Our Divine Saviour

OUR DIVINE SAVIOUR

BY

BISHOP HEDLEY, O.S.B.

SEVENTH EDITION

LONDON

BURNS GATES & WASHBOURNE LTD.

28 ORCHARD STREET 8-10 PATERNOSTER ROW

W. i - E.G. 4

AND . AT . MANCHESTER . BIRMINGHAM . AND . GLASGOW

CONTENTS.

WHO is JESUS CHRIST?—

I. The Word made Flesh, 1

II. Anti-Christs, 22

III. Eedemption, 43

IV. Sanctification, 66

V. The Abiding Presence, ... - 89

THE SPIRIT OF FAITH; oa, WHAT MUSI I DO TO BELIEVE?—

I. Belief a Necessity, - - 113

II. The New Testament Teaching as to what Faith is, - 134

III. Prejudice as an Obstacle to Faith, - • 154

IV. w'ilfulness as an Obstacle to Faith, - - -178
V. Faith the Gift of Jesus Christ, - - - - 196

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST, - • - . . . - 217

CHRIST AND THE SINNER, - ..... 234

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, - 254

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT, - . . • • - - - 271

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS, 288

JESUS CHRIST KEVEALS GOD, - 303

JESUS UHKIST MAKES WORSHIP BAST, - • * £±Q

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS, 330

WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?

I.

THE vVOKD MADE FLESH.

THE Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity, which is the centre stone of Christianity, will
always be discussed, contradicted, and rejected by a
great portion of mankind. It will always be a scandal
to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Something may
be done, however, by each one in his own immediate
neighbourhood, to throw some little light upon a mys
tery which, although it has the darkness of its own
mysteriousness, need not have the additional obscurity
of human ignorance and prejudice. No one insists on
the depth and difficult}7 of God's revelation more than
St. Paul,1 but no one shows it forth so clearly, and
makes it look so reasonable to the inquirers of his own
times. He told the wise men who ware wise with
worldly wisdom, that they would be sure to mistake and
pass by the wisdom of God. He told the ' high-minded'

1 Eph. iii.

1 *

2 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

that they would be blind to the light of revealed truth.
But he assured the simple and the lowly, the ' little
ones' of whom Isaias and David had prophesied, and of
whom Jesus had spoken, that the truth need be no
secret for them; they were ths ones for whom it was
meant.

The question, Who is Jesus Christ ? requires very
many words to answer it completely. But there is a
short answer which may serve us for the present. Jesus
Christ is He in whom ' the fulness of the Godhead
dwelleth corporally.'2 Jesus Christ is the God-man.
He is man, having body and soul, senses and organs,
like other men. He is God — God in the flesh, God
possessing a human dwelling, God not restricted nor
localised, yet capable of being seen by the eye and
pointed to with the finger.

This is our subject. It is a matter which is vital
to the world ; for the revelation of ' Jesus Christ' is the
central truth of God's dispensation for man's eternal
well-being. To deny it is to cut oneself away from
the shelter of the harbour, and to drift out into the
measureless ocean. If Jesus Christ be God, the wor
ship of man's heart, which is God's by essential right
and justice, is due to Jesus Christ by the same right
and justice. If Jesus Christ be God, the system, or
school, or religion which He introduced into the world
is the only truth; the body of men whom He commis
sioned to teach are the only teachers of truth ; and the
means of grace or spiritual life which He set up are the
only means by which man can live the life which he
2 CoL ii. 9.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 3

must live, or be for ever blighted. On the other hand,
if He is not God, you cannot worship Him ; you will
find it difficult to explain His own language or to ac
count for His claims ; you will not allow indefectibility
to His religious system, or in fallibility to His code of
morality ; you will look to a point in the future when
Christianity will be as far left behind in the world's
march as Moses or David is now.

In treating this momentous theme, our method will
not be that of dry controversy. We shall rather endea
vour to set forth the truth, as the Catholic Church holds
it, and let it convince men's minds by the very power
of its own light. The acuteness of man's tongue can
argue a good many things into doubt or into certainty ;
but he cannot argue the solid earth from under his
feet, or with words sweep the sun out of the heavens.
It is the fate of the most holy Mystery of the Incarna
tion to be misconceived by the world : ' the light shineth
in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it
not.'3 But it is light for all that; and men, blind as
they are, have their eyes, and, with God's help, can use
them ; and therefore it is reasonable to suppose that
the best way to convince them of the existence of the
Incarnation is to try to let them see what it is.

The thought of God is the great thought which
takes hold of a man's mind and heart, and produces
what is called Religion. The thought of God, revealed
in the primitive revelation, has never quite died out of
any corner of the earth. It is the reviving, the stirring
up, the writing out at large of this thought of God,
• John i. o.

4 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

which has given the heathen from time to time .grander
and higher ideas of goodness and virtue. It is the
proclamation from the heavens of this thought which
men have called God's Kevelation. And in the thought
of God are included two thoughts. They are not so
much two thoughts as two faces of the same thought ;
they differ from each other no otherwise than as the fiery
mass of the sun is distinguished from the light that
falls upon the world. God in His own nature — God
in His contact with His creatures. The history of all
religious thought — of natural religion, of revelation, of
Judaism, heathenism, and Christianity, of orthodoxy,
of heresy, of unbelief — it is all a history of the changes
of men's thought as to what God is, and how He has
come into communication with man. And the question,
Who is Jesus Christ? cannot be answered without
treating afresh the old thoughts.

But the Incarnation, although it is intimately con
nected with questions as to what God is, and although
we shall often have to allude to such questions, more
especially concerns the matter of God's contact with
creation. The Incarnation, if it be a fact, is simply the
most intimate and immediate communication of the
Creator to His creation which can possibly exist.

Every one who believes in a God must want to know

what his God does to him, cr with him, or for him.

•

He must look up with anxious eye to the heavens, in
some sense or other, for a sign or a word. He must
scrutinise curiously and reverently his own heart to see
what marks of Divine interference he can read there.
A God who should launch His creature into existence

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 5

and then forget him, is no God for the heart of man. A
God who should sit apart and afar off while the worlds
roll on and human life transacts itself, is what man's
thought has hardly pictured — never pictured, except
when it was morbid and corrupt. There is one enor
mous religious system — that of Buddhism — which con
sists almost wholly of an effort, a tendency, a progress
(as its votaries think) towards final absorption in Deity.
Paganism, in all its varieties, from the religions of
Greece and Home to those of New Zealand and Tierra
del Fuego, owes its existence and its life to the imperi
ous need of man's heart for the presence of God in the
world. To the heathen, the sky, the air, the hills and
streams, and the works of the potter and the smith,
became not merely symbols of a divine presence, but
divinities themselves.

The Revelation of the true and living God, which
has never been wanting to the world, which was ob
scured by the world's sins, but preserved and added to
in a chosen race, and perfected in the dispensation of
the Gospel, has constantly recognised that man seeks
his Creator's hand ; and it has taught him how his
Creator's hand is felt — how his Maker's touch is on his
soul. We have, in the opening pages of the Bible, a
description, brief and mysterious, of the state of inno
cence and grace which is called Paradise — the state in
which Faith teaches us that the human race was origin
ally constituted. We can easily make out that in Pa
radise there was a grand and marvellous manifestation
of God. There God walked with man, and spoke to
him as friend to friend. What shape or form this ma-

6 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

nifestation took — how much of the beauty of the Infinite
was visible in the Garden of Innocence — we do not know.
But, to judge from all known analogy, we may conclude
that it was at once a marvellous grace of the heart and
a marvellous vision of the eye ; that God walked with
man, spoke with him, and communed with his soul and
his sense in a way worthy of that Garden of Pleasure
in which it had pleased His Goodness to place him.
When the Fall had brought the curse upon the earth,
and it sat in darkness and the shadow of death, the
very essence of the curse, and the very meaning of the
darkness, was that there was a wall of separation, a
veil of ignorance, between man and his God. When
ever we read in Holy Scripture of God's mercy to the
heathen, it comes in the shape of a light, a communi
cation, a gracious speaking to the heart, and sometimes
to the sense. And the Patriarchs, the Fathers, and
the chosen race to whom it was given to know Him
amid the heathen darkness, enjoyed from time to time
wondrous manifestations of His Presence, and intimate
communion with Him. Any one who reads the Book of
Genesis attentively can see that there were always local
spots upon the earth where God showed Himself by
His power ; where He spoke in revelation, and where
He poured out the unction of His favour. The great
vision of Jacob at Bethel, so minutely recorded by the
Holy Spirit, is only a type of what happened very often.
The apparition to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, and
others, of One who called Himself not merely the
Angel of Jehova, but Jehova, is a perpetually re
curring incident in the earlier books of the Bible.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 7

During the journeyings of Israel in the desert, the
Presence of God was visible all the time, in cloud and
pillar of smoke. On the dedication-day of Solomon's
Temple, the glory of the Lord — the visible symbol of
His abiding presence — filled the whole of the sanctuary;
and He abode there with His people. These things
were what we may call regular and continuous ; and if
we take into account, in addition, the numberless ways
in which God is recorded to have spoken, to have done
wonders, to have moved hearts, to have enlightened
minds, we are driven to conclude that, in the Bible,
and in the history of Keligion given in the Bible, there
cannot be such a thing as Eeligion without intimate
communion with that God, Who is the beginning and
the end of all Religion.

But all that came to pass under the Law of Nature
and under the Law of Moses was only a preparation
for something better. A stupendous change was to
take place ; a magnificent grace was to be given to the
world. Call it Redemption, call it the Gospel, call it
the dispensation of Grace, it was to be the end, the
consummation, the completion of God's mercy to a
sinful race. And its chief feature, as we might have
expected, was to be a communication of the Creator
with His Creatures more intimate than had ever been
known before. The Saviour, the King to come, the
Prophet, the great High-Priest, was to be called, and
to be nothing less than EMMANUEL — God with us. God
was to be with His people in a new and transcendent
way. The whole world was to be filled with a new
divine Light ; new fountains of sovereign grace and

8 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

mercy for the heart of man were to spring up in the
wilderness, till it blossomed as the rose ; and this Light
and this Mercy, this plenteous Redemption, were to he
the work and the gift of a Person, who should be a
Man, and yet Who should be ' above all, God blessed
for ever.4

When the hour came which God's eternal Provi
dence had marked as the ' fulness' of time, then a Man
appeared in the world. He came into the world as the
poorest and the lowliest come into it — unnoted, un-
honoured, and obscure. He did not blaze from the
heavens at the noonday hour, and flash the knowledge
of Himself over all the earth. He was born in the
silent depths of the midnight, in a hovel on the slope
of Bethlehem. The simple shepherds were the only
ones who heard the angel heralds utter His titles and
proclaim His birth. And when they went to see Him,
He looked to them, as to all others, no more than a
little child of Adam's race and Israel's stock. They
could see that He lay in that poor bed in the dumb
helplessness of common infancy. They could tell that
the rough touch of the elements, and the ungentle
nursing of His rude surroundings, were to Him, as to
others before Him, pain and misery. They could see
that He, like ether babes, telt the love of His Mother, and
nestled with what seemed a blind unconscious happiness
in her arms. It was so. This was Jesus. He was cir
cumcised, and tha name of Jesus was given to Him.
He was the Christ — the anointed One ; the One Whom
the grace of the Deity had anointed far above all His
* Rom. ix. 5.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 9

fellows — so incomparably above them, that He was, by
excellence, the Christ. The child of Bethlehem and of
Nazareth was Jesus Christ. You might have met Him
at Nazareth, as He walked with uncertain step by His
Mother's side, holding by her robe. You might have
seen Him, a boy of twelve, startling the Temple schools
as by an apparition, and afterwards passing the night
in prayer on the mountain He was afterwards to visit
so often. His fellow townsmen saw Him at His labour
and mechanical toil. They called Him ' the carpenter'
— the son of Joseph. And they saw that, after so
long a sojourn in His hidden life, He passed away from
Nazareth, and began to speak to the children of His
father Abraham in Galilee and Judaea. The traders of
Capharnaum, the fishers of Genesareth, the shepherds
of the hills of Galilee, knew a Man who preached a
higher life, and a gentler love of others, and more sub
lime beatitudes, than the Doctors of their own day, or
even the Prophets and the Saints of old. The crowds
that thronged Jerusalem on the great legal feasts, and
camped out on every hill that stood round about, knew
a Man of God, Who wrought wonders and denounced
wickedness, and said that God was His Father. The
Priests and Scribes and Pharisees learned to know
this Man, and to fear and hate Him. The Eoman
President and his officers watched Him, and consulted
about Him. At last a violent end came ; and what the
world saw was a Man dragged before the Eoman power
by a tumultuous Jewish mob, interrogated, tortured,
and at last crucified on the place of common execution.
And after all this, and after they had seen His lifeless

10 TUB WOKD MADE FLESH.

body laid down ir- the hewn rock, He was seen again.
Witnesses, appointed and pre-ordained, saw Him, spoke
to Him, handled Him, ate with Him ; and when He
had gone in and out among them for forty days, He
walked with them out at the gate where once He had
been dragged in, fettered ; and going up the familiar
hill, He rose visibly and bodily into the spaces of the
air, and the ministering clouds hid Him, that He was
seen no more. This was Jesus Christ; this Man,
Whom men knew, as they knew other men, in child
hood, in manhood, in labour, in teaching, in death.
They saw Him, and they heard Him, and they touched
Him with their hands. We, in our thoughts, may find
it difficult to realise what manner of Man was Jesus
Christ. But, during thirty-three years, men had but
to use their senses to know what He looked like, what
was His stature, His comeliness, His grace, His loving
eye, His gentle voice. The records of His going to and
fro, of His speech and of His action, are written down,
though partially and incompletely, by men who knew
Him personally. ' That which was from the beginning,'
says the Apostle John, ' which we have heard, which
we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon
and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life, .
we declare unto you.'8

This was the Man, then; this was the Jesus Christ,
Who was to be the means of giving to mankind the
most complete communion with their God which had
ever been known upon the earth. To look at Him
hastily, as men looked at Him when He was alive, we

a Uohni. 1-3.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 11

might feel inclined to think that this final phase of
God's revelation was a falling-off. Jesus Christ, we
might admit, taught justice of a high type, and
preached sanctity such as had not been preached he-
fore. But He looked common and mean in comparison
with the old revelations of God's will and law. He
walked the earth as a man ; He did not, as an angel,
condescend to it from the Heavens, and, after shining
brightly for a brief moment, disappear. He sat on the
mountain, and taught God's law; but there was no
awful convulsion of nature ; no thunder and lightning ;
no resounding fearful cry of the awe-inspiring trumpet.
The clouds, the brightness, the startling and grand
phenomena that spoke of heavenly interference in the
Old Covenant, were apparently wanting to the lowly,
poor, and unprotected Man who set out from Nazareth
to call His nation to repentance. Where was the won
der and the greatness of this God's final message and
communication with the world ?

The answer is, that this Man Jesus Christ was not
merely the vehicle of the Word and of the grace of God,
as angels had been, but He was the Word of God, and
the fulness of true and real grace. And though many
who looked with eyes blinded by worldly prepossession,
or with carelessness or prejudice, were scandalised in
Him, and turned away dissatisfied, nevertheless the
earnest seeker was soon upon the road to find out a
greatness and a power in that human form which threw
far into the shade all the miracles which angels had
wrought on the earth and in the heavens.

Carry your thought to that day and hour when

12 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

Jesus Christ sat upon the rising slopes of that hill near
the lake of Galilee, and spoke a long instruction to a
crowd that had come out to see Him. There is some
thing in the attitude of the Teacher, and in the look of
the listeners, that tells you this is not a common man.
But there are words which reach you now and then,
whose power is that of the lightning flash which rent
the clouds on Sinai of old. Many prophets had spoken
to the house of Israel, hut no prophet had ever dared
to criticise and ever to set aside the law of Moses.
This Man speaks, as you perceive, ' with authority,'
and He declares that He is come to fulfil the law of
Moses ; as if that law, given hy angels in the hand of
a Mediator,6 had been waiting for His coming before it
was complete. He tells them that the law of Moses
is not perfect enough for the time that has come. ' It
was said to them of old, Thou shalt not kill.' Yes,
this was said ' of old ;' it is one of the awful Ten Com
mandments. ' But I say to you' . . . ! Who is this
that thus presumes to develop and extend the Deca
logue? He does not say, 'Thus saith the Lord,' as
Ezechiel would have said, or Jeremias. It is Himself
who betters the law which God had first imprinted on
man's heart, and then revealed with awful sanctions
through the hand of Moses. Here is a claim to do
what God alone can do. It is made by the Man Jesus
Christ — because Jesus Christ is God. Nothing less
than all this is signified by the words and acts which
Evangelists record and Apostles comment upon ; nothing
less than this is stated in explicit terms by Jesus
• Gal. iii. 19.

THE WOBD MADE FLESH. 13

Christ Himself, and by the witnesses He ordained to
preach Him to the world.

We must dwell upon the fact that Jesus Christ is
God. I am not proving it just now, or going into a
discussion upon the genuineness of gospel or epistle, of
chapter or of verse. I am taking the New Testament
for granted. And it is interesting to see how the fact
that Jesus Christ is God is there presented to the
thought of the generations for whom the New Testa
ment was written. It sometimes puzzles men not to
he able to find in the Bible an express formal state
ment of this centre truth. I do not admit that this is
so. But two things must be borne in mind. First,
the Apostles were chiefly concerned with putting forth,
not the doctrine of Christ's Godhead, which was easily
admitted in one sense or another by all who abandoned
Judaism, but the doctrine of His atonement — the doc
trine of Justification and of Grace. And, secondly, the
language of the peculiar race or races for whom St.
Matthew, or St. Paul, or St. John had to write was not
our language. They had different terms and different
difficulties. And the propositions and the answers ad
dressed to them took different shapes.

