L THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago , I Purchased, 1918. 25-2 CTTs m >J <- ”nrr * •V ** > ■;• V v Ks. f' . r^ l, aV . ‘ . ' ^ . V' fc*:.*y ' . 4 i. > : / ' *> 4 V ■< •■ « F. ^ SERMONS \./; A PREACHED IN LINCOLN’S INN CHAPEL AND ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS. BY F. C. COOK, M.A., CHAPLAIN IN ORDINABY TO THE QUEEN, ONE OF H. M. INSPECTOES OP SCHOOLS, PREACHER TO THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OP LINCOLN’S JNN, ETC. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1863. The y-ight of Translation is reserved. t V. / - ( / / y k r Ik ■' y. L0NIX)1» • PBIMTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STKEET, AND CHASING CEOSS. <^ 11 ^ CONTENTS. * SERMON I. Trinity Sunday. “Through Him wo both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” — Ephesia7is ii. 18 .. .. .. .. ^ SERMON II. “ Prove all things.”—1 Thessalonians v. 21 SERMON III. “ Hold fast that which is good.”—1 Thessalonians v. 21 SERMON IV. The Twelve Apostles. “He called unto Him His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named Apostles .”—Luke vi. 13 SERMON V. “Matthew the Publican .”—Matthew x. 3 SERMON VI. “ Marcus my son .”—1 Peter y.1^ SERMON VII. “ Luke the beloved physician .”—Colossians xv. 14: SERMON VIII. “ The disciple whom Jesus loved.”—JbA/i xxi. 20 a 2 467819 PAGR 1 17 32 46 62 77 92 107 IV CONTENTS. SERMON IX. Preached before the University of Cambridge. St, Paul’s Character. PAGE “ So run that yc may obtain.”—1 Corinthians ix, 2A. .. .. .. 122 SERMON X. Preached before the University of Cambridge. St. Paul’s Doctrine. “ According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have.laid the foundation.”—1 Corinthians iii. 10 141 SERMON XI. preached before the University of Cambridge. St. Peter and St. Paul at Athens. “ When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.”—GaZaimTis ii. 11 .. .. ..160 SERMON XII. Inspiration op Scripture. “The Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.”—1 Peter i. 25 .. 179 SERMON XIII. Inspiration op Scripture. “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; com¬ paring spiritual things with spiritual.”—1 Corinthians ii. 12,13 ..195 SERMON XIV. Inspiration op Scripture. Thy Word is tried to the uttermost, and Thy servant loveth it.” —PsaZm cxix. 140 .. .. ., .. .. .. ,. 211 CONTENTS. V [ f SERMON XV. Eastek Sunday. “ Blessed be the' God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ac¬ cording to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”—1 Peter SERMON XVI. The Death of Ananias. “ Peter said, Ananias, Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?”— Acts v. 3 .. .. .. .. .. 241 SERMON XVII. Paul before Agrippa. “ King Agrippa said. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”— Acts xxvi. 28, 29 .. .. .. .. 254 • SERMON XVIII. Preached in the Chapel Royal, WMsor Castle. John the Baptist. “ Many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things which John sj^ake of this man were true .”—John x. 41 .. 268 SERMON XIX. Preached in the Chapel Royal, Windsor Castle. The Voice in the Wilderness. “ The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”—isafaA xl. 3-5 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 279 b VI CONTENTS. i SERMON XX. Preached in the Chapel Royal, Windsor Castle. Martha and Mary. PAGE “ Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things : hut one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”— Luke x. 41, 42 • .. 292 SERMON XXI. Preached at Westminster Abbey. Thomas the Doubter. “ Thomas answered and said unto Him, My Lord and my God! ” — Jb/m XX. 28 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 305 SERMON XXII. The Coming of the Comforter. “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.”—Jo/m xvi. 7 .. .. .. .. .. .. 320 SERMON XXIII. Christ at Emmaus. “ And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and He made as though He would have gone further. But they constrained Him, saying. Abide with us : for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them.” —Luke xxiv. 28, 29 . 333 SERMON XXIV. Preached at St. James’s, Piccadilly. No Neutrality in Religion. “ He that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth.”—Xw/ce xi. 23 .. .. .. .. 345 SERMONS. SERMON I. TRI'NITY SUNDAY. Ephesians ii. 18 . Through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father, It is from passages like this that we learn how we may most profitably contemplate the great and mys¬ terious doctrine set before us on this the crowning festival of the Christian year. The Persons of the co¬ eternal Trinity are here represented each in the aspect best calculated to make the deepest and most practical impression upon our hearts. We are here dealing with no abstractions, no speculative conjectures, hut with living, truths ; we are brought into contact with loving, acting Persons, who, in the infinite eleva¬ tion of the Godhead, concur and co-operate in the work of our salvation. Brethren, I know full well that doctrinal discussions, such as in some ages have engrossed the attention of thoughtful believers, are B Sermon I. 2 TRINITY SUNDAY. at present generally looked upon with disfavour or distrust; and although, for my own part, 1 believe that in their proper place, conducted in an earnest and reverent spirit, they are needful and salutary, needful for the establishment and defence of truth, salutary for their effects upon the religious soul; still, I doubt not that the more directly all doctrines are brought to bear upon our daily life, the more completely they are divested of a scholastic form, so much the more certainly will they produce that effect, for which all saving truth has been revealed, the con¬ version of the heart to God. And, therefore, on this day I would endeavour, with God’s blessing, so to set before you those highest of all truths, which are gathered up and involved in the doctrine of the Trinity, as to show that they are at once most prac¬ tical and spiritual; least of all obnoxious to the imputation of coldness or abstraction; such as, if a man hold them faithfully, must needs transform - his whole being, and secure his salvation, under the in¬ fluence of that Spirit by whom believers have access to the Father through the everlasting Son. One point I would have you consider before you give your attention exclusively to the doctrine itself. It is a fact not peculiar to religious investigations, though in them it is most remarkably exemplified, that the truths which present the greatest difficulties to the speculative inquirer, are precisely those which are connected with the most practical issues of exist- Sermon I. TRINITY SUNDAY. 3 ence. How or why any fact should be what it is ; what anything that exists may be in its essence; what is the very meaning of cause or effect; how unity of being or of consciousness can be compatible, or co-exist with muftiplicity of elements, and counter¬ acting forces in our constitution—these and thou¬ sands of similar and familiar questions might occupy men’s thoughts for ever, and find no possible solution. The best proof of sagacity, of that practical wisdom which is the perfection of common sense, is to ascer¬ tain, as completely as may be, what the fact is, what powers we really have, on what conditions we can act with reasonable prospect of success, and to leave the speculative inquiry untouched, save for the pur¬ pose of developing our spiritual faculties, and at seasons which may not interfere with the duties for which we live. Apply this principle to religion. You will find it a very safe rule in the interpreta¬ tion of Scripture. I mean, of course, provided that you are satisfied that you have in Scripture a reve¬ lation of Giod’s truth. In considering a narrative, an event, a positive doctrine, separate altogether the speculative difficulties, which it may suggest, from the practical duty or lesson which it points out: be as¬ sured that if you first enter upon the speculation, you will have a long, an interminable, and a most unprofitable work: begin with the latter, and you will have a clear course and a certain result; and though I say not that the speculative difficulty will B 2 4 TRINITY SUNDAY. Sermon I. be removed, yet it will be iil most cases diminished, and to a great extent it will often be cleared np; for “ then shall ye know if ye follow on to know the Lord.” The fact is, that obedience to the will of God, combined with contemplation of the positive truth which He reveals, raises a man into a higher sphere ; it takes him out of himself; it removes those hindrances which after all are the worst and most powerful, hav¬ ing their origin in our carnal and selfish nature. It gives him access to the Father, it keeps him in union with the Son, it is at once a test of the in¬ dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the surest means of preserving and increasing divine grace. Ask, then, what Scripture says touching the Godhead; ask what it teaches concerning the oneness of God; ask what it inculcates with regard to the personality and divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; ask and search, examine well and carefully the texts, which teach those truths; for they are de¬ clared in terms which are meant to be comprehended ; they are revealed because they are needful to salvation. But, if you withhold your adhesion to the truths, or refrain from acts of dutiful submission by which their benefits can alone be secured, until the how and the why of the mystery be cleared up, until it can be shown how plurality of Persons can co-exist with absolute unity of essence, your conduct will be that of one who disregards at once the limita¬ tions of human thought, and the conditions on which Sermon I. TRINITY SUNDAY. 5 all actions in life depend. How, being body and soul, you are severally one man ; how, surrounded by myriads of agencies acting necessarily upon your inner and outer being, swayed to and fro by con¬ flicting influences, you are still conscious of an inward spontaneity of will and choice; these are problems which you have long since abandoned to the schools : but it would not be a whit more unreasonable to cease to act until you had resolved them, to sur¬ render, yourselves unresistingly to the current of events, or to be absolutely sceptical as to the very existence of the universe, than it is to repudiate any truth of revelation, or to neglect any duty which it enjoins, because you are incapable of ascertaining the ultimate principles on which it rests, or of ex¬ plaining the speculative contradictions which it seems to involve. Fix now your thoughts calmly, devoutly, reverently on the Scriptural representation of the Divine Being. Does not this strike you at once ? God as Father, God as Son, God as Holy Spirit, is removed alto¬ gether out of the region of abstraction. The God of Philosophy, the God of so-called Natural Eeligion, presents himself to our minds under a form, or, to speak more truly, an absence of form, which can only be expressed by negations. Infinite, unchangeable, ineffable, absolute, passionless, inconceivable, incom¬ prehensible, such are the terms in which the creature declares, not his conception, but the impossibility of 6 TRINITY SUNDAY. Sermon I. conceiving the originating and sustaining cause of. existence."^ Light without shadow, glory without form, blessedness without aught to which we can attach the idea of feeling, love without the recipro¬ cations and responses in which our hearts tell us its very essence is found—not such is the light in which our God reveals Himself to the adoring mind in Holy Writ. We gaze upon the great white throne, overarched by the emerald rainbow in which its splendours are refracted, surrounded by glorious and saintly forms, and the one great thought which absorbs all other thoughts is the living Personality of its occupancy. We acquire, as we reflect upon the truths, which are disclosed to us concerning that Personality, a vivid apprehension, something, if we may venture to use such a word, resembling a know¬ ledge of that principle in which St. John sums up all that can be known of the Godhead, the principle that His very essence is love—love in no vague, mystic, abstract mode of being or of manifestation; but living, acting, ever going forth, ever reflected and reciprocated; the love of a Father full of inefiable tenderness and complacency; the love of a Son in its sweet dependency and willing, grateful subordination ; the love of a Being whose blessedness is wholly found in Its union, in Its absolute identification of Its own consciousness, wishes, powers, and aspirations with * See Munk’s note on Maimonides, ‘ Le Guide des Egards,’ i. j). 238. One great object of that remarkable treatise is to prove that no positive attributes can be predicated of the Deity. Sermon I. TRINITY SUNDAY. 7 the central principle of Its existence. We compre¬ hend, as no other representation even affects to help us to comprehend, how the self-existent, infinite Godhead has in Himself a perfect and all-sufficing blessedness, when we contemplate Him, as He hath graciously made Himself known, in this completeness of personal relationship. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And, brethren, I say it boldly, of alJ sub¬ jects which you can possibly contemplate, this is at once the most elevating and the most practical. Consider what it teaches us concerning the principle upon which depends every act which has in it the faintest shadow of goodness, what it teaches you con¬ cerning the love which is the motive of all your own labours; the love which unites you to your children, which attaches you to your parents, or makes their memory precious to you now, the love which flows ever in an unintermitting current between your hearts and those of your beloved ones. Does it not teach us that love is no mere result of organiza¬ tion, no mere play of the unconscious forces of nature, no mere delusion of the heated imagination, of earthly origin, and like its origin mean, selfish, and perishable ? No ;' from the truth of the Holy Trinity we learn as we can learn from no other source of knowledge, that love in the creature is a re¬ flection of the light, a particle of the power, iden¬ tical in essence with that principle, which is the very secret of the being and blessedness of God. Just in proportion as a man’s love is pure, unselfish, com- 8 TRINITY SUNDAY. Sekmon I. plete, and strong, it makes him godlike, identifies him with the Son, in whom he has access to the Father, makes him obedient to the inward motions and drawings of His Spirit, makes him conscious of reconcilement and union with the God of Love. Is not this practical ? Is not this a reason why such a mystery should have been made known; intimated, it may be dimly, in the first record of creation; shadowed forth in manifold type and form even in the fabric of creation ; represented in the very frame¬ work and constitution of our own scarcely less myste¬ rious nature, in the unity of its complex organization ; revealed not in abstract doctrinal terms, hut in a form which addresses itself with equal force and distinctness to the heart and conscience of every living, feeling man, in the form of fatherly love, of filial affection, of the interpenetration of spiritual subsistences, whose unity and communion consist and are made perfect in love ? Brethren, we know this also, for it is a simple and positive fact, no mere theory, but a fact attested by every page of history, attested by our own inner consciousness, a soul becomes like the object which it contemplates; that is an universal law of our being ; the process of assimilation is inevitable: false representations of the Godhead are inseparable from debasing and brutalizing habits. Man becomes cold, dead, heartless, when the Deity is lost to his gaze in the materialism of physical agencies, or in the abstractions of metaphysics. But gaze upon God as Sermon I. TKINITY SUNDAY. 9 your Father, gaze upon Him in tlie Person of the Son, gaze upon Him in the flowings and emotions of the Spirit of holiness, joy, and love, and it is impos¬ sible hut that your own motive principle of life and action should be strengthened and purified. “ Be¬ holding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, ye must be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Every truth of religion, every devout practice, all means of grace, have each and all their separate work; each and all will contribute to the development of your spiritual being ; but the great truth, which finds its full ex¬ pression in that great word Trinity, inscribed upon the banner of the Church of God, the word which sums up the utterances of the adoring Seraphim,— Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,”—that truth contains all truths, involves all duties and assures all graces, so far as it is received and appro¬ priated by the believing heart. These considerations can surely not be deemed insufficient to prove the practical character of the doctrine : but they are not all. St. Paul in this text, which does but state concisely the purport of all the teaching of Christ and His Apostles, sets forth the truth in another light, calculated perhaps even more directly to affect our conscience. The Persons of the Holy Trinity are here represented not only in their mutual relationship and unity, but in their relations to ourselves. Many here present are aware liow actively the human mind has ever been engaged 10 TEINITY SUNDAY. Sermon I. in the vain endeavour to conceive or represent the relation between the universe'and God. All great systems of thought have had one principal object, to reconcile the existence of nature with the exist¬ ence of the Deity, to show the possibility of union between the Absolute and his rational creatures: and in that object who can deny that the result of speculation has been one universal failure ? The revelation which makes God known in the Son and by the Spirit, alone gives an answer which satisfies the reason and the heart, and in this singular triumph most conclusively vindicates its divine origin. God the Father does not confine the love, the mighty, all embracing love, which that name expresses, to the sphere of His own Being. He sends it forth, in circles ever expand¬ ing until it reaches every creature capable of re¬ sponding to its emotions. God the Father knows every living soul even with a Father’s love. We might rest in that assurance: it was sufficient for the hearts of saints under the elder dispensation. But we have more ; we have that which completes the revelation, and explains the mystery. God the Son in the Incarnation, no one isolated act, but perpetually renewed in its effects, has taken our nature unto Himself, made it one with Himself, one with His Godhead in eternal union. I do not believe that any assurance of restoration or for¬ giveness could satisfy a soul conscious of its inward Sermon I. TEINITY SUNDAY. 11 apostasy, its sinfulness and degradation, short of this—that Christ the Son of God claims it as His own, envelopes it in His own holiness, purifies it by His own atoning sacrifice, unites it with Himself in regeneration, and gives it access to the Father through His own Being. Were it not so, and were any other access possible, I could well conceive the objection that the Christian revelation goes beyond the wants and is unsuited to the nature of man. ♦ Receive this as a truth; you will find the effects at once upon your lives, you will have the wit¬ ness in your heart. Whenever you ‘think with grief of your darkness, of your forgetfulness of God, when you think with yearning of your separa¬ tion from Him, think then of the Son, think of Him who is not ashamed to call you brother. Think of Him, you who are working, toiling, struggling, think of Him, you who are weary and well nigh worn out by suffering, think of Him, you who are alone with aching hearts, think of Him, you whose conscience is burdened with the weight of past sins and present sinfulness, think of the Son of God, to whom every trial of our humanity is known, who opens to each and all free access even to His Father’s heart. Is this too much, too high, too abstruse ? Surely at some moments in your life even this great thought has come to you; the want must have been felt; has not even the hope been realized ? In grief or in joy, in the recoil 12 TRINITY SUNDAY. Sermon 1. 1 . of the soul from siu or darkness, in reflections upon the felt capacities of your being, and the emptiness of all by which the longing for better things has been stilled for a while and cheated, you have, I doubt not, even the coldest among you, heard in the inner chamber of your heart a voice whispering Abba, Father, bidding you look up with hope and love, speaking of forgiveness and acceptance. It was the voice of God : it was the Spirit of the Son whom God sent into your hearts, by whom He calls us now. The access to the Father is open through the Son, and in the Spirit. In the Spirit: what a great word is that too, brethren! God comes into contact with man not only by the putting forth of His power, or* even by an influence working upon his heart, but by the Personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Man is brought into contact with God not merely by the convictions of his under¬ standing, or even by the aspirations of his longing soul, but in the Spirit, encompassed and upborne by the Deity. Not that man loses thereby his freedom of action or of will: where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the only liberty. What is true freedom ? Does it not consist in the cheerful con¬ currence of the will with the laws of our being, and in the power of acting in harmony v/ith the dictates of that will when so concurring? We are slaves so far as we struggle against eternal principles, so far as we are hindered by our own evil passions Sermon I. TKINITY SUNDAY. 13 from adopting them as oiir rule of life. The Spirit of God by His presence gives that freedom. He makes us true to ourselves. Every figure under which His action is represented in Scripture implies not subjection, not destruction, so far as regards the true substance of our human nature, but liberation and restoration. As the rushing wind carries away all miasmas and impurities of the atmosphere, as the refining fire, while it purges away the dross, leaves the pure metal in the integrity of its substance, clear and bright until it reflects like a mirror the rays of light, so the Spirit of God acts upon the heart. Under His influence man becomes not another, but his own true self: the inner man, which is the true living form of our personal existence, is restored to conscious integrity, and. reflects perfectly the light by which it lives. Every pure and kindly affection is strengthened; the heart becomes at once firmer and more gentle, more susceptible to tender emo¬ tions, more tenacious in retaining them, impervious to base affections, just in proportion as it feels itself drawn near and daily nearer to God, surrenders itself to His love, and realizes in faith those mighty truths which are involved in the revelation of the Godhead as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one in essence, one in love, one in the will by which salvation is made possible to all who in the Spirit have access to the Father through the Son. No man can deny that if this doctrine be true, it is 14 • TPJNllT SUNDAY. Sermon I. sufficiently practical. Remember that if it be not true, Christianity is gone. The doctrine may indeed be stated too often in abstruse terms, in forms obsolete or unfamiliar to modern thought. But we are not dealing with terms, with forms, but with facts. The Father is Grod, God as Father, therefore not alone in majestic isolation : that is a fact, equally intelligible to the man and to the child. The Son is God, God of God : that is a fact, or our hope of salvation rests upon a creature ; every act of worship addressed to Him is but idolatry. The Holy Ghost is God : that is a fact, or we should be taught that a created being could search the infinite Godhead. Yet not three Gods, but one God: that is a fact, or we should be, after all, but polytheists; fallen into the most subtle heresy which hath ever bewildered the mind of man. The how and the why, the mode and meaning of the mys¬ tery, we do not profess to comprehend; but the facts we hold fast, as facts declared by Holy Writ, attested by our own consciousness, recognised by the universal Church. Whether this be or be not the teaching of Scripture it is undoubtedly your duty to ascertain. One fact you may easily ascertain. I hold it to be con¬ clusive. The creeds of the Church are all implicitly contained in that saying of our Lord in which He sealed the charter of the Church : ‘‘ Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” That one text will suffice for your conviction if you will but consider Sermon I. TEINITY SUNDAY. 15 all that it involves. Nor, once convinced as to the practical character of this truth, as to the clearness of the statements in which it is substantially declared, do I apprehend that any of us will entertain any doubt as to the necessity of retaining it whole and undefiled.” AYe shall indeed be very careful not to apply to any of our brethren those anathemas in which the Church of former ages deemed it needful to denounce wilful perversion of God’s truth. We are not likely indeed to fall into the excess of intole¬ rance. AYe know, most of us probably from our own experience, that the will and reason of man are little likely to be deterred by menaces from inquiry or speculation. We have more difficulty in making allowance for the fervour of zeal, for intensity of convictions, than for errors of presumption; but in our own case, in dealing with our own hearts, in ex¬ amining our own convictions^ let us beware. The light shines on us. The truth is made known ; we may be sure that if made known, it was because it is needful, indispensable to our salvation. To keep it whole and undefiled, to hold it steadfastly, is the simplest and plainest of all duties : and although I would disparage no form of truth, no precept or doc¬ trine proposed to us for our obedience or acceptance, assuredly no truth can be compared for majesty and importance, for its bearings upon our hearts and affections, our condition here and our prospects in eternity, with that which makes known to us the 16 TRINITY SUNDAY. Sermon I. nature and Personality of our God. That truth is de¬ clared in every part and portion of our religious services: we offer scarcely one prayer in which it is not distinctly asserted, none in which it is not impli¬ citly assumed: no act of the Christian life but is based upon its acceptance. You cannot come before the throne of Grace but in the name of the Son, through whom alone you feel that you can claim an access to the Father: you cannot breathe one inward supplication save so far as you are moved by the Spirit, who intercedeth within you in groanings that cannot he uttered. The infinite capacity of your being will be filled, the yearnings of your heart will he satisfied, just so far as you realise what is thus pre¬ sented to your spirit; and though, as we may well believe, no created intelligence may ever comprehend that mystery, upon which its gaze will be fixed throughout the blessedness of eternity, the mighty realities themselves will become clearer and more dis¬ tinct. Even here^ as you fix your thoughts upon the Throne, you will discern in the midst of its ineffable brightness the form of the Lamb, and the manifesta¬ tions of the Spirit, by whose power acting upon your being you will be enabled to join in the jubilant hymn of the Church in heaven—Blessing, and honour, and power, and glory he unto Him that sitteth on the Throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.’* Srrmon IJ. PROVE ALL THINGS. 17 SERMON 11. 1 Thessalonians V. 21 . Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. When St. Paul addressed this, the earliest of his epistles, to the Thessalonians, they were in a condi¬ tion which presents some very striking points of re¬ semblance to that of our own Church at the present time. There was no deficiency of spiritual life in that community. The Apostle declares at once his thankfulness to God, while in his unceasing prayers on their behalf he remembers their work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” The sincerity and earnestness of their zeal were testified by perseverance under heavy trials, and by abundant works of piety and love. The word of God, as the Apostle declares, not only sounded out from them in the adjoining regions of Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place their faith to God-ward was spread abroad. That Church in fact appears to have been equalled by few, and surpassed by none, in the variety and excellence of spiritual gifts. At the same time it was beset by temptations, which in all ages have imperilled the faith, but which we 0 18 PKOVE ALL raiNGS. i Sermon II. should scarcely have expected to find so prevalent in churches founded hy the Apostles, and under their immediate government. We read of interpre¬ tations of Scripture unwarranted by Apostolical teach¬ ing, unfounded pretensions to prophetic foresight and spiritual discernment, anticipations of a speedy and visible advent of Christ. We find that novelties of doctrine and practice were rife among them, with their natural results—restlessness, anxiety, and doubt. On the one hand we hear of a credulity which accepted innovations without inquiry, on the other of an over¬ cautious and sceptical spirit, with a tendency to quench the light of'truth, and to reject with contempt all effusions of the prophetic spirit then abiding and manifested in the Church. These were the evils and dangers which attracted the attention of St. Paul, and with reference to which he lays down this rule—Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” As to the general application of the' description at present, as to the need and practical utility of that rule, no thoughtful observer of our own times is likely to raise a question. For my own part I belieye that there never was a time since the first preaching of Christianity when spiritual religion had more influence over individuals, or penetrated more thoroughly into the family life. I do not believe that the Bible was ever read so generally, or with more earnest devotion, that the spirit of prayer was Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 19 ever poured out more abundantly, or that the signs and manifestations of the hidden life were ever more numerous and unmistakeable. If the multiplication of our churches at home, the extension of our mis¬ sions abroad, increasing care for the poor in their temporal and spiritual destitution, loving exertions in behalf of Christ’s little ones, fail to produce and justify such a conviction, I know not what proofs could satisfy any man that the Spirit of Christ dwells and works with power in our own National Church. But certainly not less obvious are the symptoms of each and all the evils which assumed so formidable _ ♦ _ an aspect among the Thessalonians. Who can doubt that restlessness is the very special characteristic of our own time ? Who can deny that novelties in prac¬ tice, in doctrine, in exposition of Holy Scripture, in applications of prophecy, are obtruded upon us daily, from the most opposite quarters, with un¬ wearied importunity and with most serious detri¬ ment to unstable spirits ? Who can doubt that solemn, time-honoured observances, institutions, and beliefs founded on God’s word, handed down to us by wise and faithful forefathers, bound up with the national life, the strength and sustenance of our religious existence, are, if not imperilled, yet unceas¬ ingly assailed ? There certainly never was a time when unbelief pointed the finger of scorn more triumphantly at the divisions, the doubts, and the perplexities of Christians, or when on the other hand c 2 20 PEOVE ALL THINGS. Sermon II. superstition threatened us more alarmingly with a relapse into some of the worst errors of the darkest and dreariest periods of the Church’s history. Never was a time when it was more needful that English Churchmen should exert that calm, strong, solid good sense which has hitherto been their charac¬ teristic excellence, leading them on the one side to reject all unfounded pretensions, all fanatical delu¬ sions ; on the other to adhere steadily to truths based on the only “ foundation of fundamentals ”—the Word of God. Never was a time when it was more urgent that this plain practical rule of St. Paul should he accepted and applied—“ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” This morning I propose to confine our attention to the first part of the rule, “ Prove all things ; ” the remaining words will form the subject of a future discourse. May the Spirit of Christ keep our minds free from all prepossessions which may pervert our judgment, and open our hearts to all truths which may conduce to the enlightenment of our conscience and our growth in charity and faith. The word which is rendered ‘‘ prove ” in our translation has in the original a very definite and. forcible signification. It was used originally in reference to the work of the assayer of gold and other precious metals, whose duty it was to ascertain the value of ore dug up in mines, to test coins, to reject and mark all spurious imitations, and to deter- Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 21 mine to wliat extent any specimens presented for purchase might be alloyed with meaner metals. The term was also applied more generally to the examination to which, in most ancient polities, can¬ didates for places of privilege or emolument were subjected. The writers of the New Testament appear to have had the former application in their minds, partly as being familiar with the process, to which reference is frequently made in the Bible, and partly because they were deeply impressed by those pro¬ phecies in which the presence of Christ is compared to a refiner’s fire, as for instance that of Malachi, He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver : and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver.” The Christian is bidden to employ the same caution, to exercise the same discernment, before he admits any statement professing to be God’s truth, before he submits to any ordinance claiming to be God’s law. His vigilance must be the more earnest, his inquiries the more careful and anxious, since no falsehood can be received into the mind which does not impair or corrupt some spi¬ ritual faculty; no unscriptural practice, whether of devotional observance or moral obligation, can be adopted without detriment to the whole nature of man. The duty of inquiry would seem too clear to need enforcement, yet as a simple matter of fact it is undeniable that no duty is more frequently 22 PROVE ALL THINGS. Sermon II. I neglected, and that not merely by thoughtless and indolent persons, but by those who, in matters of very subordinate interest, even of mere curiosity and taste, are keen and diligent reasoners, above all things resentful of imposture, and careful to distin¬ guish between truth and its imitations. Proving all other points so diligently and so successfully, why take so little pains to prove those upon which, to say the very least, peace of conscience and the decision in innumerable cases of moral conduct depend ? One point ought to be regarded as settled. If there be any one object for which reason was given to man in a special and exclusive sense, it was to enable him to discern between right and wrong in moral and spi¬ ritual questions. It was in the possession of that faculty and in its direction to that object that the greatest and, it must be admitted, the severest and most dispassionate thinker of antiquity held that man differed specifically from creatures approaching to him most closely in physical organization. Such, too, is the conclusion of those, who have inquired most closely into this subject of late, on physiological grounds alone, without reference to revelation. Man is essentially a religious creature, with a conscience open to religious impressions, with a mind capable of apprehending religious truth. If he fail to exer¬ cise the faculties which are his inalienable endow¬ ments, it must either be because of moral obliquity, a case which may for the present be left untouched. Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 23 or because he doubts as to the probability of attain¬ ing to a clear and complete result. Wliat we may therefore inquire is, whether God has not only given us the faculty, but whether He has supplied the con¬ ditions under which it may be profitably exercised: in other words, whether we have a touchstone, a rule by which we may test all claims, a light to inform our conscience and guide our understanding, and, in disputed points of essential importance, an accessible and final court of appeal. One answer to that question is of course at once given : St. Paul assumes and thereby assures us of the existence of such a test, or he would never have given that injunction to the Church. But it may be said the converts whom he ad¬ dressed were in different circumstances from us. They knew that they were to try all new claims by the word of God preached to them by an Apostle, and in doubtful points they could appeal to him for a decision. That is true; but the power of making such an appeal belonged to a period of transition. A personal appeal was needed then, when as yet the epistle which they had before them was probably the only written document possessed by the Church. That was not intended to be the permanent condition of the Church. The great object of the Apostles was to teach converts to rely not on the authority of man, but on the guidance of the Spirit, to search the Scriptures for 24 PROVE ALL THINGS. Sermon II. themselves, and thus to grow up into a perfect man, “ having their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” As for ourselves, we have all the teach¬ ing of Christ and His Apostles in a perfect form, all the utterances of the Holy Ghost recorded for our edification open to us for daily consultation, always at hand, and let me say it out boldly, on all fundamental points, on all that regards essentials, unambiguous and clear. Of course those who doubt the authority or inspiration of Holy Writ have no such test; those who question its sufficiency cannot of course apply it with confidence. But it may he said without any breach of charity, so long as they remain in that state of mind they have little to do with questions which, interesting as they may be to believers, are to them of secondary and subordinate importance. They have a pre¬ liminary work to do. They have first to satisfy themselves whether the Son of God came down from Heaven to teach man; whether the Spirit of God has recorded the substance of His teaching: they have to make up their minds whether they accept His Word, before they are entitled, before indeed they are able, to enter into the further in¬ quiry whether any statement, and more especially whether any novel statement, regarding what should be done, or what should be believed, be or be not in accordance with His will. But as for us, who are satisfied upon those points, let us Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 25 not doubt that Christ has supplied us with an un¬ erring rule, and that He bestows all needful aid for its application, when with faith and prayer, and humble reliance upon His Spirit, we inquire whether any doctrines or systems proposed for our accept¬ ance are mere human inventions, devices of the enemy, or whether they have the awful sanction of His Word. But has this rule no limit in its application ? Is no doctrine, no observance, no system independent of this test ? It may seem to be a strong assertion, but if we listen to the Christian Fathers of the first four centuries, if we are influenced by the authority and accept the most positive statements of our own Church, we shall answer without hesitation, cer¬ tainly not 1 If there be any one point on which there is an absolute and universal uniformity of opinion among the early Fathers, whatever in other matters might be their diversity of tendencies, it is upon this, that Holy Scripture is for those who submit to its teaching a safe, a perfect and sufficient guide, that nothing unsupported by its authority has a claim to be believed, and that by it alone all con¬ troversies should be tried and decided. Any one who may wish to satisfy himself as to the accuracy of this statement may do well to refer to the long list of quotations in the work of Archbishop Cran- mer entitled ‘A Confutation of Unwritten Yerities.’ That list has since been greatly extended by later 26 PROVE ALL THINGS. Sermon II. 1 . divines; it might indeed be extended until it in¬ cluded the great hulk of the genuine Patristic theology; while not one passage which, rightly understood, contravenes the principles, can be ad¬ duced from any writer of weight for several cen¬ turies. The point is of immense importance. It had the greatest effect upon the minds of our Reformers, whose reverence for Christian antiquity was second only to their reverence for God’s Word. Some present may perhaps be interested in hearing two or three passages in which those Fathers who are the recognized representatives of the early Church express not their own view, hut that of all their fellow believers. These are the words of Irenaeus, whose earliest teacher had been himself a hearer of the Apostles:—We follow God as our teacher, and have His Word as the rule of truth and again—We know the truth of salvation which we received from those who delivered to us the Gospel, which they preached then and afterwards by the will of God delivered to us in the Scripture, to be the foundation and pillar of our faithr Take again these words of two most remarkable men of the following century, Hippolytus and Origen :—“ Whosoever of us would exercise our¬ selves in piety towards God cannot learn from any other source than from the oracles of God. What¬ soever things therefore the Holy Scriptures declare let us know; and whatsoever things they teach let Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 27 us lean] : and as the Father will he believed, so let us believe : and as He wills the Son to be glorified, so let us glorify Him: and as He wills the Holy Ghost to be given, so let us receive It. Not accord¬ ing to our own will, nor our own mind, but as God by the Holy Scriptures has vouchsafed to teach us, so let us understand.” And again, “ If there remaineth any thing which the Holy Scripture doth not determine, there is no other third Scrip¬ ture which ought to be received as an authorita¬ tive source of knowledge.” These words too are remarkable as being addressed not to controver¬ sialists, but to young persons under instruction, and that by a Father often claimed as an upholder of unwritten traditions, Cyril of Jerusalem:—“Nothing at all ought to be delivered concerning the divine and holy mysteries of faith without the Holy Scrip¬ tures: nor ought you to believe me who say these things to you unless you take the demonstration of what I declare out of the Holy Scriptures^ Con¬ stantine therefore at the Council of Nicsca did but give expression to the deepest and most vital con¬ viction of the whole Christian Church when he said to the assembled representatives of Christen¬ dom— “The books of the Evangelists and the Apostles, and the divine oracles of the ancient Prophets, do clearly teach us whatsoever we are to believe concerning God. Let us then take the solution of all controverted points from the words 28 PEOVE ALL THINGS. Sermon II. L given by inspiration of God, accounting nothing with certainty as an article of faitb but wbat may be proved from thence.” Is it necessary to confirm this by the authority of our own Church, resting as she does altogether upon the one foundation of the truth delivered once, and once for all, to the Saints ? Let me but remind you of what she teaches concerning the , Creeds. The Creeds, those venerable heirlooms of the Church, those precious depositories of sacred truth, those solemn expressions of the mind of Christendom, those forms by which the convictions of the vast majority of believers are unquestionably moulded, by which from the earliest ages they have been guided and sustained—even these are to be received, according to the deliberate judgment of our Church, not because they have been accepted by generations of believers, not because they were set forth by the supreme authority of General Councils, but simply and entirely because they may be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Writ. If any English Churchmen seek for a different rule, a surer or a clearer test, a safer resting-place from doubt and perplexity, they will seek in vain : none other was recognised by early Christendom; none other is sanc¬ tioned by the only authority for which we profess to feel any reverence ; none other is intimated or permitted by the Apostles, or by their Master the Lord Jesus Christ, who made His Church, the house Sermon IT. PROVE ALL THINGS. 29 of the living God, the pillar and ground of the faith, when He filled her with His Spirit, and in¬ formed her with His Word. Having then a perfect test, we must be vigilant in its use, and above all things careful to keep our hearts and minds in such a state as may preserve us from error in its application. As for your Creeds, as for all cardinal truths which you have already received, you test them calmly, without doubt, with¬ out anxiety, even as, when called upon, you might submit to the scrutiny of inquirers any precious jewels, or title deeds, which you had previously ascertained to be genuine and valid. You do not shrink from the severest investigation, for you know well, as you have repeatedly found, that the more closely you bring those Creeds, all those points of faith, into contact with God's Word, the brighter is their lustre, the more entire and trustful is the con¬ viction that they faithfully express the mind of the Spirit. Even so closely are you ]3ound to test principles^ doctrines proposed to you for acceptance, which if once accepted will give a new direction to your lives, change it may be the whole current of your feelings, and affect your relations here, your eternal destinies hereafter. Prove then all things, whether they claim your adherence as legitimate developments of old truths, or as discoveries made by new inquiry into Holy Scripture, or as practices which have a right to general acceptance, whether 30 PROVE ALL THINGS. Sermon IT. L because of the authority on which they are com¬ mended, or because of their asserted adaptation to the nature and wants of men; prove them, prove them candidly, honestly, reverently, but prove them diligently, as you care for the integrity of the faith, as you would preserve the deposit handed down to you by your forefathers, as you would stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. I may not, however, conclude without one word as to the conditions of success. You have a test; you have the natural faculty for applying it; see well that you have the supernatural aid without which the test will be useless, the faculty itself unavailing. Brethren, be assured of this: the spirit which leads to the discovery of Christian truth, which creates the spiritual instinct, whereby the presence of un- Christian error is detected, is no mere intellectual power or influence; it is one in its essence, but manifold in its manifestations; and of all its mani¬ festations the^ most perfect and unmistakeable are those which pertain to our moral and spiritual being. If the spirit within you be a spirit of light, it must be a spirit of life, a spirit of prayer. Do you pray ? Prayer is the breath of the Christian life. When prayer ceases, the Spirit ceases to inform, to guide the soul. If the habit and power of prayer be alto¬ gether lost, with it is lost the faculty of discerning spiritual truths. Before you attempt to prove aught else, before you entertain any questions as to the Sermon II. PROVE ALL THINGS. 31 nature or extent of inspiration, the meaning and bearing of Christian doctrines, prove your own selves, whether you pray with the spirit, whether your life is pure, whether your hearts are clean, whether your motives are unselfish, whether your words are truthful, whether you are striving to live in conformity with Christ’s law. Grod’s truth does not come to you as a suppliant craving for a con¬ descending recognition'—it comes demanding the entire submission of your hearts; and it will only make itself known in its grace and fulness of beauty and power when it finds those hearts prepared for its reception. It is no little thing to he raised out of darkness, to have a guide through life, a blessed hope for ourselves and our beloved ones: it is no little thing to be saved from the misery of con¬ flicting feelings, the agony of suspense, the slavery of superstition, the blank horror of loneliness in a world distenanted of its God, to stand erect with open eyes in the presence of the God of Spirits, conscious of His love : it is no little thing to have a sure test, to have the power and the right to prove all things upon which salvation depends ; and be assured that treasury of blessings cannot be ours unless we yield ourselves willingly, freely, unreservedly to Him whose will it is that we shall be sanctified as well as enlightened by His truth. 32 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. i SERMON III. 1 Thessalonians V. 21. Hold fast that which is good. It is strange how in times of restlessness and excite¬ ment propositions the most obvious and practical, so obvious that they may be almost called trite, so prac¬ tical as to be indispensable for moral conduct, are called into question, and need to be defended by argument. Strange, however, as this may be, it is attended by great though unsought advantages. At¬ tention is thus drawn to the grounds on which truths rest and are maintained; they can no more be pas¬ sively received, or when received left as lumber in the dusty receptacles of memory; their lustre is brought out, their force recognized, and together with the moral obligation of examining them, their manifold bearings upon our inner consciousness and outward acts are more clearly discerned. Last Sun¬ day the consideration of St. Paul’s injunction to prove all things led us to deal with the questions whether God has given us the faculty of distinguish¬ ing truth from falsehood in spiritual matters, and has supplied us with a test in the inquiry; and briefly Sermon ITT. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 33 and inadequately as those points were discussed, some facts were, perhaps, alleged, some practical suggestions offered, which, known as they may have been to many, and within the reach of all, may have thrown some light upon an important subject, and served at least (to use St. Peter’s words) to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.” This morning I have to bring under your consideration the correlative precept, Hold fast that which is good; ” a precept so clear as to need no illustration, so obviously binding upon the conscience that, how¬ ever the obligation may be eluded, it cannot possibly be denied. Still the necessity of inquiring into the bearings of this simple precept, and into the causes which lead to its neglect, will scarcely be questioned if we give even cursory attention to the symptoms of our own times. The want of steadfastness in retain¬ ing truth, in upholding what is right and good, is, to say the least, quite as common a fault as that of want of care and diligence in discovering or ascertaining it. The two faults are indeed not uncommonly found in combination. A superficial or arrogant mind which deals lightly with the evidence of truth, shows equal levity and indifference in parting with that truth which it seems to receive. We see men con¬ tinually who have passed through various forms of re¬ ligious speculation, and even of religious practice, in each form coming into direct contact with some great truth, some great moral or spiritual duties, and who 34 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sekmon HI. l. appeared for the time to have apprehended them,—if distinguished from those among whom they cast in their lot, distinguished chiefly by forwardness and zeal in outward observance and vehemence of asser¬ tion ; and it is among them that we see the strongest instances of backsliding, among them we find most callousness to truths which passed through them, but do not abide in them. If there be in your own social circle any one person especially remarkable for aver¬ sion to the fundamental doctrines of revealed religion, to its moral and spiritual obligations, to its outward forms, and inner workings; if there be one whose sneer is peculiarly painful, cavils most disingenuous and insulting, the chances are that he is one who has known himself somewhat of ‘Hhe powers of the world to come,” been conversant, to a certain extent, with holy things, curious in speculation, and over¬ bearing in argument, who has touched that which is good, but has failed to hold it fast. Nor do I doubt that in looking into our own conscience, our own past and actual condition, most of us wdll find that, although we may have been mercifully preserved from the last consequences, the final obtuseness and deadness which follow the rejection of what is good, still in some form or other, in some degree more or less painful, we have suffered detriment and incurred fearful peril from such a tendency. What we have proved we have not always retained; what we have discovered we have too often allowed to remain dor- Sermon ITT. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 35 mant, or to escape altogether from our minds; much of the good which we have known we have failed to hold fast. If it be so with you, if this account cor¬ respond with what you have observed of others, or ascertained in yourselves, you may be interested in the inquiry, what are the moral or intellectual causes of conduct so irrational, and what remedies may most effectually counteract the tendency which we feel, and which, it may be hoped, we sincerely deplore. First, then, as to the moral causes. I am anxious to avoid speculations, to keep out of the region of abstractions, still more anxious not to give unneces¬ sary offence by fixing the imputation of dishonesty or depravity upon those, who unhappily may have discarded the convictions of their early youth. Let us, then, fasten our attention exclusively upon facts of our own consciousness. Beyond all doubt, our own grasp of truth, our power of realizing, apprehending, holding fast that which is good, varies exceedingly at different times and under different circumstances. And here I do not speak of those truths which are of secondary importance, about which sincere Chris¬ tians may conscientiously differ, but the central fun¬ damental principles of our faith; such, for instance, as the Personality of God, His essential attributes, our own condition, a futurity of judgment and retri¬ bution, the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes these truths stand out vividly ; they have 3(3 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. the mastery of our being; we feel they are, as they must be if true, our all in all. Sometimes, again, they are indistinct; they may be there, but we can¬ not see, cannot feel them. There is, so to speak, a damp, chilly mist which creeps over our souls and confuses our spiritual perception. There is even at times a sense of utter loneliness—a blank, dreary nothingness; words of prayer may go from our lips, but find no echo. God seems to hide Him¬ self ; we say with Job,* Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold Him : He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him.” And what is still worse, the consciousness of the loss brings with it no acute pain ; we know it, but regret it not. Now let us ask ourselves this simple question : when did such a feeling first come upon us ? when did we first feel a doubt, or an inability to realize the old, well- known, familiar truths? Am I wrong in trusting my own experience, my own observations of my fellow-men, in saying that it was generally con¬ nected with some derangement of the moral nature : that it followed close upon the neglect of some duty, the indulgence of some wrong feeling ? The spiritual instinct failed when the spiritual principle was weakened. The evening was passed, if not in guilty excitement, yet in some occupation wholly at discord * xxiii. 8, 9. Sermon III. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 37 witli the simplest truths of religion. Then came a prayerless night, then the sense of emptiness, dead¬ ness, a sense followed by permanent apathy. You ceased to hold fast that which was good, not because you had reason to question its goodness, but because the spiritual sense, or instinct, was paralysed, was dead, or in a stage of mortal decay. Is this too strong a representation ? Well, I would not press the point too far. T know on the one hand that sin does not always act in this way. In fact, when the con¬ science is fresh and full of life, the sense of sin often produces an intolerable anguish, and with it a pecu¬ liarly intense perception of the spiritual realities which the sin offends. The eye of Gfod the Judge, the eye, too, of Jesus the Saviour, shines with a power heretofore unknown upon the heart in which the spirit of truth yet abides, when it is struggling against sin. I know too, as we shall presently have occasion to consider, that other causes than weak or wilful sin produce this sensation; but I have never yet met the man who could assert that the truth and goodness which he had once received lost their hold upon him, at a time when he was actually engaged in doing some good work. Did the doubt, the chill, the gloom beset any of us when we were fighting Christ’s battle, contending against His enemies, obeying Him in His earthly representatives, visit¬ ing, comforting, clothing Him in the persons of His afflicted and destitute poor ? Did it ever fall upon 38 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. t any of us when we were honestly striving to eman¬ cipate ourselves from the shackles of a low conven¬ tional morality, when we were protesting manfully, and to the detriment of our earthly interests, against falsehood, oppression, dishonest practices, the tyranny of opinion, the insolence of the strong ? I trow not. The simple fact is, that there is a natural affinity between all truths and all forms of goodness. They may be separable as they are distinct; but when any one great truth is held fast, it wards off some evil in¬ fluences ; when any good, loving habit is retained, it keeps the heart open to truth. In the highest sphere of being truth and goodness are one; in our nature they are not easily disjoined. As the nerves of perception and sensation are distinct yet mutually dependent, as the rays of light and heat are distinct yet all but inextricably intertwined, while both are indispensable alike to the most important functions of animal life and the development of organized existences, so truth and goodness by their com¬ mingled influence quicken and sustain the inner man, keep together their hold upon our spirit, and can only be held fast when thus conjoined. This conviction will not justify us in charging others with wilful guilt or perversity when we deplore their alienation from truths which they once upheld. We know not what is passing in their hearts, we know not what may be the issue of the fiery process which may be at work within them; but as for ourselves. Sermon III. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 39 while it points out one cause of spiritual faintness, it reaches our conscience with a searching, it may be a torturing power, it tells us what is the remedy. If our sin, if our weakness, if strong passion or evil habits have stifled or impaired that spiritual instinct, whereby alone divine truth can be apprehended, there is but one possible way for restoration, even energetic struggle against evil, energetic action in Christ’s cause. Thus, and thus only, can we recover our grasp upon the precious gift of heaven; thus, and thus only, can we hold fast that which is good. But it would be idle to pretend that no other influences project a dark shadow between our intel¬ ligence and the source of spiritual truth. Men of pure lives, singularly free from the taint of sensual defilement, noble withal and generous, winning all hearts by their genial temperament, and retaining them by their integrity and affectionateness, are un¬ doubtedly often found, and at present it is to be feared more often than in former years, among those who have ceased to hold fast that which is good in the form of revealed truth. Of such men far be it from us to speak or think harshly. Addressed to them, above all things, an assumption of superi¬ ority would be unjustifiable and unpardonable: but speaking calmly, frankly, speaking as a man must speak when discussing matters of great import to humanity, it may surely be well to suggest one ques¬ tion for consideration ; and to get an answer the more 40 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. L readily, let us put it to ourselves, without any refer¬ ence to others, and once more see what our own inward experience testifies. When we think upon sacred truths, do we sufficiently realize our responsi¬ bility to Him from whom all truth proceeds ? I doubt it much. There is a common tendency to underrate, if not to deny, the responsibility. It seems often to be assumed that truth ought to prove itself; that God is bound to support it with just that kind and amount of evidence which we consider in¬ dispensable ; that the responsibility rests with the promulgators of the truth, and not with its recipients. This seems strange; but so it is, practically, in the case of many. In other fields of inquiry they are well aware that no discovery can be made, no truth ascertained, without an entire devotion of their mind to the subject; in this, the highest of all fields, they act as though the truth were bound to come unsought, and to commend itself to their minds under pain of ignominious rejection. Has it not been so often in your own case ? If it be so, it is unnecessary to look out for any other reason why the good tidings, the great, good truths of our holy faith have not been held fast. They are not offered unconditionally ; the first condition is earnestness in their pursuit. There is, indeed, a very opposite tendency which brings about nearly the same result. The higher regions of thought are subject to storms of peculiar vehemence, to influences most subtle and powerful, JSEiiMON m. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 41 The dry light, as oiir great philosopher calls the truth addressed exclusively to the pure intellect, the lumen siccum, not refracted, so to speak, by passing througli the medium of the affections and feelings, requires strong and practised senses; there is a daz¬ zling, a bewildering splendour in the “fierce light that beats upon the thrones ” occupied by the sove¬ reigns of thought. The idols of the cavern may be dismissed with contempt, and in the hour of triumph the spirit may be brought into slavery by the idols of the mountain heights. The noblest intellects, as we too well know, have been entangled by Jesuitical sophistries, or have suddenly fallen prostrate before the powers and principalities of darkness, leaving calmer and less gifted observers in utter bewilder¬ ment at their fall. Such cases have not been uncom¬ mon in all ages, in none perhaps more common than our own; nor have I any suggestion to offer save the very obvious one, that the peril can only be overcome by a sedulous - cultivation of the moral faculty, by a proportionate development of all the powers which God has given us for the attainment of truth; above all, by the self-distrust, the humility, of all graces the rarest and the noblest, which is the peculiar attribute and most precious endowment of Christ-like men. But for one whose spiritual fall is owing to over excitement of the mind, to rash specu¬ lations about truth, multitudes lose their hold upon that which is good, simply because they will not give 42 HOLD FAST TH 4 .T WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. a fair, a reasonable share of tlieir time, tbeir atten¬ tion, and tlieir labour to its attainment. We are proud of our liberty, our independence of mind, of our right to judge for ourselves, to bring all our convictions to the test of reason, and all doctrines to the test of Holy Writ: and we ought to be thankful for such blessings: but they are blessings only so far as they are rightly used, diligently used. If there is any one thing which needs to be borne in mind by men engaged in work which keeps their mind in a state of activity and tension, it is that any one faculty of the mind which does not share in that activity becomes weak, feeble—it is stunted, decays, withers, and dies away. Our danger is that of our age, the loss of some power essential to our healthy develop¬ ment, owing to the very agency, to which the general progress of civilization and the success of individuals in their own profession are mainly attributed : the division of labour is absolutely ruinous to the man who gives up to others the work, upon which the integrity of his own spiritual life depends. If, then, in the midst of your onward and triumphant pro¬ gress, if even while you are conscious of increased vigour of intellect, keenness of discernment, flexibility, and power, copiousness of resources, and skill in their employment in all matters connected with your special calling, you find that your interest in the old truths of infancy, the general scheme of Divine reve¬ lation, the things of eternity, is decreasing, ask Sermon III. