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From the Library of
Dr. C. Ray Palmer
1915

" They are among the most suggestive discourses we have ever read." —
North American Review.
" It is a good and hopeful sign of our times, that a book like this has run
through three editions in less than two years ; and we would earnestly recom
mend our readers to make its acquaintance, that they may enjoy for them
selves a pleasure and profit which will increase with each perusal." — Edin
burgh Magazine.
11 There is not. a sermon in the series that does not furnish evidence of
originality without extravagance, of discrimination without tediousness, and
of piety without oant or conventionalism." — British Quarterly.
" We hail with delight the appearance of the present volume. The ser
mons are altogether out of the common style. They are strong, free, and
beautiful utterances of a gifted and cultivated mind." — Eclectic Review.
" Very excellent sermons, full of earnest piety and love to God, and throw
ing light on many difficulties in Holy Scripture." — Morning Chronicle.
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SERMONS

PREACHED AT

TRINITY CHAPEL, BRIGHTON,

BY TUT! L A T I

REY. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, I. A.,

THE IKCL'MBBST.

FIRST SERIES.

THIKD AMERICAN, FROM THE FIFTH LOMDON EDITION.

BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FIELDS.
M DCCC LX.

Stereotyped by
HOBAKT * R011IMNS,
New Euglanil '1 ype and St on oiyjk. Fuuudcry,

So
THE CONGREGATION
WORSHIPPING IN
TRINITY CHAPEL, BRIGHTON,
FROM AUGUST 15, 1847, TO AUGUST IS, 1853,
THESE
RECOLLECTIONS OF SERMONS
PREACHED BT THEIR LATE PASTOR
ARE DEDICATED WITH
FEELINGS OF GRATEFUL RESPECT.

PREFACE
TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION.
In publishing these " Eecollections of Sermons,"
a few words of explanation are necessary.
These are not Notes, previously prepared, nor are
they Sermons written before delivery. They are
simply "Eecollections;" sometimes dictated by
the Preacher himself to the younger members of a
family in which he was interested, at their urgent
entreaty ; sometimes written out by himself for
them, when they were at a distance and unable to
attend his ministry.*
They have been carefully preserved, and are now
published without corrections or additions, just as
they were found. My beloved brother attached no
value whatever to them himself, and never gave
any directions concerning them. The only Sermon
* A reference to a paragraph in his own preface to " The Israelite's
Grave" (p. 352) explains this.
0)

0 PREFACE.
which saw the light in his lifetime is now repub
lished in this volume, with his own preface, explain
ing how it was preserved, and that it was printed
by desire of his Congregation.
Unfortunately, in some instances, the series is
incomplete. The fourth of the Advent Lectures * was never
written out, owing to my brother's uncertain and
suffering state of health ; and this cause, combined
with his remarkable dislike to recalling his dis
courses, — a peculiarity known to all who were
intimately acquainted with him, ¦ — has made these
Recollections more broken and imperfect than they
would otherwise have been. I have therefore no
choice left me but to publish them as they are.
Besides this volume, and a second preparing for
publication, I have in my possession other Sermons,
which were taken down by a professional shorthand
writer ; also notes of Lectures, amongst them those
on the Corinthians, continued until within a few
Aveeks of the death of my brother, and preserved for
the same purpose as those I now publish. These
are neither so full nor so complete as those con-
* The fourth and last Advent Lecture was " The Jew ;" on the text,
"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." — John i. 11

PREFACE. 9
tained in this selection ; but, should they be found
sufficient to recall in any degree the teaching of
your late Minister to you, his Congregation, and to
make known in some measure what that teaching
was to those who never heard him, I will publish
some of them, together with what I have been able
to collect of shorthand notes, recollections of per
sonal teaching, preparations for confirmation, and
other things not contained in this selection. I
beheve that every thought of that rare and gifted
being is of value ; and that, imperfect and incom
plete as these fragments are, they will throw light
on many difficulties in Holy Scripture. STRUAN ROBERTSON.
Rodney House, Cheltenham.

PKEFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Within a few months, a Second Edition of this
First Series of my Brother's Sermons is called for ;
and, in preparing it for the press, I have corrected
a few errors which had occurred in printing. I

10 PREFACE.
have changed the position of one Sermon, to pre
serve, as far as practicable, a Chronological order.
In other respects the volume is the same as when
first issued ; and in acknowledging the approval
both volumes have received, I can only repeat the
belief I have expressed in the preface to the second
volume, that these evidences of a rare and uncom
mon mind and heart must have a powerful influence
for good on the Religious Life of this country.
May God bless them to this end !
STRUAN ROBERTSON.

PREFACE
TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
The Reverend Frederic W. Robertson — whose
beautiful life and4 early death have left the deepest
impression of love, admiration, and regret, on all
who knew him — finished his career on the very
threshold of middle age, having exercised his sacred
calling during the last years of his life in Brighton,
where the effect of his ministry will long be felt by
all classes, and where the seed of righteousness he
sowed will yield increasing harvests when all per
sonal memory of him must have passed away.
Mr. Robertson's appearance was extremely strik
ing ; he was tall and handsome, with a fine, regu
lar outline, and clear, powerful, gray eyes. The
expression of his countenance combined frankness,
determination, and a sort of spiritual valiancy ; so
that with his firm and rapid movements, and sono
rous, ringing voice, he produced almost a martial
impression, and outwardly appeared the express
(ii)

12 PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
type of what he inwardly was — a courageous Chris
tian soldier, a fearless fighter of the good fight, a
powerful leader, strong to command, to exhort, and
to encourage ; whose daily life was war to the death
with every base and evil thing, and whose .preach
ing was like a clarion call to duty, to devotedness,
to all that was holy, lovely, noble, and of good
report. The military profession was the one towards
which Mr. Robertson first inclined, and his early
predilections could still be traced in his character as
a Christian minister, and are distinctly perceptible
in various passages of his eloquent sermons, where
the heroic devotion to danger and death, and
implicit submission to discipline, of the true soldier,
furnish him with frequent illustrations. A resem
blance between the characters of Robertson and
Arnold, in this respect, will probably occur to those
who read these sermons with a recollection of the
writings and life of the lamented Master of Rugby.
In both there was a dauntless element of moral
bravery, which partook in some measure of the
quality of physical courage ; both would have
undoubtedly made enduring and intrepid soldiers,
and it is interesting to find in the writings of both

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 13
of them a passage which with almost identical
expression urges the duty of progress with the
words, "The Christian soldier's motto is 'for-
ward.' "
Mr. Robertson's life, short as it was, was one of
familiarity with disappointment, sorrow, and harass
ing trials, for which the admiration and enthusiasm
generally felt and expressed for his character and
genius were hardly compensations ; and, to those
who knew him best and loved him most, it was
hardly a cause of surprise that an organization of
exquisite sensibility, such as his was, should have
developed under the pressure of nervous excitement
and mental distress disease in the head, which, after
a short season of acute suffering, terminated his
brief but beautiful career.
The present collection of sermons (which are but
imperfectly preserved, as he never wrote or even
made notes of his discourses) remains to attest the
excellence and power of his preaching. But, beside
the effect produced by his public ministry and per
sonal intercourse on the more educated classes who
came within his influence, Mr. Robertson obtained
a power for good over the working men and
mechanics of Brighton, which makes his name a

14 PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
watchword still among them, full of divine inspira
tion, of strength, and efficacy. His deep respect
and tender love for humanity induced him and
enabled him to become a friend to the laboring
population of the city where he lived, such as they
may hardly hope in each of their individual lives to
find again.
"With the strongest feeling for their peculiar
trials, he had a wise and true perception of their
duties and compensations ; his sympathy for them
never betrayed him into injustice to others, and the
temperate soundness and manly sobriety of his
judgment prevented his genuine and deep tender
ness of feeling from ever becoming that species of
pseudo-philanthropy, which, in its championship of
the rights of one class, forgets the claims of all
men, and becomes a bitter sort of social fanaticism,
which has nothing in common with the spirit of
Christ. The death of this man was assuredly his own
exceeding great reward. To all who knew him, it
must be a life-long loss, but sadly softened by the
remembrance of his excellence.

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.
[Preached April 29, 1849.]
GOD'S REVELATION OP HEAVEN.
J Cor. ii. 9, 10. — " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit."  Page 23
SERMON II.
[Preached June 6, 1849.]
PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
CONFIRMATION LECTURE.
Matt, xiii 1-10. — " The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat
by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto
him, so that he went into a ship, and sat ; and the whole multitude
stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables,
saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow : and when he sowed, some
seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth ; and
forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth : and
when the sun was up, they were scorched ; and because they had no
root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns ; and the
(15>

16 CONTENTS.
thorns sprang up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground,
and brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some
thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." .... Page 89

SERMON III.
[Preached June 10, 1849.]
JACOB'S WRESTLING.
CONFIRMATION LECTURE.
Gen. xxxii. 28, 29. — "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more
Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with
men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked Mm, and said, Tell me, I
pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask
after my name? And he blessed him there. "  60
SERMON IV.
[Preached August 12, 1849.]
CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE
PAST.
Phil. iii. 13, 14. — " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended :
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the
mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." - . 78
SERMON V.
[Preached October 20, 1850.]
TRIUMPH OVER HI N D R A N CE S. — Z A C C HEUS.
Luke xix. 8. — " And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold,
Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor ; and if I have taken
anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four
fold."  06

CONTENTS. 17
SERMON VI.
[Preaohed October 28, 1849.]
THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE OF THE
SABBATH.
Col. ii. 16, 17. — " Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drinit,
or in respect of an holiday, or of the new-moon, or of the sabbath-
days : which are a shadow of things to come : but the body is of
Christ."  Page 112
SERMON VII.
[Preached November 4, 1849.]
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
Heb. iv. 15, 16. — "For we have not an high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to
help in time of need."  127
SERMON VIII.
[Preached November 11, 1849.]
THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES AT JOHN'S
BAPTISM.
Matt. iii. 7. — " But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
come to his baptism", he said unto them, 0 generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come 1"  145
SERMON IX.
[Preached November 25, 1849.]
CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
John xi. 49-53. — "And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high
priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor
consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the
people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not
of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus
2*

18 CONTENTS.
should die for that nation ; and not for that nation only, but that also
he should gather together in one the children of God that were scat
tered abroad. Then, from that day forth, they took counsel together
for to put him to death."  Page 163
SERMON X.
[Preaohed December 2, 1849.]
REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
Job xix. 26-27. — " For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : And though after my
skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : Whom
I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another ;
though my reins be consumed within me. "  179
SERMON XI.
[Preached December 6, 1849.]
FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
THE GRECIAN.
Rom. i. 14-17. — "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barba
rians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is,
I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I >
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also
to the Greek. J?or therein is the righteousness of God revealed from
faith to faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith." . . . 195
SERMON XII.
[Preached December 13, 1849.]
SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
THE ROMAN.
Rom. i. 14-16. — " I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians,
both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every' one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the
Greek."  207

CONTENTS. 19
SERMON XIII.
[Preaohed December 20, 1849.]
THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
THE BARBARIAN.
Acts xxviii. 1-7. — " And when they were escaped, then they knew
that the island was oalled Melita. And the barbarous people showed
us no little kindness : for they kindled a fire, and received us every
one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when
Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there
came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And when
the Barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said
among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though
he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he
shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they
looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly :
but after they had looked a great while and saw no harm come to him,
they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. In the same
quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name
was Publius ; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously." Page 225
SERMON XIV.
[Preached December 15, 1849.]
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
Gal. vi. 7, 8. — "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever
a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit,
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."  241
SERMON XV.
[Preached December 31, 1849.] *
THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
John xvi. 31, 32. — " Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe ? Behold,
the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that'ye shall be scattered, every
man to his own, and shall leave me alone : and yet I am not alone,
because the Father is with me. "  258

'20 CONTENTS.
SERMON XVI.
[Preached October 20, 1850.]
THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE TO ONE
ANOTHER.
John xiii. 34. — "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love
one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Page 273
SERMON XVII.
[Preached June 15, 1851.]
THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH TO MEN OF
WEALTH.
1 Sam. xxv. 10, 11. — "And Nabal answered David's servants, and
said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many
servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master.
Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have
killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence
they be?"  285
SERMON XVIII.
[Preached July 13, 1851.]
FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
John viii. 32. — "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."  306
SERMON XIX.
[Preached at the Autumn Assizes, held at Lewes, 1852.]
THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
John xviii. 37  " Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then ?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a- king. To this end was I
born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear wit-
ness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice."  818

CONTENTS. 21
SERMON XX.
[Preaohed November 7, 1852.]
THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
John xviii. 38. — " Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? " . . 335
SERMON XXI.
[Preached on the first day of Public Mourning for the Queen Dowager,
December, 1849.]
THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE IN A FOREIGN LAND.
Gen. i. 46-26. — " And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : and God
will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land
which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph took
an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and
you shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, being an
hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put
in a coffln in Egypt."  •  348

SEEMONS.

i.
[Preaohod April 29, 1849.]
GOD'S- REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. — "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man ,. the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit."The preaching of the Apostle Paul was rejected by
numbers in the cultivated town of Corinth. It was
not wise enough, nor eloquent enough, nor was it
sustained by miracles. The man of taste found it bar
barous ; the Jew missed the signs and wonders which
he looked for in the new dispensation ; and the rhetori
cian missed the convincing arguments of the schools.
To all which the apostle was content to reply, that his
judges were incompetent to try the question. The
princes of this world might judge in a matter of poli
tics ; the leaders in the world of literature were qual
ified to pronounce on a point of taste ; the counsellors
of this world to weigh the amount of evidence ; — but,
in matters spiritual, they were as unfit to judge as a
(23)

24 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
man without ear is to de'cide respecting harmony, or
a man judging by sensation to supersede the higher
truth of science by an appeal to his own estimate of
appearances. The world, to sense, seems stationary.
To the eye of Reason it moves with lightning speed ;
and the cultivation of reason alone can qualify for an
opinion on the matter. The judgment of the senses
is worth nothing in such matters. For every kind of
truth a special capacity or preparation is indispensable.
For a revelation of spiritual facts two things are
needed : — First, a Divine Truth ; next, a spirit which
can receive it.
Therefore the apostle's whole defence resolved itself
into this: The natural man receiveth . not the things
which are of the Spirit of God. The world by wis
dom knew not God. And his vindication of his teach
ing was : These Revealed Truths cannot be seen by
the eye, heard by the ear, nor guessed by the heart;
they are visible, audible, imaginable, only to the spirit.
By the spiritually prepared they are recognized a3
beautiful, though they be folly to all the world beside, —
as his Master had said before him, " Wisdom is justified
by her children." In whatever type of life she might
be exhibited, whether in the austere Man of the Des
ert, or in the higher type of the social life of Christ,
the Children of Wisdom recognized her lineaments,
justified and loved her : she was felt by them.
Two things are contained in this verse : —
I. The inability of the lower parts of human na
ture — the natural man — to apprehend the higher
truths. II. The Nature and Laws of Revelation.
I. By the natural man is meant the lower faculties

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 25
of man ; and it is said of these that they cannot dis
cover truth spiritual.
1. Eternal truth is not perceived through sensation.
" Eye hath not seen the things which God hath pre
pared for them that love Him."
There is a life of mere sensation. The degree of
its enjoyment depends upon fineness of organization.
The pleasures of sense arise from the vibration of a
nerve, or the thrilling of a muscle, — nothing higher.
The highest pleasure of sensation comes through
the eye. Sight ranks above all the rest of the senses
in dignity. He whose eye is so refined by discipline
that he can repose with pleasure upon the serene out
line of beautiful form, has reached the purest of the
sensational raptures.
Now, the Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs
was the land of Beauty. They read the apostle's let
ter surrounded by the purest conceptions of art. In
the orders of architecture, the most richly graceful of
all columnar forms receives its name from Corinth.
And yet it was these men, living in the very midst
of the chastely beautiful, upon whom the apostle em
phatically urged, " Eye .hath not seen the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him."
Let us not deprecate what God has given. There is
a rapture in gazing on this wondrous world. There
is a joy in contemplating the manifold Forms in which
the All Beautiful has concealed His essence, — the Liv
ing Garment in which the Invisible has robed His
mysterious loveliness. In every aspect of nature there
is joy; whether it be the purity of virgin morning, or
the sombre gray of a day of clouds, or the solemn
pomp and majesty of night ; whether it be the chaste

26 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
lines of the crystal, or the waving outline of distant
hills, tremulously visible through dim vapors; the
minute petals of the fringed daisy, or the overhanging
form of mysterious forests. It is a pure delight to
see. But all this is bounded. The eye can only reach
the finite Beautiful. It does not. scan " the King in
his beauty, nor the land that is very far off." The
Kingdom, but not the King ; something measured by
inches, yards, and miles — not the land which is very
far off in the Infinite.
Again ; it is perishable beauty — a sight to sadden
rather than delight. Even while you gaze, and feel
how fair it is, joy mingles with melancholy, from a
consciousness that it all is fading, — it is the tran
sient, not the Eternal Loveliness for which our spirits
pant. Therefore, when He came into this world, who was
the Truth and the Life, in the body which God had
prepared for Him, He came not in the glory of form ;
He was " a root out of a dry ground : He had no form
nor comeliness; when they saw Him, there was.no
beauty that they should desire Him." The eye did not
behold, even in Christ, the things which God had pre
pared. Now, observe, this is an Eternal Truth ; true at all
times; true now and forever. In the quotation of
this verse, a false impression is often evident. It is
quoted as if the apostle> by "the things prepared"
meant Heaven, and the glories of a world which is to
be visible hereafter, but is at present unseen. This is
manifestly alien from his purpose. The world of which
he speaks is not a future, but a present Revelation.

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 27
God hath revealed them. He speaks not of something
to be manifested hereafter, but of something already
shown, only not to eye or ear. The distinction lies
between a kingdom which is appreciable by the senses,
and another whose facts and truths are seen and heard
only by the spirit. Never yet hath the eye seen the
Truths of God ; but then never shall it see them. In
Heaven this shall be as true as now. Shape and color
give them not. God will never be visible. Nor will
his blessedness. He has no form. The pure in heart
will see Him, but never with the eye ; only in the same
way, but in a different degree, that they see Him now.
In the anticipated Vision of the Eternal, what do you
expect to see?- — A shape? Hues? You will never
behold God. Eye hath not seen, and never shall see in
finite form, the Infinite One, nor the Infinite of feeling
or of Truth.
Again ; no scientific analysis can discover the Truths
of God. Science cannot give a Revelation. Science
proceeds upon observation. It submits everything to
the experience of the senses. Its law, expounded bv
its great lawgiver, is, that if. you would ascertain its
truth you must see, feel, taste. Experiment is the test
of truth. Now, you cannot, by searching, find out the
Almighty to perfection, nor a single one of the blessed
Truths he has to communicate.
Men have tried to demonstrate Eternal Life, from an
examination of the structure of the body. One fancies
he has discovered the seat of life in the pineal gland ;
another, in the convolution of a nerve ; and thence
each infers the continuance of the mystic principle
supposed to be discovered there. But a third comes,
and sees in it all nothing really immaterial: organ iza-

28 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
tion, cerebration, but not Thought or Mind separable
from these ; nothing that must necessarily subsist after
the organism has been destroyed.
Men have supposed they discovered the law of D#%
written on the anatomical phenomena of disease.
They have exhibited the brain inflamed by intoxica
tion, and the structure obhterated by excess. They
have shown in the disordered frame the inevitable
penalty of transgression. But if a man, startled by
all this, give up his sin, has he from this selfish pru
dence learned the law of Duty? The penalties of
wrong-doing, doubtless ; but not the sanction of Right
and Wrong, written on the conscience, of which pen
alties are only the enforcements. He has indisputable
evidence that it is expedient not to commit excess ;
but you cannot manufacture a conscience out of ex
pediency. The voice of conscience says not, It is
better not to do so ; but " Thou shalt not."
No ; it is in vain that we ransack the world for prob
able evidences of God, and hypotheses of His exist
ence. It is idle to look into the materialism of man for
the Revelation of his immortality ; or to examine the .
morbid anatomy of the body to find the rule of Right.
If a man go to the eternal world with convictions of
Eternity, the Resurrection, God, already in his spirit,
he will find abundant corroborations of that which he
already believes. But if God's existence be not thrill
ing every fibre of his heart, if the Immortal be not
already in him, as the proof of the Resurrection, if
the law of Duty be not stamped upon his soul as an
Eternal Truth, unquestionable, a thing that must be
obeyed, quite separately from all considerations of
punishment or impunity, science will never reveal

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 29
these — observation pries in vain — the physician
comes away from the laboratory an infidel. Eye hath
not seen the Truths which are clear enough to Love
and to the Spirit.
2. Eternal Truth is not reached by hearsay. " Ear
hath not heard the things which God hath prepared
for them that love Him."
No revelation can be adequately given by the ad
dress of man to man, whether by writing or orally
even if he be put in possession of the truth itself.
For all such revelation must be made through words ;
and words are but counters — the coins of intellectual
exchange. There is as little resemblance between the
silver coin and the bread it purchases, as between the
word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin.
the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listen
ing to the word, you do not perceive the idea for
which it stands, unless you are already in possession
of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid
zone, — the word does not give him an idea, or, if it do,
it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who
cannot distinguish colors,- — what can your most elo
quent description present to him resembling the truth
of your sensation ? Similarly, in matters spiritual, no
verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. For
instance, what means justice to the unjust, or purity
to the man whose heart is steeped in licentiousness ?
What does infinitude mean to a being who has never
stirred from infancy beyond a cell, — never seen the sky,
or the sea, or any of those occasions of thought which,
leaving vagueness on the mind, suggest the idea of the
illimitable? It means, explain it as you will, nothing
to Mm but a room ; vastly larger than his own, but
3*

30 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
still a room, terminated by a wall. Talk of God to a
thousand ears, each has his own different conception.
Each man in this congregation has a God before him
at this moment, who is, according to his own attain
ment in goodness, more or less limited and imperfect.
The sensual man hears of God, and understands one
thing. The pure man hears, and conceives another
thing. Whether you speak in metaphysical or met
aphorical language, in the purest words of inspiration
or the grossest images of materialism, the conceptions
conveyed by the same word are essentially different,
according to the soul which receives.
So that apostles themselves, and prophets speaking
to the ear, cannot reveal truth to the soul — no, not if
God Himself were to touch their lips with fire. A
verbal revelation is only a revelation to the ear.
Now, see what a hearsay religion is. There are men
who believe on authority. Their minister believes all
this Christianity true ; therefore so do they. . He calls
this doctrine essential ; they echo it. Some thousands
of years ago, men communed with God ; they have
heard this,#and are content it should be so. They
have heard, with the hearing of the ear, that God is
Love — that the ways of holiness are ways of pleasant
ness, and all her paths peace. But a hearsay belief
saves not. The Corinthian philosophers heard Paul;
Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear con
vey? To thousands exactly nothing. He believes
truth who feels it. He has a religion whose soul knows •
by experience that to serve God and know Him is the
richest treasure. And unless Truth come to you, not
in word only, but in power besides, — authoritative

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 31
because true, not true because authoritative,' — there
has beer, no real revelation made to you from God.
3. Truth is not discoverable by the heart — " Neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love Him."
The heart — two things we refer to this source: the
power of imagining, and the power of loving.
Imagination is distinct from the mere dry faculty of
reasoning. Imagination is creative ; it is an immediate
intuition, not a logical analysis. We call it popularly
a kind of inspiration. Now, imagination is a power of
the heart. Great thoughts originate from a large
heart : a man must have a heart, or he never could
create. It is a grand thing, when, in the stillness of the soul,
thought bursts into flame, and the intuitive vision
comes like an inspiration ; when breathing thoughts
clothe themselves in burning words, winged as it were
with lightning; or when a great law of the universe
reveals itself to the mind of genius, and where all was
darkness his single word bids Light be, and all is order
where chaos and confusion were ; or when the truths
of human nature shape themselves forth in the creative
fancies of one like the million-minded Poet, and you
recognize the rare power of heart which sympathizes
with and can reproduce all that is found in man.
But all this is nothing more than what the material
man can achieve. The most ethereal creations of fan
tastic fancy were shaped by a mind that could read the
life of Christ, and then blaspheme the Adorable. The
truest utterances, and some of the deepest ever spoken,
revealing the unrest and the agony that lie hid in the
heart of man, came from one whose life was from first

32 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
to last selfish. The highest astronomer of this age,
before whose clear eye Creation lay revealed in all its
perfect order, was one whose spirit refused to recog
nize the Cause of Causes. The mighty heart of genius
had failed to reach the things which God imparts to a
humble spirit.
There is more in the heart of man — it has the power
of affection. The highest moment known on earth by
the merely natural is that in which the mysterious
union of heart with heart is felt. Call it friendship,
love, what you will, that mystic blending of two souls
in one, when self is lost and found again in the being
of another ; when, as it were, moving about in the
darkness and loneliness of existence, we suddenly come
in contact with something, and we find that spirit has
touched spirit. This is the purest, serenest ecstasy of
the merely human: more blessed than any sight that
can be presented to the eye, or any sound that can be
given to the ear ; more sublime than the sublimest
dream ever conceived by genius in its most gifted
hour, when the freest way was given to the shaping
spirit of imagination.
This has entered into the heart of man, yet this is
of the lower still. It attains not to the things pre
pared by God — it dimly shadows them. Human love
is but the faint type of that surpassing blessedness
which belongs to those who love God.
II. We pass, therefore, to the Nature and Laws of
Bevelation. First, Revelation is made by a spirit to a spirit —
" God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit." Christ
is the voice of God without the man ; the Spirit is the

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 33
voice of God luithin the man. The highest Revela
tion is not made by Christ, but comes directly from the
universal Mind to our minds. Therefore, Christ said
Himself, He, the Spirit, shall take of mine, and shall
show it unto you. And therefore it is written here
— The Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things
of God.
Now, the Spirit God lies touching, as it were, the
soul of man — ever around and near. On the outside
of earth, man stands with the boundless heaven above
him ; nothing between him and space, space around
him and above him, the confines of the sky touch
ing him. So is the spirit of man to the Spirit of the
Ever Near. They mingle ¦ — - in every man this is true.
The spiritual in him, by which he might become a recip
ient of God, may be dulled, deadened, by a life of sense,
but in this world never lost. All men are not spiritual
men ; but all have spiritual sensibilities which might
awake. All that is wanted is to become conscious of
the nearness of God. God has placed men here to feel
after Him if haply they might find Him, albeit he be not
far from any one of them. Our souls float in the
immeasurable ocean of spirit. God lies around us ; at
any moment we might be conscious of the contact.
The condition upon which this self-Revelation of
the Spirit is made to man is Love. These things
are " prepared for them that love Him ; " or, which is
the same thing, revealed to those who have the mind
of Christ,
Let us look into this word Love. Love to man
may mean several things. It may mean love to his
person, which is very different from himself; or it
may mean simple pity. Love to God can or? j B?>a

34 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN,

one thing. — God is a Character. To love God is to
love His character. For instance, God is Purity.
And to be pure in thought and look, to turn away
from unhallowed books and conversation, to abhor
the moments in which we have not been pure, is to
love God.
> God is Love ; and to love men till private attach
ments have expanded into a philanthropy which em
braces all, — at last even the evil and enemies with
compassion, — that is to love God. God is Truth. To
be true, to hate every form of falsehood, to live a
brave, true, real life — that is to love God. God is In
finite ; and to love the boundless, reaching on from
grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and rising
upwards ever to see the Ideal still above us and
to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be
perfect even as the Father is perfect — that is to
love God.
This Love is manifested in obedience : Love is the
life of which obedience is the Form. " He that hath
my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that
loveth me. . . . He that loveth me not, keepeth not my
sayings." Now, here can be no mistake. Nothing can
be Love to God which does not shape itself into obedi
ence. We remember the anecdote of the Roman com-
mander who forbade an engagement with the enemy,
and the first transgressor against whose prohibition
was his own son. He accepted the challenge of the
leader of the other host, met, slew, spoiled him, and
then in triumphant feeling carried the" spoils to his
father's tent. But the Roman father refused to rec
ognize the instinct which prompted this as deserving
of the name of Love — Disobedience contradicted it,

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 35
and deserved death; — weak sentiment, what was it
worth ?
So with God : — strong feelings, warm expressions,
varied internal experience coexisting with disobedience,
God counts not as Love. Mere weak feeling may not
usurp that sacred name.
To this Love, adoring and obedient, God reveals
His Truth. For such as love it is prepared ; or,
rather, by the well-known Hebrew inversion, such are
prepared for it. Love is the condition without which
revelation does not take place. As in the natural, so
in the spiritual world ; — by compliance with the laws
of the universe, we put ourselves in possession of its
blessings. Obey the laws of health, and you obtain
health; — temperance, sufficiency of light and air, and
exercise, these are the conditions of health. Arm
yourself with the laws of nature, and you may call down
the lightning from the sky ; surround yourself with
glass, and the lightning may play innocuously a few
inches from you. It cannot touch you — you may defy
it ; you have obeyed the conditions of nature, and
nature is on your side against it.
In the same way, there are conditions in the world
of spirit, by compliance with which God's Spirit
comes into the soul with all its revelations, as surely
as lightning from the sky, and as invariably. Such
conditions as these : — "The secret of the Lord is with
them that fear him." " No man hath seen God at any
time." " If we love one another, God dwelleth in us."
" With this man will I dwell, even with him that is of
a meek and contrite spirit." " If any man will do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine." — Reverence,
love, meekness, contrition, obedience, — these condi-

36 GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN.
tions having taken place, God enters the soul, whis
pers His secret, becomes visible, imparts knowledge
and conviction.
Now, these laws are universal and invariable ; they
are subject to no caprice. There is no favorite child
of nature who may hold the fire-ball in the hollow of
his hand and trifle with it without being burnt: — there
is no selected child of Grace who can live an irregular
life without unrest ; or be proud, and at the same time
have peace ; or indolent, and receive fresh inspiration ;
or remain unloving and cold, and yet see, and hear, and
feel, the things which God hath prepared for them that
love Him.
Therefore the apostle preached the Cross to men
who felt and to men who felt not the Revelation con
tained in it. The Cross is humbleness, love, self-
surrender — these the apostle preached. To conquer
the world by loving it ; to be blest by ceasing the
pursuit of happiness, and sacrificing life instead of
finding it ; to make a hard lot easy by submitting to
it — this was his divine philosophy of life. And the
princes of this world, amidst scoffs and laughter,
replied, Is that all ? Nothing to dazzle — nothing to
captivate. But the disciples of the inward life recog-'
nized the Divine Truth which this doctrine of the
Cross contained. The humble of heart, and the loving;
felt that in this lay the mystery of life, of themselves,
and of God, all revealed and plain. It was God's own
wisdom, felt by those who had the mind of Christ.
The application of all this is very easy : Love God,
and He will dwell with you: — Obey God, and He will
reveal the truths of His deepest teaching to your soul.
Not perhaps : — As surely as the laws of the spiritual

GOD'S REVELATION OF HEAVEN. 37
world are irreversible, are these things prepared for
obedient, love : — An inspiration as true, as real, and
as certain, as that which ever prophet or apostle
reached, is yours, if you will. .
And if obedience were entire and love were perfect,
then would the Revelation of the Spirit to the soul of
man be perfect too. There would be trust expelling
care, and enabling a man to repose ; there would be
a love which could cast out fear ; there would be a
sympathy with the mighty All of God. Selfishness
would pass, Isolation would be felt no longer : — the
tide of the universal and eternal Life would come with
mighty pulsations throbbing through the soul. To
such a man it would not matter where he was, nor
what : to live or die would be alike. If he lived, he
would live unto the Lord ; if he died, he would die to
the Lord. The bed of down, surrounded by friends,
or the martyr's stake, girt round with curses, — what
matter which ? Stephen, dragged, hurried, driven, felt
the glory of G°d streaming on his face : when the
shades of faintness were gathering round his eyes, and
the world was fading away into indistinctness, " the
things prepared " were given him. His spirit saw
what " Eye had never seen." The later martyr bathes
his fingers in the flames, and while the flesh shrivels
and the bones are cindered, says, in unfeigned sincerity,
that he is lying on a bed of roses. It would matter
little what he was, — the ruler of a kingdom, or a tailor
grimed with the smoke and dust of a workshop. To
a soul filled with God, the difference between these
two is inappreciable : — as if, from a distant star, you
were to look down upon a palace and a hovel, both
4

3-8 GOD'S revelation OF HEAVEN.
dwindled into distance, and were to smile at the
thought of calling one large and the other small.
No matter to such a man what he saw or what he
heard ; for every sight would be resplendent with
beauty, and every sound would echo harmony : things
common would become transfigured, as when the
ecstatic state of the inward soul reflected a radiant
cloud from the frame of Christ. The human would
become Divine, — life, even the meanest, noble. In
the hue of every violet there would be a glimpse of
Divine affection, and a dream of Heaven. The forest
would blaze with Deity, as it did to the eye of Moses.
The creations of genius would breathe less of earth
and more of Heaven. Human love itself would burn
with a clearer and intenser flame, rising from the altar
of self-sacrifice.
These are " the things which God hath prepared for
them that love Him." Compared with these, what are
loveliness, — the eloquent utterances of man, — the
conceptions of the heart of Genius ? What are they
all to the serene stillness of a spirit lost in love : the
full, deep rapture of a soul into which the Spirit of God
is pouring-itself in a mighty tide of Revelation ?

II.
[Preached June 6, 1849.]
• PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
CONFIRMATION LEOTUKE.
Matt. xiii. 1-10. — " The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat
by the seaside. And great multitudes were gathered together unto
him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude
stood on the shore. And he spake many things unto them in parables,
saying, Behold, a "sower went forth to sow : and when he sowed, some
seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.
Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth ; and
forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth :
and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had
no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the
thorns sprang up and choked them : But other fell into good ground,
and brought forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some
thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. ' '
Before the reception of the Lord's Supper on Sun
day next, I have been anxious to address you, my
young friends, once more, in order to carry on the
thoughts, and, if possible, deepen the impressions of
Tuesday last. During the last few weeks, you have
been subjected to much that is exciting ; and in pro
portion to the advantage is the danger of that excite
ment. A great part of the value of the rite of Con
firmation consists in its being a season of excite
ment or impression. The value of excitement is, that
(39)

40 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
it breaks up the old mechanical life, which has become
routine. It stirs the stagnancy of our existence, and
causes the stream of life to flow more fresh and clear.
The danger of excitement is the probability of reac
tion. The heart, like the body and the mind, cannot
be long exposed to extreme tension, without giving
way afterwards. Strong impressions are succeeded by
corresponding listlessness. Your work, to which you
have so long looked forward, is done. The profession
has been made ; and now, left suddenly, as it were,
with nothing before you, and apparently no answer to
the question — What are we to do now ? — insensibly
you will feel that all is over, and the void within your
hearts will be inevitably filled, unless there be great
vigilance, by a very different class of excitements.
This danger will be incurred most by those precisely
who felt most deeply the services of the past week.
The parable I have selected dwells upon such a class
of dangers.
No one who felt, or even thought, could view the
scene of Tuesday last without emotion. Six or seven
hundred young persons solemnly pledged themselves
to renounce evil in themselves and in the world, and
to become disciples of the Cross. The very color of
their garments, typical of purity, seemed to suggest
the hope and the expectation that the day might come
when they shall be found clothed with that inward
righteousness, of which their dress was but a symbol ;
when " they shall walk with Him in white, for they
are worthy." As yet fresh in feeling, as yet untainted
by open sin, who could see them without hoping
that ?
My young friends, experience forces us to correct

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 41
that sanguine anticipation. Of the seven hundred
who were earnest then, it were an appalling question
to ask how many will have retained their earnestness
six months hence, and how much of all that which
seemed so real will be recognized as pure, true gold,
at the last Great Day. Soon some will have lost
their innocence ; and some will have become frivolous
and artificial; and the world will have got its cold,
deadening hand on some. Who shall dare to guess in
how many the best-raised hopes will be utterly dis
appointed ?
Now, the question which presents itself is, How
comes so much promise to end in failure ? And to this
the parable of the sower returns a reply.
Three causes are conceivable : It might be the will
¦ — or, if you venture so to call it, the fault of Him
who gave the Truth. Or, it might be some inherent
impotency in the Truth itself. Or, lastly, the fault
might he solely in the soil of the heart.
This parable assures us that the fault does not lie
in God, the sower. God does not predestine men to
fail. That is strikingly told in the history of Judas: — •
" From a ministry and apostleship Judas fell, that
he might go to his own place." The ministry and
apostleship were that to which God had destined
him. To work out that, was the destiny appointed
to him, as truly as to any of the other apostles. He
was called, elected, to that. But when he refused to
execute that mission, the very circumstances which,
by God's decree, were leading him to blessedness,
hurried him to ruin. Circumstances prepared by
Eternal Love became the destiny which conducted
him to everlasting doom. He was a predestined man
4*

42 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
— crushed by his Fate. But he went to his " own
place." He had shaped his own destiny. So the
ship is wrecked by the winds and waves — hurried to
its fate. But the winds and waves were in truth its
best friends. Rightly guided, it would have made use
of them to reach the port ; wrongly steered, they be
came the destiny which drove it on the rocks. Failure
— the wreck of life — is not to be impiously traced to
the Will of God. God will have all men to be saved,
and come to a knowledge of the Truth. God willeth
not the death, of a sinner.
Nor, again, can we find the cause in any impotency
of Truth. An impotency, doubtless, there is some
where. The old thinkers accounted for it by the
depravity of matter. God can do anything, they said.
Being good, God would do all good. If He do not,
it is because of the materials He has to deal with.
Matter thwarts Him: Spirit is pure, but matter is
essentially evil and unspiritual ; the body is corrupt.
Against this doctrine St. Paul argues, 2 Cor. v. 4.
The true account is this : God has created in man
a will, which has become a cause. God can do any
thing ; — I fcnow not that. God cannot deny Himself;
God cannot do wrong ; God cannot create a number
less than one ; God cannot make a contradiction true.
It is a contradiction to let man be free, and force
him to do right. God has performed this marvel, of
creating a Being with free-will, independent, so to
speak, of Himself — a real cause in His universe.
To say that He has created such a one, is to say that
He has given him the power to fail. Without free
will there could be no human goodness. It is wise,
therefore, and good in God, to give birth to free-will.

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 43
But once acknowledge free-will in man, and the origin
of evil does not lie in God.
And this leads us to the remaining cause of failure
which is conceivable. In our own free-will — in the
grand and fearful power we have to ruin ourselves —
lies the real and only religious solution of the mystery.
In the soil of the heart is found all the nutriment of
spiritual life, and all the nutriment of the weeds and
poisons which destroy spiritual life. And it is this
which makes Christian character, when complete, a
thing so inestimably precious. There are things pre
cious, not from the materials of which they are made,
but from the risk and difficulty of bringing them to
perfection. The speculum of the largest telescope foils
the optician's skill in casting. Too much or too little
heat, the interposition of a grain of sand, a slight alter
ation in the temperature of the weather, and all goes
to pieces ; it must be recast.' Therefore, when suc
cessfully finished, it is a matter for almost the congratu
lation of a country. Rarer and more difficult still than
the costhest part of the most delicate of instruments
is the completion of Christian character. Only let
there come the heat of persecution, or the cold of
human desertion, a little of the world's dust, and the
rare and costly thing is cracked, and becomes a failure.
In this parable are given to us the causes of fail
ure; and the requirements which are necessary in
order to enable impressions to become permanent.
I. The causes of failure.
1. The first of these is want of spiritual perception.
Some of the seed fell by the wayside. There are per
sons whose religion is all outside — it never pene-

44 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
trates beyond the intellect. Duty is recognized in
word — not felt. They are regular at church, un
derstand the Catechism and Articles, consider the
Church a most venerable institution, have a respect
for religion — -but it never stirs the deeps of their
being. They feel nothing in it beyond a safeguard for
the decencies and respectabilities of social life ; valu
able, as parliaments and magistrates are valuable, but
by no means the one awful question which fills the
soul with fearful grandeur.
Truth of life is subject to failure in such hearts,
in two ways. — By being trodden down. Wheat,
dropped by a harvest-cart upon a road, lies outside.
There comes a passenger's foot, and crushes some of
it ; then wheels come by, - — the wheel of traffic and
the wheel of pleasure, — crushing it grain by grain.
It is " trodden down."
The fate of religion is easily understood from the
parallel fate of a single sermon. Scarcely has its last
tone vibrated on the ear, when a fresh impression is
given by the music which dismisses the congregation.
That is succeeded by another impression, as your
friend puts his arm in yours, and talks of some other
matter, irrelevant, obliterating any slight seriousness
which the sermon produced. Another, and another,
and another — and the word is trodden down. Ob
serve, there is nothing wrong in these impressions.
The farmer's cart which crushes the grain by the way
side is rolling by on rightful business — and j,he stage
and the pedestrian are in their place: 'simply, the
seed is not. It is not the wrongness of the impres
sions which tread religion down ; but only this, that

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 45
outside religion yields, in turn, to other outside im
pressions which are stronger.
Again, conceptions of religious life, which are only
conceptions outward, having no lodgment in the heart,
disappear. Fowls of the air came and devoured the
seed. Have you ever seen grain scattered on the
road? The sparrow from the housetop and the
chickens from the barn rush in, and, within a minute
after it has been scattered, not the shadow of a grain
is left. This is the picture — not of thought crushed
by degrees, but of thought dissipated, and no man
can tell when or how it went. Swiftly do these
winged thoughts come, when we pray, or read, or
listen ; in our inattentive, sauntering, wayside hours :
and before we can be upon our guard, the very trace
of holier purposes has disappeared. In our purest
moods, when we kneel to pray, or gather round the
altar, down- into the very Holy of Holies sweep these
foul birds of the air, villain fancies, demon thoughts.
The germ of life, the small seed of impression, is gone
— where, you know not. But it is gone. Inatten-
tiveness of spirit, produced by want of spiritual inter
est, is the first cause of disappointment.
2. A second cause of failure is want of depth in
character. Some fell on stony ground. Stony ground
means often the soil with which many loose stones are
intermixed ; but that is not the stony ground meant
here : this stony ground is the thin layer of earth
upon a bed of rock. Shallow soil is like superficial
character. You meet with such persons in life.
There is nothing deep about them ; all they do and
all they have is on the surface. The superficial ser
vant's work is done : but not thoroughly — lazily, par-

46 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
tially. The superficial workman's labor will not bear
looking into ; but it bears a showy outside. The very
dress of such persons betrays the slatternly, incom
plete character of their minds. When religion comes
in contact with persons of this stamp, it shares the
fate of everything else. It is taken up in a superficial
way. There is deep knowledge of human nature, and ex
quisite fidelity to truth, in the single touch by which
the impression of religion on them is described. The
seed sprang up quickly; and then withered away as
quickly, because it had no depth of root. There is a
quick, easily-moved susceptibility, that rapidly exhibits
the slightest breath of those emotions which play
upon the surface of the soul, and then as rapidly
passes off. In such persons words are ever at com
mand — voluble and impassioned words. Tears flow
readily. The expressive features exhibit every pass
ing shade of thought. Every thought and every feel
ing plays upon the surface ; everything that is sown
springs up at once, with vehement vegetation. But
Brightness and inconstancy go together with violence.
" Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak-
eth." True, but also out of the emptiness of the
heart the mouth can speak even more volubly. He
who can always find the word which is appropriate
and adequate to his emotions is not the man whose
emotions are deepest : warmth of feeling is one thing
— permanence is another. On Tuesday last, they
who went to the table most moved and touched were
not necessarily those who raised in a wise observer's
breast the strongest hope of persistence in the life of
Christ. Rather those who were calm and subdued:

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 47
that which springs up quickly often does so merely
from this, that it has no depth of earth to give it room
to strike its roots clown and deep.
A young man of this stamp came to Christ — run
ning, kneeling, full of warm expressions, engaging
gestures, and professed admiration, worshipping and
saying, good Master ! Lovable and interesting as
such always are, Jesus loved him. But it lay all
upon the surface — withered away when the depth of
its meaning was explored. The test of self-sacrifice
was applied to his apparent love. He was ready for
anything. Well, go, sell that thou hast. It had
sprung up quickly : but it withered because it had no
root. And that is another stroke of truth in the delinea
tion of this character. Not wealth or comfort is the
bane of its religion : but " when tribulation or perse
cution ariseth because of the word, by and by they
are offended." A pleasant, sunny religion would be
the life to suit them. " They receive the'Word with
joy." So long as they have happiness they can love
God — -feel very grateful, and expand with generous
emotions. But when God speaks as to Job out of
the whirlwind, and the sun is swept from the face of
their heaven, and the sharp Cross is the only object
left in the dreary landscape, and the world blames,
and friends wound the wounded with cold speech and
hollow commonplaces, what is there in superficial
religion to keep the heart in its place, and vigorous
still? Another point. Not without significance is it rep
resented that the superficial character is connected
with the hard heart. Beneath the light, thin surfaco

48 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
of easily stirred dust lies the bed of rock. The sha*.
low ground was stony ground. And it is among the
children of light enjoyment and unsettled life that we
must look for stony heartlessness : — not in the world
of business — not among the poor, crushed to the
earth by privation and suffering. That hardens the
character, but often leaves the heart soft. If you
wish to know what hollowness and heartlessness are,
you must seek for them in the world of light, elegant,
superficial fashion, where frivolity has turned the
heart into a rock-bed of selfishness. Say what men
will of the heartlessness of trade, it is nothing com
pared with the heartlessness of fashion. Say what
they will of the atheism of science, it is nothing to the
atheism of that round of pleasure in which the heart
lives: dead while it lives.
3. Once more : impressions come to nothing when
the mind is subjected to dissipating influences, and
yields to them. " Some fell among thorns."
There is nutriment enough in the ground for thorns,
and enough for wheat ; but not enough, in any ground,
for both wheat and thorns. The agriculturist thins
his nursefy-ground, and the farmer weeds his field, and
the gardener removes the superfluous grapes, for that
very reason : in order that the dissipated sap may be
concentrated in a few plants vigorously.
So, in the same way, the heart has a certain power
of loving. But love, dissipated on many objects, con
centrates itself on none. God or the world — not
both. " No man can serve two masters." — " If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him." He that has learned many accomplishments
or sciences generally knows none thoroughly. Multi-

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 49
fariousness of knowledge is commonly opposed to
depth ; variety of affections is generally not found
with intensity.
Two classes of dissipating influences distract such
minds. " The cares of this world, and the deceitful-
ness of riches, choke the Word." The cares of this
world — its petty, trifling distractions, not wrong in
themselves, simply dissipating — filling the heart
with paltry solicitudes and mean anxieties — wear
ing. Martha was " cumbered with much serving."
Her household and domestic duties, real duties, di
vided her heart with 'Christ. The time of danger,
therefore, is when life expands into new situations
and larger spheres, bringing with them new cares.
It is not in the earlier stages of existence that these
distractions are felt. Thorns sprang up and choked
the wheat as they grew together. You see a religious
man taking up a new pursuit with eagerness. At
first no danger is suspected. But it is a distraction
¦ — something that distracts or divides — he has be
come dissipated, and, by and by, you remark that
his zest is gone ; he is no longer the man he was.
He talks as before, but the life is gone from what
he says — his energies are frittered. The Word is
" choked." Again ; the deceitfulness of riches dissipate. True
as always to nature, never exaggerating, never one
sided, Christ does not say that such religion brings
forth no fruit, but only that it brings none to perfec
tion. A "fanatic bans all wealth and all worldly care
as the department of the devil : Christ says, " How
hardly shall they that trust in riches enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven." He does not say the divided
5

50 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
heart has no religion, but it is a dwarfed, stunted, fee
ble religion. Many such a Christian do you find among
the rich and the titled, who, as a less encumbered man,
might have been a resolute soldier of the Cross ; but
he is only now a realization of the old Pagan fable —
a spiritual giant under a mountain of gold. 0 ! many,
many such we meet in our higher classes, pining with
a nameless want, pressed by heavy laws of the weari
ness of existence, strengthless in the midst of affluence,
and incapable even of tasting the profusion of comfort
which is heaped around them.
There is a way God their Father has of dealing with
such, which is no pleasant thing to bear. In agricul
ture it is called weeding. In gardening it is done by
pruning. It is the cutting off the over-luxuriant
shoots, in order to call back the wandering juices into
the healthier and more living parts. In religion it is
described thus : " Every branch that beareth fruit He
purgeth." .... Lot had such a danger, and was
subjected to such a treatment. A quarrel had arisen
between Abraham's herdsmen and his. It was neces
sary to part. Abraham, in that noble way of his, gave
him the choice of the country when they separated.
Either hand for Abraham : either the right hand or the
left: — what cared the pilgrim of the Invisible for
fertile lands or rugged sands ? Lot chose wisely, as
they of the world speak. Well, if this world be all,
he got a rich soil, became a prince, had kings for his
society and neighbors. It was nothing to Lot that
" the men of the land were sinners before 'the Lord
exceedingly ;" — enough that it was well Avatered
everywhere. But his wife became enervated by volup
tuousness, and his children tainted with ineradicable

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 51
corruption — the moral miasma of the society wherein
he had made his home. Two warnings God gave him.
First, his home and property were spoiled by the
enemy ; then came the fire from heaven ; and he fled
from the cities of the plain a ruined man. His wife
looked back with lingering regret upon the splendid
home of her luxury and voluptuousness, and was over
whelmed in the encrusting salt; his children carried
with them into a new world the plague-spot of that
profligacy which had been the child of affluence and
idleness ; and the spirit of that rain of fire — of the
buried Cities of the Plain — rose again in the darkest
of the crimes which the Old Testament records, to poi
son the new society at its very fountain. And so the
old man stood at last upon the brink of the grave, a
blackened ruin scathed by lightning, — over the grave
of his wife, and the shame of his family — saved, but
only so as by fire.
It is a painful thing that weeding work. "Every
branch in me that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it
may bring forth more fruit." The keen edge of God's
pruning-knife cuts sheer through. No weak tender
ness stops Him whose love seeks Goodness, not Com
fort, for his servants. A man's distractions are in his
wealth, and perhaps fire or failure make him bank
rupt : what he feels is God's sharp knife. Pleasure
has dissipated his heart, and a stricken frame forbids
his enjoying pleasure ; shattered n'erves and broken
health wear out the life of life. Or, perhaps, it comes
in a sharper, sadder form: the shaft of death goes
home — there is heard the wail of danger in his home.
And then, when sickness has passed on to hopeless
ness, and hopelessness has passed on to death, the

52 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
crushed man goes into the chamber of the dead ; and
there, when he shuts down the lid upon the coffin of
his wife, or the coffin of his child, his heart beg.ns to
tell him the meaning of all this. Thorns had been
growing in his heart, and the sharp knife had been at
work making room; but by an awful desolation —
tearing up and cutting down, that the life of God in
the soul may not be choked.
II. For the permanence of religious impressions
this parable suggests three requirements : " They on
the good ground are they which, in an honest and
good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring
forth fruit with patience."
1. " An honest and good heart." Earnestness : that
is, sincerity of purpose. Now, sincerity is reckoned,
by an exaggeration, sometimes the only virtue. So
that a man be sincere, they say, it matters little what
he thinks or what he is. But in Truth is the basis of
all goodness ; without which, goodness of any kind is
impossible. There are faults more heinous, but none
moje ruinous, than insincerity. Subtle minds, which
have no bfoad, firm footing on reality, lose everything
by degrees, and may be transformed into any shape of
evil ; may become guilty of anything, and excuse it to
themselves. To this sincerity is given, in the parable,
success : a harvest thirty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred
fold. This earnestness is the first requisite for real success
in everything. Do you wish to become rich ? — You
may become rich : that is, if you desire it in no half
way, but thoroughly. A miser sacrifices all to this
single passion ; hoards farthings, and dies possessed

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 53
of wealth. Do you wish to master any science or
accomplishment? — Give yourself to it, and it lies
beneath your feet. Time and pains will do anything.
This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest;
and that which is true of this world is truer still of the
world to come. " The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force." Only there
is this difference. In the pursuit of wealth, knowledge,
reputation, circumstances have power to mar the
wisest schemes. The hoard of years may be lost in a
single Sight. The wisdom hived up by a whole life
may perish when some fever impairs memory. But
in the kingdom of Christ, where inward character
is the prize, no chance can rob earnestness of its
exactly proportioned due of success. " Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap." There is no
blight, nor mildew, nor scorching sun, nor rain-deluge,
which can turn that harvest into a failure. " Lay not
up for yourselves treasures on earth." .... Sow for
time, and probably you will succeed in time. Sow the
seed of Life, ¦ — -humbleness, pure-heartedness, Love, —
and, in the long Eternity which lies before the soul,
every minutest grain will come up again with an
increase of thirty, sixty, or an hundred fold.
2. Meditation is a second requisite for permanence.
They keep the word which they have heard.
Now, meditation is often confounded with something
which" only partially resembles it. Sometimes we sit
in a kind of day-dream, the mind expatiating far away
into vacancy, while minutes and hours slip by, almost
unmarked, in mere vacuity. That is not meditation,
but revery, — a state to which the soul resigns itself
in pure passivity. When the soul is absent and dream-
5*

54 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
ing, let no man think that that is spiritual meditation,
or anything that is spiritual.
Meditation is partly a passive, partly an active state.
Whoever has pondered long over a plan which he is
anxious to accomplish, without distinctly seeing at first
the way, knows what meditation is. The subject pre
sents itself in leisure moments spontaneously ; but,
then, all this sets the mind at work — contriving, imag
ining, rejecting, modifying. It is in this way that one
of the greatest of English engineers, a man uncouth
and unaccustomed to regular discipline of mind, is
said to have accomplished his most marvellous tri
umphs. He threw bridges over almost impracticable
torrents, and pierced the eternal mountains for his
viaducts. Sometimes a difficulty brought all the work
to a pause : then he would shut himself up in his room,
eat nothing, speak to no one, abandon himself intensely
to the contemplation of that on which his heart was
set ; and, at the end of two or three days, would come
forth serene and calm, walk to the spot, and quietly
give orders which seemed the result of superhuman
intuition. This was meditation. *
He kno#s, again, what it is, who has ever earnestly
and sincerely loved one living human being. The
image of his friend rises unbidden by day and night,
stands before his soul in the street and in the field,
comes athwart his every thought, and mixes its pres
ence with his every plan. So far all is passive. But
besides this he plans and contrives for that other's
happiness ; tries to devise what would give pleasure ;
examines his own conduct and conversation, to avoid
that which can by any possibility give pain. This is
meditation.

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. &0
So, too, is meditation on religious truth carried on.
If it first be loved, it will recur spontaneously to the
heart. But then it is dwelt on till it receives innumerable
applications ; is again and again brought up to the sun
and tried in various lights, and so incorporates itself
with the realities of practical existence.
Meditation is done in silence. By it we renounce
our narrow individuality, and expatiate into that which
is infinite. Only in the sacredness of inward silence
does the" soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The
strength of resolve, which afterwards shapes life and
mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred,
solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence.
We meet God alone.
For this reason, I urged it upon so many of you to
spend the hours previous to your Confirmation sepa
rate from friends, from books, from everything human,
and to force yourselves into the Awful Presence.
Have we never felt how human presence, if frivo
lous, in such moments frivolizes the soul, and how
impossible it is to come in contact with any thoughts
which are sublime, or drink in one inspiration which
is from Heaven, without degrading it, even though
surrounded by all that would naturally suggest tender
and awful feeling, when such are by ?
It is not the number of books you read, nor the
variety of sermons which you hear, nor the amount of
religious conversation in which you mix ; but it is the
frequency and the earnestness with which you medi
tate on these things, till the truth which may be in
them becomes your own, and part of your c wn being,
that insures your spiritual growth.

56 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
3. The third requisite is endurance. " They bring
forth fruit with patience." Patience is of two kinds.
There is an active and there is a passive endurance.
The former is a masculine, the latter for the most part
a feminine virtue. Female patience is exhibited chiefly
in fortitude ; in bearing pain and sorrow meekly, with
out complaining. In the old Hebrew life female en
durance shines almost as brightly as in any life which
Christianity itself can mould. Hannah, under the
provocations and taunts of her rival, answering not
again her husband's rebuke, humbly replying to Eli's
unjust blame, is true to the type of womanly endur
ance. For the type of man's endurance you may look
to the patience of the early Christians under persecu
tion. They came away from the Sanhedrim to endure
and bear ; but it was to bear as conquerors rushing on
to victory, preaching the truth with aU boldness, and
defying the power of the united world to silence
them. These two diverse qualities are joined in One,
and only One of woman born, in perfection. One
there was in whom human nature was exhibited in all
its elements symmetrically complete : One in whom,
as I lately said, there met all that was manliest and all
that was most womanly. His endurance of pain and
grief was that of the woman rather than the man. A
tender spirit dissolving into tears, meeting the dark
hour not with the stern defiance of the man and the
stoic, but with gentleness, and trust, and love, and
shrinking, 'like a woman. But when it came to the
question in Pilate's judgment-hall, or the mockeries of
Herod's men of war, or the discussion with the Phar
isees, or the exposure of the hollow falsehoods by
which social, domestic, and religious life were sapped.

