The consistency of the Divine conduct in revealing of the doctrines of redemption : being the Hulsean lectures for the year 1841. To which are added, two sermons, preached before the University of Cambridge

\

LIBRA^RY

Theological Seminary,

PRINCETON, N.J. .

BR A5 .H84 1841
Ct Alford, Henry, 1810-1871.

The consistency of the
'*^" Diy^pe conduct in revealini

Be

HULSEAN LECTURES

For the Year ]841.

REV. HENRY ALFORD, M.A.

THE CONSISTENCY OF THE DIVINE CONDUCT

IN REVEALING THE DOCTRINES

OF REDEMPTION.

BEING THE

HULSEAN LECTUEES

For the Yeak 1841.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED, TWO SERMONS, PREACHED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

HENRY ALFORD, M.A.

VICAR OF W y M E S W O L D, LEICESTERSHIRE,
AND LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRINTED FOR J. & J. J. DEIGHTON;
LONDON : J. G. F. & J. RIYINGTON.

MDCCCXLII.

CAMBRIDGE:

PKlNTEl) BV METfALVE AND PAl.MUR.

JOHN GRAHAM, D.D,

MASTER OF CHRIST's COLLEGE, AND LATE VICE-CHANCELLOR,

CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D.

LATE MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE,

RALPH TATHAM, D.D.

MASTER OF ST. JOHn's COLLEGE,

THE FOLLOWING LECTURES,
IBcUbereU tifi tf)«ir '^Cppointment,

ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

BY

THE AUTHOR.

SUBSTANCE OF CERTAIN CLAUSES RELATING TO THE
HULSEAN LECTURESHIP.

In the Will of the Rev. J. Hulse, M.A., the Founder of tliat and
other offices in the University of Cambridge.

[Dated July 21, 1777.]

He founds a Lectureship in the University of Cambridge.

The Lecturer is to be a " Clergyman in the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, of the degree of Master of Arts,
and under the age of forty years." He is to be elected
annually "on Christmas-day, or within seven days after,
by the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, and by the
Master of Trinity College, and the Master of St. John's
College, or any two of them." In case the Master of
Trinity, or the Master of St. John's, be the Vice-
Chancellor, the Greek Professor is to be the third
Trustee.

The duty of the said Lecturer, as stated in the Will,
is " to preach" so many as " twenty sermons in the
whole year," as well as to print them in the same
period ; and it having been found, in consequence,
that few were willing to undertake the office, application
was made to the Court of Chancery, with a view the
better to carry into effect the intention of its Founder.
The result was, that by an order of that Court (dated
21st December, 1830), the number of the Sermons was
reduced to eight, and the time allowed for printing

12

Vlll CERTAIN CLAUSES IN MR. IIULSE S WILL.

them extended to the term of one year from the delivery
of the last of them.

The subject of the Lectures is to be, " the Evidence
for Revealed Religion ; the Truth and Excellence of
Christianity ; Prophecies and Miracles ; direct or col-
lateral Proofs of the Christian Religion, especially the
collateral arguments ; the more difficult texts or obscure
parts of the Holy Scriptures ;" or any one or more of
these topics, at the discretion of the Preacher. The
subject of the Lectures is not to be " any particular
sects or controversies amongst Christians themselves ;
except some new and dangerous error, either of super-
stition or enthusiasm, as of Popery or Methodism, or
the like, either in opinion or practice, shall prevail."
" And in all the said twenty sermons," now eight, it is
stated that " such practical observations shall be made,
and such useful conclusions added, as may instruct and
edify mankind."

tROPERTF^

THSOLOGIGi^

PREFACE.

The following Discourses contain an attempt
to trace the fundamental doctrines of our holy
religion in their recognition by, and operation
upon, the Church of God before the appearance
of Christ in the world. This endeavour is made,
as tending to the establishment of an important
proposition in theology ; viz. that so far as the
Gospel of Christ contains things absolutely ne-
cessary, and only effectual, for the salvation of
the soul, it has been the foundation of the faith
of the Church in all ages of time.

1 . The consideration of this proposition in its
application to the Old Testament Churches must
necessarily be confined within certain limits,
presupposed partly by its very statement, and
partly from the nature of the subject itself.

X PREFACE.

So much of the Gospel system as belongs to
its character as the final and full revelation of
God to man, must be excluded from our view,
and our attention in the first place confined to
those fundamental doctrines of which the life,
death, and triumph of its Founder were the
actual proofs and complete attestations. Ac-
cording to the degree of recognition of the
eternal verities of redemption, would the whole
ceremonial system, in which these latter events
were shadowed forth, tend to inform and re-
assure the ancient servants of God : while pro-
phecy, having regard passingly to these same
events, but mainly to the future effects and
glories of God's Church, would be in the same
proportion rightly and profitably interpreted.
I am then engaged to ascertain to what extent
these great truths were recognized; not only
as they might be suggested primarily by typical
ordinances or the prophetic word, but as they
might be acknowledged independently of these,
and might have formed a part of the original
belief of the Patriarchal Church.

2. Again, in such an enquiry the nature of
the subject demands wary procedure and strict

PREFACE. XI

caution. The whole character of the ages under
consideration must be taken into account; the
usual course of man's reason and God's provi-
dence must be followed, in any conjectural in-
ferences to which we may be led ; the simplicity
of truth must be adhered to in matters capable
oi proof, and the likeness of truth (^verisimilitude)
retained in things probable. This method of
proceeding will exclude from our consideration
all those fanciful and too often unfaithful etymo-
logies, on which many of the speculations on
this subject have been founded ; and which are
the more dangerous, because, while it can
hardly be denied that language originally had
reference to hidden properties, we are not now
in a situation to deal with the sacred tongue
on such a supposition; at the same time that
we are not precluded from confirming conclu-
sions otherwise derived by the apparent sense
involved in the Scriptural usage of words.

3. It has I believe been asserted, and the
complaint is not unlikely to be again made,
that the tendency of these discourses is to up-
hold tradition as a vehicle of spiritual knowledge.
That such an inference is unjustly made, will

XU PREFACE.

at once appear, when the Christian dispensation
is distinguished carefully from those which pre-
ceded it. Under the Patriarchal dispensation,
and until the giving of the law from Sinai,
tradition was unquestionably the only vehicle
of religious knowledge ; and for reasons ex-
panded in the following pages, we have no
ground for supposing that the Mosaic dispen-
sation superseded such knowledge, or exceeded
it, but was rather subsidiary to, and explanatory
of it. We find more spiritual knowledge cur-
rent among the Jews even in our Saviour's
time, than the law and prophets could ever
have suggested. Now such an office assigned
to tradition, might have been very consistent
with dispensations whose very end it was that
their imperfections might be kept in view, and
the attention and hopes of men directed to a
greater and better revelation : but where do
we find any thing analogous to this in the dis-
pensation of the fulness of times — the complete
revelation of God's will in Christ? Doctrinal
or spiritual tradition is wholly, out of place
under a doctrinal revelation ; under a ceremonial
economy, it is indispensahle. Nothing therefore

PREFACE. Xlll

which I have here said, can be construed as an
approval of tradition as a vehicle of spiritual
knowledge to Christians. But at the same time,
the other side of the antithesis is equally true;
viz. that formal or ceremonial tradition, im-
possible under a ceremonial dispensation, is
necessary under a spiritual one ; — that while in
the ancient economy the form and manner of
the service of God was the object of revelation,
and required doctrinal tradition to vivify and
fructify it ; so now eternal truth, being the
object of revelation, requires formal and cere-
monial tradition to embody and energize it
among mankind: so that whatever effects, and
in whatever degrees, may be produced on men
who deviate from the line of formal tradition,
by the great and saving truths of the Gospel,
their full and complete effect cannot be looked
for, except by those who are in union with the
great formal traditions of Christianity.

The other great difference between the two
species of tradition will readily be perceived.
Under the Old Testament economy, tradition
was the key to the interpretation of type and
prophecy, and held a place in the mind, not

XIV PREFACE.

indeed superior in authority, but loftier as
regarded the spiritual being, than the formal
code of observances. Now the case is reversed.
Tradition is no longer the key to Scripture,
but Scripture is the overruler of tradition;
inasmuch as a spiritual revelation is of neces-
sity higher and greater, both as a revelation
and as spiritual, than that which is traditionary
and formal.

In the following Discourses I am concerned
mainly with the former dispensation ; and
have therefore assigned to tradition the place
which, under that economy, it cannot be de-
nied that it held.

An opportunity has been afforded me, by
the kindness of the Trustees of Mr. Hulse's
Foundations, of continuing my argument through
another series of Discourses, in which the actual
manifestation, and subsequent spread and esta-
blishment of the Christian revelation -will be
considered. By the tenor of those Discourses
I shall be content to be judged, as to my esti-
mate of the present office and value of tradition.

4. Those who read these Lectures with a
view to the argument contained in them, may

PREFACE. XV

be disposed to complain of the frequent re-state-
ment of the subject, and of the interruptions
which the argument suffers by the concluding
remarks in each discourse. But as an excuse
for the former, it must be remembered that
the months of the year at present allotted to
the Hulsean Lecturer in the University pulpit,
are those during which the influx of residents
takes place, after the Easter and the Long
Vacations ; that consequently, on two or three
occasions at least of his addressing the Uni-
versity, the majority of his audience are wholly
unacquainted with the nature of his argument ;
and still more frequently are ignorant of the
progress which he may have made in treating it.

To the latter objection it may be answered,
that the place and time of the delivery of these
Discourses will hardly allow the Lecturer to
dismiss his audience with a mere theological
essay ; and that Mr. Hulse himself has taken
the same view of the matter, in directing that
" in all the said Sermons, such practical obser-
vations shall be made, and such useful conclu-
sions added, as may instruct and edify mankind."

If it be suggested that such interruptions to

XVI PREFACE,

the argument might be omitted in the publica-
tion, I answer that it appears to me highly
desirable that the Lectures should be printed
as delivered; such publication being made ra-
ther, I think, as a record of what has been done
in accordance with the will of the Founder,
and a means of refreshing what has been heard,
than with any hope, in the present advanced
state of religious knowledge, of adding standard
Avorks on evidence to our Theological Literature.
5. With reference to the Hebrew authorities
adduced in the following Discourses, the reader
will do well to consult Schoettgenius's valuable
work. Horse Hebraicse et Talmudicee in No\Tim
Testamentum, vol. ii. ; de Messia, lib. i. cap. iii.,
where a detailed account is given of the prin-
cipal Rabbinical writings available for purposes
of Christian evidence: and Archdeacon Lyall's
Propsedia Prophetica, Lecture vi. pp. 96 — 108;
and Lecture xiii.

Wymeswold, January 24, 1842.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION.

Hebrews xii. 29. — Our God is a consuming fire.
Page 1 .

LECTURE IL

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.

Judges xiii. 22, 23. — And Manoali said unto his wife,
We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But
his wife said unto him, If the Lord had been pleased
to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering
and a meat offering at our hands.

Page 25.
LECTURE in.

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION.

Hebrews xi. 3. — By faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained ivit-
ness that he was righteous, God testifijing of his gifts :
and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

Pacre 42.

XVlll C0^' TENTS.

LECTURE IV.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE.

Isaiah liii. 6. — The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all, [or, hath made the iniquities of us all to meet
on him.]

Page 60,

LECTURE V.

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH.

Romans xv. 8. — Noiv I say that Jesus Christ teas a
mitiister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to
confirm the promises made to the fathers.

Page 81.

LECTURE VI.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT.

St. John iii. 10. — Jesus answered and said unto him.
Art thou a master of Israel, and knoicest not these
things ?

Page 101.

LECTURE VII.

THE RESURRECTION.

Acts xxvi. 8. — IVJiy should it be thought a thing incre-
dible with you, that God shoidd raise the dead 9

Paffe 120.

CONTENTS. XIX

LECTURE VIII.

THE USE OF THE LAW.

Galatians iii. 19. — WJierefore then serveth the Law?
It was added because of transgressions, till the seed
shall come to whom the promise was made.

Page 141.

SERMON I.

THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

Hebrews xii. 1, 2. — Let us run with patience the race
that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and
finisher of our faith ; who for the Joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame.

Page 161.
SERMON II.

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

St. Matthew v. 48. — Be ye perfect, even as your
Father ivhich is in heaven is perfect.

Page 175.

^SXITOS^'G

G.

LECTURE I.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION.

Hebrews xii. 29.
Our God is a cotisumitig Jire.

Amidst the treasures of evidence which our holy
rehgion possesses, none are so precious nor so
copious as those which are furnished from the
Scriptures themselves, Christianity may have
been sufficiently recommended by presumptive
proofs ; the purity and beauty of its moral system
may have been fully established ; the historical
accounts to which it is pledged may have been
satisfactorily rescued from adverse imputations:
while there shall yet remain in the sacred volume
uncounted testimonies to the Divine scheme of
redemption ; arguments yet unapplied, hints yet
unexpanded, illustrations yet unimagined.

Nor are we left without example of the use of
such evidence, or precedent to guide us in find-
ing it, in the books of the New Testament. The

B

Z LECTURE I.

Epistle from which my text is taken, is especially
devoted to enquiries of this kind. And its
author not only proves abundantly that Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness ; but in
doing so, he discloses to us many secrets of the
Divine economy in ages and among persons
unconnected with the Levitical system. Oc-
casionally he brings into prominence some casual
allusion furnished by the ancient Scriptures, and
clothes the actors in scenes apparently trivial
with mystery and dignity : at other times he
merely touches with passing mention subjects of
deep interest, either because his great purpose
being urgent hurried him onwards, or because
the minds of his readers were yet unprepared for
the reception of the higher wisdom.

To fill up the outline of the teaching contained
in that Epistle, were a task as fully worthy of
the Christian scholar's ambition, as it is beyond
his utmost uninspired ability. There is One only,
who is found worthy to loose the seals of the
Old Testament mysteries: even He, who hath
the key of David, who openeth and no man
shutteth ; who hath shut and no man can open ;
who at his coming shall bring to hght the hidden
things of darkness, and pour fertility and joy
over the waste places of our hearts and under-
standings.

But notwithstanding our inability to complete
this work, we are encouraged by our Saviour

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 3

himself to undertake and carry it forward. He
has bidden those who would be assured of his
Divine mission to search the Scriptures; "for,"
he added, " they are they that testify of me."
And if the ancient Psalmist prayed that his eyes
might be opened, to discern the wonderful things
of God's law, surely we, before whom Christ is
set forth crucified amongst us, have abundant
reason to believe that the influences of the bles-
sed Spirit will descend on us w^hile engaged in
a work so becoming our Christian state : for
we are not called servants, who know not what
their Lord doeth ; but friends, admitted, as we
can bear it, into the very confidence of God ;
nay, sons of his family, waiting, it is true, for
the full enjoyment of our inheritance, but ex-
horted to anticipate, as much as may be, our
heavenly state of love and knowledge ; to ex-
amine what is the mind of God, and compare
spiritual things with spiritual.

Seeing then that w^e are partakers of such
privileges, and under the promise of such assist-
ance, I propose in these Lectures to direct your
attention to the consistency of scripture in

REVEALING THE DOCTRINES OF REDEMPTION ; aild

to derive from the course of Old Testament
history the conclusion, that from the first, and
throughout the manifold aspects of pro^ddence
and grace, God w^as in Christ, reconciling the
world to himself

B 2

LECTURE I.

That tliis subject has, by impHcation at the
least, been frequently and ably treated, those who
hear me are well aware ; and my labour has
therefore been one rather of selection and ar-
rangement, than of suggestion founded on my
own research. I am not however without hope
that I may have evolved some matter, which, if
not absolutely new, may yet furnish ground for
enquiry and meditation : and that for the young
theological student especially, these Lectures
may prove a useful compendium of Scriptui'e
illustration. I may also premise that my path,
though frequently touching upon the roads in
which others have gone, and for a time coinciding
with one or another, is not strictly identical with
any of them. My aim will be to establish the
fact, that the great doctrines on which the Gospel
of Christ is built, have ever been distinctly re-
cognized in the divine treatment of mankind;
that they have always been revealed with suf-
ficient plainness to enable the faithful and
humble man to believe them, and make them
real to himself ; and that we have record of some
having done so, and ha^dng evinced it by their
actions and words.

The object of such an attempt will be, to
justify the ways of God to men ; to shew that
the tenets which form the foundation of our
Christianity, have not crept into the Church
from any unhallowed admissions of Gentile phi-

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. D

losophy, nor have been consolidated into neces-
sary doctrines, from having been scattered and
ill-defined surmises : but that from the first the
revelation of the truths acknowledged in them
has formed a part of the design of the Divine
mind, dealing out to each age and generation as
seemed fit to infinite Wis lom, but never leaving
the truth without witness.

On the present occasion, I shall notice the
manifestations of the Divine presence to men
under the various dispensations ; and endeavour
to shew their bearing on that which may be
called the great preliminary doctrine of Christi-
anity, " that man is born in sin, and the child of
God's wrath."

On the expulsion of our first parents from
Eden, we have reason to believe that the presence
of God was manifested to them permanently by
an appearance related to have been placed at the
east of, or in front of, the garden of Eden. There
are some remarkable particulars to be noticed in
the verse relating this appearance.^ " So he drave
out the man ; and he placed at the east of the
garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword,
which turned every way to keep the way of the
tree of life."

The word here rendered " placed,"" seems to
be but inadequately expressed. Its literal render-
ing would be " he caused to dwell ;" and it is

' Gen. iii. 21. ~ •jsal"*

6 LECTURE I.

the same word which in its substantive form is
used to express the tabernacle or earthly dwelling
of the Lord, and the brightness or glory of his
apparent presence in that tabernacle.

Again, that which was thus placed has been
but imperfectly apprehended. The Hebrew term
rendered " Cherubims," is the Cherubim ;' im-
porting beyond doubt an appearance of the
symbolic figures which, as we shall see, occur
frequently in the Old Testament economy, and
of which the prophet Ezekiel, when he saw
them, could state,* I knew that they were the
Cheruhim.

Again, the words " a flaming sword" require
explanation. " A flame of the sword" is the
literal rendering f and " the sword" may be
retained, provided we understand it to be ex-
pressive of the attributes of the fire, which was
the thing placed. The word itself which we
translate sword, is in its primary meaning
" withering," or " desolation :" but whether it here
refer to the destructive nature of the flame, or
to its sword-like shape, there can be no doubt,
from the construction of the sentence, and from
the analogy of other passages where the Cheru-
bim are introduced, that the fire was the substance,
and the adjoined word descriptive of its nature.

^ D^n-)3n-nN * Ezek. x. 20.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 7

We read that it turned every way to keep the
way of the tree of life. The literal rendering is,
" turning upon itself;'"' Avhich words, as we shall
see in the sequel, are remarkable from their
coinciding with those used in a description given
elsewhere.

So that the appearance which guarded from
our fallen parents the forfeited paths of Eden,
consisted of the Cherubim, accompanied by a
wasting flame, — a flame of the sword, turning
upon itself, endued with mysterious vitality and
motion.

In our enquiry respecting the purport of this
appearance, there is one other word which de-
serves to be noticed. It is that rendered " at
the east of," or as the lxx have it, " over
against.'" Its original meaning being "the front,"
it assumes as its secondary sense, agreeably to
the oriental method of viewing the cardinal
points, " the east ;" and is so generally rendered
by our translators. But as our word " before"
relates both to situation and order of time, so
this word also signifies priority; and in several
passages where one version renders it "at the
east of," and another "in front of," a third adopts
the wholly difierent interpretation, "from the
beginning." But the primary signification of
" standing before," or " in presence," seems to

^ nasrrnan see Ezck. i. 4. ' Q^i?"

8 LECTURE I.

liave entered into the usages of this word more
than may have been suspected. In Genesis xi.,
when the descendants of Noah were dispersing
from Ararat, it is said, as they journeyed from
the east, they discovered a plain in the land of
Shinar ; and in Genesis xiii., when Lot left
Abraham in Bethel, and went to Sodom, the
same word " from the east" occurs. But in both
these cases the persons were journeying towards,
not from, the east. Accordingly, our translators
have rendered the word " eastward" in the latter
passage, and in the former have inserted " or
eastward" in the margin. Now it has been sug-
gested that the difficulty may be removed by
reference to the sense of presence involved in
this word, and recollecting that in both cases the
persons were going out from the presence of the
Lord, the place where his altar had been esta-
blished. In Deuteronomy xxxiii. 27, we have
the expression the God of Kedem, i.e. as usually
rendered, the east. Here we translate, " the
eternal God ;" and of the principal versions, no
one agrees with another.^ Here again it is pos-
sible that the Divine Presence upholding Israel

® Hebrew, D^Tl'. "''!7 ''^ "^^^^ EnglishVersion, The eter-
nal God is thy refuge. Septuagint, koX aKtirdfjeL ere deov
dp-)(rj. Vulgate, Habitaculum ejus sursum, Luther, Das
ist die wohnung Gottes vom anfang. Ostervald, C'est une
retraite que le Dieu qui est de tout terns. Diodati, Che son
I'abitaeolo dell' eterno Dio.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 9

may be referred to. I have been led to allude
to the usages of this word, as bemg at least con-
firmatory of the conclusion, w^hich circumstances
still to be noticed mil yet more confirm, that the
appearance of which we are speaking, was that
of the Divine presence. I attach no great weight
to the word as occurring in this verse, — it is pro-
bably here used in its primary simple sense ; but
I find it afterwards bearing higher meanings, and
am disposed to question whether the very cir-
cumstance here related may not have given it
those meanings.

I may remark on the whole passage, fii'st, that
it seems, by an expression in the Book of Wisdom,''
" the tabernacle which thou hast set up from the
beginning," to have been anciently understood as
I have now explained it : and secondly, that the
common notion of angels armed with fiery wea-
pons being intended by " the Cherubim with
a fiame of the sword," has, as far as I can
ascertain, no foundation in Scripture ; " the Che-
rubim" being every where used to designate
symbolic creatures, distinct fr-om angels.

I shall next notice the acknowledged mani-
festations of the Divme presence to God's chosen
people.

We read, on the occasion of God making his
covenant with Abraham," that victims were slain

' Wisd. ix. 8. 1" Gen. xv. 17.

10 LECTURE 1.

and disposed in order, and that a smoking fur-
nace and a lamp of fire passed between them.

Again, when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, shewed himself to Moses,' we find that
a fiame of fire dwelling in the midst of a thicket,
but not consuming it, was the symbol by which
the Divine presence was announced.

Again, when the children of Israel went up
from Egypt, the Lord went before them in a
pillar of fire.

And in the giving of the law from Sinai, we
read, " And Mount Sinai was altogether in a
smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in
fire.'"

But these scattered notices are succeeded by
the permanent abode of the Divine presence in
the tabernacle, which was in the midst of God's
journeying people. Moses is directed to make^
two cherubim out of the same piece of pure gold
as the propitiatory, or mercy-seat, which were to
look towards the mercy-seat, and overshadow it
with their Avings: "And there," says God, "I will
meet Avith thee from above the mercy-seat, and
I will commune with thee from between the two
cherubim which are upon the ark of the testi-
mony, of all things which I will give thee in
commandment unto the children of Israel." And
that presence also, as abundantly testified through-
out the history, was manifested by fire. We have

1 Exod. Hi. 2. 2 ih, xix. 18. ' lb. xxv. 17—23.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 11

the expression, " Fire came out from before the
face of the Lord;"* and we find that the priests
were not able to enter the tabernacle for the
brightness of the glory of the Lord.^

Again, in Psalm xviii. a description is given
of the Divine appearance, in which the same
particulars occur. " There went up a smoke out
of his nostrils; and fire out of his mouth de-
voured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed
the heavens also and came down : and darkness
was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub
and did fly : and was seen upon the wings of the
wind."

Again, the same circumstances are repeated
in the account of Solomon's temple; the cheru-
bim covering the ark,^ and the presence of the
Lord manifested by fije.

We now pass to the vision of Isaiah, as detailed
in his sixth chapter. There we find the presence
of the Lord appearing to the prophet. Jehovah
is sitting on his throne, the seraphim standing
over him, the same symboUc beings who have
before been called cherubim ; the house is filled
with smoke, and coals of fire are on the altar.

A similar vision, but more particularly de-
tailed, was vouchsafed to the prophet Ezekiel, by
the river of Chebar.'' We find in his description
that he saw, and behold a whirlwind came out

'' Lev. ix 24. ^ Exod. xl. 35; 2 Chron. v. 14..

'^ 2 Chron. iii. 10; vii. 1. '' Ezek. i. 4.

12 LECTURE I.

of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding
itself (as in Eden) ; and in the midst thereof, the
likeness of four living creatures. These are
particularly described : but I shall not dwell on
the description, as being irrelevant to my present
purpose. Their identity with the previous sym-
bolic appearances is positively asserted in ch. x.,
where the vision is repeated, and the prophet
writes, " This the living creature that I saw
under the God of Israel, by the river of Chebar :
and I knew that they were the cherubims;"^ i.e.
havmg been, during his priestly ministrations,
famiharized with the figures wrought in the
temple hangings by that name, when he saw
these living creatures, he recognized them as the
cherubim.

In the vision of final judgment detailed by
Daniel, we read of the Ancient of Days, that a
fiery stream issued forth from before him."

And in the Apocalyptic visions of the New
Testament,^ we find the same symbolic beings,
the same glory of brightness, with however some
remarkable difierences hereafter to be noticed.

I have cited sufiicient testimonies, (and more
might have been added to them,) to shew that
the usual manifestation of the Divine presence to
the Old Testament Churches was by the element
of fire. Our next enquiry will be, what were
the operations of that fire, and what spiritual

« Ezek. X. 20. ^ Daniel vii. 20. ^ Rev iv.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 13

truth they must have impressed upon the minds
of the ancient worsliippers.

I find that its most usual employment was to
consume and destroy. In the first passage wliich
we quoted, whether we retain the rendering, " a
sword-like flame," or have recourse to the primary
signification of the words, " a flame of wasting or
withering," we shall alike gather the inference
that the property of the flame was to kill and
destroy. Indeed, its very situation tended to
remind Adam's fallen posterity of the woeful
change which had passed upon them. If they
heard their great progenitor relating to them
the primal delights of Eden, and fondly dwelling
on each word spoken in those bowers,

" where God or angel guest
With man as with his friend familiar, used
To sit indulgent ;"

how must their hearts have simk withm them, at
the sight of the withering flame which now
guarded the avenues to their forfeited inheritance !
How would that horror grow deeper, when some
bold unbeliever would perhaps, alone, or ac-
companied with others whom he might have
persuaded, advance to the guarded mount of
Paradise, and boast in his power to regain those
ancient seats of blissful innocence ; and while he
were yet vaunting his success, and calling on the
gazing multitudes to follow him to glory, the
red flame should leap forth from before him that

14 LECTURE I.

dwelt between the Chembims, and consume the
blasphemer and his company ! What inference
could they draw but that man was lost, and glory
forfeited ; that they were unclean in the sight of
God, and altogether at enmity with Plim 1

Then again, when the righteous by faith
brought near their aj)pointed victims at the end
of the stated days, and by the divine ordinance
inflicted on them the pangs of death; when,
having divsposed them in order on the altar, they
waited till the fire came forth from the Lord,
and thus he had regard to their offering, by
consuming it in his wrath ; what truth, think ye,
must have dwelt upon their thoughts as they
returned to their homes, and must have accom-
panied them through their toils and their slum-
bers? What but this, that they were guilty
before God, concluded under sin, the wretched
causes of pain and suffering to the creation of
Jehovah? And when that depravity to which
this appearance gave witness had itself borne
down the recognition of itself, and there came
forth from God the decree that all flesh should
die ; how must the favoured Father of the new
world have rejoiced with trembling, knowing that
in himself, and in his, lived the seeds of that cor-
ruption, Avhose fruit he had seen increase, till it
filled the earth, first with the wild orgies of lust,
then with a few days' outcry of perishing despair,
and now with the blank of universal desolation !

