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A SERMON.

Isaiah Ix., 22. " A little one shall become a thousand.''

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In everything relating to our spiritual life, it is not easy to determine whether we are more influenced by the certainty of the past, or by the promise of the future. Our Faith at one time looks back to the Sufferings, and Death, and Re- surrection of our Blessed Redeemer, and at another time looks forward to His second coming, and to the revelation of His heavenly glory. In like manner all the greatest joys of life are made up either of memory or of hope : and the present sinks into insignificance by the side of the accumu- lated and unbounded treasures of the past and of the future. In the highest subjects of spiritual thought, such as the facts of the Death and Resurrection of our Lord, and the hope of His second coming, it is impossible to say which of the two kinds of Faith ought to move us most. Rather let us consider, that both united make up that one perfect motive which ought to influence every thought, and word,

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^€^^^ -^^ ---^^^

GOD'S REVELATION AND MAN'S MORAL SENSE

CONSIDERED IN REFERENCE TO THE

SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS.

A SERMON,

PREACHED BEFOKE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFOIID,

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT, MARCH 9, 1856.

REV. FREDERICK MEYRICK, M.A.,

FELLOW OF TKINITT COLLEGE, AND OKE OF TUE SELECT PHEACHEE8 BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE VICE-CHANCELLOR.

OXFOKD,

AND 377, STRAND, LONDON:

JOHN HENKT and JAI^IES PAEKER.

M DCCC LTI.

A SEEMON,

Heb. ix. 11, 12.

" But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with bands, that is to say, not of this building ; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemp- tion for us."

Each book of the New Testament implies the whole of the Christian scheme ; yet each teaches its own lesson. One is the doctrine throughout ; yet, as that unity of doctrine contains within itself variety, so each portion of Holy Writ more empha- tically lays down and enforces one particular por- tion of the truth. Thus the Epistles to the Gala- tians and to the Ephesians, to take no other exam- ple, entirely coincident as they are in their teach- ing, yet dwell more specially each on different points of the faith ; and so the Epistle to the Hebrews, from which my text is taken, will be found to contain a special lesson of its own. That lesson is the connexion between the dispensations of the Old and New Testaments, and more espe-

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cially the position held by our Lord Jesus Christ in relation to the figures and types of the Jewish covenant. Thus it is pointed out that He was the great Prophet and Lawgiver typified by Moses, the great High Priest typified by Melchisedec and Aaron, the great Captain of Salvation typified by Joshua ; but most of all He is depicted to us as the great antitype, who was dimly foreshadowed by the Mosaic sacrifices, the one great predestined Victim to be offered by Himself, the true High Priest, the Sin-offering for the world, the Expiation for all mankind.

Thus Bishop Butler writes: — "The doctrine of the Epistle plainly is, that the legal sacrifices were allusions to the great and final atonement to be made by the blood of Christ, and not that this was an allusion to those\"

Indeed, the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is the key, and the only key, by which we can under- stand the meaning of the system of Jewish sacri- fices, and the prevalent practice of propitiatory rites among the heathen. Without this key all is perplexity and confusion ; with it, all is clear and comprehensible. Everywhere, throughout the world, we meet with the belief that two things are necessary for man, by which to approach his Maker : the one is Prayer, and the other Pro- pitiation ; and the means by which this propitia- tion is to be effected is as universally held to be

* Anal., part ii. c. 5.

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Sacrifice. Thus much is an acknowledged fact,— acknowledged by all whose dogmatic bias is not so strong as to prevent them from accepting the plainest evidence of history. How are we to ac- count for the fact ? Among the Jews, we know that propitiatory sacrifices were established directly by Divine appointment ; and further, we know, if we believe the words of Holy Writ, that such sa- crifices were only efficacious, so far as they were efficacious, because they were the signs and types of the Sacrifice of the Cross. The origin of sa- crifices in the heathen world is more uncertain. The more common opinion is, that they too were of Divine original appointment, and that they were propagated throughout the world together with the growth of mankind, as commanded at first by God. Thus Jones of Nayland writes : — " It was never thought, from the days of Cain and Abel, that there could be such a thing as piety to God without sacrifice. And the same holds good to this day. He that does not offer to God some sacrifice is not pious, but impious ; his prayers are an abomination. But how could such a per- suasion enter into the heart of man, otherwise than by revelation from God ? No man could think that the shedding of innocent blood would take away sin, unless he had been originally told so on unexceptionable authority ; so that the very existence of such a thing in the world is sufficient to prove that it came from revelation ; and divines

think, with good reason, that it came in with the first promise in Paradise : — * The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head''.'" And Bishop Butler : — " Sacrifices of expiation were commanded of the Jews, and obtained amongst most other nations from tradition, whose original, probably, was revelation ^"

If, then, the sacrifices of the heathen were ap- pointed originally by God, we know at once their purpose. They were intended, like the Jewish sacrifices, symbolically to represent the efficacious Sacrifice of the Cross ; but let us suppose, as others have thought, that we have not sufficient grounds for believing in the Divine original ap- pointment of heathen sacrifices ; still their exist- ence would imply a universal sense of the need of expiation by sacrifice ; a craving of the great heart of mankind, which would indeed speak the voice of God, for the maxim is a sound one, o ir aa l Sokei, TOUT eluai (pajxev. And thus they would in truth support the doctrine of the Cross in a some- what diflTerent way, indeed, yet as strongly as though they had, like the Jewish rites, been insti- tuted directly to shew forth His death until He earned

^ Religious Worship of the Heathens, vol. vi. p. 196. 1826.

= Anal. ii. 5.