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 57
the woman has disappeared, and the hardy resolution
of the Man, with more than manly daring, is found in
her stead. This is the " patience " for us to cultivate :
To bear and to persevere. However dark and profit
less, however painful and weary, existence may have
become ; however any man, like Elijah, may be tempted
to cast himself beneath the juniper-tree and say, " It
is enough: now, 0 Lord!"- — life is not done, and our
Christian character is not won, so long as God has
anything left for us to suffer, or anything left for us
to do.
Patience, however, has another meaning. It. is the
opposite of that impatience which cannot wait. This
i i one of the difficulties of spiritual life. We are dis
appointed if the harvest do not come at once.
Last Tuesday, doubtless, you thought that all was
done, and that there would be no more falling back.
Alas ! a little experience will correct that. If the
husbandman, disappointed at the delay which ensues
before the blade breaks the soil, were to rake away
the earth to examine if germination were going on,
he would have a poor harvest. He must have " long
patience, till he receive the early and the latter rain."
The winter frost mu=t mellow the seed lying in the
genial bosom of the earth : the rains of spring must
sweU it, and the suns of summer mature it. So with
you. It is the work of a long life to become a Chris
tian. Many, 0, many a time, are we tempted to say,
" I make no progress at all. It is only failure after
failure. Nothing grows." Now look at the sea when
the flood is coming in. Go and stand by the sea-
beach, and you will think that the ceaseless flux and
leflux is but retrogression equal to the advance. But

58 PARABLE OF THE SOWER.
look again in an hour's time, and the whole ocean has
advanced. Every advance has been beyond the last,
and every retrograde movement has been an imper
ceptible trifle less than the last. This is progress ; to
be estimated at the end of hours, not minutes. And
this is Christian progress. Many a fluctuation, many
a backward motion with a rush at times so vehement
that all seems lost ; but, if the Eternal work be real,
every failure has been a real gain, and the next does
not carry us so far back as we were before. Every
advance is a real gain, and part of it is never lost.
Both when we advance and when we fail, we gain.
We are nearer to God than we were. The flood of
spirit-life has carried us up higher on the everlasting
shores, where the waves of life beat no more, and its
fluctuations end, and all is safe at last. " This is the
faith and patience of the saints."
It was because of the second of these requirements,
Meditation, that I was anxious we should meet on Sun
day next for an early communion, at eight o'clock. I
desire that the candidates may have a more solemn and
definite communion of their own, with few others
present eccept their own relations and friends. In
silence and quietness, we will meet together then.
Before the world has put on its full robe of light, and
before the busy gay crowd have begun to throng our
streets, — before the distractions of the day begin, we
will consecrate the early freshness of our souls — un
trodden, unhardened, un dissipated — to God. We will
meet in the simplicity of brotherhood and sisterhood.
We will have communion in a sacred meal which shall
exhibit as nearly as may be the idea of family affec
tion. Ye that are beginning life, and we who know

PARABLE OF THE SOWER. 59
something of it, — ye that offer yourselves for the first
time at that table, and we who, after sad experience
and repeated failure, still desire again to renew our
aspirations and our vows to Him, — we wiU come and
breathe together that prayer, which I commended to
you at your confirmation, — " Our Father which art in
Heaven — lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil."

III.
JACOB'S WRESTLING.
CONFIRMATION LECTURE. ¦
Gen. xxxii. 28, 29. — " And he said, Thy name shall be called no more
Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou power with God and
with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell
me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou
dost ask after my name 1 And he blessed him there."
The complexion of this story is peculiarly Jewish.
It contained three points which were specially inter
esting to every Jew in a national point of view. It
explained to him why he was called Israelite. It
traced the origin of his own name, Israelite, to a dis
tant ancestor, who had signally exhibited religious
strength,^ind been, in the language of those times, a
wrestler with God, from whence he had obtained the
name Israel. It cast much deep and curious inter
est round an otherwise insignificant village, Peniel,
where this transaction had taken place, and which
derived its name from it, — Peniel, the face of God.
And, besides, it explained the origin of a singular
custom, which might seem a superstitious one, of not-
suffering a particular muscle to be eaten, and regard
ing it with a kind of religious awe, as the part in
which Jacob was said by tradition to have been in
jured by the earnest tension of his frame during this
(60)

JACOB'S WRESTLING. Gl
struggle. So far all is Jewish, narrow, merely of local
interest. Besides this, much of the story is evidently
mythical. It is clear at once that it belongs to that earlier
period of literature when traditions are preserved in a
poetical shape, adapted to the rude conceptions of the
day, but enshrining an inner and a deep truth. To
disengage this truth from the form in which it is
encased, is the duty of the expositor.
Now, putting aside the form of this narrative, and
looking into the heart and meaning of it, it will
become apparent that we have no longer anything
infantine, or Jewish, or of limited interest, but a wide
truth,- — wide as human nature; and that there is
before us the record of an inward spiritual struggle,
as real now in the nineteenth century as then ; as
real in every earnest man as it was in the history of
Jacob. We take these points :
I. The nameless secret of Existence.
II. The revelation of that secret to the Soul.
The circumstances which preceded this event were
these : More than twenty years before, Jacob had
been guilty of a deliberate sin. He had deceived his
father; he had over-reached his free-spirited, impet
uous, open-hearted brother Esau. Never, during all
those twenty years, had he seen the man whom he
had injured. But now, on the point of returning to
his native country, news was brought to him of his
brother's approach, which made a meeting inevitable.
Jacob made all his dispositions and arrangements to
prepare for the worst. He sent over the brook Jabbok
first the part of his family whom he valued least, and
6

62 JACOB'S WRESTLING.
who would be the first to meet Esau ; then those whom
he loved most, that, in the event of danger, they
might have the greatest facility in escaping ; then
Jacob was left alone in the still, dark night. It was
one of those moments in existence when a crisis is
before us, to which great and pregnant issues are
linked ; when all has been done that foresight can
devise, and, the hour of action being past, the instant
of reaction has come. Then the soul is left passive
and helpless, gazing face to face upon the anticipated
and dreadful moment which is slowly moving on. I
is in these hours that, having gone through in imag
ination the whole circle of our resources, and found
them nothing, and ourselves powerless, as in the hands
of a destiny, there comes a strange and nameless
dread, a horrible feeling of insecurity, which gives the
consciousness of a want, and forces us to feel out into
the abyss for something that is mightier than flesh and
blood to lean upon.
Then, therefore, it was that there came the moment
of a conflict within the soul of Jacob, so terrible and
so violent that it seemed an actual struggle with a
living mal In the darkness he had heard a Voice,
and came in contact with a Form, and felt a Presence,
the reality of which there was no mistaking. Now,
to the unscientific mind, that which is real seems to
be necessarily material too. What wonder if, to the
unscientific mind of Jacob, this conflict, so real, and
attended in his person with such tangible results,
seemed all human and material — a conflict with a
tangible antagonist ? What wonder if tradition pre
served it in such a form ? Suppose we admit that the
Being whose awful presence Jacob felt had no Form

JACOB'S WRESTLING. 63
which could be grappled by a human hand, — ¦ is it less
real for that ? Are there no realities but those which
the hand can touch and the eye see ?
Jacob in that hour felt the dark secret and mystery
of existence.
Upon this I shall make three remarks.
1. The first has reference to the contrast observable
between this and a former revelation made to Jacob's
soul. This was not the first time it had found itself
face to face with God. Twenty years before, he had
seen in vision a ladder reared against the sky, and
angels ascending and descending on it. Exceedingly
remarkable. Immediately after his transgression, when
leaving his father's home, a banished man, to be a
wanderer for many years, this first meeting took
place. Fresh from his sin, God met him in tender
ness and forgiveness. He saw the token which told
him that all communication between heaven and
earth was not severed. The way was clear and unim
peded still. Messages of reciprocated love might
pass between the Father and His sinful child, as the
angels in the dream ascended and descended on the
visionary ladder. The possibility of saintliness was
not forfeited. All that the Vision taught him. Then
took place that touching Covenant, in which Jacob
bound himself to serve gratefully his father's God,
and vowed the vow of a consecrated heart to Him.
All that was now past. After twenty years, God
met him again ; but this second intercourse was of a
very different character. It was no longer God the
Forgiver, God the Protector, God the covenanting
Love, that met Jacob ; but God the Awful, the Un-
namable, whose breath blasts, and at whose touch

64 JACOB'S WRESTLING.
the flesh of the mortal shrinks and shrivels up. Thia
is exactly the reverse of what might have been antici
pated. You would have expected the darker vision
of experience to come first. First the storm-struggle
of the soul ; then the Vision of Peace. It was exactly
the reverse.
Yet all this, tried by experience, is a most true and
living account. The awful feelings about Life and
God are not those which characterize our earlier
years. It is quite natural that, in the first espousals
of the soul in its freshness to God, bright and hopeful
feelings should be the predominant or the only ones.
Joy marks, and ought to mark, early religion. Nay,
by God's merciful arrangement, even sin is not that
crushing thing in early life which it sometimes be
comes in later years, when we mourn not so much a
calculable number of sinful acts, as a deep, pervading
sinfulness. Remorse does not corrode with its evil
power then. Forgiveness is not only granted, but
consciously and joyishly felt. It is as life matures
that the weight of life, the burden of this unintelligi
ble world, and the mystery of the hidden God, are
felt. •
A vast amount of insincerity is produced by mistak
ing this. We expect in the religion of the child the
experience which can only be true in the religion of
the man. We force into their, lips the language which
describes the wrestling of the soul with God. It is
twenty years too soon. God, in his awfulness, the
thought of mystery which scathes the soul — how can
they know that yet, before they have got the thews
and sinews of the man's heart- to master such a
thought ? They know nothing yet — they ought to

Jacob's wrestling. 65
know nothing yet — of God, but as the Father who is
around their beds ; they ought to see nothing yet but
Heaven opened, and angels ascending and descending.
This morning, my young brethren, you presented
yourselves at the Communion Table for the first time.
Some of you, we trust, were conscious of meeting
God. Only let us not confound the dates of Christian
experience. If you did, it was not as Jacob met God
on this occasion, but rather as he met Him on the
earlier one. It were only a miserable forcing of
insincerity upon you to require that this solemn, fear
ful sensation of his should be yours. Rather, we
trust, you felt God present as the Lord of Love. A
ladder was raised for you to Heaven. 0 ! we trust
that the feeling in some cases, at least, was this, — as
of angels ascending and descending upon a child of
God. 2. Again, I remark, that the end and aim of Jacob's
struggle was to know the name of God. " Tell me, I
pray thee, Thy Name." A very unimportant desire, at
first sight. For what signifies a name? In these
days, when names are only epithets, it signifies noth
ing. " Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," as the " Universal
Prayer" insinuates, are all the same. Now, to assert
that it matters not whether God be called Jehovah,
Jove, or Lord, is true, if it mean this, that a devout
and earnest heart is accepted by God, let the name be
what it will by which He is addressed. But if it mean
that Jove and Jehovah express the same Being, — that
the character of Him whom the Pagan worshipped
was the same as the character of Him whom Israel
adored under the name of Jehovah, — that they refer
6*

66 JACOB'S WRESTLING.
to the same group of ideas, — or that always names
are but names, then we must look much deeper.
In the Hebrew history are discernible three periods
distinctly marked, in which names and words bore
very different characters. These three, it has been
observed by acute philologists, correspond to the
periods in which the nation bore the three different
appellations of Hebrews, Israelites, Jews.
In the first of these periods, names meant truths,
and words were the symbols of realities. The char
acteristics of the names given then were simplicity
and sincerity. They were drawn from a few simple
sources : either from some characteristic of the indi
vidual, as Jacob, the supplanter, or Moses, drawn
from the water ; or from the idea of family, as Ben
jamin, the son of my right hand ; or from the concep
tion of the tribe or nation, then gradually consolidate
ing itself; or, lastly, from the religious idea of God.
But in this case not the highest notion of God, — not
Jah or Jehovah, but simply the earlier and simple idea
of Deity: El. Israel, the prince of El; Peniel, the
face of El.
In these days names were real, but the 'conceptions
they contained were not the loftiest.
The second period begins about the time of the
departure from Egypt, and it is characterized by una
bated simplicity, with the addition of sublimer thought,
and feeling more intensely religious. The heart of
the nation was big with mighty and new religious
truth, and the feelings with which the national heart
was swelling found vent in the names which were
given abundantly. God, under His name Jah, the
noblest assemblage of soiritual truths yet conceived,

Jacob's wrestling. 67
became the adjunct to names of places and persons.
Oshea's name is changed into Jehoshua.
Observe, moreover, that in this period there was no
fastidious, over-refined chariness in the use of that
name. Men conscious of deep and real reverence
are not fearful of the appearance of irreverence. The
word became a common word, as it always may, so
long as it is felt, and awe is real. A mighty cedar
was called a cedar of Jehovah, — a lofty mountain, a
mountain of Jehovah. Human beauty even was
praised by such an epithet. Moses was divinely fair,
beautiful to God. The Eternal Name became an
adjunct. No beauty, no greatness, no goodness, was
conceivable, except as emanating from Him : therefore
His name was freely but most devoutly used.
Like the earlier period, in this, too, words mean real
ities ; but, unlike the earlier period, they are impreg
nated with deeper religious thought.
The third period was at its zenith in the time of
Christ: — words had lost their meaning, and shared
the hollow, unreal state of all things. A man's name
might be Judas, and still he might be a traitor. A
man might be called Pharisee, exclusively religious,
and yet the name might only cover the hollowness of
hypocrisy ; or, he might be called most noble Festus,
and be the meanest tyrant that ever sat upon a pro
consular chair. This is the period in which every
keen and wise observer knows that the decay of na
tional religious feeling has begun. That decay in the
meaning of words, that lowering of the standard of
the ideas for which they stand, is a certain mark of
this. The debasement of a language is a sure mark
of the debasement of a nation. The insincerity of a

68 Jacob's wrestling.
language is a proof of the insincerity of a nation ; for
a time comes in the history of a nation when words no
longer stand for things ;- when names are given for the
sake of an euphonious sound, and when titles are but
the epithets of unmeaning courtesy; — a time when
Majesty, Defender of the Faith, Most Noble, Wor
shipful, and Honorable, not only mean nothing, but
do not flush the cheek with the shame of convicted
falsehood when they are worn as empty ornaments.
The Name of God shares this fate. A nation may
reach the state in which the Eternal Name can be
used to point a sentence, or adorn a familiar conver
sation, and no longer shock the ear with the sound of
blasphemy, because in good truth the Name no longer
stands for the Highest, but for a meaner conception,
an idol of the debased mind. E. g. In a foreign lan
guage, the language of a light and irreligious people,
the Eternal Name can be used as a light expletive and
conversational ejaculation, and not shock any religious
sensibility. You could not do that in English. It
would sound Hke a blasphemy to say, in light talk, My
God ! or, Good God ! Your flesh would creep at
hearing it.# But in that language the word has lost
its sacredness, because it has lost -its meaning. It
means no more than Jove or Baal. It means a Being
whose existence has become a nursery fable. No mar
vel that we are taught to pray, "Hallowed be Thy
Name." We cannot pray a deeper prayer for our
country than to say, Never may that Name in Eng
lish stand for a lower idea than it stands for now.
There is a solemn power in words, because words
are the expression of character. " By thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt
be condemned."

69
Yet, in this period, exactly in proportion as the
solemnity of the idea was gone, reverence was scru
pulously paid to the corpse-like word which remained
and had once enclosed it. In that hollow, artificial
age, the Jew would wipe his pen before he ventured
to write the Name — he would leave out the vowels of
the sacred Jehovah, and substitute those of the less
sacred Elohim. In that kind of age, too, men bow to
the name of Jesus often just in that proportion in
which they have ceased to recognize His true grand
eur and majesty of character.
In such an age, it would be indeed preposterous to
spend the strength upon an inquiry such as this : —
"Tell me Thy Name?" Jehovah, Jove, or Lord —
what matter? But Jacob did not live in this third
period, when names meant nothing ; nor did he live in
the second, when words contained the deepest truth
the nation is ever destined to receive. But he lived
in the first age, when men are sincere, and truthful,
and earnest, and names exhibit character. To tell
Jacob the Name of God was to reveal to him what
God is, and who.
3. I observe a third thing. This desire of Jacob's
was not the one we should naturally have expected on
such an occasion. He is alone ; his past fault is
coming retributively on a guilty conscience ; he
dreads the meeting with his brother. His soul is
agonized with that, and that we naturally expect will
be the subject and the burden of his prayer. No such
thing! Not a word about Esau — not a word about
personal danger at all. All that is banished completely
for the time, and deeper thoughts are grapphng with
his soul. To get safe through to-morrow? No, no

70 Jacob's wrestling.
no ! To be blessed by God — to know Him, and what
He is — that is the battle of Jacob's soul from sunset
till the dawn of day.
And that is our struggle — the struggle. Let any
true man go down into the deeps of his own being,;
and answer us, — What is the cry that comes from the
most real part of his nature ? Is it the cry for daily
bread ? Jacob asked for that in his first communing
with God — preservation, safety. Is it even this, —
to be forgiven our sins ? Jacob had a sin to be for
given, and in that most solemn moment of his exist
ence he did not say a syllable about it. Or is it this, —
" Hallowed be Thy Name " ? No, my brethren. Out
of our frail and yet sublime humanity, the demand
that rises in the earthlier hours of our religion may be
this, — Save my soul ; but in the most unearthly mo
ments it is this, — " Tell me Thy Name." We move
through a world of mystery ; and the deepest question
is, — What is the Being that is ever near, sometimes
felt, never seen ; that which has haunted us from child
hood with a dream of something surpassingly fair,
which has never yet been realized ; that which sweeps
through the soul at times as a desolation, like the blast
from the wings of the Angel of Death, leaving us
stricken and silent in our loneliness ; that which has
touched us in our tenderest point, and the flesh has
quivered with agony, and our mortal affections have
shrivelled up with pain ; that which comes to us in
aspirations of nobleness, and conceptions of super
human excellence ? Shall we say It, or He ? What is
It ? Who is He ? Those anticipations of Immortality
and God — what are they ? Are they the mere throb-
bings of my own heart, heard and mistaken for a liv

Jacob's wrestling. 71
ing something beside me ? Are they the sound of my
own wishes echoing through the vast void of Nothing
ness? or, shall I call them God, Father, Spirit, Love?
A living Being within me or outside me? Tell me
Thy Name, thou awful mystery of Loveliness 1 That
is the struggle of all earnest life.
We come now to
II. The revelation of the Mystery.
1. It was revealed by awe. Very significantly are
we told that the Divine antagonist seemed as it were
anxious to depart, as the day was about to dawn ; and
that Jacob held him more convulsively fast, as if aware
that the daylight was likely to rob him of his antici
pated blessing ; in which there seems concealed a very
deep truth. God is approached more nearly in that
which is indefinite than in that which is definite and
distinct. He is felt in awe, and wonder, and worship,
rather than in clear conceptions. There is a sense in
which darkness has more of God than light has. He
dwells in the thick darkness. Moments of tender,
vague mystery' often bring distinctly the feeling of
His presence. When day breaks and distinctness
comes, the Divine has evaporated from the soul like
morning dew. In sorrow, haunted by uncertain pre
sentiments, we feel the Infinite around us. The gloom
disperses, the world's joy comes again, and it seems as
if God were gone- — the Being who had touched us
with a withering hand, wrestled with us, yet whose
presence, even when most terrible, was more blessed
than His absence. It is true, even literally, that the
darkness reveals God. Every morning God draws the
curtain of the garish light across His eternity, and
we lose the Infinite. We look down on earth instead

?2 Jacob's wrestling.
of up to heaven ; on a narrower and more contracted
spectacle — that which is examined by the microscope
when the telescope is laid aside — smallness, instead
of vastness. " Man goeth forth unto his work and to
his labor till the evening ; " and in the dust and petti
ness of life we seem to cease to behold Him. Then at
night He undraws the curtain again, and we see how
much of God and Eternity the bright, distinct day had
hidden from us. Yes, in solitary, silent, vague dark
ness, the Awful One is near.
This morning, young brethren, we endeavored to
act on this belief — we met in stillness, before the full,
broad glare of day had rested on our world. Your
first communion implored His blessing in the earlier
hour which seems so peculiarly His. Before the dull,
and deadening, and earthward influences of the world
had dried up the dew of fresh morning feeling, you
tried to" fortify your souls with a sense of His pres
ence. This night, before to-morrow's light shall
dawn, pray that He wiU not depart until He has left
upon your hearts the blessing of a strength which shall
be yours through the garish day, and through dry,
scorching life, even to the close of your days.
2. Again ; this revelation was made in an unsyl-
labled blessing. Jacob requested two things. H9
asked for a blessing, and he prayed to know the Name
of God. God gave him the blessing. " He blessed
him there," but refused to tell his Name. " Wherefore
dost thou ask after my Name ? "
In this, too, seems to lie a most important truth.
Names have a power, a strange power, of hiding God.
Speech has been bitterly defined as the art of hiding
thought. Well, that sarcastic definition has in it a

JACOB'S wrestling. 73
truth. The Eternal Word is the Revealer of God's
thought ; and every true word of man is originally the
expression of a thought; but by degrees the word
hides the thought. Language is valuable for the things
of this life ; but for the things of the other world, it
is an encumbrance almost as much as an assistance.
Words often hide from us our ignorance of even
earthly truth. The child asks for information, and we
satiate his curiosity with words. Who does not know
how we satisfy ourselves with the name of some
strange bird or plant, or the name of some new law in
nature? It is a mystery perplexing us before. We
get the name, and fancy we understand something
more than we did before ; but, in truth, we are more
hopelessly ignorant; for before we felt there was a
semething we had not attained, and so we inquired
and searched ; now, we fancy we possess it, because
we have got the name by which it is known ; and the
word covers over the abyss of our ignorance. If
Jacob had got a word, that word might have satisfied
him. He would have said, Now I understand God^
and know all about Him.
Besides, names and words soon lose their meaning.
In the process of years and centuries the meaning dies
off them, like the sunlight from the hills. The hills are
there — the color and life are gone. The words of
that creed, for example, which we read last Sunday
(the Athanasian), were living words a few centuries
ago. They have changed their meaning, and are, to
ninety-nine out of every hundred, only dead words. Yet
men tenaciously hold to the expressions of which they
do not understand the meaning, and which have a very
different meaning now from that they had once —

74 JACOB'S WRESTLING.
Person, Procession, Substance; and they are almost
worse with them than without them, for they conceal
their ignorance, and place a barrier against the ear
nestness of inquiry. We repeat the creed by rote, and
the profound truths of Being which the creed contains,
how many of us understand ?
All this affords an instructive lesson to parents and
to teachers. In the education of a pupil or a child,
the wise way is" to deal with him as God dealt with
His pupil, the child-man Jacob ; for before the teach
ing of God, the wisest man — what is he but a child ?
God's plan was not to give names and words, but
truths of feeling. That night, in that strange scene,
He impressed on Jacob's soul a religious awe which
was hereafter to develop, — not a set of formal ex
pressions, which would have satisfied with husks the
cravings of the intellect, and shut up the soul : — Jacob
felt the Infinite, who is more truly felt when least
named. Words would have reduced that to the Finite :
for, 0 ! to know all about God is one thing — to know
the living God is another. Our rule seems to be this :
Let a child's religion be expansive — capable of ex
pansion — fts little systematic as possible: let it lie
upon the heart like the light, loose soil, which can be
broken through as the heart bursts into fuller life. If
it be trodden down hard and stiff in formularies, it is
more than probable that the whole must be burst
through, and broken violently, and thrown off alto
gether, when the soul requires room to germinate.
And in this way, my young brethren, I have tried to
deal with you. Not in creeds, nor even in the stiff
ness of the catechism, has truth been put before you.
Rather has it been trusted to the impulses of the

75
heart ; on which, we believe, God works more effica
ciously than we can do. A few simple truths : and-
then these have been left to work, and germinate, and
swell. Baptism reveals to you this truth for the heart,
that God is your Father, and that Christ has encour
aged you to five as your Father's children. It has re
vealed that name which Jacob knew not — Love. Con
firmation has told you another truth, that of self-dedi
cation to Him. Heaven is the service of God. The
highest blessedness of life is powers and self conse
crated to His wiU. These are the germs of truth : but
it would 4*have been miserable self-delusion, and most
pernicious teaching, to have aimed at exhausting
truth, or systematizing it. We are jealous of over-sys
tematic teaching. God's love to you — the sacrifice
of your lives to God — but the meaning of that?
0 ! a long, long life will not exhaust the meaning —
the Name of God. Feel Him more and more — all else
is but empty words.
Lastly, the effect of this Revelation was to change
Jacob's character. His name was changed from Jacob
to Israel, because himself was an altered man. Hither
to there had been something subtle in his character —
a certain cunning and craft — a want of breadth, as if
he had no firm footing upon reality. The forgiveness
of God twenty years before had not altered this. He
remained Jacob, the subtle supplanter, still. For, in
deed, a man whose religion is chiefly the sense of for
giveness does not thereby rise into integrity or firm
ness of character — a certain tenderness of character
may very easily go along with a great deal of subtlety.
Jacob was tender and devout, and grateful for God's
pardon, and only half honest still. But this half-insin-

76 JACOB'S WRESTLING.
cere man is brought into contact with the awful God,
'and his subtlety falls from him. He becomes real at
once. Every insincere habit of mind shrivels in the
face of God. One clear, true glance into the depths of
Being, and the whole man is altered. The name
changes because the character has changed. No longer
Jacob the supplanter, but Israel the Prince of God —
the champion of the Lord, who had fought with God
and conquered ; and who, henceforth, will fight for
God, and be His true, loyal soldier : a larger, more un
selfish name — a larger and more unselfish man — hon
est and true, at last. No man becomes honest till he
has got face to face with God. There is a certain
insincerity about us all — a something dramatic. One
of those dreadful moments which throw us upon our
selves, and strip off the hollowness of our outside
show, must come before the insincere is true.
And again, young brethren, such a moment, at least
of truthfulness, ought to have been this morning. Let
the old pass. Let the name of the world pass into the
Christian name. Baptism and Confirmation : the one
gives, and the other reminds us of the giving of a
better name" and a truer. Henceforth be men. Lose
the natural frailty, whatever it is. See God, and you
will lose it.
To conclude ; here is a question -for each man sep
arately, — What is the name of your God ? Not in
the sense of this age, but in the sense of Jacob's age.
What is the Name of the Deity you worship ? In the
present modern sense of Name, by which nothing
more than epithet is meant, of course the reply is
easy. The name of yours is the God of Christian
worship — the three-fold One — the author of Exist«

JACOB'S WRESTLING. 77
ence, manifested in Divine humanity, commingling
with us as pure spirit — the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. That, of course, you say is the name of your
God. Now, put away names — give words to the
winds. What do you adore in your heart of hearts ?
What is the name oftenest on your lips in your unfet
tered, spontaneous moments ? If we overheard your
secret thoughts, who and what is it which is to you
the greatest and the best that you would desire to
realize ? The character of the rich man, or the suc
cessful, or the admired? Would the worst misery
which could happen to you be the wreck of property
— the worst shame, not to have done wrong, but to
have sunk in the estimation of society ? Then, in the
classifications of earth, which separate men into Jews,
Christians, Mahometans, &c, you may rank as a wor
shipper of the Christian's God. But in the nomencla
ture of heaven, where names cannot stand for things,
God sees you as an idolater — your highest is not His
highest. The Name that is above every name is not
the description of your God.
For life and death we have made our choice. The
life of Christ — the life of truth and love; and if it
must- be, as the result of that, the Cross of Christ,
with the obloquy and shame that wait on truth —
that is the name before which we bow. In this
world " there are Gods many, and Lords many ; but
to us there is one Lord, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ." 7*

IV.
[Preached August 12th, 1849.]
CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
Phil. iii. 13, li. — " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended :
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and
reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the
mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
The first thing which strikes us, on reading these
verses, is, that the Apostle Paul places himself on a
level with the persons whom he addresses. He speaks
to them as frail, weak men ; and he gives them in him
self a specimen of what frailty and weakness can
achieve in the strength of Christ. And it is for this
reason that the passage before us is one of the most
encouraging in all the writings of St. Paul. For there
is one aspect in which the apostle is presented to us,
which is, perhaps, a depressing one. When we look
at his almost superhuman career, reverence and admi
ration we must feel; but so far does he seem removed
from ordinary life, that imitation appears out of the
question. Let us select but two instances of this dis
couraging aspect of the apostle's life. Most of us
know the feeling of unaccountable depression which
rests upon us when we find ourselves alone in a foreign
town, with its tide of population ebbing and flowing
(78)

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 79
past us, a mass of human life in which we ourselves are
nothing. But that was Paul's daily existence. He
had consecrated himself to an almost perpetual exile.
He had given up the endearments of domestic fife for
ever. Home, in this world, St. Paul had none. With
a capacity for the tenderest feelings of our nature, he
had chosen for his lot the task of living among strangers,
and as soon as they ceased to be strangers quitting
them again. He went on month by month attaching
congregations to himself, and month by month doom
ing himself to severance. And yet, I know not that
we read of one single trace of depression or discour
agement suffered to rest on the apostle's mind. He
seems to have been ever fresh and sanguine, the salient
energy of his soul rising above the need of all human
sympathy. It is the magnificent spectacle of mission
ary life, with more than missionary loneliness. There
is something almost awful in the thought of a man
who was so thoroughly in the next world that he
needed not the consolations of this world. And yet,
observe, there is nothing encouraging for us in this.
It is very grand to look upon, very commanding, very
full of awe ; but it is so much above us, so little like
anything human that we know of, that we content our
selves with gazing on him as on the gliding swallow's
flight, which we wonder at, but never think of imi
tating. Now, let us look at one other feature in St. Paul's
character — his superiority to those temptations which
are potent with ordinary men. We say nothing of his
being above the love of money : of his indifference
to a life of comfort and personal indulgence. Those
temptations only assail the lower part of our nature ;

SO CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
and it is not saintliness to be above these : common
exceUence is impossible otherwise. But when we
come to look for those temptations which master the
higher and the nobler man, — ambition, jealousy, pride,
— it is not that we see them conquered by the apostle ;
they scarcely seem to have even lodged in his bosom
at all. It was open to the apostle, if he had felt the
ambition, to make for himself a name, — to become
the leader of a party in Corinth and in the world.
And' yet remember we not how sternly he put down
the thought, and how he labored to merge his indi
viduality in the cause, and make himself an equal
of inferior men ? " Who, then, is Paul, and who
is Apollos, but ministers, servants, by whom ye be
lieved?" Again, in respect of jealousy. Jealousy seems
almost inseparable from human love. It is but the
other side of love, the shadow cast by the light when
the darker body intervenes. There came to him in
prison that most cutting of all news to a minister's
heart, that others were trying to supplant him in the
affections of his converts. But his was that lofty
love which' cares less for reciprocation than for the
well-being of the objects loved. The rival teachers
were teaching from emulation ; still they could not
but bless by preaching to his disciples. What then ?
Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or
in truth, " Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice,
yea, and will rejoice." Not a trace of jealousy in these
words. Once more : Degrading things were laid to . his
charge. The most liberal-minded of mankind was
charged with bigotry. The most generous of men

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 81
was suspected of avarice. If ever pride were venial,
it had been then. Yet read through the whole of the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and say if one spark
of pride be visible. He might have shut himself up
in high and dignified silence ; he might have refused
to condescend to solicit a renewal of the love which
had once grown cold; and yet we look in vain for
the symptoms of offended pride. Take this one pas
sage as a. specimen : " Behold this third time I am
willing to come unto you . . . and I will very gladly
spend and be spent for you, though the more abun
dantly I love you, the less I am beloved."
In this there is very little encouragement. A man
so thoroughly above human resentment, human pas
sions, human weakness, does not seem to us an example.
The nearer humanity approaches a perfect standard,
the less does it command our sympathy. A man must
be weak before we can feel encouraged to attempt
what he has done. It is not the Redeemer's sinless-
ness, nor His unconquerable fidelity to duty, nor His
superhuman nobleness, that win our desire to imitate.
Rather His tears at the grave of friendship, His shrink
ing from the sharpness of death, and the feeling of
human doubt which swept across His soul like a deso
lation — these make him one of us, and therefore our
example. And it is on this account that this passage seems
to us so full of encouragement. It is the precious
picture of a frail and struggling apostle — precious
both to the man and to the minister. To the man,
because it tells him that what we feel Paul felt, — imper
fect, feeble, far from what he would wish to be ; yet
with sanguine hope, expecting progress in the saintly

82 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
hfe. Precious to the minister, because it tells him
that his very weakness may be subservient to a peo
ple's strength. Not in his transcendent gifts, not
in his saintly endowments, not even in his apostolic
devotedness, is St. Paul so close to our hearts as when
he makes himself one with us, and says, "Brethren,
I count not myself to have apprehended." And we
know not how otherwise any minister could hope to do
good, when he addresses men who are infinitely his
superiors in almost everything. We know not how
else he could urge on to a sanctity which he has
not himself attained ; we know not how he could dare
to speak severely of weaknesses by which he himself
is overpowered, and passions of which he feels him
self all the terrible tyranny, if it were not that he
expects to have tacitly understood that in his own
case which the apostle urged in every form of expres
sion : Brethren, be as I am, for I am as ye are —
struggling, baffled, but panting for emancipation.
We confine ourselves to two subjects :
I. The apostle's object in this life.
II. The means which he used for attaining it.
I. The apostle's object or aim in this life was " per
fection." In the verse before — " Not as though I had
already attained, either were already perfect." Per
fection was his unreached mark.
And less than this no Christian can aim at. There
are given to us " exceeding great and precious prom
ises," that by means of these we might be partakers
of the Divine Nature. Not to be equal to the stand
ard of our day, nor even to surpass it; not to be
superior to the men amongst whom we live ; not to

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 83
forgive those who have little to be forgiven ; not to
love our friends : but to be the children of our Father;
to be pure even as Christ is pure; to be "perfect even
as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect."
It is easily perceivable why this perfection is unat
tainable in this life. Faultlessness is conceivable,
being merely the negation of evil. But perfection is
positive, the attainment of all conceivable excellence.
It is long as Eternity, — expansive as God. Perfec
tion is our mark : yet never will the aim be so true
and steady as to strike the golden centre. Perfection
of character, yet even to the dying hour it will be but
this, — "I count not myself to have apprehended."
Christian life is like those questions in mathematics
which never can be exactly answered. All you can
attain is an approximation to the truth. You may
labor on for years and never reach it ; yet your labor
is not in vain. Every figure you add makes the frac
tion nearer than the last to the million millionth ; and
so it is with holiness. Christ is our mark — the perfect
standard of God in Christ. But, be as holy as you
will, there is a step nearer, and another, and another,
and so infinitely on.
To this object the apostle gave himself with single
ness of aim. "This one thing I do." The life of man
is a vagrant, changeful desultoriness ; like that of chil
dren sporting on an enamelled meadow, chasing now
a painted butterfly, which loses its charm by being
caught ; now a wreath of mist, which falls damp upon
the hand with disappointment ; now a feather of
thistle-down, which is crushed in the grasp. In the
midst of aU this fickleness, St. Paul had found a pur
pose to which he gave the undivided energy of his

84 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE FAST.
soul. "This one thing I do," — "I press toward the
mark." This is intelligible enough in the case of a minister;
for, whether he be in the pulpit, or beside a sick man's
bed, or furnishing his mind in the study, evidently
and unmistakably it is his profession to be doing only
one thing. But in the manifold life of the man of the
world, and business, it is not so easy to understand
how this can be carried out. To answer this, we
observe there is a difference between doing and being.
Perfection is being, not doing ; it is not to effect an
act, but to achieve a character. If the aim of life
were to do something, then, as in an earthly business,
except in doing this one thing the business would be
at a stand-still. The student is not doing the one thing
of student-life when he has ceased to think or read.
The laborer leaves his work undone when the spade is
not in his hand, and he sits beneath the hedge to rest.
But in Christian life every moment and every act is
an opportunity for doing the one thing of becoming
Christ-like. Every day is full of a most impressive
experience. Every temptation to evil temper which
can assail u^ to-day will be an opportunity to decide
the question whether we shall gain the calmness and
the rest of Christ, or whether we shall be tossed by
the restlessness and agitation of the world. Nay, the
very vicissitudes of the seasons, day and night, heat
and cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhila
ration or depression, are so contrived as to conduce
towards the being which we become, and decide
whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether
we shall be swept at the mercy of accident and cir
cumstance, miserably susceptible of merely outward

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 85
influences. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so
manifold are the paths to saintly character : and he
who has not found out how directly or indirectly to
make everything converge towards his soul's sanctifi-
cation, has as yet missed the meaning of this life.
In pressing towards this "mark," the apostle attained
a prize ; and here I offer an observation, which is not
one of mere subtlety of refinement, but deeply practi
cal. The mark was perfection of character ; the prize
was blessedness. But the apostle did not aim at the
prize of blessedness : he aimed at the mark of perfect-
ness. In becoming perfect he attained happiness, but
his primary aim was not happiness.
We may understand this by an illustration. In
student-life there are those who seek knowledge for its
own sake, and there are those who seek it for the sake
of the prize, and the honor, and the subsequent success
in life that knowledge brings. To those who seek
knowledge for its own sake, the labor is itself reward.
Attainment is the highest reward. Doubtless the prize
stimulates exertion, — encourages and forms a part of
the motive, but only a subordinate one : and knowl
edge would still have "a price above rubies," if there
were no prize at all. They who seek knowledge for
the sake of a prize are not genuine lovers of knowl
edge ; they only love the rewards of knowledge : had
it no honor or substantial advantage connected with it,
they would be indolent.
Applying this to our subject, I say this is a spurious
goodness which is good for the sake of reward. The
child that speaks the truth for the sake of the praise
of truth is not truthful. The man who is honest be
cause honesty is the best policy has not integrity in
8

86 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
his heart. He who endeavors to be humble, and holy,
and perfect, in order to win heaven, has only a coun
terfeit religion. God for His own sake, Goodness
because it is good, Truth because it is lovely, — this is
the Christian's aim. The prize is only an incentive .
inseparable from success, but not the aim itself.
With this limitation, however, we remark, that it is
a Christian duty to dwell much more on the thought
of future blessedness than most men do. If ever the
apostle's steps began to flag, the radiant diadem before
him gave new vigor to his heart ; and we know how
at the close of his career the vision became more vivid
and more entrancing. Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of glory ! It is our privilege, if we are
on our way to God, to keep steadily before us the
thought of home. Make it a matter of habit. Force
yourselves at nigbt, alone, in the midst of the world's
bright sights, to pause to think of the heaven which is
yours. Let it calm you, and ennoble you, and give
you cheerfulness to endure. It was so that Moses
was enabled to live amongst all the fascinations of his
courtly life with a heart unseduced from his laborious
destiny. B^ faith . . . . " esteeming the reproach of
Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."
Why ? " For he had respect unto the recompense of
the reward." It was so that our Master strengthened
His human soul for its sharp earthly endurance. " For
the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross,
despising the shame." If we would become heavenly-
minded, we must let the imagination realize the bless
edness to which we are moving on. Let us think
much of rest, — the rest which is not of indolence,
but of powers in perfect equilibrium ; the rest which

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 87
is deep as summer midnight, yet full of life and force
as summer sunshine — the Sabbath of Eternity. Let us
think of the love of God, which we shall feel in its full
tide upon our souls. Let us think of that marvellous
career of sublime occupation which shall belong to the
spirits of just men made perfect ; when we shall fill a
higher place in God's universe, and more consciously,
and with more distinct insight, cooperate with God
in the rule over His Creation. " I press toward the
mark — for the prize."
II. We pass to our second topic ; the means which
Paul found available for the attainment of Divine and
perfect character. His great principle was to forget
the things which were behind, and to reach forward to
the things which were before. The wisdom of a Divine
life lies hid in this principle. I shall endeavor to ex
pand the sentiment to make it intelligible.
What are the things behind, which are to be for
gotten ?
1. If we would progress in Christian life, we must
forget the days of innocence that lie behind us. Let
not this be misunderstood. Innocent, literally, no man
ever is. We come into the world with tendencies to
evil ; but there was a time in our lives when those
were only tendencies. A proneness to sin we had ;
but we had not yet sinned. The moment had not yet
arrived when that cloud settles down upon the heart
which in all of after-life is never entirely removed ;
the sense of guilt, the anguish of lost innocence,
the restless feeling of a heart no longer pure. Popu
larly, we call that innocence ; and when men become
bitterly aware that early innocence of heart is gone,

88 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
they feel as if all were lost, and so look back to what
they reckon holier days with a peculiar fondness of
regret. I believe there is much that is merely feeble
and sentimental in this regret. Our early innocence is
nothing more than ignorance of evil. Christian hfe is
not a retaining of that ignorance of evil, nor even a
returning of it again. We lose our mere negative sin-
lessness. We put on our firm, manly holiness. Human
innocence is not to know evil: — Christian saintliness
is to know evil and good, and prefer good. It is
possible for a parent, with over-fastidious refinement,
to prolong the duration of this innocence unnaturally.
He may lock up his library, and prevent the entrance
to forbidden books ; he may exercise a jealous censor
ship over every book and every companion that comes
into the house ; he may remove the public journal
from the table, lest an eye may chance to rest upon the
contaminating portion of its pages ; but he has only
put off the evil hour. He has sent into the world a
young man of eighteen or twenty, ignorant as a child
of evil, but not innocent as an angel who abhors the
evil. No, we cannot get back our past ignorance,
neither is 4t desirable we should. No sane mind
wishes for that which is impossible. And it is no
more to be regretted than the blossom is to be regret
ted when fruit is hardening in its place ; no more to
be regretted than the slender gracefulness of the sap
ling, when you have got instead the woody fibre of the
heart of oak of which the ship is made ; no more to
be regretted than the green blade when the ear has
come instead, bending down in yellow ripeness. Our
innocence is gone, withered with the business-like con
tact with the great world. It is one of the things

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 89
behind. Forget it. It was worth very little. And
now for something of a texture more firm, more endur
ing. We will not mourn over the loss of simplicity, if
we have got instead souls indurated by experience,
— disciplined, even by fall, to refuse the evil and to
choose the good.
2. In the next place, it is wise to forget our days of
youth. Up to a certain period of life it is the tendency
of man to look forwards. There is a marvellous prodi
gality with which we throw away our present happi
ness when we are young, which belongs to those who
feel that they are rich in happiness, and never expect
to be bankrupts. It almost seems one of the signatures
of our immortality that we squander time as if there
were a dim consciousness that we are in possession of
an eternity of it; but as we arrive at middle age, it is the
tendency of man to look back. To a man of middle life,
existence is no longer a dream, but a reality. He has
not much more new to look forward to, for the charac
ter of his life is generally fixed by that time. His
profession, his home, his occupations, will be for the
most part what they are now. He will make few new
acquaintances, — no new friends. It is the solemn
thought connected with middle age that life's last
business is begun in earnest ; and it is then, midway
between the cradle and the grave, that a man begins
to look back and marvel, with a kind of remorseful
feeling, that he let the days of youth go by so half-
enjoyed. It is the pensive autumn feeling, — it is the
sensation of half-sadness that we experience when the
longest day of the year is past, and every day that
follows is shorter, and the lights fainter, and the feebler
shadows tell that nature is hastening with gigantic foot-
8*

90 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
steps to her winter grave. So does man look back
upon his youth. When the first gray hairs become
visible, — when the unwelcome truth fastens itself
upon the mind that a man is no longer going up the
hill, but down, and that the sun is already westering, —
he looks back on things behind. Now, this is a natural
feeling, but is it the high Christian. tone of feeling? In
the spirit of this verse, we may assuredly answer, No.
We who have an inheritance incorruptible and unde-
filed, and that fadeth not away, what have we to do
with things past ? When we were children we thought
as children. But now there lies before us manhood,
with its earnest work : and then old age, and then the
grave, and then home. And so manhood in the Chris
tian life is a better thing than boyhood, because it is a
riper thing ; and old age ought to be a brighter, and a
calmer, and a more serene thing than manhood. There
is a second youth for man, better and holier than his
first, if he will look on, and not back. There is a pecu
liar simplicity of heart, and a touching singleness of
purpose, in Christian old age, which has ripened gradu
ally, and not fitfully. It is then that to the wisdom of
the serpent is added the harmlessness of the dove ; it
is then that to the firmness of manhood is joined almost
the gentleness of womanhood ; it is then that the some
what austere and sour character of growing strength,
moral and intellectual, mellows into the rich ripeness
of an old age made sweet and tolerant by experience ;
it is then that man returns to first principles. There
comes a love more pure and deep than the boy could
ever feel ; there comes a conviction, with a strength
beyond that which the boy could ever know, that the
earliest lesson of life is infinite, Christ is all in all.

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 91
3. Again ; it is wise to forget past errors. There ia
a kind of temperament which, when indulged, greatly
hinders growth in real godliness. It is that rueful,
repentant, self-accusing temper, which is always look
ing back, and microscopically observing how that which
is done might have been better done. Something of
this we ought to have. A Christian ought to feel always
that he has partially failed, but that ought not to be
the only feeling. Faith ought ever to be a sanguine,
cheerful thing ; and, perhaps, in practical life we could
not give a better account of faith than by saying that
it is amidst much failure having the heart to try again.
Our best deeds are marked by imperfection ; but, if
they really were our best, " forget the things that
are behind," — we shall do better next time.
Under this head we include all those mistakes which
belong to our circumstances. We can all look back to
past life and see mistakes that have been made, — to a
certain extent, perhaps, irreparable ones. We can see
where our education was fatally misdirected. The pro
fession chosen for you perhaps was not the fittest ; or,
you are out of place, and many things might have been
better ordered. Now, on this apostolic principle, it is
wise to forget all that. It is not by regretting what is
irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making
the best of what we are. • It is not by complaining that
we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools
we have. What we are, and where we are, is God's
providential arrangement — God's doing, though it
may be man's misdoing ; and the manly and the wise
way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see
what can be made out of them. Life, like war, is a
series of mistakes ; and he is not the best Christian nor

92 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
the best general who makes the fewest false steps.
Poor mediocrity may secure that ; but he is the best
who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval
of mistakes. Forget mistakes : organize victory out
of mistakes.
Finally ; past guilt lies behind us, and is well forgot-
ten. There is a way in which even sin may be banished
from the memory. If a man looks forward to the evil
he is going to commit, and satisfies himself that it is
inevitable, and so treats it lightly, he is acting as a
fatalist. But, if a man partially does this, looking back
ward, feeling that sin when it is past has become part
of the history of God's universe, and is not to be wept
over forever, he only does that which the Giver of the
Gospel permits him to do. Bad as the results have
been in the world of making light of sin, those of
brooding over it too much have been worse. Remorse
has done more harm than even hardihood. It was re
morse which fixed Judas in an unalterable destiny ; it
was remorse which filled the monasteries for ages with
men and women whose lives became useless to their
fellow-creatures. It is remorse which so remembers by
gone faults as to paralyze the energies for doing Christ's
work ; for when you break a Christian's spirit, it is all
over with progress. 0, we want everything that is
hopeful and encouraging for our work, for God knows
it is not an easy one ! And therefore it is that the
Gospel comes to the guiltiest of us all, at the very out
set, with the inspiring news of pardon. You remember
how Christ treated sin. Sin of oppression and hypoc
risy indignantly; but sin of frailty — "'Hath no man
condemned thee ? ' — ' No man, Lord. — " Neither do I
condemn thee ; go and sin no more.' " As if he would

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 93
bid us think more of what we may be than of what we
have been. There was the wisdom of life in the proverb
with which the widow of Tekoah pleaded for the res
toration of Absalom from banishment before David.
Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Well, Amnon
was dead before his time ; but the severity of revenge
could never bring him back again. •" We must all die,"
said the wise woman, " and are as water spilt upon the
ground, which cannot be gathered up again." Christian
brethren, do not stop too long to weep over spilt water.
Forget your guilt, and wait to see what Eternity has
to say to it. You have other work to do now.
So let us work out the spirit of the apostle's plan.
Innocence, youth, success, error, guilt — let us forget
them all. Not backward are our glances bent,
But onwards to our Father's home.
In conclusion, remember Christian progress is only
possible in Christ. It is a very lofty thing to be a
Christian; for a Christian is a man who is restoring
God's likeness to his character ; and therefore the apos
tle calls it here a high calling. High as heaven is the
calling wherewith we are called. But this very height
makes it seem impracticable. It is natural to say, All
that was well enough for one so transcendently gifted
as Paul to hope for ; but I am no gifted man ; I have
no iron strength of mind ; I have no sanguine hopeful
ness of character ; I am disposed to look on the dark
side of things ; I am undetermined, weak, vacillating ;
and then I have a whole army of passions and follies
to contend with. We have to remind such men of one
thing they have forgotten. It is the high calling of

94 CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.
God, if you will ; but it is the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus. What the world calls virtue is a name and
dream without Christ. The foundation of all human
excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Re-
deemer's cross, and in the power of his Resurrection.
First let a man know that all his past is wrong and sin
ful ; then let him fix his eye on the love of God in Christ
loving him, — even him, the guilty one. Is there no
strength in that? no power in the knowledge that all
that is gone by is gone, and that a fresh, clear future is
open ? It is not the progress of virtue that God asks
for, but progress in saintliness, empowered by hope
and love.
Lastly, let each man put this question to himself,
"Dare I look on?" With an earnest Christian, it is
" reaching forth to those things which are before."
Progress ever. And then, just as we go to rest in this
world tired, and wake up fresh and vigorous in the
morning, so does the Christian go to sleep in the world's
night, weary with the work of life, and then, on the
resurrection day, he wakes in his second and his brighter
morning. It is well for a believer to look on. Dare
you ? Remember, out of Christ, it is not wisdom, but
madness, to look on. You must look back, for the
longest and the best day is either past or passing. It
will be winter soon, — desolate, uncheered, hopeless
winter, — old age, with its dreariness and its disap
pointment, and its querulous broken-heartedness ; and
there is no second spring for you, — no resurrection
morning of blessedness to dawn on the darkness of
your grave. God has only one method of salvation,
the Cross of Christ. God can have only one ; for the
Cross of Christ means death to evil, life to good.

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST. 95
There is no other way to salvation but that, for that in
itself is, and alone is, salvation. Out of Christ, there
fore, it is woe to the man who reaches forth to the
things which are before. To such I say, — My unhappy
brethren, Omnipotence itself cannot change the dark
ness of your destiny. .

