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 A Church Memorial 
 
 or THK VISIT OF THE 
 
 Royal Agricultural Society 
 
 TO 
 
 NOR IVICH, 
 CONSISTING OF TWO SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 NORWICH CATHEDRAL 
 
 on the Sunday ^vith which the week commenced, 
 and the following Sunday ; the Form of Special 
 Service used on the days of the week at 8 A.M. 
 each morning ; and the short Addresses delivered 
 in the course of the Special Services. 
 
 BV 
 
 EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.C.L., D.D., 
 
 DEAN OF NORWICH. 
 
 That our garners may l)c full and plenteous with all manner 
 of store : that cmr sheep may bring forth thousands and ten 
 thousands in our streets. 
 
 That our oxen may be strong to labour, that there be no 
 decay : no leading into captivity, and no complaining in our 
 streets. 
 
 Happy are the people that are in such a case : yea, blessed 
 are the people who have the Lord for their God. Psalm c.xliv. 
 
 13. 14. 15 
 
 IContron : 
 HATCHARDS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 iflortoich : 
 HP:NRY W. STACY, IIAY^klARKET.
 
 To 
 THE Honourable and Right Reverend 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH 
 WHO GAVE 
 
 TO THE Special Services of "the Show Week" 
 
 HELD IN Norwich Cathedral 
 
 the sanction of his presence 
 
 this Memorial is inscribed 
 
 with veneRx^tion for his office 
 
 and affection for his person.
 
 (fautcutfi. 
 
 p. 
 
 Preface . . . . . . v 
 
 Opening Sermon in the Cathedral . . i 
 
 Form of Special Service used during the 
 
 WEEK at 8 A.M. . . . • ^7 
 
 Short Addresses delivered in the course of 
 
 THE Special Services . . .20 
 
 Concluding Sermon in the Cathedral . $} 
 
 , UIUC .
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Bur few words are required to explain this 
 slight publication. A visit of the Royal 
 Agricultural Society to any provincial city, 
 for the purpose of holding their Exhibition in 
 the immediate neighbourhood, is always an 
 event which attracts hundreds of visitors ; and 
 if Royal Personages (as was the case at 
 Norwich last week) show their interest in the 
 Exhibition by opening it, and giving constant 
 attendance at it, their presence adds immensely 
 to the attractiveness of the spectacle, and the 
 hundreds are turned into thousands. 
 
 Feeling that our City must necessarily be 
 full of visitors from all parts of England on an 
 occasion so interesting and auspicious, the 
 Dean and Chapter of Norwich thought it 
 well to provide short Special Services in the 
 Cathedral for each day of " the Show week," 
 with the object, 
 
 1st ; of specially seeking the Blessing of 
 
 Almighty God upon the harvest of tlic 
 
 present year ;
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 2dly; of speakins* one or two words each 
 day, on subjects more or less con- 
 nected with Ag-riculture, which mig^ht 
 be edifying- to those attending the 
 proposed Special Services ; 
 3dly ; of soothing and solemnising the minds 
 both of our own fellow-citizens and 
 strangers, during a week which would 
 necessarily be one of excitement, sight- 
 seeing, and innocent pleasuring ; 
 4thly ; of accommodating such persons as 
 might wish to be present at a serv'ice 
 in the Cathedral, and hear the Norwich 
 Choir sing, but yet who might not 
 have time enough at their disposal to 
 attend the regular Morning and Evening 
 Office at lO a.m. and 5 p.m. 
 Accordingly a short Form of Special 
 Service, with appropriate Psalms and Lessons, 
 was drawn up, which began punctually at 
 8 each morning, and terminated one or two 
 minutes before 8.30. This Form will be found 
 on Pp. 17, 18, 19. After the lesson an 
 Address of about five minutes was given every 
 morning. These short Sermons are re-pro- 
 duced, as nearly as I can recall what I said in 
 them, on Pp. 20 to 32. To these notices of 
 the week-day Special Services I have prefixed 
 the Sermon, which at our Bishop's recjuest I
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 preached on the preceding;- Sunday (July ii), 
 and have also suffixed the Sermon of the 
 succeeding Sunday, dealing with topics of the 
 same character, of which all minds were full. 
 It is hoped that the publication may be interest- 
 ing as a memorial of the Royal Agricultural 
 Society's Visit to a provincial city, and of the 
 way in which the visit was recognised, and 
 attempted to be turned to account, in the 
 Mother Church of the Diocese, though it 
 should be added that at Norwich the Cathedral 
 was not alone in yielding this recognition. 
 At St. Lawrence's Church certainly, and 
 probably at other of the numerous Parochial 
 Churches, Special Services were held during 
 the week of the Exhibition, and were, I trust, 
 well attended, and made the means of doing 
 much 'j"ood. 
 
 E. AI. G. 
 
 Dea7iery, A^oriuic/i^ 
 Julyiid, 1 886.
 
 / •
 
 ^ 
 
 Opening Sermon in the Cathedral, delivered 
 
 July 11th, 1886 
 
 (Third Sunday after Trinity). 
 
 ^t Motors of glsiicultuit, as sibtit 
 in ^olg Scripture. 
 
 Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19. 
 
 17. And unto Adam He said. Because thou 
 hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and 
 
 HAST EATEN OF THE TREE, OF WHICH I COMMANDED 
 THEE, SAYING, ThOU SHALT NOT EAT OF IT : CURSED IS 
 THE GROUND FOR THY SAKE ; IN SORROW SHALT THOU 
 EAT of IT ALL THE DAYS OF THY LIFE ; 
 
 18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring 
 
 FORTH TO THEE ; AND THOU SHALT EAT THE HERB OF 
 THE FIELD ; 
 
 19. In the SWEAT of thy FACE SHALT THOU 
 EAT BREAD, TILL THOU RETURN UNTO THE GROUND. 
 
 fO-DAY the Exhibition of the Royal Agricultural 
 ^^^ Society is being opened with a religious service by 
 the Bishop of the Diocese. It will be appropriate to the 
 solemnity which is proceeding elsewhere, and it may 
 under God's blessing be interesting and instructive, to 
 consider the history of Agriculture as it is given us in 
 the Bible, — a history which, as I hope to show, extends 
 from the very beginning to the end of all things.
 
 The History of Agriculture 
 
 I.' — Aiul first we arc given to understand that, old as 
 sin is, Agriculture is older still, since it was practised before 
 the fall of man. Agriculture was Adam's occupation in 
 Paradise; for "the Lord God," we arc told, "took the 
 *' man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and 
 " to keep it."^ The occupations and employments of men 
 in a state of highly wrought civilisation, such as mankind 
 has reached at present, are legion ; the principle of the 
 division of labour has brought in various industries, not 
 professions and trades only, but those manifold lesser and 
 lower industries, which are either ancillary to professions 
 and trades, or which contribute, if not to the support, yet 
 to the accommodations and conveniences of human life. 
 But originally there was but one form of human work, — 
 Agriculture, — out of which all the later forms were 
 developed, just as originally there was but one form of 
 Government — the Patriarchal, — out of wbich all its more 
 complicated forms,— kingdoms, oligarchies, republics — 
 took their rise. And this primitive form of work was, as 
 I have said, Paradisaical ; it existed before the entrance 
 of sin had marred God's fair universe, and before 
 suffering and death had thrown a dark cloud over man's 
 condition. The lesson we learn from this first Chapter 
 of the history of Agriculture is the very important one, 
 that healthy occupation of some kind or other, occupation 
 attended with useful results, so far from being a draw- 
 back to enjoyment, is essential to man's happiness in 
 virtue of the original constitution of his nature, — a 
 fundamental truth this of the earliest Scripture, but 
 echoed back articulately by later ones ; " For thou shalt 
 " eat the labours of thine hands : well is thee, and 
 "happy shalt thou be;"- "This we commanded you, that 
 » Gen. ii. 15. ^ pg^ cxxviii. 2. P.B. F.
 
 as given in Holy Scripture. 
 
 " if any would not work, neither should he eat ;"^ ''V^^q 
 " command and exhort them hy our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 " that with quietness they work, and eat their own 
 ** bread."2 — And we may surmise also, — it is a reasonable 
 inference surely from the fact of man's having had work 
 assigned to him in the garden of Eden, — that the future 
 state of blessedness, which is reserved for God's people, 
 is not to be conceived of as a state of pure contemplation, 
 but rather as furnishing some sphere of activity in which 
 God may be served, though the service will be inter- 
 penetrated, more than is here possible, by the spirit of 
 adoration, — that in short it will be the state of angels, 
 w^ho, while they always stand before God in worship, and 
 continually realise His Presence, yet "with twain" of their 
 wings do "fly"^ on His errands, as the Angel Gabriel did 
 at the Annunciation.* 
 
 II. — The next Chapter in the history of Agriculture, 
 and the Chapter of the fullest import and significance, is 
 the passage which I have read as my text. Adam had 
 transgressed the single precept under which he was laid, 
 a precept which had reference to the fruits of the earth. 
 On the usual principle of the Divine administration, he 
 is to be punished in the same subject-matter in which he 
 had sinned. A curse is pronounced, not upon himself, 
 but upon the ground for his sake, the effect of which 
 curse should be that the earth, \\hich hitherto had 
 yielded spontaneously every tree that was pleasant to the 
 sight and good for food, would now, if left to itself, 
 without the bestowal on it of human toil, bring forth 
 harmful or at least useless produce. Thenceforth if man 
 would not bestow labour upon the soil, he must degrade, 
 
 ^ 2 Thess. iii. 10. 
 2 2 Thess. iii. 12. ' See Isaiah vi. 2. * See St. Luke i. 2G.
 
