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 SHE LOVED MUCH : 
 
 AND 
 
 THE HEM OF HIS GAKMENT. 
 TWO SERMONS. 
 
 WITH A PKEFACE 
 
 CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON THE LATE SCHISMS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D. 
 
 VICAR OF ST. PETER'S, LEEDS ; 
 AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 F. AND J. RIVINGTON; 
 
 PARKER, OXFORD; I. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 GODDARD, HULL ; AND 
 
 T. HARRISON, 55, BRIGGATE, LEEDS. 
 1846.
 
 THE REVEREND GEORGE WRAY, M.A. 
 
 HECTOR OF LEVEJf 
 
 AND FOEMEBLY LECTURER OF LEEDS 
 
 THESE SERMONS 
 
 ABE INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH FEELINGS OF DEEP RESPECT AND GRATITUDE 
 
 WALTER FABQUHAB HOOK 
 
 WDCCCXLVI.

 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 The first of the two following Sermons was 
 preached on the 28th of July, at the Consecration 
 of Leven Church in the East Riding of Yorkshire, 
 and again at the re-opening of the Church of St 
 Mary-de-Crypt, in the city of Gloucester, on 
 Thursday the 27th of November. The second was 
 preached at the re-opening of Trinity Church, 
 Hull, on Wednesday the 10th of December. 
 
 The Author has the more readily complied with 
 the request that these Sermons shall be published, 
 because, in a time of much public offence and sus- 
 picion, it seems incumbent upon those, whose 
 attachment to the distinctive principles of the Re- 
 formed Chmxh of England is unalterable, to take 
 every public opportunity of making their sentiments 
 known. If there ever was a time, when it was 
 important to assert those sound principles, by which 
 the Church of England for the last three centuries 
 has been as much distinguished from Romanism, 
 as she is from Ultra-Protestantism, the importance 
 is increased at the present juncture, when the fierce 
 contest of these two extremes is producing such 
 disastrous consequences, so deeply affecting her 
 internal peace.
 
 We have lived to see men quitting without com- 
 punction that hranch of the Catholic Church, which 
 God has planted in their native land, and betaking 
 themselves to the schismatic sect intruded by the 
 Bishop of Rome, with as little apparent scruple or 
 hesitation, as a man might feel in vacating one 
 post of duty or preferment for another, to which he 
 liad been lawfully called. And such grievous and 
 sinful acts are palliated, by being styled by the 
 mild term of secession, and not schism, — a going 
 forth to labour in another portion of the same vine- 
 yard, rather than a breaking down of the hedge of 
 our own sacred inclosure, and, as far as the power 
 of such acts extends, laying open its treasures and 
 choice fruits to the hand of the spoiler. Surely 
 schism is the same thing, whether committed for 
 the sake of going to Rome, or to Geneva ; and it is 
 a miserable compromise of truth to speak of these 
 offences against unity, as if the oflfenders were 
 making their choice between two communions 
 equally open to them, and where their decision was 
 II matter of indifference. 
 
 There is another way of accounting for these 
 secessions, as they are called ; which is still more 
 shocking. It is said that the Church of Rome has 
 gained possession of the perverted ones, in answer 
 to the prayers, which we have seen so often adver- 
 tized as offered by persons and societies in that 
 Communion for the reduction of England to the 
 Romish faith. Those who have admitted this so- 
 lution of the present state of things into iheir minds,
 
 VII 
 
 should ask themselves earnestly, what tliey think 
 of the terms of Communion imposed on her own 
 members by the Church of England. Are those 
 terms Catholic and primitive, or are they not? 
 And on the other hand, what do they think of the 
 Roman terms of Communion ? But if the Roman 
 terms are, as English Churchmen believe and 
 know, neither primitive nor Catholic, how can they 
 suffer themselves to think that God has permitted 
 men to join an eiTing Communion, and leave one 
 which is clear of the guilt of imposing error, in 
 answer to a mistaken prayer ? What is this, but 
 to make God Himself a consentient party to an act 
 of sin ? We might indeed press this point still 
 further, if we were to inquire to wliom these prayers 
 of the Church of Rome have in most cases been 
 offered ; whether to God the Father or the Blessed 
 Trinity, in the name of Christ, or to the Virgin 
 Mary ; whom one of the most distinguished among 
 those who have left us professes that the Romanists 
 have deified^ and justifies their act by insinuating 
 that the eternal statute against idols may be abro- 
 gated by the Gospel.* 
 
 It has not been through such prayers of Rome 
 that our deceived brethren have been led astray ; 
 but, as is indeed partly confessed by those who 
 palliate their conduct, they have not been proof 
 against the malignity of Ultra- Protestant persecu- 
 
 * Mr. Newman, in his last woik, seems to go beyond Rome 
 itself on this point ; see his miserable casuistry, p. 434, 5. Was 
 it for this reason that his new guides refused to revise his book *
 
 tion. It is notorious, that the Ultra-Protestant 
 press has been employed, not only in reprobating 
 principles which either are or are deemed erroneous, 
 but in printing statements by which private confi- 
 dence has been violated, shameless calumnies pro- 
 pagated, and malignant passions excited, to such 
 an extent as to threaten disgrace to the very name 
 of Christianity. This " evil-speaking, lying, and 
 slandering" of what is called the religious world, 
 has first alienated men's hearts fi'om the Church of 
 England, and then induced them to think more 
 kindly than they ought to have done of the Church 
 of Rome. The first doubt suggested to the mind 
 has been, " Can this be true Christianity, which 
 produces such fruits ?" " the second, " Can Rome 
 itself, to which these persons seem to ascribe all 
 evil, be so bad as this ?" Finding nothing but 
 hatred, where they looked for love, and finding on 
 the other hand every appearance of sympathy and 
 affection among those who hoped to win them, 
 whether at home or abroad,* it is nothing surpri- 
 sing if a few persons, eminently gifted in other 
 respects, have suffered those feelings to mislead 
 them, which, however disguised from themselves, 
 are too plainly visible both in their acts and words.f 
 
 * See particularly M. Goudon's Essai du Mouvement Religieux 
 en Angleterre, a work written in an amiable spirit, but, as is 
 generally the case with members of the French Church, shewing 
 a very imperfect knowledge of the state of the Church of 
 England. 
 
 f e. g. Mr. Newman disclaims it at the end of his book ; but 
 where can one read ten pages of his book without seeing it ?
 
 W1)0 can look upon these things unmoved ? 
 Who can think of them without the most painful 
 expectations of evil to come, when they see so many 
 in the English Church, united, not by the Christian 
 principle of love, but by the Anti-christian bond of 
 a common hatred ? The two great parties into 
 which the Church is split, seem so entirely alienated 
 from each other, that nothing but an extinction of 
 one or the other is likely to restore peace. There 
 is, as it were, a civil war in our Zion. And yet 
 on both sides there are hundreds, nay, thousands, 
 who are only kept back from the fraternal embrace, 
 by the ambition of party leaders in their localities, 
 and by the food of bitterness continually adminis- 
 tered to them through the press which represents 
 the so-called "religious world." Hence it is, that 
 the Low-Churchman regards the High-Churchman, 
 as a person, by whom good works are placed in 
 opposition to faith as the instrument of Justifica- 
 tion, relied upon, but seldom performed, — who 
 obscures the essentials of religion by forms and 
 ceremonies, and delights in forms and ceremonies, 
 because they bring him nearer to the practices of 
 the Church of Rome, to which in heart he belongs. 
 As he considers the Pope and Papal Rome to be 
 the only Antichrist, it is the natural consequence 
 that those whom he suspects of favouring Rome 
 appear to him to be under Satanic influence ; and 
 so much has been declared in express words, by 
 one of the Bishops who is understood to speak the 
 sentiments of the Low Church party. Hence the
 
 public ear is abused with stories of secret plots 
 contrived with Romish emissaries ; and nothing is 
 wanting but an equal degree of vulgar credulity to 
 re-enact such scenes as those in which Titus Gates 
 was once pre-eminent. 
 
 But how in the meantime is the Low-Churchman 
 regarded by the High-Churchman ? The so-styled 
 Evangelicals are supposed to be a worldly, ambi- 
 tious, luxurious class, full of malevolence, mistaking 
 feeling for faith, and assured of salvation while 
 living in known sin : it is scarcely conceived pos- 
 sible that an Evangelical can be a religious person. 
 This I have heard stated, as the general impression 
 among High-Churchmen, by a very religious man. 
 Even the Satanic influence is retorted ; because, as 
 Satan is the faiher of lies, and this is a sin pecu- 
 liarly prevalent, as it is said, among the class of 
 persons referred to, it is infeiTed that Satan must 
 have deluded them. 
 
 I state these facts broadly, in the hope that on 
 either side it may Startle some, and lead the Ortho- 
 dox as well as the Evangelical to ask themselves 
 what is likely to be the end of this mutual hatred. 
 I am myself as much convinced that there are 
 among the Evangelicals persons led by other feel- 
 ings than self-indulgence and party spleen, as I 
 am that there are multitudes of Orthodox Church- 
 men, whose life is a pattern of self-denial, reveren- 
 tial fear, and love. The difference lies for the most 
 part not in doctrine, but in different modes of 
 applying the same doctrine : andj this difference
 
 XI 
 
 can soon be satisfactorily explained, if a spirit of 
 love shall bring together those whom party leaders 
 for their selfish ends labour to keep apart. 
 