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD, 43 yourselves this plain question :—What portion of my time do I give now to the study of God’s Word, to the application of those truths which I admit ? ” and if the answer should be, Less than I give to my tastes, less than I give to those pursuits which I take up as mere subsidiary occupations for my amusement or curiosity,” surely you have no right to be surprised at the result. How can any one possibly hold fast that which is good, if it takes the very last place in his affections, and gives way to every claim upon his time ? Brethren, it is a simple fact, we cannot hold fast any truth which we do not make our own by mental exertion ; cannot retain any good principle which we do not make our own by an inward process of assimi¬ lation, and an outward process of loving, self-denying action. As for the pretexts of want of time, want of leisure, it would be an insult to your understanding to argue their futility. We all know that men always do find or make leisure for even engrossing studies for which they have a genuine wish and a ruling predilection : the greatest names in science are associated with the most laborious and noble profes¬ sions ; some of the most powerful defenders of Chris¬ tian faith have been counted among our statesmen, lawyers, and men of science. And while the Christian principle in practical matters finds ample scope for exercise and development in domestic relationships, and in the daily work of our several callings, the 44 HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Sermon III. knowledge that maketh wise unto salvation can most undoubtedly be retained and expanded, can grow with our mental growth, keep its due place in our mental system, if we will but give daily some portion of time, and our entire concentrated attention, to the study of God’s Word. Nor let any useless specula¬ tions as to the origin or nature of the obligation to keep holy a certain definite portion of each week make you doubt the necessity, or relinquish the privi¬ lege, of putting away on the Lord’s day all thoughts which may weaken your hold upon that which is good. Brethren, I have offered these suggestions simply because so far as they go they meet, if they do not satisfy, the want which I have felt in myself and observed in others : I mean the want of a fixed, firm centre of stability and rest in this world of change and death. That centre is certainly not to be found in the majestic uniformity of nature’s laws, if un¬ guided, as we are now so often told, by a conscious intelligence, and uninformed by love. What to us can matter the permanence of physical forces, if loss of friends, heart-rending bereavements, decay of bodily and mental faculties are but precursors of annihilation ? What we need is the assurance that while the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away, the Word of God endureth for ever; and that our own hearts, our own consciousness, will partake of that endurance : that we have a fast hold Sermon III. HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD. 45 here upon that hope, the only anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast, which entereth into that which is within the vail—a fast hold upon Grod’s truth, God’s love, God’s righteousness, upon the salvation which He has offered, upon the good which He bestows: that we are Christ’s, that Christ is ours ; that His blood is upon us. His Spirit within us; that in Him we have eternal life. And if that hold is to be retained, and its blessings secured by obedience to the spiritual instinct, which is inherent in our moral nature and developed by His grace, if God demands of us exer¬ tions of our faculties not wholly disproportioned to the magnitude and preciousness of His gifts, what can we say but that our reason recognises the justice and fitness of the conditions ? what can we do but implore Him, according to His own gracious promises, to grant the aid which will enable us to fulfil them ? So shall we be guided, sustained, upborne with the consciousness that above us are the opening por¬ tals of eternity, and underneath us the everlasting arms. 40 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon TV. SERMON IV. ' ■» Luke vi. 13. He called unto Him His disciples^ and of them He chose twelve^ whom also He named Apostles. The selection of twelve disciples by our Lord to be His agents and ministers in tlie establishment of His kingdom, was undoubtedly an event of critical im¬ port to the Oburcb. It determined some principles of universal application, and suggests considerations of permanent interest to all who meditate upon the influences which have affected the state of humanity, and contributed most powerfully to the spiritual development of its leading and representative races. The subject is brought before us this morning in the Second Lesson, and it harmonizes thoroughly with the general arrangement of the services of our Church. On Sunday last,^ and, speaking generally, in all the services since the beginning of the Christian year, our thoughts have been directed upwards to the eternal source of love, light, and power ; during the rest of the year, as in the more special services of this day, our minds are turned rather to the manifes¬ tations of those principles upon earth, to love as * Trinity Sunday. Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 47 developed in the human heart under the influence of divine grace, to light as diffused abroad by the preaching of the Grospel, to power as put forth in the full establishment of the kingdom of Christ. The appointment of the twelve Apostles was in an especial sense an act which marked the inauguration of that kingdom, an act by which our Lord repre¬ sented the assumption of the powers which belonged to Him as the true Sovereign of the theocracy, for which all the institutions of Judaism were understood by the people of Israel themselves to have been but preparatory. The subject is of course far too exten¬ sive to be discussed within the customary limits of a morning’s discourse: many important points must needs be omitted altogether; some I must commend to your own consideration; well content if I can at all aid any inquirer to see somewhat more distinctly than heretofore the principles which seem to be involved in that selection, and their practical appli¬ cations to our own times. The point which has in all ages struck observers most forcibly, is undoubtedly the singular dispropor¬ tion between the work imposed upon those twelve Galileans and what we must believe to have been their natural capacities and powers. And, in truth, there is a most remarkable contrast between our Lord’s mode of proceeding in this transaction and that of all founders of religious or intellectual systems which have left any lasting impress upon 48 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IV. the destinies of man. All the great leaders of thought have always sought, in the first instance, to attach to themselves some converts or adherents, whose vigorous character or commanding position would secure for them a certain influence over the men of their time. The mightiest and noblest names in the realms of thought are thus associated in our minds with forms singular in their grace, power, or majesty. In “ the Macedonian twain,” Alexander and the Stagy rite, we have a striking instance how the intellectual sovereign advanced hand in hand with the conqueror of the world. You cannot, indeed, point to any human system which first took root wuthout such adventitious aid, or which even when rooted has extended its influence from the place of its origin to any considerable portion of our race. Here, as in all great, essential characteristics, our Master stands alone. His power, His influence is all His own. All that His followers. His servants. His agents were to have or to be, they were to owe to Him. His contact with every heart, with every race of humanity was to be direct. The channels through which His influence was to be conveyed were such as could contribute nought to its fulness; the fibres along which the electric current of His own impulsive energy was to run were to be simply passive in the transmission. He was to be all in all, at once the centre of the new life, and present in all His jiower wherever His name should be known. And, there- Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 49 fore, as we may without irreverence or presumption conclude, when our Lord looked around on the men and institutions of that age which He had chosen and prepared for His advent. He rejected the instru¬ ments which to mere mortal apprehension would have seemed best adapted to His purposes, and made those poor, uninformed, and unenlightened peasants depo¬ sitories of His truth; earthen vessels, which could leave no doubt as to the origin and ownership of the heavenly treasures which they were to contain. Think not that among those who were attracted by His works, or by the marvellous influence of His personal presence, there were not many who to an ambitious or, humanly speaking a wise and provident mind, would have appeared apt and available instru¬ ments for forwarding His high purposes. Even a Herod, no bad representative of earthly power, crafty and cruel, selfish and licentious as he was, had a certain instinct which drew him towards sacred things, and had made him for a season attentive to the ministra¬ tions of our Lord’s forerunner. The schools, too, of our Lord’s time produced men who had the ability and attainments which secure an influential position in any age. The systems which they founded, or of which they were the ablest expositors, have been for centuries the law of the leaders of Israel. Judaism in the form which, with singular tenacity, it has retained during its prolonged, unending agony, has ever recognised in the contemporai’ies of Christ E 50 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IY. some of its greatest teachers; those men, too, were within His reach. The frequent deputations of which we read in the Gospels came more especially from them. Scribes and Pharisees, men learned in the law, conversant with all thoughts and feelings of their time, were daily brought into contact with Christ. Had He so willed them. He might have taken a Simeon, or a Gamaliel, for His agent. Or again, had He thought fit to make His way into the people’s hearts through their prejudices and strongest feelings, many an enthusiast would gladly have proffered his services to One who needed but to speak the word; needed, indeed, but give way to the urgent entreaties of the multitude, to be proclaimed as the king of Israel, the true successor of David, the promised sovereign of the world. Such, indeed, if we listen to some inquirers into divine truth, may have been the form in which the tempter sought to project the fascinations of ambition into that human heart, which the Son of God had assumed. But, if presented, the temptation needed but be looked at to be rejected. Our Lord, in whom the purest impulses of humanity alone could find issue in will or act, refused all agencies, in which the powers or influences of a corrupt nature had been developed by human, culture : passing by the courtier and the soldier, the noble and the sage, the man of action and the man of thought. He took from the rude dwellers of a district contemned by the majority of His coun- Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 51 trymen, and least affected by tbe spurious civilization of that age, a few poor men, engaged in toilsome or in mean pursuits, and made of them His ministers. Surrounded thus by forms which intercept not a single ray of His divine light, which divert not a thought from His commanding personality, He stands alone. Even as on that day when He so called the disciples. His form alone filled all the minds, attracted every eye of the multitude assembled around the mount on which He stood, so stands He now before us. The twelve are there; but, as we look on them, we see nought that can arrest us; every eye is turned in one direction—Christ is there, even as on the throne of His glory, alone, alone as the visible image and embodiment of the Deity; alone receiving the tribute of reverent submission, before whom the saints, whom His power has brought nearest to Himself, cast down their crowns. This first impression, however, though it be sub¬ stantially confirmed, is modified to some extent, when we look more closely into the characteristics of that chosen company. The notices of Holy Writ, brief and scanty as they may seem, throw considerable light upon their general, and, in some marked instances, their individual predispositions and character. We shall see this perhaps more distinctly if we attend to one circumstance. I mean that the twelve are subdivided, by each of the Evangelists who enumerates their names, into three E 2 52 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IV. groups, each with some variations, which may he easily accounted for, within those limits, but as N groups distinct, and always in the same order. We will consider, these groups separately, and we may find in each certain indications of aptitude at least to receive, and when received to communicate to their brethren, the gifts of the Lord Jesus. Unfit in themselves to approach His sacred person, to dis¬ charge even the menial offices of which the Baptist, greatest among the children of men, felt himself unworthy, they were still, as the event proved, capable of being trained and moulded under Christ’s teaching, and, when thus prepared, of being filled with His fulness, reflecting His light, and becoming able ministers of the kingdom which He came to found. Look at the first group, for in that, as might be ex¬ pected, these characteristics of the Apostles are most strikingly developed. It comprises four names, two of which, Peter and John, stand pre-eminent. Look at them as they came to Jesus. What do we see in them ? Poor men indeed, ignorant, uninformed, untouched by “the gracious gleam of letters,” un¬ known to science or to art, regarded by those of their countrymen, whose intellects had been sharpened by the mental discipline of their schools, as unfit even to hear the truths, of which the Rabbis deemed themselves the exclusive possessors. Such were those disciples in truth, judged merely by a secular Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 53 or intellectual standard ; but that was not all : it is not the real aspect of their character to one, who looks on them with a spirit divested of pharisaic or worldly prejudice. Thos^ poor men were lovers of truth, seekers after righteousness. Of that they had given proofs. When they first came into con¬ tact with Jesus, you will remember, from the account in the first chapter of St. John’s own Gospel, they were in attendance upon the Baptist, they had sought at once the forerunner of Messiah ; the voice from the wilderness had reached them in their remote home, drawn them from their fishing-nets, and made a way for the King of Heaven in their hearts. Nor can we doubt that their minds were richly stored with the lessons taught by the inspired instructors of Israel. Old ordinances, in force at that time,^ enabled, and indeed compelled, every Hebrew parent to send his child to schools, in which, whatever else may have been inculcated, the words of Holy Writ, the injunctions of the Law, the promises of the Prophets, were fixed in their memory, afterwards to be recalled by the services of the synagogue. The young Hebrew of Galilee carried with him to his daily toil thoughts and hopes, and doubtless in many an instance yearnings and aspirations, which, if they were insufficient to cleanse and liberate the spirit, must have preserved it from stagnation. Such * See .Tost, ‘ Geschiclite dcs Judentlinms,’ 54 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IV. doubtless was Andrew when be came to his brother Simon exulting that he had ‘‘ found the Christ ” s whom the Prophets had announced. Such doubt¬ less was James, the first martyr among the twelve, of whom we know that he shared the burning zeal of his brother John, both alike deriving probably from their mother, Salome, hopes and feelings which, blended as they were with earthly or am¬ bitious desires, marked them yet as aspirants for a heavenly inheritance. Of those two Apostles little indeed is said, but sufficient to see why they may have been admitted into the nearest contact with their Lord, each doubtless content to share the privileges vouchsafed to his more gifted brother. St. Peter was designated at once by his Master as the rock- man, one whose natural temperament, rugged it may be, and impetuous, fervid, and withal pre¬ sumptuous, was still one which was capable of endurance when penetrated by the one principle, made perfect by union with the one power which can impart stability to our nature. In him we have the type of all whose sanguine and longing hearts draw them to Christ, who throw themselves alto¬ gether upon Him. Fall they may,—fall, and that frequently—fall to their own confusion and bitter grief—fall even to the detriment of the body to which they belong—fall just so far as they turn from Christ, rely upon their own strength, yea, upon their best natural impulses; but, notwith- Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 55 standing the fall, they are capable not only of a full recovery and restoration by divine grace, but of becoming stronger and more influential when con¬ verted, strengthening their brethren all the more effectually, as knowing the secret of all weakness, and, by personal experience, the only source of all strength. And what shall we say of St. John, the spirit of all the loftiest and the purest, the nature which attracted in a peculiar sense the affection of Jesus, the beloved disciple, the bosom friend {t7rL(TT}}6io9j as he is called by the Fathers) ? what can we say but that, whatever else he may have brought with him, whatever may have been the alloy of natural or of national perversity, he must at least have brought a willing and a loving heart, a single and determined spirit, a nature susceptible of all gracious influences, aye, and a mind, an intel¬ lect, a soul instinct with what in another sphere would be called genius, such as no cultivation can impart, but to which grace, disclosing the secret things of eternity, communicates the power of bring¬ ing the divine and eternal into living contact with the heart and imagination of man? Among Evan¬ gelists the one who gives us the clearest insight both into the human heart and divine nature of our Lord, last and greatest of the prophets, St. John, truly named the Divine, best represents to us the height to which the spirit of man can attain when it surrenders itself wholly to the influence of 56 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IV. Jesus; that Jesus who made him, together with Peter, and the brothers of both, the leading members of the Apostolic body, and representatives, each in his degree, of the great Christian graces, faith, hope, and love. I must touch more lightly on the features of the second group, each member of which has however no small claim to special notice. There we find Bartholomew, or, as he is named by St. John, Nathanael (for such is the well-founded opinion of the best interpreters), the-Israelite without guile, so prompt, notwithstanding his first doubt, in his adherence to the Prophet of Nazareth: there too is Philip, the cautious and int^^uiring spirit, wishing to know the Father whom, after long teaching, he at last learned fully to know in the Son : there too is Thomas, a loving, earnest man, brave too, and devoted to his Lord’s person, and if doubtful and irresolute, if weak for a time in the faith which is the gift of the Spirit, yet not weak in that affection in which faith finds it^ nourishment, and, in due time, its perfection. And there is Matthew, rescued alone, as it would seem, among the twelve, from a life, if not absolutely incompatible with good¬ ness, yet wholly uncongenial to the very germs of spirituality. Pescued, and how completely : marking the first moment of conversion by an effort to con¬ vert those with whom his previous life had kept him in contact; devoting the powers or attainments, Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 57 which may have been brought into exercise in his previous calling, to the service of Christ; the first of the Apostles who committed to writing their teaching, in that Gospel of which the chief charac¬ teristics are its fulness of illustration 'from the types and prophecies of the elder dispensation, and its singular completeness in the record of our Lord’s discourses. Looking at these four, they seem to represent especially that class of spirits, who are struggling to know the truth, beset by inward and outer hindrances, but who when it is known receive it with all their heart, and set it forth for the con¬ version and edification of their fellow men, with whose feelings they are peculiarly fitted to sympa¬ thize, and whose wants they best understand. It would detain me too long were I to attempt to prove what I believe concerning the third group. It consists, as there is good reason to conclude, perhaps with one exception only, of the near kins¬ men of our Lord. James and Jude, both of whom have left written documents of their practical and energetic character, both of whom, as well as Simon, are connected in the records of ecclesiastical anti¬ quity with the government and organization of the primitive Church. I doubt not that in this group are represented generally and broadly the principles of order, authority, and the practical application of those principles to the discipline of the Christian community: nor while we see good reason why 58 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sermon IV. those principles should be prominently,—for I am far from saying exclusively,—exemplified in this group, can we but be thankful for such a recogni¬ tion of their importance, of their value and necessity to the Church.’ Alas! that one exception must be noted; that among that goodly company one dark, one ghastly form should force itself upon our atten¬ tion ; that in the midst of the chosen few one slave of Satan should find a place. To trace that character in its dark windings; to inquire why, and for what purpose, the traitor was permitted to take for a time a place among the disciples; to consider the various inferences which thoughtful and devout men have drawn from that most remarkable fact, may pro¬ fitably occupy our attention at some future time; now it may suffice to fasten upon this one thought— whatever else the apostasy and ruin of Judas Iscariot proves, it proves this:—no circumstances whatever in which a man can be placed affect his free will: the inner development of his character depends upon himself: the very election by Christ Himself to the highest means of grace does not exclude that tempta¬ tion to which, by the inevitable conditions of a responsible existence, every man is, and must be, per¬ petually exposed. Warnings, it might be thought, and those sufiicient, might he suggested from nu¬ merous facts recorded by the severe candour of the Evangelists touching the weaknesses and failings, the littlenesses and the self-seeking of the other Sermon IV. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 59 members of the Apostolic body during the long process of tbeir training, warnings which indeed are seldom omitted in hortatory addresses, and some¬ times urged with a zeal which almost borders upon irreverence; but a warning like this of Judas could scarcely have been anticipated. That warning was given, we may be sure, because it was needed; and far as we may believe ourselves to be from sharing the feelings which issued in that terrible destruc¬ tion, it may be that when the last account is ren¬ dered, and the hearts of all open before their Judge, the cause of the ruin of multitudes will be seen to be identical in essence even with that poison which corroded the heart of Judas. Such, however, is not the deepest or most im¬ portant truth which the contemplation of the twelve suggests. Hope and joy and love, impulsive and quick¬ ening forces, are surely generated in our souls when we think of those twelve men, in whom our own wants and infirmities are so vividly represented, as transformed in the spirits of their minds under the per¬ sonal influence of Christ. We feel that nothing can keep us from Him but our unwillingness to draw near. » We feel that we need bring nothing, provided that we bring the desire to receive what He bestows. We feel at the same time that no natural gift, power, or attainment will be wasted; He uses all for His service; no faculty too humble to be employed, no strength of intellect or genial endowment but will 60 THE TWELVE APOSTLES. Sekmon IY. find ample scope for exercise, if consecrated to the work of Christ. It was well that in the first instance our Lord chose those who were altogether separated from the conventionalities, undistinguished by the attainments, of a secular civilization. We see in them men in whom our common nature is repre¬ sented without disguise ; but we must not forget that when that first work was done, and the principle clearly established, the King of mankind vindicated His sovereignty by bringing the strongest and most intellectual natures into subjection, and converting them into agents and instruments of His will. He seized at once on Saul, that man in whom were so singularly blended the gifts of the natural and the capacities of the spiritual man, the powers of intellect and the susceptibilities of the heart. He brought the Church at once into conflict with the principalities and powers of darkness, with the power of Rome and with the intelligence of Greece ; and from among the representatives of human power and thought, as centuries rolled on. He chose defenders and expo¬ sitors of the faith; and now, in this our own age. He has made His dominion over men’s souls co¬ extensive with the civilization of the world. Art and science, liberty and light, have no home save in Christian lands. The very truths, which were first discovered in ancient heathendom, are now retained by nations which bear the Christian name, and by them alone. Go to that international mart, in which Sermon IY. THE TWELVE APOSTLES. 61 the products of all lands are now collected,"^ and take at least this lesson to heart. Rich and vast as are the treasures, which tell of nature’s bounty and man’s ingenuity in providing for the gratification of his appetites and supply of his wants, not a single object which required the application of science, the com¬ bination of efforts directed by a scientific thought, has come there from a heathen land. I say not science is Christian; in the persons of its repre¬ sentatives it may sometimes be the reverse; but since the coming of Christ it has gradually been lost by every portion of our race which has not accepted Him. Yes, brethren, those poor Gali¬ leans, those, obscure and unenlightened men, when they came within the sphere of Christ’s light, be¬ came the ministers of a power which claims hu¬ manity as its own. Be it ours to do our own work; to fill our own place; to be in our generation dis¬ ciples, yea, apostles, of that Lord who has called us with a holy calling, and who will make each of us His agents and ministers just so far as we yield ourselves to the movements of His will. * 1862 . 62 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon V. SERMON V. Matthew x. 3. Matthew the publican. In the course of the present term, which includes four Sundays, it is my wish to bring under your consideration some of the special and distinctive characteristics of the four Evangelists. I do not know whether it is necessary to assign reasons for the selection of a subject, which in itself can hardly fail to be interesting, and, if treated with due reverence, must be profitable to inquiring Christians; still, as such a course certainly involves some devia¬ tion from the ordinary form of homiletic address, it seems but natural to state the motives which induced me to undertake it. I am indeed fully convinced that discourses of a directly practical character, such especially as apply spiritual truths to the government of the heart and the common duties of life, are quite as much needed by men of vigorous and cultivated intellect engaged in secular duties, as by persons who form the majority of ordinary congregations. I believe also that such discourses are quite as ac- Sermon Y. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 63 ceptable to tbem, and sliould feel it a serious charge could it be truly said that practical topics were ne¬ glected, sparingly introduced, or unfaithfully handled by those whose duty it is to minister to you in holy things. It seems, however, at the same time, but reasonable to expect that in this place difficulties should be fairly met, those especially which are raised by the progress of historical research, con¬ ducted in a spirit, to say the least, but too often reckless and irreverent; and that the most important results of honest inquiry, together with the grounds on which they mainly rest, should be presented, from time to time, with all possible clearness and in a con¬ densed form. It is a well-known fact that some of the most formidable assaults upon our faith have been directed against the evangelical narrative, the authenticity and integrity of the documents in which it is contained. On the other hand, it is true that those assaults have issued (as hath been, we may almost say, an invariable result of sceptical move¬ ments) in ncf inconsiderable benefits to the cause of truth. Characteristics of the evangelists, curious and minute coincidences, hitherto, if not unobserved yet imperfectly discerned, have been brought into full light, and many points which had caused per¬ plexity and embarrassment to thoughtful readers of the Word, have assumed a new aspect, and are now counted among the most convincing evidences of the Christian faith. For my own part, I freely confess 64 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon V. that the attacks of ingenious and unscrupulous op¬ ponents, charges of inconsistency and discrepancy between the various statements of the inspired writers, have often directed my attention to facts of great importance in their spiritual bearings, which, but for such a stimulus, I should probably have over¬ looked. The fidelity, truthfulness, candour, and sound judgment of the evangelists, the light which each throws upon our Saviour’s person and work, the perfect congruity between their several modes of contemplating spiritual realities, and the circum¬ stances under which their characters were moulded and their minds developed,—these, and similar points, are far more powerfully impressed upon the minds of those whose convictions have outlived the shock of sceptical inquiry. I shall be thankful if, with Grod’s help, they may be presented in a form which may communicate to your minds somewhat of the light, the consolation, and spiritual edification-with which all discoveries of sacred truth are fraught to the faithful in Christ. Before I enter upon the consideration of St. Mat¬ thew’s Gospel, which will be* the special subject of this discourse, I must say a very few words upon the general relation between the evangelists. There can be no doubt that while the first three, commonly called by scholars the synoptical Gospels, derive the chief portion of their narrative from a common source, each has marked and unmistakeable features Sermon V. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 65 of its own, each presents onr Lord’s work and Person in a different light: a difference which is still more striking in the case of the last of the Evangelists. The nature and extent of this dif¬ ference, as well as the causes to which it must be attributed, will engage our attention throughout this course. The fact that such a difference exists points out the necessity of a twofold way of studying the documents. We should read them separately, each as a distinct record, containing much to he learned from no other source, setting before us a special aspect of our Eedeemer’s nature or office, which we must realize, receive into our heart, apprehend in all its bearings, under pain of losing much of what the Holy Spirit hath given for our edification. We must also study them in their combination, as a manifold representation of the indivisible unity of truth, striving thus to attain, through the medium so marvellously adapted to our half-developed facul- ^ ties, to the conception of the one living Person, whose various characteristics are therein revealed. Thus shall we know Him as our Lord and Saviour, whether as in St. Matthew He comes before us as the root and offspring of David, the Messiah and King of Israel, fulfiller and inspirer of all Prophecy; or as in St. Mark, the incarnation of divine power, . worker of miracles, lion of the tribe of Judah ; or as in St. Luke, emphatically the Son of man, in the fulness of sympathy with the nature which He assumed; F % 66 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon V. or as in St. Jolin, tlie Incarnate Word, the source and revealer of all truth, the fulness of life and love. In all the same Saviour, the same Lord, known in His central personality, apprehended by each, and presented to . the readers of each in proportion to their spiritual development, to the extent and depth of their love. This morning we will confine ourselves to St. Matthew, Matthew the publican—a fact, he it noted, which he alone of the Evangelists is careful to record. Is there in his Gospel anything which peculiarly answers to what we might expect from one raised by converting grace from that mean, and, as in the esti¬ mation of the Jews it was then not unrightly deemed, that degrading occupation ? Are there traces of such an individuality in this Gospel as we might look for in the writing of a Christianized publican ? If so, does the fact suggest considerations of practical importance to ourselves ? The first point, perhaps, which strikes us is this. In such a man the deepest feeling must have been a consciousness that his previous exclusion from the privileges to which he was entitled by his Israelitish descent, and admission by covenanted rite into the national church, was an inevitable and just conse¬ quence of the position, which his own choice, or what is called the force of circumstances, had assigned to him ; and combined with this feeling must have been a strong sense of wrongs inflicted on his countrymen Sermon V. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 1 67 by the authority of which he was an instrument. We may also feel assured that the value of those privileges, the rights and dignity of his forfeited inheritance, would be appreciated by him with pecu¬ liar fulness, torturing him during the season of his degradation with insupportable longings, and filling his whole spirit with joyous exultation, when at the call of the Saviour, the true king of the theocracy, he cast from him the shackles which had bound him, and stood up a free man, restored to communion with the God of his forefathers; nay, enrolled among the chosen followers of the Christ. Nor can we doubt that long and painful experience of the effects of all merely mercenary pursuits, undignified by a sense of their utility to man, and meditation upon the causes which established so impassable a chasm between per¬ sons like himself and the representatives of the national religion, would make him on the one hand peculiarly susceptible to the spiritual influences by which alone those effects could be counteracted, while on the other hand he would needs feel intensely anxious to bring those influences to bear with all their power upon his countrymen ; both upon those whose hearts were crushed by the sense of their degradation, and upon those who misused their great blessings and lost sight of the true principles on which all religion rests. We might expect that such a man would be most careful to gather up all sayings of his great Teacher bearing upon such points; that F 2 68 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon Y. he would record with special fulness whatever utter¬ ances of consolatory or warning import might reach his ears; that the aspect under which he would naturally love to contemplate his Master would he that of a deliverer, the sufferer’s friend, the reprover of the arrogant, the fulfiller of all which prophecy had announced as prerogatives and characteristics of Him, who was at once the King of Israel and the Saviour of mankind. How could he better pay the debt which he owed to his oppressed and injured countrymen; how could he turn to a better use the faculties which had been exercised or developed by his secular employment; how could he evince his love to the holy men who received him into their fellow¬ ship, his gratitude to the King who admitted him to the inner circle of his friends ? Kow I say with perfect confidence, and I trust that I may be able to prove the points to your satis¬ faction, that the first Gospel more than answers this true but imperfect representation. We have but to call attention to facts recorded by nearly contempo¬ rary writers, and to the far more important and trust¬ worthy evidences contained in the sacred document itself. That Matthew wrote in Hebrew, thus ad¬ dressing himself, in the first instance, exclusively to his countrymen, and that the Gospel in its original form consisted mainly, if not entirely, of the dis¬ courses of our Lord, are facts noticed in the very earliest tradition of the Church, in the brief frag- Sermon V. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 69 ments of Papias, the companion or disciple of those, who derived their information from the mouths of the Apostles themselves; they are fully borne out by the latest critical investigations, and they are admitted, indeed urged, for their own purposes, by the most learned neologians. For my own part, I hold that the most probable hypothesis touching the origin of the Gospel in its actual form is, that, whether executed by the Apostle himself, or by one writing under his guidance, it was a re-cast in Greek of that original collection of discourses, which contained in the vernacular language of Palestine the sum and substance of the public teaching of our Saviour. The narrative portion, though, as we shall see, it preserves several important facts known from this Gospel only, is altogether subordinated to the main object; it serves chiefly, if not exclusively, to connect and ex¬ plain the discourses, and to illustrate them by the acts of the Redeemer. Taking these facts as proved, and there can be little doubt as to their correctness, we see a general fitness and congruity between the writer and the work, imposed upon him probably by his fellow Apostles, and most assuredly executed under the plenary influence of the Holy Ghost. It was a work which became him as a Hebrew, more especially as a Hebrew anxious to make a compensation for past wrongs, like Zacchseus restoring fourfold, and be¬ stowing the full portion of his newly acquired treasure upon souls impoverished by sin, and him- 70 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon V. gering for righteousness. A work too, for which, as keen observers have pointed out, he may have been in some degree prepared by his previous occupation, which required, probably, somewhat more of culture than was found in his fellow converts, bringing him more directly into contact with men of various classes and pursuits. We can well imagine the earnest atten¬ tion with which such a man must have listened to those discourses in which all the principles, on which the spiritual kingdom is based, were so completely developed; to the words of consolation addressed to those who, like himself, were bowed down and crushed by the intolerable yoke of formal observance or habitual sinfulness; to the prophetic utterances in which the completion of the Divine dispensations was announced and developed; to those especially which spoke of the conditions of final acceptance, to the circumstances and results of the second coming of his Lord. Such discourses are, indeed, adapted for every heart, find there an echo and application; they are of course such as any one of the Apostolic body might have recorded, forming, as they un¬ doubtedly did, the very substance of the Apostolic preaching; but intrusted as they were to one of that body for preservation, we feel a special interest in the fact that that person was the one whose original abasement would enhance the glorious distinction; while whatever of natural aptitude he may have possessed, or whatever qualifications he might have Sermon Y. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 71 acquired, were developed and consummated by the inspiration of tlie Spirit of God. We turn now to the general bearings of St. Matthew’s narrative; and I would call your atten¬ tion to two points, one of wliicli lias been frequently noted, too often exaggerated or misrepresented; tlie other less obvious, but even more important in its spiritual bearings. The first is the thoroughly Hebrew character of the whole work, its full recog¬ nition of the glory of the Mosaic law, and of the dignity and privileges of the Hebrew people; the distinctness and force with which it presents the new dispensation as the fulfilment of the old,—Chris¬ tianity as true Judaism, transfigured and glorified by the perfect revelation of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. This, I say, is well known, admitted^ and made too often a ground for perilous speculation. The other point is, that from first to last our Evangelist is careful, as we may be sure under special control and guidance, to suggest, or dis¬ tinctly to intimate, the absolute catholicity of the Church and religion of Christ, in direct opposition to the bigoted exclusiveness of that Judaizing party in the early Church, of which Matthew is held by some to be the representative. It is not merely that, of all the sacred writers, St. Matthew records most fully all denunciations of the distinctive sins of the Pharisees, all predictions of the utter destruc¬ tion that awaited the formal and hypocritical ob- 72 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Seemon V. server of the ceremonial law; it is not merely that in numerous passages we find the most distinct enunciations of the spiritual principles by which the law must he applied and interpreted; it is that in the whole plan of the Gospel, and in every one of its leading divisions, that great object of Christ’s coming, the conversion of the whole world, the total abolition of all distinction between Jew and Gentile, stands out as the central object contemplated by our Evangelist. Were the theories so often obtruded upon us by theologians grounded upon a fair ob¬ servation of facts, we should not find in this Gospel, as we do find, that perfect combination of the two harmonious but distinct, and, as they may appear to a superficial reader, incongruous or conflicting elements in the revelation of Christ. True that St. Matthew, in tracing the genealogy of the Messiah, proceeds upward to Abraham, the father of the faithful, and not to Adam, the father of the human race. But the same Evangelist preserves the fact that the first worshippers of the Incarnate Son were wise men from the East, representatives and first fruits of the disinherited Gentiles; expressing with singular accuracy the future relations between the component elements of the Church, and indicating by their gifts a true, though it may be but half conscious, apprehension of the nature and office of the King, not of the Jews only, but of the whole world. And, as if it were his purpose expressly Sekmon V. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 73 to counteract tlie inference from tire geijealogy, St. Matthew is careful to preserve the Baptist’s declaration, that of the very stones God could “ raise up children unto Abraham.” True, again, it is, that in the first great public discourse of our Lord, recorded by this Evangelist, the injunctions of the Mosaic law are enforced and extended, and that with a distinct asseveration that not one jot or tittle of the law should pass away till all be fulfilled; but is it not equally true that the injunc¬ tions are thoroughly spiritualized, and the way pre¬ pared for the great principles recognised so early, and applied so unflinchingly, by the Apostolic Church ? Is it not true that, while the cere¬ monial acts, no less than the prophetic announce¬ ments of the law, were completely fulfilled in the Person and work of Christ, all its precepts are presented in that discourse in a form which finds a moral and spiritual application to hearts renewed and sanctified by the Holy Ghost? And, passing from words to acts, is it not a striking fact that, on the very day when the sermon on the Mount was delivered, our Saviour wrought a miracle in answer to the prayer of the Gentile centurion, that He selected that alien soldier as the highest and purest model of true believers, and that, as St. Matthew alone, and not St. Luke (the special teacher of the Gentiles), informs us, our Lord took that occasion of predicting the exclusion of the children of Israel, 74 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Sermon Y. and the admission of converts from the east and from the west to the inheritance of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” ? True, it may be, that a saying preserved by St. Matthew implies a continuance of Sabbath observances until the fall of Jerusalem;* but it is equally true, far less open to cavil or misconception, that the strongest and fullest declarations of the true principle and limit of Sabbatical regulations are found in this Gospel, the fullest vindication of the authority of the Son of man, as Lord of the Sabbath-day. Nor while we admit that the more prominent aspects of our Lord’s Person, as He stands before us in this Gospel, are that of the theocratic King, Son of David, and inheritor of his Throne, and that of the great fulfiller of prophecy, the antitype of Moses_, legislator and guide of the Church, must we forget that here we find some of the very deepest and most spiritual utterances concerning the divine nature of our Jesus—“No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him: ” words not transcended, though first made, fully intelligible, by the state¬ ments of the fourth Evangelist. Thus too the very principle of spiritual regeneration, of all truths profoundest and most essential to the in¬ tegrity and development of Christian doctrine, is * See c. xxiv. v. 20. Seemon V. MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. 75 intimated in sayings which make all spiritual growth a result of the first implantation and quickening influences of the heavenly Father. Other points, scarcely less interesting, will occur to your minds or reward your careful investiga¬ tions. Some omissions, which may at first strike you as somewhat difficult to reconcile with this view, may upon closer consideration be found to corroborate it, or to strengthen the chain of in¬ ternal evidence; as when, for instance, Matthew the publican says nothing of the reception of the Saviour at his own house; and does not record that parable, whose singular beauty endears it to all hearts, while for his it must have been among the most precious of all—the parable of the Pharisee and publican. Was not this because he recognised in that saying a direct reference to himself? Words of gracious approval which he might well leave to others to make known to the Church. One last point only I must note. It sets the seal upon the whole Gospel, is at once the key to all difficulties, the dispeller of all doubts. The Evangelist con¬ cludes his work with those words of pur Saviour, which utterly abolish all narrow, erroneous, inade¬ quate conceptions of the Church; which are its charter of catholicity, of perfectness in doctrine, extension to all ages, and to all races of mankind; which declare in the broadest and clearest terms the fact and nature of our Lord’s sovereignty, the 76 MATTHEW THE PUBLICAN. Seemon V. duties and powers of His representatives; which sweep away all distinctions between believers, and base all the practical and devout applications of Christian truth upon the fundamental, all-embracing doctrines of the unity and co-ordination of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Would you know what is the true object of this first Gospel, an object beyond all question de¬ veloped by the later Evangelists, and by the Apostle to whom Christ afterwards committed the work of winning and instructing the Gentile Church, you will find it in that saying, every word of which should be engraved upon the hearts of all who profess to be followers of Christ, and desire to know His will:—All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Sermon YI. MAECUS MY SON. 77 SERMON VI. 1 Peter v. 13 . Marcus my son. On Sunday last I stated my intention to bring under your consideration in the course of tbis term the dis¬ tinctive characteristics of the four Evangelists. I will endeavour this morning to present a brief ac¬ count of the results of the careful investigations of scholars into the circumstances under which the Gospel of St. Mark was written, the character and tendencies of that Evangelist, and the chief peculiari¬ ties of his work. Those who were present last Sunday may remember that the remarkable con- gruity between the circumstances of St. Matthew’s life previous to his conversion, and his mode of apprehending and representing objective truths, sug¬ gested some considerations not unimportant for their bearings upon the evidences and subject-matter of revelation. This observation will be found not less applicable to the other Evangelists, and, as I hope to show this morning, especially applicable to St. Mark. The form and contents of his Gospel harmonize most thoroughly and strikingly with the facts which are 78 MARCUS MY SON. Sermon VI. positively ascertained toncliing his position, natural character, and above all his connection with those Apostles from whom he derived his knowledge of the events which he narrates, or under whose guid¬ ance he wrote. It may, however, be advisable to say a few words previously in order to obviate any misconception of my meaning in dwelling so much upon the personal circumstances and characters of the Evangelists. It may, perhaps, appear somewhat questionable whether such a view is compatible with that plenary inspira¬ tion of the sacred writers upon which their authority depends, and without which the very foundations of our faith would he insecure. Now it will not be expected that a subject so broad and difficult as that which regards the nature and extent of inspiration can be discussed incidentally: it is one which may claim our undivided attention on some future occa¬ sion ; * at present it may suffice to state one point which I believe to be capable of positive demon¬ stration, and amply sufficient to cover the position assumed in these discourses. The action of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts and minds of believers does not supersede their natural endowments or predispo¬ sitions. It quickens, develops whatever there may he in them capable of receiving or harmonizing with its influence. This statement, which is undoubtedly true of ordinary believers, is true also of those who * See Sermons xii., xiii., and xiv. Sermon VI. MARCUS MY SON. 79 for special purposes were made the instruments and channels of Divine communications. Their indi¬ viduality was preserved, fully preserved; it was heightened, rectified, purified, but substantially un¬ changed. The living God delights in living agents. He delights in the tones of natural emotions, of per¬ sonal affections, which are elicited by His Spirit as it sweeps over the heart-strings of those, whose utter¬ ances are destined to communicate to man the will of their common Father. The personal qualifications of a Matthew or a Mark, far from obscuring the truths which they received by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, enabled them to apprehend those truths with peculiar distinctness, and to produce them in the form best calculated to find entrance into the hearts of their fellow men. What, then, is positively known concerning St. Mark ? From various notices in Holy Scripture we learn that there was a close connection between the family of our Evangelist and the heads of the primi¬ tive Church, and more especially St. Peter, at that time the leader of the Apostolic body. His mother Mary, a person like her brother Barnabas distin¬ guished for piety and munificence, received the Church in her house, where they were assembled to pray for St. Peter at the time of his imprisonment, and whither he went at once, as to his own home, on his deliverance. It is, moreover, generally admitted that the expression used by St. Peter, “Marcus my 80 MAPtCUS MY SON. Sermon VI. son,” proves tliat Mark was converted and baptized by that Apostle. On the other band, we find St. Mark soon afterwards in close connection with St. Paul, selected by him and St. Barnabas as their minister. The mind of our Evangelist was therefore moulded, his views of Christian truth developed, under the influence of the two greatest representa¬ tives of the faith. The circumstances under which, for a season, he 'forfeited his position, and caused a serious dissension between his uncle and St. Paul, undoubtedly prove a certain pliability or softness of character, which unfitted him for the high station in the Church to which other qualifications might even then have entitled him. It is, however, equally clear that there was in him that genuine humility and guilelessness of heart, that tenderness and geniality of character, which, when matured and disciplined by the sharp trials of a missionary life, would make him a valued and faithful minister, and win back for him the confidence and esteem of those, whom he had displeased. Towards the close of the chequered career of St. Peter and St. Paul we find him trusted and loved by both. St. Paul speaks in strong terms of his usefulness in the ministry, is anxious for his assistance, and commends him warmly to his people. St. Peter, as we have seen, calls him his own son. In perfect agreement with these facts is the account given by the earliest and best informed among the Fathers, of the circumstances under which the Gospel Sermon VI. MAECUS MY SON. 81 was written. St. Mark, a well-educated man, the member of an opulent family, is said to have been the interpreter of St. Peter; his attendant at the last; and when, soon after the martyrdom of the Apostle, this Gospel was published, it was universally received the Church, not merely as the production of an Apostolic man, but as an authentic and faithful record of St. Peter’s public teaching. It was, in fact, looked upon not so much as the work of St. Mark, as that of St. Peter himself. I will not detain you by quoting passages from writers of the first two cen¬ turies, who are quite unanimous on the point; but in¬ asmuch as controversialists of later years were much divided in opinion as to the date of this Gospel, and its relation to those of Matthew and Luke, it may be necessary to state, that the results of the most search¬ ing criticism fully bear out this representation : that the originality of this Gospel, its great antiquity, its peculiar connection with St. Peter, are facts which, though long questioned, are now generally recognized, and upon which you may be assured no fair inquiry will hereafter cast any reasonable doubt. And now let me ask, what should you expect to find in such a Gospel, written under such circum¬ stances, and by such a man ? What light does the mere fact of St. Mark’s connection with the two Apostles of the Gentiles and of the circumcision cast upon the relations between the component elements of the primitive Church ? Are traces of the influence a 82 MAKCUS MY SON. Sermon VI. of one or other of the Apostles, or of both, manifest or discernible upon close inspection ? We should certainly expect such a result, and with it an answer to many prevalent misrepresentations of those, to whom it seems a light thing to throw discredit upon the motives and feelings of the chosen disciples, of our Saviour, the first propagators of the Christian faith. The stamp of St. Peter’s personality must un¬ doubtedly be distinguishable; were it not so we should he little disposed to accept the testimony of external witnesses, whatever authority they might claim. If, in the very statements which bear that stamp, we find a perfect harmony with the funda¬ mental principles of St. Paul, with those principles which are too often regarded as in their form at least peculiar to the Apostle of the G-entiles, shall we not welcome such an attestation to the original and abso¬ lute unity of the Christian faith ? Now, before I bring facts from the Gospel itself in support of these assumptions, let me call attention to the very remark¬ able circumstance that each of them is corroborated by the very attacks made upon its authenticity. On the one hand, critics of no mean eminence have repre¬ sented it as altogether a production of what they choose to designate as the Petrine party in the early Church : on the other, it has been declared to contain indications of a Pauline tendency, altogether incom¬ patible with the supposition that it was composed Sermon VI. MARCUS MY SON. 83 under tlie guidance of St. Peter : while others, with the -perverse ingenuity but too often conspicuous in critics of a certain school, consider that it was an abortive attempt to reconcile the conflicting principles which divided the primitive Church. The conclusion seems sufficiently obvious that, while the facts from which such inferences are drawn are at once curious and important, the inferences themselves are wholly worthless and mutually destructive. They force upon us the thought that the peculiar position of St. Mark, and the peculiar characteristics of his Grospel, would seem to have been providentially determined ; to have been brought about by the special interposition of the Spirit of God, in order to preclude the possibility of such misconceptions, save in the case of those whose minds are blinded by antipathy to Christian truth: or, rather, let me say, in order to exemplify, for the benefit of all candid inquirers, the absolute harmony of those principles which were developed by the mighty spirits, to whom was committed the work of instructing the members of the body of Christ. Let us now consider the general structure of this Gospel. The most striking point is the ex¬ treme simplicity and, so to speak, naturalness of the narrative; just what might be expected from one whose single object was to present the events in a clear, intelligible form to hearers unacquainted with the history of Palestine. In a series of pictures, if we may so venture to call them, all the transactions 84 MAKCUS MY SON. Sermon VI. of our Saviour’“s public life are successively presented : little space, comparatively speaking, is assigned to His discourses : they formed, doubtless, the most im¬ portant part of the Apostles’ preaching to converts who had already received the elementary truths of revelation; in this Grospel those elementary truths alone find place. We are also struck with the ex¬ treme rarity, almost amounting to an entire omission, of references to the prophecies by which the cha¬ racteristics of Messiah were made familiar to the Hebrew mind. Those prophecies, with exceedingly few exceptions, were not adapted to heathens until their minds were prepared by some knowledge of the Person and work of the Messiah. Taking the Gospel as a whole, it is evidently a summary of catechetical instructions, such as, we learn from the concurrent testimony of the earliest Christian writers, were delivered to the converts at Rome by the Apostle Peter, and committed to writing by St. Mark, his interpreter and attendant. And now let me call your attention to the remark¬ able vividness and distinctness of the narrative of this Evangelist. In the account of every transaction there are some words, some notices, which indicate, and indeed prove to a discerning and careful reader, that they were dictated by an eye-witness, and, more¬ over, by one in whom the faculty of observation, naturally keen, had been developed by special train¬ ing, or by a special interest in the persons and events Sermon VI. MAECUS MY SON. 85 wliicli lie describes; in fact, by just such a person as we know St. Peter to have been. We feel that we have the words of an attendant and lover of Jesus, one of fervid and excitable temperament, one accustomed to watch and to retain in an affectionate heart all His ^ gestures, all His looks, all the minutest circum¬ stances under which His miraculous acts were per¬ formed ; those especially which bore witness to His sympathy and love. Bead the Gospel with this point before your minds, and you will be surprised to find how many little touches it preserves, remarkable for their graphic minuteness and delicacy of observation. In no other Evangelist are there so many incidental notices of time, of place, of our Saviour’s outward acts, of His hand stretched out to heal, to touch, to direct, or to upraise a sufferer, as in the case of St. Peter’s wife’s mother; above all, of that earnest look, that glance of mingled majesty and condescension, of searching power or consoling love; the look which, from the day when it first fell on the Apostle Peter, was never absent from his consciousness, which pierced his heart with all its quickening and awaken¬ ing power, and restored him after his fall. I do not say that all these indications, which have but lately been fully brought out by close observers,^ would suffice to jprom the influence of St. Peter; but they certainly find a full explanation in the tradition so universally received in primitive Christendom, that * E. g. by Thiersch, Meyer, and HoUzman. 