SERMONS ON NATIONAL SUBJECTS

I--THE KING OF THE EARTH

FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT. [Preached in 1849. ]

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. --MATTHEW xxi. 4. 

This Sunday is the first of the four Sundays in Advent. During thosefour Sundays, our forefathers have advised us to think seriously ofthe coming of our Lord Jesus Christ--not that we should neglect tothink of it at all times. As some of you know, I have preached toyou about it often lately. Perhaps before the end of Advent you willall of you, more or less, understand what all that I have said aboutthe cholera, and public distress, and the sins of this nation, andthe sins of the labouring people has to do with the coming of ourLord Jesus Christ. But I intend, especially in my next four sermons, to speak my whole mind to you about this matter as far as God hasshown it to me; taking the Collect, Epistle, and Gospels, for eachSunday in Advent, and explaining them. I am sure I cannot do better;for the more I see of those Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, and theway in which they are arranged, the more I am astonished anddelighted at the wisdom with which they are chosen, the wise order inwhich they follow each other, and fit into each other. It is veryfit, too, that we should think of our Lord's coming at this season ofthe year above all others; because it is the hardest season--theseason of most want, and misery, and discontent, when wages are low, and work is scarce, and fuel is dear, and frosts are bitter, andfarmers and tradesmen, and gentlemen, too, are at their wits' end tosquare their accounts, and pay their way. Then is the time that theevils of society come home to us--that our sins, and our sorrows, which, after all, are the punishment of our sins, stare us in theface. Then is the time, if ever, for men's hearts to cry out for aSaviour, who will deliver them out of their miseries and their sins;for a Heavenly King who will rule them in righteousness, and dojustice and judgment on the earth, and see that those who are in needand necessity have right; for a Heavenly Counsellor who will guidethem into all truth--who will teach them what they are, and whitherthey are going, and what the Lord requires of them. I say the harddays of winter are a fit time to turn men's hearts to Christ theirKing--the fittest of all times for a clergyman to get up in hispulpit, as I do now, and tell his people, as I tell you, that JesusChrist your King has not forgotten you--that He is coming speedily tojudge the world, and execute justice and judgment for the meek of theearth. 

Now do not be in a hurry, and fancy from what I have just said, thatI am one of those who think the end of the world is at hand. It maybe, for aught I know. "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man, noteven the angels of God, nor the Son, but the Father only. " If youwish for my own opinion, I believe that what people commonly call theend of the world, that is, the end of the earth and of mankind on it, is not at hand at all. As far as I can judge from Scripture, andfrom the history of all nations, the earth is yet young, and mankindin its infancy. Five thousand years hence, our descendants may belooking back on us as foolish barbarians, in comparison with whatthey know: just as we look back upon the ignorance of people athousand years ago. And yet I believe that the end of this world, inthe real Scripture sense of the word "world, " is coming very quicklyand very truly--The end of this system of society, of these presentways in religion, and money-making, and conducting ourselves in allthe affairs of life, which we English people have got into nowadays. The end of it is coming. It cannot last much longer; for it isdestroying itself. It will not last much longer; for Christ and notthe devil is the King of the earth. As St. Paul said to his people, so say I to you, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. "

These may seem strange words, but almost every one is saying them, inhis own way. One large party among religious people in these days iscomplaining that Christ has left His Church, and that the cause ofChristianity will be ruined and lost, unless some great change takesplace. Another large party of religious people say, that theprophecies are on the point of being all fulfilled that the 1260days, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, are just coining to an end;and that Christ is coming with His saints, to reign openly upon earthfor a thousand years. The wisest philosophers and historians of lateyears have been all foretelling a great and tremendous change inEngland, and throughout all Europe; and in the meantime, manufacturers and landlords, tradesmen and farmers, artisans andlabourers, all say, that there MUST be a change and will be a change. I believe they are all right, every one of them. They put it intheir words; I think it better to put it in the Scripture words, andsay boldly, "Jesus Christ, the King of the earth, is coming. "

But you will ask, "What right have you to stand up and say anythingso surprising?" My friends, the world is full of surprising things, and this age above all ages. It was not sixty years ago, that anobleman was laughed at in the House of Lords for saying that hebelieved that we should one day see ships go by steam; and now thereare steamers on every sea and ocean in the world. Who expectedtwenty years ago to see the whole face of England covered with thesewonderful railroads? Who expected on the 22nd of February last year, that, within a single month, half the nations of Europe, which lookedso quiet and secure, would be shaken from top to bottom withrevolution and bloodshed--kings and princes vanishing one after theother like a dream--poor men sitting for a day as rulers of kingdoms, and then hurled down again to make room for other rulers asunexpected as themselves? Can anyone consider the last fifty years?--can anyone consider that one last year, 1848, and then not feel thatwe do live in a most strange and awful time? a time for which nothingis too surprising--a time in which we all ought to be prepared, fromthe least to the greatest, to see the greatest horrors and thegreatest blessings come suddenly upon us, like a thief in the night?So much for Christ's coming being too wonderful a thing to happenjust now. Still you are right to ask: "What do you mean by Christ'sbeing our King? what do you mean by His coming to us? What reasonhave you for supposing that He is coming NOW, rather than at anyother time? And if He be coming, what are we to do? What is therewe ought to repent of? what is there we ought to amend?"

Well, my friends--it is just these very questions which I hope andtrust God will help me to answer to you, in my next few sermons--I amperfectly convinced that we must get them answered and act upon themspeedily. I am perfectly convinced that if we go on as most of usare going in England now, the Lord of us all will come in an hourwhen we are not aware, and cut us asunder in the deepest and mostreal sense, as He came and cut asunder France, Germany, and Austriaonly last year, and appoint us our portion with the unbelievers. AndI believe that our punishment will be seven times as severe as thatof either France, Germany, or Austria, because we have had seventimes their privileges and blessings, seven times their Gospel lightand Christian knowledge, seven times their freedom and justice inlaws and constitution; seven times their wealth, and prosperity, andmeans of employing our population. Much has been given to England, and of her much will be required. And if you could only see thestate of mankind over the greatest part of the globe, how infinitelyfewer opportunities they have of knowing God's will than you have, you would feel that to you, poor and struggling as some of you are--to you much has been given, and of you much will be required. 

Now first, what do I mean by Christ being our king? I daresay thereare some among you who are inclined to think that, when we talk ofChrist being a king, that the word king means something verydifferent from its common meaning--and, God knows, that that is trueenough. Our blessed Lord took care to make people understand that--how He was not like one of the kings of the nations, how His kingdomwas not of this world. But yet the Bible tells us again and againthat all good kings, all real kings, are patterns of Christ; and, therefore, that when we talk of Christ being a king, we mean that Heis a king in everything that a king ought to be; that He fulfilsperfectly all the duties of a king; that He is the pattern which allkings ought to copy. Kings have been in all ages too apt to forgetthat, and, indeed, so have the people too. We English have forgottenmost thoroughly in these days, that Christ is our king, or even aking at all. We talk of Christ being a "spiritual" king, and then wesay that that merely means that He is king of Christians' hearts. And when anyone asks what that means, it comes out, that all we meanis, that Christ has a very great influence over the hearts ofbelieving Christians--when He can obtain it; or else that it meansthat He is king of a very small number of people called the elect, whom He has chosen out, but that He has absolutely nothing to do withthe whole rest of the world. And then, when anyone stands up withthe Bible in his hand, and says, in the plain words of Scripture:"Christ is not only the king of believers, He is the king of thewhole earth; the king of the clouds and the thunder, the king of theland and the cattle, and the trees, and the corn, and to whomsoeverHe will He giveth them. Christ is not only the king of believers--Heis the king of all--the king of the wicked, of the heathen, of thosewho do not believe Him, who never heard of Him. Christ is not onlythe king of a few individual persons, one here and one there in everyparish, but He is the king of every nation. He is the king ofEngland, by the grace of God, just as much as Queen Victoria is, andten thousand times more. " If any man talks in this way, peoplestare--think him an enthusiast--ask him what new doctrine this is, and call his words unscriptural, just because they come out ofScripture and not out of men's perversions and twistings ofScripture. Nevertheless Christ is King; really and truly King ofKings and Lord of Lords; and He will make men know it. What He was, that He is and ever will be; there is no change in Him; His kingdomis an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout allages, and woe unto those, small or great, who rebel against Him!

But what sort of a king is He? He is a king of law, and order, andjustice. He is not selfish, fanciful, self-willed. He said himselfthat He came not to do His own will, but His Father's. He is a kingof gentleness and meekness too: but do not mistake that. There isno weak indulgence in Him. A man may be very meek, and yet sternenough and strong enough. Moses was the meekest of men, we read, andyet He made those who rebelled against him feel that he was not to betrifled with. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram found that to their cost. He would not even spare his own brother Aaron, his own sister Miriam, when they rebelled. And he was right. He showed his love by it;indulgence is not love. It is no sign of meekness, but only ofcowardice and carelessness, to be afraid to rebuke sin. Moses knewthat he was doing God's work, that he was appointed to make a greatnation of those slavish besotted Jews, his countrymen; that he wassent by God with boundless blessings to them; and woe to whoeverhindered him from that. Because he loved the Jews, therefore hedared punish those who tempted them to forget the promised land ofCanaan, or break God's covenant, in which lay all their hope. 

And such a one is our King, my friends; Jesus Christ the Son of God. Like Moses, says St. Paul, He is faithful in all His office. Therefore He is severe as well as gentle. He was so when on earth. With the poor, the outcast, the neglected, those on whom mentrampled, who was gentler than the Lord Jesus? To the proudPharisee, the canting Scribe, the cunning Herodian, who was sternerthan the Lord Jesus? Read that awful 23rd chapter of St. Matthew, and then see how the Saviour, the lamb dumb before His shearers, Heof whom it was said "He shall not strive nor cry, nor shall His voicebe heard in the streets"--how He could speak when He had occasion. . . . "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"

My friends, those were the words of our King; of Him in whom wasneither passion nor selfishness; who loved us even to the death, andendured for us the scourge, the cross, the grave. And believe me, such are His words now; though we do not hear Him, the heaven and theearth hear Him and obey Him. His message is pardon, mercy, deliverance to the sorrowful, and the oppressed, and the neglected;and to the proud, the tyrannical, the self-righteous, thehypocritical, tribulation and anguish, shame and woe. 

Because He is the Saviour, therefore He is a consuming fire to allthose who try to hinder Him from saving men. Because He is the Sonof God, He will sweep out of His Father's kingdom all who offend, andwhosoever maketh and loveth a lie. Because He is boundless mercy andlove, therefore He will show no mercy to those who try to stop Hispurposes of love. Because He is the King of men, the enemies ofmankind are His enemies; and He will reign till He has put them allunder His feet. 

II--HOLY SCRIPTURE

SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for ourexample, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. --ROMANS xv. 4. 

"Whatsoever was written aforetime. " There is no doubt, I think, thatby these words St. Paul means the Bible; that is, the Old Testament, which was the only part of the Bible already written in his time. For it is of the Psalms which he is speaking. He mentions a verseout of the 69th Psalm, "The reproaches of Him that reproached theefell on me;" which, he says, applies to Christ just as much as it didto David, who wrote it. Christ, he says, pleased not Himself anymore than David, but suffered willingly and joyfully for God's sake, because He knew that He was doing God's work. And we, he goes on tosay, must do the same; do as Christ did; we must not pleaseourselves, but every one of us please our brother for his good andedification; that is, in order to build him up, strengthen him, makehim wiser, better, more comfortable. For, he says, Christ pleasednot Himself, but like David, lived only to help others; and thereforethis verse out of David's Psalms, "The reproaches of them thatreproached thee fell on me, " is a lesson to us; a pattern of what weought to feel, and do, and suffer. "For whatsoever was writtenaforetime, " all these ancient psalms and prophets, and histories ofmen and nations who trusted in God, "were written for our example, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might havehope. "

Yes, my friends, this is true; and the longer you live a life offaith and godliness, the longer you read and study that precious Bookof books which God has put so freely into your hands in these days, the more true you will find it. And if it was true of the OldTestament, written before the Lord came down and dwelt among men, howmuch more must it be true of the New Testament, which was writtenafter His coming by apostles and evangelists, who had far fullerlight and knowledge of the Lord than ever David or the old prophets, even in their happiest moments, had. Ah, what a treasure you have, every one of you, in those Bibles of yours, which too many of youread so little! From the first chapter of Genesis to the last ofRevelations, it is all written for our example, all profitable forteaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction inrighteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughlyfurnished for all good works. Ah! friends, friends, is not this thereason why so many of you do not read your Bibles, that you do notwish to be furnished for good works?--do not wish to be men of God, godly and godlike men, but only to be men of the world, caring onlyfor money and pleasure?--some of you, alas! not wishing to be men andwomen at all, but only a sort of brute beasts with clothes on, givenup to filth and folly, like the animals that perish, or rather worsethan the animals, for they could be no better if they tried, but youmight be. Oh! what might you not be, what are you not already, ifyou but knew it! Members of Christ, children of God, heirs of thekingdom of heaven, heirs of a hope undying, pure, that will neverfade away, having a right given you by the promise and oath ofAlmighty God himself, to hope for yourselves, for your neighbours, for this poor distracted world, for ever and ever; a right to believethat there is an everlasting day of justice, and peace, and happinessin store for the whole world, and that you, if you will, may haveyour share in that glorious sunrise which shall never set again. Youmay have your share in it, each and every one of you; and if you askwhy, go to the Scriptures, and there read the promises of God, thegrounds of your just hope, for all heaven and earth. 

First, of hope for yourselves. --I say first for yourselves, notbecause a man is right in being selfish, and caring only for his ownsoul, but because a man must care for his own soul first, if he everintends to care for others; a man must have hope for himself first, if he is to have hope for others. He may stop there, and turn hisreligion into a selfish superstition, and spend his life in askingall day long, "Shall I be saved, shall I be damned?" or worse still, in chuckling over his own good fortune, and saying to himself, "Ishall be saved, whoever else is damned;" but whether he ends there ornot, he must begin there; begin by trying to get himself saved. Forif he does not know what is right and good for himself, how can hetell what is right and good for others? If he wishes to bring hisneighbours out of their sins, he must surely first have been broughtout of his own sins, and so know what forgiveness and sanctificationmeans. If he wishes to make others at peace with God, he must firstbe at peace with God himself, to know what God's peace is. If hewants to teach others their duty, he must first know his own duty, for all men's duty is one and the same. If he wishes to have hopefor the world, he must first have hope for himself, for he is in theworld, a part of it, and he must learn what blessings God intends forhim, and they will teach him what blessings God has in store for theearth. Faith and hope, like charity, must begin at home. Bylearning the corruption of our own hearts, we learn the corruption ofhuman nature. By learning what is the only medicine which can cureour own sick hearts, we learn what is the only medicine which cancure human nature. We learn by our own experience, that God is all-forgiving love; that His peace shines bright upon the soul whichcasts itself utterly on Jesus Christ the Lord for pardon, strength, and safety; that God's Spirit is ready and able to raise us out ofall our sin, and sottishness, and weakness, and wilfulness, andselfishness, and renew us into quite new men, different charactersfrom what we used to be; and so, by having hope for ourselves, welearn step by step and year by year to have hope for our friends, forour neighbours, and for the whole world. 

For that is another great lesson which the Bible teaches us--hope forthe world. Men say to us, "This world has always gone on ill, andwill always go on so. Tyrants and knaves and hypocrites have alwayshad the power in it; idlers have always had the enjoyment of it;while the humble, and industrious, and godly, who would not foultheir hands with the wicked ways of the world, have been alwayslaughed at, neglected, oppressed, persecuted. The world, " they say, "is very bad, and we cannot live in it without giving way a little toits badness, and going the old road. "

But he who, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, has hope, can answer "Yes--and yet no. " "Yes--we agree that the world has goneon badly enough: perhaps we think the world worse than it thinksitself; for God's Spirit has taught us to see sin, and shame, andruin, in many a thing which the world thinks right and reasonable. And yet, " says the true Christian man, "although we think the worldworse than anyone else thinks it, and are more unhappy than anyoneelse about all the sin, and injustice, and misery we see in it, wehave the very strongest faith--we are perfectly certain--we are assure as if we saw it coming to pass here before us, that the worldwill come right at last. For the Bible tells us that the Son of Godis the king of the world; that He has been the master and ruler of itfrom the beginning. He, the Bible tells us, condescended to comedown on earth and be born in the likeness of a poor man, and die onthe cross for this poor world of His, that He might take away thesins of it. " "Behold the Lamb of God, " said John the Baptist, "whotakes away the sin of the world. " How dare we, who call ourselvesChristians, we who have been baptized into His name, we who havetasted of His mercy, we who know the might of His love, theconverting and renewing power of His Spirit--how dare we doubt butthat He WILL take away the sins of the world? Ay; step by step, nation by nation, year by year, the Lord shall conquer; love, andjustice, and wisdom shall spread and grow; for He must reign till Hehas put all enemies under His feet. He has promised to take away thesins of the world, and He is God, and cannot lie. There is theChristian's hope: let him leave infidels to say "The world alwayswas bad, and it must remain so to the end;" the Christian ought to beable to answer, "The world was bad, and is bad; but for that veryreason it will NOT remain so to the end: for the Lord and king ofthe earth is boundless love, justice, goodness itself, and He willthoroughly purge His floor, and cast out of His kingdom all thingsthat offend, and make in His good time the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of God and of His Christ. "

"Ah but, " someone may say, "that, if it ever happens at all, will nothappen till we are dead, and what part or lot shall WE have in it? wewho die in the midst of all this sin, and injustice, and distress?"There again the Bible gives us hope: "I believe, " says the Creed, "in the resurrection of the flesh. " The Bible teaches us to believe, that we, each of us, as human beings, men and women, shall have ashare in that glorious day; not merely as ghosts, and disembodiedspirits--of which the Bible, thanks be to God, says little ornothing, but as real live human beings, with new bodies of our own, on a new earth, under a new heaven. "Therefore, " says David, "myflesh shall rest in hope;" not merely my soul, my ghost, but myflesh. For the Lord, who not only died, but rose again with Hisbody, shall raise our bodies, according to the mighty working bywhich He subdues all things to Himself; and then the whole manhood ofeach of us, body, soul, and spirit, shall have one perfectconsummation and bliss, in His eternal and everlasting glory. --Thatis our hope. If that is not a gospel, and good news from heaven topoor distressed creatures in hovels, and on sick beds, to peopleracked with life-long pain and disease, to people in crowded cities, who never from week's end to week's end look on the green fields andbright sky--if that is not good news, and a dayspring of boundlesshope from on high for them, what news can be?

But how are we to get this hope? The text tells us; through comfortof the Scriptures; through the strengthening and comforting promises, and examples, and rules of God's gracious dealings which we findtherein. Through comfort of the Scriptures, but also throughpatience. Ah, my friends, of that too we must think; we must, as St. James says, "let patience have her perfect work, " or else we shallnot be perfect ourselves. If we are hasty, self-conceited, covetous, ready to help ourselves by the first means that come to hand; if weare full of hard judgments about our neighbours, and doubts aboutGod's good purpose toward the world; in short, if we are not PATIENT, the Bible will teach us little or nothing. It may make ussuperstitious, bigoted, fanatical, conceited, pharisaical, but likeJesus Christ the Lord it will not make us, unless we have patience. 

And where are we to get patience? God knows it is hard in such aworld as this for poor creatures to be patient always. But faith canbreed patience, though patience cannot breed itself;--and faith inwhom? Faith in our Father in heaven, even in the Almighty GodHimself. He calls Himself "the God of Patience and Consolation. "Pray for His Holy Spirit, and He will make you patient; pray for HisHoly Spirit, and He will console and comfort you. He has promisedThat Spirit of His, The Spirit of love, trust, and patience--TheComforter--to as many as ask Him. Ask Him now, this day--come to Hisholy table this day, and ask Him to make you patient; ask Him to takeall the hastiness, and pride, and ill-temper, and self-will, andgreediness out of you, and to change your wills into the likeness ofHis will. Then your eyes will be opened to understand His law. Thenyou will see in the Scriptures a sure promise of hope and glory andredemption for yourself and all the world. Then you will see in theblessed sacrament of the Lord's body and blood, a sure sign andwarrant, handed down from land to land, and age to age, from year toyear, and from father to son, that these promises shall come true;that hope shall become fact; that not one of the Lord's words shallfail, or pass away, till all be fulfilled. 

III--THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me topreach good tidings to the meek; He has sent me to bind up thebroken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the openingof the prison to them that are bound. --ISAIAH lxi. 1. 

My friends, I do entreat those of you who wish to get any real goodfrom this sermon, to listen to me carefully all through it. Not thatI have to complain of you in general for not attending to me. Ithank God, and thank you, that you do listen to what is said in thispulpit. But there are many people who have a bad trick of mindingthe preacher carefully enough for a minute or two, and then lettingtheir wits wander, and think about something else; and then if anyword in the sermon strikes them, waking up suddenly, and thinkingagain for a little, and then letting their thoughts run wild again;and so on. Whereby it happens that they only recollect a few scrapsof the sermon, a word here, and a sentence there, and get into theirheads all sorts of mistakes and false notions about the preacher'smeaning. 

That is not right; that is not worthy of reasonable grown men: thatis only pardonable in little scatter-brained children. Men and womenshould listen steadily, reverently throughout; so, and so only, willthey be able to judge of the message which the preacher brings them. Listen to me, therefore, all through this sermon, and may God giveyou grace to understand it and lay it to heart, for it is the goodnews of the kingdom of God. 

You recollect, I hope, that I have often told you, that the LordJesus Christ's words would never pass away; that His prophecies arecontinually coming true, and being fulfilled over and over again. Now this text is not one of His prophecies, but it is a prophecyabout Him; one which He fulfilled, and which He has been fulfillingagain and again. He is fulfilling it, as I believe, more than ever, now in these very days. 

If you will look at the 61st chapter of Isaiah, you will find thisprophecy; and you will find, too, what will surprise you at first, that Isaiah was speaking of himself. He says, "That the Spirit ofthe Lord was upon HIM"--Isaiah--"because the Lord had appointed HIMto preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, and deliverance to the captives, to preach the acceptable year of theLord. " Isaiah must have spoken truly about himself. He could nothave meant to tell a falsehood, to say a thing was true of himselfwhich was only true of Jesus, who did not come till 800 yearsafterwards. And he did speak the truth: you cannot read hisprophecies without seeing that the Spirit of the Lord was indeed uponhim; that the words which he spoke must have comforted all those whowere sorrowing for their sins and the sins of the nation in theirtime. We know, for a fact, that his prophecies came true; that theJewish captives were delivered and brought back out of Judaea toJerusalem again, and that Jerusalem was rebuilt as Isaiah prophesied, and the Jewish nation raised to far greater holiness, and prosperity, and happiness than it had ever been in before. And yet 800 yearsafterwards the Lord took those very same words to Himself, and said, that HE fulfilled them. He read them aloud once in a Jewishsynagogue, out of the book of the prophet Isaiah; and then told thecongregation, "This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. "And again, as we read in the Gospel for this day, when John theBaptist sent to ask Him if He was really the Christ, He made use ofanother prophecy of Isaiah, and told John's disciples that He WAS theChrist, because He was fulfilling that prophecy; because He WASmaking the deaf hear, and the blind see, and preaching the gospel tothe poor. Now, how is that? Could Isaiah be right in applying thosewords to himself, and yet Christ be right in applying them toHimself? Can a prophecy be fulfilled twice over?

No doubt it can, my friends, and two hundred times over. No prophecyof Scripture is of private interpretation, says St. Peter. That is, it does not apply to any one private, particular thing that is tohappen. Every prophecy of Scripture goes on fulfilling itself moreand more, as time rolls on and the world grows older. St. Petertells us the reason why. No prophecy of Scripture is of privateinterpretation; because it does not come from the will of man, fromany invention or discovery of poor short-sighted human beings, whocan only judge by what they see around them in their own times: butholy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And whois the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of God; the everlasting Spirit; theSpirit who cannot change, for He IS God. The Spirit who searcheththe deep things of God, and teaches them to men. And what are thedeep things of God? They are eternal as God is. Eternal laws;everlasting rules which cannot alter. That is the meaning of it all. The Spirit of God is the Spirit which teaches men the laws of God;the unchangeable rules and ordinances by which He governs all heavenand earth, and men, and nations; the laws which come into force, notonce only, but always; the laws of God which are working round usnow, just as much as they were eighteen hundred years ago, just asmuch as they were in Isaiah's time. Therefore it is, that I saidthat these old Jewish prophecies, which were inspired by the HolySpirit, are coming true now, and will keep on coming true, time aftertime, in their proper place and order, and whensoever the times arefit for them, even to the end of the world. 

But again, we read that the Spirit of God takes of the things ofChrist, and shows them unto us. And what are the things of Christ?They must be eternal things, unchangeable things, for Christ isunchangeable--Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He is over all, God blessed for ever. To Him all power is given inheaven and earth. He reigns, and He will reign. Do you think He isless a Saviour now, than He was when He spoke those things to John'sdisciples? Do you think He is less able to hear and to help than Hewas in John's time? Do you think He used to care about people'sbodies then, but that He only cares about their souls now? Do youthink that He is less compassionate, and less merciful, as well asless powerful, than He was when He made the blind see, and the lamewalk, and the deaf hear, in Judaea of old?

Less powerful! less compassionate! One would have expected thatChrist was MORE powerful, MORE compassionate, if that were possible. At least one would expect that His power and compassion would showitself more and more, and make itself felt more and more, year byyear, and age by age; more and more healing disease; more and morecomforting sorrow; more and still more casting out cunning and evilspirits, till He had put all under His feet. He Himself said itshould be so. He always spoke of His own kingdom as a thing whichwas to grow and increase by laws of its own, men knew not how, but Heknew. Like seed cast into the ground, His kingdom was, He said, atfirst the smallest of all seeds; but it was to grow, and take root, and spread into a mighty tree, He said, till the very birds in theair lodged in the branches of it; and David's words should befulfilled, "Thou, Lord, shalt save both man and beast. " And does notSt. Paul speak of His kingdom in the same way, as a kingdom whichshould grow? that He was to reign till He had put all enemies underHis feet? that He would deliver at last the whole creation? the earthon which we stand, the dumb animals around us? For, as St. Paulsays, the whole creation is groaning in labour-pangs, waiting to beraised into a higher state. And it shall be raised. The wholecreation shall be set free into the glorious liberty of the childrenof God. 

What does that mean? How can I tell you?

This I can tell you, that it cannot mean that Jesus Christ wasmerciful enough to heal people's bodies at first, but that He hasgiven up doing it now, and will never do it again. "Well, but, " somewould say, "what does all this come to? You are merely telling uswhat we knew before--that if any of us are cured from disease, orraised up from a sick bed, it is all the Lord's doing. " If you dobelieve that, really, my friends, happy are you! Many of you, Ithink, do believe it. The poor are more inclined to believe it, Ithink, than the rich. But even in the mouths of the poor one oftenhears words which make one suspect that they do NOT believe it. I amvery much afraid that a great many have got into the trick of sayingthat it was God's mercy that they were cured, and that it pleased theLord to raise them up from a sick bed, very much as a piece of cant. They say the words by rote, because they have been accustomed to hearthem said by others, without thinking of the meaning of them; justas, on the other hand, a great many people curse and swear withoutthinking of the awful oaths they use. Ay, and often enough the verysame persons will say that it was the Lord's mercy they were cured oftheir sickness; and then, if they get into a passion, pray the verysame Lord to do that to the bodies and souls of their neighbourswhich it is a shame to speak of here. Out of the same mouth proceedblessings and cursings: showing that whether or not they are inearnest in cursing, they are not earnest in blessing. 

Again: If people really believed that it was the Lord Jesus Christwho cured their sicknesses for them, they would behave, when they gotwell, more as the Lord Jesus Christ would wish them to behave. Theywould show forth their thankfulness not only with their lips, but intheir lives. You who believe--you who say--that Christ has curedyour sicknesses, show your faith by your works. Live like those whoare alive again from the dead; who are not your own, but bought witha price, and bound to work for God with your bodies and your spirits, which are His--then, and then only, can either God or man believeyou. 

Again: There is a third reason which makes one suspect that peopledo not mean what they say about this matter. I think too many say, "It has pleased God, " merely as an empty form of words, when all theymean is, "What must be, must, and it cannot be helped. " Else, why dothey say, "It has pleased the Lord to send me sickness?" What is theuse of saying, "It has pleased the Lord to cure me, " when you say inthe same breath, "It has pleased the Lord to make me ill?" I knowyou will say that, "Of course, whatever happens must be the Lord'swill; if it did not please Him it would not happen. " I do not carefor such words; I will have nothing to do with them. I will neitherentangle you nor myself in those endless disputings and questionsabout freewill and necessity, which never yet have come to anyconclusion, and never will, because they are too deep for poor short-sighted human beings like us. "To the law and to the testimony, " sayI. I will hold to the words of the Bible; what it says, I will say;what it does not say I will not say, to please any man's system ofdoctrines. And I say from the Bible that we have no more right tosay, "It has pleased the Lord to make me sick, " than, "It has pleasedthe Lord to make me a sinner. " Scripture everywhere speaks ofsickness as a real evil and a curse--a breaking of the health, andorder, and strength, and harmony of God's creation. It speaks ofmadmen as possessed with evil spirits; did THAT please God? Thewoman who was bowed with a spirit of infirmity, and could not liftherself up--did our Lord say that it had pleased God to make her awretched cripple? No; he spoke of her as this daughter of Israel, whom Satan had bound, and not God, this eighteen years; and that wasHis reason for healing her, even on the sabbath-day, because herdisease was not the work of God, but of the cruel, disordering, destroying evil spirit which is at enmity with God. That was whyChrist cured her. And THAT--for this is the point I have been comingto, step by step--that was the reason why, when John the Baptist sentto ask if Jesus was the Christ, our Lord answered: "Go and show Johnagain those things which ye do see and hear: the blind receive theirsight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached tothem. "

Do not be in a hurry, my friends, and suppose that our Lord meantmerely: "Tell John what wonderful miracles I am working. " If He hadmeant that why would He have put in as the last proof that He was theChrist, that He was preaching the gospel to the poor? What wonderfulmiracle was there in THAT? No: it was as if He had said: "Go andtell John that I am the Christ, because I am the great physician, thehealer and deliverer of body and soul: one who will and can cure theloathsome diseases, the uselessness, the misery, the ignorance of thepoorest and meanest. " He has proved Himself the Christ by showingnot only His boundless power, but His boundless love and mercy; andTHAT, not only to men's souls, but to their bodies also. To proveHimself the Christ by wonderful and astonishing miracles was exactlywhat He would not do. He refused, when the Scribes and Phariseescame and asked of Him a sign from heaven to prove that He was Christ--wanting Him, I suppose, to bring some apparition, or fiery comet, orgreat voice out of the sky, to astonish them with His power; He toldthem peremptorily that He would give them no such thing: and yet Hesaid that His mighty works did prove Him to be Christ; He pronouncedwoe against Chorazin and Bethsaida for not believing Him on accountof His mighty works: He told the Scribes and Pharisees that theyought to believe on Him merely for His works' sake. And why wouldthey not believe on Him? Just because they could not see that God'spower was shown more in healing and delivering sufferers, than inastonishing and destroying. They could not see that God's perfectlikeness shone out in Christ--that He was the express image of theFather, just because He went about doing good, and healing all mannerof sicknesses and all manner of infirmities among the people. But soit is, my friends! Jesus is the Saviour, the deliverer, the greatphysician, the healer of soul and body. Not a pang is felt or a tearshed on earth, but He sorrows over it. Not a human being on earthdies young, but He, as I believe, sorrows over it. What it is whichprevents Him healing every sickness, soothing every sorrow, wipingaway every tear NOW, we cannot tell. But this we can tell, that itis His will that none should perish. This we CAN tell; that He iswilling as ever to heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to cast outdevils, to teach the ignorant, to bind up the broken-hearted. Thiswe CAN tell; that He will go on doing so more and more, year by year, and age by age. This we CAN tell, from Scripture, that Christ isstronger than the devil. This we can tell; that Christ, and all goodmen, the spirits of just men made perfect, the wise and the great inGod's sight, who have left us their books, their sayings, theirwritings, as precious health-giving heirlooms--have been fighting, and are fighting, and will fight to the end against the devil, andsin, and oppression, and misery, and disease, and everything whichspoils and darkens the face of God's good earth. And this we CANtell; that they will conquer at the last, because Christ is strongerthan the devil; good is stronger than evil; light is stronger thandarkness; God's Spirit, the giver of life, and health, and order, isstronger than all the evil customs, and ignorance, and carelessness, and cruelty, and superstition, which makes miserable the lives and, as far as we can see, destroys the souls of thousands. Yes, I say, Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of health and deliverance for body andsoul; and it will conquer, and it will spread, and it will grow, tillthe nations of the world have become the kingdoms of God and of HisChrist. Christ reigns, and Christ will reign till He has put all Hisenemies under His feet; and the last of His enemies which shall bedestroyed is DEATH. Death is His enemy. He has conquered death byrising from the dead. And the day will come when death will be nomore--when sickness and sorrow shall be unknown, and God shall wipeaway tears from all eyes. I say it again--never forget it--Christ isKing, and His kingdom is a kingdom of health, and life, anddeliverance from all evil. It always has been so, from the firsttime our Lord cured the leper in Galilee; it will be so to the end ofthe world. And, therefore--to come back to the very place from whichI started at the beginning of my sermon--therefore, whenever one ofthe days of the Lord is at hand, whenever God's kingdom makes a greatstep forward, this same prophecy in our text is fulfilled in somestriking and wonderful way. And I say it is fulfilled now in thesedays more than it ever has been. Christ is healing the sick, cleansing the leper, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, andpreaching the gospel to the poor, seven times more in these days inwhich we live than He did when He walked upon earth in Judaea. 

Do you doubt my words? At all events you confess that the cure ofall diseases comes from Christ. Then consider, I beseech you, howmany more diseases are cured now than were formerly. One may saythat the knowledge of medicine is not one hundred years old. Nothing, my friends, makes me feel more strongly what a wonderful andblessed time we live in, and how Christ is showing forth mighty worksamong us, than this same sudden miraculous improvement in the art ofhealing, which has taken place within the memory of man. Any countrydoctor now knows more, thank God, or ought to know, than the greatestLondon physicians did two generations ago. New cures for deafness, blindness, lameness, every disease that flesh is heir to, are beingdiscovered year by year. Oh, my friends! you little know what Christis doing among you, for your bodies as well as for your souls. Thereis not a parish in England now in which the poorest as well as therichest are not cured yearly of diseases, which, if they had lived ahundred years ago, would have killed them without hope or help. Andthen, when one looks at these great and blessed plans for what iscalled sanitary reform, at the sickness and the misery which has beendone away with already by attending to them, even though they haveonly just begun to be put in practice--our hearts must be hard indeedif we do not feel that Christ is revealing to us the gifts of healingfar more bountifully and mercifully than even He did to the firstapostles. 

But you will say, perhaps, the dead are not raised in these days. Oh, my friends! which shows Christ's mercy most, to raise those whoare already dead, or to save those alive who are about to die? Thosein this church who have read history know as well as I, how in ourforefathers' time people died in England by thousands of diseaseswhich are scarcely ever deadly now; ay, of diseases which have nowactually vanished out of the land, before the new light of medicineand of civilisation which Christ has revealed to us in these days. For one child who lived and grew up in old times, two live and growup now. In London alone there are not half as many deaths inproportion to the number of people as there were a hundred years ago. And is not that a mightier work of Christ's power and love than if Hehad raised a few dead persons to life?

And now for the last part of our Lord's witness about Himself. Tothe poor the gospel is preached. Oh! my friends, is not THAT comingtrue in our days as it never came true before? Look back only fiftyyears, and consider the difference between the doctrines which werepreached to the poor and the doctrines which are preached to themnow. Look round you and see how everywhere earnest and godlyministers have sprung up, of all sects and opinions, as well as ofthe Church of England, not only to preach the gospel in the pulpit, but to carry it to the sick bedside of the lonely cottage, to theprison, and to those fearful sties, worse than prisons, where in ourgreat cities the heathen poor live crowded together. Look at theteaching which the poor man can get now, compared to what he used to--the sermons, the Bibles, the tracts, the lending libraries, theschools--just consider the hundreds of thousands of pounds which aresubscribed every year to educate the children of the poor, and thensay whether Christ is not working a mighty work among us in thesedays. I know that not half as much is done as ought to be done inthat way; not half as much as will be done; and what is done willhave to be done better than it has been done yet; but still, cananyone in this church who is fifty years old deny that there is amost enormous and blessed improvement which is growing and spreadingevery year? Can anyone deny that the gospel is preached to the poornow in a way that it never was before within the memory of man?

Now, recollect that this is an Advent sermon--a sermon whichproclaims to you that Christ is COME; yes, He is come--come never toleave mankind again! Christ reigns over the earth, and will reignfor ever. At certain great and important times in the world'shistory, like this present time, times which He Himself calls "daysof the Lord, " He shows forth His power, and the mightiness and mercyof His kingdom, more than at others. But still He is always with us;we have no need to run up and down to look for Christ: to say, Whoshall ascend into heaven to bring Him down? Who shall descend intothe deep to bring Him up? For the kingdom of God, as He told usHimself, is among us, and within us. Yes, within us. All thesewonderful improvements and discoveries, all things beneficial to menwhich are found out year by year, though they seem to be of men'sinvention, are really of Christ's revealing, the fruits of thekingdom of God within us, of the Spirit of God, who is teaching men, though they too often will not believe it; though they disclaim God'sSpirit and take all the glory to themselves. Truly Christ is amongus; and our eyes are held, and we see Him not. That is our Englishsin--the sin of unbelief, the root of every other sin. Christ worksamong us, and we will not own Him. Truly, Jesus Christ may well sayof us English at this day, There were ten cleansed, but where are thenine? How few are there, who return to give glory to God! Oh, consider what I say; the kingdom of God is among us now; itsblessings are growing richer, fuller among us every day. Beware, lest if we refuse to acknowledge that kingdom and Christ the King ofit, it be taken away from us, and given to some other nation, whowill bring forth the fruits of it, fellow-help and brotherlykindness, purity and sobriety, and all the fruits of the Spirit ofGod. 

IV--A PREPARATION FOR CHRISTMAS

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT. 

Rejoice in the Lord always. --PHILIPPIANS iv. 4. 

This is the beginning of the Epistle for to-day, the Sunday beforeChristmas. We will try to find out why it was chosen for to-day, andwhat lesson we may learn from it. 

Now Christmas-time was always a time of rejoicing among many heathennations, and long before the Lord Jesus Christ came. That wasnatural and reasonable enough, if you will consider it. For now theshortest day is past. The sun is just beginning to climb higher andhigher in the sky each day, and bring back with him longer sunshine, and shorter darkness, and spring flowers, and summer crops, and awhole new year, with new hopes, new work, new lessons, new blessings. The old year, with all its labours and all its pleasures, and all itssorrows and all its sins, is dying, all but gone. It lies behind us, never to return. The tears which we shed, we never can shed again. The mistakes we made, we have a chance of mending in the year tocome. And so the heathens felt, and rejoiced that another year wasdying, another year going to be born. 

And Christmas was a time of rejoicing too, because the farming workwas done. The last year's crop was housed; the next year's wheat wassown; the cattle were safe in yard and stall; and men had time torest, and draw round the fire in the long winter nights, and makemerry over the earnings of the past year, and the hopes and plans ofthe year to come. And so over all this northern half of the worldChristmas was a merry time. 

But the poor heathens did not know the Lord. They did not know whoto thank for all their Christmas blessings. And so some used tothank the earth for the crops, and the sun for coming back again tolengthen the days, as if the earth and sun moved of themselves. Andsome used to thank false gods and ancient heroes, who, perhaps, neverreally lived at all. And some, perhaps the greater number, thankednothing and no one, but just enjoyed themselves, and took no thought, as too many do now at Christmas-time. So the world went on, Christmas after Christmas; and the times of that ignorance, as St. Paul says, God winked at. But when the fulness of time was come, Hesent forth His Son, made of a woman, to be the judge and ruler of theworld; and commanded all men everywhere to repent, and turn from alltheir vanities to serve the living God, who had made heaven andearth, and all things in them. 

He did not wish them to give up their Christmas mirth. No: allalong He had been trying to teach them by it about His love to them. As St. Paul told them once, God had not left Himself without witness, in that He gave them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their heartswith joy and gladness. 

God did not wish them, or us, to give up Christmas mirth. Theapostles did not wish it. The great men, true followers of theapostles, who shaped our Prayer-book for us, and sealed it with theirlife-blood, did not wish it. They did not wish farmers, labourers, servants, masters, to give up one of the old Christmas customs; butto remember who made Christmas, and its blessings; in short, torejoice in The Lord. Our forefathers had been thanking the wrongpersons for Christmas. Henceforward we were to thank the rightperson, The Lord, and rejoice in Him. Our forefathers had beenrejoicing in the sun, and moon, and earth; in wise and valiant kingswho had lived ages before; in their own strength, and industry, andcunning. Now they were to rejoice in Him who made sun, and moon, andearth; in Him who sent wise and valiant kings and leaders; in Him whogives all strength, and industry, and cunning; by whose inspirationcomes all knowledge of agriculture, and manufacture, and all the artswhich raise men above the beasts that perish. So their Christmasjoys were to go on, year by year while the world lasted: but theywere to go on rightly, and not wrongly. Men were to rejoice in TheLord, and then His blessing would be on them, and the thanks andpraise which they offered Him, He would return with interest, infresh blessings for the coming year. 

Therefore, I think, this Epistle was chosen for to-day, the Sundaybefore Christmas, to show us in whom we are to rejoice; and, therefore, to show us how we are to rejoice. For we must not takethe first verse of the Epistle and forget the rest. That wouldneither be wise nor reverent toward St. Paul, who wrote the whole, and meant the whole to stand together as one discourse; or to theblessed and holy men who chose it for our lesson on this day. Let usgo on, then, with the Epistle, line by line, throughout. 

"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. " As much asto say, you cannot rejoice too much, you cannot overdo yourhappiness, thankfulness, merriment. You do not know half--no, notthe thousandth part of God's love and mercy to you, and you neverwill know. So do not be afraid of being too happy, or think that youhonour God by wearing a sour face, when He is heaping blessings onyou, and calling on you to smile and sing. But "let your moderationbe known unto all men. " There is a right and a wrong way of beingmerry. There is a mirth, which is no mirth; whereof it is written, in the midst of that laughter there is a heaviness, and the endthereof is death. Drunkenness, gluttony, indecent words and jestsand actions, these are out of place on Christmas-day, and in themerriment to which the pure and holy Lord Jesus calls you all. Theyare rejoicing in the flesh and the devil, and not in the Lord at all;and whosoever indulges in them, and fancies them merriment, iskeeping the devil's Christmas, and not Jesus Christ's. So let yourmoderation be known to all men. Be MERRY AND WISE. The fool letshis mirth master him, and carry him away, till he forgets himself, and says and does things of which he is ashamed when he gets up nextmorning, sick and sad at heart. The wise man remembers that, let theoccasion be as joyful a one as it may, "the Lord is at hand. "Christ's eye is on him, while he is eating, and drinking, andlaughing. He is not afraid of Christ's eye, because, though it isDivine it is a human, loving, smiling eye; rejoicing in the happinessof His poor, hard-worked brothers here below. But he remembers thatit is a holy eye, too; an eye which looks with sadness and horror onanything which is wrong; on all drunkenness, quarrelling, indecency;and so on in all his merriment, he is still master of himself. Heremembers that his soul is nobler than his body; that his will mustbe stronger than his appetite; and so he keeps himself in check; hekeeps his tongue from evil, and his stomach from sottishness, andthough he may be, and ought to be, the merriest of the whole party, yet he takes care to let his moderation, his sobriety, be known andplain to everyone, remembering that the Lord is at hand. 

And that man--I will stand surety for him--will be the one who willrise from his bed next morning, best able to carry out the next verseof the Epistle, and "be careful for nothing. "

Now that is no easy matter here in England; to rich and poor, Christmas is the time for settling accounts and paying debts. Andtherefore in England, where living is dear, and everyone, more orless, struggling to pay his way, Christmas is often a very anxious, disturbing time of year. Many a family, for all their economy, cannot clear themselves at the year's end; and though they are ableto forget that now and then, thank God, through great part of theyear, yet they cannot forget it at Christmas. But, as I said, theman who at Christmas-time will be most able to be careful fornothing, will be the man whose moderation has been known to everyone;for he will, if he has lived the year through in the same temper inwhich he has spent Christmas, have been moderate in his expenses; hewill have kept himself from empty show, and pretending to be richerthan he is. He will have kept himself from throwing away his moneyin drink, and kept his daughters from throwing away money in dress, which is just what too many, in their foolish, godless, indecenthurry to get rid of their own children off their hands do not do. 

And he will be the man who will be in the best humour, and have theclearest brain, to kneel down when he gets up to his daily work, and"in everything, by prayer and supplication, make his requests knownto God. " And then, whether he can make both ends meet or not, whether he can begin next year free from debt or not, still "thepeace of God will keep his heart. " He may be unable to clearhimself, but still he will know that he has a loving and mercifulFather in heaven, who has allowed distress and difficulty to come onhim only as a lesson and an education. That this distress camebecause God chose, and that when God chooses it will go away--andthat till then--considering that the Lord God sent it--it had betterNOT go away. He will believe that God's gracious promises standtrue--that the Lord will never let those who trust in Him beconfounded and brought to shame--that He will let none of us betempted beyond what we are able, but will always with the temptationmake a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it. And sothe peace of God which passes understanding, will keep that man'smind. And in whom? "In Jesus Christ. " Now what did St. Paul meanby putting in the Lord Jesus Christ's name there? what is the meaningof "in Jesus Christ"? This is what it means; it means whatChristmas-day means. A man may say, "Your sermon promises finethings, but I am miserable and poor; it promises a holy and noblerejoicing to everyone, but I am unholy and mean. It promises peacefrom God, and I am sure I am not at peace: I am always fretting andquarrelling; I quarrel with my wife, my children, and my neighbours, and they quarrel with me; and worst of all, " says the poor man, "Iquarrel with myself. I am full of discontented, angry, sulky, anxious, unhappy thoughts; my heart is dark and sad and restlesswithin me--would God I were peaceful, but I am not: look in my faceand see!"

True, my friend, but on Christmas-day the Son of God was born intothe world, a man like you. 

"Well, " says the poor man, "but what has that to do with my anxietyand my ill-temper?"

It would take the whole year through, my friend, to show you all thatit has to do with you and your unhappiness. All the Lessons, Epistles, and Gospels of the year are set out to show you what it hasto do with you. But in the meanwhile, before Christmas-day comes, consider this one thing: Why are you anxious? Because you do notknow what is to happen to you? Then Christmas-day is a witness toyou, that whatsoever happens to you, happens to you by the will andrule of Jesus Christ, The perfect man; think of that. THE PERFECTMAN--who understands men's hearts and wants, and all that is good forthem, and has all the wisdom and power to give us what is good, whichwe want ourselves. And what makes you unhappy, my friends? Is itnot at heart just this one thing--you are unhappy because you are notpleased with yourselves? And you are not pleased with yourselvesbecause you know you ought not to be pleased with yourselves; and youknow you ought not to be pleased with yourselves, because you know, in the bottom of your hearts, that God is not pleased with you? Whatcure, what comfort for such thoughts can we find?--This. 

The child who was born in a manger on Christmas-day, and grew up inpoverty, and had not where to lay his head, went through all shameand sorrow to which man is heir. He, Jesus, the poor child ofBethlehem, is Lord and King of heaven and earth. He will feel forus; He will understand our temptations; He has been poor himself, that He might feel for the poor; He has been evil spoken of, that Hemight feel for those whose tempers are sorely tried. He bore thesins and felt the miseries of the whole world, that He might feel forus when we are wearied with the burden of life, and confounded by theremembrance of our own sins. 

Oh, my friends, consider only Who was born into the world onChristmas-day; and that thought alone will be enough to fill you withrejoicing and hope for yourselves and all the world, and with thepeace of God which passes understanding, the peace which the angelsproclaimed to the shepherds on the first Christmas night--"On earthpeace, and good will toward men"--and if God wills us good, myfriend; what matter who wishes us evil?

V--CHRISTMAS-DAY

He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of aslave. --PHILIPPIANS ii. 7. 

On Christmas-day, 1851 years ago, if we had been at Rome, the greatcapital city, and mistress of the whole world, we should have seen astrange sight--strange, and yet pleasant. All the courts of law wereshut; no war was allowed to be proclaimed, and no criminals punished. The sorrow and the strife of that great city had stopped, in greatpart, for three days, and all people were giving themselves up tomerriment and good cheer--making up quarrels, and giving andreceiving presents from house to house. And we should have seen, too, a pleasanter sight than that. For those three days ofChristmas-time were days of safety and merriment for the poor slaves--tens of thousands of whom--men, women, and children--the Romans hadbrought out of all the countries in the world--many of ourforefathers and mothers among them--and kept them there in cruelbondage and shame, worked and fed, bought and sold, like beasts, andnot like human beings, not able to call their lives or their bodiestheir own, forced to endure any shame or sin which their tyrantsrequired of them, and liable any moment to be beaten, tortured, orcrucified at the mercy of cruel and foul masters and mistresses. Buton that Christmas-day, according to an old custom, they were allowedfor once in the whole year to play at being free, to dress in theirmasters' and mistresses' clothes, to say what they thought of themboldly, without fear of punishment, and to eat and drink at theirmasters' tables, while their masters and mistresses waited on them. It was an old custom, that, among the heathen Romans, which theirforefathers, who were wiser and better than they, had handed down tothem. They had forgotten, perhaps, what it meant: but still we maysee what it must have meant: That the old forefathers of the Romanshad intended to remind their children every year by that custom, thattheir poor hard-worked slaves were, after all, men and women as muchas their masters; that they had hearts and consciences, and sense inthem, and a right to speak what they thought, as much as theirmasters; that they, as much as their masters, could enjoy the goodthings of God's earth, from which man's tyranny had shut them out;and to remind those cruel masters, by making them once every yearwait on their own slaves at table, that they were, after all, equalin the sight of God, and that it was more noble for those who wererich, and called themselves gentlemen, to help others, than to makeothers slave for them. 

I do not mean, of course, that those old heathens understood all thisclearly. You will see, by the latter part of my sermon, why theycould not understand it clearly. But there must have been some sortof dim, confused suspicion in their minds that it was wrong and cruelto treat human beings like brute beasts, which made them set up thatstrange old custom of letting their slaves play at being free onceevery Christmas-tide. 

But if on this same day, 1851 years ago, instead of being in thegreat city of Rome, we had been in the little village of Bethlehem inJudaea, we might have seen a sight stranger still; a sight which wecould not have fancied had anything to do with that merrymaking ofthe slaves at Rome, and yet which had everything to do with it. 

We should have seen, in a mean stable, among the oxen and the asses, a poor maiden, with her newborn baby laid in the manger, for want ofany better cradle, and by her her husband, a poor carpenter, whom allmen thought to be the father of her child. . . . There, in thestable, amid the straw, through the cold winter days and nights, inwant of many a comfort which the poorest woman, and the poorestwoman's child would need, they stayed there, that young maiden andher newborn babe. That young maiden was the Blessed Virgin Mary, andthat poor baby was the Son of God. The Son of God, in whose likenessall men were made at the beginning; the Son of God, who had beenruling the whole world all along; who brought the Jews out ofslavery, a thousand years before, and destroyed their cruel tyrantsin the Red Sea; the Son of God, who had been all along punishingcruel tyrants and oppressors, and helping the poor out of misery, whenever they called on Him. The Light which lightens every man whocomes into the world, was that poor babe. It was He who gives menreason, and conscience, and a tender heart, and delight in what isgood, and shame and uneasiness of mind when they do wrong. It was Hewho had been stirring up, year by year, in those cruel Romans'hearts, the feeling that there was something wrong in grinding downtheir slaves, and put into their minds the notion of giving themtheir Christmas rest and freedom. He had been keeping up that goodold custom for a witness and a warning that all men were equal in Hissight; that all men had a right to liberty of speech and conscience;a right to some fair share in the good things of the earth, which Godhad given to all men freely to enjoy. But those old Romans would nottake the warning. They kept up the custom, but they shut their eyesto the lesson of it. They went on conquering and oppressing all thenations of the earth, and making them their slaves. And now He wascome--He Himself, the true Lord of the earth, the true pattern ofmen. He was come to show men to whom this world belonged: He wascome to show men in what true power, true nobleness consisted--not inmaking others minister to us, but in ministering to them: He wascome to set a pattern of what a man should be; He was the Son of Man--THE MAN of all men--and therefore He had come with good news to allpoor slaves, and neglected, hard-worked creatures: He had come totell them that He cared for them; that He could and would deliverthem; that they were God's children, and His brothers, just as muchas their Roman masters; and that He was going to bring a terribletime upon the earth--"days of the Son of Man, " when He would judgeall men, and show who were true men and who were not--such a time ashad never been before, or would be again; when that great Romanempire, in spite of all its armies, and its cunning, and its riches, plundered from every nation under heaven, would crumble away andperish shamefully and miserably off the face of the earth, beforetribes of poor, untaught, savage men, the brothers and countrymen ofthose very slaves whom the Romans fancied were so much below them, that they had a right to treat them like the beasts which perish. 

That was the message which that little child lying in the mangerthere at Bethlehem, had been sent out from God to preach. Do you notsee now what it had to do with that strange merrymaking of the poorslaves in Rome, which I showed you at the beginning of my sermon?

If you do not, I must remind you of the song, which, St. Luke says, the shepherds in Judaea heard the angels sing, on this night 1851years ago. That song tells us the meaning of that babe's coming. That song tells us what that babe's coming had to do with the poorslaves of Rome, and with all poor creatures who have suffered andsorrowed on this earth, before or since. 

"Glory to God in the highest, " they sang, "and on earth peace, goodwill to men. "

Glory to God in the highest. That little babe, lying in the mangeramong the cattle, was showing what was the very highest glory of thegreat God who had made heaven and earth. Not to show His power andHis majesty, but to show His condescension and His love. To stoop, to condescend, to have mercy, to forgive, that is the highest gloryof God. That is the noblest, the most Godlike thing for God or man. And God showed that when He sent down His only-begotten Son--not tostrike the world to atoms with a touch, not to hurl sinners intoeverlasting flame, but to be born of a village maiden, to take onHimself all the shame and weakness and sorrow, to which man is heir, even to death itself; to make Himself of no reputation, and take onHimself the form of a slave, and forgive sinners, and heal the sick, and comfort the outcast and despised, that He might show what God waslike--show forth to men, as a poor maiden's son, the brightness ofGod's glory, and the express likeness of His person. 

"And on earth peace" they sang. Men had been quarrelling andfighting then, and men are quarrelling and fighting now. That littlebabe in the manger was come to show them how and why they were all tobe at peace with each other. For what causes all the war andquarrelling in the world, but selfishness? Selfishness breeds pride, passion, spite, revenge, covetousness, oppression. The strong carefor themselves, and try to help themselves at the expense of theweak, by force and tyranny; the weak care for themselves in theirturn, and try to help themselves at the expense of the strong, bycunning and cheating. No one will condescend, give way, sacrificehis own interest for his neighbour's, and hence come wars betweennations, quarrels in families, spite and grudges between neighbours. But in the example of that little child of Bethlehem, Jesus Christthe Lord, God was saying to men, "Acquaint yourselves with Me, and beat peace. " God is not selfish; it is our selfishness which has madeus unlike God. God so loved the sinful world, that He gave His only-begotten Son for it. Is that an action like ours? The Son of God soobeyed His Father, and so loved this world, that He made Himself ofno reputation, and took on Him the likeness of a slave, and becameobedient to death, even to the most fearful and shameful of alldeaths, the death of the cross; not for Himself, but for those whodid not know Him, hated Him, killed Him. In short, He sacrificedHimself for us. That is God's likeness. Self-sacrifice. JesusChrist, the babe of Bethlehem, proved Himself the Son of God, and theexpress likeness of the Father, by sacrificing Himself for us. Sacrifice yourselves then for each other! Give up your own pride, your own selfishness, your own interest for each other, and you willbe all at peace at once. 

But the angels sang, "Good will toward men. " Without that their songwould not have been complete. For we are all ready to say, at suchwords as I have been speaking, "Ah! pleasant enough, and prettyenough, if they were but possible; but they are not possible. It isin the nature of man to be selfish. Men have gone on warring, grudging, struggling, competing, oppressing, cheating from thebeginning, and they will do so to the end. "

Yes, it is not in the NATURE of man to do otherwise. In as far asman yields to his nature, and is like the selfish brute beasts, it isnot possible for him to do anything but go on quarrelling, andcompeting, and cheating to the last. But what man's nature cannotdo, God's grace can. God's good will is toward you. He loves you, He wills--and if He wills, what is too hard for Him?--He wills toraise you out of this selfish, quarrelsome life of sin, into aloving, brotherly, peaceful life of righteousness. His spirit, thespirit of love by which He made and guides all heaven and earth, thespirit of love in which He gave His only Son for you, the spirit oflove in which His Son Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for you, andtook on Himself a meaner state than any of you can ever have--thelikeness of a slave--that spirit is promised to you, and ready foryou. That little baby in the manger at Bethlehem--God sacrificingHimself for you in the spirit of love--is a sign that that spirit oflove is the spirit of God, and therefore the only right spirit foryou and me, who are men and women made in the image of God. Thatbabe in the manger at Bethlehem is a sign to you and me, that Godwill freely give us that spirit of love if we ask for it. For Hewould not have set us that example, if He had not meant us to followit, and He would not ask us to follow it, if He did not intend togive us the means of following it. Therefore, my friends, it iswritten, Ask and ye shall receive. If your heavenly Father sparednot His own Son, but freely gave Him for you, will He not with Himlikewise freely give you all things? Oh! ask and you shall receive. However poor, ignorant, sinful you may be, God's promises are readyfor you, signed and sealed by the bread and wine on that table, thememorial of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem. Ask, and you shallreceive! Comfort from sorrow, peaceful assurance of God's good willtoward you, deliverance from your sins, and a share in the likenessof Him who on this day made Himself of no reputation, and took on Himthe form of a slave. 

VI--TRUE ABSTINENCE

FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. 

I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection. --1 COR. Ix. 27. 

In the Collect for this day we have just been praying to God, to giveus grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to ourspirit, we may follow His godly motions. 

Now we ought to have meant something when we said these words. Whatdid we mean by them? Perhaps some of us did not understand them. They could not be expected to mean anything by them. But it is a sadthing, a very sad thing, that people will come to church Sunday afterSunday, and repeat by rote words which they do not understand, wordsby which they therefore mean nothing, and yet never care or try tounderstand them. 

What are the words there for, except to be understood? All of youcall people foolish, who submit to have prayers read in theirchurches in a foreign language, which none, at least of the poor, canunderstand. But what right have you to call them foolish, if you, whose Prayer-books are written in English, take no trouble to findout the meaning of them? Would to Heaven that you would try to findout the meaning of the Prayer-book! Would to Heaven that the daywould come, when anyone in this parish who was puzzled by anydoctrine of religion, or by any text in the Bible, or word in thePrayer-book, would come confidently to me, and ask me to explain itto him! God knows, I should think it an honour and a pleasure, aswell as a duty. I should think no time better spent than inanswering your questions. I do beseech you to ask me, every one ofyou, when and where you like, any questions about religion which comeinto your minds. Why am I put in this parish, except to teach you?and how can I teach you better, than by answering your questions? Asit is, I am disheartened, and all but hopeless, at times, about thestate of this parish, and the work I am trying to do here; because, though you will come and hear me, thank God, willingly enough, you donot seem yet to have gained confidence enough in me, or to havelearnt to care sufficiently about the best things, to ask questionsof me about them. My dear friends, if you wanted to get informationabout anything you really cared for, you would ask questions enough. If you wanted to know some way to a place on earth you would ask it;why not ask your way to things better than this earth can give? Butwhether or not you will question me I must go on preaching to you, though whether or not you care to listen is more, alas! than I cantell. 

But listen to me, now, I beseech you, while I try to explain to youthe meaning of the words which you have been just using in thisCollect. You have asked God to give you grace to use abstinence. Now what is the meaning of abstinence? Abstinence means abstaining, refraining, keeping back of your own will from doing something whichyou might do. Take an example. When a man for his health's sake, orhis purse's sake, or any other good reason, drinks less liquor thanhe might if he chose, he abstains from liquor. He uses abstinenceabout liquor. There are other things in which a man may abstain. Indeed, he may abstain from doing anything he likes. He may abstainfrom eating too much; from lying in bed too long; from reading toomuch; from taking too much pleasure; from making money; from spendingmoney; from right things; from wrong things; from things which areneither right nor wrong; on all these he may use abstinence. He mayabstain for many reasons; for good ones, or for bad ones. A miserwill abstain from all sorts of comforts to hoard up money. Asuperstitious man may abstain from comforts, because he thinks Godgrudges them to him, or because he thinks God is pleased by theunhappiness of His creatures, or because he has been taught, poorwretch, that if he makes himself uncomfortable in this life, he shallhave more comfort, more honour, more reason for pride and self-glorification, in the life to come. Or a man may abstain from onepleasure, just to be able to enjoy another all the more; as somegreat gamblers drink nothing but water, in order to keep their headsclear for cheating. All these are poor reasons; some of them base, some of them wicked reasons for abstaining from anything. Therefore, abstinence is not a good thing in itself; for if a thing is good initself, it can never be wrong. Love is good in itself, and, therefore, you cannot love anyone for a bad reason. Justice is goodin itself, pity is good in itself, and, therefore, you can never bewrong in being just or pitiful. 

But abstinence is not a good thing in itself. If it were, we shouldall be bound to abstain always from everything pleasant, and makeourselves as miserable and uncomfortable as possible, as somesuperstitious persons used to do in old times. Abstinence is onlygood when it is used for a good reason. If a man abstains frompleasure himself, to save up for his children; if he abstains fromover eating and over drinking, to keep his mind clear and quiet; ifhe abstains from sleep and ease, in order to have time to see hisbusiness properly done; if he abstains from spending money onhimself, in order to spend it for others; if he abstains from anyhabit, however harmless or pleasant, because he finds it lead himtowards what is wrong, and put him into temptation; then he doesright; then he is doing God's work; then he may expect God'sblessing; then he is trying to do what we all prayed God to help usto do, when we said, "Give us grace to use such abstinence;" then heis doing, more or less, what St. Paul says he did, "Keeping his bodyunder, and bringing it into subjection. "

For, see, the Collect does not say, "Give us grace to useabstinence, " as if abstinence were a good thing in itself, but "touse such abstinence, that"--to use a certain kind of abstinence, andthat for a certain purpose, and that purpose a good one; suchabstinence that our flesh may be subdued to our spirit; that ourflesh, the animal, bodily nature which is in us, loving ease andpleasure, may not be our master, but our servant; so that we may notfollow blindly our own appetites, and do just what we like, as brutebeasts which have no understanding. And our flesh is to be subduedto our spirit for a certain purpose; not because our flesh is bad, and our spirit good; not in order that we may puff ourselves up andadmire ourselves, and say, as the philosophers among the heathenused, "What a strong-minded, sober, self-restraining man I am! Howfine it is to be able to look down on my neighbours, who cannot helpbeing fond of enjoying themselves, and cannot help caring for thisworld's good things. I am above all that. I want nothing, and Ifeel nothing, and nothing can make me glad or sorry. I am master ofmy own mind, and own no law but my own will. " The Collect gives usthe true and only reason, for which it is right to subdue ourappetites; which is, that we may keep our minds clear and strongenough to listen to the voice of God within our hearts and reasons;to obey the motions of God's Spirit in us; not to make our bodies ourmasters, but to live as God's servants. 

This is St. Paul's meaning, when he speaks of keeping under his body, and bringing it into subjection. The exact word which he uses, however, is a much stronger one than merely "keeping under;" it meanssimply, to beat a man's face black and blue; and his reason for usingsuch a strong word about the matter is, to show us that he thought nolabour too hard, no training too sharp, which teaches us how torestrain ourselves, and keep our appetites and passions in manful andgodly control. 

Now, a few verses before my text, St. Paul takes an example fromfoot-racers. "These foot-racers, " he says, "heathens though theyare, and only trying to win a worthless prize, the petty honour of acrown of leaves, see what trouble they take; how they exercise theirlimbs; how careful and temperate they are in eating and drinking, howmuch pain and fatigue they go through to get themselves into perfecttraining for a race. How much more trouble ought we to take to makeourselves fit to do God's work? For these foot-racers do all thisonly to gain a garland which will wither in a week; but we, to gain agarland which will never fade away; a garland of holiness, andrighteousness, and purity, and the likeness of Jesus Christ. "

The next example of abstinence which St. Paul takes, is from theprize-fighters, who were very numerous and very famous, in thecountry in which the Corinthians lived. "I fight, " he says, "notlike one who beats the air;" that is, not like a man who is onlybrandishing his hands and sparring in jest, but like a man who knowsthat he has a fight to fight in hard earnest; a terrible lifelongfight against sin, the world, and the devil; "and, therefore, " hesays, "I do as these fighters do. " They, poor savage and brutalheathens as they are, go through a long and painful training. Theirvery practice is not play; it is grim earnest. They stand up tostrike, and be struck, and are bruised and disfigured as a matter ofcourse, in order that they may learn not to flinch from pain, or losetheir tempers, or turn cowards, when they have to fight. "And so doI, " says St. Paul; "they, poor men, submit to painful anddisagreeable things to make them brave in their paltry battles. Isubmit to painful and disagreeable things, to make me brave in thegreat battle which I have to fight against sin, and ignorance, andheathendom. " "Therefore, " he says, in another place, "I takepleasure in afflictions, in persecutions, in necessities, indistresses;" and that not because those things were pleasant, theywere just as unpleasant to him as to anyone else; but because theytaught him to bear, taught him to be brave; taught him, in short, tobecome a perfect man of God. 

This is St. Paul's account of his own training: in the Epistle forto-day we have another account of it; a description of the life whichhe led, and which he was content to lead--"in much suffering, instripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watching, infastings"--and an account, too, of the temper which he had learnt toshow amid such a life of vexation, and suffering, and shame, anddanger--"approving himself in all things the minister of God, bypureness, by wisdom, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the spirit ofholiness, by love unfeigned;" "as dying, and behold we live; aschastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; aspoor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing allthings. "--In all things proving himself a true messenger from God, bybeing able to dare and to endure for God's sake, what no man everwould have dared and endured for his own sake. 

"But"--someone may say--"St. Paul was an apostle; he had a great workto do in the world; he had to turn the heathen to God; and it islikely enough that he required to train himself, and keep strictwatch over all his habits, and ways of thinking and behaving, lest heshould grow selfish, lazy, cowardly, covetous, fond of ease andamusement. He had, of course, to lead a life of strange sufferingand danger; and he had therefore to train himself for it. But whatneed have we to do as St. Paul did?"

Just as much need, my good friends, if you could see it. 

Which of us has not to lead a life of suffering? We shall each andall of us, have our full share of trouble before we die, doubt itnot. 

And which of us has not to lead a life of danger? I do not meanbodily danger; of that, there is little enough--perhaps too little--in England now; but of danger to our hearts, minds, characters? Oh, my friends, I pity those who do not think themselves in danger everyday of their lives, for the less danger they see around them, themore danger there is. There is not only the common danger oftemptation, but over and above it, the worse danger of not knowingtemptation when it comes. Who will be most likely to walk into pitsand mires upon the moor--the man who knows that they are there aroundhim, or the man who goes on careless and light of heart, fancyingthat it is all smooth ground? Woe to you, young people, if you fancythat you are to have no woe! Danger to you, young people, if youfancy yourselves in no danger!

"This is sad and dreary news"--some of you may say. Ay, my friends, it would be sad and dreary news indeed; and this earth would be avery sad and dreary place; and life with all its troubles andtemptations, would not be worth having, if it were not for theblessed news which the Gospel for this day brings us. That makes upfor all the sadness of the Epistle; that gives us hope; that tells usof one who has been through life, and through death too, yet withoutsin. That tells us of one who has endured a thousand times moretemptation than we ever shall, a thousand times more trouble than weever shall, and yet has conquered it all; and that He who has thusbeen through all our temptations, borne all our weaknesses, is ourKing, our Saviour, who loves us, who teaches us, who has promised usHis Holy Spirit, to make us like Himself, strong, brave, and patient, to endure all that man or devil, or our own low animal tempers andlusts, can do to hurt us. The Gospel for this day tells us how Hewent and was alone in the wilderness with the wild beasts, and yettrusted in God, His Father and ours, to keep Him safe. How He wentwithout food forty days and nights, and yet in His extreme hunger, refused to do the least self-willed or selfish thing to get Himselffood. Is that no lesson, no message of hope for the poor man who istempted by hunger to steal, or tempted by need to do a mean andselfish thing, to hear that the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore need andhunger far worse than his, understands all his temptations, and feelsfor him, and pities him, and has promised him God's Spirit to makehim strong, as He himself was?

Is it no comfort to young people who are tempted to vanity, anddisplay, and self-willed conceited longings, tempted to despise theadvice of their parents and elders, and set up for themselves, andchoose their own way--Is it no good news, I say, for them to hearthat their Lord and Saviour was tempted to it also, and conqueredit?--That He will teach them to answer the temptation as He did, whenHe refused even to let angels hold Him over the temple, up betweenearth and heaven, for a sign and a wonder to all the Jews, becauseGod His Father had not bidden Him to do it, and therefore He wouldnot tempt the Lord His God?

Is it no good news, again, to those who are tempted to do perhaps onelittle outward wrong thing, to yield on some small point to the waysof the world, in order to help themselves on in life, to hear thattheir Lord and Saviour conquered that temptation too?--That herefused all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, whenthe devil offered them, because he knew that the devil could not givethem to Him; that all wealth, and power, and glory belonged to God, and was to be got only by serving Him?

Oh do you all, young people especially, think of this. As you growup and go out into life, you will be tempted in a hundred differentways, by things which are pleasant--everyone knows that they arepleasant enough--but wrong. One will be tempted to be vain of dress;another to be self-conceited; another to be lazy and idle; another tobe extravagant and roving; another to be over fond of amusement;another to be over fond of money; another to be over fond of liquor;another to go wrong, as too many young men and young women do, andbring themselves, and those with whom they keep company, and whomthey ought, if they really love them, to respect and honour, downinto sin and shame. You will all be tempted, and you will all betroubled; one by poverty, one by sickness, one by the burden of afamily, one by being laughed at for trying to do right. Butremember, oh remember, whenever a temptation comes upon you, that theblessed Jesus has been through it all, and conquered all, and thatHis will is, that you shall be holy and pure like Him, and that, therefore, if you but ask Him, He will give you strength to keeppure. When you are tempted, pray to Him: the struggle in your ownminds will, no doubt, be very great; it will be very hard work foryou--sin looks so pleasant on the outside! Poor souls, it is a sadstruggle for you! Many a poor young fellow, who goes wrong, deservesrather to be pitied than to be punished. Well then, if no man elsewill pity him, Jesus, the Man of all men, will. Pray to Him! Cryaloud to Him! Ask Him to make you stout-hearted, patient, reallymanful, to fight against temptation. Ask Him to give you strength ofmind to fight against all bad habits. Ask Him to open your eyes tosee when you are in danger. Ask Him to help you to keep out of theway of temptation. Ask Him, in short, to give you grace to use suchabstinence that your flesh may be subdued to your spirit. And thenyou will not follow, as the beasts do, just what seems pleasant toyour flesh; no, you will be able to obey Christ's godly motions, thatis, to do, as well as to love, the good desires which He puts intoyour hearts. You will do not merely what is pleasant, but what isright; you will not be your own slaves, you will be your own masters, and God's loyal and obedient sons; you will not be, as too many are, mere animals going about in the shape of men, but truly men at heart, who are not afraid of pain, poverty, shame, trouble, or death itself, when they are in the right path, about the work to which God hascalled them. 

But if you ask Christ to make true men and women of you, you mustbelieve that He will give you what you ask; if you ask Him to helpyou, you must believe that He will and does help you--you mustbelieve that it is He Himself who has put into your hearts the verydesire of being holy and strong at all; and therefore you mustbelieve that you can help yourselves. Help yourselves, and He willhelp you. If you ask for His help, He will give it. But what is theuse of His giving it, if you do not use it? To him who has shall begiven, and he shall have more; but from him who has not shall betaken away even what he seems to have. Therefore do not merely pray, but struggle and try YOURSELVES. Train yourselves as St. Paul did;train yourselves to keep your temper; train yourselves to bearunpleasant things for the sake of your duty; train yourselves to keepout of temptation; train yourselves to be forgiving, gentle, thrifty, industrious, sober, temperate, cleanly, as modest as little childrenin your words, and thoughts, and conduct. And God, when He sees youtrying to be all this, will help you to be so. It may be hard toeducate yourselves. Life is a hard business at best--you will findit a thousand times harder, though, if you are slaves to your ownfleshly sins. But the more you struggle against sin, the less hardyou will find it to fight; the more you resist the devil, the more hewill flee from you; the more you try to conquer your own badpassions, the more God will help you to conquer them; it may be ahard battle, but it is a sure one. No fear but that everyone can, ifhe will, work out his own salvation, for it is God Himself who worksin us to will and to do of His good pleasure. All you have to do isto give yourselves up to Him, to study His laws, to labour as well aslong to keep them, and He will enable you to keep them; He will teachyou in a thousand unexpected ways; He will daily renew and strengthenyour hearts by the working of His Spirit, that you may more and moreknow, and love, and do, what is right; and you will go on fromstrength to strength, to the height of perfect men, to the likenessof Jesus Christ the Lord, who conquered all human temptations foryour sake, that He might be a high-priest who can be touched with thefeeling of our infirmities, because He was tempted in all points likeas we are, yet without sin. 

VII--GOOD FRIDAY

In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of Hispresence saved them. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;and He bare them and carried them all the days of old. --ISAIAH lxiii. 9. 

On this very day, at this very hour, 1817 years ago, hung one nailedto a cross; bruised and bleeding, pierced and naked, dying a felon'sdeath between two thieves; in perfect misery, in utter shame, mockedand insulted by all the great, the rich, the learned of His nation;one who had grown up as a man of low birth, believed by all to be acarpenter's son; without scholarship, money, respectability; evenwithout a home wherein to lay His head--and here was the end of Hislife! True, He had preached noble words, He had done noble deeds:but what had they helped Him? They had not made the rich, thelearned, the respectable, the religious believe on Him; they had notsaved Him from persecution, and insult, and death. The only mournerswho stood by to weep over His dying agonies were His mother, a poorcountrywoman; a young fisherman; and one who had been a harlot and asinner. There was an end!

Do you know who that Man was? He was your King; the King of rich andpoor; and He was your King, not in spite of His suffering all thatshame and misery, but just because He suffered it; because He choseto be poor, and miserable, and despised; because He endured thecross, despising the shame; because He took upon Himself to fulfilHis Father's will, all ills which flesh is heir to--therefore He isnow your King, the Saviour of the world, the poor man's friend, theLord of heaven and earth. Is He such a King as YOU wish for?

Is He the sort of King you want, my friends? Does He fulfil yournotions of what the poor man's friend should be? Do you, in yourhearts, wish He had been somewhat richer, more glorious, moresuccessful in the world's eyes--a wealthy and prosperous man, likeSolomon of old? Are any of you ready to say, as the money-blindedJews said, when they demanded their true King to be crucified, "Wehave no king but Caesar?--Provided the law-makers and the authoritiestake care of our interests, and protect our property, and do not makeus pay too many rates and taxes, that is enough for us. " Will youhave no king but Caesar? Alas! those who say that, find that the lawis but a weak deliverer, too weak to protect them from selfishness, and covetousness, and decent cruelty; and so Caesar and the law haveto give place to Mammon, the god of money. Do we not see it in thesevery days? And Mammon is weak, too. This world is not a shop, menare not merely money-makers and wages-earners. There are more thingsin heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that sort of philosophy. Self-interest and covetousness cannot keep society orderly andpeaceful, let sham philosophers say what they will. And then comestyranny, lawlessness, rich and poor staining their hands in eachother's blood, as we saw happen in France two years ago; and so, after all, Mammon has to give place to Moloch, the fiend of murderand cruelty; and woe to rich and poor when he reigns over them! Ay, woe--woe to rich and poor when they choose anyone for their king buttheir real and rightful Lord and Master, Jesus, the poor man, afflicted in all their afflictions, the Man of sorrows, crucified onthis day. 

Is He the kind of King you like? Make up your minds, my friends--make up your minds! For whether you like Him or not, your King Hewas, your King He is, your King He will be, blessed be God, for ever. Blessed be God, indeed! If He were not our King; if anyone in heavenor earth was Lord of us, except the Man of sorrows, the Prince ofsufferers, what hope, what comfort would there be? What a horrible, black, fathomless riddle this sad, diseased, moaning world would be!No king would suit us but the Prince of sufferers--Jesus, who hasborne all this world's griefs, and carried all its sorrows--Jesus, who has Himself smarted under pain and hunger, oppression and insult, treachery and desertion, who knows them all, feels for them all, andwill right them all, in His own good time. 

Believing in Jesus, we can travel on, through one wild parish afteranother, upon English soil, and see, as I have done, the labourer whotills the land worse housed than the horse he drives, worse clothedthan the sheep he shears, worse nourished than the hog he feeds--andyet not despair: for the Prince of sufferers is the labourer'sSaviour; He has tasted hunger, and thirst, and weariness, poverty, oppression, and neglect; the very tramp who wanders houseless on themoorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the worldhas shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air hadnests, while the Son of God had not where to lay His head. He is theKing of the poor, firstborn among many brethren; His tenderness isAlmighty, and for the poor He has prepared deliverance, perhaps inthis world, surely in the world to come--boundless deliverance, outof the treasures of His boundless love. 

Believing in Jesus, we can pass by mines, and factories, and bydungeons darker and fouler still, in the lanes and alleys of ourgreat towns and cities, where thousands and tens of thousands ofstarving men, and wan women, and children grown old before theiryouth, sit toiling and pining in Mammon's prison-house, in worse thanEgyptian bondage, to earn such pay as just keeps the broken heartwithin the worn-out body;--ay, we can go through our great cities, even now, and see the women, whom God intended to be Christian wivesand mothers, the slaves of the rich man's greed by day, theplaythings of his lust by night--and yet not despair; for we can cry, No! thou proud Mammon, money-making fiend! These are not thine, butChrist's; they belong to Him who died on the cross; and though thouheedest not their sighs, He marks them all, for He has sighed likethem; though there be no pity in thee, there is in Him the pity of aman, ay, and the indignation of a God! He treasures up their tears;He understands their sorrows; His judgment of their guilt is not likethine, thou Pharisee! He is their Lord, who said, that to those towhom little was given, of them shall little be required. Generationafter generation, they are being made perfect by sufferings, as theirSaviour was before them; and then, woe to thee! For even as He ledIsrael out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm, andsigns and wonders, great and terrible, so shall He lead the poor outof their misery, and make them households like a flock of sheep; evenas He led Israel through the wilderness, tender, forbearing, knowingwhereof they were made, having mercy on all their brutalities, andidolatries, murmurings, and backslidings, afflicted in all theirafflictions--even while He was punishing them outwardly, as He ispunishing the poor man now--even so shall He lead this people out inHis good time, into a good land and large, a land of wheat and wine, of milk and honey; a rest which He has prepared for His poor, such aseye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heartof man to conceive. He can do it; for the Almighty Deliverer is Hisname. He will do it; for His name is Love. He knows how to do it;for He has borne the griefs, and carried the sorrows of the poor. 

Oh, sad hearts and suffering! Anxious and weary ones! Look to thecross this day! There hung your king! The King of sorrowing souls, and more, the King of sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny anddesertion, death and hell, He has faced them one and all, and triedtheir strength, and taught them His, and conquered them rightroyally! And, since He hung upon that torturing cross, sorrow isdivine, god-like, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreadsand despises, God honoured on the cross, and took unto Himself, andblessed, and consecrated for ever. And now, blessed are the poor, ifthey are poor in heart, as well as purse; for Jesus was poor, andtheirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the hungry, if theyhunger for righteousness as well as food; for Jesus hungered, andthey shall be filled. Blessed are those who mourn, if they mourn notonly for their afflictions, but for their sins, and for the sins theysee around them; for on this day, Jesus mourned for our sins; on thisday He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; and they shall becomforted. Blessed are those who are ashamed of themselves, and hatethemselves, and humble themselves before God this day; for on thisday Jesus humbled Himself for us; and they shall be exalted. Blessedare the forsaken and the despised. --Did not all men forsake Jesusthis day, in His hour of need? and why not thee, too, thou poordeserted one? Shall the disciple be above his Master? No; everyonethat is perfect, must be like his master. The deeper, the bittereryour loneliness, the more are you like Him, who cried upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He knows what thatgrief, too, is like. He feels for thee, at least. Though allforsake thee, He is with thee still; and if He be with thee, whatmatter who has left thee for a while? Ay, blessed are those thatweep now, for they shall laugh. It is those whom the Lord loveththat He chasteneth. And because He loves the poor, He brings themlow. All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, exceptingsin, are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God. Blessedare wisdom and courage, joy, and health, and beauty, love andmarriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruits and flowers, for Christ redeemed them by His life. And blessed, too, are tearsand shame, blessed are weakness and ugliness, blessed are agony andsickness, blessed the sad remembrance of our sins, and a brokenheart, and a repentant spirit. Blessed is death, and blessed theunknown realms, where souls await the resurrection day, for Christredeemed them by His death. Blessed are all things, weak, as well asstrong. Blessed are all days, dark, as well as bright, for all areHis, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His, for ever. 