 But the danger is now imminent. If the hea- 
 venly principle of love be not invited back, not 
 only our own pure faith, as it is taught in the 
 English Church, but Christianity itself must fall 
 before the enemies of the Cross. Every thing is 
 conspiring to give strength to Infidelity. The 
 triumph of Romanism, wherever it supplants a 
 purer faith, is a step to the triumph of Infidelity. 
 Wherever Romanism is dominant, there Infidelity 
 abounds; as Superstition must destroy true Reli- 
 gion, and no man can innocently add to Divine 
 Truth even one false tenet, however inconsiderable, 
 any more than he can, without loss to his spiritual 
 condition, cut off one article from the Catholic 
 Faith. In Italy, in France, and Spain, it is noto- 
 rious, that, while the lower classes are encouraged 
 in practices bordering on idolatry, the middle 
 classes are for the most part infidel. Some higher 
 and more subtle minds, capable of explaining away 
 what is obnoxious to the common sense of man- 
 kind and the plain teaching of Scripture, may pos- 
 sibly keep themselves in a purer atmosphere, and 
 suffer less harm from entertaining errors which 
 have less practical effect upon their conduct ; but 
 even these are unconsciously aiding the cause of 
 infidelity by the defence of such errors. The 
 object of all apologists of the Romish system is to 
 shew, by exaggerated statements of protestant false
 
 XII 
 
 doctrine, that there is no medium between avowed 
 infidelity, and all that the Church of Rome requires 
 to be believed and practsied. You must, in short? 
 accept popery with all its concomitants, or you 
 must be an infidel. Can any one be surprised, if 
 such a mode of argument is found to drive men to 
 infidelity ? The powerful intellect and learning of 
 Mr. Newman has not protected him from the en- 
 chantment of this fallacy ; and it is a strange and 
 alarming symptom, which meets us at every turn 
 in his late work, how credulity and scepticism are 
 blended together. Who can divine for what 
 further developments a mind that has so often 
 shifted its ground may yet be ripening ?* 
 
 • The greatest admirer of Mr. Newman, with every disposition 
 to look faYOurably on his case, must admit that this book shews 
 a mind sadly fallen. It is by no means what it professes to be, 
 a grave logical treatise, but is full of appeals to the lower facul- 
 ties, ill disguised by a shew of argument. We are told by his 
 friends, who are lamenting his wrongs, and who inform us that 
 they cannot blame though they will not imitate him, that he was 
 all along full of respect for old fashioned high churchmen, and 
 would say nothing offensive to the?n. How does this appear in 
 his work I There is much lamentable sophistry in his book, 
 and some particularly concerning this point. See especially 
 the paragraph numbered 6, p. 48. I will not say more of 
 that passage than this, that it must confirm us in the opinion 
 formed on the perusal of certain letters lately published by popish 
 priests, that buffoonery is part of the Romish system. Roman- 
 ists are well aware that it is from high church principles 
 their cause has most to fear ; high churchmen are therefore the 
 object of their greatest dislike . It is against these principles that 
 they are now directing all their forces : it is to refute Anglicanism, 
 not Protestantism, that Romish tracts are circulated. And the 
 Romanizers who still remain among us, only remaining to add 
 to our confusions, are most contemptuous against Anglicanism, 
 and most bitter against honest Anglicans.
 
 XIII 
 
 But while Infidelity has thus an ally in Ro- 
 manism, it is has an ally equally strong in Ultra- 
 Protestantism. Rationalism has crept in among 
 us : truths, orthodox in themselves, are maintained 
 too often, not on Catholic, but on rationalistic prin- 
 ciples : as if their importance lay, not in their 
 being contained in the certain Word of God, and 
 attested by the creeds of the Catholic Church, but 
 in the power of the individual mind to appropriate 
 or explain them. While such a test is admitted, 
 the articles of the Christian faith may be upheld 
 by polemics as the badge of a party ; but their 
 foundation is undermined. It is a fact that 
 Rationalism is beginning to be advocated in some 
 of our Schools and even in the Universities ; and 
 this, too, is a system which has its enchantments 
 for speculative minds, idolizers of pure reason, and 
 disposed to like that kind of Religion which they 
 can work out for themselves. 
 
 By both these extremes a doctrine of develop- 
 ment is adopted. Romanists speak of a germ of 
 doctrine existing in primitive times, which has 
 gradually developed itself into the creed of Pope 
 Pius. Rationalists speak of the Scripture as a 
 mine, by digging in which, new doctrines are from 
 time to time discovered or developed by man's 
 wisdom. Both these systems converge ; and their 
 tendency is to unite in one grand development of 
 Infidelity. 
 
 What, then, is the distinctive principle which 
 the Church of England opposes to these aberrations
 
 XIV 
 
 on either side ? Its root is fixed in the sacred 
 text, " Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to day, 
 and for ever." Its axiom is in the well known and 
 memorable words of Pearson, " In Christianity- 
 there can be no concerning truth which is not 
 ancient ; and whatsoever is truly new, is certainly 
 false." There is enough employment for the 
 highest powers of mind, if we are willing to ex- 
 ercise them in contending " for the faith, once, 
 and once for all, delivered to the saints," the faith 
 received in the primitive undivided Church, and 
 restored, and retained in other days of severest 
 suffering, by our own beloved and holy Mother. 
 Error is various ; Truth is one. Error shifts its 
 colours; Truth is permanent. Let Anglicans be 
 true to her who has fed them at her bosom ; and 
 they will find no ground of question whether she 
 is true to her Lord. Let them not listen to those 
 who delight to dwell upon faults which a friendly 
 eye could never see, or join the fashionable mode 
 of deteriorating the best and noblest of their 
 country's Institutions. Above all, let them re- 
 member, that to fraternize with those, with whom, 
 by our public obligations, we cannot unite, and 
 who will not suffer us to unite with them on 
 equal or Catholic terms, is a betrayal of our 
 public duty; and let them also remember that 
 to circulate Romish Books is a kind of spiritual 
 traffic in contraband articles which naturally 
 and necessarily rouses the indignation of honest 
 men who cannot and ought not to recognize the
 
 XV 
 
 special pleading by which it is palliated. We 
 will not deny that the late schismatical acts may 
 be in some measure attributed to our sins, and to 
 the sins of our Rulers, to the provocations of rash 
 censures and uncharitable persecutions : let us not 
 shrink from bearing our reproach as individuals ; 
 but let us not charge the faults of individuals upon 
 the system. Rather let us labour that the system 
 of the reformed Church of England may be fairly 
 carried out : let us so exhibit the blessings of the 
 reformation, as connected with a Catholic Church, 
 as to induce other Churches to conduct carefully, 
 but surely, the work of reformation in themselves. 
 Let us not forget that it was a schismatical act in 
 the Pope who first excommunicated us, and that 
 they act schismatically who obey it: let it be borne 
 in mind that no intercourse can take place between 
 the Church of England and the Church of Rome, 
 until the Church of Rome, like the Church 
 of England, has reformed itself. Rome must 
 come to us, for the Church of England will 
 never go to Rome. Anglicans who know the bles- 
 sings and the privileges won for them by the blood 
 of martyrdom at the time of the Reformation, and 
 who know also the crimes and tyranny which re- 
 sulted from the connexion of our Church with the 
 papal Court during the middle ages, are not likely 
 to sacrifice them in haste, however much they may 
 have been depreciated by schismatics, or by those 
 who have chosen to take man, not the Church, 
 for their guide, and have called some chosen
 
 teacher Rabbi, instead of Him who only is our 
 Master. Where shall we hope to find the blessing 
 of our Lord's abiding promise, if it be not in a 
 Church, which, while it preserves in its integrity 
 the Episcopate derived from Him, has alone sanc- 
 tioned and re-established the Rule of Faith, as it 
 was seen to guide the Councils of pure and primi- 
 tive Christianity ?
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 LUKE VII. 47. 
 
 " She loved much." 
 
 I have selected these few short words, in the hope, that 
 being few they will sink the more deeply into our hearts, 
 and afford a fit subject for meditation even to those who 
 shall be unable to attend throughout to the discourse 
 which I am about to dehver on the present most happy 
 occasion. May God the Holy Spirit be with us, and 
 may He grant that, even if in our opinions, in these 
 distracted times, we may be, some of us, found to differ, 
 we may at least have that mark of true Christianity in 
 our souls, that " we love much." 
 
 You will recollect that the words themselves belong to 
 a very affecting anecdote related in the Gospel according 
 to Luke. 
 
 Our Blessed Lord was either in Capeniaum or Nain, 
 and was there invited to eat with Simon a Pharisee. 
 " And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, 
 when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's 
 house, brought an alabaster-box of ointment, and stood 
 at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His 
 feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her 
 head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the 
 ointment." 
 
 By the translators of what is called the authorized 
 version of the Bible it is asserted, as you will find in the 
 summary of this chapter, that this woman was Mary Mag- 
 17
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 dalene. This appears to have been a notion of some com- 
 mentators later than the time of the Fathers ; as is also 
 another supposition, that she was the same with Mary 
 the sister of Lazarus. St. Augustine was plainly of a 
 different opinion ; and the characters of the three persons 
 seem distinct from each other. 
 
 But I pass by these things, as it is not my intention 
 to involve you in a critical discussion. It is sufficient for 
 my present object to state what is indisputable, that she 
 had been a sinner, that she %vas a penitent, and that she 
 had ere this been an object of the Divine mercy and 
 commiseration of our Lord. The latter point is clear, 
 because the motive assigned for her conduct is, that she 
 loved much, and the cause of her much love was her 
 knowledge that much had been forgiven her. 
 
 We have seen what the conduct was of this poor 
 penitent because she loved much. How different was 
 the conduct of Simon the Pharisee. Simon perceived 
 that the Lord Jesus was a prophet mighty in word in and 
 deed : he might have said to our Lord, with Nicodemus, 
 " Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from 
 God ; for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest 
 except God be with him." And believing this, desirous 
 also of obtaining a prophet's reward, he determined to 
 provide our Lord, on this occasion, with the necessaries 
 of life. It was a good action ; and our Lord's accept- 
 ance of Simon's hospitality shews that Simon was not 
 a bad man. Indeed when we remember that he acted 
 counter to the feelings of the Pharisaic party, forming, 
 as that party did, what we should now call the 
 Religious world of the Jews, much jMaise is due to 
 Simon for doing what he did. But there was absent 
 the one great principle ; he was not influenced by 
 love ; he could manfully overcome the prejudices of 
 his sect; he could act justly, and not do as the other 
 Pharisees did, when, seeing the miracles of our Lord, 
 they ascribed them to Beelzebub : but he loved little. 
 18
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 While he relieved our Lord, he acted in a spirit of 
 proud condescension. If he had loved our Lord, 
 surely he would, on the occasion of his visit, have 
 done every thing that in him lay to make that love 
 manifest : but now half ashamed of what he did, — not 
 prepared to reject, and yet unwilling to receive, as the 
 Messiah, the lowly Man of Sorrows who entered his 
 abode, he did what was necessary, and nothing more. 
 He condescended, and was proud of his condescension, 
 in spite of the malignant remarks to which he would ex- 
 pose himself, to entertain One who was going about 
 doing good, — but he omitted every customary mark of 
 respect which he would have carefully extended to his 
 superior or equal in worldly circumstances. Our Lord 
 marked the neglect : those who loved Him marked the 
 neglect. " Simon," said our Lord, " I entered thine 
 house, thou gavest me no water for my feet ; thou gavest 
 me no kiss : mine head with oil thou didst not anoint." 
 