86 MAECUS MY SON. Sermon YI. the Gospel was written under his influence, and might almost bear his name. The next point is far more striking. I doubt not that it will appear to you all hut a certain proof of this virtual authorship. I allude to the very pecu¬ liar light in which the Apostle Peter is himself, represented throughout the Gospel. The strange combination of opposite and apparently incongruous qualities, of presumption and humility, of courage and weakness, faith and doubt, fervour and luke¬ warmness, which undoubtedly characterized St. Peter, has ever been regarded as one of the most perplexing, as well as interesting, subjects of con¬ templation to believers. Now remark this: the weak sides of that character, the darkest shades in every transaction in which Peter incurred his Master’s rebuke, are drawn out far more fully by this Evangelist than by any other. He alone omits all circumstances of extenuation : he alone re¬ cords completely the repeated warning before Peter’s great fall; the peculiar aggravations of that all hut inexplicable transgression ; while, on the other hand, this writer passes by many occasions on which St. Peter distinguished himself by singular acts of cou¬ rage, devotedness, and zeal; while he dwells much on the faults and the rebukes, he says little of the unfeigned contrition of the Apostle, the approving and consolatory assurances of his forgiving Lord. If, in the account of any particular transaction, you Sermon VI. MAECUS MY SON. 87 find a slight discrepancy between this Gospel and those of St. Matthew and St. Luke, you may be almost sure to find an explanation of the difference by simply bearing in mind the evident reluctance of the writer to assign too prominent a place to St. Peter. One instance may suffice, considering its singular importance in its whole bearings upon the position of St. Peter and the history of the Church of Christ. Compare the account of the transaction at Csesarea Philippi given by St. Mark (c. viii.) with that of St. Matthew (c. xvi.) : it was one of most critical import. It occurred at the very central epoch of our Lord’s ministry. When our Lord questioned the disciples as to the belief of the people and their own belief touching His office and nature, St. Mark omits in the answer of St. Peter the loftiest and the noblest words : in our Saviour’s approving acceptance of that answer he omits altogether the glorious at¬ testation to the Apostle’s spiritual illumination : and, stranger still, the astonishing words in which our Lord would almost seem to identify Peter with Himself as the foundation on which the Church is built, in which he commits to him the keys of that Church, with the powers vested in the ministry of recon¬ ciliation : in short, St. Mark absolutely omits the entire passage on which the falsely called successors of that Apostle have erected the portentous fabric of the spiritual supremacy of the See of Pome. As¬ suredly a most strange omission; one certainly not 88 MAECUS MY SON. Sermon VI. to be accounted for by any hypothesis which has found supporters among neologians; one wholly in¬ compatible with that which assumes either what is called a Petrine or a Pauline tendency in this Gospel; but one which seems to me perfectly intel¬ ligible, harmonizing with all which Ploly Scripture and St. Peter’s own Epistles teach us concerning his simple and unfeignedly humble character; and more especially with his position as instructor, if not founder, of the very community in which, as the spirit of prophecy may have forewarned him, so calamitous an abuse would be made of his authority and name. They who lightly regard the indications of candour and good faith, of the Christian graces of humility and self-abnegation in the Apostle and his interpreter, may perchance see in this omission any¬ thing but a proof that the account originated with St. Peter himself. To me, and, I feel sure, to you also, it carries with it an irresistible conviction that in the history of the origin of this Gospel which was received by the early Church we have the true and the only satisfactory explanation of the fact. And now let me state very briefly one other lead¬ ing and prominent peculiarity. St. Mark through¬ out his Gospel represents our Lord under one special aspect, even that denoted by the intro¬ ductory words, “ The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” I do not, of course, mean that it is singular to find in this Gospel such Sermon VI. MAECUS MY SON. 89 descriptions of our Saviour’s acts, such a repre¬ sentation of His Person, as enable us vividly to realize in Him the manifestation of the Deity, set¬ ting forth His goodness and power in miracles of healing, in acts and words full of tenderness and grace. That is the fundamental idea of all the Evan¬ gelists ; it underlies and is assumed in all their state¬ ments. But what is undoubtedly singular, and, while it requires explanation, does suggest most interesting considerations, is that in St. Mark’s Gospel, com¬ paratively speaking, very few references are made to other characteristics of the Saviour of mankind. Strange that he, a Hebrew, nearly connected with the sacerdotal tribe, nephew of Barnabas the Levite, the disciple and favourite companion of the Apostle of the circumcision, should dwell so little upon the fulfilment of Messianic prophecies, which occupy so large a portion of the recorded discourses of St. Peter himself: strange that the characteristics of the Efing of Israel, of the anointed Prophet and Priest, should be but faintly discernible in his narrative, and would seem to have formed no prominent portion of the teaching which this Evangelist hath preserved. Yet, strange as this may seem, it accords very remark¬ ably with the immediate objects contemplated by the Evangelist and his master St. Peter; and throws a strong light upon the course which Divine guidance assigned to the first preachers of the Word. Whe¬ ther we attribute the fact to the loving wisdom of 90 MAECUS MY SON. Sebmon VI. St. Peter himself, or to the influence of St. Paul upon St. Mark’s mind at the beginning or in the later years of his ministry, or to the special inspi¬ ration of the Holy Ghost, by which both Evangelist and Apostles were sustained and enlightened, we can see how important it was that the faith of the first converts from heathenism should rest upon a foundation of solid facts; facts such as might be ac¬ cepted by the simple unquestioning faith of child¬ hood, while their breadth and solidity would suffice to sustain the mighty superstructure of doctrine, afterwards raised and developed by a Paul or by a John under the operation of the Holy Ghost. That faith in the Son of God, in the intervention of Divine power and Divine love, liberated the heathen from the twofold yoke which has ever bound hu¬ manity when abandoned to mere natural influences; it freed him from debasing superstitions; it freed him from the crushing despotism of physical forces uncontrolled by a loving will. Once received into the heart, it opened the way for all spiritual im¬ pulses : once accepted by the mind, it communicated to it a capacity for all but infinite expansion, for the gradual apprehension of all truths which conduce to the perfection of the inner man. And, brethren, it is not too much to say, that whatever progress we may make in the Christian life, the whole prin¬ ciple of that life is found in that simple, elementary, fundamental truth set forth so plainly in the Gospel Sermon VI. MARCUS MY SON. 91 of St. Mark, embodied in our earliest creeds, find¬ ing utterance in all our prayers,—the truth that our Saviour is the Son of Grod, is the sole and the sufficient support of all our faith. Hold that fast, and the storms of controversy may sweep over you, but they will leave you unshaken and unharmed. Hold that fast, and all aspects of Christian doctrine will reveal themselves in just proportion, full of practical and devotional applications to your hearts. Hold that fast, as you value the peace of your souls: the pre¬ servation of heart-union with the living God. Hold that fast, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. Other foundation can no man lay: in that foundation all developments of Christian doctrine are implicitly comprehended. The end, as the be¬ ginning of the Christian life, is the simple, hearty realization of the truths which this Evangelist hath recorded as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 92 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon VII. SEEMON VII. COLOSSIANS iv. 14. Luke the beloved physician. Among the holy men associated with the Apostles in the establishment of the Church, none has a higher claim upon our reverence and gratitude than the Evangelist St. Luke. We see in him the faithful companion of St. Paul, the recorder of his deeds, and, as we learn from the simple and touching words of the Apostle,"^ his only attendant and comforter in the last hour of trial. We owe to Luke a narrative which preserves some of the most characteristic acts, many of the most affecting and instructive sayings of our Lord. St. Luke was selected by the Holy Grhost to write the history of His own coming, of the inauguration, and first triumphs, and establishment of the kingdom of Christ. This morning it is my duty, in accordance with the plan proposed at the beginning of the term, to set before you what appear to be the most important characteristics of this Evangelist; and I shall feel it necessary to include some remarks upon * 2 Tim. iv. 16. Sermon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. 93 the Acts of the Apostles, the continuation and com¬ pletion of his work. Imperfect as the notices must be, which are to be compressed within the hmits of a single discourse, they will, I trust, cast some light upon subjects of deep and permanent importance to believers, and suggest considerations of practical interest in the present condition of our own Church. These are the chief facts known either from positive statements in Holy Scripture, or inferred with great probability from those statements, and attested by early and trustworthy writers. St. Luke was not of Hebrew descent: in the Epistle to the Colossians (iv. 14, compare v. 11) St. Paul expressly distinguishes him from Christians of the circum¬ cision. This point, as we shall see, is exceedingly important, and is now admitted by the ablest critics.* Before his conversion he was probably f settled as a physician at Antioch, a city at that time important as the real capital of the East, to us far more important as the place where the disciples first bore the name of Christian, and as the great centre of the missionary work of the Apostolic Church. That Luke was a man of con¬ siderable cultivation is a fact sufficiently proved by the purity, and even grace of his style, which, in passages where he-wrote freely may bear com- * Bleek, ‘ Einleitung,’ p. 119; Meyer, ‘ Commentar,* iii. p. 216; Eenss, &c. t See Eusebius, ‘ H. E.’ iii. 4; and Bleek. 94 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon YH. parison with that of the best writers of his age. In fact, he could not have exercised the profession of a physician in that countrj^, where it was then held in high estimation, without considerable pro¬ ficiency in the scientific culture of the time. It is perhaps not generally known that the treatises on medicine produced not long after that time, and by writers from the provinces to which Luke belonged, are among the most memorable docu¬ ments of antiquity, and are still recognised as authorities in our schools.* St. Luke appears to have been converted in middle life, most probably by St. Paul. From his own words it has been concluded by the soundest critics, both ancient and modern, that he first joined the Apostle, as an attendant, at Troas, went with him to Macedonia, took charge for a season of the Philippian Church, accompanied St. Paul afterwards in many of his missionary journeys, and remained near him as minister and friend during his imprisonment at CsBsarea, where he probably wrote his Gospel under the Apostle’s superintendence. He certainly attended St. Paul on his journey to Rome, remained there a witness and partaker of his trials, forsook him not when others, whom he trusted and loved, proved faithless; and, if he shared not the prison of the Apostle, yet dared the fury of his persecutors, and # * The schools of Laodicea, Ephesus, Pergamus, &c., produced Themis- ton, Thalassus, and Galen. Sermon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAK. 95 stood by him to the death. After St. Paul’s martyr¬ dom, we have no accounts of our Evangelist’s labours on which dependence may be placed. The legend of his skill in painting is unknown to early writers, but is perhaps worthy of notice, as indicating a general impression that he was in some way con¬ nected with the civilization of Grreece. Of this, however, we are certain; during the years which intervened'between his own death and that of St. Paul, he was engaged in the work of a missionary, though it is uncertain whether, like his teacher, he entered Heaven through the fiery portal of martyr¬ dom, or like St. John passed hence to his reward in extreme old age. What is the chief impression upon our minds when we think upon those facts ? Is it not that in St. Luke, this Gentile physician, we see the first fruits of Grecian civilization devoted to the service of Christ ? Do we not feel that in St. Luke’s person was anticipated and represented the reception into the Church of all in humanity that is capable of divine influence : the consecration of human thought in its purest and most useful developments by the religion of the Saviour ? Yery true it is, of all truths most precious, that Christ came first to the poor: no spirit was too humble, no mind too unin¬ formed for the work of His Spirit. Yes, the Gospel is the heritage of the poor. That it was preached to the poor was the great sign to which our Lord 96 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon VII. Himself appealed when questioned by the disciples of the Baptist: that it could, and that it did, trans¬ form the peasant and the slave into a free child of the great King, was the fact to which the most learned of the Christian apologists, Clement and Origen, pointed triumphantly, when they com¬ pared the Gospel with the systems of philosophy, which they of all men were least disposed to under¬ value. It is the test, the crucial test, of any system which professes to be Christian, whether it finds its way to the hearts of the poor. But, brethren, though no mind is too lowly for the grace of Jesus, the loftiest and the noblest minds are those, which feel most deeply their exceeding need of Him, which, once touched, respond most completely to His call. True, in th^ first place, Christ did choose the mean things of the world, hut it was that by their instru¬ mentality He might bring captive all proud imagina¬ tions into willing obedience to His yoke. It is a simple historical fact, that if Christianity first made its way into the strongholds of the world by means of obscure and lowly agents, within no lengthened period it gathered unto itself all hearts susceptible of noble and generous emotions, all anxious and inquiring spirits, all earnest seekers after truth. The Christian Church accepted all truths, which had been partially discerned by human reason; it completed and harmonized them by the principles taught by the living and indwelling Sermon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. 97 W ord. What a fact is this! since the lapse of a few centuries from the first preaching of the Gospel not a single production of the human intellect of universal interest, not one great discovery in science can be pointed out, which does not owe its origin to nations professedly Christian; nations, moreover, which, whatever their actual condition may now be, are unquestionably indebted to Christianity for their intellectual as well as their spiritual life. Christen¬ dom, with all its shortcomings and corruptions, is now at this day, and has been for centuries, the only home of science and humanity, of liberty and art. These are facts which ought never to be lost sight of; they are the best answer to cavils and objections, which find currency in certain circles; and they justify the position claimed for our most holy faith as the regenerator and rightful Lord of the human race. I could not choose but bring them under your consideration when speaking of St. Luke, the Gentile physician, the man whose writings are the only ones not produced by a Hebrew, which find a place in the Word of God. Let me beseech you to consider well that very remarkable fact: it is too generally overlooked; but independently of its interest as a curious and striking point, it has a very important bearing upon the special characteristics of the portion of Holy Scripture, which we owe to this Evangelist under the Divine guidance. He, the Gentile, and he alone H 98 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICUN. Sekmon VIL of all the sacred writers, was permitted to record the history of our faith, from its first origin in a corner of Palestine to its establishment in the centre of the Roman world. All that was peculiar in the personal condition and characteristics of St. Luke has left unmistakeable traces in both treatises, but by far the most important are those which bear witness to his Grentile descent. It is an interesting circum¬ stance that miracles of healing are usually described by him with singular accuracy; indeed he uses terms so precise, and even technical, that the commentators illustrate them from the writings of Gialen, and other physicians of St. Luke’s time. It is instructive to trace the indications of Greek culture in the style and general composition of both works, which un¬ doubtedly contributed among other causes to their early popularity in those lands. But far more in¬ teresting and instructive is the fact, that every transaction, and almost every discourse, in which our Saviour revealed the fulness and freeness of His forgiving grace, is recorded with unusual com¬ pleteness by this Evangelist. We can, indeed, easily conceive that such manifestations of heavenly love must have had a deep and special attraction for a converted Gentile. Yet it is not without surprise that we find upon inquiry, how many^ of those words and acts are known from St. Luke alone. He alone relates the gracious pardon of that poor penitent sinner who anointed our Lord’s feet, and Skrmon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. 99 washed them with her tears, in the house of the wondering and indignant Pharisee. From St. Luke we learn how the Lord Jesus rebuked His disciples for their burning zeal, when He was repulsed by the Samaritans, and taught the true nature of that Spirit which should possess His followers. The parable of the Grood Samaritan, the exemplar of true charity, the type of the Saviour of the lost and perishing, is told by St. Luke only; and, not to detain you too long by referring to many similar facts, let me call your attention to this. The three parables which describe the restoration of repentant sinners from every kind and every degree of guilt, are found in one chapter of this Evangelist, the fifteenth, and are found there only. Yes, the lost sheep, the lost piece of money, the prodigal son, words that go at once to the heart’s core of every penitent, are known from this Gospel alone. You must note this also: St. Luke alone has preserved for us those words of our Saviour when on the cross He interceded for His murderers, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The last and the most wondrous act of Divine power mani¬ fested in the forgiveness of sins, is narrated by this Evangelist, who alone tells us how the dying Redeemer assured the penitent and believing male- factor, ‘‘ This day shalt thou be with me in Para¬ dise.” It is a fact of infinite importance in its bearings upon the whole scope and purport of the 100 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon VII. Cliristian revelation, that the Gospel containing such discoveries of the love and grace of Jesus, of the extension of that grace to all conscious of their wants, and capable of responding to His call, should have been put into the heart of a Gentile by His Holy Spirit, and associated for ever with a Gentile name. We turn now to St. Luke’s other treatise. And here the adaptation of his character and position to- the great work assigned to him by the Holy Ghost is at least equally striking, and perhaps more completely demonstrable. It is a well-known fact that at a very early date there were various, though not, properly speaking, conflicting tendencies in the Apostolic Church. This, all must have remarked. No one can doubt that there was a real distinction between the manner^ in which the same fundamental doctrines and facts were apprehended and represented by dif¬ ferent members of the Apostolic body. Each Apostle, each true-hearted disciple, spoke the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, as each was moved by the same Holy Ghost; but, as there were diversities of gifts, so were there also diversities of administra¬ tions. The form and character of their preaching and exposition were modified according to their own subjective peculiarities, and'to the wants, capacities, and, generally speaking, the spiritual state of tlie persons whom they addressed. Indeed, in the case of some disciples in whom the. inner man was not Sermon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. 101 tlioroiiglily renewed, in whom early and deep-rooted prejudices were not eradicated by Christian love, those tendencies showed themselves in very painful and formidable results. Party spirit raged with a violence which might have well-nigh disturbed our faith in the power of the Head of the Church, had He not Himself forewarned us. The authority of the Apostles was claimed, on the one hand, by those who threw contempt upon the eternal truths and eternal duties inculcated in the elder dispensation; on the other hand, by those who would make its ceremonies and forms binding upon the conscience even of Gentile converts. It is true, that during the period of transition from the types and shadows of the Law to the substance and light of the Gospel, even the purest hearts and noblest spirits found it difficult to realize their true position, and to see clearly the course they ought to pursue. You have but to call to. mind the short but sharp contention between St. Paul and St. Peter, recorded by the Apostle of the Gentiles in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians. What wonder that open or secret enemies of the Christian faith should abuse such facts ? What wonder, if weak or wavering minds should be perplexed, or even alienated from the cause ? But, brethren, one man occupied a position which enabled him not only to sympathise with all true champions of the Cross, but better, it may be, than any one of his colleagues, to comprehend their 102 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon Yll. relative positions, and to do full justice to the cha¬ racters and motives of each and all. One hook was written in which the sources of all misapprehensions are clearly shown, and a powerful light thrown upon that fundamental unity which underlies all apparent differences. That book is the Acts of the Apostles. That man is St. Luke : St. Luke, the trusted, beloved follower of St. Paul; the man whose mind had been enlarged, while his human sympathies had been developed, by the studies and occupations of his noble profession. So early a convert, that every form of Hebrew piety was sanctified to him by the practice of the Apostles, if not of our Lord Himself; while his whole after life was passed in contact with every phase of Christianity among Jewish or Grentile con¬ verts. This aspect of his writings has been so fully recognised by modern criticism, that, unable to re¬ concile it with their theories, some have represented it, with less, perhaps, of glaring absurdity than in the case of St. Mark’s Gospel, but with equal disinge¬ nuousness, as a work forged for the very purpose of removing the appearance of discord between the elder Apostles and St. Paul. Give me your attention while I bring before you some proofs or illustrations of the fact thus attested by the very misrepresenta¬ tions of our antagonists. The first part of the Acts is wholly occupied with the history of the Church in Palestine. Now, among the original Apostles as described by St. Luke, one Sermon VII. LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. 103 form stands out in strong relief; to one person is assigned the foremost place in every great critical transaction. That person is St. Peter. Observe, it is from St. Luke, the most devoted of St. Paul’s followers, writing' under St. Paul’s influence, if not his special direction, we learn that on the day of Pentecost, the very greatest of all events since the Resurrection, the very birthday of the Church of Christ, St. Peter declared the mind of the Spirit, and inaugurated His kingdom on earth. I pass by the miracles of healing, which Luke the physician tells us were effected by the word, the touch, the very shadow of Peter. I pass by St. Peter’s resolute defiance of all attempts to suppress the preaching of the truth, the persecutions which he rejoiced in being counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus,” the many saintly and heroic deeds wrought by that Apostle: deeds which mark his position as leader of the vanguard of the army of the Cross. Weighty as these proofs are, the most convincing proof, I will not say of the object, but of the spirit of St. Luke’s narra¬ tive, is, that we learn from him that, when the first Gentile was admitted to Christian baptism, St. Peter administered the rite ; that when the first Apostolical council was summoned to determine the conditions on which all future converts were to be received into the Church, St. Peter was the man, whose words and authority, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, decided the question of their admission to all privi- 104 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. Sermon VJI. leges of the Christian covenant, free from the burdens and obligations of the Mosaic law. Were there time to analyse the remaining portion of the book devoted entirely to the labours of St. Paul, it would be easy to show throughout the same guiding principles. The Apostle of the Gentiles, far from subverting the work of St. Peter, is always represented as building upon the foundation already laid : as recognising and completing that work. We find St. Paul consulting the elder Apostles, receiving and carrying out their decrees : even complying in his own person with the rites of Judaism, and not taking one step in super¬ seding the Law without plain intimations from that Spirit who had commissioned St. Peter to baptize the Gentile convert. Can we not realise the joy with which our Gentile historian must have recorded the harmonious co-operation of the Apostles in sweeping away all hindrances to the free course of the Gospel, the deep gratitude with which he must have reflected upon his own part in that work ? No man who receives St. Luke’s writings as authentic, not to say inspired records, can read them carefully and doubt the thorough unity of purpose, the perfect identity of principles in St. Peter, by whose ministry the Church was first raised on the foundation laid by Christ; and in St. Paul, by whose labours the edifice was so marvellously enlarged. We rejoice that the Gentile physician was directed to preserve facts of such infinite importance to the cause of truth and love. Sermon VIL LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAN. . 105 Do we ask wliat bearing have sucb discussions on our hearts, our practice, our lives ? Brethren, no light is ever thrown on any portion of God’s Word, or, rather, let me say on the minds of its readers, without unspeakable benefit to their souls. If such inquiries enable any one to read one chapter of Holy Writ with a new interest and a clearer perception of its meaning, his time has been well spent, his labour has not been thrown away. But in St. Luke’s life and character there is one practical lesson which you are not likely to overlook. He is an example of one who consecrates his best gifts, his natural powers, his mental endowments, his professional influence, to the service of Christ. That man is blessed, who, like St. Matthew, flings from him all that is base and degrading to follow the Lord. That man is blessed, who, like the elder Apostles, exchanges an honour¬ able calling for higher duties in the Church. St. Luke exemplifies the peculiar blessedness of that man whose ordinary duties are such, that in discharging them he can render the highest services to the cause of righteousness and truth. And let me conclude with the remark, that the work specially assigned to St. Luke now devolves in a very special sense upon such men. The peace of the Redeemer’s Church, the maintenance of fundamental truth, depends, humanly speaking, to an incalculable extent, upon the manner, in which men of lofty and dispassionate spirits, with minds disciplined and expanded by the 106 LUKE THE BELOVED PHYSICIAK. Sermon YU. daily search after truth, will exert the influence in¬ separable from their position. Lovers of truth, what hearts will they not win by an open profession of their allegiance to Christ! Lovers of peace, what can they not efiect in removing prejudices and assuag¬ ing bitter passions ! They know well how good and wise men, equally intent on the discovery of truth, may appear to differ, may differ widely, without any detriment to the truth itself. They may sympathise with zeal and love when partially obscured by human infirmities, they may fearlessly express reverence for goodness whatever form it may assume. When party spirit rages, and the hot passions of ill-informed and unscrupulous partizans threaten disruption in the Church of the Redeemer, it is to them that timid and doubting hearts will naturally turn for guid¬ ance ; it is to them that victims of calumny or mis¬ representation should be able confidently to appeal for sujoport. He is the true servant of Christ, who, retaining a firm hold on all essential truths, uses the influence secured by his character or his gifts to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 107 SERMON VIll. John xxi. 20. Tiie disciple loliom Jesus loved. WE have this morning to consider the characteristics of the fourth Grospel; a book which has ever been recognised by Christians as the most thoroughly impregnated with the very spirit of Jesus in the whole Bible; a book in which the deepest and most essential truths of our faith are stated with a breadth and a power which satisfy the demands of the highest intellect, and at the same time with a straightfor¬ ward and lucid simplicity which finds its way at once into the heart of a child. In the following remarks it is not my intention to discuss directly the que'stion of authenticity, upon which, however, it may be hoped that many observations, and the general strain of argument, may cast some light: nor should I have alluded now to the point had not the authorship by St. John been represented as at least doubtful, in writings which of late have ob¬ tained an unhappy notoriety. But it may be well to call your attention to one fact, which to most candid inquirers will appear an all but conclusive 108 the disciple whom JESUS LOVED. Sermon VIII. « answer to such allegations. In the country whence most of those reckless speculations have been avow¬ edly derived, not one critic who professes, I do not say belief in a Divine revelation, but decent rever¬ ence for the Person and Religion of our Lord, now hesitates to place this Gospel foremost among those documents which are of undoubted Apostolic origin: so much so, that when they would lay stress upon any appearance ‘of discrepancy between the Evan¬ gelists, they would settle the question at once by reference to St. John. In a well-known commentary on the New Testament lately completed under the guidance of a writer* remarkable for his utter indif¬ ference to doctrinal considerations, and for disregard for the testimony of antiquity, when it seems to him unsupported by internal evidence, a certain number, indeed a very small number, of points, are stated as results of critical investigations, about which no doubt can be reasonably entertained. Among these he places foremost the conclusion that the Gos¬ pel of St. John must have been written* at the very close of the Apostolic age; and, to use his own words, proceeded from the disciple who leaned on the bosom of Jesus. Let us now, in accordance with the general plan adopted in these discourses, inquire into the circumstances under which this Gospel was delivered to the Church. The very name of St. John suggests the combina- * Meyer. Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 109 tion of all qualities wliich can attract the love and command tlie reverence of Christians. Among dis¬ ciples the one specially beloved, in faith, in zeal, above all in love, pre-eminent; selected, together with his brother and St. Peter, to witness some of the most solemn and mysterious events in his Lord’s ministry, the foreshadowing glory of His Transfiguration, and the deep agony of Gethsemane : selected alone to lean on that Master’s bosom, to hear His last words upon the Cross, to devote to His mother the dutiful affection of a son. Among the Apostles, after the Ascension, we find St. John named as foremost with St. Peter in all acts, by which the Church was edified and extended, in exhortation, in suffering, and in mi¬ raculous works ; while alone of the Apostles, as all antiquity, in concurrence with plain intimations in Holy Writ, informs us, he lived to witness the over¬ throw of Jerusalem, and to complete the organization of the kingdom of Christ. Among the four Evan¬ gelists, last in time, and confessedly the first in rank. Among those to whom was committed the great work of informing the mind of the Church by Epis¬ tles, second only to St. Paul second, indeed, to none in the depth and power with which he declares the very essential principle of all godliness—yea, of the very Godhead Himself; even His infinite love. Among Prophets the last and greatest, St. John gathers up and completes whatever of grand and beautiful had been predicted in olden times, while 110 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Seumon VIIL to him alone it was reserved to declare the principles and manifestations of the Lord’s kingdom, even unto the end of time. The very type of purity, of holi¬ ness, of burning zeal, and all-enduring fortitude, partaker of his Master’s cup and of His fiery baptism in will and deed, we behold in St. John the most perfect work of Christ’s transforming grace, the purest and brightest reflection of His love. The circumstances under which the Q-ospel of our Apostle was given to the Church are partly inferred from scriptural statements, partly known from very early Christian writers. It is certain that St. John passed the latter part of his life in Asia Minor, and lie there governed, or, as all admit, superintended the churches in Ephesus and the surrounding dis¬ tricts which had been planted by St. Paul. Nor is there any room to doubt that he wrote this book long after the death of the other Apostles, indeed, but a few years before his own departure from earth. The number of Christian converts in those regions was immense. We know from the celebrated letter addressed to Trajan by the younger Pliny, then governor of the adjoining province of Bithynia, that, within some twenty or thirty years after that date, the temples were generally deserted ; and that per¬ sons of every age and station crowded the assemblies in which hymns and prayer were addressed to Jesus as their God. Towards the close of St. John’s life there was an interval of outward peace, a brief space, Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Ill to whicli allusion is supposed by some to be made in tbe Kevelation ‘ a silence as of half an bour in heaven,’ during which the fury of persecutors was arrested, and the cries of martyrs ceased. But the peace was only for a season—heavy clouds lowered on the horizon, and the prophetic ear heard the mutterings of no distant storms. Inwardly the Church was already disturbed by schism and heresy; the bands of discipline were strained or broken in many places; men bearing the name of Christians denied the Lord who bought them; many disbelieved His human nature; some questioned His Grodhead. The dreams of Pagan or Jewish superstition mingled in strange confusion with the primary doctrines of our faith. All these things must have worked strongly upon the spirit of one who had at that time “ the care of all the churches,” whose heart was so alive to human sympathies, so full of devotion to his Saviour. We are, indeed, told by Fathers of early date, and no mean authority, that the Grospel was written for the express purpose of checking those tendencies, correcting those errors, and at once fortifying the souls of the faithful against external trials and internal temptations. And to a certain extent we may admit the statement; those circumstances may have given occasion for a clear and powerful declaration of truths previously ac¬ cepted, but not, it may be, completely comprehended by the generality of believers; the Holy Spirit may have moved St. John to refute those errors; but, as I 112 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Sermon VIII. am fully convinced, only because, and only just so far as they were likely to reappear at future ages of the Church. There is nothing, properly speaking, of a polemical or controversial character in this the grandest monument of the Christian faith. The fact that it was written for churches long established is of more importance to us. The first readers of this Gospel had been hearers of the Apostles. Many of them had probably been nur¬ tured from infancy in Christian doctrine and habits. An account of our Saviour’s, life addressed to them, would therefore differ very materially from those intended in the first instance to instruct converts from Judaism or from idolatry in the first principles of the Christian faith. In St. Matthew’s Gospel we have traced throughout the intention of leading the Jews to recognise in Jesus the Messiah, whose advent had been announced by the Prophets, and was expected by the nation. In St. Mark’s narrative we have remarked an equally obvious adaptation to those converts who had passed into the Church, like Cornelius, through the gate of the Synagogue. St. Luke himself tells us that he wrote in order that Theophilus, who represents all Gentiles converted directly by St. Paul or his fellow workers, might know the certainty of those things_, in which they had been previously instructed. That Gospel contains what might be called the elementary instruction of Gentile Christianity. But Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 113 St. John had to complete the edifice. The catholic character of the Church was now accomplished by the fusion of the Gentile and Jewish elements ; we have no traces within its precincts of such struggles as those which called forth all the energies of St. Paul. Under the guidance and teaching of the last surviving Apostle all sincere Christians were prepared to receive what this Gospel most fully supplies, even the deep things of the Spirit, who came according to the Redeemer’s promise to lead His disciples into all truth. For truly indeed does this wondrous book meet all that might be expected from such a man, and from such an occasion. The judgment of the early Fathers has been confirmed by the voice of the universal Church. They call it emphatically the Spiritual Gospel, the depository of the profoundest truths revealed by the Holy Ghost, the book which brings the heart into nearest contact with the very Person of our blessed Saviour, from which we acquire our most vivid impressions of the deep tenderness of His human nature, of the fulness of grace, and truth, which manifested to man the glory of the only begotten and co-eternal Son of God. To illustrate this statement fully would require little short of a commentary on the whole book, but it may be possible to bring out into distinct relief some few characteristic points of our Evan¬ gelist’s mode of recording the acts and words, and I 114 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Sermon VHI. by them of leading us to contemplate the character and Person of the Lord Jesus. In the first place, there is a marked difference between the accounts of our Lord’s miracles which are given by St. John, and by the other Evangelists. You may have observed that they seldom add any remarks to indicate the spiritual or practical import of miraculous works. They record them indeed as proofs of the Divine power inherent in the Son of God, and manifested in the Son of man; and they describe in many instances the effects immediately produced by them. But, for the most part, they leave it for the Church, for the heart of believers, enlightened by the Spirit, to discover the inner meaning. Now St. John, who describes only a few miracles (with a singular minuteness and accuracy), either uses expressions, so significant that they can hardly be mistaken, to indicate the symbolical and spiritual purport, or he attaches to his account of them some discourses of our Lord in which that purport is distinctly explained. As instances of the first of these two methods, I would refer you to the description of the first miracle wrought by our Lord at Cana, and related by St. John alone. The words in that narrative are indeed so natural and graphic, that they impress the most sceptical reader with an irresistible conviction of the reality of the transaction, but they are at the same time so evidently symbolical, that no Christian writer has Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 115 questioned the fact, and few indeed have mistaken their general meaning. Among our own divines there is an all but perfect unanimity. Two men, indeed, remarkable above all things for clear, calm intellect, and certainly without any tendency to mysticism—I mean Archbishop Whately and the late Bishop Coplestone—have written sermons to show that some of the deepest mysteries of our faith were represented and bodied forth in that account. Similar remarks apply to the accounts of the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, and to that of the raising of Lazarus. Each account has words, like flashes of heavenly light, words of the Lord, or of His Evangelist, indicating to the thoughtful reader the latent meaning of the acts described. Even more important, or at any rate less open to cavil, are the instances in which our Lord after¬ wards discourses at length upon the truths repre¬ sented in the miracles. Thus you will remember, after the long and minute account of the giving of sight to the man blind from his birth, and of the excitement and discussions to which that miracle, hitherto unparalleled, had given occasion, our Saviour, who had just declared Himself to be the light of the world, described the effects of the manifestation of that light for deliverance or for judgement; and, not to multiply instances, let me but request you to consider all that St. John re- I 2 IIG THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Sermon VHI. lates in connection with the miraculous feeding of the multitudes. All the Evangelists record the trans¬ action, twice repeated with hut slight variation; nor is it possible to doubt that all regarded it not merely as a marvel of Divine power, but as a pro¬ foundly significant transaction. The full meaning, however, is drawn out by St. John only. He alone records the discourses in which our Lord enforces both the practical lessons, and the deep spiritual truths, which were thereby symbolized or illustrated. We learn from him how the Saviour connected that act with the fulfilment of the typical events in the wilderness, with the communication of Himself to believing hearts as the true bread which came down from Heaven, with the spiritual gift of His own fiesh and His own blood, not only offered as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of man, but mysteriously and effectually imparted to the faithful, making them partakers of His humanity, and becoming at once a pledge and a means of their resurrection; for even so our Redeemer teacheth, “ Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day.’’ And this same discourse suggests another very cha¬ racteristic feature in St. John’s mode of representing religious truths. You may have observed that he alone gives no account of the institution of the most impor¬ tant acts connected with the organization and minis¬ trations of the Church ; the most remarkable omission Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. • 117 being that of the' institution of the Sacraments. The Church was in fact at that time in full possession of both means of grace. In the latter portion of St. John’s life the great mass of Christians had been long since admitted by baptism into the Church, and were regular communicants; they needed no further information as to the form or authority of those solemn ordinances. But what they did need, and what above all men St. John was specially qualified to impart, was a thorough insight into the deep spiritual verities and operations, which the Sacra¬ ments at once represent and instrumentally bring to bear on the nature of man. This want is supplied in two most profound discourses of our Lord, recorded by this Evangelist. In the sixth chapter, which we have just been considering, the whole subject of spiritual feeding is treated with a solemn and awful grandeur, which would be overpowering were it not for the marvellous love by which it is attempered. We there learn how entire is the communion be¬ tween Christ and His redeemed; how entirely though mysteriously He unites Himself to them, becomes flesh of their flesh, and transfuses, so to speak. His own quickening blood into their heart. Nor do we forget how, on that same occasion, He guarded us against any low, material, carnal mode of viewing this awful mystery; how He taught us that all these sayings are to be spiritually understood. “ It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth 118 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Sermon VIII. nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life c. vi. v. 63. Thus, again, with regard to baptism. While St. Matthew gives the very full and explicit charge of our Lord to His Apostles to make disciples by baptiz¬ ing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, St. John records the solemn discourse to Nicodemus, in which the principle of spiritual regeneration, and the mysterious workings of the Holy Ghost, are intimated by our Saviour. Indeed, throughout the Gospel we have numerous references to the processes by which the heart is renewed and nourished by the gracious influences emanating from Christ, and by His awful indwelling; hut little is said of those outward rites which none could appreciate more highly than St. John, provided that they were administered and received with a full perception of the inward realities which they signify and convey to the souls of believers. We have now briefly to consider one very striking point of difference between our Lord’s mode of teaching as represented by the other Evangelists and by St. John. With few, though not unimportant exceptions, we find that all His public instruction to the people was given in the form of parables. Thus, St. Matthew expressly states:—‘‘All these things spake Jesus to the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake He not unto them.” We are further told by the same Evangelist that the disciples were Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 119 SO mucli perplexed by His preference of this method, that they came and said unto Him,—‘‘ Why speakest thou unto them in parables ? ” Nor do we read His answer without feeling some difficulty in apprehend¬ ing its precise import and application. This much is, however, clear, that although instruction by parables was undoubtedly best calculated to arrest the attention of the multitude, (the deep mysteries of the kingdom of heaven being thus presented in an attractive manner to their imagination), it was not the form in which the minds of the disciples were to be fully quickened, and filled with the knowledge of Divine truth. Our Saviour taught them the meaning of His parables in secret, and, in proportion as their minds could bear it, gave them an insight into the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven by direct and unambiguous discourses. With the light thus supplied they, and all believers instructed by them, learned gradually to discern the mighty truths enveloped in those parables and allegories, which, thus explained, have been, and always will be, the great treasury of spiritual knowledge to the Church. Now, the discourses in which our Lord thus raised and opened their minds are preserved by St. John. He has but two parables in the whole Gospel, and those of a peculiar character, mystical and personal, but requiring no explanation, accepted at once by all readers, without a doubt as to their meaning, the True Yine, the Good Shepherd—who but recognises 120 THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. Sermon VIII. in them the liveliest representations of the Lord Jesns Christ ? All other teaching of the Saviour, as re¬ corded by this Apostle, is given in the form of discourses, full of mystery indeed, full of thoughts, of images, of suggestions, drawn from, and leading unto, the very central glories of heaven; but, if dark, dark only from excess of light, training the spirit to gaze, even as the eagle spirit of our Apostle himself, with undazzled eyes upon the Sun of Eighteousness. The believer who passes the most solemn hours of his spiritual existence in meditating upon those discourses which S-t. John records to have been uttered by our Saviour on the eve of His cruci¬ fixion, will find in them the key to all the deepest mysteries of the Eedeemer; the fullest, the most endearing, at once the tenderest and the most awful discoveries of that transcendent love which brought Him into the world that He might “ overcome the world,'’ and give eternal life ” to all “ who keep His word.” And now, Christian brethren, in concluding these remarks, I would but remind you that, inasmuch as the Gospel was certainly intended for the full de¬ velopment of Christian truth in the hearts and minds of believers, it needs a more than ordinary preparation of heart, a more than ordinary outpouring of Divine grace, to he received with full benefit to the soul. Like St. John, you must lean upon the bosom of Jesus, if you would have your heart beat in Sermon VIII. THE DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED. 121 unison witli liis : like him, you must stand at the foot of the Cross of Jesus, there gaze upon that visage marred for your sins, yet beaming with the light of undying love; there must you listen to the Saviour’s last words, cherish by His example all natural and pure affections, and share His triumph when He declared that the work which He had undertaken was finished; and there, too, must you learn the meaning of that water and of that blood which flowed from His side, the fountains of all cleansing and quickening influ¬ ences by which the bodies and souls of believers are preserved unto everlasting life. 122 ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. Sermon IX. SERMON IX, PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 1 Corinthians ix. 24. So run that ye may obtain. The ministers of our Church, those especially who are called upon to address such a congregation as this, have good reason to be thankful that the sub¬ jects most appropriate for consideration at each season are distinctly indicated by the appointed por¬ tions of Holy Writ. In this present interval * between the seasons, when the mysteries connected with the Incarnation of the Word, and with the completion of His mediatorial work, are commemorated, we seem to have the option between two objects of Christian meditation. The lessons from Genesis, the founda¬ tion of all revealed truth, present a subject to which a mind conscious of high powers, conversant with the laws of nature and the laws of thought, might well address itself with the confidence of meeting a great want, and discharging a great duty, in a time of rebuke and trial. That subject I leave to men thus * Preached on Septuagesima Sunday. Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 123 qualified, with the simple expression of a conviction that, whether the lowering clouds of speculation pass away, as hath been so often the case, in empty mut- terings, or burst in storms of furious controversy, the result must be a clearing of the spiritual atmosphere, a quickening and development of the principles of Christian faith. May I not, also, express a hope that from this great mother of thought, this home of sound learning and religious education, a host of well- trained combatants will go forth, able and willing to take their place in the vanguard of the army of the Cross : go forth, worthy successors of the men whose labours in the criticism and interpretation of God’s Word have in these times nobly maintained the cha¬ racter of our beloved university, now, as ever, fore¬ most in the sacred studies with which the existence and the honour of her ancient institutions are in¬ separably bound up ? Mine, however, is a somewhat humbler aim: addressing myself more especially to my younger brethren, I propose on this and the two following Sundays to confine myself to the other subject pointed out in the portions from the Epistles and Gospels read in the Communion service. In selecting those portions there can be no doubt that it is the intention of our Church to fix our minds upon the most practical of all questions, upon the principles and conditions of the Christian life, upon the means whereby we may approach to conformity with Christ; to teach us under what conditions we may attain the 124 ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. Sermon IX. mark of our high calling, in the words of the text, how we may “ so run that we may obtain/’ And from these passages it is equally evident that the Church seeks to effect that object, not merely by forc¬ ible reasoning and cogent exhortations, but, as was ever the wont with the inspired teachers, whom the reformers of our Liturgy followed with such implicit obedience, by setting before us a great example, even the example of the Apostle St. Paul. That example, which, in its varied aspects would present inex¬ haustible matter for inquiry, we may contemplate under three separate points of view. In the first place, there are certain features in that Apostle’s personal character which not only attract a general interest, but have a jery singular bearing upon ten¬ dencies of our own times; upon the tendencies more especially of that numerous and increasing portion of the community, in whom the religious element is struggling for the mastery in the midst of antagonistic influences, or in whom, under Divine grace, it is working upon the heart and conscience through the medium of vivid susceptibilities and high intellectual powers. In the second place, I would venture to direct the attention of my young brethren to a cer¬ tain peculiarity in the doctrinal system of St. Paul; a peculiarity, not indeed of principle, but of the mode in which the fundamental principle of vital Chris¬ tianity is apprehended, and applied to the inner life of believers, and to manifold questions of the deepest Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHAKACTER. 125 and most practical import. In the third place, the points of mutual contact, the process of action and reaction between St. Paul and the original Apostles, gave occasion to transactions which, misinterpreted and abused, as they have been by some of the most subtle controversialists of modern times, are replete with instruction to the candid and devout inquirer. Each of these subjects will supply matter for separate consideration. This morning we may occupy our¬ selves exclusively with the personal character of St. Paul; with those qualifications which he brought with him into the Church, and with those changes which were wrought in him when God, who com¬ manded the light to shine out of darkness, shined in his heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’’ In its mature development that character presents a combination of qualities, each in its kind admirable, but which are seldom found in the same individual, never, perhaps, in so remarkable a degree as in the person of St. Paul. From the very beginning to the end of his career we find in him an absolute unity of purpose, a singleness and straightforwardness of aim, a concentration and intensity df will, which recoils from no obstacles, submits to no compromise, rests satisfied with nothing short of the attainment of its object, whether that object be the establishment or the overthrow of the religion of the Cross. That cha¬ racteristic, the first and indispensable condition of 126 ST. PAUL’S CHAEACTER. Seemon IX. excellence, the badge of the true hero, whether God’s hero or the world’s hero, would have raised him to distinction under any circumstances, would have secured the admiration and obedience of common men; but, taken by itself, unguided by sound prin¬ ciples, it is found not less frequently in the destroyers than in the benefactors of mankind: in such a man as Saul was when he makes his first appearance in the Sacred Annals, a wild, fierce, stubborn, well-nigh savage nature, in which the leonine element, never altogether dormant, was wrought into fury by the progress of principles, in which his fanaticism in¬ stinctively apprehended the subversion of all that he cared for upon earth. But, look at him as he was when remoulded by the Spirit of Christ, you find that, while the strength and unity of purpose remain in all their intensity, other characteristics are deve¬ loped : what strikes us above all in his character then, even as compared with the great saints who had been formed under the personal influence of our Lord during his sojourn among us in the flesh, is the largeness and liberality of his views, his generous and comprehensive sympathies: the will and the power to enter into the feelings of other men, to make allowance for their failings or their prejudices, to discern whatever of good there may be in them, obscured or damaged as it may be by infirmity or even by sin. It is this union of force and tenderness, of unity of purpose and absolute unselfishness, which Sermon IX, ST. PAUL’S CHAHACTER. 127 gives St. Paul that peculiar and unparalleled in¬ fluence over men’s hearts, which attracts us most especially in his writings, which marks him as the man in whom the Christian sees reflected for his edi¬ fication the attributes of the righteous and loving Saviour: a model which we are bound to imitate, and which we can only hope to imitate, if we apply ourselves earnestly to the work. For, brethren, it is no easy work. It might, perhaps, seem easy for a man who has no fixed principles, no positive convictions, to he tolerant, or what is called Jiberal; such, indeed, is assumed to be a natural CQmbination, notwith¬ standing the frequent instances of bigotry and fierce intolerance, among professors-of absolute scepticism. It may not, on the other hand, be very difficult for a man to be consistent, earnest, concentrated, who is narrow-minded and prejudiced : but, to be at once liberal and firm, a staunch upholder of truth, and yet a candid disputant with men of opposite opinions ; to be wholly devoted to Christ, and at the same time to be all things to all men, that we by any means win some; a deadly foe to sin, and yet a hearty sympa¬ thising friend to the sinner: this is, indeed, a high mark, a lofty sphere of spiritual attainment; yet one to which we must strive to attain, towards which we must he continually approximating, if we would be like Paul, if we would in any degree be like Christ. Let us consider the two sides of his character sepa¬ rately. Before his conversion, that unity and intensity 128 ST. PAUL’S CHAKACTER. Seemon IX. of nature, directed as it was even then to an unselfish and no ignoble object, raised him above the reach of sordid and debasing temptations, and made him in some respects a model which may put to shame many an inconsistent and double-minded professor of Chris¬ tianity. He was then, as ever, a man with a single eye, a ruling principle; zealous in the cause which he be¬ lieved to be right, governed in youth and guided in early manhood by the principles which he had im¬ bibed in childhood; a chaste, temperate, industrious man; one in whose heart no impure desires or thoughts were consciously tolerated ; one whose rela¬ tions to friends, parents, and countrymen were uncor¬ rupt : “ touching the Law,” as he says of himself, so far as conscientious compliance with its injunctions went, “blameless;” “exercising himself to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and man;” and, like all men who have those qualities, he was successful: he secured the good will of his equals, the esteem and confidence of his superiors. Compared with the weak, the idle, the dissolute, the unprin¬ cipled, he was then what is properly called an esti¬ mable man; sinning, so far as he sinned, ignorantly in his unbelief, but bringing with him to the service of his new Master noble faculties, a mind disciplined and enlarged by laborious studies, all the attainments then accessible to the pupil of the most learned of the Hebrews, and a heart in which the better affections and higher susceptibilities, if as yet undeveloped, had Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTEK 129 not been stifled or destroyed by sensuality, by self- indulgence, by wilful sill. Would that it could be said of every English youth fresh from our uni¬ versities ! Ah ! brethren, see to it that ye bring to the service of your Master, under whose influences your principles should have been moulded, in whose full light your minds have been developed, a nature as vigorous, a heart not less capable of goodness, not less free from those hideous pollutions which, once admitted, leave all but indelible traces; leprous distil- ments which penetrate through the senses to the very spring of life, in after years ever bubbling up from the depths of consciousness, full of evil sugges¬ tions, hateful associations, mingling with the noblest aspirations, but too often paralysing the Christian’s efforts, and, but for Divine grace, obscuring his best hopes and threatening him with separation from the pure and holy Saviour. But if Saul the persecutor, with all his guilt, Saul the blasphemer, presents such features for consideration, what shall we say of Paul the Chris-' tian ? When moving with the same vigour, pur¬ suing his course with the same uncompromising earnestness, he had another object before him, was actuated by other principles, and guided and in¬ formed by a new spirit. This we see clearly. In that new course he found the need of efforts far sur¬ passing those by which he had yet been signalized. He had now to contend with far more formidable r K 130 ST. PAUL’S CHAEACTEE. Sermon IX. obstacles. In his unconversion he had been sup¬ ported by the outer world; the influences of society, of authority were with him; and the prejudices by which he had been actuated found allies in his natural passions; he could then be violent, haughty, and in¬ tolerant, without incurring blame, without encounter¬ ing any struggles of conscience. Henceforth all was changed. The first step alienated all his old friends : where he had been trusted he was despised or hated : all the success which his energy and character had secured was cast away: what remained of his old work was his greatest hindrance : and what was of far more importance, he found in his new position enemies of whose existence he had scarcely dreamed : enemies from without in an evil world, and influ¬ ences at once subtle and malignant beyond what in this age we can easily realize : and enemies from within still more subtle, the stirrings and affections of the carnal mind in forms of evil, undiscoverable save to the renewed spirit, overcome and ejected only by tbe earnest application of all the powers supplied by the Spirit of God. Here, again, as in that lower field of conflict, Paul was successful: and why again, but because he bad a single eye: because he was wholly possessed by one ruling passion : be¬ cause he was drawn by an irresistible and unresisted attraction towards one object: because he surrendered himself unreservedly to the inner voice which now spoke clearly to his heart: because he had ever be- (?WJ^ ^ JloiA^ C!'^) '7 ^ / y/ (^ (yU^tA ^ a<.^ ^CXX-. Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 131 fore him the incorruptible crown; because all his affections were drawn out by the majesty and the beauty and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ ? Thus, brethren, in the first part of his life, and in the last part, we may say that Paul was a successful man. In the first part he secured what the world, and what his own imperfect religious system had to offer, station and distinction, and the esteem and ad¬ miration of man : in the latter part he obtained what Christ vouchsafes to those who love Him, gracious influences, heavenly gifts, living faith, sustaining hope,—a faith more distinct, a hope more radiant, as the days became darker, and earth more dreary and desolate : he secured a name which to the end of time will shine with a lustre such as no earthly repu¬ tation can rival: a name and place in heaven among those who approach nearest to the throne of Christ. Such, according to the direction of a man’s efforts, and in proportion to his natural or acquired endow¬ ments, are the rewards attainable by decision of cha¬ racter, firmness of purpose, singleness of aim. The man engaged in secular pursuits is not likely to for¬ get this: science, art, professional life, exact and receive from all who care for the. results or prizes which each may offer, even such entire and unrelax¬ ing devotion : let none dream that Christ will bestow His gifts upon easier terms. Intellect and heart, all that gives us influence with our fellows, all that advances us in our several stations. He claims as His K 2 132 ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. Sermon TX. own. Wliatever other sacrifice He may demand,' this He demands of all : “ My son, give Me thy heart.” Fancy not that offering can be made without intense, concentrated efforts: without a surrender of much that attracts your desires : without that spirit of self-abnegation which enabled Paul to triumph over spiritual antagonisms. We live in times not less trying than were his to the man of feeling, the man of thought. The besetting temptation of our age is precisely that which earnestness of purpose alone can meet. An easy indifference on matters of principle,' a tendency to deny or palliate the distinctions between right and wrong, to acquiesce in a conventional stan¬ dard of morality, to look on error even in the most fundamental points as but imperfect truth: truth as inaccessible, if not a mere abstraction : valueless save for what are called practical results: such are the most obvious characteristics of our age, which make us rejoice when we meet with a thoughtful man, who lias passed through the shifting and eddying currents of opinion, and retains a firm hold on one fixed prin¬ ciple ; who still believes and trusts in a living per¬ sonal God. It is a question of life and death ; one that can only issue in life, if like St. Paul, like every true child of God, we fix our eyes steadily on one object, and give our hearts unreservedly into the keeping of Christ. But we must turn our attention to the other aspect of the Apostle’s character, one at least equally re- Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 133 plete with practical instruction. It seems, indeed, all but beyond the reach of ordinary men ; in its perfection it is indeed beyond the reach of any save Him in whom Paul found the source of all his won¬ drous strength, even that which enabled him, while pursuing one undeviating course, acting upon one fixed principle, to be candid, kindly, and conciliating ; steadfast as the martyr at' the stake, steadfast as the inquisitor crushing all natural instincts; a rocklike man, massive, compact, and firm, and yet retaining all the susceptibilities of the most genial and sensi¬ tive temperament, which ever throbbed with sym¬ pathy for human hopes or human fears. Let us take some few instances in which these qualities were developed. After his conversion he came at once into contact wfith his own countrymen. His first act was, of course, a public avowal of his faith, an earnest attempt to bring the Jews of Damascus to the knowledge of Jesus: .straightway in the syna¬ gogues he preached Christ, that He is the Son of God. That is but what we should expect from his frank and fearless nature : of all things the last we should apprehend would be a withholding of the truth : but what we should not expect is just what we find most prominent in all his discussions with his countrymen; his bold, unhesitating announcement of unwelcome truths was, I will not say qualified, but combined, with a most charitable and liberal con¬ sideration for tlie prejudices of his oj^ponents: there is 184 ST. PAUL’S CHAKACTER. Sermon IX. nothing of the bitterness which so often mars the work of new converts. He recognises all that is true in the tenets of the Hebrews: he admits all that was great and precious in their inherited privi¬ leges : he addresses them as men zealous for God, waiting for the Messiah, believers in the prophecies, instructed by a perfect law, natural branches of the living olive-tree, children of the Patriarchs, and, ac¬ cording to the flesh, near kinsmen of Christ. With all this there is no approach to tampering with truth : no palliation of the guilt, which he had shared with them in denying their Messiah and persecuting His followers. He draws out and puts in the clearest light the evil passions from which, as he well knew from his own experience, the unbelief sprung, while he shows them the way of salvation and upholds the glory of the Saviour. For this part of his conduct, however, it may be not so difficult to account. St. Paul of course under¬ stood thoroughly the prejudices which had so long blinded his own mind, and of course also sym¬ pathized with the people whom he ever loved with all the warmth of a patriot’s heart. But how do we find him dealing with the Gentiles ? On his very first missionary journey he came into contact with every variety of heathens,—the barbarian of Lystra, the refined and intellectual Athenian, the luxurious Corinthian, the fanatic of Ephesus, the haughty and inflexible Roman. It would seem as Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 135 though such a series of varied and dissimilar occasions of intercourse with unbelievers was providentially appointed in order that Christians of all ages should have a model for their dealings with persons ignorant of the faith or hostile to it. Now we see one principle applied on every such occasion. St. Paul’s first object is always to find what truth is held by those whom he would convert; to draw that truth out distinctly; to separate it from the falsehoods by which it may have been disguised or obscured; to raise his hearers to a higher sphere of thought from which they may discern the full significance of the truth itself, and the great spiritual realities with which every truth is essentially con¬ nected. In addressing the rude idolaters of Lystra (who were ready to worship him and Barnabas as beneficent deities) he appeals to the first simple principles of natural religion, and teaches them to recognise in the power which had ‘‘given them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons filling their hearts with joy and gladness,” the one Maker and Lord of heaven and earth. Thus too at Athens : we do not indeed find that the beauty, grace, and dignity of the forms, with which idolatry was there invested, blinded him to the abominations with which it was invariably associated; he had no such false liberality, no tolerance for deadly sin; bnt in reasoning with the subtle and ingenious disputants whom he there encountered, he accepts all the truth which they 136 ST. PAUL’S CHARACTEK. Sermon IX. too really held; ‘ lie shows himself conversant with the thoughts which occupied their minds; he appeals to their unwitting acknowledgment of ignorance touching the nature of God; he uses the most in¬ offensive epithpt to designate their religious feelings; he quotes their own poet to show the inconsistency of idol-worship in those who felt themselves to be the creatures, nay, the children of God: no point is omitted by which he can possibly find access to their under¬ standing and hearts; but all this, be it again noted, without keeping back the truth, which he well knew would be repugnant to their prejudices, and excite their scorn. He concluded that address, so mar¬ vellously calculated to attract their interest, to pre¬ pare them for the reception of spiritual truths, with a plain declaration of the doctrine, of all the most unintelligible to a Greek, that which is even now the crucial test of a man’s faith in an objective revelation, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. You find on all other occasions the same combination of firmness and candour. Even among the Corinthians he could, find a point of contact; he could make them feel the harmony and natural affinity between all real earnestness and religious principle; and could show them how the self-denial, self-mastery, the strenuous persevering exertions, which they put forth in striving for a perishable prize, might be gloriously rewarded if directed to the only object, which can satisfy the yearnings of Sermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 137 an immortal being. He knew from his own experi¬ ence, that the difference between the converted and the unconverted man is not one of nature, but of principle; that the one neglects, mistakes, or mis¬ applies central truths, the unwritten and irrefragable laws, whose Divine origin and eternal obligation were fully recognised by the “ lofty grave tragedian ” of Athens; ^ while the other keeps them ever be¬ fore his mind, embraces them with all their con¬ sequences, and gives them, under Divine grace, the willing obedieuce of the heart. This too he knew,-— that, whereas the one wastes a feverish and anxious existence in labouring for that which profiteth not, the other advances, under the guiding light of a reasonable hope, to a home' of perfect and eternal peace. In proportion therefore to the earnestness of his convictions was the fervour of his love. He rests not until he can find a chord in any heart, which will give a response to his touch. Far from shrinking from contact with unbelievers, far from repudiating the claims of their common humanity, he courts their companionship. Few points are more remarkable in his history than the way in which our Apostle won the esteem, the regard, even tlie affection, of many, who may or may not after¬ wards have become Christians, but who most cer¬ tainly, when he so knew them, were aliens from the kingdom of his Master. Kemember the powerful * So-pliocles : see ‘ Antigone,’ 450. ^ 138 ST. PAUL’S CHAEACTEK. Sermon IX. impression, which that singular candour made upon the princes and magistrates, before whom he was brought to trial ; remember haw warm was the interest which he excited in the rough soldiers to whose custody he was committed ; hut perhaps even more striking is the fact that the very magistrates at Ephesus, the Asiarchs, whose special office it was to provide wild beasts for the idolatrous festivals in that city, were his personal friends, and showed an affectionate anxiety when he was in danger. How could that esteem, that affection have been possible, had there not been in his whole demeanour, in all his intercourse with them, a com¬ plete absence of assumption, an absolute freedom from all bigotry,—irresistible proofs that his moving principle and guiding light was the very spirit of love ? One point in all this must strike us forcibly. The first principle on which we dwelt belonged to the whole man; it was heightened, not implanted, in conversion: strong, brave, earnest, and consistent, he was from first to last; but the candour, the sympathy, the ability, and will to deal tenderly with opponents was altogether a new thing, a heavenly gift, standing out in utter contrast to all indica¬ tions of what he must have been in his previous life. Nor need we use words to prove that it was a natural and inevitable result of the infusion of the new life, the presence and indwelling of the ISermon IX. ST. PAUL’S CHARACTER. 139 Spirit of Christ. It is, however, a matter of prac¬ tical interest to ourselves to inquire how it was that in a nature so impetuous and fiery, so impa¬ tient of hindrance, which recoiled from no struggle when the interest of truth and righteousness seemed to demand a conflict, all these gentler feelings could have obtained so speedy, so complete a predomin¬ ance. How is it that you and I can see our way thus clearly between the opposite dangers of luke¬ warmness and bigotry ? I believe the real cause to have been this: the truth which St. Paul received satisfied his whole nature; it contained, it was connected with no false, uncongenial elements, which could inspire inward or half-conscious mis¬ givings ; it was the whole truth, the pure truth: his mind, his heart were filled by it; it left room for no superstitions, it gave and secured a deep, inward, heavenly peace. We know indeed that heat, violence, intolerance, and spiritual pride are com¬ patible with sincerity; we know, on the other hand, that, a subtle intellect, and a sensitive temperament, such as Paul possessed in the highest degree, are rarely combined with unfaltering steadiness; but that which gave at once sweetness and stability to the inner man, expelled the perilous elements of disturbance. Are we stirred by angry emotions in disputing with opponents, or, still worse, in discussing difficult questions with inquirers ? Does that stern, concentrated indignation, which is not merely justi- 140 ST. PAUL’S CHAKACTER. Sermon IX. fiable but righteous, when directed against wilful guilt, and conscious hatred of truth, degenerate into personal hostility in dealing with honest, though mis¬ taken or imperfectly informed adversaries ? Then be assured the heat, the disturbance is connected with some unsoundness in our own hearts. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of Grod. The smouldering fire which throws up such exhalations is not kindled upon the altar, of which the high priest is Incarnate Love. The existence of such feelings should constrain us at once to look into ourselves ; to see whether any portion of our own religious system is of human invention, rests upon uncertain premises, is connected with personal, social, or national prejudices. When we have taken the beam out of our own eye, we may see clearly to take the mote out of our brother’s eye; when our inmost heart is calm, and full of light, we shall find words full of persuasive and convincing earnest¬ ness which may enter our brother’s heart; we shall do Christ’s work like St. Paul, when like him we have found in Christ our all in all; when as Christ lived in him. He liveth also in us; at once the hope of glory, and the source of all-enduring and all-con¬ quering love. Sermon X. SI'. PAUL’S DOCTPJNE. 141 SEKMON X. ' ■ - 1 Corinthians iii. 10. According to the grace of God which is given unto me^ as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation. In concluding my remarks last Sunday upon some prominent features in St. Paul’s personal character, I observed that the singular breadth and liberality of his views, the generous and comprehensive sym¬ pathy, which attract us most powerfully, flowed as natural results from the deep inward heavenly peace which filled his own heart and satisfied all its wants in the knowledge of the Saviour. A nature so strong and earnest could know no rest, until it found the very central truth of existence, the ultimate principle, on which man’s relations to Grod, and to God’s universe depend. That truth once found, life had but one object, to communicate the truth in all its integrity, with all its spiritual and prac¬ tical bearings, to his fellow-men. The question which I would now specially request my younger brethren to consider is simply this: whether, in studying the work of this great “ master-builder,” they clearly apprehend his central principle ? whether 142 ST. PAUL’S DOCTEINE. Sekmon X. they see distinctly, among all the great, indispens¬ able truths which he declares, which is the master- truth, the very corner-stone of the mighty fabric, in which he has gathered together all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge revealed in Christ ? It may suffice for merely practical purposes to be con¬ vinced that each separate fact and precept, every doctrinal statement, rests upon a sure ground; but they, who feel that it is their vocation to instruct others, will not be satisfied until they discern the true significance and mutual relations of all parts and portions of the indivisible truth; until they grasp the principle of unity, which underlies and explains the whole. We know that this is true of every master-mind; we know, above all, that it must be true of a master-mind moved and informed by the Spirit of the living Grod. Unity of principle is the distinctive characteristic of every system, reli¬ gious or secular, which has ever retained a permanent hold upon the convictions of mankind, even when based upon an inadequate principle. A system which has that one essential principle of unity is, so to speak, all but indestructible. It may be displaced from time to time by some ingeniously adjusted system of eclecticism; but while the fields of thought are strewn with the fragments of many a ghttering dome, which for a season gave shelter to admiring votaries, a system intrinsically one in principle is incapable of disintegration, stands fast in its pyra- Skrmon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 143 midal solidity, and will command adherents, until the absolute solution of all the problems of existence is found in a principle deeper and more stable, than any yet discovered by the human mind apart from the revelation of God in Christ. It is because we know that in Christ the true, all-sufficient, ultimate principle of existence is given and revealed to our inmost consciousness, that we are assured of the triumph of Christianity; that we are unmoved by menaces of a negative criticism : and our first object in searching into the meaning of any portion of the Book instinct with the spirit of Christ should be to see in what form, and with what special applications that principle is represented. This object should be set before us with peculiar distinctness, when we inquire on what grounds St. Paul is universally recognised, together with St. John, as the very fore¬ most among those, to whom the Holy Spirit com¬ mitted the work of edifying and instructing the Church of Christ. One answer will probably suggest itself in the first place to the minds of those who are at all acquainted with the controversial movements, which, at various critical epochs, have aroused or disturbed the minds of believers. I doubt not that most would say at once that the doctrine of justification by faith, though distinctly inculcated or implicitly assumed by all the sacred writers, is so completely stated by St. Paul, vindicated' so powerfully from all niisre- 144 ST. PAUL’S UOCTEINE. Sermon X. . presentation and perversion, applied with snch force to the conscience—whether for the purposes of con¬ viction or consolation, whether it be the Apostle’s object to counteract all adverse influences, or to draw the believer’s spirit into the very inmost sanc¬ tuary of redeeming grace—that it forms the peculiar and distinctive characteristic of the Apostle ; that it is the keystone to his whole system, and consti¬ tutes his chief claim to the reverence and gratitude of Christians. And, resting as it certainly does upon some positive and unquestionable facts, harmonizing as it does with the inmost stirrings of our conscious¬ ness, meeting and satisfying completely some of our very deepest wants, that answer almost forces our ac¬ quiescence. Justified by the free grace of a forgiving God, accepted for the sake of the Beloved, delivered from haunting and overwhelming terrors, what can we desire more ? Why look for any other principle in the writings of the Apostle, who has most cer¬ tainly given us this truth in a form which leaves no place for misconception ; which has been accepted by the keenest and most uncompromising advocates of Christ’s truth as the fundamental principle, the arti- cuius stantis^ et cadentis ecclesice, the criterion, by which we may infallibly test the soundness and vitality of any branch of the Christian Church ? And indeed, brethren, that man must be far gone in erroneous speculation who would question, either the essential importance of the doctrine or the Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 145 peculiar and prominent place which it holds in the system of St. Paul. Most entirely am I convinced that the deeper we go into the Apostle’s writings, the nearer view we obtain into the movements of his spiritualized nature, so much the brighter and clearer will be the light, in which the great living truth of justification by faith will disclose itself to our understandings and our hearts. Yet, I must confess, that to say it is the very root, the very foundation and ultimate principle of all St. Paul’s teaching, appears to me scarcely reconcilable with some obvious and undeniable facts. It is a fact that we have it in the form of a doctrinal or dogmatic statement, and that the terms in which it is con¬ veyed, familiar as they now are to our minds, cannot be thoroughly understood without a considerable effort of thought, perhaps not without some know¬ ledge of controversy and of erroneous and corrupt representations; and this seems hardly in accord- / ance with the extreme simplicity which must surely characterize the first principle of a religion, which addresses itself to man as man, not merely as a half-converted Jew or an intellectual inquirer, but as one who, whatever may be his circumstances of position or education, is capable of realising the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. And then we have this striking fact: the explicit and systematic statement of the doctrine is given in two Epistles only, addressed, under L 146 ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. Sermon X. very peculiar circumstances, to the Eomans and the Galatians; to churches in which the minds of the people had been thrown into a state of turmoil and confusion, where the Apostle’s authority had been undermined by the machinations, and the truths which he taught misrepresented, by the superstitious adherents of an abrogated law. Nor can it he ques¬ tioned that in those two Epistles the specific form, in which St. Paul expresses this great, this mighty, this all-important truth, was determined, under the guid¬ ance of the Spirit, by the specific forms of the errors, which that truth overthrew. The substantial truth, indeed, is assumed or implied in all the Apostle’s writings; but, with the exception of those two Epistles, it stands as part and portion of the general scheme of apostolic doctrine, as it was received and preached by all who, like St. Paul himself, relied exclusively on the merits and blood of Jesus for the remission of all sins. We are, therefore, driven to the inquiry whether there he not in St. Paul’s sys¬ tem some still deeper, more inward, and, so to speak, fontal principle: one, which once completely appre¬ hended, accounts both for the vividness, with which he brought the doctrine of justification to bear upon the self-righteousness of man, and for the power with which he disposes of all other—some scarcely less formidable—hindrances in the way of a soul strug¬ gling to attain to conformity with God. Brethren, I venture to speak with great confidence Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 147 when I assert that the truth of the matter is this. St. Paul apprehended himself, and enables those who follow his teaching to apprehend, the union be¬ tween Christ and His people, the indwelling of Christ in the believer’s heart, the absolute unity and per¬ fection of the Church in Him, as the very central principle, at once the foundation and completion of all living, saving, justifying faith. I believe that St. Paul apprehended that truth with such singular dis¬ tinctness, with so perfect a comprehension of all its consequences and bearings, with so entire an adhe¬ sion of heart and understanding, that it gave a dis¬ tinctive colouring to his whole mind, and filled fiis whole spirit with a light and power, which make us look up to him with peculiar feelings as the great teacher of the Church. Let me not be misunder¬ stood. That truth is in itself the central truth of all Christianity; the basis of all apostolic teaching; the source of all light and life; but, as I believe, it was the special work of St. Paul to develop it in its bearings and applications. I believe that, partly by the constitution of his own mind, cleared and in¬ tensified by that indwelling life, partly, too, by cir¬ cumstances providentially overruled and determined, our Apostle was enabled to bring it to bear upon the whole circle of Christian thought and feeling; with, a firm unerring hand to draw from it the two great doctrines, equally essential to the Church ; equally in danger then as now of being misrepresented or neg- L 2 148 ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. Sermon X. lected; equally demanding all the energies of the spiritualised mind and spiritualised heart to realize and appropriate, even the doctrines of justification by the merits, and sanctification by the spirit, of the living and indwelling Saviour. Let me now call to your remembrance a few out of many passages in which this fontal truth is pre¬ sented with peculiar distinctness, and its spiritual applications urged with the force and persuasiveness so specially characteristic of St. Paul. Take the initiative rite which represents and seals our adop¬ tion : what is baptism with St. Paul but the pledge of absolute union with Christ ? baptism into Christ; an act whereby we are made partakers of Christ? As many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death“as many of you as are bap¬ tized into Christ have put on Christ“ ye are all one in Christmembers of that one body of which the head and life is Christ. The principle of life thus engrafted, sustained by all spiritual influences, nou¬ rished by communion of His body and His blood, is developed by growth in Him “ which is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of -the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” Hence the significance and force of that most solemn prayer for the Ephesian converts, in which the innermost spring Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 149 of the Christian life is manifested; that prayer that God would grant you according to the riches of His glory to he strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man: that Christ may dwell in your hearts hy faith: that ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able- to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height: and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God/’ Weigh these texts well, should any doubt remain as to what is the very central principle of the Apostle’s doctrine ; and observe that I adduce them simply as instances of St. Paul’s habitual manner of speaking; as proofs of the spirit, which pervades all his utter¬ ances, which has created, so to speak, a new and most peculiar phraseology, transferring to Christ what belongs properly to His people, and trans¬ ferring to them the inalienable, but not incom¬ municable, attributes of the Incarnate Saviour: thus expressing, as it would seem well-nigh impossible for human language to express, a spiritual union, an identification so complete, that our sin is counted as His sin and His righteousness as our righteousness; for God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Now, brethren, it is perfectly true, it would be a most inexplicable and startling thing were it not true, that all this language, all this doctrine, has its root in our Lord’s own clear and positive declara- 150 ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. Sermon X. tions; that it is found in many passages, and is in thorough accordance with the Vhole spirit of the New Testament: there is not, there cannot be, any contrast betwen Paul and Jesus, or the Apostles of Jesus: still it is a fact, whether we consider the completeness and coherence of the statements, or the variety and copiousness of the figures by which they are illustrated, or the cogency of the arguments, by which the principles are enforced, and applied to all phases of the religious life, that they do constitute special distinctive characteristics of St. Paul’s teach¬ ing, even when compared with that of the earnest and single-hearted Peter, or with that of the beloved disciple, whose spirit rested with serene delight in the highest sphere of seraphic contemplation. And if this be so, it is surely a matter of considerable interest to ascertain to what causes the difference may be attributed, whether to circumstances or to per¬ sonal character, or to the specific action of Divine grace overruling both, or working through both in order to enable this great Apostle effectually to do his own special work. One point appears to me of peculiar importance. There was a real difference between St. Paul and the other Apostles in respect to their knowledge of our Lord—a difference not of degree, but of kind. Their knowledge was derived from personal intercourse with the Saviour. They had known Him in the fiesh. His words, His acts, His very gestures and Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 151 looks, His living personality, all the manifestations of grace and His human nature lived in their remembrance. To the end of their days they felt that their one work was to keep alive those impressions in their own minds, and to reproduce them in their words and writings for the edification of the Church. We feel this as we read what they have bequeathed to us. We do not so much inquire what the Apostles became under Christ’s teaching, as what that teaching was. We are dealing with objective facts, not with subjective impressions. And St. Paul felt this difference between himself and the original Apostles very keenly, I had almost said painfully. He was aware how much it affected the minds of his hearers ; how much it was pressed upon them by his opponents as a proof of his inferiority, and as a ground for questioning his apostolic autho¬ rity. All this he certainly did feel; but then, brethren, he felt more strongly, and understood the feeling better in proportion to his increased experience, that, great as was the advantage which those Apostles thus possessed, there was in his own relation to Christ something which compensated for it-some- thing which more than counterbalanced even that distinction. The very fact, that he had not known Christ after the flesh, compelled him to search deeply into the permanent and the eternal principle of that relation between Christ and His Church, which was to subsist to the end of this dispensation without 152 ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. Sermon X. bodily intercourse, or external manifestation of the Saviour’s person. Unless be realised tborougbly an inward manifestation, unless be could ascertain that Christ was revealed in bis heart, was in himself and in every true believer a living Presence, bis light, bis life, bis hope, and pledge of glory, be knew full well that bis apostlesbip would be but a meaningless name. He addressed the full energies of bis vigorous and enthusiastic nature to this inward process: be completed it in himself, and taught others to com¬ plete it, by a perfect surrender of all bis feelings and powers to the Spirit, which, in the depths of con¬ sciousness, be knew was working upon bis inner man, that original principle of a divine life commu¬ nicated by the breath of bis Maker. The objective facts of bis Master’s life were of course accepted by him in all their fulness. They were the solid ground¬ work of all his teaching. Under his influence, I doubt not under his own guidance, St. Luke recorded them for the use of his catechumens ; but objective facts were to him chiefly precious, because they at once represented spiritual realities, and were repro¬ duced subjectively in the experience of believers. What the elder Apostles contemplated and taught for the most part as an external revelation, St. Paul habitually realised to himself and to his hearers as an inward manifestation. Of all aspects of the truth, that which he inculcated most earnestly was the living union between Christ and His people, the Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTKINE. 153 indwelling of Christ in their hearts, the interpene¬ tration of the human and the Divine; his great work as a teacher was to apply this principle, and the truths which it involves, to the solution of the manifold and perplexing questions, which then agitated the Church, which will never cease to agitate it until the second coming of the Son of God. Thus, in the controversy with his Judaizing oppo¬ nents, He went at once to the root of their errors. He was not content to prove the claims of the new dispensation by arguments drawn from the fulfilment of prophecy, and to show its superiority as a more spiritual revelation of God’s will. These were points which our Apostle urged upon all fitting occasions with irresistible force, but which, as he well knew, were better calculated to draw men into the Church than to teach them their true position and duties within its precincts. His great object was to make his half-converted countrymen understand, that to be true Christians they must altogether give up their old views touching their relations to God, and their grounds of acceptance with Him. If they once knew that they would be accepted only when they were brought into living union with Christ, then all hope of justification by such fulfilment of the law, as they in their self-righteousness deeined possible, fell to the ground. The righteousness of Christ, communicated to the believer in virtue 154 ST. PAUL’S DOCTEINE. Sermon X. of that union, was incompatible with the assertion of claims resting upon the individual’s own righteous¬ ness. Once convinced of that, the Jew became really a Christian. Until convinced of that, no adhesion of the understanding brought him out of Judaism into the sphere of reconciliation with Grod. And since faith is the only conceivable medium of an union essentially spiritual with an invisible Saviour, that great Christian principle came out in a new light, and assumed its true aspect, and right place, in the doctrinal system of St. Paul—a system in which all true-hearted Christians recognise the complete explanation of their inner life. Faith was thus shown to have a justifying efficacy quite independent of any inherent meritoriousness, accept¬ able as it must be to God, being, in fact, a recog¬ nition of the adaptation of His best gifts to the deepest yearnings of man’s heart: it justifies because it brings the soul to Christ, opens the inner chamber of the heart to Christ, and expels from it all thoughts and feelings, which are incompatible with His in¬ dwelling. Justification by faith is but the aspect, the first and most affecting aspect, in which the results of the union between Christ and the believer are represented to the conscience-stricken sinner, seeking to know the terms, on which reconciliation is possible with a Holy God. Hence the effects of that great doctrine when faithfully proclaimed. It cuts like a two-edged sword; it makes the decisive Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTEINE. 155 separation between the hearers of the Grospel. The Judaizers in St. Panl’s time, who were not won, subdued, transformed by its influence, became at once a narrow and exclusive, and, within a few years, a stubbornly heretical sect, rejecting with that truth the greatest of all truths, with which in fact it is inseparably connected, even that of the essential identity of the Godhead in the Father, and in the Son. And whenever kindred errors, ever near at hand, obtain like influence over any portion of the Church; whenever prejudice, formalism, self- righteousness, obscure the vital principles of Chris¬ tianity; as there is but one cause of the evil, so is there but one remedy, the declaration—or rather, let me say, the spiritual application—of the truth that justification is of grace by faith as the con¬ dition and pledge of the indwelling source of all righteousness, the spiritual presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. But St. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles, and, greatly as they needed the same blessed assurance of acceptance in Christ, even more urgent was the necessity of applying the doctrine to their hearts for the purposes of amendment, of cleansing, of sancti¬ fication. Read the epistles to the churches of Greece and Asia Minor, which consisted chiefly of converts from heathenism, and observe how constantly he brings this one principle to bear apon the besetting temptations of men born and bred in the midst of 156 ST. PAUL’S DOCTKINE. Seemon X. unutterable abominations. Would be warn them against tbe defilements, which in their previous state they had regarded with indifference, this is his touching, his irresistible argument: “Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot ? God forbid.” Would he show the baseness, the hatefulness of lying, he has still the same argument, well-nigh the same simple words : “ Lie not one to another; ye have put off the old man together with his deeds, and have put on the new man : ye are members one of another.” Whatever the form of evil, he meets it with the same truth : “Ye are temples of the Holy Ghost; know ye not that the Spirit of Christ is in you if ye be not repro¬ bate ? Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Christ is your all in all.” What principle, indeed, short of this, could have taught Gentiles to reverse altogether their theories and habits in all the relations of life ? could have taught them, for in¬ stance, not merely to treat their slaves with gentle¬ ness, courtesy, kindness, but to reverence in them equals, if not superiors, members of the same body, equally near to God, equally full of Christ ? to recognise but one real difference between man and man, even the degree of his conformity with Christ ? Thus Jew and Gentile, every believer in his place and degree, had but one work set before him, that of bringing all thoughts and feelings, all impulses of Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 157 his heart, all stirrings of his conscience, all his intel¬ lectual and spiritual energies, into subordination to that majestic Presence, into conformity with that Will, which is the eternal source of righteousness, of peace, and love. Accepting this principle, the Christian found the solution of all doubts and ques¬ tions; knew the right place and just proportion of every essential doctrine; the true meaning of accept¬ ance and sanctification; comprehended the nature and duties of the priesthood inherent in believers; and could hope, by the mercies of God, to present his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, a reasonable service—reasonable in the highest, the true Christian sense of the word, XoyiK^ Xarpela, offered in the name and under the influence of the \0709, the indwelling Word. These, brethren, are the chief general applications of the principle in which St. Paul recognised, in which, I trust, we all may recognise and appro¬ priate, the very centre of the Christian life. In truth, it is the last word of revelation : the philo¬ sophy of religion can go no deeper; contemplation in its heavenward flight can ascend no higher; the one great effort of those noble and gifted spirits, which of late years have struggled against the storm-winds of an all-questioning criticism, has been to retain this principle, to realise it in their hearts. Among all concessions which, as I believe, weakness under the specious guise of liberality and candour has 158 ST. PAUL’S DOOTEINE. Sermon X. made to the encroachments of scepticism, this is the very last that can be extorted. This truth cannot, indeed, be torn out of the heart, which retains one particle of living faith. When this goes, all .goes with it; life, and light, and faith, and hope, and love collapse, and are swallowed up in one universal void. And let me also say this—for I believe it with all my heart,—when this principle is retained, whatever else be lost or eclipsed, the heart itself is safe: the citadel cannot be taken while the light of the Divine Presence rests on the inner shrine. “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty and the Spirit of the Lord is there, wherever the union between Christ and the soul is realised. Doubt¬ less, you may be sorely tried: the faith of thoughtful Christians is subjected to a fiery trial; while the wood, and hay, and stubble, which human credulity or human prejudice may have added to the founda¬ tion, are burnt up, the pure gold itself may be molten in the furnace; but gold is imperishable if pure, it can hut come forth brighter and more precious from the flames. If assailed by any doubts, withdraw your thoughts from all other points—examine this first : do you love purity, goodness, truth, not as mere objects of abstract contemplation, but as living realities ? do you now strive to realise them in your hearts, in your lives ? If so, Christ is not far off; He dwells in every heart where those His essential attributes are adored; they are infallible signs of Sermon X. ST. PAUL’S DOCTRINE. 159 His presence, though it may be for a season that presence be, as of old, hidden in darkness and in cloud. He will make Himself known if you retain that love : He will lead you into all truth, raise you out of all this turmoil and confusion of atheistic and pantheistic speculations, and point out a safe and unmistakeable way, in which the faithful discharge of daily duties, and the triumph over daily tempta¬ tions will bring you to the home where He awaits those, who have received Him here as their Lord V and Saviour, the author and finisher of their faith. 160 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XI. SERMON XL Galatians ii. 11. When Peter was come to Antioch^ I withstood him to the face; because he was to he blamed. The occurrence of which St. Paul gives this account, according to the aspect under which we regard it and the principles which we bring to bear upon its elucidation, is one of the most perplexing or the most instructive in the history of the Apostolic Church. A few words upon the controversies, to which it has given occasion at various critical periods, may show my younger brethren how deeply it has interested thoughtful inquirers, and how intimately it is con¬ nected with questions of permanent importance to believers. We are not surprised to find that the earliest writers, who allude to the subject, had to vindicate the narrative from the misrepresentations of those, whose avowed object was to overthrow the barriers, which the authority of the Apostles opposed to the introduction of antichristian heresies. Such men as Tertullian were content with an indignant denial of the assumption that the difference between St. Peter Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 161 and St. Paul was one of principle, and with, a refer¬ ence to well-known facts proving their harmonious co-operation ; * but theories, more or less plausible, were soon devised by others to remove even the appearance of antagonism between the two chief representatives of the Church. At a very early period the inquiry elicited some of the most striking characteristics of different schools in Christendom. Origen, whose subtle intellect betrayed him into so many serious if not fatal errors, first accounted for the whole transaction by supposing that it originated in a preconcerted arrangement between the Apostles, the object being to remove the prejudices of the Jews by the simulated indignation of the one, and submis¬ sion of the other. That view is found in most of the Greek Fathers who allude to the subject, and is main¬ tained in one of the most ingenious and eloquent discourses of Chrysostom, addressed to the Church of Antioch. Far different, however, was the feeling in the Western Church. Augustine, whose love of truth and reverence for Scripture were equally shocked by the assertion, utterly reckless of all con¬ sequences in the pursuit of truth, fastened at once upon the sophistry, exposed it with remorseless indignation, and established one point beyond all possibility of future 'misrepresentation. Whatever else might be doubtful, one thing was sure: the words of St. Paul must be received in their simple, * C. Marcion. iv. 3, and v. 2. M 1G2 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sekmon XI. obvious signification, as the record of a critical trans¬ action delivered under the guidance of tile Spirit of Truth. The letters on this question between Augustine and Jerome—who followed the teaching of his Greek masters—are among the most instructive and interesting documents in the literature of early Christendom. But, triumphant as was the refuta¬ tion, it must be admitted that neither Augustine, nor those who afterwards adopted his arguments, did justice to the better feelings which actuated the great teachers of the East. Discarding altogether the miserable artifice which they suggested, we may yet find in their writings many intimations, many im¬ portant thoughts, which were fully appreciated by the large and liberal spirit of Erasmus. They found little acceptance with Luther, who, in his zeal for doctrinal purity, here, as in other instances, was scarcely mindful of the claims of charity and rever¬ ence. Our own reverence for that great man must not make us overlook the fact that the utter disregard of those considerations, which spring from a deep- rooted conviction, that there could be no fundamental, no vital opposition between the Apostles of Christ, left his own national Church, so to speak, unarmed and defenceless, when a far more vigorous and fierce assault was directed against ’the Faith, but a few years since, by the controversialists of Tubingen. ^ One main object of that school has been to make out that Christianity, in its ultimate form, was but the Sermon XI. PETEK AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 163 result of a compromise between conflicting opinions ; that the elder Apostles and St. Paul differed not merely in character and mind, but in principle ; that all portions of the IsTew Testament which represent them as acting in harmony were forged or interpo¬ lated ; and the chief argument, on which they rely, is St. Paul’s account of this very transaction. And although no writers among ourselv^ have been found bold enough, or reckless enough, to adopt their conclusions, there can be no doubt that indirectly those theories have exercised, and are now exercising, very considerable influence on the minds of educated men. And, in fact, it must be admitted, that, if we would test the soundness of a principle, we can do it most effectually by seeing how it bears the strain of a collision. If we cannot prove from the account, on which the assault rests, the very opposite conclusion ; if we cannot establish the unity of the truth, held by the two Apostles, by the very circumstances, which led to the apparent contradiction and the positive difference ; it would fare but hardly with that system, on which our hopes and our faith rest as members of a Church built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. We may, indeed, feel comparatively indifferent as to the effect produced upon our mind by indications of infirmity, or indiscretion, in the personal conduct of one, or of both Apostles; we may afford even to lose somewhat of the exaggerated M 2 164 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XI. reverence wliicli has but too often issued in super¬ stitious observances ,• but the question as to whether the faith which both held, the principles, by which both were actuated, the spirit, by which both were moved, rested on the same eternal foun¬ dation, is one which, if not answered in the affirma¬ tive, would be fatal to all belief in a divine reve¬ lation, in the abiding presence of Christ with His Church. Let us, then, look closely at the facts stated by St. Paul: the first, thoroughly understood, is con¬ clusive. When Peter first came to Antioch “ he did eat with the Gentiles.” Realize the position and feelings of St. Peter in that heathen city, the first, as it would seem, which he ever visited; a city which represented to a singular extent the charac¬ teristic features of heathenism, the capital of the Eastern empire, remarkable even in that age for its licentious idolatry, and the general dissoluteness of its inhabitants. The Apostle went there on a special mission, to take charge of the Hebrew proselytes, as the Apostle of the Circumcision; but when he saw the Church gathered together by the younger Apostle, when he noted the mighty change which had come over the converts, the sacrifices which they had made, the proofs of holiness and love, his heart burned within him. He recognised in them true brethren ; he forgot the old prejudices of his nation, disregarded even the effects which his act might Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 165 have upon his countrymen, and joined the Gentiles both, as we must believe, in the solemn rite of com¬ munion, and in the ordinary meetings of social intercourse. In this he was undoubtedly at once following the suggestions of his higher nature, and acting in accordance with the principles which he had previously accepted. He recognised practically the force of his own declaration at the apostolic council, that God put no difference between the Hebrew and the Gentiles, purifying their hearts by faith.’’ But we must here bear in mind that, right as the principle was upon which St. Peter acted, high and Christlike as was the motive which im¬ pelled him, this practical inference was one which had not been drawn out by his fellow Apostles, one for which he had no precedent, for which he had not received, as in the case of Cornelius, a positive revelation. It was one thing to admit the Gentile converts to the privileges of Christian com¬ munion, another to receive them as companions in daily life; a course, in point of fact, incompatible with the strict observance of the ceremonial law, by which he and all his countrymen, including the Apostles and St. Paul himself, still held themselves to be bound. The question was, whether he was prepared to maintain, not the ’ inner principle of unity, about which no doubt was entertained, but the inferences which he had rightly drawn, and rightly acted upon, in accordance with the best move- 16G PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Seemon XT. ments of his spiritualized heart. Then, as we are told by St. Paul, came messengers from James, the recognised head of the Church at Jerusalem, presi¬ dent of the Apostolic Council; and, when they were come, Peter “ withdrew and separated himself; fear¬ ing them which were of the circumcisionnot convinced, as St. Paul expressly says, hut acting contrary to his own conviction. “ He and the Jews with them dissembledand Barnabas, St. Paul’s own nearest friend, “ was carried away by their dissimulation.” Now, before you look at the nature or extent of Peter’s error, fix your mind steadily on this :—it was an error of conduct, not of doctrine.* It was no indication of a change of principle. In fact, the more unsparingly we interpret and apply St. Paul’s condemnation, the more clearly this cardinal point comes out. The two Apostles were one in principle, one in sympathy ; but while the ’ one was steadfast and immoveable, adhering without a momentary hesitation to the course once adopted, the other swerved under the influence of motives altogether unconnected with any doubt as to the soundness of the principle itself. If asked to pro¬ duce a proof that the whole theory of an inward and essential antagonism between what are called the Petrine and Pauline tendencies of the first Christians is utterly baseless, we might unhesitatingly appeal Tertullian, c. Marc., iv. 3, “ non de prajdicatione, sed de conversatione a Paulo deuotabatur.” Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 167 to this very transaction. It is not, indeed, hard to see what influences were brought to bear upon St. Peter. It must have seemed clear to him that, in his wish to receive the Gentile converts to all the privileges of brotherhood, he ran great risk of alien¬ ating the Hebrews, his own special charge. Some¬ what of the same feelings worked with him, guided by a less vigorous discernment, which actuated St. Paul on many occasions; as when, for instance, he circumcised Timothy, and complied in his own person and in that of his followers with ceremonial observances, which had lost all significance to his mind. Peter feared the Jews, as St. Paul expressly says: not, we may be sure, from merely personal considerations, but because he might naturally appre¬ hend, that their report of his proceedings to James and the other Apostles would produce a fearful schism in the Church. The very impulsiveness of his nature, the same susceptibility of temperament, which had carried him so far beyond the position then occupied by his fellow-Apostles, were likely to expose him to a reaction when the issue was fairly set before him, when he had to decide whether he would act on his subjective impressions, and depend absolutely upon the force of his own reasoning in opposition to the highest authority, or what may have appeared to him the true voice of the Church. This I say not to defend or to excuse his conduct, but to account for it» Doubtless, he ought not to 168 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XI. have given way; doubtless, he ought to have stood firmly hy St. Paul; to have foreseen the conse¬ quences of such inconsistency. We cannot but feel that his position was most pitiable; that he must have been racked by inward misgiving; that he must have been conscious of having deserved the general condemnation which St. Paul tells us he had incurred {Kareyviaafiivo^ yu). But all this proves, as I said, absolutely nothing as to the point maintained by our opponents. It proves simply that St. Peter was not infallible in act; that his mind needed help to adhere to its own conclusions ; nor can we doubt that, as an honest, truth-loving, heart-whole child of God, he must have felt that of all blessings the greatest which could befal him would be that, which would extricate him from his false and untenable position, and at any cost of personal suffering—yea, and of personal humiliation—enable him to follow out the course indicated to him so distinctly in the first burst of enthusiastic delight at the expansion of his Master’s kingdom ; and this, I must observe, was the point which the keen intellect of Origen and Chrysostom saw far more distinctly than did the leaders of the Western Church,"^ and which those great teachers might have established on irrefragable grounds, had they not been misled by their desire to save their beloved and revered Apostle from even the shadow of a reproach. * See Erasmus, Ep. lib. 30, 87, p. 1868. Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 169 St. Paul was at hand: he noted with indignant astonishment the conduct of the Apostle; without hesitation he came forward, and in the presence of the whole church pointed out the inconsistency, the wrongfulness, and the mischievous effects of that dissimulation. He spoke openly, regardless of the obvious imputation to which he was exposing him¬ self. The offence was open, the results were public. An open disruption in the community of Antioch must have inevitably ensued, unless the elder Apostle could be induced publicly to reverse and disavow his ill-judged act. St. Paul did not hesitate to use the strongest, plainest — we may almost say the harshest words, well convinced of the necessity; convinced also, as I doubt not, that the spirit of love in the heart of Peter would welcome the sharp remedy, and lose all other feelings in the glad con¬ sciousness, that the way was once more open for the restoration of that Christian unity, which was, from first to last, the real object of all his wishes, and of all his acts. In considering St. Paul’s address to Peter—which, as the ablest commentators^ now agree, includes all the remaining verses of the chapter—we need not at present concern ourselves as to their bearing upon St. Peter’s personal cha¬ racter : the one question is, what light do they throw upon the principles which both Apostles re¬ cognised, to which St. Paul appeals as recognised by all members of the - Church ? St. Peter, by the very * Ellicott, Meyer, and others. 170 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sekmon XI. act of eating witli the Gentiles, had practically abjured the exclusive privileges of Judaism ; he had throv^n down the harriers, which impeded a perfect union between the constituent elements * of the Church. He had thus done St. Paul’s work; he had done Christ’s work ; but his withdrawal left the Gentiles no alternative, hut to remain an isolated section, or to submit to those ordinances which would remove the obstacles thus unexpectedly interposed. It was clear that they must become Jews in order to he received by the heads of the Church as brother Christians. This, I doubt not, is St. Paul’s meaning when he says that Peter compelled the Gentiles to live as Jews; it was a necessary, though not in¬ tended result of that one most inconsistent and un¬ justifiable act. To make St. Peter and all Christians feel its inconsistency, the Apostle of the Gentiles had no need to look for arguments, such as would have been indispensable had there been the assumed difference of principle between himself and the elder teachers of the Church. He produces in the simplest terms those truths which, as I showed last Sunday, were the characteristic and fundamental principles of his own teaching. Justification by faith he assumes as a truth accepted by St. Peter quite as fully, quite as heartily, as by himself. He thereby proved the utter futility of Jewish observances so far as re¬ garded Christians, and, if so, the absolute wrongful¬ ness of maintaining them whenever they opposed any hindrances to spiritual communion. It is im- Sermon XL PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 171 portant to note this point; it proves, even more distinctly than St. Peter’s own acts and words on the occasion of Cornelius’s baptism and at the Apos¬ tolic Council, how thoroughly one the Apostles were in the substance of their faith ; and then, as was his wont, St. Paul goes at once to the true foundation on which that great doctrine itself rests, and from the very central and most vital principle of Christianity draws the irresistible conclusion that the admission of any distinction between believers is incompatible with a true, consistent, and loving faith : “ I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the. faith of the Son of ' God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” There is the true Christian, there is the true principle of his life, there is the only ground on which he stands. Old things, whatever they may have been, have passed away; Jewish privileges or Gentile incapacities are alike abrogated—they are as though they had never been; nailed to the cross of Christ, together with the feelings, passions, and opinions, with which they were associated. The Apostle of the Circumcision might have one class of converts to deal with, the Apostle of the Gentiles another; but if both were Christ’s, both had alike died with Christ, and could not, without relapsing into uncon¬ version—without becoming transgressors, “ build up again the things which they had destroyed.” The 172 PETEK AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XL only life whicli now sustained their spirits was that communicated by the indwelling of Christ; an in¬ dwelling not peculiar to the Apostles, not limited to any portion of the Christian community, but the blessed privilege, the unfailing characteristic, of every individual in the Church with whom the pro¬ fession of faith was more than an empty name. To do aught that could obscure that conviction, to im¬ pose any conditions which could possibly imply the insufficiency of that principle, would be to frustrate the grace of God : if righteousness were by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain. All this, as St. Paul clearly assumes, is quite as true of St. Peter’s princi¬ ples as of his own. That Apostle had but to keep it before him, to act upon it consistently, to fling away all lower considerations, to come to himself, to be his own true, honest self again. And then, as twice, at most critical junctures of his earlier life, the Saviour’s word and look had restored him to con¬ sciousness of his error, even thus, the Spirit speak¬ ing by the younger Apostle’s lips might extricate him from his false position, and reinstate him in his true position as a fellow-worker with St. Paul, pre¬ siding in harmonious co-operation over the recon¬ ciled parties in the Church. Taking, therefore, the statement just as it stands, without reference to other sources of information, we are left in no doubt as to two considerable points. It is perfectly certain that, while the high position and vast influence of St. Peter Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 173 are recognised, all shadow of pretension to supremacy, not to speak of infallibility, is swept away; and I must have been singularly unfortunate in my way of stating the facts if any doubt remains as to the unity, the identity of the principles of the Apostles. The difference was, indeed, enormous between them so far as regarded the vigour of intellect and the keenness of discernment (though we must bear in mind that the external influences which acted upon the Apostle of the Gentiles were precisely the oppo¬ site to those which misled the Apostle of the Hebrews), but the Spirit which worked in both was one and the selfsame Spirit of the living and loving Christ. What, however, was the effect of St. Paul’s inter¬ position ? He does not tell us expressly. Doubtless, he felt that no Christian reader would raise the question; he may, too, have felt that it was not for him to record the graceful and dignified submission of the elder Apostle. We have, however, sufficient facts to satisfy what under any circumstances must be admitted to be a reasonable curiosity. We know, in the first place, that the Church of Antioch re¬ mained steadfast in the faith : a centre of missionary enterprise, singularly free for two centuries from schism; governed in the next succession by Ignatius, from whose writings we learn how deep was the reverence entertained by that community for both Apostles—a feeling which endured for ages, as may 174 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XI. be proved by reference to tbe writings of Obry- sostom, whose most important discourses were de¬ livered at Antioch, and who, as we have already seen, addressed his best powers to elucidate the relations between St. Peter and St. Paul. The result at Antioch was a true and lasting peace. It is, indeed, true—we are not surprised to find it true —that the prejudiced Jews, who were not convinced by the arguments of Paul, separated themselves from his communion, and formed in the adjoining districts an exclusive sect, the Gnostic Ebionites, which soon hecame the mother of pernicious heresies, and from which in the next century originated a series of malicious fables, utterly without historical basis, to which, indeed, they scarcely make any pretension, mere romances in fact, the so-called Clementines, from which late Neologians have derived their whole monstrous theory of antagonism between the Apostles. And as to St. Peter’s own feelings, as to his conduct in after years with reference to these and similar questions, we have not to depend upon mere conjectures or extraneous notices, which, how¬ ever probable or well supported, may be open to uncertainty. Cyprian had good grounds for the few striking words in which he applies the Apostle’s example to rebuke the arrogancy of his assumed successors : “ St. Peter, whom our Lord first chose, when pressed by St. Paul on the question of circum¬ cision, advanced no offensive or arrogant assump- Sermon XI. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 175 tions, said nothing of the primacy, made no claim to be obeyed ; but accepted the counsel of truth, and yielded willingly to the legitimate reasonings which Paul defended, giving us an instructive example of patience and concord.” Cyprian had before him what we have now to guide our judgment, the Epistles of St. Peter himself, in both of which the Apostle has left unquestionable indications of the very deepest feelings of love and reverence for him whose reproof he had endured. Among the very last words of the Second Epistle, written, as he tells us, shortly before his departure, he bears witness to the wisdom (observe the aptness of that word as used by St. Peter) given to his beloved brother Paul; and while he speaks of the difficulty of his Epistles, and the perilous abuse, which might be made of them by the unlearned and unstable, ranks them with the other Scriptures. The First Epistle, from the beginning to the end, is full of references to St. Paul’s teaching, so full, indeed, that the ablest critics find in it undoubted proofs that his mind had been thoroughly impregnated with that Apostle’s method of developing the great Christian truths, which both maintained. That Epistle was, indeed, addressed to the churches founded by St. Paul; it was intrusted to Silvanus, St. Paul’s chosen friend and fellow-worker, it was probably indited by St. Mark, who at that time enjoyed the confidence and love of both Apostles, and was written with the 176 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Sermon XI. especial and express purpose of testifying that tlie doctrine, which those churches received from St. Paul, was the same which the Apostles received from their Master : have written,” saith St. Peter, ‘‘exhort¬ ing and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand.” Brethren, I scarcely know, looking at the conduct of the two Apostles in this transaction, in which we find the highest exemplification of Christian graces. Certainly those manifested by St. Peter are at once singularly beautiful and of essential importance to the well-being of the Christian Church. So perfect an abnegation of self, so complete a triumph over the besetting infirmity of every noble mind, and more especially of a mind susceptible to external influences, impulsive, and easily swayed by affection, by the fear of blame, and by the desire of sympathy; such candour and such humility may well make us look with leniency on the error, which gave occasion for the display of graces so rare and precious, and may enable us to comprehend, though we may not justify, the attempts which injudicious partisans have made to extenuate and misrepresent it. When, indeed, Christian love has such mastery over the inner spring of a man’s character, he may err, may be misled, may mislead others, may be betrayed into acts detrimental to the Church of Christ, but he is sure to be recalled : Christ will not let him go aside for ever; out of his very weakness he will be made v^^ERMON Xr. PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. 177 strong; liis confession of error, his abandonment of a course once seen to be mischievous, bis honest endea¬ vour to make amends for the scandal which he may have occasioned, will most assuredly in many cases issue in great and lasting benefits to the cause of truth. But for St. Peter’s error, but for his after conduct, we should scarcely have estimated the magnitude of the obstacles to Christian communion, or the mightiness of the love by which alone they were surmounted. But we must not forget what was the agency which restored him; we must re¬ member that the integrity, the absolute truthfulness, the singleness of heart and aim which characterised the other Apostle were the conditions of the victory achieved by the Spirit. We feel, and feel rightly, that in this, as in all great critical events from that day onwards, St. Paul above all men was raised by the inner working of the Spirit of Christ into a sphere inaccessible to mere personal motives; and of all points in his character the first we must strive to make our own is that straightforward honesty of act and will, to which all other considerations are as absolutely nothing when they come into competition with the cause of truth. So come to us the great voices from the unfor¬ gotten past. Brethren, dear Christian brethren, let them not have reached us in vain. They tell us of storms w-hich beset the Church when it first entered upon its course. They tell us by what Spirit, and by what guidance, the danger was averted, and the N 178 PETER AND PAUL AT ANTIOCH. Seemon XI. storms appeased: storms, however, which in ever- varying forms were fated to recur with undiminished vehemence from age to age until the harbour be won. If that Spirit he not in us ; if that guidance be withdrawn, or rejected, what must be the issue now ? See to it when ye leave these abodes in which your minds are freighted with the rich trea¬ sures of thought, hearing on manly brows the impress of intellectual sovereignty, disciplined by the severe exercise of scientific culture, gilded with the gracious gleam of letters,—Oh see that ye have with you the one, the only safeguard : Christ in the heart, —a presence testified by pure thoughts, noble aspirations, loving sympathy with your fellow-men, Grod’s own love which is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost.” Your course here is watched with anxiety; how deep, how tender, words could hardly say ! As you go forth, whether to do Christ’s work in the sacred offices of the ministry, or in the not less sacred duties of professional or public life, you will be re¬ ceived with open hearts and open arms by those who are now engaged in that mighty cause. May the Spirit which recalled the Apostle Peter -from his error be ever at hand to preserve you : may that Spirit which worked so mightily in the Apostle Paul, whose example has been set before us in the services for this season, work in you, even the living Spirit of Christ—‘‘ the Spirit of wisdom and under¬ standing, the Spirit of counsel and might; the Spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord.” Skrmon XII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 179 SEEMON XII. 1 Petek i. 25. The Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which hy the Gospel is preached unto you. If the choice of a subject for our consideration be determined by the thoughts which are uppermost in the minds of thinking men, there can be no doubt that the authority of the Word of God; the nature and extent of the inspiration by which the sacred writers were guided, are emphatically the questions which at present, and it may be especially in this place, most urgently demand our attention. For all religious and earnest minds, whether they adhere with unshaken fidelity to the convictions of former days, or have been disturbed and perplexed by specu¬ lative and critical objections; or feel that inquiry at least is called for, that a reason must be given for the hope that is in them, a reason at once satisfactory to their own minds, and calculated to convince the minds of others,—this question must be admitted to be the question of the day. It is one which in some shape or other presents itself on every occasion wlien religious topics are discussed, suggesting doubts N 2 180 INSPIKATION OF SCKIPTURE. Sekmon XII. and difficulties wliich, if not thoroughly and honestly investigated, may undermine the very foundation of faith. And it is in the hope that, by God’s help, I may succeed in imparting to others my own conviction of the essential soundness of the prin¬ ciples ever maintained by the Church of Christ, and by no portion of the Church more powerfully than by our own pure and reformed part of it; it is in the belief that in this attempt I am obeying the call of duty, and may rely upon your candour and forbearance, that I propose on this and the following Sundays of the present term to discuss some of the most important and practical points of this all-important question. What is the Word of God ? What are we to think of the Book with which that Word was identified by our spiritual ancestors, in which all believers in a revelation doubt not that the Word is contained? In what relation does it stand to our conscience, our duties, our con¬ dition here, our prospects in eternity ? These are the first points to be ascertained. If we satisfy ourselves substantially upon them, we shall feel our¬ selves in a better position to inquire into questions secondary to these and to these only in interest, inasmuch as they affect the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures which were given to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus ” (2 Tim. hi. 15). We cannot, however, begin this investigation Sermon XII. INSriRATiON OF SCRIPTURE. 