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GOD IS LOVE.

WHOSO RECEIVETH one SUCH LITTLE CHILD
IN MY NAME, RECEIVETH ME.

TWO SERMONS
I'llKACHliD
(with the S-iNCTION OF THE LORD BISHOP)
IN THE
CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY,
ILFRACOMBE,
IN BEHALF OF
A NEW CHURCH, AND OF THE PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS,
ON THE TENTH AND TWELFTH SUNDAYS AFTER TRINITY, 1844.

BY THE
REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBRETV, CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH,
LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

The ¦profits to he given in aid of the neio Church.
OXFORD,
JOHN HENKY PARKER;
J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON, LONDON ;
J. BANFIELD AND T. BOWDEN, ILFRACOMBE.
1844.

BAXTER, PRINTER, OXfOKD"

TO THE
RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD
HENRY
LORD BISHOP OF EXETER,
THE FOLLOWING SERMONS ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
WITH THE EARNEST PRAYER
THAT HIS ZEAL FOR THE POOR OF CHRIST
MAY BE RETURNED INTO HIS OWN BOSOM
IN GIFTS OF GRACE HERE
AND IN MERCY AND LOVING-KINDNESS
IN THE DAY OF .JUDGMENT.

1 John iv. 16, 17.
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God,
and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that
we may have boldness in the Day of Judgment ; because
as He is, so are we in this world.

is

Very awful, in nature or in grace, is the exceeding-
nearness of God. By nature, we know that we are
encompassed by God, "for in Him," saith the Apostle,
" we live and move and have our being." We see
not the air by which we are surrounded, we often are
scarcely sensible of it, imless God give it power to
oppress or to refresh us; we are surrounded by God,
yet we see Him not; yea, men can even be chastened
or refreshed by Him, yet know Him not. And yet
nearer is He than the very air we breathe within us ;
for it is but His creature to uphold our life, our being-
is in Him. It is, at most, the breath of our bodies ;
He is the life of our souls, the Spirit of our spirits.
But nearer and more awful yet is His nearness by
Grace. We speak, as if we knew wherefore we spake,
of Grace, and Love, and Righteousness, and while
we speak, we forget of Whom we speak. For what
is man's Righteousness, but Christ Himself? or
Grace, but His Indwelling Spirit, shed abroad within
the heart? or Love, but God? Herein is the
B

exceeding love of God, not only that He has made
and remade us; not only that, being sinners, He
accounts us righteous, but that He is our Righteous
ness ; not that He gives us strength, out of Himself,
but that Himself is our strength within us. in this
the Psalmists rejoiced of old, not only that God gave,
but that He Himself is " our refuge and strength,"
our defence and our peace, our salvation and our gloiy,
the strength of our heart, and our portion for ever ".
And what the Holy Ghost meant by these their words,
we understand better than they themselves did, for
they searched what or what manner of thing the
Spirit which was in them did signifj'; we know its
fulness ; for we know that He Who became our
salvation, and Who shall be the glory of His Elect,
hath not left His own as orphans here, but has come
again, as He promised, by His Spirit, to dwell in
them and they in Him. And if He dwell in us, as
Holy Scripture saith, then His gifts and graces are
not sepai-ate from Himself, or from that first great
Gift, His Spirit; they are part of His life in us.
As the fruit has in it of the life of the plant, and
withers, if that life be checked, so ai-e " the fruits of
the Spirit," begun, nourished, enlarged, if so be,
perfected in us, by the continual Presence of His
Life, His own indwelling, in the soul. They are
outward forms of His Life within. This His in
dwelling is the greatness of our privilege and our
- Ps. xiv. 6. xvi. 6. x.wii. 1. xxviii. 7. xlvi. 1. Ixii. 8. xlviii. 3. lix. 9,
17. Ixii. 7. Ixxiii. 26. xci. 2, 9. cxviii. 14. cxix. 57, 114, &c.

awe. It is, as a truth of nature, the most aweful
character of sin, that all sin is done not against only,
but within, God, since " in," within, " Him," encom
passed by Him, " we live and move ;" sin in Chris
tians is more awful yet, in that it is wrought not only
against God as without us, but as grieving the very
Presence of the Spirit within us. This, as far as He
frees us from sin, and we have, through His grace,
willed to be free, is our glory and joy, that we are
not our own; our actions, as far as they are good, are
not our own ; our love, our light, our understanding,
our wills, our gifts, our graces, our deeds of holiness
and love, are not our own, but His within us. " We
groan being burthened," saith the Apostle, but " our
groaning" for our heavenly home, the very fainting
of our minds, the weakness, as it seems, as well as
the strength of our spirits, is His; they are the
"unutterable groanings''" of the Spirit; He, the
True Light, is the light of our minds, and what we
see, we see through His light within us ; we think,
but He informeth the mind; we speak, but if the
words be good, it is " the Spfrit of our Father which
speaketh in'^^" us; we act, but if the actions be good,
they " are wrought in God," and He " hath wrought
all our works in us*." Nay, we ourselves are con
scious of this. Cometh a holier thought into our
souls, we know that it is not from us : cometh a gush
of devotion upon us, it descends upon us and masters
and overfloweth us, and beareth us along, and we are
*> Rom. viii. 26. ' Matt. x. 20. '' Joh. iii. 21. Is. xxvi. 12.
B 2

conscious only to ourselves that we are sluggish and
heavy, with difficulty upborne by its tide : cometh a
ray of light upon us, it flashes and lightens up our
souls, but is not of us : are we borne along to some
more devoted action? the impulse, we feel, is within
us, not of us ; we yield to it, give up our wills to it,
but from us it came not : are we melted into tears at
the thought of our Saviour's love, we know that, of
ourselves, we might have stood cold and dry even at
the foot of that di-ead Tree, unless His Eye had
fallen upon us, and " melted" our icy hearts " that
the waters flowed :" do our hearts burn within us, we
feel that His words have kindled them, "as He talked
with us by the way :" are we, in deep soitow, upborne,
and rest calmly on the surface of the waves? we know,
by its very unearthliness, that the deep calm is not
our own, but that He hath shed His peace, yea, He
Himself " is our Peace'" within us, and holds all
our powers in suspense, bound up and resting upon
Him. Our spirits, then, bear witness to us, that what we
have, we have not of ourselves, but of God; but to
the deep truth they could not witness, that not only
are all our powers thus set in motion or at rest,
kindled, enlightened, directed, lulled, softened, in-
strengthened, by Him, but that He doth it, not as He
said, " Let there be light, and there was light," but by
being Himself within and without us, above, beneath,
around us; Himself enfoldmg us on all sides and
¦• Eph. ii. 14.

wrapping us round as a robe ', since we " have put
on Christ;" Himself within us, since " Christ dwells
in our hearts by faith ;" Himself the Abode wherein
we dwell, and the Indweller ; for " whoso dwelleth in
love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."
Nor is this love our own ; how should it, since it
is Himself? for "God is Love." This is the ex
ceeding amazingness of His love, that the very
power whereby we love is His, is Himself. It is
not only that " we love Him, because He first loved
us," not as though we must love Him Who hath so
loved us ; but further still, because He has given us
the love wherewith we love Him, because " the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us." " The love of God
shed abroad" within us, is the Presence of God
within us, for "God is Love^;" and whereas the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are alike Love, it has
been thought by holy men'' that as in some special
' S. Chrys. Horn. xxiv. in Rom. xiii. 14. " He giveth us the Lord
Himself, the King Himself, for a garment. For whoso is clad all
round with Him, hath ahsolutely all virtue. But saying, ' Put ye
on,' he biddeth us he clad all around with Him on every side, as
he saith elsewhere, ' If Christ be in you,' (and Eph. iii. 16, 17.)
For He willeth that our soul should be a house for Him, and
Himself to encompass us as a cloke, that He may be all to us,
within and without — the House and the Indweller, ' for he that
dwelleth in Me and I in him ;' " (more fully p. 409. Oxf. Tr.)
S. Aug. in Ep. Joh. Tr. ix. " Be God thy House, aud be thou the
house of God ; abide in God and let God abide in thee."
s " So truly is Love the gift of God, that It is called God."
S. Aug. Ep. 186.
•¦ S. Aug. de Trin. xv. 17. §. 31. add vi. §. 7. and in Ep. Joh.
Tr. 7. §. 4—6.

