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 BEINO THE SUBSTANCE OV 
 
 TWO SERMONS, 
 
 PSBACHED IN THE PARISH CHUBCH OF 
 
 STAUNTON ON WYE, 
 
 HEREFORDSHIRE, , 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE LATE INUNDATION, 
 
 BT THU 
 
 REV. H. W. PHILLOTT. M.A. 
 
 EECTOB OF STAUNTON ON WYE. 
 
 HEREFORD: 
 .PRINTED BY J. HEAD, HIGH TOWN.
 
 SERMON. 
 
 Matthew, 24th Chap. 37th Verse. 
 
 As the days of J^oe were, so shall also (he coming of 
 the Son of man be. 
 
 You can hardly wonder that I should take this 
 opportunity of speaking to you of the calamity which 
 has fallen during the last few days on some of us and 
 our neighbours. I wish to do so, in order if possible, 
 to help you in making that calamity a means of 
 awakening your consciences and helping you in the 
 way of Salvation. At once let me tell you that things 
 like this, sudden visitations, dangers to life, and des- 
 tructions of property, are specially intended by God 
 to have that effect. He intends that they should 
 awaken our consciences, and make us think of the 
 state of our souls and of another world. 
 
 The text tells us that the "coming" of the Son 
 of Man is to be like the times of Noah's flood. Under 
 the word "coming" or "presence" our Lord means to 
 speak of more than one event. The destruction oi 
 Jerusalem — this was to be one of Chiist's "comings'*
 
 and it was to be the likeness of another "coming" 
 even more fiightful still — His coming to judge the 
 world. Now observe that this great coming of Christ 
 to Judgment is to be marked with much sorrow and 
 distress among the nations. It is to be a terrible thing. 
 Not the quiet easy sort of thing which many of us 
 seem to fancy it will be : but a terrible thing full of 
 all manner of horrors ; men's hearts will fail for fear, 
 heaven and earth will be shaken, and all society torn 
 asunder. The Jewish writer who saw Jerusalem 
 destroyed, says that more than a million of persons 
 perished in the siege, besides thousands who were 
 made captives ; and so frightful were the distresses 
 which took place that the prophecy of Moses was 
 fulfilled — * "Thou shalt eat the flesh of thy sons and 
 of thy daughters, in the siege and in the straitness 
 wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee." Such 
 was the destruction of Jerusalem, one of the "comings" 
 of the Son of man, and such will be, as He tells us, 
 His second coming to judge the world. 
 
 But to hear some people talk, one would think 
 the coming of Christ to judgment would be the 
 easiest thing possible, with no more terror about it 
 than a common pay-day which comes once or twice a 
 year, and is then forgotten till the next comes. And 
 so our Lord speaks of it. He says people will go on 
 just as usual, buying, selling, marrying, building and 
 so on, till all on a sudden the day will come upon 
 
 ♦Deut. xrviii. v. 53, 57. 
 
 UIUC
 
 them, as it was in the days of Noah. Now it is very 
 true that the world will never again be destroyed by 
 a flood ; but we have daily instances of persons losing 
 their lives by water. The same storms which have 
 laid so much land under water in this County, have 
 in other parts been the means of destroying many 
 lives ; more than eighty persons have been drowned 
 by the breaking out of waters, in one place, in 
 Yorkshire. You have seen enough of the power of 
 water, to know that human life is as nothing before it. 
 You who heard the waters drawing near, who saw 
 them rising in your houses inch by inch, and foot by 
 foot, can tell what it is to be in the midst of destruc- 
 tion. You who heard the screams of fellow creatures 
 whom you could not help ; who passed that dread- 
 ful night in the most painful anxiety for yourselves, 
 your wives, your husbands, your children, your pro- 
 perty ; you, who know by experince, what it is to 
 have, as it is said, only a plank between you and eter- 
 nity, yon can tell what it is to be on the brink of ruin. 
 
 I trust, brethren, you may not soon forget that 
 terrible night : if you do, the effect which God in- 
 tends will be lost ; His lesson will be thrown away. 
 You will shew that like the Jews you know not "the 
 time of your visitation." But when the flood was 
 rising, did you think much about the danger you 
 were in? Did you not act as the people acted in 
 Noah's time ? Because you had not seen the water 
 rise so high before , you made little or no provision
 
