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'he New Vor! '-Jblic Librar.
SERMONS
BT
HENRY MELYILL, B.D.,
MINISTEE OF CAMDEN CHAPEL, CAMBEEWELL, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE TO^TOB OF LONDON ; FOKMEaLY FELLOW AND TUTOa OF ST. PETEe's COLLEGE, CAMBEIDGE.
COMPRISING
^11 t^e giscottoes fitblisljeir bjj Constnt of i\t %Vii\u.
EDITED BY,
EIGHT EEY. C. PrM'ILVAINE, D. D.,
BISHOP OF THE PEOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHUECH IN THE DIOCESE OF OHIO.
IK TWO VOLUMES.
VOLUME I,
N I }T T B THOUSAND
STANFORD AND SWORDS, 137, BROADWAY.
1853.
TO THE
CONGREGATION OF CAMDEN CHAPEL.
C A M B E R W E L L ,
In acknowledgment of many kindnesses shown him, through years of heahh, and months of sickness ; and in the hope that what is now published may help to strengthen them for duty, and comfort them in trial, this volume is inscribed witb every sentiment of christian affection, by their faithful friend and pastor,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
The Author has selected the following sermons for publication, frora having observed that passages of Sciipture which may more easily be overlooked, as presenting nothing very prominent, prove especially interesting to an audience when shown to be " profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for in- struction in righteousness." He has material in hand for another volume of the like kind, and may hereafter commit it to the press, if he should have reason to think that the present has proved acceptable.
Cambxbwcll, Jaauary, 1843.
IRK ^ U3RARY1
15990
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
EDITOR'S PREFACE .... .... 5
SERMON I.— THE FIRST PROPHECY 9
SERMON II.— CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH - - - - 20
SERMON III.— THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE MERIT - - - - 30
SERMON IV.— THE HUMILIATION OF THE xMAN CHRIST JESUS - - - 40 SERMON v.— THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION VIEWED IN CONNEC- TION WITH THAT OF THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY - - 51 SERMON VI.— THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO REPRO- DUCE THEMSELVES ------- 61
SERMON VIE— THE POWER OF RELIGION TO STRENGTHEN THE HUMAN IN- TELLECT- - - - 71
SERMON VIII.— THE PROVISION MADE BY GOD FOR THE POOR - - . 83
SERMON IX.— ST. PAUL A TENT-MAKER 93
SERMON X.— THE ADVANTAGES OF A STATE OF EXPECTATION - - - lo:i
SERMON XI.— TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS 114
SERMON XII.— THE DIFFICULTIES OF SCRIPTURE - - - . - 124
SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, FEBRUARY, 1836.
SERMON I.— THE GREATNESS AND CONDESCENSION OF GOD - - 13K
SERMON II.— THE TERMINATION OF THE MEDI.ATORIAL KINGDOM - - 145 SERMON III— THE ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM THE POSSESSION OF THE
SCRIPTURES l.=,2
SERMON IV.— NEGLECT OF THE GOSPEL FOLLOWED BY ITS REMOVAL - leO
SPITAL SERMON.— PREACHED BEFORE THE LORD MAYOR &c. IN CHRIST
CHURCH, NEWGATE-STREET, APRIL, 1831 - - - 1G8
SERMONS PREACHED IN GREAT ST. MARY'S CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE,
AT THE EVENING LECTURE IN FEBRUARY, 1836 AND 1837-
SERMON (183G.)— THE GREATNESS OF SALVATION AN ARGUMENT FOR THE
PERIL OF ITS NEGLECT 179
SERMON.— ON THE EFFECTS OF CONSIDERATION 187
SERMON(1837.)— THE TWO SONS - 198
SERMON— THE DISPERSION AND RESTORATION OF THE JEWS - - - 207
SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, FEBRUARY, 1837.
SERMON I.— THE.UNNATURALNESS OF DISOBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL - 218
SER.MON II.— SONGS IN THE NIGHT 225
SERMON III.— TESTIMONY CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE - - - - 232
SERMON IV.— THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT - - - 240 SERMON.— THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL, PREACHED AT TRINITY CHURCH, CHELSEA, JULY, 1836, IN BEHALF OF THE EPISCOPAL FLOATING
CHAPEL - 247
SERMON —THE DIVINE PATIENCE EXHAUSTED THROUGH THE MAKING
VOID THE LAW ------- 2.55
SERMON .—THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE - 266
MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS.
SERMON I.— JACOB'S VISION AND VOW
SER.MoN II —THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON - 287
SER.MON HI.— THE RE8URRKCTI0N OF DRY BONES ... - 29G
SER.MON IV.— PROTESTANTISM AND POPERY 307
SER.MON v.— CHRISTIANITY A SWORD - - ... 319
SERMON VI.— THE DEATH OF MOSES - 328
SERMON VII. —THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST - . . . - 338
SERMON VIII.— THE SPIRIT UPON THE WATERS ... 348
SF.R.MON IX.— THE PROPORTION OF GRACE TO TRIAL - - - 359
SERMON X.— PLEADING BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS - - . 370
SERMON XI.— HEAVEN 381
SERMON XII.— GOD'S WAY IN THE SANCTUARY - - 394
SERMON XIII.— EyUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION - ^ - - 406
'276
EDITOR S PREFACE
The author of these discourses is well known in England as an eloquent and earnest preacher of the Gospel, " EnN-y itself," says the British Critic, " must acknowledge his great abilities and great eloquence." After having occupied the highest standing, while an under-graduate of the University of Cambridge, he was chosen to a Fellowship in St. Peter's College, and, for some time, was a tutor to that Society Thence he was called to the pastoral charge of Camden Chapel, (a pro-
?rietary chapel,) in the overgrown parish of Camberwell, one of the populous suburbs of London, he first twelve discourses in this volume were preached in that pulpit, and the rest, while he was connected therewith. It has not unfrequently been the privilege of the Editor to worship and iialen, in company with the highly interesting and intelligent congregation that crowds the pews and aisles, and every corner of a standing-place in that edifice; fully participating in that entire and delightful captivity of mind in which their beloved pastor is wont to lead the whole mass (/ Ilia immerous auditory.
Melvill is not yet what is usually called a middle-aged man. His constitution and physic^ powers are feeble. His lungs and chest needing constant care and protection, often seem deter mined to submit no longer to the efforts they are required to make in keeping pace with his high- wrought and intense animation. The hearer sometimes Hstens with pain lest an instrument so fi^il, and struck by a spirit so nerved with the excitement of the most inspiring themes, should suddenly break some silver cord, and put to silence a harper whose notes of thunder, and strains of warning, invitiition. and tenderness, the church is not prepared to lose. Generally, however, one thinks but little of the speaker while hearing Melvill. The manifest defects of a very peculiar delivery, both as regards its action and intonation : (if that may be called action which is the mere quivering and jerking of a body too intensely excited to be quiet a moment) — the evident feebleness and exhaustion of a frame charged to the brim with an earnestness which seems laboring to find a tongue in every limb, while it keeps in strain and rapid action every muscle and fibre, are forgotten, after a little progress of tlie discourse, in the rapid and swelling current of thought in which the hearer is carried along, wholly engrossed with the new aspects, the rich and glowing scenery, the bold promi nences and beautiful landscapes of truth, remarkable both for variety and unity, with which every turn of the stream delights him. But then one must make haste, if he would see all. Melvill de- livers his discourses as a war-horse rushes to the charge. He literally runs, till for want of breath he can do so no longer. His involuntary pauses are as convenient to his audience as essential to himself Then it is, that an equally breathless audience, betraying the most convincing signs of having forgotten to breathe, commence their preparation for the next outset with a degree of unan- imity and of business-like effort of adjustment, which can hardly fail of disturbing, a little, a strang- er's gravity,
There is a peculiarity in the composition of Melvill's congregation which contributes ranch to give peculiarity to his discourses. His chapel is a centre to which hearers flock, drawn by the re- putation of the preacher, not only from all the neighborhood, but from divers parts of the great me- tropolis, bringin'' und<;r his reach, not onl^ the highest intellectual character, but all varieties of states of mind ; from that of the devout believer, to that of the habitual doubter, or confirmed infidel. In this mixed multitude, young men, of great importance, occupy a large place. Seed sown in that congregation is seen scattered over aill London and carried into all England. Hence there is an evi- dent effort on tho part of the preacher tf) introduce as much variety of topic and of treatment as is consistent with the great duty of always preaching and teaching Jesus Christ; of always holding up the cross, with all ita connected truths surrounding it, as the one great and all-pervading subject of his ministry. To these circumstances he alludes in a passage towards the end of the serrnon on the Difficulties of Scripture, a sermon we would particularly recommend to tho reader — and a pas*
6 editor's preface.
a^c, intTChliKtnry to one of the most el<jqiient and impressive parts of the whole volume. _ '•' Ws feel (fie'says) thiit \ve have a (litlicnlt part to perform in ministering to the congregation which assem- bles within these walls. Gathered as it is from many parts and without question mcludmg, often- times, numbers who make no profession, whatsoever, of religion, we think it bound on us to seek out great variety of cnbjects, so that, if po.ssible, the case of none of the audience may be quite over- looked in a series of discourses." We know not the preacher who succeeds better in this respect; wlir) causes to pa.xs before his people a richer, or more complete array of doctrinal and practical truth; e.xhibits it in a greatc- variety of lights; surrounds it with a scenery of more appropriate and striking dhistration ; meets more of the influential difficulties of young and active minds ; grap- ples witii more of the real enmity of scei)ticism, and for all classes of his congregation more diligent- ^ "seeks out acceptable words," or brings more seasonably, out of his treasures, things new and old, and yet without failing to keep within the circle of always preaching Christ — teaching not on- ly the truth, but " tlie truth as it is in Jesus," without obscurity, without compromise, and without fear ; pointedly, fully, habiiually.
It is on account of this eminent union of variety and faithfulness, this wide compass of excursion without ever losing siglit of the cross as the central light and power in which every thing in religion lives, and moves, and has iu being ; it is because that same variety of minds which throng the seats and standing-places of Camden chapel, and hang with delight upon the lips of the preacher, finding iu his teaching what rivets their attention, rebukes their worldliness, shames their doubts, annihilates their difficulties, and enlarges their views of the great and precious things of the Gospel, are found every where in this land, especially among our educated young men, that we have sup- posed the pid)fication of these discourses might receive the Divine blessing, and be productive of very important Ijenefits.
It can hardly be iiecessarj' to say, that in causing a volume to issue from the press, as this does, one does not make himself responsible for everj' jot and tittle of what it contains. It may be cal culated powerfully to arrest attention, disarm prejudice, conciliate respect, stimulate inquiry, im- press most vital truth ; and in many ways effect a great deal of good, though we be not prepared tu concur with its author iu some minor thoughts or incidental ideas on which none of the great matters in his volume depend.
There are some aspects in which these discourses may be profitably studied by candidates for orders, and indeed by most preachers, exclusive of the substantial instruction of their contents. We do not I'efer to their style. This we cannot recommend for imitation. However we may like it iu Alelvill, because it is emphatically his, the mode of his mind; the gait in which his thoughts most naturally march on their high places; the raiment in which his inner man invests itself, with- out effort, and almost of necessity, when he takes the place of ambassador of the King of kings, we might not like it any where else. Howeyer this peculiar turn and swell of expression may be adapted to that peculiar breadth, and height, and brilliancy of conception for which this author is often distinguished; with all those other attributes which adapt his discourses to opportunities of usefulness not often improved; and a class of readers not often attracted, by the jjreacher; we should think it a great evil if our candidates for orders should attempt to apj)ear in such flowing robes. For the same reason that they sit well on him, would they sit awkwardly on them. They arc his, and not theirs. His mind was measured for such a dress. Nature made it up and adapt- ed it to his stylo of thought, insensible to himself. The diligent husbandman maybe as useful in his way, iw the prince in his. But the husbandman iu the equii)mcnt of the prince would be sadly out of k'cpiiig. Not more than if a mind of the usual turn and character of thought should emu- late the stride and the swing, the train and the plumage of Melvill.
It id in the expository character of this author's discourses, that we would present them for imi- tation. Of the expositions themselves, we are not speaking; but of the conspicuous fact that what- ever Scripture he selects, his sermon is made up of its elements. His text does not merely in- troduce his subject, but suggests and conUiius it; and not only contains, but is identical with it. His aim is confined to the single oljject of setting forth plainly and instructively some one or two great features of scriptural truth, of which the chosen passage is a distinct declaration. No matter what the tojiic, the hearer is sure of an interesting and prominent setting out of the text in its con- nection, and that it will exercise an important bearing upon every branch of the discourse, cou- stuntly receiving new lights and applications, and not finally relinquished till the sermon is ended, and the hearer Ikls obtained an inception oftliatone passage of the Bible upon his mind, never to be forgotten. In other words, Melvill is strictly a preacher upon texts, instead of subjects; upon truths, as expresse.i and connected in the Bible, instead of topics, as insulated or classified, accord- ing' to the ways of man's wisdom. This is precisely as it should be. The preacher is not called to deliver disserlnlinns upon (piestions of theology, or orations upon specific themes of duty and spiritual interest, but expositions of divine truth fis that is presented in the infinitely diversified combinations, and incident;d allocations of the Scriptures. His work is simply that of making, tlirough tlie blessing of CJckI. the Holy Scriptures " profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness." This he is to seek by endeavoring " rightly to divide the word of truth." Too much, Ijy far, has tlie preaching of these days dei)arted from this expository character. The praise «if invention is too much coveted. The simplicity of interpretation and ai>plication is too mu< h undervalued. We must be content to take the bread as the Lord has created it, and perform the humble office of distrihution, going round amidst the multitude, and giving to all as each may need, believing that he wh.i providt^l it will see that there be enough and to spare, instead of desiring to stand in the place of the Master, and improve by our wisdom the simple elements, " the Jive barley loaves" which he alone can make sufficient " among so many."
But apart from the duty of preaching uppn and out of the Scriptures, instead of merely taking a verse as the starting-place of our train of remark ; apart from the obligation of so expounding the word of God, that the sermon shall take its shape and character from the text; and the doctrine
EDITOR S PREFACE. 7
■nd the duty shall be taught and urged according to the relative bearings and proportions in -whicb they are presented therein ; this textual plan ot" constructing discourses is the only one by which a preacher can secure a due variety in his ministry, except he go outside the hmits of always preach' ing Christ cnicified, aud deal with other matters than such as bear an important relation to the per- son, office, and benefits of " the Lord our Righteousness." He who preaches upon subjects in divinity, instead of passages of Scripture, fitting a text to his theme, instead of extracting his theme from his text, will soon find that, in the ordinary frequency of parochial ministrations, he has gone the round, and traced all the great highways of his field, aud what to do next, without repeating his course, or changing his whole mode of proceeding, he will be at a great loss to discover. Dis- tinct objects in the preacher's message, like the letters in his alphabet, are few — few wheii it is coasidered that his life is to be occupied in exhibiting them. But their combinations, like those of the letters of the alphabet, are iiniumerable. Few are the distinct classes of objects which faake up the beautiful landscapes under the light and shadows of a summer's day. The naturalist, who describes by genera and species, may soon enumerate them. But boundless is the variety of as- pects in which they appear under all their diversities of shape, color, relation, magnitude, as the obser\'er changes place, and sun and cloud change the light. The painter must paint for ever to exliibit all. So as to the great truths to which the preacher must give himself for life. Their variety of combinations, as exhibited in the Bible, is endless. He who treats them with strict reference to all the diversities of shape, proportion, incident, relation, circumstance, under which the pen of inspiration has left them, changing his point of observation with the changing positions and wants of his hearers, allowing the lights and shadows of Providence to lend their rightful influ- ence in varying the aspect and applications of the truth — such a preacher, if his heart be fully ia his work, can never lack variety, so far as it is proper for one who is to " know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him cnicified." He will constantly feel as if he had only begun the work given him to do — furnished only a few specimens out of a rich and inexhaustible cabinet of gems. By strictly adhering to this plan, the author of these discourses attains unusual variety in his ministry, considermg that he makes it so prominently his business to teach and preach Jesua Christ.
But here it may be well to say that by variety, as desirable to a certain extent, in the preacher s ■work, we mean nothing \\]/ie originality. Some minds cannot help a certain measure of originality. They may treat of old themes, and with ideas essentially the same as any one else would employ, but with peculiarities of thought which set them far apart from all other minds. But to seek origi- nality, while it is very commonly the mistake of yomig preachers, is a very serious error. There cannot be any thing new in the preacher's message. He that seeks novelties will be sure to preach fancies. " The real difficulty and the real triumph of preaching is to enforce home upon the mind and conscience, trite, simple, but all-important truths ; to urge old topics in common language, aud to send the hearer back to his house awakened, humbled, and impressed ; not so much aston- ished by the blaze of oratory, but thinking far more of the argument than of the preacher; sensible of his own sins, and anxious to grasp the proffered means of salvation. To say the same things which the best and most pious ministers of Christ's church have said from the beginning ; to tread in their path, to follow their footsteps, and yet not servilely to copy, or verbally to repeat them; to take the same groundwork, and yet add to it an enlarged and diversified range of illustrations, brought up as it were to the age, and adapted to time aud circumstance; this is, we think, the true originality of the pulpit. To be on the watch to strike out some novel method of display, — to dash into the fanciful, because it is an arduous task to arrest the same eager notice by the familiar — this is not originality, but mannerism or singularity. Aud although few can be original, nothing is more easy than to be singular."
The discourses contained in these volumes are all that Melvill has published, unless there be one, or two, in pamphlet form, of which the Editor has not heard. We say all that Melvill has pub- lished. Many others have been published surreptitiously, which he never prepared for the press, and which ought not to be read as specimens of his preaching. In the English periodical called " The Pulpit," there are many such sermons, under the name of Melvill. In justice to that dis- tinguished preacher, and to all others whose names are similarly used, it should be known that the contents of that work are mere stenographic reports, by hired agents of the press, who go to church that they may get an article for the next number of The Pulpit. Wiiile the rest of the congregation are hearing the sermon tor spiritual, they are hearing it for pecuniary profit. We see no difference between a week-day press, furnished thus by Sunday writers, and a Sunday-press furnished by week-day writers. " The Pulpit" is in this way as much a desecrater of the Sab- bath as the " Sunday Morning Post," or " Herald." But this is not the point at present. We are looking at the exceeding injustice done to the preacher whose sermons are reported. It may be that he is delivering a very familiar, perhaps an unwritten discourse; special circumstances have prevented his devoting the usual time or mind to the preparation, or have interfered with his get- ing up the usual energy of thought for the work. He does not dream of the public press. The sermon may be useful for his people, but just the one which ho would dislike to send out before the world. Nevertheless, the reporter for The Pulpit has happened to choose his church, that morning, "for better, for worse,'" and he cannot lose his time. The tale of bricks must be ren- dered to the ta.skmaster. The press waits for its article, and the stenographer wants his wages, and favorable or unfavorable, the report must be printed. Like all such productions, it is of course often careless and inaccurate ; sometimes provokingly aud very injuriously inaccurate. The at- tention of the scribe happened to be diverted at a place of main importance ; ho lost the explana- tory remark, the qualifying words, the connecting link — his re[)ort istiius untrue : either he leaves the hiatus, occasioned by his negligence, unsupplied, or, what is often the case, daubs it up with his ov/n mortar, puts many sentences into the preacher's mouth of his own taste and divinity — thus is the precious specimen composed, aud that week is advertised, to the great mortification of the
B editor's preface.
alleged author, an original sermon in the last number of the Pulpit, by the Rev. Henry Melvtll,^e. Sucli is the iiistory of almost every sermon which has as yet beeu read in this country as belong- ing to that author ; The Tuljiit, or extracts from it having circulated widely, while the real sermons of Melvill, having been, prior to this, confined to volumes of English edition, are scarcely known among us. No one can help seeing how injurious such surreptitious publications must be to the preacher ; what a nuisance to the body whom they profess to represent. So is the magazine of which we have been speaking, regarded in England. Not unfrequently ministers have been obliged to print their discourses for the purpose of correcting the errors of iU reporters. More than once its Editor has been prosecuted for the purpose (though in vain) of stoppmg this exceeding- ly objectionable mode of sustaining " The Pulpit."
The editor of these volumes has thought it expedient to make these remarks by way of explanation of his'having excluded all the discourses ascribed to Melvill contained in The Pulpit. If there be any discourses under the same name, in the other periodical of the same character, called the British i'reacher, they are subject to the same condemnation.
It is no little evidence of the value of these sermons, in these volumes, which were preached before the University of Cambridge, that their publication was in consequence of a request " from the resident Bachelors and Under-graduates, headed by the most distinguished names, and numerously signed." A strong attestation has also been given not only to the University sermons, but to those preached iu the author's Chapel, in Camberwell, in the fact that, flooded as is the market with the immense variety of pulpit composition, which the London press continually pours in, so that a bookseller can scarcely bo persuaded to publish a volume of sermons at his own risk, and such a volume seldom reaches beyond a single edition, these of Melvill have, in a short time, attained their third, and do not cease to attract much attention. The British Critic, though criticising with some justice and more severity some peculiarities of our author, speaks of the Cambridge sermons as '• possessing many specimens of great power of thought, and extraordinary felicity and brilliancy of diction." "Heartily" does the Reviewer "admire the breathing words, the bold figures, the picturesque images, the forcible reasonings, the rapid, vi\-id, fer\ad perorations."
In conclusion of this Preface, the Editor adds the earnest hope that the author of these discourses may receive wages, as well in this country as his own — wages such as best pay the devoted minis- ter of Christ ; that he may reap where he did not think of sovnng, and gather where he did not ex- pect to strew, to the praise of the glory of our blessed Lord, aad Duly Savior Jesus Christ.
C P. M.
SERMON I.
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
■And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed nnd her seed : it shall bruise thy head. and thou shult bruise his heel." — Genesis, iii • 15.
Such is the first prophecy which oc- curs in Scripture. Adam and Eve liad transgressed the simple command of their Maker; they had hearkened to the suggestions of the tempter, and eaten of the forbidden fruit. Summoned into the presence of God, each of the three par- ties is successively addressed; but the serpent, as having originated evil, re- ceives first his sentence.
We have, of course, no power of as- certaining the external change which the curse brought upon the serpent. The terms, however, of the sentence, " upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," Gen. 3 : 14, seem to imply that the ser- pent had not been created a reptile, but became classed with creeping things, as a consequence of the curse. It is proba- ble that heretofore the serpent had been remarkable for beauty and splendor, and that on this account tl:|e tempter chose it as the vehicle of his approaches. Eve, in all likelihood, was attracted towards the creature by its loveliness ; and when she found it endowed, like herself, with the ])o\ver of speech, she possibly concluded that it had itself eaten of the fruit, and ac- quired thereby a gift which she thought confined to herself and her husband.
But we may be sure, that, although, to mark his hatred of sin, God pro- nounced a curse on the serpent, it was against the devil, who had actuated the serpent, that the curse was chiefly di- rected. It may be said that the serpent Itself must have been innocent in the matter, and that the curse should have fallen on none but the tempter. But you are to remember that the serpent
suffered not alone : every living thing had share in the consequences of dis- obedience. And although the eff'ect of man's apostacy on the serpent may have been more signal and marked than on other creatures, we have no right to conclude that there was entailed so much greater suffering on this reptile as to distinguish it in misery from the rest of the animal creation.
But undoubtedly it was the devil, more emphatically than the serpent, that God cursed for the seduction of man. The words, indeed, of our text have a primary application to the serpent. It is most strictly true, that, ever since the fall, there has been enmity between man and the serpent. Every man will in- stinctively recoil at the sight of a ser- pent. We have a natural and unconquer- able aversion from this tribe of living things, which we feel not in respect to others, even fiercer and more noxious. Men, if they find a serpent, will always strive to destroy it, bruising the head in which the poison lies ; whilst the serpent will often avenge itself, wounding its as- sailant, if not mortally, yet so as to make it true that it bruises his heel.
But whilst the words have thus, un- doubtedly, a fulfilment in respect of the serpent, we cannot question that their reference is chiefly to the devil. It was the devil, and not the serpent, which had beguiled the woman ; and it is only in a very limited sense that it could be said to the serpent, "Because thou hast done this." AVe are indeed so unac- quainted with transactions in the world of spirits, that we cannot pretend to de- termine what, or whether any, immedi- 2
10
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
ato change passed on tlie condition of Satan and his associates. If the curse upon the serpent took effect upon the devil, it would seem probable, tliat, ever since the fall, the power of Satau has been specially limited to this earth and its inhabitants. We may gather from the deniuiciation, " Uj)on thy belly shalt thou go, and chist shalt thou eat all the days of thy life," that, in place of being allowed, as he might before time have been, to range through the universe, machinating ii'Tainst the peace of many orders of intelligence, he was confined to the arena of humanity, and forced to concentrate his energies on the destruc- tion of a solitary race. It would seem altogether possible, that, after his eject- ment from heaven, Satan had liberty to traverse the vast area of creation ; and that far-off stars and planets were ac- cessible to his wanderings. It is to the full as p<»ssible, that, as soon as man apostatized, God confirmed in their al- legiance other orders of beings, and shielded them from the assaults of the evil one, by chaining him to the earth on which he had just won a victory. And if, as the result of his havinf se- duced our first parents, Satan were thus sentenced to confinement to this globe, we may readily understand how words, addressed to the serpent, doomino- it to trail itself along the ground, had distinct reference to the tempter by whom that serpent had been actuated.
But, whatever be our opinion concern- ing this part of the curse, there can be no doubt that our text must be explained of the devil, though, as we have shown you, it has a partial fulfilment in respect of the serpent. We must here consider God as speaking to the tempter, and announcing war between Satan and man. We have called the Avords a prophecy; and, when considered as ad- dresser! to the devil, such is properly their designation. But when we re- member that they were spoken in the hearing of Adam and Eve, we must re- gard thern also in th«' light of a promise. And it is well worth remark, that, be- fore God told the woman of her sorrow and her trouble, and before he told the man of the thorn, and the thistle, and Ihe dust to which he should return, he caused thera to hear words which must have inspired them with hope. Van- quished they were : and they mi-jht have
thought that, with an undisputed su- premacy, he who had prevailed to their overthrow would ever after hold them in vassalage. Must it not then have been cheering to them, whilst they stood as criminals before their God, expecting the sentence which disobedience had provoked, to hear that their conqueror should not enjoy unassaulted his con- quest, but that there were yet unde- veloped aiTangements which would en- sure to humanity final mastery over the oppressor ? And though, when God turned and spake to themselves, he gave no word of encouragement, but dwelt only on the toil and the death which they had wrought into their portion, still the prophecy to which they had listened must have sunk into their hearts as a promise; and when, with lingering steps, and the first tears ever wept, they departed from the glorious precincts of Eden, we may believe that one sustain- ed the other by whispering the words, though " thou shalt bruise his heel, it shall bruise thy head."
There can be no doubt that intima- tions of redemption were given to our guilty parents, and that they were in- structed by God to offer sacrifices which should shadow out the method of atone- ment. And though it does not of course follow that we are in possession of all the notices mercifully afforded, it seems fair to conclude, as well from the time of delivery as from the nature of the an- nouncement, that our text was designed to convey comfort to the desponding; and that it was received as a message breathing deliverance by those who ex- pected an utter condemnation.
We are not, however, much concerned with the degree in which the pro])hecy was at first understood. It cannot justly be called an obscure prophecy : for it is quite clear on the fact, that, by some means or another, man should gain ad- vantage over Satan. And though, if co;i- sidered as refemng to Christ, there be a mystery about it, which could only be cleared up by after events, yet, as a general prediction of victory, it must have commended itself, we think, to the understanding and the heart of those of our race by whom it was first heard.
But whether or no the prophecy were intelligible to Adam and Eve, unto our- selves it is a wonderful passage, spread- ing itself over the whole of time, and
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
11
giving outlines of the history of this world from the beginning to tlie final consummation. We caution you at once against an idea which many have enter- tained, that the prediction before us re- fers only, or even chiefly, to the Re- deemer. We shall indeed find, as we proceed, that Christ, who was specially the seed of the woman, specially bruised the head of the serpent. But the pro- phecy is to be interpreted in a much larger sense. It is nothing less than a delineation of an unwearied conflict, of which this earth shall be the theatre, and which shall issue, though not with- out partial disaster to man, in the com- plete discomfiture of Satan and his asso- ciates. And no man who is flimiliar with other predictions of Scripture, can fail to find, in this brief and solitary verse, the announcement of those very strug- gles and conquests which occupy the gorgeous poetry of Isaiah, and crowd the mystic canvass of Daniel and St. John.
We wish you, therefoi-e, to dismiss, if you have ever entertained, contx-acted views of the meaning of (mr text. It must strike you at the first glance, that though Christ was in a peculiar sense the seed of the woman, the jihrase ap- plies to others as well as the Redeemer. We are therefore bound, by all fair laws of interpretation, to consider that the prophecy must be fulfilled in more than one individual; especially as it declares that the woman, as well as her seed, should entertain the enmity, and thus marks out more than a single party as engaging in the conflict.
Now there are one or two prelimina- ry observations which require all your attention, if you hope to enter into the fuM meaning of the prediction.
We wish you, first of all, to remark particularly the expression, " I will put enmity." The enmity, you observe, liad no natural existence : God declares bis intention of putting enmity. As soon as man transgressed, his nature be- came evil, and therefore he was at peace, and not at war with the devil. And thus, had there been no interference on the part of the Almighty, Satan and rnan would have formed alliance against hea- ven, and, in place of a contest l>etween themselves, have carried on nothing but battle with God. There is not, and can- not be, a native enmity between fallen angels and fallen men. liuth are evil,
and both became evil through apostacy. But evil, wheresoever it exists, will al- ways league against good ; so that fallen angels and fallen men were sure to join in a desperate comj^anionship. Hence the declaration, that enmity should be put, must have been to Satan the first notice of redemption. This lofty spirit must have calculated, that, if he could induce men, as he had induced angels, to join in rebellion, he should have them for allies in his every enterprise against heaven. There was nothing of enmity between himself and the spirits who had joined in the efibrt to dethrone the Om- nipotent. At least whatever the feuds and jarrings which might disturb the rebels, they were linked, as with an iron band, in the one great object of opposing good. So that when he heard that there should be enmity between himself and the woman, he must have felt that some apparatus would be brought to bear upon man ; and that, though he had suc- ceeded in depraving human natuie, and thus assimilating it to his own, it should be renewed by some mysterious process, and wrought up to the lost power of re- sisting its conqueror.
And accordingly it has come to pass, that there is enmity on the earth be- tween man and Satan; but an enmity supematurally put, and not naturally entertained. Unless God pour his con- verting grace into the soul, there will be no attempt to oppose Satan, but we shall continue to the end of our days his wil- ling captives and ser\'ants. And there- fore it is God who puts the enmity. Introducing a new principle into the heart, he causes conflict where there had heretofore been peace, inclining and enabling man to rise against his t3Tant. So that, in these first words of the pro- phecy, you have the clearest intimation that God designed to visit the depraved nature with a renovating energy. And now, whensoever you see an individual delivered from the love, and endowed with a hatred of sin, resisting those pas- sions which held naturally sway within his breast, and thus grappling with the fallen spirit which claims dominion upon earth, you are sui-veying the workings of a principle which is wholly from above ; and you are to consider that you have before you the fulHlment of the declaration, " I will put enmity between thee and the woman,"
12
THE FIUST TROPnECY.
We go on to observe that the enmity, being thus a superhuman thing, implant- ed by God and not generated by man, will not subsist universally, but only in particular cases. You will have seen, from our foregoing showings, that a man must be renewed in order to liis fighting with Satan; so that God's putting the enmity is God's giving saving gi-ace. The prophecy cannot be inter})reted as declarini^ that the whole human race should l>e at war with the devil: the undoubted matter-of-fact being that only a portion of the race resumes its loyalty tt) Jehovah. And we are bound, there- fore, before proceeding further with our interpretation, to examine' whether this limitation is marked out by the predic- tit)n — whether, that is, we might infer, from the terms of the prophecy, that the placed enmity would be partial, not uni- versal.
Now we think that the expression, " Thy seed and her seed," shows at once that the enmity would be felt by only a part of mankind. The enmity is to subsist, not merely between Satan and the woman, but between his seed and her seed. But the seed of Satan can only be interpreted of wicked men. Thus Christ said to the Jews, "Ye are of y»)ur father the devil; and the lusts of y<jur father ye will do." John, 8 : 44. Thus also, in (!xpounding the parable of the tares and the wheat, he said, " The tares are the children of the wicked one." Matt. 13 : 38. There is, probably, the same reference in the expression, "O generation of vipers." And, in like man- ner, you lind St. John declaring, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." 1 John, 3 : 8. Thus, then, by the seed of Satan we understand wicked men, those who resist (Jod's Spirit, and obstinately adhere to tlie sei-vice of the devil. And if we must interjjret the seed of Satan of a poition of mankind, it is evident that the prophecy marks not out the en- mity a.s general, but indicates just that limitation which has been supposed in our preceding remarks.
J Jut then the (|uesti(jn occurs, how are we to iiiteqiret the woman and her seed ] Such expression seems to denote the whole human race. What ri<;ht have we to limit it to a ])art of that race ] We reply, that it certainly does not denote the whole human race : for if you inter- pret it literally of Eve and her descend-
ants, Adam, at least, is left out, who was neither the woman nor her seed. But without insisting on the objection under this form, fatal as it is to the pro- posed interpretation, we should not be warranted, though we have no distinct account of the faith and repentance of Adam, in so explaining a j)assage as to exclude our common forefather from final salvation. You must see, that, if we take literally the woman and her seed, no enmity was put between Adam and Satan; for Adam was neither the woman nor the seed of the woman. And if Adam continued in friendship with Satan, it must be certain that he perished in his sins : a conclusion to which we dare not advance without scriptural testimony the most clear and explicit.
We cannot, then, understand the wo- man and her seed, as Eve and her natu- ral descendants. We must rather be- lieve, that as the seed of the serpent is to be interpreted spiritually and sym- bolically, so also is the seed of the wo- man. And when you remember that Eve Avas a signal type of the church, there is an end of the difficulties l>y which we seem met. You know, from the statement of St. Paul to the Romans, that Adam was the figure of Christ. Rom. 5 : 14. Now it was his standing to Eve in the very same relationship in %vhich Christ stands to the church, which special- ly made Adam the figure of Christ. The side of Adam had been opened, when a deep sleep fell on him, in order that Eve miglit be formed, an extract fronj him- self. And thus, as Hooker saith, "God fiameth the church out of the very flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side of the Son of Man. His body crucified, and his blood shed for the life of the world, are the ti-ue elements of that hea- venly being which maketh us such as himself is, of whom we come. For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the words of Christ concerning his church, 'Flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bones.' " We cannot go at length into the particulars of the typical resem- blance between Eve and the church. It is sufficient to observe, that since Adam, the husband of Eve, was the figure of Christ, and since Christ is the husband of the church, it seems naturally to fol- low that Eve was the figure or type of the church And when we have estab
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
13
lished this typical character of Eve, it is easy to untlerstand who are meant by the woman and her seed. The true church of God in eveiy age — whether you con- sider it as represented by its head, which is Christ; whether you survey it collec- tively as a body, or resolve it into its separate members — this true church of God must be regarded as denoted by the woman and her seed. And though you rnay think — for we wish, as we proceed, to anticipate objections — that, if Eve be the church, it is strange that her seed should be also the church, yet it is the common usage of Scripture to represent the church as the mother, and every new convert as a child. Thus, in addressing the Jewish church, and describing her glory and her greatness in the latter days, Isaiah saith, " Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side." And again — con- trasting the Jewish and Gentile churches — " ]More are the children of the deso- late than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord," So that although the chui-ch can be nothing more than the aggregate of individual believers, the in- spired \vi-iters commonly describe the church as a parent, and believers as the offspring; and in understanding, there- fore, the church and its members by the woman and her seed, we cannot be ad- vocating a forced interpretation.
And now we have made a long ad- vance towards the thorough elucidation of the prophecy. We have shown you, that, inasmuch as the enmity is super- naturally put, it can only exist in a por- tion of ma,nkind. We then endeavored to ascertain this portion : and we found that the true church of God, in every age, comprehends all those who war with Satan and his seed. So that the representation of the prediction — a re- presentation whose justice we have yet to examine — is simply that of a perpetu- al conflict, on this earth, between u-icked angels and wicked men on the one side, and the church of God, or the company of true believers on the other; such con- flict, though occasioning partial injury to the church, always issuing in the dis- comfiture of the wicked.
We now set ourselves to demonstrate the accuracy of this representation. We have already said that there are three points of view in which the church may be regarded. We may consider it, as
represented by its head, which is Christ ; secondly, collectively as a body ; thirdly, as resolved into its separate members. We shall endeavor to show you briefly, in each of these cases, the fidelity of the description, '• It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt biuise his heel."
Now the enmity was never put in such overpowering measure, as when the man Christ Jesus was its residence. It was in Christ Jesus in one sense naturally, and in another supernaturally. He was bom pure, and with a native hatred of sin; but then he had been miraculously generated, in order that his nature might be thus hostile to evil. And never did there move the being on this earth who hated sin with as perfect a hatred, or who was as odious in return to all the emissaries of darkness. It was just the holiness of the Mediator which stirred up against him all the passions of a pro- fligate world, and provoked that fury of assault which rushed in from the hosts of reprobate spirits. There was thrown a perpetual reproach on a proud and sensual generation, by the spotlessness of that righteous individual, " who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." 1 Pet. 2 : 22. And if he had not b«en so far separated, by the purities of life and conversation, from all others of his nature ; or if vice had received a somewhat less tremendous rebuke fi-om the blamelessness of his every action; we may be sure that his might and be- nevolence would have gathered the na- tion to his disciplcship, and that the multitude would never have been work- ed up to demand his crucifixion.
The great secret of the opposition to Christ lay In the fact, that he Avas not such an one as ourselves. We are ac- customed to think that the lowliness of his condition, and the want of external majesty and pomp, moved the Jews to reject their Messiah : yet it is by no means clear that these were, in the main, tlie producing causes of rejection. If Christ came not with the purple and cir- cumstance of human sovereignty, he dis- played the possession of a supernatural power, which, even on tlie most carnal calculation, was more valuable, because more effective, than the stanchest appa- ratus of earthly supremacy. The pea- sant, who could work the miracles which Christ worked, would be admitted, on all hands, to have mightier engines at his
14
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
disposal than die prince who is clothed with the ermine and followed by the war- riors. And if the J ews looked for a Mes- siah who would lead them to mastery over enemies, then, we contend, there was every thin!^ in Christ to induce them to give him their alletrianre. The power which could vanquish death by a word might cause hosts to fall, as fell the hosts of Sennacherib ; and where then was the foe who could have resisted the leader ?
We cannot, therefore, think that it was merely the absence of human pa- geantry which moved the gi'eat ones of Judea to throw scorn upon Jesus. It is true, they were expecting an earthly de- liverer. But Christ displayed precisely those powers, which wielded by Moses, had prevailed to deliver their nation from Egypt; and assuredly then, if that strength dwelt in Jesus which had dis- comfited Pharaoh, and broken the thral- dom of centuries, it could not have been the proved incapacity of effecting tempo- ral deliverance which induced pharisees and scribes to reject their Messiah. They could have tolerated the meanness of his parentage ; for that was more than com- pensated by the majesty of his power. They could have endured the lowliness of his appearance ; for they could set against it his evident communion with divinity.
But the righteous fervor with which Christ denounced every abomination in the land; the untainted purity by which he shamed the " whited sepulchres" who I deceived the people by the appearance I of sanctity; tlit; rich loveliness of a cha- I racter in which zeal for God's glory was I unceasingly uppermost; the beautiful j lustre which encompa,ssed a beiu"- who ! could hate only one thing, but that one thing sin ; these were the producino- causes of bitter hostility; and they who would have hailed the wonder-worker •with the shout and the plaudit, had he allowed some license to the evil passions of our nature, gave him nothing but the eneerand the execration, when he wan-ed open war with lust and hypocrisy.
And thus it was that enmity, the fierc- est and most inveterate, was ])ut between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The serpent himself came to the assistance of his seed; evil anirels conspired with evil men; ami the whole energies of apostacy gathered themselves to the effort of destroying the champi- on of God and of truth. Yea, and for a
while suocess seemed to attend the en- deavor. There was a bruising of the heel of the seed of the woman. " He came unto his own, and his own received him not." John, 1: 11. Charged only with an embassage of mercy; sent by the Father — not to condemn the world, though rebellion had overspread its pro- vinces, and there was done the foulest despite to God, in its e'^e'-y section, and by its every tenant — but that the world thnnigh him might have life; he was, nevertheless, scorned as a deceiver, and hunted down as a malefactor. And if it were a bruising of the heel, that he should be " a man of soitows and acquainted with grief," Isaiah, 53 : 3 ; that a nation should despise him, and friends deny and forsake and betray him; that he should be buffeted with temptation, convulsed by agony, lacerated by stripes, pierced by nails, crowned Avith thorns ; then was the heel of the Redeemer bruised by Satan, for to all this injury the fallen ans^el instiorated and nerved his seed. But though the heel was bruised, this was the whole extent of effected damage. There was no real advantajje gained over the Mediator ; on the contrary, whilst Sa tan was in the act of bruising Christ's heel, Christ was in the act of bruising Satan's head. The Savior, indeed, ex- posed himself to every kind of insult and wrong. Whilst enduiing " the contradic* tion of sinners against himself," Heb. 12 : 3, it is not to be denied that a strange re- sult was brought round by the machina- tions of the evil ones ; forsuffering,which is the attendant on sinfulness, was made to empty all its pangs into the bosom of innocence. And seeing that his holiness should have exempted his humanity from all kinsmanship with soitow and an- guish, we are free to allow that the heel was bruised, when pain found entrance into this humanity, and grief, heavier than had oppressed any being of ourimce, weighed down his over-wrought spirit. But, then, there was not an iota of his sufferings which went not towai'ds liqui- dating the vast debt which man owed to God, and which, therefore, contributed not to our redemption from bondage. There was not a pang by which the Me- diator was torn, and not a grief by which his soul was disquieted, which lielped not on the achievement of human deliv- erance, and which, therefore, dealt not out a blow to the despotism of Satau
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
15
So that, from the beginning, the bruising of Christ's heel was the bruising of Sa- tan's head. In prevaiUng, so far as he did prevail, against Christ, Satan was only effecting his own discomfiture and downfall. He touched the heel, he could not touch the head of the Mediator. If he could have seduced him into the com- mission of evil; if he could have pro- faned, by a solitary thought, the sanctu- ary of his soul; then it would have been the head which he had bruised; and rising triumphant over man's surety, he would have shouted, " Victory ! " and this creation have become for ever his own. But whilst he could only cause pain, and not pollution ; whilst he could dislocate by agony, but not defile by im- purity; he reached indeed the heel, but came not near the head ; and, making the Savior's life-time one dark sei'ies of afflictions, weakened, at every step, his o^^^l hold upon humanity.
And when, at last, he so bruised the heel as to nail Christ to the cross, amid the loathinofs and revilinjjs of the multi- tude, then it was that his own head was bruised, even to the being crushed. " Through death," we are told, " Christ Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Heb. 2 : 14. He fell indeed; and evil angels, and evil men, might have thought him for ever de- feated. But in grasping this mighty prey, death paralyzed itself; in breaking down the temple, Satan demolished his own throne. It was, as ye all know, by dy- ing, that Christ finished the achievement which, from all eternity, he had cove- nanted to undertake. By dying, he rein- stated fallen man in the position from which he had been hurled. Death came against the Mediator; but, in submit- ting to it, Christ, if we may use such image, seized on the destroyer, and, waving the skeleton-form as a sceptre over this creation, bi'oke the spell of a thousand generations, dashing away the chains, and opening the graves, of an opi)ressed and rifled population. And when he had died, and descended into the grave, and returned without seeing corruption, then was it made possible that every child of Adam might be eman- cipated from the dominion of evil; and, in place of the wo and the shame which transgression had won as the heritage of man, there was the beautiful brightness of a purchaaed immortality wooing the
acceptance of the sons and daughters of our race. The strong man armed had kept his goods in peace; and Satan, having seduced men to be his compan- ions in rebellion, might have felt secure of having them as his companions in tor- ment. But the stronger than he drew nigh, and, measuring weapons with him in the garden and on the cross, received wounds which were but trophies of vic- tory, and dealt wounds which annihilated power. And when, bruised indeed, yet only marked with honorable scars which told out his triumph to the loftiest orders of intelligent being, the Redeemer of mankind soared on high, and sent pro- clamation through the universe, that death was abolished, and the ruined re- deemed, and the gates of heaven thi'own open to the rebel and the outcast, was there not an accomplishment, the most literal and the most energetic, of that prediction which declared to Satan con- cerning the seed of the woman, " it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heeir'
Such is the first and great fulfilment of the prophecy. The church, repre- sented by its head who was specially the seed of the woman, overthrew the devil in one decisive and desperate strug- gle, and, though not itself unwounded, received no blow which rebounded not to the crushing its opponent.
We proceed, secondly, to consider the church collectively as a body. We need scarcely observe that, from the first, the righteous amongst men have been ob- jects of the combined assault of their evil fellows and evil angels. The enmity has been put, and strikingly developed. On the one hand, it has been the endea- vor of the church to vindicate God's honor, and arrest the workings of wick- edness : on the other, it has been the ef- fort of the serpent and his seed to sweep from the earth these upholders of piety. And though the promise has all along been verified, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church, it cannot be denied that a great measure of suc- cess has attended the strivings of the ad- versary. If you only call to mind what fierce persecution has rushed against the righteous ; how by one engine or anoth- er there has been, oftentimes, almost a thorough extinction of the very name of Christianity ; and how, when outward- ly there has been peace, tares, sown by
16
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
the enemy, have sent up a harvest of perilous lieresies ; you cannot withhold your acknowledgment that Satan has bruised the heel of the church. But he aas done nothing more. If he have hewn down thousands by the sword, and con- sumed thousands at the stake, thousands have sprung forward to fill up the breach ; and if he have succeeded in pouring forth a flood of pestilential doctrine, there have arisen stanch advocates of truth who have stemmed the torrent, and snatched the articles of faith, uninjured, from the deluge. There has never been the time when God has been left with- out a witness upon earth. And though the church has often been sickly and weak; though the best blood has been drained from her veins, and a languor, like that of moral palsy, has settled on her limbs ; still life hath never been whcjlly extinguished ; but, after a while, the sinking energies have been marvel- lously recruited, and the worn and wast- ed body has risen up more athletic than before, and displayed to the nations all the vigor of renovated youth.
So that only the heel has been bruised. And since, up to the second advent of the Lord, the church shall be battered with heresy, and persecution, and infi- delity, we look not, under the present dispensation, for discontinuance of this bruising of the heel. Yet, while Satan is bruising the church's heel, the church, by God's help, is bruising Satan's head. The church may be comi)elled to pro- phesy in sackcloth. Affliction m.ay be ner portion, as it was that of her glorified head. But the church is, throughout, God's witness upon earth. The church is God's instrument for carrying on those purposes which shall terminate in the final setting up of the Mediator's king- dom. And, oh, there is not won over a single soul to Christ, and the Gospel message makes not its way to a single heart, without an attendant effect as of a stamping on the head of the tempter: for a captive is delivered fr(jm the op- pressor, and to deliver the slave is to defeat the tyrant. Thus the seed of the woman is continually bruising the head of the serpent. And whensoever the church, as an engine in God's hands, makes a successful stand for piety and truth ; whensoever, sending out her mis- sionaries to the broad waste of heathen-
tion, and teaches the pagan to cast his idols to the mole and the bat; or when-, soever, assaulting mere nominal Chris- tianity, she fastens men to practice as the alone test of profession; then does she strike a blow which is felt at the very centre of the kingdom of darkness, and then is she experiencing a partial fulfil- ment of the promise, " God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Rom. 16: 20.
And when the fierce and on-going con- flict shall be brought to a close ; when this burdened creation shall have shaken off the slaves and the objects of concu- piscence, and the church of the living God shall reign, with its head, over the tribes and provinces of an evangelized earth; then in the completeness of the triumph of righteousness shall be the completeness of the serpent's discomfi- ture. And as the angel and the archan- gel contrast the slight injury which Sa- tan could ever cause to the church, with that overwhelming ruin which the church has, at last, hurled down upon Satan; as they compare the brief struggle and the everlasting glory of the one, with the shadowy success and the never-ending torments of the other; will they not de- cide, and tell out their decision in lan- guage of rapture and admiration, that, if ever prediction were fulfilled to the very letter, it is that which, addressed to the serpent, and describing the church as the seed of the woman, declared, "it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heeU"
Such is the second fulfilment of the prophecy of our text. The church, con- sidered collectively as a body, is so as- saulted by the serpent and his seed that its heel is bruised : but even now it of- fers such resistance to evil, and hereafter it shall triumph so signally over every opponent, that the prediction, "it shall bruise thy head," must be received as destined to a literal accomplishment.
We have yet to notice the thii-d fulfil- ment. We may resolve the church into its separate members, and, taking each individual believer as the seed of the woman, show you how our text is real- ized in his experience.
Now if there be enmity between the serpent and the church generally, of course there is also between the serpent and each member of that church. We
iBrm, she demolishes an altar of supersti- , have already giv«n it as the description
THE FIRST PROPHECY.
17
of a converted man, that he has been su- pematurally excited to a war with the devil. Whilst left in the darkness and alienation of nature, he submits willing- ly to the dominion of evil : evil is his ele- ment, and he neither strives nor wishes for emancipation. But when the grace of God is introduced into his heart, he will discern quickly the danger and hate- fulness of sin, and will yield himself, in a higher strength than his own, to the work of resisting the serpent. Thus en- mity is put between the believer and the serpent and his seed. Let a man give himself to the concerns of eternity; let him, in good earnest, set about the business of the soul's salvation ; and he will, assuredly, draw upon himself the dislike and opposition of a whole circle of worldly acquaintance, so that his over- preciseness and austerity will become subject of ridicule in his village or neigh- borhood. ^\'e quite mistake the nature both of Christianity and of man, if we suppose that opposition to religion can be limited to an age or a country. Per- secution, in its most terrible foi-ms, is only the development of a principle which must unavoidably exist until either Christianity or human nature be altered. There is a necessary repugnance be- tween Christianity and human nature. The two cannot be amalgamated : one must be changed before it will combine with the other. And we fear that this is, m a degi-ee, an overlooked truth, and that men are disposed to assign persecu- tion to local or temporary causes. But we wish you to be clear on the fact, that "the offence of the cross," Gal. 5: 11, has not ceased, and cannot cease. We readily allow that the form, under which the hatred manifests itself, will be sensi- bly affected by the civilization and intel- ligence of the age. In days of an imper- fect refinement and a scanty literature, you will find this hatred uHsheathing the sword, and lighting the })ile : but when human society is at a high point of po- lish and knowledge, and the principles of religious toleration are well understood, there is, perhaps, comparatively, small likelihood that savage violence will be the engine employed against godliness. Yet there are a hundred batteries which may and will be opened upon the righ- teous. The follower of Christ must cal- culate on many sneers, and much revil- ing. He must look to meet often with
coldness and contempt, harder of endu- rance than many forms of martyrdom: for the courage which could march to the stake may be daunted by a laugh. And, frequently, the opposition assumes a more decided shape. The parent will act harshly towards the child; the superioi withdraw his countenance fi-om the de pendent; and all because of a giving heed to the directions of Scripture. Re ligion, as though it w^ere rebellion, alien ates the affections, and alters the wills, of fathers and guardians. So that we tell an individual that he blinds himself to plain matters of fact, if he espouse the opinion that the apostle's words applied only to the first ages of Christianity, " all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shal- suffer persecution," 2 Tim. 3 : 12. Tc " live godly in Christ Jesus " is to havf enmity put between yourselves and tht seed of the serpent ; and you may be as sured, that, unless this enmity be merely nominal on your side, it will manifest it self by acts on the other.
Thus the prophecy of our text an nounces, what has been verified by the- history of all ages, that no man can serve God without unitinor against himself evil men and evil angels. Evil angels will assault him, alarmed that their prey is escaping from their gi'asp. Evil men, rebuked by his example, will become agents of the serpent, and strive to wrench him fz'om his righteousness.
But what, after all, is the amount of injury which the serpent and his seed can cause to God's children 1 Is it not a truth, which can only then be denied when you have cashiered the authority of every page of the Bible, that he who believes upon Christ, and who, therefore, has been adopted through faith into God's family, is certain to be made more than conqueror, and to trample under foot every enemy of salvation ] The conflict between a believer and his foes may be long and painful. The Christian may be often forced to exclaim with St. Paul, " O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " Rom. 7: 24. Engaged with the triple^ band of the world, the flesh, and the de- vil, he will expciience many partial de- feats, and surprised off his guard, or wearied out with watchings, will yield to temptation, and so fall into sin. But it is certain, certain as that God is om- nipotent and faithful, that theonce justi- 3
IS
THE FIRST PROPIIECr.
fied man shall be enabled to persevere to the end ; to persevere, not in an idle de- pendence on privileges, but in a struggle which, it" for an instant interrupted, is sure to be vehemently renewed. And, therefore, the bruising of the heel is the sum total of the mischief Thus much, undoubtedly, the serpent can effect. He can harass with temptation, and occa- sionally prevail. But he cannot undo the radical work of conversion. He cannot eject the principle of grace; and he can- not, therefore, bring back the man into the ccMulition of his slave or his subject. Thus he cannot wound the head of the new man. He may diminish his com- forts. He may imj)cde his growth in ho- liness. He may inject doubts and sus- picions, and thus keep him disquieted, when, if he would live up to his privi- leges, he might rejoice and be peaceful. But all this — and we show you here the fiill sweep of the serpent's power — still leaves the man a believer; and, there- fore, all this, though it bruise the heel, touclios not the head.
And though the believer, like the un- believer, must submit to the power of death, and tread the dark valley of that curse which still rests on our nature, is there experienced more than a bruising of the heel in the undergoing this disso- lution of humanity 1 It is an injury — for we go not with those who would idolize, or soften down, death — that the soul must be detached from the body, and
nt out, a widowed thing, on the broad jounieyings of eternity. It is an injury, that this curious framework of matter, as much redeemed by Christ as the giant- guest which it encases, must be taken down, joint by joint, and rafter by rafter, and, resolved into its original elements, lose every trace of having been human. But what, we again say, is the extent of this injui-y] The foot of the destroyer shall be set upon the body ; and he shall stamp till he have ground it into powder, and dispersed it to the winds. But he cannot annihilate a lonely particle. He can put no arrest on that germinating process which shall yet cause the valleys and mountains of this globe to stand thick with a harvest of flesh. He cannot hinder my resurrection. And when the soul, over which he hath had no power, rushes into the body which he shall be forced to resign, and the child of God stands forth a man, yet immortal, com-
pound of flesh and spirit, but each pure, each indestructible; — oh, though Satan may have battered at his peace during a long earthly pilgi-image ; though he may have marred his happiness by successful temptation ; though he may have detain- ed for centuries his body in coiTuption; will not the inflicted injury appear to have been so trivial and insignificant, that a bruising of the heel, in place of falling short of the matter-of-fact, shall itself seem almost an overwi'ought description? And, all the while, though Satan can only bruise the believer's heel, the be- liever is bruising Satan's head. If the believer be one who fights the serpent, and finally conquers, by that final con- quest the serpent's head is bruised. If he be naturally the slave of the serpent ; if he rebel against the tyrant, throw off his chains, and vanquish him, fighting inch by inch the ground to freedom and glory; then he bruises the serpent's head. If two beings are antagonists, he who decisively overcomes bruises the head of his opponent. But the believer and the serpent are antagonists. The believer gains completely the mastery over the sei-j3ent. And, therefore, the result of the contest is the fulfilment of the prediction that the seed of the wo- man shall bruise the head of the serpent. Oh, if, as we well know, the repentance of a single sinner send a new and exqui- site delight down the ranks of the hosts of heaven, and cause the sweeping of a rich and glorious anthem from the count- less harps of the sky, can we doubt that the same event spreads consternation through the legions of fallen spirits, and strikes, like a death-blow, on their haughty and malignant leader] Ay, and we believe that never is Satan so taught his subjugated estate, as when a soul, which he had counted as his own, escapes " as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers," Psalm 124 : 7, and seeks and finds protection in Jesus. If it be then that Christ sees "of the travail of his soul," Isaiah, 53: 11, it must be theu that the serpent tastes all the bitterness of defeat. And when the warfare is over, and the spirit, which he hath longed to destroy, soars away, convoyed by the angels which wait on the heirs of salva- tion, must it not be then that the con- sciousness of lost mastery seizes, with crushing force, on the proud foe of our race; and does not that fierce cry of
THE FIRST PROPIIECr.
1£'
disappointment which seems to follow the ascending soul, causing her to feel herself only "scarcely saved," 1 Pet. 4 : IS, testify that, in thus winning a heritage of glory, the believer hath bruised the head of the serpent]
We shall not examine further this third fulfilment of the prophecy of our text. But we think that when you con- trast the slight injury which Satan, at the Avorst, can cause to a believer, with the mighty blow which the deliverance of a believer deals out to Satan; the nothingness, at last, of the harm done to God's people, with that fearful dis- comfiture which their individual rescue fastens on the devil; you will confess, that, considering the church as resolved into its separate members, just as when you surA'ey it collectively as a body, or as represented by its head, there is a literal accomplishment of this predic- tion to the serpent concerning the seed of the woman, "it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
We have thus, as we trust, shown you that the prophecy of our text extends itself over the whole surface of time, so that, from the fall of Adam, it has been receiving accomplishment, and will con- tinue being fulfilled until "death and hell are cast into the lake of fire." Rev. 20 : 14. It was a wonderful announce- ment, and, if even but imperfectly un- derstood, must have confounded the serpent, and cheered Adam and Eve. Dust shalt thou eat, foe of humankind, when this long oppressed creation is delivered from thy despotism. As though to mark to us that there shall be no suspension of the doom of our destroyer, whilst this earth rejoices in the restitution of all things, Isaiah, in de- scribing millennial harmony, still leaves the serpent under the sentence of our text. " The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock ; and dust shall
he the serpent's meat.'" Isaiah, 65 : 25. There comes a day of deliverance tii every other creature, but none to the serpent. Oh, mysterious dealing of our God! that for fallen angels there hath been no atonement, for fallen men a full, perfect, and sufficient. They Avere far nobler than we, of a loftier intelligence and more splendid endowment; vet ("how unsearchable are his judg- ments") we are taken and they are left. " For verily he taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold." Hebrews, 2: 16, margi- nal reading.
And shall we, thus singled out and made objects of marvellous mercy, re- fuse to be delivered, and take our por- tion with those who are both fallen and unredeemed] Shall we eat the dust, when we may eat of " the bread which comet hdown from heaven?" John, 6: 50. Covetous man ! thy money is the dust; thou art eating the serpent's meat. Sensual man ! thy gratifications are of the dust; thou art eating the serpent's meat. Ambitious man ! thine honors are of the dust ; thou art eatinor the serpent's meat. O God, put enmity between us and the serpent. Will ye, every one of you, use that short prayer ere ye lie down to rest this night, O God, put enmity between us and the serpent ] If ye are not at enmity, his folds are round your limbs. If ye are not at enmity, his sting is at your heart. But if ye will, henceforward, count him a foe, oppose him in God's strength, and attack him with the " sword of the Spirit;" Eph. 6 : 17; then, though ye may have your seasons of disaster and dejjression, the promise stands sure that ye shall finally overcome; and it shall be proved by each one in this assembly, that, though the serpent may bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, yet, at last, the seed of the woman always bruises the head of the serpent.
SERMON II.
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
"A minister of the sanctuary, aud of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. — IlEBBEWSvii: 13.
The discourse of the Apostle here turns on Jesus, the high priest of our profession, wliose superiority to Aaron and his descendants he had cstabhshed by most powerful reasoning. In the verse preceding our text he takes a summary of the results of his argu- ment, deciding that we have such an high priest as became us, and who had passed from the scene of earthly minis- trations to "the throne of the majesty in the heavens." He then, in the words upon which we are to meditate, gives a description of this high priest as at pre- sent discharging sacerdotal functions. He calls him " a minister of the sanc- tuary, or (according to the marginal reading) of holy things, and of the true tabemacle whicli tlie Lord pitched, and not man." We think it needful, if we would enter into the meaning of this pa,ssage, that we confine it to what Christ is, and attempt not to extend it to what Christ was. If you examine the verses which fidlow, you will be quite satisfied that St. Paul had in view those portions of the mediatorial work which are yet being executed, and not those which were completed upon earth. He expressly declares that if tho Redeem- er were yet resident amongst men, he would not bo invested with the priestly office — thus intimating, and that not ob- scurely, that the priesthood now enact- ed in heaven was that on which he wish- ed to centre attention.
We know indeed that parts of the oriestly office, most stupendous and most important, were discharged by Jesus whilst sojourning on earth. Then it was that, uniting mysteriously in his
person the offerer and the victim, he presented himself, a whole bunit sacri- fice, to God, and took away, by his one oblation, the sin of an overburdened world. But if you attend closely to the reasoning of St. Paul, you will obsers'e that he considers Christ's oblation of himself as a preparation for the priestly office, rather than as an act of that of- fice. He argues, in the third verse, that since " every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices," there was a "necessity that this man have some- what also to offer." And by then speak- ing of Christ's having obtained " a more excellent ministry," he plainly implies that what he offers as high priest is of- fered in heaven, and must, therefore, have been rather procured, than pre- sented, by the sacrifice of himself
We are anxious that you should clear- ly perceive — as we are sure you must from the study of the context — that Christ in heaven, and not Christ on earth, is sketched out by the words which we are now to examine. The right interpretation of the description will depend greatly on our ascertaining the scene of ministrations. And we shall not hesitate, throughout the whole of our discourse, to consider the apos- tle as referring to what Christ now per- forms on our behalf; taking no other account of what he did in his humilia- tion than as it stands associated with what he does in his exaltation.
You vrill obsen-e, at once, that the difficulty of our text lies in the asser- tion, that Christ is " a minister of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Our main business, aa
CHRIST THE MINISTER OP THE CHURCH.
21
expounders of Scripture, is with the de- termining what this "true tabernacle" is. For, though we think it ascertain- ed that heaven is the scene of Christ's priestly ministrations, this does not de- fine what the tabernacle is wherein he ministers.
Now there can be but little question, that, in another passage of this Epistle to the Hebrews, the humanity of the Son of God is described as " a taberna- cle, not made with hands." The verse occurs in the ninth chapter, in which St. Paul shows the temporary character of the Jewish tabernacle, every thing about it having been simply " a figure for the time then present." Advancing to the contrast of ■what Vv^as enduring with what was transient, he declares that Christ had come, " an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to saj-, not of this building." Heb. 9 : 11. It scarcely ad- mits of debate that the body of the Re- deemer, produced as it was by a supei-- natnral operation, constituted this ta- bernacle in which he came down to earth. And we are rightly anxious to uphold this, which seems the legitimate interpretation, because heretics, who would bring down the Savior to a level with ourselves, find the gi'eatest difii- culty in getting rid of this miraculous conception, and are most perplexed by any passage which speaks of Christ as superhumanly generated. It is a com- mon taunt with the Socinian, that the apostles seera to have known nothing of this miraculous conception, and that a truth of such importance, if well as- certained, would not have been omitted in their discussions with unbelievers. We might, if it consisted with our sub- ject, advance many reasons to ])rove it most improbable, that, either in argu- ing with gainsayers, or in building up believers, the first preachers of Chris- tianity would make frequent use of the mystery of Christ's generation. But, at all events, we contend that one de- cisive mention is of the same worth as many, and that a single instance of apostolic recognition of the fact, suffi- ces for the overthrow of the heretical objection. And, therefore, we would battle strenuously for the interpreta- tion of the passage to wliich we have refen-ed, defining the humanity of the
Savior, as a " Tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this buildr ing." And if, without any overstrain- ing of the text, it should appear that " the true tabernacle," whereof Christ is the minister, may also be expounded of his spotless humanity, we should gladly adopt the interpretation as sus- taining us in our contest with impugn- ers of his divinity.
There is, at first sight, so much re- semblance between the passages, that we are naturally inclined to claim for them a sameness of meaning. In the one, the tabernacle is described as that " which the Lord pitched and not man ;" in the other, as " not made with hands," that is to say, " not of this building." It is scarcely possible that the coinci- dence could be more literal; and the inference seems obvious, that, the latter tabernacle being Christ's humanity, so also must be the former. Yet a little reflection will suggest that, however correct the expression, that Christ's hiimanity was the tabei-nacle by, or in, which he came, there Avould be much of harshness in the figui-e, that this hu- manity is the tabernacle of which he is the minister. Without doubt, it is in his human nature that the Son of God officiates above. He canned up into glory the vehicle of his sufferings, and made it partaker of his triumphs. And our gi-and comfort in the priesthood of Jesus results from the fact that he min- isters as a man; nothing else affording ground of assurance that " we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Heb. 4 : 15. But whilst certain, and re- joicing in the certainty, that our inter- cessor pleads in the humanity, which, undefiled by either actual or original sin, qualified him to receive the out- pourings of wrath, we could not, with any accuracy, say that he is the minis- ter of this humanity. It is clear that such expression must define, in some way, the place of ministration. And since humanity was essential to the constitution of Christ's person, we see not how it could be the temple of which he was appointed the minister. At least we must allow, that, in interpreting our text of the human nature of the Son of God, we should lie open to the charge of advocating an unnatural meaning, and of being so bent on upholding a
22
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
favorite hypothesis, as not to be over- scrupulous as to means of suj^port.
We dismiss, therefore, as untenable, the opinion which our wishes would have led us to espouse, and must seek elsewhere than in the humanity af Christ, for " the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man." The most correct and simple idea appears to be, that, ina-smuch as Christ is the high priest of all who believe upon his name, and inasmuch as believers make up his church, the whole company of the faith- ful constitute that tabernacle of which he is here asserted the minister. If we adopt this interpretation, we may trace a fitness and accuracy of expression which can scarcely fail to assure us of its justice. The Jewish tabernacle, un- questionably ty])ical of the christian church, consisted of the outer pai't and the inner ; the one open to the minis- trations of inferior jiriests, the other to those of the high priest alone. Thus the church, always one body, whatever the dispersion of its members, is partly upon eartli where Chi'ist's ambassadors officiate, partly in heaven where Christ himself is present. St. Paul, referring to this church as a household, describes Christ Jesus as him " of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named; " Eph. 3 : 15 ; intimating that it was no interference with the unity of this family, that some of its mem- bers resided above, whilst others re- mained, as warriors and sufferers, be- low. So that, in considering Christ's church as the tabernacle with its holy place, and its holy of holies — the first on earth, the second in heaven — we ad- here most rigidly to the type, and, at the same time, preseiTe harmony with other representations of Scripture.
And when you remember that Christ is continually described as dwelling in his people, and that l)elievers are repre- sented as " builded together for an habi- tation of God through the Spirit," Eph. 2 : 22, there will seem to be none of that objection against this interpreta- tion which we felt constrained to urge against the former. If it be common to represent believers, whether singly or collectively, as the temjde of God ; and if, at the same time, Christ Jesus, as the high priest of our profession, pre- side at the altar, and hold the censor of this temple J then we suppose nothing
fiir-fetched, we only keep up the image- ry of Scripture, when we take the church as that " true tabernacle " whereof the Redeemer is the minister.
And when we yet further call to mind that to God alone is the conversion of man ascribed throughout Scripture, we see, at once, the truth of the account given of this tabernacle, that the Lord pitched it and not man. Man reared the Je\\'ish tabernacle, and man builded the Jewish temple. But the spiritual sanctuary, of which these were but types and figures, could be constructed by no human architect. A finite power is inadequate to the fashioning and col- lecting living stones, and to the weav- ing the drapery of self-denial and obe- dience. We refer, undividedly, to Dei ty the construction of this true taber- nacle, the church. Had there been no mediatorial interference, the spiritual temple could never have been erected. In the work and person of Christ were laid the foundation of this temple. " Behold, saith God, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone." Isa. 28 : 16. And on the stone thus laid there would have arisen no superstruc- ture, had not the finished work of re- demption been savingly applied, by God's Spirit, to man's conscience. Though redeemed, not a solitary indi- vidual would go on to be saved, unless God recreated him after his own like- ness. So that, whatever the breadth which we give to the expression, it must hold good of Christ's church, that the Lord pitched it and not man. And it is not more true of Christ's humanity, mysteriously and supematurally pro- duced, that it wa.s a tabernacle which Deity reared, than of the company oi believers, bom again of the Spirit and renewed after God's image, that they constitute a sanctuary which shows a nobler than mortal workmanship.
Now, upon the gi'ounds thus briefly adduced, we shall consider, through the remainder of our discourse, that " the true tabernacle," whereof Christ is the minister, denotes the whole church, whether in earth or heaven, of the re- deemed, made one by union, through faith, with the Redeemer. But before considering, at greater length, the senses in which Christ is the minister of this tabernacle, we would remark on his being styled " Minister," and not
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
' High Priest." We shall find, in the sequel, that this change of title is too important to be overlooked, and that we must give it our attention, if we would bring out the full meaning of the passage. The word translated " minis- ter," denotes properly any public ser- vant, whatever the duties committed to his care. His office, or his ministry, is any business undertaken for the sake of the commonwealth. Hence, in the New Testament, the word rendered " ministry " is transferred to the public office of the Levites and Priests, and afterwards to the sacerdotal office of Christ. We keep the Greek woi'd in our own language, but confine it to the business of the sanctuary, describing as "a Liturgy" a formulary of public devotions. When Christ, therefore, is called the minister of the tabernacle, a broader office seems assigned him than when styled the High Priest. As the High Priest of his church, he is alone; the functions of the office being such as himself only can discharge. But as the minister of his church, he is indeed eupreme, but not alone ; the same title being given to his ambassadors ; as when St. Paul describes himself as the *' minister of Jesus Christ to the Gen- tiles, ministering the Gospel of God." Rom. 15 : 16. You Avill perceive, at once, from this statement, that our text ought not to be expounded as though "Minister" and "High Priest " were identical titles. No force is then attach- ed to a word, of whose application to Christ this verse is the solitary instance. Indeed we are persuaded that much of the power and beauty of the passage lies in the circumstance, that Christ is called "the Minister of the true tabei-- nacle," and not the High Priest. If " the true tabernacle " be, as we seem to have ascertained, the whole church of the redeemed, that part of the church which is already in glory appears to have no need of Christ as a priest ; and we may search in vain for the senses which the passage would bear, when applied to this part. But if Christ's jn'iestlij func- tions, properly so called, relate not to the church in heaven, it is altogether possible that his ministerial may ; so that there is, perhaps, a propriety in calling him the minister of that church, which there would not be in calling him the Hisrh Priest.
We shall proceed, therefore, to ex- plain our text on the two assumptions, for each of which we have shown you a reason. We assume, in the fii'st place, that "the true tabernacle" is the col- lective church of the redeemed, whe- ther in earth or heaven : in the second, that the office of minister, though in- cluding that of high priest, has duties attached to it which belong specially to itself. These points, you observe, we assume, or take for granted, through the remainder of our discourse ; and we wish them, therefore, borne in mind, as ascertained truths.
In strict conformity with these as- sumptions, we shall now speak to you, in the first place, of Christ as ministei of the church on earth ; in the second place, of Christ as minister of the church in heaven.
Now it is of first-rate importance that we consider Christ as withdrawn only from the eye of sense, and, therefore, present as tx-uly, after a spiritual man- ner, with his church, as when, in the day of humiliation, he moved visibly upon earth. The lapse of time has brought no interruption of his parting promise to the apostles, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matt. 28 : 20. He has provid- ed, by keeping up a succession of men who derive authority, in unbroken se- ries, from the first teachers of the faith, for the continued preaching of his word, and administration of his sacraments. And thus he hath been, all along, the great minister of his church : delegat- ing, indeed, power to inferior ministei"S who " have the treasure in earthen ves- sels ; " 2 Cor. 4:7; but superintending their appointments as the universal bishop, and evangelizing, so to speak, his vast diocese, through their instru- mentality. We contend that you have no true idea of a church, unless you thua recognize in its ordinances, not merely the institution of Christ, but his actual and energizing presence. You have no right, when you sit down in the sanc- tuary, to regard the individual who ad- dresses you as a mere public speaker, delivering an harangue which has pre- cisely so much worth as it may draw from its logic and its language. He is an ambassador from the great Head of the church, and derives an authority from this Head, which is quite iude-
H
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
pendent of his own wortliiness. If Christ remain always the minister of his church, Christ is to be looked at through his ministering sen'ant, whoever shall visibly officiate. And though there be a great deal preached in which you cannot recognize the voice of the Sa- vior; and though the sacraments be administered by hands which seem im- pure enough to sully their sanctity; yet do we venture to assert, tliat no man, who kecjis Christ steadfastly in view as the " minister of the ti'ue ta- bernacle," will ever fail to denve profit from a sermon, and strength from a communion. The grand evil is that men ordinarily lose the chief minister in the inferior, and determine beforehand that they cannot be advantaged, unless the inferior be modelled exactly to their own pattern. They regard the speaker simply as a man, and not at all as a messenger. Yet the ordained preacher is a messenger, a messenger from the God of the whole earth. His mental capacity may be weak — that is nothing. His speech may be contemptible — that is nothing. His knowledge may be cir- cumscribed— we say not that is no- thing. But we say that, whatever the man's qualifications, he should rest upon his office. And we hold it the business of a congi-egation, if they h(jpe to find profit in the public duties of the Sab- bath, to cast away those personal con- siderations which may have to do with the officiating individual, and to fix steadfastly their thoughts on the office itself. Whoever preaches, a congrega- tion would be profited, if they sat down in the temper of Conielius and his friends : " now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God." Acts, 10: 33.
But if a sermon dilTer from what a Gospel sermon should l)e, men will de- termine that Christ could have had no- thing to do with its delivery. Now this, we a.sseit, is nothing less than the de- posing Christ from the ministry assign- ed him by our text. We are far enough from declaring that the chief minister puts the false words into the mouth of the inferior. But we are certain, as jpon a truth which to deny is to assault the foundations of Christianity, that the chief minister is so mindful of his office I that every man, who listens in faith, |
expecting a message from above, shall be addressed through the mouth, ay, even through the mistakes and eiTors, of the inferior. And in upholding this truth, a truth attested by the experience of numbers, we simply contend for the accuracy of that description of Chi-ist which is under review. If, wheresoever the minister is himself deficient and un- taught, so that his sei'mons exhibit a wrong system of doctrine, you will not allow that Christ's church may be pro- fited by the ordinance of preaching; you clearly argue that the Redeemer has given up his office, and that he can no longer be styled the " minister of the true tabernacle." There is no mid- dle course between denying that Christ is the minister, and allowing that, what- ever the faulty statements of his ordain- ed servant, no soul, which is hearkening in faith for a word of counsel or com- fort, shall find the ordinance worthless and be sent away empty.
And from this we obtain our first il- lustration of our text. We behold the true followers of Christ enabled to find food in pastures which seem barren, and water where the fountains are dry. They obtain indeed the most copious supplies — though, perhaps, even this will not always hold good — when the sei-mons breathe nothing but tinith, and the sacraments are administered by men of tried piety and faith. But when every thing seems against them, so that, on a carnal calculation, you would sup- pose the services of the church stripped of all efficacy, then, by acting faith on the head of the ministry, they are in- structed and nourished; though, in the main, the given lesson be falsehood, and the proffered sustenance little bet- ter than poison. And if Christ be thus always sending messages to those who listen for his voice ; if he so take upon himself the office of preacher as to con- strain even the tongue of eiTor to speak instruction to his people; and if, over and above this conveyance of lessons by the most unpromising vehicle, he be dispensing abundantly, by his faithful ambassadors, the rich nutriment of sound and heavenly doctrine — every sermon, which speaks truth to the heart being virtually a homily of Christ deli- vered by himself, and every sacrament, which transmits grace, an ordinance of Christ superintended by himself — why,
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
26
> fidelity the most extraordinary must ne allowed to distinguish the descrip- tion of our text; and Christ, though removed from visible ministration, has yet so close a concernment with all the business of the sanctuary-r-uttering the word, sprinkling the water, and break- ing the bread, to all the members of his mystical body — that he must em- phatically be styled, " a minister of holy things, of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man."
But whilst the office of minister thus includes duties whose scene of per- formance is the holy place, there are others which can only be discharged in the holy of holies. These appertain to Christ under his character of High Priest ; no inferior minister being privi- leged to enter " within the veil." You must, we think, be familiar, through frequent hearing, with the offices of Chi'ist as our Intercessor. You know that though he suffercjd but once, in the last ages of the Avorld, yet, ever living to plead the merits of his sacrifice, he gives perpetuity to the oblation, and applies to the washing away of sin that blood which is as expiatory as in its first warm gushings. In no respect is it more sublimely true than in this, that Jesus Christ is " the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." The high priests of Aaron's line entered, year by year, into the holiest of all, making con- tinually a new atonement " for them- selves and for the errors of the people." Heb. 9 : 7. But he who was constituted " after the order of Melchisedec," king as well as priest, entered in once, not " by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood," Heb. 9 : 12, and needed never to return and ascend again the altar of sacrifice. It is not that sin can now be taken away by any thing short of shedding of blood. But intercession perpetuates crucifixion. Christ, as high priest within the veil, so immortalizes Calvary that, though " he liveth vinto God," he dies continually unto sin. And thus, " if any man sin, we have," saith St. John, " an advocate with the Father." 1 John, 2 : 1, But of what nature is his advocacy ] If you would understand it you must take the survey of his atonement. It was a mighty exploit which the Mediator ef- fected in the days of humiliation. He arose in the strength of that wondrous
coalition of Deity and humanity of which his person was the subject; and he took into his grasp the globe over whose provinces Satan expatiated as his rightful territory ; and, by one vast im- pulse, he threw it back into the galaxy of Jehovah's favor ; and angel and arch- angel, cherubim and seraphim sang the chorus of triumph at the stupendous achievement.
Now it is of this achievement that intercession perpetuates the results. We wish you to understand thorough- ly the nature of Christ's intercession. When Rome had thrown from her the wari'ior who had led his countrymen to victory, and galled and ft'ctted the proud spirit of her boldest hero ; he, driven onward by the demon of re- venge, gave himself as a leader where he had before been a conqueror, and, taking a hostile banner into his pas- sionate gi'asp, headed the foes who sought to suljjugate the land of his na- tivity. Ye remember, it may be, how intercession saved the city. The mother bowed before the son ; and Coriolanus, vanquished by tears, subdued by plaints, left the capitol Tinscathed by battle. Here is a precise instance of what men count successful intercession. But there is no analogy between this inter- cession and the intercession of Christ. Christ intercedes with justice. But the intercession is the throwing down his cross on the crystal floor of heaven, and thus proffering his atonement to satisfy the demand. Oh, it is not the interces- sion of burning tears, nor of half-choked utterance, nor of thrilling speech. It is the intercession of a broken body, and of gushing blood — of death, of pas- sion, of obedience. It is the interces- sion of a giant leaping into the gap, and filling it with his colossal stature, and covering, as with a rampart of flesh, the defenceless camp of the outcasts. So that, not by the touching words and gestures of supplication, but by the re- sistless deeds and victories of Calvary, the Captain of our salvation intercedes : pleading, not as a petitioner who would move compassion, but rather as a con- queror who would claim his trophies. Hence Christ is " able to save to the uttermost," on the very groimd that " he ever liveth to make intercession;" Heb. 7 : 25 ; seemg that no sin can bo committed for which the satisfaction,
26
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
made upon Calvary, proffers not an im- mediate and thorough expiation. And if, as the intercessor, or advocate, of his people, Christ Jesus may be said to stand continually at the altar-side; and if he be momentarily offering up the sacrifice which is momentarily recjuired by their fast recurring guilt ; is he not most truly a minister of the tabernacle? If, though the shadows of Jewish wor- ship have been swept away, so that, day by day, and year by year, a typical atonement is no longer to be made, the constant commission of sin demand, as it must demand, the constant pouring out of blood ; and if, standing not in- deed in a material court, and offering not the legal victims, but, nevertheless, officiating in the presence of God, " a lamb as it had been slain," Rev. 5 : 6, the Redeemer present the oblation pre- scribed for every offence and every short-coming ; is not the whole business of the tabernacle which man pitched transacted over again, and that too every instant, in the tabernacle which God pitched ; and, Christ, being the high priest who alone presides over this expiatory process, how otherwise shall we describe him than as the " minister of the sanctuary, and of the true taber- nacle which the Lord pitched and not man ?"
But once more. We may regard the prayers and praises of real believers as incense burnt in the true tabernacle, and rising in fragrant clouds towards heaven. Yet who knows not that this incense, though it be indeed nothing less than the breathings of the Holy Spirit, is so defiled by the con-upt channel of humanity through which it passes, that, unless purified and ethe- rialized, it can never be accepted of God ] The Holy Ghost, as well as Christ Jesus, is said to make intercession for us. But those intercessions are of a v»rldely different character. The Spirit pleads not for us as Christ pleads, hold- ing up a cross, find pointing to wounds. The intercession of the Spirit is an in- tercession made within ourselves, and through ourselves. It is the result of the Spirit's casting himself into our breasts, and there praying for us by in- structing us to pray for ourselves. Thus real prayer is the Spirit's breath ; and what else i.i real praise? Real praise 13 the Spirit's throwing the heart into
the tongue ; or rather, it is the sound produced, when the Spirit has swept the chords of the soul, and there is a correspondent vibration of the lip. But though prayer and j^raise be thus, em- phatically, the breathings of the Holy Ghost, they ascend not up in their purity, because each of us is compelled to exclaim with Isaiah, " Wo is me, because I am a man of unclean lips." Isaiah, 6 : 5. Even the voice of the in- terceding Spirit, when proceeding from that tongue which " is a fire, a world of iniquity," James 3 : 6, penetrates not the holy of holies, unless the Inter- cessor, who is at God's right hand, g-ive It wings and gam at access. The at- mosphere, so to speak, which is round the throne of the Eternal One, must be impervious to the incense burnt in the earthly tabernacle, unless moist with that mysterious dew which was wTung by anguish from the Mediator.
And how then shall we better repre sent the office which the Intercessor ex- ecutes than by saying, that he holds in his hands the censer of his own merits, and, gathering into it the prayers and praises of his church, renders them a sweet savor acceptable to the Father? Perfumed with the odor of Christ's pro- pitiation, the incense mounts; and God, in his condescension, accepts the offer- ing and breathes benediction in return. And what then, we again ask, is Christ Jesus but the " minister of the true tabernacle ? " If it be the Intercessor who carries our prayers and praises within the veil, and, laying them on the glowing fire of his righteousness, causes a spicy cloud to ascend and cover the mercy-seat ; does not this Intercessor officiate in the true tabernacle as did the high priest of old in the figurative ; and have we not fresh attestation to the truth of the description, that Jesus is " a minister of holy things, of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man? "
We think that the several pai-ticulara thus adduced constitute a strong wit- ness, so far as the church on earth is concerned, to the accuracy of the defi- nition presented by our text. We have shown you that to all true believers Christ Jesus is litei-ally the minister of the sanctuary, preaching through the preacher, and administering, through his hands, the sacraments. And though
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
27
we may be thought to have herein somewhat trenched on the office of the Spirit, we have, in no degree, trans- gressed the statements of Scripture. In the Book of Revelation, it is Christ who sends, through John,- the sermons to the churches, who holds in his right hand the seven stars which represent Uie ministers of these churches, and who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks which represent the churches themselves. And though, unquestionably, it is the Spirit which carries home the word, the delivery of that word must be referred to the Sa- vior. Thus, in a somewhat obscure passage of St. Peter, Christ is said to have gone by the Spirit, and " preached unto the spirits in prison." 1 Pet. 3 : 19. And certainly what he did to the diso- bedient, he may justly be affirmed to do to the faithful. We have further shown you, that, as the high priest of his people, Christ offers up continual Bacrifice, and burns sweet incense. And when you combine these particulars, you have virtually before you the Sa- vior in the pulpit of the sanctuary, the Savior at the altar, the Savior with the censer ; and thus, seeing that he offici- ates in the whole business of the di- vmely-pitched tabernacle, will you not confess him the minister of that taber- nacle ]
But, understanding by the " true ta- bernacle " the collective church of the redeemed, whether in heaven or on earth, we have yet to show you that Christ is the minister of the former por- tion as well as of the latter. You see, at once, that the " true tabernacle " can- not be what we have all along supposed, unless there be ministerial offices dis- charged by Christ towards the saints in glory. And we think that the over- looking the title of minister, or rather the identifying it with that of high priest, has caused the unsatisfactori- ness of many commentaries on the pas- sage. As High Pi-iest of the spiritual temple, Christ can scarcely be said to execute any functions in which those who have entered into heaven are per- sonally interested. They are beyond the power of sin, and therefore need not saci-ifice. The music of their praises ia rolled from celestial harps, and re- quires not to be melodized. But, when we take Christ as the minister, we may
observe respects in which, without ad- venturing on rash speculation, he may be said to discharge the same offices to the church above and the church below. We shall not presume to speak of what goes on in the holy of holies, with that confidence which is altogether unwarrantable, when discourse turns on transactions of which the outer court is the scene. But finding Christ described as the " minister of the true tabernacle," and considering this taber- nacle as divided into sections, we only strive to be wise up to what is wi-itten, when, obsei-ving senses in which the name must be confined to the lower section, we search for others in which it may be extended to the upper.
And if Christ minister to the church below by discharging the office ol preacher or instructor, who shall doubt that he may also thus minister to the church above "? We have already re- feiTed to a passage in St. Peter which speaks of Christ as having " preached to the spirits." We enter not into the controversies on this passage. But it gives, we think, something of founda- tion to the opinion, that whilst his body was in the sepulchre, Christ preached to spirits in the separate state, opening up to them, probably, those mysteries of redemption into which even angels, before-time, had vainly striven to look. The kings, and the prophets, and the righteous men, who had desired to see the things which apostles saw, and had not seen them, and to hear the things which they heard, and had not heard them — unto these, it may be, Chiist bz'ought a glorious roll of intelligence; and we can imagine him standing in the midst of a multitude which no man can number, who had all gone down to the chambers of death with but indis- tinct and far-off glimpses of the pro- mised Messiah, and explaining to the eager assembly the beauty, and the stal)ility, of that deliverance which he had just wrought out through obe- dience and blood-shedding. And, O, there must have then gone forth a tide of the very loftiest gladness through the listening crowds of the separate state ; and then, perhaps, for the first time, admiration and ecstasy summon- ing out the music, was heai'd that anthem, whose rich peal rolls down the coming eternity, " Worthy, wor-
28
CHRIST THE MINISTER OP THE CHURCH.
thy, worthy is the Lamh." Then, it may be, for the first time, did Adam embrace all tlic magnificence of the promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head ; and Abraham understood how the well-b6- ing of the human population depended upon one that sliould spring from his own loins ; and David ascertain all the meaning of mysterious strains, which, as prefiguring Messiah, he had swept from the harp-strings. Then, too, the long train of Aaron's line, who had stood at the altar and slain the victims, and burnt the incense, almost weighed down by a ritual, the import of whose ceremonies was but indistinctly made known — then, it may be, were they sud- denly and sublimely taught the power of every figure, and the expressiveness of every rite ; whilst the noble com- pany of prophets, holy men who " spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Pet. 1: 21, but who, rapt into the future, uttered much which only the future could develope — these, as though starting from the slee-p of ages, sprang into the centre of that gorgeous panorama of truth which they had been commissioned to outline, but over whose spreadings there had rested the cloud and the mist ; and Isaiah thrilled at the glories of his own say- ing, " unto us a child is born, unto us a Bon is given," Isaiah, 9:6; and Hosea grasped all the mightiness of the de- claration, which he had poured forth whilst denouncing the apostacies of Sa- maria, " O Death, I will be thy plagues ; O Grave, I will be thy destruction." Hosea, 13: 14.
We know not why it may not thus be considered that the day of Christ's entrance into the 8e])arate state was, like the Pentecostal day to the church upon earth, a day of the rolling off of obscurity from the i)lan of redemption, and of the showing how " glory, honor, and immortality," Rom. 2 : 7, were made accessible to the remotest of the world's families ; a day on which a thousand types gave place to realities, and a thousand predictions leaped into fulfilment : a day, therefore, on which there circulated through the enormous gatherings of Adam and his elect pos- terity, already ushered into rest, a glad- ness which had never yet been reached in all the depth of their beatifical re- i
pose. And neither, then, can we dis« cover cause why Christ may not be thought to have filled the office of preacher to the buried tribes of the righteous, and thus to have assumed that character which ho has never since laid aside, that of " a minister .£ *he sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man." We know but little of the condition of separate spirits : but we know, as- suredly, from the witness of St. Paul, that they are " present with the Lord." 2 Cor. 5 : 8. Whatever the dwelling- ])lace which they tenant, whilst await- ing the magnificent things of a resur- rection, the glorified humanity of the Savior is amongst them, and they are privileged to hold immediate commun- ings with their Head. Thus the preach- er, the mighty expounder of the will and purposes of the Father, moves to and fro through the admiring throng ; and the souls of those who have loved and served the Redeemer upon earth, are no sooner delivered from the flesh, than they stand in the presence of that illustrious Being who spake as " never man spake." Is he silent? Was it only in the day of humiliation, and in the hour of trouble, that he had instruction to impart, and lessons to convey, and deep and glorious secrets to open up to the faithful ] He who described himself as actually " straitened " whilst on earth, who had many things to say which his hearers were not able to bear — think ye that, in a nobler scene, and with spirits before him, all whose faculties have been wondei-ously enlarged and sublimed, he delivers not the homilies of a mightier teaching, and leads not on his people to loftier heights of know- ledge, and broader views of truth ? Oh, we cannot but believe that the glorified Redeemer converses — though thought cannot scan such mysterious jind majestic converse — with those blessed beings who " have washed their robes and made them white, " Rev. 7: 14, in his blood; that he unfolds to them the wonders of redemjition ; and teaches them the magnificence of God ; and spreads out to their contempla- tion the freight of splendor wherewith the second Advent is charged ; and carries them to Pisgah tops, whence they look down upon the landscapes burning with the purnle and the gold
CHRIST THE MINISTER OF THE CHURCH.
29
across which they shall pass when at- tired in the livery of the resun-ection — thus making the place of separate spirits a church, himself the preacher, immor- tality his text. Yea, when we think on the countless points of difference and dehate between men who, in equal sin- cerity, love the Lord Jesus ; when we observe how those, who alike place all their hopes on the ]\Iediator, hold op- posite opinions on many doctrines ; and when we yet further remember, that a long life-time of study and prayer leaves half the Bible unexplored ; there is so much to be unravelled, so much to be elucidated, so much to be learned, that we can suppose the Redeemer, day by day — if days there be where the sun never sets — imparting fresh in- telligence to the enraptured assembly, and causing new gladness to go the round of the crowded ranks, as he ex- pounds a difficulty, and justifies the ways of God to man.
And whether or no we be overbold in even hinting at the possible subject- matter of discourse, we only vindicate the title which our text gives to the Savior, when we conclude that as the God-man passes through " the general assembly and church of the first-born," Heb. 12 : 23, he wraps not himself up in silence and loneliness ; but that speaking, as he spake with the dis- ciples journeying to Emmaus, he opens wonders, and causes every heart to bum and bound. So that, removed as is the church within the veil from the ken of our obsei-vation, and needing not, as it cannot need, those deeds of an intercessor, which engage chiefly, in our own case, the ministry of Christ, we can yet be confident that in the Holy of Holies there goes onward a grand work of instruction ; and thus ascertaining that, as a preacher to his people Christ's office is not limited to those who sojourn in the flesh, we can understand by the " true tabernacle " the church above conjointly with the church below, and yet pronounce, un- reservedly, of Jesus, that he is a " a minister of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man."
Such, brethren, is our account of the title of our text, whether respect be had to believers in glory, or to believ- ers still warring upon earth. If we have dealt correctly with the passage, it fur-
nishes one great practical admonition, already incidentally mentioned, which it will be well that you keep diligently in mind. When you attend the services of the sanctuary, remember who is the minister of that sanctuary. You run to hear this man preach, and then that man. But who amongst you — let me speak it with reverence — comes in the humble, prayerfvd, faithful hope of hearing Christ preach 1 Yet Christ is the " minister of the true tabernacle." Christ preaches, through his servants, to those who forget the instrument, and use meekly the ordinance.
It is a melancholy and dispiriting thing to obsei-ve how little effect seems wrought by preaching. We take the case of a crowded sanctuary, where the business of listening goes on with a more than common abstraction. We may have before us the rich exhibition of an apparently riveted attention ; and the breathless stillness of a multitude shall give witness how they are hang- ing on the lips of the speaker. And if he gi-ow impassioned, and pour out his oratory on things tembly sublime, the countenances of hundreds shall betray a convulsion of spirit — and if he speak glowingly of what is tender and beau- tiful, the sunniness in many eyes shall testify to their feeling an emotion of delightsomeness. But we are not to be earned away by the channs of this spectacle. We know too thoroughly, that, with the closing of the sermon, may come the breaking of the spell ; and that it is of all things the most pos- sible, that, if we pursued to their homes these earnest listeners, we should find no proof that impression had been made by the enunciated truths, and, perhaps, no more influential remembrance of the discourse, by whose power they had been borne completely away, than if they had sat fascinated by the loveli- ness of a melody, or awe-struck at the thunderings of an avalanche.
And the main reason of all this wd take to be that men forget the ordi- nance, and look only to the instrument. If such be the case, it is no marvel that they derive nothing from preach- ing but a little animal excitement, and a Tittle head-knowledge. If you listen not for the voice of Christ, who shall wonder that you hear only the voice of man, and so go away to your homes
30
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT
with your souls unfetl, simply equipped for sitting in judgment upon the ser- mon as you would upon a tragedy, and ready to begin the review with some caustic remark, which shall prove, that, whatever else you have learned, you have not learned charity 1
Alas ! the times on which we have fallen are so evil, that there is almost a total losing-sight of the ordinance of a visible church. Preaching is valued, not as Chi'ist's mode of ministei'ing to his people, and therefore always to be prized; but as an oratorical display, whose worth, like that of a pleading at the bar, is to be judged by the skill of the argument and the power of the language.
We can but point out to you the er- ror. It must remain with yourselves to strive to correct it. " Cease ye from man." Isaiah 2 : 22, When and where is this injunction so needful as in a church, and ori a Sabbath ] Every thing
is made to depend on the clergynian And men will tell you that he is very good, but very dull ; that his doctrine is sound, but his delivery heavy ; that he is inanimate, or ungraceful, or flow- ery, or prosaic. But as to hearing that he is Christ's servant, an instx-ument in his blaster's hands — who meets vnth this from the Dan to the Beersneba of our Israel ] " Cease ye from man." If ye hope to be profited by preaching ; if ye would become — and this is a noble thing — independent of the preacher ; strive ye diligently to press home upon your minds, as ye draw nigh to the sanctuary, that Jesus Christ is the " mi- nister of the true tabernacle." Thus shall ye be always secure of a lesson, and so be trained gradually for that inner court of the temple where, sitting dovvTi with patriarchs, and apostles, and saints, at the feet of the great Preacher himself, you shall learn, and enjoy, im- mortality.
SERMON III.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
" For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee."— 1 Chronicles, xxix, 14,
Full of years, of riches, and of ho- nors, David, the man after God's own heart, is almost ready to be gathered to his fathers, and to exchange his earthly diadem for one radiant with immortali- ty. Yet, ere he pass into his Maker's temple of the skies, he would provide large store of material for that terres- trial sanctuary, which, though it must not be reared by himself, he knew would be builded by Solomon. The gold and the silver, the onyx stones, and the stones of divers colors, and the mar- bles, these, and other less precious
commodities, the monarch of Israel had heaped together for the work ; and now he summons the princes of the congregation to receive in trust the legacy. ^
Yet it was comparatively but little to bequeath the rich and costly pro- duce of the earth ; and David might have felt that a devoted and zealous spirit outweighed vastly the metal and the jewel. He indeed could leave be- hind him an abundance of all that was needful for the building in Jerusalem a house for the ark of the covenant , but
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
31
where was the piety, where the holi- ness of enterprise which should call in- to being the fabric of his wishes 1
He will not then lie down in his grave without breathing over the rare and glittering heaps a stimng, yea, al- most thrilling appeal ; demanding who, amid the assembled multitude, would emulate his example, and consecrate his service, that day, unto the Lord ? It augured well for the kingdom of Ju- dea that its great men, and its nobles, answered to the call, as a band of de- voted warriors to the trumpet-peal of loyalty. He who had provided rich garniture for the temple's walls, and glorious hymns to echo through its courts, had cause to lift up his voice with gladness, and bless the Lord, when the chief of the fathers, and the heads of the tribes, offered themselves will- ingly, and swelled, by the gift of their own possessions, the treasures already devoted to the sanctuary. He had now good earnest that the cherished pro- mise was on the eve of fulfilment; and that though, having himself shed blood, and been a man of war from his youth, it was not fitting that he should rear a dwelling-place for Deity, one who sprang from his own loins should be honored as the builder of a structure, into which Jehovah would descend with the cloudy majesty of a mystic Shekinah.
But, whilst glad of heart and rejoic- ing, David felt deeply how unworthy he was of the mercies which he had received, and how man'ellous was that favor of Deity of which himself, and his people, had been objects. The na- tion had come forward, and, with a willing heart, dedicated its treasures to Jehovah. ]5ut the king, whilst exult- ing at such evidence of national piety, knew well that God alone had imparted the disposition to the people, and that, therefore, God must be thanked for what was offered to God. " Now, there- fore," saith he, " our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so will- ingly after this sort 1 " Two things, you observe, excited his gratitude and Burprise : first, that the people and him- self should have so much to offer; se- condly, that over and above the abili- ty, there should be the willingness, to
make so costly an oblation. He felt, that God had dealt wondrously with Israel in emptying into its lap the riches of the earth, and thus rendering it possible that piles of the precious and the beautiful might be given, at his summons, for the work of the tem- ple. But then he also felt that the land might have groaned beneath the accu- mulations of wealth; but that, had not the hearts of the people been made willing by God, no fraction of the enor- mous mass would have been yielded for the building which he longed to see reared. God had given both the substance, and the willingness to con- secrate it to his service. And when David felt the privilege of a temple be- ing allowed to rise in Jerusalem, and, at the same time, remembered how en- tirely it was of God that there was either the ability, or the readiness, to build the structure ; he might well burst into the exclamation, " Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort ] " and then add, in the words of our text, " For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee."
You may thus perceive the connec- tion between the words on which we are to meditate, and those which im- mediately precede. David, as we have shown you, expressed surprise on two accounts, each of which is indicated by our text. He marvels that God should have blessed the people with such abundance, and explains why he ascribes the abundance to God, by say- ing, " All things come of thee." But he is also amazed at the condescension of God in giving willingness, as well as ability, to the people. God needed not to receive at the creature's hands, and, therefore, it was pure love which moved him thus to influence the heart. Nothing could be presented to him which was not already his ; and might not then David be justly overpowered by the graciousness of God, seeing that, however noble the offering, " of thine own have we given thee," must be the confession by which it was at- tended ]
There will be no necessity, after having thus stated the occasion on which the text was delivered, and the meaning which it originally bore, thi.t
32
IMPOSSIRII.ITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
we refer again to the jireparations of David for building the temple. It is evident that the words are of most general applicability, and that we need not take account of the circumstances of the individual who first uttered them, when we would interpret their mean- ing, or extract their lessons. We shall, therefore, proceed to consider the pas- sage as detached from the context, and as thus presenting us with truths which concern equally every age and every individual.
We regard the words before us as resisting, with singular power, the no- tion that a creature can merit. We know not the point in theology which requires to bo oftener stated, or more carefully established, than the impossi- bility that a creature should merit at the hands of the Creator. It is not to be controverted that men are disposed to entertain the opinion that creature- merit is possible, so that they have it in their power to effect something de- serving recompense from God. They will not indeed always set the point of merit very high. They will rather imi- tate the Pharisee in the parable, who evidently thought himself meritorious for stopping a degree or two shoit of being scandalous. " God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortion- ers, unjust, adulterers." Luke, 18: 11. But whether it be at a low point or a lofty, that merit is supposed to com- mence, every man must own as his natu- ral sentiment that it commences at some point; and each one of us, if he have ever probed his own heart, will confess himself prone to the persuasion, that the creature can lay the Creator under obligation. We find ourselves able to deserve well of one another, to confer favors, and to contract debts. And when we carry up our thoughts from the finite to the infinite, we quite for- get the total change in the relation- ship ; and we perceive not that the po- sition in which we stand to our Maker excludes those descn'ings which, un- questionably, have jdace between man and man. Men simply view God as the mightiest of sovereigns, and, knowing it possible to do a favor to their king, conclude it possible to do a favor to their God.
Now it must be of first-rate impor- tance that we ascertain the truth or the
falsehood of such a co-nclusion. The method in which we may look to ba saved will greatly vary, according as we admit, or deny, the possibility oi merit. It is quite clear that our moral position, if we cannot merit, must be vastly different from what it is, if we can merit, and that, consequently, the apparatus of deliverance cannot, in the two cases, be the same. So that it is no j^oint of curious and metaphysical speculation, whether merit be consist- ent with creatureship. On the contrary, there cannot be a question whose de- cision involves inferences of greater practical moment. If I can merit, sal- vation may be partly of debt, and I may earn it as wages. If I cannot me- rit, salvation must be wholly of grace, and I must receive it as a gift. And thus every dispute upon justification by faith, every debate in reference to works as a procuring cause of accept- ance, would virtually be settled by tne settlement of the impossibility of crea- ture-merit. Questions such as these are best detennined by reference to first principles. And if you had once demonsti'ated that merit is inconsKBt- ent with creatureship, you would have equally demonstrated that neither faith, nor works, can procure man's salvation in the w^ay of desert ; but that, what- ever the instrumentality through which justification is effected, justification it- self must be wholly of grace.
Now we think, that, in examniing the words of our text, we shall find powerful reasons from which to con- clude the imjjossibility of merit. The text may be said to state a fact, and then an inference from that fact. The fact is, that " All things come (jf God : " the inference is, that a creature can give God nothing which is not already his own. We will examine successively the fact, and the inference ; and then apply the passage to the doctrine which we desire to establish.
We are, in the first jilace, to speak on the stated fact, that all things come of God.
Now there is nothing more wonder- ful in respect to Deity than that uni- versality of operation which is always ascribed to him. One grand distinction between the infinite being, and all finite beings, appears to us to be, that the one can be working a thousand things
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
33
at once, Avhilst the energies of the others must confine themselves to one work at one time. If you figure to your- selves the highest of created, intelligen- ces, you endow him with a might which leaves immeasurably behind the noblest human powers ; but you never think of investing him with the ability of act- ing, at the same time, on this globe, and on one of those far-off planets which we see travelling around us. You make, in short, the strength of an arch- angel by multiplying the strength of a man. 13ut, whatever the degree up to which you think it needful to multiply, you never add to the strength the in- comprehensible property, that it may be exerting itself, at the same moment, in places between which there is an untravelled separation, and causing its mightiness to be simultaneously felt in the various districts of a crowded im- mensity. If you even multiplied finite power till you supposed it to become infinite, you would only keep adding to its intenseness, and would in no de- gree attribute to it ubiquity. And, how- ever you might suppose this multiplied power capable of wonders which seem to demand the interpositions of Deity, you would still consider, that these wonders must be performed in succes- sion ; and you would never imagine of the power, that, in the depths of every ocean, and on the surface of every star, it could, at the same instant, be putting forth its magnificent workings.
And thus it is that the Omnipresence of Godhead is that property, which, more than any other, outruns our con- ceptions. In multiplying power, so to speak, you never multiply presence. But when you had even wrought irp the idea of a power which can create, and annihilate, you would give it one thing to create at once, and one thing to annihilate at once ; and you would never suppose it busy equally, in all its glory and all its resistlessness, in every department of an universe, and with ev- ery fraction of infinity.
So that the topmost mar\'el is that " All things come of God." The un- approachable mystery — it is not that God should be in the midst of this sanctuary, and that he should be minis- tering life to those gathered within its walls — it is, that he should be no more here than he is elsewhere, and
no more elsewhere than he is here ; and that with as actual a concentration of energy as though he had no other oc- cupation, he should be supplying our fast-recuiTing necessities ; and yet that, with such a diffusion of presence as causes him to be equally every where, he should superintend each district of creation, and give out vitality to each order of beings. " All things come of God." It is not merely that all things come of God by original production ; all things come of God by after-sua- tainment. And whether you consider the visible world, or the invisible ; whe- ther you extend your thoughts over the unmeasured fields of materialism, or send them to the sui-vey of those count- less ranks of intelligence which stretch upwards between yourselves and your Maker — you are bound to the belief that every spot in the unlimited space, and every member of the teeming as- semblage, requires and receives the operations of Deity ; and that if, for a lonely instant, those operations were suspended, worlds would jostle and make a new chaos, while a disastrous bank- I'uptcy of life would succeed to the pre- sent exuberance of animation.
So that it is as true of the angelic hosts, moving in their power and their purity, as of ourselves, fallen from im-- mortality, and beggared, and weaken- ed, that " all things come of God." There can be but one independent be-- ing, and on that one all others must' depend. An independent being must, necessarily, be self-existent, possess- ing in himself all the well-springs of' life, and all the sources of happiness. A being whose existence is derived must, as necessarily, be dependent on the first author for the after-continu- ance. A being who could do without God would himself be God ; and there needs no argument to prove to you, that, whatever else God could make, he could not make himself And you must take it, therefore, as a truth which admits not limitation, that " all things: come of God; " so that there is not the- order of creatures, whether material or immaterial, which stands not, every moment, indebted for every thing to- God, or which, however rare its en- dowments, and however majestic its possessions, could dispense, for one instant, with communications fromthe^ 5
34
IMPOSSIBILITY OP CREATURE-MERIT.
fulness of the Almighty, or be tlirown on its own energies, without being thrown to tlarkncss and destruction.
And thougli it suit not our pui-pose that we should dwell long on the fact that " all things come of God," yet, associated as this fact is with whatso- ever is most wondei-ful in Deity, we may call upon you to admire it, before we proceed to the inference which it furnishes. It is an august and an over- powering thought, that our God should be alike present on every star, and in each of its minutest recesses ; and that, though there be a vast employment of the mechanism of second causes, there is not wrought a beneficial effect throughout the boundless expansions of creation, whose actual authorship can be referred to any thing short of the first great cause. It is a noble con- tem})lation, though one by which our faculties are presently confounded, that of the whole universe hanging upon Deity ; archangel, and angel, and man, and beast, and worm, receiving momen- tary supplies from the same inexhausti- ble fountain ; and evei-y tenant of every system appealing to the common pa- rent to preserve it, each instant, from extinction. Oh, we take it for a cold, and a withered heart, which is con- scious of no unusual and overcoming emotions, when there is told forth the amazing fact, that the God, who heark- ens to the prayer of the meanest and most despised, and who is verily pre- sent, in all his omnipotence, when in- voked by the very poorest of the chil- dren of calamity, should be actiiating, at the same moment, all the machinery of the universe, and inspiring all its animation ; guiding the rollings of evei'y planet, and the leap of every cataract, and dealing out existence to every thing that breatheth. We say again that it is this property of God, the property of acting every where; at once, so that all things come of him, which removes him furthest from companionship with the finite, and makes him inaccessible to all the soarings of the creature. It is the property to which we have no- thing analogous amongst ourselves, even on the most reduced and minia- ture scale. A creature must be local. ■He must cease to act in one place be- 'fore he can begin to act in another. But the Creator knows nothing whether
of distance or time. Inhabiting su- blimely both infinity and eternity, there cannot be the spot in space, nor the in- stant in duration, when and where he is not equally present. And seeing that he thus occupies the universe, not as being diffused over it, but as existing, in all his integrity, in its every division and subdivision ; and, seeing, moreover, that he waits not the passage of cen- turies, but is at " the end from the be- ginning;" Isaiah, 46 : 10 ; it can be li- terally true, without exaggeration, and without figure, that " all things come of him ; " Avhatsoever there is of good being wrought by him, whatsoever of evil, permitted ; the present being of his performance, and the future of his appointment.
And it is worth observing, that, if it must be the confession of every order of being that "all things," whatsoever they possess, " come of God," such confession must be binding, with a dou- ble force, upon man. It must be true of us, on the principles which prove it true generally of creatures, that we have nothing which we have not re- ceived, and for which, therefore, we stand not indebted to Deity. But then, by our rebellion and apostacy, there was a forfeiture, we say not of rights — for we deny that the creature can have right to any thing from the Creator — but of those privileges which God, in his mercy, confeired on the work of his hands. As a benevolent being, we may be sure that God would not call creatures into existence, and then dis- miss them from his care and his guar- dianship. And though we pretend not to say that creatureship gave a positive claim on the Creator, it rendered it a thing on which we might venture to calculate, that, so long as the creature obeyed, the Creator would minister to his every necessity. But, as soon as there was a failure in obedience, it was no longer to be expected that creature- ship would insure blessings. The in- stant that a race of beings declined from loyalty to God, there was nothing to be looked for but the suspension ol" all the outgoings of the Creator's benefi- cence ; seeing that the law, entailed by creatureship, having been violated, the privileges to which it admitted were ot necessity forfeited.
And this was the position in which
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
35
tne hiiman race stood, when, by the first transgi'ession, God's ser\4ce was renounced. Whatever the fairness with which Adam might have calculated, that, if he continued obedient, his every want would be supplied, he could not reckon, when he had broken the com- mand, on a breath of air, or a ray of sun- shine, or a pai-ticle of food. It was no longer, if we may use the expression, natural, that he should be upheld in be- ing and sufficiency. On the contrary, the probability must have been that he would be immediately annihilated, or left to consume away piece-meal. And since, in spite of this forfeiture, we are still in the enjoyment of all the means and mercies of existence, we must be bound even far more than angels who never transgressed, to acknowledge that " all things come of God." Angels receive all things by the charter of crea- tion. But man tore up that charter ; and we should therefore receive no- thing, had there not been given us a new charter, even the charter of re- demption. So that God hath made a fresh and special arrangement on be- half of the fallen. And now, whatso- ever we possess, whether it have to do with our intellectual part, or our ani- mal, with the present life or the fiiture, is delivered into our hands stamped, so to speak, with the sign of the cross ; and we learn that "all things come of God," because all things, even the most common and insignificant, flow throuc:h the channel of a superhuman mediation, and are sprinkled with the blood to which Divinity gave preciousness.
But we may consider that we have sufficiently examined the fact asserted in our text, and may pass on, secondly, to the inference which it furnishes.
This inference is — and you can re- quire no argument to prove to you its justice — that we can give God nothing which is not already his. "All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." You must perceive at once, that, if it be true of the creatures of every rank of intelligence, that they possess nothing which they have not received from God, they can offer no- thing which is purely and strictly their I own. But it is necessary that we ex- amine, with something of attention, in- to the nature of God's gifts, in order to remove an objection which might be
brought against our statements. If one creature give a thing to another, he ceases to have property in the gift, and cannot again claim it as his own. If a man make me a present, he virtually cedes all title to the thing given ; and if I were afterwards to restore him the whole, or a part, it would be of mine own, and not of his own, that I gave him. But if — for even amongst our- selves we may find a case somewhat analogous to that of the Creator in his dealings with creatures — if I were re- duced to utter poverty, with no means whatsoever of earning a livelihood ; and if a generous individual came forward, and gave me capital, and set me up in trade ; and if, in mine after-prosperity, I should bring my benefactor some of- fering expressive of gratitude ; it is clear that I might, with the strictest truth, say, " of thine own do I give thee." I should be indebted to my be- nefactor for what I Was able to give ; and, of course, that for which I stood indebted to him might be declared to be his. But even this case comes far short of that of the Creator and the creature. The creature belongs to God : and God, therefore, cannot give to the creature in that sense in which one creature may give to another. All that the creature is, and all that the crea- ture has, appertains to God ; so that, in giving, God alienates not his property in that which he bestows. If he own, so to speak, the angel, or the man, then whatever the angel or the man possesses belongs still to his proprietor ; and though that proprietor may give things to be used, they must continue his own, in themselves and in their produce, Ir indeed it were possible that a creature could become the property of any other than the Creator, it might be also pos- sible that a creature could possess what was not the Creator's. But as long as it is certain that no creature can have right to call himself his own — the fact of creation making him God's by an invulnerable title — it ought to be re- ceived as a self-evident truth, that no creature can possess a good thing which is hif own. All which he receives from the bv>unty of God still belongs to God. So that if whatsoever is brilliant and holy in the universe combined to fashion an offering ; if the depths of the mines were fathomed for the nehest of me
36
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
tal3, and the starry pavilions swept of their jewellery, and the ranks of the loftiest intelligence laid under contribu- tion ; there could be jioured no gift into the coflers of heaven ; but the splendid oblation, thus brought to the Almighty, would be his before, as much as after presentation.
And this truth it is by which we look to demonstrate the impossibility of creature-merit. We will begin with the highest order of created intelligence, and we \\'ill ask you whether the angel, or the archangel, can merit of God % If one being merit of another, it must perform some action which it was not obliged to perform, and by which that other is advantatjed. Nothin": else, as you must perceive if you will be at the pains of thinking, can constitute merit. I do another a favor, and, therefore, de- serve at his hands, if I do something by which he is profited, and which I was not obliged, by mere duty, to do. If either of these conditions fail, merit must vanish. If the other party gain nothing, he can owe me nothing ; and if I have only done what duty prescri- 1 bed, he had a right to the action, and ! cannot, therefore, have been laid under obligation. i
Now if this be a just description of j merit, can the angel or the archangel deserve any thing of God \ We waive the consideration, that, if there be merit, God must be advantaged — though there lies in it the material of an overpower- ing proof that the notion of creature- merit is little short of blasphemous. Who can think of being profitable unto God, when he remembers the independ- ence of Deity, and calls to mind that there was a time when the Creator had not surrounded himself with worlds and tribes, and when, occupied with glori- ous and ineffable communings, the Fa- ther, Son, and Spirit, rea])ed in from the deep solitudes of immensity as full a revenue of happiness as they now ga- ther from its thickly-peo])led circles % No creature can do without God. But God could have done without creatures. They were not necessary to God. There was no void in his blessedness which required the contributions of cieatures before it could be filled up. And it must be absurd to talk of ad- vantaging God, when we know that his magnificence and his happiness
would have been infinite, had he chosen to dwell forever in his sublime loneli- ness, and suffered not the stillness of the unmeasured expanse, full only of himself, to be broken by the hum of a swarming population.
But we waive this consideration. Wo fasten you to the fact, that a merito- rious action must be an action of which duty demands not the performance. If the angel have spare time which be- longs not to God ; if the angel have material which belongs not to God ; let the angel bestow that time upon that material, and let him bring the result as an oblation to his Maker ; and there shall be merit in that oblation ; and he shall gain a recompense on the plea of desert : according to the rule which an apostle hath laid down, " who hath fir&t given to the Lord, and it shall be re- compensed unto him again % " Romans, 11 : 35. If the angel have powers which he is under no obligation of consecra- ting to God ; if they are mightier than suffice for duty ; and if there be, there- fore, an overplus which he is at liberty to bestow on some work of superero- gation ; let him employ these uncalled- for energies in extra and unprescribed service, and, doubtless, his claim shall not be unheeded when he gives in the additional and voluntary performance. But if the angel have time which be- longs not to God ; and if the angel have power which ho is not required to dedicate to God ; there is an end of the proved truth, " of thine own have we given thee." In determining the question, whether a creature can merit, we have nothing to do, abstractedly, with the magnificence of the energies of that creature, nor with the stupen- dousness of the achievments which he is capable of effecting. There is not of necessity, any greater reason Avhy an angel should merit, because able to move a world, than why a worm should merit, because just able to crawl upon its surface. The whole question of tho possibility of ment is a question of the possibility of outrunning duty. Unless duty be exceeded, every creature must receive, as applicable to himself, the words of the Savior, "When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofita- ble ser\'ants, (and, if unprofitable, cer- tainly not meritorious ;) we have done
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
37
that which was our duty to do." Luke, 17: 10.
Aud if duty thus exclude merit, the condition of the angel, as much as that of the worm, excludes merit. If all which the ano:el has belong^ to the Cre- tor; if that noble intelligence which elevates him far above our own level be the property of God ; if that awful might, which could strew the ground with the thousands of the Assyrian host, be communicated by Deity ; if that velocity of flight, which fits him to go on embassages to the very out- skirts of creation, be imparted by his Maker — there must be a demand, an in- alienable demand, upon the angel, for every instant of his time, and for every fraction of his strength, and for every waving of his wing. Duty, the duty which is imposed upon him by the fact of his creatureship, can draw no fron- tier-line excluding fi-om a required con- secration to God the minutest item of those multiform possessions, which ren- der him a splendid and masterful thing, the nearest approach to Divinity in all that interminable series of productions which bounded into being at the call of the Omnipotent.
So that the angel, just as much as the meanest of creatures, must say of all that he can bring to God, of thine own do I give thee. It is, indeed, a costlier offering than the human eye hath seen, or the human thought ima- gined. There is a fervor of affection, and a grasp of understanding, and a strenuousness of labor, ay, and an in- tenseness of self-abasement and humi- lity, which enter not into the best and purest of the oblations which are laid by ourselves at the feet of our Maker. But as there is not one jot less than duty prescribes, neither is there one jot more. God gave all which is brought to him. His the glowing love. His the soaring intellect. His the aw- ful vigor. His the beautiful lowliness. And shall he be laid under obligation by his own ] Shall he be bound to make return, because he hath received of his own ] Oh, we may discuss, and debate, upon earth, the possibility, or the impossibility, of creature-merit. But we may be sure, that, if the ques- tion could be propounded to angels, the thought of merit would be rejected as treason. Standing in the immediate pre-
sence of their glorious Creator ; j^rivi- leged to gaze, so far as it is possible for creatures to gaze without being withered, on his unveiled lustres ; and fraught with the consciousness, that, however wonderful their powers and capacities, they possess nothing which God did not give, and which God might not instantly withdraw — angels must feel that the attempt to deserve of the Almighty would be tantamount to an attempt to dethrone the Almighty, and that the supposing that more might be done than is demanded by duty, would be the supposing an eternity exhausted, and time left for some praiseworthy exploits. Angels must discern, with an acuteness of perception never reached by ourselves whilst hampered by cor- ruption, that each energy in their en- dowment constitutes a requisition for a contribution of glory to Jehovah ; and that the endeavor to employ it to the procuring gi'eatness, or happiness, for themselves, would amount to a base and fatal prostitution, causing them to be ranked with the apostate. And thus, upon the simple principle that " all things come of God," and that only of his own can they give him, angels, who are vast in might, and brilliant in puri- ty, would count it the breaking into re- bellion to entertain the thought of the possibility of merit ; and unless you could prove to them that God had given less than all, that there were abilities in their natui'e which they had derived from sources independent on Deity, and that, consequently, their duty to- wards God required not the dedication of evei-y iota of every faculty ; unless you could prove to them this, — and you might prove this, when you could show to them two Gods, two Crea- tors, and parcel out between two Al- mighties the authorship of their sur- passing endowments — you would make no way with your demonstration, that it was possible for an angel to deserve of God. You might accumulate your arguments. But as long as they reached not the point thus marked out, still, as the shining and potent >)eings came in from the execution of lofty commis- sions, and poured into the treasury of their Maker the noble contributions of his accomplisned purposes, oh, they would veil their faces, and bow down in lowliness, and confess themselves
38
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
unprofitable ; and in place of ground- ing a claim on the employment of their energies in the service of Jehovah, re- verently declare that the non-employ- ment would have deserved the fire and the rack ; so that, throwing from them as impious the notion of merit, they would roll tills chorus through the heavenly Temple, " all things come of thee, and of thine own, O God, have we given thee."
Now if we bring down our imjuiry from the higher orders of intelligence to the lower, we, of course, carry with us the proof which has been advanced of the imjiossibility of merit. If we pass from the case of angels to that of men, we may fairly apply the results of our foregoing argument, and consi- der the one case as involved in the other. It will hardly be disputed, that, if creatureship exclude the possibility of merit from amono;-st ano^els, it must also exclude it from amongst men. We argue not, indeed, that merit is more out of the reach of one rank of beings than of another. We simply contend that with every rank of being merit is an impossibility; but, since a thing cannot be more than impossible, we, of course, do not speak of degrees of im- possibility. And yet, undoubtedly, there is a sense in which an angel comes nearer merit than a man. An angel falls not short of duty, though it cannot exceed ; and, therefore, it deserves no- thing, neither wrath nor reward. A man, on the contrary, falls short of duty, and, therefore deserves wrath ; thijugh, even if he fell not short, he could not exceed, and, therefore, could U'jt deserve reward. So that the angel goes further than the man. The angel fulfils duty, but cannot overstep. The man leaves a vast deal undone which he is required to do ; and he must, at least, make u}) deficiencies, before he crm think of an overplus. We may con- sider, then, that in proving the impossi- bility of creature-merit, when the crea- ture is angelic, we have equally proved it, when the creature is human. And thus Heaven would have been Jis much a free-gift to Adam, had he never diso- beyed by eating of the fruit, as it now is to the vilest of his descendants, with the treason-banner in his hand, and the Icjirosy spot on his forehead. Had Adam walked uuflinchincrlv through
I his probation-time, spuming back the tempter, and swerving not an iota from loyalty and love ; and had he then ap- ! peared before his Maker, exclaiming, now, O God, I have deserved immorta- lity ; why, this very speech would have been the death-knell of our creation ; and Adam would as actually have fallen, and as actually have sent down the dark bequeathments of a cui'se to his latest posterity, by pretending to have merit- ed because he had obeyed, as now that he led the van in rebellion, and, break- ing a positive law, dislocated the happi- ness of a countless population.
AVe thus consider that the impossi- bility of human merit follows, as a co- rollary, on our demonstration of the impossibility of angelic. But we shall not content ourselves with inferring the one case from the other. Feeling deeply the importance of your under- standing thoroughly why you cannot merit of God, we shall apply briefly our text to the commonly-presumed instan- ces of human desert.
You will find one man thinking, that, if he z-epent, he shall be pardoned. In other words, he supposes that there is a virtue in repentance which causes it to procure forgiveness. Thus repent- ance is exhibited as meritorious ; and how shall we simply prove that it is not meritorious ] Why, allowing that man can repent of himself — which he cannot — what is the repentance on which he piesumes % What is there in it of his own % The tears 1 they are but the dew of an eye which is God's. The sighs ? they are but the heavings of a heart which is God's. The resolu- tions 1 they are but the workings of faculties which are God's. The amend- ment 1 it is but the better employment of a life which is God's. Where then is the merit ? O, find something which is, at the same time, human and excel- lent in the offering, and you may speak of desert. J3ut until then, away with the notion of thei-e being merit in re- pentance, seeing that the penitent man must say, "All things come of thee, and of thine own, O <''od, do I give thee."
Again : some men will speak of being justified by faith, till they come to as- cribe merit to faith. " By faith," is in- terpreted as though it meant, on ac- count of faith ; and thus the great
IMPOSSIBILITY OF CREATURE-MERIT.
truth is lost sight of, that we are justi- fied freely " throuq-h the redemption that is in Christ." Romans, 3 : 24. But how can faith be a meritonous act 1 What is faith but such an assent of the understanding to God's word as binds tlie heart to God's service 1 And whose is t^ne understanding, if it be not God's 1 "Whose is the heart, if it be not God's? And if faith be nothing but the render- ing to God that intellect, and that en- ergy, which we have received from God, how can faith deserve of God 1 Oh, as with repentance, so with faith ; away with the notion of merit. He who believes, so that he can dare the grave, and grasp eternity, must pour forth the confession, " all things come of thee, and of thine own, O God, do I give thee."
And once more : what merit can there be in works ] If you give much alms, whose is the money ] " The sil- ver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts." Haggai, 2:8. If you mortify the body, whose are the macerated limbs 1 If you put sackcloth on the soul, whose is the chastened spi- rit ? If you be moral, and honest, and friendly, and generous, and patriotic, whose are the dispositions which you exercise, whose the powers to which you give culture and scope 1 And if you only use God's gifts, can that be meritorious 1 You may say, yes — it is meritorious to use them aright, whilst others abuse them. But is it wicked- ness to abuse 1 Then it can only be duty to use aright ; and duty will be ment when debt is donation. You may bestow a fortune in charity ; but the v/ealth is already the Lord's. You may cultivate the virtues which adorn and sweeten human life ; but the employed powers are the Lord's. You may give time and strength to the enterprises of philanthropy ; each moment is the Lord's, each sinew is the Lord's. You may be upright in every dealing of trade, scrupulously honourable in all the intercourses of life ; but " a just weight and balance are the Lord's, all the weights of the bag are his work." Prov. 16 : 11. And where then is the merit of works ] Oh, throw into one heap each power of the mind, each energy of the body ; use in God's service each giain of your substance, each second of your lime ; give to the Almighty every throb
of the pulse, every drawing of the breath ; labor and strive, and be instant, in season and out of season, and let the steepness of the mountain daunt you not, and the swellings of the ocean de- ter you not, and the ruggedness of the desert appal you not, but on, still on, in toiling for your Maker ; and dream, and talk, and boast of merit, when you can find the particle in the heap, or the shred in the exploit, which you may ex- clude from the confession, "all things come of thee, and of thine oicm, O God, have I given thee."
Now we would trust that the impos- sibility of creature-merit has thus been established as an inference from the statement of our text. We wish you thoroughly to perceive that merit is in- consistent with creature-ship. We do not merely prove that this, or that, or- der of being cannot merit. Merit is in- consistent with creatureship. A crea- ture meriting of the Creator is an im- possibility. When the archangel can merit, the wonn may merit. And he alone who is independent ; he who has received nothing ; he who is every thing to himself, as well as every thing to the universe, his own fountain of existence, his own storehouse of happiness, his own harvest of glory ; God alone can merit, and, therefore, God alone could redeem.
We have now only, in conclusion, to ask, whether you will keep back from God what is strictly his own 1 Will ye rob God, and pawn his time, and his ta- lents, and his strength with the world ] Will ye refuse him what, though it can- not be given with merit, cannot be de- nied without I'uin 1 He asks your heart ; give it him ; it is his own. He asks your intellect ; give it him ; it is his own. He asks your money • give it him ; it is his own. Remember the words of the apostle, " Ye are not your own ; ye are bought with a price." 2 Cor. 6 : 20. Ye are not your ov^n. Ye are bought even if ye perish. Your bodies are not your own, though you may enslave them to lust; they are God's, to be thrown to the rack. Your souls are not your own, though you may hide, and tarnish, and degrade their immortality; they are God's, to be chained dovm to the rock, that the waves of wrath may dash and break over them. Oh, we want you ; nay, the spirits of the just want you;
40
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
and the holy angels want you : and the Father, and tho Sun, and the Holy Ghost want you ; all but the devil and ruined souls want you, to leave off de- frauding the Almighty, and to give him Ills own, themselves, his by creation, his doubly by redemption. I must give God the body, I must give God the soul. I give him the body, if I clothe the tongue with his praises ; if I yield not my mem- bers as instruments of unrighteousness ; if I suffer not the fires of unhallowed passion to light up mine eye, nor the vampire of envy to suck the color from my cheek ; if I profane not my hands wf h the gains of ungodliness ; if I turn away mine ear from the scoffer, and keep under every appetite, and wrestle \vith every lust ; making it palpable that
I consider each limb as not destined to corruption, but intended for illustrious service, when, at the trumpet-blast of the resuiTcction, the earth's sepulchres shall be riven. And I give God the soul, when the understanding is reverently turned on the investigations of celestial truth ; when the will is reduced to meek compliance with the Divine will ; and when all the affections move so harmo- niously with the Lord's that they fasten on the objects which occupy his. This it is to give God his own. O God ! " all things come of thee." The will to pre- sent ourselves must come of thee. Grant that will unto all of us, that we may con- secrate unreservedly every thing to thy service, and yet humbly confess that of thine own alone do we give thee.
SERMON IV.
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.*
•* And bciiip found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death ol the
cross." — PHiLipriANS, ii. 8.
We have been spared to reach once more that solemn season at which our Church directs specially our attention to the sufferings and death of the Re- deemer. There can never, indeed, be the time at which the contemplation of the offering-up of our great high priest is at all out of place. Knowing the foun- dation of every hope, our thoughts should be continually on that substitu- tion of the innocent fu- the guilty which was made upon Calvary, when he "who did no sin, neither was guile found in 'his mouth,"! Peter, 2: 22," bare our
sins in his own body on the tree." 1 Pet. 2 : 24. It is still, however, most true, that the preaching Christ Jesus and him crucified, requires not, as it consists not in, the perpetual recurrence to the slay- ing of our surety. The preaching of the cross is not, necessarily, that preaching which makes most frequent mention of the cross. That is the preaching of the cross, and that is the preaching of Christ, which makes the crucifixion of the Son of God its groundwork ; which offers no mercy, and exhorts to no duty, but on the distinct understanding that no
• 1 am indebted to Bishop Sherlock for much assistance in handling this and tho following
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
41
mercy could be obtained, had not a Me- diator purchased it ; no duty performed, had he not gained for us the power. But when the groundwork has been tho- rouglily laid, then, though it behooves us occasionally to refer to first principles, and to examine over again the strength of our basis, it is certainly not our busi- ness to insist continually on the presen- tation of sacrifice; just as if, this one article received, the whole were mas- tered of the creed of a christian.
For nothing do we more admire the services of our Church, than for the carefulness displayed that there be no losincj siQ:ht of the leading doctrines of the faith. It may be said of the Clergy of the Church of England, that they are almost compelled by the Almanac, if not by a sense of the high duties of their calling, to bring successively before their congregations the prominent arti- cles of Christianity. It is not left to their 0^%^! option, as it comparatively would be if they were not fastened to a ritual, to pass a year without speaking of the Crucifixion, the ResuiTection, and Ascension of Christ, of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, or of the out- pouring of the Spirit. If they be dis- posed to keep any of these matters out of their discourses, the Collects bring the omitted doctrines before the people, and convict the pastors of unfaithful- ness. A dissenting congregation may go on for years, and never once be di- rected to the gi-and doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. They are dependent on their minister. He may advance what ho chooses, and keep back what ho chooses; for he selects his own les- sons, as well as his own texts. An es- tablished congregation is not thus de- pendent on its minister. He may be an Unitarian in his heart; but he must be so far a Trinitarian to his people as to declare from the desk, even if he keep eilcnre in the pulpit, that " the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity."* And thus, whatever the objections which may be urged against forms of prayer, we cannot but think that a country with- out a liturgy is a country which lies open to all the incursions of heresy.
We obey, then, with thankfulness, the
appointment of our Church, which turns our thoughts specially at particular times on particular doctrines ; not at any season excluding their discussion, but providing that, at least once in the year, each should occupy a prominent place.
We would lead you, therefore, now to the survey of the humiliation of the man Christ Jesus, and thus take a step in that pilgrimage to Gethsemane and Calvary which, at the present time, is enjoined on the faithful.
We bring before you a verse from the well-known passage of Scripture which forms the epistle of the day, and which furnishes some of our stroneest arjiu- ments against those who deny the di- vinity of Christ. It cannot well be dis- puted, whatever the devised subterfuges for avoiding the inferences, that St. Paul speaks of the Mediator in three different states; a state of glory, when he was " in the form of God ; ' a state of hu- miliation, when he assumed " the form of a servant ; " a state of exaltation, when there was " given him a name which is above every name." It is fur- ther evident, that the state of glory preceded the state of humiliation ; so that Christ must have pre-existed in the fonn of God, and not have begun to exist when appearing on earth in the form of a servant. Indeed the apostle is inculcating humility, and enforcing his exhortation by the example of the Savior. " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." You can re- quire no proof that the strength of this exhortation lies in the fact, that Christ displayed a vast humility in consenting to become man ; and that it were to take from it all power, and all meaning, to suppose him nothing more than a man. It is surely no act of humility to be a man ; and no individual can set an example of humility by the mere being a man. But if one who pre-exists in an- other rank of intelligence become a man, then, but not otherwise, there may be humility, and consequently ex- ample, in his manhood.
We can, however, only suggest these points to your consideration, desiring- that you may be led to give to the whole passage that attention which it
• Athanasian Creed.
42
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
singularly deserves. We must confine ourselves to the sin;^le verse whicli we have selected as our text, and wliich, in itself, is so full of information that there may be difficulty in giving to each part the requisite notice.
The verse refers to the Redeemer in his humiliation, but cannot, as we shall find, be fairly interpreted without taking for granted his pre-existent glory. St. Paul, you obsei-ve, speaks of Christ as " found in fashion as a man," and as then hiimhling himself, so as to become " obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." It will be well that we advance a few remarks on the phrase " found in fashion as a man," before we consider that act of humility here as- cribed to the Savior.
Now the true humanity of the Son of God is as fundamental an article of Christianity as his true divinity. You would as effectually demolish our reli- gion by proving that Christ was not real man, as by proving that Christ was not real God. We must have a mediator between God and man; and " a media- tor is not a mediator of one," Gal. 3 : 20, but must partake of the nature of each. Shall we ever hesitate to pronounce it the comforting and sustaining thing to the followers of Christ, that the Re- deemer is, in the strictest sense, their kinsman 1 We may often be required, in the exercise of the office of an am- bassador from God, to set ourselves against what we count erroneous doc- trines touching the humanity of tlie Sa- vior. But shall it, on this account, be supposed that we either underrate, or keep out of sight, this mighty truth of Christianity, that the Son of God be- came as truly, and as literally, man, as I myself am man. We cannot, and we will not, allow that there was in him that fountain of evil which there is in ourselves. We contend that the ab- sence of the fountain, and not the mere prevention of the outbreak of its waters, is indispensable to the constitution of such purity as belonged to the holy child Jesus. But that he was like my- self in all points, my sinfulness only ex- cepted; that his flesh, like mine, could be lacerated by stripes, wasted by hun- ger, and torn by nails ; that his soul, like mine, could be assaulted by temp- taticn, harassed by Satan, and disquiet- ed under the hidings of the countenance
of the Father ; that he could suffer eve- ry thing which I can suffer, except the remorse of a guilty conscience ; that he could weep every tear which I can weep, except the tear of repentance; that he could fear with every fear, hope with every hope, and joy with every joy, which I may entertain as a man, and not bo ashamed of as a Chi'istian ; there is our creed on the humanity Ox the Mediator. If you could once prove that Christ was not perfect man — bear- ing always in mind that sinfulness is not essential to this perfectness — there would be nothing worth battling for in the truth that Christ was perfect God : the only Redeemer who can redeem, like the Goel under the law, my lost heritage, being necessarily my kins- man ; and none being my kinsman who is not of the same nature, bom of a wo- man, of the substance of that woman, my brother in all but rebellion, myself in all but unholiness.
We are bound, therefore, to examine, with all care, expressions which refer to the humanity of the Savior, and es- pecially those which may carry the ap- pearance of impugning its reality. Now it is remarkable, and could not be with- out design, that St. Paul uses words which go not directly to the fact of the reality of the humanity, but which might almost be thought to evade that fact. He does not broadly and roundly assert, that Christ was man. He takes what, at least, may be called a circuit- ous method, and uses three expressions, all similar, but none direct. " Took up- on him the form of a servant." " Was made in the likeness of men." " Being found in fashion as a man." There must, we say, have been some weighty reason with the apostle why he should, as it were, have avoided the distinct men- tion of Christ's manhood, and have em- ployed language which, to a certain ex- tent, is ambiguous. Why speak of the " form of a servant," or the " likeness of men," and of " being found in fashion as a man," when he wished to convey the idea that Christ was actually a ser- vant, and literally a man 1
We will, first of all, show you that these expressions, however apparently vague and indefinite, could never have been intended to bring into question the reality of Christ's humility. The apos- tle employs precisely the same kind of
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
43
laiig-uasre m reference to Christ's divi- nity He had before said of the Savior, "who being intheJormofGod." If then " the hkeness of men," or " the form of a servant," impHed that Christ was not really man, or not really a servant, " the form of God " would imply that he was not really God. The several exjires- sions must have a similar interpreta- tion. And if, therefore, Chiist was not really man, Christ was not really God; and what then was he ] Neither man, nor God is a conclusion for which no heretic is prej>ared. All admit that he was God separately, or man separately, or God and man conjointly. And there- fore the expressions, " form of God," " form of a servant," must mean lite- rally God, and literally a sei'vant; other- wise Christ was neitlier divine nor hu- man, but a phantom of both, and there- fore a nothing. So that, whatever St. Paul's reasons for employing this kind of expression, you see at once that, since he uses it alike, whether in refer- ence to the connection of Christ with divinity, or to that with humanity, it can take off nothing from the reality of either the manhood or the Godhead. If it took from one, it must take equally from both. And thus Christ would be left without any subsistence — a conclu- sion too monstrous for tb.nt most credu- lous of all things — scepticism.
We are certain, therefm-e — inasmuch as the alternative is an absurdity which waits not for refutation — that when St. Paul asserts of Christ that he was " found in fashion as a man," he intends nothing at variance with the doctrine of the real humanity of the Savior. He points him out as actually man ; though, for reasons which remain to be investi- gated, he adopts the phrase, " the fa- shion of a man."
Now it cannot, we think, be doubted that an opposition is designed between the expressions " in the form of God," and " found in fashion as a man," and that we shall understand the intent of the latter only through possessing our- selves of that of the former. If you con- sult your Bibles, you will perceive the representation of St. Paul to be, that it was " the form of God" of which Christ emptied himself, or which Christ laid aside, when condescending to be bom of a woman. " Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, (so we render it, but li- terally it is ' emptied himself,') and took, upon him the form of a servant." It was, thei'efore, " the Jv}-?n of God" which Christ laid aside. He was still God, and could not, for a lonely instant, cease to be God. But he did not appear as God. He put from him, or he veiled, those effulgent demonstrations of Deity which had commanded the homage, and called forth the admiration of the celes- tial hierarchy. And though he was, all the while, God, God as truly, and as ac- tually, as when, in the might of mani- fested Omnipotence, he filled infinite space with glorious masses of ai-chitec- tiire, still he so restrained the blazings of Divinity that he could not, in the same sense, be known as God, but want- ed the form whilst retaining the essence. He divested himself, then, of the form of God, and assumed, in its stead, the form or fashion of a man, Heretofoi-e, he had both been, and appeared to be God. Now he was God, but ajipeared as a man. The very being who had daz- zled the heavenly hosts in the form of God, walked the earth in the form and fashion of a man. Such, we think, is a fair account of the particular phrase- ology which St. Paul employs. The apostle is speaking of Christ as more than man. Had Christ been only man, how preposterous to say of him, that he was " found in fashion as a man." What other fashion, what other out- ward appearance, can a mere man pre- sent, but the fashion, the outward ap- pearance of a man ] But if Christ were God, and yet apj^eared as man, there is perfect accuracy in the statement that he was " found in fashion as a man;" and we can understand, readily enough, how he who never ceased, and could not cease to be God, might, at one time, manifest divinity in the form of God, and, at another, shroud that divinity in the form of a servant.
We would pause yet a moment on this point, for it is worth your closest attention. We are told that Christ " emptied himself," so that " though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor," 2 Cor. 8 : 9. But of what did he empty himself? Not of his being, not of his nature, not of his attributes. It must be blasphemous to speak of pro- perties of Godhead as laid aside, oi
44
THE HUMILIATION OP THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
even suspended. But Christ " emptied himself" of the glories and the majes- ties to which he had claim, and which, as he sat on the throne of the heavens, he possessed in unmeasured abundance. Whatsoever he was as to nature and essence, whilst appearing amongst the angels in the form of God, that he con- tinued to be still, when, in the form of a sen-ant, he walked the scenes of hu- man habitation. But then the glories of the form of God, these for a while he altogether abandoned. If indeed he had appeared ujion earth — as, according to the dignity of his nature, he had right to appear — in the majesty and glory of the Highest, it might be hard to under- stand what riches had been lost by di- vinity. The scene of display would have been changed. But the splendor of display being unshorn and undimin- ished, the armies of the sky might have congregated round the Mediator, and have given in their full tale of homage and admiration. But, oh, it was poverty that the Creator should be moving on a province of his own empire, and yet not be recognized nor confessed by his creatures. It was poverty that, when he walked amongst men, scattering blessings as he trode, the anthem of praise floated not around him, and the air was often bui-dened with the curse and the blasphemy. It was poverty that, as he passed to and fro through tribes whom he had made, and whom he had come dowTi to redeem, scarce a soli- tary voice called him blessed, scarce a solitary hand was stretched out in friendship, and scarce a solitary roof ever j)r(jffered him shelter, ibid when you contrast this deep and desolate po- verty with that exuberant wealth which had been always his own, whilst heaven continued the scene of his manifesta- tions— the wealth of the anthem-peal of ecsta.sy from a million rich voices, and of the solemn bowing down of sparkling multitudes, and of the glow- ing homage of immortal hierarchies, whensoever he showed forth his power or his purposes — ye cannot fail to per- ceive that, in taking upon him flesh, the Eternal Son descended, most literally, from abundance to want ; and that, though he continued just as mighty as before, just as infinitely gifted with all the stores and resources of essential di- vinity, the transition was so total, from
the reaping-in of glory from the wnole field of the universe to the receiving, comparatively, nothing of his revenues of honor, that we may assert, without resers^e, and without figure, that he who was rich, for our sakes became poor. " In the form of God," he had acted as it were, visibly, amid the en- raptured plaudits of angel and arch- angel, cherubim and seraphim. But now, in the form of man, he must be withdrawn from the delighted inspec- tions of the occupants of heaven, and act, as powerfully indeed as before, but mysteriously and invisibly, behind a dark curtain of flesh, and on the dreary platform of a sin-burdened territory. So that the antithesis, " the form of God," and " found in fashion as a man," marks accurately the change to which the Mediator submitted. And thus, whilst on our fonner showings, there is no impeachment, in the phrase, of the reality of Christ's humanity, we now exract from the description a clear witness to the divinity of Jesus, and show you that a fonn of speech which seems, at first sight, vague and indefi- nite, was, if not rendered unavoidable, yet readily dictated, by the union of natures in the person of the Redeemer.
But we will now pass on to consider that act of humility which is ascribed in our text to Christ Jesus. " Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
Now we would have it obsers-'ed — for some of the greatest truths in theology depend on the fact — that the apostle is here speaking of what Christ did after he had assumed humanity, and not oi what he did in assuming humanity. There was an act of humiliation, such as mortal thought cannot compass, in the coming down of Deity, and his tabernacling in flesh. We may well ex- claim, wonder, O heavens, and be aston- ished, O earth, when we remember that He whom the universe cannot contain, did, literally, condescend to circum- scribe himself \vithin the form of a ser- vant ; and that in no figure of speech, but in absolute, though mysterious re- ality, " the Word was made flesh," St. John, 1 : 14, and the Son of the High- est born of a pure virgin. We shall never find terms in which to embody even our own conceptions of this un
THE IILMCLtATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
45
measured humiliation ; whilst these con- ceptions themselves leave altogether unapproached the boundary lines of the wonder. Who can " by searching find out God ? " Job, 11 : 7. Who, then, by striving can calculate the abasement that God should become man"? If I could climb to Deity, I might know what it was for Deity to descend into d'jst. But forasmuch as God is inac- ces&iole to all my soarings, it can never come within the compass of my imagi- nation to tell up the amount of conde- scension ; and it will always I'emain a prodigy, too large for every thing but faith, that the Creator coalesced with the creature, and so constituted a mediator. But it is not to this act of humilia- tion that our text bears reference. This was the humiliation in the assumption of humanity. But after humanity had been assumed, when Christ was " found in fashion as a man," he yet further humbled himself; so that, over and above the humiliation as God, there was an humiliation as man. And it is on this fact that we would fasten your at- tention. You are to view the Son of God as having brought himself downi to the level of humanity, as having laid aside his dignities, and taken part of the flesh and the blood of those whom ne yearned to redeem. But then you {ire not to consider that the humiliation ended here. You are not to suppose that whatsoever came after was wound up, so to speak, in the original humilia- tion, and thus was nothing more than its fuller developement. God humbled himself, and became man. But there was yet a lower depth to which this first humiliation did not necessarily carry him. " Being found in fashion as a man, he humhled himself"
The apostle does not leave us to con- jecture in what this second humiliation mainly consisted. He represents it as submission to death, " even the death of the cross." So that, after becom- ing man, it was "humbling himself" to yield to that sentence fi-om which no man is exempted. It was " humbling him- self," to die at all ; it was " humbling himself" still more, to die ignominiously. We will examine successively these statements, and the conclusions to which they naturally lead.
It was humility in Christ to die at all. Who then was this mysterious man
of whom it can be said that he humbled himself in dying % Who can that m.an be, in whom that was humility which, in others, is necessity 1 Has there ever been the individual amongst the natu- ral descendants of Adam, however rare his endowments or splendid his achieve- ments, however illustrious by the might of heroism, or endeared by the warmth of philanthropy, of whom we could say that it was humility in him to die % It were as just to say that it w^as humility in him to have had only five senses, as that it was humility in him to die. The most exalted piety, the nearest ap- proaches to perfection of character, the widest distances between himself and all others of the race ; these, and a hundred the like reasons, would never induce us to give harborage, for an in- stant, to the thought that a man stood exempt from the lot of humanity, or that it was left, in any sense, to his option whether or no he would die. And, therefore, if there be a strong me- thod of marking off a man from the crowd of the human species, and of dis- tinguishing him fi-om all who bear the same outward appearance, in some mightier respects than those of a men- tal or moral superiority, is it not the ascribing to him what we may call a lordship over life, or the representing him as so literally at liberty to live, that it shall be humility in him to die 1 We hold it for an incontrovertible truth, that, had St. Paul said nothing of the pre-existent glory of our Mediator, there would have been enough in the expression of our text to satisfy unpre- judiced minds that a mere man, such as one of ourselves, could be no just description of the Lord Christ Jesus. If it were humility in the man to die, there must have been a power in the man of refusino- to die. If, in becoming " obedient unto death," the man " hum- bled himself," there can be no debate that his dying was a voluntary act ; and that, had he chosen to decline submis- sion to the rending asunder of soul and body, he might have continued to this day, unworn by disease, unbroken by age, the immortal man, the indestruc- tible flesh. We can gather nothing from such form of expression, but that it would have been quite possible for the Mediator to have upheld, through long cycles, undecayed his humanity, and to
46
THE UUMILIATIOX OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
have preservetl it stanch and unbroken, whilst generation after generation rose, and flourished, and fell. He in whom it was humility to die, must have been one who could have resisted, through a succession of ages, the approaches of death, and thus have still trodden our earth, the child of centuries past, the heir of centuries to come.
Wo plead for it as a most simple and necessary deduction, and we deny alto- gether that it is a harsh and overstrain- ed inference, fi-om the fact that the man Christ Jesus humbled himself in dying, that the man was more than man, and that a nature, higher than human, yea, even divine, belonged to his person. "We can advance no other account of such an act of humility. If you were even to say that the second Adam was, in every respect, just such a man as the first, ere evil entered, and, with it, ob- noxiousness to death, you would intro- duce greater difficulties than the one to be removed. You may say that if, for the sake of winning some advantage to his posterity, Adam, whilst yet un- fallen, and therefore, without " the sen- tence of death," 2 Cor. 1 : 2, in his mem- bers, had consented to die, ho would, strictly speaking, have liumhled him- self in dying; and that consequent- ly Christ, supposing him sinless like Adam, and therefore, under no necessi^ ty of death, might have displayed hu- mility in consenting to die, and yet not thereby have proved himself divine as well as human. We are not disposed to controvert the statement. So far as we can judge — though we have some jealousy of allowing that a mere crea- ture can lutmhlc himself in executing God's work — it may be true, that, had the man Christ Jesus been, in every re- spect, similar to the unfallen Adam, there mi{,dit have been humility in his dying, and yet no divinity in his person.
But then we strenuously set our- selves against such a false and perni- cious view of the Savior's humanity. We will admit that a Papist, but we deny that a Protestant can, without doing utter violence to his creed, main- tain that in every respect Christ re- sembled the unfallen Adam. The Pa- p'st entertains extravagant notions of
the virgin-mother of our Lord. He sup- poses her to have been immaculate, and free from original corruption. The Protestant, on the contrary, withhold- in"- not from INIary due honor and es- teem, classes her, in every sense, amongst the daucjhters of man, and be- lieves that, whatever her superior love- liness of character, she had her full share of the pollution of our nature. Now it may consist well enough with the Pajiist's theory, but it is wholly at variance with the Protestant's, to sup- jjose that the man Jesus, made of the substance of his mother, had a human- ity, like that of Adam, free from infir- mity as well as from sinful propensity. And Ave can never bring up the human- ity of Christ into exact sameness with the humanity of Adam, without either overthrowing the fundamental article of faith, that the Redeemer was the seed of the woman, or ascribing to his mother such preternatural purity as makes her own birth as mysterious as her son's.
We should pause, for a moment, in our argument, and speak on the point of the Savior's humanity. We are told that Christ's humanity was in every respect the same as our own humanity ; fallen, therefore, as ours is fallen. But Christ, as not being one of the natural descendants of Adam, was not included in the covenant made with, and viola- ted by, our common father. Hence his humanity was the solitaiy exception, the only humanity which became not fallen humanity, as a consequence on apostacy. If a man be a fallen man, he must have fallen in Adam ; in other words, he must be one of those whom Adam federally represented. But Christ, as being emphatically the seed of the woman, was not thus federally repre- sented ; and therefore Christ fell not, as we fell in Adam. He had not l>een a party to the broken covenant, and thus could not be a sharer in the guilty con- sequences of the infraction.
But, nevertheless, while we argue that Christ was not what is termed a fallen man, we contend that, since " made of a woman," Galatians, 4 ; 4, he was as truly " man, of the substance of his mother," * as any one amongst
Athana3ian Creed.
TUE HUMILIATION OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
47
ourselves, the weakest and most sinful. He was " made of a woman," and not a new creation, like Adam in Paradise. When we say that Christ's humanity was unfallen, we are far enough from saying that his humanity was the same as that of Adam, before Adam trans- gressed. He took humanity with all those innocent infirmities, but without any of those sinful propensities, which the fall entailed. There are consequen- ces on guilt which are perfectly guilt- less. Sin introduced pain, but pain it- self is not sin. And therefore Christ, as being " man, of the substance of his mother," derived from her a suffering humanity; but as "conceived by the Holy Ghost,"* he did not derive a sinful. Fallen humanity denotes a hu- manity which has descended from a state of moral purity to one of moral impurity. And so long as there has not been this descent, humanity may re- main unfallen, and yet pass from physi- cal strength to physical weakness. This is exactly what we hold on the humani- ty of the Son of God. We do not as- sert that Christ's humanity was the Adamic humanity ; the humanity, that is, of Adam whilst still loyal to Jeho- vah. Had this humanity been repz'odu- ced, there must have been an act of creation ; whereas, beyond controver- sy, Christ was " made of a woman," and not created, like Adam, by an act of omnipotence. And allowing that Christ's humanity was not the Adamic, of course we allow that there were con- sequences of the fall of which it par- took. We divide, therefore, these con- sequences into innocent infirmities, and sinful propensities. From both was Adam's humanity free before, and with both was it endowed after, transgi-es- sion. Hence it is enough to liave ei- ther, and the humanity is broadly dis- tinguished from the Adamic. Now Christ took humanity with the inno- cent infirmities. He derived humanity from his mother. Bone of her bone, anil flesh of her flesh, like her he could hunger, and thirst, and weep, and mourn, ami writhe, and die. But whilst he took humanity with the innocent infirmities, he did not take it with the sinful propensities. Here Deity inter-
posed. The Holy Ghost overshadowed the Virgin, and, allowing weakness to be derived from her, forbade wicked- ness ; and so caused that there sli )uld be generated a sorrowing and a suffer- ing humanity, but nevertheless an un- defiled and a spotless ; a humanity with tears, but not with stains; accessible to anguish, but not prone to offend; allied most closely with the produced misery, but infinitely removed from the producing cause. So that we hold — and we give it you as what we believe the orthodox doctrine — that Christ's humanity was not the Adamic humani- ty, that is, the humanity of Adam be- fore the fall ; nor fallen humanity, that is, in every respect the humanity of Adam after the fall. It was not the Ad- amic, because it had the innocent infir- mities of the fallen. It was not the fallen, because it had never descender! into moi-al impurity. It was, therefore, most literally our humanity, but with- out sin. " Made of a woman," Christ derived all from his mother that we derive, except sinfulness. And this he derived not, because Deity, in the per- son of the Holy Ghost, interposed be- tween the child and the pollution o^ the parent.
But we now recur to the subject- matter of discussion. We may consi- der our position untouched, that since a man " made of a woman," humbled himself in dying, he must have had an- other nature which gave him such pow- er over the human, that he might either yield to, or resist, its infirmities. Christ took our nature with its infirmities. And to die is one of these infi.imities, just as it is to hunger, or to thirst, or to be weary. There is no sin in dying. It is, indeed, a consequence on sin. But consequences may be endured without share in the cause ; so that Christ could take flesh which had in it a ten- dency to death, but no tendency to sin. It is not saying that Christ's flesh was sinful like our own, to say that it was corruptible like our own. There might be eradicated all the tendencies to the doing wrong, and still be left all the physical entailments of the wrong done by another. And no man can read the prophecy, "thou wilt not leave my
Apostles' Creed.
48
THE HUMILIATION OF THE MAX CHRIST JESUS.
Boul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see coiTuption," Psalm 16 : 10, without perceiving that thei-e was no natural incorruptibility, and, therefore, no natural deathlessness in the flesh of Christ Jesus ; for if the flesh had been naturally incori-U2:)tible, and, therefore, naturally deathless, how could God be represented as providing that this flesh should not remain so long in the grave as " too see corrup- tion?" The prophecy has no meanhig, if it be dtMiicd that Christ's body would have corrupted, had it continued in the sepulchre.
We may assert, then, that in Christ's humanity, as in our own, there was a tendency to dissolution ; a tendency re- sulting from entailed infirmities which were innocent, but in no degree from sinfulness, whether derived or con- tracted. But as the second person in the Trinity, the Lord of life and glory, Christ Jesus possessed an unlimited control over this tendency, and might, had he pleased, for ever have suspend- ed, or for ever have counteracted it. And herein lay the alleged act of hu- mility. Christ was unquestionably mor- tal ; otherwise it is most clear that he could not have died at all. But it is to the full as unquestionable that he must have been more than mortal ; other- wise death was unavoidable ; and where can be the humility of submitting to that which we have no power of avoid- ing 1 As mere man, he was mortal. But then as God, the well-spring of life to the population of the universe, he ;ould forever have withstood the ad- vances of death, and have refused it do- minion in his own divine person. But "he humbled himself." In order that there might come down uj^on him the fulness of the wrath-cup, and that he might exhaust the penalties which roll- ed, like a sea of fire, between earth and heaven, he allowed scope to that liable- ness to death which he might for ever have arrested ; and died, not through any necessity, but through the act of his own will ; died, inasmuch as his humanity was mortal ; died voluntarily, inasmuch as his person was divine.
And this was humility. If, on becom- ing man, he had ceased to be God, there would have been no humility in his death. He would only have submit- ted to what he could not have declin-
ed. But since, on becoming what he was not, he ceased not to be what he was, he brought down into the fashion of man all the life-giving energies which appertained to him as God ; and he stood on the earth, the wondrous combination of two natures in one per- son ; the one nature infiim and tending to decay, the other self-existent, and the source of all being throughout a crowded immensity.
And the one nature might have eter nally kept up the other ; and, with standing the inroads of disease, and pouring in fresh supplies of vitality, have given undecaying vigor to the mortal, perpetual youth to the con-up- tible. But how then could the Scrip- tures have been fulfilled; and wheie would have been the expiation for the sins of a burdened and gi-oaning crea- tion? It was an act of humility — the tongue, we have told you, cannot ex- press it, and the thought cannot com- pass it — that, "for us men and for our salvation," the Eternal Word consent- ed to " be made flesh." God became man. It was stupendous humility. But he was not yet low enough. The man must humble himself, humble himself even unto death ; for " without shed- ding of blood is no remission." He- brews, 9 : 22. And he did humble him- self. Death was avoidable, but he sub- mitted ; the grave might have been overstepped, but he entered.
It would not have been the working out of human redemption, and the mil- lions with whom he had entered into brotherhood would have remained un- delivered from their thraldom to Satan, had Deity simply united itself to hu- manity, and then upheld humanity so as to enable it to defy its great enemy, death. There lay a curse on the earth's population, and he who would be their surety must do more than take their nature — he must carry it through the darkness and the fearfulness of the real- ized malediction. But what else was this but a fresh act of humility, a new and unlimited stretch of condescen- sion 1 Even whilst on earth, and cloth- ed round with human flesh and blood, Christ Jesus was still that gi-eat " I am," who sustains " all things by the word of his power," Hebrews, 1 : 3, and out of whose fulness every rank of created intelligence hath, from the beginning,
THE HUMILIATIOX OF THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
49
drawn the elements of existence. And therefore, though " found in fashion as a man," he was all along infinitely su- perior to the necessity of human na- ture ; and, being able to lay down life and to take it again at pleasure, was only subject to death because deter- •mining to die. It was then humility to die. It was the voluntary submission to a curse. It was a free-will descent from the high privilege of bearing on humanity through the falling myri- ads of successive generations, and of strengthening it to walk as the denizen of eternity, whilst there went forward unresisted, on the right hand and on the left, the mowing-down the species. And when, therefore, you would de- scribe the humiliation of the Son of God, think not that you have opened the depths of abasement, when you have shown him exchanging the throne of light, and the glory which he had with the Father, for a tabernacle of flesh, and companionship with the re- bel. He went down a second abyss, we had almost said, as fathomless as the first. From heaven to earth, who shall measure it ? But when on earth, when a man, there was the whole precipice of God's curse, not one hair-breadth of which was he necessitated to descend. And when, therefore, he threw himself over this precipice, and sank into the grave, who will deny that there was a new and overwhelming display of con- descension ; that there was performed by the God-man, eve a as there had been by the God, an act of self-humiliation to which we can find no parallel ; and that, consequently, " being found in fashion as a man, Christ humbled him- self, and became obedient unto death 1 "
But this is not all. You have not yet completed the sur\'ey of the Mediator's humiliation.
It was wonderful self-abasement that he should choose to die. But the man- ner of the death makes the humility a thousand fold more apparent. " He be- came obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.'' We wish it observ- ed that Christ Jesus was not insensible to ignominy and disgi-ace. He submit- ted ; but, oh, he felt acutely and bitter- ly. You cannot cause a sharper pang to an ingenuous and upright mind than by ihe imputation of crime. The conscious- ness of innocence only heightens the
smart. It is the guilty man who cares only for the being condemned — the guiltless is pierced through and thi-ough by tlte being accused. And let it never be thought that the humanity of the Son of God, holy and undefiled as it was, possessed not this sensitiveness to disgrace. " Be ye come out as a- gainst a thief, with swords and staves ] " St. Luke, 22 : 52, was a remonstrance which clearly showed that he felt keen- ly the shame of unjust and ruffianly treatment. And as if it were not hu- miliation enough to die, shall he, with all this sensitiveness to disgrace, die the death which was, of all others, ig- nominious 1 a death appropriated to the basest condition of the worst men, and unworthy of a free man, whatever the amount of his guiltiness % Shall the separation of soul from body be eftect- ed by an execution to which none were doomed but the most wretched of slaves, or the. most abandoned of mis- creants ; by a jiunishment, too inhuman indeed to find place in the Jewish code, but the nearest approach to which, the hanging up the dead bodies of crimi- nals, was held so infamous and execra- ble, that the fearful phrase, " accursed by God," was applied to all thus sen- tenced and used '? We speak of nothing but the shame of the cross ; for it was the shame which gave display to humi- lity. And we are bold to say, that, after the condescension of God in becoming man, after the condescension of the God-man in consenting to die, there was an act of condescension, scarce in- ferior to the others, in that the death was " the death of the cross. " He who humbled himself in dying at all, humr bled himself unspeakably more in dying as a malefactor. It would have been, humility had he who was exempt from^ the necessity of our nature consented, to fall, as heroes fall, amid the tears of a grateful people, and the applauses of an admiring world. It would have been humility had he breathed out his soul on the regal couch, and far-spreading tribes had felt themselves orphaned. But to be suspended as a spectacle be- tween heaven and earth; to die a lin- gering death, exposed to the tauntings- and revilings of a profligate multitude; " all they that see me laugh me to scorn ; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head ;" Psalm 22 : 7 ; to be " numbered >
50
THE HUMILIATION OP THE MAN CHRIST JESUS.
with the transgTessors," Isaiah, 53 : 12, ] and expire amid the derision and de- spite of" his own kinsmen after the flesh ; if the other were humihty, how shall we describe this ] Yet to this, even to this, did the Mediator condescend. " He endured," says St. Paul, "the cross, despising the shame." Hebrews, 12 : 2. He felt the shame ; otherwise there was nothing memorable in his bringing himself to despise it. He despised it, not as feeling it no evil, but as making it of no account when set against the glorious results which its endurance would efiect. For it was not only ne- cessary that he should die, it was also necessary that he should die ignomini- ously. He must die as a criminal ; we wish you to observe that. He was to die as man's substitute ; and man was a criminal, yea, the very basest. So that death by public sentence, death as a malefactor, may be said to have been required from a surety who stood in the place of traitors, with all their trea- son on his shoulders. The shame of the cross was not gi-atuitous. It was not enough that the substitute humbled himself to death ; he must humble him- self to a shameful death. And Christ Jesus did this. He could say, in the pa- thetic words of prophecy, " I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Isa. 50 : 6. And shall we doubt, that, man as he was, keenly alive to unmerited disgi-ace, the indignities of his death added loathsomeness to the cup which he had undertaken to drink ; and shall we not then confess that there was an humiliation in the mode of dying, over and above that of taking flesh, and that of permitting himself to be mortal — so that the apostle's words are vindi- cated in their every letter, " being found in fashion as a man, he humhled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ? "
We can only, in conclusion, press on you the exhortation of St. Paul : " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ .Tcsus." He died to make atone- ment, but he died also to set a pattern. Shall selfishness find patrons amongst you when you have gazed on this exam- ple of disinterestedness ] Shall pride be harbored after you have seen Deity
humbling himself, and then, as man, abasing himself, till there was no lower point to which he could descend ] And all this for ^is ; for you, for me ; for the vile, for the reprobate, for the lost ! And what return do we make ] Alas ! for the neglect, the contempt, the cold- ness, the formality, which he who hum- bled himself, and agonized, and died the death of shame on our behalf, receives at our hands. Which of us is faithfully taking pattern ] Which of us, I do not say, has mastered and ejected pride, bnt is setting himself in good earnest, and with all the energy which might be brouQ^ht to the work, to the ^^Testling with pride and sweeping it from the breast 1 would to God that this pas- sion-season may leave us more humble, more self-denying, more disposed to bear one another's burdens, than it finds us. Would to God that it may write, more deeply than ever on our hearts, the doctrine which is the alone engine against the haughtiness and self-suffi- ciency of the fallen, that the Mediator between earth aud heaven was " per- fect God and perfect man." * There must be Deity in the rock which could bear up a foundered w-orld. May none of you forget this. The young amongst you more especially, keep ye this dili- gently in mind. I have lived much amid the choicest assemblies of the literary youth of our land, and I know full well how commonly the pride of talent, or the appetite for novelty, or the desire to be singular, or the aversion from what is holy, will cause an unstable mind to yield itself to the specious so- phistry, or the licentious effrontery, of sceptical ^vl•itings. I pray God that none of you be dravioi within the ed- dies of that whirlpool of infidelity, which rends into a thousand shivers the noblest barks, freighted with a rich lading of intellect and learning. Be ye watchful alike against the dogmas of an indolent reasoning, and the syren strains of a voluptuous poetry, and the fiendlike sneers of reprobate men, and the polished cavils of fashionable con- tempt. Let none of these seduce or scare you from the simplicity of the faith, and breathe blightingly on your allegiance, and shrivel you into that
Atbanasian Creed
THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION.
51
withered and sapless thing, the disciple of a creed which owns not divinity in Christ. If I durst choose between poison-cups, I would take Deism i-ather than Socinianism. It seems better to reject as forgery, than, ha\'ing received as truth, to drain of meaning, to use, without reserve, the sponge and the thumb-screw; the one, when passages are too plain for controversy, the other when against us, till unmercifully tor- tured. May you all see that, unless a Mediator, more than human, had stood in the gap to stay the plague, the penal-
ties of a broken law, unsatisfied throutrh eternity, must have entered like fiery arrows, and scathed and maddened each descendant of Adam. May you all learn to use the doctrine of the atonement as the basis of hope, and the motive to holiness. Thus shall this passion-season be a new starting-point to all of us ; to those who have never entered on a hea- venward course ; to those who have entered, and then loitered; so that none, at last, may occupy the strange and fearful position of men for whom a Savior died, but died in vain.
SERMON V.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION VIEWED IN CONNEC- TION WITH THAT OF THE SOUL'S IMMORTALITY.
" Jesus said unto her, I ara the resurrection and the life." — John, xi. 25.
There is perhaps no narrative in the New Testament more deeply interest- ing than that of the raising of Lazarus. It was nearly the last miracle which Jesus performed while sojourning on earth ; and, as though intended for a great seal of his mission, you find the Savior prepainng himself, with extraor- dinary care, for this exhibition of his power. He had indeed on two other occasions raised the dead. The daujrh- ter of Jairus, and the widow's son of Nain, had both, at his bidding, been I'e- stored to life. But you will remember, that, with regard to the former, Christ had used the expression, " the damsel is not dead, but sleepcth : " Mark, 5:39: and that, probably, the latter had been only a short time deceased when car- ried out for burial. Hence, in neither case, was the evidence that death had taken place, and that the party was not
in a trance, so clear and decisive that no room was left for the cavils of the sceptic. And accordingly there is ground of doubt whether the apostles themselves were thoroughly convinced of Christ's power over death ; whether, that is, they believed him able to re- cover life when once totally and truly extinguished. At least, you will observe, that, when told that Lazarus was actu- ally dead, they were filled with sorrow; and that, when Christ said that he would go and awaken him from sleep, they re- solved indeed to accompany their Mas- ter, but expected rather to be them- selves stoned by the Jews, than to see their friend brought back from the sepulchre.
We may suppose, therefore, that it was with the design of furnishing an in-esistible demonstration of his power, that, after hearing of the illness of La-
52
THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION.
zarus, Jesus tarried two days in the place where the message had found him. He loved Lazarus, and Martha and Mary his sisters. It must then have been the dictate of afl'ection that he should hast- en to the distressed family as soon as informed of their affliction. ]5ut had he reached Bethany before Lazarus expir- ed, or soon after the catastrophe had occurred, we may readily see that the same objection might have been urged against the miracle of restoration, as in the other instances in which the grave had been deprived of its prey. There would not have been incontrovertible proof of actual death; and neither, therefore, would there have been in- controvertible j^roof that Jesus was " the prince of life." Acts, 3: 15. But, by so delaying his journey that he ar- rived not at Bethany until Lazarus had been four days dead, Christ cut off all occasion of cavil, and, rendering it un- deniable that the soul had been sepa- rated fiom the body, rendered it equally undeniable, when he had wrought the miracle, that he possessed the power of re-uniting the two.
As Jesus approached Bethany, he was met by Martha, who seems to have en- tertained some indistinct apprehension that his ])revalence with God, if not his own might, rendered possible, even then, the restoration of her brother. " I know that, even now, whatsoever thou wait ask of God, God will give it thee." This drew from Jesus the saying, " thy brother shall rise again." The resur- rection of the body was, at this time, an article of the national creed, being confessed by the great mass of the Jews, though denied by the Sadducees. Hence Martha had no difficulty in assenting to what Jesus declared ; though she plain- ly implied that she both wished and hoped something more on behalf of her brother. *' I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day." And now it was, that, in order to obtain a precise declaration of faith in his power, Jesus addressed Martha in the words of our text, words of an ex- traordinary beauty and solemnity, put by the Church into the mouth of the minister, as he meets the sorrowing band who bear a brother, or a sister, to the long home appointed for our race. Jesus said unto lier, •' I am the resur- rection and the life." Martha had ex-
pressed frankly her belief in a general resuiTection ; but she seemed not to as- sociate this resurrection with Jesus as a cause and an agent. The Redeemer, therefore, gathers, as it were, the gene- ral resurrection into Himself; and, as though asserting that all men shall in- deed rise, but only through mysterious union with himself, he declares, not that he will effect the resurrection, sum- moning by his voice the tenantry from the sepulchres, but that he is Himself that resurrection : " I am the resurrec- tion and the life."
Now it were beside our purpose to follow further the narrative of the rais- ing of Lazarus. We have shown you how the words of our text are intro- duced, and we shall find that, when de- tached from the context, they furnish material of thought amply sufficient for a single discourse.
It seems to us, that, in claiming such titles as those which are to come un- der review, Christ declared himself the cause and the origin of the immortality of our bodies and souls. In announcing himself as " the resun-ection," he must be considered as stating that he alone effects the wondrous result of the cor- ruptible putting on incon-uption. In announcing himself as " the life," he equally states that he endows the spirit with its happiness, yea, rather with its existence through eternity. If Christ had only termed himself " the resun-ec- tion," we might have considered him as refen-ing merely to the body — as- serting it to be a consequence on his work of mediation that the dust of ages shall again quicken into life. But when He terms himself also " the life," we cannot but suppose a reference to the immortality of the soul, so that this noble and sublime fact is, in some way, associated with the achievements of redemption.
We are accustomed, indeed, to think that the immortality of the soul is in- dependent on the atonement ; so that, although had there been no redemption there would have been no resurrection, the principle within us would have re- mained unquenched, subsisting for ever, and for ever accessible to pain and pen- alty. We shall not pause to examine the justice or injustice of the opinion. We shall only remark that the exist- ence of the soul is, undoubtedly, as de-
THE DOCTRIXE OP THE RESURRECTION.
53
pendent upon God as that of the body ; that no sph-it, except Deity himself, can be necessarily, and inherently, immor- tal ; and that, if it should please the Almighty to put an arrest on those mo- mentary outgoings of life which flow from himself, and peniieate the uni- verse, he would instantly once more be alone in infinity, and one vast bankrupt- cy of being overspread all the provin- ces of creation. There seems no rea- son, if we may thus speak, in the nature of things, why the soul should not die. Her life is a derived and dependent life ; and that which is derived and de- pendent may, of course, cease to be, at the will of the author and upholder. And it is far beyond us to ascertain what term of being would have been assigned to the soul, had there arisen no champion and surety of the fallen. We throw ourselves into a region of speculation, across which there runs no discernible pathway, when we inquire whether there would have been an an- nihilation, supposing there had not been a redemption of man. We can only say, that the soul has not, and cannot have, any more than the body, the sources of vitality in herself We can, therefore, see the possibility, if not prove the certainty, that it is only because " the word was made flesh," John, 1: 14, and struggled for us and died, that the human spirit is unquench- able, and that the principle, which dis- tinguishes us from the brutes, shall re- tain everlastingly its strength and its majesty.
But without travelling into specula- tive questions, we wish to take our text as a revelation, or announcement, of the immortality of the soul ; and to ex- amine how, by joining the terms, resur- rection and life, Christ made up what was wanting in the calculations of na- tural religion, when turned on deter- mining this grand article of faith.
Now with this as our chief object of discourse, we shall endeavor, in the first place, to show briefly the accuracy with which Christ may be designated " the Resurrection." We shall then, in the second place, attempt to prove, that the resurrection of the body is a great element in the demonstration of '• the life," the immortality of the soul.
