WESTMINSTER SERMONS. 

WITH A PREFACE. 

BYCHARLES KINGSLEY. 

London:MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881. 

_The Right of Translation is Reserved_. 

PREFACE. 

I venture to preface these Sermons--which were preached either atWestminster Abbey, or at one of the Chapels Royal--by a Paper read atSion College, in 1871; and for this reason. Even when they deal withwhat is usually, and rightly, called "vital" and "experimental" religion, they are comments on, and developments of, the idea which pervades thatpaper; namely--That facts, whether of physical nature, or of the humanheart and reason, do not contradict, but coincide with, the doctrines andformulas of the Church of England, as by law established. 

* * * * *

Natural Theology, I said, is a subject which seems to me more and moreimportant; and one which is just now somewhat forgotten. I thereforedesire to say a few words on it. I do not pretend to teach: but only tosuggest; to point out certain problems of natural Theology, the furthersolution of which ought, I think, to be soon attempted. 

I wish to speak, be it remembered, not on natural religion, but onnatural Theology. By the first, I understand what can be learned fromthe physical universe of man's duty to God and to his neighbour; by thelatter, I understand what can be learned concerning God Himself. Ofnatural religion I shall say nothing. I do not even affirm that anatural religion is possible: but I do very earnestly believe that anatural Theology is possible; and I earnestly believe also that it ismost important that natural Theology should, in every age, keep pace withdoctrinal or ecclesiastical Theology. 

Bishop Butler certainly held this belief. His _Analogy of Religion_, _Natural and Revealed_, _to the Constitution and Course of Nature_--abook for which I entertain the most profound respect--is based on abelief that the God of nature and the God of grace are one; and thattherefore, the God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less tosatisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission; and hefulfilled it well. But it is a mission which has to be re-fulfilledagain and again, as human thought changes, and human science develops;for if, in any age or country, the God who seems to be revealed by natureseems also different from the God who is revealed by the then popularreligion: then that God, and the religion which tells of that God, willgradually cease to be believed in. 

For the demands of Reason--as none knew better than good BishopButler--must be and ought to be satisfied. And therefore; when a popularwar arises between the reason of any generation and its Theology: then itbehoves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and godlyfear, on which side lies the fault; whether the Theology which theyexpound is all that it should be, or whether the reason of those whoimpugn it is all that it should be. 

For me, as--I trust--an orthodox priest of the Church of England, Ibelieve the Theology of the National Church of England, as by lawestablished, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century, have done more for sound physical science than the clergy of any otherdenomination; or that the three greatest natural theologians with whichI, at least, am acquainted--Berkeley, Butler, and Paley--should havebelonged to our Church. I am not unaware of what the Germans of theeighteenth century have done. I consider Goethe's claims to haveadvanced natural Theology very much over-rated: but I do recommend toyoung clergymen Herder's _Outlines of the Philosophy of the History ofMan_ as a book--in spite of certain defects--full of sound and preciouswisdom. Meanwhile it seems to me that English natural Theology in theeighteenth century stood more secure than that of any other nation, onthe foundation which Berkeley, Butler, and Paley had laid; and that ifour orthodox thinkers for the last hundred years had followed steadily intheir steps, we should not be deploring now a wide, and as some thinkincreasing, divorce between Science and Christianity. 

But it was not so to be. The impulse given by Wesley and Whitfieldturned--and not before it was needed--the earnest minds of England almostexclusively to questions of personal religion; and that impulse, undermany unexpected forms, has continued ever since. I only state the fact:I do not deplore it; God forbid. Wisdom is justified of all herchildren; and as, according to the wise American, "it takes all sorts tomake a world, " so it takes all sorts to make a living Church. But thatthe religious temper of England for the last two or three generations hasbeen unfavourable to a sound and scientific development of naturalTheology, there can be no doubt. 

We have only, if we need proof, to look at the hymns--many of them verypure, pious, and beautiful--which are used at this day in churches andchapels by persons of every shade of opinion. How often is the tone inwhich they speak of the natural world one of dissatisfaction, distrust, almost contempt. "Change and decay in all around I see, " is their key-note, rather than "O all ye works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, andmagnify Him for ever. " There lingers about them a savour of the oldmonastic theory, that this earth is the devil's planet, fallen, accursed, goblin-haunted, needing to be exorcised at every turn before it is usefulor even safe for man. An age which has adopted as its most popular hymna paraphrase of the mediaeval monk's "Hic breve vivitur, " and in whichstalwart public-school boys are bidden in their chapel-worship to tellthe Almighty God of Truth that they lie awake weeping at night for joy atthe thought that they will die and see "Jerusalem the Golden, " isdoubtless a pious and devout age: but not--at least as yet--an age inwhich natural Theology is likely to attain a high, a healthy, or ascriptural development. 

Not a scriptural development. Let me press on you, my clerical brethren, most earnestly this one point. It is time that we should make up ourminds what tone Scripture does take toward nature, natural science, natural Theology. Most of you, I doubt not, have made up your mindsalready; and in consequence have no fear of natural science, no fear fornatural Theology. But I cannot deny that I find still lingering here andthere certain of the old views of nature of which I used to hear but toomuch some five-and-thirty years ago--and that from better men than Ishall ever hope to be--who used to consider natural Theology as useless, fallacious, impossible; on the ground that this Earth did not reveal thewill and character of God, because it was cursed and fallen; and that itsfacts, in consequence, were not to be respected or relied on. This, Iwas told, was the doctrine of Scripture, and was therefore true. Butwhen, longing to reconcile my conscience and my reason on a question soawful to a young student of natural science, I went to my Bible, what didI find? No word of all this. Much--thank God, I may say one continuousundercurrent--of the very opposite of all this. I pray you bear with me, even though I may seem impertinent. But what do we find in the Bible, with the exception of that first curse? That, remember, cannot mean anyalteration in the laws of nature by which man's labour should onlyproduce for him henceforth thorns and thistles. For, in the first place, any such curse is formally abrogated in the eighth chapter and 21st verseof the very same document--"I will not again curse the earth any more forman's sake. While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold andheat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. " And next: thefact is not so; for if you root up the thorns and thistles, and keep yourland clean, then assuredly you will grow fruit-trees and not thorns, wheat and not thistles, according to those laws of nature which are thevoice of God expressed in facts. 

And yet the words are true. There is a curse upon the earth: though notone which, by altering the laws of nature, has made natural factsuntrustworthy. There is a curse on the earth; such a curse as isexpressed, I believe, in the old Hebrew text, where the word"_admah_"--correctly translated in our version "the ground"--signifies, as I am told, not this planet, but simply the soil from whence we get ourfood; such a curse as certainly is expressed by the Septuagint and theVulgate versions: "Cursed is the earth"--[Greek text]; "in opere tuo, ""in thy works. " Man's work is too often the curse of the very planetwhich he misuses. None should know that better than the botanist, whosees whole regions desolate, and given up to sterility and literal thornsand thistles, on account of man's sin and folly, ignorance and greedywaste. Well said that veteran botanist, the venerable Elias Fries, ofLund:--

"A broad band of waste land follows gradually in the steps ofcultivation. If it expands, its centre and its cradle dies, and on theouter borders only do we find green shoots. But it is not impossible, only difficult, for man, without renouncing the advantage of cultureitself, one day to make reparation for the injury which he has inflicted:he is appointed lord of creation. True it is that thorns and thistles, ill-favoured and poisonous plants, well named by botanists rubbishplants, mark the track which man has proudly traversed through the earth. Before him lay original nature in her wild but sublime beauty. Behindhim he leaves a desert, a deformed and ruined land; for childish desireof destruction, or thoughtless squandering of vegetable treasures, hasdestroyed the character of nature; and, terrified, man himself flies fromthe arena of his actions, leaving the impoverished earth to barbarousraces or to animals, so long as yet another spot in virgin beauty smilesbefore him. Here again, in selfish pursuit of profit, and consciously orunconsciously following the abominable principle of the great moralvileness which one man has expressed--'Apres nous le Deluge, '--he beginsanew the work of destruction. Thus did cultivation, driven out, leavethe East, and perhaps the deserts long ago robbed of their coverings;like the wild hordes of old over beautiful Greece, thus rolls thisconquest with fearful rapidity from East to West through America; and theplanter now often leaves the already exhausted land, and the easternclimate, become infertile through the demolition of the forests, tointroduce a similar revolution into the Far West. "

As we proceed, we find nothing in the general tone of Scripture which canhinder our natural Theology being at once scriptural and scientific. 

If it is to be scientific, it must begin by approaching Nature at oncewith a cheerful and reverent spirit, as a noble, healthy, and trustworthything; and what is that, save the spirit of those who wrote the 104th, 147th, and 148th Psalms; the spirit, too, of him who wrote that Song ofthe Three Children, which is, as it were, the flower and crown of the OldTestament, the summing up of all that is most true and eternal in the oldJewish faith; and which, as long as it is sung in our churches, is thecharter and title-deed of all Christian students of those works of theLord, which it calls on to bless Him, praise Him, and magnify Him forever?

What next will be demanded of us by physical science? Belief, certainly, just now, in the permanence of natural laws. That is taken for granted, I hold, throughout the Bible. I cannot see how our Lord's parables, drawn from the birds and the flowers, the seasons and the weather, haveany logical weight, or can be considered as aught but capricious andfanciful "illustrations"--which God forbid--unless we look at them asinstances of laws of the natural world, which find their analogues in thelaws of the spiritual world, the kingdom of God. I cannot conceive aman's writing that 104th Psalm who had not the most deep, the mostearnest sense of the permanence of natural law. But more: the fact isexpressly asserted again and again. "They continue this day according toThine ordinance, for all things serve Thee. " "Thou hast made them fastfor ever and ever. Thou hast given them a law which shall not bebroken--"

Let us pass on. There is no more to be said about this matter. 

But next: it will be demanded of us that natural Theology shall set fortha God whose character is consistent with all the facts of nature, and notonly with those which are pleasant and beautiful. That challenge wasaccepted, and I think victoriously, by Bishop Butler, as far as theChristian religion is concerned. As far as the Scripture is concerned, we may answer thus--

It is said to us--I know that it is said--You tell us of a God of love, aGod of flowers and sunshine, of singing birds and little children. Butthere are more facts in nature than these. There is premature death, pestilence, famine. And if you answer--Man has control over these; theyare caused by man's ignorance and sin, and by his breaking of naturallaws:--What will you make of those destructive powers over which he hasno control; of the hurricane and the earthquake; of poisons, vegetableand mineral; of those parasitic Entozoa whose awful abundance, and awfuldestructiveness, in man and beast, science is just revealing--a new pageof danger and loathsomeness? How does that suit your conception of a Godof love?

We can answer--Whether or not it suits our conception of a God of love, it suits Scripture's conception of Him. For nothing is more clear--nay, is it not urged again and again, as a blot on Scripture?--that it revealsa God not merely of love, but of sternness; a God in whose eyes physicalpain is not the worst of evils, nor animal life--too often miscalledhuman life--the most precious of objects; a God who destroys, when itseems fit to Him, and that wholesale, and seemingly without either pityor discrimination, man, woman, and child, visiting the sins of thefathers on the children, making the land empty and bare, and destroyingfrom off it man and beast? This is the God of the Old Testament. And ifany say--as is too often rashly said--This is not the God of the New: Ianswer, But have you read your New Testament? Have you read the latterchapters of St Matthew? Have you read the opening of the Epistle to theRomans? Have you read the Book of Revelation? If so, will you say thatthe God of the New Testament is, compared with the God of the Old, lessawful, less destructive, and therefore less like the Being--grantingalways that there is such a Being--who presides over nature and herdestructive powers? It is an awful problem. But the writers of theBible have faced it valiantly. Physical science is facing it valiantlynow. Therefore natural Theology may face it likewise. RememberCarlyle's great words about poor Francesca in the Inferno: "Infinitepity: yet also infinite rigour of law. It is so Nature is made. It isso Dante discerned that she was made. "

There are two other points on which I must beg leave to say a few words. Physical science will demand of our natural theologians that they shouldbe aware of their importance, and let--as Mr Matthew Arnold wouldsay--their thoughts play freely round them. I mean questions ofEmbryology, and questions of Race. 

On the first there may be much to be said, which is, for the present, best left unsaid, even here. I only ask you to recollect how often inScripture those two plain old words--beget and bring forth--occur; and inwhat important passages. And I ask you to remember that marvellous essayon Natural Theology--if I may so call it in all reverence--namely, the119th Psalm; and judge for yourself whether he who wrote that did notconsider the study of Embryology as important, as significant, as worthyof his deepest attention, as an Owen, a Huxley, or a Darwin. Nay, I willgo further still, and say, that in those great words--"Thine eyes did seemy substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members werewritten, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was noneof them, "--in those words, I say, the Psalmist has anticipated thatrealistic view of embryological questions to which our most modernphilosophers are, it seems to me, slowly, half unconsciously, but stillinevitably, returning. 

Next, as to Race. Some persons now have a nervous fear of that word, andof allowing any importance to difference of races. Some dislike it, because they think that it endangers the modern notions of democraticequality. Others because they fear that it may be proved that the Negrois not a man and a brother. I think the fears of both partiesgroundless. 

As for the Negro, I not only believe him to be of the same race asmyself, but that--if Mr Darwin's theories are true--science has provedthat he must be such. I should have thought, as a humble student of suchquestions, that the one fact of the unique distribution of the hair inall races of human beings, was full moral proof that they had all had onecommon ancestor. But this is not matter of natural Theology. What ismatter thereof, is this. 

Physical science is proving more and more the immense importance of Race;the importance of hereditary powers, hereditary organs, hereditaryhabits, in all organized beings, from the lowest plant to the highestanimal. She is proving more and more the omnipresent action of thedifferences between races: how the more "favoured" race--she cannot avoidusing the epithet--exterminates the less favoured; or at least expels it, and forces it, under penalty of death, to adapt itself to newcircumstances; and, in a word, that competition between every race andevery individual of that race, and reward according to deserts, is, asfar as we can see, an universal law of living things. And she says--forthe facts of History prove it--that as it is among the races of plantsand animals, so it has been unto this day among the races of men. 

The natural Theology of the future must take count of these tremendousand even painful facts. She may take count of them. For Scripture hastaken count of them already. It talks continually--it has been blamedfor talking so much--of races; of families; of their wars, theirstruggles, their exterminations; of races favoured, of races rejected; ofremnants being saved, to continue the race; of hereditary tendencies, hereditary excellencies, hereditary guilt. Its sense of the reality andimportance of descent is so intense, that it speaks of a whole tribe or awhole family by the name of its common ancestor; and the whole nation ofthe Jews is Israel, to the end. And if I be told this is true of the OldTestament, but not of the New: I must answer, --What? Does not St Paulhold the identity of the whole Jewish race with Israel their forefather, as strongly as any prophet of the Old Testament? And what is the centralhistoric fact, save One, of the New Testament, but the conquest ofJerusalem; the dispersion, all but destruction of a race, not by miracle, but by invasion, because found wanting when weighed in the stern balancesof natural and social law?

Think over this. I only suggest the thought: but I do not suggest it inhaste. Think over it, by the light which our Lord's parables, Hisanalogies between the physical and social constitution of the world, afford; and consider whether those awful words--fulfilled then, andfulfilled so often since--"The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, " may not be thesupreme instance, the most complex development, of a law which runsthrough all created things, down to the moss which struggles forexistence on the rock. 

Do I say that this is all? That man is merely a part of nature, thepuppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies? That brutecompetition is the one law of his life? That he is doomed for ever to bethe slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine struggle forexistence? God forbid. I believe not only in nature, but in Grace. Ibelieve that this is man's fate only as long as he sows to the flesh, andof the flesh reaps corruption. I believe that if he will

 Strive upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die;

if he will be even as wise as the social animals; as the ant and the bee, who have risen, if not to the virtue of all-embracing charity, at leastto the virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism: then he will risetowards a higher sphere; towards that kingdom of God of which it iswritten--"He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. "

Whether that be matter of natural Theology, I cannot tell as yet. But asfor all the former questions; and all that St Paul means when he talks ofthe law, and how the works of the flesh bring men under the law, sternand terrible and destructive, though holy and just and good, --they arematter of natural Theology; and I believe that here, as elsewhere, Scripture and Science will be ultimately found to coincide. 

But here we have to face an objection which you will often hear now fromscientific men, and still oftener from non-scientific men; who willsay--It matters not to us whether Scripture contradicts or does notcontradict a scientific natural Theology; for we hold such a science tobe impossible and naught. The old Jews put a God into nature; andtherefore of course they could see, as you see, what they had already putthere. But we see no God in nature. We do not deny the existence of aGod. We merely say that scientific research does not reveal Him to us. We see no marks of design in physical phenomena. What used to beconsidered as marks of design can be better explained by considering themas the results of evolution according to necessary laws; and you andScripture make a mere assumption when you ascribe them to the operationof a mind like the human mind. 

Now on this point I believe we may answer fearlessly--If you cannot seeit, we cannot help you. If the heavens do not declare to you the gloryof God, nor the firmament show you His handy-work, then our poorarguments will not show them. "The eye can only see that which it bringswith it the power of seeing. " We can only reassert that we see designeverywhere; and that the vast majority of the human race in every age andclime has seen it. Analogy from experience, sound induction--as wehold--from the works not only of men but of animals, has made it an allbut self-evident truth to us, that wherever there is arrangement, theremust be an arranger; wherever there is adaptation of means to an end, there must be an adapter; wherever an organization, there must be anorganizer. The existence of a designing God is no more demonstrable fromnature than the existence of other human beings independent of ourselves;or, indeed, than the existence of our own bodies. But, like the beliefin them, the belief in Him has become an article of our common sense. Andthat this designing mind is, in some respects, similar to the human mind, is proved to us--as Sir John Herschel well puts it--by the mere fact thatwe can discover and comprehend the processes of nature. 

But here again, if we be contradicted, we can only reassert. If the oldwords, "He that made the eye, shall he not see? he that planted the ear, shall he not hear?" do not at once commend themselves to the intellect ofany person, we shall never convince that person by any arguments drawnfrom the absurdity of conceiving the invention of optics by a blind man, or of music by a deaf one. 

So we will assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly: and more; we willsay, in spite of ridicule--That if such a God exists, final causes mustexist also. That the whole universe must be one chain of final causes. That if there be a Supreme Reason, he must have reason, and that a goodreason, for every physical phenomenon. 

We will tell the modern scientific man--You are nervously afraid of themention of final causes. You quote against them Bacon's saying, thatthey are barren virgins; that no physical fact was ever discovered orexplained by them. You are right: as far as regards yourselves. Youhave no business with final causes; because final causes are moralcauses: and you are physical students only. We, the natural Theologians, have business with them. Your duty is to find out the How of things:ours, to find out the Why. If you rejoin that we shall never find outthe Why, unless we first learn something of the How, we shall not denythat. It may be most useful, I had almost said necessary, that theclergy should have some scientific training. It may be most useful--Isometimes dream of a day when it will be considered necessary--that everycandidate for Ordination should be required to have passed creditably inat least one branch of physical science, if it be only to teach him themethod of sound scientific thought. But our having learnt the How, willnot make it needless, much less impossible, for us to study the Why. Itwill merely make more clear to us the things of which we have to studythe Why; and enable us to keep the How and the Why more religiously apartfrom each other. 

But if it be said--After all, there is no Why. The doctrine ofevolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with thatof final causes, --Let us answer boldly, --Not in the least. We mightaccept all that Mr Darwin, all that Professor Huxley, all that other mostable men, have so learnedly and so acutely written on physical science, and yet preserve our natural Theology on exactly the same basis as thaton which Butler and Paley left it. That we should have to develop it, Ido not deny. That we should have to relinquish it, I do. 

Let me press this thought earnestly on you. I know that many wiser andbetter men than I have fears on this point. I cannot share in them. 

All, it seems to me, that the new doctrines of evolution demand isthis:--We all agree--for the fact is patent--that our own bodies, andindeed the body of every living creature, are evolved from a seeminglysimple germ by natural laws, without visible action of any designing willor mind, into the full organization of a human or other creature. Yet wedo not say on that account--God did not create me: I only grew. We holdin this case to our old idea, and say--If there be evolution, there mustbe an evolver. Now the new physical theories only ask us, it seems tome, to extend this conception to the whole universe; to believe that notindividuals merely, but whole varieties and races; the total organizedlife on this planet; and, it may be, the total organization of theuniverse, have been evolved just as our bodies are, by natural lawsacting through circumstance. This may be true, or may be false. But allits truth can do to the natural Theologian will be to make him believethat the Creator bears the same relation to the whole universe, as thatCreator undeniably bears to every individual human body. 

I entreat you to weigh these words, which have not been written in haste;and I entreat you also, if you wish to see how little the new theory, that species may have been gradually created by variation, naturalselection, and so forth, interferes with the old theory of design, contrivance, and adaptation, nay, with the fullest admission ofbenevolent final causes--I entreat you, I say, to study Darwin's"Fertilization of Orchids"--a book which, whether his main theory be trueor not, will still remain a most valuable addition to natural Theology. 

For suppose that all the species of Orchids, and not only they, but theircongeners--the Gingers, the Arrowroots, the Bananas--are all thedescendants of one original form, which was most probably nearly alliedto the Snowdrop and the Iris. What then? Would that be one whit morewonderful, more unworthy of the wisdom and power of God, than if theywere, as most believe, created each and all at once, with their minuteand often imaginary shades of difference? What would the naturalTheologian have to say, were the first theory true, save that God's worksare even more wonderful that he always believed them to be? As for thetheory being impossible: we must leave the discussion of that to physicalstudents. It is not for us clergymen to limit the power of God. "Isanything too hard for the Lord?" asked the prophet of old; and we have aright to ask it as long as time shall last. If it be said that naturalselection is too simple a cause to produce such fantastic variety: that, again, is a question to be settled exclusively by physical students. Allwe have to say on the matter is--That we always knew that God works byvery simple, or seemingly simple, means; that the whole universe, as faras we could discern it, was one concatenation of the most simple means;that it was wonderful, yea, miraculous, in our eyes, that a child shouldresemble its parents, that the raindrops should make the grass grow, thatthe grass should become flesh, and the flesh sustenance for the thinkingbrain of man. Ought God to seem less or more august in our eyes, when weare told that His means are even more simple than we supposed? We heldhim to be Almighty and All-wise. Are we to reverence Him less or more, if we hear that His might is greater, His wisdom deeper, than we everdreamed? We believed that His care was over all His works; that HisProvidence watched perpetually over the whole universe. We weretaught--some of us at least--by Holy Scripture, to believe that the wholehistory of the universe was made up of special Providences. If, then, that should be true which Mr Darwin eloquently writes--"It may bemetaphorically said that natural selection is daily and hourlyscrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest;rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up that which is good, silently and incessantly working whenever and wherever opportunity offersat the improvement of every organic being, "--if that, I say, were provento be true: ought God's care and God's providence to seem less or moremagnificent in our eyes? Of old it was said by Him without whom nothingis made, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. " Shall we quarrel withScience, if she should show how those words are true? What, in one word, should we have to say but this?--We knew of old that God was so wise thatHe could make all things: but, behold, He is so much wiser than eventhat, that He can make all things make themselves. 

But it may be said--These notions are contrary to Scripture. I must begvery humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion. Scripture saysthat God created. But it nowhere defines that term. The means, the How, of Creation is nowhere specified. Scripture, again, says that organizedbeings were produced, each according to their kind. But it nowheredefines that term. What a kind includes; whether it includes or not thecapacity of varying--which is just the question in point--is nowherespecified. And I think it a most important rule in Scriptural exegesis, to be most cautious as to limiting the meaning of any term whichScripture itself has not limited, lest we find ourselves putting into theteaching of Scripture our own human theories or prejudices. Andconsider--Is not man a kind? And has not mankind varied, physically, intellectually, spiritually? Is not the Bible, from beginning to end, ahistory of the variations of mankind, for worse or for better, from theiroriginal type? Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope andgoodwill, on these new theories; for, correct or incorrect, they surelymark a tendency towards a more, not a less, Scriptural view of Nature. Are they not attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to escape fromthat shallow mechanical notion of the universe and its Creator which wastoo much in vogue in the eighteenth century among divines as well asphilosophers; the theory which Goethe, to do him justice--and after himMr Thomas Carlyle--have treated with such noble scorn; the theory, Imean, that God has wound up the universe like a clock, and left it totick by itself till it runs down, never troubling Himself with it; savepossibly--for even that was only half believed--by rare miraculousinterferences with the laws which He Himself had made? Out of thatchilling dream of a dead universe ungoverned by an absent God, the humanmind, in Germany especially, tried during the early part of this centuryto escape by strange roads; roads by which there was no escape, becausethey were not laid down on the firm ground of scientific facts. Then, indespair, men turned to the facts which they had neglected; and said--Weare weary of philosophy: we will study you, and you alone. As for God, who can find Him? And they have worked at the facts like gallant andhonest men; and their work, like all good work, has produced, in the lastfifty years, results more enormous than they even dreamed. But what arethey finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena whichthe scalpel and the microscope can show? A something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnipotent, retreating before them deeper and deeper, the deeper they delve: namely, the life which shapes and makes; that which the old schoolmen called"forma formativa, " which they call vital force and what not--metaphorsall, or rather counters to mark an unknown quantity, as if they shouldcall it _x_ or _y_. One says--It is all vibrations: but his reason, unsatisfied, asks--And what makes the vibrations vibrate? Another--It isall physiological units: but his reason asks--What is the "physis, " thenature and innate tendency of the units? A third--It may be all causedby infinitely numerous "gemmules:" but his reason asks him--What putsinfinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy? Imention these theories not to laugh at them. I have all due respect forthose who have put them forth. Nor would it interfere with mytheological creed, if any or all of them were proven to be trueto-morrow. I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories, true or false, still lies that unknown _x_. Scientific men are becomingmore and more aware of it; I had almost said, ready to worship it. Moreand more the noblest-minded of them are engrossed by the mystery of thatunknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always escapingthem, though they cannot escape it. How should they escape it? Was itnot written of old--"Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whithershall I flee from Thy Spirit?"

Ah that we clergymen would summon up courage to tell them that! Courageto tell them, what need not hamper for a moment the freedom of theirinvestigations, what will add to them a sanction--I may say asanctity--that the unknown _x_ which lies below all phenomena, which isfor ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part of thewhole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling of every cellof protoplasm, is none other than that which the old Hebrews called--by ametaphor, no doubt: for how can man speak of the unseen, save inmetaphors drawn from the seen?--but by the only metaphor adequate toexpress the perpetual and omnipresent miracle; The Breath of God; TheSpirit who is The Lord, and The Giver of Life. 

In the rest, let us too think, and let us too observe. For if we areignorant, not merely of the results of experimental science, but of themethods thereof: then we and the men of science shall have no commonground whereon to stretch out kindly hands to each other. 

But let us have patience and faith; and not suppose in haste, that whenthose hands are stretched out it will be needful for us to leave ourstanding-ground, or to cast ourselves down from the pinnacle of thetemple to earn popularity; above all, from earnest students who are toohigh-minded to care for popularity themselves. 

True, if we have an intelligent belief in those Creeds and thoseScriptures which are committed to our keeping, then our philosophy cannotbe that which is just now in vogue. But all we have to do, I believe, isto wait. Nominalism, and that "Sensationalism" which has sprung fromNominalism, are running fast to seed; Comtism seems to me its supremeeffort: after which the whirligig of Time may bring round its revenges:and Realism, and we who hold the Realist creeds, may have our turn. Onlywait. When a grave, able, and authoritative philosopher explains amother's love of her newborn babe, as Professor Bain has done, in areally eloquent passage of his book on the _Emotions and the Will_, {0a}then the end of that philosophy is very near; and an older, simpler, morehuman, and, as I hold, more philosophic explanation of that naturalphenomenon, and of all others, may get a hearing. 

Only wait: and fret not yourselves; else shall you be moved to do evil. Remember the saying of the wise man--"Go not after the world. She turnson her axis; and if thou stand still long enough, she will turn round tothee. "

SERMON I. THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS. A GOOD FRIDAY SERMON. 

PHILIPPIANS II. 5-8. 

 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. 

The second Lesson for this morning's service, and the chapter whichfollows it, describe the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, both God andMan. They give us the facts, in language most awful from its perfectcalmness, most pathetic from its perfect simplicity. But the passage ofSt Paul which I have chosen for my text gives us an explanation of thosefacts which is utterly amazing. That He who stooped to die upon theCross is Very God of Very God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, is a thought so overwhelming, whenever we try to comprehend even a partof it in our small imaginations, that it is no wonder if, in all ages, many a pious soul, as it contemplated the Cross of Christ, has been raptitself into a passion of gratitude, an ecstasy of wonder and of love, which is beautiful, honourable, just, and in the deepest sense mostrational, whenever it is spontaneous and natural. 

But there have been thousands, as there may be many here to-day, ofcolder temperament; who would distrust in themselves, even while theyrespected in others, any violence of religious emotion: yet they too havefound, and you too may find, in contemplating the Passion of Christ, asatisfaction deeper than that of any emotion; a satisfaction not to theheart, still less to the brain, but to that far deeper and divinerfaculty within us all--our moral sense; that God-given instinct whichmakes us discern and sympathise with all that is beautiful and true andgood. 

And so it has befallen, for eighteen hundred years, that thousands whohave thought earnestly and carefully on God and on the character of God, on man and on the universe, and on their relation to Him who made themboth, have found in the Incarnation and the Passion of the Son of God theperfect satisfaction of their moral wants; the surest key to the facts ofthe spiritual world; the complete assurance that, in spite of all seemingdifficulties and contradictions, the Maker of the world was a RighteousBeing, who had founded the world in righteousness; that the Father ofSpirits was a perfect Father, who in His only-begotten Son had shewnforth His perfectness, in such a shape and by such acts that men mightnot only adore it, but sympathise with it; not only thank Him for it, butcopy it; and become, though at an infinite distance, perfect as theirFather in heaven is perfect, and full of grace and truth, like that Sonwho is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of Hisperson. Such a satisfaction have they found in looking upon thetriumphal entry into Jerusalem of Him who knew that it would be followedby the revolt of the fickle mob, and the desertion of His disciples, andthe Cross of Calvary, and all the hideous circumstances of a Romanmalefactor's death. 

But there have been those, and there are still, who have found no suchsatisfaction in the story which the Gospel tells, and still less in theexplanation which the Epistle gives; who have, as St Paul says, stumbledat the stumblingblock of the Cross. 

It would be easy to ignore such persons, were they scoffers orprofligates: but when they number among their ranks men of virtuouslives, of earnest and most benevolent purposes, of careful and learnedthought, and of a real reverence for God, or for those theories of theuniverse which some of them are inclined to substitute for God, they mustat least be listened to patiently, and answered charitably, as men who, however faulty their opinions may be, prove, by their virtue and theirdesire to do good, that if they have lost sight of Christ, Christ has notlost sight of them. 

To such men the idea of the Incarnation, and still more, that of thePassion, is derogatory to the very notion of a God. That a God shouldsuffer, and that a God should die, is shocking--and, to do them justice, I believe they speak sincerely--to their notions of the absolute majesty, the undisturbed serenity, of the Author of the universe; of Him in whomall things live and move and have their being; who dwells in the light towhich none may approach. And therefore they have, in every age, triedvarious expedients to escape from a doctrine which seemed repugnant tothat most precious part of them, their moral sense. In the earliercenturies of the Church they tried to shew that St John and St Paulspoke, not of one who was Very God of Very God, but of some highest andmost primeval of all creatures, Emanation, AEon, or what not. In theselater times, when the belief in such beings, and even their very names, have become dim and dead, men have tried to shew that the words ofScripture apply to a mere man. They have seen in Christ--and they havereverenced and loved Him for what they have seen in Him--the noblest andpurest, the wisest and the most loving of all human beings; and haveattributed such language as that in the text, which--translate it as youwill--ascribes absolute divinity, and nothing less, to our Lord JesusChrist--they have attributed it, I say, to some fondness for Orientalhyperbole, and mystic Theosophy, in the minds of the Apostles. Others, again, have gone further, and been, I think, more logically honest. Theyhave perceived that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as His words arereported, attributed divinity to Himself, just as much as did HisApostles. Such a saying as that one, "Before Abraham was, I am, " andothers beside it, could be escaped from only by one of two methods. Tothe first of them I shall not allude in this sacred place, popular as alate work has made it in its native France, and I fear in Englandlikewise. The other alternative, more reverent indeed, but, as Ibelieve, just as mistaken, is to suppose that the words were neveruttered at all; that Christ--it is not I who say it--possibly neverexisted at all; that His whole story was gradually built up, like certainfabulous legends of Romish saints, out of the moral consciousness ofvarious devout persons during the first three centuries; each of whomadded to the portrait, as it grew more and more lovely under the hands ofsucceeding generations, some new touch of beauty, some fresh trait, halfinvented, half traditional, of purity, love, nobleness, majesty; till menat last became fascinated with the ideal to which they themselves hadcontributed; and fell down and worshipped their own humanity; andchristened that The Son of God. 

If I believed that theory, or either of the others, I need not say that Ishould not be preaching here. I will go further, and say, that if Ibelieved either of those theories, or any save that which stands out inthe text, sharp-cut and colossal like some old Egyptian Memnon, and likethat statue, with a smile of sweetness on its lips which tempers theroyal majesty of its looks, --if I did not believe that, I say--I shouldbe inclined to confess with Homer of old, that man is the most miserableof all the beasts of the field. 

For consider but this one argument. It is no new one; it has lain, Ibelieve, unspoken and instinctive, yet most potent and inspiring, in manya mind, in many an age. If there be a God, must He not be the best ofall beings? But if He who suffered on Calvary were not God, but a merecreature; then--as I hold--there must have been a creature in theuniverse better than God Himself. Or if He who suffered on Calvary hadnot the character which is attributed to Him, --if Christ's love, condescension, self-sacrifice, be a mere imagination, built up by thefancy of man; then has Christendom for 1800 years been fancying foritself a better God than Him who really exists. 

Thousands of the best men and women in the world through all the ages ofChristendom have agreed with this argument, under some shape or other. Thousands there have been, and I trust there will be thousands hereafter, who have felt, as they looked upon the Cross of the Son of God, not thatit was derogatory to Christ to believe that He had suffered, butderogatory to Him to believe that He had not suffered: for only bysuffering, as far as we can conceive, could He perfectly manifest Hisglory and His Father's glory; and shew that it was full of grace. 

Full of grace. Think, I beg you, over that one word. 

We all agree that God is good; all at least do so, who worship Him inspirit and in truth. We adore His majesty, because it is the moral andspiritual majesty of perfect goodness. We give thanks to Him for Hisgreat glory, because it is the glory, not merely of perfect power, wisdom, order, justice; but of perfect love, of perfect magnanimity, beneficence, activity, condescension, pity--in one word, of perfectgrace. 

But how much must that last word comprehend, as long as there is miseryand evil in this world, or in any other corner of the whole universe?Grace, to be perfect, must shew itself by graciously forgiving penitents. Pity, to be perfect, must shew itself by helping the miserable. Beneficence, to be perfect, must shew itself by delivering the oppressed. 

The old prophets and psalmists saw as much as this; and preached thatthis too was part of the essence and character of God. 

They saw that the Lord was gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and ofgreat kindness, and repented Him of the evil. They saw that the Lordhelped them to right who suffered wrong, and fed the hungry; that theLord loosed men out of prison, the Lord gave sight to the blind; that theLord helped the fallen, and defended the fatherless and widow. They sawtoo a further truth, and a more awful one. They saw that the Lord wasactually and practically King of kings and Lord of lords: that as such Hecould come, and did come at times, rewarding the loyal, putting down therebellious, and holding high assize from place to place, that He mightexecute judgment and justice; beholding all the wrong that was done onearth, and coming, as it were, out of His place, at each historic crisis, each revolution in the fortunes of mankind, to make inquisition forblood, to trample His enemies beneath His feet, and to inaugurate someprogress toward that new heaven and new earth, wherein dwellethrighteousness, and righteousness alone. That vision, in whatsoevermetaphors it may be wrapped up, is real and true, and will be so as longas evil exists within this universe. Were it not true, there would besomething wanting to the perfect justice and the perfect benevolence ofGod. 

But is this all? If this be all, what have we Christians learnt from theNew Testament which is not already taught us in the Old? Where is thatnew, deeper, higher revelation of the goodness of God, which Jesus ofNazareth preached, and which John and Paul and all the apostles believedthat they had found in Jesus Himself? They believed, and all those whoaccepted their gospel believed, that they had found for that word"grace, " a deeper meaning than had ever been revealed to the prophets ofold time; that grace and goodness, if they were perfect, involved self-sacrifice. 

And does not our own highest reason tell us that they were right? Doesnot our own highest reason, which is our moral sense, tell us thatperfect goodness requires, not merely that we should pity ourfellow-creatures, not merely that we should help them, not merely that weshould right them magisterially and royally, without danger or injury toourselves: but that we should toil for them, suffer for them, and if needbe, as the highest act of goodness, die for them at last? Is not thisthe very element of goodness which we all confess to be most noble, beautiful, pure, heroical, divine? Divine even in sinful and fallen man, who must forgive because he needs to be forgiven; who must help othersbecause he needs help himself; who, if he suffers for others, deserves tosuffer, and probably will suffer, in himself. But how much moreheroical, and how much more divine in a Being who needs neitherforgiveness nor help, and who is as far from deserving as He is fromneeding to suffer! And shall this noblest form of goodness be possibleto sinful man, and yet impossible to a perfectly good God? Shall we saythat the martyr at the stake, the patriot dying for his country, themissionary spending his life for the good of heathens; ay more, shall wesay that those women, martyrs by the pang without the palm, who in secretchambers, in lowly cottages, have sacrificed and do still sacrifice selfand all the joys of life for the sake of simple duties, little charities, kindness unnoticed and unknown by all, save God--shall we say that allwho have from the beginning of the world shewn forth the beauty of self-sacrifice have had no divine prototype in heaven?--That they have beenexercising a higher grace, a nobler form of holiness, than He who madethem, and who, as they believe, and we ought to believe, inspired themwith that spirit of unselfishness, which if it be not the Spirit of God, whose spirit can it be? Shall we say this, and so suppose them holierthan their own Maker? Shall we say this, and suppose that they, whenthey attributed self-sacrifice to God, made indeed a God in their ownimage, but a God of greater love, greater pity, greater graciousnessbecause of greater unselfishness, than Him who really exists?

Shall we say this, the very words whereof confute themselves and shockalike our reason and our conscience? Or shall we say with St John andwith St Paul, that if men can be so good, God must be infinitely better;that if man can love so much, God must love more; if man, by shaking offthe selfishness which is his bane, can do such deeds, then God, in whomis no selfishness at all, may at least have done a deed as far abovetheirs as the heavens are above the earth? Shall we not confess thatman's self-sacrifice is but a poor and dim reflection of theself-sacrifice of God, and say with St John, "Herein is love, not that weloved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiationfor our sins;" and with St Paul, "Scarcely for a righteous man would onedie, but God commendeth His love to us in this, that while we were yetsinners, Christ died for us"? Shall we not say this: and find, asthousands have found ere now, in the Cross of Calvary the perfectsatisfaction of our highest moral instincts, the realization in act andfact of the highest idea which we can form of perfect condescension, namely, self-sacrifice exercised by a Being of whom perfectcondescension, love and self-sacrifice were not required by aught inheaven or earth, save by the necessity of His own perfect andinconceivable goodness?

We reverence, and rightly, the majesty of God. How can that infinitemajesty be proved more perfectly than by condescension equally infinite?We adore, and justly, the serenity of God, who has neither parts norpassions. How can that serenity be proved more perfectly, than bypassing, still serene, through all the storm and crowd of circumstancewhich disturb the weak serenity of man; by passing through poverty, helplessness, temptation, desertion, shame, torture, death; and passingthrough them all victorious and magnificent; with a moral calm asundisturbed, a moral purity as unspotted, as it had been from alleternity, as it will be to all eternity, in that abysmal source of being, which we call the Bosom of the Father? It is the moral majesty of God, as shewn on Calvary, which I uphold. Shew that Calvary was notinconsistent with that; shew that Calvary was not inconsistent with thegoodness of God, but rather the perfection of that goodness shewn forthin time and space: then all other arguments connected with God's majestymay go for nought, provided that God's moral majesty be safe. ProvidedGod be proved to be morally infinite--that is, in plain English, infinitely good; provided God be proved to be morally absolute--that is, absolutely unable to have His goodness affected by any circumstanceoutside Him, even by the death upon the Cross: then let the rest go. Allwords about absoluteness and infinity and majesty, beyond that, arephysical--metaphors drawn from matter, which have nothing to do with Godwho is a Spirit. 

But God's infinite power too often means, in the minds of men, only someabstract notion of boundless bodily strength. God's omniscience toooften means, only some physical fancy of innumerable telescopic ormicroscopic eyes. God's infinite wisdom too often means, only someabstract notion of boundless acuteness of brain. And lastly--I am sorryto have to say it, but it must be said, --God's infinite majesty too oftenmeans, in the minds of some superstitious people, mere pride, andobstinacy, and cruelty, as of the blind will of some enormous animalwhich does what it chooses, whether right or wrong. 

If the mystery of the Cross contradict any of these carnal or materialnotions, so much the more glory to the mystery of the Cross. Onespiritual infinite, one spiritual absolute, it does not contradict: andthat is the infinite and absolute goodness of God. 

Let all the rest remain a mystery, so long as the mystery of the Crossgives us faith for all the rest. 

Faith, I say. The mystery of evil, of sorrow, of death, the Gospel doesnot pretend to solve: but it tells us that the mystery is proved to besoluble. For God Himself has taken on Himself the task of solving it;and has proved by His own act, that if there be evil in the world, it isnone of His; for He hates it, and fights against it, and has foughtagainst it to the death. 

It simply says--Have faith in God. Ask no more of Him--Why hast Thoumade me thus? Ask no more--Why do the wicked prosper on the earth? Askno more--Whence pain and death, war and famine, earthquake and tempest, and all the ills to which flesh is heir?

All fruitless questionings, all peevish repinings, are precludedhenceforth by the passion and death of Christ. 

Dost thou suffer? Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God. Dostthou sympathize with thy fellow-men? Thou canst not sympathize more thanthe Son of God. Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them, even atthe price of thine own blood? Thou canst not long more ardently than theSon of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them and thee. What if the end be not yet? What if evil still endure? What if themedicine have not yet conquered the disease? Have patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ's Cross, and holdestfast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart. For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is theeverlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not Hisonly-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. Whatsoever else isdoubtful, this at least is sure, --that good must conquer, because God isgood; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death. 

SERMON II. THE PERFECT LOVE. 

1 JOHN IV. 10. 

 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

This is Passion-week; the week in which, according to ancient and mostwholesome rule, we are bidden to think of the Passion of Jesus Christ ourLord. To think of that, however happy and comfortable, however busy andeager, however covetous and ambitious, however giddy and frivolous, however free, or at least desirous to be free, from suffering of anykind, we are ourselves. To think of the sufferings of Christ, and learnhow grand it is to suffer for the Right. 

And why?

Passion-week gives but one answer: but that answer is the one best worthlistening to. 

It is grand and good to suffer for the Right, because God, in Christ, hassuffered for the Right. 

Let us consider this awhile. 

It is a first axiom in sound theology, that there is nothing good in man, which was not first in God. 

Now we all, I trust, hold God to be supremely good. We ascribe to Him, in perfection, every kind of goodness of which we can conceive in man. Wesay God is just; God is truthful; God is pure; God is bountiful; God ismerciful; and, in one word, God is Love. 

God is Love. But if we say that, do we not say that God is good with afresh form of goodness, which is not justice, nor truthfulness, norpurity, bounty, nor mercy, though without them--never forget that--itcannot exist? And is not that fresh goodness, which we have not definedyet, the very kind of goodness which we prize most in human beings? Thevery kind of goodness which makes us prize and admire love, becausewithout it there is no true love, no love worth calling by that sacredand heavenly name? And what is that?

What--save self-sacrifice? For what is the love worth which does notshew itself in action; and more, which does not shew itself in Passion, in the true sense of that word, which this week teaches us: namely, insuffering? Not merely in acting for, but in daring, in struggling, ingrieving, in agonizing, and, if need be, in dying for, the object of itslove?

Every mother in this church will give but one answer to that question;for mothers give it among the very animals; and the deer who fights forher fawn, the bird who toils for her nestlings, the spider who willrather die than drop her bag of eggs, know at least that love is notworth calling love, unless it can dare and suffer for the thing it loves. The most gracious of all virtues, therefore, is self-sacrifice; and isthere no like grace in God, the fount of grace? Has God, whose name isLove, never dared, never suffered, even to the death, in the mightinessof a perfect Love?

We Christians say that He has. We say so, because it has been revealedto us, not by flesh and blood, not by brain or nerves, not by logic oremotions, but by the Spirit of God, to whom our inmost spirits andhighest reasons have made answer--A God who has suffered for man? Thatis so beautiful, that it must be true. 

For otherwise we should be left--as I have argued at length elsewhere--inthis strange paradox:--that man has fancied to himself for 1800 years amore beautiful God, a nobler God, a better God than the God who actuallyexists. It must be so, if God is not capable of that highest virtue ofself-sacrifice, while man has been believing that He is, and that uponthe first Good Friday He sacrificed Himself for man, out of the intensityof a boundless Love. A better God imagined by man, than the actual Godwho made man? We have only to state that absurdity, I trust, to laugh itto scorn. 

Let us confess, then, that the Passion of Christ, and the mystery of GoodFriday, is as reasonable a belief to the truly wise, as it is comfortableto the weary and the suffering; let us agree that one of the wisest ofEnglishmen, of late gone to his rest, spoke well when he said, "As longas women and sorrow exist on earth, so long will the gospel ofChristianity find an echo in the human heart. " Let it find an echo inyours. But it will only find one, in as far as you can enter into themystery of Passion-week; in as far as you can learn from Passion-week thetruest and highest theology; and see what God is like, and therefore whatyou must try to be like likewise. 