Therefore sigh on, ye sad ones, and rejoice in your own sadness; acheon, ye suffering ones, and rejoice in your own sorrows. Rejoice thatyou are made free of the holy brotherhood of mourners, that you mayclaim your place, too, if you will, among the noble army of martyrs. Rejoice that you are counted worthy of a fellowship in the sufferingsof the Son of God. Rejoice and trust on, for after sorrow shall comejoy. Trust on; for in man's weakness God's strength shall be madeperfect. Trust on, for death is the gate of life. Endure on to theend, and possess your souls in patience for a little while, and that, perhaps, a very little while. Death comes swiftly; and more swiftlystill, perhaps, the day of the Lord. The deeper the sorrow, thenearer the salvation:

The night is darkest before the dawn;When the pain is sorest the child is born;And the day of the Lord is at hand. 

Ay, if the worst should come; if neither the laws of your country northe benevolence of the righteous were strong enough to defend you; ifone charitable plan after another were to fail; if the labour-marketwere getting fuller and fuller, and poverty were spreading wider andwider, and crime and misery were breeding faster and still fasterevery year than education and religion; all hope for the poor seemedgone and lost, and they were ready to believe the men who tell themthat the land is over-peopled--that there are too many of us, toomany industrious hands, too many cunning brains, too many immortalsouls, too many of God's children upon God's earth, which God theFather made, and God the Son redeemed, and God the Holy Spiritteaches: then the Lord, the Prince of sufferers, He who knows yourevery grief, and weeps with you tear for tear, He would come out ofHis place to smite the haughty ones, and confound the cunning ones, and silence the loud ones, and empty the full ones; to judge withrighteousness for the meek of the earth, to hearken to the prayer ofthe poor, whose heart he has been preparing, and to help thefatherless and needy to their right, that the man of the world may beno more exalted against them. 

In that day men will find out a wonder and miracle. They will seemany that are first last, and many that are last first. They willfind that there were poor who were the richest after all; the simplewho were wisest, and gentle who were bravest, and weak who werestrongest; that God's ways are not as men's ways, nor God's thoughtsas men's thoughts. Alas, who shall stand when God does this? Atleast He who will do it is Jesus, who loved us to the death;boundless love and gentleness, boundless generosity and pity; who wastempted even as we are, who has felt our every weakness. In thatthought is utter comfort, that our Judge will be He who died and roseagain, and is praying for us even now, to His Father and our Father. Therefore fear not, gentle souls, patient souls, pure consciences andtender hearts. Fear not, you who are empty and hungry, who walk indarkness and see no light; for though He fulfil once more, as He hasagain and again, the awful prophecy before the text; though He treaddown the people in His anger, and make them drunk in His fury, andbring their strength to the earth; though kings with their armies mayflee, and the stars which light the earth may fall, and there begreat tribulation, wars, and rumours of wars, and on earth distressof nations with perplexity--yet it is when the day of His vengeanceis at hand, that the year of His redeemed is come. And when they seeall these things, let them rejoice and lift up their heads, for theirredemption draweth nigh. 

Do you ask how I know this? Do you ask for a sign, for a token thatthese my words are true? I know that they are true. But, as fortokens, I will give you but this one, the sign of that bread and thatwine. When the Lord shall have delivered His people out of all theirsorrows, they shall eat of that bread and drink of that wine, one andall, in the kingdom of God. 

VIII--EASTER-DAY

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God--COLOSSIANS iii. 1. 

I know no better way of preaching to you the gospel of Easter, thegood news which this day brings to all men, year after year, than bytrying to explain to you the Epistle appointed for this day, which wehave just read. 

It begins, "If ye then be risen with Christ. " Now that does not meanthat St. Paul had any doubt whether the Colossians, to whom he wasspeaking, were risen with Christ or not. He does not mean, "I am notsure whether you are risen or not; but perhaps you are not; but ifyou are, you ought to do such and such things. " He does not meanthat. He was quite sure that these Colossians were risen withChrist. He had no doubt of it whatsoever. If you look at thechapter before, he says so. He tells them that they were buried withChrist in baptism, in which also they were risen with Christ, throughfaith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead. 

Now what reason had St. Paul to believe that these Colossians wererisen with Jesus Christ? Because they had given up sin and wereleading holy lives? That cannot be. The Epistle for this day saysthe very opposite. It does not say, "You are risen, because you haveleft off sinning. " It says, "You must leave off sinning, because youare risen. " Was it then on account of any experiences, or inwardfeeling of theirs? Not at all. He says that these Colossians hadbeen baptized, and that they had believed in God's work of raisingJesus Christ from the dead, and that therefore they were risen withChrist. In one word, they had believed the message of Easter-day, and therefore they shared in the blessings of Easter-day; as it iswritten in another place, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth theLord Jesus Christ, and believe in thy heart that God has raised Himfrom the dead, thou shalt be saved. "

Now these seem very wide words, too wide to please most people. Butthere are wider words still in St. Paul's epistles. He tells usagain and again that God's mercy is a free gift; that He has made tous a free present of His Son Jesus Christ. That He has taken awaythe effect of all men's sin, and more than that, that men are God'schildren; that they have a right to believe that they are so, becausethey are so. For, He says, the free gift of Jesus Christ is not likeAdam's offence. It is not less than it, narrower than it, as somefolks say. It is not that by Adam's sin all became sinners, and byJesus Christ's salvation an elect few out of them shall be maderighteous. If you will think a moment, you will see that it cannotbe so. For Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and the devil. Butif, as some think, sin and death and the devil have destroyed andsent to hell by far the greater part of mankind, then they haveconquered Christ, and not Christ them. Mankind belonged to Christ atfirst. Sin and death and the devil came in and ruined them, and thenChrist came to redeem them; but if all that He has been able to do isto redeem one out of a thousand, or even nine out of ten, of them, then the devil has had the best of the battle. He, and not Christ, is the conqueror. If a thief steals all the sheep on your farm, andall that you can get back from him is a part of the whole flock, which has had the best of it, you or the thief? If Christ'sredemption is meant for only a few, or even a great many elect soulsout of all the millions of mankind, which has had the best of it, Christ, the master of the sheep, or the devil, the robber anddestroyer of them? Be sure, my friends, Christ is stronger thanthat; His love is deeper than that; His redemption is wider thanthat. How strong, how deep, how wide it is, we never shall know. St. Paul tells us that we never shall know, for it is boundless; butthat we shall go on knowing more and more of its vastness for ever, finding it deeper, wider, loftier than our most glorious dreams couldever picture it. But this, he says, we do know, that we have gainedmore than Adam lost. For if by one man's offence many were madesinners, much more shall they who receive abundance of grace and ofthe gift of righteousness reign in life by one even Jesus Christ. For, he says, where sin abounded, God's grace and free gift has muchmore abounded. Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgment cameupon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one thefree gift came upon all men to justification of life. Upon all men, you see. There can be no doubt about it. Upon you and me, andforeigners, and gipsies, and heathens, and thieves, and harlots--uponall mankind, let them be as bad or as good, as young or as old, asthey may, the free gift of God has come to justification of life;they are justified, pardoned, and beloved in the sight of AlmightyGod; they have a right and a share to a new life; a different sort oflife from what they are inclined to lead, and do lead, by nature--toa life which death cannot take away, a life which may grow, andstrengthen, and widen, and blossom, and bear fruit for ever and ever. They have a share in Christ's resurrection, in the blessing ofEaster-day. They have a share in Christ, every one of them whetherthey claim that share or not. How far they will be punished for notclaiming it, is a very different matter, of which we know nothingwhatsoever. And how far the heathen who have never heard of Christ, or of their share in Him, will be punished, we know not--we are notmeant to know. But we know that to their own Master they stand orfall, and that their Master is our Master too, and that He is a justMaster, and requires little of him to whom He gives little; a justand merciful Master, who loved this sinful world enough to come downand die for it, while mankind were all rebels and sinners, and hasgone on taking care of it, and improving it, in spite of all its sinand rebellion ever since, and that is enough for us. 

St. Paul knew no more. It was a mystery, he says, a wonderful andunfathomable matter, which had been hidden since the foundation ofthe world, of which he himself says that he saw only through a glassdarkly; and we cannot expect to have clearer eyes than he. But thishe seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose again, bought ablessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live. For he says, the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs oflabour, being about to bring forth something; and the whole creationwill rise again; how, and when, and into what new state, we cannottell. But St. Paul seems to say that when the Lord shall destroydeath, the last of his enemies, then the whole creation shall berenewed, and bring forth another earth, nobler and more beautifulthan this one, free from death, and sin, and sorrow, and redeemedinto the glorious liberty of the children of God. 

But this, on the other hand, St. Paul did see most clearly, andpreached it to all to whom he spoke, that the ground and reason ofthis great and glorious mystery was the thing which happened on thefirst Easter-day, namely, the Lord Jesus rising from the dead. Aboutthat, at least, there was no doubt at all in his mind. We may see itby the Easter anthem, which we read this morning, taken out of thefifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians:

"Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of themthat slept. 

"For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection ofthe dead. 

"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. "

Now he is not talking here merely of the rising again of our bodiesat the last day. That was in his mind only the end, and outcome, andfruit, and perfecting, of men's rising from the dead in this life. For he tells these same Corinthians, and the Colossians, and othersto whom he wrote, that life, the eternal life which would raise theirbodies at the last day, was even then working in them. 

Neither is he speaking only of a few believers. He says that, owingto the Lord's rising on this day, all shall be made alive--not merelyall Christians, but all men. For he does not say, as in Adam allChristians die, but all men; and so he does not say, all Christiansshall be made alive, but all men. For here, as in the sixth chapterof Romans, he is trying to make us understand the likeness betweenAdam and Jesus Christ, whom he calls the new Adam. The first Adam, he says, was only a living soul, as the savages and heathens are; butthe second Adam, the Lord from heaven, the true pattern of men, is aquickening, life-giving spirit, to give eternal life to every humanbeing who will accept His offer, and claim his share and right as atrue man, after the likeness of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. 

We then, every one of us who is here to-day, have a right to believethat we have a share in Christ's eternal life: that our originalsin, that is, the sinfulness which we inherited from our forefathers, is all forgiven and forgotten, and that mankind is now redeemed, andbelongs to the second Adam, the true and original head and pattern ofman, Jesus Christ, in whom was no sin; and that because mankindbelongs to him, God is well pleased with them, and reconciled tothem, and looks on them not as a guilty, but as a pardoned andbeloved race of beings. 

And we have a right to believe also, that because all power is givento Christ in heaven and earth, there is given to Him the power ofmaking men what they ought to be--like His own blessed, and glorious, and perfect self. Ask him, and you shall receive; knock at the gateof His treasure-house, and it shall be opened. Seek those thingsthat are above, and you shall find them. You shall find old badhabits die out in you, new good habits spring up in you; oldmeannesses become weaker, new nobleness and manfulness becomestronger; the old, selfish, covetous, savage, cunning, cowardly, brutal Adam dying out, the new, loving, brotherly, civilised, wise, brave, manful Adam growing up in you, day by day, to perfection, tillyou are changed from grace to grace, and glory to glory into thelikeness of the Lord of men. 

"These are great promises, " you may say, "glorious promises; but whatproof have you that they belong to us? They sound too good to betrue; too great for such poor creatures as we are; give us but someproof that we have a right to them; give us but a pledge from JesusChrist; give us but a sign, an assurance from God, and we may believeyou then. "

My friends, I am certain--and the longer I live I am the morecertain--that there is no argument, no pledge, no sign, no assurance, like the bread and the wine upon that table. Assurances in our ownhearts and souls are good, but we may be mistaken about them; for, after all, they are our own thoughts, notions in our own souls, theseinward experiences and assurances; delightful and comforting as theyare at times, yet we cannot trust them--we cannot trust our ownhearts, they are deceitful above all things, who can know them? Yes:our own hearts may tell us lies; they may make us fancy that we arepleasing God, when we are doing the things most hateful to Him. Theyhave made thousands fancy so already. They may make us fancy we areright in God's sight, when we are utterly wrong. They have madethousands fancy so already. These hearts of ours may make us fancythat we have spiritual life in us; that we are in a state higher andnobler than the sinners round us, when all the while our spirits aredead within us. They made the Pharisees of old fancy that theirsouls were alive, and pure, and religious, when they were dead anddamned within them; and they may make us fancy so too. No: wecannot trust our hearts and inward feelings; but that bread, thatwine, we can trust. Our inward feelings are a sign from man; thatbread and wine are a sign from God. Our inward feelings may tell uswhat we feel toward God: that bread, that wine, tell us somethingten thousand times more important; they tell us what God feelstowards us. And God must love us before we can love Him; God mustpardon us before we can have mercy on ourselves; God must come to us, and take hold of us, before we can cling to Him; God must change us, before we can become right; God must give us eternal life in ourhearts before we can feel and enjoy that new life in us. Then thatbread, that wine, say that God has done all that for us already; theysay: "God does love you; God has pardoned you; God has come to you;God is ready and willing to change and convert you; God has given youeternal life; and this love, this mercy, this coming to find you outwhile you are wandering in sin, this change, this eternal life, areall in His Son Jesus Christ; and that bread, that wine, are the signsof it. It is for the sake of Jesus' blood that God has pardoned you, and that cup is the new covenant in His blood. Come and drink, andclaim your pardon. It is simply because Jesus Christ was man, andyou, too, are men and women, wearing the flesh and blood which Christwore; eating and drinking as Christ ate and drank, and not for anyworks or faith of your own, that God loves you, and has come to you, and called you into His family. This is the Gospel, the good news ofChrist's free grace, and pardon, and salvation; and that bread, thatwine, the common food of all men, not merely of the rich, or thewise, or the pious, but of saints and penitents, rich and poor. Christians and heathens, alike--that plain, common, every-day breadand wine--are the signs of it. Come and take the signs, and claimyour share in God's love, in God's family. And it is in JesusChrist, too, that you have eternal life. It is because you belong toJesus Christ, to mankind, of which He is the head and king, that Godwill change you, strengthen your soul to rise above your sins, raiseyou up daily more and more out of spiritual death, out ofbrutishness, and selfishness, and ignorance, and malice, into aneternal life of wisdom, and love, and courage, and mercifulness, andpatience, and obedience; a life which shall continue through death, and beyond death, and raise you up again for ever at the last day, because you belong to Christ's body, and have been fed with Christ'seternal life. And that bread, that wine are the signs of it. "Take, eat, " said Jesus, "this is my body; drink, this is my blood. " Thoseare the signs that God has given you eternal life, and that this lifeis in His Son. What better sign would you have? There is nomistaking their message; they can tell you no lies. And they can, and will, bring your own Gospel-blessings to your mind, as nothingelse can. They will make you feel, as nothing else can, that you arethe beloved children of God, heirs of all that your King and Head hasbought for you, when He died, and rose again upon this day. He gaveyou the Lord's Supper for a sign. Do you think that He did not knowbest what the best sign would be? He said: "Do this in remembranceof me. " Do you think that He did not know better than you, and me, and all men, that if you did do it, it would put you in remembranceof Him?

Oh! come to His table, this day of all days in the year; and claimthere your share in His body and His blood, to feed the everlastinglife in you; which, though you see it not now, though you feel it notnow, will surely, if you keep it alive in you by daily faith, anddaily repentance, and daily prayer, and daily obedience, raise youup, body and soul, to reign with Him for ever at the last day. 

IV--THE COMFORTER

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 

If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if Idepart, I will send Him unto you--JOHN xvi. 7. 

We are now coming near to two great days, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday, which our forefathers have appointed, year by year, to put uscontinually in mind of two great works, which the Lord worked out forus, His most unworthy subjects, and still unworthier brothers. 

On Ascension-day He ascended up into Heaven, and received gifts formen, even for His enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among them;and on Whit-Sunday, He sent down those gifts. The Spirit of God camedown to dwell in the hearts of men, to be the right of everyone whoasks for it, white or black, young or old, rich or poor, and never toleave this earth as long as there is a human being on it. Andbecause we are coming near to these two great days, the Prayer-book, in the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, tries to put us in mind ofthose days, and to make us ready to ask for the blessings of whichthey are the yearly signs and witnesses. The Gospel for last Sundaytold us how the Lord told His disciples just before His death, thatfor a little while they should not see Him; and again a little whileand they should see Him, because he was going to the Father, and thatthey should have great sorrow, but that their sorrow should be turnedinto joy. And the Gospel for to-day goes further still, and tells uswhy He was going away--that He might send to them the Comforter, HisHoly Spirit, and that it was expedient--good for them, that He shouldgo away; for that if He did not, the Comforter would not come tothem. Now, in these words, I do not doubt He was speaking ofAscension-day, and of Whit-Sunday; and therefore it is that theseGospels have been chosen to be read before Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday; and in proportion as we attend to these Gospels, and take inthe meaning of them, and act accordingly, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will be a blessing and a profit to us; and in proportion as weneglect them, or forget them, Ascension-day and Whit-Sunday will bewitnesses against our souls at the day of judgment, that the LordHimself condescended to buy for us with His own blood, blessingsunspeakable, and offer them freely unto us, in spite of all our sins, and yet we would have none of them, but preferred our own will toGod's will, and the little which we thought we could get forourselves, to the unspeakable treasures which God had promised togive us, and turned away from the blessings of His kingdom, to ourown foolish pleasure and covetousness, like "the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. "

I said that God had promised to us an unspeakable treasure: and soHe has; a treasure that will make the poorest and weakest man amongus, richer than if he had all the wealth gathered from all thenations of the world, which everyone is admiring now in that GreatExhibition in London, and stronger than if he had all the wisdomwhich produced that wealth. Let us see now what it is that God haspromised us--and then those to whom God has given ears to hear, andhearts to understand, will see that large as my words may sound, theyare no larger than the truth. 

Christ said, that if He went away, He would send down the Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God. The Nicene Creed says, that the Holy Spiritof God is the Lord and Giver of life; and so He is. He gives life tothe earth, to the trees, to the flowers, to the dumb animals, to thebodies and minds of men; all life, all growth, all health, allstrength, all beauty, all order, all help and assistance of one thingby another, which you see in the world around you, comes from Him. He is the Lord and Giver of life; in Him, the earth, the sun andstars, all live and move and have their being. He is not them, or apart of them, but He gives life to them. But to men He is more thanthat--for we men ourselves are more than that, and need more. Wehave immortal spirits in us--a reason, a conscience, and a will;strange rights and duties, strange hopes and fears, of which thebeasts and the plants know nothing. We have hearts in us which canlove, and feel, and sorrow, and be weak, and sinful, and mistaken;and therefore we want a Comforter. And the Lord and Giver of lifehas promised to be our Comforter; and the Father and the Son, fromboth of whom He proceeds, have promised to send Him to us, tostrengthen and comfort us, and give our spirits life and health, andknit us together to each other, and to God, in one common bond oflove and fellow-feeling even as He the Spirit knits together theFather and the Son. 

I said that we want a Comforter. If we consider what that wordComforter means, we shall see that we do want a Comforter, and thatthe only Comforter which can satisfy us for ever and ever, must beHe, the very Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life. 

Now Comforter means one who gives comfort; so the meaning of it willdepend upon what comfort means. Our word comfort, comes from two oldLatin words, which mean WITH and TO STRENGTHEN. And, therefore, aComforter means anyone who is with us to strengthen us, and do for uswhat we could not do for ourselves. You will see that this is theproper meaning of the word, when you remember what bodily things wecall comforts. You say that a person is comfortable, or lives incomfort, if he has a comfortable income, a comfortable house, comfortable clothes, comfortable food, and so on. Now all thesethings, his money, his house, his clothes, his food, are not himself. They make him stronger and more at ease. They make his life morepleasant to him. But they are not HIM; they are round him, with him, to strengthen him. So with a person's mind and feelings; when a manis in sorrow and trouble, he cannot comfort himself. His friendsmust come to him and comfort him; talk to him, advise him, show theirkind feeling towards him, and in short, be with him to strengthen himin his afflictions. And if we require comfort for our bodies, andfor our minds, my friends, how much more do we for our spirits--oursouls, as we call them! How weak, and ignorant, and self-willed, andperplexed, and sinful they are--surely our souls require a comforterfar more than our bodies or our minds do! And to comfort ourspirits, we require a spirit; for we cannot see our own spirits, ourown souls, as we can our bodies. We cannot even tell by our feelingswhat state they are in. We may deceive ourselves, and we do deceiveourselves, again and again, and fancy that our souls are strong whenthey are weak--that they are simple and truthful when they are fullof deceit and falsehood--that they are loving God when they are onlyloving themselves--that they are doing God's will when they are onlydoing their own selfish and perverse wills. No man can take care ofhis own spirit, much less give his own spirit life; "no man canquicken his own soul, " says David, that is, no man can give his ownsoul life. And therefore we must have someone beyond ourselves togive life to our spirits. We must have someone to teach us thethings that we could never find out for ourselves, someone who willput into our hearts the good desires that could never come ofthemselves. We must have someone who can change these wills of ours, and make them love what they hate by nature, and make them hate whatthey love by nature. For by nature we are selfish. By nature we areinclined to love ourselves, rather than anyone else; to take care ofourselves, rather than anyone else. By nature we are inclined tofollow our own will, rather than God's will, to do our own pleasure, rather than follow God's commandments, and therefore by nature ourspirits are dead; for selfishness and self-will are SPIRITUAL DEATH. Spiritual life is love, pity, patience, courage, honesty, truth, justice, humbleness, industry, self-sacrifice, obedience to God, andtherefore to those whom God sends to teach and guide us. THAT isspiritual life. That is the life of Jesus Christ; His character, Hisconduct, was like that--to love, to help, to pity, all around--togive up Himself even to death--to do His Father's will and not Hisown. That was His life. Because He was the Son of God He did it. In proportion as we live like Him, we shall he living like sons ofGod. In proportion as we live like Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ourspirits will be alive. For he that hath Jesus Christ the Son of Godin him, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath notlife, says St. John. But who can raise us from the death of sin andselfishness, to the life of righteousness and love? Who can changeus into the likeness of Jesus Christ? Who can even show us whatJesus Christ's likeness is, and take the things of Christ and showthem to us; so that by seeing what He was, we may see what we shouldbe? And who, if we have this life in us, will keep it alive in us, and be with us to strengthen us? Who will give us strength to forcethe foul and fierce and false thoughts out of our mind, and say, "Getthee behind me, Satan?" Who will give our spirits life? and who willstrengthen that life in us?

Can we do it for ourselves? Oh! my friends, I pity the man who is soblind and ignorant, who knows so little of himself, upon whom thelessons which his own mistakes, and sins, and failings should havetaught him, have been so wasted that he fancies that he can teach andguide himself without any help, and that he can raise his own soul tolife, or keep it alive without assistance. Can his body do withoutits comforts? Then how can his spirit? If he left his house, andthrew away his clothes, and refused all help from his fellow-men, andwent and lived in the woods like a wild beast, we should call him amadman, because he refused the help and comfort to his body which Godhas made necessary for him. But just as great a madman is he whorefuses the help and the strengthening which God has made necessaryfor his spirit--just as great a madman is he who fancies that hissoul is any more able than his body is, to live without continualhelp. It is just because man is nobler than the beast that herequires help. The fox in the wood needs no house, no fire; he needsno friends; he needs no comforts, and no comforters, because he is abeast--because he is meant to live and die selfish and alone;therefore God has provided him in himself with all things necessaryto keep the poor brute's selfish life in him for a few short years. But just because man is nobler than that; just because man is notintended to live selfish and alone; just because his body, and hismind, and his spirit are beautifully and delicately made, andintended for all sorts of wonderful purposes, therefore God hasappointed that from the moment he is born to all eternity he cannotlive alone; he cannot support himself; he stands in continual need ofthe assistance of all around him, for body, and soul, and spirit; heneeds clothes, which other men must make; houses, which other manmust build; food, which other men must produce; he has to get hislivelihood by working for others, while others get their livelihoodin return by working for him. As a child he needs his parents to behis comforters, to take care of him in body and mind. As he grows uphe needs the care of others; he cannot exist a day without hisfellow-men: he requires school-masters to educate him; books andmasters to teach him his trade; and when he has learnt it, andsettled himself in life, he requires laws made by other men, perhapsby men who died hundreds of years before he was born, to secure tohim his rights and property, to secure to him comforts, and to makehim feel comfortable in his station; he needs friends and family tocomfort him in sorrow and in joy, to do for him the thousand thingswhich he cannot do for himself. In proportion as he is alone andfriendless he is pitiable and miserable, let him be as rich asSolomon himself. From the moment, I say, he is born, he needscontinual comforts and comforters for his body, and mind, and heart. And then he fancies that, though his body and his mind cannot existsafely, or grow up healthily, without the continual care andcomforting of his fellow-men, that yet his soul, the part of himwhich is at once the most important and the most in danger; the partof him of which he knows least; the part of him which he understandsleast; the part of him of which his body and mind cannot take care, because it has to take care of them, can live, and grow, and prosperwithout any help whatsoever!

And if we cannot strengthen our own souls no man can strengthen themfor us. No man can raise our bodies to life, much less can he raiseour souls. The physician himself cannot cure the sicknesses of ourbodies; he can only give us fit medicines, and leave them to cure usby certain laws of nature, which he did not make, and which he cannotalter. And though the physician can, by much learning, understandmen's bodies somewhat, who can understand men's souls? We cannotunderstand our own souls; we do not know what they are, how theylive; whence they come, or whither they go. We cannot cure themourselves, much less can anyone cure them for us. The only one whocan cure our souls is He that made our souls; the only one who cangive life to our souls is He who gives life to everything. The onlyone who can cure, and strengthen, and comfort our spirits, is He whounderstands our spirits, because He himself is the Spirit of allspirits, the Spirit who searcheth all things, even the deep things ofGod; because He is the Spirit of God the Father, who made all heavenand earth, and of Jesus Christ the Son, who understands the heart ofman, who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, andhath been tempted in all things, just as we are, yet without sin. 

He is the Comforter which God has promised to our spirits, the onlyComforter who can strengthen our spirits; and if we have Him with us, if He is strengthening us, if He is leading us, if He is abiding withus, if He is changing us day by day, more and more into the likenessof Jesus Christ, are we not, as I said at the beginning of my sermon, richer than if we possessed all the land of England, stronger than ifwe had all the armies of the world at our command? For what is moreprecious than--God Himself? What is stronger than--God Himself? Thepoorest man in whom God's Spirit dwells is greater than the greatestking in whom God's Spirit does not dwell. And so he will find in theday that he dies. Then where will riches be, and power? The richman will take none of them away with him when he dieth, neither shallhis pomp follow him. Naked came he into this world, and naked shallhe return out of it, to go as he came, and carry with him none of thecomforts which he thought in this life the only ones worth having. But the Spirit of God remains with us for ever; that treasure a manshall carry out of this world with him, and keep to all eternity. That friend will never forsake him, for He is the Spirit of Love, which abideth for ever. That Comforter will never grow weak, for Heis Himself the very eternal Lord and Giver of Life; and the soul thatis possessed by Him must live, must grow, must become nobler, purer, freer, stronger, more loving, for ever and ever, as the eternitiesroll by. That is what He will give you, my friends; that is Histreasure; that is the Spirit-life, the true and everlasting life, which flows from Him as the stream flows from the fountain-head. 

X--WHIT-SUNDAY

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--against such thereis no law. --GALATIANS v. 22, 23. 

In all countries, and in all ages, the world has been full ofcomplaints of Law and Government. And one hears the same complaintsin England now. You hear complaints that the laws favour one partyand one rank more than another, that they are expensive, and harsh, and unfair, and what not?--But I think, my friends, that for us, andespecially on this Whit-Sunday, it will be much wiser, instead ofcomplaining of the laws, to complain of ourselves, for needing thoselaws. For what is it that makes laws necessary at all, except man'ssinfulness? Adam required no laws in the garden of Eden. We shouldrequire no laws if we were what we ought to be--what God has offeredto make us. We may see this by looking at the laws themselves, andconsidering the purposes for which they were made. We shall thensee, that, like Moses' Laws of old, the greater part of them havebeen added because of transgressions. --In plain English--to preventmen from doing things which they ought not to do, and which, if theywere in a right state of mind, they would not do. How many laws arepassed, simply to prevent one man, or one class, from oppressing orill-using some other man or class? What a vast number of them arepassed simply to protect property, or to protect the weak from thecruel, the ignorant from the cunning! It is plain that if there wasno cruelty, no cunning, no dishonesty, these laws, at all events, would not be needed. Again, one of the great complaints against thelaws and the government, is that they are so expensive, that ratesand taxes are heavy burdens--and doubtless they are: but what makesthem necessary except men's sin? If the poor were more justly andmercifully treated, and if they in their turn were more thrifty andprovident, there would be no need of the expenses of poor rates. Ifthere was no love of war and plunder, there would be no need of theexpense of an army. If there was no crime, there would be no need ofthe expense of police and prisons. The thing is so simple and self-evident, that it seems almost childish to mention it. And yet, myfriends, we forget it daily. We complain of the laws and theirharshness, of taxes and their expensiveness, and we forget all thewhile that it is our own selfishness and sinfulness which brings thisexpense upon us, which makes it necessary for the law to interfereand protect us against others, and others against us. And while weare complaining of the government for not doing its work somewhatmore cheaply, we are forgetting that if we chose, we might leavegovernment very little work to do--that every man if he chose, mightbe his own law-maker and his own police--that every man if he will, may lead a life "against which there is no law. "

I say again, that it is our own fault, the fault of our sinfulness, that laws are necessary for us. In proportion as we are whatScripture calls "natural men, " that is, savage, selfish, divided fromeach other, and struggling against each other, each for his owninterest; as long as we are not renewed and changed into new men, solong will laws, heavy, severe, and burdensome, be necessary for us. Without them we should be torments to ourselves, to our neighbours, to our country. But these laws are only necessary as long as we arefull of selfishness and ungodliness. The moment we yield ourselvesup to God's law, man's laws are ready enough to leave us alone. Take, for instance, a common example; as long as anyone is a faithfulhusband and a good father, the law does not interfere with hisconduct towards his wife and children. But it is when he isunfaithful to them, when he ill-treats them, or deserts them, thatthe law interferes with its "Thou shalt not, " and compels him tobehave, against his will, in the way in which he ought to havebehaved of his own will. It was free to the man to have done hisduty by his family, without the law--the moment he neglects his duty, he becomes amenable to it. 

But the law can only force a man's actions: it cannot change hisheart. In the instance which I have been just mentioning, the lawcan say to a man, "You shall not ill-treat your family; you shall notleave them to starve. " But the law cannot say to him "You shall loveyour family. " The law can only command from a man outward obedience;the obedience of the heart it cannot enforce. The law may make a mando his duty, it cannot make a man LOVE his duty. And therefore lawswill never set the world right. They can punish persons after thewrong is done, and that not certainly nor always: but they cannotcertainly prevent the wrongs being done. The law can punish a manfor stealing: and yet, as we see daily, men steal in the face ofpunishment. Or even if the law, by its severity, makes personsafraid to commit certain particular crimes, yet still as long as thesinful heart is left in them unchanged, the sin which is checked inone direction is sure to break out in another. Sin, like every otherdisease, is sure, when it is driven onwards, to break out at a freshpoint, or fester within some still more deadly, because more hiddenand unsuspected, shape. The man who dare not be an open sinner forfear of the law, can be a hypocrite in spite of it. The man who darenot steal for fear of the law, can cheat in spite of it. The selfishman will find fresh ways of being selfish, the tyrannical man ofbeing tyrannical, however closely the law may watch him. He willdiscover some means of evading it; and thus the law, after all, though it may keep down crime, multiplies sin; and by the law, as St. Paul says, is the knowledge of sin. 

What then will do that for this poor world which the law cannot do--which, as St. Paul tells us, not even the law of God given on MountSinai, holy, just, good as it was, could do, because no law can givelife? What will give men a new heart and a new spirit, which shalllove its duty and do it willingly, and not by compulsion, everywhereand always, and not merely just as far as it commanded? The texttells us that there is a Spirit, the fruit of which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; a character such as no laws can give to a man, and whichno law dare punish in a man. Look at this character as St. Paul setsit forth--and then think what need would there be of all theseburdensome and expensive laws, if all men were but full of the fruitsof that Spirit which St. Paul describes?

I know what answer will be ready, in some of your minds at least, toall this. You will be ready to reply, almost angrily, "Of course ifeveryone was perfect, we should need no laws: but people are notperfect, and you cannot expect them to be. " My friends, whether ornot WE expect baptized people, living in a Christian country, to beperfect, God expects them to be perfect; for He has said, by themouth of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, "Be ye therefore perfect, asour Father which is in heaven is perfect. " And He has told us whatbeing perfect is like; you may read it for yourselves in His sermonon the Mount; and you may see also that what He commands us to do inthat sermon, from the beginning to the end, is the exact opposite andcontrary of the ways and rules of this world, which, as I have shown, make burdensome laws necessary to prevent our devouring each other. Now, do you think that God would have told us to be perfect, if Heknew that it was impossible for us? Do you think that He, the God oftruth, would have spoken such a cruel mockery against poor sinfulcreatures like us, as to command us a duty without giving us themeans of fulfilling it? Do you think that He did not know tenthousand times better than I what I have been just telling you, thatlaws could not change men's hearts and wills; that commanding a manto love and like a thing will not make him love and like it; that aman's heart and spirit must be changed in him from within, and notmerely laws and commandments laid on him from without? Then why hasHe commanded us to love each other, ay, to love our enemies, to blessthose who curse us, to pray for those who use us spitefully? Do youthink the Lord meant to make hypocrites of us; to tell us to goabout, as some who call themselves religious do go about, with theirlips full of meek, and humble, and simple, and loving words, whiletheir hearts are full of pride, and spite, and cunning, and hate, andselfishness, which are all the more deadly for being kept in andplastered over by a smooth outside? God forbid! He tells us to loveeach other, only because He has promised us the spirit of love. Hetells us to be humble, because He can make us humble-hearted. Hetells us to be honest, because He can make us love and delight inhonesty. He tells us to refrain ourselves from foul thoughts as wellas from foul actions, because He can take the foul heart out of us, and give us instead the spirit of purity and holiness. He tells usto lead new lives after the new pattern of Himself, because He cangive us new hearts and a new spring of life within us; in short, Hebids us behave as sons of God should behave, because, as He saidHimself, "If we, being evil, know how to give our children what isgood for them, much more will our heavenly Father give His HolySpirit to those who ask him. " If you would be perfect, ask yourFather in heaven to make you perfect. If you feel that your heart iswrong, ask Him to give you a new and a right heart. If you feelyourselves--as you are, whether you feel it or not--too weak, tooignorant, too selfish, to guide yourselves, ask Him to send HisSpirit to guide you; ask for the Spirit from which comes all love, all light, all wisdom, all strength of mind. Ask for that Spirit, and you SHALL receive it; seek for it, and you shall find it; knockat the gate of your Father's treasure-house, and it shall be surelyopened to you. 

But some of you, perhaps, are saying to yourselves, "How will mybeing changed and renewed by the Spirit of God, render the laws lessburdensome, while the crime and sin around me remain unchanged? Itis others who want to be improved as much, and perhaps more than Ido. " It may be so, my friends; or, again, it may not; those whofancy that others need God's Spirit more than they do, may be thevery persons who need it really the most; those who say they see, maybe only proving their blindness by so saying; those who fancy thattheir souls are rich, and are full of all knowledge, and understandthe whole Bible, and want no further teaching, may be, as they werein St. John's time, just the ones who are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked in soul, and do not know it. But atall events, if you think others need to be changed by God's Spirit, PRAY that God's Spirit may change them. For believe me, unless youpray for God's Spirit for each other, ay, for the whole world, thereis no use asking for yourselves. This, I believe, is one of thereasons, perhaps the chief reason, why the fruits of God's Spirit areso little seen among us in these days; why our Christianity is becomemore and more dead, and hollow, and barren, while expensive andintricate laws and taxes are becoming more and more necessary everyyear; because our religion has become so selfish, because we havebeen praying for God's Spirit too little for each other. Our prayershave become too selfish. We have been looking for God's Spirit notso much as a means to enable us to do good to others, but as somesort of mysterious charm which was to keep us ourselves from thepunishment of our sins in the next life, or give us a higher place inheaven; and, therefore, St. James's words have been fulfilled to us, even in our very prayers for God's Spirit, "Ye ask and have not, because ye ask amiss, to consume it upon your lusts"--save ourselfish souls from the pains of hell; to give our selfish soulsselfish pleasures and selfish glorification in the world to come:but not to spread God's kingdom upon earth, not to make us live onearth such lives as Christ lived; a life of love and self-sacrifice, and continual labour for the souls of others. Therefore it is, thatGod's Spirit is not poured out upon us in these days; for God'sSpirit is the spirit of love and brotherhood, which delivers a manfrom his selfishness; and if we do not desire to be delivered fromour selfishness, we do not desire the Spirit of God, and the Spiritof God will not be bestowed upon us. And no man desires to bedelivered from his own selfishness, who in his very prayers, when heought to be thinking least about himself alone, is thinking abouthimself most of all, and forgetting that he is the member of afamily--that all mankind are his brethren--that he can claim nothingfor himself to which every sinner around him has an equal right--thatnothing is necessary for him, which is not equally necessary foreveryone around him; that he has all the world besides himself topray for, and that his prayers for himself will be heard onlyaccording as he prays for all the world beside. Baptism teaches usthis, when it tells us that our old selfish nature is to be washedaway, and a new character, after the pattern of Christ, is to liveand grow up in us; that from the day we are baptized, to the day ofour death, we should live not for ourselves, but for Jesus, in whomwas no selfishness; when it teaches us that we are not only childrenof God, but members of Christ's Family, and heirs of God's kingdom, and therefore bound to make common cause with all other members ofthat Family, to live and labour for the common good of all ourfellow-citizens in that kingdom. The Lord's prayer teaches us this, when He tells us to pray, not "My Father, " but "Our Father;" not "mysoul be saved, " but "Thy kingdom come;" not "give ME, " but "give USour daily bread;" not "forgive ME, " but "forgive US our trespasses, "and that only as we forgive others; not "lead ME not, " but "lead USnot into temptation;" not "deliver ME, " but "deliver US from evil. "After THAT manner the Lord told us to pray; and, in proportion as wepray in that manner, asking for nothing for ourselves which we do notask for everyone else in the whole world, just so far and no fartherwill God HEAR our prayers. He who asks for God's Spirit for himselfonly, and forgets that all the world need it as much as he, is notasking for God's Spirit at all, and does not know even what God'sSpirit is. The mystery of Pentecost, too, which came to pass on thisday 1818 years ago, teaches us the same thing also. Those cloventongues of fire, the tokens of God's Spirit, fell not upon one man, but upon many; not when they were apart from each other, but whenthey were together; and what were the fruits of that Spirit in theApostles? Did they remain within that upper room, each pridinghimself upon his own gifts, and trying merely to gain heaven for hisown soul? If they had any such fancies, as they very likely hadbefore the Spirit fell upon them, they had none such afterwards. TheSpirit must have taken all such thoughts from them, and given them anew notion of what it was to be devout and holy: for instead ofstaying in that upper room, they went forth instantly into the publicplace to preach in foreign tongues to all the people. Instead ofkeeping themselves apart from each other in silence, and fancying, assome have done, and some do now, that they pleased God by beingsolitary, and melancholy, and selfish--what do we read? the fruit ofGod's Spirit was in them; that they and the three thousand souls whowere added to them, on the first day of their preaching, "were alltogether, and had all things common, and sold their possessions, andgoods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need, andcontinuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking breadfrom house to house, did eat their bread in gladness and singlenessof heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. " Thosewere the fruits of God's Spirit in THEM. Till we see more of thatsort of life and society in England, we shall not be able to prideourselves on having much of God's Spirit among us. 

But above all, if anything will teach us that the strength of God'sSpirit is not a strength which we must ask for for ourselves alone;that the blessings of God's kingdom are blessings which we cannothave in order to keep them to ourselves, but can only enjoy in as faras we share them with those around us; if anything, I say, ought toteach us that lesson, it is the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Justconsider a moment, my friends, what a strange thing it is, if we willthink of it, that the Lord's Supper, the most solemn and sacred thingwith which a man can have to do upon earth, is just a thing which hecannot transact for himself, or by himself. Not alone in secret, inhis chamber, but, whether he will or not, in the company of others, not merely in the company of his own private friends, but in thecompany of any or everyone, rich or poor, who chooses to kneel besidehim; he goes with others, rich and poor alike, to the Lord's Table, and there the same bread, and the same wine, is shared among all bythe same priest. If that means anything, it means this--that richand poor alike draw life for their souls from the same well, not forthemselves only, not apart from each other, but all in common, alltogether, because they are brothers, members of one family, as theleaves are members of the same tree; that as the same bread and thesame wine are needed to nourish the bodies of all, the same spirit ofGod is needed to nourish the souls of all; and that we cannot havethis spirit, except as members of a body, any more than a man's limbcan have life when it is cut off and parted from him. This is thereason, and the only reason, why Protestant clergymen are forbidden, thank God! to give the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to anyone person singly. If a clergyman were to administer the Lord'sSupper, to himself in private, without any congregation to partakewith him, it would not be the Lord's Supper, it would be nothing, andworse than nothing; it would be a sham and a mockery, and, I believe, a sin. I do not believe that Christ would be present, that God'sSpirit would rest on that man. For our Lord says, that it is wheretwo or three are gathered together in His name, that He is in themidst of them. And it was at a supper, at a feast, where all theApostles were met together, that our Lord divided the bread amongstthem, and told them to share the cup amongst themselves, just as asign that they were all members of one body--that the welfare of eachof them was bound up in the welfare of all the rest that God'sblessing did not rest upon each singly, but upon all together. Andit is just because we have forgotten this, my friends--because wehave forgotten that we are all brothers and sisters, children of onefamily, members of one body--because in short, we have carried ourselfishness into our very religion, and up to the altar of God, thatwe neglect the Lord's Supper as we do. People neglect the Lord'sSupper because they either do not know or do not like that, of whichthe Lord's Supper is the token and warrant. It is not merely thatthey feel themselves unfit for the Lord's Supper, because they arenot in love and charity with all men. Oh! my dear friends, do notsome of your hearts tell you, that the reason why you stay away fromthe Lord's Supper is because you do not WISH to be fit for the Lord'sSupper--because you do not like to be in love and charity with allmen--because you do not wish to be reminded that you are equals inGod's sight, all equally sinful, all equally pardoned--and to seepeople whom you dislike or despise, kneeling by your side, andpartaking of the same bread and wine with you, as a token that Godsees no difference between you and them; that God looks upon you allas brothers, however little brotherly love or fellow-feeling theremay be, alas! between you? Or, again, do not some of you stay awayfrom the Lord's Supper, because you see no good in going? because itseems to make those who go no better than they were before? Shall Itell you the reason of that? Shall I tell you why, as is too true, too many do come to the Lord's Supper, and so far from being thebetter for it, seem only the worse? Because they come to it inselfishness. We have fallen into the same false and unscriptural wayof looking at the Lord's Supper, into which the Papists have. Peoplego to the Lord's Supper nowadays too much to get some private goodfor their own souls, and it would not matter to many of them, I amafraid, if not another person in the parish received it, providedthey can get, as they fancy, the same blessing from it. Thus theycome to it in an utterly false and wrong temper of mind. Instead ofcoming as members of Christ's body, to get from Him life andstrength, to work, in their places, as members of that body, theycome to get something for themselves, as if there was nobody else'ssoul in the world to be saved but their own. Instead of coming toask for the Spirit of God to deliver them from their selfishness, andmake them care less about themselves, and more about all around them, they come to ask for the Spirit of God because they think it willmake themselves higher and happier in heaven. And of course they donot get what they come for, because they come for the wrong thing. Thus those who see them, begin to fancy that the Lord's Supper isnot, after all, so very important for the salvation of their souls;and not finding in the Bible actually written these words, "Thoushalt perish everlastingly unless thou take the Lord's Supper, " theyend by staying away from it, and utterly neglecting it, they andtheir children after them; preferring their own selfishness, to God'sSpirit of love, and saying, like Esau of old, "I am hungry, and Imust live. I must get on in this selfish world by following itsselfish ways; what is the use of a spirit of love and brotherhood tome? If I were to obey the Gospel, and sacrifice my own interest forthose around me, I should starve; what good will my birthright dome?"

Oh! my friends, I pray God that some of you, at least, may changeyour mind. I pray God that some of you may see at last, that all themisery and the burdens of this time, spring from one root, which isselfishness; and that the reason why we are selfish, is because wehave not with us the Spirit of God, which is the spirit ofbrotherhood and love. Let us pray God now, and henceforth, to takethat selfishness out of all our hearts. Let us pray God now, andhenceforth, to pour upon us, and upon all our countrymen, ay, andupon the whole world, the spirit of friendship and fellow-feeling, the spirit which when men have among them, they need no laws to keepthem from supplanting, and oppressing, and devouring each other, because its fruits are love, cheerfulness, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, honesty, meekness, temperance Then there willbe no need, my friends, for me to call you to the Supper of the Lord. You will no more think of staying away from it, than the Apostlesdid, when the Spirit was poured out on them. For what do we readthat they did after the first Whit-Sunday? That altogether with oneaccord, they broke bread daily; that is, partook of the Lord's Supperevery day, from house to house. They did not need to be told to doit. They did it, as I may say, by instinct. There was no questionor argument about it in their minds. They had found out that theywere all brothers, with one common cause in joy and sorrow--that theywere all members of one body--that the life of their souls came fromone root and spring, from one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, thelight and the life of men, in whom they were all one, members of eachother; and therefore, they delighted in that Lord's Supper, justbecause it brought them together; just because it was a sign and atoken to them that they did belong to each other, that they had oneLord, one faith, one interest, one common cause for this life, andfor all eternity. And therefore the blessing of that Lord's Supperdid come to them, and in it they did receive strength to live likechildren of God and members of Christ, and brothers to each other andto all mankind. They proved by their actions what that CommunionFeast, that Sacrament of Brotherhood, had done for them. They provedit by not counting their own lives dear to them, but going forth inthe face of poverty and persecution, and death itself, to preach tothe whole world the good news that Christ was their King. Theyproved it by their conduct to each other when they had all things incommon, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, as every man had need. They proved it by needing no laws to bindthem to each other from without, because they were bound to eachother from within, by the love which comes down from God, and is thevery bond of peace, and of every virtue which becomes a man. 

XI--ASCENSION-DAY

And Jesus led them out as far as to Bethany; and he lifted up hishands and blessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And theyworshipped him and returned to Jerusalem, with great joy; and werecontinually in the temple, praising and blessing God--LUKE xxiv. 50-53. 

On this day it is fit and proper for us--if we have understood, andenjoyed, and profited by the wonder of the Lord's Ascension intoHeaven--to be in the same state of mind as the Apostles were afterHis Ascension: for what was right for them is right for us and forall men; the same effects which it produced on them it ought toproduce on us. And we may know whether we are in the state in whichChristian men ought to be, by seeing how far we are in the same stateof mind as the Apostles were. Now the text tells us in what state ofmind they were; how that, after the Lord Jesus was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven, they worshipped Him, and returned toJerusalem, with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. It seems at first sight certainly verystrange that they should go back with great joy. They had just losttheir Teacher, their Master--One who had been more to them than allfriends and fathers could be; One who had taken them, poor simplefishermen, and changed the whole course of their lives, and taughtthem things which He had taught to no one else, and given them agreat and awful work to do--the work of changing the ways andthoughts and doings of the whole world. He had sent them out--elevenunlettered working men--to fight against the sin and the misery ofthe whole world. And He had given them open warning of what theywere to expect; that by it they should win neither credit, norriches, nor ease, nor anything else that the world thinks worthhaving. He gave them fair warning that the world would hate them, and try to crush them. He told them, as the Gospel for to-day says, that they should be driven out of the churches; that the religiouspeople, as well as the irreligious, would be against them; that thetime would come when those who killed them would think that they didGod service; that nothing but labour, and want, and persecution, andslander, and torture, and death was before them--and now He had goneaway and left them. He had vanished up into the empty air. Theywere to see His face, and hear His voice no more. They were to haveno more of His advice, no more of His teaching, no more of His tendercomfortings; they were to be alone in the world--eleven poor workingmen, with the whole world against them, and so great a business to dothat they would not have time to get their bread by the labour oftheir hands. Is it not wonderful that they did not sit down indespair, and say, "What will become of us?" Is it not wonderful thatthey did not give themselves up to grief at losing the Teacher whowas worth all the rest of the world put together? Is it notwonderful that they did not go back, each one to his old trade, tohis fishing and to his daily labour, saying, "At all events we musteat; at all events we must get our livelihood;" and end, as they hadbegun, in being mere labouring men, of whom the world would neverhave heard a word? And instead of that we read that they went backwith great joy not to their homes but to Jerusalem, the capital cityof their country, and "were continually in the temple blessing andpraising God. " Well, my friends, and if it is possible for one manto judge what another man would have done--if it is possible to guesswhat we should have done in their case--common-sense must show usthis, that if He was merely their Teacher, they would have eithergiven themselves up to despair, or gone back, some to their plough, some to their fishing-nets, and some, like Matthew, to theircounting-houses, and we should never have heard a word of them. Butif you will look in your Bibles, you will find that they thought Himmuch more than a teacher--that they thought Him to be the Lord andKing of the whole world; and you will find that the great joy withwhich the disciples went back, after He ascended into heaven, camefrom certain very strange words that He had been speaking to themjust before He ascended--words about which they could have but twoopinions: either they must have thought that they were utterfalsehood, and self-conceit, and blasphemy; and that Jesus, who hadbeen all along speaking to them such words of wisdom and holiness asnever man spake before, had suddenly changed His whole character atthe last, and become such a sort of person as it is neither fit forme to speak of, or you to hear me speak of, in God's church, and inJesus Christ's hearing, even though it be merely for the sake ofargument; or else they must have thought THIS about His words, thatthey were the most joyful and blessed words that ever had been spokenon the earth; that they were the best of all news; the most completeof all Gospels for this poor sinful world; that what Jesus had saidabout Himself was true; and that as long as it was true, it did notmatter in the least what became of them; it did not matter in theleast what difficulties stood in their way, for they would be certainto conquer them all; it did not matter in the least how men mightpersecute and slander them, for they would be sure to get theirreward; it did not matter in the least how miserable and sinful theworld might be just then, for it was certain to be changed, andconverted, and brought to God, to righteousness, to love, to freedom, to light, at last. 

If you look at the various accounts, in the four gospels, of theLord's last words on earth, you will see, surely, what I mean. Letus take them one by one. 

St. Matthew tells us that, a few days before the Lord's ascension, Hemet His disciples on a mountain in Galilee, where he had appointedthem to await him; and there told them, that all power was given toHim in heaven and earth. Was not that blessed news--was not that agospel? That all the power in heaven and earth belonged to HIM? ToHim, who had all His life been doing good? To Him, in whom there hadnever been one single stain of tyranny or selfishness? To Him, whohad been the friend of publicans and sinners? To Him, who hadrebuked the very richest, and loved the very poorest? To him, whohad shown that He had both the power and the will to heal every kindof sickness and disease? To Him, who had conquered and driven out, wherever He met them, all the evil spirits which enslave and tormentpoor sinful men? To Him, who had shown by rising from the dead, thatHe was stronger than even death itself? To Him, who had declaredthat He was the Son of God the Father, that the great God who hadmade heaven and earth, and all therein, was perfectly pleased andsatisfied with Him, that He was come to do His Father's will, and notHis own; that He was the ancient Lord of the earth, the I AM who wasbefore Abraham? And He was now to have all power in heaven andearth! Everything which was done right in the world henceforth, wasto be His doing. The kingdom and rule over the whole universe, wasto be His. So He said; and His disciples believed Him; and if theybelieved Him, how could they but rejoice? How could they but rejoiceat the glorious thought that He, the son of the village maiden, thechampion of the poor and the suffering, was to have the government ofthe world for ever? That He, who all the while He had been on earthhad showed that He was perfect justice, perfect love, perfecthumanity, was to reign till He had put all His enemies under Hisfeet? How could the world but prosper under such a King as that?How could wickedness triumph, while He, the perfectly righteous one, was King? How could misery triumph, while He, the perfectly mercifulone, was King? How could ignorance triumph, while He, the perfectlywise one, who had declared that God the Father hid nothing from Him, was King? Unless the disciples had been more dull and selfish thanthe dumb beasts around them, what could they do but rejoice at thatnews? What matter to them if Jesus were taken out of their sight, aslong as all power was given to Him in heaven and earth?

But He had told them more. He had told them that they were not tokeep this glorious secret to themselves. No: they were to go forthand preach the gospel of it, the good news of it, to every creature--to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God. The good news that Godwas the King of men, after all; that cruel tyrants and oppressors, and conquerors, were not their kings; that neither the storms overtheir heads, nor the earth under their feet, nor the clouds and therivers whom the heathens used to worship in the hope of persuadingthe earth and the weather to be favourable to them, and bless theirharvests, were their kings; that idols of wood and stone, and evilspirits of lust, and cruelty, and covetousness, were not their kings;but that God was their King; that He loved them, He pitied them inspite of all their sins; that He had sent His only begotten Son intothe world to teach them, to live for them--to die for them--to claimthem for His own. And, therefore, they were to go and baptize allnations, as a sign that they were to repent, and change, and put awayall their old false and evil heathen life, and rise to a new life, they and their children after them, as God's children, God's family, brothers of the Son of God. And they were to baptize them into aname; showing that they belonged to those into whose name they werebaptized; into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the HolySpirit. They were to be baptized into the name of the Father, as asign that God was their Father, and they His children. They were tobe baptized into the name of the Son, as a sign that the Son, JesusChrist, was their King and head; and not merely their King and head, but their Saviour, who had taken away the sin of the world, andredeemed it for God, with His own most precious blood; and not merelytheir Saviour, but their pattern; that they might know that they werebound to become as far as is possible for mortal man such sons of Godas Jesus himself had been, like Him obedient, pure, forgiving, brotherly, caring for each other and not for themselves, doing theirheavenly Father's will and not their own. And they were to baptizeall nations into the name of the Holy Spirit, for a sign that God'sSpirit, the Lord and giver of life, would be with them, to give themnew life, new holiness, new manfulness; to teach, and guide, andstrengthen them for ever. That was the gospel which they had topreach. The good news that the Son of God was the King of men. Thatwas the name into which they were to baptize all nations--the name ofchildren of God, members of Christ, heirs of a heavenly and spiritualkingdom, which should go on age after age, for ever, growing andspreading men knew not how, as the grains of mustard-seed, which atfirst the least of all seeds, grows up into a great tree, and thebirds of the air come and lodge in the branches of it--to go on, Isay, from age to age, improving, cleansing, and humanising, andteaching the whole world, till the kingdoms of the earth became thekingdoms of God and of His Christ. That was the work which theApostles had given them to do. Do you not see, friends, that unlessthose Apostles had been the most selfish of men, unless all theycared for was their own gain and comfort, they must have rejoiced?The whole world was to be set right--what matter what happened tothem? And, therefore, I said at the beginning of my sermon, that asure way to know whether our minds were in a right state, was to seewhether we felt about it as the Apostles felt. The Bible tells us torejoice always, to praise and give thanks to God always. If webelieve what the Apostles believed, we shall be joyful; if we do not, we shall not be joyful. If we believe in the words which the Lordspoke before He ascended on high, we shall be joyful. If we believethat all power in heaven and earth is His, we shall be joyful. If webelieve that the son of the village maiden has ascended up on high, and received gifts for men, we shall be joyful. If we believe that, as our baptism told us, God is our Father, the Son of God ourSaviour, the Spirit of God ready to teach and guide us, we shall bejoyful. Do you answer me, "But the world goes on so ill; there is somuch sin, and misery, and folly, and cruelty in it; how can we bejoyful?" I answer: There was a hundred times as much sin, andmisery, and folly, and cruelty, in the Apostles' time, and yet theywere joyful, and full of gladness, blessing and praising God. If youanswer, "But we are so slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood, and hard-worked, and ill-treated; we have no time to enjoy ourselves, or do the things which we should like best. How can we be joyful?" Ianswer: So were the Apostles. They knew that they would be ahundred times as much slandered, and neglected, and misunderstood, asyou can ever be; that they would have far less time to enjoythemselves, far less opportunity of doing the things which they likedbest, than you can ever have; they knew that misery, and persecution, and a shameful death were before them, and yet they were joyful andfull of gladness, blessing and praising God. And why should you notbe? For what was true for them is true for you. They had noblessing, no hope, but what you have just as good a right to as theyhad. They were joyful, because God was their Father, and God is yourFather. They were joyful because they and all men belonged to God'sfamily; and you belong to it. They were joyful, because God's Spiritwas promised to them, to make them like God; and God's Spirit waspromised to you. They were joyful, because a poor man was king ofheaven and earth; and that poor man, Jesus Christ, who was born atBethlehem, is as much your King now as He was theirs then. They werejoyful, because the whole world was going to improve under His ruleand government; and the whole world is improving, and will go onimproving for ever. They were joyful, because Jesus, whom they hadknown as a poor, despised, crucified man on earth, had ascended up toheaven in glory; and if you believe the same, you will be joyful too. In proportion as you believe the mystery of Ascension-day; if youbelieve the words which the Lord spoke before He ascended, you willhave cheerful, joyful, hopeful thoughts about yourselves, and aboutthe whole world; if you do not, you will be in continual danger ofbecoming suspicious and despairing, fancying the world still worsethan it is, fancying that God has neglected and forgotten it, fancying that the devil is stronger than God, and man's sins widerthan Christ's redemption till you will think it neither worth whileto do right yourselves, nor to make others do right towards you. 

XII--THE FOUNT OF SCIENCE

(A Sermon Preached at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, May 4th, 1851, in behalf of the Westminster Hospital. )

When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and receivedgifts for men, yea, even for his enemies, that the Lord God mightdwell among them. --PSALM lxviii. 18, and EPHESIANS iv. 8. 

If, a thousand years ago, a congregation in this place had beenaddressed upon the text which I have chosen, they would have had, Ithink, little difficulty in applying its meaning to themselves, andin mentioning at once innumerable instances of those gifts which theKing of men had received for men, innumerable signs that the Lord Godwas really dwelling amongst them. But amongst those signs, I think, they would have mentioned several which we are not now generallyaccustomed to consider in such a light. They would have pointed notmerely to the building of churches, the founding of schools, thespread of peace, the decay of slavery; but to the importation offoreign literature, the extension of the arts of reading, writing, painting, architecture, the improvement of agriculture, and theintroduction of new and more successful methods of the cure ofdiseases. They might have expressed themselves on these points in away that we consider now puerile and superstitious. They might haveattributed to the efficacy of prayer, many cures which we nowattribute--shall I say? to no cause whatsoever. They may have quotedas an instance of St. Cuthbert's sanctity, rather than of his shrewdobservations, his discovery of a spring of water in the rocky floorof his cell, and his success in growing barley upon the barren islandwhere wheat refused to germinate; and we might have smiled at theirsuperstition, and smiled, too, at their seeing any consequence ofChristianity, any token that the kingdom of God was among them, inBishop Wilfred's rescuing the Hampshire Saxons from the horrors offamine, by teaching them the use of fishing-nets. But still so theywould have spoken--men of a turn of mind no less keen, shrewd, andpractical than we, their children; and if we had objected to theirso-called superstition that all these improvements in the physicalstate of England were only the natural consequences of theintroduction of Roman civilisation by French and Italianmissionaries, they would have smiled at us in their turn, not perhapswithout some astonishment at our stupidity, and asked: "Do you notsee, too, that THAT is in itself a sign of the kingdom of God--thatthese nations who have been for ages selfishly isolated from eachother, except for purposes of conquest and desolation, should be nowteaching each other, helping each other, interchanging more and more, generation by generation, their arts, their laws, their learningbecoming fused down under the influence of a common Creed, andloyalty to one common King in Heaven, from their state of savagejealousy and warfare, into one great Christendom, and family of God?"And if, my friends, as I think, those forefathers of ours could risefrom their graves this day, they would be inclined to see in ourhospitals, in our railroads, in the achievements of our physicalScience, confirmation of that old superstition of theirs, proofs ofthe kingdom of God, realisations of the gifts which Christ receivedfor men, vaster than any of which they had ever dreamed. They mightbe startled at God's continuing those gifts to us, who hold on manypoints a creed so different from theirs. They might be still morestartled to see in the Great Exhibition of all Nations, which is ourpresent nine-days' wonder, that those blessings were not restrictedby God even to nominal Christians, but that His love, His teaching, with regard to matters of civilisation and physical science, wereextended, though more slowly and partially, to the Mahometan and theHeathen. And it would be a wholesome lesson to them, to find thatGod's grace was wider than their narrow theories; perhaps they mayhave learnt it already in the world of spirits. But of its BEINGGod's grace, there would be no doubt in their minds. They wouldclaim unhesitatingly, and at once, that great Exhibition establishedin a Christian country, as a point of union and brotherhood for allpeople, for a sign that God was indeed claiming all the nations ofthe world as His own--proving by the most enormous facts that He hadsent down a Pentecost, gifts to men which would raise them not merelyspiritually, but physically and intellectually, beyond anything whichthe world had ever seen, and had poured out a spirit among them whichwould convert them in the course of ages, gradually, but most surelyand really, from a pandemonium of conquerors and conquered, devourersand devoured, into a family of fellow-helping brothers, until thekingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of God and of His Christ. 

But I think one thing, if anything, would stagger their simple oldSaxon faith; one thing would make them fearful, as indeed it makesthe preacher this day, that the time of real brotherhood and peace isstill but too far off; and that the achievements of our physicalscience, the unity of this great Exhibition, noble as they are, arestill only dim forecastings and prophecies, as it were, of a higher, nobler reality. And they would say sadly to us, their children:"Sons, you ought to be so near to God; He seems to have given you somuch and to have worked among you as He never worked for any nationunder heaven. How is it that you give the glory to yourselves, andnot to Him?"

For do we give the glory of our scientific discoveries to God, in anyreal, honest, and practical sense? There may be some official andperfunctory talk of God's blessing on our endeavours; but there seemsto be no real belief in us that God, the inspiration of God, is thevery fount and root of the endeavours themselves; that He teaches usthese great discoveries; that He gives us wisdom to get this wondrouswealth; that He works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. True, we keep up something of the form and tradition of the old talkabout such things; we join in prayer to God to bless our greatExhibition, but we do not believe--we do not believe, my friends--that it was God who taught us to conceive, build, and arrange thatGreat Exhibition; and our notion of God's blessing it, seems to beGod's absence from it; a hope and trust that God will leave it and usalone, and not "visit" it or us in it, or "interfere" by any "specialprovidences, " by storms, or lightning, or sickness, or panic, orconspiracy; a sort of dim feeling that we could manage it allperfectly well without God, but that as He exists, and has some powerover natural phenomena, which is not very exactly defined, we mustnotice His existence over and above our work, lest He should becomeangry and "visit" us . . . And this in spite of words which werespoken by one whose office it was to speak them, as therepresentative of the highest and most sacred personage in theserealms; words which deserve to be written in letters of gold on thehigh places of this city; in which he spoke of this Exhibition as an"approach to a more complete fulfilment of the great and sacredmission which man has to perform in the world;" when he told theEnglish people that "man's reason being created in the image of God, he has to discover the laws by which Almighty God governs Hiscreations, and by making these laws the standard of his action, toconquer nature to his use, himself a divine instrument;" when hespoke of "thankfulness to Almighty God for what he has alreadyGIVEN, " as the first feeling which that Exhibition ought to excite inus; and as the second, "the deep conviction that those blessings canonly be realised in proportion to"--not, as some would have it, therivalry and selfish competition--but "in proportion to the HELP whichwe are prepared to render to each other; and, therefore, by peace, love, and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but betweenall nations of the earth. " We read those great words; but in thehearts of how few, alas! to judge from our modern creed on suchmatters, must the really important and distinctive points of themfind an echo! To how few does this whole Exhibition seem to havebeen anything but a matter of personal gain or curiosity, fornational aggrandisement, insular self-glorification, and selfish--Ihad almost said, treacherous--rivalry with the very foreigners whomwe invited as our guests?

And so, too, with our cures of diseases. We speak of God's blessingthe means, and God's blessing the cure. But all we really mean byblessing them, is permitting them. Do not our hearts confess thatour notion of His blessing the means, is His leaving the means tothemselves and their own physical laws--leaving, in short, the cureto us and not preventing our science doing its work, and assertingHis own existence by bringing on some unexpected crisis, orunfortunate relapse--if, indeed, the old theory that He does bring onsuch, be true?

Our old forefathers, on the other hand, used to believe that inmedicine, as in everything else, God taught men all that they knew. They believed the words of the Wise Man when he said that "the Spiritof God gives man understanding. " The method by which Solomonbelieved himself to have obtained all his physical science andknowledge of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop whichgroweth on the wall, was in their eyes the only possible method. They believed the words of Isaiah when he said of the tillage and therotation of crops in use among the peasants of his country, thattheir God instructed them to discretion and taught them; and thateven the various methods of threshing out the various species ofgrain came "forth from the Lord of hosts, who is excellent incounsel, and wonderful in working. "

Such a method, you say, seems to you now miraculous. It did not seemto our forefathers miraculous that God should teach man; it seemed tothem most simple, most rational, most natural, an utterly every-dayaxiom. They thought it was because so few of the heathen were taughtby God that they were no wiser than they were. They thought thatsince the Son of God had come down and taken our nature upon Him, andascended up on high and received gifts for men, that it was now theright and privilege of every human being who was willing to be taughtof God, as the prophet foretold in those very words; and that baptismwas the very sign and seal of that fact--a sign that for every humanbeing, whatever his age, sex, rank, intellect, or race, a certainmeasure of the teaching of God and of the Spirit of God was ready, promised, sure as the oath of Him that made heaven and the earth, andall things therein. That was Solomon's belief. We do not find thatit made him a fanatic and an idler, waiting with folded hands forinspiration to come to him he knew not how nor whence. His beliefthat wisdom was the revelation and gift of God did not prevent himfrom seeking her as silver, and searching for her as hid treasures, from applying his heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerningall things that are done under heaven; and we do not find that itprevented our forefathers. Ceadmon's belief that God inspired himwith the poetic faculty, did not make him the less laborious andcareful versifier. Bishop John's blessing the dumb boy's tongue inthe name of Him whom he believed to be Word of God and the Master ofthat poor dumb boy, did not prevent his anticipating some of thediscoveries of our modern wise men, in setting about a most practicaland scientific cure. Alfred's continual prayers for light andinspiration made him no less a laborious and thoughtful student ofwar and law, of physics, language, and geography. These old Teutons, for all these superstitions of theirs, were perhaps as businesslikeand practical in those days as we their children are in these. Butthat did not prevent their believing that unless God showed them athing, they could not see it, and thanking Him honestly enough forthe comparative little which He did show them. But we who enjoy theaccumulated teaching of ages--we to whose researches He is revealingyear by year, almost week by weeks wonders of which they neverdreamed--we whom He has taught to make the lame to walk, the dumb tospeak, the blind to see, to exterminate the pestilence and defy thethunderbolt, to multiply millionfold the fruits of learning, toannihilate time and space, to span the heavens, and to weigh the sun--what madness is this which has come upon us in these last days, tomake us fancy that we, insects of a day, have found out these thingsfor ourselves, and talk big about the progress of the species, andthe triumphs of intellect, and the all-conquering powers of the humanmind, and give the glory of all this inspiration and revelation, notto God, but to ourselves? Let us beware, beware--lest our boundlesspride and self-satisfaction, by some mysterious yet most certain law, avenge itself--lest like the Assyrian conqueror of old, while westand and cry, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" ourreason, like his, should reel and fall beneath the narcotic of ourown maddening self-conceit, and while attempting to scale the heavenswe overlook some pitfall at our feet, and fall as learned idiots, suicidal pedants, to be a degradation, and a hissing, and a shame. 

However strongly you may differ from these opinions of our ownforefathers with regard to the ground and cause of physical science, and the arts of healing, I am sure that the recollection of thethrice holy ground upon which we stand, beneath the shadow ofvenerable piles, witnesses for the creeds, the laws, the liberties, which those our ancestors have handed down to us, will preserve youfrom the temptation of dismissing with hasty contempt their thoughtsupon any subject so important; will make you inclined to listen totheir opinion with affection, if not with reverence; and save, perhaps, the preacher from a sneer when he declares that the doctrineof those old Saxon men is, in his belief, not only the mostScriptural, but the most rational and scientific explanation of thegrounds of all human knowledge. 

At least, I shall be able to quote in support of my own opinion aname from which there can be no appeal in the minds of a congregationof educated Englishmen--I mean Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, thespiritual father of the modern science, and, therefore, of thechemistry and the medicine of the whole civilised world. If there isone thing which more than another ought to impress itself on the mindof a careful student of his works, it is this--that he consideredscience as the inspiration of God, and every separate act ofinduction by which man arrives at a physical law, as a revelationfrom the Maker of those laws; and that the faith which gave himdaring to face the mystery of the universe, and proclaim to men thatthey could conquer nature by obeying her, was his deep, living, practical belief that there was One who had ascended up on high andled captive in the flesh and spirit of a man those very idols ofsense which had been themselves leading men's minds captive, enslaving them to the illusions of their own senses, forcing them tobow down in vague awe and terror before those powers of Nature, whichGod had appointed, not to be their tyrants, but their slaves. I willnot special-plead particulars from his works, wherein I may considerthat he asserts this. I will rather say boldly that the idea runsthrough every line he ever wrote; that unless seen in the light ofthat faith, the grounds of his philosophy ought to be as inexplicableto us, as they would, without it, have been impossible to himself. As has been well said of him: "Faith in God as the absolute groundof all human as well as of all natural laws; the belief that He hadactually made Himself known to His creatures, and that it waspossible for them to have a knowledge of Him, cleared from thephantasies and idols of their own imaginations and understandings;this was the necessary foundation of all that great man's mind andspeculations, to whatever point they were tending, and however attimes they might be darkened by too close a familiarity with thecorruptions and meannesses of man, or too passionate an addiction tothe contemplation of Nature. Nor should it ever be forgotten that heowed all the clearness and distinctness of his mind to his freedomfrom that Pantheism which naturally disposes to a vague admirationand adoration of Nature, to the belief that it is stronger and noblerthan ourselves; that we are servants, and puppets, and portions ofit, and not its lords and rulers. If Bacon had in anywise confoundedNature with God--if he had not entertained the strongest practicalfeeling that men were connected with God through One who had takenupon Him their nature, it is impossible that he could have discoveredthat method of dealing with physics which has made a physical sciencepossible. "

No really careful student of his works, but must have perceived this, however glad, alas! he may have felt at times to thrust the thoughtof it from him, and try to think that Francis Bacon's Christianitywas something over and above his philosophy--a religion which he leftbehind him at the church-door--or only sprinkled up and down hisworks so much of it as should shield him in a bigoted age from thesuspicion of materialism. A strange theory, and yet one which sodetermined is man to see nothing, whether it be in the Bible or inthe Novum Organum, but what each wishes to see, has been deliberatelyput forth again and again by men who fancy, forsooth, that thegreatest of English heroes was even such an one as themselves. Onedoes not wonder to find among the general characteristics of thosewriters who admire Bacon as a materialist, the most utter incapacityof philosophising on Bacon's method, the very restless conceit, thehasty generalisation, the hankering after cosmogonic theories, whichBacon anathematises in every page. Yes, I repeat it, we owe ourmedical and sanitary science to Bacon's philosophy; and Bacon owedhis philosophy to his Christianity. 

Oh! it is easy for us, amid the marvels of our great hospitals, nowgrown commonplace in our eyes from very custom, to talk of the empireof mind over matter; for us--who reap the harvest whereof Bacon sowedthe seed. But consider, how great the faith of that man must havebeen, who died in hope, not having received the promises, but seeingthem afar off, and haunted to his dying day with glorious visions ofa time when famine and pestilence should vanish before a scientificobedience--to use his own expression--to the will of God, revealed innatural facts. Thus we can understand how he dared to denounce allthat had gone before him as blind and worthless guides, and toproclaim himself to the world as the one restorer of true physicalphilosophy. Thus we can understand how he, the cautious and patientman of the world, dared indulge in those vast dreams of thescientific triumphs of the future. Thus we can understand how hedared hint at the expectation that men would some day even conquerdeath itself; because he believed that man had conquered deathalready, in the person of its King and Lord--in the flesh of Him whoascended up on high, and led captivity captive, and received giftsfor men. The "empire of mind over matter?" What practical proof hadhe of it amid the miserable alternations of empiricism and magicwhich made up the pseudo-science of his time; amid the theories andspeculations of mankind, which, as he said, were "but a sort ofmadness--useless alike for discovery or for operation. " What righthad he, more than any other man who had gone before him, to believethat man could conquer and mould to his will the unseen andtremendous powers which work in every cloud and every flower? that hecould dive into the secret mysteries of his own body, and renew hisyouth like the eagle's? This ground he had for that faith--that hebelieved, as he says himself, that he must "begin from God; and thatthe pursuit of physical science clearly proceeds from Him, the Authorof good, and Father of light. " This gave him faith to say that inthis as in all other Divine works, the smallest beginnings leadassuredly to some result, and that the "remark in spiritual matters, that the kingdom of God cometh without observation, is also found tobe true in every great work of Divine Providence; so that everythingglides on quietly without confusion or noise, and the matter isachieved before men either think or perceive that it is commenced. "This it was which gave him courage to believe that his own philosophymight be the actual fulfilment of the prophecy, that in the last daysmany should run to and fro, and knowledge should be increased--wordswhich, like hundreds of others in his works, sound like theoutpourings of an almost blasphemous self-conceit, till we recollectthat he looked on science only as the inspiration of God, and man'sempire over nature only as the consequence of the redemption workedout for him by Christ, and begin to see in them the expressions ofthe deepest and most divine humility. 

I doubt not that many here will be far more able than I ampractically to apply the facts which I have been adducing to thecause of the hospital for which I am pleading. But there is oneconsequence of them to which I must beg leave to draw attention moreparticularly, especially at the present era of our nation. If, then, these discoveries of science be indeed revelations and inspirationsfrom God, does it not follow that all classes, even the poorest andthe most ignorant, the most brutal, have an equal right to enjoy thefruits of them? Does it not follow that to give to the poor theirshare in the blessings which chemical and medical science are workingout for us, is not a matter of charity or benevolence, but of DUTY, of indefeasible, peremptory, immediate duty? For consider, myfriends; the Son of God descends on earth, and takes on Him not onlythe form, but the very nature, affections, trials, and sorrows of aman. He proclaims Himself as the person who has been all alongruling, guiding, teaching, improving men; the light who lightethevery man who cometh into the world. He proclaims Himself by acts ofwondrous power to be the internecine foe and conqueror of every formof sorrow, slavery, barbarism, weakness, sickness, death itself. Heproclaims Himself as One who is come to give His life for His sheep--One who is come to restore to men the likeness in which they wereoriginally created, the likeness of their Father in Heaven, whoaccepteth the person of no man--who causeth His sun to shine on theevil and on the good, who sendeth His rain on the just and on theunjust, in whose sight the meanest publican, if his onlyconsciousness be that of his own baseness and worthlessness, is morerighteous than the most learned, respectable, and self-satisfiedpharisee. He proclaims Himself the setter-up of a kingdom into whichthe publican and the harlot will pass sooner than the rich, themighty, and the noble; a kingdom in which all men are to be brothers, and their bond of union loyalty to One who spared not His own lifefor the sheep, who came not to do His own, but the will of the Fatherwho had sent Him, and who showed by His toil among the poor, theoutcast, the ignorant, and the brutal, what that same will was like. With His own life-blood He seals this Covenant between God and man. He offers up His own body as the first-fruits of this great kingdomof self-sacrifice. He takes poor fishermen and mechanics, and sendsthem forth to acquaint all men with the good news that God is theirKing, and to baptize them as subjects of that kingdom, bound to risein baptism to a new life, a life of love, and brotherhood, and self-sacrifice, like His own. He commands them to call all nations tothat sacred Feast wherein there is neither rich nor poor, but thesame bread and the same wine are offered to the monarch and to theslave, as signs of their common humanity, their common redemption, their common interest--signs that they derive their life, theirhealth, their reason, their every faculty of body, soul, and spirit, from One who walked the earth as the son of a poor carpenter, who ateand drank with publicans and sinners. He sends down His Spirit onthem with gifts of language, eloquence, wisdom, and healing, as mereearnests and first-fruits; so they said, of that prophecy that Hewould pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, even upon slaves andhandmaids. And these poor fishermen feel themselves impelled by adivine and irresistible impulse to go forth to the ends of the world, and face persecution, insult, torture, and death--not in order thatthey may make themselves lords over mankind, but that they may tellthem that One is their Master, even Jesus Christ, both God and man--that HE rules the world, and will rule it, and CAN rule it, that inHis sight there is no distinction of race, or rank, or riches, neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. And, as afact, their message has prevailed and been believed; and inproportion as it has prevailed, not merely individual sanctity orpiety, but liberty, law, peace, civilisation, learning, art, science, the gifts which he bought for men with His blood, have followed inits train: while the nations who have not received that message thatGod was their King, or having received it have forgotten it, orperverted it into a superstition and an hypocrisy, have in exactlythat proportion fallen back into barbarism and bloodshed, slavery andmisery. My friends, if this philosophy of history, this theory ofhuman progress, or as I should call it, this Gospel of the Kingdom ofGod mean anything--does it not mean this? this which our forefathersbelieved, dimly and inconsistently perhaps, but still believed it, else we had not been here this day--that we are not our own, but theservants of Jesus Christ, and brothers of each other--that the veryconstitution and ground-law of this human species which has beenredeemed by Christ, is the self-sacrifice which Christ displayed asthe one perfection of humanity--that all rank, property, learning, science, are only held by their possessors in trust from that Kingwho has distributed them to each according as He will, that eachmight use them for the good of all, certain--as certain as God'spromise can make man--that if by giving up our own interest for theinterest of others, we seek first the kingdom of God, and therighteousness between man and man, which we call MERCY, according towhich it is constituted, all other things, health, wealth, peace, andevery other blessing which humanity can desire, shall be added untous over and above, as the natural and necessary fruits of a societyfounded according to the will of God, and declared in his Son JesusChrist, and therefore according to those physical laws, whereof He isat once the Creator, the Director, and the Revealer?

This was the faith of our forefathers, both laity and clergy--thatthe Lord was King, be the people never so unquiet; that men were Hisstewards and His pupils only, and not His vicars; that they wereequal in His sight, and not the slaves and tyrants of each other; andthat the help that was done upon earth, He did it all Himself. Dimly, doubtless, they saw it, and inconsistently: but they saw it, and to their faith in that great truth we owe all that has madeEngland really noble among the nations. Of the fruits of that faithevery venerable building around us should remind us. To that faithin the laity, we owe the abolition of serfdom, the freedom of ourinstitutions, the laws which provide equal justice between man andman; to that faith in the clergy, and especially in the monasticorders, we owe the endowment of our schools and universities, theimprovement of agriculture, the preservation and the spread of allthe liberal arts and sciences, as far as they were then discovered;so that every one of those abbeys which we now revile so ignorantly, became a centre of freedom, protection, healing, and civilisation, arefuge for the oppressed, a well-spring of mercy for the afflicted, apractical witness to the nation that property and science were notthe private and absolute possession of men, but only held in trustfrom God for the benefit of the common weal: and just in proportionas in the 14th and 15th centuries those institutions fell from theirfirst estate, and began to fancy that their wealth and wisdom wastheir own, acquired by their own cunning, to be used for their ownaggrandizement, they became an imposture and imbecility, anabomination and a ruin. And it was this faith, too, in a stillnobler and clearer form, which at the Reformation inspired the agewhich could produce a Ridley, a Latimer, an Elizabeth, a Shakspeare, a Spenser, a Raleigh, a Bacon, and a Milton; which knit together, inspite of religious feuds and social wrongs, the nation of Englandwith a bond which all the powers of hell endeavoured in vain tobreak. Doubtless, there too there was inconsistency enough. Elizabeth may have mixed up ambitious dynastic dreams with herintense belief that God had given her her wisdom, her learning, hermighty will, only to be the servant of His servants and defender ofthe faith. Men like Drake and Raleigh, while they were believingthat God had sent them forth to smite with the sword of the Lord thedevourers of the earth, the destroyers of religion, freedom, civilisation, and national life, may have been unfaithful to whatthey believed their divine mission, and fancied that they might usetheir wisdom and valour that God gave them for their selfish ends, till they committed (as some say) acts of rapacity and cruelty worthyof the merest buccaneer. But THAT was not what made them conquer--that was not what made the wealth and the might of Spain melt awaybefore their little bands of heroes; but the same old faith, shiningout in all their noblest acts and words, that "the Lord WAS King, andthat the help that was done upon earth, He did it all Himself?" Soagain, Bacon may have fancied, and did fancy in his old age, that hemight use his deep knowledge of mankind for his own selfish ends--that he might indulge himself in building himself up a name thatmight fill all the earth, that he who had done so much for God andfor mankind, might be allowed to do at last somewhat for himself, andtempted, by a paltry bribe, fall for awhile, as David did before him, that God, and not he, might have the glory of all his wisdom. Butthen he was less than himself; then he had but lost sight of hislode-star. Then he had forgotten, but only for awhile, that he owedall to the teaching of that God who had given to the young andobscure advocate the mission of affecting the destinies of nationsyet unborn. 

