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 "THE OPEN JUDGMENT." 
 
 SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, ALBANY STREET, 
 
 SAINT PANCRAS, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. J. W. FESTING, M.A., Vicar, 
 
 On the Morning of the Third Sunday in Advent, 
 14th DECEMBER, 1884. 
 
 Published by Request. 
 
 A. MACKAY & Co., 185, Albany Street, N.W. 
 1885.
 
 "THE OPEN JUDGMENT." 
 
 A 
 
 SKRMON 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, ALBANY STREET, 
 
 SAINT PANCRAS, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. J. W. FESTING, M.A., Vicar, 
 
 On the Morning of the Third Sunday in Advent, 
 14th DECEMBER, 1884. 
 
 Piihlislied by Request. 
 
 ILonlioit : 
 
 A. MACKAY & Co., 1S5, Albany Street, N.W. 
 
 1885.
 
 This Sermon is printed in deference to the strongly expressed 
 wish of some who heard it. 
 
 Those who know the published Sermons of the present Bishop 
 of Ely, and a volume of Parochial Sermons by the late Professor 
 Mozley, will see how largely I am indebted to them. 
 
 J. W. FESTING.
 
 St. Luke xii., 2. — " There is nothing covered that shall not be 
 revealed ; neither hid that shall not be known." 
 
 These words, or some very like them, expressing the same 
 idea, were used by our Lord on more than one occasion. In 
 St. Matthew x. we read that when he was warning his disciples 
 of the persecutions they would have to endure, how they 
 would have to be as their Master in meeting with opposition 
 and insult at the hands of men, he said " Fear them not : for 
 there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid 
 that shall not be known." The secret fear that holds men 
 back, the secret courage, courage that triumphs over fear, 
 shall one day be made known. 
 
 On another occasion (St. Luke viii.), just after the 
 Parable of the Sower, our Lord called the attention of His 
 disciples to the purposes for which knowledge is given, and 
 He did so by using the figure of Light, and pointing to men's 
 ways. " No man," He says, " who lights a candle, immediately 
 covers it over and hides it away ; he sets it out where its light 
 can spread around. For nothing is secret that shall not be 
 made manifest : neither anything hid that shall not be known 
 and come abroad. Take heed, therefore, how ye hear." If 
 God gives you the Light of Truth, He means it to shew itself 
 in you before the world, and not to be covered over and made 
 useless by negligence and forgetfulness. 
 
 In the passage from which my text comes the words are 
 connected with a different subject — " Beware ye of the leaven 
 of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing 
 covered that shall not be revealed ; neither hid that shall not 
 be known." 
 
 We may set on one side by itself the second passage to 
 which I have called your attention. Our Lord is speaking 
 there of God's way of teaching men. Truths are taught 
 secretly ; they are wrapped up in parables ; they are like the 
 
 A 2
 
 little seed sown in the darkness of the earth — they are com- 
 municated to men in the silences, the darknesses, the solitudes 
 of life. But taught secretly, they are to be proclaimed openly. 
 " What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light : and 
 what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the housetops." 
 Bring forth the Light of Truth, set it up where it can be seen 
 and be of use. Let it illumine your heart and conscience, 
 your whole life ; let it illumine the lives of others. God's pur- 
 pose is, that that which is covered shall be revealed, and that 
 which is hid shall be known. Recognize this purpose. Don't 
 let the hidden remain hidden. As you hear the Word, look 
 for that secret which is to be made known to you and to 
 transform you. Take heed how ye hear. 
 
 By following such a line of thought we are easily led to 
 that which the other passages bring more distinctly and more 
 directly before us ; they point on to a great disclosing of 
 secrets in the future. In the view of that disclosure, the dis- 
 ciples are to find the ground why, with regard to one set of 
 circumstances they were not to fear, but they are also to find 
 the ground why, with regard to another, they were to take 
 heed and beware. 
 