[Preached October 20, 1850.]
TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. — ZACCHEUS.
Luke xix. 8. — " And Zaccheus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold,
Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor ; and if I have taken
anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold."
There are persons to whom a religious life seems
smooth and easy. Gifted by God constitutionally
with a freedom from those inclinations which in other
men are tyrannous and irresistible, — endued with
those aspirations which other men seem to lack, — it
appears as if they were born saints.
There are others to whom it is all a trial, — a whole
world of passions keep up strife within. The name
of the Spirit which possesses them is Legion. It is
hard fight from the cradle to the grave, — up-hill work,
— toil all the way ; and at the last it seems as if they
had only just kept their ground.
There are circumstances which seem as if intended
as a very hot-bed for the culture of religious principle,
in which the difficulty appears to be to escape being
religious. There are others in which religious life seems im
possible. For the soul, tested by temptation, is like
iron tried by weights. No iron bar is absolutely in-
(96)

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 97
frangible. Its strength is tested by the weight which
it will bear without breaking. No soul is absolutely
impeccable. It seems as if all we can dare to ask,
even of the holiest, is, how much temptation he can
bear without giving way. There are societies amidst
which some are forced to dwell daily, in which the
very idea of Christian rest is negatived. There are
occupations in which purity of heart can scarcely be
conceived. There are temptations to which some are
subjected in a long series, in which to have stood
upright would have demanded not a man's but an
angel's strength.
Here are two cases : one in which temperament and
circumstances are favorable to religion; another, in
which both are adverse. If life were always the
brighter side of these pictures, the need of Christian
instruction and Christian casuistry, — that is, the direc
tion for conduct under various supposable cases, —
would be superseded. The end of the institution of
a Church would be gone ; for the Church exists for the
purposes of mutual sympathy and mutual support.
But the fact is, life is for the most part a path of varied
trial. How to lead the life divine surrounded by
temptations from within and from without, — how to
breathe freely the atmosphere of heaven, while the
feet yet touch earth, — how to lead the life of Christ,
who shrunk from no scene of trying duty, and took
the temptations of man's life as they came, ¦ — ¦ or how
even to lead the ordinary saintly life, winning experi
ence from fall, and permanent strength out of moment
ary weakness, and victory out of defeat, — this is the
problem. The possibility of such a life is guaranteed by the
9

98 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
history of Zaccheus. Zaccheus was tempted much,
and Zaccheus contrived to be a servant of Christ. If
we wanted a motto to prefix to this story, we should
append this : — The successful pursuit of religion
under difficulties.
These, then, are the two branches of our thoughts
to-day :
I. The hindrances to a religious life.
II. The Christian triumph over difficulties.
I. The hindrances of Zaccheus were two-fold :
partly circumstantial — partly personal. Partly cir
cumstantial, arising from his riches and his profession
of a publican.
Now, the publican's profession exposed him to
temptation in these three ways : First of all, in the
way of opportunity. A publican was a gatherer of
the Roman public imposts. Not, however, as now,
when all is fixed, and the government pays the gath
erer of the taxes. The Roman publican paid so much
to the government for the privilege of collecting
them ; and then indemnified himself,, and appropriated
what overplus he could, "from the taxes which he
gathered. There was therefore, evidently, a tempta
tion to over-charge, and a temptation to oppress. To
over-charge, because the only redress the payer of the
taxes had was an appeal to law, in which his chance
was small before a tribunal where the judge was a
Roman, and the accuser an official of the Roman
government. A temptation to oppress, because the
threat of law was nearly certain to extort a bribe.
Besides this, most of us must have remarked that a
certain harshness of manner is contracted by those

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 99
who have the rule over the poor. They come in con
tact with human souls only in the way of business
They have to do with their ignorance, their stupidity
their attempts to deceive ; and hence the tenderest-
hearted men become impatient, and apparently unfeel
ing. Hard men, knowing that redress is difficult
become harder still, and exercise their authority with
the insolence of office ; so that, when to the insolence
of office and the likelihood of impunity there was
superadded the pecuniary advantage annexed to a
tyrannical extortion, any one .may understand how
great the publican's temptation was.
Another temptation was presented : to live satisfied
with a low morality. The standard of right and
wrong is eternal in the heavens — unchangeably one
and the same. But here on earth it is perpetually
variable, — it is one in one age or nation, another in
another. Every profession has its conventional moral
ity, current nowhere else. That which is permitted
by the peculiar standard of truth acknowledged at the
bar, is falsehood among plain men ; that which would
be reckoned in the army purity and tenderness, would
be elsewhere licentiousness and cruelty. There is a
parliamentary honor quite distinct from honor between
man and man. Trade has its honesty ; which, rightly
named, is fraud. And in all these cases the temptation
is to live content with the standard of a man's own
profession or society ; and this is the real difference
between the worldly man and the religious man. He
is the worldling who lives below that standard, or no
higher ; he is the servant of God who lives above his
age. But you wiU perceive that amongst publicans a
very little would count much ; that which would be

100 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
laxity to a Jew, and shame to a Pharisee, might be
reckoned very strict morality among the publicans.
Again ; Zaccheus was tempted to that hardness in
evil which comes from having no character to support.
But the extent to which sin hardens depends partly
on the estimate taken of it by society. The falsehood
of Abraham, the guilt and violence of David, were
very different in their effect on character in an age
when truth, and purity, and gentleness, were scarcely
recognized, from what they would be now. Then,
Abraham and David had not so sinned against their
conscience as a man would sin now in doing the same
acts ; because their consciences were less enlightened.
A man might be a slave-trader in the Western hemi
sphere, and in other respects a humane, upright, hon
orable man. In the last century, the holy Newton of
Olney trafficked in slaves after becoming religious. A
man who had dealings in this way in this country
could not remain upright and honorable, even if it
were conceivable that he began as such ; because he
would either conceal from the world his share in the
traffic, and so, douig it secretly, would become a
hypocrite ; or else he must cover his wickedness by
effrontery, doing it in defiance of public shame, and so
getting seared in conscience. Because, in the one
case, the sin, remaining sin, yet countenanced by soci
ety, does not degrade the man, nor injure his con-.
science, even to the same extent to which it would
ruin the other, whose conscience must become seared
by defiance of public shame. It is scarcely possible
to unite together the idea of an executioner of public
justice and a humble, holy man. And yet, assuredly,
not from anything that there is unlawful in the office :

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 101
an executioner's trade is as lawful as a soldier's. A sol
dier is placed there by his country to slay his country's
enemies ; and a doomster is placed there to slay the
transgressors of his country's laws. Wherein lies the
difference, which leaves the one a man of honor, and
almost necessitates the other to be taken from the
rank of reprobates, or else graduaUy to become such ?
Simply the difference of public opinion — public scorn
Once there was no shame in the office of the execu
tioner, and the Judge of Israel, with his own hands
hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal,
Phinehas executed summary and sanguinary ven
geance, and his name has been preserved in a hymn
by his country's gratitude. The whole congregation
became executioners in the case of blasphemy, and no
abandonment was the result. But the voice of public
opinion pronouncing an office or a man scandalous,
either finds or else makes them what it has pronounced
them. The executioner is or becomes an outcast,
because reckoned such.
More vile and more degraded than even the exe
cutioner's office with us, was the office of publican
among the Jews. A penitent publican could not go
to the house of God without the risk of hearing mut
tered near him the sanctimonious thanksgiving of
Pharisaism : " God, I thank thee that I am not as this'
publican." A publican, even though high in office,
and rich besides, could not receive into his house a
Teacher of religion without being saluted by the mur
murs of the crowd, as in this case : " He is gone to
eat with a man that is a sinner." A sinner ! The
proof of that? The only proof was that he was a
publican. There are men and women in this congre-
9*

102 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
gation who have committed sins that never have been
published to the world ; and therefore, though they be
still untouched by the love of God, they have never
sunk down to degradation; whereas the very same
sins, branded with public shame, have sunk others not
worse than them down to the lowest infamy. There
is no principle in education and in life more sure than
this, — to stigmatize is to ruin ; to take away character
is to take away aU. There is no power committed to
man, capable of use and abuse, more certain and more
awful than this : " Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them."
This, then, was a temptation . arising out of Zac
cheus' circumstances — to become quite hardened by
having no character to support.
The personal hindrance to a religious life lay in the
recollection of past guilt. Zaccheus had done wrong,
and no four-fold restitution will undo that where re
morse only exists.
There is a difference between remorse and peni
tence. Remorse is the consciousness of wrong-doing,
with no sense of love. Penitence is that same con
sciousness, with the feeling of tenderness and grate
fulness added.
And, pernicious as have been the consequences of
self-righteousness, more destructive still have been the
consequences of remorse. If self-righteousness has
slain its thousands, remorse has slain its tens of thou
sands ; for, indisputably, self-righteousness secures a
man from degradation. Have you never wondered
at the sure walk of those persons who, to trust their
own estimate of themselves, are always right? They
never sin ; their children are better brought up than

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 103
any other children; their conduct is irreproachable.
Pride saves them from a fall. That element of self-
respect, healthful always, is their safeguard. Yes, the
Pharisee was right. He is not an extortioner, nor un
just, and he is regular in his payments and his duties.
That was self-righteousness : it kept him from saintli-
ness, but it saved him from degradation too. Re
morse, on the contrary, crushes. If a man lose the
world's respect, he can retreat back upon the co:>
sciousness of the God within. But if a man lose his own
respect, he sinks down and down, and deeper yet,
until he can get it back again by feeling that he is
sublimely loved, and he dares at last to respect that
which God vouchsafes to care for. Remorse is like
the clog of an insoluble debt. The debtor is proverb
ially extravagant — one more, and one more exdense.
What can it matter, when the great bankruptcy is
near ? And so, in the same way, one sin, and one
more. Why not ? Why should he pause, when all is
hopeless ? What is one added to that which is already
infinite ?
Past guilt becomes a hindrance, too, in another way :
it makes fresh sin easier. Let any one, out of a series
of transgressions, compare the character of the first and
the last. The first time there was the shudder and the
horror, and the violent struggle, and the feeling of im
possibility. I cannot — cannot do that. The second
time there was faint reluctance, made more faint by
the recollection of the facility and the pleasantness of
the first transgression; and the last time there is
neither shudder nor reluctance, but the eager plunge
down the precipice on the brink of which he trembled

104 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
once. All this was against Zaccheus. A publican had
lost self-respect, and sin was easy.
II. Pass we on to the triumph over difficulties. In
this there is man's part, and God's part.
Man's part, in Zaccheus' case, was exhibited in the
discovery of expedients. The Redeemer came to
Jericho, and Zaccheus desired to see that blessed
Countenance, whose very looks, he was told, shed
peace upon restless spirits and fevered hearts. But
Zaccheus was small of stature, and a crowd sur
rounded him. Therefore he ran before, and climbed
up into a sycamore-tree. You must not look on this
as a mere act of curiosity. They who thronged the
steps of Jesus were a crowd formed of different mate
rials from the crowd which would have been found
in the amphitheatre. He was there as a religious
Teacher or Prophet ; and they who took pains to see
him at least were the men who looked for salvation in
Israel. This therefore was a religious act.
We have heard of the " pursuit of knowledge undei
difficulties. " The shepherd, with no apparatus besides
his thread and beaas, has lain on his back on the starry
night, mapped the heavens, and unconsciously become
a distinguished astronomer. The peasant-boy, with
no tools but his rude knife, and a visit now and then
to the neighboring town, has begun his scientific edu
cation by producing a watch that would mark the time.
The blind man, trampling upon impossibilities, has
explored the economy of the bee-hive, and, more won
drous still, lectured on the laws of light. The timid
stammerer, with pebbles in his mouth, and the roar of
the sea-surge in his ear, has attained correctest elocu-

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 105
tion, and swayed as one man the changeful tides of
the mighty masses of the Athenian democracy. All
these were expedients. It is thus in the hfe religious.
No man ever trod exactly the path that others trod
before him. There is no exact chart laid down for the
voyage. The rocks and quicksands are shifting ; he
who enters upon the ocean of existence arches his
sails to an untried breeze. " He is the first that ever
burst into that lonely sea. " Every life is a new life.
Every day is a new day — like nothing that ever went
before, or can ever follow after. No books, no systems,
no forecast set of rules, can provide for all cases:
every case is a new case. And just as in any earthly
enterprise — the conduct of a campaign, the building of
a bridge — unforeseen difficulties and unexpected dis
asters must be met by that inexhaustible fertility of
invention which belongs to those who do not live to
God second-hand. We must live to God first-hand. If
we are in earnest, as Zaccheus was, we must invent
peculiar means of getting over peculiar difficulties.
There are times when the truest courage is shown
in retreating from a temptation. There are times
when, not being on a level with other men in qualifi
cations of temper, mind, oharacter, we must compen
sate by inventions and Christian expedients. You
must climb over the crowd of difficulties which stand
between your soul and Christ ; you must " run be
fore," and forecast trials, and get into the sycamore
solitude. Without a living life like this, you will never
get a glimpse of the King in his beauty : you will
never see it. You wiU be just on the point of seeing
Him, and shut out by some unexpected hindrance.
Observe, again, an illustration of this, Zaccheus'

106 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
habit of restoration. " Behold, Lord, the half of my
goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything
from any man by false accusation, I restore him four
fold. " There are two ways of taking this. It may
have reference to the future. It commonly is so inter
preted. It is supposed that, touched by the love of
Christ, Zaccheus proclaimed this as his resolve, — I
hereby promise to give the half of my goods to the
poor. But it is likely that this interpretation has been
put upon it in order to make it square with the evan
gelical order of emotions, — Grace first, liberality
after. The interpretation seems rather put on the
passage than found there. The word is not future,
but singular : Behold, Lord, I give. And it seems
more natural to take it as a statement of the habit of
Zaccheus' previous life. If so, then all is plain. This
man, so maligned, had been leading a righteous life,
after all, according to the Mosaic standard. On the
day of defence he stands forward and vindicates him
self from the aspersion. " These are my habits."
And the Son of Man vindicates him before all. Yes,
publican as he is, he too is a " son of Abraham."
Here, then, were expedients by which he overcame
the hindrances of his position. The tendency to the
hardness and selfishness of riches he checked by a rule
of giving half away. The tendency to extortion he
met by fastening on himself the recollection that when
the hot moment of temptation had passed away he
would be severely dealt with before the tribunal of
his own conscience, and unrelentingly sentenced to
restore four-fold.
God's part in this triumph over difficulties is exhib
ited in the address of Jesus : " Zaccheus, make haste ,

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 107
and come down ; for to-day I must abide at thy
house." Two things : invitation and sympathy. Invitation
— "come down." Say what we will of Zaccheus
seeking Jesus, the truth is, Jesus was seeking Zac
cheus. For what other reason but the will of God
had Jesus come to- Jericho, but to seek Zaccheus and
such as he ? Long years Zaccheus had been living in
only a dim consciousness of being a servant of God
and goodness. At last the Saviour is born into the
world; appears in Judea; comes to Jericho, Zac
cheus' town; passes down Zaccheus' street, and by
Zaccheus' house, and up to Zaccheus' person. What
is all this but seeking — what the Bible calls election?
Now, there is a specimen in this of the ways of God
with men in this world. We do not seek God : God
seeks us. There is a Spirit pervading Time and Space
who seeks the souls of men. At last the seeking
becomes reciprocal ; the Divine Presence is felt afar,
and the soul begins to turn towards it. Then, when
we begin to seek God, we become conscious that God
is seeking us. It is at that period that we distinguish
the voice of personal invitation, — " Zaccheus ! " It
is then that the Eternal Presence makes its abode with
us, and the hour of unutterable joy begins, when the
banquet of Divine Love is spread within the soul, and
the Son of God abides there as at a feast. "Behold, I
stand at the door and knock : if any man hear my
voice, I will come in and sup with him, and he with
me." This is Divine Grace. We are saved by grace, not
will. "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that
runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." In the

108 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
mattor of man's salvation God is first. He comes to
us self-invited ; He names us by name ; He isolates us
from the crowd, and sheds upon us the sense of per
sonal recognition ; He pronounces the benediction, till
we feel that there is a mysterious blessing on our
house, and on our meal, and on our heart. " This day
is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also
is a son of Abraham."
Lastly, the Divine part was done in sympathy. By
sympathy we commonly mean little more than condo
lence. If the tear start readily at the voice of grief,
and the purse-strings open at the accents of distress,
we talk of a man's having great sympathy. To weep
with those who weep: — common sympathy does not
mean much more.
The sympathy of Christ was something different
from this. Sympathy to this extent, no doubt, Zac
cheus could already command. If Zaccheus were sick,
even a Pharisee would have given him medicine. If
Zaccheus had been in need, a Jew would not have
scrupled to bestow an alms. If Zaccheus had been
bereaved, many even of that crowd that murmured
when they saw him treated by Christ like a son of
Abraham would have given to his sorrow the tribute
of a sigh.
The sympathy of Jesus was fellow-feeling for all
that is human. He did not condole with Zaccheus
upon his trials ; He did not talk to him " about his
soul ;" He did not preach to him about his sins ; He
did not force His way into his house to lecture him :
He simply said, " I will abide at thy house ; " thereby
identifying himself with a publican — thereby acknowl
edging a publican for a brother, Zaccheus a publi-

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. 109
can ? Zaccheus a sinner ? — Yes ; but Zaccheus is a
man. His heart throbs at cutting words ; he has
a sense of human honor ; he feels the burning shame
of a world's disgrace. Lost?- — -Yes: but the Son of
Man, with the blood of the human race in His veins, is
a brother to the lost.
It is in this entire and perfect sympathy with all
humanity that the heart of Jesus differs from every
other heart that is found among the sons of men.
And it is this, — 01 it is this, which is the chief bless
edness of having such a Saviour. If you are poor,
you can only get a miserable sympathy from the rich ;
with the best intentions, they cannot understand you.
Their sympathy is awkward. If you are in pain, it is
only a factitious and constrained sympathy you get
from those in health, — feelings forced, adopted kindly,
but imperfect still. They sit, when the regular condo
lence is done, beside you, conversing on topics with
each other that jar upon your ear. They sympathize ?
Miserable comforters are they all. If you are miser
able, and tell out your grief, you have the shame of
feeling that you were not understood ; that you have
bared your inner self to a rude gaze. If j7ou are in
doubt, you cannot tell your doubts to religious people;
no, not even to the ministers of Christ, — for they have
no place for doubts in their largest system. They ask,
What right have you to doubt ? They suspect your
character. They shake the head, and whisper it
about gravely that you read strange books, — that
you are verging on infidelity. If you are depressed
with guilt, to whom shall you tell out your tale of
shame ? The confessional, with its innumerable evils,
and yet indisputably soothing power, is passed away ;
10

110 TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES.
but there is nothing to supply its place. You cannot
speak to your brother-man, for you injure him by
doing so, or else weaken yourself. You cannot tell it
to society, for society judges in the gross by general
rules, and cannot take into account the delicate differ
ences of transgression. It banishes the frail penitent,
and does homage to the daring, hard transgressor.
Then it is that, repulsed on all sides and lonely, we
turn to Him whose mighty Heart understands and feels
all. " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
words of eternal life." And then it is that, exactly
like Zaccheus, misunderstood, suspected by the world,
suspected by our own hearts, — the very voice of God
apparently against us, — isolated and apart, we speak
to Him from the loneliness of the sycamore-tree, heart
to heart, and pulse to pulse. " Lord, thou knowest all
things :" — thou knowest my secret charities, and my
untold self-denials: — "Thou knowest that I love thee."
Remark, in conclusion, the power of this sympathy
on Zaccheus' character. Salvation that day came to
Zaccheus' house. What brought it ? What touched
him? Of course, "the Gospel." Yes; but what is the
Gospel? What was his Gospel? Speculations or rev
elations concerning the Divine Nature ? — the scheme
of the atonement ? or of the incarnation ? or baptis
mal regeneration ? Nay, but the Divine sympathy of
the Divinest Man. The personal love of God, mani
fested in the face of Jesus Christ. The floodgates of
his soul were opened, and the whole force that was in
the man flowed forth. Whichever way you take that
expression, " Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I
give to the poor:" — if it referred to the future,
then, touched by unexpected sympathy, finding himself

TRIUMPH OVER HINDRANCES. Ill
no longer an outcast, he made that resolve in grateful
ness. .If to the past, then, still touched by sympathy,
he who had never tried to vindicate himself before
the world was softened to tell out the tale of his
secret munificence. This is what I have been doing
all the time they slandered me, and none but God
knew it.
It required something to make a man like that talk
of things which he had not suffered his own left hand
to know, before a scorning world. But, anyhow, it
was the manifested Fellowship of the Son of Man
which brought salvation to that house.
Learn this: — When we live the Gospel so, and
preach the Gospel so, sinners will be brought to God.
We know not yet the Gospel power ; for who trusts,
as Jesus did, all to that? Who ventures, as He did,
upon the power of Love, in sanguine hopefulness of
the most irreclaimable? Who makes that, the divine
humanity of Christ, "the Gospel"? More than by
eloquence, more than by accurate doctrine, more than
by ecclesiastical order, more than by any doctrine
trusted to by the most earnest and holy men, shall we
and others, sinful rebels, outcast, be won to Christ, by
that central truth of all the Gospel, — the entireness of
the Redeemer's sympathy ; in other words, the love
of Jesus.

VI.
[Preached October 28, 1849.]
THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SABBATH.
Cot. ii. 16, 17. — " Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of an holiday, or of the new-moon, or of the sabbath-
days : which are a shadow of things to come : but the body i3 of
Christ "
No sophistry or criticism can explain away the ob
vious meaning of these words. The apostle speaks
of certain institutions as Jewish — shadowy, typical;
and among these we are surprised to find the Sabbath-
days. It has been contended that there is here no
allusion to the seventh day of rest, but only to certain
Jewish holidays, not of Divine institution. But, in
the first place, the "holidays" have been already
named in the same verse ; in the next, we are con
vinced that no plain man, reading this verse for the
first time, without a doctrine to support, would have
put such an interpretation upon the word; and wo
may be sure that St. Paul would never have risked so
certain a misconstruction of his words by the use of
an ambiguous phrase. This, then, is the first thing we
lay down, — a very simple postulate, one would think,—
when the apostle says the Sabbath-days, he means the
Sabbath-days. (112)

SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 113
Peculiar difficulties attend the discussion of the
subject of the Sabbath. If Ave take the strict and
ultra ground of Sabbath observance, basing it on the
rigorous requirements of the fourth commandment,
we take ground which is not true ; and aU untruth,
whether it be an over-statement or a half-truth, recoils
upon itself. If we impose on men a burden which
cannot be borne, and demand a strictness which, pos
sible in theory, is impossible in practice, men recoil ;
Ave have asked too much, and they give us nothing ;
the result is an open, wanton, and sarcastic desecra
tion of the Day of Rest.
If, on the other hand, Ave state the truth, that the
Sabbath is obsolete — a shadoAV which has passed —
.Avithout modification or explanations, evidently there
is a danger no less perilous. It is true to spiritual,
false to unspiritual men ; and a wide door is opened
for abuse. And to recklessly loosen the hold of a
nation on the sanctity of the Lord's Day Avould be
most mischieA^ous ; to do so wilfully would be an act
almost diabolical. For, if Ave must choose between
Puritan over-precision, on the one hand, and, on the
other, that laxity Avhich, in many parts of the Conti
nent, has marked the day from other days only by
more riotous Avorldliness, and a more entire aban
donment of the whole community to amusement, no
Christian would hesitate, — no English Christian, at
least, to whom that day is halloAved by all that is
endearing in early associations, and who feels how
much it is the very bulwark of his country's moral
purity. Here, hoAvever, as in other cases, it is the half-truth
which is dangerous — the other half is the corrective;
10*

114 THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
the Avhole truth alone is safe. If Ave say the Sabbath
is shadow, this is only half the truth. The apostle
adds, " the body is of Christ."
There is, then, in the Sabbath, that which is shadowy,
and that which is substantial ; that which is transient,
and that which is permanent ; that which is temporal
and typical, and that which is eternal. The shadow,
and the body.
Hence, a very natural and simple division of our
subject suggests itself:
I. The transient shadow of the Sabbath, which has
passed away.
II. The permanent substance, which cannot pass.
I. The transient shadow, which has passed away.
The history of the Sabbath-day is this : — It was
given by Moses to the Israelites, partly as a sign
between God and them, marking them off from all
other nations by its observance ; partly as commemo
rative of their deliverance from Egypt. And the rea
son why the seventh day was fixed on, rather than the
sixth or eighth, was, that on that day God rested from
his labor. The soul of man was to form itself on the
model of the Spirit of God. It is not said that God
at the creation gave the Sabbath to man, but that God
rested at the close of the six days of creation : where
upon he had blessed and sanctified the seventh day to
the Israelites. This is stated in the fourth command
ment, and also in Gen." i., which was written by the
Israelites; and the history of creation naturally and
appropriately introduces the reason and the sanction
of their day of rest.
Nor is there in the Old Testament a single trace

OF THE SABBATH. 115
of the observance of the Sabbath before the time of
Moses. After the Deluge, it is not mentioned in the
covenant made with Noah. The first account of it
occurs after the Israelites had left Egypt ; and the
fourth commandment consolidates it into a law, and
explains the principle and sanctions of the institution.
The observance of one day in seven, therefore, is
purely Jewish. The Jewish obligation to observe it
rested on the enactment given by Moses.
The spirit of its observance, too, is Jewish, and not
Christian. There is a difference between the spirit of
Judaism and that of Christianity. The spirit of Juda
ism is separation — that of Christianity is permeation.
To separate the evil from the good was the aim and
work of Judaism : — to 'sever one nation from all
other nations ; certain meats from other meat ; certain
days from other daj^s. Sanctify, means to set apart.
The very essence of the idea of Hebrew holiness lay
in sanctification in the sense of separation.
On the contrary, Christianity is permeation : it per
meates all evil with good ; it aims at overcoming evil
by good ; it desires to transfuse the spirit of the day
of rest into all other days, and to spread the holiness
of one nation over all the world. To saturate life
with God, and the world with heaven, — that is the
genius of Christianity.
Accordingly, the observance of the Sabbath was
entirely in the JeAvish spirit. No fire was permitted
to be made, on pain of death: Exod. xxxv. 3. No
food was to be prepared : xau. 5, 23. No bujdng nor
selling: Nehem. x. 31. So rigorously was all this
carried out, that a man gathering sticks Avas arraigned

116 THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
before the congregation, and sentenced to death by
Moses. This is Jewish, typical, shadoAvy : — it is all to pass
aAvay. Much already has passed : even those who
believe our Lord's day to be the descendant of the
Sabbath admit this. The day is changed. The first-
day of the week has taken the place of the seventh.
The computation of hours is altered. The Jews
reckoned from sunset to sunset : modern Christians
reckon from midnight to midnight. The spirit of its
observance, too, is altered. No one contends noAV for
Jewish strictness in its details.
Noav, observe, all this implies the abrogation of a
great deal more — nay, of the whole JeAvish Sabbath
itself. We have altered the' day, the computation of
the hours, the mode of observance. What remains
to keep? Absolutely nothing of the literal portion,
except one day in seven ; and that is abrogated, if the
rest be abrogated. For, by what right do Ave say that
the order of the day, whether it be the first or the
seventh, is a matter of indifference, because only
formal, but that the proportion of days, one in seven,
instead of one m eight or nine, is moral, and unaltera
ble? On what intelligible principle do Ave produce
the fourth commandment as binding upon Christians,
and abrogate so important a clause of it as, " In it
thou shalt do no manner of work " ? On what self-
evident ground is it shown that the Jew might not
light a fire, but the Christian may ; yet that if the
postal arrangements of a country permit the delivery
of a letter, it is an infraction of the Sabbath ?
Unquestionably on no scriptural authority. Let
those Avho demand a strict observance of the letter

OF THE SABBATH. 117
of scripture remember that the Jewish Sabbath is dis
tinctly enforced in the Bible, and nowhere in the
Bible repealed. You have changed the seventh day
to the first on no clear scriptural permission. Two or
three passages tell us that, after the resurrection, the
apostles were found together on the first day of the
week (which, by the way, may have been Saturday
evening after sunset). But it is concluded that there
fore probably the change was apostolic. You have
only a probability to go on- — and that probability,
except with the aid of tradition, infinitesimally small — ¦
for the abrogation of a single iota of the JeA\Tish
fourth commandment.
It will be said, however, that works of necessity
and works of mercy are excepted by Christ's example.
Tell us, then, ye who are servants of the letter, and
yet do not scruple to use a carriage to convey you to
some church where a favorite minister is heard, is that
a spiritual necessity, or a spiritual luxury ? Part of
the Sunday meal of all of you is the result of a ser
vant's work. Tell us, then, ye accurate logicians,
who say that nothing escapes the rigor of the prohi
bition, which is not necessary or merciful? Is a
hot repast a work of necessity, or a work of mercy?
0 ! it rouses in every true soul a deep and earnest
indignation to hear men who drive their cattle to
church on Sundays, because they are too emasculated
to trudge through cold and rain on foot, invoke the
severity of an insulted Law of the Decalogue on those
Avho provide facilities of movement for such as cannot
afford the luxury of a carriage. What, think you,
would He who blighted the Pharisees Avith such burn
ing words have said, had He been present by, while

118 THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
men, Avhose servants clean their houses, and prepare
their meals, and harness their horses, stand up to de
nounce the seiwice on some railway by which the poor
are helped to health and enjoyment? Hired service
for the rich is a necessity, — hired service for the poor
is a desecration of the Sabbath ! It is right that a
thousand should toil for the few in private ! It is past
bearing, in a Christian country, that a few should toil
for thousands on the Sabbath-day !
There is only this alternative : If the fourth com
mandment be binding still, that clause is unrepealed —
" no manner of work;-" and so, too, is that other im
portant part, the sanctification of the seventh day, and
not the first. If the fourth commandment be not bind
ing in these points, then there is nothing left but the
broad, comprehensive ground taken by the apostle.
The whole Sabbath is a shadow of things to come.
In consistency, either hold that none of the formal
part is abrogated, or else all. The whole of the letter
of the commandment is moral, or else none.
II. There ij, however, in the Sabbath a substance,
a permanent something — " a body " — which cannot
pass away.
" The body is of Christ ; " the spirit of Christ is the
fulfilment of the law. To have the spirit of Christ is
to have fulfilled the law. Let us hear the mind of
Christ in this matter.
" The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath." In that principle, rightly understood, lies
the clue for the unravelling of the whole matter. The
religionists of that day maintained that the necessities
of man's nature must give way to the rigor of the

OF THE SABBATH. 119
enactment; He taught that the enactment must yield
to man's necessities. They said that the Sabbath Avas
written in the book of the LaAv ; He said that it was
written on man's nature, and that the laAV Avas merely
meant to be in accordance with that nature. They
based the obligation to observe the Sabbath on the
sacredness of an enactment ; He, on the sacredness of
the nature of man.
An illustration will help us to perceive the difference
between these two Adews. A wise physician prescribes
a regimen of diet to a palate which has become dis
eased; he fixes what shall be eaten, the quantity, the
hours, and the number of times. On what does the
obligation to obey rest ? On the arbitrary authority
of the physician, or on the nature with which that
prescription is in accordance ? When soundness and
health are restored, the prescription falls into disuse ;
but the nature remains unalterable, which has made
some things nutritious, others unwholesome, and excess
forever pernicious. Thus the spirit of the prescription
may be still in force when the prescriptive authority is
repealed. So, Moses prescribed the Sabbath to a nation spirit
ually diseased. He gave the regimen of rest to men
who did not feel the need of spiritual rest. He fenced
round his rule with precise regulations of detail — one
day in seven, no work, no fire, no traffic. On what
does the obligation to obey it rest? On the authority
of the rule, or on the necessities of that nature for
Avhich the rule was divinely adapted ? Was man made
for the Sabbath, to obey it as a slave ? or, was the
Sabbath made for man? And when spiritual health
has been restored, the Law regulating the details of

120 .THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
rest may become obsolete, but the ' nature Avhich
demands rest never can be reversed.
Observe, now, that this is a far grander, safer, and
more permanent basis, on which to rest the Sabbath,
than the mere enactment. For, if you allege the fourth
commandment as your authority, straightway you are
met by the objection, " no manner of work." Who
gave you leave to alter that ? And if you reply, Works
of necessity and works of mercy I may do, for Christ
excepted these from the stringency of the rule ; again
the rejoinder comes, Is there one in ten of the things
that all Christians permit as lawful really a matter of
necessity ?
Whereas, if the Sabbath rest on the needs of human
nature, and we accept His decision that the Sabbath
was made for man, then you have an eternal ground to
rest on, from which you cannot be shaken. A son of
man may be lord of the Sabbath-day, but he is not lord
of his own nature. He cannot make one hair white or
black. You may abrogate the formal rule, but you
cannot-abrogate the needs of your own soul. Eternal
as the constitution of the soul of man is the necessity
for the existence of a day of rest. Further, still, on
this ground alone can you find an impregnable defence
of the proportion, one day in seven. On the other
ground it is unsafe. Having altered the seventh to
the first, I know not why one in seven might not be
altered to one in ten. The thing, however, has been
tried ; and, by the necessities of human nature, the
change has been found pernicious. One day in ten,
prescribed by revolutionary France, was actually pro
nounced by physiologists insufficient. So that we
begin to find that, in a deeper sense than we at first

OF THE SABBATH. 121
suspected, " the Sabbath was made for man." Even in
the contrivance of one day in seven, it was arranged
by unerring wisdom. Just because the Sabbath was
made for man, and not because man was ordained to
keep the Sabbath-day, you cannot tamper even with
the iota, one day in seven.
That necessity on which the observance leans is the
need of Rest. It is the deepest want in the soul of
man. If you take off covering after covering of the
nature which wraps him round, till you come to the
central heart of hearts, deep lodged there you find the
requirement of Repose. All men do not hanker after
pleasure, — all men do not crave intellectual food.
But all men long for rest : the most restless that ever
pursued a turbulent career on earth did, by that career,
only testify to the need of the soul within. They
craved for something which was not given ; there was
a thirst which was not slaked ; their very restlessness
betokened that — restless because not at rest. It is
this need which sometimes makes the quiet of the
grave an object of such deep desire. " There the
Avicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are
at rest." It is this which creates the chief desirable
ness of Heaven : " There remaineth a rest for the peo
ple of God." And it is this which, consciously or
unconsciously, is the real wish that lies at the bottom
of all others. 01 for tranquillity of heart — Heaven's
profound silence in the soul, " a meek and quiet spirit,
which, in the sight of God, is of great price ! "
The rest needed by man is two-fold. Physical repose
of the body, — a need which he shares with the ani
mals, through the lower nature which he has in common
with them. " Thou shalt do no Avork, nor thy cattle,"
ll

122 THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
— so far man's Sabbath-need places him only on a level
Avith the ox and Avith the ass.
But, besides this, the rest demanded is a repose of
spirit. Between these two kinds of rest there is a very
important difference. Bodily repose is simply inac
tion : the rest of the soul is exercise, not torpor. To
do nothing is physical rest: to be engaged in full
activity is the rest of the soul.
In that hour which of all the twenty-four is most
emblematic of heaven, and suggestive of repose, the
eventide, in which instinctively Jacob went into the
fields to meditate, — when the work of the day is done,
when the mind has ceased its tension, when the pas
sions are lulled to rest, in spite of themselves, by the
spell of the quiet, star-lit sky, — it is then, amidst the
silence of the lull of all the lower parts of our nature,
that the soul comes forth to do its work. Then the
peculiar, strange work of the soul, which the intellect
cannot do — meditation — begins. Awe, and worship,
and wonder, are in full exercise ; and Love begins then
in its purest form of mystic adoration, and pervasive
and undefined tenderness — separate from all that is
coarse and earthly — swelling as if it would embrace
the All in its desire to bless, and lose itself in the sea
of the Love of God. This is the Rest of the soul —
the exercise and play of all the nobler powers.
Two things are suggested by this thought.
First, the mode of the observance of the day of Rest.
It has become lately a subject of very considerable
attention. Physiologists have demonstrated the neces
sity of cessation from toil : they have urged the impos
sibility of perpetual occupation without end. Pictures
with much pathos in them, have been placed before us

OF THE SABBATH. 123
describing the hard fate of those on Avhom no Sabbath
dawns. It has been demanded as a right, entreated as
a mercy, on behalf of the laboring man, that he should
have one day in seven for recreation of his bodily
energies. AU well and true. But there is a great deal
more than this. He Avho confines his conception of
the need of rest to that, has left man on a level with
the brutes. Let a man take merely lax and liberal
notions of the fourth commandment, — let him give his
household dependants immunity from toil, and wish for
himself and them no more, — he will find that there is
a something wanting still. Experience tells us, after a
trial, that those Sundays are the happiest, the purest,
the most rich in blessing, in which the spiritual part
has been most attended to ; those in Avhich the busi
ness letter was put aside till evening, and the profane
literature not opened, and the ordinary occupations
entirely suspended ; those in which, as in the temple
of Solomon, the sound of the earthly hammer has not
been heard in the temple of the soul : for this is, in
fact, the very distinction between the spirit of the Jew
ish Sabbath and the spirit of the Christian Lord's day.
The one is chiefly for the body — "Thou shalt do no
manner of work." The other is principally for the
soul — " I was in the spirit on the Lord's day."
The other truth suggested by that fact, — that "the
repose of the soul is exercise, not rest, — is, that it con
veys an intimation of man's immortality. It is only
when ah the rest of our human nature is calmed that
the spirit comes forth into full energy ; all the rest tires,
— the spirit never tires. Humbleness, awe, adoration,
love, these have in them no Aveariness ; so that when
this frame shall 4>e dissolved into the dust of the earth,

124 THE SHADOW AND THE SUBSTANCE
and the mind, which is merely fitted for this time-
world, learning by experience, shall have been super
seded, then, in the opening out of an endless career
of love, the spirit will enter upon that Sabbath of which
all earthly Sabbaths are but the shadow, — the Sabbath
of Eternity, the immortal Rest of its Father's Home.
Two observations in concluding.
1. When is a son of man lord of the Sabbath-day ?
To whom may the Sabbath safely become a shadow ?
I reply, he that has the mind of Christ may exercise
discretionary lordship over the Sabbath-day. He who
is in possession of the substance may let the shadow
go. A man in health has done with the prescriptions
of the physician. But for an unspiritual man to regu
late his hours and amount of rest by his desires, is
just as preposterous as for an unhealthy man to rule
his appetites by his sensations. Win the mind of
Christ — be like him — and then, in the reality of Rest
in God, the Sabbath form of rest will be superseded.
Remain apart from Christ, and then you are under the
law again, — the fourth commandment is as necessary
for you as if was for the Israelite; the prescriptive
regimen, which may discipline your soul to a sounder
state. It is at his peril that the worldly man departs
from the rule of the day of rest. Nothing can make
us free from the law but the spirit.
2. The rule pronounced hy the apostle is a rule of
liberty, and at the same time a rule of charity : " Let
no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath-days."
It is very difficult to discuss this question of the Sab
bath. Heat, vehemence, acrimony, are substituted for
argument. When you calmly ask to investigate the
subject, men apply epithets, and call «them reasons : —

OF THE SABBATH. 125
they stigmatize you as a breaker of the Sabbath, pro
nounce you " dangerous; " with sundry warnings against
you in private, and pregnant hints in public.
The apostle urges charity : " One man esteemeth one
day above another ; another man esteemeth every day
alike." . . . . " He that regardeth the day, regardeth it
to the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to the
Lord he regardeth it not." Carry out that spirit. In
the detail of this question there is abundant difficulty.
It is a question of degree. Some work must be done
on the Sabbath-day ; some must sacrifice their rest to
the rest of others ; for all human life is sacrifice, volun
tary or involuntary. Again, that which is rest to one
man is not rest to another. To require the illiterate
man to read his Bible for some hours, would impose a
toil to him, though it might be a relaxation to you.
To the laboring man a larger proportion of the da3r
must be given to the recreation of his physical nature
than is necessary for the man of leisure, to whom the
spiritual observance of the day is easy, and seems all.
Let us learn large, charitable considerateness. Let
not the poor man sneer at his richer neighbor, if, in
the exercise of his Christian liberty, he uses his horses
to convey him to church, and not to the mere drive of
pleasure ; but then, in fairness, let not the rich man be
shocked and scandalized if the over-wearied shop
keeper and artizan breathe the fresh air of heaven with
their families in the country. " The Sabbath was made
for man." Be generous, consistent, large-minded. A
man may hold stiff, precise, JeAvish notions on this sub
ject; but do not stigmatize that man as a formalist.
Another may hold large, Paul-like views of the abroga
tion of the fourth commandment, and yet he may be
11*

126 SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE OF THE SABBATH.
sincerely and zealously anxious for the halloAving of
the day ki his household and through his country. Do
not call that man a Sabbath-breaker. Remember, the
Pharisees called the Son of God a Sabbath-breaker.
They kept the law of the Sabbath ; they broke the law
of love. Which was the worse to break ? which was
the higher law to keep ? Take care, lest, in the zeal
which seems to you to be for Christ, ye be found
indulging their spirit, and not His.

VII.
(Preaohed November 4, 1849.)
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
Heb. iv. 15, 16. — " For we have not an high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come
boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find
grace to help in time of need. ' '
According to these verses, the Priesthood of Jesus
Christ is based upon the perfection of His humanity.
Because tempted in all points like as we are, there
fore He can show mercy, and grant help. Whatever
destroys the conception of His humanity, does in that
same degree overthrow the notion of His priesthood.
Our subject is the Priestly Sympathies of Christ.
But we make three preliminary observations.
The perfection of Christ's humanity implies that He
was possessed of a human soul as well as a human
body. There was a view, held in early times, and con
demned by the Church as a heresy, according to which
the body of Christ was an external frame-work ani
mated by Deity, as our bodies are animated by our
souls. What the soul is to us, Deity was to Christ.
His body was flesh, blood, bones — moved, guided,
ruled, by indwelling Divinity. (127)

128 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
But you perceive at once that this destroys the
notion of complete humanity. It is not this taber
nacle of material elements which constitutes our
humanit}'; you cannot take the pale corpse from
which life has fled and call that man. And if Deity
Avere to take up that form and make it its abode, that
would not be an union of the Divine and human. It
Avould only be the union of Deity Avith certain mate
rials that might have passed into man, or into an
animal, or an herb. Humanity implies a body and a
soul. Accordingly, in the life of Christ we find two dis
tinct classes of feeling. When He hungered in the
wilderness, when He thirsted on the cross, when
He Avas weary by the Avell at Sychar, He expe
rienced sensations which belong to the bodily depart
ment of human nature. But Avhen out of twelve He
selected one to be His bosom friend, when He looked
round upon the crowd in anger, when the tears
streamed down his cheeks at Bethany, and when He
recoiled from the thought of approaching dissolution,
these ¦ — grief, friendship, fear — were not sensations
of the body, much less Avere they the attributes of
Godhead. They Avere the affections of an acutely
sensitive human soul, alive to all the tenderness, and
hopes, and anguish, with Avhich human life is filled,
qualifying Him to be tempted in all points like as we
are. The second thought which presents itself is, that
the Redeemer not only was, but is man. He was
tempted in all points like us. He is a high priest
which can be touched. Our conceptions on this sub
ject, from being vague, are often very erroneous. It

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 129
is fancied that, in the history of Jesus' existence,
once, for a limited period and for definite purposes,
he took part in frail humanity; but that 'when that
purpose was accomplished, the man forever perished,
and the Spirit reascended, to unite again with pure,
unmixed Deity. But scripture has taken peculiar
pains to give assurance of the continuance of His
Humanity. It has carefully recorded His resurrection.
After that He passed through space, from spot to
spot: when He was in one place, He was not in
another. His body was sustained by the ordinary
aliments — broiled fish and honeycomb. The prints of
suffering were on Him. His recognitions were human
still. Thomas and Peter were specially reminded of
incidents before His death, and connected with His
living interests. To Thomas, — "Reach hither thy
hand." To Peter, — " Lovest thou me ? "
And this typifies to us a very grand and important
truth. It is this, if I may venture to so express
myself, — the truth of the Human Heart of God. We
think of God as a Spirit, infinitely removed from and
unlike the creatures He has made. But the truth is,
man resembles God : — all spirits, all minds, are of the
same family. The Father bears a likeness to the Son
whom He has created. The Mind of God is similar
to the mind of man. Love does not mean one thing
in man, and another thing in God. Holiness, Justice,
Pity, Tenderness, — these are in the Eternal the same
in kind which they are in the Finite Being. The
present manhood of Christ conveys this deeply import
ant truth, that the Divine Heart is human in its
sympathies. The third observation upon these verses is, that

130 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
there is a connection between Avhat Jesus was and
what Jesus is. He can be touched iioav, because
He Avas tempted then. The incidents and the feelings
of that part of the existence which is gone have not
past away without results which are deeply entwined
with His present being. His past experience has left
certain effects durable in His nature as it is now. It
has endued Him with certain qualifications and certain
susceptibilities, which He would not have had but for
that experience. Just as the results remained upon
His body, the prints of the nails in His palms, and the
spear-gash in His side, so do the results remain upon
His soul : enduing Him with a certain susceptibility, for
He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ;
with certain qualifications, for He is able to show
mercy, and to impart grace to help in time of need.
To turn now to the subject itself. It has two
branches. I. The Redeemer's preparation for His priesthood.
II. The Redeemer's priestly qualifications.
I. His preparation.
The preparation consisted in being tempted. But
here a difficulty arises. Temptation, as applied to a
Being perfectly free from tendencies to evil, is not
easy to understand. See what the difficulty is. Tempt
ation has two senses : it means test or probation ; it
means also trial, involving the idea of pain or danger.
A common acid applied to gold tests it ; but there is
no risk or danger to the most delicate golden orna
ment. There is one acid, and only one, which tries it,
as well as tests it. The same acid applied to a shell
endangers the delicacy of its surface. A weight hung

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 131
from a bar of iron only tests its strength ; the same
depending from a human arm is a trial involving, it
may be, the risk of pain or fracture. Noav, trial placed
before a sinless being is intelligible enough in the
sense of probation : it is a test of excellence ; but it
is not easy to see how it can be temptation in the
sense of pain, if there be no inclination to do wrong.
However, scripture plainly asserts this as the
character of Christ's temptation. Not merely test,
but trial.
First, you have passages declaring the immaculate
nature of His mind ; as here, " without sin." Again,
He was " holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin
ners." And, again, " The prince of this world cometh,
and hath nothing in me." The spirit of evil found
nothing which it could claim as its own in Christ. It
was the meeting of two elements which will not
amalgamate. Oil and water could as easily blend as
the Mind of Christ Avith evil. Temptation glanced
from His heart as the steel point does from the surface
of the diamond. It was not that evil propensities
Avere kept under by the power of the spirit in him.
He had no evil propensities at all. Obedience was
natural to Him.
But then we find another class of passages, such as
this: "He suffered, being tempted." There was not
merely test in the temptation, but there was also pain-
fulness in the victory. How could this be, without
any tendency to evil ?
To answer this, let us analyze sin. In every act of
sin there are two distinct steps. There is the rising
of a desire which is natural, and, being natural, is not
wrong : — there is the indulgence of that desire in

132 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
forbidden circumstances; and that is sin. Let injury,
for example, be inflicted, and resentment will arise.
It must arise spontaneously. It is as impossible for
injustice to be done, and resentment not to follow, a3
it is for the flesh not to quiver on the application of
intense torture. Resentment is but the sense of injust '
ice, made more vivid by its being brought home to
ourselves: — resentment is beyond our control, so far.
There is no sin in this ; but let resentment rest there :
let it pass into, not justice, but revenge, — let it
smoulder in vindictive feeling till it becomes retalia
tion, — and then a natural feeling has grown into a
transgression. You have the distinction between
these two things clearly marked in scripture. " Be ye
angry," — here is the allowance for the human ; " and
sin not," — here is the point where resentment passes
into retaliation.
Take, again, the natural sensation of hunger. Let a
man have been without food ; let the gratification pre
sent itself, and the natural desire will arise involun
tarily. It will arise just as certainly in a forbidden as
in a permitted circumstance. It Avill arise whether
what he looks on be the bread of another or his own.
And it is not here, in the sensation of hunger, that the
guilt lies ; but it lies in the wilful gratification of it
after it is known to be forbidden.
This was literally one of the cases in which Christ
was tried. The wish for food was in His nature in the
wilderness. The very mode of gratifying it was pre
sented to His imagination, — by using Divine power
in an unlawful way. And had He so been constituted
that the lower wish was superior to the higher will,
there would have been an act of sin ; had the two

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 133
been nearly balanced, so that the conflict hung in
doubt, there would have been a tendency to sin — what
we call a sinful nature. But it was in the entire and
perfect subjugation of desire to the will of Right that
a sinless nature was exhibited.
Here, then, is the nature of sin. Sin is not the
possession of desires, but the having them in un
controlled ascendency over the higher nature. Sin
fulness does not consist in having strong desires or
passions. In the strongest and highest natures, all,
including the desires, is strong. Sin is not a real thing.
It is rather the absence of a something, the will to do
right. It is not a disease or taint, an actual substance
projected into the constitution. It is the absence of
the spirit which orders and harmonizes the whole ; so
that what we mean when we say the natural man must
sin inevitably is this, — that he has strong natural
appetites, and that he has no bias from above to coun
teract those appetites : exactly as if a ship were
deserted by her crew, and left on the bosom of the
Atlantic with every sail set and the wind blowing. No
one forces her to destruction ; yet on the rocks she will
surely go, just because there is no pilot at the helm.
Such is the state of ordinary men. Temptation leads
to fall. The gusts of instinct, which rightly guided
would have carried safely into port, dash them on the
rocks. No one forces them to sin ; but the spirit-pilot
has left the helm. Fallen Nature !
Sin, therefore, is not in the appetites, but in the
absence of a controlling WiU.
Noav, contrast this state with the state of Christ.
There were in Him all the natural appetites of mind
and body. Relaxation and friendship were dear to
12

134 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
Him; so were sunlight and life. Hunger — pain —
death — He could feel all, and shrunk from them.
Conceive, then, a case in which the gratification of any
one of these inclinations was inconsistent with His
Father's will. At one moment it was unlawful to eat,
though hungry ; and, without one tendency to disobey,
did fasting cease to be severe ? It was demanded that
He should endure anguish ; and, willingly as he sub
dued Himself, did pain cease to be pain? Could the
spirit of obedience reverse every feeling of human
nature? When the brave man gives his shattered
arm to the surgeon's knife, will may prevent even the
quiver of an eyelid; but no will, and no courage, can
reverse his sensations, or prevent the operation from
inflicting pain. When the heart is raw, and smarting
from recent bereavement, let there be the deepest and
most reverential submission to the Highest Will, is it
possible not to wince ? Can any cant demand for sub
mission extort the confession that pain is pleasure ?
It seems to have been in this way that the tempta
tion of Christ caused suffering. He suffered from the
force of desire. Though there was no hesitation
whether to obey or not, no strife in the will, in the
act of mastery there was pain. There was self-denial ;
there was obedience at the expense of tortured nat
ural feeling. He shrunk from St. Peter's suggestion
of escape from ignominy as from a thing which did
not shake His determination, but made Him feel, in
the idea of bright life, vividly the cost of His resolve.
" Get thee behind me, Tempter, for thou art an
offence." In the garden, unsv*ervingly : " Not as I
will, but as thou wilt." No reluctance in the will.
But was there no struggling? No shudder in the

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 135
inward sensations? No remembrance that the Cross
was sharp ? No recollection of the family at Bethany,
and the pleasant walk, and the dear companionship
which He was about to leave ? — "My soul is exceeding
sorrowful to die." ....
So that in every one of these cases — not by the
reluctancy of a sinful sensation, but by the quivering
and the anguish of natural feeling when it is trampled
upon by lofty will — Jesus suffered, being tempted.
He Avas "tempted hke as we are." Remember this.
For the way in which some speak of the sinlessness
of Jesus reduces alb His suffering to physical pain —
destroys • the reality of temptation, reduces that glo
rious heart to a pretence, and converts the whole of
His history into a mere fictitious drama, in which
scenes of trial were represented, not felt.
Remember that, " in all points," the Redeemer's sold
was tempted.
II. The second point we take is the Redeemer's
Priesthood. Priesthdod is that office by which He is the medium
of union between- man and God. The capacity for
this has been indelibly engraven on His nature by His
experience here. All this capacity is based on His
sympathy: He can be "touched with the feeling of
our infirmities."
Till Ave have reflected on it, we are scarcely aware
how much the sum of human happiness in the world
is indebted to this one feeling — sympathy. We get
cheerfulness and vigor, -we scarcely know how or
when, from mere association Avith our fellow-men ; and
from the looks reflected on us of gladness and employ

136 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
ment we catch inspiration and power to go on, from
human presence and from cheerful looks. The work
man works with added energy "from having others by.
The full family circle has a strength and a life pecu
liarly its own. The substantial good and the effectual
relief which men extend to one another is trifling. It
is not by these, but by something far less costly, that
the work is done. God has insured it by a much
more simple machinery. He has given to the weakest
and the poorest power to contribute largely to the
common stock of gladness. The child's smile and
laugh are mighty powers in this world. When be
reavement has left you desolate, what substantial ben
efit is there which makes condolence acceptable ? It
cannot replace the loved ones you have lost. It can
bestow upon you nothing permanent. But a warm
hand has touched yours, and its thrill told you that
there was a living response there to your emotion.
One look, one human sigh, has done more for you than
the costliest present could convey.
And it is for want of remarking this that the effect
of public cljarity falls often so far short of the expect
ations of those who give. The springs of men's
generosity are dried up by hearing of the repining,
and the envy, and the discontent, which have been
sown by the general collection and - the provision es
tablishment, among cottages where all was harmony
before. The famine and the pestilence are met by
abundant liberality ; and the apparent return for this
j.s riot and sedition. But the secret lies all in this.
It is not in channels such as these that the heart's
gratitude can flow. Love is not bought by money, but
by love. There has been all the machinery of a

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 137
public distribution ; but there has been no exhibition
of individual, personal interest. The rich man who
goes to his poor brother's cottage, and, without affecta
tion of humility, naturally, and with the respect which
man owes to man, enters into his circumstances, in
quiring about his distresses, and hears his homely
tale, has done more to establish an interchange of
kindly feeling than he could have secured by the cost
liest present, by itself. Public donations have their
value and their uses. Poor-laws keep human beings
from starvation ; but in the point of eliciting gratitude
all these fail. Man has not been brought into contact
close enough with man for this. They do not work
by sympathy.
Again, when the electric touch of sympathetic feel
ing has gone among a mass of men, it communicates
itself, and is reflected back from every individual in
the crowd, with a force exactly proportioned to their
numbers. The speech or sermon read before the
limited circle of a family, and the same discourse
uttered before closely-croAvcled hundreds, are two dif
ferent things. There is a strange poAver even in the
mere presence of a common crowd, exciting almost
uncontrollable emotion.
It is on record that the hard heart of an oriental
conqueror Avas unmanned by the sight of a dense mass
of living millions engaged in one enterprise. He ac
counted for it by saying that it suggested to him that
Avithin a single century not one of those millions
would be alive. But the hard-hearted bosom of the
tyrant mistook its OAvn emotions. His tears came from
no such far-fetched inference of reflection ; they rose
spontaneously, as they will rise in a dense crowd, you
12*

138 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
cannot tell why. It is the thrilling thought of num
bers engaged in the same object. It is the idea of our
own feelings reciprocated back to us, and reflected
from many hearts. It is the mighty presence of life.
And, again, it seems partly to avail itself of this tend
ency within us that such stress is laid on the injunc
tion of united prayer. Private devotion is essential
to the spiritual life ; without it there is no life. But
it cannot replace united prayer ; for the two things
have different aims. Solitary prayer is feeble in com
parison with that which rises before the throne echoed
by the hearts of hundreds, and strengthened by the
feeling that other aspirations are mingling with our
own. And whether it be the chanted litany, or the
more simply read service, or the anthem, producing one
emotion at the same moment in many bosoms, the
value and the power of public prayer seem chiefly to
depend on this mysterious affection of our nature —
sympathy. And now, having endeavored to illustrate this
power of sympathy, it is for us to remember that of
this in its fulness He is susceptible. There is a vague
way of speaking of the atonement which does not
realize the tender, affectionate, personal love, by which
that daily, hourly reconciliation is effected. The sym
pathy of Christ was not merely love of men in masses.
He loved the masses, but He loved them because made
up of individuals. He " had compassion on the multi
tude;" but He had also discriminating, special tender
ness for erring Peter and erring Thomas. He felt for
the despised, lonely Zaccheus in his sycamore-tree.
He compassioned the discomfort of his disciples. He
mixed His tears with the stifled sobs by the grave of

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 139
Lazarus. He called the abashed children to His side.
Amongst the numbers, as He walked, He detected the
individual touch of faith. " Master, the multitude
throng thee, and say est thou, Who touched me?"
"Somebody hath touched me."
Observe how He is touched by our infirmities, —
with a separate, special, discriminating love. There is
not a single throb, in a single human bosom, that does
not thrill at once with more than electric speed up to
the mighty -Heart of God. You have not shed a tear,
or sighed a sigh, that did not come back to you
exalted and purified by having passed through the
Eternal bosom. •
The priestly powers conveyed by this faculty of
sympathizing, according to the text, are two : — The
power of mercy ; and the power of having grace to
help. "Therefore" — because he can be touched —
" let us come boldly," expecting mercy — and grace.
1. We may boldly expect mercy from Him who has
learned to sympathize. He learned sympathy by
being tempted ; but it is by being tempted, yet without
sin, that he is specially able to show mercy.
There are two who are unfit for showing mercy : —
he who has never been tried ; and he who, having
been tempted, has fallen under temptation. The
young, untempted, and upright, are often severe
judges. They are for sanguinary punishment ; they
are for expelling offenders from the bosom of society
The old, on the contrary, who have fallen much, are
lenient; but it is a leniency which often talks thus: Men
must be men ; a young man must sow his wild oats,
and reform. •
So young, ardent Saul, untried by doubt, persecuted

140 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
the Christians with severity ; and Saul the king, on
the contrary, having fallen himself, weakly permitted
Agag to escape punishment. David, again, when his
own sin was narrated to him under another name, was
unrelenting in his indignation : " The man that hath
done this thing shall surely die."
None of these were qualified for showing mercy
aright. Now, this qualification "Avithout sin" is very
remarkable, for it is the one we often least should
think of. Unthinkingly we should say that to have
erred would make a man lenient. It is not so.
That truth is taught with deep significance in one
of the incidents of the Redeemer's life. There stood
in His presence a tempted woman, covered with the
confusion of recent conviction. And there stood
beside her the sanctimonious religionists of that day,
waiting like hell-hounds to be let loose upon their
prey. Calm words came from the lips of Him " who
spake as man never spake," and whose heart felt as
man never felt. " He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone." A memorable lesson of
eternal truth. Sinners are not fit to judge of sin : —
their justice is revenge ; their mercy is feebleness.
He alone can judge of sin, he alone can attemper
the sense of what is due to the offended Law with the
remembrance of that Avhich is due to human frailty,
he alone is fit for showing manly mercy, who has, like
his Master, felt the power of temptation in its might,
and come scathless through the trial.
"In all points tempted, — yet loithout sin;" there
fore, to Him you may "boldly go to find mercy."
2. The other pries tly.power is the grace of showing
"help in time of need."

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 141
We must not make too much of sympathy, as mere
feeling. We do in things spiritual as we do with hot
house plants. The feeble exotic, beautiful to look at,
but useless, has costly sums spent on it. The hardy
oak, a nation's strength, is permitted to grow, scarcely
observed, in the fence and copses. We prize feeling,
and praise its possessor. But feeling is only a sickly
exotic in itself, — a passive quality, having in it noth
ing moral — no temptation, and no victory. A man is
no more a good man for having feeling, than he is for
having a delicate ear for music, or a far-seeing optic
nerve. The Son of Man had feeling ; He could be
"touched." The tear would start from His eyes at
the sight of human sorrow. But that sympathy was
no exotic in His soul, beautiful to look at, too delicate
for use. Feeling with Him led to this : " He Avent
about doing good." Sympathy with Him was this :
" Grace to help in time of need."
And this is the blessing of the thought of Divine
sympathy. By the sympathy of man, after all, the
wound is not healed ; it is only stanched for a time.
It can make the tear Aoav less bitterly : it cannot
dry it up. So far as permanent good goes, who has
not felt the deep truth which Job taught his friends, —
" Miserable comforters are ye all ! "
The sympathy of the Divine Human ! He knows
what strengh is needed. He gives grace to help ; and
when the world, with its thousand forms of temptation,
seems to whisper to us as to Esau, Sell me thy birth
right; the other voice speaks, Shall I barter blessedness
for happiness? the inward peace for the outward thrill?
the benediction of my Father for a mess of pottage ?
There are moments when we seem to tread above this

142 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
earth, superior to its allurements, able to do without
its kindness, firmly bracing ourselves to do our work
as He did His. Those moments are not the sunshine
of life. They did not come when the Avorld would
have said that all round you was glad ; but it was
when outward trials had shaken the soul to its very
centre, then there came from Him ..." Grace to
help in time of need."
From this subject I draw, in concluding, two infer-;^
ences. j
1. He who would sj'mpathize must be content to be
tried and tempted. There is a hard and boisterous
rudeness in our hearts by nature, which requires to
be softened down. We pass by suffering gayly, care
lessly ; not in cruelty, but unfeelingly, just because
we do not know what suffering is. We wound men
by our looks and our abrupt expressions without
intending it, because we have not been taught the
delicacy, and the tact, and the gentleness, which can
only be learnt by the wounding of our own sensibili
ties. There is a haughty feeling in uprightness which
has never J>een on the verge of fall, that requires
humbling. There is an inability to enter into difficul
ties of thought, which marks the mind to which all
things have been presented superficially, and which
has never experienced the horror of feeling the ice of
doubt crashing beneath the feet.
Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation ;
if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympa
thy; if you Avould pour something beyond common
place consolation into a tempted heart; if you would,
pass through the intercourse of daily life with the
delicate tact which never inflicts pain ; if to that most

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 143
acute of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever
to give effectual succor, — you must be content to pay
the price of the costly education. Like Him, you
must suffer — being tempted.
But remember, it is being tempted in all points, yet
without sin, that makes sympathy real, manly, perfect,
instead of a mere sentimental tenderness. Sin will
teach you to feel for trials. It will not enable you to
judge them ; to be merciful to them ; nor to help them
in time of need with any certainty.
(See the remarks on St. Peter's case in the notes of
the afternoon Sermon.)
Lastly, it is this same human sympathy Avhich quali
fies Christ for judgment. It is written that the Father
hath committed all judgment to Him, because He is the
Son of Man. The sympathy of Christ extends to the
frailties of human nature ; not to its hardened guilt.
He is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
There is nothing in His bosom which can harmonize
with malice ; He cannot feel for envy ; He has no
fellow-feeling for cruelty, oppression, hypocrisy, bit
ter censorious judgments. Remember, He could look
round about Him with anger. The sympathy of
Christ is a comforting subject. It is, besides, a tre
mendous subject: for on sympathy the awards of
heaven and hell are built. " Except a man be born
again " — not he shall not, but — " he cannot enter into
heaven." There is nothing in him which has affinity
to anything in the Judge's bosom. A sympathy for
that which is pure implies a repulsion of that which is
impure. Hatred of evil is in proportion to the
strength of love for good. To love intensely good,
is to hate intensely evil. It was in strict accordance

144 THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
with the laws of sympathy that he blighted Pharisaism
in such ungentle words as these : " Ye serpents, ye
generation of vipers ! how can ye escape the damna
tion of hell ? " Win the mind of Christ now, or
else His sympathy for human nature will not save you
from, but only insure, the recoil of abhorrence at the
last — " Depart from me 1 I never knew you."

