Sermons on faith and doctrine

c

t ckc c

c

ccco-c c
Cccec

c

><i

NEW COLLEGE,
LONDON

(Formerly HACKNEY AND NEW COLLEGE)

LIBRARY

cc .

€G
f*

cr

we

oorcc'c^Gxr c

I

(K

-s^O-v —

CC

vo- -*w._

rest

frrfc $ci'

: (c'CCCdt

J ( Ctr: C C(T

c

Y ft rc(C

i{

III

trecc

SERMONS

ON

FAITH AND DOCTRINE

SERMONS

ON

FAITH AND DOCTRINE

BY THE LATE

BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A.

MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE

EDITED BY THE VERY REV. THE HON.

W. H. FREMANTLE, D.D.

DEAN OF RIPON

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

1901

HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE

THE most notable fact as to Jowett's doctrinal
position is that he lays very little stress on the Church
system, either the system of worship or that of
dogma. From this it has been concluded that he
held lightly by Christianity itself and was content
with a vague theism, in which Plato counted for as
much as Christ Himself.

The readers of these Sermons will hardly think
that his theism was vague. Metaphysically, they will
find that he shrank neither from the assertion of the
divine personality, though conscious of the limita
tions attendant upon the transfer of that expression
from man to God, nor from speaking of Christ as * our
Saviour,' and as the expression of the divine nature
in a human form ; and that God and immortality
were all in all to him. Morally, they will find that
the image of Christ is dominant in the preacher's
thoughts.

It may be admitted that he was naturally of a

VI

PREFACE

sceptical turn of mind. But he combated this ten
dency in all practical matters. No one was more
decided than he in all that concerned moral character
or educational discipline; and, though he would criti
cize a proposal which aimed at some good object,
yet, when convinced, he would support it steadily.
4 1 think enthusiasm so much more valuable a quality
than criticism,' he would say. But there were several
causes which increased his natural tendency to shrink
from sharp definitions on matters of deep importance.
His love of truth was fastidious, and an over-statement
of the side of a case with which he sympathized was
positively painful to him. He was also habitually
reticent. His early evangelical associations, and the
Tractarian controversy in his youth at Oxford, had
resulted in a strong sense of the evils of much talk
about religion. He regretted at the close of his life
that religion should be put aside in conversation ; but,
only occasionally, and with intimate friends, would he
speak of it at all freely. I remember, when I was his
pupil, his closing a discussion in which I had tried to
engage him, by saying, 4 We are tired in Oxford of talk
about such things.' To an undergraduate, at a much
later time, who had undergone a very sudden con
version, and told him that he had * found Jesus,' he said,
laying his hand on his shoulder, 4 1 am very glad of it,
my dear boy, but don't talk about it.' To this fear of
exaggeration was added in his early manhood a con
viction that the statements in which theological opinion

PREFACE vii

was commonly expressed were inadequate. I recall
a saying of his in the beginning of 1853, that, if we
could make a tour of the world, getting to understand
the faith of each country, our religious beliefs would
probably be very different from what they are. I do
not think this implied any essential scepticism, but
merely the doubt whether Christian freedom of thought
had as yet been allowed its full scope : and this feeling
will be found in many of the sermons in this volume.

His attitude was well indicated in a few words
which I heard from him in 1857, when I was reading
theology in Oxford : ' The criticisms of the present
day will at first be felt as a blow to faith, but they
will issue in its fuller establishment ; all that is im
portant will survive.' The method of exposition
followed in his book on St. Paul's Epistles (published
in 1855) also throws light on it. He was never satis
fied with such an interpretation as would commit
the Apostle to an exact logical system, but sought
to bring out the 'streams of tendency' which com
bined in each phrase, and to make it point to a truth
larger than any which our theological systems have
expressed. The reception, however, which was given
to this work, the misrepresentation of it as an attack
upon Christian truth, and the personal injustice of
which he was the object, made him shrink into himself.
He published a second edition, in which the Essays
were rehandled, the doctrinal utterances of the first
edition were explained, and a positive statement was

Vlll

PREFACE

substituted for a negative one : for instance, in the
Essay on the Atonement, where the first edition
had ' not the sacrifice, not the satisfaction, but the
greatest moral act ever done in the world,' the second
edition explains how the moral act is the true sacri
fice and satisfaction. But these explanations were
not accepted by those who had prejudged the case.
He published his treatise on the Interpretation of
Scripture in the 'Essays and Reviews' in 1860, and
had it in contemplation as late as 1870 to contribute
to a second series of essays on the same lines ; but,
partly, the new duties and responsibilities of the Master
ship, partly, the growing doubt whether the time was
come for the profitable discussion of such subjects
in England, made him feel it undesirable to proceed.
In his illness in 1891, when he thought of asking me
to be co -editor with Professor Campbell of a new
issue of his work on St. Paul's Epistles (a task which
he afterwards felt it better to entrust to Professor
Campbell alone), he said to me : ' The chief interest
of the book and the essays contained in it is that they
came a little before their time.' Some of his friends
urged him, when the termination of his tenure of the
Vice- Chancellorship at Oxford in 1886 left him with
somewhat more leisure, to undertake some definite
theological work. But, though not absolutely declin
ing, he said that he doubted whether he could then
write such a work as would live. His energy, which
was then exhausted by four years of incessant official

PREFACE ix

work, revived to some extent, but not sufficiently for
the effort required.

Had Jowett's early work been received with candour,
instead of being- treated as an attack upon Christianity,
he would in all probability have been a great religious
teacher. The positive side of his convictions would
have gained strength through sympathy, and he would
have put forward his conclusions as the development
and extension of received truth, not as a criticism
upon its previous expression ; for he, no less than
others, varied in his tone about such subjects accord
ing to his environment. I remember his saying, when
I had been appointed Bampton Lecturer, and he was
wishing me to come to Balliol as theological tutor :
1 I think we have been too much afraid of system.'
Some casual remarks may, no doubt, be found in his
biography which may seem to show a distrust of the
records of the life of Christ ; but, on the other hand,
all through his later years the work which he most
longed to write, had health and strength sufficed,
was a life of Christ. What he opposed was the
dwelling upon each statement in the record as if all
alike were unimpeachable, upon each wrord casually
uttered as equal to the most solemn statements of
moral and religious truth. But the character and
spirit of Christ, which the record alone discloses,
were to him supreme. " The perfect man," he says,
" the Lord Jesus Christ, is the only image we are
capable of attaining of the perfect God."

x PREFACE

A few of his sayings may perhaps be introduced
here in corroboration of this general statement. ' We
are not,' he is constantly saying, * to be the slaves of
words ; the reality beneath them is alone important.'
" We cannot really understand religious proposi
tions if we are unable to re- word them." His dislike
of dogmatic statements was due to his feeling that
there is something untruthful in closing over a com
plex subject by a general and inadequate affirmation.
" The nature of God is inscrutable, and can no more
be expressed in words and figures of speech than in
the graven images of olden times." On the other hand,
he constantly points to the firm standing- ground for
religion which is presented by nature and morality.
u Physical laws are a revelation of God. By knowing
and using them we become safe from the arrow that
flieth by day and the pestilence which walketh in
darkness." "The curtain of the physical world is
closing in upon us. What does this mean but that the
arms of His intelligence are embracing us on every
side ? " As regards moral truth he is still more em
phatic. " If a man were to worship truth, justice, and
love, would he not be really worshipping God ? " " We
may say of God that He is infinite, incorporeal,
and the like. But to say all this of Him is not half
so much as to say that He is just, loving, and true."
Sayings of this kind, which abound in these sermons,
when taken on their negative side, have made some
men (rather recklessly, I think) speak of him as

PREFACE xi

a * disintegrator.' They are really the attempt to dis
close the unassailable basis of faith. As our Lord said
that on love to God and man hung all the law and
the prophets, so he would say : The great moral ideas
implanted within our hearts are the foundation ; all
that we assert in theology must be consistent with
these; on these we fall back when traditional ideas
have become untenable. And, as he further contends,
these moral principles are fruitful : they enable us to
harmonize and develop the new revelations of Himself
which God is giving to this generation through science
or criticism or the knowledge of other religions. Also,
he maintains that this teaching is as positive and
authoritative as that which is more commonly acknow
ledged, and which only appears more certain because
it is accepted without inquiry.

There are signs that men's convictions are moving
in the direction towards which Jowett pointed. It is
possible that he may still be treated among theo
logians as Thomas Young, the discoverer of the
Undulatory Theory of Light, was treated among
physicists ; of whom the great German, Helmholtz,
writes : l He was one of the most profound minds that
the world has ever seen ; but he had the misfortune
to be too much in advance of his age. . . . His most
important ideas, therefore, lay buried and forgotten
. . . until a new generation gradually and painfully
made the same discoveries, and proved the exact
ness of his assertions.' But we may hope that the

xii PREFACE

recognition of Jowett's services in the grander sphere
of theology may not be thus delayed.

This short appreciation of Jowett's theological
position will, I believe, be felt to be borne out by
the sermons in this volume. They will be found,
no doubt, to be unsystematic (this is inherent in
their form), and so far incomplete. But it may be
well to bear in mind that the greatest teachers of the
world, whether we take the Central Figure of all, or
whether we take Buddha or Socrates in the East and
West, left no writings : their ideas, which have moved
the heart of mankind, must be gathered from the
reports of their disciples. What was felt by Jowett's
pupils and friends was an influence of a similar kind,
not the binding force of a system, but great thoughts
opening out an aperpu of things not commonly
realized, or a special light which coloured the whole
scene. It is not, therefore, as chapters of a work, of
which each part has been thought out and made to
fit in to the whole, that these sermons should be
read ; the estimate formed of them will be various,
and those who most appreciate them will value, some
one part, some another. He himself had no very
high opinion of them, and, but for the strong wish
of his friends1, would not have desired their publi
cation. On the other hand, some of the reasons
which made him shrink from publicity have passed

1 See their letter, contained in vol. i.

PREFACE xiii

away; and men are often more ready to learn from
the dead1.

It may not, therefore, be out of place if an attempt
be made, however briefly, to give an outline of the
contents of these sermons. I have placed first a ser
mon on Evolution, not only as showing the writer's
mode of dealing with the most remarkable philo
sophical conception which had appeared during his
lifetime, or as evincing his perfect independence of
thought, but because it meets directly the question
raised by that conception as to the central truth of
theology, the being of God. The teaching is that the
chief source of the knowledge of God is not in the
region affected by physical causes, but in the higher
nature of man. Next comes a series of sermons which
Jowett appears to have intended to place together as
giving his teaching on Natural Religion ; but two
sermons to which he alludes, on the ideas of God con
veyed by the Oriental religions and the Greek philo
sophers, are not among those which have come under
my hand, and if they were ever preached they have
disappeared. I have therefore thought it best to insert
here two sermons which touch upon these subjects in a
more general way. The sermon on the l other sheep
not of this fold,' and that on the growth of the true

1 Should any one desire a fuller and more systematic
presentation of Jowett's teaching, I would refer him to
an article by Mr. C. G. Montefiore in the Jewish Quarterly
Review for January, 1900.

xiv PREFACE

idea of the divine character, indicate Jowett's method of
treating non- Christian faiths. The sermons on Hebrew
religion and on the Christian idea of God embrace the
field of what is commonly called Revealed Religion ;
wThile that on c the Subjection of the Son' (i Cor. xv. 28)
is an attempt to exhibit the modern aspects of reli
gion, in which the biblical ideas are modified and
enlarged by the experience and discoveries of later
times.

The sermon on ' Feeling after God ' describes the
universal elements of religion and their influence on
the life of mankind. The idea that God can ever dis
appear from men's minds he declares to be chimerical.
The contemplation of the ideal of truth and justice
is in itself a kind of worship of God ; the pursuit of
goodness is an incipient Christianity. l In Him,' says
the text of another similar sermon, which it has been
found impossible to include, ' we live, and move, and
have our being.' We commune with God through
nature, and worship Him by obeying its laws ; and in
history by honouring each type of goodness. God
is within us as well as without us, we are His off
spring and have affinity with Him.

To these sermons, which Jowett himself seems to
have selected as typical, are added others in which
these general views are expanded or are looked at
from various sides : that on the ' Image of the invisible
God,' the reflexion of the Divine in nature, in the
moral law, in the sense of spiritual things which

PREFACE xv

belong to our higher life, and in the communion of
saints ; that on ' God just, loving, true,' in which, by
means of three parables, His justice, truth and love
are indicated in contrast with certain systems of theo
logy ; and in which there is a remarkable passage on
the subject of eternal punishment ; and that on God as
a Spirit — ' Neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem
shall men worship the Father ' — (4 one of the revolu
tionary sayings of Christ '), drawing out the spiri
tuality of the true religion, which is not dependent
on system. Jowett's biography shows how earnestly
in his later years he dwelt upon the belief that the
main elements of religion were not only consonant
with, but necessary parts of, human nature, and that
the fact that they have been revealed or disclosed
in the Scriptures should not result in a dependence
on the letter of Scripture, or on systems drawn from
it, but should stimulate us to find them as they have
been enshrined, by the purpose of God, in the very
structure of the universe, in the life of humanity, and
in our own better mind. But it would be a mistake
to suppose that this attitude implied any lack of con
fidence in the divine character of Christ and His reli
gion. The sermons which follow, on the oneness
of Christ with God, through complete community of
nature and allegiance ; on the authority of Christ, as
flowing from His spiritual nature and His union with
God ; the sermon on ' My Kingdom is not of this
world,' which exhibits the spirit of Christ and the

xvi PREFACE

life flowing- from it as always above the course of
the world, though not necessarily disjoined from it ;
those on the Lord's Prayer and on prayer generally ;
and that on the Lord's Supper, show how heartily
he responded to the claims which the nature and
character of our Lord make upon the conscience.

The concluding- sermon is on Immortality, arguing
from God's nature and His justice to His children,
from the hopes which He has excited in us, from the
assurance which we feel that what is best is most
enduring, that we shall live to Him beyond the grave,
and giving a new and striking view of the saying, 4 If
in this life only we have hope, we are of all men
most miserable.' I have added, since space permits it,
a sermon on Friendship. It is unconnected with the
rest, but its publication has been asked for by several
of those who heard it, and who lamented its exclusion
from a former volume.

It will be felt, no doubt, by many who crave for a
complete theological system, that these sermons are but
fragmentary, and, so far, unsatisfying. But it should
be remembered that the teachings of some of the
greatest of men have not been given in detailed state
ments, but rather, to use a phrase of Matthew Arnold's,
1 as language thrown out at an object of consciousness
not fully grasped.' Another thing- which will be
observed in these sermons is the constant recurrence
to a few great ideas. This also is a characteristic of
the greatest religious teachers, especially in old age.

PREFACE xvii

Richard Baxter, whom Jowett greatly admired, says
that a single expression from the Lord's Prayer or the
Decalogue gave him more spiritual sustenance than
all the intricate theories for which he had once
contended. We may admit that Jowett 's mind was
strongly influenced by Plato, and that the ' contem
plation of the idea of good ' was the medium through
which religion most powerfully influenced him. But
the l idea of good ' was what theologians have always
dwelt on as ' the image of Christ,' not as a model
or literal exemplar, but as a spirit capable of renew
ing the world.

His presentation of this may not embrace the whole
of religion ; it certainly will not answer all the ques
tions which men may ask. If it is felt by some of
us that Jowett's philosophic mind was too readily
satisfied with the idea, and gave too little weight to
the outward form, whether of the Incarnation or of
the Church ; yet we may recall to mind that St. John,
who applies to the teachers of his day this test, * Every
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh, is of God,' also records the words in which
Christ bids His followers rejoice that this outward
form should pass from their view, and the Spirit, the
Comforter, should come. To many minds this is the
truth which is specially needed. To those who feel
that the systems in which religion has clothed itself
have become to them, in a certain degree, inadequate
or unreal, Jowett's teaching will bring strong con-

b

xviii PREFACE

solation. They will find in it a constant effort to
restore the moral and spiritual basis of religion, not
conflicting with the ancient standards, but rather
tending- to interpret them and make them minister
more fully to the needs of our day.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SERMON PACK

I. Ps. viii. 3-8.

DARWINISM AND FAITH IN GOD

(In 1871) i
II. John x. 16.

GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS

(Balliol, Nov. 1877) 23

III. Rom. iii. 6.

GROWTH OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

(Before the University) 38

IV. Deut. vi. 4.

HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD

(Balliol, April 23, 1876) 57
V. Heb. i. i, 2.

CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD

(Balliol, May 21, 1876) 77
VI. i Cor. xv. 28.

THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON 95

(Undated)

VII. Actsw\\\. 27.

FEELING AFTER GOD

(Balliol, Feb. 1 8, 1877) 113
VIII. Col. i. 15.

THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD

(St. Mary's, Oxford, Oct. 25. 1874) 131

IX. I John iii. 8.

GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE

(Balliol, April 20, 1 884) 1 53

xx TABLE OF CONTENTS

SERMON PAGE

X. John iv. 21.

SPIRITUAL RELIGION NOT DEPENDENT ON

SYSTEM 174

(Balliol. Undated)
XI. John vii. 16-18.

CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER

(St. Mary's, Oxford, Oct. 22, 1882) 194

XII. Matt. vii. 29.

CHRIST'S AUTHORITY

(Balliol, April 12, 1880) 216

XIII. John xviii. 36.

THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM

(Balliol, Jan. 22, 1882) 230

XIV. Luke xi. I, 2.

THE LORD'S PRAYER . (Balliol, 1872) 250

XV. Luke xi. i.

PRAYER AND LIFE . (Balliol, May 18, 1884) 264

XVI. Gen. i. 2. Js. Ixi. I.

THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT

(Westminster Abbey, July 2, 1876) 282

XVII. John vi. 52 and 63.

THE LORD'S SUPPER . . (Balliol, 1869) 301

XVIII. \John\\\. 2.

IMMORTALITY . . . (Balliol, 1869) 317

Proverbs xxvii. 17.
FRIENDSHIP . . . (Balliol, 1873) 337

SERMONS
ON FAITH AND DOCTRINE

i

DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD1.

WHEN I CONSIDER THY HEAVENS, THE WORK OF
THY FINGERS, THE MOON AND THE STARS, WHICH
THOU HAST ORDAINED ; WHAT IS MAN, THAT THOU
ART MINDFUL OF HIM? AND THE SON OF MAN, THAT
THOU VISITEST HIM? FOR THOU HAST MADE HIM
A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, AND HAST
CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOUR. THOU
MADEST HIM TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE WORKS
OF THY HANDS; THOU HAST PUT ALL THINGS UNDER
HIS FEET: ALL SHEEP AND OXEN, YEA, AND THE
BEASTS OF THE FIELD; THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND
THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND WHATSOEVER PASSETH
THROUGH THE PATHS OF THE SEAS. O LORD OUR
LORD, HOW EXCELLENT IS THY NAME IN ALL THE

EARTH!

PSALM viii. 3-9.

THE sight of nature affects men differently in
different ages and countries. We ourselves receive
different impressions from natural scenes when the
sun shines upon them and when they are enveloped

1 Preached in 1871.
*** B

2 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

in mist and storm ; and our perceptions of them also
vary with the varying- moods of our own minds. In
the dark December mornings we can hardly remem
ber the delighted feeling with which we welcomed
the dawn in spring amid the singing of innumerable
birds. In the Hebrew prophets or psalmists likewise
may be traced a double feeling- about the external
world ; there is the consciousness of active power in
nature, and also of repose, the sense of rest as well
as of motion. It is the ' glorious God who makes the
thunder,' and at whose presence the animals cower
and tremble, who * bows the heavens and comes down,
and there is darkness under His feet ' ; and then again
appears in brightness and light, as in the eighteenth
and twenty- ninth Psalms. Yet there is also another
tone heard in the language of the Psalmist : ' The hills
stand about Jerusalem ; . even so standeth the Lord
round about His people ' ; or ' He hath set the round
world so fast that it cannot be moved.' While all
over the earth and among all nations ' the heavens
declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth
His handy work.'

If we turn from the Hebrew prophets to the Greek
mythology we seem to find indications of a time be
fore history, before poetry, of which the analysis of
language is the only witness, when the Hellenic gx>ds
were powers of nature which in the course of ages
became individualized and personified. We have
a difficulty in believing this, because in the writings

i.] NATURE AMONG HEBREWS AND GREEKS 3

or the ages which we know, the traces of such
a connexion between the gods and heroes and the
Sun or the dawn or the air have disappeared, and
the divinities are only magnified men and women, or
in a few cases the native gods of the elements. And
the Greek or Roman poets, although not wholly
wanting in feeling for the beauty of scenery, have
much less consciousness of nature than is to be
observed in the poetry of most modern European
nations. Or perhaps they may have felt as much,
but they spoke less ; their souls may have drunk in
the impressions derived from the deep blue sea, the
clear ether, the forms and colours of the landscape,
and been moulded by them ; but they do not seem to
have connected them, as we do, with the thoughts
and aspirations of the human heart, or to have found
in them the symbols of a world beyond.

In our own century, which seems likewise more
than any other to have the power of recalling the
past, the sentiment of nature again revives ; recollec
tions of childhood are still lingering about the maturity
or old age of the world, as we may say, speaking
in a figure. The poets of our own age have heard
voices in nature which were silent or uninterpreted in
the days before them. Scientific discoveries, too, to
those who can follow them, give a new interest to * the
meanest flower that breathes.' And a portion of
this spirit extends to the ordinary observer and the
common mind. Every one exults in the fresh air,

B 2

4 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

in the pleasant woodland scene, in the wide prospect,
in the illimitable ocean. In nature we find that
which we all desire — repose : there one of the best
and purest pleasures of life comes to us, healthier
than the love of art, which sometimes degenerates into
sentimentalism, a pleasure of which we can never
have too much, and which seems as we grow older
to have a more soothing power over us ; there the
heart that cannot speak may find the alleviation of
a calamity too deep for tears, for into that undisturbed
region no trouble or sorrow intrudes ; there is a great
calm, and the peace and order which reign around us
may be transferred to our own erring minds. And
through the influence of nature we may rise to think
of the God of nature and to rest in Him.

Still, there are thoughts about nature which do
from time to time arouse disquietude in our minds.
The Universe is so vast and we are so small. It is not
the language of hyperbole but of fact when we speak
of innumerable stars which exist everywhere in the
infinity of space, compared with which the life of any
individual man is only like a grain of sand, a leaf of
the forest, a drop of water spilt upon the earth. Nor
is the overpowering thought at all lessened, but the
wonder increased, when some one tells us that the
world is infinite in minuteness as well as in vastness.
We say with a meaning which could not have been
equally present to the Psalmist, and perhaps with
a sadder accent : ' Lord, what is man that Thou art

i.] REST AND UNREST FROM NATURE 5

mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest
him ? ' When, again, we consider the immeasurable
periods of time during which the earth was a desert
chaos torn by natural convulsions, or the later stages
of the world's history, in which the animals were
struggling for existence, and huge behemoths and
leviathans moved upon land and water: or, later
still, when the first traces of man appear in holes of
the rocks or lacustrine dwellings — do we not feel
a sort of discouragement ? and the consciousness of
law in all things which had once comforted us begins
to terrify us. We are aware that nature, like art,
though more beautiful and glorious far, is not the
true image of God, and that * not there, not there,' are
the foundations of human life to be sought.

And now we meet with another downfall and
discouragement. For we are told in books which are
in the hands of every one that man is descended from
the lower animals. The whole vegetable and animal
kingdoms are affirmed to have originated in some
primaeval form, and the different species of plants and
animals to have become diversified in infinite ages
by the 4 survival of the fittest.' To understand this
theory, I suppose that \ve must go back in imagination
to a time when there was no distinction of birds,
beasts, and fishes, or even of plants and animals. As
in some ancient Cosmogony (for this is a Cosmo
gony of a new kind) the forms of life began to move,
and organized structures came into being ; and then,

6 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD (i.

slowly and ever more slowly (for there is no need of
hurry when you have no limit of time), some faded
away and disappeared, and others persisted and pre
vailed, at first abnormal in some of their parts, but in a
succession of generations growing- into harmony with
themselves. Last of all, in countless millions of years,
passing through many stages of half human, half
animal existence, man was perfected ; his coat of hair
fell off, and his brain increased in size ; his features
became nobler and more expressive, and he walked
upright upon the earth.

I think we must acknowledge that this theory,
whether true or false, makes a painful impression on
the minds of many of us. It deprives us of our golden
age to which we as well as the Greeks looked back :
it seems to take not only individual men, but the
whole race of mankind, out of the providence of God :
and it touches our pride as well as our higher feelings
to be told that we, who in the language of the
Psalmist seem to be a little lower than the angels, are
really the descendants of the animals. May not man,
if he too is only one of the animals, determine to live
and die like the animals ? Or at least may not his
self-respect be impaired and partially lost, as we may
imagine to be the case with some scion of a noble
house, who is suddenly informed that all his life long
he has been mistaken and that he was really of ignoble
birth ? Such an announcement might have the effect
of degrading him, or he might, upon the revelation

i.] DANGER OF DARWINISM 7

being made to him, become inspired with a desire to
win that honour to which he was no longer born.
There would be a considerable risk that he might live
indulging his pleasures, as well as hope that he could
choose the better part. And this risk besets us at
the present moment : while we are discussing the
descent of man from the animals, and comparing
their bodily structure with our own, may we not
insensibly be losing that which distinguishes us from
them ? That which we see or seem to see, or can
represent to ourselves under any form of knowledge
or figure of speech, too easily takes the place of that
which we do not see and which cannot be similarly
represented. All knowledge is good, and all serious
inquiry and discussion is good, if we are able to follow
them. But there may be a temporary disproportion in
the parts of knowledge which has an injurious effect on
the characters of individuals and on states of society.

There are different ways in which theories such as
I have been describing may be met by those who
oppose them. First they may be treated with ridi
cule ; but this, although a natural, is not a good way
of meeting them. ' Fair creature, do you really sup
pose, or can I suppose, that you are descended from
an ape ? ' ' And you man, created in the image of
God, which will you have for your ancestor, a monkey
or an angel ? ' There is no harm in jests of this sort ;
after dinner, or at a public meeting, they are amusing
enough, if not too often repeated. But this is not

8 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

the spirit in which a serious man likes to meet the
observations of scientific inquirers ; he will not turn
the flood of religious prejudices upon them, but try
to consider their arguments upon their own merits.
Ridicule is the test of weakness or of affectation, but
not of truth. And when we remember that forty
years ago the same vindications would have been
directed against those who maintained the existence
of the earth during- untold millions of years, and that
less than twenty years ago the same incredulous
laugh would have been raised at those who affirmed
that man had dwelt upon the earth for a hundred
thousand or for many hundred thousands of years,
although these two facts are now universally admitted
by almost all educated men, experience teaches us
caution, and we see that we must treat serious things
seriously, or the laugh may be turned against ourselves.
Especially when we argue from the pulpit we ought
to be careful not to supply the chasm in our reason
ing by rhetoric, believing that no one does more
harm to religion or tends more to undermine the
Christian faith than he who appeals eloquently to our
religious feelings on behalf of a scientific untruth, or
a conclusion not warranted by facts.

I am not going to ridicule or misrepresent the writ
ings of a great naturalist whose genius and character
are deserving of our utmost respect. His speculations
are the honest result of studies in which very few of
us can follow him. It would be almost as impertinent

i.] PATIENT CRITICISM, NOT RIDICULE 9

in me to praise him as to attempt to criticize him
in his own field. I only say these few words lest
I should seem to be wanting in respect to one of the
greatest living Englishmen. But I think that we who
are not naturalists may be allowed to view this famous
theory in the light of general considerations. We
hear it spoken of everywhere ; it seems to touch our
own lives ; we cannot easily shake off the impressions
which it makes upon our minds. A discoverer is not
always the best judge of his own discoveries ; he is
apt to become enamoured of them, and is unable to
assign them their due proportions. The very inten
sity of mind which inspired him with the thought of
them prevents his placing himself outside them and
calmly reviewing them. He is lost in the light of
them ; he sees them everywhere, and cannot allow
himself to anticipate the judgement which posterity
may pass upon him. The absorbing influence of one
idea is apt to make us regardless or unobservant of
facts which lead in an opposite direction. This theory
has served to draw into light one class of phenomena ;
the discovery of some other general law, of which the
nature cannot yet be foreseen, may serve to collect
facts of another kind. Therefore no true friend of
science will be jealous of our hesitating, or perhaps
delaying a little, when implicit assent is demanded to
a great generalization. We are certainly not wrong
in asking to know with some precision what are the
limits of this generalization, which is threatening to

io DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

swallow up all science. We shall do well to consider
what it does not explain, as well as what it does.
Add to this that general ideas exercise a great power
over us ; they are very fascinating and attractive ;
the simplest account always seems to be the truest —
one idea is better than two — although there may really
be in the working of nature and in the causes of
historical events a subtlety and complexity far be
yond human thoughts to reach. The attraction is
irresistible when the animal or vegetable kingdom
is capable or supposed to be capable of being ex
plained in two words. We are very much inclined
to believe what we so easily apprehend. Then again
our teacher may be an observer of nature, and the
general ideas of which I have been speaking may be
supported by innumerable minute and curious facts,
and thus acquire the name and authority of induc
tive science. But we must not therefore infer that
the minute facts are adequate or sufficient to prove the
principle assumed. A theory which is true partially
will easily claim to be universal — the 4may ' soon passes
into a * must.' In the void of human knowledge
any account is better than none. And I need hardly
observe that mere calmness of style, though an admir
able quality, is no proof of the soundness of an argu
ment ; the greatest fallacies may be most clearly
expressed, and the greatest untruths are sometimes
found in the most logical and consecutive writings.
In what remains of this sermon I shall venture to

i.] PLEAS FOR SUSPENSE OF JUDGEMENT n

offer some remarks on the famous theory to which
I have been referring, and which I will consider, first
of all, from the intellectual side. There are some
reasons why we should suspend our judgement, and
not hastily decide that natural selection or the sur
vival of the fittest is the sole or chief cause of the
diversities of animal life. Secondly, without deter
mining whether this theory is true or untrue, or in
what degree true, of which we can only judge in
a very general manner, I shall endeavour to lay before
you some considerations of another kind, which may
be placed in the opposite scale, tending to show that,
whatever may be the origin of man, when we regard
him as a moral and religious being we are concerned,
not with what he has been, but with what he is.
Whether his history is a progress or a decline, whether
he has risen from the animals or fallen from some
other sphere, he remains what he was before, en
dowed with reason and conscience, capable of know
ing God and of contemplating His works. When the
shock of novelty is over, he resumes the even path of
a Christian life.

i . Must we not begin by asking the question :
Whether this theory is the whole explanation of the
origin of man and animals, or a part only ? And if
a part, what part — a fifth, a tenth, a twentieth ? for
we are obliged to recall our minds by numbers from
the influence of imagination. In the persistence of the
strongest, in the survival of the fittest, we recognize

12 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

a true cause of change in the forms of animal life : the
question to which we have as yet no distinct answer
is — How far has the operation of this cause extended ?
Or, if we are answered that this is the only one, and
that there is no other, because in infinite ages the
least cause, like the trickling of a stream, may pro
duce the greatest- effects — and with due regard to the
economy of the world we ought not to assume two
causes when one is sufficient — we wonder how there
can be any knowledge of this exhaustive nature.
May there not have been an adaptation of animals to
their circumstances, such as is supposed in another
famous theory, which in the course of infinite ages —
that unknown quantity has always to be added — may
have also modified them ? May there not have been
latent in the bosom of nature other causes which we
are unable to calculate — changes of atmosphere, epi
demics, diseases, currents of air or water, rapid alter
nations of heat and cold, different proportions of the
elements, or perhaps causes the very nature of which
is unknown to us, as much as electricity was to the
ancients or to the scientific inquirer of two centuries
ago ? These are the reflections which strike even an
unlearned person. The mystery of reproduction is
the greatest of all the mysteries of animal life, and
most likely to be affected by subtle influences. And
may not the instincts of animals, like the reason of
man, have had the effect sometimes of preserving the
weakest as well as the strongest ? When we think of

i.] AMBIGUITIES 13

some of the more wonderful phenomena of animal life,
of the polities of ants and bees, and of the intelligence
of some of the larger animals, we can hardly tell how
far nature may have developed instincts of concert
and self-defence, which would prevent them from
being passive victims of the struggle for existence.

Again, the terms which are used in these specula
tions are to a great extent ambiguous. When we
speak of ' evolution,' or ' development,' or even of the
more familiar terms, force, cause, law, we are insensibly
generalizing in a single word processes which may
be infinitely various and belong to different spheres
of knowledge. The laws of mind are not the same as
the laws of external nature ; nor the history of the
human mind the same as the history of external
nature. The evolution of thought is altogether
different from the evolution of the animal creation.
Are we not transferring the language of physics to
metaphysics ? Nor is the expression * survival of the
fittest ' free from ambiguity. For who are the animals
fittest to survive ? Not necessarily those who are
externally most in harmony with their circumstances
or framed on the most symmetrical model. In animals,
as in men, there may have been some hidden force
which would more than compensate for adverse ex
ternal conditions, like that hidden force in human con
stitutions which gives longevity, and is partly the
same with health and strength, partly different from
them. Amid varying circumstances and in infinite

14 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

ages can any one say what forces may have acted in
the regular course of nature ?

Passing on to the condition of man, we are ready
to acknowledge that man is an animal, and dependent
like other animals in his bodily structure on physio
logical laws. We seem to trace also in animals the
rudiments of many human qualities good and bad.
There is jealousy and strife and a natural state of war
fare among many of them ; there is vanity among the
birds of the air, like the vanity of dress or of personal
attractions among human beings ; there is subtlety
and craft, which enables them to get an enemy into
their power or to defend themselves against him ;
there are also vestiges of the higher qualities of grati
tude, of family attachment, of devotion to a master ;
and they seem to be capable of a sense of honour or
duty, and of distinguishing between hurt and injury.
Their likeness to us doubtless gives them an addi
tional claim on our sympathy : as has been well said,
4 Humanity towards the lower animals is one of the
best tests of the civilization of a nation.' Nor can we
deny to them a certain amount of progress, any more
than we can affirm that man is always progressing.
They too have their polities and a sort of society ;
they imitate one another and learn of one another ;
they are not without a limited reason which some
times enables them to meet new circumstances ; and
like mankind they have a latent and apparently
inherited experience.

i.] CHASM BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST 15

But after making all these allowances, the distance
is not sensibly diminished between man and the lower
animals. Even in his external characteristics the dif
ference is enormous. How in any struggle for exist
ence could the brain of man have been developed,
which is said to be three times as great in proportion
to his size as that of any known animal ? How did
he acquire his upright walk, or the divisions of his
fingers, or the smoothness of his skin, all which might
be useful or suitable to him in his human condition,
but could not have tended to preserve him in the
previous struggle ? How did he learn to make or use
tools, and especially the greatest of all of them, that
is, fire ? Who taught him language, or gave him the
power of reflecting on himself, or imparted to him the
reverence for a superior being, of which there seem
to be no traces among the animals ? We look at
pictures in which the bones of men, or, perhaps the
early forms of existence before birth, are shown to be
more alike than we in our ignorance had supposed.
But we always knew that there were real resemblances
between men and the animals, and a few degrees more
or less make no differences worth speaking of. For
we observe that the approximation, though striking to
the eye, is not in what is characteristic of man, but in
what is not characteristic of him. Still the chasm
remains not really lessened between the jabbering
of animals and the language of man, between the
stationariness of animals and the progress of man,

16 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

between the instinct or imitative powers of animals
and the reason of man.

And when we complain that the links are missing
which are required to prove the continuity of human
and animal life, we are told in reply that the record
is fragmentary ; that a few pages out of the whole
book, a few lines out of each page are alone preserved
to us. Are we not then being asked to decide the
question having a very small part of the evidence
before us ? If the disproof is taken away, is not the
proof also taken away ? A writing which is crossed,
which is inverted, which is disguised, may almost
always be deciphered ; but that of which the greater
part is lost cannot be deciphered with certainty,
because the part which is lost may probably affect
the meaning of that which has been preserved. If
we had the whole record before us do we suppose
that our conclusions would remain unaltered ? No
naturalist has as yet been able to give a satis
factory account of the different species of man, in
which the differences seem to be least: can we
entirely trust them when they speak to us of his
origin ? Shall we not rather wait and see whether,
in a few years, when we are no longer under the
dominion of a new idea, this famous theory, though
admitted to be a valuable contribution to natural
history, may no longer be regarded as an exhaustive
account of the origin of men and animals ? Hypo
thesis is a most gracious aid to science, but is there

i.] MATERIALIZING INFLUENCES 17

not a danger of the exact sciences becoming inexact
if they are allowed to entertain conjectures so far in
advance of facts ?

2. Physical science seems to be making great pro
gress amongst us, and is likely to have considerable
effects upon morality and religion. We may welcome
this new knowledge, and gratefully acknowledge that
many improvements in the physical, and indirectly in
the moral, state of mankind are derived from it. But
we must acknowledge that there is a risk of one part
of knowledge becoming disproportioned to the rest.
If, as some dream, we were to attempt to place life
on a merely physical basis, the noblest things in the
world, the greatest examples of men and the highest
fruits of mind, would disappear ; for these would be
substituted mere physical improvement, and possibly
actions which are now regarded as crimes might
become virtues. Health and comfort and happiness
are good, but there are higher goods, virtue and
truth and the service of God ; and as rational beings
we cannot pursue after the one without seeking for
the other.

Turning now to this other aspect of the subject,
I shall endeavour to bring to your minds some con
siderations tending to counteract these materializing
influences, which seem to cloud human life as time
goes on.

Let us consider that the highest and best things on
earth appertaining to the inner life of man, such as the

i8 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

resolute struggle against evil (whether the lesser
struggle against the evil of our own hearts, or the
greater struggle in some public arena), the living or
perhaps dying for others, the priceless value of
innocence, the disinterested heroism of affection, the
thoughts of great men in other ages, the battles which
have been fought on behalf of the truth, the example
and teaching of our Saviour, still remain what they
were, though for a time our thoughts may have
been turned in another direction. There is an in
stinct of a future which is higher than the state in
which we live, not that kind of instinct which we have
in common with the brutes, but an instinct of another
sort, which seems to grow stronger in us as we be
come better. There is a faith that when we are no
longer the servants of our own or other men's pre
judices or passions, but are seeking to live in purity
and truth, God is revealing Himself to us. There
is a voice within us which is always repeating, in
fainter or in louder accents, that we must avoid the
evil and choose the good ; that we were placed here
not to do our own will, but to follow Christ ; that we
are not to pass our lives in indolence, but to be up
and doing in the service of God, and not desiring our
own honour, but for the sake of the work possessing
our souls in sincerity and truth.

These do not cease to be, or to be obligations on
us, because the past history of man is shown to be in
some important respects different from what we once

i.] MORAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE 19

supposed, or because the action of the mind is proved
to be connected with the nerves of the brain, or
because the Gospel narrative is sometimes viewed by
the light of a microscopic criticism. I know that in
the present day we cannot avoid reading books which
come into conflict with popular views of religion, or,
perhaps, with the simple teaching of a Christian home,
and for a time they make a great impression upon us.
But we soon recover the balance of our minds ; we
see that there are some things true and some things
false in these books ; and that none of them have
overturned the Christian religion, though many of
them have considerably affected the opinions of
Christians. For the truth that is in them we are
thankful : if they have freed us from error and super
stition they have done us a service ; though they may
not have guided us into any higher truth they may
have diminished the differences which separate us from
other men and from other religions ; or they may have
taught us not to confound the accidents with the sub
stance of religion. Still, we may say with St. Paul :
' Who shall separate us from the love of Christ,' or
of our brethren ? If we ever had any, that remains :
the more real our religion is the less we are liable to
be shaken by intellectual convulsions. If a man fancies
that his faith is failing him, he must try to build up in
deeds what he is losing in words ; he must find meeting
places of philosophy and religion, such as humility, or
the sense of duty, or the acknowledgement of the

C 2

20 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

ignorance of man, or the consciousness that he is not
of the world, or seeking the things of the world, even
as Christ was not of the world. He must be desirous
to live, even in the truth which he knows not. He
may be asking himself what more he can do for
others ; what more for his own good. He may mean
the same thing, or nearly the same thing, as Christians
in general, and yet hardly venture to use any of their
expressions. He must consider how he can acquire
in this floating world some strength or fixedness of
character ; not merely receiving impressions from
books, or passing from Christianity to the influence
of art and back again, but having some short and
simple principles like those of the Hebrew prophets
ingrained in him — ' to do justice, to love truth, and to
walk humbly with God.'

There is nothing really opposed in religion and
science, though there are many false oppositions as
well as false reconcilements of them. But we must
be content to see in times of transition their paths
diverge when the one goes forward and the other
remains behind, or when the vigour of youth in the
one comes into conflict with the traditions of antiquity
in the other. Meanwhile, let us not be too much the
servants of the hour, falling under the dominion of
this or that theory which happens to be in the air,
but balancing the present with the future and with
the past, and not forgetting the great thoughts of
other ages in the progress of natural knowledge or

i.] RELIGION AND SCIENCE NOT OPPOSED 21

of material well-being. Still, we know that the
advancing tide of natural science cannot be driven
back ; nor is there the least reason to suppose that
the sentiment of religion will ever be banished from
the human heart ; and this consideration may lead
us to expect a time when they may be reconciled,
if not perfectly, yet more than at present; when
religion may be enlightened, extended, purified,
and philosophy or science inspired and elevated,
and both allied together in the service of God and
man.

And even now we can imagine individuals in whom
no such opposition is found to exist, whose minds
shrink from no investigation, and are not startled by
any real conclusions from facts ; who have a sense of
the perfect innocence of critical inquiries into Scrip
ture and speculations about the origin of man, and
yet live in faith and in communion with God, and
are impartial, not because they have no religion, but
because they leave the result with Him. They are
sensible that God has assigned them a work which is
as much His work as the preaching of the Gospel by
ministers of religion. Regarding all truth as a revela
tion of God, they have no egotism which leads them
to maintain their own ideas or discoveries in prefer
ence to those of others. They receive the wonders of
nature like the kingdom of God in the Gospel, know
ing that in a few years their powers will begin to fail,
and this will be the only way in which they can receive

22 DARWINISM, AND FAITH IN GOD [i.

them. Already they seem to themselves like children
playing upon the sands of the ocean. And in the
hour of death, when their eyes close upon external
nature, they know that He is mindful of them, and
that to Him they will return.

II

GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS1.

AND OTHER SHEEP I HAVE, WHICH ARE NOT OF
THIS FOLD : THEM ALSO I MUST BRING, AND THEY
SHALL HEAR MY VOICE; AND THERE SHALL BE ONE
FOLD, AND ONE SHEPHERD. JOHN x l6

THE teaching of our Lord was originally designed
for His own people. It was not a philosophy, but
a life — the life of a private man standing in no relation
to the political differences or to the religious con
troversies of his age. He was not a formal teacher
who laid down abstract principles, but He 'went about
doing good,' and gracious words dropped from His
lips which drew men's hearts towards Him. The lesson
was relative to the occasion, called out by some word of
His disciples, by some want of the multitude — ' having
nothing to eat' — by some incident happening in the
temple of Jerusalem, by the changing aspect of His
own life as the Jewish nation accepted or rejected
His message, by the doom which He saw was impend
ing over them. He went up once or oftener to the
national feasts ; He sat at meat with Lazarus and his
sisters, with Zacchaeus, at the house of Simon ; He

1 Preached at Balliol, Nov. 1877.

24 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [n.

lived habitually among the common people. When
men gathered to Him, He spoke to them — out of
a boat, in a synagogue, on a mountain, in the courts
of the temple ; and His words were instinct with a divine
love and power ; when the eye saw Him it blessed
Him, when the ear heard Him it gave witness to Him.
He sought to create in men the feeling which absorbed
His own being, that ' they were the sons of God.' So
simple and natural is the life of Christ, like the life of
any other man, only greater and better ; and yet
through this simple and natural life a light is shed
which reaches the controversies of after ages and the
history of the world. There is no reason to suppose
that our Lord had ever passed beyond the borders of
Israel or entered into any Gentile city. Hence He
did not come across that great controversy which
agitated the first century of the Christian Church, the
relation of the Jewish to the Gentile converts. He
had no occasion to lay down in so many words the
general principle which thirty years afterwards was
affirmed by St. Paul, that God was not the God of
the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles ; yet by a
sort of anticipation or inspiration, under a figure or
parable, He implies the same when He says : ' Other
sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also
I must bring, that there may be one fold, and one
shepherd'; or again in a similar spirit, but with a
still deeper meaning, carrying our thoughts beyond
churches and controversies to the eternal relations of

ii.] CHRIST UNITES MEN AND CHURCHES 25

God and man : * Be ye therefore the children of your
Father which is in heaven, for He maketh His sun to
shine upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth
His rain upon the just and upon the unjust.'

Thus we may think of Christ not only as the
founder of the Christian Church, but as the uniter or
reconciler of many churches to Himself and to one
another. We may think of Him also as restoring all
men everywhere, the bad and the good, the just and
the unjust, to the fatherhood of God. The divisions
of Christians have passed into a byword. The
hatreds of those who profess to be followers of Christ
are deeper and more lasting than any others, handed
down from generation to generation like blood- feuds
among barbarous tribes. The same spirit of aliena
tion is observable among nations, and among dif
ferent classes in the same nation, even in our own
humane and civilized age. There are not many per
sons who habitually regard all other men of all ranks,
religions, races, as equally with themselves God's
creatures. Yet there is also an uneasy feeling among
us that all this is not as it should be. The best men
seem to be free from such enmities and narrownesses ;
in the hour of death there are few who retain them,
and we sometimes dwell with satisfaction on the hope
that in another world they will have passed away.
There will be no more Jew or Gentile, Protestant or
Catholic, Dissenter or Churchman, master or servant,
but all one in Christ Jesus. We know also that our

26 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS . [n.

prayers and aspirations cannot in a day change the
customs of society ; that the deep lines which separate
ancient forms of religion will outlast our lifetime.
Nor can we say how far political or ecclesiastical
measures may be able to effect the union of different
religious communions. But one thing is clear that, if
such hopes are to be realized at all, a Christian or
Catholic spirit must have prepared the way for their
fulfilment ; then the walls of Jericho may fall down of
themselves. And although the prospects of unity and
peace in the Church and the world may be far off,
yet every one may cherish them in his own heart ;
and it makes a great difference in our feelings and
actions whether we think of a Church one and indi
visible, embracing all ages and all races and classes of
mankind, or whether our idea of the Christian Church
is confined to that visible portion of it in which we
worship, and vainly seek amid all varieties of circum
stances to force upon a reluctant world.

I purpose in this sermon to speak to you of the
spirit of unity, which I shall consider in two ways.
First, as it affects our feelings or attitude towards non-
Christian races and religions, whether towards the
classical nations of antiquity or to the great religions
of the East. Both these are in fact very near to us ;
the literature and history of the classical nations form
ing the basis of our higher education ; the other
constantly crossing our path in foreign travel, in com
merce, in the fulfilment of political duties. Secondly,

ii.] .ATTITUDE TO NON-CHRISTIAN SYSTEMS 27

I will consider, but on another occasion, the same
principle as it touches our relations with other Chris
tian Churches or sects who, equally with ourselves,
acknowledge the Christian rule of faith and duty.
These are nearer home ; their members live among
us, often in the same street or house ; and the peace
and political well-being of the community depends
greatly on the feelings which we entertain towards
them, and they towards us. But, lest I should weary
you by crowding too many important topics into the
space of a brief half hour, I will defer the second
division of the subject to another day.

In former ages the religion of Christ was the
antagonist of every other. Its attitude was neces
sarily one of hostility to the Gentile world. It waged
an interminable war, not only against the vices of the
heathen, but against their literature and philosophy.
To the first Christians they were ' knowledge falsely so
called,' and it was even debated among them whether
any of the great teachers of antiquity had been saved.
Soon the Church began to fight against the world,
not with spiritual weapons, but empire against empire,
the Pagan empire against the Christian, the Athanasian
against the Arian. The struggle was renewed in
what is called the conversion of the barbarians. Once
more the banner of the Cross was unfurled against
the Crescent, and the Moslem was for a time thrust
out of the sacred places of Christians. Then, stimu
lated by victory, the arms of Christians turned upon

28 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [n.

one another, and for six centuries and more, in the
Albigensian crusade, at the time of the Reformation,
during- the Thirty Years' War, the history of Chris
tianity has been an almost continuous tale of strife
and bloodshed. And, inherited from these conflicts,
which are not yet ended, there has been a sentiment
or feeling of antipathy to those of a different faith
which has sunk deep into human nature. Men have
divided the world into heathen and Christian, without
considering how much good may have been hidden
in the one, or how much of evil may have mingled
with the other. They have compared the best part
of themselves with the worst of their neighbours, the
ideal of Christianity with the corruptions of Greece
or the East. They have not aimed at impartiality,
but have been contented to accumulate all that could
be said in praise of their own, and in dispraise of other
forms of religion. At every turn such prejudices
meet us, and often in this, as well as in former ages,
have had a certain influence in our conduct towards
half civilized or barbarous races. To make them
Christians might be an object worthy of us, but until
they become Christians we seem to have no duties
towards them. The same narrow spirit has per
verted our notions of education. Persons who had
to explain the apparent anomaly of the youth of
a Christian country being engaged in the study of the
heathen writers, have maintained that the real advan
tage of a classical education was no more than this,

ii.] PREJUDICES 29

that it teaches us by contrast the superiority of
Christianity. Even the word heathen, instead of being-
regarded according to its etymology as the equivalent
of Gentiles or nations, has received what logicians
would call a bad connotation. Yet how unnatural is
all this, and how unlike the true spirit of the Gospel.
Christ Himself is the first teacher of toleration when
He says of the prophet who was not numbered among
His followers, 'Forbid him not'; or again, looking for
ward to the future ministry of His disciples, ' Pray for
them that persecute you.' In a similar spirit St. Paul
says : ' Bless them that persecute you, bless and curse
not ' ; and, instead of confining the grace of God to the
elect or to the Jewish people, he lays down the broad
principle that there is no respect of persons with
God, but that, as is elsewhere added, ' in every nation
he that feareth Him and doeth righteously is accepted
of Him.' In the Church, too, of after ages there is
a better voice heard at intervals ; the corruptions of
Christians are condemned by the virtues of heathens.
When the truth was forced upon the early Christians
that among the Gentiles also there was a faith in
a divine mind, and a hope of immortality, and a
desire to live above the world, then they began to
recognize that here, too, there had been the spirit of
God working ; they found in Greek philosophy, as
in the law and the prophets, a second witness to the
truth of the Gospel and another schoolmaster to bring
men to Christ. And since there has ceased to be

30 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [n.

a living antagonism between Christianity and the
extinct religions of Greece and Rome, the two have
ever been silently intermingling and marrying, so that
we can no longer separate them, the old philosophy
supplying some instrument of thought or some ele
ment of politics or ethics to the Catholic system, until
in a Christian country we can scarcely distinguish
which portion of the truth has been received by us
from a Gentile, which from a Jewish or Christian
source.

And so with ourselves, when we travel or read the
accounts of travellers in any eastern country ; our first
impression is something like that of St. Paul when
he stood upon the Areopagus, that the people are
wholly given to idolatry. We see or read of temples
full of idols, of cruel and barbarous rites still practised,
of licentiousness in the garb of religion, of a shocking
and degrading asceticism. But when we look a little
below the surface we find, at any rate in all the great
religions of the world, a higher witness still present
with them. The conscience of men is not dead ; they
are feeling after God if haply they may find Him.
Just as we often remark about individuals from whom
distance or .prejudice has estranged us, that they are
much better and more like ourselves than we antici
pated before we knew them, so we may observe about
these strange religions ; as we approach them nearer,
we find that they bear the lineaments of a common
human nature. Many forms of organization, many

ii.] CONTRASTS AND PARALLELISMS 31

disputes about doctrine which we fancied to be
peculiar to ourselves, reappear in them. The dis
tinctions of clergy and laity, the institution of monas-
ticism, exist in several of them ; the opposition of
faith and works, the doctrine of a sacrifice for the
sins of men, are not wanting- in them. They too have
their difficulties about necessity and free will, their
reconciliation of philosophy and faith, their attempts
to harmonize new thoughts with old writings handed
down by tradition, their differences about inspiration ;
like the East in general, a little caricaturing our more
sober Western thoughts ; and the art of interpretation
has been carried further by them than any of our
Western commentators. At every turn the student of
Brahmanism or Buddhism or Mahometism, or of the
ancient records of Assyria and Egypt, with a thrill
of interest comes across some striking parallelism
with the language or thoughts of the Old and New
Testament, or the practices of the Christian Church ;
and far more interesting than these parallelisms of
literary style or ceremonial is the fact that in every
great religion there have been a few who have sought
to pierce through the outward forms of religion to
its true nature, who, like the prophets in the Old
Testament, have seen the truth of Christ under other
names, who have cast aside the local and temporal,
and rested in the invisible and the eternal.

There is probably no cause now working in the
world, neither criticism nor the progress of natural

32 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [n.

science, nor the power of great political movements,
which will so greatly affect the future history of
Christianity as our increased acquaintance with other
religions. Mankind have lived in comparative isola
tion hitherto ; now knowledge coming from the ends
of the earth, and from the most remote ages, pours in
upon us like a flood, obscuring some of our ancient
landmarks, but also creating in us a sense such as we
never had before, that we are one family, to whom
God has spoken at sundry times and in divers man
ners, of whom no one member has been altogether
banished or expelled from Him. The mere feeling of
this leads us to regard the world under a different
aspect, no longer as lying under the shadow of His
wrath, but as pitied and accepted of Him ; no longer
as dwelling in darkness, but with a partial light. The
basis on which we rest seems to be firmer and wider
than formerly: there are many more witnesses than
we supposed to the first principles of religion. And
there are other ways in which the knowledge of other
creeds enlightens us about our own. Who that has
his mind fixed on the great forms of religion which
have endured for ages in the East can think much of
the petty disputes which sometimes agitate the minds
of Christians in our own day, and are carried on with
such extraordinary heat and bitterness, concerning
the use of a word, a vestment, a posture, a colour ?
Who can think much of these things, if he reflects on
the greater differences which have divided the human

ii.] JUDGEMENT BY MORAL STANDARDS 33

race during so many ages, and remembers that the
same trivialities which agitate ourselves have been
rife in other times and countries ? For the corruptions
of religion, the illusions of religion, the external form
of religion, seem in different degrees to be common to
all of them ; the true light which lighteth every man
coming into the world shines only sparingly and at
intervals.

The greatest lesson which the religious history
of mankind teaches us is that, laying aside the cere
monial and external, we should cling to the moral
and spiritual. For this is the high and permanent
element of religion ; it is also the element to the recog
nition of which in its fulness very few attain, and from
these few a noble rule of life has been imparted to
mankind, and the thoughts of many hearts have been
reflected in them. Such a view of religion, instead of
dividing the world more and more, is a peacemaker
between nations and races ; men more easily approach
those with whose creed they have some degree of
sympathy; they are more readily received by them
when they can present them with a truth, not anta
gonistic to their own better thoughts, but in harmony
with them. It is hard to transplant our sects and
forms of worship to some Eastern land, to carry thither
customs and usages which are familiar to us but have
no root in other countries, to convey over the sea an
ecclesiastical hierarchy and even the history of the
English Church. But it is not really difficult, or at

*** D

34 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [11.

least the difficulty is of another kind, to appeal from
the worse to the better nature of men, to quicken
the higher thought which lies buried in them, to lead
them onward through their own feelings of reverence,
not in spite of them. This is missionary work in
which every one may engage, and not the ordained
minister only, which may be carried on by a private
person, giving offence to no one, elevating and
purifying the circle in which he moves. And if some
one says that the distinctive character of Christianity
is thus likely to be lost, and that we are approaching
too near to the condemned doctrine ' that every one
shall be saved by the sect which he professeth, pro
vided he be diligent to form his life accordingly,' we
may answer that such was in fact the way in which
Jews and Gentiles both alike received the Gospel, not
as a truth wholly new or antagonistic to them, but as
confirmed by their own religion or philosophy. The
law was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ ; and
to Him bore all the prophets witness, and the new
commandment was an old one. So in other nations
there were antecedents of the Christian faith, the
growing consciousness of the brotherhood of man
kind, the increasing sense of the unity of God. For
ideas must be given through something ; men cannot
in an instant lay aside all their traditions. The old
and the new must be harmonized for them ; the new
wine cannot be put into old bottles, or the new cloth
sewed on to old garments. In the second place this

IL] PRAEPARATIO EVANGELIC A 35

wider conception of revelation is forced upon us by
a wider experience such as neither the first ages nor
any other have possessed hitherto. Thirdly, in what
I have said nothing is implied of which the germ is
not already contained in many passages of Scripture,
such as the words, ' Of a truth I perceive that God is
no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he
that feareth God and doeth righteousness is accepted
of Him.'

Yet higher and more ideal than any outward or
visible Church is the invisible, of which our conception
is more abstract and distant, and therefore more
vacant and shadowy. It is described in the words of
the Bidding Prayer as ' the congregation of faithful
men dispersed throughout the world.' But who they
are no eye of man can discern ! For the wheat and
the tares grow together in this world, and many are
called but few are chosen, and many are hearers but
not doers of the word, and the first shall be last and
the last first ; and there are other sheep not of this
fold, and there are those who have not seen and yet
have believed. There are nominal Christians who
are in no sense real Christians ; and, on the other hand,
in distant lands there are those to whom Christ in
His individual person was never known, who, never
theless, have had the temper of Christ, and in a way
of their own have followed Him : all these are included
in the invisible Church. It is a great fellowship of
those who have lived for others and not for them-

D 2

36 GREEK AND ORIENTAL RELIGIONS [n.

selves, for the truth and not for the opinion of men
only, above the world and not merely in it. It is a
communion of souls and of good men everywhere
and in all ages, who, if they could have known one
another and the Lord, would have acknowledged that
they were animated with a common spirit, and would
have loved and delighted in one another. And we,
too, feel that in the thought of this there is comfort
and strength; we rejoice in the consciousness that
here in this congregation, and everywhere to the
furthest limits of the world, there are those who stand
in the same relation towards God which, as we hope,
it may be granted to us to attain ; and that, as many
have gone before, many are coming after to work out
His will in this life and in another.