 The lliatory of Agt icuUnre 
 
 as to his food, to the level of the beasts that perish, 
 eating {^rass like the ox, and roots like the swine, as did 
 king Nebuchadnezzar in the time of his lunacy,^— a great 
 and humiliating fall indeed from his Paradise condition, 
 when the delicious fruits of trees good for food were his 
 daily fare. But if he would have some nobler livelihood 
 than this, it must be by cultivation of the grain crops, 
 which would demand not only ingenuity and invention, 
 but labour and toil, both of man and beast ; it was only 
 ** in the sweat of his face " that he could *' eat bread ;" 
 whereas in the garden of Eden Agriculture had consisted 
 in the light and easy work of pruning, restraining the 
 too luxuriant growths of the fertile soil, transporting the 
 water of the river to those parts of the ground where it 
 was needed, and generally keeping the garden in a 
 sightly and orderly condition. The " bread to strengthen 
 " man's heart " could only be enjoyed on the condition of 
 its being, as it is called in Ps. cxxvii., "the bread of 
 *' sorrows " or ** carefulness ;"^ it would not come but by 
 ploughing, harrowing, sowing, gathering, grinding, and 
 this with uncertainty as to whether the sunshine, rain, 
 temperature necessary to a prolific harvest would 
 accompany the required agricultural processes. 
 
 AVe glance, in passing, at the first appearance of 
 what may be called the two departments of Agriculture, 
 the work of pasturage and the work of tillage, which 
 were practised by the sons of our first parents respect- 
 ively, — '* Abel," we read, " was a keeper of sheep, but 
 ** Cain was a tiller of the ground."^ I call pasturage, no 
 less than tillage, a department of Agriculture; first 
 because the cattle themselves, who yield milk and meat 
 
 ^ See Dan. iv. 25, 32, 03. ' r. 2. " sorrows," A. V. ; 
 
 *• toil," Jl. V. : " carefulness," P.B. V. ' Gcq. iv. 2.
 
 as <jivcn in Holy Scriptni'v. 
 
 fur man's sustenance, and wool and skins for man's 
 raiment, subsist upon the grass of the earth, and thus 
 man, in tending them, derives indirectly his maintenance 
 from the earth ; secondly, because it is by the aid of the 
 cattle that the ground is brought under cultivation and 
 tilled, as it is said, " Where no oxen are, the crib is clean : 
 *' but much increase is by the strength of the ox."^ And 
 I need hardly remind you that these Agricultural Shows 
 recognise the close connexion between pasturage and 
 tillage, the exhibitions being partly of cattle in high 
 condition, and partly of agricultural implements and 
 appliances, and the improvements which human ingenuity 
 and the application of scientific principles have introducc-d 
 into these last. 
 
 III. — The third Chapter in the history of x\griculturo 
 is in the same direction as the second. It shows an inten- 
 sification of the blight which had fallen upon the earth 
 in consequence of man's sin, the cause of intensification 
 being that the sin had mounted to a climax, and the 
 blight had become proportionably grievous. On Cain the 
 murderer, against whom Abel's blood cried from the 
 ground, this was the sentence ; " Now art thou cursed 
 " from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive 
 '* thy brother's blood from thy hand ; When thou tillest 
 " the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her 
 '* strength."- The sentence upon Adam had by no means 
 gone the length of this. It was only to the effect that 
 spontaneously the earth should yield nothing but thorns 
 and thistles; in order to make it bring forth bread, the 
 chief article of human sustenance, labour and sorrow 
 must be endured in tilling it. But to " Cain, ir/io was of 
 " that wicked one, and slew his brother,"^ it should yield 
 ' Prov. xiv. 4. * Gcu. iv. 11, 12. ' I Juhn iii. I-'.
 
 6 The llUtory of AgricuUtde 
 
 no return at all ; all his toil, however hard, should be 
 fruitless, — a penalty, this fruitless toil, which, as tlioy 
 uho are acquainted with prison discipline know, is enouj^h 
 to break a man's spirit, and crush the heart out of him. 
 
 IV. — The fourth Chapter of this history is the 
 ])laintive prophecy of Lamech uttered on the birth of Xoah, 
 from which it appears that the toil of Agriculture had 
 become so unusually severe that men began to groan and 
 hibour under it as a burden, and to long and look for some 
 relief. " And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two 
 " years, and begat a son : And he called his name Xoah " 
 (that is, Ilesty or, Comfort)^ " saying. This same shall 
 *' comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, 
 "because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed."^ 
 It would seem that at the time of the utterance of this 
 prophecy, the earth had been smitten by God with an 
 extraordinary sterility, the account of which judgment it 
 is not difficult to understand. For it was now drawing near 
 the time of the deluge, when, as the sixth Chapter of 
 Genesis informs us, human wickedness had reached its 
 height : " And God saw^ that the wickedness of men was 
 ** great in the earth, and t/icit every imagination of the 
 "thoughts of his heart teas only evil continually. "^ 
 Wicked Cain, in the sentence passed upon him, had 
 already exemplified in its most intense form the con- 
 nexion, in the way of penalty, between human sin and a 
 barren soil, — and we can understand that shortly before 
 the deluge a penalty of the same kind may have been 
 inflicted more or less on the whole race of man, in 
 consequence of the prevalent wickedness. 
 
 V. — Next to the utterance of Lamech's Prophecy, 
 tlic fulfilment of it, as recorded in Gen. viii , presents 
 ' Gen. T. 28, 29. ' Gen. vi. 5.
 
 «s given in Holy Scripture. 
 
 itself for consideration. It was douLtful, before 
 the fulfilment made it clear, in what way Noah 
 should comfort men concerning their work and toil 
 of their hands, — should give them relief from the 
 disappointing labour which they spent in tillage, owing 
 to the reluctance and scantiness with which the 
 earth at that time yielded her fruit. But the fulfilment 
 cleared up those parts of the prophecy which had been, 
 as originally stated, obscure. "When the flood had 
 subsided, and Noah and his family were by God's order 
 liberated from the ark, he proceeded to build an altar, 
 and to offer of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, 
 (he would have none to spare ; for there were only seven 
 couples of each species wherewith to replenish the earth ^ 
 whence we may learn that poverty does not in any 
 measure exempt us from giving a proportion of our 
 means to God) a sacrifice of thanksgiving. *' And the 
 "' Lord," it is added, in connexion with Noah's sacrifice, 
 *' smelled a savour of red " (the word translated *' rest " 
 is of the same root with the name Noah, which signifies 
 rest or comfort) ; ** and the Lord said in his heart, I will 
 " not again curse the ground any more for man's sake ;" — 
 a quite distinct promise this from that which follows, and 
 which secures man against a second deluge, •' neither will 
 " I again smite any more every thing living, as I have 
 " done,"^ — the ground was to be released from tlie 
 extraordinary curse which Antediluvian sin had culled 
 down upon it, and having received the great purifying 
 Baptism of the deluge, was to return to its normal 
 condition of fertility, when human labour was bestowed 
 upon it. And surely it is significant that the earliest 
 produce of tillage, which we read of after tlie flood, is 
 
 > Cnn. viii. '2J,
 
 8 The History of Agriculture 
 
 *' wine f/iat makotli glad the heart of maD,"^— a good gift 
 of God, and nothing to be refused, because the perversity 
 of man leads him to misuse it and converts into a banc 
 what was given as a boon, (for is it not a law that the 
 best and most precious things become by corruption the 
 worst, as love, which is the noblest of sentiments, is 
 corrupted into lust, which is the basest ?) " And Noah 
 ** began to he an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.''^ 
 It was the cultivation of the vine, the noblest of fruit 
 trees, and which yields the most generous liquor, that we 
 read of as the earliest effort of Agriculture after the flood, 
 and which was thus the token that the extraordinary curse, 
 which had hitherto clogged and impeded Agriculture was 
 removed, and the earth restored to its normal fertility. 
 
 AVc must not however so understand the words, 
 ** 1 will not again curse the ground any more for man's 
 ** sake," as if they implied more than that the earth itself 
 should not again have penal sterility inflicted upon it. 
 Throughout the whole history of Israel, as we see from 
 the Law and the Prophets, one of God's habitual chastise- 
 ments for his people's sin was to withhold those rains, 
 and dews, and suns, which are the necessary conditions 
 of large crops, or to blight the crop by insects or other 
 natural agencies, when it promised well, and had nearly 
 come to maturity. One passage must sufiice, as a speci- 
 men of very many, scattered up and down over the Old 
 Testament; "Thou shalt carry much seed out into the 
 " field, and shalt gather but little in ; for the locust shall 
 " consume it. Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress t/um, 
 *• but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; 
 *' for the worms shall eat them. Thou shalt have olive 
 *' trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint 
 ' See Pa. civ. 13. ' Gen. ix. 20.
 
 as given in Ilohj Scripture. 9 
 
 *' f/ff/se/f with the oil; for thino olive shall cast hisfruit.^'^ 
 AVhile the earth itself should be what it had been since 
 the fall in point of productive power, favourable seasons, 
 the conditions of its fertility, should still be in God's hand, 
 to grant or to withhold, as He might see necessary in the 
 moral discipline of His people. 
 
 VI. — And now wc approach that era of Grace, when 
 He who was to redeem " us from the curse of the law, being 
 *'made a curse for us,"^ appeared upon earth in fashion as a 
 man, took flesh into union with His Divine Personality, 
 and dwelt among us. He was to be the Second Man who 
 should re-constitute and restore the ruined family ; the 
 Man of whom Adam was but a figure.^ In His private 
 life, before He entered upon His ministry. He was an 
 artisan ; and it is certainly not a little remarkable that 
 one of the earliest Christian Fathers (Justin, who lived 
 not later than the middle of the second Century) records 
 as a fact well known in his time that our Lord manu- 
 factured agricultural implements, ploughs and yokes of 
 oxen, " symbolizing hereby righteousness,'' says Justin, 
 (for what is righteousness but submission to the yoke of 
 God's precepts and dispensations ?) " and inculcating an 
 " industrious life."^ But what glimpses of Him in the 
 great work which He came to do upon earth, do the Holy 
 {Scriptures themselves give us, which carry us back in 
 thought to the curse pronounced upon the first man in 
 Paradise ? It was in a garden that our ruin was incurred ; 
 it was also in a garden, — the garden of Gethsemane, — 
 1 Deut.xxviii. 38, 39, 40. - Sec Gal.iii. 13. =' See Kom. v. H. 
 
