready 
 to find fault with the degree, with the extent, to which 
 the process is continued. Tliey are ready to say. It 
 is good that I have been afflicted, but they cannot 
 restrain themselves from adding : " How often and 
 how long, O Lord ? forever ? " Yet even this hard 
 lesson many have been made to learn, and learn it so 
 effectually, that they may be said to have become ac- 
 customed even to the long continuance or frequent 
 repetition of some providential strokes, as peculiarly 
 adapted to their case, and jjerhaps essential to their 
 spiritual safety. 
 
 But this familiarity with certain forms of suffering 
 may destroy or at least impair its medicinal effect.
 
 I 
 
 PHILIPPIANS 4, 13. 197 
 
 and when the Great Physician suddenly changes his 
 accustomed mode of treatment, and applies some un- 
 tried, unexpected remedy, the first smart of the now 
 process often forces, even from the hearts of true be- 
 lievers, the expostulating question. Why this new inflic- 
 tion ? I had learned to bear the other ; I had almost 
 ceased to feel it ; but this new stroke opens all my 
 wounds afresh, and reproduces my almost forgotten 
 agonies. In thus saying, or thus thinking, how un- 
 consciously may those who suffer answer their own 
 arguments, and vindicate the very course of which 
 they venture to complain. Tliey little think, at least 
 in the first moment of surprise, that this new form of 
 the divine dispensations may have been adopted for 
 the very reason that the old one had become endur- 
 able, and therefore inefiectual. But even this consid- 
 eration, when suggested and received, is not enough 
 to give the necessary power of endurance. That is 
 still afi'orded only by the presence of Christ, and the 
 believer's union with him. It is only when that union 
 has been consciously efiected and has borne its neces- 
 sary fruit, that the afilicted soul can say with full as- 
 surance of its sorest trials, however frequent, various, 
 or protracted, as it said before of duty and resistance 
 to temptation, " I can do all thhigs through Christ 
 which strengtheneth me." 
 
 If this view of the strength derived by Christians 
 from their union w ith the Saviour enabling them to 
 act, resist, and sufier, even in the most extreme emer- 
 gencies, could be presented clearly to the mind, the 
 belief of those who are still strangers to him, it is al- 
 most inconceivable that they should fail to experience
 
 198 SERMONS. 
 
 a kind of envious dissatisfaction. Even some of yon, 
 my hearers, may be ready to exclaim, All things are 
 possible to the believer, but to me belief itself is the 
 greatest of all impossibilities. If I repent and be- 
 lieve, I can do all things, but I cannot comply with 
 the condition, and I cannot therefore lay hold of the 
 promise. Yes, yes, you can. If you are truly will- 
 ing, you are able ; for the same grace that enables, 
 must dispose. If you arc willing, you are able, not 
 in your own strength, but enabled by the same Christ 
 who enables the believer to do all the rest. The first 
 step that he takes in his journey heavenward, he takes 
 leaning on the same arm that supports him to the 
 end. This is one of the mysteries of the gospel, hard 
 to explain but glorious to believe, that a gracious God 
 bestows what he requires, and gives us even that 
 without which he gives nothing. If you would really 
 be saved, that desire is as much his work as the sal- 
 vation which it seeks, and he who wrought it in you 
 will not suffer it to remain unsatisfied. Look up 
 then, sinking and desponding soul, and put not from 
 you the last hope, and, it may be, the last opportunity 
 of safety. Kepent, believe ! These are among the 
 " all things " which, through Christ enabling, even 
 you may do, and having done them, you shall then 
 be able to do all things else, until at last looking 
 back upon difficulties conquered, nay, impossibilities 
 achieved, and forward to the course yet to be run, in 
 time or in eternity, your farewell shout of victory 
 shall still be the same as the first faint, feeble cry of 
 your new-born hope, " I can, I can do all things, 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
 
 i
 
 XI. 
 
 Psalm 51, 7. — Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be ;Iean; wash 
 me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 
 
 There is no surer index of men's real dispositions 
 and desires than their prayers; not their forms of 
 prayer, whether written or unwi-itten, whether pre- 
 scribed by others or imposed npon themselves, but their 
 real prayers, the genuine expression of their own de- 
 sires, extorted from them by the urgent sense of want, 
 or danger, or distress ; such prayers as are sometimes 
 offered by men who do not liabitually pray at all ; 
 nay, such as even the blaspheming atheist has been 
 heard to pray in his agony of terror, when a storm at 
 sea, or a dangerous illness has not only convinced 
 him that there is a God, but forced him to his foot- 
 stool as a suppliant for mercy. Such prayers are 
 prayed perhaps by all men at some time of their lives, 
 and may therefore be appealed to, as exemplifying 
 what is meant by saying, that the surest index to 
 men's real dispositions and desires is that furnished 
 by their prayers. 
 
 These may also be described as affording the most 
 certain test of men's disagreement or agreement with
 
 200 SERMONS. 
 
 each otlier. as to tliat which constitutes the theme or 
 burden of tlie praj^er. Whoever can appropriate the 
 prayers of others, as the genuine expression of his 
 own desires, must desire the same things. However 
 they may differ as to other matters, here they must 
 agree, or else their union in prayer is hypocritical. 
 This is tn\e of all prayer, whether heard in public, or 
 overheard in secret, or read in books. So far as that 
 which is tlms read or heard is found to express the 
 religious feelings or desires of him who reads or hears 
 it, so far must those feelings and desires be coincident 
 with those of the man by W'hom the prayer was of- 
 fered. In this way we may judge of the agreement 
 of our own experience with that of others, not merely 
 of our own contemporaries, but of those long since 
 departed. When we read the biographies of pious 
 men, and find there the petitions in which they ex- 
 pressed the fulness of their hearts, if ours respond to 
 them, if we can say amen to them, if we can use tliem 
 to express our own desires, then we may safely con- 
 clude that we are sharers, so far, in the same exj)e- 
 rience wdiicli they have left on record. 
 
 But delightful as this feeling of communion with 
 the pious dead may be, it is attended wdth a certain 
 danger, that of sharing in their weaknesses and errors, 
 as well as in their pure desires and heavenly aspira- 
 tions. This hazard must exist in every case except 
 where inspiration sets its seal, not only on the truth 
 of the record, but on the genuineness of the exercises 
 there recorded. It was not the special inspiration of 
 the •' holy men of old " that produced their faith and 
 repentance ; if it were, we could not hope to bo par-
 
 PSALM 51, 7. 201 
 
 takers of the same, unless inspired as tliey were. But 
 their inspiration does assure us, in the first place, that 
 cheir faith and repentance are correctly stated, and in 
 the next place, that they were genuine ; so that if we 
 wish to bring our own to the test or comparison with 
 theirs, we may do so without fear of risk or error. 
 For this very purpose the Bible contains many such 
 expressions of the faith and repentance, the hope and 
 love, exercised by ancient saints, to serve not only as 
 examples but as formulas, in which to clothe our own 
 desires and emotions, and so far as we can do so with 
 sincerity, we have a right to claim a share in their 
 experience. This is one main design of the book of 
 Psalms, and to this use it has always been applied by 
 true believers, not in public worship and instruction 
 merely, but in their most intimate communings with 
 themselves and God. And if there is any one psalm 
 which above all others has been found appropriate to 
 this end, it is surely that from which the text is taken, 
 and in which the broken-hearted penitent of every age 
 has found expressions suited to convey his otherwise 
 unutterable groanings. If ever tliere was genuine 
 conviction, and repentance, and reliance upon free 
 grace, it was in the case of David, which affords us 
 therefore a most interesting opportunity of bringing 
 our own feelings to the test or standard which has 
 been described. And as the psalm abounds in varied 
 yet harmonious exhibitions of the same essential truth, 
 let us fix our attention on the one prayer recorded in 
 the text, and consider how far we are able and pre- 
 pared to appropriate it as the expression of our own 
 desires. To this end it will be necessary to inquire 
 
 VOL. II. — 9*
 
 202 SERMONS. 
 
 liow miicli is involved or presupposed in the petition. 
 And this maj prove to be far more than appears at 
 first sight. 
 
 For, in the first place, no one can sincerely ofier 
 this petition unless conscious of pollution and defile- 
 ment. This is necessarily implied in the very tenns 
 of the petition. He who says Cleanse me, says by 
 implication, I am filthy. But this is a confession 
 from which pride revolts. IS'ot even all who are in 
 a certain sense convinced of sin are willing to ac- 
 knowledge this, or even able so to do without hypoc- 
 risy. A man may be conscious of sin as a negation, 
 as want of conformity to a standard which he recog- 
 nizes as the true one, or even as a positive violation 
 of a rule which he admits to be obligatory ; not only 
 intrinsically right, but binding on himself; and yet 
 he may recoil from the acknowledgment of sin as a 
 pollution of defilement ; something which makes him 
 an object of loathing and abhorrence to all holy be- 
 ings, and even to himself so far as he is really en- 
 lightened in the knowledge of God's nature and his 
 own. Yet this profound and painful self-contempt is 
 an essential part of true rej)entance, because it is a 
 necessary consequence of just views as to sin and holi- 
 ness. And even if not necessary to salvation, it 
 would be necessary to an earnest and sincere appro- 
 priation of these words of David as the expression of 
 our own desires. For even common sense may teach 
 us, that unless a man is conscious of defilement and 
 anclcanness, he cannot with sincerity ask God to 
 ';]eo,]-i.so him. 
 
 But there is still another thing implied in tliis re-
 
 PSALM 51, 7. 203 
 
 quest, or rather expressed bj it ; consent and -willing- 
 ness, nay an importunate desire to be puriiied. Tliis 
 is by no means identical with what has been already 
 said, nor even necessarily included in it, Tlie sense 
 of pollution is perfectly distinguishable from the wish 
 to be delivered from it. True, when the sense of pol- 
 lution is a product of divine grace, it is always ac- 
 companied or followed in experience by the desire of 
 purification. ^Nor has any one a right to plead or to 
 profess his consciousness of defilement, unless corrob- 
 orated by such a desire. But for that very reason, 
 it is highly important to look at this desire as a dis- 
 tinct prerequisite or element of true repentance. And 
 another reason for so doing is, that in the experience 
 of the unregenerate a painful sense of degradation 
 and defilement may and often does coexist with a 
 prevailing wish to continue in it. Why? because the 
 man loves the very thing which he acknowledges and 
 really feels to be debasing. What his better judg- 
 ment, and his conscience partially enlightened tell 
 him is disgraceful, his vitiated appetite, his perverted 
 aflfections, cleave to and delight in. The drunkard 
 and the libertine, and other classes of notorious sin- 
 ners, have frequently an overwhelming sense of their 
 own baseness, a distressing consciousness that they 
 have sunk themselves below the level of their kind, 
 and almost to the level of the brutes that perish. 
 And this not only in their lucid intervals of abstinence 
 and partial reformation, but often in the very parox- 
 ysm of indulgence, the unhappy victim of his own 
 corruption feels himself to be an object of abhorrence 
 and contempt to all around him, and in propoition to
 
 204: SERMONS. 
 
 the light which he enjoys and the restraints which he 
 has broken through, may even be said to despise 
 himself. 
 
 But this consciousness of degradation, however 
 real and however strong, is never sufficient of itself 
 to overcome the evil dispositions which occasion it. 
 It is not enough for man to know that sin degrades 
 him, if he still so loves it as to be willing to submit 
 to degradation for the sake of its indulgence. Nor 
 will a mere sense of pollution ever drive a man to 
 God for cleansing, if his affections are so utterly de- 
 praved, that his polluted state is one of pleasure and 
 enjoyment to him, not for its own sake, not considered 
 as defilement, but as an indispensable condition of 
 those sinful joys which constitute his iiappiness. lie 
 does not deliberately choose to be polluted and de- 
 based, for this is inconsistent with the consciousness 
 of degradation which we are supposing to exist. But 
 he does choose to endure the degradation which he can- 
 not hide even from himself, for the sake of the enjoy- 
 ments which degrade him. Now with this unbroken 
 love to evil, no sense of pollution can enable him to 
 offer the petition of the text ; for he who says with sin- 
 cerity. Cleanse me, says not only, I am filthy, but I 
 consent, I desire to be cleansed. 
 
 But suppose this desire to be felt. Suppose the 
 sinner to be not only conscious of defilement but de- 
 sirous of 2)urification. And suppose, at the same time, 
 that he considers himself perfectly able to produce it 
 or secure it by an act of his own will, or by a series 
 of such acts, or by the use of means invented by him- 
 self. Will such a man, can such a man seek purifica- 
 
 1
 
 PbALM 51, '. 205 
 
 Hon at the hands of another? Is it not a dictate of 
 reason and experience, that what men can do for 
 Jiemselves they will not solicit others to do for them? 
 True, there are exceptions, but only such exceptions 
 as confirm the rule. Some are so indolent, or proud, 
 or helpless, that they gladly devolve upon others what 
 they should do for themselves : but the public voice 
 condemns their sloth, and in so doing bears witness 
 to the general fjict, that what men are conscious of 
 ability to do themselves, they do not invite others to 
 do for them. The same thing equally holds good in 
 spiritual matters. No man comes to God for cleans- 
 ing who believes that he can cleanse himself. It 
 matters not how deep his sense of degradation and 
 corruption ; no, nor how desirous to be purified he 
 seems, if he believes that he can do the necessary 
 work himself, he will not, cannot, join in this petition. 
 He may try a thousand other methods ; he may mor- 
 tify his appetites and macerate his flesh ; he may go 
 on a pilgrimage and cross the seas; he may give all 
 his goods to feed the poor ; he may give the fruit of 
 his body for the sin of his soul ; he may give his very 
 body to be burned ; but so long as he believes in his 
 capacity, by these or any other means, to cleanse 
 himself, he cannot pray the prayer of David in the 
 text; for he who with sincerity says "Cleanse me," 
 says by that very act, " I cannot cleanse myself." 
 
 But here, as elsewhere, Satan has an opposite ex- 
 treme for men to rush to. The extreme of impious 
 presumption often leads directly to that of unbelieving 
 despondency. From the absurd belief that man 
 can do every thing, they leap to the absurd belief that
 
 206 SERMONS. 
 
 God can do nothing. Once convinced that he cannot 
 cleanse himself, the sinner is in danger of concluiing 
 that purification is impossible. And in this desperate 
 belief, some go on in their sins, not that grace may 
 abound, but because grace is believed to be forever un- 
 attainable. ISTow if there is any thing which may be 
 reckoned a certain dictate of reason and experience, 
 it is that men will never seriously ask that to be done 
 whicli they believe to be impossible, or ask another 
 to do that of which they know him to be utterly in- 
 capable. How can a man then ask God to cleanse 
 him, if he despairs of being cleansed, as something 
 utterly impossible. Or what will it avail that he be- 
 lieves himself polluted, and is willing to be purified, 
 and knows himself to be incapable of doing it, if at 
 the same time he believes it to be equally beyond the 
 power of the Almighty? No, whoever earnestly and 
 sincerely says to his Maker, " Cleanse me," says im- 
 plicitly as the leper in the gospel said expressly, " If 
 thou wilt thou canst." 
 
 Nay, this belief in God's ability to do what we 
 demand of him, is not merely implied but expressed 
 in the petition of the text : " Purge me with hyssop, 
 and I shall he clean / wash me, and / shall he whiter 
 than snow." This is equivalent to saying, "if thou 
 purge me, I shall certainly be clean ; if thou wash me, 
 I shall certainly be whiter than snow." But the words 
 thus added have another meaning, or rather another 
 application, which is not to be neglected. They are 
 also equivalent to saying, " Purge me with hyssop, 
 that I may he clean ; wash me, that I may he whiter 
 than snow." Thus understood, they give the reason
 
 i 
 
 PSALM 51, 7. 207 
 
 why, the end for which, the royal penitent desires 
 to be cleansed. But, cleanse me that I may be 
 cleansed, would be a mere tautology, unless we give 
 the latter words a pregnant and emphatic meaning — 
 " that I may be cleansed " — i. e. that I may be entirely, 
 thoroughly, completely cleansed. And that this is 
 really the meaning, is apparent from the words ex- 
 pressly added in the other clause — " wash me, that I 
 may be wdiiter than snow." Snow, wherever it is 
 known, is the natural and customary standard of 
 this quality. " As white as snow,'' suggests to every 
 mind the idea of unsullied whiteness, without any 
 tinffe or shade of darker colour. " Whiter than snow," 
 is a hyperbole, denoting, in a still stronger nuinner, 
 absolute or perfect whiteness, perhaps with an allu- 
 sion to the purity here spoken of as something super- 
 natural, both in its origin and its degree. If the most 
 spotless and uusnllied whiteness known to nature is 
 the whiteness of snow, the expression " Mhiter than 
 snow" is well adapted to suggest the idea of a white- 
 ness, to which nature furnishes no parallel, and of 
 W'hich she can furnish no example. This, when ap- 
 plied to moral and spiritual qualities, must signif}' a 
 perfect purity and entire freedom from moral taint 
 and even imperfection. And the prayer, " wash me, 
 that I may be whiter than snow," expresses a willing- 
 ness, or rather a desire, not only to be cleansed, but 
 to be fully and entirely cleansed. And nothing less 
 than this desire can be sufHcient on the part of one 
 who claims to be a sharer in the faith and penitence 
 of David, and in proof of that participation echoes 
 liis petition, " Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
 
 208 SERMONS. 
 
 clean ; wash me, and I shall be winter than snow." 
 Whoever makes this prayer his twn, is to be under- 
 stood as saying, " I desire to be cleansed from all pol- 
 lution," 
 
 This may, at first sight, seem to be the same thing 
 that was stated as the second particular. But near 
 as the two things are in theory, in practice and ex- 
 perience they differ widely, A man may be willing 
 to be cleansed, and yet not anxious to be cleansed 
 completely ; he may consent to be " white," yet not 
 aspire to be " whiter than snow." In other words, he 
 may be satisfied with partial or external renovation. 
 He may wish to see some stains washed out and 
 others left untouched ; or he may earnestly desire to 
 have the outward surface cleansed from its pollution, 
 while the iimer part is full of all uncleanness. He 
 may not even be aware of the extent, the depth, of 
 his corruption. He may be disposed to look upon it 
 as a superficial or cutaneous aifection, and to wish for 
 tlie removal of its unsightly and disgusting symptoms 
 in which it manifests itself, not aware that these are 
 but the outward symptoms of a deep-seated malady 
 within ; and that, unless this be reached by remedies, 
 the disappearance of the symptoms could be only tem- 
 porary, and might aggravate the malady itself. It is 
 not until the minds of men are thoroughly awakened 
 and enlightened in relation to the turpitude of sin, 
 and of their own sin, as it is in itself and as it is in 
 them, and filled with a desire to be saved from it as 
 well as from the punishment which it incurs ; it is 
 not till tlien that they are fully able to adopt the 
 prayer of David, as a prayer, not for partial but com-
 
 PSALM 51, 7. 209 
 
 plete purification ; and to understand that he who saj^s 
 " cleanse me," asks, not only to be white, but also to 
 be " whiter than snoAV." 
 
 To this desire of perfect purity, however, even the 
 lieathen may attain, and some of their philosophers 
 have actually made it the great theme of their moral 
 speculations. But their efforts have been no less vain 
 than tiiose of many Christian errorists, to solve the 
 mighty problem of human restoration by every means 
 but that of God's appointment. Even those who pro- 
 fess to rely, and do rely, on God as the sole efficient 
 cause of tliis momentous revolution, may expect to 
 see it brought about by moral suasion, or by mere 
 instruction, or by good example, or by ceremonial 
 forms, or by meritorious abstinence or penance, or by 
 mere connection with the Cliurch, or mere enjoyment 
 of its privileges, or by mere intellectual reception of 
 the truth, or by any other means distinct from Jesus 
 Christ and his atoning sacrifice, or independent of it. 
 
 And yet this is the very way, the only way, in 
 which the sinful soul of man can possibly be cleansed 
 from the guilt or the pollution of its sins, the ordy 
 way in wdiicli it can either be justified or sancti- 
 fied. And therefore this must enter into men's de- 
 sires of renovation as a necessary element, or they can 
 never pray the prayer of David in its true sense and 
 its genuine spirit ; no, nor even in the plain sense of 
 its actual expressions. For he does not simply say, 
 " Purge me," but specifically, " purge me Avith hys- 
 sop," an expression borrowed from the purifying cer- 
 emonies of the law, by which the fact of human 
 depravity, and the necessity of moral renovation were
 
 210 SERMONS. 
 
 continually kept before tlie minds of the people, in 
 connection with the doctrine of atonement bj the 
 sacrifice of life for life. This connection was inti- 
 mated and enforced, not only by the constant com- 
 bination of these purifying rites with those of sacrifice, 
 but also by the actual affusion or aspersion of pure 
 water, as the natural and universal symbol of purifica- 
 tion in general, and of the sacrificial blood as the 
 symbol of purification from the guilt and stain of sin 
 by the blood of Jesus Christ in particular. Among 
 the substances combined with the water and the blood 
 in these symbolical purifications was the plant called 
 hyssop, which was also used as a mechanical instru- 
 ment of sprinkling, and was thus connected in a two- 
 fold manner with the purifying rites of the Mosaic 
 ritual, so that its very name would call up, in the 
 mind of every Hebrew reader, the idea of purification 
 by atoning blood, and in the mind of those especially 
 enlightened, the idea of that promised Saviour, by 
 w^iose blood alone this moral renovation could be ren- 
 dered even possible. 
 
 To all then that has been already mentioned as 
 essential to an intelligent and full participation in this 
 prayer of David, and in the penitence and faith of 
 which it is the genuine expression, we must now add 
 that all is unavailing, because either spurious or 
 defective, without a hearty willingness, not only to 
 be cleansed, and to be cleansed by God, but to be 
 cleansed in God's own way ; not only to be " purged," 
 but to be " purged with hyssop," " not by water only, 
 but by water and by blood," and through him who 
 " came both by water and by blood, even Jesus
 
 PSALM 51, 7. 211 
 
 \ hrist ; " for the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, 
 clecanseth from all sm. 
 
 If then, my hearer, you are still unconscious of 
 your guilt and danger as a sinner before God ; or if 
 you are convinced of sin only as a failure to come up 
 to the standard of God's law, or at most as a positive 
 transgression of that law, but not as a pollution and a 
 degradation, loathsome in itself, and making you an 
 object of abhorrence to all sinless intelligences ; or if 
 you are in some degree aware of your debasement, but 
 yet willing to continue in it for the sake of the enjoy- 
 ments which it now aflfords you ; or if, though willing 
 and desirous to be cleansed from this pollution, you 
 are trusting in your own strength to effect it ; or be- 
 cause you cannot do it, are unwilling to believe that 
 even the Almighty can ; or if you are willing and de- 
 sirous to be only cleansed in part, and shrink from 
 the idea of complete purgation as too humbling or too 
 self-denying ; or if you are even willing to submit to 
 this revolutionizing process, but unwilling to resort to 
 Jesus Christ as your purifier, and to his blood as the 
 only purifying element ; on any of these suppositions, 
 and alas how many individual cases do they compre- 
 hend, whatever else you may do with effect, whatever 
 else you may say with sincerity, I tell you there is 
 one thing which you cannot so do or so say, you can- 
 not join sincerely in this prayer of David — " Purge 
 me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I 
 shall be whiter than snow." To yourself such a 
 prayer is but an empty and unprofitable form ; while 
 to God whom you invoke, it is a mockery and insult. 
 
 But if, through God's grace, your experience is the
 
 212 SERMONS. 
 
 opposite of all tliis, if yon do indeed feel yourself to 
 be a sinner ; if you feel your sin not only as a burden 
 and a debt, but as a stain and a pollution ; if you are 
 willing to forego the pleasures of sin for the purpose 
 of escaping from this deadly degradation ; if you are 
 thoroughly convinced that you cannot cleanse your- 
 self, and yet that God can cleanse you ; if you can 
 heartily consent to be cleansed by him, not super- 
 ficially or partially, but thoroughly and perfectly — not 
 in the way of your own choosing or of man's devising, 
 but of God's providing — then my prayer is, that God 
 may deal with you this moment as he dealt of old 
 with Hagar in the wilderness of Beersheba, when he 
 " ojDened her eyes, and she saw a well of water ; " but 
 in this case, not by water only, but by w^ater and by 
 blood, for ye are come, perhaps without suspecting 
 it, " to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and 
 to the blood of sprinkling, a blood that speaketh bet- 
 ter things than that of Abel." " See that ye refuse 
 not Him that speaketh ; for if they escaped not who 
 refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not 
 we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh 
 from heaven. For (out of Christ) our God is a con- 
 suming fire."
 
 xn. 
 
 Luke 13, 3. (and 5.) — Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise pemh 
 
 These are among the most familiar words of Scrip- 
 ture, and among those most frequently employed to 
 rouse the consciences of the impenitent. They are 
 so full of meaning, that even the most commonplace 
 and superficial exposition of the sentence must convey 
 enough to fill the mind and agitate the heart of one 
 who has been really awakened. There is, however, 
 a peculiar point and pregnancy of imjjort in the 
 words, which may be wholly overlooked in making 
 them a simple basis for the general affirmation that 
 All sinners must repent or per'ish. This, true and 
 awful as it is, is rather presupposed than positively 
 stated. To confine ourselves to this, as the whole 
 meaning, is to lose sight of two emphatic words in 
 the short sentence; "ye" and "likewise." Assum- 
 ing, as a truth already known, that all men must re- 
 pent or perish, the text affirms that they whom it 
 addresses must repent, or perish likewise, i. c, like 
 those particularly mentioned in the context. Another 
 feature of the passage which is apt to be neglected is, 
 that it not only teaches the necessity of repentance to
 
 214: SERMONS. 
 
 salvation, but presents a specific motive for its ex- 
 ercise, or ratlier teaches us to seek occasions of re- 
 pentance in a quarter where most of us are naturally 
 least disposed to seek them ; nay, where most of us 
 are naturally and habitually prone to find excuses for 
 indulffino; sentiments as far removed from those of 
 penitence as possible ; uncharitable rigour and cen- 
 sorious pride. 
 
 The only way to get a full view of this- deep and 
 varied import, is by looking at the text in its connec- 
 tion, which may serve at the same time, as a single 
 but remarkable example, to illustrate the importance 
 of deriving our instructions from the Scripture in its 
 integrity and continuity, and not from certain salient 
 points, which frequent handling has made sharp and 
 bright, but at the same time often put into a false 
 position with respect to that by which they are con- 
 nected, and without which they cannot be duly ap- 
 preciated or even correctly understood. 
 
 During our Lord's last journey to Jerusalem, of 
 which this part of Luke contains a full and deepl}^ in- 
 terestins: narrative, his mind seems to have been filled 
 with sad forebodings of the fearful doom impending 
 over Israel. After warning his disciples and exhort- 
 ing them to watchfulness, by various striking parables 
 and figurative illustrations, he turned, on one occasion, 
 to the multitude who were present, and, addressing 
 them as representatives of the nation at large, up- 
 braided their stupidity and insensibility, in so saga- 
 ciously anticipating changes of the weather by indi- 
 cations gathered from experience, while even the most 
 solemn premonitions of approaching moral changes
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 215 
 
 and catastroplies escaped their notice. " Wlien ye 
 8ee a cloud rise out of the west," i. <?., from the Med- 
 iterranean Sea, " straightway ye say, there conieth a 
 shower," or rather a storm of rain, " and so it is," for 
 these were not mere random gnesses or fanciful prog- 
 nostications, but the fruit of long-continued and re- 
 peated observation, " And when ye see the south 
 wind blow," from the direction of the great Arabian 
 wilderness, " ye say, there will be heat, and it cometh 
 to pass." The same observant and sagacious faculties, 
 applied to things of infinitely greater moment, might 
 have convinced them that there were storms and heats 
 at hand, of which they were at present wholly unsus- 
 picious. This absorption in mere outward interests 
 and changes, to the neglect of inward spiritual things, 
 is the hypocrisy with which our Saviour here re- 
 proaches them. " Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the 
 face of the sky and of the earth ; but how is it that 
 ye do not discern the signs of this time ? " the prog- 
 nostics of momentous revolution, with which that 
 most eventful period of history was crowded. 
 
 Without reckoning any thing purely preternatural 
 which we find recorded by contemporary writers, that 
 solemn interval, extending from the advent to the 
 downfall of Jerusalem, was full of strange occurrences, 
 all showing that Jehovah had, according to his proph- 
 ecy, begun to shake the nations. Yet of these ex- 
 citing and alarming symptoms, the contemporaries 
 of our Saviour took so little note, that it was only by 
 e;cplicit, or at least by solemn warning that he could 
 bring these fearful futurities before their minds. No 
 wonder that, impatient of this strange judicial blind-
 
 216 SERMONS. 
 
 ness, lie exclaimed, " "Wliy even of yourselves judge 
 ye not what is right." Will you apprehend no evil, 
 unless I predict it in so many words ? This he would 
 not do, but he apprised them indirectly of their 
 danger, by comparing their condition to that of on 
 against whom his neighbour has a righteous quarrel, 
 and who is just about to be arraigned before the judg- 
 ment seat, without any prospect but of condemnation, 
 and whose only hope is therefore in a speedy compro- 
 mise and reconciliation, in default of which the law 
 must have its course, until the last farthing of the 
 debt is paid. 
 
 This illustration, drawn from an incident of real 
 life, which comes home, with peculiar force, to the 
 business and bosoms of the mass of men in every 
 civilized community, appears to have produced at 
 least so much effect upon the feelings of some hearers 
 as to turn their thoughts towards strange and startling 
 casualties, as tokens of divine displeasure, not without 
 a secret wish to understand and represent them as de- 
 noting that displeasure, towards the few and not 
 the many, towards their neighbours, not themselves. 
 AVitli some such feeling, certain persons present in the 
 multitude related to our Saviour a revolting incident, 
 of which they had probably just heard, a massacre of 
 Galileans by the cowardly but sanguinary Eoman 
 procurator, Pontius Pilate, at the very altar, so that 
 their blood might be said to have been "mingled 
 with their sacrifices." Tliat God should have aban- 
 doned them to heathen cruelty in that most sacred of 
 asylums where, if anywhere, they might have hoped 
 for his protection, did indeed look like a teri'ible ju-
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 217 
 
 dicial visitation, and it may naturally be supposed 
 that tliey wlio told and they who heard it, while they 
 shuddered at the sacrilegious murder, were disposed 
 to say within themselves, " Yet surely they must have 
 been atrocious sinners, to be given up to such a 
 fate ! " 
 
 Among the hearers there was one, however, who 
 felt no sympathy with this self-righteous and unchari- 
 table judgment; whose mind was free from all con- 
 fusion, and his feelings from all bias ; who saw at 
 once the truth of the whole case, and its secret effect 
 upon the minds of those around him ; and who hast- 
 ened, with his usual benevolent severity, to check 
 the fermentation of insidious error, and to turn the 
 thoughts of those who had embraced it in upon them- 
 selves. Instead of chiming in with what appeared to 
 be a pious recognition of God's justice in the punish- 
 ment of sinners, our Saviour tears with a relentless 
 hand the mask from the secret workings of his hearers' 
 hearts, and forces them at once upon their own re- 
 luctant sight by what seems to be a simple and un- 
 studied answer, but in whose simplicity there was a 
 sting for many a hitherto invulnerable conscience. 
 " Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above 
 all the Galileans, because they suffered these things ? " 
 It was no doubt to his Galilean hearers that he 
 especially addressed himself. It was no doubt from 
 them that this report of Pilate's conduct to their 
 countrymen proceeded. Ilencc the peculiar force of 
 our Lord's answer to his own searching question : " I 
 tell you nay, but except ye repent, ye sliall all like- 
 wise perish." 
 
 VOL. II. — 10
 
 218 SERMONS. 
 
 N'ot contented witli this startling contradiction of 
 their secret thoughts, he cites another case himself, 
 also perhaps of recent date, and vastly stronger in 
 appearance as a ground for the opinion "\vhich he 
 meant to demolish, because one in which the hand of 
 God himself was visible directly, without any inter- 
 vention of a wicked human instrument, or any con- 
 sequent confusion of this agent's sin with God's most 
 righteous retributions ; a case in which a number of 
 lives had been lost by a sudden providential casualty : 
 " Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam 
 fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners 
 above all men dwelling in Jerusalem ? " Having put the 
 first unanswerable question to his Galilean hearers, he 
 puts this to the Jerusalemites, still more self-righteous, 
 and still more apt, it may be, to imagine, that in this 
 case, if in any, God had drawn a broad line of dis- 
 tinction between them and these atrocious sinners, 
 whom he not only suffered to perish, but destroyed, 
 as it AS'cre, with his own hand. Yes, they might have 
 said, if they had spoken their whole heart, we do 
 think that they were more guilty than the rest of us, 
 and we think so on the authority of God himself, who 
 has spared us, even in the act of destroying them. 
 But whether uttered or suppressed, this interpretation 
 of God's judgments meets the same indignant contra- 
 diction as before, and the same unexpected introver- 
 sion of the sentence upon those who had pronounced 
 it : "I tell you nay, but except ye repent," — yes, you, 
 of Jerusalem, no less than these despised Galileans, 
 " except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." 
 
 There is something so paradoxical in this repeated
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 21S 
 
 contradiction of what seems to be a plausible and 
 pious sentiment, that a correct apprehension of the 
 latent error, and of the truth which our Saviour, with 
 such emphasis, opposes to it, may serve not only to 
 vindicate the truth of this authoritative declaration, 
 and its perfect consistency with all God's attributes 
 and all his acts, so far as either can be known by us, 
 but also to correct the same insidious error, if it 
 should make its way into our own minds, or should 
 now be lying hid there under some specious pretext 
 of hostility to sin, and zeal for God's vindicatory 
 justice. 
 
 1. That suiFering is a penal consequence of sin, 
 seems to be a dictate of reason and conscience, no less 
 than of revelation. At all events, it is a doctrine of 
 religion which, above most others, seems to command 
 the prompt assent of the human understanding. They 
 who acknowledge the existence of a God at all, have 
 probably no impressions of his power or his justice 
 stronger than those which are associated with his 
 providential strokes, and more especially with death 
 as the universal penalty. War, pestilence, and fam- 
 ine, are regarded by the common sense of men, not 
 merely as misfortunes but as punishments, and noth- 
 ing more effectually rouses in the multitude the recol- 
 lection of their sins than the report or the approach 
 of these providential scourges. In all this, the pop- 
 ular judgment is according to the truth. The miser- 
 ies which we witness or experience are bu.t so many 
 memorials 
 
 •' Of man's first disobedience and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Bronirht death Into the world and all our woe."
 
 220 SERMONS. 
 
 In the recognition and assertion of this great truth, 
 there is no fear of excess. The fact is one which can- 
 not be exaggerated, and ought not to be extenuated, 
 much less dissembled or denied. Sin is the ultimate 
 and universal source of sorrow, and all God's provi- 
 dential visitations are unequivocal signs of his dis- 
 pleasure against sin. 
 
 2. What is thus true in the aofOTeorate must needs 
 be true in detail. If all the suftering in the world 
 ]5roceeds from sin, then every Divine judgment in 
 particular must flow from the same source. N^ot 
 only in reference to the sum total of man's sufierings, 
 but in reference to eveiy pang, it may be said, with 
 truth and certainty, that sin has been at work, that 
 this is the natural and necessary consequence of sin, 
 and that not of sin as an abstraction, nor of sin as the 
 common undivided heritage of Adam's offspring, but 
 of sin as the property and character of individual re- 
 sponsible agents. In other words, wherever we see 
 suffering, we see a proof, not only that there is sin 
 somewhere, to account for and to justify that suffer- 
 ing, but that the individual sufferer is a sinner. Tlie 
 only exception to this general statement, which the 
 world has ever seen, in reality confirms it. Christ 
 was beyond comparison the greatest sufferer of our 
 race ; yet Christ was " holy, harmless, un defiled, and 
 separate from sinners." But his sufferings were vi- 
 carious ; he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows ; 
 he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised 
 for our iniquities. This, which is one of the gi-eat 
 fundamental doctrines of the Bible, while it shows, 
 on the one hand, the indissoluble connection between
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 221 
 
 sin and suffering, shows, on tlie other, how the great- 
 est sufferer coukl be free from sin, although in every 
 case but this, the least sufferer must be a sinner. "We 
 need feel no hesitation, therefore, in asserting either 
 of these two propositions : 1, that all suffering is the 
 fruit of sin ; and, 2, that everj sufferer is a sinner. 
 
 3. And yet it cannot be denied, that there is some- 
 thing in this doctrine thus presented, against which 
 even the better feelings of our nature are disposed to 
 revolt. This is especially the case when we contem- 
 plate instances of aggravated suffering endured by 
 those who are comparatively innocent, and still more 
 when the sufferings of such are immediately occa- 
 sioned by the wickedness of others. Can it be that 
 the dying agonies of one w^ho falls a victim to the 
 murderous revenge or the reckless cupidity of others, 
 are to be regarded as the punishment of sin ? Against 
 this representation all our human sympathies and 
 charities appear to cry aloud, and so intense is the 
 reaction in some minds, that they will not even listen 
 to the explanation, which may nevertheless be given, 
 and which I will endeavour to give now. 
 
 4. This feeling of repugnance to the doctrine noAV 
 in question, though it springs from a native sense of 
 justice, is mistaken in its application, because founded 
 upon two misapprehensions. In the first place, it as- 
 sumes that the sufferings, in the case supposed, are 
 said to be the penal fruits of sin committed against 
 man, and more especially against the authors of the 
 sufferings endured. Hence we are all accustomed to 
 enhance the guilt of murder, in seme cases, by con- 
 trasting the virtues of the victim with the crimes of
 
 222 SEivMONS 
 
 the destroyer. And in sncli a s^ate of m.'nd, not one 
 of us, perhaps, would be prepared to hear with pa- 
 tience, that the murder was a righteous recompense 
 of sin. But why? Because at such a moment, we 
 can look no further than the proximate immediate 
 agent, and to think of him as having any claim or 
 right of punishment is certainly preposterous. But 
 when the excitement is allayed, and we have lost 
 sight of the w^orthless and justly abhorred instrument, 
 we may perhaps be able to perceive that in the pres- 
 ence of an infinitely holy God, the most innocent vic- 
 tim of man's cruelty is in himself deserving only of 
 displeasure, or at least that no difficulties hang about 
 that supposition except such as belong to the wdiole 
 subject of sin and punishment. 
 
 5. If any doubt remains, it probably has reference 
 to the seeming disproportion of the punishment to that 
 of others, or to any particular offence wnth which the 
 sufferer seems chargeable in comparison with others. 
 Here again the feeling is not only natural, but in its 
 principle a just one, yet entirely misdirected under 
 the influence of a second error with respect to the 
 doctrine of the Bible on the subject. The miscon- 
 ception lies in the confounding of the general propo- 
 sitions, which have been already stated and affirmed; 
 1, that all suffering is the penal consequence of sin, 
 and 2, that every individual sufferer is a sinner, with 
 the very different proposition, that every providential 
 stroke is a specific punishment of some specific sin, 
 or that the measure of men's sufferings here is in 
 exact proportion to their guilt, so that they upon 
 whom extraordinary judgments seem to fall are there-
 
 I 
 
 JiUKE 13, 3. 223 
 
 by proved to be extraordinary sinners. These doc- 
 trines are not only quite distinct from those before 
 propounded ; they do not even follow from them as 
 logical deductions. They may be consistently, and 
 actually are repudiated and abjured by those who 
 steadfastly maintain, that all suffering is from sin, 
 and that all sufferers are sinners. The same mistake 
 is palpable enough, and therefore easily avoided, when 
 confined to matters of the present life, or questions of 
 mere temporal morality. If men would be as rational 
 and candid in their judgments of spiritual matters, 
 as they often are in those pertaining to this world, 
 there would be less disposition to reject important 
 doctrines of religion on account of their abuse or the 
 unauthorised additions made to them. 
 
 6. The effect of this last error is the more per- 
 nicious, and the cure of it more difficult, because the 
 doctrine which it falsely imputes to Christianity is 
 really maintained by many Christians, as well as by 
 many who make no such professions. There has in all 
 ages been a disposition to regard remarkable calam- 
 ities as providential judgments on particular offences, 
 and a morbid curiosity in tracing the connection be- 
 tween such crimes and such punishments. The exist- 
 ence of such a disposition in the human heart, and 
 the plausibility with which it can defend itself by a 
 confident appeal to undisputed facts, and to undis- 
 puted principles of morals, have never been more 
 forcibly and fully set forth, or more pointedly and 
 solemnly rebuked than in the book of Job, one grand 
 design of which, to say the least, is to expose this 
 errcr and refute it. That it still existed in the minds
 
 224 SERMOlsS. 
 
 of those to wliom our Lord addressed ihe .anguage of 
 tlic text is obvious enough, and its continued existence 
 at the present day is, alas, no less so. It may not now 
 be pushed to the extreme reached by some of Christ's 
 disciples, when they " asked him, saying. Lord, who 
 did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born 
 blind ? " But it exists and operates, and often unex- 
 pectedly betrays itself in a censorious attempt to trace 
 the sufierings of others back to certain causes, often 
 more offensive in the sight of human censors and in- 
 quisitors than in that of a heart-searching God. But 
 even where the sin charged is indeed a sin, its ex- 
 istence is hastily inferred from the supposed judg- 
 ment, without any other evidence . whatever. This 
 uncharitable tendency can be cured only by the cor- 
 rection of the error which produces it. 
 
 7. But in attempting this correction, there is need 
 of extreme caution, as in all other cases, where an 
 error has arisen, not from sheer invention or denial of 
 the truth, but from exaggeration, or perversion, or 
 abuse of truth itself. And the more certain and im- 
 portant the truth thus mistaken or abused, the more 
 imperative the need of caution, lest, while we gather 
 up the tares, we root up also the wheat with them. 
 Li the case before us this necessity has not been al- 
 ways practically recognized by those who have under- 
 taken to vindicate the ways of God to man, but who, 
 in consequence of this neglect, have verified the pro- 
 verb, that the remedy is sometimes worse than the 
 disease. They, for example, who would guard against 
 tlie error now in question by denying a particular 
 providence, are not only chargeable with wilfully
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 225 
 
 receding from tlie ground of Christianity to tliat of 
 heathenism, nay from the higher ground of Plato to 
 the lower ground of Epicurus, but with making Christ 
 himself guilty of the grossest inconsistency, forgetful 
 that the same authoritative voice which twice said, in 
 the case before us, " I tell you nay," had expressly 
 tauo-ht in the foreofoino; context, that without God's 
 knowledge and his leave, not a hair falls, or a lily 
 withers, or a sparrow dies. This is one of those cases 
 in which the simplest and apparently most childlike 
 teachings of religion coincide with the ultimate attain- 
 ments of philosophy, since no reasoning or speculation 
 on this subject has availed to get beyond the grand 
 yet elementary conclusion, that if there is a provi- 
 dence at all it. must be universal, and that no distinc- 
 tion can be drawn between the gi-eat and small as 
 objects of God's notice and his care, without infring- 
 ing on the absolute perfection of his nature by re- 
 stricting his omniscience, or at least by applying to 
 it terms and conditions which have no propriety or 
 truth except in reference to our own finite nature and 
 the necessary limitations of our knowledge. 
 