<i Professor Jowett, (Cons men tary, vol. ii. p. 478,) holds that the Jewish and the heathen sacrifices must stand or fall toge- ther ; both of them, or neither of them, must, in his opinion,

Now let us suppose a man unacquainted with the Christian scheme of salvation, as contemplating this universal fact of expiatory sacrifice. Surely he would be much perplexed by it. He would mark " the smoke of the offerings going up," and " the carcases of dead animals strewing the courts of the temples. It would be a sight scarcely tolerable" to him^ He would say that there was no relation, so far as he could see, between " the death of a sheep and the pardon of sin^" He would count the idea of propitiation strange, and the notion of efficacy in the vicarious suffering of a creature

have owed their origin to Divine appointment, and have had a typical meaning. It is not at all necessary to hold this " con- nexion between the heathen and Jewish custom of sacrifices ;" but is not any one who does hold it, and who likewise professes a belief in the Old and New Testaments as a Divine revelation, bound to regard both as of Divine appointment ? But Mr. Jowett does not so regard them : on the contrary, he ties the heathen and Jewish sacrifices together, for the purpose, as it would seem, of overthrowing the authority of the latter by the fact of the former. The Jewish sacrifices, he argues, cannot be held to have any other origin, or meaning, than the heathen sacrifices. The heathen sacrifices he then explains to have been performed with the following intent: — 1. That the gods might feast as men. 2. Something magical, and to us unintelligible. 3. To express vague awe. 4. To abolish ceremonial pollution. Is it not beyond measure strange to see the idea of providing food to the Lord God of Hosts, the Lord Jehovah, thus attributed to the Jewish sacrifices by means of the middle term of heathen sacrifices, as would seem to follow from Mr. Jowett's argu- ment ? That the thing really signified by heathen sacrifices was " propitiatory atonement," is shewn by Abp. Magee in answer to Dr. Priestley, vol. i. pp. 83 and 166. * Jowett, vol. ii. p. 477. ^ Jones of Nayland, vol. iii. p. 227.

absurd. Then let him be tauarht the doctrine of

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the Fall of ]\[an. Let him learn that once God and man walked together in the garden of the world as friends ; but that man had, in the abuse of his free-will, chosen evil instead of good ; that thenceforth his nature was corrupted by sin ; that he had severed himself from his Maker ; that God's face was turned away from him, and that however merciful his heavenly Father was, still that all that sinful man could deserve, and therefore receive, from Him who was the God of Justice, was punish- ment; and that there was no power left in man to draw himself out of this unhappy state. Let him be taught this, and let him feel in himself the working of original sin, and then he would acknowledge that there was indeed need for pro- pitiation ; that prayer was not in itself sufficient ; and he would search here and there for means of drawing nigh to God.

But still he would be perplexed. Why should this propitiation be in the form of a sacrifice ? How, he would ask, can the blood of bulls and goats cleanse away my sin, and make me capable of acceptance in God's sight? True, I understand and feel that some expiation is required ; but why should not an offering of the fruits of the ground, or any act of self-denial on my part, be as efficacious as the blood-shedding of an animal ?

At this point declare to him the wondrous fact, that the Son of God condescended to come down

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from heaven and to die upon the Cross ; open to hnn the doctrine of the One Great Sacrifice ; tell him, in the words of Scripture, that Christ is " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the worlds ;" that " God set Him forth to be a pro- pitiation through faith in His blood'';" that "we are reconciled to God by the death of His Son' ;" that "He redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for usJ ;" that " God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imput- ing their trespasses unto them"" ;" that Christ " re- conciled both Jews and Gentiles unto God in one body by the Cross ^ ;" " that He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world "" ;" that it was not really " the blood of bulls and of goats" which "took away sin," but " the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all";" that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many"." Would there not be a flood of light thrown back upon his difficulties ; would he not confess that this did indeed make clear what was before perplexing to him ; that he had now been supplied with an explanation which

K John i. 29.

^ Rom. iii. 25. — Professor Jowett translates ^ili nla-Teos eV

Tw avTov aifxaTi, "through faith, by Mis blood;" remarking, as

his reason, that no such expression as faith in the blood, or even

in the death of Christ, occurs in Scriptm*e. — Vol. ii. p. 121.

' Rom. V. 10. J 1 Ret. i. 19. "^2 Cor. v. 19.

' Eph. ii. 16. '" 1 John ii. 2.

n Heb. X. 10. ° Ileb. ix. 28.

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would, and which would alone, account for the phenomena which he had been studying?

It is a sore thing, which good men feel very deeply, that it is necessary from time to time to recur to, and to argue for, such a prime truth as the Expiatory Sacrifice of Christ, — the foundation- stone, without which the edifice of Christianity must fall headlong to the ground. St. Paul bids us not linger in such "principles of the doctrine of Christ," as "repentance from dead works and faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment ;" which he calls " laying the foun- dations again," instead of "going on unto perfec- tion^." How much less, then, in that which is the foundation of these foundations, without which each one of them would be unintelligible and meaning- less. Yet such necessity is sometimes laid upon us, and it is not without its advantages. Assured as we are of the soundness of our foundation-stones, we cannot fear from time to time to handle them, and try them, and exhibit their strength ; giieving only that they should serve to any as stumbling-stones and rocks of offence. In some such way as this God frequently brings good out of evil. It was the assaults of the Deists which called into existence the invincible corps of Christian apologists, — the Butlers, Berkeleys, Leslies, Paleys, and other writers, who proved incontestably the reasonableness of ac-

P Heb. vi. 1.