And yet St. John is surely most explicit. The
Gospel of the Apostle of Love was written to develop
the grand thought of its opening chapter — that the
Word was God, and the Word was made Flesh. The
Word ! We must anxiously trace back the past in
order to understand what is meant by a term like this.
Our steps must measure back many an old and worn-
out road before we can get to that standing-place where

14 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

John stood when he burst forth with that suhlime
beginning. We must listen to discussions in the
Alexandrian Museum ; and, farther back, to Platonic
dialogues held in Athenian groves. We must turn
over mysterious books of Scripture, in which uncreated
Wisdom is treated as God, and yet as distinct from a
Divine Personality. The ivord of a man was, primarily,
the uttered sound, pregnant with sense, which told the
hearer what the speaker thought. But, secondarily
and more deeply, it was the thought itself — the con
ception of the mind — formulated and rounded off in an
idea. In all philosophies there was and is a mystery
and a cloud about this conception, idea, word. It is
distinct from the mind or intelligence itself, because it
rises out of it as a bubble rises on the surface of the
spring, to be succeeded by another and another. And
yet it lies so close against it and around it, that it
seems to have no being which is not the very being of
the mind. At one time it seems to be no otherwise
distinct than as the green, or blue, or purple of the ever-
moving ocean is distinct from the restless waves. At
another, it seems to be formed and launched into being
with something of the effort which an artist makes to
give his forms of beauty to the world. A man makes
his thought ; it is the very substance of his mind ; it
is the very growth of that subtle seed which we call
intelligence ; and yet a man's thought oftentimes stands
up beside him like a shadow of himself, haunting him,
ruling him, torturing him, or soothing him. Such is
the thought or conception of a human mind ; the word
of a man, which Plato reasoned on, and Philo used as

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 15

a mirror to catch reflections from the clouds. But if
the lf>gos of a finite mind was such a subtle thing, what
power of thought or language could discuss the Logos
of the mind of God ? The Infinite has an infinite in
telligence. That intelligence is over active, or rather,
it is ever act. What is that act ? What is the Word
of God ?

The writers of the ancient covenant have left in
spired descriptions of that wisdom which is to them
what the Word is to St. John : ' Jehova possessed
me in the beginning of His ways, before He made any
thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity,
and of old before the earth was made. . . . When He
prepared the heavens, I was present. ... I was with
Him, forming all things.'7 This is the picture of the
thought, or word, or wisdom of God, presented by the
writer of as ancient a book as the Proverbs. And if we
pass to the utterances of the Son of Sirach, we read at
the very opening of the first chapter of Ecclesiasticus,
* All wisdom is from the Lord God, and hath been
always with Him, and is before all time.'8 And the
author of the book entitled Wisdom has three chapters
— the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth — in which he
applies all the resources of eloquence and poetry to
describe a wisdom which is certainly not of this earth.
She is the worker of all things, having all power, reach
ing from end to end mightily, and ordering all things
sweetly. She sitteth by the throne of God. She is
the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror
of God's majesty, the image of His goodness. She
7 Proverbs viii. 22. 8 Ecclus. i. 1.

16 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

knoweth all the works of God, and was present when
He made the world.

Such is the description in the Old Testament of
that inmost act of the mind of God which St. John,
speaking the language of the current - philosophy of
his day, calls the Word of God. By It God made all
things. It was always with Him. It was before all
time. It was GOD. There is no escaping from the
rigour of that conclusion. It is God, and yet It is not
the Father. It is begotten by God ; by an eternal be
getting. It is consubstantial with the Father; there
is only one God. Yet It, and not the Father, was
made Flesh. And the Word made Flesh was Jesus
Christ. That Child Who was given to us in Beth
lehem ; that Youth Who wrought at Nazareth ; that
Preacher Who stirred up all Judaea and Galilee ; that
loving Master Who called men after Him, and made
them so faithful to Him , that Martyr Who died in the
eclipse on Calvary — that was the Word made Flesh.

This great mystery is called the Incarnation. It is
a mystery, and a deep and dark mystery ; yet not all
dark.

First of all, Jesus Christ is called, and is verily, God.
Just as one may point out a man, and say of him,
' This is my brother 'or 'my friend,' so we can say of
Jesus Christ, ' This is the eternal God, Creator of
heaven and earth, iny Master, my Judge, my everlast
ing Hope.' You can hardly say that the Godhead
dwells in Him ; for although the expression is not by
any means unknown to the Fathers, yet, when used
without explanation, it would seem to separate Christ

THE WOKD MADE FLESH. 17

into two, or else to destroy His manhood altogether.
He is not merely a man upon whose soul a large
amount of Divine Grace has been poured. The royal
Unction, by which He is 'the Christ,' means the con
tact of the Godhead with a humanity in such an in
effable way that the one begins to belong to the other.
He is still the Word ; He has lost nothing of what He
always was from all eternity; and therefore, in St.
Paul's words, He thinks it no robbery to be ' equal to
God.'9

But again, though He is God, He is Man. His
humanity is no fiction ; no unsubstantial film of delu
sive air to mock men's sense. His body is a real true
body, born of Mary ever-virgin, pierced on the cross,
sitting now at the right hand of God. And it is no
mere brute machine without a soul, moved to and fro
by the force of the Divinity within it. Man is man
chiefly by his soul ; and Jesus Christ has a human soul,
united to His flesh like our souls are to our flesh ; and
His soul, in its circumscription of flesh, makes up His
human nature. He has intelligence, like men must
have if they are men ; and He sees finite truth with
that intelligence, and pursues it with His reason. He
has imagination and the powers of the brain of man ;
and the forms and impressions of things, received by
the ministry of sense, dwell in the subtle fibres and
folds of nerve and brain, and revive, unite, and shape
themselves into new shapes, as with other mortal men.
With Him, as with us, the muscles and the members
move at the soul's volition. With Him, the eye and
• Philip, ii. 6.
2

18 THE WORD MADE FLESH.

the ear, and the delicate surfaces where outward in
fluences are the causes of vital acts, are busy and active
as with us. The warm and life-sustaining blood pours
through His veins, and a human heart beats within His
breast — beats quickly, or beats slowly, to the varying
wave of feeling that presses on the whole man. For He
has human passions too — to use the word in strict and
reverential sense. He has those thrills and movements
of the corporeal frame which other men have, though
with this enormous difference — that in Him they can
not so much as stir except at the bidding and allowance
of the reason, guided by the Divinity which possesses it.
But still, in the best and most worthy sense, He has
human feeling — human passion.10 As a man feels, so
He feels, love and sorrow, sadness and pain, joy and
admiration. The shuddering of His flesh when He
looks forward to His death, and when He meets His
death, is true pain ; the glance of His eye when He
reproves obstinate sinners is the index of a true, noble,
and reasonable anger ; and it is a true and royal love
which turns His look on the Galilsean fishermen, on
the little children, on the young man who wants to be
generous but cannot take the leap, on John at the supper,
on Peter in the dawn of the day of His death.

But, thirdly, the Incarnation does not mean that
within that outward form which men looked upon there
were two persons, the Eternal Word and a man, living
together, so to speak, under one roof. The Incarnation
means a union of the two natures far more close than

10 Theologians have agreed to call our Lord's human feelings Pro-
passions, in order to mark the distinction given in the text.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 19

this. The Eternal Word took hold of, assumed, a de
finite and singular human nature, in such a way as to
make that human nature its own. The Word was from
everlasting ; hut the humanity had no being before the in
stant in which it was assumed by the Word. So that the
human nature so assumed was never a human person
in the sense other singular and definite human natures
always must be. It had all that was necessary to make
it a person ; but on the very instant of its completeness
as a nature the higher nature wrapped it round, and,
holding it always unconsumed, made it Its own. Hence
forward human life and human acts were as much the
acts of God the Son as creation was. The soul, the
body, the senses and feelings, the muscles and limbs,
of that human nature belonged to God ; and although
every act they did was really the act of a human nature,
nevertheless every act was the paramount act of that
sovereign Divinity which owned them. It was the
wonder of the burning bush realised ; all fire, and yet
the fragile wood was never burnt away. The Godhead
penetrated the man through and through. The hu
manity stood in the very rush of the torrent of the God
head ; it shone with God-like properties and boasted of
God-like names, as far as the finite could. The human
ity was a drop of vinegar that mingles with the ocean,
and takes the qualities oithe ocean.11 The Deity was
like a royal unction that fell on the humanity, anoint
ing it * above its fellows,' making the two one.12 The
Divinity is the fire that penetrates the iron, losing

11 This is St. Gregory of Nyssa's similitude, Cont. Eunomium, lib.
v. col. 707. 12 St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. x. col. 831.

20 THE WOED MADE FLESH.

nothing of its own, but giving its properties to the iron.13
The two natures were each the nature of one and the
same Person ; and what each nature did the Person
did ; what each nature was the Person was. God was
made man, and was man. A man was God. A man
was the Almighty Creator; a child was the God of
Heaven ; a ' servant' was the ' equal' of Jehovah, and
therefore Jehova. And God was born of the Virgin
Mary, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again the
third day. It was not the humanity which created all
things ; it was not the Godhead which was nailed to the
cross ; but the Person to whom both belonged did the
one and suffered the other, and the Person was Jesus
Christ.

Thus God came down upon the earth. Ever since
the darkness had fallen on the world, poor fallen man
had desired, with some kind of a blind desire, to see his
God with his eyes. He had made images of Him — or
rather of the foolish imaginings of his own heart — and
fallen down before them in worship. He had looked
everywhere to catch some glimpse of Him, or footprint
of His path. And ever since the law was given to Moses
the saints and the prophets had longed to see the day
which they knew was sure to come. Humanity, repre
sented by its best and noblest, had sighed, like the
Spouse, for that supreme kiss of love and union when
the heavens and the earth should come together, and
frail flesh be taken up by God the Creator. And they
had the answer to their long prayer when Jesus Christ
was born in Bethlehem.

13 St. Basil, Horn, in Chriati Generationem, col. 1459.

THE WORD MADE FLESH. 21

la the mystery of the Word made Flesh hard to
take in ? God alone, Who revealed it and Who wrought
it, can make the heart of mail accept it. Therefore, in
St. Augustine's words, ' Let the mind be purified hy
faith, by abstinence from sin, by doing good, by prayer
and longing desire, that by God's grace we may advance
to intelligence and to lovo/12

12 De Trinitaie, iv, cap. 21.

II.

ANTI-CHEISTS.

' EVERY spirit,* said John the Apostle, ' which dis-
solveth Jesus Christ is not of God ; and this is Anti-
Christ.'1 These words have stood a long time, and
there has never been a time when they were not true,
or when they were not necessary to be insisted upon.
Jesus Christ is God and Man ; and to * dissolve' Jesus
Christ is, either to make Him two separate persons,
God and a Man, or to separate from His personality one
of His natures — either that Divine Nature which He
has from all ages, or that human one which He took to
Himself in time. The men who have done this are the
Anti-Christs of the world's history. They began to
speculate and teach before the New Testament was
complete. They aggravated the troubles of the Church
in the days of the heathen persecutions. They were
the chief occasion of her first great Council. They dis
turbed the times of her early triumph, and desolated
wide territories that she had once called her own. In
the religious convulsions of later times they have
always hovered near, and now, in the days in which we
are, they are an army, and they have a discipline, and
it would seem as if they were the advanced guard of the
1 1 John iv. 3.

ANTI-CHRISTS. 28

great and final Anti-Christ, whose fatal triumph it will
be, for a brief space, to drive the worship and the love
of Jesus from the earth. It will be our object in the
remarks which follow to make use of the 'contra
dictions' of gainsayers in order to grasp more firmly
what the Incarnation is.

The Christian Church calls the Incarnation a
Mystery, and a Mystery it is. But for all that, it is
right for us to look at it closely and to argue about it,
even if only because men have disputed it and denied
it. A Mystery cannot be adequately comprehended ;
but it can be got hold of by the mind up to a certain
point — how far, no one knows, least of all those who
obstinately shut their eyes. First of all, you can
generally see pretty plainly that the fact which con
stitutes the Mystery is no impossibility. Then, you
can prove the fact, at least, by external evidence ; that
is, by God's word. Thirdly, you can often show such
fitness, beauty, and divine wisdom in those truths which
Christianity calls Mysteries, that it would almost seem
that if they were not true they ought to be ; just as the
astronomer, ranging the heavens with his glass, notes
a series of motions which tell him there is an unde
tected planet not far off; and he looks more warily,
and, behold, it is there. And lastly, you may at least,
with God's help, strip the Mystery of all the darkness
in which human reason has wrapped it up; you can
dissipate error, remove prejudice, and show up false
reasoning; and if you gain nothing else, it will be
great gain merely to be able to put your finger on the
exact point in which the heart of the Mystery lies.

24 ANTI-CHEISTS.

The very point of the Mystery of the Incarnation is
contained in the formula in which it is stated by the
great Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is
this — that God the Word made the human nature (in
Christ) His very own. He assumed, He took up,
Humanity into so close an embrace that the human
nature was His nature. Let the words be weighed.
There are many conceivable ways in which God dwells,
or may dwell, in man. When He pours upon man's
soul the gifts of sanctifying Grace, Charity, the gifts of
the Spirit, He then is said to ' dwell'2 or to ' remain'3
in that soul, or to be * given'4 to it. When the human
heart and the will of the Creator are in such complete
harmony that the man loves, aspires to, and pursues
only what the Creator's law ordains, then there is a
close union between God and man ; and this union is
so much the more close in proportion as the super
natural moving power of Grace sweetly constrains the
heart and all the powers of the human soul. This may
be called a ' moral' union between God and man. Thus
God dwells in His Saints. And sometimes there is a
more energetic and forceful stress laid upon the creature
by its Maker, and in certain acts, for a time, the human
nature is the organ and the instrument of the Deity.
This occurs in the phenomena of inspiration and of
miracles wrought by men.

But the union of God and Man in Jesus Christ is
not adequately explained by any of these ways of ex
planation. It is more than a union by participation
of graces or gifts. It is true, indeed, as David sung,
8 John vi 57. » Horn. viii. 13. * Rom. v. 5.

AKTI-CHEISTS. 25

that all the gifts and graces of God were poured forth
upon that Sacred Humanity. In the forty-fourth
Psalm, the King that is to come is declared to be 'beau
tiful above the sons of men,' grace on His lips, comely
and majestic, full of truth and meekness and justice.
But this unction of grace is a different anointing from
that which falls to the lot of ordinary Saints. ' He
hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy
fellows.'6 Christ the Anointed, the ' fellow' of mortal
men, because a mortal man Himself, was to have upon
Him the unction of Heaven's gift in a way that was all
His own. And it was not to be merely that, as man,
He was to do God's will and worship Him with all His
thought and life. He was not merely to be the obedient
and willing instrument of God. This would have made
Christ two Persons, and would have brought to nought
the whole scheme of Eedemption. It was necessary
that the same Person who said, ' I and the Father are
One,' should be able to say, 'I thirst/ The Word was
made Flesh, and in becoming so, He made a certain
human nature His very own for ever.

The historic attempts to * dissolve* Jesus Christ
have been, as I need not say, attempts, more or less
wilfully erroneous, to misstate the truth of the union of
His Godhead and His Manhood. They may be classed
under three chief heads, the Arian, the Nestorian, and
the Socinian.

1. The Arian heresy is completely a thing of the past.
It would be as easy now to find a Stoic or a Cynic as to
meet with a real Arian. And yet Arianism was once a

• Pa. xliv. 8.

26 ANTI-CHRISTS.

very large and troublesome fact. The idea of Arius
was, that God the Son was not really the God of hea
ven and earth, but some kind of inferior God ; and this
inferior God became man. Arius came from Alexan
dria ; and in Alexandria, ever since St. Mark had
brought thither the Christian Faith, there had been
going on discussions as to the Trinity in the Godhead,
as to the Word of God, and concerning the way in
which emanation from the Deity was possible. The
Church of Alexandria — that is, the chief pastor and the
simple people — always believed the simple Catholic
Faith, that the Word was made Flesh, and the Word
was God. But Alexandria was a centre of Pagan
thought. Eastern theories about emanation encoun
tered Platonic notions about the Logos ; and the result
was endless discussion, and constant attempts to sub
stitute the views of the day and the hour for the legiti
mate development of Christian belief. The notion of
an inferior Deity emanating from God, and whose
office it was to create the world, was a common one in
ancient religions ; and it is an indication of a primitive
revelation of the Trinity. Arius took it up, and said
that Jesus Christ was this inferior God incarnate.
The error spread very widely, partly through political
causes, and partly because it seemed 'rational' and
more easy to take in than the complete doctrine of the
Trinity. But if it had prevailed, three consequences
would soon have followed — first, the utter impossibility
of reconciling the language of the Bible ; secondly, a
flood of superstition, in order to explain the place and
attributes of this inferior God ; and thirdly, the disap-

ANTI-CHRISTS. 27

pearance of the Church, the Sacraments, and the system
of Grace, together with the ' worship' of Jesus Christ ;
for Grace and Sacraments are efficacious by His Blood,
and if His Blood is not the Blood of the Eternal God,
it cannot he the source of Life, the laver of regeneration,
or the means of sanctification. Arianism has died out
— first of all, because all heresies must die, just as a
broken branch, that looks green for an hour or two,
rapidly withers and rots into new substances : but
secondly, because it combines all the difficulties of an
Anti- Christian heresy with the other difficulties of a
highly superrational and mystical theory of its own.
As the world went on, men who tried to ' dissolve'
Jesus Christ found how to do it in a less troublesome
way. There have been a few Arians in comparatively
recent times. John Milton seems to have found in
Arianism an answer to those difficulties which a power
ful imagination destitute of the light of Faith is sure to
find in the Trinity; and Isaac Newton, whose fancy
travelled as far as Milton's in the fields he made his
own, and whose natural piety of heart did not make up
for the want of supernatural discernment, thought
that he too could agree better with Arius than with
Athanasius. But the men who were sometimes called
Arians, some hundred years ago in England, were only
Socinians.