And believe me, my friends, even as it has been with our forefathers, so it will be with us. According to our faith will it be unto us, now as it was of old. In proportion as we believe that wealth, science, and civilisation are the work and property of man, in justthat proportion we shall be tempted to keep them selfishly andexclusively to ourselves. The man of science will be tempted to hidehis discoveries, though men may be perishing for lack of them, tillhe can sell them to the highest bidder; the rich man will be temptedto purchase them for himself, in order that he may increase his owncomfort and luxury, and feel comparatively lazy and careless abouttheir application to the welfare of the masses; he will be tempted topay an exorbitant price for anything that can increase his personalconvenience, and yet when the question is about improving the supplyof necessaries to the poor, stand haggling about considerations ofprofitable investment, excuse himself from doing the duty which liesnearest to him by visions of distant profit, of which a thousandunexpected accidents may deprive him after all, and make his boastedscientific care for the wealth of the nation an excuse for leavingtens of thousands worse housed and worse fed than his own beasts ofburden. The poor man will be tempted franctically to oppose hisselfishness and unbelief to the selfishness and unbelief of the rich, and clutch from him by force the comfort which really belong toneither of them, in order that he may pride himself in them andmisuse them in his turn; and the clergy will be tempted, as they havetoo often been tempted already, to fancy that reason is the enemy, and not the twin sister of faith; to oppose revelation to science, asif God's two messages could contradict each other; to widen theManichaean distinction between secular and spiritual matters, sopleasant to the natural atheism of fallen man; to fancy that theyhonour God by limiting as much as possible His teaching, Hisprovidence, His wisdom, His love, and His kingdom, and to pretendthat they are defending the creeds of the Catholic Church, by denyingto them any practical or real influence on the economic, political, and physical welfare of mankind. But in proportion as we hold to theold faith of our forefathers concerning science and civilisation, weshall feel it not only a duty, but a glory and a delight, to make allmen sharers in them; to go out into the streets and lanes of the cityand call in the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, that they maysit down and take their share of the good things which God hasprovided in His kingdom for those who obey Him. Every new discoverywill be hailed by us as a fresh boon from God to be bestowed by therain and the sunshine freely upon us all. The sight of everysufferer will make us ready to suspect and to examine ourselves lestwe should be in some indirect way the victim of some neglect orselfishness of our own. Every disease will be a sign to us that insome respect or other, the physical or moral laws of human naturehave been overlooked or broken. The existence of an unhealthylocality, the recurrence of an epidemic, will be to us a subject ofpublic shame and self-reproach. Men of science will no longer go upand down entreating mankind in vain to make use of their discoveries;the sanitary reformer will be no longer like Wisdom crying in thestreets and no man regarding her; and in every ill to which flesh isheir we shall see an enemy of our King and Lord, and an intruder intoHis Kingdom, against which we swore at our baptism to fight with aninspiring and delicious certainty that God will prosper the right;that His laws cannot change; that nature, and the disturbances andpoisons, and brute powers thereof, were meant to be the slaves, andnot the tyrants of a race whose head has conquered the grave itself. 

This is no speculative dream. The progress of science is dailyproving it to be an actual truth; proving to us that a largeproportion of diseases--how large a proportion, no man yet dare say--are preventible by science under the direction of that common justiceand mercy which man owes to man. The proper cultivation of the soil, it is now clearly seen, will exterminate fevers and agues, and allthe frightful consequences of malaria. An attention to those simpledecencies and cleanlinesses of life of which even the wild animalsfeel the necessity, will prevent the epidemics of our cities, and allthe frightful train of secondary diseases which follow them, orsupply their place. The question which is generally more and moreforcing itself on the minds of scientific men is not how manydiseases are, but how few are not, the consequences of man'signorance, barbarism, and folly. The medical man is felt more andmore to be as necessary in health as he is in sickness, to be thefellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of the socialreformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the firstobject of his science to be prevention, and not cure. But if allthis be true, as true it is, we ought to begin to look on hospitalsas many medical men I doubt not do already, in a sadder though in ano less important light. When we remember that the majority of caseswhich fill their wards are cases of more or less directly preventiblediseases, the fruits of our social neglect, too often of our neglectof the sufferers themselves, too often also our neglect of theirparents and forefathers; when we think how many a bitter pang isengendered and propagated from generation to generation in thenoisome alleys and courts of this metropolis, by foul food, foulbedrooms, foul air, foul water, by intemperance, the natural andalmost pardonable consequence of want of water, depressing anddegrading employments, and lives spent in such an atmosphere of filthas our daintier nostrils could not endure a day: then we shouldlearn to look upon these hospitals not as acts of charity, supererogatory benevolences of ours towards those to whom we owenothing, but as confessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence;as poor and late and partial compensation for misery which we mighthave prevented. And when again, taking up scientific works, we findhow vast a proportion of the remaining cases of disease are produceddirectly or indirectly by the unhealthiness of certain occupations, so certainly that the scientific man can almost prophesy the averageshortening of life, and the peculiar form of disease, incident to anygiven form of city labour--when we find, to quote a single instance, that a large proportion--one half, as I am informed--of the femalecases in certain hospitals, are those of women-servants sufferingfrom diseases produced by overwork in household labour, especially bycarrying heavy weights up the steep stairs of our London houses--whenwe consider the large proportion of accident cases which are theresult, if not always of neglect in our social arrangements, still ofdanger incurred in labouring for us, we shall begin to feel that ourdebts towards the poorer classes, for whom this and other hospitalsare instituted, swells and mounts up to a burden which ought to beand would be intolerable to us, if we had not some such means as thishospital affords of testifying our contrition for neglect for whichwe cannot atone, and of practically claiming in the hospital ourbrotherhood with those masses whom we pass by so carelessly in theworkshop and the street. What matters it that they have undertaken alife of labour from necessity, and with a full consciousness of thedangers they incur in it? For whom have they been labouring, but forus? Their handiwork renders our houses luxurious. We wear theclothes they make. We eat the food they produce. They sit indarkness and the shadow of death that we may enjoy light and life andluxury and civilisation. True, they are free men, in name, not freethough from the iron necessity of crushing toil. Shall we make theirliberty a cloak for our licentiousness? and because they are ourbrothers and not our slaves, answer with Cain, "Am I my brother'skeeper?" What if we have paid them the wages which they ask? We donot feed our beasts of burden only as long as they are in health, andwhen they fall sick leave them to cure themselves and starve--andthese are not our beasts of burden; they are members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. Prove it tothem, then, for they are in bitter danger of forgetting it in thesedays. Prove to them, by helping to cure their maladies, that theyare members of Christ, that they do indeed belong to Him who withoutfee or payment freely cured the sick of Judaea in old time. Prove tothem that they are children of God by treating them as such--aschildren of Him without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, children of Him whose love is over all His works, children of Him whodefends the widow and the fatherless, and sees that those who are inneed or necessity have right, and who maketh inquiry for the blood ofthe innocent. Prove to them that they are inheritors of the Kingdomof Heaven, by proving to them first of all that the Kingdom of Heavenexists, that all, rich and poor alike, are brothers, and One theirMaster, He who ascended up on high and led captivity captive, andreceived gifts for men, the gifts of healing, the gifts of science, the gifts of civilisation, the gifts of law, the gifts of order, thegifts of liberty, the gifts of the spirit of love and brotherhood, offellow-feeling and self-sacrifice, of justice and humility, a spiritfit for a world of redeemed and pardoned men, in which mercy is butjustice, and self-sacrifice the truest self-interest; a world, theKing and Master of which is One who poured out his own life-blood forthe sake of those who hated him, that men should henceforth live notfor themselves, but for Him who died and rose again, and ascended upon high and received gifts for men, that the Lord God might dwellamong them. 

And because all general truths can only be verified in particularinstances, verify your general faith in that Christianity which youprofess in this particular instance, by doing the duty which liesnearest to you, and GIVING, AS IT IS CALLED, to this hospital forwhich I now plead. 

Thanks to the spirit and the attainments of the average of Englishmedical men and chaplains, to praise the management of any hospitalwhich is under their care, is a needless impertinence. Do you findfunds, there will be no fear as to their being well employed; and nofear, alas! either of their services being in full demand, while thesanitary state of vast streets of South London, lying close to thishospital, are in a state in which they are, and in which privatecupidity and neglect seem willing to compel them to remain. It is onaccount of its contiguity to these neglected, destitute, andpoisonous localities, that this hospital seems to me especiallyvaluable. But though situated in a part of London where its presenceis especially needed, it has not, from various causes which havearisen from no fault of its own, attracted as much public notice assome other more magnificent foundations; while it possesses onefeature, peculiar I believe to it, among our London hospitals, whichseems to me to render it especially deserving of support: I speak ofthe ward for incurable patients, in which, instead of ending theirdays in the melancholy wards of a workhouse, or amid thosepestilential and crowded dwellings which have perhaps produced theirmaladies, and which certainly will aggravate them, they may havetheir heavy years of hopeless suffering softened by a continuedsupply of constant comforts, and constant medical solicitude, such asthe best-conducted workhouse, or the most laborious staff of parishsurgeons, and district visitors, ay, not even the benevolence andself-sacrifice of friends and relations, can possibly provide. Ibeseech you, picture to yourselves the amount of mere physicalcomfort, not to mention the higher blessings of spiritual teachingand consolation, accruing to some poor tortured cripple, in the wardsof this hospital; compare it with the very brightest lot possible forhim in the dwellings of the lower, or even of the middle classes ofthe metropolis; then recollect that these hospital luxuries, whichwould be unattainable by him elsewhere, are but a tithe of thosewhich you, in his situation, would consider absolute necessaries, without which a life of suffering, ay, even of health, wereintolerable--and do unto others this day, as you would that othersshould do unto you!

I might have taken some other and more popular method of drawing yourattention to this institution. 

I might have tried to excite your feelings and sympathies by attemptsat pathetic or picturesque descriptions of suffering. But theminister of a just God is bound to proclaim that God demands notSENTIMENT, but JUSTICE. The Bible knows nothing of the "religioussentiments and emotions, " whereof we hear so much talk nowadays. Itspeaks of DUTY. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we OUGHT to love oneanother. "

I might also have attempted to flatter you into giving, byrepresenting this as a "GOOD WORK, " a work of charity and piety, wellpleasing to God; a sort of work of Protestant supererogation, fruitsof faith which we may show, if we like, up to a certain not veryclearly defined point of benevolence, but the absence of whichprobably will not seriously affect our eternal salvation, still lessour right to call ourselves orthodox, Protestants, churchmen, worthy, kind-hearted, respectable, blameless. The Bible knows nothing ofsuch a religion; it neither coaxes nor flatters, it COMMANDS. Itdemands mercy, because mercy is justice; and declares with whatmeasure we mete to others, it shall be surely measured to us again. If therefore my words shall seem to some here, to be not so much ahumble request as a peremptory demand, I cannot help it. I havepleaded the cause of this hospital on the only solid ground of whichI am aware, for doing anything but evil to everyone around us who isnot a private friend, or a member of one's own family. I ask you tohelp the poor to their share in the gifts which Christ received formen, because they are His gifts, and neither ours nor any man's. Among these venerable buildings, the signs and witnesses of theKingdom of God, and the blessings of that Kingdom which for athousand years have been spreading and growing among us--I ask it ofyou as citizens of that Kingdom. Prove your brotherhood to the poorby restoring to them a portion of that wealth which, without theirlabour, you could never have possessed. Prove your brotherhood tothem in a thousand ways--in every way--in this way, because at thismoment it happens to be the nearest and the most immediate, andbecause the necessity for it is nearer, more immediate, to judge bythe signs of the times, and most of all by their self-satisfiedunconsciousness of danger, their loud and shallow self-glorification, than ever it was before. Work while it is called to-day, lest thenight come wherein no man can work, but only take his wages. 

Again I say, I may seem to some here to have pleaded the cause ofthis hospital in too harsh and peremptory a tone. . . . And yet Ihave a ground of hope, in the English love of simple justice, in thenoble instances of benevolence and self-sacrifice among the wealthyand educated, which are, thank God! increasing in number daily, asthe need of them increases--in these, I say, I have a ground of hopethat there are many here to-day who would sooner hear the language oftruth than of flattery; who will be more strongly moved toward arighteous deed by being told that it is their duty toward God, theircountry, and their fellow-citizens, than by any sentimental baits forpersonal sympathy, or for the love of Pharisaic ostentation. 

XIII--FIRST SERMON ON THE CHOLERA

(Sunday Morning, September 27th, 1849. )

God's judgments are from above, out of the sight of the wicked. --PSALM X. 5. 

We have just been praying to God to remove from us the cholera, whichwe call a judgment of God, a chastisement; and God knows we have needenough to do so. But we can hardly expect God to withdraw Hischastisement unless we correct the sins for which He chastised us, and therefore unless we find out what particular sins have broughtthe evil on us. For it is mere cant and hypocrisy, my friends, totell God, in a general way, that we believe He is punishing us forour sins, and then to avoid carefully confessing any particular sin, and to get angry with anyone who tells us boldly WHICH sin God ispunishing us for. But so goes the world. Everyone is ready to say, "Oh! yes, we are all great sinners, miserable sinners!" and then ifyou charge them with any particular sin, they bridle up and deny THATsin fiercely enough, and all sins one by one, confessing themselvesgreat sinners, and yet saying that they don't know what sins theyhave committed. No man really believes himself a sinner, no manreally confesses his sins, but the man who can honestly put hisfinger on THIS sin or THAT sin which he has committed, and is notafraid to confess to God, "THIS sin and THAT sin have I done--THISbad habit and THAT bad habit have I cherished within me. " Therefore, I say, it is no use for us Englishmen to dream that we can flatterand persuade the great God of Heaven and earth into taking away thecholera from us, unless we find out and confess openly what we havedone to bring on the cholera, and unless we repent and bring forthfruits worthy of repentance, by amending our habits on that point, and doing everything for the future which shall not bring on thecholera, but keep it off. 

Do not let us believe this time, my friends, in the pitiable, insincere way in which all England believed when the cholera was heresixteen years ago. When they saw human beings dying by thousands, they all got frightened, and proclaimed a Fast and confessed theirsins and promised repentance in a general way. But did they repentof and confess those sins which had caused the cholera? Did theyrepent of and confess the covetousness, the tyranny, thecarelessness, which in most great towns, and in too many villagesalso, forces the poor to lodge in undrained stifling hovels, unfitfor hogs, amid vapours and smells which send forth on every breaththe seeds of rickets and consumption, typhus and scarlet fever, andworse and last of all, the cholera? Did they repent of their sin inthat? Not they. Did they repent of the carelessness and lazinessand covetousness which sends meat and fish up to all our large townsin a half-putrid state; which fills every corner of London and thegreat cities with slaughter-houses, over-crowded graveyards, undrained sewers? Not they. To confess their sins in a general waycost them a few words; to confess and repent of the real particularsins in themselves, was a very different matter; to amend them wouldhave touched vested interests, would have cost money, theEnglishman's god; it would have required self-sacrifice of pocket, aswell as of time. It would have required manful fighting against theprejudices, the ignorance, the self-conceit, the laziness, thecovetousness of the wicked world. So they could not afford to repentand amend of all THAT. And when those great and good men, theSanitary Commissioners, proved to all England fifteen years ago, thatcholera always appeared where fever had appeared, and that both feverand cholera always cling exclusively to those places where there wasbad food, bad air, crowded bedrooms, bad drainage and filth--thatsuch were the laws of God and Nature, and always had been; they tookno notice of it, because it was the poor rather than the rich whosuffered from those causes. So the filth of our great cities wasleft to ferment in poisonous cesspools, foul ditches and marshes andmuds, such as those now killing people by hundreds in theneighbourhood of Plymouth; for one house or sewer that was improved, a hundred more were left just as they were in the first cholera; assoon as the panic of superstitious fear was past, carelessness andindolence returned. Men went back, the covetous man to hiscovetousness, and the idler to his idleness. And behold! sixteenyears are past, and the cholera is as bad as ever among us. 

But you will say, perhaps, it is presumptuous to say that Englishmenhave brought the cholera on themselves, that it is God's judgment, and that we cannot explain His inscrutable Providence. Ah! myfriends, that is a poor excuse and a common one, for leaving a greatmany sins as they are! When people do not wish to do God's will, itis a very pleasant thing to talk about God's will as something sovery deep and unfathomable, that poor human beings cannot be expectedto find it out. It is an old excuse, and a great favourite withSatan, I have no doubt. Why cannot people find out God's will?--Because they do not LIKE to find it out, lest it should shame themand condemn them, and cost them pleasure or money--because their eyesare blinded with covetousness and selfishness, so that they cannotsee God's will, even when they DO look for it, and then they go andcant about God's judgments; while those judgments, as the text says, are far above out of their mammon-blinded and prejudice-blindedsight. What do they mean by that word? Come now, my friends! let usface the question like men. What do you mean really when you callthe cholera, or fever, or affliction at all, God's judgment? Do youmerely mean that God is punishing you, you don't know for what, andyou can't find out for what? but that all which He expects of you isto bear it patiently, and then go and do afterwards just what you didbefore? Dare anyone say that who believes that God is a God ofjustice, much less a God of love? What would you think of a fatherwho punished his children, and then left them to find out as theycould what they were punished for? And yet that is the way peopletalk of pestilence and of great afflictions, public and private. They are not ashamed to accuse God of a cruelty and an injusticewhich they would be ashamed to confess themselves! How can men, evenreligious men often, be so blasphemous? Mainly, I think, becausethey do not really believe in God at all, they only believe aboutHim--they believe that they ought to believe in Him. They have noliving personal faith in God or Christ; they do not know God; they donot know God's character, and what to believe of Him, and what toexpect of Him; or what they ought to say of Him; because they do notknow, they have not studied, they have not loved the character ofChrist, who is the express image and likeness of God. ThereforeGod's judgments are far away out of their sight; therefore they makethemselves a God in their own image and after their own likeness, lazy, capricious, revengeful; therefore they are not afraid orashamed to say that God sends pestilence into a country withoutshowing that country why it is sent. But another great reason, Ibelieve, why God's judgments in this and other matters are far aboveout of our sight, is the careless, insincere way of using words whichwe English have got into, even on the most holy and awful matters. Isuppose there never was a nation in the world so diseased through andthrough with the spirit of cant, as we English are now: exceptperhaps the old Jews, at the time of our Lord's coming. You hear mentalking as if they thought God did not understand English, becausethey cling superstitiously to the letter of the Bible in proportionas they lose its spirit. You hear men taking words into their mouthswhich might make angels weep and devils tremble, with a coolness andoily, smooth carelessness which shows you that they do not feel theforce of what they are saying. You hear them using the words ofScripture, which are in themselves stricter and deeper than all thebooks of philosophy in the world, in such a loose unscriptural way, that they make them mean anything or nothing. They use the wordslike parrots, by rote, just because their forefathers used thembefore them. They will tell you that cholera is a judgment for oursins, "in a sense, " but if you ask them for what sins, or in whatsense, they fly off from that HOME question, and begin mumblingcommonplaces about the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and so on. It is most sad, all this; and most fearful also. 

Therefore, I asked you, my friends, what is the meaning of that wordjudgment? In common talk, people use it rightly enough, but whenthey begin to talk of God's judgments, they speak as if it merelymeant punishments. Now judgment and punishment are two things. Whena judge gives judgment, he either acquits or condemns the accusedperson; he gives the case for the plaintiff, or for the defendant:the punishment of the guilty person, if he be guilty, is a separatething, pronounced and inflicted afterwards. His judgment, I say, ishis OPINION about the person's guilt, and even so God's judgments arethe expression of His opinion about our guilt. But there is thisdifference between man and God in this matter--a human judge giveshis opinion in words, God gives His in events: therefore there is noharm for a human judge when he has told a person why he must punish, to punish him in some way that has nothing to do with his crime--forinstance, to send a man to prison because he steals, though it wouldbe far better if criminals could be punished in kind, and if the manwho stole could be forced either to make restitution, or work out theprice of what he stole in hard labour. For this is God's plan--Godalways pays sinners back in kind, that He may not merely punish them, but CORRECT them; so that by the kind of their punishment, they mayknow the kind of their sin. God punishes us, as I have often toldyou, not by His caprice, but by His laws. He does not BREAK HIS LAWSto harm us; the laws themselves harm us, when we break them and getin their way. It is always so, you will find, with great nationalafflictions. I believe, when we know more of God and His laws, weshall find it true even in our smallest private sorrows. God isunchangeable; He does not lose His temper, as heathens andsuperstitious men fancy, to punish us. He does not change His orderto punish us. WE break His order, and the order goes on in spite ofus and crushes us: and so we get God's judgment, God's opinion ofour breaking His laws. You will find it so almost always in history. If a nation is laid waste by war, it is generally their own fault. They have sinned against the law which God has appointed for nations. They have lost courage and prudence, and trust in God, and fellow-feeling and unity, and they have become cowardly and selfish andsplit up into parties, and so they are easily conquered by their ownfault, as the Bible tells us the Jews were by the Chaldeans; andtheir ruin is God's judgment, God's opinion plainly expressed of whatHe thinks of them for having become cowardly and selfish, andfactious and disinterested. So it is with famine again. Faminescome by a nation's own fault--they are God's plainly spoken opinionof what HE thinks of breaking His laws of industry and thrift, byimprovidence and bad farming. So when a nation becomes poor andbankrupt, it is its own fault; that nation has broken the laws ofpolitical economy which God has appointed for nations, and its ruinis God's judgment, God's plain-spoken opinion again of the sins ofextravagance, idleness, and reckless speculation. 

So with pestilence and cholera. They come only because we breakGod's laws; as the wise poet well says:

Voices from the depths OF NATURE borneWhich vengeance on the guilty head proclaim. 

--"Of nature;" of the order and constitution which God has made forthis world we live in, and which if we break them, though God in hismercy so orders the world that punishment comes but seldom even toour worst offences, yet surely do bring punishment sooner or later ifbroken, in the common course of nature. Yes, my friends, as surelyand naturally as drunkenness punishes itself by a shaking hand and abloated body, so does filth avenge itself by pestilence. Fever andcholera, as you would expect them to be, are the expression of God'sjudgment, God's opinion, God's handwriting on the wall against us forour sins of filth and laziness, foul air, foul food, foul drains, foul bedrooms. Where they are, there is cholera. Where they arenot, there is none, and will be none, because they who do not breakGod's laws, God's laws will not break them. Oh! do not think meharsh, my friends; God knows it is no pleasant thing to have to speakbitter and upbraiding words; but when one travels about this nobleland of England, and sees what a blessed place it might be, if wewould only do God's will, and what a miserable place it is justbecause we will not do God's will, it is enough to make one's soulboil over with sorrow and indignation; and then when one considersthat other men's faults are one's own fault too, that one has beenadding to the heap of sins by one's own laziness, cowardice, ignorance, it is enough to break one's heart--to make one cry withSt. Paul, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from thebody of this death?" Ay, my friends, the state of things in Englandnow is enough to drive an earnest man to despair, if one did not knowthat all our distresses, and this cholera, like the rest, are indeedGOD'S judgments; the judgments and expressed opinions, not of acapricious tyrant, but of a righteous and loving Father, who chastensus just because He loves us, and afflicts us only to teach us Hiswill, which alone is life and happiness. Therefore we may believethat this very cholera is meant to be a blessing; that if we willtake the lesson it brings, it will be a blessing to England. Godgrant that all ranks may take the lesson--that the rich may amendtheir idleness and neglect, and the poor amend their dirt and stupidignorance; then our children will have cause to thank God for thecholera, if it teaches us that cleanliness is indeed next toholiness, if it teaches us, rich and poor, to make the workman's homewhat it ought to be. And believe me, my friends, that day willsurely come; and these distresses, sad as they are for the time, areonly helping to hasten it--the day when the words of the Hebrewprophets shall be fulfilled, where they speak of a state of comfortand prosperity, and civilisation, such as men had never reached intheir time--how the wilderness shall blossom like the rose, and thereshall be heaps of corn high on the mountain-tops, and the citiesshall be green as grass on the earth, instead of being the smoky, stifling hot-beds of disease which they are now--and how from thecity of God streams shall flow for the healing of the nations:strange words, those, and dim; too deep to be explained by any onemeaning, or many meanings, such as our small minds can give them; butfull of blessed cheering hope. For of whatever they speak, theyspeak at least of this--of a time when all sorrow and sighing shallbe done away, when science and civilisation shall go hand in handwith godliness--when God shall indeed dwell in the hearts of men, andHis kingdom shall be fulfilled among them, when "His ways shall beknown upon earth at last, and His saving health among all nations"--of a time when all shall know Him, from the least unto the greatest, and be indeed His children, doing no sin, because they will havegiven up themselves, their selfishness and cruelty and covetousness, and stupidity and laziness, to be changed and renewed into God'slikeness. Then all these distresses and pestilences, which, as Ihave shown you, come from breaking the will of God, will have passedaway like ugly dreams, and all the earth shall be blessed, becauseall the earth shall at last be fulfilling the words of the Lord'sPrayer, and God's will shall be done on earth, even as it is done inheaven. Oh! my friends, have hope. Do you think Christ would havebid us pray for what would never happen? Would He have bid us all topray that God's will might be done unless He had known surely thatGod's will would one day be done by men on earth below even as it isdone in heaven?

XIV--SECOND SERMON ON THE CHOLERA

Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. --EXODUS xx. 5. 

In my sermon last Sunday I said plainly that cholera, fever, and manymore diseases were man's own fault, and that they were God'sjudgments just because they were man's own fault, because they wereGod's plainspoken opinion of the sin of filth and of habits of livingunfit for civilised Christian men. 

But there is an objection which may arise in some of your minds, andif it has not risen in YOUR minds, still it has in other people'soften enough; and therefore I will state it plainly, and answer it asfar as God shall give me wisdom. For it is well to get to the rootof all matters, and of this matter of Pestilence among others; for ifwe do believe this Pestilence to be God's judgment, then it is aspiritual matter most proper to be spoken of in a place like thischurch, where men come as spiritual beings to hear that which isprofitable for their souls. And it IS profitable for their souls toconsider this matter; for it has to do, as I see more and more daily, with the very deepest truths of the Gospel; and accordingly as webelieve the Gospel, and believe really that Jesus Christ is ourSaviour and our King, the New Adam, the firstborn among manybrethren, who has come down to proclaim to us that we are allbrothers in Him--in proportion as we believe THAT, I say, shall weact upon this very matter of public cleanliness. 

The objection which I mean is this: people say it is very hard andunfair to talk of cholera or fever being people's own fault, when yousee persons who are not themselves dirty, and innocent littlechildren, who if they are dirty are only so because they are broughtup so, catch the infection and die of it. You cannot say it is theirfault. Very true. I did not say it was their fault. I did not saythat each particular person takes the infection by his own fault, though I do say that nine out of ten do. And as for little children, of course it is not their fault. But, my friends, it must besomeone's fault. No one will say that the world is so ill made thatthese horrible diseases must come in spite of all man's care. If itwas so, plagues, pestilences, and infectious fevers would be just ascommon now in England, and just as deadly as they were in old times;whereas there is not one infectious fever now in England for ten thatthere used to be five hundred years ago. In ancient times fevers, agues, plague, smallpox, and other diseases, whose very names wecannot now understand, so completely are they passed away, sweptEngland from one end to the other every few years, killing fivepeople where they now kill one. Those diseases, as I said, have manyof them now died out entirely; and those which remain are becomingless and less dangerous every year. And why? Simply because peopleare becoming more cleanly and civilised in their habits of living;because they are tilling and draining the land every year more andmore, instead of leaving it to breed disease, as all uncultivatedland does. It is not merely that doctors are becoming wiser: weourselves are becoming more reasonable in our way of living. Forinstance, in large districts both of Scotland and of the Englishfens, where fever and ague filled the country and swept off hundredsevery spring and fall thirty years ago, fever and ague are now almostunknown, simply because the marshes have all been drained in themeantime. So you see that people can prevent these disorders, andtherefore it must be someone's fault if they come. Now, whose faultis it? You dare not lay the blame on God. And yet you do lay thefault on God if you say that it is no MAN'S fault that children dieof fever. But I know what the answer to that will be: "We do notaccuse God--it is the fault of the fall, Adam's curse which broughtdeath and disease into the world. " That is a common answer, and thevery one I want to hear. What? is it just to say, as many do, thatall the diseases which ever tormented poor little innocent childrenall over the world, came from Adam's sinning six thousand years ago, and yet that it is unfair to say that one little child's fever camefrom his parents' keeping a filthy house a month ago? That isswallowing a camel and straining at a gnat--that God should be justin punishing all mankind for Adam's sin, and yet unjust in punishingone little child for its parents' sin. If the one is just the othermust be just too, I think. If you believe the one, why not believethe other? Why? Because Adam's curse and "original" sin, as peoplecall it, is a good and pleasant excuse for laying our sins andmiseries at Adam's door; but the same rule is not so pleasant in thecase of filth and fever, when it lays other people's miseries at ourdoor. 

I believe that all the misery in the world sprung from Adam'sdisobedience and falling from God. "By one man sin entered theworld, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men, even onthose who had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression. "So says the Bible, and I believe it says so truly. For this is thelaw of the earth, God's law which He proclaimed in the text. He doesvisit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third andfourth generation of those who hate Him. It is so. You see itaround you daily. No one can deny it. Just as death and miseryentered into the world by one man, so we see death and miseryentering into many a family. A man or woman is a drunkard, or arogue, or a swearer: how often their children grow up like them! Wehave all seen that, God knows, in this very parish. How much more ingreat cities, where boys and girls by thousands--oh, shame that itshould be so in a Christian land!--grow up thieves from the breast, and harlots from the cradle. And why? Why are there, as they say, and I am afraid say too truly, in London alone upwards of 10, 000children under sixteen who live by theft and harlotry? Because theparents of these children are as bad as themselves--drunkards, thieves, and worse--and they bring up their children to follow theircrimes. If that is not the fathers' sins being visited on thechildren, what is?

How often, again, when we see a wild young man, we say, and justly:"Poor fellow! there are great excuses for him, he has been so badlybrought up. " True, but his wildness will ruin him all the same, whether it be his father's fault or his own that he became wild. Ifhe drinks he will ruin his health; if he squanders his money he willgrow poor. God's laws cannot stop for him; he is breaking them, andthey will avenge themselves on him. You see the same thingeverywhere. A man fools away his money, and his innocent childrensuffer for it. A man ruins his health by debauchery, or a woman hersby laziness or vanity or self-indulgence, and her children grow upweakly and inherit their parents' unhealthiness. How often again, dowe see passionate parents have passionate children, stupid parentsstupid children, mean and lying parents mean and lying children;above all, ignorant and dirty parents have ignorant and dirtychildren. How can they help being so? They cannot keep themselvesclean by instinct; they cannot learn without being taught: and sothey suffer for their parents' faults. But what is all this exceptGod's visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children? Look againat a whole parish; how far the neglect or the wickedness of one manmay make a whole estate miserable. There is one parish in this veryunion, and the curse of the whole union it is, which will show usthat fearfully enough. See, too, how often when a good and generousyoung man comes into his estate, he finds it so crippled with debtsand mortgages by his forefathers' extravagance, that he cannot do thegood he would to his tenants, he cannot fulfil his duty as landlordwhere God has placed him, and so he and the whole estate must sufferfor the follies of generations past. If that is not God visiting thesins of the fathers on the children, what is it?

Look again at a whole nation; the rulers of two countries quarrel, orpretend to quarrel, and go to war--and some here know what war is--just because there is some old grudge of a hundred years standingbetween two countries, or because rulers of whose names the countrypeople, perhaps, never heard, have chosen to fall out, or becausetheir forefathers by cowardice, or laziness, or division, or someother sin, have made the country too weak to defend itself; and forthat poor people's property is destroyed, and little infantsbutchered, and innocent women suffer unspeakable shame. If that isnot God visiting the sins of the fathers on the children, what is it?

It is very awful, but so it is. It is the law of this earth, the lawof human kind, that the innocent often suffer for other's faults, just as you see them doing in cholera, fever, ague, smallpox, andother diseases which man can prevent if he chooses to take thetrouble. There it is. We cannot alter it. Those who will may callGod unjust for it. Let them first see, whether He is not only mostjust, but most merciful in making the world so, and no other way. Ido not merely mean that whatever God does must be right. That istrue, but it is a poor way of getting over the difficulty. God hastaught us what is right and wrong, and He will be judged by His ownrules. As Abraham said to Him when Sodom was to be destroyed: "Thatbe far from Thee, to punish the righteous with the wicked. Shall notthe Judge of all the earth do right?" Abraham knew what was right, and he expected God not to break that law of right. And we mayexpect the same of God. And I may be able, I hope, in my sermon nextSunday, to show you that in this matter God does break the law ofright. Nevertheless, in the meantime, this is His way of dealingwith men. When Sodom was destroyed He brought righteous Lot out ofit. But Sodom was destroyed, and in it many a little infant who hadnever known sin. And just so when Lisbon was swallowed up by anearthquake, ninety years ago, the little children perished as well asthe grown people--just as in the Irish famine fever last year, many adoctor and Roman Catholic priest, and Protestant clergyman, caughtthe fever and died while they were piously attending on the sick. They were acting like righteous men doing their duty at their posts;but God's laws could not turn aside for them. Improvidence, andmisrule, which had been working and growing for hundreds of years, had at last brought the famine fever, and even the righteous mustperish by it. They had their sins, no doubt, as we all have; butthen they were doing God's work bravely and honestly enough, yet thefever could not spare them any more than it could spare the childrenof the filthy parents, though they had not kept pigsties under theirwindows, nor cesspools at their doors. It could not spare them anymore than it can spare the tenants of the negligent or covetoushouse-owner, because it is his fault and not theirs that his housesare undrained, overcrowded, destitute--as whole streets in many largetowns are--of the commonest decencies of life. It may be thelandlord's fault, but the tenants suffer. God visits the sins of thefathers upon the children, and landlords ought to be fathers to theirtenants, and must become fathers to them some day, and that soon, unless they intend that the Lord should visit on them all their sins, and their forefathers' also, even unto the third and fourthgeneration. 

For do not fancy that because the innocent suffer with the guiltythat therefore the guilty escape. Seldom do they escape in thisworld, and in the world to come never. The landlord who, as too manydo, neglects his cottages till they become man-sties, to breedpauperism and disease--the parents whose carelessness and dirt poisontheir children and neighbours into typhus and cholera--theirbrother's blood will cry against them out of the ground. It will berequired at their hands sooner or later, by Him who beholds iniquityand wrong, and who will not be satisfied in the day of His vengeanceby Cain's old answer, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

We are every one of us our brother's keeper; and if we do not chooseto confess that, God will prove it to us in a way that we cannotmistake. A wise man tells a story of a poor Irish widow who came toLiverpool and no one would take her in or have mercy on her, till, from starvation and bad lodging, as the doctor said, she caughttyphus fever, and not only died herself, but gave the infection tothe whole street, and seventeen persons died of it. "See, " says thewise man, "the poor Irish widow was the Liverpool people's sisterafter all. She was of the same flesh and blood as they. The feverthat killed her killed them, but they would not confess that theywere her brothers. They shut their doors upon her, and so there wasno way left for her to prove her relationship, but by killingseventeen of them with fever. " A grim jest that, but a true one, like Elijah's jest to the Baal priests on Carmel. A true one, I say, and one that we have all need to lay to heart. 

And I do earnestly trust in you that you will lay it to heart. Wehave had our fair warning here. We have had God's judgment about ourcleanliness; His plain spoken opinion about the sanitary state ofthis parish. We deserve the fever, I am afraid; not a house in whichit has appeared but has had some glaring neglect of commoncleanliness about it; and if we do not take the warning God willsurely some day repeat it. It will repeat itself by the necessarylaws of nature; and we shall have the fever among us again, just asthe cholera has reappeared in the very towns, and the very streets, where it was seventeen years ago, wherever they have not repented ofand amended their filth and negligence. And I say openly, that thosewho have escaped this time may not escape next. God has madeexamples, and by no means always of the worst cottages. God's planis to take one and leave another by way of warning. "It is expedientthat one man should die for the people, and that the whole nationperish not" is a great and a sound law, and we must profit by it. Solet not those who have escaped the fever fancy that they must needsbe without fault. "Think ye that those sixteen on whom the tower ofSiloam fell and slew them, were sinners above all those that dwelt atJerusalem? I say unto you, Nay, but except ye repent, ye shall alllikewise perish. "

And I say again, as I said last Sunday, that this is a spiritualquestion, a Gospel sermon; for by your conduct in this matter willyour faith in the Gospel be proved. If you really believe that JesusChrist came down from heaven and sacrificed Himself for you, you willbe ready to sacrifice yourselves in this matter for those for whom Hedied; to sacrifice, without stint, your thought, your time, yourmoney, and your labour. If you really believe that He is the swornenemy of all misery and disease, you will show yourselves too thesworn enemies of everything that causes misery and disease, and worktogether like men to put all pestilential filth and damp out of thisparish. If you really believe that you are all brothers, equal inthe sight of God and Christ, you will do all you can to save yourbrothers from sickness and the miseries which follow it. If youreally believe that your children are God's children, that at baptismGod declares your little ones to be His, you will be ready to takeany care or trouble, however new or strange it may seem, to keep yourchildren safe from all foul smells, foul food, foul water, and foulair, that they may grow up healthy, hearty, and cleanly, fit to serveGod as christened, free, and civilised Englishmen should in thisgreat and awful time, the most wonderful time that the earth has everseen, into which it has pleased God of His great mercy to let us allbe born. 

XV--THIRD SERMON ON THE CHOLERA

I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of theFathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation ofthem that hate me. --EXODUS xx. 6. 

Many of you were perhaps surprised and puzzled by my saying in mylast sermon that God's visiting the sins of the fathers on thechildren, and letting the innocent suffer for the guilty, was ablessing and not a curse--a sign of man's honour and redemption, notof his shame and ruin. But the more I have thought of those words, the more glad I am that I spoke them boldly, the more true I findthem to be. 

I say that there is in them the very deepest and surest ground forhope. "Yes, " some of you may say, "to be sure when we see theinnocent suffering for the guilty, it is a plain proof that anotherworld must come some day, in which all that unfairness shall be setright. " Well, my friends, it does prove that, but I should be verysorry if it did not prove a great deal more than that--this sufferingof the innocent for the guilty. I have no heart to talk to you aboutthe next life, unless I can give you some comfort, some reason fortrusting in God in this life. I never saw much good come of it. Inever found it do my own soul any good, to be told: "THIS life andTHIS world in which you now live are given up irremediably to misruleand deceit, poverty and pestilence, death and the devil. You cannotexpect to set this world right--you must look to the next world. Everything will be set right there. " That sounds fine and resigned;and there seems to be a great deal of trust in God in it; but, as Ithink, there is little or none; and I say so from the fruits I see itbear. If people believe that this world is the devil's world, andonly the next world God's, they are easily tempted to say: "Verywell, then, we must serve the devil in this world, and God in thenext. We must, of course, take great care to get our souls savedwhen we die, that we may go to heaven and live for ever and ever; butas to this world and this life, why, we must follow the ways of theworld. It is not our fault that they have nothing to do with God. It is not our fault that society and the world are all rotten andaccursed; we found them so when we were born, and we must make thebest of a bad matter and sail as the world does, and be covetous andmean and anxious--how can we help it?--and stand on our own rights, and take care of number one; and even do what is not quite right nowand then--for how can we help it?--or how else shall we get on inthis poor lost, fallen, sinful world!"

And so it comes, my friends, that you see people professing--ay, andbelieving, Gospel doctrines, and struggling and reading, and, as theyfancy, praying, morning, noon, and night, to get their own soulssaved--who yet, if you are to judge by their conduct, are littlebetter than rogues and heathens; whose only law of life seems to bethe fear of what people will say of them; who, like Balaam the son ofBosor, are trying daily to serve the devil without God finding itout, worshipping the evil spirit, as that evil spirit wanted ourblessed Lord to do, because they believed his lie, which Christdenied--that the glory of this world belongs to the evil one; andthen comforting themselves like Balaam their father, in the hope thatthey shall die the death of the righteous, and their last end be likehis. 

Now I say my friends that this is a lie, and comes from the father oflies, who tempts every man, as he tempted our Lord, to believe thatthe power and glory of this world are his, that man's flesh and body, if not his soul, belongs to him. I say, it is no such thing. Theworld is God's world. Man is God's creature, made in God's image, and not in that of a beast or a devil. The kingdom, the power, andthe glory, ARE God's now. You say so every day in the Lord's Prayer--believe it. St. James tells you not to curse men, because they aremade in the likeness of God now--not WILL be made in God's likenessafter they die. Believe that; do not be afraid of it, strange as itmay seem to understand. It is in the Bible, and you profess tobelieve that what is in the Bible is true. And I say that thissuffering of the innocent for the guilty is a proof of that. If manwas not made so that the innocent could suffer for the guilty, hecould not have been redeemed at all, for there would have been no useor meaning in Christ's dying for us, the just for the unjust. Andmore, if the innocent could not suffer for the guilty we should belike the beasts that perish. 

Now, why? Because just in proportion as any creature is low--I meanin the scale of life--just in that proportion it does without itsfellow-creatures, it lives by itself and cares for no other of itskind. A vegetable is a meaner thing than an animal, and one greatsign of its being meaner is, that vegetables cannot do each other anygood--cannot help each other--cannot even hurt each other, except ina mere mechanical way, by overgrowing each other or robbing eachother's roots; but what would it matter to a tree if all the othertrees in the world were to die? So with wild animals. What mattersit to a bird or a beast, whether other birds and beasts are ill offor well off, wise or stupid? Each one takes care of itself--each oneshifts for itself. But you will say "Bees help each other and dependupon each other for life and death. " True, and for that very reasonwe look upon bees as being more wise and more wonderful than almostany animals, just because they are so much like us human beings independing on each other. You will say again, that among dogs, ariotous hound will lead a whole pack wrong--a staunch and well-brokenhound will keep a whole pack right; and that dogs do depend upon eachother in very wonderful ways. Most true, but that only proves morecompletely what I want to get at. It is the TAME dog, which man hastaken and broken in, and made to partake more or less of man's wisdomand cunning, who depends on his fellow-dogs. The wild dogs inforeign countries, on the other hand, are just as selfish, livingevery one for himself, as so many foxes might be. And you find thissame rule holding as you rise. The more a man is like a wild animal, the more of a SAVAGE he is, so much more he depends on himself, andnot on others--in short, the less civilised he is; for civilisedmeans being a citizen, and learning to live in cities, and to helpand depend upon each other. And our common English word "civil"comes from the same root. A man is "civil" who feels that he dependsupon his neighbours, and his neighbours on him; that they are hisfellow-citizens, and that he owes them a duty and a friendship. And, therefore, a man is truly and sincerely civil, just in proportion ashe is civilised; in proportion as he is a good citizen, a goodChristian--in one word, a GOOD MAN. 

Ay, that is what I want to come to, my friends--that word MAN, andwhat it means. The law of man's life, the constitution and order onwhich, and on no other, God has made man, is THIS--to depend upon hisfellow-men, to be their brothers, in flesh and in spirit; for we arebrothers to each other. God made of one blood all nations to dwellon the face of the earth. The same food will feed us all alike. Thesame cholera will kill us all alike. And we can give the cholera toeach other; we can give each other the infection, not merely by ourtouch and breath, for diseased beasts can do that, but by housing ourfamilies and our tenants badly, feeding them badly, draining the landaround them badly. This is the secret of the innocent suffering forthe guilty, in pestilences, and famines, and disorders, which arehanded down from father to child, that we are all of the same blood. This is the reason why Adam's sin infected our whole race. Adamdied, and through him all his children have received a certainproperty of sinfulness and of dying, just as one bee transmits to allhis children and future generations the property of making honey, ora lion transmits to all its future generations the property of beinga beast of prey. For by sinning and cutting himself off from GodAdam gave way to the lower part of him, his flesh, his animal nature, and therefore he died as other animals do. And we his children, whoall of us give way to our flesh, to our animal nature, every hour, alas! we die too. And in proportion as we give way to our animalnatures we are liable to die; and the less we give way to our animalnatures, the less we are liable to die. We have all sinned; we haveall become fleshly animal creatures more or less; and therefore wemust all die sooner or later. But in proportion as we becomeChristians, in proportion as we become civilised, in short, inproportion as we become true men, and conquer and keep in order thisflesh of ours, and this earth around us, by the teaching of God'sspirit, as we were meant to do, just so far will length of lifeincrease and population increase. For while people are savages, thatis, while they give themselves up utterly to their own fleshly lusts, and become mere animals like the wild Indians, they cannot increasein number. They are exposed, by their own lusts and ignorance andlaziness, to every sort of disease; they turn themselves into beastsof prey, and are continually fighting and destroying each other, sothat they, seldom or never increase in numbers, and by war, drunkenness, smallpox, fevers, and other diseases too horrible tomention, the fruit of their own lusts, whole tribes of them are sweptutterly off the face of the earth. And why? They are like thebeasts, and like the beasts they perish. Whereas, just in proportionas any nation lives according to the spirit and not according to theflesh; in proportion as it conquers its own fleshly appetites whichtempt it to mere laziness, pleasure, and ignorance, and livesaccording to the spirit in industry, cleanliness, chaste marriage, and knowledge, earthly and heavenly, the length of life and thenumber of the population begin to increase at once, just as they aredoing, thank God! in England now; because Englishmen are learningmore and more that this earth is God's earth, and that He works it byrighteous and infallible laws, and has put them on it to till it andsubdue it; that civilisation and industry are the cause of Christ andof God; and that without them His kingdom will not come, neither willHis will be done on earth. 

But now comes a very important question. The beasts are none theworse for giving way to their flesh and being mere animals. Theyincrease and multiply and are happy enough; whereas men, if they giveway to their flesh and become animals, become fewer and weaker, andstupider, and viler, and more miserable, generation after generation. Why? Because the animals are meant to be animals, and men are not. Men are meant to be men, and conquer their animal nature by thestrength which God gives to their spirits. And as long as they donot do so; as long as they remain savage, sottish, ignorant, they areliving in a lie, in a diseased wrong state, just as God did NOT meanthem to live; and therefore they perish; therefore these fevers, andagues, and choleras, war, starvation, tyranny, and all the ills whichflesh is heir to, crush them down. Therefore they are at the mercyof the earth beneath their feet, and the skies above their head; atthe mercy of rain and cold; at the mercy of each other's selfishness, laziness, stupidity, cruelty; in short, at the mercy of the brutematerial earth, and their own fleshly lusts and the fleshly lusts ofothers, because they love to walk after the flesh and not after thespirit--because they like the likeness of the old Adam who is of theearth earthy, better than that of the new Adam who is the Lord fromheaven--because they like to be animals, when Christ has made them inhis own image, and redeemed them with His own blood, and taught themwith His own example, and made them men. He who will be a man, lethim believe that he is redeemed by Christ, and must be like Christ ineverything he says and does. If he would carry that out, if he wouldlive perfectly by faith in God, if he would do God's will utterly andin all things he would soon find that those glorious old words stillstood true: "Thou shalt not be afraid of the arrow by night, nor ofthe pestilence which walketh in the noonday; a thousand shall fall atthy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not comenigh thee. " For such a man would know how to defend himself againstevil; God would teach him not only to defend himself, but to defendthose around him. He would be like his Lord and Master, a fountainof wisdom and healing and safety to all his neighbours. We might anyone of us be that. It is everyone's fault more or less that he isnot. Each of us who is educated, civilised, converted to theknowledge and love of God, it is his sin and shame that he is NOTthat. Above all, it is the clergyman's sin and shame that he is not. Ay, believe me, when I blame you, I blame myself ten thousand timesmore. I believe there is many a sin and sorrow from which I mighthave saved you here, if I had dealt with you more as a man shoulddeal who believes that you and I are brothers, made in the same imageof God, redeemed by the same blood of Christ. And I believe that Ishall be punished for every neglect of you for which I have been everguilty. I believe it, and I thank God for it; for I do not see how aclergyman, or anyone else, can learn his duty, except by God'sjudging him, and punishing him, and setting his sins before his face. 

Yes, my friends, it is good for us to be afflicted, good for us tosuffer anything that will teach us this great truth, that we are ourbrother's keepers; that we are all one family, and that where one ofthe members suffers, all the other members suffer with it; and thatif one of the members has cause to rejoice, all the others will havecause to rejoice with it. A blessed thing to know, is that--thoughwhether we know it or not, we shall find it true. If we give way toour animal nature, and try to live as the beasts do, each one caringfor his own selfish pleasure--still we shall find out that we cannotdo it. We shall find out, as those Liverpool people did with theIrish widow, that our fellow-men ARE our brothers--that what hurtsthem will be sure in some strange indirect way to hurt us. Ourbrothers here have had the fever, and we have escaped; but we havefelt the fruits of it, in our purses--in fear, and anxiety, anddistress, and trouble--we have found out that they could not have thefever without our suffering for it, more or less. You see we are onefamily, we men and women; and our relationship will assert itself inspite of our forgetfulness and our selfishness. How much better toclaim our brotherhood with each other, and to act upon it--to live asbrothers indeed. That would be to make it a blessing, and not acurse; for as I said before, just because it is in our power toinjure each other, therefore it is in our power to help each other. God has bound us together for good and for evil, for better forworse. Oh! let it be henceforward in this parish for better, and notfor worse. Oh! every one of you, whether you be rich or poor, farmeror labourer, man or woman, do not be ashamed to own yourselves to bebrothers and sisters, members of one family, which as it all felltogether in the old Adam, so it has all risen together in the newAdam, Jesus Christ. There is no respect of persons with God. We areall equal in His sight. He knows no difference among men, except thedifference which God's Spirit gives, in proportion as a man listensto the teaching of that Spirit--rank in godliness and true manhood. Oh! believe that--believe that because you owe an infinite debt toChrist and to God--His Father and your Father--therefore you owe aninfinite debt to your neighbours, members of Christ and children ofGod just as you are--a debt of love, help, care, which you CAN, pay, just because you are members of one family; for because you aremembers of one family, for that very reason every good deed you dofor a neighbour does not stop with that neighbour, but goes onbreeding and spreading, and growing and growing, for aught we know, for ever. Just as each selfish act we do, each bitter word we speak, each foul example we set, may go on spreading from mouth to mouth, from heart to heart, from parent to child, till we may injuregenerations yet unborn; so each noble and self-sacrificing deed wedo, each wise and loving word we speak, each example we set ofindustry and courage, of faith in God and care for men, may and willspread on from heart to heart, and mouth to mouth, and teach othersto do and be the like; till people miles away, who never heard of ournames, may have cause to bless us for ever and ever. This is one andonly one of the glorious fruits of our being one family. This is oneand only one of the reasons which make me say that it was a goodthing mankind was so made that the innocent suffer for the guilty. For just as the innocent are injured by the guilty in this world, even so are the guilty preserved, and converted, and brought backagain by the innocent. Just as the sins of the fathers are visitedon the children, so is the righteousness of the fathers a blessing tothe children; else, says St. Paul, our children would be unclean, butnow they are holy. For the promises of God are not only to us, butto our children, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call. Andthus each generation, by growing in virtue and wisdom and theknowledge of God, will help forward all the generations which followit to fuller light and peace and safety; and each parent in trying tolive like a Christian man himself, will make it easier for hischildren to live like Christians after him. And this rule applieseven in the things which we are too apt to fancy unimportant--everyhouse kept really clean, every family brought up in habits ofneatness and order, every acre of foul land drained, every newimprovement in agriculture and manufactures or medicine, is a cleargain to all mankind, a good example set which is sure sooner or laterto find followers, perhaps among generations yet unborn, and incountries of which we never heard the name. 

Was I not right then in saying that this earth is not the devil'searth at all, but a right good earth, of God's making and ruling, wherein no good deed will perish fruitless, but every man's workswill follow him--a right good earth, governed by a righteous Father, who, as the psalm says "is merciful, " just "because He rewards everyman according to his work. "

XVI--ON THE DAY OF THANKSGIVING

(Nov. 15th, 1849. )

God hath visited his people. --LUKE vii. 16. 

We are assembled this day to thank God solemnly for the passing awayof the cholera from England; and we must surely not forget to thankHim at the same time for the passing away of the fever, which hascaused so much expense, sorrow, and death among us. Now I wish tosay a very few words to you on this same matter, to show you not onlyhow to be thankful to God, but what to be thankful for. You may say:It is easy enough for us to know what to thank God for in this case. We come to thank Him, as we have just said in the public prayers, forhaving withdrawn this heavy visitation from us. If so, my friends, what we shall thank Him for depends on what we mean by talking of avisitation from God. 

Now I do not know what people may think in this parish, but I suspectthat very many all over England do NOT know what to thank God forjust now; and are altogether thanking him for the wrong thing--for athing which, very happily for them, He has NOT done for them, andwhich, if He had done it for them, would have been worse for themthan all the evil which ever happened to them from their youth upuntil now. To be plain then, many, I am afraid, are thanking God forhaving gone away and left them. While the cholera was here, theysaid that God was visiting them; and now that the cholera is over, they consider that God's visit is over too, and are joyful and lightof heart thereat. If God's visit is over, my friends, and He is goneaway from us; if He is not just as near us now as He was in theheight of the cholera, the best thing we can do is to turn to Himwith fasting, and weeping, and mourning, and roll ourselves in thedust, and instead of thanking our Father for going away, pray to Him, of his infinite mercy, to condescend to come back again and visit us, even though, as superstitious and ignorant men believe, God'svisiting us were sure to bring cholera, or plague, or pestilence, orfamine, or some other misery. For I read, that in His presence islife and not death--at His right hand is fulness of joy, and nottribulation and mourning and woe; but if not, it were better to bewith God in everlasting agony, than to be in everlasting happinesswithout God. 

Here is a strange confusion--people talking one moment like St. Paulhimself, desiring to be with Christ and God for ever, and then in thesame breath talking like the Gadarenes of old, when, after Christ hadvisited them, and judged their sins by driving their unlawful herd ofswine into the sea, they answered by beseeching Him to depart out oftheir coasts. 

Why is this confusion?--Because people do not take the trouble toread their Bibles; because they bring their own loose, careless, cantnotions with them when they open their Bibles, and settle beforehandwhat the Bible is to tell them, and then pick and twist texts tillthey make them mean just what they like and no more. There is nofolly, or filth, or tyranny, or blasphemy, which men have notdefended out of the Bible by twisting it in this way. The Bible isbetter written than that, my friends. He that runs may read, if hehas sense to read. The wayfaring man, though simple, shall make nosuch mistake therein, if he has God's Spirit in him--the spirit offaith, which believes that the Bible is God's message to men--thehumble spirit, which is willing to listen to that message, howeverstrange or new it may seem to him--the earnest spirit, which readsthe Bible really to know what a man shall do to be saved. Look atyour Bibles thus, my friends, about this matter. Read all the textswhich speak of God's visiting and God's visitation, and you will findall the confusion and strangeness vanish away. For see! The Bibletalks of the Lord visiting people in His wrath--visiting them fortheir sins--visiting them with sore plagues and punishments, aboutforty times. But the Bible speaks very nearly as often of God'svisiting people to bring them blessings and not punishments. TheBible says God visited Sarah and Hannah to give them what they mostdesired--children. God visited the people of Israel in Egypt todeliver them out of slavery. In the book of Ruth we read how theLord visited His people in giving them bread. The Psalmist, in thecaptivity at Babylon, PRAYS God to visit him with His salvation. Theprophet Jeremiah says that it was a sign of God's anger against theJews that He had not visited them; and the prophets promised againand again to their countrymen, how, after their seventy years'captivity in Babylon, the Lord would visit them, and what for?--Tobring them back into their own land with joy, and heap them withevery blessing--peace and wealth, freedom and righteousness. So itis in the New Testament too. Zacharias praised God: "Blessed be theLord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people;through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from onhigh hath visited us. " And that was the reason why I chose Luke vii. 16, for my text--only because it is an example of the same thing. The people, it says, praised God, saying: "A great Prophet is risenup among us, and God hath visited His people. " And in the 14th ofActs we read how God visited the Gentiles, not to punish them, but totake out of them a people for His name, namely, Cornelius and hishousehold. And lastly, St. Peter tells Christian people to glorifyGod in the day of visitation, as I tell you now--whether Hisvisitation comes in the shape of cholera, or fever, or agriculturaldistress; or whether it comes in the shape of sanitary reform, andplenty of work, and activity in commerce; whether it seems to yougood or evil, glorify God for it. Thank Him for it. Bless Him forit. Whether His visitation brings joy or sorrow, it surely brings ablessing with it. Whether God visits in wrath or in love, still Godvisits. God shows that He lives; God shows us that He has notforgotten us; God shows us that He is near us. Christ shows us thatHis words are true: "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of theworld. "

That is a hard lesson to learn and practise, though not a verydifficult one to understand. I will try now to make you understandit--God alone can teach you to practise it. I pray and hope, and Ibelieve too, that He will--that these very hard times are meant toteach people REALLY to believe in God and Jesus Christ, and that theyWILL teach people. God knows we need, and thanks be to Him that HeDOES know that we need, to be taught to believe in Him. Nothingshows it to me more plainly than the way we talk about God'svisitations, as if God was usually away from us, and came to us onlyjust now and then--only on extraordinary occasions. People havegross, heathen, fleshly, materialist notions of God's visitations, asif He was some great earthly king who now and then made a journeyabout his dominions from place to place, rewarding some and punishingothers. God is not in any place, my friends. God is a Spirit. Theheaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain Him if He wanted aplace to be in, as, glory be to His name, He does not. If He is nearus or far from us, it is not that He is near or far from our bodies, as the Queen might be nearer to us in London than in Scotland, whichis most people's notion of God's nearness. He is near, not ourbodies, but our spirits, our souls, our hearts, our thoughts--as itis written, "The kingdom of God is WITHIN you. " Do not fancy thatwhen the cholera was in India, God was nearer India than He was toEngland, and that as the cholera crawled nearer and nearer, God camenearer and nearer too; and that now the cholera is gone awaysomewhere or other, God is gone away somewhere or other too, to leaveus to our own inventions. God forbid a thousand times! As St. Paulsays: "He is not far from any one of us. " "In Him we live and moveand have our being, " cholera or none. Do you think Christ, the Kingof the earth, is gone away either--that while things go on rightly, and governments, and clergy, and people do right, Christ is therethen, filling them all with His Spirit and guiding them all to theirduty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergydumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and menare crying for work and cannot get it, and every man's hand isagainst his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and onearth is distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failingthem for fear, and for dread of those things which are coming on theearth--do you think that in such times as those, Christ is the leastfarther off from us than He was at the best of times?--The leastfarther off from us now than He was from the apostles at the firstWhitsuntide? God forbid!--God forbid a thousand times! He haspromised Himself, He that is faithful and true, He that will neverdeny Himself, though men deny Him, and say He is not here, becausetheir eyes are blinded with love of the world, and covetousness andbigotry, and dread lest He, their Master, should come and find thembeating the men-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinkingwith the drunken in the high places of the earth, and saying: "Tush!God hath forgotten it"--ay, though men have forgotten Him thus, and--worse than thus, yet He hath said it--"Lo, I am with you alway, evenunto the end of the world. " Why, evil times are the very times ofwhich Christ used to speak as the "days of the Lord, " and the "daysof the Son of man. " Times when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity--what does He tellmen to do in them? To go whining about, and say that Christ has leftHis Church? No! "Then, " He says, "when all these things come topass, then rejoice and lift up your heads, for your redemptiondraweth nigh. "

And yet the Scripture does most certainly speak of the Lord's comingout of His place to visit--of the Son of Man coming, and not comingto men--of His visiting us at one time and not at another. How doesthat agree with what I have just said? My dear friends, we shall seethat it agrees perfectly with what I have said, if we will only justremember that we are not beasts, but men. It may seem a strangething to have to remind people of, but it is just what they arealways forgetting. My friends, we are not animals, we are notspiders to do nothing but spin, or birds only to build nests forourselves, much less swine to do nothing but dig after roots andfruits, and get what we can out of the clods of the ground. We arethe children of the Most High God; we have immortal souls within us;nay, more, we are our souls: our bodies are our husk--our shell--ourclothes--our house--changing day by day, and year by year upon us, one day to drop off us till the Resurrection. But WE are our SOULS, and when God visits, it is our souls He visits, not merely ourbodies. There is the whole secret. People forget God, and thereforethey are glad to fancy that He has forgotten them, and has nothing todo with this world of His which they are misusing for their ownselfish ends; and then God in His mercy visits them. He knocks atthe door of their hearts, saying: "See! I was close to you all thewhile. " He forces them to see Him and to confess that He is therewhether they choose or not. God is not away from the world. He isaway from people's hearts, because He has given people free wills, and with free wills the power of keeping Him out of their hearts orletting Him in. And when God visits He forces Himself on ourattention. He knocks at the door of our hard hearts so loudly andsharply that He forces all to confess that He is there--all who arenot utterly reprobate and spiritually dead. In blessings as well asin curses, God knocks at our hearts. By sudden good fortune, as wellas by sudden mishap; by a great deliverance from enemies, by anabundant harvest, as well as by famine and pestilence. Thereforethis cholera has been a true visitation of God. The poor had fanciedthat they might be as dirty, the rich had fancied that they might beas careless, as they chose; in short, that they might break God'slaws of cleanliness and brotherly care without His troubling Himselfabout the matter. And lo! He has visited us; and shown us that Hedoes care about the matter by taking it into His own hands with avengeance. He who cannot see God's hand in the cholera must be asblind--as blind as who?--as blind as he that cannot see God's handwhen there is no cholera; as blind as he who cannot see God's hand inevery meal he eats, and every breath he draws; for that man is stoneblind--he can be no blinder. The cholera came; everyone ought to seethat it did not come by blind chance, but by the will of some wiseand righteous Person; for in the first place God gave us fairwarning. The cholera came from India at a steady pace. We knew to amonth when it would arrive here. And it came, too, by no blindnecessity, as if it was forced to take people whether it liked ornot. Just as it was in the fever here, so it was in the cholera, "One shall be taken and another left. " It took one of a street andleft another; took one person in a family and left another: it tookthe rich man who fancied he was safe, as well as the poor man who didnot care whether he was safe or not. The respectable man walkinghome to his comfortable house, passed by some untrapped drain, andthen poisonous gas struck him and he died. The rich physician whohad been curing others, could not save himself from the poison of thecrowded graveyard which had been allowed to remain at the back of hishouse. By all sorts of strange and unfathomable judgments thecholera showed itself to be working, not by a blind necessity, but atthe will of a thinking Person, of a living God, whose ways are not asour own ways, and His paths are in the great deep. And yet thecholera showed--and this is what I want to make you feel--that it wasworking at the will of the same God in whom we live and move and haveour being, who sends the food we eat, the water in which we wash, theair we breathe, and who has ordained for all these things naturallaws, according to which they work, and which He never breaks, norallows us to break them. For every case of cholera could be tracedto some breaking of these laws--foul air--foul food--foul water, orcareless and dirty contact with infected persons; so that by this Godshowed that He and not chance ruled the world, and that he was indeedthe living and willing God. He showed at the same time that He wasthe wise God of order and of law; and that gas and earth, wind andvapour, fulfil His word, without His having to break His laws, orvisit us by moving, as people fancy, out of a Heaven where He was, down to an earth, where He was not. 

But, lastly, remember what I told you before, that the cholera beinga visitation means that God, by it, has been visiting our hearts, knocking loudly at them that He may awaken us, and teach us a lesson. And be sure that in the cholera, and this our own parish fever, thereis a lesson for each and every one of us if we will learn it. To thesimple poor man, first and foremost, God means by the cholera toteach the simple lesson of cleanliness; to the house-owner He meansto teach that each man is his brother's keeper, and responsible forhis property not being a nest of disease; to rulers it is intended toteach the lesson that God's laws cannot be put off to suit theirlaziness, cowardice, or party squabbles. But beside that, to eachperson, be sure such a visitation as this brings some private lesson. Perhaps it has taught many a widow that she has a Friend stronger andmore loving than even the husband whom she has lost by thepestilence--the God of the widow and the fatherless. Perhaps it hastaught many a strong man not to trust in his strength and his youth, but in the God who gave them to him. Perhaps it has taught many aman, too, who has expected public authorities to do everything forhim, "not to put his trust in princes, nor in any child of man, forthere is no help in them, " but to hear God's advice, "Help thyselfand God will help thee. " Perhaps it has stirred up many a benevolentman to find out fresh means for rooting out the miseries of society. Perhaps it has taught many a philosopher new deep truths about thelaws of God's world, which may enable him to enlighten and comfortages yet unborn. Perhaps it has awakened many a slumbering heart, and brought many a careless sinner (for the first time in his life)face to face with God and his own sins. God's judgments aremanifold; they are meant to work in different ways on differenthearts. But oh! believe and be sure that they are meant to work uponall hearts--that they are not the punishments of a capricious tyrant, but the rod of a loving Father, who is trying to drive us home intoHis fold, when gentle entreaties and kind deeds have failed to allureus home. Oh my friends! if you wish really to thank God for havingpreserved you from these pestilences, show your thankfulness bylearning the lesson which they bring. God's love has spoken of eachand every one of us in the cholera. Be sure He has spoken so harshlyonly because a gentler tone of voice would have had no effect uponus. Thank Him for His severity. Thank Him for the cholera, thefever. Thank Him for anything which will awaken us to hear the Wordof the Lord. But till you have learnt the lessons which thesevisitations are meant to teach you, there is no use thanking Him fortaking them away. And therefore I beseech you solemnly, each andall, before you leave this church, now to pray to God to show youwhat lesson He means to teach you by this past awful visitation, andalso by sparing you and me who are here present, not merely fromcholera and fever, but from a thousand mishaps and evils, which wehave deserved, and from which only His goodness has kept us. Oh mayGod stir up your hearts to ask advice of Him this day! and may He inHis great mercy so teach us all His will on this day of joy, that wemay not need to have it taught us hereafter on some day of sorrow. 

XVII--THE COVENANT

The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his ownpossession. For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord isabove all gods. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heavenand earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places. --PSALM cxxxv. 4, 5, 6. 

Were you ever puzzled to find out why the Psalms are read everySunday in Church, more read, indeed, than any other part of theBible? If any of you say, No, I shall not think you the wiser. Itis very easy not to be puzzled with a deep matter, if one neverthinks about it at all. But when a man sets his mind to workseriously, to try to understand what he hears and sees around him, then he will be puzzled, and no shame to him; for he will find thingsevery day of his life which will require years of thought tounderstand, ay, things which, though we see and know that they aretrue, and can use and profit by them, we can never understand at all, at least in this life. 

But I do not think that God meant it to be so with these Psalms. Hemeant the Bible for a poor man's book: and therefore the men whowrote the Bible were almost all of them poor men, at least at onetime or other of their life; and therefore we may expect that theywould write as poor men would write, and such things as poor men mayunderstand, if they are fairly and simply explained. Therefore I donot think you need be puzzled long to find out why these Psalms areread every Sunday. For the men who wrote them had God's spirit withthem; and God's spirit is the spirit in which God made and governsthis world, and just as God cannot change, so God's spirit cannotchange; and therefore the rules and laws according to which the worldruns on cannot change; and therefore these rules about God'sgovernment of the world, which God's spirit taught the old HebrewPsalmists, are the very same rules by which He governs it now; andtherefore all the rules in these Psalms, making allowance for thedifference of circumstances, have just as much to do with France, andGermany, and England now, as they had with the Jews, and theCanaanites, and the Babylonians then. 

St. Paul tells us so. He tells us that all that happened to the oldJews was written as an example to Christians, to the intent that theymight not sin as the Jews did, and so (God's laws and ways being thesame now as then) be punished as the Jews were. Moreover, St. Paulsays, that Christians now are just as much God's chosen people as theJews were. God told the Jews that they were to be a nation of kingsand priests to Him. And St. John opens the Revelations by saying:"Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him beglory. " St. Paul tells the Ephesians, who had not a drop of Jewishblood in their veins, that through Jesus Christ both Jews andGentiles had "access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, "he goes on, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. " In fact, hetells the Christians of every country to which he writes, that allthe promises which God made to the Jews belonged to them just asmuch, that there was no more any difference between Jew and Gentile, that the Lord Jesus Christ was just as really among them, and withthem, ruling and helping each people in their own country, as He wasin Jerusalem when Isaiah saw His glory filling the Temple, and whenZion was called the place of His inheritance. Indeed, the Lord Jesussaid the same thing Himself, for He said that all power was given toHim in heaven and earth; that He was with His churches (that is, withall companies of Christian people, such as England) even to the endof the world; that wherever two or three were gathered together inHis name, He would be in the midst of them; and if those blessedwords and good news be true, we Englishmen have a right to believefirmly that we belong to Him just as much as the old Jews did; andwhen we read these Psalms, to take every word of their good news--andtheir warnings also--to ourselves, and to our own land of England. And when we read in the text, that the Lord chose Jacob unto Himselfand Israel for His own possession, we have a right to say: "And theLord has chosen also England unto himself, and this favoured land ofBritain for his own possession. " When we say in the Psalm: "TheLord did what He pleased in heaven, and earth, and sea, " to educateand deliver the people of the Jews, we have a right to say just asboldly: "And so He has done for England, for us, and for ourforefathers. "

This then is the reason, the chief reason, why these Psalms areappointed to be read every Sunday in church, and every morning andevening where there is daily service--to teach us that the Lord takescare not only of one man's soul here, and another woman's soul there, but of the whole country of England; of its wars and its peace; ofits laws and government, its progress and its afflictions; of all, inshort, that happens to it as a nation, as one body of men, which itis. It must be so, my good friends, else we should be worse off thanthe old Jews, and not better off, as all the New Testament solemnlyassures us a thousand times over that we are. 

For in the covenant which God made with the Jews, and in the strangeevents, good and bad, which He caused to happen to their nation, notonly the great saints among them were taken care of, but all classes, and all characters, good and bad, even those who had not wisdom orspiritual life enough to seek God for themselves, still had theirshare in the good laws, in the teaching and guiding, and in thenational blessings which He sent on the whole nation. They had achance given them of rising, and improving, and prospering, as therest of their countrymen rose, and improved, and prospered. And whenthe Lord came to visit Judaea in flesh and blood, we find that Hewent on the same method. He did not merely go to such men as Philipand Nathaniel, to the holy and elect ones among the Jews, but to thewhole people; to the LOST sheep, as well as to those who were notlost. He did not part the good from the bad before he healed theirsicknesses, and fed them with the loaves and fishes. It was enoughfor Him that they were Jews, citizens of the Jewish nation. God'spromises belonged not to one Jew or another, but to the Jewishnation; and even the ignorant and the sinful had a share in theblessings of the covenant, great or small in proportion as they choseto live as Jews ought, or to forget and deny that they belonged toGod's people. 

Now, surely the Lord cannot be less merciful now than He was then. He cannot care less for poor orphans, and paupers, and wild untaughtcreatures, in England now, than he cared for them in Judaea of old. And we see that in fact He does not. For as the wealth of Englandimproves, and the laws improve, and the knowledge of God improves, the condition of all sorts of poor creatures improves too, thoughthey had no share in bringing about the good change. But we are allmembers of one body, from the Queen on her throne to the tramperunder the hedge; and as St. Paul says: "If one member suffers, allthe members suffer with it, and if one member rejoices, all theothers" sooner or later "rejoice with it. " For we, too, are one ofthe Lord's nations. He has made us one body, with one commonlanguage, common laws, common interest, common religion for all; andwhat He does for one of us He does for all. He orders all thathappens to us; whether it be war or peace, prosperity or dearth, Heorders it all; and He orders things so that they shall work for thegood, not merely of a few, but of as many as possible--not merely forHis elect, but for those who know Him not. As He has been from thebeginning, when He heaped blessings on the stiff-necked andbacksliding Israelites--as He was when He endured the cross for aworld lying not in obedience, but in wickedness; so is He now; theperfect likeness of His father, who is no respecter of persons, butcauses "His sun to shine alike on the evil on the good, and His rainto fall on the just and on the unjust. "

But now, there is one thing against which I have to warn you mostsolemnly, and especially in such days as these. You may believe mywords to your own ruin, or to your own salvation. They are "theGospel, " "the good news of the Kingdom of God"--that is, the goodnews that God has condescended to become our King, to govern andguide us, to order all things for our good. But as St. Paul says, the Gospel may be a savour of death unto death, as well as a savourof life unto life. And I will tell you now; that you have only to dowhat the Jews just before the coming of our Lord did, and give way tothe same thoughts as they, and then, like them, it were better foryou that you had never heard of God, and been like the savages, towhom little or no sin is imputed, because they are all but withoutlaw. How is this?

As I said before--take your covenant privileges as the Pharisees tooktheirs, and they will turn you into devils while you are fancyingyourselves God's especial favourites. Now this was what happened tothe Pharisees: they could not help knowing that God had shownespecial favour to them; and that He had taught them more about Godthan He had taught the heathen. But instead of feeling all the morehumble and thankful for this, and of remembering day and night thatbecause much had been given to them much would be required of them, they thought more about the honour and glory which God had put onthem. They forgot what God had declared, namely, that it was not fortheir own goodness that He had taught them, for that they were inthemselves not a whit better than the heathen around them. Theyforgot that the reason why He taught them was, that they were to doHis work on earth, by witnessing for His name, and telling theheathen that God was their Lord, as well as Lord of the Jews. NowDavid, and the old Psalmists and Prophets, did not forget this. Their cry is: "Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King. ""Worship the Son of God, ye kings of the earth, and make your peacewith Him lest He be angry. " "It was in vain, " he told the heathenkings, "to try to cast away God's government from them, and break Hisbonds from off them, " for "the Lord was King, let the nations benever so unquiet. "

But the Jews gradually forgot this, and their daily boast was, thatGod had nothing to do with the heathen; that He did not care forthem, and actually hated them; that they, as it were, had the trueGod all to themselves for their own private property; and that He hadneither love nor mercy, except for them and their proselytes, thatis, the few heathens whom they could persuade and entice not toworship the true God after the customs of their own country--thatwould not have suited the Jews' bigotry and pride--but to turn Jews, and forget their own people among whom they were born, and ape themin everything. And so, as our Lord told them, after compassing seaand land to make one of these proselytes, they only made him afterall twice as much the child of hell as themselves. For they couldnot teach the heathen anything worth knowing about God, when they hadforgotten themselves what God was like. They could tell them thatthere was one God, and not two--but what was the use of that? As St. James says, the devils believe as much as that, and yet the knowledgedoes not make them holy, but only increases their fear and despair. And so with these Pharisees. They had forgotten that God was love. They had forgotten that God was merciful. They had forgotten thatGod was just. And therefore, while they were talking of God andpretending to worship God, they knew nothing of God, and they did notdo God's will, and act like God; for (as we find from the Gospels)they were unjust, tyrannous, proud, conceited, covetous themselves;and while they were looking down on the poor heathens, these veryheathens, the Lord told them, would rise up in judgment against them:for they, knowing little, acted up to the light which they had, better than the Pharisees who knew so much. And so it will be withus, my friends, if we fancy that God's great favours to us are areason for our priding ourselves on them, and despising papists andforeigners instead of remembering that just because God has given usso much, He will require more of us. It is true, we do know more ofthe Gospel than the papists, how, though they believe in JesusChrist, worship the Virgin Mary and the Saints, and idols of wood andstone. But if they, who know so little of God's will, yet actfaithfully up to what they do know, will they not rise up in judgmentagainst us, who know so much more, if we act worse than they?Instead of despising them, we had better despise ourselves. Insteadof fancying that God's love is not over them, and so sinning againstGod's Holy Spirit by denying and despising the fruits of God's HolySpirit in them, we had much better, we Protestants, be repenting ofour own sins. We had better pray God to open our eyes to our ownwant of faith, and want of love, and want of honesty, and want ofcleanly and chaste lives; lest God in His anger should let us go onin our evil path, till we fall into the deep darkness of mind of thePharisees of old. For then while we were boasting of England as themost Christian nation in the world, we might become the mostunchristian, because the most unlike Christ; the most wanting in loveand fellow-feeling, and self-sacrifice, and honour, and justice, andhonesty; wanting, in short, in the fruits of the Spirit. And withoutthem there is no use crying: "We are God's chosen people, He Has putHis name among us, we alone hate idols, we alone have the pure wordof God, and the pure sacraments, and the pure doctrine;" for God mayanswer us, as he answered the Jews of old: "Think not to say withinyourselves, We have Abraham for our father: Verily, I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. " . . . "The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nationbringing forth the fruits thereof. " Oh! my friends, let us pray, oneand all, that God will come and help us, and with great might succourus, "that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are sore let andhindered in running the race set before us, God's bountiful grace andmercy may speedily help and deliver us, " and enable us to livefaithfully up to the glorious privileges which He has bestowed on us, in calling us "members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors ofthe Kingdom of Heaven;" in giving us His Bible, in allowing us to beborn into this favoured land of England, in preserving us to thisday, in spite of all that we have thought, and said, and done, unworthy of the name of Christians and Englishmen. 

And then we may be certain that God will also fulfil to us theglorious promises which we find in another Psalm: "If thy childrenwill keep my covenant and my testimonies, which I shall learn them, this land shall be my rest for ever. Here will I dwell, for I have adelight therein. I will bless her victuals with increase, andsatisfy her poor with bread. I will deck her priests with health, and her holy people shall rejoice and sing. "

XVIII--NATIONAL REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS

And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all; that yesay, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, toserve wood and stone. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with amighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you. . . . And ye shall know that I am the Lord. --EZEKIEL xx. 32, 33, 38. 

A father has two ways of showing his love to his child--by caressingit and by punishing it. His very anger may be a sign of his love, and ought to be. Just because he loves his child, just because thething he longs most to see is that his child should grow up good, therefore he must be, and ought to be, angry with it when it doeswrong. Therefore anger against sin is a part of God's likeness inus; and he who does not hate sin is not like God. For if sin is theworst evil--perhaps the only real evil in the world--and the end ofall sin is death and misery, then to indulge people in sin is to showthem the very worst of cruelty. 

To sit by and see iniquity going on without trying to stop it, ismere laziness. The parent, when his child does wrong, does not showhis love to the child by indulging it, all he shows is, that hehimself is carnal and fleshly; that he does not like to take thetrouble of punishing it, or does not like to give himself the pain ofpunishing it; that, in short, he had sooner let his child grow up inbad habits, which must lead to its misery and ruin for years andyears, if not for ever, than make himself uncomfortable by seeing ituncomfortable for a few minutes. That is not love, but selfishness. True love is as determined to punish the sin as it is to forgive thesinner. Therefore, St. Paul tells us, that we can be angry withoutsinning; that is that there is an anger which comes from hatred ofsin and love to the sinner. Therefore, Solomon tells us to punishour children when they do wrong, and not to hold our hands for theircrying. It is better for them that they should cry a little now, than have long years of shame and sorrow hereafter. Therefore, inall countries which are properly governed, the law punishes in thename of God those who break the laws of God, and punishes them evenwith death, for certain crimes; because it is expedient that one mandie for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. 

And this is God's way of dealing with each and every one of us. Thisis God's way of dealing with Christian nations, just as it was Hisway of dealing with the Jews of old. He never allowed the Jews toprosper in sin. He punished them at once, and sternly, whenever theyrebelled against Him; not because He hated them, but because He lovedthem. His love to them showed itself whenever they went well withHim, in triumphs and blessings; and when they rebelled against Him, and broke His laws, He showed that very same love to them in plague, and war, and famine, and a mighty hand, and fury poured out. Hislove had not changed--they had changed; and now the best and only wayof showing His love to them, was by making them feel His anger; andthe best and only way of being merciful to them, was to show them noindulgence. 