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION, 15

And think ye that the Father of the faithful
was not influenced towards his great act of self-
sacrificing obedience, as well by that belief in
the promise of which we shall hereafter speak,
as also by a firm persuasion, deeper than even
the yearnings of parental love, that He who gave
had a right to take away ; that the life even of
the seed of promise was forfeited to Him who
is too pure to behold evil ; that his son, much
loved and much promised, was a guilty creature
before God, and the just and proper victim of
his displeasure, even unto death '?

When, again, Moses was commanded to put
ofi" his shoes from his feet, for that the place
was holy, would not the awful reality of human
unworthiness strike home to his heart, when he
hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God?

And what was all the solemn pageantry of
Sinai, the fencing about of the mount, the for-
bidding man or beast to touch it under penalty
of death, the lightnings and the earthquake, but
a declaration stronger than words, that the Lord's
chosen people were unclean before him ? And
when all the people said unto INIoses, " Speak
thou with us and we will hear ; but let not God
speak with us, lest we die, for this great fire will
consume us ; and God said. They have well said
all that they have spoken :'" what imports this
commendation from God himself, but that the

2 Deut. V. 22—29.

16 LECTURE I.

people had been smitten with a sense of their
own unworthiness, and the Divine power and
majesty, and shrunk from the approach in self-
renouncing humility ?

And throughout the Levitical dispensation we
have the same doctrine preached to the people.
First, they themselves w ere selected from among
the nations of the earth to be the people of the
Lord ; the rest, human-kind in general, are shut
out and rejected as unclean; in Israel God's
presence dwells, and his fire is in Zion. But
into this presence the children of Israel might
not approach. One tribe is selected, who alone
may serve before Jehovah and abide in his
tabernacle. But exclusion from his presence
does not end even here. One family alone of
this chosen tribe may offer sacrifice before Him,
and thus commune with Him in his ordinances.
Still, to the sons of Aaron his presence-chamber
is not opened ; still man is guilty and unclean.
One alone is selected, not by men, nor for aught
of his own, who may approach the consuming
fire. But even to him the Divine presence is
shut and forbidden, except on one solemn oc-
casion, on which, beyond any other in the year,
the sinfulness and unworthiness of people and
priest are specially and emphatically set forth.
Should any of these restrictions be violated; —
should the people or priests at any time, or the
high-priest on any but the appointed day, and

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 17

with the appomted purifyings and vestments,
presume to appear before the Lord in the paviHon
of his presence, the fire from Jehovah would
break forth and destroy the intruder. Did not
all these ordinances, to a wise and enquiring
spirit, accumulate irresistible evidence to the
doctrine of human depravity ? did they not shew
the distance between man and God, and testify
to the worthlessness of the endeavour of man to
gain the participation of his glory '? Verily, the
eyes of the Jew must have been blind that he
could not see, and his heart heavy that it could
not apprehend, before self-righteousness could
have tainted and deadened his services.

If we pass now to the prophetic visions, we
shall find the same great truths declared.

When the Divine presence was manifested to
Isaiah, he exclaimed, " Woe is me, for I am
undone; because I am a man of unclean lips,
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
hps : for mine eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts. "^ Again, the whole vision vouch-
safed to Ezekiel, tended to assert the same. He
is ordered, that he may commune with the Lord,
to separate himself from that rebellious house ;
the appearance of the glory of the Lord is shewn
to him removing from the city, and giving it over
to destruction for its iniquity :* and in the con-
cluding vision of the spiritual temple, the glory

^ Isa. vi. 5. * Ezek. xi., xii.

C

18 LECTURE I.

of his presence again returns, and the prophet
is informed that on account of their sins, God
consumed them in his wrath \^ but that in this
his new and glorious temple He would dwell for
ever.

Again, when the Divine presence appeared to
Daniel, we find self-abasement and dread to
have taken possession of him. " I saw this great
vision," he says, " and there remained no strength
in me ; for my comeliness was turned into cor-
ruption, and I retained no strength."*^ And
when the Lord answered Job out of the whirl-
wind, and shewed him his presence, we find the
same effect produced : " I have heard of thee,"
says he, " by the hearing of the ear ; but now
mine eye seeth thee : wherefore I abhor myself,
and repent in dust and ashes."'

In the cases of Gideon and Manoah* we can
trace the same misgi\ings : nor shoidd we forget
him who fell at Jesus's knees, saying, " Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord;"'* nor the
beloved Apostle, who, when he saw the glory of
his ascended and reigning Lord, fell at his feet
as dead.'

I find then throughout Scripture, the manifes-
tations of the Divine presence to men testifying
with one voice to man's utter unworthiness and

* Ezek xliii. 8, 9. ^ Dan. x. 9.

'' Job xlii. 5. " Judges vi. 22; xiii. 22.

9 Luke V. 8. 1 Rev, i. 17.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 19

impurity. I find this truth studiously inculcated
in God's ordinances to his chosen people, in that
ceremonial system which is written for an ensample
to us, and contains the shadows of spiritual
realities.

Nor do I see any escape left from the inference,
that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God. For we find very little in the above-
cited examples analogous to the ordinary con-
trasts between majesty and meanness, between
weakness and power. The foundation of human
glory is laid in the esteem of men. Our fame
is built on the thoughts of others ; and the
greatest of the ancient philosophers has well
observed, that honour seems to be more in those
who confer it, than in him who enjoys it. Take
away the conventionahties of pomp and power,
and add to the weak and mean that whereof
conventionalities have deprived him, and you
have but man and man, both erring, both dying
creatures. Whereas in the cases considered, the
spotless absolute purity of God is set against the
inherent uncleanness of man : on the one side
we have the Creator and Judge, on the other
his fallen and rebellious creature : in the one we
have power, infinite, self-existent, eternal ; in the
other the seeds of corruption are daily growing
up unto death amidst a life of dependence, weak-
ness, and wretchedness. It was to shew to the
people this great contrast, and imprint on their

c2

20 LECTURE I.

hearts the sense of their innate poUution, that
Jehovah fenced ahout his presence, and revealed
himself to them as a consuming fire.

But there is one class of confirmations of this
inference which must not be omitted. If it be
true that this was God's purpose in clothing his
presence with terrors, we may expect to find in
the confessions and devotional works of the saints
of old, distinct recognition of the truth that all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God :
we may expect to see them renouncing self-
reliance, and entering into communion with the
Father of spirits with deep confession of their
unworthiness. Accordingly I find Abraham
saying, " Behold I have taken upon me to speak
unto God, which am but dust and ashes ;"' and
be it remarked that this latter is a word preg-
nant with meaning, as alluding to consumption
by fire.

I find Jacob confessing that he is unworthy of
(literally, less than) the least of all God's mercies : ^
and on another occasion I hear him reviewing
his past life, and pronouncing his days to have
been few and evil.^

I find the mother of Samuel praying and
saying, " There is none holy as the Lord ; for
there is none beside thee."^

I find the patriarch Job in his confessions

2 Gen xviii. 27- ^ lb. xxxii. 10.

* lb. xlvii. 9. ' 1 Sam. ii. 2.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION. 21

enquiring, '' How shall man be just before God]"
and adding, " If I wash myself with snow water,
and make my hands never so clean : yet shalt
thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own
clothes shall abhor me. For he is not a man as
I am that I should answer him, and we should
come together in judgment." I find him replying
to the Lord and saying, " Behold I am vile ;
what shall I answer thee]"^

I find again David, in his solemn confession
after the sin whose consequences pursued him to
the grave, saying, " Behold I was shapen in ini-
quity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts ;
create in me a clean heart, O God."^

I find Solomon, in his public prayer at the
dedication of the temple, beseeching pardon for
God's people, and adding, " AVhat man is there
that sinneth not ]" And in his Proverbs I find,
" Who can say I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin]" And at the head of
his book of mournful experience he places this :
" I have seen all the works which are done under
the sun, and behold all is vanity and vexation
of spirit. (For) that which is crooked cannot
be made straight."^

I find the prophets also bearing their witness
to the same truth.

Isaiah complains that the whole head is sick,

6 Job. ix. 2, 30—32. "^ Ps. li. ' Eccl. i. 14.

99!

LECTURE I.

and the whole heart faint ; that from the sole of
the foot even to the head there is no soundness :
and declares that all we like sheep have gone
astray ; we have turned every one to his own way.
And again, " We are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,
and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities
like the wind have taken us away."°

The continual burden of the sorrowful plead-
ings of Jeremiah is, ••' O Lord, though our iniqui-
ties testify against us, work thou for thy name's
sake: turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and so shall
we be turned."

And why should I stay to recount Ezekiel,
the stern denouncer of Israel's sin, the remem-
brancer of God's unmerited mercies, who, under
the similitude of a wretched and forsaken infant,
sets forth the natural state of Jerusalem:^ or
Daniel, who interceded for his people, and said,
" O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face,
because we have sinned against thee :"' or Hosea,
by whom the Lord complained, that his people,
like Adam, had transgressed his covenant;^ or
him, who exhorted to turn to the Lord with fast-
ing, weeping, and mourning :* or him, who said,
" Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and canst not look on iniquity:"^ or him who saw
the high-priest stand in unclean garments before

5 Isa. i. 5,6; liii. 6. ' Ezek. xvi. ^ j)^^ j^.

^ Hosea vi. 7. * Joel ii. 12. ^ Habak, i. 18.

DIVINE PURITY AND HUMAN CORRUPTION, 23

the angel, and his iniquity was caused to pass
away from him ; '' or the last of God's prophets,
who prophesied of the refiner's fire and fuller's
sope, which should purify the sons of Levi ? '

All these as with one voice plead guilty
before God, and approach Him as the humbled
victims of his deserved wrath.

If then He shewed himself as a consuming fire,
a God that would by no means clear the guilty,
we find in his faithful people a consciousness of
their uncleanness in his sight, and a self-abase-
ment proportionate to that conviction.

So that, as I stated in the beginning, the great
preliminary doctrine of the Gospel has been
revealed throughout the dispensations ; and that
persuasion of helplessness and unworthiness,
which precedes and ever accompanies the re-
ception of salvation by grace, has been wrought
in the hearts of those who have believed in God
since the world began.

What further has been revealed with equal
consistency and plainness, we shall have occasion
to notice in our succeeding Lectures.

Meantime I cannot but remind you that there
has been in our meditations to-day,** a peculiar
aptness to the present season. If at any time in
our spiritual Jives we should be convinced of our
deep natural delinquency, it is surely at that

c Zech. iii. 1—4.. "^ Malachi iii. 2.

^ This Lecture was delivered on Palm Sunday.

24

LECTURE I.

time when the price which it cost to redeem us
is brought so near to our recollections. If at any
time sin should be hateful to us, it is surely now,
when in looking on Him whom God made to be
sin for us, we see the heaviness of his righteous
soul, and his sorrow even unto death. Our great
day of atonement is at hand, and we shall be
called to partake of the sacrifice. There is now
no exclusion ; the veil is rent and the Holy of
Holies opened, into which we, a royal priesthood,
a peculiar people, have boldness to enter by the
blood of Jesus. But we bear the same sinful
body as our brethren of old : we are still full of
uncleanness. In proportion then as our privileges
are greater, our humiliation must be deeper ; our
self-renouncing more heartfelt and complete ;
and our prayer more continual, and more fervent,
that our God will cleanse the thoughts of our
hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit.

LECTURE II.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.

Judges xiii. 22, 2S.

And Manoah said unto his loife, We shall surely die,
because toe have seen God. But his wife said unto
him, If the Lord had been pleased to kill us, he loould
not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering
at our hands.

Such is the remarkable reasoning by which the
mother of one of the typical deliverers of Israel
reassui'es her trembling husband, after a mani-
festation of the Divine presence. And I find in
it traces of a general truth, which I shall en-
deavour to illustrate on the present occasion.
In the first Lecture of this coui'se, I main-
tained, that in the appearances of the Almighty
to his ancient Churches, the contrast between
Divine purity and human corruption was con-
stantly and emphatically inculcated: that Jehovah
manifested himself as a consuming fire, and
fenced about his presence with manifold cover-

26 LECTURE II.

ings and restrictions, to shew that man was not
worthy to appear before God, and that the
original paternal aspect of the Creator towards
his creatures was changed into one of wrath and
severity.

My present purpose will be to shew, that with
wrath, mercy was also revealed : in other words,
that besides the doctrine of human depravity
being impressed upon the ancient worshippers,
they also, and in the same act of self-renouncing
adoration, learned that sin was pardoned, a satis-
faction having been made.

In so doing, I would first direct your attention
to the state of things immediately after the fall
of our first parents. The sentence pronounced
upon disobedience had been positive and un-
qualified; " In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die." Equally positive and
unqualified was the curse which had passed upon
creation for man's sin : " Cursed is the ground
on thine account." On the one side then we
have the God of purity and justice, who will by
no means clear the guilty; and on the other,
man, and man's world, under the sentence of his
wrath, and at enmity with him. Why does the
sentence tarry 1 Why are not the offenders
blotted out from the universe of God 1 On the
contrary, Man still lives : man's world, with its
varied beauties and ministrations of delight, is
still around him. But the consuming fire of

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 25

God's presence is set up over against the garden
of Eden. Now, surely, the victims of his just
displeasure will fall a sacrifice to his present
vengeance. Now the flame of the sword will
go forth devouring and to devour, and earth
will again become without form and void. But
what do I find, instead of this work of wrath and
devastation 1 I see that the fire of God's anger
dwelt among men from that time forward. I see
by the very same appearances that proclaimed
the distance between man and God, the recon-
ciliation between man and God constantly and
plainly set forth. The fire of destruction, which
might have consumed the offending world, de-
scends and dwells among men. God can look
upon man ; can speak with him ; can be ap-
proached by him. I am not now arguing for any
disputed sense of words, or drawing any doubtful
inferences ; I simply lay before you the state of
our fallen parents, unquestioned by any believers
in Scripture; and assert that the very fact of
this continued existence of themselves and the
world around them, sentenced as both had been,
and subject to the execution of that sentence,
proclaimed to them with a voice not to be mis-
taken, " Sin is pardoned ; God can be just, and
yet a justifier." Enough for my purpose is the
undisputed narrative of the sacrifice of Cain and
Abel: from that I maintain, that there was,
whatever it may have been, a place of God's

28 LECTURE II.

presence, where he received offerings, and from
which he spoke ; and that therefore the great
watchword of redemption, " God with us," was
in the possession of man from the very first en-
trance of sin into the world.

But though my foundations rest on the simple
Scripture narrative, I would build upon them
other considerations, not uninteresting nor un-
important. If I examine the nature of the
appearance over against Eden, and compare with
it the other manifestations of the Divine presence,
I find certain symbolic forms common to them
all. In the midst of the consuming fire, living
creatures moved up and down. We find them
in actual presence at Eden; represented in the
Mosaic tabernacle ; continued in Solomon's tem-
ple ; revealed in the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel,
and particularly described in the latter ; appear-
ing again to the beloved Apostle in Patmos.
Now. I am not about to enter on any of the
fanciful theories which have been raised upon
the names and aspects of these symbolic beings :
I wish simply to remind you of the few fol-
lowing particulars, which may be gathered re-
specting their purport. We find from Ezekiel
that they were creatures compounded of the
noblest forms in animated nature. We find
again, where the prince of Tyrus is compared to
one of these, it is called " the inqiression of

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 29

similitude, and the crown of beauty:"" and as
identifying it with the appearance in Eden, it is
added, " Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God,
and hast moved among the stones of fire." Again,
in Isaiah's vision, where the Seraphim cry to one
another, and ascribe hoUness to Jehovah, they
add, " the earth is full of thy glory ;" or, ac-
cording to our marginal rendering, " thy glory is
the fulness of the earth."' Again, in Solomon's
temple, by the Psalmist, and by Ezekiel, I find
them described as bearing up or carrying the
glory of the Lord. I am led from these circum-
stances to infer that these forms symbolized the
animated creation.

Now, if I search the Apocalyptic visions,
I shall find this idea strongly confirmed. There^
they are represented, as in Isaiah, as ascribing
holiness to the Lord God Almighty : and we
read, " And when those living creatures give
glory and honour and thanks to him that sate
on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the
four and twenty Elders fall down before him
that sat on the throne, and worship him that
liveth for ever and ever, saying, Thou art worthy,
O Lord, to receive glory and honour and pow^r :
for thou hast created all things^ and for thy
pleasure they are and were created." In the
next chapter,^ they are included among those

^ Ezek. xxviii. 12; Lxx. version. ^ Isa. vi. 3.

^ Rev. iv. 6 - 11. ^ ver, 9.

30 LECTURE II.

who join in the song of j^raise to the Lamb, as
being redeemed by his blood : and the part
which they afterwards bear is remarkable ; for
we read, " And every creature which is in heaven,
and on the earth, and under the earth, and such
as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard
I, saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power be
unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four
living creatures said, Amen."*

The sum of these particulars may be thus
briefly stated. I find certain living creatures
accompanying, bearing up, moving amidst, the
fire of the Divine presence. These creatures are
compounded of the lord of the creation of God,
the king of the beasts of the forest, the noblest
of birds, and the most useful of domesticated
animals. I find these creatures called the im-
pression of similitude, the crown of beauty; I
find them saying that the fulness of the earth is
the glory of God ; I find that, on their ascription
of holiness to the Lord God Almighty, the Church
confesses the justice of the ascription, because
God has made all things, and for his pleasure
they are and were created; and finally, when
the consummation of the gathering together all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and
which are in earth and under the earth, is an-
nounced by the universal song of praise from the

' Rev. V. IS, 14.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. ol

whole animated creation, I find these living
creatures, as the heavenly symbols of creation,
assenting to Creation's doxology, with their
" Amen, even so let it be,"

Now, on this supposition, the lesson taught to
our fii'st parents by the first tabernacle, must
have been plain indeed. Amidst, and moving in
the very fire of the Divine wrath, they might see
the emblems of that creation which had fallen
under the curse of God, and which therefore that
wrath should blight and wither. And I am not
assuming too much in supposing that the mean-
ing of the emblems was then understood. For
language was not to them the pliable and conven-
tional instrument which we in these latter days
find it. However we view the mysterious ac-
count of its origin, and whatever interpretation
we put upon the simple assertion of Scripture,
that Adam gave names to every living thing ; we
must gather that the attributes and qualities of
things entered into their names, and that they
were not chosen at random. And the more we
examine into that language, which, if not the
very one in which these names were given, is
near akin to it and of the same character, the
more we are led to conclude, setting aside fanciful
etymologies, that almost all words have had pri-
mary meanings, distinct from, and including more
than their present acceptations. If the impression
of truth and reality, which first gave currency to

32 LECTURE II.

the appellations of things, has long since been
worn off, it was then, at least, sharp and perfect ;
and the early fathers of mankind no doubt ac-
knowledged in their converse, qualities and re-
semblances of which we have for ever lost sight.

I believe, therefore, that they further saw in
that original tabernacle, the fact that God and
his creation were reconciled, that an atonement
had been made, and that there was pardon for
sin.

I pause not, in my present Lecture, to enquire
into the manner in which that pardon was sought
and vouchsafed ; this will employ us hereafter.

I proceed to illustrate my position by the
subsequent testimony of the Old Testament dis-
pensations.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
expressly states, in ascribing the acceptance of
Abel and Enoch to their faith, " He that cometh
to God must believe that he is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him." But how should
man seek the God whom he had offended, and
from whose voice he fled in consciousness of his
sin and impurity, except the Lord had said unto
him, " Seek ye my face ;" except he had reason
to know that the breach was healed, and he was
under a dispensation of reconciliation ^

But a more striking instance of God's merciful
purposes towards mankind is manifested in the
history of the deluge. I waive all question

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD, 33

respecting attendant circumstances, and take the
simple Scripture narrative. All flesh had cor-
rupted their way upon the earth. Born in sin
originally, but -svith the means of grace before
them, they had rejected the oifers of mercy and
spiritual life, and had added sin unto sin. " The
end of all flesh is come before me," are the awful
words of the Almighty. But to whom are they
spoken ] Not to the destroying angel of wrath,
nor in threatening to the trembling world which
was about to perish ; but in confidence to one
of his fallen creatures, even Noah, with whom
God was pleased to establish his covenant. Still
it seems as if the day of wrath were come. The
fury of the Lord is let loose over the creation.
All in whom was the breath of life upon the
earth died. Why then should one family be
saved amidst this general wreck ] Might not
the eternal promises of God have been accom-
plished to that faithful man, compatibly with
his present subjection to the general judgment of
waters '? Doubtless : but in the temporal preser-
vation of this family, God testified that his
purposes of mercy to mankind were still being
developed ; that it was needful to the complete-
ness of the counsel of his will in Christ, that the
new world should be linked in existence to the
old. Can we suppose that one who had preached
the righteousness of faith to the rebellious world
for so many years, could have been so blind to

34 LECTURE II.

spiritual realities, as merely to recognize in liis
preservation a cause for personal or domestic
thanldulness '? Can we suppose that he did not
see in the appalling desolation around him, and
his own exemption from it, a sensible proof of
that mercy in the midst of wrath, the belief
in which must have long furnished his chief
spiritual consolation "?

But the waste of waters has disappeared, and
the preserved family issue forth upon the face
of the fresh earth. What is the first act of God
towards man? AVe might have expected that
a code of pains and penalties would have been
given, and severity, before unheard of, exercised
to keep the purified world from pollution. But
it is otherwise. The first act is a covenant of
mercy ; wherein, while man's depravity is dis-
tinctly recognized, God's favour and gracious
purposes towards him are set in bright contrast
with it.

Next in order after the second father of
mankind, I find the patriarch Job preaching by
example and discourse, that God's mind towards
man is that of a just and pure, but a reconciled
Judge. In the midst of his afflictions, I find the
reHance of faith : " Though he slay me, yet will
I trust in him : He also shall be my salvation."*'
This feeling towards God, whose wrath was heavy
upon him, is set in affecting contrast with the

6 Job xiii. 15, 16.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 35

miserable comfort which he received from his
earthly advisers : " My friends," he says, " scorn
me ; but mine eye poureth out tears unto God."'
And St. James writes, " Ye have heard of the
patience of Job, and have seen the end of the
Lord ; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender
mercy.

In the appearance of God to Moses, and in
his dwelling among the tribes of Israel in the
wilderness, the same truth was represented.
A fire burnt in the midst of the bush, but it was
not consumed : the fire of God's presence dwells
and journeys in the midst of Israel, a sinful and
rebelhous people ; occasionally it breaks forth on
the bold and hardened sinner ; sometimes the
plague goes out from the Lord, and the work
of destruction begins ; but on all occasions the
judgment is stayed ; a full end is not made.
An abiding and unchanging purpose of mercy
and love is repeatedly asserted : the inheritance
of the Lord is not to be cast ofi", nor his cove-
nant to fail. And at the same time Israel's
unworthiness of God's favour is strongly insisted
on. They are reminded that it was not for any
thing in them that God set his love upon them,
but for the sake of his covenant ; i. e. of his
gracious purpose of redemption. In contemplat-
ing then the state of his nation, the Jew could
not but see a standing proof of the reconciliation

' Job xvi. 20. ^ James v. 1 1.

d2

36 LECTURE II.

between God and man, at the same time that he
was convinced of the unworthiness of himself
and his people to appear before Jehovah.

You will observe, that it is my present purpose
to shew you the evidence which the ancient
Churches possessed, for believing that a way had
been provided for the sinner to live before God.
I am not therefore so much concerned with their
hopes for the future, as with their convictions of
what had been by some means or other effected.
I lay aside them for the present prophecy, —
properly so called. I lay aside the mass of
testimony to the future manifestation of this
truth, furnished us by typical ordinances ; I wish
to illustrate the existence of faith in a redemp-
tion effected. And I conceive that there yet
remains on this point, much vagueness in men's
conceptions respecting the early Fathers of God's
Church. We are accustomed to view them as
anxiously looking down the stream of time, and
gaining by faith the sight of a Kedeemer to come.
So no doubt they did ; but it was as the manifesta-
tion, open and palpable, on the stage of the world,
and in man's flesh, of a great truth on which, as
its foundation, their faith rested. " I know that
my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at
the latter day upon the earth," is an avowal of
faith in redemption present and actual, as well
as in God's promise of manifesting that redemp-
tion in the fulness of time. And I see an

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 37

important purpose served by thus viewing the
faith of the Old Testament saints, as resting on
facts, of which the evidence was continually
before them. I see that it takes from them the
disadvantage and imputed weakness of being
even in expectancy of the promise, and ever
disappointed : that it raises our estimate of the
consistency and reasonableness of their devoted
obedience : that it binds together them and
ourselves, in common dependence on the God
who from before the foundation of the world
hath commanded redemption for his people.

And if I further search psalm and prophecy,
I find that the great truths which underprop the
spiritual temple are ever spoken of as fixed, and
past change in the decrees of the Eternal ; while
the upper building is avowedly in progress, and
its future glories are foretold. " Other foundation
can no man lay than that is laid," is their un-
varying testimony : while from saint and prophet,
from people and priest, the prayer which still
goes up from Israel in their blindness and de-
jection, then went up in the clearness of their faith
and the yearnings of their joy, "Build, O Lord;
build thy temple." When the sweet Psalm-
ist of I-srael in his last words is prophesying of
Christ,^ his sense of the incompleteness of his
own house and times with reference to the
promise, is borne down by his fixed reliance on

' 2 Sani. xxiii. 5.

38 LECTURE II,

the purposes of God ; " Althougli my house be
not so with God, yet he hath made with me
an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
and sure ; for this is all my salvation and all
my desire, although he make it not to grow."
When the mournful prophet is bewaihng the
desolation of his city and people, he is enabled
to gather strength and comfort from the as-
surance, "It is good that a man should both
hope and wait for the salvation of the Lord.'"
And another Prophet pleads with God in a dark
and dreary time, and says, " O Jehovah, keep
alive thy work in the midst of the years, in the
midst of the years make it known: in wrath
remember mercy."' But he passes on to the
glory and majesty of the Lord in his designs for
the salvation of his people, and ends his song
in triumphant faith ; "Although the figtree shall
not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine ;
the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields
shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off
from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the
stalls ; yet I w^ill rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy
in the God of my salvation."^

Doubtless such faith required continual prompt-
ing and refreshing. Doubtless then, as in
the latter days, scoffers would arise, saying,
" Where is the promise of his coming ] for since
the fathers fell asleep, all things are as they were

' Lam. iii. 26. "• Ilabak. iii. 2. ' lb. 17.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 39

from the beginning of the creation." The very
continuance of nature and man, was to the
faithful a standing proof of Redemption ; " It is
of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed,
because his compassions fail not: they are new
every morning."* But even in their minds it
was necessary that this conviction should be ever
and anon refreshed by open visions, and the
sound of the Divine voice, aiding that testimony
which had gone out into all lands, but which
mankind seeing would not perceive, and hearing
would not hear. For this purpose the Lord
chose a city wherein to place his name, his
covenant appellation, Jehovah the God of Israel :
there, while the wasting fire of his anger dwelt,
and the light of his presence was not to be ap-
proached, his people might ever seek him in
ordinances of his own appointing ; and though
trembling at his majesty, and shrinking from
his purity, might from every fresh festival and
sacrifice return persuaded, that " If the Lord had
been pleased to kiU them, he would not have
accepted these off'erings at their hands."

And we have obtained like precious faith with
them : in degree differing widely, but the same
in kind. The redemption which universal
nature and the Divine presence certified to them
generally, has been accompKshed in detail to us
by the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Our faith,
* Lam. iii. 22.