We begin by reminding you of a fact, not easily overlooked, that the resur-
rection is, in the very strictest sense, a consequence on redemption. Had not Christ undertaken the suretyship of our race, there would never have come a time when the dead shall be raised. If there had been no interposition on be- half of the fallen, whatever had become of the souls of men, their bodies must have remained under the tyranny of death. The original curse was a curse of death on the whole man. And it cannot be argued that the curse of the body's death could allow, so long as unrepealed, the body's resurrection. So that we may lay it down as an undisputed truth, that Christ Jesus achieved man's resurrection. He was, emphatically, the Author of man's re- surrection. Without Christ, and apart from that redemption of our nature which he wrought out by obedience and suffering, there would have been no resurrection. It is just because the Eternal Son took our nature into union with his own, and endured therein the curse provoked by disobedience, that a time is yet to annve when the buried generations shall throw off" the dis- honors of corruption.
But we are ready to allow that the proving Christ the cause, or the author of the resuiTection, is not, in strict truth, the proving him that resurrec- tion itself. There must be some broad sense in which it holds good that the resurrection of Christ was the resuiTec- tion of all men ; otherwise it would be hard to vindicate the thorough accu- racy of our text. And if you call to mind the statement of St. Paul, " since by man came death, by man came also the i-esurrection of the dead," 1 Cor. 15 : 21, you will perceive that the re- surrection came by Christ, in exactly the same manner as death had come by Adam. Now we know that death came by Adam as the representative of hu- man nature ; and we, therefore, infer that the resurrection came by Christ as the representative of human nature. Retaining always his divine pei-sonality, the second person of the Trinity took our nature into union with his own , and in all his obedience, and in all h^.3 suffering, occupied this nature in the character, and with the properties, of a head. When he obeyed, it was the na- ture, and not a human person which obeyed. When he suffered, it was the
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nature, and not a human person which suffered. So that, when he died, he died as our head ; and when he rose, he arose also as our head. And thus — keeping up the alleged parallel between Adam and Christ — as every man dies because concerned in the disobedience of the one, so he rises because included in the ransom of the other. Human na- ture having been ciaicified, and buried, and raised in Jesus, all who partake of this nature, partake of it in the state into which it has been brought by a Mediator, a state of rescue from the power of the grave, and not of a con- tinuance in its dark dishonors. The nature had almost literally died in Adam, and this nature did va literally revive in Christ. Christ carried it through all its scenes of trial, and toil, and temp- tation, up to the closing scene of an- guish and death ; and then he went down in it to the chambers of its lonely slumbers; and theie he brake into shivers the chain which bound it and kept it motionless ; and he brought it triumphantly back, the mortal immor- talized, the decaying imperishable, and " I am the ResuiTCCtion," was then the proclamation to a wondeinng universe.
We trench not, in the smallest de- gree, on the special privileges of the godly, when we assert that there is a link which unites Chnst with every in- dividual of the vast family of man, and that, in virtue of this link, the graves of the earth shall, at the last day, be rifled of their tenantry. The assertion is that of St. Paul : " Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death." Heb. 2:14. So that the Redeemer made himself bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh ; and he thus united himself with every dweller upon the globe ; and, as a consequence on such union, that which he wrought out for his own flesh, he wrought out for all Aesh ; making, at one and the same time, and by one and the same act, his own immortal, and that of all immortal. He was then, literally, " the Resurrection." His resurrection was the resurrection of the nature, and the resurrection of the nature was the re- surrection of all men. Oh, it is an amazing contemplation, one to which
even thought must always fail to do justice ! The first Adam just laid the blierhtinfj hand of disobedience on the root of human nature, and the count- less millions of shoots, which were to spring up and cover the earth, were stricken with corruption, and could gi-ow only to wither and decay. The se- cond Adam nurtured the root in righte- ousness, and watered it with blood. And, lo ! a vivifying sap went iip into every, the most distant branch ; and over this sap death wields no power; for the sap goes dowai with the branch into the bosom of the earth, and, at God's appointed time, shall quicken it afresh, and cause it to arise indestruc- tible through eternity. It would be quite inconsistent with the resurrection of the nature — and this it is, you ob- seri'e, which makes Christ *' the Resur- rection"— that any individual partak- ing that nature, should continue for ever cased up in the sepulchre. And if there never moved upon this earth beings who gave ear to the tidings of salvation; if the successive generations of mankind, without a lonely exception, laughed to scorn the proffers of mercy and forgiveness ; still this desperate and unvarying infidelity would have no effect on the resurrection of the species. The bond of flesh is not to be rent by any of the acts of the most daring re- bellion. And in virtue of this union, sure as that the Mediator rose, sure as that he shall return and sit, in a^vful pomp, on the judgment-seat, so sure is it that the earth shall yet heave at every pore; and that, even had it received in deposit the bodies of none save the unrighteous and the infidel, it would give iip the dust w^ith a most faithful accuracy; so that the buried would arise, imperishable in bone and sinew ; and the despisers of Christ, be- ing of one flesh with him, must share in the resuiTection of that flesh, though, not being of one spirit, they shall have no part in its glorification.
You see, then, that Christ is more than the eflficient cause of the resurrec- tion ; that he is the resurrection : " 1 am the Resurrection." And we cannot quit this portion of our subject without again striving to impress upon you the augustness and sublimity of the ascer- tained fact. The untold myriads of our lineage rose in the resurrection of the
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new Head of our race. Never, oli never, would the sheeted reliques of mankind have walked forth fiom the vaults and the church-yards ; never from the val- ley and the mountam would there have started the millions who have fallen in the battle-tug ; never would the giant- caverns of the unfathomed ocean have yielded up the multitudes who were swept from the earth when its wicked- ness grew desperate, or whom strand- ed navies have bequeathed to the guar- dianship of the deep ; never would the dislocated and decomposed body have shaken off its dishonors, and stood out in strength and in SNTiimetry, bone coming again to bone, and sinews bind- ing them, and skin covering them — had not He, who so occupied the nature that he could act for the race, descend- ed, in his prowess and his purity, into the chambers of death, and scattering the seeds of a new existence through- out their far-spreading ranges, aban- doned them to gloom and silence till a fixed and on-coming day; appointing that then the seeds should certainly germinate into a rich harvest of undy- ing bodies, and the walls of the cham- bers, falling flat at the trumpet-blast of judgment, disclose the swarming ar- mies of the buried marching onward to the" great white throne." Rev. 20 : 11.
But we shall not dwell longer on the fact that Christ Jesus is " the Resur- rection." Our second topic of dis- course presents most of difficulty ; and we shall, therefore, give it the remain- der of our time.
We -wish to take our text as an an- nouncement of the immortality of the soul, and to examine how, by joining the terms resurrection and life, Christ supplied what was wanting in the cal- culations of natural religion. Now we hold no terms with those, who, through fin overwTought zeal for the ho'ior of the Gospel, would deprecate the str-ug- glings after knowledge which charac- terized the days preceding Christianity. There arose, at times, men, gifted above their fellows, who threw themselves boldly into the surrounding darkness, and brought out sparklings of truth which they showed to a wondering, yet doubting, world. Thus the immortali- ty of the soul was certainly held by sundry of the ancient philosophers. And thousjh there might be much error
compounded with truth, and much fee- bleness in the notions entertained of spiritual subsistence, it was a gieat tri- umph on the part of the soul, that she did at all shake off the trammels of flesh, and, soaring upwaids, snatch something like proof of her own high destinies.
We believe that amongst those who enjoyed not the advantages of revela- tion there was no suspicion of a resur- rection, but there was, at least, a sur- mise of life. We say a surmise of life. For if you examine carefully the limit to which unaided discovery might be pushed, you will find cause to think that a shrewd guess, or a brilliant con- jecture, is the highest attainment of natural religion. That mere matter can never have consciousness ; that mere matter can never feel ; that, by no con- stitution and adjustment of its atoms, can mere matter become capable of acts of understanding and reason ; we can have no hesitation in saying that these are self-evident truths, of which no candid mind \rill ask a demonstra- tion. The mind is its own witness that it is something more than matter. And when men have thus proved themselves in part immaterial, they have made a long advance towards proving them- selves immortal. They have ascertain- ed, at least, the existence of a princi- ple, which, not being matter, will not necessarily be affected by the dissolu- tion of matter. And having once deter- mined that there is a portion of man adapted for the soaring away from the ruins of matter, let attention be given to the scrutiny of this portion, and it will be found so capable of noble per- formances, so fitted for the contempla- tion of things spiritual and divine, that it shall commend itself to the inquirer as destined to the attainments of a lof- tier existence. So that we are certain upon the point that man might prove himself in part immaterial, and, there- fore, capable of existence, when sepa- rate from matter. And we are persuad- ed yet further, that, haring sho«ii him- self capable of a future existence, he might also show himself capable of an immortal ; there being ample reason on the side of the opinion, that the princi- ple, which could survive at all, might go on sun'iving for ever.
Now this is a brief outline of the ar
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gument which might be pursued for the soul's immortahty. Man might reason up from matter as insensible to himself as sensible. He might conclude, that, since what is wholly material can ne- ver think, he himself, as being able to think, must be, in part, immaterial. And the moment he has made out the point of an immaterial principle actu- ating matter, he may Ining to bear a vast assemblage of proofs, derived alike from the aspirings of this principle and the attributes of God, all confirmatory of the notion, that the immaterial shall survive when the material has been worn down and sepulchred.
But we think that when a man had reasoned up to a capacity of immor- tality, he would have reached the fur- thest possible point. We think that natural religion could just show him that he .night live for ever, but cer- tainly not that he would live for ever. He misrht have been brought into a persuasion that the principle within him was not necessarily subject to death. T3ut he could not have assured himself that God would not consign this principle to death. It is one thing to prove a principle capable of immor- tality, and quite another to prove that God will allow it to be immortal. And if man had brought into the account the misdoings of his life ; if he had re- membered how grievously he had per- mitted the immaterial to be the slave of the material, giving no homage to the ethereal and magnificent principle, but binding it basely down within the frame-work of flesh ; why, we may sup- pose there would have come upon him the fear, we had almost said the hope, that, by an act of omnipotence, God would terminate the existence of that which might have been everlasting, and, sending a canker-worm into the long- dishonored germ, forljid the soul to shoot upwards a plant of immortality. So that we again say that a capacity, •but not a certainty of immortality, ^vould be, probably, the highest discov- ery arrived at by natural religion. And just here it was that the Gospel came in, and bringing man tidings from the Father of spirits, informed him of the irrevocable appointment that the soul, Tike the Deity of which it is the spark, shall go not out and wax not dim. Re- ^vealed leligion approached as the aux-
iliary to natural, and, confirming all its discoveries of man's capacity of im- mortality, removed all doubts as to his destinies being everlasting. And thus it were fair to contend, that, up to the coming of Christ, man had done no- thing more than cany himself to the border-line of eternity ; and that there he stood, a disembodied spirit, full of the amazing consciousness, that, if 2:)er- mitted to spring into the unbounded expanse, he should never be mastered by the immensity of flight ; but ham- pered, all the while, by the suspicion that there might go out against him a decree of the Omnipotent, binding down the wings of the soul, and for- bidding this expiation over the for ever and for ever of Godhead. So that the Gospel, though it taught not man that he might be, assuredly did teach him that he should be, immortal. It brought him not the first tidings of an immate- rial principle, but, certainly, it first in- formed him that nothing should inter- fere with the immaterial becoming the eternal.
Now you will observe that it has been the object of these remarks, to prove that natural religion did much, and at the same time left much undone, in regard to the disclosures of a future state to man. We have striven, there- fore, to show you a point up to which discovery might be pushed without aid from revelation, but at which, if not thus assisted, it must come necessarily to a stand. And now, if you would bring these statements into connection with our text, we may again say that natural religion had a surmise of life, but no suspicion of a resurrection ; that if Christ had only said " I am the life,'' he would have left in darkness and per- plexity the question of the soul's im- mortality ; but that by combining two titles, by calling himself " the resur- rection and the Ufe," he removed the difficulties from that question, and brought to light the immortality. We wish you to be clear on this great point We shall, therefore, examine how na- tural religion came to be deficient, and how the statement of our text supplied what was wanting.
Now we see no better method of pro- secuting this inquiry, than the putting one's self into the position of a man who has no guidance but that of natUT
TUE DOCTRINE OP THE RESURRECTION.
5t
ral religion. If there had never shone on me the beams of the Gospel, and if I could only gather my arguments from what I felt within myself, and from what I saw occurring around me, I might ad- vance, step by step, through some such process as the following. I am not wholly a material thing. I can perceive, and reason, and remember. I am con- scious to myself of powers which it is impossible that mere matter, however wrought up or moulded, could possess or exercise. There must, then, be with- in me an immaterial principle, a some- thing which is not matter, a soul, an invisible, mysterious, powerful, pervad- in<T thins:. And this soul, I feel that it struggles after immortality. I feel that it urges me to the practice of virtue, however painful, and that it warns me against the pursuit of vice, however pleasant. I feel that it acts upon me by motives, derived from the properties of a God, but which lose all their point and power, unless I am hereafter to be judged and dealt with according to my actions. And if natural religion have thus enabled me, at the least, to conjec- ture that there shall come a judgment, and a state of retribution, what is it which puts an arrest on my searchings, and forbids my going onward to cer- tainty] We reply without hesitation, death. Natural religion cannot overleap the grave. It is just the fact of the body's dissolution, of the taking down of this fleshly tabernacle, of the resolu- tion of bone, and flesh, and sinew into dust — it is just this fact which shakes all my calculations of a judgment, and throws a darkness, not to be penetrated, round " life and immortality." 2 Tim. 1 : 10. And why so 1 Why, after show- ing that I am immaterial — why, after proving that a part of myself spurns from it decay, and is not necessarily affected by the breaking-up of the body — why should death interfere with my conviction of the certainties of judg- ment and retribution'? We hold the reason to be simple and easily defined. If there shall come a judgment, of course the beings judged must be the very beings who have lived on this earth. If there shall come a retribution, of course the beings rewarded or pun- ished must be the very beings who have been virtuous or vicious in this present existence. There can be nothing clear-
er than that the individuals judged, and the individuals recompensed, must be the very individuals who have here moved and acted, the sons and the daughters of humanity. But how can they be 1 The soul is not the man. There must be the material, as well as the immaterial, to make up man. The vicious person cannot be the suflering person, and the virtuous person cannot be the exalted person, and neither can be the tried jierson, unless body and soul stand together at the tribunal, constituting hereafter the very person which they constitute here. And if na- tural religion know nothing of a resur- rection— and it does know nothing, the resurrection being purely an article of revelation — we hold that natural reli- gion must here be thrown out of all her calculations, and that confusion and doubt will be the result of her best searchings after truth.
I see that if there be a judgment hereafter, the individuals judged must be the very individuals who have obey- ed here, or disobeyed here. But if the material part be dissolved, and there re- main nothing but the immaterial, they are not, and they cannot be, the very same individuals. The soul, we again say, is not the man. And if the soul, by itself, stand in judgment, it is not the man who stands in judgment. And if the man stand not in judgment, there is no putting of the obedient, or the offending being upon trial. So that there is at once an overthrow of the reasoning by which I had sustained the expectation, that the future comes charged with the actings of a mighty jurisdiction. I cannot master the mys- teries of the sepulchre. I may have sat down in one of the solitudes of na- ture ; and I may have gazed on a fir- mament and a landscape which seemed to burn with divinity; and I may have heard the whisjjerings of a more than human voice, telling me that I am des- tined for companionship with the bright tenantry of a far lovelier scene ; and I may then have pondered jti myself, there may have throbbed within me the pulses of eternity ; I may have felt the soarings of the immaterial, and I may have risen thrilling with the thought that I should yet find myself the im- mortal. But if, when I went forth to mix again with my fellows — the splen- 8
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did thought still crowding every cham- ber of the spirit — I met the spectacle of the dead borne along to their burial ; why, this demonstration of human mor- tality would be as a thunder-cloud passing over my brilliant contempla- tions; and I should not know how to believe myself reseiTcd for endless al- lotments, when I saw one of my own lineage coffined and sepulchred. How can this buried man be judged] How can he be put upon trial ] His soul may be judged, his soul may be put upon trial. But the soul is not himself. And if it be not himself who is judged, judg- ment proceeds not according to the ri- gors of justice, and, therefore, not ac- cording to the attributes of Deity.
And thus the grand reason why na- tural religion cannot fully demonstrate a judgment to come, and a state of re- tribution, seems to be that it cannot demonstrate, nay rather, that it cannot even suspect, the resurrection of the body. The gi-eat difficulty, whilst man is left to discover for himself, is how to bring upon the platform of the fu- ture the identical beings who are shat- tered by death. So that unless you introduce " the resurrection," you will not make intelligible " the life." The showing that the body will rise is in- dispensable to the showing, not indeed that the soul is capable of immortality, but that her immortality can consist, ai3 it must consist, with judgment and retribution. We contend, therefore, that the great clearing-up of the soul's immortality was Christ's combining the titles of our text, " I am the resurrec- tion and the life." Let man be assured that his body shall rise, and there is an end to those difficulties which throng around him when observing that his body must die. Thus it was " the re- surrection " which turned a flood of brightness on " the life." The main thing wanted, in order that men might be assured of immortality, was a grap- pling with death. It was the showing that there should be no lasting separa- tion between soul and body. It was the exhibiting the sepulchres emptied of their vast population, and giving up the dust remoulded into human shape. And this it was which the Mediator effected, not 80 much by announcement as by action, not so much by preaching re- fturrection and life, as by being " the
resurrection and the life." He went down to the grave in the weakness of humanity, but, at the same time, in the might of Deity. And, designing .o pour forth a torrent of lustre on the life, the everlasting life of man, oh, he did not bid the finnament cleave asun- der, and the constellations of eternity shine out in their majesties, and daz- zle and blind an overawed creation. He rose up, a moral giant, from his grave-clothes ; and, proving death van- quished in his own stronghold, left the vacant sepulchre as a centre of light to the dwellers on this planet. He took not the suns and systems which crowd immensity in order to form one brilliant cataract, which, rushing down in its glories, might sweep away darkness from the benighted race of the apos- tate. But he came forth from the tomb, masterful and victorious ; and the place where he had lain became the focus of the rays of the long-hidden truth ; and the fragments of his grave-stone were the stars from which flashed the im- mortality of man.
It was by teaching men that they should rise again, it was by being him- self " the resurrection," that he taught them they should live the life of im- mortality. This was bringing the miss- ing element into the attempted demon- stration ; for this was proving that the complete man shall stand to be judged at the judgment-seat of God. And thus it is, we again say, that the combina tion of titles in our text makes the pas- sage an intelligible revelation of the soul's immortality. And prophets might have stood upon the earth, proclaiming to the nations that every individual carried within himself a principle im- perishable and unconquerable; they might have spoken of a vast and so- lemn scene of assize ; and they might have conjured men by the bliss and the glory, the fire and the shame of never- ending allotments : but doubt and un- certainty must have overcast the fu- ture, unless they could have bidden their audience anticipate a time when the whole globe, its mountains, its de- serts, its cities, its oceans, shall seem resolved into the elements of human- kind ; and millions of eyes look up from a million chasms ; and long-severed spi- rits rush down to the very tenements which encased them in the days of pro-
THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION.
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oalioii : ay, prophets would have spo- ken in vain of judgment and immortali- ty, unless they could have told out this marvellous leaping into life of whatso- ever hath been man ; and never could the cloud and the mist have been rolled away from the boundless hereafter, had there not arisen a being who could de- flare, and make good the declaration, " I am the resuiTection and the life."
Now we have been induced to treat on the inspiring words of our text by the consideration that death has, of late, been unusually busy in our metropolis and its environs, and that, therefore, such a subject of address seemed pe- culiarly calculated to interest your feel- ings. We thank thee, and we praise thee, O Lord our Redeemer, that thou hast " abolished death." 2 Timothy, 1 : 10. We laud and magnify thy glorious name, that thou hast wrestled with our tyrant in the citadel of his empire ; and that, if we believe upon thee, death has, for us, been spoiled of its power, 80 that, " O death, where is thy sting, O g^ave, where is thy victory V 1 Cor. 15: 55, may burst from our lips as we expect the dissolution of " our earthly house of this tabei-nacle." 2 Cor. 5 : 1. What is it but sin, unpardoned and wrath-deserving sin, which gives death its fearfulness 1 It is not the mere se- paration of soul from body, though we own this to be awful and unnatural, worthy man's abhorrence, as causing him, for a while, to cease to be man. It is not the reduction of this flesh into original elements, earth to earth, fire to fire, water to water, which makes death so terrible, compelling the most stout- hearted to shrink back from his ap- proaches. It is because death is a con- sequence of sin, and this one conse- quence involves others a thousand-fold more tremendous — a sea of anger, and waves of fire, and the desperate anguish of a storm-tossed spirit — it is on this account that death is appalling : and they who could contentedly, and even cheerfully, depart from a world which tias mocked them, and deceived them, and wearied them, oh, they cannot face a God wliom they have disobeyed, and neglected, and scorned.
And if, then, there be the taking away of sin ; if iniquity be blotted out aa a cloud, and transgression as a thick clou J ; is not all its bitterness abstract-
ed from death 1 And if, yet further, in addition to the pardon of sin, there have been imparted to man a " right to the tree of life," Rev. 22 : 14, so that thei-e are reserved for him in hea- ven the splendors of immortality ; is not the teiTible wrenched away from death 1 But is not sin pardoned through the blood-sheddinsc of Jesus : and is not glory secured to us thj-ough the inter- cession of Jesus 1 And where then is the tongue bold enough to deny, that death is virtually abolished unto those who believe on " the resurrection and the life 1 " Oh, the smile can rest bright- ly on a dying man's cheek, and the words of rajature can flow from his lips, and his eye can be on angel forms waiting to take charge of his spirit, and his ear can catch the minstrelsy of cherubim ; and what are these but trophies — con- querors of earth, and statesmen, and phi- losophers, can ye match these trophies ? — of " the resun-ection and the life 1 "
We look not, indeed, always for tri- umph and rapture on the death-beds of the righteous. We hold it to be wrong to expect, necessarily, encou- ragement for ourselves from good men in the act of dissolution. They require encouragement. Christ, when in his agony, did not strengthen others : he needed an angel to strengthen himself. But if there be not ecstasy, there is that composedness, in departing believers, which shows that " the everlasting arms," Deut. 33 : 27, are under them and around them. It is a beautiful thing to see a christian die. The confession, whilst there is strength to articulate, that God is faithful to his promises ; the faint pressure of the hand, giving the same testimony when the tongue can no longer do its office ; the motion of the lips, inducing you to bend down, so that you catch broken syllables of expressions such as this, " come. Lord Jesus, come quickly ; " these make the chamber in which the righteous die one of the most privileged scenes upon earth ; and he who can be present, and gather no assurance that death is fet- tered and manacled, even whilst grasp- ing the believer, must be either inacces- sible to moral evidence, or insensible to the most heart-touching appeal.
One after another is withdrawn from the church below, and heaven is gather- ino' into its caj^acious bosom the com-
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pany of the justified. We feel our loss, when those whose experience quali- fied them to teach, and whose life was a sermon to a neighborhood, are re- moved to the courts of the church above. But we " sorrow not, even as others which have no hope," 1 Thess. 4 : 13, as we mark the breaches which death makes on the right hand and on the left. We may, indeed, think that " the righteous is taken away from the evil to come," Isaiah, 57 : 1, and that we ourselves are left to struggle through approaching days of fear and perplexity. Be it so. We are not alone. He who is " the resuiTCCtion and the life " leads us on to the battle and the grave. It might accord better with our natural feelings, that they who have in- structed us by example, and cheered by exhortation, should remain to coun- sel and to animate, when the tide of war swells highest, and the voice of blasphemy is loudest. We feel that we can but ill spare the matured piety of the veteran Christian, and the glowing devotion of younger disciples. Yet we will say with Asa, when there came against him Zerah the Ethiopian, with an host of an hundred thousand and three hundred chariots, " Lord, it is nothing with thee to help whether with many, or with them that have no power ; help us, O Lord our God, for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude." 2 Chron. 14 : 11.
" The resurrection and the life," these are thy magnificent titles. Captain of our salvation ! And, therefore, we com- mit to thee body and soul ; for thou hast redeemed both, and thou wilt ad- vance both to the noblest and most splendid of portions. Who quails and shrinks, scared by the despotism of death 1 Who amongst you fears the dashings of those cold black waters which roll between us and the promised land ? Men and brethren, grasp your own privileges. Men and brethren, Christ Jesus has " abcjlished death :" will ye, by your faitiilessness, throw strength into the skeleton, and give back empire to the dethroned and de- stroyed 1 Yes, '' the resuiTcction and the life " " abolished death." Ye must indeed die, and so far death remains undestroyed. But if the terrible be de- stroyed when it can no longer terrify, and if the injurious be destroyed when
it can no longer injure ; if the enemy be abolished when it does the work or a friend, and if the tyrant be abolished when performing the offices of a ser- vant ; if the repulsive be destroyed when we can welcome it, and if the odious be destroyed when we can em- brace it ; if the quicksand be abolished when we can walk it and sink not ; if the fire be abolished when we can pass through it and be scorched not ; if the poison be abolished when we can drink it and be hurt not ; then is death de- stroyed, then is death abolished, to all who believe on " the resun'ection and the life ;" and the noble prophecy is fulfilled (bear witness, ye gi-oups of the ransomed, bending down from your high citadel of triumph), " O Death, I will be thy plagues ; O Grave, I will be thy desti'uction." Hosea, 13 : 14.
" I heard a voice from heaven " — oh, for the angel's tongue that words so beautiful might have all their melodious- ness— " saying unto me, write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow thom." Rev. 14 : 13. It is yet but a little while, and we shall be delivered from the burden and the conflict, and, with all those who have preceded us in the righteous strug- gle, enjoy the deep raptures of a Media- tor's presence. Then, re-united to the friends with whom we took sweet coun- sel upon earth, we shall recount our toil only to heighten our ecstasy ; and call to mind the tug and the din of war, only that, with a more bounding throb, and a richer song, we may feel and celebrate the wonders of redemption. And when the morning of the first resurrection breaks on this long-dis- ordered and groaning creation, then shall our text be understood in all its majesty, and in all its marvel : and then shall the words, whose syllables mingle so often with the funeral knell that we are disposed to carve them on the cy- press-tree rather than on the palm, " I am the resurrection and the life," form the chorus of that noble anthem, which those for whom Christ " died and rose and revived," Rom. 14 : 9, shall chant as they march from judgment to glory.
We add nothing more. We show you the privileges of the righteous. We tell you, that if you would die thei»
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death, you must live their life. And, conjuring you, by the memory of those who have gone hence in the faith of the Redeemer, that ye " run with pa- tience the race set before you," Heb. 12 : 1, we send you to your homes with the comfortins: words which succeed
our text, " he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die ; believest thou this 1 " God forbid there should be one of you refusing to answer with Martha, " yea, Lord, yea."
SERMON VI.
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS TO RE- PRODUCE THEMSELVES.
" For whatsoever a man sowetb, that shall he also reap." — Gal. vi. 7.
You may be all aware that what is termed the argument from analogy has been carried out to great length by thinking men, and that much of the strongest witness for Christianity has been won on this field of investigation. It is altogether a most curious and pro- fitable inquiry, which sets itself to the tracing out resemblances between na- tural and spiritual things, and which thus proposes to establish, at the least, a probability that creation and Chris- tianity have one and the same author. And we think that we shall not over- step the limits of truth, if we declare that nature wears the appearance of having been actually designed for the illustration of the Bible. We believe that he who, with a devout mind, searches most diligently into the beauties and mysteries of the material world, will find himself met constantly by exhibi- tions, which seem to him the pages of Scripture written in the stars, and the forests, and the waters, of this creation. There is such a sameness of dealing, characteristic of the natural and the spintual, that the Bible may be read in the outspread of the landscape, and the operations of agriculture : whilst, con- versely, the laws obeyed by this earth
and its productions may be traced as pervading the appointments of revela- tion. It were beside our purpose to go at lengrth into demonstration of this coincidence. But you may all perceive, assuming: its existence, that the fur- nished argument is clear and convinc- ing. If there run the same principle through natural and spiritual things, through the book of nature and the Bi- ble, we vindicate the same authorship to both, and prove, with an almost geo- metric precision, that the God of crea- tion is also the God of Christianity. 1 look on the natural firmament with its glorious inlay of stars ; and it is unto me as the breastplate of the great high- priest, " ardent with gems oracular," from which, as from the urim and thum- mim on Aaron's ephod, come messa- ges full of divinity. And when 1 turn to the page of Scripture, and perceive the nicest resemblance between the characters in which this page is writ- ten, and those which glitter before me on the crowded concave, I feel that, in trusting myself to the declarations of the Bible, I cling to Him who speaks to me from every point, and by every splendor of the visible universe, whose voice is in the marchings of planets,
62
THE POWER OF WICKEDXESS.
and the rusliing of whose melodies is in the wings of the day-hght.
But, though we go not into the ge- neral inquiry, we take one great prin- ciple, the principle of a resurrection, and we affirm, in illustration of what has been advanced, that it runs alike through God's natural and spiritual dealings. Just as God hath appointed that man's body, after moldering away, shall come forth quickened and renew- ed, so has he ordained that the seed, after corrupting in the ground, shall yield a harvest of the like kind with itself It is, moreover, God's ordinary course to allow an apparent destruction as preparatory, or introductory to, com- plete success or renovation. He does not permit the springing up, until there has been, on human calculation, a tho- rough withering away. So that the maxim might be shown to hold univer- sally good, " that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." 1 Cor, 15 : 36. We may observe yet further, that, as with the husbandman, if he sow the corn, he shall reap the corn, and if he sow the weed, he shall reap the weed ; thus with myself as a responsi- ble agent, if I sow the conrujitible, I shall reap the corruptible ; and if I sow the imperishable, I shall reap the im- perishable. The seed reproduces itself This is the fact in reference to spiritual things, on which we would fasten your attention ; " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Now we are all, to a certain extent, familiar with this principle ; for it is forced on our notice by every-day oc- currences. We observe that ■ a disso- lute and reckless youth is ordinarily followed by a premature and miserable old age. We see that honesty and in- dustry win commonly comfort and re- spect ; and that, on the contrary, levity and a want of carefulness produce pau- perism and disrepute. And yet further, unless we go over to the ranks of infi- delity, we cannot question that a course of disobedience to G(id is earning man's eternal destruction ; whilst, through submission to the revealed will of his Master, there is secured admittance into a glorious heritage. We are thus aware that there runs through the Crea- tor's dealings with our race the prin- ciple of an identity, or sameness, be- tween the thinsrs which man sows and
those which he reaps. But we thick it Tiossible that we may have contented ourselves with too superficial a view of this principle; and that, through not searching into what may be termed its philosophy, we allow much that is im- portant to elude observation. The seed sown in the earth goes on, as it were, by a sort of natural process, and without di- rect interference from God, to yield seed of the same description with itself And we wish it well obsei-ved, whether there be not in spiritual things an analogy the most perfect to what thus takes place in natural. We think that, upon a care- ful examination, you will find ground- work of belief that the simile holds good in every possible respect : so that what a man sows, if left to its own ve- getating powers, will yield, naturally, a harvest of its own kind and descrip- tion.
We shall study to establish this point in regard, first, to the present scene of probation ; and, secondly, to the future scene of recompense.
We begin with the present scene ot pi-obation, and will put you in posses- sion of the exact point to be made out, by referring you to the instance of Pha- raoh. We know that whilst God was acting on the Egyptians by the awful apparatus of plague and prodigy, he is often said to have hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that the monarch refused to let Israel go. And it is a great ques- tion to decide, whether God actually interfered to strengthen and confirm tlie obstinacy of Pharaoh, or only left the king to the workings of his own heart, as knowing that one degree of unbe- lief would generate another and a stanclier. It seems to us at variance with all that is revealed of the Creator, to suppose him urging on the wicked in his wickedness, or bringing any en- gine to bear on the ungodly which shall make them more desperate in rebellion. God willeth not the death of any sin- ner. And though, after long striving with an individual, after plying him with the various excitements which are best calculated to stir a rational, and agitate an immortal being, he may with- draw all the aids of the Spirit, and so give him over to that worst of all ty- rants, himself; yet this, we contend, must be the extreme thing ever done by the Almighty to man, the leaving
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
63
liiiti, but not the constraining him, to do evil. And when, therefore, it is said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and when the expression is repeated, so as to mark a continued and on-going har- dening, we have no other idea of the meaning, than that God, moved by the :bstinacy of Pharaoh, withdrew from him, gradually, all the restraints of his grace ; and that as these restraints were more and more removed, the heart of the king was more and more hardened. We look upon the instance as a precise illustration of the truth, that " whatso- ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Pharaoh sowed obstinacy, and Pharaoh reaped obstinacy. The seed was put into the soil ; and there was no need, any more than with the grain of corn, that God should interfere with any new power. Nothing more was required than that the seed should be left to vegetate, to act out its own na- ture. And though God, had he pleased, might have counteracted this nature, yet, when he resolved to give up Pha- raoh to his unbelief, he had nothing to do but to let alone this nature. The seed of infidelity, which Pharaoh had sown when he rejected the first miracles, was left to itself, and to its own vegeta- tion. It sent up, accordingly, a harvest of its own kind, a harvest of infidelity, and Pharaoh was not to be persuaded by any of the subsequent miracles. So that, when the monarch went on from one degree of hardness to another, till at length, advancing through the cold ranks of tlie prostrated first-born, he pursued, across a blackened and devas- tated territory, the people for whose emancipation there had been the visible making bare of the arm of Omnipo- tence, he was not an instance — pensh the thought — of a man compelled by his Maker to offend and be lost ; but simply a witness to the truth of the principle, that " whatsoever a man sow- eth, that shall he also reap."
Now that which took place in the case of this Egyptian is, we argue, pre- cisely what occurs in regard generally to the impenitent. God destroys no man. Every man who is destroyed must destroy himself. When a man stifles an admonition of conscience, he may fairly be said to sow the stiflings of conscience. And when conscience admonishes him the next time, it will
be more feebly and faintly. There will be a less difliiculty in overpowerinof the admonition. And the feebleness of re- monstrance, and the facility of resist- ance, Avill increase on every repetition ; not because God interferes to make the man callous, but because the thing so\vn was stifling of conscience, and there- fore the thing reaped is stifling of con- science. The Holy Spirit strives with every man. Conscience is but the voice of Deity heard above the din of human passions. But let conscience be resist- ed, and the Spirit is grieved. Then, as with Pharaoh, there is an abstraction of that influence by which evil is kept under. And thus there is a less and less counteraction to the vegetating power of the seed, and, therefore, a more and more abundant upspringing of that which was sown. So that, though there must be a direct and mighty in- terference of Deity for the salvation of a man, there is no such interference for his destruction. God must sow the seed of regeneration, and enable man, according to the phraseology of the verse succeeding our text, to sow " to the Spirit." But man sows for himself the seed of impenitence, and of himself, " he soweth to his flesh." And what he sows, he reaps. If, as he grows older, he grow more confii-med in his wicked- ness ; if warnings come upon him with less and less energy; if the solemni- ties of the judgment lose more and more their power of alarming him, and the terrors of hell their power of affiighting him ; why, the man is nothing else but an exhibition of the thickening of the harvest of which himself sowed the seed ; and he puts forth, in this his con- firmed and settled impenitence, a de- monstration, legible by every careful observe!-, that there needs no apparatus for the turning a man gradually from the clay to the adamant, over and al>ove the apparatus of his own heart, left to itself, and let alone to harden.
We greatly desii-e that you should rightly understand what the agency is through which the soul is destroyed. It is not that God hath sent out a de- cree against a man. It is not that he throws a darkness before his eyes which cannot be penetrated, and a chillness into his blood which cannot be thawed, and a toi-por into his limbs which can- not be overcome. Harvest-time bring
64
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
ing an abundant produce of what was so^vn in the seed-time — tliis, we con- tend, is the sum-total of the mystery. God interferes not, as it were, with the processes of nature. He opposes not, or, to speak more correctly, he with- draws gradually his opposition to, the vegetation of the seed. And this is all. There is nothing more needed. You resist a motion of the Spirit. Well then, this facilitates further resistance. He who has res-isted once will have less difficulty in resisting the second time, and less than that the third time, and less than that the fourth time. So that there comes a harvest of resistances, and all from the single grain of the first resistance. You indulge yourself once in a known sin. Why you will be more easily overpowered by the second temp- tation, and again more easily by the third, and again more easily by the fourth. And what is this but a harvest of sinful indulgences, and all fi-om the one grain of the first indulgence ? You omit some portion of spiritual exer- cises, of prayer, or of the study of the word. The omission will grow upon you. You will omit more to-monow, and more the next day, and still more the next. And thus there will be a har- vest of omissions, and all from the soli- tary grain of the first omission. And if, through the germinating power of that which man sows, he proceed natu- rally from bad to worse; if resistance produce resistance, and indulgence in- dulgence, and omission omission ; shall it be denied that the sinner, throughout the whole history of his experience, throughout his p-rogress across the waste of worldliness and obduracy and impenitence — passing on, as he does, to successive stages of indifference to God, and fool-hai'diness, and reckless- ness— is nothing else but the mower of the fruits of his own husbandry, and thus witnesses, with a power which out- does all tlie power of language, that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap 1 "
It is in this manner that we go into what we term the philosophy of our text, when applied to the present scene of probation. We take the seed in the soil. We show you that, by a natural process, without the interference of God, and simply through his ceasing to counteract the tendencies, there is pro-
duced a wide crop of the same grain as was sown. And thus — all kinds of op- position to God propagating themselves — he who becomes wrought up mto an infidel hardihood, or lulled into a se- pulchral ajjathy, is nothing but the sow- er living on to be the reaper, the hus- bandman in the successive stages of an agriculture, wherein the ploughing, and the planting, and the gathering, are all his own achievement and all his own destruction.
Now we have confined ourselves to the supposition that the thing sovm is wickedness. But you will see at once, that, with a mere verbal alteration, whatever has been advanced illustrates our text when the thing sown is righ- teousness. If a man resist temptation, there \vill be a facility of resisting ever augmenting as he goes on with self- denial. Every new achievement of principle will smooth the way to future achievements of the like kind; and the fruit of each moral victory — for we may consider the victory as a seed that is sown — is to place us on loftier vantage- ground for the triumphs of righteous- ness in days yet to come. We cannot perform a virtuous act without gaining fresh sinew for the service of virtue; just as we cannot perform a vicious, without riveting faster to ourselves the fetters of vice. And, assuredly, if there be thus such a growing strength in ha- bit that every action makes way for its repetition, we may declare of virtue and righteousness that they reproduce themselves ; and is not this the same thing as proving that what we sow, that also do we reap 1
We would yet further remark, un- der this licad of discourse, that the prin- cij)le of reaping what we sow is spe- cially to be traced through all the work- ings of philanthropy. We are persuaded that, if an eminently charitable man experienced great reverse of circum stances, so that from having beer the aflHuent and the benefactor he became the needy and dependent, he would at- tract towards himself in his distress, all the sympathies of a neighborhood. And whilst the great man, who had had nothing but his greatness to recom- mend him, would be unpitied or un- cared-for in disaster ; and the avari- cious man, who had grasped tightly his wealth, would meet only ridicule
THE POWER OP WICKEDNESS.
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when it had escaped from his hold ; the philanthropic man, who had used his riches as a steward, would form, in his penury, a sort of focus for the kind- liness of a thousand hearts ; and multi- tudes would press forward to tender him the succor which he had once given to others ; and thus there would be a mighty reaping into his own gra- naries of that very seed which he had been assiduous in sowing.
We go on to observe that it is the marvellous property of spiritual things, though we can scarcely affirm it of na- tural, that the effort to teach them to others, gives enlargement to our own sp'here of information. We are per- suaded that the most experienced Chris- tian cannot sit down with the neglected and grossly ignorant laborer — nay, not with the child in a Sunday or infant- school — and strive to explain and en- force the great truths of the Bible, with- out finding his own views of the Gospel amplified and cleared through this en- gagement in the business of tuition. The mere trying to make a point plain to another, will oftentimes make it far plainer than ever to ourselves. In illus- trating a doctrine of Scripture, in en- deavoring to bring it down to the level of a weak or undisciplined understand- ing, you will find that doctrine present- ing itself to your own minds with a new power and unimagined beauty ; and though you may have read the standard writers on theology, and mas- tered the essays of the most learned divines, yet shall such fresh and vigor- ous apprehensions of truth be derived often from the effort to press it home on the intellect and conscience of the ignorant, that you shall pronounce the cottage of the untaught peasant your best school-house, and the questions even of a child your most searching catechisings on the majestic and mys- terious things of our faith. And as you tell over to the poor cottager the story of the incarnation and crucifixion, and inform him of the nature and effects of Adam's apostacy; or even find your- self required to adduce more elemen- tary truths, pressing on the neglected man the being of a God, and the im- mortality of the soul ; oh, it shall con- stantly occur that you will feel a keener sense than ever of the precit. usness of Christ, or a greater awe at the majes-
ties of Jehovah, or a loftier bounding of spirit at the thought of your o\vn deathlessness : and if you feel tempted to count it strange that in teaching another you teach also yourself, and that you carry away from your inter- course with the mechanic, or the child, such an accession to your own know- ledge, or your own love, as shall seem to make you the indebted party, and not the obliging ; then you have only to remember — and the remembrance will sweep away surprise — that it is a fixed appointment of the Almighty, that " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
In respect, moreover, to alms-giving, we may assert that there is evidently such a present advantage in communi- cating of our temporal good things, that the giver becomes the receiver, and thus the principle under review finds a fresh illustration. The general comfort and security of society depend so greatly on the well-being of the lower orders, that the rich consult most for themselves when they consult most for the poor. There must be restless- ness and anxiety in the palace, whilst misery oppresses the great mass of a population. And every effort to increase the happiness, and heighten the charac- ter of the poor, will tell powerfully on the condition of those by whom it is made, seeing that the contentment and good order of the peasantry of a coun try give value to the revenues of its nobles and merchants. For our own part, we never look on a public hospi- tal or infirmary, we never behold the alms-houses into which old age may be received, and the asylums which have been thrown up on all sides for the widow and the orphan, without feel- ing that, however generously the rich come forwai'd to the relief of the poor, they advantage themselves whilst pro- viding for the suffering and destitute. These buildings, which are the best diadem of our country, not only bring blessings on the land, by serving, it may be, as electrical conductors whick^ turn from us many flashes of the light- ning of wrath ; but, being as centres^ whence succors are sent through dis- tressed portions of our community, they are fostering-places of kindly dis positions towards the wealthier ranks and may, therefore, be so considered: 9
«6
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
as Structures in which a kingdom's prosperity is nur»ed, that the fittest in- scription over tneir gateways would be this, " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Now before we turn to the second topic of discourse, we would make a close application of some of our fore- going statements. You perceive the likelihood, or rather the certainty, to be, that in all cases, there will be a self-propagating power in evil, so that the wrong done shall be parent to a line of misdoings. We have shown you, for example, that to stifle a conviction is the first step in a pathway which leads directly to stupefaction of con- science. And we desire to fasten on this fact, and so to exhibit it that all may discern their near concernment therewith. We remark that men will flock in crowds to the public preach- ing of the word, thoug^h the master natural passion, whatsoever it be, re- tain undisputed the lordship of their spirits. And this passion may be ava- rice, or it may be voluptuousness, or ambition, or envy, or pride. But, how- ever characterized, the dominant lust is brought into the sanctuary, and ex- posed, so to speak, to the exorcisms of the preacher. And who shall say what a disturbing force the sermon will of- tentimes put forth against the master- passion ; and how frequently the word of the living God, delivered in earnest- ness and affection, shall have almost made a breach in the strong-holds of Satan ] Ay, we believe that often, when a minister, gathering himself up in the strength of his master, launches the thunderbolts of truth against vice and unrighteousness, there is a vast stirring of heart through the listening assembly; and that as he reasons of " righteousness, temperance, and judg- ment to come," Acts, 24: 25, though the natural ear catch no sounds of anx- iety and alarm, attendant angels, who watch the workings of the Gospel, hear the deep beatings of many souls, and almost start at the bounding throb of aroused and agitated spirits. If Satan ever tremble for his ascendency, it is when the preacher has riveted the at- tention of the unconverted individual ; and, after describing and denouncing the covetous, or pouring out the tor- rents of his speech on an e.xhibition of
the voluptuary, or exposing the mad ness and misery of the proud, comes down on that individual with the start- ling announcement, " thou art the man." And the individual goes away from the sanctuary, convinced of the necessity of subduing the master-passion ; and he will form, and for a while act upon, the resolution of wrestling against pride, or of mortifying lust, or of renouncing avarice. But he proceeds in his own strength, and, having no consciousness of the inabilities of his nature, seeks not to God's Spirit for assistance. In a little time, therefore, all the impres- sion wears away. He saw only the danger of sin : he went not on to see its vileness. And the mind soon habi- tuates itself, or soon grows indifferent, to the contemplation of danger, and, above all, when perhaps distant. Hence the man will return quickly to his old haunts. And whether it be to money- making that he again gives himself, or to sensuality, or to ambition, he will enter on the pursuit with an eagerness heightened by abstinence ; and thus the result shall be practically the same, as though, having sown moral stupor, he were reaping in a harvest tremendous- ly luxuriant. And, oh, if the man, after this renouncement, and restoration, of the master-passion, come again to the sanctuary ; and if again the preacher denounce, with a righteous vehemence, every working of ungodliness ; and the fire be in his eye, and the thunder on his tongue, as he makes a stand for God, and for truth, against a reckless and semi-infidel generation ; alas ! the man who has felt convictions and sown their stiflings, will be more inaccessible than ever, and more imperv^ious. He will have been hardened through the vegetating process which has gone on in his soul. A far mightier apparatus than before will bo required to make the lightest impression. And when you think that there the man is now sitting, unmoved by the terrors of the word ; that he can listen witli indifference to the very truths which once agitated him ; and that, as a consequence on the reproduction of the seed, there is more of the marble in his composition than before, and more of the ice, and more of the iron, so that the likelihood ot salvation is fearfully diminished ; ye can need no other warning against tri-
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fling with convictions, and thus mak- ing Hght of the appointment, that " what- soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
But we proposed to examine, in the second place, the application of the principle of our text to the future scene of recompense. There can be no ques- tion that the reference of the apostle is, specially, to the retributions of another state of being. The present life is em- phatically the seed-time, the next life the harvest-time. And the matter we now have in hand is the ascertaining, whether it be by the natural process of the thing sown yielding the thing reap- ed, that sinfulness here shall give tor- ment hereafter.
You will observe that, in shomng the application of the principle under re- view to the present scene of probation, we proved that the utmost which God does towards confirming a man in im- penitence is the leaving him to himself, the withdrawing from him gradually the remonstrances of his Spirit. The man is literally his own hardener, and, there- fore, literally his own destroyer. And we now intjuire, whether or no he will be his own punisher ] We seem requir- ed, if we would maintain rigidly the principle of our text, to suppose that what is reaped in the future shall be identical with what is sown in the pre- sent. It cannot be questioned that this is a fair repi-esentation. The seed re- produces itself It is the same grain which the sower scatters, and the reap- er collects. We may, therefore, lay it do%vn as the statement of our text, that what is reaped in the next life shall be literally of the same kind with what is sown in this life. But if this be correct, it must follow that a man's sinfulness shall be a man's punishment. And there is no lack of scriptural evidence on the side of the opinion, that the leaving the wicked, throughout eternity, to their mutual recriminations, to the workings and boilings of overwrought passions, to the scorpion-sting of an undying re- morse, and all the native and inborn agonies of vice — that this, without the interference of a divinely-sent ministry of vengeance, may make tliat pandemo- nium which is sketched to us by all that is terrible and ghastly in imagery ; and that tormenting, only thi-ough giv- ing up the sinner to be his own tor-
mentor, God may fulfil all the ends of a retributive etonomy, awardino- to wickedness its merited condemnation, and displaying to the universe the dreadfulness of rebellion.
It may be, we say, that there shall be required no direct interferences on the pai-t of God. It may be that the Al- mighty shall not commission an aveno-- ing train to goad and lacerate the lost. The sinner is hardened by being left to himself; and may it not be that the sin- ner shall be punished by being left to himself? We think assuredly that the passage before us leads straightway to such a conclusion. We may have ha- bituated ourselves to the idea that God shall take, as it were, into his own hands the punishment of the condemn- ed, and that, standing over them as the executioner of the sentence, he will visit body and soul with the inflictions of wrath. But it consists far better with the character of God, that judg- ment should be viewed as the natural produce of sinfulness, so that, without any divine interference, the sinfulness will generate the judgment. Let sin- fulness alone, and it will become pun ishment. Such is, probably, the true account of this awful matter. The thing reaped is the thing sown. And if the thing sown be sinfulness, and if the thing reaped be punishment, then the punishment, after all, must be the sin- fulness; and that fearful apparatus of torture which is spoken of in Scripture, the apparatus of a worm that dieth not, and of a fire that is not quenched ; this may be just a man's own guilt, the things sown in this mortal life spning up and waving in an immortal harvest. We think this a point of great moment. It were comparatively little to say of an individual who sells himself to work evil, and carries it with a high hana and a brazen front against the Lord of the whole eaith, that he shuts himself up to a certain and definite destruction. The thrilling truth is, that, in working iniquity, he sows for himself anguish. He gives not way to a new desire, he allows not a fresh victory to lust, with out multiplying the amount of final tor- ment. By every excursion of passion, and by every indulgence of an unhal- lowed craving, and l)y all the misdoings of a hardened or dissolute life, he may be literally said to pour into the grana-
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THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
ry of his future destinies the goads and stings which shall madden his spirit. He lays up more food for self-reproach. He widens the field over which thought will pass in bitterness, and mow down remorse. He teaches the worm to be ingenious in excruciating, by tasking his wit that he may be ingenious in sin- ning— for some men, as the prophet saith, and it is a wonderful expression — " are wise to do evil." Jer, 4 : 22. And thus, his iniquities opening, as it were, fresh inlets for the approaches of vengeance, with the growth of wicked- ness will be the growth of punishment; and at last it will appear that his resist- ance to convictions, his neglect of op- portunities, and his determined enslave- ment to evil, have literally worked for him " a far more exceeding and eternal weight" of despair.
But even this expresses not clearly and fully what seems taught by our text. \Ve are searching for an identity, or sameness, between what is sown and what is reaped. We, therefore, yet fur- ther observe that it may not be need- ful that a material rack should be pre- pared for the body, and fiery spirits gnaw upon the soul. It may not be needful that the Creator should appoint distinct and extraneous arrangements for torture. Let what we call the hus- bandry of wickedness go forward; let the sinner reap what the sinner has sown ; and there is a harvest of anguish for ever to be gathered. Who discerns not that punishment may thus be sin- fulness, and that, therefore, the princi- ple of our text may hold good, to the very letter, in a scene of retribution ] A man " sows to the flesh : " this is the apostle's description of sinfulness. He is " of the flesh to reap corruption : " this is his description of punishment. He " sows to the flesh " by pampering the lusts of the flesh ; and he " reaps of the flesh," when these pampered lusts fall on him with fresh cravings, and de- mand of him fresh gratifications. But suppose this reaping continued in the next life, and is not the man mowing down a harvest of agony ] Let all those passions and desires which it has been the man's business upon earth to in- dulge, hunger and thirst for gratification hereafter, and will ye seek elsewhere for the parched tongue beseeching fruitlessly one drop of water ] Let the
envious man keep his envy, and the jealous man his jealousy, and the re- vengeful man his revengefulness ; and each has a worm which shall eat out everlastingly the very core of his soul. Let the miser have still his thoughts upon gold, and the drunkard his upon the wine-cup, and the sensualist his up- on voluptuousness ; and a fire-sheet is round each which shall never be ex- tinguished. We know not whether it be possible to conjure up a more terri- fic image of a lost man, than by sup- posing him everlastingly preyed upon by the master-lust which has here held him in bondage. We think that you have before you the spectacle of a be- ing, hunted, as it were, by a never- weared fiend, when you imagine that there rages in the licentious and profli- gate— only wrought into a fury which has no parallel upon earth — that very passion which it was the concern of a life-time to indulge, but which it must now be the employment of an eteniity to deny. We are persuaded that you reach the summit of all that is tremen- dous in conception, when you suppose a man consigned to the tyranny of a lust which cannot be conquered, and which cannot be gratified. It is, liter- ally surrendering him to a worm which dies not, to a fire which is not quenched. And whilst the lust does the part of a ceaseless tonnentor, the man, unable longer to indulge it, will writhe in re- morse at having endowed it with sov- ereignty : and thus there will go on (though not in our power to conceive, and, 0 God, grant it may never be our lot to experience) the cravings of pas- sion with the self-reproachmgs >f the soul; and the torn and tossed t 'aturei shall for ever long to gratify lust, and for ever bewail his madness in gratify-] ing it. i
Now you must perceive that in thus sketching the possible nature of future retribution, we only show that " what- soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." We prove that sinfulness may be punishment, so that tlie things reaped shall be identical with the things sown, according to the word of the prophet Hosea, " they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Hosea, 8 : 7. We reckon that the principle of our text, when rigidly applied, requires us to suppose the retribution of the un-
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
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godly the natural produce of their ac- tions. It shall not, perhaps, be that God will interpose with an apparatus of judgments, any more than he now in terposes with an apparatus for harden- ing, or confirming in impenitence. In- difference, if let alone, will produce obduracy ; and obduracy, if let alone, will produce torment. Obduracy is in- difference multiplied : and thus it is the harvest from the grain. Torment is obduracy perpetuated and bemoaned : and this again is harvest — the grain re- produced, but with thorns round the ear. Thus, from first to last, " whatso- ever a man soweth, that also does he reap." We should be disposed to plead for the sound divinity, as well as the fine poetry of words which INIilton puts into the mouth of Satan, when approach- ing to the survey of paradise. " Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell." " Myself am hell ! " It is the very idea which we have extracted from our text ; the idea of a lost creature being his own tormentor, his own place of tor- ment. There shall be needed no reti- nue of wrath to heap on the fuel, or tighten the rack, or sharpen the goad. He cannot escape from himself, and himself is hell.
We would add that our text is not the only scriptural passage which inti- mates that sinfulness shall spring up into punishment, exactly as the seed sown produces the harvest. In the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs, the eternal wisdom marks out in temble language the doom of the scomers. " I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh." Prov. 1 : 26. And then, when he would de- scribe their exact punishment, he says, " they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own de- vices." Prov. 1 : 31. They reap, you fiee, what they sow : their torments are " their own devices." We have a simi- lar expression in the Book of Job : " even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." Job, 4 : 8. Thus again in the Book of Proverbs : " the backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways." Prov. 14 : 14. We may add that so- lemn verse in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, which seems to us exactly to the point. It is spoken in the prospect of Christ's immediate ap-
pearing. " He that is unjust let nim oe unjust still ; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is righte • ous, let him be righteous still : and he that is holy, let him be holy still." Rev. 22 : 11. The master- property is here represented as remaining the master property. The unjust continues foi ever the unjust ; the filthy for ever the filthy. So that the indulged principle, keeps fast its ascendancy, as though, according to our foregoing supposition, it is to become the tormenting princi- ple. The distinguishing characteristic never departs. When it can no longei be served and gratified by its slave, it wreaks its disappointment tremendously on its victim.
There is thus a precise agreement between our text, as now expounded, and other portions of the Bible which refer to the same topic. We have in- deed, as you will observe, dealt chiefly with the sowing and the reaping of the wicked, and but just alluded to those of the righteous. It would not, how- ever, be diflScult to prove to you, that, inasmuch as holiness is happiness, god liness shall be reward, even as sinful ness shall be punishment. And it clear that the apostle designed to in elude both cases under his statement for he subjoins as its illustration, " ha that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that sow- eth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." We cannot indeed plead, in the second case, for as rigid an application of the principle as in the fii'st. We cannot argue, that is, for what we call the natural process of ve- getation. There must be constant in- terferences on the part of Deity. God himself, rather than man, is the sower. And unless God were continually busy with the seed, it could never germi- nate, and send up a harvest of glory. We think that this distinction between the cases is intimated by St. Paul. The one man sows " to the flesh ; " bimselt the husbandman, himself the territory. The other sows " to the Spirit," to the Holy Ghost ; and here there is a super- induced soil which differs altogether from the natural. But if there be not, in each case, precisely the same, there is sufficient, rigor of application to bear out the assertion of our text. We re- member that it was " a crown of r*:gh-
to
THE POWER OF WICKEDNESS.
teousness," 2 Tim. 4 : 8, which spar- kled before St. Paul ; and we may, therefore, believe, that the righteous- ness which God's grace has nourished in the heart, will grow into recompense, just as the wickedness, in which the transgressor has indulged, will shoot into torment. So that, although it were easy to speak at greater length on the case of true believers, we may lay it down as a demonstrated truth, whether respect be had to the godly or the dis- obedient of the earth, that " whatso- ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
And now, what mean ye to reap on that grand harvest-day, the day of judg- ment ? Every one of you is sowing ei- ther to the flesh, or to the Spirit; and every one of you must, hereafter, take the sickle in his hand, and mow down the produce of his husbandry. We will speak no longer on things of terror. We have said enough to alarni the in- different. And we pray God that the careless amongst you may find these words of the prophet ringing in their ears, when they lie down to rest this night, " the harvest is passed, the sum- mer is ended, and we are not saved." Jer. 8 : 20. But, ere we conclude, we would address a word to the men of God, and animate them to the toils of tillage by the hopes of reaping. We know that it is with much opposition ft-om in- dwelling con-uption, with many thwart- ings ft'om Satan and your evil hearts, that ye prosecute the work of breaking up your fallow ground, and sowing to yourselves in righteousness. Ye have to deal with a stubborn soil. The pro- phet Amos asks, " shall horses lun upon I the rock, will one plough there with oxen V Amos, 6 : 12. Yet this is pre- 1
cisely what you have to do. It is the rock, *' the heart of stone," which you must bring into cultivation. Yet be ye not dismayed. Above all things, pause not, as though doubtful whether to pro- secute a labor which seems to grow as it is performed. " No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven " Luke, 9 : 62. Rather comfort your- selves with that beautiful declaration ot the Psalmist, " they that sow in tears shall reap in joy." Psalm 126: 5. Ra- ther call to mind the saying of the apos- tle, " ye are God's husbandry." 2 Cor. 3 : 9. It is God, who, by his Spirit, ploughs the ground, and sows the seed, and imparts the influences of sun and shower, " My Father," said Jesus, " is the husbandman;" John, 15: 1; and can ye not feel assured that He virill give the increase ] Look ye on to the harvest-time. What, though the winter be dreary and long, and there seem no shooting of the fig-tree to tell you that summer is nigh ] Christ shall yet speak to his church in that loveliest of poe- try, " Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of tl>e singing of birds is come, and the voice of the tur- tle is heard in the land." Cant. 2 : 11, 12. Then shall be the harvest. We cannot tell you the glory of the things which ye shall reaji. We cannot show you the wavings of the golden corn. But this we know, " that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us ; " Rom. 8 : 18 ; and, therefore brethren, beloved in the Lord, " be ye not weary in well-doing, for in due seas(m we shall reap, if wtJ fainl not " Gal 6 : 9.
THE POWER OF RELIGION.
n
SERMON VII
THE POWER OF RELIGION TO STRENGTHEN THE HUMAN
INTELLECT.
" The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple.' —Psalm cxix. 130.
There is no point of view under which the Bible can be surveyed, and not commend itself to thinking minds as a precious and wonderful book. Travelling do\vn to us aci-oss the waste of far-off centuries, it brings the his- tory of times which must otherwise have been given up to conjecture and fable. Instructing us as to the creation of the magnificent universe, and defin- ing the authorship of that rich furni- ture, as well material as intellectual, with which this universe is stored, it delivers our minds from those vague and unsatisfying theories which reason, unaided in her searchings, proposed with respect to the origin of all things. Opening up, moreover, a sublime and simple system of theology, it emanci- pates the world from degrading super- stitions, which, dishonoring Deity by the representations projDOunded of his character, turn vice into virtue, and so banish what is praiseworthy from hu- man society.
And thus, if you kept out of sight the more important ends subserved by the disclosures of the Bible, there would be no single gift for which men stood so indebted to the Almighty as for the revelation of himself in the pages of Scripture. The great engine of civili- zation is still the vn-itten word of the Most High. And if you visit a tribe of our race in the lowest depths of barba- rism, and desire to bring up the debased creatures, and place them on their just level in the scale of existence, it is not by the enactments of earthly legisla- tion, any more than by the tyrannizings
of earthly might, that you may look to bring speedily round the wished-for re- sult. The effective machinery is Chris- tianity, and Christianity alone. Propa- gate the tenets of this religion, as re- gistered in the Bible, and a mighty re- generation will go out over the face of the long-degraded community.
We need hardly appeal, in proof of this assertion, to the recox-ds of the ef- fects of missionary enterprise. You are all aware, that, in many instances, a great change has been wrought, by the labors of faithful and self-denying men, on the savage clans amongst which they have settled. We omit, for the present, the incalculable advantages consequent on the introduction of Christianity, when another state of be- ing is brought into the account. We consider men simply with respect to their sojourning upon earth ; and we contend that the revolution, effected in temporal affairs, should win, even from those who prize not its disclo- sures in regard to eternal, the warmest admiration for the Bible. There has succeeded to lawlessness and violence the beautiful scenery of good order and peace. The rude beings, wont to wander to and fro, alternately the prey and the scourge of neighboring tribes, have settled down to the quiet occupa- tions of industry ; and, gathering them- selves into villages, and plying the business of handicraft or agriculture have presented the aspect of a well disciplined society in exchange for tha^ of a roving and piratical horde. Afiy when a drstrict which has hereto/"' re,.
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TU£ POWER OF RELIGION.
both morally and physically, been little better than a desert, puts forth in all its outspread the tokens of a vigorous culture ; and the Sabbath-bell summons from scattered cottages a smiling popu- lation, linked together by friendship, and happy in all the sweetness of do- mestic charities, why, the infidel must be something less than a man, if, with all his contempt for the Bible as a reve- lation from God, he refuse to admire and esteem it as a noble engine for uplifting humanity from its deep degradations.
But we wish rather to draw off your thoughts from what the Bible has done for society at large, and to fix them on what it effects for individuals. It fol- lows, of course, that, since society is the aggregate of individuals, what the Bible does for the mass is mainly the sum of what it does separately for the units. An effect upon society pre-sup- poses an effect on its component mem- bers in their individual capacities ; it being impossible that the whole should be changed except by the change of its parts.
Now we are persuaded that there is no book, by the perusal of which the mind is so much strengthened, and so much enlarged, as it is by the perusal of the Bible. We deal not yet with the case of the man who, being under the teach- ings of God's Spirit, has the truths of re- velation opened up to him in their gigan- tic and overwhelming force. We shall come afterwards to the consideration of the circumstances of the converted ; we confine ourselves, for the present, to those of the unconverted. We re- quire nothing but an admission of the truth of the Scripture ; so that he who reads its declarations and statements, receives them as he would those of a writer of acknowledged veracity. And what wo contend is, that the study of the Bible, even when supposed witlu^ut influence on the soul, is calculated, far more than any other study, to enlarge the mind and strengthen the intellect. There is nothing so likely to elevate, and endow with new vigor, our facul- ties, as tlie bringing them into contact with stupendous truths, and the setting them to grasp and measure those truths. If the human mind grow dwarfish and ■enfeebled, it is, ordinarily, because left vv» deal with common-place facts, and tuvor summoned to the efibrt of taking
the span and altitude of broad and lofty disclosures. The understanding will gradually biing itself down to the di- mensions of the matters with which alone it is familiarized, till, having long been habituated to contracting its pow- ers, it shall well-nigh lose the ability of expanding them.
But if it be for the enlargement of the mind, and the strengthening of its faculties, that acquaintance should be made with ponderous and far-spreading truths, it must be clear that knowledge of the Bible outdoes all other know- ledge in bringing round such result. We deny not that great effects may be wrought on the peasantry of a land by that wondrous diflusion of general in- formation which is now going forward through the instrumentality of tho press. It is not possible that our penny magazines should be carrying to the workshop of the artisan, and the cot- tage of the laborer, an actual library of varied intelligence, without produc- ing an universal outstretch of mind, whether for good, or whether for evil. But if a population could be made a Bible-reading population, we argue that it would be made a far more think- ing, and a far more intelligent popula- tion, than it will ever become through the turning its attention on simplified sciences and abbreviated histories. If I desired to enlarge a man's mind, 1 should like to fasten it on the truth that God never had beginning, and never shall have end. I would set it to the receiving this truth, and to the grap- pling with it. I know that, in endea- voring to comprehend this truth, the miad will be quickly mastered ; and that, in attempting to push on to its boundary-lines, it will fall down, wea- ried with travel, and see infinity still stretching beyond it. But the effort will have been a grand mental disci- pline. And he who has looked at this discovery of God, as made to us by tho word of inspiration, is likely to have come away from the contemplation >vith his faculties elevated, and at the same time, humbled ; so that a vigor, allied in no degree with arrogance, will have been generated by the study of a Bible truth ; and the man, whilst strengthen- ing his mind by a mighty exercise, will have learned the hardest, and the most useful, of all lessons — that intellect i»
THE POAVER OP RELIGION
73
not omnipotent, and that the greatest wisdom may be, oftentimes, the know- ing ourselves ignorant.
We are not, you will observe, refer- ring to the Bible as containing the food of the soul, and as teaching man what he must learn, if he would not perish everlastingly. We are simply arguing, that the bringing men to study the Bi- ble would be the going a vast deal fur- ther towards making them strong-mind- ed, and Intellectual, than the dispersing amongst them treatises on all the sub- jects which philosophy embraces. The Bible, whilst the only book for the soul, is the best book for the intellect. The sublimity of the topics of which it treats ; the dignified simplicity of its manner of handling them ; the noble- ness of the mysteries which it deve- lopes ; the illumination which it thi'ows on points the most interesting to crea- tures conscious of immortality ; all these conspire to bring round a result which we insist upon as actual and necessary, namely, that the man who should study the Bible, and not be be- nefited by it spiritually, would be bene- fited by it intellectually. We think that it may be reckoned amongst incredible things, that converse should be held with the first parents of our race ; that man should stand on this creation whilst its beauty was unsullied, and then mark the retinue of destruction careering with a dominant step over its surface ; that he should be admitted to inter- course with patriarchs and prophets, and move through scenes peopled with the majesties of the Etei-nal, and be- hold the Godhead himself coming down into humanity, and working out, in the mysterious coalition, the discomfiture of the powers of darkness — oh, we reckon it, we say, amongst incredible things, that all this should be permit- ted to a man — as it is permitted to every student of Scripture — and yet that he should not come back from the ennobling associations with a mind a hundred-fold more expanded, and a hundred-fuhl more elevated, than if he had given his time to the exploits of Caesar, or poured forth his attention on the results of machinery.
We speak not thus in any disparage- ment of the present unparalleled efforts to make knowledge accessible to all classes of our community. We are far
enough from underrating sucn efforts : and we hold, unreservedly, that a vast and a beneficial effect may be wrought amongst the poor through the well-ap- plied agency of vigorous instruction. In the mind of many a peasant, whose every moment is bestowed on wring- ing from the soil a scanty subsistence, there slumber powers, which, had they been evolved by early discipline, would have elevated their possessor to the first rank of philosophers ; and many a me- chanic, Avho goes patiently the round of unvaried toil, is, unconsciously, the owner of faculties, which, nursed and expanded by education, would have en- abled him to electrify senates, and to win that pre-eminence which men a- ward to the majesty of genius. Ther« arise occasions, when — peculiar cir cumstances aiding the development — the pent-up talent struggles loose from the trammels of pauperism ; and the peasant and mechanic, through a sud- den outbreak of mind, start forward to the places for which their intellect fits them. But ordinarily, the powers re- main through life bound-up and torpid: and he, therefore, forms but a contract- ed estimate of the amount of high men- tal endowment, who reckons by the proud marbles which cause the aisles of a cathedral to breathe the memory of departed greatness, and never thinks, when walking the village church-yard with its rude memorials of the fathers of the valley, that, possibly, there sleeps beneath his feet (me who, if early taught, might have trode with a New- ton's step the firmament, or swept \vith a Milton's hand the harp-strings. We make, then, every admission of the power which there is in cultivation to enlarge and unfold the human under- standing. We nothing question that mental capacities are equally distribu- ted amongst different classes of socie- ty ; and that, if it were not for the ad- ventitious circumstances of birth, en- tailing the advantages of education, there would be sent out from the lower grades the same proportion as from the higher, of individuals distinguished by all the energies of talent.
And thus believing that efforts to dis- seminate knowledge may cause a ge- neral calling forth of the mental powers of our population, we have no othv feeling but that of pleasure in the 3ur- 10
THE POWER OF RELIGION.
▼ey of these efforts. It is indeed pos- sible— and of this we have our fears — that, by sending a throng of publica- tions to the fireside of the cottager, you may draw him away from the Bi- ble, which has heretofore been special- ly the poor man's book, and thus inllict upon him, as we think, an intellectual injury, full as well as a moral. But, in the argument now in hand, we only up- hold the superiority of scriptural know- ledge, as compared with any other, when the alone object proposed is that of developing and improving the think- ing powers of mankind. And we reck- on that a fine triumph might be won for Christianity, by the taking two illiterate individuals, and subjecting them to two different processes of mental discipline. Let the one be made familiar with what is styled general information ; let the other be confined to what we call Bible information. And when, in each case, the process has gone on a fair portion of time, and you come to inquire whose reasoning faculties had been most im- proved, whose mind had most grown and expanded itself, we are persuaded that the scriptural study would vastly carry it over the miscellaneous ; and that the experiment would satisfactori- ly demonstrate, that no knowledge tells so much on the intellect of mankind as that which is furnished by the records of inspiration.
And if the grounds of this persuasion be demanded, we think them so self- evident as scarcely to require the being formally advanced. We say again, that if you keep out of sight the concern which man has in Scriptural truths, re- garding him as born for eternity, there is a grandeur about these truths, and a splendor, and a beauty, which must amaze and fascinate him, if he look not beyond the present era of existence. In all the wide range of sciences, what science is there comparable, in its sub- limity and difficulty, to the science of God 1 In all the annals of humankind, what history is there so curious, and so riveting, as that of the infancy of man, the cradling, so to speak, of the earth's population? Where will you find a lawgiver from whose edicts may be learned a nobler jurisprudence than is exhibited by the statute-book of Moses 1 Whence will you gather such vivid illustrations of the power of truth
as are furnished by the march of chris tianity, when apostles stood alone, and a whole world was against them ] And if there be no book which treats of a loftier science, and none which con- tains a more interesting history, and none which more thoroughly discloses the principles of right and the prowess of truth ; why then, just so far as men- tal improvement can be proved depend- ent on acquaintance with scientific mat- ters, or historical, or legal, or ethical, the Bible, beyond all other books, must be counted the grand engine for achiev- ing that improvement : and we claim for the Holy Scriptures the illustrious distinction, that, containing whatsoever is needful for saving the soul, they pre- sent also whatsoever is best calculated for strengthening the intellect.
Now we have not carried on our ar- gument to its utmost limit, though we have, perhaps, advanced enough for the illustration of our text. We might oc- cupy your attention with the language, as we have done with the matter, of holy writ. It were easy to show you that there is no human composition presenting, in anything of the same de- gree, the majesty of oratory and the loveliness of poetry. So that if the de- bate were simply on the best means of improving the taste of an individual — others might commend to his attention the classic page, or bring forward the standard works of a nation's literature ; but we, for our part, would chain him down to the study of Scripture ; and we would tell him, that, if he would learn what is noble verse, he must hearken to Isaiah sweeping the chords to Jerusalem's glory ; and if he would know what is powei-ful eloquence, he must stand by St. Paul pleading in bonds at Agrippa's tribunal.
It suits not our purpose to push fur- ther this inquiry. But we think it right to impress on you most earnest- ly the wonderful fact, that, if all the books in the wide world were assem- bled together, the Bible would as much take the lead in disciplining the un- derstanding, as in directing the soul. Living, as we do, in days when intel- lectual and scriptural are set down, practically, as opposite terms, and it seems admitted as an axiom that to ci- vilize and christianize, to make men in- telligent and to make men religious,
THE POWER OP RELIGION.
7S
are things which have no necessary, nor even possible connection, it is well that we sometimes revert to the mat- ter-of-fact: and whilst every stripling is boasting that a gi-eat enlargement of mind is coming on a nation, through the pouring into all its dwellings a tide of o-eneral information, it is right to uphold the forgotten position, that in caring; for man as an immortal being, God cared for him as an intellectual ; and that, if the Bible were but read by our artisans and our peasantry, we should be surrounded by a far more enlighteued and intelligent population than will appear on this land, when the school-master, •s\ith his countless ma- gazines, shall have gone through it in its length and in its breadth.
But up to this point we have made no direct reference to those words of David which we brought forward as the subject of present discourse. Yet all our remarks have tended to their illustration. The Psalmist, addressing himself to his God, declares, " the en- ti'ance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple." Now you will at once perceive, that, when taken in its largest signification, this verse ascribes to the Bible pre- cisely that energy for which we have contended. The assertion is, that the entrance of God's word gives light, and that it gives also understanding to the simple ; whilst it has been our en- deavor to show that a mind, dark through want of instruction, or weak through its powers being either natu- rally poor, or long unexercised, would become either illuminated, or strength- ened, through acquaintance with the contents of Scripture. We thus vindi- cate the truth of our text, when reli- gion, properly and strictly so called, is not brought into the account. We prove that the study of the Bible, when it does not terminate in the conversion of the soul, will terminate in the clearing and improvement of the intellect. So that you cannot find the sense where- in it does not hold good, that " the en- trance of God's words giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple."
But we now go on to observe that the passage applies with a vastly great- er force to the converted than to the unconverted. We will employ the re- mainder of our time in examining its
truth, when the student of Scripture is supposed also the subject of grace. It would seem as though this case were specially contemplated by the Psalm- ist, thei-e being something in the phra- seology which loses otherwise much of its point. The expression " the en- trance of thy words," appears to denote more than the simple perusal. The light breaks out, and the understanding is communicated, not through the mere reading of thy words, but through " the entrance of thy words :" the Bible be- ing effective only as its truths pierce, and go deeper than the surface. And although it must be readily conceded that the mere reading, apart from the entrance of the word, can effect none of those results which we have already ascribed to the Bible, we still think the chief reference must be to an entrance into the soul, which is peculiar, rather than to that into the understanding, which is common. We may also remark that the marginal reading of the j^assage is " the opening of thy words giveth light." If we adopt this translation, which is, probably, the more accurate of the two, we must conclude that the Psalmist speaks of the word as inter- preted by God's Spirit, and not merely as perused by the student. It is not the word, the bai-e letter, which gives the light, and the understanding, spe- cially intended; but the word, as open- ed, or applied by the Spirit. Now, in treating the text in this its more limit- ed signification, we have to do, first, with a fact, and secondly, with the rea- sons of that fact. The fact is, that, on conversion, there is given to man an increased measure of understanding. The reasons of this fact are to be look- ed for in another fact, namely, that conversion results fi-om the entrance, or opening, of God's words. It will be for our profit that we consider atten- tively both the fact and the reasons. And, first, as to the fact, that, on be- coming a man of godliness, the simple becomes increasingly a man cf under- standing.
Now it is, we believe, commonly ob- served, by those who set themselves to examine the effects of religion upon different characters, that a general strengthening of the mind is amongst the usual accompaniments of piety. The instances, indeed, are of no rare
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occurrence in which a mental weak- ness, bordering almost on imbecility, has been succeeded by no inconsider- able soundness and strength of under- standing. The case has come within our own knowledge of an individual, who, before conversion, was accounted, to say the least, of very limited capa- cities ; but who, after conversion, dis- played such power of comprehending difficult truths, and such faciUty in stating them to others, that men of stanch and well-informed minds sought intercourse as a privilege. Something of the same kind has frequently been obsei-ved in regard to children. The grace of God has fallen, like the warm sun of the east, on their mental facul- ties ; and, ripening them into the rich- ness of the summer, whilst the body had as yet not passed through its spring- time, has caused that grey hairs might be instructed by the tender discipline, and brought a neighborhood round a death-bed to learn wisdom from the lips of a youth. And, without confining ourselves to instances which may be reckoned peculiar and extraordinary, we would assert that, in all cases, a marked change passes over the human mind when the heart is renewed by the influences of God's Spirit. We are not guilty of the absurdity of maintain- ing that tliere are supernaturally com- municated any of those stores of infor- mation which are ordinarily gained by a patient and pains-taking application. A man will not become more of an as- tronomer than he was before, nor more of a chemist, nor more of a linguist. He will have no greater stock of know- ledge than he before possessed of sub- jects which most occupy the learned of his fellows. And if he would inform himself in such subjects, the man of re- ligion must give himself to the same labor as the man of no religion, and sit down, with the same industry, to the treatise and the grammar. The pea- sant, who becomes not the philosopher simply because his mental powers have been undisciplined, will not leave the plough for the orrery, because his un- derstanding is expanded by religion. Education might give, whilst religion will not give, the powers the philoso- phical bent. But there is a wide differ- ence between the strengthening the mmd, and the storing it with informa-
tion. We may plead for the former effect without at all supposing the lat- ter : though we shall come afterwards to see that information of the loftiest description is conveyed through the opening of the Bible, and that, conse- quently, if the impartment of know- ledge be an improving thing to the faculties, an improvement, the most marked, must result fi'om conversion. But we confine ourselves, at present, to the statement of a fact. We assert that, in all cases, a man is intellectual- ly, as well as spiritually, advantaged through becoming a man of piety. He will have a clearer and less-biassed judgment. His views will be wider, his estimates more correct. His under- standing, having been exercised on truths the most stupendous, will be more competent for the examination of what is difficult or obscure. His rea- son, having learned that much lies be- yond her province, as well as much within, will give herself to inquiries with greater humility and greater cau- tion, and therefore, almost to a moral certainty, with greater success. And though we may thus seem i-ather to account for the fact than to prove it, let it be remembered that this fact, be- ing an effect, can only be established, either by pointing out causes, or by appealing to experience. The appeal to experience is, perhaps, the corrector mode of the two. And we, therefore, content ourselves with saying, that those who have watched character most narrowly, will bear out the state- ment, that the opening of God's word is followed, ordinarily, by a surprising opening of man's faculties. If you take the rude and illiterate laborer you will find that regeneration proves to him a sort of intellectual as well as a moral renovation. There shall generally be no ploughman in the village who is so sound, and shrewd, and cleai'-headed a man, as the one who is most attentive to the salvation of his soul. And if an individual have heretofore been obtuse and unintelligent, let him be converted, and there shall hereafter be commonly a quickness and animation ; so that re- ligion, whose prime business it is to shed light upon the heart, shall appear, at the same time, to have thrown fire into the eye. We do not, indeed, as- sert that genius and talent are imparted
THE POWER OF RELIGION.
at the new birth. But that it is amongst the characteristics of godliness, that it elevates man in the scale of intellec- tual beinsf; that it makes him a more
... thinking, ar^i a more mqumng, and a
irj^re di.scnmmating creature ; that it both rectifies and strengthens the men- tal vision ; we are guilty of no exagge- ration, if we contend for this as univer- sally true ; and this, if not more than this, is asserted in the statement, that " the entrance of God's words giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple."
But we are now, in the second place, to consider certain of the reasons of this fact. What is there in the entrance, or, more strictly, in the opening of God's words, which may fairly account for so singular a result 1 We begin by reminding you that the entrance, or opening of God's word, denotes the application of scriptural truth to the heart and conscience by that Almighty agent, the Holy Ghost. Hence a sav- insf, influential, belief in the disclo- sures of revelation is the distinguish- ing property of the individuals referred to in our text. And in inquiring, there- fore, how it comes to pass that under- standing is given to the simple, we are tc^proceed on the supposition, that he is endowed with real faith in those mighty truths which inspired writers were commissioned to make known. Thus the question before us is reduced to this — what connection subsists be- tween believing in the heart the words of God, and having the understanding enlightened and strengthened 1
Now our great difticulty is not in finding an answer to this question, but in arranging and condensing our mate- rial of reply. We would, first, remind you that the truths which have been commended to the belief are the most sublime and spirit-stirring of all that can engage the attention of mankind. They are the truths of eternity, and their dimensions correspond with their duration. And we feel that there must be an amazing demand upon the mind, when, after long years of confinement to the petty affairs of this perishing state, it is summoned to the survey of those unmeasured wonders which crowd the platform of the future. I take a man whose attention has been engrossed by commerce, and whose thoughts have
been given wholly to the schemings and workings of trade. May we not affirm, that, when the grace of God takes possession of this man's soul, there will occur an extraordinary men- tal revolution; and that, too, brought round by the magnificence of the sub- jects with which his spirit has newly gi'own conversant 1 In place of oceans which can be fathomed, and weighed, and measured, there is an expanse be- fore him without a shore. In place of carrying on intercourse with none but the beings of his own race, separated from him by a few leagues of distance, he sends his vessels, as it were, to lands tenanted by the creatures of a more gloiious intelligence, and they re- turn to him, freighted with a produce costlier, and brighter, than earthly mer- chandise. In place of acquaintance with no ledger save the one in which he casts up the debtor and creditor of a few fellow-worms, there rises before him the vast volume of doomsday, and his gazings are often on the final ba- lance-sheet of the human population. And we simply demand whether you think it possible, that there should be this overpowering accession to the objects which occupy the mind, and yet that the mind itself should not grow, and enlarge, and strengthen 1 The mind which deals with both worlds cannot, in the nature of things, be so contracted as that which deals only with one. Can that be a large under- standing which is conversant with no- thing but the scenery of a finite exist- ence ; or, rather, if heretofore the un- derstanding have grasped nothing but the facts of an hour and a league, and these have appeared to crowd it to the full, must there not have taken place a scarcely measurable enlargement, if eternity and infinity be now gathered within its spreadings ? Besides, there will be a sounder and more correct judgment upon events and probabili- ties, when reference is always made to the first cause, than when regard is had only to second causes. There will be a fairer and more honest deliberation, when the passions are under the sway of divine promises and threatenings, than when there is no higher resfaint than the ill-defined ones of human ho- nor. So that it would seem altogether to be expected, that, on the mere ac-
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count of the might and vastness of the truths, into acquaintance with which the mind is introduced, the mind itself will send forth latent and unsuspected powers, or even shoot up into a new stature which shall put to shame its former dAvarfishness. Thus the open- ing of God's words is accompanied, or followed, by the rousing up of dormant enerf^ies. The sphere, which the sand- grain seemed to fill, is required to di- late, and take in immensity. The arm which plucked a leaf, or lifted a peb- ble, must strive to wrench up the oak, and raise the mountain. And in striv- ing it strengthens. The mind, employ- ed on what is great, becomes itself greater ; busied with what is bright, it becomes itself brighter. Let the man, therefore, have been even of weak men- tal capacity — conversion will give some- thing of nerve and tone to that capaci- ty. Besides, it is a thing worthy your remark, and so obvious as scarcely to be overlooked, that all love, except the love of God, reduces and contracts the soul. If a man be a covetous man, fast- ening the might of his affections upon money, you will ordinarily find him, in every respect, a narrow-minded being. His intellect, whatever its natural ca- pacities, will embrace little or nothing beyond modes of accumulation, and will grow practically unable to over- pass the circles of profit and loss. It is just the same, if a man's love be fixed on reputation. We hold it impos- sible there should be enlarged views, when those views centre in one's self. There may be lofVy and far-spreading schemes ; for ambition can look upon a world, and think it too small for its marchings. But so long as those schemes are schemes for the aggran- dizement of self, they may take a crea- tion for their sphere, and yet require to be described as pitiful and niggardly. It is no mark of an ample mind that it can be filled with an unit. And many a philanthropist laboring (juietly and unobtrusively, for the well-being of a solitary parish, or neighborhood, has thereby proved himself a larger-heart- ed and a larger-souled creature than an Alexander, boundless in his grasjiings ; and that, too, upon the clear and straight-
forward principle, that a heart which holds only one's-self, is a narrower and more circumscribed thing than another which contains a multitude of our fel- lows. The truth is, that all objects of love, except God, are smaller than the heart itself. They can only fill the heart, through the heart being contract- ed and naiTowed. The human soul was framed, in its first creation, to that wideness as to be capable of enjoying God, though not of fully comprehend- ing him. And it still retains so much of its glorious original, that " all other things gather it in and straiten it from its natui-al size." * Whereas the love of God not only occupies it to the full, but, inasmuch as in its broadest en- largement it is still infinitely too nar- row for God, this love, as it were, doth stretch and expand it, enabling it to hold more, and giving it, at the same time, more to hold. Thus, since the converted man loves God, and this new object of love demands amplitude of dwelling, we contend that, as a conse- quence on conversion, there will be ex- tension of the whole mental apparatus. And if you find the man hereafter, as we are bold to say you will find him, exercising a correcter judgment, and displaying a shi-ewder sense, than hbd beforetime seemed in his possession, you have only to advance, in explana- tion of the phenomenon, that " the en- trance of God's word giveth under- standing to the simple."
But we may state yet more strongly, and also multiply our reasons, why, on becoming religious, the simple man should become more a man of under- standing. Let it just be considered that man, whilst left in his state of natural corruption, is a being, in every respect, disorganized. Under no point of view is he the creature that he was, as fash- ioned, originally, after the image of his Maker. He can no longer act out any of the great ends of his creation : a total disa])ility of loving and obeying the Almighty having been fastened on him by his forefather's apostacy. And when this degraded and ruined being is subjected to the saving operations ot the Spirit of God, he is said to be re- newed, or remodelled, after the long
Leighton.
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79
lost resemblance. The conscience be- comes disquieted ; and this is convic- tion. The heart and its affections are given back to God ; and this is con- version. Now we do not say, that, by this gi-eat moral renovation, the inju- ries which the fall caused to the human intellect are necessarily repaired. Ne- vertheless, we shall assert that the mo- ral improvement is just calculated to bring about an intellectual. You all know how intimately mind and body are associated. One plays wonderfully on the other, so that disease of body may often be traced to gloom of mind, and conversely, gloom of mind be prov- ed to originate in disease of body. And if there be this close connection between mental and corporeal, shall we suppose there is none between mental and mo- ral ? On the contrary it is clear that the association, as before hinted, is of the strictest. What an influence do the passions exercise upon the judgment ! How is the voice of reason drowned in the cry of impetuous desires ! To what absurdities will the understanding give a.ssent, when the will has resolved to take up their advocacy ! How little way can truth make with the intellect, when there is something in its character which opposes the inclination ! And what do we infer from these undenia- ble facts 1 Simply, that whilst the mo- ral functions are disordered, so likewise must be the mental. Simply, that so long as the heart is depraved and dis- turbed, the mind, in a certain degree, must itself be out of joint. And if you would give the mind fair play, there must be applied straightway a correc- tive process to the heart. You cannot tell what a man's understanding is, so long as he continues "dead in trespasses and sins." Ephesians, 2 : 1. There is a mountain upon it. It is tyrannized over by lusts, and passions, and affections, and appetites. It is compelled to form wrong estimates, and to amve at wrong conclusions. It is not allowed to re- ceive as truth what the carnal nature has an interest in rejecting as false- hood. And what hope, then, is there that the intellect will show itself what it actually is ] It may be gigantic, when it seems only puny ; respectable, when it passes for despicable. And thus we
bring you back again to the argument in hand. We prove to you, that a weak mind may be so connected with a wick- ed heart, that to act on the wickedness would be going far towards acting on the weakness. Oh, fatal downfall of man's first parent — the image could not be shivered in its moral features, and remain untouched in its intellectual. Well has it been said, that possibly " Athens was but the rudiments of Pa- radise, and an Aristotle only the rub- bish of Adam." * But if there be a mo- ral renovation, there will, from the connection now traced, be also, to a cer- tain extent, an intellectual. And hence since at the entrace of God's words the man is renewed in holiness, we have a right to expect that he will also be renewed in understanding. If addi- tional mental capacity be not given, what he befoi-e possessed is allowed to develope itself; and this is practically the same as though there were a fresh gift. If he receive not actually a greater measure of understanding, still, inas- much as the stern embargo which the heart laid on the intellect is mercifully removed, he is, virtually, under the same circumstances as if a new por- tion were bestowed. Thus, with all the precision which can fairly be re- quired in the interpretation of such a phrase, we prove that, since man is elevated in the scale of intelligence through being raised from his moral degradation, we are bound to conclude with the Psalmist, that " the entrance of God's words giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple."
We have yet one more reason to ad- vance, explanatory of the connection which we set ourselves to trace. You observe that the entrance, or tlie open ing, of God's words denotes such an application to the soul of the truths of revelation that they become influential on the life and conversation. Nf)w, why should a man who lives by the Bible be, practically, possessed of a stronger and clearer understanding than, ajiparently, belonged to him ere this ruk; was adopt- ed ] The answer may be found in the facts, that it is a believer's duty, when- soever he lacks wisdom, to ask it of God, and a believer's privilege, never to be sent away empty. In all those
* Dr. South.
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THE POWER OF RELIGION.
cases which require the exercise of a sound discretion — which present oppo- site difficulties, rendering decision on a course painfully perplexing — who is likely to display the soundest judg- ment ? the man wh(j acts for himself, or another who seeks, and obtains, di- rection from above 1 We plead not for rash and unfounded expectations of a divine interference on our behalf. We simply hold fast to the promises of Scripture. And we pronounce it to be beyond all peradventure, that, if the Bible be true, it is also true that they who have been translated from dark- ness to light are never left without the aids of God's Spirit, unless they seek not those aids, or seek them not ear- nestly and faithfully. If I have known the entrance, or the opening of the word of our God, then I have practically learned such lessons as these : " lean not to thine own understanding ; " " in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and he shall direct thy paths." Prov. 3 : 5, 6. And if I am not to lean to mine own understanding, and if I have the privi- lege of being directed by a higher than mine own, it is evident that I occupy, practically, the position of one to whom has been given an inci'eased measure of understanding ; and what, conse- quently, is to prevent the simple man, whose rule of life is God's word, from acting in all circumstances, whether or- dinary or extraordinary, with such pru- dence, and discretion, and judgment, that he shall make good, to the very letter, the assertion, that " the entrance of God's words giveth light, it givet'h understanding to the simple ? "
Now it is not possilile to gather into a single discourse the varied reasons which might be given for the fact un- der review. But the causes already adduced will serve to show, that the fact is, at least, by no means unaccount- able : but that, on the contrary, the connection is so necessary between spiritual improvement and intellectual, that amongst the accompaniments of a renewed heart, we may justly reckon a clearer head.
We desire, in conclusion, to press upon you once more the worth of the Bible, and then to wind up our subject with a word of exhortation.
Of all the boons which God has be- Btowed on this apostate and orphaned
creation, we are bound to say that the Bible is the noblest and most precious. We bring not into comparison with this illustrious donation the glorious sun- light, nor the rich sustenance ■syhich ia poured forth from the sto j-houses of the earth, nor that existence itself which allows us, though dust, to soar into companionship with angels. The Bible is the developement of man's immor- tality, the guide which informs how he may move off triumphantly from a con- tracted and temporary scene, and grasp destinies of unbounded splendor, eter- nity his life-time and infinity his home. It is the record which tells us that this rebellious section of God's unlimited empire is not excluded from our Ma- ker's compassions ; but that the crea- tures who move upon its surface, though they have basely sepulchred in sinful- ness and corruption the magnificence of their nature, are yet so dear in their ruin to Him who first formed them, that he hath bowed down the heavens in or- der to open their graves. Oh, you have only to think what a change would pass on the aspect of our race, if the Bible were suddenly withdrawn, and all re- membrance of it swept away, and you arrive at some faint notion of the worth of the volume. Take from Christendom the Bible, and you hare taken the moral chart by which alone its population can be guided. Ignorant of the nature of God, and only guessing at their own immortality, the tens of thousands would be as mariners, tossed on a wide ocean, without a pole-star, and without a compass. It were to mantle the earth with a more than Egyptian darkness : it were to dry up the fountains of hu- man happiness : it were to take the tides from f>ur waters, and leave them stagnant, and the stars from our hea- vens, and leave them in sackcloth, and the verdure from our valleys, and leave them in barrenness : it wez-e to make the present all recklessness and the future all hopelessness — the maniac's revelry and then the fiend's imprison- ment— if you could annihilate that pre- cious volume which tells us of God and of Christ, and unveils immortality, and instructs in duty, and woos to glory. Such is the Bible. Prize ye it, and stu- dy it more and more. Prize it, as ye are immortal beings — for it guides to the New Jerusalem. Prize it, as ye are
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81
intellectual beings — for it " givetli un- derstanding to the simple. "
We have now only space for a brief word of exhortation, and we ask for it your closest attention. A minister, if he would be faithful to his calling, must mark the signs of the times, and endea- vor so to shape his addresses that they may meet, and expose, the prominent errors. Now we think that, in our own day, there is a strong disposition to put aside the Bible, and to seek out other agency for accomplishing results which God hath appointed it to effect. We fear, for example, that the intellectual benefits of Scriptural knowledge are well-nigh entirely overlooked ; and that, in the efforts to raise the standard of mind, there is little or no recognition of the mighty principle, that the Bible outweighs ten thousand Encyclopaedias. And we are fearful on your account, lest something of this national substi- tution of human literature for divine should gain footing in your households. We fear lest, in the business of educa- tion, you should separate broadly that teaching which has to do with the sal- vation of the soul, from that which has to do with the improvement of the mind. We refer to this point, because we think ourselves bound, by the vows of our calling, to take every opportunity of stating the duties which devolve on you as parents or guardians. There is a sense in which it may be affirmed that souls, those mysterious and imperish- able things, are given into the custody of every father of a family. And we are persuaded that if there be one thing on this earth, which draws, more than an- other, the sorrowing regards of the world of spirits, it must be the system of education pursued by the generality of parents. The entering a room grace- fully is a vast deal more attended to than the entering into heaven ; and you would conclude that the grand thing for which God had sent the child into the world, was that it might catch the Italian accent, and be quite at home in every note of the gamut. Christianity, indeed, is not at variance with the ele- gancies of life : she can use them as her handmaids, and give them a beauty of which, out of her service, they are ut- terly destitute. We wage no war, there- fore, with accomplishments, any more than with the solid acquirements of a
liberal education. We are only anxiouf to press on you the necessity that ya make religion the basis of your system We admit, in all its breadth, the truth of the saying, that knowledge is power It is power — ay, a fatal and a perilous Neither the might of armies, nor the scheming of politicians, avails any thine against this power. The school-master, as we have already hinted, is the gi-and engine for revolutionizing a world. Let knowledge be generally diffused, and the fear of God be kept in the back- ground, and you have done the same for a country as if you had laid the gunpowder under its every institution : there needs only the igniting of a match, and the tand shall be strewed with the fragments of all that is glorious ani venerable. But, nevertheless, we would not have knowledge chained up in the college and monastery, because its arm is endowed with such sinew and nerve. We would not put forth a finger to up- hold a system which we believed based on the ignorance of a population. We only desire to see knowledge of God advance as the vanguard of the host ol information. We are sure that an in- tellectual must be a mighty peasantry But we are equally sure that an in- tellectual, and a godless, will demon- strate their might, by the ease with which they crush whatever most a- doms and elevates a kingdom. And in speaking to you individually of your duties as parents, we would bring into the family circle the principles thus announced as applicable to the na- tional. We want not to set bounds to the amount of knowledge which you strive to impart. But never let this remembrance be swept from your minds — that, to give a child knowledge without endeavoring, at the same time, to add to knowledge godliness, is to do your best to throw the momen- tum of the giant into the arm of the idiot : to construct a machinery which may help to move a world, and to leave out the spring which would insure its moving it onlji towards God. Wc would have you shun., even as you would the tampering with an immoitality depo- sited in your keeping, the imitating what goes on in a thousand of the households of a professedly Chiistiau neighborhood — the children can pro- nounce well, and they can step well,, 11
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and tliey can play well ; the mother proudly exhibits the specimens of pro- fiency in painting, and the father dwells, with an air of delight, on the progress made in Virgil and Homer — but if you inquire how far these parents are providing for their own in the things of eternity, why, the children have per- haps learned the Church Catechism, and they read a chapter occasionally on a Sunday afternoon. And that ye may avoid the mistake into which, as we think, the temper of the times is but too likely to lead you, we would have you learn, from the subject which has now been discussed, that, in edu- cating your children for the next life, you best educate them for the present. We give it you, as a truth, made known to us by God, and, at the same time de- monstrable by reason, that, in going through the courses of Bible-instruc- tion, there is better mental discipline, whether for a child or an adult, than in any of the cleverly devised methods for opening and strengthening the facul- ties. We say not that the study of Scripture should exclude other studies, or be substituted for them. Natural philoso})hy is not to be learned from Scripture nor general history ; and we would not have such matters neglected. But we say that Scrijjtural study should be, at once, the ground-work and com- panion of every other; and that the mind will advance, with the fii'mest and most dominant step, into the various departments of knowledge, when fami- liarized with the truths of revelation, and accustomed to walk their unlimited spreadings. If parents had no higher amljition than to make their children in- tellectual, they would act most shrewd-
ly by acting as though desirous to make them religious. It is thus we apply* our subject to those amongst you who are parents or guardians. But it applies to all. We call upon you all to observe, that, in place of being beneath the no- tice of the intellectual, the Bible is the great nourisher of intellect. We re- quire of you to bear away to your homes as an undeniable fact, that to care for the soul is to cultivate the mind. We will not yield the culture of the understanding to earthly hus- bandmen. There are heavenly minis- ters who water it with a choicer dew, and pour on it the beams of a more brilliant sun, and prune its branches with a kinder and more skilful hand. We will not give up reason to stand always as a priestess at the altars of human philosophy. She hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more beauteous robes wherein to walk, and incense rarer and more fragrant to bum in golden censers. She does well when exploring boldly God's visible works. She does bettei', when she meekly sub- mits to spiritual teaching, and sits, as a child, at the Savior's feet : for then shall she experience the truth, that " the entrance of God's words giveth light and understanding." And, there- fore, be ye heedful — the young amongst you more especially — that ye be not ashamed of piety, as though it argued a feeble capacity. Rather be assured, forasmuch as revelation is the great strengthener of reason, that the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards know- ledge, but, at the same time, towards death.
GOD S PROVISION FOR THE POOR.
S3
SERMON VIII
THE PROVISION MADE BY GOD FOR THE POOR.
' Thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor." — Psalm, Ixviii. 10.
We think it one of the most remark- able sayings of holy writ, that " the poor shall never cease out of the land." I)eut. 15: 11. The words may be re- garded as a prophecy, and their fulfil- ment has been every way most surpri- sing. Amid all the revolutions whereof our earth has been the scene — revolu- tions which have presented to us em- pire after empire rising to the summit of greatness, and gathering into its pro- vinces the wealth of the world — there has never been a nation over which riches have been equally diffused. The many have had poverty for their por- tion, whilst abundance has been poured into the laps of the few. And if you refiise to consider this as a divine ap- pointment, it will be hard, we think, to account for the phenomenon. It might have been expected that the distribu- tion of physical comfort would be pro- portioned to the amount of physical etrength ; so that numbers would dic- tate to individuals ; and the jjower of bone and muscle be brought to bear on the production of equality of circum- stance. And just in the degree that we recognize the fulfilment of prophecy in the continuance of poverty, we must be prepared to allow, that the unequal distribution of temporal advantages is a result of the Almighty's good plea- sure ; and that, consequently, all popu- lar harangues on equality of rights are nothing less than contradictions to the assertions, " the rich and poor meet to- gether, the Lord is the maker of them all." Proverbs, 22 : 2.
There is no easier subject for stormy and factious declamation, than the hard and unnatural estate of poverty. The
slightest reference to it engages, at once, the feelings of a multitude. And whensoever a bold and talented dema- gogue works up into his speeches the doctrine, that all men are born with equal rights, he plies his audience with the strongest excitement, but does, at the same time, great despite to the word of inspiration. We hold it to be clear to every student of Scripture, that God hath ordained successive ranks in human society, and that uniformity of earthly allotment was never contem- plated by his providence. And, there- fore, do we likewise hold, that attempts at equalization would be tantamount to rebellion against the appointments of heaven ; and that infidelity must up- heave the altars of a land, ere its in- habitants could venture out on such enterprise. It is just that enterprise which may be looked for as the off- spring of a doctrine demonstrable only when the Bible shall have perished — the doctrine, that all power emanates from the people. When a population have been nursed into the belief that sovereignty is theirs, the likelihood is that the first assertion of this sover- eignty will be the seizing the posses- sions of those who gave them the les- son. The readiest way of overturning the rights of property is to introduce false theories on the origin of power. And they must, at the least, be short- sighted calculators, who, having taught our mechanics and laborers that they are the true king of the land, expect them to continue well contented with the title, and quite willing that superi- ors should keep the advantages.
But our main concern lies, at pre-
B4
god's provision for the poor.
sent, with the fact, that poverty is an appointment of God. We assume this fact as one not to be questioned by a christian congregation. And when we have fastened on the truth that God hath appointed poverty, we must set oui'selves to ascertain that God hath not overlooked the poor ; there being nothing upon Avhich we may have a greater prior certainty than on this, namely, that if it be God's will that the poor should not cease, it must also be his aiTangemeut that the poor should be cared for.
Now our text is a concise, but strik- ing, declaration that the solicitudes of God are engaged on the side of the poor. It would seem, indeed, from the context, that spiritual blessings were specially intended by the Psalmist, when addressing himself to God in the words to be examined. He speaks of the Almighty as sending a plentiful rain, and refreshing the weary inherit- ance. And we think it required by the nature of this imagery, as compared \vith the rest of scriptural metaphor, that we understand an outpouring of the Spirit as the mercy which David commemorates. But still there is no- thing, either in the words themselves, or in those which accompany them, re- quiring that we circumscribe the bear- ings of the passage. We may take it as a general truth, that " thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor." And we shall, therefore, en- deavor to turn your thoughts on two separate inquiries ; examining, in the first place, how the assertion holds good in temporal things, and in the se- cond place, how it holds good in spi- ritual things. This second inquiry is the more closely connected witli the business of our Sabbath assemblings, and we shall give it, therefore, the main of our time and attention.
Now if we set ourselves to establish as a matter-of-fact, that, in temporal things, God, of his goodness, has pre- pared for the poor, we seem, at once, arrested in our demonstration by that undeniable wretchedness which lies heavy on the mass of a crowded popu- lation. But it would be altogether wrong that we should judge any ap- pointment of God, without reference being had to the distortions which maii has himself introduced. We feel
assured ujion the point, that, in con structing the framework of society God designed that one class should de- pend gi-eatly on another, and that somo should have nothiiig but a hard-earned pittance, whilst others were charioted in plenty. But we are to the full as clear upon another point, namely, that if in any case there be positive destitu- tion, it is not to be referred to the es- tablished ordinance of God, but only to some forgetfulness, or violation, of that mutual dependence which this or- dinance would encourage. There has never yet been the state of things — and, in spite of the fears of political economists, we know not that there ever will be — in which the produce of this earth sufficed not for its popula- tion. God has given the globe for the dwelling-place of man, and, causing that its valleys stand thick with corn, scatters food over its surface to satisfy the wants of an enormous and multi- plying tenantry. And unless you can show that he hath sent such excess ol inhabitants into this district of his em* pire, that there cannot be wrung for them sufficiency of sustenance from the overtasked soil, you will have made no advances towards a demonstration, that the veriest outcast, worn to a mere skeleton by famine, disproves the as- sertion, that God, of his goodness, has prepared for the poor. The question is not whether every poor man obtains enough : for this brings into the ac- count human management. It is sim- ply, whether God has given enough : for this limits our thoughts to divine appointment. And beyond all doubt, when we take this plain and straight- forward view of the subject, we cannot put from us the conclusion that God, of his goodness, has prepared for the jjoor. If he had so limited the produc- tiveness of the earth that it would yield only enough for a fraction of its inha- bitants ; and if he had allowed that the storehouses of natui'e might be exhaust- ed by the demands of the myriads whom he summoned into life ; there would lie objections against a statement which ascribes to his goodness the having made an universal provision. But if — ■ and we have here a point admitting not of controversy — he have always hith- erto caused that the productions of the globe should keep pace with its popu-
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lation, it is nothing better than the reasoning of a child, that God hath not provided for the poor, because through mal-administration of his bounties, the poor may, in certain cases, have been wholly unprovided for.
And it is worth your while to obsei-ve, that God prepared more than mere sus- tenance for the poor, when he endowed the soil with its surprising, and still undeveloped productiveness. We are indebted to the gi-ound on which we tread for the arts which adorn, and the learning which ennobles, as well as for the food which sustains human life. If God had thrown such barrenness into the earth that it would yield only enough to support those who tilled it, you may all perceive that every man must have laboi'ed at agriculture for himself; there being no overplus of produce which the toil of one individual could have pro- cured for another. Thus, if you exa- mine with any carefiilness, you must necessarily discover, that the sole rea- son why this company of men can de- vote themselves to the business of le- gislation, and that to the study of juris- prudence; why we may erect schools, and universities, and so set apart indi- viduals who shall employ themselves on the instruction of their fellows ; why we can have armies to defend the poor man's cottage and the rich man's pa- lace, and navies to prosecute commerce, and preachers to stand up in our cities and villages, pointing mankind to Jesus of Xazareth — that the alone practical reason of all this must be sought in the fertility of the soil : for if the soil were not fertile enough to yield more than the tiller requires for himself, every man must be a husbandman, and none could follow any other avocations. So that, by an arrangement which appears the more wondei*ful the more it is pon- dered, God hath literally wrought into the soil of this globe a provision for the varied wants, physical and moral, and intellectual, of the race whose ge- nerations possess successively, its pro- vinces. That which made wealth pos- sible was equally a preparation for the well-being of jjoverty. And though you may trace, with a curious accuracy, the rise and progress of sciences ; and map down the steps of the march of civilization ; and show how, in the ad- vancings of a nation, the talented and
enterprising have carried on crusades against ignorance and barbarism; we can still bring you back to the dust out of which we were made, and bid you find in its particles the elements of the results on which your admiration is poured, and tie you down, with the ri- gor of a mathematical demonstration, to the marvellous, though half-forgot- ten, fact, that God invested the ground with the power of ministering to man's many necessities — so that the arts by which the comforts of a population are multiplied, and the laws by which their rights are upheld, and the schools in which their minds are disciplined, and the churches in which their souls are instructed — all these may be referred to one and the same grand ordinance; all ascribed to that fruitfulness of the earth by which God, " of his goodness, has prepared for the poor."
But we said that we should dwell at no great length on the first division of our subject; and we now, therefore, pass on to investigate the second. We are to show how the assertion holds good in spiritual things, that God, of his goodness, has prepared for the poor.
Now we often set before you the noble doctrine of Scripture and our Church, that Christ died for the whole world ; and that, consequently, the hu- man being can never be born whose sins were not laid on the surety of the apostate. It is a deep and mysterious, but glorious, truth, that the sins of every man were punished in Jesus, so that the guiltiness of each individual pressed in upon the Mediator, and wrung out its penalties from his flesh and his spirit. The person of Christ Jesus was divine ; whilst in that person were united two natures, the human and divine. And on this account it was that the sins of every man could rush against the surety, and take their pe- nalty out of his anguish. It is not merely that Christ was the brother of every man. A man and his brother are walled-off, and separated, by their per- sonality. What is done by the one can- not be felt, as his own action, by the other. ]>ut Christ, by assuming our nature, took, as it were, a part of eve- ry man. He was not, as any of us is, a mere human individual. But having hu- man nature, and not human i)cr.sonality, he was tied, so to speak, by a most sen-
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sitive fibre, to each member of the enormous family of man. And along these unnumbered threads of sympathy there came travelling the evil deeds, and the evil thoughts, and the evil words, of every child of a rebellious seed ; and they knocked at his heart, and asked for vengeance : and thus the fiin became his own in every thing but Its guiltiness ; and the wondrous result was brought round, that he " who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth," 1 Peter, 2: 22, felt every sin which can ever be committed, and was pierced by it, and torn by it : and the alone innocent one — the solitary unde- filed and unj)rofaned man — he was so bound up with each rebel against God that the rebellion, in all its ramifica- tions, seemed to throw itself into his heart; and, convulsing where it could not contaminate, dislocated the soul which it did not defile, and caused the thorough endurance of all the wretch- edness, and all the anguish, which were due to the transgressions of a mighty population. Ay, and it is because 1 can clearly perceive, that, in taking human nature, Christ fastened me to himself by one of those sympathetic threads v/hich can never be snapped, that I feel certified that every sin which I have committed, and every sin which I shall yet commit, went in upon the Mediator and swelled his sufferings. When he died, my sins, indeed, had not been per- petrated. Yet, forasmuch as they were to be perpetrated in the nature which he had taken to himself, they came crowding up from the unborn ages : and they ran, like molten lead, along the fibre which, even then, bound me to the Savior ; and pouring themselves into the sanctuary of his righteous soul, conti'ibuted to the wrlnn^inur from him the mysterious cry, " mnie iniquities" — mine, done in that nature, which is emphatically mine — " mine iniquities have taken hold upon me so that I am not a])le to look up ; they are more than the hairs of my head ; therefore my heart falleth me." Psalm, 40 : 12. Now it was thus with a distinct and specific reference to every individual, the poorest and the meanest of our race, that " the word was made flesh," John, 1 : 14, and dwelt and died upon this earth. It was not merely that God cared for the world in the mass, as for
a province of his empii-e tenanted by the wayward and the wretched. He cared for each single descendant of Adam. We know, with an assurance which it is beyond the power of argu- ment to shake, that Christ Jesus tasted death for every man. We are commis- sioned to say to each individual — it matters not who he be, scorched by an eastern sun, or girt in by polar snows — the Son of the Eternal died for thee, for thee separately, for thee individu- ally. And if, then, you cannot find us the outcast unredeemed by the costly processes of the incamation and cruci- fixion; if, addressing ourselves to the least known, and the most insignificant of our species, we can tell him that, though he be but a unit, yea almost a cipher in the vast sum of human exist- ence, he has so engaged the solicitudes of the Almighty that a divine person undertook his suretyship, and threw down the baiTiers which sin had cast up between him and happiness — oh, have we not an overpowering proof, that God has been mindful of the des- pised ones and the destitute ; and whilst we can appeal to such provision on be- half of the poor as places heaven with- in their reach, in all its magnificence, and in all its blessedness, where is the tongue that can presume to deny that God hath, " of his goodness, prepared for the poor 1 "
But we cannot content ourselves with this general proof It seems implied in our text — that this is the point which we seek to establish — that, in spiritual things, God has prepared for the poor even more than for the rich. We pro- ceed, then, to obsen'e that God has so manifested a tender and impartial con- cern for his creatui'cs, as to have thrown advantages round poverty which may well be said to counterbalance its dis- advantages. It is unquestionable that the condition of a poor man is more favorable than that of a rich to the re- ception of Christ. Had not this been matter-of-fact, the Redeemer would ne- ver have pronounced it "easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Luke, 18 : 25. There is in poverty what we may al- most call a natural tendency to the lead- ing men to dependence on God, and faith in his promises. On the other
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nand, there is in wealth just as natural a tendency to the production of a spirit of haughty and infidel independence. The poor man, harassed with difficul- ties in earning a scanty subsistence for liimself and his household, will have a readier ear for tidings of a'bright home beyond the grave, than the rich man, ^vho, lapped in luxury, can imagine no- thin tr more delightful than the unbro- ken continuance of present enjoyments. Poverty, in short, is a humiliating and depressing thing; whilst affluence nur- tures pride and elation of mind. And in proportion, therefore, as all which has kinsmanship with humility is favor- able to piety, all which has kinsman- ship with haughtiness unfavorable, we may fairly argue that the poor man has an advantage over the rich, considering them both as appointed to immortality. But not only has God thus merciful- ly introduced a kind of natural coun- terpoise to the allowed evils of pover- ty : in the institution of a method of redemption, he may specially be said to have prepared for the mean and the destitute. There is nothing in the pre- scribed duties of religion, which, in the least degree, requires that a man should be a man of learning or leisure. We take the husbandman at his plough, or the manufacturer at his loom; and we can tell him, that, whilst he goes on, unintenniptedly, with his daily toil, the grand business of his soul's salvation may advance with an uniform march. "\Ve do not require that he should relax in his industi-y, or abstract some hours from usual occupations, in order to learn a complicated j^lan, and study a scheme which demands time and intel- lect for its mastery. The Gospel mes- sage is 80 exquisitely simple, the sum and substance of truth may be so gath- ered into brief and easily understood sentences, that all which it is absolute- ly necessary to know may be told in a minute, and borne about with him by the laborer in the field, or the mariner on the waters, or the soldier on the odttle-plain. We reckon it far the most wonderful feature in the Bible, that, whilst presenting a sphere for the long- est and most pains-taking research — exhibiting heights which no soarings of imagination can scale, and depths which no fathoming-line of intellect can explore — it sets forth the way of salva-
tion with so much of unadorned plain- ness, that it may as readily be under- stood by the child or the peasant, as by the full-grown man or the deep-read philosopher. Who will keep back the tribute of acknowledgment that God, of his own goodness, has prepared for the poor ] If an individual be possess- ed of commanding genius, gifted with powers which far remove him from the herd of his fellows, he will find in the pages of Scripture beauties, and diffi- culties, and secrets, and wonders, which a long life-time of study shall leave un- exhausted. But the man of no preten- sions to talent, and of no opportunities for research, may turn to the Bible in quest of comfort and direction ; and there he will find traced as with a sun- beam, so that none but the wilfully blind can overlook the record, guidance for the lost, and consolation for the downcast. We say that it is in this prcjiaration for the poor that the word of God is most surprising. View the matter how you will, the Bible is as much the unlearned man's book as it is the learned, as much the poor man's as it is the rich. It is so composed as to suit all ages and all classes. And whilst the man of learning and capacity is poring upon the volume in the retirement of his closet, and emjiloying all the stores of a varied literature on the illustrating its obscurities and the solving its diffi- culties, the laborer may be sitting at his cottage-door, with his boys and his girls drawn around him, explaining to them, from the simply-written pages, how great is the Almighty, and how precious is Jesus. Nay, we shall not overstep the boundaries of truth if we carry these statements yet a little fur- ther. We hold that the Bible is even more the poor man's book than the rich man's. There is a vast deal of the Bi- ble which appears written with the ex- press design of verifying our text, that God, of his goodness, has " pre2)ared for the poor." There are many of the promises which seem to demand pov- erty as the element whei'ein alone their full lustre can radiate. The prejudices, moreover, of the poor man against the truths which the volume opens up are likely to be less strong, and inveterate, than those of the rich man. He seems to have, naturally, a kind of compan- ionship with a suffering Redeemer, whO'
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had not " where to lay his head." Luke, 8: 58. He can have no repugnance, but, on the contrary, a sort of instinc- tive attachment, to apostles who, like himself, ^vrougllt with their own hands for the supply of daily necessities. He can feel himself, if we may use such expression, at home in the scenery, and amongst the leading characters, of the New Testament. Whereas, on the other hand, the scientific man, and the man of education, and of influence, and of high bearing in society, will have pre- possessions, and habits of thinking, with which the announcements of the Gos- pel will unavoidably jar. He has, as it were, to be brought down to the level of the poor man, before he can pass un- der the gateway which stands at the outset of the path of salvation. He has to begin by learning the comparative worthlessness of many distinctions, which, never having been placed with- in the poor man's reach, stand not as obstacles to his heavenward progress. And if there be correctness in this re- presentation, it is quite evident that if the Gospel be, for the first time, put into the hands, or proclaimed in the hearing, of a man of rank and of a mean man, the likelihood is far greater that the mean man will lay hold, effective- ly and savingly, on the truth, than that the man of rank will thus grasp it : and our conclusion, therefore, comes out strong and irresistible, that, if there be advantage on either side, the Bible is even more nicely adapted to the poor than to the rich ; and that, consequent- ly, it is most emphatically true, that, " thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor."
But there is yet another point on which we think it well to turn briefly your attention ; for it is one which is, oftentimes, not a little misunderstood. We know tliat what are termed the evi- dences of Christianity are of a costly and intricate description, scarcely ac- cessible except to the studious. It is hardly to be supposed that the imlet- tered man can have mastered the ex- ternal arguments which go to prove the divine origin of our faith. And if the Almighty have placed the witness for the truth of Christianity beyond the poor man's grasp, has he not left the poor man open to the inroads of scep- ticism; and how, therefore, can it be
said that he has of his goodness " pre- pared for the poor ] " There is much in the aspect of the times which gives powerful interest to such a question as this. Whilst all ranks are assailed by the emissaries of infidelity, it is import- ant that we see whether God has not prepared for all ranks some engines ot resistance.
Now we are never afraid of subject- ing the external evidences of Christi- anity to the most sifting processes which our advei"saries can invent. We do not receive a i^eligion without pi-oof ; and our proof we will bring to the best touchstones of truth. Cln-istianity is not the gi"ave, but the field of vigorous inquiry. And we see not, therefore, why scepticism should claim to itself a monopoly of intellect. The high- road to reputation for talent seems to be boldness in denying Christianity. Ay, and many a young man passes now- a-days for a fine and original genius, who could not distinguish himself in the honorable competitions of an uni- versity, who makes no ^vay in his pro- fession, and is nothing better than a cypher in society ; but who is of so in- dependent a spirit that he can jeer at jmestcraft in a club-room, and of so in- ventive a turn that he can ply Scrip- ture with objections a hundred times refuted.
But the evidences of Christianity are not to be set aside by a sneer. We will take our stand as on a mount thrown up in the broad waste of many genera- tions ; and one century after another shall sti'uggle forth from the sepulchres of the past; and each, as its monarchs, and its warriors, and its priests, walk dimly under review, shall lay down a tribute at the feet of Christianity. We will have the volume of history spread out before us, and bid science arrange her manifold developments, and seek the bones of martyrs in the east and in the west, and tread upon battle- plains with an empire's dust sepulchred be- neath ; but on whatsoever we gaze, and whithersoever we turn, the evidences of our religion shall look nobler, and wax mightier. It were the work of a life-time to gain even cursory acquaint- ance with the proofs which substan- tiate the claims of Christianity. It would beat down the energies of the most gifted and masterful spirit, to re
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quire it to search out, and concentrate, whatsoever attests the truth of the Gos- pel— for the mountains of the earth have a voice, and the cities, and the valhes, and the tombs ; and the sail must be un- furled to bear the inquirer over every ocean, and the wings of morning must carry him to the outskirts of infinite space. We will not concede that a more overwhelming demonstration would be given to the man who should stand side by side with a messenger from the invis- ible world, and hear from celestial lips the spirit-stirring news of redemption, and be assured of the reality of the in- terview by a fiery cross left stamped on his forehead, than is actually to be at- tained by him who sits down patiently and assiduously, and plies, with all the diligence of an unwearied laborer in the mine of information, at accumulating and arranging the evidences of Christian- ity. So that we may well think our- selves warranted in contending that God has marvellously prepared for the faith of educated men. Scepticism, whatever its boasts, walks to its conclusions over a fettered reason, and a forgotten crea- tion. And any man who will study carefully, and think candidly, shall rise from his inquiry a believer in revelation. But what say we to the case of the poor man ] How hath God, of his good- ness, " prepared for the poor 1 " It may be certain that the external evidences of Christianity amount to a demonstra- tion, which, when fairly put, is altogeth- er irresistible. But it is just as certain that the generality of believers can have little or no acquaintance with these evi- dences. It were virtually the laying an interdict on the Christianity of the lower orders, to establish a necessity, that mastery of the evidences must precede belief in the doctrines of the Gospel. We can see no result but that of limit- ing the very existence of religion to the academy or the cloister, and prohibiting its circulation through the dense masses of our population, if the only method of certifying one's self that the Bible is from God were that of searching through the annals of antiquity, and following out the testimony arranged by the labors of suc- cessive generations. And yet, on the other hand, it were just as fatal to the Christianity of our peasantry, to main- tain that they take for granted the di- vine origin of the Gospel, and that they
can give no better reason than that of long-established custom, why the Bible should be received as a communication from heaven. We say that this would be as fatal as the former supposition to the Christianity of our peasantry. A belief which has nothing to rest on, de- serves not to bo designated belief; and, unable to sustain itself by reason, must yield at the first onset of scepticism.
But there can be nothing more unjust than the conclusion, that the poor man has no evidence within reach, because he has not the external. We will not allow that God has failed, in this respect, to prepare for the poor. We will go into the cottage of the poor disciple of Christ, and we will say to him, why do you believe upon Jesus 1 You know little or nothing about the witnesses of antiquity. You know little or nothing about the completion of prophecy. You can give me no logical, no grammatical, no histoi'ical reasons for concluding the Bible to be, what it professes itself, a revelation, made in early times, of the will of the Almighty. Why then do you believe upon Jesus 1 What grounds have you for faith, what basis of convic- tion 1
Now if the poor man lay bare his ex- perience, he will, probably, show how God hath prepared for him, by giving such a reply as the following : I lived long unconcerned about the soul. I thought only on the pleasures of to-day : I cared nothing for the worm which might gnaw me to-moiTow. I was brought, however, by sickness, or by disappointment, or by the death of the one I best loved, or by a startling ser- mon, to fear that all was not right be- tween me and God. I grew more and more anxious. Terrors haunted me by day, and sleep went from my pillow by night. At length I was bidden to look unto Jesus as " delivered for my offen- ces, and raised again for my justifica- tion." Romans, 4 : 25. Instantly I felt him to be exactly the Savior that T need- ed. Every want found in him an imme- diate supply; every fear a cordial ; ev- ery wound a balm. And ever since, the more I have read of the Bible, the more have I found that it must have been written on purpose for myself It seems to know all my cares, all my temptations j and it speaks so beautifully a word in season, that he who wrote it must, I 12
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think, have had me in his eye. Why do I believe in Jesus 1 Oh, I feel him to be a divine Savior — that is my proof. Why do I believe the Bible ? I have found it to be God's word — there is my witness.
We think, assuredly, that if you take the experience of the generality of christians, you Avill find that they do not believe without proof. We again say, that we cannot assent to the proposition that the Christianity of our villages and hamlets takes for granted the truth of the Bible, and has no reason to give when that truth is called in question. The peasant who, when the hard toil of the day is concluded, will sit by his fire- side, and read the Bible with all the ea- gerness, and all the confidence, of one who leceives it as a message from God, has some better ground than common report, or the tradition of his forefathers, on which to rest his persuasion of the divinity of the volume. The book speaks to him with a force which he feels never could belong to a mere human composition. There is drawn such a picture of his own heart — a picture pre- senting many features which he would not have discovered, had they not been thus outlined, but which he recognizes as most accurate, the instant they are exhibited — that He can be sure that the painter is none other but he who alone searches the heart. The proposed de- liverance agrees so wonderfully, and so minutely with his wants ; it manifests such unbounded and equal concern for the honor of God, and the well-being of man ; it provides with so consummate a skill, that, whilst the human race is re- deemed, the divine attributes shall be glorified ; that it were like telling him that a creature spread out the firmament, and inlaid it with worlds, to tell him that the proflered salvation is the device of impostors, or the figment of enthusi- asts. And thus the pious inmate of the workshop or the cottage " hath the wit- ness in himself" 1 St. John, 5 : 10. The home-thrusts which he receives from " the sword of the Spirit," Ephe- sians, 6 : 17, are his evidence that the weapon is not of earthly manufacture. The surprising m.anner in which texts will start, as it were, from the page, and become spoken things rather than writ- ten ; so that the Bible, shaking itself from the trammels of the printing-press,
seems to rush from the firmament in the breathings of the Omnipotent — this stamps Scripture to him as literally God's word — prophets and apostles may have written it, but the Almighty still utters it. And all this makes the evi- dence with which the poor man is pre* pared in defence of Christianity, We do not represent it as an evidence which may successively be brought forward in professed combat with infidelity. It must have been experienced before it can be admitted ; and not being of a nature to commend itself distinctly to the under- standing of the sceptic, will be rejected by him as visionary, and therefore, re- ceived not in proof. But if the self- evidencing power of Scripture render not the peasant a match for the unbe- liever, it nobly secures him against be- ing himself overborne. " The \^^tnes3 in himself," if it qualify him not, like science and scholarship, for the offensive, will render him quite impregnable, so long as he stands on the defensive. And we believe of many a village christian, who has never read a line on the evi- dences of Christianity, and whose whole theology is drawn from the Bible itself, that he would be, to the full, as stanch in withstanding the emissaries of scep- ticism as the mightiest and best equip- ped of our learned divines ; and that, if he could give no answer to his assailant whilst urging his chronological and his- torical objections, yet by falling back on his own experience, and entrenching himself within the manifestations of truth which have been made to his own conscience, he would escape the giving harborage, for one instant, to a suspi- cion that Christianity is a fable ; and holds fast, in all its beauty, and in all its integrity, the truth, that " we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus the righteous, and he is the propitiation of our sins." 1 John, 2 : 1.
Yea, it is a growing and strengthen- ing evidence which God, of his goodness has thus prepared for our poor. When- soever they obey a direction of Scripture, and find the accompanying promise ful- filled, this is a new proof that the direc- tion and promise are from God. The book tells them that blessings are to be sought and obtained through the name of Christ. They ask and they receive. What is this but a witness that the book is divine 1 Would God jjive his sanction
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to a lie *? The book assures them that the Holy Spirit will gradually sanctify those who believe upon Jesus. They find the sanctification following on the belief; and does not this attest the au- thority of the volume 1 The book de- cla]-es that " all things work together for good," Rom. S : 28, to the disciples of Jesus. They find that prosperity and adversity, as each brings its trials, so each its lessons and supports ; and whilst God thus continually verifies a declaration, can they doubt that he made it ? And thus, day by day, the self-evi- dencing power of Scripture comes into fuller operation, and experience multi- plies and strengthens the internal testi- mony. The peasant will discover more and more that the Bible and the con- science so fit into each other, that the artificer who made one must have equal- ly fashioned both. His life will be an on-going proof that Scripture is truth ; for his days and hours are its chapters and verses realized to the letter. And others may admire the shield which the industry and ingenuity of learned men have thrown over Christianity. They may speak of the solid rampart cast up by the labor of ages ; and pronounce the faith unassailable, because history, and philosophy, and science have all combined to gird round it the iron, and the rock, of a ponderous and collossal demonstration. We, for our part, glory most in the fact, that Scripture so com- mends itself to the conscience, and ex- pei'ience so bears out the Bible, that the Gospel can go the rounds of the world and carry with it, in all its travel, its own mighty credentials. And though we depreciate not, but rather confess thankfully, the worth of external evi- dence, we still think it the noblest pro- vision of God, that if the external were destroyed, the internal would remain, and uphold splendidly Christianity. There is nothing which we reckon more wonderful in aiTangcment, nothinginore deserving all the warmth of our grati- tude, than that divine truth, by its innate power, could compel the Corinthian sceptic, I Cor. 14 : 25, to fall down upon his face ; and that this truth, by the same innate power, can so satisfy a reader of its own origin, that ploughmen, as well as theologians, have reason for their hope ; and the Christianity of villages, as much as the Christianity of universi-
ties, can defy infidelity, and hold on un- daunted by all the buffetings of the ad- versary.
And if we now sum up this portion of our argument, we may say, that God has so constructed his word that it car- ries with it its own witness to the poor man's intellect, and the poor man'a heart. Thus, although it were idle to contend that the poor can show you, with a learned precision, the authenticity of Scripture, or call in the aids which philosophy has furnished, or strengthen their faith from the wonderworkings of nature, or mount and snatch conviction from the glittering tracery on the over- head canopy ; still they may feel, whilst perusing the Bible, that it so speaks to the heart, that it tells them so fully all they most want to know, that it so veri- fies itself in every-day experience, that it humbles them so much and rejoices them so much, that it strkes with such energy on every chord — in short, that it so commends itself to every faculty as purely divine — that they could sooner believe that God made not the stars, than that God wrote not the Scriptures : and thus, equipped with powerful ma- chinery for resisting the infidel, they give proof the most conclusive, that " thou, O God, hast prepared, of thy goodness, for the poor."
Such are the illustrations which we would advance of the truth of our text, when reference is had to spiritual pro- vision. We shall only, in conclusion, commend the subject to your earnest meditation ; assuring you that the more it is examined, the more it will be found fraught with interest and instruction. There is something exquisitely touching in an exhibition of God as providing sedulously, both in temporal and spir- itual things, for the poor and illiterate. " The eyes of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due sea- son." Psalm 145 : 15. God is that mai-vellous being to whom the only great thing is Himself A world is to Him an atom, and an atom is to Him a world. And as, therefore, he cannot be master- ed by what is vast and enormous, so he cannot overlook what is minute and in- significant. There is not, then, a smile on a poor man's cheek, and there is not a tear in a poor man's eye, either of which is independent on the providence of Him who gilds with the lustre of his
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countenance, the unlimited concave, and measures in the hollow of his hand, the waters of fathomless oceans. And that " the poor have the Gospel preached to them," Matt. 11 : 5, is one of the strong- est evidences on the side of Christiani- ty. It was given to John the Baptist as a mark by which he might prove Christ the promised Messiah. He might hence learn that Jesus had come, not to make God known, exclusively, to the learned and gi-eat ; but that, breaking loose from the trammels of a figurative dispensa- tion, he was dealing with the mechanic at his wheel, and with the slave at his drudgery, and with the beggar in his destitution. Had Christ sent to the im- prisoned servant of the Lord, and told him he was fascinating the philosopher with sublime disclosures of the nature of Deity, and drawing after him the learned of the earth by powerful and rhetorical delineations of the wonders of the invisible world ; that, all the while, he had no communications for the poor and commonplace crowd ; why, John might have been dazzled, for a time, by the splendor of his miracles, and he might have mused, wonderingly, on the displayed ascendancy over diseases and death ; but quickly, he must have thought this is not revealing God to the igno- rant and destitute, and this cannot be the religion designed for all nations and ranks. But when the announcement of wonder workings was followed by the declaration that glad tidings of deliver- ance were being published to the poor, the Baptist would readily perceive, that the long looked-for close to a limited dispensation was contemplated in the mission of Jesus ; that Jesus, in short, was introducing precisely the system which Messiah might be expected to introduce ; and thus, finding that the doctrines bore out the miracles, he would admit at once his pretensions, not mere- ly because he gave sight to the blind, but because, preaching the Gospel to the ignorant, he showed that God, of his goodness, had prepared for the poor.
And that the Gospel should be adapt- ed, as well a.s preached, to the poor — adapted in credentials as well as in doc- trines— this is one of those arrange- ments, which, as devised, show infinite love, as executed, infinite wisdom. Who will deny that God hath thrown himself into Christianity, even as into the
system of the visible universe, since the meanest can trace his footsteps, and feel themselves environed with the march- ings of the Eternal One 1 Oh, we do think it cause of mighty gratulation, in days when infidelity, no longer confining itself to literary circles, has gone down to the homes and haunts of our peasan- try, and seeks to prosecute an impious crusade amongst the very lowest of our people — we do think it cause of mighty gratulation, that God should have thus garrisoned the poor against the inroads of scepticism. We have no fears for the vital and substantial Christianity of the humbler classes of society. They may seem, at first sight, unequipped for the combat. On a human calculation, it might mount almost to a certainty, that infidel publications, or infidel men, work- ing their way into the cottages of the land, would gain an easy victory, and bear down, without difficulty, the faith and piety of the unprepared inmates. But God has had a care for the poor of the flock. He loves them too well to leave them defenceless. And now — appealing to that witness which every one who believes will find in himself — we can feel that the Christianity of the illiterate has in it as much of stamina as the Christianity of the educated ; and we can, therefore, be confident that the scepticism which shrinks from the batte- ries of the learned theologian, will gain no triumphs at the firesides of our God- fearing rustics.
We thank thee, O Father of heaven and earth, that thou hast thus made the Gospel of thy Son its own witness, and its own rampart. We thank thee that thou didst so breathe thyself into apos- tles and prophets, that their writings are thine utterance, and declared to all ages thine authorship. And now, what have we to ask, but that, if there be one here who has hitherto been stouthearted and unbelieving, the delivered word may prove itself divine, by " piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit ;" Heb. 4 : 12 ; and that, whilst we announce that " God is angry with the wicked ;" Psalm 7 : 11 ; that those who forget Him shall be turned into hell ; but that, nevertheless, he hath " so loved the world as to give his only-be- gotten Son," John, 3 : 16, for its re- demption— oh, we ask that the careless one, hearing truths at once so tenifyiug,
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and so encouraging may be humbled to the dust, and yet animated with hope ; and that, stirred by the divinity which embodies itself in the message, he may flee, " poor in spirit," Mat. 5:3, to
Jesus, and, drawing out of his fulness, be enabled to testify to all around, that " thou, O God, hast of thy goodness pre- pared for the poor."
SERMON IX.
ST. PAUL A TENT-MAKER
* And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them and wrought, for hy their occupation they were tent
makers." — Acts, xviii. 3.
The argument which may be drawn, in support of Christianity, from the humble condition of its earliest teachers, is often, and fairly, insisted on in dispu- tations with the sceptic. We scarcely know a finer vantage-ground, on which the champion of truth can plant himself, than that of the greater credulity which must be shown in the rejection, than in the reception, of Christianity. We mean to assert, in spite of the tauntings of those most thorough of all bondsmen, free-thinkers, that the faith required from deniers of revelation is far larger than that demanded from its advocates. He who thinks that the setting up of Christianity may satisfactorily be accoun- ted for ou the supposition of its false- hood, taxes credulity a vast deal more than he who believes all the prodigies, and all the miracles, recorded in Scrip- ture. The most marvellous of all pro- digies, and the most surpassing of all miracles, would be the progress of the christian religion, supposing it untrue. And, assuredly, he who has wrought mmself into the belief that such a won- der has been exhibited, can have no right to boast himself shrewder, and more cautious, than he who holds, that, at human bidding, the sun stood still, or
that tempests were hushed, and graves rifled, at the command of one " found in fashion " as ourselves. The fact that Christianity strode onward with a resist- less march, making triumphant way against the banded power, and learning, and prejudices of the world — this fact, we say, requires to be accounted for ; and inasmuch as there is no room for questioning its accuracy, we ask, in all justice, to be furnished with its expla- nation. We turn, naturally, from the result to the engines by which, to all human appearance, the result was brought round ; from the system preach- ed to the preachers themselves. Were those who first propounded Christianity men who, from station in society, and influence over their fellows, were likely to succeed in palming falsehood on the world ] Were they possessed of such machinery of intelligence, and wealth, and might, and science, that — every al- lowance being made for human credu- lity and human infatuation — there would appear the very lowest probability, that, having forged a lie, they could have caused it speedily to be venerated as truth, and canied along the earth's diameter amid the worshippings of thou- sands of the earth's population ] We
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have no intention, on the present oc- casion, of pursuing the argument. But we are persuaded that 7io candid mind can observe the speed with which Christi- anity ovciTan the civilized world, com- pelling the homage of kings, and casting down the altars of long cherished sujjcr- stitions ; and then compare the means with the effect — the apostles, men of low birth, and poor education, backed by no authority, and possessed of none of those high-wrought endowments which mark out the achievers of diffi- cult enterprise — we are persuaded, we say, that no candid mind can set what is done side by side with the apparatus through which it was effected, and not confess, that of all incredible things, the most incredible would be, that a few fishermen of Galilee vanquished the world, upheaving its idolatries, and mas- tcj-ing its prejudices, and yet that their only weapon was a lie, their only me- chanism jugglery and deceit.
And this it is which the sceptic be- lieves. Yea, on his belief of this he grounds claims to a sounder, and shrewder, and less fettered understand- ing, than belongs to the mass of his fel- lows. He deems it the mark of a weak and ill disciplined intellect to admit the truth of Christ's raising the dead ; but appeals in proof of a stanch and well- informed mind, to his belief that this whole planet was convulsed by the blow of an infant. He scorns the narrow- mindedness of submission to what he calls priestcraft ; but counts himself large-minded, because he admits that a priestcraft, only worthy his contempt, ground into powder every system which he thinks worthy of his admiration. He laughs at the credulity of supposing that God had to do \vith the institution of Christianity ; and then applauds the so- briety of referring to chance what bears all the marks of design — proving him- self rational by holding that causes are not necessary to effects.
Thus we recur to our position, that if the charge of credulity must be fast- ened on either the opponents, or the advocates, of Christianity, then, of the two, the opponents lie vastly open to the accusation. Men pretend to a more than ordinary wisdom because they re- ject, as incredible, occurrences and transactions which others account for as supernatural. But where is their much-
vaunted wisdom, when it can be shown to a demonstration, that they admit things a thousand-fold stranger than those, which, with all the parade of in- tellectual superiority, they throw from them as too monstrous for credence ] We give it you as a truth, susceptible of the rigor of mathematical proof, that the phenomena of Christianity can only be explained by conceding its divinity. If Christianity came from God, there is an agency adequate to the result ; and you can solve its making way amongst the nations. But if Christianity came not from Grod, no agency can be assign ed at all commensurate with the result; and you cannot account for its march- ings over the face of the earth. So that when — setting aside eyery other consid- eration— we mark the palpable unfit- ness of the apostles for devising and caiTying into effect, a grand scheme of imposture, we feel that we do right in retorting on the sceptic, the often urged charge of credulity. We tell him, that if it prove a clear-sighted intellect, to believe that unsupported men would league in an enterprise which was noth- ing less than a crusade against the world ; that ignorant men could concoct a system overpassing, confessedly, the wisdom of the noblest of the heathen ; and that the insignificant and unequip- ped band would go through fire and water, brave the lion and dare the stake, knowing, all the while, that they battled for a lie, and crowned, all the while, with overpowering success — ay, we tell the sceptic, that, if a belief such as this prove a clear-sighted intellect, he is welcome to the laurels of reason ; and we, for our part, shall contentedly herd with the irrational, who are weak enough to think it credible that the apostles were messengers from God — and only incredible that mountains fell when there was nothing to shake them, and oceans dried up when there was nothing to drain them, and that there passed over a creation an unmeasured revolution without a cause, and without a mover, and without a Deity.
Now we have advanced these hun*ied remarks on a well known topic of chris- tian advocacy, because our text leads us, as it were, into the workshop of the first teachers of our faith, and thus for- ces on us the contemplation of their lowly and destitute estate. It iiS not
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however, our design to pursue further the argument. We may derive other, and not less important, lessons from the simple exhibition of Paul, and Aquila, and Priscilla, plying their occupation as tent-makers. It should just be pre- mised, that, so far as Paul himself is concerned, we must set down his labor- ing for a living as actually a consequence on his preaching Christianity. Before he engaged in the service of Christ, he had occupied a station in the upper walks of society, and was not, we may believe, dependent on his industry for his bread. It was, however, the custom of the Jews to teach children, whatever the rank of their parents, some kind of handicraft ; so that, in case of a reverse of circumstances, they might have a re- source to which to betake themselves. We conclude that, in accordance with this custom, St. Paul, as a boy, had learn- ed the art of tent-making ; though he may not have exercised it for a subsis- tence until he had spent all in the ser- vice of Jesus. We appeal not, there- fore, to the instance of this great apos- tle to the Gentiles as confirming, in every respect, our foregoing argument. St. Paul was eminent both for learning and talent. And it would not, therefore, be just to reason from his presumed incompetency to carry on a difficult scheme, since, at the least, he was not disqualified for undertakings which crave a master-spirit at their head. It is certain, however, that, in these re- spects, St. Paul was an exception to the rest of the first preachers of Christianity. Our general reasoning, therefore, re- mains quite unaffected, whatever be urged in regard to a particular case.
But we have already said, that the main business of our discourse is to de- rive other lessons from our text than that which refers to the evidences of Christianity. We waive, therefore, fur- ther inquiry into that proof of the divin- ity of the system which is furnished by the poverty of the teachers. We will sit down, as it were, by St. Paul whilst busied with his tent-making ; and, con- sidering who and what the individual is who thus lives by his artisanship, draw that instruction from the scene which we may suppose it intended to furnish.
Now called as St. Paul had been by miracle to the apostleship of Christ, so that he was suddenly transformed from
a persecutor into a preacher of the faith, we might well look to find in him a pre- eminent zeal; just as though the un- earthly light, which flashed across his path, had entered into his heart, and lit up there a fire inextinguishable by the deepest waters of trouble. And it is beyond all peradventure, that there ne- ver moved upon our earth a heartier, more unwearied, more energetic, disci- ple of Jesus. His motto was to " count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ ; " Phil, 2:8; and crossing seas, and exhausting con- tinents, till a vast portion of the known world had heard from his lips the ti- dings of redemption, he proved the motto engi-aven on his soul, and showed that the desire of bringing the perishing into acquaintance with a Savior was nothing less than the life's blood of his system. And we are bound to suppose, that, where there existed so glowing a zeal, prompting him to be " instant in season, out of season," 2 Tim. 4 : 2, the irk- someness of mechanical labor must have been greater than it is easy to compute. Since the whole soul was wrapped up in the work of the ministry, it could not have been without a feeling, amounting almost to painfulness, that the apostle abstracted himself from the business of his embassage, and toiled at providing for his own bodily necessities. We see, at once, that so far as any appointment of God could be grievous to a man of St. Paul's exemplary holiness, this ap- pointment must have been hard to en dure : and we cannot contemplate the great apostle, withdrawn from the spirit- stirring scenes of his combats with idol- atry, and earning a meal like a common artificer, and not feel, that the effort of addressing the Athenians, congregated on Areopagus, was as nothing to that of sitting down patiently to all the drudg- ery of the craftsman.
But we go on to infer from these un- questionable facts, that, unless there had been great ends which St. Paul's labor- ing subserved, God would not have per- mitted this sore exercise of his sei-vant. There is allotted to no christian a trial without a reason. And if then we are once certified, that the working for his bread was a trial to St. Paul, we must go forward and investigate the reasons of the appointment.
Now we learn from the epistles of St.
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Paul, that when he reftised to be main- tained by the churches which he plant- ed, it was through fear that the success of his preaching might be interfered ■with by suspicions of his disinterested- ness. He chose to give the Gospel ■without cost, in order that his enemies might have no plea for representing him as an hireling, and thus depreciating his message. In this respect he appears to have acted dift'erently from the other apostles, since we find him thus expos- tulating with the Corinthians: "have we not power to eat and to drink 1 or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working 1" 1 Cor. 9 : 4, 6. He evidently argues, that, had he so pleased, he might justly have done what his fellow-apostles did, receive tempo- ral benefits from those to whom they ■were the instruments of communicating spiritual. It was a law, whose justice admitted not of controversy, that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." 1 Tim. 5 : 18. And, therefore, however cir- cumstances might arise, i-endering it ad- visable that the right should be waived, St. Paul desired the Corinthians to un- derstand, that, had he chosen, he might have claimed the sustenance for which he was contented to toil. It was a right, and not a favor, which he waived. And if there were no other lesson deducible from the manual occupation of the apos- tle, we should do well to ponder the di- rection thus practically given, that we remove all occasions of offence. St. Paul gave up even his rights, fearing lest their enforcement might possibly impede the progress of the Gospel. So single-eyed was this great teacher of the Gentiles, that when the reception of the message, and the maintenance of the messenger, seemed at all likely to clash, he would gladly devote the day to the service of others, and then toil through the night to make provision for himself If ever, therefore, it happen, either to minister or to people, to find that the pushing a claim, or the insisting on a right would bring discredit, though un- justly and wrongfully, on the cause of reliction ; let it be remembered that our prime business, as professors of godli- ness, is with the glory of God and the advance of the Gospel ; that the avoid- ing evil is a great thing, but that the scriptural requisition is, that we avoid even the " appearance of evil." 1 Thess.
5 : 22. And if there seem to us a hard- ness in this, so that we count it too much of concession, that we fall back from demands which strict justice would waiTant, let us betake ourselves, for an instant, to the workshop of St. Paul ; and there remembering, whilst this servant of Christ is fashioning the canvass, that he labors for bread, which, by an indis- putable title, is already his own, we may learn it a christian's duty to allow him- self to be wronged, when, by stanch standing to his rights, Christ's cause may be injured.
But as yet we are only on the out- skirts of our subject. The grand field of inquiry still remains to be traversed. We have seen, that, in order to foreclose all question of his sincerity and disinter- estedness, St. Paul chose to ply at his tent-making rather than derive a mainte- nance from his preaching. We next ob- ser\'e, that, had not his poverty been on other accounts advantageous, we can scarcely think that this single reason would have procured its permission. He might have refused to draw an in- come from his converts, and yet not have been necessitated to betake himself to handicraft. We know that God could have poured in upon him, through a thousand channels, the means of subsis- tence ; and we believe, therefore, that had his toiling subserved no end but the removal of causes of offence, his wants would have been supplied, though with- out any burden on the churches. So that the question comes before us, un- solved and unexamined, why was it per- mitted that St. Paul, in the midst of his exertions as a minister of Christ, should be compelled to support himself by man- ual occupation 1 We think that two great reasons may be advanced, each of which will deserve a careful examina- tion. In the first place, God hereby put much honor upon industry : in the se cond place, God hereby showed, that where he has appointed means, he will not work by miracles. We will take these reasons in succession, proceeding at once to endeavor to prove, that, in leaving St. Paul to toil as a tent-maker, God put much honor upon industry.
Now it is true that the appointment, " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," Gen. 3 : 19, was part of the ori- ginal malediction which apostacy caused to be breathed over this creation. But
ST. PAUL A TENT-MAKER.
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it is equally true that labor was God's ordinance whilst man kept unsullied his loyalty, and that it was not bound upon our race as altogether a consequence on transgression. We may not be- lieve that in paradise labor could ever have been wearisome ; but we know that, from the first, labor was actually man's business. We are told, in the book of Genesis, that when the Lord God had planted the garden, and fash- ioned man after his own image, " he took the man and put him into the gar- den, to dress it, and to keep it." Gen. 2 : 15. There was no curse upon the gi'ound ; and, therefore, we suppose not that it required, ere it would give forth a produce, the processes of a diligent husbandry. But, nevertheless, it is clear that the resting of God's first blessing on the soil, put not aside all necessity of culture. Man was a labor- er irom the beginning : God's earliest ordinance appearing to have been that man should not be an idler. So that ■whilst we admit that all that painfulness and exhaustion, which waits ordinarily upon human occupation, must be traced up to disobedience as a parent, we con- tend that employment is distinctly God's institution for mankind, no reference whatsoever being made to the innocence or guiltiness of the race. God sancti- fied the seventh day as a day of rest, be- fore Adam disobeyed, and thus marked out six days as days of labor and em- 2)loj'ment, before sin sowed the seeds of tlie thorn and the thistle. We may sup- pose, that, previously to the fall, labor, so to speak, was just one department of piety ; and that in tilling the ground, or watching the herds, man was as religi- ously occupied as when communing with God in distinct acts of devotion. The gre;it and fatal alteration which sin has intr)duced into labor, is, that a wide 6e]);iration has been made between tem- poriil business and spiritual ; so that, whilst engaged in providing for the body, we seem wholly detached from paying attention to the concerns of the soul. But we hold it of first-rate importance to teach men that this separation is of their own making, and not of God's ap- pointing, frod ordained labor : and God also ordained that man's great business on earth should be to secure his soul's safety through eternity. And unless, therefore, we admit that the work of the
soul's salvation may be actually advanced by, and through, our worldly occupations, we set one ordinance of God against an- other, and represent ourselves as imped- ed, by the a^ipointments of our Maker, in the very business most pressed on our pcrfoiTuance. The matter-of-fact is, that God may as truly be served by the husbandman whilst ploughing up his ground, and by the manufacturer whilst toiling at his loom, and by the merchant whilst engaged in his commei-ce, as he can be by any of these men when gath- ered by the Sabbath bell to the solemn assembly. It is a perfect libel on reli- gion, to represent the honest trades of mankind as aught else but the various methods in which God may be honored and obeyed. We do not merely mean that worldly occupations may be follow- ed without harm done to the soul. This would be no vindication of God's ordinance of labor. We mean that they maybe followed with benefit to the soul. When God led the eastern magi to Christ, he led them by a star. He at- tacked them, so to speak, through the avenue of their profession. Their great employment was that of observing the heavenly bodies. And God sanctified their astronomy. He might have taught them by other methods which seem to us more direct. But it pleased Him to put honor on their occupation, and to write his lessons in that glittering alpha- bet with which their studies had made them especially conversant. We be- lieve, in like manner, that if men went to their daily employments with some- thing of the temper which they bring to the ordinances of grace, expecting to receive messages from God through trade, and through labor, as well as through preaching and a communion, there would be a vast advancing towards spiritual excellence ; and men's experi- ence would be, that the Almighty can bring them into acquaintance with him- self, by the ploughshare, and the bal- ances, and the cargo, no less than by the- homily, and the closet exercises, and the public devotions. There would be- an anticipation of the glorious season, sketched out by prophecy, when " there- shall be upon the bells of the horses, holiness unto the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar." Zechariah, 14 : 20. We give this as our belief; and we- 13
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advance as our reason, the fact that la- bor is the ordinance of God. We will not have industry set against piety ; as though the little time which men can snatch from secular engagements were the only time which they can give to their I\Iaker. They may give all to God, and, nevertheless, be compelled to rise early, and late take rest, in order to earn a scanty subsistence. And we think, that, in placing an ajiostle under the necessity of laboring for bread, God assigned precisely that character to in- dustry for which we contend. We leam, from the exhibition of our text, that there is no inconsistency between the being a devoted servant of Christ, and the following assiduously a toilsome occupation. Nay, we learn that it may be, literally, as the servant of Christ that man follows the occupation ; for it was, as we have shown you, with deci- ded reference to the interests of religion, that St. Paul joined Aquila and Priscil- la in tent-making. At the least, there is a registered demonstration in the case gf this apostle, that unwearied industry — for he elsewhere declares that he la- bored day and night — may consist with pre-eminent j)iety ; and that, so far from the pressure of secular employment be- ing a valid excuse for slow progi'ess in godliness, a man may have to struggle against absolute pauperism, and yet grow, every moment, a more admirable christian. Oh, there is something in this representation of the honor put by God upon industry, which should tell power- fully on the feelings of those to whom life is one long striving for the means of subsistence. It were as nothing to tell men, you may be good christians in spite of your engrossing employments. The noble truth is, that these employ- ments may be so many helpers on of re- ligion ; and that, in place of serving as leaden weights, which retard a disciple in his celestial career, they may be as the well-plumed wings, accelerating glo- riously the onward progr-ess. In labor- ing to support himself, St. Paul labored to advance Christ's cause. And though there be not always the same well de- fined connection between our toils for a livelihood and the interests of religion, yet, let a connection be practically sought after, and it will always be practically found. The case exists not in which, after making it obligatory on a man that
he work for his bread, God has not ur ranged, that, in thus working, he may work also for the well-being of his soul. If ever, therefore, we met with an in- dividual who pleaded that there were already so many calls upon his time that he could not find leisure to give heed to religion, we should not immediately bear down upon him with the charge — though it might be a just one — of an undue pursuit of the things of this earth. We should only require of him to show that his employments were scripturally lawful, both in nature and intenseness. We should then meet him at once, on the ground of this lawfulness. We should tell him that employments were designed to partake of the nature of sacraments ; that, in place of their being excuses for his not serving God, they were appointed as instruments by which he might sers^e Him ; and that, consequently, it was only because he had practically dissolved a partnership which the Almighty had formed, the partnership between industry and piety, that he was driving on, with a reckless speed, to a disastrous and desperate bankruptcy. And if he pretended to doubt that piety and industry have thus been associated by God, we would take him with us into the work-chamber of St. Paul ; and there showing him the apostle toiling against want, and yet, in toiling, serving Christ Jesus — subsisting by his artisanship, and yet feeding the zeal of his soul by and through his la- bors for the support of his body — we would tell the questioner, that God thus caused a mighty specimen to be given of an instituted connection be- tween secular employment and spirit- ual improvement ; and whilst we send him to the writings of St. Paul that he may learn what it is to be indus- triously religious, we send him to the tent-making of St. Paul that he may leai-n what it is to be religiously industrious.
Now we might insist at greater length, if not pressed by the remainder of our subject, on the honor which God put up- on industry when he left St. Paul to toil for a maintenance. But we leave this point to be further pondered in your pri- vate meditations. We go on, according to the aiTangements of our discourse, to open up the second reason which we ventured to assifm for this allowed de*
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pendence of an apostle upon labor for subsistence.
We stated as our second reason, that God designed hereby to inform us, that where he has apjiointed means he will not work by miracles. We observe that unto St. Paul had been given a super- human energy, so that, when it was re- quired as a witness to his doctrine, he could remove diseases by a word or a touch, and even restore life to the dead. We have no distinct information whe- ther men, thus supernaturally equipped, could employ the power at every time, and for every purpose. But it seems most consistent wth Scrlptiu-e and rea- son to suppose, that, when specially moved by God, they could always work miracles ; but that, unless thus moved, their strength went from them, and they remained no mightier than their fellows. It does not appear that apostles could have recouree to wonder-workings in every exigence which might arise. At least, it is certain that apostolical men, such as Epaphroditus and Timothy, went through sicknesses, and suffered from weaknesses, without being cured by miracle, and without, as it would seem, being taxed with deficiency of faith, be- cause they shook not off the malady, or resisted not its approaches. When St. Paul writes to Timothy in regard to his infirmites, he bids him use wine as a medicine ; he does not tell him to seek faith to work a miracle. Yet, beyond all doubt, Timothy had received the gifts of the Spirit. And from this, and other instances, we infer that then only could miracles be wrought, when, by a distinct motion of the Holy Ghost, faith was directed to some particular achieve- ment. It did not follow that because St. Peter, by a word, had struck down Ananias, he might, by a Avord, have im- mediately afterwards raised him up. It was not at his option what direction the miracle-working faith should take. Whensoever a miracle was \vrought, it was wrought, unquestionably, by faith. But the faith, first given by God, requir- ed ever after to be stirred into exercise by God ; so that no conclusion could be more en-oneous, than that faith must have been defective, where miracle was not wrought.
Now we advance these remarks, in order to justify our not claiming for St. Paul, what, at first sight, we are disposed
to claim, the praise of extraordinary self-denial in gaining his bread by labor, when he might have gained it by mira- cle. We may not suppose, that because he displayed oftentimes a super-human power, he could necessarily, had he wished it, have used that power in sup- plying his bodily wants. It may seem to us no greater effort, to multiply, as Christ did, a loaf into hundreds, than to command, as St. Paul did, the impotent man at Lystra to stand upright on his feet. Yet it were a false conclusion that the apostle might have done the one as well as the other.
The working of miracles presuppos- ed, as we have shown you, not only God's giving the faith, but also God's permit- ting, or rather God's directing, its exer- cise. We build, therefore, no state- ments on the supposition that St. Paul had the power, but used it not, of pro- curing food by miracle. We rather con- clude that he had no alternative what- ever; so that, had he not labored at tent-making, he must have been abso- lutely destitute. It was not indeed be- cause deficient in faith that he wrought not a miracle. He had the faith by which lofty hills might be stin-ed, pro- vided only — and it is this proviso which men strangely overlook — that he, who had given him the faith, directed him to employ it on up-heaving the earth's mountains.
But we are thus brought down to the question, why was St. Paul not permit- ted, or not directed, to use the wonder- working energy, in place of being ne- cessitated to apply himself to manual occupation ] We give as our reply, that God might hereby have designed to communicate the important truth, that, where he has appointed means, we are not to look for miracles. Labor was his own ordinance. So long, therefore, as labor could be available to the pro- curing subsistence, he would not super- sede this ordinance by miraculous inter- ference. There is, perhaps, no feature more strongly charactered on God's dealings, whether in natural things or in spiritual, than that it is in the use of means, and in this alone, that blessings may be expected. We see clearly that this is God's procedure in reference to the affairs of our present state of being. If the husbandman neglect the process- es of agriculture, there comes no mira-
iOO
ST. PAUL A TENT-MAKER,
cle to make up this omission of means ; but harvest-time finds barrenness reign- ing over the estate. If the merchant- man sit with his hantls folded, when he ought to he busied with shipping his mer- chandise, there is nothing to l)e expected but that beggary will ensue upon idle- ness. And vvc hold that instances such as these, so familiar that they are often overlooked, must be taken as illustra- tions of a great principle whose work- ings permeate all God's dispensations. We would contend that there is to be traced in our spiritual affairs that very honoring of means which is thus observ- able in our temporal. We know noth- ing of the fitness, which some men are disposed to uphold, of waiting the effec- tual calling of the Holy Ghost, and so of making no effort, till irresistibly mov- ed, to escape from the bondage of cor- ruption. We know of no scriptural me- thod of addressing- transgressors but as free agents; and we abjure, as unsanc- tioned by the Bible, every scheme of the- ology which would make men nothing more than machines. It must lie at the foundation of all religion, whether nat- ural or revealed, that men are responsi- ble beings ; and responsible they cannot be, if placed under an invincible moral constraint, which allows no freedom whatsoever of choice. And we think it a thing to be sorely lamented, that there goes on a battling about election and non-election ; the combatants on each side failing to perceive, that they fight for the profile, and not the full face of truth. It seems to us as plain from the Bible as language can make it, that God hath elected a remnant to life. It is just as plain, that all men are addressed as capable of repenting, and at liberty to choose for themselves between life and death. Thus we have scriptural warranty of God's election ; and we have also scriptural waiTanty of man's fi'ee agency. But how can these apparently opposite Btatcments be reconciled 1 I know not. The Bible tells me not. But because I cannot be wise beyond what is written, God forbid that I should re- fuse to be wise up to what is written. Scripture reveals, but it docs not recon- cile, the two. What then 1 I receive both, and I preach both ; God's election and man's free agency. But I should es- teem it of all presumptions the boldest to attempt explanation of the oexistence.
In like manner, the Bible tells me ex- plicitly that Christ was God ; and it tells me, as exjilicitly, that Christ was man It does not go on to state the modus or manner of the union. I stop, therefore where the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my Mediator, but I own as inscrutable the mysteries of his person.
It is thus also with the doctrine of the Trinity. Three persons are set before me as equally divine. At the same time, I am taught that there is only one God. How can the three be one, and the one be three ? Silent as the grave is the Bible on this wonder. But I do not re- ject its speech because of its silence. I believe in three divine persons, because told of a Trinity ; I believe in one only God, because told of an Unity : but 1 leave to the developments of a noble sphere of existence the clearing up the marvel of a Trinity in Unity.
The admission, then, of the co-exis- tence of election and free-agency is but the counterpart of many other admis- sions Avhich are made, on all hands, by the believers in revelation. And having assured ourselves of this joint existence, we see at once that man's business is to set about the work of his salvation, with all the ardor, and all the pains-taking, of one convinced that he cannot perish, except through his OAvn fault, We ad- dress him as an immortal creature whose destinies are in his OAvn keeping. We will hear nothing of a secret decree of God, insuring him a safe passage to a haven of rest, or leaving him to go down a wreck in the whirlpool. But we tell him of a command of God, summoning him to put forth all his strength, and all his seamanship, ere the breakers dash against him, and the rocks rise around him. We thus deal wdth man as a re- sponsible being. You are waiting for a miracle ; have you tried the means ] You are trusting to a hidden purpose ; have you submitted yourselves to a re- vealed command 1 Sitting still is no proof of election. Grappling with evil is a proof; and wTenching one's-self from hurtful associations is a proof; and studying God's word is a proof; and praying for assistance is a proof He who resolves to do nothing until he is called — oh, the likelihood is beyond cal- culation, that he will have no call, till the sheeted dead are starting at the ti"umpet-call. And the vessel — freight-
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ed as slie was with noble capacities, with intelligence, and reason, and forethought, and the deep throbbings of immortality — what account shall be given of her making no way towards the shores of the saint's home, but remaining to be broken up piecemeal by the sweepings of the judgment? Simply, that God told man of a compass, and of a chart, and of a wind and a pilot. But man de- termined to remain anchored, until God should come and tear the ship from her moorings. God has appointed means. If we will use them diligently, and pray- erfully, we may look for a blessing. But if we despise and neglect them, we must not look for a miracle.
And if a man be resolved to give har- borage to the idea that means may be dispensed with, and that then miracles will be \vi-ought, we open before him the scenery of our text, and bid him be- hold the artificers at their labor. We tell him, that around one of these work- men the priests of Jupiter had thronged, bearing garlands, and bringing sacrifi- ces, because of a displayed mastery over inveterate disease. We tell him, that, if there arose an occasion demanding the exhibition of prodigy in support of Christ's Gospel, this toiling artisan could throw aside the implements of trade, and, rushing into the crowded arena, confound an army of opponents by sus- pending the known laws of nature. And, nevez-theless, this mightily-gifted individual must literally starve, or drudge for a meal like the meanest mechanic. And why so ? why, but because it is a Btanding appointment of God, that mir- acles shall not supersede means "? If there were no means, Paul should have his bread by miracle. But whilst there is the canvass, and the cord, and the sight in the eye, and the strength in the limb, he may carry on the trade of a tent-maker. He has the tools of his craft : let him use them industriously, and not sit inactive, hoping to be sup- ported miraculously. And, arguing from this as a thorough specimen of God's ordinary dealings, we tell the expectant of an effectual call, that he waits as an idler whilst God requires him to work as a laborer. Where are the tools 1 Why left on the ground, when they should be in the hand ] Where are the means ? Why passed over, when they ought to be employed 1 Why neglect-
ed, when they should be honored ? "WTiy treated as worthless, when God declares them efficacious ? It is ti'ue that con- version is a miracle. But God's com- mon method of working this miracle is through the machinery of means. It is true that none but the elect can be sav- ed. But the only way to ascertain elec- tion is to be laborious in striving. I read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans ; and I find the apostle saying, " so then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that slioweth mercy." Rom, 9 : 16, What then 1 Must I, on this account, run not, but sit still, expecting the approaches of mercy ? Away with the thought. Means are God's high road to miracles. I turn from the apostle writing to the Romans to the apostle toiling at Corinth. And when I look on the labors of the tent- maker, and infer from them that mira- cles must not be expected where means have been instituted, and that, conse- quently, whensoever God has appointed means, miracle is to be looked for only in their use; oh, in place of loitering because I have read of election, I would gird up the loins as having gazed on the tent-making ; and in place of running not, because it is " of God that showeth mercy," run might and main, because it is to those who are running that he shows it.
When God decrees an end, he decrees also the means. If then he have elected me to obtain salvation in the next life, he has elected me to the practice of ho- liness in this life. Would I ascertain my election to the blessedness of eter- nity 1 it must be by practically demon- strating my election to newness of life. It is not by the rapture of feeling, and by the luxuriance of thought, and by the warmth of those desires which descrip- tions of heaven may stir up within me, that I can prove myself predestined to a glorious inheritance. If I would find out what is hidden, I must follow what is revealed. The way to heaven is dis- closed ; am I walking in that way 1 It would be poor proof that I were on my voyage to India, that, with glowing elo- quence and thrilling poetry, I could dis- course on the palm-groves and the spice- isles of the East. Am I on the waters ] Is the sail hoisted to the wind ; and does the land of my birth look blue and faint in the distance 1 The doctrine of elec-
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tion may have done harm to many — but only because they have fancied them- selves elected to the end, and have for- gotten that those whom Scripture calls elected are elected to the means. The Bible never speaks of men as elected to be saved from the shipwreck ; but only as elected to tighten the ropes, and hoist the sails, and stand to the rudder. Let a man search faithfully ; let him see that when Scri^Jture describes christians as elected, it is, as elected to faith, as elected to sanctification, as elected to obedience ; and the doctrine of election will be nothing but a stimulus to effort. It cannot act as a soporific. It cannot lull me into security. It cannot engen- der licentiousness. It will throw ardor into the spirit, and fire into the eye, and vigor into the limb. I shall cut away the boat, and let drive all human devi- ces, and gird myself, amid the fierce- ness of the tempest, to steer the shat- tered vessel into port.
Now having thus examined the rea- sons why St. Paul was left dependent upon labor for subsistence, we hasten at once to wind up our subject. We have had under review two great and interesting truths. We have seen that labor is God's ordinance. Be it yours, therefore, to strive earnestly that your worldly callings may be sanctified, so that trade may be the helpmate of reli- gion, instead of its foe and assassin. We have seen, also, that, when God has instituted means, we can have no right to be looking for miracles. Will ye then sit still, expecting God to compel you to move 1 Will ye expose yourselves wan- tonly to temptation, expecting God to make you impregnable 1 Will ye take the viper to your bosoms, expecting God to charm away the stinfr ] Will ye tamper witli the poison-cup, expect- ing God to neutralize the hemlock?
Then why did not St. Paul, in place of working the canvass into a tent, expect God to convert it into food ? We do not idolize means. We do not substi- tute the means of grace for grace itself. But this we say — and we beseech you to carry with you the truth to your homes — when God has made a channel, he may be expected to send through that channel the flowings of his mercy. Oh ! that ye were anxious ; that ye would take your right place in creation, and feel yourselves immortal ! Be men, and ye make a vast advance towards being chi'istians. Many of you have long re- fused to labor to be saved. The imple- ments are in your hands, but you will not work at the tent-making. Ye will not pray ; ye will not shun temptation ; ye will not renounce known sin ; ye will not fight against evil habits. Are ye stronger than God ] Can ye contend with the Eternal One 1 Have ye the nerve which shall not ti-emble, and the flesh which shall not quiver, and the soul which shall not quail, when the sheet of fire is round the globe, and thousand times ten thousand angels line the sky, and call to judgment 1 If we had a spell by which to bind the minis- ters of vengeance, we might go on in idleness. If we had a charm by which to take what is scorching from the flame, and what is gnawing from the worm, we might continue the careless. But if we can feel ; if we are not pain-proof; if we are not wrath-proof; let us arise, and be doing, and, with fear and trembling, work out salvation. There shall yet burst on this creation a day of fire and of storm, and of blood — oh ! conform yourselves to the simple prescriptions of the Bible; seek the aids of God's Spirit by prayer, and ye shall be led to lay hold on Christ Jesus by faith.
SEEMON X.
THE ADVANTAGES OF A STATE OF EXPECTATION.
* It is good that a man sbouiQ Doth hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." — Lamentations lii. 2ti
You Avill find it said in the Book of Ecclesiastes, " Because to every pur- pose there is time and judgment, there- fore the misery of man is great upon him." Ecc. 8:6. It seems to us implied i:i these words, that our incapacity of looking into the future has much to do with the production of disquietude and unhappiness. And there is no question, that the dai'kness in which we are com- pelled to proceed, and the uncertainty which hangs round the issues of our best-arranged schemes, contribute much to the troubles and perplexities of life. Under the present dispensation we must calculate on probabilities ; and our calcu- lations,Avhen made with the best care and forethought, are often proved faulty by the result. And if we could substitute certainty for probability, and thus de- fine,with a thorough accuracy, the work- ings of any proposed plan, it is evident that we might be saved a vast amount both of anxiety and disappointment. Much of our anxiety is now derived from the doubtfulness of the success of schemes, and from the likelihood of ob- struction and mischance : much of our disappointment from the overthrow and failure of long-cherished purposes. And, of course, if we possessed the same mastery of the future as of the past, we should enter upon nothing which was sure to turnout ill: but, re<rulatinof our- selves m every undertaking by fore- known results, avoid much of previous debate and of after regret.
Yet when we have admitted, that want of acquaintance with the future gives rise to much both of anxiety and of dis- appointment, we are prepared to argue.
that the possession of this acquaintance would be incalculably more detrimental. It is quite true that there are forms and portions of trouble which might be ward- ed off or escaped, if we could behold what is coming, and take measures ac- cordingly. But it is to the ftill as true, that the main of what shall befall us is matter of in-evocable appointment, to be averted by no prudence, and dispersed by no bravery. And if we could know beforehand whatever is to happen, wo should, in all probability, be unmanned and enervated ; so that an aiTest would be put on the businesses of life by pre- vious acquaintance with their several successes. The parent, who is pouring his attention on the education of a child, or laboring to procure for him advance- ment and independence, would be un- able to go forward with his efforts, if certified that he must follow that child to the grave so soon as he had fitted him for society and occupation. And even if the map were a bright one, so that we looked on sunny things as fixed for our portion, familiarity with the prospect would deteriorate it to our imagination ; and blessings would seem to us of less and less worth, as they came on us more and more as matters of course. In real truth, it is our ignorance of what shall happen which stimulates exertion : we are so constituted that to deprive us of hope would be to make us inactive and wretched. And, therefore, do we hold that one great proof of God's loving- kindness towards us, may be fetched from that impenetrable concealment in which he wraps up to-moiTow. We lonnr indeed to bring to-morrow into to-
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day, and strain the eye in the fruitless endeavor to scan its occurrences. But it is, in a gi-eat degree, my ignorance of to-morrow which makes me vigilant, and energetic, and pains-taking, to-day. And if I could see to-day that a great calamity or a great success would un- doubtedly befall me to-morrow, the like- lihood is that I should be so overcome, either by sorrow or by delight, as to be unfitted for those duties with which the present hour is charged.
Now it were easy to employ ourselves m examining, more in detail, the bear- ings on our temporal well-being of that hiding of the future to which we have adverted. Neither would such exami- nation be out of place in a discourse on the words of our text. The prophet refers chiefly to temporal deliverance when mentioning " the salvation of the liOrd." Judah had gone into captiv- ity : and Jerusalem, heretofore a queen amongst the cities, sat widowed and des- olate. Yet Jeremiah was persuaded that the Lord would " not cast oft' for ever ; " Lam, 3:31; and he, therefore, encouraged the remnant of his country- men to expect a better and brighter sea- son. He does not, indeed, predict imme- diate restoration. But then he asserts that delayed mercy would be more ad- vantageous than instant, and that profit might be derived from expectation as well as from possession. If we para- phrase his words, we may consider him saying to the stricken and disconsolate Jews, you wish an immediate interfer- ence of God on behalf of your city and nation. You desire, that, without a mo- ment's delay, the captive tribes should march back from Babylon, and Jerusa- lem rise again in her beauty and her sti'ength. But if this wish were com- plied with, it would be at the expense of much of the benefit derivable from af- fliction : for " it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."
Thus the original design of the passage would warrant our taking a large sweep in its explanation, and leading you over that range of inquiry which is opened by our introductory remarks. We might di'tate on the advantageousness of the existing aiTangement, and its wondrous adaptation to our moral constitution. We might show you, by references to the engagements and intercourses of life,
that it is for our profit tha we be uncer- tain as to issues, and, therefore, required both to hope and to wait. We doubt whether you could imagine a finer dis- cipline for the human mind, than results from the fixed impossibility of our gi asp- ing two moments at once. The chief opponent to that feeling of independence which man naturally cherishes, but al- ways to his own hurt, is his utter igno- rance of the events of the next minute. For who can boast, or who can feel himself, independent, whilst unable to insure another beat of the pulse, or to decide whether, before he can count two, he shall be spoiled of life or reduced to beggary] It is only in proportion as men close their eyes to their absolute want of mastership over the future, that they encourage themselves in the delu- sion of indej^endence. If they owned, and felt themselves, the possessors of a single moment, with no more power to secure the following,than if the proposed period were a thousand centuries, we might set it down as an unavoidable consequence, that they would shun the presumption of so acting for themselves as though God were excluded from su- perintending their affairs. And if there were introduced an opposite arrange- ment ; if men were no longer placed under a system compelling them to hope and to wait ; you may all see that the acquired power over the future would produce, in many quartei-s, an infidel contempt, or denial, of Providence : so that, by admitting men to a closer in- spection of his workings, God would throw them further off'fiom acquaintance with himself and reverence of his majes- ties. Thus the goodness of the existing arrangement is matter of easy demon- stration, when that aiTangement is con- sidered as including the affairs of every- day life. If you look at the consum- 7nation as ordinarily far removed from the formation of a j)urpose, there is, we again say, a fine moral discipline in the intervening suspense. That men may withstand, or overlook, the discipline, and so miss its advantages, tells nothing against either its existence, or its ex- cellence. And the necessity which is laid on the husbandman, that, after sow- ing the seed, he wait long for the harvest- time, in hope, but not certainty ; and upon the merchantman, that, after dis- patching his ships, he wait long for the
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products of commerce, hoping, but far enough from sui-e, that the voyage and the ti-affic will be prosperous ; this ne- cessity, we say, for hoping and waiting reads the best of all lessons as to actual dependence on an invisible being ; and thus verifies our position, that, whatever the desired advantage, " it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for " its possession. Ay, and we are well convinced that thex'e cannot be found a nobler argument for the exist- ence of a stanch moral goverment over the creatures of our race, than results from this imposed necessity that there elapse a period, and that too a period full of uncertainties, between the forming and completing a design. Amid all the mu- tiny and uproar of our present torn and disorganized condition, there is a voice, in our utter powerlessness to make sure of the future, which continually recalls man from his rebellion and scepticism; and which, proclaiming, in accents not to be overborne by the fiercest tempest of passion, that he holds every thing at the will of another, shall demand iiresistibly his condemnation at any oncoming ti'ial, if he carry it with a high and independent hand against the being thus proved the uncontrolled lord of his destinies.