way the Son is called " the Wisdom of God" while
yet the Father and the Son are also Wisdom, so
also in some special way the Holy Ghost is Love;
for Scripture says not only " God is Love," but
" love is of God," God proceeding from God ; and
whereas it saith, " Whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God and God in him," it saith again, " Hereby
we know that we dwell in Him and He in us, from
the Spirit which He hath given us," so that the
love whereby we dwell in God and God in us, is
His Indwelling Spirit. Such is the depth of the
mystery of the Incarnation, that God would, in our
degree, give us all which is His. His very Being is
Love. He loved ever His Coequal, Coeternal Son,
by the Spirit, Who is the Love and Bond of Both ;
He loveth the Human Nature of His Son, as joined
in One Person with the Son of His love ; and now
He loveth us as joined on to Him Whom He loveth
everlastingly'. And that we may love Him, He
hath given us His Spirit, that Spirit of Love, in
Whom the Everlasting- Father loved His Coeternal
Son, so that He Who is the Bond of Both'', by
Whom the Father loveth the Son and the Son the

' " He loveth the Son according to the Godhead, because He
begat Him Equal with Himself; He loveth Him according to
that He is Man, because the Only-Begotten ¦ Word' Himself
' was made Flesh,' and for the sake of the Word, the Flesh of the
Word is dear unto Him; but us He loveth, because we are His
members Whom He loveth, and that we might be such. He loved
us before we were." S. Aug. Tr. 1 10. in S. Joh. §. 5.
" S. Aug. Serm. ad pop. 71. (21. Oxf. Tr.) §. 18.

Father, Himself Coequal and Coeternal God, should
be the Bond of our love with the Father and with
one another. For if we have the Spirit of Christ,
then have we Chi-ist dweUing in us, then are we.
He hath said, the dwelling-place of the Trinity,
since He has said, " If a man love Me he will keep
My words, and My Father will love him, and We
wiU come unto him, and make Our abode with
him'." Yea, so doth He interchange with us, that
He speaketh as if it were the same thing, that He
should dwell in us, or we in Him; we in Him the
Infinite or He in us the finite ; we lost, yet existing
still, in the boundless Ocean of His love, or His
overflowing love enlarging the narrow mansions of
our hearts, that It may fill them with Itself.
" Whoso dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and
God in him." Oh, thought beyond all thought.
Oh, " the length and breadth and depth and
height" of the love of God, the fourfold measure of
the Cross of Christ, the depth, saith one'", in
humility, the length in long-suffering, the breadth
in all-embracing charity, the height in eternity,
which not only stooped to behold us where we lay,
but came down to us, became as one of us, that we
might be like Him ; ascended where He was before,
' S. John xiv. 23.
" The meaning of the fourfold measure of the Cross is often
spoken of by S. Aug. e. g. Ep. 140. §. 63, 64. Serm. 53. (23.
Oxf. Tr.) §. 15, 16. S. 165, 3. 4. &c. chiefly with reference to

to send down the Spirit Who is Love", and by
Himself and His indwelling love, as in a chariot of
fire, bear us up unto Himself, from earth to heaven.
Well then may " love" be the first of the gifts of
the Spirit, from which all others flow, the one
fountain, gushing out from Paradise, and with its
fourfold streams encompassing the whole earth, and
enriching and blessing it with countless fruits ; and
the law and the prophets hang on it, yea itself be
" the fulfilling of the law," since it flows forth from
Him Who gave the law, and the law is but a fence
against the lawless love of self, the enemy of true
love ; well may it " cover the multitude of sins ^,"
since His "love is a fire consuming all sinf," and
whoso " loveth much is much forgiven ;" and it
alone dares to say the prayer for forgiveness,
" Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us." Well may it be greater than
hope and faith, since faith shall pass into vision, and
hope which is seen is no longer hope, but love must
abide for ever, since it is from God and to God, and
" God is Love." And so, if we have love, shall we
" " Truly the Lord ascended into the heavens, that He might
be higher than the heavens and send down charity.'' S. Aug. in
Ps. 103. §. 10.
" Rom. xiii. 10. see S. Aug. Tr. 17. in S. Joh. §. 6. &c. S. Chrys.
Horn. 77. init. Horn. 2. de S. Pentec. §.3. S. Hil. in S. Matt. iv.
§. 19. S. Ambr. in Ps. 118. lit. 16. §. 44.
!• I Pet. iv. 8. " Love alone extinguisheth sins.' S. Aug. in Ep.
S, Joh. i. 6. add Tr. 5. §. 3.
"> " There is none, absolutely no, sin, which the power of love,
as fire, cnnsmiielh not." S. Chrys. in Ep. 1, ad Thoss. Hom. iv. 4.

" have boldness in the Day of Judgment," for He, our
Judge, has given love as the one mark, for which
He shall own His sheep; with love we could not
perish, since where love is, there is God, and where
God is, there is Heaven; and to " enter into our
Master's joy," what is it, but to enter into the
fulness of that love, which His saints have here but
touched, as it were, for little moments, with the
extremity of their spirits', what is it but to be im
mersed, absorbed, inglorified, in the transfiguring
pui'ity and brightness of His love ? " If we love ',
believing and not seeing, how shall we love, when we
see and possess" God ?
Love then is the sign of life, our safety in Sacra
ments ', the mark of Christ's disciples, the beginning
and ending, the mother and foundation of all
virtues, the earnest of the Spirit, inviting and
waiting for Its fulness. Martyrdom without love
were death of the soul; faith the confession of
devils ; sacraments were received to our hurt ;
miracles a testimony against us ; the tongues of
Angels a tinkhng cymbal ; the knowledge of
mysteries a swelhng vanity; but love, as it cannot
' See S. Aug. Conf. ix. 10. Oxf. Tr.
' " Si enim amamus, cum non videmus, quomodo amplectemur
cum viderimus." S. Aug. in Ep. Joh. Tr. v. 7. " If It thus
delighteth us when strangers, how shall we rejoice, when in our
home !" ib. x. 8. " Never shall we cease loving God, but the more
we gaze upon Him, so much the more shall we love Him.''
S. Iren. 4. 12. 2.
' sacramentoruin salus. S. Aug.

10
be without faith", so it gives or replaces knowledge,
or wisdom, or speech, or, (if they be not unlovingly
laid aside,) even Sacraments themselves, for " God
is Love." To tell what that love should be, would be to say
what God is Who gives it, for had we that love
fully, we should be wholly perfect. Fitter for such
as me to say what are the beginnings of it, if so be
God may give the increase, that " nourished" and
growing, being perfected, it may perfect you ;" for
in the same father's words, " Love begun, is righte
ousness begun; love advanced, is advanced righte
ousness; great love, great righteousness; perfect
love, were perfect righteousness ^; — though I marvel
" " Have faith with love, for love ye cannot have without faith.
This I admonish, exhort, teach in the Name of the Lord, whom
I love, have faith with love, for ye may have faith without love.
I exhort you not, to have faith. For ye cannot have love without
faith, love, I mean, of God and your neighbour.'' S. Aug. Seim.
90. (40. Oxf Tr.) §.8. " This is that ' goodly pearl' charity,
without which whatsoever thou mayest have ' profiteth thee
nothing ;' which, if thou hast it alone, sufBceth thee." in Ep.
Joh. V. 8.
» S. Aug. S. Iren. 4. 12. 2. " S. Paul teacheth— that love per-
fecteth the perfect man, and that he who loveth God is perfect
both in this world and in that to come."
^ S. Aug. de nat. et grat. fin. he adds here, " but ' love out of a
pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned,' which is then
at its highest in this life, when for it life itself is despised." comp.
de Trin. viii. 8. " How much the Apostle John commends
brotherly love, let us listen ; ' Wh6so loveth his brother abideth
in the light, and there is no offence in him.' It is plain that he
places the perfection of righteousness in brotherly love, for in
whom no offence is, he is perfect."

