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THE CHURCH'S HOPE IN THE FIRST CENTURY ITS
HOPE ALSO IN THE NINETEENTH.

A SERMON,

PREACHED ON 1st JANUARY 1847,

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM DOW, A.M.

EDINBURGH:
R. GRANT & SON, 82 PRINCE'S STREET.
1847.

TO THE
SCOTTISH CLEKGY,
AMONG WHOM HE FIRST RECEIVED AND EXERCISED
A MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST,
THE FOLLOWING SERMON
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY
THE AUTHOR.

SERMON.

2 Peter, iii. 1—15.
" This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you ; in both which I stir up
your pure minds by way of remembrance : That ye may be mindful of the
"words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the command
ments of us the apostles of the Lord and .Saviour : Knowing this first, that
there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and
saying, Where is the promise of his coming . for since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," &c.
You have, then, dear Brethren, lived through another year ; you
have laid behind you another long list of days. Another period
of the patience of your God has passed away ; and of these many
days you cannot recall one. Their events are all irrevocable and
unchangeable. The things that you have said and done during
that time, as it ran its course, cannot be unsaid or undone. It
will be true to all eternity that thus you acted, or failed to act.
The days themselves have all swept past, and are extinguished ;
gone, sunk in oblivion and dark night. Their joys and sorrows,
deep, agitating, transporting, distracting as they were, are gone,
forgotten, save where scars of slightly healed wounds still rankle,
or where remorse has planted its deadly sting. Some are glad that
there now lies behind them so many more of their days of sorrow
and weariness ; and that they are one stage nearer to the end of
their journey, — the end, as they are accustomed to call the grave, as
if that was man's goal ; glad, as if those who had not in this life
a joy that overcame all weariness, and a hope that shed heavenly
sunshine and blessed peace even in the midst of the bitterest trials
of the life of fallen man, — as if they could find peace or happiness in
any futnre stage of their being : frantically supposing that the
unknown dark scene, into which they shall plunge with their last
sigh, could bring any change to the unchanged heart, or present
to them a different God from Him whom in this present life they
had been unable to confide in. Others are glad because they have
been brought nearer to some expected good after which their eyes
have been gazing, and their hopes stretching out. They have lost
their then present time, too discontented with it to use it for God,
embracing a future that will perhaps never exist, scarcely intending
to use the good it is expected, to bring, save as a stepping-stone

towards some farther, vainer, more imaginary promise, as if the
earth which we inhabit was not God's earth, as if His will were
nothing, and His revealed purpose no element of stern certainty,
amid the instabilities and uncertainties of the frail creature, which
alone their eyes can see, on which alone their calculations can be
founded. There are others who are glad — for conscious of their
failures and shortcomings, their transgressions and sins ; they have
confessed them with honest hearts, they have bewailed them with
childlike sorrow, they have believed in that blood which cleanseth
from all sin, they have looked in the face of Jesus Christ, and
seen in Him peace with God. And their words and works —
whatsoever they have done, being in spirit and intention at least,
done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they leave with Him,
content — seeking no justification of themselves, but acceptance in
the beloved one, — that He may bring good out of evil, and per
fection out of imperfection.
All it seems, then, are glad — more or leas — for there is little in
any day, that should make a man regret its brevity. Few would
be willing to live a year over again, unless they had power to
change and choose among its events. Even the believer is glad
to let it lie there, a repented of thing, a forgiven thing. All are
glad — some religiously, some atheistically : some because they see
the future in the hands of God, some because they will to shape
the future for themselves : some for mere progress' sake, and be
cause the. future cannot be worse than the past: the most part,
through want of thought, saying, " to-morrow shall be as this day,
and much more abundant." Such being the common sentiment,
and yet various manner in which this turn of time is taken notice
of by men, I have thought it good for confirming the good and
holy, and for lifting into true consolation and joy, those who may
seem to come short at such a time, to call your attention to such
words of Holy Scripture as speak of that event unto which all
time is hasting,— the great new year of the creation — the accep
table year of the Lord.
I must begin with a remark partly critical, yet very necessary
to the full appreciation of -the meaning and force of this Epistle.
It had been revealed to St Peter that he was about to be taken
away. The Church was about to be left without his guidance and
authority. Now, he and the rest of the apostles thought to have
perfected tbe Church. While each one brought up th'ose whpm
his own ministry had won, they thought to have in common pre
sented the Bride of the Lamb, chaste, united — a first fruits of
mankind, ready, complete, matured for the joyful and glorious
coming again of their Lord and Master. They had looked for this