2. The heresy of Nestorius, which was quite another
sort of heresy from that of Arius, divided Jesus Christ
into two complete persons. Nestorius, when he began
to preach heresy, was a man of the highest possible
consideration, patriarch of Constantinople, an intimate

28 ANTI-CHBISTS.

friend of the Emperor Theodosius II., a great preacher,
and a man of extraordinary personal asceticism. When
he told one of those immense audiences that used to as
semble to hear him on great feasts, that it was ques
tionable whether the Blessed Virgin Mary could he
called the Mother of God, he raised a tempest which it
took many a year to allay. It was soon evident what
he meant. He considered that the man who was horn
of Mary was only the outward covering (so to speak) of
the Godhead. God, in some sense, dwelt in Jesus
Christ ; He was * united' to him ; Christ ' bore* the
Deity about with him. But the actions of the one were
not the actions of the other ; it could not be said that
God was born, suffered, died. The God and the man
were two distinct persons ; partners and brothers, in a
sense, but two. This is Nestorianism, and it is dead
now, like Arianism. St. Cyril of Alexandria was its
great destroyer. Nestorius was as shifty as a Syrian
with a bad cause could be ; he allowed almost any term
which the Catholic Fathers proposed, including even
that of Mother of God. But St. Cyril never let him go,
and he was condemned at the fourth General Council,
that of Ephesus, A.D. 431. The great point on which
St. Cyril insisted, as I have already said, was, that the
Word made the human nature its very own. He re
peats this grand fundamental point over and over again.
So that Jesus Christ was not two persons, but one
Person having two nature? ; by the one creating the
heavens and the earth, by the other born of the Virgin
Mary, and shedding His Blood for man's redemption.
3. But Nestorianism, like Arianism, is no longer of

ANTI-CHEIST8. 29

any account in the world of religious thought. One
hears the name, and one is interested to know what
it meant; and the mention of it revives old pictures
of bygone times and departed races ; of times when
Christianity struggled with the fragments of Eastern
mysticism and Greek subtlety, as a vessel struggles
with floating ice in the short summer of a Polar sea ;
of races who loved to speculate, and admired novelty,
and firmly believed in the existence of a world they
could not see. The process of disintegration of dogma
has not stood still. When the great revolt took place
in the sixteenth century, the leaders of the new ideas
were startled by the sudden rising from the graves,
where many an anathema had laid them low, of the old
heresies of the fourth and fifth centuries. Socinianism,
springing up and gathering its strength in North Italy
and in Eastern Europe, before long confronted Luther
at Wittenberg, and Calvin at Geneva. The men who
were laying the axe to the root of God's Revelation
were not prepared for the abomination of desolation
which began by denying the Trinity and the Incarna
tion. Nearly all the early chiefs of the Socinian or
Unitarian sects were put to violent deaths. Luther
drove Muncer out of Wittenberg, and urged on the war
which resulted in his death. Hetzer was executed at
Constance ; Campano died in prison ; Gentilis was be
headed at Naples, and Servetus burnt at Geneva.
Laelius and Faustus Socinus, who gave Socinianism its
name, died in obscurity. And so the evil seeme.d for a
time to be checked. But it was only checked in the
fashion that the mythological hero destroyed the hydra ;

80 ANTI-OHEISTS.

for every head that the sword cut off, in a very brief
space there grew out two more. Unitarianism, as a
sect, is not widely spread in England, though, in pro
portion to its numbers, it is strong ; in America its
adherents are somewhat more numerous, and much
more influential. But its extent is not by any means
to be measured by the names of those who care to call
themselves Unitarians. The truth is, the Unitarian
view of the Incarnation is held, either consciously or
unconsciously, by multitudes who belong to Churches
which profess belief in the Trinity, and prescribe
prayer to Jesus Christ. The essence of Unitarianism
is the denial of all mystery and of all revelation proper.
It believes in God, but not in a Trinity. It believes in
Jesus Christ, but not in His Divinity. It believes in
Christianity, but not in its supernatural character, or
its finality, or its perfectness as a guide to man's steps,
and an answer to his aspirations. Jesus Christ is a
man, and nothing more. He is a great man, a holy
and wise man, a perfect man. You may call Him in
some sense God ; you may even direct your prayer to
Him ; but He is a man, and not greater than man. All
fine-spun talk about ' inferior Gods/ and duality of per
son, and indwelling of God, is now dispensed with.
Unitarianism suits very well a generation which in
herits only what past centuries of denial and rejection
have still left ; a generation which, unless it breaks
with the primary principle of private judgment, must
reduce all revelation to what its own reason can ascer
tain. The number of those who find it difficult to pray
to Jesus Christ is growing every year. And these are

ANTI-CHRISTS. 81

they who ' dissolve' Christ in these days, and who would
be called by St. John nothing else but Anti-Christs.

Such are, in brief, the principal ways in which the
doctrine of the Incarnation is denied and contradicted.
Let me now try to do a difficult thing — to explain in
some way the How of the Incarnation ; and this for
the twofold purpose of clearing up the doctrine itself
by its own light, and of showing the shallowness of
the objections brought against it.

At the present day, as, indeed, in days gone by,
difficulties about the Incarnation generally imply diffi
culties about the Trinity. If men do not believe in
the existence of God the Son, there is no question
possible as to their admitting His Incarnation. Now,
to prove, to explain, and to enforce a belief in the great
mystery of the Trinity would take me altogether out of
my course. But I believe that there exists a large
number of people who stumble at the Incarnation for
reasons quite independent of any doubts as to the
Trinity. They perceive that, by the terms of the mys
tery, the Eternal God becomes Man. And they stop
at this. Is it possible ? A thing cannot both be and
not be at the same moment. How, then, is it possible
that the Infinite can be finite, that the Everlasting
can have a beginning, that the Almighty should be
weak, that the All-blessed should suffer ? Can time,
space, material conditions, and local limits ever be
predicated of the Absolute ? Is there not here a
simple contradiction in terms ?

The answer, though a good answer, does not quite
satisfy such questioners as these. The answer is, tnat

82 ANTI-CHBISTS.

although in Jesus Christ there is only One Person, yet
still the two Natures — the Godhead and the Manhood
— remain integral and undestroyed ; the Godhead, be
cause it cannot be even infinitesimally affected by vicis
situde or change ; the Manhood, because it was neces
sary for God's purposes. Hence, although it can be
truly said that the Eternal was a little Child, yet it
cannot be said that the Divinity became Humanity. It
is right to assert that the Creator was in want and
suffering ; but wrong to say that God's Omnipotence
was changed into weakness. The truth is, that by the
Incarnation two sets of apparently incompatible pro
perties can be predicated of One Person, because He
is a Person who possesses, as His very own, each of
the two Natures to which these properties respectively
belong ; but it does not follow that by the Incarnation
these two Natures or their properties can be predicated
in an abstract way of one another.

But, as I have admitted, this answer does not go
sufficiently to the root of the matter to satisfy modern
inquirers. The difficulty, they still insist, lies deeper.
It lies in the very fact of the union of the two Natures
of God and man. Take St. John's phrase as it stands,
and the simple man's first question is, How can God
the Word be made Flesh *? Take the formulary of St.
Cyril, that the Word made the Human Nature its very
own, and the phrase seems to cover an impossibility.
There is such a thing as God's moving a man, or in
spiring him, or pouring His light and grace upon him,
or defending him, or making him His child ; but how
can He make a particular humanity His own ?

ANTI-CHEISTS. 83

Let me at once protest here that we are not bound
to explain this How ; and, indeed, that it cannot be ade
quately explained. For purposes of religion and wor*
ship, and union with God, the Incarnation is sufficiently
formulated by statements, which are at least perfectly
intelligible when taken one by one. Jesus is the Word ;
Jesus is God ; Jesus gave Himself for us, suffered and
was buried, and will come to be our Judge. These are
statements that the heart must cling to. And if the
mind wants more, or wants all its questions answered,
it must be reminded that all these propositions can be
proved one by one ; and being proved, the difficulty in
reconciling them is no reason for doubting them, since
the difficulty never amounts to a demonstrable contra
diction. There are numbers of things that we know to be
true, but which we cannot reconcile one with another.

But, after all, the mystery of the Incarnation,
though dark, is dark by sheer depth, and not by want
of light on the surface. It is obscure, not like some
minute handwriting which a purblind man pores over
and cannot read, but as the paths of the mighty stars
are obscure, which defy the steadiest gazing of the
wisest; which man, armed with nobler instruments year
by year, scrutinises slowly and successfully — slowly,
because all he can discover is so little to what remains
beyond; successfully, because he comes to know mighty
and staggering secrets which seem to lift him from the
earth. Thus it is with all mysteries ; they are un
fathomable, and for that very reason all the keenest
intuition of all the purest souls will go on to the end,
seeing farther into them and learning more of what

3

84 ANTI-CHBISTS.

they are. We might turn round upon these raisers of
doubts. We might say, The Scriptures and the living
voice of the Church assert the fact of the Incarnation ;
and why should it be impossible ? Who can place a
limit to the power of God ? The fact of Creation is not
a thing that a Theist can doubt about ; yet there are
just such intrinsic difficulties about Creation as would
make questioners deny its possibility. You do not
know what God can do until He has done it. You
cannot determine beforehand what the Omnipotent can
effect if He will. Earth and air, water and elemental
fire, are weak powers and narrow energies compared to
God ; and if you cannot predict the earthquake, or fore
tell the track of the storm, or provide against the thun
derbolt, can you not understand that the Eternal and
the Absolute is outside of human augury, and that when
He stirs within the circle of His creation, His creatures
may often have to wonder and be silent ? ' Who hath
wrought and done these things ?....!, Jehova, I am
the First and Last. The islands saw and feared, the
ends of the earth were astonished.'6 That God should
so descend upon a human nature, flood it, penetrate
it through, as to make it His own, is surely not so
far beyond belief as to be rejected at first sight. God
made human nature, and He upholds it ; and He knows
each secret spring of its life and motion. He cannot
change one iota Himself; but He can take possession
of His creature. And what is this human nature of
ours that men pretend to be so incompatible with the
Deity? The humanity of Jesus — the humanity as-

• Isaias xli. 4, 5.

ANTI-CHBISTS. 85

snmed by the Word — was body and soul like ourselves.
What is the body ? What is this mortal frame, which
grows with our growth and which we seem to leave be
hind us when the end comes ? What is material sub
stance ? Suppose that matter is merely energy or force.
Many philosophers, Catholic and non-Catholic, hold
that earth and air and flesh and other material things
are combinations of some simple form of energy, such
as we can realise by the idea of electricity. It is cer
tain that this is quite possible. But whether it is true
or not, we have to realise that material substance —
the human frame, for instance — is not the gross,
impervious, stubborn stuff which mere imagination
teaches us to picture it ; but is a complex system of
such wondrous subtlety, full of such multitudinous
minute interstices, ready for such numberless com
binations, that the most ethereal fire of the spheres
above is not really more elastic or more impression
able. By what intimate and most subtle operation
could not the Godhead descend on such a creature
as this ? But this was not the man, and the Godhead
did directly not assume this. The man is chiefly the
soul ; and the soul is a spiritual essence. Spirit differs
from matter. How it differs it may be hard exactly to
define. But it must differ, because its action and
operation are so different. If matter is energy, it is an
energy that has no return upon itself, no reflection to
the centre whence it rises. But the spiritual Energy
is Thought — and the condition of all thought is the
idea of Self — and the idea of Self supposes a completely
reflex act. And in this at least lies the difference be-

36 ANTI-CHRISTS.

tween Matter and Spirit. And Matter and Spirit mingle
in each of us ! Questioners might say, even here, How
can this be possible ? How can the spiritual soul mingle
with the unreflective matter ? What bond can there be
between Thought and Extension ? But we know that
the bond exists ; for we are affected by the modes that
material things have, and at the same time we think,
and it is the same WE of whom both these things are
true. There is this mystery in Humanity itself. Yet
with our actual experience it does not seem unnatural
to us that the higher energy, the soul, should permeate
and possess the lower, and make it its own. Passing,
then, from little things to great, from a shadow to a
grand reality, we surely can catch some glimpse of how
the Divine Nature can possess the Human ? God is
Energy in all its modes and forms — not collectively,
but virtually and preeminently. He is one simple
Being — one simple Act ; but in that simplicity is virtu
ally every being and every energy that exists. When
the soul thinks and works, it thinks and works because
God exists, and by His active power. When the brain
forms its varied pictures, and calls up in reminiscence
the impressions it has once received, He is the secret of
its action and its sensibility. When the unresting
nerves thrill their messages to the brain, and bring back
the will's sovereign commands to muscle and to limb,
and when the frame of man responds with various out
ward and inward movement to the emotions of soul and
sense, still the deepest and primest moTer of all is the
Maker, of whom His Prophet so significantly says that
' He knoweth our frame.' Yes, He knows it ; for He

ANTI-CHBISTS. 87

is present to its inmost marrow with a living and acting
pressure. In the multitude of men He acts so gently
and so uniformly that His action becomes a law of Na
ture; for nothing could exist or act without it. On
others again He pours Himself in the wondrous energy of
Divine Grace — an energy that none hut Himself could
originate or preserve. And other human frames He
takes possession of, not more grandly or more wonder
fully, but more sensibly : filling their understanding
and their memory with hidden truths, giving them the
power to see the things to come, making their tongues
divinely eloquent, and their hands divinely powerful.
These are the Saints, the Sages, the Seers, and the
Wonder-workers of the world. But, once for all,
uniquely and supremely, He had decreed from all
eternity to come down upon a human nature in such a
fashion that no mercy could be greater and no miracle
more awful. No created intellect can ever comprehend
how this was done. To comprehend it, it would first
be necessary to understand completely what human
nature is, what soul is, what body is ; and, after that,
to understand the Godhead Itself, and all the ways in
which It can act in and upon a creature. But this we
know — and let me be pardoned for repeating it so often
— that the Godhead was not changed, that the chosen
Humanity was not consumed but only perfected, and
that it lay so wrapt up in the Godhead that It was
henceforth God's own nature. That favoured Humanity
had never belonged to itself. In the moment of its
creation and formation it had been assumed by the
Word. She who was chosen for the ministry of Its

88 ANTI-CHRISTS.

birth into the world was truly called the Mother of God.
From the moment It hegan to exist It was King, Priest,
Prophet, and Saint. In virtue of Its ineffable union
with the Word, Its soul had from the beginning that
beatific vision of God face to face, which is the super
natural destiny of the children of God. Through this
vision, and through the great fact of the union, It was
incapable of the least shadow of sin or imperfection.
Through Its conbortship with the Word, It was filled
with every kind of charisma, gift and grace ; as Isaias
had prophesied, ' There shall rest upon Him the Spirit
of the Lord — the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding,
the Spirit of Counsel and Fortitude, the Spirit of Know
ledge and Piety; and there shall fill Him the Spirit
of the Fear of the Lord.'7 It was filled with every kind
of infused virtue except such as were incompatible with
Its dignity, with all knowledge, and with all the gifts of
all the Saints and Prophets. It was the summit of
creation, the head of all creatures, the corner-stone of
all that was made, the centre of all the order of the
heavens and the earth, the fountain of all grace to
Angels and to men. It was adorable with true and
divine adoration, not in Itself, because It never existed
by Itself, and so considered is merely an abstraction
and a figment of the mind ; but because It exists now
and for evermore as the Humanity of the Infinite Word,
assumed by Him, made His own unto unity of Per
son, that henceforth the same Person might be God
and Man.

This is the great ' mystery which hath been hidden

r Isaias xi 2, 3.

ANTI-CHBISTS. 89

from eternity in God;'8 the mystery which hath been
hidden from ages and generations, hut now is mani
fested to His Saints, to whom God would make known
the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is
Christ;9 the mystery which the Apostles first learnt
from their Master, and then taught the world.10 It
rests upon testimony which is unshaken, on evidence
which is sure and strong, on tradition which is un
broken. If the Incarnation had not been vouchsafed
to us, humanity would be inarticulately crying out for
it now; and possessing it, we possess that which
satisfies our longings and answers our questionings.

Man, when he raises his eyes a little from that
earth on whose surface he seeks so earnestly for earthly
things, feels himself wanting much for himself and
much for his race. For himself, he feels that he has
aspirations and capacities which seem all but infinite*
in their reach. He becomes conscious of sin ; he is
ashamed of the littleness of his daily life ; he is fired
with noble schemes of what he might be, if the better
part of him could fairly assert itself. And the preach
ing of the Incarnation comes to him with the voice of
Revelation ; God alone can raise man up. One chosen
human nature He has taken hold of, to give man confi
dence and to win his heart ; but the gifts and the grace
of that Humanity are for every soul of Adam's race.
As every man is the child of the first Adam by natural
descent, so every man may be born of the second Adam,
by water and the Spirit, and be made capable of leading
the supernatural and higher life, which destroys the
• Epb. ii. 9. • Coloss. i. 26, 27. 10 1 Cor. ii. 7.