 ^Toi^TCt ^ap ra tiktovlkci epya elpya^ ero tv avOpto-noi^^ 
 wu, aporpa kciI ^i^a' eta rovrwv kciI tu T>/«r ?lKaloarl^)]*^• 
 avfjil^oXa ci(d(Thioi' kuI «€/>7>/ \_^ *-^^py'/] l^^ov. 
 Lialogus cum 2Vypho)ie, § 88.
 
 10 Ihc llidonj of AyvicuUiirc 
 
 that it was repaired. " In the sweat of thy face thou 
 *' shalt oat hrcad," — this had heen the penalty upon the 
 first man's transgression. How did tlio *' second man, the 
 " Lord from heaven,"^ endure, and in enduring exhaust 
 that curse and annihihitc it ? See Him prostrate in the 
 garden, offering " up prayers and supplications with 
 " strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save 
 ** him from death."^ With what intensity of emotion 
 those prayers are offered up, those tears are shed, let the 
 phtcnomenon recorded by St. Luke attest ; and being 
 " in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat 
 " was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the 
 " ground."^ Here is " the sweat of thy face," experienced 
 by the Second ^lan in His tillage of the moral earth, 
 whereby it should be made to bring forth the fruits of the 
 Spirit ; but according to that which is written of I Tim, 
 " This is he that came by water and blood, even .lesus 
 ** Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood,"* 
 there is more than water in this sweat, there is blood 
 mixed with water, and both blood and water raining 
 down upon the earth from His sacred brow, when He 
 fell on His face and prayed, — a truly sanctifying Baptism, 
 from which one might well believe that the earth would 
 emerge regenerate, and with renovated powers. For let 
 us bear in mind that it is the earth's curse which He is 
 bearing, the curse drawn down indeed by Adam's sin, 
 yet inflicted, not on Adam, but on the place of His 
 abode, — " Cursed is the ground for thy sake." And lo ! 
 we find another clear intimation of this in wdiat followed 
 the agony and the apprehension; "And the soldiers 
 " platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head."^ 
 
 ^ See 1 Cor. xv. 47. ' See Hcb. v. 7. 
 
 ' St. Luke xxii. 41. M John v. 0. '' St. John xix. 2.
 
 us (jiveii in Holy Scriptia'c. 11 
 
 God, how dost Thou in Thy marvellous Providence direct 
 the steps of men, while their own heart deviseth their 
 way ; how canst Thou hring Thine own significance even 
 out of words said, and deeds done, in defiance and 
 contempt of Thee, out of Caiaphas's cynical heartless 
 policy a precious and glorious prophecy,^ — out of the 
 brutal mockery of these soldiers a divine intimation that 
 thy Son is at present the Curse-hearer of the Earth, the 
 Victim who is submitting himself to the penalty drawn 
 down by Adam's transgression. For the sentence had 
 run thus ; " Thorns also and thistles shall it bring 
 *' forth to thee." And here is Christ, when about to bear 
 " our sins in his own body on the tree,"^ crowned with 
 thorns, the symbol of the earth's curse, the token that by 
 reason of man's sin the soil had degenerated from its 
 Paradise condition, and would spontaneously bring forth 
 only useless or harmful produce. 
 
 VII. — No wis there any thing in Holy Scripture, which 
 leads us to surmise that in another system of Nature, 
 which is in God's good time to supersede the present one, 
 the Earth, in virtue of the precious blood-drops of the 
 Second Adam, will be restored to its Paradisaical condi- 
 tion, and become what it was in productive powers 
 before man fell ? There is. Let us turn to the third 
 Chapter of the second Epistle of St. Peter, wherein it is 
 predicted that in " the day of the Lord " *' the earth and 
 " the works that are therein shall be burned up."^ Taken 
 by itself this might seem to imply that the earth will be 
 destroyed, since things which are burned up arc made 
 away with, and practically annihilated. Put a further 
 study of the Chapter serves to correct this impression. 
 For the Apostle, having described the great conflagration, 
 ' See St. John xi. 49 to 53. =^ See 1 Pet. ii. 21. ' v. 10.
 
 12 The llistonj of Agriculture 
 
 Nvlilch shall dissolve the present system of Nature, 
 distinctly looks forward to the existence of an earth 
 in the future system, and grounds his anticipations 
 on foregone Prophecy; " Xevertheless we," says he, 
 ** according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new 
 " earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."^ This is ob- 
 viously a reference to Isaiah Ixv. and Ixvi. where we read, 
 " Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : and the 
 ** former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,"^ 
 and again, " The new heavens and the new earth, which 
 " I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord."^ 
 Nor is it possible, I venture to think, to suppose that the 
 new heavens and the new earth are not to be taken as a 
 literal firmament or a literal soil, but merely as a general 
 phrase for a new system of the universe. The passage 
 in the Book of the Revelation, in which the inspired seer 
 beholds in vision the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy 
 seems to discourage this view, even if it docs not make it 
 absolutely untenable ; " xVnd I saw a new heaven and a 
 " new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth were 
 " passed away ; and there was no more sea."'* There being 
 no more sea in the glorified universe is a feature which 
 almost seems to require a literal understanding of the 
 words heaven and earth. Now, supposing this literal 
 view of the meaning to be the true one, let it not be 
 thought that the earth, which is to be, will be in such 
 sense a new creation, as to have no connexion with the 
 earth which now is. For St. Peter places side by side the 
 destruction of the earth by the waters of the deluge with 
 its destruction by fire at the last day ; "By the word of God 
 ** the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of 
 
 ' c. 13. -Ixv. 17. Mxvi. 22. 
 
 * Kev. xxi. 1.
 
 as (jivcn in Holy Scripture. 13 
 
 '' the water and in the water " (R.Y. *' an earth compacted 
 " out of water and amidst water") : AVherehy the " world 
 " that then was, being overflowed with water, perished : 
 *'13ut the heavens and the earth which are now, by the 
 " same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
 " the day of judgment."^ Its Baptism of uritcr did not 
 desiroT/ the earth, which emerged from it purified, and re- 
 lieved,' as we have seen, from that extraordinary curse, 
 which had rendered labour so toilsome in the days before 
 the flood. Why may we not suppose that, when it has 
 passed through its Baptism o^Jire, it will emerge a regene- 
 rated earth, fit to be the great domain of the " second man, 
 '' the Lord from heaven," who will reign over it surrounded 
 by His Saints,— an earth endowed with forces and fertilities, 
 with beauty and brightness, of which we can at present 
 form no conception ; and in which possibly, (for we must 
 speak modestly and hesitatingly, and never dogmatize, on 
 subjects so difficult as Unfulfilled Prophecy,) those words 
 of the Evangelical Prophet will find a literal fulfilment, 
 *' Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and 
 " instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree."^ 
 The earth's curse, drawn down by the first man, and the 
 symbol of which the Second Man wore around his brow, 
 when about to suff'er, shall be removed in that day by the 
 virtue of His Agony and Bloody Sweat, of His Cross and 
 Passion. 
 
 We have now passed in review the Scriptural history 
 of Agriculture from its beginning to its close. And the 
 truth, which it brings under our notice and emphasizes, 
 is the close connexion, which by God's ordinance and 
 appointment has subsisted ever since the time of the Fall 
 * 2 Pet. ill. 5, G, 7. ' Isaiah Iv. 13.
 
 14 The nU lory of Agricu Uu re 
 
 between the moral conduct of man and the productiveness 
 of the Earth which is the place of man's abode. It has 
 been pointed out that, while the earth is secured from an 
 extraordinary curse, such as the sins of the Antediluvians 
 called down upon it in the days of Lamech, by the promise 
 made to Noah after the flood, still God holds in His own 
 hands the keys of rain and sunshine, which are necessary 
 to unlock the earth's storehouse, and make her yield her 
 treasures for the sustenance and comfort of man. And 
 this being the case, must we not attribute the recent series 
 of very indifferent harvests, exactly coinciding as they did 
 with the fall in the price of English agricultural produce 
 in consequence of the importation of large quantities of 
 foreign grain, — must we not attribute it to the cause indi- 
 cated by the prophet Jeremiah, when similar casualties 
 befell the Jews of his day ; " This people hath a revolting 
 " and a rebellious heart ; they are revolted and gone. 
 " Neither say they in their heart. Let us now fear the Lord 
 " our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, 
 " in his season : he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks 
 " of the harvest. Your iniquities have turned away these 
 " things, and your sins have withholden good things from 
 " you."^ Is it not a meet recompense for the abounding 
 infidelity, which has recently been making its ravages 
 among all classes in this country, that God should make 
 us feel Ilis hand blighting and crippling our Agriculture, 
 if so be we may discern and humble ourselves under it ? 
 Perhaps you will allege that, evil as some of the features 
 of our time may be, there is much religion abroad, much 
 apparent earnestness and even uprightness of moral 
 conduct, and that all that is lacking is only orthodoxy. 
 Ah I but how fundamental, how vital, how penetrating 
 
 > Jer. v. 23, 24, 25.
 
 as given in Holy Scripture. 15 
 
 into the pith and marrow of Religion, is the orthodoxy 
 tliat is lacking ! What our thinkers and cultivated men 
 arc yearning for in all directions, what they are striving 
 to create and propagate, is a religion without a God — a 
 reliijion which shall retain the moral restraints of 
 Christianity, while it cuts them off from their vitalizing 
 principle, the recognition of a Personal Object of worship, 
 a speaking God, a seeing God, a hearing God, or, as the 
 Scripture with ^vonderful force and vividness designates 
 llim, *' the living God." Perhaps it is not too much to 
 say that now for a long time past all religious error has 
 been working more or less in this direction and with this 
 tendency, to eliminate God from the religious systems of 
 mankind, — very like eliminating the sun from the system 
 of the universe. Does not God do well under these 
 circumstances to make His Hand felt in Nature, and 
 particularly in those districts of Nature which most affect 
 human life and human comfort ? If in our speculations 
 we are inclined to renounce the fear of the Lord our 
 God, is it not a merciful dispensation that lie should 
 touch us in our means of subsistence, and make us know 
 practically that for the prosperity of our Agriculture 
 from first to last, from the sprouting of the seed to the 
 garnering of the harvest, for every gleam of sunshine, 
 for every shower of rain, for the shooting of every herb 
 of pasturage, for the increase of cattle " strong to labour,"^ 
 we are dependent upon the operation of a Hand, which 
 is too dexterous ever to err, too loving ever to inflict 
 unnecessary pain. 
 