end of their labours. But it had gradually appeared, that it would
not be so. Unwillingly they opened their eyes to see that the
Church failed to stand by them, and to uphold them in their zeal.
All Asia had turned from St Paul. St John was not received
by those who loved to- have the pre-eminence. Nay, Diotrephes
had the mastery in the Church, refused the brethren that came
from St John, and cast out those who would have received them.
St Jude complains of the springing up of the same spirit, and pro
phecies of its increase.
The wickedness of man has, then, it seems, come in again and
marred the good work of God. The bride is slow to make herself
ready. The time of her presentation .must be deferred. The
Apostles are not now to present her. Nay, they are withheld from
external labour, for the door is shut against them by their own dis
ciples. The Church says we can do without you. And they are
withheld from internal discipline. Mercy withholds them from
using that power, which, where edification is refused, can only de
stroy. And, to St Peter the Lord has revealed that he must
shortly put off this tabernacle. What a multitude of thoughts and
cares, and suggestions, this must have brought to his faithful heart !
How much he could have wished to do ! He was not ignorant
how greatly the Church stood in need of Apostles. He was not
ignorant that Apostles, like all other gifts, were given for the per
fecting of the Saints, and that the Saints were far, very far, from
being perfected. He was not ignorant that they could not be per
fected until they all came together in the unity of the faith, and
of the knowledge of the Son of God, — that thus only could the
perfect man be reached, the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ. He was not ignorant of the divine instrumentality by
which so great a result was to be attained. He knew that it could
not be attained without apostles, and yet he is going to be taken
away. And what does he do ? Does he appoint a successor ? No,
for his successor must be an apostle. He cannot find a successor.
None of the rest of the twelve could be his successor, for each of
them had his own burden, his own field. They were all as sorely
bestead as he was. They needed, to look out for successors for them
selves. And none other person than they could he make his suc
cessor ; for an Apostle must be " not of man, neither by man, but
by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised .Him from the
dead." No, — he names no successor^r-what then does lie 6,9 1 see
what is written, 2 Peter, i. 13-15. He does what he can do,
He will endeavour that they may be able to have certain things in
remembrance. This is all he can do. Just as St Paul wrote to,

Timothy because he could not come to him. 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15
" If I tarry long," &c. Because he could not come — therefore he
writes — there was need of something far more than writing, but he
was restrained ; and he gives Timothy a little instruction how to
behave himself in the meantime, in the hopes of the better more
necessary thing. He does not say " do yourself what I should do if
I were present," but he says, " hold things together until I come."
In the second Epistle we find him exactly in St Peter's circum
stances ; for there he tells Timothy, " the time of my departure is at
hand ;" and what does he then say ? All he can say is, " make full
proof of thy ministry ;" he does not say, make proof of mine, for I
appoint thee as my successor, but of thy ministry, — and what this
ministry was — how limited — how different from the apostolic, he
explains by saying, — " preach the word, be instant in season and
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and
doctrine ; do the work of an evangelist." — 1 Tim. iv. 13. Titus
and he were also commanded to do the only thing that could be
done, by ordaining elders in every city, and by committing to faith
ful men that which they had themselves learned. This much he
commissions them to do. But he speaks nothing of that, which
he says elsewhere came upon himself daily, " the care of all the
churches" — he says nothing of that. Nor does he, tell him or Titus
that on them or on their ministry shall devolve the office of pre
senting the Bride — the one church out of all the earth — at the
coming of the Lord.
This must have been a bitter disappointment to the Apostles.'
To find that they were not able to finish the work which they had
to do. To find, that the sin and coldness of the Church, even of
their own disciples, made it impossible, — that men were minding
their own things, their own objects, and their own ways, and not
tbe things of Christ and the ways of God. Still more bitter was
it, because they saw not how God was going to provide for His
children. They only perceived that there was to be a departing
from the faith — a giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of
devils ; and they were made to prophecy of perilous times about to
come — growing worse and more perilous even to the very last day.
They foresaw that sound doctrine would not be endured, that in
stead of it there would be doctrine palateable to diseased spirits,
taught by men not sent of God, but chosen by the sickly Church
itself, to the increase of its own ignorance and errors ; blind men
for leading the blind. As their eyes grew dim with age and grief,
they beheld in spiritual foresight, the children for whom they had
laboured, and spent themselves ; for whom they had suffered re-