 How like was the conduct of this proud Pharisee to 
 that of many persons of the present day. How similar 
 his treatment of our Lord and God Incarnate, to their 
 treatment of our Lord's Representative and Spouse upon 
 earth, — His Holy Church. There are proud men upon 
 earth who, like Simon, not void of religion, feeling on 
 the contrary a strong interest in religion from the good 
 it is calculated to efTect, think it nevertheless a kind of 
 condescension, on their part, to patronize the Church ; 
 — a condescension, forsooth, to patronize their own 
 Mother and their Master's Spouse ; who, instead of act- 
 ing as dutiful children, think it a merit to be what they 
 call Friends of the Church, to conciliate whose friend- 
 ship the Church ought to make great sacrifices : and it 
 is with them as it was with Simon ; thinking much of 
 their condescension, and of their patronage of the 
 Church, they regard every thing as su])erfluous, except 
 what is absolutely necessary for the mere inculcation of 
 the moral precepts of Religion, or the more prominent 
 19
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 doctrines of the Gospel : hundreds of pounds will they 
 expend upon the entertainment of a superior or an equal 
 in this world : then only does economy suggest itself 
 when the service or the shrine of God is concerned- 
 Living themselves in princely splendour, they would 
 abscind all magnificence from the worship of Christ our 
 God ; asserting that extreme simplicity of worship is 
 becoming the homage we render to our God, because 
 when He was on earth. He was a lowly wanderer and had 
 not where to lay His precious head ; forgetting that 
 although the God-man was once in a Body of humilia- 
 tion, He is now in His glorified Body at the right hand 
 of Power, King of kings, and Lord of lords : forgetting 
 also that if magnificence be eschewed in what pertains to 
 His sanctuary and worship, magnificence must also be 
 avoided in the dwellings and in the doings of His fol- 
 lowers ; for the disciple is not above his Master, and we 
 may not treat the Master with less respect than the 
 servant. If churches are not to be magnificent, then 
 our bishops must not live in palaces : if the service of 
 the sanctuary is to be of the simplest character, then let 
 our Christian nobles and merchants dismiss their retinue 
 of servants, and serve tables themselves : men should be 
 at least consistent ; proud prelates and luxurious princes 
 must sell all they have and give unto the poor, before 
 they preach against decorum in the worship of their 
 God : but while they live in their ceiled houses, the few 
 who love the Lord Jesus, will not suffer the ark of 
 their Lord to remain behind curtains. 
 
 Assuredly Simon's conduct admitted of palliation : his 
 friends and flatterers might have pointed out hundreds of 
 poor objects around him in abject poverty, and until these 
 were relieved, his economy, according to their reasoning, 
 would be worthy of praise : besides what had a prophet 
 to do with the elegancies of life ? such things he ought 
 to have despised. Simon had made provision for all 
 essential things : was water absolutely necessary ? Was 
 20
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 our Lord injured by not receiving a kiss ? A kiss might 
 have been given by a hypocrite or traitor ; He was be- 
 trayed by a kiss. Was it absolutely necessary to anoint 
 the head ? How much more profitably the money might 
 have been expended ! 
 
 Who can gainsay the soundness of all these reasons ? 
 The only answer to them is to be found in asking another 
 question, — suppose Herod the king had been Simon's 
 guest, would these reasons have then occurred ? Would 
 there then have been no kiss, no water, no ointment ? 
 Our Lord and Saviour needs nothing at our hands : every 
 beast of the forest is His, His are the cattle upon a thou- 
 sand hills. Whatever He accepts at our hands is con- 
 descension on His part ; is an honour to us : to honour 
 us, indeed, He so far sets limits to His own Omnipotence, 
 and permits us to serve Him. But if these things be 
 so. He requires of us our very best. When our Lord 
 entered a poor man's house He did not then demand 
 those elegancies of life, which He expected the rich man 
 to provide ; by withholding which the rich man in fact 
 insulted Him, and drew down the gentle but severe 
 rebuke which is implied in the passage before us. 
 
 Many men, when they see an action done which tacitly 
 rebukes themselves, instead of seeking to amend their 
 own conduct, discover or invent some charge against him 
 whose conduct in that particular they will not imitate, 
 and yet cannot condemn. So was it with Simon. The 
 poor woman's conduct was a reproof to him. She was in- 
 indignant when she saw that the customary marks of 
 respect were withheld from the object of her adoration : 
 she must have known, that, in acting as she did, she would 
 expose herself to censure, and all her past sins be brought 
 to notice, but she cared for nothing : she would not see 
 her Benefactor insulted : every thing was sacrificed to the 
 generous impulse ; for Him she was prepared to suffer re- 
 proach and to submit to insult. And where, my brethren, 
 is the true Christian who will not sympathize with her ? 
 21
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 Where is tlie true Christian who does not rejoice to be 
 reproached, to suffer contempt and scorn from men, 
 when labouring in his Master's cause and service ? She 
 was indeed thought scorn of by Simon, — and though 
 Simon only spake within himself, yet the Searcher of 
 Hearts was at his side, and his attention was called 
 from the sins of the woman to his own sin : our Lord 
 pointed out to him the real cause of that neglect which 
 he had evinced towards Him, even the fact that he loved 
 little. " Simon," said our Lord, " / have somewhat to 
 say unto thee. And he saith. Master, say on. There 
 was a certain creditor which had two debtors, the one 
 owed him Jive hundred pence, the other fifty ; and when 
 they had nothing to pay he frankly forgave them both ; 
 tell me therefore which of them will love him most. 
 Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he 
 forgave most, and He said unto him, Thou hast rightly 
 judged." 
 
 How affecting are our Lord's words as He turned to the 
 woman, and said unto Simon, " Seest thou this woman P 
 I entered thine house, thou gavest me no water for my 
 feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears and wiped 
 them with the hairs of her head ; thou gavest me no 
 kiss ; but this woman since the time I came in, hath not 
 ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head with oil thou didst 
 not anoint ; hut this woman hath anointed my feet with 
 ointment ; wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which 
 are many are forgiven, for she loved much ; but to 
 whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." 
 
 She loved much ; and the cause of her love to our Lord, 
 must have been, as I have said before, the mercy she 
 had experienced from Him, when those around, like 
 Simon in the present instance, had been severe in their 
 judgments, and harsh in their conduct. She had been 
 healed of her infirmities, and, if she were Mary Magdalene, 
 seven devils had been cast out of her. She saw the Lord 
 in the flesh ; she believed that Man of Sorrows to be, in 
 23
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 very deed, the Messiah; she knew Him to be the greatest 
 Benefactor her poor sinful soul ever had ; and she loved 
 Him much. She saw Him despised when not openly re- 
 jected, and she loved Him move ; she reflected with horror 
 on her past sins, and this only increased her adoring love 
 towards Him who pardoned and pitied her, and empowered 
 her to pursue the path of godliness for the time to come. 
 She loved much. Now, my brethren, as to ourselves, 
 we indeed cannot have more cause for love to our Re- 
 deemer than this poor loving penitent ; for we have all of 
 us the same cause, being all poor sinful, perishing crea- 
 tures, meriting damnation, and rescued solely as from the 
 penalty, so also from the dominion of sin, by His media- 
 tion. But she knew not at this time what is known to 
 us all, what our Divine Saviour had to endure in order that 
 His mediation might be eflScacious ; she knew not, as we 
 do, the wondrous scheme of Redeeming Love : with the 
 nature of those benefits which He hath procured for us 
 we are better acquainted ; and we, too, know the price 
 which, in obtaining these good gifts, the Holy Jesus had 
 to pay. And, my brethren, ought we not to love as she 
 did ? Ought we not to love Him as much ? Ought we 
 not to love Him more ? 
 
 This is a question often asked by those who are in 
 earnest; and how frequently their consciences give an un- 
 favourable reply, we, the ministers of the Gospel, are wit- 
 nesses; for on no one subject are people more inclined to 
 open their grief to us than on this, that they do not 
 experience all that love, that devoted enthusiastic love to 
 Jesus which their hearts tell them to be due to a God who 
 hath endured so much for us. 
 
 Now the love of God is a gift and grace that cometh 
 from God ; it must be asked for in prayer, and must be 
 shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. But God 
 the Holy Ghost requires us, while we attribute all grace 
 to Him, to have recourse at all times to the means ap- 
 pointed for obtaining ihe particular grace that we desiie. 
 23
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 And it is often from our not resorting to the means ap- 
 pointed for obtaining this blessing, that we fail to secure 
 it. Have we had recourse to these means ? Let us see. 
 Thou hast judged rightly, said our Lord, when Simon 
 answered ihat he to whom most has been forgiven will 
 love most : but, in order to guard against that miserable 
 and diabolical conclusion. The greater the sinner the 
 greater the saint, we must here remark that the allusion 
 is to one who not only has been forgiven, but knows 
 that he has been forgiven. A man may have had much 
 forgiven and not know it ; does that man of necessity 
 love much ? Let us take an example. Let us suppose 
 an officer sent to arrest us for a debt which we had en- 
 tirely forgotten, or of which we knew not the existence, 
 a debt, we will say, occasioned by our having become 
 incautiously security for another; a friend meeting the 
 officer on his way, and being unwilling to have us dis- 
 turbed for a debt so contracted, discharges the account, 
 and we remain unmolested, but entirely ignorant of the 
 obligation we have thus incurred : is there at that time 
 any accession of our love towards our generous friend ? 
 No, — but when we are looking carefully into our affairs, 
 and perceive that we have incurred this liability, and then 
 inquire into the reason why the payment of the debt had 
 not been demanded, and upon this are told of the kind 
 intervention of our unknown friend, — then how is our 
 love towards him increased ? then how deej) is our grati- 
 tude for his unmerited kindness ? You see, then, my 
 brethren, the necessity of strict self-examination as one 
 of the means to be regularly adopted, if we would love 
 much. When we consider that each sin is in its own 
 nature damnable, (however trivial the world may deem it,) 
 and examine our conduct, we shall soon see how much 
 there is for which we need forgiveness : we may know 
 of sins committed by others greater in magnitude than 
 any of which we are guilty ourselves, — but when we come 
 to ibe 7iumber oi ouv sins, we must each account our- 
 24
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 selves the chief of sinners : as to the number of our sins, 
 — each deadly, except for the Advocate we have with the 
 Father, — we have more to state against ourselves than 
 against any one else ; we feel that we are tlie chief of 
 sinners : we feel that we have cause to love much. 
 