40 ANTI-CHBISTS.

evil self in this life in order to lead the purified soul to
the vision of the life to come. And the advancement of
every individual man, of which the Incarnation is the
pledge, is also the advancement of the race. The more
the race of man makes itself like unto Christ, the
higher will it raise itself. The Humanity of Christ
is the model of all Humanity. Its royalty and priest
hood are the consequence of union with the Godhead.
All progress is vain that does not advance towards
holiness and habitual grace. All knowledge is useless
that does not enable man better to understand who God
is, and what himself is made for. All power is wasted
that spends itself in things which do not raise men
from the earth. Knowledge and power were at their
acme in Jesus Christ, and He is the goal of all true
progress ; for in Him the First and Last, the Supreme,
the Absolute, has united Himself to human nature, to
show human nature what is its perfection.

To become like to Christ ! This is the reality of
which Pantheism is the dream. All energy is God,
say the philosophers, and there is no God but uni
versal force. We answer that all energy is virtually in
God, but created energy, whilst derived from God, is
not God. Yet there is One Man who has all that any
of us can want, and immeasurably more. And of this
Man's abundance we can all receive. And by making
ourselves like to Him, we make ourselves like to God,
for He is God ! The individual souls of men, which
make up the stream of the human race, are not mere
bubbles on the ocean current ; but each is a responsible
self. Yet all the beauty and the grandeur of each in

ANTI-CHKISTS. 41

the order of grace — the only order that leads to beati
tude — is derived from the abundance of the grace of
Jesus Christ.

There is an old commandment, summing up all
that goes to make a man perfect. The word that it
uses is, Love. It is this supreme work of holy love
which all the grace and all the illumination which Jesus
Christ brings to the world are intended to promote.
But the Incarnation is more than light and grace ; it is
the very presence of the object. God has shown Him
self to man. He has not awed him by thunder and
lightning, or terrified him by fire, or struck him with
wonder by mighty miracles. He has become a Man — a
little Child, a weary Wanderer, a suffering Innocent ;
and, as He knew He would, He has found the way to
man's heart. Love, in a man, is seated in the citadel
of his intellectual soul ; he can love God without feel
ing that he loves Him. But, although this is true
absolutely, yet it is not true when spoken of the mass
of mankind and of long continuance of the act of love.
Man is a compound of a multitude of powers and facul
ties ; and, in order that his act of love may be intense,
it is necessary that all his powers of body and soul
unite in it. The fragrance of a garden of summer
flowers is perfect only when the sun is shining and the
air is still. So the love of poor weak man is not very
intense, and will not last very long, when his fancy and
his heart are not moved too. And it is the Word
Incarnate who ravishes the sense of the poor and
simple, of the childlike and the ignorant, and makes
their attraction to invisible things so intense and so

42 ANTI-OHBISTS.

constant. They know He was like one of themselves ;
they have the gospel-pictures in their hearts ; they feel
that His Sacred Heart heat for them and their welfare.
They read how He prayed for them, what heautiful
things He said to help them, and what He went through
to save them. Each scene of His childhood, His hid
den life, His public ministry, and His Passion finds
out some particular chord in their hearts, and sets their
Love flowing afresh. And that awful Mystery of Jesus
Christ's life — that He should have chosen to suffer
when He need not have suffered, and should have
stamped suffering, obedience, and poverty as the most
excellent conditions of human life — this especially,
whilst it answers a thousand questions of the human
heart, fills it more than a thousandfold with all-neces
sary Love.

Has Love of God left the world ? We dare not
say so. Yet the present days are cold and calculating.
The eye is on the earth, and on self, and on honour, not
on the heavens. Let Jesus Christ appear ! This should
be our prayer for the world. Jesus Christ, God and
Man, One Person, is the world's King, Humanity's
summit and perfection ; and He is also the God of our
heart and our portion for ever !

III.

KEDEMPTION.

THOSE who believe, as we do, that Jesus Christ of Naza
reth is the Eternal Word of God, believe something
which must shape all their thought, and order all their
life. The course and dispensation of things, which we
call the world and time, must be something very differ
ent to us from what it is to those who do not believe.
It is but too true that the greater number even of be
lievers hardly live as if the Incarnation had taken place.
Human frailty, ignorance, and passion sadly interfere
with our realising the great Mystery of Ages, and with
our understanding how its power and influence affect
every region of moral and spiritual life. It will be our
purpose, in this and the following Lectures, to consider
what the Incarnation has done for man and man's sal
vation.

Why was God made man ? This is a question
which the Apostles and the Preachers of the Christian
centuries have been answering until now; and the
answer will not be finished when the trumpet of the
day of doom shall summon the last preacher to hold
his peace. And it is a question which naturally is
often asked by those without. Inquirers, and those
who are beginning to understand the enormous reach

44 BEDEMPTION.

of the formularies contained in the first chapter of St.
John's Gospel and in the Nicene Creed, are sometimes
staggered by the difficulty of seeing any reason why
such an interposition of Omnipotence should have heen
called for. In trying to explain this, and to say what
brought God upon the earth, we should always remem
ber that no adequate reason can be given, just as no
one can adequately explain why God chose to create
the world. The Acts of the Infinite Being have no
sufficient reason or cause but Himself. It is true that,
since our intellect is a participated similitude of Him
self, no one of His mighty acts can contradict or stul
tify the dictates of human reason. But the absence of
contradiction (that is to say, of visible absurdity and
impossibility) is a very long way from an adequate ex
planation. Still, as I have so often remarked, though
we cannot see to the bottom of the abyss, there is more
light available, and there are greater marvels discover
able, than any efforts of ours can ever exhaust.

The simple phrase of Revelation, used alike by
Jesus Christ,1 by His Prophets,2 and by His Apostles,3
tells us that He came into the world ' to save' the world.
This supposes that the world was in a state which re
quired ' saving' or salvation. And we cannot under
stand why Christ came, or what He did, until we under
stand the condition of those He came to save.

To understand sin is just as difficult as to understand
creation itself. Sin is only possible in a being which
has reason and free-will. There is plenty of what is
called evil throughout the animate and inanimate world.

1 Jolin iii. 17. 8 Isaias Is. 16. « Eph. ii. 5.

REDEMPTION. 45

But evil in irrational creatures is only their condition
as things limited and imperfect by the necessity of their
existence as creatures. When the reason knows evil,
and the will chooses it, evil becomes sin. And sin
may be truly called the only evil.

If some cherub of those who stand near the eternal
throne had been vouchsafed a prophetic vision of man
before man was made, he would have seen and admired
a grand work of God ; but if the beatified angels could
feel the emotions of the earth, he would have shuddered
too at the awful possibility there lay within that god
like intelligence and wondrous frame, for he would have
foreseen the possibility, the probability, of sin. And
when time was made, and man began to live and spread
over the earth, then the destruction would have begun.
As the soldiers drop on the battle-field when the deadly
bolt strikes them from afar, so the souls of men would
have fallen in death, frustrating the end of their exist
ence, and choosing evil with the deliberate act of a
heart which must be miserable unless it can possess
the supreme Good.

But I am describing what never happened. When
the angels were shown the future man, it was not man
with his natural human powers and gifts they saw ; for
man was not to be sent into the world so. Man's soul
was a creation which, by the very fact of its existence,
implied many noble powers. But being what it was, a
spirit, it had possibilities so indefinitely beyond its
native endowments, that its Maker, for His own greater
glory, chose to use it as a theatre for a series of such
magnificent acts, for a dispensation of such lofty splen-

46 REDEMPTION.

dour, that what He did was equivalent to a new creation.
He willed first that its end — that is to say, the heaven
or bliss which all immortal creatures must have in some
shape, or be ruined — should be the vision of Himself ;
Himself, as seen, not by the naked power of human intel
lect (such as would have been its heaven had it been left
to natural things), but by the power of a special light or
gift, which should enable it to look upon Him * face to
face, even as He is !'4 He willed, secondly, that this
supernal light or gift should have its beginnings on the
earth ; that, as soon as man began to be, his soul should
receive the earthly pledge of its heavenly state in the
shape of a gift which His .Revelation calls sometimes a
vesture, sometimes a crown, at other times, life, or the
light and gift of God ; and which, in common language,
we know by the name of grace. This order of grace,
then, consists in four things. First, the promise and
destiny of the ' life to come,' which is the face-to-face
vision of God ; secondly, the elevation of the soul by a
supernatural endowment ; thirdly, the continual visita
tion of God upon the soul by impulses of the same kind
as the gift ; and fourthly, the activity or works of the
soul itself, which are now not mere common and na
tural works, but works of grace, meritorious of that su
preme beatitude which is the soul's destiny. This is
the supernatural order ; and this was the state and
order in which God constituted man when He created
him. I have described its essential features only, but
sufficiently to enable us to see what it was.

For it is in this * supernatural order' that we have
4 1 John iii. 2.

REDEMPTION. 47

the key of Christ's counsel, and the explanation of His
coming.

The great fact of the Fall is familiar to us. By
the sinful act of their first parents the race of man fell
from grace. Why it was that Adam's act had such a
fearful sweep in its effect is a mystery — not an absur
dity or a contradiction, but an abyss full of light, had
we time to stop and look into it. The human race fell;
but it is necessary to note carefully what that Fall was.
In the first place, the supernatural end or destiny of
man still held good. But he lost that original gift,
the exercise of which was to enable him to attain it.
He became as the eagle whose home and nest is on a
peak of the Andes, and whom the trapper snares and
maims until his mighty pinions will carry him no more.
Every human being, when he entered this world, entered
it (and enters it now) stripped of grace, and wounded
and weak even in his natural powers. He was ruined ;
and ruined the worse because he might have been so
grand a work of God ! It had been better for him had
he never been raised so high. God's image was in him
by the very fact that he had a spiritual and immortal
soul ; it was in him far more brightly and excellently
by supernatural grace ; and when he fell from grace,
the blight that came over the beauty of his soul, while
it turned the supernatural likeness into hideous deform
ity, touched even the natural image, and man fell lower
from his height than he would have stood had he never
known the order of grace. Henceforth he could do no
work capable of meriting the life to come. Henceforth
the life to come was out of his reach. The best that

48 REDEMPTION.

could befall him now was to grow no worse, to do no
actual sin, and then to die and be gathered into some
lower region of God's infinite mercy, and there be nega
tively happy, perhaps, as not knowing the prize which
he had lost. But would this have come to pass ? Would
man, weak and passion-driven, have done no actual sin ?
Alas, this would have been impossible ! And so it
would have happened that all the race of Adam would
have doomed themselves to eternal pain, except the un
conscious infant who could not sin in act, and therefore
would not have been punished for actual sin. This is
what is meant by the Fall, as it regards the state and
condition of man.

But there is another side to it even more miserable
to think of. Man's destiny was closest union with his
Creator. His earthly preparation was to be the nearest
and dearest communion — grace, heavenly charity, flow
ing straight from a Father's love. The Fall made the
former impossible, and what did it substitute for the
latter? It brought guilt, estrangement, debt. The
Father's love ceased to flow, and the heavens became
dark. The child of God became a child of wrath.
The acceptable and dearly-loved creature was changed
to a criminal, whose punishment was to languish in the
winter and the storm which necessarily ensued when
the ray of heavenly complacency — itself unchanging and
unchanged — no longer reached the soul that needed it
BO sorely. And how was man to wash away this guilt,
to abolish this estrangement, to win back the forfeited
Jove of his God ?

IB there any other evil thing which follows from the

REDEMPTION. 49

Fall ? Yes, there is another. Fallen man still belongs
to God. But in his sin and his guilt God cannot *ove
him as His child ; yet His hand must hold him. God
gave him grace by no ministering angel, but imme
diately, personally. He holds him, now that he has
sinned, by ministers of wrath. There are spirits of
evil who had their trial once, and fell to rise no more.
These have a dark work to do now, above the earth and
below it. The fallen world is ruled by them, for they
have mysterious power over the hearts and souls of un-
regenerate man. The kingdom of death is theirs, es
pecially that never-ending death which essentially lies
in the deprivation of the sight of God. And they rule
the pit below, where wilful, obstinate sin, unrepented,
dwells in fires of its own lighting — necessary pain of
immortal spirits which have cut themselves off from
their only happiness. And so fallen man becomes the
slave of the Devil, to be tempted in life, to be punished
after death.6

It was from such a state as this that man had to be
saved. It was the state of the human race. And if we
add nothing concerning the varied and numberless per
sonal sins which each individual being, as he lived his
day upon the earth, was sure to add to the sin of his
origin, it is because we should merely have to deepen
the colours and to draw the lines longer out. The fruit
of the tree of Death is like the root and the trunk.

God is almighty. In His sight Sin and Death and
the Devil are of no more avail to resist Him than was

°Princeps mundi, prsepositus mortis, opens mail persuasor, sup-
plicii exactor. Augustinus in Fs. clxii. n. 8.

50 EEDEMPTION.

that primeval unsubstantial Nothing out of which He
drew the worlds. He could have ' saved* man hy a
single act of His sovereign Will. He could have ac
cepted any satisfaction or no satisfaction at all. But
this was certain — that whatever He might will or accept,
His fallen creatures could not themselves satisfy Him
to the full measure of their debt. Their debt was
beyond the power of human or angelic effort to pay. It
was a debt of treason against God. This is what sin
is. It involves a turning away of the creature from the
Creator — or, as we might say, it means that the crea
ture turns his back in contempt on the God who made
him, and who holds him in His hand ! Now, no
created thing could rigorously satisfy for this. God
might, of course, dispense with satisfaction, and take
back His sinful child, repentant, to His bosoTU. But,
as far as we can see, and on all principles of human
calculation, that offence has a kind of infinitude about
it. It is infinite, because its tendency, aim, and object
is the destruction of the Infinite ! To strike against
universal order in its least manifestation is a wrong ;
to strike against those greater ordinances on which the
universe is hinged is a greater wrong ; and to strike
against the Absolute, the Eternal, the First and Last,
without Whom is nothing, from Whom are all things,
Whose claims are utter worship, unrestricted homage,
unreserved love — this is surely a wrong which, if it fall
short of infinitude, only does so by the impotence of the
arm that strikes, not by the moderation of the consum
mation aimed at. And therefore it is a wrong which
cannot be redressed. If all men and all angels, and

REDEMPTION. 61

unimagined worlds of reasonable beings, should all
unite in contrition and in love, the incense of that uni
versal sacrifice would never reach Infinitude ; as the
smoke of a mighty fire, kindled as a beacon on the
highest hill, would mount into the air and be dissi
pated a million miles below the shining stars. As a
man may, if he please, throw himself over a precipice,
but cannot climb its scarped face back again, so man
can turn from his God, and place the span of immeasur
able wrong between God and himself ; but, build as he
may and climb as he may, he cannot touch again the
serene heights from which he fell.

0, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God ! When things are at their worst,
then the Supreme Disposer finds His opportunity. ' The
land hath mourned and languished ; Libanus is con
founded, Saron is become as a desert ; Basan and Car-
mel are shaken ; now will I rise up, saith the Lord !' 6

What men call justice is, as far as we can see,
always a law of God's providence. The reason of man
approves of justice and condemns injustice, and it is
impossible therefore that God Himself does not do so ;
although it is not true that man can always rightly
decide what is just and what is unjust. The wisdom of
the Uncreated therefore, viewing the whole scheme of
things, not from a point on the earth, but from the un
clouded heights of the firmament of His own over-ruling
insight, saw that it was better — or rather, we ought to
say, saw that it was good — that man should pay his
debt, and not be simply pardoned ; that he should make
8 Isaias TT-riii. 9, 10.

52 REDEMPTION.

reparation to the full, and not receive his birthright
back unless he bought it. And from all ages the
whole Divine plan lay ready in the resources of Omni
potence. There was to come a Man ; and that Man.
was to be such a one as to be able to pay the in
finite price — to scale the infinite height — to win back
the inaccessible prize. He was to satisfy God's justice
to the full ! He was to be a Man ; yet not a mere Man.
' No (simple) brother shall redeem ; (yet) a man shall
redeem.'7 The Kedeemer was to be God Himself —
made Man ! And when that Man, coming into the
world a little child, breathed the firsf prayer of adora
tion from the depth of His human soul, that brief act,
even by itself, was a sufficient reparation for all the
infinite outrage which the great original crime and the
unmeasured sins of generations had wrought upon the
majesty of God. For that act was the act of the
Infinite Himself ! . . . . This is what God designed in
the Incarnation of the Word.

And yet (it may here occur to us) there was still a
more profound sense in which the All-Wise desired to
' fulfil all justice' in the great dispensation. Suppose
that sin had never been. Suppose that man, born
in grace, had used all his faculties, from his birth and
through his life, to worship and love his Maker and
Last End. Suppose that man's life had been all
good, and not only good, but supernatural in its good
ness. What would all the works of man amount
to? If there are beings in distant starry worlds
who can note the dim light of this earth of ours,
7 Ps. xlviii. 8.