 It is of a future — a future different in character from the 
 present state of things in which we now find ourselves — that 
 our Lord is speaking in the text. For these words give the 
 reason why they are to beware of being like the Pharisees in 
 their hypocrisy ; but it is not the mere dread of exposure now 
 in this life that is put forward ; our Lord does not say this 
 only. Do not pretend to be something you are not, for you 
 will be found out. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees was some- 
 thing deeper, something more subtle than that coarse hypocrisy 
 which consists of putting on a character just for a time. 
 It was not an hypocrisy which sought to deceive the eye of 
 the world ; it was an unconscious hypocrisy to a great 
 extent, the man professing to be religious and thinking him- 
 self religious; his fault lying not so much in the inconsistency 
 between his life and his profession, as in the character of his 
 profession, in the idea of religion which he had formed. It 
 
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 5 
 
 was an hypocrisy which followed upon the not taking heed 
 how the word of God was heard, how the secret things in it 
 were to be manifested. So it was not of detection by other 
 men that our Lord was speaking, but of some more thorough 
 sifting of the character. And then in what follows, He leads 
 the minds of His hearers on into the future ; He speaks of 
 the time when He shall have to confess men or to deny them 
 before His Father which is in Heaven, It is clear, then, that 
 the words do refer to that great future which awaits us. The 
 truth they express is that which finds place in to-day's epistle, 
 where St. Paul speaks of the coming of the Lord, who both 
 Avill bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will 
 make manifest the counsels of their hearts. The truth ex- 
 pressed is that great one, that in the day of judgment all 
 things will be laid bare. All things, indeed, are now open to 
 the eyes of God ; there is nothing which He needs to have 
 revealed or made known to Him. But all things will then be 
 revealed and made known before angels and men ; yes, re- 
 vealed and made known to man himself. Now, in this life, 
 many things are covered over and hid — many things, good as 
 well as bad. God's judgments are in the world even now ; 
 for God ruleth all things, but we cannot trace out His ruling. 
 The causes of things, the real character of things, the conse- 
 quences of things are all very much hidden. " I know nothing 
 by myself," St. Paul says in to-day's epistle, " I cannot accuse 
 myself of anything," (he is speaking of his discharge of the 
 duties of his apostleship), "yet am I not hereby justified. 
 There are parts of my life, parts of my very self, which are 
 hidden from me, though known to God." 
 
 But that secrecy which is part of the present order of 
 things will be done away with hereafter. The Bible puts 
 strongly before us that the future judgment will be an open 
 judgment ; in the first place it will be before all and address 
 itself to the conscience of all ; and then, secondly, it will 
 make all things manifest, even the very secrets of the heart. 
 All this, as I have just said, is a great contrast to the state 
 of things in which we live. It is not that there are no 
 
 A 3
 
 judgments of God working now in the world, that there is 
 no system of consequences which is a system of rewards and 
 punishments, for there is all this, but for the most part it is 
 now secret. Here is the great difference. Now, we do not 
 see how our present circumstances ; the things that affect us 
 now are springing out of things that have gone before. Look 
 at the matter in this way : consider one or two points which 
 are suggested by the thought of our dependence on others, the 
 way in which our life is constantly affected by the action of 
 others. Our life is so affected. People do not always tell 
 us, and in fact they could not always tell us, why they treat 
 us as they do. Yet things we have said or done, perhaps 
 little things, have made them form an opinion about us, 
 which guides them in their treatment of us. Think how 
 common offences of the tongue are. " If any man offend not 
 in tongue," says St. James, " the same is a perfect man." We 
 may have said something hastily. We may have said some- 
 thing which was unkind, which was insolent, which was 
 untrue. People who heard it did not point out the wrong to 
 us. They did not declare what they thought of us. They 
 were silent, but they remembered. To say the least they 
 retained an impression that we were thoughtless and inac- 
 curate, or that we were were unreliable and not to be trusted 
 with a secret, or that we were self-seeking, and this impression 
 made them act differently from what they might have done. 
 We lost something which their kindness and goodwill might 
 have procured for us. We have brought evils upon ourselves, 
 and also, besides bringing evil on ourselves, we have turned 
 aside blessings which were coming on us. And this last evil 
 is perhaps a greater one than the former, while certainly it is 
 the more hidden from us. We are conscious of the evils of 
 our position, though we cannot trace back the causes, but we 
 are quite ignorant of the many blessings which were very 
 near us, but have not come upon us. Perhaps if we could 
 see all that has surrounded our path of life, we should be 
 astonished at their multitude. We should be astonished to 
 find how often we have thwarted God's good purposes for us
 
 by our own negligence, bad temper, indolence, forgetfulness 
 of right, or positive wrong doing of some kind, how we have 
 unwittingly punished ourselves. 
 