181 without previously making up our minds as to the conditions and principles under which, and guided by which, we may reasonably hope for a satisfactory result. It is clear that we cannot take our stand upon tradition alone; upon the recorded opinions of the great leaders of the Church, or the general, all but universal, consent of believers. That position may be in itself tenable and satisfactory to many minds; but in the present state of the controversy it involves the very point in question. The very first assertion we have to meet is, that the opinions of theologians and the feelings of believers are but antiquated prejudices, and need to be reformed. And this must be admitted: no human authority, not the consenting convictions of the whole race, can reach far enough; they cannot rise higher than their source, cannot ascend so high as to bear witness to heavenly light, or penetrate so deeply into the heart as to lay a secure foundation for belief in the Divine. Yet a reference to those opinions, and that consent of believers, is not superfluous. No man of sound judgment in any department of thought, in any sub¬ ject of inquiry, will disregard the opinions of others in whom he recognises the same faculties, who, as he knows, have had the same facts before them, the same opportunities of coming to a true conclusion with himself. He will not, of course, surrender his own judgment; he can and must think for himself; but if the conclusion to which he arrives should be di- 182 INSPIEATION OF SCEIPTUKE. Seemon XII. rectly or substantially opposed to that of the great majority, or of those for whose ability and intellect he has the highest respect, it will make him pause. He will re-consider his decision; re-examine the facts, and feel a certain distrust in a conclusion, which, after all, may be the result of some pecu¬ liarity in the structure or habits of his own mind. If, on the other hand, the conclusion is identical with that to which they have arrived, it will commend itself with peculiar force, and impart to his mind a feeling of calm, serene, and unqualified satisfaction, deep and intense in proportion to the magnitude of the issues which may be involved. May we then take another course, which, with more or less of consciousness, has been followed by many, if not most writers who have occupied them¬ selves with these questions ? Shall we argue from the attributes of Grod—from His goodness. His wis¬ dom, His knowledge of our wants ? Shall we say that, because a revelation was needed, it must have been given ? That, because a revelation not recorded by an infallible authority would virtually be no revelation, or at the best a very imperfect revelation, that infallibility must have been vouchsafed ? That argument has satisfied many, nor can its force be denied ; but it is a hazardous one. It assumes too much : it assumes a far deeper knowledge of God’s nature and attributes than is accessible to His crea¬ tures, and it is liable to most grievous abuse; for it Sermon XII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 183 is by no means easy to see bow we can stop short of the inference that an infallible and accessible authority is equally needed for the interpretation of Scripture as for its inspiration. Yet even here, again, there is some practical advantage in referring to the argument. It indicates one important con¬ sideration. Any theory of the construction of Holy Writ which obscures or distorts the revelation which it records, any view which is demonstrably incom¬ patible with the wisdom, goodness, and love of the Griver of all good, carries with it its own condemna¬ tion. We are not entitled to say that so it must be ; that in this or that form, to this extent, and under these conditions, the Divine must be communicated to man; but this we are justified in assuming, an amount of human error, human frailty, human pas-’ sions, which should incrustate the pure gold, blacken any considerable portion of the surface of the Sun of truth, falsify our impressions of God’s righteousness, is wholly inconceivable, on the supposition that God has given a revelation and permitted it to be recorded for the instruction and edification of man. We may, therefore, and as men knowing our responsibility in seeking for God’s truth we must, bear in mind both ' considerations, even while we look out for some other principle, a safe and sure guide in inquiring what is the Word of God. That principle, surely, must be this—What does Scripture itself, in which, if anywhere, the uttered 184 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sekmon XII. Word of God is found, say of tliat Word, and of itself? Are the expressionsWord of God” and “ Holy Scripture ” synonymous and convertible ? Ho they exactly and always coincide ? Is the human element, which strikes us all so forcibly in every book, in every event, in every development of the Divine life which works in it and through it, so per¬ fectly remoulded, permeated, or overruled as to be altogether one with the Divine ? What answer does Scripture itself give to these questions ? What do the writers of the several books themselves say ? What say our Lord’s Apostles, in whom the Holy Ghost tabernacled, whom He led into all the truth ? What saith our Lord Himself, who is to us “ the way, the truth, the life ” ? Here, at least, is an ultimate princi¬ ple, one beyond which we cannot go one step without fearful presumption, one which we cannot reject with¬ out surrendering the very foundation of our belief. When we turn tO\ Scripture for an answer to the first of these questions one fact strikes us at once. The expression ‘‘Word of God” has a considerable variety of meanings, all of which, however, are intimately connected, and differ chiefly in extent and breadth. The broadest and fullest of all meanings is that which is most commonly in the minds of the sacred writers, and lies at the very root of all their conceptions. The Word of God is the manifestation of Himself: of His nature and of His attributes. He speaks by all His acts, in creation, in history, in Sermon XII. INSPIRATIOX OF SCHIPTURE. 185 jDrovidence, as in grace. The most intense of all convictions in spiritual men of old, in spiritual men of all times, is the living Personality of Grod; that conviction makes them realise in all nature His manifestation and His utterances; above all, the Word of God to them is the living power by which He made the world; by which He governs and sustains the spirits of all flesh. Hence- at the beginning of the inquiry we are met by the crowning truth of all revelation; we are brought into contact with the Personal Word. I am far from saying that this truth was comprehended ’ by the saints of old ; it sufficed for them to know that God spoke, and that His voice was mighty in operation: but it was intimated; and, long before it was received and clearly revealed, gave at once a mysterious depth and power to all their expressions when referring to the Word. A second meaning, one perhaps more obvious and more generally intelligible, is this. The Word of God is the declaration of His will. This meaning coincides to a considerable extent with the foregoing ; for the declaration of God’s will is the manifestation of Himself as our Lord to the conscience, to the understanding, and the heart. The Word of God is the law of God, in the minds of Hebrew saints, specially but not exclusively, the Law authoritatively promulgated on Mount Sinai; that was to them the central word, the word of words ; and a great part of the sayings which are found in the earlier writings 186 INSPIEATION OF SCEIPTUEE. Seemon XII. of Israel, in the Pentateuch, the historical books, the Psalms, and the Prophets, which enjoin meditation upon the Word of God, which describe its quickening and enlightening power upon man’s conscience, and speak of the rewards of obedience, or the sure curse of disobedience, must be referred more directly to that law. Yet be it remembered that those uttered words, those words engraved by the finger of God upon the tables of stone preserved in the ark, and deposited as the most sacred of all possessions in the Holy of Holies, were regarded as the centre and foundation of religious teaching, but not as the whole Word; they set before the people in a concrete form, in a shape which impressed itself upon the heart vividly and indelibly, the great requirements of God’s will; but all Israel knew and felt that every declaration of that will which had preceded it stood precisely on the same footing, was entitled to equal reverence, was, in the same sense, the Word of God. All communications with the ancient patriarchs, all the records of transactions in which God revealed His purposes or His attributes to man, formed part of the Word of God; in fact, without a knowledge of previous revelations, of the word already spoken, the Commandments themselves could not be under¬ stood. No Israelite doubted that he had in his hand the Word of God when he read the Pentateuch ; the Psalmists and Prophets referred to that book, and to others which came before them with similar, Sermon XIr. IXSPIKATION OF SCRIPTUEE. 187 if not equal sanctions, when they bade the devout reader meditate upon the law day and night, hide the word in their hearts, cleanse their ways by taking heed to God’s Word; when they described it as giving light and life. Moreover all later declara¬ tions of God’s will were recognised as substantially identical with that law; not as additions, much less as modifications of it, but as enforcing and applying its principles. When Isaiah speaks of the word going forth from God’s mouth, not to return unto Him void, but to accomplish that which God pleaseth, and prospering the thing whereto God sends it; when Jeremiah saith of the wise men, Lo, they have rejected the Word of the Lord when God Himself, speaking of that Prophet, saith, He who hath my word let him speak my word faithfully. Is not my word like as fire; and like a hammer which breaketh the rock in pieces ? ” when by Amos He threateneth a famine of hearing the Word of God; when and wherever this great utterance occurs, it has one simple meaning, the declaration of God’s will: nor did it ever occur to an Israelite, Seer, Psalmist, or Prophet, to distinguish between the purport and the medium, the word and its utterauce ; in the form which reached their e^rs it was received into their hearts, was stored up in their memory, was the object of their daily meditations, their light and guide. You may perhaps think that I have taken unnecessary pains to settle this point; but it 188 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XII. is of importance : though not often positively denied, it is yet frequently overlooked; and a very brief survey of the Bible will show any one interested in the inquiry how very large a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures claims in this sense to be the Word of God, and is thus in the minds of all the sacred writers completely identified with that Word. Still, it will be said, this still leaves a large portion of the Bible untouched. It may prove to those who receive the testimony of revelation that the Word is contained in the book, but not that the book is the Word. Now I will not detain you by what would perhaps be a tedious and certainly a lengthy process^ to make out to your satisfaction a fact of which I entertain myself no doubt; I mean that every writer in the Old Testament to the close of the canon took all the books, which were believed to have the Divine sanction, to be part and parcel of God’s revelation of Himself, making in that respect no distinction be¬ tween the prophetic, historical, or hortatory contents, looking upon the whole in one sense as the depository of the Word, in another sense as the Word itself; for, interesting and important as that inquiry may be to theological students, the necessity for entering into it is certainly superseded if we can prove that such is the light in which the inspired writers of the New Testament, in which our Lord Himself repre¬ sents the Book. In what terms, therefore, do the Apostles speak, not of detached portions, not of Sermon XII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 189 special prophecies, not of direct communications of God recorded in the book, but of the book itself? Take this statement. It comes from one whose main object is to overthrow the doctrine of inspiration as held by the Church in general; it is a reluctant admission that his own theory has to encounter the most formidable obstacles in the sacred writers themselves; it is the concession of an adversary, an honest, candid, truthful adversary, but still an un¬ compromising adversary. He says, The writers of the New Testament regard the words of the Old as direct words of God, and always cite them expressly as such. They see in the holy book nothing that is simply and merely the word of its human composers, and not at the same time the Word of God Himself. In every written word God Himself speaks to them, and they are so completely accustomed to keep that fact in their mind, that they take the written word, as such, simply as God’s Word; and in it they hear God Himself immediately speaking, without a thought about the human persons who are intro¬ duced as speaking and acting. Hence in the abstract they cite the Scripture, as ‘ Holy Scriptures,’ or the ‘ Holy Writings,’ without naming the writer of the book to which they may be 'referring, as un¬ questionably to be accepted as the Word of God.” * The references to the Evangelists, to all and every portion of the Apostolical writings, are too numerous * Rothe. Zur Dogmatik^ 190 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XII. to be quoted; but if any doubt be felt, it may be removed by looking at the passage in which the word Scripture occurs. The writer proceeds to say, “ All quote passages from the Old Testament with the form ^ God speaketh,’ or ‘ The Holy Ghost speaketh.’ In the Epistle to the Hebrews long passages, even in which God Himself is addressed, or in which His acts are described, are quoted in the same form, ‘ God sayeth; ’ a fact to be accounted for simply on the theory that whatever is written in that book is substantially His word. There is some difficulty in the interpretation of the great saying in 2 Tim. ii. 16, but none that affects its attestation to the , Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. St. Peter distinctly teaches that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost: and that the Spirit of Christ spake in the Prophets, who were unconscious of the inner and full meaning of the utterances which they were moved to record. When again St. Paul dis¬ tinguishes between the events of Old Testament history and the record of the events, he states ex¬ pressly that they were written for the edification of the Church, and argues invariably on the ground that all such records are intimations of the will, and proceed from the mind of God.” Equally strong, and even more conclusive, are the attestations of our Lord to that Scripture of which His every act was a fulfilment, to which He appealed in every discussion Sermon XII. INSPIRATION OP SCRIPTURE. 191 with the Jews, in which He found, and expounded to His disciples, all the circumstances and results of His own coming, concerning which He stated that not one jot or tittle should pass away until all was fulfilled. Such, brethren, is the testimony of the New Testament to the Old; nor can it be needful to prove that all that is to be believed of the book which contains the Law, must be believed of that which contains the Gospel, the final complete record of the will and dispensation of the Almighty God, of the acts and words, the humiliation and glory of the Son of God, which consists mainly of our Lord’s own words and of His Apostles’ words, speaking and writing according to their own distinct and re¬ peated declarations under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; being therefore in very truth the Word of God which endureth for ever, that word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.” In considering these statements, which are capable of most absolute demonstration, I would venture to impress upon my brethren what I feel most strongly myself, the great necessity of caution ; there is great danger of substituting inferences, which may appear logical, which it may be difficult to show to be illogical, for the positive statements themselves. It is, for instance, easy to draw and hard to disprove the inference that, if the Scriptures Old and New are really God’s Word, every portion must not only be faithful, trustworthy, profitable for instruction, 192 INSPIEATION OF SCEIPTUEE. Sermon XTT. correction, and edification, but absolutely free from human error, literally and universally correct in every detail; but the inference, unless it can be sustained by clear, unmistakable evidence, by no less positive declarations of Holy Writ, is one wbich we have no right to impose upon any, and which we cannot ourselves accept as an article of faith, without the greatest peril to the cause of truth. The statements which have been adduced are amply sufficient to prove that, if we accept the testimony of the Son of God, of His Apostles, of His Spirit, the Book of Life contains the Word of God, and, inasmuch as in it and by it God speaks to us throughout, it is His Word; but whether, or to what extent, that fact may leave place for incom¬ pleteness of knowledge in the human instruments whom God commissioned to declare His will, whether the inspiration, without which their words would be simply and wholly human, supplied all defects, overruled all movements of their own intelligence, was literally absolute, perfect, and complete—these, brethren, are points to be determined, not by a de¬ ductive process, not by a conclusion that so it must be, because God’s Word must needs be His Word and His only; but by an inductive process, even a careful and reverent inquiry into the contents of * Thus Mr. Bilks says, “ One slight or solitary corruption of the text becomes as fatal as the most extensive or the most numerous when once we define Bible inspiration by the negative character of entire freedom from all error .”—The Bible and Modern Thought, p. 208, Sermon XU. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 193 the Book itself and of every part of the Book. What is needed by ns all, what is sufficient for us all to be convinced of, is this, that God speaks to our hearts by the Bible; that God therein speaks to us of Himself; that He there reveals His attributes in their fulness, harmony, and essential unity ; that love breathes through every part of His revelation; that we are there instructed as to what we are to do, what we are to feel, what we are to believe; that we have in it the first, most precious, and most necessary of the means of grace, the source or channel of all regenerating and sanctifying influences. Convinced of this, we shall inquire calmly, without fear and without any painful anxiety, into other secondary and questionable uses which students may make of its contents. We shall not be troubled by an apparent discrepancy between the accounts found in its pages of matters but indirectly or partially con¬ nected with religious truth, and the results of his¬ torical or scientific inquiry; being in fact well aware that such apparent contradictions proceed, in most cases demonstrably, and in all cases most probably, from speculations on the one hand, and interpretations on the other, which are set aside by the result of a more careful and searching investiga¬ tion. We shall deal reverently, most reverently, with the awful deposit committed to mankind for the regeneration of the whole race; a reverence shown by an absolute subjection of our consciences 0 194 INSPIEATION OF SCKIPTUKE. Sermon XIT. to words whicli are unmistakably God’s own utter- • ances. We shall not venture to touch that Book with unclean hands; to bring our souls into its light unprepared and unsanctified by prayer. We shall not expect to hear God speaking to us in it and through it, if we come with a cold cavilling spirit: the living oracle has no voice save for the lover of truth; for him to whom truth is all in all; to whom God’s Word is the power and the spirit and the present utterance of the everlasting Son; the Word who was in the beginning with God; who is God; God manifest in the Son, and by Him speaking to our hearts. Sermon XIII. INSPIKATION OF SCKIPTURE. 195 SEEMON XIIL ■ ■ — ^ " ■ 1 Corinthians ii. 12, 13. TVe have received^ not the spirit of the world, hut the spirit ichich is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, Which things also ice speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, hut which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Ox Sunday last I produced what appeared to me, and I trust appeared also to you, conclusive evidence that Holy Scripture is declared,'on the only authority which is absolute and irresistible for believers, the authority of the Apostles of Christ and of Christ Himself, not only to contain the Word of God, but in the highest spiritual sense to be the Word of God, by which, as by no other instrumentality or organ, God speaks directly to the minds of all His rational creatures, and to the hearts of believers. The state¬ ment of St. Paul in this text carries' us a step further in the inquiry : it bears direct and very distinct testimony to his own inspiration and to that of His fellow teachers: an inspiration which both enabled them to know the great spiritual truths of the Gospel, a point about which there is no controversy among 0 2 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Seemon XIII. 19(j Christians, and also to express those truths in spiritual words. It is an assertion in some positive sense of what is called verbal inspiration; but an assertion which requires very careful consideration : indeed, the more fully we receive the Apostle’s witness to such inspiration, the more anxious we must be to understand his words in their exact signification ; to accept all, and to accept no more than all, that the words imply. The Apostle expressly excludes one theory, not unfrequently maintained. Speaking of the words, not of the substance or subject-matter merely, he declares that they were not taught by man’s wisdom, were not the produce of human thought, acting ^ according to natural psychological laws. But his statement not less expressly excludes the direct opposite of that theory. It is incompatible with a merely 'mechanical inspiration. He does not say that the words which he utters are given, put into his mind, suggested as formed, definite expressions, but that they are taught of the Holy Ghost, “ those which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” Now teaching necessarily involves progress, development, active and spontaneous concurrence, a living consciousness and co-operation in the agent. No words, according to this statement, are uttered by the heaven-taught messenger of Christ, which do not originate in a direct spiritual influence : but they are produced, under that influence, by the agent’s own mind, and proceed immediately from it; the words are God’s Sermon XIII. INSPIKATION OF SCKIPTURE. 197 words, coming as they do from His mind as their ultimate source, hut the shape under which they present themselves to our minds is modified by the medium, through which' it hath pleased Him that they should be transmitted. The truth is one and the same, eternal and absolute; the power by which it is given is one and the same, eternal and absolute; we receive the truth from minds fully possessed by that truth, we receive it in words which that power alone could enable the mind of a human agent to utter; but as the breath of the Spirit swept over the chords of human conscious¬ ness, the tones which it elicited were full of the Apostles’ own deep emotions, bear the impress of their individuality, and prove to us that they were not only moved and controlled but taught by the Holy Ghost.' The last words of the text present some difficulty : comparing spiritual things with spiritual^” has been generally understood to mean that under the teach¬ ing of the Holy Ghost the Apostle learned to com¬ pare all spiritual manifestations; to comprehend the mutual bearings of the elder and the new dispensa¬ tion ; to interpret, for instance, all prophetical utter¬ ances, and to clear up all doctrinal ambiguities according to the analogy of faith : the words, how¬ ever, may mean (such is the judgment of some of the ablest commentators*),combining spiritual things with * See Meyer’s note on this text. 198 INSPIKATION OP SCEIPTUKE. Sermon XIII. spiritual, tliat is, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words, so as to produce a perfect harmony between the inward and the outward, between the spirit and the form; thus putting away all pretext for a rationalistic severance between the mind of the Holy Ghost and the uttered or written word. You will of course observe how entirely each of these interpretations bears out what has been said touching the living consciousness and co-operation of the Apostle’s mind throughout the process: it is one of study, of exertion, of active employment of every faculty of a nature created in the Divine image, quickened and informed by grace. If we bear in mind the two points, first, that the inspiration is complete, giving the substance and extending to the form; and secondly, that it is not mechanical or superseding the action of natural powers, we may see our way clearly in several con¬ troverted questions. For the present we may pass by with a brief refer¬ ence the passages, numerous in both portions of the Book of Life, in which words directly spoken or dic¬ tated by the Deity are simply recorded. The in¬ spiration of those words will be admitted to be abso¬ lute by all who believe in the substantial truth of revelation. In fact, truthfulness, rather than any high state of spiritual development, was required in the agent to whom was intrusted the duty of record¬ ing those utterances of the Lord God. Only I would Sermon XIII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 199 request you to bear in mind bow very large a portion of the doctrinal truths, of the prophetic declarations, of the attestations to divine attributes and divine purposes, which excite the strongest repugnance in sceptical minds, rest upon such passages. If I do not dwell upon them now, it is simply because no Christian doubts that what the Spirit expressly saith, what Grod commands, forbids, or announces in His own words, belongs to a region far above the conflicting currents of speculation: those words are untouched by any questions concerning the nature or extent of verbal inspiration. This brings us to a more difficult question—one from which we might shrink in deep awe, were we not convinced that reverential consideration of what is revealed can never be unprofitable to believers. What shall we say of our blessed Lord s own words ? We may, indeed, listen to them as simply and exclu¬ sively the utterances of God incarnate ; words pro¬ ceeding directly from the mind of God : nor has such a feeling aught in it which Holy Scripture does not abundantly justify, neither can it have any result but a continual advance in spiritual understanding. Yet it may be well to keep in mind constantly the truth that the Son of God is the Son of Man; that our human nature in all its elements attained in Him its ideal and absolute perfection; that in Him, there¬ fore, we may see perfectly exemplified every sinless process of human feeling and human thought; and, 200 « INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sekmon XIII. as in His acts, so also in His words, we can con¬ template tlie accomplished work of the Holy Ghost npon a true living man. And this being so, we may believe that the words which He uttered, so far as regards their form, were in some deep mysterious sense taught by the Holy Ghost. In one respect, indeed, we recognise a vast, an infinite difference between the Holy One and the most spiritual of His disciples. In Him inspiration must have been abso¬ lute : there was nothing in Him which could impede, nothing which could possibly modify its influence: what, therefore, the Son of Man spoke, in virtue of the perfect sanctification and enlightenment of the nature, in which the Holy Ghost abode in all His fulness, was absolutely identical with the Word of God. For practical purposes, for all spiritual objects therefore, as I before said, it suffices us to know that Christ hath spoken, and that His word is God’s word : but it is important, while we are considering the difficult question of inspiration, to remember that in our Saviour we see a proof, the most complete of all imaginable proofs, that a plenary inspiration, one which pervades all faculties of the mind, all emotions of the heart, so far from superseding, gives intensity to all good natural feelings, and is most perfect, only, indeed, truly complete and perfect, when the consciousness of the individual is also perfect, when the mind of God and the mind of man are in perfect unison, when the human heart beats in full response Sermon XIII. INSPIEATIOX OF SCEIPTUKE. ' 201 to the love which is the living Essence of our God. Think, brethren, what it is in our Saviour’s words which gives them such power over your own minds! Is it not that you feel in them at once the breath of human love and of a superhuman tenderness ? that every pure and tender affection within you vibrates under this sympathizing touch : friend or lover, mourner or consoler, struggling or triumphant in the life-battle with evil, that you hear in Christ’s words the God-man speaking—speaking as perfect man, as one sharing all your own best thoughts and emotions, and making His presence felt within you because he is perfect God ? What now shall we say concerning the remaining portion of the Sacred Writings? Are we entitled to apply St. Paul’s statement to them? Let us at present confine ourselves to the New Testament. Last Sunday I showed, that if we are satisfied with regard to this, the declarations of Apostles and Evangelists are conclusive as to the inspiration of the older portion of the Word of God : and what¬ ever principles we may establish can be applied when the question calls for our consideration. One point is clear. Of the whole New Testament, by far the larger portion is written 'by persons who were precisely in the same position as St. Paul; that is, by Apostles who had the same promise, and were beyond all doubt moved, guided, and possessed by the same indwelling spirit; nor would it be difficult to prove, indeed, we have no reason to suppose that 202 INSPIEATION OF SCKIPTUKE. Sekmon XIII. any persons who are interested in the inquiry doubt, that the Gospels of St. Mark and Luke, and the rest of the Apostles, the only books written by other than Apostles, have the same authority, and bear une¬ quivocal proof of an inspiration the same in kind, if not in degree. That which St. Paul says of himself, he says indeed of all in whom he recognised divinely authorized promulgators of the Word of God. All, like him, received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is of God: else had they not known the things freely given—that is, vouchsafed by God’s grace—to them, and through them to all believers. Like him, all spake both in their ordinary ministra¬ tions ; and if then, most assuredly when engaged in the highest and most important of all ministrations, when committing the truths thus made known to writing, for the perpetual edification of Christ’s Church; then if ever must they have clothed their thoughts, not in the words which man’s wisdom taught, but which the Holy Ghost taught—quickening, in¬ forming, and enlightening the faculties which He used as instruments for conveying the knowledge of His will. And now, looking to Scripture alone for informa¬ tion, putting away all theories or conjectures, how¬ ever plausible or attractive, let us inquire what facts throw light upon the nature and effects of this divine teaching. One point strikes us at once with a force proportioned to its importance in the deter¬ mination of the question. The teaching of the Sermon XIII. INSPIKATION OF SCRIPTURE. 203 Holy Ghost gives full scope for the manifestation of individual character^—for differences moral and intellectual: each person who comes before us, whether speaking or acting, in the Sacred records, each person who has been moved to contribute to those records, whatever may be the form of his own contribution, whether of narrative, of doctrinal teaching, or practical exhortation, is distinguishable from all others ; he has his own marked and un- mistakeable characteristics, his own affections, his own modes of thought and argument, his own style. No man who has read with any care one Epistle of St. Paul would for a moment hesitate in assigning to that Apostle any considerable passage which might be quoted from other Epistles without mention of his name. You cannot read six consecutive sentences from St. John’s Gospel without feeling yourselves in a peculiar sphere of thought and emotion; without recognising a special light, a special breathing, so to speak, a spirit responding, with a simplicity and power altogether its own, to the movements of the divine Inspirer. Each Evangelist, as on a former occasion I endeavoured to prove, has his own way of thinking, observing, and relating, a way shown in the selection and arrangement of our Lord’s acts and discourses. In some the Hebrew element, in others the Gentile element; in some the cultivation and sympathies of the man of thought, in others the simple earnestness of an uneducated convert, is pre- 204 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIII. dominant. It is, in fact, this wondrous variety which makes the reading of Holy Scripture so strangely attractive to persons of all classes, and in all stages of mental development: each finds in its pages thoughts within his reach, feelings with which he can sympathise, the movements of hearts stirred by the same emotions which agitate his own; even while throughout, pervading and giving unity to the whole, the devout reader feels,—feels more or less strongly in proportion to his spiritual susceptibility, ■—but feels always, if devout, the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. And be it noted, that striking individuality is perceptible, not merely when the failings and shortcomings of Christ’s followers are recorded, not merely in the subordinate, in what some may regard as comparatively unimportant, parts of their writings. Were it so, there might he some force in the conclusion that, when so acting or so writing, they were not, or at least were not wholly, under the teaching of the Holy Ghost. But you must observe that the alternate rashness and weak¬ ness which marked St. Peter, and which he has taken care should he most fully described in the Gospel written under his own influence ; the unbelief of Thomas; the general ohtuseness of the Apostles in their preparatory stage; the fierce zeal which then burnt in the heart of the beloved disciple; the angry discussion between St. Paul and Barnabas ; the frequent indications of passions gradually sub- Sermon XIII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 205 dued and transformed into Christian graces by the indwelling spirit; all the little signs of human in¬ terest and human infirmity which force themselves upon our attention, have a special value, only because they show indirectly the results of divine teaching, by proving how great are the obstacles which, in the best and most true-hearted converts, the teaching of the Holy Ghost had to overcome. No, brethren, the point which really illustrates, which pours a flood of light upon the working of inspiration, is this : when the Apostles are most completely under the influence of the Spirit; when we feel that their whole mind is irradiated, their character, so to speak, transfigured, by the Divine glory; when, like translucent vases, they fill the whole atmosphere of thought with the lustre of their inner light; just then it is that we see them, each in his own individuality, most dis¬ tinctly, that we discern most perfectly their own personal character, the lineaments, the traits, the true expression of their own inner man. We feel that while the spirit which possesses them takes away or subdues all that is low, temporary, so to speak, the mere accident of their nature, while it strips off the disguises which hide or distort the genuine cha¬ racteristics of our fellow-men, all the conventionalisms of outward life, it brings their true, inward, essential selves into the light; unfolds each struggling thought; quickens each loving impulse, and draws out every high and noble aspiration which belongs to the true 206 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIII. nature, upon whicL. God impressed His own image in creation, which the Son of God hath united for ever with the divine. Such also it is on those occasions when the old man was weakest, and the new man strongest, in St. Peter, that we know him best, as when he appeals to his love of Jesus, and braves the cruelty of the San¬ hedrim, rejoicing that he is counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ’s name. When the truths which St. John has to communicate are the highest and most utterly transcendent; when the mystery of the Divine essence, the majesty and awe of the Divine revelation have most complete possession of his whole nature; just then it is that the peculiarity of his personal character, his flow of thought, his whole style, the words and images, which he employs to present to our minds what the spirit reveals to his mind, are most thoroughly Johannine. If you recall passages from that Evangelist’s writings, from his Gospel, from the Pevelation, just in proportion as they are full of God’s spirit, you will And in them the characteristics of St. John. Or turn to St. Paul: in each of his Epistles take some great passage in which the doctrines, which all recognise as the most essential, are most forcibly enunciated. Look at them carefully, and you will see that they are precisely the passages in which that Apostle’s own character and habits of thought, all that was good and valuable in his previous training, all that distinguished him Sermon XIII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 207 from his fellow disciples, stand out most distinctly. Such passages are chosen instinctively to illustrate what are called the Pauline characteristics. It was because he, because each and all of those holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, spake words which, under the teaching of the Holy Ghost, came from-the depths of their own renewed nature, giving at once expression to their own deepest convictions and feelings, and to the truths communicated to them by the indwelling power of God. I must reserve for another occasion the further questions, how far such inspiration is compatible with any errors or defects of knowledge, and how far the views which have been thus stated coincide with the opinions of those who are rightly regarded as the leaders or representatives of the Church at various ages. A brief account of those opinions may be interesting and profitable to many pre¬ sent : and with regard to the other question, it may suffice now to say that while the recogni¬ tion of a human element involves the admission of the possibility of shortcomings, of inadequate or incomplete information, in matters not directly connected with the essential truths of revelation, the fact of the Divine teaching is utterly incom¬ patible with substantially erroneous statements upon those matters. The foundation of all our hopes would be taken away could any doubt attach to the declarations of the Apostles, to explicit statements of 208 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIII. our Lord upon any question appertaining to the substance of faith : and such, I do not hesitate to say, are the declarations and statements which affect the authority, the divine origin, and inspiration of any portion of the Book which contains, and which is identified with, the Word of God. Let me now, in conclusion, press a great practical point upon your attention. The statement which has been made, I trust in accordance with the teach¬ ing of the Holy Ghost, seems to present two alterna¬ tives to the students of Holy Writ. They may fix their minds chiefly or primarily upon the human element: they may study the developments of human character under the influence of the Spirit of God: all the peculiarities of the sacred writers in diction, in modes of arguing and thinking, the traces of old prejudices overcome, yet for a season hut partially extinct, may engage your attention. I do not say of that alternative that it is to he re¬ jected, or that it is unprofitable. Any honest, pains¬ taking study, pursued with humility and reverence, is sure of its reward in a progressive discovery of truth. And it may he that in these days a laborious and searching inquiry into this subject is specially de¬ manded of those who have time, ability, and learning requisite to bring it to a successful issue under the teaching of the Holy Ghost. But, brethren, I leave it for you to judge whether that is the course which without such leisure, which without special motives and a special call, men engaged in engrossing avoca- Sermon XIII. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 209 tions can undertake with a reasonable prospect of success. Think of the extreme peril, the certain loss which must accrue if the inquiry be partial, one¬ sided, incomplete. Think of the inevitable result, of the sure operation of the law of thought, which makes it an absolute certainty, that if you concen¬ trate your attention on one element you must gra¬ dually, and in the end completely, lose the power of discerning the other element in this, as indeed in every subject of inquiry. Why do you read the Bible at all ? Is it for literary curiosity ? Is it to know what our erring fellow-men have thought or uttered ? Is it to study psychology ?—to construct ingenious hypotheses?—or, is it to know GtOD ? To know what God wills?—what He hath done, what He promises, what He requires of us ? Is it not to gain strength for life’s struggles ? comfort in life’s sorrows, hope in death ? If so, brethren, surely there can he no doubt as to the wisdom of adopting the other alternative—of studying the Bible directly and chiefly, yea—may we not say ?—for the highest of all purposes, all but exclusively, in order to discern in it the divine element, in order ourselves to be taught by the Spirit of God. I believe this is a very safe and reasonable rule, equally good for the man of vigorous intellect, and for the most humble and illiterate searcher after God’s truth. Take those words in the Bible which speak to you now most plainly of God—in which you now hear God’s voice, p 210 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIII. feel His spirit—which are to your own consciences now unmistakeahly His word. Look into them; fix your attention upon them first; test their efficacy; bring them to hear upon your lives; let them mould and inform your utterances in secret prayer. There you have at once a centre of light^ a point to start from, something to work upon. There is not, I am well assured, in this congregation one heart to which some ^word of God does not even now speak with a living power. Yield yourselves to that power, and then look at other words identical or similar in import. Look stedfastly, and the divine element will come out clearer, stronger, more soul-subduing, more soul-converting every day. I have no doubt whatever of the rapid progress in the divine life of any one who, convinced that there is a divine ele¬ ment in the Bible, concentrates his mind and heart upon it: he takes the only course which a man of sense can adopt, having that conviction; and the divine element is life. God’s word speaks in it direct to the heart: it needs no evidence but its own power; and he who receives it, obeys it, lives upon it," and guides his life by it, is taught by the Spirit, and learns, like the Apostles themselves, to know the things that are freely given to us of God. 211 Sermon XIV. INSPIEATION OF SCEIPTUKE. SERMON XIV. Psalm cxix. 140. Thy word is tried to the uttermost, and Thy servant loveth it. It is natural to believe that thoughts, which present themselves with peculiar force at any given time, are the produce of some fresh development of the human mind, at once representing the unsettlement of old opinions and ushering in a new epoch of humanity. This impression makes itself felt in a general tumult and excitement, a swaying to and fro of opinions, which has its own attractions for the young and enthusiastic, but which men of fixed con¬ victions are perhaps but too apt to watch with mingled feelings of indignation^and alarm. For the most part, however, a searching and more extended inquiry into the past proves the impression to be fallacious. With the exception of those domains of thought, in which new regions are opened by the progress of discovery, the difference between the condition of man’s mind under the influence of the same universal principles is rather of degree than of kind. There is advance and movement wherever p 2 212 mSPIEATION OF SCEIPTURE. Seemon XIV. there is life, but in every stage of development there is a substantial identity: as the current flows on in the same general direction, so the tree grows with¬ out any essential change. As face answereth to face in water, so in ages separated by mighty intervals does the heart to the heart of man. Thus it is with the great movements of spiritual life. The relations between man and God rest upon unchangeable prin¬ ciples, while the knowledge of those relations is progressively developed by fuller revelations corre¬ sponding to progressive enlargement of the spiritual faculty by which they are apprehended; and the relations between man’s mind and God’s Word remain essentially the same. The mind from the first promulgation of the Word has either received it and been filled with light and rejoicing, or it has struggled against it or rejected it, and with it re¬ jected all hope, all comfort, all belief in the Divine. The Word has been tried to the uttermost; not once, not here and there only, not merely at periods when the fountains of thd great deep have, so to speak, been broken up by convulsions of the human mind ; but from first to last, wherever it has come into contact with human passions, with human infirmities, with human prejudices, with human pride. The scepticism of the early opponents of the Word was the same in principle, originated in the same causes, and even its outward form was all but identical with that which many are wont to regard as spe- Sermon XIV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 213 cially characteristic of our own age. But the his¬ tory of the trials of God’s Word has ever been the history of its triumphs. Its full power has been ever manifested in spiritual conflicts. To use the Psalmist’s figure in the text, it is tried to the uttermost as by fire,"^ and comes forth from the furnace, pure, bright, and precious ; to God’s servants the object of more intelligent admiration and ever- increasing love. It is with this conviction, which strikes its roots deeper into my own mind after each stirring of inquiry, that I propose to give what must necessarily be a very brief account of the opinions of those men who may be regarded as leaders and representatives of the Church at great critical periods, touching the nature and extent of the inspiration of what all alike held without any doubt to be in very truth the Word of the living God. The expressions used by the primitive, or, as they are commonly called, the Apostolic Fathers, do not differ in any important points from those of the sacred writers. Like their teachers, they invariably quote the sayings of the Old Testament as words proceeding directly from God’s mind; but, like them also, they have far more regard to the substance than to the letter. They quote from memory, with omissions, transpositions, and combinations, which prove a certain freedom * Our two versions—that in the Prayer Book and that in the Bible— taken together give the true sense of the original. 214 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIV, and enlarged view of what they doubted not was in a true sense an inspiration, extending to the very words, not, however, as mechanical, but as^ living vehicles of thought. In the next succession of writers a new element is introduced, not superseding, but for a time con¬ siderably modifying, the apostolic principle. It is a singular fact that an absolute theory of inspira¬ tion, one which altogether loses sight of the human element, which annihilates, so to speak, the indi¬ viduality of the recipient, was derived from a foreign and heathen source. It was Philo, the Alexandrian Platonist, exaggerating the teaching of his own master, who first taught the Fathers of the second century to believe that, when the Divine light rises in the soul, the light of human consciousness sets; and that, when the light of reason goes down, the Divine light rises and fills the spirit.” It was he who taught them to confuse the two essentially dis¬ tinct notions of a carnal and a rational mind; and^ under pretext of doing honour to the Deity, to do real dishonour to His noblest work. Consider this passage of Justin Martyr, who brought into the Church the training of his earlier life, and retained to the last the garb, and, with the garb^ much of the inner principles of the Grentile philosopher. It is a fair statement of views adopted to a considerable extent by the teachers of that early age. You will note the mixture of deep truth with a theory which Sermon XIV. INSPIEATIOX OF SCKIPTUEE. 215 fully developed became the source of grievous, all but fatal errors. “ It is not possible for men to com¬ prehend matters so great and so divine by nature or by human intelligence, but by the gift which des¬ cended from above upon those holy men, for whom no art (or mental preparation) was needed to receive the oracle, but a simple and absolute yielding of themselves to the operation of the Divine Spirit; so that the Divine touch ^ coming down from heaven might use the souls of the righteous as a lyre or a lute, and communicate through them to us a know¬ ledge of the things of Grod.” Thus other Fathers, as Athenagoras, represent Isaiah and the prophets as uttering in ecstasy the thoughts breathed into them by the Spirit of Grod; and transmitted through them without affecting their own consciousness. The great truth contained in this view concealed its dangerous tendency for a season ; and it is only from casual notices we find that the more soberminded and ju¬ dicious of the Fathers, such for instance as Irenseus, were still wont to recognise the human element, and attribute to it those peculiarities in the style, the mode of thinking and feeling of the Apostles, which, though perfectly compatible with plenary inspiration, with the abiding influence of the indwelling Spirit, prove the active and spontaneous concurrence of their own minds. A great outburst of fanaticism directly connected with that theory, which threatened at once the disrup- * nX^KTpov, the instrument used to strike the harpstrings. 216 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIV. tion of tlie Churcli and the overthrow of moral order, compelled men to inquire more thoroughly into the principle of inspiration. If the power were exerted altogether irrespectively of the qualifications of the agent,—if the Spirit spoke through unwitting and un¬ conscious instruments, what need of special training or of progressive sanctification ? Uneducated women, young children, ignorant fanatics, were soon looked on as fit, if not the fittest medium, for spiritual communi¬ cations. Montanism, the original development of a spirit which, under various forms of mysticism, in our own days under the form of Irvingism, has ever been reappearing, fixed its grasp upon the Church. It was in direct controversy, or in direct conflict with these errors, that the great Fathers of the third and fourth centuries brought out distinctly what I have repre¬ sented as the view maintained by the soundest inter¬ preters of Holy Writ. They distinguished between the soothsayer and the prophet; they showed that, although communications were vouchsafed from time to time in ecstasy or trance to holy men, yet that the highest and most perfect revelations were ever given to the spirit in a state of consciousness; and more¬ over that, whatever might be the mode in which the truth was revealed, it was recorded by inspired men when they were fully aware of the purport of what they wrote, unable though they might be to compre¬ hend all its bearings upon humanity, or the manner in which it would be brought about by the governance of the Most High. The points which strike us most Sermon XIV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 217 forcibly in tlie interpretations of those Fathers, more especially of Chrysostom and Augustine, are, in the first place, their clear vivid perception of the Divine truth, of the power of the Word, of the presence of the Spirit; and, in the second place, their not less distinct perception of the human element, of the personality of the sacred writers. They do not hesi¬ tate to attribute to that element any obscurities or apparent contradictions in matters of detail. They speak of omissions and lapses of memory; and are indeed completely indifferent about questions which have raised storms of controversy in modern times. Some statements, indeed, are made by writers whose orthodoxy was never called into question, to which many of us would probably listen at present with surprise, if not pain. “ If,” says one Father,^ the Evangelists differ in their accounts, it was that they did not write immediately under Christ’s teaching, and may have forgotten much which they had re¬ ceived.” Augustine says, I venture to assert that perchance not even John himself spake what abso- solutely is, but what he was able to speak, since he was a man speaking of God. He spoke somewhat, uttered certain truth, because he was inspired, else had he not spoken at all.” Hear again these words of the same great teacher : ‘‘ Considering these differ¬ ing but not contradictory statements of the Evan¬ gelists, we learn that in the words of each we ought * Euthymius Zigabenus, a late writer, but of uuimpeached orthodoxy. 218 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIV. to fix our attention exclusively upon the sense which the words subserve, and not like pitiful word-hunters believe that truth is to be bound up in the points of letters, since not only in words hut in all other signs the mind or intention is the one thing to be con¬ sidered.” Chrysostom does not hesitate to refer the words or acts of the Apostles on certain occasions to the movements of their own minds, guided but not absolutely controlled by grace, while he draws this clear distinction between the diviner {/uLavrig) and the true prophet: “ The special characteristic of the diviner is that he is entranced, beside himself, under compulsion ; that he is thrust, drawn, torn, as it were, mad. Not so is it with the prophet; hut all that he utters he speaks with a waking under¬ standing, with the tranquillity of a sober mind, and knowing what he saith.” Brethren, we hear much of the -superstition and narrowmindedness of the early Fathers: nor can it he denied that they were compassed with infirmities, trammelled and well-nigh enslaved by divers prejudices, from which we have been happily delivered ; hut for deep reverence, assiduous study of the Word of God, an intense realisation of the Divine truths which it contains, and an intelligent appreciation of the mind and spirit of the human instruments by whom it was delivered, they have never been surpassed. We still find in them, as the great divines of our own Church at the epoch of its Deformation acknowledged, safe. Sermon XIV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 219 devout, and honest guides in the interpretation of Holy Writ, and in the establishment of its true claims to our reverence and love. I need not detain you by reference to mediaeval writers, whose authority none here will admit, though it may interest some to know that Thomas Aquinas, the chief of the school¬ men, makes a strong distinction between truths of re¬ velation which affect the substance of the faith directly and those which affect it but indirectly; and that the leaders of the Romish Church about the time of the Reformation were divided between those who held , an absolute verbal and literal inspiration, and those who believed that inspiration was confined to direct doctrinal teaching. The question most important for us is. What is the doctrine of our own Church? What does it absolutely define ? What does it im¬ plicitly teach ? Her authority, which binds the minister to whom she intrusts her utterance, will not be lightly regarded by any wise and understanding man. Our Church speaks on these points with her usual firmness and distinctness, and with all her wonted sobriety. In her Articles, and in all her formularies, she invariably identifies Holy Scripture with the Word of’Gfod ; when th^ expression Word of God” occurs, it always means the substantial truths of which the only medium is the written Word. The following passage from the homilies does but express in devout language what is formally 220 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIV. stated in tlie Articles wliicli we subscribe : Let every man, woman, and child, therefore, with all their heart, thirst and desire God’s Holy Scriptures, love them, embrace them, have their delight and pleasure in hearing and reading them, so as at length we may be transformed and changed into them. For the Holy Scriptures are God’s treasure-house, wherein are found all things needful for us to see, to hear, to learn, and to believe, necessary for the attaining of eternal life.” This trumpet speaks with no un¬ certain sound. On the other hand, it has been often remarked, and it is a very striking and important fact, that our Church abstains from any system¬ atic theory of inspiration. She attributes, as does St. Paul, all the teaching of the Apostles, and indeed of all the sacred writers, to the direct and abiding influence of the Holy Ghost, but she leaves untouched the question how far the words which they uttered bore the impress of their personal character and proceeded immediately from their own spiritualized mind. Her silence is emphatic. It marks a boundary which cannot be passed without rashness, more especially when determining the limits within which differences are permissible, and controversies may.be carried on without detriment to the faith. This sobriety of spirit characterizes all the great writers of our Church from the time of the Peformation. In the heat of the conflict, waged with all antagonists, we find our divines equally on Sermon XlV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 221 tlieir guard against the irreverence which is but too frequently observable in the writings of the earliest foreign reformers when any portion of the sacred writings appeared to them unfavourable to their theological system, and against the exaggerations into which the immediate followers of those great men were betrayed in their endeavour to substitute an infallible authority for that of the Church of Rome. Our own recognised teachers never tampered with the Canon of Holy Scripture; tolerated no attacks upon the authority of any portion of God’s Word; have ever been cautious to the extreme in dealing with its difficulties, obscurities, or apparent discrepancies: but you will search the writings of a Hooker, a Taylor, a Barrow, a Waterland, in vain for any assertions such as were once common in Germany, and were the real cause of the terrible reaction in that land; such as have been sometimes re¬ peated by over-zealous disputants among ourselves, not without most serious peril to the cause of truth : every word, every syllable, every letter, the Hebrew points, the punctuation itself, in spite of the most positive and well-known facts, were declared to have been directly communicated by inspiration; and the sacred writers were held to have 'been mere passive instruments, quills or reeds, used by the Holy Spirit. In direct contradiction of those writers’ own state¬ ments (see for instance the first three verses of St. Luke), the question whether ordinary studies, • 222 INSPIKATION OF SCEIPTUEE. Sermon XIV. inquiries, and meditations were necessary, was answered in the negative ; the Spirit, it was said, immediately, miraculously, and infallibly, moved them to write, and inspired and dictated what they were to write. Nor did men of undoubted learning hesitate to ascribe to the language of Scripture a purity of classical idiom, and a refinement of style, equally irreconcilable with the circumstances of the Apostles, and with their express declarations. No, brethren, with a full sense of the difficulty of main¬ taining a position midway between extremes, and with the certainty of offending unscrupulous par- tizans, our own soundest and most learned divines have steadily repudiated all such ungrounded as¬ sertions. With tenderness to the feelings and defer¬ ence to the prejudices even of Christian men to whom such questions presented more or less of difficulty, they have always, so far and so long as it was possible, avoided controversy upon this subject; but in considering any points of criticism or interpretation which called for inquiry, any dif¬ ferences in Order, arrangement, or mode of state¬ ment between the various historical records of the Old and New Testament, the influence of per¬ sonal character, local and national circumstances, the conditions under which the mental faculties of the writers may flave been developed, and the sources from which they derived their information, are matters of careful, and for the most part candid Sermon XIV. INSriRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 223 investigation. The strictest and most orthodox of our really learned controversialists assume the presence and recognise the operation of the human element, even while they believe that its imper¬ fections are supplied and its erroneous tendencies rectified by the power of the Holy Ghost. Nor do they confine that influence to direct doctrinal teaching, knowing full well that the whole series of transactions recorded by the Bible is one con¬ tinuous manifestation of the will and develop¬ ment of the purposes of the Almighty, and forms, therefore, an essential portion of His written Word. Brethren, I would not have undertaken to speak at all on this great and most difficult subject without that full reliance upon your candour and forbearance which I expressed in my first discourse."