But sometimes there has been a confusion in the
minds of men, and they have sought to clothe the
visible Church in the attributes of the invisible, or
to narrow the invisible Church to the visible. The
kingdom of God, which is without, has been lighted
up with the glories of the heavenly kingdom, the
Church of history has been transformed into the
Church of prophecy. For mankind easily perceive
that the true ornaments of a church are not gold and
silver or any such thing, but the lives of believers ;
and they fancy that they can infuse into the outward
temple some grace and beauty of another sort. So
the ancient philosophers intentionally, and also unin
tentionally, confused the actual or possible constitution

ii.] THE IDEAL CHURCH 37

of the state regulated by law and custom with that
ideal of the perfect state which existed in a dream
only, or in the heart of man. So Plato in a well-
known passage of the Republic \ which reminds us of
the transitions of the Gospels, may be said to pass
from the kingdom of God which is without to the
kingdom of God which is within us. At the end of
the ninth book of the Repitblic he says : l Then if
that be his motive he will not be a statesman ? ' 'By
the dog of Egypt (the strange oath of Socrates), by
the dog of Egypt he will ! in the city which is his
own he certainly will, though in the land of his birth,
perhaps not, unless he have a divine call.' 4 1 under
stand,' is the reply, * you mean that he will be ruler
in that city of which we are the founders, and which
exists in idea only, for I do not believe that there is
such an one anywhere on earth.' l In heaven,' replies
Socrates, 4 there is laid up a pattern of it, methinks,
which he who desires may behold, and, beholding, may
set his house in order.'

1 Plato > Jowett's Translation, iii. 306.

Ill

GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE
OF GOD1

GOD FORBID : FOR THEN HOW SHALL GOD JUDGE

THE WORLD?

ROMANS iii. 6.

THE simplest truths of religion are also the deepest
and most inexhaustible. They are everywhere around
us, like the air which we breathe, and yet we are
hardly conscious of their presence. They seem to
grow up in us naturally by the light of reason and
conscience ; they are the established beliefs of the
age or country in which we live. All men are agreed
in holding them, and there is nothing new to be said
about them.

They may be summed up in two or three proposi
tions which nobody would deny, as for example :
God is just ; God is true ; He governs the world by
fixed rule ; He is the Author of our being ; He knows
and sees all things. And yet these simple proposi
tions seem to be always in danger of being lost.
They become truisms or commonplace. They are laid
on the shelf, and exercise no great influence over life.

1 Preached before the University.

HI.] SIMPLE CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 39

The most trifling controversy of the day has a deeper
interest for us than the great question of all religion,
the nature and character of God. Few persons have
ever seriously inquired into the evidence supplied by
their own nature, and by the course of the world, of
the manner of God's dealings with them. And while
holding the beliefs of the divine perfection in a lazy,
unmeaning way, they have allowed all sorts of other
beliefs to spring up in their minds which are practically
inconsistent with this. They have not said : * No>
that is impossible, because it contradicts the divine
justice or the divine goodness ' ; ' That is impossible,
because it contradicts the divine truth ' ; or, in the
impetuous language of the Apostle, 4 Yea, let God
be true, but every man a liar ' ; or, * Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right ? ' These are the tests
to which all systems of theology must at last be
brought, the human, or rather the divine, ideas of
truth and right and goodness and love.

I purpose to speak in this sermon of our simplest
conceptions of the divine nature. And first I shall
consider what these are, and how far they can be
said to accord with our experience of the world ;
and secondly I shall show how the primary concep
tions of God have been violated, not only in the
religions of the Gentiles, but in many ideas of the
divine nature which have been held by Christian
teachers. And thirdly I shall point out how to
these we return as the final result of all our

4o GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [in.

knowledge of divine things, and that they are the
fixed principles or anchors of the soul which hold us
fast amid the waves of time in life and death.

As I have already remarked, there would be no
great difference about the language in which we should
describe the Divine Being. We should use words
derived from human goodness, because we have no
other. But while we should admit that they are
applied to God in a transcendent sense, transferred
from the finite to the infinite, we should insist that
they have essentially the same meaning in both uses
of them. For example, when we say that God is
just, we do not mean to attribute to Him a quality
which is the reverse of human justice, but only more
perfect, such as is proper to One who knows all the
circumstances of every case, and has therefore a sort
of infinite equity in dealing with them. When we
ascribe any of these epithets to God, we mean to
affirm that at any rate He does not fall short of the
quality denoted by them in the ordinary human sense of
the words. There is no standard to which we can refer
the nature of God but our own moral ideas, and if we
cast a doubt upon these then we are altogether at sea.

Under the name of the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ we are worshipping an unknown God, of whom
we catch occasional glimpses flashing through the
mists and storms which envelop Him. There is
a question which the ancient philosophers were fond
of raising— -Whether there was one virtue or many ?

in.] POWER, JUSTICE, AND GOODNESS 41

They meant to ask whether all the different virtues
were derived from a single principle. So we might
ask whether there is one attribute of God or many,
and we might sum up all in one word — divine perfec
tion. If we were further to analyse this we should
attribute to Him, first, knowledge and power, which
seem to be different aspects of the same quality, for to
know all things is to be able to do them ; secondly, we
should attribute to Him truth and justice, which are
similarly connected, for truth is the foundation of
justice ; thirdly, we should attribute to Him goodness
— not that easy-going temper or character which
sometimes passes under this name among men, but the
everlasting purpose that all His creatures should be
good even as He is good. Though He might judge
them and punish them in this life or another (and
this might be the effect of the fixed laws by which
He governs the world), yet we should feel confident
of His having provided that His banished ones be
not expelled from Him. We should not doubt that
He who had the power would also have the will to
restore men to Himself ; or, as the Apostle says : 4 So
then God concluded all men under sin that He might
have mercy upon all.'

The mediaeval saints would have spoken of what
they termed ' the enjoyment of God.' And certainly
there is great comfort in the thought of a divine
perfection — to the good when they are overpowered
by the evil of the world ; to the evil, too, as soon as

42 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [m.

they feel any desire to cast aside the burden of sin, and
become conscious of One who wills that they shall be
saved. The thought of this perfection might kindle
raptures in our minds such as find utterance in the
hymns of the Psalmist : ' I will love Thee, O Lord my
strength ; I will praise Thee with my whole heart ' ; or
might create in us such a sense of confidence and
truth as is expressed in the words : ' The Lord is my
light and my salvation ' ; or in that yet deeper strain
which is heard in Psalm xc : c Lord, Thou hast been
our refuge from generation to generation ; before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth
and the world were formed, Thou art God from ever
lasting to everlasting ' ; or might give us such a sense
of peace as is expressed in those pathetic words of
Psalm xxiii : ' Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou
art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'
This is the language which the Psalmist uses in all the
circumstances of his life ; he feels that God is ever
present with him ; and in all the higher and nobler
thoughts which pass his mind he recognizes a divine
inspiration. But this is not the language of our
hearts ; we have not this same joyous confidence in
God ; at least there are few persons who would be
able to find in these words the natural expression of
their feelings, partly because we interpose His laws
between ourselves and Him, and seem to imagine that
He is being hidden from us when He is really being

in.] PERSONALITY CLOTHED IN LAWS 43

revealed to us. With how much wider knowledge,
with how much deeper feeling-, can the modern astro
nomer look up at the stars and say, ' When I consider
the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which Thou hast ordained ; what is man that
Thou art mindful of him ? ' We have given up the
notion of the human personality of God, and we have
not yet mastered this other conception of a personality
clothed in laws.

But there is another reason which lies deeper still.
For the truth is that our minds are partly clouded
by a doubt — the same doubt which pressed upon the
author of the Book of Ecclesiastes — the existence of
evil in the world. How is this divine perfection
reconcilable with the misery of our poor, with the
vice of our criminals, with the disease and death which
we see everywhere around us, with the crushing mis
fortunes which sometimes oppress the good, with the
tendencies to evil or with the actual evil which we find
in our hearts ? That is the difficulty which is pressed
upon us, and which some persons use as an argument
to make us believe everything ; which others adduce
as a reason why we should believe nothing. Men will
often advance the most monstrous doctrines respecting
the character and actions of God. And, when reason
and nature alike seem to rebel against some of these
statements, they reply, ' How do you account for the
existence of evil ? ' Here is a difficulty which cannot
be lightly set aside either in speculation or in practice :

44 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [in.

whether a man thinks or feels, there is a dead weight
hang-ing about his neck, darkening his life, which
needs to be removed. Is our conception of God to
be formed according to that image which exists within
us, or to be derived from our experience of evil in the
world ? That is the question. My brethren, this is
an old difficulty which is not now broached for the
first time, and to which we cannot expect to have
a full answer in this life, because the purposes of
God towards us are only revealed in part. But,
though unable to wholly remove the difficulty, I think
that we may see the direction in which the answer is
to be sought. For, first of all, we have no business
to say that God either causes or permits evil, but only
that He governs the world by fixed laws, within the
limits of which good and evil display themselves.
He has made the world to be a sort of theatre in
which men act their parts. If you say that individuals
are sacrificed to the working of these laws, are you
not thinking too much of this life only, and not
conscious that there may be other states of being in
which the meanest creatures here— the cripple, the
pauper, the criminal — may have another chance given
them, and strike for another goal, and the last become
first and the first perhaps last.

Believing in the existence of God, and comparing
our own happier lot with that of the poor and suffering
whom we see around us, we cannot justify the ways
of God to man without maintaining that there is more

in.] GOD AND EVIL 45

than appears ; and for that reason, as well as for other
reasons, we look forward to a future life. But,
secondly, we feel that good is inseparable from evil,
and that we can form no distinct conception of the
one apart from the other. Both seem to flow equally
from the free agency of man, and if we were to deny
the existence of evil we should be compelled to deny
the existence of good. This shows us that we must
not be too certain of our own ideas on this subject,
and that some part of the difficulty is due to the use
of a word. For if, instead of speaking of the exist
ence of evil in the world, we spoke rather of degrees
of perfection or of degrees of imperfection (and what
do we mean by evil more than this?), that part of
terror which is due to the influence of language would
be removed. Logic would no longer be able to stand
over us like a hard taskmaster asserting the omni
potence of God, and the existence of evil, and requiring
us to draw the conclusion.

But still, I admit that evil under whatever name is
a reality which cannot be got rid of by any new use
of language. And, though I am afraid of seeming to
carry you too far away from home, there is another
consideration to which I should wish to draw your
attention. It is not the mere existence of evil, but
the amount of evil in the world which really depresses
us and seems like a load too heavy to be lifted up.
And if we could realize to ourselves that the purposes
of God are known to us in part only, not merely as

46 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [m.

regards another life, but also as regards this ; if we
could imagine that the evil and disorder which we see
around us is but a step or stage in the progress
towards order and perfection, then our conception of
evil would be greatly changed. Geology tells us of
remote ages in which animals wandered over the
earth when as yet man * was not,' and of ages longer
and more distant still in which there was no breath or
movement of living creature on land or sea. So
slowly, and by so many steps, did the earth which
we inhabit attain to the fulness of life which we see
around us. And I might go on to speak of this
world as a pebble in the ocean of space, as no more
in relation to the universe than the least things are
to the greatest, or to the whole earth. But, that we
may not become dizzy in thinking about this, I will
ask you to consider the bearing of such reflections,
which are simple matters of fact, on our present sub
ject. They tend to show us how small a part, not only
of the physical, but also of the moral world, is really
known to us. They suggest to us that the evil and
suffering which we see around us may be only the
beginning of another and higher state of being, to
be realized during countless ages in the history of
man. That progress of which we think so much,
from barbarism to civilization, or from ancient to
modern times, may be as nothing compared with
that which God has destined for the human race.
And if we were living in those happier times, we

in.] EVILS PREVENTIBLE BY MAN 47

should no more think seriously of the misery through
which many have attained to that higher state of
being than we should think of some bad dream, or
dwell on some aberration or perversity of childhood
when the character had been formed and had grown
up to the stature of the perfect man.

Well, but some one will say, I would rather not be
deluded with the prospect of an indefinite future, ten,
or twenty, or thirty thousand years hence, when I see
and feel wretchedness at my very door, and in my
own home, when at this hour during which we are
here assembled there are thousands of suffering, hope
less beings to whom life is a burden. How will the
millennium of which you speak profit them ? I will
not repeat what I have said before, that this world
would be the most unjust of worlds if there were no
other; but there is another reflection which is nearer
than that. The evil, the misery, the moral and phy
sical degradation you, who are so much moved at the
spectacle, have the power of mitigating, of relieving,
of preventing. This millennium, which is so far off,
may be brought by you into your own neighbour
hood ; there may be a kingdom of heaven in a parish
at the present hour, as well as in some remote age or
another. From you may flow an inspiration of good
ness ; a breath from another land which may drive
away the pestilence. For God has not left us in this
world helpless to contend against the power of evil,
but has also endowed us with the capacity of resisting

48 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [in.

evil, and of removing the circumstances out of which
evil grows. And do not let us say, How can we get
rid of the difficulty of the existence of the evil ? but,
How can we get rid of evil ? How can we fulfil that
purpose with a view to which God has allowed evil
to exist ? This is the best speculative answer to the
difficulty, namely, that we can remove evil ; and the
best practical answer — for, when we are most actively
engaged in doing good to others, then we most
strongly feel that the sad experience of evil in the
world is really reconcilable with that other image of
the divine nature which is presented to us by reason
and conscience.

It seems to be a harder task to think of God now
than formerly, because we can no longer think of
Him as the God of our Church or nation, but of the
whole earth, nor of the earth merely, but of myriads
of worlds. Yet in all ages, the ages of credulity or
faith as well as those of reason and inquiry, the
minds of men have been struggling after God if haply
they might find Him. The ancient Greek thought
that he saw God, first in the likeness of man, not
better but greater than himself; then as fate, then as
mind ; whose providential interference was introduced
to meet a difficulty, and who was not so much the
just governor of men as the occasional avenger of
injustice. Then there came the philosopher who
taught that God was good, and the Author of good ;
that He was true, and could have no occasion to

in.] PROGRESS TOWARDS UNIVERSALITY 49

deceive. Yet even he had no conception of a God
who was the God of all nations of the earth. Slowly
and partially in the decline of Roman and Greek life,
when the different streams of human thought were
beginning to meet and mingle, the wiser part of the
Gentile world became dimly conscious that God was
not the God of the Greeks and Romans, but of all
mankind.

Even in the Scriptures too, if \ve read them atten
tively, we shall find a similar progressive revelation of
the divine nature. In the childhood of the world
God walked in the garden and talked with Adam.
But in the New Testament we are plainly told that no
man hath seen God at any time. In the Book of
Exodus we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart,
and in the Book of Genesis that He tempted Abraham ;
but again in the New Testament that He tempteth no
man. And once more in the Old Testament itself
we find both the earlier and the later notion. First
He visited the sins of the fathers upon the children ;
secondly, in the prophets there occurs the twice re
peated contradiction of this. Henceforth there should
be no more this proverb in the house of Israel, l the
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's
teeth are set on edge ' ; but every soul should bear his
own iniquity. And our Lord Himself twice rebuked
the popular superstition that temporal calamities are
the punishment of sin : first, in the words, ' Think ye
that those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam
*** E

5o GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [m.

fell were sinners above all the dwellers in Jeru
salem ? ' and again, in the case of the man born
blind, when the question is asked Him, * Master, which
did sin, this man or his parents ? '

Slowly and gradually, whether with or without
Jewish or Christian revelation, have men attained to
that degree of clearness of insight into the ways of
God of which the human mind seems capable. And
again and again they have held the truth in incon
sistency, and in the name of Christianity relapsed into
Jewish and Gentile error. They have not placed
before themselves the attributes of God as the con
ditions under which they must think of His dealings
with man. How, for example, when we speak of
God as true, can we imagine that He will see us other
than we truly are, or interpose a fiction between Him
self and us ? Or how can we suppose that He who is
a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in
truth, will make our eternal salvation dependent on
some accident of place or time, or the performance of
some external act ? Or how can a just God punish us
for what we never did, for what another did, for the
mere tendency to evil which is inherent in the nature
which He has given us ? How can the most sorrowful
spectacle that ever was seen upon earth, at which in
a figure we may say that the world has been mourning
ever since, have given Him pleasure and satisfaction ?
Will He remedy one injustice by another ? Or again,
can He inflict a disproportionate punishment on any

in.] CHANGES IN CHRISTIAN BELIEF 51

of His creatures ? The good of society, the improve
ment of the offender, are the purposes of human
punishment. Shall we attribute to the Most Merciful
a darker purpose, of which we hardly venture to
think or speak? Or shall we not rather thankfully
acknowledge that His plans for the improvement of
mankind are more perfect, more continuous, than our
human schemes of discipline ?

The changes which have already taken place in the
religious belief of Christians incline us to argue that
there will be other changes by which religion and
morality may be more perfectly reconciled. Many
dark clouds of error and superstition hang about the
early ages of the Church, and some of these are hang
ing about us still ; many opinions were held by the
best of men in the Nicene Church from which the
human mind now shrinks with horror and amaze
ment. Who can believe that the unbaptized infant is
consigned to everlasting torments ? Yet this was once
the orthodox faith of the Christian world. Who can
hear without trembling that one mortal sin consciously
committed after baptism, almost, if not altogether,
excluded the sinner from the hope of salvation ? No
wonder that men put off baptism until the hour of
death. But what a conception both of the nature of
God and of the religion of Christ does such a practice
imply. Or who is not surprised when he reads that
the satisfaction of Christ for the sins of mankind was
originally understood to be a satisfaction to the devil,

E 2

52 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [in.

and not to God ? And, strangest of all, perhaps
the least error in the use of a word seems to have
been thought more displeasing to God than the
greatest perfidy or cruelty of emperors, or the cor
ruption of cities and churches.

In the ancient Abyssinian Church, which by some
has been thought to have retained the primitive faith
more than any other, there was a solemn form of
words repeated on certain days of the year. The
origin of the custom and the name of the author of
the words were unknown ; they were supposed by
some to have been translated out of another language.
The meaning of several of the terms employed in
this ancient document was uncertain ; and texts were
quoted from the Abyssinian Scriptures in support of
them which were not found in older and better copies.
Nevertheless, the use of this form of words, admitted
to be of such uncertain interpretation and authority,
was guarded by the most tremendous anathemas,
which were uttered by the whole people ; and all who
did not believe what they could not wholly understand
were devoted by them to eternal damnation. And
sometimes the anathemas were rolled forth in a sort
of triumph to the pealing sound of the organ, and
sometimes the innocent voice of a child might be
heard gently repeating them. The patriarch of the
Abyssinian Church had long wished to put an end to
this scandal, for he acknowledged that the words
were not to be taken in their natural sense. But

in.] OLD ERRORS NOT TO BE CHERISHED 53

ecclesiastical customs are very tenacious, and are apt
to continue long after they are disapproved by reason
and conscience.

My brethren, I want to point out to you that, if we
insist on retaining- all that we have received from
antiquity, we must insensibly impair the divine image
in the soul. Religion and morality will part company
more and more ; and we shall either cease to believe
in God and a future life at all, or we shall become the
victims of every superstition ; we cannot draw near to
Him if we think of Him only as a being who watches
over us in this world, but leaves us to our fate in
another.

I am aware that some persons may be displeased
with me for saying this. But they would be equally
displeased if I were to describe to them the terrors of
hell in the language of Tertullian or some other ancient
father, or as they are depicted in the writings of that
Spanish friar which some of us may have read trans
lated in the works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. And
still more, and more justly, would they be displeased
if I was to apply their own doctrine to some one near
and dear to them who had led a careless life and died
making no sign of repentance. Yet surely it is
a dangerous thing to hold religious truth at a distance
which we refuse to realize when brought home to us ;
to begin by violating our first notions of the attributes
of God on some slender ground of tradition or doubt
ful interpretation of isolated texts of Scripture, and

54 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [in.

then, as if such doctrines were too dreadful to be
entertained, seriously to lay them aside when they
begin to be applied to practice.

For indeed the thought of God is awful enough
to us without adding terrific and unmeaning conse
quences. We do not suppose that God is like some
foolish father who lets off his children from the
punishment which is for their improvement — but
rather that 'whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.'
We know that the will and purpose of God is that
we should become like Him ; that we should put off
the garment of self and put on the Lord Jesus Christ
in righteousness and true holiness. Nor can we
imagine or believe that this is to be accomplished
except by the exertions of our own wills co-operat
ing with His will. And, when we think of our
own selfishness, of our absorption in the things of
this world and our averseness to another, we feel that
this is a great and protracted work which cannot
be accomplished without many a struggle and many
sharp pangs, which might be described in Scripture
language as dividing the body from the spirit, us from
ourselves. For, whether we speak of a state of pro
bation in wrhich mankind or the majority of them are
to have one chance and then to be cast aside for ever,
or of an education which is to begin here and to be
carried on through countless ages (and there may be
those who are saved, so as by fire), yet we are all
agreed in this, that ' without holiness no man shall see

in.] STRUGGLE FOR TRUTH AND PURITY 55

the Lord.' The impure must become pure, the untrue
must become simple and true, the thought of God
must take the place of the thought of self, there must
be no more hatred or party spirit : that ' last infirmity
of religious minds ' must disappear, the tangle of our
own character must be unwoven and woven again
before we can appear in His presence.

When we think of another life, which is the second
great truth of religion, in the light of the attributes of
God, we have a feeling of awe and also of comfort.
We know that God will see us as we truly are, and
that in our way we are not too fit to meet His search
ing eye. But we know also that He will take into
account all the circumstances of our lives. We are
conscious that He is infinitely above us, and that no
thought of ours can comprehend Him. But, as we
would rather be judged by a great and good man
than by one of a meaner sort, we would rather fall,
as was said of old, into the hands of God than man.
We know too that a perfect God can have no other
aim or purpose to accomplish but the perfection of
His creatures, if this be possible. The systems of men
do not terrify us, or their wild denunciations of one
another, whether in this or in former ages ; they
scarcely last a thousand years, and we know that in
them is not always to be found the mind of Christ.
And we can rise above them into the clear atmosphere
of the justice and goodness of God. But what must
strike, I do not say with fear, but with awe, the mind

56 GROWTH IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD [m.

of any reflecting being- is this, that in that other
world of which we know so little we have no one on
whom we can rely but God only. Let us sometimes
be alone with Him in this world, for the time will
come when we shall be alone with Him.

IV
THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD1.

HEAR, O ISRAEL : THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.

DEUT. vi. 4.

FOLLOWING the plan which was indicated in a former
sermon, I shall proceed now to consider the revelation
of the divine nature which is made to us in the Old
Testament. This we may hereafter compare briefly —
first, with Greek and Roman ideas of religion ; secondly,
with that wider and more universal conception of
God which is given us in history, in science, in our
own experience, and in the Gospel of Christ.

I am sensible of the difficulty of doing justice to
a great subject in the short compass of a sermon.
Such a treatment must necessarily appear superficial,
inadequate, fragmentary. I would wish you to con
sider what I am going to say as hints and suggestions
only, which you may carry back with you to the
study of the Old Testament and make the beginning
of thoughts and studies of your own.

1 Preached at Balliol, April 23, 1876.

58 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

The Israelites themselves seem to have been con
scious that the revelation of the divine nature had
been gradually imparted to them. There may,
perhaps, have been a time in their early history when
their conception of God did not differ much from
those of the surrounding nations, when they may
have even given 4 the fruit of their body for the sin
of their soul.' But such a practice, which seems
to be authoritatively repudiated in the narrative of
Abraham and Isaac, certainly had not survived in the
times when the Jews had become a nation. The
truth probably is that, as other nations, for example
the Egyptians, had much more of spiritual religion
than we used to suppose in the days when their
ancient records were unknown to us, so the Jews, if
we examine the Old Testament critically, had much
more of superstition and idolatry than it was once
common to acknowledge. These old superstitions,
which they had inherited from former ages and which
they had in common with other nations, were always
clinging to them and returning upon them ; and only
when the world began to pass out of them the Israelites
passed out of them too. What they had peculiar to
themselves was not the higher moral or religious
sentiment of the whole race, but a few great men of
whom other nations have never had the like, who first
taught the true nature of God, who sought first to
awaken in the minds of their fellow-men the moral and
spiritual nature of religion, who stood apart from

iv.] EARLY AND CHILDISH IDEAS 59

existing institutions, and seem to have been not much
regarded in their own lifetime or by their own nation,
yet whose words have ' lightened every man who
cometh into the world.' The writings of the prophets
of the seventh and eighth centuries before Christ are
the true religion of Israel.

Without attempting to recover what may be termed
the prehistoric religion of the Israelites we observe
traces of great changes, not unacknowledged by them
selves in their thoughts about the divine nature.
Once God had been only known to them by the name
of Elohim, which scarcely distinguished Him from the
other gods of the poly theist peoples who surrounded
them, afterwards by the solemn and more abstract
title of Jahweh or Jehovah, a word which is connected
with the verb of existence, and seems to indicate the
permanence of the divine nature. There was a time
when God had walked with Adam in the garden ;
when He partook with Abraham of the calf which he
had dressed; when He had talked with Moses as
a man talketh with his friend ; but every Israelite
would have felt, as we should do, the incongruity of
transferring these ancient representations to the times
of David or one of the kings. Men look back upon
Paradise or to some golden age as to a time in which,
as they believe, there was a nearer approach to God :

Upon the breast of new-created Earth

Man walked, and angels to his sight appeared,

Crowning the glorious hills of Paradise.

60 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

But they forget that the nearer vision of God is also
the narrower, and that to comprehend the whole of
the visible world they must ascend to the invisible.
The Israelitish prophets seem also to have been aware
that many things said by them of old times respect
ing the nature or acts of the Divine Being stood in
need of correction. Thus, while in the histories the
bloody and perfidious destruction of the house of
Ahab and of the prophets of Baal by Jehu is .attri
buted to his zeal for .God, who had anointed him by
the hand of His prophet, there was not wanting
a prophet, Hosea, in the next generation, who foretold
that the Lord would ' avenge the blood of Jezreel on
the house of Jehu.' Thus again, while we are taught
in the second commandment that l God visits the sins
of the fathers upon the children,' the prophet Ezekiel,
apparently alluding to these words, declares with
authority that henceforward there shall be no more
this proverb in the house of Israel, ' the fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set
upon edge,' but every soul shall bear his own iniquity.
Thus the arbitrary is exchanged for the moral, even
in spite of the appearances of the surrounding world.
And everywhere the beneficent aspect of the divine
nature is exhibited to us as well as the terrible which
had absorbed the minds of the people in earlier ages :
the religion of love is combined with that of fear.
The terrible Jehovah, who is ready to pour out the
vials of His wrath on the backsliding race, is also the

iv.] A LONG DEVELOPMENT 61

God who 4 loves them freely,' and draws them to Him
1 with bonds of love.'

And here I will notice a difficulty in these inquiries
which has, perhaps, already occurred to you — it is
a difficulty which often applies to similar inquiries.
When we speak of the Old Testament we include
a number of writings of the most various dates, and
the dates of most of them are not exactly known to
us. The history of Israel extends over a period of
a thousand or fifteen hundred years. During this period
the nation is sometimes in the closest connexion with
the Assyrian or Egyptian or Persian or late Greek
Empire, at other times almost isolated from them. It
is natural to ask how we can be sure to what period
the Jewish conception of the divine nature can be
really attributed, and how far they may have been
affected by the ideas of foreign nations. Are the
Books of Genesis or Exodus, or the oldest part of
them, really of the same date with the Book of
Deuteronomy, which has so much in common with
the prophets ? Is the minute detail of the Ceremonial
Law really prior to the denunciations of ceremo
nialism which we read in the words of Micah and
Isaiah ? Why do the names of Adam and Eve never
occur except in the first few chapters of the Book of
Genesis ? Is the prediction of Cyrus, or the conso
lation of Israel in the captivity, a foretelling of events
by the prophet Isaiah which were to happen two cen
turies afterwards, or the expression of religious feeling

62 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

by a great unknown prophet who lived at some later
epoch ?

The time will no doubt arrive when these and the
like questions, which have been often angrily discussed,
will be regarded as perfectly unconnected with the
interests of religion and theology, as having, in fact,
no more to do with them than similar questions
raised about the genuineness or authenticity of the
Greek or Latin classics. But they will always be of
importance in the study of Jewish history and litera
ture. Unless we can form an idea of the chronology
we can obtain no adequate conception of the progress
of religious ideas among the Jewish people — we shall
be in danger of mixing up notions which are really
incongruous. In this, as in most inquiries relating to
antiquity, we can have no certainty about details or
minutiae — we cannot determine accurately whether
a particular verse is to be assigned to an earlier or
later prophet. But we may still be able to say confi
dently, that all the prophets of a particular age have
a common character and teach a common lesson.

Now the prophets of the sixth and seventh cen
turies before Christ have such a common character ;
in them the spiritual nature of religion is fully taught
and developed. The same spiritual lesson is repeated
to us in the Psalms and in the Book of Deuteronomy.
The dates of the Psalms vary, and for the most part
to writings so short no chronological criterion can
be applied. The Book of Deuteronomy has been

iv.] THE SEVENTH CENTURY B. C. 63

thought by recent critics, chiefly on grounds of
internal evidence, to have been written in the reign
of King Josiah. Here, then, we have a large portion
of the Old Testament Scriptures, for the most part
contemporary or nearly so, to which we may appeal
as the source of our knowledge respecting the religion
of the Israelites in the golden age of prophecy, when
the outward fortunes of the Jewish people were
beginning to wane and disappear, and a greater and
more abiding glory to shine forth.

There is yet another confusion which besets the
study of the Israelitish religion — the erroneous oppo
sition between the Old Testament and the New.
They have differences no doubt, great and important,
but differences are often made between them which
have no real existence. When God is said to be
represented in the one as the God of justice, in the
other as the God of love ; when the Old Testament is
opposed to the New as the law to the Gospel, the
thunder of Mount Sinai to the meekness and gentle
ness of Christ ; this is really a very inconsiderate
and partial way of viewing the subject. For in the
Old and New Testaments alike God is equally repre
sented to us as a Father as well as a King, as a God
of love and mercy as well as of justice ; in both He is
the God of individuals as well as of nations, who is
not far ' from every one of us.' The truer distinction,
perhaps the only distinction, which can be consistently
maintained between them is that in the Old Testa-

64 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

ment God is revealed to His people Israel, and
through them to the world, by the word of Moses,
Isaiah, and the prophets ; that in the New Testament
He has spoken not to one nation only, but to the
whole world by His Son Jesus Christ.

And now we may leave these preliminaries and
return to the general subject. First among the con
ceptions of God which we find in the Old Testament
is that l He is the God of nature.' The Israelites of
course knew nothing of the fixed laws by which the
world is governed ; their heaven was above them,
their place of the departed below ; the earth was
a large plain which divided them. The stars were
the hosts of whom Jehovah was the Lord. Just
behind the visible universe He dwelt, sometimes
revealing Himself for a moment to the eye of the
prophet ' sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up,'
or ' having the body of heaven in His clearness.'
His power is shown both in the ordinary working of
nature and in the extraordinary. He makes the field
barren or fruitful ; He gives or withholds from Israel
corn, wine and oil, the silver also and the gold and
the wool and the flax with which they adorn them
selves are His gifts. For their sakes He makes
a covenant with the wild beasts, for whom He also
provides. He hath set the round world so fast that
it cannot be moved (this is the manner in which the
Israelitish prophet expresses that confidence which to
us is given by what we term the uniformity of the

iv.] PHYSICAL AND MORAL GOVERNMENT 65

laws of nature). The good and evil which come to
men, the storm, the drought, the pestilence, equally
with the beneficial rain or the fertilizing sunshine, are
regulated by His pleasure. 4 The heavens declare the
glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handy
work.' This is the picture of the world in repose.
But not less is His presence seen in the earthquake
and the storm, when, as we read in the i8th Psalm,
4 the earth trembled and quaked, and the very founda
tions of the hills shook and were removed, because
He was wroth.' ' He bowed the heavens also, and
came down, and it was dark under His feet.' Or, as
the two aspects are combined in the 5Oth Psalm, ' Out
of Sion hath God appeared in perfect beauty': and
yet 'there shall go bcfcre Him a consuming fire, and a
mighty tempest shall be stirred up round about Him.'
Yet this physical government of the world is also
a moral government, in which God distributes rewards
and punishments to His people. He is not only their
Creator, but their Judge, who gives to every man
according to his works. True, the prophet or
psalmist sometimes finds that the mystery of the world
is too hard for him, as it has been for many a one in
every age, when he sees the wicked in such pros
perity and flourishing like a green bay-tree ; or when,
like Job, he contrasts the consciousness of his own
rectitude with the misery of his outward circum
stances ; or when, like the author of the Book of
Ecclesiastes, after surveying the world, he acknow-

66 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

ledges that all is vanity, and that there is one event to
the righteous and the wicked, yet still maintains, in
spite of all this, that ' to fear God and keep His com
mandments is the conclusion of the whole matter.'
Even to the psalmist the ways of God were not cleared
up ' until he went into the sanctuary and considered
the end of these men.1 He, too, reflected with grati
tude that he had c never seen the righteous forsaken, nor
his seed begging their bread.' Such were the partial
answers, which in those ancient times men were able
to give to the common difficulties which beset us and
them in relation to the divine government of the
universe. But chiefly they looked forward to another
kingdom which never was, and never was to be, in
which the will of God was to be more perfectly ful
filled, and 4 the sun of righteousness ' was to shine
forth, and ' the mountain of the Lord's House was to
be exalted in the top of the mountains.' Before this
there is to be a day of judgement, ' a day of the Lord,'
in which He will punish the sins of Israel, and from
the remnant make a new people. They shall return
from all the nations whither He has scattered them ;
Ephraim shall not envy Jacob, nor Judah vex
Ephraim, Israel shall be a third with Assyria and
Egypt, while in Micah and Isaiah the vision extends
(for he words occur in both of them) : ' And many
people shall go and say, ' Come, let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of
Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will

iv.] JEHOVAH AND THE HEATHEN WORLD 67

walk in His paths. For out of Sion shall go forth the
law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.'

When we speak of Jehovah being revealed to men
in the Old Testament as the moral governor of the
world, we must remember, however, one important
limitation which narrows this conception. Though
He is the God of the whole earth, ' who sits upon the
circle of the heavens,' before whom the nations are as
nothing compared with His greatness, yet He is also
in a special manner the God of the Jewish people.
With them He is in direct relation as their King and
Judge, as their Father and Friend. But the other
nations of the world come within the circle of His
Providence chiefly in so far as their fortunes affect
the Jewish race ; they are on the outskirts of His
government, and the furthest vision of the prophet
hardly pierces to a time when there shall be one
religion spread over the whole earth. No ancient
nation ever thought of other nations as equally with
themselves the objects of a divine care. It would
have been hard, almost impossible, for them to have
done so. Nay, my brethren, is it not hard for us as
well as them to realize what we most certainly believe,
or at least declare that we believe, that every other
human being, the poorest, the weakest, those who
dwell in distant climes, or who lived in past ages, are
as much the object of a divine solicitude as we our
selves are ? The national religions of the world came
first ; and the Jewish religion follows the same order :

F 2

68 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

they were schoolmasters, as we may say, a little
parodying the words of St. Paul, to bring men to the
universal religion. The later religions of the world,
whether Christianity or Buddhism or Mahometanism,
have all claimed to be universal, limited to no favoured
race or tribes, however imperfectly the disciples of
all of them have ever been able to carry out this
divine inspiration.

It is out of this relation of Jehovah to the Jewish
people that the tender human relation of God to man
was developed by the prophets. They spoke of the
power which nothing could resist, of the justice which
no man could escape ; they were never weary of
describing in material imagery the control which was
exercised by Him over the works of nature. Yet
this same mighty God is the gentlest and most loving
of rulers ; the Father and the Friend, the Consoler and
Redeemer, even more than the Conqueror and King.
His love as far exceeds human love as His strength
exceeds human strength. He is the Shepherd who
feeds His flock and gathers the lambs in His arms ;
He is the Spouse of Israel as well as her Lord, whom
she is constantly deserting, and who is always ready
to receive her again. There is no movement towards
repentance or cry for mercy that does not at once enter
into His ears. The prisoner and the oppressed, all
those who in early and disturbed states of society are
least regarded, are the special objects of His care ; He
is the Father of the fatherless, and in Him they find

iv.] TENDERNESS 69

mercy. ' When my father and mother forsake me, then
the Lord will take me up.' It is a hasty remark which
has been sometimes made, that in the Old Testament
mankind are only regarded as the servants of God,
but in the New Testament are His sons. For both in
the Old and in the New Testaments alike He is their
Father as well as their God. But instead of sum
marizing- further the representation of this aspect of
the divine character which is given in the prophets,
I would ask you to consider the deep tenderness and
feeling of two passages in their writings.

The first is from the later chapters of Isaiah (Ixiii. 15,
1 6, 19), probably written during the captivity, which
combines in a wonderful manner the two characteristics
of gentleness and sublimity.

' Look down from heaven, and behold from the
habitation of Thy holiness and of Thy glory : where is
Thy zeal and Thy strength, the sounding of Thy bowels
and of Thy mercies toward me ? are they restrained ?

4 Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham
be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not :
Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer ; Thy
name is from everlasting.'

Where we may notice, by the way, how the prophet
identifies himself with the Jewish people so as to be
almost indistinguishable from them.

And again renewing the plea : —

4 We are Thine : Thou never barest rule over them ;
they were not called by Thy name.'

70 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

The other passage is of a much earlier date, and is
taken from the prophet Hosea, who lived in the days
of Uzziah, Jotham and Hezekiah (Hosea xi. i, 3, 4). It
presents God to us, not only as the father or spouse,
but almost as the mother of His people.

' When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and
called My son out of Egypt.'

' I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their
arms ; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew
them with cords of a man, with bands of love.'

And again (xiv. 4) :

1 1 will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely,
for mine anger is turned away from them.'

In some old-fashioned, may I say wrong-headed,
treatises of theology, such as Warburton's Divine
Legation of Moses, the God of Israel is described to
us as a sort of king or magistrate who keeps His
people in order by rewards and punishments. And
there have not been wanting writers in our own days
who think that this, whether true or not, is about as
high a notion as we can form of the divine nature.
This is the old fallacy of might prevailing over right,
the theory of the strong man as it is sometimes called,
transferred from the sphere of human things to the
divine. How unlike this is either to the love of God
on which the prophets delighted to dwell, or to the
power of God which is ever on the side of righteous
ness, I need not stop to consider.

Thus far we have been contemplating the divine

iv.] HOLINESS 71

nature either in relation to the outward world or to
the Jewish world. There remains the highest and
greatest question of all, so far as it can be separated
from these. What is He in His own innermost being,
when separated from the accidents of time and place ?
How shall we describe that God who existed before
the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth
and the world were formed ?

There is one word hardly translatable into other
languages, because the Israelitish prophets have them
selves infused into it a depth of meaning, under which
all the attributes of God are comprehended. This is
' holiness ' ; and God is called by them ' the high and
lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
holy.' It is difficult for us to comprehend the whole
signification of this word. It means moral goodness,
it means righteousness, it means truth, it means purity
— but it means more than these. It means the spirit
which is altogether above the world, and yet has an
affinity with goodness and truth in the world. It
implies separation as well as elevation, dignity as
well as innocence. It is the personification of the
idea of good. It is the light of which the whole
earth is full, which is also the fire which burns up
the ungodly. It has a side of awe as well as of good
ness. It suggests the thought, not of direct punish
ment or suffering to be inflicted on the wicked, but
rather, ' How can we sinners venture into the presence
of a holy God ? What unclean person can behold

72 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

His face and live ? ' Like other ideas of perfection it
may be called, in the language of philosophy, trans
cendental, that is to say, not wholly capable of being
expressed in human language. After we have com
bined all the aspects of truth or goodness in one,
there remains something more which is above us,
which we can feel rather than describe.

But what is necessarily indistinct to us when we
endeavour to carry our thoughts beyond this world
becomes clearer to us when we return to earth and
think, not of God, but of man. The holiness of God
is that image of Himself which He seeks to implant
in all His creatures. ' Be ye holy even as I am holy,'
are words in which the whole of religion may be
summed up. And though we are not able to look at
the sun in his strength, we may yet see him through
a glass darkly or in human reflections of him. Thus,
for example, if we were to attempt to define or
describe the meaning of the term once more with
reference to man, we should find that there were
very few to whom we could venture to apply it. It
means in the first place perfect disinterestedness,
indifference to earthly and human interests. Again,
it implies a mind one with God, over which no
shadow of uncleanness or untruth ever passes, which
seeks only to know His will, and knowing it, to carry
it out in the world. To purity and truth it adds
peace and a certain dignity derived from indepen
dence of all things. It is heaven upon earth — to live

iv.] MORAL REQUIREMENTS 73

loving all men, disturbed by nothing, fearing nothing.
It is a temper of mind which is unshaken by changes
of religious opinion, which is not dependent upon
outward observances of religion. Such a character
we may meet with once or twice in a long life, and
derive a sort of inspiration from it. And oh ! that it
were possible that some of us might, even in the days
of our youth, find the blessedness of leading such
a life in the light of God's presence always.

The aim of the prophets is almost wholly a moral
one, and the 'demands which they make in the name
of Jehovah over the people of Israel are moral
demands. * Wash you, make you clean.' 4 Cease to
do evil, learn to do well, seek judgement, do justice
to the fatherless, defend the cause of the widow.'
Nothing can be simpler than their religious teaching.
This simplicity leads them to denounce, not only the
sins, but the religious observances of the Israelites.
Read carefully the first chapter of Isaiah : ' Bring no
more vain oblations ; incense is an abomination unto
Me ; your new moons and sabbaths and your appointed
feasts My soul hateth ' ; and you see how far they
were from blindly conforming to the religion of their
time. Do wre suppose that any one who spoke in
the same spirit to us would be received with favour
amongst us ? They came not to increase the outward
splendour of the temple or the synagogue, but to
teach a lesson which should abide for ever. That
lesson may be summed up in the words of Micah,

74 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

called by Bishop Butler, himself a great teacher of
the morality of religion, the justest description of
religious life that has ever been given. ' He hath
shown thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the
Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? *

And this lesson they have bequeathed to us, the
simplest of all religious lessons and also the most in
danger of being lost ; of this they have found for us
the expression in words which will never pass away.
We do not rashly apply their denunciations to the
religious observances of our own day ; but they teach
us that by being above them only can we have the
right use of them. Their mission was to stand apart
from their fellow -men, ours to act in concert and com
munion with them. There is another lesson which
may be gathered from their writings, to which also
ecclesiastical history bears witness. It is this, that,
whereas the permanence of societies and churches is
derived from system and organization and authority,
their true life flows from individuals acting and think
ing freely — from prophets, not from priests ; from
those who have resisted the popular tide, not from
those who are borne along with it.

I promised, at the commencement of this sermon,
to make some brief comparison of the Israelitish
religion with the Greek religion, and also with our
modern Christianity. I shall confine the comparison
to two striking points.

iv.] PHILOSOPHERS AND PROPHETS 75

(1) When we place side by side the writings of
Plato or Epictetus and one of the Jewish prophets,
we are struck by the fact that while they both equally
insist on the morality or perfection of the divine
nature, to the Greek it is comparatively indifferent
whether he speaks of God in the singular or in
the plural, in the masculine or neuter ; whereas the
Hebrew teacher begins by proclaiming, ' Hear, O
Israel, the Lord thy God is one God,' and at every
turn attributes to Him the acts and feelings of a person.
This difference between the two modes of conception
leads us to make the reflection that, while we know of
no higher mode of representing the Divine Being to
ourselves than under the forms of Unity and Per
sonality, yet that Personality is not like a human
personality, nor that Unity like the unity of the world.
It seems as if we should not be so careful to define
our terms as to vary them, lest we should become the
slaves of words in matters which transcend words.

(2) When we compare the prophet's consciousness
of the Divine Being with our own colder and more
distant conception of Him, we seem almost to be of
a different religion from him. Perhaps we hardly
allow sufficiently for the difference which is necessarily
made in our ideas of God by the progress of human
knowledge. The Israelite, as I was remarking at the
beginning of this sermon, had no conception of laws
of nature. He thought of God as very near to him,
—his Father, his King, the Inhabitant, when He was

76 THE HEBREW CONCEPTION OF GOD [iv.

pleased to dwell there, of the land of Israel. But any
notion of a Divine Being which did not embrace all
knowledge and all power would be to us unreal. We
cannot be satisfied with having one God in science
and history, another in religion. And the reconcile
ment of these opposite aspects of the divine nature
has hitherto been beyond our strength. Something
we may have done for it, but not much. And, while
men are seeking after God, if haply they may find
Him (though He be not far from any one of us), we
cannot entirely cast out fear and doubt; we have
sometimes to turn our eyes back again to earth and
think of our duties there, which remain as ever plain
and clear to us. Some of us may find a parallel to
our state in the language of Job and Ecclesiastes.

I have been treating in this sermon of a very solemn
subject in the language of criticism.

In these days there are many things which we must
criticize, although they are the foundation of our lives,
for otherwise they would become mere words, and
have no meaning to us. We cannot expect that
without any effort of thought we can understand the
thoughts of 2,500 years ago. The realities which
underlie our criticism, though manifested in different
forms, remain the same ; though the world grows old
they change not ; though at times obscured they are
again revealed, deriving, as in past so also in future
ages, light and meaning from the history and experi
ence of mankind.

V
CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD1.

GOD, WHO AT SUNDRY TIMES AND IN DIVERS
MANNERS SPAKE IN TIMES PAST UNTO THE FATHERS
BY THE PROPHETS, HATH IN THESE LAST DAYS

SPOKEN UNTO US BY HIS SON.

HEBREWS i. 1,2.

IN preceding sermons we traced the idea of God in
the Greek and Eastern religions and in the Hebrew
prophets. We saw how slowly mankind emerged
out of local worship and barbarous fancies, and came
at length to a higher notion of the divine nature ;
how they passed from the Homeric gods to the abso
lute being and good of Aristotle and Plato ; from the
childlike innocent vision of God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day to the God of justice and mercy
'terrible in righteousness, mighty to save,' of the
prophets and the Psalms. We have now to consider
the further revelation of God in the New Testament,
which may be summed up almost in a word : ' The
manifestation of God in Jesus Christ.'

As I was saying in a former sermon, the relation
of the Old Testament to the New has been often
misunderstood. The New Testament has been read

1 Preached at Balliol, May 21, 1876.

78 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

backwards in the Old : an ancient ceremony, a holy
place, a number, a word, has been made the symbol
of a hidden truth. The old is always entwining with
the new both in philosophy and theology, and out of
this accidental connexion has been developed a system
of interpreting the Old Testament by the New. The
practice has had in two ways a bad result. It has
fixed the mind upon what is unimportant in the Old
and New Testament Scriptures rather than upon what
is important ; and it has tended, if I may use the ex
pression, to confine the Gospel within the curtain of the
Tabernacle. This is one of those theological ques
tions upon which the comparison of other religions
has thrown a flood of light. What theologians of
the last century would have supposed to be a proof of
the divine origin of Christianity, viz. the adaptation
of the older form of a religion to its later requirements
('which things are an allegory,' as is said in the
Epistle to the Galatians), is now seen to be a pheno
menon not peculiar to Christianity, but common to all
religions in which there are sacred books, if they
retain any life or power.

Yet there is also a real harmony between the Old
Testament and the New, which will more clearly
appear to us when we drop the accidents of time and
place and pierce to the thing contained in them.
There was no necessary connexion between the
Paschal lamb and that other sacrifice which was the
negation of a sacrifice ; but the Paschal lamb was

v.] OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW 79

a natural image under which the disciples, who were
Jews at first, spoke of the sufferings of Christ. To
us it is a mere figure of speech, consecrated by the
tradition of ages. But there is also a deeper harmony
between the Old Testament and the New, which is the
harmony of good and truth everywhere : when the
prophet Isaiah says, ' Your new moons and sabbaths
are an abomination unto me,' he breathes the same
spirit as St. Paul, where he insists that no man shall
judge another * in meat or in drink, in respect of an
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath day.'
When again, almost in a strain of passion, he says,
' Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white
as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall
be as wool, if ye be willing and obedient,' he antici
pates the milder and more authoritative words of
Christ, ' Thy sins be forgiven thee ; go, and sin no
more.' When Isaiah says (xix. 24), 4 In that day shall
Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even
a blessing in the midst of the land,' in this singular
form of words he expresses the same thought which is
uttered by Christ : 4 Other sheep I have which are not
of this fold ; them also I must bring, that there may
be one fold and one shepherd.' The evangelical
prophet and the New Testament, with a greater or less
degree of clearness, teach the same lesson, that there
is one God and Father of all, and one Church or
Israel of God. Alike they denounce evil, especially in
the form of hypocrisy ; the prophets not sparing the

8o CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

kings or priests who were their contemporaries,
while Christ, in a severer tone than He uses towards
other sinners, condemns Pharisaism, which had become
more systematized now that the world had grown
older and the religion of Israel had been longer
established. Such a common basis there is in the
Old and New Testaments, and perhaps in the higher
parts of almost all religions.

And not only is there this unconscious harmony
between them, but Christ expressly derives a great
part of His doctrine from the laws of the prophets.
In His own mind His teaching seems to have appeared
generally to be a fulfilment of them ; though one or
two isolated passages may be cited, such as that
remarkable one in St. John, CA11 who ever came
before Me are thieves and robbers,' which have an
opposite character. It may be observed that, though
He nowhere speaks of the Ceremonial Law as having
any relation to Himself, He selects passages both from
the Books of Moses and the prophets, and makes
them the text of His discourses. 4 This day is the
Scripture fulfilled in your ears.' To those who con
demn His healing on the Sabbath day He rejoins, ' Go
ye and learn what that meaneth : I will have mercy
and not sacrifice ' ; and He quotes examples of what to
the Jews would have appeared the profanation of it,
in the Old Testament. To others who made the
word of God of none effect by their traditions, He
replies, ' Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of

v.] TEACHER AND SUFFERER 81

you, saying : ' This people draweth nigh unto Me with
their mouth and honoureth Me with their lips ; but in
vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men.' Or again, speaking of the
blindness of the whole people : ' By hearing ye shall
hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see
and not perceive.' There is no more gracious descrip
tion of the Gospel than that which Christ Himself
read in the synagogue out of the Book of the prophet
Esaias : ' The spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to
the poor ; He hath sent Me to heal the broken
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the
Lord.'

So again, probably in His own thoughts, and cer
tainly in the earliest reflections of His disciples, Christ
is identified with the suffering servant of God in the
prophecies of the late Isaiah — suffering and also
rejoicing; for in the Old as well as in the New
Testament there is a picture of a suffering as well
as of a triumphant Messiah. Every saviour or helper
of mankind has a time of suffering as well as of glory,
a time in which God seems to have forsaken him, and
the meanness or the indifference or the wickedness
of mankind are too much for him, and a time when
the multitude cry l Hosanna ' before him, or he him
self in his own inmost soul has a more present vision

*** G

82 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

of a kingdom not of this world. This double thread
runs alike through the prophets and the Gospels.
Only what is more outward and visible in the Old
Testament becomes more inward and spiritual in the
New. The kingdom of God is not the conversion of
surrounding nations or the subjugation of them to the
God of Israel, but ' the kingdom of God is within
you.' There, in the heart of man, its struggle is to
be maintained, its victory won. It does not seek to
incorporate the kingdoms of the world, but is rather
in antagonism with them. The faithful believer feels
the dead weight of sin and of the world, but in him
self and in relation to God he is free and lord of all
things. Take as the highest expression of what I am
saying the remarkable words of St. Paul in 2 Cor. vi :
' As deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well
known, as dying and behold we live, as sorrowful yet
always rejoicing, as having nothing and yet possessing
all things.' Or again the description of the spiritual
conflict in Rom. vii : ' The good that I would I do
not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. . . . O
wretched man that I am. ... I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Of this spiritual conflict there is no trace in the
prophets. Neither do they ever speak of God taking
up His abode in the hearts of men. Their relation to
Him is an external one like that of subjects to a king.
They see Him sitting on a throne high and lifted up.
They cannot be said to reconcile God to man, or to

v.] CHRIST AND THE PROPHETS 83

bridge the chasm which separates them. He is the
Sun of their life, and they seem to fear that when their
breath passes away the sunshine in which they have
lived may be withdrawn from them. They utter His
commands ; occasionally, awake or in a dream, they
hear His voice ; but they do not hold communion with
Him. He is clothed in the greatness of nature, which
like the cherubim veils His face from them. He is
still the God of the Jewish race, though in the dis
tance the prophet sees that other races will begin, or
are beginning, to partake of the mercies granted to
the Israelites. The misery and evil of the people are
present ; and they are already experiencing the just
judgements of God. But the hope of good is future —
in those days, in the latter days, at some unknown
and distant time ; whereas in the New Testament the
good is present and immediate ; within the reach of
every one, if he will renounce himself and follow
Christ. For these are * the latter days,' and ' this day
is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears.'

The life of Christ comes after the promises and
denunciations of the prophets like the calm after
storm, like the still small voice in the Book of Kings
after the thunder and the earthquake. It is the
life of a private man, unknown to the history of His
own time. Very few Romans within a century of
His birth had ever heard of His name. To a stranger
visiting Palestine about the year 30 He would have
appeared the gentlest and most innocent of mankind.

G 2

84 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

Such a one might have been described in the words
of the prophet : ' He shall not strive nor cry ; a bruised
reed shall He not break, nor quench the smoking flax.'
He would have seemed like any other man, only
calmer and deeper. He would not have made that
great interval between Himself and other men which
we sometimes attribute to Him ; He would rather
have sought to identify Himself with them. l Why
callest thou Me good ? there is none good but One,
that is God.' What, then, do we mean, and what would
He Himself have meant by declaring that He was the
4 manifestation of God ' or the ' Son of God ' ?

Suppose that we pause for a moment and ask, first
of all, what we mean by the very term 'the manifesta
tion of God.'

Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain Him ; how, then, can He be manifested
to us ? He is in one world and we in another : how
can we pass from ourselves to Him ? We cannot
escape from the condition of our own minds. He is
in eternity, and we are limited by space and time :
what conception or idea can we form of Him ? Every
thing that we think is subject to the laws of our
minds : every word that we utter is a part of a human
language. But our thoughts are not the thoughts
of the universal mind, and language, as we know, is
full of defects and imperfections. Are we not, then,
seeking to think what cannot be conceived and to
express what no words can utter ?

v.] HOW IS GOD MANIFESTED 85

So both in ancient and modern times the philo
sopher has widened the breach between the seen
and the unseen, between the human and divine. But
the second thoughts of philosophy have always been
that from this transcendentalism we must return to
the earth, which is the habitation, not of our bodies
only, but of our minds, and that through man we must
ascend to God. We do not suppose God to be in
a form like ourselves ; nor are the most wonderful
works of art, except so far as they convey a moral
idea, in any sensible degree a nearer approximation
to the image of God than the rudest. But still He is
only known to us, so far as we can conceive Him,
under the form of a perfect human nature. The
highest which we can imagine in man is not human
but divine. Perfect righteousness, perfect holiness,
perfect truth, perfect love — these are the elements or
attributes, not of a human, but of a divine being.

There are some persons who believe only in what
they see, and God they cannot see ; there are some
persons who accept only what is definite, and God
cannot be defined ; there are some persons upon
whose minds an impression is only produced by
poetry or painting, and the greatest art of Italian or
any other poet or painter cannot depict or describe
God. There are another class again who would reject
any God whose existence cannot be demonstrated to
them on the principles of inductive science. To all
these, righteousness, holiness, truth, love, instead of

86 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

being attributes of God and the most real of all powers
in the world, are fancies of mystics, or abstractions of
philosophers.

I know that the record in which this divine good
ness is presented to us is fragmentary, and that we
cannot altogether separate the thoughts of Christ
Himself from the impressions which the disciples and
evangelists formed of Him. But is this any reason
for our not attempting to frame an idea of God, the
highest and holiest which we can ? If there be any
thing in the narrative of the Gospels that is discordant
or inconsistent, either with itself or other truths not
known in that age of the world, that is not to be
insisted upon as a part of our religion. Our duty
as Christians is not to inquire whether this or that
word of Christ has been preserved with superhuman
accuracy, but to seek to form the highest idea of God
which we can, and to implant it in our minds and in
our lives.

What, then, is this exemplar which God gives us of
His love and of Himself, first manifested in the life
of Christ, and then fashioned anew in our own hearts ?
Wre may begin by regarding it as the opposite of the
world. ' Ye are not of the wrorld, even as I am not
of the world.' It is not the image of power, or of
external greatness, or of any quality which men
ordinarily admire ; there is no admixture of the
beauty which strikes the sense in it. For * His face
was marred more than the sons of man.' Nor is it

v.l UNWORLDLINESS 87

the embodiment of genius or intellect, though these
may be mighty instruments in the government of the
world. Nor is it the image of a great conqueror
who subjugates the nations to a kingdom of righteous
ness. For such a subjugation by external force to
good is not possible : ' the kingdom of God is within
you.' The victory of good over evil had sometimes
floated before the mind of the Israelitish prophets as
a victory of arms. ' But My kingdom,' says Christ,
' is not of this world ; else would My servants fight
for it, but now is My kingdom not from hence.' In
none of these forms has God revealed Himself to us.
Nor again does the image of Christ lead us to
conceive of pleasure, or of what we term happiness,
as specially appropriate to the Divine Being. ' My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work,' is the true con
ception of the divine nature. In this world we some
times make too much of happiness when compared
with noble energy and the struggle to fulfil a great
purpose. It seems to be true also to say that God
wishes for the good rather than for the happiness of
His creatures, as far as these two are separable. He
who would be the follower of Christ cannot promise
himself a life of innocent recreation or enjoyment : he
has a cross to bear which may be the opposition or
persecution of his fellow-men, which may be only
his own weakness in the fulfilment of his task. He
cannot please himself from day to day ; he must be
about his Master's business, he must take a part with

88 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

God in His government of the world. For, as far as
the will of God is fulfilled on earth, it is through the
co-operation of man : 4 We are workers together with
Him.' This is the greatest to which man can attain.
And every man who works in the true spirit feels
instinctively that he must observe the laws which God
has laid down for his guidance, whether those higher
laws of which revelation and conscience speak to
us or those which are gained from experience and
observation.