Now the wish of the Jews all along, and especially in Ezekiel's time, was to be like the heathen--like the nations round them. They saidto themselves: "These heathen worship idols, and yet prosper verywell. Their having gods of wood and stone, and their indulging theirpassions, and being profligate and filthy, covetous, unjust, andtyrannical, does not prevent their being just as happy as we are--ay, and a great deal happier. They have no strict law of Moses, as wehave threatening us and keeping us in awe, and making usuncomfortable, and telling us at every turn, 'Thou shalt not do thispleasant thing, and thou shalt not do that pleasant thing. ' And yetGod does not punish them, as Moses' law says He will punish us. These Assyrians and Babylonians above all--they are stronger than we, and richer, and better clothed, and cleverer; they have horses andchariots, and all sorts of luxuries and comforts which we Jews cannotget. Instead of being like us, in continual trouble fromearthquakes, and drought, and famine, and war, attacked, plundered byall the nations round us, one after another, they go on conquering, and spreading, and succeeding in all they lay their hand to. Look atBabylon, " said these foolish Jews, perhaps, to themselves; "a fewgenerations ago it was nothing of a city, and now it is the greatest, richest, and strongest nation in the whole world. God has notpunished it for worshipping gods of wood and stone, why should Hepunish us? These Babylonians have prospered well enough with theirgods, why should not we? Perhaps it is these very gods of wood andstone who have helped them to become so great. Why should they nothelp us? We will worship them, then, and pray to them. We will notgive up worshipping our own God, of course, lest we should offendHim; but we will worship Him and the Babylonian idols at the sametime; then we shall be sure to be right if we have Jehovah and theidols both on our side. " So said the Jews to themselves. But whatdid Ezekiel answer them? "Not so, my foolish countrymen, " said he, "God will not have it so. He has taught you that these Babylonianidols are nothing and cannot help you; He has taught you that He canand will help you, that He can and will be everything to you; He hastaught you that He alone is God, who made heaven and earth, whoorders all things therein, who alone gives any people power to getwealth; and He will not have you go back and fall from that for anyappearances or arguments whatsoever, because it is true. He haschosen you to witness to these heathen about Him, to declare His nameto them, that they may give up their idols and serve the true God, inwhom alone is strength. He chose you to be these heathens' teachers, and He will not let you become their scholars. He meant the heathento copy you, and He will not let you copy them. If He does, in Hislove and mercy, let these poor heathen prosper in spite of theiridols, what is that to you? It is still the Lord who makes themprosper, and not the idols, whether they know it or not. They knowno better, and He will not impute sin to them where He has given themno law. But you do know better; by a thousand mighty signs andwonders and deliverances, the Lord has been teaching you ever sinceyou came up through the Red Sea, that He is all-sufficient for you, that all power is His in heaven and earth. He has promised to you, and sworn to you by Himself, that if you keep His law and walk in Hiscommandments, you shall want no manner of good thing; that you shallhave no cause to envy these heathen their riches and prosperity, forthe Lord will bless you in house and land, by day and night, at homeand abroad, with every blessing that a nation can desire. Moses' lawtells you this, God's prophets have been telling you this, God'swonderful dealings with you have been telling you this, that the LordGod is enough for you. And if you, who are meant to be a nation ofkings and priests to God, to teach all nations and serve solely Him, fancy that you will be allowed to throw away the high honour whichGod has put upon you, and lower yourselves to the follies and sins ofthese heathen round you, you are mistaken. You were meant to beabove such folly, you can be above it; and you shall not prosper byserving God and idols at once; you shall not even prosper by servingidols alone. God will visit you with a mighty hand, and with furypoured out, and you shall know that He is the Lord. "

Well, my friends, and what has this to do with us? This it has to dowith us--that if God taught the Jews about Himself, He has taught usstill more. If he has shown signs and wonders of His love, andwrought mightily for the Jews, He has wrought far more mightily forus; for He spared not His own Son, but gave Him freely for us. If Hepromised to teach the Jews, He has promised still more to teach us;for He has promised His Holy Spirit freely to young and old, rich andpoor, to as many as ask Him, to guide us into all truth. If heexpected the Jews to set an example to all the nations around, Heexpects us to do so still more. And if He punished the Jews, anddrove them back again by shame, and affliction, and disappointment, whenever they went after other gods, and tried to be like the heathenaround, and despised their high calling, and their high privileges, He will punish us, and drive us back again still more fiercely, andstill more swiftly. God has called us to be a nation of Christians, and He will not let us be a nation of heathens. We are longing to doin these days very much as the Jews did of old; we are all too apt tosay to ourselves: "Of course we must love God, or He might be angrywith us; and besides, how else should we get our souls saved? Butthe old heathen nations, and a great many nations now, and a greatmany rich and comfortable people in England now, too, get on verywell without God, by just worshipping selfishness, and money, andworldly cunning, and why should not we do the same?--why should wenot worship God and Mammon at once, and serve God on Sundays, and theselfish ways of the world all the week? Surely then we should bedoubly safe; we should have God and the world on our side both atonce. "

Now, my friends, God will not allow us to succeed on that plan. Weare members of His Church, whose head is Jesus, who gave Himself forsinners; whose members are all brothers of His Church, which is heldtogether by self-sacrifice and fellow-help. If we try to be like theheathens, and fancy that we can succeed by selfishness, and cunning, and covetousness, God will not let us fall from the honour which Hehas put on us, and trample our blessings under foot. He will bringour plans to nought. Whomsoever he may let prosper in sin, He willnot let those who have heard the message prosper in it. Whatevernation He may let become great by covetousness, and selfish competingand struggling of man against man, He will not let England grow greatby it. He loves her too well to let her fall so, and cast away herhigh honour of being a Christian nation. By great and soreafflictions, by bringing our cleverest plans to nothing, He willteach us that we cannot worship God and Mammon at once; that the sureriches, either for a man or for a nation, are not money, butrighteousness love, justice, wisdom; that this new idol of selfishcompetition which men worship nowadays, and fancy that it is thesecret cause of all plenty, and cheapness, and civilisation, has noplace in the church of Jesus Christ, who gave up His own life forthose who hated Him, and came not to do His own will, but the will ofHis Father; not to enable men to go to heaven after a life ofselfishness here; but by the power of His Spirit--the spirit of loveand fellowship to sweep all selfishness off the face of God's goodearth. By sore trials and afflictions will God in His mercy teachthis to England, and to every man in England who is deluded intofancying that he can serve God, and selfishness at once, till welearn once more, as our forefathers did of old, that He is the Lord. Because we are His children God will chasten us; because He receivesus, He will scourge us back to Him; because He has prepared for usthings such as eye hath not seen, He will not let us fill our bellieswith the husks which the swine eat, and like the dumb beasts, snarland struggle one against the other for a place at His table, as if itwere not wide enough for all His creatures, and for ten times as manymore, forgetting that He is the giver, and fancying that we are to bethe takers, and spoiling the gift itself in our hurry to snatch itout of our neighbours' hands. In one word, God will not give usfalse prosperity, as the children of the world, the flesh, and thedevil, because he wishes to give us real prosperity as the sons ofGod, in the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ, who died on the crossfor us. 

XIX--THE DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM

And it came to pass that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote inthe camp of the Assyrians an hundred and eighty five thousand: andwhen they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. --2 KINGS xix. 35. 

You heard read in the first lesson last Sunday afternoon, the threatsof the king of Assyria against Jerusalem, and his defiance of thetrue Lord whose temple stood there. In the first lesson for thismorning's service, you heard of king Hezekiah's fear and perplexity;of the Lord's answer to him by Isaiah, and of the great and wonderfuldestruction of the Assyrian army, of which my text tells you. Ofcourse you have a right to ask: "This which happened in a foreigncountry more than two thousand years ago, what has it to do with us?"And, of course, my preaching about it will be of no use whatsoever, unless I can show you what it has to do with us; what lesson weEnglish here, in the year 1851, are to draw, from the help which Godsent the Jews. 

But to find out that, we must hear the whole story. Before we canfind out why God drove the Assyrians out of Judaea, we must find out, it seems to me, why He sent them, or allowed them to come intoJudaea; and to find out that, we must first see how the Jews werebehaving in those times, and what sort of state their country was in;and we must find out, too, what sort of a man this great king ofAssyria was, and what sort of thoughts were in his heart. 

Now, by the favour of God, we can find out this. You will see, inthe first thirty-seven chapters of Isaiah's prophecies, a fullaccount of the ways of the Jews in that time, and the reasons why Godallowed so fearful a danger to come upon them. The whole firstthirty-five chapters belong to each other, and are, so to speak, aspiritual history of the Jews, and the Assyrians, and all the nationsround them, for many years. A spiritual history--that is, not merelya history of what they did, but of what they were, what was in theirinmost hearts, and thoughts, and spirits; a spiritual history--thatis, not merely of what they thought they were doing, but of what Godsaw that they were doing--a history of God's mind about them all. Isaiah had God's spirit on him; and so he saw what was going on roundhim in the same light in which God saw it, and hated it, or praisedit, only according as it was good, and according to the good Spiritof God, or bad, and contrary to that Spirit. So Isaiah's history ofhis own nation, and the nations around him, was very unlike what theywould have written for themselves; just as I am afraid he would writea very different history of England now, from what we should write, if we were set to do it. Now what Isaiah thought of the doings ofhis countrymen, the Jews, I must tell you in another sermon, nextSunday. It will be enough this morning to speak of the king ofAssyria. 

These kings of Assyria thought themselves the greatest and strongestbeings in the world; they thought that their might was right, andthat they might conquer, and ravage, and plunder and oppress everycountry round them for thousands of miles, without being punished. They thought that they could overcome the true God of Judaea, as theyhad conquered the empty idols and false gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, andIva. But Isaiah saw that they were wrong. He told his countrymen:"These Assyrian kings are strong, but there is a stronger King thanthey, Jehovah the Lord of all the earth. It is He who sent them topunish nation after nation, Sennacherib is the rod of Jehovah'sanger; but he is a fool after all; for all his cunning, for all hisarmies, he is a fool rushing on his ruin. He may take Tyre, Damascus, Babylon, Egypt itself, and cast their gods into the fire, for they are no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone;but let him once try his strength against the real living God; letthe axe once begin to boast itself against Him that hews therewith;and he will find out that there is one stronger than he, one who hasbeen using him as a 'tool, and who will crush him like a moth themoment he rebels. His father destroyed Samaria and her idols, but heshall not destroy Jerusalem. He may ravage Ephraim, and punish thegluttony and drunkenness, and oppression of the great landlords ofBashan; he may bring misery and desolation through the length andbreadth of the land: there is reason, and reason but too good forthat: but Jerusalem, the place where God's honour dwells, the templewithout idols, which is the sign that Jehovah is a living God, against it he shall not cast up a bank, or shoot an arrow into it. '"I know, " said Isaiah, "what he is saying of himself, this proud kingof Assyria: but this is what God says of him, that he is only apuppet, a tool in the hand of God, to punish these wicked nationswhom he is conquering one by one, and us Jews among the rest. He, this proud king of Assyria, thinks that he is the chosen favourite ofthe sun, and the moon, and the stars, whom, in his folly, he worshipsas gods. He will find out who is the real Lord of the earth; he willfind out that this great world is ruled by that very God of Israelwhom he despises. He will find that there is something in thisearth, of which he fancies himself lord and master, which is toostrong for him, which will obey God, and not him. God rules theearth, and God rules Tophet, and the great fire-kingdoms which boiland blaze for ever in the bowels of the earth, and burst up from timeto time in earthquakes and burning mountains; and God has ordainedthat they shall conquer this proud king of Assyria, though we Jewsare too weak and cowardly, and split up into parties by ourwickedness, to make a stand against him. " . . . 

This great eruption or breaking out of burning mountains, which woulddestroy the king of Assyria's army, was to happen, Isaiah says, closeto Jerusalem, nay, it was to shake Jerusalem itself. Jerusalem wasto be brought to great misery by everlasting burnings, as well as bybeing besieged by the Assyrians; and yet the very shaking of theearth and eruption of fire which was nearly to destroy it, was to bethe cause of its deliverance. So Isaiah prophesied, and we cannotdoubt his words came true. For this may explain to us the way inwhich the king of Assyria's army was destroyed. The text says, thatwhen they encamped near Jerusalem the messenger of the Lord went out, and slew in one night one hundred and eighty thousand of them, whowere all found dead in the morning. How they were killed we cannotexactly tell, most likely by a stream of poisonous vapour, such asoften comes forth out of the ground during earthquakes and eruptionsof burning mountains, and kills all men and animals who breathe it. That this was the way that this great army was destroyed, I havelittle doubt, not only on account of what Isaiah says in hisprophecies of God's "sending a blast" upon the king of Assyria, butbecause it was just like the old lesson which God had been teachingthe Jews all along, that the earth and all in it was His property, and obeyed Him. For what could teach them that more strongly than tosee that the earthquakes and burning mountains, of all things onearth the most awful and most murderous, the very things againstwhich man has no defence, obeyed God; burst forth when He chose, anddid His work as He willed? For man can conquer almost everything inthe world except these burning mountains and earthquakes. He cansail over the raging sea in his ships; he can till the most barrensoils; he can provide against famine, rain, and cold, ay, against thethunder itself: but the earthquakes alone are too strong for him. Against them no cunning or strength of man is of any use. Withoutwarning, they make the solid ground under his feet heave, and reel, and sink, hurling down whole towns in a moment, and burying theinhabitants under the ruins, as an earthquake did in Italy only amonth ago. Or they pour forth streams of fire, clouds of dust, brimstone, and poisonous vapour, destroying for miles around thewoods and crops, farms and cities, and burying them deep in ashes, asthey have done again and again, both in Italy and Iceland, and inSouth America, even during the last few years. How can man standagainst them? What greater warning or lesson to him than they, thatGod is stronger than man; that the earth is not man's property, andwill not obey him, but only the God who made it? Now that was justwhat God intended to teach the Jews all along; that the earth andheaven belonged to Him and obeyed Him; that they were not to worshipthe sun and stars, as the Assyrians and Canaanites did, nor the earthand the rivers as the Egyptians did: but to worship the God who madesun and stars, earth and rivers, and to put their trust in Him toguide all heaven and earth aright; and to make all things, sun, earth, and weather, ay, and the very burning mountains andearthquakes, work together for good for them if they loved God. Therefore it was that God gave His law to Moses on the burningmountain of Sinai, amid thunders, and lightnings, and earthquakes, toshow them that the lightnings and the mountains obeyed Him. Therefore it was that the earthquake opened the ground and swallowedup Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses. Thereforeit was that God once used an earthquake and eruption to preserveDavid from his enemies, as we read in the eighteenth Psalm. And allthrough David's Psalms we find how well he had learnt this greatlesson which God had taught him. Again and again we find verseswhich show that he knew well enough who was the Lord of all theearth. 

In Isaiah's time, it seems, God taught the Jews once more the samething. He taught them, and the proud king of Assyria, once and forall, that He was indeed the Lord--Lord of all nations, and King ofkings, and also Lord of the earth, and all that therein is. Hetaught it to the poor oppressed Jews by that miraculous deliverance. He taught it to the cruel invading king by that miraculousdestruction. Just in the height of his glory, after he had conqueredalmost every nation in the east, and overcome the whole of Judaea, except that one small city of Jerusalem, Sennacherib's great army wasswept away, he neither knew how nor why, in a single night, andutterly disheartened and abashed, he returned to his own land; andeven there he found that the God of Israel had followed him--that theidols whom he worshipped could not save him from the wrath of thatGod to whom Assyria, just as much as Jerusalem, belonged. For as hewas worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his two sons smotehim with the sword, and there was an end of all his pride andconquests. . . . Now Nisroch was the name of a star--the star whichwe call the planet Saturn; and the Assyrians fancied in their folly, that whosoever worshipped any particular star, that star wouldprotect and help him. . . . But, alas for the king of Assyria, therewas One above who had made the stars, and from whose vengeance thestars could not save him; and so even while he was worshipping, andpraying to, this favourite star of his which could not hear him, hefell dead, a murdered man, and found out too late how true were thegreat words of Isaiah when he prophesied against him. 

Yes, my friends, this is the lesson which the Jews had to learn, andwhich the king of Assyria had to learn, and which we have to learnalso; and which God will, in His great mercy, teach us over and overagain by bitter trials whensoever we forget it; that The Lord isKing; that He is near us, living for ever, all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving; that those who really trust in Him shall never beconfounded; that those who trust in themselves are trying theirpaltry strength against the God who made heaven and earth, and willsurely find out their own weakness, just when they fancy themselvesmost successful. So it was in Hezekiah's time; so it is now, hard asit may be to us to believe it. The Lord Jehovah, Jesus Christ, whosaved Jerusalem from the Assyrians, He still is King, let the earthbe never so unquiet. And all men, or governments, or doctrines, orways of thinking and behaving, which are contrary to His will, oreven pretend that they can do without Him, will as surely come tonought as that great and terrible king of Assyria. Though man be tooweak to put them down, Christ is not. Though man neglect to put themdown, Christ will not. If man dare not fight on the Lord's sideagainst sin and evil, the Lord's earth will fight for Him. Storm andtempest, blight and famine, earthquakes and burning mountains, willdo His work, if nothing else will. As He said Himself, if man stopspraising Him, the very stones will cry out, and own Him as theirKing. Not that the blessed Lord is proud, or selfish, or revengeful;God forbid! He is boundless pity, and love, and mercy. But it isjust because He is perfect love and pity that He hates sin, whichmakes all the misery upon earth. He hates it, and he fights againstit for ever; lovingly at first, that He may lead sinners torepentance; for He wills the death of none, but rather that allshould come to repentance. But if a man will not turn, He will whethis sword; and then woe to the sinner. Let him be as great as theking of Assyria, he must down. For the Lord will have none guide Hisworld but Himself, because none but He will ever guide it on theright path. Yes--but what a glorious thought, that He will guide it, and us, on that right path. Oh blessed news for all who are insorrow and perplexity! Whatsoever it is that ails you--and who isthere, young or old, rich or poor, who has not their secret ailmentsat heart?--whatsoever ails you, whatsoever terrifies you, whatsoevertempts you, trust in the same Lord who delivered Jerusalem from theAssyrians, and He will deliver you. He will never suffer you to betempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation alsomake a way for you to escape, that you may be able to bear it. Thishas been His loving way from the beginning, and this will be His wayuntil the day when He wipes away tears from all eyes. 

XX--PROFESSION AND PRACTICE

Though they say, "The Lord liveth, " surely they swear falsely. --JEREMIAH v. 2. 

I spoke last Sunday morning of the wonderful way in which the Lorddelivered the Jews from the Assyrian army, and I promised to try andexplain to you this morning, the reason why the Lord allowed theAssyrians to come into Judaea, and ravage the whole country exceptthe one small city of Jerusalem. 

My text is taken from the first lesson, from the book of the prophetJeremiah. And it, I think, will explain the reason to us. 

For though Jeremiah lived more than a hundred years after Isaiah, yethe had much the same message from God to give, and much the same sinsround him to rebuke. For the Jews were always, as the Bible callsthem, "a backsliding people;" and, as the years ran on, and theybegan to forget their great deliverance from the Assyrians, they slidback into the very same wrong state of mind in which they were inIsaiah's time, and for which God punished them by that terribleinvasion. 

Now, what was this?

One very remarkable thing strikes us at once. That when theAssyrians came into Judaea, the Jews were NOT given up to worshippingfalse gods. On the contrary, we find, both from the book of Kingsand the book of Chronicles, that a great reform in religion had takenplace among them a few years before. Their king Hezekiah, in thevery first year of his reign, removed the high places, and cut downthe groves (which are said to have been carved idols meant torepresent the stars of heaven), and even broke in pieces the brazenserpent which Moses had made, because the Jews had begun to worshipit for an idol. He trusted in the Lord God, and obeyed Him, morethan any king of Judah. He restored the worship of the true God inthe temple, according to the law of Moses, with such pomp and gloryas had never been seen since Solomon's time. And not only did heturn to the true God, but his people also. From the account which wefind in Chronicles, they seemed to have joined him in the good work. They offered sin-offerings as a token of the wickedness of which theyhave been guilty, in leaving the true God for idols; and all otherkinds of offerings freely and willingly. "And Hezekiah rejoiced, andall the people that God had prepared the people. Moreover, Hezekiahcalled all the men in Judaea up to Jerusalem, to keep the passoveraccording to the law of Moses, " which they had neglected to do formany years, and the people answered his call and "came, and kept thefeast at Jerusalem seven days, with joy and great gladness, offeringpeace-offerings, and making confession to the God of their fathers. So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomonthere was not the like in Jerusalem. Then the priests and theLevites arose, and blessed the people, and their voice was heard, andtheir prayer came up to the Lord's holy dwelling, even to heaven. "And when it was all finished, the people went out of their ownaccord, and destroyed utterly all the idols, and high places, andaltars throughout the land, and returned to their houses in peace. 

Now does not all this sound very satisfactory and excellent? Whatbetter state of mind could people be in? What a wonderful reform, and spread of true religion! The only thing like it, that we know, is the wonderful reform and spread of religion in England in the lastsixty years, after all the ungodliness and wickedness that went onfrom the year 1660 to the time of the French war; the building ofchurches, the founding of schools, the spread of Bibles, and tracts, and the wonderful increase of gospel preachers, so that every old manwill tell you, that religion is talked about and written about now, athousand times more than when he was a boy. Indeed, unless a manmakes a profession of some sort of religion or other, nowadays, hecan hardly hope to rise in the world, so religious are we Englishbecome. 

Now let us hear what Isaiah thought of all that wonderful spread oftrue religion in his time; and then, perhaps, we may see what hewould think of ours now, if he were alive. His opinion is sure to bethe right one. His rules can never fail, for he was an inspiredprophet, and saw things as they are, as God sees them; and thereforehis rules will hold good for ever. Let us see what they were. 

The first chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah is called "Thevision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah andJerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. " Nowthis is one prophecy by itself, in the shape of a poem; for in theold Hebrew it is written in regular verses. The second chapterbegins with another heading, and is the beginning of a differentpoem; so that this first chapter is, as it were, a summing up of allthat he is going to say afterwards; a short account of the state ofthe Jews for more than forty years. And what is more, this firstchapter of Isaiah must have been written in the reign of Hezekiah, inthose very religious days of which I was just speaking; for it saysthat the country was desolate, and Jerusalem alone left. And thisnever happened during Isaiah's lifetime, till the fourteenth year ofHezekiah, that is, till this great spread of the true religion hadbeen going on for thirteen years. Now what was Isaiah's vision?What did he, being taught by God's Spirit, SEE was God's opinion ofthese religious Jews? Listen, my friends, and take it solemnly toheart!

"Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the lawof our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitudeof your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burntofferings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts: and I delight not inthe blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come toappear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread mycourts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination untome; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannotaway with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moonsand your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble untome; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, Iwill hide my eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I willnot hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean;put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to doevil; learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judgethe fatherless, plead for the widow. . . . How is the faithful citybecome an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged init; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixedwith water; thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves;every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge notthe fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one ofIsrael, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mineenemies. " . . . 

Again, I say, my friends, listen to it, and take it solemnly toheart! That is God's opinion of religion, even the truest andsoundest in worship and doctrine, when it is without godliness, without holiness; when it goes in hand with injustice, andcovetousness, and falsehood, and cheating, and oppression, andneglect of the poor, and keeping company with the wicked, because itis profitable; in short, when it is like too much of the religionwhich we see around us in the world at this day. 

Yes--it was of no use holding to the letter of the law while theyforgot its spirit. God had commanded church-going, and woe to those, then or now, who neglect it. Yet the Lord asks, "Who hath requiredthis at your hands, to tread my courts?". . . He had commanded theSabbath-day to be kept holy; and woe to those, then or now, whoneglect it. Yet He says, "Your Sabbaths I cannot away with; it isiniquity, even the solemn meeting. " The Lord had appointed feasts:and yet He says that His soul hated them; they were a trouble to Him;He was weary to bear them. The Lord had commanded prayer; and woe tothose, then or now, in England, as in Judaea, who neglect to pray. And yet He says: "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mineeyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. " Andwhy?--He himself condescends to tell them the reason, which theyought to have known for themselves: "Because, " He says, "your handsare full of blood. " This was the reason why all their religiousness, and orthodoxy, and church-going, and praying, was only disgusting toGod; because there was no righteousness with it. Their faith wasonly a dead, rotten, sham faith, for it brought forth no fruits ofjustice and love; and their religion was only hypocrisy, for it didnot make them holy. No doubt they thought themselves pious andsincere enough; no doubt they thought that they were pleasing Godperfectly, and giving Him all that He could fairly ask of them; nodoubt they were fiercely offended at Isaiah's message to them; nodoubt they could not understand what he meant by calling them ahypocritical nation, a second Sodom and Gomorrah, while they weredestroying idols, and keeping the law of Moses, and worshipping Godmore earnestly than He had been worshipped since Solomon's time. Butso it was. That was the message of God to them; that was the visionof Isaiah concerning them; that there was no soundness in the wholeof the nation, "from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores"--that is, thatthe whole heart and conscience, and ways of thinking, were utterlyrotten, and abominable in the sight of God, even while they wereholding the true doctrines about them, and keeping up the pureworship of Him. This, says the Lord, is not the way to please me. "He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lordrequire of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walkhumbly with thy God?" To do justly, to love mercy, and then to walkhumbly, sure that when you seem to have done all your duty, you haveleft only too much of it undone; even as St. Paul felt when he said, that though he knew nothing against himself; though he could notrecollect a single thing in which he had failed of his duty to theCorinthians, yet that did not justify him. "For he that judgeth me, "he says, "is the Lord. " He sees deeper than I can; and He, alas! maytake a very different view of my conduct from what I do; and thislife of mine, which looks to me, from my ignorance, so spotless andperfect, may be, in His eyes, full of sins, and weakness, andneglects, and shameful follies. "To walk humbly with God. " Not tobelieve that because you read the Bible, and have heard the gospel, and are sharp at finding out false doctrine in preachers, and belongto the Church of England, that therefore you know all about God, andcan look down upon poor papists, and heathens, and say: "Thispeople, which knoweth not the law, is accursed: but WE areenlightened, we understand the whole Bible, we know everything aboutGod's will, and man's duty; and whosoever differs from us, orpretends to teach us anything new about God, must be wrong. " Not todo so, my friends, but to believe what St. Paul tells us solemnly, "That if any man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yetas he ought to know"--to believe that the Great God, and the will ofGod, and the love of God, and the mystery of Redemption, and thetreasures of wisdom which are in His Bible, are, as St. Paul toldyou, boundless, like a living well, which can never be fathomed, ordrawn dry, but fills again with fresh water as fast as you draw fromit. That is walking humbly with God; and those who do not do so, butlike the Pharisees of old, believe that they have all knowledge, andcan understand all the mysteries of the Bible, and go through theworld, despising and cursing all parties but their own--let thembeware, lest the Lord be saying of them, as He said of the church ofSardis, of old: "Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, andmiserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. "

How is this? What is this strange thing, without which even the trueknowledge of doctrine is of no use; which, if a man, or a nation hasnot, he is poor, and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, in spiteof all his religion? Isaiah will tell us--What did he say to theJews in his day?

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings frombefore my eyes. Do justice to the fatherless, and relieve thewidow!" "Do that, " says the Lord, "and then your repentance will besincere. Church building and church going are well--but they are notrepentance--churches are not souls. I ask you for your hearts, andyou give me fine stones and fine words. I want souls--I want YOURsouls--I want you to turn to me. And what am I? saith the Lord. Iam justice, I am love, I am the God of the oppressed, the fatherless, the widow. --That is my character. Turn to justice, turn to love, turn to mercy; long to be made just, and loving, and merciful; seethat your sin has been just this, and nothing else, that you havebeen unjust, unloving, unmerciful. Repent for your neglect andcruelty, and repent in dust and ashes, when you see what wretchedhypocrites you really are. And then, my boundless mercy and pardonshall be open to you. As you wish to be to me, so will I be to you;if you wish to become merciful, you shall taste my mercy; if you wishto become loving to others, you shall find that I love you; if youwish to become just, you shall find that I am just, just to deal byyou as you deal by others; faithful and just to forgive you yoursins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And then, allshall be forgiven and forgotten; "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow: though they be red like crimson, theyshall be as wool. "

Surely, my friends, these things are worth taking to heart; for thisis the sin which most destroys all men and nations--high religiousprofession with an ungodly, covetous, and selfish life. It is theworst and most dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease whicheats out the heart and life without giving pain; so that the sick mannever suspects that anything is the matter with him, till he findshimself, to his astonishment, at the point of death. So it was withthe Jews, three times in their history. In the time of Isaiah, underKing Hezekiah; in the time of Jeremiah, under King Josiah; and lastand worst of all, in the time of Jesus Christ. At each of thesethree times the Jews were high religious professors, and yet at eachof these three times they were abominable before God, and on thebrink of ruin. In Isaiah's time their eyes seemed to have beenopened at last to their own sins. Their fearful danger, andwonderful deliverance from the Assyrians of which you heard lastSunday, seem to have done that for them; as God intended it should. During the latter part of Hezekiah's reign they seemed to have turnedto God with their hearts, and not with their lips only; and Isaiahcan find no words to express the delight which the blessed changegives him. Nevertheless, they soon fell back again into idolatry;and then there was another outward lip-reformation under the goodKing Josiah; and Jeremiah had to give them exactly the same warningwhich Isaiah had given them nearly a hundred years before. But thattime, alas! they would not take the warning; and then all the evilwhich had been prophesied against them came on them. Fromhypocritical profession, they fell back again into their oldidolatry; their covetousness, selfishness, party-quarrels, andprofligate lives made them too weak and rotten to stand againstNebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, when he attacked them; and Jerusalemwas miserably destroyed, the temple burnt, and the Jews carriedcaptives to Babylon. There they repented in bitter sorrow andslavery; and God allowed them after seventy years to return to theirown land. Then at first they seemed to be a really converted people, and to be worshipping God in spirit and in truth. They never againfell back into the idolatry of the heathen. So far from it, theybecame the greatest possible haters of it; they went on keeping thelaw of God with the utmost possible strictness, even to the day whenthe Lord Jesus appeared among them. Their religious people, theScribes and Pharisees, were the most strict, moral, devout people ofthe whole world. They worshipped the very words and letters of theBible; their thoughts seemed filled with nothing but God and theservice of God: and yet the Lord Jesus told them that they were in aworse state, greater sinners in the sight of God, than they had everbeen; that they, who hated idolatry, were filling up the measure oftheir idolatrous forefathers' iniquity; that the guilt of all therighteous blood shed on earth was to fall on them; that they were arace of serpents, a generation of vipers; and that even He did notsee how they could escape the damnation of hell. And they proved howtrue His words were, by crucifying the very Lord of whom their much-prized Scriptures bore witness, whom they pretended to worship dayand night continually; and received the just reward of their deeds inforty years of sedition, bloodshed, and misery, which ended by theRomans coming and sweeping the nation of the Jews from off the faceof the earth. 

So much for profession without practice. So much for true doctrinewith dishonest and unholy lives. So much for outward respectabilitywith inward sinfulness. So much for hating idolatry, while all thewhile men's hearts are far from God!

Oh! my friends, let us all search our hearts carefully in these timesof high profession and low practice; lest we be adding our drop ofhypocrisy to the great flood of it which now stifles this land ofEngland, and so fall into the same condemnation as the Jews of old, in spite of far nobler examples, brighter and wider light, and morewonderful and bounteous blessings. 

XXI--THE UNFAITHFUL SERVANT

But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth hiscoming; and shall begin to beat the men servants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken; the lord of thatservant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in anhour when he is not aware, and will cut him asunder, and will appointhim his portion with the unbelievers. --LUKE xii. 45, 46. 

But why with the unbelievers? The man had not disbelieved that hehad any Lord at all; he had only believed that his Lord delayed hiscoming. And why was he to be put with those who do not believe inhim at all? This is a very fearful question, friends, for us, whenwe think how it is the fashion among us now, to believe that our Lorddelays His coming. --And surely most of us do believe that? For is itnot our notion that, when the Lord Jesus ascended up to heaven, Hewent away a great distance off, perhaps millions of miles beyond thestars; and that He will not come back again till the last--which, foraught we know, and as we rather expect, may not happen for hundredsor thousands of years to come? Is not that most people's notion, rich as well as poor? And if that is not believing that our Lorddelays His coming, what is?

But, you may answer, the Creed says plainly, that He ascended intoheaven and sits at the right hand of God. Ah! my friends, thosegreat words of the Creed which you take into your lips every Sunday, mean the very opposite to what most people fancy. They do not say, "The Lord Jesus has left this poor earth to itself and its misery:"but they say, "Lo, He is with you, even to the end of the world. "True, He is ascended into heaven. And how far off is heaven?--for sofar off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther. Not so far off, myfriends, after all, if you knew where to find it. Truly said thegreat and good poet, now gone home to his reward:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 

And if we lose sight of it as we grow up to be men and women, it isnot because heaven goes farther off, but because we grow lessheavenly. Even now, so close is heaven to us, that any one of usmight enter into heaven this moment, without stirring from his seat. One real cry from the depths of your heart--"Father, forgive thysinful child!"--one real feeling of your own worthlessness, andweakness, and emptiness, and of God's righteousness, and love, andmercy, ready for you--and you are in heaven there and then, as nearthe feet of the blessed Lord Jesus, as Mary Magdalen was, when shetried to clasp them in the garden. I am serious, my friends; I amnot given to talk fine figures of poetry; I am talking sober, straightforward, literal truth. And the Lord sits at God's righthand too? you believe that? Then how far off is God?--for as far offas God is, so far off is the Lord Jesus, and no farther. What saysSt. Paul? That "God is not far off from any one of us--for in Him welive, and move, and have our being" . . . IN Him . . . . How far offis that? And is not God everywhere, if indeed we can say that He isany where? Then the Lord Jesus, who is at God's right hand, iseverywhere also--here, now, with us this day. One would have thoughtthat there was no need to prove that by argument, considering thatHis own blessed lips told us: "Lo, I am with you, even to the end ofthe world;" and again: "Wheresoever two or three are gatheredtogether in my name, there am I in the midst of them. " And this isthe Lord whom people fancy is gone away far above the stars, till theend of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before Him herethis moment. For here He is among us now, listening to every thoughtof our poor sinful hearts. . . . He is where God is--God IN whom welive, and move, and have our being--and that is everywhere. Do youwish Him to be any nearer, my friends? Or do you--do you--take carewhat your hearts answer, for He is watching them--do you in the depthof your hearts wish that He were a little farther off? Does thenotion of His being here on this earth, watching and interfering (aswe call it nowadays in our atheism) with us and everything, seemunpleasant and burdensome? Is it more comfortable to you to thinkthat He is away far up beyond the stars? Do you feel the lighter andfreer for fancying that He will not visit the earth for many a yearto come? In short, is it in your HEARTS that you are saying, TheLord delays His coming?

That is a very important question. For mind, a pious man might be, as many a pious man has been in these days, deceived by bad teachinginto the notion that Jesus Christ was gone far away. But if he werea truly pious man, if he truly loved the Lord, that would be apainful thought--as I should have fancied, an unbearable thought--tohim, when he looked out upon this poor miserable, confused world. Hewould be crying night and day: "Oh, that thou wouldest rend theheavens and come down!" He would be in an agony of pity for thispoor deserted earth, and of longing for the Saviour of it to comeback and save it. He would never have a moment's peace of mind tillhe had either seen the Lord come back again in His glory, or till hehad found out--what I am sure the blessed Lord would teach him as areward for his love--that it was all a dream and a nightmare, andthat the Lord of the earth was in the earth, and close to him, allalong; only that his weak eyes were held so that he did not know theLord and the Lord's works when he saw them. 

But that was not the temper of this servant in the Lord's parable. Iam afraid it is by no means the temper of many of us nowadays. Theservant said IN HIS HEART, that his master would be long away. Itwas his heart put the thought into his head. He took to the notionHEARTILY, as we say, because he was glad to believe it was true; gladto think that his master would not come to "interfere" with him; andthat in the meantime he might be lord and master himself, and treateveryone in the house as if he himself was the owner of it, andtyrannise over his fellow-servants, and enjoy himself in luxury andgood living. So says David of the fool: "The fool hath said in hisheart, there is no God;" his heart puts that thought into his head. He wishes to believe that there is no God; and when there is a willthere is a way; and he soon finds out reasons and arguments enough toprove what he is so very anxious to prove. 

Now, my friends, I am afraid that there is not so much difference aspeople fancy, between the fool who says in his heart, "There is noGod, " and the fool who says in his heart, "My master delays Hiscoming. "--"God has left the world to us, and we must shift forourselves in it. " The man who likes to be what St. Paul calls"without God in the world, " is he so very much wiser than the man wholikes to have no God at all? St. James did not think so; for whatdoes he say: "Thou believest that there is one God? Thou doestwell--the devils also believe and tremble. " They know as much asthat; but it does them no good--only increases their fear. "But wiltthou know, oh! vain man, that faith without works, " believing withoutdoing, "is dead?" And are not too many, as I said just now, afraidof the thought of God; so afraid of it that they wish to allow theSon of God as little share as possible in the management of thisworld? Have not too many a belief without works; a mere belief thatthere is one God and not two, which hardly, from one year's end toanother, makes them do one single thing which they would not havedone if they had believed that there was no God at all? Fear of thelaw, fear of the policeman, fear of losing their work or theircustom; fear of losing their neighbour's good word--that is whatkeeps most people from breaking loose. There is not much of the fearof God in that, or the love of God either as far as I can see. Theygo through life as if they had made a covenant with God, that Heshould have his own way in the world to come, if He would only letthem have their way in this world. Oh! my friends, my friends, doyou think God is God of the next world and not of this also? Do youthink the kingdom, and the power, and the glory will be His a greatmany hundreds of years hence, in what you call heaven; and will notsee what every page of Scripture tells you, what you yourself sayevery time you repeat the Lord's Prayer, that the Kingdom, and thePower and the Glory are His now, here in this life, and that He hascommitted all things to His Son Jesus Christ and given the power intoHis hand, that He may rule this earth in righteousness now, here, inthis life, and conquer back for God one by one, if it be possible, every creature upon earth? So says the Bible--and people professnowadays to believe their Bibles. My friends, too many, nowadays, while they profess very loudly to believe what the Bible says, onlybelieve what their favourite teachers tell them that the Bible says. If they really read their Bibles for themselves, and took God at Hisword, there would be less tyrannising of one man over another, lessgrinding down of men by masters, and of men by each other--for thepoor are often very hard on each other in England, now, my friends--very envious and spiteful, and slanderous about each other. They saythat dog won't eat dog--yet how many a poor man grudges and supplantshis neighbour, and tries to get into his place and beat him down inhis wages? And there are those who call themselves learned men, whotell the poor that that is God's will, and the way by which Godintends them to prosper. If those men believed their Bibles, theywould be repenting in sackcloth and ashes for having preached such adevil's sermon to God's children. If men really read their Bibles, there would be less eating and drinking with the drunken; lessidleness and luxury among the rich; less fancying that a man has aright to do what he likes with his own, because all men would knowthat they were only the Lord's stewards, bound to give an account tohim of the good which they had done with what he has lent them. There would be fewer parents fancying that they can tyrannise overtheir children, bringing them up as heathens for the sake of the fewpence they earn; using bad language, and doing shameful things beforethem, which they dared not do if they recollected that the Lord waslooking on; beating and scolding them as if they were brutes orslaves, to save themselves the trouble of teaching them gently whatthe poor little creatures cannot know without being taught: and mostshameful of all, robbing the poor children of their little earningsto spend it themselves in drunkenness. Ah, blessed Lord! if peopledid but know how near Thou wert to them, all that would vanish out ofEngland, as the night clouds vanish away before the sun!

And He is near, my friends: He is watching; He is governing; He isat hand: and in this life or in the life to come, forget Him as wechoose, He will make us know plain enough, and without any doubtwhatsoever, that He is the Lord. 

He has fulfilled this awful parable of his about the unfaithfulservant already; many a time, against many a man, many a great king, and prince, and nation; and he will fulfil it against each and everyman, from the nobleman in his castle to the labourer in his cottage, who says in his heart, "My Lord delays his coming, " and begins totyrannise over those who are weaker than himself, and to enjoyhimself as he likes, and forget that he is not his own, but boughtwith the price of Christ's blood, and bound to work for Christ'skingdom and glory. 

So he punished the popes of Rome, three hundred years ago. When allthe nations in Europe were listening to them and obeying them, andthey had put into their hands by God a greater power of doing goodthan He ever gave to any human being before or since, what did theydo? Instead of using their power for Christ, they used it forthemselves. Instead of preaching to all nations the good news thatChrist the Son of God was their King, they said: "I, the pope, amyour king. Christ is gone far away into heaven, and has committedall power on earth to us; we are Christ's vicars; we are in Christ'splace; He has entrusted to our keeping all the treasures of Hismerits and His grace, and no one can get any blessing from Christ, unless we choose to give it him. " So they said in their hearts justwhat the foolish servant in the parable said: and fancying that theywere lords and masters, naturally enough went on to behave as such;to beat the men-servants and maid-servants, that is, to oppress andtyrannise over the bodies and minds and consciences of men, and womentoo, God knows; and to eat and drink with the drunken, to live inriot and debauchery. But the Lord was not so far off as thosefoolish popes fancied. And in an hour when they were not aware, Hecame and cut them asunder. He snatched from them one-half of thenations of Europe, and England among the rest; He punished them bydoubt, ignorance, confusion, and utter blindness, and appointed themtheir portion among the unbelievers in such terrible earnest, that tothis very day, to judge by the things which they say and do, it isdifficult to persuade ourselves that the popes really believe in anyGod at all. 

So He did, only three years ago, to many kings and princes on theContinent. {217} They professed to be Christians; but they hadforgotten that they were Christ's stewards, that all their power camefrom Him, and that he had given it them only to use for the good oftheir subjects. And they too went on saying: "The Lord delays Hiscoming, we are rulers in this world, and God is ruler in the world tocome. " So they, too, oppressed their subjects, and lived in ease onwhat they wrung out of the poor wretches below them. But the Lordwas nearer them, too, than they fancied; and all at once--as theywere fancying themselves all safe and prosperous, and saying, "We arethose who ought to speak, who is Lord over us?"--their fool'sparadise crumbled from under their feet. A few paltry mobs offoolish starving people, without weapons, without leaders, withoutgood counsel to guide them, rose against them. And what did they do?They might have crushed down the rebels most of them, in a week, ifthey had had courage. And in the only country where the rebels werereally strong, that is, in Austria, all might have been quiet againat once, if the king had only had the heart to do common justice, andkeep his own solemn oaths. But no--the terror of the Lord came uponthem. He most truly cut them in sunder. They were every man of adifferent mind, and none of them in the same mind a day together;they became utterly conscience-stricken, terrified, perplexed, attheir wit's end, not having courage or determination to do anything, or even to do nothing, and fled shamefully away one after another, totheir everlasting disgrace. And those of them who have got backtheir power since are showing sadly enough, by their obstinate follyand wickedness, that the Lord has appointed them their portion withthe unbelievers, and left them to fill up the measure of theiriniquity, and drink deep the cup of wrath which is in His hand, fulland mixed for those who forget God. 

Oh! my friends, let us lay these things solemnly to heart. Do notfancy that the Lord will punish the wicked great, and forget thewicked small. In His sight there is neither great nor small; all aresmall enough for Him to crush like the moth; and all are too great tobe overlooked, or forgotten by Him, without whom not a sparrow fallsto the ground. Again I say, my friends, let us lay His parable toheart. Let us who have property, and station, and education, neverforget who has given it us, and for whom we must use it. Let usnever forget that to whom much is given, of them will much berequired. Let us pray to the Lord daily to write upon our inmosthearts those solemn words: "Who made thee to differ from another;and what hast thou which thou didst not receive?" Let us look on ourservants, our labourers, on every human being over whom we have anyinfluence, as weaker brothers whom God has commanded us to help, teach, and guide in body, mind, and spirit, not that we may make themour slaves, but make them free, manful, self-helping, and in due timeindependent of us and of everyone except God. 

And you young people, who have no authority over anyone, but overyour own bodies; to whom the Lord has given little or nothing tomanage and take care of except your own health and strength--do notlet the devil tempt you to believe that that health and strength isyour own property, to do what you like with. It belongs to the Lordwho died for you, and He will require an account from you how youhave used it. Do not let the devil tempt you to believe that theLord delays His coming to you--that you may do what you like now, inthe prime of your years, and that it will be time enough to thinkabout God and religion when God visits you with cares, and sickness, and old age. That is the fancy of too many; but it will surely turnout to be a mistake. Those who misuse their youth, and health, andstrength, in tyrannising over those who are weaker than themselves, and laughing at those who are not as clever as themselves, and eatingand drinking with the drunken--the Lord will come to them in an hourwhen they are not aware, and cut them asunder, in some way or other, by loss of work, or poverty, or sickness, or doubt and confusion, andbitter shame and perplexity of mind; till they find out, poor things, that they have been living like the unbelievers all their youth, without God in the world, while God's love and God's teaching, andGod's happiness was ready for them; and have to go back again totheir Father and their Lord, and cry: "Father, we have sinnedagainst heaven and before Thee, and are no more worthy to be calledThy children!" Oh, you who have been fancying that the Lord was gonefar away, and that you had a right to do what you liked with thepowers which He has given you, go back to Him, now at once, andconfess that you, and all belonging to you, belong to Him, and askHim to teach you how to use it aright. Ask Him to teach you how toplease Him with it, and not yourselves only. Ask Him to teach youhow to do good to all around you, and not merely to do what you like. Ask Him to show you how to do your duty to Him, and to yourneighbours, for whom He died on the cross, in that station of life towhich He has called you. Ask Him to show you how to use yourproperty, your knowledge, your business, your strength, your health, so that you may be a blessing and a help to those whom He blesses andhelps, and who, He wishes, should bless and help each other. Go backto Him at once, my friends. You will not have far to go, seeing thatHe is now even among us here hearing my clumsy words; and I do hope, and trust, and pray, bringing them home to some of your hearts withthat spirit and power of His, which is like a two-edged sword, piercing to the very depths of a man's heart, and showing him howugly it is--and how noble the Lord will make it, if he will butrepent and pray to Him who never cast out any that came to Him. 

XXII--THE WAY TO WEALTH

Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He isnear: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man histhoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercyupon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. --ISAIAH lv. 6, 7. 

Some of you, surely, while the first lesson was being read thismorning, must have felt the beauty of it; and if you were thoughtful, perplexed, weary, sad at heart, perhaps you felt that it was morethan beautiful--that it was full of comfort. And so it should befull of comfort to you, my friends. God meant it to give youcomfort. For though it was written and spoken by a man of likepassions with ourselves, it was just as truly written and spoken byGod, who made heaven and earth. It is true and everlasting, themessage which it brings, and like all true and everlasting words, itis the voice of God who cannot change; who makes no differencebetween Jew and Gentile, between us in England here, and nationswhich perished hundreds of years ago. 

And what is its message? What was God's word to the old Jews, amongall their sin, and sorrow, and labour?

Is it the message of a stern judge, saying: "Pay me that thou owest, to the uttermost farthing; and if you cannot do that, fret andtorment yourselves in shame and terror here on earth, for all yoursins, if, possibly, you may chance to change my mind, and findforgiveness at the last day?"

Is it the message of a proud tyrant, saying: "If you are miserable, and fallen, and sinful, what is that to me? I am perfect, blest, contented with myself, alone in my glory, far away beyond the sightof men, beyond the sun and stars--what are you worms of earth to me?"

Or is it the voice of a loving Father, calling to his self-willedchildren who have gone proudly and boldly away from their Father'shouse, and thrown off their Father's government, and said in theirconceit: "We are men. Do not we know good and evil? Do we not knowwhat is our interest? Cannot we judge for ourselves, and shift forourselves, and take care of ourselves? Why are we to be barred frompleasant things here, and profitable things there? We will be ourown masters. "

To self-willed children who have said thus, and done thus in theirfoolish hearts, and have found all their conceit, and shrewdness, only lead them into sorrow, and perplexity, and distress. --Who havefound that with all their cleverness they could not get the very goodthings for which they left their Father's house; or if they get them, find no enjoyment in them, but only discontent, and shame, anddanger, and a sad self-accusing heart--spending their money for thatwhich does not feed them after all, and labouring hard for thingswhich do not satisfy them; always longing for something more--alwaysfinding the pleasure, or the profit, or the honour which a little wayoff looked so fine, looked quite ugly and worthless, when they comeup to it and get hold of it--finding all things full of labour; theeye never satisfied with seeing, or the ear with hearing; the samething coming over and over again. Each young man starting with gayhopes, as if he were the first man that ever was born, and he wasgoing to do out of hand such fine things as man never did before, andmake his own fortune, and set the world to right at once; and then ashe grows older, falling into the same weary ruts as his forefatherswent dragging on it, every fresh year bringing its own labour and itsown sorrow; and dying like them, taking nothing away with him of allhe has earned, and crying with his last breath: "That which iscrooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot benumbered. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he takethunder the sun, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit?"

To self-willed children, who have tried their own way ever since theywere born, they and their fathers before them, and found it go roundin a ring and leave them just where they started in heart and soul, and, on their death-beds, in purse and power also--

To such struggling, dissatisfied beings--such as nine-tenths of themen and women on this earth, alas! are still--comes the word of thisloving Father:

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! and he thathath no money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milkwithout money, and without price. " Why do you fancy that money cangive you all you want? Why this labouring and straining after money, as if it was God, as if it made heaven and earth, and all therein?Is money a God? or money's worth? "I am God, " saith the Lord, "andbeside me there is none else. It is I who give, and not money. Itis I who save men, and not money. And I do save, and I do givefreely to all. Come, and try my mercy, and see if my word be nottrue. "

This struggling and snarling, like dogs over a bone--what profitcomes of it? are you happier? are you wiser? are you better? are youmore at peace with your neighbours; more at peace with your ownhearts and consciences? If you are, money has not made you so, norplotting, and scraping, and struggling, and pushing your neighbourdown, that you may rise a few inches on his shoulders. No. Hearwhat the voice of your Father says is the true way to wealth andcomfort, after which you all struggle and labour so hard in vain. --"Hearken diligently unto me, and you shall eat that which is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear andcome unto me. Hear, and your soul shall live. And I will make aneverlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies, " or rather "thefaithful oath which I sware unto David?" And what is this faithfuloath which God sware to David. --"Of the fruit of thy body, I will seton thy seat. " A promise of a righteous king who should arise inDavid's family. How far David understood the full meaning of thatglorious promise we cannot tell. He thought most probably, at first, that Solomon, his son, was to be the king who would fulfil it. Butall through many of his psalms, there are deep and great words aboutsome nobler and more perfect king than Solomon--about one who, asIsaiah says here, would perfectly witness to the people that God wastheir King; one who would be a perfect leader and commander of thepeople; a holy one of Israel, who would sit on God's right hand; tohear the good news of whom, the Jews would call nations whom theythen did not know of, and for whose sake nations who did not knowthem would run to them. And dimly David did see this, that God wouldraise up a true Christ, that is, one truly anointed by God, chosenand sent out by God, to sit on his throne, and be perfectly whatDavid was only in part; a King made perfect by suffering, a King ofpoor men, a King who bore the sins and carried the iniquities of allHis people, from the highest to the lowest. We know who that was. We know clearly what David only knew dimly, what Isaiah only knew alittle more clearly. We know who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, ascended into heaven, and now sits atthe right hand of God, ever praying for us, ruling the world inrighteousness, Jesus the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, to whom allpower is given in heaven and earth. 

But Isaiah, though he knew Him only dimly, still knew Him. He didnot know that the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, would take on Himselfthe form of a poor man, and be called the son of the carpenter. Suchboundless love and condescension in the Son of God he never couldhave fancied for himself, and God had not chosen to reveal it to him;or to anyone else in those days. But this he did see, that the LordJesus, He whom he calls the Holy One of Israel, was near the Jews inhis time; that He was watching over them, mourning over their sins, arguing with them, and calling them to return to Him with most humanlove and tenderness, as a husband to the woman whom he loves in spiteof her unfaithfulness to him. As he says to his sinful anddistressed country in the chapter before this: "Thy Maker is thyhusband: the Lord of Hosts is His name, and thy Redeemer is the HolyOne of Israel, the Lord of the whole earth shall He be called. Forthe Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit. For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies willI gather thee. In a little anger I hid my face from thee for amoment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. "

This, then, Isaiah knew--that the heart of the Holy Lord pitied andyearned after those poor sinful Jews, as a husband's after a foolishand sinful wife. And how much more should we believe the same, howmuch more should we believe that His heart pities and yearns for allfoolish and sinful people here in England now! We who know athousand times more than Isaiah knew of His love, His pity, Hiscondescension, which led Him to sacrifice Himself upon the cross forus? Surely, surely, if Isaiah had a right to say to those Jews, "Seek the Lord while He may be found, " I have a thousand times asmuch right to say it to you. If Isaiah had a right to say to thoseJews, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man histhoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercyupon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon, " then I havea right to say it to you. 

Free mercy, utter pardon, pardon for all, even for the worst. Andwhat is the argument which Isaiah uses to make his countrymen repent?Is it "Repent, or you shall be damned: Repent because God's wrathand curse is against you. The Lord hates you and despises you, andyou must crawl to His feet like beaten hounds, and entreat Him not tostrike you into hell as He intends"? Not so; it was because Godloved the Jews, that they were to repent. It is because God lovesyou that you must repent. "Incline your ear, " saith the Lord, "andcome unto me, hear, and your soul shall live; and you shall eat thatwhich is good, and your soul shall delight itself in fatness. " Yes, God is love. God's delight and glory is to give; in spite of all oursins He gives and gives, sending rain and fruitful seasons to justand unjust, to fill their hearts with joy and gladness; and all thewhile men fancy that it is not God that gives, but they who take. God has not left Himself, as St. Paul says, without a witness; everyfruitful shower and quickening gleam of sunshine cries to us--See!God is love: He is the giver. And men will not hear that voice. They say in their hearts, "The Lord is far away above the skies; Hedoes not care for us: we must help ourselves, each man to what hecan get off this earth; nay, even, when we are hard put to it for aliving, we must break God's laws to keep ourselves alive, and sosteal from God's table the very good things which He offers usfreely. "

But some will say: "He does not give freely; we must work andstruggle. Why do you mock poor hard-worked creatures with such wordsas these?"

Ask that question of God, my friends, and not of me. Isaiah saidthat those who hearkened to God diligently should eat what is good. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said the same--that if we seek firstthe kingdom of God and His justice, all other things should be addedto them. He did not mean us to be idle, God forbid! but this Hemeant, that if we, each in his business and calling, put steadilybefore ourselves what is right, what God would wish us, His subjects, to be in His Kingdom--if instead of making our first thought in everybusiness we take in hand, "What will suit my interest best, what willraise most money, what will give me most pleasure?" we said toourselves all day long, "What will be most right, and just, andmerciful for us to do; what will be most pleasing to a God who islove and justice itself? what will do most good to my neighbour aswell as myself?" then all things would go well with us. Then weshould be prosperous and joyful. Then our plans would succeed andour labour bring forth real profit to us, because they would beaccording to the will of God: we should be fellow-workers with JesusChrist in the great work of doing good to this poor distracted world, and His help and blessing would be with us. 

And if you ask me, how can this come to pass, I must answer, asIsaiah does in this same chapter: "The Lord's ways are not as ourways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts, but higher than ours, as theheavens are above the earth. " But if we do turn to God, and repenteach man of us of his selfishness, his unfaithfulness, his hard-heartedness, his covetousness, his self-will, his ungodliness--thenGod's blessing, as Isaiah says, will come down on us, and spring upamong us, we know not how or whence, like the rain and snow, whichcomes down from heaven and waters the earth, and makes it bud andbring forth to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Soshall be the Lord's word, which goes out of His mouth; it will notreturn to Him void, but will accomplish what He pleases, and prosperin that whereto He sends it. He will teach us and guide us in theright way. He will put His word into the mouths of true teachers toshow us our duty. He will pour out His spirit upon us, to make uslove our duty. In one way and another, we know not how, we shall betaught what is good for England, good for each parish, good for eachfamily. And wealth, peace, and prosperity for rich and poor will bethe fruit of obeying the word of God, and giving up our hearts to beled by His spirit. As it was to be in Judaea, of old, if theyrepented, so will it be with us. They should go forth with joy anddo their work in peace. The hills should break before them intosinging, and all the trees of the field should clap their hands;instead of thorns should come up timber-trees: instead of briers, garden-shrubs. The whole cultivation of the country was to improve, and be to the Lord for a name, and a sign for ever that the true wayto wealth and prosperity is the way of God, justice, mercy to eachother, and obedience to the will of Him who made heaven and earth, trees and fruitful fields, rain and sunshine, and gives the blessingsof them freely to His children of mankind, in proportion as they lookup to Him as a loving Father, and return to him day by day, withchildlike repentance, and full desire to amend their lives accordingto His holy word. 

XXIII--THE LOVE OF CHRIST

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, thatif one died for all, then were all dead. And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, butunto Him which died for them, and rose again. --2 COR. V. 14, 15. 

What is the use of sermons?--what is the use of books? Here arehundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what isright, and how many DO what is right?--much less LOVE what is right?What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better andchoose the worse? What motive can one find out?--what reason orargument can one put before people, to make them do their duty? Howcan one stir them up to conquer themselves; to conquer their own loveof pleasure, laziness, cowardice, conceit, above all their ownselfishness, and do simply what is right, morning, noon, and night?That is a question worth asking and considering, for there ought tobe some use in sermons and in books; and there ought to be some usein every one of us too. Woe to the man who is of no use! The Lordhave mercy on his soul; for he needs it! It is, indeed, worth hiswhile to take any trouble which will teach him a motive for beinguseful; in plain words, stir him up to do his duty, to do his rights;for a man's rights are not, as the world thinks, what is right othersshould do to him, but what is right he should do to others. Our dutyis our right, the only thing which is right for us. What motive willconstrain us, that is, bind us, and force us to do that?

Will self-interest? Will a man do right because you tell him it ishis interest, it will pay him to do it? Look round you and see. --Thedrunkard knows that drinking will ruin him, and yet he gets drunk. The spendthrift knows that extravagance will ruin him, and yet hethrows away his money still. The idler knows that he is wasting hisonly chance for all eternity, and yet he puts the thought out of hishead, and goes on idling. The cheat knows that he is in danger ofbeing almost certainly found out sooner or later; he knows too thathe is burdening his own conscience with the curse of inward shame andself-contempt; and yet he goes on cheating. The hard master knows, or ought to know (for there is quite enough to prove it to him) thatit would pay him better in the long run to be more merciful, and lesscovetous; that by grinding those whom he employs down to the lastfarthing, he degrades them till they become burdens on him and cursesto him; that what he gains by high prices, he will lose in the longrun by bad debts; that what he saves in low wages, he will pay inextra poor-rates; and that even if he does make money out of theflesh and bones of those beneath him, that money ill gotten is sureto be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a cursein the gnawing of a man's own conscience, and a curse too in the wayit flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them. "He thatby usury and unjust gain increases his wealth, shall gather for himthat will pity the poor. " So said Solomon of old. And men whoworship Mammon find it come true daily, and see that, taking allthings together, a man's life does not consist in the abundance ofthe things which he possesses, and that those who make such haste tobe rich, fall, as the apostle says, "into temptation and a snare, andpierce themselves through with many sorrows. " Such a man sees hisneighbours making money, and making themselves more unhappy, anxious, discontented by it; he sees, in short, that it is not his interest todo nothing but make money and save money: and yet in spite of that, he thinks of nothing else. Self-interest cannot keep him from thatsin. I do not believe that self-interest ever kept any man from anySIN, though it may keep him from many an imprudence. Self-interestmay make many a man respectable, but whom did it ever make good? Youmay as well make house-walls of paper, or take a rush for a walking-stick, as take self-interest to keep you upright, or even prudent. The first shake--and the rush bends, and the paper wall breaks, and aman's selfish prudence is blown to the winds. Let pleasure tempthim, or ambition, or the lust of making money by speculation; let himtake a spite against anyone; let him get into a passion; let hispride be hurt; and he will do the maddest things, which he knows tobe entirely contrary to his own interest, just to gratify the fancyof the moment. Those who call themselves philosophers, and fancythat men's self-interest, if they can only feel it strong enough, would make all men just and merciful to each other, know as little ofhuman nature as they do of God or the devil. 

What WILL make a man to do his duty? Will the hope of heaven? Thatdepends very much upon what you mean by heaven. But what peoplecommonly mean by going to heaven, is--not going to hell. Theybelieve that they must go to either one place or the other. Theywould much sooner of course stay on earth for ever, because theirtreasure is here, and their heart too. But that cannot be, and asthey have no wish to go to hell, they take up with heaven instead, byway of making the best of a bad matter. 

I ask you solemnly, my friends, each one of you, which would yousooner do--stay here on earth, or go to heaven? You need not answerME. I am afraid many of you would not dare answer me as you reallyfelt, because you would be ashamed of not liking to go to heaven. But answer God. Answer yourselves in the sight of God. When youkeep yourselves back from doing a wrong thing, because you know it iswrong, is it for love of heaven, or for mere fear of being punishedin hell? Some of you will answer boldly at once: "For neither onenor the other; when we keep from wrong, it is because we hate anddespise what is wrong: when we do right it is because it is rightand we ought to do it. We can't explain it, but there is somethingin us which tells us we ought to do right. " Very good, my friends, Ishall have a word to say to you presently; but in the meantime thereare some others who have been saying to themselves: "Well, I know wedo right because we are afraid of being punished if we do not do it, but what of that? at all events we get the right thing done, andleave the wrong thing undone, and what more do you want? Why tormentus with disagreeable questions as to WHY we do it?"

Now, my friends, to make the matter simpler, I will take you at yourwords, for the sake of argument. Suppose you do avoid sin from thefear of hell, does that make what you do RIGHT? Does that make YOUright? Does that make your heart right? It is a great blessing to aman's neighbours, certainly, if he is kept from doing wrong any how--by the fear of hell, or fear of jail, or fear of shame, or fear ofghosts if you like, or any other cowardly and foolish motive--a greatblessing to a man's neighbours: but no blessing, that I can see, tothe man himself. He is just the same; his heart is not changed; hisheart is no more right in the sight of God, or in the sight of anyman of common sense either, than it would be if he did the wrongthing, which he loves and dare not do. You feel that yourselvesabout other people. You will say "That man has a bad heart, for allhis respectable outside. He would be a rogue if he dared, andtherefore he IS a rogue. " Just so, I say, my friends, take care lestGod should say of you, "He would be a sinner if he dared, andtherefore he is a sinner. 

How can the hope of heaven, or the fear of hell, make a man do right?The right thing, the true thing for a man, is to be loving, and doloving things; and can fear of hell do that, or hope of heaveneither? Can a man make himself affectionate to his children becausehe fancies he shall be punished if he is not so, and rewarded if heis so? Will the hope of heaven send men out to feed the hungry, toclothe the naked, visit the sick, preach the gospel to the poor?--ThePapists say it will. I say it will not. I believe that even inthose who do these things from hope of heaven and fear of hell, thereis some holier, nobler, more spiritual motive, than such everlastingselfishness, such perfect hypocrisy, as to do loving works forothers, for the sake of one's own self-love. 

What feeling then is there left which will bind a man to do good, notonce in a way, but always and habitually? to do good, not only tohimself, but to all around him? I know but of one, my friends, andthat is Love. There are many sides to love--admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, affection--they are all different shapes of that onegreat spirit of love. Surely all of you have felt its power more orless; how wonderfully it can conquer a man's whole heart, change hiswhole conduct. For love of a woman; for pity to those in distress;for admiration for anyone who is nobler and wiser than himself; forgratitude to one who has done him kindness; for loyalty to one towhom he feels he owes a service--a man will dare to do things, andsuffer things, which no self-interest or fear in the world could havebrought him to. Do you not know it yourselves? Is it not fondnessfor your wives and children, that will make you slave and stintyourselves of pleasure more than any hope of gain could ever do? Butthere is no one human being, my friends, whom we can meet among usnow, for whom we can feel all these different sorts of love? Surelynot: and yet there must be One Person somewhere for whom God intendsus to feel them all at once; or else He would not have given allthese powers to us, and made them all different branches of one greatroot of love. There must be One Person somewhere, who can call outthe whole love in us--all our gratitude; all our pity; all ouradmiration; all our loyalty; all our brotherly affection. AND THEREIS ONE, my friends. One who has done for us more than ever husbandor father, wife or brother, can do to call out our gratitude. Onewho has suffered for us more than the saddest wretch upon this earthcan suffer, to call out our pity. One who is nobler, purer, morelovely in character than all others who ever trod this earth, to callout our admiration. One who is wiser, mightier than all rulers andphilosophers, to call out all our reverence. One who is tenderer, more gentle, more feeling-hearted, than the kindest woman who eversat by a sick bed, to call out all our love. Of whom can I bespeaking? Of whom but of Jesus; He who for us stooped out of theheaven of heavens; for us left His eternal glory in the bosom of theFather; for us took upon Him the form of a servant, and was born of avillage maiden, and was called the son of a carpenter; for uswandered this earth for thirty years in sorrow and shame; for us gaveHis back to the scourge, and His face to shameful spitting; for ushung upon the cross and died the death of the felon and the slave. Oh! my friends, if that story will not call out our love, what will?If we cannot admire Christ, whom can we admire? If we cannot begrateful to Christ, to whom can we be grateful? If we cannot pityChrist, whom can we pity? If we cannot feel bound in honour to livefor Christ, to work for Christ, to delight in talking of Christ, thinking of Christ, to glory in doing Christ's commandments to thevery smallest point, to feel no sacrifice too great, no trouble toopetty, if we can please Christ by it and help forward Christ'skingdom upon earth--if we cannot feel bound in honour to do that forChrist, what honour is there in us? Again, I say, if we cannot loveChrist, whom can we love? If the remembrance of what He has workedfor us will not stir us up to work for Him, what will stir us up?

I say it again, we are bound by every tie, by every feeling that canbind man to man, to devote ourselves to Christ, the Man of all men. I say this is no dream or fancy, it is an actual fact which thousandsand hundreds of thousands on this earth have felt. Nothing but loveto Christ, nothing but loving Him because He first loved us, canconstrain and force a man as with a mighty feeling which he cannotresist, to labour day and night for Christ's sake, and therefore forthe sake of God the Father of Christ. What else do you suppose itwas which could have stirred up the apostles--above all, that wise, learned, high-born, prosperous man, St. Paul, to leave house andhome, and wander in daily danger of his life? What does St. Paul sayhimself? "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, and if one died for all then were all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, butunto Him who died for them. " And what else could have kept St. Paulthrough all that labour and sorrow of his own choosing, of which hespeaks in the chapter before?--"We are troubled on every side, yetnot distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, butnot forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about inthe body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesusmight be made manifest in our body; for we which live are alwaydelivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesusmight be made manifest in our body. "

We may say that St. Paul was an exceedingly benevolent man, and THATmade him do it; or that he had found out certain new truths andopinions which delighted him very much, and therefore he did it. ButSt. Paul gives no such account of himself: and we have no right totake anyone's account but his own. He knew his own heart best. Hedoes not say that he came to preach a scheme of redemption, oropinions about Christ. He says he came to preach nothing but ChristHimself--Christ crucified--to tell people about the Lord he loved, about the Lord who loved him, certain that when they had heard theplain story of Him, their hearts, if they were simple, and true, andloving, would leap up in answer to his words, and find out, as byinstinct, what Christ had done for them, what they were to do forChrist. Ay, I believe, my friends--indeed I am certain--from my ownreading, that in every age and country, just in proportion as menhave loved Christ personally as a man would love another man, just inthat proportion have they loved their neighbours, worked for theirneighbours, sacrificed their time, their pleasure, their money, to dogood to all, for the sake of Him who commanded: "If ye love ME, keepmy commandments; and my commandment is this, that ye should love oneanother as I have loved you. " That is the only sure motive. Allother motives for doing good or being good, will fail in one case oranother case, because they do not take possession of a man's wholeheart, but only of some part of his heart. Love--love to Christ, canalone sweep away a man's whole heart and soul with it, and renew it, and transfigure it, and make it strong instead of weak, pure insteadof foul, gentle instead of fierce, brave instead of being vain andcowardly, and fearing what everyone will say of him. Only love forChrist, who loved all men unto the death, will make us love all mentoo: not only one here and there who may agree with us or help us;but those who hate us, those who misunderstand us, those who thwartus, ay, even those who disobey and slight not only us, but JesusChrist Himself. THAT is the hardest lesson of all to learn; butthousands have learnt it; everyone ought to learn it. In proportionas a man loves Christ, he will learn to love those who do not loveChrist. For Christ loves them whether they know it or not; Christdied for them whether they believe it or not; and we must love thembecause our Saviour loves them. 

Oh! my friends, why do so few love Christ? Why do so few live asthose who are not their own, but bought with the price of Hisprecious blood and bound to devote themselves, body and soul, to Hiscause? Why do so many struggle against their sins, while yet theycannot break off those sins, but go struggling and sinning on, hatingtheir sins and yet unable to break through their sins, like birdsbeating themselves to death against the wires of their cage? Why?Because they do not know Christ. And how can they know Him, unlessthey read their Bibles with simple, childlike hearts, determined tolet the Bible tell its own story: believing that those who walkedwith Christ on earth, must know best what He was like? Why? Becausethey will not ask Christ to come and show Himself to them, and makethem see Him, and love Him, and admire Him, whether they will or not. Oh! remember, if Christ be the Son of God, the Lord of heaven andearth, we cannot go to Him, poor, weak, ignorant creatures as we are. We cannot ascend up into heaven to bring Christ down. He must comedown out of His own great love and condescension, and dwell in ourhearts as He has promised to do, if we do but love Him. He must comedown and show Himself to us. Oh! read your Bibles--read the story ofChrist, and if that does not stir up in you some love for Him, youmust have hearts of stone, not flesh and blood. And then go to Him;pray to Him, whether you believe in Him altogether or not, upon themere chance of His being able to hear you and help you. You wouldnot throw away a chance on earth; will you throw away such a chancein heaven as having the Son of God to help you? Oh, cry to Him; sayout of the depths of your heart: "Thou most blessed and gloriousBeing who ever walked this earth, who hast gone blameless through allsorrow and temptation that man can feel; if Thou dost love anyone, ifThou canst hear anyone, hear me! If thou canst not help me, no onecan. I have a hundred puzzling questions which I cannot answer formyself, a hundred temptations which I cannot conquer for myself, ahundred bad habits which I cannot shake off of myself; and they tellme that Thou canst teach me, Thou canst guide me, Thou canststrengthen me, Thou canst take out of my heart this shame and gnawingof an evil conscience. If Thou be the Son of God, make me clean! Ifit be true that Thou lovest all men, show Thy love to me! If it betrue that Thou canst teach all men, teach me! If it be true thatThou canst help all men, help my unbelief, for if Thou dost not, there is no help for me in heaven or earth!" You, who are sinful, distracted, puzzled, broken-hearted, cry to Christ in that way, ifyou have no better way, and see if He does not hear you. He is notone to break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax. He willhear you, for He has heard all who have ever called on Him. Cry toHim from the bottom of your hearts. Tell Him that you do NOT loveHim, and that yet you LONG to love Him. And see if you do not findit true that those who come to Christ, He will in no wise cast out. He may not seem to answer you the first time, or the tenth time, orfor years; for Christ has His own deep, loving, wise ways of teachingeach man, and for each man a different way. But try to learn all youcan of Him. Try to know Him. Pray to know, and understand Him, andlove Him. And sooner or later you will find His words come true, "Ifa man love me, I and my Father will come to him, and take up ourabode with him. " And then you will feel arise in you a hungering anda thirsting after righteousness, a spirit of love, and a desire ofdoing good, which will carry you up and on, above all that man cansay or do against you--above all the laziness, and wilfulness, andselfishness, and cowardice which dwells in the heart of everyone. You will be able to trample it all under foot for the sake of beinggood and doing good, in the strength of that one glorious thought, "Christ lived and died for me, and, so help me God, I will live anddie for Christ. "

XXIV--DAVID'S VICTORY

Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield:but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of armies, the God ofIsrael, whom thou hast defied. --1 SAMUEL xvii. 45. 

We have been reading to-day the story of David's victory over thePhilistine giant, Goliath. Now I think the whole history of Davidmay teach us more about the meaning of the Old Testament, and how itapplies to us, than the history of any other single character. Davidwas the great hero of the Jews; the greatest, in spite of great sinsand follies, that has ever been among them; in every point the kingafter God's own heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself did not disdainto be called especially the Son of David. David was the author, too, of those wonderful psalms which are now in the mouths and the heartsof Christian people all over the world; and will last, as I believe, till the world's end, giving out fresh depths of meaning andspiritual experience. 

But to understand David's history, we must go back a little throughthe lessons which have been read in church the last few Sundays. Wefind in the eighth and in the twelfth chapters of this same book ofSamuel, that the Jews asked Samuel for a king--for a king like thenations round them. Samuel consulted God, and by God's command choseSaul to be their king; at the same time warning them that in askingfor a king they had committed a great and fearful sin, for "the Lordtheir God was their king. " And the Lord said unto Samuel, that inasking for a king they had rejected God from reigning over them. Nowwhat was this sin which the Jews committed? for the mere having aking cannot be wrong in itself; else God would not have anointed Sauland David kings, and blessed David and Solomon; much less would Hehave allowed the greater number of Christian nations to remaingoverned by kings unto this day, if a king had been a wrong thing initself. I think if we look carefully at the words of the story weshall see what this great sin of the Jews was. In the first place, they asked Samuel to give them a king--not God. This was a sin, Ithink; but it was only the fruit of a deeper sin--a wrong way oflooking at the whole question of kings and government. And thatdeeper sin was this: they were a free people, and they wanted tobecome slaves. God had made them a free people; He had brought themup out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery to Pharaoh. He had giventhem a free constitution. He had given them laws to secure safety, and liberty, and equal justice to rich and poor, for themselves, their property, their children; to defend them from oppression, andover-taxation, and all the miseries of misgovernment. And now theywere going to trample under foot God's inestimable gift of liberty. They wanted a king like the nations round them, they said. They didnot see that it was just their glory NOT to be like the nations roundthem in that. We who live in a free country do not see the vast andinestimable difference between the Jews and the other nations. TheJews were then, perhaps, so far as I can make out, the only freepeople on the face of the earth. The nations round them were likethe nations in the East, now governed by tyrants, without law orparliament, at the mercy of the will, the fancy, the lust, theambition, and the cruelty of their despotic kings. In fact, theywere as the Eastern people now are--slaves governed by tyrants. Samuel warned the Jews that it would be just the same with them; thatneither their property, their families, nor their liberty would besafe under the despots for whom they wished. And yet, in spite ofthat warning, they would have a king. And why? Because they did notlike the trouble of being free. They did not like the responsibilityand the labour of taking care of themselves, and asking counsel ofGod as to how they were to govern themselves. So they were ready tosell themselves to a tyrant, that he might fight for them, and judgefor them, and take care of them, while they just ate and drank, andmade money, and lived like slaves, careless of what happened to themor their country, provided they could get food, and clothes, andmoney enough. And as long as they got that, if you will remark, theywere utterly careless as to what sort of king they had. They saidnot one word to Samuel about how much power their king was to have. They made not the slightest inquiry as to whether Saul was wise orfoolish, good or bad. They did not ask God's counsel, or troublethemselves about God; so they proved themselves unworthy of beingfree. They turned, like a dog to his vomit, and the sow to herwallowing in the mire, cowardly back again into slavery; and God gavethem what they asked for. He gave them the sort of king they wanted;and bitterly they found out their mistake during several hundredyears of continually increasing slavery and misery. 

There is a deep lesson for us, my friends, in all this. And that is, that God's gifts are not fit for us, unless we are more or less fitfor them. That to him that makes use of what he has, more shall begiven; but from him who does not, will be taken away even what hehas. And so even the inestimable gift of freedom is no use unlessmen have free hearts in them. God sets a man free from his sins byfaith in Jesus Christ; but unless that man uses His grace, unless hedesires to be free inwardly as well as outwardly--to be free not onlyfrom the punishment of his sins, but from the sins themselves; unlesshe is willing to accept God's offer of freedom, and go boldly to thethrone of grace, and there plead his cause with his heavenly Fatherface to face, without looking to any priest, or saint, or other thirdperson to plead for him; if, in short, a man has not a free spirit inhim, the grace of God will become of no effect in him, and he willreceive the spirit of bondage (of slavery, that is), again to fear. Perhaps he will fall back more or less into popery and half-popishsuperstitions; perhaps, as we see daily round us, he will fall backagain into antinomianism, into the slavery of those very sins fromwhich God once delivered him. And just the same is it with a nation. When God has given a nation freedom, then, unless there be a freeheart in the people and true independence, which is dependence on Godand not on man; unless there be a spirit of justice, mercy, truth, trust of God in them, their freedom will be of no effect; they willonly fall back into slavery, to be oppressed by fresh tyrants. 

So it was with the great Spanish colonies in South America a fewyears ago. God gave them freedom from the tyranny of Spain; but whatadvantage was it to them? Because there was no righteousness inthem; because they were a cowardly, profligate, false, and cruelpeople, therefore they only became the slaves of their own lusts;they turned God's great grace of freedom into licentiousness, andhave been ever since doing nothing but cutting each other's throats;every man's hand against his own brother; the slaves of tyrants farmore cruel than those from whom they had escaped. 

Look at the French people, too. Three times in the last sixty yearshas God delivered them from evil rulers, and given them a chance offreedom; and three times have they fallen back into fresh slavery. And why? Because they will not be righteous; because they will beproud, boastful, lustful, godless, cruel, making a lie and loving it. God help them! We are not here to judge them, but to take warningourselves. Now there is no use in boasting of our English freedom, unless we have free and righteous hearts in us; for it is notconstitutions, and parliaments, and charters which make a nationfree; they are only the shell, the outside of freedom. True freedomis of the heart and spirit, and comes down from above, from theSpirit of God; for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, andthere only. Oh, every one of you! high and low, rich and poor, prayand struggle to get your own hearts free; free from the sins whichbeset us Englishmen in these days; free from pride, prejudice, andenvy; free from selfishness and covetousness; free from unchastityand drunkenness; free from the conceit that England is safe, whileall the rest of the world is shaking. Be sure that the spirit offreedom, like every other good and perfect gift, is from above, andcomes down from God, the Father of lights; and that to keep thatspirit with us, we must keep ourselves worthy of it, and not expectto remain free if we indulge ourselves in mean and slavish sins. 

So the Jews got the king they wanted--a king to look at and be proudof. Saul was, we read, a head taller than all the rest of thepeople, and very handsome to look at. And he was brave enough, too, in mere fighting, when he was awakened and stirred up to act now andthen; but there was no wisdom in him; no real trust in God in him. He took God for an idol, like the heathens' false gods, which had tobe pleased and kept in good humour by the smell of burnt sacrifices;and not for a living, righteous Person, who had to be obeyed. Weread of Saul's misconduct in these respects, in the thirteenth andfifteenth chapters of the First Book of Samuel. That was only thebeginning of his wickedness. The worst points in his character, as Ishall show in my next sermon, came out afterwards. But still, hisdisobedience was enough to make God cast him off, and leave him to gohis own way to ruin. 

But God was not going to cast off His people whom He loved. He dealsnot with mankind after their sins, neither rewards them according totheir iniquities; and so he chose out for them a king after His ownheart--a true king of God's making, not a mere sham one of man'smaking. You may think it strange why God should have given them asecond king; why, as soon as Saul died, He did not let them returnback to their old freedom. But that is not God's way. He bringsgood out of evil in His great mercy. But it is always by strangewinding paths. His ways are not as our ways. First, God gives manwhat is perfectly proper for him at that time; sets man in his rightplace; and then when man falls from that, God brings him, not back tothe place from which he fell, but on forward into something farhigher and better than what he fell from. He put Adam into Paradise. Adam fell from it, and God made use of the fall to bring him into astate far better than Paradise--into the kingdom of God--intoeverlasting life--into the likeness of Christ, the new Adam, who is aquickening, life-giving spirit, while the old Adam was, at best, onlya living soul. 

So with the church of Christian men. After the apostles' time, andeven during the apostles' time, as we read from the Epistle to theGalatians, they fell away, step by step, from the liberty of thegospel, till they sunk entirely into popish superstition. And yetGod brought good out of that evil. He made that very popery a meansof bringing them back at the Reformation into clearer light than anyof the first Christians ever had had. He is going on step by stepstill, bringing Christians into a clearer knowledge of the gospelthan even the Reformers had. 