proach.es, necessities, and distresses ; instead of going up into the
land of promise, and entering upon possession, sinking away from,
the region where the light and the grace of God had been so abun
dant, into a wide wilderness, where, for generations, they should be
left to wander, — their guides removed from them, — rand, instead
of going on, and growing, in one, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ ; separated, scattered, according to their
nations, cities, and tribes, trying to keep the faith once delivered
to the Saints, and hardly prevailing to do so ; keeping merely
alive the spark of divine life ; waiting for a time of revival and mer
ciful visitation. They foresaw these things obscurely — fortunately
for them they foresaw them obscurely, and they prophesied of
them, obscurely. We have seen them j we can read of them in
Church history ; and we can see what they have come to : and
what deeper darkness, and ' confusion twice confounded, may yet
fall upon the Church of God, we can partly imagine. But I say
fortunately for them they foresaw it darkly. And there they.
are, — one after the other, taken away from the evil to come,
suffered to rest from their labours and await their crown — with
none to take their office ; with none to minister the higher graces,
which they used to impart ; with none who had authority and
spiritual power, to bind into one the various portions of the Church,
and in one, to present them for the one unction, which floweth
from the head unto the skirts of the garments.
And in these circumstances what did they do ? They told the
Church to keep in mind certain things. " I will endeavour that
after my decease ye may be able to have these things always in
remembrance." St Peter can do nothing more than write two
short epistles ; and this is the purpose and object of them both.
And why is he so anxious to enable them to have these things in
remembrance ? For this reason ; because they are true and cer
tain ; because if they keep them in mind, it will not be possible
for them, even in their most forsaken and deserted condition, to
forget that they have been purged from their old sins ; because they
will at least escape the hazard of being barren and unfruitful in
that knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, on which they had en
tered when they became members of His body, the Church ; and
lastly, because they were very likely to let them slip. And what
does he consider the head and front of his doctrine ? Read 2d Peter
i. 16 — " We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we
made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty." Why does he
single out that point of doctrine (as we call it) ; and through the

remainder of all that Epistle mention no other ? Because this
was not a doctrine, but the great promise of the gospel. Because
this was a promised certain fact and occurrence, on which the hope
of the Church should be fixed ; steadily looking at which, they
would be able to pilot themselves over the stormy ocean, on the
face of which they were about to be launched. Because this was
an intention of God — a thing which God was going to do — a thing
for the sake of which God had done all those other things that
were already past, the declaration of which formed the substance of
the rest of St Peter's instruction. He insists on this,—" the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" because the holding of that
hope would enable them to hold all the rest ; — alone could enable
them to hold all the rest. It had been the beginning of the preach
ing of the gospel. " Repent," — why ?— " for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." Isaiah, Daniel, all the prophets had foretold it —
David and the Jewish polity had prefigured it — John the Baptist
—our Lord himself — took it for granted that through those fore
going divine instructions, the people expected it, and at least un
derstood what was meant by the words, " the kingdom of Heaven
is at hand." It was proclaimed as no new unheard of thing, but as
the purpose of God, which He had had from the beginning ; of
which He had spoken from the beginning ; and now had sent his
Son to make the grand preparation for it.
Afterwards, what had been the promise of Christ to His dis
ciples — to those who had received that first word ? Why, this —
" I will come again and take you unto myself." Still later —
What had been the consolation— the one topic of consolation given
to the amazed apostles, when they saw their Lord caught away
and received out of their sight ? " This same Jesus which is taken
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen Him go into heaven." St Peter had begun his ministry with
the proclamation of this same thing. He had laid this hope before
his first converts. What was the point, the practical point to
which he brought his discourse, in those days, when souls were
added to the Church by thousands at a time. Acts iii. 19-21, —
" Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be
blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the pre
sence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, whom the hea
vens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which
God hath spoken of by the mouth of all his holy prophets since
the world began." I say that is the practical point to which he
brings his discourse. And what he began with, he reiterates to
the end. What he declared to them at the first, that same thing