In this expression, * Not of the world,' the character
of Christ may be summed up. He does not share the
prejudices of the world : He is not influenced by the
traditions or opinions of men. He is living among
a people enslaved by ceremonies and ordinances, the
lower classes liable to outbursts of fanatical fury,
the upper seeming to care for little else but the main
tenance of social order. He goes on His way im
movable, amid the rage of the zealot, the cynicism of
the Sadducees, the ceremonialism of the Pharisees,
with His mind fixed only on the requirements of the
divine law. He begins again with the word of God
apart from all the additions and perversions which
had overgrown it. He brings men back to a few
simple truths, which He would carry out in thought
as well as in act. He converts the law into a spirit
of life. The classes of men whom He delights to
bless are not those whom the wrorld admires, the rich,
the powerful, the intellectual ; but blessed are the poor,

v.] WHO ARE BLESSED 89

or the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed
are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness,
blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peace
makers. These are the types of character which are
blessed in the sight of God. The collection of say
ings which we call the Sermon on the Mount are for
the most part a correction of the ordinary religion.
4 If thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what
thy right hand doeth ; ' * Thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thy chamber and shut the door ; ' ' Love not
thy neighbour only, but thine enemy ' — adding the
reason, that ' ye may be the children of your Father
which is in heaven, for He maketh His sun to rise
upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain
upon the just and the unjust.' So far is Christ from
revealing God to us as a God of vengeance. He does
not mean to say that good and evil are indifferent to
God, but that the good and evil alike are treated by
Him with equity, with consideration, with love. It is
the spirit in which He Himself says, ' Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.'

Another general form under which we may pre
sent to ourselves the life of Christ is that ' He went
about doing good.' Men are for the most part con
tent with themselves if they abstain from evil and do
a little good in the world. They never consider, or
hardly ever, how their whole lives might be given up
to the service of God and their fellow creatures. They
are the creatures of habit and repute ; they do not

90 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

depart from the customary ways of society. Nor
can we deny that most of us would be unequal to
this greater life, nor set any limit to the good which
may be done by those who sit still in the house,
who scarcely ever leave the seclusion of their own
village or home. But let us not be ignorant also that
there is a higher and nobler ideal than this — the ideal
of a life which is passed in doing good to man ; in
seeking to alleviate the miseries and inequalities of
his lot, to raise him out of the moral and physical de
gradation in which he is sunk, and to implant in him
a higher sense of truth and right. What would have
become of the world if there had been no such teachers
or saviours of mankind ? For the lower are inspired
by the higher, and most of all by the highest of all.
This is what makes the life of Christ such a precious
possession to the world, not merely the good that He
did when on earth, in teaching and consoling the
afflicted, but the example which He left behind for all
time of another and higher sort of character such as
had never existed before in this world. To live for
others only, and only in the service of God, to be the
mediator between God and man, to reconcile the
world to itself — this is the idea which Christ is always
setting before us, and of which those who are His
disciples must in their measure seek to partake.

One other type under which we may imagine the
character of Christ is that ' He lived in God.' He did
not teach of Himself or act of Himself, but He was

v.] LIFE FOR OTHERS; LIFE IN GOD 91

taught and inspired of God. His own soul was the
mirror or reflection of the divine will. He looked
inwards (not like the mystic seeking to be absorbed
in some unreal enthusiasm) ; and, finding within Him
self love and right and truth without any alloy of
earthly motive, felt instinctively that they were the
word of God. ' This man had no letters,' said the
Jews ; but He saw farther and more truly than them
all. ' Is not this the carpenter's Son ? ' Yet He spoke
with a divine authority. For He spoke not of Himself,
but out of a Power which was independent of Him
self, words which He knew to be the voice of God
and the true law of the world. The truth never pre
sented itself to Him as a matter of opinion or uncer
tainty or speculation ; it was not a thing to be reasoned
or argued about, but to be felt and known by all men.
It meant, not a system of doctrines such as the Chris
tian community afterwards devised, but a spirit of
life — the spirit of peace and love, the temper of mind
which rests in God and is resigned to His will, which
seeks also to fulfil His wTill actively in doing good to
man.

To this simple life Christ invites us ; to return to
the beginning of Christianity, now that the world has
got so far onward in its course. He speaks to us
across the ages still, telling us to come back to the
first principles of religion. And of this simple reli
gion we have the assurance in ourselves, and the
better we become the more assured we are of it.

92 CHRIST'S REVELATION OF GOD [v.

Who can doubt that love is better than hatred,
truth than falsehood, righteousness than unrighteous
ness, holiness than impurity ? Whatever uncertainty
there may be about the early history of Christianity,
there is no uncertainty about the Christian life.
Questions of criticism have been raised concerning the
Gospels ; there have been disputes about rites and
ceremonies ; whole systems of theology have passed
away : but that which truly constitutes religion, that
in which good men are like one another, that in
which they chiefly resemble Christ, remains the same.
And it may be regarded as one of the great blessings
of the age in which we live that, after so many wan
derings out of the way, we are at length beginning to
distinguish the essential from the accidental, and to
appreciate more than any former age the true meaning
of the words of Christ.

And now some one will ask how the life of Christ,
which has been thus imperfectly treated, is a revela
tion of the divine nature. I told you before that it
was only through the human we could approach the
divine. The highest and best that we can conceive,
whether revealed to us in the person of Christ or in
any other, that is God. Because this is relative to
our minds, and therefore necessarily imperfect, we
must not cast it away from us, or seek for some other
unknown truth which can be described only by nega
tives. To such a temper the words of the prophet
may be applied : ' Say not in thine heart. Who shall

v.] 75 THE REVELATION FINAL? 93

ascend into heaven ? or, Who shall descend into the
deep ? But the word is very nigh unto thee, even in
thy mouth and in thy heart.' Every good thought
in our own mind, every good man whom we meet,
or of whom we read in former ages, every great
word or action, is a witness to us of the nature of
God.

And, yet once more, a person may ask, ' Do science
and philosophy teach us nothing about the divine
nature ? Must not our knowledge of God increase
as our knowledge of the world increases ? Must not
reflection add something to the meaning of the words
of Christ? Must not they be read in the light of
experience ? ' We all of us know, for example, that
the world is governed by fixed laws, and the possi
bility of our doing any good to our fellow creatures
depends on our acquaintance with them. Yet there
is no word of this either in the Scriptures of the Old
or New Testaments, but only such a general con
fidence in the uniformity of nature as is expressed in
the words ' He hath set the round world so fast that
it cannot be moved ' ; or, ' The very hairs of your
head are all numbered.' We cannot, therefore, venture
to say that nothing is added to our knowledge of
God by increasing experience, or that He does not
speak to us in history and in nature as well as in
Scripture.

Into this subject I propose to enter more at large
on some future occasion. For the present let me

94 CHRISrS REVELATION OF GOD [v.

entreat you not to suppose, because you hear sacred
things discussed and analysed and spoken of perhaps
in a different way from what would have been com
mon thirty years ago, that they are less sacred and
authoritative than they once seemed to be. We can
no more live without religion now than formerly ; it
is always returning upon us ; we cannot cast it off
without weakening and impoverishing the character.
We need the support of it in life, the comfort of it in
death. There is no other principle by which a man
can be raised above himself into a higher level of
thought and action. As little can we give up truth
without inflicting a wound on our own higher nature.
To show how these two may be reconciled in educa
tion and in practical life ; how the most fervent love of
truth may be consistent with the deepest religious
feeling; how the spirit of Christ may animate his
torical and scientific researches without being lost in
them — this is a task which seems to be reserved for
the coming generation to accomplish.

VI
THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON1.

THEN SHALL THE SON ALSO HIMSELF BE SUBJECT
UNTO HIM THA T PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIM, THA T

GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL.

i COR. xv. 28.

IT is possible for the student of theology to observe
through many cycles of human history the growth
and development of the idea of God in the heart and
conscience of man, passing from the worship of
many gods to that of One, with whom mankind are
brought into nearer and nearer relation, and of whom
they seem gradually to acquire a truer notion. First
among the successive stages he would note the rudi
mentary idea of God which existed among primitive
nations, and which still exists in barbarous countries ;
the vague terror of stocks and stones, the shrinking
of men from their own shadows, ascending gradually
to a worship of the nobler forms of nature. Secondly,
he would trace the idea of God as it grew up to larger
proportions in the great eastern religions, and began
to be interpenetrated and absorbed by moral elements
in the Jewish prophets, not yet disengaged from
nature, but struggling to be free from it. Thirdly, as

1 Preached at Balliol in 186.

96 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

it developed in the light and life of the Greek world,
attaining- to a superficial harmony in the Greek poets
and artists. Lastly, he would reach the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ which is contained in the Gospel.

And now the question arises, Is any further en
largement of the idea of God possible ? Can we ever
expect to know more of Him than we find in the Old
and New Testament ? Christ has spoken of Him to
us as ' His Father and our Father, as His God and
our God.' Nor was such a relation of God and His
people altogether unknown to the prophets. ' Doubt
less Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant
of us and Israel acknowledge us not.' Do we want
to know more than is implied by these or the like
' comfortable words ' ? Or do we suppose that the
feeble brain of man can search into the nature of the
Most High ? Can anything more be required of us
than that we should bring the message of Christ home
to our own hearts and lives ?

This is a mode of speaking which naturally com
mends itself to our religious feelings. We are apt to
think that we cannot have too much of a good thing
in religion, too much reverence, too much humility,
too much devotion. We forget how easily these may
degenerate into ignorance and superstition, how
nearly allied they are to them. We do not remark,
when we oppose the words of God to the words of
man, that still the word of God is of human interpreta
tion, necessarily changing with the advance of litera-

vi.] SCRIPTURE NOT EXCLUSIVE 97

ture and criticism ; or that, when we call upon reason
to bow before revelation, through reason only
revelation can be apprehended by us ; for, however
we may strive to be more or less than ourselves, we
cannot get rid of our own minds. There is the same
difficulty in distinguishing between the movements of
our minds towards good and the Spirit of God
working in us. Who can say where one begins and
the other ends ? In like manner we may draw lines
of demarcation about the Bible which may distinguish
it from all other books, or about theology which may
separate it from philosophy and secular knowledge ;
and such distinctions may help us to define our ideas.
But we shall soon find them to be unreal. We cannot
separate the secular from the religious any more than
the human from the divine or God from nature.

Therefore we do not venture to isolate our know
ledge of God : we cannot say that there is no truth
which is not contained in the Bible, as the Caliph
Omar said that all which is not contained in the
Koran is either false or superfluous. More than
eighteen centuries have passed away since Christ
appeared upon the earth. Have they taught mankind
nothing about the government of God and His manner
of dealing with His creatures ? Is there no religious
experience to be gathered from history, analogous to
that which individuals derive from observation of
their own lives ? Is there no ever-growing witness of
God in nature, but only a vague sense that He is the

*** H

98 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

Creator of all things ? Within the last two centuries
new sciences have come into existence which have
changed the aspect of the world. Can they have left
our religious life wholly untouched ? The writers of
the New Testament were hardly acquainted with any
religion but the Jewish ; nor did they wholly lay aside
the prevalent traditions or opinions of the age in
which they lived. But we have learned to compare
one religion with another ; we see how many truths
are common to them all, truths which were once
thought to be derived solely from revelation ; how
many tendencies to error, from which the Christian
Church has not escaped. Again, the genuineness of
sacred writings is tried by a different method from
that of a century ago ; and, as criticism advances, as
our knowledge of physical science extends, the lines
of defence which we draw around Christianity are
different and wider. One by one its artificial supports
seem to disappear, and it stands before us having no
other witness but its own inherent excellence and
purity.

It would seem, therefore, that we must go forwards
and endeavour to learn what God has taught us in
history and nature as well as in Scripture about Him
self. There cannot be two truths in the world, but one
only ; and, if God is everywhere present, and with us
in various degrees and ways, every part of truth must
throw light upon His nature. I shall not endeavour
to combat further the common prejudice that God is

vi.] REVELATION IN HISTORY AND NATURE 99

only revealed to us in Scripture, but rather proceed
to show what it is which the experience of ages adds
to the knowledge of God which we find there. I am
not speaking of what God is in His own essence, which
neither faith nor philosophy can ever penetrate — if
indeed the very words which I have used can be sup
posed to have any meaning — but only of His mani
festation to us. Without attempting to strain our
eyes beyond the horizon of human vision, it would
seem that our conception of the divine nature is really
enlarged, chiefly from three sources.

First, from the comparison of other religions of the
world, especially the great religions of the East and
the influence of Greek philosophy, which have always
been mingling with the stream of Christian truth.

Secondly, from the observation of nature, which
extends so much further and penetrates so much
deeper than in the ancient world.

Thirdly, from ideas and reasonings which present to
us in an abstract and universal form what the Scripture
for the most part teaches only by precept and example.

i. The study of the religions of the world throws
a flood of light on the true nature of religion. It
teaches us in the first place that we must not look
backward to a primitive revelation, bu forward to a
final one. The aspiration of some great teacher has
lifted man above himself; and then for considerable
periods of time he has fallen back again into his old
state. The truths of religion seem to have been

H 2

ioo THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

always in process of being received and being- lost.
There has always too been a contrast between the
principles of men and their practice, between the
higher law which the few have imposed upon them
selves and the customary religion of the majority of
mankind. Yet upon the whole there has been a pro
gress, often interrupted for a thousand years or more ;
a progress in which we must allow for many steps
backward ; still there has been a progress from the
outward and ceremonial in religion to the inward and
spiritual, from ideas of power and fate to ideas of
truth and right. If we ask how this progress has
been effected, it has been, in the Gentile religions as in
Christianity, chiefly by the influence of individual men,
who have broken in upon the darkness with new light,
who have awakened the dormant elements of truth in
the ancient faith, who have given new meanings to
old words, who by some method of their own have
reconciled the old with the new.

So we are made aware that in their general state
and condition other religions are much more like our
own than we should have previously supposed. But
the parallel does not stop here. For many have had
their sacred books, more or less resembling the Jewish
or Christian Scriptures. And as time went on they
have found the same difficulties in them, and have
practised the same methods of interpreting in two
or more senses. The Brahmins have had disputes
respecting the nature and degree of inspiration which is

vi.] KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER RELIGIONS 101

to be conceded to the Vedas, whether they are wholly
inspired or in the proportion of nine -tenths, or of
one-tenth, or perhaps not at all. The Buddhists,
again, like ourselves, have their controversy respecting
faith and works, similar to that which occurred at the
Reformation. And in all, or almost all, religions there
seems to be a sense of impurity, sometimes unen
lightened, seeking to make atonement by gifts and
offerings, sometimes, again, enlightened, and proclaim
ing like the Jewish prophets that the true atonement
or sacrifice was holiness of life. In the religions of
the East we may trace almost every movement or
tendency which is to be found in Christian Europe.
There is Puritanism, Monasticism, Scepticism, For
malism, Mysticism ; ancient priestly power and the
reaction against it, reformation and counter-reforma
tion, ceremonial bondage too heavy for men's necks
to bear ; Gnosticism or Pantheism, and Agnosticism
or Atheism ; only, as the manner of the East is, exag
gerated, and sometimes wearing the appearance of a
caricature of what we may observe among ourselves.
And often we may note among ourselves strange
lingering tendencies to Jewish or Gentile fancies or
opinions which from time to time revive because they
have their origin deep in human nature.

There seem to be two ways in which these and
similar facts enlarge our idea of the divine nature.

First, they help us to distinguish the important from
the unimportant in religion. We see how many

102 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

things there are which mankind have falsely attributed
to God. The ceremonies of their own ritual even in
minute detail have again and again been supposed to
be a revelation from heaven, or they have thought
only of the power of God, of His right to do as He
liked, and not of the justice which He essentially is.
They have attributed to Him the wayward caprice and
passions of men, which in Him, because He was a
superior being, are consecrated or venial. They have
magnified in Him the mixed good and evil of human
nature without passing the judgement upon them
which they would have passed in the case of their
fellow-men. The criticism of a later age has some
times been that ' such and such acts would have been
wrong if they had not been done by the express
command of God.' Even in Christianity there have
been survivals of this mistaken spirit, which distin
guishes between God and truth, or between God and
right, instead of viewing them as absolutely identical.
And one of the advantages of the study of this com
parative theology is that it shows us how much of
human error is inseparable from all the earlier notions
of a Divine Being ; how easily such notions become
confirmed by tradition, so that even good men often
fall under their power, and can with difficulty be freed
from them.

Secondly, we see that the religions of the world are
not isolated, but are parts of a whole, forming together
the religious education of the human race. God is

vi.] EDUCATION OF THE RACE 103

not the God and Father of the Jews only, but of all
mankind. The heathen, as we sometimes disparag
ingly call them, are not His enemies but His children,
whom, though at a greater distance from Him and
by a longer path, He is guiding into His truth. They
too hear His voice and are conscious of His presence.
To them may be applied the words in which St. Paul
speaks, first of the Jew, secondly of the Gentile : ' So
then God concluded all under sin that He might have
mercy upon all.' And indeed they seem to stand
to the future of Christianity in a relation not unlike
that of the Jews to the Gospel of Christ. And of
them too Christ would have said, as he did of the
Gentiles, * Other sheep I have which are not of this
fold.' The fatherhood of God, as has been already
remarked, is revealed both in the Old Testament and
the New. But now it takes a wider scope, extending
to all time and all the world. There is realized to
us the great family in heaven and earth of which
St. Paul speaks. And the principle of religion which
might have been once thought to be granted by the
favour of heaven to a chosen race, is now seen to be
a part of human nature, and inseparable from the
mind itself.

These seem to be the principal ways in which our
knowledge of God is enlarged by the study of other
religions. There is much in our traditional beliefs
which is corrected or explained by them ; something
also is added.

104 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

2. And now let us pass on to the second head,
4 The witness of God in nature.' Is this merely
a sentimental feeling aroused in us chiefly by the
extraordinary phenomena of nature ? or is it a real
addition to our knowledge of the divine character,
increasing as our knowledge of nature increases, and
entering into our daily life ? The Scripture speaks
to us of ' the visible things which testify of the
invisible ' ; of the permanence of the world : ' He hath
set the round world so fast that it cannot be moved ' ;
of the infinite or infinitesimal care of Providence :
'Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.' These,
like many other words of Scripture, we may link to
modern thoughts, and find in them a natural figure
or expression of some recently discovered truths.
But no one will maintain that the uniformity of nature,
in the sense in which this term is understood by
scientific men of the present day, is taught in the Old
or New Testament. The sacred writers knew nothing
of the indestructibility of matter, of the correlation of
forces, of the interdependence of soul and body, of the
antiquity of man, of the still greater, almost unmea-
surable antiquity of the world, of the infinity of the
heavens. They never considered this earth to be but
as a grain or molecule in the ocean of immensity. It
remains for us to reflect how, and to what extent,
these truths of science affect our knowledge or con
sciousness of the divine nature.

First, they present to us the merely physical great-

vi.] REVELATION OF GOD IN NATURE 105

ness of God in a manner which would formerly have
been inconceivable to us ; they give a sort of material
reality to the words eternity and infinity, which over
powers and almost oppresses. The boundaries of
nature are enlarged, and the realm of the God of
nature is enlarged also. ' The heavens declare the
glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handy-
work.' With how much greater wonder must we
repeat these words when we look out upon the
heavens through the telescope, and measure, though
imperfectly, the incredible distance of the stars and
the rapidity of their motions. And with how much
deeper feeling must we therefore add, * Lord, what is
man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man
that Thou visitest him ? ' We might have feared that
He, who had so vast an empire, in His care of the
greater would have overlooked the lesser : but we
find, in looking through the microscope, that science
has another wonder in store for us, a wonder of
minuteness, as well as of vastness, and that not only
man but the least of all animals invisible to the
naked eye have their perfectly-formed structures and
their place in the economy of the world.

But the conception of the laws of nature touches
our own lives far more nearly, and teaches us far
more about the manner in which God deals with us
than either the greatness or minuteness of nature.
They show us that He is a God of order, not of dis
order. If the infinity of the world seems for a moment

io6 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

to distract us, the thought of these restores us to our
selves and Him. The word 4 law ' has some disturbing
associations of external compulsion and the like ; it
is often opposed to morality, as it is in the Scripture
to faith. And in applying the conception to our own
lives we shall do well sometimes not to speak of law,
but to think rather of harmony, of regularity, of the
freedom which is given by order, of the communion
of ourselves with nature. The Scripture tells us that
' in Him we live and move and have our being.' And
so we find as matter of experience, whatever higher
meaning these words have, that His laws, as we term
them, enter into us and are a part of us, and that we
cannot escape from them if we would. They are at
once the limits set to us and the powers by which we
act. We are free agents, not in spite of them, but in
consequence of them : without them we should be
nowhere — the sport of chance or accident — occasion
ally, shall I say, relieved by the stretching out of a
Divine Hand.

These laws teach us unmistakably how God governs
the world ; and, if we would co-operate with Him, we
must know what they are. They do not prove that
happiness is always the reward of virtue, or that
suffering is the punishment of sin. They seem rather
to show us that in endless and complex ways the
spiritual well-being of man is bound up with his
physical, that individuals are greatly influenced by
their circumstances, that all men, although they have

vi.] PHYSICAL LAWS GOD'S LAWS 107

freedom of choice about good and evil, and are
responsible for their actions, yet remain within a cer
tain natural limit which they cannot pass. We see
that the purely spiritual power which we can exercise
over ourselves and others is narrower than we might
at first sight suppose. But on the other hand the
power which we can exert by the right use of means
is very great ; or rather, I may say, that of the two
together is almost unbounded. The one leads, the
other follows ; the one indicates the end, the other
the active steps which enable us to attain it. If
a man would improve his own mind he must study
the laws of the mind, the effect of habit, circumstances,
intellectual influence, and the like. He must also
realize to himself his own internal experience. Mere
prayer, or devotional exercises, or the making of
good resolutions, or the attempt to enforce some
abstract principle on himself will not impart to him
a harmonious principle of life or growth. He must
understand human nature ; he must learn to act what
he thinks. Or, to take another illustration. Suppose
a person desirous to reform the inhabitants of some
neglected parish or district : he will not merely try to
impress upon them some doctrine or even the greatest
truth of the Gospel, but he will seek to raise their
moral by improving their material condition ; he will
influence them through their natural affections, he
will draw their children to the school ; he will
observe many causes which affect their health, of which

io8 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

they are wholly unconscious. In short, he will strive
to apply all that doctrine about habits and circum
stances, and the laws which affect the physical well-
being1 of man, to the service of his fellow creatures.

So God teaches us that we must worship Him
through His laws and not beside them ; not casting
one eye upon earth, and lifting the other to heaven,
but recognizing His presence at once and immediately
in our homes and streets : may we not say, the nearer
the duty, the nearer is God present in it ? We have
no reason to suppose that prayer will alter the fixed
laws of this world ; but God has shown us how,
by the right use of means, we may vary without
breaking them, so far at least as to receive all the
good of them and to avoid the evil. The power
which we have over them is no violation or infringe
ment of them, but is included in them. And thus
a new religion of nature springs up, not like the old
religion, blind and helpless, but intelligent, recogniz
ing- in every addition to our knowledge of physical
or social laws the possibility of adding something to
the improvement of mankind and to our knowledge
of the divine nature.

3. There remains the third division, of which I must
briefly speak ; the inferences which we may draw
respecting the nature of God from abstract ideas or
reasonings, or in other words from the divine attributes.
Abstract ideas are apt to have a bad name with us ;
they seem to belong to philosophy rather than to

vi.] IDEAL JUSTICE, TRUTH AND LOVE 109

religion, and we sometimes speak of them contemp
tuously as mere abstractions. The Bible is not a book
of abstractions ; it speaks to us heart to heart ; it can
rarely be said to appeal to general motives for a con
firmation of the truths which it teaches. It tells us
indeed that God is just ; 4 For how else,' as St. Paul
says, * can He judge the world ? ' It tells us, again, that
God is love : * For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son.' Once more, it tells us
that God is true : 4 Yea, though every man be a liar.'
But the Bible does not attempt to draw out the
consequences of attributing to the divine nature, first,
justice ; secondly, love ; thirdly, truth ; or, in one
word, perfection. It tells us, again, that * our Father
which is in heaven is perfect.' Here, then, is a legiti
mate field in which the Christian theologian may seek
to extend our knowledge of God : we all speak of
God as being a Moral Being ; he may show us what
is inevitably involved in these words. And many
erroneous inferences drawn sometimes from a partial
use of Scripture may be corrected, and the supposed
antagonism between religion and morality removed.
And in daily life and practice we may feel how great
a thing it is to trust ourselves to a perfect God.

For example, if we attribute to God perfect justice,
we cannot say He will pass over our offences without
punishment ; or that, having regard to the frailty of
His creatures, He views with equal favour the righteous
and the wicked. But we can say that nothing acci-

no THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

dental, nothing capricious, enters into His govern
ment ; He will not inflict disproportionate punishment,
He will not lay down arbitrary conditions which He
insists on our fulfilling ; He will not fix a time before
which all may be retrieved, after which all is for ever
lost. We are right in assuming this about God,
because wre should infer it about any just or good
man. To suppose anything else would be to suppose
that the justice of God falls short even of a moderate
degree of human justice. There is a great deal of
comfort, not without awe, in all this. And we may go
a step further. For the justice of God is based upon
perfect knowledge. He sees not only all the evil but
all the good which is in us, the unexpressed wish to
become better, the least sense of sorrow for the past ;
and often He does not judge us as man judges us.

So again of His love and truth. The Scripture
tells us that God is love, and that He wills all men to
be saved. Or, again, 4 He concluded all in unbelief, that
He might have mercy upon all.' There is no quali
fication of this ; no exception to it. Can it be limited
to those who have heard the message of Christ and
been saved by believing on Him ? The idea of divine
love carries us far beyond this, to think of a love of
God which is inexhaustible, not confined to the good
only, but extended to all, and not resting satisfied
while even a single individual among His creatures
remains estranged from Him. There may be ways
by which He has provided that ' His banished ones be

vi.] INFERENCES FROM DIVINE PERFECTIONS 1 1 1

not expelled from Him.' We shall do well to think of
the state of being- in which we are here, of that in which
we shall be hereafter, as a state of education in which
He is drawing- us nearer to Himself and to the truth.
Of such things we may meditate although we cannot
describe or define them. They are hidden from our
eyes, like that time of which the Apostle speaks in
the words of the text, ' When the Son Himself shall
be subject unto Him that put all things under Him,
that God may be all in all.' But although we are
unable to tell in what manner the work of love can
be accomplished, any more than we can tell how the
dead are raised up, we do not therefore cease to
acknowledge, in the fullness of its consequences, the
first and greatest of all articles of belief, that God
is Love.

Once more, if God is truth, what is the inference ?
It is not a particular truth, but all truth, which we must
identify with Him ; the truths of science as well as the
truths of religion or morals ; the temper of truth
everywhere, even when seemingly antagonistic to
Christianity. Is not this again an enlargement of
our idea of God ? To the student, especially in these
days, the thought that any inquiry honestly pursued
cannot be displeasing to the God of truth is a great
source of peace and comfort. He is better able to
meet the attacks of his fellow-men when he is stayed
upon the God of truth, and he feels that his duty
towards knowledge is also a duty towards God. He

H2 THE SUBJECTION OF THE SON [vi.

is conscious that his life is innocent though many may
condemn him. And sometimes he will seem to see
the God of truth looking down upon the violence and
party spirit of the world and of the Church.

These three — justice, love, truth — are the three great
attributes of the divine nature, aspects of the one per
fection which God is. When they meet in our hearts
God may be said to take up His abode within us.

Let us take away with us the thought of a great
writer — l Certainly, it is heaven upon earth to have
a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and
turn upon the poles of truth/

VII
FEELING AFTER GOD1.

THAT THEY SHOULD SEEK THE LORD, IF HAPLY
THEY MIGHT FEEL AFTER HIM, AND FIND HIM.

ACTS xvii. 27.

IN some previous sermons I endeavoured to trace
the growth of the idea of God in the heart of man ;
as it existed before the Christian religion, in Greek
philosophy, or in the great religions of the East ; in
the Old Testament ; as it was revealed to us in Jesus
Christ ; as it had been perpetually corrected and en
larged by the reflections of great thinkers, by the expe
rience of common life, by the ever-widening circle of
natural science. The thought of God has formed the
mind of man, and has renewed the face of the world ;
it is the element of light and life which has united and
purified the scattered fragments of the human race ;
which has moulded wandering tribes into mighty
nations; which, like the sun in the heavens over
powering the morning mist, has slowly infused into
the consciousness of mankind the truth that * He hath
made of one blood all nations of the earth ' ; and not
only all nations, but all churches, all ranks of society,
all forms of religion and of civilization. And, returning
1 Preached at Balliol, Feb. 18, 1877.

H4 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

from the extremity of the heavens, this principle of
light and life shines also in our own hearts : ' In His
light do we see light.'

I had intended to complete this short course of five
sermons with a sixth, in which I was going to speak
of the application of the thought of God to our daily
life; for there would be little use in attempting to
trace the workings of a divine power in history or in
nature if we did not recognize the presence of it in
our own hearts. But it seemed to me, in reviewing
the subject once more, that there was still a phase of
religion which remained to be considered, not peculiar
to any one age or country or state of society, but
common to all in which there has been any enlight
ened knowledge of divine things. There is what may
be called 4 the imperfect or half-belief in God,' which
is not untrue, but weak ; which has a desire for holi
ness and perfection, but is unable to think of them
as realities. For not only in Gentile but in Christian
times men have been ' feeling after God if haply they
may find Him.' Most persons who have seriously
reflected about religion would acknowledge that at
times they have felt depressed and were unable to
recognize the presence of God in the world, or to
justify His ways to men. As the psalmist says:
• Then sought I to understand this, but it was too
hard for me.' His difficulty, as you will remember,
was that old one not yet perhaps completely answered :
4 How could the ungodly be in such prosperity and

VIL] TIMES OF IMPERFECT BELIEF 115

flourishing like a green bay tree ? ' The authors of
the Book of Job and of Ecclesiastes seem hardly and
with difficulty, amid the appearances of the world
around them, to have recognized a light beyond.
Whole ages and countries, in the language of Scrip
ture, turn away from God, and He hides His face
from them. There have been periods in the world's
history, such as the first century before and after the
Christian era, or the tenth or the fifteenth century
after Christ, or the eighteenth century terminating in
the French Revolution, in which the power of religion
has visibly declined and the belief in God almost dis
appeared, at least in some countries and among the
educated classes ; and then again there have been
renewals and revivals. In some cases this alienation
from religion has been almost wholly evil ; in others
it has been the assertion of some truth or principle
supposed to be at variance with religion, or a witness
against some religious corruption.

In the opinion of many we are ourselves passing
into one of these phases of irreligion. Just as we seem
to be arriving at true notions of religion, and long be
fore we have exhausted the great thought of a divine
perfection, we are told by some that the belief in God
is passing away ; not to speak of that short and easy
formula in which the history of the human race has
been summed up : ' first we were polytheists, then we
became monotheists, and now, after a brief interval
of metaphysical confusion, we are atheists.' Not to

I 2

n6 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

speak, I say, of this foolish formula, which is flagrantly
at variance with facts, there are some signs that reli
gious belief is not in the same position as formerly.
A large proportion, perhaps the majority, of our
artisan class are said to be without religion. Our
men of science do not for the most part acknowledge
the miraculous or supernatural, and with the belief in
these all religious truth is sometimes supposed to be
bound up. The great additions to our knowledge
made in these latter days have been gained chiefly by
observation and experience : thus the seen tends to
prevail over the unseen, and the habit of men's minds
alters accordingly. The extraordinary change in the
religious opinion which has taken place during the
last forty years is not favourable to the strength or
permanence of religious convictions ; for the movement
in one direction provokes a reaction in another :
when a certain amount of critical or analysing power
is applied to it, the via media easily separates into
the extremes. Religious bodies, when they become
aware of their divergence from the world, instead of
attempting to find terms of reconciliation, generally
proceed along their own narrow path towards a more
extreme dogmatism and a more rigid organization.
There are times also when old grounds of belief, such
as were supplied by the unreflecting appeal to Scrip
ture, seem to crumble under our feet. Then a great
deal of trouble arises in the world, and a great deal of
alarm is caused both in our minds and in those of

vii.] DANGERS IN TIMES OF TRANSITION 117

others who care for us. There is also a real danger
that we shall not be strong enough to live through
these times of transition in which our lot is cast, but
may make shipwreck of our morals or of our faith.
I think it may be of some use that we should en
deavour to understand the state of the world in which
we live, for ' if a man walk in the day he stumbleth
not.' I will therefore propose this question for our
consideration — ' Why is there so much less appear
ance of God in the world than formerly ? and how far
is this disappearance real, how far illusion ? ' Two
thoughts may be silently present to our minds in
the attempt to analyse these phenomena : first, that
whether we like it or not we cannot recall the past,
past opinions, past usages, and the like ; for they are
in the past, and it is not in the past but in the present
that we are living, not in the twelfth century but in
the nineteenth ; secondly, that our belief in God has
nothing to do with His actual existence. If all men
were blind the sun would be still shining in the
heavens. Truths of all sorts have existed from the
beginning of time which are either hidden from
us or of which we are only just beginning to be
conscious.

All human things are imperfect, and the good and
evil in them grow together, and are inextricably
entwined with one another. There is greater good,
and perhaps greater evil, in religion than in anything
else, and a more subtle combination of them than in

u8 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

other forms of life and action. In a critical age such
as our own this blended mass of good and evil is
easily decomposed. Mankind are always turning out
the seamy side of religion to the light. They see
that the practice of professing Christians in daily life
scarcely has any relation to the precepts of Christ.
They reckon up the crimes of churches in former
ages ; the bloody wars, the terrible persecutions, the
slavery of the mind, worse than the confinement of
the body, which fanaticism and superstition have
brought upon the world. They find even now the
spirit of religious party clogging the efforts made by
statesmen and others for the education and improve
ment of mankind. They observe that those who
make no profession of religion are often more honour
able and upright in their dealings than those who are
very much under the influence of religious beliefs.
Considering all these things, they are tempted to
think with the Roman poet of old that the new nega
tion of religion is an emancipation and enlargement of
human nature. They are happy in having cast under
their feet the traditions of priests, the curious lore of
sacred books, the terrors of the world to come. Their
text is 4 Tan turn relligio potuit suadere malorum.'
Without denying the existence of God, they believe
that nothing is to be known of Him, and that He
can only be connected with us, if at all, by the laws of
external nature.

But have they ever considered the other side of the

vii.] POWER OF RELIGION 119

question ? Have they ever thought of the influence
which religion has exercised in consecrating the ties
of the family or of the state in primitive times ; or
of the sanction which it has given to law and to
morality, or of the higher elements which it has intro
duced into the world ? It may be that there are
many hypocrites or half hypocrites among Christians,
that many more are indifferent, that society generally
wears the aspect of business or pleasure, and does not
show in any striking manner a regard for religion.
But have the words of Christ therefore lost their
power? Is the life of self-sacrifice less real in its
effects ? We might indeed reduce our theory to our
practice ; but then again our practice would always
be falling lower and lower. For the words and the
example of the few are the supports which sustain the
many in the path of life. To the uneducated especi
ally it is in the language of religion we must speak, of
the love of God, of the sufferings of Christ ; this is
the way in which we can teach them, not by theories
of happiness or the newest criticisms on Scripture.
As Christians and lovers of truth we do not shrink
from the examination of these ancient writings, and
many discoveries are being made about them which
would have been startling to our forefathers. It is
very likely that these inquiries may in the end purify
and elevate instead of weakening our faith. But
meanwhile let us not forget that these books have
been and are the bread of life to the Christian world ;

120 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

the best men have found in them, or derived from
them, their highest thoughts ; the wayfarer has not
erred upon the whole in gathering from them their
true lesson ; to the uneducated they have been litera
ture and philosophy, their support in life, their con
solation in death. The habit of reading the Bible has
been good both for the head and the heart ; the neg
lect of it would sensibly lower both the character and
the intelligence of a country.

Those who talk in the manner which I was describ
ing take a narrow view of themselves and of their
fellow men ; they do not understand the depth and
capabilities of human nature. They do not consider
how much energy for good, how much force of charac
ter, how much intellectual life would be lost if religion
were to disappear among us. They think of men as
they appear in public only — in business or at a festival
—and forget their private needs. They see them in
the mass only ; they have not present to their minds
the long internal history of sorrows and trials which
many of us have passed through ; the times of sick
ness and depression ; the often returning thought,
1 1 shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'
They have looked at the surface of life only and not
seen within. The time has not yet come when they
feel themselves that something more than this world
is required by them.

There is another tendency of this analytical age
which weakens the hold of religion upon the human

VIL] LANGUAGE OF RELIGION 121

mind. Men remark that all our notions of God come
to us through what is human, through language,
through our own faculties, through our own ideas of
right and wrong. This they call ' anthropomorphism,'
which they would have us cast away, or acknowledge
that not God but only a perfected humanity is the object
of our worship. But how otherwise can we know
God except through our own conceptions of what is
holiest and highest ? Would they have us get out of
our own minds and strive to apprehend Him by some
new kind of intuition ? The perfect man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, is the only image which we are capable
of attaining of the perfect God. Human ideas when
purely abstract are also unmeaning; they can only
acquire a meaning when they find an expression in
the things which we know. We may describe the
divine nature by negatives ; we may say of God that
He is infinite, that He is without parts or passions,
that He is incorporeal and the like. But to say all
this of Him is not half so much as to say that He is
just and loving and true. For although these words
describe human qualities, they are the highest human
qualities which we know : we can imagine them
existing in a far higher degree than they are found in
this world, and through them we dimly see a perfec
tion beyond them in which they rest and unite.

In the third place I would remark that the thought
of God is of necessity much greater and more difficult
to us than to any former age. Primitive nations had

122 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

local gods only, gods of the hills and not of the
valleys; at last they became the gods of nations;
and finally, in Christianity and in the later Greek
philosophy, there is one God of all nations of the
earth. But we have to think of Him as the God of
myriads of worlds far beyond what the eye or tele
scope can reach, infinite in the extent of His power,
and also in its minuteness, in the furthest extremity of
heaven, and yet very near to every one of us. The
figures of the prophets and of the Book of Revela
tion, which describe the unseen world as a place above
or below us which God and His angels make their
habitation, or the powers of evil their stronghold,
seem to fade away before the facts of natural science.
Then, again, the littleness of this earth, which we once
supposed to be the centre of all things, hardly more
in the ocean of space than a point or a drop of water,
is a very overwhelming thought. Whatever people
may say to those who reflect on these things, there is
greater difficulty in realizing the unseen than for
merly. However we describe or conceive God,
whether as the mind of the world, or as the law of
the world, or as the Father of the world, we are led
more and more to feel that His nature is inscrutable
to us, and can be no more expressed in words or
figures of speech than in the graven images of the
olden time. Again, as the notion of a perfect God
becomes more present to us, so also the contradictions
which the appearances of the world offer to this per-

vii.] ENLARGED IDEA OF GOD 123

faction strike forcibly upon the mind. Mankind place
things side by side now which formerly were not seen
to be inconsistent ; objections which used to sleep
quietly enough now demand a well-considered answer.
One perhaps asks to have the law of cause and effect
reconciled with the responsibility of man ; another
repeats the favourite theological paradox, * Why, if
God is all-powerful and all-wise, does He permit the
existence of evil ? ' I can very well imagine that the
theory of the struggle for existence, of which we have
heard so much during the last fifteen years, may pro
duce a very painful impression on the minds of
unthinking persons, because appearing to them so
contradictory to the love of God towards all His
creatures. ' There is not a sparrow that falls to the
ground without your Father.' The facts or specula
tions respecting the origin of society, or even of the
family, so unlike that Garden of Eden of which our
fathers dreamed, are very likely to have a similar
effect. These inquiries I mention, not to refute them
(they are not to be refuted by the way or in a mo
ment), but simply with one object — to show that
religious belief is not so easy a matter as it once was,
and that this generation is not to be accused of greater
irreligion than their predecessors because they are
unable at once to adjust all these marvellous dis
coveries and novel inquiries in their true relation to
their own traditional belief, or even to see how they
can be reconciled with very simple truths of religion

I24 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

and morality. That is the task which God has
assigned to us, and not to us only, but to every suc
ceeding generation of Christians, to entwine the old
with the new, to heal that great breach which seems to
have arisen between religion and knowledge, and to
some extent between religion and morality.

Once more, this disappearance of God from the
thoughts of men, though partly real, is partly also an
illusion arising out of distinctions of language and
artificial divisions of thought, which oppose one truth
or one class of mankind to another when there is no
real opposition, or only a partial one, between them.
We often speak as if religion was one thing and
morality another, as if the conscious recognition of
God was the only good or obligation of human life,
as if the unconscious service of Him, however sincere,
was almost displeasing to Him. Virtue and vice have
a different train of associations from holiness and sin :
among some professors of Christianity there has been
more zeal against good works than against bad ones.
A good man in the phraseology of many persons
means only some one of their own religious opinion or
of their own political party. But is it not true of all
that ' by their fruits ye shall know them ' ? And is not
moral virtue, by whatever name described, the greater
part of religion ? Again, we oppose God to the laws
of the world, and teachers of religion who speak to us
of Him from within to teachers of natural philosophy
who speak to us of His laws only, and whom we

VIL] IRRELIGION PARTLY UNREAL 125

sometimes rate as atheists. But is there really any
opposition between God and His laws, between Scrip
ture and nature, between the starry heaven above and
the moral law within ? Or, again, can a man really
be an atheist, whether he will or no, who sees the
mind working- in the world, who acknowledges the
presence of intelligence in the structures of plants and
minerals, who reverently meditates on the order of
the whole ? Is not the term * materialist ' or ' atheist '
a misnomer? For even supposing such an one as
I have been describing to allow of no other kind of
knowledge than that which is presented to us by the
physical world, still he recognizes a part at least of the
work of God in nature. In religion, as in life gene
rally, the various occupations of men have an effect on
their minds ; and it is useless to expect that the man
of business or the man of science will accept religious
truth in precisely the same form with the minister of
the Gospel.

To illustrate what I am saying, I will make a sup
position which may seem bold, or perhaps even start
ling, to those who are unable to rise above words to
things. The word God, etymologists tell us, is not
connected with good or goodness, but is an old
Teutonic word signifying a graven image (so strange
is the history of words, ' the most despised things, and
the things that are nought,' become the expressions of
' the things that most truly are '). Now I will suppose
that the name of God and, shall I add, the word

126 FEELING AFTER GOD [vn.

Person, was no longer in use; that in our public
services and in our private prayers it ceased to be the
symbol or expression by which we described the holiest
and highest ; but that, instead of using this word, all
mankind with one voice worshipped truth and justice
and goodness united in a divine perfection, not an idea
only, but a power really existing; and that to this
perfection they attributed all those qualities which we
are in the habit of attributing to God — should we be
justified in calling them atheists? Ought they not
rather to be included among Christians, since all that
is essential to the notion of God they already hold ?
I might make a further supposition that all mankind
agreed about the name of God, and yet ascribed to Him
all that is most repugnant to His true nature, as the old
Greek philosopher of 600 B.C. said Homer and Hesiod
attributed to the gods all that is detestable in man.
Are we to call such worshippers of devils theists any
more than we are justified in calling the others
atheists ? or shall we reply in irony, a little parodying
the famous answer of Pascal to the Jesuits, ' They are
Christians who agree in the word and disagree about
the thing meant by it ; they are not Christians who
disagree about the word and agree about the thing.'
It would be absurd to carry out the fancy which I have
been supposing, or to banish altogether the name of
God from the world while seeking to retain a con
ception of the divine nature ; for words too have
a sacredness, and we cannot alter them at pleasure.

VIL] TRUTHS MAY BE < RE-WORDED J 127

But it is not absurd sometimes to discard the ordinary
use of language and to seek to form a conception of
religious truths without employing the technical terms
in which theologians have described them. Half the
controversies in the world would have been at an end
if this condition had been imposed upon them ; neither
can we really understand religious or any other
propositions if we are unable to ' re-word ' them. We
do not know ourselves, nor can any one else know,
whether we have pierced beneath the environment of
language which encloses them to the truth within.
See what follows if from time to time we discipline
our minds by the practice of such a method in our
judgement of men. We can no longer divide them into
theists and atheists, religious and irreligious, or con
sistent Christians and non- Christians ; we must think,
not of the name by which they call themselves, or are
called, but of the degree in which consciously or
unconsciously they conform to the will of God and
imitate the life of Christ. They may be eastern
prophets or Greek philosophers ; they may be men of
science of our own day whose minds are absorbed in
second causes, as they are termed ; the question is no
longer one of names. But whosoever loves righteous
ness and truth is accepted of Him. No principle short
of this will reconcile us to ourselves, to God, and to
the world. Then a new aspect is given both to
theology and life. There is no longer an opposition
between secular and religious employments or between

128 FEELING AFTER GOD [vii.

secular and religious knowledge, but all who in their
several ranks are doing their duty are fulfilling
the will of God ; all who are discovering and teaching
truth are revealing Him. The physician whose pur
suits seem naturally to draw his mind to material
causes in his unpaid ministrations among the poor
may be thought to bear the image of Him who carried
our sorrows and healed our infirmities ; and so of
other classes. The hurry of this world, the struggle
for their daily bread, the absorption of thought, may
lead some men not to recognize consciously, so much
as they should, the Author of their being. Then, in
forming a judgement of them, let us remember that
their relation to God is not to be measured by words
or other external signs, but by the main tenour of
their lives.

This is what I will venture to call the doctrine
of Christians in unconsciousness — of those who, not
having seen, yet have believed — of those who say,
' Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.' It cannot
but be that in times of transition such as the present
great confusions and misunderstandings should arise.
Many persons are in their wrong places ; some who
are called Christians having no higher claim than
success in life, while others who are setting the highest
examples of disinterestedness and integrity are by
some accident placed beyond the Christian pale. The
doctrine which I have been endeavouring to preach is
a very simple one ; that we should habitually regard

VIL] CHANGE AND PERMANENCE 129

ourselves and others, not according to the names by
which we are called or the professions which we
make or the party to which we belong, but more and
more as we and they appear in the sight of God, and
as we believe that one day we shall appear to our
selves ; and that of God Himself we should think as
existing consciously as well as unconsciously to us in
the surrounding world, in the lower things of earth
as well as in the higher, that He is the inspirer of the
best thoughts too, and that where good is there is
God. The times in which we live are said to be liable
to peculiar changes, and a note of alarm is often
sounded about them, sometimes on very trifling
grounds ; or again, from a deeper consideration of the
tendencies of events men fancy that the world is going
to pass into a new era, that the ages of faith have
departed, and that some new age of science or
sociology is to take their place. There is an excitement
in novelty, which gives an attraction to strange forms
of religion and to strange notions in philosophy. But
experience seems to show that the great principles of
human nature change slowly ; there is no reason to
fear that the heavens are about to descend upon our
heads or the earth to swallow us up. One by one we
shall pass away, and all things will remain, if not
really the same, yet much more the same than we are
apt to suppose. Another generation will succeed to
our fears and hopes, to our sorrows and joys, to our
speculations and intellectual interests. But, though
*** K

130 FEELING AFTER GOD [vii.

we may banish idle and alarmist terrors, we cannot
deny that this age, perhaps more than others, has
peculiar trials. It seems as if men required more force
of character in this than in former times. More than
ever it is impossible that what is wholly or partly
conventional should stand. If religion is to be lasting
it must be real, a religion of deeds and not of words,
or it will be quickly swept away in the tide of new
impressions and influences from all sources which
daily succeed one another. This is the peculiarity of
times of transition, that they test the true characters
of men. Some are carried away by every wind ;
others take hold of deeper principles, and are soon in
a safe anchorage. If I were asked, How can a man be
shielded or shield himself from the dangers which
surround him ? I would not in answer prescribe the
books which he should read or the opinions which he
should hold; but I should say, By the innocency of
his life and the quiet and patient fulfilment of his
duties here as a preparation for the service of God in
after life.

VIII
THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD1.

THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD.

COLOSSIANS 1. 15.

THE first principles of religion often seem to retire
from view and lose their interest, while lesser ques
tions exert an absorbing hold on the mind. They
are put on one side, and when they are wanted can
hardly be found ; they are supposed to have been
settled long ago, and every man, or at least every
Christian, is thought to know them by intuition,
whatever may have been the ignorance of them which
prevailed formerly in the Gentile world. This is
especially the case with the truths which relate to the
nature of God. They are buried under ground, and
no one considers whether this foundation of religious
truth is straw or stubble, ingeniously hidden in the
depths of the earth, or the divine rock on which
the temple is to stand for eternal ages. They are
regarded as truisms, about which little remains to be
said, and which are of small importance in com-

1 Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, Oct. 25, 1874.
K 2

132 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

parison with the religious topics of the day, the
doctrine of Baptism or Confession, or the manner of
Christ's Presence in the Sacrament, or the inspiration
of Scripture, or the authority of the priesthood, or
the union of the churches which have retained Epis
copal ordination, and the like.

And yet, my brethren, it is quite clear that without
a great effort both of the heart and of the intellect we
can never really attain a knowledge of God. In reli
gion, as in other things, the truths which are simplest
are also the deepest. And in the changes of human
opinion, amid the storms of controversy, we seem to
come back to them as to ' the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land.' To say that God is just or true, or
that He is a God of love, is not difficult ; these are
familiar expressions to which Christians have been
used almost from infancy. But it is very difficult to
realize what is meant by them, or to live in the
habitual consciousness of them, or to make them
prevail over other notions or expressions which are
apparently at variance with them. The Jews in old
times were constantly relapsing into idolatry because
they could not endure the purely spiritual nature of
God. The solitude of the desert seemed to be too
terrible to them when they were left alone with Him.
Might they not at least worship the sun, or the queen
of heaven, or the star of the god Remphan ? That
was the feeling against which the prophets were
vainly striving during all the earlier period of Jewish

viii.] IDOLATRIES 133

history. And do we suppose that human nature has
now changed, or that this worship of idols has alto
gether ceased among ourselves ? The superstitions
of all religions — Catholic or Protestant, Christian or
Pagan, Jew or Gentile — differ more in name than in
reality. For there are idols of the mind which take
the place of visible images; idols of tradition, of lan
guage, which come between us and God ; idols of the
temple too, in which good and evil seem to be
inseparably blended, and the good is near and pre
sent, and the evil is only recognized in some fatal but
distant consequences. And this is not the only diffi
culty in preserving clear as a mirror the conception
of a perfect God. Some adjustment is required of
His various attributes ; and at the same time we must
allow for the difference between things human and
divine. Even many of the expressions of Scripture
in which the nature of God is described, if isolated
from other expressions, and from the conscience of
man, or not considered in reference to the age and
country in which they were uttered, may easily mis
lead us. If in the excess of reverence or fear we
allow the notion of His power to prevail over His
justice, we may represent Him as worse than some
Eastern tyrant, and ourselves, His creatures, as
crouching before Him, hardly hoping to turn away
His anger with gifts and flatteries. Or if we think
of His justice to the exclusion of His love, then in
stead of a God who * wills that all men should be

134 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

saved/ we have a Being more unpitying, more im
placable in His resentments, than the devil himself.
Or, again, we may so exaggerate the ignorance of
man that we seem to know nothing of Him, and are
ready to accept anything which is told us about Him.
Hardly, with all our care when addressing Him in
prayer, can we avoid attaching to Him the shadow of
some human infirmity, such as change of purpose, or
particular likes and dislikes of persons or opinions.
A good man who lives constantly in communion with
God will often fail to recognize that all other men
in every nation and in every rank of life are equally
His care. The highest privilege of an individual is
sometimes supposed to be the right of doing what
he will with his own, and even this false maxim of
an evil state of society has been blasphemously trans
ferred to the Most High. There is a similar illusion
when God is supposed to take a delight in external
things, in beautiful colours, sounds, forms, scents,
ceremonies, because they are pleasing to us; or in
the building of churches after some ancient pattern,
and as an end, not as a means, forgetting that ' the
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands ' ;
and that the least things which directly affect a human
soul are far more costly and precious in His sight
than the highest refinements of decoration and art.

Therefore I shall make no apology for bringing
before you this subject, which is at once the first and
simplest, and also the most interesting, and perhaps

VIIL] UNCHANGEABLENESS OF NATURE 135

one of the least considered of all subjects of theology
—the nature of God. I shall begin with God's
dealings with us in the physical world, and then
endeavour to show how we may rise out of that to
the moral and spiritual ; and that these are not an
tagonistic to one other as is sometimes supposed — the
physical warring against the moral, the moral against
the spiritual — but consistent ; and the different aspects
under which God presents Himself to us, as the God
of nature, of men, and also of the world of spirits.
And, lastly, I shall endeavour to reflect this argument
upon ourselves, and show in what way \ve ought to
worship God and hold communion with Him, as
being ourselves a part of the visible order of nature,
as conscious of a moral law, and also as having rela
tions to a world of spirits, on the confines of which
we are, and which we dimly know to be infinite and
eternal.

In the first place, then, we must acknowledge that
God governs the world by fixed laws, and does not
alter these laws at our wish or request. This is that
great truth of the order of nature which science pre
sents to us in every possible form, and with every
token and evidence which experience teaches us, if
we do but attend to her, in every act of our lives, and
which nevertheless we sometimes seem disposed to
set aside and ignore, or to which we yield only a
forced or reluctant assent. Let us endeavour to put
the thought of this clearly before the mind's eye ; let

136 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

us imagine some one, I will not say ' a little lower
than the angels,' but a natural philosopher, who is
capable of seeing creation, not with our imperfect
vision and hazy fancies, but with a real scientific
insight into the world in which we live. He would
behold the reign of law everywhere, in the least things
as well as in the greatest, in the most complex as
well as in the simplest, in the life of man as well as of
the animals, extending to organic as well as inorganic
substances ; in all the sequences, combinations, adap
tations, motions, intentions of nature, he would recog
nize the same law and order — one and continuous in
all the different spheres of knowledge, in all the
different realms of nature, through all times and over
all space. Nowhere would the microscope or the
telescope reveal to him any spring or interval in which,
as in some cracked jar, a hand or finger might be
inserted ; nowhere would there be an aperture in
nature through which the light of another world
might come streaming. He would trace the most
seemingly capricious of earthly things, such as the
winds and the mists, to their ocean home ; to us they
are the type of human mutability, but he would know
that they are really subject to laws as fixed as those
by which the stone falls to the ground : in the pro
cesses of birth and death he would also recognize the
uniformity of causes which could not be set aside.
He would confess too that the actions of men and the
workings of the mind are inseparable from the physi-

viii.] UNIFORMITY 137

cal antecedents or accompaniments which prepare for
them or co-operate with them, and that they are
ordered and adjusted as parts of a whole. Nor will he
deny, when he looks up at the heavens, that this
earth with its endless variety of races and languages
and infinity of human interests (each one so intense
and particular at some time or other to some individual
man) is only to be regarded as a pebble on the sea
shore, or as a point in immensity, in comparison with
the universe. And in this universe, at the utmost
limit to which the most powerful instruments will
carry the eye of man, there is still the same order
reappearing everywhere, the same uniformity of
nature, the same force which acts upon the earth.

This is that law of nature, one and continuous in all
times and places, which may be truly said to be the
visible image of God, and 4 her voice the harmony of
the world.' And in ages to come it is not only pos
sible, but probable, that this reign of law in the world
will become much more visible and intelligible to all
classes, educated as well as uneducated, than at pre
sent ; and the natural sciences, which in our own day
appeared to sink almost overpowered under the load
of facts and details, may attain to much greater unity
and simplicity; and the relation of the moral to the
physical world be better understood. At present
this conception of law is regarded with suspicion
amongst us, especially by religious men ; they seem
to be afraid that the wit of man is devising a plan

138 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

for shutting God out of the world which He has made.
They do not, and indeed cannot, wholly deny the
order of nature, but they wish that there might be
exceptions to the rule expressly for them. As if
God could be seen through chinks and cran
nies, or might be peeped at with a candle and in
a corner, and was not visible in the light of day and
in the face of the wide heavens. And yet these are
the doubts of good and religious men, and deserve the
fairest consideration at our hands. Perhaps these
objections may in some degree arise .from want of
explanation, or from some illusion of language ; and
if they could only see that a God was still left them,
and that they were not bound fast in chains of fate, they
would no longer rebel against the dominion of law.

They ask why we speak of things which are so
painful to them and so much at variance with their
sense of religion. The answer is because they are
true, and no religion can be lasting which does not
rest on the truth. And no religion can avoid falling
into contradiction and unreality which takes into
account one side of human nature only and ignores
the other. The story of the Brahmin who was shown
through a microscope the detested insects in the water
which he had been drinking, and who broke the
microscope, is in point here. But that is not the sort
of answer which the Christian would like to give to
a man of science who told him of the uniformity of the
laws of nature. Come, then, and let us reason with

VIIL] ORDER THE CONDITION OF LIFE 139

this good man who is afraid that the theories of
philosophers are banishing him from his God. Has
he ever pursued his thought and asked himself what
he means by interruptions and interferences in the
course of nature ? Has he ever considered how many
misplacements and rearrangements would have to be
made before his prayers could procure for him the
advantage of a favourable wind or the desired fall of
rain? Has he ever asked himself how the answers
to his own request would be reconciled with those
of others ? Let him not suppose that he is shut up in
a prison, or that the philosopher who speaks of fixed
laws means to say that the earth is intersected with
straight lines, and is not full of forms of freedom and
beauty. Would you rather live, we will say to him, in
a house, or carry on an employment, in which there is
no order, or in which there is order ? Or would you
rather travel through a country in which there are
roads, or in which there are no roads? Or would
you have your own life and that of your family
conform to certain laws and customs or not? Or,
again, would you prefer a condition of life in which
you can (for the most part) foresee and calculate the
future and avoid evils, or a condition in which you can
foresee and avoid nothing? And in which case are
you the most free and most the master of your own
actions ? amid order or disorder ? in a civilized country
which has roads and laws, or in an uncivilized ? in
a state of life which is dark and deprived of expe-

140 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

rience, or in one which is lighted up by history and
science ? Is there anything- in the controlling power
of law which prevents your choosing between right
and wrong, or which hinders you from holding com
munion with God and Christ ? Cease, then, to make
this opposition of words between religion and science,
between God and His works. For if there is no
reconciliation of them, and if the truths of religion are
really inconsistent with the order of nature, then
Christianity must inevitably pale away before the
advance of natural knowledge.