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cepting Christianity, though itself above reason. It was the assaults of Priestley and the Socinian school which brought out Archbishop Magee's unanswera- ble work on the Atonement and Sacrifice of Christ. And so we may each of us learn to realize our Lord Jesus Christ more truly and ^dvidly as our loving Saviour, when we have been led, by whatever cir- cumstances, to the nearer contemplation of Him as the Great Sin-ofFering, who hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, who was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities ; on whom the chastisement of our peace was laid, and by whose stripes we are healed.

It is especially the Cross — that is, the doctrine of the Sacrifice — which has ever been foolishness to the perplexed intellect of the world. Men will accept Christ in part of His character as Mediator. They will listen readily while they hear of Him as the reveal er of God's will, as publishing afresh the law of nature, as enforcing pure morality by precept and example. They will accept Him, too, as the King, as well as the Prophet. Nay, they are not unwilling to acknowledge Him in part of His Priestly cha- racter likewise. He may be the great Intercessor — but when the Law, the Prophets, the Evangelists, and the Apostles, with unfaltering voice and con- sentient testimony, represent Him as oflbring Him- self a Propitiatory Sacrifice, and so making Atone- ment for the sins of the world,— this is foolishness to the world ; it babbles about its reason or its moral

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sense, and explains away the doctrine (as anything and everything else might be explained away) as a mode of Jewish thought or expression.

I would desire this afternoon, though well con- scious of the awfulness of the subject, and the danger of handling it unworthily, to examine the plea put forward in the name of the Moral Sense. It is said that the doctrine of the Sacrifice is con- tradictory to the attributes of God ; for that, first, it is not in accordance with His Infinite Mercy to require a propitiation in place of granting a free and immediate pardon ; and, secondly, that it is not in accordance with His Infinite Justice to lay upon one the punishment of another's guilt. The first diffi- culty is summed up in the word sacrifice ; the second in the w^ord vicarious. These are, I believe, the real difficulties felt; and I would say, that the reason why I have selected them is not so much because they have been urged by any particular objector, as because they are the greatest difficulties that beset this portion of the truth ; and on that account, when our attention has been called to the subject, the most worthy of consideration.

I. In a cultured age, there are naturally found two classes of minds. Of one. Bishop Butler would serve as the type, who bowed his giant intellect be- fore the Word of God, because piety told him that it was the religious, and philosophy that it was the reasonable, course to pursue. The other is not able so to humble itself, and deals with Revelation as its

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superior, harmonizer and interpreter. The one ac- cepts God's account of Himself, however much en- veloped in mystery ; the other creates its God accord- ing to its own conceptions, and rejects any acts or qualities attributed to Him by revelation, which militate against such conceptions, as " involving contradiction to the Divine attributes'^." Is the latter, I will not say the religious, but the reason- able, course to pursue ?

1. In considering this subject, the first point to notice is this, — that God's nature must of necessity be to us incomprehensible. There are certain limit- ations to our faculties, within which alone, by a law of our minds, we are able to form positive concep- tions. Whatever transcends those limits is to us incomprehensible. Not to dwell on other points, there are two conditions under which alone we have perceived, and we can therefore, correctly speaking, only conceive or realize the nature of a Being who exists under the same conditions. These conditions are Time and Space. But God exists under neither of these conditions. The attributes, therefore, of Eternity and Omnipresence, which yet none would deny belong to Him, prevent the possibility of our comprehending His nature, and conceiving Him as He is^

2. Next we must observe that there are ideas or

<i Jowett, vol, ii. p. 482.

•• See the Rev. H. L. Hansel's profound and valuable work, " Prolegomena Logica;" and also his pamphlet on " Eternity."

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principles in our own minds which are apparently contradictory one to the other ; but yet we are un- able to reject either of them, because we find them as facts in ourselves. Thus the idea of the necessity of an external cause for the production of actions, (on which the Necessitarian founds his system,) and the idea of the self-originating power of the will, (on which is based the system of Free-will,) seem to con- flict with each other. Do we, therefore, conclude that they are absolutely contradictory, and therefore that one or other of them must be false ? We cannot do this, because both of them are given to us by our nature. What then ? We conclude that it is only relatively to our powers of apprehension that the contradiction exists; that while our minds are con- stituted as they are, the combination of these two ideas must be to us a mystery ; — not, in short, that they are contradictory to each other, but that we cannot reconcile them. So, too, the idea of God's Omnipotence and Providence, on which the doc- trine of Predestination rests, seems to conflict with this same idea of originating power as possessed by ourselves. Do we reject either? No ; we acknow- ledge a mystery, and say, not that these ideas are contradictory, but that we cannot reconcile them.

3. Thirdly, the conception that we have of God, whether drawn from Scripture or formed by the mind, is necessarily and rightly that of a nature containing and made up of all perfections. He is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, All-merciful, All-good,

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All-holy, All-just, All-pure, All-loving, All-right- eous. All good qualities in their utmost perfection are attributes of Ilim. But can we reconcile these attributes in their infinite perfection one with an- other ? Not so : we can take one of them, and follow it out, as it were, into infinity ; but then it must exist alone, — otherwise, after we have traced it, so to speak, for a little distance, we find it impinging against one of the other attributes. What are we then to do ? To cry out. Here is a contradiction ? No ; but to say thoughtfully, Here is to me a mys- tery : I cannot reconcile these two things, but I know that they are reconcileable, otherwise there could be no such Being at all as God.