11
if it admit not of increase when it parteth out of this
mortal life. Yet when or wheresoever it be thus
full, that it can receive no accessions, it is not shed
abroad in our hearts by help of nature or our will,
but by the Holy Spirit Which is given us. Who both
helpeth our weakness, and co-worketh to our healing."
Whereas then this love is two-fold, to God and
man, each implies the other", and Holy Scripture
sets either for the whole ; for if we love God, we
must keep His commandment of love ; and if we truly
love man, what do we love in him but God, or longing
that He may be in him ? Yet, lest we deceive our
selves, Holy Scripture gives us love for man to begin
with, as the sign whether we love God. So our Judge
teaches us of the Day of Judgment ; so saith He to
"^ S. Chrys. in S. Joh. Hom. 77. init. " Seest thou that the
love of God is intertwined with ours, and as it were, one connected
chain. Wherefore sometimes He calls them two commands,
sometimes one ; for if we receive the one, we cannot but have the
other." (quoting S. Matt. xxii. 40. vii. 12. and Rom. xiii. 10.) S.Aug.
ill Ev. Joh. Tr. 65. § . 2. " Think not that in these words of the Lord,
' A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another,'
that greater commandment is passed by, that we should ' love the
Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all
our mind — for on these two commandments,' He saith, ' hang all
the law and the prophets.' But if we understand it rightly, each
is found in each. For he who loveth God, cannot despise Him
when He commandeth to love our neighbour, and whoso holily
and spiritually loveth his neighbour, what loveth he in him, except
God ?" " Whoso loveth his neighbour must needs chiefly love Love
Itself. For God is Love, &c." S. Aug. de Trin. viii. 10. add
§. 12. " Can one love God in a brother, and not love Love? — If
God is Love, whoever loveth Love, loveth God." in Ep. Joh. Tr.
ix. 10.

12
us, "By this shall all men know that ye are My
disciples, if ye love one another." He gives not
miracles as the mark of His discipleship ; (" many
shall say in that day, Have we not in Thy Name
done many wonderful works?") not prophecy or
eloquent speech, (they shall say, " Have we not
prophesied in Thy Name?") not the casting out of
devils, not the confession of His Name, (the devils
confessed in the same words " which St. Peter was
taught of the Father, " Thou art the Christ the
Son of the living God ;") not prayer, not faith, not
love of Himself in Himself, but love of Him in His
members; " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto
Me." Love of God and of man cannot be trulysevered,
since one Fountain of Love, the Holy Spiiit Who is
Love, sends forth both ; we must love our brethren as
He loved us and because He loved us; but the surest
proof to us that we have love, is the love of man for
Christ's sake. If the house stands, we know that the
foundation is there ; if the stream flows, we know that
the fountain is not dry; if the tree bears fruit, we know
that the sap floweth; if man lives, we know that he has
the breath of life ; if man loves man with the love of
God, we know that God hath breathed in him the breath
of spiritual life, and that the Spirit of Christ dwelleth
in Him, that " he dwelleth in God and God in him."
" The love of God," says a holy father"^ out of Holy
^ S. Aug. Serm. 90. ad pop. (40. §. 8. Oxf Tr.) §. 8. et al.
" S. Aug. in Joh. Tr. 17, 8. " The love of our neighbour is a

13
Scripture, " is the first in the order of command ;
the love of our neighbour is first in order of fulfil
ment. As yet thou seest not God; by loving thy
neighbour, thou gainest His favour Whom thou
wouldest see, thou purifiest thine eye to see ; ' if thou
lovest not thy brother whom thou hast seen, how
shalt thou love God, whom thou seest not.' " " Love'
thy brother. For if thou lovest thy brother whom
thou seest, thou shalt with him see God, for thou
shalt see Love Itself, and God dwelleth within thee."
"If charity dwelleth not there, neither does God.
If charity dwelleth there, God dwelleth there. Would
he see Him sitting in Heaven, let him have charity,
and he dwelleth in Him as in Heaven."
Yet love \vith no common love, not with the love
of the world, not with the love of man to man, or
natural affection only. Not to love as man, were to
be less than man ; to be " without natural affection"
was of the deepest sins of the heathen. Natural love,
while it remains such, (I speak not of the Christian
love of parents, which may be of the highest graces,
and win bright crowns,) but natural love is, at best,
a mere instinct ; whenever it is inordinate, it is even
opposed to true love. Love, whereby we shall dwell
certain step to the love of God." c. Adim. c. 6. "If to 'abide'
cometh from love, and love from keeping the commandment, and
the commandment from loving one another, to ' abide in God'
cometh from the love to one another.' S. Chrys. in Ev. Joh.
Hom. 77. 1.
' in Ep. Tr. iv. 7.
" S. Aug. in Ps. 149. 6.

14
in God, must be a Divine love. Love, whereby " we
may have boldness in the Day of Judgment," is such,
that " as He is, so are we in this world;" " as I have
loved you," saith our Blessed Lord, " that ye also
love one another."
How then did Christ love us? "The heighth,
and length, and breadth, and depth" of that love is hid
in God, Who is Love. But I mean, of what sort was
that love, that we "may love as" He "loved" us,
that we " may be in this world, as He is ?"
1. It is, as opposed to mere natural love, an all-
embracing love, not swayed by feelings or emotions
or preferences, but loving all who can be loved, who
may be such as can be loved, or that they may be
loved. The Father loved us not firsts when Christ
had redeemed us, and we were reconciled in Him ;
' " Wherefore the love wherewith God loveth [us] is infinite
and unchangeable. For not from such time as we were reconciled
to Him by the Blood of His Son, did He begin to love us, but
' He loved us before the foundation of the world,' that with the
Only-Begotten we too might be His sons, before we were as yet
any thing. This then, that ' we were reconciled unto God through
the Death of His Son,' is not so to be understood, as though the
Son reconciled us lo Him, so that He should them begin to love
whom He had hated ; (as enemy is reconciled to enemy, so that
they should thereafter be friends and mutually love, having mutually
hated;) but we were reconciled to Him already loving us. (quoting
Rom. V. 8, 9.) — So then, by a wonderful and Divine manner, He
loved us even when He hated us ; for He hated us, as such as He
had not made us; and because our iniquity had not wholly
destroyed His work. He could in each of us both hate what we had
made, and love what He had made." S. Aug. Tr. 110. in Ev. Joh.
§.6.

15
He loved us, if we be Christ's, before the foundation
of the world, with an everlasting, unchanging, love,
unchanging as Himself; He loved us before He
made us, loved us when we had marred His work, in
so far as we were His, not what we made ourselves,
and we might be restored, loved us before He gave
His Son, and so as to give His Son for us. " Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us,
and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
" God commendeth His love toward us, that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." " Beloved,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
What depth of moral misery can be so loathsome,
what so utterly fallen in our eyes, as our whole race
in the pure Eyes of God ? What dare a sinner
shrink from, as being hopeless sinfulness, when
Christ, foreknowing our hardness of heart and
neglect of His calls, and often backsUdings, stUl
loved us, and took " the likeness of our sinful flesh?"
Who of us would not have perished, had Christ
withdravra His love for that same deep sinfulness,
the shew of which keeps back a delicate love?
Christ died for us, being in ourselves hateful, that
we might be such as God could love; He died for
us, though we have again wasted the price of His
Blood. We then must love all, Jews, Turks, Infidels,
and Heretics; all however fallen or staining the
Christian name; all, outcasts from men and mere
human sympathy, " in highways or hedges," " streets
or lanes of the city ;" yea, we must love them the

16
more, would we have a Divine love, because they are
shut out from all love but God's. Can we do no
more, it is much love to pray for sinners, that we,
ourselves, " the chief of sinners," may be saved with
them. And if any speak evil of us, or do evil, revile,
vex, us, these we must love with an especial love,
lest we unawares cease to love them. Could any
malice be so great as our evil against our God ?
2. True love must be a self-denying love. " God
so loved the world, that He gave His Only-Begotten
Son." " Hereby perceive we the love of God, be
cause He laid down His life for us, and we ought to
lay down our lives for the brethren." What if God
knowing our weakness, calls us not now to this, shall
we do nothing ? Have we no witness to beai' that
we are Christ's disciples, because He calls us not to
shed our blood ? As though to stop such excuses,
the Apostle goes on ', " we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's
good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion fr'om him, how dwelleth
* " Whence doth charity begin, brethren ? Ye have heard where
with it is perfected; the Lord also set forth both its end and measure
in the Gospel; (S. John xv. 13.) but ye ask, how can we have this
charity ? Do not despair hastily of thyself; perhaps it has had its
birth, but is not yet perfected ; nourish it, that it die not. — We
have heard wherewith it is perfected, hear we wherewith it begins !
It follows, ' Whoso hath this world's goods, &c.' Lo ! where charity
begins. If thou art not yet equal to die for thy brother, yet he
equal to giving of thy means to thy brother." S. Aug. in loc. Tr.
5. §. 12.