Therefore we thankfully look upon the world as
a scene of law and order, in which the countless multi
tudes are marching along the highway of God's
providence, and ' they do not break their ranks,' but
are obedient, as we may say in a figure, to the will of
their Leader. Such a view, instead of shutting out
God from the world, seems rather to restore the world
to Him, and, instead of taking us away from God, to
bring us nearer to Him. And if a person comes
to us and says that there may be interruptions in the
course of nature, and that we cannot see them because
we can affirm nothing certainly, and, therefore, cannot
be certain that there are not, to him we reply that,
while humbly admitting the ' existence of more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy,' we cannot desert the strong ground of
experience or give up the very foundations of know
ledge for the sake of an imaginary gain to faith.

VIIL] OBJECTIONS TO FIXED LAW 141

I know that it may be objected that God's govern
ment of the world by fixed laws is in many cases
inconsistent with His justice, or at least that only
a sort of rough rudimentary justice is to be discerned
in them. The fair infant dying of a cough,

'Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,'

because some one has neglected the conditions of
health, is not an example of divine justice. And if
the question which was once put to Christ is asked in
such a case, ' Which did sin, this child or its parents ? '
the answer will be in the same spirit : Neither this
child nor its parents, but that the laws of health and
physical well-being might be vindicated. There is no
act of justice in this, but a lesson and a warning.
And if the objector again retorts, Yes, but might not
the same lesson have been taught without this waste
of human life ? the answer is : First, at any rate you
have the power of saving life and removing the evil ;
and second, are you quite sure that this or any other
evil may not be an imperfect good which will hereafter
be perfected ?

For, indeed, the objector is right if he means to say
that the heart and conscience of man rise above this
state of nature in which we live. There is something
within him which is not satisfied, a sense of right or
a longing desire for the good of other men, which
demands more than he can find in this present world.
Perhaps when gazing upon some pleasant prospect of

142 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

hill and woodland, and the sea beyond gleaming
beneath the setting sun, or when he lifts up his eyes
and beholds the stars coming out one by one in the
azure heaven, he is tempted to think that this is
the fairest of worlds. But ever and anon, when he
recalls his own miserable condition and that of his
fellow- men, the whole creation, which may be described,
in the language of the Apostle, as l groaning together
until now,' waiting to be delivered ; when he remem
bers the clouds of sin and passion which have darkened
his own life, the imperfection of his best things, the
festering masses of evil in our great towns, the heart-
lessness, the conventionality, the irrationality of man
kind in general, he is strangely impressed with the
contrast of the fairness of the world without and
the sadness of the man within. He feels that he and
his fellow-creatures were not meant for this, and that
God has not left Himself without a witness higher than
the order of nature or the common life of all men.

This is that moral law which He has implanted in
our hearts, and which tells us not what is, but what
ought to be, and what will be when His purposes are
finally accomplished. This is that witness which tells
of God— first, that He is true (l Yea, let God be true,
but every man a liar ') ; second, that He is just (' Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ') ; third, that
He is loving, and l wills that all men should be saved
and come to a knowledge of the truth.' This is that
law of which in a distant age and country the Greek

viii.] THE MORAL LAW 143

poet also spoke when he said, ' Who shall give me
purity of word and deed, that I may observe the laws
whose foundation is on high, and of which heaven is
the only sire ? ' And again, ' For these things are not
of to-day or yesterday, but live for ever, and no one
knows from whence they came.' This is that law of
duty which the philosopher summed up in his cele
brated formula, 'Act so as to approve yourself to
every rational intelligence.' This is that law of which
the psalmists and the prophets speak with an en
thusiasm which would strike us as wonderful if our
ears were not deadened by familiarity: 'Thy testi
monies are my delight day and night ; ' ' The law of
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ; the statutes
of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.' May not
almost the whole Book of Psalms be described as
a sort of rapture of the love of good and hatred
of evil, accompanied by an intense consciousness that,
amid all appearances to the contrary, God is ever on
the side of right ? Are not the prophecies again the
revelation of the truth and justice and mercy of God ?
—not the second sight of future events, as some
imagine, but a real revelation of God, in which the
prophet is always rising above the visible and tem
poral, the ordinances and ceremonies of the Jewish
law, the traditions of the Jewish people, correcting,
enlarging, purifying them, struggling towards another
world which he sees in the distance. ' Lo, O man, He
hath shown thee what He requires of thee — to do

144 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with
thy God.' Is not this the sum of religion for all men
everywhere? Might we not say, in the words of
Christ, * On this hang all the law and the prophets ' ?

This is that other and higher voice of law in the
world whose seat is the bosom of God, to which not
only Christ and the prophets witness, but in a measure
the ancient legislators and philosophers also, 4 feeling
after God, if haply they might find Him ' ; the teachers
and prophets of the East too, and good men every
where ; yea, and our own hearts also. Even those
who have not acknowledged a personal God have yet
recognized a principle of right higher than nature—
a future which is to be preferred to the present,
a better self which has the care and control over the
worse, a duty to other men as well as to ourselves.
Nor did any one ever really doubt the authority of
a moral law.

But if this is true, and if there is really this oppo
sition between the world in which we live and the
perfection of which we have the conception in our
minds, then we are led on to think of God as working
out this moral law in the visible universe, first within
and then without us, making right to be also might,
and good to prevail over evil. This is that working
of God in the world of which we see the beginnings
and first impressions in, this life, and of which we
humbly hope to see the fulfilment in another. And
this is what we chiefly mean when we speak of * God

VIIL] GOD'S NEARNESS TO US 145

as a spirit'; that His spirit is witnessing with our
spirit to the good which is in us, to the truth which is
in us, to the love which is in us, to the justice which
is in us, guiding, helping, leading us, going before us
in the fulfilment of His will. We mean to say that in
Him only we live and move and have our being ; that
in Him we have our true communion with our fellow -
men, alive or dead (for all live unto Him) ; and that in
Him only are all our hopes when we pass out of this
world. The ancient philosopher said that God was
the air, and in this image he seemed to find the symbol
or image of a Being who was at once the breath of
man and the breath of the universe. And something
in the same way when we speak of God as a spirit we
desire to express that the Infinite and Eternal is very
near to us, who, though He reaches to the outermost
heaven, is yet working with us in whatsoever things
are good or true or pure or holy.

And when we think of the natural being subjected
to the spiritual, and of the will of God becoming
more and more manifest, we might go on to speak of
an inspired communion of saints of which we too
may hope to be partakers, in which the work which
is beginning to be evident here will be finally consum
mated. But such speculations seem to carry us too
far beyond the horizon of our actual knowledge — for
we walk by faith and not by sight — and we wait with
patience for whatever God is preparing in His good
pleasure; and when imagination is sent out on

146 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

a voyage of discovery, the actual duties of our
homes and employments are apt to be forgotten
and lost in a sort of golden dream. It is safer to
come back again and try to turn the light of these
truths on our daily life. And therefore in what
remains of this sermon I shall endeavour to point
out the practical aspects of religion which flow from
these ' reflections,' as I may term them, of the Eternal
Being.

The first reflection or image of God was the order
of the visible universe. In former ages men have
been like heathens about this revelation of God in
nature ; their minds were darkened, and they never
saw or observed what God intended them to see in the
world around them. And even now, as I was saying
before, many persons regard this great truth, this new
source of light and life, not as a part of religion, but
as an alien and enemy ; and mankind are divided into
two parties, the scientific and religious. Yet consider :
we are never weary of recapitulating the wonders of
science and art, the endless applications of the powers
of nature, such as steam or electricity, and we are
always reydy to talk of some new marvel of knowledge
or contrivance to which every day may be expected
to give birth. Now, too, we are beginning to be
aware of the causes of life and death, and are not like
helpless children when we Have to meet ' the pestilence
that walketh in darkness or the destruction that
wasteth at noonday.' Now, for the first time, in the

VIIL] PRACTICAL RESULTS 147

nineteenth century, man may be said to have some
thing like the mastery over the earth, to know where
he is, and, as he recognizes himself more and more to
be the creature of circumstances, to have more and
more the power of controlling them.

And has this nothing to do with religion ? Is it
not obvious that, as our power over nature increases,
our responsibility towards other men increases also ?
Do we not rather seem to want, I will not say a new
religion, but a new application of religion, which shall
teach us that we are answerable for the consequences
of our actions even in things that have hitherto
seemed indifferent — perhaps answerable for the good
which we neglect to do as well as for the evil which
we do ? Our fathers lived * in the times of that
ignorance,' when nobody knew or thought about
anything of this sort. But we who know that the life
and health and character of men depend upon their
outward circumstances, are we justified in leaving
these outward circumstances the same ? If another
generation grows up in this country like the last,
in the same state of poverty and misery and vice and
disease and decay, who is responsible for this ? Now
that we know the causes of these evils and the reme
dies, are we not all responsible for them? For a
certain form of organization and self-devotion, com
bined with knowledge and experience, would certainly
remove them. A small portion of the energy and
industry which is shown in the accumulation of wealth

L 2

148 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

would suffice in a few years to change the moral
aspect of this nation.

A distinguished physiologist has said, 4 There is
scarcely a single page in my three physiological
works in which God was not present to my mind.
I regard the whole laws of the animal economy and of
the universe as the direct dictate of the Deity, and, in
urging compliance with them, it is with the earnest
ness and reverence due to a divine command that I do
it. I almost lose the consciousness of self in the
anxiety to attain the end ; and, when I see clearly
a law of God in our own nature, I rely upon its
efficiency for good with a faith and peace which
no storm can shake.' Might not we too, my brethren,
like this good man, come to regard the promotion of
the physical well-being of our fellow- creatures as the
direct service of God, and even as a sort of worship of
Him, quite as much as that we offer Him in churches ?
And when we are engaged in directing or executing
tasks which are disagreeable or painful to us, and
which have no religious or ecclesiastical association,
may we not still have God present with us as the
habitual thought of our mind ?

Once more, from the principle of the order of the
world do we not learn another lesson which is imme
diately applicable to our own lives ? Nature, of which
we are a part, works slowly by a succession of causes
and effects, by an adaptation of means to ends, bearing
the image of a divine repose amid the strife and

VIIL] LAWS OF LIFE ARE GOD'S WILL 149

turmoil of men. May not the spirit of nature pass
into our minds, teaching- us order and regularity and
resignation to the will of God ? No efforts of ours
can detach us from the conditions of our being ; but
we may submit to them, we may acknowledge them ;
and herein really lies our true peace and strength. We
cannot recall the past, or be in age what we were in
youth ; we cannot do in sickness what we might have
done in health ; at death there may be something left
unfinished which we should have liked to have com
pleted. But we may recognize that these and all other
states of life are the will of God, and to be used in
His service ; we may cheerfully acknowledge them to
be our appointed lot, knowing also that this order
of nature which surrounds us is not all, and that we
have a hope of a life to come.

The second reflection of God was the moral nature
of man. Every man, or almost every man, has in him
a principle of right and truth far above his own
practice and that of his fellow-men ; but few of us
make this better self the law of our lives.

He who will not allow his mind to be lowered to
the standard of those around him ; who retains his
sense of right and wrong unimpaired amid all tempta
tion ; who asks himself, in all his actions, not what men
will say of him, but what is the will of God — he may
be truly said to bear in his life and character the
Divine Image for our example. He may be some one
who has sacrificed his earthly interests for the love of

150 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vm.

truth ; or who, with the world against him, has been
compelled by a natural nobility of disposition to fight
the battle of the alien and oppressed ; or he may be
one who, not knowing God, has sought to live in the
ideal, that is, in His Image, above the commonplaces
of the world, whether Christian or unchristian. All
men are telling him, * This is politic, this is expedient,
this is what your party requires, this is what the
Church or the world approves, this is the way to
honour and preferment; these are the fashions of
society, the customs of traders, the demands of nature,
the received opinions of men, the necessities of the
situation.' But he with unaverted eye thinks only of
the good and true, having 'a faith and peace which no
storm can shake'; and in all his life sees, like the
prophet, the vision of God and his duty, high and
lifted up above the mists of human error and the dark
clouds of passion and prejudice, ' having the body of
heaven in his clearness.'

This is a height of perfection to which a very few
attain, and which will seem to some persons almost to
have passed away from this earth. When our will is
lost in His will, and our thought in His thought, and
no earthly wish intrudes or offends, then, indeed, we
may be said to be one with God, and God with us.
And, even although this perfect image of God can
hardly be formed in most of us, it is good for us to
have such thoughts when receiving the Communion
of the Lord's Supper, at our prayers, and at other

VIIL] UNION OF TRUTHFULNESS AND LOVE 151

times. For there can never be any danger of our
loving God too much, if we only think of Him as the
God of justice and truth : if we seek to know Him
first, and understand that all human knowledge is
a manifestation of Him, there can be no fear of our
becoming mystics.

And oh! that it were possible that this union of
truth and love might be perfected, and that the highest
intelligence of nature and of history might be com
bined with the highest devotion to His service. There
have been some in this world who seem to have
reached the utmost height of religious passion and
devotion, who may almost be said to have been burnt
up with the fire of divine love. But their conceptions
of the character of God have been narrow and meagre ;
they have never thought of asking how He governed
this world, or how they were to co-operate with Him.
Their religion has been a principle of separation quite
as much as of union, and they have tended to imagine
that all which was not contained in the Scripture or
taught by the Church was alien and antagonistic
to them. There have been others, again, who have
been animated by a sincere and disinterested love of
truth, who have calmly surveyed the world and sought
out and known all that could be known of nature and
of man. But to them the Gospel of Christ has been
a dead letter; they have never thought of human
beings as needing to be restored, or of the world as
a realm to be won back to the service of God. The

152 THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD [vn i.

progress to which they devoted themselves was the
progress of knowledge, not the moral or spiritual
improvement of their fellow-men. Both have done
a part of the work of God on earth, and both, pro
bably, have lived in a state of mutual dislike and
distrust of one another. But if ever there was a time
when these two, the spirit of perfect love and of
perfect knowledge, met together in the same person,
or in many persons, then indeed we might have
confidence that the Kingdom of God was about to
appear amongst us, not coming with observation, but
working silently, to be seen in the improvement of
the conditions of the poor and labouring classes, in
the greater harmony of different ranks of society, and
in the renewal of our own lives.

IX
GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE1.

HE SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

PSALM ix. 8.
GOD IS LOVE, i JOHN iv. 8.

HE THAT COMETH TO GOD MUST BELIEVE THAT
HE IS, AND THAT HE IS A REWARDER OF THEM

THA T DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM.

HEBREWS xi. 6.

THERE are some truths of religion which seem to
retire from view, and others take their place and
become the topics of the day. And the lesser often
prevail over the greater, the uncertain over the
certain, the temporal and accidental over the spiritual
and universal. A curious interest is aroused about
some matters of controversy, and there is hardly any
interest about the first principles of all religion, which
seem to drop out of people's minds as if they had
nothing to do with revelation. And this neglect of
all proportion in religious truth often leads to conse
quences quite at variance with the premises from
which we started. Thus a sort of conflict appears
to arise between faith and reason which is really due
to an improper use of reason, drawing out inferences

1 Preached at Balliol, April 20, 1884.

154 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

without considering the grounds of them, following not
the truth but the tendencies of the human mind, turning
rhetoric into logic, and building up probabilities when
the limits of human knowledge have been attained,
trusting to any fiction or illusion instead of looking
facts boldly in the face or seeing things as they truly are.
One great instance will be enough to illustrate this
curious tendency of the human race which has been
the source of so much error in religion. He who
reflects on the history of the Roman Catholic Church
will feel quite amazed at the way in which one doc
trine has been piled on another until the baseless
fabric has been in a manner complete. The willing
ness of men to believe these doctrines, which is like
the willingness of children to believe stories, has been
accepted in the place of any real proof of them.
And thus out of the words ' Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved ' has been developed
the whole apparatus of Catholic theology, including
the priesthood, purgatory, masses for the quick and
dead, the infallibility of the Pope, the worship of the
Virgin and her assumption into heaven, on to the new
and strange dogma of the immaculate conception,
which was first authoritatively sanctioned about twenty-
nine years ago ; and, once more, taking a new form,
the infallibility of the Pope, not with, but without, a
council, which was a short time ago affirmed by
a great congress of the Catholic world. So the ball
goes on rolling from age to age, like a snowball, and

ix.] SUPERSTRUCTURES AND FOUNDATIONS 155

perhaps like that some day to dissolve away. And
beside this, in the development of these various doc
trines distinctions have been introduced, and are so
minute that the must be looked at through a micro
scope before they can be seen. A man may almost
'miss his salvation through an ignorance of grammar or
logic.' I do not say this from any desire to attack our
Roman Catholic brethren — the time for such contro
versies has passed — but because I believe that lessons
may be learned from them which are applicable to
ourselves. For not only Roman Catholics but all
men everywhere are tending to put the ceremonial
in the place of the moral, the word in the place of the
thing, the local and temporal in the place of what is
universal and eternal.

There is a sense of repose and also of security
in leaving these disputes and antagonisms of theo
logy, about which mankind are often so greatly
excited, and turning to think a little of the greater
first truths of religion, such as the love of God, or the
justice and truth of God. These are anchors of the
soul, sure and steadfast amid the waves of time ; they
are also measures and standards of our knowledge
to which other truths may be referred or recalled.
In thinking of them there is something of the feeling
which the Psalmist expresses, * Under the shadow
of Thy wings shall be my refuge, until this tyranny
be overpast ' ; the words and opinions and violences
of men are of little consequence while we have the

156 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

living" consciousness that we are in the hands of
a good and wise God. Neither is there any satisfac
tion in raising or ornamenting the superstructure
unless we have the foundation, nor in believing in God
if our conception of the divine nature is at variance
with the sense of right in our own nature ; nor in
religion at all if religion is at war with morality.

Nor can we maintain that these greater and more
simple truths are neglected because all men know
them and are convinced of them. On the contrary,
they seem to be the truths which are with the greatest
difficulty realized in the world, by many not realized
at all ; and which are constantly in danger of be
coming overclouded and obscured. Partly the per
versity of the human intellect struggles against the
simple notion of God ; it is always returning to sense
and seeking to veil the nature of God in figures of
speech which imperceptibly lead us astray, or in
figures of speech once removed, that is to say in
analogies. And these veils have to be taken away if
we are to see God as He truly is, and not merely as
He is represented in the pictures of our minds. Or,
if figures of speech are necessary (and indeed language
seems to be made up of them), they should be the
highest and purest that we can conceive, such as that
in which God is described by the prophet l as having
the body of heaven in His clearness,' and not any
chance images taken from the chaos of human sense.
And when we have used such images we should also

ix.] IMAGES OF GOD IN HUMAN LIFE 157

learn to dispense with them and to see things as they
truly are.

Suppose, now, we had a friend who was true and
disinterested, one in whom there was no envy or
jealousy or personal enmity, whose mind was always
full of all noble feelings towards his friends, having
a warmth of affection towards all of them alike, and
ready to receive them as a father or an elder brother,
willing ever to forgive them for wrongs against him
self, yet also pained and grieved at them, not because
they really did him any injury, but because of the
ingratitude which they seemed to show ; and because
those who were guilty of them did harm, not to him,
but to themselves. Also, I will suppose that this
friend whom I am describing was the most generous
of men, willing to give all that he had to others, to
sacrifice himself for their good, kind even to the
ungrateful and evil, and that he was the least cere
monious of men, requiring no etiquette or introduc
tion, but freely admitting all who came to him. Such
was his real character : but such was not the opinion
which other men had of him ; for they were cast in
a meaner mould, and they could not understand his
nobility and freedom of nature. Moreover, they had
formed some strange misconceptions of him, and they
fancied him not loving and gentle, but severe and
precise, easily liable to take offence and not easily
pacified when angry, conferring his favours, as some
of them said, on a chosen few whom he selected with-

158 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

out regard to their characters, and insisting- on their
complying with certain conventional rules before he
would receive them into his house. Now this mis
conception of his nature had continued for many
years, how originating could hardly be determined ;
only one thing was certain, that it was due to no act
or word of his, but rather to the stupidity or malig
nity of others.

Hear another parable. In a certain city there was
a judge who was also a king ; he was the wisest of
judges and the greatest of kings. But the men of
that city would not understand his greatness or his
wisdom, and they imagined that he was just such an
one as themselves. Now they were fond of legal dis
putes and artificial rules, and sometimes they decreed
that men should live or die accordingly as they ob
served these rules of theirs ; and if any one remon
strated with them they said no one could challenge
their right to make any rules which they pleased, if
they gave due notice of them ; and that whether the
criminal was a bad man or a good man that made no
difference ; the point to be considered was whether he
conformed to their rules, and whether the rules had been
duly announced to him. Also, there were many other
things that they held, such as the distinction between
themselves and strangers; and they said that they
were under no engagement to do justice to strangers^
The good and wise judge was grieved at their per-
verseness and folly, and above all at their attributing

ix.] OTHER PARABLES 159

to him their own corrupt notions of justice. For
they pretended that his court, which was the great
court of the realm, was governed by the same rules,
although he had told them over and over again that
he was no respecter of persons, and that ' he would
reward every man according to his works,' and that
' in every nation he that did righteousness would be
accepted of him.'

Once more : the kingdom of heaven is like a wise
man seeking for pearls, and especially for one great
and precious pearl, the pearl of truth. But the men
of that country said that this pearl was not to be
sought for everywhere and at all times ; there were
certain places, duly pointed out by the officers of the
king who kept a guard, in which pearls might be taken.
The pearls which were found elsewhere were declared
by them not to be true pearls, and those who dis
covered them were desired to return them to the
king's treasury, although this king himself had never
given any such command. But his officers required
that they should be issued over again under their
authority — none others would pass current. And the
wise man knew that he would never find the pearl of
truth in this way, and accordingly he went to the
king himself, and the king gave him permission freely
to seek for the pearl of truth in the whole world, and
whatever he found he was to show to his brethren.
I venture to offer these three allegories as an intro
duction to the consideration of the nature of God

i6o GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

under three heads — ' God is loving, God is just, God is
true.'

First of all, God is loving. Human affection sup
plies many images of the love of God which tend to
quicken and elevate our thoughts of Him. For He is
our Father and we are His offspring ; we look up to
Him and recognize His authority ; we converse and
hold communion with Him ip all that is best of
our minds and of our lives ; we may make a friend
of Him, and may go to Him as a child would go to
a parent to give him his confidence ; even our faults
are only seen by Him in the light of His love. Nor
is our regard for Him any measure of His care for
us : that may be observed in this world also ; the love
of the parent cannot be extinguished by the ingrati
tude of the child, but remains as a sort of pained love
without any tincture of resentment to his life's end.
How easily can we imagine the father or the mother
coming out to meet their spendthrift son as he returns
from a distant land, putting on him the best robe and
making entertainment for him and his friends. That
is the image by which the Gospel represents the love
of God towards His prodigal ones. Once more, you
may imagine a parent treating his child with great
and deserved severity ; commonly sending him to
a schoolmaster to receive discipline and education:
and in some cases he might be willing that the sen
tence of the law, imprisonment or some other penalty,
might take effect upon him. But you cannot sup-

ix.] DIVINE AND HUMAN LOVE 161

pose any one who has the natural feelings of a parent
doing this except with a view to the good of his
child, and in the hope of his improvement : the idea
that he should suffer for the sake of suffering, if these
words have any meaning, would be quite abhorrent
to his mind. Even so (in the figurative language of
Scripture) ' whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son in whom He delighteth.' But
that He is delighted with the sufferings of any man
is a doctrine that we had better give back to the
heathen, or to the devil from whom it came. And the
good and wise among the heathen also would have
rejected such a doctrine ; the evil, they would have
said, of which God is the author must in some way
issue in good. And when we hear of actions being
attributed to God which are at variance with our con
ceptions of His goodness or His justice, then, even if it
be in some sacred writing, the rule which has been
laid down by one of the wisest of men might be
usefully applied : ' Either these things never really
happened, or they were not commanded by God.'

I have been representing divine love under the like
ness of human love. And some one will perhaps say
that ' His ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts
as our thoughts.' There are two senses in which
these words may be applied; the one is very false,
the other quite true. First, I will suppose a person
saying, ' You use the terms loving and just and true ;
but how do you know that these words have any

*** M

162 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

meaning- when you transfer them to God ? For what
is just to you may be unjust to Him, and what is true
to you may be untrue to Him, and what is love
according to your notions may be favouritism and
partiality in His sight. Think of the ignorance of
man and the limitations of human faculties, and do not
profanely attribute your notions of morality to God.'

This is what I venture to think a wrong mode of
reasoning about the divine nature, a sort of argument
which overleaps itself, involving what has been well
termed that terrible fiction of a double morality, one
for God and another for man, which throws all our
notions about God into confusion. For consider : if
a person says, * I know indeed and am assured of the
existence of God and of His revelation to man ; but that
He is a wise God or a good God or a loving God, or
indeed a moral God at all, of that I am not certain,
because I do not know whether these words have any
meaning in relation to God ' ; then he is in effect doing
away with religion under the wish to be religious ; he
is like a person sitting on some main branch or limb
of a great tree and sawing off the branch on which
he is sitting. But instead of pursuing this contro
versy any further, I will rather proceed to show how the
word * love,' while retaining the same meaning in
reference to God and man, may yet have a more
perfect significance in reference to divine love than is
possible in regard to mere earthly affection.

First, because earthly love is narrow and limited,

ix.] GOD'S LOVE IMPARTIAL 163

arising- out of certain natural relationships or friend
ships formed by the accidents of time and place. But
with God there are no accidents of time and place ;
His love is an equal love for all men in all ages and
countries, a law of love which communicates with the
hearts of men. Some one may say, ' What ! am
I not the special object of God's care ? Am I not
His favourite child ? Will He not do for me what
He would not do for another — save my life in an
accident, or call me to repentance, when He allows
another to perish ? ' No ; that is not the nature of
the divine love. Here is a real difference between
His ways and our ways. Neither can you yourself
desire that He shall do for you what He would not
do for another. You have only to put yourself in the
place of one who is rejected to see this. Even the
human image may teach you a truer notion of God ;
for the father who has the feelings of a father does
not select one of his children to the detriment of the
rest ; still less can we imagine that when His children
are praying to Him that He would save them from
death He would deliberately spare one and leave others
to perish. Here is a real confusion of His ways and
our ways, or rather perhaps a sort of narrowness of
vision which makes us concentrate upon ourselves
the universal care of all, a feebleness of intellect which
fails to understand that the special providence which
watches over each one is the general providence
which watches over all.

M 2

164 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

But there is also another difference between love
divine and love human, namely, that the love of God
towards men is determined by the good and evil that
is in them. People do not, and indeed cannot, choose
their friends upon this principle ; the elements of per
sonal liking enter into friendship ; and the best of
men are not exempt from this, which seems to belong
to the condition of our earthly state. But with God,
as I was saying before in other words, there are no
likes or dislikes ; He is not a man that He should
have a favour to one person rather than to another,
or that His feelings should be confined to one rank
or circle of society, or that He should take a friend
and then give him up again because He found
another more suitable to Him. For the love of God
embraces all men everywhere and at all times, and
4 has no variableness or shadow of turning ' : He can
no more cease to be love than He can cease to be
God. And His love extends even to the evil in one
way, * for he maketh His sun to rise upon the evil
and the good, and giveth rain upon the just and the
unjust ' : this is a part of His general laws which, when
we speak of the divine hatred of evil, we must not
forget. But, remembering this, and remembering
also that His love to man is not in any case a merely
personal feeling, then I say that this love is deter
mined, not like the regard of one man for another, by
individual attachment, but by the good and evil that
is in them. Is a man doing His will in harmony

ix.] UNION WITH GOD'S LOVE 165

with His laws, carrying- on His work in the world,
seeking1 to regard other men as He regards them,
casting away all earthly interests or pursuing them
only as the means to that which is above them ; then
a man may indeed feel that he is living in God and
God in him ; he may consider that he has a Friend
with him whose friendship can never fail ; he may
have a sort of consciousness of inspiration derived
from Him in the performance of everything that is
noble and true and good ; he may rest in Him, and
often when he is alone find himself not alone, because
the Spirit of God is with him. And, as he feels the
love of God diffused in the world around him, his
love to man will also grow and enlarge — 4 1 in them
and thou in Me ' — and ' whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God.' Did you ever hear that strange saying of
the old mystic: 4The element of the bird is the air,
the element of the fish is the sea, the element of the
salamander is the fire, but the element of Jacob Behmen
is the heart of God ' ?

Secondly, the equal love of God towards all men
comes round to be the justice of God also. For these
are not divided, as human language sometimes leads us
to suppose. God is not loving with one part of His
mind, and just with another, and true with another ;
nor loving at one time and just at another and true at
another ; nor loving to one person and in some of his
dealings, and just to another person and in other of
his dealings. But He is what He is everywhere and

166 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

at all times, and in reference to all things and per
sons whatsoever. These are but the imperfections of
human language. And in religion as in other things
we shall sometimes do well to get rid of language, or
at least of the ordinary use of words, and take their
meaning ; we may try to express the same conception
in other words, avoiding terms of controversy : then
we shall more readily see what is essential and what
is accidental in our ideas of religious truth.

But the justice of God, though inseparable from the
love of God, has also another aspect. Neither must
we forget that He is just when we speak of Him as
loving, any more than that He is loving when we
speak of Him as just. There is nothing that we do
which is hidden from Him, nor can we suppose that
our secret actions pass unheeded by Him. Like the
inscription on some tablet, they remain ; and the trace
of them in our lives and characters is read by Him
long after they are forgotten by us. And therefore
this aspect of justice is full of awe to us. For which
of us can imagine that he lives up to the standard
which God requires of him, and which he himself
also sees dimly and at a distance ? Who among us is
perfectly disinterested, regarding only duty and not
interest, the will of God and not the opinions of men ?
Who, in the language of St. Paul, is ( dead to the
world that he may live to 'God ' ? Which of us has
made, or is truly making, this life a preparation for
that other state, which, as we believe, is not far from

ix.] GOD'S JUSTICE AWFUL BUT RESTFUL 167

any one of us ? Which of us can show that he has
made the utmost of the pounds or talents entrusted to
him? Even though we fully acknowledge that God
knows all our circumstances, and that His judgement
is relative to the very condition of our bodily frame,
to the place in the world which He has given us, and
to our means of knowledge and improvement ; still
there is something terrible to us in this truth of the
justice of God, and our ignorance of the manner in
which this rule of divine justice is carried out tends
to increase this terror : we may be confident that
God is just, and yet l who may abide the day of His
coming ? ' Had we only thought of this a little sooner,
while there was time! How natural and heartfelt is
that saying, even to the bad man, l Let me die the
death of the righteous, and let my last end be like
his.'

But would you wish, because you are afraid of a
righteous governor of the world, to be under an
unrighteous one ? That be far from us ; no rational
being would desire that. Nor would any rational
being seek to avoid that state of trial or discipline
which would most conduce to his improvement, even
though the process of restoration to God might be a
4 piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow.' Nor would any rational
being wish to continue for ever in his present imper
fect state. And therefore, in thinking of another life,
we rejoice with trembling. For we cannot tell how

i68 GOD JUST, LOSING, TRUE [ix.

far we are fitted for that other state to which God is
calling us ; nor can we easily set any limit to the
natural consequences of evil, for they are worse, if
we had any true notion of them, than those physical
images of burning and torture which we sometimes
see in pictures. * Which way I fly is hell, myself am
hell.' We do not need to place before the mind's eye
those outward representations of rivers of flame, and
vast chasms, and murderers calling to their victims,
which we find in Plato and other Gentile writers.
A truer image is supplied by that of St. Paul, the
soul perpetually crying to herself, and saying, ' O
wretched — who shall deliver me from the body of this
death ? '

And here arises a thought which kindles a fire
within us, which at least makes us speak out and
ask the question : Is the justice of God reconcilable
with the everlasting damnation of a portion of His
creatures ? Are the lost to suffer never-ending tor
ments as the penalty of carelessness or worldliness, or
even of greater and deeper sins of which they have
been guilty during their short space of three score
years and ten ? And is the fixing of their eternal
destiny to depend in some cases on the hazard of
an accident, the overturning of a railway carriage, the
process of a mortal disease, the expression of some
few words on a deathbed ? Tell me how all this is
to be reconciled with the notion of a just and perfect
God. My brethren, I am not concerned to answer

ix.] EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT 169

these sort of objections. There is nothing wrong in
such feelings, so far as they express not any laxity
about sin and evil, but a jealous desire to vindicate
above all things the justice of God. I think, however,
that another way of stating this subject might perhaps
satisfy these natural feelings. Let us not speak of an
infinite punishment for a finite sin. Neither, on the
other hand, let us assume that a time will come in the
course of ages when every man will be restored to the
grace and favour of God. For, although God may
have provided ways of which we are ignorant * that
His banished ones be not expelled from Him,' yet this
lies beyond the horizon of our vision, and may give
rise to a great misconception. But let us rather say
that God * will reward every man according to his
works,' and that the punishment of mankind in another
world will be perfectly just because inflicted by God ;
the least evil that we do shall not be without con
sequences, the least good not wholly unrewarded.
That may lead us to feel comfort, and also terror and
awe. For if, on the one hand, we feel that none can
abide the severity of God's judgement, we feel also
that it is good for us to fall into the hands of God :
when we consider how little we know of another
world, there would be no truth in attempting alto
gether to banish fear. Neither need any one appre
hend that the strong sense of the justice of God will
tend to any laxity of morals. It is a maxim of human
law that the most effectual punishment is that which

170 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix.

is most duly proportioned to the crime. This is
illustrated by the difficulty of obtaining- a conviction
or executing a penalty when the punishment is too
great for the offence. Human nature revolts at it.
Neither is the divine penalty really more terrible
because supposed to be infinite. For this is only
vague and unreal, a penalty which no one applies to
himself, and to which the heart and conscience bear
no witness. But still there is a comfort in feeling that
we are in the hands of God ; we do not seek to avoid
just punishment, and He will not suffer us to be
punished above what we deserve. For ' shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right ? ' will His judgement
fall short of the simple rules of human justice ? Nay,
surely, He will not fall short of this ; He will exceed
it. Neither will His justice depend upon accidents ;
neither will He ' take me at a catch,' as has been
roughly but truly said ; nor will He divide men into
two classes only where there are many classes, or
rather infinite degrees of them. Nor will He judge
them by any narrow or technical rules, but by the
broad principles of right and wrong. Slowly in the
course of ages mankind have shaken off superstitions
about God, and learned the simple truth that God is
just, which seems to be the beginning of religion, and
yet is hardly understood even now in all its fullness.
There is probably no one in this church, father,
mother, or any one else, who could for a moment
tolerate the idea that an unbaptized infant would suffer

ix.] GOD'S TRUTH 171

everlasting torments. Remember that this was once
the faith of nearly the whole Christian world, and ask
yourself whether, in these latter days, which are some
times supposed to be rife with unbelief, Christians have
not made some progress towards a truer conception of
the ways of God to man.

Thirdly, as God is just He is also true ; His justice
is inseparable from His truth, just as His love is in
separable from His justice. 'Yea, let God be true,
but every man a liar,' is the exclamation of the
Apostle. ' Will ye speak wickedly for God and talk
deceitfully for Him ? ' is the reproach of Job against
the professors of religion. And everywhere, both in
the Old and New Testament, the spirit of prophecy
declares to us that God is true. Yet mankind in
general, and especially perhaps religious men, have
not recognized truth as an attribute of God in the
same way that they recognize the justice of God or
the love of God. They show this whenever they
imply a distrust of the truth, or pervert the truth,
or make oppositions of one truth and another, or set
up their own opinions against facts. For if God is
a God of truth, the truth is alone pleasing to Him ;
and truth of every kind, the truth of science as well
as the truth of revelation, truths which were for ages
unknown, truths which are at variance with the re
ceived opinions of men as much as those which are
in accordance with them. For truth and knowledge
are one even as He is one. Nor can He be pleased

172 GOD JUST, LOVING, TRUE [ix

at forced explanations or pious frauds, or any other
shifts or evasions which are designed for His glory,
nor at any oppositions of nature and revelation or
of His laws and Himself. These are the ways in
which men sometimes fancy they can do Him a ser
vice, not considering that He has no need of their
falsehoods to support His truth, not considering, again,
that there is no greater unfaithfulness than want of
faith in the truth. Let them rather think that all
truth and all inquiry is innocent to him who pursues
them with an exact and humble mind, and that the
Christian has a higher reason than other men for the
conscientious pursuit of truth, for he knows that
the God of truth is watching over his inquiries.

Lastly, my brethren, he who would understand the
love or justice or truth of God must himself be loving
and just and true. He who embraces his fellow -
creatures in an ever-widening circle of love will begin
to comprehend in a new way the infinite love of God
to man, which embraces at once both him and them :
in thinking of them he will think of God, in thinking
of God he will think of them. He, again, who has
a living sense of justice in his own actions will know
of a certainty that God is just ; not in any merely
conventional way — that which is the first principle
of his own life he will realize in the divine nature ;
trusting in God because He is just, as throughout his
life, so also at the last hour. He will never fall into
the faithlessness of supposing that God will do any-

ix.] GOD'S NATURE IMPARTED TO MEN 173

thing to him or any other of His creatures at which
human justice would revolt. Once more, he who has
the love of truth in him will have a deeper knowledge
of God and His laws, having God present with him
in all his inquiries, and submitting to Him and ac
knowledging Him ; rejoicing in all truth as of God,
and learning to know Him, not according to the
fancies of men, but as He is actually seen governing
the world in a fixed order, and punishing His crea
tures for their good as the consequence of their
actions, as He is revealed in history and science ; and
yet also recognizing Him as the light of the human
heart, which is beyond history and science, which
lights those who are ignorant of the very meaning
of their words, and which can never be put out or
extinguished either in this world or in another.

X

SPIRITUAL RELIGION NOT DEPENDENT
ON SYSTEM1.

THE HOUR COMETH, WHEN YE SHALL NEITHER IN
THIS MOUNTAIN, NOR YET AT JERUSALEM, WORSHIP

THE FATHER.

JOHN iv. 21.

THESE words have a revolutionary sound, and are
startling in quiet times and to ordinary minds. Yet
they do not stand alone in the Gospel, nor are they
applicable only to the age in which Christ lived.
There is a great deal more of the same language both
in the Old and New Testament. When Christ says,
4 My kingdom is not of this world, else would My
servants fight for it; but now is My kingdom not
from hence,' He means substantially the same thing.
He does not mean to say that His disciples were not
to fight now, and that the time would come when they
ought to fight (at the Crusades, for example) ; but that
the Kingdom of God is spiritual, and founded on
a belief that God is a Spirit. And when He speaks
of His disciples as united with God and separated from

1 Preached at Balliol.

x.] CHRIST'S REVOLUTIONARY SAYINGS 175

the world (' I in them, and thou in Me, that they may be
made perfect in one '), He is certainly not thinking of
them as established in a church or united by a priest
hood and common form of worship. He is taking
another and a higher point of view : l Where two or
three are gathered together in My Name, there am
I in the midst of them,' and ' Forbid him not ; for
there is no man that shall cast out devils in My Name
that can lightly speak evil of Me.' And when men, as
their manner is, are putting the outward in the place
of the inward, the carnal body in the place of the
spiritual body, like one grieved at their stupidity and
hardness of heart, He says to them, * It is the spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.' These
are some of the revolutionary sayings of Christ.
There are many others, such as those about the rich
and the poor; about the Sabbath Day; about the
temple ; about the immediate coming of the Spirit.
And if we pass from the New Testament to the Old
we shall hear a similar voice speaking to us in the
prophets. We have only to turn to the first chapter
of the prophet Isaiah, there to read other words, unlike
in form but like in meaning : * Bring no more vain
oblations ; incense is an abomination unto Me ; the
new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies,
I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting. . . . Wash you, make you clean ; put away the
evil of your doings from before Mine eyes ; cease to
do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgement, relieve the

176 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.'
Here indeed is a war against existing institutions,
some of which were believed to have been sanctioned
by God Himself. Here is a repetition of that lesson
which, however old, is always needed in all ages and
in all countries, the danger of putting the outward in
the place of the inward, the local and temporal in the
place of the spiritual and moral.

In this sermon I shall draw your attention to the
tremendous import of the words of Christ, ' The hour
cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father/ and of other
like words which occur elsewhere in Scripture. What
is the meaning of them ? Are they to be taken
literally, and do they refer only or chiefly to the
destruction of Jerusalem ? Do they not rather express
the prophetic feeling in all ages, which is not satisfied
with the world or with the things of the world,
whether secular or religious, and would fain rise
above them and dwell with God only ? And this
seems to be the general character of the Gospel
according to St. John. Such a spirit may be a source
of disorder among men, and may also be the higher
element of our lives. For we may abide in our
appointed sphere and use the means which God has
provided for us, and yet we may feel also how different
life ought to be, how different religious and political
institutions ; how differently they must be regarded
by God and man. There is some degree of difficulty

x.] CHANGES COME SLOWLY 177

in reconciling these thoughts if they impress the mind
strongly with the fulfilment of our daily duties. ' How
unreal,' as people say, 4 is all this ! ' And sometimes
the thought works in our minds that this order of
things ' cannot last ; it is too hollow, too much under
mined.' And yet the old order does not change, or
changes very little, and, when the desired reform has
been made, we are disappointed and find that the
result has been less than we expected. The want,
whether in politics or religion, lies deeper and cannot
easily be satisfied. And long after we are in our
graves, yea, perhaps to the end of time, another
generation will feel as wre do, as the prophets of old
did, that our solemn things are unsatisfactory and
unreal.

And first I shall venture to remark that the words
of the text are not to be taken too literally. For some
one may remind us that the smoke of the Samaritan
Passover still ascends on Mount Gerizim, delighting
the eyes of the English traveller with the living
memorial of a former world, and that in Jerusalem,
though often interrupted, the worship of the God of
Abraham still continues ; and, though the hope of the
return of the Jews is never likely to be realized, some
of the truest representatives of the religion and the
race linger in the sacred city. But we need not
perplex ourselves with this sort of literalism. For
Christ is speaking generally, and is not careful to
consider whether the words which He uttered in the

»** N

178 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

spirit of prophecy may not be contradicted at a future
time by some isolated fact. In St. John's Gospel
there occurs another passage breathing a similar
spirit, not about the future but about the past, whiqh
has often troubled commentators and sometimes led
them to a mistranslation of the original. Christ says,
* All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers ; '
yet surely neither He nor the recorder of His words
(for I do not think we can clearly distinguish them)
meant to imply that Isaiah and Jeremiah and the
great prophets of old were thieves and robbers ; nor
can we maintain with some interpreters of the passage
that ' before ' means ' instead of,' and that * All who
ever came before Me ' means * All who ever came
instead of Me.' Christ is not thinking of this applica
tion of His words and the past history of the Jews,
but of false teachers and false prophets generally, and
more especially of those who were living about His
own time. The comparison of the passage which
I have just quoted with the text throws some degree
of light on both of them. And we may assume as
a principle of all interpretation, and therefore of
Scripture, that we must not introduce logic or require
too literal an adherence to fact where the whole style
and character of a writing shows that they have not
been thought of. And the prophecies both of the
Old and the New Testaments are to be taken in
the spirit rather than in the letter ; not as predictions
of facts which may or may not have been verified at

x.] QUESTIONS NOT ANSWERED 179

a particular time, but as visions of nations appearing
in the presence of God ; as the revelation of the words
and works of men in the light of a higher word ; as
a history of the world which is the judgement of the
world.

The woman of Samaria to whom the words of the
text are addressed, when she discovers that Christ is
a prophet, is eager to make the most of her oppor
tunity. She wants to have a resolution of the
question, In what place ought men to worship ? Was
Jerusalem the accepted spot, or Mount Gerizim ?
Which passover was the most pleasing to God ? How
was the great dispute between Jews and Samaritans
to be decided ? Our Lord answers in words which
there is some difficulty in explaining : * Ye worship
ye know not what ; we know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews.' He seems to mean that the
Jews were more right than the Samaritans, perhaps
because they had the prophets as well as the law, or
because they had a real relation to those prophecies
and to that history against which the Samaritans were
a sort of rebels ; at any rate, because they were as
a fact better instructed in religion. But He at once
leaves this point of view for a higher one, ' Neither in
Jerusalem nor in this mountain ... for God is
a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth.' To the question of the
woman of Samaria He neither would nor could give
an answer. For God was no respecter of places any

N 2

i8o RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

more than of persons. Men were not to say, ' Lo
here ! or, Lo there ! for the Kingdom of God is within
you.' And in a similar spirit, as you will remember,
when they ask Him on another occasion, ' Where,
Lord ? ' He only answers, ' Wheresoever the carcase is,
there shall the eagles be gathered together.'

Let us try to imagine more precisely the feelings
with which the words of the text were uttered by
Christ. He saw the Jewish world everywhere sunk,
not in idolatry, for that phase of religion had passed
away, but in formalism, in ritualism, in ceremonial and
puritanical observances, which were powerless to
touch the heart of man or to purify his life. The
Jewish law was not merely the uniting principle
which bound men together in the worship of one God
('Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord'),
but a dividing principle which separated them from
the Samaritans and from the rest of mankind. The
thought of the nature of God, of His justice, His
truth, His goodness, had almost passed away, over
loaded by a multitude of details, supplanted as the
belief in God always is by men's belief in themselves,
their Church, or their race. They go on saying, not
in these exact words but in some other form of words
which takes their place in another age, ' We have
Abraham to our Father,' never considering that l out
of these stones God is able to raise up children unto
Abraham,' and that * many shall come from the East
and from the West,' of no church or denomination,

x.] GOOD TRADITIONS BECOME HINDRANCES 181

some heathen philosopher, perhaps, or opponent of
their own most cherished opinions, and sit down with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven,
while the children of the kingdom may possibly be
cast out. This word, 'We have Abraham to our
father,' has excluded the sense or feeling of the
Universal Father. And the temple made with hands,
the consecrated church, the traditional spot to which
pilgrimages were wont to be made, has obscured and
narrowed the thought of Him \vho dwells not in
houses made with hands, and is not contained in the
furthest heaven, yet is pleased to take up His abode
with us. That which was once a shadow of good
things to come is not even a shadow of them now, but
a veil, a mist, an impenetrable cloud, coming between
us and God.

And sometimes the history of the past weighs
upon mankind with an undue power. What was
done three hundred or a thousand or sixteen hundred
years ago has an effect upon us now, and often cannot
be undone. A form of government or society or
belief, to which we were not consenting parties, has
been settled for us, and we feel that the individual
mind is powerless to alter them. Our freedom seems
to be impaired by them ; in vain we desire something
better and truer and more adapted to our wants.
Then thoughts begin to arise in our minds that such
a world as that in wrhich we live will one day come to
an end, that truth must prevail at last ; and that the

1 82 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

fire which has hitherto slumbered in the earth will
burst forth and burn up the chaff. Such volcanoes
have really burst forth in the German Reformation or
in the French Revolution. But for the most part
they burn only in the hearts of men who say to them
selves, * O Lord, how long ? ' or ' The hour is coming,'
at times seeming to think that the dawn is at hand.
They turn away from the signs of decay and corrup
tion which to their eye appears around them, and try
to work out their individual life hidden with God
and Christ. Many prophets have died unknown ;
they have desired to see things that they have not
seen ; they have closed their eyes on a world which
was receding from them ; they have found that the
vision of the Kingdom of God was to be realized,
perhaps on earth in the course of ages, but chiefly in
themselves, and in another state of being.

Thus the words of Christ find a sort of reflection or
analogy in our own day, and in the thoughts and
lives of a few persons who have a feeling for the
world around them. They should be considered
further in connexion with the general character of
the Gospel according to St. John ; for the character
of that narrative is not historical, but spiritual, not
descriptive of the outward forms of the Church, but
of the inner life of the soul. It hardly ever touches
upon the relation of believers to the external world
or to society, but only upon their relations to God
and Christ. They are withdrawn from the world that

x.] CHARACTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 183

they may be one with the Father and with the Son ;
they eat the bread of life ; they drink the water of
life ; they receive another spirit which is to guide
them into all truth. They are not, as in the parable,
like the wiieat growing together with the tares ; nor do
they become a great tree under the shadow of which
the birds of the air take shelter : they are the branches
indeed of which Christ is the Vine, but no outward
glory or power is attributed to them. Nor are they
bound together by a common external symbol ; for, as
you will remember, the institution of the Sacrament
is not recorded in the Gospel of St. John. Many
reasons have been given for the omission ; the author
of the fourth Gospel has been sometimes supposed
to have avoided subjects which were mentioned in
the three first. But there is no proof that he was
acquainted with them ; the more probable reason is,
if any is needed, that he is putting forward another
aspect of the life of Christ, and that the outward fades
away before his mind in comparison with the inward.
Christ is not described in the Gospel of St. John as
instituting the Sacrament of Baptism or the Lord's
Supper, but as teaching men that He is the Bread of
Life. And, if we look closely at the external events
recorded, we shall see that they are told for the sake
of some lesson or discourse which is appended to
them, rather than for the sake of the events them
selves. The miracles are very few; one class of
them, that of healing the demoniacs, is omitted. For

1 84 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

example, the miracle of the five thousand is narrated in
the three first Gospels chiefly as a wonder, but in the
fourth Gospel with a manifest reference to the lesson
which follows concerning- 4 the bread of life.'

Returning, then, to the words of the text, and read
ing them in the light of other passages in the Gospel,
I think that we are right in regarding chiefly, or
indeed exclusively, their spiritual import. Whether
our Lord, or the recorder of His words, did intend to
allude to the times of trouble and desolation which
were shortly, that is about forty years afterwards,
coming upon Jerusalem, we cannot precisely deter
mine. But what He chiefly meant to express was an
eternal truth and not a particular fact. As when
He says 4 the hour is coming, and now is, when all
they that are in the graves shall hear His voice,' He
is speaking of a future which is already present, and
anticipated in all ages by the consciences of men
passing judgement on themselves and their own times.
For when we compare our external institutions with
the language of prophecy respecting the Church,
or our own lives with the requirements of a divine
law, we feel that they cannot stand, and we desire
sometimes with a longing past expression to become
other than we are. For we know, as Christ says,
that religion is spiritual, and consists in communion
with the justice and truth and goodness of God. But
we are living the life of all men, worshipping in a
cold and formal manner; repeating words to which

x.] SPIRITUAL IMPORT OF CHRIST'S WORDS 185

we hardly attend ; instead of making our whole lives
a worship of Him, and seeking to enter into His mind
and to do His work.

Nor need we hesitate to apply the words of the
text to some of the forms of religion which we see
around us. ' The hour is coming when neither as
Protestants nor as Catholics, neither as Churchmen
nor Dissenters, shall men worship the Father.' For
a feeling of dissatisfaction will sometimes steal over
us at the disputes of our Churches, at the unreality
of our preaching, at the unchristian appearance of a
Christian country. When we see religious opinion
moving strongly in one direction during the last
generation, and in entirely different currents among
our own contemporaries, and our forms of worship
are so much changed that our fathers or grandfathers,
if they could return to life again, would view them
with extreme dislike, we feel we cannot trust the
opinions of men ; they come and go, and are phases
only, shadows of the past, which revive from time to
time and are followed by reaction. We do not wish
to live and die in them, for they may fail us when
they are most wanted. Neither do we desire to be
like chameleons, changing colour from year to year ;
or to catch the epidemic of religion which happens to
be in the air ; or to have one half of our lives or of
our minds saying Aye and the other No to the same
truths (' Aye and No are no good divinity '). But we
desire to have the peaceful and harmonious growth of

i86 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

religion in the soul, which becomes a part of our
being-, and is not shaken by the accidents of public
opinion or the discoveries of science, or the satire of
society and the world ; which is the same in all ages,
and is inseparably bound up with goodness and truth
everywhere. For when we find that the world is
changing around us, and some things that were once
most certain to us are becoming doubtful, then is the
time to go back to the simple principles of religion,
and not allow them to be interfered with or dethroned
by the externals which are always taking their place.
* To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly
with God ' ; ' When the wicked man turneth away
from his wickedness ' ; l Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thy
self ' ; 4 Without holiness no man shall see the Lord ' :
these are the primary principles of religion which can
never alter or be superseded ; and they are so simple
that they can hardly fail to be understood. But,
when I proceed to think of churches, of forms of
worship, of systems of theology, these vary with
the philosophy of different ages, or the characters of
individuals ; they are not ends but means in religion,
and they have given occasion to endless disputes.
Yet not because I see that many things which I
once deemed to be revealed truths are relative
and transient, and that many things which I once
deemed characteristic of Christianity are common to
other religions, will I give up the faith in God and

x.] THE SPIRITUAL IS THE ABIDING 187

immortality, or the desire to be a follower of Christ.
Hence the importance of not putting the lesser before
the greater, the changing before the unchanging, the
duty of worshipping at Jerusalem once a year before
the great truth that God is a Spirit. I worship God
in this consecrated building where there are sounds
of music and stained windows, and the architecture of
a former age is pleasingly imitated ; but if I were on
a desert island could I not worship Him still, and
perhaps more truly, for there He would be my only
hope ? And if of the temple of Jerusalem not one.
stone were left upon another, or if the Churches of
Christ in this and other countries were overthrown,
should I therefore renounce my belief in Him ? Yes,
perhaps so, if my belief had been in houses made
with hands ; but not if I had considered that churches
too partook of human infirmity even more than
political institutions, and that the truth or word of
God, and not the vessel which contained the truth,
is the foundation upon which human life must be
reared.

When, applying the words of Christ to our own
times, we say, ' The hour is coming, and now is, when
there shall be neither Catholics nor Protestants,
Churchmen nor Dissenters,' we do not suppose that
these well-known names will cease among us, or that
the things signified by them will altogether disap
pear. But they may become unimportant in com
parison with the great truth ' God is a Spirit.1 For

i88 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

the more the spiritual character of religion is under
stood the more external differences will disappear.
Can we think of a good man as other than a good man
because he belongs to another sect, because he does
not believe in the same doctrines which we believe
in ? Hardly, if we know him ; but ignorance is the
parent of dislike and estrangement. When we read
history we see that these differences have originated
in feelings which we no longer share, and which are
maintained chiefly by external barriers. And, when
we turn from the ecclesiastical history of our own
country and of Europe to the larger book of the
religions of the world, we perceive that the disputes
which have occasioned them are infinitely small in com
parison with the greater interests of religion, and we
wonder how the human mind can have been absorbed
by them. Or again, when we look out on ' the
heavens, the work of Thy hands, the moon and the
stars which Thou hast ordained,' are not these reli
gious disputes calmed and silenced in the thought,
4 What is man that Thou art mindful of him ? ' And
when we think of God as a Spirit, must not this great
truth absorb the lesser antagonisms or parties which
divide us ? Just as in politics we have seen towns or
districts of the same country which seemed to bear an
external enmity to one another, the heritage of former
ages, yet contrary to all expectations have been fused
or moulded into a single nation and become instinct
with a common life. There is Italy, for example,

x.] DISTURBING THOUGHTS MA Y BE GOOD 189

and Germany. And are the divisions of churches to
be more lasting than the divisions of nations ?

These may seem to be unsettling thoughts, and
I ventured to speak of the text as one of the revolu
tionary sayings of Christ. For we must provide for
the religion of the next generation as well as of this,
for our whole lives and not merely for the phase of
opinion which prevails at the present moment. It is
certainly an unsettling thing to try to live in another
world as well as this, to want to fly when we are com
pelled to walk upon the earth. Yet most of the good
which has been accomplished among men is due to
aspirations of this sort. We may be in the world and
not of it, and we may be in the Church and far from
agreeing in the temper and spirit of many Church
men. Difficulties may surround our path to some ex
tent. But, if there is no difficulty in ourselves, these
may generally be overcome by common prudence.
The aspirations after a higher state of life than that
in which we live may in a measure fulfil themselves.
We may create that which we seek after. And although
there will always remain something more to be done,
and our thoughts will easily outrun our utmost exer
tions, yet we may find in such thoughts of the changes
which may come over the world and the Church not
an unquiet or disturbing element of our lives but a
sense of repose ; they may enable us to see whither we
are going, and we may have a satisfaction in contri
buting to the work which God intended us to do.

190 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

And, if at this time, or at any time, great changes
may be expected in the opinions of men about the
Church, about the Bible, or about political institutions,
as some persons tell us, whether truly or not, there is
clearly a reason why we should seek other principles
which cannot be shaken. A great work it is for
a man to build up his own life with all the helps of
companionship and common worship under the guid
ance and authority of the past. But there may also
be a more difficult work reserved to some of us, that
we should build up our lives looking not to the past
but to the future, thinking of the world which will be
twenty or thirty years hence, which some of us will
not be here to see, when many opinions which are now
new will have become old, and some institutions which
are now powerful will have passed away. He who
lives not hanging on the past but aspiring towards
the future may accomplish a great work in his day.
For such a life he might find an example in the
Jewish prophets, if not in ecclesiastics of a later age.
His leaf would not wither when he grew old, for he
would be coming near to his goal. And, though he
is not likely to have seen all that he desired accom
plished, yet at his death he would have the conscious
ness that he had made the most of his life. He had
done his work and was ready to depart.

But, as when we indulge in these distant visions of
the future, whether in religion or politics, we are
always liable to be led away by some Will- o'- the-

x.] ASPIRATION AND ACTION 191

wisp, propounding to ourselves some distant ends,
and never thinking of the means, I will add in con
clusion a very few remarks touching the manner in
which these great ambitions or aspirations may be
made effectual or practical. The way to the future
lies along the present : and we can only act upon
another generation by thoroughly understanding our
own ; what we can do for others depending upon
what we are or make ourselves. We cannot assume
a force of character which we have not ; we cannot
have the results of education or preparation if we
have not educated or prepared ourselves. Dreams
of Christian or social improvement are easy, but if
we do not try to realize them they will be positive
hindrances in the way of our own improvement. And
therefore with all such aspirations I would inseparably
link the maxim * Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with all thy might.'