Let us think, then, awhile of the mystery of Passion-week; the mystery ofthe Cross of Christ. Christ Himself was looking on the coming Cross, during this Passion-week; ay, and for many a week before. Nay rather, had He not looked on it from all eternity? For is He not the Lamb slainfrom the foundation of the world? Therefore we may well look on it withHim. It may seem, at first, a painful bight. But shall it cast over ourminds only gloom and darkness? Or shall we not see on the Cross the fullrevelation of Light; of the Light which lightens every man that comesinto the world: and find that painful, not because of its darkness, butas the blaze of full sunshine is painful, from unbearable intensity ofwarmth and light? Let us see. 

On the Cross of Calvary, then, God the Father shewed His own characterand the character of His co-equal and co-eternal Son, and of The Spiritwhich proceeds from both. For there He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. On the Cross of Calvary, not by the will ofman, but by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, was offeredbefore God the one and only full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sin of the whole world. God Himselfdid this. It was not done by any other being to alter His will; it wasdone to fulfil His will. It was not done to satisfy God's anger; it wasdone to satisfy God's love. Therefore Good Friday was well and wiselycalled by our forefathers Good Friday; because it shews, as no other daycan do, that God is good; that God's will to men, in spite of all theirsins, is a good will; that so boundless, so utterly unselfish andcondescending, is the eternal love of God, that when an insignificantrace in a small and remote planet fell, and went wrong, and was in dangerof ruin, there was nothing that God would not dare, God would not suffer, for the sake of even such as us, vile earth and miserable sinners. 

Yes, this is the good news of Passion-week; a gospel which men are tooapt to forget, even to try to forget, as long as they are comfortable andprosperous, lazy and selfish. The comfortable prosperous man shrinksfrom the thought of Christ on His Cross. It tells him that better menthan he have had to suffer; that The Son of God Himself had to suffer. And he does not like suffering; he prefers comfort. The lazy, selfishman shrinks from the sight of Christ on His Cross; for it rebukes hislaziness and selfishness. Christ's Cross says to him--Thou art ignobleand base, as long as thou art lazy and selfish. Rise up, do something, dare something, suffer something, if need be, for the sake of thy fellow-creatures. Be of use. Take trouble. Face discomfort, contradiction, loss of worldly advantage, if it must be, for the sake of speaking truthand doing right. If thou wilt not do as much as that, then the simplestsoldier who goes to die in battle for his duty, is a better man thanthou, a nobler man than thou, more like Christ and more like God. Thatis what Christ's Cross preaches to the lazy, selfish man; and he feels inhis heart that the sermon is true: but he does not like it. He turnsfrom it, and says in his heart--Oh! Christ's Cross is a painful subject, and Passion-week and Good Friday a painful time. I will think ofsomething more genial, more peaceful, more agreeable than sorrow, andshame, and agony, and death; Good Friday is too sad a day for me. 

Yes, so a man says too often, as long as the fine weather lasts, and allis smooth and bright. But when the tempest comes; when poverty comes, affliction, anxiety, shame, sickness, bereavement, and still more, whenpersecution comes on a man; when he tries to speak truth and do right;and finds, as he will too often find, that people, instead of loving himand praising him for speaking truth and doing right, hate him andpersecute him for it: then, then indeed Passion-week begins to meansomething to a man; and just because it is the saddest of all times, itlooks to him the brightest of all times. For in his misery and confusionhe looks up to heaven and asks--Is there any one in heaven whounderstands all this? Does God understand my trouble? Does God feel formy trouble? Does God care for my trouble? Does God know what troublemeans? Or must I fight the battle of life alone, without sympathy orhelp from God who made me, and has put me here? Then, then does theCross of Christ bring a message to that man such as no other thing orbeing on earth can bring. For it says to him--God does understand theeutterly. For Christ understands thee. Christ feels for thee. Christfeels with thee. Christ has suffered for thee, and suffered with thee. Thou canst go through nothing which Christ has not gone through. He, theSon of God, endured poverty, fear, shame, agony, death for thee, that Hemight be touched with the feeling of thine infirmity, and help thee toendure, and bring thee safe through all to victory and peace. 

But again, Passion-week, and above all Good Friday, is a good time, because it teaches us, above all days, what it is to be good, and whatgoodness means. Therefore remember this, all of you, and take it homewith you for the year to come. He who has learnt the lesson of Passion-week, and practises it; he and he only is a good man. 

Nay more, Passion-week tells us, I believe, what is the law according towhich the whole world of man and of things, yea, the whole universe, sun, moon, and stars, is made: and that is, the law of self-sacrifice; thatnothing lives merely for itself; that each thing is ordained by God tohelp the things around it, even at its own expense. That is a hardsaying: and yet it must be true. The soundest Theology and the highestReason tell us that it must be so. For there cannot be two Holy Spirits. Now the Spirit by which the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed himself upon theCross is The Holy Spirit. And the Spirit by which the Lord Jesus Christmade all worlds is The Holy Spirit. But the spirit by which Hesacrificed Himself on the Cross is the spirit of self-sacrifice. Andtherefore the spirit by which He made the world is the spirit of self-sacrifice likewise; and self-sacrifice is the law and rule on which theuniverse is founded. At least, that is the true Catholic faith, as faras my poor intellect can conceive it; and in that faith I will live anddie. 

There are those who, now-a-days, will laugh at such a notion, andsay--Self-sacrifice? It is not self-sacrifice which keeps the worldgoing among men, or animals, or even the plants under our feet: butselfishness. Competition, they say, is the law of the universe. Everything has to take care of itself, fight for itself, compete freelyand pitilessly with everything round it, till the weak are killed off, and only the strong survive; and so, out of the free play of the self-interest of each, you get the greatest possible happiness of the greatestpossible number. 

Do we indeed? I should have thought that unbridled selfishness, and theinternecine struggle of opposing interests, had already reduced manynations, and seemed likely to reduce all mankind, if it went on, to thatstate of the greatest possible misery of the greatest number, from whichour blessed Lord, as in this very week, died to deliver us. At allevents, if that is to be the condition of man, and of society, then manis not made in the likeness of God, and has no need to be led by theSpirit of God. For what the likeness of God and the Spirit of God are, Passion-week tells us--namely, Love which knows no self-interest; Lovewhich cares not for itself; Love which throws its own life away, that itmay save those who have hated it, rebelled against it, put it to afelon's death. 

My good friends, instead of believing the carnal and selfish philosophywhich cries, Every man for himself--I will not finish the proverb in thisHoly place, awfully and literally true as the latter half of itis--instead of believing that, believe the message of Passion-week, whichspeaks rather thus: telling us that not selfishness, but unselfishness, mutual help and usefulness, is the law and will of God; and thattherefore the whole universe, and all that God has made, is very good. And what does Passion-week say to men?

 "Could we but crush that ever-craving lust For bliss, which kills all bliss; and lose our life, Our barren unit life, to find again A thousand lives in those for whom we die: So were we men and women, and should hold Our rightful place in God's great universe, Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will or nature, Nought lives for self. All, all, from crown to footstool. The Lamb, before the world's foundation slain; The angels, ministers to God's elect; The sun, who only shines to light a world; The clouds, whose glory is to die in showers; The fleeting streams, who in their ocean graves Flee the decay of stagnant self-content; The oak, ennobled by the shipwright's axe; The soil, which yields its marrow to the flower; The flower which breeds a thousand velvet worms, Born only to be prey to every bird-- All spend themselves on others; and shall man, Whose twofold being is the mystic knot Which couples earth and heaven--doubly bound, As being both worm and angel, to that service By which both worms and angels hold their lives-- Shall he, whose very breath is debt on debt, Refuse, forsooth, to see what God has made him? No, let him shew himself the creatures' lord By freewill gift of that self-sacrifice Which they, perforce, by nature's law must suffer; Take up his cross, and follow Christ the Lord. "

And thus Passion-week tells all men in what true goodness lies. In self-sacrifice. In it Christ on His Cross shewed men what was the likeness ofGod, the goodness of God, the glory of God--to suffer for sinful man. 

On this day Christ said--ay, and His Cross says still, and will say toall eternity--Wouldest thou be good? Wouldest thou be like God? Thenwork, and dare, and, if need be, suffer, for thy fellow-men. On this dayChrist consecrated, and, as it were, offered up to the Father in His ownbody on the Cross, all loving actions, unselfish actions, mercifulactions, generous actions, heroic actions, which man has done, or everwill do. From Him, from His Spirit, their strength came; and thereforeHe is not ashamed to call them brethren. He is the King of the noblearmy of martyrs; of all who suffer for love, and truth, and justice'sake; and to all such he says--Thou hast put on my likeness, and followedmy footsteps; thou hast suffered for my sake, and I too have suffered forthy sake, and enabled thee to suffer in like wise; and in Me thou too arta son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased. 

Oh, let us contemplate this week Christ on His Cross, sacrificing Himselffor us and all mankind; and may that sight help to cast out of us alllaziness and selfishness, and make us vow obedience to the spirit of self-sacrifice, the Spirit of Christ and of God, which was given to us at ourbaptism. And let us give, as we are most bound, in all humility andcontrition of heart, thanks, praise, and adoration, to that immortalLamb, who abideth for ever in the midst of the throne of God, the Lambslain before the foundation of the world, by Whom all things consist; andWho in this week died on the Cross in mortal flesh and blood, that Hemight make this a good week to all mankind, and teach selfish man thatonly by being unselfish can he too be good; and only by self-sacrificebecome perfect, even as The Father in heaven is perfect. 

SERMON III. THE SPIRIT OF WHITSUNTIDE. 

ISAIAH XI. 2. 

 The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. 

This is Isaiah's description of the Spirit of Whitsuntide; the royalSpirit which was to descend, and did descend without measure, on theideal and perfect King, even on Jesus Christ our Lord, the only-begottenSon of God. 

That Spirit is the Spirit of God; and therefore the Spirit of Christ. 

Let us consider a while what that Spirit is. 

He is the Spirit of love. For God is love; and He is the Spirit of God. Of that there can be no doubt. 

He is the Spirit of boundless love and charity, which is the Spirit ofthe Father, and the Spirit of the Son likewise. For when by that Spiritof love the Father sent the Son into the world that the world through Himmight be saved, then the Son, by the same Spirit of love, came into theworld, and humbled Himself, and took on Him the form of a slave, and wasobedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. 

The Spirit of God, then, is the Spirit of love. 

But the text describes this Spirit in different words. According toIsaiah, the Spirit of the Lord is the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of Counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fearof the Lord--in one word, that I may put it as simply as I can--thespirit of wisdom. 

Now, is the spirit of wisdom the same as the spirit of love?

Sound theology, which is the highest reason, tells us that it must be so. For consider:

If the spirit of love is the Spirit of God, and the spirit of wisdom isthe Spirit of God, then they must be the same spirit. For if they be twodifferent spirits, then there must be two Holy Spirits; for any and everySpirit of God must be holy, --what else can He be? Unholy? I leave youto answer that. 

But two Holy Spirits there cannot be; for holiness, which is wisdom, justice, and love, is one and indivisible; and as the Athanasian Creedtells us, and as our highest reason ought to tell us, there is but oneHoly Spirit, who must be at once a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of love. 

To suppose anything else; to suppose that God's wisdom and God's love, orthat God's justice and God's love, are different from each other, orlimit each other, or oppose each other, or are anything but one and thesame eternally, is to divide God's substance; to deny that God is One:which is forbidden us, rightly, and according to the highest reason, bythe Athanasian Creed. 

But more; experience will shew us that the spirit of love is the same asthe spirit of wisdom; that if any man wishes to be truly wise andprudent, his best way--I may say his only way--is to be loving andcharitable. 

The experience of the apostles proves it. They were, I presume, the mostperfectly loving and charitable of men; they sacrificed all for the sakeof doing good; they counted not their own lives dear to them; theyendured--what did they not endure?--for the one object of doing good tomen; and--what is harder, still harder, for any human being, because itrequires not merely enthusiasm, but charity, they made themselves (StPaul at least) all things to all men, if by any means they might savesome. 

But were they wise in so doing? We may judge of a man's wisdom, myfriends, by his success. We English are very apt to do so. We likepractical men. We say--I will tell you what a man is, by what he can do. 

Now, judged by that rule, surely the apostles' method of winning men bylove proved itself a wise method. What did the apostles do? They hadthe most enormous practical success that men ever had. They, twelve poormen, set out to convert mankind by loving them: and they succeeded. 

Remember, moreover, that the text speaks of this Spirit of the Lord beinggiven to One who was to be a King, a Ruler, a Guide, and a Judge of men;who was to exercise influence over men for their good. This prophecy wasfulfilled first in the King of kings, our Lord Jesus Christ: but it wasfulfilled also in His apostles, who were, in their own way and measure, kings of men, exercising a vast influence over them. And how? By theroyal Spirit of love. In the apostles the Spirit of love and charityproved Himself to be also the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. Hegave them such a converting, subduing, alluring power over men's hearts, as no men have had, before or since. And He will prove Himself to havethe same power in us. Our own experience will be the same as theapostles' experience. 

I say this deliberately. The older we grow, the more we understand ourown lives and histories, the more we shall see that the spirit of wisdomis the spirit of love; that the true way to gain influence over ourfellow-men, is to have charity towards them. 

That is a hard lesson to learn; and those who learn it at all, generallylearn it late; almost--God forgive us--too late. 

Our reason, if we would let the Spirit of God enlighten it, would teachus this beforehand. But we do not usually listen to our reason, or toGod's Spirit speaking to it. And therefore we have to learn the lessonby experience, often by very sad and shameful experience. And even thatvery experience we cannot understand, unless the Spirit of God interpretit to us: and blessed are they who, having been chastised, hearken to Hisinterpretation. 

Our reason, I say, should teach us that the spirit of wisdom is noneother than the spirit of love. For consider--how does the text describethis Spirit?

As the spirit of wisdom and understanding; that is, as the knowledge ofhuman nature, the understanding of men and their ways. If we do notunderstand our fellow-creatures, we shall never love them. 

But it is equally true that if we do not love them, we shall neverunderstand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good-feelingand fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed, but endless mistakesand ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances?

Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men, as the cynical, misanthropic man, who walks in darkness, because he hates his brother. Besure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy putshimself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees withtheir eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makesallowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father inheaven is merciful. 

And next; this royal Spirit is described as "the spirit of counsel andmight, " that is, the spirit of prudence and practical power; the spiritwhich sees how to deal with human beings, and has the practical power ofmaking them obey. 

Now that power, again, can only be got by loving human beings. There isnothing so blind as hardness, nothing so weak as violence. I, of course, can only speak from my own experience; and my experience is this: thatwhensoever in my past life I have been angry and scornful, I have said ordone an unwise thing; I have more or less injured my own cause; weakenedmy own influence on my fellow-men; repelled them instead of attractingthem; made them rebel against me, rather than obey me. By patience, courtesy, and gentleness, we not only make ourselves stronger; we notonly attract our fellow-men, and make them help us and follow uswillingly and joyfully: but we make ourselves wiser; we give ourselvestime and light to see what we ought to do, and how to do it. 

And next; this Spirit is also "the spirit of knowledge, and of the fearof the Lord. " Ay, they, indeed, both begin in love, and end in love. Ifyou wish for knowledge, you must begin by loving knowledge for its ownsake. And the more knowledge you gain, the more you will long to know, and more, and yet more for ever. You cannot succeed in a study, unlessyou love that study. Men of science must begin with an interest in, alove for, an enthusiasm, in the very deepest sense of the word, for thephaenomena which they study. But the more they learn of them, the moretheir love increases; as they see more and more of their wonder, of theirbeauty, of the unspeakable wisdom and power of God, shewn forth in everyblade of grass which grows in the sunshine and the rain. 

And if this be true of things earthly and temporary, how much more ofthings heavenly and eternal? We must begin by loving whatsoever thingsare true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, honest, and of good report. We must begin, I say, by loving them with a sort ofchild's love, without understanding them; by that simple instinct andlonging after what is good and beautiful and true, which is indeed theinspiration of the Spirit of God. But as we go on, as St Paul bids us, to meditate on them; and "if there be any virtue and if there be anypraise, to think on such things, " and feed our minds daily withpurifying, elevating, sobering, humanizing, enlightening thoughts: thenwe shall get to love goodness with a reasonable and manly love; to seethe beauty of holiness; the strength of self-sacrifice; the glory ofjustice; the divineness of love; and in a word--To love God for His ownsake, and to give Him thanks for His great glory, which is: That He is agood God. 

This thought--remember it, I pray--brings me to the last point. ThisSpirit is also the spirit of the fear of the Lord. And that too, myfriends, must be a spirit of love not only to God, but to ourfellow-creatures. For if we but consider that God the Father loves all;that His mercy is over all His works; and that He hateth nothing that Hehas made: then how dare we hate anything that He has made, as long as wehave any rational fear of Him, awe and respect for Him, true faith in Hisinfinite majesty and power? If we but consider that God the Son actuallycame down on earth to die, and to die too on the cross, for all mankind:then how dare we hate a human being for whom He died: at least if we havetrue honour, gratitude, loyalty, reverence, and godly fear in our heartstoward Him, our risen Lord?

Oh let us open our eyes this Whitsuntide to the experience of our pastlives. Let us see now--what we shall certainly see at the day ofjudgment--that whenever we have failed to be loving, we have also failedto be wise; that whenever we have been blind to our neighbours'interests, we have also been blind to our own; whenever we have hurtothers, we have hurt ourselves still more. Let us, at this blessedWhitsuntide, ask forgiveness of God for all acts of malice anduncharitableness, blindness and hardness of heart; and pray for thespirit of true charity, which alone is true wisdom. And let us come toHoly Communion in charity with each other and with all; determinedhenceforth to feel for each other and with each other; to put ourselvesin our neighbours' places; to see with their eyes, and feel with theirhearts, as far as God shall give us that great grace; determined to makeallowances for their mistakes and failings; to give and forgive, live andlet live, even as God gives and forgives, lives and lets live for ever:that so we may be indeed the children of our Father in heaven, whose nameis Love. Then we shall indeed discern the Lord's body--that it is a bodyof union, sympathy, mutual trust, help, affection. Then we shall, withall contrition and humility, but still in spirit and in truth, claim andobtain our share in the body and the blood, in the spirit and in themind, of Him Who sacrificed Himself for a rebellious world. 

SERMON IV. PRAYER. 

PSALM LXV. 2. 

 Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come. 

Next Friday, the 20th of December, 1871, will be marked in most churchesof this province of Canterbury by a special ceremony. Prayers will beoffered to God for the increase of missionary labourers in the Church ofEngland. To many persons--I hope I may say, to all in thiscongregation--this ceremony will seem eminently rational. We shall notask God to suspend the laws of nature, nor alter the courses of theseasons, for any wants, real or fancied, of our own. We shall ask Him tomake us and our countrymen wiser and better, in order that we may makeother human beings wiser and better: and an eminently rational request Iassert that to be. 

For no one will deny that it is good for heathens and savages, even ifthere were no life after death, to be wiser and better than they are. Itis good, I presume, that they should give up cannibalism, slave-trading, witchcraft, child-murder, and a host of other abominations; and that theyshould be made to give them up not from mere fear of European cannon, butof their own wills and consciences, seeing that such habits are wrong andruinous, and loathing them accordingly; in a word, that instead of livingas they do, and finding in a hundred ways that the wages of sin aredeath, they should be converted--that is, change their ways--and live. 

Now that this is the will of God--assuming that there is a God, and agood God--is plain at least to our reason, and to our common sense; andit is equally plain to our reason and to our common sense that, as Godhas not taught these poor wretches to improve themselves, or sentsuperior beings to improve them from some other world, He therefore meanstheir improvement to be brought about, as moral improvements are usuallybrought about, by the influence of their fellow-men, and specially by uswho have put ourselves in contact with them in our world-wide search forwealth; and who are certain, as we know by sad experience, to make theheathen worse, if we do not make them better. And as we find fromexperience that our missionaries, wherever they are brought in contactwith these savages, do make them wiser and happier, we ask God to inspiremore persons with the desire of improving the heathen, and to teach themhow to improve them. I say, how to improve them. All sneers, whether atthe failure of missionary labours, or at the small results in return forthe vast sums spent on missions--all such sneers, I say, instead ofdeterring us from praying to God on this matter, ought to make us praythe more earnestly in proportion as they are deserved. For they ought toremind us that we possibly may not have gone to work as yet altogether inthe right way; that there may be mistakes and deficiencies in our methodof dealing with the heathen. And if so, it seems all the more reason forasking God to set us and others right, in case we should be wrong; and tomake us and others strong, in case we should be weak. 

We thus commit the matter to God. We do not ask God to raise up suchmissionary labourers as we think fit: but such as He thinks fit. We donot pray Him to alter His will concerning the heathen: but to enable usto do what we know already to be His will. And this course seems to meeminently rational; provided always, of course, that it is rational tobelieve that there is a God who answers prayer; and that if we askanything according to His will, He hears us. 

Now the older I grow, and the more I see of the chances and changes ofthis mortal life, and of the needs and longings of the human heart, themore important seems this question, and all words concerning it, whetherin the Bible or out of the Bible--

Is there anywhere in the universe any being who can hear our prayers? Isprayer a superfluous folly, or the highest prudence?

I say--Is there a being who can even hear our prayers? I do not say, abeing who will always answer them, and give us all we ask: but one whowill at least hear, who will listen; consider whether what we ask is fitto be granted or not; and grant or refuse accordingly. 

You say--What is the need of asking such a question? Of course webelieve that. Of course we pray, else why are we in church to-day?

Well, my friends, God grant that you may all believe it in spirit and intruth. But you must remember that if so, you are in the minority; thatthe majority of civilized men, like the majority of mere savages, do notpray, whatever the women may do; and that prayer among thinking andcivilized white men has been becoming, for the last 100 years at least, more and more unfashionable; and is likely, to judge from the signs ofthe times, to become more unfashionable still: after which reign ofdegrading ungodliness, I presume--from the experience of all history--thatour children or grandchildren will see a revulsion to some degradingsuperstition, and the latter end be worse than the beginning. But it isnotorious that men are doubting more and more of the efficacy of prayer;that philosophers so-called, for true philosophers they are not--eventhough they may be true, able, and worthy students of merely physicalscience--are getting a hearing more and more readily, when they tell menthey need not pray. 

They say; and here they say rightly--The world is ruled by laws. Butsome say further; and there they say wrongly;--For that reason prayer isof no use; the laws will not be altered to please you. You yourself arebut tiny parts of a great machine, which will grind on in spite of you, though it grind you to powder; and there is no use in asking the machineto stop. So, they say, prayer is an impertinence. I would that theystopped there. For then we who deny that the world is a machine, oranything like a machine, might argue fairly with them on the commonground of a common belief in God. 

But some go further still, and say--A God? We do not deny that there maybe a God: but we do not deny that there may not be one. This we say--IfHe exists, we know nothing of Him: and what is more, you know nothing ofHim. No man can know aught of Him. No man can know whether there be aGod or not. A living God, an acting God, a God of providence, a God whohears prayer, a God such as your Bible tells you of, is an inconceivableBeing; and what you cannot conceive, that you must not believe: andtherefore prayer is not merely an impertinence, it is a mistake; for itis speaking to a Being who only exists in your own imagination. I neednot say, my friends, that all this, to my mind, is only a train ofsophistry and false reasoning, which--so I at least hold--has beenanswered and refuted again and again. And I trust in God and in Christsufficiently to believe that He will raise up sound divines and truephilosophers in His Church, who will refute it once more. But meanwhileI can only appeal to your common sense; to the true and higher reason, which lies in men's hearts, not in their heads; and ask--And is it cometo this? Is this the last outcome of civilization, the last discovery ofthe human intellect, the last good news for man? That the soundestthinkers--they who have the truest and clearest notion of the universeare the savage who knows nothing but what his five senses teach him, andthe ungodly who makes boast of his own desire, and speaks good of thecovetous whom God abhorreth, while he says, "Tush, God hath forgotten. Hehideth away his face, and God will never see it"?

True: these so-called philosophers would say that the savage makes amistake in his sensuality, and the worldling in his covetousness and histyranny; that from an imperfect conception of their own trueself-interest, they carry their philosophy to conclusions which thephilosopher in his study must regret. But as to their philosophy beingcorrect: there can be no question that if providence, and prayer, and theliving God, be phantoms of man's imagination, then the cynical worldlingat one end of the social scale, and the brutal savage at the other, arewiser than apostles and prophets, and sages and divines. 

These men talk of facts, the facts of human nature. Why do they ask usto ignore the most striking fact of human nature, that man, even if hewere a mere animal, is alone of all animals--a praying animal? Is thatstrange instinct of worship, which rises in the heart of man as soon ashe begins to think, to become a civilized being and not a savage, to bedisregarded as a childish dream when he rises to a higher civilizationstill? Is the experience of men, heathen as well as Christian, for allthese ages to go for nought? Has it mattered nought whether men cried toBaal or to God; for with both alike there has been neither sound norvoice, nor any that answered? Has every utterance that has ever gone upfrom suffering and doubting humanity, gone up in vain? Have the prayersof saints, the hymns of psalmists, the agonies of martyrs, theaspirations of poets, the thoughts of sages, the cries of the oppressed, the pleadings of the mother for her child, the maiden praying in herchamber for her lover upon the distant battle-field, the soldieranswering her prayer from afar off with, "Sleep quiet, I am in God'shands"--those very utterances of humanity which seemed to us most noble, most pure, most beautiful, most divine, been all in vain?--impertinences;the babblings of fair dreams, poured forth into nowhere, to no thing, andin vain? Has every suffering, searching soul which ever gazed up intothe darkness of the unknown, in hopes of catching even a glimpse of adivine eye, beholding all, and ordering all, and pitying all, gazed up invain? For at the ground of the universe is "_not a divine eye_, _butonly a blank bottomless eye-socket_;" {39} and man has no Father inheaven; and Christ revealed Him not, because He was not there to reveal;and there was no hope, no remedy, no deliverance, for the miserable amongthe sons of men?

Oh, my friends, those who believe, or fancy that they believe suchthings, must be able to do so only through some peculiar conformationeither of brain or heart. Only want of imagination to conceive theconsequences of such doctrines can enable them, if they have any love andpity for their fellow-men, to preach those doctrines without pity andhorror. They know not, they know not, of what they rob a mankind alreadybut too miserable by its own folly and its own sin; a mankind which, ifit have not hope in God and in Christ, is truly--as Homer said ofold--more miserable than the beasts of the field. If their unconsciousconceit did not make them unintentionally cruel, they would surely besilent for pity's sake; they would let men go on in the pleasant delusionthat there is a living God, and a Word of God who has revealed Him tomen; and would hide from their fellow-creatures the dreadful secret whichthey think they have discovered--That there is none that heareth prayer, and therefore to Him need no flesh come. 

Men take up with such notions, I believe, most generally in days ofcomfort, ease, safety. They find the world so well ordered outwardly, that it seems able enough to go on its way without a God. They havethemselves so few sorrows, struggles, doubts, that they never feel thatsense of helplessness, of danger, of ignorance, which has made the heartsof men, in every age, yearn for an unseen helper, an unseen deliverer, anunseen teacher. 

And so it is--and shameful it is that so it should be--that the more Godgives to men, the less they thank Him, the less they fancy that they needHim: but take His bounties, as they take the air they breathe, unconsciously, and as a matter of course. 

And therefore adversity is wholesome, danger is wholesome; so wholesome, that in all ages, as far as I can find, the godliest, the most moral, themost manful, and therefore the really happiest and most successfulnations or communities of men, have been those who were in perpetualdanger, difficulty, struggle; and who have thereby had their faith in Godcalled out; who have learned in the depth, to cry out of the depth toGod; to lift up their eyes unto the Lord, and know that their help comesfrom Him. 

I know a village down in the far West, where the 121st Psalm which I justquoted, was a favourite, and more than a favourite. Whenever it wasgiven out in church--and the congregation used often to ask for it--alljoined in singing it, young and old, men and maidens, with anearnestness, a fervour, a passion, such as I never heard elsewhere; suchas shewed how intensely they felt that the psalm was true, and true forthem. Of all congregational singing I ever heard, never have I heard anyso touching as those voices, when they joined in the old words they lovedso well. 

 Sheltered beneath the Almighty wings Thou shall securely rest, Where neither sun nor moon shall thee By day or night molest. At home, abroad, in peace, in war, Thy God shall thee defend; Conduct thee through life's pilgrimage Safe to thy journey's end. 

Do you fancy these people were specially comfortable, prosperous folk, who had no sorrows, and lived safe from all danger, and therefore knewthat God protected them from all ill?

Nothing less, my friends, nothing less. There was hardly a man whojoined in that psalm, but knew that he carried his life in his hand fromyear to year, that any day might see him a corpse--drowned at sea. Hardlya woman who sang that psalm but had lost a husband, a father, a brother, a kinsman--drowned at sea. And yet they believed that God preservedthem. They were fishers and sailors, earning an uncertain livelihood, ona wild and rocky coast. A sudden shift of wind might make, as I knew itonce to make, 60 widows and orphans in a single night. The fishery forthe year might fail, and all the expense of boats and nets be thrownaway. Or in default of work at home, the young men would go out onvoyages to foreign parts: and often never came back again, dying far fromhome, of fever, of wreck, of some of the hundred accidents which befalseafaring men. And yet they believed that God preserved them. Surelytheir faith was tried, if ever faith was tried. But as surely theirfaith failed not, for--if I may so say--they dared not let it fail. Ifthey ceased to trust God, what had they to trust in? Not in their ownskill in seamanship, though it was great: they knew how weak it was, onwhich to lean. Not in the so-called laws of nature; the treacherous sea, the wild wind, the uncertain shoals of fish, the chances and changes of along foreign voyage. Without trust in God, their lives must have beenlives of doubt and of terror, for ever anxious about the morrow: or elseof blind recklessness, saying, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow wedie. " Because they kept their faith in God, their lives were for themost part lives of hardy and hopeful enterprise; cheerful always, in badluck as in good; thankful when their labours were blest with success; andwhen calamity and failure came, saying with noble resignation--"I havereceived good from the hand of the Lord, and shall I not receive evil?Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. "

It is a life like theirs, mixed with danger and uncertainty, which mostcalls out faith in God. It is the life of safety and comfort, in whichour wants are all supplied ready to our hand, which calls it out least. And therefore it is that life in cities, just because it is most safe andmost comfortable, is so often, alas, most ungodly, at least among themen. Less common, thank God, is this ungodliness among the women. Thenursing of the sick; the cares of a family, often too sorrows, manifoldand bitter, put them continually in mind of human weakness, and of theirown weakness likewise. Yes. It is sorrow, my friends, sorrow andfailure, which forces men to believe that there is One who hearethprayer, forces them to lift up their eyes to One from whom cometh theirhelp. Before the terrible realities of danger, death, bereavement, disappointment, shame, ruin--and most of all before deserved shame, deserved ruin--all the arguments of the conceited sophist melt away likethe maxims of the comfortable worldling; and the man or woman who was buttoo ready a day before to say, "Tush, God will never see, and will neverhear, " begins to hope passionately that God does see, that God does hear. In the hour of darkness; when there is no comfort in man nor help in man, when he has no place to flee unto, and no man careth for his soul: thenthe most awful, the most blessed of all questions is: But is there no onehigher than man to whom I can flee? No one higher than man who cares formy soul and for the souls of those who are dearer to me than my own soul?No friend? No helper? No deliverer? No counsellor? Even no judge? Nopunisher? No God, even though He be a consuming fire? Am I and mymisery alone together in the universe? Is my misery without any meaning, and I without hope? If there be no God: then all that is left for me isdespair and death. But if there be, then I can hope that there is ameaning in my misery; that it comes to me not without cause, even thoughthat cause be my own fault. I can plead with God like poor Job of old, even though in wild words like Job; and ask--What is the meaning of thissorrow? What have I done? What should I do? "I will say unto God, Donot condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me. Surely Iwould speak unto the Almighty, and desire to reason with God. "

"I would speak unto the Almighty, and desire to reason with God. " Oh myfriends, a man, I believe, can gain courage and wisdom to say that, onlyby the inspiration of the Spirit of God. 

But when once he has said that from his heart, he begins to be justifiedby faith. For he has had faith in God; he has trusted God enough tospeak to God who made him; and so he has put himself, so far at least, into his just and right place, as a spiritual and rational being, made inthe image of God. 

But more, he has justified God. He has confessed that God is not a mereforce or law of nature; nor a mere tyrant and tormentor: but a reasonablebeing, who will hear reason, and a just being, who will do justice by thecreatures whom He has made. 

And so the very act of prayer justifies God, and honours God, and givesglory to God; for it confesses that God is what He is, a good God, towhom the humblest and the most fallen of His creatures dare speak out thedepths of their abasement, and acknowledge that His glory is this--Thatin spite of all His majesty, He is one who heareth prayer; a being asmagnificent in His justice, as He is magnificent in His majesty and Hismight. 

All this is argued out, as it never has been argued out before or since, in the book of Job: and for seeing so much as this, was Job approved byGod. But there is a further question, to which the book of Job gives noanswer; and to which indeed all the Old Testament gives but a partialanswer. And that is this--This just and magnificent God, has He alsohuman pity, tenderness, charity, condescension, love? In one word, havewe not only a God in heaven, but a Father in heaven?

That question could only be answered by the coming of our Lord JesusChrist. Truly He said--No one cometh to the Father, but by me. No manhath seen God at any time: but the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosomof the Father, He hath revealed Him. He revealed Him in part to Abraham, in part to Moses, to Job, to David, to the prophets. But He revealed Himperfectly when He said--I and the Father are one. He that hath seen mehath seen the Father. Yes. Now we can find boundless comfort in thewords, "Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the HolyGhost"--Love and condescension without bounds. Now we know that there isA Man in the midst of the throne of God, who is the brightness of God'sglory and the express image of His character; a high priest who can betouched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing that He was temptedin all things like as we are, yet without sin. 

To Him we can cry, with human passion and in human words; because we knowthat His human heart will respond to our human hearts, and that His humanheart again will respond to His divine Spirit, and that His divine Spiritis the same as the divine Spirit of His Father; for their wills and mindsare one; and their will and their mind is--boundless love to sinful man. 

Yes, we can look up by faith into the sacred face of Christ, and takerefuge by faith within His sacred heart, saying--If it be good for me, Hewill give what I ask: and if He gives it not, it is because that too isgood for me, and for others beside me. In all the chances and changes ofthis mortal life we can say to Him, as He said in that supreme hour--"Ifit be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will, butthine, be done, " sure that He will present that prayer to His Father, andto our Father, and to His God and to our God; and that whatsoever be theanswer vouchsafed by Him whose ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughtsas our thoughts, the prayer will not have gone up to Christ in vain. 

And in such a case as this of missions to the heathen--If we believe thatChrist died for these poor heathen; if we believe that Christ loves thesepoor heathen infinitely more than we, or than the most devoted missionarywho ever lived or died for them: shall we say--Then we may leave them inChrist's hands to follow their own nature. If He is satisfied with theirdegradation, so may we be? Shall we not rather say--Their misery anddegradation must pain His sacred heart, far more than our sinful hearts;and if He does not come down again on earth to help them Himself, it mustbe because He means to help them through us, His disciples? Let us askHim to teach us and others how to help them; to enable us and others tohelp them. Let us pray to Him the one prayer which, unless prayer be adream, is certain to be answered, because it is certainly according toGod's will; the prayer to be taught and helped to do our duty by ourfellow-men. And for the rest: let us pray in the words of that mostnoble of all collects, to pray which is to take refuge from our ownignorance in the boundless wisdom of God's love--"Thou who knowest ournecessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking: Have compassionon our infirmities, and those things which for our unworthiness we darenot, and for our blindness we cannot ask, condescend to give us, for theworthiness of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. "

SERMON V. THE DEAF AND DUMB. 

ST MARK VII. 32-37. 

 And they bring unto Jesus one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech Him to put His hand upon him. And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers into his ears, and He spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. . . . And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. 

Our greatest living philologer has said, and said truly--"If wonderarises from ignorance, it is from that conscious ignorance which, if welook back at the history of most of our sciences, has been the mother ofall human knowledge. Till men began to wonder at the stratification ofrocks, and the fossilization of shells, there was no science of Geology. Till they began to wonder at the words which were perpetually in theirmouths, there was no science of Language. "

He might have added, that till men began to wonder at the organization oftheir own bodies, there was no science of healing; that in proportion asthe common fact of health became mysterious and marvellous in their eyes, just in that proportion did they become able to explain and to conquerdisease. For there is a deep difference between the wonder of theuneducated or half-educated man, and the wonder of the educated man. 

The ignorant in all ages have wondered at the exception; the wise, inproportion as they have become wise, have wondered at the rule. Pestilences, prodigies, portents, the results of seeming accidents, excite the vulgar mind. Only the abnormal or casual is worthy of theirattention. The man of science finds a deeper and more awful charm incontemplating the results of law; in watching, not what seem to beoccasional failures in nature: but what is a perpetual and calm success. 

The savage knows not, I am told, what wonder means, save from someprodigy. Seeing no marvel in the daily glory of the sunlight, he isstartled out of his usual stupidity and carelessness by the occurrence ofan eclipse, an earthquake, a thunderbolt. The uneducated, whatever theirrank may be, are apt to be more interested by the sight of deformities, and defects or excesses in nature, than by that of the most perfectnormal and natural beauty. 

Those, in the same way, who in the infancy of European science, thoughtit worth while to register natural phenomena, registered exclusively theexceptions. Eclipses, meteors, auroras, earthquakes, storms, andespecially monstrosities, animal or vegetable, exercised their barbaricwonder. The mystery and miracle which underlies the unfolding of everybud, the development of every embryo, the growth of every atom of tissue, in any organism, animal or vegetable--to all this their intellectual eyewas blind. How different from such a state of mind, that calm andconstant wonder, humbling and yet inspiring, with which the modern man ofscience searches into the "open mystery" of the universe; and sees thatthe true marvel lies, not in the infringement of law, but in itspermanence; not in the imperfect, but in the perfect; not in disease, butin health; not in deformity, but in beauty. 

These words are true of all nature; and specially true, it seems to me, of our outward senses and faculties; true of sight, hearing, speech. Thewonder, I think, with the wise man will be, not that there are deaf anddumb persons to be found here and there among us: but that the average, nay, the majority of mankind, are not deaf and dumb. Paradoxical as thisassertion may seem at first, a little thought I believe will prove it tobe reasonable. 

Whatever view you take of the origin of sight, hearing, voice, the wonderto a thoughtful mind is just the same; how, under the storm ofcircumstances, and through the lapse of ages, those faculties have notbeen lost again and again, by countless individuals, nay, by the wholespecies. For we must confess that those faculties are graduallydeveloped in each individual; that every animal and every human beingwhich is born into the world, has built up, unconsciously, involuntarily, and as it were out of nothing, those delicate and complex organs, bywhich he afterwards learns to see, hear, and utter sounds. Is not thewonder, that he should, in the majority of cases, succeed without anyeffort of his own?

And if I am answered, that the success is owing to hereditary tendencies, and to the laws by which the offspring resembles the parents, I answer:Is not that a greater wonder still? A wonder which all the discoveriesof the scalpel and the microscope have been as yet unable, and will be, Ibelieve, to the last unable, to unravel, even to touch? A wonder whichcan be explained by no theories of vibratory atoms, vital forces, plasticpowers of nature, or other such phrases, which are but metaphysicalabstractions, having no counterpart in fact, and only hiding from us ourignorance of the vast and venerable unknown. The physiologist, when heconsiders the manifold combination of innumerable microscopiccircumstances which are required to bring any one creature into the worldwith a perfectly hearing ear, ought to confess that the chances--if theworld were governed by chance--are infinitely greater in favour of achild's being born with an imperfect ear rather than with a perfect one. And if he should evade the difficulty; and try to explain the usualsuccess by saying that nature is governed by law: I answer--What isnature? What is law? You never saw nature nor law either under themicroscope. They too are metaphysical abstractions, necessary notionsand conceptions of your own brain. You have seen nothing but the factand the custom; and all you can do, if you be strictly rational, is witha certain modern school to say, with a despairing humility, which Ideplore while I respect--deploring it because it is needless despair, andyet respecting it because it is humility, which is the path out ofdespair and darkness into hope and light--to say with them, "Man can knownothing of causes, he can only register positive facts. " This, I say, isone path--one which I trust none here will tread. The only other path, Ibelieve, is, to go back to the lessons which we ought to have learnt inour childhood, for those to whom the human race owes most learnt themthousands of years ago; and to ascribe the ever successful miracles ofnature to a Will, to a Mind, to a Providence so like that which each ofus exercises in his own petty sphere, that we are not only able tounderstand in part the works of God, but to know from the very fact ofbeing able to understand them--as one of our greatest astronomers has sowell said lately--that we are made in the image of God. To say with theold Psalmist, that the universe is governed by "a law which cannot bebroken:" but why? Because God has given it that law. To say "All thingscontinue as they were at the beginning:" but why? Because all thingsserve Him in whom we live and move and have our being. To confess themystery and miracle of our mortal bodies, and say with David, "I amfearfully and wonderfully made; such knowledge is too wonderful andexcellent for me, I cannot attain unto it:" but to add the one onlyrational explanation of the mystery which, thank God, common sense hastaught, though it may be often in confused and defective forms, to thevast majority of the human race in all times and all lands--that He whograsps the mystery and works the miracle is God; that "His eye sees oursubstances yet being imperfect; and in His book are all our memberswritten, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there were none ofthem. "

And then to go forward with the Psalmist, and with the common sense ofhumanity; to conclude that if there be a Creator, there must also be aProvidence; that that life-giving Spirit which presided over the creationof each organism presides also over its growth, its circumstances, itsfortunes; and to say with David, "Whither shall I go then from ThySpirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I climb up toheaven, Thou art there. If I go down to hell, Thou art there also. If Itake the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of thesea; even there Thy hand shall lead me; Thy right hand shall hold mestill. "

Yes. To this--to faith and adoration--ought right and reason to lead thephysical philosopher. And to what ought it to lead us, who are most ofus, I presume, not physical philosophers? To gratitude, surely, notunmixed with fear and trembling; till we say to ourselves--Who am I, toboast? Who am I, to pride myself on possessing a single faculty whichone of my neighbours may want? What have I, that I did not receive?Considering the endless chances of failure, if the world were left tochance; and I may say, the absolute certainty of failures, if the worldwere left to the blind competition of merely physical laws, is it notonly of the Lord's mercies that we are not failures too? that we have notbeen born crippled, blind, deaf, dumb--what not?--by the effect ofcircumstances over which we have had no control; which have been working, it may be, for generations past, in the organizations of our ancestors?

But what shall we say of those who have not received what we havereceived? What shall we say of those who, like the deaf and dumb, are, in some respects at least, failures--instances in which the laws whichregulate our organization have not succeeded in effecting a fulldevelopment?

We can say this, at least, without entangling and dazzling ourselves inspeculations about final causes; without attempting to pry into themystery of evil. 

We can say this: That if there be a God--as there is a God--thesefailures are not according to His will. The highest reason should teachus that; for it must tell us that in the work of the Divine Artist, as inthe work of the human, imperfection, impotence, disorder of any kind, must be contrary to the mind and will of the Creator. The highestreason, I say, teaches us this. And Scripture teaches it like wise. Forif we believe our Lord to have been as He was--the express image of theAlmighty Father; if we believe that He came--as He did come--to reveal tomen His Father's will, His Father's mind, His Father's character: then wemust believe that He acted according to that will and according to thatcharacter, when He made the healing of disease, and the curing ofimperfections of this very kind, an important and an integral part of Hiswork on earth. 

"And they brought unto Jesus one that was deaf, and had an impediment inhis speech, and besought Him to put His hand upon him. And Jesus tookhim aside from the multitude, and put His fingers into his ears; and Hespit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, andsaid unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his earswere opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. . . And they were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done allthings well: He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. "

Consider this story awhile. He healed the man miraculously, by means atwhich we cannot guess, which we cannot even conceive. But the healingsignified at least two things--that the man could be healed, and that theman ought to be healed; that his bodily defect--the retribution of no sinof his own--was contrary to the will of that Father in Heaven, whowilleth not that one little one should perish. 

But Jesus sighed likewise. There was in Him a sorrow, a compassion, mosthuman and most divine. 

It may have been--may He forgive me if I dare rashly to impute motives orthoughts to Him--that there was something too of a divine weariness--Idare not say impatience, seeing how patient He was then and how patientHe has been since for more than 1800 years--of the folly and ignorance ofman, who brings on himself and on his descendants these and a hundredother preventible miseries, simply because he will not study and obey thephysical laws of the universe; simply because he will not see that thoselaws which concern the welfare of his body, are as surely the will of Godas those which concern the welfare of his soul; and that therefore it isnot merely his interest but his solemn duty to study and to obey them, lest he bear the punishment of his own neglect and disobedience. 

It is not for man even to guess what thoughts may have passed through themind of Christ when He sighed over the very defect which He was healing. But it is surely not irreverent in us to say that our Lord had causeenough to sigh, if He foresaw the follies of mankind during an age whichwas too soon to come. --How men, instead of taking the spirit of Hismiracles and acting on it, would counterfeit the mere outward signs ofthem, to feed the vanity or the superstition of a few devotees. How, instead of looking on His miracles as rebukes to their own ignorance andimbecility; instead of perceiving that their bodily afflictions werecontrary to the will of God, and therefore curable; instead of settingthemselves to work manfully, in the light of God, and by the help of God, to discover and correct the errors which produced them, mankind wouldidle away precious centuries in barbaric wonder at seeming prodigies andseeming miracles, and would neglect utterly the study of those far morewondrous laws of nature which Christ had proved to be under Hisgovernment and His guidance, and had therefore proved to be working forthe good of those for whom He came to die. Christ had indeed sown goodseed in His field. He had taught men by His miracles, as He had taughtthem by His parables, to Whom nature belonged, and Whose laws natureobeyed. And the cessation of miracles after the time of Christ and HisApostles had taught, or ought to have taught, mankind a further lesson;the lesson that henceforth they were to carry on for themselves, by thefaculties which God had given them, that work of healing and deliverancewhich He had begun. Miracles, like prophecies, like tongues, likesupernatural knowledge, were to cease and vanish away: but charity, charity which devotes itself for the welfare of the human race, was toabide for ever. 