Thus, we may grasp the idea of Omnipotence ; we may draw a picture to ourselves of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, bow- ing down before the Almighty One. We can present Him to ourselves as ruling with sway uncontrolled, and none saying Him nay ; as doing what He will, when He will, and as He will. But here we are, as it were, stopped. Can He do an act that is wrong? No ; for All-goodness is one of His attributes, as well as Omnipotence. Shall we then say that He is either not Omnipotent, or not All-good? No ; we acknowledge that there is, not a contradiction, but a mystery.

Or, again, we might take the old difficulty of un- doing the past, — the

Morof yap avTOV kou 6eus arepiaKeTai Ay€vr)ra iroLeiv aaor av y ireTrpayixeva.

^

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Can we reconcile this impotence with the perfect attribute of Omnipotence ? We may throw together a certain number of words about the difference be- tween Time and Eternity, and fancy that we have explained it, but the difficulty remains just the same. We have only explained why we cannot explain it. The truth is, that we do not limit Omnipotence by acknowledging the difficulty, but simply admit that our minds are not capable of grasping Omnipotence in its relation to a state of which we have had no experience.

4. Let us now apply the same line of thought to the two attributes of Infinite Justice and Infinite Mercy. We are able, more or less, to represent to ourselves the idea of a personification of Justice. We can conceive of an All -just Being dealing with every one according to his merits ; acting, as it were, by line and measure, from which He does not and cannot deflect ; dispensing reward to the righteous, and punishment to the guilty ; firm, unimpassioned, unbending ; ready, indeed, to receive the fallen to His favour, but only when the uttermost farthing has been paid, and the exact amount of satisfaction has been rendered.

Again, we are able, more or less, to represent to ourselves the idea of a personification of Mercy. We can conceive of an All-merciful Being, ready, willing, yearning to forgive, projecting Himself, as it were, from Himself, and starting forward to help the weak, to console the suffering, to lead the wan-

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dering, to bind up the broken heart, to overlook the deficiencies of the unworthy, to put aside the sins of the guilty, to amnesty the past, to cover all under His wings, to gather all to His bosom, to wipe away all tears, and bid sorrow and sighing for ever flee away.

Separately, then, we may seem to be able to ap- proximate towards a conception of the attributes of Justice and of Mercy ; but if we try to combine the two ideas, w^e are utterly baffled. How can the righteous Judge cover the sins of the guilty ? How can the loving Father refuse to gather His erring children within His arms ?

Suppose, then, that Revelation represents God to us as the All-just One. What ! exclaims the Moral Sense of the natural man, will you tell me of a God who cannot freely forgive the guilty? "Even a man's debt maybe freely forgiven," and "we have not so learned the Divine Nature, believing that God, if He transcend our ideas of morality, can yet never in any degree be contrary to them'." Suppose, then, that Revelation represents Him to us as the All-merciful One. What ! exclaims the same Moral Sense, will you overthrow the foundation of law and right? Will you " sully the mirror of God's justice and overcloud His truth'?" "Will you cast a shadow upon His holiness?" " How then shall He judge the world?" "We have not so learned the Divine nature." Suppose, then, that

f Jowett, vol. ii. p. 472. * Jowett, vol. ii. p. 480.

B

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Revelation represents Him to us as at once All-just and All'm?reiful. This can only be done in one of two ways : either by representing Him in one set of texts, and in one course (if I may so speak) of His acts, All-just ; and in another set of texts, and another course of His acts, All-merciful ; or else, by limiting the one attribute by the other. If the former is done, then the Moral Sense objects against the first set of texts, and the first course of acts, that they do not represent Him as All-merciful ; against the second, that they do not represent Him All-just. If the latter, then cries the Moral Sense, you do not represent Him as All-just, or All-merci- ful, at all, but as something which is neither one nor the other.

Thus "we see, that whatsoever revelation of Him- self God vouchsafes to man, it 7?mst be open to cavils brought against it in the name of man's Moral Sense. If it were not so open, it would be thereby proved to be false, because it would be representing to us a Being whose nature our minds could grasp, and whose attributes we could recon- cile. I say, in the name of the Moral Sense, for it is not really that divine faculty which cavils and objects. The Moral Sense would be willing enough to confine itself w^ithin its own limits, and when taught by reason that it was dealing with the Infinite, w^hich the mind of man could not com- prehend, it w^ould be ready to acquiesce in the existence of a mystery. It is not, I say, the

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Moral Sense, but a subtle form of the " piide of human reasonV' which refuses to acknowledge that the powers of the human mind, and its fa- culties, are not the guage by which everything is to be tried, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. Would you span the heavens v^ith your hand ? Would you count the sands of the shore with your fingers ? Would you hold the ocean in a water-glass ? Each one of these attempts w^ould be more wise, more reasonable, and more philosophical, than objecting to the revelation of the Infinite, because our finite minds cannot reconcile His attributes ; and therefore, that His acts, of whatever nature they may be, are neces- sarily open to cavil, if cavil we will, not on account of the quality of the acts, but of our feebleness of capacity. When, then, we hear the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Cross objected to in the name of Moral Sense, as ''inconsistent with the Divine attri- butes," let us recollect what the objection really means. It means this, — that while confessedly in- capable of reconciling the requirements of Infinite Justice and Infinite Mercy ourselves ; while forced to allow that any wdiatsoever revelation to man of God's march of mystery must seem to conflict with one of these attributes or the other, not because it does conflict with either of them, but because of our own weakness of comprehension, yet we declare that we will reject that fundamental truth which Prophet, and

' Jowet.t, vol. ii. p. 468.

b2

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Evangelist, and Apostle with one tongue proclaim, which has been accepted by all Christians in all ages as the basis of Christianity, because it does seem to us to conflict with one of those attributes ; the very thing which, if it were true, we had to ex- pect, in consequence, not of the character of His acts, but of our limited capacity.