 A great deal in life is hidden now from our eyes. It is 
 part of the present system which God has ordained, a system 
 which is to test men's characters, that we should not see 
 clearly how His justice is working in the world, how it is 
 working in our own life. " Verily," says Isaiah, " Thou art a 
 God that hidest thyself" "He purposely conceals His plans 
 of action and allows them to perplex us as enigmas."* 
 
 The working of divine justice in the world now is a 
 hidden working — it will be at the last an open working. But 
 it is not only the working that will be open and manifest, but 
 the grounds on which it works. Now it takes cognizance of 
 things which are secret and hidden from man, but those 
 things will then be revealed and made known. It will deal 
 openly with things that are open. This is a truth which must 
 awe us. It is one which the Bible puts before us constantly, 
 that "God will bring every work into judgment, with every 
 secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." And 
 not only that he brings it all into judgment now in His 
 dealings with us during life — in the consequences that flow 
 from every secret thing, consequences in the external cir- 
 cumstances, in the fortunes of our life as we call them, 
 consequences in the changes that come more or less gradually 
 in the heart and mind and character, those gradual changes 
 which are so very secret, but which may be so very terrible in 
 their end ; not only is there all this, but the Bible also tells 
 us that in the day of the Lord the secrets of the heart shall 
 be made manifest. Judgment and the grounds of judgment 
 will be made plain before all. Our Lord will not whisper His 
 judgments into the ear of each. He will not even declare the 
 sentence without giving his reasons. All will be made 
 known. Secrets ! There is a power in that word to make 
 each think and speak softly, and almost hold his breath. 
 Secrets ! Have you ever seen a man surprised into betraying 
 
 * For this quotation and the ideas expressed in this part of the Sermon, see 
 Mozley's Parochial Sermons, p. 341, "The Secret Justice of Temporal Providence."
 
 8 
 
 some secret about himself which told against him ? What 
 pain and perhaps shame was there ! Yet it was but one 
 secret, one out of many, and one out of the many which he 
 had himself hidden away and knew of. But there are other 
 secrets, man does not know all about himself. It is bad 
 enough to think of being compelled to say before others 
 what we do know about ourselves, but what an aggravation 
 to all that is terrible in the disclosures of that day is the 
 thought of the secrets unknown to ourselves, which the 
 records of our life contain. 
 
 The secrets of your life, the secrets that you know, could 
 you face them here before God and this congregation .'' The 
 unknown secrets, what of them ? Yet all will be set forth, 
 open and manifest, before God and the great congregation of 
 angels and men at that day. 
 
 And there are unknown secrets — it is no rhetorical artifice 
 to speak of them. The only man who doubts it is the man 
 who knows nothing about himself, who is one great secret to 
 himself, being utterly blind. Men who have thought at all have 
 ahvays spoken of the difficulty of self-knowledge. So much 
 of our life passes away out of our remembrance. So much 
 that we try to seize in it for examination slips away from 
 our grasp. Who can number, who can remember the actions 
 of a single day .-' How incessant is the activity of life, that 
 outward activity which others can perceive. But there is for 
 each of us another world of activity than that external world 
 which lies around us ; there is another w'orld in the heart of 
 each. " Thoughts and passions, motives and wishes, hopes 
 and fears, lusts and abhorrences, hatreds and affections, inten- 
 tions and resolutions, of good and of evil, these are the 
 shadowy inhabitants of that inner world. Shrouded in 
 darkness they hustle one another. Now they prompt our 
 outward deeds — now our outward deeds are but the cloak 
 beneath which they disguise themselves, so that men perceive 
 them not. Now they show themselves openly to all, now we 
 ourselves are deceived as to their real character."* 
 
 * Bishop of Ely's Sermons — Vol. I., p. 268. — " The Secrets of the Heart."
 
 Who is there : who, as he looks into himself and thinks, 
 does not wonder and fear at that busy world within him ? 
 And we see it not all. The heart is deceitful above all 
 things ; who can know it ? Our own motives and purposes, 
 our own objects, do not always stand out clear before us. 
 But " the eyes of the Lord are in every place," and what He 
 sees now shall one day be stripped of every covering and laid 
 bare before the eyes of all. 
 
 My brethren, think of this. Think of it, not as something 
 which a preacher is bound to say in an Advent Sermon, but 
 as something which really lies before yoii, something which 
 yoit must meet. 
 