40 LECTURE II.

like theirs, rests upon incontestable facts : but
the foundations of our belief are laid on the
building which they helped to raise, and to the
completion of which they looked onward in hope.
The massive work upon which, from the beginning
of the world, the structure has rested, still stands
firm and unshaken beneath ; but the head-stone
has now been laid on the corner, and the symmetry
of the temjjle is rising before us, fitly framed
together. Who will now be persuaded to guide
his eye downward to that which is rough and
unsightly, or half hidden by the heaps of ages 1
Yet if our dependence upon the everlasting
security of our building is to be an enhghtened
and reasonable trust, and not a mere prejudice,
we must " go about Zion, mark well her bul-
warks, and trace the setting up of her towers,"
even till we are convinced that our house shall
not fall, for it is founded on a rock : that " this
God will be our God for ever and ever ; he will
be our guide unto death.'"

Nor should I forget, before I let you depart,
that the leading fact of our redemption is this
day presented to our meditations ; ^ viz. that
resurrection of Christ, without which our faith
and preaching are in vain, and we are yet in our
sins. This day most of us have joined in the
great sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, by

^ Ps. xlviii. 12—14.

^ This Lecture was delivered on Easter day.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD, 41

which that resurrection has, from the very time
of its taking place, been typified and celebrated.
We have seen the blood shed for our deliverance,
and have spiritually partaken of the body given
and glorified for us. Never was chain of testi-
mony so firm and continuous as that to which
we have this day added one more link: never
was fact supported by evidence so incontestable
as that whereof we this day are witnesses. The
Lord is risen indeed. Life and immortality are
brought to light. The Lord hath remembered
his covenant ; and he will receive us graciously,
and love us freely. If the Lord had been pleased
to destroy us, he w^ould not have received this
offering at our hands. But as they of old waited
and hoped, so must we. The glories of God's
Church are yet to come. We wait for the adop-
tion, even the redemption of the body. We
look for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear, that we
may awake after his likeness.

And pray ye that we may be prepared when
He shall call ; with our reason satisfied and con-
vinced by the evidences of our faith ; our under-
standings adequately apprehending, and our
judgments rightly dividing, the w ord of truth ;
our affections set upon things above ; our thoughts
pure and holy ; and the light of our good works
so shining, that men glorify God on our behalf.

LECTURE III.

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION,

Hebrews xi. 3.

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
thati Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts : and by it he
being dead yet speaketh.

I AM contending that the foundation doctrines of
the Gospel of Christ were revealed to the Old
Testament Churches with clearness sufficient to
render their faith a well-grounded and reasonable
conviction.

In my first lecture, I endeavoured to shew you
that the great preliminary doctrine of man's un-
worthiness to approach the Divine majesty, was
continually set forth before them : in the second,
I maintained that the fact of a reconciliation
between God and man having been effected, was
also clearly announced.

Now if this had been all; if the consuming-
fire of the Divine purity had shewn them their

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 48

own uncleanness, and yet the Lord had invited
them to seek his face, and had poured on them
his mercies ; the faith of the ancient worshipper
might indeed have ruled his actions, but could
not have satisfied his reason : the power within
him might have governed with despotic sway, but
could not have brought into its service, persuaded
and willing, those faculties whereby God has
exalted man, and enabled him to reach out unto
knowledge. For the aspect of the Divine economy
would have been' anomalous and enigmatical. On
the one side, they saw a just and holy God, un-
able to tolerate impurity and sin ; on the other,
sinning and sentenced man, — but, notwithstand-
ing, the sentence not performed, the purity
bearing and dwelling with the uncleanness, the
angry Judge inviting the sinner to come and
partake of the blessings which he had forfeited.
And though uninformed humility, and unques-
tioning self-devotion, might have overlooked these
difficulties, and presumed that all this might take
place by some way possible to God, but inscru-
table to man ; yet I see not how such presump-
tion, however it may actually have influenced
many good men of old, could form a reasonable
or satisfied faith, worthy to be held up as a pat-
tern to Christians. And yet we know, by the
multiplied assertions of the chapter from whence
our text is taken, that such faith was possessed
by the Old Testament saints.

44 LECTURE III.

The question then this day before us is, how
God was pleased to reveal to his ancient people
the method by which this reconciliation had been
effected in his eternal purposes ? The solution of
this question will be found in a consideration of
the leading ordinance which prevailed through-
out the ancient worship — viz. Sacrifice. And
here let me remind you, that T am not now con-
cerned with its prophetic import, properly so
called, but reserve this for future consideration;
viewing sacrifice at present as something inserted
between the terms of the contradiction which
I have mentioned, and dwelling upon that fact
in the accomplishment of the Divine purposes, to
which this ordinance bore witness. As in the
manifestation of God's presence we read, Man
is guilty ; and in the very subsistence of the
material world, and the dwelling of God among
his creatures, we read, Man is pardoned ; so
in the ordinance of Sacrifice we shall read, Sin
is punished — justice is done.

Let us recur to the transaction on which our
text is a comment. We have seen God's taber-
nacle set up over against Eden ; we now see with
what intent. The two first descendants of Adam
and Eve approach, at the end of the days — that
is, most probably, on some seventh day of rest and
worship — to offer gifts unto the Lord. Before we
enter on the circumstances, let us look back a
while and sec what has been happening, while

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 45

these sons had been ripening to manhood. We
cannot suppose that theirs was a solitary and
unprecedented instance of approach to God's
presence, or of the presentation of offerings ;
they must have learned the practice from their
parents, who, doubtless, at the ends of the days,
during the many years which had elapsed since
their expulsion from Eden, had approached and
offered by Divine appointment, and with the
Divine approval. But what had they offered?
I recur to the circumstances before us; and
I find Cain and Abel bringing their gifts to the
tabernacle. Abel is a keeper of sheep ; Cain is
a tiller of the ground. Each brings of the abund-
ance of his possessions : Abel the firsthngs of his
flock ; Cain, the fi-uit of the earth. But I find
Abel's sacrifice alone accepted, and am led to
enquire into the reason of such distinction. The
supposed previous character of the two brothers
is brought forward by many to account for it ;
and doubtless there was much in the disposition
of the hating and murderous Cain, which would
render him an object of the Divine displeasure.
He inclined unto wickedness in his heart, and
the Lord would not hear him. But I am
tempted to search further into the circumstances
recorded, for the grounds of Cain's rejection ;
especially when I reflect that, under the ancient
dispensations, formal unfitness is most frequently
found to have incurred the open disapproval of

46 LECTURE 111.

God. And if I am not mistaken, I find it illus-
trated by a few simple considerations. Cain was
the first-born ; and as such, inherited the priest-
hood. This law of the Patriarchal dispensation
is well known. As such, he drew near to offer
sacrifice. Now, on examining those parts of the
Levitical ordinances which relate to sacrifice, I
find that never were offerings of the fruit of the
ground made, unpreceded by an offering of slain
animals ; that day by day the first duty of the
temple was the slaying of the appointed lamb ;
that on the sabbaths, two were offered previously
to any other sacrifice; and that on the solemn
feasts, more blood was ordained to flow, before
the oil and the flour could be presented. And
I know that for all this there were deep reasons,
which I cannot but suspect influenced also the
arrangement of the Patriarchal w^orship.

Cain, as the priest of his family, had been in the
habit of bringing and slaying the burnt-offering at
the tabernacle. But the lamb for the burnt-offering
was none of his own providing. For it, he was
beholden to his brother. With that brother, he
had enmity. It is reasonable to suppose this,
from the severe and sudden vengeance which he
inflicted on him aftei-wards, on a cause of jealousy
occurring. Why then should Abel's flock fur-
nish the greater sacrifice, that w^hich must pre-
cede liis own, and prepare the way for its accep-
tance? Why might not the fruits of his own

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 47

field serve the purpose ? With such thoughts,
at the end of the days, he brings before the Lord
the produce of the ground. Witliout shedcUng
of blood, he approaches God's presence, and
stands before the consuming fire.

Now let us observe the conduct of Abel. The
priesthood of his elder brother had been as yet
honoured by him, and he had furnished him
wherewith to offer before the Lord the sacrifice
which he required. But now that elder brother
despises the ordinance of Jehovah, and approaches
him with unauthorized offerings. Shall the ser-
vice of God be neglected, and the burnt-offering
left unperformed] By faith, Abel offers unto
God the more excellent, the ampler sacrifice,
and the priesthood of Cain is set aside. We
seem to see a hint of this in the very form of the
narrative. " And Abel, he also (as if it were not
a matter of course) brought of the :^rstlings of
his flock, and of the fat thereof." We need not
then enquire further, why the sacrifice of Abel
was accepted, and that of Cain rejected. Those
who thus understand the circumstances, find a
confirmation of their view in the words addressed
by God to Cain ; " Why art thou wroth, and
why is thy countenance fallen ? if thou doest
well, shalt thou not have the excellency ? (^i.e.
the preeminence); and if not, is not a sin-offering
lying at the door ? And unto thee is his desire,
and thou slialt rule over him."

-tS LECTURE III.

But wherein did Abel's faith consist, when he
offered unto God this ampler sacrifice ? Are we
to suppose it to have been the mere inflexibility of
a blmd obedience ^ could it have been said in that
case, that " he being dead, yet speaketh" to us,
or " is yet celebrated ?" Do we not rather see in
his conduct, evidence of a strong persuasion
that sacrifice was God's appointed witness to the
satisfaction of the Divine justice, the type of that
great bloodshedding, without which is no re-
mission ? And does not the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews further sanction this conclusion,
when in speaking of the fully manifested bles-
sings of the last dispensation, he asserts that we
have come to Jesus the mediator of the new
covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, which
speaketh better things than Abel ] Does he not
imply that the testimony which Abel bore to the
ancient Church, but darkly and ill-understood, is
openly and clearly borne to us in the gospel of
Christ 1

But we have not yet exhausted the instruction
to be derived from this, the first recorded sacri-
fice. " The Lord had respect," literally, " turned,
unto Abel and his offering." This has been
generally interpreted of the consumption of the
sacrifice by fire from the Divine presence. Theo-
dotion rendered it, " The Lord consumed by fire
the offering of Abel." And certainly, if we con-
sider the way in which the Lord's approval of

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 49

sacrifice was afterwards shewn, this interpretation
seems highly probable. On the completion of
the Mosaic tabernacle, when the victims had
been slain, and all things performed in order as
the Lord had appointed, we read : " And there
came a fire out from before Jehovah, and con-
sumed upon the altar the burnt-ofi'ering and the
fat ; which when all the people saw, they shouted
and fell upon their faces.'" On the staying of
the plague which was sent upon Jerusalem for
David's sin in numbering the people, we read,
" David built an altar to the Lord in the thresh-
ingfloor of Oman the Jebusite, and ofiered burnt-
offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon
the Lord; and the Lord answered him from
heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering."-
On the dedication of Solomon's temple the same
token of the Divine acceptance was vouchsafed ;
and again to Elijah on Mount Carmel. And in
Psalm XX., where we read, " The Lord remember
all thine offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice,"
we find in our margins, ' or, turn to ashes;' and
thus some of the versions have rendered it.^

I find it then highly probable that the ac-
ceptance of Abel's offering was testified by the
descent of fire from the Divine presence con-
suming his sacrifice ; I know that such was the

^ Numb. ix. 24. 2 ] Chron. xxi 26.

^ Et qu'il reduise en cendre ton holocauste. — Osteivuld.
E riduca in cenere il tiio olocausto. — Diodati.

50 LECTURE 111.

sign of acceptance received on many occasions
afterwards, — nay, so well understood, as to lead
Elijah certainly to expect it in answer to his
prayer.*

I see then two distinct things to be noted in
the ancient burnt sacrifices — both representing
great spiritual truths, and both, I believe, un-
derstood by the faithful of old : the first of these
is the slaying of the victim; the second, the
consumption of it by fire. In the first of these,
I see the execution of the sentence of temporal
death which had passed upon all men, for that
all had sinned; in the second, that consumption
by the fire of God's eternal wrath, to which all
sinners were justly subject.

I now turn to the situation of the faithful
worshipper. Humbled on account of sin, corrupt
by nature, he approaches the Divine purity, the
consuming fire, in full belief of a way of access
having been opened, and a reconciliation effected.
But when drawing near, what is he commanded
to do 1 He brings wdth him an animal, wherein
is the breath of life. I need not pause in this
place to prove to you that he regarded this
animal as representing himself] — that there was
in his mind a substitution of the creature which
he led in his hand for his own person ; it will
be only necessary to remind you of the laying of
hands on the victim of sin-offering, and indeed

* 1 Kings xviii. 24;.

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 51

of the universal tenor of the Levitical expiatory
ordinances, to convince every reasonable mind
that the victim was regarded as rej)resenting the
worshipper, and that which was done unto it as
done unto him. With this belief the w^orshipper,
or the priest for him, slays the victim on the
altar. The sentence of death which should have
been executed on the worsliipper, descends on
his substitute. The blood, wherein is the life,
flows down God's altar. The worshipper sees in
this the fact, that the Divine justice has found
one whom it may strike, and leave him free.
But is it possible that he can account the animal
slain on the altar to have been this victim ? Can
he have formed so depraved an estimate of God,
as to think that he can be satisfied with the
bloodshedding of the inferior creatures as a sub-
stitution for the infliction of his wrath on man 1
Doubtless there was a tendency this way among
the children of Israel, and we therefore find
repeated cautions given to them, that these sa-
crifices were not in themselves well pleasing to
the Lord, But in the mind of the faithful and
intelligent worshipper, no such thought can have
had place. He saw, in the dying agonies of the
victim, that which he himself had deserved, in-
flicted on another. This other, as there appearing,
could not be taken into his account, as in any
way actually aflecting the relation between
himself and God. But he enjoys the breath of

52 LECTURE III.

life, while his representative is slain by God's
appointment. So that this part of the sacrifice
was to him a solemn declaration of the fact, that
he was upheld in life owing to God's justice
having found a substitute, other and better than
that before him, and having, in the eternity of
the Divine purposes, inflicted actual and temporal
death upon that substitute.

But this is not all. The victim representing
himself, and on which his sins had been laid, has
now undergone the first and direct penalty of
sin. It now typifies himself, returned unto dust,
and so far having accomplished the terms of the
sentence. What more can remain "? If, as some
have supposed, the Levitical, and before it the
Patriarchal economy, involved no revelation of
a future state, here the instruction given would
have ended : the covenant entered into by
sacrifice would have pledged the parties con-
cerned in it to nothing further. But I find that
the slaying of the victim is not enough to impress
on the worshipper's mind a sense of his accept-
ance. I find that the great and crowning token
of God's reconciliation to his people, is yet to
come. I see the congregation of Israel waiting,
and intently gazing on the slaughtered animals
now disposed in death on God's altar. Suddenly
the fire of wrath comes forth from the holy place.
The victims are consumed; the people shout,
and fall on their faces. What did they see in

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 53

this Divine act which thus gave them occasion for
joy and adoration ? What, but that the eternal
punishment of sin after death had also descended
on the substitute, and was removed away from
them? But the consumption of the victims
themselves could not be this vengeance. The
mind of the worshipper was again du'ected to an
infliction, in the purposes of God, of the extreme
fury of the Divine wrath upon another and
greater substitute. All they like sheep had gone
astray ; they had turned every one to his own
way : and the Lord had caused to meet upon Him
the iniquity of them all.

The faith then which distinguished the ac-
cepted worshipper was founded on this satisfaction
of the Divine justice, without which God could
not be reconciled to man. They looked forward
to the fulness of time, when all this should be
manifested by actual occurrences. That this
time was not yet come, all their ceremonial ob-
servances testified. But that the reconciliation
had taken place in the Divine mind; that
in God's purposes, the blood of the Lamb slain
fi'om before the foundation of the world was a
fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, those
very ordinances also bore witness ; giving them
typical access to God, and imparting typical
purification.

Thus I see how the saints of old might have
built their obedience on a reasonable and intel-

54 LECTURE III.

ligent faith : not perplexed by the contradiction
implied in God being just, and yet accounting
the sinner righteous ; but able to see sufficient of
the way of redemption, to know that it involved
no compromise of the Divine purity, but ensured
the fulfilment of the sentence of God's wrath
upon sin. I see also that they were enabled to
look so far into the things of God, as to know
that this had been brought about by the substi-
tution of one for themselves, whose blood should
cleanse from all sin, and who should for them
bear the infliction of the Divine wrath.

Henceforth, then, I contemplate their faith as
directed to this Substitute, as regards both his
essential eternal character, and his intended
manifestation among men. What more was
revealed to them respecting him, will form the
subject of our future enquiries.

Let us here pause awhile, and review the steps
by which we have advanced, and gather up the
instruction which lies by the way.

Faith, the great actuating persuasion of the
Christian life, is compounded and knit together
of a variety of states of the mind and the aflec-
tions. If we trace it into its inmost recesses, we
shall find the first spring of faith to be a sense of
weakness and need — a self-distrust — a giving way
within, from consciousness that we are not able
to fulfil our parts in creation, or to advance to
our greatest happiness. Our idea of subjection

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 55

and accoimtableness to an Almighty Being, how-
ever originating, is too firmly fixed ever to be
entirely dislodged from our minds. With this
Being we contrast ourselves: impure in thought,
irresolute in purpose, limited in power, we shrink
from the prospect of our meeting with Him, which
meeting, however, we feel to be certain. Such
misgiving may influence us in various ways, for
evil or for good ; with one only of which I am
now concerned. Amidst it, it may be, we fasten
our attention on the record which God has given.
There we find an announcement that God is re-
conciled to man ; we find an invitation given to
trust in him, to derive strength from him, to look
for eternal life at his hands. But not thus at
once is the hope which had died within us
brought to renewed life. Our highest affections
must be wrought by the highest exercise of our
inner powers. We cannot command hope and
love to spring forth, unless they be sown in the
deep soil of an honest and well-convinced reason :
nor is it the rank and sudden upspringing of the
passions which can bring forth good fruit, but the
steady and well-regulated growth of the affections.
At this period then of the workings of our
minds, the reason demands to be satisfied, so that
our way may be sure before us. Nor has our
heavenly Father left the highest power which He
has implanted in us, Avithout its legitimate exercise
in the highest of all our pursuits. By a scries of

56 LECTURE III.

facts, recorded on unquestionable testimony, He
has shewn forth the reahty, and, as far as our
understandings can apprehend it, the method of
this reconcihation. And let not this last quali-
fication seem to involve any objection to the
reasonableness of our religion. There is wide
difference between contradictions which outrage
the reason, and mysteries which baffle the under-
standing. The former of these we are never
called upon to receive, nor is it in our nature to
do so : the latter we cannot but believe, and daily
witness in and around us ; so that the reason may
be satisfied, where the understanding is incapable
of apprehending. If we have reason to believe —
in which expression language itself guides us to
truth — that the procession of facts whereby re-
demption has been testified, was ordained for this
purpose, and has been revealed to us by the
Almighty and All-knowing Being ; then, though
that revelation contain mysteries which cannot be
apprehended by us, we may yet, on the testimony
of our reason, satisfied as it is on its greatest
requirement, receive and make our own and the
ground of our trust, matters into which our con-
ceptions cannot as yet penetrate. For the afiec-
tions, which it is the great object of rehgion
to awaken and regulate, are indeed tended and
ministered to by the understanding, but are
themselves the servants of that lofty and admi-
rable power, the reason, which God has diffused

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 57

throughout our race, responding to the motions
of eternal Truth, strongest often in the simplest,
the overruler of our responsibiKties, and the key
to our persuasions.

Such then are the foundations of reasonable
faith ; a sense of weakness and danger, reassured
by the conviction that He who alone is able has
devised help and salvation for us, and has invited
us to partake of these blessings. The indefinite
sense of want now becomes the reaching out of
prayer ; the tremblings of fear are turned to the
thrillings of hope ; the indolence of powerless-
ness awakens to the struggle of humility in
rehance on Divine aid.

Here I would remind you, that in every com-
ponent of faith just enumerated, the servants of
God from the first have shared with ourselves.
Their sense of weakness and need has been the
same, for they have been subject to the same
infirmities, and the same fear of death; the ofiers
of reconciliation and pardon which are made to
us, were made to them ; by their own continu-
ance in being, by the dwelling of Jehovah
amongst them, by open vision, and by hearing
from their fathers, they received pledges for the
genuineness and reality of these offers ; and by
their sacrifices continually performed, they might
see that the reconciliation was one not compro-
mising the eternal justice, but fulfilling it to the
utmost.

58 LECTURE III.

The great difference between them and our-
selves lies in this: that whereas they looked
onward for the crowning pledge of God's recon-
ciliation to man, in a promised manifestation of
the Redeemer, we have received that pledge, and
have beheld him by the clearest historical testi-
mony, incarnate, suffering, risen, and ascended
into heaven, for us. That which was to them
only a subjective ground of trust and hope, based
on the assurance that He was faithful who had
promised, has become part of the objective and
undeniable evidence of our religion. And in
proportion to this change, the eyes of our under-
standings have been enlightened, and the range
of our conceptions enlarged. Many kings and
prophets have desired to see things which we
see, and have not seen them.

If then, even of old, open visions, and suspen-
sions of the order of nature, were not the grounds,
but only the refreshments of faith, — not necessary
for its completeness, but only vouchsafed to aid
its struggle with the flesh ; how little reason
have we to regret their absence from our times,
and how much to fix our faith firmly on its
substantial and immoveable foundations, our own
insufficiency and unworthiness, God's willingness
to pardon and save us, and the wonderful method
whereby that reconciliation has been testified,
even the life, death, and victory of our spiritual
representative, the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION. 59

I dismiss you then with an exhortation of
Scripture, which might in all ages have been
spoken to the Church, but falls with a voice of
tenfold power on us of the latter days : — " I be-
seech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service."

LECTURE IV.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE.

Isaiah liii. 6.

The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all, [or,
hath made the iniquities of us all to meet on him}^

I HAVE endeavoured to shew, that as the faith
of the Christian determines in certain great
truths, which we call the doctrines of Christi-
anity,— and those truths are witnessed by evi-
dence capable of satisfying a reasonable mind ;
so hkewise the servants of God, in ancient days,
attained by faith to the same truths, also wit-
nessed by adequate evidences. I have shewn
that the necessity of reconciliation with God,
the fact of that reconciliation having taken place,
and having been wrought by the infliction of the
Divine wrath on a substitute, were revealed to
the old Testament Churches.

It remains that we now enquire how much
they knew of the nature of that substitute. And

^ Marginal rendering, English version.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 61

this enquiry will be directed not so much to the
sacred text itself as we understand it, as to the
explanations of that text given by the Jews
themselves, and the acknowledged expectations
to which reference is made in the New Tes-
tament.

I need not in this place remind you, that the
attention of the Jewish people has been directed
from the earliest times to a person promised in
Scripture, and by them denominated" the Messiah,"
i. e. the Christ, the anointed one. I only mention
this, that we may at once prove one thing which
our argument demands, viz. that this Messiah
was, in the idea of the Jews, the substitute of
whom we have been speaking. We are accus-
tomed to suppose that people possessed with the
notion, that their expected deliverer shall be
a temporal prince ; and there is no doubt that
they have usually been prone, and are especially
now prone in their time of scattering and de-
sertion, to have regard principally to this part of
the Messiah's character. The testimony to the
identity of Jesus of Nazareth with the suffering
and stricken substitute is so clear, that we now
find them setting aside the evidence to that part
of his character, and adoptmg only the pro-
phecies relating to his glories and dominion, the
sensible proof of which is not yet manifested.
But it was not always thus. The crown of glory
with which prophecy had invested the future

62 LECTURE IV.

deliverer was not so bright but that the piercmg
thorns might be discerned in it ; nor was the cup
of salvation, in the view of the ancient Church,
to be unaccompanied by the dregs of bitterness.
We are in possession of Jewish commentaries
and paraphrases of the Scriptures, which, though
they very imperfectly represent the purity of the
ancient faith, yet in some parts bear remarkable
testimony to its nature. And from these, in
connexion with the sacred text itself, we shall
see strong witness borne to the identity of the
Messiah Avith the stricken and dying substitute.

The passage from which my text is taken,
contains the most direct assertion in Scripture of
the humiliation and sufferings of the Christ.
We scruple not to apply it to him, having, besides
its own plain allusions, the authority of the New
Testament for our warrant. The passage begins
with the thirteenth verse of the preceding chapter:
" Behold my servant shall deal prudently, he shall
be exalted and extolled, and be very high;" and
the sense proceeds, without any change of sub-
ject, to the end of the liiird chapter. I wish then
to ascertain the opinions of the Jews themselves
respecting this description and its subject.

If I turn to the headings of the chapters in
their modern Hebrew bibles, I find that in this
chapter (the liiird), " the innocent servants of
God are introduced, whom men regard as sinners,
aiflict with suffering, and persecute even to death ;

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 63

and first their humble, then their exalted state is
described." And this I believe is a fair state-
ment of their present interpretation. But this
general application to the persecuted servants of
God has not been by any means acquiesced in
among them. In the works of the modern
Rabbis, various persons are proposed as here
intended : one contends for Jeremiah ; another
for king Josiah ; another for the people of Israel.
Besides these, which are the principal, many
others are mentioned, Ezra, Zerubbabel, Abraham,
and Moses. Others, again, acknowledge the
opening verses to relate to the Messiah, and
afterwards change the person.

From these conflicting interpreters let us
turn now to the more ancient commentaries,
some most probably compiled about or before
the time of our Saviour. Among them also there
seems to be no hesitation in applying the opening
verses of the passage to the Messiah. And I
find the same unanimity in the application of
the verses relating to sufi'ering and expiation
in chapter liiird. I take the fourth verse, in
which we read, " Surely he hath home our
grief, and carried our soiroivs ; yet ive did
esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted ^
In the Jewish comments we find as follows:
" The blessed God brought forward the soul of
the Messiah, and said to him. Art thou willing
to heal and redeem my sons after six thousand

64 LECTURE IV.

years'? He answered, I am. God replied,
Wilt thou sustain chastisements to wipe away
their sins, as it is written. He hath borne our
diseases? He answered, I will sustain them
with joy.""

In this tradition we have a distinct recog-
nition of the words of the verse before us being
applied to the sufferings of the Messiah.

Again, the Rabbi Alsheck explains the words
thus; "Because the hiding of face, as we learn
from the preceding verse, is not on account of
himself, but on account of the people : therefore
we understand here that he himself literally
bears our diseases, as if it had been said, He of
his own accord is pleased to bear them, although
we esteem him stricken by God, and that ac-
cording to justice and on account of his own sins,
not from love."^ And this same Rabbi says, on
the opening of the passage, " the Rabbis of
blessed memory with one voice, according to
received tradition, assert that here the Messiah
is spoken of."*

We have yet another testimony to the appli-
cation of this passage to the Messiah. In the
commentary of the ancient Rabbis, on those
words in Genesis xxivth, " Let thy seed possess

2 Peshikta Rabbati. Vid. Pol. Synopsis, m he.
^ Cit. Pol. Synops. ut supra. Vid. Schoettgenium. Hon
Hebr. et Talmud, in Nov. Test., Vol. ii. p. 183.
* Pol. Synops. in ch. lii. 10.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 65

the gate of those that hate them," we find, " This
is Messiah the king, who shall be in the genera-
tion of the wicked, and shall reject them, and
choose the blessed God and his holy name, to
serve him with his whole heart. And he shall
set himself to seek mercy for Israel, to fast and
to humble himself for them, as it is said, ' He
was wounded for our transgressions.' And when
Israel sinneth he seeketh mercy for them, as
it is said again, ' By his stripes we are healed.' "'

The inference then from these quotations, which
are taken from books acknowledged and es-
teemed sacred by the Jews, is, that as far as we
know it, the opinion of their ancient masters
referred these sufferings to the King Messiah.
Now, this one point being established, much
more that is to our present purpose follows
with it.