II. Almost all that I have said in reference to the supposed moral objections against the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Cross as irreconcilable with In- finite Mercy, wdll apply, with little change, to the supposed moral objections against the doctrine of a vicarious Sacrifice as irreconcilable with Infinite Jus- tice. On this point I must be very brief. The ob- jectors whom Bishop Butler in his day met and re- futed, declared that it represented God as indifferent whether He punished the innocent or the guilty. It will be enough for me at present to remind you of his answer, — how he points out "the extreme slightness of all such objections," by shewing " that they conclude altogether as much against God's whole original constitution of nature, and the wiiole daily course of Divine Providence in the government of the world, — that is, against the whole scheme of theism, and the whole notion of religion, — as against Christianity."

" So that," continues the religious philosopher, " the reason of their insisting upon objections of this kind against the Satisfaction of Christ, is either that

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they do not consider God's settled and uniform ap- pointments as His appointments at all, or else they forget that vicarious punishment is a providential appointment of every day's experience : and then, from their being unacquainted with the more gene- ral laws of nature, or divine government over the Tvorld, and not seeing how^ the sufferings of Christ could contribute to the redemption of it, unless by arbitrary and tyrannical will, they conclude His suf- ferings could not contribute to it any other way. And yet what has been often alleged in justifica- tion of this doctrine, even from the apparent natural tendency of this method of our redemption, — its tendency to vindicate the authority of God's laws, and deter His creatures from sin, — this has never yet been answered, and is, I think, plainly unanswerable, though I am far from thinking it an account of the whole of the case. But without taking this into consideration, it abundantly appears, from the ob- servations above made, that this objection is, not an objection against Christianity, but against the whole general constitution of nature. And if it were to be considered as an objection against Chris- tianity, or considering it, as it is, an objection against the constitution of nature, it amounts to no more in conclusion than this, that a divine appoint- ment cannot be necessary or expedient, because the objector does not discern it to be so ; though he must own that the nature of the case is such as renders him incapable of judging whether it be so

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or not ; or of seeing it to be necessary, though it were so"."

I have here quoted the words of the author re- ferred to, because they receive a double weight by the fact of their being the words of Butler — Butler, whose great calm mind surveyed, and estimated, and balanced all the objections which have been urged against the received doctrine of the Atonement, and after weighing them one by one, and all together, laid them aside as being " neither philosophy nor faith"," while the doctrine of the Propitiatory and Vicarious Sacrifice was both.

I will but add, that the doctrine of Original Sin is open to exactly the same objection as the doc- trine of the Atonement, and in equal degree ; and that St. Augustine, in answering the Pelagian's question, — " How is it just that other men should be hable to punishment for Adam's sin?" has in effect answered the difficulty, " How is it just that Christ should suffer for offences not His own'' ?" A

" Anal., part ii. c. 5.

^ Jowett, vol. ii. p. 481.

y Professor Jowett rejects the received doctrine of Original Sin as well as the received doctrine of the Atonement. " How slender is the foundation in the New Testament for the doctrine of Adam's sin being imputed to his posterity," (p. 162). " The language that he (St. Paul) here uses is that of his age and country," (p. 165.) "It was a confusion of a half-physical, half-logical, or metaphysical, notion, arising in the minds of men who had not yet learnt the lesson of our Saviour, ' That which is from without defileth not a man,' " (ibid.) " Too little regard has been paid to the extent to which St. Paul uses figurative

2;]

mystery we acknowledge it, and as a mystery we accept it, but only such a mystery as the feebleness of our minds necessitates. In itself a deep, and pro- found, and, to other intelligences, it may be, an open and patent act, at once of Infinite Justice and Infinite Mercy, to us it necessarily is mysterious.

It may be said, Is, then, our sense of natural Justice no guide to our conception of the Divine Justice ? Nay, it is a guide to it, but it is not the measure of it. It is a finger-post which directs us towards it, not the plummet which sounds its depths. The course at once of piety and of rea- son, is not to make our own minds, and the ideas of our own minds, the standard by which to test God and God's doings, but to accept Him as He has revealed Himself in His nature and His acts

language, and to the mannei- of his age in interpretations of the Okl Testament. The difficulty of supposing him to be alle- gorizing the narrative of Genesis is slight in comparison with the difficulty of supposing him to countenance a doctrine at variance with our first notions of the moral nature of God," (p. 167). Here we have a specimen of Mr. Jowett's method, which appears to be — 1. to submit the revelation of the Infinite to the test of his o\*n finite capacity ; 2. to reject whatever his moral sense chooses to object to ; 3. to explain away what he has rejected as something which has arisen from the misunder- standing of figurative language on the part of interpreters, and from the use of the modes of thought the manners and the language of their age and countrj', on the part of the writers. For a masterly statement of the doctrine of Original Sin, see The Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, by the llev. J. B. Mozley,— one of the ablest theological treatises which has been M'ritten for many years.

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to us, and then we may and shall see how wonder- fully the Christian scheme does meet the difficulties of our moral natures, — how true indeed it is that the foohshness of God is wiser than men. Let us then first mark some of those texts in which Scripture especially sets forth Christ as the Pro- pitiatory Sacrifice for us : — "Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- tion through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God^" wTites St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans : " Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins," in the Epistle to the Galatians^: "Christ our Pass- over is sacrificed for us," in the Epistle to the Corinthians^: "Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour," in

' Rom. iii. 24.