Christ, as I said, had sown good seed: but an enemy--we know not whenceor when--certainly within the three first centuries of the Church--cameand sowed tares among that wheat. Then began men to believe that devils, and not their Father in Heaven, were, to all practical intents, the lordsof nature. Then began they to believe that man's body was the propertyof Satan, and his soul only the property of God. Then began they tofancy that man was to be delivered from his manifold earthly miseries, not by purity and virtue, reason and knowledge, but by magic, maskedunder the sacred name of religion. No wonder if, in such a temper ofmind, the physical amelioration of the human race stood still. How couldit be otherwise, while men refused to see in facts the acted will of God;and sought not in God's universe, but in the dreams of their own brains, for glimpses of that divine and wonderful order by which The eternalFather and The eternal Son are working together for ever through Theeternal Spirit for the welfare of the universe?

We boast, my friends, at times, of the rapid triumphs of modern science. Were we but aware of the vast amount of preventible misery around us, andof the vast possibility of removing it, which lies in the little sciencewhich we know already, we should rather bewail the slow departure ofmodern barbarism. 

There has been no period of the world for centuries back, I believe, inwhich man might not have been infinitely healthier, happier, moreprosperous, more long-lived than he has been, if he had only believedthat disease, misery, and premature death were not the will of God and ofChrist; and that God had endowed him with an intellect which couldunderstand the laws of the universe, in order that he might use thoselaws for his own health, wealth, and life. Very late is society incommencing that rational course on which it ought to have enteredcenturies ago; and therefore very culpable. And it is not too much tosay, that to the average of persons suffering under preventible diseaseor defect, even though it be hereditary, society owes a sacred debt, which it is bound to pay by making those innocent sufferers from other'ssins as happy as possible; where it has not yet learnt--as it will learn, please God, some day--to cure them. 

There is, thank God, a healthier feeling than of old abroad of late uponthis point. Men are learning more and more to regard such sufferers notas the victims of God's wrath, but of human ignorance, vice, or folly. And it was with deep satisfaction that I read in the last Report of theSchools for the Deaf and Dumb a statement of what were considered themost probable physical causes of deafness and dumbness, and a hope thatit would be possible, hereafter, to prevent as well as cure thosediseases. 

Whether the causes assigned in that Report are the true ones, is a pointof inferior importance for the moment. The really important point is, that the principle should be allowed, the question raised, by a society, composed of religious men, and teaching to those poor deaf and dumb asalmost their primary work that true religion which they are just ascapable of receiving as we. The right path has been entered--the pathwhich is certain in due time to lead to success. And meanwhile our dutyis, while we confess that it is the fault of society and not of God, thatthese afflicted ones exist among us--it is our duty, I say, to cultivateand to develop to the highest every faculty, instinct, and power, in themwhich God's order has preserved from the effects of man's disorder; tofeed the eye with fair and noble sights, though the ear be shut tosoothing and inspiring sounds; to cultivate the intellect to such a pitchthat it may be able to perform practical work, and if possible to earn asufficient livelihood, even though the want of speech makes it impossiblefor them, deaf and dumb, to compete on equal terms with their fellow-men;to awaken in them, by religious training, teaching and worship, thosepurer and more unselfish emotions by which their hearts may become afield ready and prepared for God's grace. To do this; and to regardthem, whenever we come in contact with them; not merely with pity, whilewe remember how much their intellects lose, in losing the whole world ofsound; but with hope, when we see that through the one sense which isleft they take in fully not only the meaning of the voluble hands whichteach them, but more, the meaning of that meaning--the spiritual truthsand feelings which signs express; with wonder, not at the defect, but atthe innate health which almost compensates for the want of hearing byconcentrating its powers upon the sight; and lastly, with admiration forthat humanity which, as it were imprisoned, fettered, maimed, yet can, bythe God-given force of the immortal spirit, so burst its prison-bars, andrise, through hindrances which seem to us impassable, to the tenderest, the noblest, the purest, and most devout emotions. 

SERMON VI. THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT. 

ST JOHN III. 8, The wind bloweth whither it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 

It is often asked--men have a right to ask--what would the world havebeen by now without Christianity? without the Christian religion? withoutthe Church?

But before these questions can be answered, we must define, it isdiscovered, what we mean by Christianity, the Christian religion, theChurch. 

And it is found--or I at least believe it will be found--more safe andwise to ask a deeper and yet a simpler question still: What would theworld have been without that influence on which Christianity, andreligion, and the Church depend? What would the world have been withoutthe Holy Spirit of God?

But some will say: This is a more abstruse question still. How can youdefine, how can you analyse, the Spirit of God? Nay, more, how can youprove its existence?--Such questioners have been, as it were, baptizedunto John's baptism. They are very glad to see people do right, and notdo wrong, from any well-calculated motives, or wholesome and pleasantemotions. But they have not as yet heard whether there be any HolySpirit. 

We can only answer, Just so. This Holy Spirit in Whom we believe defiesall analysis, all definition whatsoever. His nature can be brought underno terms derived from human emotions or motives. He is literallyinvisible; as invisible to the conception of the brain as He is to thebodily eye. His presence is proved only by its effects. The Spiritbloweth whither it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thoucanst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth. 

Such words must sound as dreams to those analytical philosophers whoallow nothing in man below the sphere of consciousness, actual orpossible; who have dissected the human mind till they find in it nopersonal will, no indestructible and spiritual self, but a characterwhich is only the net result of innumerable states of consciousness; whohold that man's outward actions, and also his inmost instincts, are allthe result either of calculations about profit and loss, pleasure andpain, or of emotions, whether hereditary or acquired. Ignoring the deepand ancient distinction, which no one ever brought out so clearly as StPaul, between the flesh and the spirit, they hold that man is flesh, andcan be nothing more; that each person is not really a person, but is theconsequence of his brain and nerves; and having thus, by logicalanalysis, got rid of the spirit of man, their reason and their consciencequite honestly and consistently see no need for, or possibility of, aSpirit of God, to ennoble and enable the human spirit. Why need therebe, if the difference between an animal and a man be one of degree alone, and not of kind?

We answer: That there is a flesh in man, brain and nerves, emotions andpassions, identical with that of animals, we do not deny. We should befools if we did deny it; for the fact is hideously and shamefully patent. None knew that better than St Paul, who gave a list of the works of theflesh, the things which a man does who is the slave of his own brain andnerves--and a very ugly list it is--beginning with adultery and endingwith drunkenness, after passing through all the seven deadly sins. Andneither St Paul nor we deny, that in this fleshly, carnal and animalstate the vast majority of the human race has lived, and lives still, toits own infinite misery and confusion; and that it has a perpetualtendency, whenever lifted out of that state, to fall back into it again, and perish. 

But St Paul says, and we say: That crushed under this animal nature thereis in man a spirit. We say: That below all his consciousness lies anobler element; a divine spark, or at least a divine fuel, which must bekindled into life by the divine Spirit, the Spirit of God. And we saythat in proportion as that Spirit of God kindles the spirit of man, hebegins to act after a fashion for which he can give no logical reason;that by instinct, and without calculation of profit or loss, pleasure orpain, he begins to act on what he calls duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice. But what these are he cannot analyse. Mere words cannotdefine them. He can only obey that which prompts him, he knows not whatnor whence; and say with Luther of old: "I can do no otherwise. God helpme. "

And we say that such men and women are the salt of the earth, who keepsociety from rotting; that by such men and women, and by their exampleand influence, direct and indirect, has Christendom been raised up out ofthe accursed slough into which Europe and, indeed, the whole known world, had fallen during the early Roman Empire; and that to this influence, andtherefore to the Holy Spirit of God alone, and not to any prudentialcalculations, combined experiences, or so-called philosophies of men, isowing all which keeps Europe from being a hell on earth. And we say, moreover, that those who deny this, and dream of a morality and acivilization without The Spirit of God, are unconsciously throwing downthe ladder by which they themselves have climbed, and sawing off the verybough to which they cling. 

Duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice--these are the fruits of The Spirit;unknown to, and unobeyed by, the savage, or by the civilized man who--ashas too often happened--as is happening now in too many lands, on bothsides of the Atlantic, is sinking back into inward savagery, amid anoutward and material civilization. 

Moreover--and this appears to us a fair experimental proof that our old-fashioned belief in A Spirit of God, which acts upon the spirit of man, is a true belief--moreover, I say: It is a patent fact, that wherever andwhenever there has been a revival of the Christian religion; whenever, that is, amid whatsoever confusions and errors, men have begun to feelthe need of the Holy Spirit of God, and to pray for that Spirit, a moralrevival has accompanied the religious one. Men and women have not onlybecome better themselves; and that often suddenly and in very truthmiraculously better: but the yearning has awoke in them to make othersbetter likewise. The grace of God, as they have called it, has made themgracious to their fellow-creatures; and duty, honour, love, self-sacrifice, call it by what name we will, has said to them, with astill small voice more potent than all the thunders of the law: Go, andseek and save that which is lost. 

In no case has this instinctive tendency to practical benevolence beenmore striking, than in the case of that great religious revivalthroughout England at the beginning of this century, which issued in therise of the Evangelical school: a school rightly so called, because itsmembers did try to obey the precepts of the Gospel, according to theirunderstanding of them, in spirit and in truth. 

The doctrines which they held are a matter not for us, but for God andtheir own souls. The deeds which they did are matter for us, and for allEngland; for they have left their mark on the length and breadth of theland. They were inspired--cultivated, highborn, and wealthy folk many ofthem--with a strange new instinct that God had bidden them to feed thehungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the prisoner and the sick, to bindup the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to preachgood tidings to the meek. A strange new instinct: and from what cause, save from the same cause as that which Isaiah assigned to his own likedeeds?--Because "The Spirit of the Lord was upon him. "

Yes, if those gracious men, those gracious women, did not shew forth theSpirit and grace of God with power, then there is either no Spirit ofGod, no grace of God; or those who deny to them the name of saints forgetthe words of Him Who said: By their fruits ye shall know them; of Him Whosaid, too: That the unpardonable sin, the sin which shewed complete moralperversion, the sin against the Holy Spirit of God, was to attribute gooddeeds to bad motives, and say: He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, theprince of the devils. 

Yes, that old Evangelical School may now have passed its prime. It maynow be verging toward old age; and other schools, younger and stronger, with broader and clearer knowledge of dogma, of history, civil andecclesiastical, of the value of ceremonial, of the needs of the humanintellect and emotions, may have passed it in a noble rivalry, andsnatched, as it were, from the hands of the old Evangelical School thelamp of truth, to bear it further forward in the race. But God forbidthat the spiritual children should be ungrateful to their spiritualparents, though God may have taught them things which their parents didnot know. 

And they were our spiritual parents, those old Evangelicals. No just andwell-informed man who has passed middle age, but must confess, that tothem we owe whatsoever vital religion exists at this moment in any schoolor party of the Church of England; that to them we owe the germs atleast, and in many cases the full organization and the final success, ofa hundred schemes of practical benevolence and practical justice, withoutwhich this country, in its haste to grow rich at all risks and by allmeans, might have plunged itself ere now into anarchy and revolution. Andhe must confess, too, if he is one who has seen much of hisfellow-creatures and their characters, that that school numbered amongits disciples--and, thank God, they are not all yet gone home to theirrest--some of the loveliest human souls, whose converse has chastened andennobled his own soul. Ah, well--

 The old order changeth, giving place to the new; And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

And new methods and new institutions have arisen, and will yet arise, forseeking and saving that which is lost. God's blessing on them all, towhatsoever party, church, or sect they may belong! Whosoever cast outdevils in Christ's name, Christ has forbidden us to forbid them, whetherthey follow us or not. But yet shall we not still honour and love theold Evangelical School, and many an Institution which it has left behind, as heirlooms to some of us, at least, from our mothers, or from women towhom we owed, in long past years, our earliest influences for good, ourearliest examples of a practical Christian life, our earliest proofs thatthere was indeed a Spirit of God, a gracious Spirit, Who gave grace tothe hearts, the deeds, the very looks and voices of those in whom Hedwelt; Institutions, which are too likely some of them to die, simplyfrom the loss of old friends?

The loss of old friends. Yes, so it is always in this world. The oldearnest hearts go home one by one to their rest; and the young earnesthearts--and who shall blame them?--go elsewhere; and try new fashions ofdoing good, which are more graceful and more agreeable to them. For thereligious world, like all other forms of the world, has its fashions; andof them too stands true the saying of the apostle: That this world andthe fashion thereof pass away. Many a good work, which once was somewhatfashionable in its way, has become somewhat unfashionable, and somethingelse is fashionable in its place; and five-and-twenty years hencesomething else will have become fashionable; and our children will lookback on our ways of doing good with pity, if not with contempt, as narrowand unenlightened, just as we are too apt to look back on our fathers'ways. And all the while, what can they teach worth teaching, what can weteach worth teaching, save what our fathers and mothers taught, what theSpirit of God taught them, and has taught to all who would listen sincethe foundation of the world, "shewing man what was good:" and what wasthat--"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to lovemercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

Ah! why do we, even in religious and moral matters, even in the doinggood to the souls and bodies of our fellow-creatures, allow ourselves tobe the puppets of fashions? Of fashions which even when harmless, evenbeautiful, are but the garments, or rather stage-properties, in which wedress up the high instincts which God's Spirit bestows on us, in order tomake them agreeable enough for our own prejudices, or pretty enough forour own tastes. How little do we perceive our own danger--so little thatwe yield to it every day--the danger of mistaking our fashion of doinggood for the good done; aye, for the very Spirit of God Who inspires thatgood; mistaking the garment for the person who wears it, the outward andvisible sign for the inward and spiritual grace; and so in our heartsfalling actually into that very error of transubstantiation, of which werepudiate the name!

Why, ah why, will we not take refuge from fashions in Him in Whom are nofashions--even in the Holy Spirit of God, Who is unchangeable and eternalas the Father and the Son from Whom He proceeds; Who has spoken words insundry and divers manners to all the elect of God; Who has inspired everygood thought and feeling which was ever thought or felt in earth orheaven; but Whose message of inspiration has been, and will be, for everthe same--"Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God"?

Could we but utterly trust Him, and utterly believe in His presence: thenwe should welcome all truth, under whatever outward forms of the mereintellect it was uttered; then we should bless every good deed, bywhomsoever and howsoever it was done; then we should rise above all partystrifes, party cries, party fashions and shibboleths, to thecontemplation of the One supreme good Spirit--the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and hold to the One Fashion ofAlmighty God, which never changes, for it is eternal by the necessity ofHis own eternal character; namely, --To be perfect, even as our Father inHeaven is perfect; because He causes His sun to shine on the evil and onthe good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. 

SERMON VII. CONFUSION. 

PSALM CXIX. 31. 

 I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not. 

What is the meaning of this text? What is this which the Psalmist andprophets call being confounded; being put to shame and confusion of face?What is it? It is something which they dread more than death; which theydread as much as hell. Nay, it seems in the mind of some of them to bepart and parcel of hell itself; one of the very worst things which couldhappen to them after death: for what is written in the Book of theProphet Daniel?--"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shallawake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlastingcontempt. "

And we Christians are excusable if we dread it likewise. How often doesSt Paul speak of shame as an evil to be dreaded; just as he speaks, evenmore often, of glory and honour as a thing to be longed for and strivenafter. That one word, "ashamed, " occurs twelve times and more in the NewTestament, beside St John's warning, which alone is enough to prove whatI allege, "that we have not to be ashamed before Christ at his coming. "

And how does the Te Deum--the noblest hymn written by man since St Johnfinished his Book of Revelations--how does that end, but with the sameold cry as that of the Psalmist in the 119th Psalm--

"O Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded"?

Now it is difficult to tell men what being confounded means; difficultand almost needless; for there are those who know what it means withoutbeing told; and those who do not know what it means without being told, are not likely to know by my telling, or any man's telling. No, not ifan angel from heaven came and told them what being confounded meant wouldthey understand him, at least till they were confounded themselves; andthen they would know by bitter experience--perhaps when it was too late. 

And who are they? What sort of people are they?

First, silly persons; whom Solomon calls fools--though they often thinkthemselves refined and clever enough--luxurious and "fashionable" people, who do not care to learn, who think nothing worth learning save how toenjoy themselves; who call it "bad form" to be earnest, and turn off allserious questions with a jest. These are they of whom Wisdom says--"Howlong, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delightin their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? I also will laugh at yourcalamity, and mock when your fear cometh. "

Next, mean and truly vulgar persons; who are shameless; who do not careif they are caught out in a lie or in a trick. These are they of whom itis written that outside of God's kingdom, in the outer darkness whereinare weeping and gnashing of teeth, are dogs, and whosoever loveth andmaketh a lie. 

And next, and worst of all, self-conceited people. These are they ofwhom Solomon says, "Seest thou a man who is wise in his own conceit?There is more hope of a fool than of him. " They are the people who willnot see when they are going wrong; who will not hear reason, nor takeadvice, no, nor even take scorn and contempt; who will not see that theyare making fools of themselves, but, while all the world is laughing atthem, walk on serenely self-satisfied, certain that they, and they only, know what the world is made of, and how to manage the world. These arethey of whom it is written--"He that being often reproved, hardeneth hisneck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. " Then theywill learn, and with a vengeance, what being confounded means by beingconfounded themselves, and finding themselves utterly wrong, where theythought themselves utterly right. Yet no. I do not think that even thatwould cure some people. There are those, I verily believe, who would notconfess that they were in the wrong even in the bottomless pit, but, likeSatan and his fallen angels in Milton's poem, would have excellentarguments to prove that they were injured and ill-used, deceived andbetrayed, and lay the blame of their misery on God, on man, on anythingbut their own infallible selves. 

Who, then, are the people who know what being confounded means; who areafraid, and terribly afraid, of being brought to shame and confusionefface?

I should say, all human beings in proportion as they are truly humanbeings, are not brutal; in proportion, that is, as they are good or havethe capacity of goodness in them; that is, in proportion as the Spirit ofGod is working in them, giving them the tender heart, the quick feelings, the earnestness, the modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence forthe good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the beginning of eternallife. Do you not see it in the young? Modesty, bashfulness, shame-facedness--as the good old English word was--that is the verybeginning of all goodness in boys and girls. It is the very material outof which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment, young people for being modest and bashful, are doing the devil's work, and putting themselves under the curse which God, by the mouth of Solomonthe wise, pronounced against the scorners who love scorning, and thefools who hate knowledge. 

This is the rule with dumb animals likewise. The more intelligent, themore high-bred they are, the more they are capable of feeling shame; andthe more they are liable to be confounded, to lose their heads, andbecome frantic with doubt and fear. Who that has watched dogs does notknow that the cleverer they are, the more they are capable of beingactually ashamed of themselves, as human beings are, or ought to be? Whothat has trained horses does not know that the stupid horse is nevervicious, never takes fright? The failing which high-bred horses have ofbecoming utterly unmanageable, not so much from bodily fear, as frombeing confounded, not knowing what people want them to do--that is thevery sign, the very effect, of their superior organization: and moreshame to those who ill-use such horses. If God, my friends, dealt withus as cruelly and as clumsily as too many men deal with their horses, Hewould not be long in driving us mad with terror and shame and confusion. But He remembers our frame; He knoweth whereof we are made, andremembereth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He hath made. And to Him we can cry, even when weknow that we have made fools of ourselves--Father who made me, Christ whodied for me, Holy Spirit who teachest me, have patience with my stupidityand my ignorance. Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never beconfounded. 

But some will tell us--It is a sign of weakness to feel shame. Whyshould you care for the opinion of your fellow-men? If you are doingright, what matter what they say of you?

Yes, my friends, if you are doing right. But if you are not doingright--What then?

If you have only been fancying that you are doing right, and suspectsuddenly that you have been very likely doing wrong--What then?

When a man tells me that he does not care what people think of him; thatthey cannot shame him: in the first place, I do not quite believe that heis speaking truth; and in the next place, I hope he is _not_ speakingtruth. I hope--for his own sake--that he does care what people think ofhim: or else I must suspect him of being very dull or very conceited. 

And if he tells me that the old prophets, and holy, and just, and heroicmen in all ages, never cared for people's laughing at them and despisingthem, provided they were doing right according to their own conscience: Ianswer--That he knows nothing about the matter; that he has not honestlyread the writings of these men. I say that the Psalmist who wrote Ps. 119, was a man, on his own shewing, intensely open to the feeling ofshame, and felt intensely what men said of him; felt intensely slanderand insult. We talk of independent and true patriots now-a-days. I willtell you of four of the noblest patriots the world ever saw, who were menof that stamp. I say that Isaiah was such a man; that Jeremiah was sucha man; that Ezekiel was such a man; that their writings shew that theyfelt intensely the rebukes and the contempt which they had to endure fromthose whom they tried to warn and save. I say again that St Paul, as maybe seen from his own epistles, was such a man; a man who was intenselysensitive of what men thought and said of him; yearning after the loveand approbation of his fellow-men, and above all of hisfellow-countrymen, his own flesh and blood; and that that feeling in him, which may have been hurtful to him before he was converted, was of thegreatest use to him after his conversion; that it enabled him to win allhearts, because he felt with men and for men; and gained him over thehearts of men such a power as no mere human being ever had before orsince. 

And I say that of all men the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, had thatfeeling; that longing for the love and appreciation of men--and aboveall, for the love and appreciation of His countrymen according to theflesh, the Jews, He had--strange as it may seem, yet there it is in theGospels, written for ever and undeniable--that capacity of shame which isthe mark of true nobleness of soul. 

He endured the cross, despising the shame. Yes: but there are too manyon earth who endure shame with brazen faces, just because they do notfeel it. If He had not felt the shame, what merit in despising it? Itwas His glory that He felt the shame; and yet conquered the shame, andcrushed it down by the might of His love for fallen man. 

Do you fancy that in His agony in the garden, when His sweat was as greatdrops of blood, that it was only bodily fear of pain and death whichcrushed Him for the moment? He felt that, I doubt not; as He had totaste death for every man, and feel all human weakness, yet without sin. But it was a deeper, more painful, and yet more noble feeling than merefear which then convulsed His sacred heart; even the feeling of shame--themockery of the crowd--the--But I dare not enlarge on anything so awful;at least I will say this--That he had to cry as none ever cried before orsince, "O God, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded;" forhe had, it seems, actually, at one supreme moment, to feel confounded;and to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That was thehighest and most precious jewel of all his self-sacrifice. Of it let usonly say--

Our Lord and Saviour stooped to be confounded for a moment, that we mightnot be confounded to all eternity. 

And therefore our blessed Lord is to us an example. As he did, so mustwe try to do. He entered into glory, by suffering shame, and yetdespising it. He submitted to be confounded before men, that He mightnot be confounded in the sight of God His Father. And so must we, sometimes, at least. Every man who makes up his mind to do right and tobe good, must expect ridicule now and then. Rich or poor, boy or man, ifyou try to keep your hands clean, and your path straight, the world willthink you a fool, and will be ready enough to tell you so; for it iscruel and insolent enough. And the more tender your heart; the more youwish for the love and approbation of your fellow-men; the more of nobleand modest self-distrust there is in you, the more painful will that beto you; the more you will be tempted to obey man, and not God, and tofollow after the multitude to do evil, merely to keep the peace, and livea quiet life, and not be laughed at and tormented. And thus the fear ofman brings a snare; and naught can deliver you out of that snare, savethe opposite fear--the fear of God, which is the same as trust in God. 

Joseph of old feared God when he was tempted; and said, "How can I dothis great wickedness, and sin against God?" But I doubt not there wereplenty in Egypt who would have called him a fool for his pains. Thereare hundreds of gay youths in any great city--there may be a few in thisAbbey now for aught I know--who would have laughed loudly enough atJoseph for throwing away the opportunity of what certain foolish Frenchhave learnt to call, as its proper name, a "bonne fortune"--a piece ofgood luck. --As if breaking the 7th Commandment could be aught but badfortune, and the cause of endless miseries in this life and the life tocome. 

And it may be, as Joseph was all but confounded and brought to shame, atleast from man, when he found that all that he gained by fearing Godwas--a false accusation, the very shame and contempt from which he mostshrank, danger of death, imprisonment in a dungeon. 

But he was true to God, and God was true to him. He trusted in God; andtherefore he feared God: for he trusted that God's laws were just andgood, and worth obeying; and therefore he was afraid to break them. Hetrusted in God; and therefore he hoped in God; for he trusted that Godwas strong enough and good enough to deliver him out of prison, and makehis righteousness as clear as the light and his just dealing as thenoonday. He cried out of his prison, doubt it not, many a time andoft--"O God, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded. "

And he was not confounded. He came into Egypt a slave. He was cast intoprison on a shameful accusation: but he came out of prison to be a rulerand a prince, honoured and obeyed by the greatest nation of the oldworld. He trusted in God, and he was not confounded for ever; even asthe Lord Christ trusted in God and was not confounded for ever; even aswe, if we do not wish to be confounded for ever, must trust in God; andinstead of being scornful, careless, conceited, must fear Him, and say, "My flesh trembleth because of Thy righteous judgments. " And then thelaughter of fools will end, where it began, in harmless noise, like (saysSolomon) the crackling of thorns under a pot. Then, whosoever may scornyou on earth, the great God in heaven will not scorn you. You may beconfounded for a moment here on earth. Worldly people may take advantageof your misfortunes, and cry over you--There, there, so would we have it. Take him and persecute him, for there is none to deliver him; where isnow his God? So it may be with you; for as surely as you fall, many acur will spring up and bark at you, who dared not open his mouth at youwhile you stood safe. Or--worse by far than that--the world may takehold of your really weak points, of your inconsistencies, of your faultsand failings; and cry--Fie on thee, fie on thee. We saw it with oureyes. For all his high professions, for all his talk of truth andjustice, he is no better than the rest of the world. And that scoff doesgo very near to confound a man; because he feels that it is half true, half deserved, and is afraid that it may be quite true and quitedeserved: and then confounded indeed he would be, by his own conscienceand by God, as well as by man. All he can do is, to cry to God, like himwho wrote the 119th Psalm, --I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not. I know I am weak, ignorant, unsuccessful; full offaults too, and failings, which make me ashamed of myself every day of mylife. I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost. But seek thyservant, O Lord, for I do not forget thy commandments. I am trying tolearn my duty. I am trying to do my duty. I have stuck unto thytestimonies: O Lord, confound me not. Man may confound me. But do notthou, of thy mercy and pity, O Lord. Do not let me find, when I die, orbefore I die, that all my labour has been in vain; that I am not a betterman, not a wiser man, not a more useful man after all. Do not let mygrey hairs go down with sorrow to the grave. Do not let me die with themiserable thought that, in spite of all my struggles to do my duty, mylife has been a failure, and I a fool. Do not let me wake in the nextlife, like Dives in the torment, to be utterly confounded; to find that Iwas all wrong, and have nothing left but everlasting disappointment andconfusion of face. O Lord, who didst endure all shame for me, save mefrom that most utter shame. O God, in thee have I trusted; let me neverbe confounded. 

Wake in the next life to find oneself confounded? Alas! alas! Many aman wakes in this life to find himself that; and really sometimes by nofault, seemingly, of his own: so that all he can do is to be dumb, andnot to open his mouth, for it is God's doing. For a man's worst miseriesand sorrows are, too often, caused not by himself, but by those whom heloves. 

Consider the one case of vice, or even of mere ingratitude, in thosenearest and dearest to a man's heart; and of being so confounded throughthem, and by them, in spite of all love, care, strictness, tenderness, teaching, prayers--what not--and all in vain. 

No wonder that, under that bitterest blow, valiant and virtuous men, erenow, have never lifted up their heads again, but turned their faces tothe wall, and died: and may the Lord have mercy on them. Confounded theyhave been in this world; confounded they will not be, we must trust, inthe world to come. The Lord of all pity will pity them, and pour His oiland wine into their aching wounds, and bring them to His own inn, and toHis secret dwelling-place, where the wicked cease from troubling, and theweary are at rest. 

One word more, and I have done. Do you wish to pray, with hope that youmay be heard, --O Lord, confound me not, and bring me not to shame? Thenhold to one commandment of Christ's. Do to others as you would theyshould do to you. For with what measure you measure to your fellow-men, it shall be measured to you again. Have charity, have patience, havemercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all any little child, to shame and confusion of face. Never, bycruelty, by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish andsilly haste; never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of asneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coarsest in the heartof any fellow-creature. Never confound any human soul in the hour of itsweakness. For then, it may be, in the hour of thy weakness, Christ willnot confound thee. 

SERMON VIII. THE SHAKING OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH. 

HEBREWS XII. 26-29. 

 Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire. 

This is one of the Royal texts of Scripture. It is inexhaustible, likethe God who inspired it. It has fulfilled itself again and again, atdifferent epochs. It fulfilled itself specially and notoriously in thefirst century. But it fulfilled itself again in the fifth century; andagain at the Crusades; and again at the Reformation in the sixteenthcentury. And it may be that it is fulfilling itself at this very day;that in this century, both in the time of our fathers and in our own, theLord has been shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things whichcan be shaken may be removed, as things that are made, while those thingswhich cannot be shaken may remain. 

All confess this to be true, each in his own words. They talk of thisage as one of change; of rapid progress, for good or evil; of unexpecteddiscoveries; of revolutions, intellectual, moral, social, as well aspolitical. Our notions of the physical universe are rapidly altering, with the new discoveries of science; and our notions of ethics andtheology are altering as rapidly. The era assumes a different aspect todifferent minds, just as did the first century after Christ, according asmen look forward to the future with hope, or back to the past withregret. Some glory in the nineteenth century as one of rapid progressfor good; as the commencement of a new era for humanity; as theinauguration of a Reformation as grand as that of the sixteenth century. Others bewail it as an age of rapid decay; in which the old landmarks arebeing removed, the old paths lost; in which we are rushing headlong intoscepticism and atheism; in which the world and the Church are both indanger; and the last day is at hand. 

Both parties may be right; and yet both may be wrong. Men have alwaystalked thus, at great crises in the world's life. They talked thus inthe first century; and in the fifth, and in the eleventh; and again inthe sixteenth; and then both parties were partially right and partiallywrong; and so they may be now. What they meant to say, what they wantedto say, what we mean and want to say, has been said already for us in fardeeper, wider, and more accurate words, by him who wrote this wonderfulEpistle to the Hebrews, when he told the Jews of his time that the Lordwas shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things which wereshaken might be removed, as things that are made--cosmogonies, systems, theories, prejudices, fashions, of man's invention: while those thingswhich could not be shaken might remain, because they were according tothe mind and will of God, eternal as that source from whence they cameforth, even the bosom of God the Father. 

"Yet once more I shake, not the earth only, but also heaven. "

How has the earth been shaken in our days; and the heaven likewise. Howrapidly have our conceptions of both altered. How easy, simple, certain, it all looked to our forefathers in the middle age. How difficult, complex, uncertain, it all looks to us. With increased knowledge hascome--not increased doubt: that I deny utterly. I deny, once and forall, that this age is an irreverent age. I say that an irreverent age isone like the age of the Schoolmen; when men defined and explained allheaven and earth by a priori theories, and cosmogonies invented in thecloister; and dared, poor, simple, ignorant mortals, to fancy that theycould comprehend and gauge the ways of Him Whom the heaven and the heavenof heavens could not contain. This, this is irreverence: but it isneither irreverence nor want of faith, if a man, awed by the mysterywhich encompasses him from the cradle to the grave, shall lay his handupon his mouth, with Job, and obey the voice which cries to him fromearth and heaven--"Be still, and know that as the heavens are higher thanthe earth, so are my ways higher than thy ways, and my thoughts higherthan thine. "

But it was all easy, and simple, and certain enough to our forefathers. The earth, according to the popular notion, was a flat plane; or, if itwere, as the wiser held, a sphere, yet antipodes were an unscripturalheresy. Above it were the heavens, in which the stars were fixed, orwandered; and above them heaven after heaven, each tenanted by its ownorders of beings, up to that heaven of heavens in which Deity--and byHim, be it always remembered, the mother of Deity--was enthroned. 

And if above the earth was the kingdom of light, and purity, andholiness, what could be more plain, than that below it was the kingdom ofdarkness, and impurity, and sin? That was no theory to our forefathers:it was a physical fact. Had not even the heathens believed as much, andsaid so, by the mouth of the poet Virgil? He had declared that the mouthof Tartarus lay in Italy, hard by the volcanic lake Avernus; and afterthe unexpected eruption of Vesuvius in the first century, nothing seemedmore clear than that Virgil was right; and that men were justified intalking of Tartarus, Styx, and Phlegethon as indisputable Christianentities. Etna, Stromboli, Hecla, were (according to this cosmogony) inlike wise mouths of hell; and there were not wanting holy hermits, whohad heard, from within those craters, shrieks, and clanking chains, andthe howls of demons tormenting the souls of the endlessly lost. 

Our forefathers were not aware that, centuries before the Incarnation ofour Lord, the Buddhist priests had held exactly the same theory of moralretribution; and that, painted on the walls of Buddhist temples, might beseen horrors identical with those which adorned the walls of many aChristian Church, in the days when men believed in this Tartarology asfirmly as they now believe in the results of chemistry or of astronomy. 

And now--How is the earth shaken, and the heavens likewise, in that verysense in which the expression is used by him who wrote to the Hebrews?Our conceptions of them are shaken. How much of that mediaeval cosmogonydo educated men believe, in the sense in which they believe that thethree angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or that if theysteal their neighbour's goods they commit a sin?

The earth has been shaken for us, more and more violently, as the yearshave rolled on. It was shaken when Astronomy told us that the earth wasnot the centre of the universe, but a tiny planet revolving round a sunin a remote region thereof. 

It was shaken when Geology told us that the earth had endured forcountless ages, during which continents had become oceans, and oceanscontinents, again and again. And even now, it is being shaken byresearches into the antiquity of man, into the origin and permanence ofspecies, which--let the result be what it will--must in the meanwhileshake for us theories and dogmas which have been undisputed for 1500years. 

And with the rest of our cosmogony, that conception of a physicalTartarus below the earth has been shaken likewise, till good men havebeen fain to find a fresh place for it in the sun, or in a comet; or topatronize the probable, but as yet unproved theory of a central firewithin the earth; not on any scientific grounds, but simply if by anymeans they can assign a region in space, wherein material torment can beinflicted on the spirits of the lost. 

And meanwhile the heavens, the spiritual world, is being shaken no less. More and more frequently, more and more loudly, men are asking--notsceptics merely, but pious men, men who wish to be, and who believethemselves to be, orthodox Christians--more and more loudly are such menasking questions which demand an answer, with a learning and aneloquence, as well as with a devoutness and a reverence for Scripture, which--whether rightly or wrongly employed--is certain to commandattention. 

Rightly or wrongly, these men are asking, whether the actual and literalwords of Scripture really involve the mediaeval theory of an endlessTartarus. 

They are saying, "It is not we who deny, but you who assert, endlesstorments, who are playing fast and loose with the letter of Scripture. You are reading into it conceptions borrowed from Virgil, Dante, Milton, when you translate into the formula 'endless torment' such phrases as'the outer darkness, ' 'the fire of Gehenna, ' 'the worm that dieth not;'which, according to all just laws of interpretation, refer not to thenext life, but to this life, and specially to the approaching catastropheof the Jewish nation; or when you say that eternal death really meanseternal life--only life in torture. "

Rightly or wrongly, they are saying this; and then they add, "We do notyield to you in love and esteem for Scripture. We demand not a looser, but a stricter; not a more metaphoric, but a more literal; not a morecontemptuous, but a more reverent interpretation thereof. "

So these men speak, rightly or wrongly. And for good or for evil, theywill be heard. 

And with these questions others have arisen, not new at all--say thesemen--but to be found, amid many contradictions, in the writings of allthe best divines, when they have given up for a moment systems andtheories, and listened to the voice of their own hearts; questionsnatural enough to an age which abhors cruelty, has abolished torture, labours for the reformation of criminals, and debates--rightly orwrongly--about abolishing capital punishment. Men are asking questionsabout the heaven--the spiritual world--and saying--"The spiritual world?Is it only another material world which happens to be invisible now, butwhich may become visible hereafter: or is it not rather the moralworld--the world of right and wrong? Heaven? Is not the true and realheaven the kingdom of love, justice, purity, beneficence? Is not thatthe eternal heaven wherein God abides for ever, and with Him those whoare like God? And hell? Is it not rather the anarchy of hate, injustice, impurity, uselessness; wherein abides all that is opposed toGod?"

And with those thoughts come others about moral retribution--"What is itspurpose? Can it--can any punishment have any right purpose save thecorrection, or the annihilation, of the criminal? Can God, in thisrespect, be at once less merciful and less powerful than man? Is He socontrolled by necessity that He is forced to bring into the world beingswhom He knows to be incorrigible, and doomed to endless misery? And ifnot so controlled, is not the alternative as to His character even morefearful? He bids us copy His justice, His love. Is that His justice, that His love, which if we copied, we should call each other, anddeservedly, utterly unjust and unloving? Can there be one morality forGod, and another for man, made in the image of God? Are these darkdogmas worthy of a Father who hateth nothing that He hath made, and isperfect in this--that He makes His sun shine on the evil and on the good, and His rain fall on the just and on the unjust, and is good to theunthankful and to the evil? Are they worthy of a Son who, in the fire ofHis divine charity, stooped from heaven to earth, to toil, to suffer, todie on the Cross, that the world by Him might be saved? Are they worthyof that Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son, even thatSpirit of boundless charity, and fervent love, by which the Son offeredHimself to the Father, a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world--andsurely not in vain?"

So men are asking--rightly or wrongly; and they are guarding themselves, at the same time, from the imputation of disbelief in moral retribution;of fancying God to be a careless, epicurean deity, cruelly indulgent tosin, and therefore, in so far, immoral. 

They say--"We believe firmly enough in moral retribution. How can wehelp believing in it, while we see it working around us, in many afearful shape, here, now, in this life? And we believe that it may workon, in still more fearful shapes, in the life to come. We believe thatas long as a sinner is impenitent, he must be miserable; that if he goeson impenitent for ever, he must go on making himself miserable--ay, itmay be more and more miserable for ever. Only do not tell us that hemust go on. That his impenitence, and therefore his punishment, isirremediable, necessary, endless; and thereby destroy the whole purpose, and we should say, the whole morality, of his punishment. If thatpunishment be corrective, our moral sense is not shocked by any severity, by any duration: but if it is irremediable, it cannot be corrective; andthen, what it is, or why it is, we cannot--or rather dare not--say. We, too, believe in an eternal fire. But because we believe also theAthanasian Creed, which tells us that there is but One Eternal, webelieve that that fire must be the fire of God, and therefore, like allthat is in God and of God, good and not evil, a blessing and not a curse. We believe that that fire is for ever burning, though men are for evertrying to quench it all day long; and that it has been and will be inevery age burning up all the chaff and stubble of man's inventions; thefolly, the falsehood, the ignorance, the vice of this sinful world; andwe praise God for it; and give thanks to Him for His great glory, that Heis the everlasting and triumphant foe of evil and misery, of whom it iswritten, that our God is a consuming fire. " Such words are being spoken, right or wrong. 

Such words will bear their fruit, for good or evil. I do not pronouncehow much of them is true or false. It is not my place to dogmatize anddefine, where the Church of England, as by law established, has declinedto do so. Neither is it for you to settle these questions. It is rathera matter for your children. A generation more, it may be, of earnestthought will be required, ere the true answer has been found. But it isyour duty, if you be educated and thoughtful persons, to face thesequestions; to consider seriously what these men would have youconsider--whether you are believing the exact words of the Bible, and theconclusions of your own reason and moral sense; or whether you are merelybelieving that cosmogony elaborated in the cloister, that theory of moralretribution pardonable in the middle age, which Dante and Milton sang. 

But this I do not hesitate to say--That if we of the clergy can find noother answers to these doubts than those which were reasonable andpopular in an age when men racked women, burned heretics, and believedthat every Mussulman killed in a crusade went straight to Tartarus--thenvery serious times are at hand, both for the Christian clergy and forChristianity itself. 

What, then, are we to believe and do? Shall we degenerate into a lazyscepticism, which believes that everything is a little true, andeverything a little false--in plain words, believes nothing at all? Orshall we degenerate into faithless fears, and unmanly wailings that theflood of infidelity is irresistible, and that Christ has left His Church?

We shall do neither, if we believe the text. That tells us of a firmstanding-ground amid the wreck of fashions and opinions. Of a kingdomwhich cannot be moved, though the heavens pass away like a scroll, andthe earth be burnt up with fervent heat. 

And it tells us that the King of that kingdom is He, who is called JesusChrist--the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 

An eternal and changeless kingdom, and an eternal and changeless King. These the Epistle to the Hebrews preaches to all generations. 

It does not say that we have an unchangeable cosmogony, an unchangeableeschatology, an unchangeable theory of moral retribution, an unchangeabledogmatic system: not to these does it point the Jews, while their ownnation and worship were in their very death-agony, and the world wasrocking and reeling round them, decay and birth going on side by side, ina chaos such as man had never seen before. Not to these does the Epistlepoint the Hebrews: but to the changeless kingdom and to the changelessKing. 

My friends, do you really believe in that kingdom, and in that King? Doyou believe that you are now actually in a kingdom of heaven, whichcannot be moved; and that the living, acting, guiding, practical, realKing thereof is Christ who died on the Cross?

These are days in which a preacher is bound to ask his congregation--andstill more to ask himself--whether he really believes in that kingdom, and in that King; and to bid himself and them, if they have not believedearnestly enough therein, to repent, in this time of Lent, of that atleast; to repent of having neglected that most cardinal doctrine ofScripture and of the Christian faith. 

But if we really believe in that changeless kingdom and in thatchangeless King, shall we not--considering who Christ is, the co-equaland co-eternal Son of God--believe also, that if the heavens and theearth are being shaken, then Christ Himself may be shaking them? That ifopinions be changing, then Christ Himself may be changing them? That ifnew truths are being discovered, Christ Himself may be revealing them?That if some of those truths seem to contradict those which He hasrevealed already, they do not really contradict them? That, as in thesixteenth century, Christ is burning up the wood and stubble with whichmen have built on His foundation, that the pure gold of His truth mayalone be left? It is at least possible; it is probable, if we believethat Christ is a living, acting King, to whom all power is given inheaven and earth, and who is actually exercising that power; andeducating Christendom, and through Christendom the whole human race, to aknowledge of Himself, and through Himself of God their Father in heaven. 

Should we not say--We know that Christ has been so doing, for centuriesand for ages? Through Abraham, through Moses, through the prophets, through the Greeks, through the Romans, and at last through Himself, Hegave men juster and wider views of themselves, of the universe, and ofGod. And even then He did not stop. How could He, who said of Himself, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"? How could He, if He be thesame yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Through the Apostles, andspecially through St Paul, He enlarged, while He confirmed, His ownteaching. And did He not do the same in the sixteenth century? Did Henot then sweep from the minds and hearts of half Christendom beliefswhich had been held sacred and indubitable for a thousand years? Whyshould He not be doing so now? If it be answered, that the Reformationof the sixteenth century was only a return to simpler and purer Apostolictruth--why, again, should it not be so now? Why should He not beperfecting His work one step more, and sweeping away more of man'sinventions, which are not integral and necessary elements of the oneCatholic faith, but have been left behind, in pardonable human weakness, by our great Reformers? Great they were, and good: giants on the earth, while we are but as dwarfs beside them. But, as the hackneyed proverbsays, the dwarf on the giant's shoulders may see further than the gianthimself: and so may we. 

Oh! that men would approach new truth in something of that spirit; in thespirit of reverence and Godly fear, which springs from a living belief inChrist the living King, which is--as the text tells us--the spirit inwhich we can serve God acceptably. Oh! that they would serve God;waiting reverently and anxiously, as servants standing in the presence oftheir Lord, for the slightest sign or hint of His will. Then they wouldhave grace; by which they would receive new thought with grace;gracefully, courteously, fairly, charitably, reverently; believing that, however strange or startling, it may come from Him whose ways are not asour ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts; and that he who fightsagainst it, may haply be fighting against God. 

True, they would receive all new thought with caution, that conservativespirit, which is the duty of every Christian; which is the peculiarstrength of the Englishman, because it enables him calmly and slowly totake in the new, without losing the old which his forefathers havealready won for him. So they would be cautious, even anxious, lest ingrasping too greedily at seeming improvements, they let go some preciousknowledge which they had already attained: but they would be on the lookout for improvements; because they would consider themselves, and theirgeneration, as under a divine education. They would prove all thingsfairly and boldly, and hold fast that which is good; all that which isbeautiful, noble, improving and elevating to human souls, minds, orbodies; all that increases the amount of justice, mercy, knowledge, refinement; all that lessens the amount of vice, cruelty, ignorance, barbarism. That at least must come from Christ. That at least must bethe inspiration of the Spirit of God: unless the Pharisees were rightafter all when they said, that evil spirits could be cast out by theprince of the devils. 

Be these things as they may, one comfort it will give us, to believefirmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the changelessKing. It will give us calm, patience, faith and hope, though the heavensand the earth be shaken around us. For then we shall see that theKingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of light, and not ofdarkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom, and not of slavery;of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that we live and move andhave our being not in a "Deus quidam deceptor" who grudges his childrenwisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom comes every good and perfectgift; who willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledgeof the truth. In His kingdom we are; and in the King whom He has setover it we can have the most perfect trust. For us that King stoopedfrom heaven to earth; for us He was born, for us He toiled, for us Hesuffered, for us He died, for us He rose, for us He sits for ever atGod's right hand. And can we not trust Him? Let Him do what He will. Let Him lead us whither He will. Wheresoever He leads must be the way oftruth and life. Whatsoever He does, must be in harmony with thatinfinite love which He displayed for us upon the Cross. Whatsoever Hedoes, must be in harmony with that eternal purpose by which He reveals tomen God their Father. Therefore, though the heaven and the earth beshaken around us, we will trust in Him. For we know that He is the sameyesterday, to-day, and for ever; and that His will and promise is, tolead those who trust in Him into all truth. 

SERMON IX. THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

LUKE XXI. 29-33. 

 And Jesus spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. 

The question which naturally suggests itself when we hear these words, is--When were these things to take place?