And so with the Jews. They fell from their liberty and chose a king. And yet God made use of those kings of theirs, of David, of Solomon, of Josiah, and Hezekiah, to teach them more and more about Himselfand His law, and to teach all nations, by their example, what anation should be, and how He deals with one. 

But now let us see what this true king, David, was like, whom Godchose, that He might raise, by his means, the Jews higher than theyever yet had been, even in their days of freedom. Now remark, in thefirst place, that David was not the son of any very great man. Hisfather seems to have been only a yeoman. He was not bred up incourts. We find that when Samuel was sent to anoint David king, hewas out keeping his father's sheep in the field. And though, nodoubt, he had shown signs of being a very remarkable youth from thefirst, yet his father thought so little of him, that he was going topass him over, and caused all his seven elder sons to pass beforeSamuel for his choice first, though there seems to have been nothingparticular in them, except that some of them were fine men and bravesoldiers. So David seems to have been overlooked, and thought butlittle of in his youth--and a very good thing for him. It is a goodthing for a young man to bear the yoke in his youth, that he may bekept humble and low; that he may learn to trust in God, and not inhis own wit. And even when Samuel anointed David, he anointed himprivately. His brothers did not know what a great honour was instore for him; for we find, in the lesson which we have just read, that when David came down to the camp, his elder brother spokecontemptuously to him, and treated him as a child. "I know thypride, " he said, "and the naughtiness of thy heart. Thou art comedown to see the battle. " While David answers humbly enough: "Whathave I done? is there not a cause?" feeling that there was more inhim than his brother gave him credit for; though he dare not tell hisbrother, hardly, perhaps, dare believe himself, what great things Godhad prepared for him. So it is yet--a prophet has no honour in hisown country. How many a noble-hearted man there is, who is lookeddown upon by those round him! How many a one is despised for adreamer, or for a Methodist, by shallow worldly people, who in God'ssight is of very great price! But God sees not as man sees. Hemakes use of the weak people of this world to confound the strong. He sends about His errands not many noble, not many mighty; but thepoor man, rich in faith, like David. He puts down the mighty fromtheir seat, and exalts the humble and meek. He takes the beggar fromthe dunghill, that He may set him among the princes of His people. So He has been doing in all ages. So He will do even now, in somemeasure, with everyone like David, let him be as low as he will inthe opinion of this foolish world, who yet puts his trust utterly inGod, and goes about all his work, as David did, in the name of theLord of hosts. Oh! if a poor man feels that God has given him witand wisdom--feels in him the desire to rise and better himself inlife, let him be sure that the only way to rise is David's plan--tokeep humble and quiet till God shall lift him up, trusting in God'srighteousness and love to raise him, and deliver him, and put him inthat station, be it high or low, in which he will be best able to doGod's work, or serve God's glory. 

And now for the chapter from which the text is taken, which relatesto us David's first great public triumph--his victory over Goliaththe giant. I will not repeat it to you, because everyone here whohas ears to hear or a heart to feel ought to have been struck withevery word in that glorious story. All I will try to do is, to showyou how the working of God's Spirit comes out in David in everyaction of his on that glorious day. We saw just now David'shumbleness and gentleness, the fruits of God's Spirit in him, in hisanswer to his proud and harsh brother. Look next at David's spiritof trust in God, which, indeed, is the key to his whole life; that isthe reason why he was the man after God's own heart--not for anyvirtues of his own, but for his unshaken continual faith in God. David saw in an instant why the Israelites were so afraid of thegiant; because they had no faith in God. They forgot that they werethe armies of the living God. David did not: "Who is thisuncircumcised, that he shall defy the armies of the living God?" Andtherefore, when Saul tried to dissuade him from attacking thePhilistine, his answer is still the same--full of faith in God. Heknew well enough what a fearful undertaking it was to fight with thisgiant, nearly ten feet high, armed from head to foot with mail, whichperhaps no sword or spear which he could use could pierce. It was nowonder, humanly speaking, that all the Jews fled from him--that hisbeing there stopped the whole battle. In these days, fifty such menwould make no difference in a battle; bullets and cannon-shot wouldmow down them like other men: but in those old times, beforefirearms were invented, when all battles were hand-to-hand fights, and depended so much on each man's strength and courage, that onechampion would often decide the victory for a whole army, the amountof courage which was required in David is past our understanding; atleast we may say, David would not have had it but for his trust inGod, but for his feeling that he was on God's side, and Goliath onthe devil's side, unjustly invading his country in self-conceit, andcruelty, and lawlessness. Therefore he tells Saul of his victoryover the lion and the bear. You see again, here, the Spirit of Godshowing in his MODESTY. He does not boast or talk of his strengthand courage in killing the lion and the bear; for he knew that thatstrength and courage came from God, not from himself; therefore hesays that the Lord DELIVERED HIM from them. He knew that he had beenonly doing his duty in facing them when they attacked his father'ssheep, and that it was God's mercy which had protected him in doinghis duty. He felt now, that if no one else would face this brutalgiant, it was HIS duty, poor, simple, weak youth as he was, andtherefore he trusted in God to bring him safe through this dangeralso. But look again how the Spirit of God shows in his prudence. He would not use Saul's armour, good as it might be, because he wasnot accustomed to it. He would use his own experience, and fightwith the weapons to which he had been accustomed--a sling and stone. You see he was none of those presumptuous and fanatical dreamers whotempt God by fancying that He is to go out of His way to workmiracles for them. He used all the proper and prudent means to killthe giant, and trusted to God to bless them. If he had beenpresumptuous, he might have taken the first stone that came to hand, or taken only one, or taken none at all, and expected the giant tofall down dead by a miracle. But no; he CHOOSES FIVE SMOOTH stonesout of the brook. He tried to get the best that he could, and havemore ready if his first shot failed. He showed no distrust of God inthat; for he trusted in God to keep him cool, and steady, andcourageous in the fight, and that, he knew, God alone could do. Theonly place, perhaps, where he could strike Goliath to hurt him was onthe face, because every other part of him was covered in metalarmour. And he knew that, in such danger as he was, God's Spiritonly could keep his eye clear and his hand steady for such adesperate chance as hitting that one place. 

So he went; and as he went his courage rose higher and higher; forunto him that hath shall more be given; and so he began to boast too--but not of himself, like the giant. He boasted of the living God, who was with him. He ran boldly up to the Philistine, and at thefirst throw, struck on the forehead, and felled him dead. 

So it is; many a time the very blessing which we expect to get onlywith great difficulty, God gives us at our first trial, to show thatHe is the Giver, to cheer up our poor doubting hearts, and show usthat He is able, and willing too, to give exceeding abundantly morethan we can ask or think. 

So David triumphed: and yet that triumph was only the beginning ofhis troubles. Sad and weary years had he to struggle on before hegained the kingdom which God had promised him. So it is often withGod's elect. He gives them blessings at first, to show them that Heis really with them; and then He lets them be evil-entreated bytyrants, and suffer persecution, and wander out of the way in thewilderness, that they may be made perfect by suffering, and purified, as gold is in the refiner's fire, from all selfishness, conceit, ambition, cowardliness, till they learn to trust God utterly, to knowtheir own weakness, and His strength, and to work only for Him, careless what becomes of their own poor worthless selves, providedthey can help His kingdom to come, and get His will to be done onearth as it is in heaven. 

And now, my friends, surely there is a lesson in all this for you. Do you wish to rise like David? Of course not one in ten thousandcan rise as high, but we may all rise somewhat, if not in rank, yetstill, what is far better, in spirit, in wisdom, in usefulness, inmanfulness. Do you wish to rise so? then follow David's example. Betruly brave, be truly modest, and in order to be truly brave andtruly modest, that is, be truly manly, be truly godly. Trust in God;trust in God; that is the key to all greatness. Courage, modesty, truth, honesty, and gentleness; all things, which are noble, lovely, and of good report; all things, in short, which will make you menafter God's own heart, are all only the different fruits of that oneblessed life-giving root--FAITH IN GOD. 

XXV--DAVID'S EDUCATION

Made perfect through sufferings. --HEBREWS ii. 10. 

That is my text; and a very fit one for another sermon about David, the king after God's own heart. And a very fit one too, for anysermon preached to people living in this world now or at any time. "A melancholy text, " you will say. But what if it be melancholy?That is not the fault of me, the preacher. The preacher did not makesuffering, did not make disappointment, doubt, ignorance, mistakes, oppression, poverty, sickness. There they are, whether we like it ornot. You have only to go on to the common here, or any other commonor town in England, to see too much of them--enough to break one'sheart if--, but I will not hurry on too fast in what I have to say. What I want to make you recollect is, that misery is here round us, IN us. A great deal which we bring on ourselves; and a great dealmore misery which we do not, as far as we can see, bring onourselves; but which comes, nevertheless, and lets us know plainlyenough that it is close to us. Every man and woman of us have theirsorrows. There is no use shutting our eyes just when we ourselveshappen to feel tolerably easy, and saying, as too many do, "I don'tsee so very much sorrow; I am happy enough!" Are you, friend, happyenough? So much the worse for you, perhaps. But at all events yourneighbours are not happy enough; most of them are only too miserable. It is a sad world. A sad world, and full of tears. It is. And youmust not be angry with the preacher for reminding you of what is. 

True; you would have a right to quarrel with the preacher or anyoneelse who made you sorrowful with the thoughts of the sorrow roundyou, and then gave you no explanation of it--told you of no use, noblessing in it, no deliverance from it. That would be enough tobreak any man's heart, if all the preacher could say was: "Thiswretchedness, and sickness, and death, must go on as long as theworld lasts, and yet it does no good, for God or man. " That thoughtwould drive any feeling man to despair, tempt him to lie down anddie, tempt him to fancy that God was not God at all, not the Godwhose name is Love, not the God who is our Father, but only a crueltaskmaster, and Lord of a miserable hell on earth, where men andwomen, and worst of all, little children, were tortured daily by tensof thousands without reason, or use, or hope of deliverance, exceptin a future world, where not one in ten of them will be saved andhappy. That is many people's notion of the world--religious people'seven. How they can believe, in the face of such notions, "that Godis love;" how they can help going mad with pity, if that is all thehope they have for poor human beings, is more than I can tell. Notthat I judge them--to their own master they stand or fall: but thisI do say, that if the preacher has no better hope to give you aboutthis poor earth, then I cannot tell what right he has to call himselfa preacher of the gospel--that is, a preacher of good news; then I donot know what Jesus Christ's dying to take away the sins of the worldmeans; then I do not know what the kingdom of God means; then I donot know why the Lord taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy willbe done on earth, as it is in heaven, " if the only way in which thatcan be brought about is by His sending ninety-nine hundredths ofmankind to endless torture, over and above all the lesser miserywhich they have suffered in this life. What will be the end of thegreater part of mankind we do not know; we were not intended to know. God is love, and God is justice, and His justice is utterly loving, as well as His love utterly just; so we may very safely leave theworld in the hands of Him who made the world, and be sure that theJudge of all the earth will do right, and that what is right iscertain never to be cruel, but rather merciful. But to every one ofyou who are here now, a preacher has a right, ay, and a bounden duty, to say much more than that. He is bound to tell you good news, because God has called you into His church, and sent you here thisday, to hear good news. He has a right to tell you, as I tell younow, that, strange as it may seem, whatsoever sufferings you endureare sent to make you perfect, even as your Father in heaven isperfect; even as the blessed Lord, whom may you all love, and trust, and worship, for ever and ever, was made perfect by sufferings, eventhough He was the sinless Son of God. Consider that. "It behovedHim, " says St. Paul, "the Captain of our salvation, to be madeperfect through sufferings. " And why? "Because, " answers St. Paul, "it was proper for Him to be made in all things like His brothers"--like us, the children of God--"that He might be a faithful andmerciful high priest;" for, just "because He has suffered beingtempted, He is able to succour us who are tempted. " A strange text, but one which, I think, this very history of David's troubles willhelp us to understand. For it was by suffering, long and bitter, that God trained up David to be a true king, a king over the Jews, "after God's own heart. "

You all know, I hope, something at least of David's psalms. Many ofthem, seven of them at least, were written during David's wanderingsin the mountains, when Saul was persecuting him to kill him, dayafter day, month after month, as you may read in the First Book ofSamuel, from chapters xix. To xxviii. Bitter enough these troublesof David would have been to any man, but what must have made themespecially bitter and confusing to him was, that they all arose outof his righteousness. Because he had conquered the giant, Saulenvied him--broke his promise of giving David his daughter Merab--puthis life into extreme danger from the Philistines, before he wouldgive him his second daughter Michal; the more he saw that the Lordwas with David, and that the young man won respect and admiration bybehaving himself wisely, the more afraid of him Saul was; again andagain he tried to kill him; as David was sitting harmless in Saul'shouse, soothing the poor madman by the music of his harp, Saul triesto stab him unawares; and not content with that proceeds deliberatelyto hunt him down, from town to town, and wilderness to wilderness;sends soldiers after him to murder him; at last goes out after himhimself with his guards. Was not all this enough to try David'sfaith? Hardly any man, I suppose, since the world was made, hadfound righteousness pay him less; no man was ever more tempted toturn round and do evil, since doing good only brought him deeper anddeeper into the mire. But no, we know that he did not lose his trustin God; for we have seven psalms, at least, which he wrote duringthese very wanderings of his; the fifty-second, when Doeg hadbetrayed him to Saul; the fifty-fourth, when Ziphim betrayed him; thefifty-sixth, when the Philistines took him in Gath; the fifty-seventh, "when he fled from Saul in the cave;" the fifty-ninth, "whenthey watched the house to kill him;" the sixty-third, "when he was inthe wilderness of Judah;" the thirty-fourth, "when he was driven awayby Abimelech;" and several more which appear to have been writtenabout the same time. 

Now, what strikes us first, or ought to strike us, in these psalms, is David's utter faith in God. I do not mean to say that David hadnot his sad days, when he gave himself up for lost, and when Godseemed to have forsaken him, and forgotten his promise. He was a manof like passions with ourselves; and therefore he was, as we shouldhave been, terrified and faint-hearted at times. But exactly whatGod was teaching and training him to be, was not to be fainthearted--not to be terrified. He began in his youth by trusting God. Thatmade him the man after God's own heart, just as it was the want oftrust in God which made Saul not the man after God's own heart, andlost him his kingdom. In all those wanderings and dangers of David'sin the wilderness, God was training, and educating, and strengtheningDavid's faith according to His great law: To whomsoever hath shallbe given, and he shall have more abundantly; but from him that hathnot, shall be taken away even that which he seems to have. And thefirst great fruit of David's firm trust in God was his patience. 

He learned to wait God's time, and take God's way, and be sure thatthe same God who had promised that he should be king, would make himking when he saw fit. He knew, as he says himself, that the Strengthof Israel could not lie or repent. He had sworn that He would notfail David. And he learned that God had sworn by His holiness. Hewas a holy, just, righteous God; and David and David's country nowwere safe in His hands. It was his firm trust in God which gave himstrength of mind to use no unfair means to right himself. TwiceSaul, his enemy, was in his power. What a temptation to him to killSaul, rid himself of his tormentor, and perhaps get the kingdom atonce! But no. He felt: "This Saul is a wicked, devil-tormentedmurderer, a cruel tyrant and oppressor; but the same God who chose meto be king next, chose him to be king now. He is the Lord'sanointed. God put him where he is, and leaves him there for somegood purpose; and when God has done with him, God will take him away, and free this poor oppressed people; and in the meantime, I, as aprivate man, have no right to touch him. I must not do evil thatgood may come. If I am to be a true king, a true man at allhereafter, I must keep true now; if I am to be a righteous lawgiverhereafter, I must respect and obey law myself now. The Lord be judgebetween me and Saul; for He is Judge, and He will right me betterthan I can ever right myself. " And thus did trust in God bring outin David that true respect for law, without which a king, let him beas kind-hearted as he will, is but too likely to become at last atyrant and an oppressor. 

But another thing which strikes any thinking man in David's psalms, is his strong feeling for the poor, and the afflicted, and theoppressed. That is what makes the Psalms, above all, the poor man'sbook, the afflicted man's book. But how did he get that fellow-feeling for the fallen? By having fallen himself, and tastedaffliction and oppression. That was how he was educated to be a trueking. That was how he became a picture and pattern--a "type, " assome call it, of Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows. That is why somany of David's psalms apply so well to the Lord; why the Lordfulfilled those psalms when He was on earth. David was truly a manof sorrows; for he had not only the burden of his own sorrows tobear, but that of many others. His parents had to escape, and to beplaced in safety at the court of a heathen prince. His friendAbimelech the priest, because he gave David bread when he wasstarving, and Goliath's sword--which, after all, was David's own--wasmurdered by Saul's hired ruffians, at Saul's command, and with himhis whole family, and all the priests of the town, with their wivesand children, even to the baby at the breast. And when David was inthe mountains, everyone who was distressed, and in debt, anddiscontented, gathered themselves to him, and he became theircaptain; so that he had on him all the responsibility, care, andanxiety of managing all those wild, starving men, many of them, perhaps, reckless and wicked men, ready every day to quarrel amongthemselves, or to break out in open riot and robbery against thepeople who had oppressed them; for--(and this, too, we may see fromDavid's psalms, was not the smallest part of his anxiety)--the nationof the Jews seems to have been in a very wretched state in David'stime. The poor seem in general to have lost their land, and to havebecome all but slaves to rich nobles, who were grinding them down, not only by luxury and covetousness, but often by open robbery andbloodshed. The sight of the misrule and misery, as well as of thebloody and ruinous border inroads which were kept up by thePhilistines and other neighbouring tribes, seems for years to havebeen the uppermost, as well as the deepest thought in David's mind, if we may judge from those psalms of his, of which this is the key-note; and it was not likely to make him care and feel less about allthat misery when he remembered (as we see from his psalms heremembered daily) that God had set him, the wandering outlaw, no lessa task than to mend it all; to put down all that oppression, to raiseup that degradation, to train all that cowardice into self-respectand valour, to knit into one united nation, bound together by fellow-feeling and common faith in God, that mob of fierce, and greedy, and(hardest task of all, as he himself felt) utterly deceitful men. Nowonder that his psalms begin often enough with sadness, even thoughthey may end in hope and trust. He had a work around him and beforehim which ought to have made his heart sad, which was a great part ofhis appointed education, and helped to make him perfect bysufferings. 

And so, upon the bare hill-side, in woods and caves of the earth, incold and hunger, in weariness and dread of death, did David learn tobe the poor man's king, the poor man's poet, the singer of thosepsalms which shall endure as long as the world endures, and be thecomfort and the utterance of all sad hearts for evermore. Agony itwas, deep and bitter, and for the moment more hopeless than the graveitself, which crushed out of the very depths of his heart that mostawful and yet most blessed psalm, the twenty-second, which we read inchurch every Good Friday. The "Hind of the Morning" is its title;some mournful air to which David sang it, giving, perhaps, the notionof a timorous deer roused in the morning by the hunters and thehounds. We read that psalm on Good Friday, and all say that our LordJesus Christ fulfilled it. What do we mean hereby?

We mean hereby, that we believe that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilledall sorrows which man can taste. He filled the cup of misery to thebrim, and drained it to the dregs. He was afflicted in all David'safflictions, in the afflictions of all mankind. He bare all theirsicknesses, and carried all their infirmities; and therefore we readthis psalm upon Good Friday, upon the day in which He tasted deathfor every man, and went down into the lowest depths of terror, andshame, and agony, and death; and, worst of all, into the feeling thatGod had forsaken Him, that there was no help or hope for Him inheaven, as well as earth--no care or love in the great God, whose SonHe was--went down, in a word, into hell; that hell whereof David andHeman, and Hezekiah after them, had said, "Shall the dust give thanksunto thee? and shall it declare thy truth?"--"Thou wilt not leave mysoul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to seecorruption. "--"My life draweth nigh unto hell. . . I am like onestript among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whomthou rememberest no more; and they are cut off from thy hand. . . . Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? and shall the dead arise andpraise thee? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thyrighteousness in the land of destruction?"--"For the grave cannotpraise thee; death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down to thepit cannot hope for thy truth. "

Even into that lowest darkness, where man feels, even for one moment, that God is nothing to him, and he is nothing to God--even into thatJesus condescended to go down for us. That worst of all temptations, of which David only tasted a drop when he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Jesus drained to the very dregs for us. --He went down into hell for us, and conquered hell and death, and thedarkness of the unknown world, and rose again glorious from them, that He might teach us not to fear death and hell; that He might knowhow to comfort us in the hour of death: and in the day of judgment, when on our sick bed, or in some bitter shame and trouble, the lyingdevil is telling us that we are damned and lost, and forsaken by God, and every sin we ever did rises up and stares us in the face. 

Truly He is a king!--a king for rich and poor, young and old, Englishmen and negro; all alike He knows them, He feels for them, Hehas tasted sorrow for them, far more than David did for those poor, oppressed, sinful Jews of his. Read those Psalms of David; for theyspeak not only of David, now long since dead and gone, but of theblessed Jesus, who lives and reigns over us now at this very moment. Read them, for they are inspired; the honest words of a servant ofGod crying out to the same God, the same Saviour and Deliverer as wehave. And His love has not changed. His arm is not shortened thatHe cannot save. Your words need not change. The words of thosepsalms in which David prayed, in them you and I may pray. Right outof the depths of his poor distracted heart they came. Let them comeout of our hearts too. They belong to us more than even they did tothe Jews, for whom David wrote them--more than even they did to Davidhimself; for Jesus has fulfilled them--filled them full--given themboundlessly more meaning than ever they had before, and given us morehope in using them than ever David had: for now that love andrighteousness of God, in which David only trusted beforehand, hascome down and walked on this earth in the shape of a poor man, JesusChrist, the Son of the maiden of Bethlehem. 

Oh, you who are afflicted, pray to God in those psalms; not merely inthe words of them, but in the spirit of them. And to do that, youmust get from God the spirit in which David wrote them--the Spirit ofGod. Pray for that Spirit; for the spirit of patience, which madeDavid wait God's good time to right him, instead of trying, as toomany do, to right himself by wrong means; for the spirit of love, which taught David to return good for evil; for the spirit of fellow-feeling, which taught David to care for others as well as himself;and in that spirit of love, do you pray for others while you arepraying for yourself. Pray for that Spirit which taught David tohelp and comfort those who were weaker than himself, that you in yourtime may be able and willing to comfort and help those who are weakerthan yourselves. And above all, pray for the Spirit of faith, whichmade David certain that oppression and wrong-doing could not stand;that the day must surely come when God would judge the worldrighteously, and hear the cry of the afflicted, and deliver theoutcast and poor, that the man of the world might be no more exaltedagainst them. Pray, in short, for the Spirit of Christ; and then besure He will hear your prayers, and answer them, and show Himself abetter friend, and a truer King to you, than ever David showedhimself to those poor Jews of old. He will deliver you out of allyour troubles--if not in this life, yet surely in the life to come;and though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yetthe peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds in Him who lovedyou, and gave Himself for you, that you might inherit all heaven andearth in Him. 

XXVI--THE VALUE OF LAW

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is nopower but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. --ROMANSxiii. 1. 

What is the difference between a civilised man and a savage? Youwill say: A civilised man can read and write; he has books andeducation; he knows how to make numberless things which makes hislife comfortable to him. He can get wealth, and build great towns, sink mines, sail the sea in ships, spread himself over the face ofthe earth, or bring home all its treasures, while the savages remainpoor, and naked, and miserable, and ignorant, fixed to the land inwhich they chance to have been born. 

True: but we must go a little deeper still. Why does the savageremain poor and wretched, while the civilised people become richerand more prosperous? Why, for instance, do the poor savage gipsiesnever grow more comfortable or wiser--each generation of themremaining just as low as their forefathers were, or, indeed, gettinglower and fewer? for the gipsies, like all savages, are becomingfewer and fewer year by year, while, on the other hand, we Englishincrease in numbers, and in wealth, and knowledge; and freshinventions are found out year by year, which give fresh employmentand make life more safe and more pleasant. 

This is the reason: That the English have laws and obey them, andthe gipsies have none. This is the whole secret. This is whysavages remain poor and miserable, that each man does what he likeswithout law. This is why civilised nations like England thrive andprosper, because they have laws and obey them, and every man does notdo what he likes, but what the law likes. Laws are made not for thegood of one person here, or the other person there, but for the goodof all; and, therefore, the very notion of a civilised country is, acountry in which people cannot do what they like with their own, asthe savages do. "Not do what he likes with his own?" Certainly not;no one can or does. If you have property, you cannot spend it all asyou like. You have to pay a part of it to the government, that is, into the common stock, for the common good, in the shape of rates andtaxes, before you can spend any of it on yourself. If you takewages, you cannot spend them all upon yourself and do what you likewith them. If you do not support your wife and family out of them, the law will punish you. You cannot do what you like with your owngun, for you may not shoot your neighbour's cattle or game with it. You cannot do what you like with your own hands, for the law forbidsyou to steal with them. You cannot do what you like with your ownfeet, for the law will punish you for trespassing on your neighbour'sground without his leave. In short, you can only do with your ownwhat will not hurt your neighbour, in such matters as the law cantake care of. And more, in any great necessity the law may actuallyhurt you for the good of the nation at large. The law may compel youto sell your land, to your own injury, if it is wanted for arailroad. The law may compel you, as it did fifty years ago, toserve as a soldier in the militia, to your own injury, if there is afear of foreign invasion; so that the law is above each and all ofus. Our own wills are not our masters. No man is his own master. The law is the master of each and all of us, and if we will not obeyit willingly, it can make us obey unwillingly. 

Can make us? Ay, but ought it to make us? Is it right that the lawshould over-ride our own free wills, and prevent our doing what welike with our own?

It is right--absolutely right. St. Paul tells us what gives law thisauthority: "There is no power but of God. The powers that be areordained of God. " And he tells us also why this authority is givento the law. "Rulers, " he says, "are not a terror to good works, butto evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of those who administer thelaw? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from them, for they are God's ministers to thee for good. "

For good, you see. For the good of mankind it was, that God put intotheir hearts and reasons, that notion of making laws, and appointingkings and magistrates to see that those laws are obeyed. For ourgood. For without law no man's life, or family, or property would besafe. Every man's private selfishness, and greediness, and anger, would struggle without check to have its way, and there would be nobar or curb to keep each and every man from injuring each and everyman else; so the strong would devour the weak, and then tear eachother in pieces afterwards. So it is among the savages. They havelittle or no property, for they have no laws to protect property; andtherefore every man expects his neighbour to steal from him, andfinds it his shortest plan to steal from his neighbour, instead ofsettling down to sow corn which he will have no chance of eating, orbuild houses which may be taken from him at night by some more strongand cunning savage. There is no law among savages to protect womenand children against the men, and therefore the women are treatedworse than beasts, and the children murdered to save the trouble ofrearing them. Every man's hand is against his neighbour. No onefeels himself safe, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to layup for the morrow. No one expects justice and mercy to be done tohim, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to do justice andmercy to others. And thus they live in continual fear andquarrelling, feeding like wild animals on game or roots, often, whenthey have bad luck in their hunting, on offal which our dogs wouldrefuse, and dwindle away and become fewer and wretcheder year byyear; in this way do the savages in New South Wales live to this day, for want of law. 

It is for our good, then, that God has put into the heart of man tomake laws, and to obey them as sacred and divine things. For ourgood, in order to save us from sinking down into the same state ofpoverty and misery in which the savages are. For our good, becausewe are fallen creatures, with selfish and corrupt wills, continuallyapt to break loose, and please ourselves at the expense of ourneighbours. For our good, because, however fallen we are, we arestill brothers, members of God's family, bound to each other by dutyand relationship, if not by love. 

Just as in a family, if parents, brothers, and sisters will not dotheir duty to each other lovingly and of their free will, the lawinterferes, and the custom of the country interferes, and the opinionof neighbours interferes, and says: "You may not love your parents:but you have no right to leave them to starve. " "You may not loveyour brothers: but if you try to injure and slander them, you aredoing an unnatural and hateful thing, abhorred by God and man, andyou must expect us to treat you accordingly, as a wild beast who doesnot feel the common laws of nature and right and wrong. " So with thelaw of the land. The law is meant to remind us more or less that weare brothers, members of one body; that we owe a duty to each other;that we are all equal in God's sight, who is no respecter of persons, or of rank, or of riches, any more than the law is when it punishesthe greatest nobleman as severely as the poorest labourer. The lawis meant to remind us that God is just; that when we injure eachother, we sin against God; that God's rule and law is, that eachtransgression should receive its just reward, and that, therefore, because man is made in the likeness of God, man is bound, as far ashe can, to visit every offence with due and proportionate punishment. And the law punishes, as St. Paul says, in God's name, and for God'ssake. The magistrate is a witness for God's righteous government ofthe world, the minister of God's vengeance against evil-doers, toremind all continually that evil-doing has no place, and cannotprosper, and must not be allowed, upon this God's earth whereon welive. 

But what if the laws are unfair, and punish only some sorts of evil-doers and not others? What if they are like spiders' webs, whichcatch the little flies, and let the great wasps break through? Whatif they punish poor and weak offenders, and let the rich and powerfulsinners escape? "Obey them still, " says St. Paul. In his time andcountry the laws were as unfair in that way as laws ever were, andyet he tells Christians to obey them for conscience's sake. ThankGod that they do punish weak offenders. Pray God that the time maycome when they may be strong enough to punish great offenders also. But, in the meantime, see that they have not to punish you. As faras the laws go, they are right and good. As far as they keep downany sort of wrong-doing whatsoever, they are God's ordinances, andyou must obey them for God's sake. 

But what if the laws are not only unfair and partial, but also unjustand wrong? Are we to obey them then? Obey them still, says St. Paul. Of course, if they command you to do a clearly wrong thing;if, for instance, the law commanded you to worship idols, or tocommit adultery, there is no question then; such laws cannot be God'sordinance. The laws can only be God's ordinance as far as they agreewith what we know of God's will written in our hearts, and written inHis holy Bible. Then a man must resist the law to the death, if needbe, as the old martyrs did, dying as witnesses for God's righteousand eternal law, against man's false and unrighteous law. It is avery difficult thing, no doubt, to tell where to draw the line insuch matters. But we, thank God, here in England now, have no needto puzzle our heads with such questions. Every man's conscience isfree here, and he has full liberty to worship God as he thinks best, provided that by so doing he does not interfere with his neighbour'scharacter, or property, or comfort. There is no single law inEngland now, that I know of, which a man has any need to refuse toobey, let his conscience be as tender as it may. And as for lawswhich we think hurtful to the country, or hurtful to any particularclass in the country, our thinking them hurtful is no reason that weshould not obey them. As long as they are law, they are God'sordinance, and we have no right to break them. They may be usefulafter all. Or even if they are hurtful in some way, still God may bebringing good out of them in some other way, of which we littledream, as He has often done out of laws and customs which seem atfirst sight most foolish and hurtful, and yet which He endured andwinked at, for the sake of bringing good out of evil. At all events, whatsoever laws are here in England, are made by the men whom weEnglish have chosen, as the men most fit and wise to make them, andwe are bound to abide by them. If Parliament is not wise enough tomake perfectly good laws, that is no one's fault but our own; for ifwe were wise, we should choose wise law-makers, and we must be filledwith the fruit of our own devices. As long as these laws have beenmade and passed, by Commons, Lords, and Queen, according to theancient forms and constitution which God has taught our forefathersfrom time to time for more than a thousand years, and which have hadGod's blessing and favour on them, and made us, from the least of allnations, the greatest nation on the earth; in short, as long as thoselaws are made according to law, so long we are bound to believe themto be God's ordinance, and obey them. But understand; that is noreason why we should not try to get them improved; for when they arechanged and done away according to the same law which made them, thatwill be a sign that they are God's ordinances no longer; that Godthinks we have no more need for them, and does not require us to keepthem. But as long as any law is what St. Paul calls "the powers thatbe, " obeyed it must be, not only for wrath, but for conscience'ssake. 

That is a very important part of the matter. Obey the law, St. Paulsays, not only for wrath, that is, not only for fear of punishment, but for conscience's sake. Even if you do not expect to be punished;even if you think no one will ever find out that you have broken thelaw, remember it is God's ordinance. He sees you. Do not hurt yourown conscience, and deaden your own sense of right and wrong, bybreaking the least or the most unjust law in the slightest point. 

For instance: some people think the income-tax is very unfair; andtherefore they think there is no harm in cheating the revenue alittle, by making out their income less than it is. Others, again, think the laws against smuggling unjust and harsh; and therefore theysee no harm in trying to avoid paying duty on goods which they bringhome, whenever they have an opportunity, or buying cheap goods, whichthey must know from their price are smuggled. Others, again, thinkthe game laws are unfair, and therefore see no harm in going outshooting on their own lands without a licence; while many see noharm, or say they see no harm, in poaching on other people's grounds, and killing game contrary to law wherever they can. That it is wrongto break the law in these two first cases, you all know in your ownhearts. On the matter of poaching, some of you, I know, have manyvery mistaken notions. But, my friends, I ask you only to look atthe sin and misery which poaching causes, if you want to see thatthose who break the law do indeed break the ordinance of God, andthat God's laws avenge themselves. Look at the idleness, theuntidiness, the deceit, the bad company, the drunkenness, the miseryand sin, to man, woman, and child, which that same poaching bringsabout, and then see how one little sin brings on many great ones; howa man, by despising the authority of law, and fancying that he doesno harm in disobeying the laws, from his own fancy about poachingbeing no harm, falls into temptation and a snare, and pierces himselfthrough with many sorrows. My young friends, believe my words. Avoid poaching, even once in a way. The beginning of sin is like theletting out of water; no one can tell where it will stop. He whobreaks the law in little things will be tempted to go on and break itin greater and greater things. He who begins by breaking man's law, which is the pattern of God's law, will be tempted to go on and breakGod's law also. Is it not so? There is no use telling me, "The gameis no one's; there is no harm in taking it. " Light words of thatkind will not do to answer God with. You know there is harm intaking it; for you know, as well as I do, that you cannot go aftergame without neglecting your work to get it; or without going to theworst of public-houses, among the worst of company, to sell it. Youknow, as well as I do, that hand in hand with poaching go lying, andidling, and sneaking, and fear, and boasting, and swearing, anddrinking, and the company of bad men and bad women. And then you saythere is no harm in poaching. Do you suppose that I do not know, aswell as any one of you here, what goes to the snaring of a hare, andthe selling of a hare, and the spending of the ill-got price of ahare? My dear young men, I know that poaching, like many other sins, is tempting: but God has told us to flee from temptation--to resistthe devil, and he will flee from us. If we are to give up ourselveswithout a struggle to every pleasant thing which tempts us, we shallsoon be at the devil's door. We were sent into the world to fightagainst temptation and to conquer it. We were sent into the world todo what God likes, not what we like; and therefore we were sent intothe world to obey the laws of the land wherein we live, be theybetter or worse; because if we break one law because we don't likeit, our neighbour may break another because he don't like that, andso forth; till there is neither law, nor peace, nor safety, but everyman doing what is right in his own eyes, which is sure to end byevery man's doing what is right in the devil's eyes. We were sentinto the world to live as brothers, under laws which make us give upour own wills and selfish lusts for the common good. And if we findit difficult to keep the laws, if we are tempted to break the laws, God has promised His Spirit to those who ask Him. God has promisedHis Spirit to us. If we pray for that Spirit night and morning, Hewill make it easy for us to keep the laws. He will make us what ourLord was before us, humble, patient, loving, manful and strong enoughto restrain our fancies and appetites, and to give up our wills forthe good of our neighbours, anxious and careful to avoid allappearance of evil, trusting that because God is just, and God isKing, all laws which are not wicked are His ordinance, and thereforebeing obedient to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, even asJesus Christ Himself was, who, though He was Lord of all, paid taxesand tribute money to the Roman government, like the rest of the Jews, and kept the law of Moses perfectly, and was baptised with John'sbaptism, to show that in all just and reasonable things we are toobey the laws and customs of our forefathers, in the country to whichit has pleased the Lord that we should belong. 

XXVII--THE SOURCE OF LAW

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is nopower but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. --ROMANSxiii. 1. 

In this chapter, which we read for the second lesson for thisafternoon's service, St. Paul gives good advice to the Romans, andequally good advice to us. 

Of course what he says must be equally good for us, and for allpeople, at all times, in all countries, as long as time shall last;because St. Paul spoke by the Spirit of God, who is God eternal, andtherefore cannot change His mind, but lays down, by the mouth of Hisapostles and prophets, the everlasting laws of right and wrong, whichare always equally good for all. 

But there is something in this lesson which makes it especiallyuseful to us; because we English are in some very important mattersvery like the Romans to whom St. Paul wrote; though in others, thanksto Almighty God, we are still very unlike them. 

Now, these old Romans, as I have often told you, had risen to be thegreatest and mightiest people in the world, and to conquer manyforeign countries, and set up colonies of Romans in them, very muchas the English have done in India, and North America, and Australia:so that the little country of Italy, with its one great city of Rome, was mistress of vast lands far beyond the seas, ten times as large asitself, just as this little England is. 

But it is not so much this which I have to speak to you about now, ashow this Rome became so great; for it was at first nothing but a poorlittle country town, without money, armies, trade, or any of thosethings which shallow-minded people fancy are the great strength of anation. True, all those things are good; but they are useless andhurtful--and, what is more, they cannot be got--without somethingbetter than them; something which you cannot see nor handle;something spiritual, which is the life and heart of a country ornation, and without which it can never become great. This the oldRomans had; and it made them become great. This we English have hadfor now fifteen hundred years; even when our forefathers wereheathens, like the Romans, before we came into this good land ofEngland, while we were poor and simple people, living in the barrenmoors of Germany, and the snowy mountains of Norway; even then we hadthis wonderful charm, by which nations are sure to become great andpowerful at last; and in proportion as we have remembered and actedupon it, we English have thriven and spread; and whenever we haveforgotten it and broken it, we have fallen into distress, andpoverty, and shame, over the whole land. 

Now, what is this wonderful charm which made the old Romans and weEnglish great, which is stronger than money, and armies, and trade, and all the things which we can see and handle?

St. Paul tells us in the text: "Let every soul be subject to thehigher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that beare ordained of God. "

To respect the law; to believe that God wills men to live accordingto law; and that He will teach men right and good laws; thatmagistrates who enforce the laws are God's ministers, God's officersand servants; that to break the laws is to sin against God;--that isthe charm which worked such wonders, and will work them to the end oftime. 

So you see it was a very proper thing for St. Paul, when he wrote tothese Romans after they became Christians, to speak to them as hedoes in this chapter. They might have fancied, and many did fancy, that because they were Jesus Christ's servants now, they need notobey their heathen rulers and laws any more. But St. Paul says:"No; Jesus Christ's being King of Kings, is only the strongestpossible reason for your obeying these heathen rulers. For if He isKing of all the earth, He is King of Rome also, and of all hercolonies; and therefore you may be sure that He would not leave theseRoman rulers, and laws here if He did not think it right and fitting. If Jesus Christ is Lord of lords He is Lord of these Roman rulers, and they are His ministers and stewards; and you must obey them, andpay taxes to them for conscience's sake, as unto the Lord, and notunto man. "

So you see that St. Paul gave these Roman Christians no newcommandment on these matters; nothing different from what their oldheathen forefathers had believed. For the law which he mentions inverse 9, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, " etc. , had beenfor centuries past part of the old Roman law, as well as of Moses'law. 

Those old heathen Romans believed, and rightly, that all law andorder came from the great God of gods, whom they called in theirtongue Jupiter, that is, the Heavenly Father. They believed that Hewould bless those who kept the laws; who kept their oaths andagreements, and the laws about government, about marriage, aboutproperty, about inheritance; and that He would surely punish thosewho broke the laws, who defrauded their neighbours of their rights, who swore falsely against their neighbour, or broke their agreements, who were unfaithful to their wives and husbands, or in any wayoffended against justice between man and man. And they believed too, and rightly, that as long as they kept the laws, and lived justly andorderly by them, the great Heavenly Father would protect and prospertheir town of Rome, and make it grow great and powerful, because theywere living as He would have men live; not doing each what was rightin the sight of his own eyes, but conquering their own selfish willsand private fancies, for the sake of their neighbour's good, and thegood of his country, that they might all help and trust each other, as fellow-citizens of one nation. 

Only St. Paul had told them: Your forefathers were right in fancyingthat law and right came from the great God of gods: but they knewhardly anything, or rather, in time they forgot almost everything, about that Heavenly Father. In their ignorance they mixed up thebelief in the one great almighty and good God, which dwells in thehearts of all men, with filthy fables and superstitions till theycame to fancy that there were many gods and not one, and that thesemany gods were sinful, foul, proud, and cruel, as fallen men. Butyou have been brought back to the knowledge of the one true, andrighteous, and loving God, which your forefathers lost. He hasrevealed and shown Himself, and what He is like, in His Son JesusChrist. He is love, and wisdom, and justice, and order itself; and, therefore, you must be sure, even more sure than your old heathenforefathers, that He cares for a nation being at peace and unitywithin itself, governed by wise laws, doing justice between man andman, and keeping order throughout all its business, that every manmay do his work and enjoy his wages without hindrance, or confusion, or fear, or robbery and oppression from those who are stronger thanhe. 

And so St. Paul says to them: "You must believe that power and lawcome from God, far more firmly and clearly than ever your heathenforefathers did. "

Now that St. Paul was right in this we may see from the OldTestament. In the first lesson for this afternoon's service, we readhow Jeremiah was sent with the most awful warnings to the king, andthe queen, and the crown prince of his country. And why? Becausethey had broken the laws; because, in a word, they had beenunfaithful stewards and ministers of the Lord God, who had given themtheir power and kingdom, and would demand a strict account of allwhich He had committed to their charge. But in the same book of theprophet Jeremiah we read more than this; we read exactly what St. Paul says about the heathen Roman governors: for the Lord God, whois the Lord Jesus Christ, sent Jeremiah with a message to all theheathen kings round about, to tell them that He was their Lord andMaster, that He had given them their power, heathens as they were, because it seemed fit to Him, and that now, for their sins, He wasgoing to deliver them over into the hand of another heathen, Hisservant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and that whosoever would notserve Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord God would punish him with sword, andfamine, and pestilence till he had consumed them. And the first fourchapters of the book of Daniel, noble and wonderful as they are, seemto me to have been put into the Bible simply to teach us this onething, that heathen rulers, as well as Christians, are the Lord'sservants, and that their power is ordained by God. For thesechapters are entirely made up of the history, how God, by His prophetDaniel, taught the heathen king Nebuchadnezzar that he was God'sminister and steward. And the latter part of the book of Daniel isthe account of his teaching the same thing to another heathen, Cyrusthe great and good king of Persia. And here St. Paul teaches theChristian Romans just the same thing about their heathen governorsand heathen laws, that they are the ministers and the ordinance ofGod. 

Now, our own English forefathers, as I said before, believed thissame thing; and if I had time, I could show you, I think, plainlyenough from God's dealings with England, how He has blest andprospered us whensoever we have acted up to it. But whether we havebelieved it or not, there is enough in our English laws, and in ourEnglish Prayer Book too, to witness for it and remind us of it. 

The very title which we give the Queen, "Queen by the grace of God;"the solemn prayers for her when she is crowned and anointed, not inher own palace, or in the House of Parliament, but in the Church ofGod at Westminster; the prayers which we have just offered up for theQueen, for the government, and for the magistrates--these are all somany signs and tokens to us that they are God's stewards, called todo God's work, and that we must pray for God's grace to help them tofulfil their calling. And are not those ten commandments which standin every church, a witness of the same thing? They are the very rootof all law whatsoever. And more, the solemn oath which a witnesstakes in the court of justice, what is it but a sign of the samething, that our forefathers, who appointed these forms, believed thatlaw and justice were holy things, and that he who goes into a courtof law goes into the presence of God Himself, and confesses, when hepromises to speak the truth, so help him God, that God is theprotector and the avenger of law and justice?

But some people, and especially young and light-hearted persons, areready to say: "Obey the powers that be, whosoever they may be, goodor bad, and believe that to break their laws is to sin against God?We might as well be slaves at once. A man has a right to his ownopinion; and if he does not think a law good, how can he be bound toobey it?"

You will often hear such words as those when you go out into theworld, into great towns, where men meet together much. Let me giveyou, young people, a little advice about that beforehand; for, fineas it sounds, it is hollow and false at root. 

If you wish to be really free, and to do what you like, like what isright; and do that, says St. Paul, and then the law will notinterfere with you: "For rulers are not a terror to good works, butto the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do thatwhich is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is theminister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is theminister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doethevil. " And then he sums up what doing right is, in one shortsentence: "Love thy neighbour as thyself; for love is the fulfillingof the law. " All that the laws want to make you do, is to behavelike men who do love their neighbours as themselves, and therefore dothem no harm--to behave like men who are ready to give up their ownprivate wills and pleasures, and even their own private property, ifwanted, for the good of their neighbours and their country. Therefore the law calls on you to pay rates and taxes, which are tobe spent for the good of the nation at large. And if you love yourneighbour as yourself, and have the good of everyone round you atheart, you will no more grudge paying rates and taxes for theirbenefit than you will grudge spending money to support and educateyour own children. And so you will be free, free to do what youlike, because you like, from the fear and love of God, to do thoseright things which the law is set to make you do. 

But some may say: "That is not what we mean by being free. We meanhaving a share in choosing Members of Parliament, and so in makingthe laws and governing the country. When people can do that thecountry is a free country. "

Well, my friends, and it is a strange thing, or rather not a strangething, if we will but study our Bibles, that a country cannot be freein that way, unless the people of it do really believe that thepowers that be are ordained of God. Instead of that faith making theold Romans slavish, or careless what laws were made, or how they weregoverned, as some fancy it would make a people, they were as free apeople, and freer almost than we English now. They chose their ownmagistrates, and they made their own laws, and prospered by so doing. And why? Because they believed that laws came from God; and, therefore, they not only obeyed the laws when they were made, butthey had heart and spirit to help to make them, because they trustedthat The Heavenly Father, who loved justice, would teach them to bejust, and that The God who protected laws and punished law-breakers, would put into their minds how to make the laws well; and so theywere not afraid to govern themselves, because they believed that Godwould enable them to govern themselves well, and therefore they werefree. And so far from their having a slavish spirit in them, theywere the most bold and independent people of the whole earth. Theirsoldiers conquered almost every nation against whom they fought, because they always obeyed their officers dutifully and faithfully, believing that it was their duty to God to obey, and to die, if needwas, for their country. Old history is full of tales, which willnever be forgotten, I trust, till the world's end, of the noble deedsof their men, ay, and even of their women, who counted their ownlives worthless in comparison with the good of their country, anddied in torments rather than break the laws, or do what they knewwould injure the people to whom they belonged. 

And so with us English. For hundreds of years we have been growingmore and more free, and more and more well-governed, simply becausewe have been acting on St. Paul's doctrine--obeying the powers thatbe, because they are ordained by God. It is the Englishman's respectfor law, as a sacred thing, which he dare not break, which has madehim, sooner or later, respected and powerful wherever he goes tosettle in foreign lands; because foreigners can trust us to be just, and to keep our promises, and to abide by the laws which we have laiddown. It is the English respect for law, as a sacred thing, whichhas made our armies among the bravest and the most successful onearth; because they know how to obey their officers, and aretherefore able to fight and to endure as men should do. And as longas we hold to that belief we shall prosper at home and abroad, andbecome more and more free, and more and more strong; because we shallbe united, helping each other, trusting each other, knowing what toexpect of each other, because we all honour and obey the same laws. 

And, on the other hand, have we not close to us, in France, a fearfulsign and proof from God that without the fear of God no people can befree? Three times in the last sixty years have the French risen upagainst evil rulers, and driven them out. And have they been thebetter for it? They are at this very moment in utter slavery to aruler more lawless than ever oppressed them before. And why?Because they did not believe that law came from God, and that thepowers that be are ordained by Him. Therefore, whenever they wereoppressed, they did not try to right themselves by lawful ways, according to the old English God-fearing custom, but to break downthe old law by riot and bloodshed, and then to set up new laws oftheir own. But those new laws would never stand. They made them, but they would not obey them when they were made, and they could notmake others obey them; because they had no real reverence for law, and did not believe that law came from God, or that His Spirit wouldgive them understanding to make good laws. They talked loud aboutthe power and rights of the people, and that whatever the peoplewilled was right: but they said nothing about the power and rightsof the Lord God; they forgot that it is only what God has willed fromeverlasting that is right; and so they made laws in the strength oftheir own hearts, according to what was right in the sight of theirown eyes, to please themselves. How could they respect the laws, when the laws were only copies of their own selfish fancies? So, because they made them to please themselves, they soon broke them toplease themselves. And so came more lawlessness and riot, andconfusion worse confounded, till, of course, the strongest, andcunningest, and most shameless got the upper hand; and they wereplunged, poor creatures! into the same pit of misery out of whichthey had been trying to deliver themselves in their own strength, fora sign and an example that the Lord is King, and not man at all, andthat the fear of the Lord is the only beginning of wisdom. 

And very much the same sad fate had happened to the Romans a littlebefore St. Paul's time. They gave up their ancient respect for law;they broke the laws, and ran into all kinds of violence, and riot, and filthy sin; and therefore God took away their freedom from them, because they were not fit for it, and delivered them over into thehand of one cruel tyrant after another; and perhaps the cruellest ofthem all was the man who was emperor of Rome in St. Paul's time. Therefore it was that St. Paul says to them: Love each other, andobey the laws, "knowing the time, that now it is high time to awakeout of sleep. "

As much as to say: "Your souls have fallen asleep; you have been ina dark night, not seeing that God would avenge you of all these sinsof yours; that God's eye was on them: you have fallen asleep andforgotten your forefathers' belief, that God loves law, and order, and justice, and will punish those who break through them. But nowthe Lord Jesus, the light of the world, is come to awaken you, and toopen your eyes to see the truth about this, and to show you that youare in God's kingdom, and that God commands you to repent, and toobey Him, and do justly and righteously. Therefore awake out of yoursleep; give up the works of darkness, those mean and wicked habitswhich were contrary to the good old laws of your forefathers, andwhich you were at heart ashamed of, and tried to hide even while youindulged in them. Open your eyes, and see that God is near you, yourJudge, your King, seeing through and through your souls, keen andsharp to discern the secret thoughts and intents of the heart, sothat all things are naked and open in the sight of Him with whom wehave to do. "

And so I may say to you, my friends, it is high time for us to awakeout of sleep. The people in England, religious as well as others, have fallen asleep of late years too much about this matter. Theyhave forgotten that God is King, that magistrates are God'sministers. They talk as if laws were meant to be only the device ofman's will, to serve men's private interests and selfishness; andtherefore they have lost very much of their respect for law, andtheir care to make good laws for the future. And it is high time forus, while all the nations of Europe are tottering and crumbling roundus, to awake out of sleep on this matter. We must open our eyes andsee where we are. For we are in God's kingdom. God's Bible, God'schurches, God's commandments, and all the solemn old law forms ofEngland witness to us that God is King, set in the throne whichjudges right; that order and justice, fellow-feeling and publicspirit, are His gifts, His likeness, on which He looks down withloving care and protection; and that if we forget that, and begin tofancy that law stands merely by the will of the many, or by the willof the stronger, or even by the will of the wiser--by any will of manin short; we shall end by neither being able to make just laws anymore, nor to obey those which we have, by the blessing of God, already. 

XXVIII--THE EDUCATION OF A HEATHEN

Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise, and extol, and honour the King ofheaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment; and thosethat walk in pride He is able to abase. --DANIEL iv. 37. 

We read for the first lesson to-day two chapters out of the book ofDaniel. Those who love to study their Bibles, have read often, ofcourse, not only these two chapters, but the whole book. 

And I would advise all of you who wish to understand God's dealingswith mankind, to study this book of Daniel, and especially at thispresent time. 

I do not wish you to study it merely on account of those propheciesin it, which many wise and good men think foretell the dates of ourLord's first and second comings, and of the end of the world. I amnot skilled, my friends, in that kind of wisdom. I cannot tell youwhat God will do hereafter. But I think that the book of Daniel likethe other prophets, tells us what God is always doing on earth, andso gives us certain and eternal rules by which we may understandstrange and terrible events, wars, distress of nations, the fall ofgreat men, and the suffering of innocent men, when we see themhappen, as we may see any day--perhaps very soon indeed. 

The great lesson, I think, that this book of Daniel teaches us is, that God is not the Lord of the Jews only, or of Christians only, butof the whole earth; that the heathens are under His moral law andgovernment, as well as we; and that, as St. Peter says, God is norespecter of persons: but in every nation, he that feareth God, andworketh righteousness, is accepted of him. For the history ofNebuchadnezzar seems to me to be the history of God's educating aheathen and an idolater to know Him. And we must always remember, that as far as we can see, it was because Nebuchadnezzar was faithfulto the light which he had, that God gave him more. Of course he hadhis sins; the Bible tells us what they were; just the sins which onewould expect of a man brought up a heathen and an idolater; of onewho was a great conqueror, and had gained many bloody battles, andlearned to hold men's lives very cheap; of one who was an absoluteemperor, with no law but his own will, furious at any contradiction;of a man of wonderful power of mind--confident in himself, his ownpower, his own cunning. But he seems not to have been a bad man, considering his advantages. The Bible never speaks harshly of him, though he carried away the Jews captive to Babylon. In all thatfearful war, Nebuchadnezzar was in the right, and the Jews in thewrong; so at least Jeremiah the prophet declared. Nebuchadnezzarsaved and respected Jeremiah; and Daniel seems to have regarded thegreat conqueror with real respect and affection. When Daniel says tohim, "O king, live for ever, " and tells him that he is the head ofgold, and prays that his fearful dream may come true of his enemiesand not of him, I cannot believe that the prophet was using mereempty phrases of court-flattery. He really felt, I doubt not, thatNebuchadnezzar was a great and good king, as kings went then, and hisgovernment a gain (as it easily might be) to the nations whom he hadconquered, and that it was good that he should reign as long aspossible. 

And we may well believe Daniel's interest in this great king, when weconsider how teachable Nebuchadnezzar showed himself under God'seducation of him, so proving that there was in him the honest andgood heart, which, when The Word is sown in it, will bring forthfruit, thirty-fold or a hundred-fold, according to the talents whichGod has bestowed on each man. 

This first lesson we read in the first chapter of Daniel. He dreamta dream. He felt that it was a very wonderful one: but he forgotwhat it was. None of the magicians of Babylon could tell him. Ayoung Jew, named Daniel, told him the dream and its meaning, anddeclared at the same time that he had found it out by no wisdom ofhis own, but God had revealed it to him. Nebuchadnezzar learned hislesson, and confessed Daniel's God to be a God of gods and a Lord ofkings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing that Daniel could revealthat secret; and forthwith, like a wise prince, advanced Daniel andhis companions to places of the highest authority and trust. 

But Nebuchadnezzar required another lesson. He had learned that theGod of the Jews was wiser than all the planets and heavenly lords andgods whom the Babylonian magicians consulted; he had not learned thatthat same God of the Jews was the Creator and Lord of heaven andearth. He had learned that the God of heaven favoured him, and hadhelped him toward his power and glory; but he thought that for thatvery reason the power and glory were his own--that he had a rightover the souls and consciences of his subjects, and might make themworship what he liked, and how he liked. 

Three Jews, whom he had set over the affairs of Babylon, refused toworship the golden image which he had set up, and were cast into afiery furnace, and forthwith miraculously delivered, and beheld byNebuchadnezzar walking unhurt and loose in the midst of the furnace, and with them a fourth, whose form was like the form of the Son ofGod. 

So Nebuchadnezzar was taught that this God of the Jews was the Lordof men's souls and consciences; that they were to obey God ratherthan man. So he was taught that the God of the Jews was no mere staror heavenly influence who could help men's fortunes, or bestow onthem a certain fixed destiny; but a living person, the Lord andMaster of the fire, and of all the powers of the earth, who couldchange and stop those powers at His will, to deliver those whotrusted in Him and obeyed Him. 

And this lesson, too, Nebuchadnezzar learned. He confessed hismistake upon the spot, just in the way in which we should haveexpected a great Eastern king to do, though not in the mostenlightened or merciful way. He "blessed the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent His angel, and delivered Hisservants who trusted in Him. Therefore I make a decree, that everypeople, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against theGod of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, andtheir houses be made a dunghill: because there is no other God thatcan deliver after this sort. "

But there was still one deep mistake lying in the great king's heartwhich required to be rooted out. He had learnt that Jehovah, the Godof the Jews, was a revealer of secrets, a master of the fire, adeliverer of those who trusted in Him, a living personal Lord, wise, just, and faithful, very different from any of his star gods oridols. But he looked upon Jehovah only as the God of the Jews, asDaniel's God. He had not yet learnt that God was HIS God as well asDaniel's; that Jehovah was very near his heart and mind, and had beennear him all his life; that from Jehovah came all his wisdom, hisstrength of mind, his success, and all which made him differ, notonly from his fellow-men, but from the beast; that Jehovah, in aword, was the light and the life of the world, who fills all thingsand by whom all things consist, deserted by whose inward light, evenfor a moment, man becomes as one of the beasts which perish. In hisown eyes Nebuchadnezzar was still the great self-dependent, self-sufficing conqueror, wiser and stronger than all the men around him. He thought, most probably, that on account of his wisdom, andcourage, and royalty of soul, the God of heaven had become fond ofhim and favoured him. In short, he was swollen with pride. 

God sent him again a strange dream, which made him troubled andafraid. He told it to his old counsellor Daniel; and Daniel, at thedanger of his life, interpreted it for him; and a very awful meaningit had. A fearful and shameful downfall was to come upon the king;no less than the loss of his reason, and with it, of his throne. Butwhether this came to pass or not, depended, like all God'severlasting promises and threats, on Nebuchadnezzar's own behaviour. If he repented, and broke off his sins by righteousness, and hisiniquities by showing mercy to the poor, there was good reason tohope that so his tranquillity might be lengthened. 

But the lesson was too hard for the proud conqueror; he did not takethe warning. He could not believe that the Most High ruled in thekingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. He stillfancied that he, and such as he, were the lords of the world, andtook from others by their own power and cunning whatsoever theywould. He does not seem to have been angry, however, with Daniel forhis plain speaking. Most Eastern kings like Nebuchadnezzar wouldhave put Daniel to a cruel death on the spot as the bearer of evilnews, speaking blasphemy against the king; and no one in those timesand countries would have considered him wicked and cruel for sodoing; but Nebuchadnezzar seems to have learnt too much already so togive way to his passion. 

Yet, as I said before, he had not learned enough to take God'swarning. The lesson that he was nothing, and that God is all in all, was too hard for him. And, alas! my friends, for whom of us is itnot a hard lesson? And yet it is the golden lesson, the first andthe last which man has to learn on earth, ay, and through alleternity: "I am nothing; God is all in all. " All in us which isworth calling anything; all in us which is worth having, or worthbeing; all in us which is not disobedience and shortcoming, failureand mistake, ignorance and madness, filthiness and fierceness, as ofthe beasts which perish; all strength in us, all understanding, allprudence, all right-mindedness, all purity, all justice, all love;all in us which is worth living for, all in us which is really alive, and not mere death in life, the death of sin and the darkness of thepit--all is from God the Father of lights, and from Jesus Christ thelife and the light, who lighteth every man who cometh into the world, shining for ever in the darkness of our spirits, though thatdarkness, alas! too often cannot comprehend, and embrace, and confessHim who is striving to awake it from the dead and give it light. Hardest of all lessons! Most blessed of all lessons! So blessed, that if we will not let God teach it us in any other way, it would begood and advantageous to us for Him to teach it us as He taught it toNebuchadnezzar--good for us to become with him for awhile like thebeasts that perish, that we might learn with him to lift up our eyesto heaven, and so have our understandings return to us, and learn tobless the Most High, and not our own wit, and cunning, and prudence;and praise and honour Him that liveth for ever, instead of praisingand honouring our own pitiful paltry selves, who are in death in themidst of life, who come up and are cut down like the flower, andnever continue in one stay. 

"All this came upon the King Nebuchadnezzar. " It seems that after heor his father had destroyed the old Babylon, the downfall of whichIsaiah had prophesied, he built a great city, after the fashion ofEastern conquerors, near the ruins of the old one; and "at the end oftwelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. Theking spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have builtfor the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for thehonour of my majesty? While the word was in the king's mouth, therefell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee itis spoken, The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drivethee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of thefield: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven timesshall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth inthe kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will. The samehour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. "

What a lesson! The great conqueror of all the East now a brutalmadman, hateful and disgusting to all around him--a beast feedingamong the beasts: and yet a cheap price--a cheap price--to pay forthis golden lesson. 

Seven times past over him in his madness. What those seven timeswere we do not know. They may have been actual years: or they mayhave been, as I am inclined to think, changes in his own soul andstate of mind. But, at the end of the days, the truth dawned on him. He began to see what it all meant. He saw what he was, and why hewas so; and he lifted up his eyes to heaven; and from that moment hismadness past. He lifted up his eyes to heaven. That is no merefigure of speech: it is an actual truth. Most madmen, if you watchthem, have that down look, or rather that inward look, as if theireyes were fixed only on their own fancies. They are thinking only ofthemselves, poor creatures--of their own selfish and privatesuspicions and wrongs--of their own selfish superstitious dreamsabout heaven or hell--of their own selfish vanity and ambition--sometimes of their own frantic self-conceit, or of their selfishlusts and desires--of themselves, in short. They have lost the oneDivine light of reason, and conscience, and love, which binds men toeach other, and are parted for a while from God and from their kind--alone in their own darkness. So was Nebuchadnezzar. 

At last he looked up, as men do when they pray; up from himself toOne greater than himself; up from the earth to heaven; up from thenatural things which we do see, which are temporal and born to die, to moral and spiritual things which we do not see, which are real andeternal in the heavens; up from his own lonely darkness, looking forthe light and the guidance of God; for now he began to see that allthe light which he had ever had, all his wisdom, and understanding, and strength of will, had come from God, however he might havemisused them for his own selfish ambition; that it was because Godhad taken from him His light, who is the Word of God, that he hadbecome a beast. And then his reason returned to him, and he becameagain a man, a rational being, made, howsoever fallen and sinful, inthe likeness of God; then he blessed and praised God. It was notmerely that he confessed that God was strong, and he weak; righteous, and he sinful; wise, and he foolish; but he blessed and praised God;he felt and confessed that God had done him a great benefit, andtaught him a great lesson--that God had taught him what he was inhimself and without God, that he might see what he was with God inits true light, and honour and obey Him from whom his reason andunderstanding, as well as his power and glory, came, that so it mightbe fulfilled which the prophet says: "Let not the wise man glory inhis wisdom, nor the mighty man in his might, nor the rich man in hisriches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that heunderstandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exerciseloving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness IN THE EARTH; for inthese things I delight, saith the Lord. "

And so was Nebuchadnezzar's soul brought to utter, in his own way, the very same glorious song which, or something like it, is said tohave been sung by the three men whom, years before, he had seendelivered from the fiery furnace, which calls on all the works of theLord, angels and heaven, sun and stars, seas and winds, mountains andhills, fowls and cattle, priests and laymen, spirits and souls of therighteous, to bless the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever. 

And so ends Nebuchadnezzar's history. We read no more of him. Hehad learnt the golden lesson. May God grant that we may learn italso!

But who tells the story of his madness? He himself. The wholeaccount is in the man's own words. It seems to be some public letteror proclamation, which he either sent round his empire, or commandedto be laid up among his records; having, as it seems, set Daniel towrite it down from his mouth. This one fact, I think, justifies mein all that I have said about Nebuchadnezzar's nobleness, andDaniel's affection for him. He does not try to smooth things over;to pretend that he has not been mad; to find excuses for himself; tolay any blame on any human being. He repents openly, confessesopenly. Shameful as it may be to him, he tells the whole story. Heconfesses that he had fair warning, that all was his own fault. Hejustifies God utterly. My friends, we may read, thank God, manynoble, and brave, and righteous speeches of kings and great men: butnever have I read one so noble, so brave, so righteous as this of thegreat king of Babylon. 

And therefore it is; because this letter of his, in the fourthchapter of the book of Daniel, is indeed full of the eternal HolySpirit of God; therefore it is, I say, that it forms part of theBible, part of holy scripture to this day, --a greater honour toNebuchadnezzar than all his kingdom; for what greater honour than tohave been inspired to write one chapter, yea, one sentence, of theBook of Books?

My friends, every one of you here is in God's school-house, underGod's teaching, far more than Nebuchadnezzar was. You are baptisedmen, knowing that blessed name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whichNebuchadnezzar only saw dimly, and afar off. Jesus Christ, the Wordof God, is striving with your hearts, giving to them whatsoever lightand life they have. You have been taught from childhood to look upto Him as your King and Deliverer; to His Father as your Father, toHis Holy Spirit as your Inspirer. Take heed how you listen to Hisvoice within your hearts. Take heed how you learn God's lessons; forGod is surely educating you, and teaching you far more than He taughtthe king of Babylon in old time. As you learn or despise theselessons of God's, will be your happiness or your misery now and forever. Unto the king of Babylon little was given, and of him waslittle required. To you and me much has been given; of you and mewill much be required. 

XXIX--JEREMIAH'S CALLING

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David arighteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shallexecute judgment and justice in the earth. --JEREMIAH xxiii. 5. 

At the time when Jeremiah the prophet spoke those words to the Jews, nothing seemed more unlikely than that they would ever come true. The whole Jewish nation was falling to pieces from its own sins. Brutish and filthy idolatry in high and low--oppression, violence, and luxury among the court and the nobility--shame, and poverty, andignorance among the lower classes--idleness and quackery among thepriesthood--and as kings over all, one fool and profligate afteranother, set on the throne by a foreign conqueror, and pulled downagain by him at his pleasure. Ten out of the twelve tribes of Israelhad been carried off captive, young and old, into a distant land. The small portion of country which still remained inhabited roundJerusalem, had been overrun again and again by cruel armies ofheathens. Without Jerusalem was waste and ruins, bloodshed andwretchedness; within every kind of iniquity and lies, division andconfusion. If ever there was a miserable and contemptible peopleupon the face of the earth, it was the Jewish nation in Jeremiah'stime. Jeremiah makes no secret of it. His prophecies are full ofit--full of lamentation and shame: "Oh that my head were a fountainof tears, to weep for the sins of my people!" He feels that God hassent him to rebuke those sins, to warn and prophesy to his fellow-countrymen the certain ruin into which they are rushing headlong; andhe speaks God's message boldly. From the poor idol-ridden labourer, offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven to coax her into sending him agood harvest, to the tyrant king who had built his palace of cedarand painted it with vermilion, he had a bitter word for every man. The lying priest tried to silence him; and Jeremiah answered him, that his wife should be a harlot in the city, and his children soldfor slaves. The king tried to flatter him into being quiet; and hetold him in return, that he should be buried with the burial of anass, dragged out and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem. Theluxurious queen, who made her nest in the cedars, would be ashamedand confounded, he said, for her wickedness. The crown prince was adespised broken idol--a vessel in which was no pleasure; he should becast out, he and his children, into slavery in a land which he knewnot. The whole royal family, he said, would perish; none of themshould ever again prosper or sit upon the throne of David. This washis message; shame and confusion, woe and ruin, to high and low;every human being he passed in the street was a doomed man. For theday of the Lord was at hand, and who should be able to escape it?

A sad calling, truly, to have to work at; and all the more sadbecause Jeremiah had no pride, no steadfast opinion of his ownexcellence to keep him up. He hates his calling of prophet. At thevery moment he is foretelling woe, he prays God that his prophecy maynot come true; he tries every method to prevent its coming true, byentreating his countrymen to repent. There runs through all hisawful words a vein of tenderness, and pity, and love unspeakable, which to me is the one great mark of a true prophet; a sign thatJeremiah spoke by the Spirit of God; a sign that too many writersnowadays do not speak by the Spirit of God. If they rebuke the richand powerful, they do it generally in a very different spirit fromJeremiah's--in a spirit of bitterness and insolence, not very easy todescribe, but easy enough to perceive. They seem to rejoice in evil, to delight in finding fault, to be sorry, and not glad, when theirprophecies of evil turn out false; to try to set one class againstanother, one party against another, as if we were not miserablyenough split up already by class interests and party spirit. Theyare glad enough to rebuke the wicked great; but not to their face, not to their own danger and hurt like Jeremiah. Their plan is toaccuse the rich to the poor, on their own platform, or in their ownnewspaper, where they are safe; and, moreover, to make a very fairprofit thereby; to say behind the back of authorities that which theydare not say to their face, and which they soon give up saying whenthey have worked their own way into office; and meanwhile take mightycredit to themselves for seeing that there is wrong and misery in theworld; as if the spirits in hell should fancy themselves righteous, because they hated the devil! No, my friends, Jeremiah was of a verydifferent spirit from that. If he ever was tempted to it when he wasyoung, and began to fancy himself a very grand person, who had aright to look down on his neighbours, because God had called him andset him apart to be a prophet from his mother's womb, and revealed tohim the doom of nations, and the secrets of His providence--if heever fancied that in his heart, God led him through such an educationas took all the pride out of him, sternly and bitterly enough. Hewas commissioned to go and speak terrible words, to curse kings andnobles in the name of the Lord: but he was taught, too, that it wasnot a pleasant calling, or one which was likely to pay him in thislife. His fellow-villagers plotted against his life. His wifedeserted him. The nobles threw him into a dungeon, into a well fullof mire, whence he had to be drawn up again with ropes to save hislife. He was beaten, all but starved, kept for years in prison. Hehad neither child nor friend. He had his share of all the miseriesof the siege of Jerusalem, and all the horrors of its storm; and whenhe was set free by Nebuchadnezzar, and clung to his ruined home, tosee if any good could still be done to the remnant of his countrymen, he was violently carried off into a heathen land, and at last stonedto death, by those very countrymen of his whom he had been trying foryears to save. In everything, and by everything, he was taught thathe was still a Jew, a brother to his sinful brothers; that theirsorrows were his sorrows, their shame his shame, their ruin his ruin. In all their afflictions he was afflicted, even as his Lord was afterhim. 

He struggled, we find, again and again against this strange and sadcalling of a prophet. He cried out in bitter agony that God haddeceived him; had induced him to become a prophet, and then repaidhim for speaking God's message with nothing but disappointment andmisery. And yet he felt he must speak; God, he said, was strongerthan he was, and forced him to it. He said: "I will speak no morewords in His name; but the Word of the Lord was as fire within hisbones, and would not let him rest;" and so, in spite of himself, hetold the truth, and suffered for it; and hated to have to tell it, and pitied and loved the very country which he rebuked till he cursed"the day in which he saw the light, and the hour in which it was saidto his father, there is a man-child born. " You who fancy that it isa fine thing, and a paying profession, to be a preacher ofrighteousness and a rebuker of sin, look at Jeremiah, and judge! Foras surely as you or any other man is sent by God to do Jeremiah'swork, so surely he must expect Jeremiah's wages. 

Do you think, then, that Jeremiah was a man only to be pitied?Pitiable he was indeed, and sad. There was One hung on a crosseighteen hundred years ago, more pitiable still: and yet He is theLord of heaven and earth. Yes; Jeremiah had a sad life to live, anda sad task to work out; and yet, my friends, was not that a cheapprice to pay for the honour and glory of being taught by God'sSpirit, and of speaking God's words? I do not mean the mere honourof having his fame and name spread over all Christ's kingdom; thehonour of having his writings read and respected by the wisest andthe holiest to the end of time; that mere earthly fame is but aslight matter. I mean the real honour, the real glory, of knowingwhat was utterly right and true, and therefore of knowing Him who isutterly right and true; of knowing God; of knowing what God'scharacter is: that he is a living God, and not a dead one; a God whois near and not absent at all, loving and merciful, just andrighteous, strong and mighty to save. Ay, my friends, this is thelesson which God taught Jeremiah; to know the Lord of heaven andearth, and to see His hand, His rule, in all that was happening tohis fellow-countrymen, and himself; to know that from the beginningthe Lord, the Saviour-God, Jehovah, the messenger of the covenant, Hewho brought up the Jews out of Egypt, was the wise and just andloving King of the Jews, and of all the nations upon earth; and thatsome day or other He must and would conquer all the sinfulness, andmisery, and tyranny, and idolatry in the world, and show Himselfopenly to men, and fulfil all the piteous longings after a just andgood king which poor wretches had ever felt, and all the gloriouspromises of a just and good king which God had made to the wise menof old time; and, therefore, in the midst of shame and persecution, despair and ruin, Jeremiah could rejoice. Jehoiakim, the wickedking, and all his royal house, might be driven out into slavery;Jerusalem might become a heap of ruins and corpses; the fair land ofJudaea, and the village where he was bred, might become thorns, andthistles, and heaps of stones; the vineyard which he loved, thelittle estate at Anathoth which had belonged to him, might be troddendown by the stranger, and he himself die in a foreign land; aroundhim might be nothing but sin and decay, before him nothing butdespair and ruin: yet still there was hope, joy, everlastingcertainty for that poor, childless, captive old man; for he had foundout that the Lord still lived, the Lord still reigned. He could notlie; he could not forget his people. Could a mother forget hersucking child? No. When the Jews turned to Him, He would still havemercy. His punishment of them was a sign that he still cared forthem. If He had forgotten them, He would have let them go ontriumphant in their iniquity. No. All these afflictions were meantto chasten them, teach them, bring them back to Him. It would begood for them, an actual blessing to them, to be taken away intocaptivity in Babylon. It might be hard to believe, but it must betrue. The Lord of Israel, the Saviour-God, who had been caring forthem so long, rising up early and sending His prophets to them, pleading with them as a father with his child, He would have mercy;He would teach them, in sorrow and slavery, the lesson they were toorebellious and hard-hearted to learn in prosperity and freedom: thatthe Lord was their righteousness, and that there was no other nameunder heaven which could save them from the plague, and from thefamine, from the swords of the Chaldeans, or from the division, andoppression, and brutishness, and manifold wickedness, which was theirruin. And then Jeremiah saw and felt--how we cannot tell--but therehis words, the words of this text, stand to this day, to show that hedid see and feel it, that some day or other, in God's good time, theJews would have a true King--a very different king from Jehoiakim thetyrant--a son of David in a very different sense from what Jehoiakimwas; that He would come, and must come, sooner or later, The unseenKing, who had all along been governing Jews and heathens, and tellinghis prophets that Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, the Chaldee and thePersian, were his servants as well as they, and that all the nationsof the earth could do but what he chose. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, anda King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice andjudgment on the earth. "

This was the blessed knowledge which God gave Jeremiah in return forall the misery he had to endure in warning his countrymen of theirsins. And this same blessed knowledge, the knowledge that the earthis the Lord's, that to Jesus Christ is given, as He said Himself, allpower in heaven and earth, and that He is reigning, and must reign, and conquer, and triumph till He has put all His enemies under Hisfeet, God will surely give to everyone, high or low, who followsJeremiah's example, who boldly and faithfully warns the sinner of hisway, who rebukes the wickedness which he sees around him: only hemust do it in the spirit of Jeremiah. He must not be insolent to theinsolent, or proud to the proud. He must not be puffed up, and fancythat because he sees the evil of sin, and the certain ruin which isthe fruit of it, that he is therefore to keep apart from his fellow-countrymen, and despise them in Pharisaic pride. No. The trulyChristian man, the man who, like Jeremiah, has the Spirit of God inhim, will feel the most intense pity and tenderness of sinners. Hewill not only rebuke the sins of his people, but mourn for them; hewill be afflicted in all their affliction. However harshly he mayhave to speak, he will never forget that they are his countrymen, hisbrothers, children of the same Father, to be judged by the same Lord. He will feel with shame and fear that he has in himself the root ofthe very same sins which he sees working death around him--that ifothers are covetous, he might be so too--if they be profligate, anddeceitful, and hypocritical, without God in the world, he might be sotoo. And he must feel not only that he might be as bad as hisneighbours, but that he actually would be, if God withdrew His Spiritfrom him for a moment, and allowed him to forget the only faith whichsaves him from sin, loyalty to his unseen Saviour, the righteous Kingof kings. Therefore he will not only rebuke his sinful neighbours;but he will tell them, as Jeremiah told his countrymen, that alltheir sin and misery proceed from this one thing, that they haveforgotten that the Lord is their King. He will pray daily for them, that the Lord their King may show Himself to their hearts andthoughts, and teach them all that He has done for them, and is doingfor them; and may convert them to Himself that they may be truly Hispeople, and His way may be known upon earth, His saving health amongall nations. 

XXX--THE PERFECT KING

Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass. --MATTHEWxxi. 5. 

You all know that this Sunday is called the First Sunday in Advent. You all know, I hope, that Advent means coming, and that these fourSundays before Christmas, as I have often told you, are called AdventSundays, because upon them we are called to consider the coming ofour King and Saviour Jesus Christ. If you will look at the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for these next four Sundays, you will see atonce that they all bear upon our Lord's coming. The Gospels tell usof the prophecies about Christ which He fulfilled when He came. TheEpistles tell us what sort of men we ought to be, both clergy andpeople, because He has come and will come again. The Collects praythat the Spirit of God would make us fit to live and die in a worldinto which Christ has come, and in which He is ruling now, and towhich He will come again. The text which I have taken this morning, you just heard in this Sunday's Gospel. St. Matthew tells you thatJesus Christ fulfilled it by riding into Jerusalem in state upon anass's colt; and St. Matthew surely speaks truth. Let us considerwhat the prophecy is, and how Jesus Christ fulfilled it. Then weshall see and believe from the Epistle what effect the knowledge ofit ought to have upon our own souls, and hearts, and daily conduct. 

Now this prophecy, "Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, " etc. , youwill find in your Bibles, in the ninth verse of the ninth chapter ofthe book of Zechariah. But I do not think that Zechariah wrote it. St. Matthew does not say he wrote it; he merely calls it that whichwas spoken by the prophet, without mentioning his name. Provided itis an inspired word from God, which it is, it perhaps does not matterto us so much who wrote it: but I think it was written by theprophet Jeremiah, perhaps in the beginning of the reign of the goodking Josiah; for the chapter in which this text is, and the two orthree chapters which follow, are not at all like the rest ofZechariah's writings, but exactly like Jeremiah's. They certainlyseem to speak of things which did not happen in Zechariah's time, butin the time of Jeremiah, nearly ninety years before. And, above all, St. Matthew himself seems plainly to have thought that some part, atleast, of those chapters was Jeremiah's writing; for in the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, and in the ninth verse, youwill find a prophecy about the potter's field, which St. Matthew sayswas spoken by Jeremiah the prophet. Now, those words are not in thebook of Jeremiah as it stands in our Bibles: but they are in thebook of Zechariah, in the eleventh chapter, twelfth and thirteenthverses, coming shortly after my text, and making a part of the sameprophecy. This has puzzled Christians very much, because it seemedas if St. Matthew has made a mistake, and miscalled ZechariahJeremiah. But I believe firmly that, as we are bound to expect, St. Matthew made no mistake whatsoever, and that Jeremiah did write thatprophecy as St. Matthew said, and the two chapters before it, andperhaps the two after it, and that they were probably kept andpreserved by Zechariah during the troublous times of the Babylonishcaptivity, and at last copied by Nehemiah into Zechariah's book ofprophecy, where they stand now; and I think it is a comfort to knowthis, and to find that the evangelist St. Matthew has not made amistake, but knew the Scriptures better than we do. 

But I think Jeremiah having written this prophecy in my text, which Ibelieve he did, is also very important, because it will show us whatthe prophet meant when he spoke it, and how it was fulfilled in histime; and the better we understand that, the better we shallunderstand how our blessed Lord fulfilled it afterwards. 

Now, when Jeremiah was a young man, the Jews and their king Amon werein a state of most abominable wickedness. They were worshippingevery sort of idol and false god. And the Bible, the book of God'slaw, was utterly unknown amongst them; so that Josiah the king, whosucceeded Amon, had never seen or heard the book of the law of Moses, which makes part of our Old Testament, till he had reigned eighteenyears, as you will find if you refer to 2 Kings xxii. 3. But thisJosiah was a gentle and just prince, and finding the book of the lawof God, and seeing the abominable forgetfulness and idolatry intowhich his people had fallen, utterly breaking the covenant which Godhad made with their forefathers when he brought them up out of Egypt--when he found the book of the law, I say, and all that he and hispeople should have done and had not done, and the awful curses whichGod threatened in that book against those who broke His law, "hehumbled himself before God, because his heart was tender, and turnedto the Lord, as no king before him had ever turned, " says thescripture, "with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with allhis might; so that there was no such king before him, or either afterhim. " The history of the great reformation which this great and goodking worked, you may read at length in 2 Kings xxii. Xxiii. And 2Chron. Xxxiv. Xxxv. Which I advise you all to read. 