VIII.
[Preaohed November 11, 1849.]
THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES AT JOHN'S BAPTISM.
Matt. iii. 7. — " But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadduceea
come to his baptism, he said unto them, 0 generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? "
It seems that the Baptist's ministry had been
attended with almost incredible success, as if the
population of the country had been roused in mass
by the tidings of his doctrine. " Then went out to
him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round
about Jordan, and were baptized by him in Jordan,
confessing their sins."
The success of his ministry was tested by the num
bers that he baptized. Not so a modern ministry.
Ministerial success is not shown now by the numbers
who listen. Not impression, but altered character,
marks success. Not by startling nor by electrifying
longregations, but by turning men from darkness unto
light, from the power of Satan unto God, is the Avork
done. With John, however, it was different. He
was on earth to do a special work — the work of the
axe, not the trowel ; to throw down, not to build ; to
startle, not to instruct ; and therefore his baptism was
13 (145)

146 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
simply symbolized by water, the Avashing away of the
past : whereas that of Christ was symbolized by fire,
the-touching of the life and heart with the living flame
of a heavenlier life. Whoever, therefore, came to John
for baptism, possessed conviction of the truth of that
Avhich John taught, and thereby so far tested the fidel
ity and success of his ministry.
Bearing, then, in mind, that coming to John's bap
tism was the seal of his success, and that his baptism
contained, in symbolical form, the whole substance of
his teaching, these are the two topics of the text :
I. The meaning wrapped up in John's message.
II. The Baptist's astonishment at his OAvn success.
I. The meaning of John's message. His baptism
implied to those who came to put themselves under its
protection that they were in danger, for it was con
nected with the warning, " Flee from the wrath to
come ! "
Future retribution has become to us a kind of fig
ment. Hell is in the world of shadows. The tone in
which educated men speak of it still is often only that
good-humored condescension which makes allowance
for childish superstition.
Part of this incredulity arises from the confessedly
symbolical intimations of scripture on the subject. We
read of the fire and the worm ; of spirits being salted
with fire ; of a lake of fire and brimstone. All this
tells solely of physical suffering. And, accordingly,
for centuries, this was the predominant conception of
Christendom on the subject. Scarcely any other ele
ment was admitted. Whoever has seen those paintings
on Avhich the master-spirits have thrown down the

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 14-7
conceptions of their age, will remember that hideous
demons, distorted countenances, and waves of flame,
represent the whole idea. And in that immortal work
in which he Avho sung of hell, purgatory, and heaven,
has embodied the belief of his day, still the same fact
prevails. You read of the victims of unchaste life
hurried on the dark Avhirhvind forever ; of the heretics
in their coffins of intense fire ; and of the guilty spirits
who are plunged deep doAvn in " thick-ribbed ice."
But in those harroAving pictures Avhich his genius has
painted Avith such vividness there is not one idea of
mental suffering embodied. It is all bodily, aAvful,
intolerable torture. Noav, all this Ave believe no longer.
The circles of hell and the mountain of purgatory are
as fabulous to us as the Tartarus of the heathens.
Singular, that in an age in which the chief aim of sci
ence appears to be to get rid of physical pain and dis
comfort — as if these Avere the worst evils conceivable
— the idea of a bodily hell should be just the one at.
which Ave have learnt to smile. But, with the form, wo
have also dispossessed ourselves of belief in the reality
of retribution at all.
Now, scripture language is symbolical. There is no
salt, no worm, no fire, to torture. I say not that a dis
eased soul may not form for itself a tenement hereafter,
as here, peculiarly fitted to be the avenue of suffering;
but, unquestionably, Ave cannot build upon these ex
pressions a material hell.
Hell is the infinite terror of the soul, whatever that
may be. To one man it is pain. Rid him of that, he
can bear all degradation. To another it is public shame.
Save him from that, and he will creep and crawl before
you to submit to any reptile meanness. ' Honor mo

148 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
now, I pray thee, before the people," till Samuel turns
from the abject thing in scorn. To others, the infinite
terror is that compared with which all these would be
a bed of roses. It is the hell of having done wrong ;
the hell of having had a spirit from God pure, with
high aspirations, and to be conscious of having dulled
its delicacy, and degraded its desires ; the hell of hav
ing quenched a light brighter than the sun's ; of having
done to another an injury that through time and through
eternity never can be undone, — infinite, maddening
remorse, — the hell of knowing that every chance of
excellence, and every opportunity of good, has been
lost forever. This is the infinite terror ; this is wrath
to come.
You doubt that ? Have you ever marked that
striking fact, the connection of the successive stages
of the soul? — hoAV sin can change the countenance,
undermine the health, produce restlessness? Think
you the grave will end all that ? — that, by some magic
change, the moral being shall be buried there, and the
soul rise again so changed in every feeling that the
very identity of being Avould be lost, and it would
amount to the creation of a new soul ? Say you that
God is love ? 0 1 but look round this world. The
aspect of things is stern ; very stern. If they be ruled
by love, it is a love which does not shrink from human
agony. There is a law of infinite mercy here, but there
is a law of boundless rigor too. Sin, and you will suf
fer — that law is not reversed. The young, and the
gentle, and the tender, are inexorably subjected to it.
We would shield them, if we could ; but there is that
which says they shall not be shielded. They shall
weep, and fade, and taste of mortal, anguish, even as

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 149
others. Carry that out into the next world, and you
have " wrath to come."
John's baptism, besides, implied the importance of
confession. " They were baptized .... confessing
their sins." On the eve of a promised neAV life, they
Avere required to acknowledge the iniquity of past life.
In the cure of our spiritual maladies there is a won
drous efficacy, to use a homely phrase, in making a
" clean breast." There is something strengthening,
something soothing, and at the same time something
humbling, in acknowledging that Ave have done wrong.
There is a pride in us which cannot bear pity. There
is a diseased sensitiveness which shrinks from the
smart of acknowledgment ; and yet that smart must be
borne before we can be truly soothed. When was it
that the younger son in the parable received the ring,
and the robe, and the banquet, which represent the
rapture of the sense of being forgiven? — When he had
fortitude enough to go back mile by mile, step by step,
every inch of the Avay he had gone Avrong; bore un
flinchingly the sneer of his father's domestics, and,
Avorse than all, the sarcasms of his immaculate brother,
and manfully said out, " Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee." When was it that the pub
lican Avent down justified to his house? — When he said,
even before a supercilious Pharisee, " God be merciful
to me a sinner ! " When did the royal delinquent hear
the words, " The Lord hath also put aAvay thy sin " ?
— When he gave the sacrifice of his lips — "I have
sinned before the Lord." And Avhen did the Church
of Ephesus rise into the brightest model of a perfect
Church that has yet been exhibited on earth? — After
her converts had publicly come forward, burnt those
13*

150 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
manuscripts which were called " Ephesian letters," to
the value of fifty thousand pieces of silver, " confessed
and showed their deeds." There is a profound truth
in the popular anxiety that a murderer should confess
before he dies. It is an instinctive feeling that a true
death is better than a false life ; that to die with unac
knowledged guilt is a kind of lie. To acknowledge
his sin is to put it from him, to abjure it, refuse to
acknowledge it, separate it from him, — to say, I will
keep it as mine no more : then it is gone. Who has a
secret of guilt lying like lead upon his heart ? As he
values serenity of soul, let that secret be made known.
And if there be one to-day who is impressed or
touched by all this, let him beAvare how he procrasti
nates that which was done when John baptized. The
iron that once was cooled may never be warmed
again; the heart that has once had its flood-gates
open, and has delayed to pour out the stagnation of
its wretchedness, may be closed forever.
Once more; John's baptism implied the necessity
of a renewal of heart. We lose part of the signifi
cance of that ceremony from its transplantation away
from a climate in which it was natural and appro
priate. Ablution in the East is almost a religious duty. The
dust and heat weigh upon the spirits and heart like a
load ; the removal is refreshment and happiness. And
it was impossible to see that significant act — in which
the convert Avent down into the water, travel-worn and
soiled with dust, disappeared for one moment, and
then emerged pure and fresh — without feeling that
the symbol answered to, and interpreted, a strong
craving of the human heart. It is the desire to wash

at john's baptism. 151
away that which is past and evil. We would fain go
to another country and begin life afresh. We look
upon the grave almost with complacency, from the
fancy that there we shall lie down to sleep and wake
fresh and new. It was this same longing that ex
pressed itself in heathenism by the fabled river of for-
getfulness, of which the dead must drink before they
can enter into rest.
Now, to that craving John gave reality and meaning
when he said, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " For else
that craving is but a sick, fond wish. Had John
merely said, " Flee from the Avrath to come ! " he
would have filled man's life with the terrors of antici
pated hell. Had he only said, " My baptism implies
that ye must be pure," he would have crushed men's
hearts with the feeling of impossibility ; for excellence
without Christ is but a dream. He gave meaning and
promise to all when he said, " Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the world."
Sin-laden and guilty men — the end of all the Chris
tian ministry is to say that out with power, " Behold
the Lamb of God ! " Divine life and death ! to have
had one glimpse of which, with its ennobling impulses,
it were worth while to have endured a life of suffering.
When we believe that the sacrifice of that Lamb meant
loA'e to us, our hearts are lightened of their load ; the
past becomes as nothing, and life begins afresh. Christ
is the River of Forgetfulness in which bygone guilt is
overwhelmed. II. The Baptist's astonishment at- his own success.
It was a singular scene which was exhibited in those
days on the banks of Jordan. There was a crowd

152 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
of human beings, each having a history of his own —
men who have long mouldered in earth's dust, but
who were living then in fresh and vigorous existence.
Think of it. Busy hfe was moving there, beings who
had their hopes and fears about time and eternity,
to Avhom life was dear as it is to us at this day. They
had come to be cured of that worst of human mala
dies, the aching of a hollow heart ; and a single mor
tified man was bending over them, whose countenance
bore all that peculiar aspect of saintliness which
comes from spare diet and austere habits, and all that
unruffled composure which comes from lonely com
munings with God : — a solitary man, who had led a
hermit's life, "but was possessed of rare sagacity in
worldly matters ; — for, hermit as he was, John took
no half-views of men and things ; there was nothing
morbid in his view of life ; there was sound common
sense in the advice he gave the different classes which
came to him. "Repent," with him, did not mean,
Come with, me into the wilderness, to live away from
the world ; but it meant this : Go back to the world,
and live above it, each doing his Avork in an unworldly
spirit. It was a strange spectacle, men of the world
coming with implicit reverence to learn the duties
of active life from a man whose world was the desert,
and who knew nothing of active life except by hearsay.
Now, what was the secret of this power by which he
chained the hearts of men as by a spell ?
One point in the secret of this success was a thing
which we see every day. Men of thought and quiet
contemplation exercise a wonderful influence over
men of action. We admire that which we are not
ourselves. The man of business owns the control of

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 153
the man of religious thoughtfulness. Like coalesces
in this world Avith unlike. The strong and the Aveak,
the contemplative .and the active, bind themselves
together. They are necessary for each other. The
active soldiers and the scheming publicans came to
the lonely, ascetic John, to hear something of that
still, inner hfe, of which their own career could tell
them nothing.
A second cause of this success appears to have
been, that it was a ministry of terror. Fear has a
peculiar fascination. As children love the tale of the
supernatural, which yet makes them shudder, so do
men, as it would seem, find a delight in the pictures
of eternal Avoe Avhich terrify them ; partly from the
pleasure which there is in vivid emotions, and partly,
perhaps, from a kind of feeling of expiation in the
horror Avhich is experienced. You could not go
among the dullest set of rustics and preach graphic
ally and terribly of hell-fire, Avithout insuring a large
audience. The preaching of John, in this respect,
differed from the tone of Christ's. Christ taught much
that God is Love. He spoke a great deal of the Father
which is in Heaven. He instructed in those parables
which required thoughtful attention, exercise of mind,
and a gently sensitive conscience. He spoke didactic,
calm discourses, very engaging, but with little excite
ment in them : such discourses as the Sermon on the
Mount, respecting goodness, purity, duties; which,
assuredly, if any one were to venture so to speak
before a modern congregation, would be stigmatized as
a moral essay. Accordingly, His success was much
less marked than that of John. No crowds were
baptized as His followers : one hundred and twenty,

154 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
in an upper chamber, appear to ha\'e been the fruits
of his life-work. To teach so, is assuredly not the way
to make strong impressions ; but it is the way to work
deeply, gloriously — for eternity. How many of John's
terrified Pharisees and Sadducees, suppose we, retained
the impression six months ?
What is your religion? Excitability, romance, im
pression, fear ? Remember, excitement has its uses ;
impression. has its value. John, in all circumstances
of his appearance and style of teaching, impressed by
excitement. Excitement, warmed feelings, make the
first actings of religious life and the breaking of invet
erate habits easier. But excitement and impression
are not religion. Neither can you trust to the alarm
produced by the thought of eternal retribution. Ye
that have been impressed, beAvare how you let those
impressions die aAvay ! Die they will, and must ; we
cannot live in excitement forever ; but beware of
their leaving behind them nothing except a languid,
jaded heart. If God ever gave you the excitements
of religion, breaking in upon your monotony, as John's
teaching brgke in upon that of Jerusalem, take care.
There is no restoring of elasticity to the spring that
has been over-bent. Let impression pass on at once
to acting.
We have another cause to assign for John's suc
cess. Men felt that he was real. Reality is the
secret of all success. Religion in Jerusalem had
long become a thing of forms. Men had settled
into a routine of externals, as if all religion centred
in these. Decencies and proprieties formed the sub
stance of human life. And here Avas a man in God's
world once more who felt that religion is an ever-

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 155
lasting reality. Here Avas a man once more to tell
the world that life is sliding into the abyss ; that
all we see is but a shadow ; that the invisible Life
within is the only real. Here Avas a man who could
feel the splendors of God shining into his soul in
the desert without the aid of forms. His locust-
food, his hair-garment, his indifference to earthly com
forts, spoke out once more that one, at least, could
make it a conviction to live and die upon, that man
does not live on bread alone, but on the living word
which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And
when that crowd dispersed at sunset, and John Avas
left alone in the twilight, with the infinite of darkness
deepening round him, and the roll of Jordan by his
side, reflecting the chaste clear stars, there was some
thing there higher than Pharisaic forms to speak to
him : — there Avas heaven and eternity to force him
to be real. This life was sAviftly passing. What
was it to a man living like John, but a show and
a dream? He was homeless upon earth. Well —
but beyond — beyond — in the blue eternities above,
there was the prophet's home. He had cut himself
off from the solaces of life. He was to make an
enemy of the man of honor, Herod. He had made
an enemy of the man of religion, the Pharisee. But
he was passing into ' that country where it matters
little whether a man has been clothed in finest linen
or in coarsest camel's hair ; that still country, where
the struggle-storm of life is over, and such as John
find their rest at last in the home of God, which is
reserved for the True and Brave. If perpetual famil
iarity with such thoughts as these cannot make a man
real, there is nothing in this world that can.

156 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
And now, look at this man, so disciplined. Life to
John Avas a reality. The citizens of Jerusalem could
not go to him, as they might have gone to the schools
of their Rabbis for learned subtleties, or to the
groves of Athenian literature for melting imagery.
Speech falls from him sharp, rugged, cutting, — a
word and no more. — " Repent 1 " — " wrath to come."
— " The axe is laid at the root of the trees." — " Fruit
less trees will be cast into the fire." He spoke as
men speak when they are in earnest, — simply and
abruptly, as if the graces of oratory were out of
place. And, then, that life of his ! The world could
understand it. There was written on it, in letters
that needed no magnifying-glass to read, " Not of this
world." It is, after all, this which tells, — the reality of
unAvorldliness. The Avorld is looking on to see what
religious people mean. It has a most profound con
tempt for unreality. Such a man as John comes
before them. Well, we understand that : — we do
not like him : get him out of the way, and kill him if
he interferes with us, — but it is genuine. Then they
turn and see other men drawing ingenious distinc
tions between one kind of amusement and another, —
indulging themselves on the Sabbath-day, and con
demning others who do similar things, and calling
that unworldhness. They see that a religious man
has a shrewd eye to his interests ; is quick at making
a bargain, captivated by shoAv and ostentation, affects
titled society. The world is very keen-sighted ; it
looks through the excitement of your religious meet
ings, quietly Avatches the zest of your scandal, scans
your consciousness, and the question which the world

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 157
keeps putting pertinaciously is, Are these men in ear
nest? Is it any marvel if Christian unreality is the
subject of scoffs and bitter irony ?
Let men see that you are real, — inconsistent, it
may be, sinful ; — 0, full of sin, — impetuous, hasty, per
haps stern ; — John was ! But compel them to feel that
you are in earnest. This is the secret of influence.
So much, then, for the causes of success. Now, let
us analyze that success a little more closely, by con
sidering the classes of men on whom that influence
told. First of all, we read of soldiers, publicans, and the
poor people, coming to John for advice, and with the
acknoAvledgment of guilt; and we do not read that
their arrival excited the smallest emotion of aston
ishment in John's bosom. The wonder was not
there. No wonder that the poor, whose lot in this
world is hard, should look wistfully for another. No
wonder that soldiers, with their prompt habits of
obedience and their perpetual opportunities of self-
devotion, should recognize with reverence the type
of heroic life which John presented. No Avonder
that the' guilty publicans should come for purification
of heart. For is it not true that the world's outcasts
may be led by their very sin to Christ? It is no
wonder to see a saddened sinner seeking, in the disap
pointment and weariness of solitary age, that which
he rejected in the heat of youth. Why, even the
world is not astonished Avhen it sees the sinner
become the saint. Of course, the Avorld has its own
sarcastic account to give. Dissipation leads to weari
ness, and weariness to satiety, and satiety to devo
tion ; and so your great sinner becomes a great saint,
14

158 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
and scrA'es God when all his emotions are exhausted.
Be it so. He Avho knew our nature well knew that
marvellous revolutions go on in the soul of a man
whom the world counts lost. In our wildest wander
ings there is sometimes a love, strong as a father's,
tender as a mother's, watching over us, and bringing
back the erring child again. Know you not the law
of nature ? Have you never seen how out of chaos
and ferment nature brings order again — life out of
death, beauty out of corruption ? Such, gainsay it
who will, often is the history of the rise of saintliness
and purity out of a disappointed, bruised, and penitent
spirit. When the life-hopes have become a wreck ;
when the cravings of the heart for keen excitement
have been ministered to so abundantly as to leave
nothing but loathing and self-reproach behind ; when
innocence of heart is gone; yes, even then — scoff
who will — -the voice of Him is heard, who so dearly
purchased the right to say it : " Come unto me, all
ye that labor and are heaAw laden, and I will give you
rest." John was not surprised that such came to him, own
ing the power of life-giving truth.
But among those who came there were two classes
who did move him to marvel. The first Avas the moral,
self-satisfied formalist. The second Avas the calm, met
aphysical, reasoning infidel. When he saw the Phari
sees and Sadducees coming, he said, " Who hath
Avarned you ? "
Now, who were these men ?
The Pharisees were men who rested satisfied Avith
the outward. The form of religion, which varies in
all ages, that they wanted to stereotype. The inner

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 159
heart of religion — the unchangeable — justice, mercy,
truth — that they could not feel. They had got their
two schools of orthodoxy, the school of Shammai
and the school of Hillel ; and under the orthodoxy of
these popular idols of the day, they were content to
lose their own power of independent thought. Souls
that had shrunk away from all goodness and nobleness,
and withered into the mummy of a soul. They could
jangle about the breadth of a phylactery. They
could discuss, as if it were a matter of life and death,
ecclesiastical questions about tithe. They could decide,
fo a furlpng, the length of journey allowable on the
Sabbath-day. But they could not look Avith mercy
upon a broken heart, pouring itself out to God in His
temple ; nor suffer a hungry man to rub an ear of corn
on the Sabbath ; nor cover the shame of a tempted
sister or an erring brother. Men without souls, from
whose narrow hearts the grandeur of everlasting truth
was shut out.
There was another class in Israel, as different from
the Pharisees as man can be from man. The Sadducee
could not be satisfied with the creed of Pharisaism,
and had begun to cross-examine its pretensions. They
felt that the thing which stood before them there,
challenging the exclusive name of religion, with its
washing of cups, its fastings, its parchment texts, — this
had nothing in it of the Eternal and the Infinite :
this comes not from the Almighty God ; and so from
doubt they passed on to denial. The usual order had
taken place. The reaction from superstition is infi
delity. The reaction from ultra-strictness is laxity.
The reaction from Pharisaism was the Sadducee. And
the Sadducee, with a dreadful daring, had had the

160 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
firmness to say : " Well, then, there is no life to come.
That is settled. I have looked into the abyss Avithout
trembling. There is no phantom there. There is
neither angel, spirit, nor life to come. And this glori
ous thing, man, Avith his deep thoughts, and his great,
unsatisfied heart, his sorrows and his loves, godlike
and immortal as he seems, is but dust animated for a
time, passing into the nothingness out of which he
came." That cold and hopeless creed Avas the creed
of Sadduceeism. Human souls were trying to live on
that, and find it enough.
And the strange thing was, that these men, so posi
tive in their creed, so distinct in their denial, so intol
erant of the very name of future existence, crowded
to John to make those confessions, and promise that
neAv life, which Avere meet for men who desired to flee
from the Avrath to come. Wrath to come ! What had
the infidel to do with that ? Repentance unto life !
Why should the denier of life listen to that ? Fruits
meet for repentance ! What had the formalist to do
with that rebuke, Avhose life was already all that could
be needed^? " 0 generation of vipers," said the
prophet, in astonishment, " who hath warned you to
flee from the wrath to come ?"
I deduce, from those facts Avhich astonished John,
two truths. Formalism, even morality, will not satisfy
the conscience of man. Infidelity will not give rest to
his troubled spirit. It is a pregnant lesson, if we will
only read it thoughtfully, to consider those two classes
going up for baptism. That heart of man Avhich the
moralist tells us is so pure and excellent, the light of
day has shone into it, and behold, in the moralist's self,
it is not pure, but polluted and miserable ; else, what

AT JOHN'S BAPTISM. 161
has that Pharisee to do Avith the symbol of new life
which he is gone to John to use ? That clear, unbi
ased intellect with which the sceptic reached his con
clusions, behold it is not clear nor unbiased 1 It has
been warped by an evil life. His heart is restless, and
dark, and desolate ; else why is that Sadducee trem
bling on Jordan's brink ? There is a something which
they want, both Pharisee and Sadducee, and they come
to see if baptism will give it them. Strangely moved
indeed must those men have been — ay, shaken to the
inmost soul — -before they could so contradict their
own profession as to acknoAvledge that there was a
nollowness in their hearts. We almost fancy we can
stand at the water's edge and hear the confession
which was wrung from their lips, hot-burning and
choked with sobs, during the single hour in which
reality had forced itself upon their souls : — " It is a
lie — we are not happy — we are miserable. Prophet
of the Invisible ! what hast thou got to tell us of that
awful other world ? "
For, when man comes to front the everlasting God,
and look the splendor of his judgments in the face,
personal integrity, the dream of spotlessness and inno
cence, vanish into thin air : your decencies, and your
church-goings, and your regularities, and your attach
ment to a correct school and party, your Gospel
formulas of sound doctrine, — what is all that in front
of the blaze of the wrath to come ? >
And scepticism, too, how philosophical soever, and
how manly it may appear, will it rock the conscience
with an everlasting lullaby ? Will it make, with all its
reasonings, the tooth of the worm less sharp, and the
fire less fierce that smoulders inAvardly ? Let but the
14*

162 THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.
plain, true man speak. We ask from him no rhetoric.
We require no eloquence. Let him but say, in his
earnestness, Repent, or, Wrath to come; and then
what has infidelity got to fall back upon ?
There is rest in this world nowhere except in Christ
the Manifested Love of God. Trust in excellence, and
the better you become, the keener is the feeling of
deficiency. Wrap up all in doubt, and there is a stern
voice that will thunder at last out of the wilderness
upon your dream.
A heart renewed, a loving heart, a penitent and
humble heart, a heart broken and contrite, purified
by love, — that, and only that, is the rest of man. Spot-
lessness may do for angels, — Repentance unto Life is
the highest that belongs to man.

IX.
[Preached November 25, 1849.]
CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
John xi. 49-53. — " And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high
priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor con
sider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people,
and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of him
self : but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should
die for that nation ; and not for that nation only, but that also he
should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered
abroad. Then, from that day forth^they took counsel together for to
put him to death."
On this occasion, the first resolution passed the Jew
ish Sanhedrim to compass the death of Jesus. The
immediate occasion of their meeting was the fame of
the resurrection of Lazarus. There were many causes
which made the Saviour obnoxious to the Priests and
Pharisees. If that teaching were once received, their
reign was over: a teaching which abolished the pre
tensions of a priesthood, by making every man his own
priest, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God ; which iden
tified Religion with Goodness, — making spiritual excel
lence, not ritual regularity, the righteousness which
God accepts ; which brought God within reach of
the sinner and the fallen ; Avhich simplified the whole
matter, by making Religion a thing of the heart, and
(163)

164 CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
not of rabbinical learning or theology: — such teaching
SAvept aAvay all the exclusive pretensions of Pharisaism,
made the life which they had been building up with
so much toil for years time wasted, and reduced their
whole existence to a lie.
This was the ground of their hatred to the Son of
Man. But this was not the ground which they put
forward. He Avas tried chiefly on the charge of trea
son against the emperor ; and the argument by which
the mind of the judge was principally swayed was,
" If thou let this man go, thou art not Cassar's friend."
The present passage contains the first trace of the
adoption of that ground. " If we let him alone, the
Romans will come and take aAvay both our place and
nation." Be it observed, then, the real ground of opposition
was hatred of the light. The ostensible ground was
patriotism, public zeal, loyalty, far-sighted policy : and
such is life. The motive on which a deed of sin is
done is not the motive which a man allows to others, or
whispers to himself. Listen to the criminal receiving
sentence, and the cause of condemnation is not the
enormity of the crime, but the injustice of the coun
try's law. Hear the man of disorderly life, whom so
ciety has expelled from her bosom, and the cause of
the expulsion is not his proffigacj', but the false slander
which has misrepresented him. Take his OAvn account
of the matter, and he is innocent, injured, pure. For
there are names so tender, and so full of fond en
dearment, with which this world sugars over its dark
guilt towards God with a crust of superficial white
ness, that the Sin, on which eighteen centuries have
looked back appalled, to the doers of that Sin was

165
nothing atrocious, but respectable, defensible, nay, even,
under the circumstances, necessary.
The judgment of one of these righteous murderers
was given in remarkable terms. Apparently there were
some in the council, such men as Nicodemus, who could
not acquiesce in the view given of the matter. Doubt
less they alleged the unfairness of the proceeding, and
the innocence of the Accused; upon which Caiaphas
replied, " Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it
is expedient that one man die for the people, and that
the whole nation perish not." The remarkable point in
this judgment is, that it contained the very central
doctrine of Christianity : unconsciously, Caiaphas had
uttered the profoundest of all truths, the necessity of
the suffering of the Innocent for the guilty. He had
stated it in the very words' which St. John could have
himself adopted. But they meant one thing in the lips
of holy Love, and quite another thing in the lips of
tyrannical Policy. Yet St. John, contemplating that
sentence years after, could not but feel that there was
something in those words deeper than met the ear, — a
truth almost inspired, which he did not hesitate to call
prophetic. " Being high priest that year, he proplv-
esied." We must not, therefore, call this merely a singular
coincidence. It was the same truth viewed from dif-
4
ferent sides: the side of Caiaphas, and the side of
John ; the side of the world, and the side of God.
That truth was the vicarious Sacrifice of Christ.
And there are two ways in which you may contem
plate the Sacrifice. Seen from the world's point of
view, it is unjust, gross, cruel. Seen as John saw it,
and as God looks at it, it Avas the sublimest of all truths;

166 caiaphas' view of vicarious sacrifice.
one which so entwines itself with our religious con
sciousness, that you might as soon tear from us our
very being, as our convictions of the reality of Christ's
Atonement. Our subject, then, is the vicarious sacri
fice of Christ. The Avoids of Caiaphas contain a
formal falsehood and a material truth; the outward
statement, and an inspired or prophetic inward verity ;
so that the subject branches into two topics :
I. The human form, in which the Avords are false.
II. The divine principle or spirit, in which they are
true. I. The human form, in which the words are false.
Vicarious means in the stead of. When the Pope
calls himself the vicar of Christ, he means that he is
empowered in the stead of Christ to absolve, decree,
&e. When Ave speak of vicarious suffering, we mean
that suffering which is endured in another's stead, and
not as the sufferer's own desert.
1. The first falsity in the human statement of that
aruth of vicarious sacrifice is its injustice. Some one
said the Accused is innocent. The reply was— Better
that one should die than many. " It is expedient for
us that one should die for the people, and that the
whole nation perish not." It was simply with Caia
phas a question of numbers : the unjust expediency of
wresting the law a little to do much apparent good.
The reply to that was plain. Expediency cannot
obliterate Right and Wrong. Expediency may choose
the best possible when the conceivable best is not
attainable ; but in right and wrong there is no better
and best. Thou shalt not do wrong. Thou must not:
you mny not tell a lie to save life. Better that the

caiaphas' view of vicarious sacrifice. 167
whole Jewish nation should perish, than that a JeAvish
legislature should steep its hand in the blood of one
innocent. It is not expedient to do injustice.
There are cases in which it is expedient to choose
the sacrifice of one instead of that of many: when a
whole army or regiment has mutinied, the commander,
instead of general butchery, may select a few to perish
as examples to the rest. There is nothing here unjust.
The many escape, but the few who die deserved to die.
But no principle could justify a commander in select
ing an innocent man, condemning him by unjust sen
tence, and affecting to believe that he was guilty, while
the transgressors escaped, and learned the enormity of
their transgressions by seeing execution done upon
the guiltless. No principle can justify, nothing can do
more than palliate, the conduct of the ship's crew upon
the raft who slay one of their number to support their
existence on his flesh. No man would justify the
parent, pursued in his chariot by Avolves over Siberian
snows, who throws out one of his children to the pack,
that the rest may escape while their fangs are buried
in their victim. You feel, at once, expediency has no
place here. Life is a trifle compared with Law.
Better that all should perish by a visitation of God,
than that they should be saved by one murder.
I do not deny that this aspect has been given to the
sacrifice of Christ. It has been represented as if the
majesty of Law demanded a victim ; and so as it glut
ted its insatiate thirst, one victim Avould do as well as
another — the purer and the more innocent, the better.
It has been exhibited as if Eternal Love resolved in
fury to strike ; and so as He had His blow, it mattered

168
not whether it fell on the whole Avorld, or on the pre
cious head of His own chosen Son.
Unitarianism has represented the Scriptural view in;
this way ; or, rather, perhaps, we should say, it has
been so represented to Unitarianism ; and from a view
so horrible no wonder if Unitarianism has recoiled. ,
But it is not our fault if some blind defenders of the ;
truth have converted the self-devotion of Love into a
Brahminical sacrifice. If the Work of Redemption be
defended by parallels drawn from the most atrocious
records and principles of Heathenism, let not the fault
be laid upon the Bible. We disclaim that as well as
they. It makes God a Caiaphas. It makes Him adopt
the words of Caiaphas in the sense of Caiaphas. It
represents Him in terms which better describe the
ungoverned rage of Saul, missing his stroke at David,
who has offended, and in disappointed fury dashing his
javelin at his OAvn son Jonathan.
You must not represent the Atonement as depend
ing on the justice .of unrighteous expediency.
2. This side of viewing the truth was the side of
selfishness. It was not even the calm resolve of men
balancing Avhether it be better for one to die or many ;
but whether it is better that He or we should perish.
It is conceivable in the case supposed above that a
parent in the horrible dilemma should be enough
bewildered to resolve to sacrifice one rather than lose
all; but it is not conceivable that the doubt in his mind
should be this, — Shall I and the rest perish, or this
one ? Yet this was the spirit in which the party of
Caiaphas spoke. The Romans will come and take
away our place and our nation.
And this spirit, too, is in human nature. The rec-

CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS ATONEMENT. 169
ords of antiquity are full of it. If a fleet could not
sail, it was assumed that the deities were offended.
The purest and tenderest maiden of the royal house
hold was selected to bleed upon the altar ; and when
the sharp knife passed to her innocent heart, this was
the feeling in the bosoms of those stern and unrelent
ing warriors — of the blood and of the stock of Caia
phas — better she than we.
This may be the way in which the sacrifice of Christ
is regarded by us. There is a kind of acquiescence in
the Atonement which is purely selfish. The more
bloody the representation of the character of God, the
greater, of course, the satisfaction in feeling sheltered
from it. The more wrath instead of Love is believed
to be the Divine name, the more may a man find joy in
believing that he is safe. It is the Siberian feeling:
the innocent has glutted the wolves, and we may pur
sue our journey in safety. Christ has suffered, and I
am safe. He bore the agony — I take the reward. I
may five now with impunity ; and, of course, it is very
easy to call acquiescence in that arrangement humility,
and to take credit for the abnegation of self-righteous
ness ; but whoever can acquiesce in that thought
chiefly in reference to personal safety, and, without
desiring to share the Redeemer's Cross, aspire to enjoy
the comforts and the benefits of the Redeemer's sacri
fice, has but something of the spirit of Caiaphas, after
all, — the spirit which contentedly sacrifices Another for
self, — selfishness assuming the form of wisdom.
II. We pass to the prophetic or hidden spirit in
which these words are true.
I observe, first, that vicarious sacrifice is the Law
15

170 CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
of Being. It is a mysterious and a fearful thing to
observe how all God's universe is built upon this law ;
how it penetrates and pervades all Nature, so that if
it were to cease Nature would cease to exist. Hearken
to the Saviour himself expounding this principle:
— " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone : but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." We are justified, therefore, in assuming
the Law of Nature to be the Law of His own Sacri
fice, for He himself represents it as the parallel.
Now, observe this world of God's. The mountain-
rock must have its surface rusted into putrescence
and become dead soil, before the herb can grow. The
destruction of the mineral is the life of the vegetable.
Again the same process begins. The " corn of wheat
dies," and out of death more abundant life is born.
Out of the soil in which deciduous leaves are buried
the young tree shoots vigorously, and strikes its roots
deep down into the realm of decay and death. Upon
the life of the vegetable world the myriad forms of
higher life sustain themselves, — still the same law:
the sacrifice of life to give life. Further still. Have
we never pondered over that mystery of nature, the
dove struck down by the hawk, the deer trembling
beneath the stroke of the lion, the winged fish fall
ing into the jaws of the dolphin? It is the solemn
law of vicarious sacrifice again. And as often as man
sees his table covered with the flesh of animals slain,.
does he behold, whether he think of it or not, the
deep mystery and law of being. They have surren
dered their innocent lives that he may live. Nay, fur
ther still, — it is as impossible for man to live as it is
for man to be redeemed, except through vicarious suf-

CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE. 171
fering. The anguish of the mother is the condition of
the child's life. His very being has its roots in the
law of sacrifice ; and, from his birth onwards, instinct
ively this becomes the law which rules his existence.
There is no blessing which was ever enjoyed by man
which did not come through this. There was never
a country cleared for civilization, and purified of its
SAvamps and forests, but the first settlers paid the
penalty of that which their successors enjoy. There
never was a victory won, but the conquerors who
took possession of the conquest passed over the
bodies of the noblest slain, who died that they might
win. Now, observe, all this is the law obeyed, either
unconsciously or else instinctively. But, in the re
demption of our humanity, a moment comes when
that law is recognized as the Avill of God adopted con
sciously, and voluntarily obeyed as the law of man's
existence. Then it is that man's true nobleness, his
only possible blessedness, and his redemption from
blind instincts and mere selfishness, begin. You may
evade that laAv; you may succeed in living as Caia
phas did — sacrificing others, instead of yourself; and
men will call you wise, and prudent, and respectable.
But you are only a Caiaphas. Redeemed you are
not. Your proper humanity has not begun.
The Highest man recognized that law, and joyfully
embraced it as the law of His existence. It was the
consciousness of His surrender to that as God's will,
and the voluntariness of the act, which made it sacri
fice. Hear Him : " No man taketh my life from me.
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take
it up again." " This commandment have I received

172 CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
from my Father." Had he been by the wiles of Caia*
phas simply surprised and dragged struggling ana"
reluctant to doom, he would have been a victim, but
not a sacrifice, — he would have been an object of ouj
compassion, but by no means of our adoring wonder
It Avas the foresight of all the result of His oppositioD
to the world's sin, and His steady, uncompromising
battle against it notwithstanding, in every one of its
forms, knowing that He must be its victim at the last,
which prevented His death from being merely the
death of a lamb slain unconsciously on Jewish altars,
and elevates it to the dignity of a true and proper
sacrifice. We go beyond this, however. It was not merely a
sacrifice, — it was a sacrifice for sin. "His soul was
made an offering for sin. Neither was it only a sacrifice
for sin, — it was a sacrifice for the world's sin. In
the text, " that Jesus should die for that nation ; and
not for that nation only, but that also he should gather
together in one the children of God that were scat
tered abroad."
Two ideas are necessary to be distinctly appre
hended by us in order to understand that. The first is,
the notion of punishment; the second is, the idea of
the world's sin.
By punishment is simply meant the penalty annexed
to transgression of a laAv. Punishment is of two
kinds : the penalty which folloAvs ignorant transgres
sion, and the chastisement which ensues upon wilful
disobedience. The first of these is called imputed
guilt; the second is actual guilt. By imputed guilt is
meant, in theological language, that a person is treated
as if he were guilty. If, for example, you approach

CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE. 173
too near the whirling Avheel of steam machinery, the
mutilation which follows is the punishment of temerity.
If the traveller ignorantly lays his hand on the cocka
trice's den, the throb of the envenomed fang is the
punishment of his ignorance. He has broken a* law
of nature, and the guilt of the infraction is imputed
to him — there is penalty; but there is none of the
chastisement which follows sin. His conscience is not
made miserable. He only suffers. Further, — accord
ing to the constitution of this Avorld, it is not only our
own transgressions of ignorance, but, besides, the
faults of others, which bring pain and soitoav on us.
The man of irritable and miserably nervous temper
ament owes that often to a father's intemperance.
Many a man has to struggle all his life with the penury
which he reaps as the harvest of a distant ancestor's
extravagance. In the strictest sense of the word,
these are punishments — the consequences annexed to
transgression ; and, in the language of theology, they
are called imputed guilt. But there is an all-important
distinction between them and the chastisements of
personal iniquity. If a man suffer ill-health or poverty
as the results of his oavii misconduct, his conscience
forces him to refer this to the wrath of God. He is
reaping as he had soAvn, and the miseries of conscious
fault are added to his penalty. But, if such things
come as the penalty of the Avrong of others, then, phi
losophically though you may call them punishments, in
the popular sense of the word they are no punish
ments at all, but rather corrective discipline, — nay,
even richest blessings, if they are received from a
Father's hand, and transmuted by humbleness into the
means of spiritual growth.
15*

174 caiaphas' view of the VICARIOUS SACRIFICE.
Apply aU this to the sacrifice of Christ. Let no.
man say that Christ bore the wrath of God. Let no
man say that God was angry with His Son. We are
sometimes told of a mysterious anguish which Christ
endured, the consequence of Divine wrath, the suf
ferings of a heart laden with the conscience of the
world's transgressions, which He was bearing as if
they were His own sins. Do not add to the Bible
what is not in the Bible. The Redeemer's conscience
was not bewildered to feel that His own which was
not His OAvn. He suffered no wrath of God. Twice
came the voice from Heaven : " This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased." There was seen an
angel strengthening Him. Nay, even to the last,
never did the consciousness of purity and the Father's
Love forsake Him. " Father, into Thy hands I com
mend my spirit."
Christ came into collision with the world's evil, and
He bore the penalty of that daring. He approached
the whirling wheel, and was torn in pieces. He laid
His hand upon the cockatrice's den, and its fangs
pierced Him. It is the law which governs the conflict
with eril. It can be only crushed by suffering from
it ... . The Son of Man who puts His naked foot on
, the serpent's head crushes it ; but the fang goes into
His heel.
The Redeemer bore imputed sin. He bore the pen
alty of others' sin. He was punished. Did He bear
the anger of the Most High? Was His the hell of
an accusing conscience ? In the Name of Him who
is God, not Caiaphas, never ! Something more, bow-
ever, is necessary to complete our notion of punish
ment. It is a right estimate of Law. We are apt to

175

think of punishment as something quite arbitrary,
which can be remitted or changed at will. Hence
Ave almost always connect it with the idea of wrath.
Hence the heathen tried to bribe and coax their dei
ties to spare. And hence the sacrifice of Christ comes
to be looked upon in the light of a sagacious or in
genious contrivance, a mere " scheme." Now, remem
ber what Law is. The moral laws • of this universe
are immutable as God himself. Law is the Being
of God. God cannot alter those laws : He cannot
make wrong right. He cannot make truth falsehood,
nor falsehood truth. He cannot make sin blessed, nor
annex hell to innocence. Law moves on its majestic
course irresistible. If his chosen Son violates Law,
and throws Himself from the pinnacle, He dies. If
you resist a law in its eternal march, the universe
crushes you, that is all. Consider what Law is, and
then the idea of bloody vengeance passes away alto
gether from the Sacrifice. It is not " an eye for an
eye," and "a tooth for a tooth," in the sanguinary
spirit of the old retaliatory legislation. It is the eter
nal impossibility of violating that law of the universe
Avhereby penalty is annexed to transgression; and must
fall, either laden with curse, or rich in blessing.
The second idea which it behoves us to master is
that of the world's sin. The apostlo John always
viewed sin as a great connected principle; One; a
single world-spirit — exactly as the electricity with
Avhich the universe is charged is indivisible, imponder
able, one, so that you cannot separate it from the
great ocean of fluid. The electric spark that slum
bers in the dew-drop is part of the flood which struck
the oak. Had that spark not been there, it could be

176
demonstrated that the Avhole previous constitution of
the universe might have been different, and the oak
not struck.
Let us possess ourselves of this view of sin, for it
is the true one. Separate acts of sin are but mani
festations of one great principle. It was thus that
the Saviour looked on the sins of His day. The
Jews of that age had had no hand in the murder of Abel
or Zacharias ; but they were of kindred spirit with
the men who slew them. Condemning their mur
derers, they imitated their act. In that imitation
they " allowed the deeds of their fathers ; " they
shared in the guilt of the act which had been con
summated, because they had the spirit which led to it.
" The blood of them all shall come on this generation."
It Avas so, too, that Stephen looked on the act of his
assassins. When God's glory streamed upon his face,
he felt that the transaction going on then was not
simply the violence of a mob in an obscure corner of
the world — it was an outbreak of the Great Principle
of evil. He saw in their act the resurrection of the
spirit of those who had " resisted the Holy Ghost " in
their day, sfain the prophets, opposed Moses, crucified
" the Just One ;" and felt that their genuine descendants
were now opposing themselves to the form in which
Truth and Goodness were appearing in their day.
It is in this way only that you will be able, with any
reality of feeling, to enter into the truth that your sins
nailed Him to the cross: that the Lord hath laid on
Him the iniquity of us all : that He died " not for that
nation only, but that also He should gather together
in one the children of God that Avere scattered abroad."
If, for instance, indisputable evidence be given of the

CAIAPHAS' VIEW OF VICARIOUS SACRIFICE. 177
Baintliness of a man whose creed and views are not
yours, and rather than admit that Good in him is
Good, you invent all manner of possible motives to
discredit his excellence, then let the thought arise :
This is the resurrection of the spirit which Avas ram
pant in the days of Jesus; the spirit of those who
saw the purest Goodness, and, rather than acknowledge
it to be good, preferred to account for it as diabolical
power. Say to yourself, I am verging on the spirit
of the sin that was unpardonable ; I am crucifying the
Son of God afresh. If in society you hear the hom
age unrebuked, — Honor to the rich man's splendid
offering, instead of glory to the widow's humble
mite, — if you see the weak and defenceless punished
severely for the sins which the great and strong do
unblushingly, and even with the connivance and ad
miration of society, — if you find sins of frailty
placed on the same level with sins of pride and pre
sumption, — or if you find guilt of any kind palliated
instead of mourned, then let the dreadful thought
arise in the fulness of its meaning : I allow the deeds
of those days ; His blood shall come upon this gener
ation. My sin, and your sin, the sin of all, bears the
guilt of the Redeemer's sacrifice. It was vicarious.
He suffered for what He never did. " Not for that
nation only, but that also he should gather together
in one the children of God that were scattered abroad."
To conclude. Estimate rightly the death of Christ.
It was not simply the world's example — it was the
world's sacrifice. He died not merely as a Martyr to
the Truth. His death is the world's life. Ask yo
what life is? Life is not exemption from penalty.
Salvation is not escape from suffering and punishment.

178 caiaphas' view of Christ's sacrifice.
The Redeemer suffered punishment; but the Redeemer's
soul had blessedness in the very midst of punishment.
Life is elevation of soul — nobleness — Divine charac
ter. The spirit of Caiaphas was death : to receive all,
and give nothing ; to sacrifice others to himself. The
spirit of Christ was life : to give and not receive ; to
be sacrificed, and not to sacrifice. Hear Him again —
" He that loseth his life, the same shall find it." That is
life : the spirit of losing all for Love's sake. That is
the soul's life, which alone is blessedness and heaven.
By realizing that ideal of humanity, Christ furnished
the life which we appropriate only when we enter into
His spirit.
Listen : — Only by renouncing sin is His death to
sin yours ; only by quitting it are you free from the
guilt of His blood ; only by voluntary acceptance of
the law of the Cross, self-surrender to the will of God,
and self-devotion to the good of others as the law of
your being, do you enter into that present and future
heaven which is the purchase of his vicarious sacrifice.

[Preached December 2, 1849.]
REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
Job xix. 25-27. — *' For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that ho
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth : And though after my
skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : Whom
I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another ;
though my reins be consumed within me."
The hardest, the severest, the last lesson which man
has to learn upon this earth, is submission to the will
of God. It is the hardest lesson, because to our
blinded eyesight it often seems a cruel will. It is a
severe lesson, because it can be only taught by the
blighting of much that has been most dear. It is the
last lesson, because, when a man has learned that, he
is fit to be transplanted from a world of wilfulness to a
world in which one Will alone is loved, and only one
is done. All that saintly experience ever had to teach
resolves itself into this, the lesson how to say affec
tionately, " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." Slowly
and stubbornly our hearts acquiesce in that. The
holiest in this congregation, so far as he has mastered
the lesson, will acknoAvledge that many a sore and
angry feeling against his God had to be subdued,
many a dream of earthly brightness broken, and manv
(179)

180 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
a burning throb stilled in a proud, resentful heart,
before he was willing to suffer God to be sovereign in
His OAvn world, and do with him and his as seemed
Him best. The earliest record that we have of this
struggle in the human bosom is found in this book of
Job. It is the most ancient statement we have of the
perplexities and mysteries of life, so graphic, so true
to nature, that it proclaims at once that what we are
reading is drawn not from romance, but life. It has
been said that religious experience is but the fictitious
creation of a polished age, when fanciful feelings are
called into existence by hearts bent back, in reflex
action and morbid, on themselves. We have an answer
to that in this book. Religion is no morbid fancy. In
the rough rude ages Avhen Job lived, when men did
not dwell on their feelings as in later centuries, the
heart-work of religion was, manifestly, the same ear
nest, passionate thing that it is now. The heart's mis
givings were the same beneath the tent of an Arabian
Emir which they are beneath the roof of a modern
Christian. 'Blow after Woav fell on the Oriental chief
tain : — one day he was a father, a prince, the lord of
many vassals and many flocks, and buoyant in one of
the best of blessings, health ; the next, he was a child
less, blighted, ruined man. And then it was that there
came from Job's lips those yearnings for the quiet of
the grave, which are so touching, so real ; and, consid
ering that some of the strongest of the Elect of God
have yielded to them for a moment, we might almost
say so pardonable : " I should have been at rest —
where the wicked cease from troubling and the Aveary
are at rest. There the prisoners rest together : they
hear not the voice of the oppressor. Wherefore is

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 181
light given unto lum that is in misery, and life unto
the bitter of soul — which long for death, but it cometh
not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures — which
rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find
the grave ? " What is the book of Job but the record
of an earnest soul's perplexities? The double difficulty
of life solved there, the existence of moral evil — the
question whether suffering is a mark of wrath or not.
What falls from Job's lips is the musing of a man half-
stunned, half-surprised, looking out upon the darkness
of life, and asking, sorrowfully, Why are these things
so? And all that falls from his friends' lips is the
commonplace remarks of men upon what is inscrutable ;
maxims learned second-hand by rote, and not by heart;
fragments of deep truths, but truths misapplied, dis
torted, torn out of all connection of time and place, so
as to become actual falsehoods, only blistering a raw
wound. It was from these awkAvard admonitions that
Job appealed in the' text. He appealed from the tribu
nal of man's opinion to a tribunal where sincerity shall
be cleared and vindicated. He appealed from a world
of confusion, where all the foundations of the earth are
out of course, to a world where all shall be set right.
He appealed from the dark dealings of a God whose
way it is to hide Himself, to a God who shaU stand
upon this earth in the clear radiance of a love on which
suspicion's self cannot rest a doubt. It was faith
straining through the mist, and discerning the firm
land that is beyond. " I know that my Redeemer liv
eth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth." We take two points : —
16

182 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
I. The certainty of God's interference in the affairs
of this world.
II. The means of realizing that interference.
God's interference, again, is contemplated in this
passage in a two-fold aspect : A present superintend
ence, — "I know that my Redeemer liveth." A
future, personal, visible interference, — " He shall
stand at the latter day upon the earth."
1. His present superintendence.
1. The first truth contained in that is God's personal
existence. It is not chance, nor fate, which sits at the
wheel of this world's revolutions. It was no fortui
tous concourse of atoms which massed themselves into
a world of beauty. It was no accidental train of cir
cumstances which have brought the human race to
their present state. It was a living God. And it is
just so far as this is the conviction of every day, and
every hour, and every minute, " My Redeemer liveth,"
that one man deserves to be called more religious than
another. # To be religious is to feel that God is the
Ever Near. It is to go through life with this thought
coming instinctively and unbidden, " Thou, God, seest
me." A life of religion is a life of faith : and faith is
that strange faculty by which man feels the presence
of the invisible, exactly as some animals have the
power of seeing in the dark. That is the difference
between the Christian and the world. Most men know
nothing beyond what they see. Their lovely world is
all in all to them ; its outer beauty, not its hidden love
liness. Prosperity — struggle — sadness — it is all the
same. They struggle through it all alone, and when

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 183
old age comes, and the companions of early days are
gone, they feel that they are solitary. In all this
strange deep world, they never meet, or but for a
moment, the Spirit of it all, who stands at their very
side. And it is exactly the opposite of this that makes
a Christian. Move where he will, there is a thought
and a Presence which he cannot put aside. He is
haunted forever by the Eternal Mind. God looks out
upon him from the clear sky, and through the thick
darkness, — is present in the rain-drop that trickles
down the branches, and in the tempest that crashes
down the forest. A living Redeemer stands beside
him, goes with him, talks with him, as a man with
his friend. The emphatic description of a life of spirit
uality is, " Enoch walked with God :" and it seems to
be one reason why a manifestation of God was given
us in .the flesh, that this Livingness of God might be
more distinctly felt by us. We must not throw into
these words of Job a meaning Avhich Job had not.
Reading these verses, some have discovered in them
all the Christian doctrine of the Second Advent, — of
a resurrection, — of the humanity of Christ. This is
simply an anachronism. Job was an Arabian Emir, not
a Christian. AU that Job meant by these words was,
that he knew he had a vindicator in God above ; that,
though his friends had the best of it then, and though
worms were preying on his flesh, yet at last God him
self would interfere to prove his innocence. But
God has given to us, for our faith to rest on, something
more distinct and tangible than He gave to Job. There
has been One on earth through whose lips God's voice
spoke, and from whose character was reflected the
character of God — a living Person manifesting Deity.

184 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
It is all this added meaning gained from Christ with
which we use these words : " I know that my
Redeemer liveth." But we must remember that all
that was not revealed to Job.
2. The second truth implied in the personal exist
ence of a Redeemer is sympathy. It was the keenest
part of Job's trial that no heart beat pulse with his.
His friends misunderstood him ; and his wife, in a
moment of atheistic bitterness, in the spirit of our own
infidel poet, " Let no man say that God in mercy gave
that stroke," addressed him thus : " Curse God and
die." In the midst of this, it seems to have risen upon
his heart with a strange power to soothe, that he was
not alone. Gall and bitterness were distilling from the
lips of man, and molten lead was dropping from the
hand of God. But there was a great difference
between the two inflictions. Men were doing their
work, unknowing of the pain they gave : God was
meting out His in the scales of a most exquisite com
passion, not one drop too much, and every drop that
fell had a meaning of love in it. " Affliction," said the
tried man, " cometh not out of the dust, neither doth
trouble spring out of the ground" — superintending aU
this, " I know that my Redeemer liveth. "
And here there is one word full of meaning, from
which we collect the truth of sympathy. It is that
little word of appropriation, " My" Redeemer. Power
is shown by God's attention to the vast : Sympathy, by
His condescension to the small. It is not the thought
of heaven's sympathy by which we are impressed,
when we gaze through the telescope on the mighty
world of space, and gain an idea of what is meant by
infinite. Majesty and power are there ; but the very

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 185
vastness excludes the thought of sympathy. It is
when we look into the world of insignificance, which
the microscope xeveals, and find that God has gor
geously painted the atoms of creation, and exquisitely
furnished forth all that belongs to minutest life, that
we feel that God sympathizes and individualizes.
When we are told that God is the Redeemer of the
world, we know that love dwells in the bosom of the
Most High ; but if we want to know that God feels or
us individually and separately, we must learn by heart
this syllable of endearment, " My Redeemer." Child
of God 1 if you would have your thought of God
something beyond a cold feeling of His presence, let
faith appropriate Christ. You are as much the object
of God's solicitude as if none lived but yourself. He
has counted the hairs of your head. In Old Testament
language, " He has put your tears into his bottle."
He has numbered your sighs and your smiles. He has
interpreted the desires for which you have not found
a name nor an utterance yourself. If you have not
learned to say My Redeemer, then, just so far as there
is anything tender or affectionate in your disposition,
you will tread the path of your pilgrimage with a
darkened and a lonely heart; and when the day of
trouble comes, there will be none of that triumphant
elasticity which enabled Job to look down, as from a
rock, upon the surges which were curling their crests
of fury at his feet, but could only reach his bosom with
their spent spray.
3. The third thing implied in the present superintend
ence of God is His vindication of wrongs. The word
translated here Redeemer is one of quite peculiar
signification. In all the early stages of society, the
16*

186 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
redress of wrongs is not a public, but a private act.
It was then as now — blood for blood. But the exe
cutioner of the law was invested with something of a
sacred character. Now, he is the mere creature of a
country's law : then he was the delegated Hand of
God ; for the next of kin to the murdered man stood
forward solemnly in God's name as the champion of
the defenceless, the goel, or Avenger of Blood. Goel
is the word here ; so that, translated into the language
of those far-back days, Job was professing his convic
tion that there was a Champion, or an Avenger, who
would one day do battle for his wrongs.
It is a fearful amount of this kind of work which
is in arrear for the Avenger to execute, accumulating
century by century, and year by year. From the
days of Cain and Abel there have been ever two
classes, the oppressor and the oppressed ; the gentle,
humble ones, who refuse to right themselves, and the
unscrupulous, who force them aside. The Church has
ever had the world against it. The world struck its
first deadly blow by the hand of Cain, and it has been
striking ever since — from the battle-field, and the
martyr's sfake, and the dungeons of the inquisition,
and the prisons of the lordly tyrant, the blood of the
innocent has cried for vengeance. By taunt and
sneer, the world has had her triumph. And the ser
vants of the Meekest have only had this to cheer
them : " I know that my Redeemer liveth."
There is a persecution sharper than that of the axe.
There is an iron that goes into the heart deeper than
the knife. Cruel sneers, and sarcasms, and pitiless
judgments, and cold-hearted calumnies, — these are
persecution. There is the tyrant of the nursery, and

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 187
the play-ground, and the domestic circle, as well as of
the judgment-hall. "Better were it," said the Re
deemer, " for that man if a mill-stone had been hanged
about his neck." Did you ever do that? — Did you
ever pour bitterness into a heart that God was bruis
ing, by a cold laugh, or a sneer, or a galling suspicion ?
— Into a sister's heart,' or a friend's, or even a strang
er's ? Remember, when you sent them, as Job's friends
sent him, to pour out their griefs alone before their
Father, your name went up to the Avenger's ears,
mingled with the cries of His own elect.
There is a second mode in which God interferes
in this world's affairs. There is a present superin
tendence perceived by faith. But there is a future
redress which will be made manifest to sight. " He
shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." I shall
see Him.
First of all, there will be a visible personal inter
ference. All that Job meant was in the case of his
own wrongs. But, if we use those words, we must
apply them in a higher sense. The Second Advent of
Christ is supposed by some to mean an appearance
of Jesus in the flesh, to reign and triumph visibly.
Others, who feel that the visual perception of His
Form would be a small blessing, and that the highest
and truest presence is always spiritual, and realized by
the spirit, believe that His advent will be a coming in
Power. We will not dispute : controversy whets the
intellect, and only starves,, or, worse, poisons the heart.
We will take Avhat is certain. Every signal manifesta
tion of the right and vindication of the truth in judg
ment is called in Scripture a coming of the Son of
Man. A Personal Advent of the Redeemer is one

188 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
which can be perceived by foes, as well as recognized
by friends. The destruction of Jerusalem, recognized
by the heathen themselves as judgment, is called in
the Bible a coming of Christ. In the Deluge, in the
destruction of the cities of the plain, in the confu
sion of tongues, God is said to have come down to
visit the earth. There are two classes, then, who shall
see that sight. Men like Job, who feel that their Re
deemer liveth ; and men like Balaam, from whose lips
words of truth, terrible to him, came: "I shall see
Him, but not now ; I shall behold Him, but not nigh."
" Every eye shaU see Him." You will see the triumph
of the Right — the destruction of the Wrong. The
awful question is: As Balaam — or as Job? Besides
this, it will be unexpected ; every judgment of Christ
is as the springing of a mine. There is a moment of
deep suspense after the match has been applied to
the fuse which is to fire the train. Men stand at
a distance and hold their breath. There is noth
ing seen but a thin, small column of white smoke,
rising fainter and fainter, till it seems to die away.
Then menjDreathe again, and the inexperienced soldier
would approach the place, thinking that the thing has
been a failure. It is only faith in the experience of
the commander, or the veterans, which keeps men
from hurrying to the spot again, — till, just when
expectation has begun to die away, the low, deep
thunder sends up the column of earth majestically to
heaven, and all that was on it comes crashing down
again in its far circle, shattered and blackened with
the blast.
It is so with this world. By God's word the world
is doomed. The moment of suspense is past : the first

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 189
centuries, in which men expected the convulsion to
take place at once ; and even Apostles were looking
for it in their lifetime. We have fallen upon days of
scepticism. There are no signs of ruin yet. We
tread upon it like a solid thing, fortified by its ada
mantine hills forever. There is nothing against that
but a few words in a printed book. But the world is
mined, and the spark has fallen, and just at the mo
ment when serenity is at its height, " the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
molt with fervent heat," and the feet of the Avenger
shall stand on Earth.
II. The means of realizing this interference.
There is a difference between knowing a thing and
realizing it. When a poor man becomes suddenly the
possessor of a fortune, or of dignity, it is some time
before the thing becomes so natural to him that he can
act in his new sphere like his proper self, — it is all
strangeness at first. When the criminal hears the
death-sentence in the dock, his cheeks are tearless.
He hears the words, but scarcely understands that
they have anything to do with him. He has not real
ized that it is he himself that has to die. When be
reavement comes, it is not at the moment when the
breath leaves the body that we feel what has been
lost : — we know, but we must have it in detail — see
the empty chair, and the clothes that will never be
worn again, and perceive day after day pass and he
comes not. Then Ave realize.
Job knew that God was the vindicator of wrongs,
— that he said. But why did he go on repeating in
every possible form the same thing : " I shall see God.