» Gal. i. 4. — Professor Jo^Yett thus comments on this text : *' When it is said that Christ gave Himself for our sins, or as a sin-ofFering, the shadow must not be put in the place of the substance, or the Jewish image substituted for the truth of the Gospel. On such language it may be remarked, (1.) that it is figurative ; natural and intelligible to that age, not equally so to us . . . (5.) that expressions such as that which we are con- sidering seldom occur in the writings of St. Paul . . . (6.) that in general, the thing meant by them is that Christ took upon Him human flush, that He was put to death by sinful men, and raised men out of the state of sin, — in this sense taking their sins upou Himself." -Vol. i. p. 211.

" 1 Cor. V. 7.

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the Epistle to the Ephesians^ The language of the Epistle to the Hebrews is the same through- out'^. "Who His own Self bare our sins in His own body on the tree," writes St. Peter *"; and again: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust ^" "He is the Propitia- tion for our sins," writes St. John ^. "This is

c Eph. V. 2.

^ Hcb. ii. TO, V. 9, vii. 25, ix. 11, 28, x. 4 — 10, &c.— Professor Jowett apparently rejects the Epistle to the Hebrews, not only as a work of St. I'aul, which he is quite justified in doing, but as a part of inspired Scri];ture. I say apparently, because he has not expressed himself with the clearness which it was desirable that he should have used on so momentous a sixbject. In vol. ii. p. 476 he writes : " It is in the Epistle to the Hebrews that this reflection of the New Testament in the Old is most distinctly brought before us. There, the temple, the priest, the sacrifices, the altar, the persons of Jewish history are the figiu'es of Christ and the Church. In the Epistles of St. Paul it is the rarity rather than the frequency of such images which is striking. It is the oiiposilion, and not the identification, of the Law and the Gospel which is the leading thought of his mind. Rut in the Epistle to the Hebrews they are fused in one ; the New Testa- ment is hidden in the Old, the Old revealed in the New. And from this source, and not from the Epistles of St. Paul, the lan- guage of which we are speaking has passed into the theology of modern times." And in p. 482 : " We can live and die, in the language of St. Paul and St. John, without fear for ourselves, or dishonour to the name of Christ. We need not change a word that they use, or add on a single consequence to their statement of the truth. There is nothing there repugnant to our moral sense." We can hardly doubt that these hitter words are used with an exclusive meaning, and that Pjol'essor Jowett intends by them to put aside the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and probably of the Epistles of St. Peter.

• 1 Pet. ii. 24. f 1 Pet. iii. 18. el John ii. 2.

26

My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins," says our Lord Himself*. " The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all," says Isaiah, in the spirit of prophecy. But why should I add more ? From eveiy book and every line of the Bible breathes forth the same truth. It is the foundation-stone of all that Christ taught, His Apostles preached, and Christians believe. Once more to quote Bi- shop Butler : —

" Christ offered Himself a Propitiatory Sacrifice, and made atonement for the sins of the world . . . And this sacrifice was, in the highest degree, and with the most extensive influence, of that efficacy for obtaining pardon of sin, w^hich the heathens may be supposed to have thought their sacrifices to have been, and which the Jewish sacrifices really were in some degree, and with regard to some persons '."

And again : —

" The doctrine of the Gospel appears to be, not only that lie taught the efficacy of repentance, but rendered it of the efficacy which it is by what He did and suffered for us ; that He obtained for us the benefit of having our repentance accepted unto eternal life ; not only that He revealed to sinners that they were in a capacity of salvation, and how they might obtain it ; but, moreover, that He put

^ Matt. xxvi. 28. ' Anal. ii. 5.

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them into this capacity of salvation by what He did and suffered for themJ."

And when we have thus, on the authority of Revelation, accepted, and grasped, and embraced the great truth, that (in the words of our Church) He " truly suffered, was crucified, dead and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a Sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men^j" that "He came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by the Sacrifice of Himself once made, should take away the sins of the world ' ;" that " the offering of Him once made is that perfect Redemp- tion, Propitiation, and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone*";" that " He suffered death upon the cross for our redemption;" and "made there, by His one obla- tion of Himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" ." When, I say, we have, on the authority of Revelation, embraced this blessed truth, then we may see how in fact our Moral Sense does bear witness to it, how our sense of justice, and our belief in His infinite love, are both satisfied, so far as they can be satisfied, by this instance at once of the goodness and severity of God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. " O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of

J Anal. ii. 5. ^ Art. II. ' Art. XV.

"' Art. XXXVI. " Conimuiiioii Service.

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God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or who hath been His coun- sellor. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things"."

Christ hanging upon the cross for us ! It is our only hope, our only consolation, our only confidence, our only trust. " The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom : but we preach Christ crucified, unto the JeW'S a stum- bling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them W'hich are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . . But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteous- ness, and sanctification, and redemption p." Every dav during the next week the Church will bring before you, for reverent and loving contemplation, the form of the Man of Sorrows, despised and re- jected of men, bearing our griefs, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and pour- ing out His soul unto death for us. One after another each Evangelist takes up the tale, and leads us on with him from the garden to the cross. Remember that we must be the better or the worse for each Holy Week as it passes : better, by God's

° Rom. xi. 33. P 1 Cor. i. 22-25, 30.