 8. Another false and dangerous corrective of tlie 
 error now in question — still more insidious because 
 it approximates more nearly to the truth — is that 
 which, admitting a particular providence and a gen- 
 eral connection between sin and suffering, denies any 
 penal or judicial connection between particular provi- 
 dential strokes and the sins of the individual sufferer. 
 This doctrine, when fairly stated, is opposed, not only 
 to the word of God, but to experience and the com- 
 mon sense of mankind. To deny that the bloated 
 
 VOL. II. — 10*
 
 226 SLRMONS. 
 
 countenance, the trembling limbs, the decaying mind^ 
 the wasted fortune, and the blasted fame of the drunk 
 ard or the libertine, are penally consequences of sin, 
 of his own sin, of his own besetting, reigning, darling 
 sin, would be ridiculous, and all men would regard it 
 in that light. And the same thing is true of some 
 extraordinary providences. When a bold blasphemer, 
 in the act of imprecating vengeance on his own head, 
 falls down dead before us, it would argue an extreme 
 of philosophical caution or of skeptical reserve, to 
 hesitate to say, as the magicians said to Pharaoh, 
 when they found themselves confronted with effects 
 beyond the capacity of any human or created power 
 — " This is the finger of God." It was conceivable 
 indeed that even this might be a magical illusion, 
 near akin though far superior to their own, and yet 
 the evidence appears to have convinced them. So in 
 the case supposed, it is conceivable and possible, that 
 even such surprising correspondences may have some 
 other cause than that which forces itself on the mind 
 of every spectator ; but it does so force itself, and does 
 amount, in the vast majority of cases, to a conclusive 
 proof of a direct judicial act of God's vindicatory jus- 
 tice on a flagrant and notorious sin. 
 
 Now any one such case would be sufficient to re- 
 fute the doctrine that men's sufierings have nothing 
 to do with their personal sins, in the way of penal 
 retribution. "What then, it may be asked, is the error, 
 theoretical or practical, which Christ condemns, and 
 against which we are warned to be forever on our 
 guard ? If it be true, not only that suffering in gen- 
 eral is the fruit of sin, and that every individual suf-
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 227 
 
 ferer is a sinner, but that particular suiFerings may 
 be recognized as penal retributions of particular sins, 
 where is the harm in tracing the connection, for our 
 edification, or for that of others ? The answer to this 
 question is a prompt and simple one, and may be 
 stated under three particulars : 
 
 The first is, that even if the general rule be granted, 
 the exceptions are so many and notorious as to render 
 it inapplicable as a standard or criterion of character. 
 A rule which, if applied with rigid uniformity, would 
 directly gainsay the Divine decision in the case of Job's 
 three friends, and brand, as the chief of sinners, the 
 glorious company of the Apostles, the goodly fellow- 
 ship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, and 
 a countless host of less conspicuous but no less patient 
 suff'erers, unknown perhaps to man, but precious in 
 the sight of God, must needs be a precarious and un- 
 certain test. The second answer is, that this is a mat- 
 ter which God has not subjected to our scrutiny. 
 Although, in certain cases, both of common experience 
 and extraordinary judgment, he has lifted the veil 
 from the judicial import of his dispensations, as a 
 timely warning to presumptuous sinners, it is still 
 true, as a general fact, that this mysterious connec- 
 tion between causes and effects, is not among the 
 things which may lawfully and usefully excite our 
 curiosity, but rather among those of which the Scrip- 
 ture says, " Secret things belong unto the Lord our 
 God." The final cause of this reserve may perhaps 
 be found in the third reason to be stated for abstain- 
 ing from such inquisitions, to wit, that their tendency, 
 as shown by all experience, is not so much to edify
 
 238 SERMONS. 
 
 as to subvert ; not so much to wean fron. sin, as tc 
 harden in self-rigliteoDsness, by letting this censorship 
 of other men's sins and other men's punishment, divert 
 our thoughts entirely from those which loe commit, oi 
 those which we are to experience. 
 
 This brings us to the lesson taught directly in the 
 text and context, as to the only safe and effectual cor- 
 rective of the error which we have been considering. 
 For even after men have been convinced that this 
 censorious inquisition into the sin and punishment of 
 others is not only unavailing but pernicious, they may 
 still be drawn to it by natural dispositions which 
 they cannot resist or overcome. To counteract this 
 wayward tendency, our Saviour here employs the 
 only efficacious method. Without diverting the at- 
 tention of his hearers from the great humiliating 
 truth, that suffering is the fruit and penal consequence 
 of sin, he sliows them, with consummate wisdom, that 
 it admits an application much more certain and more 
 salutary- than the one which they were accustomed or 
 disposed to make of it. Their • ftivourite inference 
 from the doctrine Avas, that those who suffered more 
 were greater sinners than themselves. The one which 
 our Lord teaches them to draw, is, that if some mem- 
 bers of the human family were thus overtaken in 
 their sins and visited with condign punishment, the 
 same perdition must await the rest, however long de- 
 ferred by the divine forbearance. Instead of valuing 
 themselves, because they had escaped thus far, they 
 ought rather to assure themselves that they should 
 not escape forever. The judgments which they saw 
 descend on others, did not prove them to be greater
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 229 
 
 Binnei'S than themselves ; they only prov^ed that the 
 guilt, of which they were themselves partakers, 
 was entitled and exposed to the divine wrath, and 
 that the course of wisdom, therefore, was to flee from 
 the wrath to come, instead of fancying themselves to 
 be beyond its reach or able to resist it. 
 
 This is only one out of a multitude of instances, in 
 which our Saviour's divine wisdom is evinced by the 
 facility and poM'er with wJiicli he converts a curious, 
 or even an insidious question, into an engine of con- 
 viction. On this very same occasion, when a person 
 in the multitude requested him to act as an umpire 
 between him and his brother, in a matter of inheri- 
 tance, our Lord took occasion, from the untimely and 
 irrelevant request, to unmask and reprove the cove- 
 tousness latent under what might seem to be a lawful 
 and commendable assertion of one's legal rights. A 
 little afterwards, when Peter asked liim whether his 
 injunctions of watchfulness were meant for all be- 
 lievers or for those who held official station — perliaps 
 not without some complacent reference to his own 
 position — iustead of a direct reply, our Lord describes, 
 in clear though figurative terms, the character of a 
 faithful office-bearer in his church, leaving the appli- 
 cation to the consciences of those who heard him. 
 So in the case more immediately before us, instead of 
 expressing indignation or astonishment at Pilate's 
 cruelty, and far from conniving at tlie secret inferen- 
 ces drawn by those around him from this atrocious 
 act, and the casualty mentioned with it — to the dis- 
 advantage of the victims as compared witli tlieni- 
 Belves — he teaches them to look at home — to tremble
 
 230 SERMONS. 
 
 for themselves — to cease from all invidious specula' 
 tion on the mao-nitude of other men's offences — as de- 
 termined by the weight of their misfortunes or the 
 manner of their death — and look towards the similar 
 perdition which, in one form or another, sooner or 
 later, awaited all involved in the same general con 
 demnation. 
 
 Another characteristic of our Saviour's teaching, 
 here exemplified, is, that even in his most severe de- 
 nunciations, he is far from shutting up the door of 
 mercy. By the very act of holding up repentance, 
 or a thorough change of mind, and character, and 
 life, as an essential, indispensable condition of escape 
 from the destruction which he threatens, he reveals 
 the glorious and blessed truth, that such escape is 
 possible. The promise, "repent, and ye shall live," 
 is wrapped up in the threatening, " Except ye repent, 
 ye shall all likewise perish." 
 
 Here then is the use which this instructive pas- 
 sage teaches us to make of the calamities of others, 
 M'hether those which fall 'on individuals in private 
 life, or those which strike whole classes and commu- 
 nities. The whole secret may be told in one short 
 word, Eepent. As the goodness of God to ourselves 
 ought to lead us to repentance, so ought his judg- 
 ments upon others to produce the same effect. Every 
 such judgment should remind us that our own escape 
 is but a respite — that if they who perish in our sight 
 were guilty, we are guilty too, and that unless we re- 
 pent we must all likewise perish. 
 
 This means something more than perish also ; it 
 means perish in like manner ; if not with the same 
 
 I
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 231 
 
 external tokens of perdition, with a ruin no less real, 
 no less fearful, no less final. As addressed by Christ 
 to the conteraporarj^ Jews, the words had a terrible 
 significance, which they were not prepared to com- 
 prehend or to appreciate, but which received a fearful 
 illustration from subsequent events. In less than half 
 a century from the date of this solemn admonition, 
 the atrocities of Pilate and the casualty of Siloam 
 were to be repeated on a scale of horrid and terrific 
 grandeur. The blood of thousands, in the frenzied 
 desperation of intestine strife, was mingled with their 
 sacrifices, not by Roman swords, but by their own ; 
 and, as the eighteen had been crushed by the fall of 
 a single tower, so an untold multitude were to lie en- 
 tombed beneath the prostrate walls of their polluted 
 temple. 
 
 In reference to these points of resemblance, the 
 two incidents referred to in the context, might be said 
 to typify or symbolize the national catastrophe which 
 was then approaching ; and, in refei'ence to the points, 
 Christ might say to those who heard him, as represent- 
 atives of Israel, if not as individuals, " Except ye re- 
 pent, ye shall all likeioise perish " — as if lie had said, 
 Except ye repent, your blood shall be mingled with 
 your sacrifices, too ; you, too, shall be crushed be- 
 neath the towers of your temple; even in reference to 
 the mode of your destruction, " ye shall all likewise 
 perish ! " 
 
 But, even leaving out of view these outward coin- 
 cidences, striking as they are, the words are full of sol- 
 emn warning and instruction, not only to the old Jews, 
 but to us, upon whom these ends of the world are come.
 
 232 SERMONS. 
 
 They give a tongue and an articulate utterance to every 
 signal providence, to every sudden death, to every open 
 grave, to every darkened house, to every scattered for- 
 tune, to every blighted reputation, to every broken 
 heart, in society around us. They command us, they 
 entreat us to Avithdraw our view from the calamities of 
 others, as proofs of their iniquity, and to view them 
 rather as memorials of our own, of that common guilt 
 to which these manifold distresses owe their origin, and 
 in which we, alas, are so profoundly and so ruinously 
 implicated. Oh, my hearers, can you not hear all 
 this, as it were, articulately uttered by the Providence 
 of God ? If you can, then the Lord Jesus Christ is 
 saying, just as really and solemnly to you as he said 
 to those around him eighteen centuries ago, Tliink ye 
 that this or that man, overtaken in his sins, and swept 
 away by some terrific judgment, was a sinner above 
 all that dwell in New York or America ? "I tell you 
 nay ; I tell you nay." You are yourself, perhaps, a 
 greater sinner ; you are certainly so great a sinner 
 that, " except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," 
 if not in the same way to the eyes of man, yet as 
 really, as terribly, as hopelessly, as endlessly. "Why 
 should we think of measuring gradations in perdition, 
 or of comforting ourselves that we are not so bad as 
 others, if we perish after all ? Oh, my friends, to per- 
 ish is to perish, whether as the chief of sinners, or as 
 something less. The circumstantial differences in the 
 fate of those who perish will be lost in its essential 
 identity. And even the momentary consolation of 
 this difference may be denied us. Wher you hear of
 
 LUKE 13, 3. 233 
 
 war, of famine, and of pestilence, ,is wasting other 
 lands or other portions of our town, yon may, perhaps, 
 congratulate yourself that these desolating scourges 
 are far distant; or, if any of them be approaching, 
 that they only sweep away the refuse of society, and 
 move beyond the precincts of the magic circle where 
 you are yourself intrenched. Alas ! so thought the 
 people of Jerusalem and Galilee, who told our Saviour 
 of the massacre of Pilate and the downfell of the tower 
 in Siloam, You, like them, maybe mistaken — like 
 them, and like their fathers, in the days of Isaiah, to 
 whom he said, "Wherefore hear the word of the 
 Lord ye scornful men, that rule this people which is 
 in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, we have made a 
 covenant with death, and with hell are at agreement ; 
 when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it 
 shall not come unto us, for we have made this our 
 refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. 
 Therefore, thus saith tlic Lord God, Behold I lay in 
 Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious 
 corner-stone, a sure foundation : he that believeth 
 shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to 
 the line and righteousness to the plummet, and the 
 hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters 
 shall overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant 
 with death shall be annulled, and your agreement 
 with hell shall not stand ; when the overflowing scourge 
 shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by 
 it," &c., &c. If that consumption is again let loose 
 upon the earth, and if it has a voice, methinks I hear 
 it saying even now to us, Suppose ye that they who
 
 234 SERMONS. 
 
 died in Ireland of famine, and in Mexico of battles, 
 and in Asia, Europe, and America of cholera, were 
 sinners above all who dwell in the four quarters of 
 the earth ? I tell you nay ; I tell you nay ; but ez- 
 cept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish !
 
 XIII. 
 
 Isaiah 53, 3. — He is despised and rejected of men. 
 
 There is scarcely any thing more characteristic of 
 the masses of mankind, than the facility -with -which 
 they can he roused and set in motion, by any specious 
 promise to improve their temporal condition. Even 
 where their actual state is not one of extraordinary 
 suffering, nor that 'which is offered in its place pecu- 
 liarly attractive, nor the means by -which it is pro- 
 posed to accomplish it remarkably appropriate or effi- 
 cacious, some natural propensity to change still ope- 
 rates in favour of the new proposal, and vast multi- 
 tudes are instantly pervaded, as it were, b}' a galvanic 
 influence, entirely disproportionate to the visible in- 
 ducements, and apparently independent of all rational 
 considerations. 
 
 There are individuals, and even classes of society, 
 which seem to remain proof against this popular sus- 
 ceptibility, and take no part in the exciting move- 
 ments which it generates. But, on the other hand, 
 there are cases, still more numerous and marked, 
 in which this same susceptibility is carried to a length 
 which verges on insanity ; and this extreme may fairly 
 neutralize or cancel that already mentioned, so as to
 
 236 SERMONS. 
 
 leave the general statement still emphatically true, 
 that this mobility and readiness to catch at new 
 schemes for improving the condition of society, does 
 really belong to the masses of mankind, as a promi 
 nent feature of their common character. I speak of 
 the masses, not in any invidious or unfavourable sense, 
 as opposed to the select few who are thought, by 
 themselves or others, to monopolize refinement and in- 
 telligence ; but in the proper sense of the expression, 
 as denoting great numbers, and even whole commu- 
 nities, in opposition to smaller bodies, and still more 
 to insulated individuals. For, one of the most strik- 
 ing points connected with the general fact in question, 
 is the uniformity with which it may be verified, upon 
 the largest scale of observation and comparison. 'Not 
 only may the same cause be seen to operate in a vast 
 aggregate of individual cases, but the actual and visi- 
 ble effects which it produces, are of a social, not to 
 say a national, description. That is to say, the move- 
 ments prompted by this potent and mysterious spring 
 in man's constitution, are not merely personal, or lim- 
 ited to small organic bodies, but the movements of 
 societies, communities, or nations, by a common im- 
 pulse, as if suddenly endowed with a rational and 
 moral individuality. 
 
 This is abundantly verified by histor}^, which ex- 
 hibits, when surveyed upon a large scale, nothing 
 more distinctly marked, or more impressive to the eje 
 of the intelligent observer, than those great migra- 
 tions, the unsettling and removal of whole races, which 
 have so often changed the whole condition of society, 
 and given complexion to all after times. The profane
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. 237 
 
 traditions of the old Tvorld are unanimous, amidst 
 their variations as to all things else, in showing ns the 
 surface of primeval history, however stagnant and 
 monotonous in general, as repeatedly broken and en- 
 livened by these earth slides and avalanches of mi- 
 gration — the abrupt, and, for the most part, unac- 
 countable removal of the vast living masses from 
 their original or immemorial homes to new ones. 
 
 The earliest history of Greece is nothing but a 
 complicated maze of such migrations ; and the same 
 thing may be said, in due proportion, of the infantile 
 reminiscences of every other ancient people. Even 
 the New World forms no exception to this general 
 statement. According to the Mexican traditions, the 
 old race which established the empire overthrown by 
 Cortez, had been wandering eight centuries before it 
 settled on that lofty table-land. With all allowance 
 for traditional corruption and exaggeration, there is, no 
 doubt, truth in these accounts, for several reasons, and 
 especially because they substantially agree with sacred 
 history, which sets before us, at a vevy early period, 
 the imposing sight of a great human current, setting 
 from the source of population, in the central valley of 
 South-w^estern Asia, and represents even God's pe- 
 culiar people, as passing through a series of remarka- 
 ble migrations. 
 
 To show the confirmation of the same thing, in the 
 history of later times, I need only allude to the repeated 
 inundations of the Roman empire by immense and over- 
 whelming floods of foreign population from some un- 
 known reservoir or fountain, following each other like 
 successive floods of lava, from repeated eruptions of
 
 238 SESM0N3. 
 
 Vesuvius or Etna, sweeping away existing institutions, 
 and almost obliterating every ancient landmark ; so 
 that Europe, as it now is, or as it lately was, derives 
 the most marked peculiarities of its condition, from 
 the presence and the power of these so-called Bar- 
 barians. 
 
 For these great movements of the human race, 
 historians have been puzzled to account. Ko one hy- 
 pothesis affords an adequate solution. That the 
 shifting masses have been started by the want of room, 
 or of subsistence, or by a definite desire of better set- 
 tlements, may serve to explain some cases, but admit 
 not of a general application, since, in many instances, 
 the current of migration has set out from spacious 
 regions, rich but thinly settled, to lands already over- 
 stocked, if not exhausted, so that one large popula- 
 tion must be destroyed, or at least displaced, to make 
 way for another ; while in many cases there appears 
 to have been no desire of settlement at all, but the 
 masses, once set in motion, have continued to move 
 on, until lost in the surrounding nations or destroyed 
 by collision with bodies harder than themselves. 
 
 This difficulty in explaining the phenomenon on 
 any ordinary principles of action, only makes it more 
 adapted to the end for which I cite it, as an illustra- 
 tion of the restlessness and feverish mobility which is 
 characteristic of the masses of mankind. That it has 
 not been destroyed by the spread of civilization or of 
 free institutions, we may satisfy ourselves by simply 
 looking round us — watching the movements — count- 
 ing the pulsations of the great body politic, of which 
 we form a part. Look at the symptoms of suscepti-
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. 239 
 
 bilitj in reference to the three great worldly interests 
 of health, wealth, and freedom. Observe the easy 
 faith, the persuasible docility of men in general with 
 respect to sovereign remedies for some or all diseases. 
 See how the popular credulity keeps pace with the 
 very extravagance of the pretensions, so that men 
 seem, by some strange inversion of the ordinary laws 
 of reasoning, to believe and be convinced in inverse 
 proportion to the evidence afforded. 
 
 Look again at the avidity with which new fields 
 of speculation, or new mines of wealth are seized upon 
 without a disposition to contest the most improbable 
 assertions, or rather with a perverse disposition to lay 
 hold of what is most improbable in preference to 
 what is less so, and to make a kind of merit of be- 
 lieving it, and proving the sincerity of the belief 
 by corresponding action, not unfrequently in\"olving 
 painful sacrifice of actual possession or of cheering 
 prospect for what may be a chimera, for what must 
 be an unsatisfying portion. All this is exemplified 
 among ourselves. 
 
 For a third example, we must look abroad at those 
 tumultuous excitements in the sea of nations, from 
 which we, through the divine mercy, dwell apart, as 
 having already realized the vision of which others 
 dream. Without detracting in the least from the 
 value of the object aimed at, the secure enjoyment of 
 civil and religious freedom, it is impossible to look at 
 these commotions from our post of observation without 
 seeing how the rational and right desire of liberty is 
 diluted on the one hand, or poisoned on the other, 
 with childish folly, with insane illusion, with corrupt
 
 240 SERMONS. 
 
 ambition, and, above all, witb an utterly irrational 
 credulity, a blind and superstitious faitb in the suf- 
 ficiency of theories and systems to heal wounds which 
 have been bleeding and discharging nearly six thou- 
 sand years, and an impious reliance upon men, and 
 not the best men, to effect what God has solemnly re- 
 served as an inalienable, incommunicable part of his 
 divine prerogative. 
 
 From all this it is easy to infer that we do no in- 
 justice to ourselves or others, when we represent it as 
 a characteristic feature of man's actual condition, that 
 he is predisposed to look with favour upon any spe- 
 cious project of amelioration that his bias, in relation 
 to such schemes, is rather to credulity than scepticism, 
 and that this propensity is not a matter of prudential 
 calculation, but proved to be as much an affection of 
 the heart as of the head, by the avidity with which 
 the inclinations constantly outrun the judgment, and 
 in some cases wholly supersede its action. 
 
 It would, however, be at variance with man's 
 nature as a rational being, if his reason were com- 
 pletely set at naught, or even held in abeyance, by 
 his sense of want, and his impatience to supply it. 
 While the restless character in question does undoubt- 
 edly arise from an instinctive consciousness of some- 
 thing needed to appease the cravings of unsatisfied 
 desire, and a vague belief in the reality of something 
 more desirable than any thing as yet attained, it 
 seems impossible that man, without a forfeiture of 
 that which raises him above the brutes, should system- 
 atically act in opposition to the dictates of his reason 
 and his better judgment, or perversely choose what
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3, 241 
 
 he cannot but see to be least entitled to liis choice. 
 Passion, and appetite, and strong delusion may ob- 
 scure his perceptions and impede the action of his 
 rational powers, but cannot utterly destroy them. 
 And accordingly we find that, in relation to these 
 very schemes and hopes of temporal advancement, 
 there is a vast expenditure of cunning and sagacity 
 in order to secure the advantage and to baffle compe- 
 tition. It might therefore be expected from analogy, 
 Ihat the influence exerted upon men by ofters to 
 ameliorate their actual condition would bear some 
 proportion to the greatness of the evils whicli they 
 actually suffer, to the fitness and eflicacy of the means 
 employed to bring about a change, and to the value 
 of the positive advantages bestowed or promised. 
 
 Seeing how credulous men are, how ready to be- 
 lieve and act on the authority of questionable ev- 
 idence, and under the control of interested guides, 
 provided there is any possibility of bettering their 
 condition after all, it might be supposed that this 
 facility of faith and action, this promptness to believe, 
 and this eagerness to act on the belief, would rise 
 with the clearness of the evidence afforded, and the 
 authority by which the movement has been sanctioned 
 or required. And, as the strongest case conceivable, 
 it might have been expected, with the highst antece- 
 dent probability, that if the prospect, opened to man- 
 kind or any portion of the race, was that of complete 
 deliverance from the worst of evils by the use of means 
 infallibly effective, and if they were summonei and 
 encouraged to the use of these by an authority alike 
 VOL. ir. — 11
 
 242 SERMONS. 
 
 incapable of error and deception: I say, in such a 
 case as I have just supposed, it might well have been 
 inferred from all analogy, that the restless disposition 
 of our race to better its condition, and the readiness 
 with which it is convinced that such amelioration is 
 attainable, would operate at once, -without restraint, 
 and with complete unqualified eifect in the produc- 
 tion of the change proposed. 
 
 With this antecedent probability let us now com- 
 pare the fact as attested by the most authentic ev- 
 idence. The key to history, both sacred and profane, 
 is furnished by the fact that, after man had fallen 
 through the influence of evil spirits, and God had de- 
 termined to restore him by the gift of his own Son and 
 Spirit, he foretold to our first jDarcnts, or rather in 
 their presence to the great seducer, that there was to 
 be a protracted contest between two antagonistic races, 
 called in the prophecy the seed of the serpent and the 
 seed of the woman ; a warfare full of fluctuations and 
 reverses, but ultimately tending to the triumph of the 
 cause of truth, and righteousness, and mercy. 
 
 Tliis prospective division of mankind into two 
 great parties gives complexion to all history, and may 
 be traced distinctly from the date of the prediction to 
 the end of time. The first visible triumph of the good 
 cause was reserved for the appearance of its champion 
 upon earth, when it was symbolized and really begun 
 by victories openly achieved over the adverse powers 
 of darkness. To prepare for his appearance, the ex- 
 plicit re^'elation of God's will was limited for ages to 
 a single race, and every thing in their condition was 
 so ordered as to excite, in the highest possible degi-ee,
 
 ISAIAH 53, 8. 243 
 
 the sense of want and tlie correlative desire of some- 
 thing to supply it. 
 
 As the time for the fulfilment of the promise drew 
 near, this restless expectation reached its height. From 
 the Jews it passed over to the Gentiles, where it seems 
 to have combined with a collateral tradition, reaching 
 back to the first periods of human history, and both 
 together generating in the palmiest days of Homan 
 domination, a pervading apprehension of some great 
 event or personage as near at hand : a state of feeling 
 attested both by Jewish and classical historians. This 
 general condition of the public mind throughout the 
 Roman empire, at the very acme of its greatness, and 
 the widest sweep of its victorious yet pacific sway, 
 was nothing more than an extraordinary and simul- 
 taneous exhibition of those same uneasy movements 
 of the mind and will which we have seen to be ex- 
 emplified, in more irregular and insulated forms, 
 throughout all nations and in every period of history. 
 It was the iiniate consciousness of want, and the ir- 
 repressible desire of something better and yet un- 
 possessed, subjected to new stimulants, and brought, 
 by providential means, to bear upon the great scheme 
 of human renovation and advancement which was 
 about to be unrolled by the hand of God himself. 
 
 This scheme possessed in the highest degree every 
 thing which we -have seen to be required as passports 
 to men's confidence. The evil which it undertook to 
 cure was the greatest in itself, and the cause of every 
 other ; the means such as only the Divine compassion 
 could have brought to bear upon the end proposed ; 
 and this end, far from being merely negative, or lim-
 
 244 SERMONS. 
 
 ited to freedom from existing evils, comprehended the 
 experience and possession of tlie highest good con- 
 ceivable, both natural and moral. Here then was a 
 ease in which that native impulse might have been 
 expected to have full scope and activity. 
 
 If left to conjecture, or to reason from analogy, 
 how natural and easy to imagine the eifect of this stu- 
 pendous revelation on the hearts and lives of the 
 expectant nations. As all eyes had, by some mys- 
 terious influence, been turned towards the spot where 
 the deliverer of mankind was to appear, and the great 
 men and wise men of the world, no less than the vast 
 mixed multitude around them, held their breath, half 
 in hope and half in dread of the event, it might have 
 been imagined that when He, the incarnate Son of 
 God, and yet the man of sorrows for our sake, rose 
 on the view of this vast amphitheatre of nations, not 
 as a gladiator in the arena of Vespasian's matchless 
 structure, for the amusement of the world, but for its 
 ransom, for its rescue from the greatest of all evils, 
 and indeed from all the evils that had stained or 
 crushed it since the first sin was committed — the won- 
 der, gratitude, and joy of the spectators would have 
 found vent, not in noisy acclamations, not in silent 
 and inactive tears, but in a mighty simultaneous rush 
 of nations towards the cross, and the gushing life- 
 spring which flowed from it — a unanimous, enthusias- 
 tic self-appropriation of this heaven-descended panacea 
 for all pains, this inexhaustible supply of all necessi- 
 ties, this talisman of entrance to eternal glory, com- 
 prehending in itself all the true, and superseding all 
 the false expedients for attaining the same end, by
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. '245 
 
 which, these very nations had again and again been 
 roused to frenzy, and excited as one man to energetic 
 but insane exertion. Yes, it might have been imag- 
 ined that the men who had been thus re -used by the 
 false, or partial and inadequate devices of philosophy, 
 philanthropy, or practical experience of j)lotting craft 
 or soaring ambition, would have fallen down in speech- 
 less adoration at the feet of Him, invested with divine 
 authority and power to do what men and angels had 
 essayed in vain. 
 
 With this imagination, natural and reasonable as 
 it would have been beforehand, let us now compare 
 the simple, unexaggerated fact as recorded in the text 
 by the prophetical historian, of a suffering Messiah, 
 " He was despised and rejected of men," This is no 
 hyperbole or oriental figure of speech, it is the literal 
 history of Christ's reception by the nations ; the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He was 
 despised and rejected. He for whom they had been 
 waiting with an eager curiosity, when he came was 
 despised and rejected by the very people who had 
 hung with idiotic faith upon the lips of augurs, py- 
 thonesses, magi, and false prophets. Even by the 
 Jews themselves, who had existed as a nation to pre- 
 pare for his appearance, he was despised and rejected, 
 i. e. by the masses of the people ; while among the 
 Gentiles, with the exception of the chosen few who 
 joined with the elect Jews to compose the Christian 
 church, the exciting anticipation of his coming was 
 exchanged for bitter spite, or frivolous contempt, or 
 stupid indifference, and they who were too wise and 
 too refined to believe the record God had given of his
 
 246 SERMONS. 
 
 Son, -went back to their oracles, and fanes, and mjfr 
 teries, to the filthy rites of Venus and the bloody rites 
 of Moloch " as the dog returns to his own vomit, and 
 the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the 
 mire." 
 
 These expressions may be strong, but the reality 
 is stronger, and the utmost license in the use of lan- 
 guage would fall short of the loathsome folly and in- 
 gratitude of this reception given to God's highest, best, 
 and most invaluable gift. Isor was it a mere tem- 
 j)orary fit of madness, an ephemeral delirium. It has 
 lasted ever since without so much as a lucid interval 
 in the case of the great masses of mankind. And 
 never has this scornful rejection of an offered Saviour 
 been more odious in its spite, or more pitiable in its 
 senselessness, than at the times, and in the places, 
 and among the men, where the natural credulity, of 
 which I have been speaking, and the practical do- 
 cility which is its fruit, were most conspicuously man- 
 ifest. 
 
 These darkened glimpses of a distant past may 
 prepare our eyes for the intenser and less grateful light 
 of times and places nearer to ourselves. Why should 
 we talk of the old Romans and the Jews, of the Cru- 
 saders and the medieval generations, when we have 
 only to look out of our windows to behold precisely 
 the same spectacle, the same susceptibility of strong 
 impressions, the same lively hoi)e3 and fears, the same 
 credulity or easy faith, disposing to believe the most 
 extravagant inventions, if embellished with a promise 
 of long life, or boundless wealth, or unstinted fi'ee- 
 dom ; the same restless inquiry after some new bait
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. 24:7 
 
 to this insatiable apj etite ; the same precipitation in 
 obeying any call to fresh indulgence, without stopping 
 to compute the chances or to count the cost ; the Same 
 compassionate Redeemer knocking at the door of 
 men's hearts, as a man of sorrows, bruised for their 
 iniquities, entreating, as it were, for leave to save 
 them, and the same contemptuous repulse. As this 
 M'as, in prophecy, a constituted token of the true 
 Messiah, so has it been in history, and still is, the in- 
 variable character of Christ's reception by the world, 
 by the nations, by the masses of mankind. The of- 
 fence of the cross has not ceased. " He is despised 
 and rejected of men." 
 
 This would be bad enough and strange enough, 
 even if it were in perfect keeping with the character 
 and conduct of mankind in general. Even if men 
 were naturally unsusceptible of strong excitement in 
 relation to the future, even if it were hard to rouse 
 tlieir hopes and fears, or to render them available as 
 means of practical control ; if they were not easily im- 
 posed upon by falsehood or exaggeration, or disposed 
 to act without sufficient evidence or warrant, it would 
 still be an unspeakable infatuation to refuse to believe 
 or act on God's authority. They might be inaccessible 
 to dreams of wealth, and independence, and longevity, 
 and yet be chargeable with madness in rejecting ever- 
 lasting life. But how shall we find words for the de- 
 scription of this madness when tlie ordinary conduct 
 of mankind is all the other way ; when they are cred- 
 ulous, and tractable, and eagerly precipitate in every 
 thing that promises to better their condition in the 
 present life, and only sceptical, and self-willed, and
 
 248 SERMONS. 
 
 refractory, when it is God who calls, and Christ who 
 pleads, and everlasting life or death that is at stake ! 
 This astonishing exception to the general rule of 
 human character and conduct seems to call for ex- 
 planation, and the Bible gives it. The secret of this 
 startling inconsistency lies in the simjple but humiliat- 
 ing fact, that men are most insensible precisely to the 
 greatest evils and the greatest good. This is a part of 
 their hereditary curse. " Madness is in their heart 
 while they live, and after that they go to the dead," 
 to be forever undeceived. One decisive symptom 
 of this madness is, that it regards eternity as less than 
 time, the soul as inferior to the body, God as less en 
 titled to belief than man, an hour of animal indul- 
 gence more attractive than all heaven, a year of 
 bodily privation or endurance more terrific than the 
 gnawings of a guilty conscience, and the fire of divine 
 wrath in the hottest hell forever. I am speaking now 
 of those who do not pretend to doubt the truth of 
 Christianity or to dispute the authority of God, but 
 who nevertlieless act in direct opposition to their own 
 avowed convictions. With such delusions, why at- 
 tempt to reason ? " Madness is in their heart while 
 they live, and after that they go to the dead." 
 
 This view of the delusion, under which the whole 
 race naturally labours, casts a melancholy light upon 
 the actual condition of the world, and more especially 
 on those great national convulsions which are contin- 
 ually reaching even these ends of the earth with the 
 prolonged reverberation of their noise, and the sym- 
 pathetic shock of their concussions. However highly 
 we may estimate the prize for which the nations are
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. 249 
 
 contending, liow should we be aifected by the thoiiglit 
 that after all, these struggling masses are unconscious 
 of their greatest dangers, and unsuspicious of their 
 deepest degradation. To us the fearful events that 
 are now passing, seen by a dim light at so vast a dis- 
 tance, are like some great nocturnal conflagration, or 
 some scene of shipwreck; and to one who takes the 
 view which I have just presented, most of the actors 
 in this fearful drama must appear like men enveloped 
 in the flames, or sinking in the waves within reach of 
 the only means of possible escape, yet unaware of it, 
 or in their blindness and confusion disregarding it ; 
 catching, with desperate eagerness, at this or that ex- 
 pedient, only to relinquish it anon or to perish in re- 
 liance on it, when a single step, a motion of the hands, 
 a turning of the body, nay a look or a word of admo- 
 nition from another, might ensure their safety. 
 
 He who could gaze on such a scene in real life 
 without a sickening of the heart, must be witliout one 
 altogether. And a kindred feeling may be naturally 
 stirred by the sublime but awful spectacle of burning 
 empires and of shipwrecked nations. As in the case 
 supposed, however distant or however feeble, the 
 humane spectator would experience an involuntary 
 impulse to do something, to hasten towards the scene 
 of death, to shout or cry aloud in warning ; so the 
 man who looks upon contemporary changes in the 
 light of truth and of eternity, may feel an irrepres- 
 Bible yearning to extend a helping hand, or raise a 
 helping voice to those great masses now in violent com- 
 motion, and too soon pcrliaps to be baptized in blood, 
 to warn them that there is a worse oppression than the 
 
 vol, II. — 11*
 
 250 SERMONS. 
 
 one beneath which they are chafing, and a nobler 
 freedom than the one in which they are rejoicing, tc 
 divert their eyes and their idolatrous affections from 
 the objects of their overweening trust — the men whom 
 they worship as their national deliverers — to One who 
 is a Saviour indeed, a deliverer both of men and na- 
 tions, but whom, in common with their enemies and 
 tyrants, they are still rejecting. 
 
 To a mind susceptible of such impressions, and 
 capable of large and lofty views of human interests, 
 as well as open to the calls of suffering humanity, the 
 question may perhaps present itself as one of individ- 
 ual duty. What can Z do ? what shall / do for the 
 remedy of this great evil ? I will answer the question, 
 if it comes from one who is himself a voluntary sub- 
 ject of Christ's kingdom. I say, follow your leader 
 into the thickest of the fight, into the hottest of the 
 fire, into the heart of the deep sea if need be ; do what 
 you can to let his name be heard and his victorious 
 banner seen on every bloody field, on every wreck- 
 strewed sea or shore. But if, alas, you are yourself an 
 alien from the very Christ whom you would preach 
 to others, then my answer is, remember that the ocean 
 is made up of drops, and all societies of rational, re- 
 sponsible, personal agents. If every man among the 
 masses now in motion on the surface of society, like 
 conflicting icebergs in the arctic sea, were personally 
 loyal and devoted to the Saviour, the entire mass 
 could not despise or reject him. If the greater 
 portion were thus faithful, the controlling influence 
 in nations and communities must be a good one. 
 Let us not then be so far absorbed in the condition
 
 ISAIAH 53, 3. 251 
 
 of the mass as to lose siglit of its constituent ele- 
 ments. 
 
 For a moment at least, insulate yourself from the 
 surrounding mass in which you are, perhaps, too 
 much disposed to lose sight of your individuality, and 
 let me put a parting question, to be answered, not to 
 me, not to any fellow-man, but to your conscience and 
 your God. "He was despised and rejected of men." 
 Of these men you are one by nature ; are you still 
 one in the heat of your affections and the conduct of 
 your life ? Are you still one of those by whom the 
 offer of salvation is rejected ? Do you still refuse or 
 delay to trust him, and to give yourself away to him? 
 Ah, then ! I beseech you, think no longer of the na- 
 tions or the masses who reject him. Waste not your 
 pity on mankind in general, but reserve it for that 
 one deluded heart, which in the midst of all this light 
 and all this mercy, still despises and rejects the Sa- 
 viour. While you thus bar the door "of your own 
 heart against him, shed not the tear of sentimental 
 sorrow over his exclusion from the hearts of others, 
 lest he turn and — pointing to that untried future which 
 is still before you — say to you as he said to the women 
 who lamented him, when on his way from Gabbatha 
 to Golgotha, from the judgment seat of Pilate to the 
 place of crucifixion, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep 
 not for me, but for yourselves and for your children."
 
 XIV. 
 
 Hebuews 11, 10. — He looked for a city which hath foundations, 
 whose builder and maker is God. 
 
 These words refer to the Patriarcli Abraham, one 
 of the most extraordinary characters of any age- 
 Without going into his biography at large, let me 
 call yonr attention to two circumstances, which espe- 
 cially distinguished this great man from others. In 
 the first place, he was the Friend of God. I mean 
 not merely that his history entitles him to this hon- 
 ourable appellation ; not merely that God treated him 
 and looked upon him as his friend ; but that he is ex- 
 pressly called the Friend of God in Scripture. By the 
 mouth of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said to Israel : 
 " Thou art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, 
 the seed of Abraham my friend." 
 
 And why was he thus honoured ? "Was not Abra- 
 ham a child of wrath even as others ? Yes. He could 
 not therefore be entitled meritoriously to the distinc- 
 tion which this name implies. No, he himself well 
 Vnew that it was not for any merit of his own, that 
 .>e was allowed to be the Friend of God. On the con- 
 -f ary, it was by renouncing all dependence on himself 
 bhat he acquired this honour. Faith was his grand
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 253 
 
 distinction ; simple reliance on the word of God ; be- 
 lief in his promises, and acquiescence in his method 
 of salvation. It was thus that Abraham became the 
 friend of God. But was not this a meritorious faith ? 
 Did not this very self-renunciation and reliance upon 
 God entitle Abraham to claim his favour ? It would 
 have done so, but for this simple reason, that his faith 
 was the gift of God, and that the same glorious Being 
 who rewarded him, bestowed upon him that which 
 was rewarded. AVhere is boasting then? It is ex- 
 cluded. By what law ? The law of works ? Nay, 
 but by the law of faith. It was faith, my brethren, 
 faith that rendered Abraham p^-e-eminently great, so 
 great as to be called the Friend of God, and the 
 Father of the Faithful. 
 
 This is the second honourable title which I pro- 
 pose to mention. Abraham, the Friend of God, was 
 also the Father of the Faithful. Not, as the Jews 
 supposed, the Father of their nation merely. This 
 mistaken notion made them cry out in reply to our 
 Lord's severe reproofs, " We have Abraham to our 
 father." And what was his answer ? " God is able even 
 of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." 
 Tliat is to say, though all Israel should fail, Abraham 
 n)idit still have a numerous spiritual seed ; and God 
 can give him such even from the most unexpected 
 quarters, the most unpromising materials. "While the 
 unbelieving natural descendants of Abraham are cast 
 out, the degraded heathen can be put into their place 
 by the power and grace of God. He is able, even of 
 these stones, to raise up children unto Abraham. It 
 was not of Jews then, but of true believers, that Abra-
 
 254 SERMONS. 
 
 ham was tlie spiritual Father ; the Father of the 
 Faithful. 
 
 He was their father, first, as being their exemplar. 
 He is held up as a model of strong faith to all believers, 
 and thej who follow the example of his faith, are in 
 that respect his children. In this sense he is the Fath- 
 er of the Faithful. But he is also the Father of the 
 Faithful, because the promise made to him embraced 
 all believers who came after him. The condition of this 
 promise was not obedience to the law, but faith in the 
 gratuitous mercy of God, and in the atoning sacrifice 
 of Christ. And this was the condition, not to Abra- 
 ham only, but to his spiritual seed, i. e., to all who 
 should believe as he believed. " For the promise that 
 he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abra- 
 ham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the 
 righteousness of faith." As one of the contracting 
 parties in this gracious covenant, or rather as the 
 representative of those to whom these promises were 
 given, Abraham was the Father of the Faithful. 
 