In this passage sacrificial terms are used: the
very animal day by day offered in the temple, is
brought forward as a type of the suffering person;
and allusion is made to the laying of sin on the
head of the victim, where it is said, " The Lord
hath caused to meet on him the iniquities of
us all."

And I further request your attention to the

sort of evidence which we have derived from

these Rabbinical quotations. We find modern

interpretations conflicting and confused. We

^ Bereshith Rabba, in loc.

F

66 LECTURE IV.

have recourse to ancient commentaries, and we
find unanimity and clearness ; and one remark-
able testimony which I have cited directs us still
further back, and assures us that all the Rabbis
of blessed memory, as with one mouth, interpret
these things of King Messiah.

I am justified, then, in assuming that there was
in the ancient Jewish Church, a conviction that
the suffering and stricken substitute was identical
with the expected Messiah. How far this con-
viction was spread, or how clearly followed up, is
not the purpose of my present enquiry. I find it
existing; and the existence of it furnishes me
with matter for fresh consideration.

I will use the passage on which I have been
speaking, as a key to open the anciently received
meaning of other passages, which we imderstand
as relating to the suff'erings of Christ. To name
them only will be sufficient in this place. The
twenty-second, fortieth, and sixty-ninth Psalms
are among the best known. The same discre-
pancies prevail in the interpretations given of
these Psalms by the modern Jews, But I ask
whether one of the faithful, who could by an
understood tradition refer the words of Isaiah to
a sufiering Messiah, would not also apply to him
the expressions in these Psalms ] Can he have
acknowledged the application in one case, and
missed it in the other ?

But another circumstance remains yet to be

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 67

considered. The New Testament quotations of
these and other passages are well worthy of our
notice. The Gospel of St. Matthew was written
for the use of Jews, and most probably in their
language.' I find in that Gospel direct citations
of these parts of Scripture, without explanation
or apology, as relating to Jesus Christ. If I en-
quire why these passages are quoted, T see that
the object in doing so was to identify Jesus of
Nazareth with the Messiah of Jewish expec-
tation. For if they had not understood them
of the Messiah, to what purpose could they have
been quoted as applying to Jesus ?

Again, the Epistle to the Hebrews is written, as
its superscription imports, for the conversion of
Jews. It is the work of one well acquainted with
Jewish learning and interpretations. Every thing
conspires to prove it to have been written by
him who was the pupil of Gamaliel, and a distin-
guished disciple in the Rabbinical school.' I find
in that Epistle many citations similarly brought
forward from these same and like passages ; and

' See, for a discussion of the question, whether St. Mat-
thew's Gospel was written in Hebrew, Greek, or both,
Horner's Introduction, Vol. iv. p. 262 — 265. The prepon-
derance of ancient testimony is in favour of the Hebrew
original.

" Suppose a person to have read half the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and then to have placed before him for the first time
the verses 2 Cor. iii. 7 — 18 : would he not at once pro-
nounce them to be [)art of the Epistle which he had begun ?

f2

68 LECTURE IV.

I ask what could have been the purpose of such
citation, unless the persons adclressed were con-
scious of an application to the Messiah 1 The
argument in the Gospel and the Epistle, as ad-
dressed to Jew^s, presents itself in syllogism thus :
He that fulfils these prophecies is the Messiah;
Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled these prophecies; there-
fore Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. But un-
less the major proposition were already acknow-
ledged, what force would there have been in the
argument, unaccompanied as it is by any attempt
to establish that proposition? Therefore, while
I distinctly repudiate the notion that these New
Testament citations were made solely as repre-
senting the Jewish acceptation of the passages,
I contend that at the same time they do represent
the Jewish acceptation, and may be taken as
involving it.

But I see in the New Testament a remarkable
person, who appeared as the forerunner of our
Lord, to prepare the people for his ministry, and
the work which he had come to perform. Surely,
in his announcement of Christ to the Jewish
people and to his followers, I shall find him
speaking in terms well understood, and implying,
" This is that Messiah whom you have expected."
Accordingly he opens his mission, " Repent : for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand ;" that king-
dom of which their prophets had spoken, and
which was well understood as being about to

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 69

appear in the latter days. But as John is bap-
tizing, he sees Jesus coming to him : he wishes to
testify to the people that this is the King Mes-
siah ; and he says, " Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sins of the world;" thus
identifying the Messiah with the substitute un-
derstood in sacrifice, calling him by the very name
of the daily offering, and the victim of the pass-
over. This testimony, in my mind, is conclusive
that the Jewish people regarded their promised
Messiah as the substitute, of whose suffering for
sin their sacrifices reminded them.

I infer then, that the faithful Jew saw in sacri-
fice, a representation of the Divine \vrath inflicted
on his substitute the Messiah, whose manifes-
tation in the flesh was the subject of promise and
prophecy. But when did this belief commence ?
I find sacrifice of slain animals practised imme-
diately on the introduction of sin into the world.
I find it continued without interruption through
the general apostasy ; nay, so prevalent in one
form or other, that it remained in the idolatrous
observances of every heathen nation. I see the
rites and ceremonies of it having assumed a defi-
nite and acknowiedged shape among the children
of Israel, before the law was given from Mount
Sinai. I find that law multiplying sacrifices, but
not altering the nature of the ordinance.

It is not then likely that the giving of the law
introduced this idea for the first time : nay, we

70 LECTURE IV.

have reason to believe that the Patriarchal dis-
pensation contained more direct testimony to the
person and work of the Redeemer, than the Levi-
tical. It must have descended by a tradition
unbroken as the ordinance itself. It must have
been strengthened by each renewal of the cove-
nant, and refreshed by each increasing dawn
of promise.

Now, in enquiring farther into the faith of the
ancient Churches respecting the Messiah, I need
not stay to prove to you that they expected his
manifestation in the flesh of man, and as man.
We have all marked with wonder the strong ex-
pressions of St. Paul, where he asserts positively,
that the seed so often promised applied not to
many, but to one, and that seed was Christ ; we
have seen the hopes of the Jewish mothers, the pro-
phetic fears of the reluctant seer of Midian, the
profession of faith which the suffering patriarch
wishes engraved with an iron pen in the rock for
ever, — all pointing to the same great expected
event, the incarnation of the Messiah. And this
incarnation, with the series of things which he
should accomplish in it, was looked upon as the
great sealing testimony of God's love to man, the
remembering of the covenant, the real and actual
exhibition upon earth of the fulfilment of the
Divine purposes in his Anointed. These pur-
poses involved the perfect and unsinning obedi-
ence of the substitute, as set forth to them by the

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 71

required spotlessness and integrity of their offer-
ings ; therefore it was written, " Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not: then said I, Lo I
come, to do thy will, O God." They involved the
striking down of the substitute by the wrath of
Jehovah ; therefore they read, " Messiah shall be
cut off, but not for himself;" and therefore our
Lord himself reproaches his disciples, " O fools,
and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken; ought not Christ to suffer these
things, and to enter into his glory ?"

These things the faithful expected to see ; but
they looked for them as the final proof of spiritual
truths already made known to them. Did they
see in the appearances of the Divine presence
their own unworthiness and corruption ; and by
the very same appearances, a sign that God was
reconciled to men, and could dwell among them ;
and by sacrifice, a type of the method by which
God could be just and yet a justifier ; and did
they identify the slain victim with Him who was
hereafter to appear, without any heartfelt grati-
tude founded on spiritual mercies really granted,
and only in dim expectance of something future ?
Did not the love of Christ constrain them, be-
cause they judged that, " if one died for aU, then
were all dead; and that he died for all, that they
which live should not live unto themselves, but
unto Him ?" Did not they love Him, feeling that
He first had loved them ?

72 LECTURE IV.

But one important article of their belief re-
specting this substitute remains yet to be noticed.
By faith they saw him suffering for sin; they saw
him manifested in the flesh. But they also
believed in his eternal power and Godhead. So
clearly is this point set forth in the Babbinical
comments, that later Jewish writers have at-
tempted to establish two Messiahs : Messiah the
son of David, to whom they apply the Godhead
and the final triumph ; and Messiah the son of
Joseph, to whom they interpret the suffering and
the going down into death. I need not stay to
refute this idle notion, but shall bring before you
a few passages from their comments, from which
it is sufficiently evident that by consent they
attribute to this expected substitute, powers be-
longing only to the eternal God. And let me
remind you that in so doing, I am at no time
pledging myself for the correctness of those inter-
pretations, but only advancing them as subjective
proofs relatively to the Jews, to shew what was
their traditional view of spiritual things.

The Rabbinical comments on the words in
Genesis i. 2, " And the Spirit of God moved on
the face of the waters," state, " This is the Spirit
of King Messiah ;" thus attributing to their ex-
pected deliverer, the creative power of Almighty
God.'

** Bereshith Rabba, §. 2, fol. 44, cit. Schoettg. Hor. Heb.
vol. I. p. 9.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 73

The second of these comments is on Gen. iv. 1,
where Eve says, in our version, " I have gotten
a man from the Lord." Those who are ac-
quainted with the passage in the Hebrew, will
remember that the word here rendered ' from,"* is
more usually the sign of the accusative case, and
that especially in apposition. Thus the ancient
comments understand it here, and suppose Eve
to have had regard to that promise relating to
her seed given in the preceding chapter, and to
have said, " I have gotten a man, even Jehovah."
The paraphrast on this passage says, "And Adam
knew his wife Eve, who desii^ed the Angel ; and
she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have
obtained the man, the Angel of Jehovah."' Re-
specting this latter term, I shall enquire at length
in the next Lecture of this course ; I may now
anticipate that enquiry, and state that, by " the
Angel of Jehovah," they understood, not a created
angel, in the common sense of the word, but the
sent or incarnate Jehovah himself.

Another important testimony is the received
ancient interpretation of the xlvth Psalm. The
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in citing
a verse from this Psalm, writes, " Unto the Son
he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever."
These words would in my view be enough to
prove that the Hebrews so understood the words.

^ ns ' Targ. Jonath.

74 LECTURE IV.

But we have their own comments to strengthen
the mference. The ancient paraphrases interpret
it wholly of the Messiah. The modern Rabbis
have as usual given two applications — one to the
Messiah, the other to David : but even thus they
have not been able to escape from the conclusion
that these words are addressed to the Messiah.
They therefore endeavour to strain the sense of
them, and read, " God is thy throne for ever;"
contrary (which is enough for my present pur-
pose) to the paraphrase whose authority they
acknowledge, which explains the words, " The
seat of thy glory, O God, is for ever and
ever.

The last Jewish interpretation of Scripture
which I shall adduce, is that of the prophecy
in Jeremiah xxiii., " I will raise unto David a
righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and
prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice
in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved,
and Israel shall dwell safely ; and this is his
name whereby he shall be called, Jehovah our
Righteousness." On the opening words of this
prophecy, the paraphrase says, " I will raise up
to David, Messiah the righteous." And in an-
other of their received books we find, " What is
the name of the King Messiah ? Jehovah is
his name; as it is declared, 'This is his name,

^ Vide Owen on the Hebrews in loc. Heb. i. 8, 9.

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 75

whereby they shall call him, Jehovah our
Kighteousness. " '^

I shall close these testimonies with a remark-
able passage from the dialogue of Justin Martyr
with Tryplio the Jew. He complains of the un-
reasonableness of his antagonists in the following
terms : " Whatever Scriptures we cite to them
which plainly shew that the Messiah is both
liable to suffering, and is to be worshipped, and
is to be God, such as I have just now quoted to
you, they are compelled to allow that these pas-
sages are spoken of the Messiah, but persist in
saying that this Jesus is not the Messiah ; but
they allege that he is yet to come, and to suffer,
and to reign, and to be the adorable God ; which
is unreasonable and absurd." And these words,
be it remembered, were written in the second
century after Christ ; they therefore bring down
the proof of Jewish interpretation respecting the
Messiah later than the principal writings which
we have quoted. From the unreasonableness
here complained of, the modern Rabbis have
since, it is true, extricated themselves ; and are
now to be found aiding the Socinian and the
unbeliever in their denial both of the expiatory
suffering and the divinity of the Messiah.

I have then established, that the Godhead, as
well as the humiliation, of the substitute was

^ Rabbi ben Nachman, cit. apud Raymund. Martini. Pu-
gio Fidei, p. 517.

76 LECTURE IV.

recognized in the ancient Chnrch. The passages
which I have quoted are contained in books, all
of which the Jews greatly revere; some of which
they hold to be inspired. These books contain
the sum of that oral tradition, which from time
immemorial had been current among those versed
in the Jewish theology. That they contain
many things unfounded in truth and unworthy of
credit, I am well aware ; but this does not impugn
the importance of their testimony to those eternal
and unchangeable doctrines upon which Chris-
tianity is built. And if these doctrines of the
suffering, incarnation, and Godhead of the Messiah
were thus recognized by a tradition of immemorial
antiquity in the Jewish Church, is it likely that
the source of that tradition is to be found in
Moses, and that it did not rather come down from
the fathers, Avho possessed the same testimonies
of human depravity, the same tokens of recon-
ciliation with God, the same propitiatory rite,
the same promises '? Could he who walked with
God, and prophesied of the glorious coming of
the Lord with ten thousands of his saints, have
been ignorant of the person and office of the
Judge whose advent he described 1 Could he
who received his son from the dead in a figure,
have been without knowledge of the events
destined to happen on that spot, when he uttered
those words which passed into a traditional say-
ing, that "in that mount Jehovah would be seen?"

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 77

Could he, who as a prince had power with God
and prevailed, not have recognized the man
with the hidden name who wrestled with him,
and on parting with whom he called the place " the
face of God," — " for," said he, " I have seen God
face to face, and my life is preserved V I would
rather suppose that perchance to the repentant
progenitor of mankind, or to his son, under whom
men began to call themselves by the name of
Jehovah, or to Enoch, or Noah, or to all of these
in various degrees, as they were granted audience
of God, these great truths were revealed ; that
they formed the hope and stay of the Patriarchal
Church; that they were not forgotten in the
family of Terah, when he, a man of declining
years, set forth with his greater son in quest of
the land of promise; that in the bondage and
degradation of Egypt, the memory of them,
though crushed, was not extinguished ; that they
remained deep rooted in the hearts of the faith-
ful at and after the giving of the law in Sinai :
so that while they saw in that law many things
accordant with these traditional convictions, and
sufficient to stamp them as divine, they were
conscious of a spiritual strength beyond the
power of that law to supply, a justification by
a faith independent of those ordinances, which,
while it was assisted by them, was by them also
shut up unto the hope of something more spirit-
ual, more satisfying, promised from the first, and

78 LECTURE IV.

in its time to be revealed. Else, why do I find
the servants of God the prophets, rising up from
time to time, bearing witness to the inefficacy
of the law, and pointing men's attention to one
whose goings forth had been from everlasting "?
Why do I find the inspired words which they
spoke ever grounded on truths lying deeper than
the system under which they lived, and disparag-
ing legal obedience, in comparison with spiritual
regard to these eternal verities ■?

On no other supposition are these things to be
accounted for. For if the law had been an addi-
tional revelation of spiritual truth, an advance for-
ward in the knowledge of God imparted to man,
there would not have been an appeal to higher and
more worthy spiritual motives than this law incul-
cated. " The law was added because of trans-
gressions," is the assertion of St. Paul ; it was a
parenthetical dispensation ; its uncleannesses and
purifications were intended to recal the mind to
the great doctrines of human depravity and Divine
purity, known before, but likely to be forgotten, as
the ties which bound mankind to the world became
stronger in the lapse of generations ; its many
sacrifices and oblations were inserted to keep
alive the belief of that great sacrifice, available
for sin from its first entrance into the world, but
in danger of being perverted, amidst the abomi-
nations and idolatries of the nations. Otherwise
than by these remindings and strengthenings, the

THE STRICKEN SUBSTITUTE. 79

law affected not the faith of the saints of old.
The covenant confirmed by God in Christ to
Abraham was older than the law, and they had
evidence older than this.

I wonld leave your minds, m concluding this
portion of my Lectures, well assured of the con-
sistency of the Divine conduct, and the unity of
design in the Scripture revelation. We of the
latter days are persuaded, that man's capability of
holiness, and advance towards the likeness and
enjoyment of God, is grounded upon certain
immutable truths; that the necessary change
from corruption to purity, from hating God to
loving him, is brought about by the entering of
these truths into the mind and soul of man, and
becoming part of his inward self, and the springs
of his new and glorious being. This persuasion
imphes, that by no other way can holiness ever
have been attained; that the same inward spi-
ritual action must ever have taken place, and
the same motives have been called into activity,
by the same inwrought convictions.

That this was the case, I have been endea-
vouring to prove. I have been conversant with
various degrees of evidence: sometimes strong
in universal consent, at other times feeling
my way almost alone amidst the obscurities of
early times. Whatever may have been done,
that Spirit of truth alone, which taketh of the
things of Christ and sheweth them to us, can

80 LECTURE IV.

open our 'eyes to see the wonderful things of
God's law, and make the convictions of our
minds to be health and strength to our souls.

We will seek then in his appointed ordinances,
prayer, and the study of his word, help for this
work; and beseech him further, that in what yet
remains to be said, we may attain to his mind in
the revelation of himself.

LECTURE V.

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH.

Romans xv. 8.

Noiv I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the cir-
cumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises
made to the fathers.

The argument which I now take up afresh is
designed to shew, that the great doctrines which
form the spiritual substance of the Christian
revelation, have in all ages been the subjects of
the faith of God's people ; that though the
human race has passed through several states of
progressive knowledge, administered as seen fit
in the designs of God, yet the deep wants of the
spirit of man have never been mocked by food
insufficient for them, but constantly recognized
and tenderly supplied by our heavenly Father.

We have traced the worshippers of the true
God from the first entrance of sin into the world.
Whatever darkness may have possessed the earth
in general, and whatever hardness of heart may

G

82 LECTURE V.

have prevailed even amidst God's people, we
have found a distinct avowal, among men of faith
and prayer, of insufficiency and impurity in them-
selves, and plenteous redemption revealed in the
covenant of their God. We have seen the
method and details of that redemption gradually
unfolded; while throughout the Old Testament
history, the foundation doctrines of the future
Gospel were firmly fixed in the counsels of God
and in the hearts of his saints.

The last of these great doctrines which I
brought before you was, The pardon of sin by
means of a stricken and sufiering substitute —
and that substitute, God incarnate in the nature
of man. In the course of that enquiry we found
the future Redeemer styled, " the Angel of
Jehovah ;" and I then reserved that name for
our further consideration. This, with some other
particulars tending to illustrate the doctrinal
knowledge of the Saviour which the ancient
Church possessed, will employ us on the present
occasion.

We find that the Jewish commentators continu-
ally direct attention to a person who is denominated
the Angel. Elevated above all other messengers
and ministering spirits, this person is represented
by them as appearing from time to time under
various aspects, and with various benign offices.
He is called by them the Angel Redeemer ; the
governor of the world ; the desire of Moses and

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 83

the Fathers ; the face or image of God ; the
captain of the host of Jehovah. They beheved that
he was to be born into the world ; for they fancy
they see in the construction of the text of Scrip-
ture, reason to think that Eve said on the birth of
her first-born, " I have gotten a man, even the
Angel of Jehovah." On many occasions through-
out the Old Testament history, they ascribe to
him the words and operations of God himself.
From him they believe Moses to have received
the law : from him they expect another law to
be delivered to Jews and Gentiles also. And
attentive consideration of the synagogue-worship
may further guide us to their sentiments respect-
ing this Angel. We find that the person whose
office it was to offer prayer for the congregation
was denominated the Angel of the Church ; and
accordingly Ave have the ancient Rabbis stating
of the Messiah, " He shall pray for Israel." And
elsewhere they say of this Angel, that he is the
High-priest of heaven, who offers the prayers of
the righteous to God.' And lastly, we have this
remarkable testimony to the exalted power and the
mediatorial ofhce of this the chief Angel : ' " He
is Lord of all who are inferior to himself; for all
the armies of heaven and earth are at his disposal,
and beneath his hand : and he is the ambassador

1 R. Moses ben Nachman, cit. apud Witsiuni. Miscell.
Sacr. Exercit. iv. § x.

2 R. Bechai, cit. apud Wits. Misc. Sacr. Exercit. iv. § xi.

ri 9

84 LECTURE V.

of Him who is above himself, who hath given
Him to rule over all things, and hath ap-
pointed Him lord over his house, and to have
dominion over his possessions. This is that
Angel, by whom alone is permitted access unto
God."

But another illustrious title was given to this
great person, and has been familiarized to Chris-
tians by its adoption in the New Testament. He
was called " the Word of God," with reference to
his declaring or speaking forth the will of the
Father. The ancient paraphrases and commen-
tators constantly refer to this Word of God as
a distinct person, and not merely the personi-
fication of the actual Divine word. We cannot
expect, nor do we find among them, clearness of
perception regarding so mysterious a name ; but
we find enough to lead us to beheve that those
inner and primeval traditions, on which were
founded the esoteric teaching of the expounders
of the law, spoke of the expected Messenger, the
Angel Redeemer, as the Word of God. Philo,
whose writings deal exclusively with the sup-
posed mystic sense of Scripture matters, alludes
plainly to this Word of God as a person, " free
from sin of all kinds, begotten of God, delegated
to govern the world, identical with the Angel of
the Covenant, and anointed with the holy oil of
God." He elsewhere speaks of " the first-begotten
Word, the Eldest of Angels, the Archangel

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 85

with many names : for," he continues, " He is
entitled the Beginning, the Name of God, and his
Word, the Man after the Divine image, and the
Seer of Israel.'"

I need not cite more testimonies to establish
points which have been so well proved and
amply illustrated by others before me ; my wish
is, from these facts to raise inferences which shall
be available for the purpose of my argument.

We see then, by what has past, that the medi-
atorial office of the future Redeemer was not
hidden from the ancient Churches. In our
former Lecture, we inferred that the victim slain
on the altar was regarded as the type of a stricken
substitute of spotless innocence, and we saw that
substitute endowed with lofty titles and attributes
of Divine power. Now we see a similar refer-
ence acknowledged in other parts of the Mosaic
ritual. Frequently were God's people reminded
of the going-between, or mediation, of some ap-
pointed person, in the offices of atonement and
prayer. Seldom had they, as a people, direct
access to God. And if this shewed them on the
one hand their own unworthiness to approach
Him, so would the appointed intervention of
another ever remind them of that Angel of the
Church, by whom alone they had liberty to ap-
proach to the Divine presence. And if we can

' De Agricultura, § 12. De Confusione Linguarum, § 28.
De Profugis, § 20; ed. Lips. 1828.

86 LECTURE V.

put ourselves in the place of one standing among
that people, during their solemn ordinances; and
see the priests on ordinary occasions, or the high-
priest alone on the great day of atonement,
mediating between Israel and their God; how
can we suppose ourselves at the same time utterly
unmindful that these persons, men like ourselves,
subject to disease, sin, and death, only set forth
the fixed and eternal truth of a better mediation
by One who could not sin, nor his priesthood fail?
Suggested as the thought would be by tradition
from their fathers, bound up among their earliest
recollections and firmest persuasions, and con-
firmed as it was by what they continually wit-
nessed in the temple ; could it fail to impress on
their minds the necessity of approaching God
through Him whom He would send, and accept-
ing the Redeemer as their spiritual High-priest
to mediate between God and themselves ?

Thus, while they were sensible of the pollution
in which they were involved by sin ; while they saw
evidence that a way was opened for the forgive-
ness of sin by the shedding of the blood of one
for all, they saw that same victim, — for there were
not two objects of the promise, but one, — exalted
to be a Prince and a Saviour, and to present the
prayers and necessities of his people before the
throne of God.

And the inference which we have now drawn
is a remarkable one, as bearing upon a matter

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 87

much and ably discussed of late/ It appears
that the resurrection of the Redeemer cannot be
distinctly shewn to have been recognized as the
subject of undoubted prophecy ; and it has been
well remarked that there is a fitness in the cir-
cumstance of its omission, carrying far more
weight as evidence, than could the most marked
prophetic announcement of it. At the same
time, however previous knowledge of the event
may have been withheld, we can hardly suppose,
consistently with the Divine dealings in other
matters, that so integral a part of Christian
doctrine as the resurrection and its consequences
involved, could have altogether been concealed
from the saints of old. Accordingly we find that
the ancient believer was constrained to infer
some such recovery from death to life, of the
appointed Victim for sin. If he saw Him bruised
for his iniquities, and yet acting as his mediator
and intercessor, his reason might supply the
void between these, and gather that, as He was
delivered for man's sin, so He was raised again
for his justification. And we are not, I think,
assuming too much, in supposing that it was this
inference which oiu' Saviour himself drew, when

* Lyall's Propsedia Prophetica, Lect. vii. pp. 121, seq. — No
Christian student or minister should omit studying this most
valuable work, at his very earliest leisure. It contains a body
of Christian evidence, at least as important as that which
Paley has amassed, and founded on higher and more con-
vincing considerations.

88 LECTURE V.

He opened the Scriptures to the disciples by the
way, and asserted that " Christ ought to have
suffered these thmgs and to have entered into
his glory ;"^ and St. Paul, when he "reasoned
with the Jews out of the Scriptures, opening and
alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and
risen again from the dead/' Now whether faith
ever assumed so definite a form as this, that an
actual bodily death and a material resurrection
were looked for in the person of the future Messiah,
does not concern my present enquiry. AUomng
that these things might have been figuratively
understood; allowing every shade of misconcep-
tion to have been entertained, down even to the
darkness of popular error which prevailed in our
Saviour's time ; we still find the great doctrine of
the redemption of man by means of the punish-
ment and exaltation of a Divine yet human
substitute, to have been the reasonable inference
from those things respecting the Messiah which
were generally believed.

But, as connected with this inference, the other
title of the Redeemer which we have mentioned
must be considered. The ordinary office of an
angel was to declare the will of God ; and a
declaration of the Divine will was expected from
the great Angel who was to come. But of what
kind Avas this declaration to be ? Not, it is plain,
another law of ceremonial ordinances ; nor a

^ Luke xxiv. 26. ^ Acts xvii. 3.

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 89

mere clearing up of the difficulties of the first
law. More than once in the Gospel history, we
have scattered hints of the public expectation
prevalent among the Jews respecting the Messiah's
teaching. Our Saviour sat by the well in Sychar/
and discoursed with a woman there, whose pecu-
liar boast was her descent from the patriarchs,
and her care, to adhere to the true form and
locality of divine worship. To her Christ began
to speak of the spiritual simplicity of the culture
which he came to establish : " God is a spirit,
and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth." This teaching seemed to
her of a different kind from any which she had
yet heard ; her thoughts Avere involuntarily
carried forward by it to the great Teacher of
whom she had been traditionally informed, and
she said, " Sir, I know that Messias cometh
which is called Christ : when he is come, he will
tell us all things." Now the spirit in which
these words were uttered is plainly that of one
persuaded of the imperfect and transitory nature
of the system of carnal ordinances under which
she lived, and anticipating the effusion of pure
spiritual truth from the lips of Him who was
to come.

Again, the expected nature of the Messiah's
teaching may be illustrated by comparing the
words spoken to Christ on two other occasions.

'' John iv.

90 LECTURE V.

At the time when many of the disciples went
back and walked no more with him, Jesus said
to the twelve, "Will ye also go away]" Simon
Peter said to him, " Lord, to whom shall we go ]
thou hast the words of eternal life."' And on
another occasion, one came and said unto him,
" Good Master, what good thing shall I do that
I may have eternal life ]"' Now this expression,
' eternal life,' was not one familiarized to the Jews
by the Mosaic revelation. It occurs but rarely,
if indeed it can be said to occur at all, in the
present sense, in the Old Testament. And yet it
seems to be used as indicating a well known
expectation concerning that which the Messiah
was to reveal to them. And Jesus himself
speaks of eternal life as the known subject of
his teaching ; not only the boon which he came
to bestow, but the state which he came to lay
open to their spiritual sight. " Search the Scrip-
tures : for in them ye think ye have eternal life,
and they are they which testify of me." ^ " This is
life eternal, that they might know thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent."^ I shall have occasion to allude again to
these testimonies, in treating another part of my
argument : I adduce them now to shew that,
beneath the superstructure of error which carnal
interpreters had built up, and the worldly notions

^ John vi. 68. ' John v. 39.