190 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
see Him for myself, mine eyes shall behold Him; yes,
mine, and not another's ? " It Avould seem -as if he
were doing Avhat a man does when he repeats over
and over to himself a thing which he cannot picture
out in its reality. It was true; but it was strange,
and shadowy, and unfamiliar.
It is no matter of uncertainty to any one of us
whether he himself shall die. He knows it. Every
time the funeral bell tolls, the thought in some shape
suggests itself, — I am a mortal, dying man. That is
knowing it. Which of us has realized it ? Who can
shut his eyes, and bring it before him as a reality, that
the day will come when the hearse will stand at the
door for him, and that all this bright world will be
going on without him; and that the very flesh which
now walks about so complacently will have the coffin-
lid shut down upon it, and be left to darkness, and
loneliness, and silence, and the worm ? Or, take a case
still more closely suggested by the text, — out of the
grave we must rise again, — long after all that is
young, and strong, and beautiful, before me, shall have
mouldered, into forgetfulness. Earth shall hear her
Master's voice breaking the long silence of the centu
ries, and our dust shall hear it, and stand up among
the myriads that are moving on to judgment. Each
man in his own proper identity, his very self, must see
God, and be seen by Him, — looking out on the
strange new scene, and doomed to be an actor in it
for all eternity. We know that, — on which of our
hearts is it stamped, not as a doctrine to be proved by
texts, but as one of those things which must be here
after, and in sight of which we are to live now ?
There are two ways suggested to us by this passage

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 191
for realizing these things. The first of these is medi
tation. No man forgets Avhat the mind has dwelt long
on. It is not by a passing glance that things become
riveted in the memory. It is by forcing the memory
to call them up again and again in leisure hours. It
is in the power of meditation so to bring danger in its
reality before the imagination, that the Avhole frame
can start instinctively as if the blow were falling, or
as if the precipice were near. It is in the power of
meditation so to engrave scenes of loveliness on a
painter's eye, that he transfers to the canvas a vivid
picture that was real to him before it was real to
others. It is in the power of meditation so to
abstract the soul from all that is passing before the
bodily eye, that the tongue shall absently speak out
the words with which the heart was full, not knowing
that the others are standing by. It seems to have
been this that Job was doing, — he was realizing by
meditation. You can scarcely read over these words
without fancying them the syllables of a man who was
thinking aloud.
It is like a soliloquy rather than a conversation.
" I shaU see Him." Myself. Not another. My own
eyes. This is what we want. It is good for a man to get
alone, and then in silence think upon his own death,
and feel how time is hurrying him along : that a little
while ago, and he was not, — a little while still, and he
will be no more. It is good to take the Bible in his
hands, and read those passages at this season of the
year which speak of the Coming and the end of all,
tiU from the printed syllables there seems to come out
something that has life, and form, and substance in it,

192 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
and all things that are passing in the world group
themselves in preparation for that, and melt into its
outline. Let us try to live with these things in view.
God our friend ; Christ our living Redeemer ; our
sympathizing Brother; our conquering Champion: —
the triumph of Truth ; the End of Wrong. We shall
live upon realities then ; and this world will fade away
into that which we know it is, but cannot realize — an
Appearance, and a Shadow.
Lastly; God insures that his children shall realize
all this by affliction. Job had admitted these things
before, but this time he spoke from the ashes on which
he was writhing. And if ever a man is sincere it is
when he is in pain. If ever that superficial covering
of conventionalities falls from the soul, which gathers
round it as the cuticle does upon the body, and the
rust upon the metal, it is when men are suffering.
There are many things which nothing but sorrow can
teach us. Sorrow is the great Teacher. Sorrow is
the Realizer. It is a strange and touching thing to
hear the young speak truths which are not yet within
the limits of their experience : to listen while they
say that life is sorrowful, that friends are treacherous,
that there is quiet in the grave. When we are boys
we adopt the phrases that we hear. In a kind of
prodigal excess of nappiness, we say that the world is
a dream, and life a nothing — that eternity lasts for-'
ever, and that all here is disappointment. But there
comes a day of sharpness, when we find, to our sur
prise, that what we said had a meaning in it ; and we
are startled. That is the sentimentalism of youth
passing into reality. In the lips of the young such
phrases are only sentimentalities. What we mean by

REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT. 193
sentimentalism is that state in which a man speaks
things deep and true, not because he feels them
strongly, but because he perceives that they are beau
tiful, and that it is touching and fine to say them, —
things which he fain would feel, and fancies that he
does feel. Therefore, when all is well, when friends
abound, and health is strong, and the comforts of life
are around us, religion becomes faint, and shadowy.
Religious phraseology passes into cant — the gay, and
light, and trifling, use the same words as the holiest ;
till the earnest man, who feels what the world is sen
timentalizing about, shuts up his heart, and either
coins other phrases or else keeps silence. And then
it is that, if God would rescue a man from that unreal
world of names and mere knowledge, He does what
He did with Job, — He strips him of his flocks, and
his herds, and his wealth ; or else, what is the equiva
lent, of the power of enjoying them — the desire of
his eyes falls from him at a stroke. Things become
real then. Trial brings man face to face with God —
God and he touch ; and the flimsy veil of bright cloud
that hung between him and the sky is bloAvn away :
he feels that he is standing outside the earth, with
nothing between him and the Eternal Infinite. 0 !
there is something in the sick bed, and the aching
heart, and the restlessness and the languor of shat
tered health, and the sorrow of affections withered,
and the stream of life poisoned at its fountain, and the
cold, lonely feeling of utter rawness of the heart
which is felt when God strikes home in earnest, that
forces a man to feel what is real and what is not.
This is the blessing of affliction to those who will lie
still, and not struggle in a cowardly or a resentful way.
17

194 REALIZING THE SECOND ADVENT.
It is God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, and
saying — In the sunshine and the warmth you cannot
meet Me ; but in the hurricane and the darkness, when
wave after wave has swept down and across the soul,
you shall see My Form, and hear My Voice, and know
that your Redeemer liveth.

XI.
[Preached Deoember 6, 1819.]
FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
THE GRECIAN.
Bom. i. 14-17. — "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians,
both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth : to the Jew first, and also to the
Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
The season of Advent commemorates three facts.
1. That the Lord has come. 2. That He is perpetu
ally coming. 3. That He will yet come in greater
glory than has yet appeared. And these are the three
Advents: — The first in the flesh, which is past; the
second in the spirit; the third, His judgment Advent.
The first occupies our attention in these lectures.
We live surrounded by Christian institutions ; breathe
an atmosphere saturated by Christianity. It is exceed
ingly difficult even to imagine another state of things.
In domestic purity, to conceive the debasing effects
of polygamy ; in the midst of political liberty, to con
ceive of the blighting poAver of slavery ; in scientific (195)

196 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
progress, to imagine mental stagnation; in religious
liberty and free goodness, to fancy the reign of super
stition. Yet, to realize the blessings of health, we must sit
by the sick bed ; to feel what light is, we must descend
into the mine and see the emaciated forms which dwindle
in darkness ; to know what sunshine is, go down into
the valleys where stunted vegetation and dim vapors
tell of a scene on which the sun scarcely shines two
hours in the day. And to know what we have from
Christianity, it is well to cast the eyes sometimes
over the darkness from which the Advent of Christ
redeemed us.
There are four departments of human nature spoken
of in these verses, on which the Light shined. The
apostle felt that the Gospel was the power of God unto
salvation to the Greeks, the Romans, the Barbarians,
and the Jews. In the present lecture we consider
Christianity presented to the Grecian character, and
superseding the Grecian religion.
Four characteristics marked Grecian life and Grecian
religion. Restlessness — Worldliness — The worship
of the Beautiful — The worship of the Human.
I. Restlessness.
Polytheism divided the contemplation over many
objects ; and as the outward objects were manifold, so
was there a want of unity in the inward life. The
Grecian mind was distracted by variety. He was to
obtain wisdom from one Deity ; eloquence from that
Mercurius, for whom Paul was taken; purity from
Diana, for whom Ephesus was zealous ; protection for

THE GRECIAN. 197
his family or country from the respective tutelary dei
ties ; success by a prayer to Fortune.
Hence, dissipation of mind — that fickleness for
which the Greeks were famous ; and the restless love
of novelty, which made Athens a place of literary and
social gossip — " some new thing."
All stability of character rests on the contemplation
of changeless unity.
So, in modern science, which is eminently Christian,
having exchanged the bold theorizing of ancient times
for the patient, humble willingness to be taught by the
facts of nature, and performing its wonders by exact
imitation of them — on the Christian principle — the
Son of Man can do nothing of himself, but what He
seeth the Father do.
And all the results of science have been to simplify
and trace back the manifold to unity. Ancient science
was only a namber of insulated facts and discordant
laws : modern science has gradually ranged these
under fewer and ever fewer laws. It is ever tending
towards unity of law.
For example — Gravitation. The planet's motion,
and the motion of the atom of water that dashes tumult-
uously, and as it seems lawlessly, down the foam of
the cataract, — the floating of the cork, the sinking of
the stone, the rise of the balloon, and the curved flight
of the arrow, — are all brought under one single law,
diverse and opposite as they seem.
Hence, science is calm and dignified, reposing upon
uniform fact. The philosopher's very look tells of
repose, resting, as he does, on a few changeless prin
ciples. So, also, in religion. Christianity proclaimed " One
17*

198 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
God and one Mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus." Observe the effect in the case of two
apostles. St. Paul's view of the Gospel contemplated
it as an eternal divine purpose. His Gospel, the salva
tion of the Gentiles, was the eternal purpose which
had been hidden from ages and generations. His own
personal election was part of an eternal counsel. All
the children of God had been predestinated before the
creation " unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ
to Himself." Now, see the effect on character. First,
on veracity — 2 Cor. i. 18, &c. He contemplated the
changeless "yea," of God — His own yea became fixed
as God's — changeless, and calmly unalterable.
Again, in orthodoxy — "Jesus Christ, the same yes
terday, to-day, and forever." Be not carried about by
divers and strange doctrines. Truth is one — Error
manifold — many opinions, yet there can be but one
faith. See how calm and full of rest all this spirit is.
Now, consider St. John. His view of the Gospel
recognized it rather as the manifestation of love than
the carrying out of unity of an everlasting purpose.
If you view the world as the Greek did, all is so vari
ous, that you must either refer it to various deities, or
to different moods of the same Deity. To-day you
are happy — G°d is pleased; to-morrow, miserable —
God is angry. But St. John referred these aU to unity
of character — " God is Love." Pain and pleasure,
the sigh and smile, the sunshine and the storm, nay,
hell itself, to him were but the results of Eternal love.
Hence came deep calm — the repose which we are
toiling all our lives to find, and which the Greek never
found.

THE GRECIAN. 199
II. Worldliness.
There are men and nations to whom this world
seems given as their province, as if they had no aspi
ration above it. If ever there were a nation who un
derstood the science of living, it was the Grecian.
They had organized social and domestic life — filled
existence with comforts: knew how to extract from
everything its greatest measure of enjoyment. This
world was their home — this visible world was the
object of their worship. Not like the Orientals, who
called all materialism bad, and whose highest object
was to escape from it ; " to be unclothed, not clothed
upon," as St. Paul phrases it. The Greek looked upon
this world in its fallen state, and pronounced it aU
'¦ very good."
The results were three-fold.
1. Disappointment. Lying on the infinite bosom of
nature, the Greek was yet unsatisfied. And there is
an insatiable desire above all external forms and objects
in man — all men — which they can never satisfy.
Hence his craving too, like others, was, from time to
time, "Who will show us any good?" This dissatis
faction is exhibited in the parable of the prodigal, who
is but the symbol of erring humanity. Away from his
father's home, the famine came, and he. fed on husks.
Famine and husks are the world's unsatisfactoriness.
A husk is a thing that seems full — is hollow — which
stays the appetite for a time, but will not support the
hfe. And such is this world : leaving a hoUowness at
heart, staying our craving but for a time. " He that
drinketh of this water shall thirst again." And the
worldly man is trying to satiate his immortal hunger
upon husks.

200 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
Second result — Degradation. Religion aims at an
ideal above this actual one, — to found a divine polity,
a kingdom of God, a church of the best. And
the life of worldhness pronounces this world to be all.
This is to be adorned and beautified. Life as it is.
Had you asked the Greek his highest wish, he would
have replied, " This world, if it could only last — I ask
no more." Immortal youth — and this bright? exist
ence. This is to feed on husks ; but " husks which the
swine did eat." No degradation to the swine, for it is
their nature ; but degradation to man to rest in the
outward, visible, and present, for the bosom of God
is his home. The Greek, therefore, might be, in his
own language, " a reasoning animal," but not one of
the children of Heaven.
Third result — Disbelief in Immortality. The more
the Greek attached himself to this world, the more the
world unseen became a dim world of shades. The
earlier traditions of the deep-thinking orientals, which
his forefathers brought from Asia, died slowly away, and
any one who reminded him of them was received as '
one wouid now be who were to speak of purgatory.
The cultivated Athenians were for the most part scep
tics in the time of Christ. Accordingly, when Paul
preached at Athens the resurrection of the dead, they
" mocked." This bright world was all. Its revels, its dances,
its theatrical exhibitions, its races, its baths, and aca
demic groves, where literary leisure luxuriated, — these
were blessedness ; and the Greek's hell was death. Their
poets speak patheticaUy of the misery of the wrench
from aU that is dear and bright. The dreadfulness of J

THE GRECIAN. 201
death is one of the most remarkable things that meet
us in those ancient writings.
And these men were startled by seeing a new sect rise
up to whom death was nothing — who almost courted it.
They heard an apostle say at Miletus, " None of these
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto my
self, so that I might finish my course with joy." For
the cross of Christ had crucified in their hearts the
Grecian's world. To them hfe was honor, integrity,
truth ; that is, the soul. To this aU other was to be
sacrificed. This was the proper self, wnich could only
die by sin, by denying its own existence. The rise of
the higher life had made this life nothing, and dehvered
those who, through fear of death, were aU their life
time subject unto bondage.
Appeal to the worldly-minded. Melancholy specta
cle ! Men and women shutting out the idea of death,
¦ — the courtesies of society concealing from them the
mention of their age, by all false appliances of dress,
&c. &c, and staying the appearance of the hand of
time. You must die. The day will come, and the
coffin. Life in God alone robs that thought of dread-
fulness: — when, the resurrection being begun within,
you can look upon the decay of the outward man, and
feel Jam not dying.
III. The worship of the Beautiful.
The Greek saw this world almost only on its side
of beauty. His name for it Avas Kosmos, divine order,
or regularity. He looked at actions in the same way.
One and the same adjective expressed the noble and
the beautiful. If he wanted to express a perfect man,
he caUed him a musical or harmonious man.

202 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
What was the consequence ? Religion degenerated
into the arts. AU the immortal powers of man were
thrown upon the production of a work of the imagi
nation. The artist who had achieved a beautiful statue
was almost worshipped. The poet who had produced
a noble poem was the prophet of the nation. The
man who gave the richest strains of melody was half
divine. This was their inspiration. The arts became
religion, and religion ended in the arts.
Hence, necessarily, sensuality became religious ; be
cause all feelings produced by these arts, chiefly the
voluptuous ones, were authorized by religion. There
is a peculiar danger in refinement of sensuous enjoy
ments. Coarse pleasures disgust, and pass for what
they are ; but Avho does not know that the real danger
and triumph of voluptuousness are Avhen it approaches
the soul veiled under the drapery of elegance ? They
fancied themselves above the gross multitude ;' but
their sensuality, disguised even from themselves, was
sensuality still, — -ay, and even at times, in certain
festivals, broke out into gross and unmistakable licen
tiousness And hence, the greatest of the Greeks, in his imag
inary Republic, banished from that perfect state aU
the strains which were soft and enfeebling ; all the
poems that represented any deeds of Deities unworthy
of the Divine ; all the statues which could suggest
one single feeling of impurity. Himself a worshipper
of the purest beautiful, it was yet given to his aU but
inspired heart to detect the lurking danger before
which Greece was destined to fall, — the approach of
sensuality through the worship of the graceful and the
refined.

THE GRECIAN. 203
There is this danger now. Men are awakened from
coarse, rude life to the desire of something deeper.
And the God or Spirit of this world can subtly turn
that aside into channels which shall effectually en
feeble and ruin the soul. Refinement, melting imagery,
dim religious light, all the witchery of form and
color, music, architecture, — all these, even colored
with the hues of religion, producing feelings either
religious or quasi-religious, may yet do the world's
work. For all attempt to impress the heart through
the senses, " to make perfect through the flesh," is
fraught with that danger beneath which Greece sunk.
There is a self-deception in those feelings. The thrill,
and the sense of mystery, and the luxury of contem
plation, and the impressions on the senses, — all these
lie very close to voluptuousness, enfeeblement of
heart, — yea, even impurity.
This, too, is the ruinous effect of an education of
accomplishments. The education of the taste and
the cultivation of the feelings in undue proportion
destroys the masculine tone of mind. An education
chiefly romantic or poetical, not balanced by hard
practical life, is simply the ruin of the soul.
If any one ever felt the beauty of this world, it was
he. The beauty of the lily nestling in the grass — he
felt it all ; but the Beauty which he exhibited in life
was the stern loveliness of moral action. The king
in his Beauty "had no form nor comeliness:" it was
the beauty of obedience, of noble deeds, of uncon
querable fidelity, of unsAverving truth, of Divine self-
devotion. The Cross ! the Cross ! We must have
something of iron and hardness in our characters.
The Cross tells us what is the true Beautiful which is

204 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
Divine : an inward, not an outward beauty, which
rejects and turns sternly aAvay from the meretricious
forms of the outward world, which have a corrupting
or debilitating tendency.
IV. The worship of Humanity.
The Greek had strong human 'feelings and sympa
thies. He projected his own self on nature ; human
ized it ; gave a human feeling to clouds, forests, rivers,
seas. In this he was a step above other idolatries. The
Hindoo, for instance, worshipped monstrous emblems.
of physical power. Might, gigantic masses, hun
dred-handed deities, scarcely human, you find in Hin-
dostan. In Egypt, again, Life was the thing sacred.
Hence all that had life was in a Avay divine : the sacred
ibis, crocodile, bull, cat, snake — all that produced and
all that ended life. Hence, death, too, was sacred.
The Egyptian lived in the contemplation of death.
His coffin was made in his lifetime ; his ancestors
embalmed ; the sacred animals preserved in myriad
heaps, through generations, in mummy-pits. The
sovereign's tomb was built to last for, not centuries,
but thousands of years.
The Greek was above this. It was not merely
power, but human power ; not merely beauty, but
human beauty ; not merely life, but human life, which
was the object of his profoundest veneration. His
effort therefore was, in his conception of his god,
to realize a beautiful human being. And not the
animal beauty of the human only, but the intelligence
which informs and shines through beauty. All his
life he was moulding into shape visions of earth, — a

THE GRECIAN. 205
glorious human being. Light, under the conditions of
humanity, the " sun in human limbs arrayed," was the
central object of Grecian worship. Much in this had a
germ of truth — more was false. This principle, which
is true, was evidently stated — -the Divine, under the
limitations of humanity, is the only worship of which
man is capable. Demonstrably : for man cannot con
ceive that which is not in his own mind. He may
worship what is below himself, or that which is in him
self resembling God ; but attributes of which from his
own nature he has no conception, he clearly cannot
adore. The only question therefore is what he shall reckon
divine, and in alliance with God ? If power, then he
worships as the Hindoo ; if life, then as the Egyptian ;
if physical and intellectual beauty, then as the Greek.
Observe — they wanted some living image of God,
containing something more truly divine, to supplant
their own. For stiU, in spite of their versatile and
multifarious conceptions, the illimitable Unknown
remained, to which an altar stood in Athens. They
wanted humanity in its glory; they asked for a Son of
Man. Christ is Deity under the limitations of humanity.
But there is presented in Christ for worship, not
power, nor beauty, nor physical life, but the moral
image of God's perfections. Through the heart, and
mind, and character of Jesus, it was the Divinest
streamed. Divine character — that was given in Christ
to worship.
Another error : the Greek worshipped all that was
in man. Every feeling had its beauty and its divine
origin. Hence Thieving had its patron deity; and
* 18

206 FIRST ADVENT LECTURE.
Treachery, and Cunning ; and Lust had its temple
erected for abominable worship. All that was human
had its sanction in the example of some god.
Christ corrects. Not all that is human is divine
There is a part of our nature kindred with God ; the
strengthening of that, by mixture with God's Spirit,
is our true and proper humanity — regeneration of
soul. There is another part, whereby we are related
to the brutes — our animal propensities, our lower
inclinations, our corrupted will; and whoever fives in
that, and strengthens that, sinks not to the level of the
brutes, but below them, to the level of the demons ;
for he uses an immortal spirit to degrade himself; and
the immortal joined with evil, as the life to the body, is
demoniacal. In conclusion, remark : In all this system one thing
was wanting — the sense of sin. The Greek wor
shipped the beautiful, adored the human, deified the
world ; of course, in this worship found no place for
sin. The Greek would not have spoken to you of
sin; he would have told you of departure from a
right lin£ — want of moral harmony — discord within ;
he would have said that the music of your soul was
out of tune. Christ came to convince the world of
sin. And after Him that deep cloud began to brood
upon the hearts of Christendom, which rests upon, the
conscience which has been called into Adtality of action
and susceptibility.
For this Greece had no remedy. The universe has
no remedy but one. There is no prescription for the
sickness of the heart, but that which is written m the
Redeemer's blood.

XII.
(Preached December 13, 1849.)
SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
THE KOMAN.
Romans i. 14 — 16. — "lam debtor both to the Greeks and to the Bar
barians, both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me
is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ : for it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek."
The Advent of Christ is the gulf which separates
ancient from modern history. The dates B. c. and A. D.
are not arbitrary but real division. Plis coming is the
crisis of the world's history. It was the moment from
whence light streamed into the realms of darkness,
and life descended into the regions of the grave. It
was the new birth of worn-out humanity.
Last Thursday, we considered the effects of this
Advent on Greece. We found the central principle
of Grecian life to be worldliness. The Greek saw,
sought, and worshipped, nothing higher than this
life, but only this life itself. Hence Greek religion
degenerated into mere Taste, which is perception of
the Beautiful. The result on character was three
fold : — Restlessness, which sent the Greek through
(207)

208 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
this world with his great human heart unsatisfied,
fickle in disposition, and ever inquiring, with insatia
ble curiosity, after some new thing. Licentiousness ;
for whoever attaches his heart to the outward Beauty,
without worshipping chiefly in it that moral Beauty
of which all else is but the type and suggestion,
necessarily, slowly it may be, but inevitably, sinks
down and down into the deepest abyss of sensual
existence. Lastly, Unbelief. The Greek, seeing prin
cipally this world, lost his hold upon the next. For
the law of faith is, that a man can only believe what is
already in his spirit. He believes as he is. The Apos
tle Paul writes in astonishment to these Greeks (of
Corinth), " How say some among you there is no
resurrection of the dead ? " But the thing was expli
cable. Paul was " dying daily." The outward life
decayed : the inner grew and lived with more vitality
every day. He felt the life to come in which he
believed. But the Corinthians, leading an easy, lux
urious life, how could it be a reality to them ? How
could they believe in immortality, in whom the immor
tal scarcely stirred, or only feebly ?
To these the apostle felt bound to preach the living
Gospel. " I am debtor to the Greeks."
To-day, we turn to the Roman nation, its religion,
and its life. At the time of which the New Tes
tament speaks, Greece had been nearly a century
and a half a province of Rome. In the language of
Daniel, the kingdom of brass had given way to the
kingdom of iron. The physical might of Rome had
subdued Greece; but the mind of Greece had mas
tered Rome. The Greeks became the teachers of their
conquerors. The deities of Greece were incorporated

THE ROMAN. 209
t
into the national faith of Rome. Greek literature be
came the education of the Roman youth. Greek phi
losophy was ahnost the only philosophy the Roman
knew. Rome adopted Grecian arts, and was insensibly
moulded by contact with Grecian life. So that the
world in name and government was Roman, but in
feeling and civilization Greek.
If, therefore, we would understand Roman ' life, we
must contemplate it at an earlier period, when it Avas
free from Greek influence, and purely exhibited its
OAvn idiosyncrasies.
The nation which we contemplate to-day was a
noble one ; humanly, one of the noblest that the
world has seen. Next to the Jewish, the very high
est. We may judge from the fact of St. Paul's twice
claiming his Roman citizenship, and feeling the indig
nation of a Roman citizen at the indignity of chas
tisement. And this, too, in an age when the name
had lost its brightness ; when a luxurious, wealthy
Greek could purchase his freedom. Claudius Lysias
bought it " with a large sum of money." And yet
we may conceive what it had been once, when even
the faint lustre of its earlier dignity could inspire a
foreigner, and that foreigner a Jew, and that Jew a
Christian, with such respect.
At the outset, then, we have a rare and high-
minded people and their life to think of. They who
have imbibed the spirit of its writers from their youth
can neither speak nor think of it without enthusiasm.
Scarcely can we forbear it even in the pulpit. Nor is
this an unchristian feeling, earthly, to be checked;
for, in. order to elevate Christianity, it is not necessary
18* -

210 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
to vilify heathenism. To exalt revelation, we need
not try to show that natural religion has no truths.
To exhibit the blessings of the Advent, it is not need
ful to demonstrate that man was brutalized without it.
It is a poor, cowardly system which can only ripe by
the degradation of all others. Whatever is true be
longs to the kingdom of the Truth. The purer the
creed, the higher the character ; the nobler the men
who without revelation signally failed at last, the more
absolute is the necessity of a Redeemer, and the more
are we constrained to refer gratefuUy aU blessings to
His advent.
We take three points : — The public and private
life of Rome, and its moral and inevitable decay at
last. I. The public life of Rome.
First, I notice the spirit of its religion. The very
word shows what that was. Beligion, a Roman word,
means obligation, a binding power. Very different
from the corresponding Greek expression, which im
plies worship by a sensuous ceremonial (threskeia).
The Roman began, like the Jew, from Law. He
started from the idea of Duty. But there was an
important difference. The Jew was taught duty or
obedience to the Law of a personal, holy God. The
Roman obeyed, as his Etruscan ancestors taught him,
a Fate or WiU ; and with very different results. But
at present we only observe the lofty character of
the early religion which resulted from such a starting-
point. The early history of Rome is wrapped in fable ;
but the fable itself is worth much, as preserving the

THE ROMAN. 211
spirit of the old life when it does not preserve the
facts. Accordingly, the tradition taught that the
building of Rome was done in obedience to the inti
mations of the WiU of Heaven. It was rebuilt in a
site selected not by human prudence, but a voice
divinely .guided. Its first great legislator (Numa) is
represented as giving laws, not from a human heart,
but after secret communion with the Superhuman. It
Avas the belief of Roman writers that the early faith
taught access to God only through the mind; that,
therefore, no images, but only temples, were found in
Rome during the first two centuries of her existence.
No bloody sacrifices defiled the city. War itself was
a religious act, solemnly declared by a minister of
religion casting a spear into the enemy's territory.
Nay, we even find something in spirit resembling the
Jewish Sabbath — the command that during the rites
of religion no traffic should go on, nor workman's
hammer break the consecrated silence, but that men
should devoutly contemplate God.
Here was a high, earnest, severe Religion.
Now, this resulted in Government, as its highest
earthly expression. Duty : and therefore Law on
earth, as a copy of the WiU of Heaven. Different
nations seem, consciously or unconsciously, destined
by God to achieve different missions. The Jew had
the highest: to reveal to the world Holiness. The
Oriental stands as a witness to the reality of the invis
ible above the visible. The Greek reminded the
world of Eternal Beauty; and the destiny of the
Roman seems to have been to stamp upon the minds
of mankind the ideas of Law, Government, Order.
Beauty was not the object of the Roman contem-

212 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
plation nor worship ; nor was harmony. The taste for
them might be taught, superinduced ; but it was not
natural. It was not indigenous to the soU of his na
ture. Hence, when Greece was reduced to a Roman
province, in 146 B. c, the Roman soldiers took the
noblest specimens of Grecian painting and converted
them into gambling-tables.
You may distinguish the difference of ths two
characters from the relics which they have left behind
them. The Greek produced a statue or a temple,
the expression of a sentiment. The Roman, stand
ing upon visible Fact, dealing with the practical, and
living in the actual life of men, has left behind him
works of public usefulness : noble roads which inter
sect empires, mighty aqueducts, bridges, enormous
excavations for draining cities, at which we stand
astonished ; and, above all, that system of Law, the
slow result of ages of experience, which has so largely
entered into the modern jurisprudence of most Euro
pean nations.
One of their own writers has distinctly recognized
this destiny (Yirgil). "It is for others to work brass
into breathing shape ; others may be more eloquent,
or describe the circling movements of the heavens,
and teU the rising of the stars. Thy work, 0 Roman !
is to rule the nations : these be thine acts : to impose
the conditions of the world's peace, to show mercy to
the faUen, and to crush the proud."
In accordance with this, it is a characteristic fact
that we find the institutions of Rome referred to inspi
ration. Not a decalogue of private duties, but a code
of municipal laws. - And, turning to the page of Scrip
ture, whenever the Roman comes prominently forward,

THE ROMAN. 213
we always find him the organ of law, the instrument
of public rule and order. Pilate has no idea of con
demning unjustly : " Why, what evil hath He done ? "
But he yields at the mention of the source of Law,
the Emperor. The Apostle Paul appeals to Cassar;
and even a corrupt Festus respects the appeal : " Unto
Caisar thou shalt go." Nor could even the prison
er's innocence reverse his own appeal : " This man
might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed
unto Csesar." The tumult at Ephesus is stiUed by a
hint of Roman interference : " We are in danger of
being caUed in question for this day's uproar." When
the angry crowd at Athens, and the equally angry mob
of the Sanhedrim, was about to destroy Paul, again
the Roman comes, — Claudius Lysias, "with an army,
and rescues him."
It was always the same thing. The Roman seems
almost to have existed to exhibit on earth a copy of
the Divine order of the universe, the law of the heav
enly hierarchies.
II. Private Life.
We observe the sanctity of the domestic ties. Very
touching are aU. the well-known anecdotes. That,
for instance, of the noble Roman matron, who felt, aU
spotless as she was, fife-dishonored, and died by her
own hand. The sacredness of Home was expressed
strongly by the idea of two guardian deities (Lares
and Penates) who watched over it. A Roman's own
fireside and hearthstone were almost the most sacred
spots on earth. There was no battle-cry that came
so to his heart as that, "For the altar and the
hearth." How firmly this was rooted in the nation's

214 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
heart is plain from the tradition that for one hun
dred and seventy years no separation took place by
law between those who had been united in wed
lock. There is deep importance in this remark : for it was
to this that Rome owed her greatness. The whole
fabric of the Commonwealth rose out of the FamUy.
The Family was the nucleus round which all the rest
agglomerated. First, the Family ; then the clan, made
up of the family and its dependents or clients; then
the tribe ; lastly, the nation. And so the noble struc
ture of the Roman Commonwealth arose, compacted
and mortised together, but resting on the foundation
of the hearthstone.
Very different is it in the East. A nation is a
coUection of units, held together by a government.
There is a principle of cohesion in them; but only
such cohesion as belongs to the column of sand,
supported by the whirlwind: when the blast ceases,
the atoms faU asunder. When the chief is slain or
murdered, the nation is in anarchy — the family does
not exist. Polygamy and infanticide, the bane of
domestic life, are the destruction, too, of national
existence. There is a solemn lesson in this. Moral decay in
the family is the invariable prelude to public corrup
tion. It is a false distinction which we make between
pubhc integrity and private honor. The man whom
you cannot admit into your family, whose morals
are corrupt, cannot be a pure statesman. Whoever
studies history wiU be profoundly convinced that a
nation stands or faUs with the sanctity of its domestic
ties. Rome mixed with Greece, and learned her mor-

THE ROMAN. 215
als. The Goth was at her gates ; but she fell not till
¦she was corrupt and tainted at the heart. The domes
tic corruption preceded the political. When there
was no longer purity on her hearthstone, nor integ
rity in her senate, then, and not tiU then, her death-
kneU was rung.
We will bless God for our English homes. Partly
the result of our religion. Partly the result of the
climate which God has given us, according to the law
of compensation by which physical evil is repaid by
moral blessing ; so that, its gloom and darkness mak
ing life more necessarily spent within doors than it is
among continental nations, our life is domestic and
theirs is social. When England shaU learn domestic
maxims from strangers, as Rome from Greece, her
ruin is accomplished. And this blessing, too, comes
from Christ, who presided at the marriage feast at
Cana, who found a home in the family of Nazareth,
and consecrated the hearthstone with everlasting in-
violabfiity. Let us break up this private life into particulars.
1. We find manly courage. This, too, is preserved
in a word. Virtue is a Roman word — manhood,
courage; for courage, manhood, virtue, were one
word. Words are fossil thoughts. You trace the an
cient feeling in that word; you trace it, too, in the
corruption of the word. Among the degenerate de
scendants of the Romans, virtue no longer means
manhood; it is simply dillettantism. The decay of
life exhibits itself in the debasement even of words.
We dwell on this courage, because it was not
merely animal daring. Like everything Roman, it
was connected with religion. It was duty — obedi-

216 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
ence to wiU — self-surrender to the public good. The
Roman legions subdued the world; but it was not
their discipline alone,- nor their strength, nor their
brute daring. It was rather, far, their moral force.
A nation whose legendary and historical heroes could
thrust their hand into the flame, and see it consumed
without a nerve shrinking; or come from captivity
on parole, advise their countrymen against peace, and
then go back to torture and certain death ; or devote
themselves by solemn self-sacrifice (like the Decii) ;
who could bid sublime defiance to pain, and count dis
honor the only evil: — the world must bow before
such men; for, unconsciously, here was a form of the
spirit of the Cross, — self-surrender, .'unconquerable
fidelity to duty, sacrifice for others. And so far as
Rome had in her that spirit, and so long as she had it,
her career was the career of aU those who, in any
form, even the lowest, take up the Cross: she went
forth conquering and to conquer.
2. Deep as Roman greatness was rooted in the
courage of her men, it was rooted deeper stiU in the
honor of her women. I take one significant fact,
which exhibits national feeling. There was a fire in
Rome called Eternal, forever replenished. It was the
type and symbol of the duration of the Republic.
This fire was tended by the Vestals: a beautifully
significant institution. It implied that the duration
of Rome was coextensive with the preservation of
her purity of morals. So long as the dignity of her
matrons and her virgins remained unsullied, so long
she would last — no longer. Female chastity guarded
the Eternal City.
Here we observe something anticipative of Chris-

THE ROMAN. 217
tianity. In the earlier ages after the Advent there
were divine honors paid to the Queen of Heaven ; and
the land was covered over with houses set apart for
celibacy. Of course, rude and gross minds can find
plenty to sneer at in that institution ; and doubtless
the form of the truth was mistaken enough, as all mere
forms of doctrine are. But the heart of truth which
lay beneath all that superstition was a precious one.
It was this : So long as purity of heart, delicacy of
feeling, chastity of life, are found in a nation, so long
that nation is great — no longer. Personal purity is
the divinest thing in man and woman. It is the most
sacred truth which the church of Christ is commis
sioned to exhibit and proclaim.
Upon these virtues. I observe : — The Roman was
conspicuous for the virtues of this earth, — honor,
fidelity, courage, chastity, all manliness ; yet the
apostle felt that he had a gospel to preach to them
¦ that were in Rome also. Moral virtues are not reli
gious graces. There are two classes of excellence.
There are men whose lives are full of moral principle,
and there are others whose feelings are strongly devo
tional. And, strange to say, each of these is found
at times disjoined from the other. Men of almost
spotless earthly honor, who scarcely seem to know
what reverence for things heavenly and devout aspi
rations toAvards God mean. Men who have reli
gious instinct pray with fervor, kindle with spiritual
raptures, and yet are impure in their feelings, and
fail in matters of common truth and honesty. Each
of these is but half a man — dwarfed and stunted in
his spiritual growth. The " perfect man in Christ
Jesus," who has grown to the " measure of the stat-
19

218 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
ure of the fulness of Christ," is he who has united
these two things ; who to the high Roman virtues
which adorn this earth has added the sublimer feelings
which are the investiture of heaven ; in whom " jus
tice, mercy, truth," are but the body of which the soul
is faith and love.
Yet, observe, these are moral virtues, and morality
is not religion. Still, beware of depreciating them.
Beware of talking contemptuously of "mere moral
ity." If we must choose between two things which
ought never to be divided, moral principle and reli
gious sentiment, there is no question which most
constitutes the character " which is not far from the
kingdom of heaven." Devout feelings are common
enough in childhood, — religious emotions, religious
Avarmth, — instances of which are retailed by the
happy parent; common enough, too, in grown men
and women : but listen — those devout feelings, sep
arate from high principle, do not save from immo
rality ; nay, I do believe, are the very stepping-stone
towards it. When the sensual is confounded with and
mistaken for the spiritual, and merely devout Avarmth
is the rich, rank soil of heart, in which moral evil
most surely and most rankly grows, you will not
easily build Roman virtues upon that. But high prin
ciple, which is, in other words, the baptism of John,
is the very basis on which is most naturally raised
the superstructure of religious faith. Happy, thrice
happy, he who begins Avith the law and ends with the
Gospel. III. The decline of Roman Life.
1. First came corruption of the moral character.

THE ROMAN. 219
The Roman worldhness was of a kind far higher
than the Grecian. In this way the Roman really
had the world's good at heart. There was a some
thing invisible at which he aimed — invisible justice,
invisible order, invisible right. StiU, it was only
the law on earth — the well-being of this existence.
And whatever is only of this earth is destined to
decay. The soul of the Roman, bent on this world's
affairs, became secularized, then annualized, and so at
last, when there was little left to do, pleasure became
his aim, as it had been the Grecian's. Then came
ruin swiftly. When the emperors lived for their elab
orately contrived life of luxury, — when the Roman
soldier left his country's battles to be fought by
mercenaries, — the doom of Rome Avas sealed. Yet,
because it was a nobler worldhness, less sensual and
less selfish, the struggle with decay was more pro
tracted than in Greece. Lofty spirits rose to stem the
tide of corruption; and the death-throes of Rome
were long and terrible. She ran a mighty career of a
thousand j^ears.
2. Scepticism and superstition went hand in hand.
An example of the former we have in Pilate's ques
tion, " What is truth ? " An example of the latter,
in the superstitious belief of the inhabitants of Lys-
tria, that Paul and Barnabas were " Gods come to
them in the likeness of men." And this probably
was a tolerably accurate picture of the state of Roman
feeling. The lower classes sunk in a debased super
stition, — the educated classes too intellectual to
believe in it, and having nothing better to put in
its stead. Or, perhaps, there was also a superstition
which is only another name for scepticism: infidelity

220 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
trembling at its self — shrinking from its own shadow.
There is a fearful question for which the soul must
find an answer : the mystery of its own destinies.
Men looked into their own souls, and, listening, heard
only an awful silence there. No response came from
the world without. Philosophy had none to give.
And then men, terrified at the progress of infidelity,
more than half distrusting their own tendencies, took
refuge in adding superstition to superstition. They
brought in the gods of Greece, and Egypt, and the
East: as if multiplying the objects of reverence
strengthened the spirit of reverence in the soul ; as
if every new sacredness was a barrier between them
and the dreadful abyss of uncertainty into which they
did not dare to look.
This is as true now as then. Superstition is the
refuge of a sceptical spirit,' which has a heart too
devout to dare to be sceptical. Men tremble at new
theories, new views, the spread of infidelity; and
they think to fortify themselves against these by
multiplying the sanctities which they reverence. But
all this will not do. Superstition cannot do the work
of faith, and give repose or peace. It is not by mul
tiplying ceremonies, — it is not by speaking of holy
things low, with bated breath, — it is not by intrench
ing the soul behind the infallibility of a church, or
the infaUibility of the words and sentences of a book,
¦ — it is not by shutting out inquiry, and resenting
every investigation as profane, that you can arrest
the progress of infidelity. Faith, not superstition, is
the remedy. There is a grand Fearlessness in Faith.
He who in his heart of hearts reverences the Good,
the. True, the Holy, — that is, reverences God, — does

THE ROMAN. 221
not tremble at the apparent success of attacks upon
the outworks of his faith. They may shake those
who rested on those outworks — they do not move
him whose soul reposes on the Truth itself. He
needs no props or crutches to support his faith. He
does not need to multiply the objects of his aAve, in
order to keep dreadful doubt away. Founded on a
rock, Faith can afford to gaze undismayed at the
approaches of Infidelity.
3. In Rome, religion degenerated into allegiance to
the state. In Greece, as it has been truly said, it
ended in taste. In Rome, it closed with the worship
of the emperor. Nothing shows the contrast between
Greek and Roman feeling more strongly than this.
In Greece, the poet became the prophet, and the
artist was the man divinely inspired. In Rome, the
deification of the emperor, as the symbol of govern
ment, was the point towards which, unsuspectedly,
but by a sure and inevitable consecutiveness, the
national feeling for ages had been tending.
And the distinction between the Christian and the
Roman tone of feeling is no less strikingly con
trasted in the very same allegiance. Sacrament, per
haps, is the highest word of symbolical life in both.
It is a Roman word. In Rome it meant an oath
of allegiance to the senate and Roman people. Noth
ing higher the Roman knew. In the Christian church
it is also the oath of highest fidelity ; but its import
there is this : " Here we offer and present unto Thee,
0 Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a
lively sacrifice."
In this contrast of the sacramental vows are per
ceptible the different tendencies of the two starting-
19*

222 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
points of revealed religion and Roman, as marked
before. Judaism began from law or obligation to
a holy person. Roman religion began from obedi
ence to a mere will. Judaism ended in Christianity ;
whose central principle is joyful surrender to One
whose Name is Love. The religion of Rome ended,
among the nobler, as Cato and the Antonines, in the
fatalism of a sublime but loveless Stoicism, whose
essential spirit is submission to a Destiny: among
the ordinary men, in mere zeal for the state, more or
less earthly. It stiffened into Stoicism, or degene
rated into public spirit.
4. The last step we notice is the decline of Reli
gion into expediency. It is a startling thing to see
men protecting popular superstitions which they
despise : taking part, with solemn gravity, in mum
meries which in their heart they laugh at. Yet such,
we are told, was the state of things in Rome. It is
a trite and often-quoted observation of a great Roman,
that one minister of religion could scarcely meet
another without a smile upon his countenance, indi
cating consciousness of a solemn mockery. And an
instance of this, I believe, we have in the Acts of
the Apostles. The town-clerk or magistrate of Eph
esus stilled the populace by a kind of accommoda
tion to their prejudices, much in the same way in
which a nurse would soothe a passionate child. Appa
rently, as we are told, he belonged to the friends of
Paul; and we can scarcely forbear a smile at the
solemn gravity with which he assures the people that
there could be no doubt that the image fell down
from Jupiter: no question throughout all Asia and

THE ROMAN. 223
the world about the greatness of the " great goddess
Diana." For there were cultivated minds Avhich had appre
hended some of the truths of Christianity: philoso
phers who were enlightened far beyond their age.
But a line of martyred philosophers had made them
cautious. They made a compromise. They enjoyed
their own light, kept silence, and left the rest in
darkness. The result was destruction of their own
moral being ; for the law of truth is that • it cannot
be shut up without becoming a dead thing, and
mortifying the whole nature. Not the truth which a
man knows, but that which he says and lives, becomes
the soul's life. Truth cannot bless except when it
is lived for, proclaimed, and suffered for.
This was the plan of the enlightened when the
Saviour came. And this is the lowest step of a
nation's fall, when the few who know the truth refuse
to publish it; when governments patronize super
stition as a mere engine for governing; when the
ministers of religion only half believe the dogmas
which they teach, dare not even say to one another
what they feel and what they doubt, dare not be true
to their convictions for fear of an Ephesian mob.
Therefore it is necessary that One should come
who should be < True ; the Truest of all that are
woman-born ; whose life was Truth ; who from Ever
lasting had been The Truth. It was necessary that
He should come to preach the Gospel to the poor ; to
dare to say to the people truths which the philoso
phers dared not say, and other truths of which no
philosopher had dreamed. The penalty of that true
Life was the sacrifice which is the world's Atone-

224 SECOND ADVENT LECTURE.
ment. Men saw the Mortal die. But others saw
the Immortal rise to take His place at the right hand
of Power : and the spirit which has been streaming
out ever since from that Life and Death is the world's
present Light, and shall be its everlasting Life.

XIII.
[Preached December 20, 1849.]
THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
THE BAKBAKIAN.
Acts xxviii. 1-7. — "And when they were escaped, then they knew
that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people showed
us no little kindness : for they kindled a fire, and received us every
one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. And when
Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there
came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And when
the Barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said
among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though
he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. And he
shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. Howbeit they
looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly :
but after they had looked a great while and saw no harm come to him,
they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. In the same
quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name
was Publius ; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously."
Op the four divisions of the world at the time of
the Advent/ two have already been reviewed. The
Greek, seeing the right only on its side of beauty,
ended in mere intellectual refinement. The artist took
the place of God, and genius stood for inspiration.
The Roman's destiny was different. His was not the
kingdom of burnished brass, but the kingdom of iron.
He set out with the great idea of Duty and LaAv :
(225)

226 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
exhibited in consequence the austere simplicity of
pure domestic life : in public affairs, government and
Order, stamping upon the world the great idea of
Obedience to Law. In the decline of Rome the
results of this were manifest. After a mighty career
of a thousand years, Rome had run out her course.
Among the loftier minds who stood out protesting
against her corruption, and daring in a corrupted age
to believe in the superiority of Right to enjoyment,
grand contempt for pleasure, sublime defiances of pain,
told out the dying agonies of the iron kingdom,
worthy of the heart of steel which beat beneath the
Roman's robe. This was Stoicism : the Grecian phi
losophy which took deepest root, as might have been
expected, in the soil of Roman thought. Stoicism
was submission to a destiny, — hard, rigid, loveless
submission. Its language was Must — It must be ;
and man's highest manliness is to submit to the inevi
table. It is right because it must be so. Besides
these higher ones, there were others who carried out
the idea -of Duty in quite another direction. With the
mass of the^ nation, reverence for LaAv passed into
homage to the symbol of Law — loyalty to the govern
ment ; its highest expression being the sacramental
homage to the nation's authority. So that, as I have
already said, the Roman spirit stiffened into stoicism,
and degenerated into worship of the emperor. This
Avas not accidental ; it was the inevitable result of the
Idea. It might have taken half the time — or ten1
times as long ; but at last the germ must have ripened
into that fruit, and no other. The Roman began Avith
obedience to Will.
Law, meaning obedience to a holy God, passes by a

THE BARBARIAN. 227
natural transition into the Gospel ; that is, reverential
duty to a person becomes the obedience of love, at
last, which obeys because the beautifulness of obedi
ence is perceived. The Jew began in severity : ended
in rigidity, or else relaxation. To him the Advent
came proclaiming the Lord of Love instead of the
coercive necessity of a lifeless fate.
To the Greek worshipper of beauty, the Advent
came with an announcement of an inner beauty. He
who was to them, and all such, " a Root out of a dry
ground, Avith no form or comeliness," with nothing to
captivate a refined taste, or gratif)^ an elegant sensibil
ity, lived a life which was divine and beautiful. His
religion, as contrasted with the Grecian, supplement
ing it, and confirming in it what was true, " was the
worship of the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness."
The third department is the necessity of the Advent
for the Barbarian world.
By Barbarian was meant any religion but the Roman
or the Greek, — a contemptuous term, the spirit of
Avhich is common enough in all ages. Just as noAv
every narrow sect monopolizes God, claims for
itself an exclusive heaven, contemptuously looks on
all the rest of mankind as sitting in outer darkness, and
complacently consigns myriads whom God has made
to His uncovenanted mercies, — that is, to probable
destruction, — so, in ancient times, the Jew scornfully
designated all nations but his own as Gentiles ; and the
Roman and Greek, each retaliating in his Avay, treated
all nations but his own under the common epithet of
Barbarians. We shall confine ourselves to-day to a single case
of Barbarian life. We shall not enter into the reli-

228 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
gion of our own ancestors, the Celts and Teutonic na
tions, who Avere Barbarians then ; nor that of the
Scythians or the Africans. One instance will be suffi
cient. Twice in his recorded history, St. Paul came in con
tact with Barbarians ; twice he was counted as a god.
Once among the semi-barbarians of Lycaonia, at Lys-
tra, — once here, at Melita.
There is a little uncertainty about the identification
of this Melita. It was a name shared by two islands
— Malta, and Melida in the Adriatic. But it seems to
be established beyond all reasonable doubt that it was
on Malta, not on Melida, that St. Paul was wrecked.
The chief objection to this view is, that immediately
before the wreck we are told — chap, xxvii. 27 — that
they were " driven up and down in Adria." But this
is satisfactorily anwered by the fact, that the name
Adriatic was applied often loosely to all the sea round
Sicily. Two great arguments in favor of Malta then
remain : after leaving the island, the apostle touched
at Syracuse, and so went on to Rhegium and Puteoli.
This is the natural direction from Malta to Rome, but
not from Melida. Then, besides, " barbarians " wiU
not apply to the inhabitants of Melida. They were
Greeks : whereas the natives of Malta, living under
Roman government, were originally Carthaginians,
who had been themselves a Phoenician colony. The
epithet is perfectly correct as applied to them.
It is the Carthaginian or Phoenician religion, then,
which moulded the barbarian life, that we examine to
day. We take three points.
I. Barbarian virtues.
II. Barbarian idea of retribution.

THE BARBARIAN. 229
III. Barbarian conception of Deity.
I. Barbarian virtues.
Two errors have been held on the subject of natural
goodness. The first, that of those who deny to fallen
man any goodness at all, and refuse to admit even
kindliness of feeling. In the language of a celebrated
and popular expounder of this view, " man in his natu
ral state is one half beast and one half devil." This is
the effect of a system. No man in his heart believes
that. No mother ever gazed upon her child, baptized
or unbaptized, and thought so. Men are better than
their creed. Their hearts are more than a match for
their false theological system. Beneath the black skin
of the African there runs a blood as warm as that which
is in the blue veins of the Christian. Among the civil
ized heathen, the instinctive feelings are as kindly and
as exquisitely delicate as they were ever found in the
bosom of the baptized. Accordingly, we find here
these natural barbarian virtues of hospitality and sym
pathy. The shipwrecked mariners, wet and cold, were
received in Melita with a Avarm, compassionate welcome.
The people of the island did not say, "Depart in peace;
be ye warmed and filled." They gave them those
things which were necessary for the body. And a
Christian, contemplating this, gave this distinct testi
mony, " The barbarous people shoAved us no little
kindness." The second error is the opposite one of placing too
high a value on these natural virtues. There is a class
of writers who talk much of early unsophisticated
times. They tell of the days " when wild in Avoods
the noble savage ran." They speak of pastoral sim-
20

230 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
plicity, and the reverence and piety of mountain-life.
According to them, civilization is the great corrupter.
But the truth is, the natural good feelings of human
aature are only instincts : no more moral than a long
Bight or a delicate sense of hearing. The keen feelings
of the child are no guarantee of future principle : per
haps rather the reverse. The profuse hospitality of
the mountaineer, who rarely sees strangers, and to
whom gold is little worth, becomes shreAvd and selfish
calculation so soon as temptation from passing traffic
is placed in his way. You may travel among savages
who treat you, as a stranger, with courtesy ; but yet
feed on the flesh of their enemies. And these Melitans,
who " showed no little kindness " to the wrecked crew,
belonged to a stock who, in the most civilized days of
Carthage, offered human sacrifice, and after every suc
cessful battle with the Romans burnt the chief prison
ers alive as a thank-offering to hea\Ten. If we trace
them still further back, we find their Phoenician ances
tors in the Old Testament tainted with the same prac
tice, and the Hebrews themselves imbibing it from
them, so as.to be perpetually arraigned by their proph
ets on the charge of making their sons and daughters
" pass through the fire to Baal." They could be kind
to strangers ; and cruel to enemies.
The Advent of Christ brought a new spirit into the
world. " A new commandment give I unto you, that
ye love one another." That was not the new part.
The Miletans would have not disagreed with that ....
" As I have loved you, that ye love one another." As
I have loved you .... that makes all new. So also
1 John ii. -7, 8. The " old commandment " was old
enough. Barbarians felt in their hearts. But the

THE BARBARIAN. 231
same commandment with " true light " shining on it
was different indeed.
" Love your neighbor, hate your enemy." Cartha
ginians obeyed that. Hear the Law of Love expounded
by Himself, Matt. v. 43, 44 — "But I say unto you,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which des-
pitefully use you and persecute you. For if ye love
them which love you, what do ye more than oth
ers? Do not even .... (the barbarians) .... the
same ? "
This is Christianity : that is, the Mind of Christ.
Remark, too, the principle on which this is taught.
Matt. v. 45 — " That ye may be the children of your
Father which is in heaven : for He maketh His sun to
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on
the just and on the unjust." Not upon merely per
sonal authority ; not by a law graven on stone, nor
even printed in a book, to be referred to chapter and
verse ; but on the principle of the imitation of God.
His heart interpreted the universe : He read its " open
secret," which is open to all who have the heart to
feel it, secret to all others. A secret, according to
Him, to be gathered from the rain as it fell on the just
and the unjust, from the dew of heaven, from the lily,
and from the fowls of the air, from the wheat, from
every laAv and every atom. This was His Revelation.
He revealed God. He spelled for us the meaning of
all this perplexing unintelligible world. He proclaimed
its hidden meaning to be Love. So He converted
rude barbarian instincts into Christian graces, by
expanding their sphere and purifying them of selfish
ness — causing them to be regulated by principle, and

232 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
elevating them into a conscious imitation of God in
His revealed character.
II. The Barbarian idea of retribution.
The Apostle Paul was one of those who are formed
to be the leaders of the Avorld. Foremost in persecu
tion — foremost in Christianity ("nothing behind the
chiefest apostles") — foremost in the shipwreck, his
voice the calmest, his heart the stoutest, his advice the
wisest in the tumult. Foremost, too, when all was
over, not as a prisoner, but actively engaged for the
general good, it is Paul who is gathering the sticks to
make the fire. From those sticks a viper sprung and
fastened on his hand, and the first impression of the
Barbarians was, " No doubt this man is a murderer,
whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance
suffereth not to live."
This is the very basis of all natural religion : the
idea of the connection between guilt and retribution.
In some form or other it underlies all mythologies.
The sleepless, never-dying avengers of wrong; the
Nemesis wjcto presides over retribution ; the ven
geance which suffereth not the murderer to live ; the
whips and scorpions of the Furies — it seems the first
instinct of religion.
In the barbarian conception of it, however, there
was something gross, corporeal, and dangerous.
Because they misinterpreted natural laws into ven
geance. Yet there is a proneness in man to judge so.
We expect that nature wiU execute the chastisements
of the spiritual world. Hence, all nature becomes to
the imagination leagued against the transgressor. The
stars in their courses fight against Sisera. The waU of

THE BARBARIAN. 233
Siloam falls on guilty men. The sea Avill not carry
the criminal, nor the plank bear him ; the viper stings ;
everything is a minister of wrath. On this conviction
nations constructed their trial by ordeal. The guilty
man's sword would fail in the duel, and the foot would
strike and be burnt by the hot ploughshare. Some
idea of this sort lurks in aU our minds. We picturo
to ourselves the spectres of the past haunting the
nightly bed of the tyrant. We take for granted that
there is an avenger making life miserable.
But experience corrects aU this. The tyrant's sleep
is as sweet and sound often as the infant's. The sea
will wreck an apostle, and bear a murderer triumph
antly. The viper stings the innocent turf-cutter. The
fang of evil pierces the heel of the noblest as he treads
it down. It is the poetry of man's heart, not the real
ity of the universe, which speaks of the Vengeance
which pursues guilt with unrelenting steps to slay.
Only in poetry is this form of justice found. Only in
poetry does the fire refuse to burn the innocent. Only
in poetry can Purity lay her hand on the fawning
lion's mane. If we ask where these Melitans got their
idea of Retribution, the reply is, out of their own
hearts. They felt the eternal connection between
wrong-doing and penalty. The penalty they would
have executed on murder was death. They naturally
threw this idea of theirs into the character of God,
and blended together what was theirs and what is
His. Valuable as a proof of the instinctive testimony
of man's heart to the realities of Retribution : utterly
worthless as a testimony to the form in which retrib
utive Justice works,- because not borne out by the
facts of life. 20*

234 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
Again, that notion was false, in that it expected
vengeance for flagrant crime only. " This man is a
murderer." There is a common and superstitious
feeling now to that effect, " Murder will out : " as if
God had set a black mark on murder ; as if, because
it is unhkely to escape detection in a country where
every man's hand is against the murderer, impunity
was not common enough in countries where human
hfe is held cheap. The truth is, we think much of
crime — little of sin. There is many a murderer exe
cuted whose heart is pure and whose life is white,
compared with those of many a man who lives a re
spectable, and even honored life. David was a mur
derer. The Pharisees had committed no crime, but
their heart was rotten at the core. .There was in it
the sin which has no forgiveness. It is not a Chris
tian, but a Barbarian estimate, which ranks crime
above sin, and takes murder for the chief of sins
marked out for Heaven's vengeance.
As information increases this idea of retribution
disappears. Natural laws are understood, and retri
bution vanishes. Then comes Epicureanism, or Athe
ism. " AU things come alike to aU : there is one end
to the righteous and to the sinner ; to the clean and to
the unclean ; to him that sacrificeth and to him that
sacrificeth not." This is the feeling of the voluptuary
of Ecclesiastes. If so, then the inference suggests
itself to Epicurean indolence, " Let us eat and drink,"
— it is all the same. Or, the sceptical feeling comes
thus : " Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and
washed my hands in innocency." For assuredly there
is no vengeance such as this, which suffers not the

THE BARBARIAN. 235
murderer to live, but arms the poAvors of nature against
him. Why do right, instead of Avrong?
Then the idea of Retribution is gone for those who
see no deeper than the outward chance of penalty.
The Advent brought deeper and truer views. It
taught what sin is, and what suffering is. It showed
the Innocent on the Cross, bearing the penalty of the
world's sin ; but Himself the Son of God, with whom
the Father was not angry, but " weU pleased."
The penal agonies of sin are chiefly those which
are executed within. " Vengeance," said the Melitans,
" suffereth not the murderer to live." " Whosoever
slayeth Cain," said God, " vengeance shall be taken on
him seven-fold." Cain, the murderer, lives ; CHRIST,
the Holy, dies. Cain is to us the dread type of Hell.
To live ! that is HeU — to live when you fain would
die. There is such a thing as being salted with fire —
a never annihilating but stiU consuming torture. You
may escape the viper and the wreck. You may, by
prudence, make this world painless, more or less. You
cannot escape yourself. Go where you will, you carry
with you a soul degraded, its power lost, its finer sensi
bilities destroyed. Worse than the viper's tooth is the
punishment of no longer striving after goodness, or
aspiring after the life of God. Just as the man cannot
see through the glass on which he breathes, sin darkens
the windows of the soul. You cannot look out even
to know the glories of the fair world from which your
soul excludes itself. There is no punishment equal to
the punishment of being base. To sink from sin to
sin, from infamy to infamy, that is the fearful retri
bution which is executed in the spiritual world. You
are safe, go where you aviU, from the viper : as safe as

236 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
if you were the holiest of God's children. The fang
is in your soul.
III. The Barbarian conception of Deity.
When the viper feU off, and Paul was left unin
jured, they changed their minds, and said that he
was a god.
1. Observe, first, this implied a certain advance in
religious notions. There is a stage of worship prior
to that of man-worship. Man finds himself helpless
among the powers of nature, and worships the forces
themselves which he finds around him. This takes
different forms. The highest .is the worship of that
host of heaven from which Job professed himself to
be free. With some it is the adoration of lifeless
things : the oak which has been made sacred by the
lightning-stroke, the " meteoric stone " which feU down
from Jupiter. So the Israelites adored the brazen
serpent, with which power had once been in connec
tion. Evidently there can be no holy influence in
this. Men worship them by fear, fortify themselves
by charms and incantations, do not try to please God
by being holy, but defend themselves from danger by
jugglery. The Christians of the early ages carried
about bits of consecrated bread to protect themselves
from shipwreck.
Besides this, men have worshipped brute life : some
animal, exhibiting a limited quality, which is reckoned
a type of the Divine. The hawk-eyed deities of Egypt,
for instance, implied omniscience. Beast-worship was
that of Egypt. Israel learned it there, and in an early
stage of their history imitated the highest form which
they knew, — that of Apis, in their golden calf.