If we heard one whom we regarded as at least a person of perfect virtue, truthfulness, and earnestness, foretell that the city in which we nowstand should be destroyed. If he told us, that when we saw itencompassed with armies, we were to know that its desolation was at hand. If he told us that then those who were in the surrounding country were toflee to the mountains, and those in the city to come out of it. If hepronounced woe in that day on mothers and weak women who could notescape. If he told us, nevertheless, that when these things came to passwe were to rejoice and lift up our heads, for our redemption was drawingnigh. If he told us to look at the trees in spring; for, as surely astheir budding was a sign that summer was nigh, so was the coming to passof these terrible woes a sign that something was nigh, which he calledthe Kingdom of God. If he told us, with a solemn asseveration, that thisgeneration should not pass away till all had happened. If he went on towarn us against profligacy, frivolity, worldliness, lest that day shouldcome upon us unaware. If he bade us keep awake always, that we might befound worthy to escape all that was coming, and to stand before Him, TheSon of Man. If he used throughout his address the second person, speaking to us, but never mentioning our descendants; giving the signs, the warnings, the counsels to us only, should we not, even if he had notsolemnly told us that the present generation should not pass away tillall was fulfilled--should we not, I say, suppose naturally that he spokeof events which in his opinion our own eyes would see; which would, inhis opinion, occur during our lifetime?

Whether he were right in his expectation, or wrong, still it would beclear that such was his expectation; that he considered the danger asimminent, the warning as addressed personally to us who heard him speak. 

We should leave his presence with that impression, in fear and anxiety. But if we afterwards discovered that our fear and anxiety weresuperfluous; that the events of which he spoke--the most awful andwonderful of them at least--were not to occur for many centuries to come;that, even if some calamity were imminent, the immediate future and thevery distant future were so intermingled in his discourse, that it wouldrequire the labours of commentator after commentator, for many hundredyears, to disentangle them, and that their labours would be in vain; thatthe coming of the Son of Man, and of the Kingdom of God, of which he hadspoken, were to be referred to a time thousands of years hence; though wewere told in the same breath to look to the fig-tree and all the trees asa sign that it was coming immediately, and that our own generation wouldnot pass away before all had taken place:--would not such a discoveryraise in us thoughts and feelings neither wholesome for us nor honourableto the prophet?

I cannot think otherwise. We may be aware of the difficulties whichbeset this, and any other, interpretation of our Lord's prophecies inMatthew, Mark, and Luke: we may have the deepest respect for thoselearned and pious divines who from time to time have tried to part theprophecies relating to the fall of Jerusalem from those relating to theend of the world and the day of Judgment. Yet, in the face of such apassage as the text, especially when we cannot agree with those who wouldmake this "generation" mean this "race" or "nation, " we may--we have aright to--decline to separate the two sets of passages. We have a rightto say, --He who spake as man never spake, and therefore knew the force ofwords; He who knew what was in man--and therefore what effect His wordswould produce on His hearers--did deliver a discourse--indeed, manydiscourses--which asserted, as far as plain words could be understood byplain men, that the Kingdom of God was at hand; and that the coming ofthe Son of Man would take place before that generation passed away. 

And that all His disciples, and St Paul as much as any, put that meaningupon His words, is a matter of fact and of history, to be seen plainly inHoly Scripture. 

But, while the text compels us to believe that the destruction ofJerusalem by the Romans was a coming of the Son of Man--a manifestationof the Kingdom of God--a day of Judgment, in the strictest and most awfulsense; yet we are not compelled to limit the meaning of the text to thedestruction of Jerusalem. 

No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. Prophets, apostles--how much more our Lord Himself--do not merely indulge inpresages; they lay down laws--laws moral, spiritual, eternal--which havebeen fulfilling themselves from the beginning; which are fulfillingthemselves now; which will go on fulfilling themselves to the end oftime. 

So said our Lord Jesus of His own prophecies concerning the destructionof Jerusalem. It was but one example--a most awful one--of the laws ofHis kingdom. Not in Judaea only, but wherever the carcase was, therewould the eagles be gathered together. In the moral, as in the physicalword, there were beasts of prey--the scavengers of God--ready to devourout of His kingdom nations, institutions, opinions, which had becomedead, and decayed, and ready to infect the air. Many a time since theRoman eagles flocked to Jerusalem has that prophecy been fulfilled; andmany a time will it be fulfilled once more, and yet once more. 

And what else, if we look at them carefully and reverently, is themeaning of the words in this my text, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away"?

Shall we translate this, --Heaven and earth shall not come true: but Mywords shall come true? By so doing we may put some little meaning intothe latter half of the verse; but none into the former. Surely there isa deeper meaning in the words than that of merely coming true. Surelythey mean that His words are eternal, perpetual; for ever present, possible, imminent; for ever coming true. So, indeed, they would notpass away. So they would be like the heavens and the earth, and the lawsthereof; like heat, gravitation, electricity, what not--always here, always working, always asserting themselves--with this difference, thatwhen the physical laws of the heavens and the earth, which began in time, in time have perished, the spiritual laws of God's kingdom, of Christ'smoral government of moral beings, shall endure for ever and for ever, eternal as that God whose essence they reflect. 

Therefore I mean nothing less than that the great and final day ofJudgment is past; or that we are not to look for that second coming ofour Lord Jesus Christ which, as our forefathers taught us to hope, shallset right all the wrong of this diseased world. 

God forbid! For most miserable were the world, most miserable weremankind, if all that our Lord prophesied had happened, once and for all, at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. But most miserable, also, would this world be, and most miserable would be mankind, if thesewords were not to be fulfilled till some future Last Day, and day ofJudgment, for which the Church has now been waiting for more thaneighteen centuries--and, as far as we can judge, may wait for as manycenturies more. Most miserable, if the Son of Man has never come sinceHe ascended into heaven from Olivet. Most miserable, if the kingdom ofGod has never been at hand, since He gave that one short gleam of hope tomen in Judaea long ago. Most miserable, if there be no kingdom of Godamong us even now: in one word, if God and Christ be not our King; butthe devil, as some fancy; or Man himself, as others fancy, be the onlyking of this world and of its destinies; if there be no order in this madworld, save what man invents; no justice, save what he executes; no law, save what he finds convenient to lay upon himself for the protection ofhis person and property. Most miserable, if the human race have noguide, save its own instincts and tendencies; no history, save that ofits own greed, ignorance and crime, varied only by fruitless strugglesafter a happiness to which it never attains. Most miserable world, andmiserable man, if that be true after all which to the old Hebrew prophetseemed incredible and horrible--if God does look on while men dealtreacherously, and does hold His peace when the wicked devours the manwho is more righteous than he; and has made men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things that have no ruler over them. 

I said--Most miserable, in that case, was the world and man. I did notsay that they would consider themselves miserable. I did not say thatthey would think it a Gospel, and good news, that Christ was their King, and that His Kingdom was always at hand. They never thought that goodnews. When the prophets told them of it, they stoned them. When theLord Himself told them, they crucified Him. Worldly men dislike themessage now, probably, as much as they ever did. But they escape fromit, either by treating it as a self-evident commonplace which noChristian denies, and therefore no Christian need think of; or by smilingat it as an exploded superstition, at least as a "Semitic" form ofthought, with which we have nothing to do. They confound it, often Ifear purposely, with those fancied miraculous interpositions, thosepaltry special providences, which fanatics in all ages have believed tobe worked for their own special behoof. Altogether they dislike, andexpress very openly their dislike, of the least allusion to a DivineProvidence "interfering, " as they strangely term it, with them and theiraffairs. 

And they are wise, doubtless, in their generation. The news that Christis the King of men and of the world must be unpleasant, even offensive, to too many, both of those who fancy that they are managing this world, and of those who fancy that they could manage the world still better, ifthey only had their rights. It must be unpleasant to be told that theyare not managing the world, and cannot manage it: that it is beingmanaged and ruled by an unseen King, whose ways are far above their ways, and His thoughts above their thoughts. 

For then: Prudence might demand of them, that they should find out whatare that King's ways, thoughts and laws, and obey them--an enquiry sotroublesome, that many very highly educated persons consider it, now-a-days, quite impossible; and tell us that, for practical purposes, God'slaws can neither be discovered, nor obeyed. 

Moreover, their scheme of this world is one which would work--so theyfancy--just as well if there was no God. Unpleasant therefore it must befor them to hear, not merely that there is a God, but that He has His ownscheme of the world; and that it is working, whether they like or not;that God, and not they, is making history; God, and not they, appointingthe bounds and the times of nations; God, and not they, or any man ormen, distributing good and evil among mankind. 

They do not object, of course, to the existence of a God. They onlyobject to His being what the Hebrew prophets called Him--a living God; aGod who executes justice and judgment by His Son Jesus Christ, to whom Hehas committed all power both in heaven and earth. They are readysometimes to allow even that, provided they may relegate it into thepast, or into the future. They are ready to allow that God and Christexerted power over men at the first Advent 1800 years ago, and that theywill exert power over men at the second Advent--none knows how longhence. But that God and Christ are exerting power now--in anever-present and perpetual Advent--in this nineteenth century just asmuch as in any century before or since--that they had rather not believe. Their creed is, that though heaven and earth have not passed away; thoughthe laws of nature are working for ever as at the beginning: yet Christ'swords have passed away, and fallen into abeyance for many centuries past, to remain in abeyance for many centuries to come. 

In one word--while they believe more or less in a past God, and a futureGod, yet as to the existence of a present God, in any practical and realsense--they believe--how little, I dare not say. 

Whether this generation will awaken out of that sleep of practicalAtheism, which is creeping on them more and more, who can tell? Thatthey are uneasy in the sleep, there are many signs. For in their sleepdreams come of another world, of which their five senses tell themnought. Then do some fly to mediaeval superstitions, which give them atleast elaborate and agreeable substitutes for a living God. Some fly toimpostors, who pretend by juggling tricks to put them in communicationwith that unseen world which they have so long denied. Some, again, playwith unfulfilled prophecy; and fancy that it is for them, though it wasnot for the apostles, to know the times and seasons which the Father hasput in His own power, and the day and hour of which no man knoweth, nonot the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 

Better that, than that they should believe that there is nothing, andnever will be anything, in the world, beyond what their five senses canapprehend. 

But whether they awake or not out of their sleep, their blindness doesnot alter the eternal fact, whether men believe it or not. That is truewhat the Psalmist said of old: "The Lord is King, be the people never soimpatient. He sitteth upon His throne, though the earth be never sounquiet. "

The utterances of the old Psalmists and prophets concerning theever-present kingdom of God are facts, not dreams. Whether men believeit or not, it is true that the power, glory, and righteousness of Hiskingdom may be known unto men; that His kingdom is an everlastingkingdom, and His dominion endureth throughout all ages; that The Lordupholds all such as fall, and lifts up those that are down; that the eyesof all wait on Him, that He may give them their meat in due season; thatHe opens His hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness; thatthe Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works; that Heis nigh to them that call upon Him, yea to all who call upon Himfaithfully. He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that madethe eye, shall He not see? He that chastiseth the nations; it is He thatteacheth man knowledge: shall He not punish?

Whether men believe it or not, that is true which the Psalmistsaid--Whither shall I flee from His Spirit, or whither shall I go fromHis presence? If I climb up to heaven, He is there; if I go down tohell, He is there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell inthe uttermost part of the sea, even there shall His hand lead me, Hisright hand hold me still. 

Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake onearth--That the Father hath committed all judgment to Him, because He isthe Son of man; that to Him is given all power in heaven and earth; andthat He is with us, even to the end of the world. 

Whether men believe it or not, that is true which S. Paul spake on Mars'hill, saying that the Lord is not far from any one of us, for in Him welive and move and have our being; and that He hath appointed a day inwhich He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hathordained, and raised from the dead. 

Whether men believe it or not, that is true which Christ spake--Heavenand earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away; at leasttill He has put down all rule and all authority and power, and deliveredup the kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all. 

"That one far-off divine event, toward which the whole creation moves, "will be, not the resumption, but the triumph, of Christ's rule; of a rulewhich began before the world, which has endured through all the ages, which endures now, punishing or rewarding each and every one of us, andof our children's children, as long as there shall be a man upon theearth. For by Christ's will alone the world of man consists; in Christ'slaws alone is true life, health, wealth, possible for any man, family ornation; out of His kingdom He casts, sooner or later, all things whichoffend, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. He said ofHimself--Whosoever falleth on this rock shall be broken; but onwhomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder. 

SERMON X. THE LAW OF THE LORD. 

PSALM I. 1, 2. 

 Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the path of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law will he exercise himself day and night. 

The first and second Psalms, taken together, are the key to all thePsalms; I may almost say to the whole Bible. I will say a few words onthem this morning, especially to those who are coming to the HolyCommunion, to shew their allegiance to that Lord, in whose law alone islife, and who sits on the throne of the universe, King of kings, and Lordof lords: but I say it to the whole congregation likewise; nay, if therewere an infidel or a heathen in the Church, I should say it to them. Forin this case what is true of one man is true of every man, whether heknows it or not. 

We all should like to be blessed. We all should like to be, as the Psalmsays, like trees planted by the waterside, whose leaves never wither, andwho bring forth their fruit in due season. We should all wish to have itsaid of us--Whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper. Then here is the wayto inherit that blessing--"_Blessed is the man whose delight is in thelaw of the Lord_, _and who exercises himself in His law day and night_. "The Psalmist is not speaking of Moses' Law, nor of any other law of formsand ceremonies. He says expressly "The law of the Lord"--that is, thelaw according to which the Lord has made him and all the world; andaccording to which the Lord rules him and all the world. The Psalms--youmust remember--say very little about Moses' law; and when they do, speakof it almost slightingly, as if to draw men's minds away from it to adeeper, nobler, more eternal law. In one Psalm God asks, "Thinkest thouthat I will eat bulls' flesh, and drink the blood of goats?" And inanother Psalm some one answers, "Sacrifice and burnt-offering thouwouldest not. Then said I, Lo I come, to do thy will, O God. Thy law iswithin my heart. " This is that true and eternal law of which Solomonspeaks in his proverbs, as the Wisdom by which God made the heavens, andlaid the foundation of the earth; and tells us that that Wisdom is a treeof life to all who can lay hold of her; that in her right hand is lengthof days, and in her left hand riches and honour; that her ways are waysof pleasantness; and all her paths are peace. 

This is that law, of which the Prophet says--that God will put it intomen's hearts, and write it in their minds; and they shall be His people, and He will be their God. This is that law, which the inspiredPhilosopher--for a philosopher he was indeed--who wrote the 119th Psalm, continually prayed and strove to learn, intreating the Lord to teach himHis law, and make him remember His everlasting judgments. This is thatlaw, which our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled, because the law wasHis Father's law, and therefore His own law, and therefore he perfectlycomprehended the law, and perfectly loved the law; and said with Hiswhole heart--I delight to do Thy will, O God. 

The will of God. For in one word, this Law, which we have to learn, andby keeping which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God's Will. God's Will about us. What God has willed and chosen we should be. WhatGod has willed and chosen we should do. The greatest philosopher of the18th century said that every rational being had to answer fourquestions--Where am I? What can I know? What must I do? Whither am Igoing? And he knew well that--as the Bible tells us throughout--the onlyway to get any answer to those four tremendous questions is--To delightin the law of the Lord; to struggle, think, pray, till we get someunderstanding of God's will; of God's will about ourselves and about theworld; and so be blessed indeed. 

But to do that, it is plain that we must heed the warning which the firstverse of the Psalm gives us--"Blessed is the man that hath not walked inthe counsel of the ungodly. " For it is plain that a man will never learnGod's will if he takes counsel from ungodly men who care nothing forGod's will, and do not believe that God's will governs the world. Neithermust he, as the Psalm says, 'stand in the way of sinners'--of profligateand dishonest men who break God's law. For if he follows their ways, andbreaks God's law himself, it is plain that he will learn little ornothing about God's law, save in the way of bitter punishment. For lethim but break God's law a little too long, and then--as the 2nd Psalmsays--'God will rule him with a rod of iron, and break him in pieces likea potter's vessel. ' But there is even more hope for him--for he mayrepent and amend--than if he sits in the seat of the scorners. Thescorners; the sneering, the frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving, the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; whodelight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer ornobler than themselves. These are the men who cannot by any possibilitylearn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it. They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken uponthemselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in thebook of Job--"Doth Job serve God for nought?" When the greatest poet ofour days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin, he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever, courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not loveany one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but atGod and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out ofenvy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;--in oneword, a scorner. And so true was his conception felt to be, that men ofthat character are now often called by the very name which he gave to hisSatan--Mephistopheles. Beware therefore of the scornful spirit, as wellas of the openly sinful or of the ungodly. If you wish to learn the lawof the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for itis only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God'swill as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrinewhether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God. 

And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord. Youcannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also withouta judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the lawof the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour ofindignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm burstsout--"Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vainthing? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counseltogether, against the Lord, and against His Anointed--

"Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us. "

For the great majority of mankind, in every age and country, will notbelieve that there is a Law of the Lord, to which they must conformthemselves. Kings, and governments, and peoples, are too often all alikein that. They must needs have their own way. Their will is to be law. Their voice is to be the voice of God. They are they who ought to speak;who is Lord over them? And because the Lord is patient andlong-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot bylightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, andof their crimes and follies; and say--"Tush, shall God perceive it? Isthere knowledge in the most High?" But sooner or later, either by suddenand terrible catastrophes, or by slow decay, brought on sometimes bytheir own blind presumption, sometimes by their own luxury, they find outtheir mistake when it is too late. And then--

"He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn. The Lord shallhave them in derision. For He has set His King upon the throne" of allthe universe. 

Yes, Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know itor not. Christ's law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us tolight and life and peace and wealth, or ready to fall on us and grind usto powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not. The Lordliveth; though we may be too dead to feel Him. The Lord sees us; thoughwe may be too blind to see Him. Man can abolish many things; and doesboth--wisely and unwisely--in these restless days of change. But let himtry as long as he will--for he has often tried, and will try again--hecannot abolish Christ the Lord. 

For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe. The Father of all--ifwe may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are inthemselves unspeakable--is eternally saying to Him--Thou art my Son, thisday have I begotten Thee. And Christ answers eternally--I come to do Thywill, O God. The nations are Christ's inheritance; and the utmost partsof the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they thinkso or not. 

And there are times--there are times, my friends--when the awful wordswhich follow come true likewise--"Thou shalt bruise them with a rod ofiron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. "

For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created thatworld, there is a terrible aspect. There is calm: but there is stormalso. There is fertilizing sunshine: but there is also the destroyingthunderbolt. There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can tilland build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, whichdestroy in a moment the works of man. So there is in God boundless love, and boundless mercy: but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of Godwhich burns eternally against all evil and falsehood. And woe to thosewho fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by thatfire. 

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. "

We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only ofGod's goodness, and never of His severity. Ready enough to talk ofChrist as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if Heis gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be alsoweak. We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be--Lord ofheaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while Hewas shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy andcompassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrinkfrom shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink fromsaying, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"--didnot shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that verygeneration had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wickedcity of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruction. 

Think of these things, my friends: for true they are, and true they willremain, whether you think of them or not. And take the warning of thesecond Psalm, which is needed now as much as it was ever needed--"Be wisenow therefore, O ye kings, be learned, ye that are judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with reverence. Worshipthe Son, lest He be angry, and so ye perish from the right way. If Hiswrath be kindled, yea, but a little, blessed are all they that put theirtrust in Him. "

But you are no kings, you are no judges. Is it so? And yet you boastyourselves to be free men, in a free country. Not so. Every man who isa free man is a king or a judge, whether he knows it or not. Every onewho has a duty, is a king over his duty. Every one who has a work to do, is a judge whether he does his work well or not. He who farms, is a kingand a judge over his land. He who keeps a shop, a king and a judge overhis business. He who has a family, a king and a judge over hishousehold. Let each be wise, and serve the Lord in fear; knowing thataccording as he obeys the law of the Lord, he will receive for the deedsdone in the body, whether good or evil. 

Not kings? not judges? Is not each and every human being who is not amadman, a king over his own actions, a judge over his own heart andconscience? Let him govern himself, govern his own thoughts and words, his own life and actions, according to the law of the Lord who createdhim; and he will be able to say with the poet, My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find As far exceeds all earthly bliss. 

But if he governs himself according to his own fancy, which is no law, but lawlessness: then he will find himself rebelling against himself, weakened by passions, torn by vain desires, and miserable by reason ofthe lusts which war in his members; and so will taste, here in this life, of that anger of the Lord of which it is written; "If His wrath bekindled, yea, but a little, ye shall perish from the right way. "

Therefore let each and all of us, high and low, take the warning of thelast verse, and worship the Son of God. Bow low before Him--for that isthe true meaning of the words--as subjects before an absolute monarch, who can dispose of us, body and soul, according to His will: but who canbe trusted to dispose of us well: because His will is a good will, andthe only reason why He is angry when we break His laws, is, that His lawsare the Eternal Laws of God, wherein alone is life for all rationalbeings; and to break them is to injure our fellow-creatures, and to ruinourselves, and perish from that right way, to bring us back to which Hecondescended, of His boundless love, to die on the Cross for all mankind. 

SERMON XI. GOD THE TEACHER. 

PSALM CXIX. 33, 34. 

 Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy Law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. 

This 119th Psalm has been valued for many centuries, by the wisest andmost devout Christians, as one of the most instructive in the Bible; asthe experimental psalm. And it is that, and more. It is specially apsalm about education. That is on the face of the text. Teach me, OLord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. These are thewords of a man who wishes to be taught, and therefore to learn; and tolearn not mere book-learning and instruction, but to acquire a practicaleducation, which he can keep to the end, and carry out in his whole life. 

But it is more. It is, to my mind, as much a theological psalm as it isan experimental psalm; and it is just as valuable for what it tells usconcerning the changeless and serene essence of God, as for what it tellsus concerning the changing and struggling soul of man. 

Let us think a little this morning--and, please God, hereafter also--ofthe Psalm, and what it says. For it is just as true now as ever it was, and just as precious to those who long to educate themselves with thetrue education, which makes a man perfect, even as his Father in heavenis perfect. 

The Psalm is a prayer, or collection of short prayers, written by someone who had two thoughts in his mind, and who was so full of those twothoughts that he repeated them over and over again, in many differentforms, like one who, having an air of music in his head, repeats it indifferent keys, with variation after variation; yet keeps true always tothe original air, and returns to it always at the last. 

Now what two thoughts were in the Psalmist's mind?

First: that there was something in the world which he must learn, andwould learn; for everything in this life and the next depended on hislearning it. And this thing which he wants to learn he calls God'sstatutes, God's law, God's testimonies, God's commandments, God'severlasting judgments. That is what he feels he must learn, or else cometo utter grief, both body and soul. 

Secondly: that if he is to learn them, God Himself must teach them tohim. I beg you not to overlook this side of the Psalm. That is whatmakes it not only a psalm, but a prayer also. The man wants to knowsomething. But beside that, he prays God to teach it to him. 

He was not like too many now-a-days, who look on prayer, and oninspiration, as old-fashioned superstitions; who believe that a man canfind out all he needs to know by his own unassisted intellect, and thendo it by his own unassisted will. Where they get their proofs of thattheory, I know not; certainly not from the history of mankind, andcertainly not from their own experience, unless it be very different frommine. Be that as it may, this old Psalmist would not have agreed withthem; for he held an utterly opposite belief. He held that a man couldsee nothing, unless God shewed it to him. He held that a man could learnnothing unless God taught him; and taught him, moreover, in two ways. First taught him what he ought to do, and then taught him how to do it. 

Surely this man was, at least, a reasonable and prudent man, and shewedhis common-sense. I say--common-sense. 

For suppose that you were set adrift in a ship at sea, to shift foryourself, would it not be mere common-sense to try and learn how tomanage that ship, that you might keep her afloat and get her safe toland? You would try to learn the statutes, laws, and commandments, andtestimonies, and judgments concerning the ship, lest by your ownignorance you should sink her, and be drowned. You would try to learnthe laws about the ship; namely the laws of floatation, by fulfillingwhich vessels swim, and by breaking which vessels sink. 

You would try to learn the commandments about her. They would be anybooks which you could find of rules of navigation, and instruction inseamanship. 

You would try to learn the testimonies about the ship. And what wouldthey be? The witness, of course, which the ship bore to herself. Theexperience which you or others got, from seeing how she behaved--as theysay--at sea. 

And from whom would you try to learn all this? from yourself? Out ofyour own brain and fancy? Would you invent theories of navigation andshipbuilding for yourself, without practice or experience? I trust not. You would go to the shipbuilder and the shipmaster for your information. Just as--if you be a reasonable man--you will go for your informationabout this world to the builder and maker of the world--God himself. 

And lastly; you would try to learn the judgments about the ship: and whatwould they be? The results of good or bad seamanship; what happens toships, when they are well-managed or ill-managed. 

It would be too hard to have to learn that by experience; for the pricewhich you would have to pay would be, probably, that you would be wreckedand drowned. But if you saw other ships wrecked near you, you would formjudgments from their fate of what you ought to do. If you could findaccounts of shipwrecks, you would study them with the most intenseinterest; lest you too should be wrecked, and so judgment overtake youfor your bad seamanship. 

For God's judgment of any matter is not, as superstitious people fancy, that God grows suddenly angry, and goes out of His way to punish thosewho do wrong, as by a miracle. God judges all things in heaven and earthwithout anger--ay, with boundless pity: but with no indulgence. The soulthat sinneth, it shall die. The ship that cannot swim, it must sink. That is the law of the judgments of God. But He is merciful in this;that He rewardeth every man according to his work. His judgment may befavourable, as well as unfavourable. He may acquit, or He may condemn. But whether He acquits or condemns, we can only know by the event; by theresult. If a ship sinks, for want of good sailing or other defect, thatis a judgment of God about the ship. He has condemned her. She is notseaworthy. But if the ship arrives safe in port, that too is God'sjudgment. He has tried her and acquitted her. She is seaworthy; and shehas her reward. 

How simple this is. And yet men will not believe it, will not understandit, and therefore they wreck so often each man his own ship--his own lifeand immortal soul, and sink and perish, for lack of knowledge. 

For each one of us is at sea, each in his own ship; and each must sailher and steer her, as best he can, or sink and drown for ever. 

For the sea which each of us is sailing over is this world, and the shipin which each of us sails, is our own nature and character; what St Paul, like a truly scientific man, calls our flesh; and what modern scientificmen, and rightly, call our organisation. And the land to which we aresailing is eternal Life. Shall we make a prosperous voyage? Shall wefail, or shall we succeed? Shall we founder and drown at sea, and sinkto eternal death? Or shall we, as the clergyman prayed for us when wewere baptized, so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, thatfinally we may come to the land of everlasting life? Which shall it be, my friends? Shall we sink, or shall we swim? Certain is one thing--thatwe shall sink, and not swim, if we do not learn and keep the law, andcommandments, and testimonies, and judgments of God, concerning this ourmortal life. If we do not, then we shall go through life, withoutknowing how to go through life, ignorantly and blindly; and the end ofthat will be failure, and ruin, and death to our souls. If we do notknow and keep the Laws of God, the Laws of God will keep themselves, inspite of us, and grind us to powder. Do not fancy that you may do wrongwithout being punished; and break God's Law, because you are not underthe law, but under grace. You are only under grace, as long as you keepclear of God's Law. The moment you do wrong you put yourself under theLaw, and the Law will punish you. Suppose that you went into a mill; andthat the owner of that mill was your best friend, even your father. Wouldthat prevent your being crushed by the machinery, if you got entangled init through ignorance or heedlessness? I think not. Even so, though Godbe your best of friends, ay, your Father in heaven, that will not preventyour being injured, it may be ruined, not only by wilful sins, but bymere folly and ignorance. Therefore your only chance for safety in thislife and for ever, is to learn God's laws and statutes about your life, that you may pass through it justly, honourably, virtuously, successfully. And the man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "Oh that my ways were made so direct, that I might keep thy statutes. "

But moreover, you must learn God's commandments. He has laid downcertain commands, certain positive rules which must be kept if you do notintend to die the eternal death. So says our Lord. "If thou wilt enterinto life, keep the commandments. " "Thou shalt love the Lord thy Godwith all thy heart and soul, and thy neighbour as thyself. " There theten commandments are, and kept they must be; and if you break one ofthem, it will punish you, and you cannot escape. And the man who wrotethe 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "With my whole heart have I soughtthee: oh let me not go wrong out of Thy commandments. "

Moreover, you must learn God's testimonies: what He has witnessed anddeclared about Himself, and His own character, His power and Hisgoodness, His severity and His love. And where will you learn that, asin the Bible? The Bible is full of testimonies of God in Christ aboutHimself; who He is, what He does, what He requires; and of testimonies ofholy men of old, concerning God and concerning duty; concerning God'sdealings with their souls, and with other men, and with all the nationsof the old world, and with all nations likewise to the end of time. Andif people will not read and study their Bibles, they cannot expect toknow the way to eternal life. That too the man who wrote the 119th Psalmknew, and said, "I have had as great delight in Thy testimonies, as inall manner of riches. "

Moreover, you must learn God's judgments; the way in which He rewards andpunishes men. And those too you will learn in the Bible, which is fullof accounts of the just and merciful judgments of God. And you may learnthem too from your own experience in life; from seeing what actuallyhappens to those whom you know, when they do right things; and whathappens again, when they do wrong things. If any man will open his eyesto what is going on around him in a single city, or in the mere privatecircle of his own kinsfolk and acquaintance; if he will but use hiscommon sense, and look how righteousness is rewarded, and sin ispunished, all day long, then he might learn enough and to spare aboutGod's judgments: but men will not. A man will see his neighbour dowrong, and suffer for it: and then go and do exactly the same thinghimself; as if there were no living God; no judgments of God; as if allwas accident and chance; as if he was to escape scot-free, while hisneighbour next door has brought shame and misery on himself by doing thesame thing. For it was well written of old, "The fool hath said in hisheart--though he is afraid to say it with his lips--There is no God. " Andthe man who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that, and said, "I rememberedThine everlasting judgments, O Lord, and received comfort; for I washorribly afraid for the ungodly who forsake Thy law. "

I say again: that the only way to attain eternal life is to know, andkeep, and profit by God's laws, God's commandments, God's testimonies, God's judgments; and therefore it is that the Psalmists say so often, that these laws and commandments are Life. Not merely the way to eternallife; but the Life itself, as it is written in the Prayer-Book, "O God, whom truly to know is everlasting life. "

But some will say, How shall I learn? I am very stupid, and I confessthat freely. And when I have learnt, how shall I act up to my lesson?For I am very weak; and that I confess freely likewise. 

How indeed, my friends? Stupid we are, the cleverest of us; and weak weare, the strongest of us. And if God left us to find out for ourselves, and to take care of ourselves, we should not sail far on the voyage oflife without being wrecked; and going down body and soul to hell. 

But, blessed be God, He has not left us to ourselves. He has not onlycommanded us to learn: He has promised to teach. And--as I said in thebeginning of my Sermon--he who wrote the 119th Psalm knew that well. Heknew that God would teach him and strengthen him; enlightening his dullunderstanding, and quickening his dull will; and therefore his Psalm, asI said, is a prayer, a prayer for teaching, and a prayer for light; andhe cries to God--My soul cleaveth to the dust. I am low-minded, stupid, and earthly at the best. Oh quicken Thou me; that is--Oh give melife--more life--according to Thy word. 

Thy Word. The Word of God, of whom the Psalmist says--O Lord, Thy Wordendureth for ever in heaven. Even the Word of God, Jesus Christ ourLord, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and who, because He is in heaven, both God and man, can and will give us light and life, now and for ever. 

And now take home with you this one thought. There is one educationwhich we must all get; one thing which we must all learn, and learn toobey, or come to utter shame and ruin, either in this world or the worldto come; and that is the laws, and commandments, and testimonies ofGod, --God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; for only bykeeping them can we enter into eternal life. And if we wish to knowthem, God himself will teach us them. And if we wish, to keep them, Godhimself will give us strength to keep them. Amen. 

SERMON XII. THE REASONABLE PRAYER. 

PSALM CXIX. 33, 94. 

 O Lord, teach me Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. I am Thine, O save me; for I have kept Thy commandments. 

Some who heard me last Sunday, both morning and afternoon, may haveremarked an apparent contradiction between my two sermons. I hope theyhave done so. For then I shall hope that they are facing one of the mostdifficult, and yet most necessary, of all problems; namely the differencebetween the Law and the Gospel. In my morning sermon I spoke of theeternal law of God--how it was unchangeable even as God its author, rigid, awful, inevitable by every soul of man, and certain, if he keptit, to lead him into all good, for body, soul, and spirit: but certain, too, if he broke it, to grind him to powder. 

And in the afternoon, I spoke of the Gospel and Free Grace of God--howthat too was unchangeable, even as God its author; full of compassion andtender mercy, and forgiveness of sins; willing not the death of a sinner;but rather that he should be converted, and live. 

But how are these two statements, both scriptural; both--as I hold frompractical experience, true to the uttermost, and not to be compromised orexplained away--how are they to be reconciled, I say? By these twotexts. By taking them both together, and never one without the other;and by taking them, also, in the order in which you find them, andnever--as too many do--the second before the first. At least this wasthe opinion of the Psalmist. He first seeks God's commandments andstatutes, and prays--Give me understanding and I shall keep Thy law, yea, I shall keep it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of Thycommandments; for therein is my desire. And then, only then, findinghimself in trouble, anxiety, even in danger of death, he feels he has asort of right to cry to God to help him out of his trouble, and prays--Iam Thine, oh save me!

And why? What reason can he give why God should save him? Because, hesays, I have sought Thy commandments. 

Now let all rational persons lay this to heart; and consider it well. There are very few, heathens and savages, as well as Christians, who willnot cry, when they find themselves in trouble--Oh save me. The instinctof every man is, to cry to some unseen persons or powers to help him. Ifhe does not cry to the true and good God, he will cry to some false orbad God; or to some idol, material or intellectual, of his own invention. But that is no reason why his prayers should be heard. We read of oldheathens at Rome, who prayed to Mercury, the god of money-making--"Damihi fallere, "--Help me to cheat my neighbours: while the philosophers, heathen though they were, laughed, with just contempt, at such men andtheir prayers, and asked--Do you suppose that any God, if he be worthcalling a God, will answer such a request as that? Nay, in our owntimes, have not the brigands of Naples been in the habit of carrying aleaden image of St Januarius in their hats, and praying to it to protectthem in their trade of robbery and murder? I leave you to guess whatanswer good St Januarius, and much more He who made St Januarius, and allheaven and earth, was likely to give to such a prayer as that. 

So it is not all prayers for help that are heard, or deserve to be heard. And indeed--I do not wish to be hard, but the truth must be spoken--thereare too many people in the world who pray to God to help them, when theyare in difficulties or in danger, or in fear of death and of hell, butnever pray at any other time, or for any other thing. They pray to behelped out of what is disagreeable. But they never pray to be made good. They are not good, and they do not care to become good. All they carefor, is to escape death, or pain, or poverty, or shame, when they see itstaring them in the face: and God knows I do not blame them. We are allchildren, and, like children, we cry out when we are hurt; and that is nosin to us. But that is no part of godliness, not even of mere religion. 

But worse--it is still more sad to have to say it, but it is true--mostpeople's notions of the next world, and of salvation, as they call it, are just as childish, material, selfish as their notions of this world. 

They all wish and pray to be "saved. " What do they mean? To be savedfrom bodily pain in the next life, and to have bodily pleasure instead. Pain and pleasure are the only gods which they really worship. They callthe former--hell. They call the latter--heaven. But they know as littleof one as of the other; and their notions of both are equally worthyof--Shall I say it? Must I say it?--equally worthy of the savage in theforest. They believe that they must either go to heaven or to hell. Theyhave, of course, no wish to go to the latter place; for whatever elsethere is likely to be there--some of which might not be quite unpleasantor new to them, such as evil-speaking, lying, and slandering, envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, bigotry included--there will becertainly there--they have reason to believe--bodily pain; the thingwhich they, being mostly comfortable people, dread most, and avoid most:contrary, you will remember, to the opinion of the blessed martyrs, whodreaded bodily pain least, and avoided it least, of all the ills whichcould befal them. Wherefore they are, in the sight of God, and of alltrue men unto this day--the blessed martyrs. 

But these people--and there are too many of them by hundreds ofthousands--do not want to be blessed. They only want to be comfortablein this world, and in the next. As for blessedness, they do not evenknow what it means; and our Lord's seven beatitudes, which begin--"Blessedare the poor in spirit"--are not at all to their mind; even, alas! alas!to the mind of many who call themselves religious and orthodox; at leasttill they are so explained away, that they shall mean anything, ornothing, save--I trust I am poor in spirit: and nevertheless I am right, and everyone who differs from me is wrong. 

The plain truth is--when all fine words, whether said in prayers or sungin hymns, are stript off--that they do not wish to go to hell and pain;and therefore prefer, very naturally, though not very spiritually, to goto heaven and pleasure; and so sing of "crossing over Jordan to Canaan'sshore, " or of "Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest, " and soforth, without any clear notion of what they mean thereby, save selfishcomfort without end; they really know not what; they really care notwhere. And that they may arrive there or at a far better place; and havetheir wish, and more than their wish: I for one heartily desire. Butwhether they arrive there, or not; and indeed, whether they arrive atsome place infinitely better or infinitely worse, depends on whether theywill give up selfish calculations of loss and gain, selfish choosingbetween mere pain and pleasure: and choose this; choose, whatever it maycost them, between being good and being bad, or even being only halfgood; as little good as they can afford to be without the pains of hellinto the bargain. 

My friends--What if Christ should answer such people--I do not say thatHe does always answer them so, for He is very pitiful, and of tendermercy;--but what if He were to answer them, Save you? Help you? Opresumptuous mortal, what have you done that Christ should save or helpyou? You are afraid of being ruined. Why should you not be ruined? Whatgood will it be to your fellow-men if you keep your money, instead oflosing it? You are making nothing but a bad use of your money. Whyshould Christ help you to keep it, and misuse it still more?

You are afraid of death. You do not wish to die. But why should you notdie? Why should Christ save you from death? Of what use is your life toChrist, or to any human being? If you are living a bad life, your lifeis a bad thing, and does harm not only to yourself, but to yourneighbours. Why should Christ keep you alive to hurt and corrupt yourneighbours, and to set a bad example to your children? If you are notdoing your duty where Christ has put you, you are of no use, a cumbererof the ground. What reason can you shew why He should not take you away, and put some one in your place who _will_ do his duty? You are afraid ofbeing lost--why should you _not_ be lost? You are offensive, and aninjury to the universe. You are an actual nuisance on Christ's earth andin Christ's Kingdom. Why should He not--as He has sworn--cast out of HisKingdom all things which offend, and you among the rest? Why should Henot get rid of you, as you get rid of vermin, as you get rid of weeds;and cast you into the fire, to be burned up with all evil things? Answerthat: before you ask Christ to save you, and deliver you from danger, andfrom death, and from the hell which you so much--and perhaps sojustly--fear. 

And how that question is to be answered, I cannot see. 

Certainly the selfish man cannot answer it. The idle man cannot answerit. The profligate man cannot answer it. They are doing nothing forChrist; or for their neighbours, or for the human race; and they cannotexpect Christ to do anything for them. 

The only men who can answer it; the only men, it seems to me, who canhave any hope of their prayers being heard, are those who, like thePsalmist, are trying to do something for Christ, and their neighbours, and the human race; who are, in a word, trying to be good. Those, Imean, who have already prayed, earnestly and often, the first prayer, "Teach me, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I shall keep them to the end. " Theyhave--not a right: no one has a right against Christ, no, not the angelsand archangels in heaven--not a right, but a hope, through Christ's mostprecious and undeserved promises, that their prayers will be heard; andthat Christ will save them from destruction, because they are, at least, likely to become worth saving; because they are likely to be of use inChrist's world, and to do some little work in Christ's kingdom. 

They are God's: they are soldiers in Christ's army. They are labourersin Christ's garden. They are on God's side in the battle of life, whichis the battle of Christ and of all good men, against evil, against sinand ignorance, and the numberless miseries which sin and ignoranceproduce. They are not the profligate; they are not the selfish, theidle; they are not the frivolous, the insolent; they are not the wilfullyignorant who do not care to learn, and do not even--so brutish arethey--think that there is anything worth learning in the world, save howto turn sixpence into a shilling, and then spend it on themselves. Notsuch are those who may hope to have their prayers heard, because they areworth hearing, and worth helping. But they are the people who say tothemselves, not once in their lives, not once a week on Sundays, butevery day and all day long--I must be good; I will be good. I must be ofuse; I must be doing some work for God; and therefore I must learn. Imust learn God's laws, and statutes, and commandments, about my station, and calling, and business in life. Else how can I do it aright? I dareno more be ignorant, than I dare be idle. I must learn. But how shall Ilearn? Stupid I am, and ignorant, and the more I try to learn, the moreI discover how stupid I am. The more I do actually learn, the more Idiscover how ignorant I am. There is so much to be learned; and how tolearn it passes my understanding. Who will teach me? How shall I getunderstanding? How shall I get knowledge? And if I get them, how shallI be sure that they are true understanding, and true knowledge? Madpeople have understanding enough; and so have some who are not mad, butmerely fools. Wit enough they have, active and rapid brains: but theirunderstanding is of no use, for it is only misunderstanding; andtherefore the more clever they are, the more foolish they are, and themore dangerous to themselves and their fellow-creatures. Knowledge, too--how shall I be sure that my knowledge, if I get it, is trueknowledge, and not false knowledge, knowledge which is not reallyaccording to facts? I see too many who have knowledge for which I carelittle enough. Some know a thousand things which are of no use to them, or to any human being. Others know a thousand things: but know them in ashallow, inaccurate fashion; and so cannot make use of them for anypractical purpose. Others know a thousand things: but know them all in aprejudiced and one-sided fashion; till they see things not as things are, but as they are not, and as they never will be; and therefore theirknowledge, instead of leading them, misleads them, and they misjudgefacts, misjudge men, and earth, and heaven, just as much as the man whoshould misjudge the sunlight of heaven and fancy it to be green or blue, because he looked at it through a green or blue glass. How then shall Iget true knowledge? Knowledge which will be really useful, really worthknowing? Knowledge which I shall know accurately, and practically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and my fellow-men?Knowledge, too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured bymy own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure, and calm, and sound;Siccum Lumen, "Dry Light, " as the greatest of English Philosophers calledit of old?

To all such, who long for light, that by the light they may see to livethe life, God answers, through His only-begotten Son, The Word whoendureth for ever in heaven:--

"Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shallbe opened to you. For if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts toyour children, much more will your heavenly Father give His Holy Spiritto those who ask Him. "

Yes, ask for that Holy Spirit of God, that He may lead you into alltruth; into all truth, that is, which is necessary for you to know, inorder to see your way through the world, and through your duty in theworld. Ask for that Holy Spirit; that He may give you eyes to see thingsas they are, and courage to feel things as they are, and to do your workin them, and by them, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant, prosperousor adverse. Ask Him; and He will give you true knowledge to know what aserious position you are in, what a serious thing life is, death is, judgment is, eternity is; that you may be no trifler nor idler, nor merescraper together of gain which you must leave behind you when you die:but a truly serious man, seriously intent on your duty; seriously intenton working God's work in the place and station to which He has calledyou, before the night comes in which no man can work. 

If a man is doing that; if he is earnestly trying to learn what is true, in order that he may do what is right; then he has--I do not say aright--but at least a reason, or a shadow of reason, when he cries to Godin his trouble--

"I am Thine, oh save me, for I have sought thy commandments. "

"I am Thine. " Not merely God's creature: the very birds, and bees, andflowers are that; and do their duty far better than I--God forgive me--domine. 

"I am Thine. " Not merely God's child: the sinners and the thoughtlessare that, though--God help them--they care not for Him, nor for His laws, nor for themselves and their glorious inheritance as children of God. 

And I too am God's child: but I trust that I am more. I am God's school-child. O Lord Jesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as wellas my Lord and Saviour. I am the least of Thy school-children; and itmay be the most ignorant and most stupid. I do not pretend to be ascholar, a divine, a philosopher, a saint. I am a very weak, foolish, insufficient personage; sitting on the lowest form in Thy great school-house, which is the whole world; and trying to spell out the mere lettersof Thy alphabet, in hope that hereafter I may be able to make out wholewords, and whole sentences, of Thy commandments, and having learnt them, do them. For if Thou wilt but teach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I willtry to keep them to the end. For I long to be on Thy side, and about Thywork. I long to help--if it be ever so little--in making myself better, and my neighbours better. I long to be useful, and not useless; abenefit, and not a nuisance; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxiousweed, in Thy garden; and therefore I hope that Thou wilt not cut me down, nor root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot. Have mercyon me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth which I long tolearn, and for the good which I long to do. Poor little weak plantthough I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is doing itsbest to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou wiltnot despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I mightlive? Thou wilt not let me perish? I have stuck unto Thy testimonies: OLord, confound me not. 

Therefore remember this. If you wish to have reasonable hope when youhave to pray--"Lord, save me:" pray first, and pray continually--"Teachme, O Lord, Thy statutes, and I will keep them to the end. "

SERMON XIII. THE ONE ESCAPE. 

PSALM CXIX. 67. 

 Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I kept Thy Word. 

Let me speak this afternoon once more about the 119th Psalm, and the manwho wrote it. 

And first: he was certainly of a different opinion from nine persons outof ten, I fear from ninety-nine out of a hundred, of every country, everyage, and every religion. 

For, he says--Before I was troubled, I went wrong: but now have I keptThy Word. Whereas nine people out of ten would say to God, if theydared--Before I was troubled, I kept Thy Word. But now that I amtroubled; of course I cannot help going wrong. 

He makes his troubles a reason for doing right. They make their troublesan excuse for doing wrong. 

Is it not so? Do we not hear people saying, whenever they are blamed fordoing what they know to be wrong--I could not help it? I was forced intoit. What would you have a man do? One must live; and so forth. Onefinds himself in danger, and tries to lie himself out of it. Anotherfinds himself in difficulties, and begins playing ugly tricks in moneymatters. Another finds himself in want, and steals. The general opinionof the world is, that right-doing, justice, truth, and honesty, are verygraceful luxuries for those who can afford them; very good things when aman is easy, prosperous, and well off, and without much serious businesson hand: but not for the real hard work of life; not for times ofambition and struggle, any more than of distress and anxiety, or ofdanger and difficulty. In such times, if a man may not lie a little, cheat a little, do a questionable stroke of business now and then; how ishe to live? So it is in the world, so it always was; and so it alwayswill be. From statesmen ruling nations, and men of business "conductinggreat financial operations, " as the saying is now, down to the beggar-woman who comes to ask charity, the rule of the world is, that honesty is_not_ the best policy; that falsehood and cunning are not onlyprofitable, but necessary; that in proportion as a man is in trouble, inthat proportion he has a right to go wrong. 