 Lord, if in the wise ordering of Thy Providence 
 it is decreed that in these latter times antichrists should 
 abound, that "evil men and seducers" should " wax worse 
 1 See Ps. cxHv. 14.
 
 16 The Ilidory of Agriculture. 
 
 *' and worse, deceiving, and being deceived,"^ and tliat 
 Infidelity should still spread, under the permitted 
 influence of Satan, until it finds its climax in the great 
 Antichrist, who shall offer Himself instead of Christ for 
 the worship of the faithful, and shall come nigh to 
 deceive the very elect, let not the little flock, who are 
 true to Thee in the ground of their heart, smart under 
 Thy mighty hand, without humbling themselves under 
 it. Pour on them " the spirit of grace and of supplications,"^ 
 that with weeping, fasting, and praying, they may 
 intercede with Thee, not for themselves alone, but 
 the Church and the world, true Daniels " in the desolations 
 " of Jerusalem " confessing the sins of the spiritual Israel, 
 and " presenting their supplications before the Lord their 
 "God."* for "the city of the living God, the heavcniij 
 " Jerusalem,"^ and answered, as he was answered, if not by 
 an angel visible to the eye, yet by a message of comfort and 
 encouragement to the heart, which shall " lift uj) the 
 " hands which hang down and the feeble knees."^ 
 
 ^ See 2 Tim. iii. 13. ' See Zech. xii. 10. 
 
 =» See Dan. ix. 2, 20. " See Heb. xii. 22. ^ See Hob. xii. 12.
 
 FORM OF SPECIAL SERVICE 
 
 USED DURING THE WEEK OF THE VISIT OF THE 
 
 ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
 
 JULYlith, iith, i/^tk, iSth, idth, ^ i-jth, 1886. 
 
 1. Sentence of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy 
 hands; thou hast put all things under his feet; 
 
 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ; 
 
 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever 
 passeth through the paths of the seas. Psalm viii. 6, 7, 8. 
 
 2. General Confession. 
 
 3. Absolution. 
 
 4. The Lord's Prayer, and following Versicles. 
 
 5. Psalms. {One each day). 
 
 viii. ; Ixv. ; civ. ; cxliv. ; cxlvii. ; cxlviii. 
 
 6. Lessons. {^One each daj). 
 
 Genesis i. 24 to end; Isaiah i. 2 to 10; Jeremiah viii. 
 4 to 10; Jonah iii. ; St. Matthew vi. 24 to end; 
 St. John X. I to 17.
 
 18 Form of Special Service, 
 
 7. Anthems. {One each day). 
 
 (i) The Lord is loving. (496 in Anthem Book). 
 
 Psalm cxlv. 
 Full. 
 
 9. The Lord is loving unto every man : and His mercy 
 is over all His \vorks. 
 
 10. All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord : and Thy saints 
 give thanks unto Thee. 
 
 1 1 . They show the glory of Thy kingdom : and talk of 
 Thy power. 
 
 12. That Thy power, Thy glory, and the mightiness of 
 Thy kingdom : might be known unto men. 
 
 13. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. Garrett. 
 
 (2) Thou visitest the earth. (520 in Anthem Book). 
 
 Psalm I XV. 
 Full. 
 9, 12. Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it: Thou 
 crownest the year with Thy goodness. Greene. 
 
 (3) O PRAISE the Lord. (436 in Anthem Book). 
 
 Psalm cxlvii. 
 Full. 
 I. O praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing 
 praises unto our God : yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is 
 to be thankful. 
 
 5. Great is our Lord, and great is His power: yea, and 
 His wisdom is infinite. Weldon. 
 
 (4) From all that dwell. (302 in Anthem Book). 
 Version of Psalm cxvii. 
 Full. 
 From all that dwell below the skies 
 Let the Creator's praise arise ; 
 Let the Redeemer's name be sung 
 Through every land, by every tongue. 
 
 Eternal are Thy mercies. Lord, 
 
 Eternal truth attends Thy word ; 
 
 Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore, 
 
 Till suns shall rise and set no more. Walmisley
 
 Form of Sjxcial Service. 11) 
 
 (5) Great is the Lord. (320 in Anthem Book). 
 
 Psalm cxlv. 
 Full. 
 
 3. Great is the Lord, and marvellous, worthy to be 
 praised : there is no end of His greatness. 
 
 4. One generation shall praise Thy works unto another : 
 and declare Thy power. Amen. W. Hayes. 
 
 (6) O LOVE THE Lord. (430 in Anthem Book.) 
 
 Psalm xxxi. 
 Full. 
 
 26. O love the Lord, all ye His saints : for the Lord 
 preserveth them that are faithful, and plenteously rewardeth 
 the proud doer. 
 
 27. Be strong, and He shall establish your heart : all ye 
 that put your trust in the Lord. Sullivan. 
 
 8. Prayers. 
 
 Let us pray. 
 
 ( 1 ) That it may please thee to give and preserve to our use 
 the kindly fruits of the earth, so as in due time we may 
 enjoy them : 
 
 We beseech Thee to hear its, good Lord. 
 
 (2) Collect of the Day (Third Sunday after Trinity). 
 
 (3) Collect for Grace. (O Lord, our heavenly 
 Father, (S:c.) 
 
 (4) O God, merciful Father, increase the 
 
 fruits of the earth by thy heavenly benediction ; and grant 
 that we, receiving thy bountiful liberality, may use the same 
 to thy glory, the relief of those that are needy, and our own 
 comfort ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Ajncn. 
 {From the Second Prayer in the time of Dearth and Famine). 
 
 (5) The General Thanksgiving. 
 
 (6) A Prayer of St. Chrysostom. 
 
 (7) The Grace of our Lord Jfsus Christ, &c.
 
 ADDRKSSES GIVEN TX THE 
 COURSE OE THE SPECIAL SERVICE, 
 
 Monday y July 12th. 
 Lesson : Gen. i. 24 to cud. 
 
 Y. 26. " And God said, Let us make man in our 
 *' image, after our likeness." — In what did the image 
 of God, impressed upon man at his creation, hut not 
 impressed on the inferior animals created on the 
 same day with him, consist ? Principally, I suppose, 
 in his endowment with the intellectual and moral 
 faculties. As to the former of these, how wonderful 
 in its capacity is the intellect of man ! Consider 
 merely the fact that man, as to his hodily frame a 
 mere worm of earth,^ as to his bodily life the creature 
 of a day, is yet able to calculate the distance from 
 one fixed star to another. In virtue of this intel- 
 lectual faculty, too, man is in a certain sense a creator, 
 and thus bears God's image. Do we not speak of a 
 great poem, like ^Milton's '* Paradise Lost," of a great piece 
 of music, like Handel's *' Messiah," of a great painting, 
 like one of Paffaellc's ^ladonnas, as a creation ? Yet 
 great as the intellectual faculty is, and much as it 
 ennobles man, far greater and far more ennobling is the 
 moral faculty. I mean by the moral faculty, the 
 conscience which apprehends God, and the will which 
 chooses God, and cleaves to Ilim and to His will 
 out of love. Apart from this moral faculty, which was 
 closely united with the intellectual in man's original 
 
 ^ See Job XXV. 6.
 
 Man made in the imafje of God. 21 
 
 creation, it is impossible for man to hold communion with 
 his Creator, and so to be ennobled in the truest and 
 highest sense. Apart from it, man may be brilliant, but 
 lie cannot be godlike ; — nay, in the suppression or 
 misdirection of the moral faculty he may set himself 
 against God, and thus against his own nobility, 
 blessedness, and rest. It was a great saying of the late 
 Kobert Montgomery's, that " Satan is intellect without 
 *' God." let us cultivate that moral wisdom which 
 (as distinct from discovery and science) is declared in 
 Job xxviii. to be man's true sphere ; " And unto man 
 " he said. Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; 
 " and to depart from evil is understanding."^ That moral 
 wisdom lies at the root of our communion with God ; 
 and communion with God, through the mediation of 
 His Son, and under the influence of Ilis Spirit, is the 
 highest point of dignity to which man can attain. Of 
 those in the enjoyment of this communion it may 
 reasonably and truly be said, *' Ye arc gods ; and all of 
 " you are children of the most High." (Ps. Ixxxii. ; 
 St. John X. 34). 
 
 Tuesday y Jahj 13///. 
 Lesson : Isaiah i. 2 to 10, 
 
 V. 3. '' Tlie ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 
 *' his master's crib : hut Israel doth not know, my people 
 *' doth not consider." — Instinct never goes astray, never 
 misleads the creatures endowed with it. Keason went 
 astray at the Fall, and has often since misdirected the 
 human creature. Hence we find man reproved in Holy 
 Scripture by the example of the beasts that perish ; these 
 
 ' V. 28.
 