REDEMPTION. 53

yet all their gazing will never let them know the great
things that man builds and boasts of; the towers and
spires and pyramids man thinks so great will not
roughen to them the smooth and shining disc which
moves so noiselessly in space. Grace is a mighty en
gine of grand deeds ; but even a deed of Grace, and all
the works of Grace piled up in Babel-towers, are only
creature-acts, and therefore farther from God than our
poor calculations can reckon, because infinitely far.
Yet, in some sense, God's creatures owe Him an adora
tion which shall be worthy of Himself. David, as he
wandered in rocky wildernesses in the times of storms
and floods, heard ' deep calling to deep'8 with awful
voice. To be a ' creature' is to be a great abyss ; a
'deep,' with a persistent mighty cry; and the cry is
one of huge impotence, to render to the Maker any
return worthy of that sovereign creative act by which
the creature has its being. The abyss of nothingness
cries out everlastingly to the abyss of All-Existence :
What shall I give back to the Lord for all He hath
given unto me? The cry has gone forth in every tongue
used by reasoning man through all the ages. And
such efforts as they were capable of they made from
time to time, to give some return to God ; prayer, ob
lation, penance, sacrifice. And the cry was not, after
all, the voice of mere despair ; hope was heard in it as
well. For all nations, and chiefly the chosen race who
knew the living God, knew and felt that, although their
own efforts were nothingness, yet One was coming
Whose worship would be worthy. ' Sacrifice and obla-
• Pa. xli. 8.

54 REDEMPTION.

tion Thou wouldst not ;' they were unworthy ; .' then I
said, Behold I come.9 And when He came, then, for
the first time since human nature had existed, a human
act of worship rose to the eternal Throne, fully worthy
of the Godhead. . . This, again, is what God designed
in the Incarnation of the "Word. There are the holy
and the learned who speculate, and say, that even if
the world had done no sin, still the Word would have
taken flesh, for man's love, and to offer to God a
homage worthy of His Majesty.

It is with these thoughts uppermost in our mind
that we should read the details in the Gospel of the
life and Passion of Jesus Christ. The mere fact that
the Word was made Flesh, and that, so Incarnate, He
offered up to the Father the least of His acts or
thoughts, was enough, as we have seen, to satisfy God's
justice for sin, and also to render to God a worship
worthy of Himself. But, as you know, the actual Re
demption was wrought out, not by one act, but by
many. Redemption was given to man by a life of pain
ful work, tending to, and ending in, a great Sacrifice.

The world knew what Sacrifice meant long before
the coming of the great High-priest. The sense of sin,
or the sense of dependence, had kept alive the light of
the primitive revelation, and all nations, cultured and
barbarous alike, used sacrifice in this shape or in that.
Sometimes it was the offering and destruction of the
fruits of the earth and of the food that supported the
life of man. More frequently it was the destruction of
animal life — the shedding of blood; and there were
• P§. xlis. 7.

REDEMPTION. 55

peoples, and are now, which offer in detestable rites of
superstition the blood of their own fellow-creatures.
An act of sacrifice meant worship ; it expresses depend
ence, supplication, thanksgiving. Man, recognising
that he belonged to God, took some one of God's crea
tures, and, substituting it for himself, destroyed it, in
symbolical acknowledgment of what he owed himself.
He destroyed it, or so changed it that the change was
equivalent to a destruction ; he slew animals, pouring
out their blood, or burning them with fire that the smoke
might mount to the heavens ; he took bread and left it
till the elements decayed it ; he took wine and poured
it out upon the earth. For all sacrifice requires this
destruction or change of the victim ; it is offered as an
acknowledgment of supreme dominion, to no other than
the Lord of life and death. For all the thousands of
years before the Incarnation the heathen offered his
sacrifices, knowing not what he really did ; for all the
years of the Old Covenant the axe fell, and the blood
reddened the ground, and the altars smoked, and the
Prophets cried out for the time when the ' Sacrifice of
Justice' should be accepted,10 and the clean oblation
offered from the rising to the setting of the sun.11 A
Man came Who was to offer Himself. He was well-
fitted to substitute Himself for the human race. He
was their real and lawful Head, by virtue of the awful
dignity of His Person — He was Adam in the new order
of justifying grace. He was the natural Mediator be
tween God and Man — being Himself both God and
Man. And it was the eternal counsel, backed loyally
10 Ps. 1. 21. " Malachy i. 2.

§6 REDEMPTION.

by His own human will, that the sins of all should he
laid upon Him, as the Priest of old laid his hands on
the head of the emissary goat ; that He should be made
' sin' and 'a curse' for us; and that He should be the
price and ransom of our lost souls. It was not that God
punished the innocent for the guilty. God inspired
the human will of Jesus Christ to take on Himself
the great Priesthood, and to become the great Victim of
propitiation. And He entered the world for that very
end. The Cross stood up before Him, at the end of a
vista of bitter things. He walked to meet it, as a sol
dier marches to victory. His victory was to be His
death. He was Priest by the unction of the Divinity.
He was Victim because He willed it. And laying His
life down on the wood of the Cross, He accomplished a
Sacrifice which left no jot or tittle of the claims of
Justice unsatisfied.

Just as the Incarnation of the Word of God is the
.central stone of Christianity, so the shedding of the
blood of the Incarnate Word is the culminating point
of the Incarnation. Consider what it was. It was not
the mere out-pouring of blood from the veins of a Man ;
it was the suffering and the death which -accompanied
that blood-shedding ; it was the whole pain of nerve
and heart and soul of which it was the outward mani
festation. But it was much more even than this ; it
was the acceptance and offering of all this by a free
human will. Blood-shedding, pain, sorrow, are nothing
meritorious in themselves ; it is the rational choice and
acceptance of them, through grace, that makes them
pleasing to God; for all worship and service of God

REDEMPTION. 57

must be fixst of all a free act of the heart and soul, de
liberately intended or accepted. ' He was offered be
cause He willed it,'12 says the Prophet in that sombre
and plaintive chapter in which he paints the Man of
Sorrows eight hundred years before He came. And
this act of the human rational will, elevated to infinite
worthiness by the personal union of the Godhead, was
what redeemed the world. This is what is signified by
the symbol of the Holy Cross. The Cross of Calvary
once grew in an eastern forest, and the axe of the wood
man cut it down and shaped it. It was fashioned into
an instrument for executing criminals — the worst kind
of gallows that the world then knew. The beams of it
were borne to the accursed spot outside the gate, and
they were laid across one another among the skulls and
the graves of Calvary. And a Man was laid upon it,
and the cruel nails were driven through His hands and
through His feet ; and then it rose into the air, the
Victim hanging to it, the red streams staining it ; and
from that moment forth the world knew only one Cross,
the Holy Cross of Jesus Christ. It stood three days,
and then it fell upon the ground, and men lost sight of
it — but found it again and treasured it. But to the
world, to the soul, to history, it still stands upon Cal
vary, whilst its image is multiplied over all lands. The
Spirit sent its Preachers over the world ; they were to
preach ' Jesus, and Him crucified.'13 Men signed its
sign upon their foreheads and their hearts. It stood
high up on tower and lofty column, on basilica of the
Empire, on minster and cathedral of the "West. Kings

12 Isaias liii. 7. 1J 1 Cor. ii. 2.

68 REDEMPTION.

wore it in their crowns, and poor men kissed it where
it hung in churches, or knelt to it where it rose by the
wayside. It was the text to beat down the pride of this
world, and to cheer men's sorrow and transform their
suffering into joyful imitation. For by it, and by what
it signified, men knew God had taken away the sin of
the world. The Heaven of bliss was opened again.
The grace of supernatural life was ready. There was
remedy for frailty, for passion, for temptation. And
the Father of All once more looked with complacency
upon the world of men's souls. They were again His
children, the heirs to His bliss, partakers of His
nature.14 And the enemy of mankind, the dread ser
vant of necessary wrath, to whom man must fall if he
flings himself down the steep of perdition — the Evil
Spirit was held in, that he should no longer hurt. Man
had, in a certain sense, been his, by free' consent ;
but the Blood of Christ had ransomed him. For, after
all, it was as the minister of serene Almighty Justice
that the Devil held his power upon the soul of man.
Where deadly sin is, there the Evil One is allowed to
dwell and call that soul his own. Let sin vanish, and
as the birds of night fly when the sun appears, so the
Devil's time is up, and he must flee away.

The Creator's justice satisfied, man's guilt washed
away, Heaven opened, grace purchased, and hell con
quered — these are the fruits of the Incarnation, and
especially of the death, of Jesus Christ. The eclipse
passed away from the earth. The dark shadow, the
deadly chill, the ghastliness and horror — they passed,
M 1 Peter i. 5.

REDEMPTION. 59

and the ' Brightness of eternal Light' shone upon the
redeemed world.

And when we have said all this, it seems to me we
have not even come near the full explanation of what
Kedemption is. We have spoken of Justice and Satis
faction and Remission. We have hardly mentioned
one other word, which yet says more than all else
that could be said. John the Apostle, rapt in the
visions ofPatmos, knew better what Redemption was
when he spoke in rapture of Jesus Christ, ' Prince of
the kings of the earth, Who hath loied us and washed
us from our sins in His own Blood.'15 Paul the Preacher
knew it, when he cried out, ' I live in the faith of
the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for
me.'16 And when Peter, speaking to the Churches con
cerning their Saviour, said, 'Whom having not seen
you love,11 He lets us know in that word how the heart
of man should think and speak of salvation. Just as
Creation can only be explained by Love, so must we
say of the Incarnation. The Infinite — Who is utterly
infinite, and absolutely beyond all want, or need, or af
finity, or relation to anything outside Himself — never
theless created a universe of creatures and pronounced
them good. The complacency of His measureless Love,
traversing the mighty spaces between Himself and His
creation, rested in some mysterious way on the things
He had made. Loving all the works of His hands, yet
He loved rational beings with the love of person to per
son, so that man was capable of being His friend, and,
by grace, His especial child. Most men do not reflect
" Apoc. i. 6. w Gal. ii 20. " 1 Peter i. 8.

60 BEDEMPTION.

much on this; but if they did they would see that of all
mysteries this is perhaps the most inexplicable — that
the Infinite can love a finite creature. And if Love
was wonderful in Creation, it is still more wonderful in
Reparation. It is the work of a Person on behalf of
persons — of Jesus on behalf of you and of me ! It is a
work of immense power and stupendous interposition —
but it is not a mechanical contrivance. It is a Divine
plan — but the plan of a dear friend to save one whom
he loves even too well. The infinite boon of eternal life
He does not fling to us as if He condescended to us ;
but He seems to step from His throne and to come to
the doer of the Heavens, and to lead us with imperial
hand as honoured guests through His courts and His
chambers until He places us in the hall of Presence,
near the footstool of His eternal throne. The saving
of our souls is a work He does with His own hands. It
is not a ministry that He directs — not a message that
He sends — not an alms that He throws to us ; it is a
rite, a ceremony, a grand and solemn pageant, in which
He Himself is the chief and foremost figure. It is a
princely negotiation which He concludes with treasure
coined in the treasury of His own Sacred Heart. ' Not
with corruptible things were ye redeemed — with gold or
with silver — but with the precious blood as of an im
maculate Lamb.'18 The heavenly Father does not send
a servant out to greet the returning Prodigal. Ah! He
has looked and longed for him Himself; and when He
catches sign of the poor broken creature on the road
afar off, He hastens down to meet him, and not before
18 1 Peter i. 19.

REDEMPTION. 61

He has fallen on his neck and kissed him does He put
the vesture of grace upon him or kill the fatted calf.
' Dilexit et lavit !' It was the Love of the Sacred Heart
which wrought the Redemption.

And if the love of Jesus Christ for us is the first
element in His work for the world, reciprocally, our
love for Him is what He intended chiefly to win. Re
mission of sin means Grace, and Grace, as we shall see
in the following Lecture, lives in our hearts by active
Love ; so that Redemption means Love or Charity, and
by Love or Charity it becomes ours. Now Love was
always the first and greatest commandment. As such
it was rendered possible (in a higher sense) and easy
(in every sense) by the Incarnation. But the Incarna
tion seems to have done more than this. Has it not,
in some degree, even changed the character of man's
love for God ? Let us recall the figure of Jesus Christ,
and remember that ' this Man is God;' and then it will
not be difficult to understand how the Incarnation has
brought a new softness and a human character to man's
relations with the Infinite. ' Great is the mystery of
piety; God is manifest in the Flesh.'19 That human
figure was meant to speak to your hearts. It is a say
ing of St. Alphonsus Liguori — that Saint whose sayings
seem especially meant to teach the present self-sufficient
age the simplicity of the true Gospel spirit — that the
coming of God in the Flesh is meant to make mankind
love God not only with the love of appreciation, but
with the love of tenderness. Thenceforward the love of
the soul for its God was to be not merely an acknow-
18 1 Tim. iii. 16.

62 REDEMPTION.

ledgment of God's majesty, nor a preference of Him
before all other things whatsoever; but it was to be
also that spontaneous, warm, consuming emotion which
those always feel who love with heart as well as soul ;
such a feeling as the mother has for her child ; such
an exaltation as makes the martyr forget the fire that
slowly burns him to death. And the Incarnation has
actually brought this about. Does not the thought of
Jesus Christ — the thought of the crib and of Nazareth
and of Galilee and of Calvary — fill the heart with ten
derness and make the pulse beat with rapid emotion ?
Does not the very name of Jesus fill the soul, and even
the sense, as with melody, sweetness, and light ? Ask
those who have thought much on these things ; ask the
silent cloistered hearts who have taken the right way
to find out how sweet is the Lord ; ask the simple and
the poor, the childlike and the humble ; ask the best
and purest of mankind during all the Christian cen
turies. The human figure of Jesus Christ, with all its
moving surroundings, first intensifies Divine Love, and
then preserves it in its intensity. The picture of Jesus
steadies the wandering thought and holds the fickle
heart ; it makes prayer more fervent, and intention
more pure, and detachment from earthly things more
easy. Thus the stern ordinance of eternal Right seems
to disappear in the soft radiance of infinite Love.
' Mercy and Truth have met each other ; Justice and
Peace have kissed.'20

The Word made Flesh, then, is the mystery of
God's Love and of man's tenderness. And the deepest
20 Ps. Ixxxiv. 11.

REDEMPTION. 63

hue of that many-coloured Love is the red of the
Passion. The glorious Sun of the charity of Jesus
Christ set in such a crimson light that the whole world
was flooded with it evermore. We have to add to the
mystery of His coming the deeper mystery of His
suffering. Why should God have wished to suffer in
order to redeem us ? One prayer, or one drop of Pre
cious Blood, would have satisfied the justice of eternity
for ten thousand worlds. Why, then, should He choose
to suffer, and to suffer so terribly ? Was it to teach us
and to leave us an example ? But why should He have
thought fit to try to induce us to suffer ? What virtue
is there in suffering ?

Here is one of the world's lessons. It would have
gone on many a year, and many a hundred years, be
fore it found out the mystery of suffering. But the
God-Man has taught it. Shall we guess why ? The
Holy Scriptures do not allow us to doubt that He chose
to suffer through His love for us. And if it is difficult
to see how what the world would call ' unnecessary'
suffering is a proof of love, let us consider this : that
an act of loving kindness depends for its value upon
the intensity of the voluntary emotion called love, and
that the emotions of love in the human heart are always
enormously affected by pain and suffering. Suffering
may kill love, or it may quicken it a hundredfold ; but
it will certainly do one or the other. All who have
suffered know that it is of the nature of pain and an
guish to intensify acts of the will. A man suffering a
severe torture in the depths of the night will either
make a wild resistance, or he will form acts of intensest,

64 REDEMPTION.

tenderest loving resignation. A great heart cannot be
moderate when it suffers. Bead this in the sufferings
of your Saviour. His very flesh was itself a pain. The
tears of His infancy, the toils of His boyhood, the pri
vations of His manhood, the torments of His Passion,
are at once the outward proofs and the fostering causes
of a prolonged series of loving acts ; they show the ten
sion that was on the Sacred Heart through all the
years of its mortality, and the Divine fragrance of that
continued love of us which, like the odours of the flower
that is trodden by the way, is sweetest when it rises
from a crushed Heart. And they teach the world the
grand and necessary lesson, that love of God is the
most perfect work of the human heart, and that there
is nothing that can elevate, purify, and intensify love
so thoroughly as suffering. ' Christ hath suffered for
us, leaving you an example, that you follow His steps.'21
It is a curious fact that, although there never was
a time when men and women were more prodigal of
tenderness to created beings, such as wife, or husband,
or child, or dependent, yet there never was a time when
they put so little of their heart into the love of their
God. God is hardly a Person to them ; He is a part of
a system ; He is a Truth ; He is a far-off First Cause.
The world will not remember that 'the Word was
made Flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His
glory.'22 The proudest, richest, cleverest man amongst
us all has nothing left him, when he realises that, but
to kneel down and be a little child. ' I thank Thee, O
Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because Thou hast
21 1 Peter ii. 21. M John i. 14.

REDEMPTION. 65

hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and
revealed them to little ones. Yea, Father, for so it
hath seemed good in Thy sight!'23 To kneel at the
crib, to kiss the crucifix, to follow the stations of the
Passion , to weep for the sufferings of Jesus ; it is not
the wise and tho prudent that know the wisdom and
the prudence of this.

=3 Lnkex. 21.

IV.