17
the love of God in him ?" Were it much, even to
die for them, for whom, with us, Christ died, that we
might live with Him ? But now He asketh us no
hard thing ; He pities our weakness ; He leaves us
life, nay, if we will, comforts even, indulgences, much
which our sicldiness, or sickly wills, make needful to
us. Blessed they, whose hearts He kindles to part with
these ; but at least let not such of us as are weaker
make our weakness our boast. Some cross at least
He bids us take, in some things to deny ourselves.
The first step to receive the love of God, is to empty
the heart of the love of self «. Cast out self from self,
" the love of th« world and the pride of life," and God
win fill thee. He invites us lovingly, nailed to that
dreadful tree, clothed but with the thickened Blood
which He had poured forth for us, emptying Himself
of all, even of the Blood of His All-loving Heart.
He calls us lovingly, to bear our Cross for Him, for
He will by the bitterness and shame of His, make
ours full of unspeakable sweetness and glory.
3. True love, like the love of God, " seeks not its

^ " There are two loves, of the world and of God ; if the love of
the world indwelleth, there is no entrance for the love of God ; let
the love of the world depart, and that of God indwell. — When thou
hast drained thy heart of earthly love, thou shalt drink in the love
of God ; and now beginneth love to indwell, from which no ill can
come. Wouldest thou have the love of the Father, to be coheir
with the Son ? Love not the world. Shut out the evil love of the
world, that thou mayest be filled with the love of God. Thou art
a vessel, but as yet full; out-pour what thou hast, that thou mayest
receive what thou hast not." S. Aug. in Ep. Joh. Ti". ii. 8. 9.
C

18
own." He needed us not, to create us; He could gain
nothing to the fulness of His love and blessednessj
wherein through all Eternity He reposed in the love
of His Coequal Son, in the Spirit Who is Love.
Being above Being, Wisdom above all Wisdom,
Beauty above all Beauty, Brightness above all
Brightness, and wholly Love, yea Himself all these
and all Perfection in one, and all infinitely, what
could He need of us, Who by His very Nature
needed nothing, Himself the boundless Object of
all-perfect Love, loving and loved infinitely, unceas
ingly, unchangeably, endlessly, in Infinite Love !
And yet He went forth, (to speak reverently,) out of
Himself to love us. He formed us, redeemed us,
God became man, in order to pour into man some
portion of the Infinite Ocean of His love, losing not
His own Fulness, nor yet receiving aught of men.
How could He receive of us, when all of ours is His?
And so He willed our love should be, for it is His
love. Not then, (as our way too often is,) reflecting
on ourselves, dwelling on our deeds, taking pleasure
in them, counting upon them, glad, for our own
sakes, to have them known and remembered. This
is to love ourselves, not man or God. True love is to
love simply those to whom we do good, because they
are or may be God's; to love them, because God
loves or may love them, and they God; to love them
the more, if we have done them any good, because
God came to us in them, to receive in them some
little portion of our poor love. Himself to return it

19
with His own Everlasting Love : it is to long to
pour ourselves forth in love, if we knew how, because
He hath so loved us, and in these He Who loved
us infinitely, willeth to be loved.
4. True love, like the love of God, must be cease
less. All created being hveth through His Love. "All
live unto Him." The all-embracnig flow of His love
circleth through all Creation, carrying every where
life and gladness and light and joy unspeakable, ever
flowing, never retfring, unless repelled, full in all,
according to their measure, as though there were
none beside, yet by its One Omnipresent Love binding
all in one and to Himself. His love is every where,
because it is Himself, and " there is nothing hid from
the heat thereof." It fills the countless Heavenly
host and the spirits of the just, and each thrill or
pulse of love, or calm absorbed rapture in Him, is
of Its ceaseless Presence, ever going forth, yet ever
full, and filling all with Its fulness. And with us,
more marvellous yet, waiting to find entrance, pouring
itself around us this way and that, if at last It may
find some crevice in our stony hearts, whereby we
may admit Him, the everlasting Joy of the Blessed.
So then our love, if it be indeed of that "fire," which
He, our Redeemer, the Sun of our souls, " came" on
earth to "kindle," must be no flickering flame, burning
brightly for a while, fanned, it may be, and quickened
by some passmg gust of feeling, and then dying
down the more as though exhausted; but it must
bum on within us, as a consuming fire, glowing,
c2

20
kindling, burning out all self-love, until nothing
remain within but the love of God, or of man in God,
That passing, capricious, love, love and unlove, ebbing
and flowing, laid dry because it has just seemed full,
loving one and not another, grudging fresh acts of
love, because it has just shewn what it thinks such,
" soon wearied of well-doing," such is not the love
which reflects the love of God, not the love which
has the promise that it " shall have boldness in the
Day of Judgment, because as He is, such are we
in this world."
My brethren, as we trust that God in His mercy
is more present in our Church than heretofore, so it
is one of the surest tokens of that Presence, that
there are more self-denying deeds of love. For
where He is, there must love be, since He is Love.
Yet they are but beginnings. It is the day-break,
the Morning Star; the dawn, we may hope, of a
brighter day, and of the fuller presence of the Sun
of Righteousness. Now we must still speak of
negligence. It is, we must all sadly own, a sign of
decayed love, that in this parish, which when less
peopled had its five Chm-ches\ two only are left, or
" The Church of the Holy Trinity and four Chapels. 1. At
Westercombe, dedicated also to the Holy Trinity (destroyed).
2. At Heaynton, dedicated to S. Mary (destroyed). 3. Of
S. Nicholas, (entire, but desecrated). 4. S. Wardrede, at Legh,
(of late years replaced.) All these remained in 1439. The last
enlargement of the Parish Church was in 1321, at the remon
strance of Bp. Stapledon, when the Church " was zealously length
ened beyond even the Bp's injunctions." (Rev. Mr. Oliver's Eccl.

21
one might say another', once used for God's service,
now for man's, as a beacon how our forefathers loved
and served God, and we neglect Him. Of old, they
who for us occupy thefr business in the great waters,
ever found here in the house of God a haven for
their souls; now, that at once, whole months
through, there may be 400 here, they see, as they
enter, no trace of the house of God, except that
wherein their forefathers worshipped, which we have
desecrated. Yet even these are few. In your own
homes, perhaps 2000 '' are, year by year, shut out
Antiq. of Devon, p. 134.) The only additions since have been some
galleries, almost useless, if not worse.
' The restoration of the Chapel of S. Nicholas, beautifully
situated on a rock at the entrance of the harbour, would not only
remove a profanation, but might facilitate the revival of a pious
practice very lately, if not now, kept up in the neighbourhood, where
the fishei-men regularly assembled in Church, before they went out
for the week's fishing. For the inhabitants it is too small. The
light at the summit of the tower was maintained, all winter through,
"gleaming as a star by night,'' as an act of charity to mariners,
while the Chapel was still hallowed. Veysey's Register, vol.ii. fol. 13.
(14 April, 1622.) [furnished by the Rev. Mr. Oliver.] " It was a
place of special devotion and thanksgiving, especially for mariners
and others who had been saved from shipwreck, as well as of
pilgrimages." [Id. from Bp. Lacy's Register, vol. iii. f. 134.] It
also appears to have been endowed, since (as Mr. O. has remarked,)
" among pensions still paid to Incumbents of Charities, A. 1553,
there is mention of one at ' Ilfracombe, to Jeffry Clapper £3, (who
was not the Vicar.)" [Willis, Hist, of Abbies, t. 2. p. 67.]
'' The population of Ilfracombe is counted at 3,700. The
Church holds 800, (excluding the useless portion of the galleries.)
The calculation of providing for one third is now acknowledged to
he inadequate in any population ; much more in towns, where hardly
any need be hindered from being both at Morning and Evening
Prayer.

22
fi'om the Church, the home arid mother of all. It is
no sign of a Divine love, that two years have passed
away, since the Minister first pressed upon you the
need of another Church for the poor of Christ, and
as yet not one-fifth of the sum required has been
raised. I blattie not. I would but confess our common
negligence. You who live here, have, week by week,
been the objects of the care and love of Godj He
lias supported, blessed^ prospered you, has given you
your yearly or weekly incomes ; others have come to
share your air, for refreshment, health, as it may be,
of wives or children ; this Church has, to the great
loss of those for whom it was built, been open to us ;
they have come and gone ; and the result of all is a
sum, which, but as a beginning, I should be ashamed
to iiame \
These things ought not so to be. We, my
brethren, who, whether here for a shorter or a
longer time, should but for the bond of Christian
love be strangers, have no right to enter this
Church, which is open to us only through love, and
leave it as strangers. We come Sunday after
Sunday, and, if God gives us the hearts, daUy also,
and hope to have gained a blessing, the pardon of
sins we daily confess, gifts of grace, the loving-
kindness of our God. And yet this our gain is
purchased by others' loss. The Church, far too
small for its own people, is, whether by our fault or
theirs, or both, shut to many of them, while we are
here. It may be, they give up their rights willingly.
' £300.

