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THE WAY OF PEACE,
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A SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OX
ON EASTER SUNDAY, 1851.
BY
REV. L. J. BERNAYS, M.A.
LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHNS COLLEGE, OXFORD.

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THE WAY OF PEACE,
AN EASTER PLEA:
A SERMON
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
ON EASTER SUNDAY, 1851.

REV. L. J. BERNAYS, M.A.,
LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COL LEG E, OXFORD.

LONDON :
SAMPSON LOW, 169 FLEET STREET.
OXFORD : J. H. PARKER, AND W. GRAHAM.
MDCCCXI.

LONDON:
RICHARDS, PRINTER, 100 ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

I have printed this Sermon with an earnest desire
to promote the glory of the Saviour, by recommend
ing that peace on earth, especially in His Church,
which He loves to see, and which the faithful
preaching of His Name and Work must ever, by
God's grace, advance.
Elstbee Hill, Edgware,
May 7th, 1851.

Rom. vi. 23.
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The great theme of the gospel of Christ is de
liverance : deliverance from sin ; deliverance from
sorrow ; deliverance from self. The Bible, indeed,
gives us the history of man's fall : its pages assert
and exemplify what our own consciences attest,
that we are far, very far gone from the righteous
ness in which God created our race ; but with all
this they proclaim constantly our deliverance.
"With this were our first parents comforted under
their curse, and the same voice which pronounced
them subject to death, told also of One to come,
who in man's name and person should bruise and
finally crush man's enemy. Thenceforth the Scrip
tures have but one voice : they tell fallen, degraded,
helpless, hopeless man of a land flowing with milk
and honey, into which he shall one day enter ; they
speak in no doubtful tones of a city which hath
foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God.
All the laws given by God to his chosen people —

6 THE WAY OF PEACE,
all their promises, all their deliverances — all the
types, symbols and prophecies, all the yearnings
and aspirations of holy men of old have but one
end, aim and object, — the salvation, the redemption,
the final deliverance of man. The rest of the Sab--
bath, the rest of Canaan, the rest of the soil every
seven years, and the rest of the year of jubilee, all
tell of that future and final rest which is reserved
for the people of God. The bondage of Egypt, and
the rescue of Israel from their hard slavery, so ap
propriately read to us this day, are symbols (faint,
indeed, but true) of the far harder bondage of sin
and death, and the far mightier rescue from their
tyranny, of which the event of this day is the seal.
This day were all these words of comfort drawn to
gether, and in one mighty work confirmed and ful
filled. This day, He who bore our sins and carried
our sorrows, who endured for us the last bitter cup
of death itself, the very conclusion and completion
of our bondage, brought us deliverance out of the
grave, when He raised Himself by His own power
from death.
The week just passed, has been devoted to the
contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, and every
circumstance of His last agony has been brought in
sorrowful detail before us. Not, we trust, for any
of us, in vain. We trust that all this solemn pre
paration has not been a time of spiritual deadness
to any of us ; but rather that we have been, each

AN EASTER PLEA. 7
one according to the measure of his faith, enabled
to go without the camp with Christ, bearing His re
proach ; that we have been enabled to apprehend
that, without which this day has neither comfort nor
meaning, — the deep corruption and alienation from
God, which could demand so stern a remedy. Oh !
brethren, as we have followed our Church in her
waiting upon our Lord in Gethsemane, in the judg
ment hall, and upon the cross, God grant we may
have been led to smite upon our breasts in deep hu
miliation for our sins. Thus only can we rejoice this
day without hypocrisy. This day is a day of glad
ness above all other days, but of gladness only to
those who mourn — who sorrow over their own sin
fulness and corruption, who struggle with the evil
within them and without; who are not satisfied
with the world ; who feel themselves fettered with
chains, which, of themselves, they cannot break.
Blessed are ye that so mourn, for ye shall be com
forted. The resurrection of your Saviour is a
pledge to you of your own resurrection from sin and
death. The battle did indeed seem hopeless, but
He has fought it for you and has returned victo
rious. The dark chambers of death are dark no
longer; and that which seemed the last rivet in the
chain of our slavery is become, through Christ, the
bursting of our bonds for ever; death as well as life
is ours ; for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
Of this cardinal truth of Scripture the text is a