SANCTIFICATI01N

WE may thank the mercy of God that there are as yet
comparatively few in this country who have accepted
the destructive conclusions of extreme nationalism, and
come to look upon our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
as a mere man, with human ignorance and human im
perfection. But it is true, nevertheless, that the Ka-
tionalistic criticism which is now so common has had
a great effect even on the multitudes of those who con
sider themselves believers. Belief which does not rest
on definite teaching cannot he very steady. Those who
profess that they take their religion from the Scripture
alone, really take it from the preachers, the writers, the
newspapers, who comment on the Scripture ; and as the
Scripture cannot speak and contradict those who put
their own interpretations on the Scripture, it is evident
that the talk of clever and plausible men will have
its effect by degrees. You can hardly note when the
autumn begins ; but when the leaves begin to fall by
twos and threes, and the tree to look dry and unlovely,
you know that the first great blast that comes to herald
the winter will strew the ground with wreck and leave
the forest bare. So, it is to be feared, religious opinion
in this country is not so far from a denial of Tesus

8ANOTIFIOATION. 67

Christ as it was thirty years ago. And one proof of
this is the undoubted fact that Jesus Christ is coming
to be looked upon more and more as a past event and
not as a living fact. We reverence Him ; we specu-
latively admit His claims to Divine worship ; we write
plaintive books about Him ; we travel to the Holy Land
and sketch the cities or the spots where He lived and
suffered ; but do we pray to Him ? Do we study His
life with a view to imitation ? Do we weep over His
Passion ? Do we believe in the existence of Grace,
actually at our hands, and really efficacious through
His Headship ? An Eastern people possess, or pos
sessed till lately, a sovereign secluded in a palace,
powerless, without influence on the nation, but rever
enced with almost God-like honour. And the tone of
popular Christianity in Protestant countries is — to say
everything reverent and honourable about our Lord, to
speak of Him with the vague magniloquence with which
one speaks of heroic ages and mythical heroes, and all
the time to live as if His memory were all He had left
behind, and His example all that He had given to man.

St. Paul, in one of the pregnant sentences in which
he has traced out thoughts for other men to develop
into systems, says of Jesus Christ, ' He was delivered
up for our sins, and rose again for our justification.'1
In the first member of this sentence he expresses the
great truth of Redemption, which we have already con
sidered ; in the second he refers to Sanctification, which
we are now to enter upon.

The theory, or rather the Faith, of the Catholic
1 Rom. iv. 25.

68 SANOTIFIOATION.

Church is, that our Saviour has been carrying on His
work of Sanctification ever since He rose from the dead ;
and that as long as there is a soul to be saved He will
continue to carry it on. In one sense, His work was
completed at His death ; man was redeemed, the whole
price was paid, and all grace and glory purchased. But
in another sense it was still to be done. ' He rose
again for our justification ;' that is, He rose again and
liveth for ever, in order to apply His dearly-bought
Redemption to every soul of man, by the means which
we shall presently mention.

It will give point to our inquiries as to what
Sanctification is if we notice the prevailing errors on
the subject. It would be a very difficult task to present
in a brief form the fluctuations and contradictions of
non - Catholics in the doctrines of Justification and
Sanctification since the time when Luther first began
to talk of fiduciary apprehension, and Calvin to reason
away Free-will. There is probably not a Protestant in
the country who would hold by the words of any one of
the so-called Eeformers, from Wickliffe to Beza. And
this makes controversy very difficult ; for you have no
sooner stated an opinion and refuted it than your oppo
nent says it is none of his. Still there are two views
on our present subject which are more or less common
in our own time and country ; and these may be roughly
called Imputation and Anti- Sacerdotalism. 1 think I am
not wrong in saying that there are many who consider
Justification to be nothing more than God's way of re
garding the soul. A 'justified' man is not changed in
heart, or altered in any quality of his soul. God con-

SANCTIPIOATION. 69

aiders or reputes him 'justified/ and that is all. And
Sherefore the term Sanctification in their language is
Unnecessary and misleading. No one is 'holy;* it is
only that God deigns to repute him so, and to cover
the filthiness of his sins, which nevertheless, still re
mains. As to the internal feelings, views, or aspira
tions necessary or fitting in order to be secure of im
puted Justification, we do not find many men who
think alike. Opinions range over a widely-graduated
scale ; from those who condemn all internal acts except
a blind unreasoning ' assurance*, to those who fully
accept St. James's doctrine that Faith without works
is dead in itself.

The other view which now largely prevails is Anti-
Sacerdotalism ; that is to say, the view that no minis
try on the part of man is necessary for our justification,
but that it is a matter solely between the individual and
his God. It would do away with priests, and substitute
preachers, readers, advisers, or superintendents. It
would abolish all Sacraments and other ordinances con
veying grace to the soul. Above all, it is especially and
bitterly opposed to the doctrine of a Perpetual Sacrifice
of the New Law, declaring that Christ offered Sacrifice
once for all.

The Catholic doctrine of Sanctification, as gathered
from the Scriptures, as expounded in St. Augustine,
and definitely laid down in the Council of Trent, is in
direct opposition to both these opinions. We hold that
in Justification there is implied real inherent Sanctifi
cation of the justified soul ; and we maintain that there
is a ' ministry' of grace, or, in other words, a system of

70 SANCTIFICATION.

external ordinances administered by men, on which Jus
tification and Sanctification in ordinary course depend.
We believe that men are appointed * dispensers of God's
mysteries,' and that their dispensations work real changes
in the soul.

We have already noticed, in speaking of Redemp
tion, that the supernatural order in which man was
placed when God created him implied, first, a super
natural end — that is, the * face-to-face' vision of God ;
and secondly, a supernatural gift in the present life, to
enable him to arrive at that glorious and beatific vision.
This gift is Grace. At the Fall, human nature lost the
privilege of Grace. And it was the work of the Re
deemer to restore that privilege, by satisfying to the
full the offended majesty of God. By Redemption,
therefore, human nature became once more capable of
Grace. By the Fall it had been stripped, weakened,
degraded, but not utterly destroyed. Reason, Free-will,
and the other powers of man's spirit were not annihi
lated, though fettered or darkened. And now the chains
were taken off, and the prison-vaults burst open, and
the freed captive lay awaiting the rising of the sun.

There is no word more frequently used by our Lord
and His Apostles to signify the effect which His com
ing has wrought upon the souls of men than the word
Life. The two most striking facts in the order of phy
sical things are Life and Death. Life means motion,
beauty, harmony, and joy ; Death is silence, decay, and
horror. And it is no wonder, therefore, that the spi
ritual state of the world before our Lord's coming is
called in the Scriptures by the terrible name of Death.

SANCTIFICATION,

71

Holy Zachary, in the canticle in which he closes, as it
were, the songs of the generations of longing and hoping
Prophets, sees the nations of the world, like the silent
tenants of the caves down in the gloomy valleys round
Jerusalem, sitting in * darkness and in the shadow of
Death.'2 It was the Death which had been threatened
and incurred even in Eden itself.3 It was the Death
which Isaias describes in his vision of the sin of the
world, when he sees the souls of men lying in ' dark
places as dead men.'4 It was the Death which Ezechiel
was shown when the hand of the Lord led him forth
and set him down in the midst of a plain that was full
of bones— bones dead, marrowless, and dry— strewn
white upon the plain where armies had fought and men
had slain each other. And as the dry bones lived again
when the words of power were said, so, in far-off pro
mise, came the vision of a time when the Lord should
'open the sepulchres' of His people, and 'bring them
out of their graves.'5 No one can read the Epistles of
St. Paul, especially that to the Romans and the two to
the Corinthians, without being struck with the mourn
ful repetition of the word Death. By sin came Death ;
Death was king from Adam to Moses ; men brought
forth fruit that was dead ; man's body was the body of
Death; his whole being spoke of Death, answered of
Death, and the odour of Death was in him.6

It was to raise the dead that Jesus Christ took flesh.
He stood before the sepulchre of humanity as He stood

• Luke i. 79. ' Gen- U- 17'

« Isaias lix. 10. 5 Ezechiel xxxvii. 13.

• Rom. v. 12, 14, vii, 5 ; I Cor. xv. 21 ; 2 Cor. i. 9, ii. 16.

72 SANCTIFICATION.

over the grave of Lazarus, and He bade them roll the
stone away; and He spoke words that were mighty with
the tears of His prayer and the blood of His suffering.
The dead came forth, and casting off the grave-clothes
that bound him, knelt at the feet of His Saviour, and
at the hand of grace and power was once more a strong
living man.

For the grandest kind of Life that ever can live
upon this earth was brought back to it by Jesus Christ.
It was brought back; for it had been given to man
when he was placed in Paradise, and then Death had
destroyed it. It was the supernatural Life of the soul.

Life is chiefly known by motion and action. The
stubborn rock and the senseless clod have no life, for
they have no self-motion ; and as they never live, so
they never die. Far down in the sea-depths, where
light can hardly fathom, organism begins in rudiment
ary forms, and shapeless tangled masses grow and de
cay. The trees and the flowers have their life of growth
and change ; and they have their death, when they
wither, fall, and rot. Then a higher kind of Life ap
pears, and there are beings which do not simply grow,
but feel, and in their activity are responsive to their
feeling. The tissues, the earthy matters which make
them up, are traversed through and through by an im
palpable essence — a kind of soul, which mocks at all
the efforts of the student of nature to seize and analyse
it. And when this animal Life departs, there is no
mistaking the presence of Death. The withering of a
flower is sad, and the eye turns sadly away from it ;
and when, in passing through a wood, we come sud-

SANCTIFICATION. 73

denly upon the stripped and white skeleton of a great
tree, we start perhaps ; but there is far greater sadness
and horror when some creature with blood in its veins,
with sense and inarticulate language, lays down its
strength or its swiftness on the earth, and closes its
darkening eyes. Its life was higher, and its death is
a greater shock.

But the Life of growth and of sense is only the
threshold of Life. Human life is altogether a different
world. Man seems to live two lives — the life of Sense
and the life of Spirit. In his life of Sense and physical
motion he resembles the animals, and his bodily frame
seems formed upon the model of theirs. But his Spirit !
An essence which is so fine and uncompounded that it
cannot suffer dissolution or decay; an energy whose
action rises to the heights of Being and penetrates to
the depths of Possibility; a substance whose powers are
Thought, that can see things through and round about,
and Will, that can exercise free choice ; a fount whose
very redundancy and overflow, after rising to its spi
ritual acts, fills all the springs of sense and corporal
action, so that the whole man is one being, and can lay
claim to all he does : this is the Spirit of man. Its
Maker is God ; and it is not made as God forms bodies
and things physical, by allowing the laws of nature to
hold on their course, but each Spirit is the ' breath of
life,' separately breathed into the mortal frame by God's
special creative act. And it is God's image and like
ness; it is the created similitude of His substance; for
as God knows and wills (although He is the Infinite),
and as there is nothing higher than knowing and will-

74 SANCTIFICATION.

ing, so the Spirit of man, having the gift of Knowledge
and of Will, is a finite and created likeness of the Un
created Infinite.

Is there possible for man a higher Life than this ?

To any one who did not know God's Revelation, it
would seem that there was not. And yet there must he ;
for men had souls and bodies, and they thought and felt,
during all the ages when the curse was on the world,
and when the Prophets were crying Death. There must
be ; for when Jesus Christ stood among the Jews of Je
rusalem in the throng of a festival-day, He cried out
and complained that they would not come to Him that
they ' might have Life ;'7 and later, when the crowds
were round Him again, He told them He was come that
all men 'might have Life, and have it more abund
antly.'8 And the answer is, that Jesus Christ came to
give us the Life of GRACE, which is as much higher
than all other life vouchsafed to man or angel as the
heavens are higher than the earth.

The word which is rendered into English by ' Grace'
means literally ' Favour/ and sometimes * a Gift.' And
it is because it is by excellence the gift or favour of God
to the soul that the Life given by Jesus Christ is called
Grace. For we are not speaking just now of particular
favours or graces, such as Almighty God may bestow
on man from time to time, but of that grand gift of
Sanctifying Grace which makes man pleasing in the
sight of God. That such a gift exists can be doubted
by no one who does so much as follow the passages of
Holy Scripture brought forward in this exposition.

1 John v. 40. 8 Ib. x. 10.

SANCTIFICATION. 75

If some gigantic animal of ages long past had wan
dered over the plain and through the forest, until he
stood beneath the sheer and inaccessible height of a
rocky wall, which lifted itself to the clouds — and if some
Providence, for ends of its own, had seconded the wist
ful yearnings of the creature, and given it mighty wings
to fly up and be at rest — this would have been a work of
power and miracle. And to know what is Grace we
must remember what is Glory ; for Grace is the means
to Glory. Our supernatural Glory or Bliss, prepared
for us by a loving God, is the sight of Himself ' face to
face,' as St. Paul says ; ' even as He is,' in the words of
St. John. For the human Spirit, grand as it is, to be
able to look upon its Creator so, it must be furnished
with a special gift or power. (This we have already
mentioned when speaking on Redemption.) But since
the Spirit has to live a mortal life of conflict and merit
before its Bliss is granted to it, therefore, in order to
raise the whole tenor of this temporal trial to a level
with the end of it, the Gift is begun in this present life.
So that Grace is no part of man's nature. It is a pure
gift. It is the wings on which the Spirit flies, which
otherwise would have painfully measured steps upon the
earth. It is a gift direct from God. No creature, not
even the highest and brightest Seraph, could give you
or me, as of himself, the grace to say ' Lord Jesus !'

This supreme gift of Grace may, as is evident, be
looked at from two points of view; that is to say, either
as a motion and assistance on the part of God to the
doing of good, or as a permanent state of the Spirit.
As we are not here to enter into special questions, it is

76

SANCTIFIOATION.

not necessary to insist upon this distinction. We shall
consider Grace chiefly as a state of the Soul ; for what
is true of Grace as an habitual state is substantially
true also of Grace as an actual motion.

The life, which is Grace, begins where the death,
which is Sin, comes to an end. Justification from sin
is a real and true ' new birth' of the soul. In the pro
phecies of old God promised to 'wash us, and we should
be whiter than snow' — to blot out our sins — to give us
a clean heart and a renewed spirit.9 A new birth means
a new life ; and just as natural birth is the beginning
of the natural life, with all its motion, activity, and
beauty, so the spiritual birth, that is, the conferring of
justifying Grace, is the beginning of a spiritual or
supernatural life, in which the acts, movements, and
comeliness of the regenerated Spirit are supernatural
and meritorious of life everlasting.10 'He hath saved
us by the bath of regeneration' (the Apostle is referring
to Baptism), ' and of renewal by the Holy Ghost, whom
He hath poured upon us abundantly, that being justified
by His Grace, we may become heirs of life everlasting.'11
Thus the Soul which had been dead begins to live. The
prodigal child has fallen at his Father's feet, and the
' first robe' has been brought forth with speed and
given him to wear as his own— that 'robe of justice' of
which Isaias spoke ;12 that ' wedding-robe' which must
be worn by every wedding-guest.18 The unction of the
Holy Spirit is poured profusely upon his head, as on
some proud and noble friend whom a King invites to

• Ps. 1. 11, 12 ; Ezechiel xxxvi. 25. »« John iii. 5.

11 Titus iii. 5. '* Isaias Ixi. 10. *3 Matt. xxii. 12.

SANCTIFICATION. 77

his banquet.14 From being darkness he has become
light. From death he has passed into life. He is now
pleasing to God, the adopted son of God, the heir of
Heaven ;16 he is even a partaker of God's own nature,16
because he has the beginning, the promise, the sub
stance, of what he hopes for, the blessed Vision of God ;
and as none but God Himself can naturally look
upon God's face, therefore he who holds the gift of
Grace, which will change, when the veil is lifted, to the
gift of Glory, is, in some sense, a sharer in the very
nature of God. All other earthly life is little and low
compared with such a Life as this. The sanctified
soul lives on a level to which mere human nature may
perhaps faintly aspire, but which it has no powers to
reach. There was once that Angels came into the
plain of Sodom, and took out Lot, and bore him away
into the mountains — the serene mountains where safety
dwelt, where the air was purer and the heavens nearer,
and the foe farther away. So man, by Grace, is taken
hold of and carried away out of the fire and the sulphur,
the darkness and the horror, of the land that lies low
down and is to perish; and he is set in a mountain
region where everything is higher — the end higher, the
means higher, the thoughts more pure, the feet more
swift, to walk in the light, with the mists below him,
until the greater Light dawns and Faith is changed
into Vision.

And this life of Grace is the life which Jesus Christ
has restored to the world by His coming. It is un
necessary to insist upon the fact that all the Grace we

14 2 Cor. ii. 21 ; Titus iii. 6. " Rom. viii. 17. 1S 2 Peter i. 4.

78 BANOTIFICATION.

have or can hope for comes to us through Jesus Christ.
'Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ, as He chose us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and unspotted in His sight in charity ; who hath pre
destinated us unto the adoption of Sons (through Jesus
Christ) unto Himself; according to the purpose of His
will; unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which
He hath filled us with Grace in His beloved Son, in
whom we have Redemption through His blood, the re
mission of Sins, according to the riches of His grace.'17
Remission of Sins, fulness of Grace, cleanness, holiness,
Sonship — these are the effects of our Lord's coming,
as summed up in this splendid passage of St. Paul.
If we endeavour briefly to understand how these gifts
of Grace come to us by the Incarnation, we shall at once
advance our purpose, which is the realising of the Per
son and Work of Jesus Christ, and see more clearly
what a divine reality is the life of Grace, of which the
busy world knows so little.

It must be remembered, then, that Jesus Christ,
our Lord and Saviour, ' rose again' for our justification.
His work was not over when He died. By His life and
death it is true that He really and truly merited our
justification. He merited glory, exaltation, and wor
ship for Himself as man ; He merited every good gift
for us. In the well-known phrase of Holy Scripture
recalling the repeated and figurative sacrifices of the
time of expectation, He was an offering and a victim to
" Eph. i. 3-7.