' Mark X. 17. 2 joh„ ^^jj^ g^

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 91

of Christ's kingdom which we know to have pre-
vailed, there was a deep foundation of truth ;
a conviction, however smothered and disregarded,
of the spiritual nature of the Messiah's office and
teaching, and the blessings which he came to
confer. I adduce them, to shew that our Saviour
in his discourses with the Jews used expressions
and made allusions, which cannot be explained
without such a supposition.

Yet another title was given by the Jews to
their expected deliverer. He was called the Son
of God. And he was generally and usually so
called. Nathanael, the Israelite indeed in whom
was no guile, on his first introduction to Jesus,
perceiving his display of omniscient power, ac-
knowledges him to be the Messiah, and says,
" Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the
King of Israel."^ By this title did the tempter
call upon Jesus to prove his Messiahship.* By
this title did the evil spirits cry out upon him.''
By this title did the high-priest adjure him,
" Tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of
God." By this title did even the Gentile cen-
turion profess his conviction that the promised
deliverer of the Jews had been put to death.'
There can then be no doubt, that the Messiah
was commonly and popularly so called.

3 John i. 49. * Matt. iv. 3, 6. ' lb. viii. 29.

^ Matt. xxvi. 63. "' lb. xxvii. 54.

'92 LECTURE V.

Now the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
in the beginning of his argument,^ deals expressly
with this title, as proving the superiority of Christ
to the ministers of the former dispensation. And
in alleging his authorities for its application, he
cites two passages of the Old Testament. The first
is from the second Psalm, which we both know
by the Rabbinical comments, and might infer
from its repeated quotation by the Apostles, was
universally applied by the Jews to the Messiah.
The other is from a passage,^ concerning which it
is not clear from other testimonies that it ever
was so applied, or, at first sight, that it bears such
an application. God promises to David a son to
build Him a temple, and predicts manifold bles-
sings as attendant on his reign. In the course of
this prophecy, he announces the gracious treat-
ment which the successor of David should receive
from Him, by saying, " I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son." These words are
alleged as confirming the sonship of the Messiah.
It is not now my purpose to explain or justify
this particular application, though in my opinion
it may be easily and satisfactorily done ; but
merely, having mentioned these texts, to ask a
candid hearer, whether he thinks that a title of
the expected deliverer, so popularly acknowledged
and so commonly applied, could owe its origin in
the popular mind merely to the typical inter-
« Heb. 15. M Chron. xxii. 10.

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 93

pretation of such passages ? Is it not a far more
adequate solution of the circumstance, to account
for it by assuming what is for many other reasons
highly probable, that there was a deep and an-
cient conviction from tradition immemorial, that
the Messiah was to be the Son of God; and that
as often as this idea was or appeared to be
shadowed forth in the Law and Prophets, the
popular mind laid hold of the words, and so
applied them ? That the inspired writers of the
New Testament should have appealed to such
Scriptures, rather than to the unwritten con-
victions of the people, is on many accounts in-
telligible. For such convictions are never safe
groundworks for personal persuasion ; a man,
when reasoned with, may disclaim them, and
escape from their force ; and again, it would
have been extremely difficult for the arguer to
separate pure tradition from impure ; extremely
.unlikely that the persons argued with would ever
have acquiesced in such selection, if made. But
the letter of the sacred text was common ground;
and veneration for that letter was the distin-
guishing characteristic of Jewish learning in the
Apostles' time. What then can be more probable
than that passages of the Old Testament, at first
understood in accordance only with immemorial
tradition, should have become, by degrees, substi-
tuted by the Jewish doctors, as the main evidence
of those great truths, which they served once only

94 LECTURE V.

to illustrate ? And if thus substituted, tliey would
very naturally be alleged by the New Testament
^vi-iters, as carrying conviction to Jews in cases
where there was no wresting nor misappropria-
tion of the original text.

I shall adduce a few other interesting parti-
culars found in the Jewish comments, tending to
throw light on the ancient doctrinal knowledge
of the future Saviour.

When St. John writes, " The Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory;"
it might seem as if he were purposely using the
sacred vocabulary of the Jews themselves.' The
Divine and Personal Word was held by them to
be synonymous with the Shechinah, or apparent
glory of the Lord, which dwelt or tabernacled in
the holy of holies. Their books spoke of a day
when this glory should dwell among men in a
more general manner than it ever did in the holy
place.^ They believed that it should be made
flesh and blood, and generally seen and conversed
with. The very word used by St. John, and
which we render ' dwelt,' would bring to their
minds the tabernacle, and its indwelling of glory.
They had been long accustomed to its sound, as

^ QDDirQ '^nD''32? \"inD'l And I will place my tent in
the midst of you. Tauchuma, fol. Ivii. 2, cit. apud Sehoett-
gen, Horae Heb. m loc. Joh. i. 14-.

" Bereshith Rabba, cit. apud Raymund. Martini, Pugio
Fidei, Part in. distinct, iii. 12. 1.

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 95

applied to sacred things. The tabernacle at the
east of Eden, those in the wilderness and in the
temple, the future dwelling of God among men,
and the glory itself which should thus dwell,
were all expressed by one word and its inflexions f
and the Gentile tongue had the same sound to
express the same thing. So that it would seem
to them that St. John had used the word in this
place, purposely to declare to them the fulfilment
of their expectations in sounds familiar to their
ears.

When St. Paul declared that Christ was the
second Adam, and spoke of the first man as bemg
of the earth, earthy, but the second man, the
Lord from heaven,* he was only repeating under
the guidance of inspiration, what his Rabbinical
education had taught him. The heavenly and
the earthly Adam are repeatedly mentioned in
the Jewish comments ; and m one of them we
have these remarkable words, " As the first
Adam was alone in sin, so the Messiah shall be
the last Adam, to take away sin entirely."^

When our Saviour stated, as he repeatedly did
in his discourses with the Jews, that he came in
the name of another, even of his Father who sent
him, he spoke words with which they were
familiar from their traditionary interpretations
of Scripture; for they believed that the name

^ pre- (TKr]i'r]. * 1 Cor. XV. 47.

^ Schoettg. Hor. Heb. et Talm. in loc. vol. i. p. 670 — 671.

96 LECTURE V.

of God should be in the future Messiah, and
actually under this idea gave him a mystical
name, the letters of which were the same in
numerical power with those of the sacred name
of God/

St. John says of our Saviour, " In him was
light, and the light was the life of men." So
had the Jews said of him before.'

The father of John the Baptist says in his
hymn of joy, " The Dayspring from on high
hath visited us." By this very term did the
Jews render the word in the Prophets which we
express by "the Branch."*

The blessed Virgin, when she rejoices m God
her Saviour, says, " God hath shewed strength
with [or by] his arm;" in accordance with the
title, ' the arm of the Lord,' given of old to the
expected Messiah.'*

Our Lord says to his disciples, " I am the good
shepherd." ' The faithful shepherd' was a Jewish
name of the Messiah.'

Again, during the feast at Jerusalem, Jesus
stood and cried, " If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink;" as he had before said to the
woman in Samaria; "Whosoever shall drink of
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ;

^ Vide Schoettg. vol. ii. p. 8, et loc. ibi cit.

^ Targum in Isa. Ix. 1. Vide Schoettg. in loc. vol. ii. p. 188.

^ Zech. iii. 8. dfctroXr], Lxx.

9 Vide Schoettg. vol. ii. p. 9. ' lb. p. 10.

THE ANGEL OF JEIIOYAH. 97

but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up unto ever-
lasting life." These words were to the Jews
a forcible declaration of the Messiahship of him
who spoke them : for they had themselves in-
terpreted the words of Isaiah, " With joy shall
ye draw water from the w^ells of salvation," of
the times of their future deliverer.^

We might proceed with many other New
Testament phrases, and shew that the use of
them was in accordance with the traditionary
expectations and notions of the people to whom
they were spoken. But enough has been ad-
duced to shew us that there was a vast mass of
doctrinal knowledge among the people, which,
though often perverted by misapprehension, and
almost buried under the additions of pharisaical
learning, yet pointed beyond doubt to matters on
which the faith of the saints was fixed, before
the giving of the law by Moses. Had the books
of the Jews come down to us in their original
state, these testimonies would have been far
more striking and particular in their character.
But their zeal against the Gospel of Christ has
led them to erase and mutilate many passages,
which in some cases can be proved, and in all
must be inferred, to have related to the most
prominent points of Christian doctrine.

^ Isa. xii. 3 ; Vid. Schoettg. in loc, vol. up. 165.

H

98 LECTURE V.

I have as yet brought my enqumes so far as
to ascertain what doctrinal knowledge the ancient
Churches possessed of the person and office of
the great Victim for sin.

I have been, however, but as it were gathering
up the fragments of a feast, of which others have
partaken and passed by. For how little can one
man know of the thoughts and hopes of another,
and how much less can one generation trace of
the faith or the knowledge of another, so remote
from itself ! Before ourselves, others have peopled
these our halls, and spoken from these our holy
places. But even with the abundance of printed
monuments of their cares and labours which we
possess, how scanty must be our knowledge of
the true spirit, the depths of the heart, of an age
which has past away! The faint echoes only
have reached us of the trumpet sounds, which
once stirred the men of God to strife ; we have
only distant traditions how they walked by the
way, and told of the light of truth which they
should kindle in our land, by God's grace never
to be put out. And yet we can, perhaps, some-
times in imagination transfer ourselves to their
days; for their language, their laws, and their
manners are ours, or have been since but slightly
modified ; we may share a portion of their spirit,
and revive their withered tokens.

But who shall breathe again the air of the
ancient world, or bring up the lives and thoughts

THE ANGEL OF JEHOVAH. 99

of those, whose very monuments have perished ?
Who shall measure the vast schemes which la-
boured m the breast of man, before degrading
experience had lessened him to his real powers ?
Who shall speak of the bounding joys and high-
pitched hopes which stirred his spirit, before
bitter disappointment had compelled him to fold
his hands in misery ? And who can tell the
strength of faith or amount of saving knowledge,
which might have been required to meet in an-
ticipation, or endure in reality, the dread stroke
of death, before his name had become familiar,
or men had learned to breathe freely in his pre-
sence ?

Again, who can say how much of divine light
may have flowed forth upon the Church from the
actual presence of Jehovah] how bright He might
have been pleased to make the place, where He
caused his glory to dwell ?

All these thmgs have now passed away, and
the souls of the faithful who witnessed them have
entered into their rest ; each having had his
strength proportioned to his day, and having
shared so much of light and knowledge as was
sufficient for his time of trial.

But faith, hope, and love have not passed with
them. These three yet remain : and while love,
the greatest of the three, seems too gentle and
too holy to find its resting-place in this world of
disunion ; faith and hope are ever before us, — to

h2

100 LECTURE Y.

be seen in the endurance of the saints of God,
to be exemplified in our daily works and words,
to be established and confirmed by these our
appointed labours, and to be approved by Him,
before whose judgment-seat we shall all one day
stand.

LECTURE VI.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT.

St. John iii. 10.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of
Israel, and knowest not these things ?

The operation of Christianity upon the heart
and life of man, may be defined to consist in
a gradual assimilation of his thoughts and ways
to the thoughts and ways of God. And so different
is this process from anything which takes place in
the man not subjected to religious influence, that
it is represented to us in Scripture as a new life,
endowing men with new faculties and new sensa-
tions. The entrance into it is described as a new
birth — a being born again, or from above. Now
this new life is asserted in Scripture to be the
great gift which the Redeemer came to confer
upon the human race : and its completion, in the
full action of all its faculties, and the full exercise
of aU its senses, is the great end to which we are
taught to look, as the purpose and aim of our

102 LECTURE YI.

redemption. Following the analogy of the com-
parison, Scripture teaches us that the man who
thus lives, is conversant with, and moves amongst,
the objects of an unseen eternal world ; that he
walks by faith, not by sight ; that he knows
nothing and no man after the flesh, but every
thing and every person by the aid of other prin-
ciples, and through the medium of other thoughts,
than those furnished by the present state of time.
And further yet, as our natural life was produced,
and is upheld, by the imparting to a mass of inert
matter a vivid and mysterious influence from
God the Creator, in whom we live and move and
have our being ; so we are taught that this inner
and deeper life is created and continued by the
inspiration into our souls, dead and incapable
before, of a vital influence from God our Re-
deemer, acting by and with the counsel of His
will, who is the Father of lights, and from whom
cometh every good and perfect gift. We believe
that to confer this influence, Christ was raised up
to the right hand of God ; that with this influ-
ence he was anointed specially and above his
fellows ; and that he does, in his heavenly abode
of glory, dispense and shed forth this quickening
power upon the souls of men. We believe this
power to be the Holy Spirit, proceeding from
the Father and the Son, and being the third
person in the ever-blessed Trinity, as revealed to
us in the covenant work of redemption. Now,

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 103

if these things be so; if without holiness no
man shall see the Lord ; if without the influence
of the blessed Spkit of God no man shall become
holy ; if this process of assimilation to God be
indeed a new and wonderful life, an enhghtening,
a comforting, and a purifying process; and if,
on the other hand, there were holy men of old,
who lived faithful lives and died triumphant
deaths, and have passed to their rest in the
heavenly city of God,— then I say that this
spiritual life, this birth mto new senses and
faculties, with its Lord and Giver the Holy Spirit,
must have been by these ancient worthies felt
and known. For whatever additional knowledge
may in the course of ages have been conferred
upon the Church, in the unfolding of the pur-
poses of Providence, we cannot conceive any
time when God's people were left Avithout this
knowledge, so entirely essential to the very
existence of religion in the heart.

Now to illustrate this a priori argument by
testimony to the fact, that things were as I have
insisted, is the object of my present Lecture.
Before doing so, however, one remark is neces-
sary. The gift of the Holy Spirit being so
essential and important as we have described it,
we may expect to find that this, the great result
of the Messiah's coming, was distinctly recog-
nized, and frequently referred to, in proportion
to its value and dignity. For it would not argue

104 LECTURE VI.

that consistency in the Divine conduct for which
I am contending, if we found that doctrinal
truths which stand lower in the scale of im-
portance were in full possession of the ancient
Churches, while this, the first and highest of all,
was but seldom recognized, or darkly hinted at.

I proceed then first to consider the direct
testimony of Scripture itself. In examining the
Old Testament, we find that by far the majority
of passages where the Spirit of God is mentioned,
have reference to his work of extraordinary in-
spiration. Prophetic powers are universally and
plainly ascribed to the agency of this Spirit, as
also in several places is the skill of a consummate
workman. To the Spirit is ascribed the power of
transporting from place to place, in order to furnish
prophetic visions. In one passage in the book of
Job, and in the celebrated 2nd verse of Genesis,
creative power is referred to the same Spirit. And
with regard to the latter passage it may be ob-
served, that the words ' the Spirit of God' can
hardly with any fairness be explained away as
some have attempted; and that even if they
could be, there still would remain for my present
purpose the consent of the ancient Church, which
explained them as we do now.

Before we notice other operations ascribed to
this Spirit, let us consider the use of his name in
the connexions already mentioned. I need not
here remark, that in the three principal theological

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 1()5

languages the name for the Spirit is the same
with that for breath, or wind. But it may be
necessary to notice that our Lord, in the discourse
from which my text is taken, expressly draws
a comparison between the Spirit and the wind of
heaven in one point, viz. the exertion of an
unseen though powerful influence. And from
the reproach which our text conveys, we may
in fairness conclude that this analogy between
the natural and the spiritual influence was a thing
well known, or supposed to be well known, to
those conversant with Jewish sacred learning.
I see then that it was understood of old, that the
extraordinary gift of prophecy, and that of supe-
rior skill in ordinary matters, were conferred by
an unseen influence from God ; and that to this
influence was referred the arrangement of the
disorderly elements in creation, and the forma-
tion, or quickening, of the body of man. But do
I find no inward and properly spiritual influence
ascribed to the same Spirit ] When mankind
had corrupted their way before God, I read that
God said, " My Spirit shall not always strive
with man ; for that he also is flesh." There are
perhaps few passages of Scripture, concerning
which more doubts have been raised : but adopt-
ing any probable interpretation of the words,
I see not how we can escape from the inference
that the Divine Spirit dwelling in man and
bearing testimony against his sins is intended;

106 LECTURE Yl.

and that the words amount to a threat of the
withdrawal of that Spirit from the human race.
Nor can we otherwise understand the latter
clause, than by interpreting it, " forasmuch as
that which is born of the flesh is flesh," — foras-
much as they that are in the flesh cannot please
God. So that we have here a clear distinction
between the Spirit and the flesh ; a clear recog-
nition of a power within man, distinct from his
natural thoughts and desires, nay, maintaining
within him a conflict and a struggle between the
will to do good and the present temptation to
do evil.

But it is not in the historical books of Scrip-
ture that I shall find the most direct assertions
of the indwelling of God's Spirit in men. The
truth is one concerning rather the individual life
of the faithful man, than the acts or sufferings of
nations. I turn then to those books of Scrij)ture
which contain the devotional outjDOurings of man's
heart to God, and there I find abundant proof of
that for which I am seeking. I select that most im-
portant testimony contained in the fifty-first Psalm;
where, amidst the plainest acknowledgments of
natural depravity, and the most earnest suppli-
cations for the pardon of sin, the penitent cries
out, "Cast' me not away from thy presence, and
take not thy Holy Spirit from me ;" and again,
" Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and
uphold mc with thy free (or leading) Spirit."

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 107

In the cxliiird Psalm, we have another recogni-
tion of the same truth : " Thy good Spirit shall
lead me forward in righteousness."

In the retrospect taken by Nehemiah of God's
dealings with his people, I find their instruction
expressly ascribed to God's good Spirit.

I need not quote from the Prophets their
repeated declarations that this Spirit should be
poured out in abundance upon the promised de-
liverer, nor connect those declarations with our
Saviour's own application of them. No less clear
and undoubted is their testimony to a great out-
pouring of the Spirit in the latter days ; no less
familiar to you is the appropriation of that pro-
phecy by St. Peter on the day of Pentecost.
I dwell not on these, because my present object
is not to deal with prophecy or its fulfilment, but
to lay before you the means which the ancient
Churches possessed of judging and coming to
a reasonable faith respecting great truths, and the
way in which it appears that those means were
employed.

I pass now to the New Testament, and there
I find, as might have been expected, the Holy
Spirit mentioned without introduction or apology,
as a being whose existence and influence were
well known to the Jews. In the Gospel of St.
Matthew, written for Jews, the miraculous con-
ception of Jesus is ascribed to the Holy Spirit
without any explanation of such an expression.

108 LECTURE VI.

No one can read the opening chapters of that
Gospel, without being satisfied that the person
and offices of the Spirit were famihar things
among those for whose use the book was in-
tended. Our Saviour again, in his discourses to
the Jews, mentions the giving of the Holy Ghost
in answer to prayer, without any information
what was intended by the name.^ John the
Baptist announces to the multitudes the baptism
with the Holy Ghost in the same unexplained
manner/ Our Saviour, in promising the Comforter
to his disciples, explains that name by another
better known, " the Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost. "^ St. Stephen, in his discourse to the Jews,
applies to them the declaration of Isaiah, that
they vexed the Holy Spirit of God ; and adds, "as
your fathers did, so do ye."* That they under-
stood these words and their application, their
conduct shewed. St. Peter, speaking of the
ancient prophets, uses a remarkable expression,
saying that " they sought what, or what manner
of time, the Spirit of Christ that was in them did
signify ;"* an expression, however, which we shall
before long see abundantly justified.

I pass to the Jewish paraphrases and com-
ments. I find in them the being and operations
of the Holy Spiiit very distinctly recognized.
On the second verse of Genesis I read these

' Luke xi. 13. ^ j^. jji. ig. 3 John xiv. 26.

* Acts vii. 51. M Pet. i. 2.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 109

remarkable words : " This is the Spirit of King
Messiah, concerning whom it is written in
Isaiah xi. 1, 'And there shall rest on him the
Spirit of the Lord.' But," it is added, " how does
the Spirit of the Messiah minister, and how does
it come moving itself over the face of the waters ?
The answer is. When you pour out your hearts
as water by penitence, as it is written, (Lam.
ii. 19,) ' Pour out thy heart before the Lord Kke
water.' "^

I find again, " Whatsoever the righteous do,
they do by the Holy Spirit."'

I see also that the expressions used in the
New Testament with reference to the new and
spiritual hfe, are taken from those of the Jewish
theology. The Apostle Paul writes, " If any man
be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature." I find
the Jews remarking, where God promises to
Abraham that he would make him a great nation,
that the creative verb is there used, because God
would make of him a new creature.^ I find again,
that if a man convert another to the knowledge
of the true God, the change is equivalent to a
new creation.'' And again, " the priest by the
anointing of the holy oil is made a new creature."

^ Bereshith Rabba ad Gen. i. 2, cit. apud Schoettg. vol. i.
p. 9.

'' Tanchuma, fol. xviii. 2, cit. ap. Schoettg. in loc. Rom.
viii. 15, vol. I. p. 530,

^ Schoettg. I. 701. ^ Id ibid.

110 LECTURE VI.

And again, "Whoever occupies himself in the
study of the law, is restored anew hy receiving
another and a holy life.'" Our Saviour speaks of
our new birth by water and the Spirit ; and we
find his own baj)tism thus divinely accompanied
by the visible descent of the Holy Ghost. The
Jews also were not uninformed of such an in-
fluence accompanying their initiatory sacrament ;
" A man newly born," say they, " does not im-
mediately receive the Holy Spirit, nor till the
ordinance of circumcision. Then the Spirit is
poured upon him from above. When he is
growing up, and studies the law, a greater
effusion is vouchsafed to him. When he becomes
worthy to observe the precepts of the law, a still
greater effusion is granted. When he marries,
begets children, and instructs them in the ways
of the holy King, then he becomes a man perfect
in all things."^

Here we have a remarkable testimony to the
origin and growth of the spiritual life in man.
Nor is the following less worthy of note.

In the last verse of Exodus xiv. we read,
" The people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord
and his servant Moses :" and in the beginning of
chapter xv. follows their triumphant song of
praise. On this the Jewish comment remarks :

1 Sclioettg. I, p. 705.

^ Sohar Levit. fol. xxxix. col. 154, cit. ap. Schoettg. vol. i.
p. 329.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. Ill

"Whosoever undertakes any command of the
Lord m faith, in him inhabits the Holy Spirit.
For we read of our ancestors, that, because they
believed the Lord, the Holy Spirit dwelt in them,
and they sang their song of praise." And this
follows : " Faith then must be a great thing
Ibefore the blessed God, for by its means the Holy
Sj)irit inhabits in men."^

I might add many more testimonies of a similar
kind from the same sources ; but I forbear to do
so, because enough have been cited to shew, by
direct witness of the Jews themselves, and not
only by inference from the New Testament, that
the person and operations of the Holy Spirit
were known and believed in by them. I am not
concerned with the admixtures of error which are
discernible in these testimonies : I take the great
facts conceded to me, and on them I build an
inference which accords with our assertion in the
beginning of this Lecture. For whence came
this knowledge and belief] Can anything be
pointed out in the law of Moses, anything in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament, which can be
cited as having originally suggested it ? Are the
being and operations of the Holy Spirit any-
where announced in terms so distinct, or defini-
tions so clear, as to make it probable that the
faith of the Church of God in these things was
derived from such passages of Scripture ? On
^ Schoettg. vol. II. p. 684.

112 LFX'TURE VI.

the other hand, we have seen that where the
name and attributes of this Divine Person are
mentioned, an acquaintance with the matter is
presupposed; and that even from the earliest
quotation which we have made, we are necessarily
thrown back upon a then existing behef of the
Church, to account for the form of speech which
is used. Our question then recurs, Whence w^as
this belief? From what source flowed this
knowledge] We look over the heathen world,
we examine into the dark and mysterious super-
stitions which persuaded the nations ; we give
no scope to our fancy, and barely admit analogies
which obtrude themselves on us in a manner not
to be left unnoticed ; and we cannot but conclude
that to each and all of them, there remains some
portion of primeval light deduced through the
ancestral family of the latter world. We look
upon the house of Israel, and we find them
singidarly favoured by God, exalted in divine
knowledge above the nations, and providentially
kept from the inroads of idolatry and ignorance.
We find in them the direct line of Noah, the
patriarchal and God-fearing line, the line in
which the priesthood descended from father to
son, with all its duties and observances and
traditional lore. Is it likely that the knowledge
of God transmitted by this line would be less in
amount, or less pure in quality, than that which
was borne forth from time to time by the idolater

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 113

or the exile ] Is it likely that God, who, some
generations after Noah, called forth the father
of that race, and made his covenant with him,
would, during those generations, or in the four
hundred and thirty years which elapsed before
the giving of the law, have permitted that trea-
sure to be lost, the keeping of which seemed to
be the very purpose of the separation and insu-
lated character of the patriarchal families ? The
ground of God's confidence in Abraham is, that
he will command his household and children
after him, and they shall keep the way of the
Lord.

Tracing that line downwards, we find it be-
coming a great nation ; we see this nation in
bondage and distress ; no written law had yet
been given, no pillar of cloud or fire was yet
among them : this traditional teaching was all
on which their religious knoAvledge, their faith,
and their obedience depended. And if this faith
and obedience was, at the time of their deliver-
ance from Egypt, of rare example, allowing that
declension which is the natural and inevitable
consequence of oral transmission; yet this but
strengthens my inference, that the knowledge of
God and his ways, as imparted to the ancient
world, must have been far more, and of a higher
order, than has been commonly supposed. I
cannot then but conclude that the person and
operations of the Holy Spirit became known to

114 LECTURE VI.

the Jews by traditional transmission from the
early world, through the patriarchal line. Now
if I found in Scripture anything which seemed
to contradict such a conclusion; if, during the
period usually called antediluvian, I found no
spiritual worship, no record of the achievements
of faith, I might still be led to question that
which otherwise I might have inferred : but how
does this matter stand ? We find during that
period, the tabernacle of God established among
men; we find the voice of God not heard in
visions or sought from oracles, but conversing
usually and famiharly with mankind; we find
the faithful described as maintaining close and
intimate communion with God. Enoch and
Noah are said to have walked with God ; the
former is adduced as a noble instance of the
triumphs of faith, and is presented to our notice
as gifted with the prophetic power of the Holy
Spirit ; the latter is said to have condemned the
world by the precautions which faith suggested,
and to have become heir of the righteousness
which is by faith, and a preacher of it. Men are
said, at a certain time and after a certain event,
whose weight in the matter we cannot at this
time appreciate, to have begun to call upon, or
to call themselves by the name of Jehovah.* I
am aware that the interpretations of this passage
are many, and contradictory one of another ; that

* Gen. iv. 26; vide Pol. Synops. in loc.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 115

the most ancient paraphrases render the words,
' then men began to profane the name of the Lord,
or began to profane themselves by not caUing on
the name of the Lord.' But the phrase used is
one of constant recurrence in the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, in the sense of invocating the name of
Jehovah in prayer ; nor can the verb which pre-
cedes it fairly bear any other sense than that of
' began,' in its construction here. Besides, after
the parenthetical chapter of genealogies which
follows, the narrative proceeds to tell us that
" the sons of God saw the daughters of men ;"
as if the verse under our consideration were re-
ferred to, and the expression ' sons of God' taken
from it. It appears then, that the sacred historian
points to some remarkable increase of religious
feeling and worship, and separation of those who
called on, or called themselves by, the name of the
Lord, from the rest of mankind. Of thus much
we may I think be certain. But there is at least
probability and consistency in the supposition of
some divines," that an effusion of God's Holy
Spirit is here implied; a grant of more know-
ledge, and a more substantial and prominent
existence, to the Church of the faithful. How-
ever this may be, the division of men into those
who feared and those who did not fear the Lord,
seems first then to have taken place; the pro-
phetic power seems then to have commenced in

^ Edwards's History of Redemption.

i2

116 LECTURE VI.

the Church, and that mysterious and intimate
access to the Divine presence, implied in the
expression ' walking with God.'