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now at the last he recalls, endeavouring that after his decease they
may keep it in remembrance. It is evermore— the coming and
kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there were many reasons
for his particular earnestness in commending this truth to their care
ful recollection. This truth is it which the false teachers will labour
the most assiduously to abuse, to change, to fritter and explain away,
to extinguish and obliterate, saying, — "Where is the promise of His
coming ? for since the Fathers fell asleep all things continue as
they were from the beginning of the Creation." You are deceived.
You have mistaken the words of the prophets and apostles — they
are not to be taken literally. The language of Scripture is figura
tive. A plain man cannot safely read it. If he take it as it was
spoken, he will become a visionary, a self-deceived, and surely to
be disappointed man. God has no such intention. The kingdom
of God is not a polity. Does not our Lord himself tell you
that it is within you? The kingdom of God is not a king
dom, but something quite different from a kingdom. It is grace,
say some. It is a moral condition, say others. You enter it
by conversion, and that is all that is meant, says one. Oh no,
— you enter it at your death, says another. So will prate the
false teachers — St Peter foresees it — walking after their own lusts,
after their own notions and spiritual systems — out of their own
bowels spinning their spider's web, for Christian men to hold by.
And because he foresees it, therefore, he says, 2 Peter iii. 13, —
" Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new hea
vens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Accord
ing to what promise ? The promise of which he had been remind
ing them — the promise which men would be tempted to think that
the Lord was slack concerning — the promise of His coming — the
promise of a condition of this earth brought about by Christ reign
ing there— the promise of a kingdom under Christ the king, to
begin which he should really, certainly come ; to continue which
he should abide, gathering his saints unto Him, that where he was,
they should be also.
But there was yet another reason why he makes this his lead
ing point of exhortation, and of their perpetual heedful remem
brance. The Church is saved by the faith of God's acts, and by
the hope of His purposes. His in contradiction to all others. By
these the Church is kept until the purpose be accomplished. And
the next leading grand acting of God Almighty was to be this—
as Peter had said at the first — "When the times of refreshing
shall come, and when He shall send Jesus Christ." This was the
purpose of God — which would corae in, and make vain all men's

10
purposes. Without their hearts being filled with the memory of
this promise, and without the hope of this grand coming act of
God, they would conceive purposes of their own, they would be
lieve and hope for acts and purposes of their own — of the creature
— and be led away after their own and other men's lusts.
Man must have a purpose and scheme of life. He is a rational
being who lays hold of the future, and is unable to rest in the pre
sent; he is working up always toward an end. The baptised
man has received from God higher powers, as well as higher re
sponsibilities, and with these powers he is still less able than the
psychical unbaptized man to rest in the present. The more he
is awake to his state, and conscious to the movements of divine life
within him, the more certainly does he look forward, and stand in
need of a true hope — a true scope of life. The hope is, this grand
act of God — the sending of Jesus Christ— -the kingdom of God—*
the new heavens and new earth in which dwelleth righteousness—
and the scope of life is to prepare for God's next act, and to wait
for it, and to labour for it. That is it for which God the Father
is preparing, for which He is waiting. That is the hope of the
heart of Him who is at the right hand of God, whom the heavens
have received for a time. That is the scope of His present life as
man. For consider, dear brethren, what did He do when he as
cended up on high ? Did he forget his begun work, and think no
more of the kingdom whose commencement he had on earth pre
pared ? No. It was the very thing which, as man, he did think
of and continue to work — ¦" This man being by the right hand of
God exalted, hath sent forth this which you see and hear — so
speaks St Peter of the next event after our Lord's ascension. Jesus
had said, " if I go not, the Comforter will not come, but if I go I will
send him." He had commanded them not to depart from Jerusa
lem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, saying, ye shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave
gifts unto men, &c. When he sat down on the right hand of the
Father, he began to build his church by the Holy Ghost, and he
hath continued to do the same ever since ; and the continual inter
cession which he hath made has been concerning his church, that
it might be prepared for his coming and kingdom.
Let us believe this reverently, dear brethren, and think and
speak of it with godly fear, but let us know and believe it. This
his coming and kingdom is our blessed Lord's own hope, and the
scope of his life as man, where he is at the right hand of God.
And the Christian is called unto the fellowship of his Lord's hopes