And, if any one says 4 1 do not understand these
great aims or grandiloquent thoughts about the next
generation and the like, I wish only to do my duty as
the clergyman of a country parish, to be honest as a
tradesman, or to bring up a family in the fear of God,'
still I would ask him or her sometimes to consider this
world twenty-five or thirty years hence. What would
he have wished to have been doing now if his life is
extended into the next generation ? The calm resume
of a man's present life in the light of twenty-five
years hence would have a sobering and strengthening

192 RELIGION AND SYSTEM [x.

influence on him. He would make a plan for many
years instead of living- from year to year. He would
be able to deal with life in a larger and more liberal
spirit. He would think more of its permanent and
less of its transient element. He could not be very
much the slave of party or prejudices, for he would
acknowledge that the same parties and prejudices
would hardly exist twenty-five years hence. There
are some possibilities for which he would allow, and
one of these would be the uncertainty of his own life.
And he would not walk the less by faith because he
carefully considered what one year might add to
another, how difficulties which could not be overcome
in a short time might be surmounted in a long time.
There is no higher faith in this world than to live
for posterity, and to think sometimes of the good
which we may do to a generation whom we shall
never know and who can do nothing for us. The
believer in Christ should cherish in himself and
impart to others the hope and promise of the future,
not only in the life which is to come, but also in that
which now is.

And, lastly, there is of course a sense in which the
words of the text are applicable to all of us : ' The
hour is coming when neither in this church nor in
any other shall we worship God ' ; for our short span
of life will be over, and we and our actions and our
worldly or religious interests will have passed out of
the memory of man into the presence of God. Let

x.] AS THEY WILL SEEM HEREAFTER 193

us try to think of men and things as they will then be
regarded by us, when the outward and visible will
have faded away, and theological controversies have
no longer any meaning to us. Let us try to think of
our own lives as they will appear before Him when
the fashions and opinions of this world are nothing to
us, and we measure ourselves, not by the opinions of
men, but by the just judgement of God.

XI
CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER1.

JESUS ANSWERED THEM, AND SAID, MY DOCTRINE
IS NOT MINE, BUT HIS THAT SENT ME. IF ANY MAN
IS WILLING TO DO HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW OF
THE DOCTRINE, WHETHER IT BE OF GOD, OR WHETHER
I SPEAK OF MYSELF. HE THAT SPEAKETH OF HIM
SELF SEEKETH HIS OWN GLORY: BUT HE THAT
SEEKETH HIS GLORY THAT SENT HIM, THE SAME IS
TRUE, AND THERE IS NO UNRIGHTEOUSNESS IN HIM.

ST. JOHN vii. 16-18.

IN the Gospel according- to St. John the Jews are
constantly asking- questions respecting- the claim of
Christ to be regarded as the Son of God. They
require of Him a sign from heaven ; and sometimes
He answers them in enigmatical language : ' Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again ' :
or, 4 1, if I be lifted up from this earth, will draw all
men after me ' : or, * Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but My Father giveth you the true
bread/ Sometimes He appeals to the prophets who
wrote of Him and foretold the darkness which would
come over the eyes and hearts of the Jewish people ;

1 Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, Oct. 22, 1882.

ix.l CHRIST'S MYSTICAL SAYINGS 195

or again, to the witness of John the Baptist, who had
himself been asked similar questions by the priests
and Levites sent from Jerusalem. They have strong-
reasons for doubting the truth of His mission : ' Search
and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet ' ; or,
1 Howbeit we know this Man whence He is.' Some
times in a more natural strain they argue : ' Is not
this the carpenter's Son, whose father and mother we
know ?' For mankind are slow to recognize the great
ness of those with whom they have been long familiar ;
as Jesus Himself testified, * A prophet is not without
honour except in his owTn country.' Then, again, they
are puzzled by His words, they do not understand in
what sense He bears record of Himself; and they
seem to taunt Him with a forgetfulness of His own
profession, that His Father bore witness of Him. They
do not comprehend how He can be the judge of the
world, and yet not the judge of the world ; or how
they should seek Him and not find Him, and * whither
I go ye cannot come ' ; any more than Pilate under
stood the word of Christ that ' He was a king ' ; or
that ' He came into the world to bear witness unto the
truth.' His inmost and deepest thoughts, ' Before
Abraham was I am,' and * I and the Father are One,'
appeared to them to be blasphemy. They were
offended at His breaking the law about the Sabbath
day, according to their narrow interpretation of it.
They failed altogether to see His meaning when He
told them that they * must be made free,' or ' must be

O 2

196 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

born again,' or ' must eat His flesh and drink His
blood.' Some of them wondered, ' How He could
know letters, not having learned.' Some said, * He is
a good man,' and others, ' Nay, but He deceiveth the
people.' And ' neither did His brethren believe in
Him.' They wanted Him to show forth His claims to
the world, saying, shrewdly enough, ' There is no man
that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh
to be known openly.' If He would only make a
speech, or assert Himself in some way, then the world
would acknowledge Him. And they also reminded
Him that He was running a risk of being stoned if
He went up to Jerusalem. To whom Christ, in the
deep stillness of His convictions, only replies, 'My time
is not yet ; your time is always ready ' ; and, l Are
there not twelve hours in the day ? If any man walk
in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light
of this world ' : how much more he who sees always
the light of the divine presence !

Even the inner circle of His disciples seem to have
found a difficulty in understanding His language and
character. They knew that some great and mysterious
calamity was hanging over Him and them. But they
could not tell what He meant when He said : ' Yet
a little while, and ye shall not see Me, and again a
little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the
Father.' They wanted Him to ; show them the Father,
and they would be satisfied,' not understanding that in
Him only would they see the Father. They knew

XL] THE DISCIPLES PUZZLED 197

not whither He went, and how could they know the
way ? They had no conception of a kingdom not of
this world ; they had rather hoped that He should
restore to the Jewish people their own kingdom, and
even that some of themselves might be sitting on His
right hand and His left, judging the tribes of Israel.
They were the personal friends of Christ who wrere
ready to follow Him whithersoever He went, and like
friends they were anxious about His safety ; they
were comforted by His presence, they were conscious
that He had the words of eternal life. But of His
inner mind, of His real nature, of His relation to the
Father, of the purely spiritual mission which He came
into the world to accomplish, they seem hardly to
have had a conception. They were ordinary men who
had no outlook into the world or into history, and
who had not yet been transfigured by the power of
His character. So the author of the fourth Gospel,
which of all the Gospels and of all the books of
Scripture is by far the most dramatic, in his own lively
manner has pictured to us the feelings which filled
the minds, not of the Jews only, but of the first
disciples.

And so in later ages and on many grounds, some
times lighter, sometimes more serious, men have had
their searchings of heart respecting ' the way, the
truth, and the life.' For not only in His own day was
Christ misunderstood, but in all ages there have been
those who have put the letter in the place of the

198 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FA THER [XL

spirit, and have perverted what was inward and moral
into what was local and outward. Either they have
found difficulties in the ancient narrative of the
Gospels, which they have vainly endeavoured to meet
by pretended reconcilements ; or they have wanted to
see with their own eyes the miracles of which they
have heard by distant report ; or they have hoped
against hope to witness the Son of Man appearing in
the clouds of heaven ; or they have formed within the
bosom of the Christian Church narrow sects more
nearly resembling in externals the congregations of
the first believers, until the very conception of the
Gospel has vanished into a many-coloured dream, and
the truth which was to be the life of man has taken
the form of an answer to objections, an apology,
a defence, a book of evidences ; not the highest and
the holiest which the human mind could conceive, a
self-evident truth or light, but a full-blown system of
theology, and a vigorous polemic against opponents.
For the religion of Christ is always being recovered
and being lost; and errors, falsehoods, superstitious
practices, which He came into the world to destroy,
are constantly being reasserted in His name. The men
of our own day are not so unlike as we imagine to
the contemporaries of Christ ; and the difficulties of
our own age resemble, in a measure, those difficulties
which the Evangelist has put into the mouths of the
Jews. Slowly, if at all, do men realize that Chris
tianity is not a church, or a congregation, or a history,

XL] DIFFICULTY OF HIGH THINKING 199

or a book, but a blessed and divine life, or communion
of men with God, of which he who wills may be
a partaker. They have never applied to their own
case the passionate exclamation of Christ, 4 It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing ;
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and
they are life.' If we allow for differences of times and
countries, and also for the length of time during
which the objections to the Gospels and the answers
to them have been accumulating (for the evidences of
Christianity have become a great literature), we may
fairly argue from one age to the other, or at any rate
find in the one the germs of true and useful thoughts
which are applicable to the other. Following on the
lines indicated by the words of the text, I propose to
consider more particularly — (i) the nature of Christ's
answer to the Jews; (2) what did He mean when He
said l If any man is willing to do His will, he shall
know of the doctrine ' ? (3) what application of these
and similar words we may make to ourselves and to
our own day.

First of all our Lord appeals to Himself. There is
a true witness which a man may give of his own life
and actions, and there is a false witness by which he
deceives first himself and then others ; and lastly,
there is a witness, partly true and partly false, by
which he perplexes his fellow men, because they see
the high and lofty aims which animate him, but they
also see that he is the victim of a delusion. The

200 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

record which is true appeals irresistibly to our highest
sense of right and truth ; there are a few whose good
ness we could hardly doubt without at the same time
doubting the existence of goodness itself. The false
record is that of an impostor, who is also a fanatic,
who can offer no reasonable ground why men should
believe him to be sent of God, but yet by a certain
positiveness and egotism, by an intense belief in him
self, gains an ascendency over the minds of others.
And there have been leaders of religious thought, who
have been deceived as well as deceivers, who with
good intentions have not been aware how much of
their own teaching was derived, not from God, but
from themselves. Characters of this type are common
among men, and they often gain an undue power
over their fellows ; they insensibly undermine the
truth and purity of religion, and create a distrust of
it in the world. There have been even saints and
righteous men whose witness of themselves was not
to be believed ; they thought they saw, and perhaps
really saw, the true light at times ; and at other times
they supplemented by self-delusion the faith which
was beginning to fail them ; and yet they have been
good men still in the main, if all the circumstances of
their lives be considered. Nevertheless it is obvious
that their testimony of themselves must be received
with suspicion ; for they and their beliefs were what
they made them by fastings and religious exercises,
by a study of one side of the truth only, by indulging

XL] A MAN'S WITNESS TO HIMSELF 201

the natural tendency of their minds ; or, what they
had become by the opposition and antagonism of their
age, by the cruelty and persecution of their enemies.

The true witness which a man bears of himself is
not positive, not egotistical, not polemical ; it is
humble, calm, retiring; not what a man proclaims of
himself, but what his life and character say of him.
His acts are the witness of his words ; he himself is
the witness of the spirit in which he acts. If you
would test a good religious teacher, try him especially
in those points in which he is most likely to fail. Is
he disinterested, or seeking for his own glory ? Is he
a lover of all men everywhere, or only of his own
sect ? Are his ideas of right and truth in politics and
religion dependent on the interests of Church or
dissent ? Is he as careful of means as he is of ends ;
or is he apt to think that the end sanctifies the
means ? Is he really living above the world, in com
munion with God, in love and harmony with his
fellow men ? There is no difficulty in distinguishing
the religion of such an one from the conventional
imitation of it ; from the ecclesiastical religion which
seeks only to exalt the power of the priesthood ; from
the puritanical religion which would bind up salvation
in a theological formula ; from the interested and
Pharisaical religion which desires to appear well in
the eyes of men ; from the political religion which
converts the words of Christ into the symbols of a
party.

202 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [XL

In answer to the questions of the Jews, our Lord
appeals to the purity and disinterestedness of His own
character — ' No man convinced Him of sin,' and, * if
He said what they felt in their hearts to be the truth,
why did they not believe in Him ? ' What motive had
He for deceiving- them ? He came not seeking His
own glory, but to reveal the Father in Him and them.
He did not want the praise of men, but only that they
should come to Him and have life. He had done the
works of God ; that was the proof that He was one
with God. The Scriptures, too, of the Old Testa
ment, whenever they spoke of mercy and judgement,
of the Son and Servant of God, of the love of Jehovah
to His people, were fulfilled in Him who first felt for
Himself, and taught mankind to feel, that God was
their Father and His Father, and their God and His
God. To Him John the Baptist, to Him the prophets
witness, to Him all good men everywhere who have
a like spirit in them. Goodness and truth recognize
Him who is good and true as naturally as the eye
catches the light of the sun. Not only the life of
Christ, but the life of His humblest followers, the
poor man or woman dying- in a cottage or workhouse
of a lingering- disease, do sometimes, by their humility,
by their resignation, by their elevation above the
thing-s of this world, give a testimony of the truth of
religion which strikes home to our hearts.

But Christ has a greater witness than the witness
of men. He feels that God is His witness. Without

XL] CHRIST MANIFESTING THE FATHER 203

God He could not have lived such a life, or died such
a death. To those who say, ' Show us the Father
and it sufficeth us,' He only replies, 4 1 am the mani
festation of the Father.' Righteousness witnesses to
itself, but it has also the witness of God. The Jews
said, l This is blasphemy ' ; and so it was for Simon
Magus, or any other false prophet who had no truth
in him, to declare that he was the ' great power of
God.' But it was not blasphemy for Christ, feeling
in His whole soul the love of God, the truth of God,
the righteousness of God, feeling that in all His words,
works, thoughts, He was reflecting the will of God, to
declare Himself one with God. The creed tells us
that He was * equal to the Father as touching His
Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching His man
hood.' But is it not more intelligible to us, and more
instructive, to think of Him as one with God, because
Christ and God are one with righteousness and truth ?
Christ does not so much assume to be God as He
naturally loses Himself in God. Other leaders and
teachers of mankind have been remarkable for con
fidence in themselves, and this quality is sometimes
thought to be characteristic of great men. The
confidence of Christ is of another sort, not confidence
in self, but absolute dependence on the will of God.
He has no fear, except once and for a moment, lest
He should be forsaken of God ; He has no wish or
desire except that which is inspired in Him from
above. He is not making an effort, or striving to

204 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [XL

produce an impression on His own disciples or the
Jewish people, but simply appearing- as He was, and
showing men the truth which He had received from
God. The depth and calmness of His nature are not
ruffled by the violence of the multitude ; He still
pleads for them, l Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.' To the Roman governor and in
the face of death He continued to announce His
mission : ' For this cause was I born, and to this end
came I into the world, that I might bear witness to
the truth.' He has nothing to do with the world, or
the kingdoms of the world, or the policy of Caiaphas,
or the rival sects of the Jews. The scene which sur
rounds Him, whether of the feast in the temple or
before the judgement seat or on the cross, passes
unheeded before His eyes. In the midst of the crowd
He is alone with God.

This is the witness which Christ gives us of Him
self, the visible embodiment of His righteousness in
a person who is holding communion with God. Some
of us may have felt ourselves at certain times of our
lives falling under the influence of a good man who
has inspired us with thoughts which we never had
before, who has spoken to us of our duty to God
and man, of living for others, of giving up the world,
of disinterestedness, of self-sacrifice. Why did we
believe him or listen to him ? Because his character
seemed to witness to his words ; what he said, he
was; because the lesson that he taught flowed at

XL] MANIFESTATION OF GOD IN MEN 205

once and immediately out of his own nature. We
might have a doubt whether we could make the
sacrifice which he demanded of us, whether we could
resist temptation, whether having begun to lead a
new life we should not after a time fall away. But
we should have no doubt that he was speaking the
truth, that he was calling upon us to fulfil the work
of God, that if we would receive his words we should
be happier than if we neglected them. Even if the
impression faded away we should acknowledge that
he was right, and we should perhaps feel grateful
to him in after life for having sought to save us from
sin and evil. This, which may have come within
the experience of many of us, is an illustration of the
manner in which Christ spoke and taught, Himself
His own witness. And the persons whom I have
been describing are like Christ in their own spheres,
showing the nature of God in themselves, reflecting
the life of Christ in their own lives ; they are wit
nesses who need no other witness of the truth of their
words. And, if in remote ages, amid new forms of
society and new interests of knowledge, the image
of Christ begins to wax dim, it can only be renewed
by the lives of men like Him, devoting themselves
to the cause of God and to the good of their fellow
men, in an altered world, after another manner per
haps (for we cannot anticipate religious any more
than political changes), yet in the same spirit of
holiness and disinterestedness and truth.

206 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

Once more, our Lord implies that the willingness
to receive the truth depends upon the disposition of
the hearer — 'Whoso willeth to do His will shall
know of the doctrine whether it be of God.' He
who hungers and thirsts after goodness and truth
shall not be long in doubt about their true nature,
for God will reveal them to him. He who is seeking
for the light will not be left in the darkness. To
him who is saying, 'Who is the Lord that I may
believe on Him ? ' Christ will appear, whether in the
form of a person or not in the form of a person,
whether in a Christian country or not in a Christian
country, whether in the words of the Gospel or not
in the words of the Gospel. For we are a long way
off that revelation of God which Christ made to His
disciples ; we see Him at a distance only ; and there
may be some who do not bear His name and yet
are partakers of His spirit ; and others, again, in so-
called heathen countries who speak of truth and
righteousness in other language than that of the
New Testament; who have known Christ and have
not known Him, in the spirit and not in the letter.
And the more we enlarge the meaning of His words
so as to include those sheep of another fold, those
Christians in unconsciousness as they may be termed,
the more truly do we enter into the mind of Christ.

Such a rule as that of the text obviously implies
that religion is very simple, not a complicated or
scientific system dependent on criticism or on

XL] WILLINGNESS TO DO, PROMISE TO KNOW 207

examination of evidence, or adapted to the latest dis
coveries in philosophy. Christ does not say that he
who wills to do the will of God shall know what is
the true reading, or what is the interpretation of
a passage of the New Testament, or 'whether the
facts of His own life have been accurately narrated in
the Gospels, or whether this or that doctrine has been
rightly defined by the councils of the Church. Of
such matters there is no spiritual intuition ; the
Scriptures must be interpreted like any other book,
according to the same laws of language and the same
rules of criticism and evidence. Neither does He seem
to say ' Be humble and believe what you are told by
the ministers of the Gospel ' ; nor again, l Follow some
religious practice until you are convinced of the belief
on which your practice rests ' ; nor ' Admit the claims
of some religious teacher, and you will soon know him
to be inspired.' These are erroneous ways of applying
the meaning of the text. But He means to say that, if
you have a real desire after truth and holiness and
righteousness, you shall know what they are, and
shall be in no danger of being deceived about them.
If you begin by seeking to do the will of God, more
and more of His will shall be revealed to you. You
shall see Him as He is, not disfigured by the tradi
tions of men ; and His grace shall be perfected
in you.

And now I will proceed to consider, in the last
place, how the words of the text may be applied to

208 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

ourselves, and to our own times. There appears to
be in the minds of many persons a good deal of
apprehension about the future of religion. These
alarms which have been always felt in all ages of the
Church seem in our own day to have increased, and
perhaps with some reason. We see powerful in
fluences at work and rapid changes taking place, and
we cannot pretend to foretell what will be the course
of religious opinion in this or other countries fifty or
even twenty years hence. Not only the speculative
reconcilement of science and religion appears to be
distant, but the practical reconcilement of them in our
own life and conduct is not free from difficulty. For
we are subject to opposite and discordant influences ;
we hear one voice speaking to us in the churches and
another in the newspapers or the lecture-room. And
some persons have thought that they would be quit
of the difficulty by being quit of religion ; they have
gone further and further away from the faith of their
fathers, putting the world in the place of God, the
laws of nature in the place of moral and spiritual
truths. Yet, perhaps, we should not attach too much
importance to such changes ; for there are some who,
in the days of their youth, have lightly laid aside all
regard to religion, and have died in the bosom of an
infallible church. And there are others who have
gone to the opposite pole", and then in middle life
they have found the articles of belief which they had
eagerly embraced in youth slipping from under them,

XL] THINGS WHICH CANNOT BE SHAKEN 209

and their life has set in darkness and doubt. There
have been times in the history of the Church when
the true meaning- of the Gospel seemed to be almost
lost ; when, in the beautiful words of the great Catholic
historian, ' Christ was in the ship, but asleep ' ; and to
these times of lethargy and vacancy have succeeded
other times of revival, awakening, reformation, counter-
reformation. Therefore we should look forward in
faith to the future, and not be too much influenced
by the accidents of the age in which we live — the
state of knowledge, the progress of criticism, the con
flict of ideas and modes of thinking. Human nature
has been so created by God as to be sufficient for
itself under all its trials. The world is moving on
fast ; ideas which are in the air trouble our minds ;
at times they seem quite to overpower us ; and we
want to know where, amid the floating- sands of
opinion, we may find some rock or anchor of the
soul.

Is not the answer the same as of old, * The things
which are shaken are being removed, that the things
which cannot be shaken may remain ' ? The law of
duty, the standards of morality, the relations of family
life are unchanged. No one can truly say that he is
uncertain about right and wrong. 4 Wherewithal shall
a young man cleanse his way ? ' The answer is the
same as it always was, ' Even by ruling himself after
Thy word.' The nature of true religion is not altered
in the latter half of the nineteenth century. ' To do

210 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with God ' ;
' to visit the fatherless and widow, to keep himself
unspotted from the world ' ; to live always t as unto the
Lord, and not unto men ' ; ' to be kindly affectioned
one to another ' ; to 4 take up the cross and follow
Christ ' (if we are capable of it) : which of these
precepts is changed by the inquiries of criticism ?
Which of them does not come home to us, not only
as a word of the New Testament, but as a self-evident
duty or truth ?

And, if there are difficulties which the progress of
the nineteenth century has introduced into religion,
we should also remark that of many things we have
a clearer knowledge than our fathers ; we have surely
a truer perception of the spirit of Christ than in the
days of party and persecution ; the proportions of
religious truth are better understood by us, and we
see that the points in which we differ are far less
important than those in which all men, or almost all
men, are agreed ; we have learned that a Christian
life comes before definitions of Christian truth ; if we
do not doubt about the one, neither need we doubt
about the other ; for the truth is the reflection of the
life, as Christ also implies when He calls Himself * the
way, and the truth, and the life.' There are many
ancient misunderstandings between good men of dif
ferent forms of religion which we now see to be,
partly though not wholly, questions of words. There
are some aspects of the Gospel, some temporary or local

XL] RELIGIOUS PROGRESS IN OUR DAY 211

beliefs, which fade away in the distance (as we might
expect after 1 800 years) ; but there are others which
were never realized before in the same manner. For
example, we can understand better than ever before
what Christ meant when He said of the teacher
who was not of His own followers, ' Forbid him
not ' ; or what He meant when He replied to
those who charged Him with profaning the Sabbath
Day, f The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath ' ; or the meaning of the Apostles
when they said, ' Of a truth God is no respecter of
persons,' and * There is neither Greek nor Jew, bond
nor free, but all are one in Christ Jesus ' ; or the final
result of St. Paul's ' high argument ' in the Epistle to
the Romans, when he says, c So then God concluded
all under sin that He might have mercy upon all.'
Or, again, we can better realize the depth and fulness
of those other words of Christ, ' My kingdom is not
of this world,' than in the days when the visible
greatness of the Church seemed to overshadow the
earth.

Religion has become simpler than formerly ; it is
not so dependent on language ; it is not so much dis
puted about as in the older times. Mankind have
a larger and truer conception of the divine nature ;
they have also a wider knowledge of themselves.
They see the various forms of Christianity which
prevail in their own and other countries, they trace
their origin and history, and they rise above them to

P 2

212 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

that higher part of Christian belief which they have in
common. Their vision extends yet further, to the great
religions of the East, and the controversies and phases
of faith which have absorbed them. They set aside
lesser perplexing questions, whether of criticism or of
philosophy, which are neither important nor capable
of being satisfactorily answered. They turn from
theology to life, from disputes about the person of
Christ to the imitation of Him c who went about doing
good.' He who begins by asking, ' What is the evi
dence of miracles ? How are the discrepancies of the
Gospels to be accounted for ? How can the physical
and spiritual qualities of man be harmonized ? ' is
losing himself in questions which may continue to be
in dispute long after he is in his grave. But to him
who asks : ' How can I become better ? How can
I do the will of God ? How can I serve my fellow
men ? How can I serve Christ ? ' the answer is in
a manner contained in the question. He has the
witness in himself of what is holy and just and true.
He knows that righteousness and truth are the will of
God ; and he has the witness of life and history to the
consequences of human actions.

Once more. There is a great part of knowledge
which, coming late into the world, by a sort of acci
dent, seems at present to be at war with religion, and
yet can no more be separated from it than the mind
can be parted from the body. It would be a false
superficial religion which tried to ignore or put out

XL] CHRIST AND NATURAL SCIENCE 213

of sight these new branches of knowledge, so vast, so
minute, which speak to us of the physical universe.
Rather they are to be regarded as a new revelation
which is added to the old, and is in some ways the
interpretation of it. This is that part of knowledge
which confirms, what daily experience also teaches,
that we live under fixed laws. And sometimes we
imagine them to be a prison which encloses us, or
a high wall over which we cannot climb. But the
truth is that they are a mode in which God manifests
Himself, and that the knowledge of them is power
and freedom. Not by being ignorant of them, but
by knowing them, do we escape from the accidents
of life ; 4 the arrow that flieth by night and the
pestilence that walketh in the noon day.' And for
the application of this knowledge to our own lives,
just as much as for the application of any other kind
of knowledge, we are responsible to God. Have we
ever considered that the care of our health is a reli
gious duty ? and that to provide others with the
conditions of health (upon which to them and us so
much depends) is a religious act ? Have we ever
thought of the innumerable ways in which the state
of the body affects the mind ? If God has revealed to
us in Scripture that we have the power to turn to
Him and do His will, He has revealed to us in science
that the mind is dependent upon the body, and that
we can alter the circumstances of which we are some
times called the creatures. And therefore the laws

214 CHRIST'S UNITY WITH THE FATHER [xi.

which regulate our bodily frames are to be reveren
tially observed by us no less than the spiritual laws
which Scripture and reason reveal to us. They have
the witness of God Himself in the penalties which He
has annexed to the violation of them. And they too
require of us a certain degree of faith, because the
consequences of breaking them are distant and unseen,
and our immediate interests may often seem to be
opposed to them, or our passions may rise in rebellion
against them.

To conclude. In every state of the world, and in
every class of society, there are elements of good and
evil, of weakness and strength ; and our character and
disposition may be such that we extract the evil and
reject the good, or extract the good and reject the
evil. In our own age too, and in this place, there are
peculiar difficulties and dangers. There is the tempta
tion of youth to sensuality, and the equal if not greater
danger of sentimentalism ; there is the tendency to
extravagance and self-indulgence, to indolence or
irregularity ; there is the flood of new ideas coming
into conflict with old beliefs. Happy is he who, by
good sense, by strength of character, and by Chris
tian principles, steers his way amidst these rocks.
Happy is he who has not only the enjoyment of these
years which he passes at the University — to many the
happiest of their whole lives, and of the greatest
opportunity — but who can afterwards look back upon
them as a time of innocence and of self-improvement,

XL] PRESERVATION OF INNOCENCE 215

a time of natural growth, in which he unlearned some
prejudices and acquired a true love of knowledge and
a real experience of life. Happy is he too who, in the
evening of his years, instead of regretting the days of
his youth or the ages of faith which are gone, feels his
heart still beating in sympathy with the young and
with the world around him ; who has cheerfully met
the mental trials which to a reflecting mind are in
separable from a state of progress or transition, and
been renewed and invigorated by them ; who has
taken the good and rejected the evil of the age in
which he has lived, and has learned the lesson which
God intended that it should teach him.

XII
CHRIST'S AUTHORITY1.

HE TAUGHT THEM AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY,
AND NOT AS THE SCRIBES.

MATT. vii. 29.

WE should like to carry with us in the mind's eye
the form and features of Christ ; we would rather
have looked upon that face than upon any other
among the sons of men. Whether, in the language
of the prophet, His visage was marred more than any
man's, either from the conflicts of His own spirit or
from His sympathy with the sins and sufferings ot
men ; or whether we may conceive Him to have been
the image of a heavenly calm, of an authority which
was given from above, of a divine grace and love ; we
naturally wish that we could have seen Him as He
was in this world, and could have preserved the recol
lection of Him as we might of some earthly friend
whom we always remember; and we may imagine
that one look from Him, like that given to Peter,
would have rebuked our sins and changed the course
of our lives. The genius of the fifteenth and six-
1 Preached at Balliol, April 12, 1880.

XIL] CHRIST IN ART 217

teenth centuries had many imaginary visions and
likenesses of Christ. After a while the artist breaks
through the traditional forms in which an earlier
generation had hardly dared to give expression to the
sacred features ; and finally seeks to embody in the face
of the Saviour all the attributes of perfected humanity.
We see Him full of sadness and dignity as He sits
among His disciples at the Last Supper, when He
makes the discovery to them that 4 there is one here
who shall betray Me,' and the eager inquiry ' Who
is it ? ' passes from one to the other of them ; or as
He appears in another picture answering those who
asked Him of the tribute money, and seeming by His
gentle wisdom to reprove the hardness and fanaticism
which are depicted in the faces of His questioners ; or
as He is seen among the doctors, the image of ingen
uous youth, yet having in His mind thoughts to which
they were strangers ; or as He is painted again and
again bearing the likeness of suffering innocence in
the judgement hall of Pilate, bound, helpless, scourged,
yet having a majesty which shows that He is raised
above this world. These are lessons which the
painter's art is able to teach, pictures with which
we may fill and people our minds ; and thoughts too
deep for words are to be found in many of them.
For there is a noble use of art which by the help
of colour and form raises us to the contemplation of
the mind within, as there is also a degraded use
of art which aims only at a false ideal of sense and

2i8 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xn.

sensuality ; and the change which we observe in the art
of painting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as
we pass from the old Byzantine types to the free and
noble representations of Albert Durer and Leonardo da
Vinci, is parallel to another change which has taken
place later in the history of religious thought. For
gradually as time has gone on we have learned to
think of the character of Christ more simply and
truly, more as if He were one of ourselves, but above
us ; no longer defined by hard dogmatical lines, but
speaking to us naturally, heart to heart ; whereas for
merly men would have hardly ventured to conceive
His character at all ; they regarded Him rather as
an inhabitant of another world, a divine stranger who
passed before them for a moment, and of whom they
could form no distinct impression. The great phy
siognomist Lavater is said to have been inspired in
his researches into the human form by the hope of
recovering this lost image of Christ. This was the
eccentric fancy of a great and good man. But may
there not be such an image present with us still ? not
pourtrayed by the fancy of the painter, nor chiselled
in marble by the sculptor's art, nor capable of any
outward representation, but Christ in the heart and
conscience of man, Christ in the light of our lives,
who is ever shining in us if we look inward and have
eyes to see ; to which image we repair when, like all
things in the past, the vision of the historical Christ
seems to be in any degree dim or distant to us.

XIL] CHRIST IN PHYSIOGNOMY 219

The text describes one striking feature of the
character of Christ. ' He spake to them as one that
had authority.'

A like impression is derived from several other
passages in the narrative of the Gospel ; wherever
He was, He exercised a sort of controlling power over
men ; and at last no one ventured to ask Him any
more questions. The evangelists seem to imply that
there was an awe about Him, not supernatural, but
natural, which prevented other men from intruding
upon Him and becoming too familiar with Him,
though He was in the midst of them. He could live
among publicans and harlots, the lowest of the people
as we might deem them, and yet His dignity is not
diminished but enhanced by this. He could defend
Himself against all disputants, like Socrates, though
with other weapons. He had the sort of influence
which is given by the clear and dispassionate know
ledge of other men's characters, for 4 He knew what
was in man.' When the Pharisees and Sadducees
asked Him their quibbling questions about the tribute
money, about marriage, about the Sabbath Day, He
does not enter into a dispute with them, He rises
above them to a higher principle — ' Render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the
things that are God's ' ; * In the resurrection they
neither marry nor are given in marriage ' ; * It z's lawful
to do good on the Sabbath Day.' Or He appealed
from the conventional to the natural, from the rigid

220 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xn.

and precise rule to the feeling of the heart — * Why do
Thy disciples fast not ? ' to which the answer is, ' They
cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them ; but
when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then
they shall fast.' And there are some questions which
He will not answer at all. For example, that very
one, 4 Who gave Thee this authority ? ' And at the
last, when interrogated by Pilate, ' Art Thou King of
the Jews ? ' when on the point of being led away to
death, in the tone of an equal He answers still : 4 My
kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom were
of this world, then would my servants fight that
I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now is my
kingdom not from hence.'

This is the language of authority, more impressive
when deprived of all earthly show of power. And
with this we may further contrast the language of
seeming authority in which there is no intrinsic power
of truth. He spake to them as One having authority,
and not as the scribes. For they too were teachers
of mankind, and they repeated Sabbath after Sab
bath in the synagogues their unmeaning interpreta
tions from the Old Testament ; their foolish distinc
tions about the gold and the temple, about the altar
and the gift which was upon the altar ; their hollow
evasions of the law which commanded them to main
tain their parents ; their false assumptions of the
exclusive privileges of the Jewish race. Christ, as we
may say in modern language, goes back to first prin-

xii.] HIS INTRINSIC DIGNITY 221

ciples in religion ; the scribes and Pharisees are only
capable of disputing- about details. Christ comes to
bring a sword on earth, that is to say, to make men
think, to make them repent, to arouse in a nation a
consciousness of sin ; to fight a battle against evil
and falsehood everywhere : their mission is to make
men contented with themselves, to bring down their
principles to their practice, to attenuate the stern
demands of the law of God, and to reduce them to
the level of public opinion and of ordinary life. They
are absorbed in routine and custom. They have
never risen to the thought of a moral duty or of the
nature of God as a Moral Being. To their minds
what they supposed to be the revelation of Him to
Moses was prior to every consideration of truth and
right.

So, not in our own age only, but in many, has false
authority tended to prevail over the true, the power
of tradition over reason and conscience. Men do not
easily or without an effort shake off what they have
heard a thousand times. They do not easily or at
once recognize how simple the Gospel is : l Except
a man receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall in no wise enter therein.' There are some to
whom this childlike simplicity only comes when they
are quite old. After a long experience they under
stand at last that to know a few things in religion is
all that is necessary or desirable — ' To do justice and
to love mercy and to walk humbly before God.'

222 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xii.

These are the truths about which the minister of
Christ should desire to speak with authority; not
about baptisms or laying- on of hands, or about rubrics
or vestments or metaphysical controversies.

If we once more ask the question which the Phari
sees asked of Christ in another sense, and which at
that time He refused to answer, * Who gave Thee this
authority ? ' the reply seems to be twofold : it was
His own, and yet it was given Him by God. The
acts which He performed, the words which He spoke,
were not in a figure only the words and works of
God ; they came into His mind, they were sug
gested to His will, in the same way apparently as the
words or acts of any other men. But they were
inspired by a power different from that which moved
other men ; they had a divine force in them, flowing
out of an irresistible conviction that He was one with
God, and that they were the words of God.

And yet they were His own. He was absolutely
one in Himself and had one thought only in His
whole life. He was not like a politician trying ex
pedients to adapt His opinions to the multitudes.
He says to His brethren, ' My time is not yet, your
time is always ready.' Whether men accepted His
words or not was a matter of indifference to Him,
and only elicited a sort of cry of pain from Him : ' Ye
will not come unto Me that ye might have life.'
There are some minds who seem to grow with suc
cess ; they receive their power from others, and are

xii.] HIS DISINTERESTEDNESS 223

borne along- on the wings of sympathy ; and then
popular good- will deserts them, and they fall and die.
But Christ was not one of these dependent beings ;
He knew and was His own witness to the truth which
He taught ; He was Himself the truth embodied in
a person of which He could no more divest Him
self than we can divest ourselves of personal identity.
And had all men been against Him, had He passed
away without making- a single convert, the truth
would not have been the less true to Him. This
simplicity, this confidence in God and in the truth,
this freedom from the traditional opinion of men, this
divine calmness., this union of strength and love, are
the features in the character of Christ which we
naturally connect with the authority which He exer
cised. He seemed to be above men because He was
above them, because He was at one with Himself and
had a hidden strength in God, because the words
which He spoke were in accordance with the will of
God and the eternal laws of the world.

And now I shall proceed to inquire how far we can
imitate Christ in this quality of authority. For we all
of us have some duties to perform in which the
control of others is required ; and in later life such
duties increase and multiply upon us ; in a school, in
a parish, in a household, or perhaps in a public posi
tion. How can we exercise authority without seeming
to exercise it ; be felt without being heard ; gain
influence without noisy disputes, by the silent power

224 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xii.

of a consistent life ? This is a speculation of great
practical importance of which I propose to speak in
the remainder of this sermon, hoping still to keep
present before our mind the example of Christ with
which we began.

It is almost a truism to say that he who would
control others must control himself. He must have
a quieter and more impartial mind than those whom
he would restore, he must make allowances for this,
and sometimes put himself in their place. He must
not either command or reprove until he is fully
acquainted with all the circumstances of the case. He
must convey the impression that he will listen to the
voice of reason only, and not be moved by entreaties,
that he remembers and does not forget, and that he
observes more than he says. He must know the
characters of those with whom he deals, he must show
that he has a regard for their feelings when he is
correcting or reproving them. The great art is to
mingle authority with kindness ; there are a few, but
a very few, who by some happy tact have contrived
so to rebuke another as to make him their friend for
life. Kindness and sympathy have a wonderful power
in this world ; they smooth the rough places of life,
they take off the angles, they make the exercise of
authority possible. The mere manner in which a
thing is said or done, say, in speaking to a child or
a servant, makes all the difference. * Behold, how
good and how joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell

xii.] AUTHORITY MUST REST ON GOODWILL 225

together in unity,' in a family, in a school, in a college,
in a state. And we can only live in harmony when
the spirit of order prevails among us, when there is
the union of kindness and authority, when person
alities are not rife among us, when we recognize that,
over and above our individual lives, we have duties
which we owe one to another, of friendliness and good
will, as well as of mutual help and support. Is it not
a fault of worldly prudence, as well as of Christian
charity, ever to have a quarrel with another ? Why
should we say things which rankle in a sensitive mind,
sometimes for this very reason, that we are ill at ease
ourselves and vent our displeasure upon others ? For
quarrels and differences and coldnesses arise almost
insensibly out of very small matters ; a hasty word,
a laugh, a command too sharply or nakedly uttered,
will alienate the affection of another. Men are weak,
and do not like to have their amour propre wounded ;
we must acknowledge this weakness, being conscious
that we also experience the same. Especially persons
who have any kind of superiority over others should
try to enter into the feelings of those who are placed
under them. The satirical word which might be
allowable in others is not allowable in them. They
cannot trample on the feelings of others and still
govern them with a strong hand, although that is
a fiction in which inconsiderate rulers or statesmen
sometimes indulge. Rather, in the language of the
apostle, there is a sense in which they must ' become

226 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xn.

all things to all men, that they may win some ' ; or, to
express the same truth more popularly, they must
find the way to the hearts of men, and then they may
do what they like with them. That authority is the
most complete which is the least felt or perceived.

Thus in the exercise of authority there must be
a basis of kindness and good-will, but many other
qualities are also required in those who would in
fluence or control others. Perhaps there must be
a degree of reserve, for the world is governed, not
by many words, but by few; and nothing is more
inconsistent with the real exercise of power than
rash and inconsiderate talking. We are not right
in communicating to others every chance thought that
may arise in our minds about ourselves or about
them. There is a noble reserve which prevents us
from intruding on the feelings of others, and some
times refrain to ask for their sympathy or appro
bation. Dignity and self-respect are the natural
accompaniments of authority, and the essence of
dignity is simplicity. We must banish the thought
of self, how we look, what effect we produce, what is
the opinion of others about our sayings and doings ;
these only paralyze us at the time of action. We want
to be, and not to seem, to think only of the duty
which we have in hand, to be indifferent to the world
around. We want to see things in their proper pro
portions ; not to be fidgety or uneasy about trifles,
nor to be greatly disturbed about any of those evils

xii.] RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORITY 227

which lightly pass away and are cured by time. There
are no doubt some tendencies in this age which are
unfavourable to the formation of such a character.
Ideas succeed one another so fast ; there is so much
talk about persons ; knowledge is so soon dissipated
in criticism, that it is hard for the mind to remain in
one stay ; we seem to require simpler and deeper
notions of truth and of God, and a more even current
of life, not liable to eddies and distractions ; and this
equable life we must make for ourselves. And of
this calmness or repose we must have the springs in
ourselves, for we shall hardly find them in the world.
The peace of God is to be found, not in this or that
opinion, but in the sense of duty, in consistency, in
simple faith and in the hope of another life. Where
we began as children we end as men, confiding in
a parent's love.

Most of us here present are on the threshold of
active life, and in a few years we shall be filling posts
of responsibility in which we, too, have to exercise
authority over others. Then our characters will be
put to the test, perhaps in the management of a
school or of a parish, or in some other position of
command, or subordinate. Shall we be found wanting ?
unable to control ourselves, and therefore unable to
control others ; without knowledge of mankind, and
therefore incapable of bearing our part among them ;
with many good qualities perhaps, but, owing to some
sensitiveness or levity or want of purpose, unequal to

Q 2

228 CHRIST'S AUTHORITY [xn.

the great struggle of existence, and not adapted to the
profession or employment which we have chosen for
ourselves? Forty years hence men will be passing
judgement on us, and telling why one has succeeded
and another failed, inverting sometimes the hopes
that had been entertained of them in their youth.
They will be raising the question why the life of one
has been a blessing in the sphere to which he
belonged, and another has gone from one thing to
another and brought no fruit to perfection. Ought
we not to forecast this judgement a little ? Many
reasons will be given for these failures and successes.
Because so and so was or was not weak or vain ;
because he could or could not make himself respected ;
because he had no stability in him, or because he had
a fixed purpose ; because he was selfish or unselfish,
hated or beloved ; because he could not keep men
together or manage them, or was or was not to be
trusted in business. And there are many other
reasons which will be given. Can we not see our
selves as others see us ? For the world is a hard
schoolmaster, and punishes us without giving reasons,
and sometimes when we can no longer correct the
deficiency. And often our own self-love blinds us to
the end, and we attribute to accident what is really to
be ascribed to some weakness or error in ourselves.

Lastly, let us place before ourselves that image of
which I spoke at the beginning of this sermon — the
image of Him whose gentleness and goodness, whose

XIL] AUTHORITY THE TEST OF CHARACTER 229

dignity and authority, we would feign make our
pattern, though we follow Him at a distance only.
For while we acknowledge the value, of the judge
ments of our fellow men, which may correct our
own judgements, we desire also a higher and perfect
standard which may correct theirs. We cannot alto
gether trust them, and still less can we trust ourselves.
And we know of course that the worth of a life is not
altogether measured by failure or success. We must
live in the world, but we want to live above it ; in
this way only can we have the true use of it. Self-
knowledge and the knowledge of mankind have a
great value, but there is a higher knowledge still,
which shows us human ends and purposes as they are
in the sight of God. The truest rule of conduct is,
4 Thou God seest me ' ; and the truest dignity and the
highest authority which man can attain among his
fellows is derived from the consciousness that, like
Christ, he is seeking to fulfil the will of God on earth
and to do His work.

XIII
THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM1.

MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD; IF MY KING
DOM WERE OF THIS WORLD, THEN WOULD MY

SERVANTS FIGHT.

JOHN viii. 36.

How far religion and morality should enter into
politics is a question not easily answered. There are
some who say that 4 what is morally wrong can never
be politically right,' but they forget how rarely this
truth or truism is capable of application. Nor can
the question always receive the same answer. For, in
different ages of the world, Church and State, as we
now call them, religion and politics, the outer and the
inner life of man, stand in different relations to one
another. In the beginning of history, and in the
times before history, they are not yet divided. Reli
gion rather than reason, or reason taking the form of
religion, is the light of human existence in the dawn
of the world's day. The founder of the city is the
god of the city, the temple of Athena crowns the
Acropolis, the forces of nature which are too much

1 Preached at Balliol, Jan. 22, 1882.

XIIL] RELIGION AND POLITICS 231

for man, the uncontrollable passions or inspirations
within him, are also supposed to be protecting or
guiding powers. The institutions of the state are
received by some legislator from heaven. Though
among the Greeks individuals may have been stigma
tized as atheists, yet there was no city without gods.
At every turn human life was regulated by cere
monies, of which the meaning was often lost in after
ages. Religion was the bond of society as well as of
the state. In later ages it became divided into two
parts — the icy crust and the living stream — the pre
scribed routine of sacrifice and offering and the better
mind of the worshippers rising in almost unconscious
thought to a divine power and goodness.

Such was the ordinary progress of the Gentile
religions which are best known to us. The Jewish
theory was of a higher type and attained to a nobler
conception. The Israelites, without losing altogether
the national idea of God, yet thought of Him also,
though confusedly, as the God of the whole earth,
4 sitting upon the circle of the heavens,' perfect in
justice and holiness and truth. Whether this nobler
conception of God was part of an original revelation
to Moses, or a new life infused into the decaying
nation long afterwards by psalmists and prophets,
is a matter of controversy. For the Hebrew religion
may be regarded in two ways, either as declining
from a more perfect idea, or, like the Greek, progres
sing towards it. In the latter case the laws of Moses

232 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

may be compared with similar works of legislators in
ancient Hellas, while the Jewish prophets, though so
different, would have a certain analogy to the philo
sophers of Hellas. However this question may be
determined, the ideal, whether of the past or of the
future (as indeed is ever the case in this world), re
mained unrealized. The prophets and psalmists are
always lamenting over the backsliding of their coun
trymen. They were a rebellious race, never good for
much at any time. After the return from captivity
they sank into Pharisaism and Sadduceeism, as their
ancestors had fallen into Phoenician and Egyptian
idolatry. At length in the minds of good men arose
a settled belief, that 'there remained yet a rest for
the people of God.' Somehow — they could not tell
where, whether at Jerusalem or in the distant heaven,
a King would reign in righteousness, and there would
be a kingdom comprehending all nations. And any
premature efforts to establish this kingdom, like those
of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their
sacrifices, ended only in disappointment, fanaticism
and death. In our own age the outward connexion
between religion and politics has been to a great
extent given up. Religious observances no longer
inaugurate all public occasions, and when they are
retained they often partake of the nature of a form.
Church and State are more and more divided, and in
our own country they abstain to a great extent from
interference with one another. The days of Cor-

XIIL] DR. ARNOLD AND UTILITARIANISM 233

poration and Tests Acts, of Roman Catholic exclusion,
have passed away, and no one wishes to revive them.
One distinguished man, Dr. Arnold, living between
the old and the new worlds of politics, and forming
his opinion too entirely on the study of the Old
Testament and of ancient history and philosophy,
used to maintain the identity of Church and State ;
whence he deduced the somewhat perilous inference
that none but Christians should be members of a
state. The contemporary representation of a some
what different school of thought was equally strenuous
in asserting that the state was only a machine for the
protection of life and property, assuming that if these
were secured the interests of religion and morality
would best take care of themselves. And the political
reformers of that day, probably not from any vulgarity
of mind, but because they felt the necessity of having
a single and definite principle, based their doctrine
chiefly on the philosophy of utility. In the greatest
happiness of the greatest number they saw, or
thought they saw, the firmest safeguard or bulwark
against war, against priestcraft, against the various
forms of selfishness and class -interest. Such a prin
ciple offered a guiding thread through the tangle of
human actions and motives ; and many who held it
were among the most disinterested of mankind. In
our own generation we are beginning to feel that
there was a want which this system had not supplied.
It was too dry and logical, neither appealing in the

234 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

right way to the imagination nor touching the heart,
though furnishing a useful corrective to many errors
and prejudices.

The change from religion and divine right to the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, though
very real and important, is less important from some
points of view than it appears. The best men, though
they have different theories about the nature of human
actions, and sometimes entertain the greatest dislike
to one another, yet come round in practice to the
same point. When the question is, What is honest ?
What is pure ? What is true ? What is disinterested ?
though the effect of these general speculations on the
human mind may be very different, they will not be
found to vary in the answer. For where the sense of
duty is, religion is not far off. When men are serving
their fellows they are serving God also. The pro
tests against the introduction of religion into politics
are really protests against the abuse of it. Wlien
religion became a craft, the most subtle of all crafts,
and the priest stood behind the soldier, when men saw
the best, i. e. the most religious of men, Bossuet and
Massillon, defending the massacres and tortures of the
Huguenots, can we wonder that they should have
wished to banish a religion of which these were the
fruits ? Nor can we be surprised at the noblest minds
revolting from religion, or at whole countries like
Italy and France falling into a reaction against it, and
not even now recovering their equilibrium. But

xiii.] PERVERSIONS OF RELIGION 235

when we consider how deep and powerful an influ
ence religion has exerted in all ages and countries we
can hardly suppose that her power is exhausted, or
that the aberration of human nature from itself is
destined to be permanent. The day may be coming
when a larger idea of Christianity, the true religion
of Christ, may win back the hearts of those who
have been repelled by the perversions and disfigure
ments of it.

At this time, when our thoughts are turned more
than usually to political events, the question * What
has religion and morality to do with politics ? ' has
a peculiar interest. Must we insist that they are
always identical, or shall we admit that they may
diverge ? Is an answer to be found to great political
and social problems in Scripture ? or can we solve
them by an immediate reference of them to the will of
God, or to the conscience of man ? There are ob
viously false ways in which religion and politics are
pressed into the service of each other. There must
also be a true connexion between them, if we could
only find it. And, first, I will consider some of the
false modes of connecting them which have prevailed
in other ages, and which even in our own day con
tinue to pervert and entangle the natural course of
human progress. For ideas remain in men's minds,
and affect parties, when they have ceased to be em
bodied in noble institutions, and may even be most
dangerous when least recognized. Secondly, having

236 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

examined the false, I will proceed to consider the true
connexion, which is not necessarily less real because
it is not displayed in outward signs and symbols as
was formerly the case in mediaeval and other ages.
Religion may be the greatest blessing of the human
race, and also a curse ; it may guide men into light and
truth ; it may plunge them into darkness and false
hood. It may raise them above human nature ; it
may depress them below it. There is a religion
which is the imitation of Christ ; there is also a reli
gion which is the incentive to any wickedness, and
the disguise of it. And, when we would introduce
religion into politics, we must be careful what sort of
a religion it is. When I try a public act by this
standard, when I ask, Is this declaration of war, this
annexation of territory, this protection of slavery,
according to the will of God ? I must begin by asking
what is the true notion of God : Is He a Being to
whom war is acceptable or in whose service wars can
be waged ? Is He the God of Christ, or of Mahomet ?
Even in the Hebrew Scriptures there are expressions
which fall very far short of the conception of Him
which is declared to us in the New Testament, and
which, independently of the New Testament, receives
the witness of our own heart and conscience ; and
until we have purified our conception of God from
every dark shadow of human prejudices, we cannot
safely make His will the rule of political action or of
our daily life. We must see Him as the prophet saw

xiii.] TRUE RELIGION AND EXPERIENCE 237

Him, ' having- the body of heaven in His clearness,'
not the mere reflection of our own religious opinion
or of the traditions of our ancestors.

But, supposing- the true idea of the divine nature to
be ever present to our minds, it by no means follows
that it would be a sufficient guide to the conduct of
politics or of life. For the greater number of human
actions cannot be immediately tried by the standard
of truth and right. The great end of all this, the
happiness, the elevation of human life, may be clear
and plain to us, but the means by which the end is to
be attained can be only known from experience. Nor
is the end altogether separable from the means : it
will often appear to be the sum of the means, or the
spirit which animates the use of them. To the ques
tion, What shall I do ? the answer, both in political and
ordinary life, is generally, not l what is right ' (this
would in most cases be no answer), but what is best.
Nor is there any rough and ready way of resolving
politics into morals. Take for example the case of
temperance : while all men are agreed in denouncing
the evil of drinking, yet the particular measure by
which the evil may be cured can only be chosen after
patient thought and reflection on the facts. The
means may not always conform to the supposed les
sons of Scripture, they may be even at variance with
them. To take an instance : David, in numbering
the people, is said to have committed a sin which was
punished by a pestilence. In our own day it would

238 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xin.

be a sin not to number the people, for we should
remain in wilful ignorance of the laws by which God
governs the world, including the ways of that very
pestilence by which He was supposed to have punished
Israel. Consider, again, the relief of the poor : How
often has an unthinking appeal to Scripture been
made on this behalf! It is our duty to do much more
for them than we do. But ought we to remedy an
evil by increasing it? or alleviate physical suffering
at the expense of moral degradation ? The whole
question of their condition lies deep in the constitu
tion of society, and cannot be got rid of by the distri
bution of alms, or by indulging the first impulses of
pity and compassion. What we do for them must be
done wisely, or it will effect more harm than good.

Again, let us illustrate the question which we are
discussing by the case of war. Who would doubt that
Christianity and all true religion is opposed to war ?
We do not hold with a recent theologian that the
religion of Christ stands by and is only a looker-on
when the question of war and peace hangs in the
balance, and when men have fought it out there
appears on the battlefield, bending over the dead and
dying, saint-like, the ministering angel, shedding holy
influences in the foul and corrupted atmosphere. For
against many wars, that is to say against all wars of
selfish ambition and aggression, religion and morality
alike lift up their voice. But of other wars, again, we
cannot judge in this decided manner. Peace may be

xiii.] WRONG APPLICATIONS OF RELIGION 239

only secured by the threat of war, and war may be
hastened by the knowledge that another nation is
secure in peace. There is more than one illusion
to which we are naturally subject on this question —
the horror of the war may deter us from considering
the duty and necessity of self-defence ; the heroism of
war may gild the aggression of a tyrant. Who can
tell whether the sufferings of one generation may not
be compensated by the safety and liberties of another,
or by the example which they have bequeathed to
posterity ? We cannot say of all battles that it would
have been well for the world if they had not been
fought — the virtues of war tend in a measure to
correct the vices of peace. There is no greater
responsibility than that of declaring war ; but con
sidering the complexity of human affairs and the
uncertainty of consequences, this is not a question
which can be always decided simply as a matter of
right and wrong.

The attempt to form moral judgements on politics
is a temptation which naturally besets us, for if we
can raise political questions into moral ones we
effectually place ourselves in the right and our oppo
nents in the wrong. We elevate ourselves on a sort
of moral platform ; we appeal to the heart against the
head, to the feelings against the reason. We trust to
the force of general principles weighed in the balance
with doubtful or disputed facts. These are arts which
most men unconsciously practise in times of political

240 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

excitement, and a generous person who has any
insight into human nature is apt to revolt from them,
because he knows that religion and morality are the
disguises of party spirit. I will add one more illus
tration of the wrong way in which religion may be
introduced into politics. I am old enough to remem
ber the time when a respectable section of the com
munity believed that the judgements of God were
about to fall upon this country. And for what ? For
our neglect of education ? for the sufferings of the
poor? for our toleration of slavery (now happily
abolished) ? for the severity of our criminal code ?
For none of these things, but because we had admitted
our Roman Catholic brethren to Parliament, or, about
twelve years later, because we had given a grant for
the education of poor Roman Catholic priests ! It
was argued that if a nation, like an individual, had
a conscience, it must, like an individual, have one
conscience ; and upon this fallacy of composition or
division, as logicians would term it, and under the
still greater fallacy that in gratifying their own party
feelings they were doing God service, the peace of
nations was imperilled, the risk of civil wars was
incurred. For, if such a doctrine could be maintained,
there would seem to be no stopping until the members
of all religions but the dominant and established one
were excluded from civil and political rights. We
must wade through oceans of blood to an unmean
ing uniformity in religion ; and, although this religious

xiii.] UNION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS 241

tyranny is overpast, it cannot be said even now that
the sympathies and antipathies of churches and re
ligious bodies have no influence on the enmities and
wars of nations. The immediate interests of their
own order may often be strong in them, while they
have little or no feeling for all that is without.

But is there, then, no rule of right and wrong by
which the statesman must guide his steps, no true way
in which morality and religion enter into politics ?
First of all, he has the rule not to do anything as
a statesman which as a private individual he would
not allow himself to do. A great and good man will
not flatter, will not deceive, will not confuse his
own interests or those of his party with the interests
of his country, will fear no one, will, if he can help
it, offend no one. He will feel, though he will not
say, that he has a trust committed to him by God, and
the greatest of all trusts, for which he must give an
account. And sometimes he will need to steady him
self in the thought of immortality and eternity against
the forces which oppose him, whether the frowns of
a sovereign or the dislike of a class or the clamour
of the populace. He will sometimes think of another
kingdom which is not to be found upon earth. But
he will not be fond of arguing merely political ques
tions on moral grounds, because he knows that in this
way he is likely to miss their real drift. He will not
expect to learn from Scripture whether the authority
of princes shall be maintained, whether some tax or

242 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

tithe shall be imposed or repealed, whether certain
regulations respecting degrees of affinity in marriage
shall be enforced or not, whether usury laws are
good or bad. The example of Christ will not enable
him to determine wrhat measures of relief should be
taken in an Irish or Scotch famine, or even in the
ordinary management of the poor. These are ques
tions of expediency, in wrhich the best thing to be
done is also the right thing, and the best can only
be discovered by a close and conscientious study of
the facts. There is no revelation of this from heaven ;
but the spirit of Christ may still be the underlying
motive of the statesman's life. And sometimes, amid
the piles of statistics, in the hurry and distraction of
his work, that motive may be very near and present
to him. But he must think as well as feel ; he must
balance the greater evil which is seen against the
lesser which is unseen ; he must know how much of
a evil must be endured. He has to work through
means ; he cannot drop out the intermediate steps, or
in a mistaken spirit of faith undertake some great
enterprise.