23
If it be not out of indifference to their own souls,
they have more love for us, than we for them ; if
any are tempted by this world's profit, we are doubly
unloving to tempt them to sell their souls. In
winter they come here ; now, they do not or cannot.
One third of this Church (and this same evil is
through our carelessness repeated again and again)
is, Sunday after Sunday, filled by us to whom it
belongs not, and they to whom it belongs are shut out.
For myself, could the evil have thus been remedied,
or had there not been a worse, or might one not in
any degree help to remedy it, I could rather have
stayed or gone away altogether, than thus join
in shutting out from God's House those whose
heritage it is. We can only come here with a safe
conscience, if we aid really, according to our means,
to provide for others. We dare not hope that an un
loving coming will be acceptable to God Who is love.
This is of debt, not of love, not to shew great
love, but not to be very unloving. Yet what is
done out of love, whether debt or free gift to man,
all is alike debt to God, all is alike accepted of God
as the fi-ee service of love. All actions of life may
and ought to be wrought out of love; love sanctifies
penitence, sorrow, joy, kindness, severity', fast,
' " This brief precept once for all is given thee, ' Love,' and do
what thou wilt; if thou be silent, be silent out of love; if thou
speak aloud, speak aloud out of love ; if thou correct, correct out
of love; if thou spare, spare out of love; be the root of love within,
from that root nothing but good can spring." S. Aug. in Ep. Joh.
Tr. 8. §. 8.

24
feast, faith, hope, alms, obedience, prayer ; where it
is, there is all besides; as where it is not, all
besides is worthless, for where it is, there is God,
and He owns the presence of His own Grace, and
accepts all love, not for the worthlessness of our poor
gifts, but for the worthiness of His own Gift of Love,
which He has given us in His Son, and for the sake
of the Son of His Love.
It is a joy to speak and think of love. The very
heart bounds at the name. It speaks of such
unutterable sweetness, of being bathed and bedewed
and overflowed with the tender mercy of our God,
of being admitted into His secret Presence, face to
Face, eye to Eye, to gaze on Him as He Is, to lose
ourselves there in the boundless depth of His
Essential love, to put off ourselves that we may be
clothed with Him, immersed in, filled, satisfied
with, the fulness of Uncreated Love. It is, " what
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart con
ceived," to be like God, " for we shall see Him as He
Is." " Sweet is the name of love," says a father'",
" but more sweet the deed." " My little children,"
says the Apostle, " let us not love in word,
neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Not
in word but in deed did The Father love us, when
He gave His Son to die for us ; not in word but in
deed did God the Son love us, when He laid aside
His Essential glory and wedded Himself to our
shame ; not in word but in deed did He love us,
'¦' S. Aug. in Ep. Joh. Tr. 8. init.

25
when He humbled Himself to the Death of the
Cross, and, as He hung there, our sins pierced
Him more sharply than that aweful bloodstained
Crown of Thorns, or those rending Nails. And
shall we then for ever go on this broad beaten way
of self-indulgence, loving the world and the things
of the world, pleasures, tables, furniture, dress,
ornaments, luxury, finery, all the things which shall
be burnt up, thinking nothing too much to spend
upon ourselves or to gather for our children, un
ashamed to have been so long so unlike Christ, Who
hath so loved us that we might in our brethren love
Him ? For who will say that not only the want of
this Church might not on this very day be supplied,
but all other wants of the poor in this place might
not be at once easily removed, did we place our God
where we set ourselves, His Kingdom and His
Righteousness first, ourselves last; would each or
even many give out of the ability which God hath
given them ? Rather let us consider our ways, fix at
least some portion, which shall be always God's " ; if
we have children, it was counselled of old" to count
Christ as a member of our famiHes; to receive Him,
" " Let us give a portion. What? A tenth ? The Scribes and
Pharisees did this, for whom Christ had not yet shed His Blood.
Yet I cannot keep back what He Who died for us said, ' Except
your righteousness, &c.' Consider what ye do, and with what
means ye do it; how much ye give, and how much ye leave for
yourselves; what ye spend on mercy, what ye reserve lor luxury."
8. Aug. Serm. 85. (35. Oxf. Tr.) §. 5. (more at length.)
° S. Aug. Serm. 86. (36. Oxf Tr.) §. 13. p. 289.

26
Who for us became Man, as it may be, as our
second, third, fourth, chUd, and so give to Him, in
His poor, the portion of one child. For would He
not be " more to us than ten sons ?" If He have pro
vided for any of our children with Himself, then, if
we may, let them have their portion stdl, laid out for
God's service P. He will keep it well for us. Must
we, for the health of ours, increase expense by
sojourning away from home? be part of the expense
to leave a blessing behind us, an offering to our
God. If we saw Christ plainly in our midst, re
ceiving our alms, looking on as we cast in our gifts
into His treasury, we could not refuse Him, we
could not give sparing gifts, with cold or grudging,
self-satisfied hearts, as though we could give much
when giving to Him, our Redeemer and om* God.
Yet where is our faith, if we see Him not now where
He says He is? Where our longings for Him, if
on each occasion or deed of love, we feel Him not
nigh, and our heart burn not within us, and we
dread not to miss Him, or that He stay not with
us ? Where our love, if our hearts are for ever pent
within this ceaseless round of self and sense, what
our eye craves, what the flesh demands, what the
petty pride of life and station exacts, and cannot
burst forth out of ourself, and all these gilded, tinsel,
bonds which hold us, and be joined unto Him, heart
to Heart, think on Him, dwell in Him, until, by
His Spirit, our love be in our degree one with His,
" S. Aug. Serm. 86. (36. Oxf. Tr.) §. 11. 12. (very strongly.)

27
and we long at least to love all, " as He loved us,"
" because He first loved us," with a self-sacrificing
love ? He Who called to S. Paul, yet unconverted,
from heaven, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me,"
in those His members, calleth to each of us as truly,
by the vast misery in this His own land, by that worst
homelessness, of the houseless outcasts from the Church
of God, He calleth to us, if we would hear, in our
inmost hearts, " Why neglectest thou Me ?" Shall not
we too say, "Lord, what wilt Thou have us to do?" and
then " arise, and stand on our feet, and do it." Shall
we have abundance of all things, and our Lord be in
want'? Think we Whose we are, members of Him,
God and Man, crucified for us ; our Hope, His own
Everlasting Love ; our fears, to be shut out from
His Love, where all is hate ; think we of those AU-
gi'acious words, "Enter thou into the joy of the
Lord," and that they only shall hear them, who have
done deeds of love; think we of those dreadful words,
" Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," and that
those who hear them shall not know till then, that in
neglecting the poor and sick and hungry and thirsty
and strangers and destitute, they had despised their
Lord Who, on earth, was such as they, and then as
we would, (it is the word of God,) " have boldness in
the Day of Judgment," let us seek to be in this world
" as He is," love one another as He has loved us, deny
ourselves, that we, through His grace and love, may
gain Him, and (as the source of all) pray for loving
1 S. Aug.