8 THE WAY OF PEACK,
short summary ; or rather it is the practical state
ment of that great event which we this day com
memorate. The wages of sin is death. Here is the work of
the first Adam : here is the great curse pronounced
upon all generations of our fallen race. This truth
we need to feel, and its grievous bitterness we need
to apprehend, that we may receive, with real and
unfeigned joy, the glorious tidings which are pro
claimed with it, that the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of sin
is death. Death is no arbitrary penalty, which
(being arbitrary) may now and then be remitted,
and from which we may have some vague hope of
escape; but it is the wages, the necessary conse
quence of sin. Man was not taken by surprise.
" In the day thou eatest of it," so ran God's threat
ening, "thou shalt die:" the sentence of death
shall go forth on thee and on thy seed for ever.
Thenceforth death has been introduced into the
very nature of things. It moves in our veins in
the hour of our greatest strength and health ; it is
born with us, it grows with us ; we know of none
who have escaped it ; and we know (however we
shrink from the thought) that we shall not escape
it ourselves. Abraham is dead, and the prophets :
all the great, all the good. The sentence will not
be repealed. It is appointed unto all men once to
die.

AN EASTER PLEA. 9
But there is, as you well know, more than
this. The punishment thus denounced on man's
transgression, and thus rigorously exacted, is the
death not only of the body, but of the soul. The
dissolution and destruction of this mortal frame —
to which, with its attendant pains and ailments, so
much of the sum of human sorrow may be traced —
is but a type and symbol of what Scripture calls
the second death, which is declared to be the
sure inheritance of the unforgiven sinner. And
surely, brethren, however we word our theories, we
are all unforgiven sinners, save only in as far as we
are justified before God by faith in our risen
Saviour. There is but one cure for the deep evil
of our nature. Its rooted corruption, and the
curse laid upon it, can be removed by no penance,
no works of self-denial or alms-deeds. We have
no power of ourselves to help ourselves. There is
but one cure. " As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be
lifted up, that all who believe on him may have
everlasting life." There is but one cure, presented
to us so often by the Church during the past
week, when she has said to us, in ever- varying phrase,
but in language too plain to be misunderstood:
" Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sins ofthe world.''
The wages of sin is death ; and those wages will be
paid, and must be received. Nothing but a miracle

10 THE WAY OF PEACE,
on the great day of account can save that man,
who has not, during his lifetime, received the gift
of God — which is eternal life. And is not this in
the very nature of things? Can the soul, which
passes away from earth in a carnal, slavish fear of
God — which, even if unstained by gross sin, has
never known the love of its Maker, has never
realised that adoption by which alone it can call
him Father — can such a soul have peace with God?
Must it not be out of place with its earthly affec
tions, and its alienation from Him, there, where all
things are one with Him, and delight in His praise?
Our restoration to the love of God, our restor
ation to a real sonship, is indeed a miracle ; but it
must be wrought while we are yet here. We must
pass from death to life here, if death is not to pass
on us hereafter. And this is not our own work.
It is the work of Christ alone. The whole of our
blessed Redeemer's life, from the first humiliation of
his incarnation to that still deeper humiliation
when he passed through the gate of death with the
agony and the shame of sin upon him, was one
continual sacrifice for sin, one continual warfare
against sin, and victory over sin, and judgment
upon sin. Without shedding of blood was no
remission, and that innocent blood was shed for us.
None of us but needed it. The wages of sin is
death, and to sin our whole nature was subject.
All we like sheep had gone astray, and the Lord

AN EASTER PLEA. 1 1
laid on him the iniquity of us all. We were all sick
of a deadly disease ; and there was found balm for
us by the great Physician of our souls. In his
death we live, by his stripes we are healed.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. He
that believeth on the Son hath life, and shall not
come into condemnation, but is passed from death
unto life. As certainly as death is the natural con
sequence of sin, because the wrath of God abideth
on the sinner, so surely is life the necessary and
natural heritage of him that believeth on Jesus.
Whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but
have everlasting life. I am come that ye might
have life, and that ye might have it more abun
dantly. The gift of God is eternal life — the free,
unsought, unmerited gift of God. Sin earns its
wages, receives its right. But life is the wages,
the right of no man ; it is the gift of God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. And, brethren, what a
precious gift it is — how great, how glorious. Let
the young tell us, to whom in their strength and
beauty the very consciousness of life is so unspeak
able a pleasure. Let the old tell us, who, though
worn and weary, shrink instinctively from death as
the hardest of all trials. Let the mourner tell us,
who weeps over a wife, or child, or parent. Let
the groaning and travailing of a thousand genera
tions tell us how precious and how dear to man is