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grace, if we linger lovingly and reverently with Him, and watch the awful agony of that sinless soul, when He was enshrouded and enveloped in the sins of men, and His Father's face was for a mo- ment turned away from Him, the child of Adam, on whom the Lord had laid the iniquity of us all ; worse, if we look on as cold spectators, speculating and criticising, instead of falling on our knees and wor- shipping ; or growing callous, as though the things which we saw and heard were but as the scenes and words of one of our childhood's tales, which now can stir the heart no more. Oh, brethren, that our hearts were with Him more constantly in His Passion ; that in our heart of hearts the image of Jesus cruci- fied was more deeply impressed ! Surely, then, we should not fret, and fume, and toss wearily to and fro, as now we do ; we should not fix our affections on the wretched prizes that this world has to bestow ; we should not jostle one another in our course ; we could not be envious and jealous, — we could not be proud, revengeful, resentful ; we should recog- nise each other as brethre i indeed, redeemed by the same most precious blood ; we should be more humble, more gentle, more considerate, — less cold, and harsh, and supercilious,— more worthy to be called the disciples of the Crucified, who for us en- dured that agony in the garden of Gethsemane, and that anguish on the hill of Calvary.

Brethren, we have much to be thankful for, but there is nothing which should call forth the thank-

30

fulness of our inmost souls like this act of wondrous love. We have much to be thankful for, — untold blessings of earth ; — He gives us, as He thinks fit, the strong limbs and the springing enjoyment of life, and the stout heart to bear up against mis- fortune. And He opens to us the gates of know- ledge, and gives us entrance into the glorious world of thought and intellect ; and He gives us friends whom we may love, — some that we may help on, and cheer, and strengthen in their struggle with the diffi- culties and perplexities which oftentimes well-nigh appal the young heart, however gallant, as it buffets with the breakers that burst along the edge of life ; some to whom we may look up with affection and respect, and take courage from the knowledge that such persons live ; and some with whom we may interchange our thoughts and feelings, sure of a responsive sympathy. There is indeed no earthly blessing so great, no boon among all those that God gives to man, so precious as that of free, frank, bro- therly love, when heart meets heart, and eye meets eye, with no selfish reservation, undeadened by lust, unhardcned by worldliness,-unperverted by sophis- try. And these, and many more, are blessings which God gives to us in this place with a free and open hand. But what are they, what is anything on earth, when compared with the gift which God gave us in His Son, and the reconciliation which that great Offering once for all effected ? Nay, it is on account of that reconciliation that we are able to

/

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enjoy those other hlessings. Now we are as sons, and may look up into tlie face of our Ahha Father, and this creates a sunshine in the soul by which all else is illumined. Why should we not rejoice, like some high-spirited boy, (and what more touching, more beautiful spectacle ?) who does not shrink from his father's eye, who tells him his joys and sorrows, and whose fear has been mellowed into tender re- spect by its combination with love ? But what if tlie chastisement of our peace had not been laid upon Him ? What if the expiation and propitiation had not been wrought ? What if God's face were averted from us ? Then how should we venture to en- joy the blessings which we now find along our path ? Nay, rather would it not be our highest wisdom to go mourning all the day long, or to " cast ourselves down upon the earth, and put our face between our knees'!?" or to cry out with Moses, " If Thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray Thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in Thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness';" or with Job, " My soul is weary of my life ; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. . . . Thou huntest me as a fierce lion ; . . . Thou increasest Thine indignation upon me. . . . Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb ? Oh ! that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me' ;" or with Elijah, " make request for ourselves, that we might die and say, It is enough ; now, O

q 1 Kings xviil. 42. ■• Numb. xl. IT). » Job x. 1, 16—18.

•.VI

Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers' ?"

There is a deep moral in the account of the con- version of Justin Martyr, as it is made familiar to many of us by a living poet". We can see him, as he is there pictured, wandering forth along the shore of the sea, desolate, helpless, hopeless ; and the bright- ness of the sky, and the laugh of the ocean, did but add grief to his sorrow, for what had he to do with purity, and joy, and light, — he, the sin-stained, con- scious of nought within himself but discord and dis- array ? There w^as no chord to answer responsively to the joyousness of nature, and accordingly it only oppressed him with the more intolerable weight. We can see him as he threw himself down upon the shore, and burst into tears, — tears such as the strong man sheds in those few hours of agony w^hich fall to the lot of most of us but once or twice throughout our lives. What shall lighten that oppression '? He had striven in the noble fervour of youth and man- liness,— striven after holiness, truth, and beauty. He had said that he w^ould cleanse his soul from all that defiled ; that he would cast out all that offended ; that he would fling around himself the atmosphere of light and love, and tune each jarring tone within him into harmony. And now all had failed, — his palace of beauty, which he fain would have raised, was dashed to the ground, the

* 1 Kings xix. 4.

" See the Storv of Justin Mrrtvr in Trencli's Poems.

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mirror of his soul was cracked and bedimmed, and what should now give him comfort ? The riddle of life was too hard for him to read. What union be- tween God and such as he ? and what happiness to an immortal soul without union with God ? From the verge of despair he was led back by the gentle words of wisdom of the old man who had been sent to him in his hour of darkness. And which of those words would it have been that would have roused the weary-hearted man from his wretched- ness ? Would he have been moved, if he had been told that " a great moral act had been done by one in our likeness," and that this was " an assurance that God in Christ was reconciled to the world "" ?" Would he not rather have bid his teacher, who thus spoke to him, be gone, and not mock his misery with unmeaning words ? But when he heard of the love of the Father in sending His Son ; when he was told of Him that died upon the Cross for him ; when he learnt that by His Sacrifice the full satis- faction for sin had been made, and the ransom effected, and that his soul might be washed white

* " Not the sacrifice, nor tlie satisfaction, nor the ransom, but the greatest moral act ever done in this world, — the act, too, of one in our likeness, — is the assurance to us that God in Christ is reconciled to the world." — Joioett, vol. ii. p. 481.