But we feel it necessary to bring our inquiry within narrower limits, and to take the expression, " the salvation of the Lord," in that more restrained sense which it bears ordinarily in Scripture. We shall employ, therefoie, the remain- der of our time in endeavoring to pi'ove to you, by the simplest reasoning, that it is for our advantage as christians that salvation, in place of being a thing of certainty and present possession, must be hoped and quietly waited for by believers.
Now whilst it is the business of a christian minister to guard you against presumption, and an uncalculating con- fidence that you are safe for eternity, it is also his duty to rouse you to a sense of your privileges, and to press on you the importance of ascertaining your title to immortality. We think it not necessari- ly a })roof (jf christian humility, that you should be always in doubt of your spir- itual state, and so live uncertain wheth- er, in the event of death, you would pass into glory. We are bound to declare that Scripture makes the marks of true reiigicm clear and decisive; and that, if
we will but apply, faithfully and fearless- ly, the several criteria furnished by its statements, it cannot reman a problem, which the last judgment only can solve, whether it be the broad way, or the nax*- row, in which we now walk. But, nev- ertheless, the best assurance to which a christian can attain must leave salvation a thing chiefly of hope. We find it ex- pressly declared by St. Paul to the Ro- mans, " we are saved by hope." Rom. 8 : 21. And they who are most persuaded, and that too by scriptural warrant, that they are in a state of salvation, can never declare themselves, except in the most limited sense, in its fruition or enjoy- ment ; but must always live mainly upon hope, though with occasional foretastes of coming delights. They can reach the conclusion — and a comforting and noble conclusion it is — that they are justified beings, as having been enabled to act faith on a Mediator. But whilst justi- fication insures them salvation, it puts them not into its present possession. It is thus again that St. Paul distinguishes between justification and salvation, say- ing of Christ, " being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved fi'om wrath through him." Rom. 5:9. So that the knowing ourselves justified is the high- est thing attainable on earth; salva- tion itself, though certain to be reached, remaining an object for which we must hope, and for which we must wait.
Now it is the s^oodness of this arrange- ment which is asserted in our text. We can readily suppose an opposite arrange- ment. We can imagine that, as soon as a man were justified, he might be trans- lated to blessedness, and that thus the gaining the title, and the entering on pos- ssession, might be always contemporary. Since the being justified is the being ac- cepted in God's sight, and counted per- fectly righteous, there would seem no in- surmountable reason why the justified man should be left, a single minnent, a wanderer in the desert ; or why the in- stant of the exertion of saving faith, inas- much as that exertion makes sure the sal- vation, should not also be the instant of entrance into glory. To question the possibility of such an arrangement, would be to question the possibility of an outputting of faith at the last moment of life ; for, unless what is called death- bed repentance be distinctly an impossi- ble thing, the case is clearly supposable 14
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of the justifying act being immediately followeil by admission into heaven.
But the possibility of the an-angement, and its goodness, are quite different questions ; and whilst we see that it might have been ordered, that the justi- fied man should at once be translated, we can still believe it good that he "both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Our text speaks chiefly of the goodness to the individual himself; but it will be lawful first to consider the arrangement as fraught with advantage to human society.
We must all perceive, that, if true believers were withdrawn from earth at the instant of their becoming such, the influences of piety, which now make themselves felt through the mass of a population, would be altogether de- stroyed, and the world be deprived of that salt which alone presenes it from total decomposition. We believe that when Chi'ist declared of his followers, " ye are the salt of the earth," INIatthew, f) : 13, he delivered a saying which de- scribed, with singular fidelity, the power of righteousness to stay and correct the disorganizations of mankind. As ap- plied to the apostles the definition was especially accurate. There lay before them a world distinguished by nothing so much as by corruption of doctrine and manners. Though philosoj)hy was at its height ; though reason had achiev- ed her proudest triumphs ; though arts were in their maturity ; though elo- quence was then most finished, and poetry most harmonious ; there reigned over the whole face of the globe a tre- mendous ignorance of God; and if hu- manity were not actually an unsound and putrid mass, it had in it every ele- ment of decay, so that, if longer aban- doned to itself, it must have fallen into incura])le disease, and become covered with the livid spots of total dissolution. And when, by divine commission, the disciples penetrated the recesses of this mass, carrying with them principles, and truths, exactly calculated to stay the moral ruin which was spreading with fearful rapidity — when they went forth, the bearers of celestial communi- cations which taught the soul to feel herself immortal, and therefore inde- structible ; which lifted even the body but of the grasp of decay, teaching that oone, and sinew, and flesh should be
made at last gloriously incoiruptible — when, we say, the disciples thus applied to the world a remedy, perfect in every respect, against those tendencies to cor- ruption which threatened to turn our globe into the lazar-house of creation ; were they not to be regarded as the pu- rifiers and preservers of men, and could any title be more just than one which defined them, in their strivings to over- spread a diseased world with health- fulness, as literally " the salt of the earth]"
But it holds good in every age that true believers are " the salt of the earth." Whilst the contempt and ha- tred of the wicked follow incessantly the professors of godliness, and the enemies of Christ, if ability were com- mensurate wdth malice, would sweep from the globe all knowledge of the Gospel, we can venture to assert that the unrighteous owe the righteous a debt of obligation not to be reckoned up ; and that it is mainly because the required ten are still found in the cities of the plain that the fire-showers are suspended, and time given for the warding off" by repentance the doom. And over and above this conservative virtue of godliness, it is undeniable that the presence of a pious man in a neighborhood will tell greatly on its character; and that, in variety of in- stances, his withdrawment would be followed by wilder outbreakings of pro- fligacy. It must have fallen, we think, within the power of many of you to observe, how a dissolute parish has un- dergone a species of moral renovation, through the introduction within its cir- cles of a God-fearing individual. He may be despised ; he may be scorned ; he may be railed at. The old may call him methodist, and the young make him their laughing-stock. But, never- theless, if he live consistently, if he give the advereary no occasion to blas- pheme, he will often, by his very ex- ample, go a long way towards stopping the contagion of vice ; he will act, that is, as the salt : and if he succeed not — for this is beyond the power of the salt — in restoring to a wholesome texture what is fatally tainted, he will be instru- mental to the preserving much which would otherwise have soon yielded to the destructive malaria. It is not mere- ly that his temporal circumstances may
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have given him ascendancy over his fellows. There is in the human mind — we dare not say, a bias towards virtue, but — an abiding, and scarcely to be over- borne consciousness, that such ought to be the bias, and that, wl>ensoever the practical leaning is to vice, there is irre- sistible evidence of moral derangement. Whatever the extent of human degener- acy, you will not find that right and wrong have so changed places, that, in being the slaves of vice, men reckon themselves the subjects of virtue. There is a sfnawina: restlessness in those who have most abandoned themselves to the power of evil ; and much of the fierce- ness of their profligacy is ascribable to a felt necessity of keeping down, and stifling, reproachful convictions. And hence it comes to pass that vice will ordinarily feel rebuked and overawed by virtue, and that the men, whom you woidd think dead to all noble principle, will be disturbed by the presence of an jpright and God-fearing character. The voice of righteousness will find some- thing of an echo amid the disorder and confusion of the worst moral chaos ; and the strings of conscience are scarcely ever so dislocated and torn as not to yield even a whisper, when swept by the hand of a high virtued monitor. So that the godly in a neighborhood wield an influence which is purely that of god- liness ; and when denied opportunities of direct interference, check by exam- ple, and reprove by conduct. You could not then measure to us the consequen- ces ol trie withdrawment of the salt from the mass of a pojiulation ; nor cal- culate the lapidity with which, cm the complete removal of God-fearing men, an overwhftAining corruption would per- vade all society. But this is exactly what must oc.cav, if a system, opposite to the present, wvere introduced, so that saivatiun were not a thing to be hoped ana waited Toi. If as soon as a man weie justified, it/oogh being enabled to act t'aitli u])on <.'.i»rist, he were trans- lated to the repoae and blessedness of heaven, he could exert nothing of that influence, and work nothing of that benefit, which we have now traced and exhibited. And, therefore, in propor- tion as the influence is important and the benefit considerable, we must be waiTanted in maintaining it " good that, a man should both hope and
quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."
It is, however, the goodness of the arrangement to the individual himself which seems chiefly contemplated by the prophet, and upon this, therefore, we shall employ the remainder of our discourse. Now, under this point of view, our text is simpler at first sight than when rigidly examined. We can see, at once, that there is a spiritual discipline in the hoping and waiting, which can scarcely fail to improve greatly the character of the christian. But, nevertheless, would it not, on the whole, be vastly for his personal ad- vantage, that he should leave speedily this theatre of conflict and trouble, and be admitted, without a v^^earisome de- lay, into the mansion which Christ has prepared for his residence "? We have already shown you that there can exist no actual necessity, that he who is jus- tified should not be immediately glo- rified. We are bound to believe that a justified man — and, beyond all question, a man is justified in this life — is con- signed to blessedness by an irreversible appointment, and that, consequently, whensoever he dies, it is certain that he enters into heaven. The moment he is justified, heaven becomes un- doubtedly his portion ; and if, therefore, he die at the instant of justification, he will as surely obtain immortality, as if many years elapse between the out- putting of faith and the departure from life. And how then can it be good for him, certified as he thus is of hea- ven, to continue the war with sin and corruption, and to cut painfully his way through hosts of opponents, in place of passing instantaneously into the joy of his Lord 1 If you could prove it in every case indispensable that a justified man should undergo discipline in order to his acquiring meetress for heaven, there would be no room for de- bate as to the goodness asserted in our text. But you cannot prove the disci- pline indispensable, because we know the possibility that a man may be justi- fied at the last moment of life ; so that, no time having been allowed for prepa- ration, he may spring from a death-bed to a throne. And thus the question comes back upon us in its unbroken force, wherein lies the goodness of hoping and waiting for salvation 1
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Wc take the case, for example, of a man who, at the age of thirty, is ena- bled, through the operations of grace, to look in faith to the Mediator. By this looking in faith the man is justified : a justified man cannot perish : and if, therefore, the individual died at thirty, lie would " sleep in Jesus." But, after being justified, the man is left thirty years upon earth — years of care, and toil, and striving with sin — and during these years he hopes and waits for sal- vation. xVt length he obtains salvation ; and thus, at the close of thirty years, takes possession of an inheritance to which his title was clear at the beginning. Now wherein can lie the advantageous- ness of this arrangement ? Thirty years, which might have been spent in the en- joying, ai-e spent in the hoping and waiting for salvation : and unless the re- ality shall fall short of the expectation, how can it be true that " it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord 1 "
We think that no fair explanation can be given of our text, unless you bring into the account the difference in the portions to be assigned hereafter to the righteous. If you supposed uniformity in the glory and happiness of the future, we should be at a loss to discover the goodness of the existing arrangement. If, after the thirty years of warfare and toil, the man receive precisely what he might have received at the outset of these years, is he benefited, nay, is he not injured by the delay ] If the delay afford the means of increasing the bless- edness, there is a clear advantageous- ness in that delay. But if the blessed- ness be of a fixed quantity, so that at the instant of justification a man's por- tion is unalterably determined, to assert it good that he should hope and wait, is to assert that thirty years of expecta- tion are more delightful than thirty years of possession.
We bring before you, therefore, as a comment on our text, words such as these of the apostle, " our light afflic- tion, which is but for a moment, work- eth for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor. 4 : 17. We consider that when you set the pas- sages in juxta-position, the working- power, ascribed by one to affliction, gives satisfactory account of the goodness at- n-ibuted by the other to the hoping and
waiting. It is unquestionably good tl'at a man should hope and wait, provided the delay make it possible that he heighten the amount of finally-received blessedness. And if the affliction, for example, which is undergone during the period of delay, work out " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," it follows necessarily that delay makes possible the heightening future glory ; and therefore it follows, just as necessa- rily, that it is " good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the sal- vation of the Lord."
We consider it easy, by thus bringing into the account an undoubted doctrine of Scripture — the doctrine that the fu- ture allotments of the righteous shall be accurately proportioned to their present attainments — to explain the goodness of an arrangement which defers, through many years, full deliverance from trial. We are here, in every sense, on a stage of pi'obation ; so that, having once been brought back from the alienations of nature, we are candidates for a prize, and wrestlers for a diadem. It is not the mere entrance into the kingdom for which we contend : the first instant in which we act faith on Christ as our pro- pitiation, sees this entrance secured to us as justified beings. But, when justi- fied, there is opened before us the widest field for a righteous ambition ; and por- tions deepening in majesty, and height- ening in brilliancy, rise on our vision, and animate to unwearied endeavor. We count it one of the glorious things of Christianity, that, in place of repress- ing, it gives full scope to all the ardor of man's spirit. It is common to reckon ambition amongst vices : and a vice it is, luidcrits ordinary developments, with which Christianity wages intei-minable warfare. But, nevertheless, it is a stanch and an adventurous, and an eagle-eyed thing : and it is impossible to gaze on the man of ambition, daunted not by disas- ter, wearied not by repulse, dishearten- ed not by delay, holding on in one un- broken career of effort to reach a covet- ed object, without feeling that he pos- sesses the elements of a noble constitu- tion ; and that, however to be wept over for the prostitution of his energies, for the pouring out this mightiness of soul on the coiTupt and the perishable, he is equipped with an apparatus of powers which need nothing but the being rightly
THE ADVANTAGES OF A STATE OF EXPECTATION.
10&
directed, in order to the forming the very finest of charactei'S. And we think it nothing better than a libel on Chris- tianity, to declare of the ambitious man, that if he become religious, he must, in cvei-y sense, cease to be ambitious. If it have been his ambition to rise high in the dignities of a state, to win to him- self the plaudits of a multitude, to twine his forehead with the wreaths of popu- lar favor, to be foremost amongst the heroes of war or the professors of sci- ence— the introduced humility of a dis- ciple of Christ, bringing him down from all the heights of carnal ascendancy, will be quite incompatible with this his ambition, so that his discipleship may be tested by its sujipression and destruc- tion. But all those elements of charac- ter which went to the making up this ambition — the irrepi-essible desire of some imagined good, the fixedness of purpose, the strenuousness of exertion — these remain, and are not to be anni- hilated ; recpiiring only the proposition of a holy object, and they will instantly be concentrated into a holy ambition. And Christianity propounds this object. Christianity deals with ambition as a passion to be abhorred and denounced, whilst urging the warrior to carve his way to a throne, or the courtier to press on in the path of preferment. But it does not cast out the elements of the passion. "Why should it ] They are the noblest which enter into the human composition, bearing most vividly the impress of man's original formation. Christianity seizes on these elements. She tells her subjects that the rewards of eternity, though all purchased by Christ, and none merited by man, shall be rigidly proportioned to their works. She tells them that there are places of dignity, and stations of emi- nence, and crowns with more jewelry, and sceptres with more sway, in that glorious empire which shall finally be Bet up ])y the Mediator. And she bids them strive for the loftier recompense. She would not have them contented with the lesser portion, though infinitely out- doing human imagination as well as hu- man desert. And if ambition be the walking with the stanch step, and the single eye, and the untired zeal, and all in pursuit of some longed-for superiori- ty, Christianity saith not to the man of ambition, lay aside thine ambition : Chris- tianity hath need of the stanch step, and
the single eye, and the untired zeal : and she, therefore, sets before the man pyramid rising above pyramid in glory, throne above throne, palace above pa- lace ; and she sends him forth into the moral arena to wrestle for the loftiest, though unwoi'thy of the lowest.
We shall not hesitate to argue that in this, as in other modes which might be indicated, Christianity provides an antag- onist to that listlessness which a feeling of security might be supposed to engen- der. She does not allow the believer to imagine every thing done, when a title to the kingdom has been obtained. She still shows him that the trials of the last great assize shall proceed most accurate- ly on the evidence of works. There is no sweiTing in the Bible from this repre- sentation. And if one man becomes a ruler over ten cities, and another over five, and another over two — each receiv- ing in exact proportion to his improve- ment of talents — it is clear as demonstra- tion can make it, that our strivings will have a vast influence on our recompense, and that, though no iota of blessedness shall be portioned out to the righteous which is not altogether an undeserved gift, the an-angements of the judgment will balance most nicely what is bestowed and what is performed. It shall not be said, that, because secure of admission into heaven, the justified man has no- thing to excite him to toil. He is to wrestle for a place amongst spirits of chief renown : he is to propose to himself a station close to the throne : he is to fix his eye on a reward sparkling above the rest with the splendors of eternity : and, whilst bowed to the dust under a sense of utter unworthiness to enter the lists in so noble a contest, he is to become com- petitor for the richest and most radiant of prizes. We tell him, then, that it is good that he hope and wait. It is tell- ing him there is yet time, though rapidly diminishing, for securing high rank in the kingdom. It is telling the wrestler, the glass is running out, and there is a gar- land not won. It is telling the warrior the night shades are gathering, and the victory is not yet complete. It is telling the ti-aveller, the sun is declining, and there are higher peaks to be scaled. Is it not good that I hope and wait, when each moment may add a jewel to the crown, a plume to the wing, a city to the sceptre 1 Is it not good, when each second
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of effort may lift me a step higher in the scale of triumph and majesty ? Oh, you look on an individual whose faith in Christ Jesus has been demonstrated by most scriptural evidence, but unto whom life is one long series of trials, and disas- ters, and pains ; and you are disposed to ask, seeing there can rest no doubt on the man's title to salvation, whether it would not be good for him to be freed at once from the burden of the flesh, and thus spared, it may be, yet many years of anxiety and struggle. You think that he may well take as his own the words of the Psalmist : " Oh that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest." But we meet you with the asser- tion of an instituted connection between our two states of being. We tell you that the believer, as he breasts the storm, and plunges into the war, and grapples with affliction, is simply in the condition of one who contends for a prize; ay, and that if he were taken off from the scene of combat, just at the instant of challeng- ing the adversaiy, and thus saved, on your short-sighted calculation, a super- fluous outlay of toil and resistance, he would miss noble things, and things of loveliness, in his ever lasting portion, and be brought down from some stany emi- nence in the sovereignties of eternity, which had he fought through a long life- time " the good fight of faith," 1 Tim. 6 : 12, might have been awarded him in the morning of the first resurrection. Now we may suppose that we carry with us your admission of the fairness of the reasoning, that, inasmuch as the continuance of the justified upon eaith affords them opportunity of rising high- er in the scale of future blessedness, there is a goodness in the arrangement which is vastly more than a counter- poise to all the evils with which it seems charged. The justified man, translated at the instant of justification, could receive nothing, we may think, but the lower and less s{)lcndid por- tions. He would have had no time for glorifying God in the active duties of a christian profession ; and it would seem impossible, therefore, that he should win any of those more magnificent al- lotments which shall be given to the foremost of Christ's fi)llowers. But the remaining in the flesh after justification, allows of that growth in grace, that progress in holiness, that adorning in all
things the doctrine of the Savior, to which shall be awarded, at the judgment, chief places in the kingdom of Messiah. And if, on the supposition that no period intervene, there can be no augmentations of happiness, whereas, on that of hoping and waiting, there may be daily advances in holiness, and therefore daily acces- sions to a never-ending bliss ; who will deny the accuracy of the inference, that " it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord 1 "
There would seem nothing wanting to the completeness of this argument, unless it be proof of what has been all along assumed, namely, that the being compelled to hope and to wait is a good moral discipline ; so that the exercises prescribed are calculated to promote holiness, and, therefore, to insure hap- piness. We have perhaps only shown the advantageousness of delay ; whereas the text asserts the advantageousness of certain acts of the soul. Yet this dis- crepancy between the thing proved, and the thing to be proved, is too slight to require a lengthened coi'rection. It is the delay which makes salvation a thing of hope; and that which I am obliged to hope for, T am, of course, obliged to wait for; and thus, whatever of benefi- cial result can be ascribed to the delay may, with equal fitness, be ascribed to the hoping and waiting. Besides, hope and patience — for it is not the mere waiting which is asserted to be good ; it is the quietly waiting ; and this quiet waiting is but another term for patience — hope and patience are two of the most admii'able of chiistian graces, and he who cultivates them assiduously cannot well be neglectful of the rest. So that, to say of a man that he is exercising hope and patience, is to say of him, that, through the assistance of God's Spirjt, he is more and more overcoming the ruggedness and oppositions of nature, and more and more improving the soil, that lovely things, and things of good report, may spring up and flourish. In the material world, there is a wonderful provision against the destruction of the soil, which hae often excited the admi- ration of j)liilosophers. The coat of vegetable mould with which this globe is overspread, and the removal of which would be the covering our fields with sterility, consists of loose materials, easily
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washed away by the rains, and continu- ally carried down by the rivers to the sea. And, nevertlieless, though there is this rapid and ongoing waste, a waste which seems sufficient, of itself, to de- stroy in a few years the soil, there is no sensible diminution in the layers of mould ; but the soil remains the same, 'jr nearly the same, in quantity; and must have done so, ever since this earth became the home of animal or vegetable life. And we know, therefore, that there must be causes at work which continu- ally furnish a supply just equal to the waste of the soil. We know that God, wonderful in his forethought and contri- vance, must have arranged a system of mechanical and chemical agencies, through whose operations the ravages of the flood and storm should be care- fully repaired : and we find accordingly, that, whilst the soil is swept away, there goes on continually, through the action of the elements, a breaking up and pounding even of the hardest rocks, and that thus there is strewed upon the earth's surface by the winds, or brought down in the sediments of mountain tor- rents, a fresh deposit in the room of the displaced and far-scattered covering.
Now it is only necessary to allude to such an arrangement in the material world, and you summon forth the admi- ration and applause of contemplative minds. It is a thing so surprising, that the waste and loss, which the most care- less must observe, should be continually and exactly repaired, though by agencies whose workings we can scarcely detect, that the bare mention of the fact elicits, on all sides, a confession, that creative v/istlom and might distance immeasura- bly thestanchest of our searchings. But we think that, in the spiritual economy, we have something, analogous indeed, but still more beautiful as an arrange- ment. The winds of passion, and the floods of temptation, pass fiercely over the soil of the heart, displacing often and scattering that mould which has been broken up by the ploughshare of the Gospel. But God's promise is, that he will not suffer believers " to be tempt- ed above that they are able ; " 1 Cor. 10 : 13; and thus, though the soil for a while he disturbed, it is not, as in the mateiial system, carried altogether away, but soon re-settles, and is again fit for the husbandman. But this is not all. Every
overcome temptation, ministering, as it must do, to faith, and hope, and patience, is virtually an assault on the granite of a corrupt nature, and helps to break in pieces the rock of which there remains much in the breasts of the most pious. He who conquers a temptation takes a fresh step towards subduing himself ; in other words, detaches more particles from the stone and the iron. And thus, in most accurate correspondence, as in the natural world so in the spiritual, the tempest and torrent, which displace the soil, provide fresh mateiial for all the purposes of vegetation : but there is this difference between the two : in the natural world, the old soil disappears, and its place is supplied by the new; in the sjsiritual, the old, disturbed for a while, subsides, and is then wonderfully deepened by accessions of new. Hope and patience, exercised by the appointed trials of life, cause an enrichment of the soil in which all christian gi'aces flourish ; so that the grain of mustard seed, burst- ing into a tree, finds ample space for its roots, spreading them wide and striking them deep. And if this be no exagge- rated account of the benefits resulting from a sedulous exercise of hopo and patience ; if it be ti'ue that he who, in the scriptural sense, hopes and quietly waits for salvation, is under that disci- pline which, of all others, ministers to the growth of dispositions acceptable to God ; we have omitted, it would seem, no step in the required demonstration, but have collected all the elements of proof, that " it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the sal- vation of the Lord."'
"VVe would only further remark, though the statement is perhaps involved in the preceding, that the delay is good as af- fording time in which to glorify God. It is a spectacle which should stir all the anxieties and sympatliies of a believer, that of a world which has been ran- somed by blood-shedding, but which, nevertheless, is overspread with impiety and infidelity. The christian is the man of loyalty and uprightness, forced to dwell in the assemblings of traitors. With a heart that beats true to the king of the land, he must tarry amongst those who have thrown off* allegiance. On all sides he must hear the plottings of trea- son, and behold the actings of rebellion. Can he fail to be wrought up to a long-
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ing, and eiTort, to arrest, in some degree, the march of anarchy, and to bring be- neath the sceptre of lighteousness the i"evolted and ruined population 1 Can he be an indiffei-ent and cold-hearted spectator of the despite done to God by every class of society ; and shall there be no throbbing of spirit, and no yearn- ing of soul, over thousands of his race, who, though redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, are preparing themselves a heritage of fire and shame 'I We do but reason from the most invariable and well known principles of our nature, when we argue that, as a loyal and loving subject of Christ, the believer must glow with righteous indignation at the bold insults offered to his Lord, and long to bend every faculty and power to the di- minishing the world's wretchedness by overcoming its rebellion. AVhat stronger proof then can you ask of the goodness in question than that, whilst detained from glory, we may withstand impiety 1 It is yet a little while, and we shall be withdrawn from this scene of rebellion; and no further effort, so far as we our- selves are concerned, can be made towards advancing Christ's kingdom. Others may come after us, of warmer loyalty and more resolute zeal, and make better head against the tide of apostacy. But our own opportunities of vindicating Christ's honor, and extending the sway of his sceptre, will have altogether pass- ed away ; and the last glance which our spirits, in departing, cast upon this earth, may show us impiety careering with as dominant a footstep as ever, and send us into God's presence with a throb of self- reproach at the paucity and poverty of our resistances to the might of the evil one. We doubt not, that, whatever the joy and peace of a christian's deathbed, there will be always a feeling of regi'et that so little has been done, or rather so little attempted, for Christ. And if, whilst his firmament is glowing with the dawnings of eternity, and the melody of angels is just stealing on his ear, and the walls of the bright city are bounding his horizon, one wish could detain him in the tabernacle of flesh ; oh, it would not be the wish of tarrying with the weep- ing ones who are clustered at his bed- side ; and it would not be that of pro- \'iding for children, of superintending their education, or of perfecting some plan for their settlement in life — he
knows that there is a Husband of the widow and a Father of the fatherless-— and the only wish which could put a check on his spirit, as the plumes of its wing just feel the free air, is that he might toil a little longer for Christ, and do at least some fractions more of his work, ere ushered into the light of his presence. And if the sinking energies were suddenly recruited, so that the pulse of the expiring man beat again vi- gorously ; it might at first seem painful to him to be snatched back from glory ; but remembering, that, whilst vice is enthroned on the high places of the earth, and millions bow down to the stock and the stone, there is a mighty demand for all the strenuousness of the righteous, he would use returning sti-ength in ut' tering the confession, it is good that I yet wait and hope for salvation.
Now in winding up this subject of discourse, we have only to remark that religion gives a character to hope of which otherwise it is altogether destitute. You will scarcely find the man, in all the ranges of our creation, whose bosom bounds not at the mention of hope. What is hope but the solace and stay of those whom it most cheats and deludes ; whispering of health to the sick man, and of better days to the dejected ; the fairy name on which young imaginations pour forth all the poetry of their souls, and whose syllables float, like aerial music, into the ear of frozen and paralyzed old age 1 In the long catalogue of human griefs there is scarce one of so crushing a pressure that hope loses its elasticity, becoming unable to soar, and bring down fresh and fair leaves from some far-off domain which itself creates. And yet, whilst hope is the great inciter to exertion, and the great soother of wretchedness, who knows not that it ordinarily deceives mankind, and that, though it crowd the future with glorious resting-places, and thus tempt us to bear up a while against accumulated disasters, its palaces and gardens vanish as we approach ; and we are kept from despair only because the pinnacles and forests of another brioht scene fringe the horizon, and the deceiver finds us willing to be yet again deceived ] Hope is a beautiful meteor : but, never- theless, this meteor, like the rainbow, is not only lovely because of its seven rich and radiant stripes ; it is the memorial of a covenant between man and his Maker,
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telling us that we are born for iramortal- ity ; destined, unless we sepulchre our greatness, to the highest honor and no- blest happiness. Hope proves man deathless. It is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is. perishal)le, and attesting her eternity. And when the eye of the mind is turned upon Christ, " delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification," Romans, 4 : 25, the unsubstantial and deceitful cha- racter is taken away from hope : hope is one of the prime pieces of that armor of proof in which the believer is arrayed; for St. Paul bids us take " for an helmet the hope of salvation." 1 Thess. 5 : 8. It is not good that a man hope for wealth, since " riches pi'ofit not in the day of WTath ; " Prov. 11:4; and it is not good that he hope for human honors, since the mean and mighty go down to the same burial : but it is good that he hope for salvation ; the meteor then gathers, like a golden halo, round his head, and, as he presses forward in the battle-time, no weapon of the evil one can pierce through that helmet.
It is good, then, that he hope : it is good also that he quietly wait. There is much promised in Scripture to the wait- ing upon God. Men wish an immediate answer to prayer, and think themselves forgotten unless the reply be instantan- eous. It is a great mistake. The delay is often part, and the best part, of the answer. It exercises faith, and hope, and patience ; and what better thing can be done tor us than the strengthening those graces to whose growth shall be proportioned the splendors of our im- mortality 1 It is good, then, that ye wait. " They that wait upon the Lord shall re- new their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isa. 40 : 31. And ye must, according to the phrase of our text, wait for God. " The Lord is a God of judi,'ment ; blessed are all they that wait for him." Isa. 30 : 18. And if the time seem long, and, worn down with affliction and wearied with toil, ye feel impatient for the moment of full emancipation — remember ye — and let the remembrance check every murmur — that God leaves you upon earth in order that, advancing in holiness, you may secure yourselves a higher grade amongst the children of the
first resun-ection. Strive ye, therefore, to " let patience have her perfect work," James, 1:4. It is " yet a little while, and he that shall come will come." Heb. 10 : 37. Be ye not disheartened ; for " the night is far spent, the day is at hand." Rom. 13 : 12. As yet there has been no day to this creation, since rebellion wove the sackcloth into the over-head canopy. But the day comes onward. There is that edge of gold on the snow-mountains of a long-darkened world, which marks the ascending of the sun in his strength. " Watchman, what of the night 1 Watchman, what of the night 1 The watchman said, the morn- ing Cometh and also the night." Isa. 21 : 11, 12. Strange that morning and night should come hand in hand. But the morning to the righteous, as bringing salvation, shall be the night to the wick- ed, as bringing destruction. On then, still on, lest the morning break, ere ho- ping and waiting have wrought their in- tent. Who will sleep, when, as he slum- bers, bright things glide by, which, if wakeful, he might have added to his por- tion 1 Who will put off the armor, when, by stemming the battle-tide, he may gather, every instant, spoil and trophies for eternity ] Who will tamper with carnal indulgences, when, for the poor enjoyment of a second, he must barter some ever-during privilege 1 Wrestle, strive, fight, as men who " know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Cor. 15 : 58. Ye cannot indeed merit advancement. What is called reward^ will be the reward of nothing but God's, work within you, and, therefore, be a. gift most royal and gratuitous. But whilst there is the strongest instituted connection between attainment here and enjoyment hereafter, we need not pause upon terms, but may summon you to holiness by the certainties of happiness. The Judge of mankind comcth, bring- ing with him rewards all wonderfully glorious; but, nevertheless, "one star differeth from another star in glory." 1 Cor. 15: 41.
O God, it were an overvvhelmin;^ mercy, and a magnificent poition, if we' should obtain the least ; but since thou dost invite, yea, command us to " strive for masteries," we will struggle-— thy grace being our strength — for the higher and more beautiful.
15
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SERMON XI
TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS.
" B'lt ye hare not so learned Christ ; if eo be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the trutb is
in Jesus." — Ephesians, iv. 20, 21.
There is a singular verse in the Book of Ecclesiastes which appears directed against a common, though, perhaps, un- suspected error. " Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these ] for thou dost not in- quire wisely concerning this." Eccl. 7 : 10. We believe that there exists a dis- position in persons, and especially in old persons, to set present years in con- trast with the past, and to prove from the comparison, a great and on-going deterioration in the character of man- kind. And it is quite certain, that, if this disposition were observable in So- lomon's days, as well as in our own, it must pass ordinarily as the mark of a jaundiced and ill-judging mind. If it has been true in some ages, it cannot have been in all, that the moral aspect of the times has grown gradually dark- er. We must be warranted, therefore, in ascribing a disposition which has sub- sisted through days of improvement, as well as of declension, to a peevish de- termination to find fault, and not to a sober sitting in judgment upon matters of fact.
But the workings of the very same disposition may be traced under other and less obvious forms. We believe, for exanr.ple, that men are often inclin- ed to compare the religious advantages of the earlier and later days of Chris- tianity, and to uphold the superiority of the past to the present. It is imagined, that to have been numbered amongst the living when Jesus sojourned upon earth, •to have been permitted to beliold the miracles which he wrought, and to hear from his own lips the truths of redemp-
tion— it is imagined, we say, that there must have been in this a privilege am- pler in dimensions than any which falls to men of later generations. And from such imagining there will spring often a kind of excusing, whether of infideli- ty, or of lukewarmness : our not believ- ing at all, or our believing only languid- ly, being accounted for on the principle, that the evidence afforded is far less than might have been vouchsafed. Thus, under a specious, but more dan- gerous aspect, we are met again by the question, " What is the cause that the former days were better than these ] "
Now we believe the question to bo grounded altogether on mistake. If there be advantage on one side as contrasted with the other, we are persuaded that it lies with the present generation, and not with the past. It is true that the exhi- bition of miraculous energies, which was made in the cities of Judea, gave what ought to have been overwhelming attestation to the divinity of the mission of Jesus. If we possessed not the re- cords of history to assure us of the con- trary, we might be disposed to conclude, with much appearance of faii-ness, that they who beheld diseases scattered, and death mastered, by a word, must have instantly followed Him who wrought out the marvels. Yet we may easily certify ourselves that the Jew was oc- cupied by prejudices which must have more than counterbalanced his peculiar advantages. He had before him, so to speak, a sketch of his Messiah, whose accuracy he never thought of question- ing ; and if a claimant of the Messiah- ship presented not the features which
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were foremost in this sketch, then, al- most, as a matter of course, his preten- sions were rejected with scorn. It is nothing to say that ancient prophecy, more thoroughly investigated, might have taught the Jew the. error of ex- pecting, on the first advent of Messiah, a temporal prince and deliverer. The error was so ingrained into his spirit, that it was easier for him to refer mira- cles to the power of the evil one, than suspect that he harbored a false expect- tation. So that, when we compare our own circumstances with those of the Jew, it behooves us to remember, that, if we have not his advantages in superna- tural manifestations, neither have we his disadvantages in national preposses- sions. We are not to argue the effect produced upon him, from that which might now be produced upon us, by the working of miracles. In his case every feeling which results from early associ- ation, or from the business of education, was enlisted against Christianity ; where- as it may almost be affirmed, that, in our case, every such feeling is on the side of Christianity. i{, therefore, we allow that the testimony, which we possess to the truth of our religion, wears not outward- ly the same mightiness as that afforded in the days of the Savior, we should still contend that the predisposing circum- stances in our own case far more than compensate the sensible witness in that of the Jew.
We may yet further observe, that not only are our disadvantages less, but, on a stricter examination, our advanta- ges will appear greater. We may think there would have been avast advantage in seeing Jesus work miracles ; but, af- ter all, we could only have believed that he actually worked them. And if we can once certify ourselves of this fact, we occupy, in the strictest sense, the same position as though we had been spectators of the wonder. It would be altogether childish to maintain, that I may not be just as certain of a thing which I have not seen, as of another which I have seen. Who is in any de- gree less confident, that there was once such a king as Henry the Eighth on the throne of these realms, than that there is now such a king as William the Fourth ■? Or is there one of us who thinks that he would have felt more sure of there having been such a kinij as
Henry the Eighth, had he lived in the times of that monarch in place of the present ? We hold then the supposition to be indefensible, that the spectator of a miracle has necessarily an advantage over those who only hear of that mira- cle. Let there be clear and unequivo- cal testimony to the fact of the miracle having been wrought, and the spectator and the hearer stand well nigh on a par. That there should be belief in the fact, is the highest result which can, in either case, be produced. But assuredly this result may as well be effected by the power of authenticated witness, as by the machinery of our senses. And, without question, the testimony to the truth of Christianity is of so growing a character, and each age, as it rolls away, pays in so large a contribution to the evidences of faith, that it were easy to prove, that the men of the present generation gain, rather than lose, by dis- tance from the first erection of the cross. It is saying but little, to affirm that we have as good grounds of persuasion that Jesus came from God, as we should have had, if permitted to behold the mighty workings of his power. We are bold to say that we have even better grounds. The testimony of our senses, however convincing for the moment, is of so fleeting and unsubstantial a charac- ter, that a year or two after we had seen a miracle, wo might be brought to ques tion whether there had not been jug- glery in the worker, or credulity in our- selves. If we found a nation up in arms, maintaining that there might have been magic or trickery, but that there had not been suj^ernatural power; we might, perchance, be easily borne down by the outcry, if the remembered witness of our eye-sight were all to which appeal could be made. It is not difficult to begin to suspect ourselves in the wrong, when we find no one willing to allow us in the right. And we therefore main- tain, that living as we do in a day when generation after generation has sat in assize on Christianity, and registered a verdict that it has God for its author, we possess the very largest advantages over those who saw with their own eyes what Jesus did, and heard with their own ears what Jesus said.
Now you may not all readily perceive the connection of these remarks with the passage of Scripture on which we
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purpose to meditate. Yet the connec- tion is of the strictest. The apostle ad- dresses himself to converts, who, like ourselves, had not been privileged to behold the Savior of mankind. Christ Jesus had not v^^alked the streets of Ephesus : and if it be supposable that certain of the inhabitants of that idola- trous city had visited Judea during the period of his sojourning on earth, it is incredible that the Ephesian Church, as a body, had enjoyed with Him personal communion. Does then St. Paul ad- dress the Ephesians as though disad- vantaged by this circumstance 1 Does he represent them as less favored than their brethren of Jerusalem who had lived within the circles of Christ's min- istrations ] On the contrary, you would judge, from the style of his address, that he wrote this Epistle to Jewish, and not to heathen converts. He speaks to the Ephesians of their having heard Christ, and of their having been taught by Christ. " If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him." And what shall we gather from this, but a rigid confirmation of our fore- going remarks ; a strengthening of the opinion, that those who have not seen may stand in precisely the same posi- tion as those who have ; and that, con- sequently, the absence of what may be called sensible proof, furnishes no ground-work of complaint, that " the former days were better than these 1 "
We must, indeed, allow that the Ephesians were brought, more nearly than ourselves, into personal contact with Christ, because instructed by teach- ers who had seen the Savior in the flesh. Yet as soon as testimony ceases to be the testimony of senses, and be- comes that of witnesses, there is an identification of the circumstances of men of former times, and of latter. Whether the testimony be transmitted through one, or through many ; whetlier we receive it from those who themselves saw the Savior, or from those who have taken the facts on the witness of others ; there is the same distinction between such testimony, and that resulting from being actual spectators, or actual au- ditors ; and it might, therefore, be said to us, as well as to the Ephesians, ye have heard Christ, and ye have been taught by Christ.
But the portion of our text on which
we would fix mainly your attention is the description of truth as made known by revelation. The teaching whereof the Ephesians had been the subjects, and which, therefore, we are bound to consider imparted to ourselves, is ex- pressly stated to be " as the truth is in Jesus." Now this is a singular defini- tion of truth, and well worth your closest attention. We hold it unquestionable, that, long ere Christ came into the world, much of truth, yea, of solid and illustri- ous truth, had been detected by the un- aided searchings of mankind. We should not think that any advantage were gained to the cause of revelation, if we succeeded in demonstrating, that, over the whole face of our planet, with the lonely exception of the naiTow pro- vince of Judea, there had rested, pre- viously to the birth of the Redeemer, a darkness altogether impenetrable. We are quite ready to allow, that, where the full blaze was not made visible, glim- merings and sparkliugs were caught ; so that, if upon no point, connected with futurity, perfect information were ob- tained, upon many points a degree of in- telligence was reached which should not be overlooked in our estimate of hea- thenism. We think it right to assert, under certain limitations, that man, whilst left to himself, duo: fratjments of truth from the mighty quarry ; though we know that he possessed not the ability of fashioning completely the sta- tue, nor even of combining into symme- try the detached portions brought up by his oft-renewed strivings. We do not, therefore, suppose it implied in the ex- pression of our text, that truth was un- known amongst men until, having been taught by the Redeemer, it might be de- signated " truth as it is in Jesus." On the contrary, we are persuaded that the Ephesians, however shut out from the advantages of previous revelations, pos- sessed many elements of moral truth be- fore Christ's apostles appeared in their city. Hence the definition of our text implies not, that, out of Jesus, there were no discoverable manifestations of truth ; but rather, that truth, when seen in and through Jesus, assumes new and dis- tinguishing features. And it is upon this fact we desire, on the present occa- sion, to turn the main of your attention. We admit that certain portions of Christ's teachins: related to truths which were
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net then, for the first time, made known to mankind. Other portions either in- volved new disclosures, or brought facts into notice which had been strangely and fatally overlooked. But whether the truth were new or old,, the circum- stance of its being truth *' as it is in Je- sus," gave it an aspect, and a character, which it would never have assumed, if communicated through another channel than the Mediatoi-. Such we hold to be the drift of the expression. It becomes, then, our business to endeavor to prove, that " truth, as it is in Jesus," puts on a clothing, or a coloring, derived from the Redeemer ; so that if you separate truth from him who is " the way, the truth, and the life," John, 14 : 6, it shall seem practically a different thing from itself when connected with this glorious per- sonage.
Now we shall take truth under two principal divisions, and compare it as " it is in Jesus " with what it is out of Jesus. We shall refer, first, to those truths which have to do with God's na- tuie and character; secondly, to those which have to do with man's condition. There may be, indeed, many minor de- partments of moral truth. But we think that these two great divisions include most, if not all, of the lesser.
We turn then, first, to the truths which have to do with the nature and charac- ter of God. We begin with the lowest element of truth ; namely, that there is a great first cause, through whose agency hath arisen the fair and costly fabric of the visible universe. We have here a truth, which, under some shape or an- other, has been recognized and held in every age, and by every nation. Barba- rism and civilization have had to do with peculiar forms and modifications of this truth. But neither the rude processes of the one, nor the attenuating of the other, have availed to produce its utter banishment from the earth. However various the tribes into which the human race hath been broken, the phenomenon has never existed of a nation of atheists. The voyagers who have passed over waters which had never been ploughed by the seamen, and lighted upon islands whose loneliness had shut them out from the knowledge and companionship of other districts of the globe, have found always, amid the savage and secluded inhabitants, the notion of some invisible
being, great in his power, and awful in his vengeance. We cannot, therefore, in any sense maintain, that the truth of the existence of a God was undiscovered truth, so long as it was not " truth as it is in Jesus." Christ came not to teach what natural, or rather traditional, reli- gion was capable of teaching ; though he gave saTictions to its lessons, of which, heretofore, they had been altogether des- titute. But take the truth of the exist- ence of a God as it is out of Jesus, and then take that truth as it is in Jesus, and let us see whether, in the two ca- ses, the same truth will not bear a very different aspect.
We know it to be said of Christ by St. Paul, that he was " the image of the invisible God." Colos. 1 : 15. It seems to us that the sense, in which Christ is the image, is akin to that in which he is the word of the Almighty. What speech is to thought, that is the incarnate Sou to the invisible Father. Thought is a viewless thing. It can traverse space, and run to and fro through creation, and pass instantaneously from one extreme of the scale of being to the other; and, all the while, there is no power in my fellow-men to discern the careerings of this mysterious agent. But speech is manifested thought. It is thought em- bodied ; made sensible, and palpable, to those who could not apprehend it in its secret and silent expatiations. And pre- cisely what speech thus effects in regard to thought, the incarnate Son effected in regard to the invisible Father. The Son is the manifested Father, and, therefore, fitly termed " the Word : " the relation between the incarnate Son and the Fa- ther being accurately that between speech and thought ; the one exhibiting and setting forth the other. It is in somewhat of a similar sense that Christ may be termed "the image of the invi- sible God." " God is a Spirit." John, 4: 24. Of this spirit the creation is every where full, and the loneliest and most secluded spot is occupied by its presence. Nevertheless, we can discern little of the universal goings forth of this Deity. There are works above us, and around us, which present tokens of his wisdom and supremacy. But these, after all, are only feeble manifestations of his more illustrious attributes. Nay, they leave those attributes well-nigh wholly unrevealed. I cannot learn God's
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holiness from the stars or the mountains. I cannot read his faithfuhiess in the ocean or the cataract. Even his wisdom, and power, and love, are but faintly portray- ed in the torn and disjointed fragments of this fallen creation. And seeing, therefore, that Deity, invisible as to his essence, can become visible as to his at- tributes, only through some direct mani- festation not found in his material work- manship, God sent his well-beloved Son to assume our flesh ; and this Son, ex- hibiting in and through his humanity as much of his divine properties as crea- turcship could admit, became unto man- kind " the image of the invisible God." He did not, in strict matter-of-fact, re- veal to mankind that there is a God. But he made known to them, most pow- erfully, and most abundantly, the nature and attributes of God. The beams of divinity, passing through his humanity as through a softening medium, shone upon the earth with a lustre sufficiently tempered to allow of their irradiating, without scorching and consuming. And they who gazed on this mysterious per- son, moving in his purity, and his bene- volence, through the lines of a depraved and scornful population, saw not indeed God — " for no man hath seen God at any time," 1 John, 4 : 12, and spirit must necessarily evade the searchings of sense — but they saw God imaged with the most thorough fidelity, and his every property embodied, so far as the immaterial can discover itself through the material.
Now we think you can scarcely fail to perceive, that if you detach the truth of the being of a God from Jesus, and if you then take this truth " as it is in Jesus," the difference in aspect is almost a difference in the truth itself Apart from revelation, T can believe that there is a God. I look up:.r the wonder- workings by which I an encomj)assed ; and I must sacrifice all that belongs to me as a rational creature, if I espouse the theory that chance has been parent to the splendid combinations. But what can be more vague, what more indefi- nite, than those notions of Deity, which reason, at the best, is capable of farm-
ing
1 The evil which is mixed with
good in the creation ; the disordered ap- pearances which seem to mark the ab- sence of a supreme and vigilant govern- ment; the frequent triumph of wicked-
ness, and the con-espondent depression of virtue ; these, and the like stern and undeniable mysteries, will perplex me in every attempt to master satisfactorily the Unity of Godhead. But let me re- gard Jesus as makin": knoAvn to me God, and straightway there succeeds a calm to my confused and unsettled imaginings. He tells me by his words, and shows me by his actions, that all things are at the disposal of one eternal and insci'utable Creator. Putting forth superhuman ability alike in the bestowment of what is good, and in the removal of what is evil, he furnishes me with the strictest demonstration that there are not two principles which can pretend to hold sway in the universe ; but that God, a being without rival, and alone in his ma- jesties, created whatsoever is good, and permitted whatsoever is evil.
Thus the truth, the foundation of truth, of the existence of a God, takes the strength, and the complexion, of health, only in the degree that it is truth " as it is in Jesus." Men labored and struggled hard to 7'each the doctrine of the unity of Godhead. But philosophy, with all the splendor of its discoveries, could never banish polytheism from the earth. It was reserved for Christianity to establish a truth which, now, we are disposed to class amongst the elements of even natural theology. And when you contrast the belief in the existence of Deity which obtained generally be- fore the coming of Christ, with that es- tablished wheresoever the Gospel gains footing as a communication from hea- ven ; the one, a belief in many gods ; the other, a belief in one God — the first, therefore, a belief^ from which reason herself now instinctively recoils ; the second, a belief, which carries on its front the dignity and beauty of a sub- lime moral fact — why, you will all quick- ly admit that the truth of the existence of God, as it is out of Jesus, differs, immeasurably, from that same truth, " as it is in Jesus : " and you will thus grant the accuracy of the proposition now under review, namely, that truth be- comes, practically, new truth, and eP- fective truth, by being truth " as it is in Jesus."
Now, so far as natural theology is concerned, we derive, ordinarily, the truth of the existence of God from the curious and mighty workmanship of
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the visible creation. We conclude that a great intelligent cause must have spread out this panorama of grandeur, and loveliness, and contrivance. But let us deal with the truth that God built the worlds, just as with the other truth of there being a God. Let us take it out of Jesus, and then let us take it in Jesus.
It is a vast deal easier for the mind to .ish onward into what is to come, than lackward mto what is past. Let a thing exist, and we can, in a certain sense, master the thought of its existence be- ing indefinitely continued. But if, in searching out the beginnings of its exist- ence, we can find no period at which it was not, then presently the mind is con- founded, and the idea is too vast for its most giant-like grapplings. This is ex- actly the case with regard to the God- bead. We are able, comparatively speaking, to take in the truth, that God shall never cease to be. But we have no capacity whatsoever for this other truth, that God hath always been. I could go back a thousand ages, or a million ages, ay, or a thousand millions o"f ages ; and though the mind might be wearied with traversing so vast a district of time, yet if I then i-eached a point where pausing I might say, here Deity began, here God- bead first rose into being, the worn spirit would recruit itself, and feel that the end compensated the toil of the journeying. But it is the being unable to assign any beginning ; rather, it is the knowing that there never was be- ginning ; this it is, we say, which hope- lessly distances every finite intellgence ; the most magnificent, but certainly, at the same time, the most overpowering truth, being that He, at whose word the universe commenced, knew never him- self a moment of commencement.
Now the necessity under which we thus lie of ascribing beginning to God's works, but not to God himself, forces on us the contemplation of a period when no worlds had started into being; and space, in its infinite circuits, was full only of the Eternal One. And then comes the question, as to the design and pur- pose of Deity in peopling with systems the majestic solitude, and surrounding himself with various orders of crea- tures. We confess, in all its breadth, the truth that God made the worlds. But the mind passes instantly on to the
inquiry, why, and wherefore did He make them 1
And if you take the truth of the crea- tion of the universe out of Jesus, there is nothing but vague answer to give to such inquiry. We may think that God's benevolence craved dependent objects over which it might pour its solicitudes. We may imagine that there was such desire of companionship, even in Deity, that it pleased not the Creator to re- main longer alone. But we must not forget, that, in assigning such reasons, we verge to the error of supposing a void in the happiness of God, the fill- ing-up of which tasked the energies of his Almightiness. In answering a ques- tion, we are bound to take heed that we originate not others far more difficult of solution.
We take then the truth of the crea- tion, " as it is in Jesus," and we will see whether it assume not very different features from those worn by it, as it is out of Jesus. We learn, from the tes- timony of St. Paul, that " all things were created by Christ, and for Christ." Col. 1 : 16. We would fix attention to this latter fact, " all things were crea- ted for Christ." We gather from this fact that the gorgeous structure of ma- terialism, spreading interminably above us and around us, is nothing more than an august temple, reared for consecra- tion to the Mediator's glory. " All things wex"e created for Chi-ist." You ask me why God spangled the firma- ment with stars, and paved with worlds the expansions of an untravelled im- mensity, and poured forth the rich en- dowment of life on countless myriads of multiform creatures. And I tell you, that, if you debar me from acquaintance with " God manifest in the flesh," 1 Tim. 3 : 16, I may give you in reply some brilliant guess, or dazzling con- jectui-e, but nothing that will commend itself to thoughtful and well-disciplined minds. But the instant that I am brought into contact with revelation, and can associate creation with Christ, as alike its author and object, I have an answer which is altogether free from the vague- ness of speculation. I can tell you that the star twinkles not on the measureless expanse, and that the creatures move^ not on any one of those worlds whoso number outruns our arithmetic, which- hath not been created for the manifesta-
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lion of Christ's glory, and the ailvance- ment of Christ's purposes. We may not be able to define, with accuracy, tlie sublime ends which shall yet be attain- ed, when evil is expelled from this long- defiled section of the universe. We know only, that, though an infidel world is banishing Christ from its councils, and the ranks of the blasphemer are leagu- ing to sweep away his name, and the scoffers are insolently asking " where is the promise of his coming ; " 2 Peter, 3 : 4 ; he shall descend with the cloud and the hurricane as his heraldry, and circled with the magnificent sternness of celestial battle, turn the theatre of his humiliation into the theatre of his tri- umphs. Then — when " the spirits of just men made perfect," Heb. 12 : 23, shall have entered into the raised and glorified bodies ; and when the splendid and rejoicing multitude shall walk forth on the new earth, and be canopied with the new heavens — Christ shall emphati- cally " see of the travail of his soul ; " Isa. 53 : 11 : and then, from every field of immensity, crowded with admiring spectators, shall there roll in the ecstatic acknowledgment, " worthy, worthy, wor- thy is the Lamb." But, without de- scending to particulai-s, we may assert it unequivocally proved by sundry de- clarations of the Bible, that suns, and planets, and angels, and men, the mate- rial creation with its walls, and domes, and columns, and the immaterial with its train upon train of lofty spirits — all these constitute one vast apparatus for effecting a mighty enthronement of Je- sus of Nazareth. And if you recur to the work of contrast in which we are en- gaged ; if you compare the truth of creation as it is out of Jesus with that same truth as it is in Jesus ; then, when you observe that, in the one case, the mind has nothing of a resting-place — that it can only wander over the fields which God hath strewed with his won- <lers, confounded by the lustre without divining the intention — whereas in the •other, each star, each system, each hu- man, each celestial being, fills some place in a mechanism which is working out the noble result of the coronation of Christ as Lord of all ; why, we feel that the assent of every one in this as- sembly must be won to the position, that old truth becomes wellnigh new truth, by being truth " as it in Jesus."
But we wish to set befoi-e you yet simpler illustrations of the matter which we are engaged in demonstrating. The point we have in hand is the showing that truths, which refer to God's charac- ter, must be viewed in connection with Jesus, in order to their being rightly un- derstood or justly appreciated. We have endeavored to substantiate this, so far as the nature and woi'ks of the Al- mighty are concerned. Let us turn, however, for a few moments, to his at- tributes, and we shall find our position greatly con'oborated.
We take, for example, the justice of God. We might obtain, independently on the scheme of redemption, a definite and firm-built persuasion, that God is a just God, taking cognizance of the trans- gressions of his creatures. We do not, then, so refer to the sacrifice of Christ for proof of God's justice, as though no proof could be elsewhere obtained. The God of natural religion must be a God to whom sundry perfections are ascrib- ed ; and amongst such perfections jus- tice will find, necessarily, a place. But we argue that the demonsti-ation of theory will never commend itself to men's minds like the demonstration of practice. There might have come to us a revela- tion from heaven, ushered in with incon- trovertible witness ; and this revelation might have stated, in language the bold- est and most unqualified, that God's jus- tice could overlook no iota of offence, and dispense with no tittle of punish- ment. But, had we been left without a vivid exhibition of the workings of this justice, we should perpetually have softened down the statements of the word, and argued that, in all probability, far more was said than ever would be done. We should have reasoned up from human enactments to divine ; and, finding that the former are oftentimes far larger in the threatening than in the ex- action, have concluded that the latter might, at last, exhibit the like inequality.
Now, if we would deliver the truth of God's justice from these misappre- hensions, whether wilful or accidental, what process, we ask of you, lies at our disposal 1 It is quite useless to try ab- .stract reasoning. The mind can evade it, and the heart has no concern with it. It will avail nothing to insist on the lite- ral force of expressions. The whole mischief lies in the questioning the tho-
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rough putting into effect ; in the doubt- ing whether what is denounced shall be pornt by point inflicted. What then shall we do with this truth of God's jus- tice ? We reply, we must make it truth " as it is in Jesus." We send a man at once to the cross of Christ. We bid him gaze on the illustrious and myste- rious victim, stooping beneath the amazing burden of human transgression. We ask him whether he think there was remission of penalty on behalf of Him, who, though clothed in humanity, was one with Deity ; or that the vials of wrath were spoiled of any of their scald- ing drops, ere emptied on the surety of our alienated tribes 1 We ask him whether the agonies of the garden, and the terrors of the crucifixion, furnish not a sufficient and thrilling demonstration, that God's justice, when it takes in hand the exaction of punishment, does the work thoroughly ; so that no bolt is too ponderous to be driven into the soul, no offence too minute to be set down in the reckoning 1 And if, when the sword of justice awoke against the fellow of the Almighty, it returned not to the scab- bard till bathed in the anguish of the sufferer ; and if God's hatred of sin be so intense and overwhelming a thing, that, ere transgressors could be received into favor, the Eternal Son interposed and humbled himself so that angels drew back confounded, and endured vica- riously such extremity of wretchedness that the earth reeled at the spectacle, and the heavens were darkened ; why, shall there, or can there, be harborage of the deceitful expectation, that if any one of us, the sons of the apostate, rush on the bosses of the buckler of the Lord, and make trial for himself of the justice of the Almighty, he shall not find that justice as strict in its works as it is stern in its words, prepared to deal out to him, unsparingly and unflinchingly, the fiery portion whose threatenings glare from the pages of Scripture ? So then we may count it legitimate to maintain, that the truth of God beinga just God is ap- preciated truth, and effective truth, only in the degree that is truth " as it is in Jesus : " and we add, consequently, new witness to the fact, that the definition of our text describes truth accurately un- der its influential and life-giving forms. We may pursue nauch the same line of argument in reference to the truth
of the love of God. We may confess, that he who looks not at this attribute through the person and work of the Mediator, may obtain ideas of it which shall, in certain respects, be correct. And yet, after all, it would be hard to prove satisfacto2-i]y, by natural theolo- gy, that " God is love." John, 4 : S. There may be a kind of poetical, or Arcadian divinity, drawn from the brightness of sunshine, and the rich enamel of flowers, and the deep dark blue of a sleeping lake. And, taking the glowing landscape as their page of the- ology, men may sketch to themselves God unlimited in his benevolence. But when the sunshine is succeeded by the darkness, and the flowers are withered, and the waters wrought into madness, can they find in the wrath and devasta- tion that assurance of God's love which they derived, unhesitatingly, from the calm and the beauty 1 The matter of fact, we hold to be, that Natural The- ology, at the best, is a system of uncer- tainties, a balancing of opposites. I should draw different conclusions from the genial breathings of one day, and the desolating simoon of the next. And though when I had thrown me down on an alpine summit, and looked forth on the clusterings of the grand and the lovely, canopied with an azure that was full of glory; a hope, that my Creator loved me, might have been gathered from scenery teeming with impresses of kind- ness, and apparently sending out from waving forests, and gushing fountains, and smiling villages, the anthem of an acknowledgment that God is infinitely beneficent ; yet if, on a sudden, thei-e passed around me the rushings of the hurricane, and there came uj) froin the valleys the shrieks of an affrighted peasantry, and the torrents went down in their strength, sweeping away the la- bor of man's hands, and the corn and the wood which had crowned the fields as a diadem ; oh, the confidence which had been given me by an exhibition which appeared eloquent of the benevo- lence of Godhead, would yield to horror and trepidation, whilst the Eternal One seemed walking before me, the tempest his voice, and the lightning his glance, and a fierce devastation in his every foot-print.
But even allowing the idea gained, that " God is love," there is no property 16
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of the Creator concerning which it is easier to fall into mistake. We have no standard by which to estimate divine af- fections, unless one which we fashion out of the results of the workings of hu- man. And we know well enough, that, amongst ourselves, an intense and over- weening attachment is almost sure to blind man to the faults of its object, or to cause, at the least, that when the faults are discerned, due blame is with- held. So that, whilst we have not be- fore us a distinct exhibition of God's love, we may fall naturally into the error of ascribing an effeminate tenderness to die Almighty, and reckon, exactly in proportion as we judge the love amazing, that it will never permit our being given over to torment. Hence, admitting it to be truth, yea, most glorious and bless- ed truth, that the creature is loved by the Creatoi", this truth must be viewed through a rectifying medium, which shall correct the distortions which a de- praved nature produces.
Now we maintain again that this rec- tifying medium must be the person and work of the Savior. In other words, we must make the truth of God's love, truth " as it is in Jesus," and then, at one and the same time, we shall know how ample is the love, and be guarded against abusing it. When we observe that God loved us so well as to give his Son to death for us, we perceive that the immenseness of this love leaves im- agination far behind in her least fettered soarings. But when we also observe that love so unheard of, could not advance straight to the rescue of its objects, but must wait, ere it could breathe words of forgiveness to the fallen, the outwork- ings of a task of ignominy and blood ; there must vanish at once, the idle ex- pectancy of a tenderness not proof against the cry of desjiair, and we must learn (unless we wilfully close the mind against conviction) that the love of a holy, and righteous, and immutable Be- ing is that amazing principle, which can stir the universe in our behalf during the season of grace, and yet, as soon as that season have terminated, resign us unhesitatingly to the ministry of ven- geance. Thus, take the truth of God's love out of Jesus, and you will dress up a weak and womanish sympathy, which cannot permit the punishment of the disobedient. But, on the other hand,
lake this truth " as it is in Jesus," and you have the love immeasurable in its stature, but uncompromising in its pe- nalties ; eager to deliver the meanest who repents, yet nerved to abandon the thousands who die hardened ; threaten ing, therefore, the obdurate in the very degree that it encourages the peni- tent : and when you thus contrast truth " as it is in Jesus," with truth as it is out of Jesus, you will more and more recognize the power and the worth of the expression, that the Ephesians had been taught "as the truth is in Jesus,"
We might employ this kind of illus- tration in regard to other attributes of God. We might show you that cor- rect and practical views of the truths of God's faithfulness, God's holiness, God's wisdom, are only to be derived from the work of redemption ; and this would be showing you that truth must be truth " as it is in Jesus," if we would acquaint ourselves with the cha- racter of God. But we waive the fur- ther prosecution of our first head of discourse, and ask attention to a few remarks which have to do with the se- cond.
We divided truth into two great de- partments ; truth which relates to the character of God, truth which relates to the condition of man. We proceed, therefore, to affirm, in reference to the condition of man, that truth, if rightly understood, or thoroughly influential, must be ti-uth " as it is in Jesus." We find it admitted, for example, in most quarters, that man is a fallen being, with faculties weakened, if not wholly incapacitated for moral achievement. Yet this general admission is one of the most heartless, and unmeaning things in the world. It consists with the har- boring pride and conceit. It tolerates many forms and actings of self-righte- ousness. And the matter-of-fact is, that man's moral disability is not to be de- scribed, and not understood theoretical- ly. We want some bold, definite, and tangible measurements. But we shall find these only in the wo'k of Christ Jesus, I leanr the depth to which I have sunk, from the length of the chain let down to updraw me, I as- certain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinei-y of restoration, I gather that I must be, in the broadest sense, unable to affect deliverance for
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myself, from observing that none less than the Son of the Highest had strength enough to fight the battles of our race. Thus the truth of human apostacy, of human corruption, of human helpless- ness— how shall this be understood truth and eflective 1 We answer, simply through being truth " as it is in Jesus." In the history of the Incarnation and Crucifixion we read, in characters not to be misinterpreted, the announcements, that man has destroyed himself, and that, whatever his original powei's, he is now void of ability to turn unto God, and do things well-pleasing in his sight. You do not, indeed, alter these truths, if you destroy all knowledge of the In- carnation and Crucifixion, But you re- move their massive and resistless exhi- bition, and leave us to our own vague and partial computations. We have no- thing practical to which to appeal, no- thing fixed by which always to estimate. Thus, in spite of a seeming recognition of truth, we shall be turned adrift on a wide sea of ignorance and self-sufficien- cy ; and all because truth may be to us truth as it is in moral philosophy, truth as it is in well-arranged ethics, truth as it is iu lucid and incontrovertible state- ments ; and yet prove nothing but de- spised, and ill-understood, and power- less truth, as not being to us truth " as it is in Jesus."
We add that the law of God, which has been given for the regulation of our conduct, is a wonderful compendium of truth. There is not a single working of wickedness, though it be the lightest and most secret, which escapes the de- nouncements of this law ; so that the statute-book proves itself truth by de- lineating, with an unvarying accuracy, the whole service of the father of lies. But who knows any thing of this truth, unless acquainted with the law as ex- pounded and fulfilled by Christ 1 Christ in his discourses expanded every pre- cept, and in his obedience exhibited every demand. Ho, therefore, who would know the truth which there is in the law, must know this truth " as it is in Jesus." He moreover, who would not be appalled by this truth, must view it " as it is in Jesus." Knowledge of the law would crush a man, if unaccompa- nied by the consciousness that Christ obeyed the law in his stead. So that truth " as it is in Jesus," this is knowl-
edge, and this is comfort. And finally — for we must hurry over ground where there is much which might tempt us to linger — look at the context of the words under review, and you will find that truth " as it is in Jesus," differs from that truth as it is out of Jesus, in being a sanctifying thing. The Ephesians were " taught as the truth is in Jesus," to " put off, concerning the former con- versation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." Hence — and this, after all, is the gi-and distinc- tion— truth, " as it is in Jesus," is a thing of the heart; whereas truth, as it is out of Jesus, is a thing of the head. Dear Brethren, ye cannot be too often told that without holiness " no man shall see the Lord." Hebrews, 12 : 14. If no vigorous process of sanctification be going on within, we are destitute of the organs by which to read truth in the holy child Jesus. Or, rather, we are ignorant of the characters in which truth is graven on the Savior ; and there- fore, though we may read it in books and manuscripts, on the glorious scroll of the heavens, and in the beautiful tracery of forest and mountain, we can never peruse it as written in the person and work of God's only and well-be- loved Son. The mortification of the flesh — the keeping under the body — the plucking out the oftending right eye — the cutting off* the offending right hand — these, so to speak, are the processes of tuition by which men are taught " as the truth is in Jesus." Sanctification conducts to knowledge, and then knowl- edge speeds the work of sanctification. We beseech you, therefore, that ye strive, through God's grace, to give yoirrselves to the business of putting off the old man. Will ye affirm that ye believe there is a heaven, and yet act as though persuaded that it is not worth striving for 1 Believe, only believe, that a day of coronation is yet to break on this long-darkened globe, and the sinews will bo strung, like those of the wrestlers of old, who saw the garlands in the judges' hands, and locked themselves in an iron embrace. Strive — for the grasp of a destroyer is upon you, and if ye be I not wrenched away, it will palsy you, and crush you. Strive — for the foe is on the right hand, on the left hand, be- fore you, behind you ; and ye must be trampled under foot, if ye struggle not,
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and sti'ike not, as those who feel them- selves bound in a death-grapple. Strive — there is a crown to be won — the mines of the earth have not furnished its metal, and the depths of the sea hide nothing so radiant as the jewels with which it is wi'eathed. Strive — for if ye gain not this crown — alas ! alas ! ye must have the scorpions for ever round the forehead, and the circles of that flame wliich is fanned by the breath of the Almighty's displeasure.
Strive then, but strive in the strength of your risen Lord, and not in your own. Ye know not how soon that Lord may come. Whilst the sun walks his usual path on the firmament, and the grass is springing in our fields, and merchants
are crowding the exchange, and politi- cians jostling for place, and the volup- tuous killing time, and the avaricious counting gold, " the sign of the Son of Man," Matthew, 24 : 30, shall be seen in the heavens, and the august throne of fire and of cloud be piled for judgment. Be ye then persuaded. If not peisuad- ed, be ye alarmed. There is truth in Jesus which is terrible, as well as truth which is soothing : temble, for he shall be Judge as well as Savior ; and ye cannot face Him, ye cannot stand before Him, unless ye now give ear to His in- vitation, " Come unto me, all ye that la- bor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew, 11 : 28.
SERMON XII.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF SCRIPTURE.
" In which aie some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."— 2 Peter, iii. 16.
The writings of St. Paul, occupying, as they do, a large portion of the New Testament, treat much of the sublimer and more diflicult articles of Christiani- ty. It is undeniable that there is a great deal made known to us by the Epistles, which could only imperfectly, if it all, be derived from the Gospels. We have the testimony of Christ himself that he had many things to say to his disciples, which, whilst he yet ministered on earth, they were not prepared to receive. Hence it was altogether to be expected that the New Testament would be, what we find it, a progressive book ; the com- munications of intelligence growing with the fuller opening out of the dispensa- tion. The deep things of the sovereign- ty of God; the mode of the justification
of sinners, and its perfect consistence with all the attributes of the Creator; the mysteries bound up in the rejection of the Jew, and the calling of the Gentile ; these enter largely into the Epistles of St. Paul, though only faint- ly intimated by writers who precede him in the canon of Scripture. And it is a natural and unavoidable consequence on the greater abstruseness of the topics which are handled, that the apostle's wri- tings should present greater difficulties to the Biblical student. With the ex- ception of the Book of Revelation, which, as dealing with the future, is necessarily hard to be interjireted, the Epistle to the Romans is probably that part of the New Testament which most demands the labors of the commentator. And
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though we select this epistle as pre- eminent in ditficukies, we may say generally of the writings of St. Paul, that, whilst they present simple and beautifid truths which all may under- stand, they contain statements of doc- trine, which, even after long study and prayer, will be but partially unfolded by the most gifted inquirers. With this admission of difficulty we must join the likelihood of misconception and misap- pUcation. Where there is confessedly obscurity, we may naturally expect that Avrong theories will be formed, and er- roneous inferences deduced. If it be hard to determine the true meaning of a passage, it can scarcely fail that some false interpretation will be advanced, or espoused, by the partizans of theologi- cal systems. If a man have error to maintain, he will turn for support to passages of Scripture, of which, the real sense being doubtful, a plausible may be advanced on the side of his falsehood. If, again, an individual wish to persuade himself to believe tenets ■which encourage him in presumption and unhoiiness, he may easily fasten on separate verses, which, taken by them- selves, and without concern for the analogy of faith, seem to mark out privi- leges superseding the necessity of striv- ing against sin. So that we can find no cause of surprise in the fact, that St. Peter should speak of the Epistles of St. Paul as wi-ested by the " unlearned and unstable " to their own destruction. He admits that in these Epistles " are some things hard to be understood." And we consider it, as we have just ex- plained, a necessary consequence on the difficulties, that there should be perver- sions, whether wilful or unintentional, of the writings.
But you will observe, that, whilst St. Peter confesses both the difficulty and the attendant danger, he gives not the slightest intimation that the Epistles of St. Paul were unsuited to general pe- rusal. The Roman Catholic, when sup- porting that tenet of his Church which shuts up the JBible from the laity, will appeal confidently to this statement of St. Peter, arguing that the allowed diffi- culty, and the declared danger, give the Apostle's authority to the measure of exclusion. But certainly it were not easy to find a more strained and far- fetched defence. Had St. Peter intend-
ed to infer, that, because obscurity and abuse existed, there ought to be prohi- bition, it is altogether unaccountable that he did not lay down the inference, A fairer opportunity could never be pre- sented for the announcement of such a rule as the Roman Catholic advocates. And the mere finding, that, when an in- spired writer speaks of the dangers of perusal, he gives not even a hint which can be tortured into sanction of its pro- hibition, is, itself, so overpowering a witness to the right of all men to read the Bible for themselves, that we wonder at the infatuation of those who can ap- peal to the passage as supporting a counter-opinion. You will observe that whilst St. Peter speaks only of the writings of St. Paul as presenting " things hard to be understood," he ex- tends to the whole Bible the wresting of the unlearned and unstable. So that, when there is wanting that chastened, and teachable, and prayei-ful disposition, which should always be brought to the study of Scripture, the plainest passa- ges and the most obscure may be equally abused. After all, it is not so much the difficulty which makes the danger, as the temper in which the Bible is perused. And if St. Peter's statement prove any thing, it proves that selections from Ho- ly Writ, such as the papist will allow, are to the full as fraught with peril, as the unmutilated volume ; and that, there- fore, unless a man is to read all, he ought not to read a line. We cannot but ad- mire the manner in which the apostle has expressed himself. If he had specified difficulties ; if he had stated that it was upon such or such points that St. Paul's Epistles, or the Scriptures in general, were obscure ; those who are disposed to give part, and to keep back part, might have had a ground for their decision, and a rule for their selection. But since we have nothing but a round assertion that all the Scriptures may be, and aie, wrested by the unlearned and unstable, there is left us no right of determining what is fit for perusal and what is not fit : so that, in allowing a solitary verse to be read, we run the same risk as in allowing every chapter from the first to the last. Thus we hold it clear to every candid inquirer, that our text simply proves the necessity of a right temper to the profitable persual of the Bible. It gives no such exclusive characteristic
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to the writings of St. Paul, as would warrant our pronouncing them peculiar- ly unsuited to the weak and illiterate. If it sanction the withdrawment of any part of the Bible, it imperatively de- mands the withdrawment of the whole. And forasmuch as it thus gives not the shadow of authority to the selection of one part and the omission of another; and forasmuch, moreover, as it contains not the remotest hint that danger is a reason for shutting up the Scriptures ; we rather learn from the passage, that free as the air should be the Bible to the whole human pojiulation, than that a priesthood, sitting in assize on its contents, may dole out fragments of the word, or keep it, if they please, undi- videdly to themselves.
We are not, however, required, in ad- dressing a protestant assembly, to ex- pose, at any length, the falsehood of that doctrine of popery to which we have referred. We introduce its men- tion, simply because its advocates en- deavor to uphold it by our text. They just give a new witness to the truth of the text. They show, that, like the rest of the Scriptures, this verse may be per- verted. The very passage which de- clares that all Scripture may be wrested, has itself been wrested to the worst and most pernicious of purposes. So that, as if in verification of the statement of St. Peter, when that statement becamQ part of the Bible, it was seized upon by the " unlearned and unstable," and wrenched from its original bearings.
But we desire, on the present occa- sion, to bring before you what we count important considerations, suggested by the announcement that there are diffi- culties in Scri})ture. We have the de- cision of an inspired writer, that in the volume of inspiration there " are some things hard to be understood." We lay great stress on the fact, that it is an in- spired writer who gives this decision. The B'Mc attests the difficulties of the Bible. If we knew the Bible to be dif- ficult, only as finding it difficult, we might be inclined to suppose it luminous to otliers, though obscure to ourselves. We should not so thoroughly understand that the difficulties, which one man meets with in the study of Scripture, are not simply produced by his intellectual in- feriority to another — no, nor by liis mo- ral or spiritual inferiority — but are, in a
great degi'ee, inherent in the subject ex amined, so that no equipment of learn- ing and prayer will altogether secure their removal. The assertion of oui text may be called an unqualified asser- tion. The proof, that there are " things hard to be understood," does not lie in the fact, that these things are wrested by " the unlearned and unstable : " for then, by parity of reason, we should make St. Peter declare that all Scrip- ture is " hard to be understood." The assertion is independent on what fol- lows, and shows the existence of diffi- culties, whether or no they gave occa- sion to perversions of the Bible. And though it is of the writings of St. Paul, and of these alone, that the assertion is made, we may infer naturally, from the remainder of the passsage, that the apos- tle intended to imply that difficulties are scattered through the whole of the Scrip- tures, so that it is a general characteris- tic of the Bible, that there are in it " some things hard to be understood."
Now it is upon this characteristic — a characteristic, you observe, not imagined by ourselves, because often unable to bring out all the force of a passage, but fastened on the Scriptures by the Scrip- tures themselves — that we desire to turn your attention. We have before us a feature of revelation, drawn by revela- tion itself, and not sketched by human surmise or discovery. And it seems to us that this feature deserves our very closest examination, and that from such examination we may look to derive les- sons of more than ordinary worth. We take into our hands the Bible, and re- ceive it as a communication of God's will, made, in past ages, to his creatures. And we know that, occupying, as all men do, the same level of helplessness and destitution, so that the adventitious circumstances of rank and education bring with them no differences in moral position, it cannot be the design of the Almighty, that superior talent, or supe- rior learning, should be essential to the obtaining due acquaintance with revela- tion. There can be no fairer expecta- tion than that the Bible will be intelli- gible to every capacity, and that it will not, either in matter or manner, adapt itself to one class in preference to an- other. And when, with all this antece- deiit idea that revelation will condescend to the very meanest undei-standing, we
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find, as it were on the covers of the book, the description that there are in it " things hard to be understood," we may, at first, feel something of surprise that difficulty should occur where we had looked for simplicity. And undoubt- edly, however fair the expectation just mentioned, the Bible is, in some senses, a harder book for the uneducated man than for the educated. So far as human instrumentality is concerned, the great mass of a population must be indebted to a few learned men for any acquaint- ance whatsoever with the Scriptures. Never let leai-ning be made of small ac- count in reference to religion, when, without learning, a kingdom must re- main virtually without a revelation. If there were no learning in a land, or if that learning were not brought to bear on translations of Scripture, how could one oiiv of a thousand know any thing of the Bible 1 Those who would dis- pense with literature in a priesthood, undermine a nation's great rampart against heathenism. And just as the unlearned are thus, at the very outset, dependent altogether on the learned, it is not to be denied that the learned man wir pv^osess always a superiority over the unlearned, and that he has an appa- ratus at his disposal, which the other has not, for overcoming much that is difficult in Scripture.
But after all, when St. Peter speaks of " things hard to be understood," he cannot be considered as referring to ob- scurities which human learning v/ill dis- sipate. He certainly mentions the " un- learned " as wresting these difficulties, implying that the want of one kind of learning produced the perversion. But, of course, he intends by " unlearned " those who were not fully taught of the Spirit, and not those who were deficient in the acquirements of the academy. There were but few of the learned of the earth amongst the apostles and their followers ; and it were absurd to ima- gine that all but those wrested the Scrip- tures to their destruction. And, there- fore, whilst we frankly allow that there are difficilties in Holy Writ, for the coping with which human learning equips an individual — historical difficulties, for example, grammatical, chronological — we Bee, at once, that it cannot be to these St. Peter refers ; since, when he wrote, either those difficulties had not
come into existence, or he himself was classed with the " unlearned," if by " unleai'ned " were intended the men un- enlightened by science.
We thus assure ourselves, that, in al- lowing *' things hard to be understood " to find place in the volume of inspira- tion, God lias dealt with mankind irres- pectively of the differences of rank. It cannot be human learning which makes these things comparatively easy to be understood. They must remain hard, ay, and equally hard, whatever the lite- rary advantages of a student ; otherwise the whole statement of our text becomes unintelligible. The " unlearned," in short, are also " the unstable : " it is not the want of earthly scholarship which makes the difficulties, it is the want of moral steadfastness which occasions the wresting. We have nothing, therefore, to do, in commenting on the words of St. Peter, with difficulties which may be caused by a defective, and re- moved by a liberal education. The dif- ficulties must be difficulties of subject. The things which are handled, and which are "hard to be understood," must, in themselves, be deep and mys- terious, and not such as present intrica- cies which human criticism may prevail to unravel. And that there are many of these things in the Bible will be ques- tioned by none who have given them- selves to its study. It were a waste of time to adduce instances of the difficul- ties. To be unacquainted with them is to be unacquainted with Scripture ; whilst to be surprised at their existence is to be surprised at what we may call unavoidable. It is this latter point which chiefly requires illustration, though there are others which must not be passed over in silence. We assume, therefore, as matter-of-fact, that there are in Scripture " things hard to be un- derstood." We shall endeavor to show you, in the first place, that this fact was to be expected. We shall then, in the second place, point out the advantages which follow from the fact, and the dis- positions which it should encourage.
And, first, we would show you — though this j)oint requires but brief ex- amination— that it was to be expected that the Bible Avould contain "some things hard to be understood." We should like to be told what stamp of in- spiration there would be upon a Bible
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containing nothing " hard to be under- srood." Is it not almost a self-evident proposition, that a revelation without difficulty could not be a revelation of divinity ] If there lie any thing of that unmeasured separation, which we are all conscious there must lie, between ourselves and the Creator, is it not clear that God cannot be comprehensible by man ; and that, therefore, any professed revelation, which left him not incom- prehensible, would be thereby its own witness to the falsehood of its preten- eions? You ask a Bible which shall, in every part, be simple and intelligible. But could such a Bible discourse to us of God, that Being who must remain, necessarily and for ever, a mystery to the very highest of created intelligences ? Could such a Bible treat of purposes, which, extending themselves over un- limited ages, and embracing the uni- verse within their ranges, demand eter- nity for their development, and infinity for their theatre 1 Could such a Bible put forward any account of spiritual operations, seeing that, whilst confined by the trammels of matter, the soul cannot fathom herself, but withdraws herself, as it were, and shrinks from her own scrutiny ] Could such a Bible, in short, tell us anything of our ctmdition, whether by nature or grace ] Could it treat of the entrance of evil ; could it treat of the Incarnation ; of Regenera- tion ; of a Resurrection ; of an Immor- tality ? In reference to all these mat- ters, there are in the Bible " things hard to be understood." But it is not the manner in which they are handled which makes them " hard to be under- stood." The subject itself gives the difficulty. If you will not have the difficulty, you cannot have the subject. You must have a Revelation which shall say nothing on the nature of God, for that must remain inexplicable ; noth- ing on the soul, for that must remain in- explicable ; nothing on the processes and workings of grace, for these must remain inexplicable. You must have a Revelation, which shall not only tell you that such and such things are, but which shall also explain to you how they are : their mode, their constitu- tion, their essence. And if this were the character of Revelation, it would undoubtedly be so constructed as never to overtask reason ; but it would,
jnst as clearly, be kept within this boundary only by being stripped of all on which we mainly need a Revelation. A Revelation in which there shall be nothing " hard to be understood," must limit itself by the powers of reason, and, therefore, exclude those very to- pics on which, reason being insufficient, revelation is required. We wish you to be satisfied on the point, that Scriptu- ral difficulties are not the result of ob- scurity of style, of brevity of commu- nication, or of a designed abstruseness in the method of argument. The diffi- culties lie simply in the mysteriousness of the subjects. There is no want of simplicity of language when God is de- scribed to us as always every where. But who understands this ] Can lan- guage make this intelligible 1 Revela- tion assures us of the fact ; reason with all her stridings, cannot overtake that fact. But would you, therefore, require that the omnipresence of Deity should be shut out from revelation ] There is a perfect precision and plain- ness of speech, when the Bible dis- courses on the Word being made flesh, and on the second person in the Trinity humbling himself to the being " found in fashion as a man." Phil. 2 : 8. But who can grapple with this prodigy 1 Is the palpable impossibility of explain- ing, or understanding it, at all the re- sult of deficiency of statement ] Who does not feel that the impossibility lies in himself, and that the matter is unin- telligible, because necessarily overpass- ing the sweep of his intelligence 1 He can receive the bare fact ; he cannot re- ceive the explanation. But shall we, on this account, and just in order to have a Bible free from " things hard to be understood," require the Incarnation to be expunged from revelation ]
We might argue in like manner with regard to every Scriptural difficulty. We account for the existence of these difficulties mainly by the fact that we are men, and, because men, finite in our capacities. We suppose not that it would have been possible, by any power of description or process of explanation, to have made those things which are now hard, easier to be understood, un- less the human faculties had been ampli- fied and strengthened, so that men had been carried up to a higher rank of be- ing. We can quite believe that to an
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angel, endowed witli a nobler equipment of intellectual energy, and unincumber- ed with a frame-work of matter, there would be a far clearer idea conveyed by the revelation, that " there are three that bear record in heaven, and these three are one," 1 John, 5 : 7, than is conveyed by such announcement to ourselves. But it does not, therefore, follow that the doctrine of the Trinity might have been made as comprehensible by us as by angels. Let thei-e be only the same amount of revelation, and the angel may know more than the man, because gifted with a keener and more vigorous understanding. And it is evident, there- fore, that few things could have less warranty than the supposition that re- velation might have been so enlarged, that the knowledge of man would have reached to the measure of the knowl- edge of angels. We again say that *.here is no deficiency of revelation, and that the difficulties which occur in the perusal of Scripture result from the ma- jesty ctf the introduced subjects, and the weakness of the faculties turned on their study. It is little short of a contradic- tion in terms, to speak of a revelation free altogether from " things hard to be understood." And we are well persuad- ed, tliat, however disposed men may be to make the difficulties an objection to the Bible, the absence of those difficul- ties would have been eagerly seized on as a proof of imposture. There would have been fairness in the objection — and scepticism would not have been slow in triumphantly urging it — that a book, which brought down the infinite to the level of the finite, must contain false representations, and deserve, there- fore, to be placed under the outlawry of the world. We should have had reason taking up an opposite position, but one far mure tenable than she occupies when arguing from the difficulty, against the divinity, of Scripture. Reason has sa- gacity enough, if you remove the bias of the " evil heart of unbelief," Heb. 3 : 12, to perceive the impossibility that God should be searched out and com- prehended by rnan. And if, therefore, reason sat in judgment (m a professed revelation of the Almighty, and found that it gave no account of the Deity, but one, in every respect easy and in- telligible, so that God described himself a£ removed not, either in essence or
properties from the ken of humanity, it can scarcely be questioned that she would give down as her verdict, and that justice would loudly apjjlaud the decision, that the alleged communication from heaven wanted the signs the most elementai-y of so illustrious an origin.
It can only be viewed as a necessary consequence on the grandeur of the subjects which form the matter of re- velation, that, with every endeavor at simplicity of style and aptitude of illus- tration, the document contains state- ments which overmatch all but the faith of mankind. And, therefore, we are bold to say that we glory in the difficulties of Scripture, We can in- deed desire, as well as those who would turn these difficulties into occasion of cavil and objection, to understand, with a thorough accuracy, the registered truths, and to penetrate and explore those solemn mysteries which crowd the pages of inspiration. We can feel, whilst the volume of Holy Writ lies open before us, and facts are presented which seem every way infinite — height, and breadth, and depth, and length, all defying the boldest journeyings of the spirit — we can feel the quick pulse of an eager wish to scale the mountain, or fathom the abyss. But, at the same time, we know, and we feel, that a Bible without difficulties were a firmament without stars. We know, and we feel, that a far off land, enamelled, as we believe it, with a loveliness which is not of this earth, and inhabited by a- tenantry gloriously distinct from our own order of being, would not be the- magnificent and richly-peopled domaini which it is, if its descriptions overpass- ed not the outlines of human geography. We know, and we feel, that the Creator of all things, he who stretched out the heavens, and sprinkled them with worlds, could not be, what we arc assured that He is, inaccessibly sublime and awfully great, if there could be given us a por- trait of his nature and properties, whose every feature might be sketched by a human pencil, whose every characteris- tic scanned by a human vision. We know, and we feel, that the vast busi- ness of our redemption, ananged in the councils of the far-back eternity, and' acted out amid the wondering and throb- bings of the universe, could not have- been that stupendous transaction which' 17
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crave God glory by giving sinners safety, if the inspired account brouglit its di- mensions within the compass of a human arithmetic, or defined its issues by the lines of a human demarcation. And, therefore, do we also know and feel that it is a witness to the inspiration of the Bible, that, when this Bible would fur- nish us with notices of the unseen world hereafter to be travei'sed, or when it would turn thought on the Omnipotent, or when it would open up the scheme of the restoration of the fallen ; then, with much that is beautifully simple, and which the wayfaring man can read and understand, there are mingled dark intimations, and pregnant hints, and un- developed statements, before which the weak and the masterful must alike do the homage of a reverent and uncalcu- lating submission. We could not rise up from the perusal of Scripture with a deep conviction that it is the word of the living God, if we had found no occasions on which reason was re- quired to humble herself before giant- like truth, and implicit faith has been the only act which came within our range of moral achievement. We do not indeed say — for the saying would carry absurdity on its forefront — that we believe a document inspired, because, in part, incomprehensible. But if a docu- ment profess to be inspired ; and if it treat of subjects which we can prove beforehand to be above and beyond the stretchings of our intellect ; then, we do say that the finding nothing in such a document to baffle the understanding would be a proof the most conclusive, that what alleges itself divine deserves rejecticm as a forgery. And whilst, therefore, we see going forward on all sides the accumulation of the evidences of Christianity, and history and science are bringing their stores and emptying them at the feet of our religion, and the very wrath of the adversary, being the accomplishment of prophecy, is proving that we follow no " cunningly devised fables ;" 2 Pet. 1 : 16 ; we feel that it was so much to be expected, yea, rather that it was altogether so unavoidable, that a revelation would, in many parts, be obscure, that we take as a last link in the chaiu of a lengthened and irre- fragable demonstration, that there are in the Bible " things hard to be under- stood."
But we trench on the second division of our subject, and will proceed, there- fore, to the more distinct exposition of the advantages which follow, and the dispositions which should be encouraged by, the fact which has passed under re- view. We see, at once, from the state- ment of St. Peter, that effects, to all ap- pearance disastrous, are produced by the difficulties of Scripture. The " unlearn- ed and unstable " wrest these difficulties to " their own destruction ;" and, there- fore, though we have proved these diffi- culties unavoidable, by what process ot reasoning can they be proved advanta- geous 1 Now, if we have carried you along with us through our foregoing aj'gument, you are already furnished with one answer to this inquiry. We have shown you that the absence of dif- ficulties would go far towards proving the Scriptures uninspired ; and we need not remark that there must be a use for difficulties, if essential to the complete witness for the truth of Christianity. But there are other advantages which must, on no account, be overlooked. We only wish it premised, that, though the diffi- culties of Scripture — as, for example, those parts which involve predestination — are wrested by many " to their own destruction," the " unlearned and unsta- ble " would have equally perished, had no difficulties whatsoever existed. As the case indeed now stands, the " things hard to be understood " are the stum- bling-blocks over which they fall, and, falling, are destroyed. But they would have stumbled on the plain ground as well as on the rousfh : there beine no more certaui truth in theology, than that the cause of stumbling is the inter- nal feebleness, and not the external im- pediment. A man may perish, ostensi- bly through abuse of the doctrine of election. He may say, I am elect, and, therefore, shall be saved, though I con- tinue in sin. Thus he wrests election, and that too to his own certain destruc- tion. But would he not have perished had he found no such doctrine to wrest ] Ay, that he would ; as fatally, and as finally. It is the love of sin, the deter- mination to live in sin, which destroys him. And though, whilst giving the reins to his lusts, he attempts to derive from election a quietus and excuse, can you think that he would be at a loss to find them elsewhere, if there woi'e
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no doctrine of election from which, when abused, they may be ^^Tenched and extorted ? It is possible that a man may slay himself with " the sword of the Spirit ; " Ephesians, 6 : 17 ; but only because he is so bent upon sui- cide, that, had he not found so costly a weapon, he would have fallen on a ru- der and less polished. Satan has every kind of instrument in his armory, and leaves no one at a loss for a method of self-destruction. So that, had it not been unavoidable that " things hard to be understood " should find place in the Bible, their insertion, though apparent- ly causing the ruin of many, would in no degree have impeached the loving- kindness of the Almighty. Scriptural difficulties destroy none who would not have been destroyed had no difficulties existed. And, therefore, difficulties might be permitted for cei'tain ends which they, undoubtedly, subserve, and yet not a solitary individual bo injured by an allowance which is to benefit the great body of the Church. We wish this conclusion borne carefully in mind, because the first impression, on reading our text, is, that some are destroyed by the " things hard to be understood," and that they would not have been de- stroyed without these things to wrest. This first impression is a wrong one ; the hard things ffivin"- the occasion, but never being the cause of destruction. The unstable wrest what is difficulty. But, rather than be without something to pervert, if there were not the diffi- culty, they would wrest the simple.
This being premised, we may enlai'ge, without fear, on the advantages result- ing from the fact, thai; Scripture con- tains " some things hard to be under- stood." And first, if there were noth- ing in Scripture which ovei-powered our reason, who sees not that intellectual pride would he festered by its study 1 The grand moral discipline which the Bible now exerts, and which renders its perusal the best exercise to which men can be subjected, lies simply in its perpetual requisition that Reason submit herself to Revelation. You can make no way with the disclosures of Holy Writ, until prepared to receive, on the authority of God, a vast deal which, of yourself, you cannot prove, and still more, which you cannot ex- olain. And it is a fine sctioolinor ^f*r the
student, when, at every step In his le- search, he finds himself thrown on his faith, required to admit truth because the Almighty hath spoken it, and not because he himself can demonstrate. It is just the most rigorous and whole- some tuition under which the human mind can be brought, when it is con- tinually called off from its favoi'ite pro- cesses of argument and commentary, and summoned into the position of a meek recipient of intelligence to be taken without questioning — honored with belief when it cannot be cleared by exposition. And of all this school- ing and tuition you would instantly deprive us, if you took away from the Bible " things hard to be understood." Nay, it were comparatively little that we should lose the discipline : we should live under a counter system, encouraging what we are bound to re- press. If man were at all left to enter- tain the idea that he can comprehend God, or measui'e his purposes — and such idea might be lawful, were there no mysteries in Scripture — we know no bounds which could be set to his Intel lectual haughtiness : for if reason seem- ed able to embrace Deity, who could persuade her that she is scant and con- tracted 1 I might almost be pardoned the fostei'ing a consciousness of mental greatness, and the supposing myself en- dowed with a vast nobility of spirit, if I found that I kept pace with all the wonders which God brought out from his own nature and his own dwelling, and if no disclosures were made to this creation too dazzling for my scrutiny, or too deep for my penetration. A Bible without difficulties would be a censer full of incense to man's reason. It would be the greatest flatterer of rea- son, passing on it a compliment and eu- lotry which would infinitely outdo the most far-fotched of human panegyrics. And if the fallen require to be kept hum- ble ; if we can advance in spiritual attain- ment only in proportion as we feel our in- significance ; would not this conversion of the Bible into the very nurse and en- courager of intellectual ])i-idc, abstract its best worth from revelation ; and who, therefore, will deny that we are advantag- ed by the fact, that there are in Scrip- ture " things hard to be understood ? " We remark again, that though con ' troversy have its evils, it has aiso its
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uses. We never infer, that, because there is no controversy in a church, there must be the upholding of sound doctrine. It is not the stagnant water which is generally the purest. And if there are no differences of opinion "vvliich set men on examining and ascer- taining their own belief, the probability is, that, like the Samaritans of old, they will worship they " know not what." John, 4 : 22. Heresy itself is, in one sense, singularly beneficial. It helps to sift a professing community, and to sep- arate the chaff from the ^vheat. And whilst the unstable are carried about by the winds of false doctrine, those who keep their steadfastness find, as it were, their moral atmosphere cleared by the tempest. We consider this statement to be that of St. Paul, when he says to the Corinthians, " There must be also heresies amongst you, that they which are approved may be made manifest." 1 Cor. 11 : 19. And it is not the mere separatiim of the genuine from the fic- titious, which is effected through the publication of error. We hold that heresies have been of vast service to the Church, in that they have caused truth to be more thoroughly scanned, and all its bearings and boundaries explored with a most pains-taking industry. It is astonishing how apt men are to rest in general and ill-defined notions, so that, when interrogated and probed on an article of faith, they show themselves unable to give account of their belief. When a new error is propounded, you will find that candid men will confess, that, on examining their own views on the litigated point, they have found them in many respects vague and inco- herent ; so that, until driven to the work of expounding and defining, they have never suspected their ignorance upon matters with which they piofess- ed themselves altogether familiar. We think that few men would have correct notions of truth, unless occasionally compelled to investigate their own opinions. They take for granted that they understand what they believe. But when heresy or controversy arises, and they are re(]uired to state what they hold, they will themselves be surprised at the confusion of their sentiments. We are persuaded, for example, that bowcver mischievous in many respects may have been the modern agitation
of the question of Christ's humanity, the great body of christians have been thereby advantaged. Until the debate was raised, hundreds and thousands were unconsciously holding en'or. Be- ing never required to define the true doctrine of the Savior's person, they never doubted that they knew and un- derstood it, though, all the while, they either confounded the natures, or mul- tiplied the person ; or — and this was the ordinary case — formed no idea at all on so mysterious, yet fundamental a matter. Thus conti-oversy stirs the waters and prevents their growing stag- nant. We do not indeed understand from the " must be" of St. Paul, that the well-being of the Church is depen- dent on heresy, so that, unless heresy enter, the Church cannot prosper. But we can readily suppose that God, fore- knowing the coiTuptions which would be attempted of the Gospel, determin- ed to employ these corruptions as in- struments for speeding onward the growth in grace of his people. The " must be" refers to human depravity and Satanic influence. It indicates a necessity for which the creature alone is answerable, whilst the end, which heresies subserve, is that which most engages the interferences of the Crea- tor. Thus we speak of evil as benefi- cial, only as overruled by the Almighty, and pronounce controversy advantage- ous, because a corrupt nature needs frequent agitation. If never called to defend the truth, the Church would com- paratively lose sight of what truth is. And therefore, however the absence of controversy may agree well with a millennial estate, we are amongst the last who would desire that it should not now be heard in the land. We feel that if now " the wolf should dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid," Isa. 11 : 6, we should have nothing but the millennium of liberal- ism : the lamb being nothing more than the wolf in disguise, and the kid the leopard with his spots slightly colored. Such is the constitution of man — and such it will be, till there pass over this globe a mighty regeneration — tliat un- less there be opposition, we shall have no purity. Dissent itself, with its man- ifold and multiform evils, has done the Church service; and, by rousing energiee which might otherwise have lain dor
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raant, has given fixedness where it thought to undermine. But if there Avere no scriptural difficulties, we could have no controversy. The " things hard to be understood " form the groundwork of differences of opinion : and, if these were swept away, there would either be space for only one theory, or, if another were broached, it would be too absurd for debate. So that scriptural difficul- ties are literally the perservatives of sound doctrine. The Church would slumber into ignorance of even simple and elementary truth, if there were no hard things, which, wrested by the un- stable, keep her always on the alert. And if, therefore, the upholding, through successive generations, of a clear and orthodox creed, be a result which you hail as teeming with advantage, have we not a right to press home on you the fact that it is advantageous to mankind that there are in the bible " some things hard to be understood i "
We might extend on all sides our view of the advantages of difficulties. But we are confined by the limits of a discourse, and shall only adduce one other illustration. When I read the Bi- ble, and meet with passages which, after the most patient exercises of thought and research, remain dark and impenetra- ble, then, in the most especial degree, I feel myself immortal. The finding a thing " hard to be understood " ministers to my consciousness that I am no perish- able creature, destined to a finite exist- ence, but a child of eternity, appointed to survive the dissolutions of matter, and to enter on another and an untried being, [fthe Bible be God's revelation of himself to mankind, it is a most fair expectation, that, at one time or another, the whole of this revelation will be clear and ac- cessible ; that the obscure points, which we cannot now elucidate, and the lofty points, which we cannot now scale, will be enlightened by the flashings of a bright- er luminary, and given up to the march- ings of a more vigorous inquiry. We can never think that God would tell man things for the understanding of which he is to be always incapacitated. If he know them not now, the very fact of their being told is sufficient proof that he shall know them hereafter. And, there- fore, in every scriptural difficulty I read the pledge of a mighty enlargement of the human faculties. In every mystery.
though a darkness thick as the Egyptian may now seem to shroud it, I can find one bright and burning spot, glowing with promise that there shall yet come a day, when, every power of the soul being wrought into a celestial strength, I shall be privileged, as it were, to stretch out the hand of the lawgiver and roll back the clouds which here envel- ope the truth. I can muse upon one ot those things which are " hard to be understood," till it seem to put on the prophet's mantle, and preach to me of futurity ; telling me, in accents more spirit stirring than those of the boldest of mortal oratory, that the present is but the infancy of my being ; and that, in a nobler and more glorious estate, I shall start from moral and mental dwarfish- ness, and endowed with vigor of percep- tion, and keenness of vision, and vast- ness of apprehension, walk the labyrinth, and pierce the rock, and weigh the mountain. Oh, I can thank God that, amongst those countless mercies which he has poured down on our pathway, he hath given us a Bible which is not in every part to be explained. The diffi- culties of Holy Writ — let them be made by objectors the subject of marvel, or of cavil — they constitute one great sheet of our charter of immortality : and, in place of wondering that God should have permitted them, or lamenting that they cannot be overcome, I rejoice in them as earnests, given me by Him " who cannot lie," Titus, 1 : 2, that man hath yet to advance to a sublime rank amongst orders of intelligence, and to stand, in the maturity of his strength, in the veiy centre of the panorama of truth. And if it be true that every mystery in Scripture, as giving pledge of an en- largement of capacities, witnesses to the glories with which the future comes chai-ged ; and if from every intricate passage, and every dark saying, and every unfathomable statement, we draw new proof of the magnificence of our destinies ; which of you will withhold his confession, that the difficulties of the Bible are productive of benefit, and that, consequently, there result advantages from the fact, that there are m Scripture some " things hard to be understood ] " Such are certain of the advantages which we proposed to investigate. It yet remains that we briefly state, and call upon you to cultivate, the disposi-
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tions which should be brought to the study of a Bible thus " hard to be un- derstood." We have shown you that there ai'C difficulties in Scripture which must remain unexplained whilst we con- tinue in the flesh. Other difficulties in- deed may be removed by thought, and prayer, and research ; and we would not have you sparing of any of these appliances when you examine the vol- ume of inspiration. But difficulties v/hich are inherent in the subject ; thintrs " hard to be understood " be- cause they deal, for example, with the nature, and purposes, and workings of Deity ; these are not to be mastered by any powers of reason, and are, there- fore, matters for the exercise of faith rather than of intellect. We ought to know before we open the Bible, that it must present difficulties of this class and description. We are therefore bound, if, in idolizing reason, we should not degrade and decry it, to sit down to the study of Scripture with a meek and chastened understanding, expect- ing to be baffled, and ready to submit. We tell the young amongst you more especially, who, in the pride of an un- disciplined intellect, would turn to St. Paul, as they turn to Bacon or Locke, argping that what was written for man must be comprehensible by man — we tell them that nothing is excellent out of its place ; and that, in the examina- tion of Scripture, then only does rea- son show herself noble, when, conscious of the presence of a king, the knee is bent, and the head uncovered. We would have it, therefore, remembered, that the docility and submissiveness of a child alone befit the student of the Bible ; and that, if we would not have the whole volume darkened, its sim- plest truths eluding the grasp of our understanding, or gaining, at least, no hold on our affections, we must lay aside the feelings which we carry into the domains of science and philosophy, not arming ourselves with a chivalrous resolve to conquer, but with one which it is a thousand-fold harder either to form or execute, to yield.
The Holy Spirit alone can make us feel the things which are easy to be un- derstood, and prevent our wresting those which are hard. Never, then, should the Bible be opened except with prayer for the teachings of this Spirit.
You will read without profit, as long as you I'ead without prayer. It is only in the degree that the Spirit, which indi- ted a text, takes it from the page and breathes it into tl>e heart, that we can comprehend its meaning, be touched by its beauty, stirred by its remon- strance, or animated by its promise. We shall never, then, master scriptu- ral difficulties by the methods which prove successful in grappling with phi- losophical. Why is it that the poor peasant, whose understanding is weak and undisciplined, has clear insight in- to the meaning of verses, and finds in them irresistible power and inexhausti- ble comfort, whilst the very same pas- sages are given up as mysteries, oi overlooked as unimportant, by the high and lettered champion of a scholastic theology ] It were idle to deny that our rustic divines will oftentimes travel, with a far stancher and more dominant step than our collegiate, into the depths of a scriptural statement ; and that you might obtain from some of the patri- archs of our valleys, whose chief in- struction has been their own communing with the Almighty, such explanations of " things hard to be understood " as would put to shame the commentaries of our most learned expositors. And of this phenomenon the solution would be hopeless, if there were not a broad instituted difference between human and sacred liteiature : " the kingdom ot heaven " being " like unto treasure hid in a field ; " Matt. 13 : 44 ; and the finding this treasure depending not at all on the power of the intellect brought to the search, but on the heartiness and the earnestness with which the Psalm- ist's pjayer is used, " open thou mino eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Psalm 119 : 18. It you open a scientific book, or study an abstruse and metaphysical work, let rea- son gird herself boldly for the task : the province belongs fairly to her jurisdic- tion ; and she may cling to her own en- ergies without laying herself open to the charge, that, according to the charac- teristic which Joel gives of the last times, the weak is vaunting itself the strong. Joel, 3 : 10. But if you open the Bible, and sit down to the investi- gation of scriptural truth, you are in a district which lies far beyond the just limits of the emjjire of reason : theie
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is need of an apparatus wholly distinct from that which sufficed i\)V your for- mer inquiry : and if you think to compre- hend revelation, except so far as the author shall act as interpreter, you are, most emphatically, the weak pronounc- ing yourselves the strong, and the Bible shall be to you a closed book, and you «hall break not the seals which God nimself hath placed on the volume. Oh, they are seals which melt away like a snow-wreath, before the breathings of the Spirit ; but not all the fire of hu- man genius shall ever prevail to dissolve or loosen them.
We feel that we have a difficult jiart to perform in ministering to the con- gregation which assembles within these walls. Gathered as it is, from many parts, and, without question, including oftentimes numbers who make no pro- fession whatsoever of religion, we think it bound on us to seek out great variety of subjects, so that, if possible, the case of none of the audience may be quite overlooked in a series of discourses. And we feel it peculiarly needful, that we touch now and then, as we have done this night, on topics connected with infidelity, because we fear that in- fidelity is growing in the land, and spe- cially amongst its well-educated youth. If there be one saying in the Bible, bearing reference to the things of the present dispensation, on which we look with greater awe than on another, it is this of Christ Jesus, " when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth 1 " Luke, 18 : 8. It would seem to mark out a fierce conflict of antago- nist princij)les, issuing in the almost to- tal ejectment of Christianity ; so that, when the day of the second advent is ushered in by its august heraldry, it shall dawn upon blasted and blackened scenery, and discover the mass of man- kind carrying on, amid demolished tem- ples and desecrated Bibles, the orgies of a dark and desperate revelry. And knowing that such is the tenor of proph- ecy, and gathering from many and infal- lible signs, that already has the war-tug begun, we warn you, and beseech you, with all the veins of our heart, that ye be on your guard against the inroads of scepticism. We speak peculiarly to the young, the young men who throntr this chapel, and who, in the intercourses of life, will meet with many who lie in wait
to deceive. It is not possible that you should mix much with the men of this liberal and libertine age, and not hear insinuations, either more or less direct, thrown out against the grand and sav- ing tenets of Christianity. You cannot, even by the exercise of the most godly circumspection, keep yourselves wholly at a distance from the sarcasms or soph- isms of insidious and pestilent teachers. The enemy is ever on the watch : and, adapting himself to the various disposi- tions and circumstances of those whom he seeks to entangle, can address the illiterate with a hollow jest, and assail the educated with a well-turned objec- tion. Oh, I could tremble for those, who, blind to the weakness which is naturally the portion of our race, and rashly confident in a strength to which the fallen have no jot of pretension, ad- venture them-selves now upon the sea of life, and go forth into a world where must often be encountered temptations, to think lightly of the faith of their fath- ers. Oh, I say, I could tremble for them. If any amongst you — I speak it with all affection, and from the knowl- edge which positions in life have ena- bled me to form of the progress of youthful infidelity — if any amongst you enter the busy scenes of society, with an overweening confidence in your own capacities, with the lofty opinion of the powers of reason, and with a hardy j^er- suasion that there is nei've enough in the mind to grapple with divine myste- ries, and vigor enough to discover truth for itself^ — if, in short, you, the weak, shall say we are strong — then I fear for you, far more than I can tell, that you may fall an easy prey to some champion of heretical error, and give ready ear to the flattering schemes of the worship- pers of intellect ; and that thus a mor- tal blight shall desecrate the buds of early promise, and eternity frown on you with all the cheerlessness which it wears to those who despise the blood of atone- ment, and you — the children, it may be, of pious pai'ents, over whose infancy a godly father hath watched, and whose young years have been guarded by the tender solicitudes of a righteous mother — you may win to yourselves a heritage of shame and confusion, and go down, at the judgment, into the pit of the un- believing and scornful. Better, infinite- ly better would it have been, that your
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parents had seen you coffined and se- pulchred, ere as yet ye knew evil from good, than that they should have nursed you, and nurtured you, to swell, in latter days, the ranks of the apostate. Be ad- monished, by the subject which we have this night discussed, to distrust your- selves, and to depend on a higher teach- ing than human. Difficulties there are in the Bible : but they ought rather to assure, than make you doubtful of, the divinity of its origin. And if you are assailed with sceptical objections which you are unable to answer, have the candor and modesty to suspect that a straight-forward and sufficient answer there may be, though you have not the penetration to discover it. Lay not the blame on the deficiences of Christianity, when it may possibly lie in the deficien- cies of your own information. The argument was never framed against the truth of our religion, which has not been completely taken off, and triumphantly refuted. Hesitate, therefore, before you conclude a sceptic in the right, just be- cause you are not able to prove him in the wrong. We give you this advice, simply and affectionately. We see your danger, and we long for your souls. Bear with us yet a moment. We would not weary you : but speaking on the topic of " things hard to be understood," we feel compelled to dwell, at some length, on the scepticism of the age. I can never dare ans%ver, when I stand up in this holy place, and speak to you on the truths of our religion, that I address not some who thi-ovv on these truths ha- bitual contempt, who count Christianity the plaything of children, invented by imposture, and cradled in ignorance. And if I knew that even now there were such amongst you ; if they were pointed out to me, so that I might stand face to face with the despisers of our Lord — the thunder, tha sack-cloth of hair, the worm that diej not, the fire thai is not quenched — should I array against them these terrible things, and turn upon them the battery of the de- nunciations of God's wrath 1 Alas, alas, I should liave no moral hold on them with all this apparatus of wo and •destruction. They might wrap them- selves up in their scepticism. They might tell me they had read too much, and learned too much, to be scared by the trickeries of priestcraft : and th./«* ,
by denying the authority of Scripture, they would virtually blunt all my weap- ons of attack, and show themselves in- vulnerable, because they had made themselves insensible. There is nothing that the minister could do, save that which Elisha the prophet did, when speaking with Hazael : " he settled his countenance steadfastly, until he was ashamed : and the man of God wept." 2 King^, S : 10. Who could do other- wise than weep over the spectacle of talents, and hopes, and afl'ections, taint- ed with the leprous spots of moral de- cay, the spectacle of a blighted immor- tality, the spectacle — a glimpse of which must almost convulse with amazement the glorious ranks of the celestial world — that of a being whom Christ purchas- ed with his blood, whom the Almighty hath invited, yea besought, to have mer- cy upon himself, turning into jest the messages of the Gospel, denying the divinity of the Lord, his Redeemer, or building up, with the shreds and frag- ments of human reason, a baseless structure, which, like the palace of ice, shall resolve itself suddenly into a tu- multuous flood, bearing away the inhab- itant, a struggling thing, but a lost ? Yea, if I knew there were one amongst you who had surrendered himself to the lies of an ensnaring philosophy, then, although I should feel, that, per- haps even whilst I speak, he is pitying my credulity, or ridiculing my fanati- cism, I would not suffer him to depart without calling on the congregation to baptize him, as it were, with their tears ; and he should be singled out — oh, not for rebuke, not for contempt, not for an- ger— but as more desei'ving to be wept over, and wailed over, than the poorest child of human calamity, more worthy of the agonies of mortal sympathy, than he who eats the bitterest bread of affliction, and in whose ear ring mourn- fully the sleepless echoes of a funeral bell. Yea, and he should not leave the sanctuary till we had told him, that, though there be in the Bible " things hard to be understood," there is one thing beautifully plain, and touchingly simple : and that is, that " the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John, 1:7. So that it is not yet too late : the blasphemer, the scorner, the infidel — oh, the fire is not yet falling, and the earth is not yet opening — let
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him turn unto the Lord, and confess his iniquity, and cry for pardon, and a sweep of joy from the angels' harp- strings shall tell out the astounding fact, that he is no longer a stranger and for- eigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God.
But we hasten to a conclusion. We again press upon all of you the import- ance of reading the Bible with prayer. And whilst the consciousness that Scripture contains " things hard to be understood," should bring us to its stu- dy, in a dependent and humble temper, the thought, that what we know not now, we shall know hereafter, should make each difficulty, as we leave it un- vanquished, minister to our assurance that a wider sphere of being, a nearer vision, and mightier faculties, await us when the second advent of the Lord winds up the dispensation. Thus should the mysteries of the Bible teach us, at one and the same time, our nothing-
I ness, and our greatness ; producinor hu- mility, and animating hope. I bow be- fore these mysteries. I knew that I should find, and I pretend not to re- move them. But whilst I thus prostrate myself, it is with deep gladness and ex- ultation of spirit. God would not have hinted the mystery, had he not designed hereafter to explain. And, therefore, are my thoughts on a far-off home, and rich things are around me, and the voices of many harpers, and the shin- ings of bright constellations, and the clusters of the cherub and the seraph ; and a whisper, which seems not of this earth, is circulating through the soul, " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1 Cor. 13 : 12. May God grant unto all of us to be both abased and quickened by those things in the Bible which are " hard to be un- derstood."
18
SERMONS
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
FEBRUARY, 1836.
The Author begs to state, that he prmts these Sermons in comphance with the wish of many Members of the University. Immediately after their deUvery, he received an address from the resident Bachelors and Undergraduates, headed by the most distinguished names, and numerously signed, requesting theii' publication. The same request was also made from other quarters. Uuder these circumstances the Author felt that he had nothing to do, but to regret tliat the Sermons were not more deserving of the interest thus kindly manifested, and to commit them at once to the press.
Camberwell, March 10, 1836.
SERMON I.
THE GREATNESS AND CONDESCENSION OF GOD.
•* Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and tliy dominion endurcth throughout all generations. The Lord np holdeth all that fall, and lifteth up all those that be bowed down.'' — Psalm, cklv. 13, 14.
What we admire in these verses, is their combining the magnificence of un- limited power with the assiduity of unlimited tenderness. It is this combi- nation which men are apt to regard as well-nigli incredible, supposing that a Being so great as God can never concern himself with beings so inconsiderable as themselves. Tell them that God lifteth up those that be bowed down, and they cannot imagine that his kingdom and dominion are unbounded ; — or tell them, on the other hand, of the greatness of his empire, and they think it impossible that he should uphold all that fall. If you represent Deity as busied with what they reckon insignificant, the rapid im- pression is, that he cannot, at the same time, be equally attentive to what is vast ; and if you exhibit him as occupied with
what is vast, there is a sudden misgiving that the insignificant must escape his obsers'ation. And it is of great import- ance, that men be taught to view in God that combination of properties which is affirmed in our text. It is certain that the gi-eatness of God is often turned into an argument, by which men would bring doubt on the truths of Redemption and Providence. The unmeasured inferi- ority of man to his Maker is used in proof, that so costly a work as that ot Redemption can never have been exe- cuted on our behalf; and that so un- wearied a watchfulness as that of Prov- idence can never be engaged in our service. Whereas, no reason whatever can be derived from our confessed insig- nificance, against our being tlie objects whether of Redemj^tion or of Piovi-
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dence — seeing it is equally characteristic of Deity, to attend to the inconsiderable and to the great, to extend his dominion thi'oughout all generations, and to lift up those that be bowed down.
It is on this truth we .would employ our present discourse, endeavoring to prove, tliat human insignificance, as set in contrast with divine greatness, fur- nishes no argument against the doctrine of our Redemption, and none against that of an universal Providence.
Now a man will consider the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which he hath ordained, and he will perceive that the eaitli on which we dwell is but the solitary unit of an innumerable multitude. It appears to him as though, if this globe were sud- denly annihilated, it would scarcely be missed from the firmament, and leave no felt vacancy in the still crowded fields of the heavens. And if our earth be thus so insignificant an unit that its ab- straction would not disturb the splendors and harmonies of the universe, how shall we think that God hath done so won- drous a thing for its inhabitants as to send his own Son to die in their stead 1 Thus an argument is attempted to be drawn from the insignificance of man to the improbability of Redemption ; one verse of our text is set against the other ; and the confessed fact, that God's do- minion is throughout all generations, is opposed to the alleged fact, that he gave his own Son that he might lift up the fallen.
But it ought at least to be remembered that man was God's workmanship, made after his image, and endowed with pow- ers which fitted him for lofty pursuits. The human race may or may not be insig- nificant. We know nothing of the or- ders of intelligence which stretch up- wards between ourselves and God ; and we are therefore incompetent to decide what place we occupy in the scale of creation. But at tlie least we know, in- dependently of Revelation, that a mag- nificent scene was appointed for our dwelling ; and that when God reared a home for man, he built it of the sublime and the beautiful, and lavislied alike his might and his skill on the furniture of its chambers. No fine can survey the works of nature, and not perceive that God has some regard for the children of men, however fallen and polluted they
may be. And if God manifest a regard for us in temporal things, it must be fai from incredible that he would do the same in spiritual. There can be nothino- fairer than the expectation, that he would provide for our well-being as moral and accountable creatur.es, with a care at least equal to that exhibited to- wards us in our natural capacity. So that it is perfectly credible that God would do something on behalf of the fallen ; and then the question is, whether any thing less than Redemption through Christ would be of worth and of efficacy 1 It is certain that we cannot conceive any possible mode, except the revealed mode through the sacrifice of Christ, in which God could be both just and the justifier of sinners. Reckon and reason as we will, we can sketch out no plan by which transgressors might be saved, the divine attributes honored, and yet Christ not have died. So far as we have the power of ascertaining, man must have remain- ed unredeemed, had he not been redeem- ed through the Incarnation and Cru- cifixion. And if it be credible that God would effectively interpose on man's behalf; and if the only discoverable me- thod in which he could thus interpose, be that of Redemption through the sacrifice of his Son ; what becomes of the alleged incredibility, founded on the greatness of God as contrasted with the insignificance of man 1 We do not de- preciate the wonders of the interference. We will go all lengths in proclaiming it a prodigy which confounds the most masterful, and in pronouncing it a mys- tery whose depths not even angels can fathom, that, for the sake of beings in considerable as ourselves, there should have been acted out an arrangement which bi'ought Godhead into flesh, and gave up the Creator to ignominy and death. But the greatness of the wonder furnishes no just ground for its disbelief. There can be no weight in the reasoning, that because man is so low and God so high, no such work can have been wrought as the Redemption of our race. We are certain that we are cared for in our temporal capacity ; and we conclude, therefore, that we cannot have been neglected in our eternal. And then — finding that, unless redeemed through the sacrifice of Christ, there is no sup- posable method of human deliverance — it is not the brightness of the moon as
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THE GREATNESS AND CONDESCENSION OP GOD.
she travels in her lustre, and it is not the array of stars which are marshalled on the firmament, that shall make us deem it incredible that God would give his Son for our rescue : rather since moon and stars light up man's home, they shall do nothing but assure us of the Creator's loving-kindness ; and thus render it a thing to be believed — though still amazing, still stupendous — that He whose kingdom is an everlasting king- dom, and whose dominion endureth throughout all generations, should have made himself to be sin for us, that He might uphold all that fall, and lift up all those that be bowed down.
But it is in regard to the doctrine of an universal Providence that men are most ready to raise objections, from the great- ness of God as contrasted with their own insignificance. They cannot believe that he who is so mighty as to rule the heaven- ly hosts can condescend to notice the wants of the meanest of his creatures ; and thus they deny to him the combination of properties asserted in our text, that, whilst possessed of unlimited empire, he sus- tains the feeble and raises the prostrate.
We shall not stay to expose the false- ness of an opinion which has sometimes found advocates, that, having created this world, God left it to itself, and be- stows no thought on its concerns. But whilst few would hold the opinion in the extent thus announced, many would limit the divine providence, and thus take from the doctrine its great beauty and comfort. It is easy and common to represent it as incompatible with the confessed grandeur of our Maker, that he should busy himself with the con- cerns of the poorest of his creatures : but such I'easoning betrays ignorance as to what it is in which greatness consists. It may be that, amongst finite beings, it is not easy, and perhaps not possible, that attention to what is minute, or compara- tively unimportant, should be combined with attention to things of vast moment. But we never reckon it an excellence that there is not, or cannot be, this union. On the contrary, we should declare that man at the very summit of true greatness, who proved himself able to unite what had seemed incompatible. If a man, for example, be a great statesman, and the management of a vast empire be de- livered into his hands, we can scarcely expect that, amid the multiplicity of
mighty affairs which solicit his atteiition, he should find time for the duties of more ordinary life. We feel that, engrossed with occupations of overwhelming im- portance, it is hardly possible that he should be assiduous in the instruction of his children, or the inspection of his servants, or the visiting and relieving his distressed fellow-men. But we never feel that his greatness would be dimin- ished, if he were thus assiduous. We are ready, on the contrary, to admit that we should give him, in a higher degree than ever, our respect and admiration, if he knew that whilst he had his eye on every wheel in the machinery of government, and his comprehensive mind included all that had a bearing on the well-being of the empire, he discharged with exem- plary fidelity every relative duty, and entered with as much assiduousness into all that concerned his neighbors and de- pendents, as though he had not to ex- tend his carefulness over the thousand departments of a complicated system. What would be thought of that man's estimate of greatness, who should reckon it derogatory to the statesman that he thus combined attention to the incon- siderable with attention to the stupen- dous ; and who should count it inconsis- tent with the loftiness of his station, that, amid duties as arduous as faithfully discharged, he had an ear for the prattle of his children, and an eye for the inter- ests of the friendless, and a heart for the sufferings of the destitute 1 Would there not be a feeling mountinor almost to veneration, towards the ruler who should prove himself equal to the super- intending every concern of an empire, and who could yet give a personal atten- tion to the wants of many of the poorest of its families ; and who, whilst gather- ing within the compass of an ample in- telligence every question of foreign and home policy, protecting the commerce, maintaining the honor, and fostering the institutions of the state, could minister tenderly at the bedside of sickness, and hearken patiently to the tale of calamity, and be as active for the widow and the orphan, as though his whole business were to lighten the pressure of domestic affliction ]
We can appeal, then, to your own notions of true greatness, for a refutation of the common arguments against the Providence of God. We know not why
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that should be derogatory to the majesty of the Ruler of the universe, which, by the general confession, would add im- measurably to the majesty of one of the earth's potentates. And if we should rise in our admiration and applause of a statesman, or sovereign, in proportion as he showed himself capable of attend- ing to things comparatively petty and insignificant, without neglecting the grand and momentous, certainly we are bound to apply the same principle to our ISIaker — to own it, that is, essential to his greatness, that, whilst marshalling planets and ordering the motions of all worlds throughout the sweep of immen- sity, he should yet feed " the young ravens that call upon him," and number the very hairs of our heads : essential, hi short, that, whilst his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endureth throughout all generations, he should uphold all that fall, and raise up those that are bowed down.
We would add to this, that objections against the doctrine of God's providence are virtually objections against the great truths of creation. Are we to suppose that this or that ephemeral thing, the tiny tenant of a leaf or a bubble, is too insignificant to be observed by God ; and that it is absurd to think that the animated point, whose existence is a second, occupies any portion of those inspections which have to spread them- selves over the revolutions of planets, and the movements of angels 1 Then to what authorship are we to refer this ephemeral thing ? We subject it to the powers of the microscope, and are amaz- ed, perhaps, at observing its exquisite Bymmetrics and adornmenst, with what skill it has been fashioned, with what glory it has been clothed : but we find it said that it is dishonoring to God to suppose him careful or observant of this insect ; and then our difficulty is, who made, who created this insect ] I know not vvliat there can be too inconsiderable for the providence, if it have not been too inconsiderable for the creation, of God, Wliat it was not unworthy of God to form, it cannot be unworthy of God to preserve. Why declare any thing excluded by its insignificance from his watchfulness, which could not have been produced but by his power 1 Thus the universal Providence of God is little more than an inference from the truth
of his being the universal Creator. And men may speak of the littleness of this or that creature, and ask how we can believe that the animalcule, scarce per- ceptible as it floats by us on the evenincr breeze, is observed and cared for by that Being, inaccessible in his sublimity, who " sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grass- hoppers :" but we ask in reply, whether or no it be God who gave its substance and animation to this almost invisible atom ; and unless they can point out to us another creator, we shall hold that it must be every way worthy of God, that he should turn all the watchfulness of a guardian on the work of his own hands — for it cannot be more true, that, as uni- versal Creator, he has such power that his dominion endureth throughout all gene- rations, than that, as universal sustainer, he has such carefulness for whatever he hath formed, that he upholdeth them_ that fall, raiseth up all that are bowed down. But up to this point, we have been rather engaged with removing objections against the doctrine of God's providence, than with examining that doctrine, as it may be derived from our text. In re- gard to the doctrine itself, it is evident that nothing can happen in any spot of the universe which is not known to him who is emphatically the Omniscient. But it is far more than the inspection of an evei'-vigilant observer which God throws over the concerns of creation. It is not merely that nothing can occur without the knowledge of our Maker ; it is that nothing can occur, but by either his appointment or pei'mission. We say either his appointment or permission — for we know, that, whilst he ordereth all things, both in heaven and earth, there is much which he allows to be done, but which cannot be referred di- rectly to his authorship. It is in this sense that his Providence has to do with what is evil, overruling it so that it be- comes subservient to the march of his purposes. The power that is exerted over the waters of the ocean, is exerted also over the more boisterous waves of rebellion and crime ; and God saith to the one, as to the other, " hitherto shall ye come and no further." And as to actions and occurrences of an opposite description, such as are to be reckoned good and not evil — can it be denied that Providence extends to all these, and is
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THE GREATNESS AND CONDESCENSION OF GOD.
intimately concerned with their produc- tion and performance 1 It must ever be remembered that God is the first cause, and that upon the first all secondary de- pend. Wo are apt to fiarget this , though unquestionably a self-evident pi-inciple, and then we easily lose ourselves in a wide labyrinth, and are perplexed by the mviltiplicities of agency with which we seem surrounded.
But how beautifully simple does eve- ry thing appear, when we trace one hand in all that occurs. And this we are bound to do, if we would allow its full range to the doctrine of God's provi- dence. It is God whose energies are extended through earth, and sea, and air, causing those unnumbered and benefi- cial results which we ascribe to nature. It is God by whom all those contin- gencies which seem to us fortuitous and casual are directed, so that events, brought I'ound by what men count ac- cident, proceed from divine, and there- fore irreversible appointment. It is God by whom the human will is seci-etly inclined towards righteousness ; and thus there is not wrought a single action such as God can approve, to whose perform- ance God hath not instigated. It is God from whom come those many inter- positions, which every one has to remark in the course of a long life, when dangers are averted, fears dispersed, and sorrows removed. It is God, who, acting through the instrumentality of various, and, to all appearance, conflicting causes, keeps together the discordant elements of so- ciety, and prevents the whole frame- work of civil institutions from being rapidly dislocated. It is God — but why attempt to enumerate 1 Where is the creature which God does not sustain 1 where is the solitude which God does not fill 1 where is the want which God does not supply 1 where is the motion which God does not direct 1 where is the action which God does not overrule 1 If, according to the words of the Psalmist, we could ascend up to heaven, and make our bed in hell ; if we could take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea : in all this enormous travel, in this journey across the fields of unlimited space, we could never reach the loneliest spot at which Deity was not present as an upholder and guardian ; never find the lonely world, lo, nor the lonely scene on any
one of those globes with which immen- sity is strewed, which was not as stricly watched by the ever-wakeful eye of Om- niscience, as though every where else the universe were a void and this the alone home of life and intelligence. We have an assurance which nothing can shake, because derived from the confess- ed nature of Godhead, that, in all the greatness of his Almightiness, our INIaker is per])etually passing from star to star, and from system to system, that he may observe what is needed by every order of being, and minister supply — and yet not passing ; for he is always present, present as much at one moment as at an- other, and in one world as in another immeasuiably distant ; and covering with the wings of his providence what- ever he hath formed, and whatever he hath animated.
And if we bring our thoughts within narrower compass, and confine them to the world appointed for men's dwelling, it is a beautiful truth that there can- not be the creature so insignificant, the care so inconsiderable, the action so unim- portant, as to be overlooked by Him from whom we draw being. I know that it is not the monarch alone, at the head of his tribes and provinces, who is observed by the Almighty ; and that it is not only at some great crisis in life, that an indivi- dual becomes an object of the attention of his Maker. I know rather that the poorest, the meanest, the most despised, shares with the monarch the notice of the universal Protector; and that this notice is so unwearied and incessant, that when he goes to his daily toil or his daily prayer, when he lies down at night, or rises in the morning, or gathers his little ones to the scanty meal, the poor man is tender- ly watched by his God ; and he cannot weep the tear which God sees not, no: smile the smile which God notes not, noi breathe the wish which God hears not. The man indeed of exalted rank, on whom may depend the movements of an empire, is regarded, with a vigilance which never knows suspense, by Him " who giveth salvation unto kings; " and the Lord, " to whom belong the shields of the earth," bestows on this man what- ever wisdom he displays, and whatever strength he puts forth, and whatever suc- cess he attains. But the carefulness of Deity is in no sense engrossed by the distinguished individual ; but, just as the
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regards ■which are turned on this earth interfere not with those which pour themselves over far-off planets and dis- tant systems, so, whilst the chieftain is observed and attended with the assidu- ousness of what might seem an undivi- ded guardianship, the very beggar is as much the object of divine inspection and succor, as though, in the broad sweep of animated being, there were no other to need the sustaining arm of the Creator. And this is wliat we understand by the providence of the Almighty. We be- lieve of this providence that it extends itself to every household, and throws it- self round every individual, and takes part in every business, and is concerned with every sorrow, and accessory to every joy. We believe that it encir- cles equally the palace and the cottage ; guiding and upholding alike the poor and the rich ; ministering to the king in his councils, and to the merchant in his commerce, and to the scholar in his study, and to the laborer in his husbandry — so that, whatever my rank and occupation, at no moment am I withdrawn from the eye of Deity, in no lawful endeavor am I left to myself, in no secret anxiety have I only my own heart with which I may commune. Oh ! it were to take from God all that is most encouraging in his attributes and prerogatives, if you could throw doubt on this doctrine of his univer- sal providence. It is an august contem- plation, that of the Almighty as the ar- chitect of creation, filling the vast void with magnificent structures. We are presently confounded when bidden to meditate on the eternity of the Most High : for it is an overwhelming truth, that he who gave beginning to all besides could have had no beginning himself. And there are other characteristics and properties of Deity, whose very mention excites awe, and on which the best elo- quence is silence. But whilst the uni- versal providence of God is to the full as incomprehensible as aught else which appertains to Divinity, there is nothing in it but what commends itself to the warmest feeling of our nature. And we seem to have drawn a picture which is calculated equally to raise astonish- ment and delight, to produce the deep- est reverence and yet fullest confidence, when we have represented God as super- intending whatever occurs in his infinite domain — guiding the roll of every planet.
and the rush of every cataract, and tho gathering of every cloud, and the motion of every will — and when, in order that the delineation may have all that exquis- iteness which is only to be obtained from those home touches which assure us that we have ourselves an interest in what is so splendid and surprising, we add, that he is with the sick man on his pallet, and with the seaman in his danger, and with the widow in her agony. And what, after all, is this combination but that pre- sented by our text ] If I would exhibit God as so attending to what is mighty as not to ovei'look what is mean, what bet- ter can I do than declare him mustering around him the vast army of suns and constellations, and all the while hearken- ing to every cry which goes up from an afflicted creation — and is not this the very picture sketched by the psalmist, when, after the sublime ascription, " thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all ge- nerations," he adds the comforting words, " the Lord upholdeth all that fall, and lift- up all those that be bowed down ] "
We have only to add, that the doc- trine of a particular and universal Pro- vidence, on which we have insisted, is strictly derivable from the very nature of God. We are so accustomed to reck- on one thing great and another small, that when we ascend to contemplations of Deity, we are apt to forget that there is not to him that graduated scale which there must be to ourselves. It is to bring down God to the feebleness of our own estate, to suppose that what is great to us must be great to him, and that what is small to us must be small to him. I know and am persuaded, that dwelling as God does in inaccessible splendors, a world is to him an atom, and an atom is to him a world. He can know nothing of the human distinctions between groat and small — so that he is dishonored, not when all things are reckoned as alike subject to his inspec- tions, but when some things are deemed important enough, and others too insig- nificant, to come within the notice of his providence. If he concern himself with the fate of an empire, but not with the fall of a sparrow, he must be a being scarce removed from equality with our- selves ; for, if he have precisely the same scale by which to estimate import- ance, the range of his intelligence can
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be little widei' than that of our own. God is that mysterious being, to whom the only great thing is himself. And, therefore, when " the eyes of all wait upon " him, the seraph gains not atten- tion by his gaze of fire, and the insect loses it not through feebleness of vision — Archangel, and angel, and man, and beast, and fowl of the air, and fish of the sea, all draw equally the regards of him, who, counting nothing great but himself the Creator, can pass over, as small, no fraction of the creature. It is thus vir- tually the property of God, that he should care for every thing, and sustain every thing ; so that we should never behold a blade of grass springing up from the earth, nor hear a bird warble its wild music, nor see an infant slum- ber on its mother's breast, without a warm memory that it is through God, as a God of providence, that the fields are enamelled in due season, that every animated tribe receives its sustenance, and that the successive generations of mankind arise, and flourish, and possess the earth. And never should we think of joy or sorrow, of things prosperous or adverse, of health or sickness, life or death, without devoutly believing that tlie times of every man are in the Al- mighty's hands ; that nothing happens but through the ordinance or permission of God ; and that the very same Prov- idence which guides the marchings of stars, and regulates the convulsions of empires, is lending at the couch of the afflicted, curtaining the sleep, and watch- ing the toil, of the earth's remotest families.
We can only desire and pray, in con- clusion, that this great truth might es- tablish itself in all our hearts. Then would all undue anxieties be dismissed, our plans be those of prudence, our en- ergies be rightly directed and strenu- ously employed, disappointments would be avoided, and hope would never make ashamed ; for we should leave every thing, small as well as great, in the hands of Him who cannot be perplexed by multiplicity, nor overpowered by magnitude ; and the result would be that we should enjoy a serenity, no more to be broken by those little cares which perpetually wrinkle the surface, than by those fierce storms which threaten the complete shipwreck of peace.
And forasmuch as we have spoken of
Redemption as well as of Providence, and are now telling you of security and serenity, suffer that we remind you of the simile by which St. Paul has repre- sented christian hope : " Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the vail." The anchor is cast " within the vail," whither CSrist the forerunner is gone before. I- .id if hope be fixed upon Christ, the Rock of Ages, a rock rent, if we may use the ex- pression, on purpose that there might be a holding-place for the anchors of a per- ishing world, it may well come to pass that we enjoy a calm, as we journey through life, and draw near the grave. But since " other foundation can no man lay than that is laid," if our anchor rest not on this Rock, where is our hope, where our peacefulness ? I know of a coming tempest — and would to God that the younger part, more especially, of this audience, might be stirred by its approach to repentance and righteous- ness ! I know of a coming tempest, with which the Almighty shall shake terribly the earth ; the sea and the waves roaring, and the stars falling from the heavens. Then shall there be a thou- sand shipwrecks, and immensity be strewed with the fragments of a strand- ed navy. Then shall vessel upon ves- sel, laden with reason, and high intelli- gence, and noble faculty, be drifted to and fro, shattered and dismantled, and at last thrown on the shore as fuel for the burning. But there are ships which shall not founder in this battle and dis- solution of the elements. There are ships which shall be in no peril whilst this, the last hurricane which is to sweep our creation, confounds eaith, and sea, and sky ; but which — when the fury is overpast and the light of a morning which is to know no night, breaks glori- ously forth — shall be found upon crystal and tranquil waters, resting beautifully on their shadows. These are those which have been anchored upon Christ. These are those — and may none refuse to join the number — who have trusted themselves to the Mediator, who hum- bled himself that he might lift up all those that are bowed down ; and who have therefore interest in every prom- ise made by Him, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose domin- ion endureth throughout all generations.
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SERMON II.
THE TERMINATION OF THE MEDIATORIAL KINGDOM.
And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under hira, that God may be all in all." — 1 Corinthians, xv. 28.
In our last discourse we spoke of an everlasting kingdom, and of a dominion which endureth throughout all genera- tions. It will be of a kingdom which must terminate, though it appertain to a di- vine person, that we shall have to speak in expounding the words of our text.
There are two great truths presented by this verse and its context, each de- serving attentive examination — the one, that Christ is now vested with a kingly authority which he must hereafter re- sign ; the other, that, as a consequence on this resignation, God himself will be- come all in all to the universe. We pr'^oeed at once to the consideration of these truths ; and begin by observing the importance of carefully distinguish- ing between what the Scriptures affirm of the attributes, and what of the offi- ces, of the persons in the Trinity. In regard of the attributes, you will find that the employed language marks per- fect equality ; the Father, Son, and Spir- it, being alike spoken of as Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent. But in regard of the offices, there can be no dispute that the language indicates inequality, and that both the Son and Spirit are represented as inferior to the Father. This may readily be accounted for from the nature of the plan of re- demption. This plan demanded that the Son should humble himself, and assume our nature ; and that the Spirit should condescend to be sent as a renovating agent ; whilst the Father was to remain in the sublimity and happiness of God- head. And if such plan were under- taken and carried through, it seems una- voidable, that in speaking of its several
parts, the Son and the Spirit should be occasionally described as inferior to the Fathei-. The offices being subordinate, the holders of those offices, though naturally equal, must sometimes be ex- hibited as though one wei-e superior to the others. At one time they may be spoken of with reference to their attri- butes, and then the language will mark perfect equality ; at another, with re- ference to their offices, and then it will indicate a relative inferiority.
And it is only by thus distinguishing between the attributes and the offices,, that we can satisfactorily explain our text and its context. The apostle expressly declares of Christ, that he is to deliver up his kingdom to the Father, and tO' become himself subject to the Father, And the question naturally proposes itself, how are statements such as these' to be reconciled with other portions of scripture, which speak of Christ as aui everlasting King, and declare his domin- ion to be that which shall not be destroy- ed ] There is no difficulty in reconciling these apparently conflicting assertions,, if we consider Christ as spoken of in the one case as God, in the other as Media- tor. If we believe him to be God, we know that he must be, in the largest sense. Sovereign of the universe, and' that he can no more give up his domin- ion than change his nature. And theni if we regard him as undertaking the- office of Mediator between God and man,, we must admit the hkelihood that he- would be invested, as holding this office,, with an authority not necessarily perma- nent, which would last indeed as long, as the office, but cease if there ever came: 19
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a period when the oflRcc would itself be abolished. So that there is ho cause for surprise, nothing which should go to the persuading us tliat Christ is not God, if we find the Son described as surrendering his kingdom : we have only to suppose him then spoken of as Media- tor, and to examine whether there be not a mediatorial kingdom, which, com- mitted to Christ, has at length to be re- signed.
And you cannot be acquainted with the scheme of our Redemption, and not i know that the office of Mediator war- rants our supposing a kingdom which will be finally surrendered. The grand design of Redemption has all along been the exterminating evil from the universe, and the restoring harmony throughout God's disorganized empire. We know that God made every thing good, and that the creation, whether animate or inanimate, as it rose from his hands, presented no trace of imperfection or pollution. But evil mysteriously gained entrance, and, originating in heaven, spread rapidly to earth. And hence- forwards it was the main purpose of the Almighty to counteract evil, to obliterate the stains from his workmanship, and to reinstate and confirm the universe in its original purity. To effect this purpose, his own Son, equal to himself in all the attributes of Godhead, undertook to as- sume human nature; and to accomplish, in working out the reconciliation of an alienated tribe, results which should ex- tend themselves to every department of creation. He was not indeed fully and visibly invested with the kingly office, until after his death and resurrection ; for then it was that he declared to his dis- ciples, '• all power is given unto me in heaven and earth." Nevertheless the Me- diatorial Kingdom had commenced with the commencement of human guilt and misery. For, so soon as man rebelled, Christ interfered on his behalf, and as- sumed the office of his surety and deliv- erer. He undertook the combat with the powers of evil, and fought his first battle. And afterwards all Gf)d's inter- course with the world was cairied on through the Mediator — Christ appearing in human form to patriarchs and saints, and superintending the concerns of our race with distinct reference to the good of his church.
But when, through death, he had de-
stroyed " him that had the power of death, " the Mediator became emphati- cally a king. He " ascended up on high, and led caj)tivity captive," in that very nature in which he had " borne our griefs and canied our sorrows." He sat down at the right hand of God the very person that had been made a curse for us ; and there was " given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth." And ever since he hath been " head over all things to the church ;" and God has so delega- ted his power to the Mediator, that this Mediator has " the keys of hell and of death," and so rules human affairs as to make way for a grand consummation which creation yet expects. It is cer- tainly the representation of Scripture, that Christ has been exalted to a throne, in recompense of his humiliation and suffering; and that, seated on this throne, he governs all things in heaven and earth. And we call this throne the me- diatorial throne, because it was only aa Mediator that Christ could be exalted because, possessing essentially all powei as God, it could only be as God-man that he was vested with dominion. " He must reign," saith St. Paul, " until he hath put all enemies under his feet." The great object for which the kingdom has been erected, is, that he who occu- pies the throne may subdue those princi- palities and powers which have set them- selves against the government of God. Already have vast advances been made to- wards the subjugation. But the kingdoms of the world have not yet become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Chnst. Sin still reigns, and death still reigns, and only an inconsiderable fraction of the hu- man ])opulation bow to the sceptre of Je- sus. But we are taught to expect a tho- rough and stupendous change. We know from prophecy that a time appioaches when the whole world shall be evangeliz- ed ; when there shall not be the tribe, no, nor the individual upon earth, who fiiils to love and reverence the Mediator. Christ hath yet to set up his kingdom on the wreck of all human sovereignty, and so to display himself that he shall be uni- versally adored as " King of kings and Lord of lords."
And when this noble result is brought round, and the whole globe mantled with
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•righteousness, there will yet remain mucli to be done ere the mediatorial work IS complete. The throne must set for judgment; the ena< tments of a retribu- tive economy take effect ; the dead be raised, and all men receive the things done in the body. Then will evil be finally expelled from the universe, and God may again look forth on his unlim- ited emi)irc, and declare it not defiled by a solitary stain. Then will be " the restitution of all things." Then will it be evident that the power committed to Christ has accomplished the great ends for which it was entrusted, the overthrow of Satan, the destruction of death, and the extirpation of unrighteousness. And if it be the declaration of Scripture that the Mediator shall thus at length master evil under its every form, and in its every consequence, A\ill not this Mediator final- ly prove himself a king — demonstrating not only the possession of sovereignty, but the employment of it to those illus- trious purposes which were proposed by God from the foundati<m of the world 1 Yes, we can say with St. Paul, " we see not yet all things put under him." But we see enough to assure us that " him hath God excited as a Prince and a Savior." We see enough, and we know enough, to be persuaded, that there is kingdom within kingdom ; and that, whilst God is still the universal Monarch, the Omnipo- tent who " telleth the number of the stars," and without whom not even a sparrow falls, the Mediator superintends and regulates the affairs of his church, and orders, with absolute sway, whatever respects the final establishment of right- eousness through creation. And there- fore are we also pei-suaded, on the tes- timony which cannot deceive, that this Mediator shall reign till he hath brought into subjection every adversary of God ; and that at last — death itself being swal- lowed up in victory — the universe, purg- ed from all pollution, and glowing with a richer than its pristine beauty, shall be the evidence that there hath indeed been a mediatorial kingdom, and that nothing could withstand the Mediator's sovereignty.
Now it has been our object, up to this point of our discourse, to prove to you, on scriptural authority, that the Mediator is a king, and that Christ, as God-man, is invested with a dominion not to be confounded with that which
belongs to him as God. You are now therefore prepared for the question, whether Christ have not a kingdom which must be ultimately resigned. We think it evident that, as Mediator, Christ has certain functions to discharge, which, from their very nature, cannot be eter- nal. AVhen the last of God's elect fam- ily shall have been gathered in, there will be none to need the blood of sprink- ling, none to require the intercession of " an advocate with the Father." And. when the last enemy, which is death, shall have been destroyed, that great 25urpose of the Almighty — the conquest of Satan, and the extirpation of evil, will be accomplished ; so that there will be no more battles for the Mediator to fight, no more adversaries to subdue. And thus, if we have rightly described the mediatorial kingdom, there is to come a time when it will be no longer necessary ; when, every object for which it was erected having been fully and finally at- tained, and no possibility existing that evil may re-enter the universe, this king- dom may be expected to cease.
And this is the great consummation which wo are taught by our text and its context to expect. We may not be able to explain its details, but the out- lines are sketched with boldness and precision. There has been committed to Christ not as God, but as God-man, a kingdom which, though small in its be- ginning, shall at length supersede every other. The designs proposed in the erection of this kingdom, are th^ salva- tion of man and the glory of God, in .''e thorough extirj)ation of evil from thv universe. These designs will be fully accomplished at the general judgment; and then, the ends for which the king- dom was erected having been answered, the kingdom itself is to terminate. Then shall the Son of Man, having " put down all rule and all authority and power," lay aside the sceptre of majesty, and take openly a place subordinate to Deity. Then shall all that sovereignty which, for magnificent but temporary purposes, has been wielded by and through the humanity of Christ, pass again to the Godhead whence it was derived. Then shall the Creator, acting no longer through the instrumentality of a media- tor, assume visibly, amid the worship- pings of the whole intelligent creation, the dominion over his infinite and now
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purified empire, and administer its every concern without the intervention of one " found in fashion as a man." And then, though as head of his church, Christ, in human nature, may always retain a special power over his people, and though, as essentially divine, he must at all times be equally the omnipotent, there will necessarily be such a change in the visible government of the universe, that the Son shall seem to surrender all kingly authority ; to descend from his throne, having made his enemies his footstool, and take his station amongst those who obey rather than rule ; and thus shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, " the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him ;" and God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, " God shall hence- forwards be all in all."
Now it is upon this latter expression, indicative as it is of what we may call the universal diffusion of Deity, that we design to employ the remainder of our time. We wish to examine into the truths involved in the assertion, that God is to be finally all in all. It is an asser- tion which, the more it is pondered, the more august and comprehenaive will it appear. You may remember that the same expression is used of Christ in the Epistle to the Colossians — " Christ is all and in all." There is no disagree- ment between the assertions. In the Epistle to the Colossians St. Paul speaks of what takes place under the mediato- rial kingdom ; whereas in that to the Corinthians, he describes what will oc- cur when that kingdom shall have termi- nated. At present, whatever in the di- vine govenment has reference to this earth and its inhabitants, is not transact- ed immediately by God, but mediately through an Intercessor, so that Christ is all in all. But hereafter, the mediatorial office finally ceasing, the administration, we are assured, will be immediately with God, and therefore will God be all in all.
We learn then from the expression in question, however unable we may be to explain the amazing transition, that there is to be a removal f)f the apparatus constructed for allowing us communi- cations with Godhead ; and that we shall not need those offices of an Intercessor, without which there could now be no ac- cess to our Maker. There is something ve-
ry grand and animating in this announce- ment. If we were unfallen creatures, we should need no Mediator. W^e might, as did Adam, approach at once the Crea- tor, and, though awed by his majesty, liave no fears as to our reception, and ex- perience no repulse. And therefore, whilst we heartily thank God for the unspeakable gift of his Son, we cannot but feel, that, so long as we have no ac- cess to him except through a Mediator, we have not altogether recovered our forfeited privileges. The mediatorial office, independently on which we must have been everlastingly outcasts, is evi- dence, throughout the whole of its con- tinuance, that the human race does not yet occupy the place whence it fell. But with the termination of this office shall be the admission of man into all the privileges of direct access to his Maker. Then shall he see face to face ; then shall he know even as also he is known. There are yet, and there must be, whilst God's dealings with humanity are car- ried on through a Mediator, separating distances between our race and the Creator, which exist not in regard of other orders of being. But the descent of the Son from the throne, to which he was exalted in recompense of his suffer- ings, shall be the unfolding to man the presence-chamber in which Deity un- veils his effulgence. In ceasing to have a Mediator, the last barrier is taken down ; and man, who had thrown him- self to an unmeasured distance from God, passes into those direct associations with Him " that inhabiteth eternity," which can be granted to none but those who never fell, or who, having fallen, have been recovered from every consequence of apostacy.
And therefore, it is not that we depre- ciate, or undervalue, the blessedness of that condition in which Christ is all in all to his church. We cannot compute this blessedness, and we feel that the best praises fall far short of its deserts ; and yet we can believe of this blessedness, that it is only preparatory to a richer and a higher. Whilst overwhelmed with the consciousness that I owe every thing to a Mediator, I can yet feel that this Metliator must lay aside his office as no longer necessary, ere I can stand in that relationship to Deity, and possess that freedom of approach, which belong to the loftiest and holiest in creation.
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To tell me that I should need a Media- tor through eternity, were to tell me that I should be in danger of death, and at a distance from God. And, therefore, in informing me of the extinction of that sovereignty by which alone I can be res- cued, you inform me of the restoration of all which Adam lost, and of the pla- cing humankind on equality with angels. It is not then, we a'j:ain say, that we are insensible to benefits, overpassing all thought, which we derive from the me- diatorial kingdom ; it is only because we know that this kingdom is but introduc- tory to another, and that the perfection of happiness must require our admission into direct intercourse with our Maker — it is only on these accounts that we anticipate with delight the giving up of the kingdom to the Father, and associ- ate whatever is most gladdening and glorious with the truth, that God, rather than Christ, shall be all in all through eternity.
But there are other thoughts suggested by the fact, that God himself shall be all in all. We have hitherto considered the expression as simply denoting that men will no longer approach God through a Mediator, and that their hap- piness will be vastly augmented by their obtaining the privilege of direct access. There is, however, no reason for suppos- ing that the human race alone will be affected by the resignation of the media- torial kingdom. We may not believe that it i'S only over ourselves that Christ Jesus has been invested with sovereign- ty. It would rather appear, since all power has been given him in heaven and earth, that the mediatorial kingdom embraces different worlds, and different orders of intelligence ; and that the chief aflairs of the universe are administered by Christ in his glorified humanity. It is therefore possible that even unto an- gels the Godhead does not now imme- diately manifest itself; but that these glorious creatures are governed, like ourselves, through the instrumentality of the Mediator. Hence it will be a great transition to the whole intelligent creation, and not merely to an inconsid- erable fraction, when the Son shall give up the kingdom to the Father. It will be the visible enthronement of Deity. The Creator will come forth from his sublime solitude, and assume the sceptre of his boundless empire. It will be a
new and overwhelming manifestation of Divinity — another fold of the veil, which must always hang between the created and the uncreated, will have been re- moved ; and the thousand times ten thousand splints which throng immensity, shall behold with a clear vision, and know with an ampler knowledge, the Eternal One at whose word they rose into being.
And it is not, we think, possible to give a finer description of universal harmony and happiness, than is contained in the sentence, " God all in all," when suppos- ed to have reference to every rank in creation. Let us consider for a moment what the sentence implies. It implies that there shall be but one mind, and that the Divine mind, throughout the uni- verse. Every creature shall be so actuat- ed by Deity, that the Creator shall have only to will, and the whole mass of intel- ligent being will be conscious of the same wish, and the same purpose. It is not merely that every creature will be under the government of the Creator, as a subject is under that of his prince. It is not merely that to every command of Deity there will be yielded an instant and cheerful obedience, in every depart- ment, and by every inhabitant of the uni- verse. It is more than all this. It is that there shall be such fibres of associa- tion between the Creator and the crea- tures— God shall be so wound up, if the expression be lawful, with all intelligent being — that every other will shall move simultaneously with the divine, and the resolve of Deity be instantly felt as one mighty impulse pervading the vast ex- pansion of mind. God all in all — it is that from the highest oi'der to the lowest, archangel, and angel, and man, and prin- cipality, and power, there shall be but one desire, one object ; so that to every motion of the eternal Spirit there will be a corresponding in each element of the intellectual creation, as though there were throughout but one soul, one ani- mating, actuating, energizing principle. God all in all. I know not how to de- scribe the harmony which the expicssion seems to indicate. This gathering of the Creator into every creature ; this mak- ing each mind in the world of spirit a sort of centre of Deity, from whicli flow the high decisions of divine sovereignty, so that, in all its amplitude, the intellec- tual creation seems to witness that God
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is equally every where, and serves as one grand instrument which, at every pcjint and in every spring, is instinct wiJi the very thought of Him who " ordereth all things in heaven and earth " — oh, this im- measurably transcends the mere reduc- tion of all systems, and all beings, into a deUghted and uniform obedience. This is making God more than the univei'sal Ruler : it is making him the universal Actuator. And you might tell me of tribe upon tribe of magnificent crea- tures, waiting to execute the command- ments of God; you might delineate the very tenant of every spot in immensity, bowing to one sceptre, and burning with one desire, and living for one end — but in- deed the most labored and high-wrouglit desciiption of the universal prevalence of concord, yields unspeakably to the sim- ple announcement, that there shall be but one spirit, one jDulse, through crea- tion ; and thought itself is distanced, when we hear, that after the Son shall have surrendered his kingdom to the Fa- ther, God himself shall be all in all to the universe.
But if the expression mark the harmo- ny, it marks also the happiness of eternity. It is undeniable, that, even Avhilst on earth, we find things more beautiful and precious in proportion as we are accus- tomed to find God in them, to view them as gifts, and to love them for the sake of the giver. It is not the poet, nor the naturalist, who has the richest enjoyment when surveying the landscape, or trac- ing the manifestations of creative power and contrivance. It is the christian, who recognizes a Father's hand in the glo- rious development of mountain and val- ley, and discovers the loving-kindness of an ever- watchful guardian in each exam- ple of the adaptation of the earth to its inhabitants. No man has such pleasure in any of those objects which answer to the various affections of his nature, as the man who is accustomed to the seeing God in them. And then only is the creature loved, not merely with a lawful, but with an elevated and ennobling love, when regarded as bestowed on us by the Creator, and wearing the impress of the benevolence of Deity.
What will it be when God shall be literally all in all ] It were little to tell us, that, admitted into the heavenly Je- rusalem, we should worship in a tem])Ie magnificent in architecture, and bow
down at a shrine, whence flashed the ef- fulgence and issued the voice of Jeho- vah. The mighty and overwhelming thing is, that, according to the vision of St. John, tliere shall be no temple there ; but that so actually shall God be all, that Deity itself will be our sanctuary, and our adorations be rendered in the sublime recesses of the Omnipotent him- self. It were little to assure us that the everlasting dwelling-place of the saints shall be irradiated by luminaries a thou- sand-fold more splendid and gorgeous than walk the fii'mament of a fallen crea- tion. The animated intelligence is, that there shall be " no need of the sun, nei- ther of the moon ; " that God shall be all, and the shinings of Divinity light up the scenery over which we shall expatiate.
And if we think on future intercourse with beings of our own race, or of lof- tier ranks, then only are the anticipa- tions rapturous and inspiriting, when Deity seems blended with every associ- ation. I know how frequently, when death has made an inroad on a house- hold, the thoughts of survivors follow the buried one into the invisible state ; and with what lervency and fondness they dwell on re-union in a world where part- ings are unknown. And never let a syl- lable be breathed which would throw suspicion on a tenet commending itself so exquisitely to the best sympathies of our nature, or take away from mourners' the consolatory belief, that in the land of the promised inheritance, the parent shall know the child whom he followed heart-broken to the grave, and the child the parent who left liim in all the lone- liness of orphanage, and the husband the wife, or the wife the husband, whose removal threw a blight on all the happi- ness of home. But how can it come to pass that there will be any thing like the i-enewal of human associations, and yet future happiness be of that exalted and unearthly character, which has nothing common with the contracted feelings here engaged by a solitary family 1 We reply at once that God is to be all in all. The child may be again loved and em- braced. But the emotions will have none of that selfishness into which the purest and deepest of our feelings may now bo too much resolved : it will be God that the child loves in the parent, and it will be God that the parent loves in the child ; and the s:ladness with which the heart of
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each swells, as they recognize one the other in the celestial cit)% will be a glad- ness of which Deity is the spring, a glad- ness of which Deity is the object.
Thus shall it be also in regard of every element which can be supposed to enter into future happiness. It is certain, that, if God be all in all, there will be excited in us no wish which we shall be required to repress, none which shall not be grat- ified so soon as formed. Having God in ourselves, we shall have capacities of en- joyment immeasurably larger than at pre- sent ; having God in all around us, we shall find every where material of enjoy- ment commensurate with our amplified powers. Let us put from us confused and indeterminate notions of happiness, and the simple description, that God shall be all in all, sets before us the vary per- fection of felicity. The only sound de- finition of happiness is that every faculty has its proper object. And we believe of man, that God endowed him with va- rious capacities, intending to be himself their supply. Man indeed i-evolted from God, and has ever since endeavored, though ever disappointed, to fill his ca- pacities with other objects than God. But may not God hereafter, having rec- tified the disorders of humanity, be him- self the object of our every faculty 1 I know not why we may not suppose that not only the works of God, which now manifest his qualities, but the qualities themselves, as they sub- sist without measure in the ever-living Creator, will become the immediate ob- jects of contemplation. " What an ob- ject," says Bishop Butler, " is the uni- verse to a creature, if there be a creature who can comprehend its system. But it must be an infinitely higher exercise of the understanding, to view the scheme of it in tliat mind which projected it, before its foundations were laid. And surely we have meaning to the woi'ds when we speak of going further, and viewing, not only this system in his mind, but the very wisdom, intelligence, and power from which it proceeded." And yet more, as the prelate goes on to argue. Wisdom, intelligence, and power, are not God, though God is an infinitely wise being, and intelligent, and powerful. So that to contemplate the effects of wisdom must be an inferior thing to the contem- plating wisdom in itself — for the cause must be always a higher object to the
mind than the effect — and the contem- plating wisdom in itself must be an in- ferior thing to the contcmjjlating the divine nature ; for wisdom is but an at- tribute of the nature, and not the nature itself.
Thus, at pi-esent, we make little or no approach towards knowing God as he is, because God hath not yet made himself all in all to his creatures. But let there once come this universal diffusion of Deity, and we may find in God himself the objects which answer to our matured and spiritualized faculties. We profess not io be competent to the understand- ing the mysterious change which is thus indicated as passing on the universe. But we can perceive it to be a change which^shall be full of glory, full of hap- piness. We shall be as sensible of the presence of God, as we now are of the presence of a friend, when he is stand- ing by us, and conversing with us. "And what will be the joy of heart which his presence will inspire good men with, when they shall have a sensation that he is the sustainer of their being, that they exist in him ; when they shall feel his influence cheering, and enlivening, and supporting their frame, in a manner of which we have now no conception ?" He will be, in a literal sense, their strength and their portion for ever.
Thus we look forward to the termina- tion of the mediatorial kingdom, as the event with which stands associated our reaching the summit of our felicity. There is then to be a removal of all that is now intermediate in our communica- tions with Deity, and the substitution of God himself for the objects which he has now adapted to the giving us dehght. God himself will be an object to our faculties ; God himself will be our hap- piness. And as we travel from one spot to another of the universe, and enter into companionship with different sec- tions of its rejoicing population, every where we shall carry Deity with us, and every where find Deity — not as now, when faith must all along do battle with sense, but in manifestations so im- mediate, so direct, so adapted to our faculties of perception, that we shall literally see God, and be in contact with God ; and oh, then, if thought recur to the days of probation, wiicn all that con- cerns us was administered through a Mediator, we shall feel that whatever is
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most illustrious in dignity, whatever most rapturous in enjoyment, was prom- ised in the prophetic announcement, that, when the Son shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father, God himself shall be all in all.
We can only add that it becomes us to examine whether we are now subjects of the mediatorial kingdom, or whether we are of those who will not that Christ should reign over them. If God is hereafter to be all in all, it behoves us to inquire what he is to us now ? Can we say with the Psalmist, " whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee V How vain must be our hope of entering into heaven, if we have no present delight in what are saifl to be its joys. A christian finds his happiness in holiness. And therefcjre, when he looks forward to heaven, it is the holi- ness of the scene, and association, on which he fastens as affording the happi- ness. He is not in love with an Arca- dian paradise, with the green pastures, and the flowing waters, and the minstrel- sy of many harpers. He is not dream- ing of a bright island, where he shall
meet buned kinsfolk, and renewing do- mestic chaiities, live human life again in all but its cares, and tears, and partings. " J3e ye holy, for I am holy " — this is the precept, attempted conformity to which is the business of a christian's life, perfect conformity to which shall be the blessedness of heaven. Let us there- fore take heed that we deceive not our- selves. The apostle speaks of " tasting the powers of the world to come," as though heaven were to begin on this side the grave. We may be enamored of heaven, because we think that " there the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." We may be en- chanted with the poetry of its descrip- tions, and fascinated by the brilliancy of its colorings, as the Evangelist John re- lates his visions, and sketches the scene- ry on which he was privileged to gaze. Bnt all this does not prove us on the high road to heaven. Again we say, that, if it be heaven towards which we journey, it will be holiness in which we delight : for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meet- ness for a world in which God is to be all in all for ever and for ever ]
SERMON III.
THE ADVANTAGES RESULTING FROM THE POSSESSION OF THE SCRIPTURES.*
** What advantage then hath the Jew t or what profit is there of circumcision 1 Much every way; chiefly becaUM that unto them were committed the oracles of God." — Romans m. 1, 2.
We think it unnecessary either to ex- amine the general argument with which St. Paul was engaged when he penned these words, or to interpret the passage
* A collection was made after this Sermon in tapport of tV<i Old Charity Schools.
with reference to the Jew rather than to ourselves. It is quite evident that the force of the verses is independent on the general argument, and must have been increased rather than diminished, as ad- ditions were made to the amount of Revelation. It was objected to the
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apostle that he represented Jew and Gentile as all along on the same level ; but he felt that the objection was re- moved by reminding his opponent that the Jew had, and the Gentile had not, the sacred Scriptures. He reckoned it sufficient proof that an unmeasured ad- vantage had Iain with the chosen people, that " unto them had been committed the oracles of God."
This is a high testimony to the worth of the Bible, and deserves to be exam- ined with the greatest attention. Of course, if the possession of but a few inspired writings gave the Jew a vast superiority over the Gentile, the posses- sion of a volume, containing the whole of revelation, must be attended with yet greater privileges. It should, however, be observed, that the apostle seems to refer to more than the mere possession of the Bible; the expression which he employs marks out the Jews as the de- pository of revelation. " Chiefly be- cause that unto them were committed, or intrusted, the oracles of God," There may be here an intimation, that those who have the Bible are to be resrarded as
o
stewards, just as are those who have large earthly possessions. If this be cor- rect, there are two points of view under which it will be our business to endeavor to set before you the advantageousness of possessing God's oracles. We must show that the Bible is profitable to a nation, in the first place, because that nation may be improved by its contents ; in the second place, because that nation may impart them to others.
Now it may appear so trite and ac- knowledged a truth, that a people is advantaged by possessing the Bible, that it were but wasting time to spend much on its exhibition. We are not, however, prepared to admit that the worth of the Bible is generally allowed, or adequately estimated ; so that, even before such an audience as the present, we would enlarge on the advantages which result to a nation from possessing God's oracles.
We take at first the lowest ground ; for many who acknowledge gratefully the worth of Holy Writ, when man is viewed relatively to an after state of being, seem little conscious of the bless- ings derived from it, when he is regard- ed merely in reference to this earth. It were no over-bold opinion, that, if the
Bible were not the word of God, and could be proved to be not the word of God, it would nevertheless be the most precious of books, and do immeasurably more for a land, than the finest produc- tions of literature and philosophy. We always recur with gi-eat delight to the testimony of a deist, who, after publicly laboring to disprove Christianity, and to bring Scripture into contempt as a for- gery, was found instructing his child from the pages of the New Testament. When taxed with the flagrant inconsistency, his only reply was, that it was ne- cessary to teach the child morality, and that nowhere was there to be found such morality as in the Bible. We thank the deist for the confession. Whatever our scorn of a man who could be guilty of so foul a dishonesty, seek- ing to sweep from the earth a volume to which, all the while, himself recurred for the principles of education, we thank him for his testimony, that the morality of Scripture is a morality not elsewhere to be found ; so that, if there were no Bible, there would be comparatively no source of instruction in duties and virtue, whose neglect and decline would dislo- cate the happiness of human society. The deist was right. Deny or disprove the divine origin of Scripture, and never- theless you must keep the volume as a kind of text-book of morality, if indeed you would not wish the banishment from our homes of all that is lovely and sacred, and the bi-eaking up, through the lawless- ness of ungovernable passions, of the quiet and the beauty which are yet round our families.
It is a mighty benefit, invariably pro- duced where the Bible makes way — the heightened tone of morals, and the in- troduction of principles essential to the stabilty of government, and the well- being of households. We admit indeed that this benefit could be but partially wrought, if the Bible were received as only a human composition. We do not exactly see how the deist was to enforce on his child the practice of what Scripture enjoined, if he denied to that Scri])ture the authority drawn from the being God's word. Yet it is not to be doubted, that even where there is but little regard to the divine origin of the Bible, the book wields no inconsiderable sway ; so that numbers, who care nothing for it as a revelation from God, are unconsciously 20
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influenced by il in every depai'tment of conduct. The deist, though he re- ject revelation, and treat it as a fable, is not what he would have been, had there been no revelation. As a member of society, he has been fashioned and cast into the mould of the Bible, how- ever veliement in his wish to exterminate the Bible. It is because the Bible has gained footing in the land where he dwells, and drawn a new boundary-line between what is base and what honor- able, what unworthy of rational beings and what excellent and of good report, that he has learned to prize virtues and shun vices which respectively promote and impede the happiness of families and the greatness of communities. He is therefore the ungracious spectacle of a being elevated by that which he de- rides, ennobled by that on which he throws ridicule, and indebted for all on which he prides himself to that which he pronounces unworthy his regard.
And if it be thus certain — certain on the confession of its enemies — that a pure and high morality is to be gather- ed only from the pages of the Bible, what an advantage is there in the posses- sion of the Scriptures, even if death were the termination of human existence. Take away the Bible from a nation, so that there should no longer be the ex- hibition and inculcation of its precepts, and there would be a gradual, yea, and a rapid, introduction of false principles and spurious theories, which would pave the way for a total degeneracy of man- ners. You would quickly find that hon- esty and integrity were not held in their former repute, but had given place to fraud and extortion ; that there was an universal setting up of an idol of selfish- ness, before which all that is generous, and disinterested, and philanthropic, would be forced to dohomagfe ; that there was attached little or none of that sacred- ness to domestic relationships which had heretofore been the chief charm of fam- ilies ; and that there was departing from our institutions all that is glorious in lib- erty, and from our firesides all that gives them their attractiveness. Whatever had been introduced and matui-ed by the operations of Christianity, would, in pro- cess of time, decay and disappear, were those operations suspended ; and since we can confidently trace to the influences of true religion, our advancement in all
that concerns the public security, and the private tranquillity ; we can with equal confidence aflirm our speedy relapse, it these influences were suddenly with- drawn. And therefore do we feel that we give no exaggerated statement, when we describe the possession of the Bible as the possession of a talisman, by which the worst forms of evil are avert- ed from a land, and the best and purest blessings shrined in its households.
We are never afraid to ascribe to the prevalence of true religion, tbat unmea- sured superiority in all the dignities and decencies of life, which distinguish a christian nation as compared with a hea- then. We ascribe it to nothing but ac- quaintance with the revealed will of God, that those kingdoms of the earth, which bow at the name of Jesus, have vastly outstripped in civilization every other, whether ancient or modern, which may be designated pagan and idolatrous. If you search for the full developement of the principles of civil liberty, for the se- curity of property, for an evenhanded justice, for the rebuke of gross vices, for the cultivation of social virtues, and for the diffusion of a generous care of the suflei-ing, you must turn to lands where the cross has been erected — as thouarh Christianity were identified with what is fine in policy, lofty in morals, and per- manent in greatness. Yea, as though the Bible were a mighty volume, contain- ing whatever is requisite for correcting the disorders of states and cementing the happiness of families, you find that the causing it to be received and read by a people, is tantamount to the producing a thorough revolution — a revolution in- cluding equally the palace and the cot- tage— so that every rank in society, as though there had been waved over it the wand of the magician, is mysteriously elevated, and furnished with new ele- ments of dignity and comfort. Who then will refuse to confess, that, even if regard were had to nothing beyond the present narrow scene, there is no gift comparable to that of the Bible ; and that consequently, though a nation might throw away, as did the Jewish, the greatest of their privileges, and fail to grasp the immortality set before them in the revelation intrusted to their keeping, there would yet be proof enough of their having possessed a vast advantage over others, in the fact adduced by St. Paul
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ii. our text, that " unto them ;iad been committed the oracles of God 1 "
We would further observe that we stand indebted to the Bible for much of intellectual as well as moral advantage. Indeed the two go together. Where there is great moral, there will commonly be gi-eat mental degradation ; and the in- tellect has no fair play, whilst the man is under the dominion of vice. It is cer- tainly to be observed, that, in becoming a religious man, an individual seems to gain a wider comprehension, and a sound- er- judgment ; as though, in turning to God, he had sprung to a higher grade in intelligence. It would mark a weak, or at least an uninformed mind, to look with contempt on the Bible, as though beneath the notice of a man of high power and pursuit. He who is not spiritually, will be intellectually benefited by the study of Scripture ; and we would match the sacred volume against every other, when the object proposed in the perusal is the strengthening the understanding by con- tact with lofty truth, or refining the taste by acquaintance with exquiste beauty. And of course the intellectual benefit is greatly heightened, if accompanied by a spiritual. Man becomes in the largest sense " a new creature," when you once waken the dormant immortality. It is not of course, that there is communicat- ed any fresh set of mental powers ; but there is removed all that weight and op- pression which ignorance and vicious- ness lay upon the brain. And what is true of an individual is true, in its de- gree, of a nation ; the diffusion of chris- tian knowledge being always attended by diffusion of correct views in other de- partments of truth, so that, in proportion as a peasantry is christianized, you will find it more inquiring and intelligent.
And there is no cause for surprise in the fact, that intellectual benefits are con- fened by the Bible. It is to be remem- bered that we are indebted to the Bible for all our knowledge of the early history of the world, of the creation of man, and of his first condition and actions. Re- move tiie Bible, and we are left to con- jecture and fable, and to that enfeebling of the understanding which error almost necessarily produces. Havintr no au- thentic account of the origin of all things, we should bewilder ourselves with theo- ries which would hamper our every in- quiiy ; and the mind, perplexed and baf-
fled at the outset, would never expanu freely in its after investigations. We should have confused apprehensions of some unknown powers on which we de- pended, peopling the heavens with va- rious deities, and subjecting ourselves to the tyrannies of superstition. And it is scarcely to be disputed, that there is, in every respect, a debasing tendency in superstition ; and that, if we imagined the universe around us full of rival and an- tagonist gods, in place of knowing it un- der the dominion of one mighty First Cause, we should enter at a vast disad- vantage on the scrutiny of the wonders by which we are surrounded ; the intel- lect being clouded by the mists of moral darkness, and all nature overcast through want of knowledge of its author.