12 THE WAY OF PEACE,
that life, which is ever ebbing away all round us.
Death seems to us so final, it severs us so com
pletely from the object of our love, it throws so
strange a shadow over the memory of the past,
and the hopes of the future, that we justly re
gard it as the sum and crown of all earth's evils.
The flowers of the field arise from their decay
with the return of spring, but man once gone seems
gone for ever.
I need not dwell much on the mournfulness, the
seeming hopelessness of death. Which of us has
not seen some very dear to them stricken by his
hand, and snatched away from their love ? Which of
us has not known the sad blank in the heart when
a dear and valued friend has been seen for the last
time, and has been committed to the dust of death?
And though we are Christians, and have been bap
tized into a better hope, yet is it an ordinary faith
which can triumph in the very moment of the
enemy's greatest victory ? Yet so it must be, or we
are not true Christians. We dare not sorrow as
those that have no hope. Our conversation is in
heaven, our affections are there, our store is there.
It is not for us to dwell on the gloomy trappings
of death : the pall, and the mourners, and the open
grave. The Christian thinks of his friend not as
dead but as living in Christ a truer and more real
life. He thinks on Him who was dead and is alive,
and he buries out of his sight all that could perish

.AN EASTER PLEA. 13
of his friend, in sure and certain hope that even
that perishable body shall be gathered by the hand
of God, and renewed with the medicine of immor
tality. The resurrection of Christ is indeed a
solution of the riddle of life, the clue to all its dark
and intricate ways. Without it the gospel itself
would have seemed but a cunningly devised fable.
It is the seal of the truth of Christ's mission, the
comfort and the hope of all generations. It is not
so much a doctrine as a fact ; it is that which has
happened in the case of Him who took on him our
nature, which will happen, which must happen to us
all. Were it merely a doctrine it would move us but
little, for the power of death is so present, and its
dark chambers so mysterious, that no mere words of
hope and promise would avail to comfort us. The
fearful doubt would ever harass us : is it possible
to conquer an enemy so subtle and so mighty? can
there be any waking from a sleep so deep, any re
newal from a corruption and decay so complete?
All that we know and can follow with our outward
senses is taken from us, and is laid in the grave.
A few years, and every trace of it is gone. Of the
soul we know nothing, save as it was manifested
through the body, and that body is become a mass
of corruption. What system of philosophy, what
doctrine, what mere words, however consoling,
could have given us a certainty that would out
weigh the present agony of separation. But thanks

14 THE WAY OF PEACE,
be to God who giveth us the victory; we are not left
to mere words and promises. Now is Christ risen
from the dead, and become the first fruits of them
that slept. He took not on him the nature of angels ;
but, in the form and in the nature of men, he lived,
he suffered, and was buried. He partook of our
weakness, and endured in our form and nature the
extreme penalty of sin. But he rose again from
the dead; the grave could not hold its prey, and He
ascended into heaven, leading captivity captive.
Where, then, is doubt? where is fear? It is Christ
that died, yea, rather that is risen again, wlio by
his resurrection has given us the type and the
pledge of our own. As by man came death, by
man came also the resurrection of the dead. As in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of
God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Well may the apostle say to his Thessalonian
converts, " Comfort one another with these words."
Well may he conclude his exhortation to the
Corinthian believers : " Therefore, my beloved
brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as
ye know that your labour is not in vain in the
Lord." All that sleep in Jesus will Jesus raise to
be with Him. All their plans and labours for the
advancement of Christ's kingdom will he collect
and complete; that which was wanting, he will