I must express my entire inability to discern how any sober- minded man, with the Bible before him, or by the light of na- ture, could arrive at an assurance of reconciliation by reason of any " moral act" whatever, which is neither a " sacrifice," nor a " satisfaction," nor a " ransom."

C

34

in the blood of the Lamb, — then we can see his eye lighten and his brow relax ; the good news that he had yearned for was come, the pearl of great price that he had vainly sought after was found. We can well believe how different the face of nature appeared to him as he retraced his steps ; how the gladness of earth, and sky, and sea no longer oppressed him as something alien. He, too, could take part in their rejoicing, for he knew that he was reconciled, and brought nigh, and united to God by the precious blood of Christ.

There are two classes of minds that do not feel the sinfulness of sin, and have no sense of its burden. One of these is scarcely to be distin- guished from the beasts that perish. The sow that wallows in the mire knows not and recks not that it is filthy ; and there are men who go on day by day committing sin and living in sin, and their con- sciences have become hardened and crusted over; they know not and reck not of the hideous leprosy which they have superinduced upon themselves. The other is very different in appearance from the first. Upright, moral, self-controlled, its fault lies not in excess of passion, but in pei*version of intel- lect. Men have been found who, being led astray in the mazes of speculation, have dared to pro- nounce sin to be only a lower form of good, — con- founding thus the work of Satan with the work of God. To these men the doctrine of the Fall, and the doctrine of the Atonement, are alike foolishness :

35

their system does not need them, — nay, does not admit of them. Little as they themselves intend it, the main result of their work must be to en- courage the natural man to cease from struggling with himself, and to erect an intellectual support for the brutish man to justify himself in going on still in brutishness.

There are likewise two states of mind in which the oppression of sin's sinfulness is appreciated. One of these is not a permanent state, for if continuous, it must of necessity lead to madness ; but it is a state which many have been conscious of passing through. There is a time in the life of many a man, when the sinfulness of sin makes itself felt in all its awful reality, and there is present no sense of expiation to say, Thou shalt not die. It is a time when the mystery of existence first sinks down on us, and we are perplexed and amazed ; when all about us seems unreal, — when the heavens are brass, and the earth iron, and men seem made for suffering y, and all we

y " The dreary sickness of tlie soul That falls upon us in oui- lonely youth ; The fear of all bright visions leaving us. The sense of emptiness without the sense Of an abiding fulness anywhere ; When all the generations of mankind. With all their purposes, their hopes, and fears, Seem nothing truer than those wandering shapes Cast by a trick of light upon a wall, And nothing different from these, except In their capacity for suffering." — Trench, p. 115.

36

know is, that^there is a God far away, out of sight, above our heads, and that sin is reigning upon the earth, — sin within us, sin without us, all seems sin and disharmony, — and still there is conscience stand- ing by, and telling us of righteousness, and good- ne^s, and truth, and holiness.

But, blessed be God, neither is this the Christian frame of mind, though many a Christian has passed through it, as through the valley of the shadow of death. The Christian's lot is one of peace and gladness ; for though sin abound, yet the expiation for sin has been made, and has been accepted ; the power of sin is crushed, and its dominion destroyed. Be it ours, brethren, not to wallow in the filthiness of sin, not to explain away its sinfulness ; nor, again, to be confounded by the hoiTor of it ; but while we go softly, sadly, tearfully, along our way, because we are sinners, let us still cherish in our heart of hearts that peace which the world gave not, and the world cannot take away ; that peace which passeth understanding ; that peace which arises from the consciousness of reconciliation and union with our Abba Father ; that peace which our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ purchased with His own most precious blood, when He died for us on Calvary, the one accepted Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of all mankind, and of each one of us.

j^rue.^'^'^'^^^^ n^i'^^,^^ QO'^'^

•^

ANNIVERSARY SERMON,

PREACHED AT THE

PARISH CHUECH, BRADFIELD, BERKS.,

July 4th, 1856,

REV. H. J. C. HARPER,

VICAR OF MORTIMER, NOW LOUD BISHOP OF CHRIST CHURCH, NEAV ZEALAND.

/

LONDON: JOHN AND CHARLES MOZLEY,

6, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1856.

All money received by the sale of this Sermon ivill he sent to Bishop Harper for his College in New Zealand.

fT^l

16

to us, that Hi^ promises would be fulfilled in ever -widening measure, until tlie Lord had risen upon us, and His glory had been seen amongst iis. But w^here shall we look for men qualified for such a task ? for men willing and able to W'Ork for this social, moral, and religious reform, if our ancient Univer- sities fail us ? for it is not the stone of political reform we re- quire, but the bread of social and personal improvement. As yet, it must be confessed that darkness covers the land, and gross darkness the people. We long for a fuller and a clearer manifestation of the glory of our risen Lord, for some portion of the bright visions of the Prophet to be fulfilled in om* time, for our hearts not to be ever craving for that by which they are never to be gladdened. And as it is impossible for one member to suffer without the other members suffering with it — impossible for one portion of the Church to be in this perishing con- dition, w^hilst the other parts continue healthy and vigorous, I have brought this subject before you this morning, that you may more clearly know something of the danger by which we are threatened. For such a danger is the danger of us all : it can only be overcome by the earnest, vigorous, and united efforts of every member of Christ ; and if, through the supine- ness or neglect of any, the dark cloud be suffered to grow darker and heavier, we may find that it wall rapidly spread over the whole sky, until the Sun of Righteousness is altogether hidden from our eyes, until our glory as a Church and as a nation is altogether darkened ; and then, instead of our rejoicing over the knowledge of the Lord covering the laud as the waters cover the sea, w^e shall have to mourn that our teachers are removed into a corner, and that our candle has been put out.

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