 Passing over all his othdr claims to high distinc- 
 tion your memory will readily suggest, I desire you 
 to fix your eyes on these two titles of nobility be- 
 stowed upon Abraham in the word of God, and meas- 
 uring his rank by these, to take into consideration a 
 remarkable fact in his history to which I now invite 
 your attention. This fact is, that Abraham, the 
 Friend of God and the Father of the Faithful, was a 
 homeless man, a wanderer, who sojourned in the land 
 of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents 
 like an Arab or a Tartar. This feet, though not inex- 
 plicable, is so far singular as to deserve our particu 
 lar attention
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 255 
 
 Wh}'-, then, was Abraliam a wanderer, a homeless 
 man, a sojourner in the land of promise ? I remark 
 (1) that it was not on account of poverty. In the 
 East, indeed, the wandering mode of life is not in 
 any case a sign of poverty. Powerful chieftains and 
 whole tribes of warriors lead such a life from choice, 
 or because it is necessary for the subsistence of their 
 flocks and herds. But even if it were in general a 
 criterion of poverty, it could not be so in this case. 
 Abraham was rich — rich by inheritance — rich by 
 acquisition — rich by the blessing of God on the in- 
 crease of his possessions — and rich through the favour 
 of the kings and chiefs whose friendship he enjoyed. 
 His history is that of one who lived in ease and 
 affluence, practising the characteristic hospitality of 
 an eastern chief. 
 
 2. Was it then because he had no real estate, no 
 landed property, to which he could lay claim, and on 
 which he might reside ? The whole land of Canaan 
 was in one sense his own. It was his by express 
 grant from Jehovah — made sure to him and to his 
 heirs forever. It is true that when he needed a pos- 
 session of a burial-place he bought it with his money 
 of the children of Ileth. But this was a part of that 
 same course of self-denial and forbearance which 
 is now in question. The same motive that made him 
 a sojourner and wanderer, led him to loi ego his riglits 
 as the legitimate owner of the soil, and the question 
 still arises what these motives were. 
 
 3. We read that when Abraham first crossed the 
 Jordan from the east, " the Canaanite was in the 
 land." The Ilivite, the Ilittite, the Jebusite, the
 
 256 SERMONS. 
 
 Amorite, and other sons of Canaan, had possession of 
 the country. And so thickly were they settled, in 
 the central part at least, that there was not room for 
 Abraham and Lot to live together. May it not be, 
 therefore, that these actual possessors of the country 
 would not suffer him to dwell among them? Had 
 they known his pretensions, or, to speak more prop- 
 erly, his rights, they might have hated him and driven 
 him away. But as he made no efforts to enforce those 
 rights, nor even to assert them ; and as he came 
 among them from the east with flocks and herds, and 
 as an independent chieftain, they received him with 
 respect, and this respect increased. 
 
 It is, indeed, an interesting feature in the history 
 of Abraham's expatriation, that in Egypt, in Philistia, 
 and in Canaan, he was treated by the natives, not 
 only as a man respectable for wealth and power, but 
 as a Prince, a "Prince of God," and as a Prophet, one 
 who held immediate intercourse with God, and was 
 an interpreter of the divine will. In these characters 
 he was known and reverenced by the heathen who 
 surrounded him ; and except in th.e case of the attack 
 on Sodom and Gomorrah by the " confederated kings," 
 all his relations with the Canaanites were amicable. 
 And in the only case wdiere he applied for land, it 
 was granted by the Ilittites in a manner most cour- 
 teous and cordial. It was not, therefore, on account 
 of any enmity between him and the Canaanites, that, 
 instead of founding or accepting a great city, he pre- 
 ferred to live a wandering and what we would call a 
 homeless life. There must be other reasons for his 
 course.
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 257 
 
 4. Since then it was neither poverty, nor the want 
 of land, nor opposition on the part of its possessors, 
 that deterred him from inliabiting a city, or, at least, 
 from leading a more settled life, it may be suggested, 
 that his perseverance in a wandering course, shows 
 him to have been a mere barbarian, one who was 
 unable to appreciate the comforts of a settled life, or 
 rather, who had never had experience of them. Thus 
 we find that in Arabia tiiere are tribes of Bedouins 
 wlio regard their wandering life as tlie most honoura- 
 ble possible, and laugh to scorn those pleasures and 
 advantages of civilized society about which they know 
 nothing by experience. But let it be observed that 
 these. tribes inhabit the Arabian desert, where culti- 
 vation exists only in detached spots, and where the 
 herdsman is obliged to change his pasture-ground and 
 home continually. 
 
 Abraham, on the other hand, was in a fertile, cul- 
 tivated, thickly settled country, full of proud cities, 
 walled towns of inferior size, and villages iimumera- 
 ble. There is strong reason to believe tliat the Ca- 
 naanites who were then in the land, had reached a 
 pretty high degree of civilization. Scanty as our in- 
 formation is about them, there are incidental indica- 
 tions of improvement which are not to be mistaken. 
 But even supposing that they were barbarians, it 
 does not follow that Abraham was also one. Coming 
 as he did from that part of the globe which seems to 
 have been first settled after the flood — from a coun- 
 try, which in later times, claimed, and was allowed 
 to be, the cradle of knowledge by the heathen world, 
 .it is not to be supposed that he was a barbarian. The
 
 258 SERMONS. 
 
 mere possession of the true religion, wonld have had, 
 in this as well as other cases, a refining influence. 
 No, he was no barbarian. It was not because he 
 knew no better that he chose to sojourn as a stranger 
 in the land of promise — to dwell in tents instead of 
 houses — and to govern an encampment, not a city or 
 a kingdom. 
 
 5. AVas it then because he thought it wrong to lead 
 a settled life in towns and cities, that he dwelt in 
 tents ? There is no trace of such a doctrine in the 
 word of God, and Abraham was too well grounded in 
 the divine will, to hold it as a superstition. He was 
 no ascetic. His mode of life, as I have said alread}'-, 
 was a generous one, without fanatical antipathies — 
 without the practice of monastic austerities or the 
 will-worship of self-inflicted mortifications. It w^as 
 not because he looked upon a settled life and civiliza- 
 tion as sinful, that he was willing to relinquish them. 
 What then was his motive ? 
 
 6. To some the thought may here occur, that we 
 are searching for the explanation of a fact which 
 needs none. Why should Abraham's wandering be 
 considered stranger than tlie wandering of any other 
 eastern Chief? And as those of the highest rank lead 
 such a life to this day, it need not be regarded as be- 
 low the dignity even of the Father of the Faithful and 
 the Friend of God. He came into the country with 
 his flocks and herds ; and as the land was densely 
 peopled, he was under the necessity of frequently 
 changing his encampment and his pasture. This 
 would be wholly satisfactory, but for the Apostle's 
 mention of the patriarch's unsettled Hfe, as a re-
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 259 
 
 raarkable evidence of faith. If it arose merely from 
 the nature of his ^^roperty, and in fact contributed to 
 his convenience and increase in wealth, it would 
 hardly have been said of him, that " by faith he so- 
 journed in the land of promise as in a strange country, 
 dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of 
 him of the same promise." We are, therefore, forced 
 to the conclusion that his motive for pursuing such a 
 course, was very different from that which leads the 
 ordinary herdsmen of the east to shift from place to 
 place, and to live and die beneath a roof of camel's 
 hair or goatskins. 
 
 7. Having thus determined negatively, that it was 
 neither poverty, nor want of title to the land, nor op- 
 position on the part of the inhabitants, nor ignorance, 
 nor mere ascetic self-denial, nor a regard to temporal 
 convenience that induced him to reside in tents, 
 rather than in a palace and a city worthy of so great 
 a prince, we are ready to receive the explanation of 
 the text, which is this, " he looked" or was looking 
 " for a city." There is an ambiguity in the English 
 version which is not in the original. " To look for," 
 in modern English, means to search for or to seek. 
 In the English of our Bible, where the phrase is not 
 uncommon, it means simply to expect. The sense 
 then, is not that Abraham was wandering in search 
 of a city npon earth, but that he lived in quiet ex- 
 pectation of a city. " If we hope for that we see not, 
 then do we with patience wait for it." It was this 
 "patience of hope" that rendered Abraham indif- 
 ferent to the walled cities of the Canaanites around 
 him, whose antiquity was of ancient days, and whose
 
 260 SERMONS. 
 
 defence was the munition of rocks. IsTotliing bo 
 effectually breeds indifference to present objects, as 
 the hope of better things to come. The ti-aveller press- 
 ing homewards after a long absence, can pass, with a 
 contemptuous smile, or absolute unconsciousness, 
 those very objects which the homeless traveller dwells 
 upon with rapture. As the venerable patriarch jour- 
 neyed from Dan to Beersheba, passing among the 
 cities and domains of the Canaanites, we may imagine 
 that we saw him looking ever and anon beyond these 
 objects to one more remote, and losing sight of Kir- 
 iath-Arba and Jebus, since called Hebron and 
 Jerusalem, with their tall towers and heaven-scaling 
 Avails, amidst the loftier battlements and turrets of 
 that real yet ideal city, towards which he was jour- 
 neying. " He looked for a city." 
 
 8. And what sort of a city did he look for, in con- 
 tempt of those around him ? How did the city of his 
 expectations differ from the cities of the Canaanites 
 and the Philistines, from old Damascus, and from Ur 
 of the Chaldees? It had foundations. "He looked 
 for a city which hath foundations." And had not 
 they foundations ? In one sense, they had none. They 
 were liable to change. In the same sense, Abraham's 
 city, which he looked for, had foundations, has them 
 now ; for observe the present form of the expression. 
 It was a city, therefore, not of this world ; for in this 
 world there are no foundations time-proof. And 
 whence had the city of his hopes these Urm founda- 
 tions ? From the Architect. 
 
 9. Whose builder and maker is God? God does 
 not build like man. The foundations of his structures
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. ■ 261 
 
 are laid deep in his decrees, and the cement has been 
 growing hard from all eternity. His power over the 
 materials he uses, is not merely the disposing power 
 of a builder, but the absolute power of a maker. "What 
 he builds he creates. The city of which he is the 
 maker and builder, is eternal : it has foundations 
 which decay can never weaken, and which laugh at 
 the violence of storm and earthquake. Abraham 
 lived in expectation of a city which wae not of this 
 world. It was what we call heaven, in the highest 
 sense, the residence prepared by God for his true fol- 
 lowers after death — a faithful city in -which dwelleth 
 righteousness, the new Jerusalem which John beheld 
 in vision. It is a city which has no need of the 
 sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory 
 of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. 
 And who are its inhabitants ? " The nations of 
 them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, 
 and the kings of the earth bring their glory and 
 honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut 
 at all by day ; for there shall be no night there. And 
 they shall bring the glory and the honour of the na- 
 tions into it." And are none to be excluded ? Ah, 
 yes ! "There shall in no wise enter into it any thing 
 that defilcth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination 
 or maketh a lie : but they which are written in the 
 Lamb's book of life." And no names are found there 
 but the names of those who wash their robes and 
 make them white in the blood of the Lamb. This is 
 the grand distinction of the city for which Abraham 
 looked. It is a city free from sin. In this it diflers 
 from all earthly cities. It is hard to conceive of one
 
 262 ' SERMONS. 
 
 of our great cities without the associated images of 
 filth, riot, drunkenness, debauchery, and wretched- 
 ness. But if we ever reach the city of Abraham, and 
 rest upon his bosom at its sumptuous feasts, we shall 
 know how to separate these hateful concomitants from 
 our conceptions of a city. 
 
 And why is it called a city? Because with a city 
 we associate ideas of substantial strength, inimense 
 wealth, regular government, social intercourse, refine- 
 ment of manners, and external splendour. But what 
 are all these, in the cities of the earth, to the surpass- 
 ing glories of that city for which Abraham looked, 
 and where the saints shall be enthroned as kings and 
 priests unto God ? Iso wonder, then, that Abraham, 
 forgetting things around him, looked for a city which 
 hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 
 
 10. Here, then, we begin to see a marked resem- 
 blance between his case and our own. However for- 
 eign and remote from our experience, what has liith- 
 erto been said of his condition, at last we are alike, 
 we ai*e all sojourners and strangers upon earth, we 
 seek the same city as the Patriarch. However well 
 we may be pleased with it, however fully satisfied 
 with what it can afford, we know that our abode in it 
 is onlj'- for a time : it is not the place of our rest. 
 And of this we are receiving constant admonitions. 
 If man's relations to his fellow-man remained unal- 
 tered during the present life, he might be tempted to 
 believe that this was his final resting-place. But 
 Providence has left no room for such an illusion. The 
 cords that bind us to the world are breaking one after 
 another, and the very ground on which we stand seems
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 263 
 
 to slide away from under us ; so tliat, in middle life 
 and old age, we appear to tread no longer the green 
 and smiling earth we trod in childhood. We have 
 within us also abundant indications that we are mere 
 sojourners. The sense of a hereafter, the instinctive 
 stretching of the thoughts towards it, teach us the 
 same lesson ; while the voice of conscience sometimes 
 shrieks, and sometimes Avhispers, Arise and depart 
 hence : this is not your rest. You may, perhaps, have 
 heaped up wealth, and used various methods, in order 
 to persuade yourself that you are here at home, and 
 you may be ready to exclaim. What, am I a mere so- 
 journer, surrounded as I am by all this permanent 
 prosperity? You are like a man u2)on a journey 
 homeward, who should tarry at a wayside inn, and 
 expend his time and money in furnishing and decking 
 his temporary lodghigs. And do you not at times 
 feel yourself that it is so ? Have 3'ou not often an un- 
 easy sense of present insecurity and approaching 
 change ? And is not this sufficient to obscure the 
 brightness of your precious metals, and to impair the 
 verdure of your jjleasant fields? And you, O men of 
 pleasure, have not you the same experience ? In the 
 midst of your exciting and degrading pastimes, have 
 you not paroxysms of alarm and restlessness ? Amidst 
 your voluntary madness, liave you not your lucid in- 
 tervals, in which you feel you are mere sojourners in 
 a foreign country ? All feel it ; all know, though all 
 will not allow themselves to act as if they knew that 
 they are not at home, and that a journey is before 
 them. 
 
 11. Now, this feeling of uneasiness, this sense of
 
 264 SEKMONS. 
 
 homelessness, is, as jou well know, incompatible with 
 happiness. In order to be happy, you must have a 
 home, either present or in prospect. Have yon such 
 a home ? Remember that earthly homes, in reference 
 to eternity, are nothing worth. Look at the house- 
 holds breaking up around you, and say whether these 
 can be your solace and your stay forever. "What will 
 you do then ? Will you waste yourselves in misan- 
 thropic discontent? No! do as Abraham did: look 
 forward to the city which hath foundations, whose 
 builder and maker is God. The more unsatisfactory 
 you find this world, look the more eagerly and stead- 
 fastly on that which is to come. Are you jnst begin- 
 ning life, and have you, as yet, experienced no vicis- 
 situdes ? Oh, then, be wise beforehand. Do not wait 
 till your heart is sickened and your temper soured by 
 disappointment. But now, when your feelings are 
 elastic, and your alFections ardent, even now, look for 
 a city which hath foundations, whose builder and. 
 maker is God. 
 
 If, on the other hand, experience has taught you 
 the treacherous hollowness of sinful pleasures, and 
 yonr heart is almost breaking with defeated hopes, 
 unsatisfied desires, and a sense of want, then have you 
 the less excuse for looking any longer at those objects 
 which you have already proved and found unsatisfac- 
 tory. Oh, begin at last to look away from this world, 
 with its cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces — 
 look away from the baseless fabric of a vision, to a 
 city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker 
 is God. 
 
 12. But here let us guard against a fatal error — •
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 265 
 
 the error of imagining that mere expectation is alone 
 required. Believe me, multitudes have looked for 
 that city who have never reached it. There is but 
 one path to it through the wilderness of life, and that 
 path is a narrow one. It was by that path that the 
 Father of the Faithful gained the object of his faitli 
 and hope. If you would gain it likewise, you must 
 walk in the footsteps of the Friend of God. Do you 
 ask what path he travelled ? I reply, the path of 
 humble, childlike faith. We know from the life 
 of Christ himself, that Abraham desired to see his 
 day, and saw it, and was glad. It was fiiith in 
 God's mercy, and that was counted to him for right- 
 eousness. It was a firm belief that God would set 
 forth a propitiation for the sins of men, and a hearty 
 acceptance of the pardon thus provided for himself. 
 
 These are the footsteps of the Father of the Faith- 
 ful. If then you are merely looking forward to the 
 happiness of heaven, without knowing or caring how 
 it is to be obtained, learn from the example of Abra- 
 ham, that you must renounce all sin and self reliance, 
 and believe in Jesus Christ for the salvation of your 
 souls, if you would look, with any well-grounded hope, 
 for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and 
 maker is God. 
 
 13. And now let me turn to you who have your 
 faces turned to Zion, and arc already looking for that 
 city to which Abraham aspired, and where he reigns 
 n glory. It is said that when the caravan of pilgrims 
 to the sepulchre of Christ cross the mountains of 
 Judea, worn with hunger and fatigue, they are some- 
 times ready to relax their efforts and .lespair of safe 
 
 VOL. 11. — 12
 
 266 SERMONS. 
 
 arriA'al. They may even repent of their own folly in 
 attempting so adventui-ous a journey, and wish them- 
 selves in safety at their own distant firesides. But 
 these thoughts all vanish when the summit is attained, 
 and from the mountain's brow, they catch a glimpse 
 of Olivet and Zion, and the Forsaken Citj- seated in 
 her widow's weeds upon her throne of hills. That 
 sight ]-eani mates their courage and renews their 
 strength. With simultaneous energy they rise and 
 hasten onward, and the roughness of the journey is 
 forgotten in the presence of Jerusalem. Oh, bretli- 
 ren, we are also strangers and pilgrims, and our way 
 through the world may be precipitous and rugged, 
 and so long as we look only at the things around us, 
 our hearts may well grow faint and our knees feeble. 
 But amidst these trials and discouragements, look up- 
 ward to the heavenly hills, and through the dust and 
 smoke of this world's troubles, keep the Eternal City 
 steadfastly in view. That sight will make your hearts 
 beat with new vigor. It will nerve your arm for bat- 
 tle and your bosom for resistance. It will enable you 
 to look down with contempt upon the pleasures and 
 temptations of the world ; it will preserve jon from 
 illusions, painful even to the Christian, and ah ! how 
 often fatal to the unbeliever. With such illusions, 
 we may rest assured the world, the church, the ex- 
 perience and the souls of men are ever teeming. 
 
 Upon one or two such, I may dwell for a moment 
 in conclusion. If the scenes which I describe are but 
 ideal, they may serve, at least, as types of a most 
 solemn realit}'". Let us imagine that we see one stand- 
 ing, even now, upon an eminence, a rising ground 
 
 I
 
 HEBREWS n, 10. 267 
 
 ill life, and looking forwards. lie sees nothing bnt 
 green lields and waving forests — all is fresh and all 
 is srailino; — an nnrutfled stream of pleasure rolls 
 through his imaginary landscape, and the distinctions 
 which he hopes for, rise like mountains in the dis- 
 tance. Upon these delightful and inspiring objects 
 his eye rests ajid feeds. He has no desire to look be- 
 yond them. At times, indeed, he may catch a mo- 
 mentary glimpse of something bright, and towering 
 above the highest of the heights before him. Some- 
 times, when the sun breaks out with sudden splendour 
 from behind a cloud, it seems to be reflected, for an 
 instant, from a thousand glittering points; as though 
 there were a city in the sky. But in a moment it is gone, 
 and he forgets it, or congratulates himself that he is 
 no enthusiast, to give up the real and substantial 
 splendours of the scene before him in exchange for 
 cloud-built palaces and castles in the air. 
 
 This proud reflection brings him back, with new 
 complacency, to the Elysian fields which lie before 
 him, and he drinks in with new pleasure the delight- 
 ful sights and sounds presented to his senses. Xo 
 wonder then that he refuses to listen, or listens only 
 with incredulous contempt, to the fanatic who would 
 tell him that this fairy prospect is a cheat, a mere 
 illusion — that its colours fade and its music ceases, 
 on a near approach, and that the city in the clouds, 
 which he supposed he saw, is not only real, but the 
 only refuge from approaching dangers. He turns 
 with pity or disgust from such forebodings, and then 
 passes on, until he stands upon the verge of the 
 eminence from which he has been gazing. He looks
 
 268 SERMONS. 
 
 down into tlie valley, and beholds with fresh delight, 
 its verdure and its fruits — its sunshine and its shade. 
 He envies the retirement of its peaceful hamlets, and 
 listens with awe. to the distant murmur of its populous 
 cities. All seems delightful — all substantial — and 
 above all, near at hand. 
 
 Enchanted with the prospect, he contemplatively 
 lifts his eyes to yonder dim horizon, as if to satisfy 
 himself that there is nothing there to lure him on- 
 ward. And nothing does he see but fleecy clouds, or 
 " the body of tlie heavens in its clearness." Or if he 
 does for an instant see again that strange unearthly 
 gleam, and catch a faint sound like the dying swell 
 of distant music, the flash is transient, and the sound 
 no sooner heard than it is hushed. He pauses for a 
 moment at the point where the upward and the doAvn- 
 ward paths diverge ; he looks up the narrow winding 
 way into the mountains, and then plunges into that 
 which leads him gently down through groves and 
 gardens into the deep valley. Once and again he 
 may stand still to listen as a voice of warning comes 
 again upon his ear. But his election has been made. 
 He passes downward and still downward, guided by 
 the hum of distant voices, and the gentle rush of water 
 far below. He observes with surprise that as he 
 passes on, the distant prospect still seems bright and 
 beautiful, but objects near at hand have no such 
 charms. However far he journeys, the green fields 
 are still as far oif as at first ; the fields around him 
 appear parched and barren. Flowers are in the dis- 
 tance, but at hand are thorns and briers. Gardens 
 like that of the Hesperides are yonder, but here a
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 260 
 
 garden like tliat of the sluggard, ful of weeds and un- 
 enclosed, lie begins to imagine that all nature droops 
 and fades at his approach. The grass seems to wither 
 where his footsteps fall ; his breath seems to poison 
 vegetation and the atmosphere, Tlie healthful airs of 
 heaven become hot winds of the desert when they 
 touch his cheek ; and the glassy streams which were 
 to slake his thirst dry up as he bends over them, and 
 leave a putrid slime in their forsaken channels. The 
 birds whose song allured him, become owls or vul- 
 tures, or drop lifeless from the branches. Hamlets 
 and cities turn to rocks and sandhills ; and the shadow- 
 ing trees, now leafless, leave his head exposed to 
 sorching rays from an unclouded sun. As he looks 
 up to tell him how he hates his beams, his torment is 
 enhanced by another passing glimpse of that myste- 
 rious city in the clouds above the mountain tops, and 
 another dying echo of its music. In despairing spite 
 he stops his ears and hastens onwards, and the heat 
 soon grows more tolerable, for the sun is hidden and 
 the sky is overcast. Winds begin to howl and whis- 
 tle ; thunders mutter angrily, and a thousand echoes 
 from the hills around proclaim the coming tempest. 
 The very earth beneath him quakes, and the illusions 
 of the fairy landscape cease, and cease for ever. All, 
 all is desolate, not even a shelter from the drivmg rain. 
 The traveller looks desperately around for refuge 
 from the storms of life, and then madly plunges into 
 some dark cavern of pre-eminent iniquity ; and now 
 unable to arrest his progress, passes furiously onwards 
 in the midst of darkness and strange noises, till he 
 Buddenly comes forth into the light of day upon the
 
 270 SERMONS. 
 
 margin of a precipice. "Witli coiiTulsive energy he 
 pauses on the brink ; for nature sickens at the iiiilf 
 below, and the instinct of self-preservation gives him 
 strength to stop, but only for a moment. The im- 
 pulse of his downward progress is too strong to be re- 
 sisted, and a fierce wind from behind still pursues him. 
 Forced to look down, his brain begins to swim ; he 
 loses his balance ; he falls in ; he sinks ; he catches 
 with the strength of desperation at a twig or a pro- 
 jecting point, and looks up from the mouth of that 
 devouring chasm with a piercing shriek for mercy. 
 And in that last, dying, and despairing upward look, 
 he is entirely and forever undeceived. He knows 
 what he has done, and oh, unutterable anguish ! lie 
 knows to a degree which plants a thousand daggers 
 in his dying soul, he knows what he has lost. For 
 there, far above him, at the end of the narrow path 
 which he despises, is the city in the sky which he had 
 learned to laugh at as a baseless vision. But he sees 
 it no longer as a shadowy pile of clouds. Its walls 
 and battlements are of adamant ; its deep founda- 
 tions reach beyond the view of the lost sinner, as lie 
 loses his last hold upon the upper world, and after 
 imavailing and convulsive struggles, sinks, sinks, like 
 lead in the mighty waters, his eye still fixed upon 
 that city with foundations, whose builder and maker 
 is God, until it is withdrawn to be fixed forever upon 
 sights, which, God forbid that you or I should ever see. 
 Let me for one moment shift the scene, and show 
 you another instance of illusion equally powerful, 
 but oh how different in its nature and its end ! Let 
 me show yni a small company of pilgrims, who have
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 271 
 
 chosen the rough, narrow, upward path which leads 
 away from the green valley into the recesses of the 
 bleak and barren mountains. Some you might see 
 passing onwards with alacrity, forgetting all below 
 them and behind them, or remembering it only to ac- 
 celerate their progress towards that city with founda- 
 tions, upon which their eyes are fastened. It is not 
 of these that I would speak. 
 
 Others I might show you pressing on m the same 
 course as long as sunshine lasts, or moonlight gilds 
 the pinnacles of yonder city ; out when black clouds 
 hide the sky, and thick mists veil the earth, they avert 
 their faces, they begin to linger, and to cast a longing 
 glance into the depth below them, where the world 
 and its temptations are arrayed in fatal splendour, 
 and from which the voice of mirth and business con- 
 stantly ascends, until sooner or later they hang over 
 the edge with too intense a curiosity, and what fol- 
 lows is only known by the sound of a heavy plunge 
 ill some depth below. 
 
 But it is not of these that I would speak. It is of 
 one who neither lingers nor looks back, nor gazes 
 down into the valley, but whose face is still turned 
 Zionward, whose ])rogress though now faster and now 
 slower is perceptible and constant. I wish to show 
 you one who, while he thus moves onward in the 
 right direction, is no less the subject of illusion than 
 the wretch whose end I have described to you. 
 
 He journeys towards the heavenly city, but he 
 gees it not. Jerusalem is in his heart, but not before 
 his eyes. He even dreams that he has taken the 
 wrong path. Imagination magnifies the dangers of
 
 272 SERMONS. 
 
 the journey. Every step appears to lead into some 
 hidden snare, and every stone to be the mark of some 
 deep pitfalL Ever}'" thicket is an ambush , every 
 dark spot an expected place of conflict. The hardy 
 plants that bloom along the rugged path seem poison- 
 ous ; the springs provided by the Master for his pil- 
 grims are passed by in timid and suspicious thirst. 
 And when at length the body sinks exhausted and in 
 need of slumber, all seems lost ; and the man of little 
 faith sleeps in the belief that he shall never wake. 
 And when he does awake, it is only to a repetition of 
 the same illusion. He is still afraid that he shall 
 never reach the city. He is still unable to discover 
 it in the distance ; he will not look for it, but keeps 
 his eyes fixed on the ground ; or if he looks, he will 
 not look to the right point ; or if he looks to the right 
 point, he finds the mist too dense, or the light too 
 bright for his diseased vision. Or if he sees the ob- 
 ject, he refuses to believe his senses, and suspects de- 
 hision on the only point where he is free from it. 
 
 Thus goes the doubter on, often ready to lie down 
 and die, and sometimes tempted to go back or turn 
 aside, but still maving onward because Christ is in his 
 heart, and the secret hope that, notwithstanding all 
 his fears, he shall yet appear in Zion before God. 
 But see, the prospect changes. Real dangers now 
 arise. The storm which deluges the valley sweeps 
 across the mountain also. The doubting Christian 
 gives up all for lost. But the very dangers which 
 alarm his fears, quicken his footsteps, and although 
 he may believe that he is going wrong, the temj^est 
 and the earthquake drive him on and up, until the
 
 HEBREWS 11, 10. 273 
 
 last ascent is gained, until the last cloud breaks awaj, 
 and he who thouglit himself approaching to the verge 
 of an abyss, finds himself standing on an everlasting 
 rock, and at the threshold of an everlasting door. If 
 shame can then be felt, he blushes as he looks back 
 for a moment at the scene of his imaginary ter- 
 rors, which now seem so sweet ; the sun breaks^ 
 out upon the path which he has trodden, and glad- 
 dens every dark spot where he wept or trembled ; 
 the noises which once terrified him and have still pur- 
 sued him, now begin to blend with shouts and songs 
 of triumph within ; the everlasting doors lift up their 
 heads, and with one farewell look at earth's baseless 
 fabrics, the emancipated soul enters, never to return, 
 the city which hath foundations, whos« builder and 
 maker is God. 
 
 VOL. II. — 12*
 
 XV. 
 
 1 Thessaloniaxs 5, 25. — Brethren, pray for us. 
 
 Tins brief request, standing, as it does, in a series 
 of laconic exhortations, is a striking illustration of the 
 importance "which the Scriptures attach to intercessory 
 prayer, " Kejoice evermore," " pray without ceasing," 
 " quench not the Spirit," " despise not prophesyings," 
 " prove all things, hold fast that which is good," " ab- 
 stain from all appearance of evil ; " these are some of 
 the p>recepts with which it stands connected. With 
 an evident design to close his epistle with a series of 
 pointed practical directions, the apostle gives a place 
 among them not only to the general precept, " pray 
 without ceasing," but also to the special request, 
 " brethren, pray for us." The request itself is one 
 very frequently repeated in the Fauline epistles, under 
 difterent forms, but always expressive of the writer's 
 confidence in the real efiicacy of such intercessions, as 
 means of spiritual good to himself, and of furtherance 
 to the glorious cause in which he was engaged. To 
 the Hebrews, Paul says, " Pray for us, for we trust 
 we have a good conscience, willing in all things to 
 live honestly ; but I beseech you the rather to do this,
 
 1 TIIESSALONIA.NS 5, 25. 275 
 
 that I may be restored to you the sooner." (Ileb. 13, 
 18. 19.) The same request is made to the Romans 
 with reference to the same result, but with greater 
 earnestness of importunity. " Xow I beseech you, 
 brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the 
 love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in 
 your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered 
 from them that do not believe in Judea, that my ser- 
 vice for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints, that 
 I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and 
 may with you be refreshed." (Eom. 15, 30-32.) In 
 asking the same favour, and exacting the same duty of 
 the Ephesians, he sets before them, as the end to be at- 
 tained, his greater fidelity and success in the perform- 
 ance of his ministerial functions, " praying always 
 with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and 
 watching thereunto with all perseverance and suppli- 
 cation for all saints, and for me^ that utterance may 
 be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, 
 to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which 
 I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may 
 speak boldly as I ought to speak." (Eph. 6, 18-20.) 
 
 In all these passages there are several points of re- 
 semblance, connecting them together, and identifying 
 them as characteristic marifestations of one and the 
 same Spirit, the same personality. In the first place, 
 there is the absorption of the whole soul, with its pow- 
 ers and afi"ections, in the one great object of the writer's 
 life. In the next place, there is the habitual disposition 
 to do something more than think of it, or wish for its at- 
 tainment, the disposition to employ with energy the ne- 
 cessary means and all the means available. In the third
 
 276 SERMONS. 
 
 place, there is the appearance, or rather the conclusive 
 evidence of a thorough persuasion, that among these 
 means the prayers of true believers held a place and an 
 important place ; that the apostle asked them and en- 
 joined them, not merely as a salutary exercise to those 
 whom he addressed, not merely as a token of affection 
 and of confidence on his part towards them, but as a 
 real efficacious means to the attainment of that end for 
 v^diich he lived and was prepared to die, as actually 
 helping him, procuring him divine grace, and in a cer- 
 tain sense securing his success, and even his salvation. 
 This idea, which is not obscurely implied, in the 
 passages already quoted, is distinctly expressed in 
 others, as wlien writing to the Church at Corinth, 
 after speaking of the dangers and sufferings from 
 which God Lad delivered him, he adds, "in whom 
 we trust that he will yet deliver us, ye also helping 
 together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed 
 upon us by the means of many persons, thanks may 
 be given by many on our behalf." (2 Cor. 1, 10. 11.) 
 But the strongest expression of this confidence, in con- 
 nection with the great apostle's governing desire, and 
 we may almost say his ruling passion, is contained in 
 his address to the Philippians, with respect to one 
 of the severest trials which he had experienced. 
 "What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether 
 in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and I 
 therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know 
 that this shall turn to my salvation through your 
 prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, 
 according to my earnest expectation and my hope 
 that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. 27Y 
 
 boldness, as always, so now also, Christ sliall be mag- 
 nified in my body, whether it be by life or by death ; 
 for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phil. 
 1, 18-21.) 
 
 With this sublime expression of humility and tri- 
 umph, of indifference and superiority to life and death, 
 and at the same time of believing reliance on the 
 power even of human intercession, I close the exam- 
 ples of Paul's habitual desire and entreaty for the 
 prayers of others. What has been cited will suffice 
 to show that, at his own request, and in obedience to 
 his own command, " prayer was made without ceas- 
 ing of the church unto God for him," (Acts 12, 5,) 
 throughout the wide field of his apostolic labours, in 
 Italy, in Greece, in Asia Minoi-, and in Palestine ; at 
 Pome, at Corinth, at Pliilippi, at Tliessalonica, at 
 Ephesus, and among the churches of the Hebrew 
 Christians. This extensive organization of a system- 
 atic and concerted intercession, in behalf of the apos- 
 tle and his work, is a practical demonstration that he 
 not only believed in the necessity and efficacy of 
 ])rayer in general, but of intercession in particular, and 
 that so far from regarding the ministry or even the 
 apostleship as superior to this means of grace, as ex- 
 empted from the need of it, he looked upon the ex- 
 altation of his office, and the greatness of his work, as 
 creating a peculiar and more urgent necessity for this 
 assistance, that his official movements, and his inter- 
 course with the churches might be unobstructed ; that 
 his mouth might be opened to speak boldly as ho 
 ought to speak ; that the very trials and diseonrage- 
 ments with which he met might tend to the salvation
 
 278 SERMONS. 
 
 of himself and others, and that, wheJier living or 
 d}"ing, he might gain Ids darling end, that of magni- 
 fying Christ, AVith such an end in view, and with 
 sncli convictions of the means by "which it was to be 
 accomplislied, Paul nttered volumes when he wrote 
 these four words, Brethren^ pray for us. 
 
 ■ Let us now consider, for a moment, whether Paul 
 regarded this important spiritual service as incumbent 
 only upon others towards himself, or whether he ex- 
 pected it to be reciprocal, both as an obligation and 
 a benefit. Tlie solution of this question will be 
 greatly facilitated, and the result rendered far more 
 striking, by applying the inquiry to those very 
 churches upon which we have seen the apostle so im- 
 portunately calling for their intercessions. iSTear the 
 end of his epistle to the Eomans, we have heard him 
 asking " for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the 
 love of the Spirit," that they would strive together 
 with him in prayer to God for him. (Rom. 15, 30.) 
 The prayers of the apostle, in which they are asked 
 to join, miglit seem to be prayers only for himself and 
 for his work. But near the beginning of the same 
 epistle, with a solemn appeal to the Searcher of hearts, 
 expressing liis anxiety to be believed, and implying 
 the importance of the fact in question, he says, " God 
 is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the 
 gospel of his Son, (still keeping in his own view and 
 the view of others his ofl&cial relations to the Church 
 and to its head,) that without ceasing, I make mention 
 of you always in my prayers." (Rom. 1, 9.) Observe 
 the strength of the expressions, always, without ceas- 
 ing, lest he should be understood as speaking only of
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. 279 
 
 periodical or occasional intercession, and not of the 
 habitual and constant burden of liis prayers. What 
 follows might indeed seem to describe even Paul's 
 own prayers, as having reference simply to hmiself, 
 " making request if by any means now at length I 
 might have a prosperous journey by the will of God 
 to come unto you." (Eom. 1, 10.) But how utterly 
 unselfish even this desire was, breaks out in the next 
 sentence, " for I long to sec you, that I may impart 
 unto you some spiritual gift, to the end that ye may 
 be established." (Rom. 1, 11.) It was for their sake 
 that he thus desired to come to them, yet likewise for 
 his own, " that is that I may be comforted together 
 with you, or jointly comforted in you, by the mutual 
 faith both of you and me," (Rom. 1, 12,) a beautiful 
 expression of the truth that he who prays for others 
 not only will pray for himself, but does so in the very 
 act of intercession, by identifying his own sj^iritual 
 interest with that of those for whom he prays, and 
 legarding every blessing granted to them as being 
 more or less directly a blessing to himself. 
 
 AVe have seen that Paul prayed for the Romans 
 always, without ceasing. In like numner he says to 
 the Ephesians, (1, 15. 16,) "I, also, after I heard of 
 your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love to all the saints, 
 cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of 
 you in my prayers." Here again the constancy of 
 his intercessions is particularly mentioned ; but there 
 are two additional circumstances not to be neglected. 
 The one is, that the apostle's prayers for the Ei)hesian 
 Christians, included thanksgiving for what they were 
 already and had already experienced. The other is,
 
 2§() SERMOKS. 
 
 that these attainments in tlie spiritual life, although 
 calling for grateful recognition, did not preclude the 
 necessity of earnest prayer that God would grant to 
 them the spirit of wisdom and of revelation, in the 
 knowledge of him and of the riches of that glorious 
 salvation to which he had called them. Gratitude 
 for past gifts did but stir up the apostle to ask more. 
 To the Pliilippians, through whose prayer the Apostle 
 knew that even his sorest trials should turn to his sal- 
 vation, (PJiil. 1. 19,) he says, as he said to the Ephe- 
 sians, " I thank my God upon every mention or re- 
 membrance of you, always^ in every prayer of mine 
 for you all, making request with joy." (Phil. 1, 3. 4.) 
 Here again the prayer is a daily, a perpetual prayer, 
 a thankful, nay, a joyful prayer, a prayer for further, 
 greater gifts, increasing knowledge, holiness and use- 
 fulness, as instruments in glorifying God — " And 
 this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and 
 more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may 
 be sincere and without offence until the day of Jesus 
 Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness 
 which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise 
 of God." (Phil. 1, 9. 11.) To the same Thessalonians 
 whom Paul exhorts to pray without ceasing, (1 Thess. 
 5, 17,) and to pray for him, (ib. 5, 25,) he could say 
 and does say, " We give thanks to God always for you 
 all, making mention of you in our prayers, " (1 Thess. 
 1^ 2.) — and again, with his favourite combination ot 
 thanksgiving, joy, and importunate desire — "AVhat 
 thanks can we render to God again for you, for all 
 the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our 
 God, night and day praying exceedingly that we
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. 281 
 
 might see your face and might perfect that which is 
 Licking in your faith?" (1 Thess. 3, 9. 10.) As he 
 shows how far he Avas from stagnant acquiescence 
 in wliat he had obtained ah-eady for them, by his 
 prayers for their advancement in the spiritual life, so 
 lie shows how far he is from flattering their spiritual 
 pride, by making the deficiency of their faith a reason 
 for continuing to pray even for those whose actual 
 attainments he regarded as a matter of gratitude 
 and joy. In the same spirit, he says in another 
 epistle to the same Thessalonians, " we pray always 
 for you that our God would count you worthy of this 
 calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his good- 
 ness and the work of faith with power, that the name 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and 
 ye in him, according to the grace of our God, and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ."\2 Thess. 1, 11. 12.) I shall only 
 add, under this head, that for the same Corinthians, 
 whom Paul describes as hel})ing together by prayer 
 for him and his associates, he prays to God, in the 
 same epistle, that they may do no evil, and rising still 
 higher, that they may be perfect. (2 Cor. 13, 7. U.) 
 
 It is surely no fortuitous coincidence, that in these 
 five cases, the same persons, whose prayers he im- 
 portunately asks for himself, are represented as the 
 subjects of his own unceasing, thankful, joyful, fer- 
 vent intercessions. The general inference is there- 
 fore obvious enough, that one of the most uniform 
 and intimate relations which subsisted between Paul 
 and his spiritual children, throughout the vast field of 
 his labours, was that of mutual intercession, not as a 
 mere interchange of spiritual compliments, but as an
 
 282 SERMONS. 
 
 indispensable and efficacious means of grace. That 
 this was not an incident of the apostleship, a relation 
 growing out of any thing peculiar in the circumstan- 
 ces under which these Christians were converted, is 
 clear, not only from the absence of any terms imply- 
 ing such restriction, and from the fact that Paul's fel- 
 low-labourers are more than once apparently included 
 with himself in the profession and request, but also 
 from the obvious consideration that, as soon as we 
 are able to perceive and willing to admit the existence 
 of sufficient reasons for this mutual relation in the 
 case of the apostle and his spiritual children, every 
 one of these reasons bears with double force upon the 
 case of other ministers and other converts. If they 
 who had received the gospel under the impression of 
 inspired preaching and attended by the tokens of 
 miraculous power, needed still the wrestling inter- 
 cessions of the man of God, to shield them against 
 danger, to preserve them from error, and to fill up 
 what was lacking of their faith, how much more must 
 this necessity exist, or rather, how much clearer is it, 
 in the case of those who have had no such out- 
 ward pledges of divine interposition. And if he, 
 clothed with extraordinary powers, accredited from 
 heaven by the signs of an apostle, had occasion so 
 repeatedly and earnestly to ask the prayers of others 
 for his personal safety and the progress of his work, 
 how much more pressing should the sense of this ne- 
 cessity be on the hearts of those who with ordinary 
 powers are called to the same difficult and responsi- 
 ble work. 
 
 If these considerations are sufficient to extend the
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. 283 
 
 application of tlie principle involved in the ]ircccpt3 
 and the practice of Paul, to all Christ's ministers and 
 those who are in any sense tlieir spiritual children, it 
 is easy to foresee that the very same reasoning will 
 carry ns still further, and require us to reco«riiizo the 
 right and duty of mutual intercession as extending to 
 all Christians, and as arising, not from any peculiar 
 official relations, but from a common character and 
 interest. Whatever special motives and incitements 
 to the duty may be afforded by the mutual relations 
 of the teacher and the taught, the spiritual father and 
 the spiritual children, the essential ground of the ne- 
 cessity in question must lie back of these, in some- 
 thing not confined to these relations, but existing in 
 the common experience of all believers. Especially 
 is this the case if we regard the right and duty of 
 mutual intercession, not as a mere token of affection, 
 but as an appointed and effective means of grace, as 
 well to those who ask as those for whom they ask. 
 If God has indeed ordained this as an efficacious in- 
 strument of spiritual good, it cannot be sujiposed that 
 he intended to restrict its use and operation to the 
 case of those who sustain what may be called an acci- 
 dental relation to each other in the fomily of Christ. 
 The necessity of mutual intercession may indeed ap- 
 ^ pear to some to be so clearly involved in the admit- 
 ted necessity of pra^'er in general, as to supersede all 
 argument for or against it. The difference between 
 prayer for others and ourselves, being merely cir- 
 cumstantial ; the essence of the prayer, as consisting 
 in sincere desire addressed to God, for some thing in 
 accordance with his will, is of course the same in
 
 284 SERMONS. 
 
 either case. The exclusive object of address is still 
 the same. The same moral qualities, sincerity, hu- 
 mility and faith, are requisite in both to make the 
 praj-er acceptable. The warrant of encouragement to 
 \n-aj, in either case, is furnished by God's mercy in 
 the precious promises with which his word abounds. 
 There is but one throne of grace and one way of ac- 
 cess to it. The meritorious intercession of the Son, 
 and the auxiliary intercession of the Spirit, are in all 
 cases equally necessary. 
 