 22 Ilcasoii contracted icith Inatinct 
 
 Leasts are appealed to as putting men to shame. " The ox 
 " knoweth his owner," recognises hy dumh signs the man 
 to wliom he belongs, " and the ass his master's crib," — 
 the place at Avhich he is fed, and the hand that feeds 
 him ; but reason lags behind instinct in the recognition 
 of the Heavenly Owner, and of the benefits and blessings, 
 which He pours upon His creatures ; " Israel doth not 
 '* know, my people doth not consider." This verse 
 implies that man is God's property and belongs to Him, 
 as " the ox " to his " owner." And how indefeasible and 
 indisputable is God's claim to this ownership ! What 
 gives man a claim to he the owner of the ox is merely 
 that he has paid down for the purchase of the creature a 
 sum of money. But God's first and fundamental claim 
 upon us arises from His being our Creator, from His 
 having fashioned and moulded the clay of which we are 
 made, and breathed into it the breath of life.^ What an 
 absolute property do we conceive a man to have in his 
 own productions, the artist in his picture, the poet in his 
 poem, the musician in the strain which he has com- 
 posed! — Xor is this God's only or strongest claim to 
 ownership of us. He hath bought us back from the 
 dominion which the devil had usurped over us, " not 
 •' with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the 
 ** precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish 
 *' and without spot,"- — as if an artist were to pay a heavy 
 ransom to recover a picture, upon which he had spent 
 much pains and skill, but of which he had been robbed. 
 It is on this second and stronger claim, arising from 
 redemption, that the Apostle builds his exhortation to us 
 to glorify God ; — " Ye are not your own ; for ye are 
 *' bought with a price : therefore glorify God in 
 
 * See Gen. ii. 7 ; Ts. cxxxix. 1.3, IG. '1 IVtcr i. 18, I'J.
 
 in its recognition of persons. 23 
 
 "your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. "^ 
 As to the benefits by which God seeks to establish 
 a claim upon our gratitude and acknowledgment, 
 (corresponding to the master's kind and humane 
 treatment of his ass), these are vividly represented in 
 figurative language by the Prophet Hosea r " I drew 
 *' them with cords of a man, w^ith bands of love : 
 **and I was to them as they that take off" \_Ararg. lift 
 up] " the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." 
 Our heavenly Master relieves us of the yoke of the Law, 
 by enabling us to believe in Christ's having met all its 
 demands on our behalf, and of the yoke of sin, by the 
 effectual working of His Spirit, and He substitutes for 
 those galling yokes the " easy yoke and light burden " 
 of Christ's precepts and dispensations, — easy and Hght 
 because borne in the strength of love, — and lays before 
 us the heavenly food of the Word and Sacraments, thus 
 making provision for all the necessities of our souls. 
 This again is a third claim upon our allegiance to Ilim, 
 over and above those of Creation and .Redemption, 
 
 Wednesday, July 14///. 
 
 Lesso>' : Jer. viii. 4 to 10. 
 
 " Vv. 7, 8. *' Yea, the stork in the heavens 
 ** knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle and the 
 " crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming ; 
 "but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. 
 *' How do ye say. We are wise, and the law of the Lord 
 ''is with us?"— Our yesterday's text brought before us 
 the contrast of Reason with Instinct in its recognition of 
 > 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. ' Ch. xi. 4.
 
 24 Reason contrasted with Instinct 
 
 persons and places. To-day's brings before us a similar 
 contrast in respect of the recognition of times and 
 seasons. The birds' of passage seem to desert us at the 
 approach of winter ; but their migration ouly lasts 
 for a time ; the warm breath of spi'ing, the tree bursting 
 into blossom, the purling stream, the turf enamelled with 
 flowers, woo them back again in their season. ** But my 
 " people know not the judgment of the Lord." llow 
 then can they claim to be " wise," having not so much 
 wisdom as is exhibited by the fowls of the air ? — By the 
 "judgment of the Lord" is meant God's way and 
 method of dealing with His people. And the particular 
 way and method here alluded to is His plan of allowing 
 to each one of us *' a day of grace," during which 
 gracious and attractive invitations arc made to us, 
 analogous to the warm breath of spring, which woos 
 back the migratory birds. First, the Saviour's own call, 
 oftbring an easy yoke and light burden in exchange for 
 the galling yoke of the law and sin ; " Come unto me, 
 " all 1/e that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 *' you rest. Take my yoke upon you,"^ &c. Then the Holy 
 Spirit's whisper in the conscience, seconding the Saviour's 
 invitation from without, and the call made by the ministers 
 of the Church, God's ambassadors, designed to turn God's 
 TFo;y/ into His Voice, and to give it a living and operative 
 energy ; " The Spirit and the bride say, Come."- 
 And then again for individual Christians there are 
 divers Providential dealings, according to the infinite 
 variety of their circumstances and needs, each of 
 which may be called a "judgment of the Lord," — for 
 one a bereavement, for another loss of health, for a third 
 poverty, for a fourth a cup running over with mercies, 
 
 ^ St Matt. xi. 28, 29, 30. - llcv. xxii. 17.
 
 ill its recognition of times. 25 
 
 each of these dispensations having a special significance 
 to the individual who is dealt with by it. 
 
 But remember that just as the warm spring weather, 
 which woos back the birds of passage, has its close, and 
 passes at length through the maturity of summer, and 
 the decadence of autumn, into the rigours of winter, so 
 it is also with the day of grace, — like all days, it comes 
 to an end. Therefore " seek ye the Lord while he may 
 *' be found, call ye upon him while he is near : Let the 
 " wicked forsake his way, and " (something beyond that, 
 for there may be sin in the thoughts and intentions of 
 the heart, when there is none in the conduct) " the 
 *' unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him return 
 " unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him ;" 
 (here is the warm breath of the spiritual spring, wooing 
 the wandering soul back again to God), *' and to our 
 *' God, for he will abundantly pardon."^ Behold, now 
 " is the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of 
 " salvation.''^ 
 
 Tliiirsday, July 15///. 
 Lesson : Jonah iii. 
 
 y. IL *SVnd should not I spare Nineveh, that 
 " great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand 
 " persons that cannot discern between their right hand 
 *' their left hand ; and also much cattle ?" — That 
 God cares for the lower animals might be inferred 
 from llis commendinc: them to man fur imitation 
 (as we have seen that Ifc does), in their obedience 
 to the lower law of instinct. But here He gives 
 * Isaiah Iv. G, 7. ^2 Cor. vi. 2.
 
 26 God's love for the lower creatures. 
 
 expression to His care for tliein with His own moutli. 
 Jonah had not hihourcd for the gourd nor made it 
 grow, hut God had laboured for Nineveh, to rear up 
 there gradually the structure of a great civilisation. 
 AYhat pains does God take with the works of llis hands, 
 to make them beautiful and useful ! AVhat pains docs 
 lie bestow in painting the lily and the rose ; and if 
 inanimate nature is so exquisitely elaborated by Him, 
 what pains must we not suppose that He bestosvs upon 
 the higher forms of life, the animal and the rational ! 
 It is touchingly intimated in to-day's text that the care, 
 which God bestows upon His lower works, — the irrational 
 ones, and those which, though endowed with reason, have 
 not yet the use of it, — binds them, in their helplessness 
 and dependence, about His heart, and moves Him to 
 compassionate them. " Should not I spare xSineveh, 
 " wherein are " — not great buildings only, but thousands 
 of infants and thousands of cattle ? God's care for the 
 inferior animals, in making provision for their wants, 
 and responding to their inarticulate cries for help, is 
 brought before us in many passages of Holy Scripture. 
 Thus ; " God remembered Noah, and every living thing, 
 " and all the cattle that mis with him in the ark ;"^ 
 "lie causeth the grass to grow for the cattle;"- *'His 
 ** tender mercies are over all his works ;"^ " He givcth to 
 *' the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry,"^ 
 (their cry of hunger is accounted a prayer in the ears of 
 their Creator). There is however a text which seems to 
 deny God's care for the inferior animals, and which 
 therefore requires explanation here. St. Paul iu 1 Cor. ix. 
 9, 10, in advocating and enjoining the support of Christian 
 
 ^ Gun. viii. 1. - Ts. civ. 14. 
 
 ■^ Ts. cxlv. \). * Ps. cxlvii. 1'.
 
 GoiVs love for the lower creatures. 27 
 
 ministers by those to whom they minister, says *'It is 
 " written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle 
 " the mouth of the ox that treadetli out the corn. Loth 
 " God take care for oxen ? Or saith he it altogether for 
 "oursakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written." 
 *'The Church may not so expound one place of Scripture, 
 *' that it be repugnant to another ;"^ so that we must 
 find some mode of reconciling these apparently con- 
 tradictory statements. The Apostle then by no means 
 denies that God has a regard for the cattle ; but 
 only asserts that in a particular precept of his holy 
 Word, the Holy Spirit must be taken to have a higher 
 aim than merely securing the interests of the inferior 
 creatures. He teaches us to see a great principle 
 underlying that particular precept of the Mosaic law, — 
 the principle of remunerating equitably all who 
 serve us, not only the dumb animal which toils in 
 the furrow, but the servant who waits upon us, and 
 the minister who " labours in the word and doctrine."- 
 The precept does indeed secure a provision for the 
 ox, and was intended so to do ; but certainly it looks 
 beyond the ox, and was meant to go deeper, and it 
 demands compensation for any of our fellow-men who 
 labour in our service. 
 
 The moral lesson is that, if God cares so tenderly 
 for animals, we too should care for them. " A righteous 
 " man regardeth the life of his beast,"^ — in the Hebrew 
 original it is, '' knoiceth the life of his beast," — throws 
 himself into the creature's life by consideration of its 
 necessities and feelings, and deals with it in sympathy, 
 from a realisation of its wants. There is no sin so 
 execrable as cruelty to animals. 
 
 ^See the Twentieth Article. - See 1 Tim. v. 17. '' Trov. xii. 10.
 
 28 The use made of the Works of Nature in the 
 
 Friday, July IGfh. 
 Lesson : St. Matoiew vi. 24 to end. 
 
 Vv. 2G, 28. ''Behold the fowls of the air." 
 
 " Consider the lilies of the field." — Our 
 
 Lord was in the habit of taking texts for His sermons 
 from subjects which fell under Tlis eye at the time. 
 As He is delivering His great Sermon on the Mount 
 from a pleasant knoll which overlooked the sea of 
 Galilee, He casts His eyes upwards, and sees the birds 
 dartincr to and fro in the clear blue skv, and draws 
 from them the lesson that we should cast all our care for 
 food upon God, who to us is our heavenly Father, to 
 them only their Creator. Then, casting His eyes down- 
 wards to the earth. He sees the green sward around 
 Him, on which the multitude were seated, tufted with 
 lilies ; and gathering a tuft of these, and holding them 
 up before the people, He admonishes them to take no 
 anxious thought for raiment, as the flowers, those " stars 
 " which in earth's firmament do shine,"^ were thus 
 gorgeously apparelled by their Creator, though they 
 give no toil in the manufacture of raiment. 
 