 Such is the course of those who are in a state of sanc- 
 lificatiou, always rejoicing, always loving, always sorrow- 
 ful and increasing in penitential fervour. The careless 
 man, and it is the careless man whom Simon represents, 
 loves little. Why ? because perfectly contented with him- 
 self he knows not what sin is : he knows not how much 
 he needs forgiveness ; without examining his conduct 
 minutely, he is satisfied with his general integrity, with 
 being better than ordinary men in his station in life, and 
 applauded by the vvorld, he loveth little, if he loveth at all. 
 A true Christian on the contrary, by constant recourse to 
 minute self-examination, by scrutinizing every thought, 
 word, act, and motive, is continually ascertaining the 
 amount of that debt for which he needs forgiveness, and 
 for which his pardon has been obtained. On this account 
 it is that saints are always the deepest penitents ; this it is 
 which accounts for that, which to the worldly and the care- 
 less is perplexing, the deep penitential sorrows of saints : 
 they may have committed no great and heinous offences ; 
 they may have continued from the day when they were 
 first brought to the font nnder grace ; but they are tho- 
 roughly acquainted with the nature of sin, the slightest 
 infraction of the Divine Law by the creature; they know 
 the deadly nature of all sin ; of our very infirmities, the 
 slightest sin of thought, however speedily checked : they 
 know that for every sin of theirs, however slight in the 
 world's estimation, their God shed His blood : over their 
 negligencies and ignorances therefore, they continually 
 weep, not because they are to them any longer destruc- 
 tive, but because, though blotted out, they added to the 
 sorrows of Gethsemane, and to the sufferings of Calvary : 
 they are ever finding fresh cause for love, by detecting in 
 2.5 c
 
 SHE LOVKD MUCH. 
 
 themselves, through self-examination, stains of sin of 
 which they were once even ignorant, but which were 
 only wiped away by the Blood of the Lamb. 
 
 Yes, my brethren, the saint is ever penitent and loving, 
 because, though he may not have committed great sins, 
 he knows that, insignificant as each grain of sand is in 
 itself, the ship may be sunk by a weight of sand not less 
 than by a weight of lead. 
 
 You perceive, then, that the first thing to be done, 
 if we would encourage in our hearts the principle of 
 love, is to be very diligent in self-examination. But 
 it may be said that the result of self-examination 
 is often hatred of self, not love to Christ. And it may be 
 so, for to self-examination a habit of meditation must be 
 added. We are to examine ourselves as to our conduct 
 and our motives, but we must also look out of our- 
 selves. By scrutinizing their feelings, and deploring 
 the insensibility of their hearts, men only bring 
 themselves into a morbid state, injurious to them- 
 selves, and unprofitable to all around them. What 
 is the course which you would ordinarily pursue, if 
 any time you are not moved by the facts of Redemption 
 as you ought to be ? What is the course pursued in the 
 ordinary concerns of life ? A dear friend is taken danger- 
 ously ill, — how is it that you act in this case ? Do you 
 go straightway to your closet, and there examine the state 
 of your feelings, whether you feel precisely the degree of 
 grief which you think to befit the occasion ? Do you 
 bewail your insensibility ? No, what you do is to hasten 
 to the sick bed of the sufferer ; you see him writhing 
 with pain ; 3'ou liear him expressing his gratitude to 
 those around him and his trust in God : you behold his 
 kind look directed to yourself, and expressive of more 
 than words could utter, — and to your feelings you give 
 way in that manner and to that degi'ee which is natural 
 to you. Or if you are unable to attend the sick bed ; 
 your imagination immediately presents to your mind all 
 26
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 the facts of the case, all the past acts of kindness evinced 
 towards you by your friend ; and his present sufferings, 
 into which you can the more deeply enter, because, from 
 your knowledge of his character, you are quite certain 
 how he will feel, — how even to you, in the midst of his 
 pain, his thoughts will advert; and you weep, not because 
 you ought, but because you must, because you cannot 
 help it. But still further. You are sorry for the suffer- 
 ings of an acquaintance whom you respect; but this is 
 very different from the feelings elicited when we know of 
 the sorrows of one who has opened to us his grief, and 
 who is the object of our love. The woman under consi- 
 deration did not stand apart to examine her heart, and to 
 ascertain whether her love for her Divine Benefactor 
 was sufficiently fervent : she thought not of herself, but of 
 Him ; she knew that though she loved much she ought 
 still to love more, and she followed Him and watched 
 Him, and heard Him speak as never man spake, and 
 beheld all the wondrous works of mercy which He 
 wrought ; and by so doing her love increased, and she 
 sought every little occasion to evince her love, not from 
 a sense of duty, but because, when we really love, our 
 greatest pleasure is to do what we think will be well 
 pleasing to the object of our devotion and gratitude. 
 
 Thus you see what steps we must take, if we would 
 cultivate the feeling of love to God, and those other 
 feelings which are akin to it. We must realize to 
 the mind the awful facts in which we are so nearly, so 
 deeply, nay, eternally concerned : and how ? How but by 
 meditation ? It is by solemn and prayerful meditation 
 on the facts of the Gospel, and upon all that relates to 
 our Incarnate God, so as to realize to our minds all that 
 He once endured, or is now accomplishing for us, that 
 we are to kindle our affections and inflame our love ; 
 and it is to a neglect of this duty of meditation, that, 
 (if we do not love the Saviour,) our want of love is to 
 be traced. The Gospels are read by the careless, merely 
 27
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 as they read a history of great events : they see not with 
 the mind's eye the very things that were done, the blood 
 drops at Gethsemane, the tortures of Golgotha. It is 
 by meditation that we bring these facts vividly before our 
 souls, that we place ourselves by our sorrowing Saviour's 
 side, or with St. John we recline on His bosom, or 
 like Mary, sit at His feet; it is through meditation that 
 the Holy Spirit writes these realities upon the tablets 
 of our hearts, and it is through meditation that the true 
 Christian, knowing more and more of his Saviour's suf- 
 ferings, is taught more and nujre to love Him. 
 
 For this very purpose it is, that the facts relating to 
 the sufferings of the Blessed Jesus, our only Lord and 
 Saviour, are by the Holy Spirit so minutely described ; 
 for this very purpose that the Man of Sorrows, when 
 most acquainted with grief is exposed, as it were, to the 
 gaze of His brethren : for this very purpose that we are 
 permitted to see Him sorrowful and very heavy, seeking 
 the sympathy of His disciples, but finding none ; (their 
 eyes being oppressed with sleep, as if to teach us that 
 the last poor comfort which human nature seeks in its 
 sufferings, the sympathy of friends, was, of purpose with- 
 held from Him whose agony was so intense that He 
 sweat as it were great drops of blood;) yes, being in an 
 agony. He prayed more earnestly ; and His sweat was, 
 as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. 
 
 My brethren, — it is that we may meditate upon the 
 facts, until we realize them to the mind, that we are told 
 of His head crowned with thorns, and of His ears being 
 pierced with revilings, and of His back furrowed with the 
 scourge, and of His face defiled with spitting, and of His 
 neck burdened with the cross, and of His hands and 
 feet pierced with nails, and of His being crucified be- 
 tween malefactors, and of His loud cry, Eloi, Eloi lama 
 Sabacthani. 
 
 Can you meditate on these things until you have ac- 
 tually realized them without having your feelings moved ? 
 28
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 The poor woman in our text was moved with pity when 
 she saw our God going about a homeless wanderer^ re- 
 jected and despised, — and shall not we be moved, when 
 we know these additional facts, at that time unknown to 
 her. 
 
 But we can pity a suffering stranger ; pity only be- 
 comes love when we are ourselves connected with the 
 suffering person : and therefore meditation must not 
 stop here. We must look upon the sufferer with the 
 mind's eye; until tears flow down our cheeks, but we must 
 not take off our eyes until we see in Him, our God : the 
 sufferer is indeed perfect Man, but in that one Divine 
 Person there are two Natures, and He is also perfect 
 God : the natures are two, but the Person is one, and 
 the suffering Person is none other but one God. He is 
 our God, even the God of whom cometh Salvation, 
 God is the Lord by ivhom tve escape death. "^ When 
 suffering as man. He did not cease to be God ; when act- 
 ing as God, He did not cease to be man ; the two natures 
 were in Him inseparably united, and are so still ; 
 although He be God and Man, yet He is not two hut 
 one Christ. Mark, then, my brethren, what must have 
 been the cause, at least, a principal cause of that bloody 
 agony, that mental suffering so indescribably great ; He 
 who suffered, being God as well as Man, to Him all 
 things must at all times be present : — past, present, and 
 future are to God, all apparent at once : in Him is no 
 succession of ideas : He is an Eternal Now, an Ever- 
 lasting I AM. He seeth as distinctly the things that 
 are not, as the things that are ; He calleth the things 
 which he not, as though they tvere. — (Romans iv. 17.) 
 