And it appears to me that this prophecy in the text first applies tothe gentle and holy king Josiah, the first true and good king theJews had had for years, and the best they were ever to have tillChrist came Himself; and that it speaks of Josiah coming to Jerusalemto restore the worship of God, not with pomp and show, like thewicked kings both before and after him, but in meekness andhumbleness of heart, for all the sins of his people, as theprophetess said of him in 2 Kings xxii. 19, "that his heart wastender and humble before the Lord;" neither coming with chariots andguards, like a king and conqueror, but riding upon an ass's colt; forthat was, in those countries, the ancient sign of a man's being a manof peace, and not of war; a magistrate and lawgiver, and not asoldier and a conqueror. Various places of holy scripture show usthat this was the meaning of riding upon an ass in Judaea, just as itis in Eastern countries now. 

But some may say, How then is this a prophecy? It merely tells uswhat good king Josiah was, and what every king ought to be. Well, myfriends, that is just what makes it a prophecy. If it tells you whatought to be, it tells you what will be. Yes, never forget that;whatever ought to be, surely will be; as surely as this is God'searth and Christ's kingdom, and not the devil's. 

Now, it does not matter in the least whether the prophet, when hespoke these words, knew that they would apply to the Lord JesusChrist. We have no need whatsoever to suppose that he did: forscripture gives us no hint or warrant that he did; and if we have anyreal or honest reverence for scripture, we shall be careful to let ittell its own story, and believe that it contains all things necessaryfor salvation, without our patching our own notions into it over andabove. Wise men are generally agreed that those old prophets didnot, for the most part, comprehend the full meaning of their ownwords. Not that they were mere puppets and mouthpieces, speakingwhat to them was nonsense--God forbid!--But that just because theydid thoroughly understand what was going on round them, and seethings as God saw them, just because they had God's Eternal Spiritwith them, therefore they spoke great and eternal words, which willbe true for ever, and will go on for ever fulfilling themselves formore and more. For in proportion as any man's words are true, andwide, and deep, they are truer, and wider, and deeper than that manthinks, and will apply to a thousand matters of which he neverdreamt. And so in all true and righteous speech, as in the speechesof the prophets of old, the glory is not man's who speaks them, butGod's who reveals them, and who fulfils them again and again. 

It is true, then, that this text describes what every king should be--gentle and humble, a merciful and righteous lawgiver, not a self-willed and capricious tyrant. But Josiah could not fulfil that. Hewas a good king: but he could not be a perfect one; for he was but apoor, sinful, weak, and inconsistent man, as we are. But those wordsbeing inspired by the Holy Spirit, must be fulfilled. There ought tobe a perfect king, perfectly gentle and humble, having a perfectsalvation, a perfect lawgiver; and therefore there must be such aking; and therefore St. Matthew tells us there came at last a perfectking--one who fulfilled perfectly the prophet's words--one who wasnot made king of Jerusalem, but was her King from the beginning; forthat is the full meaning of "Thy King cometh to thee. " To JerusalemHe came, riding on the ass's colt, like the peaceful and fatherlyjudges of old time, for a sign to the poor souls round Him, who hadno lawgivers but the proud and fierce Scribes and Pharisees, no kingbut the cruel and godless Caesar, and his oppressive and extortionateofficers and troops. Meek and lowly He came; and for once the peoplesaw that He was the true Son of David--a man and king, like him, after God's own heart. For once they felt that He had come in thename of the Lord the old Deliverer who brought them out of the landof Egypt, and made them into a nation, and loved and pitied themstill, in spite of all their sins, and remembered His covenant, whichthey had forgotten. And before that humble man, the Son of thevillage maiden, they cried: "Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessedis He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest. "

And do you think He came, the true and perfect King, only to go awayagain and leave this world as it was before, without a law, a ruler, a heavenly kingdom? God forbid! Jesus is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. What He was then, when He rode in triumph intoJerusalem, that is He now to us this day--a king, meek and lowly, andhaving salvation; the head and founder of a kingdom which can neverbe moved, a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker isGod. To that kingdom this land of England now belongs. Into it we, as Englishmen, have been christened. And the unchristened, thoughthey know not of it, belong to it as well. What God's will, whatChrist's mercies may be to them, we know not. That He has mercy forthem, if their ignorance is not their own fault, we doubt not;perhaps, even if their ignorance be their own fault, we need notdoubt that He has mercy for them, considering the mercy which He hasshown to us, who deserved no more than they. But His will to us wedo know; and His will is this--our holiness. For He came not only toassert His own power, to redeem his own world, but to set His people, the children of men, an example, that they should follow in Hissteps. Herein, too, He is the perfect king. He leads His subjects, He sets a perfect example to His subjects, and more, He inspires themwith the power of following that example, as, if you will think, aperfect ruler ought to be able to do. Josiah set the Jews anexample, but he could not make them follow it. They turned to God atthe bidding of their good king, with their lips, in their outwardconduct; but their hearts were still far from Him. Jeremiahcomplains bitterly of this in the beginning of his prophecies. Hecomplains that Josiah's reformation was after all empty, hollow, hypocritical, a change on the surface only, while the wicked root wasleft. They had healed, he said, the hurt of the daughter of hispeople slightly, crying, "Peace, peace, when there was no peace. "But Jesus, the perfect King, is King of men's spirits as well as oftheir bodies. He can turn the heart, He can renew the soul. None soignorant, none so sinful, none so crushed down with evil habits, butthe Lord will and can forgive him, raise him up, enlighten him, strengthen him, if he will but claim his share in his King's mercy, his citizenship in the heavenly kingdom, and so put himself in tuneagain with himself, and with heaven, and earth, and all therein. 

Keeping in mind these things, that Jesus, because He is our perfectKing, is both the example and the inspirer of our souls andcharacters, we may look without fear at the epistle for the day, where it calls on us to be very different persons from what we are, and declares to us our duty as subjects of Him who is meek and lowly, just and having salvation. It is no superstitious, slavish message, saying: "You have lost Christ's mercy and Christ's kingdom; you mustbuy it back again by sacrifices, and tears, and hard penances, orgreat alms-deeds and works of mercy. " No. It simply says: "Youbelong to Christ already, give up your hearts to Him and follow Hisexample. If He is perfect, His is the example to follow; if he isperfect, His commandments must be perfect, fit for all places, alltimes, all employments; if He is the King of heaven and earth, Hiscommandments must be in tune with heaven and earth, with the laws ofnature, the true laws of society and trade, with the constitution, and business, and duty, and happiness of all mankind, and for everobey Him. "

Owe no man anything save love, for He owed no man anything. He gaveup all, even His own rights, for a time, for His subjects. Will youpretend to follow Him while you hold back from your brothers andfellow-servants their just due? One debt you must always owe; onedebt will grow the more you pay it, and become more delightful toowe, the greater and heavier you feel it to be, and that is love;love to all around you, for all around you are your brothers andsisters; all around you are the beloved subjects of your King andSaviour. Love them as you love yourself, and then you cannot harmthem, you cannot tyrannise over them, you cannot wish to rise byscrambling up on their shoulders, taking the bread out of theirmouths, making your profit out of their weakness and their need. This, St. Paul says, was the duty of men in his time, because thenight of heathendom was far spent, the day of Christianity and theChurch was at hand. Much more is it our duty now--our duty, who havebeen born in the full sunshine of Christianity, christened into Hischurch as children, we and our fathers before us, for generations, ofthe kingdom of God. Ay, my friends, these words, that kingdom, thatKing, witness this day against this land of England. Not merelyagainst popery, the mote which we are trying to take out of theforeigner's eye, but against Mammon, the beam which we areoverlooking in our own. Owe no man anything save love. "Thou shaltlove thy neighbour as thyself. " That is the law of your King, wholoved not Himself or His own profit, His own glory, but gave Himselfeven to death for those who had forgotten Him and rebelled againstHim. That law witnesses against selfishness and idleness in rich andpoor. It witnesses against the employer who grinds down his workmen;who, as the world tells him he has a right to do, takes advantage oftheir numbers, their ignorance, their low and reckless habits, torise upon their fall, and grow rich out of their poverty. Itwitnesses against the tradesman who tries to draw away hisneighbour's custom. It witnesses against the working man who spendsin the alehouse the wages which might support and raise his children, and then falls back recklessly and dishonestly on the parish ratesand the alms of the charitable. Against them all this law witnesses. These things are unfit for the kingdom of Christ, contrary to thelaws and constitution thereof, hateful to the King thereof; and if anation will not amend these abominations, the King will arise out ofHis place, and with sore judgments and terrible He will visit Hisland and purify His temple, saying: "My Father's house should be ahouse of prayer, and ye have made it a den of thieves. " Ay, woe toany soul, or to any nation, which, instead of putting on the LordJesus Christ, copying His example, obeying His laws, and livingworthy of His kingdom, not only in the church, but in the market, theshop, the senate, or the palace, give themselves up to covetousness, which is idolatry; and care only to make provision for the flesh, tofulfil the lusts thereof. Woe to them; for, let them be what theywill, their King cannot change. He is still meek and lowly; He isstill just and having salvation; and He will purge out of His kingdomall that is not like Himself, the unchaste and the idle, the unjustand the unmerciful, and the covetous man, who is an idolater, saysthe scripture, though he may call himself seven times a Protestant, and rail at the Pope in public meetings, while he justifiesgreediness and tyranny by glib words about the necessities ofbusiness and the laws of trade, and by philosophy falsely so called, which cometh not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. Sucha man loves and makes a lie, and the Lord of truth will surely sendhim to his own place. 

XXXI--GOD'S WARNINGS

It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which Ipurpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evilway; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. --JEREMIAHxxxvi. 3. 

The first lesson for this evening's service tells us of thewickedness of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. How, when Jeremiah'sprophecies against the sins of Jehoiakim and his people were readbefore him, he cut the roll with a penknife, and threw it into thefire. Now, we must not look on this story as one which, because ithappened among the Jews many hundred years ago, has nothing to dowith us; for, as I continually remind you, the history of the Jews, and the whole Old Testament, is the history of God's dealings withman--the account of God's plan of governing this world. Now, Godcannot change; but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; andtherefore His plan of government cannot change: but if men do asthose did of whom we read in the Old Testament, God will surely dealwith them as He dealt with the men of the Old Testament. This St. Paul tells us most plainly in the tenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, where he says that the whole history of the Jews was written for ourexample--that is for the example of those Christian Corinthians, whowere not Jews at all, but Gentiles as we are; and therefore for ourexample also. 

He tells them, that it was Christ Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, whofed and guided the old Jews in the wilderness, and that the Lord willdeal with us exactly as He dealt with the old Jews. 

Therefore it is a great and fearful mistake, to suppose that becausethe Jews were a peculiar people and God's chosen nation, thattherefore the Lord's way of governing them is in any wise differentfrom His way of governing us English at this very day; for that fancyis contrary to the express words of Holy Scripture, in a hundreddifferent places; it is contrary to the whole spirit of our PrayerBook, which is written all through on the belief that the Lord dealswith us just as He did with the Jewish nation, and which will noteven make sense if it be understood in any other way; and besides, itis most dangerous to the souls and consciences of men. It is mostdangerous for us to fancy that God can change; for if God can change, right and wrong can change; for right is the will of God, and wrongis what is against His will; and if we once let into our hearts thenotion that God can change His laws of right, our consciences willbecome daily dimmer and more confused about right and wrong, till wefall, as too many do, under the prophet's curse, "Woe to them whocall good evil, and evil good; who put sweet for bitter, and bitterfor sweet, " and fancy, like Ezekiel's Jews, that God's ways areunequal; that is, unlike each other, changeable, arbitrary, andcapricious, doing one thing at one time, and another at another. No. It is sinful man who is changeable; it is sinful man who isarbitrary. But The Lord is not a man, that He should lie or repent;for He is the only-begotten Son, and therefore the express likeness, of The Everlasting Father, in whom is no variableness, nor shadow ofturning. 

But some may say, Is not that a gloomy and terrible notion of God, that He cannot change His purpose? Is not that as much as to saythat there is a dark necessity hanging over each of us; that a manmust just be what God chooses, and do just what He has ordained todo, and go to everlasting happiness or misery exactly as God hasforeordained from all eternity, so that there is no use trying to doright, or not to do wrong? If I am to be saved, say such people, Ishall be saved whether I try or not; and if I am to be damned, Ishall be damned whether I try or not. I am in God's hands like clayin the hands of the potter; and what I am like is therefore God'sbusiness, and not mine. 

No, my friends, the very texts in the Bible which tell us that Godcannot change or repent, tell us what it is that He cannot change in--in showing loving-kindness and tender mercy, long-suffering, andrepenting of the evil. Whatsoever else He cannot repent of, Hecannot repent of repenting of the evil. 

It is true, we are in His hand as clay in the hand of the potter. But it is a sad misreading of scripture to make that mean that we areto sit with our hands folded, careless about our own way and conduct;still less that we are to give ourselves up to despair, because wehave sinned against God; for what is the very verse which followsafter that? Listen. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you asthis potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the hand ofthe potter, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel. At what instantI shall speak concerning a kingdom, to pull down and destroy it; ifthat nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, Iwill repent of the evil which I thought to do to them. And at whatinstant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey notmy voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I wouldbenefit them. "

So that the lesson which we are to draw from the parable of thepotter's clay is just the exact opposite which some men draw. Notthat God's decrees are absolute: but that they are conditional, anddepend on our good or evil conduct. Not that His election or Hisreprobation are unalterable, but that they alter "at that instant" atwhich man alters. Not that His grace and will are irresistible, asthe foolish man against whom St. Paul argues fancies: but that wecan resist God's will, and that our destruction comes only byresisting His will; in short, that God's will is no brute materialnecessity and fate, but the will of a living, loving Father. 

And the very same lesson is taught us in Ezek. Xviii. , of which Ispoke just now; for if we read that chapter we shall find that theJews had a false notion of God that He had changed His character, andhad become in their time unmerciful and unjust. They fancied thatGod was, if I may so speak, obstinate--that if His anger had oncearisen, there was no turning it away, but that He would go on withoutpity, punishing the innocent children for their father's sin; andtherefore they fancied God's ways were unfair, self-willed, andarbitrary, without any care of what sort of person He afflicted;punishing the righteous as well as the wicked, after He had promisedin His law to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. Theyfancied that His way of governing the world had changed, and that Hedid not in their days make a difference between the bad and the good. Therefore Ezekiel says to them: "When the righteous man turneth awayfrom his righteousness, he shall die. " "When the wicked man turnethaway from his wickedness, he shall live. " "Have I any pleasure atall that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God, and not that heshould return from his ways, and live?"

This, then, is the good news, that God is love; love when Hepunishes, and love when He forgives; very pitiful, and full of long-suffering and tender mercy and repenting Him, never of the good, butonly of the evil which He threatens. 

Both Jeremiah, therefore, and Ezekiel, give us the same lesson. Goddoes not change, and therefore He never changes His mercy and Hisjustice: for He is merciful because He is just. If we confess oursins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That is Hiseverlasting law, and has been from the beginning: Punishment, sureand certain, for those who do not repent; and free forgiveness, sureand certain also, for those who do repent. 

So He spoke to Jeremiah in the time of Jehoiakim: "It may be thatthe house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do tothem; that I may forgive them their iniquity and their sin. " TheLord, you see, wishes to forgive--longs to forgive. His heart yearnsover sinful men as a father's over his rebellious child. But if theywill still rebel, if they will still turn their wicked wills awayfrom Him, He must punish. Why we know not; but He knows. Punish Hemust, unless we repent--unless we turn our wills toward His will. And woe to the stiff-necked and stout-hearted man who, like thewicked king Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against God'swarnings. How many, how many behave for years, Sunday after Sunday, just as king Jehoiakim did! When he heard that God had threatenedhim with ruin for his sins, he heard also that God offered him freepardon if he would repent. Jeremiah gave him free choice to be savedor to be ruined; but his heart and will were hardened. Hearing thathe was wrong only made him angry. His pride and self-will were hurtby being told that he must change and alter his ways. He had chosenhis way, and he would keep to it; and he cared nothing for God'soffers of forgiveness, because he could not be forgiven unless he didwhat he was too proud to do, confess himself to be in the wrong, andopenly alter his conduct. And how many, as I first said, are likehim! They come to church; they hear God's warnings and threatsagainst their evil ways; they hear God's offers of free pardon andforgiveness; but being told that they are in the wrong makes them tooangry to care for God's offers of pardon. Pride stops their cars. They have chosen their own way, and they will keep it. They wouldnot object to be forgiven, if they might be forgiven withoutrepenting. But they do not like to confess themselves in the wrong. They do not like to face their foolish companions' remarks and sneersabout their changed ways. They do not like even good people to sayof them: "You see now that you were in the wrong after all; for youhave altered your mind and your doings yourself, as we told you youwould have to do. " No; anything sooner than confess themselves inthe wrong; and so they turn their backs on God's mercy, for the sakeof their own carnal pride and self-will. 

But, of course, they want an excuse for doing that; and when a manwants an excuse, the devil will soon fit him with a good one. Then, perhaps, the foolish sinner behaves as Jehoiakim did. He tries toforget God's message in the man who brings it. He grows angry withthe preacher, or goes out and laughs at the preacher when service isover, as if it was the preacher's fault that God had declared what hehas; as if it was the preacher's doing that God has revealed Hisanger against all sin and unrighteousness. So he acts likeJehoiakim, who tried to take Jeremiah the prophet and punish HIM, forwhat not he but the Lord God had declared. Nay, they will oftenpeevishly hate the very sight of a good book, because it reminds themof the sins of which they do not choose to be reminded, just as theyoung king Jehoiakim was childish enough to vent his spite onJeremiah's book of prophecies, by cutting the roll on which it waswritten with a penknife, and throwing it into the fire. So dosinners who are angry with the preacher who warns them, or hate thesight of good books. But let such foolish and wilful sinners, suchfull-grown children--for, after all, they are no better--hear theword of the Lord which came to Jehoiakim: "As it is written, he thatdespiseth Me shall be despised, saith the Lord. " And let them notfancy that their shutting their ears will shut the preacher's mouth, still less shut up God's everlasting laws of punishment for sin. No. God's word stands true, and it will happen to them as it did toJehoiakim. His burning Jeremiah's book did not rid him of the book, or save him from the woe and ruin which was prophesied in it; for wehave Jeremiah's book here in our Bibles to this day, as a sign and awarning of what happens to men, be they young or old, be they kingsor labouring men, who fight against God. Jeremiah's words were notlost after all; they were all re-written, and there were added tothem also many more like words; for Jehoiakim, by refusing the Lord'soffer of pardon, had added to his sins, and therefore the Lord addedto his punishment. 

Perhaps, again, the devil finds the wilful sinner another excuse, andthe man says to himself, as the Jews did in Ezekiel's time: "Thefathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set onedge. It is not my own fault that I am living a bad life, but otherpeople's. My parents ought to have brought me up better. I have hadno chance. My companions taught me too much harm. I have too muchtrouble to get my living; or, I was born with a bad temper; or, Ican't help running after pleasure. Why did God make me the sort ofman I am, and put me where I am? God is hard upon me; He is unfairto me. His ways are unequal; He expects as much of me as He does ofpeople who have more opportunities. He threatens to punish me forother people's sins. "

And then comes another and a darker temptation over the man, and thedevil whispers to him such thoughts as these: "God does not care forme; God hates me. Luck, and everything else is against me. Thereseems to be some curse upon me. Why should I change? Let God changefirst to me, and then I will change toward Him. But God will notchange; He is determined to have no mercy on me. I can see that; foreverything goes wrong with me. Then what use in my repenting? Iwill just go my own way, and what must be must. There is noresisting God's will. If I am to be saved, I shall be; if I am to bedamned, I shall be. I will put all melancholy thoughts out of myhead, and go and enjoy myself and forget all. At all events, itwon't last long: 'Let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I die. '"

Oh, my dear friends, have not some of you sometimes had suchthoughts? Then hear the word of the Lord to you: "When--whensoever--whensoever the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which hehath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shallsave his soul alive. " "Have I any pleasure in the death of him thatdieth? saith the Lord, and not rather that he should be converted, and live?" True, most true, that the Lord is unchangeable: but itis in love and mercy. True, that God's will and law cannot alter:but what is God's will and law? The soul that sinneth, it shall die?Yes. But also, the soul that turneth away from its sin, it shalllive. Never believe the devil when he tells you that God hates you. Never believe him when he tells you that God has been too hard onyou, and put you into such temptation, or ignorance, or poverty, oranything else, that you cannot mend. No. That font there will givethe devil the lie. That font says: "Be you poor, tempted, ignorant, stupid, be you what you will, you are God's child--your Father's loveis over you, His mercy is ready for you. " You feel too weak tochange; ask God's Spirit, and He will give you a strength of mind younever felt before. You feel too proud to change; ask God's Spirit, and He will humble your proud heart, and soften your hard heart; andyou will find to your surprise, that when your pride is gone, whenyou are utterly ashamed of yourself, and see your sins in their trueblackness, and feel not worthy to look up to God, that then, insteadof pride, will come a nobler, holier, manlier feeling--self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak and sinful as youare, you are in the right way; that God, and the angels of God, aresmiling on you; that you are in tune again with all heaven and earth, because you are what God wills you to be--not His proud, peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone, whenin reality you are the slave of your own passions and appetites, andthe plaything of the devil: but His loving, loyal son, strong in thestrength which God gives you, and able to do what you will, becausewhat you will God wills also. 

XXXII--PHARAOH'S HEART

And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the peoplego. --Exodus ix. 17. 

What lesson, now, can we draw from this story? One, at least, and avery important one. What effect did all these signs and wonders ofGod's sending, have upon Pharaoh and his servants? Did they makethem better men or worse men? We read that they made them worse men;that they helped to harden their hearts. We read that the Lordhardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children ofIsrael go. Now, how did the Lord do that? He did not wish and meanto make Pharaoh more hard-hearted, more wicked. That is impossible. God, who is all goodness and love, never can wish to make any humanbeing one atom worse than he is. He who so loved the world that Hecame down on earth to die for sinners, and take away the sins of theworld, would never make any human being a greater sinner than he wasbefore. That is impossible, and horrible to think of. Therefore, when we read that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, we must becertain that that was Pharaoh's own fault; and so, we read, it wasPharaoh's own fault. The Lord did not bring all these plagues onEgypt without giving Pharaoh fair warning. Before each plague, Hesent Moses to tell Pharaoh that the plague was coming. The Lord toldPharaoh that He was his Master, and the Master and Lord of the wholeearth; that the children of Israel belonged to Him, and the Egyptianstoo; that the river, light and darkness, the weather, the crops, andthe insects, and the locusts belonged to Him; that all diseases whichafflict man and beast were in His power. And the Lord proved thatHis words were true, in a way Pharaoh could not mistake, by changingthe river into blood, and sending darkness, and hailstones, andplagues of lice and flies, and at last by killing the firstborn ofall the Egyptians. The Lord gave Pharaoh every chance; Hecondescended to argue with him as one man would with another, andproved His word to be true, and proved that He had a right to commandPharaoh. And therefore, I say, if Pharaoh's heart was hardened, itwas his own fault, for the Lord was plainly trying to soften it, andto bring him to reason. And the Bible says distinctly that it wasPharaoh's own fault. For it says that Pharaoh hardened his ownheart, he and his servants, and therefore they would not let thechildren of Israel go. Now how could Pharaoh harden his own heart, and yet the Lord harden it at the same time?

Just in the same way, my friends, as too many of us are apt to makethe Lord harden our hearts by hardening them ourselves, and to make, as Pharaoh did, the very things which the Lord sends to soften us, the causes of our becoming more stubborn; the very things which theLord sends to bring us to reason, the means of our becoming more madand foolish. Believe me, my friends, this is no old story with whichwe have nothing to do. What happened to Pharaoh's heart may happento yours, or mine, or any man's. Alas! alas! it does happen to manya man's and woman's heart every day--and may the Lord have mercy onthem before it be too late, --and yet how can the Lord have mercy onthose who will not let Him have mercy on them?

What do I mean? This is what I mean, my friends; Oh, listen to it, and take it solemnly to heart, you who are living still in sin; takeit to heart, lest you, like Pharaoh, die in your sins, and yourlatter end will be worse than your beginning. 

Suppose a man to be going on in some sinful habit; cheating hisneighbours, grinding his labourers, or getting tipsy, or living witha woman without being married to her. He comes to church, and therehe hears the word of the Lord, by the Bible, or in sermons, tellinghim that God commands him to give up his sin, that God will certainlypunish him if he does not repent and amend. God sends that messageto him in love and mercy, to soften his heart by the terrors of thelaw, and turn him from his sin. But what does the man feel? Hefeels angry and provoked; angry with the preacher; ay, angry with theBible itself, with God's words. For he hates to hear the words whichtell him of his sin; he wishes they were not in the Bible; he longsto stop the preacher's mouth; and, as he cannot do that, he dislikesgoing to church. He says: "I cannot, and what is more, I will not, give up my sinful ways, and therefore I shall not go to church to betold of them. " So he stops away from church, and goes on in hissins. So that man's heart is hardened, just as Pharaoh's was. Yetthe Lord has come and spoken to that sinful man in loving warnings:though all the effect it has had is that the Lord's message has madehim worse than he was before, more stubborn, more godless, moreunwilling to hear what is good. But men may fall into a still worsestate of mind. They may determine to set the Lord at naught; to hearHim speaking to their conscience, and know that He is right and theywrong, and yet quietly put the good thoughts and feelings out oftheir way, and go in the course which they know to be the worst. Howmany a man in business or the world says to himself, ay, and in hisbetter moments will say to his friend: "Ah, yes, if one could but bewhat one would wish to be. . . . What one's mother used to say onemight be. . . . But for such a world as this, the gospel ideal issomewhat too fine and unpractical. One has one's business to carryon, or one's family to provide for, or one's party in politics toserve; one must obey the laws of trade, the usages of society, theinterests of one's class;" and so forth. And so an excuse is foundfor every sin, by those who know in their hearts that they aresinning; for every sin; and among others, too often, for that sin ofPharaoh's, of "NOT LETTING THE PEOPLE GO. "

And how many, my friends, when they come to church, harden theirhearts in the same quiet, almost good-humoured way, not caring enoughfor God's message to be even angry with it, and take the preacher'swarnings as they would a shower of rain, as something unpleasantwhich cannot be helped; and which, therefore, they must sit outpatiently, and think about it as little as possible? And when thesermon is over, they take their hats and go out into the churchyard, and begin talking about something else as quickly as possible, todrive the unpleasant thoughts, if there are a few left, out of theirheads. And thus they let the Lord's message to them harden theirhearts. For it does harden them, my friends, if it be taken in thistemper. Every time anyone sits through the service or the sermon inthis stupid and careless mood, he dulls and deadens his soul, till atlast he is able coolly to sit through the most awful warnings ofGod's judgment, the most tender entreaties of God's love, as if hewere a brute animal without understanding. Ay, he is able to makethe responses to the commandments, and join in the psalms, and sowith his own mouth, before the whole congregation, confess that God'scurse is on his doings, with no more sense or care of what the wordsmean, and of what a sentence he is pronouncing against himself, thanif he were a parrot taught to speak by rote words which he does notunderstand. And so that man, by hardening his own heart, makes theLord harden it for him. 

But there is a third way, and a worse way still, in which people'shearts are hardened by the Lord's speaking to them. A man is warnedof his sins by the preacher; and he says to himself: "If theminister thinks that he is going to frighten me away from church, heis very much mistaken. He may go his way, and I shall go mine. Lethim preach at me as much as he will; I shall go to church all themore for that, to show him that I am not afraid. " And so the Lord'swarnings harden his heart, and provoke him to set his face like aflint, and become all the more proud and stubborn. 

Now, young people, I speak openly to you as man to man. Will youtell me that this was not the very way in which some of you took mysermon last Sunday afternoon, in which I warned you of the miserywhich your sinful lives would bring upon you? Was there not morethan one of you, who, as soon as he got outside the church, beganlaughing and swaggering, and said to the lad next him: "Well, hegave it us well in his sermon this afternoon, did he not? But Idon't care; do you?"

To which the other foolish fellow answered: "Not I. It is hisbusiness to talk like that; he is paid for it, and I suppose he likesit. So if he does what he likes, we shall do what we like. Comealong. " And at that all the other foolish fellows round burst outlaughing, as if the poor lad had said a very clever thing; and theyall went off together, having their hearts hardened by the Lord'swarning to them, as Pharaoh's was. 

And they showed, I am afraid, that very evening that their heartswere hardened. For out of a sort of spite and stubbornness they tooka delight in doing what was wrong, just because they had been toldthat it was wrong, and because they were determined to show that theywould not be frightened or turned from what they chose. 

And all the while they knew that it was wrong, did those poor foolishlads. If you had asked one of them openly, "Do you not know that Godhas forbidden you to do this?" they would have either been forced tosay, "Yes, " or else they would have tried to laugh the matter off, orperhaps held their tongues and looked silly, or perhaps againanswered insolently; showing by each and all of these ways of takingit, that the Lord's message had come home to their consciences, andconvinced them of their sin, though they were determined not to ownit or obey it. And the way they would have put the matter by andexcused themselves to themselves would have been just the way inwhich Pharaoh did it. They would have tried to forget that the Lordhad warned them, and tried to make out to themselves that it was allthe preacher's doing, and to make it a personal quarrel between himand them. Just so Pharaoh did when he hardened his heart. He madethe Lord's message a ground for hating and threatening Moses andAaron, as if it was any fault of theirs. He knew in his heart thatthe Lord had sent them; but he tried to forget that, and drove themout from his presence, and told them that if they dared to appearbefore him again they should surely die. And just so, my friends, people will be angry with the preacher for telling them unpleasanttruths, as if it was any more pleasure to him to speak than for themto hear. Oh, why will you forget that the words which I speak fromthis pulpit are not my words, but God's? It is not I who warn you ofwhat you are bringing on yourselves by your sins, it is God Himself. There it is written in His Bible--judge for yourselves. Read yourBibles for yourselves, and you will see that I am not speaking my ownthoughts and words. And as for being angry with me for telling youtruth, read the ordination service which is read whenever a clergymanis ordained, and judge for yourselves. What is a clergyman sent intothe world for at all, but to say to you what I am saying now? Whatshould I be but a hypocrite and a traitor to the blessed Lord whodied for me, and saved me from my sins, and ordained me to preach tosinners, that they too may be saved from their sins, --what should Ibe but a traitor to Him, if I did not say to you, whenever I see yougoing wrong:

"O come, let us worship, and fall down and kneel before the Lord ourMaker. 

"For He is the Lord our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. 

"To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, "Lest He sware in His wrath that you shall not enter into His rest!"

And now, my friends, I will tell you what will happen to you. Yousee that I know something, without having been told of what has beengoing on in your hearts. I beseech you, believe me when I tell youwhat will go on in them. God will chastise you for your sins. Hewill; just because He loves you, and does not hate you; just becauseyou are His children, and not dumb animals born to perish. Troubleswill come upon you as you grow older. Of what sort they will be Icannot tell; but that they will come, I can tell full well. And whenthe Lord sends trouble to you, shall it harden your hearts or softenthem? It depends on you, altogether on you, whether the Lord hardensyour hearts by sending those sorrows, or whether He softens and turnsthem and brings them back to the only right place for them--home toHim. But your trouble may only harden your heart all the more. Thesorrows and sore judgments which the Lord sent Pharaoh only hardenedhis heart. It all depends upon the way in which you take thesetroubles, my friends. And that not so much when they come as afterthey come. Almost all, let their hearts be right with God or not, seem to take sorrow as they ought, while the sorrow is on them. Pharaoh did so too. He said to Moses and Aaron: "I have sinned thistime. The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. Entreat the Lord that there be no more mighty thunderings and hail;and I will let you go. " What could be more right or better spoken?Was not Pharaoh in a proper state of mind then? Was not his hearthumbled, and his will resigned to God? Moses thought not. For whilehe promised Pharaoh to pray that the storm might pass over, yet hewarned him: "But as for thee and thy servants, I know that ye willnot yet fear the Lord your God. " And so it happened; for, "whenPharaoh saw that the rain, and hail, and thunder had ceased, hesinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. Neither would he let the children of Israel go. " . . . And so, alas!it happens to many a man and woman nowadays. They find themselves ona sick-bed. They are in fear of death, in fear of poverty, in fearof shame and punishment for their misdeeds. And then they say: "Itis God's judgment. I have been very wicked. I know God is punishingme. Oh, if God will but raise me up off this sick-bed; if He willbut help me out of this trouble, I will give up all my wicked ways. I will repent and amend. " So said Pharaoh; and yet, as soon as hewas safe out of his distress, he hardened his heart. And so doesmany a man and woman, who, when they get safe through their troubles, never give up one of their sins, any more than Pharaoh did. Theyreally believe that God has punished them. They really intend toamend, while they are in the trouble: but as soon as they are out ofit, they try to persuade themselves that it was not God who sent thesorrow, that it came "by accident, " or that "people must have troublein this life, " or that "if they had taken better care, they mighthave prevented it. "--All of them excuses to themselves for forgettingGod in the matter, and, therefore, for forgetting what they promisedto God in trouble; and so, after all, they go on just as they went onbefore. And yet not as they went on before. For every such sinhardens their hearts; every such sin makes them less able to seeGod's hand in what happens to them; every such sin makes them morebold and confident in disobeying God, and saying to themselves:"After all, why should I be so frightened when I am in trouble, andmake such promises to amend my life? For the trouble goes away, whether I mend my life or not; and nothing happens to me; God doesnot punish me for not keeping my promises to Him. I may as well goon in my own way, for I seem not the worse off in body or in pursefor so doing. " Thus do people harden their hearts after eachtrouble, as Pharaoh did; so that you will see people, by oneaffliction after another, one loss after another, all their livesthrough, warned by God that sin will not prosper them; and confessingthat their sins have brought God's punishment on them: and yet goingon steadily in the very sins which have brought on their troubles, and gaining besides, as time runs on, a heart more and more hardened. And why?

Because they, like Pharaoh, love to have their own way. They willnot submit to God, and do what He bids them, and believe that what Hebids them must be right--good for them, and for all around them. 

They promised to mend. But they promised as Pharaoh did. "If Godwill take away this trouble, then I will mend"--meaning, though theydo not dare to say it: "And if God will not take away this trouble, of course He cannot expect me to mend. " In plain English--If Godwill not act toward them as they like, then they will not act towardHim as He likes. My friends, God does not need us to bargain withHim. We must obey Him whether we like it or not; whether it seems topay us or not; whether He takes our trouble off us or not; we mustobey, for He is the Lord; and if we will not obey, He will prove Hispower on us, as He did on Pharaoh, by showing plainly what is the endof those who resist His will. 

What, then, are we to do when our sins bring us, as they certainlywill some day bring us, into trouble?

What we ought to have done at first, my friends. What we ought tohave done in the wild days of youth, and so have saved ourselves manya dark day, many a sleepless night, many a bitter shame andheartache. To open our eyes, and see that the only thing for men andwomen, whom God has made, is to obey the God who has made them. Heis the Lord. He has made us. He will have us do one thing. How canwe hope to prosper by doing anything else? It is ill fightingagainst God. Which is the stronger, my friends, you or God? Make upyour minds on that. It surely will not take you long. 

But someone may say: "I do wish and long to obey God; but I am soweak, and my sins have so entangled me with bad company, or debts, or--, or--. " We all know, alas! into what a net everyone who givesway to sin gets his feet: "And therefore I cannot obey God. I longto do so. I feel, I know, when I look back, that all my sin, andshame, and unhappiness, come from being proud and self-willed, anddetermined to have my own way, and do what I choose. But I cannotmend. " Do not despair, poor soul! I had a thousand times soonerhear you say you cannot mend, than that you can. For those who saythey can mend, are apt to say: "I can mend; and therefore I shallmend when I choose, and no sooner. " But those who really feel theycannot mend--those who are really weary and worn out with the burdenof their sins--those who are really tired out with their ownwilfulness, and feel ready to lie down and die, like a spent horse, and say: "God, take me away, no matter to what place; I am not fitto live here on earth, a shame and a torment to myself day andnight"--those who are in that state of mind, are very near--very nearfinding out glorious news. 

Those who cannot mend themselves and know it, God will mend. Godwill mend your lives for you. He knows as well as you what you haveto struggle against; ay, a thousand times better. He knows--whatdoes He not know? Pray to Him, and try what He does not know. Cryto Him to rid you of your bad companions; He will find a way of doingit. Cry to Him to bring you out of the temptations you feel toostrong for you; He will find a way for doing it. Cry to Him to teachyou what you ought to do, and He will send someone, and that theright person, doubt it not, to teach you in His own good time. Aboveall, cry and pray to Him to conquer the pride, and self-conceit, andwilfulness in your heart; to take the hard proud heart of stone outof you, and give you instead a heart of flesh, loving, and tender, and kindly to every human creature; and He will do it. Cry to Him tomake your will like His own will, that you may love what He loves, and hate what He hates, and do what He wishes you to do. And thenyou will surely find my words come true: "Those who long to mend, and yet know that they cannot mend themselves, let them but pray, andGod will mend them. "

XXXIII--THE RED SEA TRIUMPH

Preached Easter-day Morning, 1852. 

This is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing thechildren of Israel out of the land of Egypt. --EXODUS xii. 42. 

You all, my friends, know what is the meaning of Easter-day--that itis the Day on which The Lord rose again from the dead. You must haveseen that most of the special services for this day, the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, and the second lessons, both morning andevening, reminded you of Christ's rising again; and so did the properPsalms for this day, though it may seem at first sight more difficultto see what they have to do with the Lord's rising again. 

Now the first lessons, both for the morning and evening services, were also meant to remind us of the very same thing, though it mayseem even more difficult still, at first sight, to understand howthey do so. 

Let us see what these two first lessons are about. The morning onewas from the twelfth chapter of Exodus, and told us what the Passoverwas, and what it meant. The first lesson for this afternoon was thefourteenth chapter of Exodus. Surely you must remember it. Surelythe most careless of you must have listened to that glorious story, how the Jews went through the Red Sea as if it had been dry land, while Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, trying to follow them, wereoverwhelmed in the water. Surely you cannot have heard how the poorJews looked back from the farther shore, and hardly believed theirown eyes for joy and wonder, when they saw their proud masters sweptaway for ever, and themselves safe and free out of the hateful landwhere they had been slaves for hundreds of years. You cannot surely, my friends, have heard that glorious story, and forgotten it againalready. I hope not; for God knows, that tale of the Jews comingsafe through the Red Sea has a deep and blessed meaning enough foryou, if you could but see it. 

But some of you may be saying to yourselves: "No doubt it is a verynoble story; and a man cannot help rejoicing at the poor Jews'escape, and at the downfall of those cruel Egyptians. It is apleasant thought, no doubt, that if it were but for that once, Godinterfered to help poor suffering creatures, and rid them of theirtyrants. But what has that to do with Easter Day and Christ's risingagain?"

I will try to show you, my friends. The Jews' Passover is the sameas our Easter-day, as you know already. But they are not merelyalike in being kept on the same day. They are alike because they areboth of them remembrances and tokens of the Lord Jesus Christ'sdelivering men out of misery and slavery. For never forget--though, indeed, in these strange times, I ought rather to say, I beseech youto read your Bibles and see--that it was Jesus Christ Himself whobrought the Jews out of Egypt. St. Paul tells us so positively, again and again. In 1 Cor. X. 4 he tells us that it was Christ whofollowed them through the wilderness. In verse 9 of the samechapter, he says that it was Christ Himself whom they tempted in thewilderness. He was the Angel of the Covenant who went with them. Hewas the God of Israel whom the elders of the Jews saw, a few weeksafterwards, on Mount Sinai, and under His feet a pavement like asapphire stone. True, the Lord did not take flesh upon Him tillnearly two thousand years after. But from the very beginning of allthings, while He was in the bosom of the Father, He was the King ofmen. Man was made in His image, and therefore in the image of theFather, whose perfect likeness He is--"the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person. " It was He who took care ofmen, guided and taught them, and delivered them out of misery, fromthe very beginning of the world. St. Paul says the same thing, inmany different ways, all through the epistle to the Hebrews. Hesays, for instance, that Moses, when he fled from Pharaoh's court inEgypt, esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than thetreasures of Egypt; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. The Lord said the same thing of Himself. He said openly that He wasthe person who is called, all through the Old Testament, "The Lord. "He asked the Pharisees: "What think ye of Christ? whose son is He?They say unto Him, David's son. Christ answered, How then does Davidin spirit call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thouon my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool?" So did Christdeclare, that He Himself, who was standing there before them, was theLord of David, who had died hundreds of years before. He told themagain that their father Abraham rejoiced to see His day, and saw itand was glad; and when they answered, in anger and astonishment, "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?"Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. " I am. The Jews had no doubt whom He meant; and we ought to have noneeither. For that was the very name by which God had told Moses tocall Him, when he was sent to the Jews: "Thou shalt say unto them, IAM hath sent me to you. " The Jews, I say, had no doubt who Jesussaid that He was; that He meant them to understand, once and for all, that He whom they called the carpenter's son of Nazareth, was theLord God who brought their forefathers up out of the land of Egypt, on the night of the first Passover. So they, to show how reverentand orthodox they were, and how they honoured the name of God, tookup stones to stone Him--as many a man, who fancies himself orthodoxand reverent, would now, if he dared, stone the preachers who declarethat the Lord Jesus Christ is not changed since then; that He is asable and as willing as ever to deliver the poor from those who grindthem down, and that He will deliver them, whenever they cry to Him, with a mighty hand and a stretched-out arm, and that Easter-day is asmuch a sign of that to us as the Passover was for the Jews of old. 

But, my friends, if Christ the Lord showed His love and power inbehalf of poor oppressed wretches on that first Passover, surely Heshowed it a thousand times more on that first Easter-day. His greatlove helped the Jews out of slavery; and that same great love of Hisat this Easter-tide, moved Him to die and rise again for the sins ofthe whole world. In that first Passover He delivered only onepeople. On the first Easter He delivered all mankind. The Jews wereunder cruel tyrants in the land of Egypt. So were all mankind overthe world, when Jesus came. The Jews in Egypt were slaves to worsethings than the whip of their task-masters; they had slaves' hearts, as well as slaves' bodies. They were kept down not only by theEgyptians, but by their own ignorance, and idolatry, and selfishdivision, and foul sins. They were spiritually dead--without anoble, pure, manful feeling left in them. Their history makes nosecret of that. The Bible seems to take every care to let us seeinto what a miserable and brutal state they had fallen. Christ sentMoses to raise them out of that death; to take them through the RedSea, as a sign that all that was washed away, to be forgiven of Godand forgotten by them, and that from the moment they landed, a freepeople, on the farther shore, they were to consider all their oldlife past and a new one begun. So they were baptized unto Moses inthe cloud and in the sea, as St. Paul says. And now all was to benew. They had been fancying that they belonged to the Egyptians. Now they had found out, and had it proved to them by signs andwonders which they could not mistake, that they belonged to the Lord. They had been brutal sinners. The Lord began to teach them that theywere to rise above their own appetites and passions. They had beenworshipping only what they could see and handle. The Lord began toteach them to worship Him--a person whom they could not see, thoughHe was always near them, and watching over them. They had beenliving without independence, fellow-feeling, the sense of duty, orlove of order. The Lord began to teach them to care for each other, to help each other, to know that they had a duty to perform towardseach other, for which they were accountable to Him. They had ownedno master except the Egyptians, whom they feared and obeyedunwillingly. The Lord began to teach them to obey Him loyally, fromtrust, and gratitude, and love. They had been willing to remainsinners, and brutes, and slaves, provided they could get enough toeat and drink. The Lord began to teach them that His favour, Hisprotection, were better than the flesh-pots of Egypt, and that He wasable to feed them where it seemed impossible to men; to teach themthat "man does not live by bread alone--cheap or dear, my friends--not by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds out of the mouthof God, does man live. " That was the meaning of their being baptizedin the cloud and in the sea. That was the meaning, and only a verysmall part of the meaning, of their Passover. Would you not think, my friends, that I had been speaking rather of our own Baptism, andof our own Supper of the Lord, to which you have been all called to-day, and that I had been telling you the meaning of them?

For when Jesus, the Lord, and King, and Head of mankind, died androse again, He took away the sin of the world. He was the truePassover, the Lamb without spot, slain, as the scripture tells us, for the sins of the whole world. In the Jews' Passover, when theangel saw the lamb's blood on the door of the house, he passed by, and spared everyone in it. So now. The blood of Jesus, the Lamb ofGod, is upon us; and for His sake, God is faithful and just toforgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

But the Lord rose again this day. And when He, the Lord, the King, and Head of all men, rose, all men rose in Him. "As in Adam alldie, " says St. Paul, "even so in Christ shall all be made alive. "

Baptism is a sign of that to us, as the going through the Red Sea, and being baptized to Moses in it, was to the Jews. The passing ofthe Red Sea said to the Jews: "You have passed now out of your oldmiserable state of slavery into freedom. The sins which youcommitted there are blotted out. You are taken into covenant withGod. You are now God's people, and nothing can lose you this loveand care, except your own sins, your own unfaithfulness to Him, yourown wilful falling back into the slavish and brutal state from whichHe has delivered you. "

And just so, baptism says to us: "Your sins are forgiven you. Youare taken into covenant with God. You are God's people, God'sfamily. You must forget and cast away the old Adam, the old slavishand savage pattern of man, which your Lord died to abolish, the guiltof which He bore for you on His cross; and you must rise to the newAdam, the new pattern of man, which is created after God inrighteousness and true holiness, which the Lord showed forth in Hislife, and death, and rising again. For now God looks on you not as aguilty and condemned race of beings, but as a redeemed race, Hischildren, for the sake of Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, who takesaway the sins of the world. You have a right to believe that, ashuman beings, you are dead with Christ to the old Adam, the oldsinful, brutal pattern of man. Baptism is the sign of it to you. Every child, let it or its parents be who they may, is freelybaptized as a sign that all that old pattern of man is washed away, that they can and must have nothing to do with it hence-forward, thatit is dead and buried, and they must flee from it and forget it, asthey would a corpse. 

And the Lord's Supper also is a sign to us that, as human beings, weare risen with Christ, to a new life. A new life is our birthright. We have a right to live a new life. We have a duty to live a newlife. We have a power, if we will, to live a new life; such a lifeas we never could live if we were left to ourselves; a noble, just, godly, manful, Christlike, Godlike life, bred and nourished in us bythe Spirit of Christ. That is our right; for we belong to Him wholived that life Himself, and bought us our share in it with His owndeath and resurrection. That is our duty; for if we share the Lord'sblessings, it can only be in order that we may become like the Lord. Do you fancy that He died to leave us all no better than we are? Hisdeath would have had very little effect if that was all. No, saysSt. Paul; if you have a share in Christ, prove that you believe inyour own share by becoming like Christ. You belong to His kingdom, and you must live as His subjects. He has bought for you a new andeternal life, and you must use that life. "If ye then be risen withChrist, seek those things that are above. " . . . And what are they?Love, peace, gentleness, mercy, pity, truth, faithfulness, justice, patience, courage, order, industry, duty, obedience. . . . All, inshort, which is like Jesus Christ. For these are heavenly things. These are above, where Christ sits at God's right hand. These arethe likeness of God. That is God's character. Let it be yourcharacter likewise. 

But again; if it is our right and our duty to be like that, it isalso in our power. God would not have commanded us to be, what Hehad not given us the power to be. He would not have told us to seekthose things which are above, if He had not intended us to find them. Wherefore it is written: "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and yeshall find; for if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts toyour children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give His HolySpirit to those who ask him?"

This is the meaning of that text; namely, that God will give us thepower of living this new and risen life, which we are bound to live. This is one of the gifts for men, which the scripture tells us thatChrist received when He rose from the dead, and ascended up on high. This is one of the powers of which He spoke, when after Hisresurrection He said, "That all power was given to Him in heaven andearth. " The Lord's Supper is at once a sign of who will give us thatgift, and a sign that He will indeed give it us. The Lord's Supperis the pledge and token to us that we all have a share in thelikeness of Christ, the true pattern of man; and that if we come andclaim our share, He will surely bestow it on us. He will renew, andchange, and purify our hearts and characters in us, day by day, intothe likeness of Himself. He who is the eternal life of men willnourish us, body, soul, and spirit, with that everlasting life ofHis, even as our bodies are nourished by that bread and wine. And ifyou ask me how? When you can tell me why a wheat grain cannotproduce an oak, or an acorn a wheat plant; when you can tell me whyour bodies are, each of them, the very same bodies which they wereten years ago, though every atom of flesh, and blood, and bone inthem has been changed; when, in short, you, or any other living man, can tell me the meaning of those three words, body, life, and growth, then it will be time to ask that question. In the meantime let usbelieve that He who does such wonders in the life and growth of everyblade of grass, can and will do far greater wonders for the life andgrowth of us, immortal beings, made in His own likeness, redeemed byHis blood, and so believe, and thank, and obey, and wait till anotherand a nobler life to understand. And if we never understand at all--what matter, provided the thing be true?

XXXIV--CHRISTMAS-DAY

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and thegovernment shall be on His shoulder: and His name shall be calledWonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Father of an Everlastingage, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government andpeace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon hiskingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and withjustice henceforth even forever. --ISAIAH ix. 6, 7. 

In the time when the prophet Isaiah wrote this prophecy, everythinground him was exactly opposite to his words. The king of Judaea, theprophet's country, was not reigning in righteousness. He was anunrighteous and wicked governor. The princes and great men were notruling in judgment. They were unjust and covetous; they took bribes, and sold justice for money. They were oppressors, grinding down thepoor, and defrauding those below them. So that the weak, and poor, and needy had no one to right them, no one to take their part. Therewas no man to feel for them, and defend them, and be a hiding-placeand a covert for them from their cruel tyrants; no man to comfort andrefresh them as rivers of water refresh a dry place, or the shadow ofa great rock comforts the sunburnt traveller in the weary deserts. 

Neither were these very poor oppressed people of the Jews in a rightstate of mind. They were ignorant and stupid, given to worship falsegods. They had eyes, and yet could not use them to see that, as thepsalm told us this morning, the heavens declared the glory of God, and the firmament showed His handiwork. They were worshipping thesun, and moon, and stars, in stead of the Lord God who made them. They were brutish too, and would not listen to teaching. They hadears, and yet would not hearken with them to God's prophets. Theywere rash, too, living from hand to mouth, discontented, and violent, as ignorant poor people will be in evil times. And they werestammerers--not with their tongue, but with their minds and thoughts. They were miserable; but they could not tell why. They were full ofdiscontent and longings; but they could not put them into words. They did not know how to pray, how to open their hearts to God or toman. They knew of no one who could understand them and theirsorrows; they could not understand them themselves, much less putthem into words. They were altogether confused and stupefied; justin the same state, in a word, as the poor negro slaves in America, and the heathens ay, and the Christians too, are in, in all thecountries of the world which do not know the good news of Christmas-day or have forgotten it and disobeyed it. 

But Isaiah had God's Spirit with him; the Holy Spirit, the Spirit ofholiness, righteousness, justice. And that Holy Spirit convinced himof sin, and of righteousness and of judgment, as He convinces everyman who gives himself up humbly to God's teaching. 

First, the Spirit convinced Isaiah of sin. He made him feel that thestate of his country was wrong. And He made him feel why it waswrong; namely, because the men in it were wrong; because they werethinking wrong notions, feeling wrong feelings, doing wrong things;and that wrong was sin; and that sin was falling short of being whata man was made, and what every man ought to be, namely, the likenessand glory of God; and that so his countrymen the Jews, one and all, had sinned and come short of the glory of God. 

Next, He convinced Isaiah of righteousness. He made Isaiah feel andbe sure that God was righteous; that God was no unjust Lord, like thewicked king of the Jews; that such evil doings as are going on werehateful to Him; that all that covetousness, oppression, taking ofbribes, drunkenness, deceit, ignorance, stupid rashness and folly, ofwhich the land was full, were hateful to God. He must hate them, forHe was a righteous and a good God. They ought not to be there. Forman, every man from the king on his throne to the poor labourer inthe field, was meant to be righteous and good as God is. "But howwill it be altered?" thought Isaiah to himself. "What hope for thispoor miserable sinful world? People are meant to be righteous andgood: but who will make them so? The king and his princes are meantto be righteous and good, but who will set them a pattern? When willthere be a really good king, who will be an example to all inauthority; who will teach men to do right, and compel and force themnot to do wrong?"

And then the Holy Spirit of God answered that anxious question ofIsaiah's, and convinced him of judgment. 

Yes, he felt sure; he did not know why he felt so sure: but he didfeel sure; God's Spirit in his heart made him feel sure, that in someway or other, some day or other, the Lord God would come to judgment, to judge the wicked princes and rulers of this world, and cast themout. It must be so. God was a righteous God. He would not endurethese unrighteous doings for ever. He was not careless about thispoor sinful world, and about all the sinful down-trodden ignorantmen, and women, and children in it. He would take the matter intoHis own hands. He would show that He was Lord and Master. If kingswould not reign in righteousness, He would come and reign inrighteousness Himself. He would appoint princes under Him, who wouldrule in judgment. And He would show men what true righteousness was;what the pattern of a true ruler was; namely, to be able to feel forthe poor, and the afflicted, and the needy, to understand the wants, and sorrows, and doubts, and fears of the lowest and the meanest; inshort, to be a man, a true, perfect man, with a man's heart, a man'spity, a man's fellow-feeling in Him. Yes. The Lord God would showHimself. He would set His righteous King to govern. And yet Isaiahdid not know how, but he saw plainly that it must be so, that samerighteous King, who was to set the world right, would be a MAN. Itwould be a man who was to be a hiding-place from the storm and acovert from the tempest. A man who would understand man, and teachmen their duty. 

Then the eyes of the blind would see, and the ears of those who heardshould hearken; for they would hear a loving human voice, the voiceof One who knew what was in man, who could tell them just what theywanted to know, and put His teaching into the shape in which it wouldsink most easily and deeply into their hearts. And then the heartsof the rash would understand knowledge; and the tongue of thestammerers would speak plainly. There will be no more confused criesfrom poor ignorant brutish oppressed people, like the cries of dumbbeasts in pain; for He who was coming would give them words to uttertheir sorrows in. He would teach them how to speak to man and God. He would teach them how to pray, and when they prayed to say, "OurFather which art in heaven. "

Then the vile person would be no more called bountiful, or the churlcalled liberal: flattery and cringing to the evil great would be atan end. The people would have sense to see the truth about right andwrong, and courage to speak it. Men would then be held for what theyreally were, and honoured and despised according to their truemerits. Yes, said Isaiah, we shall be delivered from our wicked kingand princes, from the heathen Assyrian armies, who fancy that theyare going to sweep us out of our own land with fire and sword; fromour own sins, and ignorance, and infidelity, and rashness. We shallbe delivered from them all, for The righteous King is coming. Nay, He is here already, if we could but see. His goings-forth have beenfrom everlasting. He is ruling us now--this wondrous Child, this Sonof God. Unto us a Child is born already, unto us a Son is givenalready. But one day or other He will be revealed, and mademanifest, and shown to men as a man; and then all the people shallknow who He is; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. 

Ah, my friends, Isaiah saw all this but dimly and afar off. He sawas through a glass darkly. He perhaps thought at times--indeed wecan have little doubt that he thought--that the good young PrinceHezekiah, "The might of God, " as his name means, who was growing upin his day to be a deliverer and a righteous king over the Jews, wasto set the world right. No doubt he had Hezekiah in his mind when hesaid that a Child was born to the Jews, and a Son given to them; justas, of course, he meant his own son, who was born to him by thevirgin prophetess, when he called his name Emmanuel, that is to say, God with us. But he felt that there was more in both things thanthat. He felt that his young wife's conceiving and bearing a son, was a sign to him that some day or other a more blessed virgin wouldconceive and bear a mightier Son. And so he felt that whether or notHezekiah delivered the Jews from their sin, and misery, andignorance, God Himself would deliver them. He knew, by the Spirit ofGod, that his prophecy would come true, and remain true for ever. And so he died in faith, not having received the promises, God havingprepared some better King for us, and having fulfilled the words ofHis prophet in a way of which, as far as we can see, he neverdreamed. 

Yes. Hezekiah failed to save the nation of the Jews. Instead ofbeing the "father of an everlasting age, " and having "no end of hisfamily on the throne of David, " his great-grandchildren and the wholenation of the Jews were swept away into captivity by the Babylonians, and no man of his house, as Jeremiah prophesied, has ever sinceprospered or sat on the throne of David. But still Isaiah's prophecywas true. True for us who are assembled here this day. 

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; even the Babe ofBethlehem, Jesus Christ the Lord. The government shall indeed beupon His shoulder; for it has been there always. For the Father hascommitted all things to the Son, that he may be King of kings andLord of lords for ever. His name is indeed Wonderful; for what morewondrous thing was ever seen in heaven or in earth, than that greatlove with which He loved us? He is not merely called "The might ofGod, " as Hezekiah was, --for a sign and a prophecy; for He is themighty God Himself. He is indeed the Counsellor; for He is the lightwho lighteth every man who comes into the world. He is "the Fatherof an everlasting age. " There were hopes that Hezekiah would be so;that he would raise the nation of the Jews again to a reform fromwhich it would never fall away: but these hopes were disappointed;and the only one who fulfilled the prophecy is He who has founded HisChurch for ever on the rock of everlasting ages, and the gates ofhell shall not prevail against it. Hezekiah was to be the prince ofpeace for a few short years only. But the Child who is born to us, the Son who is given to us, is He who gave eternal peace to all whowill accept it; peace which this world can neither give nor takeaway; and who will make that peace grow and spread over the wholeearth, till men shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and theirspears into pruning-hooks, and the nations shall not learn war anymore. Of the increase of His government and of His peace there shallbe no end, till the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, asthe waters cover the sea, and the spirit of God be poured out on allflesh, to teach kings to reign in righteousness, after the pattern ofthe King of kings, the Babe of Bethlehem; to make the rich andpowerful do justice, to teach the ignorant, to give the rich wisdom, to free the oppressed, to comfort the afflicted, to proclaim to allmankind the good news of Christmas Day, the good news that there wasa man born into the world on this day who will be a hiding-place fromthe storm, a covert from the tempest, like rivers of water in a dryplace, like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; even the manChrist Jesus, who is able and willing to save to the uttermost thosewho come to God through Him, seeing that he has been tempted in allthings like as we are, yet without sin. 

Yes, my friends, on that holy table stands the everlasting sign thatIsaiah's prophecy has been fulfilled to the uttermost. That breadand that wine declare to us, that to us a Child is born, to us a Sonis given. They declare to us, in a word, that on this blessed dayGod was made man, and dwelt among men, and we beheld His glory, theglory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Oh, come to that table this day, and there claim your share in themost precious body and blood of the Divine Child of Bethlehem. Comeand ask Him to pour out on you His Spirit, the Spirit which He pouredon Hezekiah of old, "that he might fulfil his own name and live inthe might of God. " So will you live in the might of God. So youwill be able to govern yourselves, and your own appetites, inrighteousness and freedom, and rule your own households, orwhatsoever God has set you to do, in judgment. So you will seethings in their true light, as God sees them, and be ready andwilling to hear good advice, and understand your way in this life, and be able to speak your hearts out in prayer to God, as to a lovingand merciful Father. And in all your afflictions, let them be whatthey will, you will have a comfort, and a sure hope, and a wellspringof peace, and a hiding-place from the tempest, even The Man ChristJesus, who said: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you;let not your heart be troubled, neither be ye afraid. " The ManChrist Jesus, at whose birth the angels sang: "Glory to God in theHighest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men. "

Now to Him who on this day was born of the blessed virgin, man of thesubstance of His mother, yet God the Son of God, be ascribed, withthe Father and the Spirit, all power, glory, majesty, and dominion, both now and for ever. Amen. 

XXXV--NEW YEAR'S DAY

(1853. )

But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He thatformed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I havecalled thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest throughthe waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shallnot overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shaltnot be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am theLord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt forthy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious inmy sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee:therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life. --ISAIAHxliii. 1-4. 

The New Year has now begun; and I am bound to wish you all a happyNew Year. But I am sent here to do more than that; to teach you howyou may make your own New Year a happy one; or, if not altogether ahappy one--for sorrows may and must come in their turn--yet stillsomething better than a happy year, namely, a blessed year; a year onwhich you will be able to look back this day twelvemonths, and thankGod for it; thank God for the tears which you have shed in it, aswell as for the joy which you have felt; thank God for the dark daysas well as for the light; thank God for what you have lost, as wellas what you have found; and be able to say, "Well, this last year, ifit has not been a happy year for me, at least it has been a blessedone for me. It has left me a stronger, soberer, wiser, godlier, better man than it found me. "

How, then, can you make the New Year a blessed one for yourselves? Iknow but one way, my friends. The ancient way. The Bible way. Theway by which Abraham, and Jacob, and David, and all the holy men ofold, and all the saints, and martyrs, and righteous and godly amongmen, made their lives blessed among themselves, in spite of sorrow, and misfortune, and distress, and persecution, and torture, and deathitself; the one only old way of being blessed, which was from thebeginning, and will last for ever and ever, through all worlds andeternities; the way of the old saints, which St. Paul sets forth inthe eleventh chapter of the Hebrews; and that is, FAITH. Faith, which is the substance of what we hope for, the evidence of thingsnot seen. Faith, of which it is written, that the just shall live byhis faith. 

But how can faith give you a blessed New Year? In the same way inwhich it gave the old saints blessed years all their lives through, and is giving them a blessed eternity now and for ever before theface of the Lord Jesus Christ, to which may God in His mercy bring usall likewise. 

They trusted in God. They had faith, not in themselves, like toomany; not in their own good works, like too many; not in their ownfaith, in their own frames, and feelings, and assurances, like toomany; but they had faith in God. It was faith in God which made oneof them, the great prophet Isaiah, write the glorious words which Ihave chosen for my text this day, to show his countrymen the Jews, even while they were in the very lowest depths of shame, and poverty, and misfortune, that God had not forgotten them; that for those whotrusted in Him, a blessed time was surely coming. 

And it was faith in God, too, which put it into the minds of the goodmen who choose these Sunday lessons out of the Bible, to appoint suchchapters as these to be read year by year, at the coming in of thenew year, for ever. Faith in God, I say, put that into their minds. For those good men trusted in God, that He would not change; thathundreds and thousands of years would make no difference in His love;that the promises made by His Holy Spirit to Isaiah the prophet wouldstand true for ever and ever. And they trusted in God, too, thatwhat He had spoken by the mouth of His holy apostles was true; thatafter the blessed Lord came down on earth, there was to be nodifference between Jews and Gentiles; that the great and preciouspromises made by God to the Jews were made also to all the nations ofthe earth; that all things written in the Old Testament, from thefirst chapter of Genesis to the last of Malachi, were written not forthe Jews only, but for English, French, Italians, Germans, Russians--for all the nations of the world; that we English were God's peoplenow, just as much, ay, far more, than the old Jews were, and that, therefore, the Old Testament promises, as well as the New Testamentones, were part of our inheritance as members of Christ's Church. And therefore they appointed Old Testament lessons to be read inchurch, to show us English what our privileges were, what God'scovenant and promise to us were. We, as much as the Jews, are calledby the name of the Lord who created us. Were we not baptised intoHis name at that font? Has He not loved us? Has He not heaped usEnglish, for hundreds of years past, with blessings such as He neverbestowed on any nation? Has He not given men for us, and nations forour life? While all the nations of the world have been at war, slaying and being slain, has He not kept this fair land of Englandfree and safe from foreign invaders for more than eight hundredyears? Since the world was made, perhaps, such a thing was neverheard of, such a mercy shown to any nation; that a great and richcountry like this should be preserved for eight hundred years frominvasion of foreign armies, and all the horrors and miseries of war, which have swept, from time to time, every other nation in the worldwith the besom of desolation. 

Ay, and but sixty years ago, in the time of the French war, whenalmost every other nation in Europe was made desolate with fire, andsword, and war, did not God preserve this land of England, as Henever preserved country before, from all the miseries which weresweeping over other nations? Oh, strange and wonderful mercy of God, that at the very time that the gospel was dying out all over Europe, it was being lighted again in England; and that while the knowledgeof God was failing elsewhere, it was increasing here! Oh, strangeand wonderful mercy of God, who has given to us English, now for onehundred and sixty years and more, those very equal laws, and freedom, and rights of conscience, for which so many other nations of Europeare still crying and struggling in vain, amid slavery, andoppression, and injustice, and heavy burdens, such as we here inEngland should not endure a week! Oh, strange and wonderful mercy ofGod, who but three years ago, when all the other nations of Europewere shaken with wars, and riots, and seditions, every man's handagainst his neighbour, kept this land of England in perfect peace andquiet by those just laws and government, proving to us the truth ofHis own promises, that those who seek peace by righteous dealings, shall find it, and that, as Isaiah says, the fruit of justice isquietness and assurance for ever! And last, but not least, myfriends, is it not a sign, a sign not to be mistaken, of God's good-will and mercy to us, that now, at this very time of all others, whenalmost every country in Europe is going to wrack and ruin through thefolly and wickedness of their kings and rulers, He should have givenus here in England a Queen who is a pattern of goodness and purity, in ruling not only the nation, but her own household, to every wifeand mother, from the highest to the lowest; and a Prince whose wholeheart seems set on doing good, and on helping the poor, and improvingthe condition of the labourers? My friends, I say that we areunthankful and unfaithful. We do not thank God a hundredth partenough for the blessings which He has given us. We do not trust Hima hundredth part enough for the blessings which He has in store forus. If some of us here could but see and feel for a single month howpeople are off abroad; if they could change places with a French, anItalian, a Russian labourer, it would teach them a lesson about God'sgoodness to England which they would not soon forget. May God grantthat we may never have to learn that lesson in that way! God grantthat we may never, to cure us of our unthankfulness and want offaith, and godless and unmanly grumbling and complaining, be brought, for a single week, into the same state as some hundred millions ofour fellow-creatures are in foreign parts! Oh, my friends, let usthank God for the mercies of the past year! Most truly He hasfulfilled to England his promise given by the mouth of the prophetIsaiah: "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. For I am theLord thy God, the Holy One, thy Saviour. Thou hast been precious inmy sight, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and peoples for thy life. "

Away, then, with discontent and anxiety for the coming year. Orrather, let us be only discontented with ourselves. Let us only beanxious about our own conduct. God cannot change. If anything goeswrong, it will be not because He has left us, but because we haveleft Him. Is it not written that all things work together for goodto those who love God? Then if things do not work together for goodin this coming year, it will be because we do not love God. Do notlet us say, "I am righteous, but my neighbours are wicked, andtherefore I must be miserable;" neither let us lay the blame of ourmisfortunes on our rulers; let us lay it on ourselves. 

What was the word of the Lord to the Jews in a like case: "Whatmeans this proverb which you take up, saying, The fathers have eatensour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? It is not so, O house of Israel. The son shall not die for the iniquity of hisfather, nor the father for the iniquity of the son. The soul thatsinneth, it shall die, saith the Lord. "

Oh, my friends, take this to heart solemnly, in the year to come. Our troubles, more of them at least than we fancy, are our own fault, and not our neighbours', or the government's, or anyone's else. Andthose which are not our own fault directly are so in this way, thatthey are sent as sharp and wholesome lessons to us; and if we werewhat we ought to be, we should not want those lessons. Do not fancythat that is a sad and doleful thought to begin the new year with. God forbid! It would be doleful and sad indeed if any one of us, inspite of all his right-doing, might be plunged into any hopelessmisery, through the fault of other people, over whom he has nocontrol. But thanks be to the Lord, it is not so. We are Hischildren, and He cares for each and every one of us separately. Eachand every one of us has to answer for himself alone, face to facewith his God, day by day; every man must bear his own burden; and toevery one of us who love God, all things will work together for good. It is, and was, and always will be, as Abraham well knew, far fromGod to punish the righteous with the wicked. The Judge of all theearth will do right. None of us who repents and turns from the sinshe sees round him and in him; none of us who prays for the light andguiding of God's Spirit; none of us who struggles day by day to keephimself unspotted from this evil world, and live as God's son, without scandal or ill-name in the midst of a sinful and perversegeneration; none of us who does that, but God's blessing will rest onhim. What ruins others will only teach and strengthen him; whatbrings others to shame, will only bring him to honour, and make hisrighteousness plain to be seen by all, that God may be glorified inHis people. Let the coming year be what it may; to the holy, thehumble, the upright, the godly, it will be a blessed year, fulfillingthe blessed promises of the Lord, that those who trust in Him shallnever be confounded. 

Oh, my friends, consider but this one thing, that the Almighty God, who made all heaven and earth, has bid us trust in Him. And when Hebids us, is it not a sin, an insult to Him, not to trust Him--not tobelieve His words to us? "Put thou thy trust in the Lord, and bedoing good; dwell in the land, " working where He has set thee, "andverily thou shalt be fed. " "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrorby night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day. A thousand shallfall by thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shallnot come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and seethe reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord thyrefuge, no plague shall come nigh thy dwelling. Thou shalt call uponme, I will answer thee. Because thou hast set thy love on me, I willdeliver thee; with long life will I satisfy thee, and show thee mysalvation. "

My friends, these words are in the book of Psalms. Either they arethe most cruel words that ever were spoken on earth to tempt poorwretches into vain security and fearful disappointment, or they are--what are they?--the sure and everlasting promise of our Father inheaven to us His children. We have only to ask for them, and weshall receive them; to claim them, and they will be fulfilled to us. "For He who spared not His own Son, but freely gave Him for us, willHe not with Him likewise freely give us all things, " and make, by Hisfatherly care, and providence, and education, all our new yearsblessed new years, whether or not they are happy ones?

XXXVI--THE DELUGE

My spirit shall not always strive with man. --GENESIS vi. 3. 

Last Sunday we read in the first lesson of the fall. This Sunday weread of the flood, the first-fruits of the fall. 

It is an awful and a fearful story. And yet, if we will look at itby faith in God, it is a most cheerful and hopeful story--a gospel--agood news of salvation--like every other word in the Bible, frombeginning to end. Ay, and to my mind, the most hopeful words of allin it, are the very ones which at first sight look most terrible, thewords with which my text begins: "And the Lord said, My Spirit shallnot always strive with man. "

For is it not good news--the good news of all news--the news whichevery poor soul who is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, longs to hear; and when they hear it, feel it to be the good news--the only news which can give comfort to fallen and sorrowful men, tied and bound with the chain of their sins, that God's Spirit doesstrive at all with man? That God is looking after men? That God isyearning over sinners, as the heart of a father yearns over hisrebellious child, as the heart of a faithful and loving husbandyearns after an unfaithful wife? That God does not take a disgust atus for all our unworthiness, but wills that none should perish, butthat all should come to repentance? Oh joyful news! Man may be, asthe text says that he was in the time of Noah, so low fallen that heis but flesh like the brutes that perish; the imaginations of hisheart may be only evil continually; his spirit may be dead withinhim, given up to all low and fleshly appetites and passions, anger, and greediness, and filth; and yet the pure and holy Spirit of Godcondescends to strive and struggle with him, to convince him of sin, and make him discontented and ashamed at his own brutishness, andshake and terrify his soul with the wholesome thought: "I am asinner--I am wrong--I am living such a life as God never meant me tolive--I am not what I ought to be--I have fallen short of what Godintended me to be. Surely some evil will come to me from this. "Then the Holy Spirit convinces man of righteousness. He shows manthat what he has fallen short of is the glory of God; that man wasmeant to be, as St. Paul says, the likeness and glory of God; to showforth God's glory, and beauty, and righteousness, and love in his owndaily life; as a looking-glass, though it is not the sun, still givesan image and likeness of the sun, when the sun shines on it, andshows forth the glory of the sunbeams which are reflected on it. 

And then, the Holy Spirit convinces man of judgment. He shows manthat God cannot suffer men, or angels, or any other rational spiritsand immortal souls, to be unlike Himself; that because He is the onlyand perfect good, whatsoever is unlike Him must be bad; because He isthe only and perfect love, who wills blessings and good to all, whatsoever is unlike Him must be unloving, hating, and hateful--acurse and evil to all around it; because He is the only perfect Makerand Preserver, whatsoever is unlike Him must be in its very naturehurtful, destroying, deadly--a disease which injures this good world, and which He will therefore cut out, burn up, destroy in some way orother, if it will not submit to be cured. For this, my friends, isthe meaning of God's judgments on sinners; this is why He sent aflood to drown the world of the ungodly; this is why He destroyedSodom and Gomorrah; this is why He swept away the nations of Canaan;this is why He destroyed Jerusalem, His own beloved city, andscattered the Jews over the face of the whole earth unto this day;this is why He destroyed heathen Rome of old, and why He hasdestroyed, from time to time, in every age and country, great nationsand mighty cities by earthquake, and famine, and pestilence, and thesword; because He knows that sin is ruin and misery to all; that itis a disease which spreads by infection among fallen men; and that Hemust cut off the corrupt nation for the sake of preserving mankind, as the surgeon cuts off a diseased limb, that his patient's wholebody may not die. But the surgeon will not cut off the limb as longas there is a chance of saving it: he will not cut it off till it ismortified and dead, and certain to infect the whole body with thesame death, or till it is so inflamed that it will inflame the wholebody also, and burn up the patient's life with fever. Till then hetends it in hope; tries by all means to cure it. And so does theLord, the Lord Jesus, the great Physician, whom His Father hasappointed to heal and cure this poor fallen world. As long as thereis hope of curing any man, any nation, any generation of men, so longwill his Spirit strive lovingly and hopefully with man. For see theblessed words of the text: "My Spirit shall not always strive withman. This must end. This must end at some time or other. Thisbattle between my Spirit and the wicked and perverse wills of thesesinners; this battle between the love and the justice and the puritywhich I am trying to teach them, and the corruption and the violencewith which they are filling the earth. " But there is no passion inthe Lord, no spite, no sudden rage, like the brute passionate angerof weak man. Our anger, if we are not under the guiding of God'sSpirit, conquers our wills, carries us away, makes us say and do onthe moment--God forgive us for it--whatsoever our passion prompts us. The Lord's anger does not conquer Him. It does not conquer Hispatience, His love, His steadfast will for the good of all. Evenwhen it shows itself in the flood and the earthquake; even though itbreak up the fountains of the great deep, and destroy from off theearth both man and beast, yet it is, and was, and ever will be, theanger of The Lamb--a patient, a merciful, and a loving anger. 

Therefore the Lord says: "Yet his days shall be one hundred andtwenty years. " One hundred and twenty years more he would endurethose corrupt and violent sinners, in the hope of correcting them. One hundred and twenty years more would God's Spirit strive with men. One hundred and twenty years more the long-suffering of God, as St. Peter says, would wait, if by any means they would turn and repent. Oh, wonderful love and condescension of God! God waits for man! TheHoly One waits for the unholy! The Creator waits for the work of Hisown hands! The wrathful God, who repents that He has made man uponthe earth, waits one hundred and twenty years for the very creatureswhom He repents having made! Does this seem strange to us--unlikeour notions of God? If it is strange to us, my friends, its beingstrange is only a proof of how far we have fallen from the likenessof God, wherein man was originally created. If we were more likeGod, then the accounts of God's long-suffering, and mercy, andrepentance, which we read in the Bible, would not be so strange tous. We should understand what God declares of Himself, by seeing thesame feelings working in ourselves, which He declares to be workingin Himself. And if we were more righteous and more loving, we shouldunderstand more how God's will was a loving and a righteous will; howHis justice was His mercy, and His mercy His justice, instead ofdividing His substance, who is one God, by fancying that His mercyand His justice are two different attributes, which are at timescontrary the one to the other. 

We read nothing here about God's absolute purposes, and fixeddecrees, whereof men talk so often, making a god in their own fallenimage, after their own fallen likeness. The Lord, the Word of God, of whom the Bible tells us, does not think it beneath his dignity tosay: "It repenteth me that I have made man. " Different, truly, fromthat false god which man makes in his own image. Man is proud, andhe fancies that God is proud; man is self-willed and selfish, and hefancies that God is self-willed and selfish; man is arbitrary andobstinate, and determined to have his own way just because it is hisown way; and then he fancies that God is arbitrary and obstinate, anddetermines to have His own way and will, just because it is His ownway and will. But wilt thou know, oh vain man, why God will have Hisown way and will? Because His way is a good way, and His will aloving will; because the Lord knows that His way is the only path oflife, and joy, and blessing to man and beast, yes, and to the veryhairs of our head, which are all numbered, and to the sparrows, whereof not one falls to the ground without our Father's knowledge;because His will is a loving will, which wills that none shouldperish, but that all should come and be saved in body, soul, andspirit. He will have His own will done, not because it is His ownwill, but because it is good, good for men. And if men will changeand repent, then will He change and repent also. If man will resistthe striving of God's Spirit with him, then will the Lord say: "Itrepenteth me that I have made that man. " But if a man will repenthim of the evil, then God will repent Him of the evil also. If a manwill let God's Spirit convince him, and will open his ears and hear, and open his eyes and see, and open his heart to take in the lovingthoughts and the right thoughts, and the penitent and humblethoughts, which do come to him--you know they do come to you all attimes--then the Lord will repent also, as he repents, and repentconcerning the evil which He has declared concerning that man. Sosaid the Lord, who cannot change, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, the same now that He was in the days of the flood, to Jeremiahthe prophet, when He moved him to go down to the potter's house, andwatch him there at his work. 

And the potter made a vessel--something which would be useful andgood for a certain purpose--but the clay was marred in the hand ofthe potter. He was good and skilful; but there was a fault in theclay. What did he do? Throw the clay away as useless? No. He madeit again another vessel. He was determined to make, not anything, but something useful and good. And if the clay, being faulty, failedhim once, he would try again. He would change his purpose and plan, but not his right will to make good and useful vessels; them he WOULDmake, if not by one way, then by another. And Jeremiah watched him;and as he watched, the Spirit of the Lord came on him, and taught himthat that poor potter's way of working with his clay, was a patternand likeness of the Lord's work on earth. Oh shame, that this greatparable should have been twisted by men to make out that God is anarbitrary tyrant, who works by a brute necessity! It taught Jeremiahthe very opposite. It taught him what it ought to teach us, that Goddoes change, because man changes, that God's steadfast will is thegood of men, and therefore because men change their weak self-willedcourse, and fall, and seek out many inventions, therefore God changesto follow them, like a good shepherd, tracking and following the lostand wandering sheep up and down, right and left, over hill and dale, if by any means He may find him, and bring him home on His shouldersto the fold, calling upon the angels of God: "Rejoice with me, for Ihave found my sheep which I had lost. "

This is the likeness of God. The good and loving will of a Fatherfollowing his wandering children. The likeness of a loving Fatherrepenting that He hath brought into the world sinful children, to bea misery to themselves and all around them, and yet for the samereason loving those children, striving with their wicked wills to thevery last, giving them one last chance and time for repentance; asthe Lord did to those evil men of the old world, sending to themNoah, a preacher of righteousness, if by any means they would turnfrom their sins and be saved. Ay, not only preaching to their earsby Noah, but to their hearts by His Spirit; as St. Peter tells us, HeHimself, Christ the Lord, went Himself by His Spirit to those verysinners before the flood, and strove to bring them to their reasonagain. By His Spirit; by the very same one and only Holy Spirit ofGod, St. Peter says, by which Christ Himself was raised from thedead, did He try to raise the souls of those sinners before theflood, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness: but theywould not. They were disobedient. Their wills resisted His will tothe last; and then the flood came, and swept them all away. 

And so the first work of the heavenly Workman was marred in themaking by no fault of His, but by the fault of what He made. He mademen persons, rational beings with wills, that they might be willinglylike Him: but they used those wills to be unlike Him, to rebelagainst Him, and to fill the earth with violence and corruption. Andso, for the good of all mankind to come, He had to sweep them allaway. But of that same sinful clay He made another vessel, as itseemed good to Him; even Noah and his Sons, whom He saved that Hemight carry on the race of the Sons of God unto this day. 

And after that again, my friends, in a day more dark and evil still, when the earth was again corrupt before God, and filled withviolence; when all flesh had corrupted His way upon the earth, sothat, as St. Paul said of them, there was none that did good, no notone: then the same Lord, when He saw that all the world lay inwickedness, and that the clay of human-kind was marred in the handsof the potter, then did He cast away that clay as reprobate anduseless, and destroy mankind off the face of the earth? Not so. Then, when there was none to help, His own arm brought salvation, andHis own righteousness sustained Him; He trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with Him. His own righteousnesssustained Him. His perfectly good and righteous will never failedHim for a moment; man He would save, and man He saved. If none elsecould do it, He would do it Himself. He would bring salvation withHis own arm. He would fulfil His Father's will, which is that noneshould perish; He would be made flesh, and dwell among men, that manmight behold the likeness of God the Father, full of grace and truth, and see what they were meant to be. Then, in Him, in Jesus who weptover Jerusalem, was fully revealed and shown the likeness and gloryof the Lord; the Lord in whose image man was made; who walked andspoke with Adam in the garden; who was not ashamed to say that itrepented Him that He had made man; whom Ezekiel saw upon His throne, and as it were upon the throne the appearance of the likeness of aman; whom Daniel saw, and knew him to be the Son of Man. Not a man, then, of flesh and blood; but the Eternal Word of God, in whose imageman was made, who could be loving and merciful, long-suffering andrepenting Him of the evil, but never of the good. He came, and Heswept away, as He had told the Apostles that He would do, by suchafflictions as man had never seen since the beginning of the worlduntil then, that Roman world with all its devilish systems andmaxims, whereby the nations were kept down in slavery and sin; and Hefounded a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwell righteousness, even this Holy Catholic Church, to which we all belong this day. 