28
self-denying hearts, that unlearning our selfish un
loving ways, we, as He has promised, " dwelling in
love," may " dwell in God, and God in us."
Oh ! blessed Only Saviour, happy they who have
left all to follow Thee, to be where Thou art, to sit
down on Thy throne, to taste of Thy sweetness, to
gaze on Thy Beauty, to be filled with Thy unima
ginable Love. Draw us, Lord, that we may run after
Thee. Look down as from Thy Cross on us. Who
wouldest draw all unto Thee. Kindle, soften, break
our hard cold hearts, that we be ashamed to be so
unlike Thee. Fill our faces with shame, that we may
seek Thy Face. Give us of that love, wherewith Thou
lovedst us, that we, loving- Thee in Thy members,
may be loved of Thee and owned of Thee, and enter
into Thine Everlasting Love, Who with The Father
and the Holy Ghost art One God, to Whom be
blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and
power and might for ever and ever. Amen.
O God, Who hast prepared for them that love
Thee such good things as pass man's understanding;
Pour into our hearts such love toward Thee, that
we, loving Thee above all things, may obtain Thy
promises, which exceed all that we can desire ;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

S. Matt, xviii. 5.
Whoso shall receive one such little child in My Name,
receiveth Me.
The Mystery of the Incarnation has changed every
thing upon earth, and encompassed us with mysteries
as with blessings. How should it not ? Were it not
far more strange that that overwhelming Mystery
should stand alone, should yield no fruit, should not
wrap us round and round with aweful mysteries, and
heavenly gifts, and Divine love, changing earth into
Heaven, darkness into light, death into life, giving
us more than an Angel's nature, since God became
man ? For what is Heaven and light and life but
the Presence of God ? What Angels, but only pure
ministers of His ? But now He hath vouchsafed to
us a nearness to Himself, which He gave not to Angel
or Archangel. What He gave not to Michael, the
Captain of the Heavenly Host, to whom He gave
power to cast forth Satan out of heaven, nor to the
Angels who ever stand before Him and behold His
Face and are filled with His glory, nor to the Seraphim,
who, ever kindled with the fire of His love, live in
continual nearness of contemplation, nor to any of the
Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers,
Who fill the com-t of Heaven, that He has bestowed
upon us, the last and lowest of His rational creation, —
and that, when fallen. " He took not on Him the
nature of Angels, but He took on Him the seed of

30
Abraham." In His unutterable humility. He passed
by all which was pure and holy and obedient; in
His awful justice He passed by the fallen spirits, and
came to us, in ourselves of all the last, and now
having on us that loathsome taint of sin, by which we
were steeped through and through, so that we had no
soundness left. He took us, "the likeness of our sinful
flesh," our very flesh. Himself without sin. " The
Word became Flesh."
Most of us have heard so often, my brethren,
and have prepared ourselves so little, year by year,
fitly to celebrate this Divine Mystery, when placed
before our very eyes, and we might almost see our
Lord " for us men and for our salvation, come down
from Heaven" and become a little Child; we so
little meditate, that this deepest depth of Divine
mercy affects us but little, and love waxes cold,
and other faith becomes unsound, because people
have never filled their minds with the belief of
this. Of old, the Church, when it uttered the
words of the Creed, " And was Incarnate of the
Holy Ghost," fell down on its knees to worship
Him, bowed down to the earth by the sense of His
boundless love and gracious lowliness. It sunk,
adoring, to the earth at the thought of the aweful
mercy of its God. For think we what it is, as far as
we have thought, and the Church guides us to
think. He Who in all eternity had been blessed in
Himself, He Who knows no change. Is That He Is,
Who can receive nothing, for all come of Him, to

31
Whose Bliss in Himself, whereby the Father loved
the Son and the Son the Father in the Holy Spirit,
there can be no accession, since He is Infinite and
Unchangeable, He not only vouchsafed to make us,
but He took us unto Himself. He Who is Perfect
God became Perfect Man, and now, (mystery of
mysteries,) has taken our manhood into God, made
it one with Himself, never to be parted from Him,
not lost, as in the Ocean of His Divinity, but for
ever glorified, filled, in-oned with God. Nearer
and closer than any union, with a nearness, inferior
only to that Oneness of the Divine Nature, is the
oneness of our nature with that of God in the
Person of our ever-blessed Redeemer". Above
Angels and Principalities and Powers, is this om-
Human Nature glorified in God, with that glory
which the Son had, before the world was. Would,
my brethren, instead of speaking, we could for ever
worship and gaze and love, until we too, with
S. Stephen, if but for a moment, might see Him
Who once hid His Godhead in our Humanity, now,
with His glorified Wounds which for us He bore.
His Manhood existing, counited inseparably with His
Godhead, in the unapproachable Glory of God.
Can there be a greater mystery yet? To us, at
least, it seems as though the way in which it was,
made it yet greater; His sacred Birth and Child
hood. For He created not simply the Nature
Which He took, or joined His Divine Nature to It
» S. Bernard de Cons. v. 8.

32
at its birth. He Himself " abhorred not the Virgin's
Womb ;" He, in His unutterable lowliness, shrunk
not from the humility of our birth of shame. He
Who fills heaven and earth emptied Himself, and
confined Himself within the womb of a pure Virgin;
He Who spanneth the Heavens, lay with His
outstretched but those the helpless arms of infancy,
already enfolding us in His love ; He Who " carrieth
us from the womb" was Himself borne ; He the
Eternal Word, Who giveth speech to all, lay
speechless ; the Wisdom of the Father, seemed to
grow in wisdom ; He, " the Power of God," seemed
powerless, while yet by the word of His Power He
upheld all things.
Were this mystery deeply impressed on our
souls, — I say not now how it must change all our
thoughts, how it must make us hate our pride, and
our self-will, our carnal desires, our covetousness, our
self-love, when we saw Him "Who is over all, God
blessed for ever," for love of us, lowly, and helpless,
and poor, denying Himself the Glory which was
His, and taking our misery, which alone is ours,
but — how could any other mystery seem strange ?
How should any thing seem too great or too hard
for Him, or too humble for His Love ? The myste
ries of His Sacraments, the In-dwelling of His
Spirit, His unspeakable oneness with the soul which
receives Him, " even as" He " and the Father are
One," His dwelling in those who are His, and their's
in Him, His espousal of the soul, what are they but

33
the overflowings of that first mercy, " the Word be
came Flesh ?" He took our human nature, that He
might, as Scripture says, " make us partakers of His
Divine ;" He joined our Manhood to Himself, that
He might join us on, one by one, to Him, might by
His Sacraments impart Himself to us.
So has the mercy of God turned our loss into
gain. Blessed indeed was Adam before his fall,
sinless, passionless, free from our weary strife, clothed
with a robe of heavenly righteousness. Yet what
his bliss to ours if we be Christ's ? What although
ours be as yet in hope only, what to ours, to be one
with Christ? What, even that our lost innocence to
the gift of Christ to be our Righteousness ? What,
freedom from strife, to victory through the Spirit
Which dwelleth in us ? What, to be sons of God as
creatures, to this our sonship by being very members
of the Eternal Son? What were the Father's love
for a spotless creature, to that love wherewith He
loved us that He gave the Only-begotten Son to
die for us, and now, if we be His, loves us in the
Son of His Love.
Fix we then our thoughts once more on the cradle
of Bethlehem ; behold we Him once more, already
loving us, but unable to express that love; come to
bear the Cross for us, but as yet borne of others; in
all outward seemmg, except that ineffable Majesty
of His sinlessness, and that Divine Holiness— yet in
all outward seeming like one of us, helpless, speech
less, motionless, swathed (so Scripture says) as
D

34
other infants, poor, destitute, lying in a manger; —
yet He is Vei-y God ! What amazingness of mercy
can make us doubt God's bounty, when God the
Son, to save us, thus " emptied Himself," and made
Himself as nothing?
Nay, can we think that Holy Scripture thus told
us of the Sacred Childhood of Jesus, and meant us
not to reverence childhood? Does not the saying
of an early father" commend itself to our conscience,
that " our Lord passed through all ages to sanctify
all, and to infants was made an Infant, sanctifying
infants; in little ones a Little One, sanctifying those
of this same age, and becoming to them further an
Example of piety and righteousness and subjection?"
Does the Church's belief that her little ones ai-e
temples of the Holy Ghost stagger us any longer,
through the greatness of the gift, when He Who
became a Little One in the manger for om- sakes,
was the Very and Eternal God? Can we otherwise
than, for love of Jesus, reverence, and love, and
yearn over, and cherish these little ones? Feel
we not, (at least if we be not deadened by this
world's vanities,) a drawing forth of our inmost heart
towards them, a tender love, a reverence for them,
which, alas! we cannot have for ourselves, and often
not for others of riper years? The childhood of
Jesus, and their recent birth of God, the impress of
His Hands', and the sealing of His Spirit, the
" S. Iren. 2. 22. 4.
'' See St. Cyprian, Ep. 64. ad Fid. §, 3. p. 197. Oxf. Tr.