8ANOTIFICATION. 79

God * unto the odour of sweetness.'18 All was through
His Blood, as St. Paul has just told us. But all this
infinite store of merit was not at once given to every
individual man. This is evident, first of all from the
first principles of reason; because if every man has
always and inalienably the merits of Christ, then all
acts of man are useless ; Christ need not have sent
Apostles; the Apostles need not have preached; the
Scriptures need not have been written ; the Church
need not have existed. And if good acts in such a case
would be useless, bad ones would be harmless, and we
should have to subscribe to the most anti-social doctrine
that error has ever produced, the doctrine that no sin is
sin to a justified man. For which reason, every think
ing man in these days is ready to admit that some act
on our part (inspired and assisted by grace, no doubt)
is necessary before the Justification of Christ becomes
our own. And this is only what the Scripture affirms
in all those numerous passages wherein Faith, Baptism,
Conversion, and other works are described as accom
panying Justification. Jesus Christ rose from the
grave to sanctify the souls of men. He was ' full of
Grace and truth,'19 that is, of true Grace. The ancient
Law, with its needy elements, its sterile rites, which
conferred no grace upon those who assisted thereat, had
passed away, and Christ had come, full of real sanctify
ing Grace. He was the antithesis of Moses : the Law
came by Moses ; but by Jesus Christ, Grace and truth.20
He was that fountain of which so many Prophets had
sung — the fountain which Isaias saw turning the desert
18 Eph. v. 2, » John i. 14. 2« John i. 17.

80 SANCTIFICATION.

into a watered garden ; the fountain of Salvation, from
which the people were to drink with joy; the foun
tain which Joel saw pouring its waters from the Lord's
House, and which Zachary beheld open to all the house
of Israel. He was the Fountain of which He Himself
said, ' He that shall drink of the water that I will give
him shall not thirst for ever ; but the water that I will
give him shall become in him a fountain of water
springing up unto life everlasting.'21 And let us notice
here how under the image of living and flowing water,
an image so full of significance to the dwellers in
Syrian hills and deserts, our Lord Himself, like His
Prophets before Him, described that living Gift which
is Grace in this life and Glory in the life everlasting.

Now the Grace of Jesus Christ, both that which
His Humanity possessed by virtue of its union with the
Godhead, and that which by virtue of the same union it
merited for itself and for us — all this sea of Grace,
wide - stretching, deep, nay infinite, came from one
source only. It was the work of the Holy Spirit.
Among the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, it
is to the. Holy Ghost that are ascribed the operations of
Grace. It was the Holy Ghost, therefore, whom Isaias
saw filling the future Eedeemer, and resting upon Him,
as the fertilising rain-clouds rest and hang over the tops
of the solitary hills. It was the Holy Spirit who de
scended on Mary, Mother of God. When He took up the
Book in the Nazarene synagogue on the Sabbath, the
words which met His eye were spoken of Himself — 'The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me/ It was the Spirit which led

21 John iv. 13.

SANCTIFICATION. 81

Him — that is, which wrought in Him all that He did ;
leading Him out to the desert, bringing Him hack from
the Jordan ' full of the Holy Ghost.'22 In the Spirit He
cast out devils ; and when He sent out His ministers,
He said to them, as imparting a Gift of which He Him
self was full, ' Receive the Holy Ghost.' And it was this
unction of the Spirit, Author of all grace and power, to
which St. Peter witnessed when he gave thanks to God
for the conversion of the Gentiles.23 The Holy Spirit
dwelt in Him in all the ' fullness of His Divinity.' For
although it is true that the Second Person alone is
incarnate, nevertheless, since all the external works of
the Godhead are the work of all the Three Divine Per
sons, the sanctity which fills our Lord's Humanity from
that ineffable union is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And this is the ' Spirit of Jesus,' which He promised to
send down upon His children after His departure from
the earth.

Eemembering, then, what and whence were the
Sanctity and Grace of our Saviour, and knowing that it
is of this same ' fullness we all receive,' what are we to
think of the Sanctification and Grace which fall upon
us through Him ? He is risen for our Justification.
The perennial and immense fountain of all Holiness is
all for us. First of all, it is the Holy Ghost Himself
Whom Jesus gives us : 'If any one have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of His.'24 It is by the ' Holy
Ghost, Who is given to us,' that the ' charity of God
is spread abroad in our hearts' — in other words, that
we are filled with sanctifying Grace. So that the

»Lukeiv. 1. » Acts x 38. » Rom. viii. 9.
6

82 SANCTIFICATION.

same Spirit which filled with holiness the Sacred Hu
manity of our Lord fills also, in their measure, the
souls of the just. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Charity of God, and the communication of the Holy
Ghost — these are one and the same thing. But the
special dispensation of the Incarnation is, that this gift
of God comes through or from the Sacred Humanity.
One of the most striking of all the thoughts which St.
Paul presents to us in his Epistles is that Christ Jesus
is our Head and we His members.25 From the fourth
chapter to the Ephesians he is evidently speaking, not
of a mere political, social, or moral headship, but, of
something real and physical, or rather hyperphysical.
As the head is principal member of the body, and has in
itself all the powers of soul and sensibility which make
up the human being — and as all sense, knowledge,
growth, and action may be said to depend upon the
head, and to be derived from it as a centre of vital
power — so it is with Jesus Christ and the souls of men.
The Grace that primarily is in Him is for them. To
Him it was given, and from Him it must flow to them.
By a slight variation of this pregnant illustration, St.
Paul describes the process of Sanctification as ' putting
on* Christ, being made like to Him by a sort of trans
formation, and growing into Christ's likeness. It is a
process which is none the less real because invisible.
The spirit of a man, lofty as it is, is capable of a life
and beauty far above its nature. In its own nature it
is the image and likeness of God ; but when it becomes
sanctified by Grace, it puts on a new and a more sub-
M Eph. iv. 15 ; Coloss. i. 18 ; 1 Cor, vi. 15.

SANCTIFICATION. 83

lime likeness. And the soul of Jesus was as like to
God by Grace as it is possible for the creature to be
like the Creator. This likeness, which consists in the
' effusion' of the Holy Spirit, we can receive from Him ;
and so we form Jesus Christ within us. And thus
every soul in Grace can say what the Saints alone can
say in its fulness, ' I live, now not I, but Christ liveth
in me.'26 That which our bodies do, that which our
senses enjoy, that which our mind or heart is occupied
with — all these things in themselves are mean at the
best, and at the worst are very bad. The real Life is the
life we receive by sanctifying Grace, coming to us from
the Sacred Humanity. This is our robe of beauty;
this is a faculty and power of keen edge and wide sweep ;
this is the root-principle of that series of good thoughts,
words, and acts which, we may hope, will issue in the
Life everlasting. For our robe is washed in the Blood
of the Lamb, and all that we offer to God is acceptable,
because that sacred Blood is seen upon it. This is the
true Life, and so St. Paul's word is true, that the
' Grace of God is Life everlasting.'27

Such is the Grace of Jesus Christ, the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. I said at the beginning that the
mistake men made was to look upon Jesus Christ as a
mere fact of the historical past. Alas for our souls if
Jesus be not risen and living yet, for we are yet in our
sins ! All I have tried to say upon the beauty of Grace,
and the transformation of our souls into the likeness of
Christ, may be realised at this day and at this hour.
It is just as if the loving Voice of Him Who stood
26 Gal. ii. 20. » Bom. vi. 25.

84: SANCTIFICATION.

upon the shore of Genesareth were heard at this moment
to say : ' Come, and follow Me.' It is just as though
the outstretched arm of Him Who touched the bier at
Nairn were now to touch us, and bid us stop in our
passage to the tomb. To believe and be baptised, to
repent and be absolved, tc eat and drink our Lord's
Body and Blood — these are the conditions, some for
one case, some for another, on which depends our being
numbered among the living sons of God. Jesus Christ
still lives and sanctifies, through the Ministry which
He has left in the world. By the Ministry of men and
of outward acts, now, as in the Apostolic times, the
'mysteries' of God are given to the world, and the
riches of Christ are conveyed to the souls of men.
Let me not be misunderstood here. First of all, no
external ministry can dispense with internal acts and
true change of heart (through grace) in all who are
capable of using their reason. Secondly, multitudes in
every age have belonged to the external system of dis
pensation — to the body of the Church — by Faith more
or less real, who have nevertheless lived, and do live,
without share in the Life of the Head, on account of
wilful grievous sin, which makes their Faith dead.
With these explanations, an external ministry is an ab
solute necessity ; for so God has ordained.

There is a story in the Fourth Book of Kings which
has always appeared to me to be meant as an instruction
to some who see difficulties in the dispensation of an
ordained ministry of Grace. The child of the Sunarn-
itess had been struck by a stroke of the sun, and had
died on her knee at the noontide hour. After Giezi

SANCTIFICATION. 85

had carried the staff of Eliseus and laid it upon the
face of the dead child, and 'there was no voice nor
sense,' then Eliseus came in person. And going in,
he shut the door upon him and upon the child, and
prayed to the Lord. And then he went up, and lay
upon the child ; and he put his mouth upon his mouth,
and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his
hands ; and he bowed himself upon him ; and the
child's flesh grew warm. Then he returned, and
walked in the house, once to and fro ; and he went up,
and lay upon him; and" the child gaped seven times,
and opened his eyes.28 He was raised to life again.
This is a strange history. But a reverent reader of
God's Word will ponder over it. Ancient Saints have
meditated upon it, and seen the ' instruction' it was
meant to convey. It was a figure of the Incarnation,
and of the system introduced by the Incarnation. It
would have been no greater effort of God's power had
Eliseus stood at the door, or stood afar off, and raised
the dead child with a word. So it would have been
perfectly easy to the same Infinite Creator and Lord of
all things to save the world by an act of His Will, and
to Jesus Christ to have dispensed altogether with
ministers and priests. But the Word became Flesh.
The Infinite bowed Himself down to our littleness.
The invisible God became visible and tangible to the
senses of man's body. And so it was to be to the end.
The mouth to the mouth, the eye to the eye, the hand
to the hand ; thus was to be carried on the dispensation
of Life eternal. Man was to announce the Truth to his

» 4 Kings IT. 32.

86 SANCTIFICATION.

fellow man ; man's hand was to regenerate, man's voice
was to consecrate and sanctify, to bind and to loose.
Feeble and frail, sometimes wicked and reprobate, was
to be the minister to whom such awful powers were
given. But it was not to affect the efficacy of the act,
for the principal doer was Christ. Peter may baptise,
Paul may baptise, Judas may baptise, but always it is
' Christ Who baptiseth.'29

The outward surroundings of Sanctification since
Christ left this world are often unworthy and mean in
the eyes of the prudence of the world ; but so was the
Stable, so was the poverty of Nazareth, and the suffer*
ing of Calvary. "Water, oil, bread and wine, imposition
of hands, the breath of a man — these are poor disguises
for the Grace of God ; but they are not unlike the
' form of a slave' which God Himself has taken. And
the love and far-reaching wisdom which made Him
take Flesh and converse with men have also urged
Him to use this visible ministry to the end. What
God ultimately seeks is not the external act, but the
inward disposition. But the way to man's heart and
soul is through the avenues of his sense. Let us re
member we are speaking of the masses of mankind,
each member of whom has a right to the Sanctification
purchased for him by Jesus Christ. There are few
men of the world's millions who do not make their in
ternal acts more surely and definitely when they join
them with something outward. Take the ministry of
absolution. Say that the important matter, in order
to obtain forgiveness of sin, is to be truly repentant. I

29 John i. 33.

SANCTIFICATION. 87

will grant it, and I say that, looking at the vast ma
jority of human sinners, there are none in whom this
internal necessary sorrow is not made more thorough
by the humiliation of confession, more definite by the
enumeration of sins, more sure and certain by ap
pointed times and places, and more heartfelt by the
bowing down of the spirit to the ordinance of God.
And so our Lord has given to external rites the power
of conferring real Grace. It is a well-known psycho
logical experience that the fervour of an interior emo
tion is immensely increased by exterior activity. Love,
hate, jealousy, and sorrow grow deeper, for a time, with
every word and act ; and if they are suppressed, they
disappear. The Church's children live upon the ex
ternal ministry of the Church, as the Apostles lived
upon the looks and the voice of Jesus Christ. They
know it is something real. The Seven Sacraments are
to them seven streams from Calvary. Outward com
munion, visible worship, material churches, the beauty
of God's house — these are the things that bind their
hearts together as members of a common fatherland, a
figure of the fatherland to come. The Blessed Sacra
ment is the crown and summit of all that visible order
which was established in Jesus Christ. Church, Pas
tors, Teaching, Sacraments, Sacred Rites, Abiding Pre
sence — it is altogether a great and glorious Kingdom
to those who have eyes to discern. I have read of tra
vellers who come on scenes hitherto unvisited by man;
broad plains, ringed round by mighty mountains rising
peak on peak, with rivers widening to the sea ; the
brightness, the hush, the awe, the sweetness of virgin

SANCTIFICATION.

nature. But when a Christian man, with the blood of
Christ upon his forehead, comes into a Catholic church,
and looks for the symbolic light before the quiet Taber
nacle ; when he sinks upon his knees, with Faith
swelling and surging in his heart ; when there rises to
his spiritual view the thought of the Kingdom of God
upon earth, the great Church of God, One, Holy,
Apostolic, in all lands; the mighty rivers of the Sacra
ments, the pervading presence of the Eucharist, the
whole realm of the Holy Ghost, with its incessant
supernatural action, the play of Grace, the response of
meritorious, supernatural acts, as though Angels of
God were ascending and descending — when all this
comes stealing upon his thought, nay, upon his sense,
what can he do but cry out, as Saints have cried:
' Courts of my Lord ! Kingdom of my Saviour's Blood »
Ah, one day here is better than a thousand ! Let me
praise Thee, 0 my God, for ever and ever !'

V.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

WE cannot know who Jesus Christ is without going one
step further than we have hitherto done. We have
considered Him as the Mystery hidden from all ages ;
we have looked upon Him in His visible and natural
presence on this earth ; we have seen Him carry His
Cross and shed His Blood ; we have beheld His Blood
overflowing the whole world. But now we are to dis
cuss a great and culminating wonder ; a Presence more
stupendous than His presence in the crib of Bethlehem
— a Sacrifice which is the very reproduction of Calvary
— a Sacrament which contains the great Fount of all
grace for all time.

We believe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
the night on which He was betrayed, consecrated bread
and wine, and in that consecration changed them into
His own Sacred Body and Blood. We believe that He
gave power to His successors, the Bishops and Priests
of His Church, to do the same stupendous thing which
He did Himself. And we believe, in consequence, that
in every Catholic Church there is, at the time of Mass,
the Real Presence of Jesus Christ under the forms or

90 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

appearances of bread and wine, and at other times, as a
rule, under those of bread alone.

I know not whether Humanity would ever have
looked for, longed for, or expected such a gift as this.
The travellers on the Kesurrection-day on the road to
Emmaus felt their hearts * burning' within them, in the
presence of Him whom they knew not ; and as He was
passing from them, they held Him with a passionate
entreaty to * tarry with them, for the evening was com
ing on, and the day was almost done.'1 And I know
not if Humanity, with obscure sense of love and long
ing, would have clamoured for a lengthening out of the
sojourn of the Incarnate Word. But the cry has not
been needed. The last days of the world and the ap
proach of the evening of time have not been left with
out their special gift of the Presence of their God.
The new Covenant, the era of redemption, would hardly
have been that favoured time which the Prophets fore
saw unless there had been in it a Presence greater than
that of Angel or Cloud or Fiery Pillar. A Christian
Church, if it had only in it a pulpit and a reading-desk
— or even a table with bread and wine — would have
been no better than a Synagogue of the Old Law, and
far less favoured than that grand Temple where God's
glory dwelt, and His holy Name was invoked with
sacrifice, and incense, and the sound of praise. The
' people of acquisition,' the redeemed flock of Christ, it
they had no way of approaching their Saviour's foun
tains except by prayer, or faith, or 'needy' symbols,
would have had cause to envy the children of Juda, who

1 Luke xxiv. 29.

THE ABIDING PBESENCE. 91

also could turn to the Lord by prayer and faith, and
prostrate themselves before the Sanctuary of His glory
in the House where He had promised to hear prayer
and to be nigh at hand to supplication. The Temple
of Jerusalem would have been better than a Christian
Church; and as the Temple of Jerusalem has no longer
a stone upon a stone, the bands of pilgrims who went
up on the festival days would now have nowhere to go,
and would be obliged to be content with houses in
which God dwelt not, save as He dwells everywhere
and is in the midst of every two or three gathered to
gether in His Name. But it is not so. ' The Bread
which we break, is it not the partaking of the Lord's
Body ? For we being many are one Bread, one body,
all that partake of one Bread.'2 There are Churches,
as you know — the Catholic Churches throughout the
world — in which you will find a sacred Bread, which is
the Lord's Body. And that is what makes a Church
of the New Law what it is. The Church is a place
where there is an Altar — and the Altar has upon it a
living Victim — and the faithful crowd to the Sanctuary
for the worship and communion of that Bread, by which
they become ' one bread ;' that is, of that Body by re
ceiving which they become sharers in the life and
' spirit' of Jesus Christ. There is no greater fact, next
to the Incarnation itself, in all Christian history than
the Eeal Presence. If we take a broad general view of
the Christian centuries, we seem, as it were, to be look
ing up the nave of a vast cathedral where the nations
and generations of eighteen centuries are worshipping
2 1 Cor. x. 16, 17.