THE BARBARIAN. 237
It is quite clear that the Melitans were in a stage
beyond this. It is a step when men rise from the
worship of lifeless things to that of animals ; another
when they rise to worship human qualities — for they
afe nearest the Divine. Perhaps a step higher still,
when, like the early Romans, they worship a Principle
like Destiny, separate from aU shape. They were in
the stage of worshipping what is human.
2. But, in this worship of the human, we have to
distinguish that it was the adoration of the marvellous,
not the reverence for the Good. It was not Paul's
character to which they yielded homage. It was only
to the wonderful mystery of, as they supposed, his mi
raculous escape. So, too, at Lystra. It was the mir
acle which they chiefly saw.
All that would pass away Avhen they knew that he
was a man of like passions with themselves ; or when
they were informed that it Avas a Providential escape,
which might have happened to any ordinary man.
When the savage sees the flash of European fire-arms,
he kneels as to a god ; but when he has learned its
use, his new religion is gone. When the Americans
first saw the winged ships of Spain, they thought that
the deities spoke in thunder ; but when they discov
ered the secret of their humanity, the worship ceased.
And thus<science is every day converting the religion
of mere wonder into Atheism. The mere worship of
the mysterious has a limited existence. As you teach
laws, you undermine that religion. Men cease to trem
ble. The Laplander would no longer be awed by the
eclipse, if he knew how to calculate it with unerring
accuracy. The savage's dread of lightning, as the
bolt of God, is OATer when he sees the philosopher

238 THIRD ADVENT LECTURE.
draw it from the clouds, and experimentalize on it in
his laboratory. The aAve created by a pestilence is
passed, when it is found to be strictly under the guid
ance of natural laws. And the Romanist, or the semi-
Romanist, whose religion is chiefly a sense of the
mysterious, the solemn, the awful, and Avhose flesh
creeps when he sees a miracle in the consecration of
the sacraments, ends, as is well known, in infidelity,
when enlightenment and reason have struck the ground
of false reverence from beneath his feet.
It is upon this indisputable basis that the mightiest
system of modern Atheism has been built. The great
founder of that system divides all human history into
three periods. The first, in which the supernatural
is believed in, and a personal Agent is believed in as
the cause of aU phenomena. The second, in which
metaphysical abstractions are assumed as Causes. The
third, the Positive stage, in which nothing is expected
Out the knoAvIedge of sequences by Experience ; the
Absolute, that lies beneath all phenomena, being for
ever unknowable, and a God, if there be a God, un-
discoverable by the intellect of man.
This conclusion is irrefragable. Granted that the
only basis of religion is awe, a worship of the mar
vellous, — then, verily, there remains nothing for the
human race to end in but blank and ghastly Athe
ism. Therefore has the Redeemer's Advent taught a
deeper truth to man. The Apostle Paul spoke almost
slightingly of the marveUous. " Covet earnestly the
best gifts : yet shoAV I unto you a more excellent way.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels,
and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or

THE BARBARIAN. 239
a tinkling cymbal." Love is diviner than all wondrous
poAvers. So, too, the Son of God came into this world de
preciating the merely mysterious. " An evil and adul
terous generation seeketh after a sign. No sign shall
be given to it." — "Except ye see signs and wonders,
ye will not believe." Nay, His OAvn miracles them
selves, so far as the merely wondrous in them was
concerned, He was willing, on one occasion at least,
to place1 on the same level with the real or supposed
ones of Exorcists among themselves. " If I by Beel
zebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast
them out?" It was not the power, nor the super
natural in them, which proved them divine. It was
their peculiar character, — their benevolence, their
goodness, their love, — which manifested Deity.
Herein lies the vast fallacy of the French sceptic.
The worship of the supernatural must legitimately
end in Atheism as science progresses. Yes, all sci
ence removes the Cause of causes further and further
back, from human ken, so that the baffled intellect is
compelled to confess at last we cannot find it. But
" the world by wisdom kneAV not God." There is a
poAv'er in the soul, quite separate from the intellect,
which sweeps away or recognizes the marvellous, by
which God is felt. Faith stands serenely far above
the reach of the Atheism of Science. It does not rest
on the Wonderful, but on the Eternal Wisdom and
Goodness of God. The Revelation of the Son was to
proclaim a Father, not a Mystery. No Science can
SAveep away the Everlasting Love which the heart
feels, and which the intellect does not even pretend to
judge or recognize. And he is safe from the inevita-

240 THIRD 'ADVENT LECTURE.
ble decay which attends the mere barbarian worship
Avho has felt, that as Faith is the strongest power in
the mind of man, so is Love the Divinest principle in
the bosom of God : in other words, who adores God
known in Christ, rather than trembles before the Un
known, whose homage is yielded to Divine Character
rather than Divine Power.

XIV.
[Preached December 15, 1849.]
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
Gal. vi. 7, 8. — " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever
a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh,
shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit,
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
There is a close analogy between the world of
nature and the world of spirit. They bear the im
press of the same hand; and hence the principles of
nature and its laws are the types and shadows of the
Invisible. Just as two books, though on different sub
jects, proceeding from the same pen, manifest indi
cations of the thought of one mind, so the worlds
visible and invisible are two books, written by the
same finger, and governed by the same Idea. Or,
rather, they are but one Book, separated into two
only by the narrow range of our ken. For it is im
possible to study the universe at all without perceiv
ing that it is one system. Begin with what science
you will, as soon as you get beyond the rudiments,.
you are constrained to associate it with another.
You cannot study agriculture long without finding
that it absorbs into itself meteorology and chemistry ;
sciences run into one another till you get the " con-
21 (241)

242 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
nection of the sciences ; " and you begin to learn that
one Divine Idea connects the whole in one system of
perfect Order.
It was upon this principle that Christ taught.
Truths come forth from his lips not stated simply on
authority, but based on the analogy of the universe.
His human mind, in perfect harmony with the Divine
Mind with which it mixed, discerned the connection
of things, and read the Eternal Will in the simplest
laws of Nature. For instance, if it were a question
whether God would give His Spirit to them that
asked, it was not replied to by a truth revealed on
His authority; the ansAver was derived from facts
lying open to all men's observation. "Behold the
fowls of the air," — " behold the lilies of the field," —
learn from them the answer to your question. A
principle was there. God supplies the wants which
He has created. He feeds the ravens ; He clothes
the lilies ; He -will feed with His Spirit the craving
spirits of his children.
It was on this principle of analogy that St. Paul
taught in#this text. He tells us that there is a law
in nature according to which success is proportioned
to the labor spent upon the work. In kind and in
degree.- — Success is attained in kind: for example, he
who has sowed his field with beechmast does not
receive a plantation of oaks ; a literary education is
not the road to distinction in arms, but to success in
letters ; years spent on agriculture do not qualify
a man to be an orator, but they make him a skilful
farmer. Success, again, is proportioned to labor in
degree ; because, ordinarily, as is the amount of seed
sown, so is the harvest : he who studies much wiU

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 213
know more than he who studies little. In almost all
departments it is "the diligent hand which maketh
rich." The keen eye of Paul discerned this principle reach
ing far beyond Avhat is seen, into the spiritual realm
Avhich is unseen. As tare-seed comes up tares, and
Avheat-seed wheat, and as the crop in both cases is in
proportion to two conditions, the labor and the quan
tity committed to the ground, — so in things spiritual,
too, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Not something else, but " that." The proportion holds
in kind ; it holds too in degree, in spiritual things as
in natural. "He which soweth sparingly, shall reap
also sparingly ; and he which soAveth bountifully,
shaU reap also bountifully." If we could understand
and rightly expound that principle, we should be
saved from much of the disappointment and surprise
which come from extravagant and unreasonable expect
ations. I shall try first to elucidate the principle
which these verses contain, and then examine the tAvo
branches of the principle.
I. The principle is this : " God is not mocked : for
whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
There are two kinds of good possible to men —
one enjoyed by our animal being, the other felt and
appreciated by our spirits. Every man understands,
more or less, the difference betAveen these two : be
tween prosperity and well-doing ; betAveen indulgence
and nobleness ; between comfort and inward peace ;
between pleasure and striving after perfection; be
tAveen happiness and blessedness. These are two
rinds of harvest, and the labor necessary for them

244 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
respectively is of very different kinds. The labor
which procures the harvest of the one has no tend
ency to secure the other.
We will not depreciate the advantages of this
world. It is foolish and unreal, to do so. Comfort,
affluence, success, freedom from care, rank, station —
these are- in their way real goods: only, the labor
bestowed upon them does not procure one single
blessing that is spiritual.
On the other hand, the seed which is sown for a
spiritual harvest has no tendency whatever to procure
temporal well-being. Let us see what are the laws of
the sowing and reaping in this department. Christ
has declared them : " Blessed are the pure in heart :
for they shall see God." — " Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall
be filled" (with righteousness). — "Blessed are they
that mourn: for they shall be comforted." You ob
serve — the beatific vision of the Almighty — fulness
of righteousness — comfort. There is nothing earthly
— spiritual results for spiritual labor. It is not said
that the pure in heart shall be made rich ; nor that
they who hunger after goodness shall be filled with
bread ; nor that they who mourn shall rise in life, and
obtain distinction. Each department has its own
appropriate harvest, reserved exclusively to its own
method of sowing.
Everything in this Avorld has its price ; and the
price buys that, not something else. Every harvest
demands its own preparation, and that preparation
will not produce another sort of harvest. Thus, for
example, you cannot have at once the soldier's renown
and the quiet of a recluse's life. The soldier pays his

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 245
price for his glory — sows and reaps. His price is
risk of life and limb, nights spent on the hard ground,
a weather-beaten constitution. If you wiU not pay
that price, you cannot have what he has — military
reputation. You cannot enjoy the- statesman's influ
ence together with freedom from public notoriety. If
you sensitively shrink from that, you must give up
influence ; or else pay his price, — the price of a thorny
pillow, unrest, the chance of being to-day a nation's
idol, to-morrow the people's execration. You cannot
have the store of information possessed by the student,
and enjoy robust health. Pay his price, and you have
his reward. His price is an emaciated frame, a debil
itated constitution, a transparent hand, and the rose
taken out of the "sunken cheek. To have these oppo
site things, — a soldier's glory and quiet, a states
man's renown and peace, the student's prize and rude
health, — would be to mock God, to reap what has not
been sowed.
Now, the mistakes men make, and the extravagant
expectation in which they indulge, are these : • — they
sow for earth, and expect to win spiritual blessings ;
or, they sow to the spirit, and then Avonder that they
have not a harvest of the good things of earth. In
each case they complain, What have I done to be
treated so?
The unreasonableness of all this appears the moment
we have understood the conditions contained in this
principle, " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shaU he also
reap." It is a common thing to hear sentimental wonder-
ings about the unfairness of the distribution of things
here. The unprincipled get on in life ; the saints are
21*

216 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
kept back. -The riches and rewards of life faU to the
lot of the undeserving. The rich man has his good
things, and Lazarus his evfl things. Whereupon it is
taken for granted that there must be a future hfe to
make this fair : that if there were none, the constitu
tion of this world would be unjust. That is, that be
cause a man who has sown to the Spirit does not reap
to the flesh here, he will hereafter : that the meed of
weU-doing must be, somewhere in the universe, the same
kind of recompense which the rewards of the unprin
cipled were here, — comfort, abundance, physical enjoy
ment, — or else aU is wrong.
But, if you look into it, the balance is perfectly
adjusted even here. God has made his world much
better than you and I could make it. Everything reaps
its own harvest, every act has its own reward. And
before you covet the enjoyment which another pos
sesses, you must first calculate the cost at which it was
procured. For instance, — the religious tradesman complains
that his honesty is a hindrance to his success ; that
the tide of custom pours into the doors of his less
scrupulous neighbors in the same street, while he him
self waits for hours idle. My brother! do you think
that God is going to reward honor, integrity, high-
mindedness, with this world's coin? Do you fancy
that He wiU pay spiritual excellence with plenty of
custom ? Now, consider the price that man has paid
for his success. Perhaps mental degradation and
inward dishonor. His advertisements are aU decep
tive ; his treatment of his workmen, tyrannical ; his
cheap prices made possible by inferior articles. Sow
that man's seed, and you will reap that man's harvest.

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 247
Cheat, lie, advertise, be unscrupulous in your asser
tions, — custom wiU come to you. But, if the price is too
dear, let him have his harvest, and take yours. Yours
is a clear conscience, a pure mind, rectitude within
and without. WiU you part with that for his ? Then
why do you complain ? He has paid his price, — you
do not choose to pay it.
Again ; it is not an uncommon thing to see a man
rise from insignificance to sudden wealth by specula
tion. Within the last ten or twenty years, England
has gazed on many such a phenomenon. In this case,
as in spiritual things, the law seems to hold: "He
that hath, to him shaU be given." Tens of thousands
¦soon increase and multiply to hundreds of thousands.
His doors are besieged by the rich and great. Roy
alty banquets at his table, and nobles court his aUi-
ance. Whereupon some simple Christian is inclined
to complain : " How strange that so much prosperity
should be the lot of mere cleverness ! " Well, are
these really God's chief blessings ? Is it for such as
these you serve him? And would these indeed sat
isfy your soul? Would you have God reward His
saintliest with these gauds and gewgaws, — all this
trash, rank, and wealth, and equipages, and plate,
and courtship from the needy great? Call you that
the heaven of the holy ? Compute, now, what was
pxid for that. The price that merchant prince paid,
perhaps with the blood of his own soul, was shame
and guilt. The price he is paying now is perpetual
dread of detection : or, worse still, the hardness which
can laugh at detection : or, one deep lower yet, the
low and grovelling soul which can be satisfied with
these things as a Paradise, and ask no higher. He

248 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
has reaped enjoyment, — yes, and he has sown, too,
the seed of infamy. It is aU fair. Count the cost.
"He that.saveth his life shall lose it." Save your life,
if you fike ; but do not complain if you lose your nobler
life — yourself. Win the whole world ; but remember
you do it by losing your own soul. Every sin must
be paid for ; every sensual indulgence is a harvest, the
price for which is so much ruin for the soul. " God is
not mocked."
Once more : Religious men in every profession are
surprised to find that many of its avenues are closed
to them. The conscientious churchman complains
that his delicate scruples, or his bold truthfulness,
stand in the way of his preferment : while another
man, who conquers his scruples, or softens the eye of
truth, rises, and sits down a mitred peer in Parlia
ment. The honorable lawyer feels that his practice
is limited, while the unprincipled practitioner receives
aU he loses; and the Christian physician feels sore
and sad at perceiving that charlatanism succeeds in
winning employment ; or, if not charlatanism, at least
that affability and courtly manners take the place
that is due to superior knowledge. Let such men
take comfort, and judge fairly. Popularity is one of
the things of an earthly harvest, for which quite earthly
qualifications are required. I say not always dishon
orable qualifications ; but a certain flexibility of dis
position, — a certain courtly wiUingness to sink obnox
ious truths, and adapt ourselves to the prejudices of
the minds of others, — a certain adroitness at catch
ing the tone of those with whom we are. Without
some of these things no man can be popular in any
profession. But you have resolved to be a liver, a

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 249
doer, a champion of the truth. Your ambition is to
be pure in the last recesses of the mind. You have
your reward : — a soul upright and manly ; a fearless
bearing, that dreads to look no man in the face ; a
willingness to let men search you through and through,
and defy them to see any difference between what you
seem and what you are. Now, your price — your
price is dislike. The price of being true is the Cross.
The warrior of the truth must not expect success.
What have you to do with popularity ? Sow for it,
and you wiU have it. But, if you wish for it, or wish
for peace, you have mistaken your calling : you must
not be a teacher of the truth ; you must not cut preju
dice against the grain ; you must leave medical, legal,
theological truth to harder and nobler men, who are
wiUing to take the martyr's cross and win the martyr's
crown. This is the mistake men make. They expect
both harvests, paying only one price. They would be
blessed with goodness and prosperity at once. They
would have that on which they bestowed no labor.
They take sinful pleasure, and think it very hard that
they must pay for it in agony, and, worse than agony,
souls deteriorated. They would monopolize heaven
in their souls, and the world's prizes at the same time.
This is to expect to come back, like Joseph's brethren
from the land of plenty, with the corn in their sacks,
and the money returned, too, in their sacks' mouths.
No, no ; it will not do. " Be not deceived ; God is
not mocked." Reap what you have sown. If you
sow the wind, do not complain if your harvest is the
whirlwind. If you sow to the Spirit, be content with
a spiritual reward — invisible — within — more life and
higher life.

250 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
II. Next, the two branches of the application of
this principle.
First, " He that soweth to his flesh, shaU of the
flesh reap corruption." There are two kinds of life :
one of the flesh — another of the Spirit. Amidst the
animal and selfish desires of our natures there is a
Voice which clearly speaks of Duty, Right, Perfection.
This is the Spirit of Deity in man ; it is the hfe of
God in the soul. This is the evidence of our Divine
parentage. But there is a double temptation to live the other
life instead of this. First, the desires of our animal
nature are keener than those of our spiritual. The
cry of Passion is louder than the calm voice of Duty.
Next, the reward in the case of our sensitive nature is
given sooner. It takes a less time to amass a fortune
than to become heavenly-niinded. It costs less to
indulge an appetite than it does to gain the peace of
lulled passion. And hence, when men feel that, for the
spiritual blessing, the bread must be cast upon the
waters, which shall not be found until after many days
(scepticism whispers, " never ! "), it is quite inteUigible
why they choose the visible and palpable instead of
the invisible advantage, and plan for an immediate
harvest rather than a distant one.
The other life is that of the flesh. The " flesh " in
cludes aU the desires of our unrenewed nature — the
harmless as well as sinful. Any labor, therefore, which
is bounded by present well-being, is sowing to the
flesh, whether it be the gratification of an immediate
impulse, or the long-contrived plan, reaching for
ward over many years. Sowing to the fl-esh includes,
therefore :

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 251
1. Those Avho live in open riot. He sows to the
flesh who pampers its unruly animal appetites. Do
not think that I speak contemptuously of our animal
nature, as if it were not human and sacred. The
loAvest feelings of our nature become sublime by being
made the instruments of our nobler emotions. Love,
self-command, will elevate them all: and to ennoble
and purify, not to crush them, is the long, slow work
of Christian life. Christ, says St. Paul, is the Saviour
of the Body. But if, instead of subduing these to the
life of the spirit, a man gives to them the rein, and
even the spur, the result is not difficult to foresee.
There are men who do this. They " make provision
for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." They whet
the appetites by indulgence. They whip the jaded
senses to their work. Whatever the constitutional
bias may be, — anger, intemperance, epicurism, indo
lence, desire, — there are societies, conversations, scenes,
which supply fuel for the flame, as well as opposite
ones which cut off the nutriment. Now, to indulge in
these, knoAving the result, is to foster the desire which
brings forth the sin that ends in death. This is " sow
ing to the flesh."
If there be one to whom these words 'which I have
used, veiled in the proprieties due to delicate reserve,
are not without meaning, from this -sentence of God's
word let him learn his doom. He is looking forward
to a harvest wherein he may reap the fruit of his
present anticipations. And he shall reap it. He shall
have his indulgence ; he shall enjoy his guilty rapture ;
he shall have his unhalloAved triumph ; and the boon
companions of his pleasures shall award him the meed
of their applause. He has sown the seed; and, in fair

252 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
requital, he shall have his harvest. It is aU fair. He
shaU enjoy. But tarry a while ; the law hath yet an
other hold upon him. This deep law of the whole
universe goes further. He has sown to the flesh, and
of the flesh he has reaped pleasure : he has sown to
the flesh, and of the flesh he shall reap corruption.
That is, in his case, the ruin of the soul. It is an aw
ful thing to see a soul in ruins ; like a temple which
once was fair and noble, but now lies overthrown,
matted with ivy, weeds, and tangled briers, among
which things noisome crawl and live. He shall reap
the harvest of disappointment — the harvest of bitter,
useless remorse. The crime of sense is avenged by
sense, which wears by time. He shaU have the worm
that gnaws, and the fire that is not quenched. He
shall reap the fruit of long-indulged desires, which
have become tyrannous at last, and constitute him his
own tormentor. His harvest is a soul in flames, and
the tongue that no drop can cool. Passions that burn,
and appetites that crave, when the power of enjoyment
is gone. He has sowed to the flesh. " God is not
mocked." The man reaps.
2. There is a less gross way of sowing to the flesh.
There are men of sagacity and judgment in the affairs
of this life, whose penetration is almost intuitive in aU
things where the step in question involves success or
failure here. They are those who are caUed in the
parable the children of this world, wise in their gener
ation. They moralize and speculate about eternity,
but do not plan for it. There is no seed sown for an
invisible harvest. If they think they have sown for
such a harvest, they might test themselves by the
question, what they would lose if there were to be no

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 253
eternity. For the children of God, so far as earth
is concerned, " If in this life only they have hope in
Christ, then are they of all men most miserable."
But they — these sagacious, prudent men of this
world — they have their reward. What have they
ventured, given up, sacrificed, which is all lost for
ever, if this world be all ? What have they buried
like seed in the ground, lost forever, if there be no
eternity ?
Now, we do not say these men are absolutely
wicked. We distinguish between their sowing to
the flesh and the sowing of these profligates last
spoken of. All we say is, there is " corruption "
written on their harvest. It was for earth ; and with
earth it perishes. It may be the labor of the states
man, planning, like the Roman of old, the government
and o*der of the kingdoms of the earth; or that of
the astronomer, weighing suns, prescribing rules of
return to comets, and dealing with things above earth
in space, but unspiritual still ; or that of the son of a
humbler laboriousness, whose work is merely to pro
vide for a family ; or, lastly, the narrower range of
the man of pleasure, whose chief care is where he
shall spend the next season, — in what metropolis, or
which watering-place, or how best enjoy the next
entertainment. Objects more or less harmless all.
But they end. The pyramid crumbles into dust, at
last. The mighty empire of the eternal city breaks
into fragments which disappear. The sowers for earth
have their harvest here : success in their schemes — -
quiet intellectual enjoyment — exemption from pain
and loss — the fruits of worldly-wise sagacity. And
that is all. " When the breath goes forth, they return
22

254 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
to their dust, and all their thoughts perish." The
grave is not to them the gate of paradise, but simply
• the impressive mockery which the hand of death
writes upon that body for which they lived, and with
which all is gone. They reap corruptio'n, for all they
have toiled for decays.
Ye that lead the life of respectable worldhness 1
let these considerations arrest your indifference to
the Gospel. You have sown for "earth. — Well. And
then — what ? Hear the Gospel. A Saviour whose
Sacrifice is the world's life, whose death is the law
of life, from whose resurrection streams a Spirit
which can change carnal into spiritual men, — whose
whole existence, reflecting God, was the utterance of
the Divine truth and rule of heavenly life, the blessed
ness of giving, — to live so, and to believe so, is to
sow to the Spirit.
Lastly : — Sowing to the Spirit. " He that soweth
to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."
What is meant by sowing to the Spirit here is
plain. " Let us not be weary in well-doing," says
the apostie directly after : " for in due season we
shall reap if we faint not." Welldoing : not faith,
but works of goodness, were the sowing that he
spoke of.
There is proclaimed here the rewardableness of
works. So in many other passages : " Abounding
in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that
your labor is not in vain in the Lord." — " Laying up
a good foundation for the time to come," was the
reason alleged for charging rich men to be willing to
give — and so all through. There is an irreversible
principle. The amount of harvest is proportioned to

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 255
the seed sown exactly. There are degrees of glory.
The man who gives out of his abundance has one bless
ing. She who gives the mite, all she had, even all her
living, has another, quite different. The rectitude of
this principle, and what it is, will be plainer from the
following considerations.
1. The harvest is Life Eternal. But Eternal Life
here does not simply mean a life that lasts forever.
That is the destiny of the Soul: all souls, bad as
well as good. But the bad do not enter into this
" Eternal Life." It is not simply the duration, but
the quality of the life, which constitutes its character
of Eternal. A spirit may live forever, yet not enter
into this. And a man may live but for five minutes
the life of Divine benevolence, or desire for perfect-
ness: in those five minutes he has entered into the
life which is Eternal, never fluctuates, but is the same
unalterably forever, in the Life of God. This is the
Reward. 2. The reward is not arbitrary, but natural. God's
rewards and God's punishments are all natural. Dis
tinguish between arbitrary and natural. Death is
an arbitrary punishment for forgery: it might be
changed for transportation. It is not naturally con
nected. It depends upon the will of the laAv-maker.
But trembling nerves are the direct and the natural
results of intemperance. They are, in the order of
nature, the results of wrong-doing. The man reaps
what he has sown. Similarly in rewards. If God
gave riches in return for humbleness, that would
be an arbitrary connection. He did give such a
reward to Solomon. But when He gives Life Eternal,
meaning by Life Eternal, not duration of existence,

256 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST.
but heavenly quality of existence, as explained already,
it is all natural. The seed sown in the ground con
tains in itself the future harvest. The harvest is
but the development of the germ of life in the seed.
A holy act strengthens the inward holiness. It is a
seed of life growing into more life. " Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he reap." He that sows
much thereby becomes more conformed to God
than he was before, in heart and spirit. That is
his reAvard and harvest. And just as among the
apostles there Avas one whose spirit, attuned to love,
made him emphatically the disciple whom Jesus
loved, so shall there be some who, by previous dis
cipline of the Holy Ghost, shaU have more of His
mind, and understand more of His love, and drink
deeper of His joy, than others — they that have sowed
bountifully. Every act done in Christ receives its exact and
appropriate reward. They that are meek shall inherit
the earth. They that are pure shall see God. They
that suffer shaU reign with Him. They that turn
many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever.
They that receive a righteous man in the name of a
righteous man — that is, because he is a righteous
man — shall receive a righteous man's reward. Even
the cup of cold water, given in the name of Christ,
shall not lose its reward.
It will be, therefore, seen at once, Reward is not
the result of merit. It is, in the order of grace, the
natural consequence of well-doing. It is life be
coming more life. It is the soul developing itself. It
is the Holy Spirit of God in man, making itself more
felt, and mingling more and more with his soul, — felt

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HARVEST. 257
more consciously, with an ever-increasing heaven.
You reap what you sow ; — not something else, bwt
that. An act of love makes the soul more loving.
A deed of humbleness deepens humbleness. The
thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a
hundred-fold. You have sown a seed of life — you
reap life. 22*

XV.
(Preached December 31, 1849.)
THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
John xvi. 81. 32. — "Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold,
the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every
man to his own, and shall leave me alone : and yet I am not alone,
because the Father is with me."
There are two kinds of solitude : the first consist
ing of insulation in space ; the other, of isolation of
the spirit. The first is simply separation by distance.
When we are seen, touched, heard by none, we are
said to be alone. And aU hearts respond to the truth
of that saymg, This is not solitude ; for sympathy can
people our solitude with a crowd. The fisherman on
the ocean alone at night is not alone, when he remem
bers the earnest longings which are arising up to
heaven at home for his safety. The traveller is not
alone, when the faces which will greet him on his
arrival seem to beam upon him as he trudges on. The
solitary student is not alone, when he feels that human
hearts will respond to the truths which he is preparing
to address to them.
The other is loneliness of soul. There are times
when hands touch ours, but only send an icy chill of
(258)

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 259
unsympathizing indifference to the heart ; when eyes
gaze into ours, but Avith a glazed look which cannot
read into the bottom of our souls ; when words pass
from our lips, but only come back as an echo rever
berated without reply through a dreary solitude ; when
the multitude throng and press us, and we cannot say,
as Christ said, " Somebody hath touched me : " for the
contact has been not between soul and soul, but only
between form and form.
And there are two kinds of men, who feel this
last solitude in different ways. The first are the
men of self-reliance, — self-dependent: who ask no
counsel, and crave no sympathy ; who act and resolve
alone, — who can go sternly through duty, and
scarcely shrink, let what will be crushed in them.
Such men command respect: for whoever respects
himself constrains the respect of others. They are
invaluable in all those professions of life in which sen
sitive feeling would be a superfluity : they make iron
commanders, surgeons who do not shrink, and states
men who do not flinch from their purpose for the dread
of unpopularity. But mere self-dependence is weak
ness ; and the conflict is terrible when a human sense
of Aveakness is felt by such men. Jacob was alone
when he slept in his way to Padan Aram, the first
night that he was aAvay from his father's roof, with the
world before' him, and all the old broken up ; and
Elijah was alone in the wilderness when the court had
deserted him, and he said, " They have digged down
thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword :
and I, even I, only am left, and they seek my life to
take it away." But the loneliness of the tender Jacob
Was very different from that of the stern Elijah. To

260 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
Jacob the sympathy he yearned for was realized
in the form of a gentle dream. A ladder raised from
earth to heaven figured the possibility of commun
ion between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.
In Elijah's case, the storm, and the earthquake, and
the fire, did their convulsing work in the soul, before
a still, small voice told him that he was not alone.
In such a spirit the sense of weakness comes with
a burst of agony, and the dreadful conviction of
being alone manifests itself with a rending of the
heart of rock. It is only so that such souls can be
taught that the Father is with them, and that they are
not alone.
There is another class of men, Avho live in sympa
thy. These are affectionate minds, Avhich tremble at
the thought of being alone : not from Avant of cour
age nor from weakness of intellect comes their de
pendence upon others, but from the intensity of their
affections. It is the trembling spirit of humanity in
them. They Avant not aid, nor even countenance,
but only sympathy. And the trial comes to them not
in the shape of fierce struggle, but of chill and utter
loneliness, when they are called upon to perform a
duty on Avhich the world looks coldly, or to embrace
a truth which has not found lodgment yet in the breasts
of others.
It is to this latter and not to the former class that
we must look, if we would understand the spirit in
which the words of the text were pronounced. The
deep Humanity of the Soul of Christ was gifted with
those finer sensibilities of affectionate nature which
stand in need of sympathy. He not only gave sympa
thy, but wanted it, too, from others. * He Avho selected

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 261
the gentle John to be his friend, — who found solace
in female sympathy, attended by the women who min
istered to Him out of their substance, — who in the
Trial hour could not bear even to pray Avithout the
human presence, which is the pledge and reminder of
God's presence, had nothing in Him of the hard,
merely self-dependent character. Even this verse tes
tifies to the same fact. A stern spirit never could have
said, "I am not alone : the Father is with me ;" never
would have felt the loneliness which needed the bal
ancing truth. These words tell of a struggle, an
imvard reasoning, a difficulty and a reply, a sense
of solitude, — "I shall be alone;" and an immediate
correction of that : " Not alone : the Father is with
Me." There is no thought connected with the Life of
Christ more touching, none that seems so peculiarly
to characterize His Spirit, as the solitariness in which
he lived. Those who understood Him best only under
stood him half. Those who knew Him best scarcely
could be said to know Him. On this occasion the
disciples thought, Now we do understand, now we do
believe. The lonely Spirit answered, " Do ye now
believe ? Behold the hour cometh that ye shall be
scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me
alone." Very impressive is that trait in His history. He
was in this world alone.
I. First, then, we meditate on the loneliness of'
Christ. II. On the temper of His solitude.

262 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
1. The loneliness of Christ Avas caused by the
Divine elevation of His character. His infinite supe
riority severed Him from sympathy ; His exquisite
affectionateness made that want of sympathy a keen
trial. There is a second-rate . greatness which the world
can comprehend. If we take two who are brought
into direct contrast by Christ Himself, the one the
type of human, the other that of Divine excellence,
the Son of Man and John the Baptist, this becomes
clearly manifest. John's life had a certain rude, rug
ged goodness, on which was written, in characters
which required no magnifying-glass to read, spiritual
excellence. The Avorld, on the whole, accepted him.
Pharisees and Sadducees went to his baptism. The
people idolized him as a prophet ; and, if he had not
chanced to cross the path of a weak prince and a
revengeful woman, we can see no reason why John
might not have finished his course with joy, recog
nized as irreproachable. If we inquire why it was
that the world accepted John and rejected Christ, one
reply appeals to be, that the life of the one was finitely
simple and one-sided, that of the Other divinely com
plex. In physical nature, the naturalist finds no diffi
culty in comprehending the simple structure of the
lowest organizations of animal life, Avhere one uniform
texture, and one organ performing the office of brain
and heart and lungs, at once, leave little to perplex.
But when he comes to study the complex anatomy of
man, he has the labor of a lifetime before him. It is
not difficult to master the constitution of a single
country; but when you try to understand the universe,

THE LONELINESS OF CUEIST. 263
you find infinite appearances of contradiction : law
opposed by law ; motion balanced by motion ; happi
ness blended with misery ; and the power to elicit a
divine order and unity out of this complex variety is
given to only a few of the gifted of the race. That
which the structure of man is to the structure of the
limpet, that which the universe is to a single country,
the complex and boundless soul of Christ was to the
souls of other men. Therefore, to the superficial
observer, His life was a mass of inconsistencies and
contradictions. AU thought themselves qualified to
point out the discrepancies. The Pharisees could not
comprehend how a holy Teacher could eat with publi
cans and sinners. His own brethren could not recon
cile His assumption of a public office with the privacy
which He aimed at keeping. " If thou doest these
things, show thyself to the world." Some thought He
was "a good man;" others 'said, "Nay, but He deceiAr-
eth the people." And hence it Avas that He lived to
see all that acceptance which had marked the earlier
stage of His career — as, for instance, at Capernaum — •
melt away. First, the Pharisees took the alarm ; then
the Sadducees ; then the political party of the Hero-
dians ; then the people. That was the most terrible
of all: for the enmity of the upper classes is impotent;
but when that cry of brute force is stirred from the
deeps of society, as deaf to the voice of reason as the
ocean in its strength churned into raving foam by the
winds, the heart of mere earthly oak quails before that.
The apostles, at all events, did quail. One denied ;
another betrayed ; all deserted. They " were scat
tered, each to his own : " and the Truth Himself was
left alone in Pilate's judgment-hall.

264 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
Now learn from this a very important distinction.
To feel solitary is no uncommon thing. To complain of
being alone, without sympathy, and misunderstood, is
general enough. In every place, in many a family,
these victims of diseased sensibility are to be found,
and they might find a weakening satisfaction in observ
ing a parallel between their own feelings and those of
Jesus. But before that parallel is assumed, be very
sure that it is, as in His case, the elevation of your
character Avhich severs you from your species. The
world has small sympathy for Divine goodness ; but it
also has little for a great many other qualities which
are disagreeable to it. You meet with no response ;
you are passed by; find yourself unpopular; meet with
little communion. Well ! Is that because you are
above the world, — nobler, devising and executing
grand plans, which they cannot comprehend; vindicat
ing the wronged; proclaiming and living on great prin
ciples ; offending it by the saintliness of your purity,
and the unworldhness of your aspirations? Then yours
is the loneliness of Christ. Or is it that you are
wrapped up in self,- — cold, disobliging, sentimental,
indifferent about the welfare of others, and very much
astonished that they are not deeply interested in you?
You must not use these words of Christ. They have
nothing to do with you.
Let us look at one or two of the occasions on which
this loneliness was felt.
The first time was when He was but twelve years
old, when His parents found Him in the temple, hear
ing the Doctors and asking them questions. High
thoughts were in the Child's soul : expanding views of
life ; larger views of duty, and His own destiny.

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 265
There is a moment in every true life — to some it
comes very early — when the old routine of duty is
not large enough ; when the parental roof seems too
low, because the Infinite aboA'e is arching over the
soul; when the old formulas, in creeds, catechisms,
and articles, seem to be narrow, and they must either
be thrown aside, or else transformed into living and
breathing realities; when the earthly father's author
ity is being superseded by the claims of a Father in
heaven. That is a lonely, lonely moment, when the young
soul first feels God — when this earth is recognized
as an " awful place, yea, the A^ery gate of heaven ; "
when the dream-ladder is seen planted against the
skies, and we wake, and the dream haunts us as a sub
lime reality.
You may detect the approach of that moment in the
young man or the young woman by the awakened
spirit of inquiry; by a certain restlessness of look,
and an eager earnestness of tone ; by the devouring
study of all kinds of books; by the waning of your
own influence, while the inquirer is asking the truth
of the Doctors and Teachers in the vast Temple of the
world ; by a certain opinionativeness, which is austere
and disagreeable enough ; but the austerest moment
of the fruit's taste is that in which it is passing from
greenness into ripeness. If you wait in patience, the
sour will become sweet. Rightly looked at, that opin
ionativeness is more truly anguish ; the fearful solitude
of feeling the insecurity of all that is human ; the dis
covery that life is real, and forms of social and reli
gious existence hollow. The old moorings are torn
away, and the soul is drifting, drifting, drifting, very
23

266 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
often without compass, except the guidance of an un
seen hand, into the vast infinite of God. Then come
the lonely words, and no wonder, " How is it that ye
sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my
Father's business ? "
2. That solitude was felt by Christ in trial. In the
desert, in Pilate's judgment-haU, in the garden, He
was alone ; and alone must every son of man meet
his trial-hour. The individuality of the soul necessi
tates that. Each man is a new soul in this world:
untried, with a boundless Possible before him. No
one can predict what he may become, prescribe his
duties, or mark out his obligations. Each man's own
nature has its own peculiar rules ; and he must take
up his life-plan alone, and persevere in it in a perfect
privacy with which no stranger intermeddleth. Each
man's temptations are made up of a host of peculiari
ties, internal and external, which no other mind can
measure. You are tried alone ; alone you pass into
the desert ; alone you must bear and conquer in the
Agony; alone you must be sifted by the world. There
are moments known only to a man's OAvn self, when
he sits by the poisoned springs of existence, " yearn
ing for a morrow which shall free him from the strife."
And there are trials more terrible than that. Not
when vicious inclinations are opposed to holy, but
when virtue conflicts with virtue, is the real rending
of the soul in twain. A temptation, in which the
lower nature struggles for mastery, can be met by the
whole united force of the spirit. But it is Avhen obedi
ence to a heavenly Father can be only paid by disobe
dience to an earthly one; or fidelity to duty can be
only kept by infidelity to some entangling engage

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 267
ment; or the straight path must be taken over the
misery of others; or the counsel of the affectionate
friend must be met with a " Get thee behind me,
Satan : " — 0 ! it is then, when human advice is una
vailable, that the soul feels what it is to be alone.
Once more: — the Redeemer's soul was alone in
dying. The hour had come, — they were all gone,
and He was, as He predicted, left alone. AU that is
human drops from us in that hour. Human faces flit
and fade, and the sounds of the world become con
fused. " I shall die alone," — yes, and alone you live.
The philosopher tells us that no atom in creation
touches another atom, — they only approach within a
certain distance ; then the attraction ceases, and an
invisible something repels, — they only seem to touch.
No soul touches another soul except at one or two
points, and those chiefly external, — a fearful and a
lonely thought, but one of the truest of life. Death
only realizes that which has been fact all along. In
the central deeps of our being we are alone.
II. The spirit or temper of that solitude.
1. Observe its grandeur. I am alone, yet not alone.
There is a feeble and sentimental way in which Ave
speak of the Man of sorroAvs. We turn to the Cross,
and the Agony, and the Loneliness, to touch the softer
feelings — to arouse compassion. You degrade that
lonehness by your compassion. Compassion ! com
passion for Him! Adore if you will, — respect and
reverence that sublime solitariness with which none
but the Father was, — but no pity ; let it draw out the
firmer and manlier graces of the soul. Even tender
sympathy seems out of place.

268 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
For even in human things, the strength that is in a
man can be only learnt when he is thrown upon his
own resources and left alone. What a man can do in
conjunction with others does not test the man. Tell
us what he can do alone. It is one thing to defend
the truth when you know that your audience are
already prepossessed, and that every argument will
meet a willing response ; and it is another thing to
hold the truth when truth must be supported, if at aU,
alone, — met by cold looks and unsympathizing sus
picion. It is one thing to rush on to danger with the
shouts and the sympathy of numbers ; it is another
thing when the lonely chieftain of the sinking ship
sees the last boat-fuU disengage itself, and folds his arms
to go down into the majesty of darkness, crushed, but
not subdued.
Such and greater far was the strength and majesty
of the Saviour's solitariness. It was not the trial of
the lonely hermit. There is a certain gentle and pleas
ing melancholy in the life Avhich is lived alone. But
there are the forms of nature to speak to him ; and he
has not ttje positive opposition of mankind, if he has
the absence of actual sympathy. It is a solemn thing,
doubtless, to be apart from men, and to feel eternity
rushing by like an arrowy river. But the solitude of
Christ was the solitude of a crowd. In that single
Human bosom dwelt the Thought which was to be the
germ of the world's life — a thought unshared, misun
derstood, or rejected. Can you not feel the grandeur
of those words, when the Man, reposing on His soli
tary strength, felt the last shadow of perfect isolation
pass across His soul : — " My God, any God, why hast
Thou forsaken me ? "

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 269
Next, learn from these Avords self-reliance. " Ye
shall leave me alone." Alone, then, the Son of Man
was content to be. He threw Himself on His own
solitary thought : did not go down to meet the world ;
but waited, though it might be for ages, till the world
should come round to Him. He appealed to the Fu
ture, did not aim at seeming consistent, left His con
tradictions unexplained: — I came from the Father,- —
I leave the world, and go to the Father. " Now,"
said they, " thou speakest no proverb : " that is, enigma.
But many a hard and enigmatical saying before He
had spoken, and He left them all. A thread runs
through all true acts, stringing them together into one
harmonious chain : but it is not for the Son of God to
be anxious to prove their consistency with each other.
This is self-reliance — to repose calmly on the thought
which is deepest in our bosoms, and be unmoved if
the world will not accept it yet. To live on your oAvn
convictions against the world, is to overcome the
Avorld — to believe that what is truest in you is true
for all : to abide by that, and not be over-anxious to
be heard or understood, or sympathized with, certain
that at last all must acknowledge the same, and that,
Avhile you stand firm, the world will come round to
you — that is independence. It is not difficult to get
away into retirement, and there live upon your own
convictions ; nor is it difficult to mix with men, and
follow their convictions ; but to enter into the world,
and there live out firmly and fearlessly according to
your OAvn conscience — that is Christian greatness.
There is a cowardice in this age which is not Chris
tian. We shrink from the consequences of truth.
We look round and cling dependency. We ask what
23*

270 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
men will think ; what others will say ; whether they
will not stare in astonishment. Perhaps they will;
but he who is calculating that wiU accomplish nothing
in this hfe. The Father — the Father which is with
us and in us — what does He think ? God's work can
not be done without a spirit of independence. A man
is got some way in the Christian life when he has
learned to say humbly, and yet majestically, " I dare to
be alone."
Lastly, remark the humility of this loneliness. Had
the Son of Man simply said, I can be alone, He would
have said no more than any proud, self-relying man
can say; but. when He added, "because the Father is
with me," that independence assumed another char
acter, and self-reliance became only another form
of reliance upon God. Distinguish between genuine
and spurious humility. There is a false humility which
says, " It is my own poor thought, and I must not trust
it. I must distrust my own reason and judgment, be
cause they are my own. I must not accept the dic
tates of my own conscience ; for is it not my own, and
is not trust in self the great fault of our fallen nature?"
Very well. Now, remember something else. There
is a Spirit which beareth witness with our spirits;
there is a God who " is not far from any one of us ; "
there is a " Light which lighteth every man which
cometh into the world." Do not be unnaturally hum
ble. The thought of your own mind perchance is the
Thought of God. To refuse to foUow that may be to
disown God. To take the judgment and conscience
of other men to live by, where is the humility of that?
From whence did their conscience and judgment come?
Was the fountain from which they drew exhausted for

THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 271
you? If they refused like you to rely on their own
conscience, and you rely upon it, how are you sure
that it is more the Mind of God than your OAvn which
you have refused to hear ?
Look at it in another way. The charm of the words
of great men — those grand sayings which are recog
nized as true as soon as heard — is this, that ycu
recognize them as wisdom which passed across your
own mind. You feel that they are your own thoughts
come back to you, else you would not at once admit
them : " AU that floated across me before, only I could
not say it, and did not feel confident enough to assert
it, or had not conviction enough to put into words."
Yes, God spoke to you what He did to them: only
they believed it, said it, trusted the Word within them,
and you did not. Be sure that often when you say,
" It is only my own poor thought, and I am alone,"
the real correcting thought is this, " Alone, but the
Father is with me," — therefore I can live by that
lonely conviction.
There is no danger in this, whatever timid minds
may think — no danger of mistake, if the character be
a true one. For we are not in uncertainty in this
matter. It has been given us to know our base from
our noble hours: to distinguish between the voice
which is from above, and that which speaks from be
low, out of the abyss of our animal and selfish nature.
Samuel could distinguish between the impulse — quite
a human one — which would have made him select
Eliab out of Jesse's sons, and the deeper judgment by
which " the Lord said, Look not on his countenance,
nor on the height of his stature, for I have refused
him." Doubtless deep truth of character is required

2(2 THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST.
for this : for the whispering voices get mixed together,
and we dare not abide by our own thoughts, because
we think them our own, and not God's : and this be
cause we only now and then endeavor 'to knoAV in
earnest. It is only given to the habitually true to,
know the difference. He kneAv it, because aU His
blessed hfe long He could say, " My judgment is just,
because I seek not my own wiU, but the will of Him
which sent me."
The practical result and inference of all this is a
very simple, but a very deep one : the deepest of exist
ence. Let life be a life of faith. Do not go timorously
about, inquiring what others think, and what others
believe, and what others say. It seems the easiest, it
is the most difficult thing in life to do this — believe in
God. God is. near you. Throw yourself fearlessly
upon Him. Trembling mortal, there is an unknoAvn
might within your soul, which will wake when you
command it. The day may come when aU that is hu
man — man and woman — wiU fall off from you, as they
did from Him. Let His strength be yours. Be inde
pendent of them all now. The Father is with you.
Look to Him, ana He will save you.

XVI.
[Preached Octobor 20, 1850.]
THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER.
John xiii. 34. — "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love
one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."
These words derive impressiveness from having
been spoken immediately before the last Supper, and
on the eve of the great Sacrifice : the commandment
of Love issued appropriately at the time of the Feast
of Love, and not long before the great Act of Love.
For the love of Christ was no fine saying : it cost
Him His life to say these words Avith meaning, " As I
have loved you."
There is a difficulty in the attempt to grasp the
meaning of this command, arising from the fact that
words change their meaning. Our Lord affixed a new
significance to the Avord Love. It had been in use,
of course, before, but the new sense in which He used
it made it a new word.
His law is not adequately represented by the word
Love ; because love is, by conventional usage, appro
priated to one species of human affection, which, in
the commoner men, is the most selfish of all our feel
ings ; in the best, too exclusive and indiAridual to rep
resent that charity which is universal. (273)

274 THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF
Nor is charity a perfect symbol of his meaning;
for charity by use is identified with another form of
love, which is but a portion of it, — almsgiving ,
and too saturated with that meaning to be entirely
disengaged from it, even when we use it most accu
rately. Benevolence or philanthropy, in derivation, come
nearer to the idea : but yet you feel at once that these
words fall short; they are too tame and cool; too
merely passive, as states of feeling rather than forms
of life.
We have no sufficient word. There is, therefore,
no help for it, but patiently to strive to master the
meaning of this mighty word Love, in the only light
that is left us, the light of the Saviour's life : "As I
have loved you ; " that alone expounds it.
We will dispossess our minds of all preconceived
notions ; remove all low associations, all partial and
conventional ones. If Ave would understand this law,
it must be ever a " new " commandment, ever receiv
ing fresh light and meaning from His life.
Take, I. The novelty of the law — " That ye love
one another."
II. The spirit or measure of it — " As I have loved
you." I. Its novelty. A " new commandment : " yet that
law was old. See 1 John ii. 7, 8.
1. It was new as a historical fact.- We talk of the
apostolic mission as a matter of course ; we say that
the apostles were ordered to go and plant churches,
and so we dismiss the great fact. But we forget
that the command was rather the result of a spirit

LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. 275
working from within, than of an injunction working
from without. That spirit was Love.
And when that new spirit was in the world, see hoAV
straightway it created a new thing. Men before that
had travelled into foreign countries: the naturalist,
to collect specimens ; the historian, to accumulate
facts ; the philosopher, to hive up wisdom, or else he
had stayed in his cell or grove to paint pictures of
beautiful love. But the spectacle of an Apostle Paul
crossing oceans, not to conquer kingdoms, nor to hive
up knowledge, but to impart life, — not to accumulate
stores for self, but to give, and to spend himself, —
was new in the history of the world. The celestial
fire had touched the hearts of men, and their hearts
flamed ; and it caught, and spread, and Avould not stop.
On they went, that glorious band of brothers, in their
strange enterprise, over oceans, and through forests,
penetrating into the dungeon, and to the throne ; to
the hut of the savage feeding on human flesh, and to
the shore lined with the skin-clad inhabitants of these
far Isles of Britain. Read the account given by Ter-
tullian of the marvellous rapidity with which the
Christians increased and swarmed, and you are re
minded of one of those vast armies of ants Avhich
move across a country in irresistible myriads, drowned
by thousands in rivers, cut off by fire, consumed by
man and beast, and yet fresh hordes succeeding inter
minably to supply their place.
A new voice was heard ; a new yearning upon
earth ; man pining at being severed from his brother,
^nd longing to burst the false distinctions which had
kept the best hearts from each other so long; an
infant cry of life - - the cry of the young Church of

276 THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF
God. And all this from Judea — the narroAvest, most
bigoted, most intolerant nation on the face of the
earth. Now, I say that this was historically a neAv thing.
2. It was new in extent. It was, in literal words,
an old commandment, given before both to Jew and
Gentile. To the Jew ; as, for instance, in Lev. xix. 18.
To the Gentile, in the recognition which was so often
made of the beauty of the law in its partial application,
as in the case of friendship, patriotism, domestic
attachment, and so on.
But the difference lay in the extent in which these
words " one another " were understood. By them, or
rather by " neighbor," the Jew meant his countryman ;
and narrowed that down again to his friends among
his countrymen; so that the well-known Rabbinical
gloss upon these Avords, current in the days of Christ,
was, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine
enemy." And what the Gentile understood by the
extent of the law of love, we may learn from the well-
known words of their best and Avisest, who thanked
heaven that he»was born a man, and not a brute ; a
Greek, and not a barbarian ; as if to be a barbarian
were identical with being a brute.
Now, listen to Christ's exposition of the word
neighbor. " Ye have heard that it was said, Thou
shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But
I say unto you, Love your enemies." And He went
further. As a specimen of a neighbor he specially
selected one of that nation whom, as a theologian
and a patriot, every Jew had been taught to hate.
And just as the application of electricity to the
innumerable wants of human life, and to new ends,

LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. 277
is reckoned a new discovery and invention of modern
times (though the fact has been familiar for ages to
the Indian child in the forest of the far west, and
applied by him for ages to his childish sports), so the
extension of this grand principle of love to all the
possible cases of life, and to all possible persons, — ¦
even though the principle was known and applied long
before, in love to friends, country, and relations, — is
truly and properly a new commandment — a discov
ery, a gospel, a revelation.
3. It is new in being made the central principle of
a system. Never had obedience before been trusted
to a principle : it had always been hedged round by
a law. The religion of Christ is not a law, but a
spirit, — not a creed, but a life. To the one motive
of love God has intrusted the whole work of win
ning the souls of His redeemed. The heart of man
was made for love ; pants and pines for it : — only in
the love of Christ, and not in restrictions, can his
soul expand. Now, it was reserved for One to pierce,
with the glance of intuition, down into the springs of
human action, and to proclaim the simplicity of its
machinery. " Love," said the apostle after Him, —
" Love is the fulfilling of the law."
We are told that in the neAv commandment the old
perishes ; that, under the law of love, man is free
from the law of Avorks. Let us see how.
Take any commandment, — for example, the sixth,
the seventh, the eighth. I may abstain from murder
and theft, deterred by law ; because law has annexed
to them certain penalties. But I may also rise into
the spirit of Charity; then I am free from the law.
The law was not made for a righteous man ; the law
24

278 THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF
no more binds or restrains me, now that I love my
neighbor, than the dike built to keep in the sea at
high tide restrains it when that sea has sunk to low-
water mark.
Or the seventh. You may keep that law from
dread of discovery, — or you may learn a higher
Love : and then you cannot injure a human soul — you
cannot degrade a human spirit. Charity has made the
old commandment superfluous. In the strong lan
guage of St. John, you cannot sin, because you are
born of God.
It was the proclamation of this, the great living
principle of human obedience, not with the pedantry
of a philosopher, nor the exaggeration of an orator,
but in the simple reality of life, which made this com
mandment of Christ a new commandment.
II. The spirit or measure of the law, — " as I have
loved you."
Broadly, the love of Christ was the spirit of giving
all he had to give. " Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."
Christ's love was not a sentiment; it was a self-giv
ing. To that His adversaries bore testimony : — " He
saved others; Himself He cannot save." Often as we
have read these words, did it evej strike us, — and, if
not, does it not bring a flash of surprise when we per
ceive it, — that these words, meant as taunt, were really
the noblest panegyric, a higher testimony and more
adequate far than even that of the centurion ? " He
saved others; Himself He cannot save." The first
clause contained the answer to the second — "Him
self He cannot save ! " How could He, having saved

LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. 279
others? Hoav can any keep what he gives? Hoav
can any live for self, when he is living for others?
Unconsciously, those enemies were enunciating the
very principle of Christianity, the grand law of all
existence, that only by losing self you can save others ;
that only by giving life you can bless. Love gives
itself. The mother spends herself in giving life to
her child ; the soldier, for his country ; nay, even the
artist produces nothing destined for immortality, noth
ing that will live, except so far as he has forgotten
himself, and merged his very being in his work.
" He saved others ; Himself He cannot save." That
was the love of Christ. Now, to descend to partic
ulars. That spirit of self-giving manifests itself in the
shape of considerate kindliness. Take three cases : —
First, that in which He fed the people with bread.
" I have compassion on the multitude, because they
continue with me now three days, and have nothing
to eat." There was a tenderness which, not absorbed
in His own great designs, considered a number of
small particulars of their state — imagined, provided;
and this for the satisfaction of the lowest Avants.
Again, to the disciples : " Come ye yourselves apart
into a desert place, and rest a while." He would not
over-work them in the sublimest service. He did not
grudge from duty their interval of relaxation; He
even tenderly enforced it. Lastly, His dying words :
" Behold thy mother ! Woman, behold thy son ! "
Short sentences. He was too exhausted to say more.
But in that hour of death-torture He could think of
her desolate state Avhen He was gone, and, with deli
cate, thoughtful attention, provide for her well-being.