35
fresh invocation of the Name of the Holy Trinity
upon them, and their own freedom, for the most part,
from grave actual sin, the presence, may be, of
" their Angels" who " do always behold the Face of
their Father in Heaven," win from us a reverent
love, unlike any thing besides in this our corrupted
world. The chUdren of the Church are, save her
Saints, the purest ornament with which God hath
clothed her; they should be her chiefest care.
Since then in the Infant Jesus, " the Child" Who
was " born unto us," our senses had only misled us,
neither must we, by sight, judge of those who are His.
Faith, in the Wise Men and the Shepherds, saw and
worshipped ; " His own" to whom " He came, received
Him not." In His own Royal birthplace, the Lord
of Heaven and earth lay, an outcast, gazed upon
with longing wonder by the Heavenly Host, and the
whole Choir of celestial spirits, who sang " Glory
to God and on earth peace," but on the earth, which
He came to redeem, adored only by His Virgin
Mother and His reputed father, else observed by
none of all that throng who were gathered to Bethle
hem, or observed only, alas ! to be already rejected
and cast out, as one for Whom " there was no room."
His only attendants, besides, on earth were the rude
cattle, less rude only than we, the ox and the ass,
emblems of our untamed or rebelhous nature, yet own
ing more than we " thefr Master's crib°." He, thus un
heeded, was Very God ; and think you not He sent
' Isaiah i. 3.
d2

36
back with a blessing the Wise Men who offered Him
their gifts, and the poor Shepherds, who had only
pure hearts to offer Him, sent He them not back
with heavenly warnings and joy of heart and a
speechless blessing? Carried they not, think you,
back in their hearts the Infant they had seen, Him
"Who was born to them a Saviour, Christ the Lord?"
and " having Christ in their hearts by faith, rooted
and grounded in love, they knew the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge, and were filled with the
fulness of God."
And so, in their measure, is it with these members
of Christ now. The world is too much taken up
with itself to care for them, too full of its own
business and thoughts and pleasures, to heed them.
Although in them it might receive its Saviour, it
has no room for them amid the busy restless throng
of curious, sensual, carnal, eager, thoughts, which,
ever coming and going, fill the narrow mansion
of its soul and cast out its Lord. Faithlessness sees
in them nothing great, only the weakness and the
fault of nature, which they have from us. Faith alone
sees in them the germ of then- heavenly birth, the
implanted life of God, the cleansed and purified soul,
and around them, theii- protecting Angel, who beholds
their Father's Face in heaven. And receiving them,
it receives their Lord.
There may then be a still more mysterious, yet
literal, sense of those great words, " Whoso receiveth
one such little child in My Name, receiveth Me."

37
To tame our pride of understanding or knowledge,
or wealth, or rank. He took an especial nearness to
infants and the poor. The mysteries in which He
would be thought on and worshipped, are His Birth
as a helpless Child, His Death, stripped of His very
raiment, having nought His Own, " a scorn of men,
and an outcast of the people." " The poor of
Christ" then, and " children" have a special likeness
to Him. They are not only His, (as each of us
hope to be,) but they have His mark set upon them.
The poor have His " livery:" they are what He was
for om- sakes in outward lot. Children, as yet
unspoiled, have not His likeness only, but His
indwelling Spfrit; for "if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of His." He dwelleth in them
according to their measure and halloweth them, and
so, " Whoso receiveth them in His Name receiveth
Him," because he receives them in whom Christ
Himself dwells by His Spirit, and who have not as
yet, by actual sins, grieved Him away.
Great then and aweful is the trust, confided to us
in those His lambs, amazing His blessing in it. He
has made them His, set His seal upon them, given
them the first-fruits of His Spirit, made them to us,
another Himself. " He has taken them up in His
Arms, put His Hands upon them, and blessed them,"
and so has given them back to us, to cherish them
for Him, feed them with His heavenly food, guard
them that they stray not; teach them how to " keep
themselves," by prayer and watchfulness, and self-
rule, and leaning upon Him, " that the Wicked One

38
touch them not;" teach them to "know His Voice"
within them, that they may " follow Him," and He
the good Shepherd, may lead them forth to the
Everlasting pastures.
On us, it may be, their everlasting doom depends.
They still have the freshness of Divine grace; they
are still what He made them and He has declared
them, — not ta,ken only into an outward covenant, or
made members only of a visible body, but — "by
nature, children of wrath," they are, by virtue of
His Birth in the flesh, children of God, born of God
through grace, as He was bom from everlasting by
Nature, members of Himself, clad with Himself,
(" for as many as have been baptized into Christ,
have put on Christ,") coheirs with Himself, temples
of the Holy Ghost.
Such are they. But what may they be? One
shrinks to say, my brethren, so must one yearn over
these little ones, for whom Christ died, in whom He
yet dwells. Yet, if we except those who through
our grievous negligence, have lived and died, yea
now live and die, as actual Heathen in this our
Christian land, all who have done or are doing deeds
of darkness had once on the robe of light, all among
Christians, who have perished or are perishing, slaves
of the world, of the flesh, of Satan, once were free ;
all whom Holy Scripture calls " the children of the
wicked one" once were made " children of God."
Sin after sin crept upon them; the gift which was in
them was never perhaps stirred up; neglected child
hood gained no strength against the increasing

39
temptations and passions of youth; well alas! often
is it, if neglected parents become not, by example, or
more grievous still, even by words of ill, tempters to
sin of thefr own neglected childi-en, their very guides
to hell. One must out of charity speak what one
shrinks from; heirs of heaven, they might be of
those miserable beings, whose everlasting abode is
heU; for the seal of God on their foreheads, they
might receive " the mark of Cain and of the beast ;"
children of God and members of Christ, they might
become children of the devil and members of Satan;
the hearts and souls which God had cleansed to
contain His Holy Love, His Blessed Spirit, to receive
heavenly visitations, and hold communion with Him,
if their fences be broken down, all avenues to sin
opened with opening years, what should be, but
what every day is, that evil rushes in like a flood,
masters thefr minds, the "evil spfrit takes seven
others more wicked than himself to dwell there," and
what was once (as He has said) the dwelling-place of
the Trinitv, becomes " the habitation of devils, and
the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every un
clean and hateful bfrd'."
It is an aweful thing to speak of God's judgment
upon sins in which we bear part ; for we seem to
condemn ourselves. Yet " if we indeed condemn
ourselves, so may we not be condemned of the Lord."
" If" our Church " at least in this her day, know the
things which belong unto her peace," so may she
yet not " be laid even with the ground and her
' Rev. xviii. 2.

40
children within her''." A heavy countless debt o
guilt lies upon our Church and nation, for our mani
fold neglect. Must it not be said of us, " My sheej
are scattered, because there is no shepherd, and thej
became meat to all the beasts of the field, when
they were scattered ; My sheep wandered through al]
the mountains and upon every high hUl, yea My flock
was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none
did search or seek after them." And reap we nof
every where the bitter fruits ? We need not dwell
on others' sins; we need, alas! but open our eyes
on the whole length and breadth of our unhappy
land; we need but go " into the streets and lanes
of" our cities or our towns, our places of concourse,
our market-places, our ports, our mines, our manu
factories, every place where human souls are gathered
together, see what is the habitual object of their
thoughts, and ask, Is this " a people, which hath
the Lord for their God?" Would that one must not
say our very Churches, and there while our eyes
miss the best heritage of a Church, " the poor of
Christ," feel that " unless the Lord had left us a
small remnant, we had been as Sodom, and been
like unto Gomorrah." I seem, in saying this, to
have said but nothing. There is in this Christian
land, such an intensity of sin and misery, such aweful
depth of wickedness and forgetfulness of God, that
to know but some slight portion of it, (I speak in
plain words,) makes the head reel and turn dizzy,
and the heart faint. But that we do not yet see the
'' Guspel for the day.