 It is then no figure of speech, when the Christian, 
 thinking of the Divine sufferer, saith, " My sins were 
 the burden of His soul in the garden ; my sins were the 
 heavy scourge upon His back, and the crown of thorns 
 
 * Psalm Ixviii . 20. 
 29 e2
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 upon His head ; my sins were the spikes which affixed 
 Him to the cross, and the spear which pierced Him to 
 the heart :" it is no figure of speech, when the Christian, 
 looking upon the agonized body of his God, exclaims, 
 / did it. No. For the human nature of the God-man 
 was agonized, because to Him was known, through His 
 Divine Omniscience, every sin of every man to be born 
 into the world, for which he was then paying the penalty. 
 My penitent brother, mark this; that sin, that dreadful 
 sin, to which thy upbraiding conscience is even now 
 adverting, that sin was present to thy Saviour's mind in 
 His agony; He in the garden saw thee in that hour of 
 darkness, when thou didst think no eye was on thee ; 
 He knew that evil thought when thou didst desire the 
 evd which thou didst fear lo accomplish : thou hast 
 repented ; thou hast turned to the Lord — it is well : 
 thou hast been converted, — it is well ; thou hast heard 
 Him say. Thy sins, which are many, are for.'iven ; it is 
 well : so said our Lord of the poor woman in our text ; 
 to her he said. Thy sins are forgiven : and she loved 
 much. Yes, she knew not all it cost to obtain the for- 
 giveness thus announced, but she loved much. We do 
 know what tears ot blood were shed for each ofTence of 
 ours ; we know of Calvary, — the cross, — the passion, — 
 and shall vve love little ? 
 
 Well indeed would it be, if, following the suggestion 
 of the Church, we would devote one day in each week, 
 even that day, Friday, on which the great atoning sacri- 
 fice was offered, to special meditation on that awful event, 
 when God shed His blood for us, and so prevented our 
 own death from becoming of necessity the gate to ever- 
 lasting misery. Every day should this awful fact occupy 
 our thoughts; but as one day in each year, so one day in 
 each week, and one hour in each day, should be devoted 
 to exclusive thought on this fact ; for what is not done 
 systematically will always be done imperfectly. 
 
 30
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 And now let us proceed to ask, — when, through the 
 blessing of the Holy Ghost upon our self- exam mation 
 and meditation, our hearts are glowing with love to 
 God, how is that love to be evinced ? And to answer 
 this question, let us be permitted to ask another : 
 How is it that we evince our love to a superior in 
 this world ? Undoubtedly our superior will withdraw 
 from us his love and his confidence, if we do not with 
 zeal and diligence discharge the duties which devolve 
 upon us in any office to which he may have appointed 
 us ; nor will he, under such circumstances, condescend to 
 receive any favour at our hands : but it is also undoubt- 
 edly true that a man may discharge diligently the duties 
 of an office, may conduct himself properly towards a 
 superior in office, not from love or respect to that 
 superior, but from various other, and some of them 
 merely selfish, motives. Although, therefore, a superior 
 will not believe that an inferior whom he has benefited 
 really loves him, unless he discharges properly the duties 
 devolving upon him, he cannot conclude, from the mere 
 performance of prescribed duties, that the actuating 
 motive is love and gratitude ; but he does argue the 
 existence of love and gratitude when he sees the inferior, 
 without neglecting his greater duties, looking out for 
 every opportunity to do what will please him in various 
 little unimportant particulars ; particulars too unim- 
 portant to be made a subject of command ; nor will he 
 reject the little presents which the inferior may some- 
 times offer to him, not in the presumption that he can 
 benefit his benefactor, but from the earnest wish of 
 shewing that benefactor that he is not unmindful of his 
 favours, that inexpressible desire of manifesting grati- 
 tude which a grateful heart experiences. The love of a 
 dutiful inferior is always shewn by little attentions. 
 And this feeling our greatest Benefactor, our Lord our 
 Saviour and our God, would have us cherish in our 
 hearts — He commands us, as our Lord and Master, as to 
 31
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 the weightier things of the Law ; but while he would 
 dismiss us from His service, if we were to leave these 
 things undone, — He accepts at our hands the tithe we 
 ofTer of the mint and cummin. 
 
 The sum of Christian life is made up of little duties, 
 as well as of the mortification of little sins : he is not a 
 true Christian who despises little things, the minor 
 duties. It is but once in a life-time, if so much, that we 
 can save the life of a friend by the sacrifice of our own, 
 but every day we may make a dear friend happy by 
 little, scarcely observable attentions : it is only the rich 
 man who can build a Church at his own expense, but 
 the very pauper may contribute to its decoration, if not 
 coldly repulsed by the supercilious. The Church, when 
 wisely administered, will provide for opportunities in 
 which the loving heart of the poor man, as well as of the 
 rich, may exercise itself in little acts of devotion and 
 love : and most unwise is the administration of the 
 Church, when these indications of the natural impulses of 
 our nature are coldly repulsed : when proud men in 
 high places bid the loving heart, which delights in little 
 acts, even in points of ceremony, to give vent to its 
 feelings, — to betake itself to the methodist or the papist, 
 as being too enthusiastic or too superstitious for the 
 dignity of an establishment, which is a blessing, and only 
 so far a blessing, as it meets the spiritual exigencies of 
 the children of God. 
 
 Be sure of this, — the same feelings which actuated the 
 poor penitent before us, are to actuate us all, till the end 
 of time. Christianity is not a cold system of morals; it 
 is not a stiff form of doctrine ; it is not a mere con- 
 fession of faith or protest against error : true Christianity 
 consists in devotion to a Person ; a desire to do every 
 thing our hand findeth to do, whether it be great or 
 whether it be small, which we think will be well-pleasing 
 to that one Person whom we adore : an endeavour to do 
 all that in us lies to promote the glory and further the 
 32
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 cause among men of that adored Person, though He is 
 too exalted to be benefited by our puny efforts ; that 
 adored and worshipped Person being Jesus Christ, the 
 God-man, who died for our sins, and rose again ior our 
 justification. Do you look to the Chmch, (considered 
 as the mystical body of which Christ is the head, the 
 aggregate of all believers incorporated by Baptism into 
 one society, and grafted into Christ,) do you seek to 
 benefit it, do you seek to promote its interests, not from 
 sectarian feeling, not with feelings of a politician, God 
 forbid, who regards it only as spiritual police, but be- 
 cause it is the Spouse of Christ, the Saviour you adore ? 
 Or do you regard the material fabric of the Church 
 as a house of prayer ? you see in it more than a mere 
 house of prayer, (though this it is,) you reverence it as 
 the palace of your heavenly and adorable King, and yon 
 observe with pleasure the decent ceremonials which the 
 officers of the celestial palace have appointed, and seek, 
 by the decencies of the sanctuary, to evince your love to 
 Him who is the Lord of the sanctuary, and whose feet, 
 were He on earth, you would rejoice to wash. Or do you 
 look to the poor, — when you relieve the poor, while the 
 eye of the flesh looks upon the suffering pauper, the eye 
 of faith sees him to be the representative of Him who for 
 our sakes became poor indeed, and the ear of faith hears 
 with joy the assertion, what thou doest unto these thou 
 doest unto Me. You go to the Holy Eucharist — do you 
 go to obtain grace ? Oh, cold expression ! you do indeed 
 go to receive grace, but you go for the sjjecial purpose of 
 meeting that sacred Person whom you adore, where He 
 is specially, though mysteriously, present; you go by 
 faith to become more nearly united with Him, — you go, 
 that by His Spirit, the Person you worship, serve, love, 
 with love indescribable, may impart Himself to your 
 soul, and you dwell in Him, and He in you. 
 
 Yes, our Lord permits our personal love to Him thus 
 to enter into every religious act, and vvhether we eat or 
 3a
 
 SHE LOVED MUCH. 
 
 whether we drink, or whatsoever we do, if we really love 
 Him we have an opportunity of evincing our love. 
 Then shall ye know that ye are Christ's disciples indeed 
 and in truth, when ye love much: and oh ! how joyful 
 will be the sound, at the last day, when we hear the 
 Saviour, as He places us on the right hand, say, 
 " Their sins which are many are forgiven, for they 
 loved much." 
 
 34
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 MAT. IX. 20. 
 
 " The Hem of His Garment." 
 
 The fact to which our text refers may be nan-ated best 
 by coinpai-ing the statements of St. Mark and St. Luke, 
 with the more concise narrative of St. Matthew. A cer- 
 tain woman which was diseased, having had an issue of 
 blood for twelve years, when she heard of Jesus, came in 
 the press behind, and touched the hem of His garment; 
 for she said within herself, " if I can but touch the hem 
 of His garment I shall be whole ;" and immediately the 
 issue of her blood was staunched ; and Jesus knowing in 
 Himself that virtue had gone out of Him, turned Him 
 about in the press, and said. Who touched My clothes ? 
 And when all denied, Jesus said. Somebody hath touch- 
 ed me, for I perceive that virtue hath gone out of me; 
 and He looked round about upon her who had done this 
 thing, and when she stood trembling before Him, He 
 said unto her. Daughter, be of good comfort, thy Faith 
 hath made thee whole. 
 
 There seems to have been at all times a mysterious 
 connection between laith on the part of an applicant for 
 mercy, and the bestowal of a blessing by our Lord. In 
 this very chapter we find that, before the miracle was 
 wrought upon the daughter of Jairus, our Blessed Lord 
 enquired. Believe ye that I am able to do this ? To the 
 woman of Canaan he said, ' O woman, gieat is thy faith, 
 be it unto thee even as thou wilt :' When he cured the 
 paralytic. He did so, ' seeing the faith of those who let 
 him down through the roof.' Nay further, we are told 
 that, because of iheir unbelief, in His own country He 
 35
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 did not many mighty works ; or stronger still, He could 
 do there no mighty works, save that He laid His hands 
 upon a few sick folk and healed them. In that the Lord 
 Jesus is God, very God of very God, to Him all things 
 were then, as they are now, possible, but in that he was 
 not God only, but man also, even the God-man ; to Him 
 as Christ, things were only possible according to that 
 scheme of mercy devised and ordained by the three 
 Blessed Persons of the Holy Trinity ; and, as the God- 
 man, He could only act when there existed faith on the 
 part of those who appealed to His mercy. And it was 
 so with respect also to the miracles wrought by the hands 
 of the Apostles ; before the miracle could be effected, 
 faith in the Lord Jesus was required : the cripple at 
 Lystra was not cured by St. Paul, until the Apostle per- 
 ceived that he had faith to be healed ; and when the 
 lame man at the beautiful gate of the Temple was made 
 strong, it was through faith in the name of Jesus. 
 