Thus he will have to be on his guard against
religion out of place. He is, as some would say, the
creature of expediency — that is to say, God's expe
diency — for he must a'ct according to the laws which
God prescribes for him, and which are known to us
through experience only. He must understand the
world in which he lives. Himself above party and

XIIL] A CHRISTIAN STATESMAN 243

selfish interest, he will seek to inspire the greatest
unity among his followers at the cost of the least
enmity among his opponents. He will sternly repress
in himself all dislike of persons, for the sake of the
cause which he has in hand, and also because he
knows that, while the struggle is going on, he is no
fair judge of them. His religion will be never or
hardly ever on his lips, for he fears lest it should
become a political engine. But the impress of his
character, his seriousness, his patriotism, his elevation,
will communicate itself to others and mould the
thoughts of a generation.

This, then, is one way in which religion connects
with politics — through the lives of statesmen. And
there are other ways also. For a state or nation is
a living being, not a mere adaptation of means to
ends. To a certain extent it is like one man and has
the feelings of a man, and is subject to common
impulses towards good and evil. No human being
can be governed merely on mechanical principles ;
no nation can be administered according to the rules
of profit and loss. The bonds of commerce are but
as green withes if it is expected by them to secure the
blessings of peace. The poorest and humblest have
their attachments and hatreds, their religious belief,
their questionings about this world and another.
They are inwardly conscious of a truth and right far
higher than exists here ; they hope, after their long
life of labour, for the promised rest ; and by the side

R 2,

244 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

of this world, in which there are so many things
wrong, they place the image of a city whose builder
and maker is God. Here, then, is another field for
religion in politics — to draw forth the nobler elements
which exist in all societies, to express them and to
present them to the mind anew, to reflect them
through many mirrors on the sight of all men, to
infuse them into a parliament or into a nation.
This is a religious mission, and the noblest of all
religious missions, on which gifts of poetry and elo
quence and philosophy can be bestowed.

Once more, politics are limited by morality, and
in this sense we may truly say that what is morally
wrong cannot be politically right. If cruelty is wrong
in individuals, it is wrong in nations or churches ;
if falsehood is wrong, if injustice is wrong, in indi
viduals, they are wrong also in nations or churches.
If the desire to do good should exist in individuals
towards each other, it should exist also and be felt
in nations towards each other. We ought not to
stand unthinkingly by, happy in our island home,
while half a continent is being wasted and oppressed.
But then at once arises the question how to interfere
so as not to introduce evils greater than those which
we are seeking to remedy. For in all cases we must
consider the imperfect and constrained character of
collective action. A nation, like an army, can never
have the agility or life of a single man ; and sometimes
even tyranny may be better than anarchy, and we may

XIIL] RELIGION LEAVENING POLITICS 245

hesitate to displace even a bad government when we
can only let loose antagonistic forces.

Yet we note also with satisfaction that religion and
morality have leavened politics in a very striking
manner during the last century. They may have dis
appeared in words, but they have asserted themselves
in the spirit of our legislation. The abolition of
slavery and the slave trade, the mitigation of the
criminal code, the removal of religious disabilities,
are not the result of the utilitarian philosophy, how
ever valuable that may have been in its effect on many
points of our legislation, but of an increased sense of
humanity and justice. Men have felt their common
brotherhood more and more ; they have been more
conscious of their duties to the weak and suffering ;
the spirit of Christ has had a great hold on their
minds ; and if there be some who lament a certain
appearance of decay in the outward institutions of
religion, they should also remember that there is
another aspect of religion, under which the nineteenth
century will bear comparison with the so-called ages
of faith or the traditions of the primitive church.
The best fruit of every institution is, not that which
is without but that which is within, not the house
made with hands, nor the system of doctrine laid
down in books, nor the rites of churches, but the
spirit which animated them, the better mind, the
higher conscience, the sound public opinion, the sim
plicity of social life : by these they should be judged.

246 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

Thus far I have been discussing the question raised
by Aristotle in the Politics, whether the good citizen
is also the good man, which is his way of stating what
in modern language would be called the relation of
morals to politics. The converse question may also
be asked, 'whether the good man must also be the
good citizen.' The same question might also be put
in another form — whether a religious man, or a patriot,
or a philosopher may withdraw from the world. For
he may live at a time when circumstances are against
him, when by struggling he would do harm to his
own cause ; he may be before his age, and would at
once lose his life if he engaged in the passing conflict :
or he may feel some special incapacity for dealing
with his fellow men ; his mind may not be practical,
but speculative or meditative ; though full of humanity
he may wish to live at peace and not to strive ; he
may be thinking more of another world than of this.
I am not speaking of a man shutting himself up in
a monastery, and leaving all active duties towards
his fellow men unperformed, but only of his with
drawing from agitation and party movement and the
bustle of the world, that he may lead a more composed
and considered life.

The question which I have asked there is not time
to answer ; yet the answer to it may be sufficiently
gathered from the example of Christ Himself. The
life of Christ is the life of a private man, which stands
in no relation to the history of the Jewish nation. He

xin.] CHRIST NOT A POLITICIAN 247

belongs neither to this political party nor to that. He
is not one of the faction who call no man master, the
fanatics or patriots who stirred up the war of the Jews
with the Romans until they also perished. He would
not have counted for anything- in the disputes of
Pharisees and doctors of the law. Their language
would not have been uttered, perhaps not even under
stood, by Him ; we cannot tell. c He shall not strive
nor cry, nor shall any man hear His voice in the
streets ; a bruised reed shall He not break, nor quench
the smoking flax.' This is not the description of a
politician or a partisan. All the ordinary motives of
human ambition He rejects : * It shall not be so among
you, but whosoever will be great among you shall
be your minister ; even as the Son of Man came not
to be ministered unto but to minister.' Yet He is
gifted with a sort of divine insight — favoured, may we
say, by His manner of life — into the hearts and minds
of men. l He knew what was in man.' Nor was He
wanting in the power of evading a subtle question :
' Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection ? ' and
4 Shall we pay tribute unto Caesar or not ? ' But he
does not determine whether human relations shall
continue in another world, or distinguish what things
belong to Caesar and what things to God. He only
seeks to confound the ambiguities and perplexities
by which we set aside the moral law ; whether a child
should support his parents, whether a husband might
put away his wife, and the like. He fights the battle

248 THE UNWORLDLY KINGDOM [xm.

of human nature against hypocrisy and self-deceit
everywhere.

He has a vision, too, of a kingdom not of this
world, nor to be realized in ecclesiastical buildings or
apostolical succession of bishops, but a kingdom which
is to affect all others, and to which as to a standard
they are to be compared. It is a kingdom not to be
manifested by outward signs, nor to be fought for by
earthly weapons, but to be a real power in the hearts
of men. He was and He was not a king ; not in the
ordinary sense, but in a higher one, in a natural
one ; not a king surrounded by armies, a Messiah
or deliverer such as the Jews expected, such as His
own disciples hoped that He would proclaim Himself ;
but a Deliverer from sin and suffering, a Saviour
Prince, leading men on to victory over themselves
and over the evils of the world.

And if there be any one among the followers
of Christ who feels himself unsuited to the turmoil of
active life, who would fain withdraw from political
strife, who dislikes theological controversy, who is
confused by the conflict of opinions, and seeks only to
possess his soul in peace and to go about doing good,
the example of Christ Himself will be a sufficient
justification for him. The silent life of a poor woman
may be of more account in the sight of God than the
careers of many politicians.- ' Mary hath chosen that
better part which shall not be taken from her.' There
are times when men are called upon to be patriots

xiii.] THE BETTER PART 249

and heroes ; there are times also when it is well for
them to lead, like Christ, a private life only, and
through that to work upon their fellow-men. There
are characters and gifts which find a natural sphere
in politics ; there are men who are most useful when
they are speaking or acting ; there are other characters
and men who find the truest expression of themselves
in thinking or writing, who live with God or in the
heaven of ideas rather than with their fellow-men.
There are practical and speculative natures. Either
of them may supply the defect of the other ; and both
may equally be the servants of Christ.

XIV
THE LORD'S PRAYER1.

AND IT CAME TO PASS, THAT AS HE WAS PRAYING
IN A CERTAIN PLACE, WHEN HE CEASED, ONE OF HIS
DISCIPLES SAID UNTO HIM, 'LORD, TEACH US TO PR A Y,
AS JOHN ALSO TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES.' AND HE
SAID UNTO THEM, ' WHEN YE PRA Y, SA Y, OUR FA THER

WHICH ART IN HEAVEN:

LUKE xi. i, 2.

THE Lord's Prayer has been the type of prayer
among- Christians in all ages. For eighteen centuries
men have poured forth their hearts to God in these
few words, which have probably had a greater in
fluence on the world than all the writings of theo
logians put together. They are the simplest form
of communion with Christ : when we utter them we
are one with Him ; His thoughts become our thoughts,
and wre draw near to God through Him. They are
also the simplest form of communion with our-fellow
men, in which we acknowledge Him to be our com
mon Father and we His children. And the least par
ticulars of our lives admit .of being ranged under one
or other of the petitions which we offer up to Him.

1 Preached at Balliol, 1872.

xiv.] IN WHAT SENSE ORIGINAL 251

It would be an error to suppose that the words
of the Lord's Prayer are altogether new, or that they
seemed to the disciples of Christ quite different from
anything which they had ever heard before. Truth
does not descend from heaven like a sacred stone
dropped out of another world, concerning which men
vainly dispute what it is or whence it came. But it
is the good word, the good thought, the good action,
which arises in a man's mind ; as the apostle also
says, l The word is very nigh unto thee, even in thy
mouth and in thy heart.' The great prophet or
teacher draws out what is latent in man, he interro
gates their consciences, he finds a witness in them
to the best. And, therefore, when we are told that
parallels to all the petitions contained in the Lord's
Prayer may be found in Rabbinical writers, when we
remark that in Seneca and other Gentile philosophers
we are exhorted to forgiveness of injuries, when we
read in Epictetus the words, ' We have all sinned,
some more, some less grievously,' there is no reason
why we should be shocked or surprised at these
parallelisms. Neither is the Lord's Prayer less fitted
to be the medium of our communion with God because
ancient holy men have used several of its petitions
before the time of Christ, as all Christians have been
in the habit of using them since. Are not all true
sayings and all good thoughts, in all times and in
all places, the anticipation of a truth which is shining
more and more unto the perfect day ?

252 THE LORD'S PRAYER [xiv.

The Lord's Prayer is the simplest of all prayers,
and also the deepest. We are children addressing
a Father who is also the Lord of heaven and earth.
In Him all the families of the earth become one
family. The past as well as the present, the dead as
well as the living, are embraced by His love. When
we draw near to Him we draw nearer also to our
fellow men. From the smaller family to which we
are bound by ties of relationship we extend our
thoughts to that larger family which lives in His
presence. When we say * Our Father ' we do not
mean that God is the Father of us in particular, but
of the whole human race, the great family in heaven
and earth. The heavenly Father is not like the
earthly ; yet through this image we attain a nearer
notion of God than through any other. We mean
that He loves us, that He educates us and all mankind,
that He provides laws for us, that He receives us
like the prodigal in the parable when we go astray.
We mean that His is the nature which we most
revere, with a mixed feeling of awe and of love ; that
He knows what is for our good far better than we
know ourselves, and is able to do for us above all
that we can ask or think. We mean that in His
hands we are children, whose wish and pleasure is to
do His will, whose duty is to trust in Him in all the
accidents of their lives.

And, before we can pray to God in a worthy
manner, we must still further distinguish between the

mv.} EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY FATHERS 253

earthly and heavenly Father. For although we
speak of Him as a Father, which implies also the idea
of personality, we do not mean that He is subject to
personal caprice, or that He favours some of His
children more than others, or that He will alter His
universal laws in order to avert some calamity from
us. All experience is against this, and we should
destroy religion if we set up faith against universal
experience. For either we should dwell in a sort
of fools' paradise, believing that our prayers had
been answered when they had not been, because we
had asked things which God could not grant (for
they were at variance with the laws of the universe) ;
or we should deny that there was a God altogether,
because there was no such God as we had imagined.
We must enlarge the horizon of our thoughts, and
conceive of God once more as the infinite, the eternal
Father, * with whom there is no variableness nor
shadow of turning ' either in the physical or in the
moral world ; He of whom Christ says, 4 Are not two
sparrows sold for one farthing ? and yet your heavenly
Father careth for them,' and ' The very hairs of your
head are all numbered ' ; and yet also the universal
law, the mind or reason which contains all laws, as
much above the world of which He is the Author
as our souls are above our bodies ; in whom all
things live and move and have their being; who is
the perfection of all things, and yet distinct from
them.

254 THE LORD'S PRAYER [xiv.

A great effort of mind is required of us if we would
think of God truly, and also pray to Him. The
imagination more easily conceives Him as a king
seated on the clouds of heaven, and human creatures
bowing before Him like Moses and the elders of Israel
at Mount Sinai, hardly able to endure the glory that
was revealed. And among the uneducated there are
many religious persons who conceive of God as the
friend in the next room, or rather in this, by whom
they are seen when performing the most trivial actions
of their lives, with whom they converse as with an
earthly acquaintance, and tell Him garrulously of their
sorrows and their joys. And perhaps they may think
and speak of Him in a manner suited to them, but
not in a manner suitable or natural to us. For we
desire to approach that which is highest in the world
with that which is highest in us, with our reason, and
not with our feelings only — with such a prayer as men
(and not children only) may use, living in the light of
the nineteenth century, and not in the days when men
were ignorant of the fixed laws of nature. Of this
higher or true prayer, of this rational or mental
service, I propose to speak in the remainder of this
sermon. And then I shall go on to consider some of
the hindrances or difficulties which most of us find
both in private prayer and also in the common or
public worship of God.

The beginning of true prayer is resignation to the
divine will. We must not try to make His will our

xiv.] UNION WITH THE WILL OF GOD 255

will, but to make our will His will. We must not
kick against the pricks, or beg- that this sickness or
pain, the loss of this beloved one, may be averted
from us. For God has taught us by many signs and
proofs that these things are regulated by fixed laws.
And is there not a kind of impiety in refusing to learn
the plainest of lessons ? Now that the book of nature
has been revealed to us, must we not have the courage
to say, a little parodying the words of the prophet,
4 Henceforth there shall be no more this prayer in the
Christian Church, *' Father, alter Thy laws for our
good " ; but " Father, if it be possible . . . neverthe
less not my will, but Thine be done " ' ? We wish to
live, perhaps, and accomplish a little more before we
go home ; but we know very well that our prayers
will not delay the coming on of age, or restore the
failing sight, or revive the strength of the paralyzed.
4 It is the Lord ; let Him do what seemeth Him good.'
And in youth there are often troubles which happen
to us, great in themselves, and rendered greater by
imagination, such as loss of fortune, or inferiority of
position, or disappointment of the affections, or some
other kind of disappointment ; and we think with
bitterness, 4 Oh, that we could have this particular trial
spared to us ; that we could have had the position
of which we could have made such a good use ; the
friend without whom life seems hardly worth having ! '
But all this is weakness and discontent. Can we not
rise out of these crises of our lives, acquiescing in

256 THE LORD'S PRAYER [xiv.

the will of God, but starting afresh to do Him service,
making stepping-stones of our former selves towards
something higher, setting our hearts where true joys
are to be found? We cannot go to God and say,
' O God, give me the life of that child, or sister, or
wife, who is visibly hastening to the end.' But we
can say, 4 Though He smite me, yet will I trust in
Him ' ; ' the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ;
blessed be the name of the Lord.' Neither can we go
to Him and say, 4 O Lord, give me wealth,' or even,
* give me a sufficiency of the means of life, that I may
make a good use of them.' But we can go to Him
and say, ' O Lord, we thank Thee for the blessings
which Thou hast given us, and for the sorrows by
which Thou hast chastened us. Grant that we may
draw nearer to Thee, and do Thy will more perfectly.'
What is this but praying that we may be more holy,
more pure, more just, more truthful, more willing to
live for others ? Can we offer up such prayers too
often, or have too many of them ?

And this leads me to speak of a second aspect
of prayer, communion or co-operation with God,
For prayer is not the mere utterance of a few words
in public or private at set times, but is the expression
of a life. When we talk with men our words flow
naturally out of our characters ; we like to impart
our thoughts to them, and to receive their thoughts
in return. And when we speak with God, our power
of addressing Him or holding communion with Him

xiv.] COMMUNION WITH GOD 257

depends upon the identity of our will with His. Can
we retire to rest with the feeling, ' Lord, into Thy
hands I commend my spirit,' remembering too that
in the darkness ; Thou, God, seest us ' ? Can we rise
in the morning almost with a feeling of joy that we
are spared another day to do Him service — ' Awake,
my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty
run ' ? Does the thought ever occur to us in the
course of the day that we will correct that particular
fault, intellectual or moral, whether idleness, or want
of accuracy or method, or any other fault, not with
a view to success in life, or to university distinction,
but in order that we may be able to serve Him better ?
Or do we ever seek to carry on the battle against sin
and evil and the temptations which beset us, conscious
that in ourselves we are weak, but that there is
a strength greater than our own which is perfected
in weakness ? Or, once more, do we sometimes think
of God as the Eternal, into whose hands we resign
ourselves when we depart hence, with whom do live
the spirits of the just made perfect, and who in the
hour of death will be our trust and hope ? We would
not always be thinking of death, for we must live
before we die ; yet the thought of a time when we
shall have passed out of the sight and memory of
men may also help us to live, may assist us in shaking
off the load of passions, prejudices, interests which
weigh us down, may teach us to rise out of this world
into the clearer light of another.

S

258 THE LORD'S PRAYER [xiv.

This is the spirit of prayer, the spirit of converse
or communion with God, which leads us in all our
actions silently to think of Him and refer them to
Him. Such a spirit also enables us to know Him,
as far as our faculties will admit. It is a great step
in the knowledge of God to recognize that the laws
by which He governs the world are fixed, and that
true religion, as well as philosophy, requires that we
should submit to them, and not by any freak of
imagination seek to escape from them. But it is
a still greater step in our knowledge of God when
we recognize Him as the Author of good in the world,
when we hear in the voice of conscience His voice
speaking to us, when we are aware that He is the
witness, and also the source, of every good thought
in us ; and that, when we feel in our hearts the
struggle against some lust or evil passion, then God
is fighting with us against envy, against selfishness,
against impurity, for our better self against our worse
self. And, once more, there is a further step, when
we think of Him as not only co-operating with us,
but going before us or preventing us, when we begin
to see that He has an education or plan of salvation
prepared, not only for us, but for all mankind, ex
tending through many ages, even to eternity, in which
we too may take a part and have a share, and find the
true meaning of our lives in His service.

Another aspect of prayer is the confession of our
wrong-doing. There are sins which we have com-

xiv.] CONFESSION 259

mitted, or a course of life, idle or expensive pleasure,
in which we have indulged, or feelings which we have
entertained towards others, which were not right : of
these we ought to think sometimes at our prayers.
Then is the time to get rid of hypocrisy and see our
selves as we truly are in the sight of God. I do not
think that we are called upon to confess our sins to men,
except in certain cases, or when we have individually
wronged them ; but we are called upon to acknow
ledge them before God — 4 O Lord, against Thee, Thee
only, have I sinned.' Nor should we tease ourselves
about the past, which cannot be undone. But we should
set before ourselves, and fix indelibly in our minds,
that these things were wrong, offences against the
laws of God, and some of them perhaps disgraceful in
the opinion of men. One use of prayer is to main
tain in us a higher standard, and prevent our principles
insensibly sinking to our practice, or to the practice
of the world around us. When a man listens to the
voice of the tempter within him, he is inclined to do
as others do, not to resist when the temptation seems
great. But when he looks into the law of God and
hears the words of Christ, his natural sense of right
and wrong is restored to him, and he becomes elevated,
purified, sanctified.

These are some of the thoughts which may occupy
our minds at public as well as private prayer. And
there are many others which each one can supply for
himself. We desire for a few minutes in each day to

S 2

-

260 THE LORD'S PRAYER [

live in the presence of God, in the presence of truth
and justice and holiness and love, and to think of
other men as they are in the presence of God. Yea,
and of ourselves also, that we may free our minds from
vanities and jealousies, that we may grow in self-
knowledge and in true knowledge of the world, that
we may have peace in the thought of death. And,
if our horizon seems to enlarge, and new knowledge
makes the old childish prayer impossible to us, let the
horizon of our prayers enlarge too and include all
knowledge and all truth, that we may be reconciled
to ourselves, and learn to devote our intellectual gifts
wholly to the service of God and man.

Let me say a few words in conclusion about our
worship in this place. No one is compelled to attend
the chapel service ; nor will any of us think worse
of those who are absent than of those who come.
Prayer is the offering of the heart to God, and cannot
be enforced. College rules might keep up the ap
pearance of religion among us, but not the reality.
And we must endeavour to avoid the error of dividing
this or any other society into those who think with
us and those who do not. Persons who have strong
religious feelings must be on their guard against the
danger, not exactly of thinking too well of themselves
(for no man consciously does this), but of isolating
themselves, of falling into party spirit, of allowing
devotion insensibly to degenerate into superstition.
If they can do any good to others, they must be like

XIV.

COLLEGE CHAPEL 261

them ; they must draw others to them by the insen
sible influence of their characters, and not by a
profession of religion.

And, speaking to others, may I be allowed to say
that many or most of us would be better for coming
to chapel on week-days ; at least I think so. A
few minutes of calm thought, in which we hear the
best of words read and offer up the day to God, ought
not to be a burden to us. In this ever-increasing
hurry of life, and in this nineteenth century, when we
live so fast, as people sometimes say, do we not
require a breathing time, a moment or two daily,
to think where we are going ? In youth especially,
when we are laying the foundation of our after life,
and find such a difficulty in realizing that this gay
time, this sunshine or summer of enjoyment and
health, these few years passed at the University, are
in reality the most important of all. We have been
all of us taught to pray by our parents in the days of
our childhood. Is there not something sad in our
throwing this aside when most required by us, on the
threshold of manhood ? Life is a shallow thing with
out religion, and at times the old religious feelings will
come back upon us and assert their natural powers.
As years go on we shall have others to teach, and
may then find that the springs of religion are dried
up within us, and that we have no religious gift or
influence to impart to them such as our parents im
parted to us. Then we may feel painfully about

262 THE LORD'S PRAYER [xiv.

them what we do not at present think about our
selves. We may wish that they had the restraint of
religion to enable them to resist the lusts of the flesh
and the other temptations of evil; we may regret
that they are so worldly and external, or perhaps that,
following some natural impulse, they have rushed
into some opposite extreme, and perceive too late
that the deficiency in their characters began in our
own.

But if a person, not from indolence or levity, says
that he has no inclination to join in our daily public
prayer, and that he is afraid of falling into formalism
or conventionalism, I would not condemn him or regard
him as less a Christian on that account. Every one
must judge for himself, and the end is not to be con
founded with the means. But, if he forsakes the
customs of others, he is the more bound to watch
strictly over himself. He has not less, but perhaps
rather more, need of a high standard of duty and of
life. He must make a religion for himself of what he
knows to be right, of whatsoever things are lovely
and of good report. He must teach himself humility
and modesty from a consciousness of his own weakness
and liability to error, and the narrowness of the human
faculties. He must think of sickness and old age and
death as possibilities and realities of life. He must
acknowledge that mere worldly success to any higher
mind is not worth having. He must condemn many
of his own actions when he calmly reviews them. He

xiv.] NON-CHURCH-GOING CHRISTIANS 263

must lament over opportunities which he has lost. He
must desire to become better. For to all good men,
whether they use the words or not, life is an aspira
tion and a prayer. And sometimes they may be doing
the work of God while yet only seeking after Him
and still ignorant of Him.

XV

PRAYER AND LIFE1.

LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY, AS JOHN ALSO TAUGi

HIS DISCIPLES.

LUKE xi. i.

THIS has been thought to be an age in which the
Christian religion is beset by great dangers and sur
rounded by peculiar difficulties . There is said to be
a conflict going on between experience and faith,
between the old and the new, between the traditions
and doctrines of the Church and the critical spirit of
modern times. People ask, What is to become of us
or of our children in the next generation, or fifty or
a hundred years hence, when the foundations which
are beginning to loosen have altogether given way;
when the doubts which are now whispered in the
closet are proclaimed on the housetop ; when, as time
goes on, the Christian world is divided more and more
into two opposing armies of the maintainers of reason
and revelation ? Shall we be Christians any longer
when the facts of Scripture history have been subject

1 Preached at Balliol, May i83 1884.

xv.] DIFFICULTIES OF FAITH 265

to the same sort of microscopic criticism as the his
tories of Greece or of Rome ? Shall we be able to
pray any longer when the sequence and order of
nature are more clearly understood ; when the wind
and the rain, and the life and the death of man, are
observed to follow as certain laws as the stone which
falls to the ground or the rivers which find their way
into the sea ? And there will not be wanting those
who will apply to this age the language of Scripture
about the latter days in which deceivers 'will wax
worse and worse,' who will, perhaps, hear in the very
advance of knowledge the footfalls of a distant anti
christ; who, when in the natural course of human
things their own sect or party or opinion begins to
decline, will imagine that the world too is coming to
an end.

This is not the first, and will not be the last, age in
which the Christian faith has seemed to be encircled
with peculiar dangers. There have been many 4 latter
days ' in the history of the Church : in the times of
the Apostles themselves, as we gather from the Epistles
of St. Paul and the Book of Revelation ; in the tenth
century, when men began to think that the world, for
its misery, its wickedness, its violence, could no longer
go on (in the description of which the great Catholic
historian uses the remarkable expression, ' Christ was
still in the ship, but asleep ') ; at the Reformation too,
that great earthquake of Europe and of Christendom,
the movement of which has hardly yet ceased, and

266 PRAYER AND LIFE

»,.

still seems to affect us from a distance ; or, in the first
French Revolution, when the highest hopes of mankind
seemed to be suddenly cast down into the depths of
despair. But there is a reflection which may tend to
quiet the minds of those who live, or believe them
selves to live, in times of trial or difficulty. It is
this : All such times of movement and change have
appeared different to those who have looked back
upon them from afar and to those who were living in
the midst of them. They have been seen by after ages
more as a part of a larger whole, as having a great,
but still only a subordinate, place in the scheme of
Providence ; the truth that was in them has been
separated from the error ; the temporary excitement
has passed away, and the permanent result has ap
peared. And, if we could imagine some one living
a hundred years hence, and looking back on our own
age as we look back on past history, he would cer
tainly see us and our times in a very different light
from that in which we regard ourselves. Perhaps
he might note that there were some questions which
are now deemed very important, and which are not
really important at all ; he might observe that there
were oppositions insisted on by us which were only
oppositions of words ; he might wonder at the ob
solete violence of party spirit with which even good
men attacked one another ; and still he might recog
nize that, amid all our errors and divisions, we were
being led in a way that we did not understand to

xv.j ANTIDOTES TO DESPONDENCY 267

something deeper and truer than satisfied former
ages.

This is one way of putting the question which
may calm excited spirits. Let me suggest also an
other point of view which seems to reach deeper :
Do we really suppose that the course of religion in
the world is a return to darkness, not a progress
towards light? Do we imagine that God has been
governing the world for eighteen centuries since the
giving of Christianity, communing with and inspiring
the soul of man, and that during all that time He has
given us no increased knowledge of the principles
of His government, no wider conception of His pur
poses towards mankind ? Have not history and
physical science told us a great deal about Him, which
could never have been known to former ages ? And
is God to be regarded as separable from nature, or
the knowledge of Him from the knowledge of His
works? Are there not rather clear and manifest
instances in which the knowledge of nature has added
to our knowledge of God ?

For example: That nature is governed by fixed
laws ; that effects flow from causes, that the order
of the divine work is visible, not only, as the ancients
might have supposed, in the movements of the heavenly
bodies, but also in the least things and the things
which appear to be the most capricious (• even the
very hairs of your head are all numbered'). This
is a very great lesson which is being taught us daily

268 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

and hourly by the commonest observation, as well
as by the latest results of science. Everywhere, as
far as we can see or observe or decompose the world
around us, the pressure of law is discernible. And
even if there are some things which we cannot see,
which are too subtle to be reached by the eye of
man or the use of instruments, still we are right in
supposing that the empire of law does not cease with
them, but that, in the invisible corners of nature, as
they may be termed, the same powers rule, giving
order and arrangement to the least things as well
as the greatest.

And does this recognition of order in external
nature teach us nothing also of the divine nature,
and of the moral government of the world ? Is not
God assuring us in this, by every token which He
can give to man, that He will not interrupt His laws
for our sakes ? He will be with us in spirit, and
support us and lead us through the valley and shadow
of death, and take us to Himself. But He will not in
the least degree alter the external conditions in which
He has placed us. He will not change the nature or
functions of the human frame, or the influences of
dead, involuntary matter, to which we may be exposed.
Through those conditions and in them, by the use
of means and not without them, we work out our
life in His service. Neither in what I have called
the invisible corners does He act in any way different
from His action in His greater works, such as the

xv.] THE DIVINE UNCHANGEABLENESS 269

rising of the sun, or the ebb and flow of the tides :
but everywhere He has provided the empire of law,
everywhere He is present Himself, in the least things
as well as in the greatest, not acting partially or
capriciously, but universally, not interfering but or
dering ; and the same to all men in all ages and
countries, though they may have known, or may
know, of His natural government no more than of His
moral, like helpless children ignorant of the laws
under which they live.

I have made these remarks as introductory to the
subject of prayer, because prayer is sometimes
thought to be inconsistent with any recognition of
the order of nature. And, first, I shall endeavour to
show that this, which I will not call the most philo
sophical view, but rather a plain matter of fact, really
supplies the only basis of spiritual communion with
God. And, secondly, I will consider the nature of
prayer, either as the general spirit of the Christian
life, or again as contained in special acts of the public
and private worship of God. And, thirdly, I will try
to say something of the hindrances and difficulties of
prayer, whether as arising out of the evil of the human
heart, or from peculiarities of temperament or char
acter or education.

(i) What is required for any real prayer to God
is not a lower notion of Him, but a higher ; first, as
the universal Lawgiver who has ordered all things
once for all according to His wisdom ; secondly, as

270 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

the universal Father who cannot possibly desire that
one of His creatures should be favoured at the expense
of another, any more than a human father who had
the feeling-s of nature could desire that one of his
children should die and another live. In the courts
of earthly sovereigns there may be the preference
of one person to another ; but there are no such
preferences with God. He who would make a re
quest of this nature is already out of the presence
of God ; for he who comes to God must believe
that He loves other men as well as himself. If we
could imagine some one among us, some one who
might be pointed out in this place, to be the special
object of God's favour, he himself would reject such
a notion as unworthy of the Being whom he wished
to serve. He would not like to serve a god who
had his favourites after the manner of an earthly
potentate. Nor, again, could he wish that God should
break the laws which He has laid down for him and
all His creatures ; that He should make an exception
in his favour, that He should introduce disorder into
the world for the sake of doing him some benefit.
For he would consider that this exception to the law
which was made on his behalf might be made on
behalf of others; and then how could all the indi
vidual wishes of mankind be reconciled ? And there
would be no stopping until the world was framed on
some different and other model, and wonders and
fancies and special interventions to individuals took

xv.] NO FAVOURITISM WITH GOD 271

the place of the divine order for all. Or how could
he venture to ask that God should do for him what
He had told him by every sign that He could give
that He could not do for him ? How could he dare
to say, ' O Lord, make not Thy will to be mine, but
make my will to be Thine ' ? Was ever such a prayer
heard from the mouth of any human being, that the
laws of the world should be broken for him, that God
should do for him what He would refuse to do for any
other ?

Well, but some one will say, ' If you will not allow
me to go to God with all my wishes and desires, you
take away the nature of prayer.' What! because
I cannot go to God and say to Him, * O Lord, give
me a fine house and estate ; O Lord, make that last
venture of mine to succeed ; O Lord, give me that
preferment or office, which I am so well entitled to,
and which I could fill so admirably ' — until you come
down to the prayer of the beggar, 4 O Lord, please give
me eighteenpence ' — is that really taking away the
nature of prayer ? Must I not think a bit before enter
ing the courts of the sovereign, whether the petition is
one that I ought to prefer; whether I may not be
violating the very laws of the realm in asking that
such a petition should be granted ? Must I not,
when I think of the nature of God, be careful that
I ask something which is in accordance with His
nature ? Instead of lifting up earth to heaven, am
I not rather seeking to bring down heaven to earth ?

272 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

Well, but some one will say, ' May I not ask of God
the life of some beloved relative who is in danger or
at the point of death ? I have a son who is fighting
with the enemies of his country in India or in China ;
may I not ask that he shall be shielded, and that
the deadly weapon that is aimed at him may not
come near him ? ' Many a one has offered up such
a prayer for an only son, many a father and many a
mother, within the last year or two ; and it seems
hard to deny them this privilege of nature. Still,
the voice of reason will be heard saying, * Do not ask
for your beloved son that which may be the death
of the beloved of another ' ; think of your enemies
sometimes as well as of your countrymen, as in the
presence of God, who is the Father of them all, and
will not take advantage of the sudden death of any
of them, or take any of them at a catch, as has been
rudely but truly said. Is He the God of the English
only ? Is He not the God of the Hindoo and the
Chinaman ? Does His mercy extend to Christians
only, and not also to Jews, Turks, Infidels, Heretics,
and all those for whom we pray in the collect for
Good Friday ; of the Soudanese, and of the Egyp
tian — not like Zeus or Osiris, or some Greek or other
national deity, but the God of all nature and of all
men ? And, if the ambition of monarchs or the pride of
nations were again to plunge us into a European war, if
we were on the eve of a great conflict, when the con
tinent of Europe was about to reel with the shock of

xv.] ILLEGITIMATE PRAYERS 273

arms, and we could imagine the prayers of the two
contending- parties ascending in a figure before His
throne, He could know of no favour to one or other
of them except so far as their cause was just ; He
could not take their part because they prayed to
Him ; but rather we should think of Him as a father
pitying His children in their quarrels, looking with
a sort of strangeness on their wild and fierce game.

Nor, I think, can we pray that a pestilence or
epidemic be driven from our shores and not also
driven from other lands ; for God requires us to think
of our neighbours as well as of ourselves. Or better,
perhaps, we may trust God, not that He will stay
the plague in answer to our prayers on any particular
occasion, but that He has so ordered these mysterious
epidemics that, although their path is unseen like the
wind, yet He has placed them to a certain degree
in the power of man to prevent and avoid, and has
provided that they shall not utterly exterminate man
or beast.

Once more, to take another instance. Some one
will perhaps say, ' I have a favourite daughter who
is slowly and manifestly sinking into the grave ; or,
I have a wife or husband who is all in all to me ;
may I not ask God to spare their lives ? May I not
batter the gates of heaven with storms of prayer ? '
I will not answer this question. For sometimes human
feelings cannot be reasoned with, and there would
be a sort of impropriety in attempting to resist them.

274 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

But I would remind you that even in this case there
may be a more excellent spirit. 4 Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from Me, nevertheless not
My will but Thine be done.' And, ' The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name
of the Lord.'

Thus then we seem to arrive at the conclusion
that riches, or honour, or victory in war, or the
acquirement of any temporal good, or the avoidance
of any temporal evils, or any interference with the laws
of nature or alteration in their effects, are not the
proper or natural objects of prayer. We may take
the means which will attain these objects; we may
pray that God will enable us to use them aright, but
we must not expect that God will overleap these
means, not because He cannot, but because experience
shows that this is not His way of dealing with His
creatures. I am aware that all will not be willing
to agree in this statement. But at any rate they
will agree that the greater and more important object
of prayer is spiritual rather than temporal good, and
that the true field of prayer begins in the relation
of the soul to God.

Regarding prayer not so much as consisting of
particular acts of devotion, but as the spirit of life,
it seems to be the spirit of harmony with the will of
God. It is the aspiration after all good, the wish,
stronger than any earthly passion or desire, to live
in His service only. It is the temper of mind which

xv.] PRAYER THE SPIRIT OF TRUE LIFE 275

says in the evening, ' Lord, into Thy hands I commend
my spirit ' ; which rises up in the morning, ' To do
Thy will, O God ' ; and which all the day regards the
actions of business and of daily life as done unto the
Lord and not to men — * Whether ye eat or drink, or
whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' The
trivial employments, the meanest or lowest occupations,
may receive a kind of dignity when thus converted
into the service of God. Other men live for the most
part in dependence on the opinion of their fellow-men ;
they are the creatures of their own interests, they
hardly see anything clearly in the mists of their own
self-deceptions. But he whose mind is resting in
God rises above the petty aims and interests of men ;
he desires only to fulfil the divine will, he wishes only
to know the truth. His eye is single, in the language
of Scripture, and his whole body is full of light. The
light of truth and disinterestedness flows into his soul ;
the presence of God, like the sun in the heavens,
warms his heart. Such a one, whom I have imper
fectly described, may be no mystic ; he may be one
among us whom we know not, undistinguished by any
outward mark from his fellow-men, yet carrying within
him a hidden source of truth and strength and peace.
This is the life of prayer, or rather the life which is
itself prayer, which is always raised above this world,
and yet always on a level with this world ; the life
which has lost the sense or consciousness of self, and
is devoted to God and to mankind, which may be

T 2

276 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

almost said to think the thoughts of God, as well as
do His works. And this is the spirit which must also
animate our separate acts of prayer, the spirit of sim
plicity and truth, the spirit of love and peace, the
spirit which says, ' Thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven.' For acts of prayer are not mere repeti
tions, shorter or longer, of forms of words, or cere
monies with which we approach the majesty of heaven ;
but they are real requests which flow out of the nature
and needs of man. 4 Give me purity, give me truth ;
make me to understand knowledge ; take from me all
ill-will and egotism and selfish care ; give me patience.
Not my will, O Lord, but Thine be done. In Thee,
O Lord, I put my trust, now in the time of my youth
when the snares of this world are encompassing me,
now again in the time of my age when my strength
fails and I go out whither I know not.' Can a man
live too much in this spirit ? Or can there be a higher
exercise of the reason than this ?

I think that we may see this to be the true nature
of prayer, because there can never be any excess of
such prayers, there can never be any doubt about the
answer to them, there can never be any conflict of
interests between one man and another. For the
fulfilment of the will of God in this world is not
a particular thing which may be granted to one man
and not to another, not a private good or benefit, but
a universal good which is inexhaustible, and, like the
ocean, can never be dried up. I do not go on year

xv.] PRAYER A HIGH EXERCISE OF REASON 277

after year praying for something which is never
granted me, and then finding a late and unsatisfactory
explanation that if my request had been good God
would have granted it, when the truth is that I have
overlooked the very first conditions of His dealings
with His creatures. Such prayers are necessarily
hollow and formal ; they are always at variance with
experience, and we are only half- satisfied with our
explanation of them. But the prayer that we may
fulfil the will of God, passively in submitting to Him,
actively in working with Him, has a real answer, and
is the answer to itself ; there can never be any doubt
that God wills that we should fulfil His will ; there
can never be any doubt that the prayer to Him,
the communion writh Him, will draw us to Him.

And, if I may refer once more to those doubts and
difficulties which were spoken of at the commencement
of this sermon, I think that to a person living in this
spirit they will seem to be hardly of more importance
than questions of secular knowledge. For he knows
that he cannot be robbed of a part who has the whole.
Neither can he ever desire that something should
appear to be the truth which is not the truth ; or that
some question of criticism should be decided in this
way rather than in that; or that his own church or
sect or party should prevail to the exclusion of any
other. His soul has too deep a peace to be shaken by
such imaginary terrors. And, even if we could
imagine a time when ' neither in Jerusalem nor in

278 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

this mountain should men worship the Father,' when
rival churches and local institutions should be broken
up and pass away, still he would feel that God was
a Spirit, and that the true worshippers of Him must
worship in spirit and in truth, and that under the
shadow of His will he would be safe amid the
changes of human things.

There is yet another aspect in which prayer may be
regarded, as the language which the soul uses to God
—the mode of expression in which she pours out her
thoughts to Him, just as ordinary language is the
expression of our ordinary thoughts and gives clear
ness and distinctness to them. Let not our words be
many, but simple and few ; not using vain repetitions
or indulging in vague emotions ; not allowing our
selves in fantastic practices ; but self-collected, firm,
clear ; not deeming that mere self-abasement can give
any pleasure to God any more than to an earthly
monarch. And above all let us be truthful, seeking
to view ourselves and our lives as in His presence,
neither better than we are nor worse than we are,
making our prayers the first motive and spring of all
our actions ; and sometimes passing before God in
our mind's eye all those with whom we are in any way
connected, that we may be better able to do our duty
towards them and more ready to think of them all in
their several ranks and stations as the creatures of
God equally with ourselves, each one having a life
and being and affections as valuable to himself and

xv.] POURING OUT THE HEART 279

to God as our own. Neither should we forget some
times to pray that God may clear away from our souls
all error and prejudice — 'The mind through all its
powers Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mists from thence
Purge and disperse ' ; and that, as years go on and our
faculties in the course of nature become weaker and
narrower, and our limbs are old and our blood runs
cold, instead of creeping into ourselves we may still
be expanding like the flower before the sun in the
divine presence, and cheered by the warmth of
the divine love.

But some one will say, * I do not understand this
language of prayer ; I cannot attend when I hear
prayers ; I never learned to pray when I was young
and I am too old to learn now ' ; or, ' I have lost the
habit and cannot recover it ; and yet I truly desire to
do the will of God and use the powers which He has
given me in His service.' There are perhaps some
in this congregation who may be fairly described in
these words. What shall we say to them ? I think
that we must admit that the habit and use of set times
of prayer is partly a Christian duty, but is partly also
a matter of temperament and education. Nor must
we be too hard in insisting that a man should order
his life in this or that particular way; or that the
means which are right and natural for most men
should be enforced necessarily on all. It is unchris
tian to judge of a man by this or that part of his life,
instead of judging him on the whole. And, if a man's

280 PRAYER AND LIFE [xv.

life and actions are Christian, I would rather claim him
as a Christian, even though he said he was not, than
excommunicate him because he did not follow the
religious usages of Christians in general ; for there is no
one whose life and character in any degree resembles
the life and character of Christ who is really His
enemy.

Still I would say to such a one, 4 Do not live with
out God in the world, even in the sense of duty, even
in the strength of right.' Consider how short and
dependent life is, how unfit man is to stand alone, how
ignorant of the possibilities beyond. Think of your
self in sickness, in sorrow, in despair, when the
nearest human ties are broken, when you are passing
into the unseen world, — are you prepared to stand
alone then ? Do you not need some bond of union
with your fellow-creatures more expansive, more
enduring, than the chance association with them in
society or in business ? Do you not feel that amid
all the jarring influences of opinion, amid all the
changing and seemingly opposing paths of know
ledge, you need the support of a God of truth to keep
your mind fixed upon the light of truth ? Is not this
a higher ideal of life than the stoicism of merely
human virtue ? Is not this a new power of thought
and action which is imparted to you ?

I will not attempt further to determine in detail in
what way some one who approaches the religion
of Christ from without shall work out his own life.

•

xv.] PRAYER TURNED INTO ACTION 281

Perhaps that is better left to himself. Let him make
the actions of his life take the place of prayers if he
will ; let him find another road, through the order
of nature or the sense of right, to the acknowledge
ment of an Author of Nature. He cannot, perhaps,
altogether define his meaning or impression. Let us
say ' Forbid him not ' ; seeking to find in all things and
with all men everywhere, not lines of division but
bonds of union, not differences but agreements, not
the distinctions of Christians or of parties but the love
of God fulfilling Himself in many ways.

And once more, returning to ourselves and sum
ming up what has been said, I would ask you to think
of prayer, first, as the spirit of the Christian life ;
4 More things are wrought by prayer than this world
dreams of ; but they are not temporal benefits or
interruptions of the laws of nature. Secondly, I would
ask you to think of prayer as the great means which
God has given us ; the means which sets in motion all
other means that are used for the good of man and
for the fulfilment of the divine will. Thirdly, as the
highest expression not merely of the feelings but
of the reason when exercised in the contemplation
of the Divine Being.

O Lord, make not my will to be Thine, but Thy
will to be mine, O Lord.

XVI
THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT1.

THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE FACE OF THE

WA TERS.

GENESIS i. 2.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD GOD IS UPON ME ; BECA USE
THE LORD HATH ANOINTED ME TO PREACH GOOD
TIDINGS UNTO THE MEEK; HE HATH SENT ME TO
BIND UP THE BROKENHEARTED, TO PROCLAIM
LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES, AND THE OPENING OF THE

PRISON TO THEM THAT ARE BOUND.

ISAIAH Ixi. i.

LOOKING back on the history of the world, we
observe long periods in which mankind appear to
have been stationary. Great empires like Egypt or
China remain the same for two thousand or for
three thousand years ; the external framework of their
institutions exercises a paralyzing influence on their
life and spirit; their religions continue merely be
cause they are ancient, their works of art are always
cast in the same form, their laws and customs are like
chains too strong for the puny arm of the individual
to break. Still more true is all this, as far as we can

1 Preached at Westminster Abbey, July 2, 1876.

xvi.] TENDENCY TO APATHY 283

conjecture, of prehistoric times about which we know
so little. Though there were wars and migrations
among primitive men, they remained for the most
part in the same condition ; there was hardly more
progress among them than among the animals. Even
in our own age of industrial and political activity we
become unexpectedly aware of times of reaction : the
force which seemed strong enough to revolutionize
a world is suddenly arrested and brought to a stop
in the midst of its career. Countries, like individuals,
are always in danger of falling back into apathy and
repose. So that, if some persons speak to us of a law
of progress in human affairs, others will seem rather
to discern in them a law of rest ; not everything going
forward, but everything standing still — not l the new
is ever entwined with the old,' but ' there is nothing
new under the sun.' And certainly we must admit
that the times of progress and improvement have
been few and far between : the day-spring from on
high has visited mankind at intervals. Every indi
vidual who has sought to do good in his generation
has probably made the reflection : 4 How little impres
sion he has left upon the forces arrayed against him !
hardly more than the husbandman on the solid frame
work of the earth.'

Yet there have been also times in which the foun
tains of the deep may be said to have been broken
up ; and new lights have dawned upon men, new
truths about politics, about morality, about religion,

284 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

which have become the inheritance of after ages. In
general the progress of mankind has not been gradual
but sudden, like the burst of summer in some ice
bound clime. Still less has it been a common effort
of the whole human race. If we take away two nations
from the history of the world ; if we imagine further
that the six greatest among the sons of men were
blotted out, or had never been ; the peoples of the
earth would still be ' sitting in darkness and the shadow
of death.' The two nations were among the fewest of
all people : scarcely in their most flourishing period
together amounting to a hundredth part of the human
race. The golden age of either of them can hardly
be said to extend over two or three centuries. The
nations themselves were not good for much ; but single
men among them have been the teachers, not only of
their own, but of all ages and countries. If the Greek
philosophers had never existed, is it too much to say
that the very nature of the human mind would have
been different ? We can hardly tell when or how the
sciences would have come into being ; many elements
of religion as well as of law would have been wanting ;
the history of nations would have changed. So mighty
has been the influence of two or three men in thought
and speculation —the world has gone after them.

But even more striking, because more familiar to
us, has been the influence of the Jewish prophets on
the character of mankind. Living on a narrow spot
of earth between the great empires of Assyria and

xvi.] PHILOSOPHERS AND PROPHETS 285

Egypt, which seemed so imposing in their antiquity
and external greatness, they had the force of mind
to see beyond them, and beyond the existence of their
own Jewish nation. Great as was the power of Assyria
and of Egypt, they knew and were convinced that they
were as nothing before the power of God. Already
they saw the seeds of ruin in them : ' their garments
were moth-eaten,' their palaces crumbling in the dust.
For they were persuaded that no kingdom could be
lasting which was not founded on righteousness and
the fear of God. These are what we may call in
modern language their principles of politics and re
ligion. They taught men the true nature of God, that
He was a God of love as well as of justice, the Father
as well as the judge of mankind. They saw Him
sweeping the earth with His judgements, and yet ever
willing to have mercy on those who bowed to Him.
They knew that He could not be pleased with external
rites or ceremonies. ' Lo, O man, He hath shown
thee what He requireth of thee ; to do justice, to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with God.' They raised
their voice against tyranny and hypocrisy, against
luxury and vice, against the foreign superstitions
which were imported into Israel. And, though con
fined within the limits of the Jewish people and without
experience of the rest of the world, they saw in the
distance the vision of a perfect God ' having the body
of heaven in His clearness.'

And now everywhere in Christian countries their

286 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

words have sunk deep into the heart of the human
race. If the logical and intellectual framework of the
human mind may be said to have been constructed by
the Greek philosophers, the moral feelings of men have
been deepened and strengthened, and also softened and
almost created by the Jewish prophets. In modern
times we hardly like to acknowledge the full force
of their words, lest they should prove subversive to
society. And so we explain them away or spiritua
lize them, and convert what is figurative into what
is literal, and what is literal into what is figurative.
And still, after all our interpretation or misinterpreta
tion, whether due to a false theology or to imperfect
knowledge of the original language, the force of the
words remains ; and a light of heavenly truth and love
streams from them even now (more than 2500 years
after they were first uttered) to the uneducated and
ignorant, to the widow or the orphan, when they
read the words, ' Who hath believed our report ? ' and
* Comfort ye my people.'

I propose to speak to you in this sermon of the
Jewish prophets, who are so distant from us and yet
so near to us : whose words carry us back to an ancient
and forgotten world, and also come home to the heart
and conscience of each of us. And, first, I shall con
sider the character of the prophet regarded as a
teacher of mankind ; secondly, I shall inquire how
far in modern times, and even in ordinary life, there
may be anything akin to the spirit of prophecy. For

xvi.] WHAT IS A PROPHET? 287

the same things sometimes exist under different names,
and moral or intellectual gifts take different forms in
different ages. There have been a few in all ages who
have felt themselves irresistibly impelled to utter the
truths of which they were persuaded ; who have fought
hopeless causes ; who seem to have lost all feeling of
themselves in their devotion to their country or to
mankind. The term ' prophet ' is no longer applied
to them ; they are not distinguished from their fellow
men by any external note in their way of life. We
hardly recognize the analogy until after they are dead,
and then we sometimes find that they have received
a ' prophet's reward.' Such men have been the
leaders of movements among ourselves, on behalf of
the prisoner or the slave, or the extension of education,
or the spread of religious truth. They have been
found equally among the clergy and the laity. The
characteristic of them has been that in one direction
at least they have seen further, and that their moral
sense has been higher, than that of the community
at large.

And now, returning to the Jewish prophet, we may
begin by setting aside a common error in the concep
tion of him, viz. that he was a foreteller of future
events in that lower sense in which a Roman sooth
sayer would have been supposed to foretell them, or
as in modern times indications of the future are some
times supposed to have been made by ' second sight.'
Whether in any instance he passed the horizon of

288 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

his real insight into the future ; whether there are
any prophecies which remain unfulfilled, as, for
example, the siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, is
a question which we cannot determine certainly.
For, though we may interpret prophecy by history,
we must not interpret history by prophecy. Doubtless
many applications were made of the prophet's words,
both by the writers of the New Testament and the
early Fathers, which never came within the range of
his thoughts. I notice this chiefly that we may set
it aside as unimportant. The prophet was, and he
was not, a foreteller of future events. He was, in
so far as he saw more deeply into the laws of the
world around him : he was not, in the sense which
excites the vulgar credulity and admiration of man
kind. At least, if there is anything of this kind ob
servable anywhere in particular passages, it is not the
essential element of Jewish prophecy. And the con
nexion of the Old Testament and the New is not one
of types and words, but the identity of the truths
contained in them — Isaiah and Micah in the Old Tes
tament declaring that there should be l no more vain
oblations,' our Lord and St. Paul revealing the spiritual
nature of God in the New.

There are some other points belonging to what we
may call the externals of prophecy which may now be
briefly noted. In the first place, the prophets as they
have come down to us form a literature which goes
back to a time when there was no written prophecy.

xvi.] THE HEBREW PROPHETS 289

Their utterances were gradually committed to writing ;
and in after ages the sayings of different prophets
were collected in the same volume and bore the same
title. In the Book of Zechariah the traces of at least
two authors are universally admitted ; in the Book of
Isaiah the traces of several appear; for we can no
more suppose that the words ' Thus saith the Lord
unto my well-beloved Cyrus ' were composed before the
Captivity, than we can imagine, as was the belief of
many of the Fathers, that the Psalm beginning * By the
waters of Babylon we sat down ' was the writingof David.
In the second place, the later prophecies are to some
extent formed upon the earlier. The latest of them
all, the Book of Revelation, or the Book of the day of
the Lord, as it has also been called, is largely made up
of words and symbols taken from the older prophets, as
the marginal references abundantly testify. Even the
prophet Isaiah contains a repetition of Micah ; Amos
refers to Joel, and the Book of Joel, probably the
oldest of the extant prophecies, has a reference to still
earlier writings which are now lost. And perhaps
we shall not be far wrong in supposing that the pro
phets who are only known to us from the historical
books, Elijah and Elisha, as they left a deeper impress
in Jewish history, were also greater than any of those
whose writings have come down to us. On the other
hand the later prophets seem to be less bound within
the horizon of Jewish thought, and to be uttering
truths in form at least more universal and more adapted

u

290 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

to all ages and countries. Probably they began to
write down their words in a book or roll when they
were rejected by their own generation.

And now let us endeavour to form an idea of
the prophet in his true character, stripped of the
literary accidents which surround him. He is the
revealer of the will of God to man. And the will of
God is in one word * righteousness ' — holiness of life in
the individual, the triumph of right in the world. He
is the voice of one crying, sometimes in the wilderness,
sometimes in the city, ' Prepare ye the way of the
Lord ' ; he is possessed, inspired, with the word of
God. He does not reason about the truths which he
utters, for they are self-evident to him. He is fulfilled
with the power and goodness of God, with the great
ness and with the gentleness of the divine nature.
Take for example the twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah :
after the judgements of God, as elsewhere, immediately
follow His mercies. ' Thou hast made of a city a
heap ; of a defenced city a ruin, a palace of strangers
to be no city ' ; and yet in the following verses, ' Thou
hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the
needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a
shadow from the heat ' ; and then come the words,
4 He shall swallow up death in victory ; the Lord God
will wipe away tears from all faces ' : so near do His
judgements and loving- kindnesses lie together. This
is the lesson which the prophets are always teach
ing, that there is no end of His justice, and there is

xvi.] THE PROPHET AS REVEALER 291

no end of His mercy. They present the divine nature
almost in the form of contradictions, now entreating,
now threatening, now consoling, now punishing ; and
the human heart bears witness to both aspects, and
both seem to appear in the order and government of
the world. And so too in later ages men have spoken
of the love of God as opposed to His justice ; or as
though, if I may use such an expression, God were
just with one part of His mind and at one time, and
loving with another part of His mind and at another
time. Yet there is also a higher view which may be
gathered from the prophets themselves, that His justice
is ever regulated by His love, and His love by His
justice, and that these two are in reality identical and
inseparable. But we, seeing through a glass darkly,
and able only to look at one side at a time, imagine
the opposition, instead of reflecting that His justice
and mercy, one and indivisible, encircle us both in this
world and in another.

The justice of God is seen by the prophets in His
judgement on Israel and on the world. The history
of the world is the judgement of the world. * The day
of the Lord ' is the burden of prophecy ; from Joel the
earliest of the prophets, to Malachi the latest, the pro
phets are still waiting for * the great and terrible day of
the Lord,' as in the New Testament the first believers
are still waiting for the coming of the Lord. They
watch the great empires of the old world passing
into ruin ; in these are anticipations of the greater

U 2

292 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

judgement which is to come ; as again in the New
Testament the second coming of Christ is blended
with the destruction of Jerusalem. But still the great
day of all is at a distance ; and one by one the pro
phets, like other men, pass from the scene. The
judgement is begun but not completed here, and has
an anticipation in the consciences of men. There
remains therefore a more perfect justice for all
mankind.

So the mercy of God is also shown by the prophet
in His dealings with His people Israel. The Jewish
religion was national ; Israel had not arrived at the
point of seeing that all men equally, Gentiles as well
as Jews, were in the hands of God and subject to His
laws. So individuals in modern times have imagined
themselves to be the chosen servants of God, and,
indeed, it is hard for any of us to realize that another
is equally with himself the care of a divine providence.
The vision of the Jewish prophet was limited in like
manner. Though in one or two passages Israel
makes a third with Assyria and Egypt, yet in general
the love of God is concentrated on His chosen people.
They alone say to Him, ' Doubtless thou art our Father,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknow
ledge us not ; Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our
Redeemer, whose name is from everlasting.' Yet it is
to be observed also that the relation of God to Israel
is not one of favouritism. When they sin He visits
them with His judgements, when they return to Him

•

xvi.] THE PROPHET AND NATIONAL BELIEFS 293

He has mercy on them. When His arm is heaviest
upon them still a remnant are left, for 4 He will not
destroy the righteous with the wicked; that be far
from Him.' And so the prophets, reflecting on the
nature of God, arrive at last at the conclusion, not
that l the sins of the fathers are visited upon the chil
dren,' but that ' henceforth there shall be no more
this proverb in the House of Israel, the fathers have
eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on
edge, but every soul shall bear his own iniquity,' and
that, * when the wicked man turneth away from his
wickedness he shall save his soul alive.' Even the
very judgements which are affirmed to have been
executed by the command of God are in some in
stances corrected, as for example the massacre of
Jehu, in Hosea i. 4, where it is said 4 Yet a little while
and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel,' that is, of
Jezebel and the sons of Ahab, * on the house of Jehu.'

The prophet lives with God rather than with his
fellow- men ; and he is confident that the word which
he speaks is the word of God. Suddenly he feels an
irresistible impulse to declare that which he knows.
Naturally we ask the question, how he could be sure
that the voice of God speaking or seeming to speak
within him was not a mere illusion. For we some
times ask ourselves too, how we can be sure that such
and such actions or such and such beliefs are the
truth and will of God. How do we distinguish them
from the fancies of our own minds ? And the answer

294 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

in both cases is the same, that we know them to be
the truth and will of God in proportion as they
express the highest idea of truth, of justice, and of
love which we are capable of forming in our own
minds. But in most men there is but a feeble sense
of the power and goodness of God ; they do as other
men do, seldom deriving any light or strength from
their knowledge of His nature or character. They
do not live in His presence, or refer their actions to
His laws, or judge of the world, of other men, and of
themselves by the standard of His perfections.