 "Why then should the question even be propound- 
 ed, "Whether prayer for others is a right and duty of 
 all Christians ? Not of course because the answer is 
 in any measure doubtful, or the grounds on which it 
 rests in any measure recondite or susceptible of novel 
 illustration, but simply because a brief consideration 
 of these grounds may serve to place the duty in its 
 proper place, not only as a duty, but as an important 
 means of grace. Because we are familiar with the 
 precepts and examples of the Scriptures on this sub- 
 ject, it does not follow that truth respecting it might 
 have been inferred as a matter of course from the gen- 
 eral teachings of God's word respecting prayer, even 
 without specific teachings as to this kind of prayer. It 
 is conceivable, to say the least, that the efficacious in- 
 fluence of prayer might have been confined to the sup- 
 pliant himself. Christian benevolence, it is true, must 
 prompt him to desii'e the good of others, and to use the 
 necessary means for its promotion. But this might not 
 have been among the number. The power of men to 
 help each other m'ght have been restricted to the use 
 of physical and moral means externally. Such an
 
 1 THESSALOXIANS 5, 25. 285 
 
 arrangement is indeed so foreign from onr scriptural 
 associations and habitual ideas as to the duty and the 
 means of doing good to one another, that -sve may find 
 it hard to form a definite idea of it as really existing. 
 But as no man can believe, or repent, or obey for 
 another ; as each man must in this respect bear his 
 own burden ; as the wants and dangers of each are 
 numberless, requiring all the grace that he can ask ; 
 it would not be absurd, in the absence of explicit rev- 
 elation and experience, to suppose that every man 
 was called upon to pray for himself, for the pardon 
 of his own sins, for the sanctification of his own cor- 
 rupt nature, for liis own deliverance from the power 
 of temptation, and his own preparation for the joys 
 of heaven, without presuming to address the throne 
 of grace in behalf of any other, liowever strong his 
 sympathy, however ardent his desires for their good. 
 Such a supposition, however foreign from the actual 
 state of things is, in itself, no more surprising than 
 that all participation in the faith, repentance and 
 obedience of each other, is impossible to true believ- 
 ers, however earnestly they may desire to supi)ly each 
 other's lack of faith or service, or to bear each other's 
 burdens. On these grounds, and in this sense, the 
 right and duty of intercessory prayer, however certain 
 and familiar, may be represented as a doctrine of rev- 
 elation, rather than a necessary rational deduction from 
 the necessity of prayer in general, as a means of pro- 
 curing the divine favour, and an immediate source of 
 salutary spiritual influence. This view of the matter, so 
 far from obscuring the glory of divine grace as beheld 
 in the economy of man's salvation, greatly enhances
 
 286 SERMONS. 
 
 it by making that a free gift, a gratuitous concession, 
 winch might otherwise have seemed to be a natural 
 necessity. If men might justly have been suffered to 
 pray only for themselves, as they are actually suffered 
 to repent and believe only for themselves, then the 
 privilege of doing good to others by our prayers, and 
 of deriving benefit from theirs, is a distinguishing 
 feature in the gospel system, and a notable instance 
 of divine compassion. That the system does, in point 
 of fact, include such a provision, is a proposition 
 which requires no proof. That it occupies a prom- 
 inent position, and is insisted on as highly important, 
 is sufficiently established by Paul's precept and ex- 
 ample as already exhibited. We have seen that with 
 a frequency and emphasis too marked to be mistaken, 
 he addresses to the same persons urgent requests for 
 their prayers in his behalf, and strong asseverations 
 of. his constancy in prayer for them. "We have seen 
 tliat tlie blessings which he hopes to obtain through 
 their intercession, are deliverance from danger, con- 
 solation under sorrow, but especially- boldness and 
 success in his ministry, and more abundant honour 
 to the name of Christ.; while the mercies which he 
 asks on their behalf are steadfastness, increase of faith, 
 of love, of knowledge, more abundant usefulness, and 
 full salvation. From these examples we may easily 
 deduce a safe and comprehensive rule as to the ob- 
 jects and the compass of our intercession. 
 
 The induction may however be made more ex- 
 tensive by inquiring briefly what other cases are par- 
 ticularly mentioned in connection with this duty, that 
 is to say for whom and for what the Scriptures teach 
 
 
 1
 
 1 TDESSALONIANS 5, 25. 287 
 
 US either by precept or example that we may or 
 ought to intercede. The right and duty once estab- 
 lished, it is true, there can be no practical difficulty 
 in applying the princij)le to special cases, any more 
 than in applying the general rule of charity or Chris- 
 tian love. It has pleased God, however, to incite and 
 regulate our best atfections, not by general rules 
 merely, but by particular directions and examples, so 
 as to leave us under no doubt either with respect to 
 our right and duty in the general, or to particular 
 cases and emergencies. Lest the mention of some 
 cases should be understood as simply exclusive of all 
 others, we have general precepts of the largest kind. 
 "I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, 
 prayers, intercessions, should be made for all men," 
 then with a distinct specification of a certain class, 
 " for kings, and all that are in authority," not merely 
 for their own sake, but for the peace of society aivd 
 the edification of the church, " that we may lead a 
 quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and hon- 
 esty." (1 Tim. S, 1. 2.) But while we arc thus author- 
 ized and taught to pray for men in general, and for 
 that class on whom the peace and welfare of the 
 whole depend, we are especially encouraged to cx2)ect 
 a blessing on our prayers for true believers, " praying 
 always with all j^rayer and supplication in the Spirit, 
 and watching thereunto with all perseverance and 
 supplication for all saints." (Eph. 6, 18.) A different 
 apostle exhorts believers to " pray one for another," 
 (James 5, IG,) that they " may be healed," whether ot 
 bodily or spiritual maladies, for both are mentioned 
 in the context. This peculiar obligation to pray for
 
 2gg SERMONS. 
 
 all saints docs not destroy our right to pray for sin- 
 ners, and especially for those who are particularly 
 near to ns. While we pray that saints may be saved 
 from error and from temporal distress, we should pray 
 that sinners may be saved from death and evcrlastin 
 niin. Paul's heartfelt desire and prayer to God for 
 Israel was " that they might be saved." (Rom. 10, 1.) 
 So intense. was his desire for this blessing that he 
 could wish himself accursed from Christ for his breth- 
 ren, his kinsmen according to the flesh." (Rom. 9, 3.) 
 "While these specifications teach us that the most 
 ex2)ansive Christian benevolence has no need to con- 
 sider itself straitened in God, there are others to warn 
 us against being straitened in ourselves. As we are 
 taught not to restrain prayer before God on account 
 of exceptions wliich we may suppose him to have 
 made, so likewise we are taught not to restrain it on 
 account of exceptions which we make ourselves. 
 To pray for children may be~deemed a thankless or a 
 needless form ; and so when " there were brought 
 unto " our Saviour " little children thai he should put 
 liis hands on them and pray, the disciples rebuked 
 those that brought them, but when Jesus saw it, he 
 was much displeased and said, suffer little children 
 to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is 
 the kingdom of heaven, and he took them up in his 
 arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." 
 This was an exercise of his divine ^prerogative. The 
 only way in wliich a mere man can eflectually bless 
 is by invoking the blessing of God, i. c, by praying 
 for the object. ^This example of the Saviour, there- 
 fore, furnishes a rule for our intercessions, by teaching
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. £89 
 
 US that even little cliiklren may be prayed for. Here 
 the exception, if made at all, would rest on tlie sup- 
 posed insignificance of the object. 
 
 But there are other cases where a, deeper feeling 
 and a stronger motive may be supposed to hinder in- 
 tercession. To pray for fellow-Christians is an obli- 
 gation easily acknowledged. To pray even for sin- 
 ners if they be our friends, can scarcely be denied to 
 be a duty. To pray for those unknown to us, or those 
 to whom we are indifferent, is still an obligation 
 which may be externally discharged at least without 
 repugnance. But to pray for enemies might seem to 
 be impossible, or if possible, extravagant, the mere ro- 
 mance of charity, if we did not know it to be the 
 glory of the Christian morality, the triumph of the 
 gospel over Jew and Gentile. " Ye have heard that 
 it hath been said thou slialt love thy neighbour and 
 hate thine enemy ; but I say unto you, love your en- 
 emies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
 that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
 you and persecute you." (Matt. 5, 44.) Well might 
 the Saviour add to such a precept, " be ye therefore 
 pei-fect as your Father in heaven is perfect." 'No 
 religion or morality but that which aims at the high- 
 est perfection could find place for such a privilege or 
 such a duty. Nay, not only are our enemies to be 
 the subjects of our intercessions, but forgiveness of 
 injuries is made the condition of our being heard at 
 11 for others or ourselves. " By this variety of precept 
 and example, we are not only assured of our right 
 and duty to pray for others as well as for ourselves, 
 but are taught, in every variety of form, that in our 
 
 VOL. 11. — 13
 
 290 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 application of the general rnle, u-e need make lo ex- 
 ceptions on account of the unworthiness or insignifi- 
 cancy of the object prayed for, and we must make no 
 exceptions, in compliance with a spirit of malignant 
 partiality, Nevertheless, we may and must pray 
 more earnestly for some than others. While we own 
 tlie obligation to make supplications, prayers, inter- 
 cessions, and giving of thanks for all men, and espe- 
 cially for kings and all in authority, that we may 
 lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and 
 honesty, it is natural and right that we should pray 
 with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and 
 watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplica- 
 tion for all saints, and even among these we may pray 
 with special emphasis for God's ambassadors, that ut- 
 terance may be given them, or for his new-born chil- 
 dren that they may be sincere and without offence 
 until the day of Jesus Christ. AVe may pray for all 
 men, but there are some who have a special right to 
 say to us and we to them. Brethren^ jyray for us. 
 
 To the questions, may we pray for others ? must 
 we pray for others ? a sufficient answer seems to have 
 been given from the word of (lod. To the further 
 question, whether we sufficiently appreciate the value 
 of this doctrine, and its influence upon the whole con- 
 dition of the Christian, we may all, perhaps, safely 
 and sincerely answer no. In order to recover or ob- 
 tain a correct notion of the value of salvation, it is 
 not unusual to recur to the position that without in- 
 justice, and without detracting even from his good- 
 ness, God might have left the world to perish without 
 hope. But even supposing that he tieaut to save
 
 1 THESSALONIANS 5, 25. 291 
 
 some from eternal misery, he might ha"<^e left them 
 in a dubious state of mingled good and € ril like the 
 present life. Or even if he meant to make them ulti- 
 mately blessed, he might have suffered ages of expur- 
 gatory suffering to intervene. But God has magnified 
 the riches of his wisdom, power, and grace, by reveal- 
 ing a method of total deliverance from evil, and of 
 introduction to eternal bliss, directly subsequent to 
 the i^resent state. The transition of the saved is not 
 from darkness into an eternal twilight, or through 
 twiliglit into a far-distant day. It is from darkness 
 to light, from total darkness to unclouded light, from 
 death to life, from hell to heaven, from the power of 
 Satan unto God. And yet so familiar are our minds 
 with this great doctrine, that we compare it only with 
 itself, forgetting the innumerable terrible alternatives 
 which might have been presented. Forgetting what 
 miglit have been, we look upon what is as that which 
 must be, and detract so much from our inducements 
 to adore the saving grace of God. Now the error 
 thus committed with respect to the whole method of 
 salvation, may be rej^eated likewise with respect to 
 many of the particular provisions comprehended in it. 
 By regarding what is actually done as the result of 
 a fatal necessity, we fail to consider what our con- 
 dition might have been, and thus withhold from God 
 a large share of the praise which would have been 
 extorted from us by a view of what he has gratui- 
 tously added to the bare hope of deliverance from 
 hell. He might have left us as it were within its 
 jaws, and hanging over the abyss of fire. He might 
 have left us on its verge enveloped in its thick smoke,
 
 292 SERMONS. 
 
 and deafened by its ascending shrieks ; in a word, he 
 miglit have done immeasureably less for us, and yet 
 have saved us. To borrow a single illustration from 
 the subject which has been before us, God might have 
 given us the hope and promise of eternal life, and yet 
 excluded us till death from all communion with him- 
 self, from all approach to him in prayer. Oh, what 
 a dispensation even of free mercy, yet without a 
 tlirone of grace, or way of access to the Father ! Or 
 again, he might have suffered us to pray, but only for 
 ourselves, v,nthout the right of intercession on behalf 
 of others, or the hope of human intercession for om*- 
 selves. The way in which we are affected by this 
 supposition may perhaps afford a measure of the 
 value which we put upon the privilege. If we regard 
 it with indifference, its practical value is, to us, as 
 nothing. If we shrink from the idea of a different 
 arrangement with sincere aversion, it can only be be- 
 cause we estimate in some degree aright that wonder- 
 ful provision of God's mercy which, by suffering his 
 redeemed ones to pray not only for themselves, but 
 for others, with the hope of being heard, and with 
 the promise of the Holy Ghost to aid their infirmities, 
 establishes an intimate connection between every re- 
 newed soul and every other, through the throne of 
 grace ; a subtle and mysterious power, by which one 
 may reach another — nay, may reach a thousand — -nay, 
 may reach a world, and be himself the object of as 
 many influences as he thus puts forth ; of influences 
 tending all exclusively to good, for God will not hear 
 the prajer of malice and hypocrisy, nor answer that 
 of well-meant ignorance; — one so.il interceding for all
 
 1 TUESSALONIANS 5, 25. 293 
 
 saints, and all saints, as it were, for one — sending np 
 the exhalation of a pure desire for others, and receiv- 
 ing in return a rain of heavenly influence ; each drop, 
 each shower, representing the petition of some pious 
 heart, on which his own prayers had invoked a bless- 
 ing, either individually, or as one in the nameless but 
 beloved company of " all saints," for which the Bible 
 taught him, and the Spirit prompted him, and aided 
 him to pray ! The hope of such a recompense, even 
 in this life, together with the impulse and variety im- 
 parted by a man's prayers for others to his prayers 
 for his own soul, may well incite us both to utter and 
 obey more readily the precept of the text ; like Paul, 
 to '-'■'pray without ceasing''^ for the brethren; like 
 Paul, to say, '■'' Brethren^ ;pr ay for us/"
 
 XVI. 
 
 Retelation 14, 12.— Here is the patiei fe of the saints; here are 
 they that keep the commandineuts of God -nd the faith of Jesus. 
 
 The duty, necessity, and good effects of patience, 
 are often set fo)-tli in the word of God. This is the 
 more remarkable, because, by the wisdom of the 
 world, ])atieiice, unless accompanied by selti^h cun- 
 ning, or a ])rond cuntenij)t of others, is regarded 
 rather as a weakness than a virtue. Strongly con- 
 trasted with this vulgar estimate of patience, is the 
 lu-oniinence with which it is exhibited, commended, 
 and enjoined in Scripture. The application of the 
 term, however, by the sacred writers, does not coin- 
 cide exactly with its ordinary nsage. Nor is its nse 
 in Scripture altogether nniform. The name is some- 
 times ai)plied to the humble, submissive endurance 
 of suffering; sometimes to consistent perseverance in 
 any good course. It is used, however, in a higher 
 sense, including both the others ; and even where the 
 lower sense would seem appropriate, there is often at 
 least an allusion to the higher. Evangelical or spir- 
 itual patience is not mere resignation to the ills of 
 life and the dispensations of Providence, nor mere
 
 REVELATION 14, 12. 296 
 
 perseverance in the path of duty, although neither of 
 these can really exist without it. It is something 
 more than either, or than both combined, that is de- 
 scribed in Scripture as the characteristic patience of 
 the saints, or, as it is frequently expressed, their pa- 
 tient waiting upon God. 
 
 This English phrase, to wait ujpon^ has gradually 
 undergone a change of meaning. In modern usage 
 it denotes a personal service or attendance, eitiier 
 literal, as when the servant waits upon his master, or 
 metapliorical, as when one friend is said to wait upon 
 another. Tlie original M'ords which it is used to rep- 
 resent signify simply the act of waiting for, including 
 expectation and a personal interest in the thing ex- 
 pected. This, too, is the primary import of the Eng- 
 lish phrase itself, waiting upon and waiting for ^ hav- 
 ing been once synonj-mous, and being often intei'- 
 changed in our translation of the Bible. As applied 
 to servants it expresses stricth' nothing more than 
 their habitual expectation of their master's orders. 
 Its general sense of service or attendance, is a sec- 
 ondary one, derived from tliis. In those parts of 
 Scripture where the duty of waiting upon God is ex- 
 plained or enlorccd, the idea of serving him is cer- 
 tainly implied, but the direct and prinuu-y meaning 
 of the phrase, is that of waiting for, expecting God, 
 his presence, his favour, the fulfilment of his prom- 
 ises, as well as the utterance of his commands. That 
 state of mind which waits for God in this sense, 
 is spiritual patience. The Apostle's declaration to 
 the Hebrews, "Ye have need of ]iatience, that after 
 ye have done the will of God ye may inherit the
 
 296 SERMONS. 
 
 promise," (Ileb. 10, 3G,) seems, at first sight, to mean 
 merely that the complete fulfilment of the promise 
 would be long deferred, or, in other words, that they 
 must -wait long for it, because it could not take place 
 until after they had done the will of God. But the 
 words are applicable, in a higher sense, to the neces- 
 sity of spiritual patience, as a characteristic and es- 
 sential element of Christian life, without which no one 
 can perform either part of the great work described, 
 i. e. can either do the will of God, or be partaker of 
 his promises. The same necessity is intimated by the 
 same apostle, in the same epistle, when he expresses 
 his desire that those to whom he writes may be fol- 
 lowers of them who, through faith and patience, in- 
 herit the promises. (Heb. 6, 12.) So far, indeed, as 
 the necessity of any act, or habit, or afiection, can be 
 expressed by an exhortation to perform or cherish it, 
 the necessity of spiritual patience may be said to be 
 frcquentl}^ alleged in scripture, both directly, as a mat- 
 ter of religious obligation, and indirectly, as an object 
 of God's favour and a source of blessing. " Blessed 
 arc all they that wait for him." (Isaiah 30, 18.) " It 
 is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the 
 salvation of the Lord." (Lamentations 3, 26.) "The 
 Lord is good to them that wait for him — to the soul 
 that seeketh him." (lb. 25.) This patient waiting 
 upon God, is represented not only as acceptable to 
 him, and as a source of good in general, but of spe- 
 cific benefits, withont which spiritual life can never 
 flourish, if it can exist. For example, it is represent- 
 ed as a source of strength, i. e. spiritual strength, 
 the power of performance, and ordinance, and re-
 
 REVELATION 14. 12. 297 
 
 aistance — of witlistanding evil and of doing good. 
 This strength, the soul, convinced of its own weakness; 
 cannot cease to long for, since, without it, it can 
 neither do that which is pleasing in the sight of God 
 nor shnn that which offends him. !N'ow this strength 
 is exhibited in Scripture, not as the result of any 
 natural power, inherent or acquired, nor external ad- 
 vantages, defences, safeguards, and facilities of action, 
 but of patient reliance upon God. "Wait on the 
 Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy 
 heart; wait, I say, on thb Lord." (Isaiah 27, 14.) 
 It is indeed contrasted with all other means and causes 
 of strength, as being the only one that can be trusted, 
 while all the rest are imperfect and delusive. Even 
 the strongest who rely on these, shall fiiil and be ex- 
 hausted ; but " they that wait on the Lord shall renew 
 their strength, they shall mount up with wings as 
 eagles ; tliey shall run and not be weary ; they shall 
 walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40, 31.) 
 
 So far from warning us against excess in the em- 
 ployment of this means for the recruiting of our spir- 
 itual strength, the Scripture points it out as the high- 
 way to perfection — " only let patience have its perfect 
 work, tliat ye may be perfect and entire, wanting 
 nothing" — not only perfect and entire in patience, but 
 in all that spiritual patience tends to generate and 
 foster. (James 1, 4.) It is presented likewise as the 
 only security against the disappointment and frus- 
 tration of onr strongest confidence and highest trust. 
 They who rely upon themselves or upon any other 
 creature for this same security, shall surely be con- 
 founded ; but God himself has said, " they shall not
 
 298 SERMONS. 
 
 be ashamed," i. e. ace )rding to the usage of the Bible, 
 disappointed ai.d betrayed, "that wait for me." 
 (Isaiah 49, 23.) This assurance against future disap- 
 pointment comprehends within its scope the highest 
 hopes of the believer, the reality of which is expressly 
 connected with the exercise of patience. " They that 
 wait on the Lord shall inherit the land." (Psalm 
 37, 9.) " Wait on the Lord and keep his way ; he 
 shall exalt thee to inherit the land." (lb. 34.) Nay, 
 eternal life is spoken of as sure only " to them who 
 by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, 
 honour, and immortality." (Romans 2, 7.) 
 
 Such are the terms in which the duty, necessity, 
 and blessed fruits of patience are exhibited in Scrip- 
 ture. The very strength of the expressions and the 
 comprehensive nature of the promises which they in- 
 volve, might suffice to show that the patience of which 
 Buch things are affirmed is neither resignation, forti- 
 tude, nor constancy of purpose, but something more 
 than either, though inclusive of them all. The idea 
 of patience, in its ordinary sense, is of course presup- 
 posed. That the heavenly patience thus enjoined and 
 blessed, is, like all other patience, tranquil and quiet, 
 the negation and the opposite of turbulence, disorder, 
 and undue excitement, is clear, not only from the name 
 applied to it, but also from the declaration, "it is 
 good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the 
 salvation of the Lord," (Lamentations 3, 26,) and from 
 the junction of the two commands, ^^rest in the Lord 
 and wait patiently for him^'' (Psalm 37, 7.) Is it 
 then a mere inert quiescence, a stagnation of the soul, 
 without affection or activity, that God's word sets be-
 
 REVELATION 14, 12. 299 
 
 fore ns, as a duty, as a necessaiy source of streriixth, 
 and as the highway to perfection. Such a conclu- 
 sion is well suited to the tendency of human nature 
 to extremes ; but if it were correct, the Apostle could 
 never have used such a combination — in exhortino: 
 the Hebrew Christians — " that ye he not slothful^ but 
 followers of them who through faith and patience 
 inherit the promises." (Hebrews 6, 12.) The patience 
 that is heir to the promises of God, is therefore not 
 a mere negation, not a stagnant patience, not a sloth- 
 ful patience. It is urged on to action by a potent 
 principle, the love of God, without which patient 
 waiting, in the true sense, is impossible. " The Lord 
 direct your hearts into the love of God and into the 
 patient waiting for Christ." (2 Thess. 3, 5.) 
 
 But this divine love may itself be personated by 
 a mere inert affection or ])y a corrupt one, which re- 
 fuses to be subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
 can be. He has therefore tauglit us that obedience to 
 his will is an essential characteristic of true patience 
 — " Wait on the Lord " and " kcej) his way^'' i. e. walk 
 in the way of his commandments, are inseparable 
 precepts, forming, not severally but together, the con- 
 dition of the promise: "he shall exalt thee to inherit 
 the land." (Ps. 37, 34.) They for whom glory, and 
 honour, and immortality, and eternal life are reserved, 
 are they who seek it, not simply by patient contin- 
 uance, but b}' patient continuance in well-doing. (Rom. 
 2, 7.) " Ye have need of patience, that after ye have 
 d^me the will of God, ye may inherit the promise." 
 (Hebrews 10, 3(3.) The patience of the saints, then, is 
 neither an inactive nor a lawless j atience, but a lov-
 
 300 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 ing and obedient patience. The same perverse tend- 
 ency which leads men to convert quiet and jyatient 
 waiting for salvation, into absolute inaction or a dis- 
 regard of duty, will lead them to convert the requisi- 
 tion of obedience into an exhortation to reliance on 
 themselves or their own meritorious service. But the 
 patience of. the saints is a believing patience, wdiicli 
 not only believes the truth, but trusts the promises 
 • — a trust implying self-renunciation and despair of 
 self salvation ; for without these an implicit trust in 
 God's gi-ace is impossible. It is through faith and 
 patience^ a patient trust and a believing patience, that 
 the saints in glory have inherited the promises. From 
 such a faith, hope is inseparable. He who would not 
 be slothful, but a follower of them who through faith 
 and patience inherit the promises, must do so by 
 " showing diligence " in every duty " to the full as- 
 surance of A^j9euntothe end." (Heb. 6, 11.) The pa- 
 tience of the Scriptures springs neither from despair 
 nor fear, but from hope, w'hich is the opposite of both. 
 It is not a mere quiet endurance of the present or a 
 quiet retrospect of the past, but a quiet expectation ; 
 and that not a fearful looking for of judgment and 
 fiery indignation, but an expectation of good — a hope 
 — an assui-ance of hope ; the more assured the hope 
 the more perfect the patience ; patience can have her 
 pei-fect work only where there is full assurance of 
 hope to the end — " For if we hope for that we see 
 not, then do we with patience wait for it." (Romans 
 8, 25.) " It is good that a man should liope and quietly 
 wait for the salvation of the Lord." (Lamenta- 
 tions 3, 26.)
 
 REVELATION 14, 12. 301 
 
 The faith and hope which are thus represented as 
 essential to the patience of the saints, are not merely 
 a vague trust and expectation founded u]3on no sufH- 
 cient reason, or simply on the attributes of God, or 
 his promises in general, without regard to the restric- 
 tions and conditions by which they are accompanied, 
 but a specific trust and expectation, having a definite 
 object, reason and foundation. We have seen already 
 that the exercise of Christian patience is described in 
 Scripture as a patient waiting, not for something un-, 
 known — not for evil — not for good in the general, but 
 for God. " Blessed are all they that wait for //m." 
 (Is.^ 30, IS.) " Eest in the Lord and wait patiently 
 for him." " Those that wait on tJie Lord shall in- 
 herit the earth," "Wait on the Lord and keep his 
 way." " Wait on the Lord and he shall save thee." 
 "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their 
 strength." " The Lord is good to them that wait for 
 him.'''' " They shall not be ashamed that wait for 
 •»?e." Hero is a definite object of patient expectation 
 set before us. It is not mere waiting., nor mere pa- 
 tient waiting i\vAt\\'\\\ answer this description, but pa- 
 tient waiting for the Lord, by loving him, obeying 
 him, believing him, confiding in him, seeking him. 
 " The Lord is good to them that w^ait for him, to the 
 soul that seeJceth him." 
 
 The object of the Christian's patient expectation is 
 made still more definite. It might be asked how or 
 why should men wait for or expect the Lord ? He 
 will be forever what he is. He will be forever, as he 
 is now, intimately present to his creatures. It' the 
 object of expectation be supposed to be some special
 
 302 SERMONS. 
 
 or extraordinary nanifestation of liis ^oresence or his 
 power, such an expectation would be apt to prove 
 fanatical, and instead of promoting quietness and pa- 
 tience would more probably destroy it. But the defi- 
 nite object of the true believer's patient expectation 
 is the manifestation of God's mercy in his own salva- 
 tion, in his complete and final deliverance from suf- 
 fering and from sin. " Wait on the Lord and he will 
 save thee." (Proverbs 20, 22.) " It is good that a 
 man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation 
 of the LordP But even here, the expectation of the 
 Christian might be too vague to secure the exercise 
 of genuine patience. lie might look to God for sal- 
 vation, but without understanding how it was to be 
 procured or how it could be reconciled with the divine 
 justice. While this doubt or ignorance existed, he 
 could hardly rest Avith implicit trust even on God's 
 mercy, and could not therefore be expected to pos- 
 sess his soul in patience. The only remedy for this 
 uneasiness and restlessness of spirit, is a just appre- 
 hension, not only of God's nature as a merciful being, 
 but of the precise way in which his mercy can and 
 will be exercised, in which he can be just and yet 
 justify the ungodly. In other words, the soul must 
 not only see God as he is in himself, but see him in 
 Christ reconciling the world unto himself, and not im- 
 puting their trespasses unto them but imputing them 
 to Christ, making him to be sin for us who knew no 
 sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God 
 in him. The man whose hope is fixed, not on ab- 
 stractions or on generalities, not even on the attributes 
 of God, as such, nor on his promises at large, but on
 
 REVELATION U, 12. 303 
 
 the positive, distinct, specific promise Df justification 
 and salvation even to the chief ot'sinners,who 7-cnounces 
 his own rigliteousness and submits to the rigliteous- 
 ness of God, by a simple trust in the righteousness of 
 Chris!:, that man may indeed be said to " wait for the 
 hope of righteousness by faith." (Galatians 5, 5.) The 
 attitude of that soul is indeed one of waiting, of pa- 
 tient waiting, of patient waiting for God, of patient 
 waiting for the salvation of the Lord, of "love to God 
 and patient waiting for Christ." 
 
 Beyond this it is impossible to go in making the 
 object of our patient expectation either greater or 
 more definite. He who waits for the hope of right- 
 eousness by faith, through the love of God and the 
 patient waiting for Christ, may have a faint hope 
 through his own infirmity, but cannot have a vague 
 one through the vagueness of the object. His hope, 
 and by necessary consequence, his patience, may be 
 variable, fluctuating, and capricious, but not from any 
 want of amplitude, or fulness, or distinctness in the 
 object. The more he sees of that, the more profoundly 
 tranquil and unbroken will the patience of his spirit 
 be. If we know not what we hope for, or if we doubt 
 of its reality or excellence, or of its being attainable 
 by us, we may still have hope, but we cannot have 
 patience. Our hope will be a restless, an unsteady, 
 an impatient, a capricious hope. " But if we hope 
 for that " which, though " we see not we believe" and 
 know to be real and excellent and within our reach, 
 " then, then, do we with patience wait for it," not be- 
 cause we no longer desire it, but because we do ; not 
 because we are walling to postpone the full fruition of
 
 304 SERMONS. 
 
 it, but beuaise we ai^ so filled with the joyful ex- 
 pectation and the assured hope of obtaining it at last, 
 that we are willing to wait the will of Him on whom 
 it all depends, and whom we know to be able to keep 
 that with which we have entrusted him, until that 
 day, however distant. This is the kind of hope that 
 generates true patience ; and if we would indeed " be 
 followers of them who through faith and patience in- 
 herit the promises," let us lay aside our fluctuating, 
 short-lived hopes, M'hicli are extinguished at the first 
 blast or drowned by the first wave that washes over us, 
 and let us not be slothful, but diligent in duty, in the 
 full assurance of hope unto the end. (Hebrews 6, 11. 12.) 
 We have now seen reason to conclude that the 
 patience of the true believer, though a state of rest is 
 one of rest in God, and therefore not a slotliful or in- 
 ert one, but a diligent and active one ; not lawless, 
 but obedient ; not compulsory, but willing ; not fear- 
 ful, but loving ; not despondent, but hopeful ; not 
 vague, but definite ; not resting on the reason, or the 
 fancy, or on nothing, but on God, on Christ, on sal- 
 vation, on the righteousness of faith ; not capricious 
 and short-lived, but constant, uniform, and persever- 
 ing. The connection which has been already pointed 
 out between this patience, and the love of God and 
 faith in Christ, is a suflicient answer to the question, 
 whence does this patience spring, by what is it pro- 
 duced, and how shall we obtain it? Are we still 
 without the love of God and faith in Christ ? Then 
 patient waiting is for us impossible. "We may wait 
 long, we may wait forever, in the sense of doing 
 nothing, sinking deeper in sin, and growing harder
 
 REVELATION 14, 12. 305 
 
 under it; but if n the sense before explained we 
 would possess oiii toiils in patience, we must believe, 
 and love, and hcpe. Faitli lies at the foundation. 
 AVliere faith is wanting, there can be no patience. 
 With little faith there can be little patience. Not 
 that the highest degrees of faith are necessary to a 
 genuine patience ; much less that faith which is as- 
 sailed and tried can breed no patience. But of these 
 trials, patience often springs ; patience not only in the 
 lower, but the higher sense ; not only the passive 
 power of endurance, but the active power of humble, 
 hopeful, joyful, and believing expectation ; " only let 
 patience have her perfect work, that ye may be per- 
 fect and entire, wanting nothing, knowing that the 
 trial of your faith woi^ketJi patience.'''' (Jas. 1, 3. 4.) 
 But this effect supposes an internal preparation, 
 without which mere external trials of our faith, in- 
 stead of working patience, would render it impossible. 
 And this internal preparation can be wrought by noth- 
 ing but a spiritual influence not only from without, but 
 from above, from heaven, from God. Xone but tlie 
 Holy Ghost can work in our darkened and corrupted 
 heart, that humble, yet triumphant expectation of de- 
 liverance through the righteousness of Christ, which 
 is the life of spiritual patience " For we through the 
 Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," 
 (Gal. 5, 5.)P This hope, and the faith from which it 
 springs, and the lo-v b to God by which it is accom- 
 panied, are all his gift. Patience and all the elements 
 of which it is composed must come alike from him. 
 The Lord alone can " direct [our] hearts into the love 
 of God, and the patient waiting for Christ," (2 Thess.
 
 306 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 3, 5.) Tlie sum of all these Scri] tures seems to he 
 that there is a patience necessary to the Christian life, 
 a patience which includes resignation and endurance, 
 but includes far more ; a patience which God ap- 
 proves, and upon which he has promised his blessing, 
 as a source of strength and as a means of perfection ; 
 that this patience is a rest in God, not slothful but 
 diligent, obedient, loving, and believing, springing 
 from the hope of salvation through the righteousness 
 of Christ and from faitli in liim, augmented even by 
 tlie trial of that faith when it is genuine and does not 
 fail ; a patience wrought by the Holy Spirit directing 
 our hearts into the love of God, and the patience of 
 Christ, or patient waiting for him. 
 
 If in what has now been said, tlie declarations of 
 the Scriptures should appear to be distorted from their 
 natural, simple meaning as applied to patience in the 
 lower sense, let it be considered in the first place, 
 that some of the things jDredicated of patience in the 
 Word of God are wholly inapplicable to a mere sub- 
 missive temper, power of endurance, or freedom from 
 uneasy restlessness and discontent. In the next place, 
 let it be considered that the higher patience which 
 the Word of God describes, and which the grace of 
 God produces, so far from being opposed to the one 
 just mentioned, or in any sense at variance with it, 
 that it includes it as the whole includes t^e part, or 
 as the spring includes the stream, or the plant its 
 fruit or flower. While it still stands true, attested 
 both by Scripture and experience, that a mere philo- 
 Bophical or natural patience can never lead to those 
 results which are ascribed to Christian patience in
 
 REVELATION 14, 12. SQY 
 
 the "Word of God, it is equally true and equally well 
 ascertained, that this is the only certain and unfailing 
 source of meekness, resignation, and tranquillity ac- 
 cessible to man. llie patience of wrong, or suffering, 
 or hope defeiTcd, which springs from mere prudential 
 motives or from self-control, can never rise higher than 
 its fountain in the heart, and must therefore prove 
 unequal to the gi-eatest emergencies of human life. 
 But break a man's heart with a conviction of sin, 
 open the eyes to the impending danger, make him 
 feel his incapacity to help himself, and his ur- 
 gent need of superhuman help, then let him see 
 Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour, just such a Sav- 
 iour as he needs, and has at last been made to wish 
 for, let him understand and appreciate the freeness of 
 the gospel offer, let him close with it in hearty ac- 
 quiescence by a true faith, let him feel the love of 
 God shed abroad in his heart and controlling his af- 
 fections, let him see the hope of full salvation, and 
 of future glory streaking the horizon like tlie dawn of 
 a celestial morning ; on this dawn let his eye rest with 
 a full persuasion that the day is breaking, that the 
 sun is there, that it will rise, that it will soon rise, 
 and with this conviction, what will he care for the 
 expiring of the few flickering tapers that surround 
 him ? The patience which will best enable men to 
 bear the wrongs, and sorrows, and delays of life, is 
 patient continuance in well-doing, the patient waiting 
 for Christ, the patience which is joint heir of the 
 promises with faith, the patience of hope, which waits 
 for things unseen, looks for the hope of righteousness 
 by faith, and quietly waits for the salvation of the
 
 308 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 Lord. Where tliis exists, the forgiveness of mjurieSj 
 the endurance of sufferings, the loss of all things, are, 
 comparatively easy. 
 
 If, then, we would exercise the lower forms of pa- 
 tience, we must do it by securing the possession of 
 the higher. If faith and repentance are unknown to 
 our experience, we must repent and believe before we 
 can expect to bear and forbear even in this world's 
 matters with a truly Christian spirit. If we have re- 
 pented and believed, we must learn to love and hope, 
 as necessary elements of patience. If we have already 
 studied in this school, and begun to practice its celes- 
 tial precepts, let us show the same diligence to the 
 full assurance of hope unto the end ; let patience have 
 its perfect work, that we may be perfect and entire, 
 wanting nothing. Let us wait on the Lord and keep 
 his way. Let us rest in the Lord and wait patiently 
 for him. Let us hope and quietly wait for his salva- 
 tion. Let us through the Spirit wait for the hope of 
 righteousness by faith. Let us by patient continuance 
 in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immor- 
 tality. If we hope for what we see not, let us with 
 patience wait for it, and ere long we shall see it. We 
 shall see it. Faith shall be turned into sight. The 
 work of patience shall be done forever ; and while the 
 patience of the philosophers and worldlings shall be 
 seen in all its hollowness and emptiness, a voice from 
 heaven shall say even of the weakest and unworthiest 
 of us who have thus preserved our souls in patience, 
 " Here is the patience of the saints ; here are they that 
 keep the commandments of God and the faith of 
 Jesus."
 
 XVII. 
 
 2 Timothy 2, 9. — The word of God is not bound. 
 
 This is the language of a prisoner at Eorae. The 
 imperial city had seen many a captive brought in 
 singly or to grace the triumph of her conquering 
 chiefs. In comparison with these there was little to 
 attract attention in the case of a Cilician Jew, sent 
 by the Roman prefect of Judea to be tried before the 
 judgment-seat of Caesar upon charges pertaining to 
 the Jews' religion. To the Romans, such a case was 
 too familiar and too unimportant in itself to excite 
 much interest, especially before the prisoner's actual 
 appearance at the emperor's tribunal. With the ex- 
 ception of a few official functionaries, and of his own 
 brethren, who were numerous in Rome, it is probable 
 that few were aware of his presence or even his ex- 
 istence. It was little imagined by the soldiers whose 
 swords rattled on the ancient pavement of the street 
 where Paul dwelt, or by the vast mixed multitude of 
 citizens in gown or armour, who continually passed 
 before his prison, that wathin those doors sat one 
 whose influence M'as to be felt throughout the empire, 
 and beyond its furthest pale, for ages; one who, as 
 well by self-devotion as by divine appointment, was
 
 gjQ SERMONS. 
 
 the Apostle of he Gentiles, the official founder of the 
 Christian church among the nations. 
 
 He was now a prisoner, and this his actual con 
 dition, hore a significant analogy to some points of 
 his earlier history. In lineage and breeding he was 
 a thorough Jew — a Hebrew of the Hebrews — a Phari- 
 see of the straitest sect — brought up in Jerusalem at 
 the feet of Gamaliel, a famous doctor of the law. 
 His attachment to the faith of his fathers was attest- 
 ed by his zeal in opposition to what seemed to threaten 
 it. In the first persecution of the Christians at Jeru- 
 salem, he was present, at least as a spectator. The 
 upper garments of those who stoned the protomartyr 
 Stephen, were laid at the feet of Saul of Tarsus. This 
 sight, instead of softening his heart towards the suf- 
 ferers or rousing his indignation against the persecu- 
 tors, seems to have kindled in his own breast the flame 
 of an intolerant zeal. Our next view of him is in the 
 service of the persecuting priesthood — making havoc 
 of the church — entering into every house, haling men 
 and women and committing them to prison. A little 
 after he appears again, still breathing out threaten- 
 ings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, 
 soliciting employment as their enemy, volunteering 
 his services to the high priest, and demanding letters 
 to the synagogues of foreign cities, that if he found 
 any of this M'ay, whether they were men or women, 
 he might bring them hound unto Jerusalem. 
 
 Tliis was known to Christians abroad before he 
 actually came among them, for when Ananias received 
 the divine command to visit him and restore his sight, 
 he expostulated saying, " Lord, I have heard by many 

 
 2 TDIOTHY 2, 9. 311 
 
 of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at 
 Jerusalem, and here he hath authority from the chief 
 priests to bi7ida\\ that call on thy name." So after he be- 
 gan to preacli Christ in the synagogues of Damascus, all 
 that heard him were amazed and said, " Is not this he 
 that destroyed them which called on this name in Jeru- 
 salem, and came hither for that intent that he might 
 bring them bound unto the chief priests ? " 
 
 The prominence given in this narrative to Paul's 
 eagerness in linding, i. e. arresting or imprisoning all 
 converts to the new religion, is not an accidental one. 
 It reappears in his own statement of his conversion 
 before the multitude on the castle-stairs in Jerusalem : 
 " I persecuted this way unto the death, hinding and 
 delivering into prisons both men and women. I went 
 to Damascus to bring them M'hich were there, hound 
 unto Jerusalem." And in answer to the Lord's com- 
 mand to go forth — " Lord, they know that I itnpris- 
 oned and beat in every synagogue them that believed 
 on thee. And again at Cesarea, before Festus and 
 Agrippa, many of the saints did I shut up in prison." 
 To the circumstance thus marked in his own recol- 
 lection of his persecuting ministry, it pleased God 
 that there should be something corresponding in his 
 later history as a Christian preacher and confessor. In 
 the catalogue of his sufferings for Christ, one item is 
 in prisons more frequent. When he was bound with 
 thongs jipon the castle-stairs, it was but the begin- 
 ning of this series of captivities, the last of which was 
 terminated only by his martyrdom. 
 