 We do not pretend to account for this : we merely 
 mention it as an indisputable fact. The fact has been 
 made known to us by God : what He reveals, we receive, 
 and, [without questioning, fact upon it. And as it was 
 with respect to these visible miracles wrought by our 
 Lord upon the bodies of men, — so is it with respect to 
 those miracles which He still works, through His Spirit, 
 upon our souls, when He regenerates them, and sancti- 
 fies them, and turns the sinner's heart of stone into a 
 heart of flesh : without faith we can obtain no spiritual 
 gift; we are the children of God by faith in Jesus 
 Christ ; we are kept by the power of God through faith ; 
 it is by faith we are justified, by faith we are saved. 
 
 But here comes the question. What kind of Faith is 
 this which is thus so needful ? And in order to answer 
 this we must bear in mind, that though in one sense it is 
 true that Faith will save us, yet it can only save us by 
 bringing us to Christ, since the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 He only, is the Saviour of men. We may not rest upon 
 36
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 our Faith, then, any more than upon our Works : though 
 Faith he that qualification within us which is necessary 
 to render us susceptible of grace, we may not say, I 
 believe that I am saved, and therefore I ayn saved : Did 
 the poor woman, in our text, content herself with saying, 
 I believe that Jesus can cure me, and therefore I am 
 cured ; I believe that He will make me whole, and there- 
 fore I am made whole ? No, if such had been her Faith, 
 her Faith would never have saved her. Her Faith saved 
 her because it impelled her to seek the only Saviour : 
 her Faith saved her, because it induced her to overcome 
 all obstacles in order to touch Him from whom only, 
 and not from her Faith, the virtue went out which 
 effected her cure : she believed that the Lord Jesus had 
 power to heal her ; but healed she was not, until she 
 touched the hem of His garment. 
 
 How astonished must the infidel be when he peruses 
 this narrative. When the poor woman heard of Jesus, 
 she came in the press behind and touched the hem of 
 His garment, and, saith the Holy Ghost, immediately, 
 that is, on touching the hem of His garment, not before, 
 though her Faith preceded her action, — on touching the 
 hem of His garment, immediately the issue of blood was 
 staunched. The infidel will, of course, apply here the 
 arguments he makes use of to disparage the doctrine of 
 the Sacraments as held in the Christian Church. * What 
 superstition,' he will say — 'can it really be believed 
 that the act of touching the hem of a garment, the act 
 of bringing herself into contact with a little woollen 
 cloth, could eflfect a cure upon this poor woman ! She 
 ought to have been repulsed at once ! ' But, my brethren, 
 by Christ our God, the poor woman remained unre- 
 buked. Though she had Faith before she touched the 
 hem of the garment, it was not till she came in contact 
 with it that her cure was effected. She touched the hem 
 of the garment, and then straightway the fountain of her 
 blood was dried up : she touched the hem of His gar- 
 37 D
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 nient, and then, — to add to the mystery, Jesus immedi- 
 ately, the very moment that she touched Him, knew in 
 Himself that virtue, a Divine gift, had gone out of Him, 
 the God-man : she touched the hem of His garment, 
 and when the poor faithful penitent stood trembling 
 before Him, the voice of her God Incarnate was heard, 
 instead of upbraiding her for superstition, speaking to 
 her in words of kindness, and saying, Daughter, be of 
 good comfort, thy Faith, even that Faith which prompted 
 thee to touch the hem of My garment, hath made thee 
 whole. 
 
 Now here you perceive that two things went together, 
 an inward act of Faith and recourse to something exter- 
 nal, both the internal and the external bearing upon 
 Christ, — she touched the hem of His garment : our Lord 
 in all His miracles required a susceptibility on the part 
 of the applicant for His mercy, and an outward action as 
 regarded Himself: he required faith on the part of the 
 person seeking His aid, and then He touched that person, 
 or spake certain words to him, or anointed his eyes with 
 clay, or bid him have recourse to some action insignifi- 
 cant in itself, or, as in the case before us. He still more 
 strongly enforced the connexion between the faith within 
 and the external act, by His condescending kindness to 
 her who had touched the hem of His garment. The two 
 acts gWere combined, the inward and the outward ; not 
 one without the other, but both together. And so, 
 (according to a usual mode of speech when two causes 
 conspire to produce one effect,) we find the Holy Ghost 
 ascribing the poor woman's case to the fact that she 
 touched our Lord ; " Straightway," that is, on her 
 touching the hem of His garment, " the fountain of her 
 blood dried up ;" while on the other hand our Blessed 
 Lord cheered her heart by declaring, " Daughter, be of 
 good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole !" 
 
 And so was it in things spiritual : when St. Peter 
 addressed certain persons who were already believers, 
 38
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 what did he say ? Your belief is sufficient ? It is 
 superstitious to suppose that any efficacy is attached to a 
 mere form or ceremony ? — to believe that any inward 
 and spiritual grace can be conveyed by an outward and 
 visible sign ? No, his exhortation to those believers was. 
 Repent and be baptized : let your faith bring you to 
 Christ : but Christ is no longer visible, how are you 
 then to approach Him ? He has appointed the means 
 in the Sacrament of Baptism : here is the hem of His 
 garment, touch it and be healed, all ye who have upon 
 you the deadly disease of sin. They believed, they were 
 baptized, they touched the hem of their Saviour's gar- 
 ment, and they were healed. When St. Paul had told 
 the Jailor of Philippi that to be saved he must believe in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, he did not consider his belief 
 sufficient, but the Jailor was baptized, he and all his, 
 straightway : he believed, and, like the poor woman before 
 us, touched the hem of His Saviour's garment. And 
 when our Blessed Lord, as we read in the sixth chapter 
 of St. John, had declared Himself to be " The Bread 
 which Cometh down from Heaven," the spiritual susten- 
 ance of the soul, when He declared, " Except ye eat the 
 Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have 
 no life in you ;" " He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh 
 My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him ;" He did not 
 rest there, but soon after appointed the outward means 
 thx-ough which the Blessing might be applied to each 
 penitent and faithful soul, the Blessing of a spiritual 
 union with the God-man, the only Mediator, and through 
 Him, God as well as man, with God Himself, in the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. " The cup of Blessing 
 which we bless," saith the Holy Ghost, speaking through 
 St. Paul, in the tenth chapter of the first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, " is it not the Communion of the Blood of 
 Christ, the Bread which we break, is it not the Com- 
 munion of the Body of Christ ?" These are the outward 
 means, not distinct from, but in conjunction with, faith, 
 39
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 by which those who hunger and thirst after Righteous- 
 ness, even Christ Himself, who " is made unto us 
 Wisdom and Righteousness, and Sanctification and Re- 
 demption ;" may have their souls satisfied. These are still 
 the two things required, ere the Gift be conferred, and 
 the Grace wrought upon the soul ; subjectively, the Faith 
 which exists in a penitent's heart; objectively, the out- 
 ward sign of the Sacrament ; the inward susceptibility of 
 the soul, and the hem of the garment through which the 
 virtue passes from Him, who alone hath power to save 
 and to edify. 
 
 Thus hath our Lord applied to things spiritual, for 
 our spiritual consolation and assurance, a principle upon 
 which men act in the affairs of this world. A man who 
 has served his country, and is assured of the good will 
 «>f his Sovereign towards him, although he may be aware 
 that it is the Sovereign's intention to confer upon him a 
 pension or a peerage, is neither a pensioner nor a peer, 
 until the little ceremony has been gone through of 
 attaching to the patent the few little letters which com- 
 prise the Sovereign's name : then, but not till then, he is 
 gifted with that for which he was only qualified before ; 
 a man who has purchased an estate, and even paid the 
 money, is not in possession of the estate until the little 
 ceremony is performed of consigning to him certain 
 pieces of parchment styled the title deeds. 
 
 Ill, then, does it become those to scoff who, in their 
 transactions with one another, thus know the value of 
 forms and signs, when signs and forms are appointed 
 under the Gospel as pledges to assure men whose souls 
 are already prepared by faith, that the spiritual Gift they 
 desire, and which has been promised to them, is actually 
 consigned to them by Him who is the Giver of all good 
 Things. The Sacraments of the Gospel and the ordin- 
 ances of the Chui'ch are thus ordained as means of ex- 
 tending to the Penitent and Faithful, when seeking Par- 
 don or Grace, the hem of the Saviour's garment. 
 40
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 It is not superstition, then, for faithful men thus to 
 use and to rely upon the ordinances of the Christian 
 religion : there is no superstition in having recourse to 
 actions between which and their results there is no dis- 
 cernible connection, if those actions be either enjoined or 
 sanctioned by God. For a man, without any promise 
 from God, though his prophet, to have washed in the 
 Jordan seven times, expecting to be cured of his leprosy, 
 would have been superstition. Considered in themselves 
 the waters of Abana and Parphar were better than, or 
 certainly as good, as all the waters of Israel : but it ceased 
 to be superstitious, it became a religious act, when, rely- 
 ing on the Divine promise, Naaman the Syrian had 
 recourse to the action prescribed to him : — his leprosy 
 left him. The waters of Jordan were to the Syrian 
 leper, as to the poor woman before us the hem of her 
 Saviour's garment. It would not be superstition for a 
 man sick of the palsy to make a pilgrimage to the Holy 
 Land in expectation of a cure, if the Lord God had 
 commanded him to do so, and had promised his restora- 
 tion to health as the reward of his obedience ; but to do 
 such a thing, or any similar thing, without a promise, 
 this would be superstitious. So you will observe the 
 superstitious property in an act consists not in having 
 recourse to means apparently inefficacious, but in having 
 recourse to them without a sufficient waiTant from reason 
 or from Revelation. It is through things external that 
 many of the gifts and graces which we expect to realize 
 in the Christian Church are to pass from Christ, from 
 whom alone the virtue emanates, to our souls. And the 
 only question is, what are the external things to which 
 we are to resort ? It is not a question whether faithful 
 men touching the hem of their Saviour's garment will 
 receive a Blessing, but how shall we in these days know 
 for certain what the hem of the garment is. 
 