11
and labours. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son Jesus Christ. Henceforth I call you not servants but friends,
for the friend knows the heart, the thoughts, the interests, the
employments of his friend.
Now St Peter, earing for the church, anxious for those whom he
was about to leave, knew that this hope alone had power to exclude
private lusts of men — alone had power to enable men to live in the
world as not of the world. By this alone would man's purposes
be made holy, be kept in their fitting place, proportion, and sub
serviency; and all his actions and his temporal duties and callings be
lifted up into their due honourableness, as parts of that great whole
whose Author was God, and whose perfection was to be seen in
the kingdom that shall be revealed. St Peter knew this, and, there
fore, is he so particular on this head, and so urgent for their re
membering it. And no wonder, for this alone gives meaning to
all God's other words and ways. It gives its fruit and result to all
creation itself; it is the grand act unto which all other acts of God
had been introductory ; and among men it gives meaning to their
history, and value to all the gifts of God, and to all the ordinances
of God.
And does St Peter stand alone in giving such prominency and
emphasis to this truth of the coming and kingdom of our Lord
Jesus Christ ? Is it necessary to tell you that as many of the
apostles as have sent down to our day the expressions of their
parting anxieties for the Church have all spoken in the same way.
St Paul says (1 Thess. iv. 13, &c.) " I would not have you to be
ignorant, and to sorrow as those who have no hope, for them which
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." " For this we say unto
you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain
unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are
asleep ;'" and when he prays, he prays thus — " and I pray God
your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ;" and when he exhorts he ex
horts thus — " Now we beseech you by the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him ;" and,
again — " The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and
into the patient waiting for Christ;" and, again — " Brethren, be
followers of me, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for
an ensample (not minding earthly things) for our citizenship is in
heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
like to His glorious body, according to the working whereby he
is able even to subdue all things unto himself ;" and once more —

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" The grace of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared unto
all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present
world ;" and how shall this self-denial be practised ? Shall they
give up all the natural life of fallen man, and have nothing to put
in its place ? No. He adds — " Looking for that blessed hope,
and the glorious appearing of the great God and onr Saviour Jesus
Christ." I say, then, that the apostles in their ministry laboured to keep
their spiritual children in constant remembrance of that kingdom
and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, which they had first preached
to them, and to the hope of which they had from the beginning in
vited them. They expected their children to abide in the faith by
the influence of this hope. They expected them to prevail against
the temptations and lusts of the world, by steadfastly keeping
this hope in their eye ; and when the apostles saw that they them
selves were to be removed from the visible portion of the Church,
and that they should be able no longer, by their word to comfort,
or by their authority to command, or by their rod to correct, or by
laying on of their hands to perfect ; or in any way personally to
edify or build the house of God ; this hope they regard as the
Church's sheet-anchor ; their dying breath is expended on the in
culcation of it.
And have the children given heed to those last words of their
fathers ? Has the Church looked for that blessed hope, or have
the lusts of other things entered in ? Alas ! like most children,
they have heard, they have recorded the words, the solemn last
words — they have laid them by reverently, piously laid them up,
laid them by. They have themselves gone forth amid the activi
ties of present, visible things, and the future has gradually become
dim — the future to which their life belonged, to which their life
looked, and all their thoughts should have tended, has become dim.
One or two centuries were enough to obscure it. The lust of other
things did enter. The words which St Peter anticipated began to
be heard. The scoffers came — the scoffing Christians — the scoffing
teachers spake them, and said, " Where is the promise of his com
ing ?" The fathers are dead — they are at rest — the grave is their
rest, and it shall be ours too. As for us, Our hope is not the com
ing of the Lord, or if it be, He comes to us at our death. What
ever more may be in it, that is the meaning with which we are
concerned. Enough for us as individuals that we think of that. Let
usprepare for death. Let us always solemnize ourselves by thinking
about death. That will far more surely contribute to our sanctifica-