A right to go wrong. A right to make bad worse. A right to break God'slaws, because we are too stupid or too hasty to find out what God's lawsare. A right, as the wise man puts it, to draw bills on nature which shewill _not_ honour; but return them on a man's hands with "No effects"written across them, leaving the man to pay after all, in misery andshame. Truly said Solomon of old--The foolishness of fools is folly. 

But the Psalmist, because he was inspired by the Spirit of God, was ofquite the opposite opinion. So far from thinking that his trouble gavehim a right to go wrong, he thought that his trouble laid on him a dutyto go right, more right than he had ever gone before; and that goingright was the only possible way of getting out of his troubles. 

"Take from me, " he cries, "the way of lying, and cause Thou me to makemuch of Thy law. 

"I have chosen the way of truth, and Thy judgments have I laid before me. 

"Incline mine heart unto Thy testimonies, and not unto covetousness. 

"Oh turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity, and quicken Thou me inThy way. 

"Thy word is my comfort in my trouble; for Thy word hath quickened me. 

"The proud have had me exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrunkfrom Thy law. 

"For I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O God, and receivedcomfort. 

"Thy statutes have been my songs, in the house of my pilgrimage. 

"I have thought upon Thy name, O Lord, in the night-season, and have keptThy law. "

This was the Psalmist's plan for delivering himself out of trouble. Avery singular plan, which very few persons try, either now, or in anyage. And therefore it is, that so many persons are not delivered out oftheir troubles, but sink deeper and deeper into them, heaping newtroubles on old ones, till they are crushed beneath the weight of theirown sins. 

What the special trouble was, in which the Psalmist found himself, we arenot told. But it is plain from his words, that it was just that verysort of trouble, in which the world is most ready to excuse a man forlying, cringing, plotting, and acting on the old devil's maxim that"Cunning is the natural weapon of the weak. " For the Psalmist was weak, oppressed and persecuted by the great and powerful. But his method ofdefending himself against them was certainly not the way of the world. 

Princes, he says, sat and spoke against him. But; instead of fawning onthem, excusing himself, entreating their mercy: he was occupied in God'sstatutes. 

The proud had him exceedingly in derision--as I am afraid too manyworldly men, poor as well as rich, working men as well as idlers, woulddo now--seeing him occupied in God's statutes, when he might have beenoccupied in winning money, and place, and renown for himself. 

But he did not shrink from God's law. If it was true, he could afford tobe laughed at for obeying it. 

The congregation of the ungodly robbed him. But he did not forget God'slaw. If they did wrong, that was no reason why he should do wronglikewise. 

The proud imagined a lie against him. But he would keep God'scommandments with his whole heart, instead of breaking God'scommandments, and justifying their slander, and making their lie true. 

Still, it went very hard with him. His honour and his faith were sorelytried. He was dried up like a bottle in the smoke. It seems to havebeen with him at times a question of life and death; till he had hardlyany hope left. He had to ask, almost in despair--How many are the daysof Thy servant? When wilt Thou be avenged of them that persecute me? Theproud dug pits for him, contrary to the law of God; contrary to honourand justice; and almost made an end of him upon earth. The ungodly laidwait to destroy him. 

But against them all he had but one weapon, and one defence. Howevermuch afraid he might be of his enemies, he was still more afraid of doingwrong. His flesh, he said, trembled for fear of God; and he was afraidof God's judgments. Therefore his only safety was, in pleasing God, andnot men. I deal, he says, with the thing that is lawful and right. Ohgive me not over to my oppressors. Make Thy servant to delight in whatis good, that the proud do me no wrong. If he could but keep right, hewould be safe at last. 

I will consider Thy testimonies, O Lord. I see that all things come toan end. Bad times, and bad chances, and still more bad men, and bad waysfor escaping out of trouble--they all come to an end. But Thycommandment is exceeding broad. Exceeding broad. There are depths belowdepths of meaning in that true saying; depths which you will find true, if you will but read your Bibles, and obey your Bibles. For in them, Itell you openly, you will find rules to guide you in every chance andchange of this mortal life. Truly said the good man that there were inthe Bible "shallows where a lamb may drink, and deeps wherein an elephantmay swim. "

There are no possible circumstances, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, in which you can find yourselves, be you rich or poor, young or old, without finding in the Bible sound advice, and a clear rule, as to howGod would have you behave under those circumstances. For God'scommandments are exceeding broad, and take in all cases of conscience, all details of duty; saying to each and every one of us, at everyturn--"This is the way, walk ye in it. "

At least this is the teaching, this is the testimony, this is the life-experience, of a true hero, namely, the man who wrote the 119th Psalm; ahero according to God, but not according to the world, and the pomp andglory of the world. 

No great statesman was he, nor conqueror, nor merchant, nor financierpassing millions of money through his hands yearly; and all fancying thatthey, and not God, govern the nations upon earth, and decide the fate ofempires. 

He was a man who made no noise in the world: though the world, it seems, made a little noise at him in his time, as it does often bark and yell atthose who will not go its way; as it barked at poor Christian, when hewent through Vanity Fair, and would not buy its wares, or join in itsfrivolities. Such a man was this Psalmist; for whom the world hadnothing but scorn first, and then forgetfulness. We do not know hisname, or where he lived. We do not even know, within a few hundredyears, when he lived. I picture him to myself always as a poor, shrivelled, stooping, mean-looking old man; his visage marred more thanany man, and his figure more than the sons of men; no form nor comelinessin him, nor beauty that men should desire him; despised and rejected ofmen: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, even as his Master wasafter him. 

And all that he has left behind him--as far as we can tell--is this onepsalm which he wrote, as may be guessed from its arrangement, slowly, andwith exceeding care, as the very pith and marrow of an experience spreadover many painful years of struggle and of humiliation. 

I say of humiliation. For there is not a taint of self-conceit, not evenof self-satisfaction, in him. He only sees his own weakness, and want oflife, of spirit, of manfulness, of power. His soul cleaveth to the dust. He is tempted, of course, again and again, to give way; to become low-minded, cowardly, time-serving, covetous, worldly. But he dares not. Hefeels that his only chance is to keep his honour unspotted; and hecries--Whatever happens, --I must do right. I must learn to do right. Teach me to do right. Teach me, O Lord, teach me; and strengthen me, OLord, strengthen me, and then all must come right at last. That was hiscry. And, be you sure, he did not cry in vain. 

For this man had one precious possession; which he determined not tolose, not though he died in trying to hold it fast; namely, the EternalSpirit of God; the Spirit of Righteousness, and Truth, and Justice, whichleads men into all truth. By that Spirit he saw into the Eternal Laws ofGod. By that Spirit he saw who made and who administers those EternalLaws, even the Eternal Word of God, who endureth for ever in heaven. Bythat Spirit he saw that his only hope was to keep those eternal laws. Bythat Spirit he vowed to keep them. By that Spirit he had strength tokeep them. By that Spirit, when he failed he tried again; when he fellhe rose and fought on once more, to keep the commandments of the Lord. 

And where is he now? Where is he now? Where those will never come--letfalse preachers and false priests flatter them as they may--who fancythat they can get to heaven without being good and doing good. Wherethose will never come, likewise, who, when they find themselves introuble, try to help themselves out of it by false and mean methods; andso begin worshipping the devil, just when they have most need to worshipGod. He is where the fearful and unbelievers and all liars can nevercome. He is with the Word of the Lord, who endureth for ever in heaven. 

With the Word of the Lord, who endured awhile on earth, even as he thePsalmist endured. Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, and endured the cross, despising the shame, because He cared neither forriches, nor for pleasure, for power, nor for glory; but simply for HisFather's will, and His Father's law, that He might do to the uttermostthe will of His Father who sent Him, and keep to the uttermost that Lawof which His Father says to Him for ever--"Thou art my Son, to-day have Ibegotten Thee. "

Into His presence may we all come at last! But we shall never comethither, unless we keep our honour bright, our courage unbroken, andourselves unspotted from the world. For so only will be fulfilled in usthe sixth Beatitude--Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall seeGod. Unto which may God of His free mercy bring us all. Amen. 

SERMON XIV. THE WORD OF GOD. 

PSALM CXIX. 89-96. 

 O Lord, Thy word endureth for ever in heaven. Thy truth also remaineth from one generation to another: Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to Thine ordinance: for all things serve Thee. If my delight had not been in Thy law, I should have perished in my trouble. I will never forget Thy commandments: for with them Thou hast quickened me. I am Thine, oh save me: for I have sought Thy commandments. The ungodly laid wait for me to destroy me: but I will consider Thy testimonies. I see that all things come to an end: but Thy commandment is exceeding broad. 

This text is of infinite importance, to you, and me, and all mankind. Forif the text is not true; if there is not a Word of God, who endures andis settled for ever in heaven: then this world is a miserable and a madplace; and the best thing, it seems to me, that we poor ignorant humanbeings can do, is to eat and drink, for to morrow we die. 

But that is not the best thing we can do; but the very worst thing. Thebest thing that we can do, and the only thing worth doing is, to be good, and do good, at all risks and all costs, trusting to the Word of God, whoendures for ever in heaven. 

But who is this Word of God? I say who, not what. We often call theBible the Word of God: and so it is in one sense, because it tells us, from beginning to end, about this other Word of God. It is, so to speak, God's word or message about this Word. But it is plain that the Psalmistis not speaking here of the Bible; for he says--

"Thy Word endureth for ever in Heaven:" and the Bible is not in heaven, but on earth. 

But in the Bible, usually, this Word of the Lord means not only themessage which God sends, but Him by whom God sends it. The Word of God, Word of the Lord, is spoken of again and again, not as a thing, but as aperson, a living rational being, who comes to men, and speaks to them, and teaches them; sometimes, seemingly, by actual word of mouth;sometimes again, by putting thoughts into their minds, and words intotheir mouths. 

Recollect Samuel: how when he was young the Word of the Lord wasprecious--that is, uncommon, and almost unknown in those days; and howthe Lord came and called Samuel, Samuel; and put a word into his mouthagainst Eli. And so the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lordrevealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by The Word of the Lord. InSamuel's case, there was, it seems, an actual voice, which fell onSamuel's ears. In the case of the later prophets, we do not read thatthey usually heard any actual voice, or saw any actual appearance. Itseems that the Word of the Lord who came to them inspired their mindswith true thoughts, and inspired their lips to speak those thoughts innoble words, often in regular poetry. But He was The Word of the Lord, nevertheless. Again and again, we read in those grand old prophets, "TheWord of the Lord came unto me, saying, "--or again, "The Word which cameto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying. " It is not the Bible which is meantby such words as these--I am sorry to have to remind a nineteenth centurycongregation of this fact--but a living being, putting thoughts into theprophets' minds, and words into their mouths, and a divine passion too, into their hearts, which they could not resist; like poor Jeremiah ofold, when he was reproached and derided about The Word of the Lord, andsaid, "I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name. But He was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I wasweary with forbearing, and I could not hold my peace. "

But now, what words are these which we read of this same Word of theLord, in the first chapter of St John's Gospel? "In the beginning wasThe Word: and The Word was with God, and The Word was God. By Him allthings were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made. And in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. "

Thus--as always--the Old Testament and the New, the Psalmist and St John, agree together. 

This is the gospel and good news, which the Psalmist saw in part, butwhich St John saw fully and perfectly. But because the Psalmist saw iteven in part, he saw that The Word of the Lord endured for ever inheaven; and that therefore his only hope of safety was to listen eagerlyand reverently for what that Word might choose to say to him. 

But why does the Psalmist seemingly go out of his way, as it were, tosay, "Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and it abideth. Theycontinue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all things serveThee"?

For the very same reason that St John goes, seemingly, out of his way tosay, "All things were made by The Word, and without Him was not anythingmade that was made. "

Why is this?

Look at it thus: What an important question it is, whether This Word ofGod is a being of order; a regular being; a law-abiding being; a being onwhose actions men can count; who can be trusted, and depended on, not toalter His own ways, not to deceive us poor mortal men. 

The Psalmist wants to know his way through this world, and his duty inthis mortal life. Therefore he must learn the laws and rules of thisworld. And he has the sense to see, that no one can teach him the rulesof the world, but the Ruler of the world, and the Maker of the world. 

Then comes the terrible question--too many, alas! have not got itanswered rightly yet--

But are there any rules at all in the world? Does The Lord manage theworld by rules and laws? Or does He let things go by chance andaccident, and take no care about them? Is there such a thing as God'sProvidence: or is there not? To that the Psalmist answers firmly, because he is inspired by the Spirit of God--

O Lord, Thy Word endureth--is settled--for ever in heaven. In Thee is nocarelessness, neglect, slothfulness, nor caprice. Thou hast novariableness, neither shadow of turning. Thou hast laid the foundationof the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to Thineordinance; for all things serve Thee. The world is full of settled andenduring rules and laws; and God keeps to them. The Psalmist looks atthe sun, moon and stars over his head, each keeping its settled course, and its settled season: and he sees them all obeying law. He looks atsummer and winter, seedtime and harvest: and he sees them obeying law. Helooks at birth and growth, at decay and death; and sees them too, obeyinglaw. He looks at the very flowers beneath his feet, and the buds in thewoodland, and all the crowd of living things about him, animal, vegetableand mineral: and they too obey law; each after their kind. The world, hesays, is full of law. It is a settled world, an orderly world, made andgoverned by a Lord of order, who makes laws and enforces laws; a Lordwhose Word endures for ever in heaven. Therefore--he feels--I can trustthat Lord. If He has laws for the beasts and birds, He must have, muchmore, laws for men. If He has laws for men's bodies, much more has Helaws for their souls. What I have to do, is to ask Him to teach me thoselaws, that I may live. 

But then comes another, and even a more awful question--If I ask Him, will He teach me? Alas! alas! too many have not found the answer yet;too many of those who know most about the Laws of Nature, and reverencethose laws most: and all honour to them for so doing; for, even thoughthey know it not, they are preparing the way of the Lord, and making Hispaths straight. But they have not found the right answer to thatquestion yet. Still there the question is; and you and I, and every soulof man, must get some reasonable answer or other to it, if we wish to bemen indeed, men in spirit and in truth; and it is this--

If I ask this Word of God to teach me His Laws--Will He teach me? WillHe hear me? Can He hear: or is He Himself a mere brute force, a law ofnature and necessity? And even if not, will He hear? Or is He, too, like those Epicurean gods, of whom our great poet sings--a sad andhopeless song:--

 They lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world, Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, _and praying hands_. 

_And praying hands_. Oh, my friends, is not the question of allquestions for such poor mortal souls as you and me, beset by ignoranceand weakness, and passions which are our own worst enemies, and chancesand catastrophes which we cannot avert--Is not the question of allquestions for such as us--Will this same Word of God--will any unseenbeing out of the infinite void which surrounds our little speck of aplanet, take any notice of our praying hands? Will He hear us, teach us, when we cry? Or is God, and The Word of God, like those old heathengods? Is He a God who hides Himself, and leaves us to despair andchance: or is He a God who hears, and gives us even a single ray of hope?Is He a gracious God, who will hear every man's tale, however clumsilytold, and judge it according to its merits: or even--for that is betterthan dead silence and carelessness--according to its demerits? Is He ajust God? Or has He likes and dislikes, favourites and victims; as humanrulers and statesmen, and human parties too, and mobs, are wont to have?May He not, even, like those Epicurean gods, despise men? find a proudsatisfaction in deceiving them; or at least letting them deceivethemselves?--in playing with their ignorance, and leaving them to reapthe fruits of their own childishness?

To that the Psalmist answers--and I know not how he learnt to answer so, save by the inspiration of the Spirit of God; for I know well thatneither flesh and blood, the experience of his own brain, thoughts, andemotions, nor the world around him, either of nature or of man, wouldever have revealed that to him--to that he answers confidently, in spiteof all appearances--

Thy truth, O Lord, abideth from one generation to another. Thou art atruthful God, a faithful God, whose word can be taken. A God in whom isno variableness, neither shadow of turning; who keepeth His promise forever; true, as man can be true; and truer than the truest man. And Iknow it, says he, by experience. God has actually taught me His law: forif my delight had not been in it, I should have perished in my trouble. Iwill never forget His commandments; for by them He has given me life; hastaught me what to do, and enabled me to do it, to prevent the death andruin of my body, and soul, and spirit. 

Now for the very same reason it is, that St John is so careful, first totell us that The Word of God made all things; and then to tell us that Heis full of grace and truth. 

He tells us that The Word made all things, that we may be sure that He isa God of order, because all things which He has made are full of order; aGod who acts by rules and laws which we may trust. He tells us that TheWord made all things, that we may be sure that all things, being Hishandy-work, will bear witness of Him and teach us about Him, and shewforth His glory. 

But he tells us moreover--Oh gospel, and good news for blind and weakhumanity!--that The Word's glory is full of grace; gracious; ready tocondescend; ready to teach us, and give us light to see our way throughthis world which He has made. 

He tells us that The Word's glory is full of truth; that He is truthful, accurate, and to be depended on; and will tell us nothing but what istrue. That He is a true Word of God, and when He speaks to us of HisFather and of our Father, He tells the truth. 

And so do St John and the Psalmist agree in the same gospel, and goodnews, of the mystery of Christ The Word. 

There is an eternal Being in heaven, who is called The Word of God;because He speaks of, and reveals--that is, unveils and shews--to men, and angels, and archangels, and all created beings, that God whom no manhath seen, or can see; a Word who dwells for ever in the bosom of TheFather, in the light which no man can approach unto: but who for evercomes forth from thence to proclaim to all created beings--There is aGod, and The Word is His likeness; the brightness of His glory, and theexpress image of His person. None hath seen the Father at any time: butthe only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hathdeclared Him. None cometh to the Father, but through Him. But he whohath seen Him, hath seen the Father; and He is none other than JesusChrist our Lord. 

He is The Word of God, who speaks to men God's words, because He speaksnot His own words but His Father's, and does not His own will but HisFather's who sends Him. 

He speaks to us and to all men, in many ways; and to each according tohis needs. To all men, Christ speaks through their consciences, shewingthem what is good, and warning them of what is evil; for He is the Lightthat lighteth every man that cometh into the world. To Christians Christspeaks in many ways--to which, alas, too few give heed--through theBible, through the sacraments, through sermons, through the thoughts andwords of all wise and holy men. To the good He speaks with graciousencouragement; to the wicked with awful severity. To the hypocrites Hesays at times, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escapethe damnation of hell?" To the self-satisfied and bigoted He says, "Ifye had been blind, ye had had no sin: but now ye say, We see; thereforeyour sin remaineth. " To the careless and worldly He says, "I know thyworks, that thou art neither cold nor hot. Thou sayest, I am rich andincreased with goods, I have need of nothing: and knowest not that thouart wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. "

To those who are ruining themselves by their own folly He says, "Why willye die? I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith theLord: but rather that he should be converted, and live. " To those whoare tormented by their own passions He says, "Take My yoke upon you andlearn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find restunto your souls. " To those who are wearied with the burden of their ownsins He says, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary, and heavy laden, andI will give you rest. "

To those who are struggling, however weakly, to do what is right He says, "I know thy works. Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and nonecan shut it; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept My word, andhast not denied My name. Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation. "

And to those who mourn for those whom they have loved and lost He says, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, I am He that liveth, and wasdead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys ofhell and of death. He that believeth in Me, though he die, yet shall helive; and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. "

For every one of us, according to his character and his needs, Christspeaks a fitting word from God, because He is The Word of God; and everyword which He speaks to us is true, and sure, and eternal, according tothe laws of God His Father. For He is The Word who endures for ever inheaven; and though heaven and earth may pass away, His words cannot passaway. 

Yes; Christ The Word speaks to all: but most of all to children: to thechildren, of whom He said--"Suffer the little children to come to me, andforbid them not;"--of whom He said to grown-up people, not--Except thesechildren be converted and become as you--He left that message for thePharisees of His own time, and of every age and creed: but--Except yougrown people be converted and become as little children, you, and notthey, shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Let us tell children that--that Christ Himself is speaking to them. ThatThe Word of God is educating them. That the Light who lightens every manwho comes into the world is labouring to enlighten them, their intellectand memory, their emotions and their consciences. Let that be the groundof all our education of children. Then it will matter little to us whoteaches them what is miscalled secular knowledge. For we shall tell ourchildren--In it, too, Christ is teaching you. The understanding by whichyou understand the world about you is Christ's gift. The world which youare to understand is Christ's world; for He laid the foundation of theearth, and it abideth. The physical laws of the universe are Christ'slaws; for all things serve Him, and continue this day according to Hisordinance. Every natural object is a result of Christ's will, and itsorganization a product of Christ's mind; for without Him was not anythingmade that was made. The whole course of events, great and small, isChrist's providence; for to Him all power is given in heaven and earth. So far, therefore, from being afraid to teach our children NaturalScience, we shall hold it a sacred duty to teach it; for it is the willand mind of Christ, The Word of God. 

And as for morality--we shall be ready to teach that, as far as theprudential and paying virtues are concerned, as boldly and on the verysame grounds as the merest Utilitarian. For we shall teach honesty, courtesy, decency, self-restraint, patience, foresight, on the warrant ofthe Bible; which is, that Christ has made the world so well, that sooneror later every wise and just act rewards itself, every foolish and unjustact punishes itself, by the very constitution of nature and society, which again are laid down by Christ. But what of the nobler, the non-prudential, and non-paying virtues?--call them rather graces. --Them weshall teach our children--as I believe we can only teach them rationallyand logically, either to children or to grown-up people--by pointing themto Christ upon His cross, and saying to them, "Behold your God!"

For so we shall be able to train them in the orthodox doctrine of morals, which is--

That there is nothing good in man which is not first in God. 

We shall be able to make them comprehend what we mean when we tell themthat they are members of Christ, and must live the Life of Christ; thatthey are children of God, and as such must imitate their Father, andbecome perfect, even as their Father in heaven is perfect. 

For we shall say--The pure and perfect graces, the disinterested virtues, the unselfish virtues--obedience, mercy, chivalry, beneficence, magnanimity, heroism, --in one word, self-sacrifice--beautiful these are:but are they necessary? are they mere ornaments? or are they sacredduties? The duty which dares and suffers for the thing it ought to do;the love which dares and suffers for the thing it loves; the unselfishspirit which looks for no reward:--why should these dwell in man? Tothat we shall answer--Because they dwell for ever in God. If we areasked--Why are they beautiful in man? we shall answer--Because they arethe very beauty and glory of God; the glory which the Incarnate Word ofGod manifested to men, when He hung on the cross of Calvary; and was moreutterly then, if possible, than ever, The Word of God: because He thendeclared most utterly to men the character and essence of God. Lovewhich is not content--as what true love is?--to be a passive sentiment, aself-contained possibility, but which must go out of itself, pitying, yearning, agonizing, to seek, to struggle, to suffer, and, if need be, todie for the creature which it loves, even if that creature love it notagain. 

We need not say this to children. We need only point them to Christ uponHis cross, and trust Christ to say it to them, in their heart of hearts, through instincts too deep for words. All we need say to our childrenis--"Behold your God! He it is who inspires you with every dutiful, generous, and unselfish impulse you have ever felt; for they are thefruits of His Spirit. By that Spirit He was once unselfish even to thedeath. By that Spirit He will enable you to carry out in action, as Hedid, the unselfish instincts which He has given you; and to live thenoble life, the heroic life, the life of self-sacrifice; the life of God;the life of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; andtherefore the only life fit for those who are baptized into that HolyName. "

This is the ground and method on which we should educate our children;for it is the ground and method on which The Word of God is educating us. 

SERMON XV. I. 

PSALM CXIX. 94. 

 I am Thine, oh save me. 

Let us think seriously this afternoon of one word; the word which is thekey-note of this psalm. A very short word; for in our language there isbut one letter in it. A very common word; for we are using it all daylong when we are awake, and even at night in our dreams; and yet a verywonderful word, for though we know well whom it means, yet what it meanswe do not know, and cannot understand, no, nor can the wisest philosopherwho ever lived; and a most important word too; for we cannot get rid ofit, we cannot help thinking of it, cannot help saying it all our lifelong from childhood to the grave. After death, too, we shall probably besaying that word to ourselves, each of us, for ever and ever. If thewhole universe, sun, moon, and stars, and all that we ever thought of, orcan think of, were destroyed and became nothing, that word would probablybe left; and we should be left alone with it; and on what we meant bythat little word would depend our everlasting happiness or misery. Andwhat is this wonderful little word? What but the word I? Each one of ussays I--I think, I know, I feel, I ought, I ought not, I did that, andcannot undo it: and why? Because we are not things, nor mere animals, but persons, living souls, though our bodies are like the bodies ofanimals, only more perfect, that they may be fit dwelling-places for moreperfect souls. The animals, as far as we know, do not think ofthemselves each as I. Little children do not at first. They callthemselves by names by which they hear others call them: not in the firstbut in the third person. After a while there grows up in them thewonderful thought that they are persons, different from any other personround them, and they begin to say--I want this, I like that. I trustthat I shall not seem to you as one who dreams when I say that I believethat is a revelation from God to each child, and just what makes thedifference between him and an animal; that God teaches each child to sayI; to know that it is not a mere thing, but a person, a living soul, witha will of its own, and a duty of its own; responsible for itself; whichought to do some things, and ought not to do other things. And what asolemn and awful revelation that is, we shall see more clearly, the morewe think of it. 

It may be a very dreadful and tormenting thought. It does not tormentthe mere savage, who has no sense of right and wrong; who follows his ownappetites and passions, and has never learnt to say, "I ought, " and "Iought not. " But it does torment the heathen when they begin to becivilized, and to think; it has tormented them in all ages. It tormentedthe old Greeks and Romans; it torments some Eastern peoples still--thatterrible thought--I am I myself, and cannot be any one else. I amanswerable for all that I ever did, or shall do; and no one can beanswerable for me. All the bad deeds I ever did, the bad thoughts I everthought, are mine, parts of me, and will be for ever. I can no moreescape from them than I can spring off my own shadow. But men have beenalways trying to escape; to escape from the burden of their own self, andthe dread of an evil conscience; and have invented religion afterreligion, often fantastic enough, often pathetic enough likewise, inhopes of hiding from themselves the secret thought--I am I, and must bemyself for ever. But I am not what I ought to be, and therefore I may bewrong, and miserable for ever. And how many people, in this Christianland, are saying at this very moment to themselves, "Oh that I could getrid of this I myself in me, which is so discontented and unhappy! Ohthat I had no conscience! Oh that I could forget myself!" And they tryto forget themselves by dissipation, by gaming, by drinking, by takingnarcotic drugs, even sometimes by suicide, as a last desperate attempt toescape from themselves, they know not and care not whither. It is all invain. There is no escape from self. As the pious poet whose bust standsbeneath yonder tower has said:

 Each in his separate sphere of joy and woe Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart. 

I must be I, thou must be thou, he must be he, she must be she, and noone else, throughout our mortal lives, and, for aught we can tell, forever; alone, each of us, with our own souls, our own thoughts, our ownactions, our own hopes, our own fears, our own deservings. Stayalone:--with all these? Yes, and alone with one more. Each of us isalone with God. Face to face with God, seen by Him through and through, and directly answerable to Him at every moment of our lives, for everydeed, and word, and thought. And is that not a more terrible thoughtthan any? Ah! my friends, it may be. But it may be also the mostcomforting of all thoughts, the only really comforting thought, if wewill but look at the question as the Psalmist looks at it, and cry withhim to God, "I am Thine, oh save the me whom Thou hast made. "

There are those, and those who deserve a respectful hearing, who willdiffer from all that I have been saying, and indeed from the beliefs of999 out of 1000 of the human race in every age. They will say--Thisfancy that you are an I, a self, individual and indivisible, is but afancy; one of the many idols which man creates for himself, by bestowingreality and personality on mere abstractions like this I and self. Eachman is not one indivisible, much less indestructible, thing or being. Heis really many things. He is the net result of all the organic cells ofhis body, and of all the forces which act through them within, and of allthe circumstances which influence them from without, ay, and of all theforces and circumstances which have influenced his ancestors ever sinceman appeared on the earth. But because he remembers many states ofconsciousness, many moments in which he was aware of sensations withinhim, and of circumstances without him, therefore he strings all thesetogether, and talks of them as one thing which he calls I; and speaks ofthem as his remembrances of himself, when really the many things are butlinks of a chain which is perpetually growing at one end and dropping offat the other. To say, therefore, that he is the same person as he waswhen a child, or as he would be when an old man, --is, when we know thatevery atom of his physical frame has changed again and again during thecourse of years, a popular delusion, or at least a misnomer used forconvenience' sake; as when we say that the sun rises and sets, when weknow that the earth moves, and not the sun. A man, therefore, accordingto this school, is really no more a person, one and indivisible, than isthe coral with its million polypes, the tree with its million buds, oreven the thunderstorm with its million vesicles of attracting andrepelling vapour. 

Now that a truth underlies such a theory as this, I am the last to deny. How much of the character of each man is inherited, how much of itdepends on his actual bodily organization; how much of it, alas! on thecircumstances of his youth; how much of it changes with the mere physicalchange from youth to old age--who does not know all this, who has everneeded to fight for himself the battle of life? Only, I say, this is buthalf the truth; and these philosophers cannot state their half-truth, without employing the very words which they repudiate; without using thevery personal pronouns, the I and me, the thou and thee, the he and him, to which they deny any real existence. Beside, I ask--Is the experienceand the conclusion of the vast majority of all mankind to go for nothing?For if there be one point on which human beings have been, and are still, agreed, it is this--that each of them is, to his joy or his sorrow, an I;a separate person. And, I should have said, this conviction becomesstronger and stronger in each of them, the more human they become, civilized, and worthy of the respect and affection of their fellow-men. 

For what rises in them, or seems to rise, more and more painfully andfiercely? What but that protest, that battle, between the everlasting Iwithin them, and their own passions, and motives, and circumstances;which St Paul of old called the battle between the spirit on one side, and the flesh and the world on the other. The nobler, surely, andhealthier, even for a moment, the manhood of any man is, the more intenseis that inward struggle, which man alone of all the animals endures. Isit in moments of brave endeavour, whether to improve our own character, or to benefit our fellow-men: or is it in moments of depression, disappointment, bodily sickness, that we are tempted to say?--I willfight no more. I cannot mend myself, or the world. I am what nature hasmade me; and what I am, I must remain. I, and all I know, and all Ilove, are things, not persons; parts of nature, even as the birds uponthe bough, only more miserable, because tormented by a hope which neverwill be fulfilled; an empty pageant of mere phenomena, blown onwardtoward decay, like dying autumn leaves, before the "everlasting stormwhich no one guides. " Is this the inward voice of health and strength?or rather, for evil or for good, that voice which bids the man, thewoman, in the mysterious might of the free I within, trample on their ownpassions, defy their own circumstances, even to the death; fall back, inutter need, on the absolute instinct of self; and even though all seemlost, say with Medea in the tragedy--

 Che resta? Io!

Medea?--Some one will ask, and have a right to ask--Is that the modelwhich you set before us? The imperious sorceress, who from the first hasknown no law but self, her own passions, her own intellect; who, at last, maddened by a grievous wrong, asserts that self by the murder of her ownbabes? You might as well set before us as a model Milton's Satan. 

Just so. Remember first, nevertheless, the old maxim, that the best, when corrupted, is the worst; that the higher the nature, when usedaright in its right place, the baser it becomes when used wrongly, in itswrong place. When Satan fell from his right place, said the old Jews, hebecame, remember, not a mere brute: but worse, a fiend. There is a deepand true philosophy in that. As long as he was what he was meant tobe--the servant of God--he was an archangel and more; the fairest of allthe sons of the morning. When he rebelled; when in pride and self-willhe tore himself--his person--away from that God in whom he lived andmoved and had his being: the personality remained; he could still, likeMedea, fall back, even when he knew that he had rebelled against hisCreator, on his indomitable self, and reign a self-sufficing king, evenin the depths of hell. 

But the very strength and richness of that personality made him, likeMedea, only the more capable of evil. He stood, that is, his moralhealth endured, only by loyalty to God. When he lost that, he fell; tomoral disease: disease the vaster, the vaster were his own capacities. 

And so it is with you, and me, and every soul of man. Only by loyalty toGod can this undying I, this self, this person, which each of us has--orrather which each of us is--be anything but a torment and a curse; themore terrible to us, and those around us, the stronger and the richer arethe nature and faculties through which it works. 

Wouldest thou not be a curse unto thy self? Then cry with him who wrotethe 119th Psalm--I am Thine. Oh save the me, whom Thou, O God, hastmade. 

For he who wrote that psalm had an intense conviction of his ownpersonality. I, and me, are words for ever in his mouth: but not in self-satisfied conceit; nor in self-tormenting superstition, cryingperpetually, Shall I be saved? shall I be lost? No. Faith in Goddelivers him from either of these follies. He is forced to think ofself. Sad, persecuted, seemingly friendless, he is alone with self: yetnot alone. For at every moment he is referring himself to his true placein the universe; to God; God's law, God's help. The burden of self--ofmingled responsibility and weakness--is to him past bearing. It would beutterly past bearing, if he could not cast it down, at least at moments, at the foot of the throne of God, and cry, I am Thine. Oh save me. 

And if any should ask--as has been asked ere now--But is there not inthis tone of mind something undignified, something even abject? thus tocry for help, instead of helping oneself? thus to depend on anotherbeing, instead of bearing stoically with manly independence? Ianswer--The Psalmist does bear stoically, just because he cries for help. For the old Stoics cried for help; the earlier and truer-hearted of them, at least. Some here, surely, have read Epictetus, the heathen whosethought most exactly coincides with that of the Psalmist. If so, do theynot see what enabled him, the slave of Nero's minion, to assert himself, and his own unconquerable personality; to defy circumstance; and topreserve his own calm, his own honour, his own purity, amid a degradationwhich might well have driven a good man to suicide? And was it notthis--The intensity of his faith in God? In God the helper, God theguide?

If any man here have learnt, to his own loss, to undervalue theexperience of prophets, psalmists, apostles: then let him turn toEpictetus the heathen; and learn from that heroic slave, that the truedignity of man lies in true faith in God. 

Nay more. It is a serious question, whether ungodliness--by which Imean, as the Psalmist means, the assertion of self, independent ofGod--whether ungodliness, I say, is ever dignified; whether, as has beenoften said, Milton's still dignified Satan is not an impossiblecharacter; whether Goethe's utterly undignified Mephistopheles is not thetrue ideal of an utterly evil spirit. Ungodliness, as we see itmanifested in human beings, may be repulsive, as in the mere ruffian, whose mouth is filled with cursing, and his feet swift to shed blood. Itmay, again, be pitiable, as in those human butterflies, who live only toenjoy, or to minister to, what they call luxury and fashion. And it maybe again--when it calmly and deliberately asserts itself to be aphilosophy, and an explanation of man and of the universe, and givesitself magisterial airs, however courteously and kindly--it may be then, I dare to think, a little ludicrous. 

But as for its dignity, I leave to you to say which of the two beings isthe more dignified, which the more abject--a little organism of flesh andblood, at most not more than six feet high, liable to be destroyed by atile off the roof, or a blast of foul gas, or a hundred other accidents;standing self-poised and self-complacent in the centre of such anuniverse as this, and asserting that it acknowledges no superior, andneeds no guide--or the same being, awakened to the mystery of his ownactual weakness, his possible strength; his own actual ignorance, hispossible wisdom; his own actual sinfulness, his possible holiness: andthen; by a humility which is the highest daring; by a self-distrust whichis the truest self-assertion, vindicating the divine element within, bytaking personal and voluntary service under no less a personage than Himwho made him; and crying directly to the Creator of sun and stars and allthe universe--I am Thine. Oh save the me which Thou hast made?

Make up your own minds, make up your minds, which of the two figures isthe more abject, which the more dignified. For me, I have had too goodcause, long since, to make up mine. 

And if you wish to judge further for yourselves, whether the teaching ofthe Psalmist is more likely to produce an abject or a dignifiedcharacter, I advise you to ponder carefully a certain singular--I hadalmost said unique--educational document, written by men who hadthoroughly imbibed the teaching of this psalm; a document which, theoftener I peruse it, arouses in me more and more admiration; not only forits theology, but for its knowledge of human nature; and not only forwhat it does, but for what it does not, say. I mean the Catechism of theChurch of England. 

You will remark at first sight, that it does not affect to teach thechild; with one remarkable exception to be hereafter noticed. It doesnot tell the child--You should do this, you should not do that. 

It is strictly an Educational Catechism. It tries to educe--that is, draw out--what is in the child already; its own native instincts andnative conscience. Therefore it makes the child speak for itself. Itmakes each child feel that he or she is an I; a person, a responsiblesoul. It begins--What is your name? It makes the child confess that ithas a name, as a sign that it is a person, a self, a soul, different fromall other persons in earth or heaven; and that its name was given it atbaptism, for a sign that God made it a person, and wishes it to know thatit is a person, and will teach it how to be a true person, and a goodperson. It teaches the child to say--I, and me, not in fear and dread, like those heathen of whom I spoke just now, but with manly confidence, and self-respect, and gratitude to God who has made it a person, and animmortal soul. 

To say--I am a person; and in order that I might be a right kind ofperson, and not a wrong kind, I was made a member of Christ, a child ofGod, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. 

To say--I am a person; and that I may be a right kind of person, I mustknow and believe certain things concerning God Himself, Father, Son, andHoly Ghost. I am a person; and that I may be a right kind of person, Imust keep certain commandments and do certain duties toward God, and myparents, and my Queen, and my country, and my neighbour, and all towardwhom I am responsible for right behaviour. 

And then, and only then, after it has made the child say all this foritself and about itself, the Catechism does begin to teach; and in a fewvery short words, tell the child about that which is not itself--

"My good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things ofthyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve Him, without His special grace; which thou must learn at all times to call forby diligent prayer. "

Now consider these words. There is comfort and strength in them; comfortfor the child; comfort for you, and me, and every human being who hasawakened to the sense of his own personal responsibility, and finds ittoo often a burden heavier than he--and, alas, often, she--can bear. 

The Catechism tells the child that it must not merely know doctrinesabout God, or do duties to God; but more: that it is alone with GodHimself, face to face with God Himself day and night. But that thereforeit is to dread God, and look up to God as a taskmaster and tyrant, andtry to hide from God's awful eye, and forget God, and forget itself--ifit can?--God forbid; God forbid. The Catechism leaves such teaching forthose Pharisees who tell little children that unless they are converted, and become as them, they shall in no wise enter into the kingdom ofheaven. The Catechism says, My good child--not, My bad child--know this. Know that thou art weak: but know that God is strong; and look up to Himas the Father of all fathers, the Teacher of all teachers, the Helper ofall helpers, the Friend of all friends, who has I called thee unto Hiskingdom of grace, that He might shew thee graciousness; and make theegracious and graceful in all thy thoughts, and works, and ways: and, therefore, far from trying to hide from Him, call on Him with diligentprayer. For the Father of all fathers is the Father of thy soul, the Sonof all sons died for thee upon the Cross, the Holy Spirit of all holyspirits will make thee a holy spirit and person, even as He is a HolySpirit and Person Himself. 

Believing those words, no one will dare to forget to say his prayers. Forwhen he prays, he is indeed a person. He is himself; and not ashamed, however sinful, to be himself; and to tell God about himself. Oh, thinkof that. You, each of you, have a right, as God's children, to speak tothe God who made the universe. Therefore be sure, that when you disliketo say your prayers, it is because you do not like to be what you are, aperson; and prefer--ah foolish soul--to be a thing, and an animal. 

Believing those words, no man need long to forget himself, to escape fromhimself. He can lift up himself to God who made him, with reverence, andfear, and yet with gratitude and trust, and say--

I, Lord, am I; and what I am--a very poor, pitiful, sinful person. ButThou, Lord, art Thou; and what Thou art--happily for me, and for thewhole universe--Perfect. Thou art what Thou oughtest to be--Goodnessitself. And therefore Thou canst, and Thou wilt, make me what I ought tobe at last, a good person. To thee, O Lord, I can bring the burden ofthis undying I, which I carry with me, too often in shame and sadness, and ask Thee to help me to bear it; saying--"Thou knowest, Lord, thesecrets of our hearts. Shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayers: butspare us, O Lord most Holy, O God most Mighty, Thou worthy Judge Eternal, and suffer us not, for any temptation of the world, the flesh or thedevil, to fall from Thee. " Guide me, teach me, strengthen me, till Ibecome such a person as Thou wouldst have me be; pure and gentle, truthful and high-minded, brave and able, courteous and generous, dutifuland useful, like Thy Son Jesus Christ when He increased not only instature, but in favour with God and man. 

To which may God in His mercy bring us all! Amen. 

SERMON XVI. THE CEDARS OF LEBANON. 

PSALM CIV. 16. 

 The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which He hath planted. 

Let me say a few words this afternoon about the noble 104th Psalm, whichwas read this afternoon, as it is now in many churches, and most wiselyand rightly, as the Harvest Psalm. It is a fit psalm for a service inwhich we thank God for such harvest as He has thought best to send us, whether it be above or below the average. But it is also a fit psalm tobe thought earnestly over just now, considering the turn which men'sminds are taking more and more in these times in which it has pleased Godthat we should live. For we have lost, all of us, unlearned as well aslearned, the old superstitious notions about this world around us whichour forefathers held for many hundred years. No rational person nowbelieves that witches can blight crops or cattle, or that evil spiritscause storms. No one now believes that nymphs and fairies live infountains or in trees; or that the spirits of the planets rule the fatesof men. That old belief is gone, for good and for evil, and it was goodthat it should go; for it was false: and falsehoods can do no good, butonly harm, to any man, in body and in soul alike. It has died outquickly and strangely. Some say that modern science has destroyed it. Ican hardly agree to that: for it has died out--and that almost since myown recollection and under my own eyes--in the minds of country people, who know nothing of science. I had rather say--as I presume the man whowrote the 104th Psalm would have said--The Lord has taken the belief outof men's hearts and minds. And I cannot but hope that He has taken itaway, and allows us to believe no more in demons and fairies ruling theworld around us, in order that we may believe in Him, and nothing butHim, the true Ruler of the world; in Him of whom it is written, "Himshalt thou worship, and Him only shalt thou serve;" even God the Father, of whom are all things, and God the Son, by whom are all things, and Godthe Holy Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of life, alike to sun andstars over our heads, and to the meanest weed and insect under our feet;the Lord and Giver of life alike to matter and spirit, soul and body, worm and man, and angel and archangel before the throne of God. I hopeit is so. I trust it is so. For we never had more need than now tobelieve with all our hearts in the living God; to take into all ourhearts the teaching of the 104th Psalm. For now that we have given upbelieving in superstitions, we are in danger of going to the otherextreme, and believing in nothing at all which we cannot see with oureyes, and handle with our hands. Now that we have given up believing inthe fabled supernatural; in ghosts, fairies, demons, witches, and such-like: we are in danger of giving up believing in the true and eternalsupernatural, which is the Holy Spirit of God, by whom the whole creationis kept alive and sound. We are in danger of falling into a low, stupid, brutish view of this wonderful world of God in which we live; in dangerof thinking of nature--that is, of the things which we can see andhandle--only as something of which we can make use--till we fall as lowas that poor ruffian, of whom the poet says:

 A primrose on the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. 

Lower, that is, than even our own children, whom God has at least taughtto admire and love the primroses for their beauty--as something preciousand divine, quite independent of their own emotions about them. Men inthese days are but too likely to fall into the humour of those poorsavages, of whom one who knows them well said to me once--bitterly buttruly--that when a savage sees anything new, however wonderful orbeautiful, he has but two thoughts about it; first--Will it hurt me? andnext--Can I eat it? And from that truly brutish view of God's world, weshall be delivered, I believe, only by taking in with our whole heartsthe teaching of the 104th Psalm; which is indeed the teaching of all HolyScripture throughout. 

The Psalmist, in the passage which I have chosen, is talking of thecirculation of water on the earth; how wisely and well it is ordered; howthe vapours rise off the sea, till the waters stand above the mountain-tops, to be brought down in thunder-storms--for in his country, as inmany hot ones, thunder was generally needed, at the end of the dryseason, to bring down the rain; how it forms springs in the highland, andflows down from thence in brooks and rivers, making the whole lowlandgreen and fertile. Well--all very true, you may say. But that is simplya matter of science, or indeed of common observation and common sense. Itis not a subject for a psalm or for a sermon. 

True: in the words in which I have purposely put it. But not in thewords in which the Psalmist puts it; and which I purposely left out, toshew you just the difference between even the soundest science, andfaith. He brings in another element, which is the true cause of thecirculation of water; and that is, none other but Almighty God. 

This is the way in which the inspired Psalmist puts it; and this is thetruth of it all; this is the very kernel and marrow and life and soul ofit all: while the facts which I told you just now are the mere shell anddead skeleton of it--"_Thou_ sendest the springs into the rivers. "

Thou art the Lord of the lightning and of the clouds, the Lord of thehighlands and of the lowlands, and the Lord of the rainfall and of thedrought, the Lord of good seasons and of bad, of rich harvests and ofscanty. They, like all things, obey Thine everlasting laws; and of them, whatever may befal, poor purblind man can say in faith and hope--"It isthe Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good. "

Yes. He was not of course a man of science, in the modern sense of theword, this old Psalmist. But this I know, that he was a man of sciencein the soundest and deepest sense; an inspired philosopher, as well as aninspired poet; and had the highest of all sciences, which is the scienceand knowledge of the living God. For he saw God in everything andeverything in God. 

But--he says--the trees of the Lord are full of sap; even the cedars ofLebanon which He hath planted. Why should he say that specially of thecedars? Did not God make all trees? Does He not plant all wild trees, and every flower and seed? My dear friends, happy are you if you believethat in spirit and in truth. But let me tell you that I think you wouldnot have believed that, unless the Psalmist, and others who wrote theHoly Scriptures, had told you about trees of God, and rivers of God, andwinds of God, and had taught you that the earth is the Lord's and thefulness thereof. You do not know--none of us can know--how much we oweto the Bible for just and rational, as well as orthodox and Christian, notions of the world around us. We, and--thank God--our forefathers forhundreds of years, have drunk in Bible thoughts, as it were, with ourmother's milk; till much that we have really learnt from the Bible wetake as a matter of course, as self-evident truths which we have foundout for ourselves by common sense. 