The astronomer may have been guid- ed, however unconsciously, by the Bible, as he has pushed his discoveries across the broad fields of space. Why is it that the chief secrets of nature have been penetrated only in christian times and in christian lands ; and that men, whose names are first in the roll on which science emblazons her achieve- ments, have been men on whom fell the rich light of revelation ? We pretend not to say that it was revelation which directly taught them how to trace the motions of stars, and laid open to their gaze mysteries which had heretofore baf- fled man's sagacity. But we believe, that, just because. their lot was cast in days, and in scenes, when and where the Bible had been received as God's word, their intellect had freer play than it would otherwise have had, and their mind went to its work with greater vig- or, and less impediment. We believe that he who sets himself to investigate the revolutions of planets, knowing tho- roughly beforehand who made those plan- ets and governs their motions, would be incalculably more likely to reach some great discovery, than another who starts in utter ignorance of the truths of crea- tion, and ascribes the planets to chance, or some unintelligible agency. And it is nothing against this opinion, that some who have been eminent by scientific dis- coveries, have been notorious for rejec- tion of Christianity and f»pposition to the Bible. Let them have been even athe- ists — they have been atheists, not in a land of atheists, but in a land of wor- shippers of the one true God ; and our
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conviction is, that, had they been atheists in a land of atheists, they would never have so signalized themselves by scien- tific discovery. It has been through liv- ing, as it were, in an atmosphere of truth, however they themselves have imbibed error, that they have gained that elasti- city of powers which has enabled them to rise into unexplored regions. They have not been ignorant of the ti'Uths of the Bible, however they may have re- pudiated the Bible ; and these truths have told on all their faculties, freeing them from trammels, and invigorating them for labor ; so that very possibly the eminence which they have reached, and where they rest with so much pride, would have been as inaccessible to them- selves as to the gifted inquirers of hea- then times, had not the despised Gos- pel pioneered the way, and the rejected Scriptures unfettered their understand- ings.
We are thus to the full as persuaded of the intellectual, as of the moral bene- fits produced by the Bible. We reck- on, that, in giving the inspired volume to a nation, you give it that which shall cause its mental powers to expand, as well as that which shall rectify existing disorders. And if you would account for the superiority of christian over hea- then lands in what is intellectually great, in philosojihy, and science, and the stretch and the grasp of knowledge, you may find the producing causes in the posses- sion of the Scriptures — yea, and men may come with all the bravery of a boastful erudition, and demand admira- tion of the might of the human mind, as it seems to subjugate the universe, count- ing the heavenly hosts, and tracking comets as they sweep along where the eye cannot follow ; but so well assured are we that it was revelation alone whose beams warmed what was dwarfish till it sprang into this vigor, that we explain the greater mental strength which a na- tion may display, on the principle " chief- ly that unto them have been committed the oracles of God."
But if we can thus make good the ad- vantageousness asserted in our text, when the reference is exclusively to the present scene of being, we shall have but little difficulty when we take higher ground. Is it nothing that a people may put from them the offer of immortality, and thus bring upon themselves at last a heavier
condemnation, than could have overtaken them, had they never heard the Gospel. It would be for the final advantage of the individual who dies in impenitence and infidelity, that his spirit should per- ish like that of the brutes ; but it will not, on this account, be contended that there was no blessing in his being born a man. In like manner, it cannot be argued, that there has been nothing profitable in the possession of the Scriptures, because the gift has been abused or neglected. AVe can say to those who as yet have drawn no spiritual benefit from the Bible, the oppoi'tunity is not gone ; the Scriptures may still be searched, and life-giving doc- trines derived from their statements. And is this no advantage ] Is it no ad- vantage, that salvation is brought within reach ; and does it nullify the advantage that men will not stretch forth the hand to lay hold ]
And even if the mass of a nation, pri- vileged with the Bible, have their por- tion at last with the unbelieving, it must not be forgotten, that there is in every age a remnant who trust in the Savior whom that Bible reveals. The blessings which result from the possession of the Scriptures are not to be computed from what appears on the surface of society. There is a quiet under-cuiTent of happi- ness, which is generally unobserved, but which greatly swells the amount of good to be traced to the Bible. You must go into families, and see how burdens are lightened, and afflictions mitigated, by the promises of holy writ. You must follow men into their retirements, and learn how they gather strength, from the study of the sacred volume, for discharg- ing the various duties of life. You must be with them in their struggles with poverty, and observe how contentment is engendeied by the prospect of riches which cannot fade away. You must be with them on their death-beds, and mark how the gloom of the opening grave is scattered by a hope which is " full of im- mortality." And you must be with them — if indeed the spirit could be ac- companied in its heavenward flight — as they enter the Divine presence, and prove, by taking possession of the inher- itance which the Bible offers to believers, that they " have not followed cunningly devised fables." The sum of happiness conferred by revelation can never be known until God shall have laid open all
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eeciels at the judgment. We must liave access to the history of every individual, from his childhood up to his entering his everlasting rest, ere we have the elements from which to compute what Christianity hath done for those who receive it into the heart. And if but one or two were gathered out from a people, as a result of conveying to that people the records of revelation, there would be, we may not doubt, such an amount of conferred benefit as would sufficiently prove the advantageousness of possessing the ora- cles of God.
It shall not be in vain that God hath sent the Bible to a nation, and caused the truths of Christianity to be published within its borders. There may be what approximates to a general disregard of the Scriptures, and an universal rejection of the offers of salvation. Yet God hath his hidden ones who are delighting great- ly in his testimonies. When Elijah com- plained that he stood alone in the service of his Maker, the answer of God was, " I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal." We are therefore, at the best, poorjudgesofthe way actually made by the Gospel, and of the influence which it wields, whilst we see nothing on all sides but a spreading degeneracy. When pro- fligacy and infidelity are at their height, there may be many a roof beneath which is offered humble prayer through a Me- diator, and many an eye which weeps in secret for dishonors done to God, and many a heart which beats high with ex- pectation of the land, "where the wick- ed cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Are we not then bound in all cases, when seeking full evidence that the Bible has been a blessing whereso- ever imparted, to refer to the close of the dispensation, when Christ shall separate the tares from the wheat 1 Then will it be told to the universe, how a despised and overlooked company were " filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory," by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Then will it be made manifest how the conso- lations of religion have pervaded many families, what anxieties they have sooth- ed, what tears they have dried, what hopes they have communicated. Then will it be seen, that, over and above the intellectual and moral advantages which the Scriptures have conferred on those who never took them as their guide for
eternity, spiritual advantages have been derived to others, who were stirred by their announcements from the lethargv of sin, and moved to flee for refuge to the cross of the Redeemer. Yea, and if it even came to pass that the great bulk of a people shrank away from the face of the Judge, beaten down by the conscious- ness that they had not trusted in him as the propitiation for their sins ; yet would the few who were lifting up their heads with joy, be witnesses that revelation was the best boon which God could bestow on a land — witnesses by the wrath which the Bible had taught them to escape, wit- nesses by the glory it had instructed, them to gain, that, in every case, and under all circumstances, it was a mighty advantage to a people, that " unto them had been committed the oracles of God." But we observed that the expression employed by the apostle, " chiefly be- cause that unto them were committed, or intrusted, the oracles of God," repi-esents the Jews as stewards who should have dispensed the Bible, and who might themselves have been profited through conveying it to others. We are all aware that special promises are made in the Scriptures to those who shall be instru- mental in turning many from darkness, and conveiting sinners from the error of their ways. We ordinarily apply these promises to individuals ; and we expect them to be made good to the zealous minister, and the self-denying missionary. Undoubtedly the application is just ; for we cannot question that those who have faithfully and successfully labored in winning souls to Christ, shall receive a portion of more than common brilliancy, when the Master comes to reckon with his servants. But we know not why these promises would not have been as applicable to communities as to individ- uals, had communities regarded God's oracles as a sacred deposit, and them- selves as stewards who must give an ac- count of their disti-ibution. The earth has never yet presented the grand spec- tacle of what might be called a missionary nation, a people who felt that the true religion was held in trust for the bene- fit of the world, and who concentered their energies on the being faithful in the stewardship. It cannot be said that the Jews did this, though, in spite of their frequent rebellions and lapses into idola- try, they were the leaven which prevent-
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ed the complete decomposition of the world, and the light which alone relieved the ponderous moral darkness. It can- not be said that we ourselves have done this, whatever the efforts which have of late years been made for translating the Scriptures into the various languages, and conveying them to the various districts of the globe. There has been nothing which has approached to a national recog- nition, and a national acting on the re- cognition, that God hath made this land the depository of his word, in order that we might employ those resources, which an unlimited commerce places at our dis- posal, in diffusing that word over the en- ormous wastes of paganism. It is not by the endeavors and actions of private in- dividuals that the national stewardship can be faithfully discharged. A nation must act through its governors : and then only would the nation prove its sense, that the oracles of God had been depos- ited with it in order to distribution through the world, when its governors made the conversion of the heathen one great object for which they legislated and labored.
In this manner would a christian state occupy the same position amongst na- tions, as an affluent christian individual amongst the parishes and hamlets of a distressed neighborhood. Just as the in- dividual counts it his business and priv- ilege, to communicate of his temporal abundance to the inmates of surrounding cottages, so would the state count it its business and privilege to communicate of its spiritual abundance to the ignorant in surrounding territories. And however little ground there may be for a hope that any christian state will stej) forward, and take to itself the missionary charac- ter, we can be sure that the absence of all national effort to disseminate revela- tion is offensive in Crod's sight, and must sooner or later provoke retribution. The Bible is not given to a people exclu- sively for their own use. It is the food of tlie whole world, the volume from which whatever is human must draw the soul's sustenance. And no more right have a people to keep this book to them- selves, whilst thousands in others lands are worn down by moral famine, than they would have to hoard the earth's fruits, if their own wants were supplied, and the cry of starving multitudes swept across the seas.
Neither Avould the faithful discharge of the stewardship be without its reward. Our text affirms it for the advantage of a people, that there have been deposited with them the oracles of God. We may conclude, therefore, that, in acting on the principle that the oracles are held in trust for the benefit of the world, a peo- ple would secure the recompense gra- ciously aimexed to the laboring to extend the kingdom of Christ. Who indeed that remembers that we live under an economy of strict retribution, and that nations can oidy be dealt with as nations on this side eternity, will see cause to doubt that the earnest discharge of what we call the national stewardship, would be the best means of advancing and up- holding the national greatness ]
Who can believe of a people circum- stanced like ourselves, that, in acting as stewards of the mysteries of God, we should erect a rampart against every en- emy, and secure continued progress in all that makes a kingdom mighty. There are mixed up with the dealings of com- merce the grandest purposes of God to- wards this fallen creation. Every coun- try might have been its own store-house of every necessary and every luxury. It might have possessed within its own confines the productions of the whole globe, and thus have had but little motive to intercourse with other states. But, by diversifying his gift, God hath made it for the profit of the world, that there should be constant interchange of pro- perty. Thus facilities are afforded for the communication of moral as well as physical advantages ; and commerce may become the great propagator of Chris- tianity. And it strikes us as a beautiful arrangement, that it may have been with the express design of providing that the true religion should spread its branches over the world, that God caused the palm-tree, and the citron-tree, to grow in one land and not in another ; and that, in order to bring the pearl of great price within reach of all, he may have given the gold to this district, and the diamond to that. And when the ocean is before us, dotted with vessels hastening to every quarter of the earth, or returning with the produce of far-off islands and conti- nents, we look on a nobler spectacle than that of human ingenuity and hardihood triumphingover the elements, that wealth may be accumulated and appetite pam-
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pered — we are beholding the machinery through which Gtjd hath ordained that the sections of the human family should be kept knit together, and the prepara- tions which he hath made for the diffu- sion of Christianity, when .the word shall be given, and " great shall be the com- pany of the preachers." It has not there- fore been without a view to the mainte- nance of truth and the spread of religion, that God hath given to this land the em- pire of the seas, and opened to it inter- course with every section of the globe. We rather believe that we have been made great in commerce, that we might be great in the diffusion of knowledge. With our fleets on every sea, and un- bounded wealth accumulated in our ci- ties, there needs nothing but that, as a nation, we should feel our accountable- ness, and rapidly might the records of revelation make their way through the vv^orld. And if we were thus instrumen- tal to the spread of the Gospel, thus faith- ful to our stewardship, it would not be foreign aggression, nor domestic insubor- dination, from which there would be dan- ger to the land of our birth ; there would be permanence in our might, because wielded in God's cause, and fixedness in our prosperity, because consecrated by piety. And as glory and greatness flow- ed in upon us, and the stewards of the Bible stood forth as the sovereigns of the world, other causes of the elevation might indeed be assigned by the politi- cian and philosopher ; but the true rea- son would be with those who should give in explanation, " Chiefly because that un- to them were committed the oracles of God."
I may here refer for a moment to that chaiitable cause for which I am directed to ask your support. It must be suffi- cient to remind you, intrusted as you are with the Bil)le, that there are hundreds of children in this town requiring to be educated in the principles of the Bible, and you will contribute liberally towards upholding the schools which now make their usual appeal to your bounty. There have been times when it was necessary to debate and demonstrate the duty of pro- viding instruction for the children of the poor. Such times are gone. Wc have now no choice. He were as wise a man who should think to roll back the Atlan- tic, as he who would stay the advancing tide of intelligence which is pressinf
through the land. You cannot, If you would. And I do not believe there is one here who would lift a finger in so unrighteous an enterprise. Here, if any where, a man may glory in that general outstretching of the human mind which is characteristic of the times ; and rejoice in the fact, that in knowledge, and men- tal developement, the lower classes are following so close on the higher, that these latter must go on with a vigorous stride, if they would not be quickly over- taken. It is not in such a seat of learn- ing as this, that we shall fmd dislike to the spiead of information. Knowledge is a generous and communicative thing, and jealousy at its progress is ordinarily the index of its wants. You would not, if you could, arrest the progress of edu- cation. But yc>u may provide that the education shall be christian education. You may thus ensure that education shall be a blessing, not a curse ; and save the land from being covered with that wildest and most unmanageable of all populations, a. population mighty alike in intellect and ungodliness, a population that knows every thing but God, eman- cipated from all ignorance but that which is sure to breed the worst lawlessness, ignorance of the duties of the religion of Christ. An uneducated population may be degraded ; a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovern- able. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants.
We have now only, in conclusion, to express an earnest hope that we may all learn, from the subject discussed, to set a higher value than ever on the Scrip- tures. Do we receive the Bible as " the oracles of God 1 " The Bible is as ac- tually a divine communication as though its words came to us in the voice of the Almighty, mysteriously syllabled, and breathed from the firmament. What awe, what reverence, what prostration of soul, would attend the persuasioti that such is the Bible ; so that opening it is like entering the hallowed hauntof Deity, whence unearthly lips will breatlte ora- cular responses. There needs nothing but an abiding conviction that Scripture remains, what it was at the fiist, the word of the living God — not merely a written thing, but a spoken ; as mucli a message now as when originally delivered — and the volume will be perused, as it ought to be, in humility, yet in hope, with
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pi-ayer, yet with confidence. And when God is regarded as always speaking to his creatures through the volume of i-eve- lation, there will be no marvel that, prac- tically, this volume should be influential on the moral and mental, the temporal as well as eternal, interests of man.
"The voice of the Lord," saith the psalm ist, " is upon the waters ; the voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire : " and well therefore may this voice correct the disorders of states, and fan the sparks of genius, as well as summon from the perishable, and guide to the immortal.
SERMON IV.
NEGLECT OF THE GOSPEL FOLLOWED BY ITS REMOVAL.
ilemembcr therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of bis place, except thou repent." — Revelation, ii. 5.
In our last discourse we endeavored t) set before you the advantages result- ing from the possession of God's ora- cles ; the words which we have just read will lead us to speak of dangers pro- duced by their neglect. The text con- tains cin exhortation, and a threatening, with which we have evidently as great concern, as had the church of Ephesus to which they were originally addressed. The exhortation — an exhcjrtation to re- pentance— is one which we shall do well to apply to ourselves ; the threatening — a threatening that the candlestick shall be removed — may take effect in our own days as well as in earliei".
Now there are few duties to which men are more frequently urged, and in regard to which, nevertheless, they are more likely to be deceived, than the great duty of repentance. It is of the first importance, that the exact place and nature of this duty should be accurately defined ; for so long as there is any thing of misapprehension, or mistake, in regard to repentance, there can be no full ap- preciation of the proffered mercies of the Gospel. It seems to be too common an opinion, that repentance is a kind of pre- paration, o- ureliminary, which men are
in a great degree to effect for themselves before they can go to Christ as a media- tor and propitiation. Repentance is re- garded as a something which they have to do, a condition they have to perform, in order that they may be fitted to apply to the Redeemer, and ask a share in the blessings which he purchased for man- kind. We do not, of course, deny that there must be repentance before there can be forgiveness ; and that it is only to the broken and contrite heart that Christ extends the fruits of his passion. We say to every man who may be inquiring as to the pardon of sin, except you repent you cannot be forgiven. But the ques- tion is, whether a man must wait till he has repented before he applies to Christ; whether repentance is a preliminary which he has to effect, ere he may ven- ture to seek to a mediator. And it is here, as we think, that the mistake lies, a mistake which turns repentance into a kind of obstacle between the sinner and Christ.
The scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must re- pent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being enabled
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to repent. And the difference between these propositions is manifest and funda- mental. There would be no virtue in our repentance, even if we could repent of ourselves, to recommend us to the fa- vor of the Redeemer; but there goes forth virtue from the Redeemer himself, strengthening us for that repentance which is alone genuine and acceptable. St. Peter sufficiently laid down this doc- trine, when he said of Christ to the high priest and Sadducees, " him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repent- ance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Here repentance is stated to be as much the gift of the glorified Christ as forgive- ness— a statement inconsistent wish the notion, that repentance is something which must be effected without Christ, as a ground on which to rest our appli- cation to him for pardon. AVe rather gather from these words of the apostle, tliat we can no more repent without Christ than be pardoned witliout Christ : from him comes the grace of contrition us well as the cleansing of expiation.
There may indeed be the abandon- ment of certain vicious practices, and a breaking loose from habits which have held the soul in bondage. Long ere the man thinks of applying to Chi'ist, and whilst almost a stranger to his name, he may make a great advance in reforma- tion of conduct, renouncing much which his conscience has declared wrong, and entering upon duties of which he has been neglectful. But this comes far short of that thorousrh moral chang-e which is intended by the inspired wri- ters, when they speak of repentance. The outward conduct may be amended, whilst no attack is made on the love of sin as seated in the heart ; so that the change may be altogether on the surface, and extend not to the affections of the inner man. But the repentance, requir- ed of those who are forgiven through Christ, is a radical change of mind and of spirit; a change which will be made apparent by a corresponding in the out- ward deportment, but whose great scene is within, and which there affects every power and propensity of our nature. And a repentance such as this, seeing it manifestly lies beyond the reach of our own strivings, is only to be obtained from Christ, who ascended up on high, and " received gifts for the rebellious, " be-
coming, in his exaltation, the source and dispenser of those various assistancs which fallen beings need as probationers for eternity.
What then is it which a man has to do who is desirous of becoming truly repent- ant 1 We reply that his great business is earnest prayer to Christ, that he would give him the Holy Spirit, to enable him to repent. Of course we do not mean that he is to confine himself to prayer, and make no effort at conecting what may be wrong in his conduct. The sin- cerity of his prayer can only be proved by the vigor of his endeavor to obey God's commands. But we mean, that along with his strenuousness in renounc- ing evil habits and associations, there must be an abiding persuasion that re- pentance, as well as forgiveness, is to be procured through nothing but the aton- ing sacrifice of Christ ; and this persua- sion must make him unwearied in en- treaty, that Christ would send into his soul the renovating power. It may be urged that Christ pardons none but the penitent; but our statement rather is, that those whom he pardons he first makes penitent.
And shall we be told that we thus re- duce man below the level of an intelli- gent, accountable being ; making him: altogether passive, and allotting him no. task in the struggle for immortality 1 We throw back the accusation as alto- gether unfounded. We call upon man for the stretch of every muscle, and the strain of every power. As to his being saved in indolence, saved in inactivity, he may as well look for hai-vest where' he has never sown, and for knowledge where he has never studied. Is it to be an idler, is it to be a sluggard, to have to keep down that pride which would keep him from Christ ; to be wrestling with those passions which the light that is in him shows must be mortified : to be unwearied in petition for the assistances of the Spirit, and in using such helps as have been already vouchsafed'? If this be idleness, that man is an idler who is actuated by the consciousness, that he can no more repent than be pardoned without Christ. But if it be to task a man to the utmost of his energy, to pre- scribe that he go straightway for every thing which he needs to an invisible Me- diator; go, in spite of the opposition ot the flesh ; go, though the path lies 21
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through resisting inclinations ; go, though in going he must abase himself in the dust, and proclaim his own nothingness ; then we are exhorting the impenitent to the mightiest of labors, when we exhort them to seek repentance as Christ's gift. The assigning its true place to re- pentance ; the destroying the notion that repentance is to be effected for ourselves, and then to recommend us to the Sa- vior ; this, in place of telling men that they have little or nothing to do, is the urging them to diligence by showing how it may be successful ; and to effort, by pointing out the alone channel through which it can prevail. And if there be given to the angel of a church the same commission as was given to the angel of the church at Ephesus, so that he must come down upon a careless or backslid- inof conijrecTation with a stern and start- ling summons ; never let it be thought that he either keeps out of sight the mor- al inabilities of man, or urges to an inert and idle dependence, when he expatiates on the necessity, and exhorts to the duty, of repentance — he is preaching that Christ is all in all, and nevertheless he is animating his hearers to strive for the mastery, and struggle for deliverance, when he entreats them in the words of our text, to " remember from whence they are fallen, and repent, and do the first works."
But there is more in this exhortation than the summons to I'epentance : mem- ory is appealed to as an assistant in the duty to which men are called. In other parts of Scripture we find great worth attached to consideration — as w^ien the Psalmist says, " I thought on my Avays, and turned my feet to thy testimonies," Here the turning to God's testimonies is given by David as an immediate conse- quence on the thinking on his ways, as though consideration were alone neces- tsary to insure a speedy repentance. The great evil with the mass of men is, that, so far at least as eternity is concerned, they never think at all — once make them think, and you make them anxious ; once make them anxious, and they will labor to be saved. When a man considers his ways, angels may be said to prepare their harps, as knowing that they shall soon have to sweep them in exultation at his repentance.
And it is urging you to this consider- ation, to urge you to the remembering
from whence you are fallen. We all know what a power there is in memory, when made to array before the guilty days and scenes of comparative innocence. It is with an absolutely crushing might that the remembrance of the years and home of his boyhood will come upon the crim- inal, when brought to a pause in his ca- reer of misdoing, and perhaps about to suffer its penalties. If we knew his early history, and it would bear us out in the attempt, we should make it our business to set before him the scenery of his na- tive village, the cottage where he was born, the school to which he was sent, the church where he first heard the preached Gospel ; and we should call to his recollection the father and the mo- ther, long since gathered to their rest, who made him kneel down night and morning, and w^ho instructed him out of the Bible, and who warned him, even with tears, against evil ways and evil com- panions. We should remind him how peacefully his days then glided away ; with how much of happiness he was blessed in possession, how much of hope in prospect. And he may be now a hard- ened and desperate man : but we will never believe, that, as his young days were thus passing before him, and the rever- end forms of his parents came back from the grave, and the trees that grew round his birthplace waved over him their fol- iage, and he saw himself once more as he was in early life, when he knew crime but by name, and knew it only to abhor — we will never believe that he could bo proof against this mustering of the past — he might be proof against invective, proof against reproach, proof against re- monstrance ; but when we brought mem- ory to bear upon him, and bade it peo- ple itself with all the imagery of youth, we believe that, for the moment at least, the obdurate being would be subdued, and a sudden gush of tears prove that we had opened a long sealed-up foun- tain.
And we know no reason why there should not be a like power in memory, in cases which have no analogy \vith this, except in the general fact, that men are not what they were. If we array before us the records of man's pristine condi- tion, and avail ourselves of such intelli- gence as it hath pleased God to vouch- safe, we may with sufficient tnath be said to remember whence we fell. And very
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16c
energetic and persuasive would be this remerabiance. We should feel that we were gaining a great moral hold on a man, if we prevailed on him to contrast what he is, with what Adam was ere he ate the fordidden fruit. It it a contrast which must produce the sense of utter degradation. Tl^e waving trees of Par- adise, and the glorious freshness of the young creation, and the unrestrained in- tercourse with God, and the beautiful tranquillity of human life — these will make the same kind of appeal as the fields where we played in our boyhood, and the roof which sheltered us whilst yet untutored in the vices, and unblench- ed by the sorrows of the world. I was by creation a lofty being, with a compre- heusive understanding, a will that always moved in harmony with the divine, and affections that fastened on the sublime and indestructible. I am, through apostacy, a wayward thing, with crippled energies, contracted capacities, and desires en- grossed by the perishable. I had a body that was heir to no decay, a soul rich in the impress of Deity ; but now I must go down to the dust, and traces of the defaced image arc scarcely to be found on my spirit. I had heaven before me, and might have entered it through an obedience which could hardly be call- ed a trial ; but now, depraved in inclina- tion, and debased in power, to what can I look forward but tribulation and wrath 1 Oh, this it is to remember from whence I am fallen.
And if I have been like the Ephe- sian Church, what Scripture calls a backslider, may not memory tell me of comforts I experienced, when walking closely with God, of seasons of deep gladness when I had mortified a pas- sion, of communion with eternity so real and distinct that I seemed already delivered from the trammels of flesh 1 It may well be, if indeed I have declined in godliness, that through musing on past times, there will be excited witliin me a poignant regret. There will come back upon me, as upon the criminal in his cell, the holy music of better days ; and there will be a penetrating power in the once gladdening but now melan- choly strain, which there would not be in the shrill note of vengeance. And thus in each case, memory may be a mighty agent in bringing me to repent- ance. It can scarcely come to pass, that
I should diligently and seriously remem- ber whence I am fallen, and yet be con- scious of no desire to regain the lost position. I cannot gaze on paradise, and not long to leave the wilderness ; I caimot see in myself the wanderer, and not yearn for the home I have forsaken. And therefore is there a beautiful appro- priateness in the message with which St. John was charged to the angel of the church at Ephesus. We know that except men repent, except the indiffer- ent be roused to earnestness, the back- sliding recovered to consistency, nothing can prevent their final destruction. And wishing to bring them to repentance, we would waken memory from her thou- sand cells, and bid her pour forth the imagery of what they were, that they may contrast it with what they are. If we can arm against them their own recollec- tions, we feel that we shall have brought to bear the most powerful of engines. Our appeal is therefore to the past, our summons is to the shades of the dead. And though we know that no remon- strance, and no exhortation, can be of avail, except as carried to the heart by the Spirit of the living God, yet are we so persuaded of the power of consider- ation, and of the likelihood that those who are brought to consider their ways will go on to reform them, that we think we prescribe what cannot fail of success, when, in order that men may repent, we entreat them, in the words of our text, to remember from whence they are fallen, and do the first works.
But we turn from the exhortation to the threatening contained in our text, " I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." It is not difficult to determine what the calamity is which is figuratively denoted by the removal of the candlestick. St. John had beheld one like unto the Son of man, magnificently and mysteriously aiTayed, standing in the midst of seven golden candlesticks, and holding in his right hand seven stars. The evangelist is express- ly informed that the seven stars are the angels, or bishops, of the seven churches ; and that the seven candlesticks are those churches themselves. Hence the can- dlestick represents the christian church as erected in any land; and therefore the removing the candlestick out of hia place can mean nothing less than the un-
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churching a nation, the so withdrawing j from them the Gospel that they shall j lose the distinctive marks of a christian community. AVe need not be over-care- ful as to the exactness with which we preserve the metaphor. If the candle- stick be removed, the meaning must be that the spiritual light is removed ; or that a land which has been blessed with a knowledge of chiistianity, and thereby brought specially into covenant with God, is deprived of the advantages which it has failed to improve, and dislodged from the relationship into which it had been admitted.
And this may take place, for undoubt- edly this has taken place. There are indeed clear and encouraging promises in Scripture, sufficient to assure us that neither outward opposition, nor inward corruption, shall prevail to the extinction of Christ's church upcm earth. But these promises refer generally to the church, and not to this or that of its sections. They give no ground for expecting that the church, for example, of England, or the church of Rome, will never cease to be a church — on the contrary, their ten- or is quite compatible with the suppo- sition, that England or Rome may so pervert, or abuse, the Gospel, as to pro- voke God to withdraw it, and give it to lands now overrun with heathenism. There may be, and there are, promises that there shall be always a candle in the world ; but the candlestick is a move- able thing, and may be placed succes- sively in different districts of the earth.
And we say that this unchurching of a nation is what has actually occurred, and what therefoi'e may occur again, if mercies be abused, and privileges neg- lected. We appeal to the instance of the Jews. The Jews constituted the church of God, whilst all other tribes of the human population were strangers and aliens. And never were a people more beloved ; never had a nation great- er evidences of divine favor on which to rest a persuasion that they should not be cast ort" and deprived of tlieir advantages. Yet how completely has the candlestick been removed from Judea. The land of Abj-aham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ; the land which held the ark with its mysterious and sacramental treasures ; the land where priests made atonement, and prophets delivered their lofty antici- pations : the land which Jesus trode,
where Jesus preached, and where Je^iS died ; has been tenanted for centuries oy the unbeliever, profaned by the follow- ers, and desecrated by the altars, of the Arabian impostor.
We appeal again to the early churcii- es. Where are those christian societies to which St. Paul and St. John inscribed their epistles ] Where is the Corinthian church, so affectionately addressed, though so boldly reproved, by the great apostle of the Gentiles 1 AVhere is the Philippian church, where the Colossian, where the Thessalonian, the letters to which prove how cordially Christianity had been received, and how vigorously it flourished ] Where are the Seven Churches of Asia, respecting which we are assured that they were once strenuous in piety, and gave promise of perma- nence in christian profession and privi- lege 1 Alas, how true is it that the candlesticks have been removed. Coun- tries in which the Gospel was first plant- ed, cities where it took earliest root, from these have all traces of Christianity long ago disappeared, and in these has the cross been supplanted by the crescent. The traveller through lands where apostles won their noblest victories, where martyrs witnessed a good confes- sion, and thousands sjirang eagerly for- wards to be " baptized for the dead," and to fill up every breach which perse- cution made in the christian i-anks, can scarce find a monument to assure him that he stands where once congregated the followers of Jesus. Every where he is surrounded by superstitious little better than those of heathenism, so that the unchurching of these lands has been the giving them up to an Egyptian dark- ness. And what are we to say of such facts, except that they prove — prove with a clearness and awfulness of demon- stration, which leave ignorance inexcu- sable, and indifference self-condemned — that the blessings of Christianity are deposited with a nation to be valued and improved, and that to despise or misuse them is to provoke their vvithdrawment ; If we could trace the histories of the several churches to which we have refer- red, we should find that they all " left their first love," grew lukewarm in religion, or were daunted by danger into apostacy. There was no lack of warning, none of exhortation ; for it is never suddenly, never without a pro-
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traded struggle, that God proceeds to extremes, whether with a church or an individual. But warning and exhorta- tion were in vain. False teachers grew into favor; false doctrines superseded the true ; with erroneous tenets came their general accompaniment, dissolute practice ; till at length, if the candlestick remained, the light was extinct ; and then (rod gave the sentence, that the candle- stick should be removed out of his place.
And never lit it be thought that such sentence is of no very terrible and deso- lating character. Come foreign invasion, come domestic insubordination, come famine, come pestilence. Come any evil rather that the unchurching which is threatened in our text. It is the sorest thing which God can do against a land. He himself represents it as such, when sending messages of wo by the mouth of his servant Amos. " Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." The blasting the fruits of the earth, so that the valleys should not yield their ac- customed abundance — this would be a fearful thing, but there was to be some- thing more fearful than this. The dry- ing up the fountains, and the cutting off the streams — this would be a grievous dispensation, but there was to be some- thing more grievous than this. The suspension of all messages from heaven, the cessation of that intercourse which had subsisted between the people and God, the removal of the light of revela- tion— this was the threatened evil, which would make comparatively inconsider- able the dearth of the bread, and the want of the water. Every other calamity may be sent in mercy, and have for its design the correction, and not the de- struction, of its subjects. But this ca- lamity has none of the character of a fatherly chastisement. It shows that God has done with a people ; that he will no longer strive with them ; but that henceforwards he gives them up to their own wretched devices.
And therefore, with the removal of the Gospel must be the departure of what- ever is most precious in the possessions of a people. It is not merely that Chris- tianity is taken away — though who shall measure, who imagine, the loss, if this
were indeed all? — but it is that God must fi-own on a land from which he hath been provoked to withdraw his Gospel ; and that, if the frown of the Almighty rest on a country, the sun of that coun- try's greatness goes rapidly down, and the dreariness of a moral midnight fast gathers above it and around it. Has it not been thus with countries, and with cities, to which we have already refoired, and from which, on account of their iniquities and impieties, the candlestick has been removed ] The seven Church- es of Asia, where are the cities whence they drew their names ; cities that teem- ed with inhabitants, that were renowned for arts, and which served as centres of civilization to far-spreading districts 1 Did the unchurching these cities leave them their majesty and prosperity ; did the removal of the candlestick leave un- dimmed their political lustre t Ask the traveller who gropes painfully his way over prostrate columns, and beneath crumbling arches, having no index but ruins to tell him that a kingdom's dust is under his feet ; and endeavoring to assure himself, from the magnitude of the desolation, that he has found the site of a once splendid metropolis ] The cities, with scarce an exception, wasted from the day when the candlestick was removed, and grew into monuments — monuments whose marble is decay, and whose inscription devastation — telling out to all succeeding ages, that the read- iest mode in which a nation can destroy itself, is to despise the Gospel with which it has been intrusted, and that the most fearful vial which God can empty on a land is that which extinguishes the blessed shinings of Christianity.
Oh, it may be the thought of those who care little for the Gospel, and who have never opened their hearts to its gracious communications, that it would be no overwhelming calamity if God ful- filled his threat and removed the candle- stick out of his place. They may think that the springs of national prosperity, and national happiness, would be left untouched ; and that the unchurched people might still have their fleets on every sea, still gather into their lap the riches of the earth, and sit undisturbed a sovereign among the nations. I know not how far such might be actually the case. I know not how far the contjtiosts or the commerce of a country might
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remain unaffected by the loss of its Chris- tianity. But this I know, that God's blessing could no longer rest on its vic- tories, or accompany its trade ; and that, therefore, if its armies triumphed, the triumph would be virtually defeat ; and if its ships were richly freighted, it would be with fruits, which, like the fabled ones from the Dead. Sea's shore, turn to ashes in the mouth. No, we again say, come any thing rather than this. Come barrenness into our soil ; come discord into our councils ; come treason into our camps ; come wreck into our navies — but let us not be un- churched as a nation. We may be be- loved of God, and He may have pur- poses of mercy towards us, whilst he takes from us our temporal advantages, but still leaves us our spiritual. He may be only disciplining us as a parent ; and the discipline proves, not merely that there is need, but that there is room for repentance. But if we were once de- prived of the Gospel; if the Bible ceased to circulate amongst our people ; if there were no longer the preaching of Christ in our churches ; if we were left to set up reason instead of revelation, to bow the knee to the God of our own imaginations, and to burn unhallowed incense before the idols which the mad- ness of speculation would erect — then farewell, a long farewell, to all that has given dignity to our state, and happiness to our homes ; the true foundations of true greatness would be all undermined, the bulwarks of real liberty shaken, the springs of peace poisioned, the sources of pi'osperity dried up ; and a coming generation would have to add our name to those of countries whose national de- cline has kept pace with their religious, and to point to our fate as exhibiting the awful comprehensiveness of the threat, " I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."
But we rejoice in pronouncing this a doom, respecting which we do not au^ur a likelihood that it will fall on this king- donr,. There may have been periods in the history of this land, when the up- holders of true religion had cause for gloomy forebodings, and fur fears that God would unchurch our nation. And some indeed may be disposed to regard the present as a period when such fore- bodings and fears might be justly en-
tertained. They may think that so great is the array of hostility against the na- tional church, that the most sanguine can scarce venture to hope that the candle- stick will not be cast down. We cannot subscribe to this opinion. We are not indeed blind to the amount of opposition to the national church ; neither have we the least doubt that the destruction of this church would give a fatal blow to the national Christianity. We dare not indeed say that God might not preserve amongst us a pure Christianity, if the national church .were overthrown. But we are bold to affirm, that liitherto has the church been the grand engine in effecting such preservation ; and that we should have no right to expect, if we dislocated this engine, that results would not follow disastrous to religion. I could not contend for the established Church, merely because venerable by its anti- quity, because hallowed by the solemn processions of noble thought which have issued from its recesses, or because the prayers and praises which many gener- ations have breathed through its sei-vices, seem mysteriously to haunt its temples, that they may be echoed by the tongues of the living. But as the great safe- guard and propagator of unadulterated Christianity ; the defender, by her arti- cles, of what is sound in doctrine, and, by her constitution, of what is apos- tolic in government ; the represser, by the simple majesty of her ritual, of all extravagance ; the encourager, by its fervor, of an ardent piety — I can con- tend for the continuance amongst us of the Establishment, as I would for the continuance of the Gospel ; I can depi-e- cate its removal as the removal of our candlestick. It is not then because we are blind to the opposition to the nation- al church, or fail to identify this church with the national Christianity, that we share not the fears of those who would now prophesy evil. But we feel that danger is only bringing out the strength c: tlie church, and that her efficiency has increased as her existence has been men- aced. The threatening of our text be- ongs to the lukewarm and the indolent ; its very language proves that it ceases to be apjilicable, if it have fanned the embers, and strung the energies. We believe of an apostolic church, that it can die only by suicide ; and where are our fears of suicide, when enmity has but
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produced greater zeal in winning souls to Christ, and hatred been met by increased efforts to disseminate the religion of love 1
We might not have ventured to intro- luce these observations, in concluding our discourses before this assembly, had we not felt that the church stands or falls with the universities of the land, and that the present condition of this univer- sity more than warrants our belief that the candlestick is not about to be remov- ed. It is a gratification, not to be ex- pressed, to find, after a few years' ab- sence, what a growing attention there has been to those noblest purposes for which colleges were founded ; and how the younger part, more especially, of our body, whence are to be drafted the ministers of our parishes, and the most influential of our laity, have advanc- ed in respect for religion, and attention to its duties. One who has been enaraff- ed in other scenes may perhaps better judge the advance than those under wliose eye it has proceeded ; and if tes- timony may derive worth fi-om its sincer- ity, when it cannot from the station of the party who gives it, there will be borne strong witness by him who ad- dresses you, that not only is the fire of genius here cherished, and the lamp of philosophy ti-immed ; but that hez'e the candle, which God hath lighted for a world sitting in darkness, burns brightly, and that, therefore, though enemies may be fierce, the candlestick is firm.
But suffer me, my younger brethen, to
entreat you that you would think more and more of your solemn responsibility. I cannot compute the amount of influence you may wield ovei" the destinies of the church and the country. In a few years you will be scattered over the land, occu- pying different stations, and filling dif- ferent parts in society. And it is because we hope you will go hence with religion in the heart, that we venture to predict good, and not evil. We entreat you to take heed that you disappoint not the hope, and thus defeat the prediction. We could almost dare to say that you have the majesty, and the Christianity, of the empire in your keeping ; and we beseech you, therefore, to " flee youth- ful lusts," as you would the plots of trea- son, and to follow the high biddings of godliness, as you would the trumpet-call of patriotism. Your vices, they must shake the candlestick, which God in his mercy hath planted in this land, and with whose stability he has associated the greatness of the state, and the hap- piness of its families. But your quiet and earnest piety ; your submission to the precepts of the Gospel ; your faith- ful discharge of appointed duties ; these ^ will help to give fixedness to the can- dlestick— and there may come the earth- quake of political convulsion, or the onset of infidel assault, but Christianity shall not be overthrown ; and we shall therefore still know that " the Lord of Hosts is with us, that the God of Jacob is our refuge."
SPITAL SEHMON.
This Sermon was preached according to annual custom, in commemoration of five seven! Hospitals in London. Their several Amiual Reports were read in the course of the Sermon^ M indicated by a liae drawn across the page towards the end.
SERMON.
" For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have m>» always." — ^Matthew, xxvi. 11.
"With a heart full of the remembrance of the mercy which liad been shown to her family, did Mary, the sister of La- zarus, approach and pour ointment over the head of the Redeemer. Not yet suf- ficently taught that Chnst was to be hon- ored by the consecration of the best of our substance, the disciples murmured at what they thought waste, and called forth from the Savior a vindication of the act. He pronounced it possessed of a kind of prophetical power ; and glanc- ing onwards to that ignominious death, whereby the world's redemption was about to be achieved, declared that it had been done for his burial, and thus represented it as the produce of that af- fection which pays eagerly the last honors to one most cherished and revered.
Whether or no there had been given intimation to Mary of the near approach of the final scenes of Christ's ministra- tion, does not appear from the scriptural record. It is evident, however, that Christ grounds his defence of her con- duct mainly on the fact, that liis cruci- fixion was at hand, making the proxim- ity of that stupendous event a sufficient reason for the course which she had fol- lowed. Thus, in conformity with the maimer of teaching which he always pursued, that of extracting from passing occurences the material of some spiritual admonition, he takes occasion, fri)m the pouring out of the ointment, to deliver a
truth whi'ch hath about it all the unctioj* of divinity. We allow that, on its ori- ginal delivery, our text had a decided re- ference to existent circumstances ; but we still contend that, in the fulness of its meaning, it is as forcible to ourselves as it was to Mary and the apostles. There was, indeed, a contrast implied in the first instance, which, we thank God, can no longer be urged, a contrast be- tween the presence of Christ as vouch- safed to his church, and that same pre- sence for a while withdrawn. The hea- vens have received the Savior until the times of the restitution of all things ; but though with our bodily eyes we behold him not, we know thut he is never ab- sent from the assemblies of his people, but that " where two or three are met together in his name, there is he in the midst of them."
Until the Redeemer had won to him- self, by his agony and his passion, the mighty title of " Head over all things to the church," — a title which belongs to him not so much by the rights of his es- sential deity, as through virtue of his hav- ing entered into humanity, and presented it, in obedience and suffering, to the Crea- tor— he could not put forth those gra- cious communications which supply the place of a visible presence. Hence it must have come necessarily to pass, that any allusion to his removal from earth would bringr a cloud over the minds
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of his disciples, since it was only from the headship to which I have adverted that they could derive those influences which teach the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom. To the disciples, therefore, we again say, there was a con- trast in the text which can scarcely be said to exist to ourselves. We are in- deed lookinar forwards, unless we live most basely below our privileges, to a season when, after a manner infinitely more glorious than any which past ages have seen, the presence of the Redeemer shall be granted to his people. We know that the Bible hath painted, with all the power of splendid diction, a pe- riod at which the bridegroom shall return, and gathering triumphantly his elect from the fourcornei's of the earth, unite them to himself in a visible and indestructible union. But whilst we attempt no denial that, ever since the ascension of Cluist, the church hath been placed in what may fitly be called a widowed estate, we may still justly maintain, that the argument, from contrast which our text exhibits, was of local and temporary power. We have Christ with us in such real and glorious manifestations, as no apostle could have conceived of previously to the effusions of the Spirit. And in place of that carnal calculation which would de- tach the head from the members, and de- cide that no ministrations can bei'ender- ed to Christ, unless he move amongst us in the garniture of flesh, we have learn- ed from the fuller disclosures of the Gos- pel, that the Savior is succored in the persons of his followers, so that having the poor always with us, we always have Christ on whom to shed the anointings of our love. If there were not, then, some general lessons couched under the limited assertion of the text, there would be but little in these words of Christ to interest the man of later generations. We could merely survey them as possessed originallyof a plaintive and touching beau- ty, so that they must have fallen on the disciples' ears with all tlrat melancholy softness which arrays the dying words of those we best love. AVe could only regard them as exquisitely calculated to thrill through the hearts of the hearers, fixing, as they must have done, their thoughts on a separation which seemed to involve the abandonment of their dear- est expectations, and to throw to the ground those hopes of magnificent em-
pire which the miracles of Christ Jesus had aroused within them.
But the words are not thus to be con- fined in their application, and if we sweep out of view the incidents which give rise to their delivery, we may extract from them lessons well suited to sundry occa- sions, and to none more emphatically than to the present.
We are assembled to commemorate the foundation of cerain noble institutions, which stand amongst the chief of those which shed honor on the land of our birth. And I see not how such com- memoration can be better eflected, or how that benevolence, upon which these illustrious institutions depend, can be more encouraged to go on with its labors, than by our searching into the bearings of the fact that " the poor we have always with us," remembering at the same time that in ministering to them for the love of Christ, we as literally minister to the Redeemer himself, as if he also were al- ways visibly with us.
The subject matter of discourse is thus open before us. I take the assertion "ye have the poor always with you," as one which, whilst it prophetically asserts the unvarying continuance of poverty amongst men, leads us attentively to pon- der on the ends which that continuance subserves ; and then I turn to the fact that the head is always present amongst us in the members, and use it as a motive to the support of establishments which seek to alleviate distress.
Such are our two topics of discourse ; the ends which the continuance of po- verty has subserved — the motives to be- nevolence which the presence of Christ supplies.
Now it is much to receive an assurance from the Redeemer himself that the poor we are always to have with U3 ; for we may hence justly conclude that poverty is not, what it hath been termed, an un- natural estate, but rather one appointed to exist by the will of the Almighty. It hath ever been a favorite subject of popu- lar harangue, that there ought to come an equalization of the ranks of society, and that the diversity of condition which char- acterizes our species is a direct violation of what are proudly termed the rights of man. We allow it to be most easy to workup a stii-ring declamation, carrying alon<r with it the plaudits of the multitude, whensoever the doctrine is propounded, 22
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SPITAL SERMON.
that one man possesses the same natu- ral claims as another to the riches wliich Providence hath scattered over the earth. The doctrine is a specious doctrine, but we hold it to be undeniably an unscrip- tural doctrine. We hold it to be cleai" to every fair student of the word of inspi- ration, that God hath irrevocably deter- mined that the fabric of human society shall consist of successive stages or plat- forms ; and that it falls never within the scope of his dispensations, that earthly allotments should be in any sense imi- form. We are to have the poor always with us, and that too because the Crea- tor hath so willed it, rather than because the creature hath introduced anomalies into the sjjstem. And therefore do we likewise hold, that every attempt at equal- ization is tantamount to direct I'ebellion against the appointments of heaven — it is neither more nor less than an effort to set aside the declared purposes of Jeho- vah ; and never do we believe it can be aimed at in any land, unless infidelity go first, that stanch standard-bearer of an- archy, and leap upon our altars in oi'der that it may batter at our thrones. The principle which seems now introducing itself into the politics of Europe, and which is idolized as the Nebuchadnez- zar image of the day — the principle that all power should emanate from the peo- ple— may be hailed and cheered by the great body of mankind ; but it is an un- sound principle, for it is palpably an un- scriptural principle, — the scriptural doc- trine being that Christ is the Head of all rule and all authority, and that from the Head power is conveyed to his vice- gerents upon earth : and I leave you to judge (and I speak thus out of reverence to the Bible, and not out of deference to the magistracy before whom I stand) what accordance there can be between this doctrine and that which has been set up as the Dagon of the age, seeing that the one makes power decsend from above, whilst the other represents it as springing from beneath.
We thus argue, that seeing it to be the appointment of heaven that we should " have the poor always with us," the duty of submission may be learnt from the continuance of poverty, and that God hath so mysteriously interwoven the mo- tives to obedience with the causes of dissatisfaction, that a man must first brave the wrath by scorning the will of
his Maker, before he can adventure on the tearing down the institutions of so- ciety.
But there are other, and those more obvious ends, which this continuance of poverty hath subserved. Let me premise, that although lliere is a broad line of demarcation, separating the higher frorc the lower classes of society, the points of similarity are vastly more numerous than the points of distinction. AVe are told in the Book of Proverbs, that "the rich and poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of them all." Where is it, I pray you, that they thus meet 1 De- scended from one common ancestor, the rich and poor meet before God on the wide level of total apostacy. This may be a hard doctrine, but nevertheless I would not that the ear should turn away from its truth. Intellect doth sever be- tween man and man, and so doth learn- ing, and outward honor, and earthly for- tune, and there may aj)pear no intimate link of association connecting the posses- sors of lofty genius with the mass of dull and common-place spirits, or binding to- gether the great and the small, the ca- ressed and the despised, the applauded and the scorned ; but never yet have the dreams of revolutiimary enthusiasm as- signed so perfect a level to the face of hu- man society, as that upon which its sev- eral members do actually meet, even the level of original sin, — the level of a to- tal incapacity to ward off condemnation. Aliens from God, and outcasts from the light of his favor, there is no distinction between us as to the moral position which we naturally occupy ; but the rich man and the poor man share alike, the one not more and the other not less, in the ruin which hath rolled as a deluge over our earth.
Yea, and if they stand by nature on the same level of i-uin, so are they plac- ed by redemption on the same level of restoration. Men have garbled and mu- tilated the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ, by inventing their systems of ex- clusion, and have offended as much against philosophy as against theology, by limit- ing the effects of the atonement to cer- tain individuals. The Redeemer had indeed human nature, but he had no hu- man personality, and therefore he re- deemed the nature in itself, and not this or that person. .lust therefore as the whole race had fallen in the first Adam,
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60 was the whole race redeemed or pur- chased by the second ; and the sun in its circuits about this sin-struck globe shines not upon the lonely being, unto whom it may not be said with all the force of a heavenly announcement, for thy trans- gressions a Mediator hath died !
We go back then to the matter in hand, and we contend that the points of similarity between the rich and the poor are vastly more numerous than the points of distinction. The bible suppo- ses them placed in precisely the same moral attitude ; so that whether a preach- er enter into a palace or a cottage, he is nothing better than a base and time- serving parasite if he shape his message into different forms — the Gospel assum- ing not variety of tone, just according as the audience may be the wealthy and the pampered, or the indigent and the oppressed ; but speaking unto all as beings born in sin and shapen in iniquity, and announcing unto all the same free and glorious tidings, that " God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the right- eousness of God in him."
But now I would have you observe from these pi'emises, how the continu- ance of poverty has subserved the end of displaying the comparative worthless- ness of earthly possessions. Men are plac- ed on widely different levels when viewed as members of human society ; but they are placed on identically the same level when regarded as heirs of immortality, — and what is the necessary inference, save that when eternity is brought into the account, the relative advantages of life become absolutely evanescent 1 This simple fact, that " the poor we have al- ways with us," furnishes perpetually a practical exhibition, such as might other- wise have in vain been sought, of the to- tal insignificance of things the most boasted, and the most prized, and the most coveted. For just suppose a con- trary arrangement. Suppose that riches had been e(jually distributed so that it would have come to pass that the poor we had not always with us — why, then, it is clear that the Gospel must have been stripped of thit surprising radiance which it derives from overthrowing all mortal diflerencos, and gathering into one arena of nakedness and destitution the monarch and the captive, the poten- tate and the beggar. As the case now
stands, we learn powerfully the worth- lessness of wealth or honor in the sight of the Creator, by observing that he who has most of these must seek the salva- tion of his soul by precisely the same method as he who has least — for cer- tainly it must follow fi'om this, that in the eye of the Creator wealth and honor go for nothing. But then it is the con- tinuance of poverty which furnishes this pi'oof, and conclusive as it is, we must have searched for it in vain had it not been appointed that " the poor we should have always with us." If there were any alteration in this fact, so that the ranks of society became merged and equalized, we deny not that it would be equally true, that " riches profit nothing in the day of wrath ; " but we should not have possessed the like ocular demon- stration of the truth ; we should have wanted the display of contrast. When all must be stripped, we should scarce- ly observe that any were stripped ; and it is the very circumstance that there are wide temporal distinctions between man and man, which forces on our attention the stupendous truth, that we stand on a par in the sight of the Creator, yea, on the level of a helplessness, which as no mortal destitution increas- es, so neither can any mortal advantage diminish.
I would pause for one moment to press home this truth upon your consciences. You may have been wont to derive moral and political lessons from the con- tinuance of poverty, but have you ever yet derived this vast spiritual lesson 1 Have you used the temporal destitution of the great body of your fellow-crea- tures as an overwhelming evidence to yourselves of the divinity of salvation 1 We tell you that it is an evidence so decisive and incontrovertible, that if a man be now puffed up by secular ad- vantages, and if he fancy himself ca- pable of turning those advantages into a machinery for saving the soul, he may be said to have closed his eyes to the fact, that " the poor we have always with us " — always — so that whatever be the height to which civilization attains, whatever the spread of knowledge, what- ever the standard of morality, poverty shall always continue as a display of the riches of grace, and as a standing me- morial that " not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of
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Hosts," shall the work of salvation be accomplished,
J3ut I hasten to trace out certain other results which the continuance of poverty has produced. There needs only a cursory glance in order to our discerning, that the fact of the poor oeing always amongst us, has given free scope for the growth and exercise of christian gi-aces. I might take the cata- logue of excellences which Scripture pro- poses as the objects of our aspirations, and show you how each is cradled, so to speak, in the unevenness and diver- sity of human estate. If I turn, for examble, to faith, it will be conceded on all hands, that the unequal distribu- tion of the good things of this life is calculated to occasion perplexity to the pious, and that there is a difficulty of no slight dimensions, in reconciling the varieties of mortal allotments with the rigid equity of God's moral government. We can master the difficulty by no other process, save that of referring to the season when all the concerns of the universe shall be wound up, and when, by a most august developement, the Judge, who sits on the great white throne, shall unravel the secrecies of every dis- pensation. But it is the province of faith, and that too of faith when in keen- est exercise, thus to meet the discrepan- cies of the present by a bold appeal to the decisions of the future. And if it should come to pass that there were no discrepancies, which would be compara- tively effected if the poor ceased from amongst us ; then who perceives not that this province of faith would be sensibly circumscribed ] The problem with which it is now most arduous to grapple, and by the grappling with which faith is upheld in its vigor — the problem, wherefore does a merciful Creator leave in wretched destitution so many of his creatures — this would be necessarily taken out of our investiga- tion— we should be girt about with the appearance of equable dealings in this life, and should seldom therefore be thrown for explanations on the mysteries of the next. And I know not what con- sequence can be more evident, than that a huge field would thus be closed against the exercises of faith, a field which is formed in its length and in its breadth out of verification of our text, that " the poor we have always with us."
But yet further. If there were to be no longer any poor, then it is evident that each one amongst us would be in possession of a kind of moral certainty that he should never become pooi-. Pov- erty would be removed from the number of possible human conditions, and there would be an end at once to those inces- sant and tremendous fluctuations which oftentimes dash the prosperous on the rocks and the quicksands. But now mark how, with the deparure of the risk of adversity, would depart also the meek- ness of our dependence on the Almigh- ty. We might instantly remove one petition from our prayers, " give us this day our daily bread." If we were se- cure against poverty, which we shouid be if poverty had ceased from the earth, there would be something of mockery in soliciting supplies, whose continuance was matter of certainty ; and thus, by placing man out of the reach of destitu- tion, you would go far to annihilate all those motives to simple reliance which are furnished by the vacillations of human condition ; you would destroy that liveliness which is now the result of momentary exercise : and we once more contend, that for the delicacy of its mi- nute, just as well as for the magnificence of its more extended, operations, faith is mainly indebted to the fact, that " the poor we have always with us."
I go on to observe, of how much beau- ty we should strip the Gospel, if we stripped the world of poverty. It is one of the prime and distinguishing features of the character of Deity, as revealed to us in Scripture, that the poor man, just as well as the rich man, is the object of his watchfulness : that, with an atten- tion undistracted by the multiplicity of complex concernments, he bows himself down to the cry of the meanest outcast ; so that there is not a smile upon a pof)r man's cheek, and there is not a tear in a poor man's eye, which passes any more unheeded by our God, than if the individual were a monarch on his throne, and thousands crouched in vassalage before him. We allow that when thought has busied itself in traversing the circuits of creation, shooting rapidly from one to another of those sparkling systems which crowd immensity, and striving to scrutinize the ponderous mechanism of a universe, each depart- ment of which is full of the harmonies
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>f glorious order, — we allow that, after so sublime a research, it is difficult to bring down the mind to the belief, that the aflairs of an individual, and seem- incrly insitjnificant race, are watched over with as careful a solicitude as if that race were the sole tenant of infinite space, and this our globe as much cover- ed by the wing of the Omnipotent, as if it had no associates in wheeling round his throne. Yet when even this belief is attained, the contemplation has not risen to one half of its augustness. We must bi'eak up the race piecemeal, we must take man by man, and woman by woman, and child by child — we must observe that to no two individuals are there assigned circumstances in every respect similar ; but that each is a kind of world by himself, with his own allot- ments, his own trials, his own mercies : and then only do we reach the climax of what is beautiful and strano^e, when we parcel out our species into its separate units, and decide that not one of these units is overlooked by the Almighty : but that just as it is the same hand which paints the enamel of a flower and guides the rolling of a planet, so it is the same guardianship which regulates the rise and fall of empires, and leads the most unknown individual, when he goeth forth to seek his daily bread. Now v/ho perceives not that, by removing the poor altogether from amongst us, we should greatly (jbscure this amazing exhibition 1 The spectacle which is most calculated to arrest us, and to fill the vision with touching delineations of Deity, is that of earthly destitution gilded by the sun- shine of celestial consolation, — the spec- tacle of a child of want and misfortune, laden with all those ills which were be- queathed to man by a rebellious ances try, and nevertheless sustained by so elastic and unearthly a vigor, that he can walk cheerily through the midst of trouble, and maintain a deep and rich tranquillity, whilst the hurricane is beat- ing furicjusly upon him. But, compar- atively, there could be no such spectacle if there came an end to the appointment, that the poor we have always with us. Take away poverty, and a veil is thrown over the jjerfoclions of the Godhead ; for we could not know our Maker in the fulness of his compassions, if we knew him not as a helper in the extremities of mortal desertion. It is given as one of
the attestations of the Messias-ship of Jesus, that " unto the poor the Gospel was preached ; " and we conclude from this, as well as from the features of the Gospel in itself, that there is a peculiar adaptation in the messages of the Bible to the circumstances of those who have but little of this world's goods. And what need is there of argument to prove, that never does this Gospel put on an aspect of greater loveliness, than when it addresses itself to the outcast and the destitute ? One might almost have thought that it had been framed for the express purpose of ministering to the happiness of the poor. Unto the men, indeed, of every station it delivers pre- cepts which may regulate their duties, and promises which may nerve them to their discharge ; but then it is that the Gospel appears under its most radiant form, when it enters the hovel of the pea- sant, and lights up that hovel with glad- ness, and fans the cheek of the sick man with angels' wings, and causes the crust of bread and the cruse of water to be received as a banquet of luxury, and brings into the wretched chamber such a retinue of ministering spirits, that he whom his fellow-men have loathed and abandoned, rises into the dignity of a being whom the Almighty delighted to honor. Oh, verily the brilliant triumph of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth is won from the career of a man who pro- fesses godliness in poverty. The world despises him, but he is lifted above the world, and sits in heavenly places with Chx-ist ; he has none of the treasures of the earth, but the pearl of great price he hath made his own : hunger and thirst he may be compelled to endure, but there is hidden manna of which he eats, and there are living streams of which he drinks : he is worn down by perpetual toil, and yet he hath already entered into rest, — " persecuted, but ncjt for- saken ; cast down, but not destroyed." Make poverty as hideous as it can ever be made by the concentration of a hun- dred woes, — let it be a torn, and degrad- ed, and scorned, and reviled estate, — still can he be poor of whom it is said, that " all things are his,— the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, — all are his, for he is Christ's, and Christ is God's 1 " We call this the brilliant triumph ofthe Gospel of Christ ; a triumph from the study of which may
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be gathered the finest lessons of Chris- tianity ; a triumph over all with which it is liardest for rehgion to grapple. And if it be a stupendous characteristic of the Gospel, that it adapts itself to every pos- sible emergency, that it provides largely for all the exigencies of human beings : and if it be moreover true, that certain graces are peculiarly exercised by pov- erty, which would be comparatively un- called for amid the comforts of affluence, then we may fairly make it matter of thanksgiving to God, that " the poor we have always with us," seeing that if they had ceased from amongst us, half the glories of revelation must have been shut up in darkness, and the magnifi- cence of the power of the Gospel would never have been measured, and the love- liness of the influences of the Gospel never been estimated.
But it is time that I gather to a close this survey of the ends which the con- tinuance of poverty has subserved, and 1 shall therefore only add one more to the catalogue, but that especially connect- ed with the occasion of this our assem- bling. The distinction of society into the poor and rich, introduces a large class of relative duties, which would have no ex- istence, if " the poor were not always amongst us." It cannot be called an over- charged picture, if I declare that the re- moval of poverty would go far towards debasing and uncivilizing Christendom ; and that a sudden and uniform distribu- tion of wealth would throw us centuries back in the march of moral improvement. The great beauty of that state of things which our text depicts is, that men are dependent one upon the other, and that occasions perpetually present themselves which call into exercise the charities of life. We need only remind you of the native selfishness of the human heart, a selfishness which is never completely eradicated, but which, after years of pa- tient resistance, will creep in and deform the most disinterested generosity. And we ask you whether, — so far at least as our arithmetic is capable of computing, — this selfishness would not have reigned well nigh unmolested, had the world been quite cleared of spectacles of destitution, and if each man had been left without call to assist his brethren, seeing thai his brethren were in possession of advan- tages setting thera free from all need of assistance ] According to the present
constitution, men ai'e necessarily brought into collision with distress ; and the ef- fect of the contact is to soften down thos© asperities which deform the natural cha- racter, and to plane away that rugged- ness which marks the surface of the un- trodden rock. But if there had been no physical wretchedness with which such collision could take place, then it appears to me evident that selfishness would have been left to grow up into a giant stature, and that the granite of the soul, which, though hard, may be chiselled, would have turned into adamant, and defied all impressions.
Let the poor be no longer amongst us, and you dry up, so far as we can judge, the scanty fountains of sympathy which still bubble in the desert. By removing exciting causes of compassion, you would virtually sweep away all kindliness from the earth ; and by making the child- ren of men independent on each other, you would wrap up every one in his own passions and his own pursuits, and send him out to be alone in a multitude, and thus reduce the creatures of the same species into so many centres of repul- sion, scornfully withstanding the ap- proaches of companionship. There is no aspect under which our text can be pre- sented more worthy of your serious con- templation than this. The relative duties, of which poverty is the parent, are those whose discharge is most humanizing to the rich, and at the same time most edi- fying to the poor. The higher classes of society are naturally tempted to look down upon the lower, and the lower are as naturally tempted to envy the higher ; so that the distinctions of rank make way for the trial of humility in one case and of contentment in the other. But if there be truth in this reasoning ; if there be a direct tendency in the mixture of various conditions to the smoothing the rough- ness of the human spirit, and to the cher- ishing of virtues most essential to our well-being ; then may we not once more call upon you to admire the wisdom of the Almighty's dispensations, inasmuch as it is appointed by the pui-poses of hea- ven, that we should " have the poor al- ways amongst us ] "
Now, having traced certain of the ends which are decidedly subserved by the continuance of poverty, it remains that I speak briefly on our other topics of dis- course. 1 may observe that the consid-
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ei-ation suggested in the second clause of | our text follows, with great force, on the review in which we have been engaged. I There is a moral benefit conferred upon society by our having "the poor always with us;" but if we further remember, that Christ is with us in the persons of his destitute brethen, so that in minister- ing to them we minister to him, then the varieties of mortal estate pass before us under a spiritual aspect, and we find in poverty a storehouse of the motives of Christianity.
It is here that I take my stand, with a view to the duty now intrusted to my care. The noble institutions which I am required to recommend to your contin- ued support, are so many monuments of the truth that "the poor we have always with us." I trust I may add, that the careful and liberal patronage which they have hitherto received, has emanated from a sense of love to the Redeemer ; and that the zeal with which they shall hereafter be upheld, will flow from no inferior origin. He who endows a hos- pital, thinking to win favor with God through this his munificence, rears, like the Egyptian monarchs, a pyramid for his sepulchre, but leaves his soul without one secret chamber wherein she may be safe from the sleet of eternal indignation. We would press this matter upon you with all the fidelity that its importance demands. The soul is not to be saved by any, the most costly, giving of alms. Sea and land may be compassed, and the limbs be macerated by penance, and the strength worn down by painful attrition, and the wealth be lavished in feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked ; and, nevertheless, the wrath of God be no more averted than if the life were passed in bold contempt of his name and attri- butes. " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ ; " and they who have entered heaven, climb- ed that lofty eminence not by piles of gold and silver which they consecrated to Jehovah, — not by accumulated deeds of legal obedience, — but simply by the cross of the Redeemer, putting faith in the blood and righteousness of Him " who died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God."
But when the heart is occupied by this heaven-bom principle of faith, there will be an immediate kindling of love towards the Author of redemption ; and works of
benevolence, which sit as an incubus on the soul so long as they are accounted meritorious, will be wrought as the natur- al produce of a grateful and devoted af- fection. If there be indeed within us the love of Him who hath lovod us and given himself for us, then shall we be ea- ger to support the foundations of a God- fearing ancestry, not through the bloated and deceitful expectation that the glories of futurity are to be purchased by atten- tion to the necessitous, but simply in con- formity with the apostolical maxim, " Be- loved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
The poor we have always with us, and thus have we always abounding oppor- tunities of testifying our dedication to Him who is brought near by faith, though removed from sight, and who hath linked himself in ties of such close brotherhood with mankind that he sympathizes with the meanest of the race. Upon the plat- form of love to the Redeemer do we take our stand, when recommending to your generous care those several Hospitals whose institution it is the business of this day's service to commemorate. I shall pause while the report of their proceed- ings during the past year is read to you, and then wind up my discourse by a brief exposition of their claims upon public benevolence.
Various and multiform are the ills which the charities, whose report you have now heard, set themselves to alle- viate. The burden of poverty is suffi- ciently heavy, even whilst the animal frame is not wasted by the inroads of sickness. But when disease hath laid its hand upon the body, and the strength is fretted by pining maladies, then espe- cially it is that penury is hard to bear ; and the man who has wrestled bravely against want, whilst there was vigor in his limbs and play in his muscles, sinks down wearied and disconsolate, when the organs of life ai'e clogged and impeded. Who would refuse to stretch out the hand of kindness, succoring the afflicted in this their hour of aggravated bitterness ] Who could be callous enough to the woes of humanity, to be slow in providing that all which the skill and the wisdom of man can effect, towards lightening the pressure of sickness, may be placed with- in the reach of those who must otherwise
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■waste away in unmitigated suffering 1 Who, in short, could be bold enough to call himself" a man, and yet give himself up to a churlish indifference as to whe- ther the pains of his destitute brethren were assuaged by the arts of medical science, or whether those brethren were left to the gnawings of racking disease, with no pillow for the aching head, with no healing draught for the writhing ema- ciated frame ] One malady there is — the greatest, I may call it, to which flesh is heir, the unhappy subjects of which have a more than common claim on benevo- lence. It is much that accident and sick- ness should befall the body ; but the cli- max of affliction is not reached until the mind itself is out of joint. So long as the soul retains possession of her capa- cities, man, however assaulted, however agonized, falls not from his rank in the scale of creation, but rather, by display- ing the superiority of the immortal over the mortal, proves himself the denizen of a mightier sphere. Man is, then, most illustrious and most dignified, when his spiritual part rises up unshattered amid the ruins of the coporeal, and gives wit- ness of destinies coeval with eternity, by showing an independence on the corrod- ings of time. But when the battery of attack has been turned upon the mind, when reason has been assaulted and hurl- ed from her throne, oh ! then i> is that the spectacle of human distress i.** one upon which even the beings of a nii»her intelligence than our own may look sad- ly and pitifully; for the link of commun- ion with the long hereafter seems thus almost dissevered, and that pledge of an unbounded duration, — a pledge of which no bodily decay can spoil us — a pledge which is won by the soul out of the breakings up of bone and sinew — for a while is torn away from man, and he re- mains the fearful nondescript of creation, dust lit up Deity, and yet Deity lost in dust.
Ye cannot be lukewarm in the sup- port of an institution which, like one of those whose foundation we are met to commemorate, throws open its gates to the subjects of this worst of calamities, and it were to transgress the due bounds of my office, if I should insist further on the claims of those Hospitals which have been reared for the purpose of mitigat- ing the ills attendant on bodily or mental disease.
But as the citizens of a great metro- polis, you have a duty to perform in watching the moral health of an over- grown population. It becomes you to apply wholesome correctives to a spread- ing dissolution of manners, and to adopt such processes in dealing with the vi- cious and disorderly, as seem best calcu- lated to arrest the contagion. There would be a giievous deficiency in the establishment of this gigantic city, if it numbered not amongst its hospitals, one especially set apart to the reception of the vagrant and the dissolute. The be- ginnings of crime must be diligently checked, if we wish to preserve sound- ness in our population ; and the best leg- islation is that which, by dealing stren- uously with minor offences, employs the machinery most calculated to prevent the commission of greater.
But I turn gladly to the claims of an institution which can need no advocacy from the preacher's lips, seeing that the objects who are sheltered beneath its munificent protection, surround me, and plead eloquently, though silently, their own cause. Founded and fostered by the princes of the land, the hospital, which bears the name of Him who died as our surety, constitutes one of the prime or- naments of this emporium of wealth and greatness. Equalled by no other insti- tution in the number of those for whose education and maintenance it provides, and excelled by none in the soundness of the learning which it communicates ^ pass not the strictness of truth when * affirm, that he who would exhibit the splendor of British philanthropy should take his station in this pulpit, and point to the right hand and to the left. We have here a large multitude of the rising generation trained up in those principles which are calculated, under God's bless- ing, to make them valuable members of the community ; and such is the course of their education, that whilst many are fitted to fill stations in the various depart- ments of trade, others are prepared for the higher studies of a university, and thus introduced to the most solemn oc- cupations of life. Who can behold such a number of his fellow-creatures, each with the dew of his youth just fresh up- on him, and not rejoice that the early years of their lives are thus shielded and cherished ] Who can remark how each bears upon his breast these animating'
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words, "He is risen," and not desire that these young heirs of immortahty may grow up into manhood, rooted in tlie *aith of Him who is "the Resurrection and the Life," and showing that they themselves are "risen with Christ," by "seeking those things which are above, wliere Clirist sitteth at the right hand of God ? " The snows of a polar winter must rest upon the heart which throbs not with emotion at surveying so many boi-n in troublous times, who, with all the airy expectancies of youthful and untried spirits, must go out into the walks of so- ciet}', in days when they are more than commonly swept by the chilling blights of scepticism and vice.
Unnecessary though I deem it to dwell at any length on the duty of supporting this venerable establishment, yet would I speak affectionately to you who are its inmates, and conjure you, " if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," to "remember your Creator in the days of your youth." Whilst you are still stran- gers to the seductions of an ensnaring world, I would warn you against the evils which will gird you round when you go forth fiom the peaceful asylum of your childhood, and mix, as you unavoidably must, with those who lie in wait to de- stroy the unwary. I would tell you that there is no happiness but in the fear of the Almighty ; that if you would so pass through life as not to tremble and quail at the approach of death, make it your morning and your evening prayer, that the Holy Spirit may take possession of your souls and lead you so to love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, that you may not be allured from the holiness of re- ligion by any of the devices of a wicked generation. Ye read in your classical stones of a monarch who wept as his countless army passed befoi-e him, stag- gered by the thought, that yet a few years, and those stirring hosts would lie motionless in the chambers of the grave. Might not a christian minister weep over you, as he gazes on the freshness of your days, and considers that it is but too pos- sible, that you may hereafter give ear to the scorner and the seducer. Thus might the buds of early promise be nip- ped ; and it might come to pass, that you, the children, it may be, of pious parents, over whose infancy a godly father may have watched, and whose opening hours may have been guarded by the tender 23
solicitudes of a righteous mother, would entail on yourselves a heritage of shame, and go down at the judgment into tho pit of the unbeliever and the profligate. Let this warning word be remembered by you all : it is simple enough for the youngest, it is important enough for the eldest. You cannot begin too soon to serve the Lord, but you may easily put it off too long ; and the thing which will be least regretted when you come to die is, that you gave the first days of exist- ence to preparation for heaven.
But I refrain from enlarging further. I have touched briefly on the respective claims to support of those noble institu- tions which have been founded amongst us by the piety of our forefathers : I add only that the times in which we live are full of perplexity and danger. The na- tions of the world heave and swell like the waters of a stormy ocean. There is go- ing forth through the length and breadth of the earth a restlesss and a revolution- ary spirit : and these, our islands, which have hitherto been curtained by the wing of an especial protection, seem not alto- gether unvisited by the perils which weave themselves around other lands. What then shall we do but arise in the strength of the Lord, and give ourselves sti-enuously to every labor which may Im- prove the moral and physical condition of our people, and strive, as befits those who are alive to the startling aspect of the world, so to surround ourselves with the machinery of christian benevolence, that we may repel the aggressions of in- fidel hardihood ? Let there be no clos- ing our eyes to the difficulties by which we are environed ; let there be no giv- ing ear to the unhallowed speculations of a specious liberalism, which would show us new ways to national greatness and national renown, over the wreck of all that hath been held most sacred by our ancestry. If England wish to pre- serve her might amongst the nations, let her sons and her daughters confess their transgressions and repent them of their sins ; let covetousness — the curse and darling of commercial cities, be abhor- red, and lust renounced, and ambition mortified, and every bold working of im- piety chased from amongst them ; and let them, covered with tho sackcloth of deep humiliation, bind themselves in a holy league for the advancement of the purposes of an enlarged philanthropy.
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Then, and not till then, may the hope be cherished, that the political hurricanes which shake the dynasties of Europe, shall leave unscathed our island sove- reignty ; and that whilst the rushing of a wrathful deluge dash away the land- marks of foreign states, Britain may lift her white cliff's above the surges, and rise amid the eddies like Mount Ararat from out the flood. " The poor you have always with you :" meet their spiritual and temporal necessities with the alacri- ty and zeal which become the followers of Christ ; be yourselves men of prayer, and, so far as your influence extends,lead
others to wrestle with the Almighty ; and then, oh tell us not that England's great- ness hath touched its zenith ; ask us not for the lament which may be wailed over her departed majesty, — home of mercy, home of piety, thou shalt still con- tinue the home of plenty, the home of peace ; the sunshine of heaven's choice favor shall sleep upon thy fields, and the blithe music of contentment be heard in thy valleys ; for "happy is that people that is in such a case, yea, bless- ed is that people whose God is the Lord."
SERMONS
PREACHED IN GREAT ST. MARY'S CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE;
AT THE EVENING LECTURE IN FEBRUARY, 1336 AND 1837.
18 3 6.
SERMON.
THE GREATNESS OF SALVATION AN ARGUMENT FOR THE PERIL OF ITS NEGLECT.
" How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ! "— Hebeews, ii. 3.
There is nothing affirmed in these words, but the greatness of the salvation proposed by the Gospel ; and from this greatness seems inferred the impossibil- ity of escape, if we neglect the salvation. And there is, we think, surprising force in the question of our text, when nothing but the stupendousness of salvation is regarded as our proof, that to neglect it is to perish. It is a minister's duty, whether addressing his own congrega- tion, or those to whom he is compara- tively a stranger, to strive by every pos- sible motive to stir his hearers to the laying hold on salvation, that so, what- ever their final portion, he may be free from their blood. And therefore are we desirous to press you this night for an answer to the question, " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation 1" We wish you honestly to examine, whe- ther the magnitude of redemption be not of itself an overcoming demonstration that ruin must follow its neglect. We would keep you close to this point. The
power of the question lies in this — the peril of the neglect proved by the great- ness of the salvation.
And we are sure that there are many striking considerations, flowing from the fact that the salvation is so great, which must force you to admit the impossibil- ity of escape asserted by St. Paul. We shall necessarily, as we proceed, descend so far into particulars, as to take by themselves certain elements of the great- ness in question. But, whatever the con- stituent parts into which we may resolve salvation, it must be simply as great that we exhibit this salvation ; and from the greatness, and from this alone, must we prove that none can escape who neglect the salvation. You see clearly that the peculiarity of the passage lies in this, that it infers the peril of the neglect from the greatness of the salvation. And in laboring at illustrating the accuracy of this inference, and the pressing on you your consequent danger if careless of the soul, we shall attempt no other ar-
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rangement of our discourse, but that which will set before you in succession, certain i-espects in which salvation is great, and use each successive exhibi- tion as a proof, that to despise what is thus great, must be to make sure de- struction.
Now if we were arguing with an atheist, the man who disbelieves the ex- istence of a God ; and if we desired to convince him on this, the fundamental article of all religion, we should probably endeavor to reason up from the creation to the Creator, using the traces of an intelligent cause, by which we seem surrounded, in proof that a mightier architect than chance constiucted our dwelling. But we are quite aware that onr adversary might demand a demon- stration, that nothing short of an infinite power could ha,ve builded and furnished this planet; and we are not perhaps well able to define at what point the finite must cease, and the infinite com- mence. It may be conceded that certain results lie beyond human agency, and yet disputed whether they need such an agency as we strictly call divine. What men could not produce, might possibly be produced by beings mightier than men, and yet those beings stop far short of Omnipotence.
We do not, therefore, think of main- taining, that the evidences of Avisdom and power, graven on this creation, are the strongest which can be even con- ceived. On the contrary, we will not pretend to deny that we can imagine them greatly multiplied and strengthen- ed. It is manifest, that the keener our faculties, and the more earnest our inves- tigation, the clearer do these evidences appear ; for there is no comparison be- tween those apprehensions of the works of creation which the man of science has, and those within reach of the illiterate observer. And, therefore, it is quite conceivable that there might be either such a communication of more powerful faculties, or such a laying bare of the hidden wonders of natui-e, that our pre- sent amount of acquaintance with crea- tion should be as nothing when compared with what might then be attained. What surprises a man, what appeai-s wonder- ful to him, because beyond his skill to effect, or his wisdom to explain, docs not necessarily present matter of surprise to an ang-el : the standard of wonderful-
ness grows with the faculties of the crea- ture ; there being nothing to overawe and astonish, till there is something far surpassing its power or its intelligence.
Hence, we should not perhaps feel warranted in saying to the atheist, how can you believe, if you resist so great tokens of a Deity as are stamped on the scenery by which you are encompassed ] If we can suppose yet greater tokens, it is possible that he who will not yield to the evidence now vouchsafed, would yield to that mightier which imagination can array. The atheist might say to us, I am not convinced by what I view around me. My own thoughts can sug- gest stronger witness for a Deity, if a Deity there be, than you think impressed on this earth, and its furniture, and its inhabitants. And whilst my mind can arrange a greater proof, you can have no right to denounce my unbelief as in- surmountable, because not surmounted by what you reckon so great.
Now we stay not to show you, that he who can resist the evidences of an Infinite First cause, which are accessible to dwellers on this planet, would prob- ably remain unconvinced if the universe, in all its spreadings, were open to his expatiations. He would carry with him that desire to disbelieve, which is the mainspring of infidelity; and this would always furnish an excuse for remaining the atheist. But if we cannot say to the atheist, when pointing to the suiTOund- ing creation, you withstand an evidence than which there cannot be a greater, we can say to the worldly-minded, when pointing to the scheme of redem})tl(jn, you neglect a salvation than which there cannot even be imacrined a mirjhticr. If the atheist might aj)peal from proofs which have been given, to yet stronger which might have been furnished, we deny that the worldly-minded can appeal from what God hath done on their be- half, to a more marvellous interference which imagination can picture. It is the property of redemption, if not of creation, that it leaves no room for im- agination. We will not defy a man to array in his mind the imagery of an uni- verse, presenting the impress of God- head more clearly than that in which we are placed. As we have already said, even if the universe remained the same, we can suppose such change in our faculties of observation as would clotho
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every star, and every atom, and every insect, with a hundred-fold more of the proof that there is a God. But we will defy a man to conceive a scheme for the rescue of a lost world, which should ex- ceed, in any single respect, that laid open by the Gospel. We affirm of this scheme, that it is so great that you can- not suppose a greater. It is not because our faculties are bounded, that it seems to us wonderful. We have right to con- sider that it wears the same aspect to the highest of creatures : the mystery of godliness being unsearchable as well to angels as to men. And if it be suppos- able that there are scenes, which other beings are permitted to traverse, far out- doing in the wonderfulness of sti'ucture, and the majesty of adornment, the earth on which we dwell — so that this creation is not the richest in the tracery of power and skill — we pronounce itinsupposable, that there could have been made an ar- rangement on behalf of fallen creatures, fuller of Divinity, and more worthy amazement, than that of which we are actually the objects.
This is our first way of putting, or rather vindicating, the question of our text. We contend that atheism has a far better apology for resisting the evi- dences of a God which had spread over creation, than worldly-mindedness for manifesting insensibility to i"edemption through Christ. Atheism may ask for a wider sphere of expatiation, and a more glowing impress of Deity ; for it falls within our power to conceive of richer manifestations of the invisible Godhead. But worldly-mindedness cannot ask for more touching proof of the love of the Almighty, or for a more bounteous pro- vision for human necessities, or for more stirring motive to repentance and obedience. Those of you who are not overcome by what has been done for them, and who treat with indifference and contempt the proffers of the Gospel, are just in the position of the atheist who should remain the atheist after God had set before him the highest possible de- monstration of himself. It is not too bold a thing to say, that, in redeeming us, God exhausted himself He gave himself; and what greater gift could re- main unbestowed ? So then, if you neg- lect salvation, there is nothing which you would not neglect. God himself could provide nothing greater j and if
therefore you are unaffected by this, you only prove youi-selves incapable of being moved.
Thus it is the greatness of salvation which proves the utter ruin which must follow its neglect. If God have done for you the utmost which even Deity could do ; if all the divine attributes, un- limited as they are, have combined, yea, even exhausted themselves in the scheme of your rescue ; if the Creator could not by any imaginable display have shown himself more compassionate or more terrible, mightier to save or mightier to crush ; and if you withstand all this, if you are indifferent to all this, if you " neglect so great salvation ;" may we not affirm that the magnitude of that which you despise is an incontrovertible proof that you must inevitably 23erish 1 May we not argue, that having shown your- selves too hardened to yield to that into which Deity hath thrown all his strength, and too proud to be humbled by that which involved the humiliation of God, and too grovelling to be attracted by that which unites the human to the divine, and too cold to be warmed by that which burns with the compassions of Him who is love — may we not argue that you thus prove of yourselves, that there is no pos- sible arrangement by which you could be saved ; that, resisting what in itself is gi-eatest, you demonstrate, in a certain sense, that you cannot be overcome ; and oh ! then, if we have nothing to argue from but the stupendousness of redemption, what energy is there in the question, " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation 1 "
But it is necessary, as we before ob- served, that we consider more in detail the greatness of salvation, and by re- solving it into its elements, make clear- er the proof of the peril of neglect. Let it then first be remarked, that salvation is great because of the agency th?'ough which it was effected. You know that the Author of our redemption was none other than the eternal Son of God, who had covenanted from the first to become the surety of the fallen. It came not within the power of an angel to make atonement for our sins : the angelic na- ture might have been united to the human, but there would not have been dignity in the one to give the required worth to the sufferings of the other. So far as we have the power of ascertain-
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ing, it would seem that no being but the Divine, taking to himself flesh, could have satisfied justice in the stead of fallen men. But then this is precisely till? arrangement which has been made on our behalf It was the second person in the ever-blessed Trinity, who, com- passionating the ruin which transgres- sion had brought on this earth, assumed our nature, exhausted our curse, and died our death. And certainly, if there be an aspect under which redemption appears great, it is when surveyed a* the achievement of the only begotten of the Father. The majesty of the agent g^ves stupendousness to the work, and causes it to dilate till it far exceeds com- prehension. It is mainly on this account that we can declare even imagination unable to increase the gi-eatness of the arrangement for our rescue. This ar- rangement demanded that God himself should become man, and sustain all the wrath which sin had provoked; and what can be imagined more amazing than the fact, that what the arrangement demanded literally took place 1 The problem, how God could be just and yet the justifier of sinners, baffled all finite intelligence, because a divine per- son alone could mediate between God and man ; and if created wisdom could have discovered the necessity, it would never have surmised the possibility.
Now certainly that which, more than any thing else, rendered human redemp- tion insupposable, when submitted to the understanding of the very highest of crea- tures, must be confessed to be also that which gives a sublime awfulness to the plan, and invests it with a grandeur which increases as we gaze. In looking at the cross ; and considering that our sins are laid upon the being who hangs there in weakness and ignominy, the overcoming thought is, that this being is none other than the everlasting God ; and that, how- ever he seems mastered by the powers of wickedness, he could by a single word, uttered from the tree on which he immo- lates himself, scatter the universe into nothing, and call up an assemblage of new worlds, and new systems. This makes salvation great — I shall know how great, when I can measure the distance between the eternal and the perishable, omnipo- tence and feebleness, immortality and death. But if salvation is great, because the Savior is Divine, assuredly the great-
ness of salvation proves the peril of neg- lect. To neglect the salvation must be to throw scorn on the Savior ; and that Savior being so great, " how shall we es cape 1 " Oh, if it give an unmeasured vastness to the woi'k of our redemption, that he who undertook, and carried on, and completed that work, was "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person ; " if the fact, that he " who bare our sins in his own body on the tree," was that illustrious being " for whom are all things, and by whom are all things," magnify our rescue from death till thought itself fails to over- take its boundaries ; then there is a great- ness in the proffered deliverance, derived fi-om the greatness of the deliverer, which proclaims us z'uined if we treat the ofier with contempt. We are taught, by the greatness, that there can be salvation in none other, for God would not have in- terposed, could any other have delivered. We are taught that to neglect, is to set at nought Him who can crush by a breath, and to convert into an enemy, pledged to our destruction, the alone being that could be found thi-oughout a peopled immensity powerful enough for our res- cue. And what say you, men and breth- ren— if the greatness of the salvation depend on the greatness of the Savior, and this greatness demonstrate that to neglect the salvation, is to throw away our only hope, and to array against our- selves that fiercest of all vengeance. Di- vine mercy scorned — what say you, in contradiction of the impossibility assert- ed by the question, " How shall we es- cape, if we neglect so great salvation 1" But again — we may affirm this salva- tion to be great ; because of «^he complete- ness and fulness of the work, great in it- self, as well as in its Author'. We might be sure that what a divine agent iinder- took would be thoroughly effected ; and accordingly, the more we examine the scheme of our redemption, the more may we prove it in every sense perfect. Tho sins of the whole race were laid upon Christ ; and the divinity gave such worth to the sufferings of the humanity, that the whole race might be pardoned, if the whole race would put faith in the substi- tute. There is consequently nothing in our own guiltiness to make us hesitate as to the possibility of forgiveness. The penalties due to a violated law have been discharged : and therefore, if we
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believe in our surety, we are as free as though we had never transgi'essed. And is not tliat a great salvation, which places pardon within reach of the vilest offend- ers ; and which, providing an atone- ment commensurate with every amount of iniquity, forbids any to despair who have a wish to be saved ?
But yet further — this salvation not only provides for our pardon, so that punish- ment may be avoided ; it provides also for our acceptance, so that happiness may be obtained. The faith which so interests us in Christ, that we are reckon- ed to have satisfied the law's penalties in him, obtains for us also the imputation of his righteousness, so that we have a spotless covering in which to appear before God. Hence we have share in the obedience, as well as in the suffer- ing of the mediator ; and whilst the lat- ter delivers from the death we had de- sen'ed, the former consigns to the immor- tality we could never have merited. And is not this a gi-eat salvation, great in its simplicity, great in its comprehensive- ness, which thus meets the every neces- sity of the guilty and helpless ; and which, arranged for creatures whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leaves them not till elevated to the very summit of dignity 1
But if salvation be thus great in the fulness of its provisions, what again does the greatness prove but the peril of neglect ] If the salvation wei-e in any respect deficient, there might be excuse for the refusing it our attention. If it met our necessities only in part, leaving much to be sought in other quarters, and supphed from other sources, it would ne- cessarily lose much of its greatness ; and as its greatness diminished, st) perhaps would its claim on our eager acceptance. If, providing pardon for past offences, it left us to stand or fall for the future by our own obedience, making final security the result of nothing but our diligence, neglect might be palliated by the con- fessed fact that what it offered sufficed not for our wants. To pardon me, and then leave me to gain heaven by my own works, were to make death as sure as ever, but only more terrible, because I had been mocked with the prospect of life. And I might have an apology for not giving heed to the Gospel and not striving to comply with its demands, if I could plead that this Gospel proffered
only the half of what I need, and that I could no more furnish the remainder than provide the whole. But the salva- tion is great, so great that I cannot find the moral want of which it does not pre- sent the supply. It is so great, that I can only describe it by saying, that Divine knowledge took the measure of every human necessity, and Divine love and power gathered into this salvation a more than adequate provision. What then if we neglect this salvation ? The salva- tion is great, as furnishing all which we require : what then is to neglect it, but to put from us all which we require ] The salvation is great, because meeting with a wonderful precision our every exi- gence : what then is to neglect it, but to leave our every exigence unsatisfied and uncared for ] The salvation is great, because proffering the pardon of sin ; and a righteousness which will endure the scrutinies of the Omniscient, and victory- over death, and acquittal, yea, reward, at the judgment : what then is it to neg- lect it, but to keep the burden of unex- piated guilt, and to resolve to go hence with no plea against wrath, and to leave the sting in death, and to insure dreari- ness and agony through eternity 1 Oh, it is the completeness of salvation which gives it its greatness. Salvation is col- lossal, towering till lost in the inaccessi- ble majesty of its Author, because con- taining whatever is required for the trans- formation of man from the child of wrath to the child of God, from death to life, from the shattered, and corruptible, and condemned, to the glorious, and imper- ishable, and approved. But if all this give greatness to salvation, beyond doubt it is the greatness which proves, that, in treating the Gospel with indifference, we block up against ourselves the alone path by which sinners can flee Divine wrath. As the scheme of redemption rises before us in its grandeur and plenitude — a grandeur which makes it more than com- mensurate with the ruin which apostacy hath fastened on mankind, and a pleni- tude through which it meets the every want of every one who longs to giasp eternal life — why, the more magnificent, and the more comprehensive, appears the proffered deliverance, with the more energy does it echo back the question of the apostle, " How shall wc escape, if we neglect so great salvation 1 "
But there are yet other ways in which
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THE GREATNESS OF SALVATION AN
we may uphold the justice of the argu- ment, which infers the peril of neglect from the greatness of salvation. We proceed to observe that salvation is great, not more because of the greatness of the Agent by wliom it was achieved, than of Him by whom it is applied. The personal presence of the Redeem- er with his church was undoubtedly a privilege and blessing surpassing our power to estimate. Yet, forasmuch as the descent of the Spirit could not take place without his own departure from earth, Christ assured his disciples that it was expedient for them that he should go away : thus implying it to be more fur their benefit that the Holy Ghost should come down, than that himself should remain. And if, therefore, it give greatness to salvation that it was effect- ed by the Son, it must give as much that it is applied by the Spirit. That a per- son of the ever-blessed Trinity — that enertjizinsf A^ent who is described as brooding over the waters, when creation Jiad not yet been moulded into symme- try, that He might extract order from confusion — that this being should con- tinually reside upon earth, on purpose that he may act on the consciences and hearts of mankind through the Gospel of Christ : we say of this, that it gives to our salvation the jDerpetual majesty of Divinity, an awfuhiess scarce inferior to that which it derives from the sacri- fice of the Son. The presence of the Spirit with the church, a presence so actual and universal that the heart of each amongst us is the scene of his oper- ations, and the truth of our redemption through Christ is that which he strives to bring home to our affections, — this assuredly stamps a greatness on the ar- rangements for deliverance, oidy to be measured when wd can measure God himself.
But, if it gives greatness to salvation that it is applied by the Spirit, who can fail to perceive that from the greatness may be learned the peril of neglect ? We are certain of every one amongst you who neglects salvation, that he with- stands the suggestions and strivings of the Spirit of the living God. We know that there is not one of you, the most in- diflereiit and careless in regard to the threatenings and promises of the Gosjiel, who has not had to fight his way to his present insensibility against the power-
ful remonstrances of an invisible monitor, and who is not often compelled, in order to the keeping himself from alarm and anxiety, to crush, with a sudden and desperate violence, pleadings which are fraught with super-human energy. We know this. We want no laying bare of your secret experience in order to our ascertaining this. We need no confes- sions to inform us that you have some little trouble in destroying youi'selves. The young amongst you, whose rod is pleasure and whose home the world, we would not believe them if they assured us, that they never know any kind of mental uneasiness ; that never when in a crowd, never when alone, do they hear the whisperings of a voice which tells them of moral danger ; that they have never difficulty, when told of the death of an associate, or when they meet a fu- neral, or when laid on a sick-bed, in re- pressing all fear, all consciousness of a necessity for a thoi-ough change of con- duct. We would not believe them, we say, if they assured us of this. We know better. AVe know them the pos- sessors of a conscience. We know them acted on by the Spirit of the Almighty. We know them immortal, sons and daughters of eternity, however they may endeavor to live as though death were annihilation. And therefore we would not believe them. Oh, no. As sooa believe the rock, were it gifted with speech, which should argue, that, be- cause unsoftened, it was never shone on by the sun, and never swept by the winds, and never dashed by the watei-s, as the granite of the heart, which, because yet insensible, would deny that an un- seen hand ever smote it, or celestial dews ever fell on it, or divine beams strove to penetrate it.
No, we cannot believe you when you would tell us that you are let alone by God. Again we reply that we know better. We know that the young man, who is the slave of liis passions, has of- ten a misgiving that his tyrants here will be his tormentors hereafter. We know that the young woman, whose deity is dress, is sometimes startled by the thought of the shroud and the winding- sheet. We know that the merchant- man, laboring to be rich, is now and then aghast with fear of being poor through eternity. We know that the shrewd man, too cunning to be duped by any
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but himself, has moments in which he feels, tliat, in the greatest of all transac- tions, he may perhaps be over-reached, and barter the everlasting for the perish- able. AYe know that the proud man, moving ir. a region of his own, and flush- ed with tie thought how many are be- neath him, is occasionally startled by a vision of itter degradation, himself in infamy, aixl "How art thou fallen!" breathed ajainst him by the vilest. We know that tliose who neglect means of grace, who, when invited to the Lord's table, continaally refuse — we know, that, as they turn their back on the ordinance, they do vio'.ence to a secret remon- strance, and feel, if only for an instant, (oh, how easy, by the resistance of an instant, to endanger their eternity !) that they are rejecting a privilege which will rise against them as an accuser. We know all this, and we cannot believe you when you would tell us that you are let alone by God. You are not let alone. You are acted on through the machinery of conscience. You may have done your best towards mastering and exter- minating conscience, but you have not yet quite succeeded. There is Divinity in the monitor, and it will not be over- borne. We know that you are not let alone : for the salvadon which we press on your acceptance is a great salvation ; and in nothing is tliis ;^reatness moi-e ap- parent than in the fac:, that the Spirit of the Almighty is occupied with commend- ing this salvation to sinners, and com- bating their prejudices, ;md urging them to accept. It is indeel a marvellous greatness, that Omnipote ice itself should not be more engaged with upholding the universe, and actuating the motions of unnumbered systems, and sustaining the animation of every living thing, from the archangel down to the insert, than with plying transgressors with all the motives which are laid up in the Gospel, admon- ishing them by the agony, and the pas- sion, and the death of a Mediator, and warning them by the teiTors, as well as inviting them by the mercies, of the cross. It is a marvellous greatness. But if you remain the indifTerent and un- believing, this greatness only proves that you are not to be overcome bythestrong- est power which can be l)rought to bear on our nature ; proves that an agency, than which none is mightier, has wres- tled with you, and striven with you, but
as yet all in vain ; proves therefore the certainty of your destruction, if you per- sist in your carelessness, because it proves, that, having withstood the most potent means, there can be none to which you will yield : and what is this but proving the peril of neglect from the greatness of salvation 1 what is this, since the greatness of salvation depends much on the greatness of the being who applies it, what is this but asking, " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation 1 "
But we have yet another mode in which to exhibit the same truth ; to show, that is, that the gi'eatness of salva- tion proves the impossibility that they who neglect it should escape. We are bound to r-egard the Gospel of Christ Jesus as the gi'and revelation of future punishment and reward. Until the Redeemer appeared, and brought men direct tidings from the invisible world, the sanctions of eternity were scarcely at all made to bear on the occupations of time. It cannot indeed be said that Christ first taught the immortality of the soul ; for from the beginning the soul was her own witness, though oftentimes the testimony was inadequately given, that she perished not with the body. Yet so imperfect had been the foregoing knowledge, as compared with that com-- municated by Christ, that St. Paul de- clares of the Savior, that he " aboUshed death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel." In the teach- ings of the Mediator we have such clear information as to our living under a re- tributive govei-nment, that ignorance can be no man's excuse if he act as though God took no note of his conduct. And^ we reckon that much of the greatness of the Gospel consists in the greatness of the reward which it proposes to right- eousness, and the greatness of the punishment which it denounces on im- penitence. It is a great salvation, if on the alternative of its rejection, or accep- tance, hinges another alternative, that of everlasting misery or everlasting hap- piness. The characteristic of great may- most justly be ascribed to a systems, whose sanctions are of so sublime and^ awful a desci-iption, which animates to self-denial by the promise of a heaven^ where" there is fulness of joy for ever- more," and warns back from wickedness bv the threatening of a worm that; never •^ 24
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dies, anJ a fire that is not quenched. It was not redemption from mere tem- porary evil that Clirist Jesus effected. Theconsquences of transgression spread themselves through eternity ; and the Sa- vior, \vhen he bowed his head and said, " It is finished," had provided for the removal of these consequences, in all the immenseness whether of their extent or their duration. And we say that in noth- ing is the greatness of salvation more evi- denced than in its dealing with everlast- ing things ; it did not indeed make man immortal : but, finding him immortal, and his immortality one of agony and shame, it sent its influences throughout this unlimited existence, wrung the curse from its every instant, and left a bless- ing in its stead. Exceeding great is our salvation in this, that it opens a prospect for eternity than which imagination can conceive none more brilliant, if we close with the proffer, and none more appal- ling, if we refuse.
But if this be its greatness, what does the greatness prove of those by whom it is neglected ? In order to your bein"- animated to the throwing off the tyranny of the things of time and sense, the Gospel sets before you an array of mo- tive, concerning which it is no boldness to say, that, if ineffective, it is because you are immovable. If heaven fail to attract, and hell to alarm — the heaven end the hell which are opened to us in the revelation of Christ — it can only be from a set determination to continue in sin, a determination, proof against all by which, as rational agents, we are capa- ble of being influenced. If you could be excited by reward, is there not enou^-h in heaven ; if you could be deterred bv punishment, is there not enough in hell i
What, will you tell me that you can be roused, that your insensibility is not such as it is impossible to overcome, or rathei-, that your choice is not so fixed but that it might be swayed by adequate inducement, when you will not resign a bauble which stands in competition with heaven, nor deny an appetite for the sake of escaping hell ? Is it that heaven is not sufficiently glorious ; is it that hell is not suflSciently terrible ? AVe can ad- mit no plea from deficiencies in the pro- posed punishment or reward. Indeed there can be none of you bold enough to urge it. The man wliom heaven cannot
allure from sin, the man whom ?iell can- not scare from sin, would a brighter liea- ven (if such there could be,) or a fiercer hell, prevail with him to att3mpt the overcoming conuption ] Oh, the salva- tion is great, greater in nothing than in the reward and ])unishment which it pro- pounds to mankind ; for of lx)th it may be said, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man." But then, being thus great, its greatness is our proof that there is no hope of moving these whom it moves not. The happiness promised to obedience, there can be imagined none richer ; the wretchedness threatened to disobedience, there can be imagined none sterner. And yet fhe man is un- affected. He is not attracted by the happiness — then I must despair of at- tracting him. He is not alarmed by the wretchedness — then I must despair of alarming him. And, therefore, it is the greatness of the salvation which shows me his peril. Yea, as this greatness is demonsti-ated by the proposition of ever- lasting ])ortions, not to be exceeded iu the intenseness whether of joy or of wo, and which therefore leave no inducement untried by which the careless may be roused, and the sensual braced to self- denial, we seem to hear this question re- verberated alike from the firmament above with its homes for the righteous, and from the abyss beneath with its pri- sons for the lost, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation 1 "
Such brethren, are certain of the rea- sons— and, had time permitted, we might have adduced more — which prove the connection between the greatness of salvation, and the peril of neglect. And now we ask the careless and the worldly-minded amongst you, whether they have an answer to give to the solemn question before us. The de- mand is " How shall we escape 1 " You must undoubtedly have some reply in readiness. We have no right to accuse you of the incalculable folly of owning that thert3 is only one way of escape from the most terrible judgments, and yet taking no heed to walk in that way. You arc furnished then with a reply : we will not chai'ge you with a want of com- mon sense : we must allow you the cred- it of having a reason to give for destroy- ing yourselves. But we should like to know the reason. We can hardly ira-
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agine its form. Perhaps you intend to pay attention to the Gospel hereafter. But no, this is no reason for neglect. This confesses the necessity of giving heed ; and therefore proves you more than ever culpable in your negligence. Perhaps you contend that you quite admit all the claims of the Gospel; that you are amongst those who receive it, not those who reject ; and that you know not why it should condemn you, since you give it heartily the preference to every other religion. But no, this is no apology. It might be plausible, if the question were. How shall we escape, if we disbelieve, deny, ridicule, oppose, so great salvation 1 but oh, sirs, it is, •• How shall we escape if we neglect V To neglect, just to treat with coldness or carelessness, to give attention to other things in preference, not the being the openly infidel, but the actually indif^ ferent ; this it is which, if there be truth in our text, insures man's destruction.
And therefore we again say that we cannot imagine the answer with Avhich, thinking calculating beings as ye are, you would parry the home-question of
our text. But of this we can be certain, that your answer has no worth. The question of the apostle is the stroncjest form of denial. Ye cannot escape if ye neglect. And be yc well assured, that, if ye could interrogate the spirits in wretchedness, negligence would be that which they would chiefly give as the cause of their ruin. There would be comparatively few who would tell you they had rejected Christianity ; few that they had embraced deistical views ; few that they had invented for themselves another mode of acceptance ; but the many, the many, their tale would be, that they designed, but delayed to heark- en to the Gospel ; that they gave it their assent, but not their attention ; that, — are ye not staggered by the like- ness to yourselves 1 — though they knew, they did not consider; apprised of danger, they took no pains to avert it ; having the offer of life, they made no effort to secure it ; and therefore perished finally, miserably, everlastingly, through neglect of the great salvation. God grant that none of us, by imitating their neglect, share their misery.
SERMON.
ON THE EFFECTS OF CONSIDERATION*
" When I consider, I am afraid of Him."— Job, xxiii. 15.
In this chapter Job declares, in lan- guage of great sublimity, the unsearch- ableness of God. " Behold, I go for- ward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him ; on the left hand where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the
* A collection was made after this sermon, in Bupport of the Irish Society' of London.
right hand, that I cannot see him." Vex- ed with many and sore trials, the patri- arch vainly strove to understand God's dealings, and, though still holding fast his integi-ity, was almost tempted to doubt whether he should escape from his troubles. He dwells on the immutabil- ity of God; and, thinking that possibly this immutability is engaged to the con- tinuance of his sorrows, only heightens
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his anxieties by pondering the unchange- ableness of God. " He is in one mind, and who can turn him ] and what his soul desireth, even that he doetli." If there had gone out a decree against him, appointing calamity to be his portion. Job felt that deliverance was not to be hoped for. " Therefore," saith he, " I am troubled at his presence ; when I con- sider, I am afraid of him."
It was not, you observe, a hasty glance at the character of God, which gave rise to the fear which the patriarch expresses. His feai' was the result of deep meditation, and not of a cursory thought. " When I consider, I am afraid of him." The cursory thought might have included nothing but the benevo- lence of God, and thus have induced the sufferer to expect relief from his woes. But the deep meditation brought under review many attributes of the Almighty, and there was much in these attributes to perplex and discourage.
It may indeed have been only the un- changeableness of God, which, engag- ing the consideration, excited the fears of the pati'iarch. But we are not bound, in discoursing on our text, to limit to one attribute this effect of consideration. There is the statement of a general truth, though, in the case before us, the appli- cation may have been particular. That the fear, or dread, of God is the produce of consideration ; that it does not there- fore spring from ignorance, or want of thought ; this is the general truth assert- ed by the passage, and which, as accu- rately distinguishing i-eligion from supei-- stition, demands the best of our attention. It "3 not to be doubted that a supersti- tious dread of a Supreme Being is to be overcome by consideration ; and it is as little to be doubted that a religious dread is to be produced by consideration. The man who has thrown off all fear of God is the man in whose thoughts God finds little or no place. If you could fasten, for a while, this man's mind to the facts, that there is a God, that he takes cogni- zance of human actions as moral Govern- or of the universe, and tliat he will here- after deal with us by the laws of a most ri<nd retribution, you would produce something like a dread of the Creator ; and this dread would be superstitious or relio-ious, according to the falseness, or soundness, of principles admitted and inferences deduced. If the produced
dread were superstitious, it would give way on a due consideration of these principles and inferences ; if religious, such consideration would only deepen and strengthen it. •
We are sure that the absence of con- sideration is the only account which can be given of the absence of a fear of the Almighty. It is not, and it cannot be, by any process of thought, or mental de- bate, that the great mass of our fellow- men work themselves into a kind of practical atheism. It is by keeping God out of their thoughts, or allowing him nothing more than the homage of a faint and passing remembrance, that they con- trive to preserve that surprising indif ference, which would almost seem to ar gue disbelief of his existence. And there is not one is this assembly, what- ever may be his unconcern as to his po- sition relatively to his Maker, and what- ever his success in banishing from his mind the consequences of a life of mis- doing, in regard of whom we have other than a thorough persuasion, that, if we could make him consider, we should also make him fear.
It is not that men are ignorant of facts ; it is that they will not give their atten- tion to facts. They know a vast deal which they do not consider. You can- not be observant of what passes around you, or within yourselves, and fail to perceive how useless is a large amount of knowledge, and that too simply through want of consideration. To bor- row the illustration of a distinguished writer, who has so treated as almost to have exhausted this subject, every one knows that he must die ; and yet the certainty of death produces no effect on the bulk of mankind. It is a thing known, it is not a thing considered ; and there- fore those who are sure that they are mortal, live as though sure they were immortal. Every one of you knows that there is a judgment to come. But may we not fear of numbers amongst you, that they do not consider that there is a judgment to come ; and may we not ascribe to their not considering what they know, their persisting in conduct which must unavoidably issue in utter condemnation ?
We might multiply this kind of illus- tration. But the fact is so apparent, the fact of knowledge being useless because the thing known is not considered, that it
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were but wasting time to employ it on its proof. We may suppose that we carry with us the assent of every hearer, when we say, that, even in reference to the things of this life, and much more of the next, there are hundreds who have know- ledge for one who has consideration. We must all perceive how frequent it is for truths to receive the assent of the understanding, and gain a lodgment in the memory ; and yet, though they may be of stirring moment, to exert no in- fluence on the conduct. If as fast as we gather information into the chambers of the mind, we were also gathering motive into the recesses of the soul, it is evident that each page of Scripture, as we pos- sessed ourselves of its announcements, would minister to our earnestness in wrestling for immortality. But the mel- ancholy fact is, that we may, and that we do, increase the amount of information, without practically increasing the amount of motive. It is quite supposable that there are some amongst yourselves, who, by a regular attendance on Sabbath min- istrations, and by diligent study of the Bible, have acquired no inconsiderable acquaintance with the scheme and bear- ings of Christianity ; but who are never- theless as worldly-minded, in spite of their theology, as though ignorant of the grand truths disclosed by revelation. AVe might subject these persons to a strict examination, and try them in the se- veral departments of divinity. And they might come off from the scrutiny with the greatest applause, and be pronounced ad- mirably conversant with the truths of the Bible. But of all the knowledge thus displayed, there might not be a particle which wielded any influence over ac- tions. The whole might be reposing inertly in the solitudes of the memory, ready indeed to be summoned forth when its possessor is called into some arena of controversy, but no more woven into the business of every-day life, than if it were knowledge of facts which are un- important, or of truths which are specu- lative. And the main reason of this has been already advanced, the want of con- sideration. You know tliere is a God ; but you do not fear this God, you do not live under a sense of his presence and an apprehension of his wrath, be- cause you do not cimsider that there is a God.
And we wish it well observed that
man is answerable for this want of con- sideration, inasmuch as it is voluntary, and not unavoidable. We certainly have it in our power, not only to apply our- selves to the acquisition of knowledge, but, when the knowledge has been ac- quired, to direct the attention to the ten- dencies of the ascertained truths. If this be done, there is every likelihood that the truths will produce their right effects on the moral feelings ; if this be neglected, the almost certainty is, that, whatever their nature, they will not call forth those emotions which they are both intended and calculated to excite. The truths of revelation are adapted, accord- ing to the constitution of our moral ca- pacity, to rouse within us certain feel- ings. And by fixing the mind on these truths, when investigated and determin- ed— and this is adding consideration to knowledge — we may be said compara- tively to insui'e the production of the feelings which naturally correspond to them, and thus vastly to diminish, if not to destroy, the probability that they will fail of effecting any change in the con- duct.
You know sufficiently well, that, if you obtain a knowledge of circumstan- ces which may exert an influence over your temporal condition, you can, and in most cases you do, give those circum- stances your close consideration, and ponder them with unwearied assiduous- ness, in hopes of extracting some direc- tions for your guidance in life. And if you were to fail to add consideration to knowledge, you would fairly be regard- ed as the authors of every disaster which might follow on your not turning know- ledge to account ; and the bankruptcy, in which you might be speedily involved, would excite no commiseration, as being altogether chargeable on your own in- dolence and indifference. So that, if you have knowledge, it is reckoned quite your own fault, if it rest inertly in the mind, in place of stin-ing up emo- tions and regulating energies. Your fel- low-men deal with you as witli free agents, possessing the power of consider- ing what they know, and tlierefore an- swerable for all the consequences of a want of consideration.
And what we wished impressed upon vou at this stao-e of our discourse is, that
11*1
you must expect the same deahng at the tribunal of the Almighty, as you thus
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experience at die hands of your fellow- men. If it be once shown that you had the knowledge, you will be tried as be- ino:s who niisfht have had the consider- ation. To recur to our illustration — you have a thorough knowledge that you must die. There passes not a day which does not, in some shape or other, present this fact to your observation, and call upon you, by emphatic demonstrations of human mortality, to acknowledge your own fraility. Ye cannot be so sure that any combination of circumstances will issue in the derangement and bank- ruptcy of your affairs, as ye are, that at a pei'iod which cannot be very distant, ye will be withdrawn altogether from these affairs, and ushered into an untried existence. And if, because you have not fastened attention upon circumstan- ces which threaten you with temporal ca- lamity, you are reckoned as having only yourselves to blame when that calamity bursts, like an armed man, into your households, assuredly you must hereaf- ter be treated as your own wilful destroy- ers if you make no preparation for that dreaded visitant whom no force can re- pulse, and no bribe allure, from your doors. We admit that much has been taught, and boasted, in respect to the free-agency of man, which will no more bear the test of experience than of Scrip- ture. But we cannot doubt that man is sufficiently a free agent to make the path of death, in which he walks, the path of his own choice ; so that, just as he is free to consider what he knows in reference to the matters of this life, so is he free to consider what he knows in reference to the matters of the next life.
And we give it you all as a warning, whose energy increases with your ac- quaintance with the truths of revelation, that God has gifted you with an appara- tus of moral feelings, to the excitement of which the announcements of Scripture are most nicely adapted ; and has thus 60 fitted the Bible to your constitution, that, if the Bible be kiujwn, and you un- concerned, there is evidence of wilful in- difference, or determined opposition, which will suffice for procuring con- demnation at the judgment. The fact that we must give account hereafter for every action, is, of all others, fitted to serse as a lever which may raise into ac- tivity the powers of the inner man. But
then it is consideration, and not mere knowledge, of such fact which converts it into the lever. Knowledge only intro- duces it into the mind. But when intro- duced, it will lie there idle and power- less, unless taken up and handled by consideration. And forasmuch as you have full power of giving consideration to the fact — for you can give your con- sideration to a fact of astronomy, or of chemistry ; and therefore also, if you choose, to a fact of theology — you are clearly answerable for the ineffective- ness of the fact, if it never move the torpid energies ; and can expect no- thing but the being condemned at last, as bavins: known, but not havinor consid- ered.
But we have somewhat wandered from our text ; at least, we have dwelt generally on the want of consideration, in place of confining ourselves to the instance which the passage exhibits. We go back to our proposition, that a fear of God will be the result of consid- ering : " when I consider, I am afraid of him."
It is our earnest wish to bring the careless amcmgst you, those who have no dread of God, to a sense of the aw- fulness of that mysterious Being, whose existence indeed you confess, but of whom, notwithstanding, your whole life is one perpetual defiance. Your fault is, that, immersing yourselves in the bu- siness or pleasures of the world, you never sit down to a serious contempla- tion of your state : in other words, that, however intently you fasten your thoughts on vain and perishable objects, yet, as creatures who are just in the in- fancy of existence, you never consider. And we have but little hope of prevail- ing on you, by any urgency of remon- strance, to give yourselves to the con- sidering what you know. We are too well aware that the prevailing on a man to consider his ways lies far beyond the power of human persuasion ; seeing that the mind can evade all external control, and, if it do not bind itself, can defy every attempt to overrule or direct. But we can give you certain of those processes of thought which would almost neces- sarily be followed out, where there were deep and solemn musings upon Deity, We may thus trace the connection as- serted in our text between considera- tion and fear. Though this will not
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compel you to consider for yourselves, it will leave you with less excuse than e^■er if you rest content with mere know- ledge ; it will show you what ought to be going forward in your own minds, and thus take away the plea of ignorance, if any should be hardy enough to ad- vance it.
With this object, we will examine how fear of God is produced by considering what we know of God, first in his na- ture, and secondly in his works.
Now we are all aware how powerful a restraint is imposed on the most dis- solute and profane, by the presence of an individual who will not countenance them in their impieties. So long as they are under observation, they will not dai-e to yield to imperious desires : they must shrink into a solitude ere they will per- petrate crime, or give indulgence to lusts. We can feel confident in respect of the most worldly-minded amongst you. that, if there could be always at his side an individual of whom he stood in awe, and whose good opinion he was anxious to cultivate, he v/ould abstain from many of his cherished gratifications, and walk, comparatively, a course of self-denial and virtue. He would be ar- rested in far the greater part of his pur- poses, if he knew that he was acting un- der the eye of this individual ; and it would only be when assured that the in- spection was suspended or withdrawn, that he would follow unreservedly the bent of his desires. But it is amongst the most surprising of moral phenomema, that the effect, which would be produced by a human inspector, is scarcely ever produced by a divine. If a man can elude the observation of his fellow-men, he straightway acts as though he had eluded all observation : place him where there is no other of his own race, and he will feel as if, in the strictest sense, alone. The remembrance that the eye of Deity is upon him, that the infinite God is continually at his side — so that there is absurdity in speaking of a soli- tude ; every spot throughout the expan- sions of space being inhabited by the Al- mighty— this remembrance, we say, is witiiout any practical effect; or rather the fact, though universally known, is not considered ; and therefore the man, thougli in contact with his Maker, fancies himself in loneliness, and acts as if cer- tain of beini' unobserved.
But let consideration be superadded to knowledge, and there will necessarily be produced a fear or dread of the Crea- toi-. There is nothing so overwhelming to the mind, when giving itself to the contemplation of a great first cause, as the omnipresence of God. That if I wei'e endowed with unlimited powers of motion, so that in a moment I might tra- verse unnumbered leagues, I could never for a lonely instant escape from God ; that he would remain at the spot I left, and yet be found at the spot I reached ; of all truths this is perhaps the most be- wildering and incomprehensible, seeing that, more than any other, it separates the Infinite Being from all finite. But let me consider this truth ; let me, if it baffle my understanding, endeavor to keep it in active remembrance. Where- soever I am, and whatsoever I do " thou, O God, seest me." Then it is not pos- sible that the least item of my conduct may escape observation ; that I can be so stealthy in my wickedness as to com- mit it undetected. Human laws are often severe in their enactments ; but they maybe often transgressed without discovery, and therefore with impunity. But there is no such possibility in regard to divine laws. The Legislator himself is ever at my side. The murkiness of the midnight shrouds me not from him. The solitariness of the scene is no proof against his presence. The depths of my own heart lie open to his inspection. And thus every action, every wofd, every thought, is as distinctly marked as though there were none but myself in the universe, and all the watchfulness, and all the scrutiny of God, were em- ployed on my deportment. What then 1 " when I consider, I am afraid of him." The more I reflect, the more awful God appears. To break the law in the sight of the lawgiver ; to brave the sen- tence in the face of the Judge ; there is a hardihood in this which would seem to overpass the worst human presump- tion ; and we can only say of the man who knows that he does this whensoever he offends, that he knows, but does not consider.
Oh ! we are sure that an abiding sense of God's presence would put such a re- straint on the outgoings of wickedness, that, to make it universal were almost to banish impiety from the earth. We are sure that, if every man went to his busi-
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ness, or his recreation, fi-auglit with the consciousness that the Being, who will decide his destiny for eternity, accom- panies him in his every step, observes all his doings, and scrutinizes all his mo- tives, an apprehension of the dreadful- ness of the Almighty, and of the utter peril of violating his precepts, would take possession of the whole mass of society ; and there would be a confes- sion from all ranks and all ages, that, however they might have known God as the Omnipresent, and yet made light of his authority, when they considered God as the Omnipresent, they were overawed and afraid of him.
But again — it is not the mere feeling that God exercises a supervision over my actions, which will produce that dread of him which Job asserts in our text. The moral character of God will enter largely into considez-ation upon Deity, and vastly aggravate that fear which is produced by his omnipresence. Of course, it is not the certainty that a being sees me, which, of itself, will make me fear that being. There must be a further certainty, that the conduct to which I am prone is displeasing to him ; and that, if persisted in, it will draw upon me his vengeance. Let me then consider God, and determine, from his necessary attributes, whether there can be hope that he will pass over without punishment, which cannot escape his observation.
We suY)pose God just, and we suppose him merciful ; and it is in settling the relative claims of these properties, that men fancy they find ground for expect- ing impunity at the last. The matter to be adjusted is, how a being confessedly love, can so yield to the demands of jus- tice as to give up his creatures to tor- ment; and the difficulty of the adjust- ment makes way for the flattering per- suasion, that love will hereafter triumph over justice, and that threatenings, hav- ing answered their purpose in the moral government of God, will not be so rigidly exacted as to interfere with the work- ings of unbounded compassion. But it is not by considering that men encourage themselves in the thought, that the claims of love and of justice will be found hereafter at variance, and that, in the contest between the two, those of love will prevail. Through not consider- ing, men have hope in God ; let them
only consider, and we are bold to say they will be afraid of God.
If I do but jeflect seriously on the love of my Maker, I must perceive it to be a disj)osition to produce the greatest amount of hajipiness, by upholding through the ijniverse those principles of righteousness with whose overthrow misery stands indlssolubly connected. But it is quite evident, that, when once evil has been introduced, this greatest amount of happiness is not that which would result from the unconditional 2:)ardon of every worker of evil. Such pardon would show the abandonment of the principles of righteousness, and therefore spread consternation and dis- may amongst the unfallen members of God's intelligent household. A benevo- lence which should set aside justice, would cease to be benevolence : it would be nothing but a weakness, which, in order to snatch a few from deserved misery overturned the laws of moral government, and exposed myriads to an- archy and wretchedness. And yet fur- ther— unless God be faithful to his threatenings, I have no waiTant for be- lieving that he will be faithful to his ■ promises ; if he deny himself in one, he ceases to be God, and there is an end of all reasonable hope that he will make good the other.
So that however, on a hasty glance, and forming my estimate of benevolence from the pliancy of human sympathies, which are wrought on by a tear, and not proof against complaint, I may think that the love of the Almighty will forbid the everlasting misery of any of his creatures ; let me consider, and the dreamy expect- ation of a weak and \vomanish tender- ness will give place to apprehension and dread. I consider ; and I see that, if God be not true to his word, he con- founds the distinctions between evil and good, destroys his own sovereignty, and shakes the foundations of happiness through the universe. I consider; and I perceive that to let go unvisited the impenitent, would be to forfeit the char- acter of a righteous moral governor, and to proclaim to every rank of intelligence, in all the circuits of immensity, that law was abolished, and disobedience made safe. I consider ; and I observe that a love, which triumphed over justice, could not be the love of a perfect being : for i the love of a perfect being, whatever
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its yearnings over myself, must include love of justice; so that I trust to what God cannot feel, when I trust to a com- passion which cannot allow punishment. And thus, when I consider there is no resting-place for the spirit in the flatter- ing delusion, that in the moment of terrible extremity, when the misdoings of a long life shall have given in their testimony, mercy will interpose between justice and the criminal, and ward off the blow, and welcome to happiness. Every attribute of Deity, benevolence itself as well as justice, and holiness, and truth, rises against the delusion, and warns me that to cherish it is to go head- long to destruction. The theory that God is too loving to take vengeance, will not bear being considered. The notion that the judge will prove less rigid than the lawgiver, will not bear being considered. The opinion that the purposes of a moral government may have been answered by the threatening, so as not to need the infliction, will not bear being considered. And therefore, if I have accustomed myself to such a representation of Deity as makes bene- volence, falsely so called, the grave of every other attribute ; and if, allured by such representation, I have quieted anx- iety, and kept down the pleadings of conscience; consideration will scatter the delusion, and gird me round with terrors ; whilst Ilookonly on the surface of things, I may be confident, but when I consi- der, I am afraid.
Oh ! it is not, as some would persuade you, the dream of gloomy and miscalcu- lating men, that a punishment, the very mention of which curdles the blood and makes the limbs tremble, awaits, through the long hereafter, those who set at naught the atonement effected by Christ. It is not the picture of a diseased imagi- nation, nursed in error and trammelled by enthusiasm, that of God, who now jilies us with the overtures of forgiveness, coming forth with all the artillery of wrath, and dealing out vengeance on those who have " done despite to the spirit of grace." We biing the dream to the rigid investigations of wakeful- ness ; we expose the picture to the microscopes of the closest meditation ; and when men would taunt us with our belief in unutterable torments, portioned out by a Creator who loves (with a love overpassing language) the very meanest
of his creatures ; and when they would smile at our credulity in supposing that God can act in a manner so repugnant to his confessed nature ; we retort on them at once the charge of adopting an unsupported theory. We tell them, that, if with them we could escape from thought, and smother reflection, then with them we might give harbourage to the soothing persuasion that there is no cause for dread, and that God is of too yearning a compassion to resign aught of humankind to be bi'oken on the wheel or scathed by the fire. But it is in pro- portion as the mind fastens itself upon God that alarm is excited. Thought, in place of dissipating, generates terror. And thus, paralyze my reason, debar me from every exercise of intellect, reduce me to the idiot, and I shall be careless and confident : but leave me the equip- ment and use of mental faculties, and " when I consider, I am afraid of him."
But the coimection between consider- ation and fear will be yet more evident, if the works of God engage our attention. We have hitheito considered only the nature of God. But if we now meditate on either creation or redemption, under which two divisions we may class the works of God, we shall find additional proof of the truth of the saying, " when I consider, I am afraid of him."
Now we readily admit that a fear, or dread, of the Almighty is not the feeling ordinarily excited by the magnificence of the heavens, or the loveliness of a landscape. It most freqently happens, unless the mind be so morally deadened as to receive no impressions from the splendid panorama, that sentiments of warm admiration, and of confidence in^ God as the benignant Parent of the uni- verse, are elicited by exhibitions of crea- tive wisdom and might. And we are far- enough from designing to assert, that the exhibitions are not calculated to pro- duce such sentiments. We think that the broad and varied face of natui'C' seiTcs as a mirror, in which the christian may trace much that is most endearing in the character of his Maker. We- should reckon it fair evidence against the piety of an individual, if he could gaze on the stars in their courses, or travel over the provinces of this globe, and mark with what profusion all that can minister to human happiness is scat- tered around, and yet be conscious of no. 25
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ascendings of heart towards that bene- volent Father who hath given to man so glorious a dwelling, and overarched it with so brilliant a canopy. Where there is a devout spirit, we are sure that the placing a man whence he may look forth on some majestic development of scenery, on luxuriant valleys, and the amphithea- tre of mountains, and the windings of rivers, is the placing him where he will learn a new lesson in theology, and grow warmer in his love of that Eternal Being " who in the beginning created the hea- vens and the earth,"
But we speak now of what is adapted to the producing fear of God in the careless and unconverted man : and we say that it is only through want of consideration that such fear is not excited by the works of creation, the unconverted man, as well as the converted, can take delight in the beauties of nature, and be conscious of ecstasy of spirit, as his eye gathers in the wonders of the material universe. But the converted man, whilst the might- ty pictui'e is before him, and the sublime features and the lovely successively fast- en his admiration, considers who spread out the landscape and gave it its splend- or; and from such consideration he de- rives fresh confidence in the God whom he feels to be his God, pledged to uphold him, and supply his every want. The unconverted man, on the contrary, will either behold the architecture without giving a thought to the architect ; or, ob- serving how exquisite a regard for his well-being may be traced in the arrange- ments of creation, will strengthen him- self in his appeal to the compassions of Deity, by the tender solicitudes of which he can thus prove himself the subject. If he gather any feeling from the spread- ings of the landscape, beyond that high- wrought emotion which is wakened by the noble combinations of rock, and lake, and cloud, and forest — just as though all the poetry of tlie soul were respond- infT to S(mie melodious and magnificent summons — it is only the feeling that God is immeasurably benevolent; and that, having been so careful of man's happi- ness in time, he will not abandon him to wretchedness through eternity.
But we should like to bring this ro- mantic and Arcadian theology to the test of consideration. Wc believe, that, if we could make the man consider, he would not be encouraged by the tokens
of loving-kindness with which all nature is charactered, to continue the life of indifference or dissoluteness. There are two ideas which seem to us furnish- ed by the works of creation, when duly considered. The first is, that nothing can withstand God ; the second, that no- thing can escape him. When I muse on the stupendou.sness ofcreation ; when I think of countless worlds built out of nothing by the simple word of Jehovah ; my conviction is that God must be irre- sistible, so that the opposing him is the opjDOsing Omnipotence. But if I cannot withstand God, I may possibly escape him. Insignificant as I am, an inconsid- erable unit on an inconsiderable globe, may I not be overlooked by this iiTesist- ible Being, and thus, as it were, be sheltered by my littleness ] If I would answer this question, let me consider creation in its minutest departments. Let me examine the least insect, the an- imated thing of a day and an atotn. How it glows Avith deity ! How busy has God been with polishing the joints, and feathering the wings, of this almost imperceptible recipient of life ! How carefully has he attended to its every want, supplying profusely whatever can gladden its ephemeral existence ! Dare I think this tiny insect overlooked by God ] Wonderful in its structure, beau- tiful in its raiment of the purple and the gold and the crimson, surrounded abund- antly by all that is adapted to the ci'av- ings of its nature, can I fail to regard it as fashioned by the skill, and watched by the providence, of him who " meted out heaven with a span, and measured the waters in the hollow of his hand 1 " It were as easy to persuade me, when considering, that the archans^el, movinsr in majesty and burning with beauty, is overlooked by God, as that this in- sect, liveried as it is in splendor and throned in plenty, is unobserved by Him who alone could have formed it.
And if the least of animated things be thus subject to the insj^ections of God, who or what shall escape those inspec- tions, and be screened by its insignifi- cance 1 Till I consider, I may fancy that, occupied with the affairs of an un- bounded empire, our Maker can give nothing more than a general attention to the inhabitants of a solitary planet ; and that consequently an individual like myself may well hope to escape the
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seventy of his scrutiny. But •when I consider, I go from the planet to the atom. I pass from the population of this globe, in the infancy of their immor- tality, to the breathing particles which must perish in the hour of their birth. And I cannot find that the atom is over- looked. I cannot find that one of its fleeting tenantry is unobserved and un- cared for. I consider then ; but consid- eration scatters the idea, that, because I am but the insignificant unit of an insig- nificant race, " God will not see, neither \vill the Holy One of Israel regard." And thus, by considering the works of creation, I reach the persuasion that no- thing can escape God, just as before that nothing can withstand him. What then will be the feeling which consider- ation generates in reference to God 1 I consider God as revealed by creation ; and he appears before me with a might which can crush every offender, and with a scrunity which can detect every offence. Oh then; if it be alike impos- sible to resist God, and to conceal from God, is he not a being of whom to stand in awe ; and shall I not again confess, that " when I consider, I am afraid of him?"
We would just observe, in order to the completeness of this portion of our argument, that it must be want of con- sideration which makes us read only God's love in the works of ci-eation. We say of the man who infers nothing but the benevolence of Deity from the firmament and the landscape, just as though no other attribute were graven on the encompassing scenery, that he contents himself with a superficial glance, or blinds himself to the traces of wrath and devastation. That we live in a dis- organized section of the universe; that our globe has been the scene and subject of mighty convulsions ; we hold these facts to be as legible in the lineaments of nature, as that "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." There is avast deal in the appearances of the earth, and in the phe- nomena of the elements, to assure us that evil has been introduced amongst us, and has already provoked the vengeance of God. So that a considering man, if he make the visible creation the object of his reflection, will reach the conclusion, that, whatever may be the compassions of his Maker, he can interfere for the
punishment of iniquity — a conclusion which at once dissipates the hope, that the love of God will mitigate, if not remove, deserved penalties, and which therefore strengthens our proof tliat, when we consider, we shall be afraid of God.
But we have yet, in the last place, to speak briefly on the noblest of God's works, the Avork of redemption. Is it possible that, if I consider this work, I shall be afraid of God ? We premise that, throughout our discourse, we have endeavored to deal with popular delu- sions, and to show you how consideration, superadded to knowledge, would rouse the careless and indifferent. We have maintained, all along, that the mere knowledge of truths may lie inertly in the mind, or furnish ground-work for some false and flattering hypothesis. But this is saying nothing against the worth or tendency of these truths ; it is wholly directed against the not consid- ering what we know. Thus the ques- tion with respect to redemption is sim- ply, whether this scheme, as known by the mass of men, may not lull those fears of God which ought to be stirring in their breasts ; and whether this scheme, as considered, would not make them afraid of God] We learn from the Epistles, that there may be such a thing as continuing in sin that grace may abound — a fact which sufficiently shows that redemption may be abused ; and if abused, it is, we argue, through not be- ing considered.
It is our duty, as a minister of the Gospel of Christ, to dwell largely on the love which God feels towards sinners, and to point continually to the demon- stration of that love in the gift of his on- ly and well-beloved Son. We cannot speak in over-wrought terms of the read- iness of the Almighty to forgive, and of the amplitude of the atonement effected by the Mediator. We arc charged with the offer of pardon to the whole mass of human kind : enough that a be- ing is man, and we are instructed to be- seech him to be reconciled to God. And a glorious truth it is, that no limitations are placed on the proffered forgiveness ; but that, Christ having died for the world, the world, in all its departments and generations, may take salvation " without money and without price." We call it a i^lorious truth, because there
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is thus every thing to encourage the meanest and unworthiest, if they will close with the offer, and accept deliver- ance in the ono appointed way. But then it is quite possible that the gospel offers, thus cheering to the humble and contrite, may be wrested into an encour- agement to the obdurate and indifferent. Men may know that God has so loved them as to give his Son to die for them ; and then, througli not considering, may imagine that a love thus stupendously displayed, can never permit the final wretchedness of its objects. The scheme of redemption, though itself the most thrilling homily against sin, may be viewed by those who would fain build on the uncovenanted mercies of God, as proving a vast improbabilty that crea- tures, so beloved as ourselves, and pur- chased at so inconceivable a price, will ever be consigned to the ministry of ven- geance. Hence, because they know the fact of this redemption, the careless amongst you have hope in God ; but, if they considered this fact, they would be afraid of him.
Thei'e is nothing which, when deeply pondered, is more calculated to excite fears of God, than that marvellous inter- position on our behalf which is the alone basis of legitimate hope. When I con- sider redemption, what a picture of God's hatred of sin rises before me ; what an exhibition of his resolve to allow justice to exact all its claims. The smoking cities of the plain ; the deluged earth with its overwhelmed population ; the scattered Jews, strewing the globe like the fragments of a mighty shipwreck — nothing can tell me so empJiatically as Christ dying, " the just for the unjust," how God abhors sin, and how determined he is to punish sin. And if God could deal so awfully and terribly with his own Son, when bearing the weight of imput- ed transgression, will he spare me — oh, it is as though he loved me better than his Son — if I appear before him with the burden of uurepented sins ; if, per- verting his efforts to turn me from ini- quity into encouragements to brave all his threatenings, 1 build on the atone- ment whilst I break the commandments 1 I consider God as manifested in redemp- tion ; he shows himself a holy God, and therefore do I fear him. He displays his determination to take vengeance, and therefore do I fear liim. lie exhibits
the fixed principles of his moral govern- ment, and therefore do I fear him. He bids the sword awake against his fellow, and therefore do I fear him. He writes the condemnation of the impenitent in the blood which cleanses those who be- lieve, and therefore do I fear him. Oh, I might cast a hasty glance at the scheme of redemption, and observe little more than the unmeasured loving-kindness which it manifests. I might gather from it the preciousness of the human soul in God's sight, a preciousness so vast that its loss must be a catastrophe at which the universe shudders, seeing its redemp- tion was effected amid the throes and convulsions of nature. And this might confirm me in the delusion that I may sin with impunity. But let me reflect on the scheme, and God is before me, robed in awfulness and clothed with judgment, vindicating the majesty of his insulted law and relaxing not one tittle of its penalties, bearing out to the letter the words of the prophet, " the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he resei-v'eth wrath for his enemies ;" and therefore it must be with redemption, as it is with creation, " AVhen I consider, I am afraid of him."
And now, brethren, what words shall we use of you but these of Moses, " O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end ] " We simply wish to bring you to consider ; and then, we believe, you will both discover what is duty, and deter- mine to follow it.
This is the sum of what we have to urge in respect to the charity which now solicits your support. Consider what is your duly towards your benighted coun- trymen, and we have no fears of your failing to be liberal in your contribution. It is only through the not considering, the not considering that you are meiely stewards of your property, the not con- sidering that Christ is to be minister- ed to in the persons of the destitute, the not considering that " he that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord ; " it is only from such causes as these, so pal- pable and urgent is the duty, that you can fail to give heaity support to the institution which now appeals to your bounty. The exclusive object of the Irish Society is to communicate religous knowledge to the peasantry of Ireland through the medium of the Irish iaa
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giiage. There are nearly three millions of individuals in Ireland who can speak the hish language; and of these at least five hundred thousand can speak no other. There are five hundred thousand of your countrymen, to Avhom the Hebrew tons:ue would be as intellis^ible as the English ; and who can no more be ap- proached through the medium of our national speech, than the rude Hottentot or the Arab of the desert. And this is not all. Thei'e are indeed hundreds and thousands in Ireland, who understand and speak the English tongue as well as the Irish ; but it does not follow that they are as ready to receive religious instruction throutrh the one as throuofh
o o
the other. The case is just the reverse. I cannot express to you the attachment, the devoted and even romantic attach- ment which an Irish-speaking peasant has for his native dialect. It is a chivalrous attachment. It is even a superstitious attachment. He believes that no here- tic can learn Irish, and that consequently nothing but truth can be written or spoken in Irish. And thus, if you will only take advantage of his prejudices, you can at once induce him to receive and read the Holy Scriptures. Give him an English Bible, and he will scarcely dare open it, because pronounced he- retical by his priest. But give him an Irish Bible, and no menaces can induce its surrender ; the book is in Irish, and he knows therefore that it cannot contain heresy. And does not this demonstrate the importance of employing the Irish language as a vehicle for the communi- cation of religious instruction ; and does not a Society, which is acting through this language, come before you with special claims on your liberal support 1 I turn to Ireland, and I perceive that nature has done much for that which poetry calls the emerald isle of the ocean. There is fertility in her soil, and majesty in her mountains, and luxuriance in her valleys, and a loveliness in her lakes, which makes them rivals to those in which ItaHan skies glass their deep azure. And the character of her children is that of a lofty and generous heroism ; for I believe not that there is a nation under heaven, possessing more of the elements than belong to the Irish, of what is bold, and disinterested, and liberal. And with- out question it is a phenomenon, at which we may well be startled and amazed,
to behold Ireland, in spite of the advant- ages to which I have referred, in spite of her close alliance with the home and mistress of arts and liberty, torn by in- testine factions, and harassed by the feuds and commotions of her tenantry. Of such phenomenon the solution would be hopeless, if we did not know that Ire- land is oppressed by a bigoted faith, be- strid by that giant corrupter of Chris- tianity, who knows, and acts on the know- ledge, that to enlighten ignorance were to overthrow his empire. It is because Ireland is morally benighted that she is physically degraded ; and the engines which must be turned on her, to raise her to her due rank in the scale of nations, are religious rather than politi- cal ; she can be throughly civilized only by being throughly christianized.
And certainly, if there were ever a time when it was incumbent upon pro- testants to labor at spreading the pure Gospel through Ireland, this is that time. Popery is making unparalleled efforts to expel protestantism altogether. Shall then the protestantism of England stand tamely by, as though it had no interest in the struggle 1 We are persuaded, on the contrary, that, as protestants, you will feel it alike your duty, and your privilege, to aid to the best of your ability institutions which provide a scriptural instruction for the peasantry of Ireland. And whilst we gladly confess that other societies have labored vigor- ously and successfully for this great ob- ject, we think from the reasons already advanced, that none emj^loys a more admirable agency than that for which we plead ; and therefore are we earnest in entreating for it your liberal support. The Irish society will bear being con- sidered ; we ask you to consider its claims, and we feel confident you will ac- knowledge their urgency.
I cannot add more. I may have al- ready detained you too long ; but I know not when I may sjieak again in this place ; and I desire, ere I go, to have proof, from your zeal for the souls of others, that you are anxious in regard to your own salvation. We must fear of many amongst you, that they hear sermons, but do not consider. Companions die around them, but they do not consider. They meet funerals as they walk tho streets, but they do not consider. They are warned by sickness and aflliction.
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but tliey do not consider. They feel that age is creeping upon them, but they do not consider. What shall we say to you 1 Will ye continue to give cause for the application to yourselves of those touching words of God by his prophet, " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider?" Preachers cannot make you consider. They exhort you, they entreat you, they tell you of a Savior, and of the utter ruin of going on still in your wickedness.
But ihey cannot make you consider. You must consider for yourselves ; you must, for yourselves, ask God's Spirit to aid you in considering. Would that you might consider; for when the trum- pet is sounding, and the dead are stir- ring, you will be forced to consider, though it will be too late for consideration to produce any thing but unmingled terror — Oh, can you tell me the agony of being compelled to exclaim at the judgment, " when I consider I am afraid of Him ] "
18 3 7.
SERMON.
THE TWO SONS.
" But what think ye? A certain man had two sons ; and lie came to the first, and said, Son, eo work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And ho answered and said, I go, Sir, and went not." — St. Matthew, sxi. 28, 29, 30.
jOur Savior had such knowledge of the human heart, and such power of express- ing that knowledge, that he frequently gives us, in one or two bold outlines, descriptions of great classes into which the world, or the church, may be divided. There is no more remarkable instance of this than the parable of the sower, with which we may suppose you all well ac- quainted. In that parable Christ fur- nishes descrijjtions of four classes of the hearers of the Gospel, each description being brief, and fetched from the char- acter of the soil on which the sower cast his seed. But the singularity is, that these four classes include the whole mass of hearers, so that, when combined, they make up either the world or the church. You cannot imagine any fifth class. For in every man who is brought
within sound of the Gospel, the Seed must be as that by the wayside, which is quickly carried away, or as that on shallow soil, where the roots cannot strike, or as that among thorns, which choke all the produce, or finally, as that which, falling on a well prepared place, yields fruit abundantly. You may try to find hearers who come not under any one of these descriptions, but you will not succeed ; whilst, on the other hand, the world has never yet presented an assemblage of mixed hearers, which might not be resolved into tliese four divisions. And we regard it as an ex- traordinary evidence of the sagacity, if the expression be lawful, of our Lord, of his superhuman penetration, and of his marvellous facility in condensing volumes into sentences, that he has thus
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furnished, in few words, a sketch of the whole world in its every age, and given us, within the compass of a dozen lines, the moral history of our race, as acted on by the preaching of the Gos- pel.
We make this reference to the para- ble of the sovvei", because we consider it rivalled in its comprehensiveness, and the unvarying accuracy of its descrip- tions, by the portion of Holy Writ on which we now purpose to discourse. We do not mean that the two sons can rej^resent the whole world, or the whole church, in the same manner or degree as the four classes of hearers. There would manifestly be a contradiction in this ; for if there be four parts into which the whole may be divided, it were absurd to contend for the equal propriety of a division into two. But we nevertheless believe that two very large classes of persons, subsisting in every age of the church, are represented by the two sons, and that, therefore, in delivering the parable before us, as well as that of the sower, Christ displayed his more than human acquaintance with mankind, and his power of delineating, by the simplest figures, the reception of his Gospel to the very end of time. All this, however, will become more evident, as we pro- ceed with the exposition of the passage, and show you, as we think to do, that centuries have made no difference in the faithfulness of the sketch.
You will observe that the parable, or illustration, or real history — for it mat- ters little which term you assign to this portion of Scripture — is introduced by our Lord, whilst holding a discourse with the priests and elders in the temple. They had come round him, demanding by what authority he acted — as though lie had not given sufficiently clear proof th:it his mission was from God. Where the demand was so unreasonable, Jesus would not vouchsafe a direct answer. He therefore made his reply conditional on their telling him whether the baptism of Jtihn was from heaven or of men. He thus brought them into a dilemma from which no sophistry could extricate them. If they allowed the divine cha- racter of John's baptism, they laid them- selves open to the chaige of gross incon- sistency, in not having believed him, and in denying the Messiahship of him whom he heralded. 13ut if, on the other hand,
they uttered what they really thought, and affirmed John's baptism to have been of men, they felt that they should excite the multitude against themselves, inasmuch as the people held the Baptist for a prophet. They therefore thought it most prudent to pi'etend ignorance, and to declare themselves unable to decide whence the baptism was. Hence the condition on which Christ had promised to answer their question not having been fulfilled, they could not press him with any further inquiry, but remained in the position of disappointed and baffled an- tagonists.
It consisted not however with the Sa- vior's character, that he should content himself with gaining a triumph over op- ponents, as though he had reasoned only for the sake of display. He had severe- ly mortified his bitterest enemies, by turning their weapons against them- selves, and bringing them into a strait in which they were exposed to the con- tempt of the bystanders. But it was their good which he sought ; and when, therefore, he had silenced them, he would not let slip the opportunitiy of setting before them their condition, and adding another warning to the many which had been uttered in vain. The declaration of ignorance in regard to John's baptism, suggested the course which his remonstrance should take, according to his wellknown custom of allowing the occasion to furnish the to- pic of his preaching. He delivers the parable which forms our subject of dis- coui'se, and immediately follows it up by the question, " whether of them twain did the will of his father 1 " There was no room here for either doubt or evasion. It was so manifest that the son, who had refused at first, but who had afterwards repented and gone to the vineyard, was more obedient than the other, who had made a profession of willingness, but never redeemed his promise, that even priests and elders could not avoid giving a right decision. And now Christ show- ed wliat his motive had been in deliver- ing the parable, and proposing the ques- tion ; for so soon as he had obtained their testimony in favor of the first son, he said to them, " Verily I say unto you that the pubhcans and the har- lots go into the kingdom of God before
you
We gather at once, from this startling
THE TWO SONS.
and severe saying-, diat by the second son in the parable, Christ intended the leading men among the Jews, and, by the first, those despised and profligate ranks with whicli pharisees and scribes would not hold the least intercourse. The publicans and harlots, as he goes on to observe, had received John the Baptist ; for numbers had repented at his preaching. But the priests and elders, according to their own confession just made, had not acknowledged him as coming from God, and had not been brought by him to amendment of life. And this was precisely the reverse of what the profession of the several parties had given right to expect. The priests and elders, making a great show of reli- gion, and apparently eager expectants of the promised Messiah, seemed only to require to be directed to the vineyard, and they would immediately and cheer- fully go. On the other hand, the pub- licans and harlots, persons of gi'ossly im- moral and profligate habits, might be said to declare, by their lives, an obsti- nate resolve to continue in disobedience, so that, if told to go work in the vineyard, their answer would be a contemptuous refusal. Yet when the matter came to be put to the proof, the result was wide- ly different from what appearances had promised. The great men amongst the Jews, whose whole profession was that of parties waiting to know, that they might perform, God's will, were bidden by the Baptist to receive Jesus as their Savior ; but notwithstanding all their promises, they treated him as a deceiver, and would not join themselves to his disciples. The same message was deliv- ered to the publicans and harlots ; but these, whatever the reluctance which they manifested at first, came in crowds to hear Jesus, and took by force the kingdom of heaven. And all this was aptly illustrated by the parable before us. The great men were the second son ; for they had said, " I go, sir," and yet they went not : the publicans and harlots were the first son ; for though, when bidden, they refused, yet after- wards they repented and went.
Such was evidently the import and design of the parable, as originally de- livered by Jesus. It is possible, indeed, that there may have been also a refer- . ence to the Jew and the Gentile ; the two sons representing, as they elsewhere do,
these two great divisions of mankincl. The Jews as a nation, were aptly fig- ured by the second son, the Gentiles by the first. Both had the same father — seeing that, however close the union be- tween God and the Jews, and howevei* the Gentiles had been left, for centuries, to themselves, there was no difference in origin, inasmuch as the whole race had the same Lord for its parent. And the Jews stood ready to welcome their Messiah ; whereas little could be expect- ed from the Gentiles, sunk as they were in ignorance and superstition, but that, if directed to a Savior, they would treat with contempt the free offer of life. Here again, however, the event was the reverse of the expectation. The Gospel made little way amongst the Jews, where there had been every promise of a cor- dial reception ; but i-apidly overran the Gentile world, where there had seemed least likelihood of its gaining any ground. So that once more the parable, if taken in the light of a prophecy, vias accu- rately fulfilled. The Jew, as the second son, had promised to go and work in the vineyard, and then never went : the Gen- tile, as the first son, had peremptorily refused, but afterwards saw his error, and repented, and obeyed.
But whilst there may be great justice in thus giving the parable a rational, or temporary application, our chief business is to treat it, according to our introduc- tory remarks, as descrij)tive of two class- es in every age of the church. It is this which we shall now proceed to do, be- lieving that it furnishes, in a more than common degree, the material of interest- ing and instructive discourse.
Now it is a very frequent image in Scripture, that which represents the Church of Christ as a vineyard, and our- selves as laborei's who have been hired to work in that vineyard. We shall not, on the present occasion, enlarge on this image, nor take pains to show you its beauty and fidelity. We shall find enough to engage us in the other parts (;f the parable, and may therefore as- sume what you are probably all prepar- ed to admit. We go then at once to the message which is delivered to each of the sons, '* Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." It is precisely the message, which, Sabbath after Sabbath, is uttered in God's name by the ordained ministers of Christ. We are never at liberty to
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make you any offers for to-morrow, but must always tell you, that " if to-day you will hear his voice," he is ready to re- ceive you into the vineyard of his church. And it is not to a life of inactivity and idleness that Ave are bidden to summon you, not to that inert dependence on the merits of another, which shall exclude all necessity for personal striving. We call you, on the contrary, to work in the vineyard. If you think to be saved with- out labor; if you imagine, that, because Christ has done all that is necessary, in the way of merit, there remains nothing to be done by yourselves in the way of condition, you are yielding to a delusion which must be as wilful as it will be fa- tal— the whole tenor of Scripture unre- servedly declaring, that, if you would en- ter into life, you must " work out your salvation with fear and trembling." And thus the message, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," is, in every re- spect, that which God is continually ad- dressing to you through the mouth of his ministering servants, a message declara- tory that " now is the accepted time," and requiring you to put forth eveiy en- ergy that you may escape " the wrath to come."
And now the question is, as to the re- ception with, which this message meets ; and whether there be not two great classes of its hearers who are accurately represented by the two sons in the par- able. We do not pretend to affirm, as we have already intimated, that the whole mass of unconverted men may fairly be resolved under the two divisions thus figuratively drawn. We are well aware of the prevalence of an indifference and apathy, which can hardly be roused to any kind of answer, either to a specious promise, made only to be broken, or to a harsh refusal, which may perhaps be turned into C(jmpliance. But without pretending to include all under these di- visions, we may and do believe that the multitude is very large which may be thus defined and classified. We suppose, that, after all, most way is made by the preachers of the Gospel when there seems least prospect of success ; and that, as it was in the days when Christ was on eaith, those who promise fairest give most disa{)pointment, whilst the harvest is reaped where we looked only for sterility. This however is a matter which should be carefullyexamined, and
we shall therefore employ the remainder of our discourse in considering separately the cases of the two sons, beginning with that of the second, who said, " I go, sir, and went not," and then proceeding to that of the first, who said, " I will not, but afterward he I'epented and went."
Now there is in many men a warmth of natural feeling, and a great suscepti- bility, which make them promising sub- jects for any stirring and touching appeal. They are easily excited ; and both their fears and spmpathies will readily answer to a powerful address or a sorrow- ful narrative. They are not made of that harsh stuff which seems the predom- inant element in many men's constitu- tions ; but on the contrary, are yielding and malleable, as though the moral artifi- cer might work them without difficulty, into what shape he would. We are well convinced that there are many who answer this description in every congregation, and therefore in the present. It is far from our feeling, that, when we put forth all our earnestness in some appeal to the conscience, or come down upon you with our warmest entreaty, that you would accept the deliverance proposed by the Gospel, we are heard on all sides with coldness and indifference. We have quite the opposite feeling. We do not doubt, that, as the appeal goes forward, and the entreaty is pressed, there are some who are conscious of a warmth of sentiment, and a melting of heart ; and in whom there is excited so much of a determination to forsake sin, and obey God, that, if we could ply each with the command, " go, work to-day in my vine- yai-d," we should receive a promise of immediate compliance.
It is not that these men or these wo- men are undergoing a change of heart, though there may be that in the feelings thus excited, which, fairly followed out, would lead to a thorough renovation. It is only that they are made of a mate- rial on which it is very easy to work ; but which, alas, if it have great facility for receiving impressions, may have just as much in allowing them to be effaced. And what is done by a faithful sermon is done also by providential dispensations, when God addresses these i)arties through some affliction or bereavement. If you visit them, when deatli has enter- ed their households, you find nothing of the harshness and reserve of sullen grief;
26
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THE TWO SONS.
but all that openness to counsel, and all that readiness to own the mercy of the judgment which seem indicative of such a softening of the heart as promises to issue in its genuine conversion. If you treat the chastisement under which they labor as a message from God, and trans- late it thus into common language, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," you meet with no signs of dislike or reluct- ance, but rather with a ready assent that you give the true meaning, and with a frank resolution that God shall not speak in vain.
We put it to yourselves to determine whether we are not describing a common case ; whether, if you could dissect our congregations, you would not find a large mass of persons who seem quite accessible to moral attack ; whom you may easily startle by a close address to the conscience, or overcome by a pa- thetic and plaintive description ; and on whom when affliction falls, it falls with that subduing and penetrating power which gives room for hope that it will bring them to repentance. And where- soever these cases occur, they may evi- dently, so far as we have gone, be iden- tified with that of the second son in the parable ; for whilst the address to the parties is one which urges to the work- ing in the vineyard, their answer has all the promise, and all the respectfulness, contained in the " I go, sir," of our text.
But the accuracy of the delineation does not end here. We must follow these excited listeners from the place of assembling, and these subdued mourners from the scene of affliction. Alas, how soon is it apparent that what is easily roused may be as easily lulled ; and that you liave only to remove the incumbent weight and the former figure is rerained. The men who have been all attention to the preacher, whom he seemed to have brought completely under command, so that they were ready to follow him whithersoever he would lead, settle back into their listlessness when the stimulant of the sermon is witlidrawn ; and those whom the fires of calamity appeared to have melted, harden ra])idly into their old constitution when time has somewhat damped the intenseness of the flame. The melancholy truth is, that the whole assault has been on their natural sensi- bilities, on their animal feelings ; and that nothing like spiritual solicitude has
been produced, whether by the sermon or the sorrow. They have given much cause for hope, seeing they have dis- played susceptibility, and thus shown themselves capable of moral impressions. But they have disappointed expectation, because they have taken no pains to dis- tinguish between an instinct of nature and a work of God's Spirit, or lather, because they have allowed their feelings to evaporate in the forming a resolution, and have not set themselves prayerfully to the carrying it into effect. And thus it comes to pass that men on whom preaching seemed to have taken great hold as though they were moved by the terrors, and animated by the hopes of Christianity ; or whom the visitations of Providence appeared to have brought to humility and contrition ; make no advances in the religion of the heart, but falsify the hopes which those who wish their salvation have ventured to cherish. And when surpi'ise is express- ed and the reason is demanded, the only reply is, that there is yet a large class in the world too faithfully delineated by the second son, who, when bidden by his father to go work in the vineyard, an- swered, " I go, sir," and went not.
You may think, however, that we have not adduced precisely the case in- tended by the parable, inasmuch as these susceptible, but unstable, persons are not of the same class with the chief priests and elders. The second son was originally designed to denote the leading men among the Jews ; and, therefore, in seeking his present representatives, we seem bound to look for similarity to those to whom Christ addressed the par- able. This is so far true, that, although it impeaches not the accuracy of what has been advanced, it makes it necessary for us to continue our examination, lest we bring within too narrow limits the class of men described.
We have already hinted that there lie the greatest obstacles to the reception of the Gospel, where, at first, we might have hoped for most rapid success. Thus with the chief priests and Phari- sees. There was the most rigid atten- tion to all the externals of religion, a professed readiness to submit to the revealed will of God, and an apj^arent determination to receive Christ, so soon as he should be manifested. Yet all this, as we have shown you, was nothing
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more than the saying, " I go, sir ;" for when Christ actually came, they were displeased at his lowliness, and would not join him as their King and tlieir Savior. And we are bound to say that we know not more unpromising subjects for the preaching of the Gospel, than those who are punctiliously attentive to the forms of religion, and who attach a worth and a merit to their careful per- formance of certain moral duties. We cannot have a more unpalatable truth to deliver — but wo is unto us if we dare to keep it back — than that which exposes the utter insufficiency of the best human righteousness, and which tells men who are amiable and charitable, and moral and upright, that, with all their excel- lencies, they may be further from the kino-dom of heaven than the dissolute whom they regard with absolute loathing. The immediate feeling is that we con- found virtue and vice ; and that, allow- ing no superiority to what is lovely and of good report, we represent God as indifferent to moral conduct, and thus undermine the foundations on which society rests. But we are open to no such charge. We are quite alive to the beauty and advantageousness of that moral excellence which does not spring from a principle of religion, nay, which may even oppose the admission of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. There is not a man for whom we have a great- er feeling of interest, because there is not one of whom naturally we have a great- er admiration, than for him who is pass- ing thrcjugh life with an unblemished reputation, sedulously attentive to all the relative duties, and taking generously the lead in efforts to ameliorate the con- dition of his fellows, but who, all the while, has no consciousness of his own sinfulness, and who therefore rests on his own woiks, and not on Christ's merits. If you compare this man with a dissolute character, one who is outrag- ing tlie laws of society and the feelings of humanity; and if you judge the two merely with reference to the present scene of being ; why, there is the widest possible difference; and to speak of the one as equally depraved, and equally vile, with the other, would be an overcharged statement, carrying its own confutation. But what is there to prove that there may not be just as much rebellion against God in the one case as in the other ;
and that the man whose whole deport- ment is marked by what is praiseworthy and beneficial, may not be as void of all love towards the Author of his being, as he who, by his vices and villany, draws upon himself the execrations of a neigh- borhood ] Try men as members of society and they are as widely separated as the poles of the earth. But try them as God's creatures, not their own, but "bought with a price," and you may bring them to the same level, or even prove the moral and amiable further alienated than the dissolute and repulsive. Yes, further alienated. It is a hard saying, but we cannot pare it away. These up- right and charitable men, on whom a world is lavishing its applause, how will they receive us, when we come and tell them that they are sinners, who have earned for themselves eternal destruc- tion ; and that they are no more secured against the ruin by their rectitude and philanthropy, than if they were the slaves of every vice, and the patrons of every crime ? May we not speak of, at least, a high probability, that they will be disgusted at a statement which makes so light of their excellence ; and that they will tui-n away from the doctrines of the Gospel as too humiliating to be true, or as only constructed for the very refuse of mankind 1
Oh, we again say that we hardly know a more hopeless task than that of bring- ing the Gospel to bear on an individual who is trenched about with self-right- eousness. If we are dealing with the openly immoral man, we can take the thunders of the law, and batter at his conscience. We know well enough, that, in his case, there is a voice within which answers to the voice from with- out ; and that, however he may harden himself against our remonstrance, there is, at least, no soy)histry by which he cau persuade himself that he is not a sinner. This is a great point secured : we occupy a vantage-ground, from which we may direct, with full power, all our moral ar- tillery. But when we deal with the man who is amiable, and estimable, and ex- emplary, but who, nevertheless, is a stranger to the motives of the Gospel, our very first assertion — for this must be our first ; we cannot advance a step till this preliminary is felt and conceded — the assertion, that the man is a sinner, deserving only hell, arms against us his
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every antipathy, and is almost certain to call up such a might of opposition, that we are at once repulsed as unworthy fur- ther hearing.
And how agrees this too frequent case with the sketchng of our parable 1 We look upon men, whose virtues make them the ornaments of society, and whose zealous attention to the various duties of life deservedly secures them respect and esteem. You would gather from their deportment, from their apparent readiness to discharge faithfully every known obligation, that the setting before them what God requires at their hands would suffice to secure their unwearied obedience. If you say to them, in the name of the Almighty, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," their answer, as furnished by all that seeming desire to act rightly which has forced itself on your attention, is one of sincere and hear- ty compliance. But so soon as they come to know what working in the vine- yard means, alas, it is with them as it was with the pharisees and scribes, who, with every profession that they waited for Messiah, no sooner saw him " with- out form or comeliness," than they scorn- fully refused to give him their allegiance. These self-righteous men are ready enough to work, because it is by works of their own that they think to gain hea- ven. But when they find that their great work is to be the renouncing their own works, and that the vineyard, in which you invite them to labor, is one in which man's chief toil is to humble himself that Christ may be exalted — this gives the matter altogether a new aspect ; they would labor at building the tower of Babel, but they have no idea of labor- ing at pulling it down.
And thus does it come to pass, that the ministers of the Gospel are repulsed with a more than common vehemence ; and that their message is thrown back, as though the delivering it had been an insult. We can but mourn over men, ^vho, with every thing to recommend them to their fellows, honorable in their dealings, large in their charities, true in their friendships, are yet dishonest to themselves and false to their God — dis- honest to themselves, for they put a cheat on their souls ; false to their God, for they give him not what he asks, and all else is worse than nothing. Yes, we could lament, with a deeper than the
ordinary lamentation which should be poured over every lost soul, when integ- rity and generosity, and patriotism and disinterestedness, all beautiful and splen- did things, have only helped to confirm men in rejection of the Gospel, and have strengthened that dislike to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, which is natural to the heart, but which must be expelled, else we perish. And when we are asked whether it can indeed be, that men, so amiable and admirable, who have a yearning heart for every tale of sorrow, and an open hand for every case of des- titution, and an instinctive aversion to whatever is mean and degrading, are treading the downward path which leads to the chambers of everlasting death, we can only say that the very qualities which seem to you to mai-k a fitness for heaven, have prevented the passage through that strait gate of the vineyard, which is wide enough for every sinner, but too narrow for any sin ; and that thus has been par- alleled the whole case of the second son, who said to his father, " I go, sir," and went not.
And now we must have said enough to convince you that the delineation of our parable is not local or temporary, but may justly be extended to all ages of the church. We make this assertion, because though, as yet, we have only examined" the case of one son, our re- marks have had an indirect bearing on that of the other. We have shown you that the obstacles to the reception of the truths of the Gospel are often greatest where appearances seem to augur the readiest welcome. AVhere the promise is most freely given, how frequently is the jjerformance withheld. And though the converse of this may not be neces- sarily true, namely, that, where we have refusal at first, we may expect ultimate compliance, yet, undoubtedly the case of the second son prepares us to feel no surprise at that of the first. If there be final refusal, where there is most of pre- sent consent, it can be no ways strange that there should be final consent, where there is most of present refusal.
This it is which is represented to us in the instance of the first son. His fa- ther came to him, and said, "Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." "He an- swered and said, I will not ; but after- ward he repented and went." There I could be nothing more discourteous, as
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well as nothing more peremptory, than the reply. Pie addresses his father with nothing of tiiat respectful language which the second son used, and which might ttt least have softened the refusal. There is a harshness and hluntness in the answer, which, independently of the disohedience, proved him of a churlish and unmanageahle temper. And we know, from the application which Christ himself made of the parable, that this first son is the representative of those more depraved and profligate characters, who make no profession of religion, but treat it with open contempt. There are many who will even go the length of boldly proclaiming their resolve to live " without God in the world," who glory in their shame ; and who think it for their credit, as marking a free and un- shackled spirit, that they have got rid of the restraints which the dread of future punishment imposes. Others again, who have not hardened themselves to this desperate degree, seem yet wholly inac- cessible to warning and reproof; for they have, at least, persuaded themselves that they shall have a long lease of life, and that it will be soon enough at the eleventh hour to go and work in the vineyard. And in all such cases, whe- ther we meet with the contemptuousness of unblushing immorality, or the coldness of determined indifference, we have the unqualified refusal which the fii'st son gave his father — sometimes in a harsher, and at other times in a milder tone — but always the " I will not," which seems to preclude all hope of obedience.
These are the cases which seem most calculated to dispirit a minister ; for it is even more disheartening to find that he makes no impression, than that, where it has been made, it has been quickly ef- faced. It is manifestly only the treach- erous nature of the surface, which is in fault in the latter case ; but in the former, he may fear that much of the blame is chargeable on his own want of energy in wielding his weapons. He may even, in moments of despondency, be wrought into a suspicion that these weapons are not as mighty as he had been instructed to believe. And therefore it is a mar- vellously cheering thing to be told of the first son, that, "afterward he repented and went." We do not believe that the precious seed of the word is all lost, be- cause there is no immediate harvest.
We remember that great principle in God's dealings, which is announced by St. Paul, " That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it first die." It is often, we are persuaded, in spiritual things, as it is always in natural — the grain is long buried, and, to all appear- ance, lost ; but then suddenly come the signs of vegetation, and the soil is pierced by the fresh green blade.
We now address ourselves to those amongst you who have never entered the vineyard, who have never broken up the fallow ground, and sown to them- selves in righteousness. We know not whether the number who fall under this descriptioQ be great or small ; nor whe- ther it be mainly composed of those liv ing in open sin, or of those who are only indifferent to the high claims of religion. But we say to these men, and these wo- men, go, woik to-day in the vineyard. We call upon them, and entreat them, that, whilst God yet strives with them by his Spirit, and the free offer of salva- tion is made them in his name, they would consider their ways, and turn un- to the Lord, lest the evil day come upon them " as a thief." We anticipate what will be practically their answer. There may indeed be a solitary exception. Even now may there be the casting down of some strong-hold of unbelief; and there may be one in this assembly, in whom our word is working energeti- cally, convincing him of sin, and persuad- ing him to make trial of Christ's power to save. But from the mass of those whom the first son represents, we can look for nothing but his answer ; and if we could single out the individuals, and bid them to the vineyai-d, " I will not " would be but too faitliful an account of their reply. And yet we do not neces sarily conclude that we have labored in vain. Oh no, far enough from this. Th< word, which we have spoken, may ii many cases have gained a lodgment though long years may elapse ere it pu forth its vigor. If we could follow through the remainder of their lives, those with whom we now seem to plead wholly in vain, we can feel that we should find a day breaking upon some of them, full of the memory of this very hour atid this very sermon ; and perceive tliat one cause or another had suddenly acted on the seed now sown, so that what we sup- posed dead was rapidly germinating. It
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is marvellous how often, in sickness or in sorrow, there will rush into the mind some long-forgotten text, some sentence, which was little heeded when first heard, but wliich settled itself down in the inner man, to wait a time when, like the char- acters which a mysterious hand traced before the Assyrian in his revels, it might flash dismay through every chamber of the spirit. The father's bidding, " go work to-day in my vineyard," will rise into remembrance with a sudden and overcoming energy ; it may not have been heard for years, it may not have been thought of for years ; but when the man is brought low, and health is failing him, and friends are forsakiijg him, he will seem to hear it,* not less distinctly, and far more thrillingly, articulated, than when it fell disregarded from the lips of the preacher ; and he will wonder at his own perverseness, and weep over his in- fatuation.
We are sketching to you no imaginary case, but one which all, who have oppor- tunities of reading men's spiritual his- tories, will tell you is of frequent occur- rence. The son who harshly says, " 1 will not," remembers the command and the refusal on some long after day, re- pents of his sinfulness, and hastens to the vineyard. The pathetic remon- strance of a parent with a dissolute child is not necessarily thrown away, because that child persists in his dissoluteness : it may come up, with all the touching tones of the well-remembered voice, when the parent has long lain in the gi'ave, and work remorse and contrition in the prodigal. The bold address of the minister to some slave of sensuality is not necessarily ineffectual, because its object departs unmoved and unchanged, and breaks not away from the base thraldom in which he is held. That address may ring in liis ears, as though unearthly voices syllabled its words, when the minister's tongue has long been mute. " He, being dead, yet speaketh," are words which experience marvellously verifies in regard of those whose office it is to rebuke vice and animate to right- eousness. They may be verified in the instance of some one who now hears me. I feel so encouraged by the ac- count of the first son, that I could even dare to prophesy the history of one or more in thi^ assembly. There may be some to whom I never before preached
the Gospel, and to whom I may nevei preach it again. I speak in ignorance. I know not how far this may be true on the present occasion. But I can ima- gine, that, in the throng which surrounds me, there is one to whom I speak for the first time, and who will never see mo again till we meet at the judgment-seat of Christ. He may bo in the vigor of his youth, life opening attractively be- fore him, and the world wearing all that freshness and fairness with which it be- guiles the unwary. And he will have no ear for the summonses of religion. It is in the name of the God of the whole earth that I conjure him to morti- fy the flesh, and fasten his affections on things above. It is by his own majesty, his own dignity, as an immortal being, that I would stir him to the abandoning all low pursuits, and engaging in the sublime duties of righteousness. But he will not be persuaded. He has made his election : and, when he departs from the house of God, it will be to retura to the scenes and companions of his thoughtlessness and dissipation. Yet I do not despair of this man. I do not conclude my labor thrown away. I am looking forward to an hour which may be yet very distant, when experience will have taught him the worthlessness of what he now seeks, or a broken con- stitution have incapacitated him for his most cherished pleasures. The hour may. not come whilst I am on the earth ; I may have long before departed, and a stranger may be ministering in my place. But 1 shall be in that man's chamber, and I shall stand at his bed-side, and I shall repeat my now despised exhort- ation. There will be, as it were, a resurrection of the present scene and the present sermon. The words, which now hardly gain a hearing, but which, never- theless, are burying themselves in the recesses of the mind, that they may wait an appointed season, will be spoken to the very soul, and penetrate to the quick, and produce that godly sorrow which worketh repentance. And when you ask me upon what I am bold enough to ground such a prophecy, and from what data I venture to predict that my sermon shall not die, but though long forgotten, start finally into power and persuasive- ness — my reply is, that the case of the first son in the parable must have cases which correspond to it in all ages of the
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church, and that we read of this son, that, though he refused, when bidden, to work in the vineyard, yet " afterward lie repented and went."
There are two cautions suggested by this latter part of our subject, and with these we would conclude. The first is to parents, and guardians, and minis- ters ; in short, to all Avhose business it may be to counsel and instruct. Let not the apparent want of success induce you to relax in your endeavors. You see that he who gives you a flat refusal, may ultimately reward you better than he who gives you a fair promise. Be not, therefore, disheartened ; but rather act on the wise man's advice, " In the morn- ing sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand ; for thou know- est not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."
Our second caution is to those who may be ready, with the first son, to give a direct refusal, when bidden to go and
work in the vineyard. Let not the thought, that you may afterwards repent, encourage you in your determination that you will not yet obey. The man who presumes on what is told us of the first son will never, in all proba- bility, be represented by that son. I may have hopes of a man whose moral slumbers I cannot at all break ; I almost despair of a man whom I can so far awaken that he makes a resolution to delay. The determining to put oflT is the worst of all symptoms : it shows that conscience has been roused, and then pacified ; and wo unto the man who has drugs with which he can lull conscience to sleep. Again therefore we tell you that the exhortation of the text is lim- ited as to time. " Go, work to-day in my vineyard." To-morrow the pulse may be still, and there is " no work nor wisdom in the grave." To-day ye are yet amongst the living, and may enroll yourselves with the laborers whose har- vest shall be immortality.
SERMON.
THE DISPERSION AND RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.*
' O Jpriisalem, Jerusalem, thou that killcst the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children toscther, even as a hen irathereth her chickens under her wingfs, and ye would not! Bilifild, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me heuceforth till yc shall euy. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. — St. Matthew, xxiii. 37, 38, 39.
These words occur in the Gospel of St. Luke, as well as in that of St. Mat- thew ; but the times of delivery were un- doubtedly different. As given by St. Luke, they form part of Christ's answer to certain Pharisees, who had come to him with intelligence that Herod sought to kill him. At this time, as it would
* Preached on behalf of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews.
seem, our Savior was making his last circuit of Galilee, before his arrival at Jerusalem at the fourth passover. But, as given by St. Matthew, the words ap- pear to have been the last which Christ uttered in public, having been delivered just before his final departure from the temple, on the evening, most probably, of the Wednesday in passion-week. You cannot have any doubt, if you com- pare the passages in the two Evangelists,
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THE DISPERSION AND RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.
that the words were uttered on very different occasions, so tliat, if what they contain of prophecy may have had a seeming accomphshment between the two deUveries, we shonld still have to searcli for an ampler fulfilment.
We make this remark, because, as you must all remember, when Christ made iiis public entry into Jerusalem from Bethany, a few days before his crucifixion, he was attended by a great multitude, who saluted him in the lan- guage of our text. " And they that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Had our text been found only in St. Luke, delivered on an occasion which preceded the triumphant reception of Christ, it might have been argued that what occured at this reception fulfilled all its prophecy. Yet it would then have been easy to show that Christ must have referred to some more permanent reception of him- self than that given by an inconstant multitude, who, within a few days, were as vehement in demanding his crucifix- ion as they had been in shouting Hosanna. AVe are however spared the necessity of advancing, or pressing, this argument, inasmuch as the words, as recorded by St. Matthew, were uttered subsequent- ly to Christ's entry into Jerusalem, and could not, therefore, have been fulfilled by that event.
It should further be remarked, that the saying, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," is taken from a Psalm, the llSth, which the Jews themselves interpreted of the Christ. It is the Psalm in which are found the remarkable words, " The stone which the builders refused is become the head- stone of the corner " — words which Jesus brought to bear on the chief priests and scribes when they deprecated the taking the vineyai'd from the unfaithful husbandman. We may therefore sup- pose, that, in quoting from this Psalm, the people designed to express their be- lief that Jesus was Messiah. We may further suppose, that, in declaring that Jerusalem should not see him again, till ready to apply to him the words he ad- duced, our Lord had respect to some future acknowledgment of his kingly pre- tensions.