So far then from the few hints which are
furnished us respecting the religion of the antedi-
luvian age militating against my conclusion, they
seem to confirm it, and give it fresh warrant.

I conclude then, that from the first, and
throughout the ages before the Redeemer ap-
peared, Divine influence was believed to be
necessary, in order that man might fear and
obey God ; that this influence was looked for
in the ordinances of God's Church, and as an
answer to the prayers of the faithful ; and that
the agent of it was known as the Holy Spirit
of God, the Spirit of creative, prophetic, and
intelligent power, yet dwelling in and enlighten-
ing the hearts of the servants of God. And
further, that this Spirit was regarded as being
poured upon, and emanating from, the future
Deliverer ; and that a day was looked for, when
his being and influence should be better known
by a general out-pouring of his gifts on the
Church.

Now of all pledges of God's favour to man,
the gift of his Holy Spirit is unquestionably the
greatest. The new life of holiness of which he
is the Lord and Giver, is an earnest of an ever-
lasting state of blessedness in another world.
The faithful are described as having here the

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 117

first-fruits of the Spirit; a small and prefatory
grant of that boundless fulness of joy, which shall
be poured upon them when their time of trial
shall have ended.

And of all the tests of the religious life in man,
this is the surest, and penetrates the deepest.
" Hereby know we that he abideth in us, by the
Spirit which he hath given us.'" For then is the
calm and blessed assurance of the holy soul the
safest and the steadiest, when, setting aside all
fanaticism and spiritual foUy, judging in the clear
hght of reason purified by chastened feelings, it
is deeply, unanswerably conscious of the pro-
gress mthin it of the great work of God, tracing
his Almighty hand in its joys, and sorrows, and
daily trains of thought ; marking its advance by
evil ever defeated, and good ever acquired ; for-
getting the things which are behind, and reach-
ing forth unto the things which are before;
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and
receiving from God the Spirit this its daily bread
of life.

It is thus that humble confidence in God is
won and kept ; thus that we, in common with the
faithful of all ages, learn to call God our God,
and to rejoice in the hope of eternal life.

But He who forgot not his covenant of old,
but in the darkness gave light to guide and to
cheer, hath visited us with the day-spring from

G 1 John iii. 24.

118 LECTURE VI.

on high. He hath poured on our great High-
priest the holy oil of his Spirit mthout measure,
and it hath descended even to the lowest skirts
of his garment : of his fulness all we have tasted.
The sacred leaven hath wrought during these
latter ages of the world, and that kingdom of
God which cometh not with observation of men,
hath been quietly but surely winning its way in
the hearts of mankind, and the fabric of human
society. The fierce passions, the ungentle man-
ners, the licentious ethics, of the best of the
former ages, have been, at least by outward con-
sent, banished from Christian communities ; and
more than outward consent may be confidently
looked for, in the further advances of the Spirit
of truth and love. Of the fragments of beauty
and majesty scattered up and down in ages past,
hath Christian art built her goodly and glorious
temple. The things which others saw, but knew
not, have deep and holy meanings now. The
very frame of man is become the tabernacle of
God ; our sufferings and our affections were
His, who is as we are in this world ; what God
hath cleansed, that we cannot call common :
and the earth and the fulness thereof are being
gathered visibly together in Christ.

Truly we walk on holy ground, and the glory
of the Divine Presence is thickening around us.
Happy are we, if we know to what we are called;
if we live in faith, and purity, and prayer ; if we

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. 119

quench not and vex not God's Holy Spirit ; if,
according as He has enabled us, we be found
workers together with Him — acting and suffer-
ing, living and dying, in harmony with his most
holy purposes.

LECTURE VIT.

THE RESURRECTION.

Acts xxvi. 8,

Why should it he thought a thing incredible with you, that
God shoidd raise the dead ?

I WILL briefly restate the argument of the course
of Lectures which I am now drawing near to
a close.

The covenant between God and his people is
a covenant of faith. That is, He on his pait has
revealed to them certain important things aifect-
ing their eternal interests ; and requires of them
on their part, that practical and absorbing con-
viction of the truth of these things, which we
know by the name ' faith.' And this faith
arises not from prejudice, nor from ignorance,
but is the result, spread over the affections and
the conduct, of the well-assured and intelligent
conclusions of the reason, that loftiest power
wherewith we are endowed. Now Scripture
informs us that this faith has been man's part of

THE RESURRECTION. 121

this covenant since the entrance of sin into the
world ; in other words, that a clear and intelli-
gent conviction, grounded on sufficient evidence,
has been the reason for the servants of God
obeying him, loving him, and seeking him, in all
ages.

This being the case, we have directed our
attention to that revelation which God has made
to man of the redemption which is in Christ.
We have seen it assuming as a preliminary truth,
the corruption and ruin of mankind by sin;
disclosing his recovery from this corruption and
ruin by God's grace ; the providing of that re-
covery by the incarnation, death, and triumph
of the Eedeemer ; the progress of that recovery
in man by the indwelling and renewing work of
the Holy Spirit ; the completion of that recovery
by the reception of the members of the covenant
of faith into eternal glory. We have seen that on
these great verities our faith rests : while at the
same time we try and prove them by all proper
tests and evidences, and strive to be able to give
to every man that asketh, a reason of the hope
that is in us.

My endeavour has been to make it plain, that
these foundation truths of the Gospel have been
in all ages sufficiently known to the Church of
God to render the faith of its members a well-
grounded and reasonable conviction : that, while
the prophetic word pointed their expectations

122 LECTURE VII.

forward to the future display of the facts of
redemption on the stage of the world, their spirits
rejoiced to see that day, and saw it and were
glad — even in its results, the pardon of sin, and
the new creation unto holiness.

Thus far have we advanced, establishing and
illustrating our argument from the Scriptures of
the Old Testament, the comments and religious
works of the Jews, and those passages in the
New Testament which imply an acquaintance on
the part of the hearers or readers with the things
treated of

Now, after having traced down from the very
earliest times, knowledge of the corruption of
human nature by sin, — of its recovery by a slain
but glorified Redeemer, — of its becoming the
tabernacle of God's Holy Spirit; it might be
thought hardly necessary to shew that there was,
co-ordinate vdth this knowledge, a belief that the
blessings promised in redemption were eternal,
and not temporal ; hardly possible that any per-
sons, knowing what ruin it was which sin had
wrought, could interpret God's redemption of
man from it to have respect to this present world
only, and regard the great work of holiness ad-
vancing within them as one which should be cut
short in the midst of the days. Yet such has
been the opinion of one divine of our ovni Church
especially,' and of others who have followed him.
' Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses.

THE RESURRECTION. 123

And I mention this, not to intimate any intention
of contesting with him the position which he has
undertaken to make good, but merely to remind
you that his argument, if confined within its
proper limits, interferes not Avith mine ; and that
it is only when he exceeds those limits, and
confounds, as it appears to me, things perfectly
distinct, that I have any cause of difference with
him. The author of the Divine Legation of
Moses has undertaken to prove Moses to have
been a divinely commissioned legislator, from the
circumstance of his law contaming no allusions
to a future state of rewards and punishments;
and has devoted much of his treatise to estab-
lishing this latter point. But in doing this he
has not unfrequently wandered out of the Mosaic
dispensation, and included the patriarchs and
the prophets, who formed no part of that eco-
nomy, in ignorance of the doctrine of a future
state.^ And in this notion he has found some at

^ To expose the inconsistencies of Warburton, might
consume more space than laboui*. Two examples may be
sufficient here. In book v. § 5, we find him asserting in one
page, that " the holy Prophets speak of no other but tem-
poral rewards and punishments :" to prove which he quotes
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. On the opposite page we
find him contrasting the plain account of the assumption of
Elijah, with the obscurely hinted translation of Enoch, and
saying, " The reason of this diff'erence is evident : when the
history of Elijah was written, it was thought expedient to
make a preparation for the dawning of a future state of
reward and punishment, which in the time of Moses had

124 LECTURE VII.

least willing to agree with him, even in our own
times. It may not therefore be unnecessary or
unprofitable to direct your attention to the en-
quiry, how far the doctrine of an eternal state,
and as connected with it that of the resurrection
of the dead, were known to the ancient Churches.
In doing this, I shall first notice a concession
made by the author himself to w^hom I have
alluded. " Among the Jews indeed," he wi-ites,^
" the Resurrection was become a national doc-
trine some time before the advent of the Messiah."
It would have been perhaps too bold an attempt,
though scarcely more bold than some which he
had already made, to disprove or explain away
the belief in a future state which prevailed in
our Saviour's time. I take then what is here
conceded, and presume none will be found dis-

been highly improper." Strange then indeed, that the day
which dawned when the books of Kings were written, should
again have given place to darkness in the time of the latter
prophets.

In the same section (i, 3.) we find him allowing that the
patriarchs were favoured with revelations concerning the
redemption of mankind, which he says Moses purposely
omitted ; and this caution, he continues, arose from a wish
" to keep out of sight that doctrine which he had omitted in
his institutes of law and religion." Here is a clear admission
that the patriarchs were acquainted with the doctrine of a
future state. Yet, from his own reasoning in the same sec-
tion, (5.) if they were acquainted ivith it^ihe. word of God which
brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel, is ren-
dered of none effect.

" Book vii. ch. v. 2, note.

THE RESURRECTION. 125

posed to question it. I find the phenomenon
apparent in the spiritual world at a certain time,
and my wish is to trace it to its origin, and give
some account of its progress. This enquiry has
been very shortly dismissed by the author whom
I have quoted. After having stated, as above,
that this doctrine had become national with the
Jews before the Messiah's advent, he continues,*
" It was not collected (we may be sure) from
natural reason, nor taught them by their Scrip-
tures, yet collected from the contemplation of
their prophets misinterpreted ; where the re-
storation of the Mosaic republic was predicted, in
terms which were mistaken by the latter Jews to
signify the revival or resurrection of their de-
ceased ancestors."

Now, that there are such passages as those
here mentioned, and that they were thus mis-
interpreted, no student of Scripture and commen-
tators will deny : but allowing this, and even for
the present allowing also that neither nature nor
Scripture taught them this doctrine, there is still
an assignable origin for their knowledge of it —
namely, primeval tradition. And I hope to be
able to shew not only that they probably deduced
their acquaintance with the doctrine from this
source, but that no other source can with any
likelihood be mentioned as having given rise
to it.

* Ut supra.

126 LECTURE YII.

Now, dealing as we do with traditionary doc-
trine, w^e shall necessarily be occupied with
matters which lie beneath the surface of Scripture
and history ; which are rather presupposed than
asserted, — rather assumed than enounced.

Beginning then at the very earliest times,
I would direct your attention to the state of our
first parents, as humiliated and degraded after
the fall. What had they lost ? The threat had
expressed that in the day of the violation of their
obedience, they should surely die; and their
sentence was in accordance with that threat.
But that day they did not die ; nay, many cen-
turies passed over their heads before the sentence
was fulfilled. The only visible immediate in-
fliction on them w^as their expulsion from Eden,
the deterioration of the soil and its produce, and
the commencement of that life by the sweat of the
brow, which, though a woeful change in prospect,
doubtless brought, as all human experience tes-
tifies, its comfort and reward with it. Yet I find
from that time, if our former inferences have
been correct, a system of worship and a tabernacle
of God's presence set up, whose very form indi-
cated that a deeper loss had been sustained than
any of these outward inflictions seemed to point
at. Man is from this time polluted — debarred
access to God without the intervention of rites
and ordinances : he has lost that holiness with-
out which no man shall see God. And, how^ever

THE RESURRECTION. 127

I may attempt to do so, I cannot withdraw my
attention from this part of theu* misery, nor can
I persuade myself that their loss was merely
a temporal one. For if it was merely temporal,
then their blessedness before was merely tem-
poral also ; and thus the high estate from which
sin has cast us down, were at best only a life of
refined animal enjoyment, and the high and
reaching desires of these souls, then necessarily
more high and reaching when not bound down
and fettered by impurity, were unsatisfied, undi-
rected, sent wandering over the soon exhausted
objects of sense, to find only disappointment and
vexation of spirit. For to make the only suppo-
sition which remains, and to conceive that such
desires did not exist before that mysterious
change, which is implied in the knowledge of
good and evil, passed on our race, is to admit the
monstrous notion that sin has raised us higher in
the scale of being ; and to make us almost ready
to exclaim, Rather would we be in sin and error,
with the treasures of knowledge before us, the
sense of our dignity within us, and the hope of
immortality bounding in our spirits, than inno-
cent and pure, but unendowed and unenhghtened,
without aim and without hope.

I cannot then but see, under the surface of the
sacred narrative, that the loss sustained by man
was not temporal merely ; that he had regard to
himself as a living, an immortal soul, who by sin

128 LECTURE YII.

had forfeited the favour of God. And I sec this
view confirmed by all that is done to comfort
him in this his dejection. To what purpose is
the sense of the pardon of sin, imparted generally
in his own duration here, particularly in sacrifice
and prayer, if not to point to a restoration to the
favour and presence of God, in a spiritual sense
and in an eternal state '? For, temporally speak-
ing, the godly man gained nothing by his service
of God. More temptation, more sorrow, more
persecution came upon him, — the curse was not
taken off, the sentence was not reversed: and
though in one case a saint of God was translated
that he should not see death, such was not the
rule under this dispensation, any more than under
the next, which had its translated prophet also ;
but from sire to son of the righteous line we
read, 'And he died' — died notwithstanding all his
piety, all his hopes and faith. So that unless
mankind during this time were in ignorance of
God's will and service altogether, which the in-
stances of Enoch and Noah forbid us to suppose,
we must necessarily conclude that the blessings
which they looked for belonged to the restoration
of their souls in a better and eternal state. And
this conclusion is still further strengthened by
the circumstance that we have recorded, by the
Apostle Jude, a remarkable prophecy of Enoch
respecting the coming of the Lord to judgment,
which can bear no satisfactory explanation, ex-

THE RESURRECTIOX. 129

cept on the supposition of the utterer having
reference to a future state of existence. This
prophecy is quoted as forming one of the mass of
primaeval traditions then current : who shall say
how many of the same kind have been lost to us
in the lapse of ages 1 That important matters
were at this time thus preserved in knowledge,
was believed of old ; for Tertullian reports, on
the same authority, that Enoch enjoined it to
his son Methuselah to deliver to liis posterity
what he himself had received by hereditary tra-
dition.^ Let us, however, dwell a few moments
longer on the translation of this saint and
prophet ; and let us enquire what effect it must
have produced on the minds of those who were
left behind in the Church of God. Suppose
them unacquainted with the doctrine of a future
state, but long conversant with the piety of
Enoch : what reward would they suppose that
piety had met with ? Before his translation he
had this testimony, that he pleased God. Strange
would indeed the great and crowning testimony
of the Divine approval have been, if it had only
consisted in a snatching away of its object from all
that he loved, and life itself, without any bright
equivalent for such a loss. Could human reason
have employed itself on such an occurrence as the
removal of a saint so highly favoured, without
inferring thence the reality of some other state,

* De Cultu Fcem. i.

K

130 LECTURE Yll.

and better than that fi.-om which he was taken ?
But happening as it did before men who pre-
viously believed in a future state, it would be to
them a striking and gracious proof of the truth
of God's promises to them, that one of their own
number should have sensibly passed away into
eternal blessedness.

Now, before we leave this primaeval period,
let us reflect, that the Scriptiu-e account, com-
prising as it does little more than two chapters
of Genesis, is but the record of a few names,
and still fewer occurrences, in a long and im-
portant portion of the lifetime of the world and
the Church: that there yet remains behind, in
all probabihty, much more to be told respect-
ing their belief and hope, than has yet been told :
and that though the fancy must be checked and
sobered in such matters, we cannot consider it
unsafe to suppose that their knowledge was very
much more than we have had detailed to us.
I believe then, that in the Church before the
flood it was believed and known that there
would be a future state of blessedness or misery ;
and that to this future state were the hopes of
the saints directed, and not to any promises of
dehverance merely temporal.

Passing onwards in the Scripture history of
man, I cannot but dwell awhile on the fortunes
of that remarkable person who forms the link
between the former and the latter world. I can-

THE RESURRECTION. 131

not but follow him in his course of patient
endurance, his unavailing work and labour of love,
a preacher to the world of the righteousness
which is by faith. That world, having disregarded
his warning voice, is delivered over to the just
vengeance of God. It was indeed a day of the
Lord's coming, — but it was not that of which the
prophetic word had spoken. For there was no
seat of judgment, no conviction of ungodly sin-
ners for their ungodly works and words, no
accompanying pomp of saints. It was not final,
for he and his family were spared to continue the
human race, and the seed of promise. It was
impossible that he should imagine the announce-
ment of Enoch fulfilled. Nor did he so imagine ;
for he delivered it down to his descendants as an
intimation of something yet to come : and more
than two thousand years after, we find it still
alive in the mention of men.

But could he, with this prophecy before him,
avoid drawing a comparison between the scene
of desolation which surrounded him, and the
final vengeance which should be taken on sin-
ners? Could the thought but suggest itself,
" as the days of Noah, so shall the days of the
Son of Man be?" And in his own miraculous
preservation, could he but see the ultimate
safety of those who, like himself, should be
heirs of the righteousness which is by faitli ?
For those were times when great truths were

132 LECTURE YIL

acted rather than spoken; and the doctrhres of
grace were enwrapt in the parables of provi-
dence.

Once more (for I have before followed this
history with a different purpose) behold the pa-
triarchal family assembled round their altar,
consecrating, by an offering of thanksgiving and
propitiation, the new world which lay beneath
them. What are the words in which the gracious
announcement is made to them that the world
should no more be devastated as they had seen
it 1 "I will not again smite every thing living
as I have done. While the earth remaineth,
[literally, and in our margin, ' as yet all the
days of the earth,'] seed-time and harvest, and
cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night, shall not cease." Is there not in this
sentence a plain allusion to the time when earth
should be no more'? " All the days of the earth,"
it is a phrase usually employed of something
transitory, not of any thing eternal. " All the days
of Noah," we read in the next chapter, "were
nine hundred and fifty years, and he died:" and
so of others who have passed away. And may
not St. Peter be thought to refer to this very
expression, when he says, that by the same Divine
word which created the world, it, after having
been overflowed with water, is kept in store for
another display of the divine vengeance T

6 1 Pet. iii. 7.

THE RESURRECTION. 1 33

But we descend to Abraham, who became the
inheritor of these traditions, and, it would appear,
saw through the corruptions and superstitions of
those among whom he lived. And here we find
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in
commenting on the command for the sacrifice of
Isaac, saying, that Abraham " accounted God was
able to raise him from the dead, from which he
also received him in a figure." Could this have
been asserted of Abraham, unless the resurrection
of the dead had been an article of his belief
previously'? or can we suppose that a figure
such as passed before him on this occasion, could
have been designed for the revelation of such
a doctrine, unknown before 1 And in tracing the
whole history of this patriarch — the renewals of
the promise to him, his conduct respecting the
land of promise, and the comment of the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews respecting this
conduct; we cannot but see in all these par-
ticulars, beneath the surface of the Scripture
narrative, evidence that the hope of future bles-
sedness beyond the grave was continually in his
view, and was had respect to by God. Most of
these instances have been brought forward, and
ably commented on, in a previous course of
Lectures on this foundation;^ you heard and
may read in those Lectures, of the remarkable

'' Hulsean Lectures for 1832, by the Rev. J, J. Blunt,
Lect. II.

184 LECTURE VII.

disparity in the blessing and lot of Ishmael, the
son according to nature, and Isaac, the heir of
the promise : to the former, earthly blessings and
dominion — to the latter, the covenant of God; as
if put in contrast, the spiritual against the carnal.
One train of circumstances must not however be
passed over, for it affects the question now im-
mediately before us. The land of Canaan had
been promised to Abraham — to him and to his
seed. And I find it recorded that he remained
in the distant expectation of the fulfilment of
this promise throughout his life, with one
exception. One piece of land he purchased of
the inhabitants of the country; it was for a
burying-place. Now there might be nothing
remarkable in the descendants of Abraham wish-
ing to be buried in the same spot: but when, on
the one hand, we find the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews asserting, that " by faith Joseph
gave commandment concerning his bones," and on
the other, trace a tradition among the Jews, that
the patriarchs shall rise from the dead and
possess the land of promise; we cannot but ask
ourselves. Did no thought of this kind, or no
thought which might afterwards be corrupted
into this, exist in the minds of the patriarchs
themselves 1

I pass by the sojourning of the people of God
in Egypt, and take up the history at their de-
parture thence. At this point I see the remark-

THE RESURRECTION. 135

able spectacle of a people with ordinances and
sacrifice, and the worship of the true God, — and
all this upheld, we have every reason to suppose,
solely by tradition. Jehovah was known as " the
God of their fathers."' His dealings with Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in all probabihty the
annals of times long before them, were current
among the children of Israel. " The people
which God had purchased," is their appellation ;
" Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in
the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place,
O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell
in, in the sanctuary wliich thou hast estab-
lished;"' this is the expression of their confidence.
Is it likely that they who knew thus much by
tradition, should have lost that greatest hope,
tliat bright light amidst the darkness of bond-
age and idolatry, in which their fathers lived and
died ?

At this time God raised up Moses as a deliverer
and a lawgiver to his people. By him He gave
to Israel statutes and ordinances regidating their
conduct in his worship and as his peculiar people;
by him He wrought into a system, and bestowed
exclusively on one race, that theocracy which
subsisted but partially before, and which, pre-
viously to the general apostacy of the nations,
seems to have had place in some degree amongst
them all. On the nature of the Mosaic economy,

« Exod. iii. 15; xv. 2. ^ lb. xv. 16, 17.

186 LECTURE VII.

as affecting our present enquiry, I shall treat
at large in my next and concluding Lecture. It
may suffice to say at present, that to reveal truth
was not its object, but to bind it up, and secure
it against loss by the limitary statutes of strict
obedience consistent with it ; — that it is never re-
presented to us in Scripture as advancing forward
God's people in knowledge and hope, but rather
as wrapping up in parables, and veiling from
sight, that knowledge and hope which it found
amongst the faithful ; — that like another fore-
runner of our redemption, it was " not that Light,
but was sent to bear witness to that Light;"
a witness however of a peculiar kind, best cha-
racterized in the words of our Saviour, " To him
that hath, shall be given; but from him that
hath not, shall be taken away even that which he
seemeth to have." That during the times of that
law there were among the Jews faithful and
devout servants of God, is to be attributed, not to
any direct influence of that law itself, but to
those promises of God, given long before the
law, but which it served to bind up and con-
solidate. That these saints did under the law
look forward to awaking up after God's likeness
and being satisfied; that they exulted in the
prospect of the fulness of joy and pleasures at
God's right hand, when, after having been led by
Ids counsel, they should be received with glory,
was not owing to any lesson which the law had

THE RESURRECTION. 137

taught them, but owing to what they knew of
God's eternal covenant with his people, made
since the world began.

Now if we find, at the time when our Saviour
appeared, the resurrection to life a national doc-
trine among the Jews, can we be at a loss to what
source to trace it ? Can we any longer say, that
it arose out of the misapprehension of some pas-
sages in their prophets'? For if so, then were
God's peculiar people less favoured than the
heathens around them ; for I find that they,
almost Avithout exception, had retained their
traditionary knowledge of a future state of hap-
piness and of misery, — while, on this supposition,
the children of Israel had lost it.

And I can never persuade myself, that such
a belief is owing to any inferences which the
natural man may draw, independently of a reve-
lation from above. There are, it is true, in
nature, many typical processes, which are w^on-
derfully illustrative of resurrection-power, and
tend to confii'm and establish us in our hopes of
eternal life; but what scattered hints Uke these
shall ever first teach man to raise up the sure
and certain hope of a rising again to life, against
the continued progress to corruption and death
which he sees around him^ There are again,
in these our hearts, thoughts

whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality :

13S LECTURE VII.

but who shall say that these could make their
feeble testimony of comfort and peace heard,
amidst the all-desolating and hopeless triumph
of death?

I cannot then but infer that God's ancient
people — abased as they were by a sense of their
unworthiness to appear before God, reassured
by the tokens of pardon which were given them,
looking for divine influence to restore in them
that image of God which they had lost, and
expecting in a future age that great harvest of
which they had but the foretaste — did not look
for the salvation of God as a thing temporal and
connected with this world, but eternal; and then
to come upon them in its fulness, when they
should arise from the dust of death. I cannot
but believe that this faith accompanied God's
servants down to the very time when He came
who brought life and immortality to light ; — that
he who waited for the consolation of Israel, who
desired to depart in peace, for that his eyes had
seen the Lord's salvation, spoke in this faith ; —
that the arguments and addresses of our Saviour
to the Jews, were founded on this their faith, at
least professed, and by those very words of Christ
sanctioned and commended.

Thus I see consistency in the unfolding of
God's purposes ; thus I see that the eternal state,
for which man's present life is but a preparation,
has been throughout the history of God's Church,

THE RESURRECTION. 139

in the view of those who formed that body,
which is the pillar and ground of the truth. But
while we anxiously trace the footsteps of spiritual
truth, and satisfy ourselves that the longing of
the holy soul has ever been after God — his per-
fections, his presence, and an eternity of joy in
Him ; let us remember that, of all the additions
which the revelation of the Gospel has made to
our knowledge and our hope, those concerning
this doctrine have been the most extensive and
the most glorious. It might have been matter
of painful effort to the ancient beUever, to answer
the hard questioning of carnal doubt — to stand
by the bed of death, and gaze on the blank and
soulless features, and against that stern negation
of all that is bright and hopeful, to assert his
belief in a resurrection unto life. And had not
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort
wonderfully proportioned faith to the need of
faith, so that the humblest and deepest rehance
on Him is found in ages, not of knowledge, but
of darkness and peril, doubtless the hope of man
Avoidd have sunk beneath its trial, and the light
of Israel would have been quenched.

But upon our path the Dayspring from on high
hath shined; One is gone up before us into the
heavenly iilaces; over the flesh of man death can-
not triumph — the grave can raise no trophies ;
the first-fruits have been gathered, and the har-
vest shall follow. If we are called to look upon

140 LECTURE VII.

death, it is but to see the place where the Lord
lay ; if we follow those we love to the grave, it is
hut to see where the ministering angels sat, who
proclaimed, " He is not here, hut risen." And
though in the midst of life we are in death, and
we know not how soon we may be called away,
yet does Christian faith enable us to walk safely,
and lie down in peace ; knowing that we have
a better inheritance and another tabernacle, and
a life that cannot be holden of death.

Thus high is our state of blessedness ; thus
clear and distinct our hope. And fearful in pro-
portion is the danger of those who forget their
heavenly calling, and walk as children of this
present world, setting before them their own
desires and selfish purposes, instead of taking
up their cross daily, and following Christ. For
from the crowd of their fellow-sinners, and the
shelter of this world's deemings, they shall pass
alone and unfriended into the presence of God
the Searcher of hearts : who shall then restore to
them that which they have lost, — or how shall
they abide his justice, who have rejected his
grace 1

If then there be wisdom, if there be faith, if
there be purity, hold fast that which ye have
until He come; that ye may sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom
of God.