Yes, my friends, this is our gospel, our good news, that there is aGod whose Spirit strives with sinners to change them into His ownlikeness. A God who is no dark, obstinate, inexorable Fate, whosearbitrary decrees must come to pass; but a loving and merciful God, long-suffering, and who repenteth Him of the evil; who repents Him ofthe evil which is in man, and hates it, and has sworn to Himself tofight against it, till He has put all enemies under His foot, andcast out of His kingdom all things which offend. Who repents Him ofthe evil in man: but who will never again repent Him of having mademan, for then He would repent of having become man; He would repentof having been conceived of the Holy Ghost; He would repent of havingbeen born of the Virgin Mary; He would repent of having beencrucified, dead, and buried; He would repent of having risen from thedead, and ascended up into heaven in His man's body, and soul, andspirit; He would repent of sitting on the right hand of God; He wouldrepent of coming to judge the quick and the dead; He would repent ofhaving done His Father's will on earth, even as He did it from alleternity in the bosom of the Father. For He is a man; and even asthe reasonable soul and body are one man, so God and man are oneChrist. As man, He did His Father's will in Judaea of old; as man, He will judge the world; as man He rules it now; as man, St. John sawHim fifty years after He ascended to heaven, and His eyes were like aflame of fire, and His hair like fine wool, and He was girt under thebosom with a golden girdle, and His voice was like the sound of manywaters; as man, He said: "Fear not: I am the first and the last; Iam He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hell. " Yes. This isthe gospel, the good news for fallen man, that there is a Man in themidst of the throne of God, to whom all power is given in heaven andearth; that the fate of the world, and all that is therein--the fateof suns and stars--the fate of kings and nations--the fate of everypublican and harlot, and heathen and outcast--the fate of all who arein death and hell, depends alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus; theheart which groaned at the tomb of Lazarus His friend; the heartwhich wept over Jerusalem; the heart which said to the blessedMagdalene, the woman who was a sinner: "Go in peace; thy sins areforgiven thee;" the heart which now yearns after every sinful andwandering soul in His church, and all over the earth of God, cryingto you all: "Why will ye die? Have I any pleasure in the death ofhim that dieth, saith the Lord, and not rather that he should turnfrom his wickedness and live? Come unto me, all ye that are wearyand heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. " Oh, my friends, wonderful as my words are--as wonderful to me who speak them as theycan be to you who hear them--yet they are true. True; for on thattable stand the bread and wine whereof He Himself said, standing uponthis very earth which He Himself had made: "This is my body which isgiven for you; this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which I willgive for the life of the world. "

XXXVII--THE KINGDOM OF GOD

The kingdom of God is within you. --LUKE xvii. 21. 

These words are in the second lesson for this morning's service. Letus think a little about them. 

What they mean must depend on what the kingdom of God means; for thatis the one thing about which they speak. 

Now, the kingdom of God is very often spoken of in the New Testament. Indeed, it is the thing it speaks of above all others. It was thething which our Lord went about preaching. It was the thing of whichHe spoke in His parables, likening the kingdom of God first to onething, then to another, that He might make men understand what it waslike. 

Now, it is worth remarking that we--I mean even religious people--speak very little about the kingdom of God nowadays. One hears lessabout it than about any other words, almost, which stand in the NewTestament. Both in sermons and in religious books, and in the talkof godly people, one hears the kingdom of God spoken of very seldom. One hears words about the Church, which are very good and true; butvery little, if anything, about the kingdom of God, though both St. Paul, and St. John, and the blessed Lord Himself, speak of the twotogether, as if they could not be parted; as if one could not thinkof the one without thinking of the other. And we hear words aboutthe gospel, too, some of them very good and true, and others, I amsorry to say, very bad and false: but, true or false, they are notoften joined now in men's minds, or mouths, or books, with thekingdom of God. But the New Testament joins them almost always. Itsays that gospel must be good news. Therefore the gospel must begood news about something. But about what? We hear all manner ofanswers nowadays; but we hear the right one very seldom. People talkof the gospel as if it only meant the good news that one man can besaved here, and another man can be saved there. And that is goodnews, certainly. It is good and blessed news to hear that any onepoor sinner can be saved from sin, and from the wages of sin. Butthe holy scriptures, when they talk of the gospel, call it the gospelof the kingdom of God. And I think it best and wisest to call itoftenest, what the holy scripture calls it oftenest, and to try andunderstand, first of all, what that means, what the good news of thekingdom of God is: and to understand that, we must first understandwhat the kingdom of God is. 

But some may answer, holy scripture speaks of the gospel ofsalvation. True, it does, once or twice. But what does that show?Is that a different gospel from the gospel of the kingdom of God?Are there two gospels? Surely not. Else why would holy scripturespeak so often of "the gospel"--"the good news, " by itself, withoutany word after to show what it was about? It says often simply "thegospel;" because there is but one gospel; and, as St. Paul says, ifany man or angel preach any other than that one, "Let him beanathema. "

Therefore the gospel of salvation must be the same as the gospel ofthe kingdom of God; and, therefore, it seems to me, that salvationand the kingdom of God must be one and the same thing. 

Now, do you think so? When I say "The kingdom of God is salvation, "do you think it is? Have you even any clear notion of what I meanwhen I say it? Some of you have not, I am afraid; you cannot see atfirst sight what salvation and the kingdom of God have to do witheach other. And why? You think salvation means being saved fromhell, and going to heaven, when you die. And so it does: but Itrust in God and in God's holy scripture, that it means a great dealmore; for I think it means being unfit for hell, and fit for heaven, before we die. At least, so says the Church Catechism, which teachesevery little child to thank his Heavenly Father for having broughthim into such a state of salvation in this life, even while he isyoung. Thanks be to The Spirit of God which taught our fore-fathersto put these precious words into the Church Catechism, to guard usagainst falling into the very same mistake as the Pharisees of oldfell into, when they asked our Lord when the kingdom of God was tocome. And, believe me, it is easy enough and common enough to fallinto the same mistake. 

For what was their mistake? They fancied that the kingdom of God wasnot yet come. And do not most of you think the same? They did notdeny, of course, that God was almighty, and could rule and govern allmankind if He chose so to do. But they did not believe that He wasruling and governing all mankind then, because they did not know whatHis rule and government were like. Now, St. Paul tells us what God'skingdom is like. The kingdom of God, he says, is righteousness, andpeace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So wherever there isrighteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, there thekingdom of God is. But His kingdom over what? Over dumb animals, orover men? Over men, certainly; for dumb animals cannot haverighteousness, or joy in the Holy Spirit. But over what part of aman? Over his body or over his spirit, as we call it nowadays? Overhis spirit, certainly; for it is only our spirits which can berighteous, or peaceful, or joyful in God's Spirit. Therefore God'skingdom, of which St. Paul speaks, is a kingdom, a government overthe souls, the spirits of men. Now, are our spirits the inward partof us, or our bodies? Our spirits, certainly. We all say, and sayrightly, that our bodies are the outward part of us, and that ourspirits are within us. Now, do you not see how that agrees exactlywith the blessed Lord's saying in the text, "Behold, the kingdom ofGod is within you"--that is, in your spirits, because it isrighteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit; and these arethings which only our souls, not our bodies at all, can have. 

But these Pharisees were not righteous; they were wicked andhypocritical men. Was the kingdom of God within them? The blessedLord said plainly that it was. He said not, "The kingdom of God iswithin some people's hearts;" or, "The kingdom of God is within thehearts of believers;" or, "The kingdom of God might be within you ifyou liked. " But He said that the kingdom of God was then and therewithin the hearts of those wicked and unbelieving Pharisees. 

Now, how could that be? In the same way that some time before that, as St. Luke tells us, the power of the Lord was present to heal thosesame Pharisees; and they were for the time amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with fear at His mighty works; but not healed. Theirsouls were not cured of their sin and folly by any means; for we findin the very next chapter, that because Jesus cured a palsied man onthe Sabbath-day they were filled with madness, and consulted togetherhow to kill Him. 

For, my friends, as it was with them, so it is with us. God'skingdom is within every one of us; but it may make us worse, as wellas make us better. It may fill us with righteousness, and peace, andjoy in the Holy Spirit; or it may fill us, as it filled thePharisees, with madness, and hatred of religion and of goodness; asit is written, that the gospel may be a savour of death unto death tous, as well as a savour of life unto life. And it depends on uswhich it shall be. 

This is what I mean: God's kingdom is within each of us. God is theKing of our hearts and souls; our baptism tells us so; and it tellsus truly. And because God is the King of each of our hearts, Hecomes everlastingly to take possession of our hearts, and continuesclaiming our souls for His own. He speaks in our hearts day andnight; whenever we have a good thought, He speaks in our hearts, andsays to us: "I am the King of your spirit. It must obey me. I putthis good thought into your hearts, and you are bound to follow thatgood thought, because it is a law of my kingdom. " Or again, Godspeaks in our hearts, and says to us: "You have done this wrongthing. You know that it is wrong. You know that it is an offenceagainst my law. Why have you rebelled against me?" Or again, whenwe see anyone do a good, a loving, or a noble action; or when we readof the lives of good and noble men and women; above all, when we reador hear of the character and doings of the blessed Lord Jesus, thenand there God speaks in our hearts, and stirs us up to love andadmire these noble and blessed examples, and says to us: "That isright. That is beautiful. That is what men should do. That is whatyou should do. Why are you not like that man? Why are you not likemy saints? Why are you not like me, the Lord Jesus Christ?"

You all surely know what I mean. You know that I do not mean thatyou hear a voice speaking to your ears, but that thoughts andfeelings come into your heart, without you putting them there: ay, often enough, in spite of your trying to drive them away. Now, thoseright thoughts are the kingdom of God within you. They are the voiceof the Lord Jesus Christ speaking by His Holy Spirit to your spirit, and telling you that He is your King, and that you ought to obey Him;and that obeying Him means being righteous and good, as He isrighteous and good; and calling on you to give up your own wills andfancies, and to do His will, and let Him make you holy, even as He isholy. That, I say, is the kingdom of God showing itself within you, telling you that God is your King, and telling you how to obey Him. 

But what if a man will not hear that voice? What if a man rebelsproudly against the good thoughts that rise in his mind, and tries toforget them, and grows angry with them, angry with the preacher, theChurch Service, the Bible itself, because they WILL go on remindinghim of what he knows in his heart to be right? What if those goodthoughts only make him the more stubborn and determined to do his ownpleasure, and follow his own interests, and do his own will?

Do you not see that to that man God's kingdom over his heart is asavour of death unto death--that his finding out that God is his Lordonly makes him more rebellious--that God's Spirit striving with hisheart to bring it right, only stirs up his stubbornness and self-will, and makes him go the more obstinately wrong?

Oh, my friends, this is a fearful thought! That man can become worseby God's loving desire to make him better! But so it is. So it waswith Pharaoh of old. All God's pleading with him by the message ofMoses and Aaron, by the mighty plagues which God sent on Egypt, onlyhardened Pharaoh's heart. The Lord God spoke to him, and his messageonly lashed Pharaoh's proud and wicked will into greater fury andrebellion, as a vicious horse becomes the more unmanageable the moreyou punish it. Therefore, it is said plainly in scripture, that THELORD hardened Pharaoh's heart; not as some fancy, that the Lord'swill was to make Pharaoh hard-hearted and wicked. God forbid. TheLord is the fountain of good only, and not He, but we and the devil, make evil. But the more the Lord pleaded with Pharaoh, and tried tobend his will, the more self-willed he became. The more the Lordshowed Pharaoh that the Lord was King, the more he hated the kingdomand will of God, the more he determined to be king himself, and toobey no law but his own wicked fancies and pleasures, and asked:"Who is the Lord, that I should obey Him?"

And so it was with the Pharisees. When they found out that thekingdom of God was within them, that God was the King of their heartsand minds, and was trying to change their feelings and alter theiropinions, it only maddened them. They were determined not to change. They were determined not to confess that they had been wrong, and hadmistaken the meaning of holy scripture. They were too proud toconfess what Jesus told them, that they were no better than the poorignorant common people whom they despised. And yet they knew intheir hearts that He was right. When the Lord told them the parableof the vineyard, they answered, "God forbid!" they felt at once thatthe parable had to do with them--that they were the wicked husbandmenon whom He said their master would take vengeance: but that onlymaddened them the more, till they ended by crucifying the Lord ofGlory, upon a pretence which they knew was a false and lying one; andwhen Judas Iscariot said, "I have betrayed the innocent blood, " theydid not deny that the Lord Jesus was innocent; all they answered was, "What is that to us?" They were determined to have their own waywhether He was innocent or not. They had seen God's likeness. Theyhad seen what God was like, by seeing the conduct of His onlybegotten Son Jesus Christ. And when they saw God's likeness theyhated it, because it was not like themselves. And the more Godstrove with their hearts, and tried to make them obey Him, the more, in short, they felt His kingdom within them, the more they hated thatkingdom of God within them, because it reproved them, and convincedthem of sin. Oh, my friends, young people especially, beware; bewarelest you fall into the same miserable state of mind. The kingdom ofGod is within you. The Holy Spirit, by which you were regenerate inholy baptism, is stirring and pleading with your hearts, making youhappy when you do right, unhappy when you do wrong. Oh, listen tothose good thoughts and feelings within you! Never fancy that theyare your own thoughts and feelings: else you will fancy that you canput them away and take them back again when you choose to change andbecome religious. Do not let the devil deceive you into that notion. These good thoughts and feelings are the Spirit of God. They are thesigns that the kingdom of God is within you; that God is King andMaster of your hearts and minds; and that you cannot keep Him out ofthem: but that He can enter into them when He likes, and put rightthoughts into them. But though you cannot prevent God and Hiskingdom entering into you, you can refuse to enter into it. Alas!alas! how many of you shut your ears to God's voice: try to driveGod's Spirit out of your own hearts; try to forget what is right, because it is unpleasant to remember it, and say to yourselves, "Iwill have my own way. I will try and forget what the clergyman saidin his sermon, or what I learnt at school. I am grown up now, and Iwill do what I like. " Oh, my friends, is it a wise or a hopefulbattle to fight against the living God? Grieve not the Holy Spiritof God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption, lest He goaway from you and leave you to yourselves, spiritually dead, twicedead, plucked up by the roots, whose end is to be burned. Grieve Himnot, lest He depart, and with Him both the Father and the Son. Andthen you will not know right from wrong, because God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of right, has left you. You will not know what a manought to be or do, because the Son of Man, the perfect likeness ofGod, and therefore the pattern of man, has left you. You will notknow that God the Father is your Father, but only fancy him a sterntaskmaster, reaping where He has not sown, and requiring of you morethan you are bound to pay, because God the Father has left you. 

You may, indeed, keep out ugly thoughts for a time. You may go onwantonly in sin, and worldliness, and self-will. And then, by way offalling deeper still, you may take up with some false sort ofreligion, which makes people fancy that they know God, and are one ofHis elect, while in works they deny Him, and their sinful heart isunchanged. Then your mouth indeed may be full of second-hand talkabout the gospel. But what gospel? I call that a devil's gospel, and not God's gospel, which makes men fancy that they may continue insin that grace may abound. I call any grace which leaves men intheir sins the devil's grace, and not God's grace. Certainly it isnot the gospel of the kingdom of God; for if it was, it would producein men the fruits of that kingdom, righteousness, and peace, and joyin the Holy Spirit, instead of the fruits which we see too often, bigotry and self-conceit, bitterness, evil-speaking, and hardjudgments, and joy in a most unholy and damnable spirit, not tomention covetousness and deceitfulness, or even in some caseswantonness and lust. And yet such men will often fancy that theybelong especially to God, and doubt whether He will have mercy on anywho do not exactly agree with them; while in reality God and Hiskingdom have utterly left their hearts, and they are as blind anddark as the beasts which perish. May God preserve us from thatsecond death which comes on sinners, when, after a sinful youth, their terrified souls begin to cry out in fear at the sight of theirsins; and they, instead of casting away their sins, keep their sins, or change old sins for more respectable and safe new ones, and drugtheir souls with false doctrines, as foolish nurses quiet children'scrying by giving them poisonous medicines. I know men who havefallen, I really fear at times, into that state of mind, and are likethose Pharisees of whom our Lord said: "Ye serpents, ye generationof vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Even for themit is not too late: but, let them recollect, if the kingdom of Godis within them, if they have any feelings of right and wrong left inthem, that their covetousness, and lying, and slandering, andconceit, is fighting against God; that these are just what Goddesires to cast out of them; and that unless they give up theirhearts to God, and let Him cast out their sins, and be converted, andbecome like little children, gentle, humble, teachable, friendly, andkind-hearted, obedient to their heavenly Father, God will cast themout of His kingdom among the things which offend, and bring a badname on religion; among those very profligate and open sinners whomthey are so ready to despise and curse. 

XXXVIII--THE LIGHT

But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: forwhatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore He saith, Awakethou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall givethee light. --EPHESIANS v. 13, 14. 

St. Paul has been telling the Ephesians who they are; that they areGod's dear children. To whom they belong; to Christ who has givenHimself for them. What they ought to do; to follow God's likeness, and live in love. That they are light in the Lord; and are to walkas children of the light; and have no fellowship with the unfruitfulworks of darkness, but rather reprove them. As much as to say: Donot believe those who tell you that there is no harm in young peoplegoing wrong together before marriage, provided they intend to marryafter all. Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harmin filthy words, provided you do not do filthy things; and no harm inswearing, provided you do not mean the curses which you speak. Donot believe those who tell you there is no harm in poaching anotherman's game, provided you do not steal his poultry, or anything excepthis game. Do not believe those who tell you that there is no harm inbeing covetous, provided you do not actually cheat your neighbours;and that the sin lies, not in being covetous at all, but in beingmore covetous than the law will let you be. 

Do not believe those who say to you that you may keep dark thoughts, spite, suspicion, envy, cunning, covetousness in your hearts dayafter day, year after year, provided you do not openly act on them soas to do your neighbours any great and notorious injury. 

Plenty of people will tell you so, and try to deceive you with vainwords, and give you arguments, and texts of scripture perhaps, toprove that sin is not sin, and that the children of light may do theworks of darkness. But do not believe them, says St. Paul. They aredeceivers, and their words are vain. These are the very things whichbring down God's wrath on His disobedient children. These are thebad ways which make young people, when they are married, despise, anddistrust, and quarrel with each other, and live miserable livestogether, as children of wrath, peevish, and wrathful, anddiscontented with each other, because they feel that God is angrywith them, just as Adam in the garden, when he felt that he hadsinned, and that God was wroth with him, laid the blame on his wife, and accused her, whom he ought to have loved, and protected, andexcused. 

These are the bad ways which make people ashamed when they meet agood and a respectable person, make them afraid of being overheard, afraid of being found out, fond of haunting low and out-of-the-wayplaces where they will not be seen; fond of prowling and lurching outat night after their own sinful pleasures, because the darkness hidesthem from their neighbours, and seems to hide them from themselves, though it cannot hide them from God. These are the sins which makemen silent, cunning, dark, sour, double-tongued, afraid to lookanyone full in the face, unwilling to make friends, afraid of openingtheir minds to anyone, because they have something on their mindswhich they dare not tell their neighbours, which they dare not eventell themselves, but think about as little as they can help. Do younot know what I mean? Do you not often see it in others? Have younever felt it in yourselves when you have done wrong, that darkfeeling within which shows itself in dark looks? You talk of a"dark-looking man, " or a "dark sort of person;" and you mean, do younot, a man whom you cannot make out, who does not wish you to makehim out; who keeps his thoughts and his feelings to himself, and isnever frank or free, except with bad companions, when the worldcannot see him; who goes about hanging down his head, and looking outof the corners of his eyes, as if he were afraid of the verysunshine--afraid of the light. We know that such a man has somethingdark on his mind. We call him a "dark sort of man. " And we areright. We say of him what St. Paul says of him in this very epistle, when he says, that sin is darkness, and sinful works the deeds ofdarkness; and that goodness, and righteousness, and truth, are light, the very light of God and the Spirit of God. Our reason, our commonsense, which is given us by God's Spirit, the Spirit of light, makesus use the right words, the same words as St. Paul does, and call sindarkness. 

But rather reprove these dark works, says St Paul; that is, look atthem, and see that they are utterly worthless and damnable. And how?"All things that are reproved, " he says, "are made manifest by thelight. For whatsoever makes manifest is light. " Whatsoever makesmanifest, that is, makes plain and clear. Whatsoever makes you seeanything or person in heaven or earth as it really is; whatsoevermakes you understand more about anything; whatsoever shows you morewhat you are, where you are, what you ought to do; whatsoever teachesyou any single hint about your duty to God, or man, or the dumbbeasts which you tend, or the soil which you till, or the businessand line of life which you ought to follow; whatsoever shows you theright and the wrong in any matter, the truth and the falsehood in anymatter, the prudent course and the imprudent course in any matter; ina word, whatsoever makes your mind more clear about any single thingin heaven or earth, is light. For, mind, St. Paul does not say, whatsoever is light makes things plain; but whatsoever makes thingsplain is light. That is saying a great deal more, thank God; for ifhe had said, whatsoever is light makes things clear, we should havebeen puzzled to know what was light; we should have been tempted tosettle for ourselves what was light. And, God knows, people in allages, and people of all religions, Christians as well as heathens, have been tempted to say so, and to misread this text, till theysaid: "Whatsoever agrees with our doctrine is light, of course, butall other teaching is darkness, and comes from the devil;" and sothey oftentimes blasphemed against God's Holy Spirit by calling goodactions bad ones, just because they were done by people who did notagree with them, and fell into the same sin as the Pharisees of old, who said that the Lord cast out devils by Beelzebub the prince of thedevils. 

But St. Paul says, whatsoever makes anything clearer to you, islight. There is the gospel, and there is the good news of salvationagain, coming out, as it does all through St. Paul's epistles, atevery turn, just where poor, sinful, dark man least expects it. For, what does St. Paul say in the very next verse? "Wherefore, " he says, "arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. " "Christshall give thee light!" Oh blessed news! CHRIST gives us the light, and therefore we need not be afraid of it, but trust it, and welcomeit. And Christ GIVES us the light, therefore we have not to hunt andsearch after it; for He will give it us. Let us think over these twomatters, and see whether there is not a gospel and good news in themfor all wretched, ignorant, sinful, dark souls, just as much as forthose who are learned and wise, or bright and full of peace. 

Christ gives us the light. This agrees with what St. John says, that"He is the light who lights every man who comes into the world. " Andit agrees also with what St. James says: "Be not deceived, mybeloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is fromabove, and cometh down from God, the Father of lights, with whom isno variableness, nor shadow of turning. " And it agrees also withwhat the prophet says, that it is the Spirit of God which gives manunderstanding. And it agrees also with what the Lord Himselfpromised us when He was on earth, that He would send down on us theSpirit of God--the Spirit which proceeds alike from Him and from HisFather, to guide us into all truth. Ay, my friends, if we reallybelieve this, what a solemn and important thing education would seemto us! If we really believed that all light, all true understandingof any matter, came from the Lord Jesus Christ: and if we rememberwhat the Lord Jesus' character was; how He came to do good to all; toteach not merely the rich and powerful, but the poor, the ignorant, the outcast, the sinful: should we not say to ourselves, then: "Ifknowledge comes from Christ, who never kept anything to Himself, howdare we keep knowledge to ourselves? If it comes from Him who gaveHimself freely for all, surely He means that knowledge should begiven freely to all. If He and His Father, and our Father, will thatall should come to the knowledge of the truth, how dare we keep thetruth from anyone?" So we should feel it the will of our heavenlyFather, the solemn command of our blessed Saviour, that our children, and not only they, but every soul around us, young and old, should beeducated in the best possible way, and in any way whatsoever, ratherthan in none at all. The education of the poor would be, in oureyes, the most sacred duty. A school would be, in our eyes, asnecessary and almost as sacred a thing as a church. And to neglectsending our children to school, or to leave our servants or work-people in ignorance, would seem to us an awful sin against the Fatherof lights; a rebellion against the Lord Jesus, who lights every manwho comes into the world, and against our Father in heaven, whowilleth not that one of these little ones should perish. 

And this is made still more plain and certain by the next word in thetext: "Christ shall GIVE thee light:" not sell thee light, or allowthee to find light after great struggles, and weary years of study:but, GIVE thee light. Give it thee of His free grace and generosity. We might have expected that, merely from remembering to whom thelight belongs. The mere fact that light belongs to the Lord JesusChrist, who is the express likeness of His Father, might have made ussure that He would give His light freely to the unthankful and to theevil, just as His Father makes His sun to shine alike on the evil andon the good. Therefore this text does not leave us to find out thegood news for ourselves. It declares to us plainly that He will giveit us, as freely as He gives us all things richly to enjoy. 

But, someone will say: You surely cannot mean that we shall haveunderstanding without study?

You cannot mean that we are to become wise without careful thought, or that we are to understand books without learning to read? Ofcourse not, my friends. The text does not say: "Christ will givethee eyes; Christ will give thee sense:" but, "Christ will give theelight. " . . . Do you not see the difference? Of what use would youreyes be without light? And of what use would light be if your eyeswere shut, and you asleep? In darkness you cannot see. Your eyesare there, as good as ever; the world is there, as fair as ever: butyou cannot see it, because there is no light. You can only feel it, by groping about with your hands, and laying hold of whatsoeverhappens to be nearest you. And do you think that though your bodilyeyes cannot see, unless God puts His light in the sky, to shine oneverything, and show it you, yet your minds and souls can see withoutany light from God? Not so, my friends. What the sun is to thisearth, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is to the spirit--that is, the reason and conscience--of every man who comes into theworld. Now, the good news of holy baptism is, that the light ishere; that God's Spirit is with us, to teach us the truth abouteverything, that we may see it in its true light, as it is, as Godsees it; that the day-spring from on high has visited us, to givelight to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, toguide our feet into the way of peace; and that we are children of thelight and of the day. But what if those who sit in darkness like thedarkness; and wilfully shut their eyes tight that they may not seethe day-spring from on high, and the light which God has sent intothe world? Then the light will not profit them, but they will walkon still in darkness, not knowing whither they are going. 

But some may say, wicked men are very wise; although they rebelagainst God's Spirit, and do not even believe in God's Spirit, butsay that man's mind can find out everything for itself, without God'shelp, yet they are very wise. Are they? The Bible tells us againand again that the wisdom of such men is folly; that God takes suchwise men in their own craftiness. And the Bible speaks truth. Ifthere is one thing of which I am more certain than another, myfriends, it is that, just in proportion as a man is bad, just inproportion as he does not believe in a good Spirit of God who willsto teach him, and gives him light, he is a fool. If there is onething more than another which such men's books have taught me, it isthat they are in darkness, when they fancy they are in the brightestlight; that they make the greatest mistakes when they intend to saythe cleverest things; and when they least fancy it, fall intononsense and absurdities, not merely on matters of religion, but onpoints which they profess to have studied, and in cases where, bytheir own showing, they ought to have known better. But our businessis rather with ourselves. Our business, in this time of Lent, is tosee whether we have been shutting our eyes; whether we have beenwalking in darkness, while God's light is all around us. And howshall we know that? Let St. John tell us: "He that saith he is inthe light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness until now, andknoweth not whither he goeth, because darkness has blinded his eyes. "Hating our brother. Covetousness, which is indeed hating ourbrother, for it teaches us to prefer our good to our neighbour'sgood, to fatten ourselves at our neighbour's expense, to get hiswork, his custom, his money, away from him to ourselves; bigotry, which makes men hate and despise those who differ from them inreligion; spite and malice against those who have injured us;suspicions and dark distrust of our neighbours, and of mankind ingeneral; selfishness, which sets us always standing on our ownrights, makes us always ready to take offence, always ready to thinkthat people mean to insult us or injure us, and makes us moody, dark, peevish, always thinking about ourselves, and our plans, or our ownpleasures, shut up as it were within ourselves--all these sins, inproportion as anyone gives way to them, darken the eyes of a man'ssoul. They really and actually make him more stupid, less able tounderstand his neighbours' hearts and minds, less able to take areasonable view of any matter or question whatsoever. You may notbelieve me. But so it is. I know it by experience to be true. Iwarn you that you will find it true one day; that all spite, passion, prejudice, suspicion, hard judgments, contempt, self-conceit, blind aman's reason, and heart, and soul, and make him stumble and fall intomistakes, even in worldly matters, just as surely as shutting oureyes makes us stumble in broad daylight. He who gives way to suchpassions is asleep, while he fancies himself broad awake. His lifeis a dream; and like a dreamer, he sees nothing really, onlyappearances, fancies, pictures of things in his own selfish brain. Therefore it is written: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise fromthe dead, and Christ shall give thee life. " You may say: Can Iawaken myself? Perhaps not, unless someone calls you. And thereforeChrist calls on you to awake. He says by my mouth: Awake, thousleeper, and I will give thee light; awake, thou dreamer, whofanciest that the sinful works of darkness can give thee any realprofit, any real pleasure; awake, thou sleep-walker, who art goingabout the world in a dream, groping thy way on from day to day andyear to year, only kept from fall and ruin by God's guiding andpreserving mercy. Open thine eyes, and let in the great eternalloving light, wherein God beholds everything which He has made, andbehold it is very good. Open thine eyes, for it is day. The lightis here if thou wilt but use it. "I will guide thee, " saith theLord, "and inform thee with mine eye, and teach thee in the waywherein thou shalt go. " Only believe in the light. Believe that allknowledge comes from God. Expect and trust that He will give theeknowledge. Pray to Him boldly to give thee knowledge, because thouart sure that He wishes thee to have knowledge. He wishes thee toknow thy duty. He wishes thee to see everything as He sees it. "Ifany man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberallyand upbraideth not, and he shall receive it. " And when thou hastprayed for knowledge, expect it to come; as it is written: When thouprayest for anything, believe that thou wilt receive it, and thouwilt receive it. If thou dost not believe that thou wilt have it, ofcourse thou wilt not have it. And why? Because thou wilt pass by itwithout seeing it. It will be there ready for thee in thy dailywalks; Wisdom will cry to thee at the head of every street; God willnot deny Himself or break His promise: but thou wilt go past theplace where wisdom is, and miss the lessons which God is strewing inthy path, because thou art not looking for them. Wisdom is here, myfriends, and understanding is here, and the Spirit of God is here, ifour eyes were but open to see them. Oh my friends, of all the sinsof which we have to repent in this time of Lent, none ought to giveus more solemn and bitter thoughts of shame than the way in which weoverlook the teaching of God's Spirit, and shut our eyes to Hislight, times without number, every day of our lives. My friends, ifour hearts were what they ought to be, if we had humble, loving, trustful hearts, full of faith and hope in God's promise to lead usinto all truth, I believe that every joy and every sorrow whichbefell us, every book which we opened, every walk which we took uponthe face of God's earth, ay, every human face into which we looked, would teach us some lesson, whereby we should be wiser, better, moreaware of where we are and what God requires of us as human beings, neighbours, citizens, subjects, members of His church. All thingswould be clear to us; for we should see them in the light of God'sSpirit. All things would look bright to us, for we should see themin the light of God's love. All things would work together for goodto us, for we should understand each thing as it came before us, andknow what it was, and what God meant it for, and how we were to useit. And knowing and seeing what was right, we should see howbeautiful it was, and love it, and take delight in doing it, and sowe should walk in the light. Dark thoughts would pass away from ourminds, dark feelings from our hearts, dark looks from our faces. Weshould look our neighbours cheerfully and boldly in the face; for ourconsciences would be clear of any ill-will or meanness toward them. We should look cheerfully and boldly up to God our Father; for weshould know that He was with us, guiding and teaching us, well-pleased with all our endeavours to see things as He sees them, and tolive and work on earth after His image, and in His likeness. Weshould look out cheerfully and boldly on the world around us, tryingto get knowledge from everything we see, expecting the light, andwelcoming it, and trusting it, because we know that it comes from Himwho is true and cannot lie, Him who is love and cannot injure, Himwho is righteous and cannot lead us into temptation: Jesus Christ, the Light who lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 

XXXIX--THE UNPARDONABLE SIN

Wherefore I say unto you: All manner of sin and blasphemy shall beforgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shallnot be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against theSon of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh a wordagainst the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, either in thisworld, or in the world to come. --MATTHEW xii. 31, 32. 

These awful words were the Lord's answer to the Pharisees, when theysaid of Him: "He casts out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of thedevils. "

What was it now which made this speech of the Pharisees so terrible asin, past all forgiveness?

Of course we all feel that they were very sinful; we shrink withhorror from their words as we read them. But why ought they to havedone the same? We know, thank God, who Jesus Christ was. But theydid not; at that time, when He was first beginning to preach, theyhardly could have known. And mind, we must not say: "They ought tohave known that He was the Son of God by His having the POWER ofcasting out devils;" for the Lord Himself says that the sons of thesePharisees used to cast them out also, or that the Pharisees believedthat they did; and only asks them: "Why do you say of my casting outdevils, what you will not say of your sons' casting them out?" Praybear this in mind; for if you do not--if you keep in your mind thevulgar and unscriptural notion that the Pharisees' sin was not beingconvinced by the great power of Christ's miracles, you will neverunderstand this story, and you will be very likely to get rid of italtogether as speaking of a sin which does not concern you, and a sinwhich you cannot commit. Now, if the Pharisees did not know thatJesus was the Son of God, the Maker and King of the world, as we do, why were they so awfully wicked in saying that He cast out devils bythe prince of the devils? Was it anything more than a mistake oftheirs? Was it as wicked as crucifying the Lord? Could it be aworse sin to make that one mistake, than to murder the Lord Himself?And yet it must have been a worse sin. For the Lord prayed for hismurderers: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. "And these Pharisees, they knew not what they did: and yet the Lord, far from praying for them, told them that even He did not see howsuch serpents, such a generation of vipers, could escape thedamnation of hell. 

It is worth our while to think over this question, and try and findout what made the Pharisees' sin so great. And to do that, it willbe wiser for us, first, to find out what the Pharisees' sin was; lestwe should sit here this morning, and think them the most wickedwretches who ever trod the earth; and then go away, and before a weekis over, commit ourselves the very same sin, or one so fearfully likeit, that if other people can see a difference between them, I confessI cannot. And to commit such a sin, my good friends, is a far easierthing to do than some people fancy, especially here in England now. 

Now, the worst part of the Pharisees' sin was not, as we are too aptto fancy, their insulting the Lord: but their insulting the HolySpirit. For what does the Lord Himself say? That all manner ofblasphemy as well as sin should be forgiven; that whosever spoke aword against Him, the Son of Man, should be forgiven: but that theunpardonable part of their offence was, that they had blasphemed theHoly Spirit. 

And who is the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of holiness. And what isholiness? What are the fruits of holiness? For, as the Lord toldthe Pharisees on this very occasion, the tree is known by its fruit. What says St. Paul? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance. Thosewho do not show these fruits have not God's Spirit in them. Thosewho are hard, unloving, proud, quarrelsome, peevish, suspicious, ready to impute bad motives to their neighbours, have not God'sSpirit in them. Those who do show these fruits; who are gentle, forgiving, kind-hearted, ready to do good to others, and believe goodof others, have God's Spirit in them. For these are good fruits, which, as our Lord tells us, can only spring from a good root. Thosewho have the fruit must have the root, let their doctrines be whatthey may. Those who have not the fruit cannot have the root, lettheir doctrines be what they may. 

That is the plain truth; and it is high time for preachers toproclaim it boldly, and take the consequences from the Scribes andPharisees of this generation. That is the plain truth. Letdoctrines be what they will, the tree is known by its fruit. The manwho does wrong things is bad, and the man who does right things isgood. It is a simple thing to have to say, but very few believe itin these days. Most fancy that the men who can talk most neatly andcorrectly about certain religious doctrines are good, and that thosewho cannot are bad. That is no new notion. Some people thought soin St. John's time; and what did he say of them? "Little children, let no man deceive you; it is he that doeth righteousness who isrighteous, even as God is righteous. " And again: "He who says, Iknow God, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth isnot in him. " St. John was the apostle of love. He was alwayspreaching the love of God to men, and entreating men to love oneanother. His own heart was overflowing with love. Yet when it cameto such a question as that; when it came to people's pretending to bereligious and orthodox, and yet neither obeying God nor loving theirneighbours, he could speak sternly and plainly enough. He does notsay: "My dear friends, I am sorry to have to differ from you, but Iam afraid you are mistaken;" he says: "You are liars, and there isno truth in you. "

Now this was just what the Pharisees had forgotten. They had got tothink, as too many have nowadays, that the sign of a man's havingGod's Spirit in him, was his agreeing with them in doctrine. But ifhe did not agree with them; if he would not say the words which theysaid, and did not belong to their party, and side with them indespising every one who differed from them, it was no matter to them, as they proved by their opinion of Jesus Himself, how good he mightbe, or how much good he might do; how loving, gentle, patient, benevolent, helping, and caring for poor people; in short, how likeGod he was; all that went for nothing if he was not of their party. For they had forgotten what God was like. They forgot that God waslove and mercy itself, and that all love and mercy must come fromGod; and, that, therefore, no one, let his creed or his doctrine bewhat it might, could possibly do a loving or merciful thing, but bythe grace and inspiration of God, the Father of mercies. And yettheir own prophets of the Old Testament had told them so, when theyascribed the good deeds of heathens to the inspiration of God, justas much as the good deeds of Jews, and agreed, as they do in many atext, with what St. James, himself a Jew, said afterwards: "Be notdeceived; every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, andcometh down from the Father of lights. " But the Pharisees, like toomany nowadays, did not think so. They thought that good and perfectgifts might some of them very well come from below, from the fatherof darkness and cruelty. They saw the Lord Jesus Christ doing goodthings; driving out evil, and delivering men from the power of it;healing the sick, cleansing the leper, curing the mad, preaching thegospel to the poor: and yet they saw in that no proof that God'sSpirit was working in Him. Of course, if He had been one of theirown party, and had held the same doctrines as they held, they wouldhave praised Him loudly enough, and held Him up as a great saint oftheir school, and boasted of all His good deeds as proofs of how goodtheir party was, and how its doctrines came from God. But as long asHe was not one of them, His good works went for nothing. They couldnot see God's likeness in that loving and merciful character. AllHis charity and benevolence made them only hate Him the more, becauseit made them the more afraid that He would draw the people away fromthem. "And of course, " they said to themselves, "whosoever drawspeople away from us, must be on the devil's side. We know all God'slaw and will. No one on earth has anything to teach us. Andtherefore, as for any one who differs from us, if he cast out devils, it must be because the devil is helping him, for his own purposes, todo it. "

In one word, then, the sin of these Pharisees, the unpardonable sin, which ruins all who give themselves up to it, was bigotry; callingright wrong, because it did not suit their party prejudices to callit right. They were fancying themselves very religious and pious, and all the while they did not know right when they saw it; and whenthe Lord came doing right, they called it wrong, because He did notagree with their doctrines. They fancied they were the only peopleon earth who knew how to worship God perfectly; and yet while theypretended to worship Him, they did not know what He was like. TheLord Jesus came down, the perfect likeness of God's glory, and theexpress pattern of His character, helping, and healing, anddelivering the souls and bodies of all poor wretches whom He met; andthese Pharisees could not see God's Spirit in that; and because itwas certainly not their own spirit, called it the spirit of a devil, and blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Right and Love. 

This was bigotry, the flower and crown of all sins into which man canfall; the worst of all sins, because a man may keep from every othersin with all his might and main, as the Pharisees did, and yet be ledby bigotry into almost every one of them without knowing it; intoharsh and uncharitable judgment; into anger, clamour, and railing;into misrepresentation and slander; and fancying that the God oftruth needs the help of their lying; perhaps, as has often happened, alas! already, into devilish cruelty to the souls and bodies of men. The worst of all sins; because a man who has given up his heart tobigotry can have no forgiveness. He cannot; for how can a man beforgiven unless he repent? and how can a bigot repent? how can heconfess himself in the wrong, while he fancies himself infallibly inthe right? As the Lord said to these very Pharisees: "If ye hadbeen blind, ye had had no sin: but now ye say We see; therefore yoursin remaineth. "

How can the bigot repent? for repenting is turning to God; and howcan a man turn to God who does not know where to look for God, whodoes not know who God is, who mistakes the devil for God, and fanciesthe all-loving Father to be a taskmaster, and a tyrant, and anaccuser, and a respecter of persons, without mercy or care forninety-nine hundredths of the souls which He has made? How can hefind God? He does not know whom to look for. 

How can the bigot repent? for to repent means to turn from wrong toright; and he has lost the very notion of right and wrong, in themidst of all his religion and his fine doctrines. He fancies thatright does not mean love, mercy, goodness, patience, but notions likehis own; and that wrong does not mean hatred, and evil-speaking, andsuspicion, and uncharitableness, and slander, and lying, but notionsunlike his own. What he agrees with he thinks is heavenly, and whathe disagrees with is of hell. He has made his own god for himselfout of himself. His own prejudices are his god, and he worships themright worthily; and if the Lord were to come down on earth again, andwould not say the words which he is accustomed to say, it would gohard but he would crucify the Lord again, as the Pharisees did ofold. 

My friends, there is too much of this bigotry, this blasphemy againstGod's Spirit, abroad in England now. May God keep us all from it!Pray to Him night and day, to give you His Spirit, that you may notonly be loving, charitable, full of good works yourselves, but may beready to praise and enjoy a good, and loving, and merciful action, whosoever does it, whether he be of your religion or not; for nothinggood is done by any living man without the grace of Christ, and theinspiration of the Spirit of God, the Father of lights, from whomcomes down every good and perfect gift. And whosoever tries toescape from that great truth, when he sees a man whose doctrines arewrong doing a right act, by imputing bad motives to him, or saying:"His actions must be evil, however good they may look, because hisdoctrines are wrong, "--that man is running the risk of committing thevery same sin as the Pharisees, and blaspheming against the HolySpirit, by calling good evil. And be sure, my friends, thatwhosoever indulges, even in little matters, in hard judgments, andsuspicions, and hasty sneers, and loud railing, against men whodiffer from him in religion, or politics, or in anything else, isdeadening his own sense of right and wrong, and sowing the seeds ofthat same state of mind, which, as the Lord told the Pharisees, isutterly the worst into which any human being can fall. 

XL--THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but yehave received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. --ROMANS viii. 15. 

Some of you here may not understand this text at all. Some of you, perhaps, may misunderstand it; for it is not an easy one. Let us, then, begin, by finding out the meaning of each word in it; and, letus first see what is the meaning of the spirit of bondage unto fear. Bondage means slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the spiritwhich makes men look up to God as slaves do to their taskmaster. Now, a slave obeys his master from fear only; not from love orgratitude. He knows that his master is stronger than he is, and hedreads being beaten and punished by him; and therefore, he obeys himonly by compulsion, not of his own good will. This is the spirit ofbondage; the slavish, superstitious spirit in religion, into whichall men fall, in proportion as they are mean, and sinful, and carnal, fond of indulging themselves, and bearing no love to God or rightthings. They know that God is stronger than they; they are afraidthat God will take away comforts from them if they offend Him; theyhave been taught that He will cast them into endless torment if theyoffend Him; and, therefore, they are afraid to do wrong. They lovewhat is wrong, and would like to do it; but they dare not, for fearof God's punishment. They do not really fear God; they only fearpunishment, misfortune, death, and hell. That is better, perhaps, than no religion at all. But it is not the faith which WE ought tohave. 

In this way the old heathens lived: loving sin and not holiness, andyet continually tormented with the fear of being punished for thevery sins which they loved; looking up to God as a stern taskmaster;fancying Him as proud, and selfish, and revengeful as themselves;trying one day to quiet that wrath of His which they knew theydeserved, by all sorts of flatteries and sacrifices to Him; and thenext day trying to fancy that He was as sinful as themselves, and waswell-pleased to see them sinful too. And yet they could not keepthat lie in their hearts; God's light, which lights every man whocomes into the world, was too bright for them, and shone into theirconsciences, and showed them that the wages of sin was death. Thelaw of God, St. Paul tells us, was written in their hearts; and howmuch soever, poor creatures, they might try to blot it out and forgetit, yet it would rise up in judgment against them, day by day, nightby night, convincing them of sin. So they in their terror soldthemselves to false priests, who pretended to know of plans forhelping them to escape from this angry God, and gave themselves up tosuperstitions, till they even sacrificed their sons and theirdaughters to devils, in some sort of confused hope of buyingthemselves off from misery and ruin. 

And in the same way the Jews lived, for the most part, before theLord Jesus came in the flesh of man. Not so viciously and wickedly, of course, because the law of Moses was holy, and just, and good; thelaw which the Lord Himself had given them, because it was the bestfor them then; because they were too sinful, and slavish, and stupid, for anything better. But, as St. Paul says, Moses's law could notgive them life, any more than any other law can. That is, it couldnot make them righteous and good; it could not change their heartsand lives; it could only keep them from outward wrong-doing bythreats and promises, saying: "Thou shalt not. " It could, at best, only show them how sinful their own hearts were; how little theyloved what God commanded; how little they desired what He promised;and so it made them feel more and more that they were guilty, unworthy to look up to a holy God, deserving His anger andpunishment, worthy to die for their sins; and thus by the law camethe knowledge of sin, a deeper feeling of guilt, and shame, andslavish dread of God, as St. Paul sets forth, with wonderful wisdom, in the seventh chapter of Romans. 

Now, let us consider the latter half of the text. "But ye havereceived the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. "

What is this adoption? St. Paul tells us in the beginning of thefourth chapter of his epistle to the Galatians. He says: As long asa man's heir is a child, and under age, there is no difference in lawbetween him and a slave. He is his father's property. He must obeyhis father, whether he chooses or not; and he is under tutors andgovernors, until the time appointed by his father; that is, until hecomes of age, as we call it. Then he becomes his own master. He caninherit and possess property of his own after that. And from thattime forth the law does not bind him to obey his father; if he obeyshim it is of his own free will, because he loves, and trusts, andreverences his father. 

Now, St. Paul says, this is the case with us. When we were infants, we were in bondage under the elements of the world; kept straight, aschildren are, by rules which they cannot understand, by the fear ofpunishment which they cannot escape, with no more power to resisttheir father than slaves have to resist their master. But when thefulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under a law, that He might redeem those who were under a law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 

As much as to say: You were God's CHILDREN all along: but now youare more; you are God's sons. You have arrived at man's estate; youare men in body and in mind; you are to be men in spirit, men inlife. You are to look up to the great God who made heaven and earth, and know, glorious thought! that He is as truly your Father as themen whose earthly sons you call yourselves. And if you do this, Hewill give you the Spirit of adoption, and you shall be able to callHim Father with your hearts, as well as with your lips; you shallknow and feel that He is your Father; that He has been loving, watching, educating, leading you home to Him all the while that youwere wandering in ignorance of Him, in childish self-will, andgreediness after pleasure and amusement. He will give you His Spiritto make you behave like His sons, to obey Him of your own free will, from love, and gratitude, and honour, and filial reverence. He willmake you love what He loves, and hate what He hates. He will giveyou clear consciences and free hearts, to fear nothing on earth or inheaven, but the shame and ingratitude of disobeying your Father. 

The Spirit of adoption, by which you look up to God as your Father, is your right. He has given it to you, and nothing but your own wantof faith, and wilful turning back to cowardly superstition, and tothe wilful sins which go before superstition, and come after it, cantake it from you. So said St. Paul to the Romans and the Galatians, and so I have a right, ay, and a bounden duty, to say to every manand woman in this church this day. 

For, my dear friends, if you ask me, what has this to do with us?Has it not everything to do with us? Whether we are leading goodlives, or middling lives, or utterly bad worthless lives, has it noteverything to do with us? Who is there here who has not at timessaid to himself: "God so holy, and pure, and glorious; while I am sounjust, and unclean, and mean! And God so great and powerful; whileI am so small and weak! What shall I do? Does not God hate anddespise me? Will He not take from me all which I love best? Will Henot hurl me into endless torment when I die? How can I escape fromHim? Wretched man that I am, I cannot escape from Him! How, then, can I turn away His hate? How can I make Him change His mind? Howcan I soothe Him and appease Him? What shall I do to escape hell-fire?"

Did you ever have such thoughts? But, did you find those thoughts, that slavish terror of God's wrath, that dread of hell, made you anyBETTER men? I never did. I never saw them make any human beingbetter. Unless you go beyond them--as far beyond them as heaven isbeyond hell, as far above them as a free son is above a miserablecrouching slave, they will do you more harm than good. For this isall that I have seen come of them: That all this spirit of bondage, this slavish terror, instead of bringing a man nearer to God, onlydrove him further from God. It did not make him hate what was wrong;it only made him dread the punishment of it. And then, when thefirst burst of fear cooled down, he began to say to himself: "I cannever atone for my sins. I can never win back God to love me. Whatis done, is done. If I cannot escape punishment, let me be at leastas happy as I can while it lasts. If it does not come to-day, itwill come to-morrow. Let me alone, thou tormenting conscience. Letme eat and drink, for to-morrow I die!" And so back rushed the poorcreature into all his wrong-doing again, and fell most probablydeeper than ever into the mire, because a certain feeling ofdesperation and defiance rose up in him, till he began to fancy thathis terror was all a dream--a foolish accidental rising up of oldsuperstitious words which he learnt from his mother or his nurse; andhe tried to forget it all, and did forget it--God help him!--and hislatter end was worse than his first. 

How then shall a man escape shame and misery, and an evil conscience, and rise out of these sins of his? For do it he must. The wages ofsin is death--death to body and soul; and from sin he must escape. 

There is but one way, my friends. There never was but one way. Believe the text, and therefore believe the warrant of your Baptism. Believe the message of your Confirmation. 

Your baptism says to you, God does NOT hate you, be you the greatestsinner on earth. He does not hate you. He loves you; for you areHis child. He hateth nothing that He hath made. He willeth not thedeath of a sinner, but that ALL should come to be saved. And yourbaptism is the sign of that to you. But God hates everything that Hehas not made; for everything which He has not made is bad; and He hasmade all things but sin; and therefore He hates sin, and, loving you, wishes to raise you out of sin; and baptism is the sign of that also. Man was made originally in the image and likeness of God, and ofJesus Christ, the Son of Man, the express image of God the Father;and therefore everything which is sinful is unmanly, and everythingwhich is truly manful, and worthy of a man, is like Jesus Christ; andGod's will is, that you should rise out of all these unmanly sins, toa truly manful life--a life like the life of Jesus Christ, the Son ofMan. And baptism is God's sign of this also. That is the meaning ofthe words in the Baptism Service which tell you that you werebaptised into Jesus Christ, that you might put off the old man--thesinful, slavish, selfish, unmanly pattern of life, which we all leadby nature; and put on the new man--the holy and noble, righteous andloving pattern of life, which is the likeness of the Lord Jesus. That is the message of your baptism to you; that you are God'schildren, and that God's will and wish is that you should grow up tobecome His SONS, to serve Him lovingly, trustingly, manfully; andthat He can and will give you power to do so--ay, that He has givenyou that power already, if you will but claim it and use it. But youmust claim it and use it, because you are meant not merely to beGod's wilful, ignorant, selfish children, obeying Him from mere fearof the rod; but to be His willing, loving, loyal sons. And that isthe message which Confirmation brings you. Baptism says: You areGod's child, whether you know it or not. Confirmation says: Yes;but now you are to know it, and to claim your rights as His sons, offull age, reasonable and self-governing. 

Baptism says: You are regenerated and born from above, by water andthe Holy Spirit. Confirmation answers: True, most true; but thereis no use in a child's being born, if it never comes to man's estate, but remains a stunted idiot. 

Baptism says: You may and ought to become more or less such a man asthe Lord Jesus was. Confirmation says: You can become such; for youare no longer children; you are grown to man's estate in body, youcan grow to man's estate in soul if you will. God's Spirit is withyou, to show you all things in their true light; to teach you tovalue them or despise them as you ought; to teach you to love what Heloves, and hate what He hates. God wishes you no longer to be merelyHis children, obeying Him you know not why; still less His slaves, obeying Him from mere brute coward fear, and then breaking loose themoment that you forget Him, and fancy that His eye is not on you:but He wishes you to be His sons; to claim the right and the powerwhich He has given you to trample your sins under foot; to rise up bythe strength which God your Father will surely give to those who askHim; and so to be new men, free men, true men, who do look boldly upto God, knowing that, however wicked they may have been, and howeverweak they are still, God's love belongs to them, God's help belongsto them, and that those who trust in Him shall never be confounded, but shall go on from strength to strength to the measure of thestature of a perfect man, to the noble likeness of the Lord JesusChrist Himself. 

For this is the message of the blessed sacrament of the body andblood of Christ, to which you have been all called this day. Thatsacrament tells you that in spite of all your daily sins andfailings, you can still look up to God as your Father; to the LordJesus Christ as your life; to the Holy Spirit as your guide and yourinspirer; that though you be prodigal sons, your Father's house isstill open to you, your Father's eternal love ready to meet you afaroff, the moment that you cry from your heart: "Father, I havesinned;" and that you must be converted and turn back to God yourFather, not merely once for all at Confirmation, or at any othertime, but weekly, daily, hourly, as often as you forget and disobeyHim; and that he will receive you. This is the message of theblessed sacrament, that though you cannot come there trusting in yourown righteousness, you can come trusting in His manifold and greatmercies; that though you are not worthy so much as to gather up thecrumbs under His table, yet He is the same Lord whose property isever to have mercy; that He will, as surely as He has appointed thatsign of the bread and wine, grant you so to eat and drink thatspiritual flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the lifeof the world, that your sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and your souls washed in His most precious blood, and that you maydwell in Him, and He in you, for ever. 

XLI--THE FALL

As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and sodeath passed on all men, for that all have sinned. --ROMANS v. 12. 

We have been reading the history of Adam's fall. With that fall wehave all to do; for we all feel the fruits of it in the sinfulcorruptions which we bring into the world with us. And more, everyfall which we have is like Adam's fall: every time we fall intowilful sin, we do what Adam did, and act over again, each of us manytimes in our lives, that which he first acted in the garden ofParadise. At least, all mankind suffer for something. Look at thesickness, death, bloodshed, oppression, spite, and cruelty, withwhich the world is so full now, of which it has been full, as we knowbut too well from history, ever since Adam's time. The world is fullof misery, there is no denying that. How did that come? It musthave come somehow. There must be some reason for all this sorrow. The Bible tells us a reason for it. If anyone does not like theBible reason, he is bound to find a better reason. But what if theBible reason, the story of Adam's fall, be the only rational andsensible explanation which ever has been, or ever will be given, ofthe way in which death and misery came among men?

Some people will say: What puzzle is there in it? All animals die, why should not man? All animals fight and devour each other, whyshould not man do so too? But why need we suppose that man isfallen? Why should he not have been meant by nature to be just whathe is? Some scholars who fancy themselves wise, and think that theyknow better than the Bible, will say that now, and pride themselveson having said a very fine thing; ignorant men, too, often are ledinto the same mistake, and are willing enough to say: "What if weare brutish, and savage, and ignorant, and spiteful, indulgingourselves, hating and quarrelling with each other? God made us whatwe are, and we cannot help it. " But there is a voice in the heart ofevery man, and just in proportion as a man is a man, and not a beastand a savage, that voice cries in his heart more loudly: No; God didnot make you what you are. You are not meant to be what you are, butsomething better. You are not meant to fight and devour each otheras the animals do; for you are meant to be better than they. You arenot meant to die as the animals do; for you feel something in youwhich cannot die, which hates death. You may try to be a mere savageand a beast, but you cannot be content to be so. And yet you feelready to fall lower, and get more and more brutish. What can be thereason? There must be something wrong about men, something diseasedand corrupt in them, or they would not have this continual discontentwith themselves for being no better than they are; this continualhankering and longing after some happiness, some knowledge, some goodand noble state which they do not see round them, and never have feltin themselves. Man must have fallen, fallen from some good and rightstate into which he was put at first, and for which he is hankeringand craving now. There must be an original sin in him; that is, asin belonging to his origin, his race, his breed, as we say, whichhas been handed down from father to son; an original sin as thechurch calls it. And I believe firmly that the heart of man, evenamong savages, bears witness to the truth of that doctrine, andconfesses that we are fallen beings, let false philosophers try asthey will to persuade us that we are not. 

Then, again, there are another set of people, principally easy, well-to-do, respectable people, who run into another mistake, the sameinto which the Pelagians did in old time. They think: "Man is notfallen. Every man is born into the world quite good enough, if hechose to remain good. Every man can keep God's laws if he likes, orat all events keep them well enough. " As for his having a sinfulnature which he got from Adam, they do not believe that really, though often they might not like to say so openly. They think:"Adam fell, and he was punished; and if I fall I shall be punished;but Adam's sin is nothing to me, and has not hurt me. I can be justas good and right as Adam was, if I like. " That is a comfortabledoctrine enough for easy-going well-to-do folks, who have but fewtrials, and few temptations, and who love little because little hasbeen forgiven them. But what comfort is there in that for poorsinners, who feel sinful and base passions dragging them down, andmaking them brutish and miserable, and yet feel that they cannotconquer their sins of themselves, cannot help doing wrong, all thewhile they know that it is wrong? They feel that they have somethingmore in them than a will and power to do what they choose. They feelthat they have a sinful nature which keeps their will and reason inslavery, and makes sin a hard bondage, a miserable prison-house, fromwhich they cannot escape. In short, they feel and know that they arefallen. Small comfort, too, to every thinking man, who looks uponthe great nations of savages, which have lived, and live still, uponGod's earth, and sees how, so far from being able to do right if theychoose, they go on from father to son, generation after generation, doing wrong, more and more, whether they like or not; how they becomemore and more children of wrath, given up to fierce wars, and cruelrevenge, and violent passions, all their thought, and talk, andstudy, being to kill and to fight; how they become more and morechildren of darkness, forgetting more and more the laws of right andwrong, becoming stupid and ignorant, until they lose the veryknowledge of how to provide themselves with houses, clothes, fire, oreven to till the ground, and end in feeding on roots and garbage, like the beasts which perish. And how, too, long before they fallinto that state, death works in them. How, the lower they fall, andthe more they yield to their original sin and their corrupt nature, they die out. By wars with each other; by murdering their ownchildren, to avoid the trouble of rearing them; by diseases whichthey know not how to cure, and which they too often bring onthemselves by their own brutishness; by bad food, and exposure to theweather, they die out, and perish off the face of the earth, fulfilling the Lord's words to Adam: "Thou shalt surely die. " I donot say that their souls go to hell. The Bible tells us nothing ofwhere they go to. God's mercy is boundless. And the Bible tells usthat sin is not imputed where there is no law, as there is none amongthem. So we may have hope for them, and leave them in God's hand. But what can we hope for them who are utterly dead in trespasses andsins? Well for them, if, having fallen to the likeness of thebrutes, they perish with the brutes. I fancy if you, as some may, ever go to Australia, and there see the wretched black people, whoare dying out there, faster and faster, year by year, after havingfallen lower than the brutes, then you will understand what originalsin may bring a man to, what it would have brought us to, had not Godin His mercy raised us and our forefathers up from that fearful down-hill course, when we were on it fifteen hundred years ago. 

And another thing which shows that these poor savages are not as Godintended them to be, but are falling, generation after generation, bythe working of original sin, is, that they, almost all of them, showsigns of having been better off long ago. Many, like the South SeaIslanders, have curious arts remaining among them in spite of theirbrutish ignorance, which they could only have learned when they werefar more clever and civilised than they are now. And almost all ofthem have some sad remembrance, handed down from father to son, keptup in songs and foolish tales, of having been richer, and moreprosperous, and more numerous, a long while ago. They will confessto you, if you ask them, that they are worse than their fathers--thatthey are going down, dying out--that the gods are angry with them, asthey say. The Lord have mercy upon them! But what is, to my mind, the most awful part of the matter remains yet to be told--and it isthis: That man may actually fall by original sin too low to receivethe gospel of Jesus Christ, and be recovered again by it. For thenegroes of Africa and the West Indies, though they have fallen verylow, have not fallen too low for the gospel. They have stillunderstanding left to take it in, and conscience, and sense of rightand wrong enough left to embrace it; thousands of them do embrace it, and are received unto righteousness, and lead such lives as wouldshame many a white Englishman, born and bred under the gospel. 

But the black people in Australia, who are exactly of the same raceas the African negroes, cannot take in the gospel. They seem to havebecome too stupid to understand it; they seem to have lost the senseof sin and of righteousness too completely to care about it. Allattempts to bring them to a knowledge of the true God have as yetfailed utterly. God's grace is all-powerful; He is no respecter ofpersons; and He may yet, by some great act of His wisdom, quicken thedead souls of these poor brutes in human shape. But, as far as wecan see, there is no hope for them: but, like the Canaanites of old, they must perish off the face of the earth, as brute beasts. 

I have said so much to show you that man is fallen; that there isoriginal sin, an inclination to sin and fall, sink down lower andlower, in man. Now comes the question: What is this fall of man? Isaid that the Bible tells us rationally enough. And I have also madeuse several times of words, which may have hinted to some of youalready what Adam's fall was. I have spoken of the likeness of thebeasts, and of men becoming like beasts by original sin. And this iswhy I said it. 

If you want to understand what Adam's fall was, you must understandwhat he fell from, and what he fell to. That is plain. 

Now, the Bible tells us, that he fell from God's grace to nature. 

What is nature? Nature means what is born, and lives, and dies, andis parted and broken up, that the parts of it may go into some newshape, and be born and live, and die again. So the plants, trees, beasts, are a part of nature. They are born, live, die; and thenthat which was them goes into the earth, or into the stomachs ofother animals, and becomes in time part of that animal, or part ofthe tree or flower, which grows in the soil into which it has fallen. So the flesh of a dead animal may become a grain of wheat, and thatgrain of wheat again may become part of the body of an animal. Youall see this every time you manure a field, or grow a crop. Natureis, then, that which lives to die, and dies to live again in somefresh shape. And, in the first chapter of Genesis, you read of Godcreating nature--earth, and water, and light, and the heavens, andthe plants and animals each after their kind, born to die and change, made of dust, and returning to the dust again. But after that weread very different words; we read that when God created man, Hesaid:

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them havedominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, andover the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creepingthing that creepeth upon the earth. " He was made in God's likeness;therefore he could only be right in as far as he was like God. Andhe could not be like God if he did not will what God willed, and wishwhat God wished. He was to live by faith in God; he was justified byfaith in God, and by that only. 

Never fancy that Adam had any righteousness of his own, any goodnessof which he could say: "This is mine, part of me; I may pride myselfon it. " God forbid. His righteousness consisted, as ours must, inlooking up to God, trusting Him utterly, believing that he was to doGod's will, and not his own. His spirit, his soul, as we call it, was given to him for that purpose, and for none other, that it mighttrust in God and obey God, as a child does his father. He had a freewill; but he was to use that will as we must use our wills, by givingup our will to God's will, by clinging with our whole hearts andsouls to God. 

Adam fell. He let himself be tempted by a beast, by the serpent. How, we cannot tell: but so we read. He took the counsel of a bruteanimal, and not of God. He chose between God and the serpent, and hechose wrong. He wanted to be something in himself; to have aknowledge and power of his own, to use it as he chose. He was notcontent to be in God's likeness; he wanted to be as a god himself. And so he threw away his faith in God, and disobeyed Him. Andinstead of becoming a god, as he expected, he became an animal; heput on the likeness of the brutes, who cannot look up to God in trustand love, who do not know God, do not obey Him, but follow their ownlusts and fancies, as they may happen to take them. Whether thechange came on him all at once, the Bible does not say: but it didcome on him; for from him it has been handed down to all his childreneven to this day. Then was fulfilled against him the sentence, Inthe day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Not that he diedthat moment; but death began to work in him. He became like thebranch of a tree cut off from the stem, which may not wither at theinstant it is cut off, but it is yet dead, as we find out by its soondecaying. He had come down from being a son of God, and he had takenhis place in nature, among the things which grow only to die; anddeath began to work in him, and in his children after him. He handeddown his nature to his children as the animals do; his childreninherited his faults, his weaknesses, his diseases, the seed of deathwhich was in him, just as the animals pass down to their breed, theirdefects, and diseases, and certainty of dying after their appointedlife is past. 

For this, my friends, is the lesson which Adam's fall teaches us, that in God alone is the life of immortal souls, whether of men, orof angels, or of archangels; and in God alone is righteousness; inGod alone is every good thing, and all good in men or angels comesfrom Him, and is only His pattern, His likeness; and that the momenteither man or angel sets up his will against God's, he falls intosin, a lie, and death. That He has given us reasonable souls forthat one purpose, that with our souls we may look up to Him, with oursouls we may cling to Him, with our souls we may trust in Him, withour souls we may understand His will, and see that it is a good, anda right, and a loving will, and delight in it, and obey it, and findall our delight and glory, even as the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man, the New Adam, did, in doing not our own will, but the will of ourFather. 

For, as St. Augustine says, man may live in two ways, eitheraccording to himself, or according to God; by self-will or by faith. He may determine to do his own will or to do God's will, to be hisown master or to let God be his master, to seek his own glory, andtry to be something fine and grand in himself: or he may seek God'sglory and obey Him, believing that what God commands is the only goodfor him, what makes God to be honoured in the eyes of his neighboursis the only real honour for him. 

But, says St. Augustine, if he tries to live according to himself, hefalls into misery, because he was meant to live according to God. Sohe puts himself into a lie, into a false and wrong state; and becausehe has cut himself off from God he falls below what a man should be;and puts on more and more of the likeness of the beast, and is moreand more the slave of his own lusts, and passions, and fancies, asthe dumb animals are. And, as St. Paul says, the animal man, thecarnal man, understands not the things of God. And we need no one totell us that this is the state of nature which we bring into theworld with us. We feel it; from our very childhood, from theearliest time we can recollect, have we not had the longing to dowhat we liked? to please ourselves, to pride ourselves on ourselves, to set up our own wills against our parents, against what we learntout of the Bible? Ay, has not this wilful will of ours been sostrong, that often we would long after a thing, we would determine tohave it, only because we were forbidden to have it; we might not careabout the thing when we had it, but we would have our own way justbecause it was our own way. In short, like Adam, we would be asgods, knowing good and evil, and choosing for ourselves what weshould call good and what we shall call evil. And, my dear friends, consider: did not every wrong that we ever did come from this oneroot of all sin--determining to have our own way? That root-sin ofself-will first brought death and misery among mankind; that sin ofself-will keeps it up still: that sin of self-will it is whichhinders sinners from giving themselves up to God; and that sin mustbe broken through, or religion is a mockery and a dream. 

Oh my friends, say to yourselves once for all, I was made in God'slikeness; and therefore His will, and not my own, I must do. I haveno wisdom of my own, no strength of mind of my own, no goodness of myown, no lovingness of my own. God has them all; God, who is wisdom, strength, goodness, love; and I have none. And then, when thefearful thought comes over you: "I have no goodness, and I cannothave any. I cannot do right. There is no use struggling and tryingto be better. My passions, my lusts, my fancies are too strong forme. If I am brutish and low, brutish and low I must remain. If Ihave fallen in Adam, I must lie in the mire till I die--"

Then, then, my friends, answer yourselves: "No! Not so. Man fellin the first Adam: but man rose again in the second Adam, the LordJesus Christ. I belong no more to the old Adam, who fell inParadise. I belong to the New Adam, who was conceived without sin, and born of a pure virgin, who lived by perfect faith, in perfectobedience, doing His Father's will only, even to the death upon thecross, wherein He took away the sins of the whole world. And now forHis sake my original sin, my fallen, brutish nature, is forgiven me. God does not hate me for it. He loves me, because I belong to HisSon. My baptism is a witness and a warrant, a sign and a covenantbetween me and God, that I belong not to old Adam of Paradise, but tothe Lord Jesus Christ, who sits at God's right hand. The cross whichwas signed on my forehead when I was baptised is God's sign to methat I am to sacrifice myself and give up my own will to do God'swill, even as the Lord Jesus did when He gave Himself to die, becauseit was His Father's will. And because I belong to Jesus Christ, because God has called me to be His child, therefore He will help me. He will help me to conquer this low, brutish nature of mine. He willput His Spirit into me, the Spirit of His Son Jesus Christ, that Imay trust Him, cry to Him, My Father! that I may love Him; understandHis will, and see how good, and noble, and beautiful, and full ofpeace and comfort it is; delight in obeying Him; glory in sacrificingmy own fancies and pleasures for His sake; and find my only honour, my only happiness, in doing His will on earth as saints and angels doit in heaven. 

XLII--GOD'S COVENANTS

I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of acovenant between me and the earth. --GENESIS ix. 13. 

The text says that God made a covenant with Noah, and with his seedafter him--that is, with all mankind; with us who sit here, and ourchildren after us, and with all human beings who will ever live uponthe face of the earth. God made a covenant with them. Now, what isa covenant? We say that two men make a covenant with each other whenthey make a bargain, an agreement; in this way: If you will do thisthing, then I will do that; but if you will not do this thing, I willnot do that. If you do not keep to our agreement, I am free of it. If I do not do my part of the agreement, you are free. Is not thatwhat we call a covenant--a bargain between two parties, which, ifeither party breaks it, becomes null and void, and binds neither?Let us see whether God's covenants with man are of this kind. 

Does God say to Noah: "If you and your children are righteous, Iwill look upon the rainbow, and remember my covenant: but if you andyour children are unrighteous, I will not look on the rainbow, and Iwill break my covenant because you have broken it?" We read no suchwords; God made no conditions with Noah and his sons. Whether theyforgot the covenant or not, God would remember it. It was a covenantof free grace, even as all God's covenants are. Not a bargain, but apromise. "By Myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that I will notfail David. " By Himself He sware to Abraham: "Surely blessing Iwill bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. " That is theform of God's covenants. God swears by Himself--by God who cannotchange. If God can change, then His covenant can change. If God canfail Himself, then can He fail His covenant to which He has sworn byHimself. If it had been a mere bargain, like men's bargains, and nota promise out of His absolute love, His free grace, His boundlessmercy, would He have sworn by Himself? Nay, rather, He would havesworn by Abraham: "By thy obedience or disobedience I swear to blessthee or curse thee. " But He swore by Himself, the absolute, theunchangeable, the Giver whose name is Love. 

Consider now the token of the covenant which God gave to Noah. Itwas the rainbow. What is the rainbow? Sunlight turned back to oureye, through drops of falling rain. What sign could be more simple?And yet what sign could be more perfect? Noah's sons would fear thatanother flood was coming, perhaps flood after flood. The token ofthe rainbow said to them, No. Floods and rain are not to be thecustom of this earth. Sunshine is to be the custom of it. Do notfear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud, inthe very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannotsee it, is shining still. That up above, beyond the cloud, is stillsunlight, and warmth, and cloudless blue sky. Believe in God'scovenant. Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth willconquer cold, calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, lightwill conquer darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer destruction and the devouring floods; because God islight, God is love, God is life, God is peace and joy eternal andwithout change, and labours to give life, and joy, and peace, to manand beast and all created things. This was the meaning of therainbow. Not a sudden or strange token, a miracle, as men call it, like as some voice out of the sky, or fiery comet, might have been;but a regular, orderly, and natural sign, to witness that God is aGod of order. Whenever there was a rainy day there might be arainbow. It came by the same laws by which everything else comes inthe world. It was a witness that God who made the world is thefriend and preserver of man; that His promises are like theeverlasting sunshine which is above the clouds, without spot orfading, without variableness or shadow of turning. 

And do you fancy, my friends, that the new covenant, the covenantwhich God made with all mankind in the blood of His only-begottenSon, is narrower or weaker than the covenant which He made with Noah, Abraham, and David? He asked no conditions from them. Do you thinkHe asks them from us? He called them by free grace. Do you think Hecalls us by anything less? He swore by Himself to them. How muchmore has He sworn by Himself to us? He who was born, and died, androse again for us, who now sits at the right hand of the Father, veryMan of the substance of a human mother, yet very God of very Godbegotten. 

His covenants of old stood true and faithful, however disobedient andunfaithful men might be; as it is written: "I have sworn once forall by my holiness, that I will not fail David. " And those words, the New Testament declares to us, again and again, are true of thenew covenant, and fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, into whose namewe are baptized. Yes; into whose name we are baptized. There is thesign of the new covenant; of a covenant of free grace. Therefore wecan bring our children to be baptized as we were baptized ourselves, before they have done either good or evil, for a sign that God's loveis over them, God's kingdom is their inheritance, God's love theireverlasting portion. 

But we may fall from grace; and then what good will our baptism be tous? We shall be lost, just as if we had never been baptized. 

My friends, if, though the sun was shining in the sky, you shut youreyes close, and kept out the light, what use would the sunlight be toyou? You would stumble, and fall, and come to harm, as certainly asin the darkest night. But would the sun go out of the sky, myfriends, because you were unwise enough to shut your eyes to it? Thesun would still be there, shining as bright as ever. You would haveonly to be reasonable and to open your eyes, and you would see yourway again as well as ever. 

So it is with holy baptism. In it we were made members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. God's love isabove us and around us, like a warm, bright, life-giving sun. We mayshut our eyes to it, but it is there still. We may disbelieve ourbaptism covenant, but it is true still. We are children of God; andnothing that we can do, no sin, no unfaithfulness of ours, can makeus anything else. We can no more become not God's children, than achild can become not his own father's son. But this we can do bysinning, by disbelieving that we are God's children, by behaving asthe devil's children when we are God's; we can believe ourselves notGod's children when we are; we can try to be what we are not; we canenter into a lie, and into the misery to which all lies lead; we canwalk in darkness, and stumble, and fall, when all the while we arechildren of the light, and have only to open our eyes to walk in thelight. Ay, we can shut our eyes to the light so long, that at lastwe forget that there is any light at all; and that is the gate ofhell. We may wrap ourselves up in our selfishness, in selfishpleasures, selfish cunning, selfish covetousness, and selfish pride, till we forget that there is anything better for us than selfishness, till we forget that God is love, and that we His children are meantto be loving even as He is loving; and that also is the gate of hell. And worst and darkest of all, when in that stupid, sinful, lovelessstate of mind, God's loving Spirit still strives and pleads with us, and tries to awaken us, and terrify us with the sight of theeverlasting misery and ruin into which we have thrown ourselves, wemay turn those pleadings of God's Spirit, by our own evil wills, intoa darker curse than all which have gone before. We may refuse tobelieve that God is love, and fancy Him as hard, and cruel, andproud, and spiteful, and unloving as we ourselves are. We mayrefuse, though Scripture, Prayer-book, sacraments, preachers, assureus of it, that God is our Father still; and deny His covenant ofbaptism, and blaspheme His holy name, by fancying Him our tyrant andtaskmaster, who hates us, and willeth the death of a sinner, and haspleasure in the death of him that dieth. And then we may behaveaccording to the lie which we ourselves have invented, and all sortsof inventions of our own to escape God's wrath, when, in reality, itis He who is wishing to turn His wrath away from us; and to win backHis favour, when, in reality, it is not we who are out of favour withHim, but He who is out of favour with us, who dread Him and shrinkfrom Him; we may try to deliver ourselves from Him, when all thewhile it is He, the very God whom we are dreading and flying from, who alone is able and willing to deliver us; and with all our fears, and self-tormentings, and faithless terrors, and blasphemings of Godby fancying Him the very opposite to what He has declared Himself, weshall get no peace of conscience, no deliverance from sins, or fromthe fear of punishment, but only a fearful and fiery looking forwardto judgment, which is hell. That is superstition; hell on earth;when men have so utterly forgotten the likeness of God, which Hemanifested in His Son Jesus Christ, that they look on Him as a sternand dreadful taskmaster, a tyrant, and not a deliverer. Hell onearth, which may and must lead to hell hereafter; a hell of fear, anddoubt, and hatred of Him who is all lovely; the hell whereof it iswritten, that its worst torment is being cast out from the sight ofGod: unless the hapless sinner opens his eye and believes thecovenant of his baptism, and sees that God cannot lie, God cannotchange, cannot break His covenant, cannot alter His love; that thoughhe have left his Father's house, and wandered into far countries, andwasted his Father's substance in riotous living, he is still hisFather's son, his Father's house is still where it was from thebeginning, his Father's heart still what it was from the beginning;and so arises and goes back to his Father's house, confessing that heis no more worthy to be called His son, willing to be only as one ofHis hired servants; and then--sees not the stern countenance, thecruel punishments which he dreaded: but--"While he was yet afar off, his Father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him!"

And if, in our sins, our only hope of comfort, and peace, andstrength, lies in remembering our baptismal covenant, and being sureand certain that though we have changed, God has not; that though weare dark, God's love shines bright and clear for ever, how much morewhen the dark day of affliction comes? Why should I speak of thisand that affliction? Each heart knows its own bitterness; each soulhas its own sorrow; each man's life has its dark days of storm andtempest, when all his joys seem flown away by some sudden blast ofill-fortune, and the desire of his eyes is taken from him, and allhis hopes and plans, all which he intended to do or to enjoy, are hidwith blinding mist, so that he cannot see his way before him, andknows not whither to go, and whither to flee for help; when faith inGod seems broken up for the moment, when he feels no strength, nowill, no purpose, and knows not what to determine, what to do, whatto believe, what to care for; when the very earth seems reeling underhis feet, and the fountains of the abyss are broken up: then let himthink of God's covenant, and take heart; let him think of hisbaptism, and be at peace. Is the sun's warmth perished out of thesky, because the storm is cold with hail and bitter winds? Is God'slove changed, because we cannot feel it in our trouble? Is the sun'slight perished out of the sky, because the world is black with cloudand mist? Has God forgotten to give light to suffering souls, because we cannot see our way for a few short days of perplexity?

For this is the gospel, this is the message which we have receivedfrom God, to preach to every sad and desolate heart on earth, thatGod is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. That God is love, and in Him there is no cruelty at all. That God is one, and in Himthere is no change at all. And therefore, we all, the most ignorantof us as well as the wisest, the most sinful of us as well as theholiest, the saddest and most wretched of us as well as the happiest, have a right to join in that Litany which is offered up here thriceevery week during the time of Lent, and to call upon God to deliverus and all mankind, not merely because we wish to be delivered fromevil, but because God wishes to deliver us from evil. If we praythat Litany in any dark dread of God, in doubt of His love andgoodwill towards us, like terrified slaves crying out to a hardtaskmaster, and entreating him not to torment them, we do not praythat Litany aright; we do not pray it at all. For it asks God not toleave us alone, but to come to us; not to stop punishing us, butactually Himself to deliver us, to defend us, to set us free. Therefore it begins by calling on God the Father, because He is ourFather; on God the Son, because He has already redeemed and bought usfor His own; on God the Holy Spirit, because He has been strivingwith our wilful hearts from our youth up till now, lovingly desiringto teach us, to change us, to sanctify us. Therefore it calls on theholy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons and one God, because the Son does not love us better than the Father does, or thanthe Holy Spirit does, but in the life and death of the Man ChristJesus, whom we call on to deliver us by His birth, His baptism, Hisdeath, His resurrection, by all that His manhood did and sufferedhere on earth, in His life and death, I say, were shown forth bodilythe glory, and condescension, and love, and goodwill of the fulnessof the Godhead, of all three Persons of the one and undividedTrinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Therefore we may pray boldlyto Him to spare us, because we know that we are already His people, already redeemed with his most precious blood, already declared byholy baptism to be bound to Him in an everlasting covenant. Therefore we may pray boldly to Him not to be angry with us for ever, because we know that He desires to bless us for ever, if we will onlylet Him; if we will only let His love have free course, and not shutour hearts to it, and turn our backs upon it. Therefore we can askHim to deliver us in all time of our tribulation and misery; in alltime of the still more dangerous temptations which wealth andprosperity bring with them; in the hour of death, whether of our owndeath or the death of those we love; in the day of judgment, whereofit is written: "It is God who justifieth us, who is he thatcondemneth? It is Christ who died, yea rather who is risen again, who even now maketh intercession for us. " To that boundless love ofGod which He showed forth in the life of Christ Jesus; to that utterand perfect will to deliver us, which God showed forth in the deathof Christ Jesus, when the Father spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us; to that boundless love we may trustourselves, our fortunes, our families, our bodies, our souls, thesouls of those we love. Trusting in that great love, we may pray inthat Litany for deliverance; to be delivered from distress andaccidents, from all sins which drag us down, and make us miserable, ashamed, confused, terrified, selfish, hateful, and hating eachother. We may pray to be delivered from evil, because God isrighteousness, and hates evil. We may pray to be delivered from oursins, because God is righteousness, and hates our sins. We may prayfor the Queen, her ministers, her parliament, because God's love andcare is over them; for all orders and ranks of men, whether laymen orclergymen, high or low, in God's holy church; for all who areafflicted and desolate; for all who are wandering in ignorance, andmistakes, and sin; ay, for all mankind, for God loves them all, theSon of God has bought them all with His most precious blood. Andhowever dark, and sad, and sinful the world may seem around us;however dark, and sad, and sinful our own hearts may be within us, wemay find comfort in that Litany, and pour out in it our sorrows andour fears, if we begin only as it begins, with the thought of God whois righteousness, God who is love, God who is the Deliverer. Andthen, as the rainbow reflects the sunbeams for a sign and token thatthe sun is shining, though we see it not; so will that blessedLitany, with its sacred name of God, its calls to Him who was born ofthe Virgin Mary, and crucified under Pontius Pilate; its entreatiesto God to deliver us, because He is a deliverer; to hear us, and sendus good, because He is a good Lord Himself; its remembrances of thenoble works which God did in our fathers' days, and in the old timebefore them; its noble declaration that God does not despise thesighing of a contrite heart, nor the desire of a humble spirit, andthat it is the very glory of His name to turn from us those evilswhich we most justly have deserved--that Litany, I say, will be likea rainbow declaring to our dark and stormy hearts that the sun isshining still above the clouds; that over and above us, and allmankind, and all the changes and chances of this mortal life, is thestill bright sunshine, the life-giving warmth of the Sun ofRighteousness, the absolute eternal love of our Father who is inheaven, who, as he has declared by the mouth of His only-begottenSon, is perfect in this, that He does not deal with us after oursins, nor reward us according to our iniquities, but is good to theunthankful and the evil, sending His rain alike upon the just and onthe unjust, and making His sun to shine alike upon the evil and thegood. 