We wish you to bear carefully with you these preliminary observations, as
necessary to the settling the right in« terpretation of our text. Whatever may be your opinion of the import of the passage, as delivered by St Luke, you can hardly fail to allow, that, as delivered by St. Matthew, it can have respect to no events recorded in the Gospels. The words were uttei-ed by Christ, when concluding his public ministry : he left the temple so soon as he had pronounced them, and never again entered its precincts. We are, therefore, to take the text as Christ's jjarting address to his unbelieving coun- trymen ; so that, in whatever degree they are prophetic, in that same degree must they belong to occun-ences which were to follow his departure from earth. Now it will be admitted by you all, that there is something singularly pa- thetic in the text, when thus regarded as the last words of Christ to the Jews The Savior is taking his farewell of those whom he had striven, by every means, to lead to repentance. He had wrought the most wonderful miracles, and appeal- ed to them in proof that he came forth from God. He had delivered the most persuasive discourses, setting forth, un- der variety of imagery, the ruin that would follow his being rejected, and offering the largest blessings to all who would come to him as a deliverer. But all had been in vain : and he knew that the time was at hand, when the measpre of guilt would be filled up, and their Messiah be crucified by the Jews. Yet' he would not depart without another and a bolder remonstrance. The chapter of which our text is the conclusion, and which, as we have already stated, is the parting sennon of Christ, is without parallel in the Gospels for indignant re- buke and emphatic denunciation. The preacher seems, for a while, to have laid aside his meekness, and to have assumed the character of a stern herald of wrath. And I know not that there is any where to be found such a specimen of lofty and withering eloquence. You cannot read it without emotions of awe, and almost of fear. Confronted by those who, he knew, thirsted for his blood, Christ in- trepidly charged them with their crimes, and predicted their punishment. Had he been invested with all human author- ity, in place of standing as a defenceless and despised individual, he could not have uttered a sterner and more heart-
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searching invective. The marvel is that his enemies should have allowed him to pour forth his tremendous oratory, that they did not fall upon him, without re- gard to the sacredness of the place, and take a fierce and summary revenge. " AVo unto you, scrihes and pharisees, hypocrites ! " is the burden of his ad- dress : he reiterates the wo, till the tem- ple walls must have rung with the omi- nous syllables. And then he bids the nation fill up the measure of their fa- thers. Their fathers had slain the prophets, and made great advances to- wards that rijjeness of iniquity which was to mark the land out as ready for vengeance. But the national guilt was not yet complete. There was a crime by which the children were to outdo, and, at the same time, consummate the sinfulness of their fathers. And Christ calls them to the perpetration of this crime. They wei'e bent on accomplish- ing his death — let them nail him to the cross, and then would their guiltiness reach its height, and the accumulated vengeance descend with a wild and over- ■whelming migM. " That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation."
And here the Savior might be said to have exhausted threatening; for what denunciation could be more tremendous, or more comprehensive ] We may pic- ture him to ourselves, launching this terrible sentence, a more than human fire in his eye, and a voice more deep- toned and thrilling than ever issued from mortal lips. I know of nothing that would be more sublime and com- manding in representation, if there could be transferred to the canvass the vivid delineations of thought, than the scene thus enacted in the temple. We figure the Redeemer undaunted by the menacing looks and half-suppressed mur- murs of the fierce throng by which he was surrounded. He becomes more and more impassioned in his eloquence, rising from one bold rebuke to another, and throwing into his language a great- er and greater measure of reproachful- ne&s and defiance. And when he has compelled his hearers to shrink before
the rush of his invective, he assumes tho prophetic office, and, as though armed with all the thunders of divine wrath, announces authoritatively the approach of unparalleled desolation. This is the moment we would seize for delineation — though what pencil can think to por- tray the lofty bearing, the pre-eminent dignity, the awful glance, the terribleness, yet magnificence, of gesture, Avhich must have characterized the Mediator, when, wrought up into all the ardency of superhuman zeal, he brake into the overwhelming malediction, " Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation ] "
But if the scene of this moment defy the painter's art, what shall we say of that of the succeeding 1 No sooner had Christ reached that height of intrepid ve- hemence at which we have just beheld him, than he gave way to a burst of tenderness, and changed the language of invective for that of lamentation. At one moment he is dealing out the an-ows of a stern and lacerating oratory, and the next he is melted into tears, and can find no woi'ds but those of anguish and regret. Indeed it is a transition more exquisitely beautiful than can be found in the most admired specimens of human eloquence ; and we feel that there must have passed a change over the countenance, and the whole bearing of the Savior, which imagination cannot catch, and which, if it could, the painter could not fix. There must have risen before him the imagery of a wrath and a wretchedness, such as had never yet overtaken any nation of the earth. And the people that should be thus signalled out were his countrymen, his kinsmen after the flesh, over whom his heart yearned, and whom he had affectionately labored to convince of danger, and con- duct to safety. He felt therefore, we may believe, a sudden and excruciating sorrow, so that the judgments which he foretold pressed on his own spirit, and caused him great agony. He was too pure a being, and he loved with too abid- ing and disinterested a love, to harbor any feeling allied vv^ith revenge ; and therefore, though it was for rejecting himself that those whom he addressed were about to be punished, he could not contemplate the punishment but with bitterness and anguish.
xVud hence the rapid and thrilling 27
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clian2re from the preacher of wrath to the mourner over sulfering. Hence the sudden laying aside of all his awful ve- hemence, and the breaking into pathetic and heart-touching expressions. Oh, you feel that the Redeemer must have been subdued, as it were, and mastered, by the view of the misery which he saw coming on Judea, and by the remem- brance of all he he had done to avert it from the land, ere he could have passed thus instantaneously from indignant re- buke to exquisite lenderpess. And it cannot, we think, be without mingled emotions of awe and deli<^ht, that you mark the transition from the herald of vengeance to the sympathizer with the wretched. Just as you are shrinking from the fierce and withering denuncia- tions, almost scathed by the fiery elo- quence which glares and flashes with the anger of the Lord — just as you are expecting a new burst of threatening, a further and wilder malediction from the voice which seems to shake the magni- ficent temple — there is heard the sound as of one who is struggling with sori'ow ; and in a tone of rich plaiiitiveness, in ac- cents musical in their sadness, and be- traying the agony of a stricken spirit, there fall upon you these touching and penetrating words, " O Jerusalem, Je- rusalem, how often would I have gather- ed thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not."
But there is so much of important matter in this and the following verses, that it is time that we confine ourselves to considering the statements here made by Christ. We may arrange these state- ments under three divisions. Under the first, we shall have to consider what had been done for Jerusalem ; under the se- cond, the consec|uences to the Jews of their rejecting the Christ ; and, under the third, the future conversion of this unbelieving people.
Now you must be quite prepared for our regarding the Jews as a typical na- tion, so that in God's dealings with them, we may read, as in a glass, his dealings with his church, whether col- lectively or individually. You must be aware that the history of the Israelites is full of symbolic occurrence ; and that without drawing aay forced parallel, the narrative may be transferred in various of its parts, to our own day and genera-
tion, and be used as descriptive of what occurs among christians. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if we consider Christ's jemonstranco with Jerusalem as every way applicable to the impeni- tent of later times, and as affirming no- thing in regard of the Jews which may not be affirmed, with equal truth, of many amongst ourselves. Thei-e had been much done for Jerusalem ; and it is in exquisitely moving terms that Christ states his own willingness to have shel- tered that city. But hei'ein, we are as- sured, Jerusalem was but the represen- tative of individual transgressors, so that the very same words might be address- ed to any amongst us who have obsti- nately withstood the motions of God's Spirit and the invitations of his Gospel. We cannot indeed be said to have kill- ed the prophets, and stoned them that were sent unto us. But if we have re- sisted the engines, whatever they may have been, through which God has car- ried on the moral attack ; if we have turned a deaf ear to the prophet and the messenger, and thuf done our part towards frustrating their mission ; then we are virtually in the same position as Jerusalem, and may regard ourselves as addressed in the language of our text.
And when the verse is thus with- drawn from its merely national applica- tion, and we consider it as capable of being exemplified in the history of our own lives, it presents such an account of God's dealings with the impenitent, as yields to none in importance and inte- rest. We observe first, that however un- able we may be to reconcile the certain- ty of a foreknown destruction with the possibility of avoiding it, we are bound to believe, on the testimony of our text, that no man's doom is so fixed that it may not be averted by repentance. It may appear to us, that, all along, the destruction of Jerusalem had been a settled thing in the purposes of the Al- mighty ; and that God's plans were so arranged on the supposition of the final infidelity of the Jews, that they could not have allowed a final belief in the Christ. Yet Christ declares of Jeru- salem, that he would often have gather- ed her children together, as a hen gather- eth her chickens under her wings ; and that only their own wilful infidelity had prevented his sheltering them from
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every outbreak of wrath. We cannot, tliereibre, doubt that it was quite within the power of the Jews to have repented ; and that, had they hearkened to the voice of the Savior, they would have escaped all that punishment which ap- pears so pre-determined, that, to suppose it remitted, is to suppose God's plans thwarted. We finally admit that the Savior must have known that those whom he called would not obey. But there is all the ditierence between say- ing that they could not obey, and that they would not obey. In saying that they could not obey, we make them the subjects of some hidden decree, which placed an Impassable barrier between themselves and repentance, and which therefore rendered nugatory, yea redu- ced into mere mockery, the warnings and invitations Vv'ith which they were plied. But in saying that they would not obey, we charge the Avhole blame on the perverseness of the human will, and suppose a clear space left, notwith- standing the foreknown infidelity, for those remonstrances and persuasions which are wholly out of place where there is no power of hearkening to the call.
And what we thus hold in regard of Jerusalem, must be equally held in re- gard of every individual amongst our- selves. We cannot doubt that there is not one in this assembly whose eternal condition is not as well known to the Almighty as though it were fixed by an absolute decree. But then it should be carefully observed, that this foreknow- ledge of God puts no restraint upon man, obliges him not to one course rather than to another, but leaves him as free to choose between life and death, as though the choice must be made before it could be conjectured. The clouds of vengeance were just ready to burst upon Jerusalem ; but the only reason why her children were not sheltered, was that " they would not." Thus with ourselves — God may be as certain of our going down finally into the pit, as though we had already been thrown to destruction ; but the single reason, given at the last, why we have not escaped, will be our own rejection of a proffered deliverance. There is no mystery in this, nothing inscrutable. There is no room for pleading that a divine decree was against us, and that, therefore, sal-
vation, if nominally offered, was virtually out of reach. It was not out of the reach of Jerusalem, though her grasping it would have apparently deranged the whole scheme of redemption. And it is not out of the reach of any one of us, however the final impenitence of this or that individual may be fully ascertained by the foreknowledge of God. It is no- thing to say that it is impossible for me to do what God knows I shall not do. It is not God's foreknowledge, it is only my own wilfulness, which makes the impossibility. I am not hampered, I am not shackled by God's foreknowledge : I am every jot as free as though there were no foreknowledge. And thus, without searching into secret things which belong only to God, and yet maintaining in all their integrity the di- vine attributes, we can apply to every one who goes on in impenitence, the touching remonstrance of Christ in our text. If such a man reach that moment, which had been reached by Jerusalem, the moment when the day of grace terminates, and the overtures of mercy are brought to a close, the Savior may say to him, " How often would I have gathered thee under my wings, and thou wouldest not 1 "
How often] Who is there amongst us unto whom have not been vouchsafed repeated opportunities of knowing the things which belong unto peace 1 Who, that has not been frequently moved, by the expostulations of conscience and the suggestions of God's Spirit, to flee the wrath to come 1 Who, upon whom the means of grace have not been accumulat- ed, so that, time after time, he has been threatened, and warned, and reasoned with, and besought 1 How often 1 I would have gathered thee in thy prosper- ity, when thou wast spoken to in mercies, and bidden to remember the hand whence they came. I would have gathered thee in thine adversity, when sorrovv had softened thine heart, and thou didst look on the right hand, and on the left, for a comforter. How often ? By every ser- mon which thou hast heard, by every death in thy neighborhood, by every mis- giving of soul, by every joy that cheered thee, and by every grief that saddened thee, I have spoken, but thou wouldest not hear, I have called, but thou would- est not answer. We may be thorough- ly assured that there is not one of us who
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shall be able to pleaJ at the last, that he was not sufficiently invited. There is not one of us, who shall be able to charge his perdition on any thing but his own choice. " How often," " how often," will ring in the ear of every man who remains unconverted beneath the ministry of the Gospel ; the remembrance of abus- ed mercies, and slighted means, and neg- lected opportunities, being as the knell of his unalterable doom. And, oh, as the wicked behold the righteous shelter- ed beneath the Mediator's protection, from all the fui-y which gathers and huiTies over a polluted creation, we can believe, that, of all racking thoughts, the most fearful will be, that they too might have been covered by the same mighty wing, and that, had --they not chosen ex- posure to the iron sleet of God's wrath, they too might have rested in peace, whilst the strange work of destruction went forward. Therefore will their own consciences either pass or ratify their sentence. They will shrink down to their lire and their shame, not more com- pelled by a ministry of vengeance, than torn by a consciousness that they, like the children of Jerusalem, might have often taken shelter under the suretyship of a Redeemer, and that they, like the children of Jerusalem, are naked and defenceless, only because they would not be covered with his feathers.
But we go on to the second topic wliich is presented to us by the words under review, the consequences to the Jews of their rejecting the Christ. These consequences are, the desolation of their natiunal condition, " Behold your house is left unto you desolate," and the judicial blindness which would settle upon them, so that, until a certain jieriod had elapsed, they should not see, and ac- knowledge, the Savior. This latter C(jn- scquence is stated in the concluding verse of the text, "ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," — that is, I shall withdraw myself alto- gether from you, till a time arrive at which you shall be pre})ared to welcome me as Messiah. Thus we have a double prophecy of what should befall the Jews, a prophecy of their misery, and a pro- phecy of their infidelity. And along with this prophecy there is an evident intimation of what has been the chief characteristic of the Jews, their complete
separation, through all their dispersions, from every other people. We derive this intimation from the terms in which their misery is foretold, *' Behold your house is left unto you desolate." It seems as though it had been said that they were still to have a house, but that house would be desolate ; Judea would be theirs, but themselves exiles from its provinces. And if the house were to remain appropiated to the Jews, the Jews must remain distinguished from other people ; so that what predicts their punishment, predicts also, though in more obscure terms, their being kept apart from the rest of humankind, that they may at length be reinstated in the possession of their fathers.
But we confine ourselves at present to the prediction of their state, as affect- ed by their rejection of Christ. They were to be desolate, but distinct from other people ; and an obstinate unbelief was to characterize them through the whole period of" the times of the Gen- tiles." And we need hardly tell y(m of the accuracy with which such prophecy has been all along fulfilled. The pre- dictions which bear reference to the Jews, have this advantage over all other, that their accomplishment may be said to force itself on the notice of the least ob- servant, and not to require, in order to its demonstration, the labor of a leanied research. Of all surprising phenomena, there is perhaps none as wonderful as that of the Jews' preserving, through long centuries, their distinguishing fea- tures. It would have been comparative- ly nothing, had the Jews remained in Judea, that they should have continued marked off from every other peo])le. But that they should have been dispersed into all nations, and yet have amalgamat- ed with none ; that they should be every where found, and yet be every where the same ; that they should submit themselves to all forms of government, and adopt all varieties of customs, and yet be un- able, after any lapse of time, to extirpate their national marks ; we may pronounce this unparalleled in the history of man- kind, and inexplicable but as the fulfil- ment of prophecy. If the Jews, though removed from their own land, had been confined to one other, we might have found causes of a protracted distinction, in national antipathies or legislative en- actments. But when the dispersion has
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been so univei'sal, that, -wheresoever man treads, the Jew has made his dwelling, and yet the distinction is so abiding that you may always recognize the Jew for yourself, there is no jjlace left for the explanations which might be given, were the marvel limited to a district or age ; and we have before us a miracle, which would not be exceeded, nay, not by the thousandth part equalled, were we privi- leged to behold the mightiest suspension of the known laws of nature.
Neither is it only in the preservation of the distinguishing characteristics that the Jews are wonderful, and give evidence that Christ prophesied through a more than human foresight. The continued infidelity of the Jews is every jot as sur- prising as their continued separation. We are quite at a loss, on any natural prin- ciples, to account for their infidelity. It is easy to explain the little way which the Gospel makes amongst the heathen, but not the far less which it makes amongst the Jews. I may well expect to be met by a most vigorous opposition on the part of the heathen; for I go to them with a religious system which demands the un- qualified rejection of their own ; we have scarcely an inch of ground in common ; and if I would prevail on them to receive as true what I bring, I must prevail on them to renounce as false what they be- lieve. But the case seems widely differ- ent when my attack is on the Jew. We have a vast deal of common ground. We believe in the same God ; we i-e- ceive the same Scriptures ; we look for the same Messiah. There is but one point of debate between us ; and that is, ■whether Jesus of Nazareth were the Christ. And thus the field of ai-gument is surprisingly narrowed ; in place of having to fight our way painfully from one principle to another, and of settling all the points of natural religion, as pre- liminary to the introduction of the mys- teries of revealed, we can go at once to the single truth at issue between us, and discuss, from writings which we equally receive as inspired, the claims of Jesus tothe being Messiah Surely it might have been expected, that the infidelity of the Jew would have been far more easily overcome than that of the heathen ; and that, in settling ourselves to win converts to Christianity, there would liave been a better prospect of gaining credence for the New Testament where the Old was
acknowledged, than of making way for the whole Bible, where there was nothino- but idolatry.
You are to add to this, that, whatever the likelihood that the Jew would reject Christianity on its first publication, it was a likelihood which diminished with every year that rolled away ; inasmuch as every year which brought no other Messiah, swelled the demonstration that Jesus was the Christ. It is not to be explain- ed, on any of the jjrinciples to which we ordinarily recur in accounting for infidel- ity, why the Jews persisted in rejecting Jesus, when the time had long passed which themselves fixed for Messiah's appearing. Their prophecies had clear- ly determined that Christ would come whilst the second, temple was standing, and at the close of seventy weeks from the termination of the Babylonish cap- tivity. But when the second temple had been long even with the ground, and the seventy weeks, on every possible compu- tation, had long ago terminated, the Jews, we might have thought, would have been compelled^ to admit, either that Messiah had come, or that their expect- ation was vain, and that no deliverer would appear. There seemed no alter- native, if they rejected Jesus of Nazareth, but the rejecting their own Scriptures. So that we can have no hesitation in affirming, that the continued infidelity, like the continued separation, of the Jews is wholly inexplicable, unless re- ferred to the ap23ointment and judgment of God. We can no more account, on any common principles, for their jiersist- ing in expecting a Redeemer, when the pi-edictions on which they rest manifest- ly pertain to a long-departed age, than for their retaining all their national pe- culiarities, when they have been for centuries " without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice." In both cases they accomplish, and that too most signally, the prophecies of Christ — their house being left unto them deso- late, and a judicial blindness having set- tled on their understanding.
And never, therefore, should we meet a Jevv, without feeling that we meet the strongest witness for the truth of our religion. I know not how those, who are proof against all other testimony, can withstand that furnished by the condition of the Jews. Tliey may have their doubts as to the performance of the
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miracles recorded in the writings of evangelists ; but here is a miracle wrought before their eyes, and which ceases not to be miracle because long continued. We call it miracle, because altogether contrary to what we had reason to expect, and not to be explain- ed on mere natural principles. That the Jews have not ceased to be Jews ; that though scattered over the world, domes- ticated in every land, at one time hunted by persecution and ground down by oppression, at another, allowed every privilege and placed on a footing with the natives of the soil, there has been a proved impossibility of wearing away their distinguishing characteristics, and confounding them with any other tribe — isnot this marvellous'? That, moreover, throughout their long exile from i heir own land, they have held fast the Scriptures which prove their hopes vain, and ap- pealed to prophets, who, if any thing better than deceivers, accuse them of the worst crime, and convict them of the worst madness — we affirm of this, that it is a prodigy without equal in all the registered wonders which have been known on our earth : and I want no- thing more to assure me that Christ came from God, and that he had a su- perhuman power of inspecting distant times, than the evidence vouchsafed, when I turn from surveying the once chosen people, and hear the Redeemer declaring in his last discourse in the temple, that their house should be left unto them desolate, and that a moral darkness should long cloud their under- standing.
But we have now in the third and last place, to consider what our text affirms of the future conversion of this unbeliev- ing people. We have already insisted on the fact, that, in delivering the words under review, Christ was concluding his public ministrations, and that they could not, therefore, have been accomplished in events which occured whilst he was yet upon earth. Yet they manifestly contain a prediction, that, at some time or another, the Jews would be willing to hail him as Messiah. In saying, " ye shall nut see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he tliat cometh in the name of the Lord," Christ undoubtedly implied that the Jews should again see him, but not till jjrcpared to give him their allegiance. We referred you to
the psalm in which this exclamation oc- curs, that you might be certified as to its amounting to an acknowledgment of the Messiah. So that, on every account, we seem waiTanted in assuming, that, whilst announcing the misery which the Jews were fast brinsjing on themselves, and the protracted infidelity to which they would be consigned, Christ also announced that a time would come, when the veil would be taken from their hearts, and they would delightedly receive the very being they were then about to crucify.
Such is the great event for which we yet look, and with which stands associa- ted all that is most glorious in the do- minion of Christianity. We know not with what eyes those men can read pro- phecy, who discover not in its anuDunce- ments the final restoration and conversion of the Jews. It is useless to attempt to resolve into figurative language, or to ex- plain by a purely spiritual interpretation, predictions which seem to assert the reinstatement of the exiles in the land of their fathers, and their becoming the chief preachers of the religion which they have so long labored to bring into contempt. These predictions are insep- arably bound up with others, which re- fer to their dispersion and unbelief; so that, if you spiritualize any one, you must spiritualize the whole. And since every word has had a litei'al accomplish- ment, so far as the dispersion and unbe- lief are concerned, how can we doubt that every word will have also a literal accomplishment, so far as the restoration and conversion are concerned ] If the event had proved the predicted disper- sion to be figurative, the event, in all jirobability, would prove also the pre- dicted restoration to be figurative. But, so long as we find the two foretold in the same sentence, with no intimation that we are not to apply to both the same rule of interpretaticni, we seem bound to expect, either in both cases a literal ful- filment, or in both a spiritual ; and since iti the one instance the fulfilment has been undoubtedly literal, have we not every reason for concluding that it will be literal in the other ?
We believe, then, of the nation of Israel, that it has not been cast off for ever, that not for ever shall Jerusalem sit desolate, mourning her banished ones, and trodden down by the Gentiles. We i believe, according to the declaration of
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Isaiah, that there shall come a day when " the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of EgyjJt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." We believe according to the magnificent imagery of the same evangelical prophet, that a voice will yet say to the prostrate nation and city, " Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." " Tlie sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister un- to thee ; for in my UTath I smote thee ; but in my favor have I had mercy on thee." We know not by what mighty impulse, nor at what mysterious signal, the scattered tribes shall arise from the mountains, and valleys, and islands of the eartli, and hasten towards the land which God promised to Abraham and his seed. We cannot divine what in- strumentality will be brought to bear on mankind, when God shall " say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back ; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." But we are sure, that, whatever the means employed to gather home the wanderers, they shall flow into Judea from every district of the globe ; they shall fly as " the doves to their windows ;" and the waste and desolate places become " loo narrow by reason of the inhabitants."
And when God's hand shall have been lifted up to the Gentiles, compelling them to bring his sons in their arras, and his daughters on their shoulders ; when marching thousands shall have crossed the confines of Palestine, and pitched their tents in plains which the Jordan waters ; then will there be a manifest- ation of the Christ, and then a conversion of the unbelieving. We have but few, and those obscure, notices of this august consummation. We may perhaps ga- ther, from the predictions of Ezekiel and Daniel, that, when the Jews shall have resettled tliemselves in Judea, they will be attacked by an antichristian confeder- acy ; tliat certain potentates will combine, lead their armies to the holy land, and seek to plunder and exterminate the reinstated people. And the struggle will be vehement ; for it is declared in the last chapter of the Prophecies of Zecha- riali, " 1 will gather all nations against
Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity." But at this crisis, when the antichristian powers seem on the point of trium])h- ing over the Jews, the Lord, we are told, shall visibly interpose, and turn the tide of battle. "And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives." It was from the mount ofOlives that Jesus ascended, when he had gloriously com- pleted ouri-edemption. And whilst the apostles " looked steadfastly towards heaven, as he went up," there stood by them two men in white apparel, which told them that " this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." There was here a clear prophecy that Christ should re- turn personally to the earth, and that, too, in like manner as he departed. And it may be one point of similarity between the departure and the return, that as he went up from the mount of Olives, so, as Zechariah predicts, it shall be on the mount of Olives he descends. Then shall he be seen and known by the Jewish people. Then shall the hearts of this people, which had been previously mov- ed, it may be, to the seeking the God of their fathers, though not to the acknow- ledging the crucified Messiah, sink within them at the view of the being whom their ancestors pierced, and whom themselves had blasphemed. They shall recognize in him their long-expected Christ, and throwing away every remnant of infidel- ity, and full of remorse and godly con- trition, shall fall down before him, and supplicate forgiveness, and tender their allegiance.
This we believe to be the time referred to by Christ in the prophecy of our text. Then will the nation be prepared to ex- claim, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Then will the pe- riod, which God, in his righteous ven- geance, hath appointed for the desolation of their house, be brought to its close ; " the limes of the Gentiles" will be com- pleted, and the jubilee year of this crea- tion will commence. Until the Jews, with one heart and one voice, shall utter the welcome of our text, we are taught to expect no general difi'usion of Chris- tianity, nothing which shall approach to that complete mantling of the globe with righteousness and peace, which prophets
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have described in their most fervid strains. But the uttering this welcome by the reinstated Israelites, shall be as the blast of the silver trumpets which ushered in the Jubilee of old. The sound shall be heard on every shore. The east and the west, the north and the south, shall echo back the peal, and all nations, and tribes, and tongues, shall join in proclaiming :lessed " the King of kings and Lord of lords." Jerusalem, " her walls salvation and her gates praise," shall be erected into the metropolis of the regenerated earth ; and she shall send forth, in every direction, the preachers of the " one Me- diator between God and man ;" and rapidly shall all error, and all false doc- trine, and all superstition, and all oppo- sition, give way before these mighty mis- sionaries ; till, at length, the sun, in his circuit round this globe, shall shine upon no habitations but those of disciples of Dhrist, and behold no spectacle, but that of a rejoicing multitude, walking in the love of the Lord our Redeemer.
Such, we believe, is the prophetic de- lineation of what shall occur at the sec- ond advent of Christ. And if there were great cause why Jesus should weep over Jerusalem, as he thought on the infidel- ity of her children, and marked the long train of calamities which pressed rapidly onwards, there is abundant reason why we, upon whom are fallen the ends of the world, should look with hope to the hill of Zion, and expect, in gladness of spirit, the speedy dawning of bright days on the deserted and desecrated Judea. If we have at heart the advance of Christianity, we shall be much in pray- er for the conversion of the Jews. " Ye that make mention of the Lord," saith the prophet Isaiah, " keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." I have more than sympathy with the Jews as a people chastened for the sin of their ancestors : I have an in- distinct feeling of reverence and awe, as knowing them reserved for the most glorious allotments. It is not their sor- didness, their degradation, nor their im- piety— and much less is it their suffering — which can make me forget either the vast debt we owe them, or the splendid station which they have yet to assume. That my Redeemer was a Jew, that his apostles were Jews, that Jews preserved for us the sacred oracles, that Jews first
published the tidings of salvation, that the diminishing of the Jews was the rich- es of the Gentiles — I were wanting in common gratitude, if, in spite of all this, I were conscious of no yearnings of heart towards the exiles and wanderers. But, asks St. Paul, " if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the I'eceiving of them be but life from the dead ?" And if indeed the universal reign of Christ cannot be in- troduced, until the Jews are brought, like Paul their great type, to preach the faith which now they despise, where can be our sincerity in putting up continu- ally the prayer, " thy kingdom come," if we have no longing for the home-gath- ering of the scattered tribes, no earnest- ness in supplication that the veil may be taken from the heart of the Israelite ]
In proportion as we " grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ," we shall gi-ow in the desire that the Re- deemer's sovereignty may be more wide- ly and visibly extended. And as this de- sire increases, our thoughts will turn to Jerusalem, to the scenes which witness- ed Christ's humiliation, and which have also to witness his triumphs. Dear to us will be every mountain and every val- ley; but not more dear because once hal- lowed by the footsteps of the Man of sor- rows, than because yet to be irradiated by the magnificent presence of the King of kings. Dear will be Lebanon with its cedars, and Jordan with its waters ; but not more dear, because associated with departed glories, than because the trees have to rejoice, and " the floods to clap their hands," before the Lord as he cometh down in pomp to his kingdom. Dear will be the city, as we gaze upon it in its scathed and wasted estate ; but not more dear, because Jesus sojourned there, and suffered there, and wept there bitter tears, than because Jerusalem hath yet to be " a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God." We bid you, there- fore, examine well, whether you assign the Jew his scriptural place in the economy of redemption, and whether you give him his due share in your in- tercessions with your INIaker. You owe him much ; yea, vastly more than you can ever compute. The branches were broken off; and we, being wild olive trees, were grafted in amongst them. But the natural branches shall be again
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grafted into their own olive tree. And when they are thus grafted, then — and who will not long, who will not pray for such result ] — the seed which was less, when sown, than all the seeds in the earth, shall grow suddenly into a plant of unrivalled stature and efflorescence ; the whole globe shall be canopied by the far-spreading boughs, and the fowls of the air shall lodge under its shadow.
I have only to add, that, as you leave the church, you will be asked to prove that you do indeed care for the Jews, by subscribing liberally towards a So- ciety which devotes all its energies to the attempting their conversion. I have in- deed spoken in vain, if the attempt shall prove that you refuse this society your aid, or give it only in scant measure. And it is not I who appeal to you. The memory of a great and good man* ap- peals to you. The Society for the Con- version of the Jews was the favorite Society of that admirable and lamented person, who, for so many years, labored
* The Eev. Charles Simeon.
in the ministry in this town, and who can hardly be forgotten here for genera- tions to come. In preaching for this Society, I redeem a promise which I made to him when my duties brought me last year to this place. I obey his wish, I comply with his request. And it cannot be that you will fail to embrace gladly an opportunity of showing your respect for so eminent a servant of God, one who spent and was spent, that he might guide you to heaven. You might erect to him a costly monument ; you might grave his virtues on the brass, and cause the marble to assume a living shape, and bend mournfully over his ash- es. But be ye well assured, that, if his glorified spirit be yet conscious of what passes on this earth, it would be no pleasure to him to see that you gather- ed into solemn processions to honor his obsequies, and reared, in token of your love, the stately cenotaph, comj^ared with what he would derive from behold- ing your zeal, in gathering into the christian fold " the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
28
SERMONS
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,
FRBRUARY, 1837.
The publication of the following Sermons was strongly requested by many of those who had heai-d them delivered. The Author was thus placed under the same circumstances as a year ago, when he had discharged the duties of Select Preacher before the University. He felt that it would not become him to act differently on the two occasions ; and he can now only express his earnest hope that discom-ses, which were listened to with singular kindness and attention, may be perused with some measure of advantage.
Camberwell, March 4, 1337.
SERMON I.
THE UNNATURALNESS OF DISOBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL.
" O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth ; before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set fortli, crucified among you? "— (Jalatiaks, hi. 1.
It is to be observed tbat the Galatians, here addressed, were not Jews ; neither had they been dwellers in Jerusalem, when Christ died upon the cross. It was not therefore true of them, any more than of ourselves, that, with the bodily eye, they had beheld Jesus cruci- fied. If the Savior had been evidently set forth before the Galatians, sacrificed for sin, it could only have been in the same manner as he is set before us, through the preaching of the word, and the administration of the Sacraments. There was no engine brought to bear on the Galatians, except that of the miracles which the first teachers wrought, which is not also brought to bear upon js ; and the miracles were of no avail, except to the making good points on which we profess ourselves already con- vinced. If therefore the very Gospel which St. Paul preached be preached
in our hearing, and the very Sacraments which he administered in our assemblies, it may be said of us, with as much pro- priety as of the Galatians, that "Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among us."
The greater distance at which we stand from the introduction of Christian- ity does not necessarily occasion any greater indistinctness in the exhibition of the Savior. It was not the proximity of the Galatians to the time of the cruci- fixion which caused Christ to appear as though crucified among them : for onco let a truth become an object of faith, not of sight, and it must make way by the same process at different times — there may be diversity in the evidence by which it is sustained, there is none in the manner in which it is apprehended.
We may therefore bring down our text to present days, and regard it as
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applicable, in every part, to ourselves. There are two chief topics which will demand to be handled. You observe that the apostle speaks of it as so singu- lar, that men should disobey the truth, that he can only ascribe it to sorcery or fascination. You observe also that he grounds this opinion on the fact, that Christianity had been so propounded to these men, that Christ himself might be said to have been crucified among them. We shall invert the order of the text, believing that it may be thus most prac- tically considered.- In the first place, it will be our endeavor to show you, that there is nothing exaggerated in our de- claring of yourselves, that " before your eyes Christ Jesus hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you." In the second place, we shall make this fact a basis on which to ground a question to those who are yet neglectful of the soul, *' Wlio hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth ? "
Now we are bold to claim at once a high character for the ministrations of the Gospel, and shall not attempt to con- struct a labored proof of their power. AVe do not substantiate our claim by any reference to the wisdom or energy of the men by whom these mimistrations may be conducted; for Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God alone can give the increase. It is altogether as a di- vinely instituted ordinance that we up- hold the might of preaching, and contend that it may have such power of annihi- lating time, and reducing the past to present being, as to set Christ evidently before your eyes, crucified among you. We are assured, in regard of the public ministrations of the word, that they are the instituted method by which the events of one age are to be kept fresh through every other. And, on this ac- count, we can have no hesitation in using language with regard to these our weekly assemblings, which would be wholly unwarranted, if we ascribed the worth of preaching, in any degree, to the preacher. When the services of God's house are considered as an instrumental- ity through which God's Spirit operates, we may safely attribute to those services extraordinary energy.
We say therefore of preaching, that it must be separated as far as possible from the preacher ; for it is only when thus separated, that we can apply to it St.
Paul's assertion in our text. I might now bring before you a summary of the history of Christ. I might evoke from the past the miracles of Jesus, and bid you look on, as the sick are healed, and the dead raised. I might lead you from scene to scene of his last great struggle with the powers of darkness, and sum- mon you to behold him in the garden, and at the judgment-seat, on the cross and in the grave. And then, as though we were actually standing, as stood the Israelites, when the fiery serpents were abroad, round the cross which sustained that to which we must look for deliver- ance, might I entreat you, by the hopes and feai's which centre in eternity, to gaze on the Lamb of God as the alone propitiation for sin. This I might do ; and this has been often done from this place. And shall we hesitate to affirm, that, whensoever this is done, Jesus Christ is "set forth, crucified among you 1 " It is not that we can pretend to throw surpassing vividness into our representations. It is not that we can claim such power of delineation as shall renovate the past, and cause it to re-ap- pear as a present occurrence. It is not, that, by any figure of speech, or any hold on your imaginations, we can sum- mon back what has long ago departed, and fix it in the midst of you visibly and palpably. It is only, that as intercession has been appointed to perpetuate the crucifixion of Christ — so that, as our Advocate with the Father, he has con- tinually that sacrifice to present, which he offered once for all upon Calvary — so has preaching been appointed to preserve the memory of that death which achiev- ed our redemption, and keep the mighty deed from growing old.
The virtue therefore which we ascribe to our public discourses, is derived ex- clusively from their constituting an or- dained instrumentality ; and our confi- dence that the virtue will not be found wantinjr flows only fiom a conviction that an mstrumentahty, once ordamed, will be duly honored, by God. We be- lieve assuredly that there is at work, in this very place, and at this very moment, an agency independent of all human, but which is accustomed to make itself felt through finite and weak instruments. As the words flow from the lips of him who addresses you, flow apparently in the unaided strength of mere earthly
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THE UNNATURALNESS OF DISOBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL.
speech, they may be endowed by this agency with an energy which is wholly from above, and thus prevail to the set- ting Christianity before you, with as clear evidence as was granted to those who saw Jesus in the flesh. So that, if there were nothing entrusted to us but the preaching of the word, if we had no sacraments to administer, we should feel, that, without presumption, we might de- clare of our hearers what St. Paul de- clared of the christians at Galatia. Yea, so deep is our persuasion of our living under the dispensation of the Spirit, and ofpreaching being the chief engine which this Sjiirit employs in transmitting a knowledge of redemption, that, after every endeavor, however feeble and in- adequate to brini^ under men's view " the mystery of godliness," we feel that prac- tically as much is done for them as though they had been spectators of Christ's expiatory sufferings ; and there- fore could we boldly wind up every such endeavor, by addressing our auditors as individuals, " before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, cru- cified among them."
But you are to add to this, that not only is there the preaching of the Gos- pel in our churches ; there is also the administration of sacraments. We will confine ourselves to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as furnishing the more forcible illustration. It is said by St. Paul, in reference to this sacrament, "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Loi-d's death till he come" — an explicit assertion that there is in the Lord's Supper, such a manifestation of the crucifixion of Jesus, as will serve to set forth that event until his second appearing. And we scarce- ly need tell you, that, inasmuch as the bread and the wine represent the body and blood of the Savior, the administra- tion of this sacrament is so commemora- tive of Christ's having been offered as a sacrifice, that we seem to have before us the awful and mysterious transaction, as though again were the'cross reared, and the words " It is finished, " pronounced in our hearing. We have here the re- presentation by sifinificative action, just as in the case of preaching, by authorita- tive announcement. For no man can partake of this sacrament, with his (spiritual sensibilities in free exercise, and not seem to himself to be traversing the
garden and the mount, consecrated by a Mediator's agony, whilst they witness the fearful struggles through which was effected our reconciliation to God.
And if we attach weight to the opin- ion of the church in her best days, we must hold that there is actually a sacri- fice in the Eucharist, though of course not such as the papists pretend. Christ is ofiered in this sacrament, but only commemoratively. Yet the commemor- ation is not a bare rememl)ering, or put- ting ourselves in mind ; it is strictly a commemoration made to God the Fa ther. As Christ, by presenting his death and satisfaction to his Father, continually intercedes for us in heaven, so the church on earth, when celebrating the Eucharist, approaches the throne of grace by repre- senting Christ unto his Father in the holy mysteries of his death and pas- sion.*
From the beginning it has been al- ways the same awfully solemn rite, which might have attested and taught Christianity, had every written record perished from the earth. All along it has been the Gospel preached by action, a phenomenon of which you could give no account, except by admitting the chief facts of the New Testament his- tory, and which might, in a great degree, have preserved a knowledge of those facts, had they never been registered by Evangelists. It is hke a pillar erected in the waste of centuries, indelibly in- scribed with memorials of our faith ; or rather, it is as the cross itself, presenting to all ages the immolation of that victim who " put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." And so long as this sacrament is administered in our churches, men shall never be able to plead that there are presented to them none but weak and ineffective exhibitions of Christ. If the crucifixion be not vivid, as delineated from the pulpit, it must be vivid as de- lineated from the altar. And it is no- thing that hundreds absent themselves from the great celebration, and thus never witness the representation of the crucifixion. They are invited to that ce- lebration, they are perfectly aware of its nature, and their remaining away can do nothing towards lessening its solemnities, and stripping it of energy as an exhibi-
* See Mede on Malachi, i. 1 1.
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tion of Christ's death. And whilst men are members of a churcli in whose ordi- nances the Lord's death is continually shown forth, we can be bold to address them, whether they neglect or whether they partake of those ordinances, in the very terms in which St. Paul addressed the Galatians of old. Yes, whatever our infirmities and deficiencies as preachers of the everlasting Gospel, we take high ground as iiiti'usted with dispensing the sacrament of the Eucharist : and whilst we have to deliver the bread of which Christ said, " Take, eat, this is my body," and the cup of which he declared, " this is my blood of the New Testament," we may look an assembly confidently in the face, and affirm that there are j^rofiered them such exhibitions of the sacrifice of the Mediator, that Jesus Christ is evi- dently set forth before their eyes crucifi- ed among them.
But we have now, in the second place, to assume that the facts of the Gospel are thus brought vividly before you, and to infer from it that disobedience to the truth can only be ascribed to fascinaticm or witchcraft. The question, " Who hath bewitched you 1 " indicates the persua- sion of the apostle, that the Gospel of the crucifixion was eminently adapted to make way upon earth. And this is a point which peHiaps scai'cely receives its due share of attention. We know so well that there is practically a kind of antipathy between the doctrines of Christianity and the human heart, that, whilst we admit thenecessity of a super- natural influence to piocure them re- ception, we never think of referring to sorcery to explain their rejection. It seems so natural to us to disobey the truth, however clearly and forcibly pro- pounded, that, when disobedience is to be accounted for, there appears no need for the calling in witchcraft.
Yet there is, we believe, a mistake in this, and one calculated to bring discred- it on the Gospel. If you represent it as a thing quite to be expected, that men would disobey the Gospel — just as though the Gospel were so constructed as to be necessarily repulsive — you in- vest it with a character at variance with the wisdom of its Author ; for you de- clare of the means, that they are not adapted to the end which is proposed. And we wish to' maintain, that, situated as fallen men are, the Gospel of the cru-
cifixion adapts itself so accurately to their wants, and addresses itself so powerfully to their feelings, that their rejection of it is a mystery, in the explaining of which we are forced to have* recourse to the witch's fascinations. We reckon that the great truth of Christianity, " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son " for its rescue, is so fitted for overcoming the obstinacy, and melt- ing the hearts of humankind, that it must be matter of amazement to higher orders of intelligence, that it should be heard with indifference or rejected with scorn. Angels, pondering a fact which appears to them more supi'ising than the humilia- tion and death of the everlasting Word — the fact that redeemed creatures reject their Redeemer — may projiose amongst themselves the very question of our text, " who hath bewitched them tliat they should not obey the truth ] "
We shall not include in our investiga- tions into the fairness of this question the case of the open infidel, who professed- ly disbelieves the whole of Christianity. We omit this case, not because we think that it is not to be accounted for as the result of some species of fascination, but only because it is not one of those di- rectly intended by St. Paul. As to the fascination or witchcraft, it scarce admits debate. For we can never allow, that, where reason has fair play, and the in- tellect is permitted to sit in calm judg- ment on the proofs to which Christianity appeals, there will be aught else but a verdict in favor of the divine origin of our religion. So mighty are the evi- ences on which the faith rests, that, where there is candor in the inquirer, be- lief must be the issue of the inquiry. And wheresoever there is a different re- sult, we can be certain that there has been some fatal bias on the reasoning faculties ; and that, whether it have been the sorcery of his own passions, or ot "the prince of the power of the air," the man has l>een as verily spell-bound throughout his investigations, as though with Saul he had gone down to the cave of the enchantress, and yielded himself to her unhallowed dominion.
But we pass by tliis case, and come at once to the considering, whether the Gospel of Christ be not admirably calcu- lated for making way to the conscience and the heart, so that the marvel is not that it ehould here and there win a con-
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THE rNNATURALNESS OP DISOBEDIENCE TO THE GOSPEL.
vert, but rather that it does not meet with universal success.
Let it first be observed Avith how sur- passing an encriiy this Gospel appeals to the fears of mankind. We say, to the fears — for it were indeed to take a con- tracted view of Christianity, to survey it as proffering mercy, and to overlook its demonstrations of wrath. If Jesus Christ have been " evidently set forth, crucified among you," there has been exhibited to you so stern a manifestation of God's hatred of sin, that, if you can still live in violation of his laws, some fascinating power must have made you reckless of consequences. There is this marvellous combination in the Gospel scheme, that we cannot preach of pardon without preaching of judgment. Every homily as to how sinners may be forgiven, is equally a homily as to the fearfulness of their doom, if they continue impenitent. We speak to men of Christ as bearing their " sins in his own body on the tree," and the speech seems to breathe nothing but unmeasured loving-kindness. Yet who, on hearing it, can repress the thoughts, what must sin be, if no finite being could make atonement ; what must its curse be, if Deity alone could exhaust it ? And yet, with the gi-eat mass of men, this appeal to their feai's is wholly ineffectual. Is it that the appeal is not sufficiently energetic ] is it that it is not framed into such shape as to be adapted to beings with the passions and feelings of men i Is it that there is no- thing in our nature, which responds to a warning and summons thus constructed and conveyed ] We cannot admit the explanation. The crucifixion is a pro- clamation, than which there cannot be imagined a clearer and more thrilling, that an eternity of inconceivable wretch- edness will be awarded to all who con- tinue in sin. And yet men do con- tinue in sin. The proclamation is prac- tically as powerless as though it were the threat of an infant or an idiot. And we are bold to say of this, that it is un- natural. Men have the flesh which can quiver, and the hearts which can quake ; and we call it unnatural, that there should be no trembling, and no misgiv- ing, when the wrath of the Almighty is being opened before them, and directed against them.
And if unnatural, what account can we give of their disobeying the truth 1 Oh,
there have been brought to bear on them the arts of fascination and sorcery. I know not, in each particular case, what hath woven the spell, and breathed the incantation. Bat there must have been some species of moral witchcraft, by which they have been steeled against impressions which would otherwise have been necessarily produced. Has the magican been with them, who presides over the crold and silver, and persuaded them that wealth is so precious that it should be amassed at all risks 1 Has the enchantress who mingles the wine- cup, and wreathes the dance, been with them, beguiling them with the music of her blandishments, and assuring them that the pleasures of the world are worth every penalty they incur ] Has the wizard, who, by the circlings of his wand, can cause the glories of empire to pass before men's view, as they passed, in mysterious but magnificent phantoms, before that of Christ in his hour of temptation, been Avith them, cajoling them with dreams of honor and distinct- tion, till he have made them reckless of everlasting infamy ] We say again, we know not what the enchantment may have been. We know not the draught by whose fumes men have been stupifi- ed, nor the the voice by whose tones they have been infatuated. But we know so thoroughly that the Gospel, published in their hearing, is exactly adapted for the acting on their fears, for the filling them with dread, and moving them to energy, that, when we behold them indifferent to the high things of futurity, and yet remember that " Christ Jesus hath been evidently set forth, crucified among them," we can but re- solve the phenomenon into some species or another of magical delusion ; we can but ])ly them with the question, " who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth 1"
But it is saying little, to say that the Gospel addresses itself to the fears of mankind ; it is equally adapted for act- ing on feelings of a gentler and more generous description. The effect of the fall was not to banish from man's breast " whatsoever things are lovely and of good report ;" but rather — and this is far more melancholy, as proving aliena- tion from God — that, whilst there can yet be the play of fine and noble emo- tions between man and man, there is
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nothing of the kind from man towards his Maker.
Those sympathies, whlcli are readily called into exercise by the kindness and disinterestedness of a fellow-creature, seem incapable of responding to the love and compassion of our benevolent Crea- tor. That statue, so famed in antiquity, which breathed melody only when gild- ed by the sunbeams, was just the op- posite to man in his exile and alienation. No lesser rays, whether from the moon or stars, could wake the music that was sepulchred in a stone. The sun must come forth, " as a giant to run his race," and then the statue responded to his shinings, and hymned his praises. But not so with man. The lesser rays can wake some melody. The claims of country, or of kindred, can excite him to correspondent duties. But the sun shin- eth upon him in vain. The claims of God call forth no devoutedness : and the stone which can discourse musically in answer to the glimmerings of philosophy, and the glow of friendship, is silent as the grave to the revelation of God and his Christ.
We declare of the Gospel, that it ad- dresses itself directly to those feelings, which, for the most part, are instantly wakened by kindness and beneficence. Take away the divinity from this Gospel, reduce it into a record of what one man hath done for others, and it relates a generous interposition, whose objects, if they evinced no gratitude, would be de- nounced as disgracing humanity. If it be true that we naturally entertain sen- timents of the warmest affection towai'ds those who have done, or suffered, some great thing on our behalf, it would seem quite to be expected that such sentiments would be called into most vigorous ex- ercise by the Mediator's work. If in a day when pestilence was abroad on the earth, and men dreaded its entrance into their household, we could carry them to a bed on which lay one racked by the terrible malady ; and tell them that this individual had voluntarily taken the fearful infection, and was going down in agony to the grave, because comply- ing, of his own choice, with a mysterious decree which assured him, that, if he would thus suffer, the disease should have no power over their families — is it credible that they would look on the dying man with indifference ; or that.
as they hearkened to his last requests, they would feel other than a resolve to undertake, as the most sacred of duties, the fulfilling the injunctions of one who, by so costly a sacrifice, warded off the evil with which they were threatened? And yet, what would this be, compared with our leading them to the scene of crucifixion, and showing them the Re- deemer dying in their stead ] You can- not say, that, if the sufferer on his death- bed would be a spectacle to excite emo- tions of gratitude, and resolutions of obedi- ence, the spectacle of Christ on the cross might be expected to be surveyed with carelessness and coldness. Yet such is undeniably the fact. The result which would naturally be produced is not pro- duced. Men would naturally feel grati- tude, but they do not feel gratitude. They would naturally be softened into love and submission, and they manifest only insensibility and hard-heartedness. And what are we to say to this 1 Here are beings who are capable of certain feelings, and who show nothing of those feelings when there is most to excite them ; beings who can display love to every friend but their best, and gratitude to every benefactor but their greatest. Oh, we say — and it is the un- naturalness of the exhibition wliich forces us to say — that enchantment has been at work, stealing away the senses, and deadening the feelings. In all other cases the heart has free play ; but in this it is trammelled, as by some magical cords, and cannot beat generously. Satan, the great deceiver, who seduced the first of humankind, has been busy with one sort or another of illusion, and has so bound men with his spells that they are morally entranced. We know not, as we said in the former case, what may have been the stupifying charm, or the coercive incantation. AVe have not gone down with them to the haunts of the sorcerer, that we might know by what rites they have thus been human- ized. But they would never be indiffer- ent where there is most to excite, and insensible where there is all that can tell upon their feelings, if they had not surrendered the soul to some power of darkness, some beguiling and o'ermas- tering passion, some agency which, like that pretended to by the woman of En- dor, professes to give life to the dead. And therefore remembering, that, as
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grafted into the Christian Church, they are men " before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among them," we caimot see them manifesting- no love to the Savior, and yielding him no allegiance, without feeling that this their vehement ingrati- tude is wholly unnatural, and without therefore pressing home upon them the question, " who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth ] "
We may certainly add, that, as ad- dressing itself to men's hope, the Gos- pel is so calculated for making and re- taining disciples, that nothing but the workings of sorcery will explain its rejection. It must be remembered that Christ, as Mediator, not only gained our pardon, but procured for us everlasting happiness. And if we must judge the immenseness of the escaped punishment, we must judge also that of the proffered glory, by the fact that our substitute was none other than a person of the Trinity. If Christ Jesus is set before men, cruci- fied among them, they are manifestly taught, that, as the price paid is not to be computed, neither is the happiness of which it was the purchase. And they are beings keenly alive to their own in- terests, readily excited by any prospect of good, and who exhibit the greatest alacrity and vigor in pursuing such p.ans as promise them advantage. It is moreover their natural constitution, to forego a present for a future and far greater good, and to submit cheerfully to privations, in hopes of receiving what shall be more than equivalent. We call this their natural constitution ; and we therefore, further, call it unnatural, and demonstrative of strange and sinister in- fluence, that they should choose the tri- fling in preference to the unmeasured, and give u}) the everlasting for the sake of the transient. Yet this men do wlien they dis- obey the Gosj)el. The Gospel addresses itself directly to their desire after ha^ipi- ness. It makes its appeal to that prin- ciple in their nature, which prompts them to provide for the future at the ex- pense of the present. In every other case they hearken to such address, and respond to such appeal. But in this case, which differs from every other only in the incalculable superiority of the proffered good, they turn a deaf ear, and wear all the appearance of a iiulural incapacity of being stirred by
such an engine as the Gospel brings to bear.
What account shall we give of this 1 A principle of their nature is in full vig- or, except in the instance in which there is most to excite it, and then it seems utterly extinguished. They can pursue a future good, unless it be infinite, and be moved by any prospect of happiness, ex- cept of everlasting. There must have been sorcery here ; and we have no difficulty in determining how the magi- cian has worked. The devil has prac- tised that jugglery which causes the ob- jects of faith to slu'ink into insignificance, and those of sense to dilate into magni- tude. There has been the weaving of that spell which circumscribes the view, so that, though a man can look forward, he never looks beyond the grave. There has been the drinking of that cup of voluptuousness, of which whosoever par- takes is maddened into longing for yet deeper draughts. It is sorcery, it is witchcraft. Men would not hesitate, if an earthly good were to be secured on the conditions of the Gospel ; and they refuse, when the good is heavenly, only because they had suffered themselves to be beguiled, and cheated, and entranced. There is a charm upon them, and their own passions have sealed it, binding them to love the world, and the things that are in the world. There is an en- chanted circle, which their indulged lusts have traced, and within which they walk, so that they cannot expatiate ovei the vast spreadings of their existence. There is a syren voice, and their own wishes syllable its whispers, telling them there is no cause for haste, but that hereafter it will be soon enough to at- tend to eternity. And thus there is no defect in the Gospel, It is adapted, with the nicest pi'ecision, to creatures so con- stituted as ourselves. But we live in the midst of gorgeous deceits, and bril- liant meteors. The wizard's skill, and the necromancer's art are busied with hiding from us what we most need to know ; and our eyes are dazzled by the S])lendid apparitions with which the god of this world peoples his domain ; and our ears are fascinated by the melodies in which pleasure breathes her incan- tations ; and thus it comes to pass, that we are verily " bewitched" into disobey- ing the truth.
Would to God that we might all striv*
SONGS IN THE NIGHT.
226
to break away from tlie seductions and flatteries of earth, and give ourselves in good earnest to the seeking happiness in heaven. And what is it that we ask of men, when we entreat them to escape from the magician, and live for eternity 1 Is it that they should be less intellectual, less philosophical 1 On the contrary, religion is the nurse of intellect, and philosophy is most noble when doing homage to revelation. It is not intel- lectual to live only for this world, it is rot philosophical to remain ignorant of God. Is it that they should surrender their pleasures, and walk a round of un- varied mortification 1 We ask them to surrender nothino: which a rational being can approve, or an immortal vmdicate. "We leave them every pleasure which can be enjoyed without a blush, and re- membered without remorse. We ask only that they would flee those vices whose end is death, cultivate those vir- tues which are as much the happiness as the ornament of man, and propose to
themselves an object commensurate with their capacities. This, let them be as- sured, is practical Christianity — to shun what, even as men, they should avoid, and pursue what, even as men, they should desire.
Shall we not then beseech the Al- mighty, that we may have strength to break the spell, and dissolve the illusion 1 The Philistines are upon us, as upon Samson, and we are yet, it may be, in the lap of the enchantress. But all strength is not gone. The Spirit of the living God may yet be entreated ; and the razor of divine judgment hath not swept off" the seven locks wherein our might lies. And therefore, however be- witched, each amongst us may yet strug- gle with the sorcerer who has bound him ; and we can assure him that there is such efficacy in hearty prayer to the Lord, that, if he cry for deliverance, the green withes shall be " as tow when it toucheth the fire," and the new cords be broken like a thread from his arms.
SERMON II.
SONGS IN THE NIGHT.
But none saith, Where is God my Maker, who givcth songs in the night 1 " — Job xxxv. 10.
In regard of the concerns and occur- rences of life, some men are always dis- posed to look at the bright side, and others at the dark. The tempers and feelings of some are so cheerful and elastic, that it is hardly within the power of ordinary circumstances to depress and overbear them ; whilst others, on the contrary, are of so gloomy a temper- ament, that the least of what is adverse serves to confound them. But if we can di\'ide men into these classes, when re- ference is had simply to their private S9
affairs, we doubt whether the same di- vision will hold, we are sure it will not in the same proportion, when the refer- ence is generally to God's dealings with our race. In regard of these dealings, there is an almost universal disposition, to the looking on the dark side and not on the bright; as though there were' cause for nothing but wonder, that a God of infinite love should permit so much misery in any section of his in- telligent creation. You find but few who are ready to observe what provisiou.
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has been made for human happiness, and what capacities there are yet in the world, notwithstanding its vast disor- ganization, of ministering to the satis- faction of such as prefer righteousness to wickedness.
Now we cannot deny, that if we mere- ly regard the earth as it is, the exhibi- tion is one whose darkness it is scarcely possible to overcharge. But when you seek to gather from the condition of the world the character of its Governor, you are bound to consider, not what the woi'ld is, but what it would be, if all, which that Governor hath done on its behalf, were allowed to produce its liegitimate effect. And we are sure, that when you set yourselves to compute the amount of what may be called unavoid- able misery — that misery which must equally remain, if Christianity possessed unlimited sway — you would find no cause for wonder, that God has left the earth burdened with so great a weight of sorrow, but only of praise, that he has provided so amply for the happiness of the fallen.
The greatest portion of the misery which is so pathetically bewailed, exists in spite, as it were, of God's benevolent arrangements, and would be avoided, if men were not bent on choosing the evil, and rejecting the good. And even the unavoidable misery is so mitigated by the provisions of Christianity, that, if there were nothing else to be borne, the pressure would not be heavier than just sufficed for the ends of moral disci- pline. There must be sorrow on the earth, so long as there is death ; but, if this were all, the certain hope of resur- rection and immortality would dry every tear, or cause, at least, triumph so to blend with lamentation, that the mourn- er would be almost lost in the believer. Thus it is true, both of those causes of unhappiness which would remain, if Christianity were universally prevalent, and of those for whose i-emoval this re- ligion was intended and adapted, that they offer no argument against the com- passions of God. The attentive ob- server may easily satisfy himself, that, though for wise ends a certain portion of suffering has been made unavoidable, the divine dealings with man are, in the largest sense, those of tenderness and love, so that, if the great majority of our race were not determined to be wretch-
ed, enough has been done to insure their being happy. And when we come to give the reasons why so vast an accu- mulation of wretchedness is to be found in every district of the globe, we cannot assign the will and appointment of God : we chaige the whole on man's forgetful- ness of God, on his contempt or neglect of remedies and assuagements divinely provided ; yea, we offer in explanation the words of our text, " none saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night ] "
We shall not stay to trace the connec- tion between these words and the pre- ceding, but rather separate at once the text from the context. AVe may then consider it as giving a beautiful charac- ter of God, which should attract men to- wai'ds him, and which is sufficient pledge, that, if it did, they would be happy even in the midst of adversity. Or we may regard the words, when thus taken by themselves, as expressive of the inex- cusableness of men in neglecting God, when he has revealed himself under a chai-acter the most adapted to the fixing their confidence. It is evident that Elihu represents it as a most strange and criminal thing, that, though our Maker giveth songs in the night, he is not inquired after by those on whom calamity presses. We may, therefore, divide what we have to say on our text under two general heads ; considering, in the first place, what an aggravation it is of the guilt of men's forgetting their Ci'eator, that he is a God " who giveth songs in the night;" and showing you, in the second place, with how great truth and fitness this touching description may be applied to our Maker.
Now we must all be conscious, that, if pain and suffering were removed from the world, a great portion of the Bible would become quite inapplicable ; for on almost its every page there are say- ings which would seem out of place, if addressed to beings inaccessible to grief. And it is one beautiful instance of the adaptation of revelation to onr circum- stances, that the main tiling which it labors to set forth is the love of our Maker. There are many untouched points on which curiosity craves infor- mation, and on which apostles and pro- phets miffht have been commissioned to pour a tide of illustration. But there is no point on which it was so important
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uo US to be certifitvi, as on this of God's love towards us, notwithstanding our alienation. We emphatically needed a revelation to assure us ol' this ; for natural theology, whatever its success in delineating the attributes of God, could never have proved that sin had not ex- cluded us from all share in his favor.
And accordingly it is at this the Bible labors ; and thereby it becomes most truly the Bible of the fallen. A revela- tion of God to a rank of beings untaint- ed by sin, would probably not be much occupied with affirming and exhibiting the divine love. There must be guilt, and therefore some measure of conscious- ness of exposui-e to wrath, ere there can be doubt as to whether the work of God's hands be still the object of his favor. The Bible therefore, if we may thus speak, of an order of angels, might con- tain nothing but gorgeous descriptions of divine supremacy and magnificence, opening the mightiest mysteries, but having no reference to the tenderness of a Father, which was always experienced, and none to the forgiveness of sinners, which was never required. But such a Bible would be as much out of place on this fallen creation, as ours in a sphere where all was purity and light. The revelation, which alone can profit us, must be a revelation of mercy, a revela- tion which brings God before us as not made irreconcilable by our many of- fences ; a revelation, in short, which dis- closes such arrangements for our restor- ation to favor, that there could be a night on which cherubim and seraphim lined our firmament, chanting the chorus, " peace on earth, good-will towards man," and thus proving of our Maker, that he is a God " who giveth songs in the night."
Now you all know that this is the character of the revelation with which we have been favored. Independently on the great fact with which the Bible is occupied, the fact of our redemption througli the suretyship of a Mediator, the inspired writers are continually af- firming, or insisting upon proofs, that the Almighty loves the human race with a love that passeth knowledge ; and they give us, in his name, the most animating promises, promises whose full lustre can- not be discerned in the sunshine, but only when the sky is overcast with clouds. We must, for example, be our-
selves brought to the very dust, ere we can rightly estimate this exquisite de- scription of a being, who made the stars, and holdeth the waters in the hollow of his hand, " God, that comforteth those that are cast down." We must know for ourselves the agony, the humiliation, of unforeseen grief, ere we can taste the sweetness of the promise, that God, he who hath " spread out the heavens like a curtain," and ordereth the motions of all the systems of a crowded immensity, " shall wipe away tears from off' all faces."
But if God have thus revealed himself in the manner most adapted to the cir- cumstances of the suffering, does not the character of the I'evelation vastly aggra- vate the sinfulness of those by whom God is not sought 1 Let all ponder the simple truth, that the having in their hands a Bible, which wondrously exhibits the tenderness of Deity, will leave us without excuse, if not found at last at peace with our Maker. For we are not naturally inaccessible to kindness. We are so constituted that a word of sympa- thy, when we are in trouble, goes at once to the heart, and even the look of com- passion acts as a coi'dial, and excites grateful feelings. We have only to be brought into circumstances of pain and perplexity, and immediately we show ourselves acutely sensitive to the voice of consolation ; and any of our fellow- creatures has only to approach us in the character of a comforter, and we feel ourselves drawn out towards the benevo- lent being, and give him at once our thankfulness and friendship. But it is not thus with reference to God. God comes to us in the hour of anxiety, bid- ding us cast all our care upon him ; but we look round for another resting-place. He comes to us in the season of aflHic- tion, offering us the oil and wine of hea- venly consolation ; but we hew out for ourselves " broken cistemg." He ap- proaches in the moment of danger, prof- fering us refuge and succor ; but wo trust in our own sti'ength, or seek help from those who are weak as ourselves. But let us be well assured that this sin- gle circumstance, that God hath reveal- ed himself as a comforter, to those whose condition makes them need comfort, will prove us inexcusable, if we die without giving him the heart's best affections. He acts up<in us in the manner in which,
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both from our necessities and our sus- ceptibilities, there is the greatest likeli- hood of our being moved to the making him the prime object of our love. And if, notwithstanding, we prefer the ci'ea- ture to the Creator, \vhat shall we have to ur<Te, when he, who now deals with us in mercy, begins to deal with us in vengeance 1 Yes, it is not the manifes- tation of majesty, nor of power nor of avvfulness, which will leave us inexcu- sable ; it is the manifestation of compas- sion, of good will, of tenderness. A fallen and unhappy creature, harassed by a thousand griefs, and exposed to a thousand perils, might have shrunk from exhibitions of Deity on his throne of clouds, and in his robes of light. He might have pleaded that there was every thing to confound, and nothing to en- courage him. But what can he say, when the exhibitions are of God, as making all the bed of the sick man in his sickness, and cheering the widow in her desolateness, and supplying the beggar in his poverty, and guarding the outcast in his exile 1 Are not these exhibitions touching enough, thrilling enough, en- couraging enough ] Oh, I might per- haps have felt that it was not to prove the human race necessarily inexcusable in their forgetfulness of God, to say, none saith, where is God my INIaker who is •' from everlasting, and to everlasting," who " sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grass- hoppers," who "telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names" — but I feel that it is to express such a wilful hard-heartedness as must demand and justify the severest condem- nation, to say, " none saith, where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night r '
But we now proceed to the showing you, as we proposed in the second place, with how great truth and fitness this touching description may be applied to our Maker.
We have already referred to the pre- cise adaptation of the Bible to our circum- stances, and we would now examine this adaptation with a little more attention. We may assert that there cannot be im- agined, much less found, the darkness, in passing through which there is no pro- mise of Scripture by which you may be cheered. We care not what it is which hath woven the darkness ; we are sure
that God has made provision for his peo- ple's exulting, rather tban lamenting, as the gloom gathers round them, and set- tles over them. Whatever be the nature of the afflictions with which any man has been visited, can he deny, if indeed he be one who has received Christ into the soul, that he has found " a word in sea- son" in Scripture ; will he not, at the least, confess, that, if he have passed through the period of calamity without experiencing such consolations as filled him with gratitude, it has been through his own fault and faithlessness, seeing that even the " vale of Baca " can be used by the righteous '* as a well."
Let us take the case of most frequent occurrence, but of which frequency diminishes nothing of the bitterness. We mean the case of the loss of fiiends, the case in which death makes way into a family, and carries off one of the most beloved of its members. It is night — deep night, in a household, whensoever this occurs. When the loss is of an- other kind, it may admit of repair. Property may be injured, some cherish- ed plan may be frustrated — but industry may be again successful, and hope may fix its eye on other objects. But when those whom we love best die, there is no comfort of this sort with which we can be comforted. For a time, at least, the loss seems irreparable ; so that, though the wounded sensibilities may afterwards be healed, and even turn to the living as they turned to the dead, yet, wliilst the calamity is fresh, we repulse, as injurious, the thought that the void in our affec- tions can ever be filled, and are persuad- ed that the blank in the domestic group can be occupied by nothing but the hal- lowed memory of the buried. It is therefore night in the household, dark- ness, a darkness that may be felt. And philosophy comes in, with its well-meant but idle endeavors to console those who sit in this darkness. It can speak of the unavoidableness of death, of the duty of bearing with manly fortitude what can- not be escaped, of the injuriousness of excessive grief; and it may even hazard a conjecture of reunion in some world beyond the grave. And pleasure ap- proaches with its allurements and fasci- nations, offering to cheat the mind into forgetfulness, and wile the heart from its sadness. But neither philosophy nor pleasure can avail any thing in the
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chamber of tleath ; the taper of the one is too faint for so oppressive a gloom, and the torch of the other burns sickly in so unwonted an atmosphere. Is then the darkness such that those whom it envelopes are incapable of being com- forted ? Oh, not so. There may be those amongst yourselves who can tes- tify, that, even in a night so dreary and desolate, there is a source whence conso- lation may be drawn. The promises of Scripture are never more strikingly ful- filled than when death has made an in- road, and taken away, at a stroke, some object of deep love. Indeed, it is God's own word to the believer, " I will be with him in trouble" — as though that presence, which can never be with- drawn, then became more real and in- tense.
What are we to say of cases which continually present themselves to the parochial minister ? He enters a house, whose darkened windows proclaim that one of its inmates is stretched out a corpse. He finds that it is the fairest and dearest whom death has made his prey, and that the blow has fallen where sure to be most deeply felt. And he is prepared for the burst of bitter sorrow. He knows that the heart, when most purified by grace, is made of feeling slutf; for grace, which removes the heart of stone, and substitutes that of flesh, will refine, rather than extinguish, human sensibilities. But what words does he hear from lips, whence nothing but lamentation might have been expect- ed to issue ] " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." The mother will rise up from the side of her pale still cliild ; and though on the cheek of that child (alas, never again to be warm with aflection) there are tears which show how a parent's grief has overflowed, she will break into the exclamation of the Psalmist, " I will sing of mercy and Judgment, unto thee, O Lord, will I sing." And when, a few days after, the slow windings of the funeral procession are seen, and the minister advances to meet the train, and pours forth the rich and inspiriting words, " 1 am the Re- surrection and the Life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live " — is it only the low murmer of sup- pressed anguisli by which he is answer- ed ] can he not feel that there are those
in the group whose hearts bound at the magnificent announcement ? and, as he looks at the mourners does he not ga- ther, from the uplifted eye and the mov- ing lip, that there is one at least who is triumphing in the fulfilment of the pre- diction, " O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction 1 "
And what are we to say to these things 1 what but that, in the deepest moral darkness, there can be music, music which sounds softer and sweeter than by day ; and that, when the instru- ments of human melody are broken, there is a hand which can sweep the heartstrings and wake the notes of praise 1 Yes, philosophy can communi- cate no comfort to the aflliicted ; it may enter where all is night ; but it leaves what it found, even weepino: and wailing:. And pleasure m.ay take the lyre, whose strains have often seduced and enchant- ed ; but the worn and weaned spirit has no ear, in the gloom, for what sounded, magically, when a thousand lights were blazing. But religion, faith in the pro- mises of that God who is the Husband of the widow and the Father of the fathei'less, this can cause the sorrowing to be glad in the midst of their sorrow ; for it is a description which every believer will confess borne out by experi- ence, that God our Maker " giveth songs in the night."
But again — how beautifully accurate is this description, if referred generally to God's spiritual dealings with our race. It may well be said, that, so soon as man had fallen, it was night on this creation. The creatuj-e had shut itself out from the favor of the Creator ; and what was this but to shroud the globe with the worst of all darkness 1 It was a darkness which no efforts of the human mind have been able to disperse. There is a jioint up to which natural theology has ad- vanced, but which it has never passed. It has discovered a want, but not a sup- ply ; it has detected a disease, but v.c t it.s remedy. AVe do not pcrha])S need the written word, in order to our ascer- taining that we are exposed to God's wrath. The remonstrances and fijrebo- dings of conscience are, in themselves, suflBcient to excite in us a belief and dread of judgment to come, and perhaps to extort from us the inquiry, " What must I do to be saved ?" But the an- swer to this inquiry can be furnishetl
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only by a liigher and deeper than natu- ral theology. We make some way by groping in the darkness, but cannot emerge into the light.
But, God be thanked, man was not left to complain, and lament, in the midst of that darkness which his apostacy wove. There were provisions for his rescue, which came into force at the moment of transgression. No sooner had man fallen than prophecy, in the form of a promise, took the span of time, and gathered into a sentence the moral history of the world. And we have great reason for believing that even unto Adam did this promise speak of good things to come, and that he was comforted, in his exile from Paradise, by the hope which it gave him of final deliverance. Compelled though he was to till an earth, on which rested the curse of its Creator, he may have known that there was blessing in store ; and that, though he and his children must dig the ground in the sweat of their brow, there would fall on it a sweat like gi'eat drops of blood, having virtue to remove the oppressive malediction. It must have been bitter to him to hear of the thorn and the thistle ; but he may have learnt how thorns would be woven into a crown, and placed round the fore- head of one who should be the lost " tree of life" to a dying creation. It was only to have been expected, when the fatal act had been committed, that there would have ascended from the earth one fearful cry, and that then an eternal silence would have covered the desecrated globe. But, in place of this — though the gathered night was not at once dispersed — there still went up the anthem of praise from lowing herds, and waving corn, and stately forests ; and man, in his exile, had an evening and a morning hymn, which spake grate- fully of the head of the serpent as bruis- ed by the seed of the woman — and all because God had already discovered himself as our Maker " who giveth songs in the night."
Thus also it has been, and is, with in- dividual cases. There may be many in this assembly who have known what it is to be oppressed with apprehensions of God's wrath against sin. They have passed through that dreary season, when conscience, often successfully resisted, or dragged into slumber, mightily asserts
its authority, arrays the transgressions of a life, and anticipates the penalties of an eternity. And we say of the man who is suffering from conviction of sin, that it is more truly night with him, the night of the soul, than with the more wretched of those on whom lie the bur- dens of temporal wo. And natural the- ology, as we have already stated, can offer no encouragement in this utter midnight. It may have done its part in producing the convictions, but, in so doing, must have exhausted its resources. All its effoits must have been directed to the furnishing demonstrations of the inflexible government of a God of jus- tice and righteousness ; and the more powerful these demonstrations, the more would they shut up the transgi-cssor to the certainty of destruction. And never- theless, after a time, you find the man, who had been brought into so awful a darkness, and for whose comfort there is nothing to be gained from natural the- olojjv, walking: in rfadness, with a lisfht- ened heart and a buoyant spirit. What could not be found in the stores of na- tural theology, has been found in those of revealed intelligence, that God can, at the same time, be just and a justifier, that sinners can be pardoned, and sins not go unpunished. Therefore is it that he who was in darkness, the darkness of the soul, is now lifting up his head with joy, and exulting in hope. The Spirit of God, which produced the con- viction, has taken of the things of Christ, and, showing them to the soul, made them effectual to conversion. And we call upon you to compare the man in these two estates. With his conscious- ness of the evil of sin heightened, rather than diminished, you find him changed from the desponding into the triumph- ant ; exhibiting, in the largest measure, the accomplishment of the words, that tliere shall be given " beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heav- iness." You can offer no account of this surprising transformation, whilst you search for its reasons in natural causes. But when you appeal to the workings of Omnipotence ; when you tell us of a propitiation for sin ; when you refer to a divine agent, whose special office it is, to bring men to put faith in a sacrifice which reconciled a guilty world to its Creator — then you leave no cause foi
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surprise, that, from a soul, round which had gathered deep and stern shadows, there should be ascending the rich notes of praise, and the stiiring strains of hope ; but then you are only proving with what exquisite truth it may be said, that God our Maker " giveth songs in the night."
We might easily multiply our illustra- tions. We might follow the believer through all the stages of his progi-ess from earth to heaven ; and wheresoever you could show that it was night, there could we show you that God " giveth songs." It is not that he giveth no songs in the day ; for he is with his people, and he wakes their jiraises, in all time of their wealth, as well as in all time of their tribulation. But it is our nature to rejoice when all within and without is un- disturbed ; the miracle is to " rejoice in tribulation ," and this miracle is con- tinually UTOught as the believer presses through the wilderness. The harp of the human spirit never yields such sweet music, as when its framework is most shattered, and its strings are most torn. Then it is, when the world pronounces the instrument useless, and man would put it away as incapable of melody, that the finsrer of God delisfhts in touchinfj it, and draws from it a fine swell of har- mony. Come night, come calamity, come affliction. God still says to his people, as he said to the Jews, when expecting the irruption of the Assyrian, " ye shall have a song, as in the night."
Is it the loss of property with which believers are visited 1 Our Maker " giv- eth songs in the night," and the chorus is heard, we have in heaven " a better, even an enduring substance." Is it the loss of friends 1 Our Maker, as we have shown you, " giveth songs in the night ;" they " sorrow not, even as others which have no hope ;" and over the very grave is heard the fine confession, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Have they their seasons of spiritual de- pression, when they cannot realize their privileges, nor assure themselves of ac- ceptance with God 1 Indeed this is hard to bear — perhaps the severest of the trials whicli they are called to endure. This was David s case, when he pathe- tically exclaimed, " Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy water-spouts ; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." Yet the Psalmist could go on,
in the very next verse, to declare, " The Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me." And no believ- er holds fast his confidence, as David did, without proving, that, if God hide for a while the light of his countenance, it is in order to make it more valued ; without finding cause to break into the song, " it is good for me that I was afflicted." Let the thickest night ga- ther ; let death be at hand ; and shall it be said that our text fails of accomplish- ment ! On the contrary, it is here emphatically true that our Maker " giv- eth songs in the night." The believer in Christ knows and feels that his Re- deemer " hath abolished death." He is not insensible to the terrors of death ; for he regards the separation of soul and body as a direct consequence of the original curse, and therefore awful and disastrous. But then he is so assured of immortality and a resurrection, that he can appi'oach the grave with confi- dence, and even exult that his departure is at hand. What upholds the dyino- man 1 What throws over his wasted countenance that air of serenity ? What prompts those expressions of peace, those breathings of hope, which seem so little in accordance with his cir- cumstances of trouble and decay ] It is that God is whispering to his soul such words as these, " Fear thou not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God ; I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee." It is that his Maker is reminding him of the pledge, that death shall be swallowed up in victory ; that he is already causing the minstrelsy of the eternal city to come stealing on his ear — and is not all this the most con- vincing and touching evidence, that God our Maker " giveth songs in the night 1 "
Who would not be a believer in Christ ] who would not be at peace with God ? When such arc the privileges of righteousness, the privileges through life, the privileges in death, the wonder is, that all are not eager to close with the offers of the Gospel, and make those privileges their own. Yet, alas, the ministers of Christ have to exclaim, with the prophet, " who liath believed our re- port ? " and, with Elihu, "none saith, where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night 1 " There may yet be
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moral insensibility in numbers who hear me. What shall we say to them 1 They may have youth on their side, and health, and plenty. The sky may be clear, and the voice of joy maybe heard in their dwelUng. But there must come a night, a dreary and oppressive night ; for youth must depart, and stx'ength be enfeebled, and sorrow encountered, and the shadows of evening fall upon the path. And what will they do then, if now, as God complains by his prophet, " the harp and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts, but they regai-d not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands 1 " They may have their song now; but then we shall have only the bitter exclamation, " the harvest is pass- ed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." We warn you in time. Though the firmament be bright, we show you the cloud, small as a man's hand, already
rising from the sea ; and we urge you to the breaking loose from habits of sin, and fleeing straightway to the Mediator Christ. It is for baubles which they despise when acquired, wealth which they count nothing when gained, gratifi- cations which they loathe so soon as passed, that men sell their souls. And all that we now entreat of the young, is, that they will not, in the spring-time of life, strike this foul bargain. In the name of Him who made you, we be- seech you to separate yourselves at once from evil practices and evil associates ; lest, in that darkest of all darkness, when the sun is to be " black as sackcloth of hair," and the moon as blood, and the stars are to fall, you may utter nothing but the passionate cry of despair ; whilst the righteous are lifting up their heads with joy, and proving that they have trusted in a God " who giveth songs in the night."
SERMON III.
TESTIMONY CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE.
" Ai we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God ; God will establitb it
for ever. — Psalm xlviii. 8.
There is a veiy striking part in the Litany of our church, when, between two earnest supplications for deliverance, God is reminded of the great things which he had wrought in former times. The supplications to which we refer are put into the mouths of the people. " 0 Lord, arise, help us, and deliver us for thy name's sake." " O Lord, arise, help us, and deliver us for thine honor." Between these the min- ister is directed to exclaim, " O God, we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, the noble
works that thou didst in their days, and in the old time before them." We are always much struck with this exclama- tion, and with the consequent alteration in the plea with which the people iirge their suit for deliverance. In the first petition it is, " deliver us for thy name's sake ;" in the second, " deliver us for thine honor." The minister has heard the congregation invoking God to come firth to their succor, and lunnbly remind- ing him how consistent it would be with all the attributes of his nature — for these are included in his name — to comply
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with their earnest supplication. And then the minister, as though he knew that there was yet higher ground which the people might take, commemorates the marvellous interpositions of which olden times had set down the records, reminding the congregation, by mak- ing confession to God, of deliverances wrought on behalf of their fathers. The people are animated by the recollection. They feel that God has pledged himself, by former answers to prayer, to arise, and shield those who cast themselves on his help. His own glory has become concerned in the not leaving such to per- ish ; and shall they not then, with fresh confidence, reiterate their petition ] No sooner therefore has the minister com- memorated God's mercies, than the peo- ple, as though they had a new source of hope, press their suit with yet greater earnestness ; and their voices mingle in the cry, " O Lord, arise, help us, and deliver us for thine honor." Is not this portion of our Litany constructed on the principle, that, what we have heard of God's doings in other times, we may ex- pect to see or experience in our own, provided only there be similarity of cir- cumstance 1 are not, in short, the exclam- ation of the minister, and the consequent petition of the people, the expressions of a hope, or rather a belief, that the words of our text shall again be appropriate, " as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of Hosts 1 "
It must have been to some special in- stance in which God had wrought a de- liverance, parallel to one celebrated in Jewish annals, that reference is made in our text. The statement is exactly what would be uttered, if the parties who have joined in the quoted sentences of our Litany, were to become the subjects of a divine interposition, similar to those which the minister commemorated. But it is observed by Bishop Horsley, that there is no recorded interference of God on behalf of Jerusalem, which answers to the languagjG employed in this Psalm. And it is therefore probable that a pro- phetic, or, at least, a spiritual interpre- tation must be given to the hymn. In- deed there are expressions which will not admit of being applied to the literal Jerusalem. Thus, in our text, it is said of the city of our God, " God will es- tablish it for ever "— s. prediction which cannot belong to the metropolis of Ju-
dea, which was often given up to the spoiler, but which holds gocid of that spiritual city, the Church of God, against which Christ declared that " the gates of hell shall never prevail." And when, towards the conclusion of the Psalm, the succored people are bidden to march in joyful procession round their beauti- ful city, that they might see how un- scathed were its walls, how glorious its structures — " walk about Zion, and go round about her ; tell the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following" — you can scarce- ly fail to feel, that the thing enjoined is the considering and admiring the pri- vileges and securities of the church, in order that we may both prize them our- selves, and be incited to the preserving them for our children.
We may therefore regard our text as uttered by members of tlie Church of Christ, that city of God which is made glad by the streams of the river of life. It is an assertion, made by those who had fled to the church for safety, expect- ing deliverance within its walls, that their own experience bore out to the letter what had been reported by the believers of other days. The difference between hearing and seeing, of which they make mention, is the difference be- tween receiving truth on the testimony of others, and the being ourselves its witnesses — a distinction such as that which the patriarch Job drew, when humbled through a personal acquaint- ance with the dealings of God, " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee ; w/herefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And the great principle, or fact, which it will become us to endeavor to establish and illustrate in discoursing on our text, is, that before there is any personal experience in matters of re- ligion, there may be an acting on the experience of others, and that, where- soever this is faithfully done, the person- al experience will be the probable result. We proceed at once to the exhibiting this principle or fact ; design- ing to adduce, if possible, the most practical, as well as the most apposite instances, in which men may say, " as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of Hosts."
Now we shall begin with an applica' 30
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tion of the principle involved in our text, which has been made at great length by modern writers, * and whose importance seems to claim for it the closest attention. We refer to the way in which men reach their persuasion that the Bible is God's word ; for they evidently, for the most part, receive the Bible as inspired, long before they can prove any thing in regard of its inspiration. We put the Bible into the hands of our children, as the word of the living God, and there- fore demanding a reverence which can be claimed by no other volume in the whole circle of authorship. And our children grow up with what might al- most be called an innate persuasion of the inspiration of Sci'ipture ; they are all but born with the belief; and they can-y it with them to riper years, rather as a received axiom, than as a demon- strated verity. It is almost exclusively on hearsay, if we may use the word, that the Bible is taken as divine, and the Apocrypha passed by as human ; so that numbers, who are perhaps strenuous for the right of private judgment, do virtu- ally, in the most important matter, re- ceive and reject on the sole authority of the church.
And it is well that it is so. If there were nothing of this taking upon trust ; if every man, in place of having to set himself to the perusal of a volume which he regards as divine, must first pick out by laborious study, from all the author- ship of antiquity, the few pages which really bear the signature of heaven, there would be an arrest on the progress of Christianity; for the life of each would be exhausted, ere he had constructed the book by which he must be guided. And yet it cannot be taken as a very satisfactory account of human belief, that it thus follows upon human bidding. But it is here, as we believe, that the principle of our text comes beautifully into operation. The church, like a parent of a family, gives a volume into the hands of thuse who join her commu- nion, bidding them receive it as the divine, and study it as the word which can alune guide them to glory. And her members, like the children of the house- hold, have no better reason, at first, for receiving the Bible as inspired, than be-
* Particularly Dr. Chalmers iu the fourth vo- lume of his works.
cause they have heard so in the city of the Lord. They yield so much of re- spect to the directions of their author- ized teachers, or to the impressions which have been graA'^en on them from infancy, as to give their homage to a volume which is presumed to bear so lofty a character. But then though it may thus be on hearsay that they first receive the Bible as inspired, it is not on hearsay that they continue to receive it. We speak now of those who have searched the Scriptures for everlasting life, and who feel that they have found therein a revelation of the alone mode of forgiveness. We speak of those in whom the word has " wrought effectual- ly ; " and we confidently affirm of them, that, though at one time they believed in the inspiration of the canonical Scrip- tures, because their parents taught it, or their ministers maintained it, yet now are they in possession of a personal, ex- perimental, evidence, which is thorough- ly conclusive on this fundamental point. It is not that they have gone through the laborious demonstrations by Avhich the learned have sustained the claims of the Old and New Testaments. It is com paratively a very small fraction of a com- munity who can examine the grounds on which the church rests her judgment; and it is with the case of the great mass that we now Avish to deal.
But we will give you what we reckon the history of the uneducated believer, so far as his acquaintance with revela- tion is concerned. He may perhaps have been neglected in boyhood, so that he has grown up in ignorance ; but he is visited by the minister of his parish in some seasons of affliction, when the ruggedness of his nature is somewhat worn down by soitow. The minister presses upon him the study of the Bible, as of the word of his Creator, assuring him that he will therein find God's will as revealed by his Spirit. The cottager has undoubtedly heard of the Bible be- fore; and it is no news to him, that it passes as a more than human book. But he has never yet given heed to what he heard : the book has been unopened, notwithstanding the hifjh claims which It was known to advance. But now, softened by the minister's kindness, and moved by his statements, he sets him- self diligently to the perusal of Scripture, and statedly attends its Sabbath exposi-
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tions. And thus, though he is acting only what he has heard, he brings him- self under the self-evidencing power of Scripture, that power by which the con- tents of the Bible serve as its credentials. And this self-evidencing power is won- derfully gieat. The more than human knowledge which the Scripture displays in regard of the most secret workings of the heart; the marvellous and unerring precision with which the provisions of the Gospel adapt themselves to the known wants and disabilities of our nature; the constancy with which the promises and directions of holy writ, if put to the proof, are made good in one's own case — these and the like evidences of the divine origin of the Bible, press themselves quickly on the most illiterate student, when he searches it in humility, hoping to find, as he has been told that he shall, a message from God which will guide him towards heaven. He began on the testimony of another ; but, after a while, he goes forward on his own testimony. And though he has not been sitting in judgment on the credentials of Christianity, yet has he possessed him- self of its contents ; and on these he has found so much of the impress, and from them there has issued so much of the voice of Deity, that he is as certified in his own mind, and on grounds as satis- factory, of the inspiration of Scripture, as any laborious and scientific inquirer, who has rifled the riches of centuries, and broujrht them all to do homage be- fore our holy religion. God has no more given to the learned the monopo- ly of evidence, than to the wealthy the monopoly of benevolence. The poor man can exercise benevolence, for the widow's two mites may outweigh the noble's coffers : and the poor man may have an evidence that God is in the Bible, for it may speak to his heart as no human book can.
And if you contrast the man, when the minister of Christ first entered his cottage, with what he is after patient obedience to tlie injunctions of the church — in the one case, the mere giv- er of assent to a fellow-man's testimony ; in the other, the delighted possessor of a " witness in himself; " in the first in- stance, a believer not so much in the inspiration of Scripture, as in the vera- city of the individual who announces it, but, in the second, a believer in that
[ inspiration, because conscience and un- I derstanding and heart have all felt and confessed the superhuman authorship — Oh, as by thus contrasting and compar- ing, you determine, that, through simply acting on what was told him, the man has been carried forward to a personal, experimental, demonstration of its truth, you must admit that he may class him- self with those who can say, " as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of Hosts."
But the principle has been carried yet further than this, and, we think, with great justice. It must be believed of the large mass of protestants, that they have never even read the apocryphal books, much less searched into the rea- sons on which these books are pronoun- ced not inspired. Here therefore it can- not be said, that what has been heard is also seen in the city of God. We can prove this in regard of the Canonical Scriptures, because we can prove, that, when perused in obedience to what is heard, they quickly evidence their origin. But we seem unable to prove this in re- gard of the Apocryphal Scriptures ; for they are not used to be subjected to any such test.
But suppose they were subjected to the like test, and why might we not ex- pect the like result ? There is to our mind something inexpressibly grand and beautiful in the thought that God dwells, as it were, in the syllables which he has indited for the instruction of humankind, so that he may be found there when diligently sought, though he do not thus inhabit any other writing. He breathed himself into the compositions of pro- phets, and apostles, and evangelists ; and there, as in the mystic recesses of an everlasting sanctuary, he still resides, ready to disclose himself to the humble, and to be evoked by the prayerful. But in regard of every other book, however fraught it may be with the maxims of piety, however pregnant with moment- ous truths, there is nothing of this shrin- ing himself of Deity in the depths of its meaning. Men may be instructed by its pages, and draw from them hope and consolation. But never will they find there the burning Shekinah, which pro- claims the actual presence of God ; never hear a voice, as from the solitudes of an oracle, pronouncing the words of immortality.
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And we should never fear the bring- ing any canonical book, or any apocry- phal, to the test thus supposed. Let a man take a canonical book, and let him take an apocryphal ; and let him deter- mine to study both on the supposition that both are divine, because doubtful whether the church bo right in her decision, or desii'ous to gain evidence for himself. And if he be a sincere in- quirer after truth, one really anxious to ascertain, in order that he may perform, the whole will of God, we know not why he should not experience the accomplish- ment of Christ's words, " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God," and thus reach a sound decision as to which book is inspired, and which not. As he studies the inspired book with humility and prayer, he will find its statements brought home to his conscience and heart, with that extraordinary force which is never attached to a human composition. He may not be able to construct a clear argument for the divine origin of the book ; yet will the correspondence be- tween ^vhat the book states and what he experiences, and the constancy with which the fulfilment of its promises fol- lows on submission to its precepts, com- bine into an evidence, thoroughly satis- factory to himself, that the pages which he reads had God for their author. But as he studies the non-inspired book, he will necessarily miss these tokens and impresses of Deity. There will be none of those mysterious soundings of the voice of the ever-living God, which he has learnt to expect, and which he has always heard, wheresoever the writers have indeed been inspired. His own diligence may be the same, his faith, his prayerfulness. But it is impossible there should be those manifestations of superhuman wisdom, those invariable sequences of fulfilled promises on obey- ed precepts, which, in the other case, at- tested, at each step of his pi-ogress, that the document in his hands was a reve- lation from above.
It may be said that all the argument, which he can thus obtain, must be vague and inconclusive, a thing of ima- gination rather than of reason, and therefore, in the largest sense, liable to error. But we rejoice, on the contrary, in believing in the thorough sufficiency of the poor man's argument for the in-
spiration of Scripture. It is an argu- ment to his own conscience, an argu- ment to his own heart. It is the argu- ment drawn from the experienced fact, that the Bible and the soul, with he- multiplied feelings and powers, fit into each other like two parts of a compli- cated machine, proving, in their combi- nation, that each was separately the work of the same divine artist. And you may think that the poor man may be mista- ken; but he feels that he cannot be mis- taken. The testimony is like a testi- mony to his senses ; if he cannot transfer it to another, it is incontes- table to himself, and therefijre gives as much fixedness to the theology of the cottage as ever belonged to the theology of the academy.
And if he can thus prove, fi'om his own experience, the divine origin of the inspired book, he may of course equally prove, from his own experience, the human origin of the non-inspired. The absence of certain tokens in the one case, will be as conclusive to him as their presence in the other. So that, we may affirm of all classes of christians, provid- ed only they be sincere and prayerful in their inquiry after truth, that, if not con- tent with the decision of the church, they may put to the proof what they have heard in the city of our God. Let them take the apocrypha, and let them study it on the supposition that its books are equally inspired with those to which their church assigns so lofty a character. And their spirits may be stirred within them, as they read of the chivalrous deeds of the Maccabean princes, and even their tears may be drawn forth, as the Book of Wisdom pours its elegiac poetry over those who die young. But they will not find that moral probing, that direction of the heart, that profund- ity of meaning which makes a single text like a mine from which new trea- sures may continually be dug, those flashes of truth which suddenly issue from what had long seemed dark sayings. These and the like evidences that the livincr God is in the book will be want- mg, however its pages may be printed with heroic story, or glowing with poetic fire. Even though the style and senti- ment may be similar to those to which they have been used in holy writ, they will not experience the same elevation of soul as when they trust themselves to
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the soarings cf Isaiah, the same sweep- ings of the chords of the heart as when they join in the hymns of David, nor the same echo of the conscience as when tliey listen to the remonstrances of St. Peter or St. Paul. And what then is to prevent their being their own witnesses to the non-inspii-ation of the apocryphal, as well as to the inspiration of the canoni- cal Scriptures ] What is to prevent their bringing their own experience in confirmation of what had originally been told them by the church, and thus join- ing themselves to those who can say, '• as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of Hosts ] "
Now the points on which we have thus touched, have been handled at great length, and with consummate ability, by modern writers. And we have dwelt on them, not with any idea of adding to the strengtli with which they have been asseited, or the clearness with which they have been illustrated ; but simply in the hope of fixing the attention of the younger part of this audience on what is called the self-evidencing power of .Scripture. With all our desire that they should be thoroughly masters of the ex- ternal evidences of Christianity, we are unspeakably more anxious that they should labor to possess themselves of the internal; for, in searching after these, they must necessarily study the Bible itself If they will learn to view the contents of Scripture as themselves its credentials, we shall enorajre them in the most hopeful of all studies, the study of God's word as addressing itself to the heart, and not merely to the head. For tliere may be an intellectual theology ; religion may be reduced into a science ; and the writers on the evidences, and the commentators on the text of the Bi- ble, may just do for Christianity what the laborious and the learned have done fur various branches of natural philoso- phy ; Wike truths bright rather than eharp, clear to the understanding, but without hold on the affections. And this is not the Christianity which we wish to find amongst you, the Christianity of the man who can defeat a sceptic, and then lose his soul. We would have you well-read — too well-read you cannot be — in what has been written in defence of the faith ; but, above all, we would fasten you to the prayerful study of the eacred volume itself; this will load you
to the hearing God's voice in the Bible, and, until that is heard, the best champion of truth may be far from the kingdom of heaven.
But there is yet a more obvious ap- plication of the words of our text, one which, though it may have suggested itself to your minds, is of too practical a kind to be omitted by the preacher. There is a reference in the passage to the unchangeableness of God, to the similarity of his dealings with men, when there is a similarity of circumstance. It is said of God by Solomon, that he " re- quireth that which is past." He seeks again that which is past, recalling, as it were, the proceedings, whether in judg- ment or mercy, of departed ages, and repeating them to the present genera- tion. And it is on this account that there is such value in the registered ex- perience of the believers of other days, so that the biography of the righteous is among the best treasures possessed by a church. It is, in one sense at least, a vast advantage to us that we live late in the world. We have all the benefit of the spiritual experience of many centu- ries, which has been bequeathed to us as a legacy of more worth than large wealth or far-spreading empire. We have not, therefore, to tread a path in which we have had but few precursors. Far as the eye can reach, the road we have to traverse is crowded with beckon- ing forms, as though the sepulchres gave up their host of worthies, that we might be animated by the view of the victo- rious throng. And this is an advantage which it is hardly possible to oveiTate. You have only to add to this an ac- quaintance with the unchangeableness of God, and there seems all that can b© needed to the encouragement and con- fidence of the righteous. The unchange- ableness of God assures us that he will do in our own days, as he has done in ear- lier ; the registered experience of former times instructs us as to the accuracy with which he has made good the declara- tions of Scripture ; and by combining these two, the assurance and the instruc- tion, we gain a witness, which nothing should shake, that, with the Bible for our guide, we shall have i)eace for our present portion, unbounded glory for our future .
There is here a new witness for the Bible, a witness accessible to the mean
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est, the witness of happy lives and triumphant deaths. The very peasant masters and rejoices in this evidence. The histories of good men find their way into his hamlet ; and even in the village church-yard sleep some whose righteous- ness will be long had in remembrance. And knowing, as he does, that those, whose bright names thus hallow the an- nals whether of his country or his valley, were " acceptable to God, and approved of men," through simply submitting themselves to the guidance of Scripture ; that they were Bible precepts which made them the example and blessing of their fellows, and Bible promises which nerved them for victory over sorrow and death — has he not a noble evidence on the side of Scripture, an evidence against which the taunts of scepticism are di- rected without effect, an evidence which augments with every piece of christian biography that comes into his possession, and with every instance of christian con- sistency that comes under his observa- tion ]
And what he thus hears in the city of God, acts, on every account, as a stim- ulus to his own faith and steadfastness. The registered experience of those who have gone before, encourages him to ex- pect the same mercies from the same God. He kindles as he reads their story. Their memory rouses him. He asks the mantle of the ascending prophet, that he may divide with it the waters which had before owned its power. Thus what he has heard in the city of his God confirms his diligence and animates his hope. He takes the experience of others, and proceeds upon the supposition that it may be made his own. And it is ■nade his own. Through faith the same vonders are wrought. Through prayer the same mercies are obtained. The -ame promises are accomplished, the ame assistances communicated, the same victories achieved. And as the man remembers liowhis spirit glowed at the mention of noble things done on be- half of the righteous ; liow the records of good men's lives soothed him, and cheered him and excited him; how their prayers taught him to be a suppliant, and their praises moved him to be hopeful ; how they seemed to liave lived for his instruction, and died for his comfort — and then as he feels, how through tread- ing the same path, and trusting in the
same Mediator, he has already obtained a measure, and may expect a yet larger, of the blessings wherewith they were blessed of their God — oh, his language will be that of our text ; and he will join, heart and soul, with those who are confessing, " as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of our God."
There will be a yet finer use of these words : they shall be woven into a no- bler than the noblest earthly chant. Are we deceiving men, are we merely sketch- ing ideal pictures, to whose beauty and brilliancy there is nothing correspondent in future realities, when we expatiate on the glories of heaven, and task imagina- tion to build its palaces, and portray its inhabitants 1 Yes, in one sense we de- ceive them : they are but ideal pictures which we draw. What human pencil can delineate scenes in which God man- ifests his presence ] What human coloring emulate the effulgence which issues from his throne ? But we deceive them only through inability to rise sufficiently high ; we exhaust imagina- tion, but not the thousandth part is told. They are deceived, only if they think we tell them all, if they take the pictures which we draw as perfect representations of the majesty of the future.
When we speak to them of the deep and permanent repose of heaven ; when we enlarge on the manifestations of Deity ; when we declare that Christ, as " the Minister of the Sanctuary," will unfold to his church the mysteries which have perplexed them ; when we gather together what is gorgeous, and precious, and beautiful, in the visible creation, and crowd it into the imagery wherewith we delineate the final home of the saints ; when we take the sun from the hrma- ment, that the Lord God may shine there, and remove all temples from the city, that the Almighty may he its Sanctuary, and hush all human minstrel- sy, that the immense tide of song may roll from thousand limes ten thousand voices — we speak only the words of truth and soberness, though we have not compassed the greatness, nor depicted the loveliness, of the portion which awaits the disciples of Christ. If there be one passage of Scripture which we venture to put into the lips of redeemed men in glory, it is our text ; in this in- stance, we may be confident that the chantre from earth to heaven will not
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have made the language of the one un- suited to the other. Oh, as the shining company take the circuit of the celestial city ; as tliey " walk about Zion, and go round about her," telling the towers thereof, marking well her bulwarks, and considering her palaces ; who can doubt that they say one to another, " as we have heard, so have we seen in the city of our God?" We heard that here " the wicked cease from troubling," and now we behold the deep rich calm. We heard that here we should be with the Lord, and now we see him face to face. We heard that here we should know, and now the ample page of universal f;ruth is open to our inspection. We heard that here, with the crown on the head, and the harp in the hand, we should execute the will, and hymn the praises, of our God, and now we wear the diadem, and wake the melody. They can take to themselves the words which the dying leader Joshua used of the Israelites, "not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord our God spake concerning us ; all are come to pass, and not one thing hath failed thereof."
Shall it be said of any amongst our- selves, that they heard of heaven, but made no effort to behold it ] Is there one who can be indifferent to the an- nouncement of its glories, one who can feel utterly careless whether he ever prove for himself, that there has been no deceit, no exaggeration, but that it is indeed a surpassingly fair land which is to be everlastingly the home of those who believe in the Redeemer 1 Everlaat
ingly the home — for we must not over- look the concluding words of our text, " God will establish it for ever." The walls of that city shall never decay ; the lustres of that city shall never grow dim ; the melodies of that city shall never be hushed. And is it of a city such as this that any one of us can be indifferent whether or no he be finally an inhabi- tant 1 We will not believe it. The old and the young, the rich and the poor, all must be ready to bind themselves by a solemn vow, that they will " seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteous- ness." It is not the voice of a solitary and weak fellow-man which now tells you of heaven. God is summoning you. Angels are summoning you. The myriads who have gone before are summoning you. We are surrounded by a " great cloud of witnesses." The battlements of the sky seem thronged with those who have fought the good fight of faith. They bend down from the eminence, and bid us ascend, through the one Mediator, to the same lofty dwelling. They shall not call in vain. We know their voices, as they sweep by us solemn- ly and sweetly. And we think, and we trust, that there will not be one of you who will leave the sanctuary without some such reflection and prayer as this — I have heard of heaven, I have been told of its splendors and of its happi- ness ; grant, gracious and eternal Father that I fail not at last to be associated with those who shall rejoicingly exclaim, " as we have heard, so hav^e we seen, ia the city of the Lord of Hosts.*
SERMON IV.
THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT.
'' Marvel not at this ; for the hour is coming: in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall coma fortli : they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil uuto the resurrection of damnation."— St. John, V. 28, '29.
You will at once perceive that these words of our Savior are not to be under- stood without a reference to those by which they are preceded. They show that surprise was both felt and express- ed at something which he had just said ; for they are a direction to his audience not to marvel, or wonder, at what he had affirmed, seeing that he had to state what was yet more astonishing. If you examine tlie context of the passage, you will find that our Lord had been speak- inor of the effects which should follow upon belief of his word, and that he had used language in regard of those effects, which borrowed its imagery from death and a resurrection. This surprised and displeased his hearers. They could not understand how the word of Christ could possess such a power as he had claimed ; and they perhaps even doubted whether the new creation of which he spake, the quickening of souls " dead in trespasses and sins," ever took place.
It was to meet these feelings, which he perceived stirring in their minds, that Christ proceeded to address them in the words of our text. " Marvel not at this." As though he had said, you are staggered at what I have declared, fancying it incredible, or, at least, far beyond my powei". But I have a yet more wonderful thing of which to tell you, a thing that shall be done by my- self, though requiring still greater might. You are amazed that I should speak of raising those who are morally dead ; but *' marvel not at this ; for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear my voice."
This a^ipears to us the true account
of our Lord's reasoning. The resuirec- tion of the body, the calling from the graves those who had long slumbered therein, is represented as a more won- derful thing than what had just excited the amazement of the Jews. And thus the passage sets, as we think, the resur- rection of the body under a most im- posing point of view, making it the great prodigy in God's dealings with our race. That there is nothing else to marvel at, in comparison of the resur- rection of the dead — this seems to us the assertion of Christ, and such asser- tion demands a most careful considera- tion. Of course, independently on this assertion, there is a great deal in the passage which affords material for pro- fitable meditation, seeing that the whole business of the last audit is summarily, but strikingly described. The remark- able feature, however, of the text is un- doubtedly that of its making the resur- rection of the body the first of all mar- vels ; and it is, therefore, to the illustra- tion of this that we shall give our chief care, though not to the exclusion of the more general truths affirmed by our Lord.
Now we are accustomed to think, and, doubtless, with justice, that there is an affinity between God and our souls, but nothing of the kind between God and our bodies. We do not indeed presume to speak of the human soul, any more than of the human body, as having con- geniality, or sameness of nature, with the great first cause, the self-existent Deity. But we may venture to declare that all the separation which there is be- tween the soul and the body, is an ad-
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vance towards the nature of God, so that the soul, inasmuch as it is spiritual, far more nearly resembles the divine lieing than the body, inasmuch as it is material.
And when we reach this conclusion, we aie at a point from which to view with great amazement the resuri'cction of the body. So long as a divine inter- ference is limited to the soul, we may be said to be prepared, at least in a de- gree, for whatever can be told us of its greatness and disinterestedness. We attach a dignity to the soul, which though it could not, after there had been sin, establish any claim to the succors of God, seems to make it, if not to be expected, yet not to be wondered at, that it was not abandoned to degradation and ruin. The sf)ul is so much more nearly of the same nature with God than the body, that a spiritual resurrection appears a thousandfold more likely than a corpo- real. And you are to observe that there is nothing in the nature of the case, to make it clear to us, that, if the soul were redeemed, so also must be the body. Tiie ordinary current of thought and feeling may almost be said to be against the redemption of the body. The body is felt to be an incumbrance to the soul, hindering it in its noblest occupations, and contributinof nothin'^ to its most ele- vated pleasure. So far from the soul being incapable of happiness, if detached from the body, it is actually its union with tlie body which, to all appearance, detains it from happiness ; so that, in its finest and loftiest musings, its exclama- tion often is, " O that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest !" Even now the soul is often able to rise above the body, to detach itself, for a while, from matter, and to soar into regions which it feels to be more its home than this earth. And when compelled to return from so splen- did an excursion, there is a sentiment of regret that it must still tabernacle in flesh ; and it is conscious of longing for a day when it may finally abandon its perishable dwelling.
Thus tlicre is nothing of a felt neces- sity for tlie re-union of the soul to the body, to guide us in expecting the cor- poreal as well as the spiritual resurrec- tion. We might almost affirm that the feeling is all the other way. And though, through some fine workings of
reason, or, through attention to lingering traces of patriarchal religion, men, des- titute of the light of revelation, have reached a persuasion of the soul's im- mortality, never have they formed even a conjecture of the body's resurrection. They have imaged to themselves the spirit, which they felt burning and beat- ing within them, emancipated from thraldom, and admitted into a new and eternal estate. Cut they have consign- ed the body to the interminable dishonors of the grave ; and nevei-, in the boldest imaginings, whether of their philosophy or their poetry, have they thrown life into the ashes of the sej^ulclire. It is almost the voice of nature, that the soul survives death : the soul gives its own testimony, and often so impressively, that a man could as easily doubt his pre- sent as his futui-e existence. But there is no such voice put forth in regard of the body : no solemn and mysterious whisperings are heard from its resting- place, the echo of a truth which seems syllabled within us, that bone shall come again to bone, and sinews bind them, and skin cover them, and breath stir them.
And we may safely argue, that, if the immortality of the soul be an article of natural theology, but the resurrection of the body were never even thought of by the most profound of its disciples, there can be no feeling in man that the matter, as well as the spirit, of which, he is composed, must reappear in an- other state of being, in order either to the possibility or the felicity of his existence. So that — for this is the point to which, our remarks tend — we may declare of the resurrection of the body, that it is altogether an unexpected fact, one which no exercise of reason could have led us to conjectui'e, and for which there is not even that natui'al longing wliich might be interpreted into an argument of its probability. It is not then when God interposes on behalf of the soul, it is when he interposes on behalf of the body, that the great cause is given for amazement. A spark, one might almost call it, of himself, an emanation from his own immortality, mighty in its i)ower8, mysterious in its wanderings, sublime in its anticipations, we scarcely wonder that a spiritual thing like the soul should en- gage the carefulness of its INIaker, and; that, if it sully its brightness, and mar 31
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THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT.
its strength, he should provide for its final recovery. But the body — matter, which is man's link of" association with the lowest of tlie brutes, and which na- tural and revealed theology are alike earnest in removing to the farthest pos- sible distance from the divine nature — the body, whose members are " the instruments of uiu-ighteousness," whose wants make our feebleneness, whose lusts are our tempters, whose infirmities our torment — that this ignoble and de- caying thing should be cared for by God, who is ineffably more spiritual than spirit, so that he designs its re-appear- ance in his own immediate presence, what is comparable in its wonderfulness to this ] Prodigy of prodigies, that this corruptible should put on incorruption, this mortal immortality. And scribes and pharisees might liave listened with amazement, and even with incredulity, as the Lord our Redeemer affirmed the effects which would be wrought on the soul through the doctrines and deeds of his mission. But he had stranger things to tell ; for he had to speak of the body as well as of the soul, rising from its ru- ins, and gloriously reconstructed. Yes, observing how his hearers were surpri- sed, because he had spoken of the spi- ritually dead as quickened by his word, he might well say unto them, " marvel not at this," and give as his reason, '♦ for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear my voice."
Now, throughout this examination of the truth, that the resurrection of the body furnishes, in an extraordinary de- gree, cause of wonder and surprise, we have made no reference to the display of divine power which this resurrection must present. We have simply enlarg- ed on what may be called the unexpect- edness of the event, proving this unex- pectedness from the inferiority of matter, its utter want of affinity to Deity, and the feelings of even man himself in re- gard to its detracting from his dignity and happiness.
But we do not know, that, in the whole range of things effected by God, there is aught so surprising, regard being had only to the power displayed, as the resurrection of the body. If you will ponder, for a few moments, the facts of a resurrection, you will probably allow that the power which must be ex-
erted in order to the final reconstruction of every man's body, is more signal than that displayed in any spiritual renova- tion or in any of those operations which we are able to trace in the visible uni- verse. You are just to think that this framework of flesh, in Avhich my soul is now enclosed, will be reduced at death to the dust from which it was taken. I cannot tell where or what will be my sepulchre — whether I shall sleep in one of the quiet churchyards of my own land, or be exposed on some foreign shore, or fall a prey to the beasts of the desert, or seek a tomb in the depths of the un- fathomable waters. But an irreversible sentence has gone forth — " dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return" — and as'suredly, ere many years, and perhaps even ere many days have elapsed, must my " earthly hoUse of this tabernacle be dissolved," rafter from rafter, beam from beam, and the particles, of which it has been curiously compounded, be separat- ed from each other, and perhaps scatter- ed to the four winds of heaven. And who will pretend to trace the wander- ings of these particles, into what other substances they may enter, of what other bodies they may form part, so as to ap- pear and disappear many times in living shape before the dawn of the great Easter of the universe 1 There is manifestly the most thorough possibility, that the ele- ments of which my body is composed, may have belonged to the bone and flesh of successive generations ; and that, when I shall have passed away and be forgot- ten, they will be again wrought into the structure of animated beings.
And when you think that my body, at the resurrection, must have at least so much of its original matter, as shall be necessary for the preservation of identity, for the making me know and feel myself the very same being who sinned, and suffered, and was disciplin- ed on earth, you must allow that nothing short of infinite knowledge and power could prevail to the watching, and dis- entangling, and keeping duly separate, whatever is to be again builded into a habitation for my spirit, bo that it may be brought together from the four ends of the earth, detached from other crea- tures, or extracted from othersubstances. This would be indeed a wonderful thing, if it were true of none but myself, if it were only in my solitary case that a cer-
THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT.
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tain portion of matter had thus to be watched, kept distinct thouqh mingled, and appropriated to myself whilst be- longing to others. But try to suppose the same holding good of every human being, of Adam, and each member of his countless posterity, and see whether the resurrection will not utterly confound and overburden the mind. To every in- dividual in the interminable throng shall his own body be given, a body so literal- ly his own, that it shall be made up, to at least a certain extent, of the matter which composed it whilst he dwelt on this earth. And yet this matter may have passed through innumerable chan- ges. It may have circulated through the living tribes of many generations ; or it may have been waving in the trees of the forest; or it may have floated on the wide waters of the deep. But there has been an eye upon it in all its appro- priati(ms, and in all its transformations ; so tliat, just as though it had been m- delil>ly stamped, from the first, with the name of the human being to whom it should finally belong, it has been unerr- ingly reserved for the great day of re- surrection. Thus myriads upon myri- ads of atoms — for you may count up till imagination is wearied, and then reckon that you have but one unit of the still inapproachable sum — myriads upon my- riads of atoms, the dust of kingdoms, the ashes of all that have lived, are perpet- ually jostled, and mingled, and separated, and animated, and swept away, and re- produced, and, nevertheless, not a soli- tary particle but holds itself ready, at the sound of the last trump, to combine itself with a muhitude of others, in a human body in which they once met perhaps a thousand years before.
We frankly own that this appears to us among the most inscrutable of won- ders. That God should have produced countless worlds, and that he should marshal all their motions, as they walk the immensity of his empire — it is an amazing contemplation ; and the mind cannot compass the greatness of a pow- er which had only to speak and it was done, and which hath ever since upheld its own magnificent creation, in all the grandeur of its structures, and in all the harmony of its relations. But, with all its majesty, there is a simplicity in the mechanism of systems and constella- tions ; every star has its place and its
orbit ; and we see no traces of a compli- cation, or confusion, which might reiidei necessary unweai'ied and infinite watch fulness, in order to the 23reventing uni versal disorder. And it is again a sur- jjrising truth, that the Spirit of God should act on the human soul ; that, secretly and silently, it should renovate its decayed powers, refine its affections, and awaken the dormant immortality. Yet even here we may speak of simpli- city— each soul, like each star, has its own sphere of motion ; each is distinct from each ; and none has ever to be dis- solved, and mingled, like the body, with the elements of a million others.
It still then remains a kind of marvel amonost marvels, that there hath not died the man who shall not live again, live again in that identical body which his spirit abandoned when summoned back to God. And upon this account, upon account of the apparently vaster power displayed in a resurrection, may we suppose that Christ bade his hearers withhold their amazement at what he had advanced. Yes, and we feel that he might have spoken of every other portion of God's dealings with our race, and without deprecating the wonderful- ness of other things, have declared, at each step, that he had stranger truths in store. He might have spoken of crea- tion ; and, whilst an audience were con- founded at the story of animate and in- animate things starting suddenly into being, he might have added, " marvel not at this." He might have spoken, as he did speak, of a sjiiritual regeneration pervading large masses of the family of man ; and, whilst those who heard him were looking surprised and incredulous, he might have added, as he did add, " marvel not at this." For he had to speak of a rifling of the sepulchres, of the re animating the dust of buried generations. And this was to sjieak of earth, and sea, and air, resolving them- selves suddenly into the flesh and sinew of human kind. This was to speak of countless particles, some from the east and others from the west, these from the north and those from the south, moved by mysterious impulse and combining into the limbs of patriarchs, and pro- phets, and priests, and kings, and people. This was to speak of the re-appearance i)f every humanbeing tliat ever moved on the face of the earth — the old man who
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sunk l)eTieath tlie burden of years, and the young man who perished in his prime, and the infant who just opened his eyes on a sinful and sad world, and then closed them as though ter- rified— all roj)roduced, though all had been dispersed like chaff before the hurricane, all receiving their original elements, though those elements had been the play-things of the winds, and the fuel for the flames, and the foam upon the waters. And if this were in- deed the speaking of a general resurrec- tion, oh, then our Lord might have al- ready been affirming what was wonder- ful ; but, whatsoever that had been, he might have gone on to repress the astonishment of his hearers, saying unto them, " marvel not at this," and giving as his reason, " for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear my voice."
Now we have probably advanced enough in explanation of what perhaps at first seems hardly to have been ex- pected, namely, that our Lord should re- present other wonders, even that of the spiritually passing from death unto life, as not to be wondered at, in comparison with the resurrection of the body. We proceed, therefore, to the examining what Christ asserts in regard of those sublime transactions which will be as- sociated with this surpassingly strange event.
" The hour is coming." More than eighteen hundred years have elapsed, since he who spake as " never man spake," and who could utter nothing but truth, made this assertion, an assertion which implied that the hour was at hand. But the dead are yet in their graves ; no vivifying voice has been heard in the sepulchres. We know however that " a thousand years are with the Lurd as one day, and one day as a thousand years." We count it not therefore strange that the predicted hour, the hour so full of mystery and might, has not yet arrived. But it must come ; it may not perhaps be distant ; and there may be some of us, for aught we can tell, who shall be alive on the earth when the voice issues forth, the voice which shall be echoed from the sea, and the city, and the mountain, and the desert, all creation hearkening, and all that hath ever lived simultaneously responding. But whe- ther we be of the quick or of the dead,
on the morning of the resurrection, we must hear the voice, and join ourselves to the swarming throng which presses forward to judgment. And whose is the voice that is thus irresistible, which is heard even in the graves of the earth, and in the caverns of the deep, and which is heard only to be obeyed ? Know ye not that voice 1 Ye have heard it before. It is the voice which said, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." It is the voice which prayed on behalf of murderers, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." It is the voice which said, " It is finished," pronouncing the completion of the woi'k of human redemption. Yes, ye have heard that voice before. Ye have heard it in the ministrations of the Gospel. It hath called to you, it hath pleaded with you. And those who have listen- ed to it in life, and who have obeyed it when it summoned them to take up the cross, to them it will be a mighty com- fort, that, in the voice which is shaking the universe, and wakening the dead, they recognize the tones of Him who could be " touched with a feeling of theii infirmities."
For it is, we think, one of the most beautiful of the arrangements which characterize the Gospel, that the offices of Redeemer and Judge meet in the same person, and that person divine. We call it a beautiful arrangement, because securing for us tenderness as well as equity, the sympathies of a friend, as well as the disinterestedness of a most righteous arbiter. Had the judge been only man, the imperfection of his nature would have made us expect much of error in his verdicts. Had he been only God, the distance between him and us would have made us fear it impossible, that, in determining our lot, he would take into account our feeble- ness and trials. But in the person of Christ there is that marvellous combina- tion which we seek in the Judge of the whole human race. He is God, and, therefore, must he know every parti- cular of character. But he is also man, and, therefore, can he put himself into the position of those who are brought to his bar. And because the Judge is tlnis the Mediator, the judgment-seat can be approached with confidence and glad- ness. The behever in Christ, who heark-
THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND JUDGMENT.
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ened to the suggestions of God's S]>irit, and brake away from the trammels of sin, shall know the Son of man, as he comes down in the magnificent stern- ness of celestial authority. And we say not that it shall be altogether with- out dread or apprehension, that the righteous, starting from the sleep of death, shall hear the deepening roll of tiie archangel's summons, and behold the terrific pomp of heavenly judicature. But we are certain that they will be as- sured and comforted, as they gaze upon their Judge, and recognize their sure- ty. Words such as these will occur to them, " God hath appointed a day in the w^hich he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." " By that man." The man who " hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." The man who uttered the pathetic words, " O Jerusalem, Jeru- salem, how often would I have gathered thy children together." The man who was " delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." The man who sat in weariness by the well of Samaria; the man who wept in anguish at the grave of Lazarus; the man who compassionated the weakness of his slumbering disciples ; the man whose " sweat was as it were great drops of blood," and who submitted to be scourg- ed, and buffeted, and crucified, " for us men, and for our salvation." Yes, this is the very being who is to gather the nations before him, and determine the everlasting condition of each individual. And though we dare not attempt to de- fine the motions of those most assured of deliverance, when standing, in their resurrection-bodies, on the earth, as it heaves with strange convulsions, and looking on a firmament lined with ten thousand times ten thousand angels, and beholding a throne of fire and cloud, such as was never piled for mortal sove- reignty, and hearing sounds of which even imagination cannot catch the echo — yet is it enough to assure us that they will be full of hope and of gladness, to tell us that he who will speak to them is he who once died for them — Oh, there will be peace to the righteous, when " the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll," if it be Christ who saith, " the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear my voice."
But with what feclinrrs will these
hear the voice, of whom the Savior may afHrm, " I have called, and ye refused ; ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reprooH " They too shall know the voice ; and it shall be to them as the voice of despised mercy, the voice of slighted love. They shall be more startled, and more pierced, and more lacerated, by that voice, than if it had never before been heard, or if its tones were notrcmembered. The sound of that voice will at once waken the me- mory'of warnings that have been neg- lected, invitations refused, privileges un- impi'oved. It will be painfully eloquent of all that was vainly done to win them to repentance, and therefore terribly re- proachful, ominous of a doom which it is now too late to avert. They would have more hope, they would be less beaten down by a consciousness that they were about to enter on everlasting misery, if a strange voice had summoned them from the tomb, a voice that had never spoken tenderly and plaintively, never uttered the earnest beseech ings, the touching entreaties of a friend, a brother, a Redeemer. Any voice rather than this voice. None could be so dirge-like, so full of condemnation, so burdened with malediction, as that which had often said, " Turn ye, turn ye. for why will ye die 1 "
But this is the voice ; and when this voice is heard, " all that are in the graves shall come forth." And under how many divisions shall the swarming my- riads be arranged ? They have had very different opportunities and means, and you might have expected them to be separated into great variety of classes. But we read of only one division, of only two classes. " They that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." There is not, you observe, any thing intermediate. All rise, so that there is no annihilation ; all rise, either to be unspeakably happy, or vuispcaka- bly miserable, for there are but two re- surrections. We may indeed be sure that both heaven and hell will ]u-esent recompenses suited to all varieties of character, and that in the allotments of both there will be a graduated scale. But let it never, on this account, be sup- posed that there may be a happiness so imperfect, and a misery so inconsider-
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able, that there shall be but little final difference between some who are acquit- ted, and others who are condemned. " Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed." The last admitted, and the first excluded, never let us think that these two classes approach so nearly to equality, that it may be comparatively unimportant with which we ranked. Heaven cannot dwindle away into hell, and hell cannot be softened away into heaven. Happuiess or misery — one or other of these must be the portion of every man ; and whilst we freely confess that happiness and misery may admit of almost countless degrees, and that thus there may be room for vast variety of retributions, we contend that between the two there must be an untravelled separation : the happiness, ov the mis- ery of one may be unspeakably less than that of another ; but the least happy, and the least miserable, who shall tell us how much space there is between these for the agony and remorse of a storm- tossed spirit ]
Observe then that it must be either of a " resurrection of life," or of a " resur- rection of damnation," that each amongst us will be finally partaker. And it is to depend on our works, which of the two shall be our resurrection. " They that have done good," and " they that have done evil," are our Lord's descriptions of the respective classes. Works are given as the alone criterion by which we shall be judged. And this interferes not with the great doctrine of justification by faith, because good works spring from faith, and are both its fruits and its evidence ; whilst, by making words the test, a ground is afforded for the judg- ment of those to whom Christ has not been preached, as well as of those who have been invited to the believing on his name. The whole human family may be brought to the same bar, seeing that the only thing to be decided, is, whether they have done good, or whether they have done evil.
And what say you to all this 1 If we could escape the judgment, or if we could bribe the judge; if we had the bone of iron, and the sinew of brass, and the flesh of marble, so that we might de- fy the fire and the worm, why then vre might eat and drink, and amass gold, and gratify lust. But the judgment is not to be escaped — the very dead are to hear
the voice, and who then can hide him- self] And the Judge is not to be brib- ed ; it is the eternal God himself, whose are the worlds, and all which they con- tain. And we are sensitive beings, beings with vast capacities for wretchedness, presenting unnumbered inlets to a min- istry of vengeance — shall we then, in spite of all this, persist in neglecting the great salvation 1
We address ourselves now especially to our younger brethren, desiring to con- clude the discourses of the month with a word of exhortation to those on whon) " the dew of their youth" is still freshly resting. We have set before you the re- surrection of life, and the resurrection of damnation ; and we now tell you that you have your fate in your own keeping, and that there is no election but his own through whicli any one of you can perish. We speak to you as free accountable beings, each of whom is so circumstanc- ed and assisted that he may, if he will, gain heaven through the merits of Christ, The question therefore is, whether you will act as candidates for eternity, or live as those who know nothing of the great end of their creation. Born for immortality, destined to equality with angels and entreated to " work out your salvation with fear and trembling," will ye degrade yourselves to the level of the brute, and lose those souls for which Christ died 1 It is a question which each must answer for himself. Each is free to obey, or flee, youthful lusts, to study or neglect, God's word, to live without prayer, or to be earnest in sup- plication. There is no compulsion on any one of you to be vicious ; and, be well assured, there will be no compul- sion on any one of you to be virtuous. Passions may be strong ; but not too strong to be z'esisted through that grace which is given to all who seek it, but forced upon none who despise it. Temjitations may be powerful ; tliey are never irresistible ; he who struggles shall be made victoi-ious ; but God delivers none who are Tiot striving to deliver themselves.
Be watchful, therefore — watchful a- gainst sins of the flesh, watchful against sins of the mind. Against sins of the flesh — sensuality so debases and enei-- vates, that the soul, as though sepulchred in the body, can do nothing towards vindicating- her origin. " Unto the puro
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all thinofs are pure ; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Against sins of the mind — take heed that ye do not so admire and extol reason, as to think lightly of revelation. Ye live in days when mind is on the stretch, and in scenes where there is every thing to call it t)ut. And we do not wish to make you less acute, less inquiring, less intelligent, than the warmest admirers of reason can desire you to become. We only wish you to remember that arrogance is not great- ness, and that conceit is the index, not of strength but of weakness. To exalt reason beyond its due place is to abase it; to set the human in rivalry with the divine is to make it contemptible. Let reason count the stars, weigh the moun- tains, fathom the depths — the employ- ment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, "how shall a man be just with God," reason must be silent, revelation must speak ; and he who will not hear it as- similates himself to the first Deist, Cain ; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself
And that you may be aided in over- coming sin, let your thoughts dwell often on that " strict and solemn account which
you must one day give at the judgment- seat of Christ." I have endeavored to speak to you of the general resurrection and the last great assize. To the large mass of you it is not probable that I shall ever speak again. But we shall meet, when the sheeted dead are stirring, and the elements are dissolving. And " knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Would that we coul persuade you. Is there no voice from the '* great white throne ;" nothing start- ling in the opened books ; no eloquence in the trumpet of the archangel ; nothing terrible in the doom, " depart, ye curs- ed," nothing beautiful in the words, " come, ye blessed 1" I cannot plead with you, if insensible to the sublime and thrilling oratory of the judgment scene. If you can go away, and be as dissipat- ed as ever, and as indiflferent as ever, now that ye have beheld the Son of man coming in the clouds, and heard, as it were, your own names in the shrill sum- mons to his bar — what can I say to you ? Indeed I feel that thei-e are no more formidable weapons in the moral armo- ry ; and I can but pray — for there is yet room for prayer — that God would put sensibility into the stone, and give you feeling enough to feel for yourselves.
S E R ]M O N .
THE ANCHOR OF THE SOUL
' Which hope we have aa aa anchor of tho soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the
veil." — Hebbews, VI. 19.
It is a very peculiar and interesting cause which I have this day undertaken to plead — that of the Floating Church, which offers the means of grace to our river population, to the most useful, and well nigh the most neglected of our
countrymen — those who are carrying on our commerce, who have fought our battles, and who are ready, if peace be disturbed, to fight them again with equal valor, and, through God's help, with equal success. If there be a call
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to which the hearts of Englishmen more naturally respond than to any other, it must be that which demands succor for sailors. As a nation we seem to have less fellowship with the land than the sea ; and our strongest sympathies are with those who plough its surface, and dare its perils. I feel therefore, that I never had a charity sermon to preach, whose subject gave me so powerful a hold on the feelings of a congregation ; and I think that this hold will not be lessened, if I engage your attention with a passage of scripture, in which the imagery, if I may use the expression, is peculiarly maritime, whilst the truths which are inculcated are of the most interesting kind. The apostle Paul had just been speaking of " laying hold on the hope set before us," by which he seems to denote the appropriation of those various blessings which have all been procured for us by Christ. The hope is that of life ; and to lay hold on this hope, must be so to believe upon Christ, that we have share in those sufferings and merits which have purchased forgiveness and immortality for the lost. And when the apostle proceeds, in the words of our text, to describe this hope as an anchor of the soul, we are to understand him as declaring that the expectation of God's favor and of the glories of heaven, through the atonement and intercession of Christ, is exactly calculated to keep us steadfast and unmoved amid all the tempests of our earthly estate. We shall assume, then, as we are fully warranted by the context in doing, that the hope in question is the hope of salvation, through the finished work of the Mediator. And it will be our chief business to engage you with the metaphorical description which the apostle gives of this hope, and thus aptly to introduce the pecular claims of the ■floating church. St. Paul likens this hope to an anchor ; and then declares of this anchor, or the hope, that it " entereth into that within the veil." Let these be our topics of discourse :
The first, that the christian's hope is as an anchor to his soul.
The second, that this hope, or this anchor, " entereth into that within the vail."
I. Now the idea which is immediately suggested by this metaphor of the anchor is that of our being exposed to great moral peril, tossed on rough waters, and
in danger of making shipwreck of our faith. And we must be well aware, if at all acquainted with ourselves and our circumstances, that such idea is in every respect accurate, and that the imagery of a tempest-tossed ship, girt about by the rock and the quicksand, as well as beaten by the hurricane, gives no exaggerated picture of the believer in Christ, as op- position, under various forms, labors at his ruin. We are not, indeed, concerned at present with delineating the progress, but only the steadfastness of the christian; but here, also, the ocean, with its waves and its navies, furnishes the aptest of figures. If there be any principle, or set of principles, which keeps the chris- tian firm and immovable amid the trials and tempests, which, like billows and winds, beat on him furiously, it is evi- dent that we may fairly liken that prin- ciple, or that set of principles, to the an- chor, which holds the ship fast, whilst the elements are raging, and enables her to ride out in safety the storm. And all, therefore, that is necessary, in order to the vindicating the metaphor of our text is, the showing that the hope of which St. Paulsj^eaks is just calculated for the giving the christian this fixedness, and thus preventing his being driven on the rock, or drawn into the whirlpool.
There are several and all simple modes in which it may be shown that such is the property of this hope. We first observe, that there is great risk of our being carried about, as an apostle ex- ]n-esses it , " with every wind of doctrine;'* and whatever, therefore, tends to the keeping us in the right faith, in spite of gusts of error, must deserve to be char- acterized as an anchor of the soul. But, we may unhesitatingly declare, that there is a power, the very strongest, in the hope of salvation throus^h Christ, of enablinsT us to stand firm against the incursions of heresy. The man who has this hope will have no ear for doctrines which, in the least degree, dejireciate the person or work of the mediator. You take away from him all that he holds most precious, if you could once shake his belief in the atonement. It is not that he is afraid of examining the grounds of his own confidence ; it is, that, having well examined them, and certified him- self as to their being iireversible, his con- fidence has become wound up, as it were, \Aith his being ; and it is like assaulting
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his existence, to assault his hope. The hope pro-supposes faith in the Savior ; and faith has reasons for the persuasion that Jesus is God's Son, and " able to save to the uttermost :" and though the individual is ready enough to probe these reasons, and to bring them to any lilting criterion, it is evident, that where faith has once taken possession, and ge- nerated hope, he has so direct and over- whelming an interest in holding fast truth, that it must be more than a precious ob- jection, or a well-tui'ned cavil, which will prevail to the loosening of his grasp. And therefore do we affirm of the hope of salvation, that he who has it, is little likely to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. We scarcely dare think that those who are christians only in profession and theory, would re- tain truth without wavering, if exposed to the machinations of insidious reason- ers. They do not feel their everlasting portion so dependent on the doctrine of redemption through the blood and right- eousness of a surety, that, to shake this doctrine, is to make them castaways for eternity ; and therefore, neither can they oppose that resistance to assault which will be offered by others who know that it is their immortality they are called to surrender. You may look, then, on an individual, who, apparently unprepared for a vigorous defence of his creed, is yet not to be overborne by the strongest onset of heresy. And you may think to account for his firmness by resolving it into a kind of obstinacy, which makes him inaccessible to argument ; and thus take from his constancy all moral excel- lence, by representing it as impervious- ness to all moral attack. But we have a lietter explanation to propose ; one which does not proceed on the unwananted assumption, that there must be insensi- bility whei-e there has not been defeat. We know of the individual, that he has fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before him in the Gospel. And you may say of hope that it is a shadowy and airy thing, not adapted to the keeping man firm ; but we assert, on the contrary, of the hope of salvation, that he who has grasped it, feels that he has grasped what is substantial and indestructible ; and that henceforward, to wrench away this hope would be like wrenching away the rafter from the drowning man, who knows that, if he loosens his hold, he must perish in
the waters. Ay, the hope is too precious to be tamely surrenderd. It has animat- ed him too much, and cheered him too much, and sustained him too much, to be
given up otherwise than inch by inch
every fraction of the truths on which it rests being disputed for, with that vehe- mence of pui'pose which proves the con- sciousness that with defeat can come no- thing but despair. And therefore is it that so little way is made by the teacher of infidelity and error. He is strivino- to prevail on the individual he attacks, to throw away as worthless, a treasure which he would not change for whatsoever earth can proffer of the rich and the glorious ; and where is the marvel, if he find himself resisted with the determination of one who wrestles for his all 1 You may lik- en, then, the believer in Christ to a vessel launched on troubled waters, and you may consider scepticism and false doc- trine as the stoi-ms which threaten him with shipv/reck. And when you express surprise that a bark, which seems so frail, and so poorly equipped against the tem- pest, should ride out the hurricane, whilst others, a thousand times better furnished with all the resources of intellectual sea- manship, drive from their moorings, and perish on the quicksand ; we have only to tell you, that it is not by the strength of reason, and not through the might of mental energy, that moral shipwreck is avoided ; but that a hope of salvation will keep the vessel firm when all the cables which man weaves for himself have given way like tow; and that thus, in the wild- est of the storms which evil men and evil angels can raise, this hope will verify the apostle's description, that it is an anchor of the soul, and that, too, sure and steadfast.
But, there are other respects in which it may be equally shown, that there is a direct tendency in christian hope to the promoting christian steadfastness. We observe, next, that a believer in Christ is in as much danger of being moved by the trials with which he meets, as by attacks upon his faith. But he has a growing conciousness that "ail things work together for good," and therefore an increasing submissive- ness in the season of tribulation, or an ever-strengthening adherence to God, as to a father. And that which contributes, perhaps more than aught besides, to the producing this adherence, is the hope on 32
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which the christian lays holtl. If you study the language of David when in trouble, you will find that it was hope by whichhe was sustained. Hedescribes him- self in terms which accurately correspond to the imagery of our text. " Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts ; all thy waves and thy bil- lows are gone over me." But when the tempest was thus at its height, and every thing seemed to conspire to over- wlielm and destroy him, he could yet say, " Wliy art thou cast down, O my soul ! and why art thou disquieted within me ] hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God." It is hope, you observe, to which he turns, as the principle through which the soul might best brave the hurricane. And can we wonder that a hope such as that of the believer in Christ, should so contribute to the stead- fastness of its possessor, that the winds may buffet him and the floods beat against him, and yet he remains firm, like the well-anchored vessel 1 He knew that, in throwing in his lot with the followers of Jesus, he Avas consenting to a life of stern moral discipline, and that he must be prepared for a more than ordinary share of those chastisements from which nature recoils. And why, forewarned as he thus was of what would be met with in a christian course, did he adven- ture on the profession of a religion that was to multiply his troubles ? Why embarked he on an ocean, swept by fiercer winds, and arched with darker skies, when he might have shaped his voyage over less agitated waters 1 We need not tell you, that he has heard of a bright land, which is only to be reach- ed by launching forth on the boisterous sea. We need not tell you, that he assured himself, upon evidence which admits no dispute, that there is no safety for a vessel freighted with immortality, unless she be tempest-tossed; and that, tliough there may be a smoother expanse, dotted with islands which seem clad with a richer verdure, and sparkling with a sunshine which is more cheering to the senses of the mariner, yet that it is on the lake, thus sleeping in its beauty, that the ship is in most peril ; and that if the lake be changed for the wild broad ocean, then only will a home be reached where no storm rages, and no clouds darken, but where, in one unbroken tranquility,
those who have braved the moral tempest will repose eternally in the light of God's countenance. It is liope, then, by which the christian was animated, when taking his resolve to breast the fury of every adversary, and embrace a religion which told him that in the world he should have tribulation. And when the tribulation comes, and the crested waves are swelling higher and higher, why should you expect him to be driven back, or swallowed up 1 Is it the loss of pro- perty with which he is visited, and which threatens to shake his dependence upon God 1 Hope whispers that he has in heaven an enduring substance ; and he takes joyfully the spoiling of his goods. Is it the loss of friends ] He sorrows not " even as others which have no hope," but is comforted by the know- ledge, that " them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him " Is it sickness — is it the treachery of friends — is it the failui'e of cherished plans, which hangs the firmament with blackness, and works the waters into fury ] None of these things move him ; for hope assures him that his " light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of giory." Is it death, which, advancing in its awfulness, would beat down his con- fidence, and snap his cordage, and send him adrift ] His hope is a hope full of immortality : he knows " in whom he hath believed, and he is persuaded that he is able to keep that which he hath committed unto him against that day." And thus, from whatever point the tem- pest rages, there is a power in that hope which God hath implanted, of holding fast the christian, and preventing his casting away that confidence which hath great recompense of reward. We can bid you look upon him, when, on every human calculation, so fierce is the hur- ricane, and so wrought are the waves into madness, there would seem no like- lihood of his avoiding the making ship- wreck of his faith. And when you find, that, in place of being stranded or engulf- ed, he resists the wild onset, and if he do not for the moment advance, keeps the way he has made, oh ! then we have an easy answer to give to inquiries as to the causes of this unexpected steadfast- ness. We do not deny the strength of the storm, and the might of the waters ; but we tell you of a hope which grows
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etronger and strong^er as tribulation in-' creases : stronger, because sorrow is the known discipline £ot the enjoyment of the object of this hope; stronger, because the proved worthlessness of what is earth- 1 ly serves to fix the affections more firmly on what is heavenly; stronger, inasmuch as there are promises of God, which seem composed on purpose for the season of trouble, and which, then grasped by faith, throw new vigor into hope. And certainly, if we may affirm all this of the hope of a christian, there is no room for wonder that he rides out the hurricane ; for such hope is manifest- ly an anchor of the soul, and that, too, sure and steadfast.
We go on to observe, that the chris- tian is exposed to great varieties of temptation: the passions of an evil na- ture, and the enticements of a " world which lieth in wickedness," conspire to draw him aside from righteousness and force him back to the habits and scenes which he has professedly abandoned. The danger of spiritual shipwreck would be comparatively small, if the sea on which he voyages were swept by no storms but those of sorrow and persecution. The risk is far great- ei', when he is assaulted by the solicit- ations of his own lusts, and the corrupt affections of his nature are plied with their correspondent objects. And though it too often happens that he is overcome by temptation, we are sure, that, if he kept hope in exercise, he would not be moved by the pleadings of the flesh and the world. Let hope be in vigor, and the ciuistian's mind is fixed on a portion which he can neither measure by his imagination, nor be deprived of by his enemies. He is already in a city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon ; whose walls are of jasper, and whose streets of gold. Already he joins the general assembly and church of the first-born — already is he the equal of angels — already is he advancing with a shining company, which no man can number, towards the throne of God and of the Lamb, and beholding face to face the Creator and Redeemer, and burst- ing into an ecstacy of adoration, as the magnificence of Deity is more and more developed. And now, if, at a time such as this, — when it may almost be said that he has entered the haven, that he breathes the fragrance, and gazes on the
loveliness, and shares the delights of the Paradise of God, — he be solicited to the indulgence of a lust, the sacrifice of a 2:)rinciple, or the pursuit of a bauble, — can you think the likelihood to be great that he will be mastered by the tempta- tion, that he will return, at the summons of some low passion, from his splendid, excursion, and defile himself with the impurities of earth ] Oh ! we can be confident — and the truth is so evident as not to need proof — that, in proportion as a man is anticipating the pleasures of eternity, he will be firm in his resolve of abstaining from the pleasures of sin. We can be confident, that if hope, the hope set before us in the Gospel, be earnestly clung to, there will be no room in the grasp for the glittering toys with which Satan would bribe us to throw away our eternity. And therefore, — to bring the matter again under the figure of our text, — we can declare of hope, that it ministers to christian steadfastness, when the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, combine to produce wavering and inconstancy. Again we liken the christian to a ship, and the temptations by which he is met to a tempest, which threatens to drive him back, and cast him a wreck upon the shore. And it would avail nothing that he was furnished with the anchors, if such they may be called, of a philosophic love of virtue, of a feeling that vice is degrading to man, and of a general opin- ion that God may possibly approve self denial. If these held the ship at first, they would quickly give way, when the stoi-m of evil passion grew towards its height. But hope — the hope of a hea- ven into which shall enter nothing that defileth ; the hope of joys as pure as they are lofty, and as spiritual as they are abiding ; the hope of what the eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard, but which can be neither attained nor enjoy- ed without holiness — this hope, we say, is a christian's sheet-anchor in the hur- ricane of temptation ; and if he use this hope, in his endeavors to bear up against the elements, he shall, by God's help, weather the worst moral storm ; and then, when the sky is again bright, and the mighty billows have subsided, and the vessel again spreads her canvass, oh ! he shall gratefully and rejoicingly con- fess of this hope, that it is an anchor of the soul, and that, too, sure and steadfast
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11. Now throughout these illustra- tions we have rather assumed than prov- ed that christian hope is of a nature widely different from that of any other. But it will be easily seen that we have claimed for it nothing beyond the truth, if we examine, in the second place, the apostle's statement in regard of a chris- tian's hope, that it "entereth into that with- in the veil." The allusion is undoubtedly to the veil, or curtain, which separated the holy place from the holy of holies in the temple at Jerusalem. By the holy of ho- lies was typified the scene of God's imme- diate presence, into which Christ entered when the days of his humiliation were ended. And hence we understand by the hope, or the anchor, entering within the veil, that, in believing upon Jesus, we fast- en ourselves, as it were, to the realities of the invisible world. This throws new and great light on the simile of our text. It appears that the christian, whilst tos- sing on a tempestuous sea, is fast bound to another scene of being ; and that, whilst the vessel is on the waters of time, the anchor is on the rock of eter- nity. And it is not possible that the soul should find safe anchorage without the veil. Conscious as she is, and often forced to allow scope to the consciousness, that she is not to perish with the body, she may strive, indeed, to attach herself firmly to terrestrial things; but an over- grown restlessness will prove that she has cast her anchor where it cannot gain a hold. If we were merely intellectual beings, and not also immortal, the case might be different. There might be an anchor of the mind, which entered not into that within the veil, of strength enough, and tenacity enough, to produce steadfastness amid the fluctuations of life. But immortal as we are, as well as intellectual, the anchor of the soul must be dropped in the waters of the bound- less hereafter. And when, after vain efforts to preserve herself from wi'eck and disquietude, by fixing her hope on things which perish with the using, she is taught of God to make heaven and its glories the object of expectation, then it is as though she had let down her an- chor to the very base of the everlasting hills, and a mighty hold is gained, and the worst tempest may be defied. The soul which is thus anchored in eternity, is like the vessel which a stanch cable binds to the distant shore and which
gradually wai'ps itself into harbor. There is at once what will keep her steadfast in the storm, and advance her towards the haven. Who knows not that the dissatisfaction which men always experience whilst engaged in the pursuit of earthly good, arises mainly from a vast disproportion between their capaci- ties for happiness, and that material of happiness with which they think to fill them 1 What they hope for is some good, respecting which they might be certain, that, if attained, it will only dis- appoint. And theiefore is it, that in place of being as an anchor, hope itself agitates them, driving them hither and thither, like ships without ballast. But it is not thus with a hope which entereth within the veil. Within the veil are laid up joys and possessions which are more than commensurate with men's capaci- ties for happiness, when stretched to the utmost. Within the veil is a glory, such as was never proposed by ambition in its most daring flight ; and a wealth, such as never passed before avarice in its most golden dreams ; and delights, such as imagination, when employed in delineat- ing the most exquisite pleasures, hath never been able to array. And let hope fasten on this glory, this wealth, these delights, and presently the soul, as though she felt that the objects of desire were as ample as hei'self, acquires a fixedness of purpose, a steadiness of aim, a combi- nation of energies, which contrast strange- ly with the inconstancy, the vacillation, the distraction, which have made her hitherto the sport of every wind and every wave. The object of hope being immeasurable, inexhaustible, hope clings to this object with a tenacity which it cannot manifest when grasping only the insignificant and unsubstantial ; and thus the soul is bound, we might almost say indissolubly, to the unchangeable real- ities of the inheritance of the saints. And can you marvel, if, with her anchor thus dropped within the veil, she is not to be driven from her course by the w'ldest of the storms which yet rage without ] Besides, within the veil is an Intercessor, whose pleadings insure that these objects of hope shall be finally attained. There is something exquisitely beautiful in the idea, that the anchor has not been drop- ped in the rough waters which the chris- tian has to navigate. The anchor rests where there is one eternal calm, and its
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hold is on a rock, which no action of the waves can wear down. You may say of christian hope, that it is a principle which gives fixedness to the soul, be- cause it can appeal to an ever-living, ever-prevalent Intercessor, who is pledg- ed to make good its amplest expecta- tions. It is the hope of joys which have been purchased at a cost which it is not possible to compute, and which are de- livered into a guardianship which it is not possible to defeat. It is the hope of an inheritance, our title to which has been written in the blood of the Mediator, and our entrance into which that Mediator ever lives to secure. And therefore, is it that we affirm of christian hope, that it is precisely adapt- ed to the preventing the soul from being borne away by the gusts of temptation, or swallowed up in the deep waters of trial. It is more than hope. It is hope with all its attractiveness, and with none of its uncertainty. It is hope with all that beauty and bi-illiancy by which men are fascinated, and with none of that de- lusiveness by which they are deceived. It is hope with its bland and soothing voice, but that voice whispering nothing but truth ; hope, with its untired wing, but that wing lifting only to regions which have actual existence; hope, with its fairy pencil, but that pencil painting only what really flashes with the gold and vermilion. Oh, if hope be fixed upon Christ, that Rock of Ages, — a rock rent, if we may use the expi-ession, on purpose that there might be a holding- place for the anchors of a perishing world — it may well come to pass that hope gives the soul steadfastness. I know that within the veil there ever reigneth one who obtained right, by his agony and passion, to rear eternal mansions for those who believe upon his name. I know that within the veil thei-e are not only pleasures and pos- sessions acle(|uate to the capacities of my nature, when advanced to full man- hood, but a friend, a surety, an advocate, who cannot be prevailed with even by unworthiness, to refuse me a share in what he died to procure, and lives to bestow. And therefore if I fix my hope within the veil ; within the veil, where are the alone delights that can satisfy ; within the veil, where is Christ, whose intercession can never be in vain, — hope will be such as is neither to be diverted
by passing attractions, nor daunted by apprehensions of failure : it will, conse- quently, keep me firm alike amid the storm of evil passions, and the inrush of Satan's suggestions ; it will enable me equally to withstand the current which would hurry me into disobedience, and tlie eddies which would sink me into despondency. And, oh, then, is it not with justice that I declare of hope, that " it is an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast ;" and that I give as the reason that " it entereth into that within the veil !"
And now we may safely ask, whether, if you know any thing practically of the worth of christian hope, you can be indif- ferent to the condition of thousands around you, who have no such anchor of the soul 1 If you are anchored with- in the veil, can you look on with uncon- cern, whilst many a noble bark, on the right hand and on the left, freighted with immortality, is drifting to and fro, the sport of every wind, and in danger, each instant, of being wrecked for eter- nity ] We are sure that christian pri- vileges ai'e of so generous and commun- icative a nature, that no man can possess, and not wish to impart them. And if there be a class of individuals who, on all accounts, have a more than common claim on the sympathy of christians, be- cause more than commonly exposed to moral tempests and dangers, may we not select sailors as that class, — men whose business is in great waters, who from boyhood have been at home on the sea, whether in storm or in calm ; but whose opportunities of christian instruc- tion are, for the most part, wretchedly small ; and who learn to steer to every harbor except that which lieth within the veil 1 The religious public have much to answer for on account of the neglect — of course we speak com- paratively— which they have manifested towards sailors. Veiy little has even yet been done towards ameliorating their moral condition. So soon as the sailor returns to port, after having been long tossed on distant seas, he is surrounded by miscreants, who seek to entice him to scenes of the worst profligacy, that they may possess themselves of his hard-earned gams. And christian phi- lanthopy has been very slow in stepping in and offering an asylum to the sailor, where he may be secure against the
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villaiiy which would ruin body and soul. Christian philaiithoiiy has been very slow in taking measures for provi- ding, that, when he returned from his wanderings — probably to find many in the grave who had sent anxious thoughts after him as he ploughed the great deep, and who had vainly hoped to welcome him back — he should have the Gospel preached to him, and the ministers of Christianity to counsel, and admonish, and encourage him. It is vain to say, that our churches have been open, and that the sailor, as well as the landsman, might enter, and hear the glad tidings of redemption. You are to re- member, that for months, and perhaps even years, the sailor has been debarred from the means of grace ; he has been in strange climes, where he has seen nothing but idolatry ; even the forms of religion have been altogether kept from him ; and now he requires to be sought out, and entreated ; and unless in some peculiar mode you bring the Gospel to him, the likelihood is the very smallest of his seeking it for himself But we thank God that of late years attempts have been made, so far as the port of this great city is concerned, to provide christian instruction for sailors. There is now a floating Church in our river : a vessel, which had been built for the battle, and which walked the waters to pour its thunders on the enemies of our land, has through the kindness of govern- ment, been converted into a place of worship ; and a flag waves from it, tel- ling the mariner that, on the element which he has made his own, he may learn how to cast anchor for eternity ; and the minister of this church moves about among the swarming ships, as he would move through his parish, endeavor- ing by the use of all the engines by which God has intrusted his embassadors, to arrest vice, and gain a hold for religion amongst the wild and weather-beaten crews. And it is in support of this church that wc now ask your contribu- tions. His Majesty the King, by the liberal annual subscription of d£50, shows how warm an interest he takes in the cause, and recommends it to the succor of his subjects. The exemplary bishop, moreover, of this diocese — whom may a gracious God soon restore to full health, is deeply interested on behalf of this church. But you cannot need to be told
of the great and the noble who support this cause ; it asks not the recommen- dation of titled patronage; you are En- glishmen, and the church is for sailors. Yes, the church is for sailors ; men who have bled for us, men who fetch for us all the productions of the earth, men who carry out to every land the Bibles we translate and the missionaries we equip : the church is for sailors ; and yet though the annual expenditure is only between three and four hundred pounds, the stated annual income — I am almost ashamed to say it — is only a hundred and fifty. I am persuaded, that to mention this will suflTice to procure a very liberal collection. I cannot bring myself to at- tempt the working on your feelings. When I plead the cause of sailoi-s, it seems to me as though the hurricane and the battle, the ocean with its crested billows, and war with its magnificently stern retinue, met and mingled to give force to the appeal. It seems as though stranded navies, the thousands who have gone down with the waves for their winding-sheet and who await in unfath- omable caverns the shrill trumpet-peal of the archangel, rose to admonish us of the vast debt we owe those brave fellows who are continually jeoparding their lives in our service. And then there comes also before me the imagery of a mother, who has parted, with many tears and many forebodings from her sailor-boy ; whose thoughts have accom- jianied him as none but those of a mother can, in his long wanderings over the deep, and who would rejoice, with all a mother's gladness, to know that where his moral danger was greatest, there was a church to receive him, and a minister to counsel him. But we shall not enlarge on such topics. We only throw out hints, believing that this is enough to waken thoughts in your minds, which will not allow of your contenting yourselves with such contributions as are the ordinary produce of charity- sermons. The great glory of England, and her great defence, have long lain, under the blessing of God, in what we emphatically call her wooden walls. And if we could make vital Christianity general amongst our sailors, we should have done more than can be calculated towards giving permanence to our na- tional greatness, and bringing onward the destruction of heathenism. We say
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advisedly, the destruction of heathenism. The influence is notto be computed which English sailors now exert for evil all over the globe. They are scattered all over the globe ; but too often, though far from always, unhappily, their dissoluteness brings discredit on the christian religion, and pagans learn to ridicule the faith which seems proUficof nothing but vice, Our grand labor therefore should be to teach our sailors to cast anchor within the veil ; and then in all their voyages would they serve as missionaries, and not a ship would leave our coasts which was not freighted with preachers of redemption ; and wheresoeverthe British flag flies, and that is wheresoever the sea beats, would the standard of the cross be displayed. Ay, man our
wooden walls with men who have taken christian hope as the anchor of the soul; and these walls shall be as ramparts which no enemies can overthrow, and as batteries for the demolition of the strongholds of Satan. Then, — and may Cxod hasten the time, and may you now prove your desire for its coming — then will the navy of England be every where iiTesistible, because every where voyaging in the strength and service of the Lord ; and the noble words of poetry shall be true in a higher sense than could ever yet be affirmed :
" Britannia needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep ; Her march is on the mountain-wave,
Her home is on the deep ! "
SERMON.
THE DIVINE PATIENCE EXHAUSTED THROUGH THE MiUvING
VOID THE LAW.
» It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law. Therefore I love thy commandinents above gold i yea, above fine gold." — Psalm cxix. 126, 127.
There is no property of the divine | nature which demands more, whether of our admiration or of our gratitude, than long-suffering. That the Lord is "slow to anger" — thei'e is more in this to excite both wonder and praise, than in those other truths with which it is associated by the prophet Nahum. " The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked : the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet." We have often told you that the long-suffer- ferino- of God is wonderful, because it indicates the putting constraint on his own attributes; it is omnipotence exerted over the Omnipotent himself
So far as our own interests are con-
cerned, you will readily admit that we are extraordinarily indebted to the Di- vine forbearance. Those of us who are now walking the path of life, where would they have been, had not God borne long with them, refusing, as it were, to be wearied out by their perver- sity 1 Those who are yet " strangers from the covenant of promise," to what but the patience of their Maker is it owing, that they have not been cut down as cumberers of the ground, but still stand within the possibilities of forgive- ness and acceptance ? But it is a melan- choly thing that we are compelled to add, that there is a great tendency in all of us to the abusing God's long-suffering, and to the so presuming on his forbear- ance as to continue in sin. We may be
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sure that a vast outward reformation would be wrought on tiie world, if" there were a sudden chanfje in God's dealings, so tliat punishment followed instantane- ously on Clime. If the Almighty were to mark out certain oflbnces, the perpetra- tion of which he would immediately visit with death, there can be no doubt that these offences would be shunned with the greatest carefulness, and that too by the very men whom no exhortations, and no waiiiings, can now deter from their commission. Yet it is not that punishment is one jot less certain now than it would be on the supposed change of aiTangement. The only dif- ference is, that, in one case, God dis- plays long-suffering, and that in the other he would not display long-sufferingr — the certainty that punishment will follow crime is quite the same in both. And thus, unhappily, sin is less avoided than it wt)uld be if we lived under an economy of immediate retribution ; and " because sentence against an evil woi-k is not executed speedily, llierefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." In place of being softened by the patience of which we have so long been the objects, we are apt to be encouraged by it to further resistance ; calculating that he who has so often for- borne to strike, will spare a little longer, and that we may with safety yet defer to repent.
It is therefore of great importance that men be taught that there are limits even to the forbearance of God, and that it is possible so to presume on it as to exhaust. And this is evidently what the Psalmist inculcates in the first of those verses on which we would discourse. He seems to mark the times in which lie lived as times of extraordinary depra- vity, when men had thrown oil" the re- straints of religion. " They have made void thy law." They have reduced the divine precepts to a dead letter, and refuse to receive them as a rule of life. The expression manifestly denotes that a more than common contempt was put on the commandments of God, and that men had reached a rare point of insolence and disobedience. And it is further manifest, that, when wickedness was thus at its height, David expected that there would be an end of the forbearance of God, and that he would at length give scope to his righteous indignation.
" It is time for thee. Lord, to work : for they have made void thy law." As much as to say, men have now exceeded the bounds prescribed to long-suflering; they have outrun the limits of grace; and now, therefore, God must interfere, to vindicate his own honor, and rejjress the swellings of unrighteousness.
This, then, is the first truth presented by our text — that it is possible to go so far in disobedience that it will be neces- sary for God to interpose in vengeance, and visibly withstand men's impiety. But what effect will be produced on a truly righteous man by this extraordinary jjrevalence of iniquity 1 Will he be car- ried away by the current of evil ] Will he be tempted, by the universal scorn which he sees thrown on God's law, to think slightingly of it himself, and give it less of his reverence and attachment ? On the contrary, this law becomes more precious in David's sight, in proportion as he felt that it was so despised and set aside, that the time for God to work had arx'ived. You observe that the verses are connected by the word " therefore." " They have made void thy law." What then 1 is that law less esteemed and less prized by myself? Quite the reverse ; " tliey have made void thy law ; therefore I love thy com- mandments above gold, yea, above fine gold." There is much that deserves our closest attention in this connection between the verses. It is a high point of holiness which that man has reached, whose love of God's commandments grows with the contempt which all around him put on these command- ments. This, then, is the second truth presented by our text, — that there is greater reason than ever for our prizing God's law, if the times should be those in which that law is made void. So that there are two great principles which must successively engage our attention in meditating on the words which form our subject of address. The first is, that there is a point in hu- man iniquity at which it is necessary that God should interfere ; the second, that, when this point is reached, the righteous are more than ever bound to prize and love the law of the Lord. It will be our endeavor to set these prin- ciples clearly before you, and to examine them in their several bearings and results.
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No\v, in one of those visions which God vouchsafed to the patriarch Abra- ham, the land of Canaan was promised to his posterity, but a distant time fixed for their taking possession. The reason given why centuries must elapse ere tliey could enter on the inheritance, is every way remarkable. "In the fourth gene- ration they shall come hither again ; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not full." We may understand the Amorites to be put here generally for the inhabitants of Canaan, whose iniquities were grad- ually bringing on their expulsion and extermination. And though even these inhabitants might have been conspicuous in idolatry and impiety, they had not, it appears, yet reached that measure of guiltiness which was to mark them out for vengeance. " The iniquity of the Amorites," saith God, " is not yet full; and, therefore, I cannot yet give com- mand for their destruction, — nay, it will not be until the fourth generation that I can dispossess them to make room for my people." It is evident, from this instance, that in the exercise of his long- suffering, God allows nations a certain period of probation, but that there is a point up to which, if they accumulate iniquity, they can expect nothing but an outbreak of indignation and punishment. It was not yet time for God to work, in- asmuch as the Amorites, though disobe- dient to his law, had not yet gone the length of making it void. But that time would arrive. The Amorites would ad- vance from one degree of sinfulness to another, and the children would but add to the burden of misdoing entailed on them by profligate fathers. Then would be the time for God to work ; and then would the almighty arise in his fury, and prove, by the vehemence of his dealings, that though slow to anger, he will not finally acquit the wicked. We need not remind you how fearfully this truth was exemplified in the instance of the Amorites. The terrible judgments at length inflicted through the instru- mentality of the Israelites are known to all, and show clearly that punishment is not the less sure because long delayed.
You have the same truth depicted in the case of the Jews. You find Christ, in one of these tremendous denuncia- tions, which are the more awful, because found on the lips of him, vvlio, " when he was reviled, reviled not again," de-
claring that the blood of all the prophets which had been shed from the founda- tion of the world, should be required of the nation he addressed. The represen- tation is here the same as in the instance of the Amorites. The Jews had been long borne with ; and God, though often provoked by their impieties to inflict lesser punishments, had not yet gone the length of casting them off" as a na- tion. But their wickedness was not for- gotten nor overlooked, because yet un- visited with the extreme of indignation. Each century of profligacy had only treasured up wrath ; and Christ bids the abandoned of his own day fill up the measure of their fathers, that it might at last be time for God to work. And when the time came, and the iniquity was full, then it appeared that it is a tremendous thing to have worn out divine patience ; for \vrath fell so signal- ly and so fiercely on the Jews, that their miseries exceeded those which their ancestors had dealt to the Amorites.
These instances — and it were easy to adduce more — suflSciently prove that God keeps what we may call a reckon- ing with nations, and that there is a sum total of guilt — though it be out of our power to define the amount — which he allows not to be passed ; but which, when reached, draws down upon the land the long-defeiTed vengeance. We say that it is out of our power to define the amount, for we know not precisely that point in iniquity at which it maybe said that God's law is made void. But it is comparatively unimportant that we^ ascertain the exact amount of guilt which becomes such a mill-stone round the neck of a people, that they are dragged into the depths of disaster and wretchedness. It is sufficient to know that God takes account of what is done on the earth, and that he charges on one generation the crimes of a preceding. It is enough for all practical purposes, that we can prove there are limits to the forbearance of the Almighty; and that consequently it is either ignorance or insanity which would count on impunity, because there is delay. We say that this is enough; for this should make every true lover of his country eager to diminish the sura total of national guiltiness. It matters, nothing whether we can tell, in any given instance, by how many fractions, the sum is yet below that amount at. 33
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which it must he met hy commensurate \engeance. The grand thing is, that we ascertain a principle in the Divine deahngs, the principle that there is a register kept of the impieties of a land, and that, too, with the unerring accuracy of the omniscient ; and that though, as the figures go on rapidly accumulating, God may hear with the land, and ply it with calls to repentance and overtures of for- giveness, yet when those figures present a certain array, they serve as a signal to the ministry of wrath, and mark that there are no sands left in the glass of Divine patience. And when we have determined this principle, how clear, how imperative, the duty of laboring to strike off some figures, and thus to gain further respite for a country whose re- gister may he fast approaching the fatal amount. We know of a land for which God hath done more than for any other on which the sun shines, as he "makes the circuit of the globe. It is a land which hath been marvellously preserved from the incursions of enemies, and whose valleys, whilst the rest of the earth was turned into one vast battle-plain, never echoed with the tocsin of war. It is a land which, though inconsiderable in itself, has been raised to a greatness unequalled among nations, whose fame is on every shore, whose fleets on every sea, and whose resources have seemed so to grow with the demand, that every trial has but developed the unsuspected strength. And it is little that this land, by prowess in arms, and wisdom in de- bate, has won itself a name of the mightiest renown, subdued kingdoms, planted colonies, and gathered into its harbois the commerce of the world. We know yet greater things of this land. We know that Christianity, in all its purity, is publicly taught as the religion of the land; that in its churches is pro- claimed the life-giving doctrine of the " one Mediator between God and man ;" and that its civil institutions have all that beauty, and all that expansiveness, which nothing but the Gospel of Christ was ever yet able to produce or preserve. But we have our fears — oh, more than our fears, — regard of this land, that, whilst it has thus been the recipient of unrivalled mercies, whilst Providence has watched over it, and shielded it, and poured upon it all that was choicest in the treasure-house of heaven, there
have been an ingratitude, and a con« tempt of the Benefactor, and a grow- ing distaste for religion, and a pride, and a covetousness, and a luxury, which have written many and large figures in the register which God keeps of na- tions ; so that, though the land is still borne with, yea, abundantly blessed, it has made vast approaches towards that fulness of iniquity which the Amorites i-eached, and which the Israelites reach- ed, but reached only to perish. God forbid that we should say of the land to which we have referred, whatever its sins, that as yet it hath made void the law of its Maker. Wc hope that there is yet such vigor in its piety as will give fixedness to what is venerable and pre- cious in its institutions. But we are sure that with the purity of its Christian- ity must stand or fall the majesty of its empire. We are sure that it is, as the home of protestantism, the centre of truth ; that God hath honored and upheld the land of which we speak ; and that the rapid way of multiplying the figures, which may already be portentous in its account, would be the surrendering its protestantism, and the giving, in any way, countenance to popery. Oh, if it could ever come to pass, that, acting on the principle of a short-sighted policy, the rulers of the land in question should restore his lost ascendancy to the man of sin, and take under the care and pro- tection of the state that religion which prophecy has unequivocally denounced, and in writing against which a pious an- cestry met death in its most terrible shapes ; then, indeed, may we think, the measure of the guilt would be full; then, in the national apostacy might be read the advance of national ruin — yea, then, we believe — the protest of a wit- ness for truth being no longer given — there would be heard a voice, issuijig from the graves of martyrs and confes- sors with which the land is covered, and from the souls which St. John saw beneath the altar when the fifth seal was opened, " that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held ; " and these would bo the words which the voice would utter : " It is time for thee, Lord, to work : for they have made void thy law."
But we do not suppose that these words should be interpreted with refe- rence only to that point in national guilt
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at which God is moved to interfere in vengeance. Vengeance is one way in which God works ; but it is a way of which we may declare, that it is forced upon God, and not resorted to without the gi-eatest reluctance. We find these expressions in the prophecies of Isaiah ; " The Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, aud bring to pass his act, his strange act." You ob- serve, the work of wrath is a strange work, and the act of punishment is a strange act. God strikes, but the strik- ing might almost be declared foreign to his nature ; it is necessary for the vin- dication of his attributes, but can hard- ly be said to be congenial with them. There is much in this to encourage the penitent, but not the presumptuous. God may be loth to punish, but never- theless he will punish ; and I am only impressed with a greater sense of the tremendousness of divine wrath, when I find that the bringing it into act is an effort even to the Omnipotent. How weighty must that be which God him- self has difficulty in raising!
There are, however, other ways in which God works, when moved by the making void of his law. It is curious and interesting to observe how God, from the first, has been mindful of what passes on the earth, and how he has in- tei'j^osed just when a crisis has demand- ed the interposition. When our fii-st pai'ents fell, his law was emphatically made void; and then there appearing no alternative to the destruction of our race, it was time for God to work; the exigence could be met by nothing but a divine interference, and God gracious- ly worked as a deliverer. And after- wards the notices of traditional religion were soon so obscured and weakened, that there was danger of all remembrance of its Maker perishing from the globe. The law was so made void, and wicked- ness had reached such a height, that it was time for God to work in vengeance ; and accordingly he brought a flood upon the earth, and swept away thousands of the ungodly. But whilst working in ven- geance, he worked also in mercy, and, saving Noah and his family, provided that the world should be re-peopled, and that there should be myriads for his Son to redeem. And then, 'f ha had left
the earth to itself, it would have beea quickly oversjjread with idolatry, and all flesh have become corrupt as it was before the flood. But here again it was time for God to work, and he set apari one family for himself, and through its instrumentality preserved mankind from total degeneracy, until the period of the incarnation arrived. It may be af- firmed also, that this period was one at which the necessity for divine interfer- ence had become strongly marked. We learn from St. Paul, that, " after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe." So that it appears, that, through successive centuries of heathenism, there had been carried on an experiment, not for the satisfaction of God, who knows the end from the beginning, but for the conviction of men who are prone to magnify their powers ; and that the object of this expei'iment had been the ascertaining whether, by its own wisdom, the world could acquire a sound knowledge of its Maker. And the apostle declares that, when Christ came, the experiment had been fully made, and that its result was completely against the boasted strength of reason. So that here again it was time for God to work. Reason had proved itself quite incompetent to the producing right notions of God, and therefore a just estimate of his law; and now, then, the law being altogether made void, it was time for God to work through a new revelation of himself. And certainly you can have little difficulty in determin- ing for yourselves, that in regard of the christian church, God has acted on the principle laid down in our text. How often has he allowed matters to come, as it were, to an extremity, in order that there might be a clear need of his interference, and then has he arisen mightily to the succor of the perishing. In earlier days he permitted persecution to make great havoc with the church, so that Satan seemed often on the point of effecting the extirpation of Christianity. But it was soon found that a season of depression ushered in one of triumph, and that the church was brought low, that she might be more signally exalted. And when we survey Christianity, in its first struggles with heathenism, re- duced often to so languid a condition
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that there seemed nothing to be looked foi" but its total extinction, and then sud- denly rising in greater brilliancy and purity, we can only say that God there- by proved that he reserves his gracious interpositions for exigencies when their necessity cannot be denied, and that he acts on the principle, that, when men make void his law, then it is time for him to work.
Neither is there any cause for surprise that such should be a principle in the divine dispensations. You must own that when, on all human calculations, the case is desperate, the interference of God will be more distinctly recog- nized, and the likelihood is less of his being robbed of the honor due unto his name. Hence it might be expected that God would choose those times for inter- position at which it was most evident that no power but a divine could suffice, in order to counteract that pioneness, of v/hic!i the best must be conscious, to ascribe to second causes what should be referred only to the first. We may add to this, that, in the hour of the church's depression and danger, there will be more fervent prayer on her behalf from the yet faithful remnant; and we know that God delights to answer the earnest supplications of his people. And it is under this point of view that our text should encourage us, as much as it alarms others. We have shown you that there is an amount of guiltiness, de- fined by the making void of God's law, which provokes the Almighty to come forth as an avenger. But we now show you that it is not only as an avenger, but equally as a protector, that God ap- pears in days when his law is made void upon earth. These are days when the righteous will be stirred by the abound- ings of iniquity to greater diligence in prayer; and God has promised that he will " avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them." You see, then, what your duty is, if your lot be cast in times when there seems danger that truth will be overborne by falsehood. Our text instructs you as to the form into which to shape your petitions. We have spo- ken already of a land over which, as the depository of the pure religion of Christ, has been spread for long years the shield of divine favor. We have spokeii of the desperate jeopardy in which that
land would be placed, if its legislature should so abjure the principles of protes- tantism as to give countenance and sup- poit to the Roman apostacy. It would be time for God to work in indignation and vengeance, if a people, whom he hath marvellously delivered from the bondage of popery, and whom he strengthened to throw off a yoke which had kept down their immortality, should give vigor, by any national act, to the corrupt faith of Rome, and thus reanimate the tyranny which waits but a touch, and it will start again into despotism. But we know what would be the business of all the righteous in that land, if they saw signs of the approach of such peril. We know that it would not become them to sit in calm expectation of the ruin, com- forting themselves with the belief that God would shelter his own people in the day of indignation. It would bo their business to recall the memory of former deliverances, and to bear in mind how God has always chosen ex- tremities when there seemed least hope that ruin would be averted, for the man- ifestations of his care OA'er his church. It would be their business to remember, and to act on the remembrance, that the time for God, in every sense, to work, is the time at which men are making void his law. And we have a confidence in " the effectual fervent prayer of a I'ighteous man," which forbids our des- pairing of any land, within whoso con- fines are yet found the believing and prayerful. If the presence of ten right- eous would have turned away the fire and brimstone from the guilty cities of the plain, we shall not reckon the doom of any country sealed, so long as we know that it is not destitute of the leaven of godliness, but that there are among its inhabitants who view, in a season of danger, a season when they may go, with special confidence, to the mercy-seat, and plead, " It is time for thee. Lord, to work." The hearts of statesmen are in the hands of God, and the passions of the turbulent and dis- affected are under his governance, and the designs of the enemies of his church are all subject to his over-ruling provi- dence ; and prayer moves the arm which marshals stars, and calms the great deep, and directs the motions of disordered wills. Why, then, should we despair for a land, unless assured that patriotism
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has become dissociated from righteous- ness, and that they, whose privilege it is to have access to the Father thiough the Mediator, Christ, and to whom the promise has been made by the Savioi% " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you," have so far turned traitors as to remember not their country in their petitions? If, indeed, in the land of which we have spoken, a protestaut goverment were so to sacrifice every principle which enters into its constitution, as to make provi- sion for the propagation of papal false- hood and delusion, we might justly fear that the time for intercession had pas- sed, and that God must hearken to the voice pealing forth from the sepulchre of martyred thousands, and from the souls beneath the altar, telling him the time was come for him to work as an avenger. But so long, at least, as the land held fast its protestantism, and there was only the threatening of its being surrendered, we should feel that a vast responsibility was laid upon the men of prayer and upon the women of prayer, throughout that land. Ay, and we should hope that the days of its hap- piness and its greatness were not num- bered, and that measures, fraught Anth its desolation, because involving the compromise of its Christianity, would never be permitted to be enacted and enforced, if we knew that these men and these women were urgent in the business of supplication, and that from beneath every roof which gave shelter to God-fearing individuals, in the city, in the village, on the mountain, in the valley, was issuing the cry, " It is time for thee. Lord, to work as a Protector, for they are making void thy law."
Now we are so pressed by the re- mainder of our great subject of dis- course, that we are compelled to pass by much on which we wish to enlarge. It is evident that tlie portion of our text, on which we have hitherto spo- ken, admits of an individual, as well as a national, application. We might speak to you of limits to the divine forbearance, when any one amongst our- selves is regarded as the object of its exercise ; and show you, consequently, the madness of our presuming on long- suffering, as though it could not be ex- hausted. We might enlarge also on the personal encouragement which the
text gives to those who put trust in God ; inasmuch as we perceive that the being bi'ought into circumstances of unusual danger and distress, in place of causing despondency, should give occa- sion for greater hope, the hour of special tribulation being ordinarily chosen by God as the hour of his choicest mani- festations.
We must, however, refer these con- siderations to your private meditations, though it will be evident to those who trace carefully the connection of the several parts of our discourse, that they enter, in a degree, into what has yet to be advanced.
The second great truth presented by our text, and which we have now to examine, is that, when the point in ini- quity is reached at which God's inter- ference becomes necessary, the right- eous are more than ever bound to prize and love the law of the Lord. We derive this truth, as we have be- fore said, from the connection between the verses. When David has declared that it is time for God to u'ork, since the law was made void, he adds, "There- fore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold," — clearly implying, that the contempt put on God's law was an additional motive to his giving that law his esteem and af- fection. And it is of great importance we determine on what principles David proceeded in making this decision, or what reason were on his side when he valued the commandments, because made void by others. It cannot be de- nied, as we have already intimated, that it is a high point in holiness which the Psalmist is hereby proved to have reached. We must own, in respect of ourselves, that we find it hard to con- fess Clu-ist, and declare ourselves his follov/ers, in tlie face of a vehement and growing opposition.