Once more : the Jewish prophets were the first
teachers of spiritual religion. In all ages and coun
tries the outward has been tending to prevail over
the inward, the Law over the Gospel, the local and
temporal over the spiritual and eternal. The world
takes the place of the Church, or rather the Church
becomes a new world, an earthly kingdom, a system
of discipline and government, in which the old foes
appear under new names, and ambition and avarice
are as rife as in kingdoms of the world. Then comes
an individual conscious of a mission from on high, and
seeks to restore the lost purity of religion, such as
St. Bernard, the reformer of the Monastic Orders,
or John Huss and Savonarola, the forerunners of the
Reformation, or Luther in the century that followed,
or at a later time our own John Wesley. Then a voice
is heard in Europe saying : ' Let us have no more
penances or indulgences or priestly absolution or

xvi.] TEACHERS OF SPIRITUAL RELIGION 295

masses for quick and dead ; we are justified by
faith only, without rites and ceremonies.' Or again,
' We will have no more formalism or lip -service, we
feel that we have sinned against God and have need
of reconcilement with Him.'

So we might translate into modern language the
first chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah.

4 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me ? ' saith the Lord, ' I am full of the burnt offer
ings of rams and the fat of fed beasts. Bring no more
vain oblations ; incense is an abomination to me ; the
new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies
I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting.' ' Your hands are full of blood.' 4 Wash
you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your
doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil, learn
to do well ; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed,
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now
and let us reason together, saith the Lord ; Though
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool.' This is the very spirit of prophecy, and the
spirit of true religion, that we should cease to do evil
and learn to do well, that we should not only repent
but bring forth fruits meet for repentance, that we
should make clean not that which is without, but
that which is within, that is to say the heart and
conscience of men.

And ever and anon the prophet looks forward to

296 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

a future which is not, but always is to be, a vision
of the kingdom of God in distant ages, in far-off
lands, whether in this world or in another he cannot
tell. This is the day when 4 the mountain of the
Lord's house shall be exalted in the top of the moun
tains ' ; when ' the knowledge of the Lord shall cover
the earth, as the waters cover the sea.' But as yet
the justice of God and the love of God are but half
revealed. The world is distracted between good and
evil, the evil seeming often to preponderate over the
good. And in this mixed scene of good and evil
the prophet beholds the image of a Saviour, a Re
deemer, the servant of God, who partakes of the
sufferings of man, who 'has borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows,' who ' is led as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb ' ;
who is exalted of God because 'he is despised and
rejected of men.' There is one in whom the struggle
and the final victory is impersonated, in whom all the
sins and sorrows of mankind are represented, who
shall justify them and himself. In such manner is
described the life of Him 'to whom bear all the
prophets witness.'

And now, leaving the Jewish prophets, I will briefly
consider the second head concerning which I proposed
to speak : * whether anything akin to the spirit of
prophecy can exist among ourselves. For naturally
we think of the prophet as an extraordinary man,
gifted with strange powers of language and insight.

xvi.] ARE THERE PROPHETS NOW? 297

And perhaps some of us would shrink from saying
' Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets.'
Yet something like prophecy seems to enter into all
true religion.

For in all true religion or philosophy there must
be a willingness to resist the evil customs of men,
whether in the church or in the world, an insight
which enables individuals to see through them, and
a courage which will fight against them even though
they may be a part of the established order of society
in which we live. He who is independent in thought
and mind, who knows no other rule but the divine
law, who habitually thinks of the world and of him
self and other men, of the ranks of society, of the
opinions of parties, of the trifles of fashion, as they
appear in the sight of God, he who in politics knows
no other principles but truth and right, and is con
fident that amid all appearances to the contrary they
must triumph at the last, has in him the spirit of
a prophet.

Again, in all true religion there must be a zeal
against hypocrisy and oppression, on behalf of hu
manity and justice ; and if the fire burns within
a man he must at last speak with his tongue. He
who cannot remain silent when any injustice is being
done, who feels irresistibly impelled, perhaps in or
dinary conversation, to lift up his voice against some
pernicious or immoral sentiment; who, when other
men are struggling in some cause of justice or

298 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

humanity, becomes their natural leader; into whose
ears the crying- of the prisoner or the slave first
enters ; who will spend a lifetime in the detection of
some wrong done to the fatherless and widow ; or who
is convinced that he must speak out some truth which
all the world are either denying or veiling in am
biguities, no matter at what cost to his worldly fame
or prospects ; he too has in him the elements of a hero
and of a prophet.

Once more, in all religion, at least in any deeper
kind of religion, there must be isolation from the
world, that we may be alone with God. The reli
gious thinker or teacher is no longer liable to be
persecuted for his opinions, he is not like the olden
prophets ' wandering about in sheep skins and goat
skins ' ; yet any man who thinks or feels deeply is
always liable to find himself more or less estranged
from his fellow men. They cannot enter into his
thoughts, nor can he join always in their trivial and
passing interests. Like the prophet he has to go
into the wilderness that he may be alone with God.
And through God he is brought back to his fellow-
men with higher motives and aspirations for their
good ; he feels them to be his brethren, and is bound
to them, not merely by earthly ties of family or friend
ship, but by a Divine love for them because they are
God's creatures, to whom he is bound to impart the
truth which he knows and every other good gift
which he has received. He who is thus reunited in

xvi.] ALONE WITH GOD, AND HOPEFUL 299

God to his fellow-men ; who from some eminence of
thought or knowledge or position has come down
to be the servant of all that he may be the saviour
of all, and who not without suffering has carried
out this endeavour to his life's end (if there be such
an one), has in him the spirit not of a prophet but of
Christ Himself.

Lastly, my brethren, all things in this world are so
imperfect that it sometimes seems as if the promises
of the future were never realized. Many form ideals
in youth — for that is the time of hope and prophecy ;
and at forty or fifty, when they see that their ideals
were not attainable, they lose faith and heart, because
they appear to have failed. Even those who have
succeeded to the utmost in the worldly sense of suc
cess will sometimes tell us how small the whole result
is — ' Vanity of vanities ' : a few years spent in education,
a few years in preparation for a profession, a few
years of disappointment or of brilliant success and
fortune, and then the end: such is the life of man.
But all this is no reason for relinquishing our ideals,
or imagining that we have been mocked by them.
They have been the best, the eternal part of our lives,
and are not to be deemed failures because they have
been only partially realized. For without them human
life would be lowered, and we ourselves and men in
general would be sensibly degraded. They are not
failures, but efforts after perfection, necessarily in
volving some degree of imperfection. If ever the

300 THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT [xvi.

hopes and ideals of youth are combined with the
wisdom and experience of maturer life, such a union
is fraught with blessings to mankind. Enthusiasm is
a gift of God, not to be repressed, but to be dissected
and purged of its lighter and weaker elements. Even
the folly of the enthusiast is generally wiser than the
wisdom of the cynic. We know too that the work
which begins here is not ended here. He who in
later life retains the ideals of his early days ; who has
not ceased to hope and believe because he has ceased
to be young ; who deems that the next generation will
be better than his own, having more experience and
fewer prejudices ; who looking back on the imper
fections of his own life looks forward to another in
which he will see the ways and do the works of God
more perfectly; who, when darkness is closing in upon
him, has his eye fixed on the light beyond, has in him
the mind and spirit of a prophet.

XVII
THE LORD'S SUPPER1.

HOW CAN THIS MAN GIVE US HIS FLESH TO EAT?

IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT QUICKEN ETH ; THE FLESH
PROFITETH NOTHING: THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK
UNTO YOU, THEY ARE SPIRIT, AND THEY ARE LIFE.

JOHN vi. 52, 63.

THE sayings of our Lord seem to have been often
misunderstood by those who heard Him. When He
spoke to them of eating His flesh and drinking His
blood, they either scoffingly said, or really imagined,
that He was going to give them His flesh to eat ; at
least, such is the impression conveyed in the narra
tive of St. John. When He told the woman of
Samaria of the water of life, her thought reverted only
to the water of the well of Jacob, which she and others
were drawing for daily use : when He cautioned His
disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees, they sup
posed that He was referring to the leaven of bread ;
when He urged upon Nicodemus the necessity of
being born again, the * Master of Israel ' was puzzled

1 Preached at Balliol, 1869.

302 THE LORD'S SUPPER [

and could only answer, ' Can any man enter again his
mother's womb and be born ? ' These instances are
taken from the Gospel of St. John, who intends to
show by them how near the commonplace interpre
tation of the sayings of Christ was to the minds of
men, how difficult the spiritual one ; and not only in
the Gospel of St. John, but in the other Gospels, there
are sayings of Christ, such as ' Let the dead bury their
dead ' ; or the intimation of the resurrection given by
God to Moses at the burning bush ; or such precepts as
1 Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of un
righteousness ' ; or the awful warning, l Whoso sinneth
against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven ' ; the
meaning of which must have slumbered in the ears of
those who heard them.

The words originally narrated and figuratively ap
plied in the Gospel of St. John, l Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up again,' are after
wards repeated again in the other three Gospels at
the trial before the chief priests, and are taken by the
witnesses in the literal meaning. Many other sayings
were evidently misunderstood by those who heard
them ; and for this reason among others, many, or
rather I should say, perhaps the greater part of them,
have perished.

And not only during the life of Christ have His say
ings been misunderstood, or wilfully misinterpreted,
but in a still greater degree in later ages of the Church.
One age after another has added to them, until they

xvii.] INTERPRETATION OF CHRIST'S WORDS 303

have been buried under a heap of misrepresentations,
and the meaning which is assigned to them has been
in some cases the very reverse of that which they
originally bore ; and then some one has arisen who
has dug them up again, and they have still been found
capable of giving life to men. The great sayings of
the world seem to be always in a process of being lost
and being recovered.

Two or three words are a little instrument with
which to stir an age, and yet the world has been stirred
by them — such words, for example, as * Believe on
Me,' or 4 We are justified by faith without the works
of the law.' And then they have soon become a form
again, and have no longer found the answering note
in the heart of man ; because, instead of interpreting
them naturally, mankind have brought to the inter
pretation of them their own impressions or the
tendencies of their age or Church or their party in
the Church, or the authority of some Father or favourite
teacher; or they have overlaid the New Testament
with the Old, or gone back from the spirit to the
letter. If any tenet has previously taken possession
of their minds, they have found in some oriental figure,
some chance coincidence, some remote analogy, the
assurance of that which they had always determined
to believe. I propose to consider in this sermon
a subject about which there has been almost more
misrepresentation of these simple words of Scripture
than about any other, the Communion of the Lord's

304 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvn.

Supper. Without entering- into the controversy which
has prevailed respecting- this great rite of the Chris
tian Church, I shall inquire whether a simpler notion
of the Communion may not be more in accordance
with the Spirit of Christ, and more really satisfying
to the wants of human nature ; secondly, I shall speak
of the thoughts which naturally arise in our minds on
those solemn occasions when we meet together at the
table of the Lord, and recall the memory of Him
whilst He was on earth.

In every Christian congregation there are a few to
whom the participation in the Communion is the life
or centre of their religious being ; while the greater
number (and there may be among them many who are
equally the followers of Christ), either from awe or
shyness, or the fear of unreality, or from their sense
of the great change which has been made in the nature
of the act, appear to be unable or unwilling to fulfil
the last request of Christ, * Do this in remembrance
of Me.'

The words ' This is My Body,' c This is My Blood,'
have occasioned controversies and speculation such as
no metaphysician can ever explain. Who can tell us
the difference between transubstantiation and consub-
stantiation unless he can first analyse the meaning of
the words 4 substance ' ? Who can give the faintest
conception of a real presence, or a real spiritual
presence of a divine nature in a material object ?

Behold ! He is present everywhere, and especially

xvii.] VAIN AND HARMFUL QUESTIONS 305

in the heart and reason of man. Are not such dis
tinctions like lines drawn upon an imaginary surface,
or a picture painted in space ? and they lead us on
by a sort of dialectical process immediately to raise
other questions which are not less difficult. In what
manner, and by what means, is the change in the
elements affected, and at what time is their nature
altered ? at their consecration, or after we have par
taken only ? And do all partake of them, or the
worthy recipients only ? And has the minister, who
is a man like ourselves, the power of granting or with
holding the greatest of spiritual benefits, of making,
and offering, (I hardly dare use the words) the Body
and Blood of Christ ? Then follows the transfer of
all the powers of the life to come to a human being,
and you have a lever long enough to move the world.

Owing to a corruption, beginning you can hardly
say when, in an excess of religious feeling, the moral
character of religion is lost ; and the Sacrament, instead
of being the simple bond which unites Christians to
their brethren and to Christ, becomes the bond of a
great ecclesiastical power.

Some persons may be inclined to feel angry or
aggrieved at the plainness of these statements ; and
certainly we should do injustice to the maintainers of
these views (of whom there seem to be many among
the clergy of our own Church) if we did not admit
that there was another side to them.

In tracing the decline of good into evil we should

306 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvn.

be wrong in not observing- that the good inseparably
clings to the evil, and yet is somehow not infected by
it. Certainly it is with strange and mixed feelings
that we read such books as the Life of St. Bernard,
or St. Theresa, or the meditations on the Sacrament
in the fourth book of the Imitation of Christ. For,
although we know that to ourselves individually, and
still more to the world at large, goodness is a very
dear bargain when purchased at the expense of truth,
yet we see something in the lives and thoughts of
these men and women which we would gladly transfer
to our own lives, and for which, in this degenerate
age, we vainly seem to look ; and to them the very
spirit and essence of religion was felt to be concen
trated in the Eucharist. From the act of partaking of
the bread and wine the rest of their spiritual life
appeared to flow ; they were full of rapture and fear,
of sorrow and joy, at the same instant ; they saw and
heard things of which they could hardly speak to
others, seeming to lose the sense of mortality in the
immediate presence of Christ. This was the food of
men leading a superhuman life, taking no thought of
this world or of themselves, but caring only for the
good of other men, and for the service of Christ.
There is a great deal for us to sympathize with and to
reverence in this ; and, although we feel that no good,
or rather great evil, would arise from the attempt to
revive the feelings of the fourth, or the eleventh, or
the thirteenth century in the nineteenth, yet we shall

xvii.] GOOD AND EVIL IN DEVOTION 307

do well also to separate these ideals of Christian life,
these higher types of character and feeling, from the
accidents which accompanied them, or the fantastic
thoughts in which they clothed themselves. Men are
apt to think that they cannot have too much of a good
thing, too much piety, too much religious feeling,
too much attendance at the public worship of God.
They forget the truth which the old philosophy taught,
that the life of man should be a harmony ; not absorbed
in any one thought, even of God, or in any one duty or
affection, but growing up as a whole to the fulness of
the perfect man. That is a maimed soul which loves
goodness and has no love of truth, or which loves
truth and has no love of goodness. The cultivation
of one part of religion to the exclusion of another
seems often to exact a terrible retribution both in
individual characters and in churches. There is a
nemesis of believing all things, or indeed of any
degree of intellectual dishonesty, which sometimes
ends in despair of all truth ; there is an ecstasy of
religious devotion which has not unfrequently degene
rated into licentiousness. And in the same city, and
in the same church in which the streaming eyes of
saints have been uplifted to the image of Christ
hanging over .the altar, there have been l acts of
faith' of another kind, which are not obscurely con
nected with these ardours of divine love, in which the
voice of pity and of every other human feeling is
silenced.

X 2

308 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvn.

(2) And now I will leave the history of the past
and the controversies of the present, and try to con
sider this Communion of the Lord's Supper in a
simpler manner. If a father on his deathbed had
told his sons to meet together on a certain day of the
year at a feast, and to remember him, and to think
that he was present with them, how strang-e would
their conduct appear if, after a year or two, they fell
to disputing about the nature of this feast, or the
meaning of their father in desiring that they should
remember him and that they should think of him as
present with them ! Should we not tell them that
they ought to interpret his words naturally, the simple
words literally, the figure of speech after the manner
of figures of speech ? Or if a dying person had left
us a ring to be a memorial of him, should we ever
think of discussing how the ring recalled him to our
memory ? No more need we discuss at length how
the Communion of the Lord's Supper reminds us of
Christ.

And first of all we may note in passing (though
a truism) that the Communion is not an end, but a
means. ' The Sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the Sabbath.' And the end of this institution
of Christ was not that we should go to the Com
munion as to some mystic rite, but that in this act we
should find the natural expression of our love and
remembrance of Him.

There seems to be no better explanation of the

xvii.] SIMPLE IDEA OF SACRAMENTS 309

Sacraments than this, that they are the expressions of
a religious feeling. The Sacrament of Baptism is not
designed to draw an invidious line between baptized
and unbaptized infants, but to express the Christian
consciousness about all infants that they are the
children of God, and that, in the language of our
Lord, ' Their Angels do always behold the face of
My Father which is in heaven.' The Sacrament of
the Lord's Supper, in like manner, is not separable
from the rest of the believer's life. He is always
desirous to follow Christ and to be one with Him,
and to be as He was in this world. Of that hope
and aspiration, so much above the ordinary life of
man, of that prayer and vow, the Communion is
the highest, the intensified expression. And, as men
find a relief in the utterance of their feelings, so
does he find a relief in the conscious acknowledge
ment that his highest desire in this world is to
be perfect, to be like Christ. And, as men after
a long and weary toil will meet together at a
feast to refresh their spirits and to bind closer the
bonds of friendship, so does he go to the table
of the Lord that he may draw closer the bonds
which unite him to Christ, that like Christ he
may forgive his enemies, like Christ he may live
only for the good of others, like Christ he may
be pure and disinterested in word and thought, and
have communion with goodness and truth every
where.

310 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvn.

To such a feast we are invited — I will not say to
a feast of ideas, but to a feast of Christian thoughts
and feelings, in which, if I may use such an expression,
we indulge the higher elements of our nature, and
seem to have a foretaste of heaven. And in this way
the Sacraments adjust themselves to the rest of the
Christian life. They are spiritual, and the thing sig
nified by them is not necessarily connected with any
external act. They are the parts of a whole from
which they cannot safely be separated. They are the
points or limits in which the Christian life is gathered
up. But they are not the instruments by which any
change is wrought in us. That can only be accom
plished in rational beings by the Spirit of God
working together with our spirits. To think other
wise would be to disregard that which seems to
lie deepest of all in the teaching of Christ and of
St. Paul, deeper far than the institution of any ordi
nance, or the belief in any fact — the spiritual nature
of religion.

And now I will speak of the feelings with which we
approach the Communion ; and these I suppose will
vary considerably with the character and circumstances
of each individual. In all devotion there is a common
element, but there is also a private part, in which
the mind of each one wanders over the mazes of time,
and the secret history of his own life, and the thousand
things concerning him which are known to himself
only and to God. And, as we recognize our universal

xvii.] FEELINGS AT COMMUNION 311

relation to God and to Christ, we are conscious also
that thoughts arise up within us which we can never
impart to any other.

And, first of all, we seem to feel at the Communion
that we are passing- into the presence of God, and
laying before Him our lives and actions. That which
always is a fact we solemnly and distinctly acknow
ledge. We say to Him and to ourselves, ' There is
not a word in our tongue or a thought in our hearts,
but Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether ' ; or again,
' Oh cleanse Thou me from secret faults, let them not
have the dominion over me.' And, knowing that He
sees all things, we try to speak to Him as truly and
simply as we can, not excusing nor yet accusing our
selves more than we ought, nor using the unreal
words of momentary feeling, but beseeching Him to
guide us in the main purpose of our lives, that our
work may also be His work, and that we may fulfil
His will upon earth, — ' Not my will, but Thine, be
done.' And, although God is at an infinite distance
from us, and we are lost in the contemplation of Him,
yet we know also that, like ourselves, He is a rational
Being, a Divine Reason, in whom all our highest
thoughts and feelings find a response. And the sense
of communion with Him is not to lay us prostrate
before Him, grovelling in the dust as before some
eastern potentate who is only half governed by the
dictates of truth and justice ; but to raise us up and
ennoble us, and awaken in us a sense of the higher

3i2 THE LORD'S SUPPER

dignity, of the true dignity, of human nature, which
is to be engaged in His service.

A man is not less but more of a man because he
rests upon God. And a man is not less but more
of a man because he knows himself and can make
a true estimate of himself. Even the man of the world
will acknowledge this ; and true Christian manhood
seems to require that we should look ourselves steadily
in the face, remembering our sins, not extenuating
our faults, nor yet over excited or depressed by them,
but making this consciousness of what we truly are
the foundation of a higher life in us. This is the sort
of consciousness which we desire to carry into the
presence of God, beseeching Him to strengthen the
good and to purge away the bad in us, that before
our life in this world ends we may be fitted for
another.

And this, again, is a thought which naturally recurs
to us at the Communion, or whenever we think of
God, that He alone is able to support us in the hour
of death. Over all the accidents of life, and the fears
of our hearts, and the difficulties of our own characters,
and the remembrances of shame and pain, and the
uncertainties of human things shaking like leaves in
the wind, there is One who remains immovable, who
is our Friend and Father ; and in that thought we have
peace and strength.

Secondly, there is present with us at the Com
munion the image of the life of Christ as He appeared

xvn.] PRESENCE AND IMAGE OF CHRIST 313

to man while upon earth. The Scripture speaks of
our being dead with Christ, or of our having a life
hidden with Christ, or of our being one with Him,
or partaking of His Body and Blood, seeming to de
scribe in all these and similar phrases some near and
intimate relation. But we fear to appropriate these
expressions to ourselves, because we are afraid of
being unreal and of using words which have no mean
ing to us, either because our lives are so inadequate
to what is described by them, or because the modes of
thought used in Scripture, as in other ancient writings,
may have ceased to be familiar to us. They may
require to be translated before they can be applied
to practical use. And I think that we can imagine
some one coming to Christ and asking Him about
this difficulty, as the disciples seem to have been in
the habit of doing, — ' Lord, how wilt Thou take up
Thine abode in us, and in what manner shall we be
conscious of Thy presence ? ' and Christ answering,
as He did to a similar question, * Whoever will take
up his cross and follow Me, I am one with him ' ; and
4 Forasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these,
ye did it unto Me ' ; and ' Blessed are they that have
not seen, and yet have believed.1 For the spirit of
Christianity is not that we should maintain this or that
opinion, or use this or that form of words, but that,
maintaining any opinion and using any form of words,
we should be like Him. And Christ Himself seems
everywhere to put the inward in the place of the

314 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvii.

outward, the wider in the place of the narrower,
the principle that embraces all mankind in the place
of that which is national and exclusive ; and in this
one word to sum up the salvation of man — that we
should be like Him. And to be like Him is to live
for others and not for ourselves, to be dead to the
world and the opinion of the world, and to love
the truth. Thus, after so many ages and in such an
altered world, the image of Christ may still be present
with us.

Lastly, we carry to the Communion many private
thoughts and many personal and solemn recollections.
There are sins of which we have been guilty wrhich
we are not bound to confess to others, but which
we are bound to place distinctly before ourselves and
God, lest our moral sense should become impaired
by them, and our nature lowered and degraded. One
of the uses of solemn occasions is that they lead us
to place the requirements of God side by side with
our own actions ; they startle us out of sleep ; they
make us compare our own life with that of Christ,
our lot with that of our poorer brethren, and they
teach us to feel that for all our blessings and advan
tages we have to render an account to God. And,
besides the remembrance of our sins, there are many
other thoughts which we may fitly bring with us into
the presence of God. There is the recollection of our
past lives, with their strange tissue of good and evil,
in which we recognize the working of His power.

xvii.] CONSECRATION OF LIFE. THE DEAD 315

There are the persons whom we love, and the thought
of whom is the highest earthly motive which many of
us have for deterring us from evil. There are duties
which wre owe to others of which we may especially
think, passing each of them distinctly in affectionate
remembrance before the mind. And there is the plan
of life which we desire to consecrate to His service,
the new profession on which we are about to enter,
the work which we hope to complete if we are spared,
not from any motive of vainglory, but that we may
do something for the sake of truth, and add, if but
a little, to the stock of human knowledge. There is
the business that we have to carry on for the sake
of others rather than of ourselves, the house that we
have to set in order before we die.

And once more, there are the dead, of whom we
know so little, and whom we would not have out of
our minds because they are removed from our sight.
We do not wish to indulge any fancies about them,
or imagine that they can be affected by our prayers
for them. But still it is natural to us sometimes to
think of them ; we would not have those loved ones
altogether forgotten after many years have rolled
away, or be like strangers among us if they could
come back to earth. There is the fair child who was
taken from us ten, twenty, thirty years ago, the brother
who has left a blank which can never be replaced, the
youth who gave such promise of distinction cut off
before his prime, the mother whose love seemed never

316 THE LORD'S SUPPER [xvii.

to have an end. They do not need our poor regards,
but it does us good to spend a few minutes in thinking
of them. They seem to be so numerous as we get on
in life, and to be separated by so wide an interval
from us. What has become of them ? Where are they ?
What are they doing ? We only know that they are
in the hands of God, and that we shalj one day be
with them.

XVIII
IMMORTALITY1.

IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE SHALL BE.

i JOHN iii. 2.

THERE are some parts of religion which we are
unable to verify by experience, and which seem to be
on the uttermost limits of human knowledge. The
deepest thoughts in the soul of a man are often those
which he can neither define nor express. And some
times we put them away from us lest they should
disturb the balance of our lives, or we speak of them
in reserved and conventional formulas, or we describe
them in figures of speech or texts of Scripture which
convey no meaning to our minds, or we allow
imagination to wander and attribute a sort of inspira
tion to every feeling and fancy which plays around
them, as matters long settled, proved by a thousand
arguments, and laid upon the shelf, but not to be taken
down or reconsidered.

In this way some of the first truths of religion, and
especially the two greatest of all, the nature of God

] Preached at Balliol, 1869.

IMMORTALITY

and the faith in immortality, pass out of sight and are
in process of being lost. Some present interest of
controversy, some question of Church politics which is
a thousand miles and a thousand years away from them,
takes the place of them in our minds. The proportions
of religious truth are inverted ; the transient phase
of opinion is all-absorbing for a time. But at the
approach of death, or in any great crisis of our lives,
we return to first principles ; then we want to have
our faith confirmed about one or two important
matters. If we are to live again in another state of
being, if those who are taken from us are still alive in
some other place or manner, we must think about
these things. Though ' we see through a glass
darkly,' though we know in part only, we cannot
help asking ourselves what the apostle meant by the
words, ' It doth not yet appear what we shall be,' and
what we mean by repeating them.

Teachers of religion have often spoken of the
resurrection under imagery derived from external
nature. The various transformations of the vegetable
or animal world, the birth of creatures, the chrysalis
that opens and spreads its wings in the sunlight, the
seed that is not quickened except it die, the sudden
burst of all nature into life in every recurring Spring,
have often been used both as symbols and evidences
of that greater change which, as we believe, will one
day pass over us all. Regarded as figures of speech
they have their use ; and yet we must not press them

XVIIL] IMAGERY AND ARGUMENT 319

or argue from them, or we shall lay ourselves open
to the objection that the sensible evidence of renewal
of life which is present in the one case is wanting
in the other, and that we do not see the difference
between them. But, like other figures of speech, they
clothe our thoughts ; they teach us to realize what
otherwise would be vague and abstract to us. Ideas
of an invisible world must be rendered by earthly
images ; there is no tongue of angels in which they
can be expressed. The wonders of nature may lead
us to suspect that even in the visible world there is
more than we know or can conceive. There are
many hidden secrets there too, about the beginning or
end of the world and of the human race ; about the
causes of life and death, which have not yet been, and
perhaps never will be, unlocked. But this is not the
foundation on which our hope of immortality reposes ;
and we must not be altogether surprised or shocked
if some one points out that in this, as in so many other
theological questions, what we mistook for argument
was really an illustration.

There is another way in which mankind have been
naturally led to think of another life — through the
influence of their own circumstances — ' I shall go to
him, but he shall not return to me.' The spirits and
forms of the dead seem to hover around us and to be
about our bed and about our path, sometimes for a
shorter, sometimes for a longer period, after they have
been taken from us. Their kindness, their loveliness,

320 IMMORTALITY [xvm.

their pleasant ways still encircle us; we seem as if
we should never see the like of them again on earth.
The staff of life, or the comfort of life, or the light of
life has been taken from us, and we are left to finish
the journey in cold and solitude. And we have
heard of those whom the loss of a mother or a friend
has won over to the belief in immortality. These are
not merely Christian feelings, they are natural to man.
The ancient Greek had the same aches and pains
about his departed ones. The worship of ancestry is
one of the oldest and most universal parts of religion ;
and many books have been written to prove that 4 we
shall see and know our friends in heaven,' and that
those ties will be renewed in another world which
have formed the best part of our lives in this. But, if
we reflect, we shall see that it is a train of thought
which we cannot trust ourselves to pursue ; our sor
rows will not allow us to be impartial about those
whom we love. There is a better comfort and a
deeper truth in the answer of Christ to the shrewd
question of the Sadducees — ' In the Resurrection they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as
the angels of God in heaven ' : for the dead are ever
fading out of sight ; for a few weeks or months, or
perhaps years, they may be very near to us, and after
a time we feel their loss in a less degree, not from any
loss of constancy on our parts, but because this is the
appointed order of God and the nature of our minds.
Beyond the last generation, or the one before, we

xviii.] OUR THOUGHTS OF THE DEAD 321

hardly know them ; their names are venerated on tomb
stones, and that is almost all. And yet it is a strange
thought that they who are so little to us now, though
bound to us by ties of blood, had affections and interests
and sorrows and joys as strong and vivid as we now
have. They are at a fixed point in the far distance
from us, while we are floating further and further away
from them down the stream of time. We cannot, even
in thought, reconstruct the relationship which once
subsisted. There are a few, perhaps, in that innu
merable company who still detain our longing eyes ;
whose voice, whose look, whose character, remains
with us to our life's end ; and who, if after a long
absence they could revisit the earth, like friends
returning from India or some distant land, would find
themselves not forgotten in the hurry of the world ;
and we should welcome them to the accustomed
place which had always been vacant for them. But
this is not the way in which we commonly regard the
souls of the departed: we leave them in the hands
of God, who is able to take care of them, who is as
near to them as He is to us, who is their Father and
our Father, and their God and our God.

Nor, again, should I be disposed to rest the belief in
immortality on any past fact, once happening in the
course of the world's history, for this reason : Some
one may point out to me that all past events necessarily
rest on testimony ; he may show me discrepancies in
the narrative of the event ; he may ask whether we

322 IMMORTALITY [xvm.

refuse to apply to our narrative the same principles of
evidence which are applied to another. Can I venture
to answer him by appealing to authority, still less by
denying to him the name of Christian ? And I think
that we have a strong and just feeling that the first
truths of religion cannot be rocking to and fro with
successive schools of criticism, and that whatever does
rock to and fro in this way is not a first truth ot
religion. We cannot suppose that anything important
in human life is really affected by the date or mode of
composition of a book, except in so far as our mis
taken opinion has made it so.

And the same persons may go on to ask, l Why
should we trust to the lower sort of arguments, against
which historical criticism and physical science in their
present stage seem to combine, when we have other
and higher ones ? Why should we depend on evi
dences which are external, and have no connexion with
our moral nature, which cannot be the same to all
persons and in all ages and countries (for the unedu
cated, and in the East I may say whole nations, cannot
understand the nature of historical evidence), when we
have a truer and deeper witness, and nearer home,
in our own reason and conscience?

Leaving, then, such associations and figures of
speech, as only accidentally connected with our faith in
immortality, let us consider the subject anew ; first, in
reference to the nature of God ; secondly, in relation
to ourselves ; thirdly, in relation to our fellow-men.

xviii.] ARGUMENT FROM GOD'S NATURE 323

i. We cannot think of immortality and not at the
same time think of a Supreme Being ; without Him
we are like children cast forth to swim upon an illimit
able ocean. Our strongest reason for believing in
another life is our conviction that He is, and that He
is perfectly just and true and good and wise. This
is not a discovery of our own, revealed to us by any
peculiar kind of light, but a truth common to all men,
which almost all religions in all ages have been
striving after, and which Christ our Lord came to
teach us more clearly ; to which the human race seems
to be tending, with greater difficulties indeed from
the very extent of the conception, and yet on deeper
grounds, as the thoughts of men widen with the
process of the suns. It is a truth towards which the
world is growing amid some appearances to the
contrary, under many names and in many forms,
by revelation, without revelation ; through Scripture,
through nature, as order begins to appear out of
disorder, as the mass of mankind become more agreed
about the essentials of religion, as religion begins to
be more and more identified with morality and
morality with religion, as all nations acknowledge
more and more that they are of one brotherhood and
kindred.

But, if we believe in a perfect God, we must believe
that He wills all His creatures to participate in that
perfection which He Himself is. He is the centre and
we the outskirts of His kingdom, which He, like the

Y 2

324 IMMORTALITY [xvui.

sun, is beginning to illuminate until the whole is light.
The appearances of this world puzzle us, and some
times lead us to ask what is the meaning of all
this — not light but rather darkness visible — in which
truth and error, good and evil, are at war with one
another, or more often are inextricably intertwined.
For we see good which never comes to anything,
germs and seeds which never ripen ; there appears
to be such a waste, not only of vegetable and animal
natures, but also of human and rational souls, upon
the earth. One person is taken from us just as he
is beginning to accomplish some great end, another
whose life is so necessary to his family, to the State,
or to the Church. There is so little again of any
perfect growth of character among us which is attained
in the short period of three score years and ten : the
experience of life is hardly gained when life comes to
an end. The physical laws of the world seem to pro
ceed in regular order, but the moral laws are only
beginning to be developed ; the whole course of the
world appears to be a sort of education, leading up
to that state of life and knowledge, still very im
perfect, in which we find ourselves. But then can we
really suppose that all these countless myriads who
have gone down into silence were created only for
our sake, that we might make a few steps onward in
the march of human progress ? That would be like
supposing that the fixed stars were only created to
give light to one of the satellites of the sun. Or do

xvni.] GOD'S PURPOSES, OUR IMPERFECTION 325

we imagine that we ourselves are mere stepping-stones
on which future ages are to be built up ?

The answer is that we know in part, and that the
purposes of God towards mankind are as yet only
half revealed, or, in the Apostle's language, ' Now we
see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.'
We see the beginning, but not the end ; neither can we
form any adequate conception of the manner in which
the divine nature works. Nothing in this world would
lead us to suppose that perfection wrould be a sudden
or random result ; and, if proceeding only in due
course and order, then degrees of perfection necessarily
imply also degrees of imperfection. But, if God is
perfect, all these beginnings of things which we see
around us are one day to be completed. As our
vSaviour says, ' The hairs of your head are all num
bered,' and, * Not one sparrow falleth to the ground
but your heavenly Father knoweth it.' We may
repeat after Him, ' Not one human soul in the most
remote ages, in the most distant countries, which He
has not still in His hands.' Not only the great men
of past ages, who are sometimes said metaphorically
to have an immortality of fame, still live ; but the
meanest, the weakest, the poorest, and those who
were of no account in this world, are still alive, ful
filling the work which He called them into existence
to perform. This is involved in any conception of
God which represents Him as a moral being at all ;
and to deny any part of this is to deny His moral

326 IMMORTALITY [xvm.

nature. For God has not allowed the sense of justice
to grow up in us, or prescribed this to be the rule of
our lives, that He should Himself violate His own law
when dealing with His creatures on a larger scale ;
that justice should be administered in courts of law in
the world, and consecrated in the opinions of men, and
in the great conclusion of all things be finally lost
sight of.

And, as our belief in another life is chiefly founded
on our belief in the existence of God, so our con
ception of the nature of that state is derived from our
conception of the divine. The Apostle says that c when
He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is.' This is that necessary use of meta
phors of which I was speaking ; for we know that in
outward form we cannot be like Him, who has no
form. But to be like Him is to be just as He is just,
to be true as He is true, to be loving as He is, to know
His will perfectly and to have no other will ; to
become a sort of universal nature, if I may use such
a phrase, which has no touch of interest or selfishness,
but in everything regards others equally with self.
This is the highest form in which we can conceive of
another life, and is also the pattern or ideal we place
before ourselves in this — not to be always thinking
about God, for that may overstrain human faculties,
and may sometimes lend a fire to the evil that is in us
as well as to the good ; but to be seeking to frame our
lives in His image, that we may bear in some degree

xviii.] NATURE OF THE FUTURE STATE 327

on earth the likeness which we hope to bear in
heaven.

This or something- like this is the idea which we
are able to form of another state of being- in which we
shall do the will of God perfectly, and of which
we see a trace or reflection in the lives of very few
individuals in this world. We know very well, as
I was saying at first, that these thoughts when put
into words seem poor and meagre ; they do not fill
our minds with pleasant pictures, or strew the garden
of the soul with flowers of paradise. The only way
in which we can realize them is to live in them, to
waken in ourselves the sense of a divine power which
is the embodiment of justice and truth and love, and
to think of this power as equally the Lord of this life
and another. For as another life is inseparably con
nected with God, it is inseparably connected with this
life also ; and He is the source from which they are
both derived, and the centre in which they meet.

And, as we speak or think of a perfect state of life
in which we shall be one with God and God with us,
so, guided by the same consideration of the divine
attributes, we may also think of imperfect states of
being — states of discipline and education, of struggle
and suffering, in which we are gradually prepared to
receive a higher nature ; for most of us cannot think
ourselves worthy of eternal happiness, and as little,
perhaps, deserving of eternal misery. We see all
sorts of degrees of good and evil among men, and an

328 IMMORTALITY [xvn

infinite variety of circumstances and opportunities
and we cannot suppose that, irrespective of differences
of circumstances or degrees of good and evil, another
world is divided by a hard and fast line into two
classes only. Natural justice seems to revolt at this ;
we cannot attribute to God a rule of judgement which
would seem very imperfect and mistaken and ludicrous
in man. We know indeed that many vain speculations
have been entertained respecting an intermediate state,
which have fascinated men's minds, and drawn them off
from the simpler and greater truths of religion ; and
that doctrines of purgatory and masses for the dead
have corrupted the Gospel of Christ, and been dan
gerous to morality and society. But what is not idle
conjecture, nor yet dangerous to morality and society,
but rather the foundation of them, is the belief that
God will deal with us as we are, not as we appear to
ourselves or others, by the rule of justice, estimating
our individual characters and lives according to their
circumstances, not roughly generalizing as men might
do ; and that this justice will still be like the justice of
a father to his children, subject to that love whereby
He is wishing to draw all things to Himself.

I have been speaking of a future state as imme
diately connected with our belief in God. This must
always be the chief ground of our confidence in an
invisible world. If we cannot believe that all live
unto Him in this world, we shall have a doubtful and
precarious hope of an existence beyond the grave.

xviii.] ARGUMENT FROM BEST IN HUMANITY 329

2. There are two other aspects of the subject,
however, which I was going to mention — our own
experience, and the contemplation of our fellow-men.

The best things in life speak to us of immortality.
The best thoughts of our hearts, the best persons
whom we have known, especially among the poor,
the struggle against evil, the aspiration after good, the
disinterested desire to live above the world, to devote
ourselves to others, to know more about the truth and
about God, to be like Christ — these are a sort of fore
cast of a life to come. It is hardly possible to see
how these things could continue if there were no
hopes of another state of being. Human nature would
lose faith so entirely, and would settle down, if we die
as the brutes, into living like the brutes. I do not
mean that we should feel ourselves cheated of a reward,
for the more a man is absorbed in the performance of
duty the more the idea of reward takes the form of
a more perfect performance of his duty. But we
should feel ourselves so deeply discouraged, so broken
hearted, if there were no truth better than the truth of
this world, no justice higher than this justice, no love
purer than the love of this world, no higher state of
being to which we might look forward, if all is illusion
and we are really the playthings of nature and chance.
If we were once convinced of this, then we should feel
that we had better not live. For our highest thoughts
would only seem to mock us with the bitterness of
death. A great poet, who was also a philosopher, has

330 IMMORTALITY [xvin.

argued, not from the Christian's point of view but
from the nature of things, 4that he who has an
adequate conception of the world as a whole must
have a conception of God.' In a like strain of re
flection it might be said * that he who has an adequate
conception of the depth of human nature must have
also a faith in immortality.' For the greatest thoughts
of men carry them beyond this world ; if confined to
earth they are spoiled and stunted. The willingness
to die for others, the indifference to the opinion of
mankind, the love of truth for its own sake, the perfect
disinterestedness — these are some of the qualities,
though seen in a very few, which awaken and confirm
our sense of the immortality of man.

But there is another voice within us which tells us
not to lose faith in the goodness of God or in the
order of the world, for that these are the things of
which we are most certain, and of which we have the
evidence in ourselves. ' If a man have the will to do
the works he shall know of the doctrine.' The better
a man becomes, the less he has of doubt and fear, the
more he is at peace with himself, the more he is con
vinced of the final victory of good in the world, the
more willing he is, when his time comes, to surrender
himself into the hands of God. There may be a reason
for scepticism when a man is leading a careless, sensual,
self- delusive life ; then the higher sort of things
become obliterated in his mind, and he is willing to
take his chance. But when a man is day by day and

xviii.] HOPE FOR THE MISERABLE 331

year by year trying to do his duty better, to know
more of the truth, to carry on the work of God in the
world more perfectly, in the conquest of evil, in
the aspiration after good, just in proportion as he is
free from every human and earthly influence he will
feel more assured that he is not deceiving himself, and
that God is not deceiving him.

3. But, once more, there is another point of view
from which we realize a future life, the contemplation of
our fellow-men. It is a rational and right feeling that
we and such as we, who are met here together this
day, have many undeserved blessings — good food and
clothing, good health (at least most of us have), a good
position in life, the greatest of God's gifts, educa
tion ; a bright prospect of happiness and usefulness,
if we take the means to them. It is natural that we
should think of these things, sometimes asking our
selves that question of Scripture, l Who made thee to
differ from another ? ' But what of others who have
not these, who are friendless and poor and have passed
their lives in misery ; and some who have had no
opportunity of extricating themselves from vice and
degradation, to whom it is a mere mockery to say
that this life is a state of probation, for they have been
predestined from their birth to pauperism and crime ?
Would not this world be the most unjust of worlds if
all is over with them ? Go into the wards of a hospital
in which men and women are lying ill of incurable
diseases, or into the cells of a prison, or into a lunatic

332 IMMORTALITY [xvin.

asylum, or only into the meaner suburbs of some great
city, and see there the worn, emaciated, distracted
faces of those with whom the world has gone wrong,
to whom from the beginning it has been a mistake,
who have only enough reason to raise them a little
above or degrade them a little below the animals.
Is there no better thing reserved for them ? Is there
no further lesson or meaning in all this suffering?
To one of us it may perhaps be said, ' Son, thou in
thy lifetime hadst thy good things.' But what of
Lazarus laid at the gate full of sores ? Wherever we
go, these sights of human sin and suffering, if we read
them aright, lead us to the reflection that this world is
not all.

And there is another kind of witness, which is borne
by the actions and wrongs of good and great men,
having this hope and faith in them, who have devoted
their whole lives to the good of their fellow- creatures.
When they have died for them, when they have
renounced all that men usually most desire, fame,
wealth, earthly happiness, for the interests of know
ledge, for the improvement of mankind, for the love
of Christ, has all that been a mistake ? and have the
best of men been after all the most mistaken ? There
have been some in past times who have perished at
the stake ; there have been those in our own day who
have gone down in a ship to save the lives of others.
Did the waves close over them for ever ? If so, (I hardly
like to ask the question) is not the life of Christ,

xviii.] SUFFERINGS & DEA TH OF GOOD MEN 333

instead of being- the hope and support of the world,
the greatest illusion of all ? and those words which
He spoke, ' Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do,' a deception ? and were not the saints
who followed Him and have partaken of His sufferings
only grasping at a shadow ?

Like the Apostle, we feel that God has not been
deceiving us in all this, and that Christ was not uttering
unmeaning words. And, although He has not allowed
us to enter within the veil, yet He has given witnesses
and assurances enough to guide our footsteps in this
world, and to support us in the valley of death. We
do not sorrow, when we commit our beloved ones to the
tomb, as though we were without hope, knowing that
we are giving them back to God from whom they
came, and looking forward to the time of our own
departure. We say from our inmost souls, ' Let me
die the death of the righteous and let my last end be
like his.' And, when that hour comes, though, con
sidering the imperfect nature of our lives and the
darkness that partly encircles us, we may not have
such rapturous anticipations as have been ascribed to
some of the saints of old, we still pray that we may be
able to say in faith, ' Father, into Thy hands I commend
my spirit.'

ADDITIONAL SERMON

ON FRIENDSHIP

FRIENDSHIP.

IRON SHARPENETH IRON; SO A MAN SHARPENETH
THE COUNTENANCE OF HIS FRIEND.

PROVERBS xxvii. 17.

THERE are many things said about friendship in
Scripture, and some touching- examples of the fidelity
of friends. ' A friend loveth at all times,' and l There
is one that sticketh closer than a brother,' are two
sayings about friendship which occur in the Book of
Proverbs. Another is l Faithful are the wounds of
a friend,' which means that his reproofs are true and
upright, and proceed from the love of his soul ; they
are the contrary of those ' precious balms ' which are
said to break the head. 4 He that repeateth a matter
separateth friends,' is a maxim of which the proof lies
within the experience of all of us. * Sweet language
will multiply friends ' may be compared with the more
familiar proverb, * A soft answer turneth away wrath.'
4 He that hath friends must show himself friendly,'
that is, he must be kindly and sociable, he must
talk to his friends and show them sympathy, or the
springs of friendship will soon be dried up in them.
* A faithful friend is the medicine of life ' ; he is the
medicine, and also the physician, who heals the wounds

338 FRIENDSHIP

which unkindness or misfortune have made in our
lives, who ministers to us and restores us to our
selves.

These are quaint utterances of Eastern wisdom more
than two thousand years old ; and yet they have a living
voice, and speak to modern society as much as to the
Israelites of old. Whoever was the author of them
had a profound insight into the nature of man. And
there are not only sayings of this kind, but there are
also striking and typical examples in Scripture of
personal attachments, such as that noble one of David
and Jonathan, the two men who seemed destined
almost necessarily and by the nature of the case to be
enemies of one another ; yet at first sight, as we are
told, Jonathan ' loved him as his own soul.' No cloud
of envy intercepted his admiration of the great war
rior, the sweet singer of Israel, who hereafter was to
supersede him in the kingdom. Many persons can
regard with equanimity the rise of a rival who is still
a little inferior to them. But it is only a generous
mind which can feel admiration of a superior, equal
in years or younger, without any alloy of jealousy.
Jonathan was persuaded that he was not to succeed to
the throne of his father, but he was content to take
the second place — l Thou shalt be king over Israel, and
I shall be next unto thee.' And, of all the persons at
Saul's court, the man whom he was destined to sup
plant was the only one whom David trusted. There
is no more touching scene than the last farewell of

SCRIPTURAL INSTANCES 339

these two, when * David arose out of his hiding-place
and bowed himself three times, and they kissed one
another, and wept with one another until David
exceeded.'

Remember again the deep and earnest affection of
the two women, Ruth and Naomi, though of different
country and origin : * Whither thou goest I will go,
where thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be
my people, and thy God my God ; where thou diest
I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do
so unto me and more also, if aught but death part
thee and me.'

Turning to the New Testament, we find that
St. Paul had his younger friend Timotheus, who,
'like a son with a father, laboured with him in the
Gospel ' ; and that our Saviour Christ, though His
thoughts were not as our thoughts, was the friend of
Lazarus, and of Martha and Mary, in whose home He
sat at meat; that He 'called His disciples friends,'
adding the reason ' because He had told them all that
He had heard of the Father,' just as men tell their
whole mind to their friends ; and that, although He
loved all His disciples, yet among them there was one
who is called the ' beloved disciple,' who also ' leaned
on His breast at supper.'

If, passing from Scripture, we proceed to classical
literature, we see that friendship has a great part
both in the government of States and in the lives of
individuals ; it is an aspect of politics, and of human

Z 2

340 FRIENDSHIP

nature, and of all virtue. Partly owing to the dif
ferent character of domestic life, the tie of friendship
seems to have exercised a greater influence among
the Greeks and Romans than among ourselves. And,
although these attachments may sometimes have de
generated into licentiousness (for the best things in
human nature are not far removed from the worst),
we cannot doubt that much of what was noble in
that old life is also due to them. Such an ideal the
Greek had before him in the friendship of Achilles
and Patroclus, of Pylades and Orestes, who, as the
ancient story told, were ready to die for one another.
The school of Socrates was quite as much a circle of
friends as a band of disciples. And in Roman times
we hear of noble friendships, such as that of Scipio
and Laelius, which Cicero has described to us, or his
own friendship with Atticus, to whom, though a very
different character from himself, he communicated
his inmost thoughts, his weaknesses, his vanities,
feeling sure that he would meet with a response.

Our great dramatist again has provided us with
several types of friendship. Most of us will remember
the parting of the two friends, when the one who had
so much need to feel anxiety about his own concerns
can think only of his love for his friend :

' And even then, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And, with affection wondrous sensible,
He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.'

SHAKESPEARIAN INSTANCES 341

Or the well-known passage in Hamlet, beginning :

* Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.'

And

' Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath sealed thee for herself.'

Or the adieu of the prating old man of the world,
whose maxims seem to be so far above his character :

* The friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched unfledged comrade.'

Or again :

' This above all : to thine own self be true ;
Thou canst not then be false to any man.'

In another great play, 'Julius Caesar,' there is
a description of a quarrel between two friends, both
of whom are cast in a larger mould than ordinary
men, the one so passionate and restless, the other so
just and immovable, between whom angry words pass
until their deeper love is called forth by the over
powering sorrow of one of them. These are types
or models, which I venture to cite by way of preface,
because they illustrate the subject of which I am about
to speak this morning.

In youth, when life is first opening upon us, we
easily form friendships ; then, to be with our equals
at school or college, in any new beginning of life,

342 FRIENDSHIP

when we become our own masters, is delightful to
us : and we single out one or two, that we may share
our pleasures with them, and join in their serious
occupations. A young man, if poor in worldly goods,
may reasonably hope to be rich in friends. He him
self will be more disposed to form friendships than
in later years. If he be kindly and affectionate and
good-natured, if he cultivate the habit of conversing
with others, not wrapping himself in a moody shy
ness, he will find that friends soon begin to gather
around him. There will be no other opportunity in
after life like that which he has here. For here alone
the circle from which he may choose is practically
unlimited. Here also men are brought together from
different places and conditions, and meet one another
on the common level of education and college life.
Like draws towards like, and youth rejoices in youth.
( Let him not,' to repeat once more the words of the
poet,

' Dull his palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched unfledged comrade ' ;

but let him be ambitious of knowing those who
are a little above him, not in worldly position, but
in ability, in force of character, in goodness.

The memory of that first opening of life will be
imprinted on our minds as long as we have the recol
lection of anything ; far more (and indeed it is really
more important) than any similar period of life
which is to follow. The pleasant days of youth

IN YOUTH AND DIVERS CONDITIONS 343

will be cherished by us in imagination thirty or forty
years hence ; the remembrance of early friends will
be brought back to us in many a conversation with
old acquaintances and contemporaries, or with the
chance stranger whom we meet perhaps in a foreign
land. For we too — I mean the younger portion of
us — if we live, will have feelings about the past of
which we know nothing as yet ; and the elder among
us may go back to old scenes, which sometimes haunt
us, of loving friends now departed, of a world which
seems to have died out to us and yet is very easily
called up and near to us in thought.

Remembering these things as they affect us all,
I propose to speak to you to-day of friendship, its
nature and value, its dangers and disappointments,
its joys and sorrows ; and then I shall say a few words
of Christian friendship, which, in uniting us to a friend,
at the same time unites us to Christ and God.

In speaking of the opportunity of forming friend
ships which youth possesses, I do not mean to say that
we can acquire friends exactly as we please. Friend
ships are not made, but grow out of similarity of
tastes, out of mutual respect, from the discovery of
some hitherto unsuspected vein of sympathy: they
depend also on our powers of inspiring friendship in
others. Two men meet and talk together, and at
once they seem to understand one another : they may
differ in character, but they have also something in
common which gives them an extraordinary regard

344 FRIENDSHIP

for one another. They have found, as if by accident
and mere juxtaposition, the very person in all the
world who is most congenial to them, at any rate for
a time. Yet neither is the choice of friends altogether
independent of ourselves. A man may properly seek
for them, he may have an honourable desire to know
those who are his superiors in moral and intellectual
qualities ; or he may allow himself to drop into the
society of persons beneath him, perhaps because he
is more at home with them and is proud and shy with
his superiors. And so he gets good, or harm, out of
the companionship of those whom he loves. Such as
they are he will be in some degree ; he will take from
them his manners and style of conversation ; he will
be reflected in them and they in him. We do not
want to be judges of our fellow men (for * who made
thee to differ from another ? ') . But neither can we
leave entirely to chance one of the greatest influences
of human life.

And, first, let me speak of the character of true
friendship. It should be simple, manly, unreserved,
not weak, or fond, or extravagant, nor yet exacting
more than human nature can fairly give (for there are
other ties which bind men to one another besides
friendship) ; nor again intrusive into the secrets of
another's soul, or curious about his circumstances;
rejoicing in the presence of a friend, and not forgetting
him in his absence. It should be easy too and cheer
ful, careful of little things, but having also a sort of

FAITHFULNESS 345

dignity which is based on mutual respect. Perhaps
the greatest element of friendship is faithfulness. To
know that there is some one who wTill be always the
same to us, who has a deep and abiding affection for
us, to whom in time of trial we may turn for advice
or help, adds greatly to the security and happiness of
life. Two going together have not only a twofold
but a fourfold strength. They learn from each other,
they form the character of one another, they bear one
another's burdens ; they make up for each other's
defects, they double each other's pleasures. Few
persons are so constituted that they can live wholly
without kindness. It is this want in our nature that
friendship supplies. When the heart is in bitterness
or disappointment ; when we have made a mistake,
or are going to make a mistake ; when wre are over
sensitive to the opinion of the world ; we cannot value
too highly the counsel and sympathy of another. At
such times the appearance of a friend is like the
return of sunshine, giving light and warmth to the
dull and chill landscape.

The ancients spoke of three kinds of friendship :
one for the sake of the useful, another for the sake of
the pleasant, a third for the sake of the good and
noble. The first is a contradiction in terms, for no
man can be the friend of another with a view to his
own interests ; this is a partnership and not a friend
ship. A sensitive and honourable mind will rather
fear lest some indirect advantage may impair the

346 FRIENDSHIP

disinterestedness of true friendship. Yet there are
services, even pecuniary, rendered by friends to one
another which are * twice blessed.' Of the pleasures
of friendship I need hardly speak to you. For every
one in youth knows the delight of having- a friend.
Who has not felt his heart beat quicker, standing at
the door of the house at which he expects to meet
him after a long absence ? How many things have
we to say to him ; how much to hear from him, pro
tracting into the night our conversation with him,
which seems as if it would never end. Even the
common incident of paying a visit to an old friend
is the source of a great deal of pleasure to us. So
naturally formed are we for friendship; so great are
the blessings which flow from it.

But let us now consider further, whether, in ancient
phraseology, there may not be a friendship for the
sake of the noble and the good. Men are dependent
beings, and we cannot fail to see how much more,
when acting together, they may do for the elevation
of one another's characters, and for the improvement
of mankind. Thus friendship becomes fellow service
in daily work ; perhaps in the management of a
school, or a college, or an office ; and, when there is
no such connexion, at any rate a sympathy about all
the higher objects in which the friends take an in
terest. They seek to impart to one another the best
which they have ; they inspire one another with high
and noble thoughts ; they may sometimes rejoice

FOR NOBLE AND GOOD ENDS 347

together over the portion of their work which has
been accomplished, and take counsel about that which
remains to be done ; or perhaps congratulate one
another on some public event in which they took
a more distinct part. They desire, if I may use a
homely expression, to keep one another up to the
mark ; not to allow indolence or eccentricity or weak
ness to overgrow and spoil their lives. And some
times, though with care and reserve, they will speak
to one another of faults and mistakes. For we cannot
see ourselves exactly as others see us, nor can we hear
what others say of us. And, although the candid friend
has a bad name, yet there are crises of life in which
the words of friendship may be golden, and may save
us from protracted misery or one long mistake. A
faithful friend cannot stand by and see another on the
high road to ruin without expostulating. Seldom,
though this is a minor matter, will words dictated by
true affection be found to give our friend pain or
offence ; the love which we bear to another is the
measure of what we can say to him.

But this is an ideal of friendship which is rarely
attained in this world. Like the other goods of life,
friendship is commonly mixed and imperfect, and
liable to be interrupted by the changing circumstances
or tempers of men. Few, comparatively, have the
same friends in youth and age, unless bound to them
by the tie of relationship. Some of our youthful
friendships are too violent to last ; they have in them

348 FRIENDSHIP

some element of weakness or sentimentalism ; the
feeling passes away, and we become ashamed of them
and desire that they should be no more remembered.
Sometimes the characters of men develop differently ;
or their interests become opposed ; or their opinions,
as Cicero remarks about politics, or, as we should
more often say, about the Church and religion,
diverge widely ; or at some critical time a friend has
failed to stand by us, and then our love to him grows
cold, and the point of view from which we regard his
whole character is altered. Friendships should not
be lightly broken ; but, when they are broken, they
cannot be easily resumed. Only let us remember
that there are duties which we owe to the ' extinct '
friend, as I may term him, who perhaps on some
fanciful ground has parted company with us. We
should never speak against him, or make use of our
knowledge about him. Let us remember his former
kindness, and bury his coldness or disloyalty ; we
may have even learned from him lessons which he
has forgotten himself; for the memory of a friendship
is like the memory of the dead, not lightly to be
spoken of or aspersed. Yet the breaking up of a
friendship and the loss of a friend is more often due
to our own fault than to circumstances. We have
been negligent of him ; we don't see much of him,
as people say ; we have not l kept the friendship in
repair ' ; and thus insensibly alienation arises. Or he
may have written or said something about us which

ITS RISKS AND BREACHES 349

is irritating-, and we may make it an excuse for cast
ing- him off. But many things may be said against
most of us which are perfectly just, and from which
we may learn something- about ourselves and about
the truth. We should at least allow criticism, whether
we are enlightened by it or not, to flow off from us,
and not to disturb our minds or our relations to
others. Nor can any man be talked down, any more
than he can be written down, except by himself.
A passing word should not be suffered to interrupt
the friendship of years. ' Admonish a friend ; it may
be that he hath not done it : and if he have done
it that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it
may be that he hath not said it : and if he have that
he speak it not again.' Persons often give uninten
tional offence because they are uneasy with them
selves. It is a curious observation, that the most
sensitive natures are also the most liable to pain
the feelings of others. Nor is the reason far to
seek ; for they are so engrossed with their own sen
sibilities that they have no room for the thought of
others. In friendships, as in families, a great deal
of misery has been caused from the misunderstanding
of this. Those who are yearning- for sympathy, for
kindness, for forgiveness, nevertheless wear a cold or
haughty exterior. Among- the better sort of men and
women, half the evils of life seem to rise from a want
of imagination. They are too literal and positive ;
they do not put themselves in another's situation ;

350 FRIENDSHIP

they do not understand one another's trials. Many of
us must have known families in which for years, some
times almost for generations, there has been no peace
or comfort ; and we wonder how such good people
should have lived in such an unchristian manner, and
have done so little for the happiness of one another.
Is not the cause of this mainly inattention to one
another's characters ? Though we may with a certain
justice attack these foibles and infirmities of human
nature, yet we are all liable to them to some extent,
and therefore should all seek to minister to them.
There is a great deal of magnanimity required, and
a long experience, before we can fully realize or over
come the petty jealousies and irritations of life. Tried
by the ethical standard of virtue and vice, these bitter
nesses may seem trifles. But any one who wishes to
raise the character of society either here or elsewhere,
who would strengthen the bonds of the family, or
make friendship permanent or lasting, must acknow
ledge that he can effect these objects in any degree
only by an entire freedom from personality in him
self, and a loving consideration of the feelings of
others.