AN EASTER PLEA. 15
add; that which was weak, he will strengthen; that
which was sinful, he will purify. The work of the
Lord shall prosper. Work on, then, while it is time.
Heed nothing of the uncertainty of life, of the
thousands whose sun has gone down while it was
yet day on disappointed hopes and unfinished
labours. In the day of the restitution of all things,
no work undertaken for God shall be found useless.
Death will but stay your hand for a season. The
resurrection shall restore you to your labour, and
your labour to you, no longer let and hindered by
sin and infirmity. The Saviour rose from the dead
not only to give us hope in death, but, what is even
more, to impart a holy strength to life. It seemed
but one of many events in the Saviour's earthly
course ; but it was destined to have, and it has had,
the greatest moral influence. It taught the im
mediate followers of the Lord to transfer their ex
pectations and their desires to a world to come, to
look for no earthly grandeur, to anticipate no
earthly reward. It taught them to hold on firmly
in their course, heeding no enemies, shrinking
from no obloquy, despised, afflicted, tormented;
but with God for their friend, and the resurrection
for their hope. It bade them look-forward, in spite
of the flourishing of the wicked, and the debase
ment of the righteous, to the time of the restitution
of all things, when the secrets of the heart should
be revealed, and God should be justified in his

16 THE WAY OF PEACE,
ways. And so the apostle of fire became the
apostle of love. The denier of his Lord confessed
Him even unto death. The faithless became be
lieving. They who once forsook Him and fled,
learned not to count their lives dear unto them.
And whence all this change, but by the resurrec
tion of Christ, which threw a bridge for ever from
earth to heaven, and taught them that death was
the gate of life ? This alone could give that cer
tainty of faith which wrought such great things.
On this alone reposes the structure of Christian
truth. If Christ be not raised, says S. Paul, your
faith is vain. But this known and believed, all
else followed. By this, Christians of all times have
been effectually taught that they are pilgrims and
strangers in a world which is not their home. It
was this hope which animated the apostle most
abundant in labours, which was the secret of that
transcendent life of faith. For this he stood in
jeopardy every hour in the cause of the gospel, be
cause Christ had risen the first fruits from the dead,
leaving an unfailing hope, that in him all his faith
ful followers should one day be made alive.
Surely, brethren, these are to none of us unim
portant or irrelevant considerations. I know that
they are not new. I pray God earnestly they may not
be new or strange to any of us, but our very house
hold words, the daily food of our hearts and souls.
I cannot but think that if we would all content

AN EASTER PLEA. 17
ourselves with this daily bread of God's own giving,
we should not have to lament so much wandering
into strange or unhallowed pastures. But we will
be wise beyond what is written. It is the mis
fortune more particularly of our day to transfer
the activity and bustle, and stir and change of our
daily life to the great work of our salvation. We
long to find out new and untrodden fields of theory,
to arrange and classify the words of God as we do
the laws of nature. And to gratify this desire, do
we not especially select from Scripture those points
in which human agency is of necessity most set
forward, to the exclusion, or at least to the lightly
holding, of the direct but invisible work of God?
Are we not spending our time, and wasting our
energies, in vain controversy about the outworks of
religion? Are we not dwelling on points of cere
mony, on vestures and buildings, with a vehemence
which on both sides is little creditable to our
Christian calling? And even when we seem to
be better engaged, are we not spending, upon
subtle definitions and vain arguments on things
too high for us, the zeal which might preach Christ
crucified to thousands who as yet know nothing of
his work and of his love? When we are rending to
pieces the Church of Christ in the vain endeavour
to trace the trackless operations of the Spirit ; when
in place of seeing to it with all diligence that we
are Christ's people now in thought, word, and deed,

18 THE WAY OF PEACE,
we are wrangling as to the precise nature of the
change in baptism, and the exact definitions and
boundaries of His work, who is compared to the
wind blowing where it listeth ; when, for the sake
of outward ornament and unessential ceremonies,
we are contending one with another, even to the
driving forth of our brethren from the common
fold; are we not carnal — are we not forgetful of
the elements of the faith, are we not negligent of
the great work of life, the glory of God in the sal
vation of men ?
Cannot we then, my brethren, use this Easter
season as some and no slight help towards the
advance of Christian charity among us? Is it not
by God's providence that the great feasts and fasts
of our Church, which shine forth like stars in our
daily life, point one and all to those chief leading
mysteries of the faith, which God has revealed to
us for our eternal solace? Do not let us lose this
great benefit by declaiming against the danger of
selecting what we please to call fundamentals of
religion. Danger there is; but to the earnest
servant of God in this our Church a danger so
slight, that it fades away, and deserves no mention
in the presence of the far greater dangers which
surround us, and which are making the camp of
Christ to resound with the dissonant cries of almost
rival and contending armies? Let us look each to
our own hearts. Let us see that our zeal is indeed