 Thus he who once breathed only to bind the fol- 
 lowers of Christ, became himself the prisoner of the
 
 312 SERMONS. 
 
 Lord, " for ^vliose sake," said he, " I am bound with 
 this chain." How much his own mind was affected 
 by this providential coincidence, is clear from the 
 frequency and point of his allusions to it in his epis- 
 tles, from the earliest in date, to this to Timothy, in 
 all probability the last of all — " wherein I suffer 
 trouble as an evil-doer even unto honds^ but the word 
 OF GOD IS NOT BOUND," i. ^., though I who prcach it am 
 a prisoner, the word itself is not confined and cannot 
 be. As he once said in writing to the Koman Chris- 
 tians, " let God be true but every man a liar," so here 
 he seems to say, " let me abide a prisoner forever, if 
 the glorious gospel may but run, have free course 
 and be glorified." This was the prisoner's consolation 
 in captivity — a consolation at once rational and trust- 
 ful, pregnant with lessons of practical wisdom, some 
 of which it may not be inappropriate or unjustifiable 
 to consider in detail. 
 
 1. The first idea suggested by the words in their 
 original connection, is that Paul's incarceration did 
 not hinder his own personal exertions as a preacher 
 of the gospel. His countrymen and others Avere al- 
 lowed access to him. Through the wise and tolerant 
 indulgence of the Roman government, he " dwelt two 
 whole years in his own hired house, and received all 
 that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of 
 God, and teaching those things which concern the 
 Lord Jesns Christ, with all confidence, no man for- 
 bidding him." Though he was bound, therefore, the 
 word of God was not — not even as to his personal 
 share in its promulgation. 
 
 This was, of course, a precious consolation to the
 
 2 TlilOTHY 2, 9. 323 
 
 captive. How inucli wonld the pains of his confinement 
 have beeii aggravated if, in addition to the restraint 
 upon his limbs or his movements, his mout^ had been 
 stopped as an ambassador of, Christ. How fervently 
 may we suppose that he would then have prayed, and 
 called on others to pray for him, that his mouth 
 might be opened, that utterance might be given him, 
 to speak freely as he ought to speak. But such facil- 
 ity he did possess ; and, in the joyful consciousness 
 of this advantage, he here puts the bane and anti- 
 dote together — AYlierein I sutler trouble as an evil-doer 
 even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound. 
 
 The practical lesson taught by Paul's example, in 
 this view of it, is obvious. It is a reproof of our dis- 
 position to regard external disadvantages, restraints, 
 and disabilities as either affording an immunity from 
 blame if we neglect to use the power still left us, or 
 discouraging the hope of any good effect from using 
 it. Because we cannot do all that we would, we are 
 too apt to do nothing; or, because we cannot com- 
 mand the means with which we are familiar, we are 
 often ready to abandon the whole enterprise. In this 
 disposition there is more pride than humility. It is 
 tainted with the selfish ambition of a Cesar, who 
 must be all or nothing. It is also condemned by 
 the experience of the world. Some of the greatest 
 achievements in science and the arts, in warfare and 
 in government, in morals and philanthropy, have been 
 effected in the absence of what some men would re- 
 gard as indispensable appliances, and in a wise con- 
 tempt of them. It is not the music or the uniform, 
 the burnished metal or the flaunting flag, that secures 
 
 VOL. II. — 14
 
 3U 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 tlie v'ctorv, liowever useful thcv may be in their own 
 places. Had they been the indispensable conditions 
 of success,%tlie tattered and unshod champions of our 
 own independence must have yielded to the brilliant 
 and well-appointed forces of the enemy. Kay, the 
 very loss or interruption of accustomed comforts and 
 accommodations has been sometimes the not remote 
 occasion of a victory. 
 
 It may be so, too, in the spiritual warfare. Men 
 may form the habit of regarding the conventional fa- 
 cilities to which they are accustomed even in benevo- 
 lent exertion as essential means to the desired end, 
 and when these are withdrawn, may look upon the 
 case as hopeless — as if Panl, when made a prisoner at 
 Home, had given up all for lost, and ceased to speak 
 or labour for the cause of Christ — as if he had said, 
 I am bonnd and the gospel is bound with me. It 
 must share my bondage and continue shut up in 
 the walls of my compulsory abode. Such a course 
 would not have been irrational or sinful on the prin- 
 ciples which many of us Christians seem to hold ; but 
 it was Avholly inconsistent with the sentiments and 
 character of Panl. AVhen lie could not do all, he still 
 did what he could ; he had learned both to abound 
 and to suffer need ; he could be all things to all men, 
 that he might save some. When he could not preach 
 Christ as a freeman, he must preach him only the 
 more zealously as an ambassador in bonds. AVhen 
 forced to say, Wherein I suffer trouble as an evil-doer 
 even unto bonds, he could cheerfully and thankfully 
 add, " But the word of God is not bound." 
 
 2. It was still true, however, that Paul's bonds di-
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 3;15 
 
 minished liis efficiency. "While he avoided the ex- 
 treme of abandoning all hope, he equally avoided 
 that of foolishly imagining that he could personally 
 do as much for the diffusion of the Gospel in his own 
 hired house at Rome, as in the wide sweep of liis 
 itinerant apostleship. This was impossible, as he 
 well knew ; and knowing it, he needed something 
 more to comfort him in his confinement than the con- 
 sciousness that, though he could no longer do as much 
 as he had once done, he could still do something. Tliis 
 might be enough for him, but it was not enough for 
 the honour of his master. It might satisfy his con- 
 science, but it could not satisfy his heart or appease 
 the cravings of his thirst for the salvation of the world. 
 His work, though not yet at an end, was interrupted, 
 and how should his lack of service be supplied? The 
 answer is a plain one : by the labours of others. This 
 M'as a large ingredient in the cup of the apostle's con- 
 solation. He rejoiced not only in the labours of 
 others during his comparative inaction, but in that 
 inaction as the occasion, the exciting cause, of other 
 men's exertions. Nay, he could even go so far as to 
 consent to be wronged and dishonoured, if by that 
 means his ruling passion might be gratified. To the 
 Macedonian Christians in Philippi he writes as fol- 
 lows from his confinement in the city of the Cesars: 
 " Brethren, I would ye should understand that the 
 things which happened unto me have fallen out rather 
 unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds 
 in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all 
 other places ; and many of the brethren in the Lord, 
 waxing confident by my bonds, are much mere bold
 
 316 SERMONS. 
 
 to Speak the A'crd without fear. Some indeed preach 
 Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of good- 
 ■^TJii — tije one preach Christ of contention, not sin- 
 cerely, thinking to add affliction to my bonds, but 
 the others of love, knowing that I am set for the de- 
 fence of the gospel. What then ? Notwithstanding 
 every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Clirist is 
 preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will re- 
 joice, for I know that this shall turn to my salvation 
 through your prayer, and the supply of the spirit of 
 Christ Jesus, according to my earnest expectation and 
 my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that 
 with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall 
 be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by 
 death ; for to me, to live is Christ, and to die is 
 gain." 
 
 "What is the principle involved in this sublime 
 profession of heroic devotion to the cause of Christ? 
 Plainly this, that while Paul was even ready to mag- 
 nify his office as apostle to the Gentiles, and correctly 
 appreciated both the honour and the difficulty of the 
 work assigned to him, he never dreamed that it was 
 meant to be entirely dependent upon his individual 
 activity. It was not at himself, but at the world, 
 that he continually looked. He regarded his own 
 labours as important only so far and so long as it 
 pleased God to employ them as means to the ap- 
 pointed end ; and when they seemed to lose this pe- 
 culiar relation to the cause, instead of lamenting that 
 his agency was suspended, or dreading the success of 
 any other than his own, he loses sight of his own 
 share in tlie great work, to look at the great work it-
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 317 
 
 self, as something clear to liim, yet independent of 
 him, which he was willing to promote either by his 
 life or death, as God might please to order, but which 
 he desired to see promoted at all costs and at all haz- 
 ards, wdiether by himself, or by his friends, or by his 
 enemies. 
 
 This is a spirit worthy of a hero, nay, of an apos- 
 tle ; of one who could and did rejoice that Christ was 
 preached, by whomsoever, and whose highest hope 
 was that Christ might be magnified in him, whether 
 actively or passively, by life or by death. Here too, 
 the lesson to ourselves is obvious. The apostle's ex- 
 ample ought to shame us out of all undue reliance 
 upon certain human agencies and influences. Espe- 
 cially ought this to be the case in relation to our own 
 share of the work to be performed for the honour of 
 God and the salvation of the world. If Paul, with 
 his apostolic dignity, confirmed by all the signs of an 
 apostle, regarded his own personal exertions only as 
 appointed means wuth which the sovereign power 
 that prescribed them could as easily dispense, what 
 are we, that we should think ourselves or our assist- 
 ance necessary to the divine purpose, or that purpose 
 in danger of defeat and disappointment at any mo- 
 mentary interruption of our share in its promotion, 
 or that we should frown upon the emulous exertions of 
 our neighbours in the same cause, as a kind of en- 
 croachment upon our prerogative, an insolent intru- 
 sion on our chosen and appropriated field of labour % 
 How completely does the spirit of the great apostolic 
 captive put to shame all such exclusiveness and self- 
 ish emulation, as displayed too often by the iudi-
 
 518 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 vidufil labottrer, and still more l)y l.vi-ge bodies of 
 sncii hibonrers, liuwever zealons and sincere. 
 
 This last is but another form of tiic same error, 
 more insidious, because clothed in the garb of hu- 
 mility. He ^vho professes to distrust, nay, who really 
 distrusts himself as insufficient for this work, may be 
 guilty of an undue reliance upon others, either singly 
 or collectively. However little he may look for from 
 his own individual exertions, he may repose an un- 
 commanded confidence in those of his neighbonrs, or 
 his leaders, or in the united strength of his party, of 
 his church, or of his nation; and to these corporate 
 bodies may transfer the idolatrous trust and admira- 
 tion which he dare not arrogate to himself But this 
 kind of dependence upon human strength for that 
 which God alone can do, though less oft'ensive in its 
 manifestations, is equally at variance with a spirit of 
 true faith, and equally condemned by Paul's exam- 
 ple. The principle which actuated and controlled his 
 conduct comprehends in the wide sco|)e of its a])pli- 
 cation all dependence upon human agencies as abso- 
 lutely or intrinsically necessary to the execution of 
 the divine plan, whether the objects of this misplaced 
 trust be individuals or communities — ourselves or 
 others. The j)rimary meaning of Paul's joyful ex- 
 clamation is, that thf)ugh he was a priscuier, the word 
 of God was free, but it obviously in)]dies that though 
 all the i)reachers of the word were altogether like 
 him, not even excepting his bonds, it would still have 
 boon true, that the ^\■ord of God Mas not their fellow 
 ca])tive, but might run and be glorified. Though I 
 and every other human instrument be paralyzed or
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 319 
 
 Bhattered, God can perform his own work in his own 
 way ; tliongh I and every other messenger endure 
 affliction even unto bonds, the ivord of God is not 
 hound. There is no need, however, of our stopping even 
 here. AYe are not required to content ourselves with 
 knowing that the word of God is not bound to the 
 hand or foot of any human instrument however 
 eminent, however usefuh Let us view the teaching 
 of the text in its uttermost extent, and sound it in its 
 lowest dejDths, or rather to the depth of our capacity, 
 even though it should conduct us to what may at first 
 sight seem a more abstract and artificial view of the 
 apostle's meaning. 
 
 One of the most important lessons couched in this 
 significant expression or deducible from it, would be 
 lost upon us if we went no further. I refer to the doc- 
 trine that the truth of God is independent, not only 
 of particular human agents, but of all human systems 
 of opinion, organizations, and methods of procedure. 
 This must be apprehended and believed as a distinct 
 proposition. We may grant the insignificance of any 
 particular personal agency, and yet rely upon the in- 
 trinsic efficacy of certain theories and certain plans, 
 whatever be the agency by which they are reduced 
 to practice. As in politics, so in religion, and es- 
 pecially in its active benevolence, the maxim " princi- 
 ples not men" may be delusive, by leading only from 
 one error to another, by withdrawing confidence from 
 personal advantages of character or talent, only to fix 
 it the more blindly on the real or imaginary attributes 
 of systems, schemes, contrivances, and methods. It 
 is important, therefore, that the words of the apostle
 
 320 SERMONS. ■ 
 
 should be taken in their widest sense, as intimatiig 
 that " the word of God is not bound" with this cliain 
 any more than witli tlie others. The diffusion and 
 triumph of the truth are not suspended on our methods 
 of promoting them, however excellent. The truth 
 we circulate is not a lifeless, inert mass, which we 
 may shape, and regulate, and bear about at our dis- 
 cretion or caprice ; it is a living element, which we 
 can neither generate nor kill, but to which God allows 
 us the honour of furnishing conductors and assigning 
 a direction with a view to certain applications. What- 
 ever reason we may have for cherishing our own ac- 
 customed modes of doing this, Ave must still remem- 
 ber that, in reference to these as well as other things, 
 " the word of God is not bound." 
 
 There may seem to be but slight ground or practi- 
 cal necessity for this admonition ; but the fact is other- 
 wise. This error is a real and an operative one. Its 
 tendency, if not directly to relax effort, is to weaken 
 faith, discourage hope, damp zeal, contract the views, 
 and thereby most effectually stop the wheels of all 
 great enterprises. The error itself does not lie in the 
 contrivance of ingenious and effectual plans, or in 
 their zealous execution, but in looking upon their op- 
 eration and results as the aggregate effect produced 
 by saving truth ; as if one should suppose that there 
 was no light in the world but that employed in opti- 
 cal experiments, and no electric, or magnetic, or gal 
 vanic influence but that subjected to our senses by 
 the pile or battery. It is an honour and a happiness 
 to be allowed to gather up a portion of revealed truth, 
 as the Hebrews gathered manna in their vessels, and
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 321 
 
 to cast it into certain moulds without destroying its vi- 
 tality or virtue, and to blend it with otlier things con- 
 genial though distinct, and to clothe it in legitimate 
 though uncommanded forms of our own choosing, and 
 to apply it as we find expedient for our own advan- 
 tage or for that of others. But we must not let this 
 privilege mislead us into the delusion of imagining, 
 that this is all the truth of God can do, or rather that 
 there is no truth at all except as we choose to exhibit 
 or difl'use it; that if our machinery should burst or 
 fall to pieces, it would leave the world to spiritual 
 darkness and starvation. In short, that the word of 
 God is bound to us and to our methods of preserving 
 and diffusing it. In this, as in the other senses here- 
 tofore considered, be assured, my hearers, that " the 
 word of God is not bound," 
 
 The mistaken views, of which I am now speaking, 
 arise from natural and moral causes, some of which 
 are easily detected. Our ideas of value, from their 
 very nature, are connected with our customary modes 
 of measurement and estimation. Whatever we can 
 count or weigh, we own to have a real tangible exist- 
 ence. Whatever we can thus treat to a certain point, 
 even without being able to include the whole, we look 
 upon as vast in its extent or worth, but no less real 
 than if we could measure it by pounds or inches. 
 
 But that whicla cannot be subjected to our meas- 
 urement at all, we are disposed to reckon as imagin- 
 ary, or as only half existing, not entitled to a place 
 among the tangible realities by which we are sur- 
 rounded. The very air we breathe, because it is in- 
 visible, is apt to be regarded by the uninstructed 
 vol. J I. — 14*
 
 322 SERMONS. 
 
 mind, as almost a nonentity ; and even when it proves 
 its own existence, when it sweeps over the earth in tlie 
 tornado, tearing up whole forests, some would rather 
 trace the terrible effect to causes utterly unknown, 
 than to an agent in immediate contact with their bo- 
 dies, yet apparently beyond the reach of their inves- 
 tigation. It is true that some of these mysterious 
 agencies in nature have been brought to bear with 
 wonderful effect upon the interests of real life. The 
 indomitable light is made to do the slow work of the 
 artist's pencil in a moment of time, and the flitting 
 shadow is arrested in its flight and rendered perma- 
 nent. An unsubstantial vapour now replaces on the 
 ocean and the land, on the road and in the factory, a 
 vast amount of aniinal exertion. A power once reck- 
 oned too mysterious for scrutiny, or even for belief, 
 now apes the wonder of annihilating time and space, 
 and instantaneously conveys men's whispers not only 
 over continents but under oceans. Eflects so real 
 must have real causes, and the world reluctantly ad- 
 iiiits the fact. 
 
 Now, there are triumphs of advancing knowledge 
 ill the field of natural discovery — her triumphs over 
 ignorant and stubborn prepossessions. And why may 
 not the truth, though in itself immutable, gain kindred 
 victories in morals and religion ? Why should they 
 who no longer venture to dispute the existence and 
 activity of physical causes, which they cannot esti- 
 mate or measure, still persist in believing that the 
 truth of God is only operative through their channels 
 and in their machinery — that when they have com- 
 puted the amount of saving knowledge spread through
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 323 
 
 theas, by counting the words, or the pages, or the 
 volumes that contain it, the}' have stated the sum total 
 of the cleansing, strengthening, illuminating influence 
 exerted by the truth upon this evil world ? The doc- 
 trine which I would oppose to this delusion is the 
 simple doctrine that " the word of God is not bound " 
 or restricted, in its salutary virtue, to the formal and 
 appreciable power exerted upon churches and Chris- 
 tian communities, or through the ordinary modes and 
 channels of religions influence, however great this 
 power may be, however indispensable to the comple- 
 tion of the work which God is working in our days. 
 We may even admit that it is relatively almost all, 
 but it is still not quite all ; and the residuary power 
 may be greater, vastly greater, than it seems to us 
 before attentively considering the other less direct, 
 less formal, less appreciable ways, in which the word 
 of God, the truth revealed in Scripture, is at this mo- 
 ment operating on the condition of society, apart from 
 its constant and direct communication through the 
 pulpit, the school, and the religious press. These are 
 the agencies, indeed, by which sound doctrine is main- 
 tained in your churches and impressed upon your 
 youth ; and this, in its perfection, is the highest end 
 that can be wrought by the difi'usion of the truth. 
 
 But let us not forget that much may be efiected 
 even when this highest end is not attained. In many 
 a heresy, for instance, how much truth may be min- 
 gled, saving it from absolute coiruption, and perhaps 
 the souls of those who hold it, from perdition. Infi- 
 delity, in all its forms, affects to treat religion with 
 contempt as the oflspring of ignorance ; but its own
 
 324: SERMONS. 
 
 discoveries are mere mutilations of the truths which 
 it has stolen from its despised enemy. The attempt 
 of infidelity to do away with the great doctrines of 
 religion, is the prowess of a dwarf mounting on a 
 giant's shoulders to put out his eye. Tlie best con- 
 structed system of unscriptural philosophy, however 
 close and dark, still has its crevices, and through 
 these some light cannot fail to percolate, if only to be 
 seized upon as proof that the system is not one of 
 darkness after all. 
 
 The same thing is true as to those slighter and 
 more trivial, but for that very reason more eifecti\e 
 forms of unbelief, which are propagated not in philo- 
 sophical abstractions, but in poetry, romance, and 
 other current literature. The novelist or journalist 
 who, with a scorn of Christianity only to be equalled 
 by his ignorance of what it teaches, undertakes to 
 show his readers " a more excellent way," often brings 
 them at last to some elementary truth, already wrought 
 into the mind and stamped upon the memory of every 
 child who reads the Bible. What a tribute is this to 
 the pervading, penetrating force of truth, that it can 
 find its way even into such dark places, and at least 
 serve to make the darkness visible ! Look too at the 
 schemes of civil government and social order framed 
 by irreligious men, or unbelievers in the Scriptures, 
 and observe these two facts easily established : that 
 every departure from the lessons of God's word is a 
 demonstrable evil or defect in relation even to the 
 lower object aimed at ; and that every thing condu- 
 cive to a good end in the system is an adaptation of 
 Rome Christian doctrine to a special purpose. It is
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 325 
 
 no doubt far more flattering to the pride of theorists 
 and system-mongers, to regard what they have bor- 
 rowed or stolen from the Bible as a common stock 
 from which both parties are at liberty to draw ; but 
 they have no right, upon this ground, to deny the 
 notorious fact that this pretended common fund was 
 given to the world by revelation ages before their 
 own inventions came into existence. 
 
 It would be easy to pursue the same inquiry 
 through every field of science and every walk of art, 
 and to show that even there, the Word of God has 
 first been followed as a guide, and then expelled as 
 an intruder ; that its light has first been used to kin- 
 dle others, and then vain attemj)ts made to extinguish 
 it forever ; in a word, that its enemies have first re- 
 sorted to it in their time of need, and then ungrate- 
 fully forgotten or unblushingly denied the obligation. 
 In all these cases, it is no doubt true that the result 
 of the mutilating and perverting process is something 
 unscriptural and antichristian. It is not pretended 
 that the few drops of pure water neutralize the poison, 
 or that the single ray of light dispels the darkness into 
 which, as if by accident, it finds its way. The gen- 
 eral result may still be evil, although these foreign 
 elements are there ; but if they are there, who will 
 undertake to say how much less after all the evil is 
 than it would otherwise have been ? 
 
 Here then is a case in which an inappreciable 
 cause may be known to be producing great effects. 
 The indirect and incidental influence of Bible truth 
 upon erroneous systems of religion, the various forms 
 of infidelity, or science, art, and literature, on man-
 
 326 SERMONS. 
 
 ners, government, and social morals, cannot be meas- 
 ured, but it cannot be denied. It maj be inscrutable, 
 but it is real, and we must not leave it out of our ac- 
 count when "vve vrould estimate the power of divine 
 truth, or our own obligations to diffuse it, or our 
 causes and occasions of encouragement to persevere 
 and look for great results from tlie diffusion of that 
 light which, though it sheds its full effulgence only 
 on a few most highly favoured spots, at the same 
 time sends some of its rays into the dark places of the 
 earth which are full of the habitations of cruelty. 
 Thanks be to God, that the beneficent effects of his 
 word are not entirely confined to those who willingly 
 receive it, but that even in relation to the church 
 and to Christendom, however vast their advantages 
 above the heathen, " the word of God is not bound." 
 If this be a correct view of the influence exerted 
 even indirectly by the word of God ; if over and 
 above its certain and complete results, it shines 
 through the interstices of unknown caverns, and mit- 
 igates the darkness of unfathomed depths ; if in fer- 
 tilizing one spot, it sheds even a few scattered but 
 refreshing drops upon a multitude of others ; if in 
 doing all for some, it incidentally does some for all, 
 let me ask, in conclusion, what should be the practical 
 effect of this belief? not that of paralyzing hope or 
 crippling efibrt, but the very contrary. It should for- 
 bid despair ; it should excite to new exertion. Its 
 tendency to this effect may be exhibited in three par- 
 ticulars. And first, if all these things be so, we need 
 not tremble for the truth itself. Our efforts to pre- 
 serve it and improve it may be vain ; but it will take
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 327 
 
 care of itself, or rather God will take care of it. If 
 his word were something that existed only here and 
 there like precious stones and metals, we might fear 
 that it would be drained off to meet some urgent de- 
 mand elsewhere, or that it might be actually lost or 
 destroyed. But who can fear the loss of that which 
 penetrates all substances, and reaches even the remot- 
 est regions ? Who can fear the loss of water, air, or 
 fire? To individuals, to families, to entire com- 
 munities, the truth may indeed be wholly lost, to 
 their eternal undoing. But it shall not be banished 
 from the world. There may be savages to whom the 
 use of fire is unknown. There are deserts which are 
 always almost wholly void of moisture. But the 
 flames can never be extinguished on these millions of 
 hearths, or if they were, they would be soon rekindled 
 by the electric clouds of heaven, or the volcanic cra- 
 ters of the earth. The world cannot die of thirst un- 
 til the windows of heaven are forever stopped, and 
 the fountains of the deep forever emptied. So shall 
 it be with the word of God ; he has not only spread 
 it over the surface of society, but given it a lodgment 
 in its innermost recesses. Every system, every in- 
 stitution, every community, has received of its fuhiess, 
 more or less. Should its regular depositories be de- 
 stroyed, it will burst forth from its hiding-places 
 where it lay forgotten, to regenerate the world. Its 
 champions may be overcome, its heralds carried cap- 
 tive, " but the word of God is not bound." 
 
 Another aspect of the same thing is, that if such 
 be the indirect, as well as the direct cfi'ects of truth, 
 there is some hope for the world itself, and even f(>r
 
 328 SERMONS. 
 
 those parts of it, and tliose tilings in ii, which other- 
 wise might seem to be confined to hopeless, irrecov- 
 erable ruin. Tlie mass may in itself be wholly cor- 
 ruj)t, there may be present in it and diffused through 
 out it a potent antiseptic principle, a salt, not super- 
 ficially applied, but absorbed into the pores, and 
 lodged in the vessels of the body politic, not so as en- 
 tirely to purge out its impurities, but so as to pre- 
 serve it from immediate dissolution. AVhen we hear 
 of wars and revolutions, when we see the weakness of 
 all human safeguards proved experimentally by one 
 convulsion following another, till the cause of human 
 freedom and good government seems desperate, let 
 us remember that amidst the corruptions and infirm- 
 ities of even the best human institutions, there is 
 still a power working, it may be insensibly, but con- 
 stantly and not without effect, to procrastinate, if not 
 to prevent forever the catastrophe which sometimes 
 seems so inevitable. The statesman and the dema- 
 gogue are far from dreaming that what sometimes 
 saves them from the ruin which they had long ceased 
 to think avoidable, is that despised religion which 
 they have in vain endeavoured to exclude from all 
 participation in the honours of their boasted system, 
 but which, in spite of them, has so far leavened it, 
 that even their own suicidal violence fails of its effect. 
 The hand of power may be palsied, or the wild force 
 of the multitude coerced by various accidental causes, 
 but this mysterious principle still lives, and moveSj 
 and acts upon society, if not enough to give it health, 
 enough to save its life. The ruler and the ruled may 
 be alike in bondage ; " biit the word of God is not 
 bf)und."
 
 2 TIMOTHY 2, 9. 329 
 
 Lastly, if this be a con-ect view of the powerful 
 and multiform energies of truth ; of its oblique as well 
 as its direct eflects upon the world, it may teach us a 
 valuable lesson as to the true spirit of philanthropy, 
 as being not a formal, rigid, mathematical attempt 
 to save men's souls by certain rules, and in the use of 
 certain ceremonial forms, but a generous, impulsive, 
 and expansive zeal for the glory of God in the salva- 
 tion of the lost. If such be even the remote and sec- 
 ondary influence of truth upon men's social, intellect- 
 ual, and moral state, their science, literature, arts, 
 and government, let us give them excess of it, whether 
 they will hear or whether they will forbear. And as 
 the surest way of gaining this end, let us flood the 
 world with the pure and unadulterated word of God. 
 
 To our several and our separate systems of belief, 
 we owe a diligent use of the necessary means for 
 their establishment and propagation. But to God, 
 to Christ, and to the souls of men, we owe an ener- 
 getic and unceasing eff'ort to saturate the whole earth 
 with that word in which we all agree. Even when 
 we have done all that seems incumbent on us throuo-h 
 the channels of our own ecclesiastical relations, we 
 may still do more through the deep and broad chan- 
 nel of our common Christianity. The word of God 
 has already been repeatedly compared to water, the 
 natural emblem of purification and refreshment. Its 
 diffusion may be likened to the measures for supply- 
 ing a whole population, such as that of a great city, 
 with this precious element of cleanliness, comfort, 
 health, and safety, great municipal measures now 
 Other supplies may be acceptable or even indispen-
 
 330 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 sable to certain classes or to certain spots, but this is 
 requisite alike to all. To provide it may cost labour, 
 time, skill, and vast expense ; but it is worth the price. 
 By some it may be wasted ; some may mix it with 
 intoxicating drinks, or use it in other noxious prepa- 
 rations, or directly apply to the injury of others ; but 
 in spite of all these possibilities of evil, and a thou- 
 sand more as easily imagined, it is still a blessing, and 
 may safely be afforded in unlimited abundance. So 
 is it, and so be it, with the word of God. Whatever 
 some may choose to do with it or mix with it, how- 
 ever some may lavish or neglect it or pervert it, it is 
 still the word of God, and in its unadulterated form 
 may be poured upon the nations as a flood, without a 
 fear of either poisoning or drowning them. Then let 
 it gush, and let the world bear witness that though 
 every other channel be obstructed, and every other 
 source of influence exhausted, — though philosophy 
 and fancy be found unavailing, — though prophecies 
 fail, and tongues cease, and all other knowledge vanish 
 awa}' — though the very ministers of truth be fettered 
 in civil or religious bondage, the word of God is not 
 bound — it is not bound ; it is free ; it is alive ; it is 
 in motion ; it shall win ; it shall have free course and 
 be clorified till " the earth shall be full of the kuowI« 
 edge of God, as the waters cover the sea."
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PsAi.M 8, 1. 9. — Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in 
 all the earth ! 
 
 There is no traditional and nncommanded nsa^e 
 of the Jews, among the many with which they have 
 overlaid and darkened their own scriptures, half so 
 affecting to the imagination and religious sensil)ilities 
 as that immemorial suppression of the name Jehovah, 
 which lias for ages been a kind of negative or tacit 
 shibboleth, to mark and to ]^erpetuate the difference 
 between Jew and Gentile. However false in i)rinci- 
 ple, however destitute of scriptural foundation and 
 divine authority, it cannot be denied that there is 
 something in this national and everlasting reticcncy 
 as to the most solemn and significant of all the divine 
 names, not far removed from the sublime, and that 
 even their extreme of superstitious silence, when at 
 all combined with feelings of elevation, is fiir better 
 than the frivolous levity with whicn that venerable 
 name is tossed from mouth to month, not only in pro- 
 fane discourse, but even in jjublic offices and courts 
 of justice, not to say in the pulpit and the private 
 circles of Christian and religious intercourse. 
 
 The want of agreement and congruity between
 
 332 SERMONS. 
 
 this singular usage and tlie cLaracteristic absence of 
 all mysteries and esoteric doctrines in tlie cliurch of 
 the Old Testament, while it affords a strong presump- 
 tive proof that the usage is one foreign from the prin- 
 ciples and spirit of the Jews' religion in its purest 
 days, only adds to its imaginative grandeur and effect, 
 by bringing it out in bold relief, like a dark spot on a 
 luminous or shining surface. The religious awe which 
 the suppression was originally meant to indicate, and 
 which has no doubt often since attended it, if right at 
 all, coula not have been associated with a more legit- 
 imate or worthy object, than that pregnant tetra- 
 grammaton, in the four characters of which, as in a 
 sacramental symbol, is wrapped up the germ, or 
 rather the quintessence, of that wonderful preparatory 
 system which excited and sustained the expectation 
 of a Saviour till the time of his epiphany was fully 
 come. However difficult it may be to determine in 
 detail the reason for the use of the two principal 
 divine names by the sacred writers in specific cases, 
 there is no ground for doubt, or for diversity of judg- 
 ment, as to the main fact, that Jehovah is distin- 
 guished, in the Hebrew Scriptures, from all other 
 designations of the Godhead, as the name which 
 attested his peculiar relation to his Church or chosen 
 people, and the clear revelation of himself and of his 
 purposes, vouchsafed exclusively to them ; so that the 
 very sound of this word, now supposed by many to 
 be lost through immemorial disuse, or its very sight, 
 when that disuse had grown inveterate, suggested not 
 the vague idea of divinity, nor even that of a personal 
 God, viewed merely in himself and at a distance, but
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9. 333 
 
 the warmer feeling of a God in covenant with his 
 people, making himself known to them as he did not 
 to the world at large ; nay more, literally dwelling in 
 the midst of them, and actually, personally, reigning 
 over them. With such associations, this significant 
 and pregnant name must soon have grown as different 
 in meaning and effect, from the generic name Elohim, 
 which was common to the true God with all others, 
 as the corrasponding terms in modern parlance are 
 from one another ; and as all men among us are free 
 to use the name of God, in season or out of season, 
 blasphemously or devoutly, while the name of Lord 
 is for the most part shunned by irreligious lips, as 
 properly belonging to the dialect of personal religion ; 
 so the ancient Jews, although they still continued to 
 adore God as the God of all men, under the name 
 Elohim, with more or less of that religious reverence 
 which the name implies, praised him and served him 
 as their own, peculiarly revealed and covenanted God, 
 by the distinctive name Jehovah. 
 
 This being the case, it might have been supposed 
 that the distinctive name, thus used to designate the 
 God of revelation and the God of Israel, if significant 
 at all, would have been significant of something closely 
 connected with this singular relation between God and 
 his peculiar people, so that when the name was heard 
 or seen by others or themselves, its very etymology 
 and meaning might suggest ideas of a national or 
 local kind, and irresistibly convey to all minds the 
 conception of a special propriety in Israel on God's 
 part, and in God on theirs. But so far is this from 
 being true, that there is none of the divine names so
 
 334 SERMONS. 
 
 remote from sncli associations, or so little suited in 
 itself to rouse them ; none so lofty, or profound, or 
 comprehensive, as an expression of what God is in 
 himself, without regard to the relations wliicli he may 
 sustain to all or any of his creatures, who are recog- 
 nized in their description only as unlike Him, or con- 
 trasted with Ilim, whom it represents as not only the 
 Supreme, but in a certain sense the only Being, of 
 whom alone existence can in the highest sense be 
 rightfully affirmed ; who was when nothing else was ; 
 who is what nothing else is ; without whom nothing 
 else was, is, or can be ; the source of being in all others, 
 the self-existent, independent, and eternal essence, 
 whose most perfect designation of himself was given 
 in that paradoxical but grand enigma, of vrhicli the 
 name Jehovah is but an abbreviated symbol — I shall 
 be what I shall be, or I am what I am. 
 
 That a name suggestive of all this should be ap- 
 plied to the peculiar relation between God and his 
 people, seems entirely unaccountable, except upon 
 the supposition that it was intended to remind them, 
 by the very name employed to designate their na- 
 tional and covenanted God, that he was not a God 
 distinct from the Creator of the universe, not an infe- 
 rior and derivative divinity, not even a co-ordinate, 
 co-equal, co-eternal being, but the one, sole, self- 
 existent, independent, and eternal essence, '''the 
 blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and 
 Lord of lords, loJio only hath immortality^ dwelling 
 in the light which no man can approach unto ; whom 
 no man hath seen or can see ; to whom be honour 
 and power everlasting. Amen." (1 Tim. G, 15. IG.)
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9 335 
 
 TIlis precantion against such an error may at first 
 siglit seem gratuitous ar.d inconsistent with tlie very 
 idea of a chosen people ; but the whole tenor of the 
 history of Israel shows that such a notion would be 
 perfectl}' erroneous, and that the native tendency of 
 fallen num to transmute truth into falsehood and per- 
 vert the richest blessings into curses, was never more 
 remarkably exemplified than in the national expe- 
 rience of that extraordinary race, who, when they 
 had been severed from the lest of men by a divine 
 clioice, for a temporary purpose, and fn- the ultimate 
 advantage of the wliole, strangely imagined that their 
 segregation was designed to be perpetual, and sprang 
 from some intrinsic or innate superiority, or at least 
 had reference to tlieir own exclusive aggrandizement 
 as its final cause and providential purpose. Had this 
 error terminated on themselves, and merely served 
 to aggravate their overweening self-esteem, it would 
 have been com2)aratively harmless ; but alas ! the 
 transition was an easy one from false views of them- 
 selves to false views of the God whose favour they 
 affected to monopolize as not the God of the Gentiles 
 also ; and from this the fatal step was almost unavoid- 
 able to the conclusion, that their God was not the God 
 of nature or the universe, but either the antagonistic 
 princijjle in some monstrous scheme of dualism, or an 
 inferior deity restricted to the Holy Land. When 
 such views became possible, even to the least en- 
 lightened Jews, no wonder that the Greek and Ivonuiu 
 learned to sneer at the ]u-ovincial God of Palestine ; 
 no wonder that the modern skeptic still delights to 
 represent llim as a local deity ; no wonder that the
 
 336 SERMONS, 
 
 great apostle had occasion to demand in his day : " Is 
 he the God of the Jews only ? is he not also of the 
 Gentiles ? " (Rom. 3, 29.) 
 
 How far this process of deterioration went, even 
 among the most corrupted of the people, cannot now 
 be ascertained ; but it is certain that these false vie^vs 
 are never prescribed among the enlightened and be- 
 lieving class, and that they are M-ithout tlie slightest 
 countenance or shadow of authority from the expe- 
 rience or example of the ancient Church, as such, or 
 of the men who were inspired to furnish it with forms 
 and models of devotional experience, some of which 
 are still on record, and contain the clearest exposition 
 of the true sense of the name Jehovah, and of the 
 divine intention, in revealing it, to hinder the indul- 
 gence of a grovelling nationality and sectarian bigot- 
 ry, even under institutions in themselves so capable 
 of breeding it ; or if it could not be prevented, to 
 condemn it and expose it by means of the perpetual 
 contradiction between such a spirit and the very name 
 by which they were accustomed to invoke God, as 
 the God of their fathers, and the God in covenant 
 with themselves. Throughout the Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Psalms, the uniform tendency of revelation, 
 and of the spirit which the ancient saints imbibed 
 from it, is to identify the God of the Jews with the 
 God of the Gentiles, the God of revelation with the 
 God of nature, and the God of nature with the God cf 
 grace ; to say, O Lord, our Lord, our King, our na- 
 tional, our covenant God ! how glorious is thy name, 
 the revelation of thy nature, not only among us, but 
 in all the earth !
 
 PSALM S, 1. 9. 337 
 
 Nor was this effect suffered to depend upon the 
 dictates of reason or of conscience; much less was it 
 left to the discretion or caprice of the collective church 
 or ijidividual believers. It was forced, as it were, 
 upon the very senses, which could not refuse to recog- 
 nize the name of God inscribed upon the frame of 
 nature, as the human architect or sculptor leaves his 
 own indelibly impressed upon the incorruptible and 
 almost unchangeable material upon which his skill 
 and genius work their wonders. It is the doctrine, 
 not of poetr}^ or mere esthetics, but of Scripture, that 
 the heavens are telling the glory of God, that the per- 
 petual interchange of light and darkness furnishes a 
 long unbroken series of witnesses for Him — day unto 
 day poureth out speech, night unto night imparteth 
 knowledge ; that the absence of articulate expression 
 only adds to the sublime strength of this testimony — 
 no speech, no words, not at all is their voice heard, 
 and yet their voice is gone out into all the world, and 
 their words unto the end of it ; that the whole frame 
 of nature is instinct and vocal with the praises of an- 
 other tlian itself; tliat throughout the majestic temple 
 Of the universe, all of it says Glory — not its own, but 
 God's — whose name, Jehovah, is distinctly legible all 
 over the stupendous structure, and whose glory is 
 placed upon and above the very heavens. The in- 
 vJtinctive adoration of that glory is not limited to men 
 of science and cultivation ; it is felt by the most ig- 
 uorant and uninformed; it is felt by the savage as 
 he eyes the heavens from his forest or his desert; it is 
 felt by the young children whose ink'lligcnce is still 
 but partially developed, but whose wonderful struc- 
 
 VOL. II. 15
 
 338 SERMONS. 
 
 ture and mysterious progress do not mDYC trniy bear 
 a passive testimony to the glory of their Maker, than 
 their nnconscions admirati(;n actually contributes to 
 the same end, affording a strong defence against" the 
 unbeliever who would question God's holiness or ob- 
 scure his glory ; so that out of the mouth of babes 
 and sucklings he has ordained strength to silence even 
 his most spiteful enemies. 
 
 To all this, the very name Jehovah should have 
 led the least enlightened of the Jews, as it did to all 
 this lead the most enlightened, who were wont to read 
 that sacred name not only in the volumes of their law, 
 and on the higli priest's forehead, but on every thing; 
 so that, to their believing eyes, the vevy bells of the 
 horses were, as if in anticipation of the prophecy, in- 
 scribed already, Holiness to Jehovah. As in God's 
 palace, all says glory, all its contents and inmates, so 
 did they among the rest. Some of the noblest of the 
 Psalms of David, those in which even an irreligious 
 taste can see most to admire, were written for the 
 very purpose of identifying the Jehovah of the Scrip- 
 tures with the God of Nature. Of tliis, the nineteenth 
 and the twenty -ninth, besides the psalm before us, 
 are remarkable examples. The sublime description, 
 which has been alread}^ quoted, of the heavens as wit- 
 nesses for God, is merely introductory to a description 
 of this same God as the ai;tlior of a still more glorious 
 law; and in the other case referred to, the God whose 
 might}' and majestic voice the Psalmist hears upon 
 the waters, and sees crushing the cedars of Lebanon, 
 heaving out flames of fire, shaking the wilderness, and 
 6trij3ping forests — the God whom he sees riding od
 
 PSALM 8. 1. 9. 335 
 
 the flood and enthroned as king forever, is not, as the 
 infidel pretends, a tiiint copy of the cloud-compelling 
 Zeus or the Thunder-god of Scandinavian mythology, 
 but a God who must be worshij)ped in the beauty of 
 holiness — the Lord Jehovah, who gives strength unfco 
 his people, who blesses his people with peace. 
 
 With these views of his physical supremacy, as 
 M'ell as of his moral perfection, the inspired poets of 
 the old economy, and those for whom their composi- 
 tions furnished vehicles of pious sentiment, were not 
 unwilling to look nature in the face, or afraid to look 
 up from the ground on which they trod, at the mag- 
 nificent creation overhead and all around, as if it 
 were tlie devil's handy-work, or that of some inferior 
 god, or that of fallen man, and, therefore, necessarily 
 contaminating to the eyes and ears of saints ; but in 
 that very character of saints or holy ones, and in the 
 exercise of those aff'ections which determined them to 
 be such, they looked nature in the face, not by chance, 
 but of set purpose ; not by compulsion, but spontane- 
 ously ; not rarely, but often ; not as an occasional in- 
 dulgence, but as an habitual duty ; not with a gaze ot 
 vacant listlessness, but with a serious contemplation, 
 they considered, they attentively considered the heav- 
 ens ; yet with no idolatrous and overweening rever- 
 ence, as if self made ; with no atheistical indifierence, 
 as if not made at all ; but with a genuine, devout, be- 
 lieving interest, as knowing them to be the handy- 
 work of God — not the gross product of a blind and 
 brutal power, acting irresistibly, yet wholly without 
 purpose, but the perfect and symmetrical result of a 
 divine intelligence, as really designing and construct-
 
 340 ■ SERMONS. 
 
 ing what it brings into existence, as the vnind of man 
 directs his fingers in the nicest operations of mechani- 
 cal contrivance or artistic skill ; so tliat the j)salmist, 
 by a bold and beautiful assimilation of the finite to 
 the infinite, describes the heavens as the work of 
 God's fingers — a work not abandoned to its own con- 
 trol, or left without control, when once created, but 
 ordained, fixed, settled, by the same creative and al- 
 mighty power, each celestial body in its own allotted 
 sphere or orbit ; so that when he considered the heav- 
 ens the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars 
 which he had ordained — he looked through the con- 
 trivance to the great contriver — through the building, 
 in which all says " glory " ! to the builder, by whose 
 skill and power, and for whose everlasting praise it is 
 and was created. 
 