In sketching the characteristics and occurrences which should mark the ap- proach of the second advent, the Savior uttered this prediction. "And because inifjuity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." He knew what a par- alyzing and deadening influence would be exerted over piety by multiplied wickedness, and how sickly and dwarfish, for the most part, would Christianity become, when the soil and the atmo- sphere were saturated with unrighteous-
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ness. And the event has but too faith- j fully borne out the prediction. It is at 1 all times difficult to hold fast the christian , profession. But the difficulty is a hun- dred-fold augmented, when it must be held fast with few or none to keep us in countenance, and when to dare to be religious is to dare the opposition of a neighborhood. And it is but too possi- ble that much of the Christianity which passes muster in our own day, and wins itself a reputation for soundness and stanchncss, is indebted for its very exis- tence to the absence of persecution ; and that, if there came days in which God's law was made void, and the church was sifted by fiery trial, a great propor- tion of what appears genuine and stead- fast would prove its hollowness by de- fection, in place of being strengthened and confirmed by opposition.
But however this be, we may declare of the truly religious, that they have in- creased cause for prizing and adhering to God's law, if the days in which they live be days in which iniquity is more than ordinai'ily prevalent. It is too ob- vious, in the first place, to be overlooked, that, in days such as these, there is the very finest opportunity of giving honor to God. To love his commandments above gold, whilst others count them but dross, is to display a noble zeal for his glory, and to appear as the cham- pions of his cause, v.heu that cause is on the point of being universally deserted. The promise moreover runs, " Them that honor me, I will honor ;" and the season, therefore, in which the greatest honor may be given to God, is that also in which the most of future gloiy may be secured by the righteous. What then, the Psalmist seems to ask — would you have me less fervent in attachment to God's law, because the making void of that law has rendered it a time for God to work] What, shall I choose that moment for turning traitor when God will be most glorified, and myself most advantaged, by loyalty? What, rehix in devotedness, just when, by maintain- ing my allegiance, I may bear the no- blest testimony, and gain tlie higliest j-e- compense] Oh, where the heart has been given to God, and fixed on the glories of heaven, there should be a feeling that days, in which religion is most decried and derided, are days in which zeal should be warmest, and pro-
fession most unflinching. To adhere boldly to tlie cause of righteousness, when almost solitary in adherence, is to fight the battle when champions are most needed, and when therefore vic- tory will be most triumphant. Let then, saith the psalmist, the times be times of universal defection from godliness — I will gather warmth from the cold- ness of others, courage from their cowardice, loyalty from their treason. Indeed, as I gaze on what is passing around me, I cannot but observe that thy law, O God, is made void, and that it is therefore time for thee to work. But I am not on this account shaken in attachment to thy service. On the con- trary, thy law seems to me more pre- cious than ever, for in now keeping thy commandments I can give thee greater glory, and find greater reward. What then 1 it may be that they have made void thy law ; but from my heart I can say, " therefore, on that very ac- cent, I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold."
It may be said, however, that though we thus give a reason why David should have been more earnest in holding fast his profession, we scarcely touch the point why the commandments them- selves should have been more precious iti his sight. But it is not difficult to explain the connection between the verses, even if it be simply the love of God's law which we suppose increased by the prevalence of impiety. We know, beyond all peradventure, tliat the only remedy for the multiplied dis- orders of this creation is to be found in conformity to the revealed will of God. We are sure, whatever schemes may be devised for the amelioration of human condition, that the happiness of a people is closely bound up with its righteousness, and that the greater the departure from God the greater the misei-y introduced into its families. It is no unwarranted assertion, but one whicli will stand every test to which it can fairly be brought, that the decline of a nation's prosperity keeps pace with the decline of its piety, and that in banishing true religion you banish the chief elements of its greatness and se- curity.
And what is the condition of a land, when its inhabitants have literally made void G od's law 1 The experiment was
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tried in the heart of civilized Europe ; and we all know what fearful scenes •were enacted on the stage of revolution- ized France, when atheism was the ( nly creed which the nation would pro- less. We have no instance in history of a people throwing equal scorn on their Creator, and neither have we any of a people being plunged in equal depths of misery. There was then giv- en a demonstration, never to be forgot- ten, that to throw off the restraints of religion is to proclaim the carnival of anarchy and bloodshed ; and that the getting quit of the fear of God is the surest mode of undermining govern- ment, invading the rights of property, and turning a civilized people into a horde of barbarians and assassins. But if such be the consequence of making void God's law, what effect will be wrought upon the few by whom that law is yet reverenced and prized. Cer- tainly, not that they will love the law less, but rather that they will love it more. If I saw thousands wa-ithing in incurable agony, and could trace the tremendous disease to the gradual dis- use, and, at length, final rejection of a medicine, beyond all doubt that medi- cine would appear to me more precious than ever ; and it would be from the throwing away of this medicine that I best learnt its value. In like manner, if I can see that the making void God's law is the most effectual mode of cov- ering a land with wretchedness, unques- tionably it is in the being made void that this law disjdays its claims to my attachment. And if, therefore, we lived in times when a mighty infidelity was pen'ading our cities and our villages, and men were advancing by rapid strides towards an open contempt, or denial of God ; the divine law, if we had ever learnt to prize it, would commend itself increasingly to our affections as impiety went onward to its consummation. We should more and more recognize the power of this law to confer happiness because we should more and more ob- serve how the despising it produced misery. We should more and more perceive in it an engine for counterac- ting human degeneracy, because there would be, on all sides, the material of conviction, that, in setting it aside, men sank to the lowest level of degradation. We should more and more regard it as
the best boon which God had conferred on this creation, because we should increasingly discover that it could only be removed by substituting a fearful curse in its stead. And would not then this law appear more deserving than ever of our veneration aud attachment ? If we ever before prized it above gold, should we not now prize it above fine gold ] There are two ways in which the commandments of God prove equal- ly their excellence — by the blessed re- sults which follow on obedience, and by the tremendous results which follow on disobedience. The former are to be seen when the law is observed, the lat- ter when that law is made void. But since, in each case, the same truth is exhibited — that of the power of the law to confer happiness — in each case, the same reason is given why the law should be increasingly the object of our love.
We will take a simple instance, and gather from it the principle on which we now issist. A young person is born of religious parents, and educated in the fear of the almighty. But the fa- ther and mother have been gathered to the grave, and the temptations of the world prevail over their instructions, and the child becomes the irreligious and profligate. He passes from one degree of wickedness to another, till at length, as the perpetrator of some fearful crime, he waits the shame of a pubUc execution. And in this condi- tion he is visited by a clergyman, who perhaps remembers the days of his youth, whilst his honored parents were yet alive, and himself an inmate of the village-school. It is a grievous and sickening spectacle, that of one who was cradled in piety, and into whose opening intelligence were distilled the precepts of righteousness, thus lying as an outcast, branded with indignity, and expecting the penalty of death. And the minister asks of him the history of his guilt, how it came to pass that he wandered so far, and so fatally from up- rightness. The whole is traced to neg- lect of the commandments of God, — a neglect which began perhaj)s in minor points, but rapidly increased till the whole law was made void. And we shall not attempt to tell you with what bitterness of soul, and what iutenseness of self-reproach, the criminal recalls the dying looks and words of his parents,
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THE DIVINE PATIENCE EXHAUSTED
as they bequeathed him the Bible as his best treasure, and besought him with many tears, to take its precepts as his guide. The uppermost and crushing feelings in his spirit is, that, had he fol- lowed the jjarting advice of his father and mother, he would have lived honor- ably and happily, and would never have thus become a byword and an execra- tion ; every thing earthly shipwrecked, and nothing heavenly secured. But we only want to know what would be the thoughts of the minister in regard of God's commandments, as he retired from the cell where he had delivered the messages of the Gospel. He has been looking on an instance of the con- sequences of making void the divine law. He cannot but contrast what the criminal is, with what he would have been, had he not made void that law. And does he not gather from the con- trast a higher sense than he had before entertained of the excellence of that law, and of its might in contributing to the present, as well as future welfare of mankind 1 We can quite believe that, as he retreated from the overpowering scene, his mind agonized by the thought that one, of whom he had augured well, was thus hopelessly reduced to a deso- late and ruined thing, the value of God's law, as a rule of human conduct, and a safeguard of human happiness, would be felt by him in a degree which he had never yet experienced ; and that it would be into such a form as this that his reflections would shape themselves, — indeed. Lord, he hath made void thy law ; therefore, as for me, " therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold."
Now it is not difficult thus to trace a connection between the making void of God's law, and the heightened love which the righteous entertain to that law. The law cannot be made void, whether nationally or individually, with- out an accompanying demonstration tliat it is both designed and adajited to bless the human race. And wo need not add, that every such demonstration enhances the worth of the law in the estimation of the righteous, so that the transition is very natural from the statement of a general profligacy of manners to that of an increased love to the commandments of God.
But we have yet another mode in
which to exhibit the connection between the verses, though it may have already suggested itself to your minds. We have hitherto supposed the strengthen- ed attachment which David expresses towards the law, to have been produced by the fact that this law was made void. But we now refer it to the fact that it was time for God to work. We consi- der, that is, that when the Psalmist says, " therefore I love thy command- ments above gold, yea, above fine gold," the reason is to be found in the charac- ter of the times, in the season being one at wliich God must bring judgments on the earth. " Since thy law is made void, it is time for thee. Lord, to interfere in vengeance ; and on this account, because wrath must be let loose, therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold."
And if this be regarded as the con- nection between the verses, you will readily admit that there is abundant force in the reason of the Psalmist. If there be one season at which, more than at another, the righteous feel the worth of revelation, and the blessedness of obeying its precepts, the season must be that of danger and trouble. Wheth- er the danger and trouble be public or domestic ; whether it be his country, on only his own household, over which calamity hangs ; the man of piety finds a consolation in religion which makes him more than ever prize the revealed will of God. There is a beauty and energy in the Bible which nothing but allliction can bring out and display ; and men know comparatively little of the preciousness of Sciiptural promises, and the magnificence of Scriptural hopes, until placed in circumstances of difficul- ty and distress. There are always one or two stations from which you gain the best view of a noble and diversified landscape ; and it is when "constrained to dwell with Mesheck, and to have our habitation among the tents of Kedar," that our gaze includes most of what is glorious and brilliant in the scheme of divine rtiercy. It is the promise of God in the 91st Psalm — a promise addressed to every one who makes God his trust, — " I will be with him in trouble." But when or where is not God with us 1 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whilher shall I flee from thy presence ? Indeed we well know that every where
THROUGH THE MAKING VOID THE LAW.
265
is rhe universe full of Diety, and that, at no time, and in no place, can we be at a distance from God; and yet, as though in the day of darkness and disas- ter, the Omnipresent could so redouble his presence, that every other day should be, in comparison, one of absence, the promise is, " I will be with him in trou- ble." And the promise is so fulfilled in the experience of the righteous, that they \\i\\ own their sorrows to have been far more than compensated by the consolations afforded in the hour of tribulation, so that it would have been clearly for their loss to have escaped their trials. They are gainers by their troubles — for God removes no good without leaving a greater ; if he takes away an earthly friend, he gives them more of himself. Such we affirm to be the experience of the righteous ; and we are confident that we might appeal to many of our hearers for evidence that we overstate not this experience. There are many of you who can testify to a power in the Bible of which you were not conscious, and to a supporting ener- gy in divine grace, which you scarcely suspected, until your households were invaded by calamity. And if such be the fact, what feeling will be more exci- ted in the righteous, when compelled to own that it is time for God to work, than that of love to the divine law 1 If they see trouble approaching, what will they do but cling with greater earn- estness to that which alone .can sup- port them, and which they know will never fail 1 Will not their affection to God's word be vastly enhanced by the consciousness that they are about to be in circumstances when the promises of that word must be put to the proof, and by the certainty that the putting them to the proof will issue in their thorough fulfilment ? If they have loved the word above gold in the hour of prosperity, they must love it above fine gold, as they mark the gatherings of adversity.
" It is time for thee, Lord, to work." " They have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword ; " and the Judge of men must arise, and vindicate his insulted authority. But I know on whom the mark of deliverance will be set, when the men with the slaugliter- weapons arc commanded to pass through the land. I know that where there is
obedience to thy law, there will be se- curity from thy wrath. And hence that law is more precious in my sight than it ever was before — " it is time for thee to work; therefore I love thy»command- ments above gold ; yea, above fine gold." _
" It is time for thee, Lord, to work," There is much in myself which requires the processes of the refiner, much of the coiTuptible to be removed, much of the dross to be purged away. But if it be needful that I be cast into the furnace of affliction, I have thy precepts to which to cling, thy promises on which to rest. I find that thy word comforts me in the prospect ; I know that it will sustain me in the endurance ; and hence, because it is time for thee to work, therefore is thy word dearer to me " than the gold, yea, than the fine gold.
" It is time for thee. Lord, to work." The season of my pilgrimage draws to a close ; the earthly house of this tabei'- nacle must be taken down ; and the hoar is at hand when thou wilt recall my spir- it, and summon me to the judgment-seat, Great God ! what can be of worth to me in a time such as this 1 What can I value, when every thing earthly is slip- ping from my hold ] Thy commandments — commandments which direct me to be- lieve upon thy Son — thy law, a law so obeyed by the Mediator in my stead, that its every precept acquits me, and its every reward awaits me — these are precious to me, unspeakably more pre- cious than ever before. I know that thy strange work must be wrought on me, the work of dissolution. I know that the time is come, when I must go hence and be no more seen. But I know also that, " till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from thy law." I know that "blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." The nearer, therefore, the approaches of death, the more worthless appears every thing but thy word, O my God ! The gold, and the fine gold, can profit me nothing ; for " it^ is ' time for thee to work," and earth, with all its treasures, must be left. But thy commandments — a commandment that death be swallowed up in victory, a com- mandment that the corruptible put on in- corruption, a commandment that new 34
266
ox THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE.
heavens and a new earth rise as the everlasting^ home of righteousness — these give me gladness as 1 enter the dark val- ley; these I would not barter for the richest and* costliest of earthly things — " it is time for thee, Lord, to work :
therefore I love thy commandmects above gold, yea, above fine gold."
We have nothing to add but an earn- est prayer that we may all be able to say from the heart with David, "Oh, how I love thy law ; it is my meditation all thy day.'
SERMON.
ON THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE.
■ Foi I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto
him against that day." — 2 TiaiOTHr, i. 12.
You will observe, if you consult the context of this passage, that St. Paul is speaking of our Redeemer. In the tenth verse he had made mention of our Sa- vior Jesus Christ, as having ahoUsJied death, and hrouglit life and immortality to light through the Gosjjel. The dis- course is then continuous up to the words which I have just read to you ; so that we are not left in doubt as to the being upon whom St. Paul fastened his faith. It was Christ with whom the apostle had left some great deposit, and of whose ])ower and faithfulness he ex- presses his deep-wrought persuasion. And it will thorelbre be our business, in any inquiries tcj which this passage may lead, to bear carefully in mind tiiat Deity, united with humanity in the Mediator's person, constituted that object of faith which had been proved so trust-worthy by the teacher of the Gentiles.
Now there is an important distinction to be drawn between experience and faith, and which is clearly marked out to us by these words of the apostle. It is certain that a man cannot be saved without faith, but it is just as certain that he may be saved without experience. You must all perceive that if the matter
under review be the power and sufficien- cy of the Savior, there must be faith be- fore there can be experience. AVe can know nothing of Christ, except by rumor and hearsay, until we believe in him. But unquestionably we might believe in him, and then the arrest of death coming upon us at the instant of the outputting of faith, all personal knowledge of him must be referred to another and a high- er state of being. So that it would be accurate to say, that while faith is indis- pensable, experience is not indispensable to salvation. We have taken, however, the extreme case. And though it be certainly supposable that a man might enter into heaven without experience, proj)erly so called, yet it is true, as a general rule, that faith will be followed by experience, and that whosoever be- lieves in Christ will go on to kno?v tchom he hath believed. We may therefore say of experience, that it is a kind of touchstone to which faith should be broutrht. For whilst we would setour- selves most earnestly, and most assid- uously, against the resolving religion in- to a mere thing of frames and of feelings, we arc bound to hold that it is no mat- ter of frigid or heartless speculation, but
ON THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE.
267
that a real christian must have a real sense of the power and preciousness of Christ. We consider that it would be altogether idle to maintain that a man may believe in Christ as a Savior for months or years, and yet have no witness in himself to the energies of that Being towards whom his faith is directed. Faitli is that mighty, though mysterious principle, which attaches a man to Christ. And we may fairly set it down as impos- sible that there should be actual mem- bership between ourselves and the Me- diator, and yet nothing of personal prac- tical acquaintance with his sufficiencies for the office which he fills. He who believes will taste and see that the Lord is gracious; and knowledge being su- peradded to faith, he will be his own tes- timony that the Bible is no cunningly- devised fable ; but that Christ crucified, though unto the Jeics a stiunMing-block, and unto the Greeks foolisJiness, is never- theless the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And we think it worth while to ob- serve, before we quit these introductory remarks, that experience thus corroborat- ing faith, is at the root of that stanchness which poor men will exhibit when plied with the arguments of the sceptic. You will not find that an uneducated believer is more easily overborne than a well- educated, by the doubts and objections of infidelity. If the illiterate man be not so able as the instructed, to expose the hollowness, and to demonstrate the fallacy of the reasoning by which he is assailed, he will be to the full as rigorous in his resistance of the attack, and will be no more shaken from his faith through want of acquaintance with the evidences of Christianity, that if he were equipped with all that armor of proof which has been heaped together by the learned of the earth. And we hold the explanation of the phenomenon to be, that the poor man Icnows whom he hath helievcd. If he can make no appeal to history and to science, and so fetch no witness from the records of the earth and its inhabitants, he can travel into the world which lies within himself; and he gathers from what has been transacted there, and ex- perienced there, a mightier testimony than was ever wrung from external evi- dence. AVhen he began to believe, it may be true that he could give but little account of any ground-work on which he
builded his faith. But as he goes tn be- lieving, his faith may be said to become more and more built upon knowledge ; and there will be wrought in him grad- ually, through his own personal experi- ence of the power and faithfulness of the Savior, something of the persuasion which is expressed by St. Paul, and which will more than supply the place of those ramparts against infidelity which have been thrown up by the labors of the champions of Christianity. And though we have directed our remarks to the case of the poor and the illiterate; we would not have it thought that they are inapplicable to others. It is quite evident that the great apostle himself, than whom there hath never arisen a man better able to demonstrate, on ex- ternal grounds, that Jesus was the Christ, strengthened his faith by his knowledge, and fetched out of his own experience his choicest proof of the fulness which is laid up in the Savior. And thus with ourselves ; whatever our rank in society, and whatever our advantages of educa- tion, we must place ourselves on the same level with the mean and the unin- structed, when searching out the best evidence that Christ can save to the ut- termost ; and there will never be a proof half so rigid, and half so overwhelming, of the ability of the JNIediator to guard the bodies and the souls of his people, as that which we derive from things al- ready done for us, in the warfare which we prosecute against Satan and the world.
We will now pass on, from these ge- neral remarks, to a closer examination of the subject brought before us by our text. We ask you once more to ob- serve, that with St. Paul experience came evidently in to the corroboration of faith; so that the apostle's faith was stronger, and that, too, as a consequence of what he knew of Christ, than when he had first of all started from the ranks of the persecutor. He had gone through affliction aud toil in the service of the Savior, and he felt assured that now the period was not far distant, when he should be called to brave martyrdom in his cause. But in all the trials through which he had passed, there had been administered unto him such abundance of support and cc nsolntion, that foiTner troubles, in place of dislieartening, on- ly nerved him for the endurance of fresh.
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ON THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAIXS BY EXPERIENCE.
He was nothing disquieted at the pros- pect of imprisonment and death. In carving his way through opposition al- ready overcome, he had realized so much of the sustaining might of the Redeem- er, that he could look forward with a noble assurance to a final, and still fiercer combat. If indeed there had been failure in the communications of assistance — if, depending on the promised support, he had gone to the battle, and there met with discomfiture — he might have been conscious of something akin to mistrust and shrinking, when he saw his foes mustering for the last assault. But he hncw whom he had believed ; he had put Christ, as it were, to the proof, and ob- tained nothing but an evidence, every day strengthened, that all the promises in him are yea, and jn him amen, to the glory of God the Father. And now, though he had deposited his all with the Redeemer — though he had gathered, so to speak, his every interest, time and eternity, into one cast, and staked the whole upon the faithfulness of Christ, — he was not disturbed with the lightest apprehension of risk or peril ; but, look- ing composedly on the advancing tide, which, upon human calculations, was to sweep him away, and bury all his hopes in its depths, he could avouch his un- flinching persuasion, that Jesus was able to keep that which he had committed un- to him against that day, when he should he glorified, in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.
Such, we think, is the statement of our text, when taken in the breadth of its meaning. And if we now consider the passage as descriptive simply of what is, or what ought to be, the expe- rience of every believer in Christ, we deduce from it two facts, each of which deserves the best of your attention.
In the first place we ascertain that the believer obtai.n's a knowledge of Christ.
In the second place we determine
THAT THE KNOWLEDGE THUS OBTAINED IS SUCH AS TO GENERATE CONFIDENCE.
We will give ourselves to the exami- nation of these facts in succession, dis- cussing, at the same time, such collateral truths as shall seem presented by the words of the apostle.
In the first place, then, a believer
OBTAINS a knowledge OF ChRIST. Now
we think that it may be both from his
own experience, and from the experi- ence of others, that a christian Icnoio* ivhom he hath believed You may in- deed argue, that so far as the experience of others is concerned, there is no neces- sity that a man should be a believer in Christ in order to his obtaining acquain- tance with Christ. Assuredly any one, whatsoever his own personal sentiments on religion, may give attention to the biography of God-fearing men, and gath- er from the dealings of which they have been the subjects, all the infurmation which they furnish with regard to the character of the Mediator. But we de- ny this proposition, though it may seem too simple to admit of any question. Un- less a man be himself a converted man, he cannot enter into the facts and the feelings which this biography lays open. The whole record will wear to him an air of strangeness and of mystery ; and if he have the candor not to resolve into fanaticism the registered experience, he will be forced to pass it over as tho- I'oughly unintelligible. If a man know nothing of chemistry, and if he take up a treatise upon chemistry, he is at a loss in every page, and can make no way, through want of that acquaintance with the subject which the work presupposes. And if the author be giving something of his own history, and if he carry the reader into his laboratory, and count over to him experiments, and bring out results, why, the man who is no chemist, and who is therefore altogether ignorant of the properties of the substances on which the scientific man works, will un- derstand not, or appreciate not, the dis- coveries which are reached of the se- crets of nature ; but with all the appa- ratus of knowledge spread before him, will remain as ignorant as ever, through the not having mastered the alphabet of chemistry. And what is true of such a science as chemistry, we hold to be equally true of practical Christianity. The experiments, .'f we may so speak, which have been made in the soul of a man of piety and prayer, — experiments of the power of grace and of indwell- ing sin — and the results also which have been derived from such experi- ments ; we would certainly contend that these cannot be understood, and can- not be entered into, unless the individ- ual who peruses the record have some- thing of fellow-feeling with the subject
ON THE STRENGTH -WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE.
269
of the biography — unless, that is, there shall have passed on him that renova- ting change which has brought him out of nominal into real Christianity. After all, the deriving knowledge of Christ from the experience of others must be through an act of faith. It is by belief in testimony, that what has been done for our fellow-men by the Redeemer, is turned into information to ourselves of his sufficiencies for his office. So that it were fair to argue, that a man must have faith, and therefore religious experience for himself, otherwise he possesses not the faculty by which to ex- tract knowledge from the religious ex- perience of others.
But let a man be a believer in Christ, and every day of his life will bring him intelligence, from external testimony, of the worth of the Being on whom he fastens his faith. The witnesses who Btand out and attest the excellence of the Mediator, occupy the whole scale of intelligence, from the Creator down- wards, through every rank of the crea- ture. The man of faith hears the Father himself bearing testimony by a voice from heaven. " This is my beloved Son, tn ichom I am well jilcasedy He hears angels and archangels lauding and mag- nifying Christ's glorious name; for do not the winged hierarchies of heaven bow to him the knee, and that too as the consequence of his work of media- tion ] He hears patriarchs who lived in the infancy of the world ; prophets who took ?ip in succession the mighty strain, and sent it on from century to century; apostles who went out to the battle with idolatry, and counted not their lives dear to them, so that they might plant the cross amid the wilds of superstition ; — he hears all these, with one heart and one voice, witnessing to Jesus, as the Son of the Highest, the Savior of the lost. And he hears, moreover, the mar- tyrs and the confessors of every gene- ration ; the saints who have held fast their allegiance on the rack and in the funiace ; the noble champions who have risen up in the days of a declining church, and shed their blood like water in defence of the purity of doctiine ; he hears the men of whom the world was not vjorthi/, utterintr an unflinchinrr atte«ta.rion to the willingness and abili- ty of Christ to succor those who give themselves to his service. And he hears
finally, a voice fiom the thousands who, in more private stations, have taken Christ as their Lord and their God; who, in dependence on his might, have gone unobtrusively through duty and trial, and then have lain down on the death-bed, and worn a smile amid the decayings of the body, — and this voice bears a witness, stanch and decisive, that He in whom tliey have trusted, has proved himself all-sufficient to deliver. And if we do right in arguing that there is poured in gradually upon a believer this scarcely measurable evidence to the power and faithfulness of Christ, will it not come to pass that he grows every day more acquainted with the ex- cellencies of the Savior; so that, by gathering in from the accumulated stores of the testimony of others, he will be able, with a continually strengthening assurance, to declare, I Tcnow whom I have believed.
If it were possible that this testimony of others should be appreciated and grasped without faith, or without con- version, then it would be certain that a vast way might be made in the know- ledge of Christ, by men whose own ex- perience could furnish no infoi'mation. But, forasmuch as on the grounds al- ready laid down, there must be a pre- pared soil for the reception of these testimonies to Christ, we think it fair to contend that no man can know Christ unless he believe in Christ, even though the knowledge may be fetched from the recorded attestations of every order of intelligence.
It is not, however, so much from what is told him by others, as from what he experiences in himself, that a believer knows whom he hath believed. You will observe that as a result of his acting faith upon Christ, he is engaged in a moral warfare with the world, the flesh and the devil. He goes to the combat in no strength of his own, but simply in the might of his risen Re- deemer. And the question is, whether thus putting to the proof the Savior of men, he obtains an evidence for, or an evidence against, his ability to help and sustain ? And can wc hesitate as to the side on which the testimony turns 1 If a believer is at any time overborne in the conflict; if lust gain the victory, or the world for a while re-assert the sov- ereignty of which it hath been stripped ;
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ox THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAIXS BY EXPERIENCE.
shall it be supposed for a moment that such i-esult may be ascribed to deficien- cy in the assistance which Christ lives to communicate 1 If a christian is over- thi'own, it is because he is surprised off his guard. But is Christ chargeable with his being off his guard 1 It is be- cause he is remiss in prayer, or because he parleys with temptation, or because he avails not himself of the armor pro- vided by God, But is Christ charge- able with his negligence, with his in- decision, with his carelessness in the use of instituted means 1 We may lay it down as an ascertained truth, that Christ never failed a believer in his hour of combat. The believer may be mas- tered ; the enemy may come in like a flood, and there may be no efficient re- sistance opposed to the inrush. But whensoever there is a meeting of the foe in the strength of the Lord, there is a realization of the truth of the prom- ise, Ml/ grace is stiffiA:i-ent for thee. God is Jciithfid, who will not suffer you to he tempted above that ye are ahle. God, so to speak, measures and weighs every trial before he permits it to be allotted. He sets it side by side with the circum- stances and strength of the party upon whom it is to fall. And if he ever per- ceive that the temptation overpasses the capacity of resistance, so that, if thus tempted, an individual would be tempt- ed above that he is able ; then God is represented to us as refusing to permit the appointment, and therefore as watch- ing that believers may never be unavoid- ably brought into such a position that their yielding to evil shall be a matter of necessity, And it certainly must fol- low from these scriptural premises, that the being over-powered can never be charged on a deficiency in succor; and that, though it were idle to plead for the possibility of our attaining perfection, yet the impossibility arises not from God's communicating too little of assis- tance, but solely from our own want of vigilance in appropriating and applying the freely offered aids.
We take it, therefore, as the expe- rience of a believer, that the Captain of Salvation strengthens his followers for the moral conflict to which they are pledged. How often, when Satan has brought all his powers to the assault, and the man has seemed within a hair- breadth of yielding, how often has an
, earnest prayer, thrown like an arrow to the mercy-seat, caused Christ to ap- pear, as he once did to Joshua, the cap- tain of the Lord's host; and the tide of battle has been turned, and the foe has been routed, and the oppressed one de- livered ! How often, when an evil pas- sion has almost goaded the believer into compliance with its dictates, and there seemed no longer any likelihood of its being kept down or ejected, how, by dealing with this passion as dealt the apostles of old with foul spirits which had entered into the body, calling over it the name of the Lord Jesus, — how often, we say, has the passion been cast out, and the possessed man restored quickly to soundness and peace ! How often, in looking forward to duties im- posed on him by his christian profession, has the believer been conscious of a kind of shrinking at the prospect ! It has seemed to him almost hopeless that he should bear up under the pressure of labor; that he should meet faithfully eveiy claim upon his time and attention ; and that he should discharge, with any thincT of becomino: carefulness, the va- rious offices with which he sees himself intrusted. But when he has reflected on himself as simply an instrument in the hands of his Master, and resolved to go on in a single dcjiendence on the helps which are promised through Christ, has not the mountain become literally a plain ; so that duties which, at a distance, seemed altogether overwhelming, have proved, when entered upon, the very reverse of oppressive ! And what shall we assert to be the result of this contin- ual experience of the sufficiencies of Christ, unless it be that the believer knows 7chonihehathheJieved] The stone which God laid in Zion becomes to him, according to the prophetical description, a tried stone. He no longer needs to appeal to the experience of others. He has the ivitncss i)i himself, and he can use the language which the Samaritans used to the woman who first told thera of Christ as the prophet, — Wc have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the xcorld.
There can be nothing clearer than the connection between experience and knowledge. If I meet difficulties in Christ's strength, and master them; if I face enemies in Christ's strength, and
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vanquish them ; if I undertake duties in Christ's strength, and discharge them, — the difficulties, and the enemies, and the duties being such as I could not grap- ple with by my own unassisted might, — then my experience is actually know- ledge ; for experiencing Christ to be faithful and powerful, I certainly know Christ to be faithful and powerful.
We may yet further observe, that knowledge, the produce of experience, is of a broader extent than our foregoing remarks would appear to mark out. The believer in Christ, if indeed he live not so far below his privileges as almost to forfeit the title, must be one who, having felt the burden of sin, has come weary and heavy laden to the Savioi', and ob- tained the removal of the oppression from his conscience ; and will it not therefore hold good, that, through ex- perience, he knows Christ as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ? He must, moreover, be one who, painfully alive to his own utter in- ability to obey God's law for himself, has turned to Jesus in search of a sure- ty, and found, in that unvarying faithful- ness with which he acted out the pre- cepts of the Father, just that procuring cause of acceptance which is required by the fallen ; and will it not therefore be true, that through experience he knows Christ as ifie Lord our RigJiteous- ness ?■ He must, moreover — at least if he have travelled at all beyond the very outset of the life of faith — have been visited with spiritual trials, and perhaps also with temporal ; and he will have carried his sorrows to the Redeemer, as to one who can he toucheA with the feel- ing of our infirmities, and he will have obtained tho oil and the wine of consola- tion ; and will he not therefore, from this his experience, know Christ as that gra- cious being who comforteth them that arc cast down, who hindcth up the hrolcen hearted ? He must yet further be one who, conscious that the world which lieth within himself is overspread with defile- ment, and that he is possessed of no native energy by which to carry purity into the recesses of the heart, has turned to Jesus in order that he might obtain the inworking of a holiness which should fit him for heaven, and has realized the processes of an on-going sanctification ; and does not then his experience cause him to know Christ as made unto his
people xcisdom, and righteousness, and sanc- tification, and redemption ? He must, finally, be one who, feeling himself no creature of a day, but sublimely conscious that immortality throbbed in his veins, has looked fruitlessly on earth for an ob- ject which might fill his soul ; and then fastening upon God manifest in the flesh, has found the enormous void occupied to the overflow, — and hath not then his experience led him to know Christ as formed in his people the hope of glory 1 We might extend this adduc- tion of pai'ticulars ; but we think that what has been already advanced will suffice for our carrying you along with us in the conclusion, that where faith resides, there must be experience ; and that experience, in natural course, pro- duces knowledge, — nay, rather that ex- perience is identical with knowledge ; so that all true believers, who have walked a while in the heaven- ward path, may declare with St. Paul, I know tohom, I have believed.
And we would again press upon your attention the important fact, that as faith, being followed by experience, will issue in knowledge, so the knowledge thus acquired will tell back upon the faith, and throw into it nerve and stability. We are persuaded that, by a wonderful and most merciful arrangement, God hath ordered that experience should gi-ow into such a witness for the truth of Christianity, that scepticism, though brought forward with all that is pointed in argument and splendid in oratory, hath literally no likelihood whatever of success, even when the attack is on a believer who has nothing of human weapon at his disposal. If you sent tho most accomplished of infidels into the cottage of the meanest of our peasants, or into the workshop of the poorest of our artisans, — the peasant, or the artisan, being supposed a true believer in Christ — we should entertain not the slightest apprehension as to the issue of a con- flict between parties apparently so ill- matched ; but on the contrary, should await the result in the most perfect as- surance, that though there might be no taking ofl" the objections of the infidel, there would be no overthrowing the faith of the believer. Scepticism can make no way where there is real Chris- tianity ; all its triumphs are won on the field of nominal Christianity. And it 1$
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a phenomenon which might, at first sight, well draw our amazement, that just where we should look for the least of resistance, and where we should con- clude that, almost as a matter of course, the sophistry of the infidel might enter and carry every thing before it — that there we find a power of withstanding which is perhaps even greater than could be exhibited in a higher and more edu- cated circle — so that the believing me- chanic shall outdo the believing philoso- pher in the vigor with which he repels the insinuations of a sceptic. We are not arguing that the mechanic will make the most way in confuting the sceptic. On the contrary, there will be a vast probability against his being able to ex- pose the fallacy of a solitary objection. But then he will take refuge simply in his experience. He will not, as the- philosopher may do, divide himself be- tween experience and argument. If he have no apparatus at his command with which to meet and dissect, and lay bare, a hollow, but plausible reasoning, he has his own knowledge to which to turn — and then the whole question lies between a theory and a matter-of-fact. His knowledge is matter-of-fact — and argument will always be worthless if it set itself against raalter-of-fact. He knows whom lie hath heUeved. There may be in this knowledge none of the elements of another man's conviction, — but there is to himself the materialof an overpowering assurance. It might be quite impossible to take this knowledge, and make it available as an argument with which to bear down on his infidel assailant. It is a visionary thing to his opponent — but it is a matter-of-fact to himself. And we contend that in this lies the grand secret of a poor man's capability of resisting the advancings of inHdelity. It is no theory with him that Jesus is the Christ. It is no specula- tion that the Gospel offers a remedy for those moral disorders which sin liath fastened on the creature. He has not merely read the Bible — he has felt the Bible. He has not merely heard of the medicine — he has taken the medicine. And now, we again say, when you would argue with him against Chris- tianity, you argue with him against matter-of-fact. You argue against the existence of fire, to a man who has been scorched by the flame j and against the
existence of water, to a man who has been drenched in the depths ; and against the existence of light, to a man who has looked out on the landscape ; and argu ment can make no head when it sets itself against matter-of-fact.
If I had labored under a painful and deadly disease, — and if I had gone to a physician — and if I had received from him a medicine which brought the health back into my limbs — what success would attend the most clever of reasoners who should set himself to prove to me that no such being as this physician had ever existed, or that thei-e was no virtue whatsoever in the draught which had wrought in me with so healing an en- ergy 1 He might argue with a keenness and a shrewdness which left me quite over-matched. There might be an in- genuity in his historic doubts with regard to the existence of the physician ; and there might be an apparent science in his analysis of the medicine, and his ex- posure of its worthlessness ; and I on my part, might be quite unable to meet him on his own ground, to show the fault and the falsehood of his reasoning. But you can never suppose that my in- capacity to refute argument would lead me to the giving up a matter-of-fact. I should just be in the case of the man in the Gospel, to whom Christ had given sight, and whom the Pharisees plied with doubts, derived from the presumed sinfulness of the Savior, in regard to the possibility of the miracle. I should an- swer with this man, only varying the languao^e, so that it might square with the form of objection : Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not ; one thing I know, that ichereas I icas Mind, now I sec. And precisely, in like manner, a believer, with no other resources at his dispo- sal, can throw himself unhesitatingly on his own experience ; and this, ren- dering Christianity to him all matter of fact, makes him proof against the sub- tleties of the most insidious infidelity.
So that we require of you to learn from the subject under review, that God liath woven into true religion all the elements of a successful resistance to cavil and objection, leaving not the very poorest, and the most illiterate of his people open to the inroad of the enemies of Christianity; but causing that there rise up from their own ex- perience such ramparts of strength,
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that if they have no artillery with which to battle at the adversary, there is at least no risk of their own citadel being stormed.
And though we have not time to fol- low out at greater length, the train of thought which this portion of our sub- ject oriixinates, we commend to your attention, as worthy of being most care- fully pondered over, the provision which is made in experience against infideli- ty. We may have been accustomed to regard the evidence of Christianity as lying out of reach of the poor and the illiterate ; and we may have looked \vith a peculiar dread on the descendings of the agents of scepticism to the lower and less equipped ranks of society. And be- yond all question, if you just take the uneducated mass of our population, there is a far greater risk than with the well educated, that the diffusion amongst them of infidel publications will issue in the warping them from the faith of their fathers. There may be something like stamina of resistance in the higher and the middling classes ; for if indifferent to religion, they may be idolaters of reason, and they will therefore require some- thing better than worn-out and flimsy objections before they throw away as false, what has been handed down to them as true. But when infidelity goes down, so to speak, to the inferior and less cultivated soils, there is certainly a fearful probability that it may scatter, unmolested, the seeds of a dark harvest of apostacy ; and that men who have no reason to give why they ai'e even nom- inally christians, will be wrought upon by the most empty and common-place arguments, to put from them Christianity as a scheme of falsehood and priestcraft.
We are thoroughly alive to this dan- ger; and we think it not to be disputed, that the incapacity of the lower classes to meet infidelity on any fair terms, ex- poses them, in a more ordinary degree, to the risk of lieing prevailed on to ex- change nominal religion for no reli'i'ion at all. But tliis, we would have you observe, is the sum total of the risk. We have no fears f jr any thing, except- ing nominal Christianity. And though we count that the giving up even of no- minal Christianity would just be equiv- alent to the overspreading a country witii ferocity and barbarism, there be- ing none of the charities of life in the
train of infidelity — yet we think it a cause of mighty gratulation, that real Christianity has so much of the vis in- ertia) in its nature, that we are quit of all dread of its being borne down even in a wide-spread apostacy. Is it not a beautiful truth, that the well equipped agents of infidelity might go successive- ly to the library of the pious theologian, and the hovel of the pious laborer, and make not one jot moi-e impression on the uninstructed subject of godliness, than on the deep-read master of all the evidences of our faith 1 Oh, we take it for an exquisite proof of the carefulness of God over his people, that the poor cottager, in the midst of his ignorance of all that external witness which we are wont to appeal to as gloriously con- clusive on the claims of Christianity, is not to be overcome by the most subtle or the fiercest assault ; but that whilst men of a higher education will lay em- pires and centuries under a rigid contri- bution, and sweep in auxiliaries from the disclosures of science, and walk with a dominant step the firmament, gather- ing conviction from the rich assem- bling of stars ; this child of poverty, but at the same time of grace, shall throw himself upon himself; and turning ex- perience into evidence, be inaccessible to the best concerted attack ; and make answer, without flinching, to every cavil and every objection, I know wJiom I have believed. His faith, whatsoever it be at first, becomes soon a faith built upon knowledge ; and then, if not skilful enough to show his adversary wrong, he is too much his own witness to give har- borage to a fear that he himself is not right.
But enough on the first fact whicli we proposed to investigate, the fact that a believer obtains a knowledge of Christ. The second fact is almost in- volved in the first, — so that the slight- est reference to truth already made out,, will show you that the knowledge
THUS obtained IS SUCH AS TO GENERATE' CONFIDENCE.
You observe that, in the case of St.. Paul, knowledge was accompanied by a most thorough persuasion, that Christ was able to keep safe the deposit whichi he had given into his guardianship.. We infer, therefi)re, that the kno-wledge,, since it produced this persuasion, must have been knowledge of Christ as pos- 35
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sessing those attributes wliicli insured the security of whatsoever might be in- trusted to his custody. And this is pre- cisely what we have proved to hold good in regard generally to believers. The knowledge which their experience fur- nishes of Christ is knowledge of his power, of his faithfulness, of his love. So far as they have yet made trial of Christ, they can apply to themselves the words of Joshua to Israel, Not one thing hath failed of all the good things ivhich the Lord your God spake concerning you. And certainly, if the result of every ex- periment is a new witness to the joint ability and willingness of the Mediator to succor and preserve his people, you cannot well avoid the conclusion, that knowledge must produce confidence ; in other words, that the more a believer knows of Christ, the more persuaded will he be of his worthiness to be intrust- ed with all the interests of man. If our knowledge of Christ prove to us that, up to the present moment, Christ hath done for us all that he hath promised, it is clear that this knowledge must be a ground-work for confidence, that what remains unfulfilled will be accomplished with an equal fidelity. Already has the believer committed every thing to Christ. Faith — saving faith — whatever other de- finitions may be framed — is best de- scribed as that act of the soul by which the whole man is given over to the guardianship of the iNIediator. He who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two things ; first, his belief that he needs a protector ; secondly, his belief that Cnrist is just that protector which his necessities retiuire. And though you may resolve saving faith into more nu- merous elements, you will find that these two are not only tlic chief, but that they include all others out of which it is con- stituted ; so that he who believes in Christ, gives himself up to the keeping of Christ. And forasmuch as expe- rience proves to him, that heretofore he has been safe in this custody, assuredly the ao(|uired knowledge must go to the working in him a persuasion that here- after he shall be kept in an equal secur- ity.
We thus trace the connection be- tween the knowledge of the first, and the persuasion of the second part of our text. We show you, that a believer will gather from his own experience of |
Christ the material of confidence in Christ's ability to preserve all that 13 committed to his keeping. Experience being his evidence that Christ hath never yet failed him, is also his earnest that the future comes charged with no- thing but the accomjDlishment of prom- ise. And therefore is he confident. Oh, if I deceive not myself, — if I have actually been enabled, through the aid of God's Spirit, to fasten my faith up- on Him who died for me, and rose, and lives to intercede, — why should I not stay myself on this persuasion of St. Paul, that Christ is ahle to keep that lohich I have committed unto him against that day ? Soul and body — the believer commits both to the Mediator. The soul — she must be detached from the tabernacle of flesh, and go forth alone on an unexplored pathway. Who shall tell us the awfulness of being suddenly launched into infinity ? Who shall con- ceive the prodigies of that moment, when, shaking itself free from the tram- mels of the body, the spirit struggles forth, solitary and naked, and must make its way across unknown tracts into the burning presence of an unseen God ? Terrible dissolution ! Who ever saw a fellow-man die without being al- most staggered at the thought of that mighty journey upon which the uncloth- ed soul had just been compelled to enter ? But shall the believer in Chi'ist Jesus be appalled 1 Does he not know Christ as having ransomed the souls of his people, washed them in his blood, and covered them with his righteousness % Has he not found a witness in himself, that precious is his soul in the sight of the Redeemer ] What then ] Shall he be otherwise than persuaded that Christ will watch over the soul at the instant of separation from the body ; and putting forth that authority which has been given liim in heaven and earth, send a legion of bright angels to convey the spirit, and lead it to himself ? Then safe- ly lodged in Paradise, the soul shall await reunion with the body, unspeak- ably, though not yet completely blessed. To all this is Christ Jesus pledged ; and knowing from his own experience that Jesus makes no pledge which he does not redeem, the believer commits his soul to Christ, persuaded that he is able to keep that which he hath committed unto him against that day. The body
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— it must be spoiled of life, and bound up for burial, and left to corruption. It is a mysterious destiny, that of this frame-work of matter. Its atoms may be scattered to the four winds of hea- ven. They may go down to the caverns of the great deep, — they may enter into the construction of other bodies. And certainly, unless there be brought to the agency a power every way infinite, it might well be regarded as an absurd expectation that the dissevered particles should again come together, and that the identical body, with all its organs and all its limbs, which is broken up piecemeal by the blow of death, should be re-formed and re-moulded, the same in every thing, except in the being in- corruptible and imperishable. But the believer knows that there is a distinct and solemn promise of Christ which has respect to the bodies of his people. I will raise him up at the last day, is the repeated assurance in regard to the man who believes upon his name, — so that the Redeemer is as deeply pledged to be the guardian of a believer's dust as of a believer's soul. He ransomed mat- ter as well as spirit ; and descending him- self into the sepulchre, scattered the seeds of a new subsistence, which, ger- minating on the morning of the judg- ment, shall cover the globe with the vast harvest of its buried population. And, therefore, the believer can be confident. Overwhelming in its greatness as the achievement is, it surpasses not the en- ergies of the Agent unto whom it is as- cribed. Christ raised himself — an un- speakably mightier exploit than raising me. Can I not then take share in the persuasion of St. Paul ? Let darkness be woven for my shroud, and the grave be hollowed for my bed, and the worm be given for my companion — with thee, O Christ, I intrust this body. I know whom I have believed. The winds may disperse, the waters may ingulf, and the fires may rarify the atoms which made up this frain* ; hut I know that my Re- deemer liveth, and, though after my ski/i xcorms destroy this body, yet in my fiesh
shall I see God. Thus, body as well as soul, the believer commits himself whol- ly to Christ, — and experience witness- ing to Christ's power and Christ's faith- fulness, he can exclaim with the apostle, / ajn persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. That day — we need not tell the believer what day. His thoughts and his hopes are on the se- cond advent of his Lord ; and though no day has been specified, yet speak of that day, and the allusion is distinctly understood ; the mind springs forward to meet the descending pomp of the Judge, and that august period is anticipated, when, vindicating before the universe the fidelity of his guardianship, Christ shall consign his followers to glory and blessedness ; and, apportioning noble al- lotments to both body and soul, prove that nothing has been lost of that un- measured deposit, which, from Adam downwards to the last elect, has accu- mulated in his keeping.
Oh, that we all had the pei'suasion of St. Paul ! rather — oh, that we all, like the apostle, would resign ourselves to Christ. Able to save to the nttermost. Lord, to whom shall we go ; tliou hast the icords of eternal life. Thou who hast abolished death, upon whom else shall we suspend our immortality 1 Thou who hast spoiled principalities and powers, whom else shall we take as our cham- pion 1 whom else confide in as our pro- tector ? IMay God, by his Spirit, lead you all to the one Mediator between God and men, — the man Christ Jesus : and may we all be enabled so completely to resign ourselves into the hands of Christ, that we may look forward without dread to the hour of our departure ; assured that tliose black and cold waters which roll in upon the dying shall sweep noth- ing away out of the watchfulness of our guardian ; but just bearing us within the sphere of his peculiar insjiections, give us up to his care as children of the re- surrection,— as heirs of that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled.
SERMON I .
JACOB'S VISION AND VOW.
"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the aujels of God ascendiug and descending on it '' — Genesis xxviii : 12.
It is the registered saying of a man, eminent alike for talent and piety, that he had never found such strong argu- ments against the Bible, in the writings of infidels, as had suggested them- selves to his own mind. We are inclined to suppose that this individual expressed what many have experienced. We can readily believe that doubts and difficul- ties will occasionally be presented to those who read the sacred volume as the word of God, which never meet the sceptical, Avho read only that they may object. There would be nothing to sur- prise us, if such could be proved gene- rally the fact. Where there is a spir- itual perception, apparent inconsisten- cies Avith the divine character will be m.ore readily detected, than where there is a decided aversion to all that is holy. It should moreover be remembeied, that Satan has a great deal to do with the injecting sceptical thoughts into the mind : and we may fairly expect that he will so proportion his attack to its subject, as to suggest the strongest ar- guments where there is most to over- come. The man who is studying the Bible with the express design of prov- ing it a forgery, will have little assist- ance, as it were, from Satan, in prose- cuting the attempt : he already disbe- lieves the Bible, and this is enough for our great adversary, the devil. But the man, on the contrary, who is studying the Bible as an inspired book, will be continually beset, and vehemently as- saulted, by Satan. There is here a great object to be gained, the shaking his con- fidence in the divine origin of Scripture ; and it may, therefore, well be expected that the devil will exert all his ingenuity
in devising, and all his earnestness in suggesting objections.
We do not intend to follow out the train of thought thus opened before you. AVe have made these remarlvs as intro- ductory to one which you may have of- ten made for yourselves, namely, that sceptics, as though blinded and bewilder- ed, frequently adduce, as arguments against the Bible, what are really argu- ments in its favor. For example, how constantly and eagerly are the faults and crimes of the Old Testament saints brought forward, and commented on ! In how triumphant a tone is the ques- tion proposed, Could these have been men " after God's own heart 1 " Yet certainly it does not need much acute- ness to discover, that the recording these faults and crimes is an evidence of the truth of Holy Writ. A mere human biographer, anxious to pass off his hero as specially in favor with God, would not have ascribed to him actions which a righteous God must both disapprove and punish. Every writer of common discernment must have foreseen the ob- jections which such ascriptions would excite. If, therefore, he had been only inventing a tale, he would have avoided what was almost sure to bring discredit on the narrative. So that there is a manifestation of honesty ip the register given of the sins of such men as Abra- ham, and Jacob, and David, which should make sceptics pause, ere they seize on that register as an argument against Scripture.
Besides, had holy men of old been ex- hibited as faultless, there would have been much to make us doubt whether the history were faithful, and much to
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iliscourage us in our strivings after righteousness. There has been but one perfect character amongst men, the Lord Jesus Christ; and of him is noth- ing recorded which goes not to the prov- ing that he was "holy, harmless, unde- filed, and separate from sinners." All others have done much which ought not to have been done, and left undone much which ought to have been done. And though we take no pleasure in the faults of others, we may yet declare it satisfac- tory to know that those who have enter- ed heaven, were not jierfect in their day and generation ; that, like ourselves, they were " compassed with infirmities," often assaulted, and often overcome by temptation.
But there is yet more to be said in regard to the registered sins of men who were distinguished by the favor of God. The infidel would have something like a fair ground of objection, if he could prove ihat sins were allowed to be com- mitted w^ith impunity. If, for example, he could show that David was visited with no chastisement for the heinous sins of murder and adultery, it would not be without reason that he impugned the sacred narrative as at variance with the known principles of God's moral govern- ment. But if, after the perpetration of these crimes, the days of the king of Israel were days, according to the scrip- tural representations, of unvaried trouble and distress, it cannot be said that the Climes entailed no punishment, and tliat therefore the history is opposed to what we know of God's i-etributive dealings. Thus again, in reference to the ti-ansac- tions with which our text stands associat- ed. It is impossible to justify Rebekah and .Jacob in the deceit which they practised upon Isaac, that they might divert from Esau the blessing of the first- born. Jacob, as you will remember, prompted by his mother Rebekah, dis- guised himself in the raiment of his el- der brother Esau, and thus imposed on his father Isaac, whose eyes were dim with age. The infidel urges rightly, that there was great wickedness in this ; but he argues wrongly, that, since Jacob succeeded in his fraud, God is represent- ed as sanctioning villany. The whole history, on the contrary, is full of witness of God's retributive justice. Isaac had sinned greatly in designing to give Esau the blessinir of the first-born : he knew
that God had promised it to Jacob, and he was therefore attempting to set aside the Divine j^urpose and decree. And God not only frustrated the attempt, but in such manner as signally to punish the patriarch. Isaac is deceived by his own wife and son, and thus chastised with a chastisement which must have been specially grievous. Rebekah, too, and Jacob, they both greatly oflended by using an unlawful mode of preventing an unlawful design. But if both offend- ed, both were punished. Jacob was the favorite son of Rebekah ; and it may have been a mother's fondness which moved her to secure for him ; at all haz- ards, the blessing. But if she thought that the success of her plan would in- crease her happiness, she was greatly disappointed. The immediate conse- quence of her success was, that Jacob had to flee from his father's house, and become a sojourner in a strange land. And he returned not, as it would seem, to his home, until his mother was dead ; so that Rebekah saw not again the son of her affections. He were a strange calculator, who should say that the mother went unpunished for her sin, when, as its direct consequence, her child was torn from her embrace, and not restored to it on this side the grave. And as to Jacob, he indeed gained the blessing; and since that blessing had been promised him by God, he would have equally gained it had he left God to secure the fulfilment of his own word. But he was impatient and fearful ; he used fraud where he should have ex- ercised faith ; and, therefore, though the blessing was obtained, it brought with it sorrow and affliction. The present advantage was wholly on the side of Esau. Esau remained in his father's house, in the undisturbed enjoyment of its comfort and abundance. But Jacob is a wanderer : we find him, as describ- ed in the chapter fi-om wliich our text is taken, an outcast and a fugitive, with no couch but the ground, and no pillow but the stones. Yea, and in his after life, how signally did the even-handed justice of the Almighty return to him the anguish which lie had caused to others. Deceived by Laban, who gave him Leah, in place of Rachel, on whom his afliections were set, he was partially requited for imposing upon Isaac. But this was little ; the recompense came
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not yet up to the offence. His own children deceive him, as he had deceived his father, and cheat him into a behef that Joseph is dead. And he must moui'Ti for Joseph, even as Rebekah had mourned for himself, and be separated from him through many weary years. Let any one read attentively the history of Jacob, and observe how family trou- bles and sorrows continually harassed him ; and he will not, we think, contend that the patriarch went unpunished for the fraud which he had practised on Isaac.
We are now, however, specially con- cerned with what happened to Jacob, as he fled from the face of his brother Esau : we wave, therefore, further re- ference to other portions of his history. We have already said, that, in the chap- ter before us, we find him a wanderer, hurrying, in fear of his life, to his mo- ther's kinsman in Haran. But though Jacob had sinned, and was now under- going the punishment of his sin, God would not abandon him, nor leave him without some encouraging manifestation. Jacob was to be the depositary of the promises of God, and through him was the line of the Messiah to be continued. It had been declared to Abraham, that in his seed, which was Isaac, should all nations be blessed ; and of the two sons of Isaac, God chose the younger to be the ancestor of Chiist. And now, when Jacob might be almost tempted to think that there was no worth in the blessing, or that, because gained by fraud, it was not ratified in heaven, God is graciously pleased to vouchsafe him a vision, and thus to keep him from despair whilst suffering just punishment. The vision gi'eatly cheered the wanderer; and, \vhilst it filled him with apprehensi(tns of the majesty of God, excited in him feelings of gratitude and devotedness. He accordingly vowed a vow, strongly indicative, as we think, of a lowly and thankful spirit, though many have en- deavored to prove from it that the pa- triarch's religion was but selfish and time-serving. " If God will be with me, and will keep me in the way tliat I go, and will give me bread to eat, and rai- ment to ])ut on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." It is our wish, on the present occasion, to consider, with due attention, both the vision and
the vow. The vow must be regarded as marking the effect which the vision had produced on the mind of the pa- triarch, and therefore ought not to be ex- cluded from our subject-matter of dis- course : so that we have to engage you with examining, in the first place, the vision with which Jacob was favored, when on his way to Padanaram ; and in the second jdace, the vow through which he expressed the consequent feelings and workings of his mind.
Now the vision is related in our text, and the three following verses. A lad- der is beheld, j^lanted on the earth, but reaching up to heaven. Above this lad- der the Loi'd is seen to stand, and he addresses Jacob in most encouraging words. He declares that the land on which he lay, a fugitive and an exile, should yet be given to himself and his posterity, and that his children should be multiplied as the dust of the earth. The promise made to Abraham is then solemnly renewed : " In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Jacob is thus assured that he had indeed obtained the blessing of the fii'st-born, and that from his loins was to spring the great Deliverer of hu- mankind. Thei-e are added general de- clarations that he should be under the guardianship of God in his absence from his home ; and then the vision is at an end, and Jacob awakes, and ex- presses a kind of awful conviction that the Lord was in that place, and he knew it not.
Now our great object is to ascertain the intent of the vision : for we may be sure that the ladder, which thus i-each- ed from earth to heaven, and along which ascended and descended the an- gels of God, was emblematic of some truth with which it was important that Jacob should be acquainted. We are all aware, that, under the patriarchal dispensation, lessons of the greatest mo- ment were given through significant re- presentations. We may suppose that the Spirit of God instructed those favor- ed with this mystical revelation, so that they were enabled to detect the mean- ing symbolically conveyed. It was not consistent with tlie ])lan of God's deal- ings with this earth, that clear and un- disguised notices should be given of re- demption, whilst the time of the Re- deemer's appearance was yet far re-
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moved. But neither would it have con- sisted with the divine mercy, that the patriarchs should have been left wholly ignorant of the deliverance to be wrought out in the fulness of time, or with no in- formation but that derived from early tradition. And in order to answer both these ends, the keeping the plan conceal- ed, and yet the making its nature suffi- ciently known, God was pleased to vouchsafe visions, and command typical actions, by and through which, as we have reason to believe, he communicated to his saints such portions of truth as it most concerned them to know. There seems no reason to doubt, that Abra- ham's offering up his son was a significa- tive transaction, appointed and employ- ed by God to teach the father of the faithful how the world would be redeem- ed. It is probable also that Jacob's wrestling with an angel, on the night which preceded his meeting with Esau, was an instance of information by action, the patriarch being hereby taught gene- rally what j^revalence earnest prayer has with God, and assured moreover of the happy issue of the dreaded interview of the morrow. We think it fair to sup- pose, that, in like manner, the vision granted to Jacob, as he fled from his home, was designed to represent some great spiritual truth, and was itself a revelation of some portion of the pur- poses of God. If nothing had been in- tended beyond the assuring Jacob of divine favor and protection, the ladder, with its attendant circumstances, seems unnecessarily introduced ; for the words, spoken by God, would have sufficed to console and animate the wanderer. It is, therefore, in strict conformity with the general character of the patriarchal dispensation, and in accordance with the peculiar circumstances of Jacob, that we should suppose the vision it- self emblematical, so that, over and above the encouraging things which were said, there was a great truth taught by that which was seen. Hence the question now is, as to the meaning of the vision itself, as to the truths repre- sented by the mystical ladder.
It has often been affirmed, that no- thing more was designed than the in- forming Jacob of the ever-watchful pro- vidence of the Almighty. We are not prepared to deny that the image of a ladder, reaching from earth to heaven,
God himself appearing at its top, and angels passing up and down in rapid succession, may be accommodated to the workings of Divine providence ; in- asmuch as a constant communication is thus represented as kept up between this globe and higher places in creation, and God is exhibited as carrying on, through the instrumentality of angels, unwearied intercourse with the human population. And yet, at the same time, we feel that the figure, if this be its im- port, scarcely seems distinguished by the aptness and force which are al- ways characteristic of scriptural imagery- The ladder appears to mark an appoint- ed channel of communication : it can hardly be said to mark that universal in- spection of the affairs of this earth, and that universal care of its inhabitants, which we are accustomed to understand by the providence of God. Besides, as we have already intimated, if the vision taught nothing but that Jacob was the object of divine watchfulness and pro- tection, it did not add to the declara- tions with which it was accompanied ; and the patriarch could gather no truth from what he saw, which ho might not have equally gathered from what he heard. And this, to say the least, is not usual in God's recorded dealings with his people : certainly, every part of these dealings is generally significative, and none can be shown to have been super- fluous.
We seem bound, therefore, to apply the vision to other truths besides that of the providence of God. And when you observe, that one great object of the celestial manifestation was the re- newing with Jacob the promise made to Abraham and Isaac, you will be quite prepared to expect in the vision a revela- tion of the Messiah himself. Jacob had just secured the distinction of being the progenitor of Christ ; and God is about to assure him, in the words of the origi- nal covenant with his fathers, that in his seed should all nations be blessed. How natural then that some intelligence should be communicated in regard of the Christ, so that, whilst the patriarch knew himself the depositary of that grand promise in which the whole world had interest, he might also know, so far as consisted with an introductory dis- pensation, what the blessings were which the promise insured. It must be
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fair to suppose that what Jacob saw had an inthnate connection with what he heard, and that the vision was intended, either to illustrate, or be illustrated by, the subsequent discourse. But there is nothing in the discourse, except that promise which had reference to Christ, on which it can be said that obscurity rests. The other parts have to do with that guardianship, of wliich Jacob should be the object, and with the greatness of that nation, of which he should be .he ancestor. Hence the likelihood, if we may not use a stronger expression, is considerable, that the vision should be associated with the promise of the Christ ; and that, as the one assured Jacob that the Mediator should arise from his line, the other emblematically informed him of this Mediator's person and work.
We would add to this, that our Sa- vior, in his conversation with Nathanael, used language which seems undoubtedly to refer to the mystic ladder on which the patriaixh gazed. " Verily, verily, I say unto you. Hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God as- cending and descending upon the Son of Man." Here the Redeemer appears to identify himself, as the Son of Man, with the ladder : the angels are to as- cend and descend on the one, even as they did on the other. We may find occasion, in the sequel, to recur to this saying of Christ, and to examine it more at length. At present, we simply ad- duce it as corroborating the opinion, that the ladder represented the Media- tor ; and that, as Abraham had been symbolically taught that the world should be redeemed through the sacrifice of a substitute, so was Jacob now symbolical- ly instructed in regard of that substitute's nature and dignity.
But, of course, the great point re- mains yet to be examined, namely, whether the vision in question furnished an accurate representation of the promis- ed deliverer. And here we affirm at once, that, if the ladder seen by Jacob be regarded as a type of the Mediator, there is an appositeness in the figure which must commend itself to all think- ing minds. Cut off by apostacy from all intercourse with what is yet glorious and undefiled in the universe, the hu- man race lies naturally in wretchedness and loneliness ; and, though it may cast
eager looks at the bright heaven which is above, has no means of holding com- munion with the tenants, or gaining ad- mission to the gladness, of domains which may be privileged with special manifes- tations of Deity. Who of all our fallen line, is possessed of a power, or can frame an engine, through which he may ascend from a planet which labors be- neath the provoked curse of God, and climb the battlements of the sky, and achieve entrance into the city, into which is to enter nothing that defileth ? Who is there, if the Almighty had dealt with this world according to its ini- quities, and left it in the ruin threaten- ed to transgression, that could have so found out God by the might of his rea- son, and so propitiated him by the might of his virtue ; as to have renewed the broken friendship between the human and the divine, and opened a clear way for the passage of the earthly to the heavenly 1 All of you, if believers in revelation, know and admit that the direct consequence of our forefather's sin was the suspension of all intercourse, except that carried on through the min- istry of vengeance, between God and man. Up to the moment of rebellion there had been free communion : earth and heaven seemed connected by a path which the very Deity loved to traverse ; for he came down to the garden where our first parents dwelt, and held with them most intimate converse. But, in rebelling, man broke up, as it were, this path, lendering it impracticable that any should escape from the heritage on which evil had gained footing, and mount to bright lands where all was yet pure. And we know of no more striking and accurate representation of the condition of our race, in its alienation from God, than that which should picture the earth as suddenly deprived of every channel of communication with other sections of the universe, so that it must wander on in appalling solitariness, a prison- house from which nothing human could soar, and which nothing divine could visit. Ay, this was the earth, so soon as Satan had seduced man from alle- giance ; a lonely thing, which had snap pcd every link which bound it to what was holy and happy in creation : and, as it bore along the lost children of Adam, they miglit have gazed wistfully ; on lands just visible in the fiiinament
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and which they knew to be radiant with the presence of their Maker : but where was the way across the vast expanse, where the mechanism by wliich tiiey might scale the inaccessible heights ?
And undoubtedly, if it be a just re- presentation of our race, in its fallen estate, that it is cut off from all inter- course with God, and all access to hea- ven, it must be a just representation of the Mediator, that he is the channel through which the lost communion may be renewed, the way through which the lost paradise may be re-entered. The world has not been left in its soli- tariness : for God " hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son ;" and through him we have " access to the Father." We are not forced to remain in our exile and wretchedness : for Christ hath declared, " By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." Yea, we can now thank the "Lord of heaven and earth," that the broken links have been repaired, so that the severed parts of creation may be again bound into one household ; that a high- way has been thrown up, along which the weary and heavy-laden may pass to that rest which remaineth for the peo- ple of God. But it is only telling you truths, with which we may hope that the very youngest are acquainted, to tell you that it is Christ alone by whom all this has been efl'ected*, Christ alone through whom we can approach God, Christ alone through whom we can en- ter the kingdom of heaven. And what then more accurate than a delineation, which should represent the Mediator under "the imajre of a ladder, based on earth, but reaching to heaven, and thus affording a medium of communication between God and man 1 Oh, as Jacob lay upon the ground, an exile from his father's house, and without a friend or companion, he was not an inappropri- ate figure of the human race, forced away by sin from the presence of their Maker, and with no associates to aid by tlieir counsel, and cheer by their sympathy. And when, in visions of the night, there rose before the patriarch the appearance as of a ladder, planted on the earth, but its top resting on the firmament, then, may we affirm, was there given to the wanderer the strongest assurance, that God would yet provide means for rais-
ing the ruined from degradation, and gathering into his own dwelling-place the banished and fallen. When, more- ovei', this expressive emblem of renewed intercourse between earth and heaven was accompanied by the voice of the liv- ing God, making mention of the deliverer in whom the world should be blessed, then might it be declared that the re- velation was complete, and that through the mystic ladder was the Gospel preach- ed to Jacob ; for in this figure he could read that the seed of the woman would be the Mediator between God and man, " the repairer of the breach, the I'estorer of paths to dwell in," and who, as " the way, the truth, and the life," would " open the kingdom of heaven to all be- lievers. '
But it is necessary that we go some- what more into particulars : hitherto we have only spoken of Christ in his me- diatorial office, without referring to the mysteries of his person. The emblem, however, of the ladder is accurate in re- gard of the person, as well as the work, of the Redeemer. As the ladder stretch- ed into the heavens, and the very Deity occupied its summit, so Christ, in his divine nature, penetrated immensity, and was one with the Father. And as the ladder, though its top was on tho sky, was set upon the earth, so Christ, though essentially God, took upon him flesh, and was " found in fashion as a man." The ladder would be useless, if it rested not on the ground, or if it reach- ed not to the sky : and thus, had not Christ been both earthly and heavenly, both human and divine, he could not have been the Mediator, through whom the sinful may approach, and be recon- ciled to their Maker. As God appeared standing above the ladder, looking down with complacency on his servant, and addressing him in gracious and en- couraging words, so it is only in and through Christ that the Father beholds us with favor, and speaks to us the lan- guage of forgiveness and friendship. In respect, moreover, of the angels, who were seen ascending and descending on the ladder, we cahnot doubt that these celestial beings, though they now attend us as ministering spirits, would have held no communicatir)!! with our race, had it remained unredeemed. We know that God is spoken of by St. Paid, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, as " gather- 3G
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inff tog'etber in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him;" and again, in his Epistle to the Colossians, as " by him reconciling all things to himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." And it is evidently the drift of such expressions, that, by and through the mediation of Christ, the fellowship of the human race with other orders of being was to be restored, and men and angels were to be brought into associa- tion. Indeed we know ourselves in- debted to the Mediator for every bless- ing : if, therefore, we regard angels as " the ministers of God which do his pleasure," and through whose instru- mentality he carries on designs, whether of Pi'ovidence or of grace, we must feel sure that we owe it exclusively to Christ, that these glorious creatures are busied with promoting our welfare. And if then the continued descent and ascent of the angels mark, as we suppose it must, their coming down on commis- sions in which men have interest, and their returning to receive fresh instruc- tions, there is peculiar fitness in the representation of their ascending and descending by a ladder which is figura- tive of Christ : it is a direct result of Christ's mediation, that angels are sent forth as " ministering spirits, to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," and if then a ladder, reaching from earth to heaven, be a just emblem of the Savior, it is in the nicest keeping with this em- blem, that, up and down the ladder, should be rapidly passing the cherubim and the seraphim.
We would further observe that some wiiters appear anxious to prove, that the appearance, which the patriarch saw, was not precisely that of a ladder, but probably that of a pyramid, or pillar. There is a want of dignity, they think, in the image of a ladder, and they would therefore substitute a more imposing. But though many of the same truths might be taught, if there were the sup- posed change in the emblem, we are no ways affected by the homeliness of the figure, but think, on the contrary, that it adds to its fitness. It was the declaration of prophecy in i-egard to tlie Christ, " He hath no form nor comeli- ness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." And, therefore, if he is to be delineated
as connecting earth and heaven, we should expect the image to be that of a ladder, a common instrument with no- thing of the grand and attractive, rather than of a splendid tower, such as that of Babel, which men themselves would de light to rear, and, when reared, to admire. Besides, however we would avoid the straining a type, we own that the repre- sentation of Christ, under the figure of a ladder, appears to us to include the most exact references to the appointed mode of salvation. How do I look to be saved 1 by clinging to Christ. How do I expect to ascend up to heaven 1 by mounting, step by step, the whole height of Christ's work, so that he is made un- to me of God, " wisdom, and righteous- ness, and sanctification, and redemp- tion. " It is no easy thing, the gaining eternal life through the finished work of the Mediator. It is a vast deal more than the sitting with the prophet in his car of fire, and being borne aloft, with- out effort, to an incorruptible inher- itance. " The kingdom of heaven suf- fereth violence, and the violent take it by force." There must be, if we may thus express it, a holding fast to Christ, and a climbing up by Christ ; to look back is to grow dizzy, to let go is to perish. And that we are to mount by the Mediator, and, all the while, to keep hold on the Mediator ; that we are, in short, to ascend by successive stages, stretching the "hand to one line after an- other in the work of the lledeemer, and planting the foot on one step after an- other in the covenant made with us in Christ — what can more aptly exhibit this, than the exhibiting Christ as a lad- der, set upon the earth that men may scale the heavens 1 The necessity for our own striving, and yet the useless- ness of that striving if not exerted in the right maimer; the impossibility of our entering heaven except through Chiist, and the equal impossibility of our entering it, without effort and toil ; the fearful ]ieril of our relaxing, for an in- stant, our spiritual vigilance and ean est- ness, seeing that we hang, as it were, between earth and heaven, and may be thrown, by a moment's carelessness, headlong to the ground ; the complete- ness and singleness of the salvation which is in Jesus, so that, if we adhere to it, it is sufficient, but there are no modes which meet in it, or branch off
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from it — swerve a single inch, and you have no footing, but must be hopelessly precipitated ; all these particulars seem indicated under the imagery of a ladder, and could not perhaps have been equal- ly marked, had some other emblem been given of the connecting of earth and heaven by the Mediator, Christ. And now, as I stand upon the earth, the child of a fallen and yet redeemed race, and examine how I may escape the heritage of shame which is naturally my portion, and soar to that sky which woos me by its brightness, oh, I read of " entering into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," and of" laying hold upon the hope set before us," and of " following on to know the Lord," and of being " raised up, and being made to sit to- gether in heavenly places in Christ," — expressions which prove to me, that, if I would reach heaven, it must be through fastening myself to the Mediator, and yet straining every nerve to leave the world behind ; leaning incessantly upon Christ, and yet laboring to diminish, by successive steps, my distance from God ; being always " found in Christ," and yet " led by the Spirit," so as to be always on the advance. But when I consider these scriptural combinations of believing and working, trusting in another and laboring for one's self, always having hold on Christ, and always mounting to greater nearness to God, always supported by the same suretyship and always pressing upward to the same point, I seem to have before me the exact picture of a man, who, with a steady eye and a firm foot, and a stanch hand, climbs by a ladder some mighty precipice : he could make no way, whatever his strivings, without the ladder, and the ladder is utterly useless without his own strivings. May we not, therefore, contend, that, through the vision vouchsafed to the pa- triarch Jacob, God not only revealed the person and work of the Mediator, but gave information, and that too in no very equivocal shape, how the workinor out salvation will be combined with the being saved " freely through the re- demption that is in Christ," whenever any of the children of men are raised from earth and elevated to heaven 1
But it will be right that, before leav- ing this portion of our subject, we re- cur to our Loid's speech to Nathanael, which has already been quoted. It is
easy to decide that Christ designed a reference to Jacob's vision, but not to determine the precise meaning of his words. " Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man," The words are prophetic, but there is nothing to inform us what time may be intended by " hereafter." We cannot, however, but think, that however inge- nious may be the interpretations which authors have advanced, nothing has yet happened which quite fulfils the prophe- cy.* We doubt whether there were any occurrences, during Christ's residence on earth, which could be said to bring to pass the visible opening of heaven, and the ascent and descent of angels on the Mediator. Christ had not indeed wrought miracles, when he held his in- terview with Nathanael; and he may have referred to the demonstrations of almightiness, which he was about to put forth, and which would as much prove his divine majesty, as though he were surrounded with troops of angels. But it can hardly be said that such an explan- ation as this is commensurate with the passage. We know not what to call far-fetched, if we may not so designate the statement, that those who saw Christ work miracles, saw heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descend- ing on the Savior. We may add that there were circumstances attending the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, which may be considered as having partially accomplished the words under review. Angels appeared in con- nection with these several events, and the firmament was at length opened to receive the ascending conqueror. But here we must again say, that the inter- pretation comes manifestly so far short of the scope of the passage, that nothing but inability to find another meaning can make us content with one so contracted. For our own part, then, we cannot but believe that the prophecy has not yet received its full accomplishment. We I'efer it onward to times, of which indeed our apprehensions are indistinct, but not on that account less animating. We have abundant reason for believing that days are to break on this ci-eation, such as have never yet visited it since man rebelled affainst his Maker. We read
* See King's Morsels of Criticism.
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of "new heavens and a new earth," as though the whole material system were to be splendidly renovated, and of the creature itself also being " delivered from the bondage of corruption," as though animate and inanimate were to reach one general jubilee. And when there shall have been effected this mag- nificent rebuilding of all that has been shattered, this hanging with new majes- ty, and enamelling with fresh beauty, the creation wherein we dwell ; and when, in its every department, our globe shall be tenanted by "a holy priesthood, a peculiar people ; " then, for any thing we can tell, may such intercourse be opened between the earth and other sec- tions of the universe, as shall give an ampler meaning than has yet been im- agined to the vision of Jacob, and the words of Christ. It is a fine saying of the Psalmist, " God setteth the solitary in families." And it may be one of the verifications of this saying, that worlds which have hitherto moved, each in its own orbit, each left in its solitariness, shall have channels of communication the one with the other, so that one mighty family shall be formed of orders of being which have never yet been brought into visible association. We cannot pretend to speak with any cer- tainty of events and times, of which we have only obscure intimations. But at least, unable as we are to apply the words under review to any thing that has already occurred, we may lawfully connect them with what is yet future, and, by associating them with other predictions, gain and give additional il- lustration. And by following this plan in the present instance, we seem war- ranted in stating the high probability, that, in glorious days when Christ's king- dom will be visibly reared on the wreck of human sovereignty, there will be open and brilliant intercourse between dwellers on this earth and higher ranks of intelligence. Then may it come to pass that Jacob's ladder will be shown to have represented the bringing into blessed communion all the ends of crea- tion ; and then may the Mediator, in some manner unimaginable now, appear as the channel through whicli commun- ion is maintained. Ay, and then, in some stupendous unveiling of the secrets of the universe, and in some sublime manifestation of himself as the connect-
ing link between all departments of tha unlimited household, may Christ explain, and make good, the yet mysterious say- ing, "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
But we turn now from the vision to the vow of Jacob; from the considering what the patriarch saw and heard, to the examining the effect thereby wrought upon his mind. We have no intention of entering at length into all that is re- lated of the conduct of Jacob, when he awaked out of sleep. We wish to con- fine ourselves strictly to his vow ; for it is against this that objections have been urged by infidel writers. Jacob sets up for a pillar the stone which had served him as a pillow ; and, having poured oil upon it, so as to dedicate it to God, vows a vow — "if God will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and rai- ment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Loi-d be my God." He adds — but it is not necessary that we touch on this — that the erected stone should be the house of the Lord, and that, of all which God gave him, he would consecrate the tenth.
Now it is urged that there is some- thing veiy mercenary and selfish in this ; Jacob is represented as making a kind of bargain with God, so that he will serve him only on condition of a recom- pense. If my bodily wants be all sup- plied, the Lord shall be my God ; as much as to say, if I am left in destitution, 1 will abandon all religion. We hold it exceedingly unfair and disingenuous thus to wrest Jacob's vow. We are sure that no candid mind can put on it the inter- pretation that Jacob was a time-sei'ver, careful of religion only so far as it seem- ed likely to promote his temporal inter- ests. On the contiary, we are persuad- ed, that, if you consider the vow without prejudice, you will find it expressive of great humility and gratitude. God had just entered into covenant with Jacob, engaging to bestow privileges which would make him conspicuous amongst men. God had just told him, that the land on which he lay should become the inheritance of himself and his children; and, as though this were little, that in him, and in his seed, should all families of the earth be blessed. Jacob was thus assured
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that he should be the father of a j^reat nation, yea, and that from him should descend the Benefactor and Redeemer of mankind. Tliese were splendid prom- ises ; we could scarcely have marvelled, had the patriarch, on awaking from his sleep, manifested great elation of mind at the dignities to which he was appoint- ed. Knowing how difficult it is to bear greatness meekly, we could not have wondered had he vowed as his vov\', If indeed God will accomplish his word, and bestow on me the things of which he has spoken, I will take him as my God, and serve him faithfully all the days of my life. And had this been Jacob's vow, there might have been color for the opinion, that the patriarch was merce- nary in his religion. Had he made his serving God contingent on his obtaining what would render him mighty and il- lustrious, it would have been with some show of fairness that men accused his piety of being sordid and selfish. But when, in place of speaking of lordship over the land of Canaan, and of being the ancestor of Messiah, he simply asks for bread to eat, and raiment to put on, the bare necessaries of life, with none of its superfluities ; those we think, must be resolved to find fault, who can see in Jacob's conduct the indications of a re- ligion which looked at nothing but re- compense. The only just interpretation which can be put upon his vow, appears to us tlie following : Jacob is quite over- powered by the manifestations of God's Ikvor, which had just been vouchsafed, and sinks under the sense of his own ut- ter unvvorthiness. Who is he, a wan- derer on account of his sin, that the Al- mighty should enter into covenant with him, and promise him whatever was most noble in human allotment 1 Oh, he seems to say, it was not needful that promises such as these should have been made, in order to my feeling bound to the service of God. 1 am not worthy of the least of all his mercies ; and I required not, as I deserved not, the being signal- led out from other men, to make me strong in my resolve of obedience. If he will but grant me the commonest food, and the simplest clothing, I shall be satisfied ; it will be more than I have a right to ask, and will bind me to him as my maker and benefactor. He has indeed promised to restore me safely to my father's house, so that I shall not
perish in the exile which my offence has procured ; and if he do this, and thus make good his word, I shall account as nothing the having to struggle with hardship and want ; there will be given me a clear token that I am under the protection of an ever-vigilant guardian, and whom but this guardian shall I take for my God 1
We have no hesitation in stating that such seems fairly the import of Jacob's vow. Jacob is not, so to speak, bargain- ing with God : he is only overcome by tiie dis})lay of Divine goodness, and abashed by the consciousness how little it was deserved. Can the vow be called mercenary, when he only asked a bare subsistence, though the promise had in- cluded territory and dominion ] Jacob, after all, merely asked life ; and he ask- ed it merely that he might devote it to God. Does this savor of the spirit of a hireling 1 Can this be declared indica- tive of a resolution to treat religion as a mere matter of profit and loss, and to cultivate piety no further than God would give him riches in exchanged We are persuaded that you cannot thus characterize the vow of the patriarch AVe stated, indeed, at tlie commencement of our discourse, that we had right to expect that the faults of saints would be recorded ; if, therefore, the vow of Jacob were what it has been maliciously repre- sented, we should have only to lament another proof of the frailty of the best, and to point out another evidence of the honesty of the historian. But we are not to allow the faults to be exaggerated. When holy men transgressed, and yield- ed to temptation, it is not for the interest of truth that we should defend or exten- uate their conduct. But where the charge against them is disingenuous and unfounded, it is our duty to expose the unfairness of the attack, and vindicate the accused. And men may perversely find, if they will, the marks of a sordid and mercenary temper in the declaration, that Jacob would take the Lord for his God, if he had bread to eat, and raiment to put on : but when the circumstances of the patriarch are taken into account, when what he asks of God is set in con- trast with what God had engaged to be- stow, candid rcasoncrs must admit that his language is that of humility, rather than of a hireling, and find in it the ex- pression of gratitude and thankfulness,
*>8e
JACOB S VISION AND VOW.
rather than of a covetous and time-serv- ing disposition.
There is but another remark which we would make before winding up our subject of discourse. We learn from such narratives as this of Jacob's vision, how possible it is that the soul may en- joy gi'eat happiness, and gain vast ac- cession of knowledge, in what is called the separate state. It is, you observe, whilst Jacob is asleep, and therefore not to be communicated with through his bodily senses, that God shows him the heavens opened, and speaks to him of great things to come. And this is a fine testimony to the capacity of the soul, when detached from the body, for receiv- ing notices of the invisible world, and holding converse with spiritual beings. When I have laid aside this corruptible flesh, my soul — if indeed I " sleep in Jesus" — will pass into a condition of peace and tranquillity, and there await the trumpet-peal which is to call forth as her residence a glorified body. But there is no necessity that the soul should be inactive, or contracted in her enjoy- ments, because stripped for a while of material organs. The intermediate state must indeed be vastly inferior, in all the elements of dignity and happiness, to that which will succeed the general resurrection. Yet it may not be a state of listlessness, nor one whose privilege consists in mere repose. The soul, by her own organs, may gaze on what is glorious, and gather in what is inspirit- ing. For if, whilst the body was wrap- ped in slumber, and the soul left alone in her wakefulness, Jacob could behold earth linked with heaven, and the bright array of angels, and the majesty of Dei- ty ; and hearken to a Divine voice which brought him animating tidings ; we may well be persuaded that, when separated from matter by death, our spirit shall be capable of intercourse with God, and of grasping much of the magnificence of the future. If they cannot mount the whole height of the ladder, tliey may yet look on in its stateliness, and admire the celestial troop by which it is travers- ed, and receive from the Lord God, the mysterious emblems of whose presence crown its summit, intelligence of the things which the eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard.
But now we address you, in conclu- sion, as beings confined for a while to
a narrow and inconsiderable scene, but whose home is far away, in those re- gions of light where Deity is specially manifested, and wheie the angel and the archangel have their abode. We point you to the everlasting hills, whose glori- ous and gold-lit summits come out to the eye of faith from the mighty ex- panse ; and we tell you that those hills must be climbed. We point you to " a city which hath foundations," the "Je- rusalem which is above :" we show you its stupendous walls stretching inter- minably upward; and we tell you that these walls must be scaled. And you are staggered at the greatness of the demand. How can we Etscend hills which are not based on this earth ; how surmount walls, of which no eye can take the altitude ] We lead you with us to Bethel, and bid you behold that on which the patriarch gazed. There is a ladder, set up on the ground, but its top reaches to the summit of the mountain, and to the gate of the city. Are you willing to go up, to leave the prison, and to seek the palace ] Then, in the name of the living God, we bid you plant the foot on the first step of this ladder : forsake evil courses, break away from evil habits, and take part with the disciples of Christ. Christ casteth out none who come unto him : and he who strives to turn from his ini- (juities at the call of his Savior, is be- ginning to lay hold on that propitiation, through the grasping of which in its several ])arts he will be gradually raised to the blessedness of immortality. Are you afraid of trusting yourselves to this ladder] Thousands, in every age, have gone uj) by it to glory ; and not a soli- tary individual has found it give way beneath liim, however immense the bur- den of his sins. And why afraid 1 The ladder is He who is " able to save to the uttermost " all who would go unto God throutjh him : and the anrjels are ascend- ing and descending upon it, for they have charge over the righteous to keep them in all their ways ; and the Almighty himself looks down on those who are climbing painfully upwards, that he may send them succor when the hand is re- laxing and the foot falling. I can an- swer for it, that every one of you may, if he will, mount by this ladder, seeing that Christ took luiman nature, and thus united earth and heaven, as the substitute
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of all. I can answer for it, that none who strive to mount by this ladder shall fail of everlasting life ; for those who believe on Christ can never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand. The canopy of the sky seems lined with the " cloud of witnesses. " Those who have gone before are bid- ding us climb, through the one Mediator,
to their lofty abode. AVe come, we come. Your call shall be obeyed. Your voices animate us, as they steal down in solemn and beautiful cadence. And God helping, there shall not be one of us who does not seek salvation through the blood and righteousness of Jesus ; not one who shall not share with you tl*f- tlu'one and the diadem.
SERMON II.
THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.
• But Jesus answered them, Bly Father worketh hitherto, and I work." — St. John, v. 17.
It is a very peculiar argument which Christ here employs, to disprove the charge of bavins' broken the Sabbath. We will refer, for a few moments, to the context, that you may understand the drift and force of the reasoning. Christ had healed the impotent man, who had lain for a long time by the pool of Bethesda. He had bidden him take up his bed, and walk ; and the cripple was immediately enabled to obey the command. It was on the Sabbath-day that this great miracle was wrought ; and the circumstance of the man's carrying his bed through the streets, attracted the notice of those who were jealous for the ceremonial law. They taxed the man with doing what it was not lawful to do on the Sabbath : he justified him- self by pleading the direction of the Be- ing by whom he had been healed. This led to an inquiry as to the author of the miracle ; and so soon as the Jews had ascertained that it was Jesus, they per- secuted him, and " sought to slay him,
because he had done these things on the Sabbath-day." In order to show them the unreasonableness of their conduct, and to prove that he had authoiity for what he had done, Christ made use of the words of our text, words by which he seemed to the Jews to claim essential Divinity, however modern objectors may fail to find in them such assumption. You read that, so soon as Christ had said, " INIy Father worketh hitherto, and I work," his enemies took a new ground for seeking his death. " Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, be- cause he not only had broken the^ Sab- bath, but said also that God was his Fa- ther, making himself equal with God."
It is very observable, that the Jews considered Christ as claiming actual equality with God— a plain indication, we think, that such was the meaning which his words bore. The contempo- raries of the Savior, addressed by him in their native tongue, were more like- ly to perceive the true *nse of what he
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THE COXTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SOX.
said than ourselves, wlio receive his dis- coui'ses in a dead language. At all events, supposing that the Jews mistook his meaning, what can be said of his not correcting the mistake 1 So soon as he knew that they wei-e enraged at him for a supposed violation of the Sab- bath, he entered on his vindication, and sougiit to ])rove the charge groundless. But did he do any thing similar when he knew himself accused of " making himself equal with God ] " The charge was far heavier. If Christ had been on- ly a creature, a mere man like one of ourselves, it would have been nothing short of blasphemy had lie proclaimed himself " equal with God." We may be sure, therefore, that if the Jews had been wrong in inferring from Christ's words a claim to divinity, they would not have been suffei'ed to continue in error. We may be sui'e, we say, of this ; for even those who are most earnest in contending that Christ was only man, allow that he was a good man, and no deceiver : they are not ready to accuse him of uttering blasphemy, or of being wholly indifferent as to what con- struction might be put upon his words. Yet it is very certain, that, when Christ knew himself charored with makinof him- self " equal with God," he attempted no denial, but spake in terms which must have confirmed the Jews in the inference which they had drawn from our text. We find him immediately afterwards saying, " What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," — words which, in place of contradicting the supposition that he meant to declare himself every way divine, admit no con- sistent interpretation, unless the power of the Son be ])recisely the same with that of the Father. And thus it would appear, either that it was a true infer- ence which the Jews drew from our text, when they conchided that Christ affirmed himself equal with God ; or that Christ, when he knew the interpretation put upon his words, took no pains to defend liimself against the charLie of blasphemy, but made statements which rather went to prove the charge just.
We do not well see how the denier.s of Christ's divinity are to extricate themselves from this dilemma. The Redeemer had used words, wliich the Jews interpreted into a claim of equality with God. The interpretation was cither
correct or incorrect. If correct, Christ meant to declare himself divine, and there can be no debate that he actually was. If incorrect, then Christ, who was not silent under a charge of sabbath- breaking, would not have been silent un- der a charge of the worst posssible blas- phemy ; at least, he would not have countenanced the charge, by using more of the same suspicious language. Hence the only fair conclusion seems to be, that the Jews had put the right construction on our text ; and that Christ actually designed to assert his proper deity, when, in order to prove that he had not broken the Sabbath by healing on that day, he said, " My Father worketh hith- erto, and I work."
Indeed we know not what force there would be in the argument, on any sup- position but that of Christ's being equal with God. The accusation against Christ was, that he had broken the Sabbath by working a miracle. How does he meet the charge 1 Simply by saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." But what answer, what apology, is this 1 There is an answer, and there is an apology, on the supposition that Christ was God, but not on any other. God, though he had ceased from creat- ing, was continually occupied in sus- taining and preserving, so that he per- formed works of mercy on the Sabbath- day, as well as on every other, making his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and his rain to descend on the just and the unjust. And if Christ were God, then, in curing the impotent on the Sabbath, he had only exercised the prerogative of Deity, and continued what had been his practice from the very beginning of the woi'ld. The Jews, therefore, might as well have objected, that God brake his own ordinance by those actings of his providence which took place without respect of days, as that Christ had vio- lated the Sabbath by healing the sick. But if Christ were not God, we know not what right he had to refer to what God did, and thereby to attempt his own vindication. Unquestionably, the prac- tice of the Creator could not rightly be quoted in proof, that a mere creature might do what he thought fit on the Sab- bath : it did not follow that because the Creator worked on the Sabbath, the creature might lawfully work; this would be placing the creature on a level
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with the Creator ; for it would be claim- ing the same privileges for the two, the same superiority to all authority and command. But if Christ were more than a creature, if he were himself the Creator : the argument was strung and conclusive : in healing the sick, he did but assert the independence which be- longed to him as God, and act as he had all along acted, whilst busied with up- holding the universe. Thus the Jews attached to Christ's words the only meaning which, we think, they will bear, ■when considered as furnishing the reason why he might lawfully cure on the Sab- bath. The reason was that, being him- self God, he might act as God, and there- fore work on all days alike. But the moment you throw doubt on the fact of his being God, the reason disappears, and our text contains only the presump- tuous, and even blasphemous insinua- tions, that a creature might lawfully guide himself by the actions of the Crea- tor, without regard to his positive com- mands.
But we will not insist at greater length on the argument furnished by our text and its context in support of the divinity of Christ. We have probably said enough to convince you, that this argu- ment is of more than common strength; inasmuch as, in interpreting the passage as containing a claim to divinity, we ad- vance only the interpretation which was put upon it by the Jews, and which Christ allowed to pass without censure, nay, which he even confirmed by his subsequent discourse. We will now, however, wave further reference to the circumstances which occasioned the de- livery of the text ; and, assuming your belief in that fundamental article of Christianity, the divinity of Christ, pro- ceed to examine the assertions which are made in regard both (jf the Father and the Son. We have only to premise, that our Savior must be understood as speaking in his character of Mediator, the being who had united in his person the divine nature and the human. It was not altogether as God, but rather as Godman, that he had healed the crip- ple, who had vainly waited, year after year, by the pool of Bethesda. The miracles which Jesus wrought were de- signed as credentials, by which his au- thority, as a teacher sent from God, might be clearly established. Hence, in
working a miracle, he is to be consider- ed as acting in his mediatorial capacity, carrying forward that great undertaking on which he had entered so soon as man transgressed. Hence, when he justifies his performing a miracle on the Sabbath, by saying, " My Father worketh hither- to, and I work," he is to be regarded as afllirming that the mediatorial office had been, and was to be, discharged with that uninterrupted activity which mark- ed the Creator's providential dealings. It might not perhaps have been a suflS- cient vindication of the act which had ex- cited the anger of the Jews, that he who wrought it was God, and therefore not bound by such an ordinance as that of the Sabbath. Christ had assumed the nature of man, and voluntarily brought himself under the law. It did not, there- fore, necessarily follow, that he had a right to do, as man, whatever it was his prerogative to do as God. But as God- man, or Mediator, he might be called on for the same continued exercise of en- ergy as that by which the Creator sus- tained the work of his hands. And this it is which he must be supposed to af- firm— even that, as the Father, as the universal upholder, had been occupied from the first with providential opera- tions, so had the Son been actively em- ployed from the first in his Mediatorial capacity ; and that, in the one instance, as well as in the other, the work pro- ceeded without respect of days.
But this will be better understood as we advance with our discourse. We shall consider the text as affirming, in the first place, the continual working of the Father; in the second place, the continual working of the Son ; and we shall strive so to speak of each, as to prove the words " profitable for doc- trine, and instruction in righteousness."
Now thei^e is, perhaps, in all of us a tendency to the substituting second causes for the first, to the so dwelling on the laws of matter, and the ojiera- tions of nature, as to forget, if not deny, the continued agency of God. If our creed were to be gathered from our common forms of speech, it might be- concluded that we regarded nature as some agent (juite distinct from deity, having its own sjiherc, and its own pow- ers, in and with which to work, We^ are wont to draw a line between what we call natural, and what supernatural;, 37
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THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON,
assigning the latter to an infinite pow- er, but ascribing the former to ordinary causes, unconnected with the immediate interference of God. But is not our philosophy as defective as our theology, so long as we thus give energy to mat- ter, and make a deity of nature ] We do not believe that it would furnish any satisfactory account of the thousand beautiful arrangements, discoverable in the visible creation, to say that matter was endued with certain properties, and placed in certain relations, and then left to obey the laws and perform the revolu- tions originally impressed and command- ed. This is ascribing a permanence, as well as a power, to second causes, for which it seems to us as unscientific as it certainly is unscriptural to contend. We do not indeed suppose that God exerts any such agency as to supersede tbe laws, or nullify the properties of matter; but we believe that he is con- tinually acting by and through these laws and properties as his instruments, and not that these laws and properties are of themselves effecting the various oc- currences in the material world. What is that nature, of which we rashly speak, but the Almighty perpetually at work 1 What are those laws of matter, to which we confidently appeal, and by which we explain certain phenomena, but so many manifestations of infinite power and intelligence, proofs of the presence and activity of a being who produces, according to his own will, " All action and passion, all permanence and change 1"* I count it not owing to inherent powers, originally impressed, that year by year this globe walks its orbit, repeating its mysterious marcli round tlie sun in the firmament: I rather reckon that the hand of the Almighty perpetually guides the planet, and that it is through his energies, momentarily applied, that the ponderous mass effects its rotations. 1 do not believe it the result of properties, which, once impart- ed, operate of themselves, that vegeta- tion goes forward, and verdure mantles the earth : I rather believe that Deity is busy with every seed that is cast into the ground, and that it is through his immediate agency that every leaf opens, and every flower blooms. I count it not the "consequence of a physical or-
•Whevvell. Bridi'ewater Treatise.
ganization, the effect of a curious me- chanism, which, once set in motion, con- tinues to work, that pulse succeeds to pulse, and breath follows breath : I ra- ther regard it as literally true, that in God " we live and move, and have our being," that each jiulse is but the throb, each breath the inspiration of the ever- present, all-actuating, Divinity.
Away with the idolatry of nature. Nature is but a verbal fiction, invented to keep out of sight the unwearied act- ings of the great First Cause. The Bible ascribes to God the preservation, and not only the production, of all things. The Levites, when Xchemiah liad pi-o- claimed a solemn fast, thus poured forth their confession of the greatness of God, " Thou, even thou, art Lord alone : thou hast made heaven, the heaven of hea- vens, with all their host ; the earth, and all things that are therein ; the seas, and all that is therein ; and thou pre- servest them all, and the host of hea- ven worshippeth thee." The Apostle, when preaching the true God to the idolatrous Athenians, declared, " He giveth to all life and breath, and all things." There is scarcely a natural production, or occui'rence, which we do not find referred, in some part or other of the Bible, immediately to the agency of God. He it is, if we believe the state- ments of Holy writ, who maketh the sun to arise, and the rain to descend. He it is, saith the Psalmist, " who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." " He giveth snow like wool ; he scat- tereth the hoar-frost like ashes." "When he uttercth his voice, there is a multi- tude of waters in the heavens ; he ma- keth lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures." These are the terms in which inspired writers speak of the agency of God ; terms which seem decisive on the fact, that there is no such thing in the material universe as the working of second causes, without the interference of the first ; but that the Divine Being, though he have ceased from creating, is momentarily en- gaged in actuating and upholding the vast system which he originally con- structed. And if, thf)Ugh he have insti- tuted laws, and communicated proper- ties, these laws and properties are but instruments in God's hands, by and through which he effects the results and calls forth the productions which we are
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wont to refer Ic natural causes — yea, if I each planet, as it turns on its axis and traces out its orLit is moved by his hand ; if his breath be in eveiy gale, his glance in every beam, his voice in every sound ; if his be the vegetable power which makes the valleys thick with corn, his the pencil which traces beauty on the flowers, his tlie strength which marshals the elements, his the wisdom which pro- vides for all animated being ; who will not own that so universal and uninter- rupted an agency is exercised by God, as bears out, in its largest signification, the declaration of Christ, "Hitherto my Father worketh 1 "
We go on to observe, that it is not only in the material universe, that there is the perpetual and immediate agency of God. We know that God has re- vealed himself as a moral governor, having all orders of intelligent being as his subjects, employing them in his ser- vice, and taking cognizance of their ac- tions. And it is a mighty field of em- ployment which is thrown open before us, when we thus view in God the Gov- ernor as well as the Creator. If we limit our thoughts to our own globe and race, how immense is the occupation with wliich we suppose Deity charged. To obsen'e every motion of the human %viil, and make it sul)sei"ve his own pur- poses ; to note whatsoever occurs, and register it for judgment ; to instigate to every good action, and oveiTule every bad, — this is the business, if we may use the word, which belongs to the Moral Governor; a business in which there cannot have been a moment's cessation since the first man was made, and in which there will not be a pause till the last man hath died. You are to add to this, that, with respect to every one of us, the occupation is just as individual a-s though there were none other upon earth to engage the watchfulness of Deity. " Thou understandest," saith David, " my thought afar off." " There is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, th(ju knowest it altogether." " Thou tellest my wanderings : put thou my tears into thy bottle ; ore they not in thy book ?" It is certainly the repr(;senta- tion of Scripture; a representation, of which it is hard to say whether it more surprises us by the view which it gives of the unsearchable greatness of God, or delights us by the excpiii-ito tenderne.'v3
c^f which it proves us the objects ; that no calamity can befall the meanest amongst us, no anxiety disquiet him, no joy cheer him, no prayer escape him, of which our heavenly Father is unobser- vant, or in which he takes no immediate concern. We are directed to ask him for our daily bread ; we are bidden to cast all our care upon him ; we are as- sured that he will wipe away our tears ; we are told that he is a present help in every time of trouble; that "this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him ; " that "he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."
We will not now insist on the unmea- sured condescension and compassion which such directions and assurances in- dicate. AVe wish to fasten your atten- tion on that inconceivably vast employ- ment which is hereby attributed to the Almighty. We are showing you God, as the God of all the families of the earth, exercising over the whole extent of the human population a watchfulness which nothing can escape, and a carefulness which nothing can weary. He has to give audience every moment to unnum- bered beings, who lay before him the expressions of their wants and desires ; and every moment he has to minister to the necessities of unnumbered others, who live upon his bounty, and yet yield him no worship. It is not by day alone, it is not by night alone, it is not at stat- ed seasons alone, but perpetually as well as universally, at every instant, in every land, in every household, in every heart, that the Almighty must be busy : busy, wherever there is life, in ministering an- imation ; wherever there is death, in dismissing the spirit ; wherever there is righteousness, in producing it; wher- ever there is wickedness, in controlling it ; wherever there is sorrow, wherever there is peace, wherever there is sup- plication, in sanctifying, bestowing, re- ceiving. We know not where to rivxi terms in which to set forth to you what we may dare to call the industry of Deity. But if you can number the actions which are daily wrought upon the earth, the words which are spoken, the thoughts which are thought, the tears which are i shed, the joys which are felt, the wishes I wliich are breathed, then you number ' the occupations with which this single I creation furnishes the Creator ; for with ('V3ry the mo-;t miniitf! rnid insignificant
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THE CONTINUED AGENCY OP THE FATHER AND THE SON.
of these he has a close and immediate concern ; either causing, or overruling, or moderating, or answering.
And is it not then true that there must be an activity in God, which is at least as wonderful as aught else which reason and i-evelation concur in ascribing to him] We have spoken only of a soli- tary globe, inhabited by beings who have been made " a little lower than the an- gels." But there are worlds upon worlds, scattered throughout immensity, each, it may be, the home of life and in- telligence. And all that inconceivable employment, which is fuinished to God by a single province of his infinite em- pire, is jirobably but an inconsiderable fraction of that total of occupation which is devolved upon him as the ruler and upholder of " thrones and dominions, and principalities and powers," the end as well as the origin of all that is, the cruardian, the refuQ:e, the life, of every creature in every spot of unbmited space. The human mind shrinks from the ef- fort to compass the multitudinous trans- action. And it is not the business of a day, or a year, or a century. If we follow the leadings of science — leadings which seem Tiot the less trust-worthy, because only the fragments of a shell, or the foot- prints of an insect, may have guided her along the path of discovery, — we find dates graven on the visible universe, which seem to prove that, thousands of ages back, in periods too remote for the flight ofall but imagination, there were sys tems and beings to engage the unremitted attention of the Creator; just as, through- out the coming eternity, myriads upon myriads will hang momentarily on his sup- port. Oh, it were to be as God, to compre- hend what God has to do ! But this we may safely say, that if, as the pi-otector and moral governor of whatsoever he hath formed, the Almighty be observant of all the actions of all his intelligent creatures; if he inspect every heart, record every motive, supply every want, hear every petition, appoint every judgment, em- ploy every instrument, — and this too in every section of an unmeasui-ed domin- ion,— then all must acknowledge the truth of the simple but sublime state- ment of Christ, "Hitherto my father worketh."
We have now, in the second place, to consider what our Savior here af firms of himself: he associates himself
with the Father in the perpetual vvoik- ing of which he speaks : " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." We may suppose that Christ partly referred to that perfect union of will and opera- tion which subsists among the persons of the Trinity, and which makes them to be not more one in nature than in purpose. When St. Paul, in writing to the Hebrews, had described the Son as "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person," and had thus assigned him the honors of Godhead, he went on to speak of him as " upholding all things by the word of his power," and thus attributed to him that continued agency on which we have dis- coursed as characteristic of Deity. It might then have been a sufficient ex- planation of our text, if uttered by Christ in his divine capacity, to have referred to that openness which there is among the persons of the Trinity, and to have concluded from it that " what things so- ever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." But we have alrea- dy stated that it was in the discharge of his mediatorial office that Christ had wrought a miracle on the Sabbath ; and that it must therefore have been as the Saviour, rather than as the Creator of the world, that he spake, when affirming his own continued agency. This ojiens before us a most interesting truth ; for Clirist exhibits himself as having been all along occupied with redeeming, just as the Father had been with preserving mankind. In his mediatorial capacity, for in this he now spake, he had not been inactive up to the time of his in- carnation, as though, until the Word were made flesh, there had been nothing to be done on behalf of transgressors. On the contrary, there had been the same uninterrupted agency as is exer- cised by God, as Creator and Governor of the universe, so that the one perpet- ual action might be paralleled by the other, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."
We speak of this as a most interesting, though well-known truth, which it would be for our profit frequently to ponder. It hath pleased God, who "worketh all things after the counsel of bis own will," to place men beneath various dispensa- tions, commanding duties, and enjoining observances peculiar to each. We have but faint traces of patriarchal religion ;
THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.
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but we know that, whilst the world was yet young, and evil only of recent intro- duction, God held intercourse with the fathers of humankind, and instructed them as to the mode in which he would be worshipped. It would seem that he went on revealing his purposes, with greater and greater distinctness, to a fa- vored few, until he separated one peo- ple from the rest of the world, and made them the depositary of truth. And then he gradually imposed on this people an assemblage of mystical rites, and taught them by a succession of prophets and seers — every instituted ordinance con- veying a new lesson, and every inspired messenger adding a fresh leaf to the volume of knowledge. This dispensa- tion had its period ; and then, the fulness of time having at length arrived, the Jewish temple, with its mysterious shad- ows and sacramental treasures, depart- ed from the scene, and a new order of things was introduced by Christ and his apostles.
To those who take only a cursory survey of the dealings of God, it might seem as though there had been no same- ness in these various dispensations, but that different modes of obtaining the divine favor had been prescribed in dif- ferent ages. They may not perceive that close connection between the pa- triarchal, Jewish, and Christian religions, that uniformity in the appointed method of salvation, which is apparent on atten- tive inspection, and affirmed by the whole tenor of the Gospel. There is abundant demonstration, both from ex- press statements of Scripture, and from the nature of each successive dispensa- tion, that, from the first, men recovered the forfeited immortality through the suretyship of the everlasting Word ; that, from the first, in every age and every land, it hath been equally true that there "is none other name under heaven," but the name of Jesus Christ, "given among men, whereby we must be saved." There were vast differences in the degrees in which Christ was made known ; but, all along, there was but one Savior, and that one, .Tesus of Na- zareth. The early patriarch, who as- sembled his family round some rude al- tar, built at God's command, on tlie mountain, or in tlie valley, and there of- fered the firstlings of his Hock ; the Jew in Egypt, sjirinkling his door-posts witli
the blood of the Paschal Lamb, or in the wilderness, following the pillar of fire and cloud; his children, settled in Ca- naan, thronging to a magnificent temple, with the blast of silver trumpets, and the floating of incense, and the pomp of a splendid presthood ; these were all, not- withstanding the striking differences in external circumstance, seeking the sal- vation of the soul through the same chan- nel as ourselves, to whom the Gospel is preached in its beauty and fulness. We find it said of Abraham, that he rejoiced to see Chirst's day ; that he saw it, and was glad. We read of Isaiah, that he "saw Christ's glory, and spake of him." We are told of Moses, that he "esteem- ed the reproach of Christ gi-eater riches than all the treasures of Egypt." And does not St. Peter, speaking of the righteous men v/ho had obtained justifi- cation under the law, use this remark- able expression : " We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they ? " an expression which puts it beyond con- troversy, that, from the earliest days, there had been but one mode of salva- tion ; and that, when there appeared on the earth the "one Mediator between God and man," no new way was opened into the kingdom of heaven ; there was only poured a flood of glorious light on the path which had been trodden by good men under every dispensation. It were almost to quote the whole Bible to produce, if we may use such expression, the footprints of a Mediator which are discernible along the line of the patri- archal and legal economy, " To Him give all the prophets witness." He it was whom seers beheld, when the train of future things swept before them in mysterious procession. He died in eve- ry sacrifice ; he ascended in every cloud of incense ; his name was in every jubi- lee shout ; his majesty in the awfulness of the holy of holies.
And if it be true that Christ was a Sa- viour as well before as after his incarna- tion ; that, at the very instant of human apostacy, he entered on his great office; and that he hath labored in its discharge, whensoever there was a soul to be sav- ed ; must it not be allowed that there was demande.l as uninterrupted an ac- tivity from the Redeemer, as from the Upholder and moral Goveinor of the universe 1 As soon as there was sin,
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TKE COXTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.
there was salvation — salvalion through Christ. And if there were salvation, there must have been the interference and agency of the Savior, who anticipat- ing his passion and death, must have acted as an advocate with God, present- ing the virtues of his own sacrifice, and thus averting from the guilty the doom they had deserved. We know not whe- ther many, or whether only few, were gathered in early days into the kingdom of heaven. But the determining this is not material to our being certified of the incessant occupation with which tiie Mediator was charged. Enough that he had to act as Mediator; and we might almost say that he had the same amount of labor, whether men were saved, or whether they perisheil. "Who shall doubt that Christ has toiled for a lost soul, as well as for a rescued — toil- ing through the striving of his Spirit, and with the shedding of his blood, though he have not won from unrighte- ousness the being with whom he hath pleaded, and for whom he died 1 He had been busy, not only with the eight who were enclosed in the ark, but with the thousands upon thousands who wrestled vainly with the deluge. He had been busy, not only with those among the Jews who died in faitli, but with the great body of the people, who trusted in ceremonies, and put shadow for substance. He had been busy, not only with this single and isolated nation, but with those vast masses of human kind who had only the feeble notices of truth derivable from tradition and con- science. He had been busy with making rnen inexcusable, chargeable altogether with their own condemnation, when he could not prevail on them to deny un- godliness and worldly lusts, and give themselves in good earnest to the seek- ing their God. Thus every human be- ing had furnished employment to the Mediator, as well as to the Creator. Tiie individual had not sprung of Adam's line, who had not drawn the notice, and en- gaged the operations of the Surety of the fallen, even as he liad been watched by the Pnn-idence which is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways. And, therefore, might the uninterrupted activity of a Redeemer be spoken of in the same terms with that of the universal Guardian and Governor — no pause in the one any more than in
the other, no moment of idleness, no in« terval of repose — and Christ could em- ploy the present tense in speaking not only of the Father's operations, but of his own, just as he could apply to him- self the sublime definition, " I am that I am ; " and say to the Jews when they arraigned him for healing on the Sabbath, " My Father worketh hitheito, and I work."
Now we are aware, that, in thus show- ing you the unremitting activity which had been required from the Mediator, we do not apparently take as wide a sweep, or display as mighty a work, as under our first head of discourse, when the employments of the Creator engaged our attention. We have confined our- selves to the single globe on which we dwell, and to the single race to which we belong : whereas before, we had im- mensity across which to travel, and countless orders of being to gather under the wing of the one Great Pro- tector. But possibly we take a con- tracted view of the office and occupation of the Son, when we reduce them within narrower limits than those of the Father. It may be, that our world is the only world on which evil gained footing, and our race the only race over which Satan triumphed. But if this opinion were in- contestably proved just, it would not fol- low that the mediatorial work of Christ was confined, in its consequences, to Adam and his posterity. If all those worlds, which we see travelling in their brightness, be inhabited by beings who never transgressed, I do not conclude that they cannot have interest in the of- fice assumed by the second person in the Trinity. We know that the possibility of falling is inseparable from creature- ship ; so that there inust bo some exter- nal security, ere any finite being can be certain to keep its first estate. We know this from the very nature of the case : f )r it is to make the cj'eature equal to the Creator, to suppose it in itself incapable of sin. We know this moreover from the history of fallen angels. They were the very loftiest of created beings : they lived in the light of God's immediate presence : there was nothing from without to originate temptation : and nevertheless they rebelled against their Maker, and procured for themselves an eternity ol torment.
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But if the possibility of falling away must thus exist throughout tho universe, why are we to conclude that Christ, in his office of Mediator, has done nothing for those ranks of intelligent being which have maintained their allegiance 1 If they are now secured against falling away, what has made them secure ? What has thrown round them such a rampart against the incursions of evil, that there is certainty of their continuing the obedient and the happy ] We know of no satisfactory answer to these ques- tions— and they are questions which force themselves upon every man who considers v/hat creatureship is — but that which supposes the whole universe in- terested in the suretyship of Jesus, and affected by his mediation. Of course, we do not mean, that, where no sin had been committed there could be need of the shedding of blood. But those who required not expiation, required the be- ing confirmed and established ; they re- quired to have their happiness made permanent through some correction of its natui-al mutability. When, there- fore, the Son of God undertook to link the created with the uncreated, the finite with the infinite, in his own divine per- son, he probably did that which gave stability to unfallen orders, as well as wrought the recovery of a fallen. He maintained the obedient, as well as raised the disobedient ; and, by the same act, rendered it impossible that those then pure should be polluted, and pos- sible, that men, though polluted, might be cleansed. And now, if you tell me of glorious worlds, where the inhabitants have no sins of which to repent, I do not, on that account, conclude that they cannot join with me in gratitude to a Mediator. Whilst I thank and bless him for my restoration, they may thank and bless him for their preservation. His the arm which has raised me from ruin : his may be the arm which has re- tained them in glory. Why, then, may we not think that the mediatorial energy is every jot as wisely diffused and as incessantly occupied, as that of the Upholder and Governor of the uni- verse ? It is not this globe alone, it is every world throughout a teeming im- mensity, which furnishes employment to the Father, engaging his inspections, requiring liis support, and offering him homage. And equally may the Son be
occupied with every home of intelligent being, ministering thz'oughout the broad sweep of the spiritual creation, to the retaining those in obedience who ai-e by nature in constant danger of apostacy. Hence, just as we refer it to the imme- diate agency of God, that stars and planets retain their places, and perfoi-m their revolutions, so would we refer it to the immediate agency of Christ, that the successive ranks of the heavenly hosts preserve their glory, and walk their bril- liant circuits : and we have no account to give why there is no jostling in the material world, and no apostacy in the moral : why the wants of whatsoever livelh are supplied, and all that is holy in created orders is kept from decay — none but that furnished by the combina- tion of providential and mediatorial ac- tivity, which is here affirmed by Christ, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."
There is yet another consideration, suggested by these words of our Lord, with which we would, in conclu- sion, engage your attention. Christ had wrought a miracle on the Sabbath ; and he justified his so doing by stating that his work allowed of no interruptions, but must be prosecuted incessantly, like that of actuating and sustaining the uni- verse. The effect of this statement should be to give us the same confidence in addressing ourselves to Christ as our Mediator, and to God as our Father. The providence on which we depend for daily bread is not, it appears, more active or unwearied than the interces- sion through which must come our daily grace. And as that providence watches what is mean and inconsiderable, so that not even a sparrow falls unobserved, we conclude that the intercession leaves not out the very poorest ; and that, con- sequently, insignificance can no more exclude us from the sympathy and suc- cor of a Savior, than from the bounty and guardianship of God . There should be something very consolatory to the timid and downcast, in the parallel which our text draws between the agen- cies of the Father and the Son. The Son, it appears, is as assiduously em- ployed in his office of Mediator, as the Father in that of the common Parent and Ruler ; then let me judge what may be expected from the one, by what I know of the other. Thp Father " feed^
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THE RESURRECTION OF DRY BONES.
eth the young ravens," espouseth the cause of the widow, and declares and proves himself the helper of the friend- less. Then the Son will do no less : "He will not break the bruised reed, and the smoking flax he will not quench." He will be the High Priest of those who have only, like the widow, two mites to present ; and will sprinkle his blood on the unwortliiest, " without money and without price." " My Father work- eth;" and whom does he neglect, whom fail to sustain 1 "I work ;" and to whom will I refuse pardon, wiio shall come to me and be cast out ] It were to des- troy all the energy of the sentence, to take all force from the combination, to doubt that Christ is as vigilant about my soul, as earnest in noting my spiritual dangers, as liberal in supplying my spiritual wants, as is God in reference to my body, though I cannot breathe the breath which he does not inspire, nor eat the the morsel which he does not provide. And this should produce great confidence in Christ as a Media-
tor. If there be one of us who has long lain, like the impotent man, by the pool of Bethesda, deriving no benefit from the salutary waters, let him look up in faith to the Savior, who is now saying to him, " Wilt thou be made whole ] " and as a proof that this Savior yet work eth on the Sabbath, he shall find his limbs strengthRned, and he shall depart from the temple, " walking, and leaping and praising God." Yes, if ye will in- deed be earnest in breaking loose from evil habits, renouncing practices, and forsaking associates, against v/hich con- science warns you, we can promise that Christ will so communicate unto you the assistances of his Spirit, that you shall become living proofs that the medi- atorial energy is not abated ; whilst stars, and forests, and mountains are witness- ing to the unwearied activities of our Maker, ye shall witness to the vuiwearied activities of our Redeemer : and thus shall full evidence be given that Christ might still say, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. "
SERMON III.
THE RESURRECTION OF DRY BONES.
" And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest."
EZEKIEL, XXXVII. 3.
In the preceding chapter Ezekiel had delivered very animated and encourag- ing predictions of the prosperity of the houses of Israel and Judah. There is a fulness in these predictions which will scarce admit of our applying them ex- clusively to events whicl) have already occurred. Ezekiel prophesied during the Babylonish captivity ; and we may believe that the words which he was
commissioned to utter, had a primary reference to the then desolate estate of his country and nation. When he speaks of dispersion and captivity, and when he pours forth ajuiouncements of restor- ation and greatness, it may well be sup- posed that there is, at least, an allusion to the existing circumstances of tho .Tews, and their approaching deliverance by Cyrus, And it is possible that those,
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who first heart] his predictions, received them only in their primary sense, and looked not on to a more thorough fulfil- ment, worthy of the splendor of the fig- ures, and the amplitude of the language. But to ourselves, who can compare the event with the prophecy, it must be evi- dent that a deliverance greater than any past, was foreseen by Ezekiel. Even if it could be shown that the condition of the Jews, after their return from Ba- bylon, answered to the prophet's lofty descriptions of national prosperity, we should be unable to interpret the pre- dictions without having respect to yet future things. There can hardly be dispute that the ten tribes, which con- stituted the kingdom of Israel, have never been restored to their own land, but are still in some mysterious seclu- sion, exiles from Palestine. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were led captive by Nebuchadnezzar, and sent back by Cyrus. Undoubtedly, certain individuals, who belonged to the king- dom of Israel, were mixed with these in captivity and in restoration. But as a body, the ten tribes have never yet been restored ; so that, if predictions, which refer to the house of Judah, could be proved accomplished by their return home from Babylon, the like ac- count could not be given of those which have to do with the kingdom of Israel.
And if you examine the predictions of Ezekiel in the foregoing chapter, and in that which contains our text, you will perceive that Israel is so associated with Judah, that no restoration can be ultimately intended, which does not in- clude both. This might be proved of each part of the prophecies in question ; but we will confine ourselves to the c^ose of tho second of the chapters. The prophet is directed to take two sticks ; to write on one, " For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions;" on the other, " For Joseph, tlie stick of Ephraim, and fijr all the house of Israel his companions." These sticks, thus- inscribed, are to be held in the hand of Ezekiel ; they are to become one stick in his hand ; and then he is to utter a prediction, explanatory of this symboli- cal transaction, declaring that botli Ju- dah and Israel should be gathered back from their dispersions ; that thny should no longer ne two nations, but be com- bined, like the sticks, into one people
under one king. You can give no fair interpretation of such a prophecy as this, if you limit its scope to the events of past days : for you can find no account in history of such a restoration of the twelve tiibes, and of their re-establish- ment as one nation under David their prince.
Accordingly, we conclude that yet future occurrences passed before the view of the pi'ophet. We believe that the seer had his eye on a restoration of the childi'en of Abraham, of which none that has yet happened can have been more than a type. And we refer these chapters, though without denying that they may have had a primary and par- tial accomplishment in events connected with the close of the Babylonish captivi- ty, to a glorious season, when God shall bring to their own land the people whom he hath cast off in displeasure, and who have been wanderers for centuries over the habitable earth. Then, when from the east and west, from the north and south, there shall have flowed into Judea the sons and daughters of those to whom the land was originally given, and the re-instated people shall hold the sove- reignty of the globe beneath the sceptre of the long-rejected Christ, will there be a deliverance worthy of the trium- phant strains of Isaiah, and a greatness commensurate with the majestic descrip- tions of Ezekiel.
Such is the first point which it is ne- cessary to settle before entering on the examination of our text and its context. We must determine the period whose occurrences the prophet delineates ; else we may easily go far wrong in ex- plaining his sketches. But this is not all ; there is a second preliminary to which we would direct your attention. The Jews are to be regarded as a typi- cal nation, so that their history is figu- rative, and may be studied as a parable. You cannot ask proof of this ; for it is hardly possible to read the books of Moses, to follow the Israelites into their pi-ison in Egypt, and then tlirough the wilderness to their rest in Canaan, with- out feeling that what hapfjcned to this pcf)ple describes, as by a figure, what happens to the church. There is mani- festly a moral in all that occurs ; or, to speak more accurately, our spiritual history is traced in the events which be- fell the Jews as a nation. AVith them 38
^9S
THE RESURECTION OF DRY BONES.
we are naturally slaves under an impe- rious task-master ; with them we are delivered from bondage, though by a mightier than Moses ; with them we march through a wilderness, dreary in itself, but rendered more appalling by our murmuring and unbelief, to a land that floweth with the milk and the ho- ney. And it may be, that this typical character of the Jews extends beyond these simple and self-evident particu- lars. We should be disposed to say of the history of this people, taken in its spreading over the future as well as the past, that it is the exact miniature of that of the human race. The Jews liave lost their peculiar position in the favor of God, and are wanderers from the land which is specially their own. But they are yet to be restored to their forfeited place, and to enjoy in Canaan a higher than their first dignity. Thus the hu- man race, having apostatized from God, is left for a while in the dreariness of exile, but is reserved for the richest splendors of immortality. Men, there- fore, in general, may be to angels what the Jews are to the rest of humankind. Angels may read in the records of the fallen but yet beloved race, precisely what we read in those of the rejected, but not forgotten, people. And as we look forward to the restoration of the Jews, as big with interest to all the dwellers on this globe, so may angels expect the final " manifestation of the sons of God," when Christ and his church shall shine out in their glory, as fraught with the mightiest results to every rank of intelligent beins:.
But without examining, more at length, the respect in which the Jews may be regarded as a typical people, we may consider the general fact so readily acknowledged that we may safe- ly assume it in any process of reason- ing. And as a consequence on this al- lowed fact, we may suppose that when we meet with a figurative delineation of things that were to happen to the Jews, it is to be also treated as a figu- rative delineation of things that relate to the whole human race. At least, and this is probably as far as we shall find it necessary to go in our present dis- course, there can be no ground for call- ing an interpretation fanciful, if, after j treating a parable as descriptive, in the first instance, of the state or expecta-
tion of the Jews, we assign it a spint* ual meaning, and apply it, in the second place, to our own circumstances, or those of the church.
Now we have thus cleared the way for our entering on the examkiation of that very singular portion of holy writ with which our text is associated. We have determined that, so far as it is prophetic of occun'ences in tlie history of the Jews, its accomplishment is to be mainly sought in the future rather than the past ; we have also ascertained that, though in its primary application, it belongs only to a solitary people, it may be regarded as referring, in its spi- ritual meaning, to the Avhole human race. Let these preliminaries be borne in mind, and they will aid us in avoid- ing mistake, and discovering truth.
The portion of Sci'ipture which we are about to investigate, is, as we have just hinted, one of the most singular which its pages present. It relates what may be considered as a vision granted to the jDrophet Ezekiel, though the nar- rative might pass for that of an actual occurrence. Ezekiel, after uttering pre- dictions which breathe the future glo- ries of Israel and Judah,is " carried out in the Spirit of the Lord," and set down in a valley full of bones. These bones, so numerous that they lay on all sides of the prophet, appeared to have be- longed to men long dead, for " they were very dry," as though they had been for years thus scattered and ex- posed. As Ezekiel gazed on this ghast- ly spectacle, there came to him from God the question of our text, " Son of man, can these bones live ? " It was a hard question, at a time when " life and immortality " had not been " brought to light by the Gospel :" and therefore the prophet, without casting doubt on the power of the Almighty, returns the mo- dest ajid half-inquiring answer, " O Lord God, thou knovvest." The heavenly voice then commands him to prophesy upon these bones, to address them as though they were living and intelligent, and to predict their being reconstructed into symmetry, and re-animated with breath. The prophet betrays no reluc- tance : he does not hesitate because it seemed useless to address these frag- ments of skeletons ; but at once obeys the command, and delivers the message. And whilst he was in the very act of
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Uttering the prophecy, lo, a noise was heard as of a rustling among tlie bones ; they began to move, as though instinct with lite, each seeking his fellow, so that bone came to bone with the very nicest precision. Then " the sinews and the flesh came upon them ;" the sinews bound them, and the skin covered them : and thus the valley was filled with hu- man bodies. These bodies, however, were as yet without breath ; but the voice of the Lord was again heard, direct- ing the 2)rophet to prophesy to the wind, that it might come and breathe upon the slain. This having been done, the breath came into the carcasses ; they started from the ground as animated things, " and stood up upon their feet, an ex- ceeding great army."
Such was the vision granted to Eze- kiel ; and God immediately inrbrmed him of its purport. He told him that these bones were the whole house of Israel ; and that, however desolate the condition of that people might appear, he would yet open their graves, and cause them to come out of their graves. As the bones had been rebuilded into human bodies, so should the disjointed and shattered people of Israel be recon- structed into a kingdom ; and God would put in them his spirit, and make them live, and place them once more in their own land. It admits, therefore, of no dispute that the parable — for such may the vision justly be styled — was primarily designed to predict a resto- ration to Palestine of its rightful but exiled possessors. But with this design we are at liberty to connect another, that of representing, under figures de- rived from things happening to the Jews, truths in which all men have in- terest. And thus our business, whilst endeavoring to explain the parable more at length, will be to apply it to the cliildren of Abraham, in the first place in their national, and in the se- cond in their typical capacity, and to show in both cases the fidelity of the representation.
Now you are to observe the position in which the vision stands : it is not a detached tiling, but occurs in the midst of a continuous prophecy, having mani- fest respect to what precedes, and what follows. The two chapters, the SGth and .j7th of the book of Ezekiel, contain one noble prediction of glories to be
reached by Judah and Israel : and though this prediction may seem inter- rupted by the vision, a little inquiry will show you that it is but illustrated and confirmed. The Jews, to whom Ezekiel addressed the glowing announcements of the SGth chapter, would probably look on their forlorn and seemingly hope less estate, and conclude it impossible that what was so fallen should ever reach the predicted eminence. To meet this suspicion the vision is granted. The wretchedness, and, on all human appearance, the hopelessness, of their condition is freely acknowledged ; for they are represented as whitening bones, scattered over a plain, in regard of which there could be no expectation of a resurrection unto life. But when these bones move, and " an exceeding- m-eat army ' of livmg men succeeds to the ar- ray of disjointed skeletons, the Jews are most powerfully taught how wrongly they argued from the difficulty to the improbability. There could not be a transition less to have been expected than that exhibited in the valley of vision: and, if God could effect this, why shauld it be thought that he could not make good his promises to a conquered and dispersed people 1 Thus the vision seems introduced into the midst of the pi'ophecy, not to break its continuity, but to obviate an objection which might be rising in the minds of the hearers ; and we are therefore to take the vision as a part of the prophecy, and to refer it with the rest to yet future times. In so doing, we deny not, as we stated at the outset, that one purpose of the vision may have been to comfort the Jews then in Babylon, and to assure them of a speedy return to the land of their fathers. But forasmuch as the whole prediction, of which the vision forms part, can be satisfied by nothing which has already occurred, we seem bound to seek the fulfilment of the vision itself in the yet coming fortunes of Judah and Israel. Let us then regard the parable before us as figuring the condition of God's people in their dispersion, and that restoration which we are yet bid- den to expect ; and we shall find an ac- curacy and a fulness of description, not surj)assed in any j'fJ't'"" "^ I'^'^p'^^cy. Of course, we can only gather our argu- ments and illustrations from the history of the Jews j for we are ignorant of what
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has befallen the ten tribes, since carried into captivity by the king of Assyria. But this will suffice. If the description be proved correct, so far as we have the power of examining its accuracy, we shall have little cause to question its fidelity on points which lie beyond our range of information.
We observe the state of the Jews during long centuries past ; and we ask whether it have not been described to the letter by what Ezekiel beheld in the valley of vision "? Ever since the Romans were let loose on the devoted land and people, the whole globe has been this valley of vision ; for everywhere have been scattered the fragments of the once favored nation. Both the civil and the ecclesiastical polity of the Jews were completely broken up ; and there has never been the least appi-oach to- wards the reconstruction of any govern- ment of their own. They have lived in- deed under every sort of rule, having been mixed with every people under heaven, though all along kept marvellous- ly distinct. But never, since their sins provoked God to give them up, have they had governors and laws of their own ; and never, therefore, have they been aught else than the skeleton of a nation, and that too a skeleton whose bones have been detached, and spread confessedly throughout the whole valley. And if there had come, at any time, a voice from heaven, demanding whether these dry bones could live, whether the dispersed Jews could ever again be gathered under one head, and within their own land, the answer of those, who most acknowledged the divine power, must have been, " O Loi-d God, thou knowest." On all human computation, there lies an improbability, which is little short of an impossibility, against the return of the cliilJren of Abraham, from every section of the earth, to Judah, and their re-establishment as an inde- pendent people. The bones are many : who shall collect so vast a multitude] The bones are dry : who shall animate what hath so long wanted vitality ] Yet, we are commanded to prophesy over these bones ; to declare, in unqual- ified language, that the Jews shall re- turn home, when " the times of the Gentiles " are fulfilled, rebuild their Jerusalem, and possess the sovereignty of the earth. If there be a point on
which prophecy is clearer and more dif- fuse than on another, it seems to us to be this of the restoration of Israel, and of the setting up of the throne of David in the land which the stranger has long possessed and profaned. And whilst we have this " sure word of prophecy," it is not the apparent difficulty which can make us hesitate to expect the mar- vellous occurrence. There shall be a stirring amongst the dry bones. We know not by what mysterious impulse and agency a people, spread over the whole earth, shall be suddenly and simultaneously moved : but bone shall come to bone, Jew shall seek out and combine with Jew : the sinew and the flesh shall come up upon these bones — there shall be a principle of union, combining what have long been detach- ed ; ai.d thus shall the scattered ele- ments be reconstructed into the skele- ton, and then the skeleton shall give place to the full grown body. This body will yet have to be quickened — the Jews must not only be re-united as a people, they must be converted to the faith which they have long despised, and be brought to the confessing their cruci- fied Messiah. And this must be special- ly the work of the Spirit of the living God, entering within them, and stirring them from that moral deadness in which they have lain during their long aliena- tion. A separate prophecy is uttered in reference to the coming of the breath into the body ; and it is not improbable that this assigning diflerent times to the reconstruction and reanimatiou of the body, might be intended to mark, what seems elsewhere indicated, that the Jews will be recombined into a separate peo- ple, before prevailed on to acknowledge ihe Christ; that it will not be until af- ter their resettlement in Canaan, that they will nationally embrace Christianity Certainly, this is what seems taught us by the prophecies of Zechariah ; fi^r it is after beholding the Jews in posses- sion of Jerusalem that we read, " I will pour upon the house of David, and up- on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spi- rit of grace and of supplication ; and they shall look upon me vvliom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son." So that the conversion of the people is to follow their restoration ; just as, in the vision before us, the quickening of
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the body by God's Spirit is quite sepa- rate from the binding of the bones, and the covering them with flesh.
But, wliatever the order of events, the final result is to be that the Jews shall be reinstated in Judea, and receive Jesus as Messiah. The bones having been formed into the body, and the body animated from above, the dispersed and powerless people shall be " an ex- ceeding great army," ready to wage the battle of the Lord God Almighty. The valley of vision, heretofore covered with the fragments of a nation which has long ceased to have a name amongst king- doms, shall be crowned with emissaries from Jerusalem, bearing in their hands the cross which their fathers erected, and proclaiming the Savior whom those fathers denied. We admit again that, on every human calculation, such result is almost incredible ; and that, though we live in the old age t)f the world, when the day is perhaps not distant which is to witness this stupendous resurrection, we are unable to assign the mode in which it will be effected. But the vision of Ezekiel sets before us an im- mediate interference of God, showing that thei'e will be miracle in the resto- ration of Israel, as thei'e would be in the gathering of the bones with which the valley was strewed. But if there is to be miracle, the strangeness brings no evidence against the truth ; and we wait with confidence the issuing of a divine edict, which shall be heard and obeyed by the dispersed seed of Abraham. The aspect ul !he valley may still be the same as when Ezekiel was earned thith- er " in the Spirit of the Lord." Still, in the whole compass of imagery there may be no more faithful representation of the national condition of the Jews, than that which sets them before us as the pieces into which skeletons have been shivered, and which have been tos- sed over the globe by some irresistible deluge. Nevertheless we are listening, with the prophet, for a sound as of a shaking amongst these bones. It shall be heard : and the nations, on whose mountains, and in whose valleys, the bones are thickly strewn, shall be start- led by the mysterious noise. And when, as though actuated by one uncontrolla- ble impulse, the thousands in every land who have been mixed with its population, and yet not confounded ;
who have lived under its laws, and yet been aliens, made themselves liomes in its cities, and yet been foreigners ; the remains of a dead nation, the wreck of a lost state, the shreds of a scattered community — when these shall arise, and league themselves to one purpose, and pour into Judea, till the waste and deso- late places swarm, as in ancient days, with the tribes of the Lord — then will there be accomplished to the full what Ezekiel saw in strange vision ; and the whole world shall confess that the marvel would not be exceeded, nay, would only be represented as in a figure, if piles of human bones were formed suddenly in- to bodies, and a vast army sprang from the dust of the sepulchres.
But we proceed from considering the Jews in their national, to the consider- ing them in their typical capacity. We have already given you reasons for re- garding the Jews as a typical people, and which therefore warrant our search- ing for truths which concern the whole race, in representations which primarily belonged to a solitary nation. And if your minds be informed on the great doctrines of Scripture, you can scarcely read the parable without feeling that it was written for our instruction, that it presents as accurate a picture of men in general, as of the Jews in particular. You know that the foundation truth of the whole christian system, that which is taken for granted in every part of the Gospel, and to disprove which would be to disprove the necessity of a IMedia- tor's interference, is the truth of human corruption and helplessness. It would not be easy to exaggerate this truth, to overstate it as taught in holy writ, though erroneous inferences may be deduced from it, or false representations given of its character. The important thing is, that we carefully distinguish between man as the citizen of this world, and man as the citizen of another world ; for unless such distinction be kept in mind, we may easily advance statements in regard of human degeneracy, which men will justly reject as unfair and over- charged. So long as man is viewed only as a member of society, he is undoubt- edly capable of much that is noble and excellent ; it were absurd to make he sympathies which he can display, and the virtues which he can cultivate, the subject of one sweeping and indiscrimi-
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nate censure. If he did not belong to two worlds ; if he owed everything to his fellow-creatures, and nothing to his Creator; we should be met, on all hands, by fine instances of what is genei'ous, and upright, and amiable, which would tell strongly against our theory of the corruption of nature, and almost force us to confess that man cannot be "very far gone from original righteousness." But when you survey the human race in relation to its jMaker, then it is that the corruption may be proved radical and total. You will not find that those who are most exemplary in the discharge of relative duties, and whose conduct, in all the intercourses of life, wins the most of respect and admiration, are by nature one jot more disposed to love God, and recognize his authority, than the openly dissolute. There are the very widest differences between men, regarded as members of society; there is a thorough uniformity amongst them, if you judge by aversion from God, and determina- tion to sacrifice the eternal for the tem- poral. If they belonged to this world alone, they could not be proved totally and equally corrupt : for this would be to deny that lovely things, and things of good report, yet linger amid the ruins of humanity. But forasmuch as they belong also to another world, and have obligations laid on them by their relation to their IMaker, the corruption may be demonstrated without the slightest ex- ception ; for you cannot find the solitary instance of a man who has by nature any love of God, or any hatred of sin, or any desire after holiness. This, as we be- lieve, is the fair statement of the doc- trine of human depravity — a depravity which does not prevent the play of much that is amiable, and the circulation of much that is estimable, between man and man ; but, in consequence (jf which, all men are alike indisposed to the having God in their thoughts, and alike in- capacitated for seeking his favor.
And when the Bible would set this doctrine before us, it employs undoubt- edly strong figures ; but not stronger, if the case be examined, than are warrant- ed by the facts. Thus, as you are all aware, there is no more common repre- sentation than one which supposes men in a state of death, morally dead and therefore totally disqualified for the functions of spiritual life. We may ad- i
mit that this looks, at first sight, like an overcharged representation ; and men accordingly are very loth to allow its correctness. They know that the soul has vast powers and capacities, and that she can exert herself mightily in investi- gating truth. They know also that the faculties and feelings of the inner man are far enough from torpid, but possess much of vital energy. Hence they see not how, in a moral point of view, any more than in a physical, men can justly be called dead ; and they suppose, that in this instance at least, the figurative lan- guage of Scriptare is to be explained with many deductions and allowances. But we are scarcely disposed to admit that the languag^e is in this case figurative at all. We believe that the soul, con- sidered relatively to that other world to which she rightly belongs, betrays pre- cisely that insensibility, and that inca- pacity of action, which characterize a dead body, in reference to the world of matter by which it is surrounded. If the body be reckoned dead, because it can no longer see, nor hear, nor speak, nor move, there are the same reasons why the soul, in her natural state, should be reckoned dead ; for she has no eye for the light of heaven, no ear for its melodies, no taste for its pleasures, and no energy for its occupations. The soul is as insensible and powerless with re- gard to the world of sjiirit, as the dead body with regard to that of matter ; why then should we not use the same lan- guage, and declai'e the soul dead ; and that too with no more of ^ figure of speech than when the term is applied to the inanimate corpse 1 The soul may be quite alive, so far as this eailh is concerned, for she may be able to seek with the greatest ardor whatever it can ofier, and neveitheless be quite dead, so far as heaven is concerned, for she may be totally incapable of either pursuing or desiring what is invisible and eternal And hence we conclude that the repre- senting unconverted men as " dead in trespasses and sins," is not the drawing an overharsh or exaggerated picture, but rather the delineating, with great fiiithfulness, that depravity of our nature which was a consequence on Adam's transgression. This depravity is total when men are viewed relatively to God. whatever it may be when you considei them in the relationships of life ; so thaf
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they arc dead in regard of their immor- tality, however alive as citizens of earth. Let then the woi-ld be surveyed by one who knows and feels that men are destined for eternity, and what aspect will it wear if not that of the valley of vision, through which theprophetEzekiel was commissioned to pass ] On all sides are the remains of mighty beings, born for immortality, but dislocated by sin. Can these be men, creatures fash- ioned after the image of God, and con- structed to share his eternity 1 What disease hath been here, eating away the spiritual sinew, and consuming the spir- itual substance, so that the race which walked gloriously erect in the free light of heaven, and could hold communion with angels, hath wasted down into moral skeletons, yea, disjointed frag- ments, from which we may just guess its origin, whilst they publish its ruin 1 It is not that men are the spectres, the ghosts, of what they were, as made in the likeness of God, and with powers for intercourse with what is loftiest in the universe. They have gone beyond this. It is in their spiritual and deathless part that they have become material and life- less: it is the soul from which the breath of heaven has been taken : and the soul, deprived of this breath, seemed turned into a thing of earth, as though com- pounded, like the body, of dust ; and dwindled away till its fibres were shriv- elled and snap2:)ed, and its powers lay scattered and enervated, like bones where the war has raged and the winds have swept. It may indeed seem like a-scribing what is corjwreal to spirit, and forgetting the very nature of the soul, thus to speak of man's imperishable part, as we would of his body when re- solved into its elements. But the very thing of which we accuse man, is that, by his apostacy, he has assimilated the soul to the body ; he has so buried the immaterial in the material, the half deity in the half dust, that we know him not as the compound of the ethereal and the earthly, but as all flesh, just as though the mortal had crushed and extinguished the very principle of immortality. And, therefore, do wo describe him, in his moral capacity, by terms which, in their strict import, apply to him only as form- ed out of matter : " a spirit," said Christ, " hath not flesh and blood ; " but never- theless we may speak of the soul as wast-
ed into a skeleton, and then of that skeleton as broken into fragments, be- cause it may be declai-ed of the whole man, that he " is of the earth, earthy," that he has become, in his every respect, as though made of the corruptible, and re- solvable into it.
We declare then again, that, if this globe be taken as the valley of vision, it is strewed with bones, as though count- less armies had been slain, and their bodies left unburied. We declare of any narrow section of this valley, which God may set us specially to observe, that, if not filled with the remains of slaughtered thousands, it is occupied by souls " dead in trespasses and sins;" that there are, on the right hand and on the left, ener- vated powers, and torpid energies, and extinguished affections, which belonged originally to an immortal spirit, but which now serve only to remind us of such a spirit, as the confused relics in a charnel-house can but remind us of the human form. Ay, if the Spirit of the living God were to enable us to inspect this assembly, as it enabled the prophet to take the survey of the valley, we know that we should find in it, spiritually con- sidered, a vast mass of wasted strength, and withered fibre, and broken muscle ; evidences as irresistible of souls that have long lain dead, as were the bones which had no flesh without and no mar- row within, of bodies long since decom- posed and dissolved. We know that, with all that elasticity and activity which the unconverted amongst you can dis- play, when the objects of sense solicit their pursuit, we should find every facul- ty so benumbed, and every capacity so closed, in i-cgard to the high things of eternity, that we should be as much forced to pronounce them the mere skel- etons of immortal beings, as to juoclaim them only the fragments of men, wei'e we to see what might be left from the gnawings of the grave. And, if we had nothing to judge by but the apparent probability, so little ground would there be for expecting the resurrection of these souls, and their re-endowment with the departed vitality, that if, after wan- dering to and fro through the valley, and mourning over the ruins of what had been created magnificent and enduring, there should come to us, as to the pro- phet, the voice of the Almighty, "Son of man, can these bones live ? " our
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answer could be only the meek confes- sion of ignorance, " 0 Lord God thou knowest."
But we go on to observe that the par- able is not more accurate, as delineating our condition by nature, than as exhibit- ing the posibility of a restoration to life. Itmight have seemed a hopeless and use- less thing, that Ezekiel should prophesy to the dry bones in the valley ; and if the souls which we desire to convert, be, as we have described them, actually dead, it may appear a vain thing to preach, and thus to deal with them as though they were the living. But the prophet did not hesitate ; his commis- sion was clear ; and he allowed not un- belief to withhold him from addressing the inanimate piles by which he was sur- rounded. Neither are we to be deter- red by the lifelessness of the parties on whom we have to act ; the command is positive ; we are to preach the Gospel to those of whom we believe that they are spiritually in the grave, and to say to them, without any wavering because they seem unable to hear, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." And •we bless God that, however weak and inefficient, to all appearance, the instru- mentality employed, there is often the same result as followed the prophesying of Ezekiel; as the dry bones were stir- red, so are the dead souls also startled. It cometh frequently to pass, more fre- quently, it may be, than shall be known till all secrets are laid bare at the great day of judgment, that, when the minis- ter of Christ is launching the thunders of the word, or dilating, with all persua- siveness, on the pi'ovision which has been made for the repentant, a sound is heard, if not by men, yet by the attendant angels who throng our sanctuaries ; the sound of an agitated spirit, moving in its grave-clothes, as though the cold re- lics were mysteriously perturbed. The prophesying goes on in the valley of vision ; and there is a shaking amongst the bones, as close appeals are made to the long torpid conscience, and the mo- tives of an after state of being are brought to bear upon those who are dead in their sins. And then may it be said that bone cometh unto bone — the different faculties of the soul, which have heretofore been disjointed and dispersed, con-<bining into one resolve and effort to
repent and forsake sin — and that sinews and flesh knit together, and clothe the bones, the various powers of the inner man being each roused to its due work; so that, as there appeared before the prophet the complete human body in ex- change for the broken skeleton, we have now a spirit stung with the conscious- ness of its immortality, where we had before the undying without sign of ani- mation.
But this is not enough. There may be conviction of sin, and a sense of the necessity that some great endeavor be made to secure its forgiveness ; and thus may the soul, no longer resolved into in- efficient fragments, be bound together as the heir of eternity ; yet there may not be spiritual life, for the soul may not have been quickened with the breath which is from heaven. There is a great difference between the man who is not caring for salvation at all, and another who has been stirred to anxiety, but nevertheless has not submitted himself to the teachings of the Holy Ghost. The former has only the skeleton, the naked and broken frame-work of a soul ; whereas in the latter there has been the compacting and clothing the anatomy. Yet the one may not have spiritual life any more than the other. He may execute some of the motions of a living thing, and not be actually resus- citated ; as such a power as galvanism might have caused the limbs of the bodies, which thronged suddenly the val- ley of vision, to stir as with life, though there had been no vital principle. Ac- cordingly, tlie parable does not end with the formation of the perfect body, figur- ative as that was of the reconstruction of the soul into a being aware of its im- mortality ; it proceeds to the animating the body, and thus to the representing the quickening of the soul. The pro- phet is commanded to prophesy unto the wind, and then breath comes into the bodies which he had seen succeed the scattered bones. This part of the para- ble is expressly interpreted as denoting the entrance of God's Spirit into the house of Israel, that they might live ; and we therefore learn the important truth, that, whatever the advances which may be made towards the symmetry and fea- tures of a new creature, there is nothing that can be called life, until the Holy Ghost come and breathe upon the slain.
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And we have to bless God that, in this part also, the vision is continually re- ceiving its accomplishment. We preach the word unto these bones ; we say un- to them, " O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord ! " We preach it in the be- lief, that, though there seem no oi-gan of hearing, God can procure it admission where he designs it to be effectual ; and accordingly there is often, as we have told you, a shaking amongst the bones ; and souls which had heretofore seemed sepulchred in matter, arise as if elastic with immortality, and eagerly inquire, " What must we do to be saved 1 " But this is not necessarily conversion ; this may be only conviction ; after a few etrugglings and heavings, what we had looked upon as revived may relapse into insensibility. It would do so, if the Spi- rit of the living God were not to enter as the breath of the soul. But it does thus enter; and the "dead in trespasses and sins " stand upon their feet, and " run with patience the race set before them." It is the special office of the Holy Ghost to open the graves in which sinners lie, and to animate the moral corpse, so that the dead are " born again." There would be no use in our prophesying up- on the bones, if there were not this di- vine agent to revivify the buried : we might indeed go down into the sepul- chres, and and gather together the mouldering remains of humanity, and compound thera into a body, and then, as by the strange power of electricity, work the limbs into a brief and fearful imitation of the living thinsr : but the ac- tive and persevering wrestler for the prizes of eternity, oh ! the Spirit of God must be in every member of this crea- ture, and in every nerve, and in every muscle ; and let that Spirit only be tak- en from him, and presently would you observe a torpor creeping over his frame, and all the tokens of moral death suc- ceeding to the fine play of the pulses of moral life.
To the Spirit, then, of God we refer ex- clusively that work of resuscitating dead Bouls, which was represented in vision to the prophet Ezekiel. We say to every one of you, that, if he have not this spirit, it is not his being awake to the fact of his having a soul, it is not his admission of a system of orthodox divinity, it is not hid membership with an apostolical church, it is not his diligent perf jrmauce
of a certain set of duties, which can as- sure us that he lives — we read in tho book of Revelation of some who had a name that they lived, and yet wei-e dead — all this may prove nothing more than the binding of bone to bone, and the covering them with flesh, so that the ghastliness of the skeleton has been ex- changed for the comeliness of the per- fect body. Unless you are actuated by the Holy Ghost as your vital principle, feeling and obeying his motions, depend- ing on his influences, laboring in his strength, we are bound to tell you that you are duped by the worst jugglery ever practised on a rational creature; the dead is made to pass ftr the living, and the fantastic movements of an im- age are mistaken for the free soai-ings of an intellisrent beinof.
But there is one respect in which the vision, as thus interpreted, appears not to be thoroughly accomplished. We carry on our prophesying over the heaps of dry bones ; and now and then there may be produced the effects of which we have spoken : a solitary sin- ner arises from his lethargy, and sets himself to the working out salvation. But what is there in any one district of the valley; nay, what is there in the combined districts of the valley, sup- posing that valley to include the whole' earth, which answers to the starting up of " an exceeding great army ? " In the valley which Ezekiel traversed, such was the result of his prophesying. On the right hand and on the left, before and behind, the bones stirred as if in- stinct with life, and the seer was quick- ly encompassed by rank upon rank of the children of the resurrection. What would be the parallel to this, if, at this moment, and in this place, the parable were to be spiritually fulfilled ? It would be, that, if there be still amongst you the tens, or the fifties, or the hundreds, of souls sepulchred in flesh, these tens, or these fifties, or these hundreds, would be roused by the announcement of wrath to come, and spring into consciousness that they have been born fur eternity; so that, however, at the commencement of our worshipping, the dry bones had been scattered profusely amongst us, at its close the whole assembly would be one mass of life, and no individual would depart, as he came, "dead in trespasses and sins." It would be — we 39
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dare not expect so miglity a resuscita- tion, and yet days shall corae when even nations shall be " born in a day," — that whatsoever is human within these walls would bear traces of a new creation, and man, woman, child, be " alive unto God " through Christ Jesus their Lord. And if the spiritual fulfilment were ef- fected throughout the whole valley of vision, we should be living beneath the millennial dispensation, in that blessed season when all are to know the Lord " from the least to the greatest," and the knowledge of his glory is to fill the eaxth, " as the waters cover the sea." In ex- change for the millions who now sit in darkness and the shadow of death, buried in superstition and ignorance, we should have the universal population of this globe rejoicing in acquaintance with Christ, and bringing forth the fruits of righteousness to his praise. And what though the valley be still full of dry bones, life having only here and there entered into the funeral piles ] a thou- sand prophecies centre in the future, all assuring us of a spiritual resurrection, general as will be that, when sea, and mountain, and desert shall give up their dead. It seems the representation of these prophecies, that Christianity shall not advance, by successive steps, to uni- versal dominion, but that a time of great depression, yea, almost of extinction, fihall immediately precede that of un- limited sovereignty, \yhen Isaiah calls to the prostrate Jerusalem, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come," he adds, "Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people " —thus intimating, that, at the very mo- ment of the restitution of all things, a deeper than the ordinai-y night shall rest on the nations of the world. And, therefore, may it be that the aspect of the globe, as the day draws on of its glorious renovation, will be more than ever that of the valley of vision, ere the prophesying commenced, and the skele- tons moved. Ezekiel might be brought from his lest, and set down in the midst of the valley ; and he would still have to say that the bones were very many, and very dry. But the Lord's arm will not be " shortened that it cannot save :" suddenly, when there might appear least likelihood of a shaking amongst the countless heaps, shall a vivifying energy go out through the length and the
breadth of the slain population. " The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and they that hear shall live." Every where shall the process be rapid- ly carried on of the bones being combin- ed into the skeleton, and covered with the flesh, and animated by the Spirit, till the whole earth shall ring with the tread of the "exceeding great army." This will be the perfect accomplish- ment of the prophetic vision. When every nation, and tribe, and tongue, shall have cast its idols " to the moles and to the bats ;" when the religion of Christ shall have extirpated every superstition, and shrined itself in every heart ; then shall there be a moral resurrection com- mensurate with the marvellous quicken- ing of the dead on which Ezekiel gazed : the spiritual sepulchres will be emptied, and the almost quenched immortality be every where re-illumined.
Yet though the parable, when moral- ly interpreted, be thus now receiving a partial, and expecting a plenaiy, ac- complishment, who can doubt, that, in its literal import, it had respect t-o that resurrection of the dead which will pre- cede the general judgment ] We re- gard the parable as one of those few portions of the Old Testament from which might be inferred the resurrec- tion of the body. The illustrating by the imagery of a resuiTection, was al- most the inculcating the doctrine of a resurrection. And, whether thus un- derstood or not by the Jews, we may safely affirm that, to ourselves, the whole transaction in the valley of vision should present, under figures of extraordinary energy, man's final coming up fi-ora the dust of the earth. The trumpet of the archangel shall prophesy over the dry bones : its piercing blast shall say, " O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." Who can tell the shaking that shall fol- low this prophecy — the earth heaving at its very core, that myriads upon my- riads may burst from its womb 1 Then shall be the coming of bone unto bone : mysterious announcement! the dust shall seek its kindred dust; and though the elements of the body may have been dispersed to the four quarters of the earth, yet will they reassemble, so that every man shall have his own. And then shall there be a prophesying to the souls in the separate state, as well as to the bones in the sepulchres. The souls
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shall know that the moment of reunion has arrived, and rush down to possess their reconstructed tabernacles. Then, when the whole man lives again, and the buried generations, from Adam to the last-born of his line, have put on immortality, " the exceeding great army " shall march to judgment. We cannot follow them — the eye is blinded by the interminable multitude, and the ear deafened by the tramj> of the countless millions. But we shall be there, every one of us shall be there, to augment the crowd, and swell the thunder. O God, breathe now on the dry bones, that none of us be hereafter amon2:st those
who shall awake " to shame and ever- lasting contempt." Again and again we prophesy upon the dry bones. We are not deteri'ed by the apparent hopeless- ness. We have often prophesied in vain. There has been no shaking amongst the bones. Numbers have come unconver- ted, and numbers have gone away un- converted. But we will execute our commission once more, and O that this time it may startle and agitate the dead — " let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord; and he will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
SERMON IV.
PROTESTANTISM AND POPERY.
" If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.'' — Romans SIT. IR
In one of those touching addresses which Christ delivered to his disciples shortly before his crucifixion, he be- queathed them, as you will remember, the legacy of peace. " Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you." It is obsen'able that the peace, thus left us by Christ, is emphatically his peace ; " my peace I give unto you " — and accordingly, we have a petition in our litany, " O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace." Though bearing the title of the Prince of Peace, we know that Christ said in regard of himself, " Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth ; I am not come to send peace, but a sword." Hence it may be inferred that the peace, which may be called
Christ's peace, that which Christ be- queathed and for which we pray, is not a peace which is necessarily to banish all divisions, but which is rather to sub- sist in the midst of divisions. The peace which Christ enjoyed as the founder of Christianity, and which he may be re- garded as intending when he spake of his peace, resulted from a consciousness that he was doing the will of God, and promoting the good of man. It was an internal rather than an external peace : for without were wars and fightings, the opposition of avowed enemies, and the coldness and suspicion even of friends. His peace, therefore, was not peace with those around. There was charity, full and fervent charity, towards men most vehement in their enmity ; but, at the same time, there was an un
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flincliing exposure of their faults, and a determined opposition to their practices.
We may safely declare of Christ, that he never purchased peace by any thing like compromise. Though his heart overflowed with love towards the whole human race, he was far from being in- dulgent to their sins ; on the contrary, he was too much their friend to be any thing but the stern reprover of their vices. Hence he had peace of con- science, rather than of condition : he in- deed desired, and labored for both ; but living in the midst of a sinful and per- verse generation, he could not be at peace with mankind, save by leaving them unrebuked ; and this would have been to purchase quiet by neglect- ing duty. The church, therefore, may thoroughly possess the legacy of peace bequeathed to her by Christ, and yet have no concord with the great mass of men. It may even be bound on her to do much by which, to all appearance, divisions will be fomented : for if she would imitate Christ, and thus enjoy his peace, she must be bold in denouncing every error, and never think that true brotherhood can be maintained by com- promising principles. It is unquestion- ably her business to follow after the things " that make for peace ;" but she is to take special care, lest, in her eager- ness to prevent discord, she surrender truth, and ward off separations by un- warrantable sacrifices.
Now the words of our text may be said to contemplate exactly that peace which may thus be regarded as be- queathed to us by Christ. The apostle enjoins as a duty, that we strive to live peaceably with all ; but plainly in- timates that it would be difficult to do BO, or perhaps even impossible. He in- troduces two restrictive clauses, " if it be possible," and " as much as lieth in you :" the latter implying that there were cases in which it would be a chris- tian's own fault if disunion ensued; the former, that, probably, no amount of diligence and care could insure the uni- versal harmony. It would seem, indeed, from the context of the verse, that St. Paul refers not so much to schisms in the visible church, as to differences and quarrels between man and man. 13ut a rule, designed for the guidance of chris- tians in their individual, must be apj)li- caule also in their collective capacity.
If it be the duty of every member of the church, so far as in him lies, to live peaceably with others, if must undoubt- edly be the duty of the church, as a body, to do all in her power towards promoting union and preventing schism. Ill each case, however, there may be a point at which separation becomes una- voidable ; and therefore are the words, " if it be possible," prefixed to the pre- cept. In the instance of an individual, the conduct of others may be so injuri- ous and oppressive, that, with every dis- position to concede, and the greatest patience under wrong, it may be abso- lutely necessary to shun intercourse, and even to adopt measures for self-de- fence. In the instance of a church, tho tenets of some of her professed mem- bers may be so inconsistent with truth, or their practice so opposed to the Gos- pel, that to retain them in her commun- ion would be faithlessness to her Master. Or a church, in her collective capacity, may grievously depart from the faith " once delivered to the saints :" she may introduce unsound doctrines, or super- stitious observances : and then may it be the duty of those of her members, who are still zealous for " truth as it is in Jesus," to protest firmly against the abomination, and finally to dissolve their union with that church, if she will not put from her the falsehood and idolatry. The main thing to be borne in mind, is, as we have already intimated, that peace is too dearly purchased, if pur- chased by the least surrender of prin- ciple. That unity deserves not the name, which is pi'oduced by the reso- lution of avoiding, by mutual conces- sions, all differences in opinion. On points v/hich arc not fundamental much may be done by mutual concessions : ^.nd they must have much to answer for, who have torn and divided the visible church, when the matter in debate has been one of mere ceremony, or at least, one involving nothing of indispensable truth. We doubt whether the mass of those, who, in modern days, have intro- duced sects and divisions amongst chris- tians, could prove, in vindication of their conduct, that they had implicitly obey- ed the direction of our text. It might be hard to show, if the grounds of se- paration were rigidly examined, that the impossible point had been reached, the point, that is, at which, if union be
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presented, funda.nental truth must be compromised. It should then only be impossible to a christian to live peace- ably, when, to avoid schism, he must tolerate fatal error. And if separatists cannot make good their separation on this simple principle, their failing to live peaceably is not to be sheltered under the first clause of our text : it must ra- ther vindicate itself by the second, " as much as in you lieth ;" and then there is a question which none but God can decide, how far the infirmity, which caused unnecessary division, v/as sinful, and how far unavoidable.
But whatever may be determined in regard of any particular case of an in- fraction of peace, the general rule, al- ready stated, is manifestly correct, that whatever is not fundamental should be given up for the sake of peace ; but that there must be war and separation, if, in maintaining peace, we have to compro- mise truth. We admit indeed that there will be difficulty in applying this rule ; for since the Bible no where divides doctrines into those which are fundamen- tal, and those which are not, there may be difference of opinion as to the class to which a certain truth belongs, and therefore, also doubt as to v.'hether it should be enforced at the risk of a schism. But if Scripture have not made a divi- sion of its truths, there are some which manifestly belong to the very essence of Christianity ; whilst others, though full of worth and instruction, vare as manifestly subordinate, and fill a lower place in the christian economy. There are points on which difference of opin- ion may be safely permitted, and others on which unanimity is indispensable. There can, for example, be no sufficient reason for breaking the bond of peace in the matter of pi-edestination; the mem- bers of a church may abide in perfect harmony, though some hold, and others do not, the doctrine of personal election. But if the debated point be the divinity of Christ, or the impossibility of justi- fication except through his merits, there must be unanimity, at whatever cost ob- tained. Christianity is nothing if these points be denied ; and therefore must a christian church, if it would not forfeit its character, separate boldly from all by whom they are rejected.
It might justly be expected from us, under ordinary circumiitances, that we
should examine, in greater detail, and with more precision, where the point lies at which peace can be preserved on- ly by compromising principle. But the occasion requires us to sjieak with pe- culiar reference to popery and the Eng- lish Eeformation. And I, for one, am glad to avail myself of the opportimity. I cannot put away the persuasion, that there has been amongst protestants a gi-owing ignorance and indifference with regard to points in dispute between the Reform Church and the Papal ; and a strengthening opinion that the two, after all, differ in little that is vital. And this degeneracy of j^rotestanism has given encouragement to popery ; so that the false system, against which our fathers rose manfully up, and in expelling which they perilled substance and life, has been putting forth tokens of strength and ex- pansion. If this be true, great and man- ifest is the need, that you be reminded of your privileges, and warned against "the man of sin;" and I could not feel justified in neglecting an opportunity of addressing you specifically as protes- tants.
Now we have selected our text in preference to many which might seem more appropriate, because we consider that every point, on which it is import- ant that your minds be strengthened or informed, is involved in the question, can we, as disciples of Christ, live peaceably with Rome ] " If it be possi- ble," saith the apostle, "as much as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men." Apply this rule to a church ; and then, as we have shown you, it undoubtedly demands that there be nothing of schism or separation, so long as principles are not sacrificed for the sake of keeping peace. It warrants us in nothing that can be called a rending of the visible church, if v/e cannot prove that we have reached the point at which union is no longer possible ; at which, that is, if un- ion be preserved, it must be at the ex- y)ense of conscience, and with mortal in- jury to truth. And therefore our text requires us, if we would vindicate any separation — such, for instance, as that of the English Church from the Roman — to prove, by most rigid demonstration, that separation had become absolutely a duty : and that, if it had been avoided in order to preserve peace, there would have been a surrender of the principles
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of the Gospel of Christ. Thus we are thrown on examining the reasons which led our forefathers to break oft' commu- nion with the Roman cathoUc church, and which justify our own refusal to give to that church the right hand of fellowship. We need hardly observe that these reasons cannot be expounded, save by a statement of the doctrines of popery, as contrasted with those of protestantism ; so that, in proving to you that the Reformation involved no diso- bedience to the precept of our text, we shall inform or remind you of those great points of difference which separate between our own church and the papal. It will be well, however, that before en- tering on the inquiry thus suggested, we take notice of the common accusation, that we were guilty of schism at the Reformation, and continue chargeable with this guilt, so long as we return not into the bosom of the Roman catholic church. We shall, therefore, make it our business to endeavor, in the first place, to show you that there was no schism, pi'operly so called, in our separ- ation from Rome ; in the second place, to prove to you that the separation was demanded, and is still justified by the coiTuptions of Rome.
Now it is one of the great doctrines of popery, as you must all be aware, that the pope, who is the bishop of the Roman church, is the head also of the universal church of Christ, so that he is vested with supreme authority over all bishops and pastors in every section of the earth. This pretended supremacy of the pope we utterly reject : declaring that it can find no syllable of vindication in the Bi- ble, and maintaining it to be a modern and insolent assumption, of which no trace can be found in the early ages of Christianity. The Bible no where hints that there was to be such an universal head of the church as the pope professes to be : and centuries elapsed before the bishops of Rome discovered, that, as St. Peter's successors, they had right to this universal lordship. We contend, there- fore, against the doctrine of papal su- premacy as utterly unsanctioned, wheth- er by Scripture or antiquity ; and we maintain that the pope could have had no power, except by usuipation, over the branch of Christ's church established in this land. He indeed claimed a pow- er, and, during the long night of igno-
rance, the claim was conceded. But we utterly deny that he had right to any power, because we utterly deny that, as bishop of Rome, he was vested with authority over other parts of Christ's churc^j. Whatever his sway in his own district, England was no part of that dis- trict; and if England, in her ignorance, had given him power, England, when better taught, did but justly in withdraw- ing that power. Hence there was no- thing which, with the least show of jus- tice, could be called schism, in the separ- ation of the English church from the Roman. There might have been schism, had the doctrine of Roman catholics been true, that the pope is the universal head of the church ; for then would the re- formers have withdrawn an allegiance which they were required to yield, and detached themselves from the visible body of Christ. It is another question, what would have been their duty under such circumstances ; we now only state that, before the charge of schism, pro- perly so called, can be substantiated, popery must be proved true, in the arti- cle of the universal headship of the pojoe ; for unless this be true, there could be nothing schismatical in Eng- land's refusing to acknowledge any long- er the authority of the Roman bishop, and re-establishing the supremacy of her own king in all causes, ecclesiastical and civil.
And we need not say that we are not much troubled with the accusation of schism, so long as it cannot be made good till popery have been proved true. It is somewhat bold to call us schismatics, when the name takes for granted what we contend against as false, that the Roman Catholic Church includes the whole visible. And we wish you to ob- serve, that there were no spiritual ties which necessarily bound together Eng- land and Rome. We were not indebted to Rome for our Christianity. Whatever may be thought of the opinion which has been supported with great learning and ability, that St. Paul himself preached the Gospel in Britain, and ordained a bishop here before there was any in Rome ; so that the Anglican Church would be older than the Roman ; it is, at least, certain that Christianity made its way into these islands at a very early period ; and that, when the missionaries of Rome first visited our shores, they
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found a christian church aheady estab- lished, a church whose bishops refused submission to the pope, though, in pro- cess of time, that submission was yield- ed. On what principle, then, is it to be maintained, that the English church was so integral a portion of the Roman, that there could be no separation without the guilt of schism 1 The English church had been independent, governed by its own officers, and having no connection but that of a common brotherhood with other parts of Christ's visible body. And Rome came down upon it in subtility and pride, putting forward arrogant claims, and asking to be received as su- preme in every ecclesiastical cause. The times were those in which moral dark- ness and mental were fast pervading the earth, and which therefore favored the bold pretensions of ambitious and un- principled pontiffs. And no mar\^el, if England yielded with the rest of Chris- tendom ; so that a church, founded in apostolic days, and owing no allegiance to any foreign power, joined in the false, though almost universal, confession, that the pope was the vicegerent of Christ, endowed with unbounded authority over every ecclesiastical section.
But at length God mercifully interpos- ed, and raised up men with power and disposition to examine for themselves, and with intrepidity to proclaim the re- sult of their searchings. In one country after another of Europe arose those who had prayerfully studied the Bible, and who were too zealous for truth, too warm lovers both of God and of man, to keep silent as to an assumption which Scrip- ture did not sanction. And England was not without her worthies and champ- ions in this great and general struggle for emancipation. There were those amongst her children who felt that she crouched beneath a yoke which God had not ordained, and who, therefore, summoned her to rise, and reassert her independence. And when she hearken- ed to the call, and rose up in the majes- ty of a strength which still commands our wonder, and shook from her the yoke of papal oppression, declaring that the Roman pontiffhad no authority with- in her coasts — what did she do but re- sume a power which ought never to have been delegated, and resist a claim which ought never to have been admit- ted i In the season of ignorance, when
all Europe bent to the spiritual tyrant, she had made herself subject to the bi- shop of Rome ; and, therefore, in the season of greater knowledge, when she joined other lands in daring to be free, she did nothing but take what was in- alienably her own, what she had parted with in blindness, but what, all the while, could not lawfully be sun-endered. We can admit then nothing in her separa- tion from the Roman church which ap- proximates to schism. She had com- mitted a grievous error, as a chui'ch, in acknowledging the pope's supremacy ; but there could be nothing like schism in her correcting the error, and denying that supremacy. And there may be employed all the resources of casuistry on this matter, the partisans of Rome laboring to brand the reformers as schis- matics ; but until it can be proved, pro- ved from Scripture and the early fathers, that there is no other church but the Roman, and that the head of this church has been ordained of God to be supreme throughout Christendom in every eccle- siastical matter, it will never be proved that our ancestors in the sixteenth cen- tury would have been justified in con- tinuing allegiance to the pope ; never therefore, that, in transferring that allegi- ance to their own anointed king, they were unmindful of the precept, " If it be possible, live peaceably with all men." Now we have endeavored to set this fact under the most simple point of view, because it is easy to involve it in mystery and perplexity. The act, by which we separated from the church of Rome, and by which, therefore, if by any, we are guilty of schism, was the act by which we denied that the jDope had any authority whatsoever in this kingdom. It was not, strictly speaking, by our denouncing image worship, by our denying transubstantiation, by our rejecting the mediation of angels and saints, that we ceased to be a jiart of the Roman church : that which made us a part of this church was the acknow- ledging the pope as the ecclesiastical head ; and that which dissolved our un- ion with this church, was the refusing to continue such acknowledgment. Had the Roman church been free from all the corruptions to which we have refer- red, holding no erroneous doctrine but that of papal supremacy, separation would still have been a duty : there
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would Still have been the usurpation of our monarch's power by the pope, and it could not have been schism to restore that power to its right owner.
But we will now wave the question of schism : we have to examine, in the second place, the chief points of differ- ence between the reformed church and the Roman, that you may be reminded of the reasons of protestants for refusing peace with papists. We ibrmally separa- ted from Rome, as we have just explain- ed, by refusing to acknowledge the su- premacy of the pope : but it was chiefly by rejecting certain doctrines and obser- vances, and by standing up for truth in op- position to error, that we became em- phatically a reformed church, and gained the honorable title of protestants.
We do not deny, and this we must state clearly before entering on the er- rors of Rome, that the Roman catholic church is a true and apostolic church — her bishops and priests deriving their authority, in an unbroken line, from Christ and his apostles. Accordingly, if a Roman catholic priest renounce what we count the errors of popery, our church immediately receives him as one of her ministers, requiring no fresh or- dination before she will allow him to officiate at her altars, though she grants not the like privilege to other claimants of the ministerial office. If his ordina- tion be not, in every sense, valid, neither is our own : for if we have derived ours from the apostles, it has been through the channel of the Roman catholic church ; so that, to deny the transmis- sion of authority in the popish priest- hood since the reformation, would be to deny it before ; and thus should we be left without any ordination which could be traced back to the apostles. Hence there is no question, that on the princi- ples of an episcopal church, the Roman catholic is a true branch of Christ's church, however grievously corrupted and fearfully deformed. It is a true church, inasmuch as its ministers have been duly invested witli authority to preach the word and dispense the sacra- ments : it is a true church moreover, in- asmuch as it never ceased to " hold the head, which is Christ," and to acknow- ledge the fundamental truth of our reli- gion, that Jesus, God as well as man, died as a propitiation for the sins of the world.
And all this was distinctly recogni- zed by the reformers of the English church, whatever it may have been by those of other countries. They made no alteration in the constitution of the church : they saw in the Roman catho- lic church the true foundation and framework of a church; but they saw also that on this foundation had been laid, and into this framework had been woven, many and gross errors, which were calculated to destroy the souls of its members. And it was to the work of removing these errors that they stren- uously gave themselves — not wishing to meddle with the foundation, or to des- troy the framework ; but simj^ly to take away those human inventions and super- stitious observances, beneath which genuine Christianity was almost hidden, or rather almost buried. And so bless- ed were they of God with singular dis- cretion, as well as courage, that they achieved the noble result of a church holding all that is apostolic in doctrine, without letting go one jot of what is apostolic in government. They achiev- ed the result, the only result at which, as reformers, they could lawfully aim, of making the church, both in creed and in discipline, what the church had been in primitive times ; removing from it whatsoever had not the sanction of Scripture and antiquity, and retaining whatsoever had. And thus there sprang from their labors what might literally be called a reformed church — not a new church, as is more strictly the name of many of those which bear the title of reformed — but a reformed church, the old, the original church, stripped of those incrustations, and freed from those pollutions, which had fastened upon it during a long night of ignorance. Theirs was the work of renovating an ancient cathedral, majestic even in decay, pre- senting the traces of noble architecture, though in ruins on this side, and choked with rubbish on that. They did not at- tempt to batter down the walls, and plough up the foundations, of the vener- able edifice, and then to erect on the site a wholly modern structure. They were better taught, and better directed. They removed, with the greatest care- fulness and diligence, the coating from the beautiful pillars which men had daubed with "untempercd mortar;" and they swept away buttresses which did
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but disfigure without sustaining the building ; and, above all, they opened the windows which ignorance, or super- stition, had blocked up ; and then the rich light of heaven came streaming down the aisles, and men flocked to its courts to worship the one God through the one Mediator Christ. And there- fore, as we would again tell you, were they the reformers, and nothing more than the reformers of the church. You sometimes hear or read of the fathers of the English church, the name being given to the reformers. But the name is most falsely applied. The fathers of the English church are the apostles and those apostolic men, who lived in the early days of Christianity, and handed down to us what was held as truth, when there were the best means of ascertain- ing and defining it. We acknowledge no modern fathers : it were to acknow- ledge a modern birth. We claim to be the ancient church ; we fasten on the Roman catholic the being the modern — the modern, not in constitution, for therein we have both the same date, and that date apostolic ; but the modern in a thousand innovations on genuine Chris- tianity— Christianity as preached by Christ and St. Paul — Christianity as ex- hibited by the writers of the first four centuries of the church.