AN EASTER PLEA. 19
for the Lord; that we are not calling man our
master, nor following blindly in the wake of a
party. Let us not be misled by names and sounds.
Let it be our main desire to know who is Christ's
servant ; and when by the many notes of light and
love he is found, let us labour side by side with
him against the enemies of our common Lord. Is
it too much even to say that many of us seem to
love the excitement of conflict, and to seek out
occasions of difference, when we should be labour
ing for peace? And to avoid this, let us dwell
much on Christ, and little on ourselves. Let God's
glory be our sole desire, the fulfilment of His pur
pose our sole aim. If others are privileged to
promote the one and fulfil the other in wider
spheres, or with more marked success, happy are
they ; but why should we feel anger or discontent
that God has need of us in other and less public
ways. If some appear to us to be preaching Christ,
and using the watchword of the blessed Gospel for
strife and debate, let us pray God to bless their
work to themselves as well as others, and rejoice
with the apostle, that, in whatever way, Christ is
preached. If some of our brethren seem to us to
hold weak and insufficient views concerning the
authority of the Church, and the «power of the
sacraments, let us strive to dwell rather upon
that overzealous love of their Saviour which be
trays them into comparative error. If some seem

20 THE WAY OF PEACE,
to rest too exclusively upon outward helps and
ordinances and sacramental grace, let it be our
anxious endeavour to believe that they do not
wish to put a slight on Him to whom all these
things are designed to lead. Above all, let us
mind our own work, that, as far as may be, no
motives of interest, or vanity, or anger, mix their
polluted waters with the stream which should be
clear as crystal. We are responsible for ourselves ;
for others only in a degree. Let us cling to those
great truths of revelation which beyond all ques
tion form its main purport and burden. The sin
fulness and corruption of our weak nature, the
power and malice of our spiritual enemies, the
attractions set forth to us by the world, the flesh,
and the devil, are to every serious mind deep and
anxious realities. The past season of Lent, if it has
been devoted, in ever so slight a degree, to a more
than usual struggle with ourselves, has more than
sufficed to prove all this. The holiness of God,
the perfect purity and fulness of His law, the
requirements of his justice, and the punishment of
sin, are set forth to us scarcely more by the word
of His truth than by the unvarying testimony of
our own consciences. The impossibility of ful
filling that holy law, the imperfection of our best
works, our frequent departures from the right way,
our alienation from the love of God, and our fre
quent forgetfulness of Him — are not all these things

AN EASTER PLEA. 21
manifest to every one of us ; and, in our better
and more serious hours, the source of our deepest
anxieties and sorrows? What then must we do to
be saved? Where, if (as is too evident) neither
in ourselves or our fellows is to be found salva
tion, where shall we seek that pearl of great price ?
This day answers the question. As iii Adam all
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. The gift
of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. If we would avoid vain wranglings and
controversies and questions, let us implore of our
Heavenly Father, that He who alone can do so
would fix our hearts and love more entirely upon
our risen and ascended Lord. Let us remember
that all doctrine centres and rests upon Him who
is the chief corner-stone of the whole spiritual
edifice. I trust I do not seem to any of you to set at
naught, or even to undervalue, any truths which it
has pleased the Spirit of God to reveal. " Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth," should be the tem
per in which we receive every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. But, surely, not the
strictest upholder of doctrinal orthodoxy in its
minutest branches — nor the laxest interpreter (if
he be a Christian at all) of the inspired Word, can
refuse to affirm with me of the Son of God, whose
resurrection we this day commemorate, that of
Him, and to Him, and by Him, are all things, to
c