 Such religious views of the material universe must, 
 of necessity, react on the spectator, to whom the works 
 of God perform the office, not only of a telescope, but 
 of a mirror, through which he sees God, in Avhich he 
 sees himself; and, as some celestial phenomena can 
 only be observed by the assistance of reflectors, so in 
 morals, man can only see himself in God, and never 
 becomes conscious of his littleness until it is reflect- 
 ed from God's greatness. Hence the atheist must 
 be proud, because his standard is so low, because 
 he substitutes for God, in his comparison of magni- 
 tudes, not only man but self, not only an inferior spe- 
 cies, but the individual example of that species, as to 
 which he knows, or ought to know, most evil, while 
 the true believer in a God employs a very different 
 measure, and sees his own diminutive proportions
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9. 341 
 
 constantly reflected from the glass of God's majestic 
 works above liim and aronnd him, he can say, with 
 David, When I consider tliy heavens, the work of thy 
 fingers, the moon and tlie stars which thou hast or- 
 dained, what is man tliat thou shouldst think of him, 
 or thinking of him, shouldst remember him or bear 
 in mind so insignificant an object — not as implying 
 any serious doubt as to the fact ; for if there is a 
 providence at all, it must be a particular one. jSTor 
 does the difticulty of the subject turn upon the great- 
 ness or smallness of the objects comprehended in its 
 scope, but on its being exercised at all ; and if it is, 
 as we are well assured, and if, without it, not a hair 
 falls or a sparrow dies, how much more may man ex- 
 pect to share in this divine protection, the reality of 
 which is not denied or even called in question by the 
 Psalmist, who is not laying down a proposition or es- 
 tablishing a doctrine, but expressing a strong feeling, 
 namely, that of conscious insignificance before God, 
 under the sense of which he wonders, not whether 
 God thinks, but that he should think of an object so 
 diminutive ; or having once thought, should remem- 
 ber ; or remembering, should visit man, considered as 
 a race, or any son of man in particular. Whether the 
 reference be to figurative visitations, such as men are 
 hourly receiving, or to those more sensible theopha- 
 nies, appearances of God in human or angelic form, 
 by which the saints of the Old Testament were some- 
 times honoured, when about to be called to some ex- 
 traordinary duty, or distinguished by some signal 
 mercy. What is man that God should thus remem- 
 ber him, or the son of man that God, in cither of the
 
 342 SERMONS. 
 
 senses jnst explained, should vi'sit him ? This feeling 
 of suj'prise, though always reasonai Je and hecomiiig, 
 never seems so natural as when it is immediately sug- 
 gested by the sight of God's stupendous works, espe- 
 cially the heavens, whicli are the work of his lingers, 
 the moon and the stars which he has ordained. 
 
 It is not, however, before these material works 
 themselves that man is called to bow with such a 
 deep conviction of his own inferiority. Matter is no 
 more above mind upon a large scale than a small one, 
 in an earth than in a clod, in a sea than in a drop, in 
 a sun than in a spark, in a world than in an atom. 
 The least mind is superior, in itself and in the scale 
 of existence, to all matter. Man is not bound to rc- 
 coirnize either the heavens or the heavenlv hosts as 
 his superiois. Ilis homage is due, not to them but 
 to their maker. He stands in speechless admiration 
 of them, oidy as stupendous proofs of God's existence 
 and perfections. In themselves considered, they are 
 man's inferiors ; he looks down upon them, nay, he 
 exercises a dominion over them, and that not by 
 chance or usurpation, but express divine authority. 
 For strange as it miffht seem that he who made and 
 manages those shining worlds, in all their complicat- 
 ed sj'stems, should remember man and visit him in 
 favour, it is true, for God made man in his own imago, 
 and invested him with power as his own vicegerent, 
 with dominion over the inferior creation, so that even 
 Sim, and moon, and stars, and elements, and seasons, 
 should contribute to his wealth and his enjoyment, 
 and the earth from which he was oiiginally taken be 
 compelled to yield her fruits for his subsistence, and
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9. 343 
 
 the most mysterious powers of nature made to minis- 
 ter to his convenience ; and besides this stranj^e sub- 
 jection of inanimate creation to his interest and liis 
 will, the lower animals are pressed into his service, 
 even those whose strength is far superior to his own, 
 and who might well seem able to shake off his yoke 
 at any moment, and yet bear it with submission, not 
 as a necessary consequence of reason upon his part, 
 — for the highest animal sagacity brings with it no such 
 relative superiority among the brutes themselves — 
 but as a relic and a proof of man's original formation 
 in God's image and his original vestiture with dele- 
 gated power as God's vicegerent over the material 
 and irrational creation, in admiring retrospect of 
 which the Psalmist says : "Thou madest him to have 
 dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou didst put 
 all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and 
 the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish 
 of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths 
 of the seas." 
 
 Even this honour put on man as an intelligent and 
 spiritual being, partaking, in this cardinal respect, of 
 God's own nature, although infinitely less, might seem 
 sufficient of itself to justify the bold assertion, " thou 
 lias made him a little lower than the angels," or, as 
 the words literally mean, "hast made liim to lack 
 little of divinity," so riciily hast thou crowned his 
 head with glory and honour. But the full justifica- 
 tion of this bold description is afforded by another 
 fact, as to the most essential and conspicuous feature 
 of that image in which man was created — his moral 
 similarity of nature and uniformity of will to God—
 
 344 SERMONS. 
 
 coincidence of judgment, disposition, and affection; 
 in a word, true holiness, the crowning ex.ellence of 
 God himself, without which his created image must 
 have been a sightless mask, a lifeless statue, or a 
 living but soulless form, but with which man was 
 really invested, and possessing which he may, with- 
 out irreverence or extravagance, be said to have been 
 " made a little lower," not " than angels" merely, but 
 than God himself, from whom he diflfered only, 
 although infinitely, in degree. 
 
 But although Adam might have triumphed in this 
 glorious and blessed likeness, how can we, or how 
 could even he, who was the man after God's own 
 heart, but who so often and so bitterly bewails his 
 own corruption, as one conceived in sin and shapen 
 in iniquity, whose only hope was in the i;iercy of the 
 God against whom he had sinned, through what illu- 
 sive medium could even he behold himself or the race 
 of which he was a member, as still holding this 
 sublime position, as little lower than the angels, nay, 
 as lacking little of divinity ? If he, if men in general, 
 had lost their chief resemblance to their maker ; if the 
 image in which they were made at first had been de- 
 faced and broken, and their mutual communion turned 
 into estrangement, and the prospect of perpetual 
 favour bantered for a fearful looking for of judgment 
 and fiery indignation, how could David wonder at 
 the honour and glory with which man wa.s crowned, 
 instead of standing horrorstruck to see it torn from 
 his dishonoured brow ? Was it because he did not 
 know or had forgotten this great fact in human his- 
 tory ? Alas, his psalms are full of it. Was it in
 
 FSALM S, 1. 9. 345 
 
 musing recollection of a state of things now past and 
 never to return ? But sucli a glowing exhibition of a 
 happiness and greatness irrevocably lost, would be 
 unnatural, irrational, and as such, inconsistent with 
 his character whether intellectual or moral. 
 
 ISTor are these unworthy suppositions needed to 
 explain his language, which receives its full solution 
 from the fact that he contemplates man, both in the 
 future and the past, as fallen and raised again, as cast 
 off and restored, as lost in Adam and as saved in 
 Christ, not only reinstated, but exalted higher ; for the 
 first Adam was indeed a living soul, but the last 
 Adam is a quickening spirit ; the first man is of the 
 earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from 
 heaven. Yet as the offence, so also is the free gift, 
 for if by one man's ofience death reigned by one, 
 much more they which receive abundance of grace 
 and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by 
 one, Jesus Christ. AVithout this link the chain is 
 broken ; without this simultaneous view of man as he 
 was and is to be, of the first and second Adam, there 
 is something wanting in the Psalm itself, a flaw, an 
 incongruity, a contradiction between revelation and 
 experience, which can only be removed by looking 
 down as well as up the stream of time, forward to 
 Christ as well as backwards to Adam. It is therefore 
 no fanciful accommodation, but a true and necessary 
 exposition of the Psalmist's meaning, when the apostle, 
 after quoting these words, speaks of Jesus as made a 
 little lower than the angels for the suffering of death 
 that he by the grace of God might taste death for 
 every man, and thereby reinstate us in our pristine 
 VOL. n. — 15*
 
 34:6 SERMONS. 
 
 exaltation, renewed in the spirit of our mnds and 
 clothed upon with that new man, which is created 
 after the likeness of God, in knowledge, and right- 
 eousness, and true holiness. (Ephesians 4, 24 ; Colos- 
 sians 3, 10.) 
 
 Not only as a model or example does the second 
 Adam thus restore the race of which he has become 
 the head by his assumption of its nature, so that in 
 him as tlieir representative they see themselves again 
 exalted, but by actual union with him, they expe- 
 rience a real and substantial exaltation from the 
 dej^ths of sin and misery to a state of justification 
 through his righteousness and sanctification by the 
 power of his Spirit, and a consequent participation in 
 the elevating and ennobling process by which he has 
 raised humanity from being almost lower than the 
 brutes, to be again a little lower than the angels, than 
 divinity, than God himself. How much of all this 
 David clearly saw, we can no more determine than 
 we can look back at noon and tell how much of what 
 we then see bathed in light was visible at sunrise or 
 at daybreak ; but we do know that the Saviour whom 
 he saw and whom we see, however great the dif- 
 ference of clearness, is the same, just as we know that 
 the skies which are now telling the glory of God, and 
 the starry firmament which now shows forth his 
 handy-work, are literally and trul}- the same objects 
 of whicli David said, " "When I consider the heavens, 
 the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which 
 thou hast ordained, what is man tliat thou shouldst 
 remember him, or the son of man that thou shouldst 
 visit him and make him lack but little of divinity,
 
 PSALM 8, ;. 9. 3-I.7 
 
 and crown him with glory and honour, and make him 
 have dominion over the works of thy hands, and put 
 all tilings under his feet." In Christ as the Head, 
 and in his people as the Body, this is gloriously ful- 
 filled, " for he hath put all things under liis feet," 
 (1 Cor. 15, 27,) and given him to be head over all 
 things to the church, which is his body, the fulness 
 of him that filleth all in all." (Ephesians 1, 22. 23.) 
 In prophetic foresight of the Saviour the inspired 
 king could say, and in believing recollection of him 
 we can say, of man not only as he was before the fall, 
 but as he is, already fallen, yet susceptible of restora- 
 tion to God's image and to the dignity inseparable 
 from it, thou hast made hi in a little lower than the 
 angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 
 The train of thought which we have been pursu- 
 ing, is not only in accordance with the general tenor 
 of the word of God, but identical with that which runs 
 through the psalm before us, as expounded and ap- 
 plied in the New Testament, and nuiy be profitably 
 used by us for the correction of some common and 
 pernicious errors. It may serve, for example, as a 
 corrective of that spurious and vitiated taste which 
 many cherish for the beauties of nature, and which 
 sometimes verges towards the worst form of idolatr3\ 
 It is true, the views which we have taken are equally 
 adverse to the opposite extreme of sanctimonious in- 
 difference or fanatical contempt for the material 
 works of God ; to both these forms of error they afford 
 the only safe and eflicacions antidote, by teaching us 
 to " consider the heavens" as " the work of God's 
 fingers," " the moon and the stars" as things which
 
 348 SERMONS. 
 
 he has " ordained," and to deri\e from the view of 
 his perfections thus suggested, new impressions of 
 our own insignificance and his benignant condescension 
 in originally placing man above this glorious creation 
 and again restoring him when he had fallen. A 
 habitual contemplation of this aspect of God's works 
 would be tlie best corrective, both of the spurious 
 religion which ignores them, and of the atheism which 
 beautifies or the pantheism which deifies external 
 nature. 
 
 Nor would this corrective influence be limited to 
 the domain of sentiment or taste ; it might extend to 
 science, and. restore a healthful circulation in the 
 otherwise inanimate and soulless frame of mere ma- 
 terial wisdom, from astronomy, whose chosen work it is 
 to " consider the heavens the work of God's fingers, the 
 moon and the stars which he has ordained ; " to zool- 
 ogy, which pries into the habits and the constitution 
 of the animal creation ; " all sheep and oxen, yea, and. 
 beasts of the field ; the fowl of the air, and the fish of 
 the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of 
 the sea." 
 
 But why should I speak of this amelioratiHg pro- 
 cess as one merely possible, when it is really a matter 
 of experience ; when the cases of eminent investigators 
 and discoverers who believe in God and Christ, and who 
 apply to the connection between physical and moral 
 truth the maxim, what God hath joined together let 
 not man put asunder, are no longer rare exceptions 
 to the general rule of sneering skepticism or dogma- 
 tizing imbelief, but bid fair, in our own day and 
 country, to reverse the old relation between faith and
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9. 349 
 
 infidelity in scientific studies, by afibrding in their 
 own example the most striking and conclusive proof 
 that ignorance of God or hatred to liim is by no 
 means a prerequisite to thorough knowledge, and cor- 
 rect appreciation of his works. When the cliange, 
 thus ausjjiciously begun, shall be completed, we may 
 hope to see it followed by another in the feelings and 
 the dialect of common life, as to the dignity of human 
 nature, a cessation of that strong delusion which leads 
 men to shut their eyes upon the most notoriuus fact 
 in human history, the fact of man's apostasy from 
 God, and with impotent energy try to struggle back 
 to their original position by their own unaided 
 strength, speaking and acting just as if the fall and 
 its effects were a mere phantasma and a hideous 
 dream, from which the world was now awaking, 
 when in fact the dream and the illusion are all the 
 other way, and whoever is awakened from them, 
 must awake to the discovery, however humbling and 
 unwelcome, that man, though once exalted, is now 
 fallen, and can only be restored by sovereign mercy, 
 as offered and exercised through Jesus Christ. The 
 soul, once roused from its protracted stupor, may dis- 
 tinctly read this truth by looking inwards at the ruins 
 and remains of man's original condition, at his present 
 degradation and pollution, and at the aspirations after 
 something better which disturb him even in his deep- 
 est slumbers and his worst excesses. 
 
 The same thing, if he looks out of himself, is legi- 
 ble not only in the word, but in the works of God, or 
 lather in the word and works of God together, in his 
 works as expounded by his word and Spirit. How-
 
 350 SERMONS. 
 
 ever blank or dark tlie universe mt.y seem till thus 
 Illuminated, when the light does shine upon it, the 
 reawakened soul can no longer " consider the heavens 
 the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars 
 which he has ordained," without inquiring, '.'what is 
 man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man 
 that thou shouldst visit him, and make him want but 
 little of angelic, naj, of godlike exaltation, crowned 
 with glory and honour, and invested with dominion 
 over the irrational creation ! " 
 
 This conception of man's pristine elevation some- 
 times rises before the mind's eye, as a beautiful and 
 splendid image of unfallen humanity, standing like a 
 statue upon some triumphal arch or commemorative 
 column, or suspended in mid-air like some celestial 
 visitant surveying with compassion this inferior 
 world. But as we gaze upon it, and indulge the 
 fond imagination that the relative position of tlie 
 race and of the individual man is still unchanged, the 
 liglit of revelation and experience grows brighter, and 
 as it reaches its extreme degree, the image vanishes 
 away, as if absorbed in the intense light, and the lofty 
 place so proudly occupied by man, is seen to be a 
 blank, a vacuum, an empty space, through and be- 
 yond which may be seen the pure effulgence of the 
 divine perfections, " unobscured, unsullied by a cloud 
 or spot, though man is fallen, fallen from his high 
 estate." And as the eye of the spectator shrinks 
 from this mi veiled, dazzling brightness, it is suddenly 
 relieved by an intervening object, at first undefined 
 and dubious, like a radiant cloud or mist, which by 
 degrees assumes a shape and a distinguishable outline, 
 
 1
 
 PSALM 8, 1. 9. 351 
 
 till at length it can no longer be mistaken, as a human 
 form, a man, the Son of man, but, oh, how changed, 
 how transfigured before us ! his face shines as the 
 sun ! his raiment is white as the light ! and from the 
 bright cloud overshadowing him, a voice comes forth 
 out of the excellent glory, saying, " This is my be- 
 loved Son in whom I am well pleased ; hear ye him." 
 It is indeed the Son of God, it is indeed the Son of 
 man, the type of our humanity restored and glorified. 
 Oh if this blessed sight could be associated, even in 
 imagination, with our daily contemplations of the 
 face of nature ; if we could not look upon the heavens 
 the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars 
 which he has ordained, without remembering what 
 man once was, what he now is, and above all what 
 he yet may be ; we might find not only pleasure in 
 prosj)erity, but solace under sorrow, in contemplating 
 the works of God, not as poets, or artists, or philoso- 
 phers, or atheists, but as Christians, whose perspica- 
 cious faith cannot rest in what is visible, but pierces 
 through tlie thin material veil in search of hope and 
 consolation, just as Stephen, on the very verge of 
 martyrdom, and from the very midst of his judicial 
 murderers, "looked up steadfastly into heaven, and 
 saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on tlie riglit 
 hand of the Father." Yes, there is a sense in which 
 even we might have a right to say as he did, " Be- 
 hold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man 
 standing on the right hand of God." And tliough 
 the blinded world around us might cry out with a 
 loud voice, and stop their ears, and run upon us with 
 one accord,- even they might be compelled to tako
 
 352 SERMONS. 
 
 knowledge of us as having been with Jesus, even they, 
 if they looked steadfastly upon us, might see the face 
 of every one among ns beaming with unearthly ra- 
 diance, as if it were the face of an angel. 
 
 Having reached this point in our experience, hav- 
 ing thus learned to associate the material works of 
 God with the profoundest views of spiritual truth, we 
 should need no further remedy for that grovelling 
 nationality or party spirit, which is apt to spring up 
 even in renewed hearts and enlightened minds, not 
 only in spite, but in consequence of those very privi- 
 leges which ought to have forbidden its existence, just 
 as the Jews learned to associate their most narrow and 
 uncharitable prejudices with that very name of God — 
 which ought to have reminded them, at every mo- 
 ment, that Jehovah, though in covenant with them, 
 was not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles 
 also. If we would shun the kindred, but more odious 
 error of degrading the God whom we worship, and 
 the Christ in whom we trast, to the level of a local 
 chief or party leader, let us here learn to identify 
 the object of our faith and adoration with the God 
 of creation and of providence ; let us not only read 
 the name of God our king, and God our Saviour, 
 traced in characters of light upon the whole ma- 
 terial universe, but strive to make it legible to 
 others also, till the book of nature and the book of 
 revelation are enveloped in one vast illumination, in 
 the blaze of which all lesser lights are lost, and in the 
 midst of which all human tongues of man shall be 
 heard in harmony or unison, resjDonding to the loud 
 but speechless testimony of the heavens , " Oh Lord, 
 our Lord, how crlorious is tliv name in all the earth ! "
 
 XIX. 
 
 John 17, 3. — This is life eternal, that they might know thee, tne 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 
 
 It is a glorious doctrine that there is a God. We 
 are forced to assume it, as a first principle of our re- 
 ligious knowledge, and perliaps for that very reason, 
 are prone to underrate or to forget its value. To cor- 
 rect this practical en-or, we need only ask ourselves, 
 what should we he without a knowledge of this great 
 truth ? Men may dispute as to the mode in which 
 our first conceptions of a God have been obtained. 
 Some may derive it from an observation of his works, 
 and subsequent reflection on tlicm. Some may re- 
 gard it as innate ; a kind of invisil)le writing on the 
 soul, to be educed and rendered legible by intellectual 
 and moral culture. But this much appears certain : 
 we can form a conception of a rational soul without 
 any definite notions of God, even of a God, of any 
 God. 
 
 We can conceive of such a soid with its ideas re- 
 stricted to itself, or to beings like itself, with no liigher 
 standard or more perfect model than that aftbrded by 
 its own experience, or its observation of its fellows.
 
 354 SERMONS. 
 
 Or if we suppose it to rise higlier, as imagiuing one 
 like itself, but differing in degree ; conceiving only of 
 itself exalted to a higher rank, but with no conception 
 of a lawgiver, a sovereign, an almighty deliverer. 
 Such a mind would be truly dark, compared with the 
 light which blazes around us. 
 
 But suppose a portion of that light to be let in 
 upon it by degrees, and with it a conception of some 
 thing intrinsically higher, better, nobler than the man 
 himself, distinguished from him not merely by an 
 individual or even a specific, but by a generic differ- 
 ence, possessing all that appears good in us, but 
 without the limitations and defects which mar it; 
 possessing more of knowledge, power, and goodness, 
 much more, vastly more, infinitely moi-e. This is a 
 great advance upon his previous conceptions, this is 
 the idea of a God, however vague and immature ; it 
 is a new and grand idea, it presents a new aim and a 
 higher standard, something to which the awakened 
 soul can now look up, and towards which it can 
 stretch in emulous desire to rise above itself. Even 
 by removing all limitation, and by raising every ex- 
 cellence to the highest pitch conceivable, we come to 
 the idea of perfection, at least negatively ; and this, 
 if not all that is attainable, is certainly a great ad- 
 vance from nothing or from self to God, to the notion 
 of a perfect object for our contemplation, our desire, 
 our love. 
 
 But this idea of perfection may itself be imperfect. 
 Tlie mind may leave out of view some essential attri- 
 butes, or view them in a false light and in dispropor- 
 tion. It may even view them as abstractions not
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 355 
 
 inlierent in a personal subject, inherent only in the 
 universe, or in its parts, or in the powers of nature, 
 or in deified men, or in lower animals, or in artificial 
 idols. This is heathenism in its various gradations. 
 But even where these grosser errors are avoided or 
 escaped, the view may be confined to what the older 
 theologians called the natural attributes of God, to 
 the exclusion of the moral. The power, wisdom, 
 omnipresence, and omniscience of the deity may be 
 contemplated alone. Increase the light so far as to 
 afford a glimpse of his truth, justice, holiness, benevo- 
 lence, and mercy. What an advance is this upon the 
 previous conception, even of an allwise and almiglity 
 being ! It is scarcely less than that before described ! 
 But even among the moral attributes of deity so 
 called, some may be acknowledged to the exclusion 
 of the rest. He may seem all mercy and no justice, 
 giving license to transgression ; or all justice and no 
 mercy, driving the guilty to despair. So too with his 
 natural perfections ; his wisdom may be exalted at 
 the cost of his omnipotence, a wisdom utterly unable 
 to effect its own designs ; or his power may appear 
 divorced from wisdom, a blind, unintelligent brute 
 force. All these varieties of error are not only possi- 
 ble, but have been really exemplified in systems of 
 religion and philosophy, and in the tentative inquiries 
 of the individual speculator on the mode of the divine 
 existence. But let these discordant views be brought 
 into harmony and due proportion, as the light of day 
 reduces objects magnified and distorted by the du- 
 bious twilight, and how astonishing the change ! It 
 is like a new revelation. What before appeared in
 
 356 SERMONS. 
 
 conflict now liarmonionslj co-operates ; tilings wliicli 
 seemed contradictory, illustrate one another, Tliis is 
 indeed perfection. Wliat was seen before was but a 
 name, this is tlie reality ; that was called a perfect 
 being, but tliis is one ; that was tbe vague conception 
 of a God, this is the God, this the true God. 
 
 But even here experience proves that men may 
 cling to the idea of plurality, as something at least 
 possible. Why may there not be many perfect be- 
 ings ? The very question implies some defect in the 
 idea of perfection. That supreme perfection in one 
 being must exclude it in all others, is a higher refine- 
 ment to which even wise men have not always at- 
 tained. Hence the doctrine of the divine unity ; of 
 monotheism as opposed both to polytheism and to 
 pantheism, is a further advance upon the steps which 
 we suppose to have been already taken in the ideal 
 progress of a soul from total ignorance of God towards 
 just and clear conceptions of his nature. Tliat the 
 unity of the divine nature stands nearer to the end 
 than the beginning of this progress, is apparent from 
 the fact, that in proportion as the unassisted powers 
 of the human mind have risen to more just views of 
 the deit}^, the number of the beings in whom it was 
 supposed to reside has always been diminished, some- 
 times from many thousands to a few hundreds, then 
 to scores and tens, until it has reached two, where 
 many, with the Gnostics and the Manichees, and 
 other dualists have stuck fast, unable to account for 
 the existence of evil, except uj)on the supposition of 
 two co-eternal but antagonistic principles. When 
 this last difficulty has been vanquished, and the one- 
 
 I
 
 JOHN 
 
 357 
 
 ness of tlie Godhead seen to be essential to his abso- 
 lute perfection, men have sometimes stood still in 
 amazement at their own delay in reaching a conclu- 
 sion which now seems to them not only obvious but 
 unavoidable. And if wc may suppose a single mind 
 to have been brought through all these stages of con- 
 viction and illumination, and to look back from the 
 last through those by which it was preceded, to the 
 distant starting-point of its ascent, it is easy to con- 
 ceive of the astonishment with which such an inquirer 
 would survey the vast strides by w^hich he had j^assed 
 from darkness to twilight, from twilight to the dawn, 
 and from the dawn to the meridian blaze of clearly 
 revealed truth — from no god to a god, from a god to 
 the god, the first to whom there is no second, the whole 
 in whom there arc no parts, " tlie only true God." 
 
 I say this is a glorious doctrine. It is a glorious 
 thing to know the true God, even in the lowest sense ; 
 to know that he exists, to see the proofs, to feel the 
 necessity of his existence. Even in this, supposing 
 it to be possessed alone, there would be something 
 elevating and enlarging in the capacity to frame such 
 a conception of the true God, even as remote, even as 
 an object of mere speculative contemplation. How 
 much more to feel his influence ! If it is a privilege 
 and honour to behold, by the artificial aid of glasses, 
 those heavenly bodies which directly and sensibly 
 affect us least, how must we feel towards those which 
 are revealed to the unassisted eye, if free from all ob- 
 struction and disease, and whose effects are matters 
 of perpetual experience ? So, too, the soul, when once 
 brought to contemplate God, the only true God, feels
 
 358 SERMONS. 
 
 a desire, or at least a need of some more intimate re- 
 lation to him. ISTot contented with his light, it craves 
 his heat, -or in its absence, feels itself to be forever 
 cold and dead. Under this impression, in obedience 
 to the law of our original constitution, many a great 
 but half-enlightened mind has yearned after intimate 
 communion with that God whom it has learned to 
 contemplate, with an eye of speculative reason, as 
 possessed of all conceivable perfection. But this in- 
 stinctive movement is repressed by new discoveries, 
 disclosing the necessity of further and still clearer 
 revelations of the object which appeared to be com- 
 pletely unveiled to the eye of the spectator. 
 
 I have supposed the inquirer, in the process which 
 has been described, to set out from himself, and by 
 removing all that seems imperfect and corrupt, and 
 indefinitely magnifying all that we regard as good in 
 his own constitution, to arrive at last at the concep- 
 tion of a God. From the very nature of this process, 
 it involves comparison at every step, between God 
 and himself. And this comparison inevitably carries 
 with'it a' conviction of inferiority, a sense of insignifi- 
 cance and meanness. This could not fail to arise, 
 even from the contemplation of God's natural perfec- 
 tions, his power and his wisdom, as contrasted with 
 the ignorance and weakness of his creatures, l^o 
 wonder that it should be so, when God and he are at 
 the opposite extremities of the scale, through which 
 he has been passing in his quest of infinite perfection. 
 In proportion as his views of God have risen higher, 
 must his views of himself have become more hum- 
 bling, even in reference to natural qualities.
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 359 
 
 But lie cannot confine his view to these. If 
 reallj enlightened as to the divine nature, he must 
 see that its moral perfections are not only real but 
 essential, and that these must be taken into the ac 
 count in measuring the interval between himself and 
 God. This new and more complete comparison in- 
 variably produces a deep sense not only of physical 
 inferiority, but of moral uncongeniality. The more 
 correct his notion of God, the more clearly must he 
 see that holiness is necessarily included in it, and the 
 more distinct his view of that holiness, the more vivid 
 and painful the sense of his own sinfulness, because it 
 essentially consists in opposition to that holiness of 
 God M'hicli he now sees so clearly. Tliis is in fact 
 necessary to a just view of the divine nature on the 
 part of fallen creatures. Where there is no sense of 
 sin, there is no apppreciation of God's holiness. 
 
 This is to fallen man the natural order of his 
 thoug-hts and his discoveries. AVe do not first see 
 God, and then by contrast with his holiness, discover 
 what sin is. It might be so with other beings, or 
 with man before his fall, but it is not so with us. It 
 is the gnawing sense of guilt that leads men to their 
 first discoveries of God in the perfection of his nature. 
 The reproofs of conscience presuppose a law, discrim- 
 inating between right and wrong ; and such a law 
 presupposes a lawgiver. It is not before a mere ab- 
 straction that man trembles, but before a personal 
 avenarer. While the conscience still remains insensi- 
 ble, the proofs of God's existence may make sb'ght im- 
 pressions on the understanding. I3ut wlien conscience 
 is aroused, and man confesses to himself, if not to
 
 360 SERMONS. 
 
 others, that he is a sinner, his thoughts are in'esistibly 
 borne onward to the bar at which he is to be ar- 
 raigned, to the judgment-seat and him who sits 
 upon it. 
 
 This indivisible connection between conscience and 
 the being of a God is far beyond the reach of sophis- 
 try ; this witness cannot be silenced or gainsayed, and 
 if its testimony be for a time suppressed or disre- 
 garded, it will yet speak out, in shrieks or whispers, 
 in some emergency of life, upon the death-bed, or in 
 hell, bringing home the irresistible conviction that 
 there is a just and holy God, against whom we have 
 sinned, and from wliom we are to receive our ever- 
 lasting portion. It is the want of this convincing 
 evidence, at least in any adequate degree, that dims 
 the clearest speeiilations of the heathen sages. Be- 
 cause they had no due sense of sin, they had and 
 could have no correct conception of that God against 
 whom all sin is committed, and to whose very nature, 
 no less than his will, it is essentially opposed. Hence 
 too the wisest of the heathen, those who approached 
 nearest to the Scrij^tures in their views of the divine 
 perfections, are precisely those who seem to have 
 had the most definite, experimental sense of sin. The 
 same thing is exemplified in Christian errorists. The 
 further they recede from deep and thorough views of 
 sin, the more they are disposed to extenuate it, the 
 more jejune do they become in their conceptions of 
 the divine nature, till in many cases God becomes t: 
 them a name, an idea, an abstraction, a nonentity. 
 
 On the other hand, the clearer the conception 
 of God's holiness, the deeper the conviction of man's
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 361 
 
 vilenes^; so tliat nothing more contributes to this deep 
 humiliation than enharging views of the divine per- 
 fection, forcing the self-convicted sinner to exclaim 
 with Job, " I have heard of thee by tlic hearing of 
 the ear, but now mine eye seetli thee ; wherefore I 
 abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes ! " 
 
 And this sense of vileness cannot be separated 
 from an apprehension of God's wrath, and a desire to 
 escape it. The man can no longer be contented with 
 a scientific contemplation of the deity ; he feels his 
 alienation, and his need of reconciliation, and he asks, 
 can God comnnmicate with fallen creatures ? will his 
 holiness admit of it ? his justice sutler it ? And if he 
 can thus condescend to deal with sinners, will he? 
 has he done so ? has he ever sent a message to man 
 since tlie fall ? The knowledge that he can renew the 
 intercourse without a violation of his attributes is 
 blessed knowledge; that he will still more so that he 
 has already actually done it is a glorious revelation, 
 prompting the earnest, passionate inquiry, when, 
 where, how? -what has he sent ? whom has he sent? 
 
 The answer to this question brings ns on still 
 further in our search i'or God. lie has sent us a 
 message in his word, indited by his Spirit, a written 
 revelation, perfectly consonant with that in nature, 
 but transcending it, and going far beyond it ; so that 
 one of these great volumes serves to illustrate and 
 expound the other. When we 0])en this new volume, 
 it is to meet a new disclosure. lie has not only sent 
 a message, but a messenger — a living representative, 
 a personal ambassador. lie has sent not only his 
 own Spirit in his word and in the hearts of men, but 
 VOL. n. — 10
 
 363 SERMONS. 
 
 his owii Son, the brightness of his gloiy, the -express 
 image of his person — not a created representative, hut 
 God manifest in the flesli, the great mystery of godh- 
 ness, or of the Godhead, the unity of persons in that 
 one divine essence — a secret hidden from pliilosophers, 
 and ];ekl hack even from the chosen people, or imper- 
 fectly disclosed to them in types and symbols, per- 
 haps to save them from polytheism until they were 
 established in the doctrine of God's unity, but now 
 brought to light in the gospel, a new and glorious 
 light, ti'anscending all our previous discoveries — three 
 persons and one God — the Son and the Spirit the 
 revealers of the Father, sent by him for this very 
 purpose, the Spirit in his w^ord and in the hearts of 
 his people ; but his mission is dependent upon that 
 of the Son, who comes in human flesh to reveal the 
 Father, to instruct, to conquer, to atone — first as the 
 angel of the covenant, then as the Messiah, the anoint- 
 ed — as a prophet to instruct, as a king to conquer, as 
 a priest to expiate, as a Saviour to redeem — the 
 Christ — Jesus — both together Jesus Christ — the an- 
 ointed Saviour, the Son of God and the Son of man — 
 God and sent of God — man and sent to man. This is 
 indeed the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he 
 has sent. "What a privilege to know this Saviour, not 
 apart from God or independently of him, but as essen- 
 tially one with him. I^one knoweth the Father but 
 the Son, and he to whom the Son revealeth him. We 
 cannot know God without him. He is the great re- 
 vealer of the Father — his "Word, his "U^isdom. Our 
 notions, which might else be too abstract, are em- 
 bodied and realized in him. Even in theory, our
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 363 
 
 views of God arc too vague ^^itliout Christ, and un- 
 less taken through him. But there is still another 
 and a far stronger reason why we must come to God 
 through him. God is holy, and we are sinners. As 
 an absolute sovereign, as a righteous judge, he is for- 
 ever inaccessible. Our God is a consuming fire, to 
 which no man can approach and live. Christ is the 
 way, the truth, and the life. "We may come to God 
 through him, not only as a man but as a Saviour. It 
 is through this new and living way that we may ven- 
 ture to approach. God brings us near to himself 
 through the blood of the everlasting covenant. There 
 is forgiveness with him that he may be feared. We 
 are forgiven that we may know him. 
 
 It is only thus that we can know him, and that 
 not speculatively but experimentally. We may know 
 him as a merciful and sin-pardoning God. "We may 
 know him as ours by faith and a self-appropriating 
 knowledge. In our own happy experience we may 
 know, not only that he is, but that he is a rewarder 
 of those diligently seeking him. "We may know him 
 as a child knows its parent, with a knowledge which 
 cannot be mistaken, or confound its object with an- 
 other — a knowledge necessarily including trust, es- 
 teem, and intimate communion. To know God is to 
 love him. All alienation here implies some defect of 
 knowledge. To know God in Christ is to know him 
 as a Saviour, and to trust in him as such. To know 
 him is to know his Holy Spirit, and to seek his influ- 
 ences, and to have them. All this is really included 
 in the knowledge of the only true God and Jesus 
 Christ whom he has sent.
 
 364 SERMON'S. ' 
 
 NoM^ this experimental knowledge of the highest 
 good, when imparted to a lost and ruined world, is 
 life. Look abroad npon the valley of dry bones by 
 which yon are surrounded, — see all the elements of 
 our moral constitution dislocated, decomposed, dis- 
 solved, — a wide-spread scene of confusion and cor- 
 ruption, in which matter and form may still be recog- 
 nized. But life is wanting — all is dead. Philosophy 
 has lavished its experiments npon it for a course of 
 ages, but with no effect, except to aggravate the 
 ghastliness of death by occasional spasms of apparent 
 life. To this scene of mournful desolation and decay 
 introduce the knowledge of God, the true God, the 
 only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. 
 This is precisely what was wanting — it is life, it is 
 life from the dead : the effect is instantaneous and 
 electric ; the graves of humanity are oj^ened ; see, it 
 bursts its cerements and comes forth in a blessed 
 resurrection, alive to God, to holiness, to happiness ; 
 the paralyzed, faculties begin to move ; the affections 
 are restored to their forsaken objects ; the harmony 
 and balance of the powers is reinstated ; darkness is 
 turned to light, weakness to strength, death to life ; 
 old things are passed away, all things are become 
 new. 
 
 But what if this neAv life, all glorious as it is, 
 should prove to be but transient, evanescent, like a 
 pleasing dream But see, it stretches out into the 
 future, and as it advances, all checks are removed. 
 It swells, it grows ; life f:om the dead is followed by 
 no new vicissitude : man lives to die no more. We 
 may look for decay and retrocession, but it comes not.
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 365 
 
 God is unchangeable, so is the new relation of the 
 soul to him ; it cannot fail until the mercy of the 
 Father and the merit of the Son, and the influences 
 of the Spirit are exhausted ; it is a new creation ; it 
 is a new world ; and the life, instead of failing, grows 
 more real and abundant till it reaches the verge of 
 this world, and launches forth into a new state of ex- 
 istence, but not there to die ; it lives in those waters 
 of eternal being, buflets the waves of that shoreless 
 ocean, rises and falls upon their crests, and by them 
 is borne on and on beyond our view. It is forever. 
 Yes, it is forever. Yes, this new life is eternal. Well 
 might the great Iligli Priest of our profession, in his 
 sacerdotal prayer, say of his followers and of all who 
 should believe upon him through their word — " And 
 this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the 
 only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." 
 
 To be ignorant of all this is a terrible cuiidiridu ; 
 but there is another still more fearful, I mean that uf 
 knowing it but only as a speculative trutli. \ cs, 
 the thickest darkness of the heathen mind in refer- 
 ence to these great truths, though more degrading in 
 itself, and in its present effects, is less appalling in 
 its influence on character and destiny, than barren, 
 unavailing, unbelieving knowledge. Why ? because 
 opposition or indifference to the truth is never a mere 
 intellectual deficiency or error, but invariably tho 
 fruit of moral dispositions. The ear which will not 
 hear when God speaks, and the eye which cannot see 
 with all the light which he aflbrds, are sins of a cor- 
 rupted and hard heart ; and he who flnds himself in
 
 366 SERMONS. 
 
 this position, instead of pit^-ing 'he blindness of the 
 heathen and the doom to which it is conducting tlieni, 
 may ahnost envy their superior chance of clemency 
 at God's bar, in comparison with those who know and 
 even boast of knowing who he is and w'hat he has 
 already done for man's salvation, and yet prowdl}'' say 
 by every action of their lives that they will not be 
 saved in this way, or rather that they need not to be 
 saved at all. For this, disguise it as you will, my 
 hearer, is the genuine spirit of your life, if not the 
 language of your lips, so long as you remain contented 
 with a cold intellectual assent to the great doctrine 
 of one only true God and of Jesus Christ Avhom he 
 has sent. For nothing can be clearer than that tins 
 one true God is a God of infinite holiness and justice, 
 and that these perfections of his nature make the pun- 
 ishment of sin an absolute necessity, and that this 
 necessity can only be avoided in the person of the 
 sinner by the transfer of his guilt to another, and that 
 Jesus Christ whom God has sent was sent for this 
 very purpose. 
 
 These are not mere circumstantial adjuncts of the 
 great truths which we have been considering, but in- 
 tegral and essential elements. There is no revelation 
 of the one true God which is not a revelation of his 
 holiness, i. e. the opposition of his nature to all sin, 
 for what is sin but opposition to his nature and his 
 wnll, and how can he but be opposed to his own oppo- 
 site, or fail, in the exercise of infinite rectitude and 
 power, to destroy it? And again, if you exclude from 
 your idea of the Christ whom he has sent the cajDacity 
 and will to save, by self-substitution for the actual
 
 JOHN 17, 3. 357 
 
 offender, what is left ? If yon lea re this out, you have 
 not even a correct intellectual apprehension of the 
 one true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, 
 and must suffer the same consequences from the want 
 of this essential knowledge that you pity in the doom 
 of the poor heathen. 
 
 If you take all this in — if you know God as a God 
 of perfect holiness and justice, and Jesus Christ whom 
 he has sent as a divine and all-sufhcient Saviour, and 
 yet bid defiance to the one by refusing to accept the 
 other, your fate can differ from the heathen's only as 
 the fate of one who stumbles in the dark ought to 
 differ from the fall of one who rushes to destruction 
 with his eyes wide open, and amidst the blaze of 
 noon. The course of duty and of safety then is plain. 
 Repent, believe, submit to God by accepting of his 
 Son, and thus prove by your own experience that this 
 is indeed eternal life, to know the only true God and 
 ■Jesus Christ whom he has sent.
 
 XX. 
 
 Psalm 51, IV. — The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken 
 and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise. 
 
 The process of salvation is, and must remain, a 
 mystery to those who never shall experience its power. 
 They may apprehend correctly the great doctrines of 
 religion ; they may make nice and accurate distinc- 
 tions in theology ; they may speculate ingeniously, 
 and reason powerfully, as to the nature and the means 
 of conversion ; but they never can be made to under- 
 stand, without experience, the mysteries of saving and 
 regenerating grace ; the practical mysteries of that 
 deep, noiseless, thorough, total, lasting change, ef- 
 fected in the hearts of men by one touch of God's 
 finger — by one breath of his Spirit. And yet the work 
 is goino^ on amono; them without ceasino;. Ah ! how 
 little do the unconverted know of what is passing in 
 the bosoms of their neighbours. How little does their 
 shallow, superficial experience, teach them of the 
 depths of their own hearts, until the fountains of that 
 great abyss are broken up and the windows of heaven 
 opened from above by the same almighty power. 
 