But it is here that we reach the gist of the question : we must set before you certain doctrines held by the Roman church, and denounced by the reformed ; or state particulars in which the two dif- fer with regard to the same article of faith.
We have referred already to the pre- tended infallibility of the Roman church, and shall only farther say, that Rome must give up this doctrine ere there can be peace : it has no foundation in Scrip- ture, fur St. Paul addresses the Roman church as liable to err : it is contradicted by facts, for different popes and councils have decreed opposite things ; and it is dangerous and deadly, as giving the di- vine sanction to every error which an ig- norant mortal may adopt, and to every practice which a vicious may enjoin. We protest, next, against the Romish doctrine of justification, declaring it un- ecriptural, and therefore fatal to the soul. This doctrine is, that our own inherent justice is the formal cause of our justifi- cation : the Council of Trent having pro-
nounced any one accursed, who should say that men are justified, either by the im- putation of Christ's righteousness alone, or only by the remission of sins ; or who should maintain that the grace by which we are justified is the favor of God alone. And as to merit, which is closely asso- ciated herewith, a famous cardinal has delivered this noted decision, "A just man hath, by a double title, right to the same glory; one by the merits of Christ imparted to him by grace, another by his own merits."* Can we, without treachery to the souls of men, be at peace with Rome, whilst she inculcates tenets directly at variance with those which are the essence of Christianity, that we are "justified freely by God's grace," " through faith," and " not of works ;" and that "the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Chist our Lordi" We protest further against the Romish doc- trine of the insufficiency of what we re- ceive as the canonical Scriptures, of the authority of the Apocrypha, and of tra- ditions. The papists hold, according to the decrees of the same Council of Trent, that there is not expressly contained in Scripture all necessary doctrine, either concerning faith or manners : we reject the tenet as blasphemous, seeing that a curse is pronounced by the Bible on all who shall add to it, or take from it ; and thus God's Spirit hath decided the suffi- ciency of Scripture. The papists re- ceive the apocryphal books as canonical : the voice of antiquity is against them, the internal evidence is against them, and we protest against the reception, be- cause we know that the apocryphal books may be brought in support of doctrines which we repudiate as false, and of practices which we deprecate as im- pious. And as to traditions, of which the Council of Trent decreed, that they must be received with no less piety and veneration than the Scriptures, they may be mightily convenient for papists, be- cause a precept can be produced with the authority of a revelation, whenever a falsehood is to be made cunent for truth : but we utterly reject these un- written traditions, because, at best, they are impeachments of the sufficiency of Scripture, and because they affi^rd every facility for the establishment of error un- der the seeming sanction of God.
* Bellarmine, quoted by Bishop Hall. 40
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But this is not all : our protest yet ex- tends itself on the right hand and on the left. The papists maintain, that, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, there is a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into Christ's body, and of the whole substance of the wine into his blood. This is their doctrine of tran- substantiation. Against this doctrine we protest, not only because there is a con- tradiction to our senses, for taste, and touch, and sight assure us that the con- secrated bread is still bread, and the consecrated wine still wine ; but because it overthrows the truth of Christ's hu- manity : it makes his body infinite and omnipresent : it makes that body to be on the earth, when Scripture declares it to be in heaven ; and if it thus interfere with the fact of Christ's humanity, affect- ing vitally the truths of his being a man like ourselves, how can we admit it with- out destroying the Gospel 1 The papists further hold in regard of the Lord's Sup- per, that therein is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory saci'ifice for the living and dead, so that the priests, daily ministering, make a fresh oblation of the Son of God to the Father. This is what is styled the sacrifice of the mass : we reject it as unscriptural, for we know that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many ; " we reject it as im- pious, because Christ, as the great High Priest, offered up himself, and no inferior priest might present so illustrious a vic- tim.
Neither is it in this respect only that the papists interfere with the mediatorial office of Christ. What is to be said of the invocation of angels and saints 1 The Romish Church declares, according to the creed of Pius IV. that " the saints who reign with Christ are to be venerat- ed and invoked, and that they offer prayers to God for us." Nay, has not the present pope, in a letter circulated amongst the clergy of his church, styled the Virgin Mary his greatest confidence, even the whole foundation of his hope 1 And shall we not protest against a church, and that, too, vehemently and incessant- ly, shall we make peace with a church which thus, disguise and varnish and ex- tenuate as you will, exalts sinful mortals to a participation in the great office of Jesus, introduces virtually a long train of intercessors, and thus demolishes the mighty and life-giving truths, that
there is "one mediator between God and man," and that, " if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ] " We must go fur- ther. We must not hesitate to charge the Roman church with idolatry; though many, who have often sworn solemnly to their belief that its practices were idolati'ous, now hold such opinion to be the offspring of nothing but ignorance and illiberality. The Council of Trent decreed, that the images and relics of Christ and the saints are to be duly honored, venerated, or worshipped : and no one who has visited Roman catholic countries can be ignorant how faithfully the decree is obeyed. We call this idol- atry. O no, is the retort : the worship is not rendered to the image, but only to the being whom the image represents. Be it so : this is nevertheless idolatry. The Israelites when they bowed before the golden calf, professedly designed to worship the true God, not the image ; but they were slain with a great slaugh- ter, as impious idolaters. Besides, this is mere subterfuge; the image itself is worshipped. Else, why has one image a greater sanctity than another 1 Why are pilgrimages to be made to our Lady's chapel at Loretto, rather than to any other chapel of our Lady, except that the Virgin's image in the one is more precious and powerful than that in the other ] and if it be thus thought that there is a virtue resident in the image, of what use is it to say that the image is reckoned nothing, and receives no honor? The second commandment is broken, distinctly and flagrantly broken, by the Roman catholics : and as worshippers of the one true God, who has declared himself "a jealous God," we protest against a church which enjoins that in- cense be burnt, and prayers made, be- fore images ; and we demand of her that she sweep from her temples the "silver and gold, the work of men's hands," ere there can be place for our obeying the precept of St. Paul, " If it be posssible, live peaceably with all men."
And what shall we say more 1 for the time would fail us to tell of multiplied sacraments; of. the cup denied to the laity, though Christ said to his disciples, " drink ye all of it ; " of indulgences, im- piously imagined deceits, whereby men may be delivered from purgatory, a place which exists only in their own fancies
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and creeds ; of the distinctions between venials sins and mortal, fine wire-drawn subtUities, contrary to the scriptural de- finitions of sin, and calculated to lull men's consciences to sleep in the midst of their crimes ; of penances which are meritorious, of relics which are miracu- lous ; of the shutting up the Bible from ihe common people ; of prayers in an unknown tongue; of fastings which have no authority in relation, and of prohibi- tions which necessarily leap to licentious- ness. We will not say that there is the same degree of error in each of the par- ticulars thus rapidly enumerated ; nor that the error, wheresoever it exists, is equally fundamental and fatal. But we can confidently affirm that there is cause, in each case, for the protest of every lover of pure Christianity ; that in none can the error be deemed harmless ; yea, that in none can it be shown other than full of peril to the soul. And whatever may be your opinion on one or another point of diilerence between the churches, we may safely refer it to the decision of every upholder of scriptural truth, whe- ther the catalogue which we have given of Roman Catholic eiTors and coiTup- tions, does not justify the reformers in having commenced, and ourselves in continuing, separation from the disciples of popery ? We have shown you doc- trines completely counter to that of jus- tification by faith, ascribing a strength to man's powers, and a worth to his ac- tions, which would almost prove him competent to the saving himself We have brought before you tenets irrecon- cilable with the truth of the Redeemer's complex person, which assail his office as Alediator, and strip his propitiation of power by representing it as daily repeat- ed. We have told you of violence done to the sanctity of revelation by the honor given to human fable and tradition, of idolatrous worship, of extenuated sin, and of authority, impiously assumed, to remit the punishments and dispense the rewards of futurity. And this is popery. This is popery, not as libelled, and maligned, and traduced by sworn foes, but as described, and defined, in its own authorised and unrescinded documents. This is popery, the religion against which, if you will believe modern liber- alism, it is little better than bigotry to object, and which approaches so nearly to protestantism, that a little mutual ac-
commodation mi^ht remove every dif- ference.
Yes, it may approach nearly to pro- testantism, but only to protestantism as it exists in days of indifference and heart- lessness, and for which the far truer name were infidelity. Not the protes- tantism of Luther, and Cranmer, and Ridley, and Hooper, and all the noble army of martyrs. Not the protestantism of the worthies of the pui*est days of Christianity. Not the protestantism of the holy fathers of the church. Not the protestantism, we are bold to use the expression, of Christ and his apostles. Yes, the protestantism for which we contend, and which we declare as in- capable of alliance with popery as the east of junction with the west, is the protestantism of Christ and his apostles. The reformed religion is no novelty : if it can be proved a day younger than Christ and his apostles, away with it from the earth as a pernicious delusion. It was no invention of Luther and his fellow-laborers. The Roman catholics indeed would taunt us with the recent origin of our faith, as though it had sprung up in the sixteenth century, whilst their own is hallowed by all the suffrages of antiquity. There was ne- ver a moi"e insolent taunt, and never a more unwarranted boast. Ours, as we have already intimated, is the old reli- gion, theirs is the new. Ours is, at least, as old as the Bible ; for it has not a single tenet which we do not prove from the Bible. But theirs must be younger than the Bible ; for where in the Bible is the Bible said to be insuffi- cient, and wheie is the pope declared supreme and infallible, and where is sin divided into mortal and venial, and where are the clergy forbidden to marry, and where are images directed to be wor- shipped, and where is the church intrust- ed with the granting indulgences ? There is not a solitary article of protes- tantism, in support of which we are not ready to appeal to the canonical Scrip- tures, and the writings of the early fa- thers ; there are a hundred of popery, which papists themselves are too wise to rest on such an appeal. They may ask us, where was your religion before Lu- ther? and our reply is, in the word of the living God, in the creeds of apostles and apostolical men, and in the practice of those witnesses, who, in every age.
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refused to participate in the abomina- tions of Rome. But we ask them, where was your religion before such or such an aspiiing pontiff put forth such or 8uch a doctrine or claim ? We fix the doctrine of the papal supremacy to the sixth century — let them prove it older if they can ; of seven sacraments to the twelfth century — let them prove it older if they can; of transubstantiation to the thirteenth century — let them prove it older if they can. And yet protestant- ism is the spurious manufacture of a late date, whilst popery is the venerable transmission from the first year of the christian era. Yes, all that is true in popery has been transmitted from the earlest days of Christianity ; but all that is true in popery makes up protestant- ism. Popery is protestantism mutilated, disguised, deformed, and overlaid with corrupt additions ; protestantism is po- ■perj restored to its first purity, cleansed from false glosses, and freed from the rubbish accumulated on it by ages of superstition.
We recur then to our former asser- tion, and declare that the protestantism for which we contend as irreconcilable with popery, is nothing else than the protestantism of Christ and his apostles. And the protestantism of Christ and his apostles can have no peace with popery. We would, if possible, " live peaceably with all men," and, therefore, with the Roman church. But it is not possible. We cannot surrender justification by faith. We cannot multiply mediators. We cannot bow dovv'n before images. We cannot believe bread to be flesh, and wine to be blood. We cannot as- cribe to a fallible man the unerring wis- dom of the one living God. And, there- fore, it is not possible. No ; if popery reo-ain its lost power, let it not be through our giving it the right hand of fellowship. Let it wrest back ecclesi- astical endowments ; let it rekindle the fires of persecution ; let it bo legisla- ted into might by time-serving conces- sions ; but never let us be silent, as though wo thought popery to bo truth; never supine, ad though we counted its errors unimportant.
A rio-hteous ancestry felt the im- possibility of peace \\'ith Rome ; and though they coujd wage the war only at the risk of sub.atance and life, yet did they manfully throw themselves into the
struggle ; for far dearer tc them waa " truth as it is in Jesus," than wealth, or honor, or the quiet comforts of home ; and seeinsf that this truth was disguised or denied, they could not rest till it waa fully exhibited, and boldly proclaimed. Their ashes are yet in our land ; out cities and villages are haunted by their memoi'ies ; but shall it be said that their spirit hath departed, and that we value not the privileges purchased for us by their blood ] Children as we are of men who discovered, and acted on the discovery, that to remain at peace with Rome were to offer insult to God, we will not prove our degeneracy by laps- ing into an alliance which they abhorred as sacrilegious. The echo of their voices — trumpet-tongued as they were, so that, at the piei'cing call, Europe shook as with an earthquake — still lin- gers on our mountains and in our val- leys ; still is it syllabling to us that po- pery is the predicted apostacy of the latter times ; still is it discoursing of Rome as the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, and reiterating the sum- mons, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Thus it is reminding us — though, if there were no such echo, there is speech enough in reason, speech enough in re- velation— that, in separating from the Romish church, we are not forgetful of the duty of endeavoring to keep " the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace ;" but that, in refusing communion with that church, and requiring her to re- nounce her abominations ere we will keep back our protest, we obey to the utmost the precejit of the apostle, " if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."
Now we have been the more ready to embrace an oppoitunity of bringing protestantism before you in contrast with popery, because we believe that the Roman catholic religion has been rapidly gaining ground in this country. There must be great inattention to what is passing on all sides, if any of you be unaware that popery is on the increase. It is easy to meet statements in regard to the growing number of papal chapels and colleges, by saying that the growth is but proportioned to the growth of population, and therefore does not indicate any influx of prose-
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lytes. Of course, a reply such as this is of no worth, except as borne out by facts ; and we thoroughly believe, that, the more carefully you examine, the more you will find that there is a great- er growth Lif popery than you had right to expect from the growth of popula- tion. When you have made due allow- ance for the increased numbers in Ro- man catholic families, there will be a large surplus, only to be referred to a successful system of proselytism. It should suffice to convince you of this, to observe, as you easily may, that Ro- man catholic chapels are rising in neigh- borhoods where there is no Roman catholic population ; and that, in cases where the chapel has been reared, in hopes that a congregation would be form- ed, the hopes have not been altogether falsified by the event.
Wliat are we to say to this 1 Men would indeed persuade you that the en- larged intelligence of the times, the diffusion of knowledge, and the increase of liberality, are an ample security against the revival, to any great extent, of a system so absurd and repulsive as popery. But they quite forget, when they hastily pronounce that popery has no likelihood of being revived in an en- lightened age, that it is emphatically the religion of human nature ; and that he, who can persuade himself of its truth, passes into a position the most coveted by the mass of our race, that in which sin may be committed, with a thorough Becurity that its consenuences may be averted. We find no guarantee against the reinstatement of pojiery, in the con- fessed facts of a vast outstretch of mind, and of a general developement of the thinking faculties of our people. It is an axiom with us, that people must have some kind of religion ; they cannot so sepulchre their immortality, that it will never struggle up, and compel them to think of provision for the future. And when a population shall have grown vain of its intelligence, and proud of its knowledge ; when by applying univer- sally t!it! machinery of a mere mental education, and ]>ervading a country with literature rather than with Scrip- ture, you shall have brought men into the condition, O too possible, of those who think it beneath them to inquire after God ; then, do we believe, the scene will be clear for the machinations
of such a system as the papacy. The inflated and self-sufficient generation wilJ feel the need of some specific for quiet- ing conscience. But they will prefer the least spiritual, and the least humiliat- ing. They will lean to that, wl-.ich, if it insult the understanding, bribes the lusts, and buys reason itato silence by the immunities which it promises. It is not their wisdom which will inake them loath popery. Too wise to seek God prayerfully and humbly in the Bible, they will be as open to the delusioa which can believe a lie, as the ignorant to the imposition which palms off false- hood for truth. They will not want God, but a method of forgetting him, which shall pass at the same time for a method of remembering him. This is a definition of popery, that masterpiece of Satan, constructed for two mighty divisions of humankind, the men who would be saved by their merits, and the men who would be saved in their sins. Hence, if a day of great intellectual darkness be favorable for popery, so may be a day of great intellectual light. We may as well fall into the pit with our eyes dazzled, as with our eyes blind- folded : ignorance is no better element for a false religion than knowledge, when it has generated conceit of our own powers ; and intellect, which is a defender, when duly honored and em- ployed, becomes a betrayer, when idoli- zed as omnipotent.
You are told moreover, and this is one of the most specious of the deceits through which popery carries on its work, that the Roman catholic religion is not what it was ; that it took its com- plexion from the times ; and that tenets, against which protestants loudly exclaim, and principles which they indignantly execrate, were held only in days of ignorance and barbarism, and have long since fled befoi'e the advance of civiliza- tion. And very unfair and ungenerous, we are told, it is, to rake up the absurd- ities and cruelties of a rude and unin- formed age, and to charge them on the creed of men in our own generation, who detest them as cordially as our- selves. Be it so : we are at all events deal- ing with an infallible church : and unless the claim to infallibility be amongst the thin"-s given up we are at a loss to know ho w° tins church can so greatly have chano^ed; how, since she never goes
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wrong, she can renounce what she be- lieved, and condemn what she did. And the Roman church is not suicidal enough to give up her claim to infalli- bility : but she is sagacious enough to perceive that men are willing to be de- ceived, that an excess of false charity is blinding them to facts, and that there is abroad amongst them such an idolatry of what they call liberal, that they make it a ponit of honor to believe good of all evil, and perhaps evil of all good. Of this temper of the times, is the Roman church, marvellously wise in her genera- tion, adroitly availing herself: and so well has she plied men with the specious statement that she is not what she was, that they are rather covering her with apologies for their inconsiderate bigotry, than thinking of measui-es to resist her advances. But there is no change in popery. The system is the same, in- trinsically, inherently the same. It may assume different aspects to carry differ- ent purposes, but this is itself a part of popery : there is the variable appearance of the chameleon, and the invariable venom of the serpent. Thus in Ii-eland, where the theology of Dens is the recog- nized text-book of the Rom.an catholic clergy, they will tell you, when there is any end to be gained, that popery is an improved, and modified, and humanized thing : v/hereas, all the while, there is not a monstrous doctrine, broached in the most barbarous of past times, which tliis very text-book does not uphold as necessary to be believed, and not a foul practice, devised in the midnight of the world, which it does not enjoin as ne- cessary to be done. Make peace, if you will, with popery, receive it into your senate, shrine it in your churches, plant it in your hearts ; but be ye certain, certain as that there is a heaven above you and a God over you, that the po- pery thus honored and embraced, is the very popery that was degraded and loathed by the holiest of your fathers, the very popery — the same in haughti- ness, the same in intolerance — which lorded it over kings, assumed the pre- rogatives of Deity, crushed human liber- ty, and slew the saints of God.
O that England may be convinced of this, before taught it by fatal experi- ence. It may not yet be too late. She^ has tampered with popery: "n many' respects she has patronized p' pery,
giving it, by her compromises and con cessions, a vantage-ground which its best wishers could hardly have dared to expect ; but, nevertheless, it may not yet be too late. Let protestants only awaken to a sense of the worth of their privileges, privileges so long en- joyed that they are practically forgotten, and this land may remain, what for three centuries it hath been, the great witness for scriptural truth, the great centre of scriptural light. There is already a struggle. In Ireland especially, popery so wrestles with protestantism that there is cause for fear that falsehood will gain mastery. And we call upon you to view the struggle in its true light. It is not to be regarded as a struggle be- tween rival churches, each desiring the temporal ascendency. It is not a con- test for the possession of tithe, for right to the mitre, for claim on the benefice. It is a contest between the Christianity of the New Testament, and the Christi- anity of human tradition and corrupt fable — a contest, therefore, whose issue is to decide whether the pure Gospel shall have footing in Ireland.
There is, there will be, a struggle ; and our counsel to you individually is, that you examine well the tenets of protestantism, and possess yourselves of the grounds on which it is impossi- ble that we live peaceably with Rome. If you belong to a reformed church, ac- quaint yourselves with the particulars in which the reformation consisted, that you may be able to give reasons for op- position to popery. And when convinc- ed that they are not unimportant points on which protestants differ from papists, let each, in his station, oppose the march of popery, oppose it by argument, by counsel, by exhortation, by prayer. " Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." By the memory of martyrs, by the ashes of con- fessors, by the dust of a thousand saints, we conjure you to be stanch in defence of your religion. The spirits of de2:)art- ed worthies, who witncsssed a good confession, and counted not their lives dear, so that truth might be upheld, bend down, one might think, from their lofty dwelling-place, and mark our earnestness in defending the faith "once delivered to the saints." O, if they could hear our voice, should it not tell them, that there are yet many in the land, emulous of
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their zeal, and eager to tread in their steps; ready, if there come a season big with calamity, to gird themselves for the defence of protestantism in her last asy- lum, and to maintain in the strength of the living God, that system which they wrouo'ht out with toil, and cemented with blood ? Yes, illustrious immortals ! ye died not in vain. Mighty group ! there was lit up at your massacre a fire in those realms which is yet unextin- guished ; from father to son has the sa- cred flame been transmitted : and though, in the days of our security, that flame may have burnt with diminished lustre, yet let the watchmen sound an alarm, and many a mountain top shall be red with the beacon's blaze, and the noble vault of your resting-place grow illumin- ed with the flash. Repose ye in your
deep tranquility, spirits of the martyred dead! We know something of the worth of a pure Gospel, and a free Bi- ble : and we will bind ourselves by the name of Him "who liveth and abideth for ever," to strive to preserve unimpair- ed the privileges bequeathed at such cost. The spirit of ^protestantism may have long lain dormant, but it is not ex- tinct : it shall be found, in the hour of her church's peril, that there are yet bold and true-hearted men in England, who count religion dearer than sub- stance ; and who, having received from their fathers a charter of faith, stained with the blood of the holiest and the best, would rather dye it afresh in the tide of their ovi^n veins, than send it down, torn and mutilated, to their children.
SERMON V .
CHRISTIANITY A SWORD.
" Thiok not that I an come to send peace on earth : I come not to send peace, but a sword." — BIattheW X. 34
When Isaiah predicted the birth of Messiah, "the Prince of Peace" was one of the titles which he gave to the coming deliverer. When angels an- nounced to the shepherds that Messiah was bora, they sang as their chorus, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." At first sight, there scarcely seems to be thorough agreement between such a pre- diction, or such an announcement, and the declaration which Christ makes, in our text, with regard to his mission. Is it "the Prince of Peace," the being whose entrance upon earth was hailed by the lieavenly hosts as insuring peace to mankind, who proclaims that he had uot come to send peace 3 but that, as
though he were the warrior, all whose battles are "with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood," he had come to send a sword ? Let it be observed at once, though your own minds will an- ticipate the remark, that it is common in Scripture to represent a person as doing that of which he may indeed be the occasion, but which is not effected by his own will or agency. Sometimes, indeed, the action is ascribed to an indi- vidual who has not even been its occa- sion, whose only connection with the re- sult has been the announcing that it should surely come to pass. Thus God says to Jeremiah, " See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull
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down, and to build, and to 2:)lant." Un- doubtedly the prophet had no part in the demolition of our empire, and the ag- grandizement of another. He was no agent in elfecting the revolutions which he was commissioned to predict. All that he did was to proclaim a coming destruction, or a coming exaltation ; and then he is said to have wrought what he merely announced.
You are moreover aware that the Bi- ble often ascribes to God's authorship, what can only be referred to his permis- sion ; so that the Almighty seems repre- sented as interfering to cause results, which we are bound to conclude that he simply allows. It cannot, therefore, ex- cite surprise, for it quite consists with the ordinary phraseology of Scripture, that Christ should apparently announce, as the purpose of his mission, a result produced only by human perverseness. There can be nothing more easy of de- monstration, than that the Gospel is a message of peace, that Christianity is a system which, cordially received and fully obeyed, would diffuse harmony and happiness through all the world's fam- ilies. And if it once be acknowledged that it is the design and tendency of the religion of Jesus to unite in close bro- therhood, by uniting in the fellowship of " one faith and one baptism," the tribes and households of our race, there is an end of all debate on the fitness of appro- priating to the Savior the name " Prince of Peace;" and we must search else- where than in the nature of the christian dispensation, for reasons why the sword, rather than the olive-branch, is ascend- ant U})on earth.
We lay it down then as a position whose justice will be readily admitted, that our text announces a result, and not the design, of the introduction of Chris- tianity. Our Lord declares of himself, that he came not to send peace ; but we are, notwithstanding, assured that he had left the throne of his glory in order to reconcile this creation to God, and re- store friendship between man and his Maker. We must conclude, therefore, that he is not speaking of the object of his mission, but only of the operation of a fatal and pei-verting power, resident in the creature, by which the greatest blessing may be turned into a curse. Christianity, in its own nature and ten- dencies, may be emphatically peace : but
Christianity, as clashing witn corrupt passions, may be practically a sword, which, wounding and devastating, brings injury, and not benefit, to thousands. Hence, knowing by his prescience that disastrous consequences, chargeable al- together upon man, would follow the in- troduction of Christianity, our Lord, who had come to send peace, might declare that he had come to send a sword — the only sense in which he sent the sword, being that of publishing doctrines which would excite the animosities of our na- ture against holiness and God.
But there are sundry inquiries sug- gested by our text, besides that of the sense in which the sending of the sword can be referred to him who came to send peace. We have introduced our sub- ject with the foregoing remarks, in or- der to remove misapprehension as to the true cause of evils, which all must both observe and lament. We shall indeed see more clearly in the sequel whence these evils originate. But it is sufficient, at the outset of our discourse, to have shown summarily the unfairness of charging the consequences on the Au- thor of Christianity ; any blessing, what- ever its beauty and brightness, may be abused by the recipient : but assuredly, when turned into an instrument of mis- chief, it is only in its original goodness that it can be ascribed to the Creator, and in its injuriousness wholly to the creature. This being premised, we de- sign, in the first place, to consider our text as a prophecy ; examining how Christ's words have been verified, and meeting such objections to the plan of God's dealings as the subject seems like- ly to suggest. We shall then endeavor, in the second place, to point out specifi- cally the causes which have turned into a sword that, which, in its own nature, is emphatically peace.
Now you must all be familiar with the melancholy truth, that, from its first publication, Christianity has been the occasion of discord and bloodshed. We might, perhaps, have been prepared to expect, that, whilst Christianity strove to make head against the world's super- stitions, and to dethrone heathenism, which had long held an undisputed sway, the passions and powers of interested millions would be excited against its preachers. It was quite natural, that, when there was published a religion at
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war with every other then dominant and approved, fierce efforts should be made to crush, by crushing its advocates, a system whose establishment must be the downfall of those which a long ancestry had bequeathed, and which every lust felt interested in upholding. Seeing that the worst passions of humanity had BO much at stake, it might fairly have been calculated that so vast a revolution as that of the Roman empire exchang- ing paganism for, at least, nominal Chris- tianity, would not be effected without great private dissatisfaction if not politi- cal disturbance. Accordingly, as we all know, persecutions of the most fearful description assailed the infant religion, designing, and almost effecting, its ex- tinction. And when Satan, battling for an empire which it was the professed object of Christianity to wrench away, sent forth all his emissaries, and stirred up all his agents, in order that, if possi- ble, the very name of the crucified might be banished and lost, there was exhibit- ed a spectacle which bore out to the let- ter the prediction of our text. They who traced the causes of massacre which devastated cities and provinces, and found that the christian religion had oc- casioned such outbreaks of violence, must have felt that Christ had spoken words as true as they were awful, when declaring that he had come, not to send peace, but a sword, on the earth.
It was, however, as we have already stated, fairly to have been expected, that, ere heathenism could be nationally displaced, and Christianity substituted, there would be such public convulsion as would bring distress and death on many of the professors of our faith. The prophecy becomes not unlooked for in its fulfilment, until Christianity had gained ascendency, and kingdoms pro- fessed themselves evangelized. It might have been supposed — at least until the principles of Christianity had been nar- rowly sifted — that, when the religion became professedly that of all the mem- bers of a community, the sword would be sheathed, and peace be the instant produce of sameness of faith. But alas, the persecutions by which paganism strove to annihilate Christianity, are more than rivalled in fierceness by those of which christiai.8 have been, at once, the autho's and objects. The darkest page in the history of mankind is per-
haps that on which are registered the crimes that have sprung from the reli- gious differences of Christendom. It were a sickening detail, to count up tho miseries which may be traced to these differences. Our very childien are fa- miliar with the history of times when Europe shook as though with an earth- quake, and when a haughty and tyran- nical church devoted all to execration and death who dared to think for them- selves, or to take the Bible as their standard of faith. Our own land be- came a battle-plain, on which was car- ried on the struggle for religious free- dom ; heresy, as the bold confession of truth was insolently termed, marked out thousands of our forefathers for the stake or the scaffold. In this did Chris- tianity differ broadly from those false systems of theology which had been set up in the long night of heathenism ; these systems were tolerant of each other, because, whatever their minor differences, they had the same mighty errors in common : but popery opposed itself to protestantism as vehemently as paganism had done to Christianity ; for, though both confessed Christ as a Me- diator, the agreement of the two systems was as nothing to their separation on grand and fundamental tenets.
It is then, but too true, that Christi- anity has been a sword to Christendom itself The prophecy of our text has registered its fulfilment in the blood of the multitudes who, at various times, have been immolated on the altars of bigotry and ignorance. And if one of that angelic host which thronged the firmament of Bethlehem, and chanted of '* peace on earth, good will towards men " had taken the survey of Christen- dom, when persecution was at its height, and the Romish hierarchy, backed by. the kings and great ones of the earth, hunted down the revivers of apostolic doctrine and discipline, we may doubt whether he would have poured forth the same rich melody ; whether, if left to frame his message from his observation, he would have announced that Christ had come to send peace, in the face of so tremendous a demonstration, that,, practically at least, he had come to senJi a sword.
But you are not to suppose that the prediction of our text is acc^omplisSed- in no days but thosQ of intolerance and'
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persecution. We learn, from the suc- ceeding verse, that Christ specially re- ferred to the family disturbances which his religion would occasion. "For I am come," saith he, " to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law." Here we have a prophecy, whose fulfilment is not limited to a past gene- ration, but may be found every day in our own domestic histories. We live in times — and we are bound to thank God for the privilege — when the profession of that religion, which we believe to be true, exposes to no public danger, when the sword sleeps in its scabbard, and magistracy interferes with men's wor- ship only to protect. But we cannot, nevertheless, be ignorant that there is a vast amount of private persecution, which, as laws do not prescribe, neither can they prevent ; and that the intro- duction of genuine piety into a house- hold is too frequently the introduction of discord and unhappiness. It may have fallen within the power of many of us to observe, how the peace of a family has apparently been broken up by religion ; how its members, amongst whom there may have heretofore circu- lated all the charms of a thorough unanimity, have become divided and estranged, when certain of the number have grown careful of the soul. The making a profession of religion is often considered tantamount to actual rebel- lion ; and then the annoimced result is literally brought round — the parents be- ing set against the children, and the children against the parents. And over and above the disunion thus unhappily introduced into households, it were idle to deny that piety is still exposed to much of harassing opposition, so that, although persecution no longer wears its more appalling forms, it is not pos- sible to make bold confession of Christ, without thereby incurring obloquy and wrong. The cooling of friendship, the withdrawing of patronage, the misre- presentation of motives, the endeavor to thwart, and turn into ridicule — for all these must the man be prepared, who, in our own day, acts out his Christianity ; and he who should think that he might turn from worldliness to piety without k^^ing caste, and alienating many who have loved and assisted him, would
show that he had neither studied the character of our religion, nor gathered the testimony of experience. And whilst it can thus be maintained that the pro- fession of that godliness which the Gos pel enjoins, serves to break the closest links of association, dividing into almost iri'econcilable parties those who have heretofore been as one in all the inter- courses of life, it cannot be denied that Christianity is still a sword, rather than a peace-maker upon earth ; and that, whatever it may effect in days yet to come, the breaches which it now occa- sions in all ranks of society, attest that Christ spake as a true prophet when he uttered our text.
There is no necessity that, in exhibit- ing the present fulfilment of the predic- tion, we pass froni Christendom to the still broad domains of heathenism. It is undoubtedly a result of every mission- ary enterprise which makes head against idolatry, that deep and fierce passions are roused by its success. Those mem- bers of a tribe who embrace Christiani- ty, become objects of the inveterate hos- tility of those who adhere to the super- stitions of their fathers. Thus is there acted over again, in the circumscribed neighborhood of a missionary settle- ment, something of that awful drama which once had the Roman world for its theatre. Heathenism still struggles to put down Christianity, and idol worship- pers still regard as a personal enemy every convert from idolatry. Neither can we see reason to question, that be- fore any wide tract of paganism could become nominally evangelized — we mean, of course, by the machinery of the present dispensation — so that tho religion of Jesus should take the place of a degrading mythology, the worst passions of mankind would be banded in the withstanding, and that too by perfidy and violence, the exchange rtf falsehood for truth, of systems which patronize sensuality for one which en- joins the living soberly and righteously. And when Christianity had triumphed — triumphed, be it observed, against an opposition resembling, in its vehemence, that which met our religion on its first publication — there would occur, we may believe, all those private but distressing persecutions, which we trace and de- plore amongst ourselves ; so that, in pre- vailing on a heathen empire to throw
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away its idols, ami erect the cross as its standard, you would have prevailed on it to receive into its families the fruitful source of dissensions, and to take as its portion the being rent , into parties, whose variances must interrupt if not destroy, all the harmony of society. Hence, it is still the melancholy truth, that, in sending Christianity, you send a sword into a land. Until there be usheied in a season when religion shall take possession of every heart in an ex- tended population, there will lie, to all appearance, an impossibility against the nominally evangelizing that population, without, at the same time, dividing and disturbing it ; for the cross, whilst intro- duced only into the creed of a multitude, will excite their enmity against the few who give their affections to Him who died on it as a sacrifice.
But now we think it a question worthy the closest examination, whether, since Christianity has all along proved a sword, the human race has been benefited, in temporal respects, by its propagation. VVe are not about to take into account the unspeakable advantages which this religion has conferred, when man is viewed as the heir of immortality. But there would be something so unlooked for in the fact, if it were fact, that the amount of present happiness had been diminished, or even not increased, by Christianity, that we have right to de- mand stricter than ordinary proof, ere we receive it into our catalogue of truths. And we have no hesitation in saying, rhat, in spite of its having been as a sword on the earth, Christianity has done more to elevate the character, diminish the wretchedness, and augment the com- torts of thenatirms who have received it as their faith, than was ever effected by the best systems of heathenism, whilst left free to attempt the improvement of human condition. We confess, of course, that much misery has been occasioned oy the christian religion ; and that, had this religion gained no footing in a land, there are many forms of disquietude which its inhabitants would have altoge- ther escaped. Whilst Christianity acts as a sword, there will be wounds, which, had there been no such weapon, would never have been inflicted. But the fair way of meeting the question is, to en- deavor to strike a balance between the prodL\ced wretchedness and the pro-
duced happiness, and to determine on which side the preponderance lies.
And we could not wish a finer topic of christian advocacy than that of the im- mense blessing which the religion of Jesus has proved to mankind, if viewed simply in their temporal capacity. We are ready to keep futurity out of sight, with all its august and terrible mysteries. We will not meet the arraigner of Chris- tianity on ground from which he must instantly be driven, that of the revelation of immortality, which can be found only on the pages of Scripture. We will confine ourselves to the present narrow scene, and deal with man as though death were to terminate his being. And we do assert — and proofs unnumbered are at hand to make good the assertion — that the great civilizer of manners, the great heightener of morals, the soother of the afflicted, the patron of the desti- tute, the friend of the oppressed — this, from its first establishment, hath Chris- tianity been ; and for this should it win the veneration of those who know not its worth, as the alone guide to man's final inheritance. We have only to contrast, the most famous and refined of ancient nations v/ith modern and christian, in or- der to assure ourselves, that, in all which can give dignity to our nature, in all which can minister to public majesty and private comfort, to independence of mind, security of property, and whatso- ever can either strengthen or ornament the frame- work of society, heathenism — great as may have been the progress in arts and sciences — must yield at once and immeasurably to Christianity,
It is easy to upbraid our religion, be- cause it hath fulfilled its own prophecies, and proved itself a sword ; but what en- gine has been so efficient as this sword in accomplishing results which every lover of virtue admires, and every friend of humanity applauds 1 What hath ban- ished gross vices from the open stage on which they once walked unblushingly, and forced them, where it failed to ex- terminate, to hide themselves in the shades of a disgraceful privacy? We reply, the sword Christianity. What hath covered lands with buildings un- known in earlier and much-vaunted days, with hospitals, and infirmaries, and asy- lums ] We answer, the sword Chris- tianity. What is gradually extirpating slavery from the earth, and bringing on
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a season, too long delayed indeed, but our approaches to which distance incal- culably those of the best heathen times, when man shall own universally a bro- ther in man, and dash off" every fetter which cruelty hath forged, and cupidity fastened ] We answer unhesitatingly, the sword Christianity. What hath soft- ened the horrors of war, rendering com- paratively unheard of the massacre of the unoffending, and the oppression of ^aptives ] What hath raised the female sex from the degraded position which they still occupy in the lands of a false faith ] What hath introduced laws, which shield the weakest from injury, protect the widow in her lonelinesss, and secure his rights to the orphan] What hath given sacredness to every domestic re- lation, to the ties which bind together the husband and the wife, the parent and the child, the master and the servant; and thus brouglit those virtues to our firesides, the exile of which takes all music from that beautiful word home 1 To all such questions we have but one reply, the sword Christianity. The deter- mined foe of injustice in its every form ; the denouncer of malice, and revenge, and pride, passions which keep the sur- face of society ever stormy and agitated ; the nurse of genuine patriotism, because the enemy of selfishness ; the founder and upholder of noble institutions, be- cause the teacher of the largest philan- thropy— Christianity has lifted our fallen humanity to a moral greatness which seemed wholly out of reach, to a station, which, compared with that occupied un- der the tyranny of heathenism, is like a new place amongst orders in creation.
And nothing is needed, in proof that we put forth no exaggerated statement, but that Christendom be contrasted with countries which have not yet received Christianity. If you are in search of the attributes which give dignity to a state, of the virtues which shed lustre and love- liness over families, of what is magnifi- cent in enterprise, refined in civilization, lofty in ethics, admirable in jurispru- dence, you never turn to any but an evangelized territory, in order to obtain the most signal exhibition. And just in proportion as Christianity now gains fool- ing on a district of heathenism, there is a distinct improvement in whatever tends to exalt a nation, and bring comfort and respectability into its households.
If we could but plant the cross on every mountain, an«I in every valley, of this glcVe, prevailing on a thousand tribes to cast away their idols, and hail Jesu3 Christ as "King of kings and Lord of lords," who doubts that we shoud have done infinitely more towards covering our planet with all the dignities and de- cencies of civilized life tlian by cen- turies of endeavor to humanize barbarism without molesting superstition ] We are clear as upon a point which needs no ar- gument, because ascertained by experi- ence, and which, if not proved by ex- perience, might be established by irre- sistible argument, that, in teaching a na- tion the religion of Christ, we teach it the principles of government, which will give it fixedness as an empire, the sciences which will multiply the comforts, and the truths which will elevate the character, of its population. Thoroughly to chris- tianize would be thoroughly to regener- ate a land. And the poor missionary, who, in the simplicity of his faith, and the fervour of his zeal, throws himself in- to the waste of paganism, and there, with no apparent mechanism at his dis- posal for altering the condition of a sav- age community, labors at making Christ known to idolaters — why, we say of this intrepid wrestler with ignorance, that, in toiling to save the souls, he is toiling to develope the intellectual powers, re- form the policy, and elevate in every re- spect the rank of the beings who engage his solicitudes. The day on which a province of Africa hearkened to his sum- mons, started from its moral debasement, and acknowledged Jesus as its Saviour, would be also the day on which that province overstepped one half the inter- val by which it had been separated from civilized Europe, and went on, as with a giant's stride, towards its due place amongst nations.
So that however true it be, that, in sending Christianity, you send a sword into a land, we will not for a moment harbor the opinion, that Christianity is no temporal blessing, if received by the in- habitants as their guide to immortality. It is a sword ; and divided families, and clashing parties, will attest the keenness and strength of the weapon. But then it is also a sword, whose bright flash scatters the darkness of ages, and from whose point shrink away the corruption, the cruelty, and the fraud, which flour-
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ished in tlia( darkness as their element. It is a sword : and it must pierce to the sundering many close ties, dissect many interests, and lacerate many hearts. But to wave this sword over a land is to break the spell fastened on it by centuries of ignorance ; and to disperse, or, at least, to disturb, those brooding spirits which have oppressed its population, and kept down the energies which ennoble our race. And, therefore, are we nothing moved by the accusation, that Christianity has caused some portion of misery. We deny not the truth of the charge : to dis- prove that truth would be to disprove Christianity itself. The Founder pro- phesied that his religion would be a sword, and the accomplishment of the prophecy is one of our evidences that he came forth from God. But when men would go farther, when they would ar- raign Christianity as having increased, on the whole, the sum of human misery, oh, then we have our appeal to the splen- did institutions of civilized states, to the bulwarks of liberty which they have bravely thrown up, to the structures which they have reared for the shelter of the suffering, and to their mighty ad- vancings in equity, and science, and good order, and greatness. We show you the desert blossoming as the rose, and all because ploughed by the sword Chris- tianity. We show you every chain of oppression flying into shivers, and all because struck by the sword Christianity We show you the cofi'ers of the wealthy bursting open for the succor of the des- titute, and all because touched by the Bword Christianity. We show you the human intellect springing into manhood, reason starting from dwarfishness, and assuming magnificence of stature, and all because roused by the glare of the sword Christianity. Ay, if you can show us feuds, and jealousies, and wars, and mas- sacres, and charge them home on Chris- tianity as a cause, we can show you whatsoever is confessed to minister most to the welfare, and glory, and strength, and happiness of society, stamped with one broad impress, and that impress the sword Christianity : and, therefore, are we bold to declare that the amount of temporal misery has been immeasura- bly diminished by the propagation of the leligion of Jesus ; and that this sword, in spite of produced slaughter and divi- sions, has been, and still is, as a golden
I sceptre, beneath which the tribes of our race have found a rest which heathenism knew only in its poetry ; a freedom, and a security, and a greatness, which philo- sophy reached only in its dreams.
But now, having examined our text as a prophecy, we are briefly to investi- gate the causes which have turned into a sword that which, in its own nature, is emphatically peace. We shall not go particularly into the cases of heathenism persecuting Christianity, and popery per- secuting protestantism. Neither shall we speak of the tumults caused by the various heresies which, at different times have sprung up in the church. When men's passions, prejudices, and interests are engaged on the side of error and corruption, it is unavoidable that the ad- vocates of truth and purity will array against themselves hatred and hostility. But we will take the more ordinary case, in which there is no open conflict between theological systems and sects ; for this is perhaps the only one in which it is at all strange that divisions should be the produce of Christianity. There is nothing about which men will not form different opinions : there is scarce an opinion too absurd to find advocates ; especially when, if true, it would be advantageous ; and philosophy, with its various schools, would be as much a sword as Christianity with its various sects, if as much were dependent on its theories. But waving these and other obvious considerations, let us see how the sword comes, where there is no di- rect collision between heresy and ox'tho- doxy. We stated, as you will remem- ber, in the introduction of our discourse, that Christianity is a system, requiring nothing but a cordial reception, in order to its bringing happiness to all the world's families. The truth of such statement will hare been evidenced, if proof can be required, by our foregoing examination of the effects of Christianity on society, We are warranted, by this examination, in asserting, as we have al- ready in part done, that, if the Gospel were cordially received by every individ- ual in a land, there would be banished from that land — we say not all unhappi- ness, for a nation of righteous would still ne a nation of fallen men, and therefore ie exposed to sorrow and death — but rertainly the chief part of that misery which may be traced to the feuds of our
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race, and which confessedly constitutes a great fraction of liiiman wretchedness. The tendencies of Christianity are palpa- bly to the production of thorough una- nimity ; so that no one who studies the character of this religion, or observes its effects even where partially established, can fail, we think, to entertain the con- viction, that a nation of real christians would be virtually a nation of affection- ate brothers. But if the tendencies of Christianity be thus to the producing peace, we must suppose that there are in man certain counter tendencies, and that the sword is forged from the oppo- sition between the two. Neither can we be at a loss to discover those counter tendencies, and thus to account for the divisions and persecutions to which Christianity will be sure to give rise, even where men seem agreed on its ar- ticles. The great thing to be observed is, that there is a direct contrainety be- tween the maxims of the world and those of the Gospel. It is impossible for a man to become a true believer in Jesus, without being immediately marked off from the great mass of his fellows. If the whole community went over with him to the discipleship of Christ, he would still have fellowship with all around, though widely different from that which he has heretofore had. But when he goes over alone, or with but few associates out of many, he detaches himself, and that too by a great wrench, from the society to which he has belong- ed. Between the world which still ''lieth in wickedness," and that little company who " seek a better country, even a heavenly," the separation is so broad that Scripture exhibits the one as the old creation, and the other as the new. The man who acts on the princi- ple that he is immortal, belongs, we had almost said, to a different race from the man whose conduct seems to proclaim him without belief in the deathlessness of the soul.
And if Christianity, when cordially re- ceived, thus detach the recipient from all by whom it is only nominally received, you can have no difficulty in understand- ing how it acts virtually as a sword. The separation would be as nothing, if it were only of that kind which exists be- tween the different ranks and classes of a community. You cannot liken to a Bword the causes which separate the
higher classes from the lower, because these classes, however distant from each other in external advantages, are linked by many ties ; and their relative positions do not necessarily produce hostility of feeling. But the case is widely different when it is vital Christianity which breaks into parties any set of men. The separ- ation is a separation on principles ; so that the conduct of the one party will unavoidably reprove that of the other, and, therefore, excite an enmity which will be sure to show itself in some open demonstration.
We take the case before referred to, that of a family, one of whose members is a christian inwardly, whilst the oth- ers are christians only outwardly. There may have been perfect harmony in this family up to the time at which vital Christianity gained a place within its circle. But, afterwards, there must, we fear, be interruption of this harmony ; the household can no longer present that aspect of unanimity, by which it once won the admiration of every beholder. And the reason of this change may be readily defined. Whilst there was no- thing but nominal Christianity, each member of the family did his part to- wards countenancing the rest in attach- ment to the perishable, and forgetfulness of the imperishable, and was upheld in return by the united proceedings of all those around him. There may have been great diversity of pursuit; the sev- eral individuals may have embraced different professions, and their respect- ive tastes may have led them to seek enjoyment in unconnected channels. But forasmuch as they were all along one in the determination of finding hap- piness in something short of God, divi- sion upon earthly matters might well consist with a most cordial union, the agreement being perfect on the princi- ple that this woild is man's rest, and the disagreement being only as to which of its sections should be chosen for a home. But you will observe that, when vital Christianity found its way into the breas-t of one member of this household, there must have passed a change, such as no- thing else could have effected, on the position which he occupied relatively to the others. His acquiring a Caste for religion, while the taste of his compan- ions is exclusively for what is worldly, differs widely from his acquiring a taste
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for music, whilst the taste of his com- panions is exclusively for painting. The taste for painting is not rebuked, as it were, by the taste for music ; they may be called sister tastes, and the votaries of the two may remain in close fellow- ship. But there is no congeniality, nay, there is the strongest antipathy, between a taste for the things of heaven, and a taste for the things of earth. Hence the religious man, unavoidably, though it may be silently, reproaches the irreli- gious, with whom he is in the habit of family intercourse. His deportment, ex- actly in the degree that it proves his affections set on things above, passes the severest censure on those whose af- fections are set on things below. And if it be a consequence on the introduc- tion of vital Christianity, that one mem- ber of the domestic circle becomes practically, if not in words, the reprover of the rest, it must also follow that this one will incur the dislike of the rest, a dislike which will show itself in more or less offensive acts, according to the dispositions and circumstances of those who entertain it. Thus it is that Chris- tianity is turned into a sword. Admit- ted into the heart of an individual, it discovers itself in his life, and so makes that life a calm, but unflinching, rebuke of the unconverted, by its contrast with their own. But such rebuke must ex- cite enmity in those who are its subjects. So that the household is necessarily di- vided ; and to Christianity must the divi- sion be ascribed. "A man is set at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law." The converted member, being secretly disliked, will, under some shape or another, be persecuted by the uncon- verted ; and thus the result is brought round, that the religion which Christ propagated, though in its own nature peace, becomes, through clashing with opposing principles, a sword to the family into which it gains entrance.
You will easily extend to a neighbor- hood, or nation, the reasoning thus ap- plied to a family. Those who hold the doctrines of the Gospel in their purity, and whose conduct is regulated by its precepts, will unavoidably form a dis- tinct party, to which Christ's words may be applied, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but be-
cause ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." The principles on which the righteous act are so repug- nant to those which the mass of men adopt, that to look for unanimity would be to expect the concord of darkness with light. So long as there is a native enmity in the heart to holiness and God — and this will remain until the nature be renewed — there lies a moral impossi- bility against the unbroken peace of a community, composed of the righteous and the unrighteous. They are men of different natures, of different worlds : the one party has been transferred to the kingdom of Christ, the other re- mains in the kingdom of Satan. And since there must be war between these kingdoms, a war which shall only then terminate when evil is expelled from this creation, and the works of the devil are finally destroyed, peace can pervade no province of Christendom, unless that province contain nothing but nominal, or nothing but vital Christianity. "Whilst there is nothing but nominal Christianity, there is peace, the peace of death ; whilst nothing but vital, there is peace, the peace of heaven. But whilst there is a mixture, there will be necessarily collision between the two; and, just according to the character of the times, will that collision produce the flames of a fierce persecution, or the heart-burn ings of a silent, but rancorous hatred. Yes, Christianity is the olive-branch ; but it falls upon waters, which, struck by any thing pure and heavenly, boil instantly up as though stirred by a hur- i-icane. Christianity is a dove ; but it comes down to the forest where the ravenous birds and the unclean shelter, and the gentlest waving of its wing rouses the brood whose haunts seem invaded. Christianity, in short, is peace ; but it is peace proposed to rebels with their weapons in their hands ; and who knows not, that, if one of these rebels accept, whilst the others refuse, the proffered boon, those who adhere to their treason will turn upon him who takes the oath of allegiance, and treat him as basely recreant to the cause he has espoused "? We require, therefore, nothing but the confession that man, in his natural state, is the enemy of God, and that, consequently, there must be direct contrariety between his principles
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and those of a religion which makes God the first object of love. This hav- ing been granted, you may take the case either of a nation or a family, of empires broken into partiesandsects,or of house- holds where the flow of social charities has been suddenly arrested ; but suffi- ciency of producing cause has been as- signed, to explain, without impeaching the tendencies of Christianity, why our Lord's words have all along been verifi- ed, " I came not to send peace, but a sword."
We have thus examined our text un- der different points of view, and have only, in conclusion, to remark how strict- ly our statements harmonize with pro- phecies which delineate the final spread of Christianity. We have shown you that it is simply because but partially received, that Christianity is practically a sword on the earth. Make the re- ception universal, and, in place of acting as a sword, Christianity would bind into one all the households, and all the hearts of human kind. Thus the tendencies of the religion are to the producing, and, when produced, to the preserving that glorious state of things which is yet promised in Scripture, when " nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more ;" when " Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim." We can prove Christianity fitted for the uni- versal religion: we can prove also, that, if universally received, there would be universal peace and universal joy, the millennial day of a Umg-troubled crea- tion. It may then even yet be a sword, but, oh, that every heait were pierced by it, and every family penetrated, Christianity may cause dissensions, and we lament them as proofs of the frailty
and corruption of our nature ; but we would not exchange the dissensions for the undisturbed quiet of spiritual lethar- gy. We know them to be tokens of life : where enmity is excited, godliness is making way. And, therefore, we will not say, in the words of the prophet, " O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet ] put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still." We will rather say with the Psalmist to Messiah, *' Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty ; and in thy majesty ride prosperously." We wish no scabbard for the sword but the hearts of the whole human population. Thus sheathed, the jubilee year begins : the one sword, like Aaron's rod, swal- lows up every other ; and the universal wound is the universal health.
Let each of us remember, that, ere Christianity can be to him peace, it must be to him a sword. The " broken and contrite heart" precedes the assurance that we are " accepted in the beloved." "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." Where are there sharper, more cutting words than these, when spoken by God's Spirit to the soul 1 " but in me is thinp help found." What syllables can breathe more of hope, of comfort, of serenity ? The sword Christianity is that weapon which heals in wounding : there is bal- sam on its point, and, as it pierces, it cures. Teaching man to feel himself lost, what can more lacerate the spirit ] Teaching man that whosoever will may be saved by a mediator, what balm can be more medicinal ? May God grant unto all of us, that, being first stricken with a sense of sin, we may be ^'justified by faith," and thus have *' peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ."
SERMON VI.
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
" And the Lord spake unto Moses that Belfsame day, sayinpr, Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho ; and behold the land of Canaan, which I gavo unto the children of Israel for a possession; and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people." — DeuteronomT xxxib 43, 50.
The long wanderings of the Israelites were now about to be concluded. That wicked generation, which had provoked God by their murmuring and rebellion, had been exterminated according to the divine threat ; and their children stood by the waters of Jordan, waiting the command to go over and expel the Ca- naanites. The land, flowing with milk and honey, was actually in view ; the land which had been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; and in order to the possession of which by their descendants, Egypt had been desolated with plagues, and a mystic pillar of fire and cloud had traversed the wilderness. It was a moment of great excitement, and of great triumph : many must have looked impatiently on the river, which now alone divided them from their heritage, and have longed for the permission to pass this last barrier, and tread the soil which was to be henceforward their own. And who shall be more excited, who more eager for the crossing the Jordan, than the great leader of the people, he who had been commissioned to deliver them from bondage, and who had borne meek- ly with their insolence and ingratitude during forty years of danger and toil 1 It was the only earthly recompense which the captain of Israel could receive, that, having been instrumental in bring- ing the nation to the very border of their inheritance, he should behold them hap- pily settled ; and enjoy, in his old age, the beautiful spectacle of the twelve tribes dividing amongst themselves the fields and the vineyards for which their fathers had longed. Or, if this were too much, and he must resign to those younger than himself the leading Israel
to battle with the possessors of the land, let him, at least, behold the rich valleys, the sunny hills, the sparkling brooks ; and thus satisfy himself, by actual in- spection, of the goodliness of the herit- age, the thought of which had cheered him in a thousand toils and perils.
But Moses, though there was to arise after him no prophet so honoj-ed and faithful ; though he had been admitted to speak face to face with the Lord, and had received marks of divine approbation granted neither before nor since to any of our race — Moses had sinned, and the incurred penalty had been, that he should not enter the land of promise. His eai*- nest desire and prayer can do nothing towards procuring remission of the sen- tence : he may ascend Mount Nebo, and thence may he catch a distant view of the spreadings of Canaan : but he shall not cross the Jordan, he shall not plant his foot on the long-desired Palestine. Strange and apparently harsh decree ! The sin itself had not seemed extraordi- narily heinous ; yet the threatened retri- bution is not to be escaped : lengthened and unvaried obedience can do nothing when set against the solitary offence ; and the intercessor, who had so often pleaded successfully with God for the thousands of Israel, is denied the slight boon which he ventured to ask for him- self Look on the assembled congrega- tion : who doubts that there are many in that vast gathering, who have done much to provoke the Almighty, who will cairy into Canaan unsanctified hearts and un- grateful spirits ? Yet shall they all go over the Jordan : they shall all follow the ark, weighty with sacramental trea- sures, as the waters divide before it, do- 42
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THE DEATH OF MOgES.
Ing liomage to the symbol of divinity. None shall be left behind but he who was first amongst the servants of God, who would have felt the purest joy, and offer- ed the richest praise, on entering the land which had been promised to his an- cestors. Aaron was already dead : this father of the Levitical priesthood had of- fended with Moses ; and therefore was he denied the privilege of offering the first sacrifice in Canaan, and thus consecrating as it were, the inheritance of the Lord. And now must Moses also be gathered to his fathers : he has been spared lon- ger than Aaron, for he had been far more upright and obedient : he had been permitted to approach much neai'er to the promised land, yea, actually to come within sight ; but the Lord is nol forgetful of his word ; and now, there- fore, comes this startling message, "Get thee up into this mountain, and die in the mount, and be gathered unto thy people ; as Aaron thy brother died in Mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people."
The command was obeyed without a murmur. This man of God, whose " eye was not dim, nor his natural force abat- ed," ascended to the top of Pisgah ; and there did the Lord, miraculously assist- ing his vision, show him "all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar." This having been done, he breathed out his soul into the hands of his Maker ; and " the Lord buried him in a valley over against Bethpeor;" but no human eye saw this mysterious disso- lution, and "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."
Now we consider this as a very inte- resting and instructive portion of sacred history, presenting in large measure ma- terial for profitable discourse. We de- sign, therefore, to engage you with its consideration ; and if the truths which '' we shall have to bring befi)re you, be on- ly those with which frequent hearing has made you familiar, they will be found, we think, of such importance as to war- rant their being often repeated. It will be necessary that we examine the sin of which Moses had been guilty, and which entailed his exclusion from Canaan. Af- ter this, we shall have to consider the
peculiar circumstances of his death There are thus two general divisions un- der which our subject will naturally re- solve itself In the first place, we are to consider why God refused to allow Mo- ses to pass over Jordan : in the second place, we are to give our attention to the narrative of his ascending Mount Nebo, and there expiring in view of the land which he was not to enter.
Now you will remember that, soon after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, they were distressed for water in the wilderness, and were so incensed against Moses as to be almost ready to stone him. On this occasion Moses was directed by God to take the rod, with which he had wrought such great wonders in Egypt, and to smite the rock in Horeb ; he did so, and forthwith came there out water in abundance. It is generally allowed that this rock in Horeb was typical of Christ ; and that the circumstance of the rock yielding no water, until smitten by the rod of Moses, represented the import- ant truth, that the Mediator must re- ceive the blows of the law before he could be the source of salvation to a parched and perishing world. It is to this that St. Paul refers, when he says of the Jews, "They did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." It appears that the waters, which gushed from the rock in Horeb, attended the Israelites during the chief part of their wanderings in the wilderness ; and this it is which we are to understand, when the apostle affirms that the rock followed them — the rock itself did not f dlow them, but the stream which had issued from that rock — a beautiful representation of the fact, that, if Christ were once smitten, or once sacrificed, a life-giving current would ac- company continually the church m the wilderness. We do not read again of any scarcity of water until thirty-seven years after, when the generation which had come out of E„ypt had been destroy- ed fi)r their unbelief, and their children were about to enter Canaan. It is- pro- bable that God then allowed the supply of water to fail, in order that the Israel- ites might be reminded that they were miraculously sustained, and taught, what they were always apt to forget, their de- pendence on the guardianship of the Al- mighty. Assuredly they needed the les-
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
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son ; for no sooner did they find them- selves in want of water, than they show- ed the same unbelief which their fathers had manifested, and, in place of meekly trusting in the God who had so long pro- vided for their wants, "they gathered themselves together against Moses and Aaron," and bitterly reviled them for having brought them out of Egypt.
Moses is bidden, as on the former occa- sion, to take his rod, that he may bring forth water from the rock. But you are to observe carefully the difference between the command now given him, and that which had been delivered in Horeb. In the latter instance, God had distinctly said to him, " Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink." But in the present instance the direction is, " Speak ye unto the rock before their eyes, and it shall give forth his water." In the one case, Moses was expressly commanded to smite the rock ; in the other he was as expressly com- manded only to speak unto the rock. And we cannot but consider that there was something very significant in this. The rock, as we have supposed, typified Christ, who was to be once smitten by the rod of J;he law, but only once ; seeing that " by one offering he had perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Hav- ing: been once smitten, there is nothing needed, in any after dearth, but that this rock should bo spoken to; prayer, if we may use the expression, will open the pierced side of the Lamb of God, and cause fresh flowings of that stream which is for the cleansing of the nations. Hence it would have been to violate the integrity and beauty of the type, that the rock should have been smitten again ; it would have been to represent a necessity that Christ should be twice sacrificed, and thus to darken the whole Gospel scheme. Yet this it was which Moses did ; and, in doing this, he greatly displeased God. We have shown you that the command to Moses and Aaron was most distinct, " Speak ye unto the rock before their eyes." But wlien we come to see how the command was obeyed, we read as fol- lows : " And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together befoi-e the rock , and he said unto them. Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock ] And Moses lifted up hia hand,
and with his rod he smote the rock twice."
Can you fail, my brethren, to see that herein Moses sinned grievously ] It is evident that he was chafed and in'itated in spirit ; his language shows this, " hear now, ye rebels :" rebels indeed the Isra- elites were ; but it was manifestly in a burst of human passion, rather than of holy indignation, that Moses here used the term. And, then, observe how he pro- ceeds— " Must we fetch you water out of this rock V What are ye, O Moses and Aaron, that you should speak as though the virtue were in you, when you are men of like passions and feebleness with ourselves ] The Psalmist, when giving us the history of his nation during their sojourning in the wilderness, might well describe Moses as provoked, on this occasion, to hasty and intemperate speech. " They angered God also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sakes, because they pro- voked his spirit, so that he spake unad- visedly with his lips."
But this was not the whole, and per- haps not the chief of his offence. In place of doing only as he had been bid- den, in speaking to the rock, he lifted up his hand and smote the rock, yea, smote it twice. Was this merely in the irritation of the moment, or in actual un- belief] Did he only forget the com- mand ; or did he fear that a simple word would not suflSce, seeing that on the for- mer occasion, the rock yielded no water until smitten by the rod ] Probably there was a measui-e of distrust; he would hardly else have struck twice; and faith was not likely to be in vigorous exercise when an unholy wrath had possession of his mind. And thus the lawgiver dis- played passion, and arrogance, and un- belief: passion, in that he addressed the multitude in the language of an irritated man ; arrogance, in that he spake as though his own power were to bring forth the water ; unbelief, in that he smote where he had been commanded only to speak. It seems probable that it was the unbelief which specially provoked God ; for when he proceeded to the rebuking the sin, it was in these terms, ' Because ye believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel."
To us, accustomed, as we unhappily are, to offend more grievously than Moses, even when the utmost had been
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gaid in aggravation of his sin, it may seem that God dealt harshly with his servant, in immediately pronouncing as his sen- tence, that he should not bring the con- gregation into the land which he would give them. It was a sentence of which Moses himself felt the severity ; for he describes himself as pleading earnestly for a remission. But he pleaded in vain ; nay, he seems to have been repulsed with indignation ; for it is thus that he describes the issue of his supplication : "But the Lord was wi-oth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me ; and the Lord said unto me. Let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this mat- ter." Let it, however, be remembered, that the eyes of all Israel were now upon Moses and Aaron ■ and that, the more exalted their station, and the more emi- nent their piety, the more requisite was it that God should mark their offence ; thus proving that he will not tolerate sin even in those whom he most loves and approves. It is not because a man stands hisfh in the favor of his Maker, that he may expect to escape the tem- poral retiibutions of a fault; on the con- trary, since he is not to sustain its eteinal retributions, there is the greater reason why the temporal should not be remitted ; for if they were, his sin would be wholly unvisited, and therefore apparently over- looked by God. And though indeed Moses had been singularly faithful and obedient, who can fail to perceive that the uncommonness of his fault would only have made his being unpunished more observable ; whereas it gave on the other hand, opportunity for a most im- pressive lesson, as to God's hatred of sin, and his resolve that it shall never go un- recompensed'? The whole congregation had seen the sin committed; had they seen it also unnoticed by God, they might have argued that impatience and unbelief were excusable in certain per- sons, or und<5r certain provocations. But when they found that Aaron was to die on Mount Hor, and Moses on Mount Nebo, because they had not be- lieved God to sanctify him in their eyes, they were tac^i'it even more impressively than by ar-y thing which had happened to themselves or their fathers, that sin necessarily moves, under all circum- stances, the wrath of the Almighty ; that no amount, whether of previous or after righteousness, can compensate for the
smallest transgression; and that emi- nence as a saint, rather insures than averts sonr.e penal visitation, if there be the least s tverving from the strict line of duty.
And the lesson should lose none of its impressiveness because delivered ages back, and under a dispensation which had more of temporal sanctions than our own. If I would judge the evil nature of unbe- lief, if I would estimate how the least dis- trust of his word provokes the Most High, I know not on what I can better fix my attention than on Moses arrested on the very threshold of Canaan, because, on a solitary occasion, when moreover there was much to incense him, he had shown want of confidence in God, and over- stepped the limits of a command. The thousands who fell in the wilderness " because of unbelief," warn me not so emphatically as this single individual, shut out from the promised land. They were bold and dissolute men : often and fiezxely did they provoke God in the desert. But he was the very meekest on the earth : his face, it may be, still shone with celestial radiance, as when he descended from communing with God on the mount : and I do not know that there is another registered instance, during all the years which had elapsed since the c<iming out of Egypt, in which he had displayed the least deficiency in faith. Does he not then furnish a most signal demonstration, that unbelief, ia every degree and with every palliation, stores up against us matter of accusa- tion ; and that, if we will not simply take God at his word, act on his precepts, and leave him to make good his prom- ises, we expose ourselves to his heavy indignation, and must look for nothing but the fulfilment of his threatenings ] Let us be assured that God does not overlook, but rather accurately notes, with full intent to recompense, those doubtings and mistrustings which are often found in the best of his servants ; and that, if he do not at the instant punish his people, when they follow not implicitly his bidding, it is not because he thinks little of the offence, but be- cause he sees fit to defer the retribution. A id if any one of you would plead that it is very hard to be simply obedient, that reason will come in with its sug- gestions, and that then it is intensely dif- ficult to adhere strictly to revelation ; if
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
S33
Be would think it some excuse for the defects of his faith, that he is taken by surprise, or placed in trying circum- stances, or is constitutionally anxious, or generally firm — we send him to be- hold Moses, eager to enter Canaan, and almost within its borders, and neverthe- less commanded to ascend Mount Nebo to die ; and we think that he will hardly venture to make light hereafter of the least distrust of God, when he finds that this eminent saint expired on the very margin of the promised inheritance, just because, in a moment of unbelief, he had smitten the rock to which he had been directed only to speak.
Such then was the offence of Moses : an offence which we are perhaps dispos- ed to underrate, because prone ourselves to impatience and unbelief; and of which, as probably, we overrate the punishment, not considering that the chastisement was altogether temporal. It is true that God was angry with Moses, and that he show- ed his anger by disappointing one of his most cherished hopes : but the anger was exhausted in the one degiee, that he must die upon Nebo ; for tliis moun- tain was to be as the gate to paradise.
Let us now however examine the par- ticulars which are narrated in our text of the departure of Moses. The sentence had been, that Moses should not bring the contjreijation into Canaan. Its liter- al execution did not forbid his approach- ing to the very confines of the land, nor his being allowed to look upon its prov- inces. And accordingly God, who al- ways tempers judgment with mercy, though he would not remit the sentence, gave his servant as much indulgence as consisted with its terms, suffering him to advance to the very edge of the Jor- dan, and then directing him to a moun- tain whence he might gaze on large dis- tricts of the expected inheritance. Still the hour is come when Moses must die, liowever graciously it may be ordered, that, though he is to depart out of life because he had displeased God, his de- parture shall be soothed by tokens of iavor. There is a strange mixture of severity and gentleness in the command, " Get thee up into this mountain, and behold the land of Canaan, and die in the mount whither thou goest up." There is severity — thou must die, though thou art yet in full strength, with every pow- er, wl: ether of mind or of body, unimpair
ed. But there is also gentleness — thou must die ; but yet thou shalt not close thine eyes upon the world until they have been gladdened by a sight of the valleys ai. i mountains which Israel shall possess.
Yet it is neither the severity, nor the gentleness, which is most observable in the passage : it is the simple, easy man- ner in which the command is given. " Go up and die." Had God been bid- ding Moses to a banquet, or directing him to perform the most ordinary duty, he could not have spoken more familiar- ly, or with less indication of requiring what was painful or difficult.* And in truth it was no hardship to Moses to die. He had deliberately " esteemed the re- proach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures in Egypt," and had long "had respect unto the recompense of the reward." And though he would fain have lived a while longer, to complete the work at which he had labored for years, he knew that to die would be to enter a land, of which Canaan, with all its brightness, was but a dim type. Therefore could God speak to him of dying, just as he would have spoken of taking rest in sleep : as though there could be nothing formidable in the act of dissolution, nothing from which hu- man nature might shrink. Yet we could not have wondered, had Moses manifest- ed reluctance ; for it was in a mysterious, and almost fearful manner, that he was to depart out of life. It is, in all cases, a solemn thing to die ; and our nature, when gathering itself up for the act of dissolution, seems to need all the prayers and kindnesses of friends, that it may be enabled to meet the last enemy with composure. The chamber in which a o-ood man dies, is ordinarily occupied by affectionate relatives ; they stand round his bed, to watch his every look, and catch his every word : they whisper him encouraging truths, and they speak cheeringly of the better land to which he is hastening, though they may often be obliged to tuin away the face, lest he should be grieved by the tears which their own loss extorts. And all this de- tracts somewhat from the terror of dying. It is not, that, if the dying man were alone, God could not equally sustain him by the consolations of his grace.
•Bishop Hall.
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But it is that there is something in the visible instrumentality, which is specially adapted to our nature : we are disposed to the leaning upon sensible aids, so that, whilst yet in the flesh, we can scarce commit ourselves to spiritual agency. Take away all the relatives and friends from the sick room, and is there not a scene of extraordinary desolateness, a scene from which every one of us re- coils, and which presents to the mind such a picture of desertion, that the thought of its being our own lot would sufHce to embitter the rest of our days 1 Yet it was alone that Moses was to die : no friend was to accompany him to Pisgah ; no relative was to be near when he breathed out his soul. ''Get thee up into this mountain, and die there." Strange death-bed, which I am thus or- dered to ascend ! Mine eye is not dim- med, my strength is not broken — what fierce and sudden sickness will seize me on that mount] Am I to linger there in unalleviated pain ? and then, when my soul at length struggles free, must my body be left, a dishonored thing, to be preyed on by the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air 1 Would you pot have expected that thoughts such as these would have crowded and distress- ed the mind of the great lawgiver, on receiving the direction of our text ? I cannot find words to express to you what I think of the mysteriousness and awful- ness of the scene through which Moses had to pass. To separate himself from the people to whom lie was tenderly at- tached ; to ascend, without a single companion, the mountain from which he was never to return ; to climb the lofty summit for the express purpose of there grappling with death, though he knew not with what terrors, nor un- der what shape; to go, in his unabated vigor, that, on a wild spot, alone with his Creator, he might be consumed by slow disease, or rapt away in a whirl- wind, or stricken down by lightning — I feel as though it had been less trying, had he been summoned to a martyr's death, to ascend the scaffold in place of the mountain, and to brave the cries of bloodthirsty persecutors instead of the loneliness, the breathlessness, of the summit of Pisgah. And never does Moses wear to me such an air of moral sublimity, as when I contemplate him leaving the camp, for the express pur-
pose of resigning his soul into the handa of his Maker. Never does his faith seena to me so signal, so sorely tried, nor so finely triumphant. I gaze on him with awe, as, with the rod of God in his hand, he stands before Pharaoh, and appals the proud monarch by the prodigies which he works. And there is a fearful mag- nificence in his aspect, as, with out- stretched arm, he plants himself on the Red Sea's shore, and bids its waters divide, that the thousands of Israel may march through on dry land. Yea, and who can look on him without emotions of wonder, and almost of dread, as he as- cends Mount Sinai, whilst the fire and thunder of the Lord strike terror into the hearts of the congregation, that he may commune in secret with God, and re- ceive from his lips enactments and stat- utes 1 But, on these and the like occa- sions, the very circumstances in which he was placed, were calculated to animate the leader ; and when we think on the mighty powers with which he was en- dowed, we can scarce feel surprise that he should have borne himself so heroical- ly. The great trial of faith was not in the waving or striking with a rod which had often shown its mastery over nature : neither was it in the ascending a moun- tain, from which he expected to return with fit laws for the government of a tur- bulent multitude. It was the laying down of the miraculous rod which re- quired vast faith ; and the splendid courasfe was shown in the climbinsf a summit, where, with the rock for his couch, and the broad heaven for his roof, and far from all human companionship, he was to submit himself to the sentence, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."
And therefore, we again say, that, if we would survey Moses in his grandeur, when his moral majesty is most conspic- uous, and the faith and boldness of a true servant of God commend themselves most to our imitation, then it is not when he breaks the chains of a long-enslaved people, and not when he conducts a swarming multitude through the wilder ness, and not when he is admitted into intin.ate communings with the Almighty, that he should fix our attention — it is ra- ther when he departs from the camp without a solitary attendant, and we know that, as he climbs the steep ascent, perhaps pausing at times that he may
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look yet again on the people whom, not- withstanding their ingratitude, he tender- ly loved, he is obeying the strange and thrilling command, "Get thee up into this mountain, and there die, and be ga- thered to thy people."
We cannot follow Moses in this his mysterious journey. We know not the particulars of what occurred on the sum- mit of Pisgah ; and where revelation is silent, it does not become us to offer con- jectures. We are only informed that the Lord showed him great part of the land of Canaan, and then said unta him, " I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither." And here, just where curiosity is most strongly excited — for who does not long to know the exact mode in which Moses departed out of life, to be present at his last scene, and observe his dismissal 1 — the narrative is closed with the simple announcement, " So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord." But we know, at least, that God was with his servant in this hour of strangeness and loneliness, and that, when Moses lay down to die, he had been abundantly cheered by visions vouchsafed him of the long-promised Canaan. And shall we think that Moses died contented and happy, just because his eye had rested on the waters of Jor- don, and caught the wavings of the ce- dars of Lebanon 1 Was it merely by gazing on the natural landscape that the man of God was cheered ; and was no- thing done for him but the causing val- leys that laughed with abundance, and heights that were crested with beauty, to gather themselves into one glorious panorama, as the inheritance which had been promised to the children of Abra- ham ] We can scarcely think this. We may believe that the desire of Moses to enter into Canaan was a spiritual desire : with Canaan he associated a fuller revela- tion of the Christ : arid he may have thought, that, admitted into the land, which in the fulness of time would be trodden by Messiah, he should learn more of that Redeemer of the world than he had been able to gather from existing prophecies and types.
In his own prayer to God, depreca- ting the sentence which his impatience and unbelief had provoked, he spake as though there were one spot which he ^
specially wished to be permitted to be- hold. " I pray thee, let me go over, and see that good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon." " That goodly mountain " — were his thoughts on Mount Moriah, where Abra- ham had offered up Isaac, and which was to be the scene of a sacrifice of which this had been only a figuie ] Was it Zion on which he was eager to gaze, as knowing, that, on a far distant day, it would be hallowed by the footsteps, and witness the sorrows of the prophet, whose coming he had himself been com- missioned to foretell ] Indeed, we again say, we can hardly think that it was sim- ply the wish of beholding the rich land- scape of Canaan, its fountains and brooks, and olives and vines, which ac- tuated Moses when imploring permission to pass over Jordan. He knew that in this land was to be accomplished the original promise; that there was the seed of the woman to bruise the ser- pent's head. He knev/ that in this land would that Deliverer appear for whom patriarchs had longed, and of whom he was himself a signal type — the Deliverer in whom he felt that all his hopes cen- tred, but whose office and person could be only feebly learned from revelations already vouchsafed. And why may it not have been, that Moses longed to tread Canaan, because his mind already peopled it with the august occurrences of coming ages 1 even as to ourselves would Palestine be a scene of surpassing interest, not because its mountains may be noble, and its valleys lovely; but but because haunted by^the memory of all that is precious to a christian, because every breeze would there seem to us to waft the words of Christ, and every flower to be nurtured with his blood, and every spot to be hallowed by his pre- sence ? To Moses it must have been through anticipated, whereas to us it would be through remembered events, that the land of Judea might thus preach by its every hill, and fountain, and tree. But the trains and processions of pro- phecy were as splendid, though not as distinct, as are now those of history ; and if the lawgiver, privileged to search into the future, and behold in mystic shadows the redemption of humankind, could not associate, as we ourselves can, various scenes with the various transac- tions in which sinners have interest, he
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might at least connect the whole land of Canaan with the promised rescue of our race, and regard all its spreadings as •'holy gr(jund,"like that which surround- ed the burning bush in Horeb. And as we ourselves, carrying with us the re- membrance of all that was done "for us men and for our salvation," might feel that to visit Judea would be to strength- en our faith and warm our piety — seeing that dead indeed must be the heart which would not beat higher in the gar- den of Gethsemane, and on the mount of Calvary — so may Moses, borne on- ward by the prophetic impulse, have felt that it would be to awaken loftier emo- tions, and obtain clearer views, to enter and walk the land which was finally to be consecrated by the presence of the Shiloh.
For this it may have been that the lawgiver so intently longed to pass the Jordan. And when he stood on the summit of Pisgah, and God showed him the land, it may have been by the revela- tion of mysteries, which he had ardently desired to penetrate, that his spirit was cheered, and death stripped of all terror. He looked from the mountain-top o'er many a luxuriant scene ; but as plain, and vineyard, and town, and river, were made to pass before his view, God, who is ex- pressly declared to have been with him to instruct him, may have taught him how each spot would be associated with the great work of human deliverance. His eye is upon Bethlehem ; but, lo, already a mystic star hangs over the solitary vil- lage; and he learns something of the force of the prediction which himself had recorded, " There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel." The waters of a lake are heaving beneath him ; but. In, a human form is walking the agitated surface ; and he is taught that as Noah, whose history he had related, was sheltered in the ark, so shall all, who will turn from iniquity, find safety in a Being whom no Btorms can overwhelm, and no waves in- gulph. And now a mountain is seen, but not lit up, as the panorama had hith- erto been, by the joyous shinings of the sun ; awful clouds hang around it and over it, as though it were the scene of Bome tragedy which nature shrank from beholding. This rivets the lawgiver's gaze; it is the "goodly mountain" which he had prayed that he might see.
And there is a cross upon its summit ; gi-eater than Isaac is bound to the altar; the being, whom he had seen upon the waters, is expiring in agony. The trans- actions of the great day of atonement are thus explained ; the mystery of the scape- goat is unfolded ; and Moses, taught tho meaning of types which himself had been directed to institute, is ready to exclaim, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant de- part in peace, for mine eyes have eeen thy salvation."
Thus it may have been, that, ere Moses departed out of life, God not only showed him the jiromised land, but made it a kind of parable of redemption. And, on this supposition, we may well under- stand why Moses was so eager to see Canaan before he died, and why the sight should have been instrumental to the making him die happy. Yes, I cannot but feel, as I follow Moses in thought to the summit of Pisgah, that the man of God does not climb that eminence, merely that he may gladden his eye with a glo- rious development of scenery, and satisfy himself, by actual inspection, of the goodliness of the heritage which Israel was about to possess. And when I find that God himself was with this greatest of prophets, to assist his vision and in- form him as to the territory which lay beneath his feet, I cannot think that the divine communication refen'ed only to the names of cities, and the boundaries of tribes. Rather must I believe that what Moses sought, and God vouchsafed, was fuller knowledge of all that would be wrought in Canaan for the pardon of sin ; that as Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Tabor, and Zion, graved themselves on the pictui'e, it was their association with the promised Messiah which gave them interest in the eye of the delighted spectator ; and that, therefore, it was literally to prepare Moses for death, by showing him " the Resurrection and the Life," that God spake unto him, saying, " Get thee up into this mountain, and behold the land of Canaan, and die there, and be gathered unto thy fathers."
And there did Moses die ; his spirit entered into the separate state, and no human friends were near to do the last honors to his remains. But God would not desert the body, any more than the soul of his servant ; both were his by crea- tion, and both were to become doubly his by redemption. It is therefore added
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to the strange narra *e — and perhaps it is the strangest fact of all — that " he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor ; but no man knoweth o( his sepulchre unto this day." Wonderful entombment ! no mor- tal hands dug the grave, no mortal voices chanted the requiem : but angels, "min- istering spirits," who are appointed to attend on the heirs of salvation, com- posed the limbs, and prepared the se- pulchre. We refer to angels this per- formance of the last rites to the departed prophet, because it appears from another, though obscure, passage of Scripture, that angels were in some way the keepers of the body ; for we read, in the General Epistle of Jude, of " Michael the arch- ano^el, when contendin<ir with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses." Why this special mystery and careful- ness in regard of the body of Moses 1 It has been supposed, that prone as the Israelites were to idolatry, they might have been tempted, had they known the sepulchre of their great lawgiver, to make it the scene of superstitious ob- servances. But this seems at least an insufficient sup])osition, more especially since the place of burial, though not the exact spot, was tolerably defined, " a val- ley in the land of Moab, over against Beth- peor;" quite defined enough for supersti- tion, had there been any wish to give idol- atrous honors to the remains of the dead. But you will all remember that Moses, though he must die before entering Canaan, was to rise, and appear in that land, ages before the general resurrec- tion. When Christ was transfigured on Mount Tabor, who were those shining forms tiiat stood by him, and " spake of the decease which he should acconij)lish at Jerusalem"?" Who but Elias and Moses — Elias, who had been translated without seeing death, so that he had en- tered, body and soul, into heaven ; and Moses, who had indeed died, the soul having been separated from the body, but whose body had been committed to angelic guardianship, as though in order that it niiglit be ready to take j)artin the brilliant transaction upon Tabor 1 The body, which iiad been left upon Pisgah, reappeared upon Tabor; and evidence was given, that those who lie for ages in the grave, shall be as glorious, at the second coming of Christ, as those who are to be changed " in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye." Moses was the representative of the myriads who shall rise from the grave ; Elias, of those, who, found alive upon the earth, shall be transformed without seeing death ; and forasmuch as the representatives appeared in equal splendor, so also, we believe, shall the quick and dead, when all that was typified by the transfiguration shall be accomplished in the prelimina- ries to the general judgment.
But we have no space to enlarge upon this. We must pass from the mysterious death and burial of Moses, and ask you whether you do not see that there are great spiritual lessons in the series of events which we have briefly reviewed ! We need not tell you that the captivity of Israel in Egypt was a striking repre- sentation of the moral condition of the whole human race, as sold by sin into the service of a task-master. And when the chains of the people were broken, and God brought them forth " by a mighty hand, and a stretched-out arm," the whole transaction was eminently typical of our own emancipation from bondage. But why might not Moses, who had conmienced, be allowed to com- plete the great work of deliverance 1 Why, after bringing the people out of Egypt, might he not settle them in Canaan ] Why, except that Moses was but the representative of the law, and that the law of itself, can never lead us into heavenly places 1 The law is as " a schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ;" it may discipline us during our wander- ings in the wilderness ; but if, when we reach the Jordan, there were no Joshua, no Jesus — for the names are the same — to undertake to be our guide, we could never go over and possess that good land which God hath prepared for his people. Therefore, we may believe, was it ap- pointed that there should be a change of leaders, that all may know, that, if the law, acting through terrors, bring a man out of the slavery of sin, it is only the Gospel, rich in merciful provision, which can open for him an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Moses was com- manded to resign the people to Joshua: •' The very acts of God," says Bishop Hall, " were allegories ; where the law ends, there the Saviour begins ; we may see the land of promise in the law; only Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testa- ment, can bring us into it." 43
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Thus does Moses instruct us, by his death, to whom to look for admission into the heavenly Canaan. He instructs us moreover as to how we must be placed, if our last hours are to be those of hope and peace. We must die on the summit of Pisgah : we must die with our eye upon Bethlehem, upon Gethsemane, upon Calvary. It was not, as we have ventured to suppose, the glo- riousness of the Canaanitish landscape which satisfied the dying leader, and nerved liim for departure. It was rather his view of the Being by whom that landscape would be trodden, and who would sanctify its scenes by his tears and his blood. And, in like manner, when a christian comes to die, it is not 60 much by views of the majestic spread- ings of the paradise of God, of the
rollings of the crystal river, and of the sparklings of the golden streets, that he must look to be comforted : his eye, with that of Moses, must be upon the manger, the garden, and the cross ; and thus, fixing his every hope on his Fore runner, he may be confident that an en trance shall be ministered unto him abundantly, into the kingdom " prepared from the foundation of the world." " Get thee up into this mountain, and die there." O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness for death, that, when summoned to depart we may ascend the summit, whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, " we have waited for thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in Paradise.
SERMON VII.
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
' Lift up your heads, O yc ?ates ; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting' doors, and tlie Kin? of glory shall come in. is this Kiug of glory 1 Tlie Lord strong' and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." — PsAiM xxiv. 7, 8,
Who
We hardly know how it has come to pass, that comparatively but little atten- tion is given to the great fact of Christ's ascension into heaven. Christmas-day, Good-Friday, and Easter-day, are uni- versally observed by members of our church ; but Holy Thursday is scarcely known, even by name, to the great mass of christians. The church evidently designed to attach as much importance to that day as to the others, having ap- pointed proper psalms as well as lessons, and furnished a sacramental preface. We have come, however, to the neg- lecting this ordinance of the church, 60 that, whilst we statedly assemble to commemorate the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord, we have no
solemn gathering in celebration of his ascension. And if this have not arisen from men's attachingtoo little importance to the ascension, it is, at least, likely to lead to their thinking less of that event than it deserves, or than is I'equired for it by the church. On this account, for- asmuch as we have just passed Holy Thursday, we think it well to direct your attention to the closing scene of Christ's sojourn upon earth, so that, having stood round his cradle, followed him to Calvary, and seen him burst from the grave, we may complete the won- drous contemplation by gazing upon him as he soars from Mount Olivet. Of course it will not be the mere historical fact on which we shall enlarge : for we
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may assume that you require no evi- dence, that, as Jesus died and revived, 60 did he return in human nature to the heaven whence he had descended, and take his seat at the light hand of God. But, as, in discoursing on the resurrection of Christ, we strive lo show ynu our per- sonal interest in that event, arguing our own resurrection from that of i)ur Head ; so will we endeavor, in discoursing on the ascension, to consider the occurrence in Its bearings on ourselves : for such bear- ings undoubtedly there are, seeing that St. Paul declares to the Ephesians, that God " hath quickened us togetlier with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
It is generally admitted, by expositors of the writings of David, that the words of our text have a secondary, if not a primary, reference to the return of the Mediator to heaven, when he had ac- complished the work of human redemp- tion. By many, the Psalm, of which our text is a part, is supposed to have been written and sung on occasion of the re- moval of the ark by David to Jerusalem ; it may have been also employed when that ark was carried into tlie magnificent temple which Solomon had reared. The Levites may be regarded as approach- ing in solemn procession, bearing the sacred depository of sacramental trea- sures. As they approach the massive gates, they claim admissi(tn for the King of glory, who was perpetually to dwell between the cherubim that shuuld overshadow the ark. " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting dctors, and the King of glory shall come in." The keepers of the gates are supposed to hear the summons, and chey demand from within, " Who is this King of glory V The answer is, " The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle :" and then we are to imagine the ponderous gates thrown open, and the gorgeous throng of priests and Levites pressing towards the recesses of the sanctuary.
But if such were the transaction to which the Psalm onginally referred, it may well be regarded as typical ; whilst certain of the expressions, such as " ye everlasting doors," seem evidently to belong to no earthly house, however sumptuous and solid. In short, as Bishop Ilorsley affirms, the Jehovah of
this psalm must be Christ ; and the en- trance of the Redeemer into the kingdom of his Father is the event prophetically announced. The passage is very sublime, when thus interpreted and applied.* You are to consider the Mediator as ascending towards heaven, attended by a multitude of the celestial host. The surroundmg angels mingle their voices in a chorus, which summons their glo- rious compeers, who are within the heavenly city, to open wide the gates, that the triumphant Savior may enter. The angels within the city may be re- garded as thronging to its walls, won- dering who this could be that approached in human form, and yet claimed admis- sion into the immediate presence of God. They ask the name of the ascending man, for whom was demanded entrance to their own bright abode. The answer is a reference to his achievements upon earth, where he had "spoiled principali- ties and powers," and " made a show of them openly " " The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." And then you are to supjiose the everlasting doors to revolve, and that, amid the en- raptured adorations of the whole celestial hierarchy, he who had been " a man of sorrows," and who "bare our sins in his own body on the tree," advances to the throne of God, and takes his seat there as " Head over all things to the Church."
It is in this manner that our text may be applied to the great event with which we now propose to engage your atten- tion. And if angels, for whom Jesus did not die, and whose battle he had not fought, may be considered as exultingly requiring his admission into the heavenly city, shall men be silent, men for whom he had suffered, men for whom he was about to intercede ] Rather let us take on our own lips the summons to the gates and everlasting doors : and, as we stand with the Apostles, gazing upwards at the ascending Savior, let us exclaim, in a voice of gladness and triumph, " Lift up your heads, O yc gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in."
What, you will say, are we to rejoice in the departure of our Lord from his Church 1 It may well be understood why angels should utter the words of our text. Angels v/ere delighted at the
" See Bishop Home.
34U
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
return of that Divine Person, who had emptied himself of his glories, and with- drawn himself for a time, so far as Deity could be withdrawn, from the scene where he had been wont to show them his greatness. To angels, there- fore, the ascension was indeed cause of lofty gratulation ; we might well expect them to manifest their gladness, to throng joyously round the returning Redeemer, and to usher him with every token of exultation, into the house of his Father. But assuredly the case is very different with us. The ascension of Christ was withdrawment from all visible intercourse with his church ; that church has ever since been in comparative widowhood ; and the return of her Lord is the grand event with which she is taught to associate what will be most brilliant in her portion. Must we then be glad at the departui'e of Christ; and, as though we wished him to be hidden from our sight, must we summon the gates of the heavenly city, and bid them fly open that the King of glory may enter 1
It is in the answer to such a question as this that we shall find matter of im- portant and interesting discourse. There are indeed other aspects under which the ascension may be surveyed, and furnish to our contemplation truths of no ordinary kind. But the great thing for our consideration, is the personal interest which we ourselves have in the ascension of Christ, the cause which that event furnishes for our gratitude and rejoicing. To this, therefore, we shall strictly confine ourselves ; so that the object of the re- mainder of our discourse is simple and definite; we have to search out, and set before you, reasons, from which it may appear that we are bound to exult in the ascension of our Lord ; or which, in other words, might justify our joining in the summons, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye ever- lasting doors. '
Now let us just suppose that Christ had not been exalted to the right hand of God, and let us see whether the sup- position would not materially affect our spiritual condition. We know that Christ had taken our nature into union with the divine, on purpose that he might effect its reconciliation to God. In order to this, it was necessary that he should suffer and die ; for the claims of
justice on the sinful could not, so far as we know, have been otherwise satisfied. And he willingly submitted to the en- durance : "being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." But there was a virtue in this death, which made it expiatory of the sins of the world ; so that when the Redeemer had breathed his soul into the hands of his Father, the offending nature was reconciled, and the human race placed within reach of'forgiveness. Ac- cordingly, it was justly to be expected that the resurrection would quickly fol- low the crucifixion of Christ ; for justice could not detain our surety in the grave, when the claims, which he had taken on himself, were discharged. Hence the resurrection of Christ was both the proof and consequence of the completeness of his mediatorial work : he could not have risen had he not exhausted the penalty incurred by humankind ; and, when he rose, God may be said to have proclaim- ed to the universe the sufficiency of the saci'ifice, and his acceptance of it as an atonement for the sins of the world. If Christ had remained in the grave, and his flesh had seen corruption, we could only have regarded him as a man like one of ourselves ; at least, we could never have regarded him as a substitute, whose vicarious endurances had been effectual on our behalf; for so long aa he had been still "holden of death," we must have felt that he was a debtor to justice, and that, therefore, those whom he represented could not have been freed.
But was it enough that the Mediator should be quickly released from the grave, and that our nature should be thereby pronounced capable of the for- giveness and favor of its Maker 1 It is iiere that we have to make our supposi- tion, that the resurrection had not been followed by the ascension of Christ. It is sufficiently easy to certify ourselves of the indispensableness of the resurrection ; for we see at once the force of the dis- tinction drawn by St. Paul, that Christ was "delivered for our offences," but " raised again for our justification." But it is quite another thing to certify our- selves of the indispensableness of the as- cension ; for, when our justification had been completed, might not the risen Mediator have remained with the chiirrV>
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gladdening it perpetually by the light of his presence 1 To this we reply, that ihe reception of our nature, in the per- son of our surety, into heavenly places, was as necessary to our comfort and as- surance as its deliverance from the power of the grave. We ask you only to re- member, that, as originally created, man moved in the immediate presence of God ; and that the state from which he fell was one of direct intercourse and blissful communion with his Maker. And Christ had undertaken to counteract the effects of apostacy ; as the second Adam, he engaged to place human nature in the very position from which it had been withdrawn by the first. But was there any demonstration that such un- dertaking, such engagement, had been fully performed, until Ciirist ascended up to heaven, and entered, as a man, in- to the hu]y place 1 So long as he re- mained on earth, there was no evidence that he had won for our nature re-admis- sion to the paradise from which it had been exiled. Whilst he " went about doing good," and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom, that nature was still un- der the original curse, for the atoning sacrifice had not been presented. Whilst he hung on the cross, that curse was in the act of being exhausted ; and when he came fijrth from the tomb, it was pro- nounced to be wholly removed. But the taking away the cur.se was not necessari- ly the restoiing the nature to all the for- feited privileges and blessings : it was the rendering the nature no longer ob- noxious to God's righteous anger, rather than the reinstating it in God's love and favor. It is altogether imaginable that enough might have been done to shield the nature from punishment, and yet not enough to place it in happiness. And what we contend is, that, up to the mo- ment of the ascension, no evidence was given on the latter point, though there was abundance on the former. Tlie whole testimony of the resurrection was a testimony to the exhaustion of the curse ; it went not beyond this ; and therefore could not prove that the flaming gvvord of the cheiub was sheathed, and that man might again enter the garden of the Lord.
And if Christ had never returned, in human nature, to his Father; if, having been delivered from the grave, he had remained upon earth, in however glo-
rious a character, we must always have feared that our redemption was incom- plete, and that we had not been restored to the forfeited position. For, whatso- ever Christ did, he did as our represen- tative ; and whatsoever was awarded to him was awarded to him as our represen- tative. We are reckoned as having ful- filled in him the righteousness, and en- dured in him the penalties of the law: turn to Scripture, and you find that we were circumcised with Christ, that with him we were crucified, with him buried, with him raised up; for in him was our nature circumcised, crucified, buried, and raised ; and what was done to the nature, was counted as done to the individuals to whom that nature might belong. Hence, in following Christ up to his re- surrection, we follow our nature a long way towards full recovery from the con- sequences of apostacy ; but, if we stop at the resurrection, we do not reach the reinstatement of that nature in all its lost honors. In order to this we must have that nature received into the paradise of God, and there made partaker of endless felicity. Christ, raised from the dead, and remaining always upon earth, would only have assured us of deliverance from the grave, and protracted residence on this globe : we must have Christ raised from the dead, and received up into glory, ere we can have assurance that we shall spring from the dust and soar into God's presence.
Are we not then borne out in the as- sertion, that we liave as great interest in the ascension of our Lord, as in any other of the events of his marvellous his- tory ; and that it would be almost as fa- tal to our hopes, to prove that, having been raised, he had never been glorified, as to prove, that, having been slain, he had never been raised ] In each case there would be a stopping short of the complete counteraction of the conse- quences of apostacy ; in each case, that is, evidence would he wanting tiiat the Redeemer accomplished what he under- took. We can go, therefore, with the disciples to the deserted sepulchre of Jesus, and rejoice in the pro(jf that "his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." Wa triumj)h in the resurrection of our Lord ; we see in it the resurrection of our nature ; and we expect, with exultation, a moment when all tliat are in the grave shall hear a
S4S
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
divine voice, and come forth indestructi- ble. But we are not, we cannot be, content with this. Our thoughts are up- on scenes which man traversed in his in- nocence, or rather upon scenes of which these were but types. We remember the garden where God condescended to associate famiharly with liis creature ; and we ask, whether the decree of exile have indeed been repealed, and whether the banished nature be free to re-enter the glorious abode I If so, that nature must ascend in the person of our repre- sentative ; we are still chained to earth, if Christ, as our forerunner, have not passed into the heavens. What then 1 shall it be in sorrow, shall it be in fear, that we follow the Redeemer to Bethany, when about to depart from this earth ; shall we wish to detain him amongst us, as though satisfied with the emancipation of our nature from the power of death, and not desiring its admission into all the splendors of immortality 1 Not so, an- gelic hosts, ye who are waiting to attend the Mediator, as he ascends to his Father. We know and feel that Christ must de- part from us, if he have indeed secured our entrance to the bright land, where ye behold the universal King. And, therefore, we will join your strain ; we will echo your melody. Yes, though it be to ask that he may be withdrawn from his church, that he may no longer be amongst us to guide, and cheer, and con- trol, we too will pour firth the summons, •* Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting dooi-s, and the King of glory shall come in."
But this can perhaps hardly be said to put the necessity for Christ's exal- tation in a sufficiently strong light. It certainly ajipears, from our foregoing reasoning, that unless the resurrection had been followed by the ascension of our Lord, we should have wanted evi- dence of the restoration of our nature to the dignity and happiness which had been lost by trangression. But this evidence is furnished by the simple fact of the ascension : it does not seem to require the continued absence of Christ from his church. If we are to join the angels in the summons of our text, we must be supposed to feel and express joy that Christ was about to make his dwelling in heavenly places. Ana:els exulted, because the eternal Word was once more to manifest his
presence in the midst of their abode, and to be again the light and glory of their city. But why should we share this exultation ? We may allow it to be cause of rejoicing, that our nature was admitted, in the person of Christ, into the presence of God ; but we seem to need nothing beyond this : if Christ had immediately returned to his church, we should have had the same assurance as now of our restoration to divine favor, and the advantages, in addition, of Christ's personal presence with his people.
Now we do not deny, that, in order to our joining heartily in the summons of our text, it is necessary that we should be pi-epared to rejoice in the exaltation, as well as in the ascension, of our Lord, in his remaining in heavenly places, as well as in his departure from earth. We must take into account the consequences of the ascension, as well as the ascension itself: for angels, undoubtedly, had re- gard to these, when manifesting gladness at the return of God's Son. And we are quite ready to carry our argument to the length thus supposed, and to contend that we have such interest in the exaltation of Christ, in his being invested with glories which require his separation from the church, that men might well join with angels in summoning the gates of the celestial city to fly open for his ad- mission. We would bring to your recol- lection, that God had covenanted to be- stow great honor on his Son, in recom- pense of the work of our redemption. And though it be true that this honor was chiefly to be put on the humanity of the Savior, it may easily be shown that some portion of it a])pertained to the divinity. We are, of course, well aware that it was not possible for Christ, as God, to receive additions to his essential glory ; and, accordingly, it is generally concluded that the glory conferred on him at his exaltation, was a glory which devolved exclusively on his manhood. It ought however to be borne in mind, that, though Christ was the eternal Son of God, equal to the Father in all pro- perties and prerogatives of Deity, he had been but imperfectly manifested under the old dispensation, so that he i-eceived not the honors due to him as essentially divine. You can hardly say that the second and third Persons of the Trinity were so revealed, before the coming of
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as to be secure of the reverence, or worship, to which they have riglit as one with the first. We are now indeed able to find indications in the Old Testament of the doctrine of the Trinity : but this is mainly because of the Jight which is thrown on its pages from those of the New. If we had nothing but the Old Testament, if we were wholly without the assistance of a fuller revelation, we should be amply informed as to the unity of the Godhead, and thus be secured against polytheism : but probably we should have but faint apprehensions of a Trinity in the Godhead, and be unable to worship Father, Son, and Spirit, as the eternal, indivisible, Jehovah.
Accordingly, we have always agreed with those who would argue, that the plan of redemption was constructed with the design of revealing to the world the Trinity in the Godhead ; so that, whilst the thing done should be the deliverance of our race, -the manner of doing it might involve the manifesta- tion of those Divine Persons, who had heretofore scarce had place in human theology.* It was a fuller discovery of the nature of God, as well as the com- plete redemption of the nature of man, which was contemplated in the arrange- ments made known to us by the Gospel; the Son and the Spirit came forth from the obscurity in which they had been heretofore veiled, that they might show their essential Deity in the offices as- sumed, and establish a lasting claim to our love by the benefits conferred. And when Christ, in that prayer to his Father which occupies the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, aii<l which was of- fered but a short time before his cruci- fixion, entreated that he might be glori- fied with a glory which had originally been his, " And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was," must he not have referred to a glory appertaining to his divine na- ture, rather tlian to his human ] What- ever the glory that was about to descend on the manhood, it could not l)e describ- ed as a glory which he had had with the Father before the world was : his hu- manity was not then in being; and we know not how in any but a most forced Bense, it could be said that Christ pos-
Waterlaud, Biahop Bull, &c.
sessed, from all eternity, the glory which was to be given to the humanity not then produced. But if you consider our Lord as referring to his divinity, it is not difficult to understand his petition. From everlasting he had been the Son of God ; and, therefore, there had be- longed to him an immeasurable glory, a glory of which no creature could par- take, inasmuch as it was derived from his being essentially divine. But, though essentially divine, he had not been man- ifested as divine ; and hence the glory, which had appertained to him before the world was, had not yet become con- spicuous : it was still, at least, partially concealed ; for creatures had not yet been fully taught that they were to " honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." But now he was on the point of being exalted ; and his prayer was, that he might be glorified with the very glory which he had originally possessed ; in other woi'ds, that he might be dis played to the world as actually divine, and thus might be openly, what he had all along been essentially, glorious with the glories of absolute Deity.
And you must all confess that it is a great point with us as christians, a point in comparison of which almost every other may be regarded as secondary, that the essential deity of Christ should be fully demonstrated, and that there should be nothing to encourage the opinion that he was but a creature, however loftily endowed. But sup- pose that Christ had remained with us upon earth ; or suppose, that, having ascended, and thus proved the complete- ness of the redemption of our nature, he had returned to abide continually with his church. Would the covenanted re- compense, so far as it consisted in the manifestation of his deity, have then been bestowed 1 Could Christ's equal- ity with the Father have been shown convincingly to the world, whilst he still moved, in the form of a man, through scenes polluted by sin 1 To us it seems, that, under such a dispensation as the present, the continued residence of the Mediator upon earth would practically be regarded as contradicting his divinity. The question would perpetually be asked, whether this being could indeed be essentially divine, who was left, cen- tury after century, in a state of humilia- tion ? for it must be humiliation for Christ,.
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Deity to dwell in human form on this earth, so long at least as it is the home of wickedness and misery. And it would be nothing against this, that he was arrayed with surpassing majesty, and continually exhibited demonstra- tions of supremacy. The majesty, which moreover could only be seen by few at one time, would cease to dazzle Avhen it had been often beheld ; and the demonstrations of supremacy would lose their power after frequent repetition. We think that the common feelings of our nature warrant our being sure, that there would be immense difficulty in per- suading a congregation, like the present, to kneel down and worship, as God, a being of whom they were told that he was dwelling as a man in Jerusalem, or some other city of the earth. And then you are to remember, that, even if his es- sential Deity had been manifested to men, he must probably have been with- drawn from other ranks of intelligence : for would it not almost iniply a separa- tion, which caimot take place, of his di- vinity from his humanity, to suppose him personally discovering his uncreated splendors in other parts of the universe, whilst he still dwelt in a body where he had suffered and died ]
So then we cannot well see how there could have been the thorough manifesta- tion of the divinity of the Son, which had been almost hidden under earlier dispen- sations, had not Christ ascended up on high, and taken his seat at the right hand of the Father. We stay not to inquire how far the glory, which had been pro- mised to his humanity, might have been bestowed, had there been nothing of this exaltation, or had it not been ]>ermanent. We confine ourselves to the glory which was to accrue to the divinity; for all our hopes rest on the demonstration which God erave, that Christ was his Scm, co- cternal and co-ecpml with himself And if we were to ask evidence that he, who had been crucified and buried, was ne- vertheless a divine person, what should that evidence be ] We would not ask the mere resurrection of this person, though that must of course form the first part of our pi-oof. We would not ask his mere ascension ; for if he might not tarry in the heavens, we should doubt whether they were indeed his rightful home. We would ask that he might be received into the dwelling-place of God,
and there and thence wield all the au- thority of omnipotence. We would ask that angel and archangel, principality and power, might gather round his throne, as they were wont to do round that of the Father, and render to him, notwith- standing his human form, the homage which they render only to their Maker. We would ask that he should be with- drawn from mortal view, since Deity dwells " in light which no man can ap- proach unto ; " but that, from his inac- cessible and invisible throne, he should direct all the affairs of this earth, hearing the prayers, supplying the wants, and fighting the battles of his church, and thus giving as continued proofs of omni presence as are to be found in the agen- cies of the material creation. And this is precisely the demonstration which has been furnished. On testimony, than which even that of the senses could not be more convincing, we believe that the Lord our Redeemer, the very person who sorrowed and suffered upon earth, is invested with all the honors, and exer- cises all the powers, of absolute Deity ; and that, though he still retains his hu- man form, there has been committed to him authority which no creature could wield, and there is given him a homage which no creature could receive. What though the heavens have received him out of our sight 1 there have come mes- sages from those heavens informing us of his solemn enthronement as "King of kings, and Lord of lords ; " and notes of the celestial minstrelsy are borne to mor- tal ears, celebi-ating the Son of the vir- gin as the great "I am," who was, and is, and is to come. And it is in conse- quence of such messages that thousands, and tens of thousands, of the inhabitants of this earth, bow at the name of Jesus ; and that vast advances have already been made towards a splendid consummation, when the sun, in his circuit round our globe, shall shine on none but the wor- shippers of "the Lamb that was slain." Is this a result in which we rejoice 1 Is it indeed cause of gladness to us, that the divinity of the Son, veiled not only during the days of his humiliation in flesh, but throughout the ages which pre- ceded the incarnation, has been glorious- ly manifested, so that he is known and worshipped as God 1 Then, if this be matter of rejoicing, we must be prepar- ed to be glad, that, in ascendiug frota
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
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Olivet, the Mediator ascends to fix his abode in the heavens. This full mani- festation of divinity required heaven as its scene, and could not ha^ve been effect- ed on the narrow and polluted stage of our earth. Yes, we must be glad that the ascending Savior is not to return, because by not returning he is to show forth his Godhead. And, therefore, we can again address the heavenly hosts, shining and beautiful beings, who are marshalling the way, in solemn pomp, for "the High Priest of our profession." We know why ye, O celestial troop, ex- ult in his return. He ascends to be the light of your abode ; and ye triumph in the thought that he is to be eternally with you. And even we can share your exultation, we, from whom he departs, and who are no longer to bo delighted by his presence. We feel that within the veil alone can his recompense be bestowed, a recompense which could not be withheld without the darkening of all our best hopes : let, then, our voices mingle with yours ; for we too are ready to pour forth the summons, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in."
But we must carry our argument yet further. Let it be supposed that the promised recompense might have been fully conferred upon Christ, without his departure or absence — the recompense that was to belong to his divinity, as well as that of which his humanity was to be the subject — we may still show that his ascensi(tn and exaltation should furnish us with great matter of rejoicing. It is clearly stated in Scripture, that the de- scent of the Holy Ghost, as the guide and comforter of the church, could not take place whilst Christ remained on earth. We are probably not competent to the discovering the reasons for this ; but if we consider the scheme of redemp- tion as constructed that it might manifest tlie three persons of the Godhead, we may see a special fitness in the departure of the Son before the coming of the Spirit. You cannot imagine a more thorough manifestation of the second and third persons than has thus been effected. The offices, respectively sustained in the work of our redemption, bring these per- sons distinctly before us, and that, too, in the manner best adapted to gain for thera our love and veneration. The Son,
having humbled himself for us, and thus bound us to himself by the closest ties, returned to take his seat in the heavens, and to be the object of worship to all ranks of intelligent being. The scene was thus left ready for the entrance of the Spirit, who came down with every demon- stration of almightiness, endowing the weak with superhuman powers, and in- structing the illiterate in the mysteries of the Gospel. We will not presume to say that there could not have been this manifestation of the third ^^erson in the Trinity, had not the second ascended, and separated himself from the church. Eut, at least, we may urge that we have a facility in distinguishing the persons, now that the office of one upon earth has succeeded to that of the other, which we could hardly have had if those offices had been contemporaneously discharged. Had the Son remained visibly with us, we should probably have confounded his office with that of the Spirit : at all events we should not so readily have re- cognized a Trinity of persons. Even as it is, the third person is often practically almost hidden from us by the second : what then would it have been, had not the heavens received Christ, that the Holy Ghost might be alone in his great work of renewing our nature 1
But, whatever may be our thoughts and conjectures, it is evidently the repre- sentation of Scripture, that the Spirit could not have descended, had not Christ returned to his Father, and fixed his re- sidence in heaven. St. John expressly speaks of the Holy Ghost as "not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." And our Lord himself, de- siring to comfort his disciples, who were overwhelmed with grief at the prospect of his departure, made this strong state- ment, "It is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Comfor- ter will not come unto you ; but if I de- part, I will send him unto you." Here, as you must all perceive, it is distinctly asserted that the Comforter could not come, unless Christ departed ; whilst his coming is represented as of such mo- ment to the church, that it would be ad- vantageously procured even at the cost of that departure.
We are bound, therefore, in consid- ering what reasons there may be to ourselves for rejoicing in the exalta* tion of Christ, to assume that this ex« 44
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THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST.
altation was indispensable to the descent of the Spirit on the day of pentecost, and to his presence with the church to expound and carry home the Gospel. And certainly, if we had no other rea- son to give why human voices should utter the summons of our text, this alone would suffice. Of what avail would it have been to us, that the Son had hum- bled himself, and wrestled, and died, on our behalf, had the Spirit not been given as a regenerating agent, to make effec- tual, in our own cases, what had been wrought out by Christ 1 Who but this Spirit enabled apostles to combat the idolatries of the world, and gain a foot- ing for Christianity on the earth ? Who but this Spirit guided the pens of sacred historians, that distant ages might pos- sess the precious record of the sayings and doings of the Redeemer? Who but this Spirit now makes the J31ble intelli- gible, throwing on its pages supernatural hght, so that they burn and glow with the truths of eternity t Who but this Spirit convinces man of sin, produces in him that " godly sorrow " which " work- eth repentance," and leads to the put- ting faith in the alone propitiation 1 Who but this Spirit gradually withdraws the affections from what is perishable, animates by setting before the view the prizes of heaven, and so sanctifies fallen beings that they become meet for the unfading inheritance. Who but this Spirit comforts the mourning, confirms the wavering, directs the doubting, sus- tains the dying 1 The office of the Son may indeed be more ostensible ; it may more easily commend itself to our at- tention, because discharged in the form of a man ; but he can know little of vital, practical Christianity, who supposes it more important than that of the Spirit. What the Son did for us was valuable, because to be followed by what the Spirit does : take away the agency of the third Person, and we are scarce benefited by the agony of the second. And if then it were an act of mercy, not to be measured, that the Son of God descended to bear the ])unishment of our sins ; it was no less an act involving all our happiness, that he departed to send down the comforter. Shall we then join in the chorus of angels, when they throng the firmament in honor of the birth of the Redeemer, and shall we be silent when they celebrate his return
to the presence of his Father] No; if we have any value for Christianity as set up in the heart, and regulating the life, the departure of the Mediator will as much move our gladness as his coming. We are thankful that intrepid preachei'S were found, who, in the face of danger and death carried the cross into every district of the earth. We are thankful that we were not left to the uncertain- ties and errors of oral tradition, but that we have a volume in our hands with the broad signet of inspiration. We are thankful that men can repent, that they can be converted from the error of their ways, that they can " lay hold on the hope set before them," that they can " live soberly and righteously," die peacefully, and enter heaven triumph- antly. But for all this we are practical- ly as much indebted to the Spirit as to the Son. All this is vii'tuaily owing, not to the presence, but to the absence of the Mediator; and, therefore, will we hearken for the song of the cherubim and seraphim, as, with every indication of joy, tliey meet and encircle the as- cending Head of the church ; and even from earth shall be heard a summons, as though from the voices of those who are full of exultation, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in."
Now we would recur for a few mo- ments, in winding up this great subject of discourse, to the first reason which we gave why men should rejoice in the ascension of Christ. We spoke of this ascension as the ascension of our nature, so that the entrance of Christ into heavenly places was the proof of our I'estoratiou to favor, and the pledge of our final admission into the paradise of God. And how noble, how elevating, is the thought, that it was indeed as our forerunner, as our representative, that Jesus passed into the presence of his Father. How glo- rious to take our stand, as it were, on the mount of Olives, to gaze on the Mediator, as he wings his fliglit towards regions into which shall enter nothing that defileth, and to feel that he is cleav- ing a way for us, the fallen and polluted, that we too may enter the celestia city. What were the words which angels ad- dressed to the disciples, as they strained their vision to catch another glimpse of
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their departing Lord ? "Ye men of Gali- lee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven 1 This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in }ike manner as ye have seen him go in- to heaven." Then the ascension should cause our minds to go forward, and fix themselves on the second advent of the Lord. Waste not your time, the angels seem to say, in regrets that your Master is taken from your view ; rather let faith anticipate a moment, when, " in like manner," with the clouds for his chariot, and flying "on the wings of the wind," he shall return to the earth from which he has just now de- parted. The gates shall again lift up their heads ; the everlasting doors shall be opened ; and the King of glory, who now enters to assume the sovereignty won by his sufferings and death, shall come forth in all the pomp, and with all the power, of the anointed Judge of humankind.
He shall come forth in the very cha- racter under which admission is claim- ed for him in the text. "The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." As yet there have been ac- complished but a portion of the Old Testament types : tlie High Priest has offered the sacrifice, and carried the blood within the vail ; but he has not yet returned to bless the gathered mul- titude. The cry however shall yet be heard at midnight ; and " the Lord strong and mighty " shall approach, to confound every enemy, and complete the salvation of his church. And if we would be " found of him in peace " on this his return, we must see to it that we provide our lamps with oil in the days of our strength. I do not know a more awful part of Scripture than the parable of the ten virgins, to which, as y<ju will perceive, we here make allu- sion. We are always fearful of dwell- ing too strongly on the minuter parts ofaj)arable; but there is something so singular in the fact, that the foolish vir- gins went to seek oil so soon as they heard of the bridegroom's approach, but were nevertheless excluded, that we dare not pass it by as conveying no les- son. If the parable admit of being ap- plied, as we suppose it must in a modi- fied sense, to the circumstances of our death, does it not seem to say that a re- pentance, to which we are driven by the
approach of dissolution, will not be ac- cepted I The foolish virgins sought not for oil, till alarmed by tidings that the bridegroom was at hand ; and many think that it will be enough if they o-ive heed to religion when they shall have rea- son to apprehend that their last day is not distant. But the foolish virgins, al- though, as it would seem, they obtained oil, were indignantly shut out from the banquet; what then is to become of sin- ners, who in the day of sickness, com- pelled by the urgency of their case, and frighted by the nearness of their end, show something like sorrow, andj^rofess something like faith 1
I own that nothing makes me think so despondingly of those who wholly neglect God, till they feel themselves dying, as this rejection of the virgins, who would not begin to seek oil till they found the bridegroom at hand, and then obtained it in vain. It is as though God said. If you will not seek me in health, if you will not think of me till sickness tell you that you must soon en- ter my presence, I will surely reject you : when you knock at the door and say, " Lord, Lord, open to us," I will answer from within, " I never knew you : depart, depart from me." We dare not dwell upon this : we have a hundred other reasons for being suspicious of what is called death-bed repentance ; but this seems to make that repentance — ay, though the death be that of consump- tion, and the patient linger for months, with his senses about him, and his time apparently given to the duties of religion — of no avail whatever : for if the man obstinately neglected God, till alarmed by the hectic spot on his cheek, that hectic spot was to him what the mid- night cry was to the virgins, the signal that the bridegroom was near; and what warrant have we that God will admit him to the feast, if the five virgins were excluded with every mark ol aohorrence, though they sought for oil, and bought it, and brought it 1
We bring before you this very awful suggestion, that none of you may think it too soon to prepare to meet the Sa- vior, whose ascension we have com- memorated, and for whoso return we are directed to look. Let all, the young and the old, be ever on the watch, with the loins girt, the lamps trimmed, and the lights burning. Let not that day
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overtake any of us "as a thief," as a thief not more because coming stealthily and unexpectedly, tlian because it will strip us of our confidence, and leave us defenceless. But if we now give dili- gence to " add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance ;" if we labor to be " found of him in peace," appropriating to our- selves his promises, only as we find our- selves conformed to his precepts ; then let " the Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mi<Thty in battle," appear in the heavens : we shall be " caught up to meet him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Glorious transformation ! glori- ous translation ! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene. The sea and the
land have given up their dead : the quick- ened myriads have been judged accord- ing to their works. And now an innu- merable company, out of all nations, and tribes, and tongues, ascend with the Mediator towards the kingdom of his Father. Can it be that these, who were born children of wrath, who were long enemies to God by wicked wox'ks, are to enter the bright scenes of paradise '? Yes, he who leads them, has washed them in his blood ; he who leads them, has sanctified them by his Spirit ; and now you may hear his voice in the sum- mons, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; and these, my ransomed ones, shall come in, and behold, and share my glories."
SERMON Y 1 1 1 .
THE SPIRIT UPON THE WATERS.*
* And iho earth was without form and voiil : and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And tne Spirit of God iiioved upon the face of the waters." — Gkxesis, I. 2.
We are required on this day, by the ordinance of the church, to consider specially the person and work of the third jjerson in the Trinity. The pre- sent festival is in commemoration of that great event, the pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, an event not inferior in im- portance to the ir)carnation of the Son. We say, not inferior in importance, for it would avail us little that redemption has been achieved by one Divine person, if it were not applied, or made effectual, by another. There is so much to fix, and even engross, our attention in the work of the Son; the humiliation, the suffer- ings, and the success, are so conspicuous and confounding, that we may easily be- come comparatively unmindful of what we owe to the Father and the Spirit ; though the persons of the Trinity are not
more one in essence and dignity, than in their claim on our love, and their title to our veneration.
It is of great worth, therefore, that the church has instituted such commemora- tions as the present ; for, by bringing be- fore us in succession the mysteries of our faitli, and the various blessings pi-ovided for our race, they do much towards pre- venting our dwelling on one doctrine or benefit, to the exclusion of others which deserve equal thought. There would have been the same stupendousness and virtue in the work of the Son, if it had never been followed by the descent of the Spirit. But then if it be true, that
* The outline of this sermon has been partly derived from that of a discourse by Dr. Donne on the last clause of the verse.
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our hearts are naturally averse from God and holiness, so that, ot* ourselves, we are unable to repent, and lay hold on the proffered, but conditional, deliverance, of what use is it that such costly provis- ion has been made on our behalf, unless there be also provision for our being strengthened to make it our own ] Thus such festivals as Christmas and Easter, and such commemorations as Good Fri- day, though they might I'emind us of sublime and awful things, would bring before us nothing that could be practical- ly of worth to fallen creatures, if they were not to be followed by a Whitsun- day, when might be celebrated the com- ing down of a divine agent to renew the corrupt nature. On this day, the third person of the Trinity descended to tab- ernacle upon earth, as on Christmas day the second was "found in fashion as a man." And not deeper, nor more abun- dant, should be our gratitude, that, "for us men and for our salvation," " the Word was made flesh," than that, "with the sound as of a rushing mighty wind," the Comforter came to take the things of Christ, and show them to the soul.
We have endeavored on former recur- rences of the present soh;mn"iy, to ex- plain to you the scriptural doctriiv a 5 to the person and work of the Holy Gh j^:. We have labored to show you, tha' ^'..^ Spirit of God is not, as some have vainly taught, a mere quality, attribute, or pro- perty of God ; but, in the strictest sense, a Divine person, possessing the divine nature, filling divine offices, and per- forming divine acts. And as to the work of this person, we have described it to be that of renovating and sanctifying our nature ; so that, by seci'et suggestions and impulses, by exciting good desires, by strengthening our powers and rectify- ing our affections, by quickening our un- derstandings to the perception of truth, and inclining our wills to obedience, he restores in us the lost image uf God, and fits us for "the inheritance of the saints in light." Statements such as these, with regard to the personality and offices of the Holy Ghost, have been so frequently laid before you, that we can hardly con- si' ■ repetition necessary. We sh;^. .fforc, em])loy the present oppoiii . ..■. ]>roving what we may believe admit, or explaining what we may hope that you understand. But we will go back to the earliest times,
and see whether even then, ere this crea- tion rose in its beauty, the Spirit of God was not mightily enei'getic, performing such wonders on inanimate matter as imaged the yet stranger which he was afterwards to perform upon mind.
It is not, however, that we design to lay great stress on arguments in support of the doctaine of the Trinity, which have been fetched from the very com- mencement of the Bible. We will only glance at those arguments. You are probably aware, that, in the first verse of the book of Genesis, where it is said, "In the beginninff God created the hea- vens and the earth," the Hebrew word, translated "God," is in the plural, whilst that rendered "created" is in the singular. From this it has been argued, with much appearance of truth, that Moses announ ces, in the very first line of his writings, a plurality of persons in the Godhead ; for on what supposition are we to explain the combination of a plural noun witli a singular verb, unless we allow that God may be spoken of in the plural, because there are several persons in the Godhead, and at the same time in the singular, be- cause those persons constitute the one indivisible Jehovah 1 If we had nothing but this verbal criticism, on which to rest the doctrine of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, we might feel it insufficient for so weighty a superstructure. But we may fairly say, that, when we have proved the doctrine on less questionable evidence, there can be no reason for our rejecting this auxiliary testimony, a tes- timony peculiarly interesting from the place in which it occurs, seeing that the Bible thus commences with an intimation of the Trinity in unity.
And it is remarkable, that, having thus hinted at there being several persons in the Godhead, Moses immediately pro- ceeded to speak of one of these persons, and to ascribe to Him a great office in the construction of this globe. If indeed this were the only passage in which we found mention of the Spirit of God, we should hardly be warranted in conclud- ing from it the personality and Deity of the Holy Ghost. Had our text stood alone, it might perhaps with justice have been said, that nothing more was intend- ed by the Spirit of (iod, than an energy, or quality, appertaining to God. But when we have fortified ourselves from other Scriptures with abundant evidence
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THE SPIRIT UrOX THE WATERS.
Ihal the Spirit is a person, and that too a Divine person, it is highly interesting tn turn to the opening of the Bible, and there to find this agent introduced into t)ie business of creation — the earliest his- torian combining with the latest evangel- ist to proclaim his title, and to ascribe to him operations which are beyond finite power. And if you further recollect, how, in various parts of the New Testament, the work of creation is distinctly attribut- ed to Christ, as the eternal Son or Word of God; and then observe the same work ascribed, in the first page of Scripture, to the Spirit of God ; you can hardly fail to allow that the great doctrine of the Trinity pervades the whole Bible : it is not indeed stated every where so distinctly that it cannot be overlooked ; but it may easily be detected in passages whose witness to it might be doubtful, if we were not certified by others of its truth.
But it is very important, that, in our contests for fundamental articles of faith, we f.hould not rest on weak or dubious arguments. An insufficient defence is a great injury to truth. Whilst, then, we believe that there really ai-e traces of the doctrine of the Trinity in the passages to which we have referred, and in similar which might be adduced, we should hold it unwise to lay much stress upon them in debate with the Unitarian. They are not our strong points; and we give him an advantage by insisting on our weaker. Thus, for example, we may be ourselves quite persuaded, that the recorded ap- pearance of God to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, was a manifestation to that patriarch of the Trinity in unity. Three men appeared, and yet only the Lord is said to liave appeared : and each of the three persons used language, or did things, which went to the proving him divine. Our church accordingly fixes as one of the lessons for Trinity Sunday, the chapter which contains the account of this appearance. Still, though we may be quite satisfied that there was thus given a symbolical notice of the doctrine of the Trinity, we would not attach weight to it in arguing with the opponent of the doctrine : we feel that he might easily urge many specious objections, and that we should take dangerous ground by appealing to an occurrence, whose significative character is not as- serted in Scripture.
But whilst we thus caution you against taking as sufficient arguments, what, af- ter all, may be only doubtful intimations, we may yet affirm it both pleasing and profitable, to mark what may be called the first hints of truths, which were to be afterwards clearly revealed. There is all the difi'erence between what will be likely to work conviction in an ad- versary, and what may minister to the confidence of a believer. And if the Unitarian will not go with me into pa- triarchal times, and trace on the yet young creation the vestiges of an incar- nate Deity, it may tend greatly to the strengthening my own faith, and the heightening my own joy, that I can fol- low " the angel of the covenant," as he appears and disappears amongst the fathers of our race : and though I may not count it safe to rest the doctrine of the Trinity on the earliest inspired re- cords, I may observe with delight that God spake in the plural number when he formed Adam of the dust, and be con ■ firmed in my creed by hearing, that, whilst the earth was " without form and void," " the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters."
But we will now leave this more ge- neral discussion, and confine ourselves to the examination of the words of our text. We shall hereafter give you rea- sons for considering that these words admit of a two-fold application — to na- tural things and to spiritual. At present we assume this, and therefore announce the two following as our topics of dis- course— the first, the moving of God's Spirit on the waters of the material creation ; the second, his moving on waters, of which these may be regarded as in some degree typical.
Now there has been much anxiety felt in modern times by the supporters of revelation, on account of alleged dis- coveries in science, which apparently contradict the Mosaic record of the crea tion. We had been accustomed to con- clude, with the Bible for our guide, that this globe was not quite six thousand years old ; that, six thousand years ago, the matter of which it is composed was not in existence, much less was it the home of animal or vegetable life. We had been accustomed to think, that, un- less man had fallen, there would have been no decay and no death in this creation, so that every beast of the
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field would have walked in immortal strength, and every tree of the forest have waved in immortal verdure. But modern science is quite counter to these our suppositions and conclusions : for the researches of the geologist oblige us to assign millions, rather than thou- sands of years as the age of this globe, and to allow it to have been tenanted by successive tribes of living things, long before the time when man was summon- ed into being.
It would in no sense be fitting that we should here examine the facts, or the reasonings, by which the geologist substantiates his position. But we are bound to declare our persuasion, that, to any candid mind, the facts and the reasonings, duly scrutinized and weigh- ed, must appear quite conclusive ; so that every student of the structure, every inquirer into the phenomena of the globe on which we dwell, must, we think, be almost forced to acknowledge that the earth bears on itself dates which prove well-nigh immeasurable antiquity, and contains the relics of animated tribes, whose existence can never be brought within the limits of human chronology. It is of no avail that we shut our eyes to the pro- gress of science, and entrench ourselves within old interpretations of Scripture. We must go forward with the general advance of knowledge : for unless the- ology can at least keep pace with jdii- losophy, it shall hardly be able to cope with infidelity.
And, for our own part, we have no fear that any discoveries of science will really militate against the disclosures of Scripture. We remember how, in darker days, ecclesiastics set themselves against philosophevs, who were investi- gating the motions of the heavenly bodies, apprehensive that the new theories were at variance with the Bible, and there- fore resolved to denounce them as here- sies, and stop their spread by persecu- tion. But trutli triumphed ; bigotry and ignorance could ntjt long prevail to the hiding from the world the harmonious walkings of stars and planets ; and ever since, the philosophy which laid open the wonders of the universe, hath proved herself the handmaid of the revelation which divulged secrets far beyond her gaze. And thus, we are persuaded, shall it always be : science may scale
new heights, and explore new dej)ths ; but she shall bring back nothing from her daring and successful excursions, which will not, when rightly understood, yield a fresh tribute of testimony to the Bible. Infidelity may watch her pro- gress with eagerness, exulting in the tiiought that she is furnishing lucts with which the christian system may he strong- ly assailed ; but the champions of revela- tion may confidently attend her in eve- ry march, assured that she will find no- thing which contradicts, if it do not ac- tually confirm, the word which they know to be divine.
For though it may be true that we have no right to look in the Bible for instruction in natural things, it appears to us equally true, that we have right to expect that it will contain nothing that is false in reference to any subject whatsoever. It does not profess to treat ot natural things ; and, therefore, it would be unjust to open it with thfe expecta tion that natural things will be explain ed in its pages. But it does profess tt be throughout an inspired document, and therefore to contain nothing but truth ; and we think it, on this account, most just to expect, that, if it ever make a reference, however incidental, to na- tural things, the reference will be one which may be tested by all scientific discoveries, and proved in thorough con- sistence therewith. We count it most important that this distinction should be borne in mind ; for whilst we hold that it would be no argument against revela- tion, if it were wholly silent on the struc- ture of the earth, and the motions of the heavens — seeing that its object is to unfold to us yet deeper things — we equally hold that it would be an argu- ment against it, if it ever spake of these matters in a way that would not bear being confronted with asceitained truths. It is thus with regard to the discoveries of the fjeolojiist. We should have had no right to require, as a necessary part of a revelation from God, an account of the formation of our material system. The Bible might perhaps have been complete for all moral purposes, if there had been no such account on its pages. But if the inspired writer take upon him- self to give an account of the formation of the earth and the heavens, we have full right to expect that this account will be throughly accurate; and we cannot
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but tliink, that if this account were ab- solutely irreconcilable with established conclusions of geology, some cause would be given for questioning whether Moses wrote under the guidance of the Spirit of God.
But there has not yet been, and we are sure there never will be, made out the impossibility of reconciling the discover- ies of geohtgy with the Mosaic account of the creation. We would adopt the state- ment which has been increasingly adopt- ed and supported by our divines, that the two first verses of the book of Genesis have no immediate connection with those that follow. They describe the first creation of matter; but, so far as any thing to the contrary is stated, a million of ages may have elapsed between this first creation, and God's saying '* Let there be light," and proceeding to mould mat- ter into a dwelling-place for man. You cannot show that the third verse is ne- cessarily consecutive on the two first, so that what is recorded in the one may not be separated, by a long interval, from what is recorded in the others. On the contrary, it is clear that the interval may be wholly indefinite, quite as long as geology can possibly ask for all those mighty transformations, those ponderous successions, of which it affirms that it can produce indubitable evidence. And we cannot but observe the extreme ac- curacy of the scriptural language. It Beems to be nowhere said that in six days God created the heavens and the earth ; but, as in the fouxth command- ment, that, "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth." Creation was the act of bringing out of nothing the matter of which all things were constructed ; aud this was done before the six days; afterwards, and during the six days, God made the heaven and the earth ; he moulded, that is, and formed into differ- ent bodies, the matter which he had long ago created. And it is no objection to this, that God is said to have created man on the sixth day ; for you afterwards read that "God formed man of the dust of the ground;" so that it was of pre- existent matter that Adam was compos- ed. We seem, therefore, warranted in saying that with the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis commences the account of the production of the present order and sy,<tem of things ; and that to this Moses confines himself, describing
the earth as made ready for man, withoul stopping to speak of its previous condi- tions. But since he does not associate the first creation of matter with this pre- paration of the globe for its rational in- habitants, he in no degree opposes the supposition, that the globe existed im- measurably before man, that it underwent a long series of revolutions, was tenanted by animals, and clothed with vegetation.
And though you may think it strange that there should have been death before there had been sin, you are to remember that there is nothing in the Bible to in- form us that animals die because man was disobedient. We may have been accustomed to think so ; but we do not see how it can be proved. And when you observe that whole tribes of animals are made to prey upon others, this species being manifestly designed for the food of that, you will perhaps find it hard to believe that every living thing was origi- nally meant to live for ever ; you will ask something better than a popular per- suasion, ere you conclude that the insect of a day was intended to be immortal : or that what is the appointed sustenance of a stronger race, was also appointed to be actually indestructible.
These then are the general views which we think furnished by, or, at least, con- sistent with our text and the preceding verse. We take these verses as the on- ly record which God hath been pleased to give of a mysterious, and probably im- mense, period, whose archives are found, by the scientific eye, sculptured on the rocks, or buried in the caves of the earth. They refer to ages, in comparison per- haps of which the human chronology is but a span, and of which, though we have received no written history, we can read the transactions in the fuel which we heap on our fires, and in the bones which we dig from our hills. And there appears to us something surpassingly su- blime in the thought, that our text may be thus the general description of an in- definite interval, from the creation of matter to the production of man. We do not know a grander contemplation than that to which the mind is summon- ed, when required t ^ ^ r this globe as of an antiquity w ' " brifflos calculation, and as haviii^ ircd, by changes which may h. u- pied a series of ages, for the rcsiaence of bein^js created in the image of God.
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We know, of course, that, however far back we carry the origin of all things, ihere must have been a moment when God was literally alone in immensity ; and that the longest, as well as the short- est, reach of time, must be as nothing in comparison of eternity. But, neverthe- less, to minds constituted as our own, there is something inconceivably more commanding in the thought, that the earth has existed for ages which are not to be reckoned, and that, from time im- memorial it has been a theatre for the display of divine power and benevolence, than in this, that it rose out of nothing six thousand years ago. In the one case, but not in the other, we assign to the agency of God an immeasurable period, a period throughout which there have been swarms of animated things, which only God could have produced, and only God could have sustained ; and thus repre- sent Deity as pouring forth the riches of his wisdom and goodness, and gather- ing in the tribute of mute homage from unnumbered tribes, when, perhaps, there were yet no seraphim to hymn his praises, and no cherubim to execute his will.
It is when surveyed under the point of view thus indicated, that our text ap- pears most interesting and imposing. It is not, we suppose, the record of a soli- tary interference of creative might, but of a series of amazing revolutions, each of which was effected by the immediate agency of the Spirit of God. The earth passed from one state to atiother ; islands, and continents, and waters assuming dif- ferent froms and proportions, and being successively fitted for different living tribes. And, on each transition, there I may have been such an overthrow of the I previous system, and such an approx- | imation towards the original chaos, that I the earth may have been " without form I and void," and darkness may have rested I upon "the face of the ueep." But, in each case, " the Spirit of God moved up- on the face of the waters." The word is rather, " brooded over the waters," as a hen, extending her wings, that vital warmth may be communicated, and the eg'jf resolve itself into a living thing". The Spiritof (rod, whose especial office it is to imp;ut life and vigor, so acted on the inert and insensible particles of the ele- mental mass, as to imprint on them those laws, and infuse into them those proper-
ties, which were to constitute what we aie wont to call nature, under each suc- cessive dispensation. It was not that matter had any power or tendency, of itself, from its own inherent energies and qualities, to assume certain forms, and mingle in certain combinations. It was only that a vivifying Spirit busied itself with its innumerable atoms, communicat- ing to each precisely what would fit it for its part or place in the new order of things; so that sea, and land, and air might swarm with the productions which God appoint- ed to succeed to the extinct. And thus may revolution after revolution have been effected, not so much through, the opera- tion of second causes, as through the mysterious, but mighty, brooding of that celestial Agent, who still acts as the vivi- fier, and still extracts order and beauty from the moral chaos of humanity. One condition of the globe and its inhabitants may have succeeded to another, till, at length, the time approached when God had determined the production of a be- ing who was to wear his likeness and act as his vicegerent. Then was the earth onc& more mantled with darkness: land and water were confounded : and the various tribes of animated nature perish- ed in the elemental war. But a resistless agency was at work, permeating the shapeless and boiling mass, and prepar- ing it for edicts to be issued on what we ordinarily call the six days of creation. The globe was henceforward to be the dwelling-place of rational, yea, immortal beings ; it must therefore he impregnat- ed with a fertility, and enamelled with a beauty, to which it had been heretofore- a stranger ; and nobler things must walk, its fields, and haunt its waters, fit subjects of a ruler who was to bear his Maker'ss image. With the adapting matter to this* loftier and more glorious state of things^ was the third person of the Trinity charged, the agent, as we suppose, in every former revolution. And when, at divine command, the earth brougiit forth the fresh green grass, and trees hung at once with varied fruit and iJjliage ; and. the waters teemed with the moving species that have life ; aiwl the dry land, and the air were crov/ded with stately and beautiful creatures, waiting the ap- pearance of their appointed lord, — Oh,, it was not that there were natural pro- cesses which had gradually wrought out. the chambers aud furnitnie of a magnif. 45
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ficent palace ; it was rather, that whilst "the earth was without form and void," the Spirit of God had "moved upon the face of the waters."
But we have now to ask your atten- tion to wholly different truths. We pro- posed, in the second place, to pass from natural to spiritual things, and to con- sider our text in a figurative sense. We were, however, to give you reasons that might justify the two-fold applica- tion of the passage. It may suffice to observe, that the work attributed to the Holy Spirit in the text, may serve as a type of that which this divine agent came down at Pentecost to perform. The Gospel of St. John commences in the same strain, and with the same sub- lime abruptness, as the book of Genesis : as though the historians of the New Testament and of the Old had to give the narratives of similar creations. And forasmuch as that moral change, which passes upon those who become heirs of the kingdom of heaven, is described in the Bible as nothing less than a new creation, and is moreover ascribed to the agency of that Spirit which brooded over the waters of the primitive chaos, there can, at least, be nothing unreason- able in the supposition that a typical character attaches, in some degree, to the scriptural account of the formation .of all things.
You \v\]\ find it, we believe, to have •been the general opinion of the fathers of the church, that the waters of which we read in the very beginning of the Bible, were a figure of those of baptism : so that, as the world may be said to have been produced from the waters on which the Spirit first moved, the church may be said to come forth from those sacramental waters, whose virtue is de- rived from that self-same Spirit's brood- ing. In accordance with such opinion, we believe it to be specially in and through the sacrament of baptism, that the Holy Ghost acts in renovating the nature, which became corrupt through apostacy. We deprecate, indeed, as much as any man, the so ascribing vir- tue to a sacrament, that those who have partaken of it may be led to feel sure that they need no other change, no great- er moral amelioration, than has been thereby effected or procuied. But, with- out doing this, we may attribute to bap- tism regenerating elHcacy. Wu w< ulJ
ourselves be constantly using, and press> ing upon others the use of the collect of our church for Christmas-day, in which the prayer is, " Grant that we, being regenerate and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be re- newed by thy Holy Spirit," a prayer in which the supplicants undeniably re- present themselves as already regener- ate, and adopted into God's family ; but in which, nevertheless, they ask for daily renewal, and that too through the workings of God's Spirit. The church here evidently distinguishes between re- generation and renewal, just as the apos- tle does, when he speaks of being saved by " the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ;" re- generation, you observe, being closely associated with water — " the washing of regeneration " — and not confounded with that renovation which the Holy Spirit effects in true believers. If then the church say that regeneration takes place at baptism, she does not say that no renewal is needed besides this rege- neration ; why, therefore, should the church be taunted, as though she attach- ed inordinate value to a sacrament, and taught men, that, because sprinkled in infancy, they stand in need of no further change 1
That the church of England does hold, and does teach, baptismal regeneration, would never, w-e must venture to think, have been disputed, had not men been anxious to remain in her communion, and yet to make her formularies square with their own private notions. The words put into the mouth of the officiat- ing minister, immediately after every baptism, " Seeing now, dearly beloved, that this child is regenerate," seem too distinct to be explained away, and too general for any of those limitations by which some would restrict them. You may tell r"«^ that the church speaks only in the judgment of charity, on the sup- position that there has been genuine faith in those who have brought the infant to the font. But, even on this modified view, the church holds baptismal regener- ation : she holds, that, if not invariably, yet under certain circumstances, infants are regenerate, only because baptized. We cannot, however, admit that the lau'juage is only the language of that charity which "hopeth all things." Had the church not desitrned to so fujlher
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than this, she might have said, "Seeing that we may charitably believe," or, "Seeing that we may charitably hope that this child is regenerate :" she could never have ventured on the broad un- qualified declaration, a declaration to be made whensoever the sacrament of bap- tism has been administei'ed, " Seeing that this child is regenerate ;" and then have gone on to require of the congregation to express their gratitude in such words as these, " We yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleas- ed thee to regenerate this iiifant with thy Holy Spirit." We really think that no fair, no straightforward dealing can get rid of the conclusion, that the church holds what is called baptismal regenera- tion. You may dislike the doctrine : you may wish it expunged from the prayer-book ; but so long as I subscribe to that prayer-book, and so long as I of- ficiate according to the forms of that prayer-book, I do not see how I can be commonly honest, and yet deny that every baptized person is, on that account, regenerate.
J>ut then, if you charge on the church, that because she holds this she holds that every baptized person has so undergone, that he must retain all the moral change necessary for admission into heaven, you overlook other parts of the baptismal ser- vice which strongly rebut your accusa- tion. No sooner has the church pronounc- ed the infant regenerate, than she asks the prayers of the people, that "this child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning" — evidently intimating her belief, that, thouijh resrenerate, the child may possibly not go on to that re- newal of nature, which alone can secure godly living. And what are we to say of the appointment of sponsors, parties from whom the church requires vows in the name of the child, and to whom she commits the instruction of the child, if not that the church feels, that, whatever the benefits conferred by baptism, they remove not the necessity for the use of all those means, by which sinners may be brought nigh to God, and upheld in a state of acceptance ? The church then holds that baptism regenerates : but the church does not hold that all who are thus regenerate, can never need any fur- ther moral change in order to fitness for heaven.
And we freely own that we know not
J how, consistently with Scripture, the : church could do otherwise than maintain, that what is called the second birth is I effected at baptism. Our Lord's words are very explicit, " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot en- ter into the kingdom of heaven." It can hardly be disputed that the beino- "born of water" refers to bajitism — any other interpretation must be so strained, that to mention would be to refute it. But if we are "born of water" in baptism, do you mean to say that it is at some other time that we are "born of the Spirit 1" Then there is a third birth, as well as a second ; and of this I do not think we read in any part of Scripture. The wa- ter and the Spirit seem compared to two agents which meet in order to the pro- ducti<m of a new creature. The birth spoken of is not fiom the water by itself, neither is it from the Spirit by itself: the simile would hardly have been drawn from a birth, had there not been agencies which might be said to combine, and which might therefore be likened to parents. Hence, if it be in baptism that we are "born of water," it must also be in baptism that we are "born of the Spirit" — otherwise you make Christ speak of two births, where he manifest- ly speaks only of one ; and you represent him moreover as using a simile which is scarcely in place, unless two agencie.s unite to effect a result.
We believe then, in accordance with the doctrine of our church, a doctrine of whose agreement with Scripture we are thoroughly persuaded, that every baptized person has entered, in virtue of his baptism, on a condition so differ- ent from his natural, become entitled to such privileges, and endowed with such grace, that he may be described as re- generate, or born again from above. He may fail to be finally advantaged by this adoption into God's visible family. He may not be trained up as a member of that family should be trained: there may be no attempt at making use of his ])rivileges, none at acquiring or cherish- ing the dispositions which should char- acterize God's children, none at con- solidating and perpetuating that mem bership which was derived to him by his initiation into the church. But this is only saying, that, having been made a child of God, he may fail at last to be an heir of tlie kingdom, llirough failing to
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conform himself to tlie known will, and to improve the offered mercies, of his Father iti heaven. He may be reckoned with the sons, because he has been re- generated, and nevertheless be disinher- ited at the last, because he has never la- bored after, and therefore never acquir- ed, that thorough moral renewal, of which his regeneration was at once the pledge and the commencement.
Let us pause for a moment, and en- deavor to explain how it comes to pass that there is so little of visible efficacy in the sacrament of baptism. We would illustrate from the account of the restor- ation of the daughter of Jairus : Christ raised her from the dead by miracle ; but immediately commanded that means should be used for sustaining the life thus supernaturally communicated. "And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway ; and he commanded to give her meat." We can gather the history of the unconverted amongst you from this simple narrative. Whilst they were yet young, too young to feel or act for themselves, their parents were conscious that they labored under great moral sick- ness, a sickness which was even unto death ; and they went therefore to Jesus, and besought him to make them whole. And, by command of the great Physician, were the children sprinkled with the waters of baptism, and thus made mem- bei's of his church, and heirs of his king- dom. Here was miracle : the child of ■wrath became a child of God : the guilt of original sin was removed ; and a right acquired to all those gracious privileges, through which, diligently used, the hfe may be preserved which is imparted in baptism. We believe of these baptized children, that, had they died ere old enough to be morally accountable, they would have been admitted into heaven : and, therefore, do we also believe that they passed, at baptism, from death un- to life, so that, in their case, baptism was instrumental to the recovery of the im- mortality forfeited in Adam. But when Christ had thus wrought a miracle, wroufrht it through the energies of the Spirit brooding on the waters, he issued the same command as to Jairus, and de- sired that meat should be given to those whom he had quickened. So long as the children were too young to take care of themselves, this command implied that their parents, or guardians, were to be
diligent in instilling into their minds the principles of righteousness, instructing them as to the vows which had been made, and the privileges to which they had been admitted at baptism. So soon as the children had reached riper years, the command implied that they should use, with all earnestness, the appointed means of grace, and especially that they should feed, through the receiving ano- ther sacrament, on that body and blood which are the sustenance of a lost woild. And we quite believe, that, wheresoever the command is faithfully obeyed, the life, communicated in baptism, will be pi'eserved as the infant advances to ma- turity. But unhappily, in far the major- ity of instances, the command is alto- gether disobeyed. The parents give the child no meat ; and the child, when it can act for itself, attends to every thing rather than the sustenance of the spiritual life. Even religious parents are often to blame in this matter : for, not duly mind- ful of the virtues of baptism, they ad- dress their children, as though they were heathens, in place of admonishing them, as members of Christ, to take heed how they let slip the grace they have receiv- ed. And as to irreligious parents, who arc not careful of their own souls, but live in neglect of those means through which is to be maintained the membership with Christ which baptism procures — what can we expect from them, but that they will suffer the piinciple of life to languish in their children, so that we shall have a multitude with no signs of moral anima- tion, although they have been " born again of water and of the Spii-it ] " When, therefore, we are told, that, notwith- standing the use of the sacrament of bap- tism, the great mass of men have evi- dently undergone no renewal of nature ; and when it is argued from this, that there cannot necessarily be any regener- ation in baptism; our answer is simply, that God works by means as well as mir- acle ; that means are to sustain what mir- acle implants ; and that, therefore, the same appearance will be finally present- ed, if means be neglected, as if miracle were not wrought.
But, to recur our text : if we have rightly expounded the church's views with reference to baptism, we may well agree with the ancient fathers, who found the waters of baptism in those wa'ers which covered the solid matter of this
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earth, and oi which the Spirit of God moved, or brooded, with vivify inj^ energy. You are not told, that by this moving or brooding on the waters, the Spirit actually produced this present globe, wrought it in- to the structure, and clothed it with the or- naments,which fitted it for the residence of man. All that seems to have been done, was the infusing such properties into mat- ter, or the bringing it into such a condition, that it stood ready for the various process- es of vegetation and life, but still waited the word of the Almighty ero the trees sprang forth and animated tr be> moved rejoicingly on its surface. And what is this but a most acccurate representation of what we suppose effected in baptism ? We have not so described to you the virtues of this sacrament, as to lead you to believe that the child, on emerging from the waters, is so transformed into the likeness of God as to be sure of a place in that city into which shall enter nothing that defileth. We have only maintained, that, by the operation of the Holy Spirit in and through baptism, the child is brought into such a relation to God, so purged fiom the guilt of original sin, so gathered within the covenant of 6>rgiveness, so consigned to all the bless- ings of adoption, that it may be declared impregnated with the elements of spiritual life, elements which, if not wilfully crushed, shall shoot into efflor- escence and vigor beneath the crea- tive word of the Gospel of Christ. Thus the parallel is perfect — thei-e being only this difference, that inanimate matter, prepared by the Spirit, was sure to oifer no resi.stance, but to resolve itself, at di- vine bidding, into the appointed foi ms ; whereas the human soul, though similar- ly prepared, may withstand the quicken- ing word, and refuse to bring forth the fruits of righteousness. But this is the only difference, a difference which neces- sarily follows on that between matter and mind. For as the rude and undigested chaos, unapt for vegetation, untraversed by life, became, beneath the broodings of the Sj)irit on the overspread waters, enabled for fertility, and pregnant with vitality, so that yet wilder and more un- shaped thing, a fallen man, passing through these mystic waters on which the Holy Ghost moves, is made a fit subject for the renewing word of the Gospel, that word which clothes with moral beauty, and nerves with moral strength. He may
resist the word which commands that the earth bring forth the green herb, and that land and water teem with proof that the voice of the Lord has been heard. Nevertheless, he has been put at baptism into such a condition, there has been communicated such an aptness for heark- ening to the word, and obeying its in- junctions, that the very globe, with its fields and forests, and varied tenantry, shall witness against him at the judgment, proving itself less senseless and obdurate, seeing that it arose from its baptism, ready, at God's command, to be enamel- led with vei'dure and crowned with ani- mation. And, on the other hand, when we see an individual growing up " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," steadily acting out the vows, claiming the privileges, and exhibiting the benefits of baptism ; so that life is, from the first, a progress towards spiritual perfection ; we think it not strange if he cannot tell us the day of his conversion, if he can only describe an acquaintance with God, and a love to his name, which have been deepening as long as he can recollect ; we should indeed marvel that a fallen creature could thus seem set apart, from his very infancy, to holiness, as though he had been born a child of God and not of wrath, if we did not remember, that, whilst the earth was yet " without form and void," waters had suffused it, and that on the face of those waters had mov- ed the Spirit of God.
These then are the two great senses in which, as we think, our text should be understood ; the one literal, the other allegorical. In ordinary cases we object to the giving a typical meaning to an his- torical statement, unless on the express warrant of other parts of Scripture. But though in this case we have no such war- rant, yet, forasmuch as the work of the Holy .Spirit upon man is described as the extracting a new creation from the ruins of the old — the very work attribut- ed to this agent in our text — we can hardly think that we deal fancifully with Scripture, if, in imitation of early writeis, we suppose a designed parallel between the natural and spiritual o])orations. And though we will not say that what we have, in conclusion, to advance, may be ecjually defended by just laws of in- terpretation, it is perhaj)S only such an application of the text as may be par- doned for the sake of its practical worth.
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THE SPIRIT UrON THE WATERS.
On the waters of the chaos brooded the Spirit, in order tliat from the undi- gested mass might spring a noble world. On the waters of baptism still broods that same Spirit, in order that from the midst of a fallen race may rise the church of the living God. But there are other ■waters, of which Scripture speaks ; and it is most comforting to remember that on these too may God's Spirit rest. There are the waters of affliction, waters to which reference is made in the pro- mise, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;" and to which the Psalmist alludes when he speaks of the deep waters as having come in, even unto his soul. And when these waters are poured upon the chris- tian, how often may it be said that the earth is " without form and void," and that darkness is " upon the face of the deep." All seems a blank : on every side there is gloom. But is not God's Spirit upon the waters ? Surely, if it be true that the believer in Christ comes forth purified by affliction, stronger in the graces of the Gospel, and more dis- posed to the yielding those fruits which are to the glory of God, it is also true that the Spirit, who is emphatically styl- ed the Comforter, has moved upon the waters, exerting through them a mys- terious influence on the disordered fa- culties ; so that there hath at length emerged, as from the surges of the early deep, a fairer creation, with more of the impress of Deity and the earnest of hea- ven. And if sorrows may be likened un- to waters, certainly death may, which Cometh in as a deluge, and overwhelms the generations of men. This is a flood beneath wliich the earth becomes literal- ly "without form and void." The body, fashioned out of the dust, is reduced to its elements : all that was comely, and strong, and excellent, departs ; and a daikness, fearfully oppressive, is on "the lace of the deep." But the Spirit of the living God is moving on the flood. These our bodies, like the globe from which they have been taken, and into which they must be resolved, are to pass from an inferior to a nobler condition ;
they are to be broken into a chaos, only that they may be reconstructed in finer symmetry, and with loftier powers. And when I find it declared that "he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" — the resurrection being thus attributed to the Spirit — I feel indeed that it may again be said, that the Sj)irit of God moves "on the face of the waters ;" it moves as the guardian and vivifier of every particle submerged in the dark flood of death ; and its agen- cy shall be attested as magnificently as by new heavens and a new earth spring- ing from the wreck of the old, when this mortal shall put on immortality, this cor- ruptible incorruption.
We cannot detain you longer, though fresh illustrations crowd upon the mind. Living waters, we read, are to go out from Jerusalem, "till at length the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as tlie waters cover the sea." The Spirit of God will be on these waters ; the flood of evangelical truth would avail nothing unless accom- panied by this agent ; but forasmuch as the Gospel shall be preached "with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," the deseit will blossom, the waste places rejoice, and the globe be transf()rmed in- to one glorious sanctuaiy. There is a river, moreover, in the heavenly city, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the thi-one of God and of the Lamb." The waters flow from the throne of two per- sons of the Trinity ; then on these waters must be the Third Person, who pro- ceedeth from the other two. Yea, even in heaven may this Spirit act on that which hath been earthly, fitting us to pass from one stage to another of glory and blessedness, so that futurity, like an- tiquity, shall be full of splendid changes, each being a progress towards Deity, though Deity will ever remain unap- proachable. God grant — this is all we can say in conclusion — that none of us may "quench the Spirit;" oh, though he can sit majestical on the flood of death, he may be actually quenched by the flood of unbelief.
SERMON IX.
THE PROPORTION OF GRACE TO TRIAL.
" And as thy days so shall thy strength be." — Deuteronomy xxxiii. 25.
It is of great importance, that, in con- sidering the present condition of our race, we neither exaggerate, nor extenuate, the consequences of the original aposta- cy. We believe it possible to do the one as well as the other ; for though it may not be easy to overstate the degree of our alienation from God, or our inability to return unto him from whom we have revolted, we may speak as though cer- tain passions and affections had been en- gendered in us since the fall, having had nothing correspondent in man as first formed. And this, we believe, would be a great mistake ; for we do not see how any part of our mental constitution can have been added, or produced, since we turned aside from God : we may have prostituted this or that affection, and per- verted this or that power; but assuredly the affection and the power, under a bet- ter aspect and with a holier aim, must have belonged to our nature before as well as since the transgression of Adam, We are not to think that an entirely new set of energies and passions was com- municated to man, when he had fallen from innocence ; for this would be to re- present (rod as interfering^ to implant in us sinful propensities. When a man is converted, and therefore reijains, in a degree, the lost image of liis Maker, there are not given him ])owers and affections which he possessed not befcire ; all that is effected is the remcjval of an evil bias, or the proposing of a new object ; the faculties are what they were, except that they aie no longer warped, and no longer wasted on y)erishable things. And if that renewal tif human nature, which is designated as actually a fresh c-eation, consist rather in its purification and ele- vation, tlian in its endowment vvitli new
qualities, we may conclude, that, in its fall, there was the debasement rather than the destruction of its properties, the cor- ruption of what it had rather than the acquisition of what it had not.
It is, we think, a very interesting thing to observe men's present dispositions and tendencies, and to consider what they would have been had man continued in uprightness. The distorted feature, and the degraded power, should not merely be mourned over and reproached : they should be used as elements from which we may determine what our race was, ere it rebelled against God. When, for example, we behold men eagerly bent on the amassing of wealth, giving all their energy and time to the accumulation of riches which they can never need and never enjoy, we consider that we are not looking merely on a melancholy spectacle, that of creatures squandering their lives on what deserves not their strivings. There is indeed the exhil)iti«m of misused powers ; but the exhibition is, at the same time, a striking evidence of what man originally was, and foi- what he was designed. The passion for ac- cumulation, for making provision for the unknown future, is among the strongest indications that tlie soul feels herself im- mortal, and urges to the laying up for yet distant times. What would the man, who is laboring night and day for cor- ru])tiltle possessions, liave been, had he re- mained what he was as originally cicated? He would have been an eager candidate for those treasures which arc enduring ; and all that concentration of powers on a perishable good, which now excites (»ur scnrovv, would have been the undi- vided employment of every energy on tlie acquisition of everlasting blessedness.
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THE PROPORTIOX OF GRACE TO TRIAL.
it is not a new desire, a desire which subsisted not under any tbnn in the unfal- len man, that which now actuates the great mass of our race, who toil and strive only to be rich. It is the very desire which, we may believe, was uppermost in our first father, when the image of God was in its freshness, and evil had not en- tered paradise. The desire has been turned towards the base and corruptible ; there has been a change, a fatal change in its object ; but, nevertheless, the desire itself belonged to our nature in its glori- ous estate, God its author, and immor- tality its aim. So that, from the specta- cle of crowded marts and busy exchanges, where numbers manifestly devote them- selves, body and soul, to the amassing of money, we can pass in thought to the spectacle of a world inhabited only by unfallen men, creatures who, like Adam as originally formed, present the linea- ments of the Lord God himself. The one spectacle suggests the other : I learn what man was, from observing what he is.
And it is not merely that, viewing the matter generally, we can see that the passion for accumulating wealth is an ori- ginal affection of our nature, implanted for noble ends. If you examine with a little more attention, you will be struck with the testimony which there is in this passion to the exigencies and destinies of man. If you were to speak with a great capitalist, one who has already realized large wealth, but who is as in- dustrious in adding to his stores as though he were just beginning life, he would perhaps hardly tell you that he had any very definite purpose in heaping up riches, that there was any great end which he hoped to attain, or any new source of happiness which he expected to possess. He goes oil accumulating because there is an unsatisfied longing, a craving which has not been appeased, a consciousness, which will not suffer him to be idle, that man's business upon earth is to make provision for the future. For our part, we have no share in the feeling of won- der, which we often hear expressed, that worldly men, as they grow old, ar*5 even more ea^^er than ever in adding to their riches. The surpnsmg thing to us is, when a man who for years has been in- tent on accumulating capital, can with- draw from his accustomed pursuits, and yet not be Industrious in seeking txeasure
above. We think it only natural, that the covetous man should be more covet- ous, as he draws nearer to death ; for we regard covetousness as nothing less than the prostituted desire of immortal- ity : it is the passion of a being, goaded by an irrepressible feeling that he shall have wants hereafter, for vvhich it be- hoves him to be provident now ; and what marvel, if this feeling become more and more intense, as the time of dissolu- tion approaches, and the soul has mys- terious and painful forebodings of being cast, without a shred, and without a hope, on eternity ]
But we make these remarks on th« passion for accumlation as found in un- converted men, because we wish to ex- amine whether there be any thing anal- ogous in those who have been brought to the providing for an after state of be- ing. The worldly man, as we have seen, is not content with a present sufficiency, or even abundance : he is always aiming at having a large stock in hand, so thai he may be secure, as he thinks, against future contingencies. And when you view him as a creature with misdirected energies, we have shown you that his ir- repressible tendency to the providing for hereafter, is among the most beautiful of testimonies to his being immortal, and placed upon earth to prepare for another state. But if we now suppose him so transformed by divine grace, that he ia enabled to set his affections "on things above," there is a strong likelihood that he will carry with him, if we may so ex- press it, the habit of accumulation, so that he will be in spiritual things, what he has long been in temporal, discontented with the present supply, and desirous of anticipating the future. And, of course, we are not required to limit this remark to the case of an individual who has been eager in amassing earthly wealth. We think it a feature which is charac- teristic, without exception, of all men, that there is a tendency to the providing for the future. There is hardly the mind to be found, so stripped of every vestige of its origin, that it cares only for to-day, and has no regard for to-moriow. And if there be an universal disposition to the having, if possible, the supply of future wants already in possession, we may well expect, on the principles already laid down, that such disposition will show it- self in regard of spiritual necessitieu, and
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not be confined to such only as are temporal.
It is the consideration of the disposi- tion, as it may thus opeiate in righteous individuals, with which we now desire to engage your attention. Our text may have often recurred to you as a beauti- ful promise, pledging God to administer such supports to his people as shall be proportioned to their several necessities. "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." And it is unquestionably a most en- couraging declaration, full of godly com- fort, admirably fitted to sustain us in the prospect of various trials, and abundant- ly made good in the experience of the righteous. But whilst we admit that it is as a promise that our text is most in- teresting and attractive, we consider it so constructed as to convey impoitant lessons, with regard to that desire to make provision on which we have been speaking. You will observe that the promise is simply, that strength shall be proportioned to the day : there is no promise of an overplus, nor of such store in hand as shall make us confident for the future, because we have already full provision for its wants. The promise is literally fulfilled, if, up to the instant of our being placed in certain circumstances, we are without the grace which those circumstances may demand, provided on- ly that the grace be imparted so soon as the circumstances become actually our own. Nay, we must go even further than this. The text clearly implies that we are not to expect the grace or assis- tance beforehand : it would not be true, that the strength was as the day, if we were furnished, before the day of trial came, with whatsoever would bo needful for passing well through its troubles. All that we have right to infer from the passage, is, that God will deal out to us the supply of our wants as fast as those wants actually arise ; but tliat he will not give us any thing which we may lay by, or hoard up for fresh emergencies. And thus, as we may say, the text is strongly condemnatory of all bringing in- to religion of that passion for accumula- tion wliich is so distinctive of human na- ture ; for it requires us to live, from mo- ment to moment, upon God, and fin-bids our expecting that the grace fi)r to-moi*- row will be communicated to-day.
These however are points which re- quire to be stated more at length, and
with greater clearness. In order there- fore to combine the several lessons which seem furnished by the expressive words of our text, we shall direct your atten- tion to two chief topics of discourse — - considering, in the fiist place, the caution, and in the second, the comfort, which the righteous may draw from the saying, " As thy days, so shall thy strength be." Now there is a wise, and there is also an unwise, comparison of himself with others, which may be instituted by a righteous individual. He may so com pare himself as to be animated to imita- tion, or he may so compare himself as to be disheartened by a sense of infe- riority. And in the latter comparison, whose result pi'oves that it ought not to have been made, there is commonly no due regaid to a difference in circum- stances. If, for example, we take into our hands the annals of martyrs, and read the story of the undaunted heroism with which confessors, in days of fierce persecution, have braved the loss of all that is valuable, and the endurance of all that is tremendous, we can perhaps hard ly repress a painful feeling of inferiority ; and we close the book with a tacit but reproachful confession, that we seem void of the faith which could perform the like wonders. And wt3 have no wish to say that there may not be great cause, when we ponder what the saints of other days have suffered and done, for acknowledging that we come far short of their zeal for the truth, and their love of the Savior. It is more than pos- sible that Christianity in the present day is feebler in power, and fainter in lustre, than in earlier times, when it was to be professed with danger, and maintained with blood. But what we now contend for, is, that we have no right to consider the piety of our own times inferior to that of former, just because we may doubt whether the christians of this generation have the courage and forti- tude of martyrs of old. It is exceeding- ly probable that there are very few christians, who can declare, after honest- ly and fearlessly examining themselves, that they fuel so nerved to bear all things fiir Christ, that they could go joyfully to the stake, and sing his praises in the midst of the flames. Let men read the history of a Ridley, or a Hooper; and then let them inquire, if we were now placed in like circumstances, could wa 46
363
THE PROPORTION OP GRACE TO TRIAL.
display the like constancy ? and perhaps from the one end of this christian land to another, you would scarce find any to answer in the affirmative. And this, •>ve wish you carefully to observe, would "jot arise from mere humility, from any actual underrating of their strength and devotedness. The answer would be the answer of perfect truth, the answer dic- tated by a most accurate comparison of the supposed trial with the possessed power. We are quite prepared for any the most cogent proof, that christians of the present day are not actually in pos- session of the courage and determi-na- tion of martyrs and confessors ; and that if, on a sudden, without their receiving fresh communications of giace, they were brought before rulers, and required to maintain their profession with their lives, the likelihood is that there would be grievous apostacy, even where we have no reason now to doubt the sin- cerity.
But we do not consider this as prov- ing any thing against the genuineness or worth of the existing Christianity, We consider it no evidence that religion has deteriorated, that the christians of our own day stand not ready for the stake which their forefathers braved. The stake and the scaffold are not the appointments of the times : it is not God's will that the believers of this generation should be exposed to the same trials as martyrs and confessors. And we reckon it a great principle in the dealings of God with his church, a principle clearly laid down in the words of our text, that the giace imparted is rigidly proportioned to the emergence : so that, as it is never less, it is never more, than suffices for the appointed tribulation. There was bestowed upon martyrs the strength needful for the un- dergoing martyrdom, because it was martyrdom which God summoned them to encounter. That strength is not be- stowed upon us, because it is not mar- tyrdom which God hath called us to face. In both cases the same jninciple is acted on, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." And this principle would be ut- terly forgotten and violated, if we, who live in times when the fires of persecu- tion no longer blaze, felt ourselves thoroughly furnished for the dying nobly for the truth. But then we can be con- fident that the principle would be equal-
ly preserved, if there were to pass a great change on the times, and the pro^ fession of Christianity once more exposed men to peril of death. We have no fel- lowship with that feeling which we often hear expressed, that so degenerate is modern Christianity, that, if there were a return of persecution, there would be no revival of the fine heroisnj which for- mer days displayed. We believe indeed that there is a vast deal of nominal chiistianity, of mere outward profession, with which the heart has no concern. This will necessarily be the case un- der the present dispensation, whenever Christianity is the national religion, adopt- ed by a country as the only true faith. And it is hardly to be questioned that a great part of this nominal Christianity would altogether disappear if the sup- posed change were brought about. What men have not received into their hearts, they cannot be expected to defend with their lives. But we speak now of vital Christianity, of that Christianity which is allowed to be genuine, but presumed to be weak. It is of this Christianity that the melancholy suspicion is entertained, that it would not stand an onset of per- secution, but would prove itself a recre- ant ifsummoned to the trials of confessors of old. And it is this suspicion which we consider wholly unwarranted, and in the entertainment of wliich we have no share whatsoever. We regard the sus picion as involving an utter forgetfulness of the principle announced in our text, and as proceeding on the supposition that God might be expected to allow such an accumulation of grace as would cause us to have in hand full provision for the fu- ture. But with the words which we are considering kept steadily in mind, we could look forward to a return of perse- cution, with a confident expectation of a return of the spirit of the martyrs. Bo it so, that the best christians of the day seem unprepared for the surrender of property, the submission to captivity, or the sacrifice of life. They nevertheless have in them the same faith, the same in nature, if not in degree, as was possessed by those noble ones of old, who "wit- nessed a good confession," and whose names shed undying lustre on the annals of our religion.
And, having the same faith, we can be sure that they would be strengthened for the meeting all such trials as God, in
THE PROPORTION OF GRACE TO TRIAL,
363
his providence, might be pleased to ap point. It is not that zeal is extinguish- ed, that love has departed, that courage has perished. It is not that our valleys and cities are indeed haunted by the memory of such as counted all things " loss for Christ," but could not again send forth defenders of the truth. On many a mountain-side would the servants of the living Grod again congregate, if the fiends of persecution were once more let ioose. Scenes, consecrated by the re- membrance of what was done in them of old, would be again hallowed by the constancy of the veteran and the strip- ling, and by the fine exhibition of torture despised, and death defied, that the doc- trines of the Gospel might be upheld in their purity. We should again have the merchant, willing to be stripped of his every possession, and turned a beggar on the world, rather than abjure one tit- tle of the faith. We should again have the tender and the weak, the woman and the child, who now shrink from the least pain, and are daunted by the least dan- ger, confronting the fierce and the pow- erful, and refusing to deny Christ, though to save themselves from agony. We should again have the dungeons filled with unflinching men, proof equally against threat and persuasion ; and who, counting religion the dearest thing of all, would neither be bribed from it by an empire, nor scared from it by death. And we venture on this prophecy, not from any confidence in the natural re- sources of those who seem unj>repared to do and dare nobly for the truth. It is not that we think they have undeveloped power, which would be brought out by exposure to trial. It is only that we are persuaded that God accurately propor- tions the strength to the circumstances, communicating his grace as the ditKcul- ties increase. And men may look back, with a sort of despondency, to times when righteousness was undaunted by all the menac^es of wickedness. Tliey may draw a reproachful c<>ntrast between the Chris- tianity which was cheerful in a prison and confident on a scalioid, and that of modern days, which seems little like it in boldness and disinterestedness. But we see nothing in tlie contrast but evi- dence that tlie supplies of grace are pro- portioned to the need, and ground of as- surance that Christianity now would be what Christianity was, were God to take
oifhis restraints from the enemies of his church. Yes, when we hear it said that days of persecution may again be per- mitted, that again may professing the name of Christ cause exposure to all from which himian nature shrinks, we are far enough from having before us the gloomy spectacle of universal apostacy. The imagery which the statement brings to our mind is that of unblenching forti- tude and high daring and christian hero- ism : there is the cruelty of savage and bloodthirsty men, but there is also the constancy of meek and single-hearted believers : there are the emissaries of an inquisition hunting down the righ- teous, but there are the righteous them- selves holding fast their profession : the dead seem to live again, the ancient worthies have their faithful representa- tives, the mantle of " the noble army of martyrs" is resting on a host of every age and every rank — and all because God hath announced this as his principle in his dealing with his people, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
Now we have learned, from our inter- course with christians when in sickness, or under affliction, that it is practically of great importance to insist on the truth that no greater measure of grace should be expected than is sufficient for present duties and trials. The passion for ac- cumulation, to which we have so often referred, is to be traced in men who are busy for the next world, as well as in those who are busy only for this. As he who is gathering perishable wealth is not content with the supply of present wants, but always looks anxiously to fu- tui'e, so the christian, though possessing what is needed by his actual condition, will be thinking of what would be ne- cessary if that condition were worse. And we are certain, that, both in tem- poral and spiritual things, it is the ob- ject of God to keep us momentarily de- pendent on himself. We allow that, in temporal things, men seem able to de- feat this intention, and to acquire some- thing that might pass for independence. But this is only in appearance : it were the worst infidelity which sliould contend for the reality. The man of ample pro- perty may say with the rich fi)ol in the parable, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years ;" but y()u must all be conscious that no amount of wealtli can secure its possessor aga'nst want, if
3C1
THE PROPORTION OF GRACE TO TRIAL.
God saw fit to strij3 him of his riches. It is only in appearance that the man of large capital^ is better provided for to- morrow, than the beggar who knows not whither to turn for a morsel of bread : you have simply to admit that " the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness there- of," and you admit that the opulent in- dividual and the destitute are alike de- pendent upon God, that by to-morrow they may have virtually changed places, the opulent being in beggary, and the destitute in abundance.
But in spiritual things, the distribution of which God keeps more visibly, though not more actually, in his own hands, there is not even the appearance of our having the power to be independent. We can have only such measure of grace as God is pleased to bestow ; and it may be withdrawn or continued, increased or diminished, entirely at his pleasure who ♦* holdeth our souls in life." But never- theless there may be a craving fijr a larg- er measure of grace than suffices for present duties, just as there may be for a larger measure of wealth than suffices for present wants. And if there may be this craving, there may be also a dissatis- fied and uncomfortable feeling, if the larger measure of grace should not seem bestowed. Whereas, if we may use a very homely expression, it is not God's method to allow us a stock of grace, to be kept in reserve for occasions which may arise. The petition in the Lord's prayer seems applicable to spiritual as well as to temporal food, " Give us day by day our daily bread." What we are taught to ask is what we may hope to receive ; and we are not to ask to-day for the bread for to-morrow : we are to be content with to-day's supply, and to wait till to-morrow before we speak of its wants. Neither may we think that it was without a great spiritual meaning that Christ delivered the maxim, " Suffi- cient unto the day is the evil thereof," and grounded on it a direction to his disci- ples, that they should "take no thought for the morrow." We do not suppose that he forbade prudence and fore- thought, but oidy undue anxiety, with respect to the future and its necessities. There are passages enough in Scripture from which to show, that it is not the part of a christian to make no provision for after days, as though his wants were to be supplied without his using means.
But we believe that there are respects in which we ought to act literally on the saying, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." We believe that sufficient unto the day are its trials and burdens ; and that, if a man find himself enabled to bear these, ho has no right to complain at not feeling able to bear heavier. Suf- ficient unto the day are its trials, because the strength bestowed is accurately pro- portioned to those trials ; and therefore we ought not to harass ourselves by imagining our trials increased, and then mournfully inferring that we should sink beneath their weight. And yet this is a very common form of the disquietude of christians. A parochial minister con- stantly meets with this case in his pas- toral visitations. Men are fond of sup- posing themselves placed in such or such circumstances ; and because they do not feel as though their faith and fortitude were equal to the circumstances, they draw unfavorable conclusions as to their spiritual state. It is thus, for example, that they fetch material of uneasiness from the registered actions and endur- ances of saints : they do not feel as if they could brave martyrdom ; and there- fore are they confounded by the history of martyrs, though it ought to encourage them, as proving that God will not suf- fer men to be tempted " above that they are able."