22 THE WAY OF PEACE,
whom be glory for ever and ever. What then are
other doctrines, hoWever in their places important
and neceSsary, compared to the holding of Him
who is the way, the truth, and the life ? If we pay
all reverence to the Church, which is the body, let
us remember that it is so called only to magnify
Him who is the head. If we are inclined to be
anxious and zealous about rites and ceremonies —
for that all things are to be done decently and in
order — we should call to remembrance, that it is
because He, in whose name and to whose glory we
minister, is not the author of confusion, but of
peace. If we are disposed to attach an especial
importance — as which of us is not — to the rite of
holy baptism, let us value it mainly as His ordi
nance, who still keeps in his own hands the keys of
Heaven and Hell, who shutteth and no man
openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth: and
that baptism is only of real virtue in as far as we
are in it buried with him. Or if, not to multiply
instances, we dwell with more than usual fondness
upon the commemorative feast ofthe holy Eucharist,
donot let us for one moment forget thatall theabound-
ing blessing of that sacred feast is derived from its
elements being the earthly symbols of the heavenly
reality, which is Christ : that its whole object is the
strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the
body and blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the
bread and wine. All is of Christ. Our undis-

AN EASTER PLEA- 23
ciplined and unloving souls may revolt sometimes
at the monotone, b,nt, Scripture never wearies, of
tracing the victory achieved for man, and in man,
by the incarnate Son of God. We may seek out
for ourselves other forms, as we call them, of the
same truth, but. Scripture (as indeed how else
should His own Word) never ceases to dwell upon
His work as the foundation of all our hope and all
our happiness. The apostles dwell on his, very
name with a frequency and a repetition, the tenth
part of which would, now-a-days, offend many
among us. He is emphatically, if the Bible be
allowed to speak for itself, the Alpha and Omega, the
first, and the last, the beginning and the end of all
religion. To Him give all the. prophets witness,
and the covenant which God made with Abraham,
and the promise which he made tp Adam. If we
may but win Christ, and be found in Him, we may
count all other things but loss for the excellency of
such a gain. And why is this ? but that every
good thing is His gift, every good thought His
work, by the Spirit which he sends. Why is this?
but that without, him no orthodoxy of belief can
save, no accuracy of doctrine or practice. If any
man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
His. If any man try to be saved by ought else,
however excellent, Christ shall profit Him nothing.
Why is this? but that in Him dwells all the fulness

24 THE WAY OF PEACE,
of the Godhead bodily ; and He that holds the Head
cannot fail to be one of the members ?
May I not, then, again urge upon you the great
lesson of this day, which so peculiarly and impres
sively points you to the finished work of Christ,
and ask you whether a more simple, sincere love of
the Saviour, and a more anxious following of the
apostles in holding and preaching Christ crucified,
would not, on the one hand, ensure our faith in all
things needful; and on the other, draw us off the
danger of violating the just proportion of faith.
The more devoted we are to Christ, the more we
love Him and dwell on Him, the more holy we
shall become, the more like Him; the more we
shall remember that He came into the world not to
establish a theory, or to arrange a code of doc
trines, but to call out of the world such as should
be saved, and to add them to the Church in heaven.
" lam come that ye should have life, and that ye
should have it more abundantly.''
And once more bear with me, if I attempt for a
few moments to urge what appears to me another
lesson to be derived from this day's wondrous truth.
"He is not here, he is risen," are words which
announce the completion of the earthly work of
the Son of man, and his entrance on his mediatorial
kingdom. In these words we can read all that
followed : his glorious ascension, and the coming of

AN EASTER PLEA. 25
the Holy Ghost. In these words we see the veri
fying of his own saying: "It is expedient for you
that I go away."
Brethren, the Saviour is gone. He is not here ;
he is risen. Why seek we the living among the
dead? He has not remained with his Church, be
cause he would thus have altered the whole nature
of man's warfare. The conflict is now, and has ever
been, the battle of faith and sight ; and he who is
for us has taught us that our weapons are not
carnal, that we are not to war against the things
of sight mainly by means of the things of sight.
Therefore, it was expedient for Him to go away;
therefore, the operations of the Spirit whom He has
sent are as the viewless wind — we see not whence
it cometh, nor whither it goeth. Therefore, though
the Lord, in pity to our weakness, has left visible
memorials and earnests of His invisible work, He has
tied his promise only to their faithful use, and so has
removed their working out of the sight and ken of
man. Why seek we the living among the dead?
Why do we strive to multiply to ourselves objects
of sight by which we hope to win the victory over
sight itself? Is it reasonable, is it scriptural, is
it successful? If we have, at each recurring Chris
tian season, to mourn the departure from among
us of some who once occupied their great powers
in lengthening the cords, and strengthening the
stakes of our Sion, to what more powerful