And yet, so far from that being the case, if it had not been for theBible, we might be believing at this moment, that one god made one tree, and another another; that one tree was sacred to one god, and anotherflower to another goddess, as the old Greeks believed; and that the wheatand barley were the gift, and therefore the property, of some specialdeity; and be crying now in fear and trembling to the sun-god, or therain-god, or some other deified power of nature, because we fancied thatthey were angry with us, and had therefore sent us too much rain and ashort harvest. 

It is difficult, now-a-days, to make even cultivated people understandthe follies of those who, like the heathen round the Jews, worshippedmany gods: and all the more because our modern folly runs in a differentchannel; because we are tempted, not to believe in many gods, but in noGod at all; to believe not that one god made one thing and anotheranother, but that all things have made themselves. 

When Hiram, king of Tyre, sent down timber cut from the cedars ofLebanon, to build the temple of God for Solomon; his heathen workmen, probably, were angry and terrified at what they were doing. They saidamong themselves--"These cedars belong to Baal, or to Melkart, the godsof Tyre. Our king has no right to send them to build the temple ofJehovah, the God of the Jews. It is a robbery, and a sacrilege; and Baalwill be angry with us; and curse us with drought and blight. "

But now-a-days men say--"The cedars of Lebanon are not God's trees, norare any other trees. They belong to nature. " Now I believe in nature nomore than I do in Baal. Nature is merely things--a great many things itis true, but only things--and when I add them all up together, and callthem nature, as if they were one thing, I make an abstraction of them. There is no harm in that: but if I treat that abstraction as if it reallyexisted, and did anything, then I make of it an idol, the which I have nomind to do. I believe, I say, in nature no more than I do in Baal. Bothwords were at first symbols; and both have become in due course of timemere idols. But those who worship nature and not God, say now--God didnot make trees; they were made by the laws of nature and nothing else. Well: I believe that the so-called philosophers who say that, will beproved at last to be no more right, and no more rational, than thoseheathen workmen of Tyre. But meanwhile, what the Psalmist says, and whatthe Bible says, is--Those trees belong to God. He made them, He made allthings; the sap--the mysterious life in them, by which each grows andseeds according to its kind--is His gift. Their growth is ordered byHim; and so are all things in earth and heaven. 

Then why speak of them especially as trees of God? Because, my friends, we can only find out that something is true of many things, by findingout that it is true of one thing; and that we usually find out by somestriking instance; some case about which there can be no mistake. Andthese cedars of Lebanon were, and are still, such a striking instance, which there was no mistaking. Upon the slopes of the great snow-mountainof Lebanon stood those gigantic cedar-trees--whole forests of themthen--now only one or two small groups, but awful, travellers tell us, even in their decay. Whence did they come? There are no trees like themfor hundreds, I had almost said for thousands, of miles. There are buttwo other patches of them left now on the whole earth, one in the Atlas, one in the Himalaya. The Jews certainly knew of no trees like them; andno trees either of their size. There were trees among them then, probably, two and three hundred feet in height; trees whose tops were asthose minster towers; whose shafts were like yonder pillars; and theirbranches like yonder vaults. No king, however mighty, could have plantedthem up there upon the lofty mountain slopes. The Jew, when he enteredbeneath the awful darkness of these cedars; the cedars with a shadowyshroud--as the Scripture says--the cedars high and lifted up, whose topswere among the thick boughs, and their height exalted above all the treesof the field; fair in their greatness; their boughs multiplied, and theirbranches long--for it is in such words of awe and admiration that theBible talks always of the cedars--then the Jew said, "God has plantedthese, and God alone. " And when he thought, not merely of their grandeurand their beauty, but of their use; of their fragrant and incorruptibletimber, fit to build the palaces of kings, and the temples of gods; hesaid--and what could he say better?--"These are trees of God;" wonderfuland glorious works of a wonderful and a glorious Creator. If he had not, he would have had less reason in him, and less knowledge of God, than theHindoos of old; who when they saw the other variety of the cedar growing, in like grandeur, on the slopes of the Himalaya, called them theDeodara--which means, in the old Sanscrit tongue, neither more nor lessthan "the timber of God, " "the lance of God"--and what better could theyhave said?

My friends, I speak on this matter from the fulness of my heart. It hashappened to me--through the bounty of God, for which I shall be evergrateful--to have spent days in primeval forests, as grand, and farstranger and far richer than that of Lebanon and its cedars; amid treesbeside which the hugest tree in Britain would be but as a sapling;gorgeous too with flowers, rich with fruits, timbers, precious gums, andall the yet unknown wealth of a tropic wilderness. And as I looked up, awestruck and bewildered, at those minsters not made by hands, I foundthe words of Scripture rising again and again unawares to my lips, andsaid--Yes: the Bible words are the best words, the only words for such asight as this. These too are trees of God which are full of sap. These, too, are trees, which God, not man, has planted. Mind, I do not say thatI should have said so, if I had not learnt to say so from the Bible. Without the Bible I should have been, I presume, either an idolater or anatheist. And mind, also, that I do not say that the Psalmist learnt tocall the cedars trees of God by his own unassisted reason. I believe thevery opposite. I believe that no man can see the truth of a thing unlessGod shews it him; that no man can find out God, in earth or heaven, unless God condescends to reveal Himself to that man. But I believe thatGod did reveal Himself to the Psalmist; did enlighten his reason by theinspiration of His Holy Spirit; did teach him, as we teach a child, whatto call those cedars; and, as it were, whispered to him, though with noaudible voice: "Thou wishest to know what name is most worthy whereby tocall those mighty trees: then call them trees of God. Know that there isbut one God, of whom are all things; and that they are His trees; andthat He planted them, to shew forth His wisdom, His power, and His goodwill to man. "

And do you fancy that because the Jew called the great cedars trees ofGod, that therefore he thought that the lentiscs and oleanders, by thebrook outside, were not God's shrubs; or the lilies and anemones upon thedown below were not God's flowers? Some folk have fancied so. --It seemsto me most unreasonably. I should have thought that here the rule stoodtrue; that that which is greater contains the less; that if the Psalmistknew God to be mighty enough to make and plant the cedars, he would thinkHim also mighty enough to make and plant the smallest flower at his feet. I think so. For I know it was so with me. My feeling that thoseenormous trees over my head were God's trees, did not take away in theleast from my feeling of God's wisdom and power in the tiniest herb attheir feet. Nay rather, it increased my feeling that God was filling allthings with life and beauty; till the whole forest, --if I may so speak inall humility, but in all honesty--from the highest to the lowest, fromthe hugest to the smallest, and every leaf and bud therein, seemed fullof the glory of God. And if I could feel that, --being the thing I am--howmuch more must the inspired Psalmist have felt it? You see by this verypsalm that he did feel it. The grass for the use of cattle, and thegreen herb for men, and the corn and the wine and the oil, he says, arejust as much God's making, and God's gift. The earth is "filled, " hesays, "with the fruit of God's works. " Filled: not dotted over here andthere with a few grand and wonderful things which God cares for, while Hecares for nothing else: but filled. Let us take the words of Scripturehonestly in their whole strength; and believe that if the Psalmist sawGod's work in the great cedars, he saw it everywhere else likewise. 

Nay, more: I will say this. That I believe it was such teaching as thatof this very 104th Psalm--teaching which runs, my friends, throughout theOld Testament, especially through the Psalmists and the Prophets--whichenabled the Jews to understand our Lord's homely parables about theflowers of the field and the birds of the air. Those of them at leastwho were Israelites indeed; those who did understand, and had treasuredup in their hearts, the old revelation of Moses, and the Psalmists, andthe Prophets; those who did still believe that the cedars were the treesof God, and that God brought forth grass for the cattle, and green herbfor the service of men; and who could see God's hand, God's laws, God'slove, working in them--those men and women, be sure, were the very oneswho understood our Lord, when He said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say untoyou, that Solomon in all his glory was not compared unto one of these. "

And why should it not be so with you, townsfolk though you are? EveryLondoner has now, in the public parks and gardens, the privilege oflooking on plants and flowers, more rich, more curious, more varied thanmeet the eye of any average countryman. Then when you next availyourselves of that real boon of our modern civilization, let me beg younot to forget the lesson which I have been trying to teach you. 

You may feel--you ought to feel--that those strange and statelysemitropic forms are indeed plants of God; the work of a creative Spiritwho delights to employ His Almighty power in producing ever fresh shapesof beauty--seemingly unnecessary, seemingly superfluous, seeminglycreated for the sake of their beauty alone--in order that the Lord maydelight Himself in His works. Let that sight make you admire andreverence more, not less, the meanest weed beneath your feet. Rememberthat the very weeds in your own garden are actually more highlyorganized; have cost--if I may so say, with all reverence, but I can onlyspeak of the infinite in clumsy terms of the finite--the Creator morethought, more pains, than the giant cedars of Lebanon, and the giantcypresses of California. Remember that the smallest moss or lichen whichclings upon the wall, is full of wonders and beauties, as inexplicable asunexpected; and that of every flower on your own window-sill the words ofChrist stand literally true--that Solomon in all his glory was notarrayed as one of these: and bow your hearts and souls before themagnificent prodigality, the exquisite perfection of His work, who canbe, as often as He will, greatest in that which is least, because to Hisinfinity nothing is great, and nothing small; who hath created allthings, and for His pleasure they are, and were created; who rejoices forever in His own works, because He beholds for ever all that He makes, andit is very good. 

And then refresh your hearts as well as your brains--tired it may be, toooften, with the drudgery of some mechanical, or merely calculating, occupation--refresh your hearts, I say, by lifting them up unto the Lord, in truly spiritual, truly heavenly thoughts; which bring nobleness, andtrust, and peace, to the humblest and the most hardworked man. 

For you can say in your hearts--All the things which I see, are God'sthings. They are thoughts of God. God gives them law, and life, anduse. My heavenly Father made them. My Saviour redeemed them with Hismost precious blood, and rules and orders them for ever. The Holy Spiritof God, which was given me at my baptism, gives them life and power togrow and breed after their kinds. The divine, miraculous, andsupernatural power of God Himself is working on them, and for them, perpetually: and how much more on me, and for me, and all my children, and fellow-creatures for whom Christ died. Without my Father in heavennot a sparrow falls to the ground: and am I not of more value than manysparrows? God feeds the birds: and will He not feed me? God clothes thelilies of the field: and will He not clothe me? Ah, me of little faith, who forget daily that in God I live, and move, and have my being, and am, in spite of all my sins, the child of God. Him I can trust in prosperoustimes, and in disastrous times; in good harvests and in bad harvests; inlife and in death, in time and in eternity. For He has given all thingsa law which cannot be broken. And they continue this day as at thebeginning, serving Him. And if I serve Him likewise, then shall I be inharmony with God, and with God's laws, and with God's creatures, greatand small. The whole powers of nature as well as of spirit will bearrayed on my side in the struggle for existence; and all things willwork together for good to those who love God. 

SERMON XVII. LIFE. 

PSALM CIV. 24, 28-30. 

 O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches. 

 That Thou givest them they gather. Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth. 

What is the most important thing to you, and me, and every man?

I suppose that most, if they answered honestly, would say--Life. I willgive anything I have for my life. 

And if some among you answered--as I doubt not some would--No: not life:but honour and duty. There is many a thing which I would rather die thando--then you would answer like valiant and righteous folk; and may Godgive you grace to keep in the same mind, and to hold your good resolutionto the last. But you, too, will agree that, except doing your duty, lifeis the most important thing you have. The mother, when she sacrificesher life to save her child, shews thereby how valuable she holds thechild's life to be; so valuable that she will give up even her own tosave it. 

But did you never consider, again--and a very solemn and awful thought itis--that this so important thing called life is the thing, above allother earthly things, of which we know least--ay, of which we knownothing?

We do not know what death is. We send a shot through a bird, and itfalls dead--that is, lies still, and after a while decays again into thedust of the earth, and the gases of the air. But what has happened toit? How does it die? How does it decay? What is this life which isgone out of it? No man knows. Men of science, by dissecting and makingexperiments, which they do with a skill and patience which deserve notonly our belief, but our admiration, will describe to us the phenomena, or outward appearances, which accompany death, and follow death. Butdeath itself--for want of what the animal has died--what has gone out ofit--they cannot tell. No man can tell; for that is invisible, and not tobe discovered by the senses. They are therefore forced to explain deathby theories, which may be true, or false: but which are after all notdeath itself, but their own thoughts about death put into their ownwords. Death no man can see: but only the phenomena and effects ofdeath; and still more, life no man can see: but only the phenomena andeffects of life. 

For if we cannot tell what death is, still more we cannot tell what lifeis. How life begins; how it organizes each living thing according to itskind; and makes it grow; how it gives it the power of feeding on otherthings, and keeping up its own body thereby: of this all experiments tellus as yet nothing. Experiment gives us, here again, the phenomena--thevisible effects. But the causes it sees not, and cannot see. 

This is not a matter to be discussed here. But this I say, thatscientific men, in the last generation or two, have learnt, to theirgreat honour, and to the great good of mankind--everything, or almosteverything, about it--except the thing itself; and that, below all facts, below all experiments, below all that the eye or brain of man candiscover, lies always a something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yetseemingly omnipresent and omnipotent; retreating before the man ofscience deeper and deeper, the deeper he delves: namely, the life, whichshapes and makes all phenomena, and all facts. Scientific men arebecoming more and more aware of this unknown force, I had almost said, ready to worship it. More and more the noblest minded of them arebecoming engrossed with that truly miraculous element in nature which isalways escaping them, though they cannot escape it. How should theyescape it? Was it not written of old--Whither shall I go from Thypresence? and whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit?

What then can we know of this same life, which is so precious in mostmen's eyes?

My friends, it was once said--That man's instinct was in all unknownmatters to take refuge in God. The words were meant as a sneer. I, as aChristian, glory in them; and ask, Where else should man take refuge, save in God? When man sees anything--as he must see hundreds ofthings--which he cannot account for; things mysterious, and seeminglybeyond the power of his mind to explain: what safer, what wiser word canhe say than--This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?God understands it: though I do not. Be it what it may, it is a work ofGod. From God it comes: by God it is ruled and ordered. That at least Iknow: and let that be enough for me. And so we may say of life. When weare awed, and all but terrified, by the unfathomable mystery of life, wecan at least take refuge in God. And if we be wise, we shall take refugein God. Whatever we can or cannot know about it, this we know; that itis the gift of God. So thought the old Jewish Prophets and Psalmists;and spoke of a breath of God, a vapour, a Spirit of God, which breathedlife into all things. It was but a figure of speech, of course: but if abetter one has yet been found, let the words in which it has been writtenor spoken be shewn to me. For to me, at least, they are yet unknown. Ihave read, as yet, no wiser words about the matter than those of the oldJewish sages, who told how, at the making of the world, the Spirit, orbreath, of God moved on the face of the waters, quickening all things tolife; or how God breathed into man's nostrils the breath or spirit oflife, and man became a living soul. 

And in the same temper does that true philosopher and truly inspiredPsalmist, who wrote the 139th Psalm, speak of the Spirit or breath ofGod. He considers his own body: how fearfully and wonderfully it ismade; how God did see his substance, yet being imperfect; and in God'sbook were all his members written, which day by day were fashioned, whileas yet there was none of them. "Thou, " he says, "O God, hast fashionedme behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is toowonderful and excellent for me; I cannot attain to it. " "But, " he saysto himself, "there is One Who has attained to it; Who does know; for Hehas done it all, and is doing it still: and that is God and the Spirit ofGod. Whither"--he asks--"shall I go then from God's Spirit? Whithershall I flee from God's presence?" And so he sees by faith--and by thehighest reason likewise--The Spirit of God, as a living, thinking, actingbeing, who quickens and shapes, and orders, not his mortal body merely, but all things; giving life, law, and form to all created things, fromthe heights of heaven to the depths of hell; and ready to lead him andhold him, if he took the wings of the morning and fled into the uttermostparts of the sea. 

And so speaks again he who wrote the 104th Psalm, and the text which Ihave chosen. To him, too, the mystery of death, and still more themystery of life, could be explained only by faith in God, and in theSpirit of God. If things died, it was because God took away theirbreath, and therefore they returned to their dust. And if things lived, it was because the Spirit of God, breathed forth, and proceeding, fromGod, gave them life. He pictured to himself, I dare to fancy, what wemay picture to ourselves--for such places have often been, and are now, in this world--some new and barren land, even as the very gravel on whichwe stand was once, just risen from the icy sea, all waste and lifeless, without a growing weed, an insect, even a moss. Then, gradually, seedsfloat thither across the sea, or are wafted by the winds, and grow; andafter them come insects; then birds; then trees grow up; and largeranimals arrive to feed beneath their shade; till the once barren land hasbecome fertile and rich with life, and the face of the earth is renewed. But by what? "God, " says the Psalmist, "has renewed the face of theearth. " True, the seeds, the animals came by natural causes: but who wasthe Cause of those causes? Who sent the things thither, save God? Andwho gave them life? Who kept the life in floating seeds, in flyingspores? Who made that life, when they reached the barren shore, grow andthrive in each after their kind? Who, but the Spirit of God, the Lordand Giver of life? God let His Spirit proceed and go forth from Himselfupon them; and they were made; and so He renewed the face of the earth. 

That, my good friends, is not only according to Scripture, but accordingto true philosophy. Men are slow to believe it now: and no wonder. Theyhave been always slow to believe in the living God; and have madethemselves instead dead gods--if not of wood and stone, still out oftheir own thoughts and imaginations; and talk of laws of nature, and longabstractions ending in ation and ality, like that "Evolution" with whichso many are in love just now; and worship them as gods; mere words, thework of their own brains, though not of their own hands--even though theybe--as many of them are--Evolution, I hold, among the rest--true and fairapproximations to actual laws of God. But before them, and behind them, and above them and below them, lives the Author of Evolution, and ofeverything else. For God lives, and reigns, and works for ever. TheSpirit of God proceedeth from the Father and the Son, giving, evolving, and ruling the life of all created things; and what we call nature, andthis world, and the whole universe, is an unfathomable mystery, and aperpetual miracle, The one Author and Ruler of which is the ever-blessedTrinity, of whom it is written--"The glorious majesty of the Lord shallendure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in His works. "

I believe, therefore, that the Psalmist in the text is speaking, notmerely sound doctrine but sound philosophy. I believe that the simplestand the most rational account of the mystery of life is that which isgiven by the Christian faith; and that the Nicene Creed speaks truth andfact, when it bids us call the Holy Spirit of God the Lord and Giver oflife. 

That this is according to the orthodox Catholic Faith there is no doubt. Many mistakes were made on this matter, in the early times of the Church, even by most learned and holy divines; as was to be expected, consideringthe mysteriousness of the subject. They were inclined, often, to what iscalled Pantheism--that is, to fancy that all living things are parts ofGod; that God's Spirit is in them, as our soul is in our body, or as heatis in a heated matter; and to speak of God's Spirit as the soul and lifeof the world. 

But this is exactly what the Nicene Creed does not do. It does not saythat the Holy Spirit is life: but that He is the Lord and Giver of life--aseemingly small difference in words: but a most vast and importantdifference in meaning and in truth. 

The true doctrine, it seems to me, is laid down most clearly by thefamous bishop, Cyril of Alexandria; who, whatever personal faults hehad--and they were many--had doubtless dialectic intellect enough forthis, and even deeper questions. And he says--"The Holy Spirit moves allthings that are moved; and holds together, and animates, and makes alive, the whole universe. Nor is He another Nature different from the Fatherand the Son: but as He is in us; of the same nature and the same essenceas they. " And so says another divine, Eneas of Gaza--"The Father, withthe Son, sends forth the Holy Spirit; and inspiring with this Spirit allthings, beyond sense and of sense--invisible and visible--fills them withpower, and holds them together, and draws them to Himself. " And he praysthus to the Holy Spirit a prayer which is to my mind as noble as it istrue--"O Holy Spirit, by whom God inspires, and holds together, andpreserves all things, and leads them to perfection. " I quote such wordsto shew you that I am not giving you new fancies of my own: but simplywhat I believe to be the ancient, orthodox and honest meaning of thatsame Nicene Creed, which you just new heard; where it says that the HolySpirit is the Lord and Giver of life; and the meaning of the 104th Psalmalso, where it says--"Thou lettest Thy breath--Thy Spirit--go forth, andthey shall be made, and Thou shall renew the face of the earth. "

And now--if anyone shall say--This may be all very true. But what is itto me? You are talking about nature; about animals and plants, and landsand seas. What I come to church to hear of, is about my own soul--

I should answer such a man--My good friend, you come to church to hearabout God as well as about what you call your soul. And any soundknowledge which you can learn about God, must be--believe me--of use toyour immortal soul. For if you have wrong notions concerning God: howcan you avoid having wrong notions concerning your soul, which lives andmoves and has its being in God?

But look at it thus. At least I have been speaking of the works of God. And are not you, too, a work of God? The Lord shall rejoice in Hisworks, even to the tiniest gnat that dances in the sun. Is the Lordrejoicing in you? I have said--Whither shall a man go from God'spresence? Are you forgetting or remembering God's presence? And--Whithershall a man flee from God's Spirit? Are you, O man, fleeing from God'sSpirit, and forgetting His gracious inspirations; all pure and holy, andnoble, and just and lovely and truly human, thoughts, in the whirl ofpleasure, or covetousness, or ambition, or actual sin? If so, look atthe tiniest gnat which dances in the air, the meanest flower beneath yourfeet; and be ashamed, and fear, and tremble before the Living God, andbefore His Spirit. For the gnat and the flower are doing their duty, andpleasing the Holy Spirit of God; and you are not doing your duty, and aregrieving the Holy Spirit of God. For simply: because that Spirit is theSpirit of God, He is a Holy Spirit, who tries to make you--O man and notanimal--holy; a moral, and spiritual, and good being. Because you are amoral and spiritual being, God's Spirit exercises over you a moral powerwhich He does not exercise over the plants and animals. He works notmerely on your body and your brain: but on your heart and immortal soul. But if you choose to be immoral, when He is trying to keep you moral; ifyou choose to be carnal like the brutes, while He is trying to make youspiritual, like Jesus Christ, from whom He proceeds: then, oh then, tremble, and beware, and be ashamed before the very flowers which grow inyour own garden-bed; for they fulfil the law which God has given them. They are what they ought to be, each after its kind. But you are notwhat you ought to be, after your kind; which is a good man, or a goodwoman, or a good child. 

Oh beware lest the Lord should fulfil in you the awful words of thisPsalm; lest He should hide His face from you, and you be troubled; andlest when He takes away your breath you should die, and turn again toyour dust; and find, too late, that the wages of sin are death--death notmerely of the body, but of the soul. Rather repent, and amend, andremember that most blessed, and yet most awful fact--that God's Spirit iswith you from your baptism until now, putting into your heart gooddesires, and ready to enable you--if you will--to bring those gooddesires to good effect: instead of leaving them only as good intentions, with which, says the too true proverb, hell is paved. 

So will be fulfilled in you the blessed words of the next verse--WhenThou lettest Thy Spirit go forth, they shall be made; and Thou shaltrenew the face of the earth--words which St Augustine of old applied tothe work of God's Spirit on the souls of men. 

For well it is with us--as St Augustine says--when God takes away from usour own spirit, the spirit of pride and self-will and self-righteousness;and we see that we are but dust and ashes; worse than the animals, inthat we have sinned, and they have not. Confess--he says--thy weaknessand thy dust: and then listen to what follows:--Thou shalt take away fromthem their own spirit; but Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit on them, andthey shall be made and created anew. As the Apostle says, "We are God'sown workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. " And so--hesays--God will indeed renew the face of the earth with converted andrenewed men, who confess that they are not righteous in themselves, butmade righteous by the grace of the Spirit of God; and so the Lord shallrejoice in His works; you will be indeed His work, and He will rejoice inyou. 

Yes. God will indeed rejoice in us, if we obey the godly inspirations ofHis Spirit. But again, we shall rejoice in God; if we be but led by HisSpirit into all truth, and thence into all righteousness. Then we shallbe in harmony with God, and with the whole universe of God. We shallhave our share in that perpetual worship which is celebrated throughoutthe universe by all creatures, rational and irrational, who are obeyingthe laws of their being; the laws of the Spirit of God, the Lord andGiver of life. We shall take our part in that perpetual Hymn which callson all the works of the Lord, from angels and powers, sun and stars, winds and seasons, seas and floods, trees and flowers, beasts and cattle, to the children of men, and the servants of the Lord, and the spirits andsouls of the righteous, and the holy and humble men of heart--"O all yeworks of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him forever. "

SERMON XVIII. DEATH. 

PSALM CIV. 20, 21. 

 Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. 

Let me say a few words on this text. It is one which has been a comfortto me again and again. It is one which, if rightly understood, ought togive comfort to pitiful and tender-hearted persons. 

Have you never been touched by, never been even shocked by, the mysteryof pain and death? I do not speak now of pain and death among humanbeings: but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrationalcreatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain anddeath among human beings. 

For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings. It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come;if they are the Christians which they ought to be. But of what use cansuffering and death be to dumb animals? How can it make them better inthis life, and happier in the life to come? It seems, in the case ofanimals, to be only so much superfluous misery thrown away. Would to Godthat people would remember that, when they unnecessarily torment dumbcreatures, and then excuse themselves by saying--Oh, they are not humanbeings; they are not Christians; and therefore it does not matter somuch. I should have thought that therefore it mattered all the more: andthat just because dumb animals have, as far as we know, only this mortallife, therefore we should allow them the fuller enjoyment of their briefmortality. 

And yet, how much suffering, how much violent death, there is amonganimals. How much? The world is full of it, and has been full of it forages. I dare to say, that of the millions on millions of livingcreatures in the earth, the air, the sea, full one-half live by eatingeach other. In the sea, indeed, almost every kind of creature feeds onsome other creature: and what an amount of pain, of terror, of violentdeath that means, or seems to mean!

We here, in a cultivated country, are slow to take in this thought. Wehave not here, as in India, Africa, America, lion and tiger, bear andwolf, jaguar and puma, perpetually prowling round the farms, and takingtheir tithe of our sheep and cattle. We have never heard, as thePsalmist had, the roar of the lion round the village at night, or seenall the animals, down to the very dogs, crowding together in terror, knowing but too well what that roar meant. If we had; and had been likethe Psalmist, thoughtful men: then it would have been a very solemnquestion to us--From whom the lion was asking for his nightly meal;whether from God, or from some devil as cruel as himself?

But even here the same slaughter of animals by animals goes on. The hawkfeeds on the small birds, the small birds on the insects, the insects, many of them, on each other. Even our most delicate and seeminglyharmless songsters, like the nightingale, feed entirely on livingcreatures--each one of which, however small, has cost God as muchpains--if I may so speak in all reverence--to make as the nightingaleitself; and thus, from the top to the bottom of creation, is one chain ofdestruction, and pain, and death. 

What is the meaning of it all? Ought it to be so, or ought it not? Isit God's will and law, or is it not? That is a solemn question; and onewhich has tried many a thoughtful, and tender, and virtuous soul ere now, both Christian and heathen; and has driven them to find strange answersto it, which have been, often enough, not according to Scripture, or tothe Catholic Faith. 

Some used to say, in old times; and they may say again--This world, sofull of pain and death, is a very ill-made world. We will not believethat it was made by the good God. It must have been made by some evilbeing, or at least by some stupid and clumsy being--the Demiurgus, theycalled him--or the world-maker--some inferior God, whom the good Godwould conquer and depose, and so do away with pain, and misery, anddeath. A pardonable mistake: but, as we are bound to believe, a mistakenevertheless. 

Others, again, good Christians and good men likewise, have inventedanother answer to the mystery--like that which Milton gives in his'Paradise Lost. ' They have said--Before Adam fell there was no pain ordeath in the world. It was only after Adam's fall that the animals beganto destroy and devour each other. Ever since then there has been a curseon the earth, and this is one of the fruits thereof. 

Now I say distinctly, as I have said elsewhere, that we are not bound tobelieve this or anything like it. The book of Genesis does not say thatthe animals began to devour each other at Adam's fall. It does not evensay that the ground is cursed for man's sake now, much less the animals. For we read in Genesis ix. 21--"And the Lord said, I will not any morecurse the ground for man's sake. " Neither do the Psalmists and Prophetsgive the least hint of any such doctrine. Surely, if we found itanywhere, we should find it in this very 104th Psalm, and somewhere nearthe very verse which I have taken for my text. But this Psalm gives nohint of it. So far from saying that God has cursed His own works, orlooks on them as cursed: it says--"The Lord shall rejoice in His works. "

Others will tell us that St Paul has said so, where he says that "by oneman sin entered into the world, and death by sin. " But I must veryhumbly, but very firmly, demur to that. St Paul shews that when hespeaks of the world he means the world of men; for he goes on to say, "And so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned. " Bymentioning men, he excludes the animals; he excludes all who have notsinned: according to a sound rule of logic which lawyers know well. WhatSt Paul meant, I believe, is most probably this: that Adam, by sinning, lost his heavenly birthright; and put on the carnal and fleshly likenessof the animals, instead of the likeness of God in which he was created;and therefore, sowing to the flesh, of the flesh reaped corruption; andbecame subject to death even as the dumb beasts are. 

Be that as it may, we know--as certainly as we can know anything from theuse of our own eyes and common sense--that long ages before Adam, longages before men existed on this earth, the animals destroyed and ate eachother, even as they are doing now. We know that ages ago, in old worlds, long before this present world in which we live, the seas swarmed withsharks and other monsters, who not only died as animals do now, but whodid devour--for there is actual proof of it--other living creatures; andthat the same process went on on the land likewise. The rocks and soils, for miles beneath our feet, are one vast graveyard, full of the skeletonsof creatures, almost all unlike any living now, who, long before the daysof Adam, and still more before the days of Noah, lived and died, generation after generation; and sought their meat--from whom--if notfrom God?

Yes, that last is the answer--the only answer which can give a thoughtfuland tender-hearted soul comfort, at the sight of so much pain and deathon earth--In every unknown question, to take refuge in God. And that isthe answer which the inspired Psalmist gives, in the 104th Psalm--"Thelions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God. " And if theyseek it from God, all must be right: we know not how; but He who madethem knows. 

Consider, with respect and admiration, the manful, cheerful view of painand death, and indeed of the whole creation, which the Psalmist has, because he has faith. There is in him no sentimentalism, no complainingof God, no impious, or at least weak and peevish, cry of "Why hast Thoumade things thus?" He sees the mystery of pain and death. He does notattempt to explain it: but he faces it; faces it cheerfully and manfully, in the strength of his faith, saying--This too, mysterious, painful, terrible as it may seem, is as it should be; for it is of the law andwill of God, from whom come all good things; of The God in whom is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Therefore to the Psalmist the earth isa noble sight; filled, to his eyes, with the fruit of God's works. Andso is the great and wide sea likewise. He looks upon it; "full of thingscreeping innumerable, both small and great beasts, " for ever dying, forever devouring each other. And yet it does not seem to him a dreadfuland a shocking place. What impresses his mind is just what would impressthe mind of a modern poet, a modern man of science; namely, the wonderfulvariety, richness, and strangeness of its living things. Their naturesand their names he knows not. It was not given to his race to know. Itis enough for him that known unto God are all His works from thefoundation of the world. But one thing more important than their naturesand their names he does know; for he perceives it with the instinct of atrue poet and a true philosopher--"These all wait upon thee, O God, thatThou mayest give them meat in due season. "

But more. --"There go the ships;" things specially wonderful andsignificant to him, the landsman of the Judaean hills, as they wereafterward to Muhammed, the landsman of the Arabian deserts. And he hastalked with sailors from those ships; from Tarshish and the far Atlantic, or from Ezion-geber and the Indian seas. And he has heard from them ofmightier monsters than his own Mediterranean breeds; of the Leviathan, the whale, larger than the largest ship which he has ever seen, rollingand spouting among the ocean billows, far out of sight of land, andswallowing, at every gape of its huge jaws, hundreds of living creaturesfor its food. But he does not talk of it as a cruel and devouringmonster, formed by a cruel and destroying deity, such as the oldCanaanites imagined, when--so the legend ran--they offered up Andromedato the sea-monster, upon that very rock at Joppa, which the Psalmist, doubtless, knew full well. No. This psalm is an inspired philosopher'srebuke to that very superstition; it is the justification of the nobleold Greek tale, which delivers Andromeda by the help of a hero, taught bythe Gods who love to teach Mankind. 

For what strikes the Psalmist is, again, exactly what would strike amodern poet, or a modern man of science: the strength and ease of thevast beast; its enjoyment of its own life and power. It is to him theLeviathan, whom "God has made to play in the sea;" "to take his pastimetherein. "

Truly this was a healthy-minded man; as all will be, and only they, whohave full faith in the one good God, of whom are all things, both inearth and heaven. 

Then he goes further still. He has looked into the face of lifeinnumerable. Now he looks into the face of innumerable death; and seesthere too the Spirit and the work of God. 

 Thou givest to them; they gather: Thou openest thy hand; they are filled with good: Thou hidest thy face; they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath; they die, and are turned again to their dust. 

Poetry? Yes: but, like all highest poetry, highest philosophy; andsoundest truth likewise. Nay, he goes further still--further, it may be, than most of us would dare to go, had he not gone before us in thecourage of his faith. He dares to say, of such a world as this--"Theglory of the Lord shall endure for ever. The Lord shall rejoice in Hisworks. "

The glory of the Lord, then, is shewn forth, and endures for ever, inthese animals of whom the Psalmist has been speaking, though they devoureach other day and night. The Lord rejoices in His works, even thoughHis works live by each other's death. The Lord shall rejoice in Hisworks--says this great poet and philosopher. 

But what Lord, and what God? Ah, my friends, all depends on the answerto that question. "There be, " says St Paul, "lords many, and gods many:"and since his time, men have made fresh lords and gods for themselves, and believed in them, and worshipped them, while they fancied that theywere believing in the one true God, in the same God in whom the manbelieved who wrote the 104th Psalm. 

Do we truly believe in that one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Let me beg you to consider that question earnestly. The Psalmist, whenhe talked of the Lord, did not mean merely what some people call theDeity, or the Supreme Being, or the Creator. You will remark that Isaid--What. I do not care to say, Whom, of such a notion; that is, of aGod who made the world, and set it going once for all, but has nevermeddled with it; never, so to speak, looked at it since: so that theworld would go on just the same, and just as well, if God thenceforth hadceased to be. No: that is a dead God; an absentee God--as one saidbitterly once. But the Psalmist believed in the living God, and apresent God, in whom we live and move and have our being; in a God whodoes not leave the world alone for a moment, nor in the smallest matter, but is always interested in it, attending to it, enforcing His own laws, working--if I may so speak in all reverence--and using the most pitifullyinsufficient analogy--working--I say--His own machinery; making allthings work together for good, at least to those who love God; a Godwithout whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and in whose sight allthe hairs of our heads are numbered. 

In one word, he believed in a living God. If anyone had said to thePsalmist, as I have heard men say now-a-days--Of course we believe, withyou, in a general Providence of God over the whole universe. But you donot surely believe in special Providences? That would be superstition. God governs the world by law, and not by special Providences. Then Ibelieve that the Psalmist would have answered--Laws? I believe in themas much as you, and perhaps more than you. But as for specialProvidences, I believe in them so much, that I believe that the wholeuniverse, and all that has ever happened in it from the beginning, hashappened by special Providences; that not an organic being has assumedits present form, after long ages and generations, save by a continuousseries of special Providences; that not a weed grows in a particularspot, without a special Providence of God that it should grow there, andnowhere else; then, and nowhen else. I believe that every step I take, every person I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is notsinful--comes and happens by the perpetual special Providence of God, watching for ever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thingthat He has made. 

And if a modern philosopher--or one so called--had said to him, --'This isunthinkable and inconceivable, and therefore cannot be. I cannot "thinkof"--I cannot conceive a mind--or as I call it--"a series of states ofconsciousness, " as antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneouslygoing on in all the plants that cover the globe, from scattered polarlichens to crowded tropical palms, and in all the millions of animalswhich roam among them, and the millions of millions of insects which buzzamong them:'--Then the Psalmist would have answered him, I believe, --'Ifyou cannot, my friend, I can. And you must not make your power ofthought and conception the measure of the universe, or even of othermen's intellects; or say--"Because I cannot conceive a thing, thereforeno man can conceive it, and therefore it does not exist. " But pray, Ophilosopher, if you cannot think and conceive of the omnipresence andomnipotence of God, what can you think and conceive?'

Then if that philosopher had answered him--as some would now-a-days--'Ican conceive that the properties of very different elements, --andtherefore the infinite variety and richness of nature which I cannotconceive as caused by a God--that the properties--I say--of differentelements result from differences of arrangement arising by thecompounding and recompounding of ultimate homogeneous units'--Then, Ithink, the Psalmist would have replied, as soon as he had--like Socratesof old in a like case--recovered from the 'dizziness' caused by aneloquence so unlike his own--'Why, this proposition is far more"unthinkable" to me, and will be to 999 of 1000 of the human race, thanmine about a God and a Providence. Alas! for the vagaries of the mind ofman. When it wants to prove a pet theory of its own, it will strain atany gnat, and swallow any camel. '

But again--if a philosopher of more reasonable mood had said to him--ashe very likely would say--'This is a grand conception of God: but whatproof have you of it? How do you know that God does interfere, byspecial Providences, in the world around us; not only, as you say, perpetually: but even now and then, and at all?'

Then the Psalmist, like all true Jews, would have gone back to a certainold story which is to me the most precious story, save one, that ever waswritten on earth; and have taken his stand on that. He would have goneback--as the Scripture always goes back--to the story of Moses and theIsraelites in Egypt, and have said--'Whatever I know or do not know aboutthe Laws of nature, this I know--That God can use them as He chooses, topunish the wicked, and to help the miserable. For He did so by myforefathers. When we Jews were a poor, small, despised tribe of slavesin Egypt, The God who made heaven and earth shewed Himself at once theGod of nature, and the God of grace. For He took the powers of nature;and fought with them against proud Pharaoh and all his hosts; and shewedthat they belonged to Him; and that He could handle them all to do Hiswork. He shewed that He was Lord, not only of the powers of nature whichgive life and health, but of those which give death and disease. Nothingwas too grand, nor too mean, for Him to use. He took the lightning andthe hail, and the pestilence, and the darkness, and the East wind, andthe springtides of the Red sea; and He took also the locust-swarms, andthe frogs, and the lice, and the loathsome skin-diseases of Egypt, andthe microscopic atomies which turn whole rivers into blood, and kill thefish; and with them He fought against Pharaoh the man-God, the tyrantruling at his own will in the name of his father the sun-God and of thepowers of nature; till Egypt was destroyed, and Pharaoh's host drowned inthe sea; And He brought out my forefathers with a mighty hand and anoutstretched arm, because He had heard their cry in Egypt, and saw theiroppression under cruel taskmasters, and pitied them, and had mercy onthem in their slavery and degradation. ' That is my God--the old Psalmistwould have said. Not merely a strong God, or a wise God; but a good God, and a gracious God, and a just God likewise; a God who not only madeheaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, but who keepeth Hispromise for ever; who helpeth them to right who suffer wrong, and feedeththe hungry. 

Yes, my friends, it is this magnificent conception of God's living andactual goodness and justice, which the Psalmist had, which made him trustGod about all the strange and painful things which he saw in theworld--about, for instance, the suffering and death of animals; andsay--'If the lion roaring after his prey seeks his meat, he seeks hismeat from God: and therefore he ought to seek it, and he will find it. Itis all well: I know not why: but well it is, for it is the law and willof the good and righteous and gracious God, who brought His people out ofthe land of Egypt. And that is enough for me. '

Enough for him? and should it not be enough for us, and more thanenough?--We know what the Psalmist knew not. We know God to be moregood, more righteous, more gracious than any Prophet or Psalmist couldknow. We know that God so loved the world, that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. We know that the only-begottenSon Jesus Christ so loved the world that He stooped to be born and sufferas mortal man, and to die on the cross, even while He was telling menthat not a sparrow fell to the ground without the knowledge of theirheavenly Father, and bidding them see how God fed the birds and clothedthe lilies of the field. Ah, my friends, in this case, as in all cases, rest and comfort for our doubts and fears is to be found in one and thesame place--at the foot of the Cross of Christ. If we believe that Hewho hung upon that Cross is--as He is--the maker and ruler of theuniverse, the same from day to day and for ever: then we can trust Him indarkness as well as in light; in doubt as well as in certainty; in theface of pain, disease, and death, as well as in the face of joy, health, and life; and say--Lord, we know not, but Thou knowest. Lord, webelieve, help Thou our unbelief. Make us sure that Thou, Lord, shaltsave both man and beast. For great are Thy mercies, O Lord; and thechildren of men shall put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings. 

Yes, my friends, this is, after all, a strange world, a solemn world, aworld full of sad mysteries, past our understanding. As was said once bythe holiest of modern Englishmen, now gone home to his rest--whose buststands worthily in yonder chapel--This is a world in which men must besometimes sad who love God, and care for their fellow-men. 

But it is not over the dumb animals that we must mourn. For they fulfilthe laws of their being; and whatever meat they seek, they seek theirmeat from God. 

Rather must we mourn over those human beings who, being made in thelikeness of God, and redeemed again into that likeness by our Lord JesusChrist, and baptized into that likeness by the Holy Spirit, put on againof their own will the likeness of the beasts which perish; and find toooften, alas! too late, that the wages of sin are death. 

Rather must we mourn for those human beings who do not fulfil the laws oftheir being: but break those laws by sin; till they are ground by them topowder. 

Rather must we mourn for those who seek their meat, not from God, butfrom the world and the flesh; and neglect the bread which cometh downfrom heaven, and the meat which endureth to eternal life, whereof theLord who gives it said--Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and Hisrighteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you. 

Rather must we pray for ourselves, and for all we love, that God's Spiritof eternal life would raise us up, more and more day by day, out of thelikeness of the old Adam, who was of the earth, earthy; of whom it iswritten that--like the animals--dust he was, and unto dust he mustreturn; and would mould us into the likeness of the new Adam, who is theLord from heaven, into the likeness of which it is written, that it iscreated after God's image, in righteousness and true holiness; the end ofwhich is not death, but everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

And so will be fulfilled in us the saying of the Psalmist; and the Lordshall rejoice in His works: for we too, not only body and soul, butspirit also, shall be the work of God; and God will rejoice in us, and wein God. 

SERMON XIX. SIGNS AND WONDERS. 

JOHN IV. 48-50. 

 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. 

These words of our Lord are found in the Gospel for this day. They are arebuke, though a gentle one. He reproved the nobleman, seemingly, forhis want of faith: but He worked the miracle, and saved the life of thechild. 

We do not know enough of the circumstances of this case, to know exactlywhy our Lord reproved the nobleman; and what want of faith He saw in him. Some think that the man's fault was his mean notion of our Lord's power;his wish that He should come down the hills to Capernaum, and see the boyHimself, in order to cure him; whereas he ought to have known that ourLord could cure him--as He did--at a distance, and by a mere wish, whichwas no less than a command to nature, and to that universe which He hadmade. 

I cannot tell how this may be: but of one thing I think we may besure--That this saying of our Lord's is very deep, and very wide; andapplies to many people, in many times--perhaps to us in these moderntimes. 

We must recollect one thing--That our Lord did not put forward the merepower of His miracles as the chief sign of His being the Son of God. Notso: He declared His almighty power most chiefly by shewing mercy andpity. Twice He refused to give the Scribes and Pharisees a sign fromheaven. "An evil and adulterous generation, " He said, "seeketh after asign: but there shall be no sign given them, but the sign of the prophetJonas. " And what was that, --but a warning to repent, and mend theirways, ere it was too late?

Now the slightest use of our common sense must tell us, that our Lordcould have given a sign of His almighty power if He had chosen; and sucha sign as no man, even the dullest, could have mistaken. What prodigycould He not have performed, before Scribes and Pharisees, Herod, andPontius Pilate? "Thinkest thou, " He said Himself, "that I cannot nowpray to My Father, and He will send Me presently more than twelve legionsof angels?" Yet how did our Lord use that miraculous and almighty powerof His? Sparingly, and secretly. Sparingly; for He used it almostentirely in curing the diseases of poor people; and secretly; for He usedit almost entirely in remote places. Jerusalem itself, recollect, was atbest a remote city compared with any of the great cities of the Romanempire. And even there He refused to cast Himself down from a pinnacleof the temple, for a sign and wonder to the Jews. If He, the Lord of theworld, had meant to convert the world by prodigious miracles, He wouldsurely have gone to Rome itself, the very heart and centre of thecivilized world, and have shewn such signs and wonders therein, as wouldhave made the Caesar himself come down from his throne, and worship Him, the Lord of all. 

But no. Our Lord wished for the obedience, not of men's lips, but oftheir hearts. It was their hearts which He wished to win, that theymight love Him--and be loyal to Him--for the sake of His goodness; andnot fear and tremble before Him for the sake of His power. And thereforeHe kept, so to speak, His power in the background, and put His goodnessforemost; only shewing His power in miracles of healing and mercy; thatso poor neglected, oppressed, hardworked souls might understand thatwhoever did not care for them, Christ their Lord did; and that theirdisease and misery were not His will; nor the will of His Father andtheir Father in heaven. 

But because, also, Christ was Lord of heaven and earth; therefore--if Imay make so bold as to guess at the reason for anything which He did--Heseems to have interfered as little as possible with those regular rulesand customs of this world about us, which we now call the Laws of Nature. He did not offer--as the magicians of His time did offer--and as too manyhave pretended since to do--to change the courses of the elements, tobring down tempests or thunderbolts, to shew prodigies in the heavenabove, and in the earth beneath. Why should He? Heaven and earth, moonand stars, fire and tempest, and all the physical forces in the universe, were fulfilling His will already; doing their work right well accordingto the law which He had given them from the beginning. He had no need todisturb them, no need to disturb the growth of a single flower at Hisfeet. 