XLIII--THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS

Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. --1 TIMOTHY iii. 16. 

St. Paul here sums up in one verse the whole of Christian truth. Hegives us in a few words what he says is the great mystery ofgodliness. 

Now, men had been inventing for themselves all kinds of mysteries ofgodliness; all sorts of mysterious and wonderful notions about God;all sorts of mysterious and strange ceremonies, and ways of pleasingGod, or turning away His anger. 

And Christian men are apt to do so also, as well as those oldheathens. They feel that they are very mysterious and wonderfulbeings themselves, simply because they are men. They say tothemselves: "How strange that I should have a body of flesh andblood, and appetites and passions, like the animals, and yet that Ishould have an immortal spirit in me. How strange this notion ofduty which I have, and which the other animals have not; this notionof its being right to do some things, and wrong to do others! Fromwhence did that notion come? And again, this strange notion which Ihave, and cannot help having, that I ought to be like God: and yet Ido not know what God is like. From whence did that notion come?"

Again: "I fancy that God ought to be good. But how do I know thatHe really is good? I see the world full of injustice, and misery, and death. How do I know that this is not God's doing, God's faultin some way?"

Again, says a man to himself: "I have a fair right to believe thatmankind are not the only persons in the universe--that there areother beings beside God whom I cannot see. I call them angels. Ihardly know what I mean by that. The really important question aboutthem to me is: Will they do me harm? Can they do me good? Are theystronger than I?--Ought I not to fear them, to try to please them, tokeep them favourable to me?"

Again, he asks: "Does God care whether I know what is right? DoesGod care to teach me about Himself? Is God desirous that I should domy duty? For if He does not care about my being good, why should Icare about it?"

Again, he asks: "But if I knew my duty, might I not find itsomething too far-fetched, too difficult, for poor simple folk to do:so that I should be forced to leave a right life to great scholars, and to rich people, or to people of a very devout delicate temper ofmind, who have a natural turn that way?"

And last of all: "Even if I did struggle to do right; even if I gaveup everything for the sake of doing right; how do I know that it willprofit me to do so? I shall die as every man dies, and then whatwill become of me? Shall I be a man still, or only--horriblethought!--some sort of empty ghost, a spirit without body, of which Idream, and shudder while I dream of it?"

Men in all ages, heathens and Christians, have been puzzled by suchthoughts as these, as soon as they began to feel that there was aworld which they could not see, as well as a world which they couldsee; a spiritual world, wherein God the Spirit, and their ownspirits, and spiritual things, such as right, wrong, duty, reason, love, dwell for ever; and a strange hidden duty on all men to obeythat unseen God, and the laws of that spiritual world; in short amystery of godliness. 

Then they have tried to answer these questions for themselves; andhave run thereby into all manner of follies and superstitions, andoften, too, into devilish cruelties, in the hope of pleasing Godaccording to some mystery of godliness of their own invention. 

But to each of these puzzles St. Paul gives an answer in the text. Let us take them each in its order, and you will see what I mean. 

The first puzzle was: How is it that while I am like the animals insome things, and yet feel as if I ought to be, and can be, like Godin other things? How is it that I feel two powers in me; onedragging me downward to make me lower than the beasts, the otherlifting me upwards--I dare not think whither? It seems to me to bemy body, my bodily appetites and tempers which drag me down. Is mybody me, part of me, or a thing I should be ashamed of, and long tobe rid of? I fancy that I can be like God. But can my body be likeGod? Must I not crush it, neglect it, get rid of it before I canfollow the good instinct which draws me upward?

To which St. Paul told Timothy to answer: God was manifest in theflesh. God sent down His only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternalwith Himself, very God of very God, the very same person who had beenputting into men's minds those two notions of which we spoke, thatthere is a right and a wrong, and that men ought to be like God; Himthe Father sent into the world that He might be born, and live, anddie, and rise again, as a man; that so men might see from Hisexample, manifestly and plainly, what God was like, and what manought to be like. And so Jesus Christ was God, manifested in theflesh. 

Now we do know what God is like. We know that He is so like man, that He can take upon Him man's flesh and blood without changing, orlowering, or defiling Himself. That proves that man must have beenoriginally made in God's likeness; that man's being fallen, meansman's falling from the likeness of God, and taking up instead withthe likeness of the brutes which perish; that the fault cannot be inour bodies, but in our spirits which have yielded to our bodies, andbecome their slaves instead of their masters, as Christ's Spirit wasmaster of His body. But the Son of God, by being born and living asa man, showed us that we are not fallen past hope, not fallen so lowthat we cannot rise again. He showed that though mankind are sinful, yet they need not be sinful; for He was a man as exactly, andperfectly, and entirely as we are, and yet in Him was no sin. So Heshowed that brutishness and sinfulness is not our proper state, butour disease and our fall; and a disease of which we can be cured, afall out of which we can rise and be renewed into the true and realpattern of mankind, the new Adam, Jesus the sinless Son of Man andSon of God. 

The next question, I said, that rose in men's mind was: "How do Iknow that God is good, as I fancy sometimes that He must be? I seethe world full of sin, and injustice, and misery, and death. Perhapsthat is God's doing, God's fault. " That is a common puzzle enough, and a sad and fearful one. The sin and the misery and the death arehere. If God did not bring it here, yet why did He let it come here?He could have stopped if He would, and kept out all thiswretchedness: why did He not? Was He just or loving in letting sininto the world?

To all which St. Paul answers: "God was justified in the Spirit. "

You do not see what that has to do with it? Then let me show you. 

To be justified means to be shown and proved to be just, righteous. Now what justified God to man was the Spirit of God, as He showedHimself in the Lord Jesus Christ. For when God became man and dweltamong men, what sort of works were His? What was His conduct, Hischaracter; of what sort of spirit did He show Himself to be? Hewent, we read, doing good, for God was with Him. Not of His ownwill, but to do His Father's will, and because He was filled withoutmeasure by the Spirit of God, He did good, He healed the sick, Herebuked the proud and self-conceited hypocrite, He proclaimed pardonand mercy to the broken-hearted sinner, wearied and worn out by theburden of his sins. Thus, in every action of His life, He wasfighting against evil and misery, and conquering it; and so showingthat God hates evil and misery, and that the evil and the misery inthe world are here against God's will. Strange as it may seem tohave to say it, so it is. Jesus Christ showed that howsoever sin andsorrow came into the world, it is God's will and purpose to root themout of the world, and that He is righteous, He is loving, He ismerciful, He does and will fight against evil, for those who arecrushed by it; and help poor sufferers always when they call uponHim, and often, often, of His most undeserved condescension and freegrace, when they are forgetting and disobeying Him. And so by thegood, and loving, and just spirit which Jesus showed, God wasjustified before men, and showed to be a God of goodness and justice. 

The next puzzle, I said, was about angels and spirits, whether weneed to pray to them to help us, and not to hurt us. St. Paulanswers: God, when He was manifested in the flesh of a man, was seenby these angels. And that is enough for us. They saw the Lord Godcondescend to be born in a stable, to live as a poor man, to die onthe cross. They saw that His will to man was love. And they do Hiswill. And therefore they love men, they help men, they minister tomen, because they follow the Lord's example, and do the will of theirFather in Heaven, even as we ought to do it on earth. Therefore wehave no need to fear them, for they love us already. And, on theother hand, we have no need to pray to them to help us, for they knowalready that it is their duty to help us. They know that the Son ofGod has put on us a higher honour than He ever put on them; for Hetook not on Him the nature of angels, He took on Him the nature ofman; and thus, though man was made a little lower than the angels, yet by Christ's taking man's nature, man is crowned with a glory andhonour higher than the angels. Know ye not, says St. Paul, that weshall judge angels? And the angels, as they told St. John, are ourfellow-servants, not our masters; and they know that; for they sawthe Son of God doing utterly His Father's will, and therefore theyknow that their duty is to do their Father's will also; not to dotheir own wills, and set themselves up as our masters, to be pleadedwith by us. They saw the Son of God take our nature on Him, whenthey sang to the shepherds on the first Christmas night: "Peace onearth, and good-will toward men;" and therefore they look on us withlove and honour, because we wear the human nature which Christ theirMaster wore, and are partakers of the Holy Spirit of God, even asthey are. For no angel or archangel could do a right thing, any morethan we, except by the Holy Spirit of God. And that Holy Spirit isbestowed on the poorest man who asks for it, as freely as upon thehighest of the heavenly host. 

And this leads us on to the next puzzle of which I spoke: Men wereapt, and are apt now, to say to themselves: Does God care whether Iknow what is right? Does God care to teach me about Himself? Is Goddesirous that I should do my duty? For if He does not care about mybeing good, why should I care about it?

To this St. Paul answers: "God, who was manifest in the flesh, waspreached to the Gentiles. "

God does care that men should know about God; for He loves them. Heyearns after them as a father after his children, and He knows thatto know God, to know the truth about God, is the beginning of allwisdom, the root of all safety and honour and happiness. He willethnot that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledgeof the truth. And, therefore, when the Son of God died for our sins, He did not stop at that great deed of love; but He ordained Apostles, and put upon them especially and above all men, His Holy Spirit, thatthey might go and preach to all nations the good news that God hadbecome flesh, and dwelt among men, and borne their sorrows andinfirmities, and to baptize them into the very name of God itself, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;that so, instead of fancying now that God did not care for them, theymight be sure that God so longed to teach them, that He called everychild, even from its cradle, to come into His kingdom, and be taughtthe whole mystery of godliness. 

The next puzzle I mentioned was: "But this right life, this mysteryof godliness, is it not something very strange and difficult, andpast the understanding of simple men who are not extraordinarilyclever and learned scholars or deep philosophers?" To that St. Paulanswers: No. It is not past any man. It is not too deep or toodifficult for the simplest, the most unlearned countryman. For, saysSt. Paul in the text, we Apostles have had proof of that; we havetried it; we Apostles preached the mystery of godliness, and it wasbelieved on in the world. People of the world, plain working men andwomen going about their worldly business, who had no time to be greatreaders, or great thinkers, or to shut themselves up in monasteriesto meditate on heavenly things, but had to live and work in thecommonplace, busy, workday world--they believed our message. WeApostles told them that the Son of God had showed Himself in thelikeness of man, and called on every man to repent, and to be such aman as He was. And worldly people believed us, and tried, and foundthat without giving up their worldly work, or deserting the stationin which God had put them, they could live godlike lives, and becomethe sons of God without rebuke. They saw that scholarship was notwanted, leisure was not wanted, but only the humble heart whichhungers and thirsts after righteousness. About their daily work, bytheir cottage firesides, among their poor neighbours, the Spirit ofAlmighty God gave them strength to live as Jesus their pattern lived;He filled them with all holy, pure, noble, brave, loving thoughts andfeelings, fit for angels and archangels. He enabled them to rise outof their sins, to trample their temptations under foot, to leavetheir old low brutish sinful way of life behind them, and become newmen, and persevere in every word, and thought, and action, in virtuessuch as the greatest heathen sages could not copy; ay, even to shedtheir life-blood freely and boldly in martyrdom, for the sake of Godand the truth of God. They, these plain simple people, living in theworld, could still live the life of God, and die like heroes for thesake of God. 

And this again brings us to the last puzzle of which I spoke: "Butwhat became of those holy and godlike people when they died? Whatreward did they receive for all they had done, and given up, andsuffered? What will become of us after we die? What will the nextworld be like? What is heaven like? Shall I be able to enjoy it?Shall I be a man there, or only a ghost, a spirit without a body?"

To this St. Paul answers: That Christ, the Son of God, after He wasmanifested in the flesh, was received up into glory. He does nottell us what heaven is like; for though he had been caught up intothe third heaven, yet what he saw there, he says, was unspeakable. He neither ought to tell, or could tell, what he saw. Neither doesSt. Paul tell us what the next life will be like; for as far as wecan find, God had not told him. All he says is: The man ChristJesus, who walked this earth like other men, was received up intoglory; and He did not leave His man's mind, His man's heart, even Hisman's body, behind Him. He carried up into heaven with Him His wholemanhood, spirit, soul, and body, even to the print of the nails inHis hands and in His most holy feet, and the wound of the spear inHis most holy side. And that is enough for us. Because the manChrist Jesus is in heaven, we as men may ascend to heaven. Where Heis we shall be. And what He is, in as far as He is man, we shall be. What we shall be we know not; but this we know, that we shall be likeHim, for we shall see Him as He is. And He is a man still; for it iswritten: "There is one Mediator between God and man, the man ChristJesus. " And He will be a man at the day of judgment; for it iswritten that: "God hath ordained a day in which He will judge theworld by a man whom He hath chosen. " And He will be a man for ever;for it is written: "This man abideth for ever. " And He Himself saidto His disciples: "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, tillI drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father. " And again Hedeclared, even when he was on earth, that He was the Son of Man whois in heaven. And in heaven nothing can grow less. But if Christwere not man for ever as well as God, He would become less; for He isnow God and man also at once; but if He laid down His manhood, and sobecame not man any more, but God only, He would become less, which isnot to be believed of Him of whom it is written: That Jesus Christis the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For, as the Athanasiancreed teaches us, He is not God alone, nor man alone, but God and manis one Christ; and therefore, when St. John declares that Christshall reign for ever and ever, he declares that He shall reign notonly as God, but as man also. Therefore whatever we do not knowabout the next life, we know this, that we shall be men there; notsinful, weak, and mortal, as we are here, but holy, strong, immortal, after the likeness of our Lord, the firstborn from the dead, who hasascended up on high and raised our human nature to the heaven ofheavens, and is gone to prepare a place for us, into which we tooshall enter in that day when He shall change these mortal and fallenbodies which we now wear, the bodies of our humiliation, the bodiesby wearing which we are now a little lower than the angels; them theLord will change, that they may be made like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He subdueth all things untoHimself, that we may see Him face to face, and dwell with Him in theglory of God the Father for ever. 

Oh my friends, who is sufficient for these things? What shall we sayof man? Is he not indeed fearfully and wonderfully made? Here weare, weak creatures, more liable to disease and death than the dumbbeasts round us; full of poverty, and adversity, and longings whichare never satisfied; our minds full of mistakes, our hearts full offalse conceit, full of spite and folly, struggles, murmurings, quarrellings; our consciences full of the remembrance of sins withoutnumber. The greatest of all heathen poets said, that there was not amore miserable and pitiable animal upon the earth than man. He knewno better. He could not know better. How could he, when God had notyet been manifest in the flesh? How could he dream that the Lord Godwould condescend to be made flesh, and dwell among us, and show manHis glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full ofgrace and truth--how could he dream that? And more than all, howcould he dream that God, instead of throwing away our human naturewhen He rose again, as if it was too great a degradation for Him tobe a man one moment more, should condescend to take up His humannature, His man's body, soul, and spirit, with Him into everlastingglory, that He might feed with it for ever the bodies and souls ofthose who trust in Him, so as to make them fit for us at the lastday, to share in His everlasting life? The old heathen poet knew aswell as you or I that there was an everlasting life beyond the grave;that men's souls were immortal, and could not die: but the thoughtof it was all dark, and dreary, and uncertain to him and to allmankind, till the Son of God brought life and immortality to light, when He was manifest in the flesh. 

Wonderful mystery of godliness! Wonderful love of God to man!Wonderful condescension of God to man! Still more wonderful patienceof God to man!

Oh you who live still in sin, when the Son of God died and rose againto make you righteous; you who defile your bodies with sins worsethan the brutes, when the Son of God offers to raise those bodies ofyours to be equal with the angels; how shall you escape if youneglect so great salvation; if you despise this unspeakable love; ifyou trample under foot, like swine, the everlasting glory andhappiness which God offers you freely, without fee or price, for thesake of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died to buy them foryou?

XLIV--THE WORK OF GOD'S SPIRIT

If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if Idepart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He willreprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: ofsin, because they believe not on me: of righteousness, because I goto my Father, and ye see me no more: of judgment, because the princeof this world is judged. --JOHN xvi. 7-11. 

I no not pretend to be able to explain to you the whole meaning ofthis text, or even more than a very small part of it. For it speaksof God; of God the Holy Spirit. And God is boundless; and, therefore, every text which speaks of God is boundless too, as Godis. No man can ever see the whole meaning of it, or do more thanunderstand dimly a little of its truth. But what we can see, we mustthink over and make use of. What can we see, now, from this text?First, we may see that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, theComforter, is a person. Not a mere thing, or a state of our ownhearts, or a feeling in us, or a power, like the powers and laws bywhich the trees and plants grow, and the sun and moon move in theircourses; but a person, just as each of us is a person. He, the HolySpirit, gives life to trees and plants, sun and moon: but He is nottheir life. He gives them their life; and, therefore, that life oftheirs is not He, or He could not give it; for you can only givesomething which is not you. 

The Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit, not as it, but as He; as aperson, and not as a thing; as a person who can speak to men's souls, guide and teach them. 

"When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into alltruth; for He shall not speak of Himself. "

But we may see also that the Holy Spirit is neither God the Father, nor the Lord Jesus Christ. For the Lord speaks of Him, the HolySpirit, as a different person either from Him or from the Father. "The Spirit, " He says, "shall glorify me; for He shall receive ofmine, and shall show it unto you. "

But we may see also that there is no difference in will, or opinion, or love, between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son. For theSpirit does not speak of Himself; there is no self-will in Him. There is not one will of the Father, and another of the Son, andanother of the Holy Ghost; or, one love of the Father, another loveof the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; or, one righteousness ofthe Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Ghost: or, onemercy and grace of the Father, another of the Son, another of theHoly Ghost. For then there would be three Gods and three Lords; andthe substance of God would be divided. But they have all one will, and one love, and one righteousness, and one mercy. And such as theFather is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. 

And remember always, that the Holy Spirit is very and indeed God. For He is the Spirit of holiness itself, of righteousness itself, ofgoodness itself, of love itself, of truth itself; and, therefore, Heis the Spirit of God, who is the perfect holiness, and righteousness, and truth, and love. All other holiness, and righteousness, andtruth, and love, are only pictures and patterns of God, just as thesun's reflection in water, or in a glass, is a picture and pattern ofthe sun. As the Epistle for to-day tells us: "Every good gift andevery perfect is from above, and cometh down from the Father oflights. "

But the Spirit of God must be God. For else what do the words mean?Is not the spirit of a man, a man? Is not your spirit, what you callyour soul, you? Is not your soul you, just as much as your body isyou; ay, a hundred times more? Just so, the Spirit of God is God, God Himself; and the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, of the HolyGhost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. 

This, then, is the glorious promise made to you, and to me, and toall who believe and are baptized into the name of the Father, theSon, and the Holy Spirit; that that Spirit will come to us, and takecharge of our spirits, and work in them, and teach them. We cannotsee Him with our eyes, or hear Him with our ears; we cannot even feelHim at work in our hearts and thoughts. For He is a Spirit; and Hislikeness, the thing in this world which is a pattern of Him, is thewind; as indeed the name Spirit means. You cannot see the wind, youcannot even really feel the wind or hear it: you only know it by itseffects, by what it does: by the noise among the branches, the forceagainst your faces, the bending boughs, and flying dust. The Spiritbloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, butcanst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so isevery one who is born of the Spirit. On him the Spirit of God willwork unseen, and unfelt, only to be discovered by the change which Hemakes in the man's heart and thoughts; and first by the way in whichHe convinces him of sin, because men believe not on Jesus Christ. 

The Holy Spirit shows men that the sins of the world, the sin of allsins, the sin which is the root of all other sins, is not believingon the Lord Jesus Christ; that it was because they would not believeon the Lord Jesus Christ, that they had been falling into every othersort of sin. 

But you may say: "How could they believe on Him before He came, andwas born in Judaea of the Virgin Mary? How could they believe on Himwhen He was not there?" Ah! my friends, who told you that the LordJesus Christ was not there in the world all along? Not the Bible, certainly. For the Bible tells us that He is the Light who lightsevery man who cometh into the world; that from Him came, and havecome, all the right thoughts and feelings which ever arose in theheart of every human being. The Bible tells us that when God createdthe world, He was daily rejoicing in the habitable parts of theearth, and His delights were with the sons of men. The Bible tellsus that He was in the world, and the world knew Him not; that allalong, through the dark times of heathendom, the Lord Jesus Christwas a light shining in darkness, which the darkness could not closeround, and hide and quench. 

Not merely to the Jews, but to all heathens who hungered and thirstedafter righteousness, did the Lord Jesus show something of His truth;as it is written, God is no acceptor of persons; that is, no showerof partiality, or unjust favour: but in every nation, he thatfeareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him. 

But at the time that the Lord Jesus sent down His Holy Spirit, menwere not working righteousness. There was not one who did good, nonot one. For men had forgotten what righteousness was like, what arighteous man ought to do and be. Men are ready to forget it everyday. You and I are ready to forget it, and invent some falserighteousness of our own, not like Jesus Christ, but like what we inour private fancies think is most graceful, or most agreeable, ormost easy; or most grand, and far-fetched, and difficult. But theHoly Spirit came to convince men of righteousness; to show them whattrue righteousness was like. 

And how? In the same way that He must convince us of righteousness, if we are ever to know what righteousness is, or are ever to berighteous ourselves. He must show us goodness; or we shall never seeit, or receive it, or copy it. 

And where is this righteousness, this perfect goodness of which theHoly Spirit will convince us? Where, but in the Lord Jesus Christ?In the Lord Jesus's character, the Lord Jesus's good works; His love, His patience, His perfect obedience, His life, His death. The HolySpirit, if we give up our hearts to be taught by Him, will make usbelieve, and be sure, and feel in our very inmost hearts, how noble, how beautiful, how holy, how perfectly Godlike, was He who was bornof a poor virgin, who walked this earth for thirty-three years intoil and sorrow, who gave His back to the smiters, and His cheeks tothem that plucked off the hair, and hid not His face from shame andspitting, who died upon a cross between two thieves. And the HolySpirit will convince us of righteousness, by making us feel what theLord Jesus's righteousness consisted in; what was the root of all Hisgoodness and holiness, namely His perfect obedience to His Father andour Father in heaven. That is the righteousness, which is not ourown, but God's; the righteousness which comes by faith; not to trustin ourselves, but in God; not to please ourselves, but God; not to doour own will, but God's will. That is the righteousness of JesusChrist, which God set His seal on and approved, when He exalted Himfar above all principality and powers, and set Him at His own righthand for a sign to all men, and angels, and archangels; thatrighteousness means to trust and to obey God even to the death. 

3. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. 

This may seem a puzzling speech at first. We shall understand itbest, I think, by considering who the prince of this world was in ourLord's time, and what he was like. A little before our Lord's timethe Roman emperor had conquered almost the whole world which was thenknown, and kept all nations in slavery, careless about their doingright, provided they obeyed him and paid him tribute; nay, forcingthem and tempting them into all brutal and foul sin and ignorance, that he might keep up his own power over man. 

But now the Lord of all the earth, and the Prince of men's hearts andthoughts, was come to visit that poor enslaved and sinful world. Hecame; the princes of this world knew Him not, and crucified the Lordof Glory. They crucified the righteous and the just One; and so theywere judged. They judged themselves; they condemned themselves. Forthey showed that what they admired and what they wanted was notrighteousness and love, but wealth and power. They showed that nodoing of good, no healing of the sick, or giving of sight to theblind, or preaching the gospel to the poor, no holiness, no love, notthe perfect likeness of God's own goodness, which shone forth in thespotless Jesus, was anything to them; was any reason why they shouldnot put Him to death with the most cruel torments, because they wereafraid of His taking away their power. He said He was a King; andtherefore they crucified Him, lest His kingdom should interfere withtheirs; and for the same reason these same Roman emperors and theirmagistrates, for hundreds of years afterwards, persecuted theChristians, and hunted them down like wild beasts, and put them todeath by all horrible tortures, for the same reason that Cain slewAbel; became his brother's deeds were righteous, and his own wicked. 

So these Roman emperors, and their magistrates and generals werejudged. They had shown what was in their evil hearts. They had beentried in God's balances, and found wanting. The sentence of the LordGod had gone forth against them. The man Christ Jesus, whom theyrejected, God accepted, and raised to His own right hand. Theycrucified Him; but God gave Him all power in heaven and earth: andthe Lord Jesus used His power; yea, and uses it still. He gave Hissaints and martyrs strength to defy those Roman tyrants, and towitness to all the earth that the righteous Son of God was the Kingof heaven and earth, and that the princes of this world, who wishedto break His yoke off their necks, and crush all nations to powderfor their own pleasure, and fatten themselves upon the plunder of allthe earth, would surely come to naught, as it is written in thesecond Psalm: "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulerstake counsel together, against the Lord and His Anointed. Yet have Iset my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Thou shalt break them with arod of iron: thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. "

And they did come to naught. That great Roman empire rotted awaymiserably after years of such distress as had never been seen on theearth before; and the emperors came, one after another, to shamefulor dreadful deaths. And all the while the gospel spread, and theChurch grew, till all the kingdoms of the Roman empire had become thekingdoms of God and of His Christ, by the power of the Holy Spiritworking in men's hearts, and showing them, as our Lord said He would, that Jesus of Nazareth was both Lord and King. And so was fulfilledthe Lord's words in the gospel for to-day: "The Holy Spirit shallglorify me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; therefore said I that Heshould take of mine, and show it unto you. "

Oh my friends, pray for yourselves, and join me while I pray for you, that the holy and righteous Spirit of God may convince you, and me, and all mankind, more and more, day by day, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. 

Pray to that Holy Spirit to convince you of sin day by day, whensoever you do the least wrong thing. Pray to Him to keep yourconsciences tender and quick, that you may feel instantly, and lamentdeeply, every wrong thing you do. 

Pray to Him to give you, every time you do wrong, that godly sorrowwhich brings peace and health, that heart-repentance never to berepented of. Pray to Him to convince you more and more, as you growolder, that all sin comes from not believing in Jesus Christ, notbelieving that He is near you, with you, in you, putting into yourhearts all right thoughts and good desires, and willing, if you will, to help you to put those thoughts and desires into good practice. 

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more ofrighteousness; to make you see what righteousness is; that it is thevery character and likeness of God the Father, because it is thecharacter and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was thebrightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of Hisperson. Pray to Him to make you see the beauty of holiness: howfair, and noble, and glorious a thing goodness is; how truly Solomonsays: "that all the things that may be desired are not to becompared to it. "

Pray to the Holy Spirit to convince you more and more of judgment, and to make you sure that the Lord is King, a righteous Judge, ofpurer eyes than to behold iniquity, whose fan is in His hand, whothoroughly purges His floor, who comes quickly, and His reward iswith Him, and who surely casts out of His kingdom, sooner or later, all things that offend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Prayto Him to make you sure by faith, though you cannot see it, that theprince of this world is judged; that evil doing, oppression, tyranny, injustice, cheating, neglect of man by man, cannot and will notprosper upon the face of God's earth; for the everlasting sentenceand wrath of God is revealed forth every moment against allunrighteousness of men, which He will surely punish, yea, and doeshourly punish by Him by whom He judges the world, Jesus Christ, theLord, who is exalted high above all principalities and powers, andhas all power given to Him in heaven and earth, which He uses, as Heused it in Judaea of old, utterly and always for the good of allmankind, whom He hath redeemed with His most precious blood. 

XLV--THE GOSPEL

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preachedunto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by whichalso ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain: for I delivered unto you first ofall that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sinsaccording to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He roseagain the third day according to the scriptures. --1 CORINTHIANS xv. 1-4. 

This is St. Paul's account of the gospel; the good news which hepreached to the sinful and profligate Corinthians, when they weresunk lower than the beasts which perish. And because they believedthis good news, he said, they were saved then and there, and would besafe only as long as they believed that good news, and kept it intheir memories. Now, from what did this good news save them? Fromtheir sins. There was something in St. Paul's good news which madethem hate their sins, and repent of them, and throw them away, andrise up to be new men and women, living new lives in godliness andpurity and justice, such as they had never lived before. Now mind, it was not bad news which made the Corinthians repent of their sins;it was good news. It was not that St. Paul told them that God wasgoing to cast them into endless torment for their sins, and thattherefore they were terrified and afraid, and so repented. DoubtlessSt. Paul told them, as he told other heathens, that the wrath of Godwas revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness; thattribulation and anguish was laid up in store for every soul of manwho worketh evil. But still, St. Paul says plainly here, that whatsaved the Corinthians was not that or any other fearful andterrifying news, but a gospel--good news. And he says that this goodnews did not merely, as some would wish it to do, make themcomfortable in their minds while they went on in their old wickedways. No. He says that it made them stand. That is, made themupright, strong-minded, righteous, self-restraining people; and thatthey were saved by it from those sins which had been dragging themdown, and keeping them diseased in soul, weak, miserable, the slavesof their own passions and foul pleasures. 

What wonderful good news was this, then, which could work so strangea change in these poor heathens, and how could it change them?

Let us see, first, what it was. 

"That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and thatHe was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to thescriptures; and that He was seen of Peter, then of the twelve; afterthat He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom thegreater part remained unto this day, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles. And lastof all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. "

You see here, that St. Paul, for some good reason, says much moreabout the Lord's rising again than even about His most precious deathand passion on the cross, while about His ascending into heaven hesays nothing. And you will find in the New Testament that theApostles often did the same. They spoke of the Lord rising again asif that was the great wonder, the great glory, the great good news;and as if His most precious death was not perfect without that. Theysaid that the especial office for which the Lord had ordained them, was to be witnesses of His resurrection. They said that the Lordrose again for our justification. They said: "If thou shalt confesswith thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart thatGod has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. " Here again, just as in the text, believing in the Lord's resurrection is made thegreat article of faith. Why is this? Because that last verse whichI quoted may tell us, if we consider it carefully. 

What does confessing the Lord Jesus with our mouth mean? It meanswhat we ought to mean when we say, in the Apostles' Creed, I believein Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord. Not merely, I believe thatthere is an only Son of God: but I believe in a certain man, with acertain character, who is that only Son of God. 

And what, you will ask, does that mean?

To know that, I fear, we must go back many many hundred years, to thetimes when the old martyrs confessed the Lord Jesus Christ before theheathen. Those were times in which it was not enough to say theApostles' Creed in church. Men, ay, and tender women, and littlechildren, had to stand by it through terror and shame, and to die intorments unspeakable, because they chose to say: "I believe in JesusChrist, our Lord. " Now, what was it which made the heathen hate andpersecute and torture, and murder them for saying that? What wasthere in those plain words of the Apostles' Creed which made thegreat heathen emperors of Rome, and their officers and judges huntthe Christians down like wild beasts for 300 years, and declare thatthey were not fit to live? I will tell you. When the Christianswere brought before the emperor's judges for being Christians, theydid not merely say: "I believe that Jesus Christ's blood will savemy soul after death. " They said that: but they said a great dealmore than that. If that had been all that the Christians said, thejudge would have answered: "What care I for your souls, or for yournotions about what will happen to them when you are dead? Go yourway. You may be of what religion you like, and talk and think aboutyour own souls as much as you like, provided you do not trouble theRoman emperor's power. " But the heathen judge did not make thatanswer; because he knew well enough that what the Christians believedwas not a mere religion about what would happen to their souls afterdeath; but something which, if it gained ground, would utterlydestroy the Roman emperor's power. He used generally to say to theChristians only this: "Will you burn those few grains of incense inhonour of the emperor of Rome?" And he knew, and the Christians knewwell enough, that those words meant: "Will you confess with yourmouth the emperor of Rome? Will you confess that he is the only lordand king of this whole earth, and of your bodies and souls, and thatthere is no power or authority but of him, for the gods havedelivered all things into his hands?" And then came out whatconfessing the Lord Jesus really means. For the Christians used toanswer: "No. The emperor of Rome is the lord and master of ourbodies, and we will obey his laws so far as we can without doingwrong: but we cannot obey them when they are contrary to the laws ofour Lord and Master Jesus Christ. For the Lord Jesus Christ, who wascrucified and rose again the third day, He, and not the emperor ofRome at all, is the Lord and King of the whole earth, and of ourbodies and souls; and we must obey Him before we obey anyone else. Power and authority come not from the emperor of Rome, but from theLord Jesus Christ; and the emperor is only His servant and steward, and must obey Him just as much as we, or the Lord will punish him assurely and easily as He will the meanest slave. For God hasdelivered all things, and the emperor of Rome among the rest, intothe hand of His Son Jesus Christ, who sits a King over all, Godblessed for ever. " That was confessing Christ. 

And to that the heathen judges used to make but one answer--for therewas but one to make. Those heathen judges' guilty consciences, aswell as their worldly cunning, told them plainly enough exactly whatSt. Paul told the Christians; that those Christians, by confessingChrist, were not fighting against flesh and blood, and setting uptheir selfish interests against other people's selfish interests:but that the battle they were fighting was a much deeper and moreterrible one; that by saying that One who had walked the earth as apoor man, and yet a perfectly righteous and loving man, doing nothingbut good, and sacrificing Himself utterly for poor fallen creatures, they were fighting against the whole state of things all over theworld; against the government, and principles, and religion of thatwhole unjust and tyrannical Roman empire, and all its rulers, andgenerals, and judges; against principalities, against powers, againstthe world-rulers of the darkness of those times; against spiritualwickedness in heavenly things. For if Jesus Christ's life was theright life, those rulers must be utterly wrong; for it was exactlyopposite to His. 

If Jesus Christ was really the Governor of the earth, there was nohope for them; for their way of governing was exactly opposite toHis. So as I say, they made but one answer; because there was butone to make: "You say that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord oflords. I say the emperor of Rome is. You say you must obey Christfirst, and the emperor of Rome afterwards. I say that you must obeythe emperor first, and Christ afterwards. At all events, if you donot, you have no right on this earth of the emperor's; either theemperor's power must fall, or your notion about Jesus Christ's powermust. And we will see whether your heavenly King of whom you talkcan deliver you out of the emperor's hand. " And then came thescourge, and the red-hot iron, and the wild beasts, and the cross, and all devilish tortures which man's evil will could invent, broughtto bear without shame or mercy upon aged men, and tender girls, andeven little children, just to make them say that the earth belongedto the emperor, and not to Jesus Christ. Those who died bravelyunder those tortures without denying Christ were called martyrs, which means witnesses--people who bore witness before God and manthat Jesus Christ was King and Lord. Those who did not die under thetortures, but escaped after all, were called confessors--people whohad confessed with their mouths that Jesus Christ was King and Lord, in spite of their terror and agony. . . . That was what confessingJesus Christ meant in the old times. And that was what it ought tomean now, even though there is no persecution or torture forChristians in these happier times. 

And now, we may see perhaps why St. Paul spoke so much of our Lord'srising again as the most important part of the gospel. 

Because he wanted Christians to believe, not merely in a Christ whoonce died, but in Him who died and is alive for evermore; in a Christwho rose again, body, soul, and spirit, and sat at God's right hand, praying for poor creatures when they were tempted, and persecuted, and tormented for righteousness' sake. St. Paul knew well that suchfearful times as those of which I have been speaking were coming onthe people to whom he wrote. And he knew equally well that the onlythought which could save them, when the heathen judges commanded themto deny the Lord Jesus, was the thought that He was really risen. The only thought which could make them bold enough to face all thehorrors of death, was the thought that the Lord Jesus had not merelytasted death, but conquered it, and risen again from it. Andtherefore it is that St. Paul speaks so often of Christ'sresurrection, and that in the text he takes so much pains to provethat Christ had really risen, by telling them how many persons, wellknown to him who wrote to them, had seen the Lord Jesus Christ afterHe rose, and talked with Him, and were sure that He was the very sameperson still, with the same countenance, and body, and soul, andspirit, as He had when He was nailed to the cross, and laid in thesepulchre. 

What a thought for a poor creature in the last agony of fear andshame, expecting presently to be torn in pieces, or burnt alive:"Death, this horrible death, cannot conquer me, weak and fearful as Iam; for my Lord and Master, for whom I am going to suffer, hasconquered death, and He will not let it conquer me. He is strongerthan death and hell, and He will not suffer me at my last hour forany pains of death to fall from Him. He is King of heaven and earth, and He will take care of His own!" What a comfortable thought to beable to say: "Ay, I am torn from wife and child, and all which Ilove on earth. But not for ever, not for ever. For Christ rose fromthe dead. And I who belong to Christ, shall rise as He did. Thispoor flesh of mine may be burnt in flames, devoured by ravenousbeasts. What matter? Christ the King of men, has risen from thedead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. That sameSpirit of His, which brought back His body from the grave and hell, will bring our bodies also from the grave and hell, to a nobler, happier life with Him in glory unspeakable. Christ is risen, and Ishall rise with Him at the last day. Christ sits at God's righthand, watching me, pitying me, and blessing me, holding out to me acrown of glory which shall never fade away!" That was the thoughtwhich gave Stephen courage to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, amid todie in peace and the murderous blows of the Jews. For by faith hesaw, as he said, the heavens opened, and Jesus sitting at the righthand of God. He knew that his Lord was risen, and that He would hearhis dying cry: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. "

And so with us, my friends; we have no martyrdom to go through, thankGod; but it is just as true of us as it was of the blessed martyrsand confessors, that there is no other name under heaven by which wecan be saved but the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saved; not onlyfrom hell, but from sin, from giving way to temptation, from denyingChrist. Oh, pray for faith. Pray for faith. Pray to be able reallyto confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. Pray to believe with yourhearts that God has raised Him from the dead. Then when you aretempted to do wrong, you, like Stephen, will see, not with yourbodily eyes, but by faith, the Lord Jesus sitting at God's righthand, and be able to say to Him: "Lord Jesus, who hast conquered alltemptation, help me to conquer this. Thine eye is on me; how can Ido this great wickedness and sin against Thee?" When you are interror, and trouble, and affliction, and know not where to turn, thatsame blessed thought--"Christ is risen from the dead"--will be ashield and a strength to you which no other thought can give. "MyLord is risen; He is here still--a man, with His man's body, and Hisman's spirit--His man's love and tenderness; He has taken them all upto heaven with Him. He is a man still, though He is very God of veryGod. He rose from the dead as a man, and therefore He can understandme, and feel for me still, now, here in England in this very year, 1852, just as much as He could when He was walking upon earth inJudaea of old. "

Ay, and in the black jaws of death, when this world is vanishing fromour eyes, and we are going we know not whither, leaving behind us allwe know, and love, and understand; then that thought of all thoughts--"Christ is risen from the dead"--is the only one which will save usfrom dark sad thoughts, from fear and despair, or from stupidcarelessness, and the death of a brute beast, such as too many die. "Christ is risen and I shall rise. Christ has conquered death forHimself, and He will conquer it for me. Christ took His man's bodyand soul with Him from the tomb to God's right hand, and He willraise my man's body and soul at the last day, that I may be with Himfor ever, and see Him where He is. " In life and in death this is theonly thing which shall save us from sin, from terror, and from thedread of death; the same good news which St. Paul preached to theCorinthians; the same good news which made St. Stephen, and themartyrs and confessors of old brave to endure all misery for the sakeof the good and blessed news, that God had raised His Son Jesus fromthe dead. 

XLVI--GOD'S WAY WITH MAN

And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with youfor my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor accordingto your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God. --EZEKIEL xx. 44. 

In this chapter the prophet Ezekiel argues with his sinful andrebellious countrymen, and puts them in mind of all that God has donefor them and with them, from the time when He brought them out ofEgypt to that day. 

And now comes the old question, What has this to do with us! St. Paul tells us that all things which happened to the old Jews happenedfor our example. What example can we learn from this chapter?

This, I think, we may learn: Is not the way in which God taughtthese Jews the same way in which He teaches many a man--perhaps everyman? Which of us, when we were young, has not had his teaching fromGod? The old Catechism which our mothers taught us, was not that aword from God Himself to us? The voice of conscience, which made ushappy when we had done right, and uneasy and ashamed when we had gonewrong; was not that a word from God to us? Yes, my friends, thosechild's feelings of ours about right and wrong, were none other thanthe voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Light whichlightens every man who comes into the world. I tell you, every rightthought and wish, every longing to be better than you were, whichever came into any one of your hearts, came from Him, the Lord Jesus. It was His word, His voice, His Spirit, speaking to your spirit, justas really as He spoke to His prophet Ezekiel, of whom we have beenreading. Think of that. Recollect, never, never forget, that allyour good thoughts and feelings are not your own, not your own atall, but the Lord's; that without His light your hearts are nothingbut darkness, blind ignorance, and blind selfishness, and blindpassions and lusts; that it is He, he Himself, who has been fightingagainst the darkness in you all your life long. Oh think, then, whatyour sin has been in putting aside those good thoughts and longings!You were turning your back, you were shutting your doors to the LordGod Himself, very God of very God begotten, by whom all things weremade. The Creator came to visit His creature, and His creature shutHim out. The Almighty God pleaded with mortal man, and mortal manbade God go, and come back at a more convenient season! A voice inyour heart seemed to say: "Oh, if I could but be a better man! HowI wish that I could but give up these bad habits, and mend! I hateand despise myself for being so bad. " And then you fancied that thatvoice was your own voice, that those good thoughts were your ownthoughts. If you had really known whose they were; if you had reallyknown, as the Bible tells you, that they were the Word of the Lord, the only-begotten Son of the Father, speaking to your heart, I hardlythink that you would have been so ready to say yourself: "Well, then, I will mend; but not just now: some day or other; somehow orother, I hope, I shall be a better man. It will be time enough tomake my peace with God when I am growing old. " You would not havedared to thrust away the good thoughts, and keep them waiting, whileyou took your pleasure in a few more years' sin; if you had guessedWHOM you were thrusting away; if you had guessed whom you werekeeping waiting. 

And, my good friends, has not God been saying to us many a time fromour youth up, as He did to the Jews of old: "Do not walk in thestatutes of your fathers, nor defile yourselves with their idols?"Do you ask me how? Why, thus. Have you never said to yourself:"How ill my father prospered, because he would do wrong!" Or, again:"See how evil doing brings its own punishment. There is so and sogrowing rich, by his cheating and his covetousness, and yet, for allhis money, I would not change places with him. God forbid that Ishould have on my mind what he has on his mind!" Why should I make along story of so simple a matter? Which of us has not felt at timesthat thought? How much misery has come in this very parish from theill-doing of the generation who are gone to their account, and fromthe ill-training which they gave their children?

And what was that but the Word of the Lord Himself speaking to ourhearts, and saying to us: "Do not defile yourselves with theiridols; do not hurt your souls by hunting after the things which theyloved better than they loved Me: money, pleasure, drink, fighting, smuggling, poaching, wantonness, and lust; I am the Lord your God?"

And yet, young people will not listen to that warning voice of God. They see other people, even their own fathers and mothers, punishedfor their sins; perhaps made poor by their sins, perhaps madeunhealthy by their sins, perhaps made miserable and ill-tempered bytheir sins: and yet they go and fall into, or rather walk open-eyedinto, the very same sins which made their parents wretched. Oh, howmany a young person sees their home made a complete hell on earth byungodliness, and the ill-temper and selfishness which come fromungodliness; and, then, as soon as they have a home of their own, setto work to make their own family as miserable as their father's wasbefore them. 

But people say often: "How could we help it? We had no chance; wewere brought up in bad ways; we had a bad example set us; how can youexpect us to be better than our fathers and mothers, and our elderbrothers and sisters? If we had had a fair chance, we might havebeen different: but we had none; and we could not help going the badway, for we were set in it the day we were born. "

Well, my dear friends, God shall judge you, not I. If little isgiven to a man little is required of him. But not nothing at all;because more than nothing was given him. A little is given to everyman; and, therefore, a little is required of every man. And so, hewho knew not his Master's will shall be beaten with few stripes. Buthe will be beaten with some stripes, because he ought to have knownsomething, at least of his Master's will. If you were dumb animals, which can only follow their own lusts and passions, and must be whatnature has made them, then your excuse would be good enough; but yourexcuse is not good now, just because you are men and women, and notdumb beasts, and, therefore, can rise above your natures, and conqueryour lusts and passions, as they cannot, and can do what you do notlike, because, though you dislike it, you know that it is right. And, therefore, God does not take that excuse which sinners make, that they have had no teaching. But what does he do to them?

Suppose, now, that you had a dog which would not be taught, or brokenin, or cured of biting, or made useful, or bearable in any way, whatwould you do to that dog? I suppose that you would kill it; youwould say: "It is an ill-conditioned animal, and there is no makingit any better; so the only thing is to put it out of the way, and notlet it eat food which might be better spent. " Now, does God deal sowith sinners? When young people rush headlong into sin, and become anuisance to themselves and their neighbours, does God kill them atonce, that better men may step into their place? No. And why? Justbecause they are not dumb animals, which cannot be made better, butGod's children, who can be made better. If there were really no hopeof a sinner repenting and amending, I think God would not leave himlong alive to cumber the ground. But there is hope for every one;because God the Father loves all; the loving heart of the Lord JesusChrist yearns after all; the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from theFather and the Son, strives with the hearts of all; therefore God, inHis patience and tender mercy, tries to bring his foolish children totheir senses. And how? Often in the very same way, in which Ezekielsays He tried to bring the Jews to their senses, by letting them goon in the road of sin, till they see what an ugly pit that same roadends in. If your child would not believe you when you warned andassured him that the fire would burn him, would it not be the verybest way of bringing him to his senses, to tell him: "Very well; goyour own way; put your hand into the fire, and see what comes of it;you will not believe me; you will believe your own feelings, whenyour hand is burnt. " So did the Lord to those rebellious Jews whenthey would go after their fathers' sins. He gave them statutes whichwere not good, and judgments by which they could not live, to the endthat they might know that He was the Lord. God did not make themcommit any sins. God forbid! He only took away His Spirit, Hislight and teaching, from them, and let them go on in the light oftheir own foolish and bewildered hearts, till their sin bred miseryand shame to them, and they were filled with the fruit of their owndevices. Then, after all their wealth was gone, and their land waswasted by cruel enemies, and they themselves were carried awaycaptive into Babylon, they began to awake, and say to themselves:"We were wrong after all, and the Lord was right. He knew what wasreally good for us better than we did. We thought that we could dowithout Him, disobey Him. But He is the Lord after all. He has beentoo strong for us; He has punished us. If we had listened to Hiswarnings years ago, we might have been saved all this misery. "

Ah, how many a poor foolish creature, in misery and shame, with aguilty conscience and a sad heart, sits down, like the prodigal son, among the swinish bad company into which his sins have brought him, longing to fill his belly with the husks which the swine eat! but hecannot. He tries to forget his sorrow by drinking, by bad company, by gambling, by gossiping, like the fools around him: but he cannot. He finds no more pleasure in sin. He is sick and tired of it. Hehas had enough of it and too much. He is miserable, and he hardlyknows why. But miserable he is. There is a longing, and craving, and hunger at his heart after something better; at least aftersomething different. Then he begins to remember his heavenlyFather's house. Old words which he learnt at his mother's knee, goodold words out of his Catechism and his Bible, start up strangely inhis mind. He had forgotten them, laughed at them, perhaps, in hiswild days. But now they come up, he does not know where from, likebeautiful ghosts gliding in. And he is ashamed of them; theyreproach him, the dear old lessons; and yet they seem pleasant tohim, though they make him blush. And at last he says to himself:"Would God that I were a little child again; once more an innocentlittle child at my mother's knee! I thought myself clever andcunning. I thought I could go my own way and enjoy myself. But Icannot. Perhaps I have been a fool; and the old Sunday books wereright after all. At least I am miserable. I thought I was my ownmaster. But perhaps He about whom I used to read in the Sunday booksis my Master after all. At least I am not my own master; I am aslave. Perhaps I have been fighting against Him, against the LordGod, all this time, and now He has shown me that He is the strongerof the two. . . . And so the poor man learns in trouble and shame toknow, like the Jews of old, who is the Lord. 

And when the Lord has drawn a man thus far, does He stop? Not so. He does not leave His work half done. If the work is half done, itis that we stop, not that He stops. Whosoever comes to Him, howsoever confusedly, or clumsily, or even lazily they may come, Hewill in no wise cast out. He may afflict them still more to curethat confusion and laziness; but He is a physician who never sends awilling patient away, or keeps him waiting for a single hour. 

How then does the Lord deal with such a man? Does He drive himfurther? Not if he will go without being driven. You would call itcruel to drive a beast on with blows, when it was willing to be ledpeaceably. And be sure God is not more cruel than man. As soon aswe are willing to be led, He will take His rod off from us, and leadus tenderly enough. For I have known God do this to a man, and asinful man as ever trod this earth. I have known such a man broughtinto utter misery and shame of heart, and heavy affliction in outwardmatters, till his spirit was utterly broken, and he was ready to say:"I am a beast and a fool. I am not worth the bread I eat. Let melie down and die. " And then, when the Lord had driven that man sofar, I have seen, I who speak to you now, how the Lord turned andlooked on that man as he turned and looked on Peter, and brought hispoor soul to life again, as He brought Peter's, by a loving smile, and not an angry frown. I have seen the Lord heap that man with allmanner of unexpected blessings, and pay him back sevenfold for allhis affliction, and raise him up, body and soul, and satisfy him withgood things, so that his youth was renewed like the eagle's. And sothe man's conversion to God, though it was begun by God'schastisements and afflictions, was brought to perfection by God'smercy and bounty; and it happened to that man, as Ezekiel prophesiedthat it would happen to the Jews, that not fear and dread, buthonour, gratitude, and that noble shame of which no man need beashamed, brought him home to God at last. "And you shall rememberyour ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled: and youshall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all the evils which youhave committed. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I havewrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wickedways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O house of Israel, saiththe Lord God. "

You see that God's mercy to them would not make them conceited orcareless. It would increase their shame and confusion when theyfound out what sort of a Lord He was against whom they had beenrebellious; long-suffering and of tender mercy, returning good forevil to His disobedient children. That feeling would awake in themmore shame and more confusion than ever: but it would be a nobleshame, a happy confusion, and tears of joy and gratitude, not ofbitterness. Such a shame, such a confusion, such tears, as theblessed Magdalene's when she knelt at the Lord's feet, and foundthat, instead of bating her and thrusting her away for all her sins, He told her to go in peace, pardoned and happy. Then she knew theLord; she found out His character--His name; for she found out thatHis name was love. Oh, my friends, this is the great secret; theonly knowledge worth living for, because it is the only knowledgewhich will enable you to live worthily--to know the Lord. Thatknowledge will enable you to live a life which will last, and grow, and prosper for ever, beyond the grave, and death, and judgment, andeternities of eternities. As the Lord Himself said, when He was uponearth, "This is eternal life, to know Thee, the only true God, andJesus Christ whom thou hast sent. " Therefore there is no use mywarning you against sin, and telling you, do not do this, and do notdo that, unless I tell you at the same time who is the Lord. Fortill you know that The Good God is the Lord, you will have no real, sound, heartfelt reason for giving up your sins; and what is more, you will not be able to give them up. You may alter your sort ofsins from fear of this and that; but the root of sin will be therestill; and if it cannot bear one sort of fruit it will bear another. If you dare not drink or riot, you may become covetous and griping;if you dare not give way to young men's sins, you will take to oldmen's sins instead; if you dare not commit open sins you will commitsecret ones in your thoughts. Sin is much too stout a plant to bekept from bearing some sort of fruit. As long as it is not rooted upthe root will breed death in you of some sort or other; and the onlyfeeling which can root up sin is to know that Jesus Christ, the Sonof God, is your Lord, and that your Lord condescended to die upon thecross for you; that you must be the Lord's, and are not your own, butbought with the price of His most precious blood, that you mayglorify God with your body and your soul, which are His. 

Just so, the blessed St. Augustine found that he could never conquerhis own sins by arguing with himself, or by any other means, till hegot to know God, and to see that God was the Lord. And when hisspirit was utterly broken; when he saw himself, in spite of all hiswonderful cleverness and learning, to have been a fool and blind allalong, though people round him were flattering him, and running afterhim to hear his learning; then the old words which he learnt at hismother's knee came up in his mind, and he knew that God was the Lordafter all, and that God had been watching him, guiding him, lettinghim go wrong only to show him the folly of going wrong, caring forhim even when He left him to himself and his sins, and the sad waysof his sins; bearing with him, pleading with his conscience, alluringhim back to the only true happiness, as a loving father with arebellious and self-willed child. And then, when St. Augustine hadfound out at last that God was his Lord, who had been taking thecharge of him all through his heathen youth, he became a changed man. He was able to conquer his sins; for God conquered them for him. Hewas able to give up the profligate life which he had been leading;not from fear of punishment, but from the Spirit of God--the spiritof gratitude, honour, trust, and love toward God, which made himabide in God, and God abide in him. To that blessed state may God ofHis great mercy bring us all. To it He will bring us all unless werebel and set up our foolish and selfish will against His loving andwise will. And if He does bring us to it, it is little matterwhether He brings us to it through joy or through sorrow, throughhonour or through shame, through the garden of Eden, or through thevalley of the shadow of death. For, my dear friends, what matter howbitter the medicine is, if it does but save our lives?

XLVII--THE MARRIAGE AT CANA

There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus wasthere. And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to themarriage. --JOHN ii. 1, 2. 

It is, I think, in the first place, an important, as well as apleasant thing, to know that the Lord's glory, as St. Paul says, wasfirst shown forth at a wedding, at a feast. Not at a time of sorrow, but of joy. Not about some strange affliction or disease, such as isthe lot of very few, but about a marriage, that which happens in theordinary lot of all mankind. Not in any fearful judgment ordestruction of sinners, but in blessing wedlock, by which, whetheramong saints or sinners, mankind is increased. Not by helping somegreat philosopher to think more deeply, or some great saint toperform more wonderful acts of holiness, but in giving the simplepleasure of wine to simple commonplace people, of whom we neitherread that they were rich or righteous. We do not even read whetherthe master of the feast ever found out that Jesus had worked amiracle, or whether any of the company ever believed in Him, on thestrength of that miracle, except His mother and the disciples, andthe servants, who were probably the poor slaves of people in a low ormiddling class of life. But that is the way of the Lord. He is norespecter of persons. Rich and poor are alike in His sight; and thepoor need Him most, and therefore He began his work with the poor inCana, as He did in St. James's time, when the poor of this world wererich in faith, and the rich of this world were oppressors andtaskmasters. So He does in every age. Though no one else cares forthe poor, He cares for them. With their hearts He begins His work, even as He did in England sixty years ago, by the preaching ofWhitfield and Wesley. Do you wish to know if anything is the Lord'swork? See if it is a work among the poor. Do you wish to knowwhether any preaching is the true gospel of the Lord? See whether itis a gospel, a good news to the poor. I know no other test thanthat. By doing that, by preaching the gospel to the poor, by workingmiracles for the poor, He has showed forth His glory, and provedHimself the true, and just, and loving Lord of all. 

But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a taskmaster. He does notdemand from us: He gives to us. He had been giving from thefoundation of the world. Corn and wine, rain and sunshine, andfruitful seasons had been his sending. And now He was come to showit. He was come to show men who it was who had been filling theirheart with joy and gladness; who had been bringing out of the earthand air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which maketh glad theheart of man. In every grape that hangs upon the vine, water ischanged into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice. He had beendoing that all along in every vineyard and orchard; and that was Hisglory. Now He was come to prove that; to draw back the veil ofcustom and carnal sense, and manifest Himself. Men had seen thegrapes ripen on the tree; and they were tempted to say, as every oneof us is tempted now: "It is the sun and the air, the nature of thevine, and the nature of the climate, which makes the wine. " Jesuscomes and answers: "Not so. I make the wine; I have been making itall along. The vines, the sun, the weather, are only my toolswherewith I worked, turning rain and sap into wine; and I am greaterthan they; I made them; I do not depend on them; I can make wine fromwater without vines or sunshine. Behold, and drink, and see my gloryWITHOUT the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see it IN thevineyard! For I am now, even as I was in Paradise, The Word of theLord God; and now, even as in Paradise, I walk among the trees of thegarden, and they know me and obey me, though the world knows me not. I have been all along in the world, and the world knows me not. Knowme now, lest you lose the knowledge of me for ever!"

Those of the Jews who received that message, as the disciples did, found out their ancient Lord, and clung to Him, and know now, in theworld of spirits, that His message was indeed a true one. Those whodid not, lost sight of Him; to this day their eyes are blinded; tothis day they have utterly forgotten that they have a Lord and Ruler, who is the Word and Son of God. Their faith is no more like thefaith of David than their understanding of the Scriptures is likehis. The Bible is a dead letter to them. The kingdom and governmentof God is forgotten by them. Of all God-worshipping people in theworld, the Jews are the least godly, the most given up to the worshipof this world, and the things which they can see, and taste, andhandle, and, therefore, to covetousness, cheating, lying, tyranny, and all the sins which spring from forgetting that this world belongsto the Lord and that He rules and guides it, that its blessings areHis gifts, and we His stewards, to use them for the good of all. MayGod help, and forgive, and convert them! Doubt not that He will doso in His good time. But let us beware, my friends, lest we fallinto the same sin. Do not fancy that we are not in just the samedanger. It would be a cowardly thing of a preacher to call Jews, orheathens, or any other absent persons hard names, unless theirmistakes and their sins were such as his own people wanted warningsagainst, ay, perhaps, had the very root of them in their heartsalready. And we have the root of the Jews' sin in our own hearts. Why is this one miracle read in our churches to this day, if we donot stand just as much in need of the lesson as those for whom it wasfirst worked? We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting whoit is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons, love andmarriage, and all the blessings of this life. We, as well as theJews, are continually fancying that these outward earthly things, aswe call them in our shallow carnal conceits, have nothing to do withJesus or His kingdom, but that we may compete, and scrape, even cheatand lie to get them, and when we have them, misuse them selfishly, asif they belonged to no one but ourselves, as if we had no duty toperform about them, as if we owed God no service for them. 

And again, we are, just as much as the Jews were, in danger ofspiritual pride; in danger of fancying that because we are religious, and have, or fancy we have, deep experiences and beautiful thoughtsabout God and Christ and our own souls, therefore we can afford todespise those who do not know as much as ourselves; to despise thecommon pleasures and petty sorrows of poor creatures, whose souls andbodies are grovelling in the dust, busied with the cares of thisworld, at their wits' end to get their daily bread; to despise themerriment of young people, the play of children, and all thoseeveryday happinesses which, though we may turn from them with asneer, are precious in the sight of Him who made heaven and earth. All such proud thoughts, all such contempt of those who do not seemas spiritual as we fancy ourselves, is evil. It is from the devil, and not from God. It is the same vile spirit which made thePharisees of old say: "This people--these poor worldly drudgingwretches--who know not the law, are accursed. " And mind, this is nota sin of rich, and learned, and highborn men only. They may be moretempted to it than others; but poor men, when they become, by thegrace of God, wiser, more spiritual, more holy than others, aretempted, just as much as the rich, to despise their poor neighboursto whom God has not given the same light as themselves; and surely inthem it shows ugliest of all. A learned and high-born man may beexcused for looking down upon the sinful poor, because he does notunderstand their temptations, because he never has been ignorant andstruggling as they are. But a poor man who despises the poor--he hasno excuse. He ought above all men to feel for them, for he has beentempted even as they are. He knows their sorrows; he has beenthrough their dark valley of bad food, bad lodging, want of work, want of teaching, low cares which drag the soul to earth. Surely apoor man who has tasted God's love and Christ's light, ought, aboveall others, instead of turning his back on his class, to pity them, to make common cause with them, to teach them, guide them, comfortthem, in a way no rich man can. Yes; after all, it is the poor musthelp the poor; the poor must comfort the poor; the poor must teachand convert the poor. 

See, in the epistle for this day, St. Paul makes no distinctionbetween rich and poor. This epistle is joined with the gospel forthe day, to show us what ought to be the conduct of Christians, whobelieve in the miracle of Cana; what men should do who believe thatthey have a Lord in heaven, by whose command suns shine, fruitsripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of marriage, of thecomforts which the heathen and the savage, as well as the Christianman, partake; what men should do who believe that they have a Lord inheaven who entered into the common joys and sorrows of lowly men, whowas once Himself a poor villager, who ate with publicans and sinners, who condescended to join in a wedding feast, and increase the mereanimal enjoyment of the guests. And what is St. Paul's command topoor as well as rich? Read the epistle for this day and see. 

You see at once that this epistle is written in the same spirit asour Lord's words: by God's Spirit, in short; the Spirit whichbrought the Lord Jesus so condescendingly to the wedding feast; theSpirit which made Him care so heartily for the common pleasures ofthose around Him. My friends, these are not commands to one class, but to all. Poor as well as rich may show mercy with cheerfulness, and love without dissimulation. Poor as well as rich may minister toothers with earnestness, and condescend to those of low estate. Nota word in this whole epistle which does not apply equally to everyrank, and sex, and age. 

Neither are these commands to each of us by ourselves, but to all ofus together, as members of a family. If you will look through themthey are not things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours;not experiences to be felt about our own souls: but rules of conductto our fellow-men. They are all different branches and flowers fromthat one root: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. "

Do we live thus, rich or poor? Can we look each other in the facethis afternoon and say, each man to his neighbour: "I have behavedlike a brother to you. I have rejoiced at your good fortune, andgrieved at your sorrow. I have preferred you to myself. I haveloved you without dissimulation. I have been earnest in my place andduty in the parish for the sake of the common good of all. I havecondescended to those of lower rank than myself. I have--" Ah, mydear friends, I had better not go on with the list. God forgive usall! The less we try to justify ourselves on this score the better. Some of us do indeed try to behave like brothers and sisters to theirneighbours; but how few of us; and those few how little! And yet weare brothers. We are members of one family, sons of one Father, joint-heirs with one Lord, the poor Man who sat eating and drinkingat the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and mixed freely in the joysand the sorrows of the poorest and meanest. Joint-heirs with Christ;yet how unlike Him! My friends, we need to repent and amend ourways; we need to confess, every one of us, rich and poor, the pride, the selfishness, the carelessness about each other, which keeps us somuch apart, knowing so little of each other, feeling so little foreach other. Oh confess this sin to God, every one of you. Those whohave behaved most like brothers, will be most ready to confess howlittle they have behaved like brothers. Confess: "Father, I havesinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to becalled thy son, for I have not loved, cared for, helped my brothersand sisters round, who are just as much thy children as I am. " Prayfor the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of condescension, love, fellow-feeling; that spirit which rejoices simply and heartily with thosewho are happy, and feels for another's sorrows as if they were itsown. Pray for it; for till it comes, there will be no peace onearth. Pray for it; for when it comes and takes possession of yourhearts, and you all really love and live like brothers, children ofone Father, the kingdom of God will be come indeed, and His will bedone on earth as it is in heaven. 

XLVIII--PARABLE OF THE LOWEST PLACE

And He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He markedhow they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, when thou artbidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room, lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; and he thatbade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thoubegin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade theecometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thouhave worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. Forwhosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humblethhimself shall be exalted. --LUKE xiv. 7-11. 

We heard in the gospel for to-day how the Lord Jesus put forth aparable to those who were invited to a dinner with Him at thePharisee's house. A parable means an example of any rules or laws; astory about some rule, by hearing which people may see how the ruleworks in practice, and understand it. Now, our Lord's parables wereabout the kingdom of God. They were examples of the rules and lawsby which the kingdom of God is governed and carried on. Therefore Hebegins many of His parables by saying, The kingdom of God is likesomething--something which people see daily, and understand more orless. "The kingdom of God is like a field;" "The kingdom of God islike a net;" "The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed;"and so forth. And even where He did not begin one of His parables byspeaking of the kingdom of God, we may be still certain that it hasto do with the kingdom of God. For the one great reason why the Lordwas made flesh and dwelt among us, was to preach the kingdom of God, His Father and our Father, and to prove to men that God was theirKing, even at the price of his most precious blood. And, therefore, everything which He ever did, and everything which He ever spoke, hadto do with this one great work of His. This parable, therefore, which you heard read in the gospel for to-day, has to do with thekingdom of God, and is an example of the laws of it. 

Now, what is the kingdom of God? It is worth our while to consider. For at baptism we were declared members of the kingdom of God; wewere to renounce the world, and to live according to the kingdom ofGod. The kingdom of God is simply the way in which God governs men;and the world is the way in which men try to manage without God'shelp or leave. That is the difference between them; and a most awfuldifference it is. Men fancy that they can get on well enough withoutGod; that the ways of the world are very reasonable, and useful, andprofitable, and quite good enough to live by, if not to die by. Butall the while God is King, let them fancy what they like; and thisearth, and everything on it, from the king on his throne to the gnatin the sunbeam, is under His government, and must obey His laws ordie. We are in God's kingdom, my good friends, every one of us, whether we like it or not, and we shall be there for ever and ever. And our business is, therefore, simply to find out what are the lawsof that kingdom, and obey those laws as speedily as possible, andlive for ever thereby, lest, if we break them, and get in their way, they should grind us to powder. 

Now, here is one of the laws of God's kingdom: "Whosoever exaltethhimself shall be abased; and whosoever abaseth himself shall beexalted. " That is, whosoever, in any way whatsoever, sets himselfup, will be pulled down again: while he who is contented to keeplow, and think little of himself, will be raised up and set on high. Now the world's rule is the exact opposite of this. The world says, Every man for himself. The way of the world is to struggle andstrive for the highest place; to be a pushing man, and a rising man, and a man who will stand stiffly by his rights, and give his enemy asgood as he brings, and beat his neighbour out of the market, and showoff himself to the best advantage, and try to make the most ofwhatever wit or money he has to look well in the world, that peoplemay look up to him and flatter him and obey him; and so the world hasno objection to people's pretending to be better than they are. Every man must do the best he can for himself, the world says, andnever mind his neighbours: they must take care of themselves; and ifthey are foolish enough to be taken in, so much the worse for them. So the world thinks that there is no harm in a man, when he hasanything to sell, making it out better than it really is, and hidingthe fault in it as far as he can. When a tradesman or manufacturersends about "puffs" of his goods, and pretends that they are betterand cheaper than other people's, just to get custom by it, the worlddoes not call that what it is--boasting and lying. It says: "Ofcourse a man must do the best he can for himself. If a man does notpraise himself, nobody else will praise him; he cannot expect hisneighbours to take him for better than his own words. " So again, ifa man wants a place or situation, the world thinks it no harm if hegives the most showy character of himself, and gets his friends tosay all the good of him they can, and a great deal more, and to saynone of the harm--in short, to make himself out a much better, orshrewder, or worthier man than he really is. The world does not callthat either what it is--boasting, and lying, and thrusting oneselfinto callings to which God has not called us. The world says: "Ofcourse a man must turn his best side outwards. You cannot expect aman to tell tales on himself. "

And, my friends, the world would be quite right, and reasonable, andprudent, in telling us to push, and boast, and lie, and puffourselves and our goods, if it were not for one thing which thefoolish blind world is always forgetting, and that is, that there isa God who judges the earth. If God were not our King; if He took nocare of us men and our doings; if mankind had it all their own way onearth, and were forced to shift for themselves without any laws ofGod to guide them, then the best thing every man could do would be tofight for himself; to get all he could for himself, and leave aslittle as he could for his neighbours; to make himself out as great, and wise, and strong, as he could, and try to make his neighbours buyhim at his own price. That would be the best plan for every man, ifGod was not King; and therefore the world says that that is the bestplan for every man, because the world does not believe that God isKing, and hates the notion that God is King, and laughs at andpersecutes, as Jesus Christ said it would, those who preach thekingdom of God, and tell men, as I tell you in God's name: "You werenot made to be selfish; you were not meant to rise in the world byboasting and pushing down and deceiving your neighbours. For you aresubjects of God's kingdom; and to do so is to break his laws, and toput yourselves under His curse; and however worldly-wise all thisselfishness and boasting may seem, it is sin, whose wages are deathand ruin. "

For, my friends, let the world try to forget God as it will, He doesnot forget the world. Let men try to make rules and laws forthemselves, rules about religion, rules about government, rules abouttrade, rules about morals and what they fancy is just and fair; letthem make as many rules as they like, they are only wasting theirtime; for God has made His rules already, and revealed them to us inthe Bible, and told us that the earth and mankind are governed in Hisway, and not in ours, and that He will not alter His everlastingrules to suit our new ones. As David says: "Let the people be neverso unquiet, still the Lord is King. "

Ah, my friends, it is very easy to say all this, but it is not soeasy to believe it. Every one, every respectable person at least, isready enough to talk about God, and God's will, and so forth. Butwhen it comes to practice; when it comes to doing God's will, and notour own; when it comes to obeying His direct and plain commands, andnot the fashions and maxims which men have invented for themselves;when it comes to giving up what we long for, because He has said thatif we try after it in our own way, and not in His, we shall neverhave it at all, then comes the trial; then comes the time to seewhether we believe that God is the King of the earth or not; thencomes the time to see whether we have renounced the world, anddetermined to live as God's sons in God's kingdom, or whether ourreligion is some form of words, or way of thinking and feeling whichwe hope may save our souls from hell, but which has nothing to dowith our daily life and conduct, and leaves us just as worldly as anyheathen, in all our dealings with our fellow-men, from Monday morningto Saturday night. Then comes the time to try our faith in God. 

And then, alas! it comes out, in these evil, and godless, andhypocritical times in which we live, that many a man who fancieshimself religious, and respectable, and blameless, and what not, nomore really believes that he is living in God's kingdom than theheathen do. And if you ask him, you will find out most probably thathe fancies that God's kingdom is not on earth now, but that it willbe on earth some day. A cunning delusion of the devil, that, myfriends! To make us go his way while we fancy that we are going ourown way. To make us say to ourselves: "Ah! it is very unfortunatethat God is not King of the earth now. Of course He will be afterthe resurrection, in the new heaven and the new earth, where therewill be no sin. But He is not King now; this world is given over tosin and the devil, so fallen and ruined and corrupt that--that--that, in short, we cannot be expected to behave like God's children in it, but must just follow the ways of the world, and live by ambition, andselfishness, and cunning, and boasting, and competing in this life; alife of love, and justice, and humbleness, and fellow-help, andmercy, and self-sacrifice is impossible in such a world as this; wecannot live like angels, till we get to heaven!" So say nine peopleout of ten; the devil deceiving them, and their own hearts, alas!being but too glad to catch at the excuse for sin which the devilgives them, when he tells them that this present earth is not God'skingdom; and so they go and act accordingly, selfish, grudging, pushing, boastful, every man's hand against his neighbour and forhimself, till they succeed too often in making this earth asfearfully like the devil's kingdom as it is possible for God'skingdom to be made. 

But what, some may ask, has all this to do with the text that he whosets himself up shall be brought low, he who keeps himself low shallbe set up? What has it to do with the text? It has everything to dowith the text. If people really believed that they were God'ssubjects and children in God's kingdom, they would not need to askthat question long. 

If God is really the King of the earth, there can be no use in anyonesetting up himself. If God is really the King of the earth, thosewho set up themselves must be certain to be brought down from theirhigh thoughts and high assumptions sooner or later. For if God isreally the King of the earth, He must be the one to set people up, and not they themselves. Look again at the parable. The man whoasks the guests to dine with him has surely a right to place each ofthem where he likes. The house is his, the dinner is his. He has aright to invite whom he likes; and he has a right to settle wherethey shall sit. If they choose their own places--if any guest takesupon himself to seat himself at the head of the table, because hethinks it his right, he offends against all rules of right feelingand propriety toward the man who has invited him. All he has a rightto expect is, that his host will not put him in the wrong place, thathe will settle all places at his table according to people's realrank and deserts, and as our Testaments say, put "the worthiest manin the highest room. " And if people really believed in God, whichvery few do, they would surely expect no less of God. Whatgentleman, farmer, or labourer is there, with common sense and goodfeeling, who would not show most respect to the most respectablepersons who came into his house, and send his best and trustiestworkmen about his most important errands? True, he might makemistakes, and worse. Being a weak man, he might be tempted to putthe rich sinner in a higher place than the poor saint: or he might, from private fancy, be blinded about his workmen's characters, and sosend a worse man, because he was his favourite, to do what anotherman whom he did not fancy as well might do a great deal better. Butyou cannot suspect God of that. He is no respecter of persons--whether a man be rich or poor, no matter to God: all which Heinquires into is--Is he righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish, able to do his work or unable? And God can make no mistakes aboutpeople's characters. As St. Paul says of the Lord Jesus: "The Wordof God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing through to thedividing of the very joints and marrow, so that all things are nakedand open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do. " There is noblinding God, no hiding from God, no cheating God, just as there isno flattering God. He knows what each and every one of us is fitfor. He knows what each and every one of us is worth; and what ismore, He knows what we ought to know, that each and every one of usis worth nothing without Him. Therefore there is no use pretendingto be better than we are. God knows just how good we are, and willreward us, even in this life only according as we deserve, in spiteof all our boasting. There is no use pretending to be wiser than weare. For all the wisdom we have comes from God; and if we pretend tohave more than we have, and by that greatest act of folly, show thatwe have no wisdom at all, He will take from us even what we have, andmake all our cunning plans come to nothing, and prove us fools, justwhen we fancy ourselves most clever. There is no use being ambitiousand pushing, and trying to scramble up on our neighbours' shoulders. For we were not sent into this world to do what we like, but what Godlikes; not to work for ourselves, but to work for God; and God knowsexactly how much good each of us can do, and what is the best placefor us to do it in, and how to teach and enable us to do it; and ifwe choose to be taught, He will teach us; and if we choose to go Hisway, and do His work, He will help us to it. But if we will not havehis way, He will not let us have our own way--not at first, at least. He will bring our plans to nothing, and let us make fools ofourselves, and bring in sudden accidents of which we never dreamed, just to show us that we are not our own masters, and cannot cut outour own roads through life. And if we take His lesson, and go to Himto teach and strengthen us--well: and if not--then perhaps--which isthe most awful misery which can happen to any man in earth--God maygive up teaching us during this life, and let us have our own way, and be filled with the fruit of our own devices; from which worst ofpunishments may He in His mercy, save you, and me, and all belongingto us, in this life and in the life to come. 

But some of you may say: "We understand the first half of the textvery well, and like it very well; we all think it just that those whoset themselves up should have a fall, and we are very glad to seethem have a fall: but we do not see why he who abases himself shouldhave any right to be exalted. " Ah, my friends, it is much easier, and needs much less knowledge of God, and much less of the likenessof Christ, to see what is wrong, than to see what is right. Everyman knows when a bone is broken, but it is not every one who can setit again. Nevertheless, there is a sort of left-handed reason inthat argument. For a man has no more right to make himself out worsethan he is, than he has to make himself out better than he is. A manshould confess to being just what he is, neither more nor less. Nevertheless, he who humbles himself shall be exalted. 

Of course I do not mean those who, like some I know, make a fawninghumble way of talking a cloak for their own self-conceit; who callthemselves miserable sinners all the time that they are fancying thatthey are almost the only people in the world who are sure of beingsaved, whatever they do; who, as some do, actually pride themselveson their own convictions of sin, and glory in their own shame, anddespise those who will not slander themselves as they do. 

They are equally hateful to God and to God's enemies. If you and Iare disgusted at such hypocritical self-conceit, be sure the LordJesus is far more pained at it than we are; for as a wise man says:"The devil's darling sin is the pride that apes humility. "

But let a man really be convinced of sin; let a man really believe inthe Lord Jesus Christ's atonement; let a man really believe in theHoly Spirit; and that man will have little need to ask why he shouldhumble himself more than he deserves, and little wish to boast ofhimself, and push himself forward, and get praise, or riches, orpower in the world. For that man would say to himself: "I, sinneras I am; I, who know that I do so many wrong things daily; things sowrong that it required the blood of the Son of God to wash out theguilt of them--who am I to set myself up? I cannot be faithful in alittle--why should I try to be ruler over much? I cannot useproperly the blessings and the power which God does give me--must Inot take for granted that, if I had more riches, more power, I shoulduse them still worse? I know well enough of a thousand sins, andweaknesses and ignorances in myself which my neighbours never see. Ibelieve, therefore, my neighbours have much too good an opinion ofme, and not too bad a one; and therefore I am not going to boast orpuff myself to them. I can only thank God they do not see the insideof this foolish heart of mine as well as He does! In short, I am notgoing to set myself up, and try to get a higher place among men thanI have already, because I am certain that I have already a ten timesbetter one than I deserve. "

Or again, if a man really believed in the Holy Ghost, which is muchthe same as really believing in the kingdom of God; if he reallybelieved that God was the King and Master of his heart and soul; ifhe really believed that everything good, and right, and wise in himcame from God's Holy Spirit, and that everything wrong and foolish inhim came from himself and the devil; then he would surely say tohimself: "Who am I to try to set myself up above my neighbours, andget power over them; what have I that I did not receive? Whatevermoney, or station, or cleverness, or power of mind I have, God hasgiven me, and without Him I should be nothing. Therefore, He onlygave me these talents to use for Him, and if I use them for my ownends, I shall be misusing them, and trying to rob God of His own. Iam His child, His subject, His steward; He has put me just in thatplace in His earth which is most fit for me, and my business is, notto try to desert my post, and to wander out of the place here He hasput me, but to see that I do the duty which lies nearest me, so thatI shall be able to give an account to Him. It is only if I amfaithful in a few things, that I can expect God to make me ruler overmany things. " Ah, my friends, if we could but see ourselves, not aswe fancy we are, nor as others fancy we are, but just as we reallyare, then, instead of pushing, and boasting, and standing stiffly byour rights, and fancying that God and man are unjust to us, we shouldbe crying out all day long with the prodigal son: "Father, I havesinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to becalled thy son. " We should say with St. Paul--who, after all, remember, was the wisest, and most learned, and noblest-hearted ofall the Apostles--that we are at best the chief of sinners. Weshould feel like the dear and blessed Magdalene of old, the patternfor ever of all true penitents, that it was quite honour enough to beallowed to wash Christ's feet with our tears, while every one roundus sneered at us and looked down upon us--as, after all, we deserve. And so, believe me, we should be exalted. It would pay us, ifpayment is what we want. For so we should be in a more right, moretrue, more healthy, more wise, more powerful state of mind; more likeJesus Christ, and therefore more likely to be sent to do Christ'swork, and share Christ's reward. For this is the great law of thekingdom of God in which we live, that man is nothing, and God iseverything; and that we are strong and wise, and something, only whenwe find out that we are weak and foolish, and nothing, and go to ourFather in heaven for strength, and wisdom, and spiritual eternallife. And then we find out how true it is that he who humbleshimself, as he deserves, will be raised up; how he who loses his lifewill save it; how blessed are the poor in spirit, those who feel thatthey have nothing but what God chooses to give them; for theirs isthe kingdom of heaven! How blessed are those who hunger and thirstafter righteousness; who feel that they are not doing right, and yetcannot rest till they do right; for they shall be filled! Howblessed are the meek, who do not set up themselves, or try to fighttheir own battles, and compete with their neighbours in the greatscramble and struggle of this world; for they--just the last personswhom the world would expect to do it--shall inherit the earth!Choose, my friends, choose! The world says: "Push upwards, praiseyourself, help yourself, put your best side outwards. " The great Godwho made heaven and earth says: "Know that you are weak, andfoolish, and sinful in yourself. Know that whatever wisdom you have, I the Lord lent you; and I the Lord expect the interest of my loan. Know that you are my child in my Kingdom. Stay where I have put you, and when I want you for something better, I will call you; and if youtry to rise without my calling you, I will only drive you back again. So the only way to be ruler over much, is first to be faithful in alittle. My friends, which of the two do you think is likely to knowbest, man or God?

Footnotes:

{217} In 1848-49.