26 THE WAY OF PEACE,
cause can we ascribe it, than to that tendency of
which I am speaking, by which we strive to cast
out sight by the things of sight. We multiply to
ourselves sacramental, that is, of course visible
helps, for fighting our invisible battle, till we find
no rest to our souls in a Church whose glory it is
to dwell so fully upon an invisible Saviour and
Sanctifier, Our natural course must be to take
refuge in a church whose gorgeous ritual, and sacri
ficing priesthood, and multiplied sacraments, and
images, and crucifixes, and innumerable, outward
helps to devotion, seem to them to constitute it
one vast sacrament, thrusting the world out of its
place, and so consecrating the things of sight, that
the great battle of faith need be fought no, longer.
Let us not be high-minded, but fear. Let us
pray against like temptation, and to all our prayers
add, not in anger but in love, the earnest supplica
tion that he would comfort and help the weak-
hearted, and raise up them that, fall.
And now, brethren, with what words can I better
conclude than with those urgent, sayings of S. Paul,
which form the moral of this day's miracle of love
and hope, a,nd comfort and mercy. If ye be indeed
risen with Christ — if the services and meditations
of the past week, and of this holy day, have been
more than idle show — seek those things which are
above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of
God. Otherwise all is useless for us. Christ is

AN EASTER PLEA. 27
dead in vain, has risen in vain. Of What avail is
it that he hath wrought deliverance for us, if we
love our prison and cling to our chain ? To What
purpose has he brought life and immortality to
light, if we cleave to that which is ready to perish,
which is even now passing away ? The resurrec
tion is indeed a glorious fact ; but what if to us it
be a lifeless dogma, a sharp, petrified, angular mass,
instead of the living and life-giving truth of the
living God ? Let us go, as did the apostles, hence
to our own homes, to dwell on this great truth-, till
it become a part of our very selves, till the sen
tence of death which we see and know to be passed
upon us be seen and known to be repealed by the
resurrection of Christ. Then shall every pang of
our mortal bodies seem to us as the drawing of
one bolt or bar of our prison door. Then shall
we be able to endure in hope the faithlessness of
the world, and the falsehood or ingratitude of
friends. Then shall we look with calmness upon
the troubles of the Church, knowing assuredly
that it shall be at peace in heaven, in the time
of the restitution of all things. Then shall we fight
manfully against sin, the world, and the devil,
looking for another country, that is a heavenly.
Then shall this cheering season in which the
Church celebrates her Easter feast, with all its signs
of returning spring, the bursting of the seed,, the
breaking of the bud, and the whole revival of

28 THE WAY OF PEACE.
buried nature, bring with it a more than common
lesson of the goodness and mercy of God. We
shall commit one precious seed to the earth, with a
cheerful hope that the long winter of death will one
day end, and that they too will one day grow and
blossom from the dust. Then shall the Easters of
the Church on earth, which are to most of us sea
sons at best but of vague rejoicing, be to us but poor
emblems of that glorious Easter which shall usher
in her triumph, when they that are in the graves
shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and come
forth. Oh ! brethren, for more faith, more hope,
more love ! Then should the expectation of that
time be welcome, when God shall shake not the
earth only, but also the heavens. Then should we
rejoice to see the tokens of the coming judgment,
and to catch the distant rolling of the chariot-
wheels of Christ.
Only let us now be dead to the world, and our
life be hid with Christ in God ; so when Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then we also shall appear
with him in glory. He which testifieth these
things saith, surely I come quickly. Oh! that
we could each from the heart reply, in all time of
our tribulation, and in all time of our wealth,
Amen : even so come, Lord Jesus.