 The sanctuary where the broken-hearted sinner
 
 rSALM 51, 17, 3g9 
 
 seeks and* finds a refuge, may be likened to a temple 
 in the midst of a great city, passed by thousands 
 every hour, but entered only by a few ; and yet it is 
 separated from the crowded thoroughfare by no solid 
 wall, or massive gates, but by a veil or curtain which 
 the hand of faith and penitence may raise at pleasure, 
 and through which a strange light glimmers from 
 within and strange sounds fall upon the ear of passers 
 by. And ever and anon some one stops to gaze and 
 listen ; he stands still for a moment and then hurries 
 on ; another stops, and moved by curiosity draws 
 nearer to the entrance, listens, wavers, turns away, 
 and passes on. Another draws still nearer, looks and 
 listens, laj^s his hand upon the curtain, and then 
 draws back from the very threshold and is seen no 
 more. Another stops to look and listen, not from idle 
 curiosity, but weary, weak, and sick at heart, des- 
 pairing of a refuge from the evils M'hicli pursue him ; 
 he falls prostrate on the threshold — the veil rises for 
 a moment — he is drawn within its shelter, and is seen 
 no more. 
 
 But I have represented some who do not enter, as 
 listeners at the threshold ; these are they who treat 
 religion with respect and curiosity, but never know its 
 power. As they stand and gaze at the mysterious 
 shadows which are thrown upon the curtain from 
 within, the sound of many mingled voices strikes their 
 ears. These they know to be the voices of regenerated 
 sinners, the elect of God. But it is not the voice of 
 triumph which they thought to hear ; it is not the 
 voice of them that shout for masteiy, nor yet the 
 voice of them that sing for joy ; it is more like " the 
 
 VOL. II. — IG*
 
 §70 SERMONS. 
 
 voice of them that cry for being overcome/' It is a 
 voice of suppressed wailing from a raultitiiae of bro- 
 ken and of breaking hearts, going up like melancholy 
 music to the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth ! As 
 the veil of the temple is shaken by the wind, the lis- 
 tener gets a glimpse of its interior; he sees an altar 
 — an altar of atonement — not an altar of oblation — 
 not an altar of burnt offering — but an altar of incense. 
 The bloody sacrifice has been already offered, and ac- 
 cepted, and applied. The blood has been sprinkled 
 and the vapour has ascended ; and the penitent who 
 laid his hand upon the victim's head approaches to 
 the golden altar, not to purchase pardon but to offer 
 gifts. And on the altar the oblation lies — a heart — 
 a bruised and broken heart — a heart once stained, 
 alas, how deeply, but now fresh from the laver of re- 
 generation ; a heart pierced with many sorrows, the 
 deep scars of which remain, but now melted and bro- 
 ken by the fire and the hammer of God's eflicacious 
 word. There it lies encompassed in the newly-kindled 
 flame of pure and holy love ; and as it burns there 
 unconsumed, a sweet and solemn voice, like the voice 
 of a parent to a suffering child, says : " My son, give 
 me thine heart ; " and another one, still tremulous 
 with weeping, cries out from beneath the altar : " My 
 heart is fixed, oh God, my heart is fixed ; " and then 
 a multitude of voices, like the sound of rushing waters, 
 are heard saying all together : " The sacrifices of God 
 are a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O 
 God, thou wilt not desijise." 
 
 It is this that the proud, the sensual, and the 
 frivolous cannot imderstand. It is this mysterious
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 371 
 
 sacrifice of broken hearts at wliicli tliey wonder or at 
 which they laugh. Apart from all mistake as to the 
 fundamental doctrine of atonement, they still stumble 
 at this stumbling stone. Who can tell what merri- 
 ment the men of this world have derived, in this and 
 other ages, from the sighs and tears of penitence ? 
 How many sound and good hearts, in the world's es- 
 timation and their own, have been made glad and 
 proud of their own greatness, by the anguish of some 
 broken spiiit, by the agonizing throbs of some contrite 
 and broken heart. In multitudes of cases the con- 
 tempt and the derision have been never known to 
 him who was their object, but in multitudes of others, 
 the first pangs of godly sorrow have been strangely 
 mingled with the painful sense that all who pass by 
 wag the head and shoot the lip in bitter scorn; and 
 that the man whom God has smitten is the song of 
 the drunkards in their secret haunts or in their pub- 
 lic gatherings to strengthen one another's hands and 
 hearts in Satan's service. Under the pressure of these 
 complicated pains, the penitent is often ready to cry 
 out : " For thy sake I have borne reproach : shame 
 hath covered my face. They that sit in the gate 
 speak against me, and I am the song of the drunk- 
 ards. Keproach hath broken my heart, and I am full 
 of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but 
 there was none, and for comforters, but I found none." 
 The dread of this luis stifled the incipient convictions 
 of its thousands and its tens of thousands. 
 
 Are there none now present, who have thus been 
 driven back, first to silence, then to apathy, and then 
 to sin? Are there none now present who at this very
 
 372 SERMONS. 
 
 moment are a^^are of sucli a stmggle in their 
 hearts ? And are there none, nay rather, are there 
 not very many, who can now thank God that they 
 have passed tlirough this fiery ordeal ? — who re- 
 member when reproach had well nigh broken their 
 hearts too, nntil the sense of man's derision w^as ab- 
 sorbed in that of their own guilt before God ; nntil 
 they felt that their excessive sensibility to men's re- 
 proaches was a relic of unbroken pride ; until they 
 saw that they were but sharers, and small sharers, in 
 the Lord's reproach ; and comparing their own trials 
 as to this point M'itli his buffetings and cruel mockings, 
 they were suddenly inflamed with zeal to vindicate 
 his honour and forget their own, crying out, " The 
 zeal of thine house hath eaten me up : the reproaches 
 of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me." 
 Then were they made to understand that the best 
 cure for a heart which pride has broken, is a heart 
 bruised and broken on account of sin ; and that while 
 this brokenness of heart is matter of derision to the 
 worldling, " the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : 
 a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not 
 despise." 
 
 How different from this is the experience of the 
 unconverted, unsaved sinner, even when his theoreti- 
 cal opinions of the method of salvation are correct. 
 Let us suppose the case of one w'ell instructed in the 
 doctrines of religion and unable to obliterate the deep 
 intellectual impressions of his early training, but a 
 stranger to the power of religion in his heart. He 
 knows and will acknowledge that he is a sinner ; that 
 his sins deserve the wrath and curse of God in this
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 373 
 
 life and the life to come ; that if saved at all he must 
 be saved through Christ; that no outward acts or 
 mental exercises of his own can expiate the guilt of 
 sin ; that even faith, to which eternal life is promised, 
 has no merit in the sight of God, hut is a mere recep- 
 tion of the grace which brings salvation. All this 
 the man appears to understand, and professes to be- 
 lieve ; and under some auspicious influence, he re- 
 solves, perhaps, to act upon his principles, believing 
 as he docs that atonement has been made ; and rely- 
 ing, as he thinks, upon the merit of that sacrifice, he 
 wonders that he has not the assurance of forgiveness, 
 ]oj and peace in believing, peace of conscience, peace 
 wnth God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But alas, 
 he has to learn that, though the sacrifice which pur- 
 chases salvation, has been offered once for all upon 
 the cross, and though he cannot cast an atom's weight 
 into the scale of Christ's preponderating merits, there 
 is still a sacrifice which /le must offer, and witliout 
 which lie can never be accepted ; a sacrifice so far 
 from being meritorious or in any degree capable of 
 making expiation for the sins of him Avho n.akes it, 
 that it never can be offered but by one wliose sin is 
 already covered, and to whom the Lord imputeth not 
 iniquity. The expiatory altar of the Jewish ritual 
 was situated in the open court, and only they wlio 
 passed by this could draw near to the altar of incense. 
 This secondary sacrifice can be accepted from no 
 hands but those which arc already reeking with the 
 blood of the sin offering. In short tlie sinner knows 
 not, that although his guilt can be removed by noth- 
 ing but the sacrifice of Christ, his interest in that
 
 374 SERMONS. 
 
 atonement can be proved by nothing but the sacri- 
 fice of himself — " a living sacrifice, holy and accept- 
 able unto God." 
 
 Here is the rock on which the Antinomian of every 
 age concerning faith has made shipwreck. On the 
 pretext that the sacrifice of Christ is all-sufiicient, he 
 withholds the oblation of himself to God. Because 
 he has no merit, he beheves he has no duty, and 
 throws ofl" at once his sense of goodness and his sense 
 of obligation ; and because the grace of God abounds 
 to sinners, he goes on in sin, that grace may abound. 
 But the day is coming when the M'ood, hay, and stub- 
 ble of such hopes shall be consumed in the crackling 
 furnace of God's righteous retributions ; and even 
 the}^ who thus abused the doctrine of gratuitous sal- 
 vation, and the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement, 
 shall see b}' the glare of the fi'nal conflagration, that 
 the sacrifice of Christ for any individual, upon the 
 altar of atonement, is inseparably connected with the 
 self-immolation of the man himself upon the altar of 
 God's service ; that no man avIio rejects the one can 
 lay claim to the other ; that Christ gives the purchase 
 of his agonies to no one who refuses or nesrlects to 
 give himself to God ; and that although this self- 
 sacrifice is not demanded as a previous condition of 
 access to Christ, it does arise from it as a necessary 
 consequence, and does therefore serve as an infallible 
 criterion of any person's interest in Christ's atone- 
 ment. 
 
 But let us suppose the sinner to be now convinced 
 of this important truth ; to believe, that while his only 
 hope of everlasting life is in the sacrifice of Christ,
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 375 
 
 he has no right to believe that it was offered up for 
 him, until he offers up himself, through Christ, to 
 God. Here, again, he is liable to fatal error. He 
 may wash his hands in innocency and so compass the 
 altar of God ; he may bind the sacrifice with cords to 
 the horns of the altar ; he may offer it upon the altar 
 with the most imposing rites ; but no sweet savour 
 rises from it to the throne of God. The victim and 
 the offerer are alike rejected — 
 
 "For God abhors the sacrifice 
 Where not the heart is found." 
 
 The man has brought his body and his outward 
 wealth, his time, his talents, and his acquisitions, 
 but his heart is left behind. This is the error of the 
 formalist who, whether right or wrong in his concep- 
 tions of the method of salvation, whether trusting in 
 his own works as an adjunct of Christ's sacrifice, or 
 believing truly that the sacrifice is all-snfficient, but 
 that it requires and indeed produces a self-sacrifice 
 on man's part, fails, after all, to present the right ob- 
 lation. Ah, how many well-instructed and appar- 
 ently sincere professors are there, who, acknowledg- 
 ing their obligation to give all to God, and ])rofessing 
 so to do, do in lact withliold the very thing which 
 God requires, endeavouring to please him and to satisfy 
 their consciences by strict compliance with external 
 rules, without a yielding up of the affections of the 
 soul and of the soul itself, which is their reasonable 
 service. 
 
 Bat the heart is not only a necessary part cf the 
 required oblation. It is itself the very thing required.
 
 376 SERMONS. 
 
 It is the heart which gives vitality and value to the 
 rest. It is because words and actions come forth from 
 the heart, that they liave any vaUie ; and without this, 
 they are worthless, nay, oiFensive, as professing to be 
 what they are not. Not only is the sinner bound to 
 sacrifice himself upon the altar of God's service, but 
 to sacrifice his heart, which is indeed himself. 
 
 This is a second stage in the progress of discovery 
 to which we may suppose the inquirer's mind to have 
 attained. He knows that if Christ gave himself for 
 him, he must give his heart without reserve to Christ. 
 And here again begins to show itself that spiritual 
 blindness which has been before described. The man 
 consents to give his heart to God, just as it is ; but 
 what a heart ! It must be laid upon the altar whole, 
 unbroken and unmelted. He consents, perhaps, that 
 it should first be cleansed. He is willing that those 
 deep, dark stains should be washed out, and that 
 those ulcers should be healed by the application of 
 another's blood. This is all that he will ofifer — all 
 he has to give. But ah, what changes are to pass 
 upon that heart before it is accepted. How little does 
 he think that it must first be pierced and bruised and 
 broken ! Or if informed of this necessity, how quick- 
 1}^ does his pride revolt ! The natural man may be 
 brought to acknowledge his corruption, and to assent 
 in profession to the only means by which it can be 
 purged ; but he never can divest himself of his old 
 feelings with respect to the firmness and the stoutness 
 of his heart. He may plead guilty to a mere superficial 
 depravation, but he openly or secretly exults in his 
 integrity and strength of heart. He boasts in time of
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 377 
 
 trouble that his heart does not fail him, and prides 
 himself upon his openness of heart. He would rather 
 be thonglit to have a heart of iron than a heart of 
 wax. He lays his hand upon his heart as if to swear 
 by it ; and, in short, deifies that very heart whicli is 
 deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; 
 and with these very feelings, and especially this con- 
 fidence and pride in the integrity and firmness of his 
 heart, he sometimes draws near to the altar of his 
 God, tliere to offer up his hard heart as a sacrifice. 
 But there he is thrust back, with an assurance that 
 his stony heart must first be broken. The result of 
 this discoveiy is very different in different cases. 
 Some are disgusted by it, and go back forever. Oth- 
 ers, towards whom God has purposes of mercy, are 
 subjected to a process which results in an effectual 
 contrition of their hearts. However reluctant they 
 ma}^ feel at first to undergo the change, the time comes 
 when they not only feel it, but rejoice in it. As the 
 same apostle who at first said. Lord, thou shalt never 
 wash my feet, said at last, Xot my feet only, but also 
 my hands and my head. 
 
 And thus they are brought by the winding course 
 of their experience to the knowledge and belief of 
 tliese three propositions : 1. Every sinner who is saved 
 through the sacrifice of Christ, must also sacrifice 
 himself to God. 2. This self-immolation must include 
 tlie lieart, or rather it is really an offering of the heart. 
 3. The heart thus offered nnist be broken and con- 
 trite. 
 
 But it is now time to consider in what this broken 
 ness of heart consists. The figure is a common one
 
 378 SERMONS. 
 
 perhaps in all languages. In our own, it is one of 
 those expressions which most vividly arouse the sym- 
 pathies, and with which are associated some of the 
 most tender and affecting images that fancy can cre- 
 ate or memory recall. Who is there here, however 
 narrow his experience, who cannot call to mind some 
 memorable case of deej) affliction, in which the hopes 
 of the sufferer, so far as this life is concerned, were 
 not only nipped in the bud, or blasted in the flower, 
 but suddenly and violently plucked up by the roots, in 
 which the affections which had twined themselves 
 around earthly objects, were at once and forever snap- 
 ped asunder, and the soul became dead to the world, 
 not by spiritual crucifixion, but by a providential 
 flash and thunderbolt. It is to such cases of abrupt 
 separation from the hopes and the enjoyments of the 
 present life, that we familiarly apply the figure of a 
 broken heart. And the phrase appears especially ap- 
 propriate and natural, when those who snfler are in 
 character and circumstances such as to excite compas- 
 sion unalloyed with any harsh or acrimonious feeling 
 — such as caimot or will not seek a stoical relief in 
 moody silence, or in proud endurance — such as suffer 
 without fault, or through the fault of others — and, 
 above all, such as suffer without hope of reparation in 
 the present life. It is of such that we are wont to 
 speak as broken-hearted ; and when the sufferings of 
 such extend to the sudden or gradual decay of life, 
 they are said familiarly to die of broken hearts, 
 
 I refer to the ordinary usage of this phrase, in order 
 to illustrate its true sense in application to contrition 
 and repentance — not because there is any sort of sane*
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 3Y9 
 
 tity belonging to the sorrow of this world which work 
 eth death. An eminent writer upon practical religion, 
 speaks of that compound of pride and madness, which 
 is usually termed a broken heart ; and there can be 
 no doubt, that the broken hearts of poetr^^ and ro- 
 mantic fiction are too often such, as if they really ex- 
 isted, would be followed in the next life by a broken- 
 ness of spirit, which no balm would ever heal, and no 
 physician ever bind. Still, the very application of 
 this metaphor to cases of profound and hopeless sor- 
 row, even where it is essentially unholy in its origin 
 and sinful in its exercise, will help ns to illustrate its 
 true import when applied to godly sorrow, as a sor- 
 row wliich involves a loss of hope and a privation of 
 enjo^nnents and dependences long fondly cherished. 
 "While the heart remains unbroken on account of sin, 
 there are certain prospects upon which the eye is 
 prone to fasten and to feed — the illusive forms of fu- 
 ture happiness arc seen through certain vistas and in 
 certain quarters only. To these points, when the mind 
 conceives the thought of being happy, it instinctively 
 reverts. But when the bruising and the breaking 
 process has begun, these vistas are obstructed, and 
 these prospects fade away, and when the mind in- 
 stinctively reverts to its accustomed points of joyful 
 expectation, they are veiled in darkness. Thus its 
 fixed associations are dissolved, its ancient liopes un- 
 settled"^ and its ancient fears give place to new ones ; 
 so that, in the confusion of its passions and affections, 
 the heart may be described as being broken in pieces. 
 But the change which is properly and specially 
 denoted by this figure, is the change from insensibility
 
 380 SERMONS. 
 
 and aj)atli3'; to a directly opposite condition — to a keen 
 susceptibility of shame and grief. It aS equally amaz- 
 ing to behold how mnch the heart can bear, -while yet 
 unbroken, and how little is enough to make it quiver 
 with emotion, when the hammer has descended, and 
 the rock is dashed in pieces. If the secrets of two 
 hearts could be disclosed at the same moment — for 
 example, in the hearing of a single sermon — we should 
 see the one receiving, with a calmness too unnatural to 
 be called philosophical, the most momentous doc- 
 trines, while the other, by the same enunciation of the 
 same things, is not only agitated but convulsed. The 
 same wind which excites the living waters of Gennes- 
 aret into a storm, is said to leave no trace of its effect 
 upon the sniooth and silent waters of Asphaltites, the 
 sea of death. But the difference of feeling in the 
 cases now supposed, however great, can never be dis- 
 tinctly seen by others. 
 
 There is a case, however, which presents the con- 
 trast, at successive turns indeed, but with a vivid 
 clearness to the eye of an observer. I mean when 
 the observer is himself the subject of both states of feel- 
 ing ; when he looks back with amazement to the time 
 when he could hear with cool indifference, the same 
 things which now freeze his blood, or make it boil. 
 Has it never happened in your experience, that you 
 have been apprised of some appalling danger after it 
 •^vas past ; of your having just before been standing 
 on a spot where the motion of a limb in one direction 
 would have been your death, a death perhaps of ag- 
 gravated horror? and when thus apprized of your 
 deliverance, do you not remember the strange thrill
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 381 
 
 of horror wliicli at once sliot tlirougli yon, suspending 
 for a time your sense of safety, and recalling the sen- 
 sations proper to your former state ? This may serve 
 to illustrate very faintly the retrospective feelings of 
 the sinner, when his heart is broken, in relation to 
 his exercises while it was yet whole. But with this 
 difference, that his amazement has respect not only 
 to the awful danger which he did not feel before, but 
 to the turpitude and guilt of sin to Avhich he was insen- 
 sible, and his own base ingratitude to God at whose 
 feet he now lies subdued and humbled. It is in sor- 
 row for his sins, as sins against a God of justice and 
 of mercy, that the sinner's heart is said to be broken, 
 not merely softened but broken in pieces and reduced 
 to powder, as the word translated contrite really de- 
 notes. True contrition then includes sensibility of 
 conscience and the tenderer aflfections, with a just 
 apprehension of the evil of sin, not only as considered 
 in its own nature, but also as inherent in the penitent 
 himself. Upon spiritual brokenness of heart as thus 
 explained, I invite your attention to a few remarks, 
 some of which have been implied in what has been 
 already said. 
 
 The first remark is, that the broken spirit and the 
 contrite heart are really a sacrifice, a sacrifice to God. 
 I recur to this idea, on account of the opinion wliich 
 extensively prevails among the hearers of the gospel, 
 and particularly those who are not thoroughly in- 
 sructed in the doctrines of the Bible, that contrition 
 is a price which we must pay for our salvation, the 
 death of Christ being either excluded altogether, or 
 admitted merely to give weight and value to the sor-
 
 S82 SERM02;s. 
 
 rows of the penitent. How strange it is that one 
 opinion which men never think of acting on in com- 
 mon life should be maintained so seriously and with 
 such tenacity in spiritual matters. He who should 
 undertake to cancel any civil obligation in like man- 
 ner, to discharge his private debts or pay the penalty 
 of violated laws by mere regret that he had broken 
 or contracted them, would be regarded either as dis- 
 honest or a fool. And yet there are wise and honest 
 men, wise and honest as to this world's matters, who 
 regard repentance as an ample compensation for their 
 worst transgressions, and who fasten with avidity on 
 every phrase which seems to favour that opinion. 
 Such a phrase is that before us, which describes the 
 broken spirit as a sacrifice. 
 
 Some may be ready to inquire, if this does not 
 mean a satisfaction to God's justice, what else can it 
 mean ? It means, as we have seen, a consecration of 
 the heart to God, not in its natural obdurate state, but 
 broken and contrite ; a consecration which can never 
 go before the application of Christ's blood and the re- 
 mission of our sins, but will invariably follow it. 
 They love much to whom much is forgiven, not be- 
 cause forgiveness is the purchase of their love, but 
 because their love is the eifect of their forgiveness 
 So likewise all who are redeemed will offer up ? 
 broken heart as a sacrifice, not because their broken- 
 ness of heart redeems them, but because whenever 
 Christ saves a sinner, he invariably breaks his heart. 
 The same almighty grace which sets him free from the 
 dominion of the law, sets him likewise free from the 
 obduracy of nature. And as these two deliverances
 
 rsALM 51, ir. 38S 
 
 always go togetlicr, there can be no assurance of tlie 
 one without a satisfactory assurance of the other. 
 We have no right to believe that Clirist has died for 
 us, unless we are ready and resolved to live for him. 
 Let us maintain our hold upon both doctrines, and 
 remembering that the only efficacious sacrifice for sin 
 is tliat of Christ, at the same time remember that 
 " the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." 
 
 My second observation is, that this is an offering 
 which God docs not despise. In the language of the 
 text, it would appear to be implied that God might 
 well liave been expected to despise it. And is this 
 not true ? Are tliese worthless, wicked, and deceitful 
 hearts a fit oblation for God's altar ? There is wonder 
 in tlie Psalmist's exclamation, God despises and re- 
 jects the costly ofi'crings of princes : gold and silver, 
 jjomp and pageantry, he spurns : thou despisest all 
 that wealth or pride can offer at thy footstool, but " a 
 broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not 
 despise." It is also an expression of his thankfulness. 
 Tlie broken heart itself is thy gift, thou alone canst 
 break it ; and having thus bestowed it, thou art 
 pleased to accept of it again at our hands ; thou re- 
 quirest nothing but a broken contrite heart ; " a 
 broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not de- 
 spise." Ac the same time there is humble and rejoic- 
 ing confidence. Since thou art pleased to ask nothing 
 but a broken and a contrite heart, I despair no 
 longer ; only break my hard heart more completely 
 by the sense of thy forgiving mercy, and I ask no 
 more, for I can then come before thee with a broken
 
 384 SERMONS. 
 
 and a contrite lieart forever, and " a broken and a 
 contrite heart, O God, tlion wilt not despise." 
 
 In the third phace, I remark that though a holy 
 and a righteons God accepts the sacrifice, ungodly 
 men despise it. It is better to fall into the hands of 
 God than into the hands of man. The chastisements 
 of God are tender mercies to his people, but the ten- 
 der mercies of the wicked are cruel. The licentious, 
 proud, and selfish worldling, who believes that he 
 does honour to God's word by hearing it, and whose 
 religion is a condescending patronage of Christ and 
 his salvation, hates and scorns a broken spirit and a 
 contrite heart as heartily and proudly as the evil one 
 himself. Let the humble Christian be prepared for 
 the contempt of those whose hearts were never 
 broken, and amidst " the proud man's contumely," 
 let him lift his lieart to heaven and breathe the 
 Psalmist's confident assurance, " a broken and a con- 
 trite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 
 
 Again, we may remark that in the church itself, 
 there may be those who, while they wear the yoke of 
 Christ, appear impatient of its pressure ; these are 
 the worshippers of manly Christianity, who love re- 
 ligion in its fierce, and proud, and insolent disguises, 
 but disdain it in its unadorned simplicity and meek- 
 ness. How far such a spirit is compatible with bro- 
 kenness of heart and deep contrition, let those who 
 cherish it determine for themselves by comparing 
 their own feelings and habitual dispositions with the 
 language of the Psalmist, " Tlie sacrifices of God are 
 a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite heart, O 
 God, thou wilt not despise."
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 3g5 
 
 In conclusion, tliere are no doubt many who now 
 hear me, that are j^erfectly unconscious of the slight- 
 est feeling which coidd be, without absurdity, de- 
 scribed as a broken spirit and a contrite lieart. To 
 such the subject is and must be unintelligible, and 
 they are perhaps disposed in secret to rejoice that it 
 is so. Believing as they do that the experience of 
 this change would deprive them of the only pleasures 
 which they arc now capable of relishing, they may 
 perhaps console thcmselv^es by tliinking that " where 
 ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." It is not my 
 design, by a vain reiteration, to attempt to change 
 your present feelings in relation to this matter. But 
 I wish, before I close, to guard your minds if possible 
 against a very natural illusion, with respect to the 
 future. 
 
 The unbroken heart is always loth to thiid-c that 
 it can ever be subdued. As it invariably glories in 
 its strength, it cannot bear the thought of losing it. 
 Some in the madness of their pride resolve that they 
 will rather lose eternal life, than gain it by humiliat- 
 ing weaknesses. Others, unwilling to proceed so far, 
 merely dismiss the subject from their thoughts, while 
 a third class persuade themselves that though they 
 must repent and be converted, they may certainly do 
 this without a loss of native dignity, or the indulgence 
 of unmanly weakness. And accordingly their pur- 
 pose is to keep a good heart even in repenting, and to 
 quit themselves like men in the salvation of their 
 souls. The eye of my imagination rests upon one 
 who would rather be detected in a ciime, than in the 
 shedding of a tear for crimes already perpetrated ; 
 VOL. n. — IT
 
 386 SERMONS. 
 
 one who would rather break than bend; one who 
 would rather be broken by God's wrath than by his 
 mercy ; one, in whose nature this satanic pride is so 
 profoundly fixed, that he is utterly unable to conceive 
 of it as possible that his heart ever can be broken 
 either by misfortune or repentance. 
 
 The scene is changed, and I behold that same 
 man still a hearer of the gospd, but his countenance 
 is altered. He still maintains a posture of resistance, 
 but his eye is restless and his brow contracted, and I 
 read in his vain efforts to suj)press and hide his feel- 
 ings, that the enemy he once despised has found his 
 way into the fortress of his heart. There is commo- 
 tion there. There is a deadly struggle between flesh 
 and spirit. With desperate strength the strong man 
 guards his palace, but a stronger than he is there. 
 He would rather die than yield to his convictions. 
 His soul chooses strangling rather than life. He re- 
 flects with horror on the scorn and contumely which 
 await his fall, and in the anguish of that fear, he 
 summons every motive and musters all his strength 
 to hold united his already bursting heart ; but in the 
 crisis of his last convulsive effort it is broken, it is 
 broken. The most incredible of all impossibilities is 
 realized. The stony heart is broken, and the man 
 who feared and hated it in prospect, now rejoices in 
 it. The tears which once he would rather die than 
 shed, flow freely. The man is willing in the day of 
 God's power, and as he looks up at the cross beneath 
 which his obdurate heart was broken, and beholds the 
 bleeding sacrifice by which his life was purchased, he 
 throws as it were the bruised fras-ments of his heart
 
 PSALM 51, 17. QQtJ 
 
 at tlie Redeemer's feet, beneath the droppin<5s of his 
 blood, and says " lie there forever," while from every 
 wound of him who hangs upon the cross a voice re- 
 sponds : " Tlie sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : 
 a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not 
 despise." 
 
 Of such, some no doubt are saved, saved perhaps 
 as by fire. Would to God, that this might be the end 
 of all who now despise the gospel, and resolve that 
 no misfortune, and no spiritual influence shall ever 
 break their liearts. "Well might the contrite and the 
 broken-hearted Christian bear " the proud man's con- 
 tumely " and the scofier's sneer, if by such endurance 
 he could purchase tlie consolatory hope that his de- 
 spisers should be one day broken-hearted like himself. 
 But, alas, with Scripture and with history before us, 
 where shall we take refuge from the fear, that to many 
 who now make a mock of sin and of repentance, and 
 who trainjjle on the broken heart, the last words of 
 the Saviour, as he points to his despised ones will be, 
 " Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish ! " 
 
 It is matter of thankfulness that we who preach 
 the gos])el, are not authorized to read the future his- 
 tory of those who now reject salvation, and that God 
 has invested this distressing subject with a shroud of 
 intermingled hope and fear. But notwithstanding 
 this compassionate reserve, it may be said without 
 presumption, that among those who arc now disposed 
 to laugh at the idea of a broken heart, there are somo 
 who, though they never shall exfcrience the power of 
 subduing grace, shall yet know by experience what 
 it is to be heart-broken. Mcthinks I see one of this
 
 388 SIBMONS. 
 
 class also, at another time, and in another place. 1 
 see him surronnded by the comforts, and the honours, 
 and the pleasures of the world. I see him still a cold, 
 fastidious hearer of the gospel. I see him regarding 
 with a proud contempt the penitent contrition of his 
 fellow-sinner. I see him laugh in scorn at the idea of 
 his own ]ieart being broken. I see him arm himself 
 with stoical philosophy, with heathen fortitude, with 
 hellish pride. But while I see him watchful upon 
 one side, I behold his enemy approaching on another. 
 "While he surrounds the garden of his happiness with 
 walls or hedges to repel wild beasts, I see tlie flower 
 on his favourite vine begin to droop, and sicken till 
 it drops into the earth a withered weed. I see the 
 vine itself decaying in its branches and its stock, until 
 the root alone is left. I see the soul of the proud sin- 
 ner touched with exquisite exactness in its most un- 
 guarded and most vulnerable points. I see the 
 appetite for earthly pleasm-e "sicken and so die," 
 with nothing better to succeed it. I see the man as 
 he looks back upon the wilderness and forward to the 
 ocean, as he turns with a sore conscience from the 
 trackless sands, gaze with anxious apprehension on 
 the trackless waters. " His strength is hungerbitten," 
 and his courage spent. Is this the man who braved 
 misfortune, and defied conviction ? Is it he who 
 laughed at the idea of a broken heart, and vowed that 
 his heart never could be broken? Is it he who even 
 now has only strength enough to hide, and that at 
 the expense of most excruciating torments, the ap- 
 proaching fracture of his own proud spirit, for a few 
 more days of unimaginable anguish, till in the vei7
 
 PSALM 51, 17. 3S9 
 
 article of death, his heart and flesh give -way to- 
 gether, and he "who boasted of a whole heart while he 
 lived, dies of a broken heart at last. All, my hearers, 
 you may think it a mere fiction of romance that men 
 should die of broken hearts. But when the records of 
 God's righteous retributions are unfolded, some of us 
 may see that this and that man whose decease was here 
 ascribed to accident or bodily disease, were the vic- 
 tims of an obstinate, unbending spirit, and of a 
 wounded, ulcerated conscience, were consumed by 
 secret eflbrts to suppress conviction, and at last, after 
 all their proud derision and bravado, died of broken 
 hearts. Is it then the case, you may be ready to in- 
 quire, that they who pass through life, without ex- 
 perience of sorrow, and devoid of sensibility ; who 
 steep themselves in selfish and ignoble pleasures, till 
 their souls are callous ; is it true that tliese alone arc 
 to escape the sad experience of a broken heart ? 
 
 My hearers, there arc two very common eiTors in 
 relation to the future state of those who die impcni 
 tent. The one is the idea, that because the tree must lie 
 just as it falls, because lie who is filthy must be filthy 
 still ; men can deprive themselves in some degree of 
 that susceptibility of pain which is essential to tho 
 misery of hell. Hence there have been men who, as 
 their death approached, chose to stupefy their minds 
 with intoxicating liquors, partly no doubt for the 
 purpose of excluding all reflection on the future ; 
 partly from unbelief of any future state, but in many 
 cases, I have no doubt also, in the hope that their 
 £.tupefied and brutal apathy would still continue in the 
 other world. Think of tliis vain attempt to quench
 
 390 SERMONS. 
 
 tlie flames of Tophet with intoxicating liqnors, or 
 ■with any otlier stupefying dnig, and then imagine, if 
 you can, the awaking of that spirit after death. The 
 only gift of God to the lost sinner is the gift of sensi- 
 bility unknown before : a gift which shall overwhelm 
 with shrinking shame, the man, the woman, to whom 
 shame is now a stranger ; agitate with terror those 
 who now are brave, and sting with keen remorse the 
 consciences of those whose hearts are never visited in 
 this life by the dread of wrath, or by the conscious- 
 ness of guilt. Whatever other changes may await us, 
 be assured, my hearers, that the day is coming when 
 the most unfeeling shall be made to feel.
 
 XXI. 
 
 James 1, 2-8. — My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into 
 divers temptations ; knowing this, that the trying of your faith work- 
 cth patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may 
 be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you Ir.ck wisdom, 
 let him ask of God, that givetli to all men liberally, and upbraidcth 
 not; and it shirll be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing 
 wavering: for he that wavercth is like a wave of the sea driven with 
 the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he sliall receive 
 any thing of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his 
 ways. 
 
 The questions wliicli have been raised in reference 
 to the author of this epistle, however interesting thej 
 may be to tlie historical critic, are of very little exc- 
 getical importance. "Whether it be the Avork of James 
 the son of Zebcdee, as the old Syriac translators, and 
 perhaps some others thonglit, or of James the sou of 
 Alphens, which has been the prevalent opinion in all 
 ages of the church, or James the brother of the Lord, 
 not :i member of the apostolic body, but the bishop 
 or pastor of the church at Jerusalem, of whom con- 
 temporary history relates that he was called the Just 
 or Righteous, and whose death, at the hands of the 
 infuriated Zealots, is described by the same author as 
 an immediate cause or occasion of the Fall of Jeru-
 
 392 SERMONS. 
 
 salem ; tliese are alternative hypotheses, our choice of 
 which cannot materially affect our view of the design 
 and meaning of the book itself. 
 
 The doubts respecting its canonical authority 
 among the ancients, as in the case of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, sprang from its having been addressed 
 to Jews or Jewish Christians, and not made known 
 to the Gentile churches until after some time had 
 elapsed. The like doubts, entertained by Luther and 
 some other modern writers, have been founded on a 
 supposed contrariety between the teachings of James 
 and Paul, as to the fundamental doctrine of justifica- 
 tion. The little currency which this opinion has ob- 
 tained among believing readers and interpreters shows 
 that its supposed ground is imaginary, and that there 
 is no reason even for assuming two divergent types of 
 Christian doctrine, an ingenious figment which has 
 been carried to extremes by certain German theo- 
 logians of our own day. A key to all the difficulties 
 of the case is furnished by the simple supposition that 
 the epistle presupposes what is taught in other parts 
 of the New Testament, and is intended, not to com- 
 municate the fundamental truths of Christianity, but 
 to correct abuses of them which had already shown 
 themselves, perhaps especially in certain portions of 
 the church and under certain circumstances, amons 
 which one was probably the influence of persecution, 
 and the peculiar trials and temptations which it 
 brought along with it, and in which the apostle here 
 exhorts his readers to rejoice, just as Paul, in still 
 more general terms, exhorts " us to rejoice always." 
 
 This positive injunction of the Christian ethics
 
 I 
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. 393 
 
 may seem too difficult, if not impossible, to be obeyed. 
 And even if the natural repugnance to sufferino- 
 can be so far vanquished as to make distress itself a 
 subject and occasion of rejoicing, the moral sense still 
 shrinks from what is here commanded, to rejoice in 
 temptation. The paradox is not to be removed by 
 violently changing the established meaning of the 
 word, which never means affliction simply, but in 
 every case conveys the idea of a moral trial, or a test 
 of character. The petition whicli our Lord himself 
 ]3rescribes, " Lead us not into temptation," cannot be 
 a mere deprecation of adversity, as something painful. 
 Had not popuhar usage lowered the meaning of our 
 own word " trial " as applied to providential changes, 
 so that it now expresses little more than pain or pri- 
 vation, it would correspond exactly to the Greek 
 term here used, and applied to sufferings or afflictions, 
 not as such, or as mere chastisements, or means of 
 grace, but as tests or touchstones of the sufferer's dis- 
 positions and affections, of his faith, and patience, 
 and obedience, to which the term is as legitimately 
 applicable as it is to those direct solicitations to evil 
 which are commonly denoted by the word " tempta- 
 tion." 
 
 But even this word temptation strictly denotes 
 trial, i. e.^ moral trial, trial of character, and merely 
 comprehends within it that specific mode of trial 
 which consists in direct attempts to make men sin, 
 by exciting their sinful dispositions, setting before 
 them the unlawful object, and aflurding them the 
 means and opportunity of actual transgi'cssion. All 
 this, I say, which is the ordinary meaning of the word 
 
 VUI. 11. — 11*
 
 394 SERMONS. 
 
 " temptation," is but one form — tliongli undoubtedly 
 the worst form — of that whole testing process wliicli the 
 term in Greek as well as English primarily signifies. 
 The question whether it is here used in its narrower 
 or wider sense may be determined by the context, 
 where the fruit of sanctified temptation is described 
 as patience, patient endurance. But the fruit and 
 remedy of temptation in the ordinary sense is not the 
 habit of endurance but of strong resistance. To be 
 patient under the suggestions of the devil, the seduc- 
 tions of the world, and the corruptions of our own 
 heart, would imply acquiescence, not to say compla- 
 cency in evil. A temptation, to which patience is 
 the proper antidote, must be specifically a temptation 
 to impatience, insubordination, a rebellious and re- 
 pining temper, and these are just the sinful disposi- 
 tions and aifections to which we are tempted by a 
 state of suflfering. We must therefore understand 
 the words as having reference to those providential 
 trials of men's faith and patience in which they are 
 rather passive than active, and under which their ap- 
 propriate duty is not so much resistance as submis- 
 sion. But even these trials and temptations are not 
 to be sought for or solicited. It is not in voluntary, 
 wilful subjection to them through our own fault, or 
 in the indulgence of our own perverse ambition to be 
 martjH's or confessors, that we are encouraged or com- 
 manded to rejoice, but when we " fall into " them or 
 among them, so as to be quite encompassed and en- 
 veloped by them, as the traveller from Jerusalem to 
 Jericho, in the parable of the good Samaritan, " fell 
 among" thieves or robbers ; the original expression
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. 395 
 
 being just the same in cither case, and in the only 
 other phice where it occurs, (Acts 27, 41,) although 
 api>lied to a kind of trial altogether different, the 
 nmning of a ship aground, it still suggests the same 
 idea of unstudied, unintentional, unforeseen emergen- 
 cies, and therefore makes it still more certain that the 
 trials in which we are commanded to rejoice are not 
 those into which we presumptuously rush, but those 
 into which we unintentionally fall, and which, for 
 that very reason, are better suited to make proof of 
 our obedience to the will of God, and of our trust in 
 his power and willingness to keep us. The dilhculty 
 of complying with this general injunction may appear 
 to bo enhanced by the variety of outward forms and 
 circumstances under wliicli the work of providential 
 trial may be carried on, including all the numberless 
 and nameless " ills that flesh is heir to." 
 
 IIow can all these be reduced to one description, 
 or provided for by one prescription ? Though it may 
 be rational and right, and therefore must be pos- 
 sible, if not always easy, to rejoice in one variety of 
 such temptations, it does not follow necessarily that 
 it is possible or right in all. But this objection or 
 misgiving as to the extent of the apostle's requisition, 
 is anticipated and precluded by himself in the express 
 use of the epithet " divers," manifold, multiform, di- 
 versified, the sensible quality originally signilied be- 
 ing that of variety in colours, particoloured, piebald, 
 motley, and theretbre well adapted, by a natural as- 
 sociation, to express in a lively manner the idea of 
 diversity in general, as if he had said — however varied 
 the complexion of the trials into which you fall, or by
 
 396 SERMCJNS. 
 
 whicli you are encompassed, I tell you still to " count 
 it joy " and " all joy," not by a figure of speech or 
 paradoxical abuse of language; so that, according to 
 tlie famous saying of a great diplomatist, it serves to 
 conceal thought rather than express it, saying one 
 thing and meaning another ; not in a limited degree, 
 as implying that a little joy may possibly be squeezed 
 out of the heart surcharged with grief ; not with a 
 stoical apathy, affecting to confound or identify pain 
 and pleasure, joy and sorrow ; but in the true sense, 
 and the full sense, and the Christian sense of the ex- 
 pression, let us count our providential trials " all jo}^," 
 nothing but joy, as Paul tells the Ephesians, Christ 
 has abounded towards us " in all wisdom and pru- 
 dence ; " and exhorts them to walk worthy of their 
 vocation " with all lowliness and meekness," (Eph. 1, 
 8 ; 4, 2,) all kinds and all degrees of wisdom in the 
 one case, and of meekness in the other. So here, it 
 is not the mere name, or the mere pretence, or some 
 infinitesimal degree of joy, that believers under trial 
 are to exercise, but " all joy " as opposed to none, and 
 to too little, and to every kind of counterfeit. So far 
 from grieving or repining when you fall into divers 
 trials, " count it all joy." But as we know, both from 
 Scripture and experience, that " no chastening /"or 
 the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, and 
 that afterward {varepov) it yield eth the peaceable fruit 
 of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby," 
 (Heb. 12, 11,) it is not unreasonable to suppose that 
 the joy here required is not a joy to be experienced 
 in the very article or stress of the temptation, but 
 a joy to be engendered by a, believing, gi'ateful re
 
 J^OIES 1, 2-8. 39^^ 
 
 trospection of the trial after it is past, or at least, after 
 the first shock is over, and the soul is able to reflect 
 upon it. This is jjerfectlj consistent with the form 
 of cx2)ression {orav TrepLTria-Tjre) M-hich might even be 
 translated to mean " when " or " after," " ye have 
 fallen into divers trials," so as, at least, to sug- 
 gest the idea, that this is not a joy to be indulged in 
 l)rospeet of the trial or temptation, which might too 
 easily degenerate into a proud, presumptuous, self- 
 confident defiance, or even a fanatical solicitation of 
 such trials, wliicli is sometliing very different from 
 the humble, grateful joy of having been subjected to 
 them for a wise and gracious purpose, and brought 
 through them, and then out of them in safety. 
 