41
unseen fires, one might of many places ask. Is this a
Christian land or is it hell"? And these are our neo--
lected children, so that the very Sacrament of Bap
tism becomes a witness against us, if we first make
them lambs of Christ, and then leave them to Satan
to devour.
A better day, we trust, is dawning. God is stir
ring men's hearts, and when He is in the midst
of us and looking upon us, we may hope all. Yet
" what" still " is the chaff to the wheat ?" I hardly
know which makes the heart most faint, to think of
what is done, or what is undone. The few we have
gathered, only bring the more heavily before us the
thought of the millions yet scattered. It is but
" as the gleaning-grapes, when the vintage is done."
" All they that go by pluck off her grapes. The
wild boar out of the wood doth root it up ; and the
wild beasts of the field devour it." " Turn Thee
again. Thou God of hosts, look down from heaven,
behold and visit this vine."
In this very place, there are, at least for a
season, many who have means, who come here for
refreshment, or for the health of their children or
their own, and who, one might hope, would have
thoughts for other litde ones of Christ. Yet here,
those in this town, who receive daily education, are
not one-seventh, and even with those whose only
day of teacliing is the day of rest, are not more than
' The writer had partly in his mind a book founded on Pariia-
mentary evidence, " The perils of the nation ;" hut day by day
brings to light some fresh intensity of unChristian uu'ianctified

42
one-fifth of the whole number. Those now neglected
by all alike, but who might be gathered up, had we
a deep love for Christ Who for our sakes became a
Child that these children might be His; those now
brought up in idleness, educated for sin and Satan
and not for God, are at least five hundred. And this
number of twice-orphaned children, neglected of thefr
parents, and of their Mother the Church, is ever
filling up again and again; neglected childhood
grows up into sinful youth, sinful youth decays into
hardened age; the miserable tale is renewed again
and again, of souls for whom Christ died, by our
neglect lost. And yet, as happened very lately, and
you felt it for a while, these children are more ex
posed than others, to untimely ends. It was a shock
to you that three in one moment sunk out of our
sight, to give their account'; it was some comfort
that one had been trained very hopefully in your
school. Yet what is such sudden death but a faint
image of what is happening daily, hourly, somewhere
in this our boastful land ? " The sea shall give up the
dead which are in it;" who shall rescue those who
through our recklessness sink into the lake of fire ?
My brethren, for this fearful evil I ask not for
some scanty alms this evening; I ask not even for
abundant alms, although they would be given to
Christ, and repaid by Him. I ask, in His Name,
your thoughts, your time, your hearts, to think on
' A whole family, father, mother, and three children, had
recently been lost at once, at sea. Very many of the boys, at
about twelve, are employed with their fathers in fishing.

43
this great evil at your very doors, and then your
prayers to be guided how to remedy it, or to help
those who may, that the blood of these children be
not required at your hands. And may God guide
you. To give alms alone, to educate any how, is not
to receive httle ones in Christ's Name; the blessing
is too great to be obtained by such costless means.
To receive children in Christ's Name is not merely
to cause them to be gathered into schools; they who
can help no otherwise have the blessing of God, if
they help to this; but were this all, harm might be
done, not good; it is not to teach them any how, or
by teaching them only to read and think, to put into
their hands a two-edged weapon, wherewith to destroy
themselves; it is in our Church's words s, to " teach
them what a Christian ought to know and believe
for his soul's health," and " to lead a godly and
Christian life;" in a word, to " believe truly and live
holily." This cannot be as we now act. Children
cannot, as our way is, teach children faith and
hohness, nor can the single teacher of each school
suffice. Our schools must fail of thefr end, until ye
give, not your money only, but, as far as ye may, your
selves also. Let us believe our Lord's words in
earnest ; seek ye to love Him, long to requite Him
Who gave His life for you, to Whom ye owe your
selves, and He will teach you what ye can do. Some
perhaps might give themselves wholly; some might
foi-m institutions for that most perilous age, when
female children leave such schools as we now have;
« Exhort, at the end of the Baptismal Service.

44
some might give at least an hour or two in the day,
to teach Christ's little ones, collect perhaps some
six or seven, (as other claims permit,) each as your
own peculiar charge, and so while many, first training
themselves, joined in this good work, ye might by
God's blessing, impart to them the reverence, and
fear, and love of God, ye would cherish in yourselves;
teach them how to fight the good fight ye yourselves
wish to wage; adapt yourselves to them, one by one,
as ye come to know them, form each as its own soul
needeth . Only whether we visit the poor or Christ's
little ones, it must not be as superiors, but with gi-eat
inward reverence for Christ, not as though it were
some great thing, but in humility : not only to teach
them, but (as our Lord gave them us for an example)
to learn of them; not as unto man, but as seeing
Christ in them ; so becoming like them, " yours shall
be the kingdom of heaven" which He has promised
to such as they; so ministering unto Christ, ye shall
yourselves " receive Christ."
Yes ! my brethren, great as are the things of which
'' Our Chm'ch Catechism obviously furnishes every occasion
we can want for such individual guidance ; the explanation of the
Creed, for teaching the poor, (what they are so very capable of,)
meditation on the Mysteries of the Faith and the Person of our
Blessed Redeemer; that of the Commandments and the summaries
of our duty to God and our neighbour, leads at once to the
enquiry how they are to know whether they keep them, and so to
help them to learn self-examination ; the exposition of the Lord's
Prayer to fonn them in habits of devotion, teaching them the
manifold application of that Divine Prayer in connection with all
seasons, all Mysteries, all their needs, deliverance from each sin,
peril, temptation, or growth in grace.

45
I have spoken, there is yet one meaning of those
blessed words, " Receive Me," nearer to ourselves.
Great were the favom- and loving-kindness to us, if
om- Blessed Lord vouchsafed to accept our offices
done to these httle ones, as done to Himself; if He
put them, (to speak reverently,) in place of Himself,
and told us, " whatever toil or care or self-denial
thou layest out on these little ones, I will repay thee,
as though thou gavest it to Me." Much indeed, yea
every thing were it, that He should repay our slight
earthly toils and pains with everlasting rewards.
But as the reward of the righteous is no created
thing, no bhss, no sight, no beauty, no glory, no
knowledge, not even love in itself, but it is God, so
according to this life's measure, is it now. Our
Lord puts us not off to some distant day or a distant
reward ; He saith not " shall receive," but " re
ceiveth" now; not "a reward," but "Me." By
ministering to His poor and His little ones in His
Name, we " receive Christ," not without us only, in
these His images, but, as alone we can indeed receive
Him, within us. Our Lord restraineth not His
gracious words, " receiveth Me." He meets the
longing of our hearts. We would do something for
Hun Who hath done all for us. We would gladly,
outwardly too, shew our love to Him Who hath so
loved us. But " our goodness reaches not to Him."
He is in Heaven, we on earth. All things, even
ourselves, are His. Yet would we? He gi-ants it.
When He said, " Me ye have not always," He said
too, " the poor ye have always with you;" when He

46
Himself ceased to our eyes to be in the midst of us.
He placed a little child in the midst, and said,
" Whoso receiveth one such little child in My
Name, receiveth Me ;" as though He said, " Receive
My poor and My little ones. Thou shalt not merely
entertaui Angels unawares, as My servants did of
old, but thou shalt receive the Lord of Angels, thy
Redeemer, thy God, thy everlasting Reward, Myself."
It is not a figure; it is not a reward out of Himself,
it is Himself He promiseth. One dares not compare
duties or graces, as though we might cherish or
perform the one and neglect the other; yet while
humility must be the groundwork of all we do, and
God Himself our only end, there is no deeper
source of blessing, no more frequent means of enlarged
grace to the soul, than love for Christ's sake, to His
Httle ones and His poor. It has been found so.
They who have carried on the greatest designs for
God's kingdom, have found His greatest blessing-
rest upon them, through love to these; they who have
received and tended them for Christ's sake, have
found that, becoming, through His grace, like them,
they have "received Christ;" He hath formed Himself
within them; He Himself hath taken them, as it
were, up in His Arms, and blessed them; He Who
is our Salvation, hath come not under their roof
only, but through His Spirit to their souls. Blessed,
thrice-blessed they who, for love of Christ, and having
Him Alone for their portion, have or can give their
lives to minister to these, and cherishing them,
orphans, or poor, or ignorant, are cherished by

47
Him, Whom through them they receive, the Father
and Mother and Husband of their souls; but blessed
in their measure, all who, in whatever degree re
ceiving them, receive Him, and receiving Him are
received by Him, our only Hope, and Stay, and
Abiding-place. Fix we then om- thoughts, for one little moment
more, on the Manger at Bethlehem; view we Him
there, our Lord, our Creator, our God, stretching out
His Hands towards us, the Hands which were to be
nailed to the Cross, and telling us that He became
that Little Child, that we might for His sake love
little children, receive them as Himself, and in them
receive Himself, and then, as we would wish our own
thoughtless childhood, or the sins we shared with
other children, forgetful of ourselves _and the Gift
which was in us and them, to be forgiven; as we would
wish to receive our Lord; as in that aweful " Day,
when the secrets of all hearts shall be manifest," our
sins laid bare, and our everlasting doom fixed, we
would wish to be received by Him; Remember we
His sacred Chddhood, and for His Sake, now and
ever, by prayers, by alms, by active self-denying
deeds of love, remember children.
Now unto Him that loved us, and washed us from
our sins in His own Blood, with the Father and the
Holy Ghost, be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Amen. BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.

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