* I feel most strongly the need of such reliance in concluding with a brief statement of the points which appear to me at once most important and most satisfactorily established. All divines, in whom the Church of Christ recognises her leaders and representatives, have taught that the Holy Scriptures were written by persons who were selected, moved, guided, and informed by the Holy Ghost; that the word which they preached was not their word hut God’s Word. So far there is a real, universal agreement. The old rule, a very sound one if rightly under¬ stood, Quod semper uhique et ah omnibus^ has to this extent a true application. Without that conviction, * Sermon xii. 994- INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIV. indeed, no man will read the Bible for spiritual edification ; it is the first condition of admission into the sanctuary. But having that substantial con¬ viction, the Christian is free, is indeed bound, to read the Bible with a determination to abide by its own declarations, regardless of opinions which may here or there have been entertained by some of his fellow-men. He will be sure that men chosen by the Holy Ghost must be truthful, nor will he be moved if in matters utterly unimportant he finds what may appear to him slight variations of statement; he will find, in fact, that closer inquiry will in most cases detect in those very passages some of the most minute and striking coincidences, which impress the candid reader with a sense of the reality of the transactions thus described. He will be satisfied that words taught by the Holy Ghost must be adequate exponents of the mind of God, while he will regard with indifference any objections touching the mere characteristics of style; here again he will have the satisfaction of knowing that the most searching criticism has proved that the language of the Hew Testament, without any pretensions to an artificial and conventional elegance, is singularly accurate, and for its own high purposes a perfect instrument or vehicle of holy thought. He will not expect that the language of the sacred writers, or their statements in reference to the visible universe, when recording past events preserved by tradition, or communicated by a special revelation, will antici- Skrmox XIV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 225 pate the discoveries of science, nor will he he much perplexed if at any period it should seem to be at variance with ever-shifting speculations. Confident in the substantial truth which must underlie those statements, knowing how entirely the central con¬ victions of humanity are derived from them, he will listen unmoved to cavils which affect the mere outward form, even while he reflects with a just complacency upon the contrast between all false systems of the universe propounded by false re¬ ligions which have been utterly swept away at the first contact with science, and that of the Bible which has adapted itself most marvellously to the progress of inquiry and the development of human thought. The Christian inquirer will feel that the recognition of the human element, the free spon¬ taneous movement of the human mind and human heart, under the quickening influence of the Spirit of God, supplies him with a key to problems which present all but insuperable difficulties to the timid or prejudiced believer, and an answer to the most perplexing objections which rest upon the contrary assumption. He will be thankful to have this con¬ viction, and will stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free. But he knows full well, important as that conviction may be, its importance is but relative, dependent upon temporary or acci¬ dental circumstances; important for the man of 220 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. Sermon XIY. tliouglit who has to trace his way through con¬ flicting speculations; important for him who has to influence the opinions of others; important for all who are brought face to face with the antagonists of our faith; whereas, the one conviction which is absolutely needful, needful for all, at all times, in all circumstances, is the conviction that Grod speaks to us 'in His Word. The one work for a Christian, in reference to that Word, is to realise the divine ele¬ ment ; to bring his own heart under the operations of the .Holy Spirit, by whose breath the hearts of the inspired writers were stirred and their utterances controlled. God help the man who waits until he has disentangled the maze of curious objections; who reserves his submission to God’s will until he has settled the movements of the restless intellect! Sin will not wait; passion will not slumber; temp¬ tation will not stand aside ; death will not delay to strike; the current of life which bears us onward towards our eternal state will not suspend its ceaseless movement, until we have settled how much we are to believe; what we are to receive, what to question, what to reject of that book, in which God speaks plainly, unmistakeably now to our conscience, to our heart. That word has been tried in every way; tried in afflictions; tried in every stage of human development; tried in its work upon the lost and perishing; tried in its effects upon the holy and 8ermox XIV. INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 227 humble men of heart; tried in contact with every form of truth; tried in conflict with every form of error; and now, as ever, the whole body of the Church unites in one triumphant cry, “Thy word has been tried to the uttermost, and Thy servant loveth it.” 228 EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XY. SERMON XV. 1 Peter i. 3. Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There is a fulness of life and joy in these words of St. Peter, which harmonizes well with the feelings of believers on this the greatest festival of the Chris¬ tian Church. The infinite love of the Father, and of the Son, was manifested by the Cross of Jesus ; faith in that cross expels every trace of enmity from the reconciled sinner s. heart. But hope, living hope, the gift of a new life, the certainty of a blessed immortality, are communicated only by virtue of the resurrection. On this, our triumphant holiday,” we enter into conscious possession of our inherit¬ ance forfeited by sin, and recovered by Him who despoiled the powers and principalities of darkness. The Christian looks hack, and one mighty event stands out in the singleness of its glory: the resur- Sermon XV. EASTER SUNDAY. 229 rection of the crucified Son of man. He looks upon the present, and recognizes the positive, tangible results of that event in the existence of the Christian Church, in the permanence of religious convictions which, notwithstanding all their imperfections and corruptions, are still demonstrably co-extensive with the civilization of the human race. And if the faith of the Apostle of hope be in him, if what he con¬ fesses with his lips he is enabled to realize, he looks forward, and sees the courts of heaven thronged with bright forms, all bearing the likeness of Him who raises His chosen ones to ‘‘an inheritance in¬ corruptible and undefiled,” now “ reserved,” and then to he bestowed in heaven upon those “ who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Such a hope cannot be the portion of mere flesh and blood; it is not one to be attained unto by the way of discussion and reasoning; it is as St. Peter here teaches us, a result of regeneration. They have it who are be¬ gotten again by the will of God; they realize it who live the life of regenerate children of God. It may be ours, it will be ours, if we will but yield our¬ selves to the influences of the ever present Spirit of God. The hope belongs to all the redeemed ; great and glorious as it is, the very humblest of God’s children is bidden to entertain it. “ Christ is risen from the dead,” and every one, who is now raised by His power to newness of life, will share 230 EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XV. the glory of His resurrection. This is ‘‘ the lively hope/’ the hope full of quickening life which is set before us this day. But surely such a hope is too much for our minds ; it is too bright, too strange, too alien from our ordinary train of thought to he readily entertained; and so, perhaps, many persons, who are far from rejecting Christianity, are content with a general admission of the dogma without making any serious effort to realize it as a living truth. Brethren, that is to the last degree unreasonable. ^ Christ does not intend any man to remain in a cold twilight, a state of indistinct and dreamy existence neither light nor shade. We have no such alternative open to us; we must have the hope or we cannot be truly His; we are yet in our sins if He be not risen, if we do not rise with Him. But we should look well at the only real alternative, and consider well what man was, and must he; what we are, and must be without the hope of the resurrection. Creatures of a day, doomed to perish, without the faintest notion why we came into this world, or what is the object of our existence; at the best, individuals of a species which occupies the earth’s surface during some period of infinity, and then disappears for ever. Bubbles on the surface of a shoreless ocean sparkling in a momentary light, and then bursting, vanishing away without leaving a trace behind. The pld heathens had a cheerless and gloomy prospect SEKMO^’ XV. EASTER SUNDAY. 231 enough; they thought of a life to come as an im¬ perfect and indistinct continuation of a being which they felt could not be wholly perishable. Our own heathen forefathers thought of the soul, or of man’s life, as of a bird entering into the window of a lighted hall, there disporting itself for a few minutes, and then passing into outer darkness—whence it came, and whither it went, being alike matters ab¬ solutely unknown, and beyond the reach of conjec¬ ture. Wild and vague, and very dark, were then all speculations concerning futurity; but they were light itself compared with the alternative now pre¬ sented to us by some who claim the exclusive posses¬ sion of.scientific truth; who tell us that the God of nature, the modern substitute for the God of crea¬ tion, cares for the species, but abandons the individual to the casualties which sooner or later, what recks He? may terminate its existence. Once gone, for ever gone; once buried, to be mingled with the un¬ conscious elements, and to enter into new organiza¬ tions. Such the fate of this body; and as for the soul—the thinking, feeling, living soul; the soul with thoughts that wander through eternity; the soul that knows eternal truth-; the soul that dis¬ covers the laws of the universe—what is its doom ? what but to perish, utterly, suddenly, swallowed up, annihilated, lost for ever in a blank, hopeless, endless night ? Am I wrong in placing such an alternative before you? Is it a theme unsuited for this place ? 232 EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XV. I am very mucli mistaken if, in some form or other, speculations, which lead to this result more or less directly, do not reach and occupy the minds, do not cast a dark shadow over the hearts of multitudes. The chief danger for those who retain a general faith in Christian truth, is lest they should be un¬ conscious of the direction in which their minds are advancing. Let us then at least put it to our¬ selves distinctly. There is our grave before us; there is the cofEn in which this body must be shut up ; there is the churchyard in which the earthly relics of our beloved ones are mouldering. Is that the end ? The heart beats no more, are the affections which made it throb cold and dead also ? The eye is dark and stony, is the soul which looked through it annihilated ? Your conscience is now occupied with the laws of eternal truth, questions of right and wrong, the will of your Maker, your Father, your duties, your responsibilities. Is that conscience to be extinct? extinct at once? With the last breath will all thought, all feeling, all love pass into nothingness ? I am not arguing, I am not deducing from all this the certainty of an hereafter; that certainty will not be attained ‘in the way of argu¬ ment :. God reserves for Himself that crowning gift, that living hope, as the end and reward of consci¬ entious obedience, as the last and highest result of sanctified affections; but what I am striving to do is to. make you feel that you must accept one or other Skhmon XV. EASTER SUNDAY. 233 alternative, and to make you realize wkat the alter¬ native is if you accept tlie inferences towards which mere human speculation have ever seemed to gravi¬ tate when unguided by the divine light, in which they inevitably terminate when that light is rejected. Without the resurrection life is but a dream, man hut a vain shadow, truth and goodness but an empty name; but with it life is the porch of eternity, a precious, and a holy thing; a season of prepara¬ tion granted to us by Him “ who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” And that, brethren, is the alternative on which we will now fix our minds. Rise again we must, we shall, whether we believe, or whether we disbelieve ; we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ; stand in our own bodies ; stand in our personal, com¬ plete integrity of being; stand with our conscious hearts, our full capacities for joy or suffering, to receive the things done in the body, whether they be good or evil. Realize that fact, take it as a fact, put away all questioning, discard all specula¬ tions ; realize that moment, and then see what an efiect it has upon your hearts now—what light it throws upon our present state of being. We are now preparing our bodies as well as our souls for eternity. Our bodies will indeed undergo a change, a mighty change, a change as to the extent or exact 231 EASTER SUNDAY. Seumon XV. character of which we can form no conception, hnt they will still be substantially the same. We shall not lose our identity; we shall recognize ourselves as the same. With our eyes we shall see our Judge. Now this, if accepted as a truth, meets one great difficulty which perplexes thinking men. If there is a real continuity of personal being; if as the child is the father of the man, so the man living on earth is the father of the man who will live in eternity; it follows that no training of our faculties, mental or bodily, is thrown away. Every act of our lives gives and leaves a permanent impress. Our. characters are moulded here, and they will be de¬ veloped there. We think of those who are gone, and we are apt to imagine that much of their work has perished; the warm affections, the genial sym¬ pathies, the active energies have left traces which, so far as this world is concerned, last a few short years, and then fade away and are forgotten. And so we feel about our own work when we look upon it from a mere secular point of view; but faith in the resurrection changes the prospect altogether. The character endures, the work endures, the results are perpetuated, the traces are indelible. Nothing is lost, all will be restored. Whatever your work is, provided that it is done for a good end, in obedience to the known will of God, it is laid up in the divine treasury. It is not only gone before you, not only recorded once more to be brought to your remem- Sermon XY. EASTER SUNDAY. 235 brance at the day of reward, but its effects are per¬ manent. You are the same, and not the same. Every act in your life, if it does not retard, advances the work of transformation. The change which will take place when the soul (prepared and matured, as I believe, in the intermediate state when it will be present with the Lord) is reunited with its body, will be one not of destruction but of renewal. What¬ ever progress you have here made in the develop¬ ment of the natural gifts with which you have been endowed will be then rapidly completed. “ In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed;” but changed so as to bear the perfect image of Jesus, to which you are now being conformed so far as you are really endeavouring to do your Father’s will. When we think then of the departed, of those con¬ cerning whom we have reason to hope that they now sleep in Jesus,” let us think of them with reverence. Their work is done, but not lost; all that was good and true, and beautiful in their natures still lives ; their affections have not perished; under the altar their souls still sympathize with their beloved ones; they see with a certain vision the approach of that day when He, by whom they we're begotten unto a lively hope, will complete their restoration. Their rest is a blessed season, for they know that when their Lord reappears they will come with Him, bearing in spiritual bodies, meet dwelling-places for 238 EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XV. immortal souls, the likeness of Him who, as on this day, arose to be the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead. There is one other point of deep interest which appears to me conclusively settled by this belief in a true bodily resurrection. Will believers know each other in that future state ? Will the relation¬ ship of this life be recognized ? Will parent and child, husband and wife, loving friends, know each other again ? Doubt it not. True love is a gift of God; true love comes from Christ; true love is the real, effectual, the only effectual agency in mould¬ ing any character into conformity with Christ, and therefore it must he unperishable, even as the nature which it transforms, even as the nature of Him from whom it< comes. Holy Scripture does not, indeed, say much on this subject; but what it does say seems to me perfectly conclusive. If more is not said, that may be because this belief flows as a necessary consequence from the doctrine of the re¬ surrection. Shall we not he like our Lord in the resurrection ? Did not His disciples know Him ? Were not the same loving human affections elicited by His presence ? Did He not call them each by their names ? Let Mary answer, let St. John tell us whether they did not recognize the same loving voice, the same gracious countenance which had drawn out the affections of their hearts during the past years of earthly life and trial. With regard Sermon XV. EASTER SUNDAY. • 237 to the lost, we know but too well that, of all horrors, the most unendurable will be that of witnessing their mutual hate and misery; with regard to the saved, do we doubt that the very sweetest and most pre¬ cious ingredient in their cup of blessedness will be the sight of each other’s joy, each other’s develop¬ ment in holiness ? We are told that the saved will share the banquet of the ancient patriarchs; they will look on the glory of the four-and-twenty elders around the throne, and, by the contemplation of the great saints who will there reflect the radiance of the Redeemer most perfectly, they will, doubtless, be raised continually higher in the scale of spiritual being ; but then as now, we feel assured, reciprocated love, love kindled but not absorbed by the central fire of the Spirit, will be the chief blessing of every individual heart. Were it not so, I could scarcely conceive the next life as the conscious continuity of our individual being. The mother longs for her lost child; our hearts have each and all some aching void; the manifold affections of our natures yearn each and all for an object; and the longing, the yearning are right; in indulging them we have Christ for our example. “ God is my witness,” saith the Apostle, ‘‘ how I long for you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” And if so, the feelings must be* immortal, and their full gratification must belong to that blessedness which is reserved in heaven for the followers and lovers of their Saviour. This too 238 • EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XY! must be borne in mind. Love here is, and must be, imperfect. We are compassed by infirmity, the good which is really in us, so far as we are renewed by grace, is but partially discerned, owing to the medium through which we see each other, and to our mutual shortcomings. But then the evil will be eradicated, the infirmities will disappear, and we shall see into the very secrets of the loving heart. We may not see into each others’ hearts now: the sight would not be good for us: but then the sympathy will be perfect, the whole inner man, transfigured but de¬ veloped by the power of Christ, will be before us; we shall then rejoice to know even as we are known. Nor will the heart then be troubled by the thoughts which now disturb us when we reflect upon the probable condition of the departed. The sympathy between the living members of Christ must be com¬ plete and exclusive : exclusive so that no grief, no pain can reach the heart in reference to those who would not be saved by Him; complete because the love of Christ, the love of those who reflect the love of Christ, will fill the whole heart, and slake the thirst of immortality. Weep for the dead, the loved and lost, we may and must here in our day of trial: weep without hope we cannot, and we dare not; speak of them with reverence, think of them with joy, for they have their fruition now in part; they are now entered partly into the joy of their Lord; they are awaiting the day when, with all who love and trust Sermon XV. EASTER SUNDAY. 239 in Him, they will know the full glory of the resur¬ rection. Still the question recurs—for whom is all this meant ? Hoes it apply to me ? each trembling heart will ask. Can it be meant for me ? for me with my littleness, my darkness, my coldness, my fear, my consciousness of sin ? Brethren, to every one who does really ask it with such trembling, such humility, our Saviour answers. Yes! He tells you there is no alternative, no middle state, no place between heaven and the abode of His enemies. You are not His enemies if you fear to be banished from His presence; you can only become His enemies by refusing the gift of hope which He bestows in and through the grace of regeneration. But from all that has been said, from the simplest, the most elementary truths of religion, it follows that since your bodies and souls must be raised, they can be raised in the likeness of Christ only if they be here renewed by living union with Him. Our bodies are sinful—they must be made clean by His body; our souls are defiled—they must be washed clean by His blood. This is the one object of all means of grace ; most especiaily of that which on this day is offered to believers, in the Sacrament wherein Christ makes them partakers of Himself. Prayer will bring your souls into contact with Christ; prayer will open your hearts to admit Him. The careful study of Giod’s word will do ynuch; so much, that if the 240 EASTER SUNDAY. Sermon XV. lessons whicli it teaches are thoroughly taken to heart they will complete the work of regeneration. Do we not read; ‘‘ of His own will begat He us with the w^ord of truth, that we should be a kind of first- fruits of His creatures?” But prayer and the Word of Grod will but make you long for living spiritual contact; for a pledge, a proof, an effectual earnest of Christ’s true presence. Your bodies, mortal in themselves, must be quickened by resurrection-food; in your renewed hearts must flow the blood of the glorified Redeemer. Think not that you can realize the fact of the resurrection—think not that you can he prepared for the state of the resurrection—if you leave unused any means which He hath appointed for communicating those precious gifts. Hope, a lively hope, a hope that hath in itself a quickening power, will be His gift, if with penitent and devout hearts you listen to the call of Him who is the Resur¬ rection and the life. Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 241 SEEMON XVL Acts v. 3. Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost f Such then was the character of the first sin recorded by inspiration after the coming of the Holy Ghost. Within the short time which had elapsed since that event, the manifestations of the spiritual life had been marvellous in power and beauty. Miraculous gifts, rapid and complete conversions, hold uncom¬ promising denunciations of sin, and proclamation of the kingdom of Christ, attested the Presence of the Spirit of Power. The perfect unity, the mutual charity, the fervent devotion of the new converts, proved that that spirit was indeed the spirit of Him who was incarnate love. Later ages look back with admiration upon that first glorious outburst of the divine life—that first indication of the capacities for good which are implanted in regenerate man. It was indeed, so to speak, a spiritual restoration to Paradise ; the way to the Tree of Life was open, and believers were tasting that fruit which gives eternal life. Stedfast in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellow- R THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XVI. Z-±Zi ship, in breaking of bread and prayers, with hearts full of love to God and love to man, listening to those who had been attendants upon the Son from the beginning, looking forward with perfect and longing faith to the second advent of their Saviour, rejoicing in the tribulations' brought upon them at once by their profession, those first adherents to the Church, those first-fruits of the Spirit, have left an example which the holiest men can scarcely contem¬ plate but with fear and trembling. For a.short time the enemy had attacked them from without: the first persecution had immediately followed the first out¬ ward miracle of healing ; but then, as in all succeed¬ ing ages, that attempt had but issued in a triumph of the Church. Now, however, so soon after that triumph, in the midst of their exultation, believers suddenly found that the Evil One had penetrated into the very sanctuary; the serpent once more had entered the true Paradise; temptation had once more been brought to bear with deadly effect upon hearts bearing the image of God. The Holy Spirit had withdrawn from souls which He had enlightened. Satan, as we are assured by the Apostle himself, had filled the hearts which had once been, and should have been for ever, that Spirit’s temple, and taught them the unpardonable sin, the lie against the Holy Ghost. It is of the last importance, in considering this transaction, to bear in mind its critical character— Beemon XYL THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 243 the, fact that it was. the first success of the tempter ill his struggle with the Church—a repetition, if we may so speak, of the fall of Adam and Eve. This might lead us to expect that a careful inquiry into its meaning would give us some deep insight into the mystery of evil, and supply us with very practical warnings and suggestions for the governance of our hearts. We may be sure that the approach of the evil one was made with more than his usual subtlety ; we may be sure that the record of his success was intended to show us the extremity of our danger, should we fail to hold fast by the Saviour, who alone can repel him from our hearts. Our question will be. In what form is it probable that the temptation first presented itself to Ananias and his wife? We may believe that they were car¬ ried away by the general enthusiasm of the time. When many possessors of lands and houses sold 4hem, and laid the price at the Apostles’ feet, when the beautiful idea of a brotherhood, in which all alike should partake freely of the Creator’s gifts, seemed to be realised, cold indeed must have been the hearts which could remain indifferent. It is most unlikely that, when the thought first suggested itself to them that they too would be counted' among the bene¬ factors of Christ’s people, it was accompanied with any intention of deceit or fraud. Satan does not show himself at once without disguise; he does not attack the citadel until he has cleared the approaches, K 2 244 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XVI. and effected a breacli in the fortifications. But, on the other hand, there can he no douht that there was from the beginning something radically unsound in their minds. The motive which actuated them must have been throughout either entirely or in great part a selfish one. Emulation or ambition, the desire of applause, it may he the hope of high distinction in the Church, and in the kingdom of Christ, which, excepting by the most spiritual of the disciples, was expected to be speedily established, with all the pomp and majesty of external dominion, such may have been, and most probably were, the predomi¬ nating and effective inducements for that determi¬ nation. They had just seen, in the case of St. Barnabas, how such an act was appreciated by the Apostles, the vicars and representatives of Him whom they believed, according to the measure of their own grovelling faith, to be the King of Glory. The sacrifice of some portion of their property, or of the whole, may have seemed, even to base and selfish spirits, no unreasonable price for distinctions and rewards so speedily, as they believed, to be dis¬ tributed. And so far they probably went without a suspicion that all the intention, so bright and laudable in the eye of man, was in truth but the development of that principle, an offshoot from that root which had brought sin and death into the world. Satan had transformed himself into an angel of light. But when the principle is radically wrong, it is Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 245 seen to issue in a variety of evils. The evil one will not be contented with half a conquest. His next suggestion at once pierced through the heart unde¬ fended by the spirit of grace ; for how could it be expected that grace should protect or restrain souls in which love had been defiled, and then expelled by selfishness ? The thought soon occurred, Why make an unnecessary sacrifice ? Will not a part suffice ? Why bring ourselves to a level with the recipients of charitable doles ? They knew, what St. Peter reminds them of afterwards, that after all it was entirely a voluntary act; they could keep all their property without incurring blame, provided that they contributed in a reasonable proportion to the wants. of the brethren. Had they sold the land and given • even a small portion openly and humbly, it would have been accepted; for each man who gave not grudgingly or of necessity the Apostles had words of commendation. We can conceive that, even up to this point, husband and wife may have talked over the matter without any consciousness of sin, without any apprehension of spiritual danger. But what, then, became of the glory, the distinction, the reward ? what of their hope of being numbered with the chosen few? After giving.up so much, should they still remain among the common herd ? Then, as we may believe, came the thought, just then, when pride and selfishness and covetousness occupied all their mind, why not make one little step ? by one 246 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XYI. easy and single act secure all that had presented itself in such attractive colours ? They had but to declare that they had really done what they really had purposed; they had hut to make a declaration, which no one was likely to doubt, that the gift was their all, to lay it at the Apostles’ feet, and in the presence of the Church, admiring and grateful wit¬ nesses of their devout liberality, and all which they had desired and contemplated would be accomplished. There was the sin—full-grown, developed, carefully prepared and weighed. They looked at it. It did not after all seem so very ugly. It was hut a white lie. There was no malice in it. It hurt no one in body or estate. It lowered no man’s reputation. Doubtless, on looking back, they could remember thousands of instances in which they had acted just in the same manner for very trifling objects, and had been undetected; they could think of those acts withr out pain or much shame ; and if either of them felt any scruple, the other—a worthy helpmeet—was doubtless prompt, and ingenious, and plausible in removing it. The whole thing became quite clear and simple; and so, having fully settled what each was to say should any question possibly be raised, the husband went forth. He stood before the Apostles, surrounded by the brethren. The eye of Peter was upon him. Little he thought then of the manifestations of the Spirit which had hallowed that place, of the marvels which had shown that in those Apostles the heart- Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 217 searcliing Spirit of Grod dwelt. Wholly absorbed by one thought, blinded by that spirit which had then entire possession of his mind, he may not have cared or dared to raise his eye and meet the glance of Peter, or, if he looked, was unable to discern the warning which its very graciousness implied. There he stood—the thought was realised, the sin was acted; he offered what may or may not have been in itself a munificent gift, but, offered with a lie in his heart and in his mouth, a thing abominable and accursed, an insult to the God of truth. Such was the sin. What was the judgment ? Brethren, what would our judgment be ? Should we see clearly its atrocity? We remember indeed that many circumstances concurred to deepen the offence. Once vowed, we are aware that a gift was no longer a man’s own; it belonged to God; it could not be touched without sacrilege. The calm, deliberate, well- matured devices by which the sin was accomplished of course excite repugnance, even natural instincts pro¬ nounce the condemnation ; but to what extent ? Are such acts uncommon ? When detected, what feelings do they rouse ? If memory recalls accurately and presents distinctly some such act in your own past life, when conscience tells you that somewhat of the same character is attached to some of your present feelings, if not acts, what is your judgment ? Would we know what it ought to be ? Hear what was the judgment of Peter—nay, hear what was the judgment of God, 248 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XVI. uttered by Peter’s lips. He declares that the lie thus spoken, thus deliberately prepared, thus uttered in tbe presence of God’s people, was directed against tbe Holy Ghost. He declares that the soul which could utter that lie was possessed by Satan. ‘‘ Why hath Satan thus filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? ” Brethren, does the thought occur to any of us, if it was Satan’s work, if it was the result of an overpowering influence, there was even in that horrible thought some mitigation ? Consider then how calmly, how minutely, the Apostle states the nature of the offence, and declares that the thought was conceived in the man’s own heart. Satan’s sug¬ gestions find no entrance save through the consent¬ ing will; the power of Satan fills no heart from which the Spirit of Grace has not been expelled by a man’s own deliberate act. “ Thou hast not lied unto man, but unto God.” Those are the Apostle’s words. Now, brethren, I would request you to note—for this fact is often over¬ looked or misrepresented—that St. Peter does not pronounce a sentence. He does not excommunicate; he pronounces no curse; much less does he condemn the offender to whatever punishment he may have deserved. What he does is simply this. He gives the sin its true name ; he declares its exact character ; he lays bare the sinner’s heart. In the presence of the assembled Church he opens that heart. He shows the Christians there standing, amazed and bewil- Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 249 dered, that in that heart, from which the Holy Ghost had been expelled, Satan dwelt in the. fulness of his power. He revealed to Ananias his true condition in the eye of God. So, indeed, he anticipated for him that day in which the imaginations of all hearts will be disclosed; so, indeed, he gave ns some inti¬ mation of what will take place when we stand bare to our innermost thoughts before our Judge. But, as I said, St. Peter did no more than this. What¬ ever might be the effect of his words, he acted but as a minister of the Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; to that God, the God of holiness and love, must be attributed the result: “ Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost.” Supernatural, beyond all doubt, was that death; yet, like all true miracles—distinguishable, as I believe, therein from legendary marvels—the supernatural acted in accordance with the laws of our spiritual nature. The direct agency of the Spirit accelerated and intensified the natural action of the despairing heart. A soul like that of Ananias, covetous of applause, living on the breath of man, would be smitten with a deadly blow when exposed to open and hopeless shame. How many suicides have rushed to death from no other motive 1 A heart in which hope and faith were dead, in which the springs of life had been poisoned, in which the human love which should have been a sustaining influence for good had become the minister of sin, could find no 250 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XVI. • - • place for rest or strength. There was nothing to break the sudden fall, nothing to cling to when the black abyss was opened beneath the convicted sinner’s feet. Brethren, there may he many a soul now reposing calmly in a sense of security, which would be utterly crushed and overwhelmed were it suddenly to be brought into the light of God, find itself suddenly exposed, with all its hidden and unknown guiltiness, its impurity, its unbelief, its envy, its wild covetousness, to the gaze of men and to the eye of its Judge. Death, could it but be total, would he a refuge from that anguish and that shame. We wonder not, when we so realize the thought, that. “ Ananias fell down and gave up the ghost.” We are prepared to hear that his wretched wife, sustaining, in addition to all that had crushed him, the load of his death—the consequence of their mutual sin—should have followed him. We listen with awe, hut scarcely with surprise, to St. Peter’s words—no sentence, but a sad prophecy, uttered under a controlling inspiration—that she was at once to share that unhonoured grave ; at once to meet her husband in that other world, where the spirits of disobedience await the last coming of the Judge of the quick and of the dead. Thus passed away the_ first black thundercloud which gathered over the Church of Christ. The judg¬ ment was, indeed, sudden and awful; you must observe also that it was in this respect peculiar. It had no Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 251 precedent. Our Lord’s miracles bad invariably one character, that of mercy and beneficence; and this was followed by no second, no similar judgment. The crimes which afterwards defiled the primitive Church were visited by spiritual censures, but never by temporal penalties. It was meet—it was, if we may presume so to speak, even necessary—that the first collision of evil and good, the first insult offered'- by the spirit of falsehood, of hypocrisy, of sacrilege, should be instantaneously avenged. But, having once bared the glittering sword, having once launched the thunderbolt upon the guilty, the great King of the Church left the warning to produce its effect. It showed what all wilful, deliberate sin, that kind especially which is the direct antagonist to truth and holiness, must look forward to when the Son comes to judge all mankind; and for that purpose it was recorded. We do not expect — we know that it would be sheer fanaticism to expect—that in this life, in the body, similar judgments will be in¬ flicted, save in accordance with those universal laws which attach inevitable penalties to certain acts of guilt. But, if we* consider this matter in a right spirit, we shall feel that the warning is but the more awful, our* danger but the greater, if punishments are not visibly inflicted. The spiritual death which was represented in the case of Ananias is far, very far indeed, from being uncommon. Spiritually, how many fall, like that wretched man, to the earth, cut % 252 THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. Sermon XVI. off from all heavenly, all heart-sustaining influences! Spiritually, like him, how many give up the ghost, lose all the life which is given by the Holy Ghost! They live in sin for a while, conscious of their guilt and of their danger; they commit sins for a time, not without some struggles, not. without some re¬ morse ; but each time the struggles become weaker and weaker; the remorse is resisted, subdued, and, at last, that too ceases; and so the man dies to God. Call upon him then; he hears not the voice of warning. The light shines upon him, but he sees it no more; the judgments of God gather fast around him, but he heeds no signs; his soul is dead. And that death, which in the case of the hardened sinner is total and endless, casts its shadow even upon believers, whenever sin gets the mastery over them in their weakness or their presumption. Few there are whose inner experience does not enable them to understand somewhat of the meaning of that ‘‘ horror of great darkness/’ of that spiritual death, which is the sure result of nnrepented guilt. That horror, brethren, is God’s most solemn warning. If it come npon you in any form, in any degree, look well into your hearts. Weigh your actions at once in the balance of the sanctuary; look at your sin, whatever it may have been, in the light of God’s law; see it as it appears in God’s eye. I say not that it is not an awful thing to lay bare the heart; but it must be laid bare; if not for correction here. Sermon XVI. THE DEATH OF ANANIAS. 253 then for judgment hereafter. Ananias looked upon his sin, but he saw it too late; the lightning had already gone forth from the holy place, and the sight killed him. For us the mercy-seat is still accessible. If we confess our sin—mean, hateful, despicable as it may be—Jesus is willing, even as He is able, to save. Abjure it, cast it away utterly and at once; judge yourselves honestly, unflinchingly, and you will not be judged: for His atoning blood will wash away every trace of pollution: His spirit will shed once more the light upon your hearts, and make you acceptable to the God of holiness, the God of truth. 254 PAUL BEFOEE AGRIPPA. Sermon XVIT. SEEMON XVII. Acts xxvi. 28, 29. • King Agrippa said^ Almost thou persuadest me to he a Christian, And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, hut also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. The sacred writers cannot certainly be charged with aiming at picturesque effect. The severe simplicity of their narrative is never disturbed by the descrip¬ tion of mere outward accessories. The attention of the reader is always concentrated upon the moral and spiritual significance of the events which are recorded for our instruction. Still, on the occasion when these words were spoken by the King and by the Apostle, there are indications not only that St. Luke felt, but that he intended ns to observe, the very striking contrast between the outward and inward circumstances, the temporal and spiritual position of the speakers. Thus he mentions with a very unusual particularity the great pomp of Agrippa when, surrounded by the captains of the Eoman soldiers, and all the chief citizens of Caesarea, Sermon XVII. PAUL BEFOEE AGRIPPA. 255 he entered the judgment hall, and, together with his notorious sister Bernice, took his seat by the side of the representative of the imperial power. St. Luke is careful to use the name of king ” repeatedly when speaking of Agrippa, a mere dependant, as he was, upon the caprice of Nero. With a few natural and unstudied, but exceedingly graphic touches, he brings the whole scene before our minds. We seem to see the young and brilliant and as yet popular sovereign, in whom the splendour of the Herodian dynasty was revived for a brief season, just before its final extinction. He presides with a semblance of real authority in the noble hall built by his ancestor, in the midst of the city in which, but a few years since, his own father had been smitten by a loathsome disease in the fulness of his pride. We remark the show of courteous deference, scarcely veiling the consciousness of substantial superiority, on the part of Festus, whom, in fact, Agrippa had come there to salute as the true centre of power. We turn with a feeling of inexpressible relief from this vain pageant, this mockery of regal state, and there stands the prisoner of the Lord, nay, the free¬ man of the Lord, the only free man in that throng of slaves and vassals, St. Paul, x On his arms still hang the iron manacles ; on his attenuated frame are the traces of his two years’ imprisonment; on his brow are the true marks of the Lord Jesus, the deep lines furrowed by loving anxiety and by spiritual 256 PAUL BEFOKE AGRIPPA. Sekmon XVII. sufifering. A bodily presence, it may be, weak ; and a speech, if we receive literally the expression of bis own humility, contemptible to the mere worldling; but a weakness in which was the strength of the Almighty Master, a lowliness in which the majesty of Christ was visibly represented, an eloquence which has won myriads to the religion of the Cross. St. Luke will have us see him; he bids us note his very gestures; the hand outstretched as he addresses himself to his earthly judges, and again when, in the words of the text, he appeals to the hearts of his surprised and excited hearers. All these points touch our feelings, and possess our imagination; but they are noted expressly because they have a deep moral significance—because they represent and help us to realise the utter emptiness of what the world admires and prizes, and, on the other hand, the inherent majesty of goodness and of truth. The position of St. Paul at that time was some¬ what peculiar. He was not, as on former occasions, strictly speaking on his trial. He had appealed to Caasar, and by that appeal was secured from the machinations of his countrymen. The governor of the province had no longer the power either of condemning or releasing him; but it was his duty to send a clear statement of the nature of the charges brought against the Apostle, and thus to clear the way for his trial at Pome. Knowing and caring little for the questions which had been raised, Festus Sermon XVII. PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 257 gladly sought the aid and counsel of Agrippa, who was thoroughly acquainted with the dogmas and laws of Judaism, and had, in fact, obtained from the emperor the superintendence of the temple, with the power of appointing and dismissing the High Priest. Before these men St. Paul was called upon to answer for himself. It was a crisis of peculiar importance. The words which fell from him then were sure to make a deep impression upon that numerous assembly —that mixed throng of spectators, who must have felt that the man who had to plead before those whom they looked up to as the mightiest of the earth, was no ordinary man. That was an occasion on which the great truths of the Gospel might be uttered with the certainty, at least, of securing an attentive hearing. Paul could speak, too, with perfect independence ; he knew that he could not be interrupted by the fanatic intolerance of the Jews. Festus had but one object, and that was to know what was the real purport and tenor of his new doctrines. St. Paul’s defence would go to Pome, and would be spread through the world as the authentic exposition of the religion of Christ. His conduct, his line of defence, would be the model for all believers when questioned as to the grounds and nature of their creed. In fact, the appeal to Cassar was in itself, so to speak, a type, and a very striking type, of the true position of every Christian who appeals from misrepresentation, obloquy, or persecu- s 258 PAUL BEFOKE AGKIPPA. Seemon XVII, tion, to tlie tribunal, not of the mere depositories of temporal power, but to- that of Him who is the ultimate source of all true power, the Lord of heaven and earth. The discourse of the Apostle has been read this morning. I may assume your general knowledge of its contents, nor will I occupy your time with a detailed analysis or exposition. Let us consider briefly what were the main objects aimed at by St. Paul—what light his arguments throw upon his character and upon our own practical duties. The first point which strikes us is that the Apostle thoroughly accepts all the truths of Judaism. He will not be taken as one who denies his early prin¬ ciples. He will not be called a renegade. Chris¬ tianity is not the subversion, it is the development of Judaism. All that he contends for is that he has received, and preaches to others, the fulfilment of the old national hope, the hope of the promise made of God unto the Fathers of the Israelites, unto which promise, as he reminds his hearers, most of whom were well qualified to judge of the truth of the asser¬ tion, “ their twelve tribes, every true family of Israel, instantly serving God day and night, still hoped to come.” This of course is an obvious and well-known fact; few here will question this representation. But it requires some consideration, perhaps some knowledge of history, to see how singularly this mode of representing the Christian faith illustrates Sermon XVII. PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 259 the wisdom, discretion, and sagacity, as well as the ► uncompromising truthfulness of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. If Christianity was, indeed, but a higher form, a legitimate development of the religion of the Jews, it was certain that neither Festus nor the Homan Emperor* would consider its adherents liable to persecution simply because of their faith. Judaism was recognised and protected by the Roman law. St. Paul was thus securing, not for himself merely, but for the religion which he represented, a certain amount of tolerance, a space and interval during which the infancy of the new-born Church might be shielded from the killing blast of the terrible ones beating like a storm against the wall. Do not think this a mere antiquarian question. It was one, then, of very practical importance. I have no doubt that it was this recognition of the legality of his position which procured for the Apostle a fair hearing from many who became earnest converts to the faith, and who were quite ready ’to endure persecution when it really did come. It was, indeed, a striking instance of that strong, practical good sense, that sound judgment, that sagacity, that calmness and clearness of intellect, which, in their combination with unswerving integrity and absolute unselfish¬ ness, give St. Paul so strong a hold upon the mind of our own countrymen. We know, indeed, that, had the religion of his master brought him into direct conflict with all the powers of earth, all the s 2 260 PAUL BEFOKE AGEIPPA. Sermon XVII. authority of imperial laws, St. Paul would not have hesitated one second; but he was not a man to provoke a needless struggle, to surrender for himself or for his people a legal position, to throw away what he was well assured was a security supplied by the overruling Providence of Grod. Give no needless offence, surrender no legal right,—^that is one lesson which Christians, those especially of enthusiastic tem¬ perament, are hereby reminded to take to heart. All great truths have, however, many bearings, and find many unforeseen and unexpected appli¬ cations. It would have been hard for Christians at that time to conceive that a statement so obvious would ever be disputed—that the absolute unity of truth in its twofold development, under the Law and the Gospel, would be denied by any professing to be believers. Yet so it has been; and even now it is necessary to remind some inquirers that any attempt to disjoin Christianity from Judaism is worse than useless; it is to the last degree irrational; it is directly contrary to the teaching of Him who has declared that He came not to destroy but to fulfil the law and the prophets, that not one jot or tittle of the law should pass away till all be fulfilled. It is diametrically opposed to the conduct of St. Paul, in whom, if in any man, such a tendency would have manifested itself, had it been compatible with the teaching of the Spirit of God. I do not know how far I am right in supposing that this observation Sermon XYII. PAUL BEFOEE AGEIPPA. 261 may be of use : this I do know, that both abroad and in England doctrines have been contemptuously rejected as mere Jewish superstitions, which St. Paul in this very discourse states in the clearest and strongest language to be fundamental principles of the Christian faith. ‘‘ Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.” Agrippa and Festus recognised the force of St. Paul’s argument; they admitted the legality of his position,—“ This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds and, again, ‘‘ This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto Csesar.” But was that his only—was that his chief object ? Not so. To protect the followers of Christ was much ; to set an example of prudence and wis¬ dom was much; to baffle the malignant persecutors of the Church was much ; but all this was as nothing compared with the one great paramount object—to set forth the truth, the whole truth, as it is in Jesus. Whenever offence might be avoided without com- promising that truth, St. Paul was the most pliant, if we may so speak, the most ingenious of casuists ; but none was ever more utterly reckless of the offence which might be caused by setting forth the truth itself in its fulness, its breadth, its power to subdue and control the hearts and to overthrow the 262 PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. Sermon XVII. prejudices of mankind. What truth was more hateful to the bystanders, who were prejudiced Jews, than the declaration that the Gospel was intended for the whole world ? What would bring upon him all their rage more certainly than the statement that he was himself the appointed minister to preach Christ to the Gentiles ? That was, in fact, the very declara¬ tion which had already inflamed J^he passions of the Jews when he was seized in the Temple. Here, in the presence of their rulers, he repeats and main¬ tains it. What doctrine was more opposite to the prejudices of the party of which Agrippa was the head and representative than that Christ should suffer? —that doctrine St. Paul then, as ever, sets forth as the very foundation of saving faith. What to the Gentiles was the doctrine of all others specially repugnant and unintelligible ?—what but the general resurrection of the dead ? Yet here, as on the Hill of Mars, where, as he well knew, the statement would be received with utter derision, St. Paul selects this as the truth of all truths most necessary to be received, for the credibility of which he appeals to the omnipotence of God. Candour is a good thing; liberality in judging persons and allow¬ ing for prejudices is most praiseworthy; prudence in avoiding occasion of needless offence is a moral duty ; hut these are only good, only estimable, when and so far as they are united with absolute, uncom¬ promising truthfulness. It is the courage, the dis- Seemon XYII. PAUL BEFOKE AGKIPPA. 263 regard of personal consequences, the genuine, un¬ flinching earnestness of St. Paul, which make him a model for our imitation ; and while we ask ourselves whether we are, like him, careful not to expose the doctrines of Christianity to unmerited obloquy or to surrender the rights of the Church, let us first and last remember that we must not suppress or explain away, or acquiesce in the misrepresentation of any one great truth which Christ hath taught. The burning enthusiasm in the cause of truth which was kindled in the heart of St. Paul by the Holy Spirit alone gave him the mastery over the minds of men, and made him a leader in the army of the Lord of Hosts. How simply and forcibly the effects of that dis¬ course are stated by St. Luke ! We have already seen that the conviction of the Apostle’s innocence was complete; but how did his words affect the hearts of individuals ? The impressions of no small part of the assembly were probably represented by the words of Festus or of Agrippa. To the cold, stern, haughty magistrate The whole discourse was simply unintelligible. He listened to it in a state of utter perplexity. One thing he ^aw plainly enough : the Apostle was no common man, no mere ignorant enthusiast; his language, the very structure of his argument, his familiarity with the sacred oracles, proved learning, research, ability; but conclusions so opposed to his own narrow and exclusive preju- 264 PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. Sermon XVII. dices—wliat prejudices, indeed, are so narrow and so exclusive, what minds so impervious to conviction, as those of mere men of the world?—could in his judgment only he accounted for by madness, not, however, madness in the common acceptation of the word, mere insanity, but the high-wrought excite¬ ment of the spirit, in which (as the heathens gene¬ rally held then, even as Easterns do now) it becomes susceptible of communications from the supernatural and divine. Festus and those who felt with him might or might not be moved to further inquiry; they might be, and doubtless some of them were hereafter, led to a knowledge of those principles on which St. Paul rested; if not, they would subside into a state of cold or contemptuous indifference. When the special truths of Christ’s most holy faith are stated broadly, clearly, in their naked simplicity, in their antagonism to common prejudices, is not such still the effect ? To some of you there may have been a time when those truths seemed but mad¬ ness ; at the most, beautiful illusions, wild and vague aspirations of an undeveloped spiritualism* Now it may be you remember the crisis or the gradual transition when you found in those dreams the truths, the only truths, the only realities of existence. Gratefully you may now be recalling the season, if not the very day, when some word sent by the Spirit of God penetrated your heart, startled you from the lethargy of worldliness, and brought you to Sermon XVII. PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 265 the knowledge of Him in whom ye know that you have eternal life. Festus was your type in that first state of excitement or perplexity; now you rejoice in the certainty that the Apostle speaks forth the words of truth and soberness. And what shall we say of Agrippa ? ‘‘ Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Almost, with a little more effort, in a little more time, with a few more such arguments (for such is the real mean¬ ing of the expression), Agrippa declares he might himself be persuaded to be a Christian. Was this a mere jest ? was this a mere scoffing attempt to shake off an unpleasant impression? Such appears to be scarcely an adequate explanation. Agrippa was a man of ready and acute discernment. He knew the truth of the foundation on which St. Paul based his arguments ; he was able to appreciate the cogency of his reasoning. There was something in him capable of receiving an impression* Like many members of his family, like him, for instance, who heard St. John the Baptist gladly, and desired to see some miracle wrought by our Saviour, there was a kind of susceptibility to something like religious impulses. I believe that he was shaken ; and though there can be little doubt that the words were spoken with an affectation of contempt or indifference, such as might impose upon the hearers, they did, after all, express something like what he inwardly felt to be his case. Almost—not, indeed, quite—not yet, not 266 PAUL BEFOEE AGKIPPA. Sermon XYII. without stronger grounds, nofc nntil I see how all this will square with my own interests, my own authority, my personal tastes, habits, indulgences, but still in time, I, Agrippa, may find that I have a portion in that great hope, in the realisation of those glorious promises. Almost—was it indeed an almost, Agrippa ? The closer you look at it the wider you will find the interval, the more impassable the gulf, between you and Christ. The magistrate, cold, and dark, and haughty as he was, was not so far off as thou art. He may have had at least justice, in¬ tegrity, the consciousness of high duties honourably discharged. If so, there was in him somewhat akin to righteousness ; but what is your position ? A profligate life, shameless self-indulgence, mean compliance with a despot’s will, or, still baser, with popular prejudices which in your heart you despise. There is no “ almost ” for such as you. The know¬ ledge, the perception of the beauty or the force of truth, may for a time survive in the wreck of your moral nature; but until the moral nature be reconstructed, there is not even an almost” for you. What boots it that the imagination be ex¬ cited, what even that the reason be convinced, if the will is bound ? Oh ! brethren, let none of us de¬ ceive our own souls with this miserable delusion. An ‘‘ almost ” will not save us. The trust in an “ almost ” has ruined more souls than all the devices of Satan. The almost ” is peopling hell with vie- Sermon XVII. PAUL BEFOKE AGEIPPA. 267 tims, who go on wavering, doubting, hoping, but never making one honest hearty effort, to the last. We must ‘‘ altogether,” at once, proceeding on what we know, acting up to the light we now possess, cutting away the links which bind us to what we know to be evil, strive, struggle to become what Paul was, though we be not called upon to^ endure the suffering, though we may not hope to share the glory, of those holy bonds. Thus only can ‘‘ an almost ” be turned to an account; thus only can we be persuaded to be truly and altogether Christ’s; thus only can we be turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto Grod ; thus only can we receive forgiveness of our sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Christ.” 268 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sermon XVIII. SERMON XVIIL PREACHED AT THE ROYAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR CASTLE, BEFORE THE QUEEN, NOV. 1860. ■ * John x. 41. Many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle: hut all things vjhich John spahe of this man were true. The believers who spake thus of John the Baptist showed that they rightly appreciated his character and work. They could certainly hear no higher tes¬ timony to the faithfulness of his ministry than was sealed by this declaration, ‘‘ All things which John spake of this man were true.” What, indeed, was the object of all his labours but to prepare men for his Master’s coming ? No taint of selfishness, no mixture of personal ambition tarnished the bright¬ ness of his zeal. What he foreknew as the end, that he esteemed as the crowning glory of his office. ‘‘ He must increase and I must decrease,”—that was his ruling thought. He was a burning and a shining light in the darkness which preceded the rising of the Sun of righteousness; but when that true and perfect light burst upon the world, he was well content to be lost and absorbed in its brightness. Beautiful alike for its strength and its humility, for Sermon XVIII. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 269 that moral strength without which humility can scarcely be distinguished from meanness, for that humility without which even moral strength dege¬ nerates into presumption, the character of the Bap¬ tist has a permanent interest for our hearts. Most interesting of all are the thoughts which it suggests, when, like the disciples spoken of in our text, we compare his course of life, the form and spirit of his teaching, with those of our Lord. The first impres¬ sion made upon those converts was the difference in power ; but we may be assured that, when they were drawn within the inner circle of that divine pre¬ sence, the difference of character became far more apparent to their minds. Be it our endeavour in the first place to ascertain what the Scriptures teach us touching the office and spirit of the Baptist, and then to raise our thoughts to a still higher sphere in contem¬ plation of the Saviour, for whom he prepared the way. We must bear in mind that St. John the Baptist was the person in whom the chief characteristics of the prophets who had been raised up from time to time in Israel were concentrated and fully developed. This is sufficiently clear from our Lord’s declaration that the predictions relating to L]lias were virtually fulfilled in him. John came, as we thus learn, in the spirit and power of Elijah. He was commissioned to declare the will of God, to awaken the conscience of God’s people, to prepare them for further mani¬ festations of God’s righteousness. Now, inasmuch as 270 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sermon XVHI. that people were from first to last rebellious, ever falling away into open idolatry, or into sins which had the fundamental character of idolatry, the gene¬ ral tone of the prophets was one of extreme severity. We can scarcely conceive a prophet living in those dark times, with guilt in its most hideous form before his eyes, with the thought of God’s wrath in his heart, with the certainty of dread calamities in his mind, without attaching to that idea stern and, to the natural mind, most painful associations. We - cannot easily conceive an Elijah, enjoying the peace and comforts of a settled home, developing the in¬ stincts of an affectionate nature, and entering with ready sympathy into the occupations and interests, the joys and sorrows of domestic life. In all these holy men there was, and we feel that there must have been, a predominant tone of mournfulness, of gloom, of austerity. They felt, and those around them must have felt, that inwardly they were alone, isolated, living apart from human ties, or ever ready to cast them off, as indeed they were fre¬ quently enjoined to do, whenever it might he needful for the Lord’s work. In all this Elijah stands forth as the most striking and complete representation of the ancient prophets: and in all this St. John the Baptist undoubtedly reproduces the - same type of character. The very circumstances under which his nature, one in itself beyond all doubt of singular energy, was moulded, were peculiarly calculated to Sermon XVIII. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 271 develop tliose characteristics. He was the child of liis parents’ old age, their solitary child. It is pos¬ sible, but by no means proved, that in childhood he may have been brought into frequent contact with the Holy Infant, between whose mother and his own was the bond of near relationship. Such intercourse, however, if it ever existed, ceased at an early age. St. John himself used words at the baptism of our Lord which seem to imply that the person of Jesus was then unknown to him. The Baptist passed the first years of boyhood alone with his aged parents: his mind was formed under their influence; no brother, no little sister shared that home with him, or drew forth the gentler or softer feelings of his human nature. Such an education, whatever may be its defects, has certainly a tendency to form a thoughtful, concentrated, lofty character, one fitted for great works, conversant with high purposes, strong, self-reliant, and, under Divine grace, superior to many besetting infirmities of our lower nature. Nor was this all: there can be little doubt that some time before his public appearance; and most probably at a very early age, St. John was left an orphan. He went forth from his desolate hearth, and he sought no other home, he formed no other ties, he did not even draw near to those relatives whose piety, as we should suppose, would naturally have attracted him; but whether from choice, or from necessity, or as I believe under the constraint of a supernatural 272 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sekmon XVIII. impulse, the lonely youth betook himself to the wil¬ derness. There in solitude he learned to commune with his God, who speaks in clearest accents to the heart when no other thoughts or feelings distract its attention. There he practised the severest lessons of self-denial and self-sacrifice ; there he mortified, as none had ever done more thoroughly, the lusts of the flesh, yea even the innocent and blameless, as well as the baser instincts of our fleshly nature. Burning heat dried up his blood, protracted fasts tested and increased his powers of endurance, danger in its most appalling forms exercised his fortitude; he lived alone, alone in the waste howling wilderness, alone with the wild beasts, alone exposed to the suggestions of the Evil One, alone with his own heart, alone with the mighty thought which had the mastery of his being, alone with the Spirit of God. And so he became great; greater than any whom woman had yet borne; so he became the antitype of an Elijah, the voice crying in the wilderness, “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” With such training can we be surprised at the severity, the harshness of his denunciations ? What words could he find strong enough to brand the dis¬ solute inhabitants of Jerusalem, the worldly, selfish, hypocritical teachers of God’s people ? The vipers of the desert could not be more hateful to his spirit than hearts fraught with the venom of fraud and malice. We are not surprised to hear him speaking words Sermon XVIII. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 273 which must have excited in many an agony of re¬ morse, terrible appeals to the guilty conscience, ter¬ rible warnings of impending judgment. Could such a man be seduced or overawed by the influence of a Herod ? Could he be diverted from his object by fear or favour ? No. From first to last he adhered to one plain straightforward course, discharged one paramount duty, thoroughly awakened the conscience of multitudes, and prepared those followers, who gave themselves up entirely to his teaching, to become loyal subjects, and able ministers, when they were afterwards called to the service of the King whom he proclaimed. Such a character, however, it may be thought, belongs altogether to the past. We may infer from our Lord’s words that St. John was not the type of His own disciples as regards some of the most striking peculiarities of his person. The stern¬ ness, the loneliness, the rugged asceticism of the Baptist are not held up to us for imitation; although at that time, under those circumstances, they were needful, or they would not have been permitted,— certainly, they would not have been approved by the Saviour. Yet this, if I mistake n'ot, must also be inferred: whenever a people falls into such a state as that of the Jews at the time of our Lord’s first coming, when men live without a consciousness or a clear recognition of their relations and duties towards God and their fellow-men, then such preach^ T 274 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sekmon XYIII. ing in essentials as that of the Baptist is always needed. The way of Christ must he prepared by the practical preaching of repentance. The special sins of each class, each family, each individual, must be brought home to the heart; and there is little hope of effecting any real good, if such a course be not pursued. Nay, more, every individual believer who feels that he is not under the gracious influence of Christ’s loving spirit, that he is led as a slave by evil affections, has this one plain duty: he must do the work of the Baptist for himself; he must search out the cause and origin of his sin ; he must subject himself to such discipline as the Spirit enjoins; he must wash out the stains of guilt by tears of repentance which the blood of Jesus will make effectual for the remission of all sin. And yet our Lord hath said, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than the Baptist. St. John himself declared, not, as we may be sure, in a spirit of exaggerated humility, that he was not worthy to unloose the latchet of his Master’s shoes. No believer, of course, is at a loss for a general explanation of those statements. All know that in many points the preaching of St. John was necessarily deficient. He both knew and por¬ trayed the Saviour as a king, as a judge, as a con¬ queror, nay, more, as an atoning victim, the lamb that should take away the sins of the worldbut the full meaning of those truths, the deep mystery of the Incarnation, the indwelling presence of the Sermon XVlil. JOHN THE BAPTIST. 275 Eternal Son in His people,—these were things here¬ after to be revealed. When the Spirit descended upon the Church at Pentecost, He brought with Him, and conferred upon the instruments of the Word, a power, which the greatest prophets of Israel foresaw hut did not possess. There must, indeed, be an essential difference between the preaching of one who announced a Christ that was to come, and those who speak in His name and are commissioned to utter words given by His living and present Spirit; and this while we admit, nay, assert reverentially, that in all which constitutes personal excellence the Baptist must ever be counted among the greatest of Christ’s saints. This is true; yet we feel that somewhat more is implied in our Lord’s saying. We feel that the believers, who acknowledged that all things which John had spoken to them of Christ were true, were, nevertheless, conscious that there was something in the Person of Jesus, and in His teaching, which differed from St. John’s, not only in degree but in kind. And if we reflect upon the Baptist’s character, as it hath been set forth, so far as I can see, in sub¬ stantial accordance with the intimations of Holy Writ, we cannot but perceive that it actually stands out in positive contrast to that great exemplar to which we, as Christians, should endeavour to conform our own character. Our dear Lord hath taught us to seek the perfection of the new life in another way than that, T 2 276 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sei'.mon XYTTI. which for special purposes was chosen by St. John, or imposed upon him by the Supreme will. In infancy the Divine child, our Jesus, was nurtured by a tender mother, and in a home shared by children of the same age,—children who were so nearly con¬ nected with Him that in Holy Scripture they are called His brothers and sisters: whether children of Joseph or of the Yirgin’s sisters we need not curiously inquire : content to know that all human affections in their first sweet bloom were cherished by the Holy Child Jesus. In boyhood, we find Him gentle, loving, and obedient, subject to His parents, working with patient industry at Joseph’s humble handicraft. Nor, when He commenced the public work of the ministry, when He relinquished once and for ever the endearments and solaces of domestic life, do we find that He discouraged those sweet and gra¬ cious influences. His first miracle was wrought at a marriage-feast. In the house of St. Peter He re¬ lieved the anxiety of an affectionate family. On the three great occasions on which He put forth His power over death and restored life to the inanimate corpse. He was moved by the father’s entreaty, by the mother’s sorrow, by the sister’s tears. His own tears fell fast and warm on the grave of Lazarus. Among the chosen twelve He distinguished three by peculiar marks of confidence and favour, one by a discriminating and most human love. Among the few last words spoken upon the cross, Sermon XYIIT. JOHN THE BAPTIST. . 277 tlie very tenderest were uttered to assure His be¬ reaved motber of a peaceful and loving borne. We cannot tbink of our dear Lord but as tbe perfection of love. Love swallows up all other feelings when we realise His life. Human love, in all its warmtb and in all its sweetness, is shown in His person not only to be compatible with tbe divine, hut to be in truth tbe full, in tbe highest Sense tbe true, mani¬ festation of Grod in man. God is love. Tbe loving Jesus is God manifest in tbe flesh. There is our model. There is tbe likeness to which we must seek to be conformed; and therefore, necessary as it is that such a spirit as that which wrought in the Ba|Dtist should prepare the way for Christ; that our struggle against sin in others whom we love or for whom we fear—above all, in our selves—should be stern, severe, uncompromising ; that we should spare not the right hand, the right eye, the most cherished affections, the strongest desires, at the trumpet-call of duty; still we must ever remember that only so far as we put on Christ Himself, only so far as His love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, are we true children of the kingdom of grace. We have no proof whatever that we ar^ really in contact with Him, that our regeneration is a living power, unless we have the true flrst-fruits of the Spirit, unselfish, self-denying, self-sacrificing, all-endur¬ ing, all-forgiving, all-embracing charity. Brave, strong, unflinching we must strive to be, even as 278 JOHN THE BAPTIST. Sermon XVIII. was St. John, even as was each true disciple of his martyred Lord in the day of trial and of temptation. Still, Christians must ever remember that even those high and noble qualities, always needful, and in these days, it may he, especially needful, are not to be attained by such discipline as shaped the grand nature of the Baptist into a model of sublime aus¬ terity. No ; for us there is a far more perfect and more excellent way by which we may advance towards the mark of our high calling, even an entire sur¬ render of our hearts to that most effectual and most penetrating of all influences, love : the “ love stronger than death, which many waters cannot quench, neither can the floods drown it; for which, would a man give all the substance of his house, it would utterly be contemned.” * * Song of Solomon viii. 7. Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDEKNESS. 279 SEEMON XIX. PEEACHED IN THE ROYAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR CASTLE, ON ADVENT SUNDAY, 1861.* ■1 " ■ Isaiah xl. 3-5. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness^ Prepare ye the way of the Lord^ make straight in the desert a highway for our God, Every valley shall he exalted^ and every mountain and hill shall he made low: and the crooked shall he made straight^ and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall he revealed^ and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The Spirit of Christ, which spake by the prophets, thus describes the preparatory work assigned to the heralds and forerunners of His advent. The appli¬ cation to St. John Baptist is made by all the Evan¬ gelists, by St. John himself, and is confirmed by the express declaration of our Lord. One great point is thereby determined : the whole passage has a spiritual meaning. It is in fact a parable or sacred allegory representing the condition of man, and the spiritual change, by which alone we can he prepared to behold the glory of God revealed in the Person of the Son. * The last occasion on which the late lamented Prince Consort attended Divine Service. 280 . THE VOICE IN THE WILDEENESS. Seemon XIX. We can therefore feel no difficulty in applying what¬ ever lessons or warnings it may suggest to our own hearts : looking forward, as becometh believers at all times, and more especially at this season, on this day, with hopeful or anxious expectation, for the second advent of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. The wilderness spoken of by the prophet undoubt¬ edly represents the whole race of mankind, the whole estate of humanity alienated from God, and aban¬ doned to the impulses of a corrupt nature. The paradise, in which man was first placed, was no un¬ fitting type of his condition as he came from the hands of his Maker, to which he will be restored by the completed process of regenerating grace. If the true Church were indeed co-extensive with its visible organization, were all its members indeed trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord,” we should have to look without its precincts for the wilderness of Isaiah. But as it was in the days of old, so is it now. The name of Israel was one thing, the reality was another. The Church is in the wilderness; the wilderness encroaches upon the Church ; her children are ever straying from the fold; her enclosures are beaten down; her boundaries are too indistinctly traced to be recognised; they are well - nigh obli¬ terated save to the eye of faith. And just so far as men are influenced by worldly principles, as they adopt the maxims and live the lives of unbelievers, the call is addressed to them, is needed by them; though the Lord is come to His Church, though the Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 281 messenger of the Covenant hath visited and now dwells in His holy temple, His way has yet to be prepared in their hearts. This saying indeed applies in the full sense to the unconverted, but in a very true and practical sense it reaches all. The work in every case is a progressive one; the way is prepared by degrees; the full glory of the Lord will only be revealed when the whole nature of man is trans¬ formed and become Christ-like. That voice which cries in the wilderness calls each of us, and will not cease to call until we pass hence into the immediate presence of our King. This general application of the prophecy will be brought out more distinctly by a detailed considera¬ tion of the work, which the voice of the Crier com¬ mands us to undertake. In order that the highway may be made straight, the first injunction is that every valley shall be exalted. In mountainous dis¬ tricts many a deep ravine is found, scarcely visited by the sun’s light, filled with noxious vapours, pro¬ ducing but scanty and unwholesome food for its squalid inhabitants. How many dark places of our common humanity may be described in these very terms! How many dispositions find here their coun¬ terpart ! Man’s energies are not baffled by the mate¬ rial difficulties : with a sufficient motive his ingenuity and industry have bridged over the chasms, and made a way by which he passes triumphantly to the accomplishment of his objects; but as for the places 282 THE VOICE m THE WILDEKNESS. Sermon XIX. themselves, he leaves them for the most part un¬ changed, or, if changed, but sadder and darker than before. The rushing sounds, which tell of his onward progress, bring no solace to the startled mind of the dweller in the gloomy hollow. Far different is God’s way : not thus does He hid us prepare our brethren’s hearts, our own hearts, for His coming. He wills that the valley itself shall be exalted, the ignorant raised into the clear light of heaven, the gloomy and desponding spirit brought out of its state of hopeless foreboding and brooding sorrow. This is His com¬ mand to nations which profess allegiance to his name : Educate your poor; bring them out of their dark unwholesome state; let the damp chill mists that cling to their enfeebled spirits be dispersed. Bring them to Me. Let them see My light. Let them live in the midday radiance of the Sun of Righteousness. That cry hath reached our nation’s heart, and it hath shown itself a Christian nation by prompt and gene¬ rous obedience. May no cold suspicion, no compro¬ mise with ungenial prejudices, thwart or retard the loving efforts, which have already well-nigh regained for England its rightful place in the vanguard of Christian civilization ! And as for believers indi¬ vidually in a state of depression, as for the bearings of this saying upon our own hearts in their hour of sadness, can we doubt that when Christ bids us rise He gives us the power to rise ? Of all the burdens which oppress a Christian’s soul, by far the greater Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDEENESS. 283 portion may be removed by an effort of the will. Spiritual gloom is for tbe most part tbe result of neglect of spiritual privileges or spiritual duties.* It is tbe child and co-mate of sloth. We must all have found it so in our own case. When dark and sullen shadows fall upon our hearts, we never fail to expe¬ rience some relief so soon as we can nerve ourselves to do some act of simple duty, some little act, it may be, of kindly consideration for others, some deed, trifling in itself perhaps, but involving the surrender of some selfish gratification, the subjugation of some bad passion or evil temper. Spiritual gloom and such acts cannot long abide together. Even when the Christian finds it hard to pray for himself, when it seems as though no words of pleading would come out of the oppressed heart, is not even then the spirit of grace and supplication poured out upon him when he thinks of some beloved ones in danger or in an¬ guish, and kneels down to intercede for them? If somewhat of the old shadow still clings to the spirit, he waits patiently; it is no impenetrable gloom : light from the sanctuary will gradually but surely disperse it. Hear what comfortable words Isaiah hath spoken. “ Who is among you that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath as yet no light ? Let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay upon his God.” Immediately connected with the exhortation to raise the lowly is that which commands the humilia- 281 THE VOICE IN THE WILDEENESS. Sermon XlX. tion of the high and haughty spirit. When we read ‘‘ Every mountain shall be brought low,” we need no explanation of the metaphor, we need assign no reason for the injunction. Who does not feel that self-exaltation is the surest hindrance to the favour of the great King ? That, indeed, is so generally acknowledged that thoroughly proud men, whatever may be the form of their pride, be it pride of wealth, of birth, of station, or of influence, either consciously or unconsciously throw off Christ’s yoke, listen with haughty indifference to commands which they have no intention to obey, or, at the utmost, satisfy them¬ selves with such an outward profession, as may silence the upbraiding of conscience, or impose upon the credulity of their fellow-men. Yet, brethren, when such men do learn that hard lesson, when they bow their heads before the lowly Saviour, with what singular grace and dignity do they wear the Chris¬ tian’s royal mantle of humility ! What marvellous influence do they acquire over men’s hearts ! What attestation do they bear to their Master’s power ! Humility and a lowly station may seem to have a natural affinity; the poor man incurs ridicule as well as guilt when he displays pride ; but the rich and noble, who cast away that evil spirit, share in the triumph of Him who entered the strong man’s fastness and forcibly despoiled him of his arms. But, of all pride, by far the most subtle is that which a man feels, not in what he has, but in what he is, or Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 285 in wliat he deems himself to be. Such is the pride of intellect, intellect which aspires to be the mea¬ sure of all truth, the ultimate judge of all revelation. The very last thing, which it learns, is to know its own limits, its fallibility even within those limits, its utter incapacity to discover those highest truths which are revealed directly from God to the inmost spirit, the deep heart, the living conscience of man. But, when it does learn that lesson ; when intellect, like that of Newton, becomes humble ; when it learns reverence for simple goodness and awe for the divine ; then, indeed, it impresses all hearts with a conviction of its heavenly origin; it is recognised as the very noblest of those primal gifts by which the Eternal Word impressed His own image upon man. No, brethren ; we doubt not that reason is God’s precious gift, nearly akin to that truth of which it is the recipient and the expounder. Only let us not forget that, separated from its original source, uninformed by love, it becomes evil, yea, in the strict sense of the word, Satanic. What a depth of truth is there in the saying of the Christian poet, that Satan is but intellect without God! We proceed to the next injunction: the crooked shall be made straight. Despondency and pride are spiritual diseases. Man, unenlightened by the Spirit, scarcely recognises one or the other as moral evils. But crookedness, dishonesty, the absence of candour, sincerity, of straightforwardness, is felt by all to be a 286 THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. Sermon XIX. hateful and a loathsome thing. We hear men admit their inability to overcome inherent pride; some, perhaps, are almost proud of what they regard, if a frailty at all, still but ‘‘the last infirmity of noble minds nor is it very uncommon for Christians to speak with something like complacency of dark shadows which fall upon their souls; it seems an indication of spirituality; but we never hear a man boast of insincerity, he hides his crookedness from others, if possible, from himself. Little as any one in this land may be under the influence of the Grospel, he is, at any rate, so far free from bondage to evil. He knows that deceit is base : he is ashamed of it in himself, and despises it in others. Still, Christian brethren, if we look honestly into this matter, how very much remains to be done by most of us before we can be truly said to be free from crookedness ! Even in worldly matters, is the ordinary standard of Christian integrity one that will abide the scrutiny of our Lord ? The Christian servant should be the very model of truth : open, guileless, transparent as the day; doing no act which he is tempted to dis¬ guise, or, if surprised and overcome by temptation, at once honestly confessing his fault and meekly submitting to its consequences. The Christian trades¬ man’s name should be untainted by the breath of suspicion; nor, in the higher walks of life, could any one, truly penetrated by Christ’s spirit, accept for his guidance the rules of an exceptional and conventional Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDEKNESS. 287 morality. Surely, it must be confessed tliat we are far from having attained this plain, rational, intelli¬ gible standard of uprightness. As a nation, as a Christian community, we should hear, not without alarm, not without shame, the voice that crieth ‘‘ Make straight a way for your God.” And, looking still more closely into our hearts, what can we say as to our own spiritual state ? Are we guileless, as our Lord would have us to be? Nathanael, even before his conversion, deserved the commendation that he was an Israelite in whom there was no guile. After conversion, can every Christian claim that praise ? Do we use no pretexts to elude obvious but oppressive duties ? Do we studiously avoid exag¬ geration in speaking of the faults of others ? Do we never misrepresent their actions, never attribute bad motives to good deeds ? Are we on our guard against that false, bitter spirit of party, which in this land, which within the Church, fills the whole atmo¬ sphere of human thought, as it were, with a poisonous miasma ? If, indeed, we judged of the condition of Christendom, of the state of religious feeling in our own communion, by the slanders propagated by the so-called religious press, we should indeed have cause to tremble; should indeed have reason to fear that the highway of our Lord might be obstructed; that we might be abandoned to the mists or storms in which it would seem that many prefer to dwell. Such a judgment would, indeed, be wrong and hasty. The 288 THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. Sermon XIX. spirit of charity has a low, soft voice, which may scarcely be heard amid. the din and dissonance of party struggles; hut be assured it is far from extinct among us. Only let us remember we must be found on Christ’s side ; that we must put ourselves into His hands, that He may take every particle of crooked¬ ness, all deceit, all falsehood from our hearts, and so deliver us from the deep shame which must sooner or later overwhelm every one “ who loveth or maketh a lie.” The three points we have considered seem to in¬ clude the fundamental changes which must be made, the chief works of preparation for the advent of Christ. When He finds a heart open to receive Him, an humble spirit, and guileless simplicity. He will never withhold the full disclosure of His love. He whose grace alone can effect these changes, will ‘‘ ordain perfect peace ” for the souls which are thus ‘‘ stayed upon Him.” And yet one other condition is specified, one proof more that the preparatory work is advancing. We read further, ‘‘The rou^rh places shall be made plain.” Such rough places were ever common in the East, rugged passes beset by dense thickets, lairs of wild beasts, intricate fastnesses, in which robbers find covert, which obstruct the progress of the sovereign into the remote parts of his dominions. In this we recognise a lively image of the evil passions, the corrupt affec¬ tions, the unregulated desires, which overrun the Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDEENESS. 289 whole nature of profligate men, which spring up, as in a congenial soil, in the unregenerate heart, which are extirpated slowly, with much eflbrt, and, alas! very imperfectly, from the heart when regenerate. We cannot, indeed, say that the Saviour will not come to us, not even that He will not dwell in us, until those hindrances are cleared away. That asser¬ tion would paralyse all hope; it is, happily, both contrary to experience, and refuted by plain texts of Holy Writ. But this we must say. He will not abide in us, if things so evil are indulged and tole¬ rated. Our Jesus knows, indeed, the force of temp¬ tation—the bitterness of a sinner’s struggles, his remorseful agony, even after repeated falls, appeals, and not in vain, to Christ for sympathy. But His sympathy is wholly unlike that of the sentimentalist; it is not merely that of the condoling friend, it is that of the Master, that of the Physician who brings the remedy, and tells the enfeebled and anxious patient what he must do in order to be restored to health and strength. No. The rough places mmt be made plain, at whatever cost, whatever sacrifice may be needed; for until that work is accomplished, we cannot have an assured conviction, cannot know the deep peace of the redeemed and sanctified child of grace. And to give a more definite character to this precept, we must remember that we cannot become Christ-like merely by a general faith in His work and teaching, not even by 290 THE VOICE IN THE WILDEENESS. Sermon XTX: a partial tliongli sincere surrender to His will, but by tlie entire transformation of our nature under His gracious influence; and that transformation is especially discernible in a certain meekness and gentleness, a serene and loving temperament, wbicb gives sweetness to the tones of the voice, to the glance of the sympathising eye; which makes itself permanently felt in the charities of domestic life, and, even in the casual intercourse of society, wins men’s hearts by an indescribable attraction, reflecting, as in a mirror, somewhat of that grace and truth which the beloved disciple adored in the person of Jesus. Such characters we have surely had the blessedness of knowing. Even in early youth, traces of that gracious spirit are ofttimes observable; most fre¬ quently it may be in those whom the Lord may have taken unto Himself, prematurely, as we may have thought, but, in truth, not until they were ripe for heaven ; not until they had made an abiding impres¬ sion upon hearts that loved them; not until their fellow-Christians had learned how exceeding is the beauty of holiness in souls which are fully possessed by the loving Spirit of Christ. Such, then, as it appears to me, are no unfaithful echoes of the voice which crieth unceasingly to God’s children, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” As is the case with all utterances of the Spirit, its tones have been marvellously adapted to man’s wants and feelings in each stage of religious development.. Sermon XIX. THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS. 291 Spoken by Isaiah, they kindled the glow of patriotic hope in suffering Israel; in the Baptist’s ministry they found a spiritual application; still deeper and richer should be the sounds, blended with more of evangelical consolation, in these days of Christian maturity. The work of preparation must be done. Are we dismayed at its extent ? Then let us re¬ member that it is a work of grace. In the deep mystery of godliness, man and God are brought into union. We must work, must strive, must struggle, but hopefully, trustfully, for He gives the power, the life. To Him must be referred the first movement, to Him the complete triumph of the regenerate will. What is low in us must be exalted by the action of grace upon our ^consenting hearts; what is haughty must be thus abased; the crooked be made straight, and the rough be made plain. So shall the glory of the Lord be revealed, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 292 MARTHA AND MARY. Sermon XX. SEEMON XX. # PREACHED AT THE ROYAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR CASTLE, 1863. ' - Luke x. 41 , 42 . Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. The Evangelists do not give ns many incidents of what we may not irreverently call the private and home life of our dear Lord; it is but occasionally we catch glimpses, so to speak, of His person in contact with domestic cares and affections. There is a certain reserve, a tender awe, in the brief accounts of His personal relationships which the Holy Spirit hath permitted us to receive. We find such points noted most frequently in the Gospel of St. John, the beloved disciple, who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, to whose care He intrusted His own mother; in that also of St. Luke, the man of warm human sympathies, for whose observant mind such traits must have had a special interest and attraction. We learn from them the few touching incidents of His loving and Seemon XX. MARTHA AND MARY. 293 obedient boyhood; the first words recorded by the Evangelists, addressed to His mother; His presence at the marriage-feast of Cana ; the miracle by which He there gave His consecrating blessing to the charities of family life ; and all the sweet and solemn recollections associated with what might almost be * called that second home at Bethany, with the names of Martha, whom Jesus loved, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. We do well to keep these sayings and ponder them in our hearts, not only because of their deep attractiveness, but because, if received in faith and love, they help us both to realise, and savingly to apprehend, the great central truth of our religion, the union of perfect manhood and perfect Deity in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth of His human nature is never brought more distinctly to our consciousness than when we see Him seated as a guest in the house of Martha, admitting with gracious condescension words of familiar expostulation ; than when we behold Him weeping by the grave of Lazarus; while the full glory of the Godhead is manifested, and the crown¬ ing work of redemption anticipated by the utterance of that word of might, “ Lazarus, come forth.” Nor, though less awful, is the manifestation of His divine nature less distinct in the heart-searching and heart- revealing effects of His presence, when Mary and Martha (each of them a type and representative of future believers) exhibit themselves in the weak- 294 MARTHA AND MARY. Seemon XX. ness of their natural, or the strength of their renewed nature, and hear the words addressed through them by the eternal teacher to all successive generations of the Church. Let us now consider the characters of those two •sisters, so far as they can he ascertained from the brief but very suggestive accounts of the Evangelists. Our attention is first drawn to Martha; she was the hostess. We read that, when our Lord entered into the village, a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. St. Luke, who was probably himself a Gientile by birth, writing more especially for the instruction of Gentiles, unac¬ quainted, of course, with places and persons in Palestine, neither mentions the name of the village, nor gives any intimation that the sisters were previously known to our Lord. We know the name of Bethany from St. John; and we are led to assume the fact of a previous intercourse from that Evangelist’s strong statement touching the feelings of Jesus, who loved each member of that holy family. We must be careful, therefore, in con¬ sidering the character and words of Martha, to bear in mind that she was a faithful, a devoted, and, therefore, we may be very sure, an unselfish and unworldly woman. Her faults, whatever they may have been, were certainly not those of a person absorbed in the cares and interests of a mere secular existence, still less those of a self-deceiving or con- Sermon XX. MARTHA AND MARY. 295 sciously hypocritical professor. They were faults such as may co-exist with sincere and even earnest faith. Some resemblance, externally at least, they might hear to those of the unconverted, as, in fact, nothing is more common, few things more detri¬ mental to the best interests of religion, than that false semblance of identity between the sins of the ungodly and the defects of believers—that alloy of the pure gold which is only consumed gradually, and in this life it may be always but imperfectly, by the refining fire of divine grace. Martha’s fault—her grave fault, as we know from our Lord’s rebuke it must have been—was that of one who mistakes her duty, or is misled by her feelings—not of one who seeks her own pleasure, or is actuated by vanity and ostentation. What, then, was her fault ? We are told in few words she was “ cumbered about much serving; ” that is, she was anxious, overwhelmed, or, as the original word may be rendered most literally, she was distracted by the variety of her household cares on that solemn occasion. It was not that she was simply careful to provide all that might be needful or fitting for the reception of our Lord. You will remember how on other occasions our Saviour accepted and approved all customary offices of hospitality, and even rebuked one who was neglectful of its observances. Martha was right in serving—right in that she was diligent, earnest, watchful in serving. Her love, her zeal, her faith 296 MARTHA AND MARY. Sekmon XX. call for our reverence, are to be proposed for our imitation. What she lacked was sobriety, a well- ordered and therefore a tranquil spirit; the self- possession, which estimates aright the relative im¬ portance of seemingly conflicting duties—in a word, that discipline of the soul, so hard to be attained, and yet so indispensable of attainment, which regu¬ lates all its faculties, presents all duties in their right order and in their right place, and never allows in¬ truding cares or disturbing passions to overcloud the mirror, in which conscience reflects the countenance of its judge. Martha was so much occupied with the things pertaining to Jesus, that she could not attend to Jesus himself. And just so is it with many good Christians at times. Some doubtless feel that it is their besetting temptation. Religious duties, religious cares, religious exercises, the calls of charity; works of piety, of faith, of love; works at home_, teaching, restraining, directing, training children or dependants ; works abroad, visits to the poor, collections for missionary or charitable objects ; all of them, be it never forgotten, good in them¬ selves ; proofs—true, genuine, indispensable proofs, of saving faith and love of the Lord Jesus — do, nevertheless, sometimes so occupy the whole mind, so absorb all the energies of some excellent Christians, that they can scarcely give up their hearts and souls to Jesus Himself when He is nearest to them. Even in the moments set apart for solemn communion with Sermon XX, MARTHA AND MARY. 297 Him ; even in the hour of private prayer ; even in His Church; even when kneeling to receive the sacred pledges of His love, thoughts and cares about themselves, or about others, or it may be about the verv forms of the service due to their Master, cast a shadow upon their spirits, and distract their attention. They are “ cumbered about much serving.” The devoutest and most earnest Christians know that I it is so with them at seasons, and they will thank¬ fully avail themselves of any suggestions which may aid them in removing what they feel to be a hin¬ drance to that full heart-union with the Saviour, which is, after all, the real, central desire of their loving, though troubled hearts. Let them then turn to Mary. Here is an example, rightly understood, which all may safely follow. Her character, her conduct, her choice have the distinct approval of our Lord. Only let us take care not to mistake her character; it has been much misrepre¬ sented ; it may easily be misunderstood. Think you that Mary is an example of the contempt for active duties, of absorption in what is called the contempla¬ tive life, of forgetfulness of the claims of home duties, home affections, or of outward acts ,of devotion ? Not so; we know that Mary’s heart was singularly open to all tender and loving impulses. We are told by St. John that it was the sight of her anguish on the death of her brother, of her weeping, which so stirred the heart of Jesus, that He groaned in the spirit, and 298 MARTHA AND MARY. Sermon XX. was troubled and wept. Her piety did not separate her from her borne, did not cbill her love for sister or for brother; and as for her outward manifestation of the inner life, why, her service of love, her offer¬ ing of gratitude and devotion, is represented as at once the most passionate and the most lavish recorded in the Gospel. The ointment of spikenard, so costly that it moved the indignation of the very disciples, was the gift of Mary; it was the fragrance of her offering that filled the house. It was her name, her act, which by our Lord’s own gracious promise is spoken of, as a memorial of her, with reverent admiration wherever the Gospel is preached. No, Mary was no dreamer; Mary was no recluse; concentrated she was, but the central point of her existence was not in herself, it was in Jesus; it was not the whispering of her own heart to which she listened; she sat at His feet to listen to His word. Nor can I doubt, judging from what those facts teach us of her character, judging also from the fact that she also was one of those holy women who ministered unto Jesus of their substance during His earthly life, and prepared ointment and spices for His burial, that on this occasion she had already done all that she deemed requisite for the honourable reception of her Lord, before she put away from her all lower cares, and seated herself in lowly adoration at His feet, giving all her heart, all her mind, all thoughts and faculties of her being to His words. Such characters we are sometimes permitted Sermon XX. MARTHA AND MARY. 299 to observe, calm, tbonglitful, and orderly in tbeir out¬ ward work, finding the right time for every act of duty, doing it at once, and doing it thoroughly, and then passing with unruffled brow, with a serene un¬ shackled spirit, into the secret tabernacle of the Re¬ deemer’s presence. Do not suppose that the differ¬ ence between two such characters depends upon the difference of external circumstances. Poverty or riches, the charge of a family or the troubles of loneliness, professional engagements or sedentary studies, are almost equally full of temptations to unstable, or over-anxious, or ill-disciplined spirits. So much, perhaps, all may admit; but this also is true : they are all equally compatible with the full development of the inner spiritual life, with careful study of the word of Grod, with the holy abstraction of the spirit in prayer, with an entire surrender of the heart to the Lord Jesus. Leisure is always found for what we really love. What we love supremely cannot and will not be shut out from our thoughts. We know how statesmen can excel mere students in the pursuits for which they have a decided genius and a ruling predilection, and that without any detri¬ ment to their ordinary work. Lovers of the Lord will find, or they will make time under the very heaviest pressure of business, to think of Him, to commune with Him, to minister unto Him, and, above all, like Mary, to sit at His feet, and to ponder upon His words. From the consideration of the sisters’ characters, 300 MARTHA AND MARY. Sermon XX. we may now pass to the words spoken by Martha, and to the judgment pronounced by our Lord. We read thus : ‘‘ But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said. Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her therefore that she help me.” So it is with us all. We never yield to one temptation with¬ out immediate exposure to a second. The confusion and distraction of Martha’s thoughts, natural and excusable as some may deem them, made an entrance for other feelings far less reconcilable with the in¬ dwelling of the Spirit of grace. We note with sur¬ prise the tone of her expostulation. There is some¬ thing that grates upon our feelings, that looks like forwardness or self-confidence, a near approach, to say the least, to irreverence ; intelligible, it may be, but wholly without excuse. On another occasion we read, indeed, that Mary, as well as Martha, like all who have the true spirit of prayer, could venture to use words of tender expostulation: “ Lord, hadst thou been here, my brother had not died.” But then how guarded, how full of faith and love, were those words, wrung from the sister’s heart by over¬ powering grief! Martha, at this time, had no such excuse; though not without faith, her words sound hard and loveless. And is it not true of most Chris¬ tians at times, of some, not unfrequently, that, when they have been unusually active in some reli¬ gious work; when they have been doing what they Sermon XX. MAKTHA AND MAKY. 801 believe to be some great service to our Lord or to His Church; when in that work they have almost lost sight of His own great and solemn presence; something of that very tone of mind shows itself? Is there not at times something almost painfully irreverent in the words or demeanour of active, busy, not insincere, but, it may be, somewhat ostentatious, if not self-seeking, servants of the meek and lowly Redeemer ? Let us each take the warning to heart. All may find it applicable now and then : that is, if we really do any work for Him at all. And Martha was not only irreverent to her Lord, she was unjust to her sister, perhaps envious. Her sister had left her^—observe, then, she had helped her at first—to serve alone.” And why ? Why but because Mary knew for what object Jesus had entered that house at all; knew how needless, even oppressive, to His pure nature must be all the noise and confusion of mere outward service ; knew that the service He prized was the mind attent,” the heart open to His word. That due appreciation of the various phases of the religious life; that wise apportionment of time and work, is indeed very hard to practise, and by no means easy t6 recognise when practised by others, in whom the principles of vital religion are developed. But let us ever remember that it is no slight fault, if at any time we are tempted to misjudge or censure those, who may seem * KareXine , not a < pr ] K €, i 802 MARTHA AND MARY. Sermon XX.' too mnch absorbed in tbeir inner life to take much interest in conventional forms, or even neglect ex¬ ternal acts of service, while, for aught we know, their whole spirit may be engaged in devout com- munings with Jesus. Should such a temptation ever present itself, let us bear in mind those words of our blessed Lord, “ There is but one thing needful one thiug only absolutely needful in itself and for itself; and that is, to surrender our minds to Christ’s teaching and our hearts to His love. That was the good part chosen by Mary; and when Martha tried it, as we may be well assured she did try it after our Lord’s rebuke, she learned to work not less diligently but less anxiously, not less carefully but more lovingly; to work in the light of her Lord’s countenance, with an abiding consciousness of His presence, in all the blessedness of a heart filled with the peace of God. Consider, now, the force of those words then spoken by our Saviour: His declaration that the good part which Mary had chosen should not be taken away from her. Are we to believe, as some would persuade us, that our Lord meant simply that Mary should not be troubled, should not be removed from her place at His feet ? That will approve itself to none who know that His words are infinite in depth and infinite in application, spoken and recorded for the sake of every longing heart. Shall we again say our Lord means that grace once given will never Sermon XX. MAETHA AND MARY. 303 be withdrawn ? Not so; for the words applied specially to Mary; and w^e know that Martha also had true, living grace, though as yet in less fulness than her sister, or less distinctly discerned. No, Christian brethren, there is but one meaning which commends itself to our minds, which fills and satisfies our hearts. It is that the union of the heart with Jesus, which is the believer’s portion here, that good part which Mary chose, is the only portion which, with all that it involves of goodness and of blessed¬ ness, will endure for ever. Gifts and graces, good works and holy rites, are means, precious, indispens¬ able means, but means only. Some will cease, some will be replaced, all will be transformed ; but that good part is the end itself, and will never be taken away. Never. Throughout time, throughout eternity, that union will endure ; ever more distinctly known,, ever more lovingly appreciated, but in itself stead¬ fast and unchangeable, even as the living centre in which the Spirit rests. Here, brethren, we live in the midst of change; seasons vary, circumstances alter, all things pass away. The lore we may have gathered painfully in youth or manhood fails us or becomes useless; impressions on the memory are effaced; health decays; life loses its charms for us, we lose our hold on life ere yet it is taken away ; old friends die, new friends cannot fill up the aching void; hearts that cleave to each other, and are as 804 MAETHA AND MAEY. Sermon XXI. one heart, cease to beat, and not at the same moment, and one remains torn, bleeding—• Ob, brethren! what are we, if there be not some¬ thing to which we may • cling, something on which we may rest; some principle, some power, some one living and loving Person who may impart to our minds, our thoughts, our affections, somewhat of His own inherent and eternal fixity ? Who can realise the blank horror of a godlike intellect when speculation, unguided by God’s light, has brought before him a universe without a conscious life, without a God ? Who can tell the misery of the man who feels that all his energies have but put him in possession of what must sooner or later for ever be taken away ? But the good part, the eternal portion, may be ours. Seize it at once ; it is for all: for young, for old, for rich, for poor. There may be a Mary in every cottage, in every palace, in every Chris¬ tian home ; and, wherever a Mary is, there will be the fragrant odour of grace filling the house; there will be our own dear Lord, speaking peace to the troubled spirit, giving sure hope to the sorrowing, bringing the one thing , needful for every heart, and coYifirming all who receive Him in the possession of that good part which shall never be taken away.” Sermon XXI. THOMAS THE DOUBTEE. 305 SEKMON XXL PEEACHED AT WESTMINSTEE ABBEY ON THE 1st SUNDAY AFTEE EASTEE, 1863. John xx. 28. Thomas answered and said unto Him^ My Lord and my God I These words were spoken on the evening of the first recurrence of the Lord’s-day after the resurrec¬ tion ; as on this day, as at this hour, the second manifestation of the risen Saviour was vouchsafed to the assembled disciples. The interval of a week had given time for reflection: their spirits, as we may conceive, were beginning to settle down from the first excitement, from the rush and tumult of con¬ flicting emotions ; wonder, and awe, and self-reproach alternating and blended with rapturous exultation. The events of that evening are recorded by the beloved disciple; to him was reserved the privi¬ lege of relating the words and acts which showed the gracious condescension of his Master. On that occasion we naturally inquire, which was the most prominent figure among those who looked on the reappearing Saviour ? One there was so X 306 THOMAS THE DOUBTER. Sermon XXI. prominent that his words alone are recorded—that the words spoken by our Lord were spoken to him alone. The person who arrests our attention, who stands before us distinctly, is St. Thomas, Thomas the doubter: the man of dark and troubled mind, the man who alone had spoken harsh words of un¬ belief, the man who might then seem, even to friendly observers, devoid of the first of all graces, the very germ and principle of the Christian life, even the faith which accepts Grod’s promises, which lives on Grod’s word, which realises the unseen, which brings the spirit into the sphere of spiritual manifestation. Let us, then, consider well the truths suggested by St. John’s account of that transaction : full of warning, full of consolation we may be sure to find them; specially adapted too, if I am not greatly mistaken, to the circumstances of our own times; meeting, and I trust satisfying, the wants of many anxious and yearning hearts. In order to understand this event we must glance at the circumstances which preceded it. Our Lord had first showed Himself to the assembled disciples on the evening of the resurrection. It was an hour of terror and sadness. Tidings had, indeed, reached them which ought to have rekindled the embers of an all but extinct hope, which had, in fact, excited in the midst of their despondency some feeling of expectation. Two of them, Peter and John, had seen and entered the empty sepulchre. Sermon XXT. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 307 Their Lord had appeared and spoken to more than one of the holy women who had devoted their lives to His service. He had conversed with two of their number, and made himself known in breaking of bread. He had been seen, though we know not under what circumstances, by St. Peter. But all were slow to be convinced. They were no enthu¬ siasts ; credulity, at least, was not their failing : they were exceedingly slow of heart ” to believe “ all that the prophets had spoken,” and that their Lord had promised. Jesus Himself upbraided them with their unbelief; a fact, be it noted, of the last importance to us who receive such statements upon their testi¬ mony.' Their slowness to believe is a measure of the force of the evidence by which they were at last con¬ vinced, At that hour they were together, doubtless, in the upper chamber, where they had partaken of the Last Supper, when Jesus appeared, suddenly, marvellously, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said unto them, “ Peace be unto you and when He had thus spoken, He showed unto them His hands and His feet.” They saw the marks of the nails which had pierced those hands; the broad, deep gash of the soldier’s spear in that side ; and so were convinced that the glorified Body which, like a spirit, had come among them, unimpeded by earthly obsta¬ cles, was, in truth, the very same form which they had seen hanging on the cross, and had followed with reverence and love, but in hopeless sorrow, to the X 2 308 THOMAS THE DOUBTEK. Sermon XXI. sepulchre. St. John tells us, in words simple as was his wont, but full of his own deep earnestness, what he and his fellow-disciples felt at that sight: “ Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.” One, however, was absent; one shared not that gladness, and, when informed of the fact, utterly refused to receive their testimony. Thomas, whose name has thus become a very bye-word to express doubt and incredulity, was not with them when Jesus came. That his absence was connected with some peculiarity of feelings, or of character, may scarcely be doubted; and from other notices in the evangelical narrative we collect a tolerably clear notion of tendencies of mind and heart, which may account for his conduct on this occasion. One point, however, is certain, and we must take care to bear it in mind while considering the grave defects of his character, St. Thomas was affectionately and de¬ votedly attached to the Person of our Lord. When Jesus declared His intention to go to Bethany, that is, into the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, where He had previously told them He was to suffer, it was Thomas who said at once to his fellow- disciples, “ Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” There was no lack of love there, no selfish¬ ness, no cowardly shrinking from danger. There may, indeed, have been somewhat of a desponding spirit, a disposition to dwell on the gloomy aspect of things; less of confidence in His Lords power, Seemon XXI. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 309 and of faith in the triumph which He had promised, than of affectionate sympathy with the sufferings which He was to undergo; but we cannot help loving Thomas for those words, we must look on him with reverence, as a brave, faithful adherent of the Lord Jesus, ready and willing to shed his heart’s blood in His cause. There is another saying of the Apostle, spoken but a few days previously, which throws additional light on his character; marking him as one slow to receive spiritual impressions, full of doubts, much perplexed by promises referring to our Saviour’s manifestation of divine power. When Jesus told His disciples that He was going to the Father, and by a way which they knew, Thomas was ready at once with a doubt and an objection: “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the way?” There, again, you will observe, there was no unwillingness to follow the Lord. Thomas would gladly have been assured that he was to be with his Master in this world or in the next; but there was a singular obtuseness of the spiritual faculty, a difficulty in apprehending and realising the things of the Spirit, and apparently a craving after external signs, evidence addressed to the senses, such as was afterwards vouchsafed in condescension to his weakness, but not without a reproof for his fault. Bearing these points in mind, we may, perhaps, understand why he was absent from the assembly of the disciples, and why, when 310 THOMAS THE DOUBTEK. Sermon XXI. he came, he was unable to believe their report. Thomas did not join them, not,’ as we may be assured, because he feared the Jews more than they —fear was not his failing ; not because he was cold to the feelings which then wrung their hearts—none loved the Lord more warmly; hut, if I am not greatly mistaken, because, in the hopelessness of his bereavement, he shrunk from the companionship of his nearest friends ; because he cherished his grief; because he felt that any words of hope or comfort would but irritate and envenom his anguish. As yet, he was as one mourning without hope; recalling all that was painful in the past, dwelling upon all that was most grievous in the present, acting just as we may do when love is strongest and faith weakest, when hope seems dead, as the coffin-lid is . shut on the face of one who was all in all to our hearts. Sternly, even harshly, as it seems to me, Thomas turned away from his fellow-disciples, refusing to be comforted, because, in his wretched unbelief, he looked on the crucified Lord, not as the giver of life, but as one who was not.” It was a grievous error, one visited by much suffering, and by the loss of great spiritual blessings. He saw not then the risen Lord, he heard not then the words of peace, his heart was not gladdened by the joy which cleared away all shadow of grief from his fellow- disciples, he received not then the commission, As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you the breath of Jesus did not then convey to his spirit the Sermon XXI. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 811 gift of the Holy Ghost. And when he did at last join the disciples, when they said unto him ‘‘We have seen the Lord,” the announcement seems hut to have exasperated his grief, to have brought out all the hardness of his unbelief. He was not to be deceived. His sorrow was to him a sacred thing, which he would not part with for anything short of a certainty. What they might have seen he knew not, and cared not: it might have been a spirit, a delusive appearance, a creation of their own excited minds; but he would have the evidence, not merely of the understanding, of the believing heart, of the eyes themselves, but of the touch; “ Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.” What shall we say of this determination not to believe save upon such evidence as Thomas certainly did not expect would be granted? which he must surely have felt it would be sinful and profane to ask for ? Many since have felt and acted in the same spirit. The evidence which has been offered they have refused to consider ; what they have professed to wish for is of a kind which, whether possible or not, they have no right, no reason to expect, which, in point of fact, they do not expect, which, if proffered, they would unhesitatingly reject. But such doubters and questioners belong to two classes which differ widely, and are, indeed, wholly unlike in principle and feeling. Some will not receive or even consider 312 THOMAS THE DOUBTER. Sekmon XXI. the evidence, simply because they do not desire, or because they hate, the truths, the doctrines, the eternal realities which that evidence may prove. Others, on the contrary, because the truth seems far too good, too blessed, too much beyond the hopes, the aspirations, the condition of humanity, to be received. The former class will find little to meet their case among the converts described in the New Testament; the heart must be roused by fear or hope, by the sense of guilt, or the obstinate ques¬ tionings of conscience, or by an inner longing after goodness and truth, before the mind will accept or consider any kind of evidence. But there is in¬ expressible comfort for those, like Thomas, whose slowness of belief, whose despondency and gloom are wholly dissociated from all repugnance to the Person and to the teaching of the Redeemer. They must be told, and they will hear without offence, that their doubts are irrational, that they arise in reality, not as some are wont to assert, from the strength of the understanding, but from the weak¬ ness of that spiritual faculty which is the highest development of the reasoning spirit; they will sub¬ mit willingly, gratefully, to any rebuke of the Saviour when, in His own good time. He manifests Himself to their hearts, only too anxious that the long, tedious, harassing period of suspense and anxiety shall be brought to an end. Eight days were passed by St. Thomas in that state Day by Sermon XXI. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 313 day he heard the same tale ; he had every oppor-. tunity of minute and careful inquiry. What his feelings towards the disciples might be, what they may have thought of his rejection of their state¬ ments, we know not; but we know this, and it is good to know it,—they were drawn together again by a common feeling ; the bond of unity was not broken: they met together, they prayed together, and on the next Sunday they were again within, and Thomas with them: when his doubts were once and for ever cleared away by the manifestation of his Lord and Saviour. The Lord Jesus came just in the same manner as before, the manner which probably had seemed to Thomas to justify disbelief in the reality of His bodily presence. He came suddenly, marvel¬ lously, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and spake the same words, “ Peace be unto youthus at once sealing the testimony which the disciples had given concerning His first appearance, and assuring them of His unchanging favour ex¬ tended now to the doubter. Then He addressed Thomas, repeating His own words; doubtless, that he might then, and at all times, and that we and all who read that record might also realise the truth that every word we utter reaches His ears, and, once spoken, is a thing for ever, belonging to eternity, which, forgiven or unforgiven, will be brought to our remembrance here or hereafter. What, think 314 THOMAS THE DOUBTER. Sermon XXI. you, were St. Thomas’s feelings when he heard his Lord’s allusion to those irreverent, those presump¬ tuous, those profane words ? In what light do they strike us ? Are we to suppose that he listened to our Saviour’s words simply as a permission to do what he had demanded as a condition of acknow¬ ledging the resurrection ? that he actually did reach out his finger ? that he touched that sacred, ever- beloved, and now glorified form ? that he thrust his hand into that wounded side ? Does this seem possible to you, brethren ? Dismiss from your minds what you may have read upon this question ; be not misled by the representations of this event in works of art, to which so many common misconceptions of Scriptural events must be attributed. Ask your own hearts what Thomas must have felt, and keep strictly to the very words of Scripture to ascertain what he did. No sooner were those words spoken by our Lord, no sooner did he hear the affectionate but severe rebuke, “ Be not faithless, but believing,” than, as we read, he answered at once, and said unto Him, “My Lord and my God!” Indeed, that he did not touch is plain from our Lord’s own words: “ Thomas, because thou hast seen ”■—not because thou hast touched Me^—“ thou hast believed.” No : Thomas overrated his own power of resisting the truth ; he was nearer than he deemed to the king¬ dom of heaven. His confession (and what a con¬ fession ! so full, so glorious, so complete, beyond all Sermon XXL THOMAS THE DOUBTEE. 315 which had hitherto been made by any disciple!) gushed forth at once from a convinced and believing heart, ‘‘ My Lord and my God!” Let 'us now consider some of the great practical and spiritual truths illustrated by this transaction. The first thought which struck all the early com¬ mentators on holy writ, on which Chrysostom for instance dwells almost exclusively, refers to the gra¬ cious condescension of the Lord in thus adapting the evidence to the wants and capacities of His disciples. Provided that there be in any man the previous con¬ ditions, a desire to know the truth, to do the will of God, to be saved from sin, if there be in him a love and a craving for the holiness which Thomas had ever adored in the Person of Jesus, evidence will be given, is daily given, sufficient to satisfy the longing, the contrite, the unreluctant heart. Every believer knows that it is so. He knows that his Saviour has not left him to be tossed about to and fro by the surging waves of the restless intellect, that He has not abandoned him to the suggestions of a corrupt -and darkened nature, that Christ has addressed Him¬ self just to that feeling in his heart, to that faculty in his mind, to that craving in his spiritual nature, by which he could be most surely and directly guided to the knowledge of the Father, and of the Father’s revelation in and by the Son. In fact, Christ manifests Himself. He does not simply pre¬ sent abstract truths to the intellect, such as command 316 THOMAS THE DOUBTEK. Sermon XXI. its reverence, and from whicli it cannot withhold its assent. He does not merely convince the understand¬ ing by irrefragable arguments, but He takes posses¬ sion of the spirit, reaches, awakens, converts the heart by a personal, a spiritual, and therefore an invisible, but a real manifestation of Himself. Were it not so, few indeed would know their Saviour. The evidence which convinces the studious and acute inquirer cannot be received, cannot be appreciated by the generality of men, owing to their want of leisure, of attainment, or of natural capacity. When it convinces, it does uot of itself convert. Faith, living saving faith, is a gift; it cometh, together with every good and perfect gift, from above. It is given to all those whom the love of the Father draws, who yield to that constraining influence and seek the Son. It is given to them at His good time. Like Thomas, they may previously pass through a season of darkness and tribulation, but it is always given, and, as I believe, in greatest fulness, with most clearness, to those who cherish their moral instincts, obey without hesitation the voice within, by which the Word of God speaks to their conscience, to whom the evidence of the senses, the conclusion of the understanding, are as nothing compared with the solemn testimony of the conscience and of the heart, for to them beyond all doubt applies the blessing pronounced by the Lord Jesus, “ Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.” Sermon XXT. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 317 Another lesson appears to me to be especially worth consideration in these present days. Owing to a variety of circumstances, there can be no doubt that many persons of all classes, many of our arti¬ sans, many who are slightly acquainted with the questions agitated among men of learning and science, some who have read and thought deeply, some eminent for acuteness and strength of intellect, suffer very much from weakness, from an obscura¬ tion, from what seems to be a partial, or, though, it may be hoped, a temporary, yet, for the time, an all but total eclipse of faith. In what light does this transaction teach us to look on such persons ? In what light did our Saviour regard them ? How did He treat them ? He was surrounded by doubters. Not to speak of His enemies. His prejudiced maligners and opponents, even His own chosen and beloved ones, those whom He taught, whose hearts He won, whose spirits He stirred to their very depths, doubted from first to last; could not receive His declarations as to what was to take place, and when all was ful¬ filled doubted still, so long as doubt was possible. How dealt he with them ? What were the feelings which He expressed towards them ? There was no harshness, no bitterness, no alienation; and if we be His followers, there will be no such feelings in our hearts towards those who remain sad and anxious in that outer darkness where the light of Christ hath not yet risen. But let us remember withal, that 318 THOMAS THE DOUBTER. Sermon XXI. thongh it be a state to be dealt with tenderly (so far, that is, as it is not a hating, bitter, antagonistic state), it is one which is not to be spoken of, not to be thought of, no, not for one moment, as a tolerable one. It is intolerable for all who know in what it must issue. It is intolerable for all who know that truth is truth and must be sought, that falsehood is falsehood and must be eschewed, that Christ is risen and is our Lord, that His name is the only name given under heaven whereby we may be saved. Be tender, be patient, be most considerate, and be courteous in dealing with those who, like Thomas, will not receive your testimony that Christ is risen, that He is the true, the only Saviour; but desist not from persuasion, from any efforts by which you may bring them to Him, who will not fail to manifest Himself when they once seek Him with singleness of heart. One thought more, and I leave the subject to your own meditations. Consider what the faith was which Thomas professed. No mere faith in the fact of his Master’s resurrection, no mere acknowledgment that his fellow’-disciples believed, upon sufficient grounds, that all which had been predicted touching that event was now accomplished. No sooner was the dark cloud dispersed from his spirit than all low, carnal, imperfect conceptions of his Lord’s nature dis¬ appeared. He knew now what was the meaning of that great word ‘‘ My Lord,” which he and his fellows. Sermon XXT. THOMAS THE DOUBTER. 319 which it may be some of us still use, if not irre¬ verently, yet without fully realising its import. He knew that his Lord was his God; that con¬ fession of adoring faith was accepted by Jesus. No confession short of that will be accepted by the Father as the expression of faith in the Son. Christ is our Lord, because He is our God. To call a crea¬ ture Lord would be rank idolatry—would be to en¬ throne an idol in our hearts for the Creator. Our hearts, indeed, with all their narrowness, all their weakness, all their corruption, retain too much of the original impress stamped upon them by His own almighty hand, to acknowledge any but God to be truly our Lord. He alone in His infinity can satisfy the infinite cravings of a spirit which He hath made immortal. May we bow down to Him, may we worship Him, may we receive Him, now in our time of trial, now in our day of probation, that for ever hereafter, at all times and all seasons, in the hour of death and in the day of our resurrection, we may rejoice in the glory of Him who will then be mani¬ fested to the universe as our Lord and our God! Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things, graft in our hearts the love of Thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 320 THE COMING OF THE COMFORTER. Seemon XXII. SERMON XXIL - — John xvi. 7. It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away^ the Comforter will not come unto you; hut if I depart^ I will send Him unto you. This was a hard saying for the disciples, hard in proportion to their affection for their Lord, to their dependence upon His guidance, their faith in His goodness and power. The sorrow that filled their hearts as the meaning of His repeated announcements of His departure began to dawn upon their under¬ standing, was doubtless but increased for the time by the tenderness and love manifested in such words of consolatory promise. To lose Him, to see Him no more, |;o look for another in His place, to await the coming of a comforter—how could they realize such a condition as one expedient or profitable? It was a hard saying; and if during that last sad tearful evenii%—that season of deep spiritual com¬ muning—there was one moment when sorrow had a peculiarly full dominion over them, it was pro¬ bably then, when they were told that His departure was expedient for them, when they were bidden to Sermon XXII. THE COMINH OF THE COMFORTER. ^ 321 fix their thoughts upon the work hereafter to be wrought in them, and by them, under the influences ' of the Spirit of Truth. Hard, however, as the saying was, St. John, by whom its meaning was, if not more fully comprehended, yet certainly more fully developed than by any of the inspired Evangelists, well knew its infinite importance in its application to all ages of the Church, and to every stage in the spiritual life of believers; and under his guidance, using such help as may be supplied by the labours of old divines, or by inquiry into the facts of our per¬ sonal experience, we may hope to ascertain somewhat of its deep significance and bearings upon our spiritual state. We may consider it under two points of view— doctrinal and practical. A few years since it is probable that the doctrinal inferences would have absorbed our attention ; at present more general interest may perhaps be excited by the practical applications. But it is not in accordance with scrip- • tural teaching to omit either, or to give such exclu¬ sive preponderance to the one, as is tantamount to an omission of the other. Doctrine and practice, spiritual principles and spiritual life, must not be disjoined. We must abound more and more in the knowledge of sacred truth, that we may discern things that are excellent in act and habit; and here I will first endeavour to state briefly and clearly the doctrinal truth which, as no sound interpreter of Holy Y 322 THE COMING OF THE COMFOETEK. Sermon XXIT. Writ ever doubted, is intimated in this great saying of our Lord. The coming of the Comforter, of the Holy Ghost, as an indwelling spirit of grace and power, is de¬ clared to be dependent upon the departure of the Saviour, and His departure was therefore said to be necessary and expedient. This necessity rests upon the cause which brought the Redeemer into the world. He came to restore the union between God and man. That union was broken by sin. All sinners know that it is broken. The impenitent do not fancy even that they are in heart-union with God. It could not be restored without a previous reconciliation. The enmity must be put away; / restitution or atonement must be offered and ac¬ cepted before enemies can become true and loving friends. But that reconciliation could only be effected by the death of Christ. Many difficulties arise when men speculate upon the theory of that reconciliation, no believer doubts the fact; no believer but feels in his heart of hearts the need and the efficacy of that atonement. As man, as perfect man, as the head and representative of regenerate men, Christ was to suffer, was to offer His blood, which, in virtue of that relation, was our blood, was to pour out His soul unto death, and so commend His spirit, and with His spirit our spirits, into His Father’s hands. That death was needful with reference to each of the Messiah’s threefold offices. He could Sermon XXII. THE COMIXa OF THE COMFOETEE. 323 not be our Priest in tbe highest sense of the word without offering the only “ full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction,” which was ac¬ complished on His Cross. Even as a prophet His predictions could not be fulfilled, either those which He had uttered in the days of His earthly sojourn, or those which His spirit had dictated to the old , Seers of Israel, until He had given His life a sacrifice for sin. Nor could He in His manhood take His seat upon His eternal throne until He had worn the purple robe, and borne the crown of thorns, the true regalities of our Saviour King. Through death Christ passed into His glory—over the river of that Jordan He passed in order to recover the lost in¬ heritance for His people. He went up on high that He might receive gifts for men, and having received them, that He should bestow them upon men, gifts and graces which might give them a new life. Gifts and graces, do we say ? nay, that personal indwelling presence of the Lord God, which is the peculiar office of the Holy Ghost. ‘‘If I go not away,” the Saviour declares, “ the Comforter will not come to you.” The barrier is not removed, the wall is not broken down, the enmity is not abolished. Ye cannot receive Him. Ye cannot bear His teaching. The very fundamental facts upon which that teaching will proceed are not accomplished. The blood is not shed wherewith He will cleanse your hearts. But if I depart, the way y 2 324 THE COMING OF THE COMFORTER. Sermon XXH. will be cleared, the access opened,' tbe conditions fulfilled, tbe right and power secured; and I will send Him to you a spirit of light, a spirit of truth, a spirit of love, a spirit of freedom, a spirit who will renew, sanctify, perfect you, prepare you for admis¬ sion into that kingdom where ye may abide for ever, contemplating Me in My true glory, and trans¬ formed into the similitude of that glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. Such undoubtedly is the doctrine involved in this saying. It is not perhaps wonderful, considering the height and majesty of such truths, that we should be dazzled, that we should seek to veil our eyes, and shrink even in reverence and fear from the contem¬ plation. Nor can it be denied that there is some danger lest they should become matters of mere speculation, if discussed without constant reference to our inward wants and the realities of life. Only let me entreat you, Christian brethren, not to allow yourselves to be misled by what we may venture to call the prevalent outcry against doctrinal teaching. Submit with all humility to the consciousness, which those who have most light feel most deeply, that you are wholly unable to penetrate, and that you can but imperfectly realise the mysteries of faith, but do not close your ears, do not shut out from your minds the teaching of the Spirit. “ When He is come He will guide you unto all truth.” We turn now to the practical aspect and bearings Sermon XXII. THE COMING OF THE COMFORTEE. 325 of this saying. The character of the disciples undoubtedly underwent a great change after the departure of our Lord. They were not the same men under the personal teaching, and under the influence, of the indwelling Spirit. This ♦requires little or no argument in the way of proof. In point of fact we all feel the contrast. During their Mas¬ ter’s life we see in many points their superiority to ordinary men: we admire their zeal, devotedness to a great cause, their sacrifice of all that men of this world care for, their love of the Lord Jesus. But as spiritual men we cannot but feel they were weak, immature, beset, nay often overcome, by human infirmities. We read of their contentions for pre¬ eminence, their jealousy and narrowness, their mis¬ apprehensions of the true character of their Lord, their mistaken views of His kingdom. Their fail¬ ings in faith, hope, and even love, are recorded, and) as we are assured, for our edification. But after the coming of the Comforter we hear no more of Peter’s fears; the doubts of Thomas are exchanged for cer¬ tainty ; no dissensions reach the inner circle of apos¬ tolic unity; Christ is preached at once in His true glory; the Apostles stand forth as the rulers and examples of the Church; so that, however we may account for the fact, it is a fact that the bodily pre¬ sence, the personal teaching of Christ was less effectual than the unseen influence of His own spirit. Jesus came to them in another way; but He came even 326 THE COMING OF THE COMFOKTER. Sermon XXIT. closer, wrought more powerfully upon them • in the person of the Comforter. The time of His personal sojourn with them was but preparatory to that other season which was to endure until His second coming to judge the world. From this we learn that what was expedient for them in their transitional state, while they were yet midway between the Law and the Gospel, ceased at length to be expedient. The time was come when they were no more to live by sight, but by faith; no more to have a visible and outward but an unseen and inner guide ; and that it was needful for the full development of the spiritual faculties, for the full maturity of their hidden life, they should be deprived of what had hitherto been the sustaining power, the guiding light of their souls. This was the truth they had yet to learn ; what can we learn from it for ourselves ? Is there in our own experience anything which makes this position at all intelligible, which gives it a personal interest to our¬ selves ? Can we draw out some general rule, deduce some general law, find some practical exemplifica¬ tions ? I think we can. A little consideration will tell us that all influences which contribute to the formation of a Christian’s character are modified in form at each stage in his inward growth—that each form is preparatory to a higher development, that the transition from one stage to another may be, and generally is, attended with pain, with more or less of struggle, but that if bravely and faithfully encoun- Sermon XXII. THE COMING OF THE COMFORTEII. 327 tered the suffering is turned to joy, a joy which will be perfected when all means, all dispensations, even that of the Comforter, will be terminated by the second coming of the Son of man. Thus the spirit of a child is moulded for a season under the sweet and loving influences of home. Obe¬ dience, unreasoning faith, innocence, and unconscious¬ ness of sin, are its best characteristics. What mother can bear the thought, what affectionate child can entertain a wish, that a relationship so pure, so holy, should be disturbed or interrupted? The moment when the parent has to give up that direct personal control, and expose the boy with all his unde¬ veloped passions and untried tendencies to the con¬ tact with rudeness, if not with vice, it may be the inevitable evils of a public school, is one of bitter sorrow. It must be so ; and a very hard saying it is for parent and for child to be told that such a de¬ parture is necessary and expedient. But the spirit of truth and freedom will not come in its fulness, the child will not cease to be a child, until its energies are brought out, its powers of resistance or endurance exercised, its sense of right and wrong matured by actual contact with the hard realities of life. Let the child go forth, not without the protection of your prayers, not without the consciousness that your eye is upon him, not without all needful warning and admonition, not without all possible precautions against demoralising influences, but 328 THE COMING OF THE COMFOETEK. Sermon XXII. freed from leading-strings, gradually put in pos¬ session of the inheritance of a free man, under the guidance of that Spirit who will lead him into all truth. If he will but yield a willing compliance to that guidance, Jesus will give him back to you a full- grown child of grace. Necessary the departure is; you must look that necessity in the face; expedient it will be just so far as you and he have availed your¬ selves of the full privileges, used all the means sup¬ plied to you during that season when the parent is exclusively responsible for the child’s ‘‘nurture and admonition in the Lord.” • ' This first crisis in our lives is the forerunner and type of many others; of a long series of stages in the development of the spiritual man. At every period of our existence here some special influence is working upon us which has its own appointed limit of action, which is intended to bring us to a higher place in the kingdom of Christ; and having done that work, it undergoes a change, or it is withdrawn;—withdrawn, not without causing a severe struggle, not without leaving deep, tender, it may be indelible regrets. Our memories are haunted by solemn and venerated forms; loving eyes, long since closed in death, seem to gaze wistfully upon us; old sounds awaken echoes in our minds, and make our heart-strings vibrate with emotions which, pain¬ ful as they may be, we do not wish to repress. What gather we from this ? Not the wretched philosophy of Sermon XXII. THE COMING OF THE COMFOETER. 820 the sceptic, the emptiness and nothingness of things and beings upon earth, but the conviction that it was necessary and expedient for us that each of those gracious influences should have been vouchsafed, and that because it was expedient for us they were with¬ drawn. We have had to learn to walk alone, to be led by an inner guide, to be moved by principle instead of feeling, to realise the truth by our own experience, to be self-reliant and self-controlled; and every good loving influence has been good for us, because and so far as it conduced to this end. Our teachers, our dear friends in Christ, our home asso¬ ciations, our special work and duties in each stage of existence, were helps so long as they were with us; the memory of what they were to us, if we made right use of our opportunities, may be even a greater help now that they are withdrawn. This is true, even supposing, as most of us feel to be our own case, that we were far from duly improving those occa¬ sions ; that feeling indeed presses most heavily upon those whose consciences are most sensitive, and whose affections are warmest. We may be very sure that the disciples never thought of the time when their Master was with them, without remembering how cold and dark and selfish they had been, how far they had been from responding to His love. Un¬ bidden tears must often have gushed from their eyes, sharp pangs must have pierced their hearts, when memory recalled His pleading voice, His loving 830 THE COMING OF THE COMFOKTER. Sebmon XXTT. glance, and their own slow, doubting, half-reluctant obedience. Not but that the very sorrow was blended with comfort, for it was a proof of true though im¬ perfect affection; and so regret and penitence, love and sorrow, worked together, and made them docile and tractable, willing and earnest disciples of His holy spirit, when He came to recall Christ’s words to their mind, to unfold the meaning of those words, and so to lead them into all truth. Such appears to be the general import of this great saying of our Lord. It teaches us that the separa¬ tions we have to lament are needful, and that the pain itself is a good and holy thing for us, and it enforces the duty of earnestness in the use of bless¬ ings while they last, of patience and resignation when they are withdrawn. But it suggests another thought, full of unmingled comfort to the believer, a thought which every one of us should take to heart. The departure of Christ was not final. His children were not for ever to remain orphans, even under the teaching and protection of the Comforter. He was, as they then learned, to come again, in His own per¬ son, bearing the same form though glorified, looking on them again with the same eyes, speaking to them again with the same voice, and that, not merely during the short interval between the resurrection and ascension, but in a home where they were to abide with Him for ever. And what is true of Christ is_ substantially true of all things that are His, to all Sermon XXn. THE COMING OF THE COMFOETER. 331 wlio are one with Him. Nothing that is truly good is really lost when it is taken away. True love sanctified by His spirit does not and cannot perish. It has in it the principle of eternal life. Mother and child, husband and wife, all friends who are one in Christ are separated, must be separated, but not for ever. Every good and holy feeling which has been developed in any portion of your lives will be re¬ stored, and its object transformed and glorified, but, still retaining its identity, will be given back to you. You think doubtless with pain, most of us think with very bitter pain, of the fruitlessness of much of our toil in youth and manhood. Day by day we feel that what we have acquired with effort passes away like a shadow; but hold fast to the faith that what¬ ever toil has had goodness and truth for its object, will have its true reward in eternity. This bodily frame will be mingled with the dust, this thinking feeling soul will sleep in Jesus, but both body and soul will be preserved unto everlasting life; are they not quickened and endowed with immortality by His own precious body and blood ? No, brethren, doubt it not; it is a true saying, all ' the tender affections, all the generous efforts, all the mental discipline by which the soul is moulded into conformity with Christ, ay, and all the virtuous, self-denying habits by which the body is made a meet dwelling-place for an immortal spirit, belong to the things of eternity; the powers thus acquired are 332 THE COMING OF THE COMFORTEE. Sermon XXIT. in their essence imperishable. They belong to Christ. They are in His keeping. They will he restored when He fulfils His own promise. Mourners we may be, and indeed we must he, when we think of what we have lost, of what we shall yet lose before our departure hence; but He who said, “Ye now therefore have sorrow,” hath also declared, “ I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” * * John xvi. 22. Sermon XXIII. CUEIST AT EMMAUS. 333 SEEMON XXIII. Luke xxiv. 28, 29. And they drew nigh unto the village whither they went: and He made as though He would have gone further. But they constrained Him^ saying, Abide vnth us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them. The appearances of our blessed Lord to bis disciples after the resurrection were, as might be expected, very mysterious in their character. The disciples felt that a great change had come over Him. His body, though not as yet invested with the full brightness of His glory, was evidently no longer sub¬ ject to the laws which govern the material universe. It was visible or invisible, known or unknown, even according to His own good will. It gave them, more completely than any previous manifestations of His indwelling Godhead, some conception of what a spiritual body may become after the general resurrec¬ tion. And this is perhaps our first impression when we meditate upon the records of what passed between Jesus and his chosen ones during those forty days. And yet, brethren, there mingles with this feeling of 334 CHRIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXTII. breathless awe, this state of spiritual excitement, pro¬ duced by those accounts, another and a very different series of impressions, so different, indeed, that it requires some thought to see how they can co-exist and be reconciled. I mean that, strange as it may appear, we feel it is certainly not more difficult to realize those appearances of our risen Lord, and to sympathise with the feelings of the disciples, than in the case of many of the miraculous works wrought by Him during the period of His humiliation. This effect may be accounted for in part by the very clear and vivid narrative of the Evangelists, who have certainly succeeded in communicating even to careless readers a lively impression, that they {describe events which they witnessed with even more intense interest than any which had preceded His death. Partly, how¬ ever, and, as I think, chiefly, because there is some¬ thing so peculiarly natural, so much of personal feeling—something, so to speak, so familiar, so affec¬ tionate, and human in all the details of those appear¬ ances. Far from being separated from His beloved ones by the change which undoubtedly had come over His physical nature. He seems to be actually nearer than before, nearer to their hearts, nearer to their understanding. Even before they know Him their feelings are stirred to the very depths of their being by His words ; when they do know Him they are drawn close to Him by an irresistible impulse. His word goes straight to Mary’s heart, and she Sermon XXIII. CHRIST AT EMMAUS. 835 clings at once to His feet. Peter receives from Him an assurance of forgiveness, clear instructions as to liis duty, distinct intimations of what awaited him on earth. For doubting Thomas, for loving John, for each and all His anxious followers. He has just that word^ that act, which is most specially adapted to their wants. They felt that the passage through death, far from removing Him to a greater distance, had but brought Him into closer contact with their hearts. A careful perusal of the last chapters of each Evan¬ gelist' will suffice to show the truth of these observa¬ tions. I would request you to fix your attention specially upon St. Luke’s account of our Lord’s appearance to the two disciples with whom he con¬ versed on the way to Emmaus, to whose simple and earnest prayer for enlightenment He yielded so graciously, to whom He made Himself known in breaking of bread. They were leaving Jerusalem after the rest of the Sabbath, as we may reasonably conjecture, because they felt that the bonds which had hitherto kept them and the other disciples together were broken by their Master’s death. Their King had fallen ; and as the Israelites of old when such calamity befell the nation, each man fled to his own home. Sad, how¬ ever, and depressed as they were by the frustration of their hopes, they were far from abandoning their allegiance. They did not turn away from the painful topic. As they went they talked together, not of 336 CHEIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXIII. themselves, not of their own loss, their own temporal interests, but of all these things which had happened. They conversed with a loving spirit, communing together, seeking in each other counsel and help; and with thoughtful earnestness we read they reasoned.” Such, indeed, is the natural course with those who feel a real living interest in religious truth. Disheartened, well-nigh crushed they may be when some dark storm-cloud passes over their souls, when they seem for a time to be bereaved of their Saviour; but their minds still dwell upon the solemn theme. They seek and find some solace in communing with like-minded spirits; and as was the case with those two disciples then, so in some form, some mysterious but effectual way, is it always now. Jesus does not abandon them who do not abandon Him. Jesus Himself then drew near and went with them. What a change then came over them, how entirely their condition was altered, though as yet without their consciousness, their eyes were holden that they should not know Him. Brethren, as a matter of faith, Christians ought all to know that Jesus is ever near —near in spiritual presence, near in saving grace : when they converse on holy truths, when they move onward in a way which leads they know not whither. He goes with theni. That we are assured of by His word—‘‘ When two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of you.” Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the w'orld,” Sermon XXIII. CHRIST AT EMMAUS. 837 In fact, His is an abiding presence. What we need is but to realize it; but as we all know for the most part our eyes are holden so that we do not know Him, we do not discern the tokens of His presence. Let us see, then, how He dealt with those disciples who, as I said, were undoubtedly types of those who have all but lost, or who cannot distinctly discern, the light of the world, and yet seek Him with a sincere desire to know and to obey Him. • In the first place, He drew out their thoughts. He made them put their condition in a clear light before their own minds. Such questionings are the rule in Holy Scripture. In a season of doubt, of anxiety, of partial darkness, one great object is to ascertain pre¬ cisely what truths we actually do hold. Wherever there is spiritual sadness, some essential, some funda¬ mental truth must be retained in the heart. The very shadow itself tells of the light; the painful sense of darkness proves that the visual faculty exists ; and when the Lord of Spirits visits any soul in such a state. He invariably directs its attention to the cause, the character of its weakness, or its malady. This He does in various ways, by some holy word which suddenly and unexpectedly penetrates the heart, by some shock of emotion, by some painful or surprisin visitation. Most of us have doubtless felt something like this. We have been compelled to search our hearts, to find out exactly what we did really believe, where our real difficulty lay. The z 338 ' CHRIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXIII. disciples then saw it distinctly. They knew that their reasonable hopes, their hopes justified by so many indisputable proofs of goodness and power, had been disappointed. ‘‘We trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel; ” whereas' the chief priests and our rulers, the very men who ought to have been foremost in recognising that expected Redeemer, delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. There was the cause of their sadness; and how stood it still with their faith ? In one important, one essential point, all was still well with them. They doubted not as to the goodness, as to the divine commission of Him whom they had thus lost. They still believed that He was “ a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” Brethren, the hearts which, under such circumstances, could still retain that faith, were sound at the core. Imperfect as the faith was, it had the principle of life; but as yet it was but a germ, a principle not comprehended; and though not choked, yet overlaid by dark misgivings; for notwithstanding all that had been said by the Lord Himself to warn and prepare them, notwith¬ standing the evidence which had already reached them, they were ’wholly unable to believe that this mighty prophet, this great teacher, this object of their reverent admiration, was risen from the dead, was again living—living to be the Lord and giver of life to believers. It was a strange—must we not say Sermon XXIII. CHRIST AT EMMAUS. 339 an irrational ?—state of mind, full of glaring and irre¬ concilable inconsistency. If mighty in deed, bow could He have been really overcome by mere earthly powers ? if mighty in word, how could His promises have failed so utterly ? It seems to us that they had really no alternative but to wait with an assured hope for a supernatural manifestation, for a speedy triumph over the powers of death and hell, such as their old projohets had so often predicted, or to abjure all faith in their former teacher. So it was not, however. Faith and love survived, darkened, over¬ cast, but not destroyed, by their deep despondency, hope only seemed to have been quenched or eclipsed. All this is surely full of instruction to us. Thought¬ ful men feel well what evidence it affords as to the truth of the whole transaction, the veracity, the minute accuracy of the narrator. But what is, after all, more generally profitable, is the consolation, the inexpressible comfort, which this affords to all who are troubled in spirit, to all who find' it hard to realize the glorious truths of their faith, who are perplexed by the obscurity of the divine dispensations, who cannot find their way through the intricacies of thought. This narrative shows them that, so long., as they have faith in the word of Christ, so long as they ponder upon His works and sayings, so long as they really seek Him, they are not out of the sphere of spiritual light. Jesus is near to them ; their eyes may be holden, but He z 2 840 CHRIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXIII. is with them. He will not forsake them until He hath brought them to the knowledge of all saving truth. There will indeed, and there must needs be, a tone of reproof, of affectionate upbraiding. Such every believer has heard; nay, such he hears re¬ peatedly in his spirit; such most of us must have heard when we have consulted the Book of Life. Fools and slow of heart, we all know, is the true description of those who believe so imperfectly all that the prophets have written; but if we use the means which Christ bestows, if we listen to the inti¬ mations of His spirit, whether we seek Him in the types of the Mosaic law, or in the announcements of the prophets, whether we search the hidden meaning or the practical teaching of Holy Writ, we shall find a guiding light. He will expound to us in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And now, as we read, they drew nigh unto the village whither they went. Their home was pro¬ bably at hand; naturally they would have parted there ; humanly speaking, they needed rest, retire¬ ment, and the sweet peace of home, after their sore and grievous trial. It was a test, a simple and obvious, but still a crucial test, of their sincerity and their earnestness, whether or no they would willingly part with One who had opened to them the secret treasures of Holy Writ. And so He made as though He would have gone further ; and that, as we may be very sure, not in pretence, not in mere form. Sermon XXIII. CHRIST AT EMMA CIS. 341 Gone further He had, indeed; gone, if not for ever; gone, at least, for a long, dark, gloomy season, had they consented to His departure. Jesus visits us of His own free grace ; He comes to us, not waiting for our call. He abides near us for a time, even though we be unconscious of His presence ; but woe to us if we are ready to let Him go ! woe to us if we detain Him not, in whatever form He manifests Himself! Do not think that you can give up any means of grace, cut through any of those links which attach the soul to Him, and recall Him at your pleasure I Had those disciples not been really in earnest; had not the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus been the one great object of their desires, they would then have let Him go ; and their teacher, their spiritual guide, would have withdrawn Himself. But they constrained Him—constrained Him with that sweet, longing, cleaving constraint, that gentle, reveren¬ tial, loving earnestness, which He never resists, which He never can resist; for what is it but the very prompting of His own gracious Spirit ? “ Abide with us,” they said, “ for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And then at once He yielded. He went in to tarry with them. Little, indeed, they knew as yet of the guest they were entertaining; little of the blessedness they had secured; but this they were sure of, they had with thern one who could kindle in their hearts a flame of devotion, one who could unravel for them the mazes of revelation, 842 CHRIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXllI, one who loved and knew, and tanght them to know more fully, more hopefully than ever, the Saviour of their souls. In such a presence they had, at least, an earnest of the presence of Jesus. And so their souls were prepared for His manifestation. As he sat at meat with them, the memory of the last supper which their Lord had shared with His chosen ones must have recurred to their minds; and now the very gesture was repeated which had left so deep an impression on the disciples’ hearts : “ He took bread, and blessed it, and brake and gave it to them.” The veil was removed, the secret glory shone forth, the scales of earth fell from their senses, their eyes were opened, and they knew Him. They saw Him, they knew Him, knew Him as He had been, as He was. Lord of Life, Conqueror of Death, the Redeemer of Israel. True, He vanished then from their sight; but never more could He depart from their spirits, never more could they doubt of His unseen presence, never more relapse into a state of darkness, of gloorn^, of perplexity. Christ had risen, the light had been manifested; He was theirs and they were His henceforward and for evermore. Each word in this most solemn and affecting narrative touches our heartstrings, and suggests so many topics for contemplation that it seems hard to select one for special consideration. Still those pleading words of the two when they would prevent Sermon XXIII. CHRIST AT EMMAUS. 843 the departure of the Lord haunt our memory, and recur perhaps most frequently to the minds of Christians in their manifold seasons of inward trial. Abide with us, leave us not, 0 Heavenly Teacher, for our minds are dark: we shall be lost in the dense mists and exhalations of this earth’s morasses if Thy light does not shine unceasingly and in¬ creasingly upon us. Abide with us—leave us not without a guide, for how shall we reach the haven if Thou dost not show the way ? Abide with us, for the paths are perilous; we are surrounded by enemies, on every side beset with temptations ; our minds, our senses, our hearts are sorely tried; the fiery darts of the Evil One will penetrate our armour; he will take us captive, if Thou, 0 Saviour, abide not with us as our defender. Abide with Thy little ones, 0 loving Jesus : in the fresh morn of life let them not begin the way by a wrong path; let them not proceed without Thee for a loving guardian. Abide with Thy servants who are now encountering the perils and labours, the struggle and turmoil, of this life of care and toil, amid the fretful and feverish anxieties, the lonely and wearing tediousness of existence. Abide with the careworn man; abide with the suffering woman; abide with them as a spirit of life, of strength, of guidance. And with us for whom the day is far spent, over whom the shades of eventide are gathering, whose time for work is short, abide, good Lord: what work is to be 344 CHRIST AT EMMAUS. Sermon XXIII. done, teacli us how to do it, and give us strength to do it well, and to do it quickly : whatever suffering remains to be endured, teach us to meet it with a brave, resigned, and grateful spirit; whatever else Thou mayest in Thine infinite goodness and 'wisdom see fit to deprive us of, oh! deprive us not of Thy presence. Abide with us, abide in us ; strengthen, sustain, enlighten us. Abide in all and each of us; that when the day is quite spent, when the eventide is come and gone, when the night has fallen, we may go in where Thou ahidest, and tarry with Thee in that home where Thou wilt never more vanish from Thy servants’ sight. Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 345 SERMON XXIV. PREACHED AT ST. JAMES’S, PICCADILLY. -■ '■ ♦ Luke xi. 23. He that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me seattereth. These words, taken in connection with the whole portion of the Gospel which has been just read in the Communion Service, illustrate principles in the interpretation of Scripture of great importance at all times, and of very special importance in the present circumstances of our Church.* I mean that the most practical truths, those which touch the conscience most affectingly, and throw the strongest light upon the way of duty, are found very frequently bound up with statements which present the greatest diffi¬ culties to the captious, or even the candid but specu¬ lative inquirer: and further, that if we begin with this practical truth, take it home to our heart, and keep it before our mind, while we consider the con¬ text in which it occurs, we shall always find that it clears up obscurities which may have repelled us at first, and removes the difficulties which were alone important, as likely to perplex an honest mind, or to jar upon the moral instincts which attest our affinity 346 NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. Seiimon XXIV. to the divine. Certainly few questions in the inter¬ pretation of the New Testament are more beset with speculative difficulties than that which our Lord here sets before us in language so awful and so alien to the whole strain of modern thought. If we begin by arguing or speculating about demoniacal posses¬ sion, upon what it meant then, or what it may mean now, upon the physical or psychological laws to which it must be referred and by which it was de¬ termined, we shall be speedily, if not utterly, lost in mazes of idle conjecture, be tempted to grovelling superstition, or to the dreary negations of unbelief. But if we begin with the simple truth, that we must be ourselves with Christ, or with His spiritual an¬ tagonist ; fighting under His banner, or contending against Him; gathering souls into His kingdom, or scattering them; we shall have little difficulty in drawing from the two parables, or allegorical representations, given by our Lord when calumniated by the Pharisees, that instruction, that spiritual edi¬ fication, which is the main, the only object, of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Know¬ ing from these words that neutrality is simply impos¬ sible, that indifference is hostility, that apathy is death; we shall inquire with anxiety whether our own heart, our spiritual tabernacle, the home of our impulses and affections, is now under the strong man, inhabited by the powers of darkness; or whether it be possessed by the indwelling Christ: and again, Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 347 whether any apparent or partial amendment, any relinquishment of old habits, be in reality a spiritual renovation, an earnest of eternal salvation, or a mere temporary and deceptive result of outer circumstances or natural changes; whether we have, or have not, the only safeguard against a relapse into old tempta¬ tions, or a fall into still worse corruption, even the living Presence of Christ in the heart. Nor shall we fail to look about us, and rejoice if we can find some simple, practical test, do something, however small, which may indicate at least our bias, show in which direction our will is moving: something which may make us, in some sense, workers with Christ, not workers against Him; gathering with Him, not aid¬ ing those whose one object in life would seem to be to scatter His people, and advance the cause of His foes. In the first place, we may consider briefly the cir¬ cumstances which gave occasion to our Lord’s saying about the strong man. The miracle which He had just wrought excited, as we read, unusual amaze¬ ment, and appears, indeed, to have been unprece¬ dented, implying the restoration of a lost sense, if not the communication of a new faculty. It was, however, so palpable in its evidence, that no one thought of denying it; but the severe and spiritual doctrine which our Saviour had taught, his unspar¬ ing denunciation of cherished prejudices, had previ¬ ously given deep offence to the Pharisees and Scribes 348 NO NEUTKALITY IN EELIGION. Sekmon XXIV. who had come from all parts of Palestine to in¬ quire into the character and pretensions of the new teacher. And so it was, that, all other resources failing, no place being given for a charge of collusion or deception, they devised, without scruple, an expla¬ nation which might find easy acceptance with the superstitious multitude, at the trifling cost of a wilful and calumnious lie : “ He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the prince of the devils: ” a charge after¬ wards to be frequently met by the preachers of the Gospel, and not relinquished until infidelity had drawn more effective weapons from the armoury of materialism, which denies even the possibility of a sign from heaven, of an intervention in His own creation of the living and loving God. Our Saviour’s answer asserts a broad and universal truth, reaching far beyond the special occasion, throwing light upon the deepest mysteries of consciousness, and needing but a candid and self-searching spirit to receive and to apply. In the spiritual world the causes which confuse our perceptions, and prevent us from distinguishing between good and evil, do not exist. There the limitary line between darkness and light is distinctly traced. The realms of love and hate are separated by an impassable abyss. Satan’s * kingdom is internally one, evil is its recognised law : good is not found in it, cannot proceed from it. Good acts, therefore, acts of kindness, of love, ot charity, acts whereby the hearts and minds of God’s Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTEALITY IN RELIGION.' 349 creatures are delivered from suffering and degrada¬ tion, prove tliat a ray from heaven is bursting in; that the power of evil is disturbed, if not broken; that the kingdom of God is manifesting itself among men. To impute such acts to evil motives, our Saviour declares, in other passages where He deals with the same charges, to be of all sins in essence the most heinous, constituting in its full and conscious development the unpardonable offence, even the sin against the Holy Ghost. Nor can we, brethren, be too earnest in applying this first great practical warning to our own hearts: among the tendencies of our own days, in matters of private or public, reli¬ gious or secular concernment, none is more alarm¬ ing than the marked tendency to calumnious mis¬ representation, whether originating in a light and scoffing spirit, such as characterized the Sadducees, or in the graver and far darker spirit veiled under the sanctimonious exterior of the Pharisees. That charge thus disposed of, our Lord presents the truth under another aspect. In a short parable He enables us to realize the condition of the human heart, whether in a state of conversion or unconversion. “ When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour in which he trusteth, and divideth the spoil.” Let us look at these two conditions sepa¬ rately, shutting out all other considerations save their 350 NO NEUTEALITY IN EELIGION. Sermon XXIV. bearing upon our own conscience, our own duties, our own relations to our Saviour and our Judge. Is it, however, can it be true, of any among us, that the first words describe their state ? The palace, the royal, kingly heart of man, created by the King of kings for His own tabernacle. His own home ; can it be the palace of His enemy ? Can all its goods, its treasures of intellectual and spiritual gifts, its warm affections, its boundless aspirations,—can they be the property of the evil one ? Held by him in peace^ without struggles of conscience, without resistance or remorse ? It seems too hard a saying. The heart rises against it: nor can we find it in ourselves to condemn that involuntary emotion. And yet—and yet, brethren, putting aside the question for the present whether it is now true of ourselves, or of others who seem to be altogether abandoned to sen¬ sual or malignant influences, is there nothing in your own consciousness, in your reminiscences of the past, which enables you in some degree to realize the description ? Have there been no periods when you have given up yourselves unresistingly to im¬ pulses and affections and passions and habits which you now know, and even then instinctively felt, were evil and destructive ? Is there, to go a step further, no*habit or feeling which you still indulge, without scruple, without shame, although nothing but wilful blindness, a blindness which is an act of conscious¬ ness, testifying to a faculty which you do not choose Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTEALITY IN RELIGION. 351 to use, saves you from realizing it as a proof of the power of evil over your own hearts ? So far from thinking that conscience fairly questioned will rebut this accusation, my real fear is lest it should be stirred too strongly : lest the probe should give need¬ less pain : lest some of the most sensitive consciences should mistake the meaning and misapply the infer¬ ence. • However this may be, we cannot look around us, we cannot think of the actual state of humanity, whether we read the awful records of transactions in the dark places of the earth, as yet, be it spoken to our shame, unvisited by the light of the Gospel, or the accounts of so large a part of our own teeming population, of the brutality and crime rife in the dens which beset the borders of civilization among ourselves: we cannot look within us, into our own experience of the present or the past, without recog¬ nising the terrible truth of the assertion of Christ, that the strong man is among us : that his arms are wielded with terrible effect: that he keepeth as his own what should be the palace of God: that he takes God’s goods as his goods, and holds them in peace.” Yet, distressing and repulsive as this picture is, we get from it a lesson not merely of warning, but of hope. Were it not so, I should see little use in discussing the subject. Human depravity and Satanic triumphs might be left to those who find unwholesome gratifi¬ cation in the speculations of a daring and unchristian 852 NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. Sermon XXIY. dogmatism, were it not that out of the very darkness comes a light, a ray of Divine love. With regard to others, we see- this point clearly; utter as may he their apparent subjugation, foul and hateful as may be the habits by which they are enthralled, they are still but in,the condition of those whom the Saviour then rescued, of myriads whom year by year He still rescues from their foe. The parent will not easily let go this hope when he thinks of a prodigal child, insensible as yet to commands, to entreaties, to his mother’s tears. You will not let go this hope when called upon, as now, to aid in the greatest work of the ministry, to bid the lost and perishing come to the Saviour. And, with regard to ourselves and to those among us who feel in any degree the possible application of the description, we, too, get this: if we are not at ease in our wrongdoing; if conscience has any alarms, any struggles, any misgivings; if we hate or loathe any inward movements of evil; be it pride, be it sensuality, be it envy, be it self- indulgence; then, at least, we are assured of this: the strong man does not hold his goods in peace; his arms are still in his hands, he may have dealt us cruel, and, if not healed at once, even deadly wounds, but death is not yet set in. The dead conscience has no tremours: its remorse may not indicate real life; it may speak, and speak truly, of approaching death : but so long as it feels, as it gives pain, as it quivers under the probe, there is life. , In the heart Christ Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTEALITY IN RELIGION. 353 lias, we may not, indeed, say an ally, perhaps not even a suppliant, but at least an object of pity; a thing that claims His sympathy; a sufferer that He can relieve; bleeding, torn, mangled, but, even for that very cause, just that object which will call forth all His resources of healing and saving love. My experience of my fellow-men must have greatly mis¬ led me, if there be not many here by' whom such an assurance is needed; who feel that, as yet, they can^ not be said to be with Christ, and would yet fain not be counted among those who are against Him; not, indeed, as yet gathering with Him, and yet not wil¬ fully scattering. Take, then, the comfort to heart, but take it tremblingly: for the time is short: the mortal wound will soon do its work: conscience once crushed, the strong man will recover all his goods : if you be not with Christ, soon—at once when He admits you—you must be against Him; not gathering with Him, you, too, must be scattering. And now turn to the description of Christ’s vic¬ tory. He comes in strength, conquering and to conquer; overcomes the strong man, taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. These words ought to find a counterpart in our experience. We must not, however, make the mistake of supposing that they necessarily imply a sudden conquest. Conversion may, or may not, be sudden. We may, or may not, recall the critical time, the turning-point of existence, when we changed 2 A 354 NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. Sermon XXIV. masters. For one true Christian wlio does, hundreds do not: hut, the real question is, whether we now own and obey Christ as our Lord. We have but to enter into the secret chamber of consciousness and ask ourselves honestly a few plain questions, and we shall ascertain at least this, whether we are with Him or against Him: gathering or scattering. We can tell whether we wish that goodness, purity, truth, should prevail: whether we hear with sorrow of attacks upon the faith: whether we take part or not with those who are seeking the good of Christ’s lost ones : whether old desires, old habits have lost the mastery over us, and have been replaced by un¬ selfish, loving affections. The parable certainly indicates a progressive work, in which we are to take part. When we read of Christ’s work in our heart, we must always remember that there is a mystery of inner consciousness, that what He does. He does in us and through us, using our faculties and feelings as His instruments. The armour by which evil has obtained any vantage over us, and inflicted upon us any spiritual damage, must be taken away by our own exertions under His influence ; and with many an effort, much toil, much danger, we must divide the spoil, restore the goods to their rightful owner, and so earn the blessing of perfect peace, which is expe¬ rienced by those only who receive Christ as the Lord and inhabitant of their hearts. And, to put this point in another light, taking it out of the region of Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTEALITY IN KELIGION. 355 inner emotions or personal experience, wliich, to some extent, are ever liable to misapprehension, we must prove that we are with Christ by aiding in the pro¬ gress of His kingdom on earth, among our friends, our dependents, our neighbours ; by taking away the armour by which His enemy, even now, in this very parish, is daily inflicting fresh blows, by despoiling him of the goods which he has usurped, and restoring the spoils to Christ. Another question of the greatest practical import, closely connected with this, yet touching another department .of our inner life, is suggested by the second parable. Our Lord deals there with a peculiar case, one in which the evil spirit goeth out of a man, nothing being said of his expulsion by the power of Christ, or of the occupation of the empty palace by its true Lord. The parable has undoubtedly other bearings; its historical sig¬ nificance is obvious; it deals with mysteries in the spiritual world which will be completely ex¬ plained in another state, and may here supply subjects for profitable meditation to thoughtful and devout spirits; but one bearing appears to me specially intended, and specially applicable to the subject which now engages our attention. There is a cer¬ tain state of mind, or rather condition of character, which we are very apt to mistake in our own case, and in that of others, for a decisive spiritual change. Circumstances alter; the mental faculties, or the 2 A 2 356 ■ KO NEUTEALITY IN EELIGION. Sermon XXIV. physical constitution, undergo a change ; new pro¬ spects are perhaps opened, new interests occupy the mind, and all at once some habit long indulged without restraint, or some passion which, resisted or not resisted, always had its own way, suddenly seems to lose its hold upon a man. The unclean spirit goes out of him: he feels himself, to his own surprise, an altered man; and has in most cases a certain complacency in what must he regarded as a positive amendment: his house, his whole nature is swept and garnished. All seems well with him : he recovers the esteem and confidence 0 / his friends, cold looks are replaced by cordial greetings, his words command attention, his way is smooth; the profligate youth has become a decent, orderly man; the unthrifty spendthrift a careful and prosperous trader, habits and objects not necessarily in them¬ selves vicious, quite compatible at least with a fair reputation and a self-approving conscience, replace the discarded, and now despised pursuits of former years. Such changes are frequent; we see them daily—almost each transition in life, from childhood to youth, youth to manhood, manhood to old age ; almost every great change of outward circumstances brings them about; and in the case of others who present these symptoms of amendment, we should incur the deep and deadly sin, which of all others drew forth the wrath of the Saviour, if we judged them harshly, or looked with coldness upon what Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 357 may, for aught we know, proceed from an inner and moral conversion. But for ourselves, let each man say for himself,—What does such a change prove ? It proves this, indeed : a time, an oppor¬ tunity is granted ; an opening for thorough restora¬ tion ; but as for the result, as for the work really achieved with reference to salvation, it proves nothing. The one question is, whether the heart is changed; whether the heart is occupied, full of love, freed from selfishness, hating sin because it is sin: if not, the unclean spirit may he gone out, but the home is still his—when he comes back, its fair show, its orderly arrangement, will but attract him, give a zest to his re-entrance. Have none here ever felt how the memory of some old sin, long forsaken, it may be really loathed and hated, comes back; how it seeks admission into the heart, how it acts upon the passions, strikes the chord of old associations, stirs up feelings which you had almost ceased to realize as parts of your being? Has not each and all of the unclean spirits, which you ever allowed even a temporary mastery, thus striven at times to force an entrance : envy, hatred, pride, sensuality, all the legion of the foul enemies of God and man, now coming singly, now gathering together to storm the citadel ? And if this be true ; if in some degree, at some moments, it be true of all ; true even of the sincere Christian; the man I’enewed in heart and spirit; the man who hates. 858 NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. Sermon XXIV. resists the tempterj and keeps him out,—what must it be of that man among us who never sought to banish the evil thought because it was evil; who simply ceased to be haunted for a time by passions to which his position or state afforded no aliment ? Can we wonder if, of such a man, Christ, who never was sought, whose love was unregarded, should say, that ‘ ‘ the evil spirit goeth and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than him¬ self : and the last state of that man is worse than the first ” ? Oh! the misery, the blank, hopeless misery of an old age abandoned to the dominion of hateful feelings, torn by unsated passions, antici¬ pating the tortures of the outer darkness, the fire that cannot be quenched! Let us, at least, make no such mistake ; let us not he flattered by a false peace. He who is not with Christ is against Him; he who gathereth not with Him scattereth. Let that he our test now daily, whenever we would care to know what is our real condition before God. And to make one more application of the same truth, if we would forward the real wellbeing of our brethren, we shall not rest satisfied with the measures which natural benevolence, the philan¬ thropy that, whatever may be our faults, is un¬ doubtedly the characteristic of our age and country, may devise for their comfort, instruction, or general improvement. These measures we must, indeed, be the very foremost in promoting; they belong to Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 359 Christs people by a peculiar right; they are the results of Christ’s spirit working far beyond the limits of His spiritual manifestation, giving His impress to the civilization of Christendom, even where He, the author, is unknown or- forgotten. Those measures, indeed, as the collectors of charit¬ able contributions well know, you, my Christian brethren, you, brethren, in whom Christ is most powerful, are now, and ever will be, foremost in promoting. Hospitals, public baths, schools, associa¬ tions for improving the dwellings of the poor, for inculcating the true principles of sanitary reform, all these find in Christian men the originators and steady supporters; but to keep the unclean spirit out, to save the poor man, the poor woman, the poor children from brutality and vice, from physical and moral contamination, there is but one power— the regenerating presence of Christ in the heart. He who is not with Christ in addressing himself to the reformation of our poor, neglected, oppressed, and suffering brethren—forlorn and lost sheep who have indeed lost their Saviour—is against Him; he who aideth not in gathering them into Christ’s fold so far as lies in him, scattereth them, to his own unutterable shame, to the ruin of their souls. Brethren, I stand here to ask you to contribute to the fund for additional curates and Scripture readers; to contribute with more than former liberality, since it rests with you to decide whether 360 NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. Sermon XXIV. the work done in this parish shall, or shall not, be carried on with its present efficiency, or be seriously damaged. It is needless to show the bearings of the truths we have been considering upon the work of the parochial ministry, upon the duties of all members of the Church; but, speaking as one who has had peculiar opportunities of observing the labours of those who are truly, though it may be sometimes invidiously, called the working clergy, and of appreciating the results,—as one, moreover, who can speak somewhat more freely, with less suspicion of personal motives, than most of my brethren,—I may be permitted, I feel myself, indeed, constrained, to avow my conviction, that if Christ has anywhere men who do the hardest, the most painful, and, but for His sustaining presence, the most repul¬ sive work, with the least imaginable inducements of a temporal character,—if in any men disinterested¬ ness and earnestness, zeal and love, are combined,— such are the men who, as the agents and representa¬ tives of the whole body of the Church, are minister¬ ing in its subordinate offices among the poor of London. The energies of all ministers are now severely taxed; they must take their part in the conflicts raging in the higher regions of intel¬ lectual life; must defend the faith assailed by the most subtle stratagems ever devised by the enemy; must struggle to maintain “the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,” in the very midst of trials Sermon XXIV. NO NEUTRALITY IN RELIGION. 361 calculated to rouse bitter and indignant passions. In that work we have, however, much to support us; the very effort has its own not unpleasurable excitement, its own reward for educated men con¬ scious of rectitude of purpose, of powers rightly employed in the service of Christ, and sure that the results of present, as of all previous conflicts, must be a clearing of the spiritual atmosphere, the advancement and triumph of the cause of truth. But to follow Christ whithersoever He goeth, to be with Him not only in the onward march, in the midst of glorious perils, and in the companionshi23 of noble spirits, but with Him in the dark haunts of misery and vice; to stand with Him by the sick bed of the forlorn and destitute, the heart-stricken, or the callous and impenitent sinner; to breathe with Him in the stifling atmosphere of unwhole¬ some hovels; to go with Him into the very fast¬ nesses where the strong man keeps his goods in peace; where the unclean spirits banished from the homes of light and order fix their dreary and desolate abodes; to snatch with desperate effort the half-consumed brand from the burning; that is indeed a work which tries a man ; that is a cross which needs a Saviour’s strength in His servants to bear. And that work is done, done imperfectly, done ill the midst of weakness, done with frequent failures, but done in a spirit, with an energy, ay, and with results, which fill the heart of all who 2 B 3G2 NO NEUTEALITY IN EELIGION. Seemon XXIV. have a touch of Christ’s love in them with grati¬ tude and joy. Why speak of this ? why, but to point out one way in which each and all may find some ground for peace and hope, when he takes to heart that great word of the Lord Jesus, ‘‘ He who is n. t with Me is against Me, and he who gathereth not with Me scattereth.” THE END. LONDON: I'KIN'fED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, SXAJIEOKD STKEET, AND CHAKING CKOSS. I ,r