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tion than thinking about the power and coming of the Lord. Ours
shall be the words of the prophet (a rebellious prophet, let it be
remarked, who soon after perished miserably by a divine judg
ment), — ours shall be the words of the prophet, " Let me die the
death of the righteous, and let my latter end be like his." For,
where is the promise of his coming.
And, then, when men ceased to wait for that for which Jesus is
waiting at the right hand of God ; when they ceased to have by the
Holy Ghost fellowship with the God-man, they fell into divisions,
they differed from one an'other, they disputed, they quarrelled, they
began to bite and devour one another. Forgetting the truth, they
turned aside to fables. The truth is one ; the fables are manifold ;
and the church became churches as manifold. Hence, divisions that
could not be healed, doubts that could not be met, questions too
hard for any one to loose. For the apostles are gone, who had
ultimate, universal authority, and who could bind into one. The
body of Jesus Christ seems about to part into its original elements,
one limb beating itself against another limb, until this our unhappy
day. Let us not refuse, dear brethren, to see the sad estate of the
church militant. Let us not be afraid to look upon it. Let us not
be too proud to acknowledge it. Let us not shrink from consider
ing with what heart, with what feeling, He looks down upon it
who is at the right hand of God, and who is about to descend.
We are accustomed to wonder at the infidelity that is in the
world. Why, the great miracle is that there is any faith ; more
especially in lands where the Bible is known to every one. The
Bible holds forth a likeness of the church, as far as words can go
in giving the likeness of a living thing. The honest man (know
ing his Bible, we shall suppose) looks for the church corresponding
to that likeness, and finds it not. The church which gives him the
Bible says, read that, and behold me. But the honest man says,
No ; they correspond not. The church professes daily, and teaches
him to profess, " I believe in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church." But he looks forth ; and he beholds unholiness ; dis
union ; catholicity unattempted for the most part, and as it seems,
impossible,' unattainable; apostles surviving only in their me
mory, and in their few, brief, inspired epistles : this is what he sees.
' Oily allow yourselves to feel the perplexity 'of the- honest man's
mind. In any matter of ordinary worldly conduct, what- resolu
tion could he in such circumstances come to. I say, the great mi
racle of the present day is, that faith in Christianity still survives.
But, thank God, this is nothing new ; for faith is God's gift. The

14
believer always was, always shall be a workmanship of God ; other
wise the gates of hell must long, long ere now have prevailed against
the Church.
But, how does Jesus look upon this shattered, changed thing
that calls itself by His name — yea, which holds itself forth, be
side His word, as the pendant, the fellow-picture, in which, as
in His word, He is to be found ? He set his Church in the earth,
the pillar and ground of the truth. Men's strifes have made that
pillar a heap of stones. Truly the word of the prophet hath been
fulfilled — " Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the
Lord's house as the high places of the forest." The pillar and
.ground of the truth hath become a heap of stones. The stones are
indeed parts of that pillar, and God's saints take pleasure in them,
and they favour the very dust thereof. What man cannot see,
God's saints take pleasure in — the pleasure which faith can supply,
calling things that are not as though they were — the pleasure
which charity can supply, thinking no evil — the pleasure of which
he is capable who still hopes in God. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
who remembereth the travail of his soul and waits to be satisfied ;
the Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed all these men with his own
blood, who gave all these men power to become the sons of God, who
divided unto them his Holy Spirit, who called them all brethren,
who, girding himself with a towel, showed them how they ought
by love to serve one another, and wash one another's feet : Oh,
brethren, what does he behold ? Disappointment, disappointment,
blank disappointment, and nothing else, everywhere, all along,
growing darker and more dark as time advances. And with what
sentiments does his human heart yearn over this spectacle — the
spectacle which his church presents, which we present, for we are
not speaking of an abstraction, but of ourselves, of the baptized men
and women who are on the earth. I thought to speak of these
sentiments, dear brethren, but I find I cannot. I might picture
a man's disappointment, the whole scheme of whose long life, the
fruit of whose labours and self-denials, the desire of whose whole
being, whose home, whose children in whom his own image is re
flected, all that he prizes, is snatched away from him and dissi
pated before his eyes. It would be a true emblem, but feeble,
trite, unworthy of so high, so solemn a thing as that of which we
wish to speak. No, brethren, there is none of us able to look into
the heart of our elder brother, and tell all that is there. In human
words, as far as human words can go, you shall find it in the book
of Lamentations, in several chapters of Hosea, in many of the
Psalms — and I commend them to the perusal of all such as are in-