 A heathen man being converted, comes to Holy Bap- 
 tism. Is that superstition ? The infidel asks. What can 
 41 d2
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 the affusion of a little water with a certain form of words 
 avail ? The convert answers, I am a sinful man, and to 
 be cured of the leprosy of sin, I touch the hem of my 
 Saviour's garment. Or, being Christians yourselves, 
 you exercise your Christian privilege and bring your 
 little one to be baptized. You do so, because you believe 
 in the doctrine of original sin, and because the Scripture 
 teaches that they who are baptized into Christ have put 
 on Christ, — ^\ou do so, because our merciful Saviour 
 most lovingly inviteth us to bring our little ones to Him, 
 saying. Suffer little children to come unto Me, and for- 
 bid them not ; and there are no other means, except 
 Holy Baptism, through which they can be brought unto 
 Him ; you do so, because you perceive how the faith of 
 Jairus was accepted and brought Christ to his child ; 
 you do so because you remember that when the sick of 
 the palsy lay helpless as a little child he was brought to 
 Jesus by the faith of his friends, and Jesus seeing their 
 Faith blessed him : your Faith, or the Faith of our com- 
 mon mother the Church, brings your little children to 
 Christ J we cause them to touch the hem of our Saviour's 
 garment, and he who was born a child of wrath, becomes, 
 as the Catechism teaches us, a member of Christ, a child 
 of God, an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 But though the poor woman before us was healed of 
 her disorder, it did not follow, if she neglected the care 
 of her health, that she would not fall into other and 
 worse and more fatal diseases ; it did not follow that 
 because Jairus's daughter was raised from the dead, she 
 should not die again. From grace given we may fall, 
 and fall finally, and grace may be bestowed and yet not 
 used. Although, that, by bringing our child to Christ, 
 we rescue him from the curse of that original sin under 
 which he was born : he may fall into other sins which 
 may in their nature be equally deadly, and which will 
 plunge him into everlasting ruin, unless he repent be- 
 times. And when he does repent, when he does sorrow 
 42
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 for past sin with all his heart and soul, yet how does he 
 know that his sins are pardoned ? what pledge has he to 
 assure him thereof ? I speak to real penitents, and they 
 know how agonizing to the soul that doubt is ; but do 
 you truly repent and unfeignedly believe the Holy Gos- 
 pel ? then each day of your life you may attend at Church, 
 and hear one who hath power and commandment given 
 unto him by God to declare and pronounce to his people, 
 being penitent, and therefore unto you, the absolution and 
 remission of your sins, you may hear him declare in 
 God's name that by God you are pardoned and absolved. 
 Oh ! the blessing to faithful and penitent hearts, day by 
 day to have this assurance given unto them, as, advanc- 
 ing day by day in love to their Saviour and their God, 
 their abhorrence of sin, and consequently their repentance 
 becomes more acute. With still stronger sensations of 
 gratitude, do they receive similar words of comfort when 
 they draw near to their Lord in the Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper ; for the words of the absolution there, are 
 to them as the words of our Lord to the woman before us, 
 when she touched the hem of His garment. Be of good 
 comfort, thy Faith hath made thee whole. 
 
 It is on this principle that you bring young persons 
 to the Bishop to be confirmed, that is, to receive 
 strengthening grace at the period of life when they are 
 most exposed to the assaults of the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil : and you come here yourselves, they and 
 you together, to worship God the Blessed Trinity under 
 an appointed form ; and when you take one another for 
 better and for worse in holy matrimony, you come here 
 expecting to obtain a blessing upon your union ; and when 
 you are sick you ask for the prayers of the Church, con- 
 fiding on their eflScacy ; in short, to all the various offices 
 and ordinances of the Church you have recourse, as from 
 time to time you need them, under the various and varying 
 circumstances of life. And is this superstition? No, because 
 Christ, the head of the Church, though appointing only 
 43
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 two sacraments as generally necessary for salvation, has 
 nevertheless left power in His Church to appoint various 
 ordinances as means of grace, and to repeal them, if their 
 abolition be expedient. He said to His Apostles, and by 
 implication to their successors, Whatsoever ye shall bind 
 on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye 
 shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, — ye, the 
 constituted^authorities of the kingdom of God upon earth. 
 The Holy Ghost'still abideth in the Ch\nch as the Com- 
 forter, and we expect Him to act through those ordinances 
 which He inspires the ecclesiastical authorities to appoint. 
 The ordinances thus duly ordained become to us the hem 
 of the Saviour's garment, as from time to time we seek 
 Him to realize the blessings^which from time to time we 
 require. 
 
 Before the blessed Reformation of our own Church, 
 there existed ordinances in the Church of England similar 
 to many still retained in foreign churches, which at the 
 Reformation were abolished by those who had authority 
 in the Church to do so, the Clergy in Convocation acting 
 with the laity in Parliament, and under the sanction of the 
 Sovereign. Such for example as ushig holy water upon 
 entering a church, and a vast variety of observances which 
 had degenerated into mere forms, and were to the soul as 
 rivers which overflow without fertilizing the soil. Now 
 it would be superstition for us to observe any of these 
 ordinances or ceremonies which were then prohibited, 
 expecting spiritual good to result from the observance ; 
 and why ? Even because by the proper authorities, who 
 have power to loose as well as to bind, they have been 
 abolished, and we should be as a leprous man washing in 
 the Jordan and expecting to be cured, although to him 
 no promise had been made that upon his so doing a 
 cure would be effected ; we should be seeking through an 
 outward observance what from that observance we have 
 no right from reason and Revelation to expect ; we should 
 be resorting to a mere charm ; we might indeed be 
 44
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 touching the hem of a garment, but it would not be the 
 garment of our Lord. 
 
 And here you see the wisdom of that common saying 
 among the true and faithful sons of the Church of Eng- 
 land in these unsettled times, I stand by the Prayer- 
 Book. We are marked for taking this decided line by 
 both the extremes, to which those who stand in the middle 
 way are opposed : but, when we say this, we mean, that 
 we do expect to derive spiritual advantage from a due 
 attendance upon those ordinances appointed by autho- 
 rity ; but from ordinances not thus authorized we may 
 not, and we will not, look for grace ; for the Lord's pre- 
 sence is absent from them ; and the authority to which 
 we, as members of the Anglican Church, must defer, is 
 that of the Church of England, and for the expression of 
 her authority we look to the Book of Common Prayer. 
 We desire to touch the hem of our Saviour's garment; 
 but what the garment of our Saviour is, we suffer the 
 Church to point out to us. 
 
 On this point it has been necessary to dwell, be- 
 cause, in order to realize the blessings which may 
 be expected to result from a strict observance of the 
 ordinances of the Gospel, we must be fully persuaded in 
 our minds. I have stated that according to the order 
 of things which God hath appointed in His Church, 
 before a gift will be conveyed, there must be faith on 
 the part of the recipient ; there is a mysterious and close 
 connection between Faith and our reception of any 
 Divine Blessing. But faith is special as well as gene- 
 ral ; bearing not only on Revelation as a whole, but on 
 the application of particular Blessings to ourselves in- 
 dividually. A man may be, speaking generally, a Be- 
 liever ; he may be fully persuaded of the truth of 
 Christianity, and may deny none of the articles of the 
 Christian Faith, and yet, for want of Faith on certain 
 particular points, he may deprive himself of certain 
 benefits which he might otherwise realize, and which are 
 45
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 vouchsafed to others who, seeking them through Faith 
 in the appointed means, find it done unto them even as 
 they believe. It was not sufficient for Naaman the 
 Syrian to believe that the Prophet of Israel could effect 
 his cure, his cure was not effected until he believed the 
 efficacy attached to the washing in the Jordan. 
 
 Speaking of Faith in its general nature, as possessed 
 by all who are fully persuaded of the truth of Revelation, 
 and of the principal doctrines of our religion, we may at 
 once conclude that it may be predicted of all here pre- 
 sent : you would hardly be present here without it. You 
 all believe in God and His Only Begotten Son Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, and the other articles of the Creed : 
 You believe that God's promises are very precious, and 
 your Faith in His promises and in His threatenings, 
 preserves you from deliberate sin, and the commission of 
 the more heinous offences. So far it is well. But neither 
 in faith nor in works may we remain stationary. We 
 must keep on improving. And let me ask, was this the 
 Faith of the poor woman before us ? Was this the Faith 
 commended by our Lord in her ? Her Faith was not 
 only that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah, but that 
 being the Messiah, He could and would heal her in- 
 firmity : this was the Faith that led her on to touch the 
 hem of His garment. And precisely so was it with re- 
 spect to the other miracles of our Lord. We are told 
 that on one occasion two blind men followed Him, cry- 
 ing and saying. Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. 
 They knew Him to be the Son of David ; they addressed 
 Him as the Messiah ; they appealed to Him as to one 
 who could work miracles. But what said our Lord ? 
 Did He declare this general Faith to be sufficient ? No ; 
 His question to them had reference to the special act 
 which He was asked to perform. Believe ye that I am 
 able to do this P and then when, answering in the affir- 
 mative, they said. Yea Lord, then He touched their 
 eyes, saying. According to your Faith be it unto you. 
 46
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 And because of their Faith, on His touching their eyes, 
 an action corresponding to that of the poor woman's, in 
 touching the hem of His garment, because of their 
 Faith their eyes were opened ; the virtue went out of 
 Him. 
 
 Take another example, the miracle wrought on the 
 Centurion's servant. When our Lord was in Capernaum 
 there came unto Him a Centurion, beseeching Him and 
 saying, that his servant lay at home sick of the palsy, 
 grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will 
 come and heal him. You will remember that the Cen- 
 turion humbly declined the honour thus offered, as being 
 unworthy, high in office as he was, to receive under his 
 roof, the despised and rejected Man of Sorrows : and, 
 after a blessing upon his Faith generally, our Lord, with 
 reference to the particular case in behalf of which the 
 application had been made, said unto the Centurion, Go 
 thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto 
 thee. The Centurion did believe, and his servant was 
 healed in the self-same hour. He believed what ? That 
 the Man of Sorrows was the Messiah mighty in word 
 and in deed ! the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty 
 God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, accord- 
 ing to the prophecy of Isaiah ? This he did, of course, 
 believe, or our Lord would not have said, with reference 
 to his Faith, Verily 1 say unto you, I have not found so 
 great Faith, no not in Israel. This he did believe, or 
 unto the Lord Jesus he would not have come. But 
 although this general Faith would have been a blessing 
 to his soul, although he would himself have been bene- 
 fited thereby ; this alone would not have secured the 
 special blessing which he now asked ; this would not 
 have effected his servant's cure ; this blessing he obtained 
 as a reward to his special Faith, to his belief that as our 
 Lord promised in this particular instance, so in this par- 
 ticular instance that promise would be fulfilled. Here, 
 too, we find the same principle with regard to Faith, to 
 47
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 which allusion was made at the commencement of this 
 discourse : the Faith of the Centurion was not inopera- 
 tive ; he did not remain in his house and say. Because I 
 believe, therefore my servant will be healed ; but became 
 to Christ and besought Him. And when was the servant 
 healed ? in the self-same hour that Jesus spake unto the 
 Centurion. The virtue in this instance went out of our 
 Lord, as His mouth uttered certain words, — then, but 
 not till then ; even as the poor woman's cure was not 
 effected until that precise moment of time when she 
 touched the hem of His garment. Just as even now, 
 though prepared to be blessed, we are not actually 
 blessed, until the time comes when, by the authority of 
 Christ, a blessing is pronounced by the Church, upon all 
 whose hearts are qualified by Faith to receive it. 
 