280 THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF
There are people Avho would do great acts; but,
because they wait for great opportunities, hfe passes,
and the acts of love are not done at aU. Observe,
this considerateness of Christ was shown in little
things. And such are the parts of human life. Op
portunities for doing greatly seldom occur — life is
made up of infinitesimals. If you compute the sum
of happiness in any given day, you will find that it was
composed of small attentions, — kind looks, which
made the heart SAvell, and stirred into health that sour,
rancid film of misanthropy, Avhich is apt to coagulate
on the stream of our inward life, as surely as we live
in heart apart from our fellow-creatures. Doubtless,
the memory of each one of us will furnish him with
the picture of some member of a family whose very
presence seemed to shed happiness : — a daughter,
perhaps, whose light step even in the distance irra
diated every one's countenance. What was the secret
of such a one's power? What had she done ? Abso
lutely nothing ; but radiant smiles, beaming good
humor, the tact of divining what every one felt and
every one jvanted, told that she had got out of self,
and learned to think for others ; so that at one time it
showed itself in deprecating the quarrel, which lower
ing brows and raised tones already showed to be
impending, by sAveet words ; at another, by smoothing
an invalid's pillow ; at another, by soothing a sobbing
child ; at another, by humoring and softening a father
who had returned weary and ill-tempered from the
irritating cares of business. None but she saAv those
things. None but a loving heart could see them.
That was the secret of her heaA'enly poAver. Call
you those things homely trifles, — too homely for a

LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. 281
sermon ? By reference to the character of Christ, they
rise into something quite sublime. For that is loving
as He loved. And remark, too, these trifles prepare
for larger deeds. The one who wiU be found in trial
capable of great acts of love, is ever the one who is
always doing considerate small ones. The soul which
poured itself out to death upon the cross for the human
race, was the spirit of Him who thought of the wants
of the people, contrived for the rest of the disciples,
and was thoughtful for a mother.
Once again : — It was a love never foiled by the
unworthiness of those on whom it had been once
bestowed. It was a love which faults, desertion, denial,
unfaithfulness, could not chiU, even though they wrung
His heart. He had chosen ; and He trusted. Even in
ordinary manhood, that is a finely-tempered heart, one
of no ordinary mould, which can say, " It ever was my
way, and shaU be still, when I do trust a man to trust
him wholly." And yet there was everything to shake
His trust in humanity. The Pharisees called him Good
Master, and were circumventing him all the while.
The people shouted hosannas, and three days after
wards were shrieking for his blood. One disciple who
had dipped in the same dish, and been trusted with His
inmost counsels, betrayed and deceived Him; another
Avas ashamed of Him ; three fell asleep while He was
preparing for death, — all forsook Him. Yet nothing
is more surprising than that unshaken, I had well-nigh
said obstinate, trust with which He clung to His hopes
of our nature, and believed in the face of demonstra
tion. As Ave mix in life, there comes, especially to sensi
tive natures, a temptation to distrust. In young life,
24*

282 THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF
Ave throw ourselves with unbounded and glorious con
fidence on such as we think well of, — an error soon
corrected ; for we soon find out — too soon — that men
and Avomen are not what they seem. Then comes dis
appointment; and the danger is a reaction of deso
lating and universal mistrust. For, if we look on the
doings of man with a merely worldly eye, and pierce
below the surface of character, we are apt to feel bitter
scorn and disgust for our feUow-creatures. We have
lived to see human hoUowness ; the ashes of the Dead
Sea shore ; the falseness of what seemed so fair ; the
mouldering beneath the whited sepulchre : and no Avon-
der if we are tempted to think " friendship all a cheat
— smiles hypocrisy — words deceit ; " and they who
are what is caUed knowing in life contract, by degrees,
as the result of their experience, a hollow distrust of
men, and learn to sneer at apparently good motives.
That demoniacal sneer which Ave have seen — ay, per
haps felt — curling the lip, at times, "Doth Job serve
God for naught ? "
The only preservative from this withering of the
heart is Lq,ve. Love is its own perennial fount of
strength. The strength of affection is a proof not of
the worthiness of the cbject, but of the largeness of
the soul which loves. Love descends, not ascends.
The might of a river depends not on the quality of
the soil through which it passes, but on the inexhaust-
ibleness and depth of the spring from which it pro
ceeds. The greater mind cleaves to the smaller with
more force than the other to it. A parent loves the
chfld more than the child the parent ; and partly be
cause the parent's heart is larger, not because the child
is worthier. The Saviour loved His disciples infinitely

LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER. 283
more than His disciples Him, because His heart was
infinitely larger. Love trusts on, — ever hopes and
expects better things ; and this, a trust springing from
itself, and out of its own deeps alone.
And more than this. It is this trusting love that
makes men what they are trusted to be, so realizing
itself. Would you make men trustworthy ? Trust
them. Would you make them true? Believe them.
This was the real force of that sublime battle-cry which
no Englishman hears without emotion. When the crews
of the fleet of Britain knew that they were expected to
do their duty, they did their duty. They felt in that
spirit-stirring sentence that they were trusted : and
the simultaneous cheer that rose from every ship was a
forerunner of victory, — the battle was half-won already.
They went to serve a country which expected from
them great things ; and they did great things. Those
pregnant Avords raised an enthusiasm for the chieftain
who had thrown himself upon his men in trust, which a
double line of hostile ships could not appall, nor decks
drenched in blood extinguish.
And it is on this principle that Christ wins the hearts
of His redeemed. He trusted the doubting Thomas ;
and Thomas arose with a faith worthy " of his Lord
and his God." He would not suffer even the lie of
Peter to shake his conviction that Peter might love
Him yet ; and Peter answered to that sublime forgive
ness. His last prayer was extenuation and hope for
the race who had rejected Him, — and the kingdoms
of the world are become His own. He has loved us,
God kncAvs why — I do not; and we, all unworthy
though we be, respond faintly to that love, and try to
be what He would have us.

284 LOVE TO ONE ANOTHER.
Therefore, come what may, hold fast to love. Though
men should rend your heart, let them not embitter or
harden it. We win by tenderness ; we conquer by for
giveness. 0, strive to enter into something of that
large celestial Charity which is meek, enduring, unre-
taliating, and which even the overbearing world can
not withstand forever. Learn the new commandment
of the Son of God. Not to love, but to love as He
loved. Go forth in this spirit to your life-duties ; go
forth, children of the Cross, to carry everything before
you, and win victories for God by the conquering
power of a love hke His.

XVII.
[Preached June 15, 1851.]
THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH TO MEN OF WEALTH."
1 Sam. xxv. 10, 11. — "And Nabal answered David's servants, and
said, Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse ? There be many
servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master.
Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have
killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence
they be? "
I have selected this passage for our subject this
evening, because it is one of the earliest cases re
corded in the Bible in which the interests of the
employer and the employed — the man of wealth and
the man of work — stood, or seemed to stand, in antag
onism to each other.
It was a period in Avhich an old system of things Avas
breaking up, and the new one was not yet established.
The patriarchal relationship of tutelage and depend
ence was gone, and monarchy was not yet in firm
existence. Saul was on the throne ; but his rule was
* This subject was continued on the following Sunday. By accident,
the continuation was omitted from the first edition of Vol. I., and inserted
at the beginning of Vol. II. It has been thought better to continue that
arrangement, merely drawing attention to the fact, that the conclusion of
the subjeet is to be sought iu Vol. II. (285)

286 THE message OP the church
irregular and disputed. Many things were sic ly
growing up into custom which had not yet the frrce
of law ; and the first steps by which custom passes
into law, from precedent to precedent, are often steps
at every one of which struggle and resistance must
take place.
The history of the chapter is briefly this. Nabal,
the wealthy sheep-master, fed his flocks in the pastures
of Carmel. David was leader of a band of men who
got their living by the sword on the same hills, — out
laws, whose excesses he in some degree restrained,
and over whom he retained a leader's influence. A
rude, irregular honor was not unknown among those
fierce men. They honorably abstained from injuring
Nabal's flocks. They did more : they protected them
from all harm against the marauders of the neighbor
hood. By the confession of Nabal's own herdsmen,
" they were a wall unto them both by night and day,
all the time they were with them keeping their
flocks." And thus a kind of Right grew up, — irregular
enough, but sufficient to establish a claim on Nabal for
remuneration of these services ; a neAV claim, not
admitted by him ; reckoned by him an exaction, which
could be enforced by no law, only by that law
which is above all statute-law, deciding according to
emergencies — an indefinable, instinctive sense of Fair
ness and Justice. But as there was no law, and each
man was to himself a law, and the sole arbiter of his
own rights, what help was there but that disputes
should rise between the wealthy proprietors and their
self-constituted champions, Avith exaction and tyranny
on the one side, churlishness and parsimony on the

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 287
other? Hence a fruitful and ever fresh source of
struggle : the one class struggling to take as much,
and the other to give as little, ag possible. In modern
language, the Rights of Labor were in conflict with
the Rights of Property.
The story proceeds thus : — David presented a de
mand, moderate and courteous enough (v. 6, 7, 8). It
was refused by Nabal, and added to the refusal were
those insulting taunts of low birth and outcast
condition Avhich are worse than injury, and sting,
making men's blood run fire. One court of appeal
was left. There remained nothing but the trial by
Force. " Gird ye on," said David, " every man his
sword." Noav, observe the fearful, hopeless character of this
struggle. The question had come to this : whether
David, with his ferocious, needy six hundred moun
taineers, united by the sense of wrong, or Nabal, with
his well-fed and trained hirelings, bound by interest to
his cause, not love, were stronger ? Which was the
more powerful, want whetted by insult, or selfishness
pampered by abundance ? — they who wished to keep
by force, or they who wished to take? An awful
and uncertain spectacle ; but the spectacle which is
exhibited in every country where Rights are keenly
felt and Duties lightly — where insolent demand is met
by insulting defiance. Wherever classes are held apart
by rivalry and selfishness, instead of drawn together
by the Law of Love, — wherever there has not been
established a kingdom of heaven, but only a kingdom
of the world, — there exists the forces of inevitable
collision.

288 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
I. The causes of this false social state.
II. The message of the Church to the man of wealth.
I. False basis on which social superiority was held
to rest.
Throughout, Nabal's conduct was built upon the
assumption of his own superiority. He Avas a man of
wealth. David was dependent on his own daily
efforts. Was not that enough to settle the question
of superiority and inferiority? It was enough on
both sides for a long time, till 'the falsehood of the
assumption became palpable and intolerable. But pal
pable and intolerable it did become, at last.
A social falsehood will be borne long, even with
considerable inconvenience, until it forces itself obtru
sively on men's attention, and can be endured no longer.
The exact point at which this social falsehood, that
wealth constitutes superiority, and has a right to the
subordination of inferiors, becomes intolerable, varies
according to several circumstances.
The evils of poverty are comparative. They depend
on climate. m In warm climates, where little food, no
fuel, and scanty shelter, are required, the sting is
scarcely felt till poverty becomes starvation. They
depend on contrast. Far above the point where pov
erty becomes actual famine, it may become unbearable
if contrasted strongly with the unnecessary luxury
and abundance enjoyed by the classes above. Where
all suffer equally, as men and officers suffer in an Arc
tic voyage, men bear hardship with cheerfulness ; but
where suffering Aveighs heavily on some, and the lux
ury of enjoyment is out of all proportion monopolized
by a few, the point of reaction is reached long before

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 289
penury has become actual want ; or, again, when wealth
or rank assumes an insulting, domineering character, —
when contemptuous names for the poor are invented,
and current among the more unfeeling of a wealthy
class, — then the falsehood of superiority can be tol
erated no longer ; for we do not envy honors which
are meekly borne, nor wealth which is unostentatious.
Now, it was this which brought matters to a crisis.
David had borne poverty long — nay, he and his men
had long endured the contrast between their OAvn
cavern-homes and beds upon the rock, and Nabal's
comforts. But when Nabal added to this those pun
gent, biting sneers, which sink into poor men's hearts
and rankle, — which are not forgotten, but come out
fresh in the day of retribution, — " Who is David ?
and who is the son of Jesse ? There be many ser
vants now-a-days that break away every man from
his master," — then David began to measure himself
with Nabal, — not a wiser man, nor a better, nor
even a stronger. Who is this Nabal ? Intellectually,
a fool ; morally, a profligate — drowning reason in
excess of wine at the annual sheep-shearing. A tyrant
over his slaves — overbearing to men who only ask
of him their rights. Then rose the question, which
Nabal had better not have forced men to answer
for themselves, By what right does this possessor of
wealth lord it over men who are inferior in no one
particular ?
Now, observe two things.
1. An apparent inconsistency in David's conduct.
David had received injury after injury from Saul, and
only forgiven. One from Nabal, and David is striding
over the hills to revenge his wrong with naked steel.
25

290 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
How came this reverence and irreverence to mix
together ?
We reply : Saul had a claim of Authority on David's
allegiance ; Nabal, only one of rank. Between these
the Bible makes a vast difference. It saj/s, The
powers which be are ordained of God. But upper
and lower, as belonging to difference in property, are
fictitious terms: true, if character corresponds with
titula/ superiority ; false, if it does not. And such was
the difference manifested in the life of the Son of
God. To lawful authority, whether Roman or Jewish,
even priestly, He paid deference; but to the titled
mark of conventional distinction, none. Rabbi, Rabbi,
was no Divine authority. It was not power, a dele
gated attribute of God ; it was only a name. In Saul,
therefore, David reverenced one his superior in author
ity ; but in Nabal he only had one surpassing him in
wealth. And David refused, somewhat too rudely, to
acknowledge the bad, great man as his superior;
would pay him no reverence, respect, or allegiance
whatever. Let us mark that distinction well, so often
confused. *Kings, masters, parents, — here is a power
ordained of God. Honor it. But wealth, name, title,
distinctions, always fictitious, often false and vicious,
— if you claim homage for these, separate from worth,
you confound two things essentially different. Try
that by the test of His Life. Name the text where
Christ claimed reverence for wealth or rank. On the
Mount did the Son of Man bow the knee to the maj
esty of Avealth and wrong, or was His Sonship shown
in that He would not bow down to that as if of God?
2. This great falsehood, respecting superior and
inferior, rested on a truth. There had been a superi-

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 291
ority in the wealthy class once. In the patriarchal
system, wealth and rule had gone together. The father
of the family and tribe was the one in whom propri
etorship Avas centred. But the patriarchal system had
passed away. Men like Nabal succeeded to the patri
archs' wealth, and expected the subordination which
had been yielded to patriarchal character and posi
tion ; and this when every particular of relationship
was altered. Once, the patriarch was the protector of
his dependants. Now, David's class was independent,
and the protectors rather than the protected, — at all
events, able to defend themselves. Once, the rich man
was the ruler in virtue of paternal relationship. Now,
wealth was severed from rule and relationship ; a man
might be rich, yet neither a ruler, nor a protector, nor
a kinsman. And the fallacy of Nabal's expectations
consisted in this, that he demanded for wealth that
reverence which had once been due to men who hap
pened to be wealthy.
It is a fallacy in which we are perpetually entan
gled. We expect reverence for that which Avas once
a symbol of what was reverenced, but is reverenced
no longer. Here, in England, it is common to com
plain that there is no longer any respect of inferiors
towards superiors ; that servants were once devoted
and grateful, tenants submissive, subjects enthusias
tically loyal. But we forget that servants were once
protected by their masters, and tenants safe from
wrong only through the guardianship of their power
ful lords ; that thence a personal gratitude greAV up :
that now they are protected by the law from wrong
by a different social system altogether ; and that the
individual bond of gratitude subsists no longer. We

292 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
expect that to masters and employers the same rever
ence and devotedness shall be rendered which were
due to them under other circumstances, and for differ
ent reasons : as if wealtb and rank had ever been the
claim to reverence, and not merely the accidents and
accompaniments of the claim ; as if anything less
sacred than holy ties could purchase sacred feelings ;
as if the homage of free manhood could be due to gold
and name ; as if to the mere Nabal-fool who is labelled
as worth so much, and whose signature carries with it
so much coin, the holiest and most ennobling sensations
of the soul, reverence and loyalty, were due by God's
appointment. No. That patriarchal system has passed forever.
No sentimental wailings for the past, no fond regrets
for the virtues of a bjrgone age, no melancholy, poet
ical, retrospective antiquarianism, can restore it. In
church and state the past is past: and you can no
more bring back the blind reverence than the rude
virtues of those days. The day has come in which,
if feudal loyalty or patriarchal reverence are to be
commanded^ they must be won by patriarchal virtues,
or feudal real superiorities.
II. Cause of this unhealthy social state: A false
conception respecting Rights.
It would be unjust to Nabal to represent this as an
act of wilful oppression and conscious injustice. He
did what appeared to him fair between man and man.
He paid his laborers. Why should he pay anything
beyond stipulated wages ?
David's demand appeared an extravagant and insolent
one, provoking unfeigned astonishment and indignation,

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 293
It was an invasion of his rights. It was a dictation
Avith respect to the employment of that which was his
own. " Shall I take my bread, and my water, and my
flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it
unto men whom I know not whence they be ? "
RecoUect, too, there was something to be said for
Nabal. This view of the irresponsible right of prop
erty was not his invention. It was the view probably
entertained by aU his class. It had descended to him
from his parents. They were prescriptive and ad
mitted rights on which he stood. And, however false
or unjust a prescriptive right may be, however base
less when examined, there is much excuse for those
who have inherited and not invented it ; for it is hard
to see through the falsehood of any system by which
we profit, and which is upheld by general consent,
especiaUy when good men, too, uphold it. Rare, in
deed, is that pure-heartedness which sees, with eagle
glance, through conventionalism — This is a wrong,
and I and my own class are the doers of it.
On the other hand, David and his needy followers
were not slow to perceive that they had their rights
over that property of Nabal's.
Men on whom wrongs press are the first to feel
them, and their cries of pain and indignation are the
appointed means of God to direct to their wrongs
the attention of society. Very often the fierce and
maddened shriek of suffering is the first intimation
that a wrong exists at all.
There was no law in Israel to establish David's
claims. This guardianship of Nabal's flocks was partly
a self-constituted thing. No bargain had been made —
no sum of reward expressly stipulated. But there is
25*

294 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
a Law besides and above aU written law, which gives
to Avritten laws their authority, and from which, so
often as they diverge, it is woe to the trainers of the
law ; for their law must perish, and the Eternal Law
unseen will get itself acknowledged as a truth from
heaven, or a truth from hell, — a truth begirt with fire
and sword, if they wiU not read it except so.
In point of fact, David had a right to a share of
Nabal's profits. The harvest was in part David's har
vest, for without David it never could have been
reaped. The sheep were in part David's sheep, for
without David not a sheep would have been spared by
the marauders of the hiUs. Not a sheaf of corn was
carried to Nabal's barn, nor a night passed in repose
by Nabal's shepherds, but what told of the share of
David in the saving of that sheaf, and the procure
ment of that repose (not the less real because it was
past and unseen). The right which the soldier has by
law to his pay was the right which David had by
unwritten law, — a right resting on the fact that his
services were indispensable for the harvest.
Here, then, is one of the earliest instances of the
Rights of Labor coming into coUision with the Rights
of Property — rights shadowy, undefined, perpetually
shifting their boundaries, varying with every case,
altering with every age, incapable of being adjusted
except rudely by law, and leaving always something
which the most subtle and elaborate law cannot define,
and which in any moment may groAV up into a wrong.
Now, when it comes to this, — Rights against Rights,
— there is no determination of the question but by
overwhelming numbers or blood. David's remedy was
a short, sharp, decisive one : — " Gird ye on every man

TO MEN OP WEALTH. 295
his sword." And it is difficult, for the sake of human
ity, to say to which side in such a quarrel we should
wish weU. If the rich man succeeds in civil war, he
wiU bind the chain of degradation more severely and
more surely for years or ages on the crushed serf. If
the champions of popular rights succeed by the sword,
you may then aAvait, in awe, the reign of tyranny,
licentiousness, and lawlessness. For the victory of the
lawless, with the memory of past wrongs to avenge, is
almost always more sanguinary than the victory of
those who have had power long, and whose power has
been defied.
3. We find another cause in circumstances. Want
and unjust exclusion precipitated David and his men
into this rebellion. It is common enough to lay too
much weight on circumstances. Nothing can be more
false than the popular theory that ameliorated outward
condition is the panacea for the evils of Society. The
Gospel principle begins from within, and works out
wards. The world's principle begins with the out
ward condition, and expects to influence inwardly.
To expect that by changing the world without, in
order to suit the world within, by taking away aU diffi
culties, and removing aU temptations, instead of hard
ening the man within against the force of outward
temptation, — to adapt the lot to the man, instead of
moulding the spirit to the lot, is to reverse the Gospel
method of procedure. Nevertheless, even that favor
ite speculation of theorists, that perfect circumstances
will produce perfect character, contains a truth. Cir
cumstances of outward condition are not the sole effi
cients in the production of character, but they are
efficients which must not be ignored. Favorable con-

296 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
dition will not produce excellence ; but the want of it
often hinders excellence. It is true that vice leads to
poverty, — aU the moralizers tell us that, — but it is
also true that, poverty leads to vice. There are some
in this world to whom, speaking humanly, social injus
tice and social inequalities have made goodness im
possible. Take, for instance, the case of these bandits
on Mount Carmel. Some of them Avere outlawed by
their own crimes ; but others, doubtless, by debts not
wilfully contracted, — one, at least, DaAdd, by a most
unjust and unrighteous persecution. And these men,
excluded, needy, exasperated by a sense of wrong,
untaught outcasts, — could you gravely expect from
them obedience, patience, meekness, religious resigna
tion? Yes, my brethren, that is exactly the marvellous
impossibility people do most inconsistently expect ;
and there are no bounds to our astonishment if we do
not get what we expect : — superhuman honesty from
starving men, to whom life, by hopelessness, has
become a gambler's desperate chance; chivalrous
loyalty and high forbearance from creatures to whom
the order ojf society has presented itself only as an
unjust system of partiality. We forget that forbear
ance and obedience are the very last and highest les
sons learned by the spirit in its most careful training.
By those unhallowed conventionalisms through which
we, like heathens, and not like Christians, crush the
smaU offender and court the great one, — that damna
ble cowardice by which we banish the seduced, and
half admire the seducer ; by which, in defiance of all
manliness and all generosity, we punish the weak and
tempted, and let the tempter go free : — by aU these
we make men and women outcasts, and then expect

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 297
from them the sublimest graces of reverence and
resignation. II. The message of the Church to the man of wealth.
The message of the Church contains those principles
of Life which, carried out, would, and hereafter will,
realize the Divine Order of Society. The revealed
Message does not create the facts of our humanity : it
simply makes them known. The Gospel did not make.
God our Father : it authoritatively reveals that He is
so. It did not create a new duty of loving one
another : it revealed the old duty which existed from
eternity, and must exist as long as humanity is human
ity. It was " no neAV commandment," but an old
commandment which had been heard from the begin
ning. The Church of God is that living body of men
who are called by Him out of the world, not to be the
inventors of a new social system, but to exhibit in the
world, by word andlife, — chiefly by life, — what human
ity is, was, and will be, in the Idea of God. Now, so
far as the social economy is concerned, the revelations
of the Church will coincide with the discoveries of a
Scientific Political Economy. Political Economy dis-
coA-ers slowly the facts of the immutable laws of social
well-being. But the living principles of those laws,
which cause them to be obeyed, Christianity has
revealed to loving hearts long before. The spirit
discovers them to the spirit. For instance, Political
Economy, gazing on such a fact as this of civil war,
would arrive at the same principles which the Church
arrives at. She, too, would say, Not selfishness, but
love. Only that she arrives at these principles by
experience, not intuition; by terrible lessons, not

298 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
revelation ; by revolutions, wars, and famines, not by
spiritual impulses of charity.
And so, because these principles were eternally true
in humanity, we find in the conduct of Abigail towards
David, in this early age, not explicitly, but implicitly,
the very principles which the Church of Christ has
given to the world; and, more, the very principles
which a sound economy Avould sanction. In her reply
to David we have the anticipation, by a loving heart,
of those duties which selfish prudence must have taught
at last.
1. The spiritual dignity of man as man. Recollect
David was the poor man; but Abigail, the high-born
lady, admits his worth : " The Lord will certainly make
my lord a sure house ; because my lord fighteth the
battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee
all thy days." Here is a truth revealed to that age.
Nabal's day, and the day of such as Nabal, is past ;
another power is rising above the horizon. David's
cause is God's cause. Worth does not mean what a
man is worth, — you must find some better definition
than that.
Now, this is the very truth revealed in the Incar
nation. David, Israel's model king, —the king by the
grace of God, not by the conventional rules of human
choice, — is a shepherd's son. Christ, the king who is
to reign over our regenerated humanity, is humbly
born — the poor woman's Son. That is the Church's
message to the man of wealth ; and a message which,
it seems, has to be learned afresh in every age. It
Avas new to Nabal. It was new to the men of the age
of Christ. In His day they were offended in Him,
because He was humbly born. " Is not this the car-

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 299
penter's son?" It is the offence noAv. They who
retain those superstitious ideas of the eternal supe
riority of rank and wealth have the first principles
of the Gospel yet to learn. How can they believe
in the Son of Mary ? They may honor Him with the
lip: they deny Him in His brethren. Whoever helps
to keep alive that ancient lie of upper and loAver, rest
ing the distinction not on official authority of personal
worth, but on wealth and title, is doing his part to
hinder the establishment of the Redeemer's kingdom.
Now, the Church of Christ proclaims that truth in
baptism. She speaks of a kingdom here in which all
are, as spirits, equal. She reveals a fact. She does
not affect to create the fact. She says, not hypothet-
icaUy : " This child may be the child of God if pre-
venient grace has taken place, or if hereafter he shall
have certain feelings and experiences;" nor, "Hereby
I create this child magically, by supernatural power, in
one moment, what it was not a moment before ; " but
she says, authoritatively : I pronounce this child the
child of God, the brother of Christ the First-born, the
son of Him who has taught us by His Son to call Him
our Father, not my Father. Whatever that child may
become hereafter in fact, he is now, by right of creation
and redemption, the child of God. Rich or poor,
titled or untitled, he shares the spiritual nature of the
second Adam, the Lord from Heaven.
2. The second truth expressed by Abigail was the
Law of sacrifice. She did not heal the grievance with
smooth Avords. Starving men are not to be pacified
by professions of good-will. She brought her two
hundred loaves (v. 18), and her two skins of wine, her
five sheep ready dressed, &c. A princely provision !

300 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
You might have said this was waste — half would
have been enough. But the truth is, liberality is a
most real economy. She could not stand there calcu
lating the smallest possible expense at which the affront
might be wiped out. True economy is to pay liberally
and fairly for faithful service. The largest charity is
the best economy. Nabal had had a faithful servant.
He should have counted no expense too great to retain
his services, instead of cheapening and depreciating
them. But we wrong Abigail if we caU this economy
or calculation. In fact, had it been done on economi
cal principles, it would have failed. Ten times this
sum from Nabal would not have arrested revenge.
For Nabal it was too late. Concessions extracted by
fear only provoke exaction further. The poor know
well what is given because it must be given, and what
is conceded from a sense of justice. They feel only
what is real. David's men and David felt that these
were not the gifts of a sordid calculation, but the offer
ings of a generous heart. And it won them- — their
gratitude, their enthusiasm, their unfeigned homage.
This is the attractive power of that great Law,
whose highest Expression was the Cross. " I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." Say what you
will, it is not interest, but the sight of noble qualities
and true sacrifice, which commands the devotion of
the world. Yea, even the bandit and the outcast will
bend before that, as before a Divine thing. In one
form or another it draws all men, — it commands all
men. Now, this the Church proclaims as part of its special
message to the rich. It says that the Divine Death
was a Sacrifice. It declares that death to be the law

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 301
of every life Avhich is to be like His. It says that the
Law, which alone can interpret the mystery of life, is
the self-sacrifice of Christ. It proclaims the law of
His life to have been this : " For their sakes I devote
(sanctify) Myself, that they also may be devoted
through the Truth." In other words, the Self-sacrifice
of the Redeemer was to be the living principle and
law of the self-devotion of His people. It asserts that
to be the principle which alone can make any human
life a true life. " I fill up that which is behind of the
afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for His body's sake,
which is the Church." We have petrified that Sacrifice
into a dead theological dogma, about the exact efficacy
of which we dispute metaphysically, and charge each
other with heresy. That atonement will become a
living truth only when we humbly recognize in it the
eternal fact that sacrifice is the Law of life. The very
mockers at the crucifixion unAvittingly declared the
principle : — " He saved others ; Himself He cannot
save." Of course. How could He save Himself who
had to save others ? You can only save others when
you have ceased to think of saving your own soul ;
you can only bless wdien you have done with the
pursuit of personal happiness. Did you ever hear of
a soldier who saved his country by making it his chief
work to secure himself ? And was the Captain of our
salvation to become the Saviour by contravening that
universal law of Sacrifice, or by obeying it ?
Brother men, the early Church gave expression to
that principle of sacrifice in a very touching way.
They had all things in common. " Neither said any
of them that aught of the things which he possessed
was his OAvn." They failed, not because they declared
26

302 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
that, but because men began to think that the duty of
sharing was compulsory. They proclaimed principles
which were unnatural, inasmuch as they set aside all
personal feelings, which are part of our nature too.
They virtually compelled private property to cease,
because he Avho retained private property Avhen, all
were giving up was degraded, and hence became a
hypocrite and liar, like Ananias. But let us not lose
the truth which they expressed in an exaggerated
way : " Neither said any of them that aught of the
things which he possessed was his own." Property is
sacred. It is private property ; if it were not, it could
not be sacrificed. If it were to be shared equally by
the idle and the industrious, there could be no love in
giving. Property is the rich man's own. Nabal is
right in saying, My bread, my water, my flesh. But
there is a higher Right which says, It is not yours.
And that voice speaks to every rich man in one way
or another, according as he is selfish or unselfish :
coming as a voice of terror or a voice of blessing. It
came to Nabal with a double curse, turning his heart
into stone with the vision of the danger and the armed
ranks of David's avengers ; and laying on David's soul
the sin of intended murder. It came to the heart of
Abigail with a double blessing: blessing her who gave
and him who took. To the spirit of the Cross alone
we look as the Remedy for social evils. When the
people of this great country, especially the rich, shall
have been touched with the spirit of the Cross to a
largeness of sacrifice of which they have not dreamed
as yet, there will be an atonement between the Rights
of Labor and the Rights of Property.

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 303
3. The last part of the Church's message to the man
of wealth touches the matter of rightful influence.
Very remarkable is the demeanor of David toAvards
Nabal, as contrasted with his demeanor towards Abi
gail. In the one case, defiance, and a haughty self'
assertion of equality: in the other, deference, respect,
and the most eloquent benediction. It was not, there
fore, against the Avealthy class, but against individuals
of the class, that the wrath of these men burned.
See, then, the folly and the falsehood of the senti
mental regret that there is no longer any reverence
felt toAvards superiors. There is reverence to supe
riors, if only it can be shown that they are superiors.
Reverence is deeply rooted in the heart of humanity,
— you cannot tear it out. Civilization, science, prog
ress, only change its direction; they do not weaken
its force. If it no longer bows before crucifixes and
candles, priests and relics, it is not extinguished tow
ards what is truly sacred and what is priestly in man.
The fiercest revolt against false authority is only a
step towards submission to rightful authority. Eman
cipation from false lords only sets the heart free to
honor true ones. The freeborn David will not do
homage to Nabal. Well, now go and mourn over the
degenerate age which no longer feels respect for that
which is above it. But, behold- — David has found a
something nobler than himself. Feminine charity —
sacrifice and justice — and in gratitude and profoundest
respect he bows to that. The state of society which is
coming is not one of protection and dependence; nor
one of mysterious authority, and blind obedience to it ;
nor one in which any class shall be privileged by Divine
right, and another remain in perpetual tutelage ; but it

304 THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH
is one in which unselfish services and personal qualities
will command, by Divine right, gratitude and admira
tion, and secure a true and spiritual leadership.
0 ! let not the rich misread the signs of the times,
or mistake their brethren : they have less and less
respect for titles and riches, for vestments and eccle
siastical pretensions ; but they have a real respect for
superior knowledge and superior goodness ; they listen
like children to those whom they believe to know a
subject better than themselves. Let those who know
it say whether there is not something inexpressibly
touching, and even humbling, in the large, hearty, manly
English reverence and love which the working-men
show towards those who love and serve them truly.
and save them from themselves and from doing wrong.
See how David's feelings gush forth (v. 33) — "Blessed
bo the Lord God of Israel Avhich sent thee this day to
meet me ; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be
thou which hast kept me this day from coming to shed
blood, and from avenging myself with mine own
hand." The rich and the great may have that love, if they
will. To conclude. Doubtless, David was wrong; he
had no right even to redress wrongs thus. Patience
was his divine appointed duty ; and, doubtless, in such
circumstances we should be very ready to preach
submission, and to blame David. Alas! we, the clergy
of the Church of England, have been only too ready
to do this : for three long centuries we have taught
submission to the powers that be, as if that were the
only text in Scripture bearing on the relations between
the ruler and the ruled. Rarely have we dared to

TO MEN OF WEALTH. 305
demand of the poAvers that be, justice of the wealthy
man, and of the titled, duties. We have produced folios
of slavish flattery upon the Divine Right of Power.
Shame on us ! we have not denounced the wrongs
done to weakness : and yet, for one text in the Bible
Avhich requires submission and patience from the poor,
you will find a hundred which denounce the vices of
the rich; — in the Avritings of the noble old Jewish
prophets, that, and almost that only ; — that in the Old
Testament, with a deep roll of words that sound like
Sinai thunders; and that in the New Testament, in
words less impassioned and more calmly terrible from
the apostles and their Master : — and woe to us, in the
great day of God, if we have been the sycophants of
the rich, instead of the Redressers of the poor man's
wrongs: — woe to us if we have been tutoring David
into respect to his superior, Nabal, and forgotten that
David's cause, not Nabal's, is the cause of God I
26*

XVIII.
FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
John viii. 32. —"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."
If these words were the only record we possessed
of the Saviour's teaching, it may be they would be
insufficient to prove His personal Deity; but they
would be enough to demonstrate the Divine Character
of His mission.
Observe the greatness of the aim, and the wisdom
of the means.
The aim was to make all men free. He saw around
Him servitude in every form, — man in slavery to man,
and race to t\ce : His own countrymen in bondage to
the Romans, — slaves both of Jewish and Roman
masters, frightfully oppressed : men trembling before
priestcraft; and those who were politically and eccle-
siasticaUy free, in worse bondage still, the rich and
rulers slaves to their own passions.
Conscious of His inward Deity and of His Father's
intentions, He, without hurry, without the excitement
which would mark the mere earthly Liberator, calmly
said, " Ye shall be free."
See, next, the peculiar wisdom of the means. (306)

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 307
The craving for liberty Avas not new, — it lies deep
in human nature. Nor was the promise of satisfying
it new. Empirics, charlatans, demagogues, had prom
ised, and men who were not charlatans nor dema
gogues, in vain.
1. First, they had tried by force. Wherever force
has been used on the side of freedom, we honor it ;
the names which we pronounce in boyhood with
enthusiasm are those of the liberators of nations
and the vindicators of liberty. Israel had had such :
Joshua — the Judges — Judas Maccabseus. Had the
Son of God willed so to come, even on human data
the success was certain. I waive the truth of His
inward Deity; of His miraculous power ; of His power
to summon to His will more than twelve legions of
angels. I only notice noAV that men's hearts were full
of Him ; ripe for revolt ; and that at a single word of
His, thrice three hundred thousand swords would have
started from their scabbards.
But had He so come, one nation might have gained
liberty; not the race of man: moreover, the liberty
would only have been independence of a foreign con
queror. Therefore as a conquering king He did not come.
2. Again, it might have been attempted by a legis
lative enactment. Perhaps only once has this been
done successfully, and by a single effort. When the
names of conquerors shall have been forgotten, and
modern civilization shall have become obsolete, — when
England's shall be ancient history, one act of hers will
be remembered as a record of her greatness : that act
by which in costly sacrifice she emancipated her
slaves.

308 FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
But one thing England could not do. She could
give freedom — she could not fit for freedom, not
make it lasting. The stroke of a monarch's pen will
do the one — the discipline of ages is needed for the
other. Give to-morrow a constitution to some feeble
Eastern nation, or a horde of savages, and in half a
century they will be subjected again.
Therefore the Son of Man did not come to free the
world by legislation.
3. It might be done by civilization. Civilization does
free — intellect equalizes. Every step of civilization
is a victory over some lower instinct. But civilization
contains within itself the elements of a fresh servi
tude. Man conquers the powers of nature, and be
comes in turn their slave. The workman is in bondage
to the machinery which does his will, — his hours, his
Avages, his personal habits, determined by it. The rich
man fills his house with luxuries, and cannot do without
them. A highly-civilized community is a very specta
cle of servitude. Man is there a slave to dress, to
hours, to manners, to conventions, to etiquette.
Things coatrived to make his life more easy become
his masters.
Therefore Jesus did not talk of the progress of the
species, nor the growth of civilization. He did not
trust the world's hope of liberty to a right division of
property. But he freed the inner man, that so the
outer might become free too. "Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free."
I. The truth that liberates.
II. The liberty which truth gives.

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 309
The truth which Christ taught was chiefly on these
three points : God — Man — Immortality.
1. God. Blot out the thought of God, a Living
Person, and life becomes mean, existence unmeaning,
the universe dark ; and resolve is left without a stay,
aspiration and duty without a support.
The Son exhibited God as Love ; and so that fearful
bondage of the mind to the necessity of Fate Avas
broken. A living Lord had made the world ; and its
dark and unintelligible mystery meant good, not evil.
He manifested Him as a spirit ; and if so, the only
worship that could please Him must be a spirit's wor
ship. Not by sacrifices is God pleased ; nor by
droned litanies and liturgies ; nor by fawning and flat
tery ; nor is His wrath bought off by blood. Thus
was the chain of superstition rent asunder ; for super
stition is wrong views of God, exaggerated or inade
quate, and wrong conceptions of the way to please
Him. And so, when the woman of Samaria brought the
conversation to that old ecclesiastical question about
consecrated buildings, whether on Mount Gerizim or
on Mount Moriah God was the more acceptably adored,
He cut the whole controversy short by the enunciation
of a single truth : " God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth." 2. Truth respecting man.
We are a mystery to ourselves. Go to any place
where the nations have brought together their wealth
and their inventions, and before the victories of mind
you stand in reverence.. Then stop to look at the
passing crowds Avho have attained that civilization.

310 FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
Think of their low aims, their mean lives, their con
formation only a little higher than that of brute creat
ures, and a painful sense of degradation steals upon
you. So great, and yet so mean ! And so of individ
uals. There is not one here AAdiose feelings have not
been deeper than we can fathom ; nor one who would
venture to tell out to his brother man the mean, base
thoughts that have crossed his heart during the last
hour. Now, this riddle He solved. He looked on man
as fallen, but magnificent in his ruin. We, catching
that thought from Him, speak as He spoke. But none
that were born of woman ever felt this, or lived this
like Him. Beneath the vilest outside he saAV that —
A human soul, capable of endless groAvth ; and hence
He treated with what, for want of a better term, we
may call respect, all who approached Him ; not
because they were titled Rabbis, or rich Pharisees,
but because they were men.
Here was a germ for freedom. It is not the shackle
on the wrist that constitutes a slave ; but the loss
of self-respect — to be treated as degraded till he feels
degraded -g- to be subjected to the lash till he believes
that he deserves the lash ; and liberty is to suspect
and yet reverence self; to suspect the tendency
Avhich leaves us ever on the brink of fall ; to rever
ence that within us which is allied to God, redeemed
by God the Son, and made a temple of the Holy
Ghost. Perhaps we have seen an insect or reptile impris
oned in wood or stone. Hoav it got there is unknown;
how the particles of wood in years, or of stone in
ages, grew round it, is a mystery ; but not a greater
mystery than the question of how man became incar-

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 311
cerated in evil. At last the day of emancipation
came. The axe-stroke was given ; and the light came
in, and the warmth ; and the gauze wings expanded,
and the eye looked bright ; and the living Thing
stepped forth, and you saw that there was not its
home. Its home was the free air of heaven.
Christ taught that truth of the human soul. It is
not in its right place. It never is in its right place in
the dark prison-house of sin. Its home is freedom,
and the breath of God's life.
3. Truth respecting immortality.
He taught that this life is not all ; that it is only a
miserable state of human infancy. He taught that in
words; by His life, and by His Resurrection.
This, again, was freedom. If there be a faith that
cramps and enslaves the soul, it is the idea that this
life is all. If there be one that expands and elevates,
it is the thought of immortality ; and this, observe, is
something quite distinct from the selfish desire of
happiness. It is not to enjoy, but to be, that we long
for — to enter into more and higher life ; a craving
which we can only part with when we sink below
humanity, and forfeit it.
This was the martyrs' strength. They were tor
tured, not accepting deliverance, that they might
attain a better Resurrection. In that hope, and the
knowledge of that truth, they were free from the fear
of pain and death.
II. The nature of the liberty which truth gives.
1. Political freedom.
It was our work, last Sunday, to show that Chris
tianity does not directly interfere with political ques-

312 FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
tions. But we should have only half done our work,
if we had not also learned that, mediately and indi
rectly, it must influence them. Christ's Gospel did not
promise political freedom, yet it gave it : more surely
than conqueror, reformer, patriot, that Gospel wiU
bring about a true liberty at last.
This, not by theories nor by schemes of constitu
tions, but by the revelations of Truths. God, a
Spirit ; man, His child, redeemed and sanctified. Be
fore that spiritual equality, all distinctions between
peer and peasant, monarch and laborer, privileged and
unprivileged, vanish. A better man or a wiser man
than I is in my presence, and I feel it a mockery to
be reminded that I am his superior in rank.
Let us hold that truth ; let us never weary of pro
claiming it ; and the truth shall make us free at last.
2. Mental independence.
Slavery is that which cramps powers. The worst
slavery is that which cramps the noblest powers.
Worse therefore than he who manacles the hands
and feet is he who puts fetters on the mind, and pre
tends to demand that men shall think, and believe, and
feel, thus and thus, because others so believed, and
thought, and felt, before.
In Judea, life was become a set of forms, and
religion a congeries of traditions. One living word
from the lips of Christ, and the mind of the world was
free. Later, a mountain mass of superstition had gath-<
ered round the Church, atom by atom, and grain by
grain. Men said that the soul was saved by doing and
believing what the priesthood taught. The heroes of
the Reformation spoke. They said the soul of man is

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 313
saved by the grace of God: a more credible hypoth
esis. Once more the mind of the world was free —
and free by truth.
There is a tendency always to think, in the masses ;
not what is true, but what is respectable, correct,
orthodox, authorized, — that we ask. It comes partly
from cowardice; partly from indolence, from habit,
from imitation; from the uncertainty and darkness
of all moral truths, and the dread of timid minds to
plunge into the investigation of them. Now, truth
known and believed respecting God and man frees
from this, by warning of individual responsibility.
But responsibility is personal. It cannot be dele
gated to another, and thrown off upon a church.
Before God, face to face, each soul must stand, to
give account.
Do not, however, confound mental independence
with mental pride. It may, it ought to coexist with
the deepest humility. For' that mind alone is free
which, conscious ever of its own feebleness, feeling
hourly its own liabUity to err, turning thankfully to
light, from whatever side it may come, does yet refuse
to give up that right with which God has invested it,
or to abrogate its own responsibility ; and so, humbly,
and even awfully, resolves to have an opinion, a judg
ment, a decision, of its own.
3. Superiority to temptation.
It is not enough to define the liberty which Christ
promises as freedom from sin. Many circumstances
will exempt from sin which do not yet confer that
liberty "where the Spirit of the Lord is." Child
hood, paralysis, ill-health, the impotence of old age,
may remove the capacity and even the desire of trans-
27

314 FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
gression ; but the child, the paralytic, the old man, are
not free through the truth.
Therefore, to this definition we must add, that one
whom Christ liberates is free by his own will. It is
not that he would, and cannot ; but that he can, and
will not. Christian liberty is right will, sustained by
love, and made firm by faith in Christ.
This may be seen by considering the opposite of
liberty — moral bondage. Go to the intemperate man
in the morning, when his head aches, his hand trem
bles, his throat burns, and his whole frame is relaxed
and unstrung : he is ashamed, hates his sin, would not
do it. Go to him at night, when the power of habit
is on him like a spell, and he obeys the mastery of his
craving. He can use the language of Rom. vii. :
" That which he would, he does not ; but the evil that
he hates, that does he." Observe, he is not in posses
sion of a true self. It is not he, but sin which
dwelleth in him, that does it. A power- which is riot
himself, which is not he, commands him against him
self. And that is Slavery.
This is#a gross case, but in every more refined
instance the slavery is just as real. Wherever a man
would and cannot, there is servitude. He may be
unable to control his expenditure, to rouse his indo
lence, to check bis imagination. Well, he is not free.
He may boast, as the Jews did, that he is Abraham's
son, or any other great man's son ; that he belongs to
a free country ; that he never was in bondage to any
man : but free in the freedom of the Son he is not.
4. Superiority to fear.
Fear enslaves, courage liberates — and that always.
Whatever a man intensely dreads, that brings him into

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 315
bondage, if it be above the fear of God, and the rev
erence of duty. The apprehension of pain, the fear of
death, the dread of the world's laugh, of poverty, or
the loss of reputation, enslaves alike.
From such fear Christ frees, and through the poAver
of the truths I have spoken. He who lives in the
habitual contemplation of immortality cannot be ii
bondage to time, or enslaved by transitory tempta
tions. I do not say, will not. " He cannot sin," saitL
the Scripture, while that faith is living. He who feels
his soul's dignity, knowing what he is, and who,
redeemed by God the Son, and freed by God the
Spirit, cannot cringe, nor pollute himself, nor be
mean. He who aspires to gaze undazzled on the intol
erable brightness of that One before whom Israel
veiled their faces, will scarcely quail before any
earthly fear.
This is not picture-painting. This is not declama
tion. These are things that have been. There have
been men on this earth of God's, of whom it was
simply true that it was easier to turn the sun from its
course than them from the paths of honor. There
have been men like John the Baptist, Avho could speak
the truth which had made their own spirits free, with
the axe above their neck. There have been men,
redeemed in their inmost being by-Christ, on whom
tyrants and mobs have done their worst; but when,
like Stephen, the stones crashed in upon their brain,
or when their flesh hissed and crackled in the flames,
were calmly superior to it all. The power of evil had
laid its shackles on the flesh ; but the mind, and the
soul, and the heart, were free.
We conclude with two inferences :

316 FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH.
1. To cultivate the love of truth. I do not mean
veracity ; that is another thing. Veracity is the cor
respondence between a proposition and a man's be
lief. Truth is the correspondence of the proposition
with fact. The love of truth is the love of realities :
the determination to rest upon facts, and not on
semblances. Take an iUustration of the way in which
the habit of cultivating truth is got. Two boys see
a misshapen, hideous object, in the dark. One goes
up to the cause of his terror, examines it, learns
what it is: he knows the truth, and the truth has
made him free. The other leaves it in mystery and
unexplained vagueness, and is a slave for life to super
stitions and indefinite terrors. Romance, prettiness,
" dim religious lights," awe and mystery — these arc
not the atmosphere of Christ's Gospel of liberty.
Base the heart on facts. The truth alone can make
you free.
2. See what a Christian is. Our society is divided
into two classes. Those who are daring, inquisitive,
but restrained by no reverence, and kept back by little
religion. JThose who may be caUed religious : but,
with all their excellences, we cannot help feeling that
the elements of their character are feminine rather
than masculine, and that they have no grasp or manly
breadth, and hold on feeling rather than on truth.
Now, see what a Christian is, drawn by the hand of
Christ. He is a man on whose clear and open brow
God has set the stamp of truth ; one whose very eye
beams bright with honor; in whose very look and
bearing you may see freedom, manliness, veracity : a
brave man — a noble man — frank, generous, true ;
with, it may be, many faults : — whose freedom may

FREEDOM BY THE TRUTH. 317
take the form of impetuosity or rashness — the form
of meanness never. Young Men ! if you have been
deterred from religion by its apparent feebleness and
narroAvness, remember — It is a manly thing to be a
Christian. 27*

XIX.
THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
ASSIZE SERMON.
Johh xviii. 37. — " Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then ?
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I
born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear wit
ness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice. ' '
The Church is the kingdom of God on earth, and
the whole fabric of the Christian Religion rests on the
monarchy of Christ. The Hebrew prisoner who stood
before the Roman Judge claimed to be the King of
men, and eighteen centuries have only verified His
claim. There is not a man bearing the Christian
name who»does not, in one form or another, acknowl
edge Him to be the Sovereign of his soul.
The question therefore at once suggests itself— On
what title does this claim rest ?
Besides the title on which the Messiah grounded
His pretensions to be the Ruler of a kingdom, three
are conceivable. The title of force ; the title of pre
scriptive authority; or the title of incontrovertible
reasoning. Had the Messiah founded His kingdom upon the
basis of Force, He Avould have simply been a rival
(313)

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 319
of the Cajsars. The imperial power of Rome rested
on that Principle. This was aU that Pilate meant at
first by the question, " Art thou a king ? " As a Ro
man he had no other conception of rule. Right well
had Rome fulfiUed her mission as the iron kingdom,
which was to command by strength, and give to the
Avorld the principles of Law. But that kingdom Avas
wasting when these words were spoken. For seATen
hundred years had the Empire been building itself up.
It gave way, at last, and was crumbled into fragments
by its own ponderous massiveness. To use the lan
guage of the prophet Daniel, miry clay had mixed
with the kingdom of iron, and the softer nations which
had been absorbed into it broke down its once invin
cible strength, by corrupting and enervating its citi
zens : the conquerors of the world dropped the sword
from a grasp grown nerveless. The Empire of strength
was passing away ; for no kingdom founded on force
is destined to permanence. " They that take the
sword shall perish with the sword."
Before Pontius Pilate, Christ distinctly disclaimed
this Right of Force, as the foundation of His sover
eignty. "If my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight : but now is my kingdom not
from hence " (v. 36).
The next conceivable basis of a universal kingdom
is prescriptive authority. The scribes and priests
who waited outside for their victim conceived of such
a kingdom. They had indeed already an ecclesiastical
kingdom which dated back far beyond the origin of
Rome. They claimed to rule on a title such as this —
" It is written." But neither on this title did the Sa
viour found his claim. He spoke lightly of institu-

320 HE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
tions which were venerable from age. He contravened
opinions which were gray with the hoar of ages. It
may be that at times He defended Himself on the au
thority of Moses, by showing that what He taught was
not in opposition to Moses ; but it is observable that
He never rested His claims as a Teacher, or as the
Messiah, on that foundation. The scribes fell back on
this — " It has been said : " or, " It is written." Christ
taught, as the men of His day remarked, on an author
ity very different from that of the scribes. Not even
on His own authority. He did not claim that His words
should be recognized because He said them ; but be
cause they were true. " If I say the truth, why do ye
not believe Me?" Prescription — personal authority
— these were not His basis of a kingdom.
One more possible title remains. He might have
claimed to rule over men on the ground of incontro
vertible demonstration of His principles. This was
the ground taken by every philosopher who was the
founder of a sect. Apparently, after the failure of
his first guess, Pilate thought in the second surmise
that this was what Jesus meant by caUing Himself a
king. WUen he heard of a kingdom, he thought he
had before him a rival of Caesar ; but when truth was
named, he seems to have fancied that he was called
to try a rival of the philosophers : some new candidate
for a system ; some new pretender of a truth which
was to dethrone its rival systems.
This seems to be implied in the bitter question,
What is Truth?" For the history of opinion in
those days was like the history of opinion in our own :
religions against religions, philosophies against philoso
phies ; religion and philosophy opposed to one another;

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 321
the opinion of to-day dethroned by the opinion of to
morrow ; the heterodoxy of this age reckoned the or
thodoxy of the succeeding one. And Pilate, feeling
the vainness and the presumption of these pretensions,
having lived to see failure after failure of systems
Avhich pretended to teach That Avhich is, smiled bitterly
at the enthusiast who again asserted confidently his
claims to have discovered the indiscoverable. There
broke from his lips a bitter, half-sarcastic, half-sad ex
clamation of hopeless scepticism — " What is Truth ? "
And, indeed, had the Redeemer claimed this, — to
overthrow the doctrine of the Porch and of the Acad
emy, and to enthrone Christianity as a Philosophy of
Life upon their ruins by argument, — that sceptical cry
would have been not iU-timed.
In these three ways have men attempted the Propa
gation of the Gospel. By force, Avhen the Church ruled
by persecution ; by prescriptive authority, when she
claimed infallibility, or any modification of infallibility,
in the Popery of Rome, or the Popery of the pulpit ;
by Reasoning, in the age of " evidences," when she
only asked to have her proofs brought forward and
calmly heard, pledged herself to rule the world by the
conviction of the understanding, and laid the founda
tions of rationahsm deep and broad. Let us hear the
claim of the King Himself. He rested His royal rights
on His testimony to the Truth. " Thou sayest, for 1
am a king (correcter translation) ; to this' end was I
born, to bear witness to the truth." The mode in
which the subjects of the kingdom were brought be
neath his sway was by assimUation. " Every one that
is of the Truth heareth my voice." These, then, are
our points :

322 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
I. The basis of the kingly rule of Christ.
H. The qualifications of the subjects of the king
dom. I. The basis of the kingly rule of Christ.
Christ is a king in virtue of His being a witness to
the truth. " Thou sayest right. To this end was I
born, and for this cause came I into the world, that
I should bear witness unto the truth."
Truth is used here in a sense equivalent to reality ;
— for " truth " substitute reahty, and it wiU become
more inteUigible. For "the truth" is an ambiguous
expression, limited in its application, meaning often
nothing more than a theological creed, or a few dog
mas of a creed which this or that party have agreed
to caU " the truth." It would indeed fritter down the
majesty of the Redeemer's hfe, to say that He was a
witness for the truth of any number of theological
dogmas. Himself, His Life, were a witness to Truth
in the sense of Reality. The realities of Life — the re
alities of the universe — to these his every act and word
bore testimony. He was as much a witness to the
truth of the purity of domestic life, as to the truth of
the doctrine of the Incarnation ; to the truth of Good
ness being identical with greatness, as much as to the
doctrine of the Trinity; and more, — His mind cor
responded with Reahty as the dial with the sun.
Again, in being a witness to Reality, we are to un
derstand something very much deeper than the state
ment that He spoke truly. There is a wide difference
betAveen truthfulness and mere veracity. Veracity im
plies a correspondence between words and thoughts:
truthfulness, a correspondence between thoughts and

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 323
realities. To be veracious, it is only necessary that a
man give utterance to his convictions ; to be true,
it is needful that his convictions have affinity with
Fact. Let us take some illustrations of this distinction.
The Prophet tells of men who put sweet for bitter,
and bitter for sweet; who caUed good evil, and evil
good : yet these were veracious men ; for to them evil
was good, and bitter was sweet. There was a cor
respondence between their opinions and their words :
this was veracity. But there was no correspondence
between their opinions and eternal Fact: this was
untruthfulness. They spoke their opinions truly, but
their opinions were not true. The Pharisees in the
time of Christ were men of veracity. What they
thought they said. They thought that Christ was an
impostor. They believed that to tithe -mint, anise, and
cummin, was as acceptable to God as to be just, and
merciful, and true. It was their conviction that they
were immeasurably better than publicans and profli
gates : yet, veracious as they were, the title perpet
ually affixed to them is, " Ye hypocrites." The life
they led, being a false life, is called, in the phraseol
ogy of the Apostle John, a lie.
If a man speak a careless slander against another,
believing it, he has not sinned against veracity ; but
the carelessness which has led him into so grave an
error effectually bars his claim to clear truthfulness.
He is a veracious witness, but not a true one. Or.
a man may have taken up second-hand, indolently.
religious vieAvs — may believe them — defend them
vehemently, — Is he a man of truth? Has he bowed
before the majesty of truth with that patient, rever-

324 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
ential humbleness which is the mark of those who
love her ?
Imagination has pictured to itself a domain in which
every one who enters should be compelled to speak
only what he thought, and pleased itself by calling
such domain the Palace of Truth. A palace of ve
racity, if you will ; but no temple of the Truth : — a
place where every one would be at liberty to utter his
own crude unrealities, — to bring forth his delusions,
mistakes, half-formed, hasty judgments : where the de
praved ear would reckon discord harmony, and the
depraved eye mistake color ; the depraved moral taste
take Herod or Tiberias for a king, and shout beneath
the Redeemer's Cross, " Himself He cannot save." A
temple of the Truth? Nay, only a palace echoing
with veracious falsehoods — a Babel of confused sounds,
in which egotism would rival egotism, and truth would
be each man's own lie. Far, far more is implied here
than the Son of Man spoke veraciously, in saying that
He was a Witness to the Truth.
Again, when it is said that He was a Witness to the
Truth, it is implied that His very Being, here, mani
fested to the world Divine realities. Human nature is
but meant to be a witness to the Divine ; the true His-
manity is a manifestation, or reflection, of God. And
that is Divine Humanity in which the Humanity is a
perfect representation of the Divine. " We behold,"
says the Apostle Paul, " in Christ, as in a glass, the
glory of the Lord." And, to borrow and carry on
the metaphor, the difference between Christ and other
men is this : they are imperfect reflections, He a per
fect one, of God.
There are mirrors which are concave, which mag-

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 325
nify the thing that they reflect : there are mirrors
convex, which diminish it. And we in like manner
represent the Divine in a false, distorted way : frag
ments of truth torn out of connection, snatches of
harmony joined without unity. We exaggerate and
diminish till aU becomes untrue. We bring forth our
own fancies, our own idiosyncrasies, our own imag
inations, and the image of God can be no longer
recognized. In One alone has the Divine been so blended with
the Human, that, as the ocean mirrors every star and
every tint of blue upon the sky, so was the earthly
Life of Christ the Life of God on earth.
Now, observe that the perfection of Humanity con
sists in faithful imitation of, or witness borne to, the
Mind and Life of God. Whoever has studied and un
derstood the Life of Christ, will have remarked, not
without surprise, that the whole principle of His exist
ence was the habit of unceasing imitation. Listen to
a few instances of this :
" The. Son can do nothing of Himself, but that
which He seeth the Father do." — " The words which
I speak, I speak not of myself; but the Father which
is with me, He doeth the works." Do we remember
the strange and startling principle on which He de
fends His infraction of the literal, legal Sabbath ?
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." God the
Father works all the Sabbath-day. So may Man, His
Son. Do we recollect the ground on which He en
forces forgiveness of injuries? A strange ground,
surely, which would never have occurred except to
One whose life was habitual imitation. " Love your
enemies : do good to them that hate you, and pray for
28

32G THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
them which despitefully use you and persecute you ;
that ye may be the children of (that is, resemble) your
Father .... for He sendeth His rain upon the just and
upon the unjust."
This, then, is Man's — this was the Son of Man's —
relation to the Truth. Man is but a learner, — a de
vout recipient of a revelation; — here to listen with
open ear devoutly for that which he shall hear ; to
gaze and watch for that which he shall see. Man can
do no more. He cannot create Truth : he can only
bear witness to it. He has no proud right of private
judgment : he can only listen and report that which
is in the universe. If he does not repeat and witness
to that, he speaketh of his own, and forthwith ceaseth
to be true. He is a liar, and the father of it, because
he creates it. Each man in his vocation is in the
world to do this. As truly as it was said by Christ,
may it be said by each of us, even by those from
whose trades and professions it seems most alien, " To
this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, to bear witness to the Truth."
The architect is here to be a witness. He succeeds
only so far as he is a witness, and a true one. The
lines and curves, the acanthus on his column, the pro
portions, aU are successful and beautiful only so far as
they are true ; the report of an eye Avhich has lain
open to God's world. If he build his lighthouse to
resist the storm, the law of imitation bids him build
it after the shape of the spreading oak, which has
defied the tempest. If man construct the ship which
is to cleave the waters, calculation or imitation builds
it on the model upon Avhich the Eternal Wisdom has
already constructed the fish's form. The artist is a