Rather He loved to tell men to look at them, and see how they went well, because His Father in heaven cared for them. To tell people to look, notat prodigies, comets, earthquakes, and the seeming exceptions of God'srule: but at the common, regular, simple, peaceful work of God, which isgoing on around us all day long in every blade of grass, and flower, andsinging bird, and sunbeam, and shower. To consider the lilies of thefield how they grow: which toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I sayunto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one ofthese. --And the birds of the air: They sow not, neither reap, nor gatherinto barns; and yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. How much morewill He feed you, who can sow, and reap, and gather into barns?--O ye oflittle faith, who fancy always that besides sowing and reaping honestly, you must covet, and cheat, and lie, and break God's laws instead ofobeying them; or else, forsooth, you cannot earn your living? To seethat the signs of God's Kingdom are not astonishing convulsions, terriblecatastrophes and disorders: but order, and peace, and usefulness, increatures which are happy, because they live according to the law whichGod has given them, and do their duty--that duty, of which the great poetof the English Church has sung--

 Stern Lawgiver! Thou yet dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face. Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. 

But men would not believe that in our Lord's time; neither would theybelieve it after His time. Will they believe it even now? They cravedafter signs and wonders; they saw God's hand, not in the common sights ofthis beautiful world; not in seed-time and harvest, summer and winter;not in the blossoming of flowers, and the song of birds: but only instrange portents, absurd and lying miracles, which they pretended hadhappened, because they fancied that they ought to have happened: and sobuilt up a whole literature of _un_reason, which remains to this day, adoleful monument of human folly and superstition. 

But is not this too true of some at least of us in this very day? Mustnot people now see signs and wonders before they believe in God?

Do they not consider whatever is strange and inexplicable, as comingimmediately from God? While whatever they are accustomed to, or fancythat they can explain, they consider comes in what they call the courseof nature, without God's having anything to do with it?

If a man drops down dead, they say he died "by the hand of God, " or "bythe visitation of God:" as if any created thing or being could die, orlive either, save by the will and presence of God: as if a sparrow couldfall to the ground without our Father's knowledge. But so it is; becausemen's hearts are far from God. 

If an earthquake swallowed up half London this very day, how many wouldbe ready to cry, "Here is a visitation of God. Here is the immediatehand of God. Perhaps Christ is coming, and the end of the world athand. " And yet they will not see the true visitation, the immediate handof God, in every drop of rain which comes down from heaven; and returnethnot again void, but gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Butso it always has been. Men used to see God and His power and gloryalmost exclusively in comets, auroras, earthquakes. It was not so verylong ago, that the birth of monstrous or misshapen animals, and all otherprodigies, as they were called, were carefully noted down, and talked offar and wide, as signs of God's anger, presages of some comingcalamity. --Atheists while they are in safety, superstitious when they arein danger--Requiring signs and wonders to make them believe--Interestedonly in what is uncommon and seems to break God's laws--Careless aboutwhat is common, and far more wonderful, because it fulfils God'slaws--Such have most men been for ages, and will be, perhaps, to the end;shewing themselves, in that respect, carnal and no wiser than dumbanimals. 

For it is carnal, animal and brutish, and a sign of want of truecivilization, as well as of true faith, only to be interested andsurprised by what is strange; like dumb beasts, who, if they see anythingnew, are attracted by it and frightened by it, at the same time: but who, when once they are accustomed to it, and have found out that it will dothem no harm, are too stupid to feel any curiosity or interest about it, though it were the most beautiful or the most wonderful object on earth. 

But I will tell you of a man after God's own heart, who was not like thedumb animals, nor like the ungodly and superstitious; because he wastaught by the Spirit of God, and spoke by the Spirit of God. One who sawno signs and wonders, and yet believed in God--namely, the man who wrotethe 139th Psalm. He needed no prodigies to make him believe. Thethought of his own body, how fearfully and wonderfully it was made, wasenough to make him do that. He looked on the perfect order and law whichruled over the development of his own organization, and said--"I willpraise Thee. For I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvellous areThy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Thine eyes did see mysubstance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy Book were all my memberswritten, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none ofthem. How dear are Thy counsels unto me, O God! how great is the sum ofthem!"

And I will tell you of another man who needed no signs and wonders tomake him believe--the man, namely, who wrote the 19th Psalm. He lookedupon the perfect order and law of the heavens over his head, and the meresight of the sun and moon and stars was enough for him; and he said--"Theheavens declare the glory of God, the firmament sheweth His handy-work. One day telleth another, and one night certifieth another. There isneither speech nor language, where their voice is not heard among them. "

And I will tell you of yet another man who needed no signs and wonders tomake him believe--namely, the man who wrote the 104th Psalm. He lookedon the perfect order and law of the world about his feet; and said, --"OLord, how manifold are Thy works. In wisdom hast Thou made them all: theearth is full of Thy riches. So is the great and wide sea also, whereinare things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. These allwait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thougivest to them; they gather. Thou openest Thy hand; they are filled withgood. Thou hidest Thy face; they are troubled. Thou takest away theirbreath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thybreath, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth. Theglory of the Lord shall endure for ever. The Lord shall rejoice in Hisworks. "

My friends, let us all pray to God and to Christ, that They will put intoour hearts the Spirit by which those psalms were written: that They willtake from us the evil heart of unbelief, which must needs have signs andwonders, and forgets that in God we live and move and have our being. Forare we not all--even the very best of us--apt to tempt our Lord in thisvery matter?

When all things go on in a common-place way with us--that is, in thiswell-made world, comfortably, easily, prosperously--how apt we allare--God forgive us--to forget God. How we forget that on Him we dependfor every breath we draw; that Christ is guarding us daily from a hundreddangers, a hundred sorrows, it may be from a hundred disgraces, of whichwe, in our own self-satisfied blindness, never dream. How dull ourprayers become, and how short. We almost think, at times, that there isno use in praying, for we get all we want without asking for it, in whatwe choose to call the course of circumstances and nature. --God forgiveus, indeed. 

But when sorrow comes, anxiety, danger, how changed we are all of asudden. How gracious we are when pangs come upon us--like the wickedqueen-mother in Jerusalem of old, when the invaders drove her out of hercedar palace. How we cry to the Lord then, and get us to our God righthumbly. Then, indeed, we feel the need of prayer. Then we try towrestle with God, and cry to Him--and what else can we do?--like childrenlost in the dark; entreat Him, if there be mercy in Him--as there is, inspite of all our folly--to grant some special providence, to give us someanswer to our bitter entreaties. If He will but do for us this onething, then we will believe indeed. Then we will trust Him, obey Him, serve Him, as we never did before. 

Ah, if there were in Christ any touch of pride or malice! Ah, if therewere in Christ aught but a magnanimity and a generosity altogetherboundless! Ah, if He were to deal with us as we have dealt with Him! Ah, if He were to deal with us after our sins, and reward us according to ouriniquities!

If He refused to hear us; if He said to us, --You forgot me in yourprosperity, why should I not forget you in your adversity?--What could weanswer? Would that answer not be just? Would it not be deserved, however terrible? But our hope and trust is, that He will not answer usso; because He is not our God only, but our Saviour; that He will dealwith us as one who seeks and saves that which is lost, whether it knowsthat it is lost or not. 

Our hope is, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy; thatbecause He is man, as well as God, He can be touched with the feeling ofour infirmities; that He knoweth our frame, He remembereth of what we aremade: else the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He hasmade. So we can have hope, that, though Christ rebuke us, He will yethear us, if our prayers are reasonable, and therefore according to Hiswill. And surely, surely, surely, if our prayers are for the improvementof any human being; if we are praying that we, or any human being, may bemade better men and truer Christians at last, and saved from thetemptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil--oh then, then shallwe not be heard? The Lord may keep us long waiting, as He kept St Monicaof old, when she wept over St Augustine's youthful sins and follies. ButHe may answer us, as He answered her by the good bishop--"Be of goodcheer. It is impossible that the son of so many prayers should perish. "And so, though He may shame us, in our inmost heart, by therebuke--"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe"--He willin the same breath grant our prayer, undeserved though His condescensionbe, and say--"Go in peace, thy son liveth. "

SERMON XX. THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. 

LUKE XIII. 1-5. 

 There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 

This story is often used, it seems to me, for a purpose exactly oppositeto that for which it is told. It is said that because these Galilaeans, whom Pilate slew, and these eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, were no worse than the people round them, that therefore similarcalamities must not be considered judgments and punishments of God; thatit is an offence against Christian charity to say that such sufferers arethe objects of God's anger; that it is an offence against good manners tointroduce the name of God, or the theory of a Divine Providence, inspeaking of historical events. They must be ascribed to certain bruteforces of nature; to certain inevitable laws of history; to the passionsof men, to chance, to fate, to anything and everything: rather than tothe will of God. 

No man disagrees more utterly than I do with the latter part of thislanguage. But I cannot be astonished at its popularity. It cannot bedenied that the theory of a Divine Providence has been much misstated;that the doctrine of final causes has been much abused; that, in plainEnglish, God's name has been too often taken in vain, about calamities, private and public. Rational men of the world, therefore, may be excusedfor begging at times not to hear any more of Divine Providence; excusedfor doubting the existence of final causes; excused for shrinking, whenever they hear a preacher begin to interpret the will of God aboutthis event or that. They dread a repetition of the mistake--to call itby the very gentlest term--which priests, in all ages, have been but tooready to commit. For all priesthoods--whether heathen or Christian, whether calling themselves priests, or merely ministers andpreachers--have been in all ages tempted to talk as if Divine Providencewas exercised solely on their behalf; in favour of their class, theirneeds, their health and comfort; as if the thunders of Jove never fellsave when the priesthood needed, I had almost said commanded, them. Thusthey have too often arrogated to themselves a right to define who wascursed by God, which has too soon, again and again, degenerated into aright to curse men in God's name; while they have too often taught men tobelieve only in a Providence who interfered now and then on behalf ofcertain favoured persons, instead of a Providence who rules, always andeverywhere, over all mankind. But men have again and again reversedtheir judgments. They have had to say--The facts are against you. Youprophesied destruction to such and such persons; and behold: they havenot been destroyed, but live and thrive. You said that such and suchpersons' calamities were a proof of God's anger for their sins. We findthem, on the contrary, to have been innocent and virtuous persons; oftenmartyrs for truth, for humanity, for God. The facts, we say, are againstyou. If there be a Providence, it is not such as you describe. If therebe judgments of God, you have not found out the laws by which He judges:and rather than believe in your theory of Providence, your theory ofjudgments, we will believe in none. 

Thus, in age after age, in land after land, has fanaticism and bigotrybrought forth, by a natural revulsion, its usual fruit of unbelief. 

But--let men believe or disbelieve as they choose--the warning of thePsalmist still stands true--"Be wise. Take heed, ye unwise among thepeople. He that nurtureth the heathen; it is He that teacheth manknowledge, shall He not punish?" For as surely as there is a God, sosurely does that God judge the earth; and every individual, family, institution, and nation on the face thereof; and judge them all inrighteousness by His Son Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed heir of allthings, and given Him all power in heaven and earth; who reigns and willreign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. 

This is the good news of Advent. And therefore it is well that inAdvent, if we believe that Christ is ruling us, we should look somewhatinto the laws of His kingdom, as far as He has revealed them to us; andamong others, into the law which--as I think--He laid down in the text. 

Now I beg you to remark that the text, taken fully and fairly, means thevery opposite to that popular notion of which I spoke in the beginning ofmy sermon. 

Our Lord does not say--Those Galilaeans were not sinners at all. Theirsins had nothing to do with their death. Those on whom the tower fellwere innocent men. He rather implies the very opposite. 

We know nothing of the circumstances of either calamity: but this weknow--That our Lord warned the rest of the Jews, that unless theyrepented--that is, changed their mind, and therefore their conduct, theywould all perish in the same way. And we know that that warning wasfulfilled, within forty years, so hideously, and so awfully, that thedestruction of Jerusalem remains, as one of the most terrible cases ofwholesale ruin and horror recorded in history; and--as I believe--a keyto many a calamity before and since. Like the taking of Babylon, thefall of Rome, and the French Revolution, it stands out in luridsplendour, as of the nether pit itself, forcing all who believe to say infear and trembling--Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth--and awarning to every man, class, institution, and nation on earth, to settheir houses in order betimes, and bear fruit meet for repentance, lestthe day come when they too shall be weighed in the balance of God'seternal justice, and found wanting. 

But another lesson we may learn from the text, which I wish to impressearnestly on your minds. These Galilaeans, it seems, were no worse thanthe other Galilaeans: yet they were singled out as examples: as warningsto the rest. 

Believing--as I do--that our Lord was always teaching the universalthrough the particular, and in each parable, nay in each comment onpassing events, laying down world-wide laws of His own kingdom, enduringthrough all time--I presume that this also is one of the laws of thekingdom of God. And I think that facts--to which after all is the onlysafe appeal--prove that it is so; that we see the same law at work aroundus every day. I think that pestilences, conflagrations, accidents of anykind which destroy life wholesale, even earthquakes and storms, areinstances of this law; warnings from God; judgments of God, in the verystrictest sense; by which He tells men, in a voice awful enough to thefew, but merciful and beneficent to the many, to be prudent and wise; tolearn henceforth either not to interfere with the physical laws of Hisuniverse, or to master and to wield them by reason and by science. 

I would gladly say more on this point, did time allow: but I had rathernow ask you to consider, whether this same law does not reveal itselfthroughout history; in many great national changes, or even calamities;and in the fall of many an ancient and time-honoured institution. Ibelieve that the law does reveal itself; and in forms which, rightlystudied, may at once teach us Christian charity, and give us faith andcomfort, as we see that God, however severe, is still just. 

I mean this--The more we read, in history, of the fall of greatdynasties, or of the ruin of whole classes, or whole nations, the more wefeel--however much we may acquiesce with the judgment as a whole--sympathywith the fallen. It is not the worst, but often the best, specimens of aclass or of a system, who are swallowed up by the moral earthquake, whichhas been accumulating its forces, perhaps for centuries. Innocent andestimable on the whole, as persons, they are involved in the ruin whichfalls on the system to which they belong. So far from being sinnersabove all around them, they are often better people than those aroundthem. It is as if they were punished, not for being who they were, butfor being what they were. 

History is full of such instances; instances of which we say and cannothelp saying--What have they done above all others, that on them above allothers the thunderbolt should fall?

Was Charles the First, for example, the worst, or the best, of theStuarts; and Louis the Sixteenth, of the Bourbons? Look, again, at thefate of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the hapless monks of theCharterhouse. Were they sinners above all who upheld the Romish systemin England? Were they not rather among the righteous men who ought tohave saved it, if it could have been saved? And yet on them--the purestand the holiest of their party--and not on hypocrites and profligates, fell the thunderbolt. 

What is the meaning of these things?--for a meaning there must be; andwe, I dare to believe, must be meant to discover it; for we are thechildren of God, into whose hearts, because we are human beings and notmere animals, He has implanted the inextinguishable longing to ascertainfinal causes; to seek not merely the means of things, but the reason ofthings; to ask not merely How? but Why?

May not the reason be--I speak with all timidity and reverence, as onewho shrinks from pretending to thrust himself into the counsels of theAlmighty--But may not the reason be that God has wished thereby tocondemn not the persons, but the systems? That He has punished them, notfor their private, but for their public faults? It is not the men whoare judged, it is the state of things which they represent; and for thatvery reason may not God have made an example, a warning, not of theworst, but of the very best, specimens of a doomed class or system, whichhas been weighed in His balance, and found wanting?

Therefore we need not suppose that these sufferers themselves were theobjects of God's wrath. We may believe that of them, too, stands truethe great Law, "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth everyson whom He receiveth. " We may believe that of them, too, stands true StPaul's great parable in 1 Cor. Xii. , which, though a parable, is theexpression of a perpetually active law. They have built, it may be, onthe true foundation: but they have built on it wood, hay, stubble, instead of gold and precious stone. And the fire of God, which burns forever against the falsehoods and follies of the world, has tried theirwork, and it is burned and lost. But they themselves are saved; yet asthrough fire. 

Looking at history in this light, we may justify God for many a heavyblow, and fearful judgment, which seems to the unbeliever a wantoncruelty of chance or fate; while at the same time we may feel deepsympathy with--often deep admiration for--many a noble spirit, who hasbeen defeated, and justly defeated, by those irreversible laws of God'skingdom, of which it is written--"On whomsoever that stone shall fall, itwill grind him to powder. " We may look with reverence, as well as pity, on many figures in history, such as Sir Thomas More's; on persons who, placed by no fault of their own in some unnatural and unrighteousposition; involved in some decaying and unworkable system; conscious moreor less of their false position; conscious, too, of coming danger, havedone their best, according to their light, to work like men, before thenight came in which no man could work; to do what of their duty seemedstill plain and possible; and to set right that which would never comeright more: forgetting that, alas, the crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; till the flood came andswept them away, standing bravely to the last at a post long sinceuntenable, but still--all honour to them--standing at their post. 

When we consider such sad figures on the page of history, we may have, Isay, all respect for their private virtues. We may accept every excusefor their public mistakes. And yet we may feel a solemn satisfaction attheir downfall, when we see it to have been necessary for the progress ofmankind, and according to those laws and that will of God and of Christ, by which alone the human race is ruled. We may look back on old ordersof things with admiration; even with a touch of pardonable, thoughsentimental, regret. But we shall not forget that the old order changes, giving place to the new;

 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

And we shall believe, too, if we be wise, that all these things werewritten for our example, that we may see, and fear, and be turned to theLord, each asking himself solemnly, What is the system on which I amgoverning my actions? Is it according to the laws and will of God, asrevealed in facts? Let me discover that in time: lest, when it becomesbankrupt in God's books, I be involved--I cannot guess how far--in thecommon ruin of my compeers. 

What is my duty? Let me go and work at it, lest a night come, in which Icannot work. What fruit am I expected to bring forth? Let me train andcultivate my mind, heart, whole humanity to bring it forth, lest thegreat Husbandman come seeking fruit on me, and find none. And if I see aman who falls in the battle of life, let me not count him a worse sinnerthan myself; but let me judge myself in fear and trembling; lest Godjudge me, and I perish in like wise. 

SERMON XXI. THE WAR IN HEAVEN. 

REV. XIX. 11-16. 

 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. 

Let me ask you to consider seriously this noble passage. It was nevermore worth men's while to consider it than now, when various selfish andsentimental religions--call them rather superstitions--have made menaltogether forget the awful reality of Christ's kingdom; the awful factthat Christ reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under Hisfeet. 

Who, then, is He of whom the text speaks? Who is this personage, whoappears eternally in heaven as a warrior, with His garments stained withblood, the leader of armies, smiting the nations, and ruling them with arod of iron?

St John tells us that He had one name which none knew save Himself. Buthe tells us that He was called Faithful and True; and he tells us, too, that He had another name which St John did know; and that is, "The Wordof God. "

Now who the Word of God is, all are bound to know who call themselvesChristians; even Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, rose again the third day, ascended intoheaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. 

He it is who makes everlasting war as King of kings and Lord of lords. But against what does He make war? His name tells us that. For itis--Faithful and True; and therefore He makes war against all things andbeings who are unfaithful and false. He Himself is full of chivalry, full of fidelity; and therefore all that is unchivalrous and treacherousis hateful in His eyes; and that which He hates, He is both able andwilling to destroy. 

Moreover, He makes war in righteousness. And therefore all men andthings which are unrighteous and unjust are on the opposite side to Him;His enemies, which He will trample under His feet. The only hope forthem, and indeed for all mankind, is that He does make war inrighteousness, and that He Himself is faithful and true, whoever else isnot; that He is always just, always fair, always honourable andcourteous; that He always keeps His word; and governs according to fixedand certain laws, which men may observe and calculate upon, and shapetheir conduct accordingly, sure that Christ's laws will not change forany soul on earth or in heaven. But, within those honourable andcourteous conditions, He will, as often as He sees fit, smite thenations, and rule them with a rod of iron; and tread the winepress of thefierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 

And if any say--as too many in these luxurious unbelieving days willsay--What words are these? Threatening, terrible, cruel? My answeris, --The words are not mine. I did not put them into the Bible. I findthem there, and thousands like them, in the New Testament as well as inthe Old, in the Gospels and Epistles as well as in the Revelation of StJohn. If you do not like them, your quarrel must be, not with me, butwith the whole Bible, and especially with St John the Apostle, whosaid--"Little children, love one another;" and who therefore was likelyto have as much love and pity in his heart as any philanthropic, orsentimental, or superstitious, or bigoted, personage of modern days. 

And if any one say, --But you must mistake the meaning of the text. Itmust be understood spiritually. The meek and gentle Jesus, who isnothing but love and mercy, cannot be such an awful and destroying beingas you would make Him out to be. Then I must answer--That our Lord wasmeek and gentle when on earth, and therefore is meek and gentle for everand ever, there can be no doubt. "I am meek and lowly of heart, " He saidof Himself. But with that meekness and lowliness, and not incontradiction to it, there was, when He was upon earth, and thereforethere is now and for ever, a burning indignation against all wrong andfalsehood; and especially against that worst form of falsehood--hypocrisy;and that worst form of hypocrisy--covetousness which shelters itselfunder religion. 

When our Lord saw men buying and selling in the temple, He made a scourgeof cords, and drove them out, and overthrew the tables of themoney-changers, and said, --"It is written, my Father's house is a houseof prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. "

When He faced the Pharisees, who were covetous, He had no meek and gentlewords for them: but, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can yeescape the damnation of hell?"

And because His character is perfect and eternal: because He is the sameyesterday, to-day, and for ever, we are bound by the Christian faith tobelieve that He has now, and will have for ever, the same Divineindignation against wrong, the same determination to put it down: and tocast out of His kingdom, which is simply the whole universe, all thatoffends, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. 

And if any say, as some say now-a-days--"Ah, but you cannot suppose thatour Lord would propagate His Gospel by the sword, or wish Christians todo so. " My friends, this chapter and this sermon has nothing to do withthe propagation of the Gospel, in the popular sense; nothing to do withconverting heathens or others to Christianity. It has to do with thatawful government of the world, of which the Bible preaches from beginningto end; that moral and providential kingdom of God, which rules over thedestiny of every kingdom, every nation, every tribe, every family, nay, over the destiny of each human being; ay, of each horde of Tartars on thefurthest Siberian steppe, and each group of savages in the furthestisland of the Pacific; rendering to each man according to his works, rewarding the good, punishing the bad, and exterminating evildoers, evenwholesale and seemingly without discrimination, when the measure of theiriniquity is full. Christ's herald in this noble chapter calls men, notto repentance, but to inevitable doom. His angel--His messenger--standsin the sun, the source of light and life; above this petty planet, itsfashions, its politics, its sentimentalities, its notions of how theuniverse ought to have been made and managed; and calls to whom?--to allthe fowl that fly in the firmament of heaven--"Come and gather yourselvestogether, to the feast of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh ofkings, and of captains, and of mighty men; and the flesh of horses and ofthem that sit on them; and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great. "

What those awful words may mean I cannot say. But this I say, that theApostle would never have used such words, conveying so plain and soterrible a meaning to anyone who has ever seen or heard of abattle-field, if he had really meant by them nothing like a battle-fieldat all. 

It may be that these words have fulfilled themselves many times--at thefall of Jerusalem--at the wars which convulsed the Roman empire duringthe first century after Christ--at the final fall of the Roman empirebefore the lances of our German ancestors--in many another great war, andnational calamity, in many a land since then. It may be, too, that, aslearned divines have thought, they will have their complete fulfilment insome war of all wars, some battle of all battles; in which all the powersof evil, and all those who love a lie, shall be arrayed against all thepowers of good, and all those who fear God and keep His commandments: tofight it out, if the controversy can be settled by no reason, nopersuasion; a battle in which the whole world shall discover that, evenin an appeal to brute force, the good are stronger than the bad; becausethey have moral force also on their side; because God and the laws of Hiswhole universe are fighting for them, against those who transgress law, and outrage reason. 

The wisest of living Britons has said, --"Infinite Pity, yet infiniterigour of Law. It is so that the world is made. " I should add, It is sothe world must be made, because it is made by Jesus Christ our Lord, andits laws are the likeness of His character; pitiful, because Christ ispitiful; and rigorous, because He is rigorous. So pitiful is Christ, that He did not hesitate to be slain for men, that mankind through Himmight be saved. But so rigorous is Christ, that He does not hesitate toslay men, if needful, that mankind thereby may be saved. War andbloodshed, pestilence and famine, earthquake and tempest--all of them, assure as there is a God, are the servants of God, doing His awful butnecessary work, for the final benefit of the whole human race. 

It may be difficult to believe this: at least to believe it with the sameintense faith with which prophets and apostles of old believed it, andcried--"When Thy judgments, O Lord, are abroad in the earth, then shallthe inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. " But we must believeit: or we shall be driven to believe in no God at all; and that will beworse for us than all the evil that has happened to us from our youth upuntil now. 

But most people find it very difficult to believe in such a God as theScripture sets forth--a God of boundless tenderness; and yet a God ofboundless indignation. 

The covetous and luxurious find it very difficult to understand such abeing. Their usual notion of tenderness is a selfish dislike of seeingany one else uncomfortable, because it makes them uncomfortable likewise. Their usual notion of indignation is a selfish desire of revenge againstanyone who interferes with their comfort. And therefore they have nowholesome indignation against wrong and wrong-doers, and a great deal ofunwholesome tenderness for them. They are afraid of any one's beingpunished; probably from a fellow-feeling; a suspicion that they deserveto be punished themselves. They hate and dread honest severity, andstern exercise of lawful power. They are indulgent to the bad, severeupon the good; till, as has been bitterly but too truly said, --"Publicopinion will allow a man to do anything, except his duty. "

Now this is a humour which cannot last. It breeds weakness, anarchy, andat last ruin to society. And then the effeminate and luxurious, terrified for their money and their comfort, fly from an unwholesometenderness to an unwholesome indignation; break out into a panic ofselfish rage; and become, as cowards are apt to do, blindly and wantonlycruel; and those who fancied God too indulgent to punish His enemies, will be the very first to punish their own. 

But there are those left, I thank God, in this land, who have a clearunderstanding of what they ought to be, and an honest desire to be it;who know that a manful indignation against wrong-doing, a hearty hatredof falsehood and meanness, a rigorous determination to do their duty atall risks, and to repress evil with all severity, may dwell in the sameheart with gentleness, forgiveness, tenderness to women and children;active pity to the weak, the sick, the homeless; and courtesy to allmankind, even to their enemies. 

God grant that that spirit may remain alive among us. For without it weshall not long be a strong nation; not indeed long a nation at all. Andit is alive among us. Not that we, any of us, have enough of it--Godforgive us for all our shortcomings. And God grant it may remain aliveamong us; for it is, as far as it goes, the likeness of Christ, the Makerand Ruler of the world. 

"Christian, " said a great genius and a great divine, "If thou wouldst learn to love, Thou first must learn to hate. "

And if any one answer--"Hate? Even God hateth nothing that He has made. "The rejoinder is, --And for that very reason God hates evil; because Hehas not made it, and it is ruinous to all that He has made. 

Go you and do likewise. Hate what is wrong with all your heart, andmind, and soul, and strength. For so, and so only, you will shew thatyou love God with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, likewise. 

Oh pray--and that not once for all merely, but day by day, ay, almosthour by hour--Strengthen me, O Lord, to hate what Thou hatest, and lovewhat Thou lovest; and therefore, whenever I see an opportunity, to putdown what Thou hatest, and to help what Thou lovest--That so, at the lastdread day, when every man shall be rewarded according to his works, youmay have some answer to give to the awful question--On whose side wertthou in the battle of life? On the side of good men and of God, or onthe side of bad men and the devil? Lest you find yourselves forced toreply--as too many will be forced--with surprise, and something likeshame and confusion of face--I really do not know. I never thought aboutthe matter at all. I never knew that there was any battle of life. 

Never knew that there was any battle of life? And yet you werechristened, and signed with the sign of the Cross, in token that youshould fight manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, andthe devil, and continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant to yourlife's end. Did it never occur to you that those words might possiblymean something? And you used to sing hymns, too, on earth, about"Soldiers of Christ, arise, And put your armour on. " What prophets, andapostles, and martyrs, and confessors meant by those words, you shouldknow well enough. Did it never occur to you that they might possiblymean something to you? That as long as the world was no better than itis, there was still a battle of life; and that you too were sworn tofight in it? How many will answer--Yes--Yes--But I thought that thesewords only meant having my soul saved, and going to heaven when I died. And how did you expect to do that? By believing certain doctrines whichyou were told were true; and leading a tolerably respectable life, without which you would not have been received into society? Was thatall which was needed to go to heaven? And was that all that was meant byfighting manfully under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and thedevil? Why, Cyrus and his old Persians, 2, 400 years ago, were nearer tothe kingdom of God than that. They had a clearer notion of what thebattle of life meant than that, when they said that not only the man whodid a merciful or just deed, but the man who drained a swamp, tilled afield, made any little corner of the earth somewhat better than he foundit, was fighting against Ahriman the evil spirit of darkness, on the sideof Ormuzd the good god of light; and that as he had taken his part inOrmuzd's battle, he should share in Ormuzd's triumph. 

Oh be at least able to say in that day, --Lord, I am no hero. I have beencareless, cowardly, sometimes all but mutinous. Punishment I havedeserved, I deny it not. But a traitor I have never been; a deserter Ihave never been. I have tried to fight on Thy side in Thy battle againstevil. I have tried to do the duty which lay nearest me; and to leavewhatever Thou didst commit to my charge a little better than I found it. I have not been good: but I have at least tried to be good. I have notdone good, it may be, either: but I have at least tried to do good. Takethe will for the deed, good Lord. Accept the partial self-sacrificewhich Thou didst inspire, for the sake of the one perfect self-sacrificewhich Thou didst fulfil upon the Cross. Pardon my faults, out of Thineown boundless pity for human weakness. Strike not my unworthy name offthe roll-call of the noble and victorious army, which is the blessedcompany of all faithful people; and let me, too, be found written in theBook of Life: even though I stand the lowest and last upon its list. Amen. 

SERMON XXII. NOBLE COMPANY. 

HEBREWS XII. 22, 23. 

 Ye are come to the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. 

I have quoted only part of the passage of Scripture in which these wordsoccur. If you want a good employment for All Saints' Day, read the wholepassage, the whole chapter; and no less, the 11th chapter, which comesbefore it: so will you understand better the meaning of All Saints' Day. But sufficient for the day is the good thereof, as well as the evil; andthe good which I have to say this morning is--You are come to the spiritsof just men made perfect; for this is All Saints' Day. 

Into the presence of this noble company we have come: even noblercompany, remember, than that which was spoken of in the text. For morethan 1800 years have passed since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written:and how many thousands of just men and women, pure, noble, tender, wise, beneficent, have graced the earth since then, and left their mark uponmankind, and helped forward the hallowing of our heavenly Father's name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is donein heaven; and helped therefore to abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, and therefore the misery of this struggling, moaning world. Howmany such has Christ sent on this earth during the last 1800 years. Howmany before that; before His own coming, for many a century and age. Weknow not, and we need not know. The records of Holy Scripture and ofhistory strike with light an isolated mountain peak, or group of peaks, here and here through the ages; but between and beyond all is dark to usnow. But it may not have been dark always. Scripture and historylikewise hint to us of great hills far away, once brilliant in the onetrue sunshine which comes from God, now shrouded in the mist of ages, orliterally turned away beyond our horizon by the revolution of our planet:and of lesser hills, too, once bright and green and fair, giving pastureto lonely flocks, sending down fertilizing streams into now forgottenvalleys; themselves all but forgotten now, save by the God who made andblessed them. 

Yes: many a holy soul, many a useful soul, many a saint who is now atGod's right hand, has lived and worked, and been a blessing, himselfblest, of whom the world, and even the Church, has never heard, who willnever be seen or known again, till the day in which the Lord counteth upHis jewels. 

Let us rejoice in that thought on this day, above all days in the year. On this day we give special thanks to God for all His servants departedthis life in His faith and fear. Let us rejoice in the thought that weknow not how many they are; only that they are an innumerable company, out of all tongues and nations, whom no man can number. Let us rejoicethat Christ's grace is richer, and not poorer, than our weak imaginationscan conceive, or our narrow systems account for. Let us rejoice that thegoodly company in whose presence we stand, can be limited and defined byno mortal man, or school of men: but only by Him from whom, with theFather, proceeds for ever the Holy Spirit, the inspirer of all good; andwho said of that Spirit--"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thouhearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, andwhither it goeth. So is every one who is born of the Spirit"--and whosaid again, "John came neither eating nor drinking, and ye said, He hatha devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold aman gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. ButI say unto you, Verily wisdom is justified of all her children"--and whosaid again--when John said to Him, "Master, we saw one casting out devilsin Thy name, and he followeth not us"--"Forbid him not. For I say toyou, that he that doeth a miracle in My name will not lightly speak evilof Me"--and who said, lastly--and most awfully--that the unpardonablesin, either in this life or the life to come, was to attribute beneficentdeeds to a bad origin, because they were performed by one who differedfrom us in opinion; and to say, "He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, prince of the devils. "

These are words of our Lord, which we are specially bound to keep in ourminds, with reverence and godly fear, on All Saints' Day, lest byarranging our calendar of saints according to our own notions of whoought to be a saint, and who ought not--that is, who agrees with ournotions of perfection, and who does not--we exclude ourselves, byfastidiousness, from much unquestionably good company; and possibly mixourselves up with not a little which is, to say the least, questionable. 

Men in all ages, Churchmen or others, have fallen into this mistake. Theyhave been but too ready to limit their calendar of saints; to narrow thethanksgivings which they offer to God on All Saints' Day. 

The Romish Church has been especially faulty on this point. It hasassumed, as necessary preliminaries for saintship--at least after theChristian era--the practice of, or at least the longing after, celibacy;and after the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, unconditional submission to the Church of Rome. But how has thisinjured, if not spoiled, their exclusive calendar of saints. Amidapostles, martyrs, divines, who must be always looked on as among thevery heroes and heroines of humanity, we find more than one fanaticpersecutor; more than two or three clearly insane personages; and toomany who all but justify the terrible sneer--that the Romish Calendar isthe "Pantheon of Hysteria. "

And Protestants, too--How have they narrowed the number of the spirits ofjust men made perfect; and confined the Paean which should go up from thehuman race on All Saints' Day, till a "saint" has too often meant withthem only a person who has gone through certain emotional experiences, and assented to certain subjective formulas, neither of which, accordingto the opinion of some of the soundest divines, both of the Romish, Greek, and Anglican communions, are to be found in the letter ofScripture as necessary to salvation; and who have, moreover, finishedtheir course--doubtless often a holy, beneficent, and beautiful course--bya rapturous death-bed scene, which is more rare in the actual experienceof clergymen, and, indeed, in the conscience and experience of humanbeings in general, than in the imaginations of the writers of religiousromances. 

But we of the Church of England, as by law established--and I recognizeand obey, and shall hereafter recognize and obey, no other--have no needso to narrow our All Saints' Day; our joy in all that is noble and goodwhich man has said or done in any age or clime. We have no need todefine where formularies have not defined; to shut where they haveopened; to curse where they either bless, or are humbly, charitably, andtherefore divinely, silent. With a magnificent faith in the justice ofthe Father, and in the grace of Christ, and in the inspiration of theHoly Spirit, our Church bids us--Judge not the dead, lest ye be judged. Condemn not the dead, lest ye be condemned. For she bids us commit tothe earth the corpses of all who die not "unbaptized, " "excommunicate, "or wilful suicides, and who are willing to lie in our consecrated ground;giving thanks to God that our dear brother has been delivered from themiseries of this sinful world, and in sure and certain hope of theresurrection to eternal life. 

At least: we of the Abbey of Westminster have a right to hold this; forwe, thank God, act on it, and have acted on it for many a year. We havea right to our wide, free, charitable, and truly catholic conception ofAll Saints' Day. Ay, if we did not use our right, these walls would useit for us; and in us would our Lord's words be fulfilled--If we weresilent, the very stones beneath our feet would cry out. 

For hither we gather, as far as is permitted us, and hither we gatherproudly, the mortal dust of every noble soul who has done good work forthe British nation; accepting each and all of them as gifts from theFather of lights, from whom proceedeth every good and perfect gift, assent to this nation by that Lord Jesus Christ who is the King of all thenations upon earth; and acknowledging--for fear of falling into thatPelagian heresy, which is too near the heart of every living man--thatall wise words which they have spoken, all noble deeds which they havedone, have come, must have come, from The One eternal source of wisdom, of nobleness, of every form of good; even from the Holy Spirit of God. 

We make no severe or minute inquiries here. We leave them, if they mustbe made, to God the Judge of all things, and Christ who knows the secretsof the hearts; to Him who is merciful in this: that He rewardeth everyman according to his works. 

All we ask is--and all we dare ask--of divine or statesman, poet orwarrior, musician or engineer--of Dryden or of Handel--of Isaac Watts orof Charles Dickens--but why go on with the splendid diversities of thesplendid catalogue?--What was your work? Did we admire you for it? Didwe love you for it? And why? Because you made us in some way or otherbetter men. Because you helped us somewhat toward whatsoever things arepure, true, just, honourable, of good report. Because, if there was anyvirtue--that is, true valour and manhood; if there was any praise--thatis, just honour in the sight of men, and therefore surely in the sight ofthe Son of man, who died for men; you helped us to think on such things. You, in one word, helped to make us better men. 

Welcome then, friends unknown--and, alas! friends known, and loved, andlost--welcome into England's Pantheon, not of superstitious and selfishhysteria, but of beneficent and healthy manhood. 

Your words and your achievements have gone out into all lands, and yoursound unto the ends of the world; and let them go, and prosper in thatfor which the Lord of man has sent them. Our duty is, to guard yoursacred dust. Our duty is, to point out your busts, your monuments aroundthese ancient walls, to all who come, of every race and creed; as proofsthat the ancient spirit is not dead; that Christ has not deserted thenation of England, while He sends into it such men as you; that Christhas not deserted the Church of England, while He gives her grace torecognize and honour such men as you, and to pray Christ that He wouldkeep up the sacred succession of virtue, talent, beneficence, patriotism;and make us, most unworthy, at last worthy, one at least here and there, of the noble dead, above whose dust we now serve God. 

Yes, so ought we in Westminster to keep our All Saints' Day; in givingthanks to God for the spirits of just men made perfect. Not only forthose just men and women innumerable, who--as I said at first--havegraced this earth during the long ages of the past: but specially forthose who lie around us here; with whom we can enter, and have enteredalready, often, into spiritual communion closer than that, almost, ofchild with parent; whose writings we can read, whose deeds we can admire, whose virtues we can copy, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, we andour children after us, which never can be repaid. 

And if ever the thought comes over us--But these men had their faults, mistakes--Oh, what of that?

 Nothing is left of them Now, but pure manly. 

Let us think of them: not as they were, compassed round withinfirmities--as who is not?--knowing in part, and seeing in part, as StPaul himself, in the zenith of his inspiration, said that he knew; andsaw, as through a glass, darkly. 

Let us think of them not as they were, the spirits of just men imperfect:but as the spirits of just men made, or to be made hereafter, perfect;when, as St Paul says, "that which is in part is done away, and thatwhich is perfect is come. " And let us trust Christ for them, as we wouldtrust Him for ourselves; sure "that the path of the just is as a shininglight, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. "

Ah, how many lie in this Abbey, to meet whom in the world to come, wouldbe an honour most undeserved!

How many more worthy, and therefore more likely, than any of us here, tobehold that endless All Saints' Day, to which may God in His mercy, inspite of all our shortcomings, bring us all. Amen. 

SERMON XXIII. DE PROFUNDIS. 

PSALM CXXX. 

 Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. O let Thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If Thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared. I look for the Lord; my soul doth wait for Him: in His word is my trust. My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch: I say, before the morning watch. O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins. 

Let us consider this psalm awhile, for it is a precious heirloom tomankind. It has been a guide and a comfort to thousands and tens ofthousands. Rich and poor, old and young, Jews and Christians, Romans, Greeks, and Protestants, have been taught by it the character of God; andtaught to love Him, and trust in Him, in whom is mercy, therefore Heshall be feared. 

The Psalmist cries out of the deep; out of the deep of sorrow, perhaps, and bereavement, and loneliness; or out of the deep of poverty; or out ofthe deep of persecution and ill-usage; or out of the deep of sin, andshame, and weakness which he hates yet cannot conquer; or out of the deepof doubt, and anxiety--and ah! how common is that deep; and how manythere are in it that swim hard for their lives: may God help them andbring them safe to land;--or out of the deep of overwork, so common now-a-days, when duty lies sore on aching shoulders, a burden too heavy to beborne. 

Out of some one of the many deeps into which poor souls fall at times, and find themselves in deep water where no ground is, and in the mirewherein they are ready to sink, the Psalmist cries. But out of the deephe cries--to God. To God, and to none else. 

He goes to the fountain-head, to the fount of deliverance, and offorgiveness. For he feels that he needs, not only deliverance, butforgiveness likewise. His sorrow may not be altogether his own fault. What we call in our folly "accident" and "chance, " and "fortune, "--butwhich is really the wise providence and loving will of God--may havebrought him low into the deep. Or the injustice, cruelty, and oppressionof men may have brought him low; or many another evil hap. But be thatas it may, he dares not justify himself. He cannot lift up altogetherclean hands. He cannot say that his sorrow is none of his own fault, andhis mishap altogether undeserved. If Thou, Lord, wert extreme to markwhat is done amiss, O Lord, who could abide it? "Not I, " says thePsalmist. "Not I, " says every human being who knows himself; and knowstoo well that--"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and thetruth is not in us. "

But the Psalmist says likewise, "There is forgiveness with Thee, therefore shall Thou be feared. "

My friends, consider this; the key of the whole psalm; the gospel andgood news, for the sake of which the psalm has been preserved in HolyScripture, and handed down to us. 

God is to be feared, because He is merciful. It is worth while to fearHim, because He is merciful, and of great kindness, and hateth nothingthat He hath made; and willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather thathe should turn from his wickedness and live. 

Superstitious people, in all ages, heathens always, and sometimes, I amsorry to say, Christians likewise, have had a very different reason, anopposite reason, for fearing God. 

They have said: Not--there is mercy: but there is anger with God:therefore shall He be feared. They have said--We must fear God, becauseHe is wrathful, and terrible, and ready to punish; and is extreme to markwhat is done amiss, and willeth the death of a sinner: and therefore theyhave not believed, when Holy Scripture told them, that God was love, andthat God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, and sentHim to visit the world in great humility, that the world through Himmight be saved. 

God has seemed to them only a proud, stern, and formidable being; acondemning judge, and not a merciful Father; and therefore, when theyhave found themselves in the deep of misery, they have cried out of it tosaints, angels, the Virgin Mary; or even to sun, moon, and stars, and allthe powers of nature; or even, again--what is more foolish still, --toastrologers, wizards, mediums, and quacks of every shape and hue; to anyone and any thing, rather than to God. 

But do not you do so, my friends. Fix it in your hearts and minds; andfix it now, before you fall into the deep, as most are apt to do beforethey die; lest, when the dark day comes, you have no time to learn inadversity the lesson which you should have learnt in prosperity. Fix inyour hearts and minds the blessed Gospel and good news--"There is mercywith Thee, O God; therefore shall Thou be feared. " There is mercy withHim, pity, tenderness, sympathy; a heart which can be touched with thefeeling of our infirmities; which knoweth what is in man; which despisethnot the work of His own hands; which remembereth our weak frame, andknoweth that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail before Him, andthe souls which He has made. Think of God as that which He is--acompassionate God, a long-suffering God, a generous God, a magnanimousGod, a truly royal God; in one word, a Perfect God; who causeth His sunto shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His rain on the justand on the unjust; a God who cannot despise, cannot neglect, cannot loseHis patience with any poor soul of man; who sets Himself against none butthe insolent, the proud, the malicious, the mean, the wilfully stupid andignorant and frivolous. Against those who exalt themselves, whether asterrible tyrants or merely contemptible boasters, He exalts Himself; andwill shew them, sooner or later, whether He or they be the stronger;whether He or they be the wiser. But for the poor soul who is abased, who is down, and in the depth; who feels his own weakness, folly, ignorance, sinfulness, and out of that deep cries to God as a lost childcrying after its father--even a lost lamb bleating after the ewe--of thatpoor soul, be his prayers never so confused, stupid and ill-expressed--ofhim it is written: "The Lord helpeth them that fall, and lifteth up allthose that are down. He is nigh to all that call on Him, yea, to allthat call upon Him faithfully. He will fulfil the desire of those thatfear Him, He also will hear their cry and will help them. "

Yes. To all such does God the Father, God who made heaven and earth, hold up, as it were, His only-begotten Son, Christ, hanging on the Crossfor us; and say: Behold thy God. Behold the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's person. Behold what God gave for thee, even His only-begotten Son. Behold that in which God the Father was wellpleased: in His Son; not condemning you, not destroying you, but humblingHimself, dying Himself awhile, that you may live for ever. Look; and byseeing the Son, see the Father also--your Father, and the Father of thespirits of all flesh; and know that His essence and His name is--Love. 

Therefore, when you are in the deep of sorrow, whatever that depth maybe, cry to God. To God Himself; and to none but God. If you can go tothe pure fountain-head, why drink of the stream, which must have gatheredsomething of defilement as it flows? If you can get light from the sunitself, why take lamp or candle in place of his clear rays? If you cango to God Himself, why go to any of God's creatures, however holy pure, and loving? Go to God, who is light of light, and life of life; thesource of all light, the source of all life, all love, all goodness, allmercy. From Him all goodness flows. All goodness which ever has been, shall be, or can be, is His alone, the fruit of His Spirit. Go then toHim Himself. Out of the depth, however deep, cry unto God and GodHimself. If David, the Jew of old, could do so, much more can we, whoare baptized into Christ; much more can we, who have access by one Spiritto the Father; much more can we, who--if we know who we are and where weare--should come boldly to the throne of grace, to find mercy and graceto help us in the time of need. 

Boldness. That is a bold word: but it is St Paul's, not mine. And byshewing that boldness, we shall shew that we indeed fear God. We shallshew that we reverence God. We shall shew that we trust God. For so, and so only, we shall obey God. If a sovereign or a sage should bid youcome to him, would you shew reverence by staying away? Would you shewreverence by refusing his condescension? You may shew that you areafraid of him; that you do not trust him: but that is not to shewreverence, but irreverence. 