And the same occurs very frequently in reference to death. There are many christians who are harassed by a great dread of death, a dread of the mere act of dying ; and who may be said to go heavily half their days, through fear of the taking down of their *' earthly house of this tabernacle." And we have no wish, at any time, to represent death as other than an enemy, nor its assault as other than necessarily terrible to our na- ture. It is vain to try to make death de- sirable in itself; it is a remnant of the original curse ; a remnant for whose final removal there has been made abun- dant provision, but which, whilst yet un- repealed, must press grievously even c»n the best of mankind. In what way, then, would we strive to encourage those christians who are distressed with ap- prehensions of death ] Simply by telling them that they do wrong in thinkinyr of the future, and that it is both their duty and interest to confine themselves to the present. Are they enabled to
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Dear the trials of to-day, the trials whe- ther of sickness or sorrow 1 Enough : "Sufficient unto the day is the evil there- of;" still " wait upon the Lord ;" and if to-morrow bring heavier trials, to-mor- row will bring greater strength, liut we foci unprepared for death, we shrink fiom the thought of death. Be it so ; to die is not your present business, to live is your present business. And it is strictly to your present business that God proportions your present grace. You are wishing to have already in your pos- session the stiength for dying ; but this is virtually to wish that God would allow you to accumulate, and thus to be pro- vided beforehand with all that may be needed for trials to come. And God loves you too well to give you even tins image or shadow of independence. He knows it essential to your spiritual well- being that you should hang upon him from moment to moment ; he knows al- so that this you could hardly do, if grace were so supplied that you had more in hand than sufficed for to-day. Be thank- ful that you have now strength enough for what you are called to do and endure ; be confident that you shall have strength enough for all that you may hereafter be called to do and endure. The one is a pledge of the other ; that experience verifies our text now, should persuade you that experience will verify it in time yet to come.
We wish that we could prevail upon you all thus to submit to the present, without being troubled as to the future. We are sure that a great part of the anxiety of christians is anxiety as to tiials and duties which are not allotted them, but which possibly may be. They imagine, as we before said, circum- stances, and are disquieted because those circumstances seem to overmatch their strength. The mother will gaze on her favorite child; and, in the midst of her gladness, a shade of melancholy will pass across her brow, at the thought that this child may be taken feom her by death. Her feeling is, I could not bear to lose him ; it w(juld go far to break my heart ; were God to appoint me that trial, it would be too much for my j)atience and resignation. But what has the mo- ther to do with thus imagining her child as snatched away from her embrace, whilst he is befcjre her in all the buf)y- ancy of health ] It may be that she
does not now feel as though she could submit with meekness to his loss. But his loss is not what she is now called to endure ; and she does wrong in examin- ing her faith by its ability to bear what is only possible, and not actual. In like manner, a man feels, and is distressed by the feeling, that he could not now meet death with composure and assur- ance. What of that ? has he reason to believe himself on his death-bed 1 if not, he has no right to expect the death-bed strength, and therefore none to be dis- turbed at its wants. And, oh, it is very beautiful to observe how those who have suffered their present peace to be ruffled by anticipated trials, have found their fears groundless, and have gone bravely through the trouble from the thought of which they shrank. The blow has come upon the mother, and that sweet child has sickened and died. But the trial has not exceeded the mother's strength : she has found herself so sustained that she has even been able to " rejoice in tribula- tion ;" and she has laid in the grave, al- most without a tear, and certainly with- out a murmur, the little one whom she had pillowed delightfully on her breast. And the hour of departure has been at hand to that christian who has been harassed by a fear of dissolution ; but where have been the anticipated terrors ] Has he been the timid, stricken, shud- dering thing which he had pictured him- self when looking forward to the last scene 1 On the contrary he has met the dreaded enemy with perfect tranquillity ; with the dying patriarch he has "gather- ed up his feet into the bed," and has meekly exclaimed, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord." And what are we to say to these registered instances, instances whose frequency might be at- tt;sted l)y every minister of the Gospel ? What but that there is a continual acting on the principle of our text, that it is not Ciod's method to provide us beforehand foi- a trial, but that it is his method to do enough for his people when the trial has come I Yes, if we can indeed prove that the burden which, at a distance, threaten- ed to crush us, has not been too heavy ; that the waters which seemed likely to overwhelm us have not been too deep — if there be abundant demonstration that what men have felt unequal to when it was nf)t their portion, they have endured excellently when it has fallen to their lot :
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sorrows, whose name scared them, not having exhausted their patience, and pains, at whose mention they quivered, having been borne with a smile, and even death itself, whose image had long ap- palled them, having laid aside its terrors when actually at hand — will it not be confessed that God wondrously makes good the declaration, " As thy days, so shall thy strength be?"
And this appeal to experience might be made by most christians, even if the?y had no history but their own from which to gather proof. If it were not that we receive blessings and deliverances, and then forget them, or fail to treasure them up as choice proofs of divine favor, it could not be that many amongst us, after years and years of professed fellowship with God, would be as much dismayed by the prospect of new trials, or as much disheartened by the pressure of new burdens, as though they had known no- thing of the supports and consolations which the Almighty can afford. If there were any thing like a diligent remem- brance of our mercies, a counting up of the instances in which God has been bet- ter to us than our fears, in which he has interposed when we were perplexed, sustained us when we were falling, com- forted us when we were sorrowful, it would be hard to say how there could be place fen- anxiety, whatever the clouds which might be gathering round our path. Let mercies be remembered as well as enjoyed, and they must be as lights in our dark days, and as shields in our perilous. If 1 find a believer in Christ cast down, because exposed to some vehement temp- tation, or placed in circumstances which demand more than common spiritual firmness, I would toll this man that he has no right to look thus gloomily on the future ; he is bound to look also on the past ; can he jcmembcr no former temp- tations from which he came out a con- queror, no seasons of danger when God showed himself "a very present help V and what then has he to do but to " gird up the loins of his mind ?" despair may be for those, if such can be found, for whom nothing has been done : but a man 'A'hose history is virtually a history of de- liverances, should regard that history as equally a prophecy of deliverances, a pro- phecy from God, God who alone can predict and is sure to fulfil, that the strength shall be as the day. And where-
fore, moreover, is it, son or daughter of sorrow, that a discipline of suffering has not strengthened thee in faith 1 We might think that thou hadst never been in the furnace of affliction, to see how thou dost shrink from entering it again. And yet there are those of you who, like the three Jewish youths, have come forth unharmed, seeing that one " like unto the Son of God" has been with them in the midst of the flames. Take again the case of a mother : if she have lost a child, and yet been enabled to exclaim when that child was earned forth to burial, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord," what right has she to be dismayed if an- other child seem sickening, as though about to follow its brother or its sister ? Why should the mother recoil from the new trial, as if she felt that it would cer- tainly be more than she could bear ] Let her go to the grave of her dead child, that she may learn patience in tending the couch of the living. Did not God comfort her in her former aflHiction ] Did he not speak soothingly to her when maternal anguish was strong ] What then has she to do with despondency ? The form of her buried child might well rise before her, and look at her with a look never worn in life, a look of up- braiding and reproach, if she fail to re- member, as the hectic spot appears on another young cheek, how the Lord hath said, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." The widow again, from whom God hath removed the chief earthly pi'op and guardian, but who was mercifully strengthened, when her husband's eyes closed in death, to look calmly on hef boys and girls, and to bid them not weep, for that a Mighty One had declared him- self "the» husband of the widow and the father of the fatherless," what cause has she to be afterwards dismayed, when difflculties thicken, and the providing for her family seems beyond her power and even her hope ? Let her travel back in thoughts to the first moments of her widowhood, let her remember the gra- cious things that were whispered to her spirit, when human comforters could avail nothing against the might of her sorrow ; and will not her own experience rise as a witness against her, if she ga- ther not confidence from what is treasured in memory, if s\^, exclaim not to the God who bound up the wounded heart,
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thou wilt again make good thine own word, " As thy days, so shall thy strength be]"
It is in this way that we would have you live over again times and scenes of extraordinary mercy, that you may be nerved for extraordinary trial. We of- ten hear it recommended that christians should study the histories of eminent saints, in order that, through observing the deliverances wrought for others, they may be encouraged to expect de- liverances for themselves. And the re- commendation is good. There is no more profitable reading than that of the lives of men distinguished by their piety. It is likely to suggest to us our own in- ferioi'ity, to animate us to greater dili- gence in running the christian race, and, by proving to us how God's promises have been fulfilled, to lead us to a firmer reliance on his word. And accordingly we have gi-eat pleasure, if, in visiting the pious cottager, we find tliat in addition to the Bible, which is emphatically the poor man's library, he has on his shelf some pieces of christian biography, the histories of certain of those devoted ser- vants of God who were "burning and shining" lights in their generation, and who bequeathed their memory as a rich legacy to posterity. But there is a book which we are yet more anxious that the pious cottager should study, a book which he may possess and peruse, though he have not a single printed volume in his dwelling, nor scholarship enough to read it, even if he had. And this is the book of his own experience. This is the book on whose pages are inscribed what the Almighty God hath done for himself There is not the converted man who has not such a book. The title-page may be said to have been written on the day of conversion ; and there is scare a day after- ward which does not add a leaf. And a page out of this book is practically worth whole printed volumes. It may not be stamped with so surprising a history as those voUimes could furnish : but then it is the history of the reader himself, and therefore has a reality and a convincing- ness which scarce any other can have. The student of the volume of memory knows thoroughly well that there is no- thing exaggerated, nothing fictitious, in any of its statements : so that there is such an air of truth thrown over the bi- ography, as can hardly adorn the narra-
tive of a stranger, which is almost sure to seem romantic in proportion as it is wonderful. And besides this, you can scarcely put yourself into the position of the stranger : you imagine a thousand circumstances of difference which forbid your identifying your case with his, and inferring what God will do for you from what he has done for him. Hence there is more of encouragement in the least blessing bestowed on ourselves, than in the greatest on a stranger. On every account, thei'efore, we may safely say that a whole library of biographical works, and those, too, relating exclu- sively to I'ighteous individuals, could not so minister to the assurance of a believer as the documents which his own memory can furnish. These then should often engage his study, whether he be the rich or the poor. We would have you give unto your mercies an imperishable char- acter. We would have you engrave them, not upon the marble, and not upon the brass, but upon the tablets of your own minds ; and we would have you watch the sculpture, that not a solitary letter be obliterated. If Samuel, when the Israelites had won a victory over the Philistines, set up a commemorative stone, and called it Ebenezer, saying, "Hitherto hatii the Lord helped us," where are your monumental pillars, carved with the story of what God hath done for your safety and comfort ] Oh, by every tear which God hath wiped from your eyes, by every anxiety which he has soothed, by every fear wliich he has dispelled, by every want which he has supplied, by every mercy which he has bestowed, strengthen yourselves for all that awaits you through the remain- der of your pilgrimage : look onwards, if it must be so, to new trials, to increas- ed perplexities, yea, even to death itself: but look on what is past as well as on what is to come ; and you will be ena- bled to say of Him in whoso hand are your times, his future dealings will be, what his former have been, fulfilments of the promise, " As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
Now up to this point we have been professedly considering only the caution which christians should derive from our text : but we have been insensibly drawn into speaking of the comfort, to which we have propiised to devote the con- cluding part of our discourse. It would
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not be very easy to keep the two quite distinct ; but you will observe that we have given great prominence to the cau- tion, and that it is one which, if you value your spiritual peace, you will do well to appropriate to yourselves. The caution is, that christians should never try themselves by supposed circum- stances, but always by their actual : if they have the grace requisite for present trials and duties, they have all which God has covenanted to bestow, and must neither murmur, nor wonder, if he do not bestow more. God is faithful, if he give BuiRcient for to-day ; man is sinful, if un- easy because unj)rovided for to-morrow. ]3ut when we have taken to ourselves the caution, how abundant is the comfort which the text should supply ; at the risk of repetition, let us dwell for a few moments on what a christian, in a world of wo, cannot weary of heaiing. We must necessarily admit that our present condition is one of exposure to difficulty and disaster. It is not a mere poetic ex- pression, it is the sober assertion of melancholy fact, when Job exclaims, "Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground, yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards." As a direct consequence on our being fallen creatures, much of bitterness is mixed with our portion ; whilst moreover it seems necessary for the ends of moral discipline, that we should have to en- counter disappointments and sorrows. But then it is a just expectation, that Christianity, the system devised by God for the repair of the injuries wrought by transgression, will contain much to miti- gate the griefs of human life. And it is hardly needful for us to say how tho- roughly this expectation is fulfilled. Christianity does not indeed offer exemp- tion from trouble, even to those most sincere and earnest in its profession. The best christian must expect his share of such troubles as are the hjt of human- ity— nay, he may even have a gieater than the ordinary portion, inasmuch as there are ends, in his case, to be observed by affliction, which exist not in that of one at enmity with God. But it is beau- tiful to observe how little there would be that could be regarded as unlKippiness amongst christians, if they made full use of thesupportsan<l consolations provided by the Gospel if a man had only tho-
rough faith in the declaration of our text : if he would apply that declaration to hia own case, in both its caution and its com- fort, he could neither be overborne by existing trouble, nor be dismayed by prospective. To those who " wait upon the Lord" there is always given strength adequate to the trials of to-day, and there ought to be no anxiety as to the trials of to-morrow. They have not already in hand the grace that may be needed for future duties and dangers ; but tliey know it to be in better keeping than their own, and certain to be furnished precisely when requii'ed. O the peace which a true christian might possess, it* he would take God at his word, and trust him to make good his promises. It is hard to say what could then ruffle him, or what, at least, could permanently disturb. Day by day his duties might be more arduous, his temptations strong- er, his trials more severe. But he would ascertain that the imparted strength grew at the same rate, so that he was always equal to the duties, victorious over the temptations, and sustained under the trials. As it is, you will find, as we have already more than once observed, that the greatest part of the uneasiness and unhappiness which christians ex- perience, springs from the future rather than the present. There will, of course, be absorbing moments, in passing through which the soul will be so engrossed by the immediate events, as to have no thought for those which may follow. But the ordinary disposition is towards anticipating whilst enduring, so that the actual pressure is increased by the fears and forebodings of things in reserve. And it is quite natural that such should be the case. That she is always antici- pating, always stretching into the future, is the soul's groat witness to heiself of her being immortal. It is nature's voice strenuously giving testimony to another slate of being. But when the principle of faith has been divinely implanted, it ought in certain cases and degrees, to keep under this proneness to anticipate. It cannot repress the soarings of the spirit, the mysterious wanderings, the gazings at far-off' possibilities : and it would iMit be for our haj)piness, it would only be for our degradation, that the soul's wings should be confined and her vision limited, so that she could neither travel nor look beyond the scenes of to-
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day. But faith ought so to people all the future with the presence, the guar- dianship, the love, and the faithfulness of God, that the soul in her journeyings and her searchings, should find no cause for anxiety and no ground for fear.
This is the prvilege, and this should be the aim of the christian, not to shut out the future, as though he dared ni)t look on what it may contain ; but to take the future, as well as the present, as his own J to feel that the same God inhabits both, and that, wheresoever God is, there must be safety for his people. But alas, throug-h the weakness uf tlieir faith, christians live far below their privilege; and hence, when they look into the future, it seems full of boding forms and threatening shadows : and the survey only makes them less resolute under present troubles, and less alive to present mercies. If this be a just de- scription of any amongst yourselves, we beseech them to give great attention to our text, and to strive to base a rule for their practice on the principle which it announces as pervading God's dealings. We say to you with respect to your duties, " as thy days, so shall thy strength be." The christian, when in health, fears that he should not bear sickness as he ought ; in sickness he fears, that, if restored to health, he should not keep his vows and resolutions : v/hen not ex- posed to much temptation, he fears that he should fall if he were; when appa- rently tasked to the utmost, he fears that exemption would only generate sloth. But let him be of good cheer : our text is a voice from the unknown futurity, that should inspire him with confidence. Sickness may be at hand, but so also is the strength for sickness ; and thou shalt be enabled to take thy sickness patiently. You may be just recovering from sick- ness ; and life — for it is often harder to face life than death ; he who felt nerved to die, may be afraid to live — life may be coming back upon you with its hnig array of difficulties, and toils, and dangers ; but be of good cheer, the Author of life is the Author of grace ; he who renews the one will impart the other, that your days may be spent in his service. And sorrows may be mul- tiplied ; yes, I cannot look on this con- gregation, composed of young and old, of parents and children, of husbands and wives, of brothers and sisters, without
feeling that much bitterness is in store. I can see far enough into the future, to discern many funeral processions winding from your doors : I miss well-known faces frum the weekly assembly, and the mournful habits of other parts of the family explain but too sadly the absence. But be of good cheer: the widow shall not be desolate, the fatherless shall not be deserted; when tlie grave opens, there shall be the opening of fresh springs of comfort ; when the clouds gather, there shall be the falling of fresh dews of grace ; for heaven and earth may pass away, but no jot, and no tittle, of the promise can fail. " As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
And if you ask proof that we are not too bold in our prophecy, we might ap- peal, as we have already appealed, to the registered experience whether of the living or the dead. This experience will go yet further, and bear us out in predicting peace in death as well as support through life. I have to pass through the trial from which nature re- coils : the earthly house must be taken down, and the soul struggle away from the body, and appear at the tribunal of my J^udge. How shall I feel at such a moment as this 1 Indeed I dare not con- jecture. The living know not, cannot know what it is to die ; we must un- dergo, before we can imagine, the act. of dissolution : life is an enigma in its,; close, as in its commencement; we can^ not remember what it was to enter> we cannot anticipate what it will be to quit this lower world. Yet if there be strength and collectedness in that fear- ful extremity to meditate of God, " my meditation of him shall bs sweet." I shall remember that God hath promised to " swallow up death in victory ;" and that what he hath promised he will surely perform. May I not, therefore, be glad in the Lord] The things that are temporal are fading from the view ; but the things that are eternal already crowd upon tho v.ision. The ministenng spirits wait to conduct me ; the heavenly minstrelsy send? me notes of gracious invitation; one more thought of God as my Father and Friend, one more prayer to " the Resurrection and the Life," and I am in. the presence of Him who has never failed in accomplishing his wonl to his people. Bear witness, yes, we must appeal to the inhabitants of hea-. 47
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venly places, to glorified sjiirits who have fought the last fight, and now " rest from their labors." We will ask them how they prevailed in the combat with death; how, weak and worn as they were, they held fast their confidence in the hour of dissolution, and achieved a victory, and soared to happiness 1 Listen for their answer : the ear of faith may catch it, though it be not audible by the organ of sense. We were weak in ourselves ; we entered the dark valley, to all appearance unprepared for wrest- linjr with the terrors with which it
seemed thronged. But wonderfully did God fulfil his promises. He was with us ; and he ministered whatever was necessary to the sustaining our faith and securing our safety. And now, be ye animated by our experience. If ye would win our crown, and share our gladness, persevere in simple i-eliance upon Him who is alone " able to keep you from falUng;" and ye also shall find that there is no season too full of dreariness and difficulty for the accom- plishment of the words, " As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
SERMON X.
PLEADING BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS.
' H«ar ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and j-e strong foundations of the earth : for the Lord hath a eOQtr<v versy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherew have I wearied thee ? testify ag^ainst me." — MiCAH, VI. 2, 3,
Amoiigst all the pathetic expostula- tions and remonstrances which occur in the writings of the prophets, none ever seems to us so touching as this, which is found in the first chapter of the book of Isaiah — " The ox knovveth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." You will at once understand, that, in our estimation, the pathos is derived from the reference made to irrational creatures, to the ox, and the ass, which have not been endowed, as man hath been, with the high faculty of reason. It is an extraordinary proof of human perverseness and in- gratitude, that there should not be as much of attachment, and of acknowledg- ment of ownership, manifested by men towards God, as by the beasts of the field towards those who sliow thorn kindness, or supply them with food.
And we feel that no accumulation of severe epithets, no labored upbraidings, no variety of reproaches, could have set in so aflecting a light the treatment which the Creator receives from his creatures, as the simple contrast thus drawn between man and the brute.
But whenever Scripture — and the cases are not rare — strives to move us by allusions to the inferior creation, there is a force in the passages which should secure them our special attention. When Jeremiah uses language very similar to that which we have just quoted from Isaiah — " Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their com- ing; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord" — he delivers a sterner rebuke than if he had dealt out a series of vehement invectives. To
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what end hath man been gifted with superioi- faculties, made capable of ob- serving the dealings of his jNIaker, and receiving the communications of his will, if the birds of the air, guided only by instinct, are to excel him in noting "the signs of the times," and in moving and acting as those signs may prescribe I And could any severer censure be de- livered, when he gives no heed to inti- mations and warnings from God, than is passed on him by the swallow and the crane, who, observing the changes of season, know when to migrate from one climate to another ?
Is there not again a very peculiar force in this well-known address of Solomon to the indolent man ] " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; consider her ways, and be wise ; which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." The sagacious king might have given us a long disser- tation on the evil of slothfulness and the duty of industry; but he could not have spoken more impressively than by simply referring us to an insignificant, but ever active insect, and leaving that insect to put us to shame, if disposed to waste hours in idleness. And who has not felt, whilst reading our Lord's discourses to his disciples, that never did that divine being speak more effectively, or touchingly, than when he made, as it were, the fowls of the air, and the flowers of the field, utter admonitions, and re- prove want of faith ? It ought to assure us, jiobler and more important as we manifestly are, of God's good will to- wards us, and his watchful care over us, to observe, with how unwearied a bounty he ministers to the winged things that range the broad firmament, and in how glorious an attire he arrays those pro- ductions which are to wither ia an hour. And could our Savior have composed a homily which should have more keenly rebuked all mistrust of God, or more persuasively have recommended our casting on him our cares, than this his beautiful appeal to the birds and the flowers 1 " Consider the ravens : for they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns ; and God feedeth them. Consider the lilies, how they grow ; they toil not, they spin not ; yet I say unto
In these latter words Christ goes yet lower in the scale of creation than either of the prophets whom we quoted as reproving or teaching man through the inferior creatures. It is yet more hu- miliating to be instructed by the lily than by the bird or the insect : and man may well indeed blush, if ignorant or un- mindful of truths which may be learnt from the grass beneath his feet. But there are instances in Scripture of an appeal to what is below even this, to the inanimate creation, as though man might be rebuked and taught by the sun and stars, by the rocks and the waters. When Joshua, knowing the time of his death to be near, had gathered the Israelites, and caused them solemnly to renew their covenant with God, he " took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord." And then he proceeded to address the congretration in these re- markable words ; " Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us : it shall be therefi)re a witness unto you, lest yedeuy your God." So boldly and unreservedly had the peo- ple avouched iheir determination of serving the Lord and obeying his voice, that the very stones might be supposed to have heard the vow, and to be ready, in the event of that vow being broken, to give evidence against the treacherous multitude. Could the dying leader have expressed more strongly the strictness of the obligation under which the people had brought themselves, and the perfidy of which they would be guilty in turning aside to idolatry, than by thus gifting inanimate matter with the powers of hearing and speech, and representing it as becoming vocal, that it might de- nounce the iniquity of infringing the covenant just solemnly made ] The stone is thus converted into an over- whelming orator; in its stillness and muteness, it addresses us more energeti- cally and persuasively than the most impassioned of speakers.
Or, to take another instance, when the Psalmist calls upon every thing, animate and inanimate, to join in one chorus of thanksgiving to the Almiglity, who does not feel that the summoning the sense- less and irrational is the most powerful you that Solomon, in all his glory, was mode of exhorting thos.e blessed with not arrayed like one of these," " life and intelligence, and of rebuking
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them, if they offer rot praise 1 " Praise ye him, sun and moon ; praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise tlie Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling his word." Could any address be more stirring ? Could any labored exposition of the duty of thanksgiving be as effective as this call to the heavenly bodies, yea, even to the fire, and the hail, and the storm, to bring their tribute of praise 1 for who amongst God's rational creatures will dare to be silent, if every star, as it walks its course, and every breeze, as it sweeps the earth, and every cloud, as it darkens the firmament, may be regarded as attesting the goodness and publishing the glories of the univer- sal Lord 1
We thus wish you to perceive, that, in appealing to the inanimate creation, the inspired writers take a most effective mode of inculcating great truths, and conveying stern reproofs. And never should we more feel that the lessons, which they are about to deliver, are of extraordinary moment, than when they introduce them, as Isaiah does his pro- phecies, with a " Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth ;" never should we be more conscious that they are just in ac- cusing: men of wilful iirnorance and de- termined unbelief, than when they turn to the inferior tribes, and cite them as witnesses against rational beings.
Now you will readily perceive that our text has naturally suggested these remarks on the frequent references in the Bible, whether to animate or inani- mate things, when man is to be exhorted, and especially when he is to be rebuked. In the preceding verse, the prophet Micah had received his commission in these remarkable terms — " Arise, con- tend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice." Nothing can be more adapted to awaken attention, and prepare us for surprising disclosures. "What lofty, what confounding argument is this, which must be maintained in the audience of the mountains and hills 1 Or, could any thing more persuade us of the obduracy of those with whom the prophet had to reason, than this appeal to inanimate matter, as though the very rocks might be as much expected to hearken, as the idolatrous generation to whom he was sent? In the first verse of our text, the prophet literally obeys
the command thus received ; for he ex- claims, " Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth ; for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel."
" The Lord hath a controversy with his people ;"* he is about to enter into debate with them, to bring forward his grievances, and to allow them to bring forward theirs, so that the cause may be fairly tiied, and a verdict given as to who has done the wrong. In what court, if we may use the expression, shall such a cause be tried 1 When one of the contending parties is none other than the everlasting God, it should be at some stupendous tribunal that the pleading takes place. Let then the mightiest eminences of the earth be the walls within which the controversy pro- ceeds. "Arise, contend thou before the mountains." It is as though the prophet had been bidden to select some valley, surrounded on all sides by hills which lost themselves in the clouds ; that there, as in a magnificent hall, worthy in some degree of the greatness and strangeness of the cause, the living God and his rebellious people might stand side by side, and implead one the other. And the mountains are to do more than form the walls of the judicial chamber. They are to be the audience, they are to be witnesses in this unparalleled trial. So certain was God when thus bringing him- self into public controversy with Israel, that he should be justified in his dealings, and clear in his judgments; so certain, moi-eover, was he, that no evidence would convince those who were set against his service; that he summoned the hills and strong foundations of the earth to be present, that he might not want voices to pronounce his acquittal, how- ever human tongues might keep a guilty silence. There is something singularly striking and sublime in all this. My brethren, give your close attention to the scene. We are admitted, as it were, into the court ; did ever trial go forward in so august a chamber ? The walls are the everlasting hills, and the roof is
* This portion of the subject has been so lai-fjuly handled by Saiirin in his sermon on " God's controversy with Israel," that one can scarcely hope to say any thing which has not been already and better said by tliat most pow- erful of preachers.
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the broad firmament with all its fret- work of stars. And the parties who are come into court ! The Creator himself, amazing condescension ! is one of these parties ; the other is the whole Jewish nation, or — for we may fairly transfer the occuirence to our own day — the whole christian world. Yes, matters are to be brought to an issue between God and his creatures : he knows that they complain of his government, and refuse compliance with his laws ; and therefore has he descended from his throne, and laid aside for the time his rights and prerogatives, and placed himself at the bar with those who have resisted his authority, that the real state of the case may be thoroughly examined, and sen- tence be given according to the evi- dence produced.
Let then the trial commence : God is to speak first ; and so strange is it that he should thus enter into controversy with man, that the very hills and strong foun- dations of the earth assume a listening posture. And now what words do you expect to hear ? What can you look for from the Divine Speaker, if not for a burst of vehement reproach, a fearful enumeration of foul ingratitude, and base rebellion, and multiplied crime 1 When you think that God himself is confronted with a people for whom he has done un- speakable things, and from whom he has received in return only enmity and scorn, you must expect him to open his cause with a statement of sins, and acatah)gue of offences, at the hearing of which the very mountains would quake. But it is not so. And among all the transitions which are to be found on the pages of Scripture, and which furnish the most touching exhibitions of divine tenderness and long-suffering, perhaps none is more affecting than that here presented. We have been brought into a most stupen- dous scene : mountain has been piled upon mountain, that a fit chamber might be reared for the most singular trial which earth ever witnessed. The par- ties have come into court; and whilst one is a company of human beings like ourselves, we have been amazed at find- ing in the other the ever-living Creator, who has consented to give his people the opportunity of j)leading with him face to face, and of justifying, if they can, their continued rebelHon. And now the mind is naturally wrougiit up to a high pitch
of excitement ; we almost tremble as we hearken for the first words which the Al- mighty is to utter ; they must, we feel sure, be words of accusation, and wrath, and vengeance, words deep as the thun- der and fiery as the lightning; when, lo, as though the speaker were overcome with grief, as though the sight of those who had injured him moved him to sor- row, not to wrath, he breaks into the pathetic exclamation, an exclamation every letter of which seems a tear, " O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee 1 testi- fy against me."
We desire, brethren, that you should avail yourselves, on the present occasion, of the wonderful permission thus accord- ed by God. Ordinarily we are fearful of allowing you to bring complaints against your Maker. But we know that you make them in your hearts ; and, now, at last, you have a full opportunity of giving them vent ; you are standing in controversy with God, and God himself gives you leave to testify against him. The question therefore now is, what charges any of you have to bring against God, against his dealings with you, against his goverment, against his laws. If you have any excuses to offer for still living in sin, for impenitence, for covet- ousness, for sensuality, you are free to produce them; God himself invites the statement, and you need not fear to speak. But, forasmuch as you are confronted with God, you must expect that whatso- ever you advance will be rigidly examin- ed ; and that, when you have brought your accusation against God, God will bring his against you. These prelimi- naries of the great trial having been de- fined and adjusted, we may suppose the controversy to proceed : men shall first testify against God, and God then shall testify against men.
Now you will understand that we are here supposing men to come forward, and to attempt to justify what is wrong in their conduct, by laying the blame, in some way, upon God. It is this which God, in our text, invites the Israelites to do ; and therefore it is this which, if the trial be regarded as taking place in our own day, we must suppose done by the existing generation. And if men would frankly^'speak out, as they are here bid- den to do, they would have to acknow- led"-e a secret persuasion that they have
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been dealt with unjustly, and that there is much to palliate, if not wholly to ex- cuse, their contitmed violation of the known laws of God. They argue that they have inherited, through no fault of their own, a proneness to sin ; that they have been born with strong passions and appetites, and placed in the midst of the very objects which their desires solicit; and they are disposed to ask, whether it can be quite fair to expect them to be virtuous in spite of all these disadvan- tages, quite just to condemn them for doing that which, after all, they had scarce the power of avoiding. Well, let them urge their complaint : God is wil- ling to hear ; but let them, on their part, give heed to what he will plead in reply. The accusation is this — human nature became corrupt through the transgression of Adam, a transgression in which we had certainly no personal share. As a consequence on this, we come into the world with corrupt propensities, propen- sities moreover which there is every thing around us todevelopeand strength- en ; and nevertheless we are to be con- demned for obeying inclinations which we did not implant, and gratifying pas- sions which are actually a part of our constitution. If we had not inherited a tainted nature, or if we had been, at least, so circumstanced that the incentives to virtue might have been stronger than the temptations to vice, there would have been justice in the expecting us to live soberly and righteously, and in the pun- ishing us if we turned aside from a path of self-denial. But assuredly, when the case is precisely the reverse, when there has been communicated to us the very strongest tendency to sin, and we have been placed amongst objects which call out that tendency, whilst the motives to withstanding it act at a great comparative disadvantage, it is somewhat hard that we should be required to resist what is natural, and condemned for obeying it — ay, and we think that here, in the presence of the mountains and strong foundations of the eartli, we may venture to plead the hardship, seeing that God himself liath said, "Testify against me."
But now the accusation must be sifted : it is a controversy which is being carried on ; and whatever is urged, either on tlio one side or on the other, has to be sub- jected to a rigid intjuiry. It is, of course, to be acknowledged, that, as a conse-
quence on the apostacy of our forefather, we receive a depraved nature, prone to sin and averse from holiness. It has un- doubtedly become natural to us to diso- bey God, and unnatural, or contrary to nature, to obey hi!n. And we are placed in a world which presents, in rich pro- fusion, the counterpart objects to our strongest desires, and which, soliciting us through the avenues of our senses, has great advantages over another state of being, which must make its appeal exclusively to our faith. All this must be readily admitted : there is no exagge- ration, and no misrepresentation. But if this may be said on the side of man, is there nothing to be said on the side of God ] Has God made it absolutely un- lawful that you should gratify the desires of your nature 1 is it not rather the im- moderate gratification which he denoun- ces as criminal 1 and is it not actually a law of your constitution, that this im- moderate gratification defeats itself, so that your choicest pleasures, taken in ex- cess, pall upon the appetite, and produce but disgust 1 In all accusations which you bring against God, you assume that he requires the surrender of whatsoever constitutes the happiness of beings so conditioned as yourselves : whereas it is susceptible of the fullest demonstration, that the restraints which his laws put on your desires, and the bounds which they set to the indulgence of your wishes, do nothing but prevent these desires and wishes from becoming your tyrants, and therefore your tormentors. And what have you to say against restrictions, which after all all are but safeguards foi yourselves and your fellow-men — re> strictions, the universal submission to which would turn the world into one peaceful and flourishing community, and the setting which at nought is certain to be followed by the worst consequences to individuals and society ? It is idle to contend that God requires from you a moderation and self-denial, which, con- stituted and circumstanced as you are, it is unjust to expect, when he asks only what you cannot grant without being in- calculably benefited ; nor refuse, without being as much injured.
We are not here speaking, be it ob- served, of the benefit and injury which are distinctly annexed, as reward and penalty, to the several divine laws ; for we could hardly expect you to admit that
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these bear directly on our argument. We speak of the benefit and injury which follow in the way of natural consequence, and which therefore may be regarded as resulting from the human constitution, rather than from specific enactments of the universal Ruler. And we may con- fidently assert, that, if there were nothing to be considered but the amount of en- joyment, that man would consult best for himself who should impose such re- straints on his desires as God's law pre- scribes, inasmuch as he would never then become the slave of those desires : un- limited indulgence makes slavery, and slavery misery.
And though you may further plead the amazing power of temptation, and the known inability of man to resist the solicitations of the objects of sense, we plainly tell you that herein you exagger- ate the strength of an enemy, only that you may apologize for defeat. You speak as if God offered man no assist- ance, whereas the whole of his revelation is one profler of such helps as will suffice to secure victory. It is altogether a misrepresentation to dwell on the vehe- mence of passions and the energy of solicitations, as though there were no- thing to be said on the other side; whilst it is certain that there has been made such provision on our behalf, that he who will seek the appointed aids may make sure of conquest. Add to this, for we have higher ground on which to meet you, that God has not required you to live righteously, without proposing an adequate motive. Estimate at what you will the present sacrifice — though we are persuaded, as we have alieady stated, that you are asked to surrender nothing which you would be the happier for keeping — but make what estimate you choose of the present sacrifice, you cannot say that God does not offer vastly more than its compensation, in offering eternal lif<3 to such as subjugate them- selves. Take then the matter under every possible point of view, and we think that you must be cast in the con- troversy into which you have entered before the mountains and the strong foundations of the earth. You have urged your plea and now it behoves you to be silent whilst God shall urge his. You have virtually contended that God has d(Mie something unjust by plac- ing' you in your present condition, and
that he has wearied you by imposing on you grievous commands. But hear, if we may venture on so bold an expres- sion, hear his defence. He rises up to plead with you, and these are his words. I did all which could be done for your forefather Adam, gifting him with high powers, and subjecting him to slight trial. If therefore you have in- herited a corrupt nature, it was not through defect in my ari-angements for your good. I did what promised most for your advantage, and what you would have thankfully consented to, had you been present when Adam was made your representative. And though, when you had fallen, I might justly have left you to your misery, I determined and effected your redemption, though it could only be achieved through the death of my well-beloved Son. By and through this redemption, I provided for you the means of subduing passions however strong, and withstanding temp- tations however powerful. And whilst I made it your duty, I made it also, in every sense, your interest, " to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world." My commandments '* are not grievous :" " in keeping of them there is great reward." Nothing is forbidden, which, if permitted, would mrike you happier ; nothing enjoined which could be dispensed with without injury. The ways in which I require you to walk are " ways of pleasantness " and peace ; and they terminate in a happiness which would be incalculably more than a com- pensation, even if the path lay through unvaried wretchedness. Where then is the justice of your complaint, or rather of your accusation 1 O it is thus that God may expose the hollowness and falsehood of all that reasoning, by which those who love sin would prove them- selves excusable in yielding to its power. I hear him apj)eal to the mountains and the hills, as though these were more likely than the stony heart of man to answer him with truth. And when he has shown how much he liatli done for man, what provisions he has made for his resisting and overcoming evil, what present and future recompenses are an- nexed to the keeping his commandments, I seem to hear the mountains and the hills (Tiviii"- forth their loud verdict — yea th© f(;rests which are upon them how in as- sent, and the rivers which Huw from them
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mony, antl from summit to summit is echoed the approving plaudit, as the Almighty again utters the challenge, " O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee 1 testify against me."
And thus far the accusation has only been, that God asks from man what, under man's circumstances, ought not to be expected : man being, by nature, strongly inclined to sin ; and God's law requiring him to do violence to inclina- tions, for whose existence he is in no degree answerable. But the court is not dissolved, and fresh indictments may be brought. Let, then, men approach, and complain if they will, of the dealings of God, of the unequal distribution of his gifts, of the prevalence of misery, and the successfulness of wickedness. It is not to be disputed, that numbers are disposed to murmur against the dis- pensations of providence, and even to derive from them arguments against the impartiality of God's moral government, or the advantageousness of adhering to his service. They count it surpassingly strange that so much wretchedness should exist beneath the sway of a Being as benevolent as powerful ; and, if possible, yet more strange, that no amount of piety should secure an indi- vidual against his share in this wretched- ness; nay, that in many cases, piety should seem only to make that share greater. Well, there is now nothing to prevent the complaint from being urged ; God has himself invited you to state every grievance, so that without incur- ring his dis})leasure, you may bring your charges against his dealings with your- selves. Wo may however suppose you, in this instance, to limit the charge to his dealings with those who are em- phatically ijis people : you will hardly throw blamo upon him for that misery which results purely from vice, and which would almost wholly disappear if men submitted to his laws. If you put out of the account that unhappiness which is the direct consequence on wickedness, and for which therefore it •would be palpably unjust to reproach •God, you have all the human misery which can excite wonder, or furnish, even in appearance, any groundwork of complaint.
And undoubtedly there is thus left no inconsiderable sum ; the righteous may
be exempt from many afflictions which their own sins bring upon the wicked ; but nevertheless their share of trouble is very large, and includes much which is peculiar to themselves. It is against this that men are disposed to make ex- ceptions : arguing that it can scarce be equitable in God to allot so much of trouble and pain to those who love him in sincerity, and serve him with diligence. They object indeed, as we have already said, to the whole course of the divine government ; contending that there is too much of permitted evil, and too little of bestowed good, to make that government worthy of God. But if the objection be of weight in any case, it must be in that of the righteous : so that to remove it in this will be to de- stroy it in every other. And if it be easy for God to vindicate himself against any charge, it is against that which im- peaches his dealings with his people. He has no difficulty in proving that " he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Let him enter into controversy with you, and then see whether you will venture to maintain your accusations. It is in terms such as these that he maybe supposed to justify his dealings.
It is true that those whom I love I chasten, even " as a father the son in whom he delighteth." But it is because I have to deal with an ungrateful and stubborn nature, which cannot be trained by any other discipline for the joys of mine own immediate presence. If the hearts of my people were not so prone to the attaching themselves to earth, I should not use such rough means of loosening the bonds : if they were not so ready to fall into slumber, I should not so often speak to them with a start- ling voice. I might indeed have annexed temporal prosperity to genuine religion, so that whosoever served me in truth should have been thereby secured against the chief fojms of trouble. But wherein would have been the mercifulness of such an arrangement 1 Who knows not that, even as it is, life with all its cares is clung to with extraordinary tenacity, and that the present, with all its sori-ovvs, is practically almost preferred to the future I Those who have set their " af- fections on things above," can hardly bring themselves to the entermg on their possession, though urged by various
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disappointments and disasters ; and they who have been the longest engaged in preparing for death, and who seem to have least of what can make earth de- sirable, show a reluctance, as the time of departure approaches, which proves them still unduly attached to what they must leave. What would it be, if the arrangement were altered, and piety conferred an exemption from suffering 1 There would then be a continual strength- ening of the ties which bind the soul to earth : the longer the term of human life, the greater would be the unwil- lingness to depart, and the more imper- fect the preparation for a higher state of being. And though it be thus needful that many should be the troubles of the righteous, are those troubles unmiti- gated ? are there no compensating cir- cumstances which make a father's chas- tisement prove a father's love 1 It is in the season of deep sorrow that I com- municate the richest tokens of my favor. Then it is, when the spirit is subdued and the heart disquieted, that I find opportunity of fulfilling the choicest promises registered in my word ; so that even mourners themselves often break into the exclamation, " It is good for us that we were afflicted." If I take away earthly wealth, it is that there may be more room for heavenly : if I remove the objects of ardent attachment, it is that I may fill the void with more of myself. Thus with every sorrow there is an appropriate consolation ; every loss makes way for a gain ; and every blighted hope is but parent to a better. And what is to be said, men and brethren, against the vindication which God thus advances of his dealings? Is the complaint substantiated which you ventured to produce in that magnificent chamber which he reared for his con- troversy with his people ] Let the very mountains judge, let the strong foun- dations of the earth give a verdict. " O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee 1 I have suffered trouble to come upon you, but only as an instrument for good ; and never have I left you to bear it alone, but have always been at hand to comfort and uphold. I have suffered death to enter your households, but only that you might be trained for immortality; and there has not been a tear which you have been forced to shed, which I
have not been ready to wipe from the eye. I have suffered schemes to be disappointed, expectations to be baffled, friends to prove treacherous ; but only that you might more prize and strive after the " better and enduring sub- stance ;" and never have I thus brought you into the wilderness, without going before you in the pillar of fire and cloud. Do ye then arraign my dealings 1 do ye accuse them of severity 1 The inanimate creation shall utter my vindication. The solid rocks which have beforetime been rent at my voice ; the lofty eminences which have bowed and done homage at my presence ; the trees which have waved exultingly, and the floods which have lifted up their waters, at fresh manifestations of my greatness — to these I appeal ; let these decide in this strangest of controversies. And so evi- dent is it, brethren, that God chastens for your good, and afflicts only to bless, that we seem to hear the sound as of an earthquake in reply to this appeal, the sound as of rocking forests, the sound as of rushing waters; and all gathered into one emphatic decision that your Creator is clear in this matter, and that, therefore, it must be on some fresh charge, if you would so testify against him as to prove that you have ground of complaint.
But we must change the scene. Hav- ing allowed you to produce your accusa- tions against the laws and dealings of God, it is time that we suppose God the accuser, and put you on your defence. We stated, in an earlier part of our discourse, that, since there was to be a controversy, both parties must be heard; that each must produce his cause, and plead his matter of complaint. The court has been hitherto occupied with your alleged grievances, but you have failed to make good any charge against God. But you now appear in an opposite character: God has accusa- tions to prefer against you ; prepare then yourselves, and meditate your answer. Ah, my brethren, however bold you were before, when you were permitted, yea, bidden to testify against God, you seem ready to shrink away and hide yourselves, now that God is about to testify against you. These mighty rocks, these towei-ing hills, by whicli you are encircled, you would fain call upon them to cover you, that you might be hidden from one who can bring against you, aa
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you too well know, such overwhelming charges. But this cannot be. God con- descended to listen to your accusations, and you must stay, at whatever cost, and abide his.
With what words shall the Almighty commence his indictment, if not with those which were the first which he charged Isaiah to utter ? " Hear, O hea- vens, and give ear, O earth ; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have re- belled against me." There is not one of you on whom he has not bestowed countless mercies : he has been about the path, and about the bed, of each : and had it not been for the watchfulness of his providence, and the tenderness of his love, there is not one of you who would not have been long ago crushed by calamities, and stripped of all the elements of happiness. But you have been guarded and sustained from infancy upwards ; you have been fed by his bounty, warmed by his sun, shielded by his power; and thus has he been to each of you as a father, — a father in comparison of whom the kindest earthly parent might be counted a stranger. And what he has done for you in tem- poral respects may almost be forgotten, when you come to consider what he has done for you in spiritual. There is not one amongst you for whom he did not give up his only and well-beloved 8on to ignominy and death : not one on whom he has not wrought by his pre- venting grace : not one to whom he has not sent tlie tidings of redemption : not one to whom he has not offered immea- surable happiness in his own glorious kingdom. And what has he received in return for all this 1 However per- suaded and thankful we may be, that there are those in this assembly who have been softened and subdued by what God hath done on their behalf, and who have cordially devoted themselves to his service, wo dare not doubt that numbers, perhaps the majority, perhaps the groat majority, are still at enmity with the Being who has striven by every means to reconcile them to him- self. There are the young, who are refusing to remember their Creator in the days of their youth. There are the old, who think that repentance may be safely deferred, whilst they enjoy a little more pleasure, or accumulate a little more
wealth. There are the rich, who make gold their hope, and fine gold their con- fidence ; there are the poor, whom even destitution cannot urge to seek treasure above.
And what can such say, now that they are standing in controversy with God 1 Let us pause yet a moment longer, that we may hear what God has to ui'ge against men. There occur to the mind those striking words in the book of Revelation, " Behold I stand at the door and knock." God seems to enumerate the modes in which he has knocked at the door of our hearts, and to appeal to them in proof how just are his complaints of our obduracy. We might almost say that he knocks by every object in creation, and by every provision in redemption. If I look abroad upon the magnificence of the heavens, there is not a star in all that glorious troop which comes marching through immensity, which does not summon me to acknowledge and admire the power of Godhead, and which may not therefore be said to make an appeal at the door of the heart, audible by all who yield homage to a Creator. If I survey the earth on which we dwell, and study its marvellous adaptations to the wants of its inhabitants, and scrutinize what goes on in the vast laboratories of nature ; or if I descend into myself, " fearfully and wonderfully made," and examine the curious mechanism, the beneficent contrivances, and the exquisite symmetries which distinguish the body — why, there is nothing without, and there is nothing within, which does not call to the remembering and reverencing God : every feature of the landscape, every tree of the forest, every flower of the garden, every joint and every muscle of my frame, all are gifted with energy in proclaiming that there is a Supremo Being, infinite in wisdom and goodness as well as in might ; and through each, therefore, may this Being be affirmed to knock at the heart, demanding its love and alleo^iance. And God knocks, as you will all allow, by the visitations of his Providence : he knocks, moreover, by the suggestions of conscience and the strivings of the Spirit. Who is there of you who will presume to say that he never heard this knocking ] We know better. We know that, in the worst storm and mutiny of passion, when the
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heart itself has been the scene of conflict and turmoil, the wild and battling in- mates have often been startled by an appeal from without ; and that, for a moment at least, there has been the hush as of shame or of fear, so. that there has been space for an energetic remonstrance, a remonstrance which, if it failed to pro- duce permanent order, left a heavier condemnation on the wretched slave of the flesh and its lusts. It is not then diflicult for God, or for Christ, to show that this has indeed been his course with you all — " I stand at the door and knock." But you have opened the door to a thousand other guests ; you have received them into the recesses of the heart ; but Him you have coldly re- pulsed, or superciliously neglected. O, we fear that he may say to too many of you, I stood, and knocked in the hour of prosperity, but ye gave no heed to a message delivered in the form of abund- ance and gladness. I came in the dark- ness and stillness of adversity, thinking that you might open to me when you were careworn and sad ; but you chose other comforters, and I asked you in vain to i-eceive "the Lord of peace." I called you through all the glories and all the wonders of the visible universe ; but it availed nothing that I wrote my sum- mons on the firmament, and syllabled it alike in the voices and the silences of immensity : " ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my re- proof." I gave you my word, I sent to you my Gospel ; but it was to no pur- pose that I knocked with the cross, the cross on which my Son was stretched to deliver you from death : you were too busy, or too proud, or too unbelieving, to give ear to the invitation ; and I pleaded in vain, though I pleaded as the conqueror of your every foe. And in many an hour of temj)tation, in many a moment of guilty pleasure, amid the noise of business and in the retirements of soli- tude, I have knocked so loudly, through the instrumentality of conscience, that you could not but start, and make some faint promise of admitting me hereafter ; but, alas, when I looked for the opening of the door, you have but barred it more effectually against me.
Ah, if it be l>y such a reference to the modes in which he has knocked at your hearts, but knocked in vain, that God conducts his side of the controversy,
what can you have to plead] It is in very moving terms that he urges his ac- cusation. 1 have long and tenderly watched you. I have spared no pains to turn you from evil. By mercies and by judgments, by promises and by threaten- ings, I have striven to fix your thoufhts on the things which belong to your peace. I counted nothing too costly to be done for your rescue : I spared not mine own Son ; and I have borne, year after year, with your waywardness and ingratitude, not willing that you should perish, though you have acted as if resolved that you would not be saved. And now " testify against me." " What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it 1 Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes.
brought it forth wild ffr
apes
Is it
that you have not been warned, though I have sent my servants to publish my terrors 1 is it that you have not been en- treated, thousfh I have charsjed them with the tidings of redemption 1 this, to sum all, is my accusation against you. Ye have derived your being from me, ye have been sustained in being by me, ye have been continually the objects of my bounty, continually the objects of my long-suffering; and nevertheless, ye are still unmindful of my hand, still liv- ing " without God in the world," still walking in ways of your own devising, still crucifying my Son afresh, and put- ting away from you the offer of everlast- ing life.
What have you to say against this accusation ] we do not believe that you will attempt to say any thing. We are persuaded, that, as it was with the man who had not on the wedding-garment, you will be speechless. Ay, but God shall not want an answer, he shall not want a verdict, because, self-condemned, you have no word to utter. Not in vain hath he summoned the mountains and the strong foundations of the earth to be present at his controversy with you. The very hills have witnessed his loving- kindness toward you, clothed as they have been with the com, and crested with the fruits, which he has bountifully pro- vided for your sustenance. And on one of these mountains of the earth was the altar erected on which his Son died ; and so fearful waa the oblation, that Calvary shook at the cry of the mysterious victim. And now, therefore, whilst he
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charges you with ingratitude, whilst he arrays against 3'ou the continued provo- cations, the insult, the neglect, which he lias received at your hands ; whilst he speaks of abused mercies, of despised opportunities, of resisted entreaties ; and you remain silent, unable to refute the charge, and yet unwilling to ac- knowledge its truth — there is a sound as of heaving rocks, and of foaming tor- rents, and of bursting volcanoes ; nature, which became vocal when a Mediator died, utters a yet deeper groan now that a Mediator is rejected : and hU\ and forest, and rock and flood, send forth one mighty cry, the cry of amazement that men should " neglect so great sal- vation ; " the cry of acknowledgment that the Almighty has made good his accusations.
And are we here to dissolve the court ? Man has failed to show wherein God has wearied him ; but God has drawn a verdict from the inanimate creation that he himself has been weai-ied by man. It is a strange expression to use ; but it is quite consistent with the language of ScrijJture, that we should speak of God as wearied by our sins. " Ye have wearied the Lord," we read in the pro- phet Malachi, " yet ye say, wherein have we wearied him V " Hear," saith Isaiah, " O house of David ; is it a small thing for you to weary men ; but will ye weary my God also 1" And did not God him- self say, by the mouth of the same pro- phet, to those who rendered him hypo- critical service, " your new moons, and your appointed feasts, my soul hateth ; they arc a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them V We will not then dissolve the court. It is so startling a consid- eration, that we should be actually able to weary God ; the thing, if done, must entail so terrible a condemnation, that we may well remain yet a ^ew moments longer within the august chamber which was built for the controversy, to })onder our state, and examine what has been proved by these judicial proceedings. It is very clear, that, if God may be wearied, we may exhaust his patience, so that he may be provoked to leave us to ourselves, to withdraw from us the assistance of his grace, and to determine that he will make no further eflbrt to bring us to repentance. And on this account especially it is, that there is such emphasis in the words of our Savior,
" agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him." Try not his patience too far; venture not actually into court with him ; but quickly, without any further delay, seek to compose your difference, " lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison." It is this counsel which we would pray God might be imprinted by our discourse on those of you who have not yet been reconciled to their Maker. You have indeed come this night into court, and you have been altogether cast in your suit. But the trial has not been that which will fix your portion for eternity. It has only been with the view of alarm- ing you, of bringing you to see the perils of the position in which you stand, that God has now entered into controversy with you, and summoned you to plead with him before the mountains of the earth. And the verdict against you, which has been delivered by hill and forest, is but a solemn admonition, a warning which, if duly and instantly heeded, shall cause a wholly different decision, when you appear at that tri- bunal whose sentences must be final.
The mountains and the strong foun dations of the earth, yea, the whole vi- sible creation, may again be appealed to : they may again be witnesses, when God shall arise to judgment, and call quick and dead to his bar. It gives a very sublime, though awful, character to the last assize, thus to regard it as imaged by the controversy in our text. I see a man brought to the judgment- seat of Christ : the accusation against him is, that he lived a long life in neg- lect and forgetfulness of God, enjoy- ing many blessings, but never giving a thought to the source whence they came. Who are witnesses against him ? Lo, the sun declares, every day I wakened him by my glorious shinings, flooding the heavens with evidences of a God : but he rose without a prayer fiom his couch ; and he made no use of the light but to prosecute his plans of pleasure or gain. The moon and the stars assert that " nightly, to the listening earth " they repeated the story of their origin; but that, though they spangled the cur- tain which was drawn round his bed, he lay down, as he I'ose, with no word of supplication; and that often were the
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shadows cf the night used only to con- ceal his guiltiness from man. Hills and valleys have a voice : forests and foun- tains have a voice : every feature of the variegated landscape testifies that it bore the impress of a God, but always failed to awaken any reverence for his name. There is not an herb, there is not a flower, which will be silent. The corn is as- serting that its ripe ears were gathered w^ithout thankfulness : the spring is mur- muring that its waters were drawn wthout gratitude : the vine is testify- ing that its rich juices were distilled to produce a false joy. The precious metals of the earth are all stamped vs'ith accusation, for they were sought with a guilty avidity ; the winds of heaven breathe a stern charge, for they were never laden with praises ; the waves of the great deep toss themselves into witnesses, for they were traversed by ships that luxuries might be gathered, but not that Christianity might be dif- fused. Take heed, man of the world,
how thou dost thus arm all nature against thyself Be warned by the voice which the inanimate creation is already utter- ing, and make peace with thine adver- sary " whilst thou art in the way with him." Thine adversary ! and who is this 1 Not the sun, not the moon, not the troop of stars, not the forests, not the mountains : these are but witnesses on the side of thine adversary. The ad- versary himself — oh they are words which almost choke the utterance ! — the adversary himself is the everlasting God. Yet he wishes to be your friend : he of- fers to be your friend : there is nothing but your own determination which can keep you at enmity. By the terrors of the last judgment, by all the hopes, by all the fears of eternity, do I conjure such of you as have not yet made peace with their God, to turn at once to the Mediator Christ : " God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself;" and now he beseeches you through us, "Be ye reconciled unto God."
SERIMON XI
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' And there shall be no niffht there ; and they need no candle, neither lif?ht of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." — Revelation xxii. 5.
Our position upon earth is represent- ed, as y(ju well know, in Scripture as that of combatants, of beings engaged in a great struggle, but to whom is propos- ed a vast recompense of reward. The imagery which St. Paul delights to use, when illustrating onr condition, is deriv- ed from the public games so famous in antiquity. The competitors in a race, the opponents in wrestling, are the par- ties to whom he loves to liken himself
' and other followers of Christ. And the imagery is employed not only as aptly depicting a state of struggle and conflict ; but because they who entered the lists in the public games were animated by the hope of prizes which success was to procure ; and because, in like manner, it is the privilege of christians lO know that, if they be faithfid to the end, con-
' test will issue in an "exceeding and eter- nal weight of glory." Shame upon the
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sj'iritual combatants, the apostle seems in one place to say, if they can be languid in exeition. A paltry recompense will urge the wrestler, or the runner, to sub- luit to painful training, and to strain every muscle. Shall we then, with heaven full ill view, grudge the toil, or spare the ef- i'ort, which may be needful to secure a portion in its joys 1 " They do it to ob- tain a corruptible crown, but we an in- corruptible."
If however the prize is to produce its just influence in animating to exertion, it must be often surveyed, that we may assure ourselves of its excellence, and therefore long more for its possession. Tho competitor in the games had the honored gai'land in sight : if inclined for a moment to slacken, he had but to turn his eje on the coronet, and he pressed with new vigor towards the goal. It should be thus with the christian, with the spiritual competitor. He should have his thoughts much on heaven : he should refresh himself with frequent glimpses of the shining inheritance. By deep meditation, by prayerful study of the scriptural notices of another world, he should strive to prove to himself more and more that it is indeed a good land towards which he journeys. He should not be content with a vague and general belief, that the things reserved for those who love God must be worth all the ef- forts and sacrifices which attainment can demand. This will hardly suffice, when set against the pleasures and allurements of the world : he must be able to oppose good to good, and to satisfy himself on the evidence, as it were, of his own af- fections, that he prefers what is infinite- ly best in preferring the future to the present.
And certainly ho may do this. With- out speaking unadvisedly, or enthusiasti- cally, nay, speaking only the words of soberness and truth, we may safely say that those who muse much on heaven, who ponder its descriptions, and strive to image its occupations and enjoyments, are often privileged with such foretastes of what God hath prepared for his peo- ple, as serve, like the clusters of Eshcol, to teach them practically the richness of Canaan. With them it is not altogether matter of report, that the inheritance of the saints is transcendently glorious : it is already true in part, that, " as they have hcaid, so have they seen in the city of
their God." They have waited upon the Lord, until, according to the promise of Isaiah, they have been enabled to " mount up with wings as eagles ;" they have gazed for a moment on the street of gold, and have heard the harpings of the innumerable multitude.
Now if it be thus of exceeding impor- tance to the christian that he should often meditate upon heaven, it must be the duty of the minister to bring before him occa- sionally those descriptions of the world to come, which God has been pleased to furnish in his word. And a very delight- ful part this is of ministerial duty. We are often constrained to set forth the ter- rors of the Lord, though natural feeling would make us shrink from dwelling on the vengeance which will surely oveitake the careless and unbelieving. We are obliged to insist very frequently on the first principles of Christianity, "laying the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God." And it is not a rare thing, that sermons have to take a reproachful character, exhibit- ing the sins and inconsistencies of pro- fessors of godliness, upbraiding the de- fective practice of those who name the name of Christ, and urging them, in no measured terms, to " walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called," But it were a great mistake to imagine that the preacher consults his own incli- nation, in selecting such topics of dis- course. Far more agreeable to him would it be to dilate upon privileges, to address his hearers simply as heirs of immortality, and to exhaust all his ener- gy on the lively hope to which they are begotten. But this must not always be, whilst congregations are composed of the believing and the unbelieving, whilst probably the majority is with the latter, and whilst even the former come far short of "adorning the doctrine of God the Savior in all things." Still, as we have already said, the clergyman is not only permitted, he is bound, to take hea- ven occasionally as his theme : and a very refreshing thing to him it is, when he may devote a discourse to the joys which are in reserve for the righteous. Come then, men and brethren, we have no ter- rors for you to-night, no reproaches, no threatenings. We are about to speak to you of the New Jerusalem, the celestial city, into which "shall enter nothing that defileth," but whose gates stand ojjon to
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all who seek admission through the sure- tyship of Christ.
We select one verse from the glowing account which St. John has left us of the vision with which he was favored, after tracing, in mystic figures, the history of the church up to the general resurrection and judgment. The two last chapters of the hook of Revelation, inasmuch as they descrihe what was beheld after the general judgment, must be regarded as relating strictly to the heavenly state. The book of Revelation is a progressive book : it goes forward regularly from one period to a following ; and this should be always borne in mind when we strive to fix the meaning of any of its parts. It has so much the character of a history, that the dates, so to speak, of its chapters, will often guide us to their just interpre- tation. And since the twentieth chapter closes with the setting up of the great white throne, and the judgment of every man according to his works, we conclude that what remains of the book belongs to that final condition of the saints, which we are wont to understand by heaven and its joys. This being allowed, we may go at once to the examining the as- sertions of our text, applying them with- out reserve to our everlasting inherit- ance. The assertions are of two kinds, negative and positive. They tell us what there is not in heaven, and what there is. Let these then furnish our topics of dis- course, though in treating of the one we shall perhaps find it needful to trench on the other. Let us consider, in the first place, that there is no night in heaven, no candle, no light of the sun : let us con- sider, in the second place, that there the Lc)rd God Almighty shall give the saints light, and that " they shall reign for ever and ever."
Now we may begin by obsen'ing to you, that, with our present constitution, there would be nothing cheering in an arrangement which took away night from our globe. The alternation of day and night, the two always making up the same period of twenty-four hours, is among the most beautiful of the many proofs that God fitted the earth for man, and man for the earth. We know that <)ther planets revolve in very different limes on their axis, so that their days and nights are of very different lengths from our own. We could not live on one of those planets. We could not, at least,
conform ourselves to the divisions of time : for we require a period of repose in every twenty-four hours, and could not subsist, if there were only to come such a period in every hundred, or in every thousand. The increased length of the period would avail us nothing : it would not be adapted to the human machine : we could not sleep for three of our present days, and so be fitted to keep awake for ten. Thus the present division of time has clearly been appoint- ed with reference to our constitution : we have been made on purpose for a world which revolves in twenty-four hours, or that world, if you will, has been made on purpose for us.* Since then we require the present alternation of light and darkness, we may fairly say that it is no pleasant image to the mind, that of a world without night : it is, at least, only by supposing a great change to pass on our constitution and faculties, that we can give to the image any thing of attractiveness.
And besides this, it is very easy to speak of night as the season of dreariness and gloom, as the representative of ig- norance and error — but what should we be without night 1 Where is there so eloquent an instructor as night 1 What reveals so much of the workmanship of the evei'-living God 1 Imagine this world to have been always without night, and what comparatively would its inhab- itants have known of the universe ] It would have seemed to them, at least to those on the irradiated hemisphere, that their own globe and the sun made up creation. They might have studied the wonders which overspread the earth, and have surveyed, with admiration and de- light, the glorious face of the ever-chang- ing landscape. But they could not have gazed on the mighty map of the firma- ment : they could scarcely have even conjectured that space, in its remotest depths, was crowded with systems and constellations, and that the world on which they trode was but the solitary unit of a sum which imagination was too weak to tell up. So that night, with all its obscurity and concealment, reveals unspeakably more to us than day : then it is that the astronomer goes fijrth on his wondrous search, passing through region
*SeeWhevveir3 Bridgewater treatise," Length of the Day."
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after rcQfinn, stud Jed splendidly with star and plaiR't : the sun, by his very bright- ness, has hidden from him all this rich jewelry of the heavens ; and it is not till set as a diadem round the forehead of darkness that he is able to look on its lustres. So that there is not necessarily any thing very desirable in the absence of night : it would be the reverse of a blessing to us in our present condition, and would imply the diminution rather than the enlargement of knowledge.
What then are we to learn from the Btateraent, that there shall be no night in heaven 1 We learn much, whether you take it literally or metaphorically ; whether, that is, it be the natural, or the figurative, night, whose total absence is affirmed. Night is now grateful, yea necessai-y, to us, as bringing quiet and repose to overwrought bodies and minds. We cannot prosecute any labor, how- ever profitable, any study, however in- teresting, without granting ourselves pe- riods of rest : we may sorely grudge the interruption ; we may endeavor to ab- breviate the periods : but nature im- periously claims her time of slumber, and is sure to avenge its undue abridgment by the weariness and waste of every power. But all this arises from the im- perfectness of our present condition : we are so constituted that we cannot inces- santly pursue either occupation or enjoy- ment, but must recruit ourselves by re- pose, whether for business or pleasure. And it would evidently be to raise us very greatly in the scale of animated be- injT, to make it no longer needful that we should have intervals of rest ; body and soul being incapable of exhaustion, or rather of fatigue. What a mind would that be which could continue, hour after hour, yea, day after day, intent on the acquisition of knowledge, never pausing for a moment to give breathing time to its powers, but advancing in unwearied march from one height to another of truth. And what a body would that be, vvhicii should never, by any want or in- firmity, detain or hinder such a mind, but rather serve as its auxiliary, aiding and upholding in its ceaseless investiga- tions, in place of requiring it to halt for the recruiting of the flesh.
It is such a change, such an advance- ment, in our condition, which appears indicated by there being no night in heaven. There is no night there, be-
cause there we shall need no peri' J2 of inactivity : we shall never be sensi- ble of fatigue, and never either wish or want repose. It shall not be as now, when we must stop in the pursuit of what we long fbr, or become incapable of pursuit, and in the enjoyment of what we love, or become incapable of enjoyment. Never tired by performing God's will, never wearied by celebra- ting his praises, we shall feel always the freshness of the morning, always as at the beginning of a day, and yet be always as far off as ever from its close. It is given as one characteristic of Deity, that he never slumbers nor sleeps. It is affirmed moreover of the four living creatures which are round about the thione, that they " rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." So that it is a per fection to need no sleep ; it is to be like the very highest of created intelligences ; nay, it is to be like the very Creator himself And, therefn-e, I read the promise of a splendid exaltation, of an inconceivable enlargement of every fa- culty and capacity, in the announce- ment of the absence of night. This my mind, which is now speedily overtasked, which is jaded by every increase of kno w- ledge, which breaks down, as it were, if urged beyond a certain point, shall never be obliged to withdraw from the contemplation of the august wonders of heaven. This my body, whose wants unavoidably engage much of my atten- tion, whose weaknesses incapacitate me from continuous application, which is little better than a drag upon the spirit when it would soar towards the dwell- ing-place of God, shall have organs and senses for aiding the soul in her inces- sant inquiries, powers which shall never flag, but seem perpetually invigorated through being perpetually employed. How glorious then the promise of ad- vancement, contained in the promise of there being no night in heaven. All feebleness, all remains and traces of im- perfection, for ever removed, the saints shall spring to a surprising height amongst orders of creation, fitted not only in their intellectual part, but even it! their material, to serve God without a pause, and to enjoy whilst they serve him. And though it be true that night now discloses to us the wonders of the uni-
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verse, so that to take from us night were to take a revelation of the magnificence of creation, whence comes this but from the imperfection of faculties — faculties which only enable us to discern certain bodies, and under certain circumstances, and which probably suffer far more to escape them than they bring to our notice? We speak of the powers of vision, and very amazing they are, giving us a kind of empire over a vast panorama, so that we gather in its beauties, and compel them, as though by enchantment, to paint themselves in miniature through the tiny lenses of the eye. But nevertheless how feeble are these powers ! bodies of less than a certain masrnitude altoa:ether escape them ; the microscope must be called in, though this only carries the empire one or two degrees lower : whilst other bodies, aerial for example, or those which move with extraordina- ry velocity, are either invisible, or only partially discerned. And is it not on account of this feebleness of power, that the eye asks the shadows of night before it can survey the majestic troop of stars 1 That troop is on its everlast- ing march, as well whilst the sun is high on the firmament, as when he has gone down amid the clouds of the west; and it is only because the eye has not strength to discern the less brilliant bodies, in the presence of the great luminary of the heavens, that it must wait for darkness to disclose to it the peopled scenes of immensity.
I glory then once more in the pre- dicted absence of night. Be it so, that night is now our choice instructor, and that a world of perpetual sunshine would be a world of gross ignorance : I feel that night is to cease, because we shall no longer need to be taught through a veil, because we shall be able to read the universe illuminated, and not require as now to have it darkened for our gaze. It is like telling me of a surprising in- crease of power ; I shall not need night as a season of repose, I shall not need night as a medium of instruction. I shall be adapted in every faculty to an everlasting day, a day whose lustres shall not obscure the palest star, and yet shall paint the smallest flower; and through- out wliose unbroken shining, creation will continually present me with fresh wonders, and find me always prepared to inspect them.
And if from considering night in ita more literal, we pass to the considering it in its metaphorical sense, who can fail to be struck with the beauty and ful- ness of the promise of our text ? We are accustomed to take night as the im- age of ignorance, of peT-piexity, of sor- row. And to affirm the absence of night from the heavenly state may justly be regarded as the affirming the absence of all which darkness is used to repre- sent. " There shall be no night there," the ways of providence shall be made clear ; the mysteries of grace shall be unfolded ; the " things hard to be mider- stood " shall be explained ; we shall dis- cover order in what has seemed intricate, wisdom in what we have thought unac- countable, and good where we have seen only injury. " There shall be no night there :" children of affliction, hear ye this : pain cannot exist in the atmos- phere of heaven, no tears are shed there, no graves opened, no friends removed ; and never, for a lonely moment, does even a flitting cloud shadow the deep rapture of tranquillity. " There shall be no night there:" children of calamity, hear ye this : no baffled plans there, no frustrated hopes, no sudden disappoint- ments; but one rich tide of happiness shall roll through eternity, and deepen as it rolls. " There shall be no night there:" ye who are struggling with a corrupt nature, hear ye this : the night is the season of crime ; it throws its mantle over a thousand enormities which shun the face of day. And to say that " there shall be no night," is to proclaim the reign of universal purity : no temp- tation there, no sinful desires to resist; no evil heart to battle with ; but holi- ness shall have become the very nature of the glorified inhabitants, and the very element in which they move. Oh, this mortal must have put on immortality, and this corruptible incorruption, ere we can know all the meaning and riclmess of the description which makes heaven a place without night. But even now we can ascertain enough to assure us, that the description keeps pace with all that even imagination can sketch of the no- bility and' felicity of the inheritance of the saints. I behold man made equal with the angels, no longer the dwarfish, thing which, at the best, he is, whilst confined to this narrow stage, but grown, into mighty stature, so that he movej- 49
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amid the highest, with capacities as vast and energies as unabating. I behold the page of universal truth spread be- fore him, no obscurity on a single line, and the brightness not dazzling the vision. I beliold the removal of all mis- take, of all misconception : conjectures have given place to certainties ; contro- versies are ended, difficulties are solved, prophecies are completed, parables are interpreted. I behold the hushing up of every grief, the wiping away every tear, the prevention of every sorrow, the communication of every joy. I be- hold the final banishment of whatsoever has alliance with sinfulness, the splendid reimpressment of every feature of the divine image upon man, the unlimited diffusion of righteousness, the trium- phant admission of the fallen into all the purities of God's presence, and their unassailable security against fresh apos- tacy. I behold all this in the picture of a world without night : and I feel as though I did not need the wall of sap- phire, and the gate of pearl, with which the evangelist has decked the New Jerusalem ; I long for that city, and I know that it must be ineffably beautiful, inconceivably desirable, when I have heard him simply assert, " And there shall be no night there."
We go on to observe that St. John is not content with affirming the ab- sence of night : he proceeds to assert the absence of those means or instru- ments, to which we are here indebted for the scattering of darkness. Had he confined himself to saying that there would be no night in heaven, you might have understood him to mean that the sun will never set in heaven ; or that if it did, there would be so rich an artificial illumhiation as would prevent its ra- diance being missed. But there is to be no sun : neither is the want of the sun to be supplied as now by the lamp or the torch. " They need no candle, neither light of the sun." And what then is to make their perpetual day 1 We must turn to the second division of our subject ; we must consider what there is in heaven, that we may gather the lessons taught by what there is not. " For the Lord God giveth them light." We wish you to observe the peculiarity of the expression, " they need no candle, neither light of the sun." The candle and sun are removed, only because no
longer required. And flien a reason is subjoined why the inhabitants of heaven have no further use f«r the candle or the sun, " for the Lord God giveth them light." They have light in the next world as well as in this ; but there is a great difference in the mode or channel of communication ; they obtain it there immediately, or directly, from God, whereas here it comes through certain agencies or instruments which God is pleased to appoint and employ. And if you understand light as here used me- taphorically, a natural thing being put for a mental or spiritual, you will see at once that this removal of the sun and candle, and this substitution of God him- self as the source of illumination, indi- cates an amazing change in the mode of acquiring knowledge. In another verse of the description of the New Je- rusalem, you have the assertion of a similar absence, and of a similar substitu- tion. " I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." There is to be no need hereafter of those ordinances, those ministrations, those sacraments, through which as channels, God is here pleased to communicate grace ; the saints shall be privileged with direct and open intercourse : they shall be environed with manifestations of Deity ; these shall be their sanctuary; and having thus ac- cess to God and the Lamb, they will no longer require the rites and institutions of an earthly dispensation. We suppose this to be what is indicated by the fact that God will be the temple of the heavenly city, though the fact itself far exceeds our comprehension. A temple, builded of Godhead, its walls his attri- butes, its roof his majesty, its gates hia eternity ! And to worship in this temple, to live in this temple, to worship God in God ! there is a wonderfulness here which is not to be overtaken by all our strivings ; for who can imagine to him- self the everlasting Creator condescend- ing to become as a sanctuary to the children of men, the goi'geous cathedral into whose recesses they may penetrate, and at whose altars they may do homage 1 We can feel, O God, that the universe is thy temple ; we are overwhelmed by the thought, that thou thyself wilt be the temple of the universe!
And we suppose that just the same truth is again indicated by St. Paul,
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when, in writing to the Corinthians, he draws a contrast between our present and our future state of being. " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face : now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." We refer especially to the first part of this contrast, in which the comparison lies between the modes in which knowledge is to be acquired. He affirms that, in this world, we see only *' through a glass, darkly," or as it is in the original, in a riddle, or enigma. We behold nothing but the image of God, as reflected from his works or dealings, which serve as so many glasses or mirrors. But hereafter we are to behold God " face to face ;" not, that is, by re- flected rays, but by direct ; not as in a mirror, but by open vision, standing in his pi-esence, and gazing, as it were, on his countenance. And it must be the drift of these various representations, that we are hereafter to be admitted into such communion or intercourse, that there will be no need of any of those in- termediate appointments through whicli we are now brought into acquaintance with God. The whole apparatus of mirror, and temple, and sun, will be taken away, because we shall be admitted to the beatific vision, to all those imme- diate manifestations of Deity which are vouchsafed to the angel or the archangel. We know not what these may be. We will not even dare to conjecture what it is to behold God " face to face ;" for we remember that there must always be an untravelled separation between the infinite Being and all finite : and that we may not therefore doubt, that even in the most intimate revelation of himself, God majestically hides the wonders of his nature. Yet we may be sure that discovei'ies are vouchsafed in heavenly places, which throw into the shade the richest that can be obtained upon earth ; and that, whatever the degree or sense in which a created intelligence can look upon the uncreated, in that it will be permitted to us to behold " the King im- mortal, invisible."
And this marks a sublime, though an inconceivable change in our powers and privileges. I am wonderfully struck by this abstraction of the material sun from our firmament, and this making God himself the immediate source of our light, though I can hardly give consist-
ency or shape to the struggling thoughts which the imagery excites. Imagine, but you cannot imagine ; and what is language to do when even imagination is at fault 1 yet make an effort ; think of the sudden quenching of that luminary which now daily " cometh forth as a bridegroom from his chamber, and re- joiceth as a strong man to run a race;" but this extinction of the sun not followed but by irradiations such as have never yet fallen on this earth. It is a glorious thing now, Avhen the golden beams of day flood the canopy of heaven, and forest, and mountain, and river, are beautiful with light. Glorious is it, yea, and very demonstrative of Deity, when the whole creation wakes up at the sum- mons of the morning, as though the trumpet had sounded, and the vast grave of night were giving back the cities and the solitudes which had gone down into its recesses. But now we are to have no sun ; the hand of the Almighty hath quenched it ; and nevertheless we are not encompassed with the shadows of the evening, but, on the conti-ary, dazzled with a radiance immeasurably surpassing that of the noontide. In place of a firma- ment, lit up by the shinings of a material body, we have the infinite vault converted into one brilliant manifestation of God- head; the splendid coruscations of righ- teousness, and truth, and justice, and loving-kindness, weaving themselves to- gether to form the arch; and the burning brightness of Him who cannot " look on iniquity," glancing to and fro like the lightning, though not to scathe, but only to illuminate. What think you of living beneath such a canopy 1 What think you of having divinity, in all the blaze of his attributes, thus glowing throughout im- measurable space, and pouring his own lustre on every object in creation, so that the universe would bo nothing but the one shining forth of Godhead ; and each star, each leaf, each water-drop, be but as a spark from those eyes whlcii .St. John saith, "were as a flame of fire?" O Persians, thy superstition has become truth; we are not idolaters, and yet may now worship the sun.
And though this Is but treating our text, as if the change which it indicates were to be literally understood, it may help us to the forming some idea of what is intended, when light is taken 1 metaphorically, as here put for know-
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letlo-e. The change appears to mark, as we have already intimated, the re- moval of all that instrumentality which has been constructed and employed for the bringing us into some degree of ac- quaintance with God, as though we had grown into manhood, and could dispense with the processes and restraints of our early education. At present we cannot see God : we can only study his works and Avays, and gather from them inade- quate notions of his character and at- tributes. But hereafter so strengthened will be our faculties, so enlarged our capa- cities, and so exalted our place amongst orders of creation, that God will be visible to us in such sense as he is visible to any finite beings; not in dim shadow, and mystic type, and material represen- tation, but in the splendor, the spiritu- ality, the immenseness, the eternity of Deity. We shall enter the presence- chamber of Godhead — for a presence- chamber unquestionaby there is, some scene in which He who is every where, whom "the heaven of heavens cannot con- tain," the inhabitant of all space as of all time, unveils his stupendousness, and shows himself" as he is" to the glorious throng of worshipping spirits. In this throng we shall have place ; in this presence-chamber we shall be privileged to stand. And who can fail to perceive that there is hereby indicated an amazing change as to the mode of acquiring knowledge ? I am no longer to be taught through any intermediate agency. I am no longer to be taught through laborious processes of study and research. I am to behold God, so far as the Creator can be beheld by a creature. I am to learn from actual inspection, the mind having the powers of the eye, so that the understanding shall gather in the magnificence of truth, with the same facility as the organ of sense the beauties of a landscape. There will be no dis- tance between aurselves and the objects of contemplation, no turning away of the mind from what is wortliy its attention ; but so strong will be our propensity to truth, and so immediate our perceptions, that we shall be always gazing on some one of its mighty developments, and be no more liable to mistake or misappre- hension than the man whose eye is his informant, and who has to believe only what he beholds.
" They need no candle." Creation,
with all thy bright wonders, I ask no longer the torch with which thou hast furnished me in my searchings after God: God himself is before me; and what further need can I have of thine aids ? Ordinances of grace, at which I have here trimmed the lamp of faith, ye are no longer requisite ; faith itself is lost in vision, and I want not the instru- mentality through which it was kept burning. Even the mediatoiial office, through which is now derived whatever most tends to illuminate the understand- ing and warm the heart, will no longer be needed : Christ who is emphatically " the Sun of righteousness," is to "deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father;" its designs being all completed, its ends all answered ; for when we stand face to face with God, what further use will there be for those channels through which we have now to seek access 1
" They need no candle," nay, they need not even " the light of the sun." " The Lord God giveth them light ;" is not this to say that the Lord God giveth them himself? for you will remember what is affirmed by St. John, " This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." And therefore God in some ineffable way, is to communicate himself to the soul. There will probably be a communication of ideas :* God will substitute his ideas, great, noble, luminous, for our own, contracted, confused, obscure; and we shall become like him, in our measure, though participating his knowledge. There will be a communication of excel- lences : God will so vividly impress his image upon us, that we shall be holy even as he is holy. There will be a communication of happiness : God will cause us to be happy in the very way in which he is happy himself, making what constitutes his felicity to constitute ours, so that we shall be like him in the sources or springs of enjoyment. All this seems included in the saying that the Lord God is to give us licrht. And though we feel that we are but laboring to describe, by all this accumulation of expression, what must be experienced before it can be understood, we may yet liope that you have caught something of the grandeur of the thought, that God
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himself Is to be to us hereafter what the sun in the firmament is to us here. We wish you to give, if possible, something of definiteness to the thought, by observ- ing what an enlargement it supposes of all the powers of our nature ; for now it would consume us to be brought into intimate intercourse with God ; we must have the sun, we must have the candle ; our faculties are not adapted to the living in his ^Jiesence, where there is no veil upon his lustres. Hence we have in the figurative sketch of our text, in the part which makes God the source of all illumination, as well as in that which asserts the absence of night, a represen- tation of man as nobly elevated amongst orders of being, and of the sublimest knowledge as thrown open to his search. Man is elevated ; for he has passed from the ordinances and institutions of an in- troductory state, to the open vision and free communion of spirits who never Bullied their immortality. The sublimest knowledge is made accessible ; for with God for his sun, into what depths can he penetrate, and not find fresh truths ] with God as his temple, along what aisle of the stupendous edifice can he pass, and not collect from eveiy column, and every arch, majestic discoveries] where can he stand, and not hear the pervading spirit of the sanctuary breathing out secrets which he had vainly striven to explore, and wonders which he had not dared to conjecture] And thus, if it be a blessed thing to know that hereafter, set free from all the trainings of an elementary dispensation, we shall take our place, in the beauty and might of our manhood, amongst the nobles of creation; that gifted with capacities, and privileged with opportunities, for deri- ving from immediate contact with Deity acquaintance with all that is illustrious in the universe, we shall no longer need those means and agencies, whether of nature or grace, which, whilst they strengthen and inform, prove us not made perfect — yea, if it be a blessed thing to know this, it is also a blessed thing to hear that there shall be no candle, no sun, in the heavenly Jerusa- lem. The substitution of God himself for every present source of light, is among the most energetic representations of a change, which lifts man into dignity, and gives the heights and dei)th3 to his eurvey ; and 1 feel therefore, that so far
as the ripening of our powers is con- cerned, or the moral splendor of our heritage, or the freedom of our expia- tions, description has well nigh ex- hausted itself in the announcement of the Evangelist, that the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem " need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light."
We would observe to you here, though we have partly anticipated the statement, that the expression, "the Lord God giveth them light," seems to indicate that our future state, like our present, will be progressive : there is to be a continued communication of light, or of knowledge, so that the assertion of Solomon, " The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and moi-e unto the perfect day," may be as true hereafter as here. This might be gathered from what has been advanced under our first head of discourse, but it deserves to be more explicitly asserted. Whatever may be the attainments of the just man whilst on earth, he sees only, according to the words already quoted, " through a glass, darkly." Hfjw much of what he acknowledges as trutli is profoundly mysterious ! what difliculties throng great portions of Scripture ! how dark the dispensations of Providence ! what subject for implicit faith in the woi'kings of God's moral government ! With St. Paul he is often forced to ex- claim, when musing on the Almighty and his dealings, " how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." But he has yet to pass into a scene of greater light, and to read, in the opened volume of God's purposes, the explanation of difficulties, the wis- dom of appointments, the nice pi'opor- tions of truth. And assuredly do we believe that then shall there break on him mighty and ever amplifying views of all that is august in the nature of God, and wonderful in his works. Then shall the divine attributes lise before him, unsearchable indeed and unlimited, but ever discovering moie of their stu- pendousness, their beauty, their harmony. Then shall the mystic figures of pro- phecy, which here have crossed his path only as the shadows of far-off events, take each its place in accomplished plans, schemed and willed by the ever- lastinf mind. Then shall redemption throw open before him its untravelled
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amplitude, and allow of his tracing those unimnibered ramifications which the cross, erected on this globe, may possibly be sending to all the outskirts of immen- sity. Then shall the several occurrences of his life, the dark things and the bright which chequered his path, appear equally necessary, equally merciful; and doubt give place to adoring reverence, as the problem is cleared up of oppressed righteousness and successful villany. But it shall not be instantaneous, this reaping down the vast harvest of know- ledge, this ingathering of what we may call the sheaves of light, seeing that " liaht," according to the Psalmist, " is sown for the righteous. It must con- tinue whilst being continues : for if the mysteries of time were exhausted, and redemption presented no unexplored district, God would remain infinite as at the first, as sublime in his inscrutableness as though ages had not been given to the searching out his wonders. It is said by St. Paul of the love of Christ, and, if of the love, then necessarily also of him whose love it is, that it " passeth knowledge." But if never to be over- taken, it shall always be pursued ; and we gather from the expression of our text, an expression which clearly marks progressiveiiess, that the just man will continually be admitted to richer and richer discoveries of God and of Christ, so that eternity will be spent in journey- ing through that temple, which we have already described as the Almighty him- self, from whose innermost slnine, though always inapproachable, shall flash, as he advances, the deeper and deeper efful- gence of Deity, Ay, and if knowledge be thus progressive, so also shall love be, and so also happiness. In giving light, the sun gives also heat. It can- not be that the just man should thus travel into the perfections of his Creator and Redeemer, and not admire more, and adore more, and bound with a greater ecstacy. As fast as obscure things are illuminated, and difficult made in- telligible, and contradictory reconciled, and magnificent unfolded, there will be a fresh falling down before the throne, a fresh ascription of praise, a fresh burst of rapture. The voice which is to be from the first " as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder," shall grow louder and louder — each manifestation of Deity adding a
new wave to the many waters, a new peal to the great thunder. The anthem which is to ascribe worthiness for ever and ever to the Lamb, though always rushing as a torrent of melody, seeing that it is to issue from " ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thou- sands :" — what an orchestra! who would not hear, who would not swell the roll of this music 1 — shall not be always of equal strength ; for as the Lamb dis- closes to his church more and more of his amazing achievement, and opens new tracts of the consequences of the atone- ment, and exhibits, under more endearing and overcoming aspects, the love which moved him, and the sorrows which beset him, and the triumphs which attended him ; we believe that the hearts of the redeemed will beat with a higher pulse of devotion, and their harps be swept with a bolder hand, and their tongues send forth a mightier chorus. Thus will the just proceed from strength to strength : knowledjje, and love, and holiness, and joy, being always on the increase ; and eternity one glorious morning, with the sun ever climbing higher and higher; one blessed spring- time, and yet rich summer, every plant in full flower, but every flower the bud of a lovelier.
Ah, my brethren, you will tell us that we are but "darkening counsel by the multitude of words;" that we are in fact only reiterating the same statements ; and that, in place of describing heaven, we still leave it to be described. We plead guilty to the charge : in our eagerness to convey to you some idea of heaven, it is likely that we have fallen into repetitions ; and we have too lofty thoughts of the future to suppose for an instant that our descriptions could be adequate. But pause for a moment : our great object in attempting description is to animate you to the seeking possession: admit then that de- scription is at fault, and we may yet uige you by the indescribableness of heavon. Yes, by the indescribableness of heaven. What had St. Paul to say, when he returned from the third heaven, into which he had been mysteriously trans- lated 1 Nothing, absolutely nothing ; " he heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful, or not possible, for a man to utter." And are you disappoint- ed that the great Apostle has nothing to
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communicate 1 He gives you the most animating description, in assuring you that heaven is not to be described. It would be but a poor heaven which such beings as ourselves could comprehend or anticipate. Give me the majestic cloud, the oracular veil, the mighty shadows which recede as we advance, filling the mind with amazement, but for- bidding us to approach and examine what they are. I wish to be defeated in every eflbrt to understand futurity. I wish, when I have climbed to the highest pinnacle to which thought can soar, to be compelled to confess that I have not yet reached the base of the everlasting hills. There is something surpassingly glorious in this baffling of the imagina- tion. It is vain that I task myself to conceive of heaven, but it is a noble truth that it is vain. That heaven is in- conceivable, is the most august, the most elevating discoveiy. It tells me that I have not yet the power for enjoying heaven : but this is only to tell me, that the beholding God " face to face," the being " for ever with the Lord," requii-es the exaltation of my nature ; and I triuKDph in the assurance that what is reserved for mo, presupposes my vast advancement in the scale of creation. If we would have sublime notions of a glorified man, of the station which he occupies, of the faculties which he possesses, they must be the notions which are gained by ineffectual efforts to represent and delineate : the splen- dor which dazzles so that we cannot look, the iramenseness which we cannot grasp, the energies for which there are no terms in human speech, these give our best images of heaven. If I dare rate one portion of Scripture above another, I prefer the record of" the vision of St. Paul to that of the visions of St. John. Wonderful indeed were the manifestations V(juchsafed to the exile in Patmos. The spirit of the coldest must glow as the Iteloved disciple delineates what he saw, the tree of life, the crystal river, the white-robed multi- tude, the glittering city. But the attempt to describe seems to assume the possi- bility of description : and to prove to me that heaven might be described, would be to prove to me that its ghjry was not transcendent, its felicity not un- bounded. And therefore, I am more moved by the silence of St. Paul than
by the poetry of St. John. The truth is, that St. Paul was more favored than St. John. St. John remained on earth : he was not caught up into paradise : and the gorgeous trains which swept by him in his ecstacy or trance, were so constructed and clothed as to be adapted to a human comprehension. But St. Paul saw the reality of heaven, not in figure, not in type, but heaven as it actually is, heaven as it will appear to the righteous, when admitted to behtild " the King in his beauty." And hence it is not strange that St. Paul must be silent, tlwugh St. John had marvel upon marvel to relate. I turn from the one to the other : and though fascinated by the spectacle of a city whose " foundations were garnished with all manner of pre- cious stones," where pain never enters, and whose temple is the Lord God Almighty, I learn more, and I glow more hopeful, and I am more thronged by the glories of the future, when I find St. Paul declaring that he had heard unspeakable words. " The things which God hath prepared for them that love him," are things which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor the human heart conceived : but faith and hope may both be strengthened by this very impossibility of our forming just ideas of heaven : it is the loftiness of the mountain which causes it to be lost in the clouds : we may therefore animate ourselves by the thought, that thought itself cannot measure our everlasting portion, and be all the more cheered when we find that even dc-sci-iption gives no distinct picture, but that we plunge into darkness when striving to penetrate all the meaning of the sayings, " There shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light."
But there is yet a clause of the text to which we have given no attention, though it suggests as noble thoughts as any of the preceding, in reference to our everlasting state. " And they shall reign for ever and ever" — "they shall be kings for ever and ever." Wonder- ful assertion ! wonderful, because made of beings apparently insignificant, beings of whom the Psalmist, after surveying the magnificence of the heavens, wa-s forced to exclaim, " Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him f or the son of man, that thou visitest him I " Yes,
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of US, who are by nature " children of wrath," of us, who are " born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards," even of us is it said, " They shall be kings for ever and ever." And you are aware that this is not a solitary expression, but that the ascription of regal power to the saints is common in Scripture, and especially in the book of Revelation. Our Lord himself promised to his apostles, that, " in the regeneration " they should " sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." " If we suffer with him," exclaims St. Paul, in reference to the Redeemer, " we shall also reign with him." St. John ascribes glory and do- minion " unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and j^riests unto God and his Father." And the famous prophecy of the first resurrection will naturally occur to you, in which it is declared of the witnesses for the Mediatoi", that "they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Un- doubtedly this last prediction, however interpreted, must have reference to the period of the millennium, during which Christ is to take visibly on himself the sovereignty of the earth, having erected his throne on the wreck of all human empire. What offices the saints are to have throughout this millennial reign we pretend not to conjecture, much less to decide. Suffice it that they are evi- dently to participate the triumph of their Lord, and perhaps to have sway under him, one over ten cities, another over five, according to the number and improvement of their talents. But it is not to the millennium that our text re- fers : we have already said that it re- lates to what will succeed the general judgment, and, therefore, to that condi- tion of the redeemed which will be final and permanent.
And on what thrones shall we sit in heaven 1 over whom shall we be invest- ed witli dominion 1 Let it be remem- bered that the mediatorial kingdom will have terminated. The Son himself hav- ing become " subject to Him that put all things under Him." We cannot therefore retain any such sway as the saints may be supposed to have possess- ed throughout the millennium : tlic whole economy will be changed ; God liimself will be " all in all ;" and the affairs of ■the universe will no longer be transacted
through Christ in his glorified humanity. And, nevertheless, "they shall reign, they shall be kings, for ever and ever." They shall reign, whilst they serve God ; they shall be kings, whilst they are sub- jects. We know not whether this may be intended to denote that the saints shall have authority, or principality, over other orders of being. It may be so. I have the highest possible thoughts in regard of the future dignity of man. I believe not that he will be second to any but God. I would not change his place, I would not barter his crown, for that of the noblest, the first, amongst the angels of heaven. For no nature has been brought into so intimate a rela- tion to the divine as the human : God has become man, and man therefore, we believe, must stand nearest to God. It may then be, seeing that, beyond ques- tion, there will be order through eternity, a gradation of ranks, a distribution of authority, that the saints will be as princes in the kingdom of God ; that through them will the Almighty be pleased to carry on much of his govern- ment ; and that angels, who are "minister- ing spirits " to them during their mo- ments of probation, will attend them as their messengei's during their ages of triumph. " Know ye not," asks St. Paul of the Corinthians, " that we shall judge angels 1 " and if we are to sit in assize on the evil angels, it may be that we shall be invested with royalty over the good.
But let this pass : if not over angels, I can yet see much over which, if I gain entrance into heaven, I shall " reign for ever and ever." I connect the different parts of the verse ; and I read in its last clause, only differently expressed, the same promise, or prophecy, which I find in all the rest. I shall reisrn over the secrets of nature: all the workman- ship of God shall be subject to me, open- ing to me its recesses, and admitting mo into its marvels. I shall reign over the secrets of Providence ; my empire shall gather back the past, and anticipate the future ; and all the dealings of my Maker shall range themselves in perfect harmo- ny before my view. I shall reign over the secrets ^f grace ; the mediatorial work shall be as a province subject to my rule, containing no spot in all itsspread- ings which I may not explore. I shall reign over myself: I shall be thorough
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master of myself : no unruly desires, no undisciplined affections : I shall not be, what an earthly king often is, his own base slave : no Vv^ar between the flesh and the spirit, no rebellion of the will, no struggle of corrupt inclinations ; but with all that true royalty, the royalty of perfect holiness, I shall serve God without wavering, and find his service to be sovereignity.
Glorious empii-e ! what can animate us, if a prospect such as this move us not to the " laying aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us ?" Nevertheless, let us see to it that we do not conclude ourselves on the high road to the celestial city, just because we ha»/e some tastes and feelings to which we expect to find there the counterpart objects. We must warii you against mistaking an intellectual for a spiritual longing, the wish to enter heaven be- cause there " we shall know even as we are known," for the wish to enter it be- cause God himself will there be " all in all." I am sure that many a man, in whose heart is no love of the Creator and Redeemer, might pant for a state in which he shall no longer see darkly through a glass, but have full sway over universal truth. The mind may strug- gle for emancipation, and crave a broad- er field, whilst the soul is the bondslave of Satan, and has no wish to throw away her chains. Ah, it is just as easy to dress up an intellectual paradise as a carnal, and to desire the one, as well as the other, without acquiring any meet- ness " for the inheritance of the saints in light." The heaven of the moham- medan is full of all that can gratify the senses, and pamper the appetites. The heaven of the philosopher may be a scene in which mind is to reach all its vigor, and science all its majesty. But neither is the heaven of the christian. The heaven for which the christian longs, is the place in which God himself shall be his " strength and his portion for ever." The knowledge, whose increase he ardently wishes, is knowledge of him who made him, and of him who redeem- ed him : for already hath he felt that "this is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." He may indeed exult in the thought that hard things are to be explained, and dark illuminated ; but only that he may find fresh cause for
praising, admiring, and adoring God. Ho may rejoice in the assurance that a flood of splendid light will be poured alike over creation and redemption : but his great motive to exultation is, that he can say with David to his God, " in thy light shall we see light," so that the irradiation will be from Deity, and that which makes visible be that upon which all his affections are fastened. And you are to try yourselves by this test. You are to ask yourselves whether you desire heaven because God is there, be cause Christ is there ; whether, in short, God and Christ would be to you heaven, if there were none but these to be be- held, none but these to be enjoyed. Unless you can answer such questions in the affirmative, you may be longing for heaven, because it is a place of re- pose, because depai'ted kuisfolk are there, or because man shall there be loftily endowed ; but you have none of that desire which proves a title to pos- session. We do not say that such rea- sons are to have no weight : our dis- course has been mainly occupied on the setting them forth. But they are to be only secondai'y and subordinate : they are not to be uppermost : our prime idea of heaven should be, that it is the place where God dwells, and of its hap- piness, that God is " all in all."
But having delivered these cautions, we may again exclaim, Glorious em- pire, which is promised ns by God ! We said, in the commencement of our discourse, that we would" utter no re- proaches, no threatenings, but would dwell exclusively on the hopes and privileges of christians. And we are not now about to break this resolution : unless indeed it be to break it to ex- press great wonder, and bitter regret, that, when men might be heirs of a world in which there is no night, of which the Lord God himself is the sun, and where there are to he glorious thrones for those faithful unto death, they give their time and thought to the acquiring some perishable good, and live, for the most part, as though they had never heard of judgment and eter- nity. On other occasions, we often strive to move the careless amongst you by " the teiTors of the Lord ;" we warn them by filling stars, and a moon " turned into blood," and a sun " black as sackcloth of hair," that they persist 50
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not in unrighteousness. And even now we gather our incentives from a strip- ped firmament and extinguished lumi- naries. We still preach to the worldly- minded through planets which have start- ed from their courses, and a sun which has ceased to grive litjht. And, never- theless, it is not by a darkened, it is by a brilliantly irradiated sky, that we sum- mon them to repentance. The bright world of which we have spoken, it may be yours. It hath been thrown open to yea by that " High Priest of our pro- fession," who entered " by his own blood," and took possession for himself and his followers. There is not one of
us who may not, if he will, secure him- self a throne in this everlasting kingdom. " Yet there is room." Myriads have pressed in, myriads are pressing in, but " yet thei'e is room." Alas, what ac- count will have to be given at the judg- ment, if any of us be doomed to outer darkness, in place of passing into a world where there shall be no night ? What but that we wilfully closed our eyes against " the light of the glorious Gospel," not wishing to be made aware of our danger and corruption 1 what but that " men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil ] "
SERMON XII.
GOD'S WAY IN THE SANCTUARY.
' Th.v way, O God, is in the sanctuary •. who is so great a God as our God ? " — PSAI.M lxxvii. 13,
It may be doubtful whether, in speak- ing of God's way as " in the sanctuary," the Psalmist designed to express more than that God's way is " in holiness." We mean that it does not seem certain from the original, that he intended to make any such reference to the Jewish temple, to the holy place, or the holy of holies, as you observe in our translation. Bishop Horsley's version is, " O God, in holiness is thy way : what God is great like our God]" There does not however appear to be any positive ob- jection against the common rendering. In the 63d Psalm, composed whilst David was in the wilderness, and there- fore excluded from the public ordi- nances of religion, you find the words, " my soul thirsteth for thee, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." Here it seems
almost required, by the circumstances under which the psalm appears to have been written, that we should adopt the translation, " in the sanctuary." At least, there is an appositeness in this translation which there is not in any other ; for the Psalmist was undoubtedly longing for those religious privileges from which he was debarred, privileges only to be enjoyed in the temple, or tabernacle, at Jerusalem, and of which he had there often and thankfully par- taken. But the original is the same as in our text : we may suppose, therefore, that our translators were not without warrant when they represented the Psalmist as saying, " Thy way is in the sanctuary," and not " Thy way is in holiness."
AVe own that we should be sorry to have to give up the common translation,
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and adopt the other which we have mentioned. There are, we think, trains of very interesting and instructive thought opened by the statement that God's way is " in the sanctuary," along which we shouhl not be led by consider- ing only that God's way is " in holiness." At the same time it should be observed, that whatever ti'uth is presented by the latter version is included in the former, so that we can run no risk of missing the meaning of the passage by adopting the more ample rendering. We wish you fuither to remark, that the triumph- ant question with which our text con- cludes, is undoubtedly suggested, or warranted, by the previous statement in regaid of God's way. The fact that God's way is "in the sanctuary," or "in holiness," forms evidently the argument for that greatness of God, that superiority of Jehovah to every false deity, which the consequent challenge so boldly as- serts. And without at all questioning that the fact of God's way being " in holiness" would well bear out the chal- lenge, we shall perhaps see in the sequel, that yet stronger proofs of greatness are furnished by the fact of his way being " in the sanctuary :" if so, these reasons will themselves go to the vhidicatinjx the version which we are anxious to retain. Now it would not have been right that we should have proceeded at once to discourse to you on the common translation, without premising these few critical remarks. It is very easy to lay a stress on passages of Scripture, or to assign them a meaning, which at first sight, may seem just, but which, on closer examination, they will be found not to bear. And he who may endeavor to interpret the Bible is required to be very honest, frankly avowing the objec- tions which may lie against his state- ments ; and wheresoever there may be doubt as to the precise sense of the author, not presuming to speak with any thing like certainty. We have therefore candidly shown you that there is variety of opinion as to whether there be any reference in our text to the sanctuary or temple. But we have also shown you groun<l3 on which we seem warranted in assuming that there is such a refer- ence : and we may now proceed to dis- course on this assumption, without fear of beiu"- charged with attaching undue Weight to a doubtful expression.
Now the Psalm in which our text occurs, describes great alternations of mind, the author appearing at one time almost in despair, and then again gather- ing confidence from the attributes of God. Beset with difficulties and dangei^s, he was tempted to think himself aban- doned by God, so that he pathetically exclaims, " Will the Lord cast off for ever, and will he be favorable no more 1" He soon, however, rejects with abhor- rence a thought so dishonoring to God, and ascribes his entertaining it to spirit- ual weakness and disease. " And I said. This is my infirmity : but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." He calls to mind what deliverances God had wrought for his people, and concludes that they were pledges of future assistance. " I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old." And hence he is encouraged : he feels that God's ways may be mysterious, but that they must be good ; and that it was therefore as much his privilege as his duty to " wait patiently " upon him. This appears to be the feeling which he expresses in our text : he has taken the retrospect of God's dealings, and now announces in one sentence their general character, a character which displays the surpassing greatness of their author. There is no reason, then, why we should make a confined application of our text : we learn, from examining the context, that the works and wonders of the Lord suo'""est to the Psalmist his description of God's way, and we may therefore reo"ard that description as applying in general to all the dealings of our Maker.
We have now, then, a clear subject of discourse, a general description of the ways or dealings of God, and that de- scription furnishing evidence of God'a unequalled greatness. Let it be our endeavor to establish and illustrate both the description and the evidence ; in other words, let us strive to show you, in successive instances, how true it is that God's way "is in the sanctuary," and what cause there is in each for ex- claiming, " Who is so great a God as our God ] "
Now we would first observe that there was a peculiar force to a Jew in this reference to the sanctuary, and in the conseciuent challenge as to the great- ness of God. Lender the legal dispen-
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sation, every divine dealing was closely connected with the temple : in the temple were the manifestations of Deity, the signs and notices of mercies with which future days were charged. There, and there only, could God be solemnly wor- shipped; there and there only, might ex- piatory sacrifices be offered ; there, and there only, were intimations of the Divine will to be sought or obtained. In the holy of holies, on the mercy-seat, overshadow- ed by the wings of cherubim, dwelt the perpetual token of the presence of the invisible Creator ; and the breast-plate of the high priest, glowing with mystic and oracular jewelry, gave forth, in the solitudes of the tabernacle, the messages of Jehovah. Wonderful dispensation ! beneath which, in spite of all its dark- ness, there were burning traces of the *' goings forth " of God, and in spite of its shadowy and imperfect character, there were direct and open commu- nications with Him " that inhabiteth eternity."
But of all its wonders the temple might be declared the centre or seat ; for seeing that God designed, in the ful- ness of time, to gather all things into his Son, and to set him forth as the alone source or channel of blessing, therefore did he make the temple, which typified that Son, the home of all his operations, the focus into which were condensed, and from which divei-ged, the various rays of his attributes and dealings. And this suggests to us the speaking for a few moments on a point of great importance, the consistency of the several parts of revelation. We take the Bible into our hands, and examine diligently its different sections, delivered in dif- ferent ages to mankind. There is a mighty growth in the discoveries of God's nature and will, as time rolls on from creation to redemption ; but as knowledge is increased, and brighter light thrown on the divine purposes and dealings, there is never the point at which we are brought to a pause by the manifest contradiction of one part to an- other. It is the wonderful property of the Bible, though its authorship is spread over a long line of centuries, that it nev- er withdraws any truth once advanced, and never adds new without giving fresh force to the old. In reading the Bible, we always look, as it were, on the same landscape : the only difierence being, as
we take in more and more of its state- ments, that more and more of the mist is rolled away from the hoinzon, so that the eye includes a broader sweep of beauty. If we hold converse with pa- triarchs occupying the earth whilst yet in its infancy, and then listen to Moses as he legislates for Israel, to prophets throwing open the future, and to apos- tles as they publish the mysteries of a new dispensation, we find the discourse always bearing, with more or less dis- tinctness, on one and the same subject : the latter speakers, if we may use such illustration, turn towai'ds us a larger portion than the former of the illumina- ted hemisphere : but, as the mighty globe revolves on its axis, we feel that the oceans and lands, which come succes- sively into view, are but constituent parts of the same glorious world. There is the discovery of new territories ; but, as fast as discovered, the territories com- bine to make up one planet. There is the announcement of new truths ; but, as fast as announced, they take their places as parts of one immutable system. Indeed there is vast difference between the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Psalms of David, or the prophecies of Isaiah. But it is the difference, as we have just said, between the landscape whilst the morning mist yet rests on half its vil- lages and lakes, and that same range of scenery when the noontide irradiates evei-y spire and every rivulet. It is the difference between the moon, as she turns towards us only a thin crescent of her illuminated disk, and when, in the fuhiess of her beauty, she walks our firmament, and scatters our night. It is no new landscape which opens on our gaze, as the town and forest emerge from the shadow, and fill up the blanks in the noble panorama. It is no new planet which comes travelling in its majesty, as the crescent swells into the circle, and the faint thread of light gives place to the rich globe of silver. And it is no fresh system of religion which is made known to the dwellers in this creation, as the brief notices given to patriarchs expand in the institutions of the law, and under the breathings of prophecy, till at length, in the days of Christ and his apostles, they burst into magnificence, and fill a world with re- demption. It is throughout the same system, a system for the rescue of hu-
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manlvind by die interference of a surety. And revelation has been nothing else but the gradual developement of this system, the drawing up another fold of the veil from the landscape, the add- ing another stripe of light to the ores- cent, so that the early fathers of our race, and ourselves on whom " the ends of the world ai'e come," look on the same arrangement for human deliver- ance, though to them there was nothing but a clouded expanse, with here and there a prominent landmark ; whilst to us, though the horizon loses itself in the far-off eternity, every object of personal interest is exhibited in beauty and dis- tinctness.
But if we may affirm this thorough consistency of the several parts of Re- velation, we may speak of the Jewish temple, with all its solemnities and cer- emonies, as a focus for the rays of the divine attributes and dealings ; seeino- that into its services must have been mystically gathered the grand truths and facts which have been successively developed, or which have yet to be disclosed. And who shall tell us the emotions with which a devout Jew must have regarded the temple, that temple towards which, if he chanced to be a wanderer in a foreign land, he was bid- den to turn, whensoever he sought in prayer the God of his fathers, as though he must imagine himself canopied by its lofty architecture, before he could gain audience of his Maker] If he had sin- ned, he must go up to the temple, that there his guilt might be expiated by the blood of slain beasts. If he had become ceremonially defiled, he must go up to the temple, that there, through certain figurative rites, he migiit be restored in- to fellowship with God's people. If he had mercies to acknowledge, he must go up to the temple, that he might there express his gratitude in eucharistical offerings. If he needed, in some extra- ordinary crisis, direction from above, he must go up to the temple, that there the priest might divine for him, by the urim and thummim, the course which it was God's will that he should take. With what deep feeling, therefore, must he have confessed, " Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." And would he not, moreover, as he museil on this fact, be led to the acknowledging and admiring the fjreatness of the Lord I We do not
know, that, at any time, or under any cii'cumstances, God has vouchsafed more striking proofs of his greatness, than whilst he governed Israel from the ta- bernacle as his throne. There was something so sublime in the whole sys- tem of a theocracy ; the interferences of an invisible King were so awful, be- cause, whilst the sce}>tre was swayed, there was apparently no hand to hold it ; the sanctities of the ark, with its symbolical riches, were so consuming and so conquering, thousands perishing through a rash glance, and idols falling prostrate ; that never perhaps did the Almighty give such tokens of his supre- macy, as whilst, without the intervention of any chief magistrate, he guided and ruled the twelve tribes.
And even when the affairs of the Is- raelites were administered in a more or- dinary way — as was the case when our text was composed, there being then a king in Jerusalem — we may well speak of the greatness of God as singularly exhibited through all the ordinances of religion. It is here that we have need of what has been advanced on the con- sistency of revelation. How great was God in all those types and emblems which figured prophetically the mysteries of redemption. How great in arranging a complicated system, whose august ceremonies, and pompous rites, might serve the purpose of keeping a fickle people from being seduced by the splen- did superstitions of the heathen ; and nevertheless foreshow, in their minutest particulars, the simple, beautiful facts of a religion, whose temple was to be the whole world, and whose shrine every human heart. How great in preserving a knowledge of himself, whilst darkness, gross dai-kness covered the nations ; and in carrying on the promise and hope of a Messiah, through age after age of al- most universal apostacy. How great in ordaining sacrifices which, in all their varieties, represented one and the samd victim ; in commanding observances so numerous and multiform that they can hardly be recounted, but which, in every tittle, had respect to the same deliverer; in gathering all that was distant into each day, and each hour, of an introduc- tory dispensation, crowding the s(;ene with a thousand different shadows, but all fDrmed by light thrown on one and the same substance. And all these de-
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monstrations, or exhibitions, of greatness, were furnished from the sanctuary ; the temple was God's palace, if you view him as king over Israel ; and within its sacred precincts those celebrations took place, and those rites were performed, which announced a Redeemer, and in some sense anticipated his coming. Then well indeed might the Jew, who thought on God's way as " in the sanc- tuary," break into a confession of the greatness of God. We know not pre- cisely the time when the psalm, in which our text occurs, was composed ; whether after the building of the temple, or whilst " the ark of the covenant of the Lord remained under cui'tains." But suppose that Solomon had already rear- ed his magnificent pile, it would not have been tiie grandeur of the house of the Lord which would have filled the devout Jew with wonder and exultation. As he gazed on the stupendous struc- ture, it would not have been because it outdid every other in beauty and majes- ty that his heart would have swelled with lofty emotions. He would have venerated the edifice, because it was as the council-chamber in which Deity ar- ranged his plans, and the stage on which he wrought them gradually out for the benefit of the world. As he en- tered its courts, he would have seemed to himself to enter the very place where all those mighty affairs were being trans- acted, which were to terminate, in some far-off" season, in the emancipation of the earth from wickedness and wretched- ness. On every altar he would have seen a Redeemer already offered up : in every cloud of incense he would have marked the ascendings of acceptable pcayer through a Mediator : in the blast of every trumpet he would have heard God marshalling his armies for the final overthrow of Satan. And the feeling of his soul must have been, " Thy way,
0 God, is in the sanctuary." Thy way — I cannot trace it on the firmament, studded though it be with thy woi'ks.
1 cannot trace it on the earth, though thou art there in a thousand operations, all eloquent, and all worthy, of thyself I search creation, but caimot find the lines of thy way, along which thou art passing to the fulfilment of thine ancient promises. But here is thy vvay, here in thy sanctuary. Every stone seems wrought into the pavement of that way :
every altar is as a pillar which shows its course : every sound is as the sound of thy footstep, as thou goest forward in thine awfulness. And in this, yea, in this, thou art amazing. I should have marvelled at thee less, had thine advancings towards the consummation of thy plan been audible through the universe, than now that within these walls thou hast space enough for the march of a pui'[:)Ose in which the uni- verse has interest. Wonderful in that, through what goes on in this house build- ed with hands, thou art approximating to a glorious result, the overthrow of evil, and its extermination from thine empire — yea, more wonderful, for it more shows thee independent even on the instruments which thou dost use, than if thou hadst taken unnumbered worlds for thy scene of operation, pass- ing in thy majesty from one to another, and causing each to be a beacon on the track of redemption. And therefore, oh, what can I do, after feeling and confess- ing that " thy way, O God, is in the sanc- tuary," but break into a challenge, a chal- lenge, to angels above, and to men below, " who is so great a God as our God V* But we would now observe, that, by the sanctuary, we may probably under- stand the holy of holies : for it was in that veiled and mysterious recess that the Shekinah shone, the visible token of the Almighty's presence. However true it be that God's way was in the temple, understanding by the temple the whole structure that was set apart to sacred uses, it was yet more empha- tically true that this way was in the sanctuary, understanding by the sanc- tuaiy that part within the veil, into which none but the high priest was al- lovved to enter, and that but once in the year, when he entered as a type of the Mediator wlio, having shed his blood as a sacrifice, carried it into heaven to present it as an intercessor. It may not have been altogether to the temple services, to the ceremonies and sacrifices appointed by the law, that the Psalmist referred : it may rather have been to the awfulness, the sanctity, the privacy of that spot where the Almighty might be said to have condescended to take up his abode. In saying that God's way was " in the sanctuary," he may have designed to assert the impenetrable obscurity in which the divine proceedings
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were shrouded, and at the same time the inviolable holiness by which they were distinguished ; and then the concluding questien will indicate that this obscurity, and this holiness, were arguments or evidences of the greatness of God. And it will not be difficult to trace the con- nection between the several parts of our text, if you consider the sanctuary as thus put for the qualities or properties which were specially pointed out by the holy of holies. You are to remember that the sanctuary was a place into which no Israelite but the high priest might ever dare to enter, and the attempting to enter which would have been an act of the worst sacrilege, certain to be fol- lowed by instant and fearful vengeance. What concealment then was there about this sanctuary, and at the same time what purity ! He who thought on the boly of holies, thought on a solitude which was inacessible to him, though close at hand : inaccessible, even as the remotest depth of infinite space, though a single step might have taken him into its midst; but at the same time, a soli- tude where, as he well knew, every thing breathed holiness, every thing glowed with the lustre of that Being who is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. And to say of God that his way was in this sanctuary, what was it but to say that God works in an im- penetrable secrecy, but that, nevertheless, in that secrecy he orders every thing in righteousness 1 These are facts with which we ought to be familiar, and in regard of which we should strive to keep nur faith firm. We may not hope to understand the dealings of the Lord : nay, we must be content not to under stand them : we must not attempt to lift, with presumptuous hand, the veil which conceals the place in wliich they originate. It is behind that curtain, to pass which is to perish, that the Al- mighty arranges his purposes, and ap- points means for their consummation ; and though we may know something of these purposes, as they appear without the curtain in their progress towards completion, they are hidden from us in their springs, and must often therefore be quite incomprehensible.
But what of tliis ] The sublime se- crecj' in which God dwells, and in which he works, is among the signal tokens of his greatness. In notliing does the
Supreme Being more demand our ad- miration than in those properties which caused an apostle to exclaim, " How un- searchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." It is a proof of his mercy towards us, and a source of vast honor to himself, that he hides him- self in clouds, and throws around his goings an awful obscurity. There is something singularly noble in that saying of Solomon, in the book of Proverbs, " It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." It is his glory not to make his every dealing luminous, so that his crea- tures might read without difficulty its design, and admit without an act of faith its excellence ; but to involve his pro- ceedings in so much of darkness, that there shall be a constant demand on the submissiveness and trust of those whom they concern. It is his glory, inasmuch as he thus takes the most effectual mode of preserving a spirit of dependence on himself, in beings who are prone to forget a first cause, and to ascribe to some second whatsoever they fancy they can trace to an origin. And very wonderful does God appear, when thus represented as seated in some inapproachable soli- tude, veiled from all finite intelligence, and there regulating the countless springs, and putting in motion the count- less wheels which are to produce ap- pointed results throughout immensity. It is not that he is associated with myriads of wise and ever-active beings, with whom he may consult, and by whom he may be assisted, in reference to the multitudinous transactions of every day and every moment. His way "is in the sanctuary." He is alone, majestically, omnipotently alone. The vast labora- tories of nature, he presides over them himself. The operations of providence, they all originate with himself. The workings of grace, they confess his im- mediate authorship. My brethren, this is God in his sublimity. God in his stupendousness. Let us take heed that we attempt not to penetrate his soli- tudes : let it content us to worship befine the veil, and to know that he is working behind it : why rashly endeavor to cross the threshold of the holy of holies, when " it is the glory of God to conceal a thing?"
And certainly it is not the obscurity which there may be lound the ways of the Lord which should induce a suspi-
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cion that those ways are not righteous. If God work in a place of secrecy, we know that it is equally a place of sanc- tity : we can be sure, therefore, of what- soever comes forth from that place, that if involved in clouds, it is invested with equity. We may not be able to discover God's reasons : but we can be certain from his attributes, attributes which shine through the veil, though that veil be im- penetrable, that we should approve them if discovered. And if it be an evidence of the gieatness of God, that his way is hidden, we scarcely need say that it is a further evidence of this greatness, that his way is holy. That, although he have to deal with a polluted world, with creatures by nature " dead in trespasses and sins," he contracts no impurity, but keeps travelling, as it were, " in the sanctuary," even whilst moving to and fro amid those who have defiled them- selves and their dwelling-place — what is this but proof that he is immeasurably separated by difference of nature, from all finite being ; that he is verily " the .ligh and holy One that inhabiteth etei'- nity," the high because the holy, and equally the holy because the high 1 In- deed, whilst there is every thing to comfort us, there is every thing also to give us lofty thoughts of God, in the fact that God's way " is in the sanctuary." •• In the sanctuary :" I may not enter, I may not think to penetrate. But how great must be the Being who thus, with- drawn from all scrutiny, always in a solitude, though encompassed with ten thousand times ten thousand waiting spirits, orders every event, directs every agent, consummates every purpose. " In the sanctuary :" where every thing is of a purity that dazzles even the ima- gination, on whose emblematic furniture the eye may not look, as though a human glance would dim the lustres of its gold. How righteous must be the Being who thus hides himself in light, how just his ways, how good his ap- pointments ! Do ye not seem to enter into the feeling of the Psalmist 1 are ye not ready to pass with him from his con- fession to his challenge 1 Come, place yourselves by him, as he may be sup- posed to meditate in the temple. He calls to mind the dealings of God. How much that is perplexing, how mucli that is dark, how much that is incomprehen- Bible ! Whither shall he turn for counsel
and comfort 1 whence shall he draw mateiial of assurance, that notwithstand ing all apparent inconsistencies, notwith- standing obscurity and intricacy, the hand of the Lord is a mighty hand, and will bring to pass whatsoever is best"? His eye is on that veil which hides from his gaze the Shekinah, and the mercy- seat, and the overshadowing cherubim. What does the solitude, with its burning and beautiful wonders, repi-esent ] what means this inaccessible spot, tenanted by Deity, but forbidden to man 1 Ah, wherefore indeed doth God thus shrine himself in the holy of holies, unless to teach us that we cannot look upon him in his actings, but that, nevertheless, those actings, though necessarily inscrutable, partake the sanctity as well as the se- crecy of his dwelling] This thought may be supposed to occupy the Psalm- ist. It strengthens, it animates him ; it should strengthen, it should animate you. The veil, whilst it hides, reveals Deity : nay, it reveals by hiding : it teaches the sublimity of God, inap- proachable; his independence, none with him in his workings ; and yet his righteousness, for it is the awful purity of the place which warns back all intru- ders. Then there is enough to make us both discover, and rejoice in, the supre- macy of our God. With a tongue of fear, for we are almost staggered by the mysteriousness of his workings, we will confess, " Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary:" but with a tongue of tri- umph, for his very concealments are tokens of his Almightiness, we will give utterance to the challenge, " Who is so great a God as our God ]"
But there can be no reason why we should confine the illustrations of our text to the Jewish temple and dispensa- tion. We may bring down the verse to our own day, understand by the sanc- tuary our own churches, and still found on the confession in the first clause the challenge which is uttered in the second. You must all be prepared to admit, that under the christian, even as it was under the legal, disj)ensation, God specially works by and through the public ordi- nances of relitrion, in converting sinners and bringing them into acquaintance with himself Perhaps indtM3(l you may think that it could not have been to such workings as these that the Psalmist re- ferred, when he spake of God's way aa
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" in the sanctuary," and that we are not therefore warranted in making tliat use of his words which we are now ahout to make. But we believe that this is alto- gether an error, aiid that the Psalmist may justly be considered as speaking of the sanctuary, even as we now speak of a church, as a place of instruction, where messages are to be looked for from God to the soul. The Psalmist describes himself as perplexed by the dealings of God, and then as comforted by the thought that God's way is " in the sanc- tuary." Now if you turn to the seventy- third Psalm, bearing the name of the same author, Asaph, as is borne by that in which our text occurs, you will find a very similar description of perplexity, and of comfort derived in some way from the sanctuary. The writer is greatly staggered by the prosperity of the wicked, and tempted to receive it as an evidence against the strictness of God's moral government. And how does he overcome the temptation ? You shall hear what he says, " When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me ; until I went into the sanctuary of God : then understood I the end." He ob- tained, you perceive, instruction in the sanctuary, which sufficed to the removing his doubts, and the restoring his confi- dence in the righteousness of the divine dealings. It cannot, therefore, be an unwarrantable supposition, that the re- ference to the sanctuary in our text, is a reference to the public ordinances of religion as instrumental to the commu- nicating knowledge, and the strengthen- ing faith. The Psalmist is again per- plexed by much that is intricate in the dealings of God. But again he bethinks him of the sanctuary : he remembers that God's way " is in the sanctuary " — in other words, that God's method of teaching is by and through the ordi- nances of the sanctuary; and, filled with gratitude and wonder that there should be such a channel of intercourse with the Creator, he breaks into an acknow- ledgement of his unrivalled greatness.
Hence we seem justified in transfer- ring the verse to ourselves, in regarding it simply as containing an argument for the greatness of God, drawn from his working through the instrumentality of sermons and sacraments. His " way is in the sanctuary." It is in buildings devoted to the purposes of his worship,
and through the ministrations of his or- dained servants, that he commonly car- ries on his work of turning sinnei.s from the error of their ways, and building up his people in their faith. That there may be exceptions to such a rule as this, no one would for a moment dispute. Cases un(]ucstionably occur in wliich conver- sion is effected without the instrumen- tality of a sermon, or in which the soul is rapidly edified, though debarred from all public means of grace. But never- theless the general rule is, that it pleases God " by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe," not only, you observe, to bring men in the first instance to belief; but to carry them forward in godliness till belief issues in final salvation. We magnify our office. We claim no authority whatsoever for the man : but we claim the very highest for the messenger, the ambassador. Again and again would we seize oppor- tunities of impressing upon you the im- portance of entertaining just views of the ministerial office. There are num- bers of you, we must believe, who con- stantly come up to God's house with the very tempers and feelings which you would carry to a lecture-ro(tm ; with all that excited intellect, and all that critical spirit, which fit you for nothing but the sitting in judgment upon what shall be delivered, as upon a process of argument, or a specimen of elocution. There is practically no recognition of the commis- sion which is borne by the man who ad- dresses you, no influential persuasion of his being an appointed messenger through whom you may hope that God will graciously infuse light into the un- derstanding, and warmth into the heart: but, on the contrary, he is thought to stand before you with no higher claim on your attention, than what he can make good by his ovvn mental powers, and with no greater likelihood of speak- ing to your profit than is furnislied by his own skill as an expositor of truth. And upon this account mainly it is, as we have been long painfully convinced, that there are such insufficient results from the services of God's house, that Sabbath after Sabbath passes away, and scarce leaves a token that good has been wrought. You are not in the moral attitude which is presupposed ir the ap- pointment of the preacher. You are in the attitude of critics, you are in the- 61
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attitude of a jury laving to pronounce a verdict after hearing certain state- ments. But the preacher is not before you as a debater, the preacher is not l;efore you as a pleader ; and conse- quently your attitude is just the reverse of that which ought to be assumed: the preacher is before you as an ambassador, and therefore ought you to be in the attitude of mere Hsteners to an overture from the God whom you have offended, of expectants of a communication from him in whose name the preacher ad- dresses you. The evil is, you do not feel that God's way " is in the sanctu- ary;" and therefore you give too low a character both to sermons and sacra- ments, failing to view in them the ap- pointed instrumentality through which God works in converting and confirming the soul.
But, nevertheless, the fact remains, that God's way " is in the sanctuary." And a very surprising fact it is, one calculated to excite in us the highest thoughts of the supremacy of God. We wish you to contrast the agency with the result. We are always much struck with the expression of St. Paul to Ti- mothy, "in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee." The preacher, who is to be an instru- ment in the saving of others, stands in the same need of salvation himself. In the great work of gathering in the na- tions, and fixing the religion of Jesus in the households and hearts of the human population, the Almighty makes not use of lofty agents who have kept their first estate, but of the fallen and feeble, who are themselves in peril, themselves but wresJ.srs for immortality. It is easy to imagine a different arrangement. In his Epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul has supposed the case of an angel from hea- ven discharging the office of a preacher to men. It might have been so. In place of assembling to listen to the ex- hortations, and receive the counsels, of one who sliares with you your sinfulness, and is naturally under the same condem- nation, you might have thronged to the sanctuary, to hearken to a celestial mes- senger, who came down in angelic beauty, and offered you in God's name a home in the land from which he had descend- ed. And we cannot doubt that you would have hung with surpassing inter- est on the lips of the heavenly speaker ;
and that as, with an eloquence, and a pathos, and a persuasiveness, such ag are wholly unknown in the most touch- ing human oratory, he Avarned you against evil and urged you to righteous- ness, your hearts would have burned within you, and been often wrought up to a resolve of pressing towards the re- gion to which the seraph invited you. We fully believe, that, if some mysteri- ous visitant, unearthly in form and rai- ment, were to occupy this pulpit, a deep and almost painful solemnity would per- vade the assembly ; and that as, in tones such as were never modulated by human organs, and words such as never flowed from human lips, he " reasoned of right- eousness, temperance, and judgment to come," there would be produced on the mass of riveted listeners an effect, which might not indeed be permanent, but which, for the time, would be whol- ly without parallel in all that is ascribed to poweiful speaking. Neither can it be thought that an angel would preach with less affection than a man, because not exposed to our dangers, nor linked with us by any natural ties. We know that angels watch for the repentance of sinners ; that, v/hen the poorest of our race returns, like the prodigal, to his Father, a new impulse is given to their happiness ; and we cannot therefore doubt, that, if any one of these glorious beings were to be visible amongst us, and to assume the office of teacher, he would plead with such passionateness and warmth, and throw so much of heart into his remonstrance, as would leave no room for a suspicion that difference in nature incapacitated him for deep sympathy with those to whom he spake. But, to pass over other and obvious con- sequences of the substitutiim of angels for men as preachers of Christianity, it is easy to see, that, under such an ar- rangement, we should have been apt to lose sight of the operations of the Holy Spirit. You find St. Paul, when speak- ing of the Gospel as intrusted to him- self and his fellow-laborers in the minis- try, saying to the Corinthians, " We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." He assigns it you see, as a reason why the Gos|)el was committed to weak and eriing men, that Ciod might have all the glory result- ing from the publication. And undoubt-
GOD S WAY IN THE SANCTUARY.
403
edly the process secures this result. If God worked by mighty instruments, such as angels, if the engines employed were, to all appearance, adequate to the ends to be effected ; the honrtr of suc- cess would at least be divided, and the ambassador might be thought to have helped forward, by his own power, the designs of him by whom he had been sent. But, as the case now stands, the services of the sanctuarj' all go to the demonstrating the supremacy of God, because, whilst undoubtedly instrumen- tal to the effecting vast results, they ai'e manifestly insufficient in themselves for any such achievement.
And we should like you to add to this, that, not only does God employ men in preference to angels, but he commonly acts through what is weak in men, and not through what is strong. It is perhaps a single sentence in a ser- mon, a text which is quoted, a remark to which, probably, if asked, the preach- er would attach less importance than to any other part of his discourse, which makes its way into the soul of an uncon- verted hearer We wish that there could be compiled a book which should register the sayings, the words, which, falling from the lips of preachers in different ages, have penetrated that thick coating of indifference and pre- judice which lies naturally on every man's heart, and reached the soil in which vegetation is possible. We are quite persuaded that you would not find many whole sermons in such a book, not many l(»ng pieces of elaborate reasoning, not many argumentative demonstrations of human danger and human need. The volume would be a volume, we believe, of little fragments : it would be made up of simple sentiments and brief state- ments : in the majority of instances, a few syllables would constitute the " grain of mustard seed," to which Christ him- self likened his religion at the outset. We are only asserting what we reckon attested by the whole tenor of ministerial experience, when we say that sermons which God honors to the conversion of hearers, are generally effective in some solitary paragraph ; and that the results which they produce may fairly be traced, not to the lengthened oration, as a compact and well-adjusted engine, but to one of its assertions, or its remonstrances, which possibly, had you sul)jccted the discourse
to the judgment of a critic, would have been left out as injurious, or at least not conducive, to the general eflect. And we ktiovv of no more powerful evidence of a fixed determination on the part of God, to humble man by allowiu'r him to be nothing but an instrument "in his hands, than is derived from this fact of the inefi'ectiveness of all except perhaps one fine in a sermon. God will often- times pass by it, as it were, and set aside an array of argument which has been constructed with great care, or a stirring appeal into which has been ga- thered every motive which seems cal- culated to rouse a dormant immortali- ty, and, seizing on the sentence which the speaker thinks the weakest, or the paragraph in which there is nothing of rhetoric, will throw it into the soul as the germ of a genuine and permanent piety. And all this goes to the making good what we are anxious to prove, that the challenge in the second clause of our text is altogether borne imt by the assertion in the first. There is no finer })roof of the power of an author, than that he can compass great designs by inconsiderable means. If the means be great, we expect a great effect, and, when we find it, hardly count it an evi- dence of the greatness of the agent. But if the means be inconsiderable, and the produced effect great, we are lost in admiration, and want terms in which to express our sense of the might of the wo7'ker.
Let us see then how our argument stands. What result is greater than that of the renewal of luimaTi nature, the transforming into a new creature one "borne in sin, and shapen in iniquity? ' Where, in all the compass of wonder- ful things, is a more wonderful to be found than the change eficcted by con- version, or the after and gradual pre paration of man for immortality 1 The being who is naturally the enemy of God, averse from holiness, with affec- tions that fix exclusively on earthly things, is cast, as it were, into a fresh mould, and comes forth devoted to the service of his Maker, desirous of con- formity to the image of Christ, and pre- pared to act on the conviction that here he has " no abiding city." He perse- veres through a lung series of trials and difficulties, contending with and ron- querins" various enemies, acquiring in
404
GOD S WAY IN THE SANCTUARY.
greater and greater measure the several graces which are characteristic of genu- ine faith, till at length, fully " meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," he enters " the valley of the shadow of death," and presses tlirough it to glory. Yes, indeed, it is a vast achievement. Let us compare it with the employed instrumentality : this will surely bear some apparent proportion to the result. " Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary." We know that it is by and through certain public ordinances of religion that thou dost generally turn men to thyself, and afterwards strengthen them to persevere in a heavenward course. Then we will hasten to the sanctuary, that we may observe the agency through Avhich is effected what so much moves our won- der. Surely we shall find an angel ministering to the people, the being of a higher sphere, clothed in surpassing radiance, and discoursing with more than mortal power on the lofty topics of God and his dealings. Surely, if there be sacraments, they will be manifestly pregnant with energy, stupendous insti- tutions, of which it shall be impossible to partake without feeling them the ve- hicles for communications of grace. Sure- ly, in some august and overpowering mode, by a voice from the firmament, or by rich visions of immortality, will God make himself known to his people, em- ploying means which shall evidently be adapted to the taking captive the whole man, and persuading or forcing the soul into an attitude of awful adoration. Ah, my brethren, how widely different is what is actually found in the sanctuary. God is there working by sermons and sacraments. But the sermons are those of a man of like passions with yourselves, one frail and fallible, who has perhaps little or no power of enlightening your understandings, and certainly none of penetrating your hearts. There is more- over no proportion between his natural abilities as a reasoner or a speaker, and his success as an ambassador ; on the contrary, the most honored is often, to all appearance, the worst equipped ; and even where the man has strength, it may be said to be through his weakness that the chief good is wrought. And the sacramentjj — assuredly to a carnal eye nothing can be less commanding than these. There is an initiatory sacra- ment, " baptism for the remission of
sins;" but it consists in nothing but the pi'onoxmcing afew words, and the sprink- ling a little water. There is a sacrament through which membership with Christ is continued, and grace imparted for the many duties and trials of the christian ; but a morsel of bread, and a drop of wine consecrated by the priest, and received by the believer, are all that is visible in the wondrous transaction. Yes, by the sermons, not of a glorious angel, but of a sinful man : by sacra- ments, not imp]'inted with signs of Divi- nity, but so simple and unostentatious, that they seem to have no special fitness for the transmission of supernatural things ; does God gather out a church from the world, and then train it for im- mortality. And in this he is great : verily, " the excellency of the power " is of him not of us. " Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary ;" but when we turn to the sanctuary, and observe through what a slight, and apparently incompetent, instrumentality thou dost bring round results which fill us with amazement,
we can but adore thee in thine Almiofhti-
• • •
ness ; we can but exclann with a voice
of reverence and rapture, " Who is so
great a God as our God 1 "
Now we think that in the successive illustrations of our text which have thus been advanced, there has been much to suggest practical reflections of no com- mon worth. Was God's way in the Jewish temple of old 1 Was he passing, in all the sacrifices and ceremonies of the temple, to the completion of the work of our redemption ] Then let us not fail to study with all diligence the law : in the law was the germ or bud of the Gospel; and it will aid us much in understanding the system when fully laid open, to examine it attentively whilst being gradually unfolded. Christianity, after all, is but Judaism in a more ad- vanced stage; and it must therefore be our wisdom to trace carefully the religion in its progress towards perfection, if we hope to comprehend it when that per- fection was reached. It is true that types derive all their significance from Christ; but it is equally true that they reflect the light which tliey receive from the cross, and thus illustrate the sacrifice by which themselves are explained.
Is it again true that God's way was "in the sanctuary," in the holy of holies, that place of dread secrecy and sanctity 1
god's way IX THE SANCTUARY.
405
Then, as we have already inferred, let us be satisfied that God's dealings are righteous, however incomprehensible : we may not be able to explain them ; for a majestic veil shrouds the j)lace in which he works ; but we may be confident that they arc ordered in holi- ness, inasmuch as that place is of un- spotted purity.
And lastly, is God's way still " in the sanctuary ] " Is it in the sanctuary, the house devoted to his service, that he specially reveals himself, and communi- cates supplies of his grace ? Shall we not then learn to set a high worth on the public services of religion, to enter "the courts of the Lord's house" in humility, yet in hope, with holy fear, but never- theless with high expectation, as know- ing that we are to meet our Creator, but to meet him as " the God of all g^ace?" O for something of the spirit of the Psalmist, " a day in thy courts is better than a thousand." What rapid growth would there be in christian virtues, what knowledge, what peace, what joy, what assurance, if we had a practical consciousness that God's way " is in the sanctuary ;" and if we there- fore came up to the sanctuary on purpose to see him, and to be cheered by his pre- sence. You find it said of Hezekiah, that, when he had received a threatening and insulting message from the king of Assy- ria, he went straightway into the house of the Lord. He might have sought guid- ance and comfort in his own chamber: but he well knew where God was most sure to be found, and therefore did he hasten at once to the temple. My brethren, let me again say that we mag- nify, not ourselves, but our office. God is my witness that I have no thought, that, by any wisdom of my own, by skill as a reasoner, by force as a speaker, or by persuasiveness as a pleader, I may be able to instruct you, to animate, or to comfort. We will not dispute for a moment, that you
may read better sermons at home than you can hear in the church. But the difference between the preached and the ' printed sermon lies in this, that preachino- is God's ordinance and printing is not. It pleases God to save men " by the fool- ishness of preaching ;" or, more accu- rately, "by the foolishness of the pro- clamation." And therefore is it that we set the pulpit against the press, and de- clare that you are more likely to be benefitted by listening to the simplest sermon, delivered in great weakness, than by studying the volumes of the most able divines. When, but not until, it shall cease to be true that God's way " is in the sanctuary," you may hope to find those assistances and comforts in more private means of grace, which are offered you through public.
We scarcely need add that such re- marks as these apply to sacraments as well as to sermons. Yes, ye whom I never see at the table of the Lord, who expect to be nourished though ye con- tinually refuse the proffered sustenance, we venture to tell you that nothing can supply to you the want of that which you sinfully neglect. I have visited many, very many, on their death-beds, persons of various ranks and various ages. But I never yet found an individ- ual happy in the prospect of dissolution, who had habitually neglected the Lord's Supper. How should he be 1 How can he be strong, if he have lived with- out food? I know that God, if he please, can work without means : but, when he has instituted means, you have no right to expect that he will. He is on the mountain and on the flood, in the forests, and amid the stars : but his way "is in the sanctuary ;" and if therefore you would know him as a great God, great to pardon, great to perfect for immortality, you must seek him in the sanctuary, or not vvtmder if he never u« found.
SERMON XIIi.
EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION. PKEACHED AT CAMDEN CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, DECEMBER 11, 1836.
'* He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful nUo in much : and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also ia
much." — Luke xvi. 10.
There is no great difficulty in tracing the connection between these words and those by which they are immediately preceded. Our Lord had just delivered the parable of the unjust steward, and was admonishing his disciples to imitate the prudence, though not the immorali- ty, ot'that unprincipled character. " I say into you, make to yourselves friends of .he mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations." Though riches cannot purchase heaven ftn* their posses- sor, they may be so employed as to give evidence of christian faith and love, and when thus used, they may be said to pro- vide witnesses who will testify at the last to the righteousness of their owners. The suffering and the destitute who have been relieved through the wealth, of which christian principle has dictated the application, may be regarded as friends who will appear in support of their bene- factor, and prove his right to admission into the mansions prepared for those who have been faithful in their stewardship.
But this statement of Christ seemed applicable to none but the rich. " Why," his disciples might have asked, "admon- ish us to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, when we have nothing of this world's wealth, and, therefore, want the means of obeying the injunc- tion." It was probably to meet this feel- ing, which he saw rising in tlieir minds, that Christ went on to address them in the words of our text, " Ye judge wrong- ly (as if he should say) to conclude that because poor and not rich, you cannot do that which I have just recommended. •He that is faithful in that which is
least, is faithful also in much ; ' " so that the right use of little may place a man in as advantageous a position as tho right use of much. The question is not what amount of talent has been intrusted to an individual, but what has been his employment of such measure as he had; for if he have had but little, and have used that little ill, he is as criminal as though his powers had been greater, and their misuse correspondent to their extent. "He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."
It thus appears to have been the ob- ject of our Lord to inform his disciples that their poverty would be no hinderance
to securinsf themselves the advantasres
. . . ^
within reach of the rich ; and that nei- ther would it furnish them with any ex- cuse for the neglect of those duties whose performance seemed facilitated by the possession of wealth. He makes his ap- peal to a great principle — whether in the nature of things or the dealings of God — the principle that, if a man be faithful up to the measure of his ability, or un- just up to the measure of his ability, when tliat ability has been small, it may be concluded that he would be equally faithful or equally unjust were his abil- ity greatly multiplied, and that therefore he may be dealt with in both cases as though thei-e had been this multiplication, and the correspondent increase, whether in fidelity or injustice.
But though we may easily trace the bearing of Christ's assertion on other parts of the chapter, as I have already intimat- ed, it is not to be denied that the princi- ple he announces is not self-evident, but requires to be illustrated before it can l»e
EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTIOX.
407
received. Whatever may be said of the particular case of the employment of wealth, and the equality that may be es- tablished between the widow, who has Dut two mites to give, and the man of vast means, who has thousands at his disposal, there is clearly some difficulty in understanding-, as a g^eneral truth, that to be faithful in the least is to be faithful in mucli, and that to be unjust in the least is to be unjust also in much. At all events, there are certain limitations A'hich must be put on the assertion, or it must be interpreted with reference to the temper that is displayed, rather than to the action which may have been per- formed. We can hardly question that some men who are faithful in the least would not also he faithful in much. The honesty which is proof against temp- tation whilst dishonesty would procure but a triHing advantage, might probably be overcome if great gain were to follow ; and, ujjon the other hand, there might be men, who, though unjust in the least, would not also be unjust in the much ; men who think it lawful to practice the mean trick, or the contemptible evasion, but who would shun the being engaged in any great fraud.
We cannot well think that our Lord designed to affirm that every man who proved himself faithful in little matters would be as sure to be faithful in much ; or that wherever there is dishonesty in some triHing particular, there would be as certainly dishonesty if greater trust were reposed. This would be practi- cally to take no account of the ditferent strength of ditferent temptations, or the various motives operating under differ- ent circumstances. But it seems evi- dent from the connection which we have endeav(»red to trace between the text and the preceding verses, that our Lord refers to the estimate which God forms of human actions, an estimate which is made upon the dispositions which those actions disj)lay, rather than from the re- lative magnitude of the actions in the judgment of men. The man who has but little, but who is as charitable as his means will allow, is placed by (Jrud up- on the same footing with ancjther who has made an equally good use of far laro-er resources. The man who, with slender abilities, has done his utmost in the cause of righteousness, shall be accounted with as though his talents
had been considerable, and his employ- ment of them had been wholly in the service of God. And, upon the other hand, he who fails to improve the little which he has, shall incur the same con- demnation as though the little had been much. This, we say, appears the scope of the assertion of our Lord. He is not actually to be understood as affirming that wherever thexe was faithfulness in the little, there would assuredly be in the much ; or that injustice in the largest transactions must necessarily follow up- on injustice in the least. There are, in deed, senses and degi'ees in which even this assertion may be substantiated, and we shall probably find occasion to refer to these hereafter ; but we think it evi- dent, from the context, that our Lord's chief design was to state that men with very different powers and opportunities might occupy precisely the same posi- tion in God's sight, and that, consequent- ly, it would not necessarily be any dis- advantage to the poor man that he was so far behind the other in the ability to do good. The verse on which we are discoursing must be classed with those passages which affirm, in one way or another, that the different circumstances iu which men are placed, their diflerent capabilities and resources, as members of society, will not necessarily affect their future condition. Those who have been the highest, and those who have been the lowest upon earth, may ulti- mately receive precisely the same re- compense, because God will judge each man by his employment of what he had, without reference to whether it were little, or whether it were much. It will be our business to endeavor to illustrate the text, when thus considered, as an- nouncing a great principle in the Divine dealings with our race. Of course, ob- jections may be raised to the Cfpiity or tlie justice of such a procedure as is here ascribed to God, and these we mast labor to remove.
But we shall, probably, embrace what- ever is necessary for the explanation or the defence of the princijile now brought under review, if we endeavor to show you, in the first place, that the being
UNJUST IN THE LITTLE FURNISHES A STRONG GROUND FOR A M.w's BEING DEALT WtTH AS THOUGH HE HAD BEEN
UNJUST IN THE MICH ; and, in the second ])la(C, THAT MERCY DOES NO VIOLENCE
408
EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
TO EQUITY, IF FAITHFULNESS IN THE LEAST BE RECOMPENSED IN THE SAME MANNER AS FAITHFULNESS IN THE MUCH.
Now we will go back at once to the first entrance of evil, and examine how the principle of the text was acted upon in the case of the common parents of human kind. We are well aware that it was only, to all appearance, in a very slight particular that Adam was unfaith- ful, and we are equally aware that he could not not have incurred a heavier condemnation had his sin been in all human calculation of most surpassing enormity. And it is a question often put, whether it were quite what we should expect from such a Being as God, that a punishment should have been inflicted apparently so dispropor- tionate to the offence, and that for a fault which seemed so slight as that of merely eating the forbidden fruit, there should have come down upon our fore- father a vengeance which could not have been increased, Avhatever had been the crime. It is evident that the principle here acted upon is the principle of the text ; and that Adam, because he was unjust in the least, was dealt with as though he had been unjust in the much. Was this at all at variance with the known attributes of God ] The question which we have thus stated, conveys at least a suspicion that it was ; but that suspicion must disappear upon more careful examination. We readily admit that it was but a slight trial to which Adam was exposed, but not that it was a slight sin which Adam committed. The fact that the trial was but slight, is utterly inconsistent with the supposition that the sin was but small : for, it is evi- dent, that the slighter the trial, the less the excuse in case of failure; and that the less the excuse, the greater the guilt. The whole question to be decided, in the instance of Adam, v/as whether he would or would not, obey God ; and it was only giving him every possible advantage to make the trial of his obedi- ence on a particular apparently the most inconsiderable. If the trial had been made on some far greater particular, we should certainly have heard of the strength of the temptation, and the very objection that is now urged against the equity of the sentence would have been Btill urged, upon the principle that the ■creature had been tasked beyond his
powers of i-esistance. So that nothing can be more unfair than the dwelling on what is thought the smallness of Adam's sin. It is worthy of nothing but the most determined scepticism, to talk of the insignificancy of eating the forbidden fruit, as though it had been for the action in itself, and not for the action, as a test of obedience, that our common father incurred the loss of God's favor. The action in itself was in the strictest sense indifferent, neither morally good, nor morally bad ; but the moment the action was made the test of obedience it ac- quired an importance which could not be exceeded. The very circumstance of its being in itself so inconsiderable, did but enhance the immeasurable crimi- nality of its being committed. If we allow that, up to the instant of prohibition, Adam might have plucked and eaten the fruit without doing the least wrong, this interferes not with the argument that the instant the prohibition was issued, what had been before indifferent became incalculably criminal. Nay, as we have just said, it does but enhance the crimi- nality; for this only goes to the proving that God subjected man to the slightest possible trial ; and, beyond all question, what proves the slightness of the trial, proves equally the greatness of his guilt. Therefore, we know not with what show of fairness it can be objected, that there was any evident disproportion be- tween the first offence and the punish- ment which it provoked. Unless you can show that it would have been unjust in God to have punished any action of disobedience with death, you certainly cannot show, that, in regard to the eating the forbidden fruit, there was not as thorough a disobedience in this case as there could have been in any, perhaps, less excusable. So that it is only saying that no case can be imagined which might be justly punished, to say that the incurred vengeance was greater than Adam's sin deserved. Men may argue then that Adam was unjust in the least, but this affects not the equity of his having been dealt with as though he had been unjust in the much. He had been made to pass through the gentlest trust, and exposed to the smallest possible amount of temptation, and nevertheless he failed ; he was found wanting upon trial, and was speedily overcome by temptation. Does not this undeniably
EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
409
prove, that, had the trial been greater and the temptation stronger, he would have been equally found disobedient to his God ? By failing in the least, he irresistibly showed that he would have failed in the much ; and thus was his eating the forbidden fruit irresistible evidence that there would have been the same unfaithfulness had God ap- pointed a higher test of his criminality. So that if you can imagine to yourselves more heinous sins which Adam might have committed — if you will suppose him violating commandments of a loftier and more severe kind than that which he actually infringed, you do not convict him of any delinquency of which he may not be convicted, on the evidence of what you think his inconsiderable offence. Unfallen as he then was, the only thing to be tried was his ubcdicnco; and to disobey in the smallest point was to show himself ready to set his own will on all points in opposition to God's. And, therefore, we think, there was the most accurate proportion between what Adam did, and what Adam suffered. He had done the worst thing which could be done in his circumstances ; and therefore he deserved the worst that could be awarded to transgression. Yea, and if other orders of beings, spectators of what occurred in this new province of creation, had wondered that results so disastrous should follow upon what ap- peared so trifling an action, and to have demanded whether it consisted with the known attributes of their Maker, that vengeance so tremendous should overtake the doer, it would have been enough to have reminded them that, situated as Adam was, the eating of the fruit was to wage war with God ; and they would have found all their surprise removed, by observing, that more hein- ous crimes were so involved in what seemed the less, that it was truly equit- able to deal with men upon the principle, that " he that is unjust in the least is un- just also in much."
And we have no right to limit the application of the principle. From the mode in which it is announced by the Savior, we must conclude that it is gene- rally acted upon by God in dealings with men. We pass, therefore, from Adam to ourselves, and we inquire into the equity of being dealt with, if unjust in the least, as though we had been un-
just in the much. We have ali'eady said, that men would not be warranted in drawing the inference which the text seems to draw ; that they would not, that is, be always justified in concluding, that if an individual had been found unfaithful in some trifling particular, he would necessarily be so, if greater trusts should be given into his keeping. Yet the admission which we thus make re- quires to be guarded. It is rather be- cause many considerations of prudence and policy might operate to the keeping a man faithful in much, than because we repose any confidence in his honesty, that we would trust him after proving him unjust in the least. We have so far a belief in the rigid applicabilty of the test, that we reckon that he who can be unjust in the matter of a penny would also be unjustin the largest transactions, if there were stronger temptations and stronger security against being detected. There is an end at once to all our con- fidence in the integrity of an individual, the moment we ascertain that he has knowingly defrauded us of a solitary farthing, and though we might after- wards trust him with large sums, and allow him great power over our pro- perty, yet would it not be from any persuasion that he might be safely de- pended on, but solely from a feeling that the motives to honesty were stronger than the motives to dishonesty, and that it was so much for the man's interest to be faithful that we ran no risk in em- ploying his agency. This is virtually the true account of the greatest part of that apparent confidence, which gives so fine an asjiect to the transactions of a mercantile community. You observe, what has all the air of a most unbounded trust in human integrity; so that pro- perty is shipped and consigned from one land to another, without the least mis- giving as to the honor of the various persons through whose hands it must pass. It would hardly be possible, if wickedness were really purged from the world, so that the man could not be fi)und who would wilfully wrong his fellow-men, it would hardly be possible to give to our commercial dealings a franker and more cordial appearance — an appearance which might more per- suade an observer of the general preva- lence of an acknowledged trust-worthi- ness. We believe there can bo no 52
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EQUITY OF THE FTTURE RETRIBUTION.
question, that all this is to be chiefly referred to the consciousness that it is vastly for man's interest that they should deal honestly with each other. If society could be brought into such a condition that the temptations to dishonesty should be far stronger than the inducements to honesty, or that the risk and consequence of being detected in fraudulent dealings had become wholly inconsiderable, in place of being what they are, too great to be encountered, except by the most daring — why, we should soon find almost universal suspicion succeeding to the present universal confidence, and men now content with insuring against ship- wreck, would be more in fear of one another, than of the rock or the tempest. So that it is not through the known prevalence of integrity that merchants feel so safe in making their various dis- tant consignments ; still less is it through any idea that injustice in the least is no argument for injustice in the much, that the man who will drive a hard bargain, or over-reach a customer, or practice some deception of which the law takes no notice, is yet intrusted by others with large fractions of their property. Much of the virtue which is in the world is due to nothing but the not being temp- *;ed ; and, perhaps, yet more of the Honesty is owing to the strictness of the laws rather than of principles. Though, as we have said, we do not always in practice conclude that he that is unjust in the least would be unjust also in the much, we certainly have no farther con- fidence in him than we derive from the statute-book of the land. If we feel sure that he will not commit a great fraud, it is only because we believe the dread of legal process will fill effectually the place of a fine and ever-active conscience. So that it is after all a great recognition among ourselves of the principle that he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. It is not a recognition which is evidenced by our refusing to put any thing in the power of the indi- vidual whom we suspect or have con- victed of the contemptible trick, or the dishonorable evasion ; but it is a recog- nition which is evidenced by the reasons by which we justify to ourselves any after confidence in the man — reasons which are invariably fetched from the defences and securities, as we think them — pro- vided for us by the laws of the land, and
not in any degree from that moral recti- tude and firmness, which whejesoever they exist, constitute a safeguard which cannot be equalled.
And to go yet farther than this. We never feel much surprised if an individual who proved himself not over scrupulous in little things, be at length detected in some great act of dishonesty. The tradesman, of whom we have reason to believe that he would use a false balance, or palm off' an inferior article on his cus- tomers— why, I never am unprepared foi hearing, that he has brought himself with in the reach of the law by some flagrant attempt to enrich himself at other men's cost. And the merchant, of whom I can once ascertain that he has soiled his hands with dishonorable profit, out- witting other men, taking undue advan- tage, though not in such a manner as to expose himself to the censures of the law — it never amazes me to be told that he has utterly lost all his credit, and that he has been guilty of frauds that must make him an outcast. If I felt any surprize, it would only be that I had thought him too shrewd and too politic to venture so far, and because I had calculated on his prudence, though not on his principle. I am so ready in practice to admit that injustice in the least argues that there will be injustice in the much, that I hear nothing more than I myself could have predicted, when informed, that he who was at one time merely a pilferer, and a defrauder in things which could not be noticed, has become, as his tiade or his expert- ness increased, a thorough master in cheating, and made himself infamous by the boldness and extent of his frauds.
It is farther worth your observing how accurately the assertion of the text is verified and substantiated in regard to the use made of wealth. This is the case to which Christ specially refers, and which ought not, therefore, to pas3 without some share of remark. If a man have been illiberal, and shown a want of christian charity whilst his income was small, what will ordinarily be the effect of an increase in his income ] Why, to make him yet more illiberal and un- charitable. The instances of this are very curious, but quite frequent enough to press themselves upon the attention of any ordinary observer. If a man have done what he could with small
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means, and distributed of the little to those yet more straitened, you will ordi- narily find that with the increase in his means there will be an increase of his charities. So that proof is afforded that he that is faithful in the least is faithful also in the much. But exactly the re- verse takes place when a nis^gardly and churlish man gains an accession of pro- perty; even his household arrangements will be often on a less, rather than on a more, liberal scale than before ; and if he be parsimonious in his family, we may well expect that he will not be more openhanded with others. And we think it quite to be accounted for on natural principles, why an increase in his income should thus produce an in- crease in penuriousness. So long as his income is little more than adequate to the wants of his family, there is no power of accumulation ; the little that can be saved, with even rigid economy, is scarcely worth laying by, and the man may, perhaps, therefore, be ready to bestow it in charity. But so soon as his income is more than adequate to his wants, the power of accumulation is possessed, and every farthing which can be saved may go to increase the store, which is more doated on as being the object of a new passion, or the produce of a new ability. Thus what now re- mains over and above the necessary ex- penditure is worth being invested as capi- tal, and the possessor will grudge the least gift to the poor, as being so much with- drawn from his hoard. But so long as the surplus was too inconsiderable to be converted into capital, it was squandered on superfluities, or, perhaps, in some fit of generosity, bestowed upon the neces- sitous. And so it comes to pass, that where there has been no real principle of charity, whilst the means were c.m- tracted, there will often be even less of the appearance when those means are enlarged ; and that the man whose pov- erty has been made an excuse for his doing nothing for the destitute — though if he had really loved God he would have found opportunities of showing it — manifests the same illiherality when he has ample power in his hands. And what then does he do but irresistibly prove with how great truth it may be concluded that " he that is unjust in the least " will be " unjust also in much ? "
Now we have made this statement as to the degree in which this principle in question is recognized, even among our- selves, in order that they may be better prepared for its thorough introduction into God's dealings with our race. If, with all our short-sightedness and im- perfection of judgment, we find cause to conclude that, where there is injustice in the meanest particular, there will be equal injustice in the greatest, provided only there were a concurrence of power and opportunity, we cannot marvel that God, who reads the heart, and observes all its undeveloped tendencies, should visit a man unfaithful in the least with the same vengeance as another unfaithful in the much. An inconsiderable act may furnish as good evidence of the disposition as the most monstrous. He who has but small powers of defrauding, and defrauds to the amount of a penny, gives as thorough a demonstration of the want of all principle, as another, who under a different temptation, forges a name, and thereby gains a thousand pounds. And, if it be the same demon- stration of the want of principle, it i«t quite to be expected that, when the two appear at the tribunal of God, they will be accounted equally unjust, the differ- ence in the act being altogether owing to the difference in circumstances, and not a jot to the difference in the staple of character. Yet when once we take it as a maxim in' the Divine dealings, that he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much, we seem furnished with a principle of judgment which will be applicable in the case of earth's re- motest families, and every individual, whatsoever his condition.
Let us for a moment combine the two clauses of the text, and there can be no difficulty in understanding how those who had the least moral advan- tages maybe placed hereafter on a foot- ing with those who have had the great- est. If faithfulness in the least furnish a sufficient index as to faithfulness in the much, and injustice in the least, as injustice in the much, then will there be as accurate tests to which to bring the conduct of the heathen as the conduct of the christian ; that of those who have enjoyed but few means of grace, as of others on whom they were bestowed in profusion. We are of course certain that where much has been given more
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EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
wdll be required , and we cannot, there- fore, suppose that as great an amount of condemnation will be incurred by those who have not heard the Gospel, as by those who have heard it, and de- spised it.
Yet the principle asserted in our text appears to bring the two much nearer to an equality than we have been ac- customed to place them. At all events, it goes the length of asserting, that as good, ground may be furnished for the condemnation of the heathen, by his hav- ing been unjust in the little, as for that of the christian, by his having been un- just in the much. The heathen may say at last, " I had but few advantages," but the reply will be, that his non-im- provement of those few is as conclusive against him as would have been his non- improvement of the many. He had the relics of tiadition ; the lingering traces of patriarchal religion, which have ne- ver been wholly obliterated from among the most savage and ignorant of human kind. He had the foot-prints of Deity visible in all the scenes by which he was encompassed, and, yet more, he had with- in himself the witness of conscience — that monitor which is found in the low- est depths of degradation, and which never ceases to lift an impassioned voice in support of the truth, that there is a righteous moral Governor. Though man may have almost debased himself to a level with the brute by siJperstition, and yet more by vice, and though all this may be but little, when compared with the abundant privileges which belong to those on whom falls the rich light of revelation — nevertheless, if the heathen have Deen unfaithful in this little, he will have no right to complain that no- thing more was vouchsafed, and he will not be able to assert the probability that, if unfaithful in the least, he would have been faithful in the much. The probability is all the other way; for it is bi/ and throngli conscience that, un- der every dispensation, the Spirit of the living God continues its strivings with man ; and if conscience plead in vain, then, whatever the dispensation, evidence is given that its means of grace will not be effectual, and therefore might the inference be fairly drawn, that hav- ing been unjust in the least, the heathen would also be unjust in the much; and, 8o far from having a right to plead in
extenuation of his wickedness the want of christian advantages, he may even be taxed with the neglect of those advan- tages, inferred from his neglect of what were actually bestowed In like manner we deny not that in a christian commun- ity there are very different trusts deposit- ed by God with different men. Whilst one has the benefit of religious instruc- tion from his very infancy, and has been endowed with large talents, and placed in a sphere where he might act a con- spicuous part as a servant of God, an- other has been cradled in ignorance, and apparently debarred by his very con- dition from acquiring much of Christi- anity for himself, and yet more from im- parting it to others ; and we do not sup- pose of these men, that, if both are con- demned, they will be condemned with the same condemnation; but we do sup- pose, on the principle of the text, that the man who has been tried only in a little, will have no right to complain that he was not tried in the much ; and more, we should conclude, thatit might, with the most thorough justice, be inferred, that, having been unfaithful in the least, he would have been equally unfaithful in the much. It will be owintrtonothinirbut the exercise of Divine goodness that he receives not the very same punishment for his unfaithfulness in the little, as will be awarded to the other for his unfaith- fulness in much, seeing that he has given decisive evidence of a disposition, which would have made him unfaithful, what- ever the amount committed to his keep- ing. So that by just the same argu- ment— which we ourselves are wont to maintain when we reason from dishon- esty in a trifle to a fundamental want of principle, which would produce, under any other circumstances, dishonesty of the most dai'ing kind — may we conclude God would deal only righteously, if he treated a man, unlawful in the least, as though he had been unlawful in much. Yea, we can pass from our own decisions, and our own inferences, when the mat- ter in question is simply the estimate which may be formed of a man, suppo- sing him intrusted with much, from what he has shown himself when in- trusted with little. Apply our reason- ing to the case of the final judgment of different nations and different conditions : and, as there goes up to the tribunal the pagan, who never heard the Gospel of
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Jesus, lie is followed by the christian, to whom God spake in these last days by his Son ; and as the man of large ta- lents, of unbounded means, and of un- limited privilege, stands side by side with another, unto whom has been allot- ted the very lowest of moral advantages, and the very lowest opportunities of do- ing God service, you wonder how men so differently circumstanced, can be equitably bruught to the same trial. "Why we feel that we announce to you a principle, on which the judgment may justly proceed, whatever the diversities of character and of condition, when we simply quote to you the latter clause of the text — " He that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."
Now you will hardly fail to perceive that, throughout all this labored illus- tration of principle, we have not ven- tured to affirm that unfaithfulness in the least will be as severely visited as un- faithfulness in much ; but only that the one furnishes as good evidence of cha- racter as the other, so that deficiency of means will be no excuse for defi- ciency in improvement. We have not ventured to go further than this, because we know, that it is to be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for Chorazin and Beth- saida — fur those, that is, who have been unjust in the least, than for those who have been unjust in much. But this is, probably, owing, in the main, to the great mercy of God, though there may be cases in which he distinctly knows, and will act on the knowledge, that those who have been unfaithful in the least would have repented in sackcloth and ashes, had they been favored with much. Unfaithfulness in little is so strong in evidence in general that there would be unfaithfulness in much, that we do not believe that it would be at variance with justice, that if he who has exhibited the one were dealt with in precisely the same marmer as if he had exhibited the other; and, if not at variance with jus- tice, we ascribe exclusively to the mercy of God, that there is to be the gentler punishment, where there has been the least of privilege. So that a man is to have, as it were, the benefit of the sup- position, that he might have been faith- ful in much, though he has been unfaith ful in the least.
But if it be necessary thus to limit
the application of the second clause of the text, in order to preserve its con- sistency with other portions of Scripture, there is, in each instance, no respect to the person ; for we propose to show you, in the last place, tliat mercy docs no vio- lence to equity if faithjulness in the least he recompensed in tlie same measure as faitlifulness in tlie much.
Hitherto we have engaged you with the case of unfaithfulness in the least ; and our object has been to show you that it might justly be dealt with as though it had been unfaithfulness in much, however God in His mercy may extend to it a less severe measure. But we now come to the case of faithfulness in the least, and here the testimony of the Holy Scriptures is in favor of the unrestricted application of the text, and of our holding and affirming that God will allow to those who had but little, and used that little well, as brilliant a portion as to those who, having much, were alike faithful in its use. It is here that we can appeal to such passages as that which declares, that " he that re- ceiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward : " an undeniable statement that the prophet's reward may be gained by those who are never actually engaged in doing the prophet's work ; or as that which makes the poor widow's two mites outweigh, in God's sight, the costliest oblations of the wealthy ; an evident in- timation that it is not the amount given, but simply the proportion whicli the amount bears to the ability, which is considered and noted by Him, of whom poor and rich are alike stewards. If we were right in arguing that unfaithfulness in the least furnishes as correct an index of disposition and character as unfaith- fulness in much, and that, therefore, in all justice, the same punishment might in both cases be awarded, we may safely argue, conversely, that faithfulness in the least is as good evidence of character as faithfulness in the much, so that mercy cannot be said to interfere; with equity, if, in each case, the same eternal recom- pense be bestowed. If justice, initem- pered with mercy, might, in tlie one in- stance, inflict the same penalty, it must be justice nncompromised with mercy, which, in the other, allots tlie same reward. And we know of no ap- pointment which can more tend to re-
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concile us to the ir.equalitles of human condition, than that thus announced by our Savior : " He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much," You are all aware that one of the main arguments by which natural religion substantiates the truth of a judgment to come, is fetched fronr the frequent de- pression of virtue, and the triumphs of wickedness ; from those manifest diver- sities and incongruities which deform the present state, and which seem to proclaim that there must yet come a season of adjustment and of retribution. And it is a reasoning not easily invali- dated, that the Righteous Moral Go- vernor must have designed our reap- pearance in another state of being, since good and evil are here unequally dis- tributed, and with so little regard, as it seems, to character, that the government of God would contradict His nature if it terminated with the present dispensation. But when you have ceased to wonder at the inequalities of human condition, be- cause persuaded that we are as yet only in an interlocutory state, there are questions which may press on us of singular in- terest, with regard to that judgment, of whose certainty they are witnesses. If, for example, the judgment is to demon- strate the impartiality of God, if its allot- ments are to make it evident that He has dealt with all men without respect of persons, it is difficult to understand how this can be effected, seeing that powers and opportunities for preparation have been so various, that one man ap- pears to have been situated a hundred fold more advantageously than another for escaping the punishment and secur- ing the reward. According to the repre- sentations furnished us by the Scriptures, the recompense of the future is propor- tioned to what men have done for God whilst on earth. But some have been so much better circumstanced than others for doing God service, that it seems as though it were impossible that thorough impartiality should at last be demonstra- ted. If we take the singular but ma- jestic sketch of the judgment drawn by Christ himself, shortly before his cruci- fixion, we find that the acquittal or the condemnation is made to turn merely upon the having been beneficent, upon having fed the hungry, cluthed the naked, and visited the sick. Bnt this is like putting the acquittal witliin the reach of
none but the rich, none at least but those who have more than sufficient for them- selves, an overplus with which to be charitable. What is the poor man to do I the individual who is forced to ap- peal to the bounty of others, and is wholly without the power of being a benefactor himself? Is his poverty to incapacitate him for passing the last trial I Is the wealth of another man to give so mighty a superiority that here- after, as well as here, riches will secure him the ascendency 1 Indeed this were to perpetuate into futurity the distinc- tions «f the present, that the last judg- ment, in place of adjusting the discrepan- cies which now throw suspicion on the moral government of God, would but make hopeless the solution of what is intricate and perplexed. Yet is it not certain that some men, through no fault of their own, but simply through the Divine arrangements, are so situated, so endowed, that they cannot do what others do in offices of zeal and benevolence, and that, therefore, they must stand lower amongst the candidates for eter- nity, than had their station on earth or power been different. Oh, not so ! It is here that the principle of the text comes beautifully into operation, " He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much." We concede, of course, that one man can do far more than an- other, if there be a great difference in the means of usefulness respectively pos- sessed. But it does not follow, whatever their means, that the one icill do more than the other, in proportion to his ability ; and if God is pleased to take his estimate from the proportion which what is done bears to the power ot doing, there is an end at once to all ne- cessary superiority on the side of those who have the pre-eminence in wealth, rank, and talent. The proportion may be as great, or even greater, in the in- stance of the poor, or the despised, or the illiterate man, than in that of another who has all the advantages in which the first is deficient, and therefore, may the greater recompense be gained where, on all human calculation, there was the least power of giving. Will you tell me that poverty, because it incapacitates a man from being a giver, must, therefore, incapacitate him for all those acts of benevolence which are mentioned by Christ as the criterion of character ? Wo
EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
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deny it altogether. We contend that the poorest may be charitable, as well as the richest. What though he have not even the widow's two mites to bestow ] VVhat though he be actually dependant upon the bounty of others ] Neverthe- less he may, by his rigid carefulness, and in taking as little as possible from the charitable, leave as much as possible to be bestowed on his companions in misery, and thus does he contribute to their relief precisely that amount, which, bad he been less conscientious and less thrifty, he would have required for him- self. This is just the extreme case, the case of the actual beggar ; and this beg- gar may rob other beggars by wringing from the benevolent more than his own necessities positively demand, or he may contribute to other beggars by accepting from the benevolent only what will just suffice to keep him from starvation. He is " faithful in the least," if he draw as little as possible on the funds of benevo- lence ; and thus his faithfulness in the least having involved a much harder sacrifice than that of many others in the much, may place him far above the stewards who have had to administer, and have administered well, the largest revenues of opulence. There can be no greater mistake than the imagining that God has done the poor man such injustice as to allow the rich to mono- polize the power of being charitable. I do not know the man so poor that he may not give to others. He may give by taking less from the benevolent than they are ready to bestow, and by thus leaving them more to bestow in other quarters.
And, we nothing doubt, that many a poor man, who has always been striving to scrape together as much as was pos- sible from the charitable, never reckon- ing that he had enough, if more were to be had^that he will be as truly convic- ted at tlie judgment of having defrauded the perishing, and wronged the friend- less, as the wealthy proprietor who has squandered his substance on luxury, and closed his ear to the cry of the destitute. In this manner it is that, in the case of many, there is as much scope for un- faithfulness with small means, as with large; and that therefore, the poorest may place himself on a footing with the richest, when the two come to the judg- ment, as stewards of God's gift. It is
the same in every other case. The man who has but the smallest opportunities of instruction, may improve those op portunities with as much of earnestness and diligence as another wlio has the largest. There will be a great differ- ence in the knowledge of the two, but none in the faithfulness j and a gracious God, who judges according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not, may look with equal favor on both. And O, we do think this one of the most beautiful of the arrangements in the dispensation beneath which we live ! We cannot receive from God so little of present advantage as not to have enough to enable us to attain the very noblest of the future. We care not how different may be the condition of those whom we address — high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, we re- gard them all as candidates for the same prizes, all as having it equally ni their power, not only to enter heaven, but to reach eminence in that kingdom. The distinctions of earth are evanescent, and have nothing to correspond with them in that state of being. Indeed, those who have had present advantages, will have more to answer for ; ft)r the possess- ion of those advantages implies account- ableness, but their non-possession entails no disability in regaj-d to striving for the rewards of eternity. We carry onwards our thoughts to the last dread assize, when, throned in clouds, the Judge of quick and dead shall summon all to His bar. Ministers and people, masters and servants, all shall stand together — all be brought to a strict reckoning for their respective talents and opportunities ; and, if all arc accepted thnnigh the mer- its of Christ, the minister will not neces- sarily be placed higher than the people, though his occupati(jn, whilst on earth, was holier, and more intimate with Deity; neither will masters and servants be necessarily separated because they moved duritig life in widely dillerent spheres, each in his own place may have d(jne his utmost for God, and hereafter, in ihcuough consistency with His every attribute, may God assign to each the same recompense. In this way it is that Christianity, though vehemently oppos- ed to all those levelling theories which disaffected men industriously broach, place the highest aixl the lowest on a par in the compclition for cterniiv.
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EQUITY OF THE FUTURE RETRIBUTION.
Christianity is the best upholder of those distinctions in society, teaching that there is no more direct rebellion against the Creator than resistance to any constituted authority, or the en- deavor to bring round that boasted equal- ity in which all shall have the same rights, or, more truly, in which none shall have any. But, nevertheless, if Christianity make it sinful to repine against servitude, it gives dignity to servitude, which would show the repining unreasonable, if it had not been made sinful. It tells every servant that, if he be faithful in his call- ing, he may rank with his master here- after, even though the employment of the master have been exclusively the ad- vancing of Christ's cause on earth. O it should be a surprisingly cheering thing to those who have to wear away life in the meanest occupation, that, as immor- tal beings, they are not one jot disad- vantaged by their temporal position, but may make as much progress in the Chris- tian race as though placed on the very summit in Christian office. Ay, and the cottager, who never is heard of beyond his own petty village, and whose only business in life is with the spade and the plough ; and the artizan, who, week af- ter week, must pursue the same dull
routine, turning the wheel or throwing the shuttle; and the servant, whose days are consumed in the drudgery of servi- tude— there is not one of these who need look with discontent on the missionary, before whom idolatry is quailing, or the philanthropist, whose charities spread happiness through a parish. The in- mates of the cottage, or the manufac- tory, or the kitchen, are the rivals of the missionary and the philanthropist for the prizes of heaven ; and, when the throne is set, and the books are opened, all may receive the same crown, or that on the head of the mean man may even outshine that which the distinguished man wears.
O that God might grant to all of us so to use the present world as not to abuse it ; so to pass through things tem- poral as that we finally lose not things eternal; and if we have much, whether of wealth, or of talent, or of privileges, that we may labor to be faithful, know- ing that the much not improved must entail an immensity of wretchedness, and that, if we have little, we may labor equally to be faithful, knowing that a little well improved shall assure aa im- mensity of happiness.
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