 Our Lord here takes His text, then, from the works 
 of Nature, both animate and inanimate, — that is, from 
 the works of His own hands ; for by Tlim, *' who is the 
 " image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every 
 *' creature, were all things created, that are in heaven, 
 *' and that are in earth."- In the Book of Job, too, 
 which we are now reading through in the daily 
 course of Lessons, we find God commending to the 
 Patriarch Job the works of Ilis hands, and drawing 
 instruction for Job out of those works. But how 
 ' Longfellow's roeuis. ^ Col. i. \d, IG.
 
 Old and New Testmnenh respectively. 29 
 
 strangely contrasted are the works chosen to enforce the 
 lesson which was to be taught to the patriarch, and that 
 which the disciples were to learn ! In the one case the 
 animals selected for the purpose of the Divine argument 
 are among the strongest and most terrible with which we 
 are acquainted, — the unicorn* (buffalo, or wild ox) ; the 
 war-horse, " swallowing the ground with fierceness and 
 " rage,"^ the behemoth^ (or the hippopotamus) wallowing 
 with lazy bulk in the fens, the leviathan"* (or crocodile) 
 invincible by human weapons, while the inanimate works 
 selected to enforce the argument are all of the sublimer 
 order, the sea,^ the snow,^ the hail,^ the rain,^ the 
 stars,^ the lightning,*^ the clouds.^* "Whereas in the other 
 case, the works selected are the fowls and the flowers, — 
 works which can inspire no dismay, and can only attract 
 by their beauty and gracefulness. The difference of the 
 works appealed to is to be sought in the difference of the 
 lessons to be enforced. Job is to be thoroughly humbled, 
 and brought to a confession of his weakness, ignorance, 
 and sinfulness ; and therefore the chief works of Divine 
 Power, — all that is sublime, strong, terrible, irresistible 
 in God's creation is to be marshalled before his eyes. 
 But the disciples of our Lord, who sat around II im on 
 the mount, were humble folks, toil-worn, and care-worn, 
 who needed heart's ease, such as only trust in God's 
 fatherly care and Providence can give. They needed to 
 be consoled, not terrified ; and for them therefore He 
 draws His lessons from the birds of the air, and the 
 flowers with which the turf is enamelled. And the 
 lesson He draws is this ; " Man has only room in his 
 
 1 See Job xxxix. 9, &c. ^ ^.^. 19, 94. =* Ch. xl. 15, &c. 
 
 * Ch. xli. 1, (Sec. ' Ch. xxxviii. 8, &c. ' Ch. xxxviii. 22. 
 
 ' Ihid. ' vv. 25, 26, 28. ' v. 31, &c. '' v. 35. '' v. 37.
 
 30 The snsceptibiliti/ of spiritual men to sin. 
 
 *' heart for one solicitude, and that is the solicitude 
 " expressed in the question, ' What must I do to he 
 " * saved ' ?^ God's glory and man's salvation arc 
 " interests which can tolerate no rivals in your minds. 
 " As for other solicitudes, throw them on your heavenly 
 " Father in assured faith that He will provide." I have 
 thus opened a vein of thought which I hope to pursue 
 further on Sunday Morning \_Scc concluding Sermon on 
 the 18th] ; and meanwhile, 
 
 ''Lord, make these faithless hearts of ours 
 
 *' Such lessons learn from birds and flowers, 
 " Make them from self to cease, 
 
 " Leave all things to a Father's will, 
 
 ** And taste, before Him lying still, 
 " Ev'n in affliction peace. "^ 
 
 Satiirdcnjj July V7th. 
 Lesson : St. Johx x. 1 to 17. 
 
 Y. 14. *a am the good shepherd."~Thc 
 Shepherd character and functions of Messiah were 
 foretold by Psalmists and Prophets long before the 
 Good Shepherd appeared on earth, and claimed to 
 hold the character and fulfil the functions. A most 
 touching plea for the fulfilment of these functions 
 to a stray sheep is to be found in the last verse of 
 Psalm cxix. ; ** I have gone astray like a lost sheep ; seek 
 *' thy servant ; for I do not forget thy commandments." 
 In the connexion in which they stand, these words surprise 
 us. For what a holy and spiritual man was the writer of 
 the hundred and nineteenth Psalm ! IIow is his delight in 
 God's law constantly transpiring throughout the Psalm, 
 
 ^ See Acts xvi. 30. - " Hymns Ancient and Modern." 186.
 
 The susceptihility of spiritual 7nen to sin. 31 
 
 how irrepressible is the fervour Avitli which he embraces 
 that law ! {v. 107. " My soul hath kept thy testimonies; 
 " and I love them exceedingly ;" i\ 159. " Consider 
 " how I love thy precepts ;" v. 143. ** Thy command- 
 "ments are my delights ;" v. 20. *' My soul breaketh 
 " for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all 
 *' times ;" v. 72. *' The law of thy mouth is better unto 
 *'me than thousands of gold and silver.") Never did 
 this holy man (Ezra probably) retire to rest without 
 meditation on God's law ; *' Mine eyes prevent the night 
 " watches, that I might meditate in thy word." (r. 148). 
 And yet the culminating devotional utterance of the Psalm 
 is a confession of sin, and of his impotence to return to 
 God of himself, without the preventing grace of the 
 Good Shepherd, who must go forth in quest of him ; — 
 " I have gone astray like a lost sheep ; seek thy servant." 
 Some commentators have felt so strongly the apparent 
 inconsistency of the last verse with all that has preceded, 
 that they have supposed the " going astray " referred to 
 not to be a moral going astray at all. They have taken 
 the allusion to be merely to the dispersion of Israel in 
 the captivities, that is, to the punishment of their sin, 
 and not to the sin itself ; and the Psalmist, where he 
 says " I," and *' thy servant," is, according to these 
 expositors, to be understood not as speaking in his own 
 person, but in that of his nation. But what a wretchedly 
 jejune and meagre exposition is this ! It need not indeed 
 be denied that there may be in the words an under- 
 current of reference to the circumstance of the dispersion 
 of Israel (we should never so tie up a passage of Holy 
 Scripture, rich and full as it is, to one meaning as to 
 deny to it any other) ; but surely the difficulty of 
 regarding the passage as applicable chiefly to the
 
 f32 The susceptibility of spiritual men to sin. 
 
 individual soul, and to the going astray of sin, vanishes 
 as soon as we come to examine the pha^nomena of the 
 spiritual life. For who docs not know that the more 
 holy and spiritually-minded a man becomes, the more 
 strongly developed is his susceptibility to sin, so that 
 what common Christians regard as a molehill of sin he 
 regards as a mountain, beneath whose weight he lies 
 oppressed ? It is not that he is unmindful or unobservant 
 of God's law ; far from it ; (the last clause of the verse 
 forbids us to suppose that the petitioner is living in sin ; 
 for he says, " I do not forget thy commandments"), but 
 that being spiritually-minded he feels the taint in his 
 nature, and the infection of all his thoughts and feelings 
 by it, more acutely than others do. This is a common 
 feature of all religious biographies ; the subject of the 
 biography expresses himself in his private devotions and 
 journals almost as if he were conscious of having com- 
 mitted the worst crimes. It is only the experience of the 
 Apostle repeating itself; "I delight in the law of God 
 " after the inward man : But I see another law in my 
 " members, warring against the law of my mind, and 
 " bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is 
 " in my members. wretched man that I am !"^ And 
 as for the individuality of this confession and supplication, 
 even if the Psalmist does speak as a representative of 
 Israel, can wo cut off this or any other devotional 
 utterance of the Psalms from o. personal reference? — 
 
 *' /who have lost my way, I am that sheep astray ; 
 
 " Save me, Christ Jesu, from peril of hell, 
 ** And in the cleansing flood of Thine own precious blood 
 
 •* Wash me, that cleansed I may worship thee well."^ 
 
 ^ Rom. vii. 22, 23, 24. 
 
 ^ Translation (slightly altered) of an ancient Latin Hymn, 
 
 found in *' Neale on the Psalms," in he.
 
 CoNCLiDiNG Sermon in the Cathedral, delivered 
 
 July 18th, 1886 
 
 (Fourth Sunday apter Trinity). 
 
 €f)t xm maire of tijtmovk^ of i^atuie m tijt 
 ©Itr ana ^tb) Ct^tamentis rt^ptrtibtly* 
 
 Job xxxviii., xxxix., xl., xli. and xlii. to v. 7, with 
 St- Matt. vi. 28, 29, 30. 
 
 And why take ye thought for raiment ? 
 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; 
 they toil not, neither do they spin : And yet I 
 
 SAY UNTO YOU, ThAT EVEN SoLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY 
 WAS NOT ARRAYED LIKE ONE OF THESE. WhEREFORE, 
 
 IF God SO clothe the grass of the field, which 
 
 TO-DAY IS, AND TO-MORROW IS CAST INTO THE OVEN, 
 
 shall he not much more clothe you, ye of litixe 
 
 FAITH ? 
 
 •^^jVTXnAT is the moral and spiritual use, which the 
 <il^ Word of God makes of the "Works of Nature ? 
 "We know that the study of God's works has by no 
 means been always conducive to the interests of Heh'gion. 
 The students of Nature have too often rested in 
 secondary causes, and observing that in all the arrange- 
 ments of the Universe there is law, method, and order, 
 have failed to discern the Personal God who ordains and 
 administers the Law, works in the method, observes the 
 order. But the works of Nature 7naf/ be so studied, that the 
 
 D
 
 34 The use made of the WorU of Nature in the 
 
 largest monil and spiritual benefit shall bo gathered from 
 the study. And the method in which wo may gather 
 this profit from them will surely be indicated to us in 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 The Scriptures are divided into the Old and New 
 Testament. Kor is the division arbitrary. There is 
 between the Old and New Testament a real and designed 
 distinction of genius and spirit, at which indeed some 
 have stumbled, even as Marcion did in very early times, 
 but which, as soon as we gain a real insight into it, 
 becomes a help rather than a drawback to faith. God 
 under the Old Testament could not be exhibited exp/iciili/ 
 as a redeeming God. He could not be spoken of there, 
 except darkly and covertly, in any other character than 
 that of Creator and Supreme Governor. The idea of 
 Redemption, and everlasting consolation through grace, 
 was not to be developed until the Redeemer and the 
 Comforter came. Can we wonder that, when the idea 
 teas developed, it shed certain tints, wholly new, upon 
 the entire spiritual prospect, — just as the sun's light, 
 Avhen it breaks through clouds, gives completely new 
 features to an hitherto tame and cheerless landscape ? 
 Now this difference of spirit, which we have pointed out, 
 makes itself strongly felt in the different aspects under 
 which Nature is presented to us in the Old Testament 
 and in the New. 
 