 The very secrets of the heart will be made known and 
 will be judged. Religion is something more than external 
 conduct. Our Lord came into the world, and God the Holy 
 Spirit came to dwell in the Church of Christ on earth for 
 something more than to give men such laws as might repress 
 crime and promote benevolence. Think of the Sermon on 
 the Mount. Think of what our Lord there says about the 
 man who looks on a woman to lust after her. There He tells 
 you the kind of judgment He will pronounce ; the secrets of 
 the heart pass before the eyes of Him with whom we have 
 to do. 
 
 Here then is one practical point to which we come. Do 
 you want an Advent resolution } Do you want Advent 
 thoughts to leave a mark on your life, and so to prepare 
 you for your Lord's coming .'' Resolve then to take heed to 
 your thoughts. Resolve before God, looking to Him for 
 help, and knowing that He will help. He will help you 
 through His Holy Spirit ; it will be help in temptation 
 remember, not freedom from temptation, but it will be help. 
 
 Watch your thoughts. Many a one who fears to offend 
 openly, indulges in thought of an offence. For example : 
 there are not a few who have gratified themselves with thoughts 
 how they would like to treat some one who has done them 
 an ill turn as they think. There are not a few who have set 
 themselves up on a pinnacle of greatness or of happiness,
 
 lO 
 
 and imagined life and delighted in the thoughts of its 
 pleasures, where pride or idleness or selfishness have all they 
 ask. Indulgence in bad thoughts, especially indulgence in 
 impure thoughts, is a deliv^ering oneself to the power of the 
 enemy. Such thoughts, when indulged in, as it were, saturate 
 the character and weaken it and degrade it. " Keep thy 
 heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." 
 
 But do not think that we are powerless for good because 
 we know so little of ourselves. Do not be appalled at the 
 thought of secrets working in you, which siiall condemn you 
 at the last. The world within us is in God's hand as well as 
 the world around us, and " His mercy is over all His works." 
 Aspirations after good are noted by Him as well as thoughts 
 of evil. He hears the dumb cry of fear from the startled 
 heart, and hears to deliver His own from the fear of the 
 enemy. Times do come in life when we see ourselves anew, 
 and see what we have not seen before, and if such sight be 
 not always and constantly vouchsafed to us, the remembrance 
 of such times teaches us that we have secret sins ; that we 
 must cry with the Psalmist, " Who can tell how oft he 
 offendeth. O ! cleanse thou me from my secret faults." 
 And we know that of such a cry our Lord's words hold good, 
 " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will 
 give it you." 
 
 I have dwelt upon the idea of the secret evil that is in us, 
 rather than the secret good ; upon the fear, rather than the 
 comfort that the thought of all secrets being known to God 
 must inspire ; and I have done so because we are sinners. 
 And it is the great primary work of God the Holy Ghost to 
 "convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judg- 
 ment." He shews us first of all what must be recorded 
 ao-ainst us that each of us may know what God's mercy in 
 Christ means for him. 
 
 And then He comforts us. He tells us that those who 
 feel the bondage of sin and cry to the Saviour are heard. 
 The world knows nothing of the secret sorrows of such, of 
 their repentance, of their bitter self-accusation, of their humble
 
 II 
 
 cry for pardon, of their trembling hope, of their keen desire 
 for better things, of their contest with self, of the secret 
 troubles of their life, of their secret courage and endurance. 
 The world judges them by another standard. It cannot judge 
 them by the things that are covered and hidden from its eyes. 
 But " there are last that shall be first." The secrets of the 
 heart shall be revealed and the grounds of their exaltation 
 will then be seen. It will then be seen how they lived 
 abiding in the Son, and, therefore, why "at His appearing" 
 they "have confidence and are not ashamed before Him at 
 His coming." They confessed Him before men. They were 
 not afraid of saying and doing the right. They were not 
 hypocrites. They served Him in deed and in tr2itJi. And 
 He abode with them and kept them His. Made members of 
 Him in baptism they remained in Him, living members ; and 
 the life of the divine nature passed into them in their 
 sacramental union with Him, and the strength, and the 
 confidence, and the courage which man's nature needs when 
 it stands in the light of God's presence was given in this 
 imparting of the divine nature. Their nature now is fitted to 
 endure the glory of that day, and they stand confessed by 
 Christ to be His before the Father and all the holy angels, 
 and all fear passes away in the joy of that honour which is 
 theirs. 
 
 Harrisoji and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.
 
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