 6 
 
 against its coining : so too the world goes on, sleeps 
 over its dangers, till the ruin comes and wakens it 
 only to death ! But brethren, I say, forget not this 
 visitation : though you are now safe, forget not that 
 it was God's hand that saved you. A few feet more, 
 and your lives, the lives of the aged and helpless, of 
 the women and children, if not your own lives, must 
 have been sacrificed: God only prevented inore 
 complete ruin. We have heard of eighty persons 
 drowned in Yorkshire — not long since we heard of 
 more than that number destroyed whether by fire or 
 water no man knows — in the midst of a burning ship in 
 a raging sea : the number of persons assembled under 
 the roof of our Village School-room on the evening af- 
 ter the flood was not much under sixty : but for God's 
 Providence all these might have been destroyed. 
 I say then, remember this occasion : men, women, 
 and children, remember it; think of it as one of the 
 great escapes of your lives, one of the times when 
 God puts you in great peril but delivers you. And 
 why did He deliver you ? Not assuredly for your 
 righteousness ; but because He loves your souls, and 
 desires to save you from a still worse destruction: 
 because he desires to give you another space for 
 repentance. How many of you would have been 
 ready to meet Him if He had called you that night? 
 Are there not some who would have been found in 
 the midst of unrepented sin ; with hearts unprepared,
 
 careless about God, without thought of Hearen or 
 Hell : some I fear fresh from committing wilful sin, 
 with hands not free from transgression, tongues not 
 pure from evil or unclean Words ; some who had not 
 kept themselves from fleshly lusts, from untruth and 
 dishonesty, but had not repented of their sin, nor 
 tried to make amends for their misconduct. I think 
 some of you will freely allow that you were not fit to 
 meet God. Do you think so still ? Will you not from 
 this time try to lead better lives, to make amends for 
 misconduct, to appease if possible, that wrath of 
 God which your sins have so justly provoked. 
 
 But how to set about this work — Begin by 
 looking back on your past lives, calling to mind, 
 naming to yourselves one by one, the sins which 
 you know you have committed. Do this honestly 
 and fully : kneel down on the ground and say to 
 yourself — at such a time I went against my con- 
 science and fell into sin ; at such a time I broke this 
 or that one of God's Commandments ; I took what 
 was not my own ; I broke the law of chastity ; I dis*- 
 honoured God's Name by evil words, and His Day 
 by neglect of public worship ; I spoke falsely and 
 slanderously of my neighbour; or, I have left off my 
 prayers, and given way to drink and excess. These 
 are the things of which God would have taken notice, 
 if He had called you away that night, and for these 
 and the like things. He will assuredly some day judge 
 you. Do not then blink the questions which I have
 
 8 
 
 advised you to put to yourselves — Do not hush them 
 up, and say the flood will not come again : but ask 
 them fairly and fully, ask God the Holy Ghost to call 
 your sins to your remembrance, one by one ; and 
 then lay them before Him. Then say iu David's 
 words — "Have mercy on me O Lord after Thy great 
 goodness, wash me throughly from my wickedness; 
 I acknowledge my faults — Against Thee only have I 
 sinned ; Cast me not away from Thy Presence and 
 take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." 
 
 Beseech God that for His dear Son's sake these 
 sins may not be reckoned against you : lay them all 
 at the feet of His Cross : He stands ready to save you 
 to the utteimost if you will only go to Him, you 
 cannot use His Holy Name too often. Cry to Him as 
 the disciples in the storm cried — *'Lord save us, we 
 perish" — or as the blind man — "Jesus have mercy on 
 me." Remember it is only for His sake God will 
 pardon you. 
 
 But let not your repentance end here : do not 
 think it will be enough to go through this once. But 
 I have good hope that one who will do this once, will 
 not be content ^^'ith once only. Above all do not 
 confess your sin, and then go forth and do the same 
 again. Pray against temptation, Pray God to keep 
 your hands, your tongue, your body, from wilful sin. 
 He will be sure to help if you will pray. Pray in 
 your own rooms and your own houses, when you 
 are at work in the fields or elsewhere. He will hear
 
 9 
 
 you whether you are kneeling by your bedside, or 
 standing over your labour, or following the plough, 
 or driving the cattle. No place comes amiss to 11 im: 
 but be sure to make some place, if pos!»il)]e, a place 
 of regular and daily prayer, and some time or times, 
 fixed and regular times. And when you pray, pray 
 heartily like drowning men calling for help, lay open 
 the innermost comers of your heart before God, con- 
 ceal nothing, deal with Him as with a loving Father, 
 yet a righteous Judge : one who desires you to re- 
 pent, but will not spare the guilty ; one who gave His 
 only Son for you on purpose to redeem you from 
 death, if you will only, before it be too late, turn to 
 Him and amend your lives in true earnest faith, and 
 and sincere persevering repentance. 
 
 Thou, O Lord, that stillest the raging of the sea, 
 hear, hear us, and save us, that we perish not. 
 
 O blessed Saviour, that didst save thy disciples 
 ready to perish in a storm, hear us, and save us, we 
 beseech Thee. 
 
 Lord, have mercy upon us, 
 Christ, have mercy upon us. 
 
 Lord, have mercy upon us, 
 O Lord, hear us. 
 
 O Christ, hear us.
 
 10 
 
 God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy- 
 Ghost, have mercy upon us, save us, now and ever- 
 more, Amen. 
 
 Ouii Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be 
 thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done 
 in earth. As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily 
 bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive 
 them that trespass against us. And lead us not into 
 temptation ; But deliver us from evil : For thine is the 
 kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. 
 Amen. 
 
 3. HEAD, PRINTER, HIGH TOWN, HBREFORD.
 
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