 I. — The thirty-eighth and three following Chapters 
 of the Book of Job may be said to set forth the use which 
 the Old Testament makes of Nature, The address of the 
 Almighty to Job contained in those Chapters must 
 perhaps be pronounced the sublimest portion of that 
 sublimest of all books, — the Bible. Its subject-matters 
 are as lofty as their method of treatment. You will
 
 Old and New Testaments respect ivebj. 35 
 
 observe that the works chosen for this Divine expostulation 
 arc all the grandest works of Nature, those which bear 
 the most illustrious testimony to God's power. Each 
 blade of grass, each gem of dew, each tiniest animalcule, 
 is a perfect miniature, if we will but study it, of 
 God's Wisdom and Benevolence. But God docs not 
 here call Job's attention to blades of grass, or gems of 
 dew, or animalcules. He opens his appeal with the grand 
 scene of the foundation of the Earth, and its solemn 
 inauguration as the abode of man, and as destined to bo 
 the scene of his Redemption.^ The dawn, the sea, the 
 elements, with their changeful influences, constellations 
 with the seasons over which they preside, the rain, the 
 thunder, are next passed in review. Then come the 
 stronger and more powerful animals known to Job, 
 enumerated, observe, with a studied avoidance of the tamer 
 and more domestic creatures, — the lion springing upon 
 his prey,2 — the onagra setting at defiance all attempts 
 to secure him, and dashing, free and fleet as the wind, 
 into the wilderness,^ — the bufi'alo, (the unicorn) disdaining 
 to serve man, as the ox serves him, in the furrow,"* — the 
 ostrich towering with tall neck over the horse and his 
 rider " what time she lifteth up herself on high,"^ — the 
 warhorse, catching the ardour of the captains, and paw- 
 ing and neighing impatiently for the fray f the eagle 
 building her eyrie so high that no hand of man can pluck 
 it down;" the hippopotamus (behemoth), fed indeed on 
 vegetables, but of enormous strength, lazily stretching his 
 vast bulk in the fens and moist places f and lastly the 
 
 ^ Ch. xxxviii. I to ^. ^ Ch. xxxviii. 39, 40. 
 
 ^ Ch. xxxix. V. 5 to d. * i\ 9 to 13. ^ v. 13 to 10. 
 
 U\ 19 to 26. ■ V. 27 to the end. "^ Ch. xl. v. 15 to the end.
 
 36 The use made of the Works of Nature in the 
 
 crocodile {leviathan),^ tliat frightful monster of the deep, 
 which churns the ocean into a little tempest, and presents 
 no vulnerable point to human weapons ; — these are the 
 creatures selected as most appropriate to the purpose of 
 the Divine argument, and there can be no difficulty in 
 seeing on what principle the selection is made. The 
 common property of all these works of God, patent upon 
 the first view of them, is 2)oivcr. 
 
 And now turn to the use which the Divine Speaker 
 makes of them. David makes the same use of one of 
 them, though only of one, in that magnificent passage of 
 the Psalms; " AVhen I consider thy heavens, the work of 
 " thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast 
 '' ordained ; What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? 
 " and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"^ The 
 use is to overwhelm and crush human pride, — to convict 
 and utterly confound Job, who, though a man of 
 integrity in the main, had yet ventured to call in question 
 the Providential ways of God. The argument, which Job 
 had maintained, and even professed himself anxious to 
 carry on, with his Creator, was one, which has not even 
 yet, under our much clearer light, ceased to present diffi- 
 culties to the human understanding. It was simply this ; 
 that it is hard to reconcile God's justice and goodness 
 with the crushing calamities, which sometimes overtake 
 men of the most sterling religious integrity, and of the 
 most pious minds. Job had definitely challenged the 
 Almighty to give an account of this pha)nomenon of his 
 administration. And now observe what is the account which 
 the Almighty condescends to give. Job's difficulties lay in 
 Providence, — in the sphere of those events which befall 
 man, and which affect his happiness. His impeachment 
 
 ' Ch. xli. -Psalm viii. 3, 4.
 
 Old and New Testamenh respectively. 37 
 
 of the Lord was founded upon the supposed injustice 
 of the principle, on which good and ill fortune are admin- 
 istered. But God does not answer Job from the subject 
 of his own choosing. He turns the Patriarch's eye in 
 another quarter. Job had pointed to Providence ; God 
 points to Nature. Job had appealed to events; God 
 appeals to the works of Creation. Why is this ? For 
 the best of reasons. The Lord's purpose is to impress 
 upon Job that, through ignorance and inexperience, the 
 creature is not at all qualified to be judge of the Creator's 
 ways. lie was to be brought to this humble confession, 
 that he had been committing himself to speculations, on 
 subjects which he did not in the least understand; 
 "Therefore have I uttered that I understood not ; things 
 *' too wonderful for me, which I knew not."^ Now there 
 is no such satisfactory method of convincing a man of 
 utter ignorance and incapacity as the calling him to the 
 study of God's works, and asking an account of the most 
 obvious natural phwnomena. In that department the 
 mind of man is soon brought to a stand-still by two or three 
 simple questions. The circulation of the blood in living 
 animal bodies ^as thought to be a great discovery. But 
 had you asked the discoverer what was the cause or 
 principle of the motion called circulation, ho must have 
 answered "I do not know." To answer that the cause 
 of the motion is life, would be only dissembling instead 
 of resolving the difficulty ; for what is life ? " I do not 
 '' know." And so, because in the realm of Nature man is 
 60 easily and so palpably confounded, God calls Job away 
 to this realm from that of Providence. He says to him 
 virtually ; ''You profess to judge my ways and dealings. 
 " Now, of course, you hereby imply that you know them 
 
 ' Ch. xlii. o.
 
 38 The use made of the U^orks of Nature in the 
 
 *' thoroughly. No man is competent to be a judge, who 
 " has insufficient knowledge of the state of the case, on 
 "which he is called on to decide. A child may judge a 
 " father unkind, and unjust, for withholding from him an 
 " indulgence ; but it is clear that he must be liable to go 
 " wrong in such judgment, from ignorance and inexpe- 
 " rience of the usual effects of such indulgence. If, theu, 
 " you are qualified to judge, and call me to account, by 
 "acquaintance with my icat/s, perhaps you will prove 
 " 5"our competency by showing some acquaintance with 
 " my works. He that can follow me in Providence, which 
 "is an intricate labyrinth, can a fortiori follow 
 " me in Nature, which is not so intricate. Reply then 
 " to these simple challenges, and render me some account, 
 " as thou art so intimately acquainted with my proceed- 
 " ings, of some of my tcorks. If you understand those 
 " works, you must understand their rudiments. Doubtless 
 "you were by me, and in my confidence, when the 
 " scheme of the Universe was planned ? Tell me then 
 " what the earth rests upon ? how the dayspring is 
 "contrived? what is the secret of the vicissitude of 
 " seasons ? what is the cause generally of the most 
 " obvious natural pha3nomena ? Ilafh the rain a father ? 
 " or tcho hath begotten the drops of dew ? Out of whose 
 " womb came the ice ? and the hoary frost of heaven, 
 " tcho hath gendered it ? Nay, Job, thou art but of 
 " yesterday, and knowest nothing ; a poor ignorant 
 " creature placed in a sublime position — in the confluence 
 " of two eternities. And not ignorant only, but very feeble. 
 The tremendous agencies of Nature surround thee on all 
 sidos, and thou art at every moment in their grip, — thou 
 " art like a fly perched on some vast piece of machinery 
 " in the laboratory of a giant. Hundreds of creatures
 
 Old and Netc Testaments respectively. 39 
 
 " without reason (the lion, the behemoth, the leviathan) 
 " are strong enough utterly to despise thee ; and woe 
 "betide thee, if those creatures had but wisdom com- 
 " mensurate with their strength ! If then thou art both 
 "feeble and ignorant, thou art no judge of the All strong 
 " and the All wise." 
 
 Now, Brethren, we desire to apply to the difficulties 
 of God's Word the same argument, which He himself 
 here applies to the difficulties of His Providence. This 
 indeed would be an antidote to the rationalism of the 
 day, if those who patronise and adopt it would seriously 
 ask themselves how far they can give an account of 
 God's proceedings in Nature. They constitute themselves 
 judges of the ways of the Most High in Grace, — they 
 challenge that representation of His dealings, which is 
 made in His \Yord. That an innocent Victim should 
 expiate the sins of the guilty ; that each of us is viewed by 
 God as connected with one of two Covenant-Heads, either 
 Adam or Christ ; that the character of Judge, which 
 God inalienably possesses, must be reconciled with the 
 character of Father in the salvation of a sinner ; that the 
 body will rise again in incorruption ; that there is a 
 mysterious and ineffable Tripcrsonality in the precinct of 
 the Divine Nature ; that eternal misery awaits those who 
 deliberately reject the Gospel, — these are truths plainly 
 written in God's Word, but of which, by rejecting them 
 as inconsistent with the reason and moral sense, the 
 rationalist presumptuously challenges God to render an 
 account. And the remedy would be, no doubt, to tako 
 him into the field of Nature, and ask him whether on 
 that field he conceives himself to be a competent judge 
 of God's ways and works. Where was he when God 
 laid the foundations of the earth ? let him declare, if he
 
 40 The use made of the Works of Nature in the 
 
 has understanding. Is there a single question of science, 
 turning upon the pho^nomena of Nature, of which the 
 rationalist can give — not a superficial account, but — a 
 thoroughly exhaustive explanation ? Is there a single 
 solution of such a question, offered by the natural 
 philosopher, which has not mystery in the back ground 
 of it? Shut up the rationalist in Nature, as in a 
 labyrinth ; and can he make three steps without 
 coming to a stand -still ? And if such be his confessed 
 incapacity of judging of God's works, how shall 
 he constitute himself a judge of that more arduous 
 subject-matter, that far loftier manifestation of the 
 Divine Eeiag, Ilis Word. Had he Job's openness 
 to conviction, surely one glance around him in Nature 
 would suffice to confound him, and to draw from him 
 that confession of sinful presumption and ignorant 
 criticism ; " Who is he that hideth counsel without 
 *' knowledge ? therefore have I uttered that I understood 
 " not ; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. 
 