 We have another very remarkable instance of the 
 necessity of special Faith in order to obtain a special 
 Blessing, from what occurred to the man whose son was 
 lunatic, who met our Lord on His coming down from the 
 Mount of Transfiguration. I brought him, he said, to 
 Thy disciples and they could not cure him, — and why ? 
 The answer is implied in our Lord's exclamation, O 
 faithless and perverse generation ! Speaking generally 
 the disciples were not faithless : they followed the Lord 
 Jesus believing Him to be the Messiah : but when ap- 
 plied to in order that they might effect a cure in this 
 particular instance, they had not that faith in the powers 
 promised to them by their Master, and for want of this 
 faith, in this case, they, in this case, failed. 
 
 This principle is laid down by the Church in reference 
 to spiritual blessings, when, in answer to the question. 
 What is required of persons to be baptized, the Cate- 
 chism teaches us to reply. Repentance, whereby we for- 
 sake sin, and Faith : What Faith ? Faith in the 
 
 Lord Jesus ? Faith in the articles of the Creed ? Un- 
 doubtedly, except on the strength of this Faith, a con- 
 verted person would not come to Baptism at all, nor, in 
 48
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 the case of iufants, should we, except in this Faith, bring 
 theiii to the Font, This is explained, but to qualify men 
 for this Sacrament a special Faith is required. " Faith," 
 says the Catechism, "whereby they stedfastly believe 
 the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament." 
 Who knows, ray brethren, but that the cause why so 
 many fall away in these days from baptismal grace, 
 scarcely giving outward signs of their having received it, 
 — who knows but that the cause may be attributed to the 
 very prevalent infidelity of rationalistic men, as to the 
 promises of God made to us in that Sacrament ? Per- 
 haps the little apparent progi'ess made by some who are 
 not infrequent at the Holy Table, but whose conduct is 
 sadly inconsistent with their professions, may, in like 
 manner, be attributed to their want of Faith in not dis- 
 cerning the Lord's Body : the not discerning the Lord's 
 Body being, according to St. Paul, one of the marks of 
 an unworthy communicant. According to your Faith 
 will it be unto you. 
 
 So is it with respect to prayer. You pray. But how 
 do you pray ? Some persons pray because they recog- 
 nize in prayer an elevating act of the mind ; they use 
 prayer as others use meditation, as a means of enkindling 
 a doctrinal feeling, and, unless their feelings are excited, 
 they imagine that they are incapable of prayer. I ask, 
 then, What is your faith ? Do you believe the promises 
 made to praying men by Christ our Lord ? " Ask," 
 saith our Lord, " and it shall be given unto you." Ask 
 what ? Our adorable Saviour again gives the answer : 
 " All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye 
 shall receive." And who may ask, — again, hear the in- 
 fallible word addressed, of course to the Believing, 
 " Every one that asketh receiveth" — either his actual 
 petition or an equivalent. May we pray for every thing ? 
 Yes, for every thing, even the things which are requisite 
 and necessary for the body as well as the soul, for every 
 thing for which we may lawfully labor, and which God 
 49 ' E
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 has placed by His providence within our reach, and legi- 
 timate desire : " Be careful for nothing," saith the 
 Apostle, "but in every thing by prayer and supplication, 
 with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto 
 God." Doubtless there are man}' who, from their want 
 of faith in prayer, have lost blessings temporal and spi- 
 ritual for themselves and for their friends ; but they who 
 are men of prayer, and who watch special Providences, can 
 bear testimony to the fact, that their prayers have been 
 often answered in a manner almost miraculous. Not 
 answered immediately, not answered precisely in the 
 manner expected, — for prayer is a work of Faith, and 
 Faith could not be exercised unless the Lord sometimes 
 made as though he heard not, but answered eventually 
 and effectually. If prayer were evidently and immedi- 
 ately answered, men indeed would cease to work, and 
 give themselves up to prayer, instead, as now, ceasing to 
 pray that they may devote themselves to labor. Ye who 
 are men of prayer, know that it is to you according to your 
 Faith : you know that you feel sometimes an irresistible 
 impulse to pray for a particular blessing, and how in 
 these instances it is to you according to your Faith : you 
 also know that there is within you sometimes an unac- 
 countable reluctance to ask God for some particular thing 
 which might otherwise seem to be desirable, and regard- 
 ing this as the voice of God the Holy Ghost within you, 
 you abstain from prayer, so also from laboring for that 
 thing : prayer sanctifies your labors, and your labors 
 give energy to prayer. 
 
 Once more, how many complain of the little progress 
 they make in godliness ; of the mighty difference between 
 the holiest Christians now and such as we read of in the 
 Apostolic times : in him who is sanctified the Lord Jesus 
 dwelleth, and through Him, the Mediator, God the 
 Blessed Trinity. " If a man love Me," saith our Lord, 
 (John xiv.23.) " he will keep My words, and My Fa- 
 ther will love him, and We will come unto him, and
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 make Our abode in him." And vvhat is the legitimate 
 inference from this .'' Let St. Paul give the answer : " I 
 can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me." 
 For want of faith in this supernatural strength, imparted 
 through the indwelling of Christ by His Spirit; for 
 want of faith in the promises which as members of Christ 
 we possess ; for want of faith that " Greater is He that 
 is in us than he that is in the world;" for want of faith 
 that His strength is made perfect in our weakness, — how 
 many of those things are not attempted which we are 
 commanded to do ? how many duties are omitted ? what 
 degenerate Christians we become, living in a luxurious 
 age, scarcely, if at all, to be distinguished from the 
 worldlings around us. Oh ! my brethren, magnify your 
 office as Christians ! You are a chosen generation, a 
 royal Priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people ! Oh ! 
 think of what you may accomplish as to your souls when 
 you have the Almighty for your helper ; and depend upon 
 it, it will be to you according to your Faith. 
 
 My brethren, it is for the sake of your souls that I 
 would most earnestly and affectionately entreat you to 
 think of these things, — and the more you dwell upon the 
 efficacy of Faith, the more clearly will you see the wis- 
 dom and the design of God, in compelling us to have 
 recourse to external means, in order to obtain spiritual 
 gifts and divine grace. The tendency of men's minds is 
 to rely on something of their own, — on their works for 
 instance : the sin of relying on any presumed merits of 
 our own is, that it detracts from our sole reliance upon 
 Christ. But the same sin besets us under a different 
 form, when we rely on our Faith, or on our feelings, or 
 on our assurances : feelings the most enthusiastic in 
 religion are to be encouraged; the want of religious 
 enthusiasm, the existence of a dark, cold, formal spirit 
 in religion is indeed one of the evil things of the age ; 
 but beware of the tempter also, when religious fervour, the 
 result of faith, is glowing in your souls. Satan will en- 
 
 51
 
 THE HEM OF 
 
 dearour to deceive you by inducing you to suppose that 
 when your feelings are fervent, your faith strong, and 
 your assurance of Divine favour firm, all must then be 
 well with you; but you may so rely on your faith, your 
 feelings, or your fervour, as virtually to put them in the 
 place of Christ; so to ascribe your salvation to Faith 
 as to exclude Christ, — it is against this, it is to pre- 
 vent our relying upon any thing but Christ, that God 
 requires us to have recourse, besides our faith, besides 
 our good works the fruit of faith, to some external act, 
 in itself insignificant, in order to impress upon our minds 
 the fact, that while Sanctification is a work within us, we 
 must look for Justification to something without us, or 
 rather distinct from us. Even Adam in innocency was 
 taught to look for the preservation of his innocent 
 nature out of himself: for it was to this end that God 
 gave him the tree of life. He who was commanded to 
 eat of the tree called the tree of life, was taught thereby 
 that the maintenance and continuance of the life he then 
 lived, a life of grace and glory, was not to be expected 
 from his own strength, but from something without 
 himself. And the same great lesson is taught to Adam 
 corrupted and fallen, when he is instructed to touch the 
 hem of His Saviour's garment. The instruction con- 
 veyed by such action is, that whatever may be our works, 
 our feelings, or our faith, useful, nay absolutely neces- 
 sary in their place ; yet not our works, not our feelings, 
 not our faith, but Christ, and Christ only, is our Saviour. 
 " Come to Christ, come to Christ, look to Christ, and to 
 Christ alone," this is the constant warning of the Church, 
 the Spouse of Christ, to all her children ; come to Christ, 
 come to Christ, to Christ crucified, to Christ glorified, 
 rely on Christ, seek to be one with Christ, this is the 
 one sermon preached by the Church, not merely from 
 her pulpits, but in every ordinance, every ceremony of 
 the sanctuary. Christ the Prophet is heard from the 
 pulpit ; Christ the Priest applies His blood in the 
 52
 
 HIS GARMENT. 
 
 Sacraments ; Christ the King receives our homage in the 
 ceremonies of the sanctuary ; Christ our God, our all in 
 all, is worshipped in spirit and in truth by the heart. 
 
 Love Christ ; and if you do, you will prove your love 
 by keeping His commandments, but having done all, 
 remember that notwithstanding your love, the disease of 
 sin is upon you, and touch the hem of His garment. 
 Rely on Christ only for salvation, and prove that you do 
 so, not by pleading your faith, as if faith were anything 
 meritorious, but by permitting your faith to lead you to 
 Christ, that you may touch the hem of His garment. 
 
 O. CBAW8BAW, PEINTSB, LEEDS
 
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