If God calls, you are bound by reverence to come, however unworthy. IfHe bids you, you must obey, however much afraid. You must trust Him; youmust take Him at His word; you must confide in His goodness, in Hisjustice, in His wisdom: and since He bids you, go boldly to His throne, and find Him what He is, a gracious Lord. 

My friends, to you, every one of you--however weak, however ignorant, ay, however sinful, if you desire to be delivered from those sins--this graceis given; liberty to cry out of the depth to God Himself, who made sunand stars, all heaven and earth; liberty to stand face to face with theFather of the spirits of all flesh, and cling to the one Being who cannever fail nor change; even to the one immortal eternal God, of whom itis written, "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of theearth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, butThou shalt endure. They all shall wax old, like a garment, and as avesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But Thou artthe same, and Thy years shall not fail. "

But it is written again, "My soul waits for the Lord. " Yes, if you cantrust in the God who cannot change, you can afford to wait; you need notbe impatient; as it is written--"Fret not thyself, lest thou be moved todo evil;" and again--"He that believeth shall not make haste. " For God, in whom you trust, is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man thatHe should repent. Hath He promised, and shall He not do it? His word islike the rain and dew, which fall from heaven, and return not to it againuseless, but give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So is everyman that trusteth in Him. His kingdom, says the Lord, is as if a manshould put seed into the ground, and sleep and wake, and the seed shouldgrow up, he knoweth not how. So the seed which we sow--the seed ofrepentance, the seed of humility, the seed of sorrowful prayers forhelp--it too shall take root, and grow, and bring forth fruit, we knownot how, in the good time of God, who cannot change. We may be sad; wemay be weary; our eyes may wait and watch for the Lord as the Psalmistsays; more than they that watch for the morning: but it must be as thosewho watch for the morning, for the morning which must and will come, forthe sun which will surely rise, and the day which will surely dawn, andthe Saviour who will surely deliver, and the God who is merciful inthis--that He rewardeth every man according to his work. 

"Oh trust in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him isplenteous redemption; and He shall deliver His people from all theirsins. "

From their sins. Not merely from the punishment of their sins; notalways from the punishment of their sins in this life: but, what isbetter far, from the sins themselves; from the sins which bring them intofresh and needless troubles; and which make the old troubles, whichcannot now be escaped, intolerable. 

From all their sins. Not only from the great sins, which, if persistedin, will surely destroy both body and soul in hell: but from the littlesins which do so easily beset us; from little bad habits, tempers, lazinesses, weaknesses, ignorances, which hamper and hinder us all everyday when we try to do our duty. From all these will the Lord deliver us, by the blood of Christ, and by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit, thatwe may be able at last to say to children and friends, and all whom welove and leave behind us--

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Blessed is the man thattrusteth in Him. "

Yes. This at least we may do--Trust in our God, and thank God that wemay do it; for if men may not do that, then is that true of them whichHomer said of old--that man is more miserable than all the beasts of thefield. For the animals look neither forward nor back. They live but forthe present moment; and pain and grief, being but for the moment, falllightly upon them. But we--we who have the fearful power of lookingback, and looking forward--we who can feel regret and remorse for thepast, anxiety and terror for the future--to us at times life would bescarce worth having, if we had not a right to cry with all our hearts--

"O God, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded. "

SERMON XXIV. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE. 

Preached on Whit-Sunday. 

DEUT. XXX. 19, 20. 

 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. 

These words, the book of Deuteronomy says, were spoken by Moses to allthe Israelites shortly before his death. He had led them out of Egypt, and through the wilderness. They were in sight of the rich land ofCanaan, where they were to settle and to dwell for many hundred years. Moses, the book says, went over again with them all the Law, theadmirable and divine Law, which they were to obey, and by which they wereto govern and order themselves in the land of Canaan. He had told themthat they owed all to God Himself; that God had delivered them out ofslavery in Egypt; God had led them to the land of Canaan; God had giventhem just laws and right statutes, which if they kept, they would livelong in their new home, and become a great and mighty nation. Then hecalls heaven and earth to witness that he had set before them life anddeath, blessing and cursing. If they trusted in the one true God, andserved Him, and lived as men should, who believed that a just and lovingGod cared for them, then they would live; then a blessing would come onthem, and their children, on their flocks and herds, on their land andall in it. But if they forgot God, and began to worship the sun, and themoon, and the stars, the earth and the weather, like the nations roundthem, then they would die; they would grow superstitious, cowardly, lazy, and profligate, and therefore weak and miserable, like the wretchedCanaanites whom they were going to drive out; and then they would die. Their souls would die in them, and they would become less than men, andat last--as the Canaanites had become--worse than brutes, till theirnumbers would diminish, and they would be left, Moses says, few in numberand at last perish out of the good land which God had given them. 

So, he says, you know how to live, and you know how to die. Choosebetween them this day. 

They knew the road to wealth, health, prosperity and order, peace andhappiness, and life: and they knew the road to ruin, poverty, weakness, disease, shame and death. 

They knew both roads; for God had set them before them. 

And you know both roads; for God has set them before you. 

Then he says--I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. 

He called heaven and earth to witness. That was no empty figure ofspeech. If you will recollect the story of the Israelites, you will seeplainly enough what Moses meant. 

The heaven would witness against them. The same stars which would lookdown on their freedom and prosperity in Canaan, had looked down on alltheir slavery and misery in Egypt, hundreds of years before. Those samestars had looked down on their simple forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, andJacob, wandering with their flocks and herds out of the mountains of thefar north. That heaven had seen God's mercies and care of them, for nowfive hundred years. Everything had changed round them: but those stars, that sun, that moon, were the same still, and would be the same for ever. They were witnesses to them of the unchangeable God, those heavens above. They would seem to say--Just as the heavens above you are the same, wherever you go, and whatever you are like, so is the God who dwellsabove the heaven; unchangeable, everlasting, faithful, and true, full oflight and love; from whom comes down every good and perfect gift, in whomis neither variableness nor shadow of turning. Do you turn to Himcontinually, and as often as you turn away from Him: and you shall findHim still the same; governing you by unchangeable law, keeping Hispromise for ever. 

And the earth would witness against them. That fair land of Canaanwhither they were going, with its streams and wells spreading freshnessand health around; its rich corn valleys, its uplands covered with vines, its sweet mountain pastures, a very garden of the Lord, cut off anddefended from all the countries round by sandy deserts and drearywildernesses; that land would be a witness to them, at their daily work, of God's love and mercy to their forefathers. The ruins of the oldCanaanite cities would be a witness to them, and say--Because of theirsins the Lord drove out these old heathens from before you. Copy theirsins, and you will share their ruin. Do as they did, and you will surelydie like them. God has given you life, here in this fair land of Canaan;beware how you choose death, as the Canaanites chose it. They died thedeath which comes by sin; and God has given you life, the life which isby righteousness. Be righteous men, and just, and God-fearing, if youwish to keep this land, you, and your children after you. 

And now, my dear friends, if Moses could call heaven and earth to witnessagainst those old Jews, that he had set before them life and death, ablessing and a curse, may we not do the same? Does not the heaven aboveour heads, and the earth beneath our feet, witness against us here? Dothey not say to us--God has given you life and blessing. If you throwthat away, and choose instead death and a curse; it is your own fault, not God's?

Look at the heaven above us. Does not that witness against us? Has itnot seen, for now fifteen hundred years and more, God's goodness to us, and to our forefathers? All things have changed; language, manners, customs, religion. We have changed our place, as the Israelites did; anddwell in a different land from our forefathers: but that sky abides forever. That same sun, that moon, those stars shone down upon our heathenforefathers, when the Lord chose them, and brought them out of the Germanforests into this good land of England, that they might learn to worshipno more the sun, and the moon, and the storm, and the thunder-cloud, butto worship Him, the living God who made all heaven and earth. That skylooked down upon our forefathers, when the first missionaries baptizedthem into the Church of Christ, and England became a Christian land, andmade a covenant with God and Christ for ever to walk in His laws which Hehas set before us. From that heaven, ever since, hath God been sendingrain and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness, fora witness of His love and fostering care; prospering us, whensoever wehave kept His laws, above all other nations upon earth. Shall not thatheaven witness against us? Into that heaven ascended Christ the Lord, that He might fill all things with His power and His rule, and might sendfrom thence on us His Holy Spirit, the Spirit whom we worship this day, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. By that same Spirit, and by none other, have been thought all the noble thoughts whichEnglishmen ever thought. By that Spirit have been spoken all the noblewords which Englishmen ever spoke. By that Spirit have been done all thenoble deeds which Englishmen have ever done. To that Spirit we owe allthat is truly noble, truly strong, truly stable, in our English life. Itis He that has given us power to get wealth, to keep wealth, to usewealth. And if we begin to deny that, as we are inclined to do now-a-days; if we lay our grand success and prosperity to the account of ourown cleverness, our own ability; if we say, as Moses warned theIsraelites they would say, in the days of their success and prosperity, not--"It is God who has given us power to get wealth, " but--"Mine arm, and the might of my hand, has gotten me this wealth;"--in plain words--Ifwe begin to do what we are all too apt to do just now, to worship our ownbrains instead of God: then the heaven above us will witness against us, this Whitsuntide above all seasons in the year; and say--Into heaven theLord ascended who died for you on the Cross. From heaven He sent downgifts for you, and your forefathers, even while you were His enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among you. And behold, instead of thankingGod, fearing God, and confessing that you are nothing, and God is all, you talk as if you were the arbiters of your own futures, the makers ofyour own gifts. Instead of giving God the glory, you take the glory toyourselves. Instead of declaring the glory of God, like the heavens, andshewing his handiwork, like the stars, you shew forth your own glory andboast of your own handiwork. Beware, and fear; as your forefathersfeared, and lived, because they gave the glory to God. 

And shall not the earth witness against us? Look round, when you go outof church, upon this noble English land. Why is it not, as many a landfar richer in soil and climate is now, a desolate wilderness; the landlying waste, and few men left in it, and those who are left robbing andmurdering each other, every man's hand against his fellow, till the wildbeasts of the field increase upon them? In that miserable state now ismany a noble land, once the very gardens of the world--Judaea, and almostall the East, which was once the very garden of the Lord, as thick withliving men as a hive is with bees, and vast sheets both of North Africa, and of South and of North America. Why is not England thus? Why, butbecause the Lord set before our forefathers life and death, blessing andcursing; and our forefathers chose life, and lived; and it was well withthem in the land which God gave to them, because they chose blessing, andGod blessed them accordingly? In spite of many mistakes andshortcomings--for they were sinful mortal men, as we are--they chose lifeand a blessing; and clave unto the Lord their God, and kept His covenant;and they left behind, for us their children, these churches, thesecathedrals, for an everlasting sign that the Lord was with us, as He hadbeen with them, and would be with our children after us. 

Ah, my friends, while we look round us over the face of this good land, and see everywhere the churches pointing up to heaven, each amid townsand villages which have never seen war or famine for now long centuries, all thriving and improving year by year, and which never for 800 yearshave been trodden by the foot of an invading enemy, one ought to feel, ifone has a thoughtful and God-fearing heart--Verily God has set before uslife and blessing, and prospered us above all nations upon earth; and ifwe do not cleave to Him, we shall shew ourselves fools above all nationsupon earth. 

And then when one reads the history of England; when one thinks over thehistory of any one city, even one country parish; above all, when onelooks into the history of one's own foolish heart: one sees how often, though God has given us freely life and blessing, we have been on thepoint of choosing death and the curse instead; of saying--We will go ourown way and not God's way. The land is ours, not God's; the houses areour own, not God's; our souls are our own, not God's. We are masters, and who is master over us? That is the way to choose death, and thecurse, shame and poverty and ruin, my friends; and how often we have beenon the point of choosing it. What has saved us? What has kept us fromit? Certainly not our own righteousness, nor our own wisdom, nor our ownfaith. After reading the history of England; or after recollecting ourown lives--the less we say of them the better. 

What has kept us from ruin so long? We are all day long forgetting thenoble things which God did for our forefathers. Why does not God inreturn remember our sins, and the sins of our forefathers? Why is He notangry with us for ever? Why, in spite of all our shortcomings andbackslidings, are we prospering here this day?

I know not, my friends, unless it be for this one reason, That into thatheaven which witnesses against us, the merciful and loving Christ isascended; that He is ever making intercession for us, a High-priest whocan be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and that He hasreceived gifts for men, even for His enemies--as we have too oftenbeen--that the Lord God might dwell among us. Yes. He ascended on highthat He might send down His Holy Spirit; and that Spirit is among us, working patiently and lovingly in many hearts--would that I could say inall--giving men right judgments; putting good desires into their hearts;and enabling them to put them into good practice. 

The Holy Spirit is the life of England, and of the Church of England, andof every man, whether he belongs to the Church or not, who loves thegood, and desires to do it, and to see it done. And those in whom theHoly Spirit dwells, are the salt of England, which keeps it from decay. They are those who have chosen life and blessing, and found them. Oh mayGod increase their number more and more; till all know Him from the leastunto the greatest; and the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 

And then shall all days be Whit-Sundays; and the Name of the Father behallowed indeed, and His kingdom come, and His will be done on earth, asit is in heaven. 

SERMON XXV. THE SILENCE OF FAITH. 

PSALM CXXXI. 

 Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever. 

We know not at what period of David's life this psalm was written. Weknow not what matters they were which were too high for him to meddlewith; matters about which he had to refrain his soul; to quiet hisfeelings; to suspend his judgment; to check his curiosity, and say aboutthem simply--Trust in the Lord. 

We do not know, I say, what these great matters, these mysteries were. But that concerns us little. Human life, human fortune, human history, human agony--nay, the whole universe, the more we know of it, is full ofsuch mysteries. Only the shallow and the conceited are unaware of theirpresence. Only the shallow and the conceited pretend to explain them, and have a Why ready for every How. David was not like them. His wastoo great a mind to be high-minded; too deep a heart to have proud looks, and to pretend, to himself or to others, that he knew the whole counselof God. 

Solomon his son had the same experience. For him, too, in spite of allhis wisdom, the mystery of Providence was too dark. Though a manlaboured to seek it, yet should he not find it out. All things seemed, at least, to come alike to all. There was one event to the righteous andto the wicked; to the clean and to the unclean. Vanity of vanity; allwas vanity. Of making books there was no end, and much study was aweariness to the flesh. And the conclusion of the whole matter was--FearGod, and keep His commandments. That--and not to pry into theunfathomable will of God--was the whole duty of man. 

Job, too: what is the moral of the whole book of Job, save that God'sways are unsearchable, and His paths past finding out? The Lord, be itremembered, in the closing scene of the book, vouchsafes to Job noexplanation whatsoever of his affliction. Instead of telling him why hehas been so sorely smitten; instead of bidding him even look up andtrust, He silences Job by the mere plea of His own power. Where wastthou when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare, if thou hastunderstanding. When the morning stars sang together; and all the sons ofGod shouted for joy. Shall he that contendeth with The Almighty instructHim? He that reproveth God, let him answer. 

But, it may be said, these are Old Testament sayings. The Patriarchs andProphets had not that full light of knowledge of the mind of God whichthe Evangelists and Apostles had. What do the latter, the writers of theNew Testament, say, with that fuller knowledge of God, which they gainedthrough Jesus Christ our Lord?

My friends--This is not, I trust, by God's great goodness, the last timethat I am to preach in this Abbey. What the Evangelists and Apostlestaught, which the Prophets and Psalmists did not teach, I hope to tellyou, as far as I know, hereafter. 

But this I am bound to tell you beforehand--That there are no truer wordsin the Articles of the Church of England than those in the VIIthArticle--that the Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both inthe Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind byChrist, the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and man. 

Yes. That the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, I believe withmy whole heart and soul. And therefore to those who say that theApostles had solved the whole mystery of human life, its sins, itssorrows, its destinies, I must reply that such is not the case, at leastwith the most gifted of all the writers of the New Testament. We maythink fit to claim omniscience for St Paul: but he certainly does notclaim it for himself. 

When he is vouchsafed a glimpse of the high counsels of God, he exclaims, as one dazzled--"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom andknowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways pastfinding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath beenHis counsellor?"--While of himself he speaks in a very differenttone--"Even though he have been, " as he says, "caught up into the thirdheaven, and heard words unspeakable, which it is not lawful for a man toutter, " yet "he knows, " he says, "in part; he prophesies in part; butwhen that which is perfect comes, that which is partial shall be doneaway. " He is as the child to the full-grown man, into which he hopes todevelop in the future life. He "sees as in a glass darkly, but then faceto face. " He "knows now in part. " Then--but not till then--will he"know even as he is known. " Nay, more. In the ninth chapter of hisEpistle to the Romans, he does not hesitate to push to the utmost thatplea of God's absolute sovereignty which we found in the book of Job. 

"He has mercy on whom He will have mercy; and whom He will He hardeneth. "And if any say, "Why doth He then find fault? For who hath resisted Hiswill?" "Who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formedsay to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not thepotter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel tohonour, and another to dishonour?"

What those words may mean, or may not mean, I do not intend to argue now. I only quote them to shew you that St Paul, just as much as any OldTestament thinker, believed that there were often mysteries, ay, tragedies, in the lives, not only of individuals, nor of families, but ofwhole races, to which we shortsighted mortals could assign no rational ormoral final cause, but must simply do that which Spinoza forbade us todo, namely--"In every unknown case, flee unto God;" and say--"It is theLord, let Him do what seemeth Him good;"--certain of this, which theCross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ shewed forth as nothing elsein heaven or earth could shew--that the will of God toward man is anutterly good will; and that therefore what seemeth good to Him, will begood in act and fact. 

It is this faith, and I believe this faith alone, which can enable trulyfeeling spirits to keep anything like equanimity, if they dwell long andearnestly on the miseries of mankind; on sorrow, pain, bereavement; onthe fate of many a widow and orphan; on sudden, premature, and oftenagonizing death--but why pain you with a catalogue of ills, which all, save--thank God--the youngest, know too well?

And it is that want of faith in the will and character of a living God, which makes, and will always make, infidelity a sad state of mind--atheory of man and the universe, which contains no gospel or good news forman. 

I do not speak now of atheism, dogmatic, self-satisfied, insolent cynic. I speak especially to-night of a form of unbelief far more attractive, which is spreading, I believe, among people often of high intellect, often of virtuous life, often of great attainments in art, science, orliterature. Such repudiate, and justly, the name of theists: but theydecline, and justly, the name of atheists. They would--the finest andpurest spirits among them--accept only too heartily the whole of thePsalm which I have chosen for my text, save its ascription and the lastverse. We too--they would say--do not wish to be high-minded, anddogmatize, and assert, and condemn. We too do not wish to meddle withmatters too high for us, or for any human intellect. We too wish torefrain ourselves from asserting what--however pleasant--we cannot prove;and to wean ourselves--however really painful the process--from the milk, the mere child's food, on which Mother Church has brought up the nationsof Europe for the last 1500 years. But for that very reason, as forasking us to trust in The Lord, either for this life, or an eternal lifeto come, do not ask that of us. 

We do not say that there is no God; no Providence of God; no life beyondthe grave: only we say, that we cannot find them. They may exist: orthey may not. But to us; and as we believe to all mankind if they usedtheir reason aright, they are unthinkable, and therefore unknowable. Godwe see not: but this we see--Man, tortured by a thousand ills; and then, alas, perishing just as the dumb beasts perish. We see death, decay, pain, sorrow, bereavement, weakness; and these produced, not merely bylaws of nature, in which, however terrible, we could stoically acquiesce;but worse still, by accident--the sports of seeming chances--and thoseoften so slight and mean. Man in his fullest power, woman in her highestusefulness, the victim not merely of the tempest or the thunderstroke, but of a fallen match, a stumbling horse. 

Therefore the sight of so much human woe, without a purpose, and withouta cause, is too much for them: as, without faith in God, it ought to betoo much for us. 

And therefore in their poetry and in their prose--and they are masters, some of them, both of poetry and of prose--there is a weary sadness, atender despair, which one must not praise: yet which one cannot watchwithout sympathy and affection. For the mystery of human vanity andvexation of spirit; the mystery which weighed down the soul of David, andof Solomon, and of him who sang the song of Job, and of St Paul, and ofSt Augustine, and all the great Theologians of old time, is to themnought but utter darkness. For they see not yet, as our great modernpoet says, Hands Athwart the darkness, shaping man. 

They see not yet athwart the darkness a face, most human yet divine, ofutter sympathy and love; and hear not yet--oh let me say once more notyet of such fine souls--the only words which can bring true comfort toone who feels for his fellow-men, amid the terrible chances and changesof this mortal life--

"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also inMe. "

"All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth. " "Lo I am with youeven to the end of the world. " Oh let us, to whom God has given thatmost undeserved grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledgethe glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majestyto worship the Unity--Let us, I say, beseech God that He would give tothem, as well as to us, that comfortable and wholesome faith; andevermore defend them and us--if it seem good in His gracious sight--fromall adversity. 

And surely we need that faith--those of us at least who know what we havelost--in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey onthis day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news--Thatone of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all ourpreachers--the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so manyof the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls, not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by thoseexquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual lossincalculable--those Confirmation addresses which touched and ennobled thehearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, youngand old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever--That this man, withhis enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, anddoing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it donebefore--with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, forgoverning his fellow-men--That he, in the fulness of his power, hishealth, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in amoment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces sovarious and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection underlong and careful self-education, should be lost for ever to this earth:leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so muchthe poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting--forget not that--abitter pang on hundreds of loving hearts: and all by reason of thestumbling of a horse. 

And why? Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue ofwhich we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even ifno answer be found to it in earth or heaven. What was the important_why_ which lay hid behind that little how?--The means were so paltry:the effect was so vast--There must have been a final cause, a purpose, for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous--a scribblewithout a meaning--a skeleton without a soul. Why did he die?

"I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing. "

So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise. 

"I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thydoing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might havebeen excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day inwhich they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For itwas the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to theground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of Hisdesire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life toall created things. 

It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in blissand not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not inanarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a meaning, apurpose: and that purpose is very good. What it is, we know not: and weneed not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters toohigh for us. So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but fromfaith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does notcome, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking upinto her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them asyet, but certain that they all are done in Love. 

SERMON XXVI. GOD AND MAMMON. 

MATTHEW VI. 24. 

 Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. 

This is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text forthis day, which happens to be St Matthew's Day. 

On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not: and whotherefore threw up all his prospects in life--which were those of apeculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes--inorder to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. Hebecame, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr;and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew thepublican--Saint Matthew as we call him--has his share thereof, because hediscovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; andtherefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and badehim "Follow Me, " he rose up, and left his money-bags, and followed Him, whom he afterwards discovered to be no less than God made man. "Yecannot serve God and Mammon. " It is very difficult to make men believethese words. So difficult, that our Lord Himself could not make the Jewsbelieve them, especially the rich and comfortable religious people amongthem. When He told them that they could not serve two masters; that theycould not worship God and money at the same time, the Pharisees, who werecovetous, derided Him. They laughed to scorn the notion that they couldnot be very religious, and respectable, and so forth, and yet set theirhearts on making money all the while. They thought that they could havetheir treasure on earth and in heaven also; and they went their way, inspite of our Lord's warnings; and made money, honestly no doubt, if theycould, but if not, why then dishonestly; for money must be made, at allrisks. 

St Paul warned them, by his disciple Timothy, of their danger. He toldthem that the love of money is the root of all evil; and that those whowill be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish andhurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 

St James warned them even more sternly; and told the rich men among theJews of his day to weep and howl for the miseries which were coming onthem. They had heaped up treasure for the last days, when it would be ofno use to them. They were fattening their hearts--he told them--againsta day of slaughter. 

But they listened to St Paul and St James no more than they did to ourLord. After the fall of Jerusalem, even more than before, they becamethe money-makers and the money-lenders of the whole world. And whatbefel them? Their wealth stirred up the envy and the suspicion of theGentiles. They were persecuted, robbed, slaughtered, again and again forthe sake of their money. And yet they would not give up their ruinouspassion. Throughout all the middle ages, here in England, just as muchas on the Continent, they lent money at exorbitant interest; and thentheir debtors, to escape payment, turned on them for not beingChristians; accused them of poisoning the wells, and what not; massacredthem, burnt them alive, and committed the most horrible atrocities;fulfilling the warnings of our Lord and His Apostles, only too terriblyand brutally, again and again. 

Do I say this to make any man dislike or despise the Jews? God forbid. The Jews have noble qualities in them, by which they have prospered, andfor the sake of which--as I believe--God's blessing rests on them to thisday. They have prospered: not by their love of money, not even by theirextraordinary courage, persistence, and intellectual power; but by theirkeeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth haskept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry, and any approach to it, with a stern and noble hatred, which would Godthat all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept, likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as noother people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, whoprosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are sointense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shametoo many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of apeople is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them atlast: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever landthe Lord their God shall give them, till the day of which St Paulprophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shallacknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in theirblindness, for their King, and Lord, and God; and so all Israel shall besaved. Amen. Amen. 

And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or theJews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money? Is anything morecertain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, tothe passion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word amongforeign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was onceour strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, ourcovetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power;but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance. 

And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees ofold in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve Godand Mammon at once; that the very classes among us who are most utterlygiven up to money-making, are the very classes which, in alldenominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churchesand chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, thewhole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend toreverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, thatthe love of money is the root of all evil. 

Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religiousprofession, whose names were the foremost on every charitablesubscription list, so devoured by this mad love for money for its ownsake, that though they had already more money than they could spend, orenjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves--I have got it, Ihave got it--they must needs, in the mere lust for becoming richer still, ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen--butwhy should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling youwhat I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shallnever see again, among those who must needs serve God and Mammon? Hasnot the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we canactually calculate, now, when the disease will come to a head; andrelieve itself for a while: though alas! only for a while?

About every eleven years, I am informed, we are to expect a commercialcrisis; panics, bankruptcies, and misery and ruin to hundreds; a sort ofterrible but beneficent thunderstorm, which clears the foul atmosphere ofour commercial system at the expense, alas! not merely of the guilty, butof the innocent; involving the widow and the orphan, the poor and thesimple, in the same fate as the rich and powerful whom they have trustedto their own ruin. And yet we boast of our civilization and of ourChristianity; and hardly one, here and there, lays the lesson to heart, but each man, like a moth about a candle, unwarned by the fate of hisfellows, fancies that he at least can flutter round the flames and not beburned; that whoever else cannot serve God and Mammon, he can do it; andholds, by virtue of his superior prudence, a special dispensation fromthe plain warnings of Holy Scripture. 

But every reasonable man knows what advantages money, and nothing butmoney, will obtain, not only for a man himself but for his children; andanswers me--If I wish to rise in life, if I wish my children to rise inlife, how can I do it, without making money?

God forbid that I should check an honourable ambition, and a desire torise in life. We all ought to rise in life, and to rise far higher thanmost of us are likely to rise. But I ask you to consider very seriouslywhat you mean by rising in life. 

Do you mean by rising in life, merely becoming a richer man; living in alarger house, eating, drinking, clothing, better; having more servants, carriages, plate? Is that to be the highest triumph of all your labours?Is that your notion of rising in life? If it is, you are not singular inyour notion. There are thousands who call themselves civilized andChristians, and yet have no higher notion of what man's highest good maybe. But do you mean by rising in life, simply becoming a nobler, becausea better man? For if you mean that latter, I seriously advise you tohearken to what the Creator and Governor of all heaven and earth, JesusChrist our Lord, has told you on that matter, when He said--"Seek yefirst the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these thingsshall be added unto you. "

Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Alas! this money-making generationtalks a great deal about religion and saving their souls, being quiteindifferent to the serious question--whether their souls are worth savingor not: but as for the kingdom of God, of which our Lord and His Apostlesspeak so often, they have forgotten altogether what it is. They talktoo, a great deal, about the righteousness of Christ: but they haveforgotten also what the righteousness of Christ, which is also therighteousness of God, is like. 

The kingdom of God; the government of God; the laws and rules by whichChrist, King of kings, and King, too, of every nation and man on earth, whether they know it or not, governs mankind, that is what you have toseek, because it is there already. You are in Christ's kingdom. If youwish to prosper in it, find out what its laws are. That will be truewisdom. For in keeping the commandments of God, and in obeying His laws;in that alone is life; life for body and soul; life for time and foreternity. 

And the righteousness of God, which is the righteousness of Christ;--findout what that is, and pray to Christ to give it to you; for so alone willyou be what a man should be, created after God in righteousness and trueholiness, and renewed into the image and likeness of God. You will findplenty of persons now, as in all times, who will tell you that you neednot do that; that all you need, for this world or the world to come, issome righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; calling that--oh shamethat such a glorious and eternal truth should be so caricatured anddegraded by man--justification by faith: while all they mean is, justification not by faith, but by mere assent; assenting to certaindoctrines; keeping certain religious watch-words in your mouth, and, overand above, leading a tolerably respectable life. But what says our Lord?"Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes andPharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. " Notmerely--not dwell in it for ever, but not even enter it, not even getthrough the very gate, and cross the very threshold, of it. The merelyassenting, merely respectable, even the so-called religious and orthodoxlife will not let you into the kingdom of heaven, either in this life orthe life to come. No. That requires the noble life, the pure life, thejust life, the gentle life, the generous life, the heroic life, theGodlike life, which is perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, because He lets His sun shine on the evil and on the good, and His rainfall on the just and on the unjust. But how will this help you to risein life? Our Lord Himself answers--and our Lord should surely know--"Seekye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these thingsshall be added to you. " Have faith in God, and in His promise; and yourfaith in God shall be rewarded. You shall find that your heavenly Fatherknows that you have need of all these things; and has arranged Hiskingdom, and the whole universe, accordingly. The very good things ofthis world--wealth, honour, power, and the rest, for the sake of whichworldly men quarrel, and envy, and slander, and bully, and cringe, andcommit all basenesses and crimes--all these shall come to you of theirown accord by the providence of your Father in heaven and by Hiseverlasting Laws, if you will but learn and do God's will, and lead theChristlike and the Godlike life. Honour and power, wealth andprosperity, as much of them as is justly good for you, and as much ofthem as you deserve--that is, earn and merit by your own ability and self-control--shall come to you by the very laws of the universe and by thevery providence of God. You shall find that godliness hath the promiseof this life, as well as of the life which is to come. You shall findthat God's kingdom is a well-made and well-ordered kingdom; and that Hislaws are life, and are far more worth trusting in than the maxims of thatill-made and ill-ordered world of man, which you all renounced at yourbaptism. You shall find that the promises of Scripture are no dreams, but actual practical living truths, which come true, and fulfilthemselves, in the lives and histories of men. 

Choose, young men; choose now; and make up your minds which way you willrise in life; by merely getting money; or by getting wisdom and honourand virtue. The Psalmists of old, yea our Lord Himself, tell you whatwill happen in each case. If you want only to be rich, why then be rich;if you are clever enough. The Lord may give you what you want, in thisevil world. He may give you your portion in this life, and fill you withHis hid treasure. He may let you heap up money which you do not know howto spend, and be a laughing-stock to others while you live; and after youdie, your children will probably squander what you have hoarded; whileyou will carry away nothing when you die, neither will your pomp followyou: and take care lest you wake, after all, like Dives in the torment, to hear the fearful but most reasonable words--"Son, thou in thy lifetimereceivedst thy good things, and therefore thou art tormented. " Thosewords too, I fear, will come true, in this very generation, of many awretched soul who while he lived counted himself a happy man; and had allmen speaking well of him, because he did well unto himself. On whosesouls may God have mercy. 

Choose, young men: choose; now in the golden days of youth, and strength, and honour, ere you have laid a yoke on your own shoulders--even the yokeof money-worship;--not light and easy, like the yoke of Christ, butheavier and heavier as the years roll on, while you, with fadingintellect, fading hopes, and it may be fading credit, and certainlyfading power of any rational enjoyment, have still, like the doomed soulsin Dante's Inferno, to roll up hill the money-bags which are perpetuallyslipping back. I have seen that, and more than once or twice; and it is, I think, the saddest sight on earth--save one. Choose, I say again, then, young men, before you have spread a net round your own feet, which, as in disturbed dreams, grows and tangles more and more each time youmove--even the net of greed and craft, which men set for theirneighbours; and are but too apt, ere all is done, to be taken inthemselves; the net of truly bad society, of the society of men who haveset their hearts on making money, somehow or other; and with whom, if youcast in your lot, you may descend--O God, I know full well what I amsaying--to depths from which your young spirits now would shrink; tillyour higher nature be subdued to the element in which it works; and thepoet's curse on all who bind themselves to natures lower than their owncome true of you--

 Thou shall lower to their level, day by day, All that once was fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. 

Or you may choose--God grant that you may choose--the other path; thepath of the law of Christ, and of the Spirit of Christ; the kingdom ofGod and His righteousness. And then shall come true of you, as far asGod shall see good for your immortal soul, those other promises--

"Come, ye children, and hearken unto me, and I will teach you the fear ofthe Lord. What man is he that loves life, and would fain see good days?Let him keep his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak nodeceit. Let him eschew evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursueit. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears areopen to their prayers. . . For the Lord ordereth a good man's going, andmaketh his way acceptable to Himself. Though he fall he shall not becast away, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand . . . I have beenyoung, and now am old, and yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, norhis seed begging their bread. Flee from evil, and do the thing that isgood, and dwell for evermore. For the Lord loveth the thing that isrighteous. He forsaketh not His that be godly, but they are preservedfor ever. "

Choose that; the better part which shall not be taken from you; for it isaccording to the true laws of political and social economy, which are thelaws of the Maker of the Universe, and of the Redeemer of Mankind. Andthen, whether or not you leave your children wealth, you will, at allevents, leave them an example by which they, and their children'schildren, must prosper to the world's end. And your prayer will be, moreand more, as you grow old and weary with the hard work of life--

"I will go forth in the strength of the Lord God, and make mention of Hisrighteousness only. Thou, O God, hast taught me from my youth up untilnow. Therefore will I tell of Thy wondrous works. Forsake me not, OLord, in my old age, when I am grey-headed, till I have shewn Thystrength unto this generation; and Thy power unto those that are yet tocome. "

To which end may Christ bring us all, of His infinite mercy. Amen. 

SERMON XXVII. THE BEATIFIC VISION. 

PSALM LVII. 

 _A Psalm of David when he fled from Saul in the cave_. 

 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in Thee, and under the shadow of Thy wings shall be my refuge, until this tyranny be over-past. I will call unto the most high God, even unto the God that shall perform the cause which I have in hand. He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproof of him that would eat me up. God shall send forth His mercy and truth: my soul is among lions. And I lie even among the children of men, that are set on fire, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth. They have laid a net for my feet, and pressed down my soul: they have digged a pit before me, and are fallen into the midst of it themselves. My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, lute and harp: I myself will awake right early. I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the people, and I will sing unto Thee among the nations. For the greatness of Thy mercy reacheth unto the heavens, and Thy truth unto the clouds. Set up Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all the earth. 

Some people now-a-days would call this poetry; and so it is. But whatpoetry! They would call it a Hebrew song, a Hebrew lyric; and so it is. But what a song! There is something in us, if we be truly delicate andhigh-minded people, which will surely make us feel a deep differencebetween it and common poetry, or common songs; which made our forefathersread or chant it in church, and use it, as many a pious soul has ere now, in private devotion. 

David did not compose it in church or in temple. He never meant it, perhaps, to be sung in public worship. He little dreamed that we, andmillions more, in lands of which he had never heard, should be repeatinghis words in a foreign tongue in our most sacred acts of worship. He wasthinking, when he composed it, mainly of himself and his own sorrows anddangers. He intends, he says, to awake early, and sing it to lute andharp. Perhaps he had composed it in the night, as he lay either in thecave of Adullam or Engedi, hiding from Saul among the cliffs of the wildgoats; and meant to go forth to the cave's mouth, and there, before thesun rose over the downs, he would, to translate his words exactly, "awakethe dawning" with his song in the free air and the clear sky, singing tohis little band of men. 

And to some one more than man, my friends. For his poetry was poetryconcerning God. His song was a song to God. He does not sing of his ownsorrows to himself, as too many poets have done ere now. He does notsing to his men; though he no doubt wished them to hear him, and learnfrom him, and gain faith and comfort and courage from his song. He singsof his sorrows to God Himself; to the God who made heaven and earth; theGod who is above the heavens, and His glory above all the earth. 

This is the secret, the virtue, the charm of the song; that it sings toGod. This is why it has passed into many lands, into many languages, through hundreds and hundreds of years, and is as fresh, and mighty, andfull of meaning and of power, now, here, to us in England, as it was toDavid, when he was a poor outlaw, wandering in the hills of the littlecountry of Judaea, more than 2000 years ago. 

The poet says, A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, and this psalm is most beautiful, and a joy for ever to delicate andnoble intellects. But more, a thing of truth is a help for ever. Andthis psalm is most true, and a help for ever to all sorrowing and wearyhearts. For the Spirit of truth it was, who put this psalm into David'sheart and brain; and taught him to know and say what was true for him, and true for all men; what was true then, and will be true for ever. 

And what in it is true for ever? The very figures, the metaphors of thepsalm are true for ever. "Under the shadow of Thy wings shall be myrefuge"--that is a noble figure; can we not feel its beauty? And more. Do none of us know that it is true? David did not believe any more thanwe do, that God had actual wings. But David knew--and it may be some ofus know too--that God does at times strangely and lovingly hide us; keepus out of temptation; keep us out of harm's way; as it is written, "Thoushall hide them privately in Thy presence from the provoking of all men. Thou shall keep them in Thy tabernacle from the strife of tongues. " Ah, my dear friends, in such a time as this, when the strife of tongues isonly too loud, have you never had reason to thank God for being, by someseemingly mere accident, kept out of the strife of tongues and out ofyour chance of striving too, and of making a fool of yourself like toomany others? The image of the mother bird, hiding her brood under herwings, seemed to David just to express that act of God's fatherly love, in words which will be true for ever, as long as a brooding bird is lefton the earth, to remind us of David's song; and of One greater thanDavid, too, who said--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I havegathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not. " God grant that we all may do, when our timecomes, that which those violent conceited Jews would not do; andtherefore paid the awful penalty of their folly. 

And the darker and more painful figures of the psalm: are they not truestill? Is not a man's soul, even in this just and peaceful land, and faroftener in lands which are still neither just nor peaceful--Is not aman's soul, I say, sometimes among lions?--among greedy, violent, tyrannous persons, who are ready to entangle him in a quarrel, shout himdown, ay, or shoot him down; literally ready to eat him up? Are not thechildren of men still too often set on fire; on fire with wild partycries, with superstitions which they do not half understand, with bruteexcitements which pander to their basest passions, running like fire fromhead to head, and heart to heart, till whole classes, whole nationssometimes, are on fire, ready like fire to consume and destroy all theytouch; and like fire, to consume and destroy themselves likewise?

Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and theirtongue a sharp sword? Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue: butthey know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears andarrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult. Are there none left, who set nets for their neighbours' feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing, by tricks of trade and tricks of party?--none who, like the Scribes ofold, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for aword; and who, like David's enemies, fall now and then into the very pitwhich they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?

My friends, such men will be, as long as there is sin upon the earth. Their weapons are very different now from what they were in David's time:but their hearts are the same as they were then. "The works of the fleshthey do, which are manifest;" and a very ugly list they make; as all whoread St Paul's Epistles know full well. 

But such men have their wages. God is merciful in this; that He rewardsevery man according to his work. And He is merciful to the whole humanrace, in rewarding such men according to their work. To the flesh theysow, and of the flesh they shall reap corruption. Of old it waswritten--"The wages of sin are death;" and that, like all God's words, isa Gospel and good news to poor human beings. For if the wages of sinwere not death, what end could there be to sin, and therefore to misery?

But while such men exist, how shall a man escape them? How shall hedefend himself from them? Not by craft and falsehood, not by angryreplies, not by fighting them with their own weapons. The honest man isno match for them with those. The man who has a conscience is no matchfor the man who has none. The man who has no conscience does what hewills; everything is fair to him in war; and there--in hisunscrupulousness--lies his evil strength. The man who has a consciencedares not do what he likes. His scruples--in plain words, his fear ofGod--hamper him, and put him at a disadvantage, which will always defeathim, as often as he borrows the devil's tools to do God's work withal. 

He must give up those weapons, as David threw off Saul's armour, when hewent to fight the giant. It was strong enough, doubt not: but he couldnot go in it, he said; he was not accustomed to it. He would takesimpler weapons, to which he was accustomed; and fight his battle withthem, trusting not in armour, but in the name of the living God. 

In the name of the living God. That is the only sure weapon, and theonly sure defence. In that David trusted, when he went to fight thegiant. In that he trusted, when he was hid in the cave. And because hetrusted in God, he prayed to God. He spoke to God. Remember that, andunderstand how much it means. David, the simple yeoman's son, theoutlaw, the wanderer, despised and rejected by men, one who was noscholar either, who very probably could neither read nor write, and knewneither sciences nor arts, save how to play, in some simple way, upon hisharp--this man found out that, however oppressed, miserable, ignorant hewas in many respects, he had a right to speak face to face with theAlmighty and Infinite God, who had made heaven and earth. He found outthat that great God cared for him, protected him, and would be true tohim, if only he would be true to God and to himself. What a discoverywas that! Worth all the wealth and power, ay, worth all the learning andscience in the world. --To have found the pearl of great price, the secretof all secrets; I, David, may speak to God. 

Ah, my friends, consider the meaning of that. Consider it, I say. Forwhen that great thought has once flashed across a man's mind, he is a newcreature thenceforth. He need speak to no father-confessor or director;to no saints or angels; to no sages or philosophers. For he can speak toGod Himself, and he need speak to no one else. Nay, at times he darespeak to no one else. If he can tell his story to God, why tell it toany of God's creatures?

He is in the presence of God Himself, God his Father, God his Saviour, God his Comforter; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is listening to him. To God he can tell all his sorrows, all his wrongs, all his doubts, allhis sins, all his weaknesses, as David told his; and God will hear him;and instead of striking him dead for his presumption or for hissinfulness, will comfort him; comfort him with a feeling of peace, offreedom, of being right, and of being safe, such as he never had before;till all the troubles and dangers of this life shall seem light to him. Let the world rage. Let the foolish people deal foolishly, and thetreacherous ones treacherously. For if God be with a man, who can beagainst him? He has no fears left now. He has nothing to do, save tothank God for his boundless condescension; and to trust on. To trust on. If he has set his heart on the Lord, he need not fear what man will do tohim. If his heart is fixed; if he is sure that God cares for him, hewill, as it were by instinct, sing and give praise to God, as the birdsings when the rain is past, and the sun shines out once more. 

But I think that when a man has reached that state of mind, as Davidreached it, he will rise, as David rose, to a higher state of mind still. He will rise, as David rises in this psalm, from thoughts about his ownsoul, to thoughts about God. In one word, he will rise from religion tothat which is above even religion, namely theology. 

His first cry to God was somewhat selfish. He went to God about himself;about his own sorrows and troubles. That is natural and harmless. Thechild in pain and terror cries to its mother selfishly to be helped outof its own little woes. But when it is helped, and comforted, and safein its mother's bosom, and its sobbing is over, then it forgets itself, and looks up into its mother's face, and thinks of her, and her alone. 

And so it should be with the man whom God has comforted. When thedeliverance has come; when the peace of mind has come; then surely, if hebe worthy of the name of man, he will forget himself, and his own pettysorrows; and look up to God, to God Himself, and say within hisheart--This great awful Being, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, who yetcondescends to take care of a tiny creature like me, who am, incomparison with Him, less than the worm which crawls upon the ground, less than the fly which lives but for an hour--This God, so mighty andyet so merciful: who is He? What is He like? He is good to me. Is Henot good to all? He is merciful to me. Is not His mercy over all Hisworks? Nay, is he not good in Himself? The One Good? Must not God beThe One Good, who is the cause and the fountain of all other goodness inman, in angels, in all heaven and earth? But if so--what a gloriousBeing He must be. Not merely a powerful, not merely a wise, but aglorious, because perfect, God. Then will he cry, as David cries in thisvery psalm--"Oh that men could see that. Oh that men could understandthat. Oh that they would do God justice; and confess His glorious Name. Oh that He would teach them His Name, and shew them His glory, that theymight be dazzled by the beauty of it, awed by the splendour of it. Ohthat He would gladden their souls by the beatific vision of Himself, tillthey loved Him, worshipped Him, obeyed Him, for His own sake; not foranything which they might obtain from Him, but solely because He is Theperfectly Good. Oh that God would set up Himself above the heavens, andHis glory above all the earth; and that men would lift up their eyesabove the earth, and above the heavens likewise, to God who made heavenand earth; and would cry--Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory andhonour and power; for Thou hast made all things, and for Thy pleasurethey are and were created; and Thy pleasure is, Peace on Earth, andGoodwill toward men. Thou art the High and Holy One, who inhabitesteternity. Yet Thou dwellest with him that is of a contrite spirit, torevive the heart of the feeble, and to comfort the heart of the contrite. We adore the glory of Thy power; we adore the glory of Thy wisdom: butmost of all we adore the glory of Thy justice, the glory of Thycondescension, the glory of Thy love. "

And now, friends--almost all friends unknown--and alas! never to be knownby me--you who are to me as people floating down a river; while I thepreacher stand upon the bank, and call, in hope that some of you maycatch some word of mine, ere the great stream shall bear you out ofsight--oh catch, at least, catch this one word--the last which I shallspeak here for many months, and which sums up all which I have beentrying to say to you of late. 

Fix in your minds--or rather, ask God to fix in your minds--this one ideaof an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which yourespect and love in man; good as you, and I, and every honest man, understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand andall-illuminating idea; slowly, and most imperfectly at best: for who ismortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of theinfinitely good God? But see then whether, in the light of that oneidea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relations of God toman; whether a Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation; theIncarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph, of the Son ofGod--whether all these, I say, do not begin to seem to you, not merelybeautiful, not merely probable; but rational, and logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of An Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the Universe. 

And so I leave you to the Grace of God. 

Footnotes:

{0a} Second edition, pp. 78, 79. 

{39} J. P. Richter. 

CAMBRIDGE. PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M. A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.