15
clined to meditate this sad theme ; only forget not how it is that
the Church has lost her unity, her one form, her one testimony,
her blessed internal harmony, and her one steady light for the
world of mankind to walk in. She has done so by forgetting
exactly that which the departing apostles commended to her recol
lection, by forgetting the hope of her calling, by ceasing to look
for her Lord and for his kingdom, by ceasing to sympathize with
him, and to hope, and to wait for those things for which He was
hoping and waiting. It was when the unfaithful steward said, my
lord delayeth his coming, that he began to beat his fellow-servants.
And what the Church ceased to desire she soon lost the means
of attaining. Functions that are not needed in an organized body,
naturally decay, perhaps disappear. The Christian loves himself,
he uses those functions of the Church which terminate in the indi
vidual ; he forgets the purpose of God ; and those functions of the
Church which stretch out unto all the purpose of God he calls su
perfluous. He is wiser than the Holy Ghost, and he calls them su
perfluous. These functions are not used in the Church. The faith
of the Church does not stir them up. She has forgotten all but her
own things ; she does not perceive the necessity of stirring up these
functions. Therefore, they are not developed ; they become latent.
And these functions are those by which unity would have been
preserved. Unity is indeed necessary for all the purposes for
which the Church exists ; but most chiefly for the large and eternal
purposes of God : and when the latter are overlooked, its necessity
is less visible. For the bare existence of Christian individuality it
may be dispensed with. For the great purposes of God it is abso
lutely indispensable.
What, then, is the practical result of our meditation ? Why
this — that we must learn to forget ourselves. We must cast away
the narrow selfishness of individual persons. We must be en
larged, to know what God's purpose is, to desire the accomplish
ment of it, and to admit all the functions that are necessary for its
accomplishment. And, first of all, we must learn over again the
first lesson of what St Peter preached; and begin to look for
our Lord from heaven, and to prepare for his appearing. We shall
then learn to look with an eye of charity and of desire upon all
who are called by his name, and to feel for them. For are not
they, along with ourselves, in a miserable case, and must not God,
sooner or later, have a heavy message to send unto his Church.
Things cannot go on as they are much longer.
The Lord is at hand. The tokens of it are in the world. Lift
up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.

16
Yet, brethren, do not go to inquire how near, or waste your time
with those who inquire about days, and calculate the times. These
are questions for those who do not wish that it may be now.
Or, do you wish that it may not be now ? Why that wish ?
Is there then something which you love more than your Lord ? «If
so, O brethren, be ashamed of it ; repent of it ; ask your heavenly
Father's forgiveness, and he will both forgive, and also bestow
upon you grace to forget, to forsake, yea to hate that thing which
you have preferred before him. Thus count the long-suffering of
God to be salvation.
Or, you wish it may not be now, because of your sins and your
unpreparedness. Then you have forgotten, it seems, that you were
purged from your old sins. He who cometh is He who took away
the sins of the whole world. Lift up your hearts, and take courage.
Let your pride be broken down — that is your obstacle. Come
down before your God. - Confess your sins; in Him is your help
found. Believe the words of God; He says, I have found a ran
som ; though your sins be as scarlet,- they shall be white as enow,
and though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool. He
will make you clean by his own blood. He will make you holy
by his own spirit. You know not how— He knoweth how. Cast
thy burden upon the Lord.
When He cometh, shall he not say — Peace be unto you ?
And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost, be ascribed, as is most due, all glory, and honour, all might,
majesty, and dominion, unto all ages of ages. Amen.

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