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 327
witness to the truth ; or he will never attain the beau
tiful. So is the agriculturist ; or he will never reap a
harvest. So is the statesman — building up a nation's
polity on the principles which time has proved true —
or else all his work crumbles down in revolution : for
national revolution is only the Divine Rejection,
stamped on the social falsehood, Avhich cannot stand.
In every department of life, man must work truly —
as a witness. He is born for that — nothing else ; and
nothing else can he do. Man, the Son, can do noth
ing of Himself, but that which He seeth God, the
Father, do.
This Avas the Saviour's title to be a King; and His
kingdom formed itself upon this law : " Every one that
is of the Truth heareth my voice ; " that Eternal law
which makes Truth assimilate all that is congenial to
itself. Truth is like life ; whatever lives absorbs into
itself all that is congenial. The leaf that trembles in
the wind assimilates the light of heaven to make its
color and the sap of the parent stem — innumerable
influences from heaven, and earth, and air, to make up
its beautiful being.
So grew the Church of Christ ; round Him as a cen
tre, attracted by the truth, all that had in it harmony
with His Divine Life and words grew to Him (by
gradual accretions) ; clung to Him as the iron to the
magnet. AU that were of His Spirit believed; all
that had in them the spirit of sacrifice were attracted
to His Cross. " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men
unto me."
He taught not by elaborate trains of argument, like
a scribe or a philosopher. He uttered His truths
rather as detached intuitions, recognized by intuition,

328 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
to be judged only by being felt. For mstance —
" Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall see
God." — " It is more blessed to give than to receive."
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and perse
cute yon." Prove that — by force, by authority, by
argument — you cannot. It suffices that a man reply,
" It is not so to me : it is more blessed to receive than
it is to give." You have no reply : if he be not of
the truth, you cannot make him hear Christ's voice.
The truth of Christ is true to the unselfish — a false
hood to the selfish. They that are of the truth, like
Him, hear His voice : and if you ask the Christian's
proof of the truth of such things, he has no other
than this, — It is true to me, as any other intuitive
truth is true ; equals are equal; because my mind is so
constituted that they seem so perforce. Purity is
good, because my heart is so made that it feels it to
be good.
Brother men, the truer you are, the humbler, the
nobler, the more will you feel Christ to be your King.
You may be very little able to prove the King's Divine
genealogy, or to appreciate those claims to your alle
giance which arise out of His Eternal generation ;
but He will be your Sovereign and your Lord by that
affinity of character which compels you to acknowl
edge His words and life to be Divine. "He that
receiveth his testimony, hath set to his seal that God
is true."
II. We pass to the consideration of the qualification
of the subjects of the Empire of the Truth. Who are
they that are of the Truth ?
1. The first qualification is to be true : " He that is

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 329
of the truth heareth my voice." Truth lies in charac
ter. Christ did not simply speak truth : He was truth ;.
truth through and through ; for truth is a thing, not
of words, but of Life and Being. None but a Spirit
can be true.
For example. The friends of Job spoke ivords of
truth. Scarcely a maxim which they uttered could
be impugned : cold, hard, theological verities ; but
verities out of place — in that place cruel and untrue.
Job spoke many words not strictly accurate — hasty,
impetuous, blundering, wrong ; but the whirlwind
came, and before the Voice of God the veracious
falsehoods were swept into endless nothingness — the
true man, wrong, perplexed, in verbal error, stood
firm. He was true, though his sentences Avere not ;
turned to the truth as the sunflower to the sun, — as the
darkened plant, imprisoned in the vault, turns towards
the light, — struggling to solve the fearful enigma of
his existence.
Job was a servant of the truth, being true in char
acter. 2. The next qualification is integrity. But by integ
rity I do not mean simply sincerity or honesty ; integ
rity rather according to the meaning of the word as
its derivation interprets it — • entireness, wholeness,
soundness ; that which Christ means when he says,
" If thine eye be single or sound, thy whole body shall
be full of light."
This integrity extends through the entireness or
wholeness of the character. It is found in small mat
ters as well as great ; for the allegiance of the soul to
truth is tested by small things rather than by those
which are more important. There is many a man who
28*

330 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
Avould lose his life rather than perjure himself in a
court of justice, whose life is yet a tissue of small
insincerities. We think that we hate falsehood when
we are only hating the consequences of falsehood.
We resent hypocrisy, and treachery, and calumny, not
because they are untrue, but because they harm us.
We hate the false calumny, but we are half pleased
with the false praise. It is evidently not the element
of untruth here that is displeasing, but the element of
harmfulness. Now, he is a man of integrity who hates
untruth as untruth ; who resents the smooth and pol
ished falsehood of societj'', which does no harm ; who
turns in indignation from the glittering, whitened lie
of sepulchral Pharisaism, which injures no one. Integ
rity recoils from deceptions Avhich men would almost
smile to hear called deception. To a moral, pure
mind, the artifices in every department of life are
painful : the stained wood, Avhich passes for a more
firm and costly material in a building, and deceives the
eye, by seeming Avhat it is not, marble ; the painting
which is intended to be taken for a reality ; the gilding
which is meant to pass for gold ; and the glass which
is worn tolook like jewels: for there is a moral feeling
and a truthfulness in architecture, in painting, and in
dress, as well as in the market-place, and in the senate,
and in the judgment-hall.
" These are trifles." Yes, these are trifles ; but it
is just these trifles which go to the formation of char
acter. He that is habituated to deceptions and artifi
cialities in trifles, Avill try in vain to be true in matters
of importance ; for truth is a thing of habit rather
than of will. You cannot, in any given case, by any
sudden and single effort, will to be true, if the habit

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 331
of your life has been insincerity. And it is a fearful
question, and a difficult one, how all these things, the
atmosphere Avhich Ave breathe in our daily life, may sap
the very foundations of the power of becoming a ser
vant of the truth. Life becomes fictitious, and it passes
into religion, till our very religion bases itself upon a
figment too. We are not righteous, but we expect
God to make believe that we are righteous, in virtue
of some peculiar doctrines Avhich we hold; and so our
very righteousness becomes the fictitious righteous
ness of the Scribes and Pharisees, instead of the right
eousness Avhich is by faith, the righteousness of those
who are the children of the kingdom of the truth.
3. Once more. He is qualified to be the subject of
the king who does the truth. Christianity joins two
things inseparably together — acting truly, and per
ceiving truly. Every day the eternal nature of that
principle becomes more certain. If any man will do
His will, he shall knoAV of the doctrine whether it be
of God.
It is a perilous thing to separate feeling from act
ing; to have learnt to feel rightly without acting
rightly. It is a danger to which, in a refined and pol
ished age, we are peculiarly exposed. The romance,
the poem, and the sermon, teach us how to feel. Our
feelings are delicately correct. But the danger is
this : feeling is given to lead to action ; if feeling be
suffered to awake without passing into duty, the char
acter becomes untrue. When the emergency for real
action comes, the feeling is, as usual, produced: but,
accustomed as it is to rise in fictitious circumstances
without action, neither will it lead on to action in the
real ones. " We pity wretchedness, and shun the

332 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
Avretched." We utter sentiments just, honorable,
refined, lofty, — but, somehow, when a truth presents
itself in the shape of a duty, Ave are unable to perform
it. And so such characters become by degrees like
the artificial pleasure-grounds of bad taste, in which
the Avaterfall does not fall, and the grotto offers only
the refreshment of an imaginary shade, and the green
hill does not strike the skies, and the tree does not
grow. Their lives are a sugared crust of SAveetness
trembling over black depths of hoUowness ; more truly
still, " whited sepulchres," — fair Avithout to look upon,
" within full of all uncleanness."
It is perilous, again, to separate thinking rightly
from acting. He is already half false who speculates
on truth, and does not do it. Truth is given, not to
be contemplated, but to be done. Life is an action,
not a thought; and the penalty paid by him who
speculates on truth is that by degrees the very truth
he holds becomes to him a falsehood.
There is no truthfulness, therefore, except in the
witness borne to God by doing His will, — to live
the truths we hold, or else they will be no truths
at all. It was thus that He witnessed the truth.
He lived it. He spoke no touching truths for sen
timent to dwell on, or thought to speculate upon.
Truth Avith Him was a matter of life and death.
He perilled His life upon the words He said. If He
were true, the life of men was a painted life, and the
woes He denounced unflinchingly would fall upon the
Pharisees. But if they were true, or even strong, His
portion in this life was the Cross.
Who is a true man ? He who does 'the truth ; and
never holds a principle on Avhich he is not prepared in

THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH. 333
any hour to act, and in any hour to risk the conse
quences of holding it.
I make, in conclusion, one remark. The kingly
character of truth is exhibited strikingly in the calm
ness of the bearing of the Son of Man before His
judge. Veracity is not necessarily dignified. There
is a vulgar effrontery, — a spirit of defiance which
taunts, and braves, and challenges condemnation. It
marks the man who is conscious of sincerity, but
of nothing higher, — whose confidence is in himself
and his own honesty, and who is absorbed in the
feeling, " I speak the truth, and am a martyr." Again,
the man of' mere veracity is often violent, for what
he says rests upon his OAvn assertion ; and vehe
mence of assertion is the only addition he can make
to it. Such was the violence of Paul before Ana
nias. He was indignant at the injustice of being
smitten contrary to the law ; and the powerlessness.
of his position, the hopelessness of address, joined to
a conviction of the truth of what he said, produced
that vehemence.
It has been often remarked that there is a great
difference between theological and scientific con
troversy. Theologians are proverbially vituperative :
because it is a question of veracity — the truth of
their views, their moral perceptions, their intellect
ual acumen. There exists no test but argument on
which they can fall back. If argument fails, all fails.
But the man of science stands calmly on the facts
of the universe. He is based upon reality. All the
opposition and controversy in the world cannot alter
facts, nor prevent the facts being manifest at last. He
can be calm, because he is a witness for the Truth.

334 THE KINGDOM OF THE TRUTH.
In the same way, but in a sense far deeper and
more sacred, the Son of Man stood calm, rooted in
the Truth. There was none of the egotism of self-
conscious veracity in those placid, confident, digni
fied replies. This was not the feeling, — "I hold
the truth," — but " I am a Avitness to the truth." They
might spit upon Him — kill Him — crucify Him —
give His ashes to the winds: — they could not alter
the Truth by which He stood. Was not that His own
feeling ? " Heaven and earth shall pass aAvay, but my
words shall not pass away."
There was the kingly dignity of One who, in Life
and Death, stood firm on Truth as on' a Rock.
In the name of Christ, I respectfully commend
these thoughts, for the special consideration of the
present week, to those Avho will be pledged by oath
to witness to the whole truth they know, and noth
ing but the truth : to those who, permitted by the
merciful spirit of English jurisprudence to watch
that their client, if condemned, shall be condemned
only according to the law, are yet not justified by
the spirit*of the life of Christ in falsifying or obscur
ing facts ; and who, owing a high duty to a client,
owe one yet higher to the truth : and, lastly, to those
whom the severe intellectual, and, much more, moral
training of the English bar has qualified for the high
office of disentangling truth from the mazes of con
flicting testimony.
From the trial-hour of Christ, from the Cross of
the Son of God, there arises the principle to which
all His life bore witness : that the first lesson of Chris
tian life is this, Be true ; and the second this, Be true;
and the third this, Be true.

XX.
[Preached November 7, 1852.]
THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
John xviii. 38. — " Pilate saith unto him, What is truth 1 "
The lesson which Ave are to draw from this verse
must depend upon the view we take of the spirit in
which the words Avere spoken. Some of the best
commentators conceive them to have been words of
mockery ; and such is the great Lord Bacon's view.
" ' What is Truth ? ' said jesting Pilate, and would not
wait for a reply."
In all deference to such authority, we cannot be
lieve that this sentence was spoken in jest. In
Pilate's whole conduct there is no trace of such a
tone. It betrays throughout much of uncertainty,
nothing of lightness. He was cruelly tormented with
the perplexity of efforts to save his prisoner. He
risked his own reputation. He pronounced Him,
almost with vehemence, innocent. He even felt awe,
and Avas afraid of Him. In such a frame of mind,
mockery was impossible.
Let us try to comprehend the character of the man
who asked this question. His character will help us
to judge the tone in Avhich he asked. And his char-
(336)

336 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
acter, the character of his mind and life, are clear
enough from the few things recorded of him. He first
hears what the people have to say ; then asks the
opinion of the priests — then comes back to Jesus — •
goes again to the priests and people — lends his ear —
listens to the ferocity on the one hand, and feels the
beauty on the other, balancing between them ; and
then he becomes beAvildered, as a man of the world
is apt to do who has had no groundwork of religious
education, and hears superficial discussions on reli
gious matters, and superficial charges, and superficial
slanders, till he knows not what to think. What could
come out of such procedure? Nothing but that
cheerlessness of soul to which certainty respecting
anything and everything here on earth seems unat
tainable. This is the exact mental state which we call
scepticism. Out of that mood, when he heard the enthusiast
before him speak of a Kingdom of the Truth, there
broke a sad, bitter, sarcastic sigh — " What is Truth ? "
Who knows anything about it ? Another discoverer
of the undiscoverable ! Jesting Pilate ! — With Pilate
the matter was beyond a' jest. It was not a question
put for the sake of information ; for he went imme
diately out, and did not stay for information. It was
not put for the sake of ridicule ; for he went out to
say, " I find no fault in him." Sarcasm there was,
perhaps ; but it was that mournful, bitter sarcasm,
which hides inward unrest in sneering words : that
sad irony, Avhose very laugh rings of inward wretched
ness. We shall pursue, from this question of Pilate's, two
lines of thought.

THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE. 337
1. The causes of Pilate's scepticism.
II. The way appointed for discovering what is
Truth. I. The causes — and among these I name,
1. Indecision of character.
Pilate's whole behavior Avas a melancholy exhibition.
He was a thing set up for the world's pity. See how
he acts : he first throws the blame on the priests, and
then acknowledges that all responsibility is his own ;
washes his hands before the multitude, sajdng, " I am
innocent of the blood of this just person. See ye to
it." And then, — "KnoAvest thou not that I have
power to crucify thee, and poAver to release thee ? "
He pronounces Jesus innocent ; and then, with won
drous inconsistency, delivers Him to be scourged:
yields Him up to be crucified, and then tries every
underhand expedient to save Him.
What is there in aU this but vacillation of charac
ter lying at the root of unsettledness of opinion ?
Here is a man knowing the right, and doing the
Avrong; not willing to do an act of manifest injus
tice if he can avoid it, but hesitating to prevent it, for
fear of a charge against himself; pitiably vacillating
because his hands were tied by the consciousness of
past guilt and personal danger. How could such a
man be certain about anything ? What could a mind
wavering, unstable, like a feather on the wind, know
or believe of solid, stable truth, which altereth not,
but remaineth like a rock amidst the vicissitudes of
the ages, and the changeful fashions of the mind of
men ? "A double-minded man is unstable in all his
ways." — " He that is of the truth heareth the voice of
29

338 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
truth." To the untrue man all things are untrue. To
the Aracillating man, avIio cannot knoAv his own mind,
aU things seem alterable, changeful, unfixed ; just as
to the man tossed at sea all things motionless in them
selves seem to move round, upwards, downwards, or
around, according to his own movements.
2. Falseness to his own convictions.
Pilate had a conviction that Jesus was innocent.
Instead of acting at once on that, he went and par
leyed. He argued and debated till the practical force
of the conviction was unsettled.
Now, let us distinguish : I do not say that a man is
never to reexamine a question once settled. A great
Christian, whose works are popular, has advised that
when a view has once been arrived at as true, it
should be as it Avere laid on the shelf, and never
again looked on as an open question ; but surely this
is false. A young man of twenty-three, with such
light as he has, forms his views : is he never to have
more light ? Is he never to open again the questions
which his immature mind has decided on once? Is
he never jn manhood, Avith manhood's data, and man
hood's experience, to modify, or even reverse, what
once seemed the very Truth itself? Nay, my breth
ren — the Aveak pride of consistency, the cowardice
which dares not say I have been wrong all my life, the
false anxiety which is fostered to be true to our prin
ciples rather than to make sure that our principles are
true, all this would leave in Romanism the man Avho is
born a Romanist. It is not so. The best and bravest
have struggled from error into truth : they listened to
their honest doubts, and tore up their old beliefs by
the very roots.

THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE. 339
Distinguish, hoAvever. A man may unsettle the
verdict of his intellect : it is at his peril that he tam
pers with* the convictions of his conscience. Every
opinion and view must remain an open question,
freely to be tried with fresh light. But there are
Eternal Truths of Right and Wrong, such as the
plain moralities and instinctive decencies of social
life, upon which it is perilous to argue. There are
plain cases of immediate duty, where it is only safe to
act at once.
Now, Pilate was false to his conscience. His convic
tion was that Jesus was innocent. It Avas not a mat
ter of speculation or probability at all, nor a matter in
Avhich fresh evidence was even expected, but a case
sifted and examined thoroughly. The Pharisees are
persecuting a guiltless man. His claims to royal ty
are not the civil crime which they would make out.
Every charge has fallen to the ground. The clear
mind of the Roman Procurator saw that, as in sun
light, and he did not try to invalidate that judicial con
viction. He tried to get rid of the clear duty which
resulted from it. Noav, it is a habit such as this which
creates the temper of scepticism.
I address men of a speculative turn of mind. There
is boundless danger in all inquiry Avhich is merely
curious. When a man brings a clear and practised
intellect to try questions, by the ansAver to which he
does not mean to rule his conduct, let him not marvel
if he feels, as life goes on, a sense of desolation ;
existence a burden, and all uncertain. It is the laAv
of his human nature Avhich binds him ; for truth is for
the heart rather than the intellect. If it is not done,

340 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
it becomes unreal, — as gloomily unreal and as
dreamily impalpable as it was to Pilate.
3. The third cause of Pilate's scepticism was the
taint of the worldly temper of his day. Pilate had
been a public man. He knew life : had mixed much
with the world's business, and the world's politics :
had come across a multiplicity of opinions, and gained
a smattering of them all. He knevp Uoav many philos
ophies and religions pretended to an exclusive posses
sion of Truth ; and how the pretensions of each were
overthrown by another. And his incredulity was
but a specimen of the scepticism fashionable in his
day ; the polished scepticism of a polished educated
Roman, a sagacious man of the world, too much
behind the scenes of public life to trust professions
of goodness or disinterestedness, or to believe in
enthusiasm and a sublime life. And his merciful
language, and his desire to save Jesus, was precisely
the liberalism current in our day, as in his : an utter
disbelief in the truths of a world unseen, but at the
same time an easy, careless toleration, — a half-benevo
lent, half-indolent unwillingness to molest the poor
dreamers who chose to believe in such superstitions.
This is the superficial liberalism which is contracted
in public life. Public men contract a rapid way of
discussing and dismissing the deepest questions:
never going deep ; satisfied with the brilliant flippancy
Avhich treats religious beliefs as phases of human
delusion; seeing the hoUowness of the characters
around them, and believing that all is hollow ; and
yet not without their moments of superstition, as when
Pilate Avas afraid, hearing of a Son of God, and con
necting it doubtless with the heathen tales of gods

THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE. 341
who had Avalked this earth in visible flesh and blood ;
which he had laughed at, and Avhich he now for one
moment suspected might be true : — not without their
moments of horrible insecurity, when the question,
" What is Truth ? " is not a brilliant sarcasm, but a
sarcasm on themselves, on human life, on human
nature, wrung out of the loneliest and darkest beAvil-
derment that can agonize a human soul.
To such a character Jesus would not explain His
Truth. He gave no reply. He held His peace. God's
Truth is too sacred to be expounded to superficial
worldhness in its transient fit of earnestness.
4. Lastly, I assign, as a cause of scepticism, that
priestly bigotry which forbids inquiry and makes
doubt a crime.
The priests of that day had much to answer for.
Consider for a moment the state of things. One — of
whom they only knew that He was a man of unblem
ished life — came forward to proclaim Truth. But it
was new ; they had never heard such views before ;
they were quite sure they had never taught such, nor
sanctioned such; and so they settled that the thing
was heresy. He had no accredited ordination. " We
know that God spake to Moses : as for this fellow, we
know not whence he is." Then they proceeded to
bind that decision upon others. A man was heard to
say, "Why, what evil hath he done?" Small offence
enough ; but it savored of a dangerous candor
towards a suspected man, and, in the priestly esti
mate, candor is the next step to heresy. " Thou Avast
altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us ? and
they cast him out of the synagogue." And so again
with Pilate : they stifled his soul's rising convictions
29*

342 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
Avith threats and penalties. " If thou let this man go,
thou art not Cassar's friend."
This was what they were always doing: they for
bade all inquiry, and made doubt of their decision a
crime. Now, the results of this priestcraft Avere two-fold.
The first result was seen in the fanaticism of the
people who cried for blood : the second, in the scep
ticism of Pilate.
And these are the two results which come from all
claims to infallibility, and all prohibition of inquiry.
They make bigots of the feeble-minded who cannot
think — coAvardly bigots, who at the bidding of their
priests or ministers swell the ferocious cry which
forces a government, or a judge, or a bishop, to per
secute some opinion which they fear and hate — turn
ing private opinion into civil crime ; and they make
sceptics of the acute intellects which, like Pilate, see
through their fallacies, and, like Pilate, too, dare not
publish their misgivings.
And it matters not in what form that claim to infalli
bility is made : whether in the clear, consistent way in
which Rome asserts it, or whether in the inconsistent
way in which churchmen make it for their church, or
religious bodies for their favorite opinions : wherever
penalties attach to a conscientious conviction, be they
the penalties of the rack and flame, or the penalties of
being suspected, and avoided, and slandered, and the
slur of heresy affixed to the name, till all men count
him dangerous, lest they too should be put out of the
synagogue, — and let every man who is engaged in
persecuting any opinion ponder it: these two things

THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE. 343
must folloAv — you make fanatics, and you make scep
tics, — believers you cannot make.
Therefore do we stand by the central protest and
truth of Protestantism. There is infaUibility nowhere
on this earth ; — not in Rome ; not in councils or con
vocations; not in the Church of England; not in
priests ; not in ourselves. The soul is thrown in the
grandeur of a sublime solitariness on God. Woe to
the spirit that stifles its convictions, when priests
threaten, and the mob which they have maddened
cries heresy, and insinuates disloyalty : " Thou art not
Csesar's friend."
II. The mode appointed for discovering the reply
to the question, " What is Truth? "
Observe: I do not make our second division that
which might seem the natural one — what Truth is.
I am not about to be guilty of the presumption of
answering the question which Jesus did not answer.
Some persons hearing the text might think it to be
the duty of any man, who took it as a text to preach
upon, to lay down what Truth is; and if a minister
were so to treat it, he might give you the fragment of
Tiuth which his own poor mind could grasp ; and he
might call it, as the phrase is, The Truth, or The Gos
pel; and he might require his hearers to receive it
on peril of salvation. And then he would have done
as the priests did ; and they who lean on other minds
would have gone away bigoted; and they who think
would have smiled sadly, bitterly, or sarcastically ; and
gone home to doubt still more, " What is Truth, and is
it to be found?"
No, my brethren ; the Truth cannot be compressed

344 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
into a sermon. The reply to Pihte's question cannot
be contained in any verbal form. Think you, that if
Christ Himself could have ansAvered that question in
a certain number of sentences, He Avould have spent
thirty years of life in witnessing to it? Some men
Avould compress into the limits of one reply, or one
discourse, the truth which it took Christ thirty years
to teach, and leave unfinished for the Spirit to com
plete. One word. The Truth is infinite as the firmament
above you. In childhood, both seem near and meas
urable ; but with years they grow and grow, and seem
further off, and further, and grander, and deeper, and
vaster, as God' Himself; till you' smile to remember
how you thought you could touch the sky, and blush
to recollect the proud and self-sufficient way in which
you used to talk of knowing or preaching " The
Truth." And once again: the Truth is made up of princi
pies; an inAvard Life, not any formula of words.
God's Character — Spiritual worship — the Divine Life
in the Soul. How shall I put that into sentence, ten
or ten thousand? "The words which I speak unto
you, they are Truth, and they are Life." How could
PUate's question be answered except by a life ? The
Truth, then, which PUate wanted — Avhich you want,
and I want — is not the boundless verities, but Truth
of inward life. Truth for me : Truth enough to guide
me in this darkling world ; enough to teach me how to
live, and how to die.
Now, the appointed ways to teach this Truth. They
are three : Independence, Humbleness, Action.
First, Independence. Let no man start, as if indo

THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE. 345
pendence savored of presumption. Protestant inde
pendence, they teU us, is pride and self-reliance ; but,
in truth, it is nothing more than a deep sense of per
sonal responsibility ; a determination to trust in God
rather than in man to teach — in God and God's light
in the soul. You choose a guide among precipices
and glaciers: but you walk for yourself; judge his
opinion, though more experienced than your own;
overrule it, if needs be ; use your own strength ; rely
on your own nerves. That is independence.
You select your own physician, deciding upon the
respective claims of men, the most ignorant of whom
knows more of the matter than you. You prudently
hesitate, at times, to follow the advice of the one j^ou
trust most; yet that is only independence, without a
particle of presumption.
And so precisely in matters of religious Truth. No
man cares for your health as you do ; therefore you
rely blindly upon none. No man has the keeping of
your own soul, or cares for it as you do. For your
self, therefore, you inquire and think, and you refuse
to delegate that work to bishop, priest, or church.
CaU they that presumption ? 0 ! the man who knoAvs
the awful feeling of being alone, and struggling for
truth as for life and death — he knows the difference
between, in dependence and presumption.
Second, Humbleness. There is no infallibility in
man: if so, none in us. We may err: that one
thought is enough to keep a man humble.
There are two kinds of temper contrary to this
spirit. The first is a disputing, captious temper. Dis
agreement is refreshing when two men lovingly desire
to compare their AdeAvs to find out the truth. Contro-

346 THE SCEPTICISM OF PILATE.
versy is wretched when it is an attempt to prove one
another wrong. Therefore Christ would not argue
Avith Pilate. Religious controversy does only harm.
It destroys the humble inquiry after truth ; it throws
all the energies into an attempt to prove ourselves
right. The next contrary is a hopeless spirit. Pilate's
question breathed of hopelessness. He felt that Jesus
Avas unjustly condemned, but he thought him in vieAvs
as hopelessly wrong as the rest — all wrong. What
Avas truth? who knew anything about it? He spoke
too bitterly, too hopelessly, too disappointedly, to get
an answer. In that despairing spirit no man gets at
truth : " The meek will he guide in judgment  "
Lastly, Action. This was Christ's rule:- "If any
man will do His Avill  " A blessed rule ; a plain
and simple. Here we are in a world of mystery,
where all is difficult, and very much dark; where a
hundred jarring creeds declare themselves the truth,
and all are plausible. How shall a man decide ? Let
him do the right that lies before him : much is uncer
tain — some things, at least, are clear. Whatever else
may be wrong, it must be right to be pure, to be just
and tender, and merciful and honest. It must be right
to love and to deny one's self. Let him do the will, and
he shaU know. Observe; men begin the other way.
They say, If I could but believe, then I would make
my life true. If I could but be sure what is truth,
then I would set to work to five in earnest. No ; God
says, Act — make the life true, and then you will be
able to believe. Live in earnest, and you will know
the answer to Avhat is Truth.
Infer the blessedness of belief. Young men are
prone to consider scepticism a proof of strong-minded

THE SCEPTICISM OF TILATE. 347
ness — a something to be proud of. Let Pilate be a
specimen — and a Avretched one he is. He had clear-
mindedness enough to be dissatisfied Avith all the vieAvs
he knew : enough to see through and scorn the squab
bles and superstitions of priests and bigots. All well :
if from doubt of falsehood he had gone on to a belief
in higher truth. But doubt, Avhen it left him doubting
— why, the noblest opportunity man ever had — that
of saving the Saviour — he missed: he became a thing
for the people to despise, and after-ages to pity. And
that is scepticism. Call you that a manly thing?
To believe is to be happy: to doubt is to be wretched.
But I will not urge that. Seventy years, and the
most fevered brain Avill be still enough. We will not
say much of the wretchedness of doubt. To believe
is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is
power : — only so far as a man believes strongly,
mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do anything that is
worth the doing.
I speak to those who have learned to hold cheap the
threats wherewith priests and people would terrify
into acquiescence — to those who are be37ond the
appeal of fear, and can only yield, if at all, to higher
motives. Young men ! the only manly thing, the only
strong thing, is Faith. It is not so far as a man doubts,
but so far as he believes, that he can achieve or perfect
anything. " All things are possible to him that be
lieveth."

XXI.
[Preached on the first day of Public Mourning for the Queen Dowager, 1819.]
THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE IN A FOREIGN LAND.*
Gen. i. 24-26. — "And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and Gud
will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land
which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and -to Jacob. And Joseph
took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit
you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died,
being an hundred and ten years old ; and they embalmed him, and
he was put in a coffiu in Egypt."
There is a moment when a man's life is re-lived on
earth. It is in that hour in which the coffin-lid is shut
* This Sermon was formerly published by the Author in a separate
form, and the following Preface to that publication explains so well the
circumstances under which all the other Sermons have been preserved,
thai it has been thought best to reprint the preface here.
" For the publication of the commonplace observations contained in
the following pages, the commonplace excuse may, perhaps,'suifice. that
printing was the simplest way of multiplying copies for a few friends
who desired them. Perhaps, too, the uncommonness of the occasion may
justify the writer in giving to an ephemeral discourse an existence some
what less transient than the minutes spent in listening to it.
" The Sermon is published as nearly as possible as it was spoken. It
was written out concisely for a friend on the day of its delivery, with no
intention of publication. Afterwards, it seemed better to leave it in that
state, with only a few corrections, and the addition of <>¦ few sentences,
ilian to attempt to re-write it after an interval too great to recall what
(348)

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 349
down, just before the funeral, Avhen earth has seen the
last of him forever. Then the whole life is, as it were,
lived over again in the conversation which turns upon
the memory of the departed. The history of three
score years and ten is soon recapitulated : not, of
course, the innumerable incidents and acts which they
contained, but the central, governing principle of the
whole. Feverish curiosity sometimes spends itself
upon the last hours; and a few correct sentences,
implying faith after the orthodox phraseology, would
convey to some greater hope than a whole life breath
ing the Spirit of Christ, separate from such sentences.
But it is not thus the Bible speaks. It tells us very
little of the closing scene, but a great deal of the gen
eral tenor of a life. In truth, the closing scene is
worth very little. The felon, who, up to the last fort
night, has shown his impenitence by the plea of not
guilty, in the short compass of that fortnight makes a
confession, as a matter of course exhibits the externals
of penitence, and receives the last Supper. But it
would be credulity, indeed, to be easily persuaded that
the eternal state of such a one is affected by it. A life
of holiness sometimes mysteriously terminates in dark
ness ; but it is not the bitterest cries of forsakenness —
so often the result of physical exhaustion — nor even
had been said. This will account for the abruptness and want of finish
which pervades the composition.
" The writer takes this opportunity of disowning certain sermons
which have been published in his name. They would not have been
worth notice, had not the innumerable blunders of thought and expression
which they contain been read and accepted by several as his. For this
reason, he feels it due to himself t& state that they are published without
liia sanction, and against his request, and that he is not responsible for
either the language or the ideas. ' '
30

350 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
blank despair, that shall shake our deep conviction
that he whose faith shone brightly through life is now
safe in the Everlasting arms. The dying scene is
Avorth little — little, at least, to us — except so far as
it is in harmony with the rest of life.
It is for this reason that the public estimate pro
nounced upon the departed is generally a fair criterion
of worth. There are, of course, exceptional cases :
cases in'which the sphere of action has been too limited
for the fair development of the character, and nothing
but the light of the Judgment day can reveal it in its
true aspect ; cases in which party spirit has defaced
a name, and years are wanted to wash away the mask
of false color which has concealed the genuine features;
cases in which the champion of truth expires amidst
the execrations of his contemporaries, and after-ages
build his sepulchre. These, however, are exceptions.
For the most part, Avhen all is over, general opinion is
not far from truth. Misrepresentation and envy have
no provocatives left them. What the departed was is
tolerably well known in the circle in which he moved.
The epitaph may be falsified by the partiality of rela
tions ; but the broad judgment of society reverses that,
rectifies it, and pronounces, with perhaps a rude, but
on the whole fair approximation to the truth.
These remarks apply to the history of the man
whose final scene is recorded in the text. The verdict
of the Egyptian world was worth much. Joseph had
gone to Egypt, some years before, a foreigner; had
lived there in obscurity; had been exposed to calumny;
-by his quiet, consistent goodness, had risen, step by
step, first to respect, then to trust, command, and vene
ration ; was embalmed after death in the affections, as

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 351
well as with the burial rites, of the Egyptians ; and his
honored form reposed at last amidst the burial-place
of the Pharaohs.
In this respect the text branches into a two-fold
division : the life of Joseph, and the death which
was in accordance with that life.
I. The history of Joseph, as of every man, has two
sides — its outward circumstances, and its inner life.
1. The outward circumstances were checkered with
misfortune. Severed from his home in very early
years, sold into slavery, cast into prison, — at first
grief seemed to have marked him for her OAvn. And
this is human life. Part of its lot is misery. There
are two inadequate ways of accounting for this mys
tery of sorrow. One, originating in a zeal for God's
justice, represents it as invariably the chastisement
of sin, or, at the least, as correction for fault. But,
plainly, it is not always such. Joseph's griefs were
the consequences, not of fault, but of rectitude. The
integrity which, on some unknown occasion, made it
his duty to carry his brethren's " evil report " to their
father, was the occasion of his slavery. The purity
of his life was the cause of his imprisonment. Fault
is only a part of 'the history of this great matter of
sorr.ow. Another theory, created by zeal for God's
love, represents sorrow as the exception, and happi
ness as the rule of life. We are made for enjoyment,
it is said, and on the whole there is more enjoyment
than wretchedness. The common idea of Love being
that which identifies it with a simple wish to con
fer happiness, no wonder that a feeble attempt is
made to vindicate God by a reduction of the apparent

352 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
amount of pain. Unquestionably, however, Love is
very different from a desire to shield from pain. Eter
nal Love gives to painlessness a very subordinate
place in comparison of excellence of character. It
does not hesitate to secure man's spiritual dignity at
the expense of the sacrifice of his well-being. The
solution Avill not do. Let us look the truth in the face.
You cannot hide it from yourself. " Man is born to
sorrow as the sparks fly upwards." Sorrow is not an
accident, occurring now and then ; it is the very woof
which is woven into the warp of life. God has cre
ated the nerves to agonize, and the heart to bleed ;
and before a man dies almost every nerve has thrilled
with pain, and every affection has been Avounded.
The account of life which represents it as probation
is inadequate : so is that which regards it chiefly as a
system of rewards and punishments. The truest ac
count of this mysterious existence seems to be that it
is intended for the development of the soul's life, for
which sorrow is indispensable. Every son of man
who would attain the true end of his being must be
baptized vvith fire. It is the law of our humanity, as
of that of Christ, that we must be perfected through
suffering. And he who has not discerned the Divine
Sacredness of Sorrow, and the profound meaning
which is concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life
is. The Cross, manifested as the Necessity of the
Highest Life, alone interprets it.
2. Besides this, obloquy was a part of Joseph's
portion. His brethren, even his father, counted him
a vain dreamer, full of proud imaginings. He lan
guished long in a dungeon, with a stain upon his char
acter. He was subjected to almost all the bitterness

TnE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 353
which changes the milk of kindly feelings into gall:
to Potiphar's fickleness, to slander, to fraternal envy,
to the ingratitude of friendship in the neglect of the
chief butler, Avho left his prison and straightway forgot
his benefactor. Out of all AAdiich a simple lesson
arises, " Cease ye from man, Avhose breath is in his
nostrils." Yet that may be over-stated. • Nothing chills
the heart like universal distrust. Nothing freezes the
genial current of the soul so much as doubts of hu
man nature. Human goodness is no dream. Surely
we have met unselfishness, and love, and honor, among
men. Surely we have seen, and not in dreams,
pure benevolence beaming from human countenances.
Surely we have met with integrity that the world's
wealth could not bribe, and attachment which might
bear the test of any sacrifice. It is not so much the
depravity as the frailty of men that makes it impos
sible to count on them. Was it not excusable in Ja
cob, and even natural, if he attributed to vanity his
son's relation of the dream in which the sun, and the
moon, and the eleven stars, bowed down before him?
Was it not excusable if Potiphar distrusted his tried
servant's word, when his guilt appeared so indisputably
substantiated? Was not even the chief butler's for-
getfulness intelligible, when you remember his absorb
ing interest in his own danger, and the multiplied du
ties of his office ? The world is not to be too severely
blamed, if it misrepresents us. It is hard to reach the
truth : very hard to sift a slander. Men who believe
such rumors, especially in courtly life, may be igno
rant, hasty, imperfect, but are not necessarily treacher
ous. Yet, even while you keep this in mind, that the
heart may not be soured, remember, your dearest
80*

354 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
friend may fail you in the crisis. A truth of experi
ence was wrapped up in the old fable, and the thing
you have fostered in your bosom may wound you to
the quick; the one you have trusted may become your
Accuser, and throw his own blame, with dastard mean
ness, upon you. That was the experience of Joseph.
Was not that His fate who trusted Judas ? There is
One, and but One, whose. Love is as a rock, which will
not fail you when you cling. It is a fearful, solitary
feeling, that lonely truth of life ; yet not Avithout a
certain strength and grandeur in it. The life that is
the deepest and the truest wiU feel most vividly both
its desolation and its majesty. We live and die alone.
God and our own souls, — we fall back upon them, at
last. " Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come,
that ye shaU be scattered, every man to his own, and
shall leave Me alone ; and yet I am not alone, because
the Father is with Me."
3. Success, besides, marked the career of Joseph.
Let us not take half vieAvs of men and things. The
woof of hfe is dark — that Ave granted ; but it is shot
through a jjreb of brightness. Accordingly, in Joseph's
case, even in his worst days, you find a kind of bal
ance to be weighed against his sorrows. The doctrine
of compensation is found through all. Amidst the
schemings of his brothers' envy he had his father's
love. In his slavery he had some recompense in feel
ing that he was gradually winning his- master's confi
dence. In his dungeon he possessed the conscious
ness of innocence, and the grateful respect of his
fellow-prisoners. In that beautiful hymn which some
of you read last Sunday,* you may remember that a
*Keble's Christian Year. Tweuty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.

355
parallel is drawn between human life and the aspects
of the weather. The morning rainbow, glittering
among the dangerous vapors of the west, predicts that
the day Ayill not unclouded pass away. The evening
rainbow declares that the storms are past, and that
serene weather is setting in. Such is the life of all
Avhom God disciplines. The morning or the evening
brightness is the portion of a life the rest of Avhich is
storm. Rarely are the manful struggles of principle
in the first years of life suffered to be in vain. Joseph
saw the early clouds, which darkened the morning of
his existence, pass away; and the rainbow of heavenly
peace arched over the calmness of his later years.
" The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosper
ous man." And it is for this special purpose it is writ
ten, " And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third
generation : the children also of Machir, the son of
Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph's knees."
Long life, an honored old age, a quiet grave — these
were the blessings reckoned desirable in JeAvish
modes of thought ; and they are mentioned as evi
dences of Joseph's happiness.
And this, too, is Life. The sorroAvs of the past
stand out most vividly in our recollections, because
they are the keenest of our sensations. At the end
of a long existence, we should probably describe it
thus : " Few and evil have the days of the years of
thy servant been." But the innumerable infinitesimals
of happiness, that from moment to moment made life
SAveet and pleasant, are forgotten ; and very richly has
our Father mixed the materials of these with the
homeliest actions and domesticities of existence. See
two men meeting together in the streets— -mero

356 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
acquaintances. They Avill not be five minutes to
gether before a smile will overspread their counte
nances, or a merry laugh ring of, at the lowest, amuse
ment. This has God done. God created the smile
and the laugh, as well as the sigh and the tear. The
aspect of this life is stern — very stern. It is a very
superficial account of it which slurs over its grave
mystery, and refuses to hear its low, deep undertone
of anguish. But there is enough, from hour to hour
of bright, sunny happiness, to remind us that its Cre
ator's highest name is Love.
Noav, turn to the spirit of Joseph's inner life. First
of all, that life was forgiveness. You cannot but
have remarked that, conversant as his experience was
with human treachery, no expressions of bitterness
escape from him. No sentimental wailing over the
cruelty of relations, the falseness of friendship, or the
ingratitude of the world. No rancorous outburst of
misanthropy : no sarcastic scepticism of man's integ
rity or woman's honor. He meets all bravely, Avith
calm, meek, and dignified forbearance. If ever man
had cause for such doubts, he had; yet his heart was
never soured. At last, after his father's death, his
brothers, apprehending his resentful recollections of
their early cruelty, come to deprecate his revenge.
Very touching is his reply. " Fear not : for am I in
the place of God ? But as for you, ye thought evil
against me ; but God meant it unto good, to bring to
pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
Noav, therefore, fear ye not : I will nourish you and
your little ones."
This is the Christian spirit before the Christian
times. Christ Avas in Joseph's heart, though not

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 357
definitely in Joseph's creed. The Eternal Word
whispered in the souls of men before it spoke articu
lately aloud in the Incarnation. It was the Divine
Thought before it became the Divine Expression.* It
Avas the Light that lighteth every man that cometh
into the Avorld, before it blazed into the Day-spring
from on high, Avhich visited us. The Mind of Christ,
the Spirit of the years yet future, blended itself with
life before He came ; for His words were the Eternal
Verities of our Humanity. In all ages Love is the
truth of life. Men cannot injure us except so far as
they exasperate us to forget ourselves. No man is
really dishonored except by his OAvn act. Calumny,
injustice, ingratitude, — the only harm these can do
us is by making us bitter, or rancorous, or gloomy :
by shutting our hearts or souring our affections. We
rob them of their power, if they only leave us more
sweet and forgiving than before. And this is the only
true victory. We Avin by love. Love transmutes all
curses, and forces them to rain down blessings. Out
of the jealousy of his brothers Joseph extracted the
spirit of forgiveness. Out of Potiphar's weak injus
tice, and out of the machinations of disappointed
Passion, he created an opportunity of learning meek
ness. Our enemies become unconsciously our best
friends, when their slanders deepen in us heavenlier
graces. Let them do their worst ; they only give us
the Godlike victory of forgiving them.
2. Distinguished from the outward circumstances,
we find simplicity of character : partly in the willing
ness to acknowledge his shepherd father in Egypt,
where the pastoral life was an abomination ; partly in

358 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
that incidental notice which we have of the feast at
which he entertained his brethren, where the Egyp
tians sat at a table by themselves, and Joseph by him
self. So that, elevated as he was, his heart remained
Hebrew still. He had contracted a splendid alliance,
by marrying into one of the noblest families in Egypt,
— that of Potipherah, the priest of On. And yet he had
not forgotten his country, nor sought to be natural
ized there. His heart was in that far land where
he had fed his father's flocks, in his simple, genial
boyhood. The divining-cup of Egyptian silver Avas on
his table ; but he remembered the days when the only
splendor he knew Avas that coat of many colors which
was made for him by his father. He bore a simple,
unsophisticated heart amidst the pomp of an Egyptian
court. There is a great mistake made on the subject of sim
plicity. There is one simplicity of circumstances ;
another simplicity of heart. These two must not be
confounded. It is common to talk of the humble poor
man, and the proud rich man. Let not these ideas be
inseparably blended together. There is many a man
who sits down to a meal of bread and milk on a
wooden table, whose heart is as proud as the proudest
whose birth is royal. There is many a one whose
voice is heard in the public meeting, loudly descant
ing on regal tyranny and aristocratic insolence, who in
his own narrow circle is as much a tyrant as any
oppressor who ever disgraced the throne. And there
is many a man who sits down to daily pomp, to whom
gold and silver are but as brass and tin, and who bears
in the midst of it all a meek, simple spirit, and a
"heart refrained as a weaned child:" — many a man

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 359
who lives surrounded Avith homage, and hearing the
applause and flattery of men perpetually, on whose
heart these things fall flat and dead, without raising
one single emotion of fluttered vanity.
The world cannot understand this. They cannot
believe that Joseph can be humble, while he is con
scious of such elevation above the crowd of men, and
even dreaming of it. They cannot understand hoAv
carelessly these outsides of life can be worn, and hoAV
they faU off like the unregarded and habitual dress of
daily life. They cannot know how the spirit of the
Cross can crucify the world, make grandeur painful,
and calm the soul with a vision of the Eternal Beauty.
They cannot dream how His life and death, once felt
as the grandest, write mockery on all else, and fill the
soul with an ambition which is above the world. It is
not the unjewelled finger, nor the affectation of an
almost quakerish simplicity of attire, nor the pedes
trian mode of travelling, nor the scanty meal, that
constitute humility. It is that simple, inner life of
real greatness, which is indifferent to magnificence,
and, surrounded by it all, lives far away in the distant
country of a Father's Home, with the cross borne
silently and self-sacrificingly in the heart of hearts.
3. One characteristic of Joseph's inner life remains,
— benevolence. It was manifested in the generosity
with which he entertained his brethren, and in the dis
criminating tenderness with which he provided his
best beloved brother's feast Avith extraordinary deli
cacies. These were traits of thoughtfulness. But
further still. The prophetic insight of Joseph enabled
him to foresee the approach of famine. He took
measures accordingly; and Avhen the famine came,

360 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
the royal storehouses were opened, and every man in
Egypt owed his life to the benevolent providence of
the Hebrew stranger. It was productive of a great
social revolution. It brought, by degrees, all the land
of Egypt into the power of the Crown, so that a kind
of feudal system was established, — every man holding
in direct tenancy from the Crown. Hence the nation
became compacted into a new unity, and power was
concentrated in the hands of government, partly by
the pecuniary revenue thus added, and partly by the
lustre of goodness which Joseph had thrown round
the royal acts. For acts like these are the real bul
warks of a throne. One such man as Joseph does
more to strengthen the Crown than all the specula
tions, solemn or trifling, which were ever written on
the " Divine righ^ of kings." There is a right divine
which requires no elaborate theory to make it felt.
II. The death of Joseph was in accordance with his
life. 1. The funeral was a homage paid to goodness.
Little is said in the text of Joseph's funeral. To
know what it was, we must turn to the earlier part of
the chapter, where that of Jacob is mentioned. A
mourning of seventy days, — a funeral whose impos
ing greatness astonished the Canaanites. They said,
" This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians."
Seventy days were the time, or nearly so, fixed by
custom for a royal funeral; and Jacob was so hon
ored, not for his own sake, but because he was Jo
seph's father. We cannot suppose that Joseph's own
obsequies were on a scale less grand.
Now, weigh what was implied in this. This was

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 361
not the homage paid to talent, nor to wealth, nor to
birth. Joseph was a foreign slave, raised to eminence
by the simple power of goodness. Every man in
Egypt felt, at his death, that he had lost a friend.
There were thousands whose tears would fall when
they recounted the preservation of lives dear to them
in the years of famine, and felt that they owed those
lives to Joseph. Grateful Egypt mourned the Good
Foreigner; and for once the honors of this world
were given to the graces of another.
2. We collect from this, besides, a hint of the resur
rection of the body. The Egyptian mode of sepulture
was embalming ; and the Hebrews, too, attached much
importance to the body after death. Joseph com
manded his countrymen to preserve his bones to take
away with them. In this we detect that unmistakable
human craving, not only for immortality, but immor
tality associated with form. No doubt the Egyptian
feeling Avas carried out absurdly. They tried to re
deem from the worm the very aspect that had been
worn, the very features they had loved; and there
was a kind of feeling that while that mummy lasted
the man had not yet perished from earth. They ex
pected that, in process of years, it would again be
animated by its spirit.
Now, Christianity does not disappoint, but rather
meets, that feeling. It grants aU that the materialist
and all that the spiritualist have a right to ask. It
grants to the materialist, by the doctrine of the resur
rection of the body, that future life shall be associated
with a material form. Leaving untouched aU the
questions which may be raised about the identity of
the atoms that have been buried, it simply pronounces
31

362 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
that the spirit shall have a body. It grants to the
spiritualist all he ought to wish, — that the spirit shall
be free from evil. For it is a mistake of ultra-spirit
ualism to connect degradation Avith the thought of a
risen body ; or to suppose that a mind, unbound by
the limitations of space, is a more spiritual idea of a
resurrection than the other. The opposite to spiritu
ality is not materialism, but sin. The form of matter
does not degrade. For what is this world itself but
the Form of Deity, whereby the Manifoldness of His
mind and Beauty manifests, and wherein it clothes
itself? It is idle to say that the spirit can exist apart
from form. We do not know that it can. Perhaps
even the Eternal Himself is more closely bound to
His works than our philosophical systems have con
ceived. Perhaps matter is only a mode of thought.
At all events, aU that we know or can know of mind
exists in union with form. The resurrection of the
body is the Christian verity, which meets and satisfies
those cravings of the ancient Egyptian mind, that ex
pressed themselves in the process of embalming, and
the religious reverence felt for the very bones of the
departed by the Hebrews.
Finally, in the last Will and Testament of Joseph,
Ave find faith. He commanded his brethren, and
through them his nation, to carry his bones with
them when they migrated to Canaan. In the Epistle
to the Hebrews, that is reckoned an evidence of faith.
" By faith, Joseph gave commandment concerning his
bones." How did he know that his people would ever
quit Egypt ? We reply, by faith. Not faith in a writ
ten word, for Joseph had no Bible ; rather, faith in
that conviction of his own heart, Avhich is itself the

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 363
substantial evidence of faith. For religious faith ever
[dreams of something higher, more beautiful, more per
fect, than the state of things Avith which it feels itself
surrounded. Ever a day future lies before it : the evi
dence for which is its own hope. Abraham, by that
creative faith, saAV the day of Christ, and was glad.
Joseph saw his family in prosperity, even in afflu
ence ; but he felt that this was not their rest. A
higher life than that of affluence, a nobler destiny
than that of stagnant rest, there must be for them in
the future ; else all the anticipations of a purer earth,
and a holier world, which imagination bodied forth
within his soul, were empty dreams, not the intui
tions of God's Spirit. It was this idea of perfection,
which was the " substance of things hoped for," that
carried him far beyond the period of his own death,
and made him feel himself a partaker of his nation's
blessed future.
And that is the evidence of immortality. When the
coffin is lowered into the grave, and the dull, heavy
sound of earth falling on it is heard, there are some
to whom that sound seems but an echo of their worst
anticipations — seems but to reverberate the idea of
decay forever, in the words, " Earth to earth, ashes to
ashes, dust to dust." There are others, to whom it
sounds pregnant with the expectations of immortality,
the " sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal
life." The difference between these two feelings is
measured by the difference of lives. They Avhose life
is low and earthly, how can they believe in aught
beyond the grave, when nothing of that life which is
eternal has yet stirred within them? They who have
lived as Joseph lived, just in proportion to their purity

364 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
and their unselfishness must believe it. They cannot
but believe it. The eternal existence is already pulsing
in their veins ; the life of trust, and high hope, and
sublime longings after perfection, with which the
decay of the frame has nothing at all to do. That is
gone ; yes, but it was not that life in which they lived;
and when it finished, what had that ruin to do with
the destruction of the Immortal?
For what is our proof of immortality? Not the
analogies of nature — the resurrection of nature from
a winter grave, or the emancipation of the butterfly.
Not even the testimony to the fact of risen dead ; for
Avho does not know how shadowy and unsubstantial
these intellectual proofs become in unspiritual frames
of mind ? No, the life of the Spirit is the evidence.
Heaven begun is the living proof that makes the heaven
to come credible. " Christ in you is the hope of glory."
It is the eagle eye of faith which penetrates the grave,
and sees far into the tranquil things of death. He
alone can believe in immortality who feels the resur
rection in him.
There is^a special application to be made of this sub-
j'ect to our hearts. It is not often that the pulpit can
be used for a funeral eulogium. Where Christ is to
be exalted in solitary preeminence, it is but rarely that
the praise of man may be heard. Rank, Royalty itself,
could not command from the lips of a minister of the
King of kings one syllable of adulatory, undeserved,
or unfelt homage. But there are cases in which to
loftiness of birth is added dignity of character ; and
then we gladly relax the rule, to pay a wiUing tribute
to the majesty of Goodness. There is one to whom
your thoughts must have reverted often during the

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 365
history which we have been going through, suggesting
a parallel all the more delicately felt from the absence
of direct allusion. That royal Lady, for Avhose loss
the marvellous uniformity of the unbroken funeral
hue which pervades this congregation tells eloquently
of general mourning, came to this land, a few years
ago, like Joseph, a foreigner. Like Joseph, the earlier
years of her sojourn were spent in comparative obscur
ity. Like Joseph, she had her share of calumny,
though in a different form. There are many here who
can remember that, in that year, when our political
feuds had attained the acme of rancor, the irreverent
lip of party Slander dared to breathe its rank venom
upon the name of one of the gentlest that ever
adorned a throne. There are some who know how
that unpopularity was met: with meekness, with
Christian forgiveness, with quiet dignity, with that
composure which is the highest result and evidence of
strength. Like Joseph, she passed through the tempt
ations of a court with unsullied spotlessness ; like
Joseph, the domestic and social relationships were
sustained with beautiful fidelity ; like Joseph, she
lived down opposition, outlived calumny; like Joseph,
she used the noble income intrusted to her in acts of
almost unexampled munificence ; like Joseph, her life
Avas checkered with sorrow, and when the clouds of
earlier difficulties had cleared away, the rainbow sign
of peace, even in the midst of broken health, spanned
the calmness of her evening years ; like Joseph, she
will have a regal burial, and her ashes wiU repose with
the dust of England's princes, amidst the mourning of
the nation in which she found a home.
The homage which is given to her is not the homage
31*

366 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.
yielded to rank, or wealth, or genius. There will be
silver on her coffin, and magnificence in the pageantry
Avhich attends her to the grave;* but it is not in
these that the glory of her funeral lies. These were
the privileges of the most profligate of her ancestors,
as well as her. These are the world's rewards for
those whom she delights to honor. There will be
something in her funeral, beside which these things
are mean. There is a grandeur in a nation's tears ; and
they AviU be shed in unfeigned reverence over the
remains of all that was most queenly, and all that was
most womanly. No political fervor mixes with her
obsequies. She stood identified with no party politics.
No peculiar religious party mourns its patroness. Of
all our jarring religious sects, in the Church and out
of it, not one dares to claim her as its own. Her spirit
soared above these things. It is known that she
scarcely recognized them. AU was lost in the sublimer
name of Christian. It is a Christian who has passed
from this earth away, to take her place in the gen
eral Assembly and Church of the first-born ; to stand
before Go^ the Judge of all, among the spirits of the
just made perfect.
One word more. Honoring the Queen, profoundly
reverencing the Woman, let not contemplation stop
there. Do not bury thought in the human and finite.
Mildly as her lustre shone on earth, remember it was
I ut one feeble ray of the Light that is Uncreated.
All that she had she received. If we honor her, it is
* This anticipation has not been realized. In one of the most touch
ing and unaffected documents that ever went right home to English
hearts, the Queen of a British Sovereign requested to be borne to the
grave as the wife of a sailor.

THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE. 367
to adore Him who made her what she was. Of His
fulness she had received, and grace for grace. What
she was she became through adoring faith in Christ.
It is an elevating thing to gaze on human excellence,
because through it the Highest becomes conceivable.
It is a spirit-stirring thing to see saintly Goodness
asserting its celestial origin by turning pale the lustre
of the highest earthly rank. For in this universal
mourning our noble country has not bowed the knee
in reverence to the majesty which is of time. Every
heart in England has felt that the Sovereign was
merged in the servant of Christ. " The King's
daughter was all glorious within." Hers was Chris
tian goodness. Her eyes had beheld the King in his
beauty ; and therefore her life was beautiful, and fem
inine, and meek, and simple. It was all derived
beauty. She had robed herself in Christ. " Reflect
ing back, as from a burnished mirror, the glory of the
Lord, she was changed into the same image, from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." *
* 2 Cor. iii. 18. This appears to be the true force and rendering of the
metaphor, Subjoined are the directions given by her late Majesty for her own
funeral. The reader will be glad to have them preserved in a, form less
inconvenient than the columns of a newspaper. Should he be one who
feels it a relief to miss, for once, the worn-out conventionalisms of reli
gious expression, and come in contact with something fresh and living, he
will find more in these quiet lines than in ten sermons : more to make a
very happy tear start ; more of the simplicity and the beauty of the life
in God ; more to cool the feverishness of his heart, and still its world-
liness into silence ; more of that deep rest into which the meek and
humble enter ; more that will make him long to be simple, and inartifi
cial, and real, as Christ was, desiring only in life, and death, and judg
ment, to be found in Him.

368 THE ISRAELITE'S GRAVE.

[copy.]
" I die in all humility, knowing well that we are all alike before the
Throne of God, and request, therefore, that my mortal remains be con
veyed to the grave without any pomp or state. They are to be moved to
St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where I request to have as private and
quiet a funeral as possible.
" I particularly desire not to be laid out in state, and the funeral to
take place by daylight, no 'procession, the coffin to be carried by sailors
to the chapel.
" All those of my friends and relations, to a limited number, who wish
to attend, may do so. My nephew, Prince Edward of Saxe Weimar,
Lords Howe and Denbigh, the Hon. William Ashley, Mr. Wood, Sir
Andrew Barnard, and Sir D. DavieB, with my dressers, and those of my
ladies who may wish to attend.
" I die in peace, and wish to be carried to the tomb in peace, and free
from the vanities and the pomp of this world.
" I request not to be dissected, nor embalmed ; and desire to give as
little trouble as possible. (Signed) " ADELAIDE R.
"November, 1849."

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