 '' Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in 
 
 ** dust and ashes. "^ 
 
 II. — We turn now to the use which is made of the works 
 of Nature in the New Testament. Our Lord, the Author 
 of Nature, " by whom all things were madc,"^ draws much 
 more largely upon Nature for the purpose of illustration 
 and moral teaching than his Apostles do. And it is very 
 observable that the greater number of his illustrations is 
 drawn from tbe vegetable world. The Parables of the 
 Sower, the Tares, the ^Mustard Seed, the Seed growing 
 secretly, and the Barren Fig-Tree, are all of them 
 occupied with the subject of trees and plants, and bring 
 before the mind the quiet process of growth, and the 
 
 * Chap. xlii. 3, G. ^ Kicenc Creed, and see Col. i. 10,
 
 Old and New Testaments resjKctively. 41 
 
 homely operations of Agriculture. And wlierc lie passes 
 into the animal ^Yorld, to select thence an illustration of 
 a spiritual topic, lie generally chooses the harmless 
 animals, as in the Parable of the Draw Net with its good 
 and bad fish, and of the Lost Sheep. If He speaks, as 
 He does on one occasion, of the raven, it is not to call 
 attention to the wildness or strength of the creature, but 
 to the provision which God makes for its wants, — an 
 argument this for trust in His fatherly care.^ But it is in 
 the passage which I have chosen as part of my text, that 
 the contrast between the Old Testament and the New 
 Testament use of Nature is most sharply and beautifully 
 brought out. The province of the Law, — and the 
 Old Testament rings throughout with the mut- 
 tered thunders of the Law, — was to confound 
 man with convictions of his own guilt, impotence, 
 and nothingness. The Law has done its work 
 upon us when it has dealt a death blow to our 
 pride ; when it has brought us to put our hand upon our 
 mouth, and to lay our mouth in the dust, and to say with 
 Job; " Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
 "■ ashes." To engender this state of mind in the patriarch, 
 the most formidable objects which the realm of Nature 
 supplies were, as we have seen, passed by the Almighty 
 Creator before the eye of his mind. One form of terror 
 after another passes across the field, like monsters pro- 
 jected by the magic lantern on a sheet before the eyes of 
 terrified children, — the fierce lion, the wild onagra, the 
 towering ostrich, the impetuous charger, the ravenous 
 bird of prey snuffing the carcases from afiir, the lazy 
 bulk of the vast behemoth, and the leviathan who 
 disports himself in the deep, as a congenial element for a 
 
 J 8ee St. Luke xii. 24.
 
 42 The use made of the Works of Nature in the 
 
 creature so strong and so unconquerable. One can easily 
 
 understand how human pride is confounded by this 
 
 array of all that is strong and irresistible in God's 
 
 creation. But when the Son of God came to visit our 
 
 fallen race, lie came not to confound and crush, but to 
 
 bind up the broken-hearted, and pour balm into the 
 
 wounds of man's spirit. It was not so much to kill pride 
 
 (although pride is incidentally killed by the message of 
 
 the Gospel) as to relieve sorrow that He came. And 
 
 with the great mass of mankind, whose lot is to labour, 
 
 and to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
 
 sorrow always takes the form of care. Christ seeks a 
 
 text in Nature, from which he might speak a word in 
 
 due season to the careworn anxious heart. He plucks a 
 
 bunch of lilies, such as grew wild in Palestine at that 
 
 season of the year,— brilliant red lilies, whose blossom 
 
 has something of the shape of a monarch's turban or tiara, 
 
 and holding them up before the eyes of the listening 
 
 throng, He says in words of inimitable grace and force ; 
 
 " Why take ye thought for raiment ? Consider the lilies 
 
 *' of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do 
 
 " they spin : And yet I say unto you, That even 
 
 ** Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
 
 " these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
 
 " which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, 
 
 "■ shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little 
 
 " faith ?" Job had a terrifying sermon addressed to 
 
 him by the Almighty from a strange pulpit, — '' out of 
 
 "the whirlwind."^ But here, although the Almighty is 
 
 still the Speaker, it is the Almighty in tlic form and 
 
 guiso of a plain Man, seated upon a pleasant grassy knoll 
 
 tufted with the flowers of the field, and the sermon is a 
 
 ' See Cli. xxxviii. 1.
 
 Old and Neiv Testaments respectively, 43 
 
 consolatory one, dropping like the rain, and distilling like 
 tlie dew on the hearts of the weary and heavy laden, 
 while Nature herself seems hushed to listen to the 
 Preacher's still small voice. And his theme is no more 
 the strong and the terrible and the overwhelming, but 
 the graceful, the fragrant, the attractive— no more the 
 unicorn, and the behemoth, and the leviathan, but the 
 lilies of the field. There are, I think, few more striking 
 contrasts in the Book of God. 
 
 Learn, Brethren, that the Gospel of Jesus in 
 its primary aspect is a message of reconciliation. 
 It is true, of course, — most painfully true — that the 
 Gospel has a dark back-ground of terror for those 
 who deliberately decline its offers, but this does not 
 alter or modify its essential characteristic as a message 
 of overflowing mercy and everlasting consolation. The 
 strong wind of Divine threatening, the earthquake of 
 God's judgment, the fire of His jealousy, have passed by 
 us in the Old Testament, and there now steals out upon our 
 ear, from the lips of the Incarnate God, the still small voice 
 of grace ; " Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him 
 "■ that is near, saith the Lord ; and I will heal him."^ 
 Rest in Christ,— rest of the galled conscience and of the 
 tempest-tost heart— is to be had on first coming to Him ; 
 and after we have submitted ourselves to the easy yoke 
 and light burden, which He lays upon us, the promise is 
 still rest ;— " Ye shall find rest unto your souls."^ 
 
 Shall we, then, it might bo asked, make no use, as 
 believing Christians, of those grander and more magnifi- 
 cent works of God, which the Almighty Himself alleges so 
 emphatically to the Patriarch Job ? Shall we turn away 
 from them as calculated only to convict, confound, and 
 1 Isaiah Ivii. 19. - See Matt. xi. 28, 29, 30.
 
 44 The use niade of the Works of Nature in the 
 
 terrify us ? Not so. Wc may draw them into use thus, 
 ^vithout at all impairing our appreciation of those con- 
 solatory truths which the Gospel teaches, — yea, so as to 
 give to those truths an additional force of consolation. 
 The contemplation of God's works of power, — of the 
 elements, the ocean, the constellations, the winds, the 
 strong beasts and birds of prey, — has a tendency, not 
 only to abase us in our own conceits, but to exalt our 
 conceptions of God's infinite greatness and magnificence. 
 Now let us make the reflexion that this greatness of God 
 must pervade everything that He does, — must characterize 
 all His works. This extraordinary reach of power 
 and influence must be thrown into and interpenetrate 
 all His dealings in every sphere of His operations. 
 If God declares His salvation, it must be a great 
 salvation, a salvation reaching down to the lowest 
 deep of human guilt; if lie proposes an Atonement, 
 it must be an Atonement vast in its scope, and 
 altogether sovereign in its efficacy. If He oifers us 
 a grace, it must be an invincible grace ; and if He speaks 
 to us of consolation, it must be a strong consolation. He 
 who, in the realm of Nature, made *'the painted heavens 
 *' so full of state," cannot, in the realm of Grace, do any 
 thing puny or inadequate. Are you looking somewhat 
 suspiciously at God's off*cr of forgiveness, as regards your- 
 self, feeling your sins to be of so deep a dye that they can 
 never be expunged ? Consider the ocean with its fresh 
 and restless tides. Let yonder scarlet cloth be thrown 
 into it, and committed freely to its action. How long 
 will the cloth retain the dye ? Now He who made the sea 
 to ** break forth, as if it had issued out of the womb,"^ 
 willed also that the stream of Atoning Blood should issue 
 * See Job xxxviii. 8.
 
 Old and New Testaments respective /j/. 45 
 
 forth from the five wounds of the Sacred Person of Jesus. 
 If the action of the sea be all-powerful in Nature, shall 
 not the efficacy of the Blood be much more so in Grace ? 
 Finally, Brethren, and I say it the more willingly, 
 because the time is approaching for many of us, when 
 we shall exchange the business and the noise of the city 
 for more rural scenes, live more in the devout con- 
 templation of Nature than you have yet done. Strive 
 to throw into your religious life, as principles of 
 thought and action, some of those conceptions of God, 
 which are borrowed from the consideration of His 
 works. He is a wise man, and has not a little of the 
 mind of Christ, who allows Nature to suggest to him holy 
 sentiments, and pious ejaculations, and acts of adoration 
 and praise. Our Lord spake of living water at Jacob's 
 well, and of the heavenly Sower when He saw the earthly 
 sower going forth to sow his seed, and of the Light of 
 the world when the early sun was just gilding the domes 
 and minarets of the Temple, and of the Living Bread, 
 wlien He had multiplied the loaves ;— thus everywhere 
 making Nature a parable of Grace. Pray and strive to 
 imbibe something of His spirit, so as to derive from the 
 common objects of the field, or the hill, or the shore, 
 instruction in divine things,— and, as one of your own 
 poets, and he not the least of them, has said, to 
 
 " Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 '* Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. "^ 
 
 ^ Shukspcre's " As you like it." Act II. Scene i. 
 
 PRINTED BY HENKY W. STACY, NORWICH.
 
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