 This precise determination of tlic time at wliicli tlie 
 joy is to be exercised, as not the time of actual en- 
 durance, much less that of previous expectation, but 
 rather that of subsequent reflection — I mean subse- 
 quent, if not to tlie whole trial, yet at least to its 
 inception — this, I say, may throw some light on two 
 points which have been already mentioned, Init per- 
 haps not yet made wholly clear. The first is the 
 paradoxical aspect of the exhortation to rejoice in 
 that which necessarily involves pain and suffering. 
 The paradox, to say the least, may seem less startling 
 if we understand the text as calling upon men to re- 
 joice, not that they are suflering, or while they suffer, 
 although even this does not transcend the limits of 
 experience, as we Icnow from the triumphant jr>y of 
 martyrs at the stake, and of Tuany a lowlier believer 
 on his deathbed, but that they have suffered, that it 
 has pleased God, without their own concurrence, to
 
 39S SEEMOJfS. 
 
 afford them tlie occasion of attesting their fidelity, 
 and patience, and snhmission to liis wilL Snch joy, 
 h\ the recollection of past trials, has so many analogies 
 in general experience, that it cannot even be called 
 " paradoxical " withont injnstice. 
 
 The other ])oint on which the sSme consideration 
 may throw some light, is the choice of an expression 
 which, althongh it primarily signifies no more than 
 moral trial or a test of character, in general usage 
 does undoubtedly denote a positive solicitation to do 
 wrong. For even in this worst sense of temj)tation, 
 it may be a subject of rejoicing, not beforehand, no, 
 nor in the very crisis of the spiritual conflict ; but 
 when that is past, and when the soul, unconscious of 
 its danger till it could no longer be avoided, looks 
 back upon the fearful risk from wiiich it has escaped, 
 not merely with gratitude for its deliverance, but 
 with unaflected joy that there was such a risk to be 
 delivei'ed from, because it has now served to magnify 
 God's grace, and at the same time to attest its own 
 fidelity. Just as the soldier, who would have been 
 guilty of the grossest rashness and the most unpardon- 
 able violation of his orders, if he had deliberately 
 thrown himself into the way of a superior enemy, 
 may — when unexpectedly surrounded and attacked, 
 he has heroically cut his way through — rejoice, not 
 only in his safety, but in the very danger which 
 comjDelled him to achieve it. 
 
 But the joy experienced in the case before us is 
 not merely retrospective, but prospective also. It is 
 not an ignorant or blind joy, but is founded in knowl- 
 edge, knowledge not only of the principles on which
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. 399 
 
 men ought to act, but of tlie consequences which may 
 he expected from a certain course of action or of snfier- 
 ing ; for as Ave have ah-eady seen, it is of passive, rarlier 
 than of active or positive obedience, that James is 
 speaking. The trials or temptations of the Christian 
 are the test or touchstone of his faith, both in the 
 strict and comprehensive sense. They put to tlie 
 proof his trust in God, his belief of what God says, of 
 what he promises. But in so doing, they afford the 
 surest test of his religion, of his whole religions char- 
 acter. Specific trust in God's veracity and faithful- 
 ness is not and cannot be an independent, insulated 
 quality, or act, or habit. It must have its causes 
 and effects homogeneous to itself in the man's creed, 
 in his heart, in his hfe. Among these is a definite 
 reliance on God's mercy, not as a mere attribute of 
 the divine nature, but as offered and exercised in a 
 specific form, the only form in which it can be offered 
 or received by sinners. The text says nothing ex- 
 pressly of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, but every 
 believer in this Saviour who peruses the epistle, feels 
 that it is presupposed, assumed, or taken for granted, 
 so that the contracted form of speech here used, con- 
 veys to such a reader all that is expressed in the be- 
 ginning of the second chapter, where the one word 
 " faith " is amplified into the " faith of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the Glorious," or " the Lord of Glory." What 
 is there said explicitly, is here said by necessary im- 
 plication. He who could use the longer fonn, could 
 not use the shorter without meaning to suggest more 
 than he says. There is therefore no violence what- 
 ever done to the apostle's language, when wc under-
 
 400 SERMONS, 
 
 stand liim to deserioe temptation as a test of sincere 
 belief in Clirist as " tlie only name given under 
 heaven among men Avlicreby ^ve must be saved" 
 from sin as well as punishment, and not of mere re- 
 liance on the power and willingness of God to deliver 
 or preserve from suffering. In both these senses, or 
 in both these applications and extensions of the term, 
 faith is neces-sarilj -included in the religious character, 
 of which a test is furnished by providential trials or 
 temptations. 
 
 But it does not merely furnish present evidence 
 of faitli. It produces a permanent effect upon the 
 character. It generates a habit — that of patient en- 
 durance, that of steadfast perseverance in the way of 
 God's commandments. For of patience, as of faith, 
 it may be said that it cannot stand alone, it cannot 
 exist independently of other virtues, other" graces, 
 other traits of Christian character. The principle of 
 active and passive obedience is the same. He who 
 will not do God's will cannot endure it in a Christian 
 spirit. He can only endure it in the way of punisli- 
 ment. Evangelical patience presupposes, includes, 
 or carries with it evangelical obedience or activity. 
 It therefore comprehends a very large part of experi- 
 mental and practical rehgion, and to say that it is 
 fostered and matured by trial, is to say that trial or 
 temptation, in the sense here put upon the term, is an 
 important means of grace, of spiritual growth, and in- 
 stead of being angrily complained of or sullenly repined 
 at as a hardship or a cnielty, ought not indeed to be 
 desired or courted any more than medicines, especially 
 when composed of poisons, should be used as ordinary
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. 401 
 
 food ; but -wlien administered, without our agency or 
 even option, by tlie Great Physician, slioiild be thank- 
 fully submitted to, and afterwards rejoiced in, as a 
 potent agency of God's appointment which produces 
 great eifects, not by a sudden or immediate change, 
 but as the original expression seems to mean, by a 
 gradual and long-continued alterative process ; for the 
 trial of our faith " worketh out," elaborates, and as it 
 were laboriously cultivates a habit of persistent and 
 unwavering obedience and submission to the will of 
 God, both in the way of doing and suiiering. 
 
 That the patience thus commended is not an inert 
 and sluggish principle, much less a mere condition of 
 repose, but something active in itself and tending to 
 activity in others, is evident enough from the apostle's 
 exhortation, not to hinder it or check it in its opera- 
 tion, but to give it free scope, let it have its perfect 
 work or full effect. Could this be said of mere in- 
 ertia, or even patient nonresistance ? Is it not im- 
 plied, or rather is it not expressly said that this divine 
 vTTOfiovy], this principle and habit of patient continu- 
 ance in doing and suffering the will of God, is not a 
 mere superfluous embellishment of Christian character, 
 a work of supererogation added to its necessary el- 
 ements by way of doing more than man needs or than 
 God requires, but itself an element that cannot be 
 dispensed with, and without which neither suflerers 
 nor actors in God's service can be '• perfect and en- 
 tire, wanting nothing." How many, in compounding 
 their ideal of a perfect Christian character, forget to 
 put in patience, and how many, who in theory ac- 
 knowledge its necessity, refuse to let it " have its 
 perfect work " in their experience and practice !
 
 402 SERMONS. 
 
 All this affords abimdant room for wise discrim« 
 ination and a sound discretion. It is evidently not a 
 matter %Yliich can be disposed of or conducted to a 
 safe and happy issue by mere audacity or force of 
 will, by cutting knots which ought to be untied, or 
 by a reckless disregard of delicate distinctions and 
 perplexing questions which arise from the very nature 
 both of God and man, and from their mutual rela- 
 tions, and which can neither solve themelves, nor be 
 solved by any intellectual force short of wisdom in 
 the highest sense ; not mere knowledge, not even gen- 
 uine and solid knowledge, much less the capacity of 
 barren speculation, but wisdom in the noble sense at- 
 tached to it even by profane philosophers, intellectual 
 powers and resources under the control of moral prin- 
 ciple, and faithfully applied to moral uses ; a wisdom 
 shown in the selection of the highest ends, and in the 
 application of the most effective means to gain them. 
 This wisdom, the idea of which was familiar to the 
 wisest of the heathen, has been realized only in the 
 school of revelation. And woe to him who undertakes, 
 without it, to solve the intricate and fearful problem 
 of man's character and destiny ! Tliis can be done 
 successfully, and even safely, only by the wise man, 
 and in the actual use and exercise of real wisdom. 
 He who attempts it otherwise can only be regarded 
 as a madman throwing about firebrands, arrows, and 
 death, and saying. Am I not in sport ? This is no 
 arbitrary or unmeaning requisition, for unless we 
 abandon the very definition and idea of true wisdom 
 as chimerical, we cannot possibly conceive of any 
 higher or more necessary use to which its possessors
 
 JAMES 1 2-8. ^8 
 
 can apply it, or for wliicli those who have it not are 
 bonnd to seek it. 
 
 But how, or where ? they may he reach- to cleinand. 
 In what quarter, or by what means is this transcend- 
 ent, superhuman wisdom, to he made avaihihle for 
 those who need it ? If no exertion of man's unas- 
 sisted reason, no reach of speculation, no variety of 
 knowledge, no extent of observation, no depth of ex- 
 perience, can supply this want even to the wisest, 
 what shall he do who lays claim to so much dignit}', 
 but feels himself to be deficient in this most essen- 
 tial point? My brethren, whoever does feel this de- 
 ficiency, whoever in his own conviction docs lack 
 wisdom, and does really desire to have it, is the very 
 man who has no right or reason to despair of it — the 
 very one for whom this scripture makes express pro- 
 vision — first, by pointing out the only source from 
 which his want can be supplied, and then by assuring 
 him that he may confidently draw upon it. " If any 
 of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." The " if" 
 is not expressive of a doubt, but presupposes an un- 
 questionable fact, or rather the doubt which it does 
 seem to express relates not to the fact itself, but to 
 the sense of it — not to the actual necessity and ab- 
 sence of true wisdom in the case of every fallen man, 
 of every sinner to be saved, for this is certain and 
 notorious, attested both by revelation and experience, 
 but to the consciousness of this deficiency, the want 
 of which is part and parcel of our native blindness; 
 nothing but wisdom can reveal our folly We do not 
 even feel our mental maladies until the healing pro- 
 cess is begun, in strict accordance with the wisest
 
 404 SERMONS. 
 
 saying of the wisest of tlie anciei t Greeks, that lie 
 knew nothing certainly, except that he knew nothing. 
 This epigrammatic maxim is the shell or wrapper of 
 a very profound truth, to have discovered which is 
 the highest honour of the man who uttered it — a 
 truth, however, which to him and to the wisest of his 
 followers was a mere negation, one of sweeping mag- 
 nitude and awful import, but a negation still ; the 
 positive correlative of which was, what " the world 
 by wisdom " was for ages striving after without ever 
 grasping, till at length God pitied them ; and seeing 
 that the world, with all its wisdom, knew not God, 
 was pleased to save them that believe by the foolish- 
 ness of preaching, — by the promulgation of a new 
 philosophy which seemed mere folly to the wise men 
 of the world, as it reduced their wisdom to the simple 
 and mostunphilosophical acknowledgment of Socrates, 
 and made the conscious lack of wisdom as to spiritual 
 matters indispensable as a condition of reception into 
 its school among its disciples ; and to those who felt 
 it, and confessed it, simply saying, " If any of you 
 lack wisdom, let him ask of God." 
 
 My hearers, familiar, elementary, and almost triti- 
 cal as this may seem to our eyes, bleared and dazzled 
 by the blaze of gospel light, it was a grand discovery 
 and a vast advance upon the previous achievements 
 of the human mind. It is like uncovering the sun to 
 those who have been trying to strike light from the 
 flint, or digging for it under ground. All that the 
 schools of Greece and Egypt and the East had been 
 saying for a course of ages was — let no man think 
 that he lacks wisdom, for he has it in himself— or at
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. ^05 
 
 most, if any man lack wisdom, let him come to me ; 
 but M'lien the voice of the Evangelizing Angel whom 
 John saw in his apocalyptic vision became audi- 
 ble, the schools were silent, and the oracles were 
 dumb, before that simple precept to which we attach 
 so little value — " If any one of you lack wisdom, let 
 him ask of God." Hut this asking of God was to the 
 Greeks a mockery. Even those who believed in God 
 had no conception of immediate spiritual intercourse 
 with God, still less of intellectual illumination, sent 
 directly from him. They knew what it was to work 
 out wisdom for themselves, or to seek for wisdom at 
 the hands of human sages ; but this was a new idea — 
 " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." 
 And that not as a ceremony, but a means, a certain 
 means of acquisition — not of God the unknown and 
 the unapproachable, but God the giver, God who 
 gives, who actually gives, has given, will give again, 
 will give forever. This is no rash venture, but a mat- 
 ter of exjjerience. You are only asked to do- what 
 others, nay, what multitudes have done before you — 
 ask of God, of God himself "What, directly, without 
 any mediation, M'ithout any but his Son's, without 
 any influence but that of his Spirit, which is his 
 own, without the intervention of philosophers or 
 priests, without circuitous or ceremonial methods of 
 approach ! As simply as a child asks food of a parent, 
 " if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God," 
 "of God the giver, God who giveth," — who habitually 
 giveth, not to certain favoured nations, castes, or indi- 
 viduals, but to all men — not to Greeks ov Jews alone, 
 not to philosophers or priests alone, but to all jnen —
 
 406 SEKMONS. 
 
 yes, to all men, i. e. all wlio ask, all wlio really desire 
 it, all who ask aright. 
 
 Like other great discoveries, it seems almost in« 
 credible that this should never have been stumbled 
 on before ; that among the numberless expedients for 
 supplj'ing the deficiencies of human M'isdom, this 
 should never have occurred, in its simplicity, to any 
 of the heathen sages, " If any of you lack wisdom, 
 let him ask of God, who actually giveth unto all men." 
 How? In what way? In what spirit? There is 
 something realh^ sublime in the simplicity with which 
 this question is here answered. It is not only simple, 
 but simplicity itself. " He giveth simply." The very 
 grandeur of this jjhrase has hindered and embarrassed 
 its interpretation. It seems to say too little, when in 
 fact it says too much for us to compass. It seems to 
 be irrelevant, when nothing can be more precisely 
 adapted to the end proposed. The doubtful and sec- 
 ondary meanings which have been preferred, if not 
 inadmissible, are all superfluous. " He giveth liber- 
 ally "is suggested rather than expressed ; "he giveth 
 simply " is the naked sense of the original — or per- 
 haps it may be rendered - more precisely still, "he 
 simply gives," — he gives — he gives — and that is all. 
 He does not give, and not give, as some men too often 
 do ; he does not give and take as some men do ; he 
 does not give and nullify the kind act by unkind words 
 or disclosing unkind motives ; he does not give as 
 many a proud human benefactor gives, and then up- 
 braid the beneficiary wnth his wants, his weakness, his 
 unworthiness, his former gifts, — " he simply gives ; " 
 f'he gives to all men and upbraideth not." This
 
 JAMES 1, 2-8. 407 
 
 human propensity to mar the value of a gift by mix- 
 tures of nnkinduess or ill-timed severity, was so fa- 
 miliar to the ancients as to be embodied in their pro- 
 verbs. But from all these mixtures, and from others 
 like them, and from every thing that poisons human 
 favours, God's are infinitely, wholly free. The best 
 of men give only to some objects, and with some ac- 
 companj^ng drawbacks ; but he simply gives, — ho 
 gives to all men and npbraideth not. 
 
 My brethren, for such a giver is it too much to 
 expect, that he who asks shall ask in faith and in sin- 
 cerity, desiring wliat he asks, believing in God's will- 
 ingness and power to bestow it ? If God giveth, sim- 
 pl^^ giveth, and npbraideth not, is it too much to re- 
 quire that man should ask, and doubt not, and dis- 
 semble not, and waver not? If God gives simply, 
 singly, with a pure, unmixed, unqualified benevolence, 
 is it too much to require that num should not ask 
 doubl}^, hypocritically — no ; nor even with a double 
 mind or soul in a less offensive sense, the sense of in- 
 stability and vacillation, sometimes wishing, some- 
 times not — now asking this, now that — asking, and 
 then refusing to receive the very thing before desired. 
 Kespect for even human benefactors requires that the 
 petitioner should know his own mind before asking, 
 and not lightly change it after asking. And is less 
 respect due to that glorious Giver, who, with every 
 reason to refuse still giveth, and with every right to 
 make distinctions giveth unto all men alike? and 
 with every right aiul ever}- reason to accompany 
 his gifts with hard conditions, and with harsh up- 
 braidings, simply giveth, freely giveth anil \q>braideth
 
 408 SERMONS. 
 
 not ? Is it too miicli for him to say of every one 
 wlio Jisketh, "let him aslc in faith, nothing waver- 
 ing," either in trnst or pnrpose — not at vurian-cc with 
 himself — not self-contradictory in his petitions — not a 
 man of two minds, or of two sonls, or of two hearts 
 hut of one, and that one fixed on God, on Christ? 
 No ; so easy and so reasonable a condition scarce de- 
 serves the name, especially as he Avho asks it gives it. 
 Well might the wisest of the Fathers pray, " Give 
 what thou reqnirest, and require what thou wilt ! " 
 It is an insult of the grossest kind to God the giver, 
 to bring into his presence a mind tossing with tu- 
 multuous and inconsistent passions, like the troubled 
 sea which cannot rest, but casteth up mire and dirt. 
 " Let not that man think that he shall receive any 
 thing of the Lord," but only he who, through divine 
 grace, can exclaim — " My heart is fixed, oh God, my 
 heart is fixed ! " The man whose heart is Avavering 
 and double is not merel}^ deficient in his prayers, but 
 in his whole religious character, of which his prayers 
 are but an index ; he is inconsistent and inconstant, 
 fickle and " unstable in all his ways." While he thus 
 reasons he cannot therefore expect God to give him 
 wisdom, that transcendent wisdom, without which 
 patience cannot have her j^erfect work, or extract her 
 spiritual food out of the medicine of trial and the poi- 
 son of temptation. And yet this is our last resort ; if 
 this fail us, there is no hope elsewhere. "Whither shall 
 we turn in search of wisdom but to Him who giveth 
 freely unto all men and upbraideth not. We come 
 back therefore to the conclusion, that if any man lack 
 wisdom, let him ask of God.
 
 XXII. 
 
 Is/7 AH h, "".O. — "Woe unto them that cull evil good, and gootl evil ; 
 that put dorl ncss for liglit, and light for durkucs^s; that put bitter for 
 sweet, and tTcet for bitter ! 
 
 If the judgments of men arc liabitiuilly influenced 
 by tb.rir atfections, it is not surprising that their speech 
 slioild bear the impress of the same controlling power, 
 WLat we iiear men say in the way of passing judg- 
 ment upon things and persons, unless said deliberately 
 for the 2^111'poso of deceiving those who hear them, 
 will afiord us, for the most i)art, a correct idea of their 
 dispositions and prevailing inclinations. There is in- 
 deed a customary mode of talking, practised by some 
 men, in which familiar I'ornndas of praise and cen- 
 sure, as to moral objects, are employed as if by rote, 
 involving the admission of important ])rinciples, antl 
 recoffnizinfc in its full extent the irrand distinction be- 
 tween moral good and evil. Such men will sj)eak 
 familiarly of other men, and of their acts, as right or 
 "wrong, as \irtuous or vicious, in a manner which im- 
 plies not only preference of judgment but of incli- 
 nation ; so that if we draw conclusions from their lan- 
 guage merely, we should certainly infer that they not 
 VOL. n. — 17
 
 410 SERMOISS. 
 
 only understood tlie principles of sound morality, but 
 loved tliem and obeyed them. The latter conclusions 
 would, in too many instances, be found to be erroneous, 
 not because the person, in his talk, was guilty of de- 
 liberate hypocris}^, or even intended to deceive at all, 
 but because his words conveyed more than he meant, 
 especially when phrases used of course, and by a sort 
 of habit, came to be subjected to the rules of a strict 
 interpretation. But in all such cases it will soon be 
 found, upon a little observation, that the dialect in 
 question, however near it may approach to that of 
 evangelical morality, is still distinguished from it by 
 indubitable marks, — to one of which I shall direct 
 your notice, and have no doubt that it will be imme- 
 diately confirmed by your own experience. 
 
 If, then, you know an}" one who thus indulges in 
 the use of sucli conventional expressions as imply a 
 recognition of those principles of morals which are 
 laid down in the Bible, but whose conduct, on the 
 other hand, repudiates and nullifies them — have you 
 not observed, that in expressing his opinions upon 
 moral subjects, he avoids, as if instinctively, those 
 terms of censure and of approbation which belong 
 distinctively to scripture, and confines himself to those 
 which are common to the Bible and the lieathen mor- 
 alists, to Christian ethics and the code of honour. 
 He will speak of an act, or a course of acts, as wrong, 
 perhaps as vicious, — it may even be as wicked, but 
 not as sinful. There are crimes and vices, but no 
 sins in his vocabulary. The difference between the 
 terms, as viewed by such a person, seems to be that 
 vice and crime are referable merely to an abstract
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 4]^]^ 
 
 standard, and perhaps a variable Ohc ; while sin briiiijs 
 into view the legislative and judicial character of 
 God. 
 
 Sin too is associated, in most minds, with the hu- 
 miliating doctrine of a natural depravity, -while vice 
 and crime suggest the idea of a voluntary aberration 
 on the part of one, by nature free from taint, and 
 abundantly able to stand fast in his own strength. 
 By tracing such diversities, however slight and trivial 
 they seem to be when in themselves considered, we 
 may soon learn to distinguish the characteristic dialect 
 of worldly moralists from that of evangelical religion. 
 It will also be found, that in the use of terms cm- 
 ployed by both, there is a difference of sense, it may 
 be unintentional, denoting no small difference in 
 point of principle. Especially is this the case in 
 reference to those important jirinciplcs of morals 
 which bear most directly upon the ordinary business 
 of life, and come most frequently into collision with 
 the selfish interests and inclinations of ungodly men. 
 Two men for instance shall converse together upon 
 truth and falsehood, upon honesty and fraud, employ- 
 ing the same words and phrases, and perhaps awaro 
 of no diversity of meaning in their application. In 
 their principles and feelings they shall seem to coin- 
 cide, both ajjproving and condenming with a perfect 
 unanimity. And yet when you come to ascertain the 
 sense in which they severally use the terms employed 
 by both, you shall find that while the one adoj^ts the 
 rigorous and simple rule of truth and falsehood, wliich 
 is laid down in the Bible and by common sense, the 
 other holds it with so many qualifications and cxcep-
 
 412 SERMONS. 
 
 tions, as almost to render it a rule more honoured 
 in the breach than the observance. Tlie one is so 
 tolerant of innocent deceptions, and of jocose lies, or 
 of conventional concealments and pretences in the 
 ^v£ij of business, that the other, when he comes to 
 understand him, finds the ground on which he stood 
 swept away by these insidious refinements, and begins 
 to feel that even in morals the old proverb is a true 
 one, what is one man's food may be another man's 
 poison. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this unperceived and 
 undefinable diversity in the use of language, exerts u 
 constant and extensive influence on human inter- 
 course, and leads to many of those misconceptions 
 which are tending daily to increase the mucual dis- 
 trust of men in one another's candour and sincerity. 
 But while it is unquestionably true that the language 
 which men hold in regard to moral subjects, is not, 
 in every case, a sure criterion of their own dispo- 
 sitions, even where there is no direct intention to 
 deceive ; there remains, after all allowable deduc- 
 tion upon this score, an extensive field of curious and 
 profitable observation. There are multitudes of in- 
 stances, to wdiich the force of habit and colloquial 
 usage, as explained already, do not reach, a,nd which 
 are therefore fair occasions for employing men's ex- 
 pressions as a test of their secret inclinations and the 
 state of their affections. And in this there is very 
 little danger of injustice to the subject of the scrutiny. 
 The cases which have been already menti(med arc 
 exceptions to the general rule, or rather to its rigid 
 application, that " out of the abundance of the heart
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 413 
 
 the moutli speaketli ; " all tend to favoTir liim wliosc 
 words are taken as an index to his character. The 
 exception which has been admitted is not that men 
 are often better than tlieir words would represent 
 them, bnt the contrary. If indeed it were commonly 
 or often true that men employ language which im- 
 plies a denial or a disregard of moral distinctions, 
 and indeed a preference of evil to good, while in fact 
 they are not only sound in judgment, ujDon this es- 
 sential point, but cordially disposed to give the pref- 
 erence to virtue, then indeed it might be possible to 
 do them gross injustice by the use of sucli a test. 
 
 But who pretends to think that men are often, I 
 might almost say ever, better in the bent of their af- 
 fections and their moral dispositions than in the gen- 
 eral drift of their discourse? Who does not know 
 that they arc often worse, and that where any marked 
 diversity exists, tlie difference is commonly in favour 
 of his words at the expense of his thoughts and feel- 
 ings ? If we err therefore in the application of the 
 test proposed, we are far more apt to err in favour of 
 the subject than against him. If liis words are in 
 truth an exponent of his feelings, we shall do him 
 justice ; if not, there is every reason to believe tliat 
 lie is worse than he appears to be. Let it, liowevcr, 
 be observed, that nothing could be more unjust or 
 utterly subversive of impartial judgment, in this 
 matter, than to choose as tests or symptoms mere oc- 
 casional expressions. Few men are so bad that they 
 never speak good sentiments. And alas for the best, 
 if they must stand or fall by their ability or inability 
 to prove that they have never uttered splenetic, or
 
 414 SERMONS. 
 
 frivolous, or unbecoming langnage. The lioliest men 
 have had occasion to lament their own delinquencies 
 in this respect ; while, on the other hand, notorious 
 profligates and unbelievers have been known to utter 
 sentiments of pure and stern morality, with such ap- 
 parent earnestness and candour, that the hearers 
 might have been excused for crying out, " Is Saul 
 also among the prophets ? " It is not by such ebul- 
 litions, whether good or evil, that the heart is to be 
 judged, but by the general tone and tenor of the con- 
 versation upon moral subjects. It would not be just 
 or safe to say that he who has been known to bear his 
 testimony to the excellence of virtue, is a good man, 
 even in the worldly sense ; or on the other hand, that 
 he who has been heard to speak deridingly, or spite- 
 fully, or doubtfully of fundamental principles in mor- 
 als, is infallibly a villain, though the latter conclusion 
 would be far more warrantable than the former, for a 
 reason befoi'c stated. But it may be said with due 
 regard to truth and justice, in the abstract, and in 
 application to the character of individuals, that he 
 wdio habitually, and as if by impulse, takes the side of 
 virtue, without partiality and without hypocrisy, is 
 virtuous himself ; and that he who in like manner is 
 invariably prompted, when there is no outward coun- 
 teracting influence, to call evil good, and good evil, 
 is one who, like the fallen angel, says in his heart, 
 " Evil, be thou my good ! " and is therefore a just 
 subject of the woe denounced by the prophet in the 
 text. It may indeed be thought that this expression 
 is descriptive, not so much of those who hate good
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 4i5 
 
 and love evil, as of those who err as to wtat is good 
 and what is evil. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that a rational nature 
 is incapable of loving evil, simply viewed as evil, or 
 of iiating good, wlicn simply viewed as good. What- 
 ever thing you love, you thereby recognize as good ; 
 and what you hate or abhor, you thereby recognize 
 as eval. To hate a thing, and yet regard it as a good 
 thing, is a mere contradiction, if the terms be taken 
 in the same sense, or referred to the same standard 
 of comparison. No man can dislike a taste, or smell, 
 or sound which, at the same time, he regards as 
 pleasant, nor can he like one which he thinks un- 
 pleasant. To regard a thing as pleasant is to like it, 
 and to dislike it is to think it disagrccal)le. But 
 change the standard of comparison, and what aj)- 
 pcared impossible is realized. The music which is 
 sweetest to your ear may be offensi^'e when it breaks 
 the slumber of your sleeping friend ; the harshest 
 voice may charm you when it announces that your 
 friend still lives. The darling sin is hated by the 
 sinner as the means of his damnation, though he loves 
 it as the source of present pleasure ; and in proportion 
 as the present and the future world are present to his 
 thoughts and his belief, may his affections vary as 
 to the same object. "When, therefore, men profess to 
 look upon that as excellent which in their hearts and 
 lives they treat as hateful, and to regard as evil and 
 abominable that which they arc seeking after, and 
 which they delight in, they are not expressing their 
 own feelings, but assenting to the judgment of others. 
 They are measuring the object by a borrowed stand-
 
 416 SERMONS. 
 
 ard, while their own is wholly different. And if 
 they are really so far enlightened as to think sincerely 
 that the objects of their passionate attachment are 
 evil, this is only admitting that their own affections 
 are disordered and at variance with reason. It is vir- 
 tually saying : Such a thing is good to my perceptions, 
 but I know that they are wrong. It is just as if a 
 man's sense of taste should be so vitiated through 
 disease that what is sweet to others, is to him a pun- 
 gent bitter. He may be convinced by argument and 
 testimony, that according to the natural perceptions 
 of mankind the thing is sweet, and that the bitterness 
 is in his own disordered palate. This may satisfy his 
 reason, but whenever that same object comes in con- 
 tact with his palate, it will still be bitter, till its 
 qualities are changed, or his organs of taste resume 
 their natural and healthful functions. So the sinner 
 may believe on God's authority or man's, that sin is 
 evil and that holiness is good, but as a matter of af- 
 fection and of inclination, his corrupted taste will 
 still reject the sweet as bitter and receive the bitter 
 as sweet ; his diseased eye will still confoimd light 
 with darkness, and his lips, whenever they express 
 the feelings of his heart, will continue to call good 
 evil and evil good. 
 
 These three forms of expression in the text appear 
 to be significant of one and the same thing. The 
 thought is clothed, first, in literal, and then in meta- 
 phorical expressions. To put darkness for light and 
 light for darkness ; to put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
 for bitter ; is nothing more nor less than to call evil 
 good and good evil, or, as the same idea is differently
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. ^I'J 
 
 worded in the margin, to say of evil it is good, and 
 of good it is evil. The character thus draAvn is gen- 
 erally applicable to ungodly men. They all put dark- 
 ness for liglit and light for darkness. They all put 
 bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Tliey all call 
 evil good and good evil. If the verse be taken merely 
 in this general sense, the woe which it pronounces is 
 a general woe, or declaration of divine displeasure 
 and denunciation of impending wrath agamst the 
 wicked generally, simply equivalent to that in the 
 third chapter, (verse 11,) " "Woe unto the wicked ! it 
 shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall 
 be given him." 
 
 Such a declaration, awful as it is, and perfectly in 
 keeping with the uniform tenor of the word of God, 
 would furnish no specific test of character, because it 
 would still leave the question undecided, who it is 
 that chooses evil and rejects the good. But it is very 
 obvious that, in the case before us, the prophet is very 
 far from meaning merely to assert the general liability 
 of binners to the wrath of God. The text is the fourth 
 in a series of six woes, denounced upon as many out- 
 ward manifestations of corrupt affection. Under 
 the figure of a vineyard which, though sedulously 
 cultivated, only produced wild grapes, he had roi)re- 
 sented the ungi'ateful and miprofitable service of the 
 ancient Israel, explaining the parable and summing up 
 its lessons in the seventh verse : " The vineyard of the 
 Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of 
 Judali his pleasant plant : and he looked for judg- 
 ment, but behold oppression ; for righteousness, but 
 behold a cry." From this general and sweeping 
 
 VOL. II.— 18*
 
 418 SERMONS. 
 
 charge against the nation, he proceeds to an enumera- 
 tion of particular oftences then especially prevailing, 
 but bj no means limited to that age or country : and 
 he sets these forth, not as the product of so many evil 
 principles, but as the varied exhibition of that uni- 
 versal and profound corruption which he had just 
 asserted to exist, in general terms. 
 
 The first of these specified corruptions is the 
 avaricious and ambitious grasping after great posses- 
 sions, not merely as a means of luxurious indulgence, 
 but as a distinction and a gratification of pride : 
 " Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay 
 field to field, till there be no place, that they may be 
 placed alone in the midst of the earth," (v. 8.) Is this 
 an obsolete iniquity in our day, and especially in our 
 favoured country, where the rich and poor so often 
 exchange places, and where the children of poor 
 parents can aspire to be the masters of the soil, ay, 
 and stop their ears against the claims of their poor 
 creditors, that they whose inheritance was nothing 
 may lay field to field, and be placed alone in the 
 midst of the earth ? " In mine ears, saitli the Lord of 
 Hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even 
 great and fair without inhabitant." It was to such 
 that the projjhet threatened woe, and to such that the 
 apostle James exclaimed long afterwards : " Behold 
 the hire of your labourers who have reaped down 
 your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, 
 crieth ; and the cries of them which have reaped are 
 entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." 
 (Jas. 6, 4.) 
 
 The next form of iniquity denounced is drunken-
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 4;[9 
 
 ness : " "Woe unto tliem that rise, \\p early in the 
 morning, that they may follow strong drink ; that 
 continue until night till wine inflame them," (v. 11.) 
 Is this too a peculiar yice of ancient times, unknown in 
 modern civilized society , and alas, that I should say 
 it, in the church of God ? In this, as in the first case, 
 the description of the crime is followed by its punish- 
 ment, including not only personal hut national calam- 
 ities, as war, desolation, and captivity. The third sin 
 is that of the presumptuous, blaspheming sinner, who 
 goes on to sin, not that grace may abound, but that 
 God may take vengeance : " AYoc unto them that 
 draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were 
 with a cart rope : that say, let him make speed and 
 hasten his work, that we may see it ; and let the 
 counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and 
 come that we may know it," (vs. 18, 19.) Have we 
 no such blasphemers, or at least such tacit challengers 
 of vengeance ? Let your eyes, and ears, and mem- 
 ory, and conscience answer. 
 
 The fourth form in iniquity is set fortli in the text. 
 The fifth is that of overweening confidence in limnan 
 reason as opposed to God's unerring revelation : 
 " Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, 
 and prudent in their own sight ; " another marked 
 and hideous feature in the age in which we live. Tlie 
 sixth is drunkeimess, considered, not a sin the former 
 case, under the aspect of a personal excess, producing 
 inconsideration and neglect of God, but as a vice of 
 magistrates and rulers, and as leading to o]>]U"cssion 
 and all practical injustice : " AVoe unto them tliat arc 
 raightv to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle
 
 420 SER5I0XS. 
 
 strong drink, wliicli justify the wicked for reward, 
 and take away the riglit of the righteous from him," 
 (vs. 22, 23.) I should bhish for my country if compelled 
 to answer to the question, whether such excesses have 
 not been associated even in her borders with official 
 power and official influence ; and I must tremble for 
 my country, when I hear the voice of God proclaim- 
 ing as the consequence of this incestuous connection 
 between vice and power : " Therefore as the fire de- 
 voureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the 
 chafi", so their root shall be as rottenness, and their 
 blossom shall go up as dust : because they have cast 
 away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised the 
 word of the Holy One of Israel," (v. 21.) 
 
 This rapid reca})itulation of the context I have 
 given for two reasons : 1, to show that in this whole 
 passage, the prophet has reference to species of ini- 
 quity familiar to our own time and country ; and 2, 
 chiefly to evince, that in the text we have not a mere 
 denunciation of Clod's wrath upon wickedness in gen- 
 eral, but the description of a certain outward form in 
 which the prevailing wickedness betrayed itself. It 
 does not teacli us merely that punishment awaits those 
 who choose evil in preference to good, but that an 
 outward mark of those who hate God, and whom God 
 designs to punish, is their confounding moral distinc- 
 tions in their conversation ; calling evil good and 
 good evil, putting darkness for light and light for 
 darkness, putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 
 As the otlier symptoms of a general con-uption, which 
 arc here enumerated, have their counterparts in mod- 
 ern times, and in the world around us, we are war-
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 423 
 
 ranted in thinking that tlie analogy holds good in 
 this case also, and that among the surest signs of 
 those who hate God, and whom God abhors, is their 
 habitual, instinctive disposition to call evil good and 
 good evil. 
 
 How this is done, I now invite you to consider, 
 not as a theme of abstract speculation, or as a matter 
 of fact in which you feel no individual conceni, but 
 as a practical and personal inquiry of the deepest 
 moment, which, as rational and conscientious beings, 
 you are bound to answer each one for himself. And 
 in suggesting this inquiry, I assume that all who hear 
 me are respectful hearers of the gospel, and professed 
 believers in the truth of Christianity ; that none of you 
 are wont to call in. question any of its fundamental 
 doctrines, much less to carp at the first principles 
 of morals. You admit distinctly the essential differ- 
 ence of right and wrong ; the excellence of truth, 
 and the turpitude of falsehood ; the superiority of 
 reason and conscience to appetite and passion as the 
 guides of human conduct ; you allow tlie will of God 
 to be a binding rule of action, and the Bible to be a 
 revelation of that will. Yon grant that it reveals the 
 only method of salvation for a ruined world, and that 
 whatever tends to make it known, and give it prac- 
 tical efficiency, contributes to the happiness and ele- 
 vation of the human race. 
 
 From none of these important doctrines would 
 you perhaps be willing to dissent in terms, and so 
 far you are innocent of calling evil good and good 
 evil. 1 do not ask you whether by your conduct you 
 are not belying your profession of these principles ;
 
 422 SERMONS. 
 
 for difficult to answer as the question might be, it 
 would interrupt the train of thought which we have 
 been pursuing. But the question which I ask is this ; 
 when one who thus admits in words the great first 
 principles of morals, takes away so much on on 
 hand, and grants so much on the other, as to obliter- 
 ate the practical distinction between right and wrong ; 
 when with one breath he asserts the inviolable sanc- 
 tity of truth, but with the next breath makes provi- 
 sion for benevolent, professional, jocose, or thoughtless 
 falsehood ; when in the abstract he asserts the claims 
 of justice, and the obligation to give every man his 
 own, but in application to specific cases thinks it law- 
 ful to enrich himself at other men's expense, or to 
 take advantage of another's weakness, ignorance, or 
 error ; when he admits the paramount importance of 
 religious duties in the general, but in detail dissects 
 away the vital parts as superstition, sanctimony, or 
 fanaticism, and leaves a mere abstraction or an out- 
 ward form behind ; when he approves the requisitions 
 of the law and the provisions of the gospel in so far 
 as they apply to other people, but repudiates them 
 as applying to himself; when any one does this, or 
 any part of this, or any th'ng analogous to this, I ask, 
 whatever his professions oi his creed may be, whether 
 he does not virtually, actually, call evil good and 
 good evil. 
 
 Again, I ask you, whether he who in the general 
 admits the turpitude of fraud, impurity, intemperance, 
 malignity, and other vicious dispositions with their 
 practical efi'ects, and thus appears to be an advocate 
 for purity of morals, but when insulated cases or
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 423 
 
 Bpecitic acts of vice are made the subject ci discussion, 
 treats them all as peccadilloes, inadvertencies, absurd- 
 ities, indiscretions, or perhaps as virtues modestly dis- 
 guised ; whether he who condemns drunkenness, but 
 clears the drunkard ; he \vho frowns upon fraud, but 
 smiles upon the fashionable swindler or defaulter ; he 
 who hates licentiousness, but loves the libertine ; is 
 horror-struck at murder, but can fawn upon the duel- 
 list and flatter the assassin ; I ask, whether he who 
 does all this can be protected by the mere assertion of 
 a few general principles from the fatal charge of call- 
 ing evil good. And, as the counterpart of this, I ask 
 you whether he who praises and admires all goodness, 
 not embodied in the life of living men or women, but 
 detests it when thus realized in concrete excellence ; 
 who praises piety, but blames the pious ; who extols 
 benevolence, but doubts the motives of the few who 
 practise it ; who honours warm devotion, but laughs 
 the wretched devotee to scorn ; in short, who wor- 
 ships virtue as a being in the clouds, but hates her 
 when incarnate in the form of a reproving example ; 
 whether he who does all this, docs not really and 
 practically call good evil. 
 
 And I ask you, lastly, wliether he who, in relation 
 to the self-same acts, performed by men of opposite 
 descriptions, has a judgment suited to the case of 
 each, a pillar of fire one way and of cloud the other, 
 but the daik side turned to Israel and the bright to 
 the Egyptians; all compassion to the wilful trans- 
 gressions of the wicked, and all inexorable sternness 
 to the innocent infirmities of godly men ; he who 
 Strains at a gnat in the behaviour of the meek and
 
 4:24: SEBMONS. 
 
 conscientious Christian, but can swallow a camel in 
 the conduct of the self-indulgent votary of pleasure ; 
 he who lauds religion as exhibited in those who give 
 him no uneasiness by their example, but maligns and 
 disparages it when, from its peculiar strength and 
 brightness, it reflects a glare of painful and intolerable 
 light upon his own corruptions ; — I ask whether he 
 who does all this, let his maxims of moral philosophy 
 be what they will, does not, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, incur the woe pronounced on those who call 
 evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light 
 and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and 
 sweet for bitter. Ah, my hearers, these distinctions 
 may at present appear arbitrary, frivolous, or false, 
 and as a necessary consequence, the guilt of confound- 
 ing them may fade almost to nothing, to a stain so 
 faint upon the conscience as to need no blood of ex- 
 piation to remove it. In the present darkness of your 
 minds, that stain may even disappear. But methinks 
 I see already the faint glimmer of a light which is to 
 play wpon that fatal spot until it glows and sparkles, 
 a deep, indelible, and damning spot. The day is 
 coming when the eye of reason shall no longer find it 
 possible to look at light and darkness as the same ; 
 when the moral perceptions, become acute to agony, 
 shall cease forever to confound the sweetness of true 
 holiness with the envenomed gall and wormwood of 
 an evil conscience ; and the woe already heard, shall 
 then be seen and felt ; seen by the sinner in the 
 writhings of his fellow-sinners, felt more intensely in 
 his own. From that state many will look back and 
 wonder at themselves, and at what they now are do- 
 
 I
 
 ISAIAH 5, 20. 425 
 
 ing in despite of reason, conscience, and experience, 
 and with that solemn admonition ringing in their ears, 
 " Woe mito them that call evil good, and good evil ; 
 that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; 
 that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." From 
 the darkness and the bitterness of that damnation, 
 may we all find deliverance through Jesus Chi-ist our 
 Lord. 
 
 THE EKD.
 
 <
 
 U5HVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 vam\. 
 
 m^ 
 
 Form L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 
 
 
 ^22 
 
 i^MIU 
 
 1 ir
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAl 
 
 iiiiiiiinii 
 
 AA 000 736 863 2