Lastly, I proposed to speak to you of Christian
friendship, which is another aspect of the ideal
friendship, though in some respects different. For
the spirit of a man's life -may be more or less con
sciously Christian. That which others regard as the
service of man, he may recognize to be the service of

ITS CHRISTIAN TYPE 351

God ; that which others do out of compassion for
their fellow creatures he may do also for the love of
Christ. Feeling that God has made him what he is,
he may seek to carry on his work in the world as
a fellow worker with God : remembering that Christ
died for us, he may be ready to lay down his life for
other men. And so of friendship ; that also may be
more immediately based on religious motives and
may flow out of a religious principle. * They walked
together in the house of God as friends,' that is, if
I may venture to paraphrase the words, ' They served
God together in doing good to His creatures ' : even
their earthly love to one another was sanctified by
the thought that they were in His presence. And
sometimes they poured forth their aspirations in
prayer, or at the Communion, that their friendship
might be worthy of servants of Christ ; and that they
might find the meeting-point of their lives in Him.
For human friendships constantly require to be puri
fied, and raised from earth to heaven* And yet they
should not lose themselves in spiritual emotion, or in
unreal words. Better that friendship should have no
element of religion than that it should degenerate
into cant and insincerity. But there may be some
amongst us who, like St. Paul, are capable of feeling
a natural interest in the spiritual welfare of others ; or,
if you like the expression better, in the improvement
of their characters ; that they may become more such
as God intended them to be in this world. And all

352 FRIENDSHIP

of us may sometimes think of ourselves and our
friends as living- to God, and of human love as bearing
the image of the divine.

But in some respects Christian friendship is not
merely the religious aspect of the ideal of the ancients :
it is also different. For it is not merely the friend
ship of equals, but of unequals ; the love of the weak
and of those who can make no return, like the love of
God towards the unthankful and the evil. Perhaps
for this reason it is less personal and individual, and
more diffused towards all men. It is not a friendship
of one or two, but of many. Again, it proceeds
from a different rule — ' Love your enemies.' It is
founded upon that charity which ' beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.' Such a friendship we may be hardly able to
reconcile with our own character, or with common
prudence. Yet nothing short of this is the Christian
ideal which is set before us in the Gospel. And here
and there may be found a person who has been
inspired to carry it out in practice. I will tell you
an anecdote which has lately come within my own
knowledge. Two friends had been warmly attached
to one another for many years, when one of them
began to lose his reason. The malady, as is not un
commonly the case in these singular visitations, showed
itself in extreme hatred and abuse of his former
friend. The other took him into his family, and
succeeded in restoring him to the world, after a few

ABOVE THE WORLD AND THE GRAVE 353

months, completely cured. Is not this something-
like what the Scripture calls ' bearing the image of
Christ ' ?

Lastly, some among us have known what it is to
lose a friend. There are many reflections suggested
to our minds by such a recollection. Death is a great
teacher ; the death of others, as well as the thought of
our own, teaches us many things which we have im
perfectly realized in life. Who that has lost a friend
would not wish to have done more for him now that
he is taken from us ? How little should we have
regarded any cause of offence which he had given us,
if we had known that he was so soon to leave us !
We recall the scenes in which we were accustomed to
meet him ; we remember the books which he loved ;
we treasure up the words which we shall hear no more.
And where is he ? Most of us have in our mind's
eye some one no longer living, about whom we feel
a peculiar interest. It may be an elder friend, who
first drew us out, and taught us to have confidence in
ourselves ; or a youth of our own age who set us an
example of a higher kind of life ; or some sweet face
may be recalled to us upon which parents and loving
friends were accustomed to gaze * as upon the face of
an angel ' ; of one whose gentle ways we knew, and
who still seems to linger among us. Or we may be
reminded of the venerable presence of some aged
man, with whom we used to sit and talk of times
past, whose kindness and charitable judgement of his

A a

354 FRIENDSHIP

fellow men seemed ever to increase with increasing
years ; of whom, also, it might be said, ' When the
eye saw him it blessed him, and when the ear heard
him it gave witness to him ' ; or some distinguished
person whom we had known from very ancient days,
who ' clung to us like a brother ' when he became
eminent as when we were youths together, with
whom we had an unclouded friendship ; or, if at
times, like all human things, a little clouded, yet that
makes no difference ; we only wish that we had
understood him better or been able to do more for
him. Where is he, or she ? and shall we ever see
them and speak to them again? We cannot tell.
They are withdrawn from our sight, and the lan
guage of this world is no longer applicable to them.
But the memory of them may still consecrate and
elevate our lives. The thoughts of a departed friend
or child, instead of sinking us in sorrow, may be
a guiding light to us ; like the thoughts of Christ
to the first disciples, bringing many things to our
remembrance of which we were ignorant. And if
we have hope in God for ourselves, we have hope
also for them ; we believe that they rest in Him, and
that no evil shall touch them.

THE CHOICE OF A VOCATION1.

NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSINESS, FERVENT INSPIRIT.
SERVING THE LORD. — rtf <nrov8fj ^ owripoi, r$

ROMANS xii. n.

THE latter clause of this verse is remarkable for a
various reading older than any of our ancient Greek
MSS., and widely spread in the oldest Latin copies.
Instead of " serving the Lord," there were some in the
time of Jerome, and probably even of Cyprian, who
read " serving the time," not Kvpiw but /caipa. I may
remark in passing that the difference of writing would
be very slight, for both words would be contracted,
and the first, tcvpia), would be spelt in the ancient MSS.
with two letters, having a line written over them, and
the second, /caipq), with three.

The first of these two readings, that which is
followed in the English Version, is supported by nine-
tenths of the most ancient authorities, the second by
not more than one-tenth. Yet this preponderance of
authorities is not wholly decisive, for there are
passages of the New Testament in which an almost
universal consensus of MSS., Fathers and versions is
certainly mistaken, as in the well-known words of

1 Preached in 1881.

356

John i. 28, " Bethany beyond Jordan," early noted by
Origen, where in the Authorised Version the word
Bethany has been changed into Bethabara. Bethany,
as we all of us know, was a place near to Jerusalem,
consecrated by many associations, but there is no trace
of any other place of the same name either beyond
Jordan or elsewhere. Thus we see that in the text of
Scripture there is an element of accident which even
in the very oldest copies is not wholly eliminated, and
in these and similar cases we have sometimes, though
rarely, to appeal from the external evidence to what
is inaccurately termed the internal; that is to say,
from the letter of the MSS. to the context of the
passage, to the spirit or style of the writer in other
passages, or to our knowledge of some fact (as in the
instance which I have just quoted) inconsistent with
the common reading.

Let us repeat the text once more in its connection,
and ask of ourselves the question, Which is the more
natural reading ? " Be kindly affectioned one to
another with brotherly love, in honour preferring one
another.

" Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord.

" Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, con
tinuing instant in prayer."

Which agrees best with the general sense, " serving
the time " or " serving the Lord " ?

The first appears at first sight not to be a precept

357

of the Gospel at all, for how could the Apostle exhort
Christians to be " time servers " ? We have to find
some curious meaning for the words, perhaps an
allusion to the day of the Lord which the early
Christians supposed to be near at hand; we might also
compare St. Paul's injunction that we should become
" all things to all men," which has passed into a
proverb ; or we might be reminded of the advice which
he gives to his Corinthian converts, that it was better
not to marry because " the time was short." Still, the
term " serving " (8ou XeiWre?) is not suited to express
this nobler " service to the time " ; the idea intended
would hardly be described in such a passing and
ambiguous manner. It is a hasty catching at a parallel
passage — that error which has been so often the bane
of interpreters — when one of the Fathers quoted in
support of this reading the words, " Redeeming the
time, because the days are evil."

So ancient an error, however, is not to be hastily set
aside like the chance miswriting of a copyist. It is
interesting and instructive to trace its probable origin
in the writings of the Fathers who have preserved it.
They stumbled, as we do, at the words, " serving the
Lord." " Why," they asked themselves, " amid so
many particular precepts should this general one,
which includes them all, be inserted ? " " Diligence,"
" Hope," " Patience," are Christian virtues, but why
add to these the whole sum of Christian duty —
" Serving the Lord " ? It is like adding an eleventh

353

commandment, " Thou shalt do no evil," to the other
ten. The difficulty which arose in their minds is a
very natural one, and there are two answers to it.
First, that the words, " serving- the Lord," have a
special reference to what has preceded, and modify
the other precepts. As if the Apostle had said,
" Doing these things as a service to God "; or in words
which he addressed to the Ephesians, " Not with eye
service as men pleasers, but as the servants of God"

And there is another reason why this objection,
though a very natural one, is not well founded: for in
many passages of the Epistles the particular is inter
mingled with the general; and when there appears to
be logical order and arrangement, out of place, accord
ing to our ideas of style, there comes in some sacred
but familiar thought, such as the love of Christ, or the
service of God, which seem to the Apostle as though
they could never be inopportune, because his mind is
filled with them.

I have dwelt thus far upon the letter of the text
because several principles both of textual criticism
and of interpretation may be illustrated from it. First,
there is the great principle of all, that the text of the
New Testament must be based on the earliest MS.
and versions, and on citations of the oldest Fathers; a
principle in which critics of every school of theology
may be said to be now agreed. Secondly, where
these external authorities all err, as they very rarely
do, or when they are divided, as is not unfrequently

359

the case, we must have recourse, though doubtfully
— for there are some things in ancient writings which
can never be accurately determined — we must have
recourse to the context, or the use of language, or the
modes of thought in the same writer. Thirdly, in the
matter of interpretation we observe that parallel
passages are a very precarious help, and may easily
be made to sustain a foregone conclusion; it is a nice
judgment which can compare truly one passage with
another, or balance the immediate with the remote
context. Fourthly, I would remark that in Scripture
we must not expect the same logical point or the same
precise use of terms which we find in classical Greek.
The meaning of language in the New Testament is
upon the whole not uncertain, but it is different; and
its peculiar nature must be gathered almost entirely
from the study of Scripture itself, and the usage of
each writer of Scripture from himself.

And now, leaving this question of the text, let us
proceed to the general subject. I will not stop to
inquire whether the first words, " Diligent in business,"
are quite correctly translated — they are more intel
ligible, at any rate, than the Revised Version, " In
diligence not slothful," and are a fair equivalent for
the Greek. Even if there be a slight inaccuracy, the
same meaning is to be found in many other passages
of which the translation is undisputed. On this
familiar expression, " Not slothful in business," then
I propose to hang the consideration of our future lives.

36°

As we are standing on the threshold, and before the
door is opened to us, there are some questions which
must often pass through our minds. Both our duty
and our interest seem to demand of us that we should
look forward a few years.

What profession or calling in life are we thinking
of? Which are best suited to our own characters?
The days of our youth are pleasant — they pass
unheeded by — and our University career comes to an
end before we are well aware. At its conclusion we
should not be helpless and feeble, now entertaining
one fancy, now another, with a good deal of pain and
anxiety to ourselves. But we should have a definite
plan of life based upon the best knowledge and advice
which we can obtain, as well as upon our own
experience. It is a great step which we shall one day
make from the University, which is a kind of home to
us, into the outer world, and it should be firm and
decisive, long considered by us; it is the final step
from youth to manhood ; we should see the way clearly
before us, and there should be no looking back; we
should have courage and energy. We should not
stand shivering in the cold before we take the plunge.
The text speaks of diligence in business. I will begin
by asking, What are the qualities which make a good
man of business? We may divide them into the
qualities which are concerned with things, and the
qualities which are concerned with persons. There
is the clear and faultless handwriting, the neat and

36 1

symmetrical arrangement of figures, the unerring
addition, the tabulated page, the disposition of all
things in their places so that they may be most easily
seen or found; these are among the outward signs of
the man of business. There is again punctuality in
answering a letter or keeping an appointment, clear
ness in giving a direction, courtesy, good temper,
readiness; these, too, are parts of business. And there
are higher qualities than these, such as judgment,
coolness, the habit of distrusting ourselves in trans
actions with which we are not familiar, the selection of
right instruments, the power of organisation, the
knowledge of mankind and of the world. The man
of business must have some social qualities also; he
must be kindly, popular, willing to make friends with
others, not silent or reserved; he must know what to
say and when to say it; he must be "neither in the
way or out of the way," but in his place always; and
he must be up and doing. In our small way of busi
ness — for the term is of wide application, and has a
certain place in the lives of all men — some of these
qualities will be required. A few minutes a week
should be devoted by each of us to seeing how we
stand in the matter of money; a few simple rules,
which need not be particularised, for we all know
them, will be enough to keep us straight; then we shall
have no unpleasant surprises or concealments, no
necessity for excuses. One great source of anxiety in
life will be removed. And we shall acquire a habit of

business which will be lasting, and may be of great
value to us hereafter when we are called upon to
in important affairs.

Most young men are desirous of achieving ind(
pendence or distinction, of not being a burden to thei
families, of accomplishing some good work in the
day and generation. But few comparatively are
aware of the qualities upon which success depends; of
the defects of character which render it impossible.
There are some faults which pass unnoticed in youth,
for affection is not very critical, and there is no one to
tell us of them in later life. Some men are always
wondering why others succeed, why they are doomed
to failure and disappointment. They complain of the
times, of the want of opportunities, of the indifference
of friends, of the overcrowding of professions, of the
injustice of the world, not seeing that the manly and
courageous spirit makes opportunities for itself, and
asks for no help but its own. If they are married they
drag down others with them; their life is not the less
a tragedy because it is so very commonplace; until in
the final scene the pathetic words of the poet are
realised : —

So age and sad experience hand in hand

Led him to death, and made him understand,

After a toil so painful and so long,

How all his life he had been in the wrong.

Now, one of the principal causes of these miserable
failures in life is the want of habits of business. A

363

young man has no method or conduct. He is, per
haps, economical, or, at any rate, not extravagant ; but
he is always behindhand in his accounts, or irregular
in his payments; he has good abilities, but he has no
systematic knowledge; he is always at work and
always losing time. With twice the labour — for order
is, indeed, a rest which nature has provided for all of
us — he produces half the result. He may have many
virtues and gifts, but he gets the reputation of being a
bad manager of his life and of his time, perhaps of
having an ill-regulated mind, and then he finds, un
accountably to himself, that he does not succeed. If
there is a vacant place in a school or an office, he is
not promoted to it; the client passes his door; if there
is some work to be done he is not commissioned to
undertake it. No one tells him the reason why, and
self-love long holds out against the logic of facts. Few
things are sadder than these silent disappointments
in middle life of good and accomplished men who
have failed to gain the confidence of their contem
poraries; they have often good nature and good
intentions; they may have gained high University
distinction. And yet almost at a glance the experi
enced eye sees that they are not fit to be trusted in a
responsible position; they learn too late the meaning
of those singular words of the Gospel, " If ye be un
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall
commit to your trust the true riches ? "

Some qualifications such as I have described are

364

needed in every calling or profession; without habits
of business no man can walk safely or thread his way
through the maze of circumstances. But now a
further question arises, What profession shall we
choose ? What is the best for us ? And for which
are we best suited ? A large proportion, perhaps a
majority of those here present, are looking forward to
entering one of the two great professions, the Church
or the Bar; they are the two most opposite ways of
life, and in England they both have a peculiar
character. The thought of one or other of them is
probably present to the minds of most of us. And as
it would be impossible to pass in review all the various
callings to which an educated man may devote him
self, instead of attempting to do so I think that it will
be more instructive to consider the relative advantages
or disadvantages of these two only, not looking at the
prizes which they are supposed to offer, but at their
effect on the character. Either of them has its own
trials and difficulties which we must face; either of
them, besides the regular and direct good which an
honest and able man effects by the mere practice of
his calling, offers subsidiary paths of good and useful
ness. He who is in a profession should also be above
it, above its narrowness, above its worldliness, above
its prejudices and party spirit. The lawyer will be
none the worse for sometimes looking at the world
with the eyes of the clergyman, or the clergyman for
possessing some of the worldly knowledge of the

365

lawyer. In this place it is a great advantage that we -
should go out of ourselves and hear what others say
or think of us. Are we aware that while some of us
are uneasy and ill-content, fancying that Oxford alone
is unfavourable to study, the world would tell us that
here in these ancient seats of learning, in the quiet and
comfort of our college rooms, living in comparative
affluence, surrounded by libraries and museums, amid
fair buildings and gardens, we possess a combination
of advantages such as can never exist in the bustle of
a great city, such as hardly ever existed before, for
teaching, for thought, for self-improvement, for
growth in every kind of knowledge ? Let those of us
who find our profession here enjoy these blessings and
be grateful for them.

First, then, let me speak to you of the law, which
seems to require the greatest effort and ability, and is
generally supposed to offer the highest rewards. No
one should choose such a profession who has not con
siderable vigour both of body and mind; who has not
the gift of accuracy and the power of mastering facts;
who cannot see his way clearly through an argument.
These qualities must either be implanted in us by
nature, or we must acquire them. Nothing is more
adverse to legal study than what may be called the
slovenly habit of mind which is sometimes found even
in intelligent people — the habit of mind which knows
nothing correctly, which remembers nothing distinctly,
which cannot be depended on to state a fact truly, or

366

:

-iy

to carry a point from one case to another. The
lawyer does not require genius or originality — rarely
will any philosophical powers he may possess be called
into exercise; but he requires judgment trained by
long habit

Till old experience do attain

To something of prophetic strain.

He must not dissolve the law in dreams of his own
imagination, nor can he always reduce its necessary
technicalities to the rules of common sense. He can
not succeed by any mere trick of speech, nor can he
ever be a lawyer worthy the name without very great
and continuous labour. His first principles are not
general ideas of morality or of politics; they are based
on a profound study of his own subject. Ignorant
persons often scoff at him just because they do not
understand this unavoidable complexity of human
affairs; he is striving, as far as it is possible, to reduce
them to rules ; that in this labyrinth of the world man
kind may with some degree of certainty be able to
know and apply the law under which they live. He
has to dwell in the " dry light " of absolute impar
tiality, to be on his guard against any motive or
mental tendency which may interfere with his
judgment — the love of paradox, his own ingenuity,
the habit of anticipating a conclusion. He will wait
until all the facts are sifted, and all the provisions of
the law clearly present to his mind.

36?

We can easily perceive that in such a profession
there are many noble elements of intellectual
training. The refinements of art, the attractions of
poetry, are wanting, but there is a manly lesson to be
learned in it. The lawyer passes his days and nights
in the search after truth and fact. And there are
moral qualities which are drawn out by it, such as
courage and perseverance. Probably most persons
who deserve to succeed do in the long run attain
success, but there are often many years of waiting and
discouragement. He who enters on such a profession
must expect trials of this sort, and must resolve not to
give way under them. If he has a real interest in his
study, and his mind does not lose its energy, he will
not regret that time has been allowed him for deeper
study. Nothing shows the character of a man more
than the right use of opportunities when he is left to
himself and is his own master. And his first care will
be to employ to the utmost the period of his student
life; for in law, as in other things, what is not learned
at the right time is rarely learned afterwards. Next,
those long years of waiting will be matter of thought
and consideration — how can he turn them to the best
account, not losing heart or allowing himself to be
diverted into flowery paths, but laying in them the
foundations of future eminence. These are the
thoughts with which a man should enter upon the
profession of the law; hopeful with the kind of hope
which a man has who is commencing a long and

368

difficult task, confident in himself, too, that he will not
faint or be untrue to the calling which he has chosen.

As success begins to shine upon his path he will
seek to show in his career the virtues which are, or
ought to be, characteristic of his profession —
independence, fairness of mind, dignity, honesty of
purpose, loyalty in the cause of his client He knows
that there is a higher as well as a lower spirit in which
a cause may be conducted. He will feel that litiga
tion is one of the greatest of evils, and will seek by
every means in his power to prevent it. Here, as in
many other ways there is abundant opportunity for
proving that he can set other things above his own
interests. And as he gains influence, he may, perhaps,
be able to aid in improvements of the law, which must
be known first before it can be reformed. There is
no greater blessing to a country than clear and simple
laws, but this is a blessing which can never be attained
unless great lawyers are prepared to devote their
minds and lives to such a task. This is the ideal
which those who are apt to think the profession of the
law worldly or selfish may be invited to lay before
themselves, and which another generation may
possibly see realised. It is a strange story of the
philosopher-lawyer about a hundred years ago, who
was so profoundly struck by the injustice of the law
in the cause which was his first brief that he
renounced, once and for ever, the practice of his pro
fession. To that act and to that life — certainly not

369

the life of an amateur law reformer — may be traced
nearly every legal improvement which has taken place
during the last century. Another great lawyer, about
seventy years ago, devoted for more than ten years the
whole energies of his life and mind, and his great legal
attainments, to the reformation of the criminal code.
Among English lawyers there is no one of a nobler
and purer type than Sir Samuel Romilly. I will add
another example of a great character trained among
the technicalities of the law. " I have seen," says
Lord Shelburne, " what I have previously considered
could not possibly exist, a man absolutely free from
fear and hope alike, yet full of life and warmth;
nothing in the world can disturb his repose; he lacks
nothing himself, and interests himself actively in
everything that is good; I have never been so pro
foundly struck by any one in the course of my travels ;
and I feel sure that if ever I accomplish anything great
in what remains of my life, I shall do so encouraged by
my recollection of M. de Malesherbes." This is the
illustrious jurist who had been disgraced for his protest
in favour of the right of Parliament, and at the end of
his life stood forward to plead the cause of Louis
XVI. before the Convention.

Once more let me come back to the young student
of law, and ask him whether he, too, amid the diligent
study of his profession, may not find some other
interest which he can embrace with it? In all large
cities there are duties to be performed which are best

37°

performed by educated men — public duties of an un
ambitious sort, the good or bad fulfilment of which
makes a great difference to those who are helpless;
that is, the poor. The lawyer, too, has his oppor
tunities for charity of a peculiar kind which cannot be
performed by others. It is not good for any of us to
live entirely in his own class, with no thought or
knowledge of what is below us.

It has become a commonplace of English political
writers to lament the want of local self-government.
What does this mean but the want of that public
spirit in educated men which is willing to spend time
and take pains about small and disagreeable matters ?

Side by side with the life of the lawyer we will now
place that of the clergyman, which has its trials, too,
especially in the present age, and its blessings, and its
temptations, and its effects on the mind and character.
Two College friends parting company when they
leave the University, the one taking holy orders, the
other going to the Bar, will have very different
experiences of life. If we could suppose them meet
ing again after an absence of thirty years, how deeply
marked each would see in the other the lineaments of
their respective professions. They would go back to
the days of their youth — the days which they passed
at the University — the old stories and other recollec
tions would have a never-dying charm for them; but
still, for the most part, they would find that they were
living in worlds apart. In many respects the

character which is suited for the legal profession is
not equally suited for the duties of a clergyman. The
clerical profession ought not to have any concern with
motives of ambition; yet these motives do, indeed,
very largely enter into all professions, nor is it easy to
say how far they are legitimate. Supposing a man to
be conscientious in the performance of his duties, does
it very much matter what are the inducements which
determine its choice? So says the man of the world.
In actual life it is argued we must not expect a clergy
man to be very different from other people; he wishes
to settle, he wants to maintain and promote his
family, he would like to increase his income, which he
sometimes covers by the euphemism of " extending
his usefulness." He " best preserves the via media
in theology who keeps his eye on preferment." There
is no great harm in all this, or perhaps I should rather
say that this is only what we must expect from human
nature. Still, I would remark that he who enters the
Church from these motives has lost the highest good
of it: he is not one man but two; under the appearance
of a zeal for the salvation of souls and the improve
ment of mankind he is really pursuing the objects of
earthly ambition. It is not of such clergymen, how
ever respectable, that I propose to speak to you, but
of the clerical life in its idea, not overgrown with the
concerns of this world.

Its motto should be like the motto of Christ
Himself, " He went about doing good" In this one

372

word the whole office of the Christian minister may
be summed up. He goes about healing the sorrows
of men and ministering to their necessities, giving eyes
to the blind, knowledge to the ignorant, food to the
poor; he is the friend, physician, teacher, lawyer,
peacemaker of everybody in the parish. To him all
men turn naturally for advice and protection; he is a
sort of mediator between the world and his
parishioners; the educated person, who is ever ready
to act for the uneducated; especially will he take
charge of the young from a sense of the unspeakable
importance of the first years of life; they will be his
children, and he will be in a manner their father,
bound to them by the most sacred ties. And his
thoughts will hardly stray from this family of his into
other spheres of duty or influence any more than the
thoughts of other parents are diverted from their
children.

Such is, or ought to be, the life of a Christian
minister — the life to which those of us who desire to
be clergymen should aspire. Do we doubt that in a
generation any parish, even the roughest, would yield
to the influence of such a character, or that in a few
years it might become civilised, humanised,
Christianised? Great original powers might find a
work in accomplishing this result; it might also be
effected by a person of, very moderate intellectual
gifts. The genuine love of mankind, and the pity
which is engendered by love and the natural pain

373

which is felt at their helpless and degraded state, is a
more powerful instrument for reforming and convert
ing them than " the tongues of men or of angels."
There is one language which all men understand, to
the voice of which no human being is inaccessible —
the language of kindness. Through the sick wife or
child, when the heart is wrecked by sorrow or death,
this " still small voice " finds its way to the rudest
nature; and the true minister of the Gospel knows
how to seize on these opportunities and make them
the occasions of permanent good. Sometimes there
will occur in his parish that singular phenomenon
which is called a " revival " — he will not laugh or
sneer at it, for he knows that rude and uneducated
natures are often overpowered by a religious influence,
carrying them whither they know not. But he will
tell them of the transient nature of such influences; he
will bring the light of experience to bear upon them;
he will insist that by their fruits only they can be
judged. " Let the drunkard forsake his way," and
there will be a real revival. Through their natural
emotions he will seek to lead them on to the real bases
of religion.

One of the chief sources of a minister's influence,
and one of his chief means of usefulness, is preaching.
Yet many a man is averse to taking upon himself the
clerical office because he is, or fancies he is, ill-adapted
for the performance of this duty. He is not literary,
he is not eloquent; how can he be qualified to teach

374

others ? He hears preaching very commonly derided,
and is doubtful whether the practice is of any real
use. Such is the feeling. Yet, so far from preaching
being unimportant, we can hardly exaggerate its
effect Is it a small matter to seek to raise man above
the world in which they live, to increase their know
ledge in themselves, to renew in them the thoughts of
a Divine Being ? Is it nothing that they should have
impressed upon them from time to time a higher
standard of duty towards God and their fellow-men?
The best sermons are those which are the natural
out-growth of a man's character, not strained through
books, but fresh from the experience of life.

And this leads me to touch upon another
characteristic of the clergyman's profession which may
be a great good and may be a great evil to him; he is
required to maintain the appearance of goodness and
virtue. It may be a great good to him, for the neces
sity of maintaining the appearance may lead him also
to the reality, and the standard which he preaches
may become the rule of his own feeling. We can
easily imagine a person shocked at the thought day
after day of saying one thing and doing another; or,
unconsciously to himself, his words and actions may
diverge. With the language of religion on his lips he
may have been leading a worldly or immoral life Not
even upon his death-bed, perhaps, does he wake up to
a recognition of his true state. This, I think, must be
admitted to be the great temptation to which the

375

profession of a clergyman is subjected — the danger
of unconscious hypocrisy — corruptio optimi pessima.
Alas ! may he not even sink below the standard of the
world against which he preaches ? " Let every man
that standeth take heed lest he fall." Let him and all
of us test our lives and ourselves by the standard of
those actions which are seen by no human eye, which
receive no approbation or disapprobation from our
fellow-men; thus only can we know ourselves truly.

There are some other points in which the minister
of the Gospel would do well to hear what the world
has to say of him. First, I may mention that minor,
but still very serious, fault of which I spoke at the
commencement of this sermon, the want of habits of
business. The management of a parish is a great
business, which requires method and order; the
clergyman or minister of a congregation ought to be
an example to his flock of the manner in which busi
ness should be conducted. And it is not always easy
to reconcile a zeal for the moral improvement of
mankind with a punctual attention to detail. The
charities of a parish, if they are to do good and not
harm, require a very precise and strict administration.
To the kindness which wins the hearts of men he
should add the strong good sense which is not afraid
to say " No " where the relief of physical evil is likely
to create moral degradation.

Another error is of a deeper sort, having a natural
root in the history and traditions of a great institution

376

— the error of party spirit. This is an evil which we
all acknowledge, and one into which the clergy are
more likely to fall than the laity: it is a perpetual
source of ill-will in a Christian country; on many
political and social questions it has had a most per
nicious influence. The personal dislike, the sneer, the
jest, the constant assertion of the rights or interests
of the sect or community before the interests of
morality or religion are degrading to us all. It is
then a serious question demanding thought, " How
shall a minister of religion treat those who are not of
his own community ? " Shall it be in the spirit of,
" We forbade him because he followed not us " ? Or in
the spirit of, " Other sheep I have which are not of
this fold " ? There are differences among us which
cannot be healed either in this generation, or pro
bably in the next; there are separate spheres and
fields of labour, and we must not intrude one upon
another. It is a matter of tact and individual
character what shall be the course pursued in each
individual case. But there is one rule which we may
lay down about members of other communities and
worshippers of other religions; that we shall
habitually strive to regard them in our own thoughts,
not as they are separated from us by accidents of time
and place, but as they appear in the sight of our
Father which is in Heaven.

In conclusion, let me return once more to the words
of the text, taking them in connection with the

377

remainder of the verse, " Not slothful in business,
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." All these ser
vices and professions are part of a greater service or
work, the work of God Himself, in which, if we will
believe it, we are invited to have a part; and there are
two ways in which they may be performed as " Unto
the Lord," or " As unto men." When we speak or
act from a love of approbation, from a desire to pro
duce an effect, with a view to our own interest or
advancement, then, in the language of Scripture, we
are called " pleasers of men." But when we speak
and act from a sense of duty, for the love of God, for
the sake of our fellow-men, without any thought of
interest or reward, then, in the words of the Apostle,
we are " serving the Lord." As the heavens encircle
the earth, so the service of God includes all other
services; it is the unclouded light in which they are
truly seen, the pure air which inspires them, the
element which they have in common with the
Invisible and Eternal.

THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS OF
RELIGION1.

IF THEY HEAR NOT MOSES AND THE PROPHETS,
NEITHER WILL THEY BE PERSUADED THOUGH ONE

ROSE FROM THE DEAD.

LUKE xvi. 31.

THE teaching of Christ is always recalling us from
the letter to the spirit, from the outward to the
inward, from the narrower to the wider view of the
Divine nature. He reveals to us what everybody in
their secret soul acknowledges to be the truth; He
reminds us of what we are always forgetting; He ap
peals to principles which are old as well as new; He
seeks to restore us to ourselves and to God What
can be more simple, or of more universal application,
than the words, "Believe," "Repent," "Do as ye
would that men should do unto you," " Love your
enemies," " Be pure in thought as well as in act,"
which is the high argument of the Sermon on the
Mount ? " Not that which goeth into a man defileth a
man." " God is a spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." " The hour
is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor yet in this

1 Preached in 1879.

379

mountain." " Forbid him not." " And other sheep I
have which are not of this fold." " Ye know not what
manner of spirit ye are of." " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God, with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thy
self — this is the law and the prophets." " Blessed are
ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven." " Ex
cept a man receive the kingdom of God as a little
child, he shall not enter therein." " Let him that is
without sin cast the first stone." " The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." " Go
and learn what that means, I will have mercy and not
sacrifice." " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in Heaven is perfect." " That they
all may be one, as Thou Father art in me, and I in
Thee, that they also may be one in us."

This is the religion of Christ; not the religion con
sistently taught by any section of the Christian
Church, nor practised by any considerable number of
Christians. But it is the religion in which Christ lived
and died — the religion of a person whom we believe
to be Divine. No one will say that the words just
quoted contain only a vague Deism, or that any other
words of Christ or of His disciples more truly repre
sent the character of His teaching. They make no
claim to literary excellence; some of them are taken
from the Jewish prophets; a few probably may be
detected in contemporary Rabbinical writings. Yet
they have a power of touching the heart which is
possessed by no other words. They seem to begin

38o

where ordinary religion ends, where the teaching of
Churches is apt to fail, where the witness of general
councils has been found wanting. They are the voice
of God Himself asserting the moral and spiritual
against the ceremonial and outward. Some of them
are too much for us, and we fear that they may be
rashly used against existing institutions. But though
they rise above the level of religious communities,
which are necessarily made up of mixed elements,
they may still have an abiding place in the hearts of
individuals, and through them infuse a portion of the
spirit of Christ into the Church and the world.

As men are always tending to put the letter of
religion in the place of the spirit, so they are always
tending to put the outward evidences of religion in
the place of the inward In the last century it was
generally maintained by English theologians that the
Christian religion rested on the evidence of miracles.
This is the argument which Paley has summed up in
two famous propositions. But is this the teaching of
Christ Himself? Does He not rather lead us back
from the extraordinary to the ordinary, from the
supernatural to the common ? " Except ye see signs
and wonders ye will not believe." This is a proof not
of their faith, but of their want of faith. The lessons
which He draws from nature are of another sort.
"Behold the lilies of the -field: they toil not, neither
do they spin " ; and " He maketh His sun to rise upon
the evil and upon the good, and giveth rain upon the

just and upon the unjust." Or again, " Are not two
sparrows sold for one farthing", and one of them shall
not fall to the ground without your Father." Here is
the still small voice of ordinary life more potent than
the thunder and the earthquake. And so in the
parable from which the text is taken, when the case is
put, " Nay, father Abraham; but if one went to them
from the dead they would repent " — that is to say, if
a miracle had been wrought for their salvation — our
Lord, speaking in the person of Abraham, replies, in
words which admit of many applications, " If they
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they
be persuaded though one rose from the dead."

So simple is the religion of Christ: it might be
summed up in the saying, " He went about doing
good," and bidding us be like Him. He does not
place Himself at a distance from us; He rather seeks
to create in us the feeling that, equally with Himself,
we are the sons of God. He speaks to us of His
faith and our faith, of His God and our God. If we
would confine the Christian faith to the spirit and
words of Christ, there would be an almost universal
agreement about it. We should have no need of
apologies and defences; for the words of Christ would
be their own witness, and the witness of the human
heart would confirm them. The difficulties which pre
sent themselves to our minds seem never to have
occurred to the writers of the Gospel; they are not
perplexed about the truth of the accounts, or the

382

reconciliation of science and religion. The only
explanation which either the Evangelists or Christ
Himself give of the unwillingness to receive His
message is " the hardness of men's hearts."

The essentials of Christianity remain the same,
" Yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Yet, from
another point of view, the Christian religion appears
to have been always changing, not merely in forms of
worship and government, but in spirit and doctrine.
The Nicene Church is not the same as the Church of
the Apostles; nor the Catholic as the Nicene, nor the
Protestant as the Catholic. So that if we could
imagine a single individual living from the Christian
era until now, he would have been, not of one religion,
but of several, and several times over would have
anathematised and excommunicated himself. Already
within three centuries after the death of Christ there
were pages of Christian history written in crime and
in blood. So quickly had the Christian world de
parted from the simple faith of Christ. And the
contrast between the teaching of Christ and the
development of it is not less startling when regarded
from within than from without. What connection is
there between the religion of Him who said, " Suffer
little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not,"
and of those who maintained that unbaptised infants,
without doubt, perish everlastingly ? or between Him
who said of one who was not His follower, " Forbid
him not," and those who would confine salvation to

383

the Church, and the Church to the regularly ordained
descendants of the Apostles? Or what is there in
common between the robber Synod of Ephesus, or
the tumultuous assembly of Nicea, and Him who is
described, in the words of the Prophet, " a bruised
reed shall he not break, nor quench the smoking
flax " ? And yet, perhaps, there was more in common
than we might at first sight imagine. For the good
in human beings is strangely mingled with evil. And
the bigot and the zealot may have in them a touch of
human kindness, or even of Divine love, which has
sometimes lent a power to evil.

Between the fourth and the sixteenth century the
Christian Church underwent greater and greater
changes. New ideas arose, new powers were claimed,
new battles were fought between the Church and the
world, in which the right was not all on one side, but
the Church, too, might be found struggling in the
name of Christ against Himself. There were wonder
ful lives of saints and kings, who, by their faith and
power, changed the face of countries, and may be
truly reckoned among the benefactors of mankind.
Yet even in the lives of these men we seem to trace
something not in harmony with the spirit of Christ.
Their zeal and courage could hardly be exceeded, but
they lack the reasonableness, the charity, the modera
tion of our blessed Lord. Then came the great moral
earthquake of the Reformation, which threatened
utterly to destroy the ancient faith. In one genera-

384

tion the European world found itself Protestant; the
fathers had been of one religion, the children were of
another, and even in a single lifetime the early educa
tion of the same person had been Roman Catholic,
his later years Protestant. The suddenness of the
change is strikingly brought home to us by Hooker's
gentle plea, that God might have had mercy on some
of our fathers, inasmuch as they sinned through
ignorance; or by the amusing story of Archbishop
Leighton, who, when he was attacked by his adver
saries because he was himself an Episcopalian, his
father a Presbyterian, and his grandfather a Roman
Catholic, replied, " Yes, sir, and he was the honestest
man of the three." In the middle of the sixteenth
century the spirit of the Reformation would probably
have taken hold of every country in Europe if the
popular voice had not been suppressed by the strong
arm of Governments and Princes.

And yet we know that before the close of that
century which gave birth to the Reformation, the tide
had already turned and was sweeping in the opposite
direction. The slumbering past of mediasvalism in
alliance with a sort of spurious classicalism again
awoke, and nearly half the ground gained by the Re
formers was recovered by the Roman Catholic
Church. Education passed into the hands of their
opponents; churches in a -new style of architecture
covered the land; in all the cities of Europe to this
day are found the traces of that remarkable order,

which for a time saved the Papacy. Their strict
discipline, their untiring zeal, their seeming union of
the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of
the dove, were, for a time, too much for the world.
But the world was in the end too much for them.
They governed countries; they kept barbarous races
in a sort of tutelage; they accumulated wealth; they
monopolised education; they whispered in the ear of«
princes; they used the conscience as a lever by which
they subjugated men and women to themselves. To
truth, to morality, to enlightenment they added
nothing. No man of genius, no scholar or philosopher
of the first class, was ever allowed to develop his
powers within their borders. They appear to have
been the authors of the greatest calamity which has
befallen the nations of Europe, the Thirty Years'
War. They were all but conquerors, and then the
natural feelings of mankind rose up against them and
drove them out. And whatever hopes or fears may
be entertained in this or in other countries of a similar
revival of priestly authority, we must remember that
much greater fears and hopes were justly entertained
about that earlier counter-Reformation which covered
the continent of Europe with schools and churches;
in which more than in any other historical struggle
the greatest virtues and the noblest and finest natures
were called into the service of the greatest evil. Who
can judge them fairly ? The saintly lives of many of
them, their regardlessness of self, their willingness to

386

cast themselves away and be trodden under foot,
" -perinde ac cadaver" in their Master's service, have
gone up for a memorial before God. The evil that
they did lives after them to be a warning and a terror
to other generations.

And we ourselves, who have been watching the pro
gress of events during the last thirty or forty years,
have had experience of changes of opinion which
would have been thought incredible a century ago.
Many of us can remember the evangelical homes in
which we were brought up, and still retain a feeling
of gratitude and reverence towards good and simple
persons, who first taught us the elements of religious
truth. And we can remember, too, how these first
impressions of religion came into collision with the
beginnings of the movement which has since over
spread the English Church; how we were told that we
ought to believe much more or much less; and how,
in obedience to this illogical logic, some of us went
forward and some backwards; and some may be said
to have passed a lifetime in going to and fro. Those
who have lived long in Oxford can remember a day
more than thirty years ago, when a small band of dis
tinguished men, after much inward conflict, throwing
aside the traditions in which they had been brought
up, knocked at the door of a small despised chapel in
the suburbs of this city, an.d humbly asked for admis
sion into the bosom of the universal Church They
were separated from us by a strange fate, and we

lamented the loss of their virtues and their talents;
there were persons among them who should always
be remembered by us with kindness and respect, for
they gave up all their worldly prospects in exchange
for what they believed to be the truth. Of the state
of feeling in which that movement originated, there is
no trace remaining among us now. It had effects
which the authors of it never appreciated; for they did
not calculate on the reaction which would follow.
They did not see that in drawing the clergy around
them they were alienating the laity; so that the un-
settlement of received opinions in one direction would
lead to a far greater unsettlement in another. The
chief lesson which we gather from that tale of bye-
gone days is the danger of allowing ourselves to be
carried away by such movements, which at the time
are never seen in their true proportions : " Call no man
master on earth," if it tends to impair your own inde
pendence of mind, or to attach you to a person rather
than to the truth.

And still the conflict continues, though fought in a
broader manner and with different weapons. And
many persons are busy in decomposing the world; or
rather, perhaps, the world may be said to be decom
posing itself (as in foreign countries, so also in this)
into two extremes, the one preaching to us the autho
rity of the priesthood, the necessity of the sacraments,
the duty of uninquiring faith; the other speaking of
evolution, development, the reign of law, the sequence

388

of material causes. And often the extremes seem to
have a greater sympathy with one another than they
either of them have with the mean; they say one of
another that they alone are consistent, and that if you
are not with them, you had better be at the furthest
point from them. And sometimes, in ways of which
they are not aware, they meet. For what is a merely
outward religion but another form of materialism ?
The eye may be satisfied with seeing and the ear with
hearing, while no light of Christian life or love pene
trates into the heart.

Having in view this succession of beliefs in the
history of the Christian Church, and this distraction
and division which affects our own contemporaries,
among whom all opinions, the oldest as well as the
newest, seem to co-exist, we are led very seriously to
ask, " What is the permanent element in religion ? "
Is there any rock upon which we can stand while these
shadows of the clouds fly around us — any foundation
upon which we can rest in life and death, any truth
about which good men are agreed ? Especially as we
advance in years and begin to see the end, the dis
putes and controversies of Churches grow increasingly
wearisome to us. We think to ourselves, " O that it
had been possible from the days of our youth until
now for us to have had a few simple principles of
truth and right, and that we had kept them apart from
controversy and criticism, and simply fought a good
fight against evil and falsehood to our life's end"

389

Then we might have had a regular and perfect growth
to Christian manhood.

This is the subject which I proposed to introduce
by the brief sketch which I have given of ecclesiastical
history. What is that which contrasts with all this
movement, and turmoil, and change of opinion ? Of
course, we see that it is likely to be more akin to prac
tice than to speculation. It may be something which
is very near to us, which we all know or seem to know,
and of which every man may be his own teacher. It
may be a kind of truth in which good men of all
religions are more nearly agreed than they are apt to
suppose. It may be contained in one or two of those
short sentences with which I began this sermon. And,
first of all, I shall consider what it is not, and, secondly,
what it is.

In the first place, it is not any political or ecclesias
tical organisation. For these are relative to the age
and state of society which gives birth to them, and
there are few greater evils in the world than are
caused by the perpetuation of the old forms of them
under altered circumstances. They are the body, and
not the soul; they supply the mechanical means by
which we act together and co-operate with one
another, but the first spring of life and motion is not
contained in them. We are always disappointed in
them when we compare them with any high standard
of holiness, or truth, or right. We may imagine " the
new Jerusalem descending from Heaven, like a bride

39°

adorned for her husband," but the Churches which we
know are very different, composed of men like our
selves, neither much better nor much worse. When
they meet together in Synods and in general Councils,
they are often actuated by private motives, and are
subject, like other assemblies, to many political and
personal considerations. We hardly expect of them
that they should make a bold or united effort in the
cause of truth or of freedom, should these ever come
into competition with ecclesiastical interests. And,
therefore, not there, not there is the permanent
element of religion to be sought, not in any
succession of Presbyters or Bishops, nor in any
claim of universal authority, nor in any variously
interpreted rule of faith or life. The authority of
Churches seems rather to be derived from the great
and good men who have adorned them. A St. Ber
nard, St. Anselm, St. Thomas-a-Kempis are to us the
witnesses for the Mediaeval Church; not the Church
for them.

But neither is the permanent element of religion to
be sought in the internal certainty which good men
have of the truth which has been vouchsafed to them.
For these internal convictions may often contradict
one another; nor can we be sure that the faith of one
man is stronger than that of another; the faith of a
Christian more intense than that of a Mahometan or
Hindoo. If another says to me, " I have an inward
light or evidence," and I reply to him, " I have an

39*

inward light," who shall decide between us ? " If," a
third adds, " this can only be decided by the authority
of the Church," again the question arises, To what
Church shall we go? And very often the best of
men have seen visions and dreamed dreams; they
have made God the author of their own fancies, and,
owing to some warmth of temperament or enthusiasm
which possessed them, have been able to impart their
belief in themselves to others. And sometimes the
bent of their own moral character towards severity
and asceticism, or the bent of their own intellectual
character towards casuistry and over-refinement, has
led other men into ways of life for which they were
unfitted, or has induced them to desert the high road
of truth and right. Their faith has given others faith
in them, and yet what they mistook for the will of God
was their own will. And, therefore, without any dis
respect for the Fathers of the Church, whether ancient
Fathers, such as St. Augustine, or modern Fathers, such
as John Wesley, we cannot accept them as authorita
tive teachers. For we see that they often erred, and
that in many of their conclusions they were deter
mined by their own character and circumstances.

Neither can the permanent element in religion be
supposed to consist in historical facts. For they soon
fade into the distance; even if the record of them is
preserved, in a thousand or in two thousand years
they are apt to be seen in new lights; add another
thousand, and we can hardly imagine how they will

392

appear in that remote future. The historian in our
own day insists on a higher standard of verification,
and is reluctant to accept evidence which cannot be
traced up to contemporary witnesses. It is not that
we are really more sceptical than our forefathers, but
a wider knowledge, and a greater command of
materials, have modified our judgment. Any one
who has read the histories of Rome and Greece by
the light of Niebuhr and Mommsen, or Curtius and
Grote, cannot help applying the lamp of criticism to
the New Testament. He must ask himself and
honestly answer the question : What is the date of the
books in which the narrative of our Lord's life is con
tained? How did they receive their present form;
how are the discrepancies which occur in them to be
explained? Now, the answer to these questions in
our own day will be somewhat different from that
which would have been given in the last generation.
With the advance of knowledge we have to shift our
ground, and most of the old defences of Christianity,
and many of the objections to it, have gone out of
fashion, and are no longer convincing to the mind
But we are seeking for principles which are not assail
able by criticism, and do not change in successive
generations. We cannot believe that religion de
pends upon minute questions of words and dates,
when there are so many things in life to be done, and
so short a time in which to do them.

And if this degree of uncertainty which affects all

393

early history affects the ordinary facts narrated in the
Old and New Testament, it must equally affect the
extraordinary. Whatever a priori arguments may be
urged in their favour, we cannot help seeing that they
must be judged of, like other facts, by the rules of
historical evidence. We cannot say, with some
writers, that they are more probable than other facts;
or, with Butler, that all facts are antecedently so im
probable that the difference between the improba
bility of the ordinary and extraordinary "cannot be
estimated, and is as nothing." Nor can we require
the evidence for them to be supplemented by belief
in them; for this would destroy the very nature of
evidence. The certain knowledge that in the universe
there is a fixed order makes a great difference in our
manner of regarding them. If we saw them with our
own eyes and in the full light of day, we should have
a difficulty in verifying them or appreciating their
import; how can we see them more clearly when they
are far away in the distance? In one age of the
world it is almost impossible to conceive them; in
another age of the world the belief in them is the
natural, almost the necessary, accompaniment of in
tense religious faith. The wonders of other religions
are only acknowledged by the professors of them; the
Protestant does not accept Mediaeval or Roman
Catholic ministers; the Jesuits deny those of the
Portroyalists. The pious Catholic often imagines
that a great revival of religion is about to be effected

394

by the increased diffusion of miraculous gifts, such
he has himself witnessed in these latter days with
wonder and thankfulness, but this is a hope which can
hardly be entertained by us. And all Christians
would agree in rejecting the miracles of those who
are not Christians. Neither can any connection be
traced between the inward grace and spirit of the
Gospel, and the admission of facts of history, whether
ordinary or extraordinary; and, therefore, I think that
we had better put aside this vexed question of
miracles as not belonging to our time, and also as
tending to raise an irreconcilable quarrel between
revelation and science. As a distinguished prelate of
the English Church has wisely said, " If you cannot
come to us with the miracles, come to us without the
miracles." For not there, not there, is the permanent
and universal basis of religion to be found.

These, then, are the negatives, which, looking to
the future as well as to the present, we cannot venture
to regard as the groundwork of our belief. What,
then, are the foundations which cannot be shaken ? I
may remind you in passing that in confining religion
to essentials we are only imitating the Spirit of Him
who said, " If they hear not Moses and the prophets " ;
and " This is the first and great commandment, and
the second is like unto it." Not a word which 1 have
spoken is inconsistent with the practice of those pre
cepts with which this sermon began. If Jesus Christ
were to come again upon earth, can we imagine Him

.

395

saying to us not " Forasmuch as ye did it unto the
least of these, ye did it unto Me," but " Forasmuch as
ye did not accept what was written or said of Me in
after ages, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom
of Heaven."

The first of these unchangeable truths is the perfec
tion of the Divine nature. Mankind are always dis
puting about the precise form in which doctrines are
to be stated, but they do not really differ about the
nature of holiness, or right, or love, or truth; there is
no party spirit about it. This is a very significant fact
which we shall do well often to consider. Nor, again,
can these graces or virtues ever be in excess; that is
another point to be carefully noted. A man may
have too much attachment to a person, or a sect, or a
Church; but he cannot have too much holiness, or
justice, or truth; too much of the love of God and man
possessing his soul. These are the great and simple
forms of faith which survive all others in which good
men of all religions agree, and which connect this life
as far as it can be connected with another. They are
the true links which bind us to one another, which
bring together in one communion different bodies of
Christians, different countries and ages. They are
the mirrors in which we behold the nature of God
Himself; the highest and best which we can conceive,
and which we, therefore, believe, and, in the Apostle's
language, seek to fashion them anew in ourselves. We
may sum them up in a word, " Divine perfection," to

396

which theology and life must alike conform. He who
is possessed or inspired by this thought will need no
other rules of faith or of practice; by this he will test
all doctrines and will regulate all his actions; he will
ask himself from time to time what is the will of the
Perfect, the Divine. And, seeing also the beginnings
of a Divine perfection, amid much imperfection in the
world around him, he will strive to co-operate with
them, and begin to understand that there is no opposi
tion between God and nature, but that through the
order of nature God is working out the good of all His
creatures. And when he becomes conscious that
there is a real good in the world, of which God is the
author, and of which he himself may be the partaker,
he will not be greatly troubled with the old puzzle
about the existence or origin of evil, or the meta
physical conception of the Divine nature. His own
life will be the answer to his doubts, and in the hour
of death he will not be cast down, for he has created
in himself the faith which can never fail in holiness,
in justice, in truth, in love.

" The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the
word of our God shall abide for ever." The world
changes, the Churches of Christ differ from one
another — they are in a state of transition, but the
truth, the justice, the goodness of God, and His will
that all mankind should be. saved, remain for ever.
The opinions of men vary, but the moral truths upon
which human life rests are unchangeable. And from

397

them, as from some fountain of light, the Divine
image may again and again be recovered whenever
the veil of the physical world becomes too thick for us
to penetrate.

Secondly, among the fixed points of religion is the
life of Christ Himself, in whose person the Divine
justice, and wisdom, and love are embodied to us. It
may be true that the record contained in the Gospels
is fragmentary; and that the life of Christ itself far
surpassed the memorials of it which remain to us. But
there is enough in the words which have come down
to us to be the rule of our lives; and they would not
be the less true if we knew not whence they came, or
who was the author of them. They appear to run
counter to the maxims both of the Church and the
world; and yet the Church and the world equally
acknowledge them. To some who have rejected the
profession of Christianity, they have seemed equally
true and equally Divine — may we not say of these,
too, that they have been " Christians in unconscious
ness," if, not knowing Christ, like Him they have lived
for others, infusing into every moral and political
question a higher tone by their greater regard for
truth, and more disinterested love of mankind? For
this is what gives permanence to the religion of
Christ as taught by Himself alone — its comprehen
siveness; it leaves no sort of good or truth outside of
itself to be its enemy and antagonist. " He that is
not against us is for us." Or, to put the same

398

thought in other words, it remains because of its
simplicity. The teaching of Christ is not like the
teaching of some scribe or commentator who can eke
out a few simple words to a tedious length; or of some
scholastic divine who elaborates the particulars of a
system: it is summed up in a word or two, " Believe,"
" Forgive," " Be ye perfect, even as your Father which
is in Heaven is perfect." It is not only common to
different sects of Christians, but unites different
classes of society, those who have and those who have
not education in our brotherhood And if we could
imagine the world ever so much improved it would be
still tending towards the kingdom of Christ, still fall
ing short of His maxims and commands. Amid all
the changes to which, during centuries to come, the
Christian faith may be exposed, either from the
influence of opinion or from political causes, the image
of Christ going about doing good, of Christ suffering
for man, of Christ praying for His enemies — this,
and this alone, will never pass away. And if any
body asks, Where, after all these assaults of criticism
and science, and the concessions made to them, is our
religion to be found now? We answer, Where it
always was — in the imitation of Christ.

Thirdly, among the fixed points of religion, we
must admit all well-ascertained facts of history, or
science. For these, too, are the revelation of God to
us, and they seem to be gaining and accumulating
every day. And they do not change like mere

399

opinions; after an interval of years we come back to
them and find them the same. No declaration of
Popes or Churches can alter by a single hair's breadth
any one of them any more than it can alter in any
degree the present or future lot of a single person. It
cannot make that which is false to be true, or that
which is improbable to be probable. And, amid the
shiftings of opinions, the knowledge of facts and the
faith in them, whithersoever they seem to lead, has a
tendency to stablish, strengthen, settle us. There are
a thousand ways in which they bear upon human life,
and, therefore, indirectly upon religion. And there is
also a more direct connection between them; for we
may regard truths of fact as acceptable to the God of
truth, and the discovery or acquirement of them as a
part of our service to Him. And when we give up our
own long-cherished opinions or our party views to the
power of fact; or when we seek to train our intellec
tual faculties in accuracy, in attention, in the con
scientious love of truth — in this, too, there may be
something of the sacrifice which is well pleasing to
Him.

This, then, is what we believe to be the sum of
religion: To be like God — to be like Christ — to live
in every true idea and fact. This is the threefold
principle which we seek to fashion in ourselves, to be
our guide amid the temptations of the world, amid the
changes of opinion which go on around us, or the
doubts which beset us from within. The time is

400

coming when we must be Christians indeed, if we are
to be at all; for conventional Christianity is beginning
to pass away. If we are to have any strength in us,
or to do any good, we must have real principles har
monious with one another; and we must do what we
have to do with all our might as unto the Lord, and
not to men. There would be little to dread in the
disappearance of orthodox beliefs (as they are some
times called) if it were accompanied by a deeper con
sciousness of the Divine nature, by a more habitual
imitation of Christ, by a more disinterested love of
truth, and those who find the difficulties and distrac
tions of the day press hardly upon them will do well
to turn away from them and seek to quicken in them
selves the sense of the great truths of religion and
morality. The minister of the Gospel who sometimes
asks uneasily, " What am I to teach now ? " need be
under no real apprehension because a few of the
common-places of theology are taken from him. The
essentials of Christianity strongly and personally felt,
not mere vague abstraction, but holiness and unselfish
ness, the living sense of truth and right, the love of
God and man, have greater power to touch the heart
than anything else. The good life o£ a clergyman is
his best sermon; and the doctrine by which he will
most affect others is the fresh and natural expression
of it. To have a firm conviction of a few things is
better than to have a feeble faith in many, and to live
in a belief is the strongest witness of its truth.

4oi

For he is not a Christian who is one outwardly;
neither is that Christianity which is in the letter
only.

But he is a Christian who is one inwardly, and
walks, as far as human error and infirmity will allow,
in the footsteps of Christ.

M|BO> .pap a,N ^ r ^ a

l^i)"%T?^-^^ ^iV^V^^k ~^\N :^ ^ '^v'^V^ "ST% Ssk^v
^J^fssJl

3

31

B>tfe>

§.^535

?

1^

"> W» > •!. ip
> °?8 ^ J S'

1L

)

33)0 3)
>])>-:) »

^_>f>

D

' ^

m :m^
>

D

T

i i)B^

I )).5B.l)

B31i.

I3ro:

C

( C

Jc<

m