LECTURE VIII.

THE USE OF THE LAW

Gal. iii. 19.

Wlierefore then serteth the Law ? It ivas added because
of transgressions, till the seed should come to ivhom the
promise was made.

That the character of the Mosaic law should
have presented a difficulty to the minds of Chris-
tians, is not to be wondered at. For we are not
in a situation to take fully into account the cir-
cumstances under which that law was given, or
the purposes intended to be answered by it. We
know but little of the dealings of Providence on
a scale so extended : we can hardly grasp in our
imagination the process necessary for educating
a whole race of men, with reference to an
assigned future object. We can but imperfectly
conceive the lifting one nation out of its place to
be a pattern to mankind ; the acting of a great
and lasting parable, whose meaning was hereafter
to be opened, but which for the time, and to

142 LECTURE VIII.

those who look at it alone and unconnected,
should seem unreasonable and unmeaning.

Now my purpose being to establish the con-
sistency of the Divine conduct in the revelation
of Redemption, and my former Lectures havmg
treated of those foundation truths on which the
spiritual temple of God is built, and estabUshed
the fact of their manifestation to the ancient
Churches; it will greatly conduce to the com-
pleteness of the argument, if, in this concluding
Lecture, I may be able to give some account of
that economy under which the people of God
were placed for so many ages preceding the ad-
vent of Christ. If I can shew that its character
and its provisions were consistent with the Di^dne
proceedings in general, and adapted to further
the end then most desirable, it will tend not only
to remove out of the way the greatest hindrance
to the kind of evidence with which I am con-
cerned, but will help to build up and confirm the
argument itself.

This then, with some general considerations on
the nature of the evidence which I have been
endeavouring to adduce, will occupy us on the
present occasion.

I will first direct your attention to the circum-
stances of the Church of God, at the giving of
the Mosaic law. A vast mass of traditionary
knowledge was deposited in the congregation of
Israel. The depravation of man by sin ; his

THE USE OF THE LAW. 143

recovery by the death of a promised mcarnate
Redeemer ; the gift of the Holy Spirit, abeady
vouchsafed as the earnest of redemption accom-
plished in the Divine counsels ; the spiritual and
eternal character of the blessings thus promised
and granted, — we have reason to mfer that
a traditionary belief of all these things formed the
ground of faith in those days, and among that
people. With these doctrines, and as the means
of their conservation and proof, had come down
to them sacrifice, and the priesthood, and the
prophetic word. From among them was to spring
the Deliverer — the light of the Gentiles, and the
glory of Israel.

But by both these was first a great work to
be accomplished, and a solemn testimony borne.
He whose thoughts are not our thoughts, has
vouchsafed to open to us this portion of his
dealings with man. Even with that which
is revealed do our understandings grapple at
a disadvantage ; for what arm of flesh can
wield the sceptre, wherewith the Almighty go-
verns his creatures? It was his pleasure that
both by Gentile and Jew, the insufliciency of
man to attain to Himself should be fully and
practically manifested. It was his pleasure to
conclude all under sm, that the promise by faith
of Jesus Christ might be to them that beheve.

The nations of the world, gifted with some
portion of primceval light — and even in default of

144 LECTURE YIIl.

that, with the universal light of reason and
conscience — retained not God in their knowledge.
Their light they clouded with mystery and super-
stition : the witness within them they overbore
and neglected, till his voice was scarcely heard.
Some sunk down in the scale of being, almost
below humanity ; others advanced to the highest
possible eminence of intellectual culture. But
neither could the debasement of the savage
quench the immortal soul, or exempt from the
guilt of sin ; nor could the keen shafts of thought
penetrate the darkness, in which the knowledge
of evil had enwrapt the knowledge of good.
Deep and deadly was the progress of moral cor-
ruption ; feeble and insincere were the remedies
applied. The light that was in them became
darkness ; and how great was that darkness !

But how fared the chosen people of God in
the midst of this fearful testimony to the ruin
which sin had wrought ] Had they no part to
bear in it, no lesson to read to them that should
come after 1 Might it not yet be said, that all
these nations were ignorant of God's ways, — that
they had not the glory of his presence, nor the
convincing sound of his voice 1 might it not be
yet asserted, that if God would take a nation from
the midst of the people with a mighty hand and
stretched-out arm, and would give them what
to do for Himself, statutes and judgments, they
might live in them ] might it not be alleged on

THE USE OF THE LAW. 145

man's behalf, that though, beyond doubt, when
left alone, he sought not and loved not and obeyed
not God, yet, with culture and moral light, and
a code of observances, we know not what might
be accomplished towards the recovery of the
Divine image ? For this purpose amongst others
was the law given to Israel, that it might become
manifest by actual proof, that by legal obedience
should no man be justified before God. The law
was added because of transgressions ; to bring
out, by the additional test of the apphcation of
Divine ordinances to the conduct of man, the
innate corruption of his birth. It had thus a
purpose with reference to those who should come
after, namely, to supply what would otherwise
have been a deficient and untried case — that of
man famished with the knowledge of the Divine
will, and placed in a condition to perform it.
It taught them the utter inability of man, by
works and observances, to build up a righteous-
ness before God. It had also a reference to Him
who was to come ; in that, when man's inability
to perform its requirements was fully demon-
strated, He came and fulfilled it to the utmost.

But there was another great purpose to be
answered by the giving of the law, to which
I briefly alluded in my last Lecture : the conser-
vation of the truth among God's peculiar people.

If we look upon Israel at the time of their
deliverance from Egypt, we see a people in pos-

L

146 LECTURE VIII.

session of many of the great doctrines of the
future Gospel ; doctrines which, from the very
nature of the case, were to form the substance of
the faith of God's saints in all ages. But the
time for the manifestation of those historical oc-
currences, which were to be the visible shewing
forth and full revelation of those doctrines, had
not yet arrived. The purposes of Providence
above mentioned were yet to be evolved, and to
that end a considerable portion of the lifetime of
mankind was yet required. And that portion
had for its appointed work, the bringing in guilty
of the human race, Jew and Gentile, before the
purity and justice of God. Yet the covenant of
faith was not to be forgotten, nor the promises
made void. During this period of general apos-
tasy, there were to be faithful among the faithless.
The bright light of Israel was not to be quenched,
for all the tempests which might desolate the
moral world; therefore did Jehovah make a
hedge about it, and enshrine it in a place hal-
lowed and rare of access. The still small voice
of the primseval testimony was to be heard among
the tumults of strife and lust and carnal warfare ;
therefore did it not speak in the highways and
haunts of mankind, but in the inner recesses of
that guarded mount where God was pleased to
put his name. And admirable indeed is the
Mosaic dispensation, vieAved as a means to this
end. So constructed that the faithful man could

THE USE OF THE L\W. 147

not miss its continual allusions to spiritual truths,
it spoke to the carnally-minded nothing of its
holy secrets. Founded on a recognition of doc-
trines far deeper and more spiritual than itself,
it declared nothing new, it anticipated nothing :
it acted as a medium of suspense for the hopes
and thoughts of God's people, till the seed should
come, to whom the promise was made.

Again, in its distinctive and absolute enact-
ments it is no less to be admired. It was plainly
necessary for the fulfilment of God's purposes
with regard to Israel, that they should not follow
the apostacy of the nations. Here then the laAv
is definite and precise ; the unity of the Godhead
is authoritatively laid down, and adherence to
this great doctrine enforced by the gravest penal-
ties. This was a doctrine which was not involved
in the promise, but had been the first acknow-
ledged by the true worshipper since the world
began. Therefore this doctrine is inculcated by
the law as of primary importance.

Again, the will of God as regarding the moral
conduct of his creatures towards Himself and one
another, was that by which his people were to be
judged and found wanting ; therefore that will
is clearly defined and set down in the law. It
formed no part of that covenant whereby man
shall live before God; it was the test, the rule
whereby sin might be known and detected ;
therefore the law placed it in the forefront of its

l2

148 LECTURE YIII.

requirements. But upon the covenant of faith,
its manifestations of the state of man and the
purposes of God, its gifts of the pardon of sin
and eternal life, — the law, although implying
much, declares nothing. It was not its office to
save the soul : it could not restore to man that
which he had lost; for it was not merely the
practice of obedience, but the will and power to
obey, which had departed from him. A law
from God might define that will, of which he had
lost the apprehension ; it might convict of that
guilt, which the hardened heart did not regard :
but when this had been done, what provisions
could it contain for removing the misery which
it created? To which of its chapters could it
send the weary and heavy-laden to seek rest for
their souls ? For this there was another pro-
vision, even those ancient and precious promises
which pointed to the consolation of Israel.

Was the law then against those promises'?
Nay, rather it led men to them ; when, having
renounced their own righteousness, and embraced
the covenant of faith, they betook themselves to
the temple and its sacrifices, they there saw every
part of the solemn ritual, and every particular of
the Levitical ordinances, framed in accordance
with the great doctrines of that better covenant ;
the tears of repentance followed on the pangs of
remorse, the humble trust and active endeavour
of faith succeeded the helplessness of spiritual

THE USE OF THE LAW. 149

despair ; he that slept, awoke and arose from the
dead, and Christ gave him light.

For this it was that the saints of old expressed
their admiration of the statutes and ordinances
of the law ; because they had respect to the oath
which God had sworn to their fathers, and the
covenant which he had commanded for ever.

So that the law stands not, nor can it be fairly
regarded, by itself We must not contemplate
it as a scheme of government merely, nor en-
deavour to find in it the symmetry or apparent
reasonableness of human political constitutions :
it was a parable and a sacrament — an outward
visible sign of an inward spiritual grace ; and
that grace not given primarily by, nor through
the sign, but by it sealed and assured to its
possessors. I put away then at once as inap-
plicable, all those reasonings founded upon the
mention or omission of certain truths in the law,
as affecting the question of the Divine legation
of its deliverer. I do not compare it with human
systems, nor judge it by any general deduction
from them. It stands distinct from them, as the
appointed means of preserving unsullied the
purity of spiritual truth ; while at the same time
it brought in even God's chosen people guilty
before Him.

But to this dispensation belongs another ordi-
nance of Divine providence, no less admirable in
its adaptation to the service of the truth. Tie

150 - LECTURE VIII.

who framed the statutes and judgments of the
law, knew what was in man. He knew that the
formal routme of services required, might in time
overbear the great doctrines to which they Avere
in truth the testimony. He therefore raised up
from time to time, persons endowed specially with
his Holy Spirit, to bear witness to these truths.
Such were the prophets, whose mission is repre-
sented to us as the active and unceasing work
of God's careful superintendence of his people.
" I sent you my prophets, daily rising up early
and sending them."^ Such in old times were
Samuel and Elijah, Gad and Nathan ; such
were those whose writings have come down to
us ; men speaking not of, nor by the law ; tes-
tifying of mercy, and not of sacrifice ; grounding
their exhortations and reasonings on truths lying
deeper than the system under which they lived.
They spoke of the carnal ordinances of the law
as statutes that were not good, and in whicli a
man should not live ; they poured contempt on
the new moons and appointed feasts of an igno-
rant and dissembling people ; they entered into
the spiritual meaning of the fast which the
Lord had chosen. They were raised up also to
excite and bear witness to the hopes of the
Church of God, as centered in the future Re-
deemer. As they w^ere moved by the Divine

^ Jer. vii. 25.

THE USE OF THE LAW. 151

Spirit, they spake of Him as of one that should
be born into the world, and suffer and reign ; as
of one that should be abundantly endowed with
the Spirit, and should inherit an unchangeable
priesthood. They spoke in distinct terms of the
transitory nature of the law ; of a time when the
wall of partition should be removed, and the
glory of the Lord be so revealed, that all flesh
should see it together.

By these two great instruments of the Divine
purposes were the chosen nation kept in the
profession and knowledge of the truth. These
were the two witnesses of God, by which He
spoke to the fathers: the one declaring the
requirements of his justice— the other confirming
the promises of his grace. That these witnesses
were disregarded by that people, detracts not
. from the value of their testimony ; nor can we
appreciate it more highly than our Saviour him-
self does, where He puts into the mouth of the
Father of the Faithful these prophetic words, " If
they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded, though one rose from the

dead.""

Thus then, while I can assign to the law of
Moses its place in the great unfolding of God's
purposes, I see my conclusion respecting it con-
firmed by the fact, that during its continuance
God ceased not to bear Avitness to its temporary

" Luke xvi. ult.

152 LECTURE VIII.

nature and incompleteness, by his servants the
prophets. And thus I see the dealings of Pro-
vidence in the salvation of man brought into
harmony and consistency. For had the law, on
the one hand, put forth professions of saving
power, — were eternal life the prominent theme
on which it dwelt, — ^had it referred those who
were under it to a future state of rewards and
punishments, I should have been at a loss how
to account for the co-existence of two separate
and inconsistent schemes for the redemption of
man : and had not the prophets, on the other
hand, lifted up their voices on behalf of greater
and holier truths, — had not they put forward
eternal life, and the pardon of sin, and the power
of the Spirit of God, as matters of primary import,
I should not have known how to resolve the
apparent contradictions before me : a chosen
generation, a peculiar people of God, shut up
under an insufficient ceremonial system ; the
promises given to the fathers, down to a certain
pomt in history, increasing in number and clear-
ness, but after that point broken off and laid
aside ; and, above all, that Church of God, which
is the pillar and ground of the truth, left with-
out the possession of it, or the power of bearing
testimony to it.

I close this course of Lectures with some
g eneral remarks on the nature of the evidence
which I have been endeavouring to adduce.

THE USE OF THE LAW. 153

It is the uniform assertion of the writers of the
New Testament, that the redemption effected by
Christ was but the final completion and actual
demonstration of great purposes which had been
for many ages regulating the Divine conduct
towards mankind. Now, if this had been told
us in default of any record of the earlier ages of
the world, we must have taken it upon trust,
and could not have enquired further into it. But
we have a record of those early ages, which we
believe to be authentic. Nay, what is more, we
are led by the New Testament writers to infer,
that the main reason why this record has been
preserved to us is, that we may assure ourselves
of the truth of that other assertion. So that we
have not only the means put into our hands, of
tracing the unfolding of the Christian redemption
through the dealings of Providence, but we are
advised and enjoined to use them for this purpose.
The Old Testament thus furnishes Christianity
with one of its most important branches of evi-
dence,— that, namely, by which it can establish
its claim to be the completion of the only reve-
lation which God has ever made of Himself to
mankind ; by which it can prove that the saints
of God, in all ages since the entrance of sin into
the world, have had no other hope than that
which it now sets before them. And if we were
deprived of this evidence, one strong position
would be taken from us : our Christianity might

154 LECTURE VIII.

be justly, as it has been unjustly, suspected to
be a system built up of various philosophical
dogmas, and overlaid upon the apparently simple
moral teaching of its Founder. Whereas the
more clearly this evidence is established, the more
will the very similarity on which that suspicion
rests be turned against the suspectors themselves;
for it will appear that if the systems of philo-
sophers and the Gospel have points in common,
it is because, of the doctrines of truth revealed
to the Church of God, some portion had found its
way into the traditionary creed of the nations;
because the many lights which brightened the
feast within, shed some of their stray splendours
over the darkness which was without.^ So that,
unquestionably, great service is rendered to our
holy religion, by connecting it with, and tracing
it in, the course of the Old Testament history.

But while there is no question respecting the
value of such evidence, there has ever been shewn
considerable distrust of those who have engaged
in the search for it. Nor can we deny that they
have deserved such distrust in too many cases.
Into an enquiry which demanded more than

^ In saying this I am in no wise impugning the existence,
independently of revelation, of those moral grounds of obli-
gation on which all religion rests. My concern is with the
doctrines of revealed religion ; of which it were a negation
in terms to assert that the unassisted understanding of man
could form any conception.

THE USE OF THE LAW. 155

ordinary caution and fairness, they have too
frequently introduced the wanton and unbridled
fancy, and an evident predisposition to strain
every point for their present purpose. Remote
and uncertain allusions have been construed into
direct assertions of doctrine; doubtful etymologies
have been made to serve purposes to which lan-
guage has seldom any reference. Acknowledging
this as I do, and having, I hope, used it as a
warning to myself, I cannot however but remind
you that there is also a distrust of such enquiries
which is undeserved, — which springs from a spirit of
sceptical doubt, or at the least of careless disregard,
concerning the record which the ancient Scrip-
tures disclose of God's dealings with mankind;
and not unfrequently accompanied by a very
inadequate conception of the reality of the objects
of faith. And while I shrink not from examina-
tion of the validity of the proofs which I have ad-
duced, and trial of the soundness of the inferences
which I have drawn, I must insist upon one
condition, without which men are not qualified
for becoming judges in this matter ; and that is,
a simple and earnest belief of the Scripture
narrative, and a due sense of its importance as
a record of the Divine dealings ; a persuasion of
the absolute objective truth of Scripture asser-
tions, and a reliance on a personal revealed God
in Christ, as the Author, Redeemer, and Sanctifier
of the nature of man. Where these things are

156 LECTURE VIII.

wanting, there cannot be a proper appreciation of
the arguments which I have used, or the spirit
in which they have been advanced; and this
because the members of the Church of Christ, in
looking over the history of past ages, see not as
man seeth ; in their view, the struggles of human
ambition are by an unseen hand controlled for
holy purposes, and the fitful storms of chance
and change directed by an Almighty intelligence
after the counsel of his will ; in their view, the
spirits of all flesh are dependent upon, and called
to adore and love, a God who is not far from
every one of them ; who is not the offspring of
their own thoughts or figures of speech, but is
the Author of peace and love, and the Fountain
from which all blessings flow. And while there
is much in the tale of this world's strife and woe
which it surpasses their power to interpret aright,
and much in their own spirits which must as
yet be set by in reservation and uncertainty ; yet
do they not therefore cast away their confidence,
but in the humility of self-distrusting faith, hold
fast their persuasion that God doeth all things
well; that his Christ, and his Church, and his
cause, shall triumph and be exalted ; and that
towards that holy end have the events of ages
past been surely, though mysteriously, tending.
In Scripture they read the history of this work
as displayed by the establishment of the covenant
of redemption. In profane story, human action

THE USE OF THE LAW. 157

may be more stirringly detailed, human motives
more accurately dissected; human probability,
deduced from our limited views of the works of
God, may be less frequently overstepped; the
ardent spirit of enterprise may be awakened by
the rich narratives of one historian, the severest
requirements of criticism satisfied by the stern
accuracy of another; but there shall ever be
wanting that high and universal import which
attaches to the simple Scripture chronicles, as
the record of matters in which every son and
daughter of man hath individually an interest
and a share.

Such is the view in which the Church of Christ
contemplates the ancient history of the world, as
detailed in the Old Testament Scriptures. And
as a member of that Church, I have laid before
you as members of that Church, these enquiries,
humbly praying that God may render them
useful to the estabhshment of our common faith :
esteeming such labour not ill timed in this day
of increased knowledge and enlightened specu-
lation: being persuaded that the more the
understandings of men are informed, and their
reason exalted and purified, the more will the
simplicity of God's truth be found to be wiser
than the world's wisdom : and holding it as an
article of faith, no less certain than consoUng,
that all our advances in the knowledge of that
which is seemly and true, are but steps in the

158 LECTURE Till.

mighty progress of God's work among men ; the
unfolding of his purpose, that in the dispensation
of the fulness of times He may gather together all
things in Christ.

TWO SEEMONS

PREACHED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,

SERMON 1/

THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

Hebrews xii. 1, 2.

Let us nm with patience the race that is set before us,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith ; who for the joy that ivas set before him endured
the cross, despisinij the shame.

What depth of holy meaning, and what varied
remembrances of the past, lie beneath those few
and simple words, " the cross of Christ !"- They
were spoken to the stern rulers of the world in
days of old ; but they turned in high-born pride
from the basest death they knew, and with
incurious indifference attributed to the sufferer
the leading of tumults in Rome. They were
uttered to the Jew; and though his Scriptures
were eloquent with promise, and his sacrifices
full of symbolic import, he saw in the cross
but the failure of an impostor, who could not
fulfil the test of coming down from it that lie

^ Preached on Good Friday, IS^l.

M

162 SERMON T.

might believe. They were proclaimed to the wise,
and they pronounced them foolishness; to the
strong, and they despised them as weakness.

But the foolishness of God is wiser than
men ; and the ^veakness of God is stronger than
men. By these same words was wrought the
greatest change Avhich has ever passed upon
mankind. First there assembled by stealth a
small and humble band of men, who gloried in
the cross of Christ. They were persecuted and
smitten asunder. Their word went out into all
lands, and their sound unto the ends of the world.
The little cloud had risen up over the heaven,
and there was a great rain. Drop after drop
descended into the barren and untended soil of
the human heart. The divine Spirit accompanied,
sowing the seed of life. The reproach of the
cross passed away. The punishment of a male-
factor was the self-sacrifice of the good Shepherd ;
the detected weakness of an impostor was the
withholding of Divine power in obedience to the
law of love. And thus for a while the cross
waxed dearer and more wonderful in the thoughts
of men. It became the symbol of their faith.
It was borne before armies, and folded to the
bosom of princes. But as the figure of Him
crucified was nearer than the reality, and the
things of time than those of faith, so the outward
and visible sign prevailed over the inward and
spiritual grace. The symbol of the cross gave

THE CROSS OF CHRIST, 163

sanction to deeds which the prayer of Him who
suffered on it might best have reproved ; and the
Saviour bled afresh in the persons of those for
whom he died. But the living stream of truth
has purged off these pollutions, and again runs
pure and free. The worldly Church has lost
much of its gains ; but the cross none of its
dignity.

We are met here this day to commemorate
the cross of Christ. From our labours and our
studies, we have assembled in this our temple,
to think and speak of Him that was crucified.

And there is still much in those simple words
which appeals to all our hearts. We knew not
when that cross was signed upon us, in token
that we were his soldiers and servants ; but there
were those who struggled with their tears, when
the first seal of immortality was imprinted on each
of us, their then newly-found and lateliest-loved ;
and the Christian father and the believing mother
yet see on these brows, too often darkened with
the clouds of worldly passion, that best and
brightest token of the covenant of God. But
why do we here meet, and whither must our
meditations tend this day "? Not to discharge
a mere service of formality, nor to speculate on
wonders which are matters of faith ; but to be
reminded that the service of the cross is a spirit-
ual service, a daily struggle, to which each of us
is by vow and sacrament bound, as well as by

m2

1(34 SERMON I.

the state of higli jji-ivilege in which we find
ourselves.

We are exhorted to run with patience the
race set before us. To many here, life is yet
opening its untried course. They enter it with
every advantage. Fresh in feeling, eager for
action, they might want definiteness of purpose
and aim for their energies. But with this the
Church of Christ has provided them. She has
entered their homes, and claimed those children
for her own, whom Christ has bidden us suffer
to come to Him. She has led them gently on,
ministering help to their infirmities, and knitting
their good resolves into compactness and order.
She has brought them to renew their vows for
themselves, and has given her Apostolic blessing
to build them up in the faith. And she has
offered them the body and blood of Christ, to be
by faith received as food, whereby their souls
may be strengthened and refreshed.

So that their race is set before them; and it
remains that we conjure them from God to run
it with patience. They will find many a hind-
rance to check their ardour, many an excitement
to oversway it. Let them not be discouraged by
opposition on the one hand, nor borne away by
ill-regulated zeal on the other. They may find
the beaten path of duty tedious and uninvitmg ;
the wayside meadow^s may be thick w itli the fresh
flowers of life, and the blue of the distant hills

THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 165

may tempt them to make haste and escape away :
but let them hold onward, upborne by hope, and
constramed by love, lookmg for the blessing of
him that endureth unto the end.

And much will they have to hear and bear
from their fellow-travellers by the way. Some
will point to the path of fame and splendour, whose
divergence from the race set before them is too
plain : they will bid them listen to the shouts
of the world's applause, which welcome each
traveller as he arrives at the onward stages in
that alluring road : to-morrow those shouts may
peal for them : why should they follow a dim
and distant glory] why hazard all for the
shadowy reward of faith, when they may grasp
the substance of sensuous enjoyment? Well
will it be for them, if they can hear such reason-
ings, and keep their way with patience. Well
if they feel that the vow of the cross is upon
them, and God's service their first care : well, if
they know, that bound to Him as they are by
being his children of creation, they are tenfold
his by redemption, and adoption into his Church ;
well, if they have judgment to distinguish between
that unsafe and unhallowed praise of men, which
is pursued as an object of ambition by those
who forget God, and that lawful and refreshing
fame which springs up beside the path of Chris-
tian duty, those first sparkles of glory which
even now track the course of the faithful man,

166 SERMON I.

thickening as he advances, till the righteous
shine as the sun in the kingdom of his Father.

Others again will tell them of new and more
varied paths to the knowledge and service of
their God ; will scorn their obedience of routine
and patience ; will disparage the faith of those
ancient worthies whom they have been taught to
follow; will decry the often recurring prayers,
the simple and reverent praises, by which we
obtain and acknowledge the daily bread of our
spirits; will point to croAvds converted, means
of grace enlarged, mighty changes in progress.
And alas for them, if they are drawn aside from
the race set before them, by these new and
attractive proposals ; if they cease to hold fast
the form of sound words and sound doctrine ; if
they sacrifice for apparent present usefulness, that
highest of all states of earthly being, which he
inherits who persists in doing good against hope.
For some way, perhaps, their new path may run
beside that which they have forsaken ; impercep-
tibly the distance will widen between them ; first
the attendant decencies of true religion will be
dropped ; then the more substantial forms which
embody its tenets; lastly the vital doctrines
themselves. And this sad and downward change
is not without abundant examples in these days
of self seeking and spiritual idolatry.

But it is a w^eary thing to endure, — a disheart-
ening service, to ■\^•ork without profit. Who is

THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 167

there that knows aught of any pursuit, and
cannot testify that the beginnings are tedious]
What art is there, in which the learner can at
first refresh his soul with beauty of his own
creation ? What science, in which the mere
novice can prosecute those researches, which
shall afterwards be his pure and unfailing delight ?
Therefore these beginners in the faith have need
of patience, to wait and to hope for the salvation
of the Lord ; not doubting that, as He shall see
fit, the highest of all pleasures shall be ministered
to them, and the peace that passeth all under-
standing rule in and keep their hearts.

But He who hath said to them, " This is the
way, walk ye in it," hath not left them without
example of the patience and endurance which He
requires. One is gone up before us, and, as our
forerunner, is entered into the heavenly places.
In the same way He walked, bearing his cross.
From his birth of humiliation to his final agony,
He ran with patience the race that was set before
Him. Nor did He assume this our nature with-
out its infirmities, nor make a mere shew of
endurance. The greater the contrast between
his pure and holy soul and the corruption around
him, between the power which wrought in Him
and the weakness and capacity of pain which
dwelt in his human body, the more did He endure
day by day. In proportion as He was worthy of
all adoration and homage, did the rebukes and

168 SERMON I.

insults which were offered to Him fasten them-
selves on his spirit. When ive speak of God's
presence, we speak but of the grace of ordinances,
and the inner meaning of a sacrament ; when we
are under the hiding of God's face, we are but
beneath the shadow which our own sins have
caused to fall around us ; but He dwelt from the
beginning in the light inaccessible, and when He
surrendered himself to suffering, that light was
hidden from Him ; — the sword of wrath awoke
against the man who was the fellow of God.
Who can fathom the depth of that anguish
which wrung from Him the great and exceeding
bitter cry, " My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me ]" Death has been met by men in
its most terrifying and forbidden shapes, — threats
and tortures have been exhausted against them;
yet the firm resolve has borne up, the cheek has
been unblanched, and the frame unshaken. But
His soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto
death; He was bowed in an agony, and be-
sought that the cup might pass from Him.
What must have been the burden that Aveighed
on His spirit, strong as it was in purity and
knowledge, to have shaken even its supports,
and driven it to its last stay of resignation to the
Father's will ! Yet He endured to the end. He
chose a life of reproach and buffeting ; He
submitted to the death of a slave and a rebel.
He despised the shame. The clearer the spirit.

THE CROSS OF CIIRTST. 169

the keener are the pangs of disgrace. Who can
enter into the shame of Him, who sunk under his
cross in that street of Jerusalem, with that mul-
titude mocking him, and urging him on to death 1
Who can tell the sharpness of that insult, which
bid Him come down from the cross and prove his
Messiahship, or that which taunted and jested at
his dying words'?

Yet all this was but a small part of his sorrow.
We are taught that our iniquities met upon Him,
and that God made Him an offering for the sin of
the world : and when we meditate on such mys-
terious suffering, and raise within ourselves the
deep questions which such meditation prompts,
and from the little circles of human love, and the
few whom we bear about in our own hearts,
advance to that love which embraced all men
in its extent, while it descended into each
creature's sins and sorrows, we shall be baffled
in our search for any adequate conception of that
which He endured. But through all this his
purpose was stedfast ; and all the struggles of his
human infirmity are but signs that as He is, so
are we in this world. But He had joy set before
him; that satisfaction of divine and accomplished
love, with which He should see of the travail of
his soul ; that seat on the right hand of God,
whence He should behold all enemies placed
under his feet.

Here then is our example. To Him are we to

170 SERMON I.

look in running the race set before us. And to
Him as especially shewn forth in his endurance of
the cross. Daily are we to take up our cross, and
follow Him. Daily to be willing and ready to
suffer with, and for Him. Daily to rejoice if we
are counted worthy to endure affliction for His sake.
And in this work of faith and patience we
are not alone. We are compassed about with
a great cloud of witnesses. We are invited to
follow them, as they followed Christ; so that
treading in their steps we may arrive at their
everlasting home of peace and glory. But to
them we do not look, as we look unto Him.
They are saints and angels, and, as we believe,
ministering around us in offices of heavenly love ;
as such we think of them with delight, we are
knit to them in spirit ; we are reminded of them
in our Church offices of prayer and praise; where
they worshij)ped, we worship now ; around our
consecrated walls their voices echoed, and from
these our solemn stations many a servant of God
has preached the cross, whose brow is now bound
with the bright and sunny crown. Therefore we
love them and we commemorate them, because
they fought for the religious blessings which we
enjoy, and bled for the freedom to which we were
born, and toiled for the knowledge on which we
found our researches. Further we look not to
them, but to Him whose servants they were and
are, and of whose fulness both they and we have

THE CROSS OF CHRIST, 171

received. Of none of them can we know that
which we know of Him. Of none of them can
it be said that they did aught with regard to, or
knowledge of ourselves; and therefore, our love
to them cannot but be of a different kind from
that with which we love Him, who first loved us ;
who knows whereof we are made, for He hath
made us ; who can be touched with a feeling of
our infirmities, for He hath himself borne them
upon Him. If tempted. He hath taught us how
to resist ; if reviled. He hath shewn us wherewith
to requite ; if we weep. He wept before us. And
in that hour which is coming upon all of us,
when human aid and human example shall be
distant and forgotten tilings, and we shall be left
alone with God, the thought and the sight of
Him will be most precious ; for He passed down
into the grave before us, and taught us how to die.

Let this then be the subject of our meditations
this day, and the end of our earnest wishes : the
humble, sincere, and chastened imitation of our
blessed Saviour.

But I must not forget where I am standing,
nor whom I am addressing. It might be well,
on the commemoration of the cross, to remind
every Christian assembly of their vows and
duties; it might be needful to tell them that
all Christian men are set in high responsibility,
and that many watch their errors. But we who
assemble here are beyond others in our power

172 SERMOX I.

for good or for evil. By the influences of this
place, is society in our land purified or corrupted.
Very many go forth from us to be the patterns of
a Christian life to the flocks entrusted to their
charge ; all, to be guides, by station and worldly
means, to those around them. Of us then some-
thing more than common earnestness and truth-
fulness seems to be demanded. Of us, men ^vill
expect and God will require, every endeavour to
shew that our religion is not taken up and laid
aside with our academical garb, — a mere outward
condition of our inheriting these endowments ;
but that it is a deep and sincere sense of the
obligations under which we are placed, and the
vows which he upon us. If the very aspect of
this place, and the air which we here breathe,
seem full of the religion of the cross, the more is
the shame of any amongst us who can, with such
assistances to his faith, walk unworthily of the
holy vocation wherewith he is called. Let such
an one bethink himself of his circle of influence
and example here ; let him take into account the
yearly accessions of young and earnest hearts
which that circle is receiving ; let him trace
those whom he has hardened, and taught to
forget the God of their fathers, and the guide
of their youth. He may see them leaving this
place, and departing to their stations in life.
But by them no bright patterns of diristian
virtue shall be exhibited ; from them, if they find

THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 173

an entrance into Christ's fold, shall no solemn
warnings, no sympathizing connsel, no fervent
exhortation, flow forth; by their means will be
multiplied defaulters from the Church whom we
love, and rebels from the God whom we serve.
Indeed, we should walk warily here ; and even
exceed in strictness, in abstaining from every
appearance of evil. We should keep the foun-
tain pure, that the streams may be pure also.
We should shew ourselves the disciples of the
cross, in all self-sacrifice, in all unity, in all
cleaving to the commands and ordinances of our
holy religion. It is a time of exertion, and a
time of encouragement ; the present prospect of
Christ's Church in our land is bright and hopeful.
Difierences there are among us, but they are
differences between men who are in earnest;
who have on the armour of God, and are in the
heat and action. Most of us remember well
when the contest was between the faith and the
world ; between those who felt a God above
them and a Holy Spirit within them, and those
who knew not so much as whether there were
any of these things. That is past by, and we
contend upon higher ground. Let then every
man, persuaded in his own mind, be careful not
to lower the dignity, nor to embitter the Christian
love, with which we should proceed in our search
for truth. And to this end let the religion of
each amongst us be the religion of his heart and
life, — and the cross of Christ his chief glory.

174 SERMON I.

For the virtues of those simple words have not
yet past away ; nor have their depths been yet
exhausted.

At every fresh unfolding of the purposes of
Providence, at every fresh leading vouchsafed to
the Church, the power of the cross shall flow
forth anew, and take more complete possession
of men's hearts and lives. At every accession of
Divine illumination furnished by the Holy Spirit
to mankind, the great wonders of redemption
shall be contemplated with a sight more pene-
trating ; and as we grow in obedience, we shall
grow in knowledge.

And now unto Him that loved us and washed
us from our sins in his own blood, to Him, with
the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory and
dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

SERMON 11/

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

St. Matthew v. 48.

Be ye perfect, even as your Father which u in heaven is
perfect.

How many precepts and declarations of holy
Scripture are we in the habit of passing by, as
beyond our attainment or comprehension. How
do we live as if those precepts had never been
uttered, and speculate as if those declarations had
never been made. And unworthily as we thus
treat many parts of the sacred volume, the dis-
courses of our Saviour himself furnish perhaps
the greatest abundance of commands and asser-
tions usually set aside and neglected. There is
that in the holy simplicity of his words, which ill
accords with our wishes, sinful and ignorant as
we are, of flying from the light, and wrapping
ourselves in the robes of hypocrisy ; something in
the lofty and superhuman standard to which He
refers our thoughts and acts, which sets at nought
' Preached on Sunday, October 31, 1841.

176 SERMON II.

the customs and deemings of that world, to which
we are all too much in bondage. Yet, when we
consider the earnest and truthful character of all
our Lord's precepts, and remember the confession
of his enemies, that He taught them as one having
authority, we cannot surely suppose that He lifted
up an ideal pattern merely, or exaggerated our
duties to prove our deficiencies ; but we must
conclude that He spoke as knowing what was in
man — both his proneness to evil, and his endow-
ment with power for good. And least of all do
His words deserve to be accounted unreal, who
performed all that He enjoined ; who, emptying
himself of his glory, passed out of the fruition of
supreme blessedness into the exile of a life of
faith and prayer ; who learned obedience by the
things which He suffered ; and being made per-
fect, became the author of eternal salvation to all
who obey Him and are made like Him. When
the precepts of holiness came down on men from
the mountain that burned with unapproachable
fire, they might but serve to shew them the diffe-
rence between the God of purity and his fallen
creatures ; but when the Son of man Himself
delivers them to us, a thousand human sympa-
thies should be kindled in our hearts: He who
spoke these lofty words had passed through the
years of helplessness, and the care and nurture of
a human mother, — had grown in wisdom and in
stature, — wept over the woes of his nation, and

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.

177

the sepulchre of his friend,— and ministered in his
humihty to the bodies and souls of men. Nay,
he was yet to pass through the conflictive agony
of spiritual misgiving, and to enter before us into
the valley of the shadow of death. If ever then
the words of a teacher and master had claim upon
the earnest and humble attention of his disciples,
such claim belongs to the precepts of our Divine
Lord and Saviour.

I have chosen for our consideration this day,
one of the most sublime and comprehensive of
those precepts; — one, however, which it is to be
feared that few of us practically regard, as influ-
encing our thoughts and conduct. Christ has
been speaking of the narrow and selfish conduct
of men, in confining their bounty and love
merely to those who are disposed to make them
a return ; He has been pointing out for a pattern
to his disciples, the universal and impartial re-
gards of their heavenly Father, who causeth his
sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and unjust. Then, as if by this
reference he had stirred a subject too various in
its bearings, and too deep in the foundations of
redemption, to be then pursued. He shortly touches
the general duty of which he had enforced the
particular case : " Ye then shall be perfect, even
as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

Now the first thing enjoined in these words is,
the contemplation of the Divine character. For

178 SERMON IT.

that which is to be our pattern, must in this case
be sought out and ascertained, not without earnest
labour and endeavour. The knowledge of God
is not natural to man. To seek after Him, to find
Him, and to know Him, are duties frequently
enjoined in Holy Scripture. And this know-
ledge is represented to us as the highest acquire-
ment and exaltation of man ; " Let not the "svise
man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty
man glory in his might, let not the rich man
glory in his riches ; but let him that glorieth
glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth
me, that I am the Lord, which exercise loving-
kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the
earth." So that the knowledge of God is a pur-
suit truly worthy of the best and highest energies
of his creatui'es. And, notwithstanding that it is
necessarily partial and Hmited, being relative
only, and derived from that connexion with our-
selves in which God has been pleased to reveal
himself; notwithstanding that it is also neces-
sarily, even as far as it can advance, imperfect
and impure, clouded by the mixtures of worldly
modes of thought and selfish regards; yet even
thus it is the best guide to all wisdom, the
highest purifier of human thoughts and motives.
And when employed in this search, all our facul-
ties are then in their noblest exercise, and the
powers which He has bestowed, in their most
complete harmony and activity. When that

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 179

subtle and strong Intelligence, the spirit of man,
which we call by the various names of the reason,
the understanding, the moral sense, the imagi-
nation, the judgment, according as it assumes
one or other of its numerous offices, combines aU
these in the humble endeavour to know Him
who is its author and upholder, and in each of
these capacities receives and reflects light from
Him who is the Father of lights, we cannot
conceive any state of man, which shall better
fulfil the high purposes for which God sent him
into the world.

We are called upon then, as elsewhere in
Scripture, so especially in this precept, to con-
template the Divine character. And if the
words of Christ which led to these seem to have
respect chiefly to what is called Natural Theo-
logy, the proofs of power, wisdom, and goodness
in creation and providence, let us not forget how
great a revelation has been made to us of the
Divine character, since their utterance, by the
death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the descent of his Spirit, and the constitution of
his Holy Catholic Church. Let us not forget
that in proportion to these our means of knowing
God, will knowledge of Him be required of us ;
that the visible things of creation might have
bounded the range of the ancient Gentile's en-
quiries after God ; and the promise made to the
fathers, with the types of the legal ordinances,

180

SERMON II.

might have limited the vision of the Jew ; — but
that upon us a great light hath arisen ; that God
hath vouchsafed to speak to us as a man to his
friend; that there is not now a faculty of our
minds, or a lofty desire of our spirits, which may
not find its proper and best exercise in searching
into the mysteries of redemption. Therefore
will He require of us diligence in this search in
all its varied directions, and with reference to all
his varied gifts.

And if I were speaking to a congregation of
Christians whose occupations were those of ordi-
nary men, I might remind them, that every path
of lawful duty affords to him who dihgently walks
in it, during that his progress, glimpses of Divine
truth, and appearances whereby God may be
known ; how much more then when I address an
assembly whose very employment is the search for
truth, and the cultivation of the highest powers of
man. If in the secluded corners of our Christian
land I could point to the book of God's word, and
the Sabbath services of his Church, and the sacra-
mental ministrations of his servants, as means of
seeking after and knowing Him, how much more
forcible ought such an appeal to be where the
book of his word is the subject of earnest study, —
where the services of his Church still offer their
daily assistance to its members. If the Christian
peasant can fi'om his scanty experience verify the
Scripture character of God, and confirm his faith

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 181

by his sufferings and his deliverances ; what shall
be said to those who have the course of God's
providence open before them in the history of
the empires of the world, who can enter into
the labours, and inherit the experience, of those
gone before ? If from the debasing influences of
manual toil, and the barrenness of the untutored
intellect, the lowly believer can rise in imagina-
tion to the glorious descriptions of Scripture, and
endure, as seeing him who is invisible; what
shall not be hoped for from those before whom
are unrolled the treasures of poetic art, who have
been taught the laws according to which the
creative mind may wield its mighty and un-
bounded powers ? As thus employed, thus
gifted, thus exalted in aim and opportunity above
other Christians, do we call upon you to acquaint
yourselves with God — his creation, his word, and
above all, that greatest of his works which He
carries on within us, even the new creation of
the spirit of man, and its restoration in righteous-
ness and true holiness.

And as there are many here before whom this
place is now first spreading out its treasures and its
advantages, let me remind them, that it is not for
nothing that their Creator hath preserved them to
come hither, but that they may occupy with those
talents which He hath entrusted to them, and bear
away hence a rich increase of sound learning, both
such as directly concerns the knowledge of Himself,

182 SERMON II.

and such as bears upon and illustrates that highest
wisdom. Let me remind them, that now is opened
before them the opportunity of raising for their
guide through life, that high pattern of perfection
of which we are speaking ; that in proportion as
they strive and toil after it now, will their appre-
hension of it be clear, and their desire for its at-
tainment earnest, through that life of action and
trial which is before them: and on the other
hand, according as they neglect and undervalue
what is here offered to them, and obey not the
call of wisdom here continually made, will their
future standard of exertion be low and inade-
quate, their best powers misapplied or ill-fur-
nished, their Hves without usefulness, and their
end without honour. And let them not suppose,
that this search after the knowledge of God
consists merely in acts directly devotional, or
studies exclusively theological ; nor despise the
barren and unpromising aspect of some of the
paths in which they will be here summoned to
pursue it. The fulness of the stature of a perfect
man in Christ, is not to be acquired, but by the
united and harmonious progress of all their
faculties, many of which have not yet learned
their mature and healthy action ; the very habit
of mental application has often to be acquired ;
the judgment is seldom at fii'st quahfied to pro-
nounce on the usefuhiess or tendencies of this or
that course of study ; the imagination has yet to

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 183

apprehend those first and unchangeable laws, in
accordance with which beauty ministers to the
service of truth. Therefore will the pursuits to
which we call them often seem to be but distantly
related to the great ends of human enquiry, and
the thoughts which spring from them will range
perhaps wide of those subjects to which they
would fain give more direct attention ; but mean-
while, amidst their humble and hopefid toil, other
capacities shall be expanded wdthin them, new-
desires shall spring up, inconsistencies shall be
removed, and errors purged away.

But what we say to them, we say also to all.
Few of us are sufficiently mindful of the respon-
sibility of our intellectual powers, or sufficiently
careful to keep pure the inlets of thought. We
forget that amidst the following of the devices
and desires of our own hearts, to which we are
prone, we often know the things which we ought
not to have known, and leave unknown the
things which we ought to have Iniown. We
seek for wisdom without that fear of the Lord
which is its only beginning. We say to him,
' Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge
of thy ways.' And then the varied treasures of
history are to us but the sickening details of
human selfishness and passion ; the glories and
the sympathies of our nature sink down in our
view, and become of no price in our esteem ;
the beauty wherewith this earth is spread loses

184 SERMON II.

its charm for us, and we range our efforts under
the standard of the world's utility ; not remem-
bering the end of things, but only looking one
step before us, and becoming cold, and heartless,
and unspiritual. And the only remedy for all
this is, to set the Lord always before us ; to bear-
in mind that He is King of this world, and Lord
of the spirit of man ; to maintain with Him a
personal and constant communion in prayer and
the ordinances of his Church ; and to look upon
ourselves as his soldiers and servants, with his
vows upon us, his name our solemn watchword,
and his cross our banner.

But let us pass from contemplation to action,
from the ascertaining and setting up our standard
of perfection, to the earnest following on to attain
to it. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect." As in your search and
enquiry after Him you discover from time to time
fresh proofs of his perfections, so let every such dis-
covery add to that which you have yet yourselves
to acquire and become. And if it should be
objected to such a precept, that our pattern
should thus be ever shifting before us, that there
would be no rest, no end to our endeavours;
I reply, that in this consists the very depth of
the precept, and its adaptation to the wants of
the human spirit. If from the bright array of
saints and martyrs we might select one as our
ideal pattern, and say, " Let me be like him, and

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 185

I am content," there would be a time perchance,
when we might at least suppose we had attained
to our model, and might fold our hands in in-
dolence. That an example has been proposed
to us which precludes this, manifests to us some-
thing of the height and depth of His love, who
hath set no limit to our exertion short of our
capacity of apprehending Himself: and who shall
say when that capacity shall be exhausted ?

But it may be alleged that the utter hope-
lessness of attaining to this standard, renders it
unreal, and unfit for use as prompting to action.
We may ask in return, Does not the ordinary
conduct of men furnish abundant examples of an
indefinite and apparently unattainable object
attracting to itself the thoughts, desires, and
efforts ? Do we, in our plans for the future, ever
distinctly set before us a point which we are
sure we can reach; do we, before we stake all
upon our exertions, ascertain beyond doubt that
of which we are capable, and limit our expec-
tations accordingly ? Do we not, on the contrary,
ever strive after something beyond present hope ;
and when success is attained, is not the common
language of men, that ' they dared not hope it V
And is there not here again a proof of discern-
ment what was in man, and of adaptation to the
usual course of his motives and efforts'? Still,
I may be told, the thing commanded is impos-
sible ; the precept cannot be fulfilled. But

186 SERMON II.

surely the objector is taking for granted more
than he finds in Scripture, which is the only
revelation of the powers of the spiritual life in
man. We there find no such discouraging as-
sertions; but, on the contrary, all exhortations
given to Christian perfection, and all encourage-
ments held out that it may and will be attained.
And though, viewing the subject fi'om beneath,
and taking into our account the ignorance and
helplessness and waywardness of man, we cannot
venture to predict, in ourselves or in our fellow-
creatures, a blameless obedience to the will of
our heavenly Father, even in the degree in which
it may be apprehended; yet, who can tell, in
the progressive work of God's Holy Spirit on our
race, in which we have every reason to believe, to
what intimate degree, now unknown and unfelt,
man's spirit and life may be penetrated by that
pure and holy Teacher, so that we may be per-
fectly conformed to God ? And even dismissing
this thought fl'om our minds, who taught the
objector to limit the Christian's progress in
holiness to this present lifel The little which
we are permitted to know respecting the heavenly
state, forbids us to think of it as of an indolent
and stationary existence ; but rather compels us
to expect advances in knowledge and love and
obedience, too rapid and vast to be here even
conceived. While then we look for the attain-
ment of this perfection in that better state, no

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 187

discouragement is thereby thrown upon our
present endeavours, inasmuch as we know that
they are the seedtime of that harvest, and that
as we sow, we shall reap hereafter.

And let me remind you of the test which
should ever be applied to discern the genuineness
of such complaints of human incapacity and
weakness. Are they made from the fulness of
experience, from the midst of exertion, and under
the pressure of the infirmities which they allege ?
Then will they ever be accompanied by habits
and acts of deep penitence, and unceasing ap-
pliance to the ordinances of Christ's holy Church.
The soldier, who in the heat of battle feels the
enemy growing too strong for him, will ply his
weapons and exert all his strength and skill. If,
on the other hand, such complaints are made in
neglect of the means of grace, and in a selfish and
worldly life, they are mere excuses to save exer-
tion and foster indolence, — the cowardly dread of
an enemy never actually met in the field. We
may therefore weigh them accordingly ; remem-
bering at the same time, that he who feels such
deficiency most deeply, will generally be the last
to allege it as a discouragement, because he will
have been taught it by his strenuous efibrts to
reach Him who is above himself; and while he
distrusts his own weakness, this distrust will be
absorbed more and more in the increasing con-

188 SERMON II.

sciousness, that he can do all things through
Christ who strengtheneth him.

But again, this continual advance, this onward
struggle, may seem little in accordance with the
modern popular notion of a point of sudden and
entire change of heart and life, beyond which all
is smooth and tranquil. But till I find such
a description of the spiritual life in holy Scripture,
I must regard that state as a continued conversion,
and a progressive change, in which the Christian
of to-day shall have been taught the folHes and
sins of yesterday, and shall ever be rescued and
transformed from his former self, from glory to
glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Still less can I reconcile such high and con-
tinued endeavour with the notion of a certam
portion of grace once administered, and pardon
once vouchsafed, but without renewal on the
part of the Father of our spirits. According
to this view, our life shoidd be the grave of hope,
in which there shoidd be no knowledge, nor
device, nor repentance ; our prayers would be
unmeaning, our praises mere flatteries ; our
adoption would be turned into exile, our royalty
into slavery, our priesthood into disgrace. For
who is there among us that hath not sullied his
robe of baptismal purity ? Who that does not
daily need the pity and the pardon of the Lord,
and fresh application of the waters of that foun-
tain wliich is opened for sin and uncleanness ?

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 189

Rather let us believe and trust in his continued
renewing power ; rather let us forget the things
which are behmd, and reach forth to those things
which are before.

Thus then, every weight being laid aside, I
exhort you to run with patience this race which
is set before you. I summon you to a work of
unceasing activity, whose demands upon you
will not abate, but increase, the further you
advance in all that is pure and good; a work
which you can never lay aside as sufficiently
matured, nor need put by as inopportune in any
circumstances in which you may hereafter find
yourselves. In the haunts of men, amidst the
stir and business of life, you will remember the
pattern after which you profess to strive, — you
will be careful that, by no want of truth or justice
in your deaUngs, by no false shame of that which
is good, or cowardly adoption of that which is
evil, you dim that light which ought to shine
brightly before men : in the communion of
friendship, and interchange of the charities of
life, that same Divine example will ever be
before you ; you will think on Him who is the
expression of God's glory and perfections, how
He walked with those whom He loved and had
chosen ; his forbearance, his self-sacrifice, his
holy purity of purpose, and childhke simplicity
of expression ; and you will remember how He
said, " Greater love hath no man than this, that

190 SERMON II.

a man lay down his life for his friends." In your
struggles for advancement, and following that
upward instinct which is implanted in us all, you
will think upon his saying, " I came not to do
mine own will, but that of Him who sent me;"
and how He told his disciples that "it is more
blessed to give than to receive ;" more like Him
who is the Giver of all things, and the supremely
Blessed. And for the temptations from which
no day of our lives is free, you will ever be
putting on and proving your spiritual armour:
so will you burnish the shield of faith, that the
darts of the -svicked may fall powerless from its
surface ; so firmly attach it to you, that neither
the persuasion of false philosophy, nor the attrac-
tion of new and exciting doctrine, may ever pre-
vail on you to cast it away. So will you gird
your loins with truth, that amidst the duplicity
and hypocrisy which entangle and perplex men's
paths, you will pass on unencumbered and free,
in uprightness of purpose and oneness of heart ;
so Avill you be shod with the preparation of the
gospel of peace, that you shall tread unhurt over
the thorny and broken ground of this world's
strife and pride ; so will you wield the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God, that no
stroke shall be uncalled for, no aim misdirected
nor powerless. Thus will you grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord, even till
higher opportunities open before you, and new

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 191

and glorious faculties are vouchsafed you in
another and riper state of our being.

But I must revert for a time to those, whom
I before particularly addressed; and remind them
of their singular advantages for this great and
lifelong work. Many who have passed through
the time usually spent here, are now wishing in
vain that they stood once more in your position.
Many who are busied in active life, and sum-
moned to the conflict with evil, find now the
necessity of those weapons, of which they might
here have learnt the use, if they would. After
a careless and indolent interval between youth
and manhood, the spirit may at length awaken
to the awful truths and high responsibilities by
which it is surrounded : but it awakens in fear
and trembling ; its habits are vitiated, its whole-
some powers destroyed ; usefulness and honour-
able exertion open their upward paths, — but the
energies are paralyzed, and the limbs refuse their
office; the afl'ections might have enticed onward, —
but these are become morbid and degraded : in
vain does the land of promise stretch forth for
these unhappy persons her bright and fertile
regions ; the beams of the Sun of Righteousness
dazzle them, instead of cheering; the flowers
wither at the poison of their touch, and even
the waters of comfort are embittered to a palate
long diseased. And sometimes we have a darker

192 SERMON II.

picture to draw, and a sadder scene to contem-
plate ; when that death-bed which should have
witnessed the ripe and peaceful end of a Chris-
tian and honoiu*able life, tells but of the carrying
away mthout remedy of one who has been often
rebuked, and has hardened his heart; who
is, it may be, softened and repentant now, — but
passes away from hope, and love, and the golden
opportunities of life, in that bitterness of spirit,
in which the tears of penitence can give but
scanty ease to the keen agony of remorse. And
from such descriptions you may see something
of the advantage of your position, who stand on
the threshold of your course, — and with energy
unimpaired, affections not yet misled, and sight
not yet clouded with the darkness of guilt, look
up the path of honourable exertion to which we
now exhort you, even to that lofty example of
perfection, which invites, while it surpasses, all
your best endeavours. For you the way is com-
paratively unencumbered and clear. Holiness
of thought, purity of affection, singleness of heart
and conscience, a sound and unerring judgment, —
these may yet be yours. The prize of your high
calling is open to your grasp, if only you close not
that grasp on the things of time and sense. The
means of grace have not yet lost for you their
freshness and efficacy ; the answer of the pubhc
prayers of the Church has not yet been put from

CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. 193

you by irreverence and neglect ; and I would
fain believe tliat you have not yet disused those
daily and private communings with God, in
which lie the fresh springs of Christian exertion ;
that you remember where, and by whom, you were
first taught to pray ; — and fortify yourselves for
each day's trial, as well by communing with your
heavenly Father, as by recalling the holy peace-
fulness of a Christian home, and the soft prompt-
ings of a Christian mother.

In the name then of Him who sent me, and
as if He spoke by me, do I summon you more
especially to this work ; and lay it upon you, to
be diligently and earnestly pursued.

One word more, and I have done. I speak to
you in virtue of an office, founded amongst us by
a holy and humble minister of Christ's Church,
in his zeal for the defence and furtherance of
true religion. Of his quiet life of usefulness little
record remains to us ; but it is related that
shortly before his death, when his sleep passed
from him, owing to a sharp and lingering disease,
he was heard, in the solitude and darkness, fer-
vently imploring that the Divine blessing might
accompany his foundations in this University;
that they might be the means of turning many
from darkness to light, and from the power of
Satan to God.-

^ Benson's Hulsean Lectures for 1S20: Lcct. I. p. 20.

N

194 SERMON II.

When we shall meet him in the great and
a^Yful day, may it be found that his prayer has
been answered.

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