92 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

the Lamb who, under mysterious signs, is present upon
the great Altar. Every century has a voice, and a
hymn, and a confession of its faith and its love. We
hear the Apostles solemnly stating, in measured words,
the awful form of institution. We hear John telling
the wondrous history of the day at Capharnauni, when
Jesus led on His questioners from the loaves to the
manna, from the manna to Himself, and then thrilled
them with the explicit promise, more tremendous in its
simple phrase than any vision of Ezechiel, ' The Bread
which I will give is My Flesh for the life of the world.'3
We hear Paul reiterating the sacramental words which
he had heard, not from man, but by special revelation
from Jesus Christ ; we see his anxiety for purity of con
science in those who approach that altar ;4 we hear his
threats of damnation to those who eat and drink un
worthily; and we hear the solemn cadences of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and its comparison of the
Christian altar with the altar of the ancient Law. We
listen to the concordant yet varied eucharistic hymn of
the first four centuries. We hear the voices of martyrs,
bishops, confessors, and doctors. That Bread, they
sing, is no common bread, not the bread which art
makes from nature's fruits, not merely blessed or con
secrated bread. The senses seem to tell you that it is
only this ; but we must believe the word of God ; it is
* really,' ' truly,' the ' very' Body and Blood of Christ.
It is the whole Christ, living Body and Godhead. It
is eaten, not consumed, says holy Chrysostom, and
when it is dealt out it remaineth whole and entire. It
« John vi. 52. « 1 Cor. xi 27.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 93

is no figure ; it is not present by faith alone, nor is it
eaten by charity ; but it is real, and it is truly and
really eaten. And all the liturgies of the East, and the
Gothic and the Mozarabic, join in saying that the words
of consecration ' make' the Body and Blood of Christ,
changing the elements, as the water was changed into
wine, and the rod of Moses to a beast. All these ex
pressions and phrases occur in the testimony of the
first four or five centuries. And we can hardly linger
to listen to all that we might hear if we pleased. St.
Ignatius of Antioch, a man who had seen the Apostles,
is heard confuting the heretical Docetse, who denied the
reality of our Lord's Flesh, by appealing to the reality
of it in the Eucharist.6 More writers in the two first
ages do the same. Athanasius and Leo the Great use the
Real Presence as a proof against Monophysite errors.
Cyril of Alexandria brings it against Nestorius, as a
first principle admitted by both parties. And Paul of
Samosata, testifying to truth whilst propping up error,
makes the reality of Christ's Blood in the Eucharist an
argument for his own heresy. Hilary smites the
Arians with an analogy drawn from the Real Presence ;
and Isidore of Pelusium refutes with a similar com
parison the heresy of those who deny the divinity of the
Holy Ghost. All this may be read in books which are
perfectly easy to get at. Particular texts may be dis
puted, and expressions here and there may not be ad
mitted ; but no one can examine with a fair mind the
general sense of the earliest ages without finding the
Real Presence pervading them all. The testimony of
5 Ad Smyrnenses, n. vii

94 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

antiquity to the Presence on the Christian altar is like
the voice of the great multitude seen by St. John in his
vision, which cried out that sublime 'Amen!' in the
glory of their white robes, washed in the Blood of the
Lamb.6 ' The whole world over,' says St. Augustine,
' our ransom is taken (received), and the answer is,
Amen !'7 He alludes to the formula of communion, in
which the communicant answered, Amen — a custom
still kept up on certain occasions even in the Latin
Church. Such an Amen rises to Heaven when we go
apart a little from traditional prejudice, from national
narrowness, from worldly thoughts, and listen to the
voice of the multitude of saints and doctors, and even
of sinners and heretics, which has worshipped in the
Christian Church, or been expelled from its fold, since
the day the Holy Spirit fell on the Galilaean fishermen
in Jerusalem.

The Eeal Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Sacrament of the Eucharist, apart from the effects it is
intended by God's love to work in the world, is a stum
bling-block to Jewish questioners and a folly to Gentile
wisdom. In this it is like the Incarnation itself, and
the Cross. The several tempers of both Jew and Gen
tile are well represented in this country at the present
day. There are thpse who believe in God and honour
the Bible, and have a traditional religion which they
have received from their mothers, their schoolmasters,
or their preachers ; and these, like the Jews of old,
' speak ill of God,' though without meaning it, and say,
' Can God furnish a table in the wilderness ?'s It was
9 Apoc. vii. 12. T In Ps. cxxv. n. 9. • Ps. Lsxvii. 19.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 95

a question eminently characteristic of a people who
never could be induced to trust themselves to God, or
made to see that there might be * some better thing'
than what their fathers knew of. Eighteen hundred
years after they contradicted Moses in the desert before
the manna came, they showed themselves still the same
people when a greater than Moses spoke to them of the
True Bread from Heaven. ' How can this Man give us
His Flesh to eat ?'9 And is not the same question
asked to this day? As for the Gentile, he does not
question ; he scoffs. Like the Athenian Epicureans
and Stoics, who called St. Paul a ' sower of words,' and
'mocked' at his preaching, or like the practical Roman,
Festus, who called him a ' madman,' modern wise men
and men of the world treat the dogma of the Real Pre
sence with a contempt which either prevents them from
making serious inquiry or causes them to blaspheme
that which they know not.

The words of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the
universal consent of antiquity, are so clear and de
cisive, when taken in their obvious sense, that, setting
mere prejudice on one side, no one would have any
hesitation in believing the Real Presence, were it not
so contrary to the laws of nature and the experience of
the senses. There are multitudes in this country, I
need not say, whose objection to this holy Truth is
merely the objection of a man who has always been
brought up to think it a fable. These have inherited
the spirit of carnal Judaism. But those who have de
finite and positive objections and difficulties almost al-
» John vi. 63,

96 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

ways fall back on physical impossibilities and the tes
timony of their bodily senses.

I do not here dwell upon the fact that such ob
jections as these would be fatal to belief in the Incar
nation itself. But a few simple reflections will show
that difficulties on the score of physical experience and
sensible appearances are no real difficulties at all.

When the believer kneels before the altar in a Ca
tholic church, and at the moment of the elevation in
the Mass reverently raises his eyes to the Priest who
stands before it in the vestments of sacrifice, he be
holds the white and shining disk of what looks like a
wafer of bread ; and if he could look into the cup which
is next held up for worship, he would see what seemed
to be wine. Yet he believes that Jesus Christ is pre
sent in the hands of His minister under each of those
appearances. And the unbeliever looks too ; and his
heart says, * If this were really a Human Body I should
see it. I should see head and members, size, and
colour, and shape, as I do when I see other human
bodies. For it is impossible that a thing should be
present before me, and yet produce no effect upon my
senses.'

It seems to me that it is sufficient to state this last
assumption, in order to see that it is simply false. It
confounds the impossible with the miraculous. You
might as well deny the fact of our Lord's Ascension on
the plea that it is impossible for a human Body to
mount up into the air by its own power. It is not true
to say that wherever a material thing is present it must
produce an effect upon the senses. What are the senses

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 97

of a man ? They are an apparatus of nerves, animated
by the soul, which must be affected by some external
impression before sensation takes place. Sensation is
really the product of two agents under certain con
ditions ; the first agent is the sense itself, the second
is the external material thing ; and the condition is,
the union or connection of the two. If the sense is
destroyed, there is no sensation ; if the external thing
does not exist, there is no sensation ; and if there is no
connection between the two, there is no sensation.
There is a striking expression in the Gospel of St.
Luke, which illustrates what I am coming to. In the
history of the disciples who went to Emmaus on Easter
Sunday, it is said that ' their eyes were held that they
should not know Jesus.'10 This evidently means a
great deal more than that they did not recognise Him.
They knew Him before, and they would naturally have
easily known Him then. But their eyes were miracu
lously held. In other words, they had their senses,
and Jesus was there, but, by the interposition of a
Divine power, the features of our Lord and Saviour did
not make an impression on the sense; there was no
connection between object and eye. Further than this,
the impression produced was of something which did
not really exist ; for whatever these two disciples saw,
it was not the lineaments of Jesus ; and there was
none present but Jesus. "What occurred once, by the
power of God, on the road to Emmaus, occurs every
day in the Holy Eucharist. There is a Human Body
present — the Word made Flesh — and the sense of man
w Luke xxiv. 16.

7

98 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

takes no note of it, because the Omnipotent has dropped
a dividing veil between sense and Thing ; for He can
do so, and in His love He has willed so to do. And as
He has willed that He should be present and not seen,
so He has willed that other things should be seen,
though not present. Naturally, nothing can look
bread to the sense unless it is bread, or something re
sembling it. But the Almighty Creator, who is the
first and principal cause of all the effects produced by
His creatures, has willed that ' appearances' of bread
and wine should exist without the existence of either
the bread or the wine. These material substances have
both ceased to be at the words of consecration ; but the
same effect is produced upon the sense as if they were
still present. No one can dispute that God can do
this. If bread can affect the sense of man, putting in
motion some strain of subtle ether which impinges on
the delicate threads of the optic nerve, surely the Lord
and Master, for His own purposes, can stir the same
forces by immediate causation, or by the ministry of
the Angels who guard the Sacrament of Love ? And do
not say, It is deception. ' Thy arrogance hath deceived
thee, and the pride of thy heart.'11 God has not de
ceived any one. He has taken bread, and said, This is
My Body. And the deceivers are those who declare
that this is impossible. No one knows what material
substance is,12 and yet you presume to assert that the
Body of Christ cannot exist unless you can see It and

11 Jeremias xlix. 16.

12 ' What do I know,' says Dr. Newman, ' of substance or matter ?
Just as much as the greatest philosophers and that is nothing at all.'
Apologia^ p. 375.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 99

handle It. It passed through the solid rock of the
sealed tomh; It penetrated the closed doors of the
cenacle on the evening of the Resurrection ; 13 it was
seen by St. Paul whilst It was at the right hand of
God ; and yet objectors can maintain that It cannot be
present unless It be palpable and gross, and that It
cannot come down upon the Altar without ceasing to
be present in the Heavens. No one but the unreflect
ing and the ignorant will deny that material substance,
whatever it is, can exist without producing any effect
upon other material substances. Now place, size,
colour, position, divisibility — all these affections or
phenomena of Matter depend upon the fact that a given
material substance is in relation, connection, or com
munication with other substances. And if the power
of God interposes the bar of a miracle, and suspends
such relation and intercommunion, a substance will
then exist which will be as impervious to human sense
as a Spirit is ; which will be affected by the prison
walls of other Matter, and by the rush and the whirl of
the corporeal forces of the world, as little as the serene
Angels who walked through Sodom, destroyed the
armies of Sennacherib, or opened the prison gates for
Peter. The truth is, that people are taught in these
days to consider that things are nothing but appear
ances. A bodily substance, say the philosophers, is a
bundle of experiences; this is their phrase, and it
means that if you add together the effects produced by
a given substance upon your senses, and label the sum
with a name, that is the whole Substance, and there is
13 John xx. 26.

100 THE ABIDING PBESENCE.

nothing else. A theory like this is, I admit, fatal to
the sacred Truth we are considering. But it is not
likely the world will ever knowingly and deliberately
adopt a view which conies to this — that nothing exists
except one's own feelings ; and if this were the place, I
could show you how even its most influential patrons
have begun to qualify it. Those who hold that Things
are really the causes of what the senses feel must
admit that Things and their effects can be separated,
and must listen to the word of Revelation when it as
serts that Jesus Christ is present in the Sacrament,
though the eye of roan sees Him not.

Let me be pardoned for dwelling on matters which
to simple faith will seem superfluous. The Real Pre
sence is the most awful question of fact at present in
the world. One of two things must be true : either
an enormous majority of all the Christians of the
world and of all the centuries since the Crucifixion,
have lived and are living in superstitious darkness, or
else the greater number of our own countrymen hurry
about their daily work, write their books and news
papers, and read what is written, whilst utterly ignor
ing the Presence in their midst of the Lord of Heaven
and Earth incarnate ! No one can be brought to the
Truth unless the Father lead him ; but, from a human
point of view, the first thing required to put men upon
the track of the Truth is to induce them not to think
the Truth absurd. And for ourselves, who sometimes
think, in the heat of our faith, that we can dispense
with efforts at explanation, is it not true that every
fresh thought which we think out on such a mystery

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 101

as the Eucharist is a new glory to God and a new light
to ourselves, just as some priceless diamond sparkles
the more the oftener we hold it in the sun ?

There is a chapter in St. John's Gospel which only
requires one word to be supplied from the other Gos
pels to make it full of thrilling light. It is the thir
teenth. It opens with these words : ' Jesus, having
loved His own who are in the world, loved them to the
end.' It relates the washing of the feet, of which our
Lord tells Peter that he shall ' presently know' what
it means. It contains that singular burst of feeling,
which followed immediately that Judas left the supper-
room : ' Now is the Son of Man glorified !' And it
concludes with the great commandment of Love : ' That
you love one another as I have loved you.' What is
the meaning of these multiplied references made by
Jesus at this moment to His Love and His Glory ? It
is true He was about to lay down His life for His
friends ; but this chapter seems to read like the words
of one who has given a gift. Jesus seems to say, Be
hold what I have done for your love; see how I am
now glorified ! And the word ' glory* in St. John most
commonly means the exhibition of supernatural power.14
If we remember that this chapter covers the moment
of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament, it sud
denly glows as with the kindling of a fire. The love
that prompted the suffering of the Cross was not satis
fied until it had made that sacrifice perpetual ; and when
afterwards Jesus exclaims in prayer, * The glory which
Thou hast given Me, I have given to them,'15 do we
14 John i. 14. 16 Ib. xvii. 22.

102 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

not see that He has given to His ministers the same
supernatural power which He has that very hour so
stupendously displayed Himself?

For the Heal Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist
means the continuance to the end of time of the In
carnate Word's sojourn on the earth, and the perpetual
renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross. It means that
Eedemption and Sanctification are brought to the very
doors of every frail and sinful man and woman, and
that Love is not content with buying us at a great
price, but is busy going to and fro among the souls
He has bought. The great fountain, open to the house
of David, is full, and free to all ; but there stands One
beside it, under the plane-tree which shadows it over,
and He cries to the souls of men : ' All you that thirst,
come to the waters ; and you that have no money, make
haste, buy and eat.'16

The Mass is celebrated by nearly every Catholic
Priest every day of his life. The Priest has been or
dained by the imposition of the Bishop's hands, and
empowered to do what no one can do by his own power
but Jesus Christ Himself. Clothed in mysterious
robes, he takes his place before an altar hallowed by
prayer and holy unction, and by the bones of saints.
He takes the blessed Bread and Wine ; he utters the
words of power; and then, in that instant, the Larnb
lies on the stone of the altar, 'as it were slain.'17
There is no knife, no blood, no Cross, no physical
death; yet there is a true and real Sacrifice; this we
believe with divine faith. The Sacrifice, as far as we

18 Isaias lv. 1. « Apoc. v. 6.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 103

may be permitted to explain it, lies in the stupendous
annihilation or humiliation, equivalent to destruction,
which the Sacred Humanity undergoes by virtue of its
coming to exist in a sacramental state under the lowly
appearances of bread and wine. But it is also, by di
vine ordinance, a commemoration and a setting forth
of the Sacrifice of the Cross. First, the Body becomes
present in the Priest's hands — Body and Blood, Soul
and Divinity, as it is in Heaven; then the Blood is
separated from the Body, not really, for that took place
once for all on Calvary, but mystically and in figure.
Thus the Mass commemorates the Crucifixion ; it is a
Sacrifice in which the same chief Priest, Jesus Christ
(by the hands of a minister), offers in sacrifice the same
Victim; though the manner of the Sacrifice is different.
On the Cross He was offered as He naturally existed,
a mortal passible Man, whom the nails and the lance
could pierce ; in the Mass He is in His sacramentai
state, immortal and impassible, whom no weapon can
touch but the sword of His own word.

The Sacrifice, then, which the Christian Priest of
fers in the person of His Lord and Master, is as mighty
and august a Sacrifice as that of Calvary itself; for it
is, in essence, the same. Its efficacy no human words
can definitely measure. It is not an efficacy which is
acquired by a new meritorious act of Jesus Christ ;
He merited in the ' days of His flesh ;' He merits now
no longer. The fountain is full ; in the Mass it simply
overflows. It overflows like the river of the earthly
Paradise, in four floods to the four quarters of the
world. The first flood is the Glory of the Supreme

104 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

God; the second is the thanksgiving of man to his
Creator ; the third is the grace of penance and remis
sion of sin and sin's punishment ; the fourth, the gifts
of grace and the blessings of this life and the next.
Two of these torrents of abundance fall upon mankind ;
upon the whole world, the just and the unjust ; more
plentifully upon those who are present, or who are the
occasion of the Mass being said ; still more largely on
those for whom it is specially offered ; and most copi
ously of all upon the soul of the happy and favoured
Minister of Jesus Christ, whose privilege it is — a privi
lege which Angels might envy — to handle and 'dis
pense the Mysteries' of God. He stands at the Altar,
a ' separated' and a chosen man. No purity is too
great, no fervour too deep, for the mighty act that he
is privileged to do. The people kneel around, not of
fering, yet joining in the Sacrifice. They know what
it means. The Priest's vesture, the strange tongue,
the silence, the air of mystery and exclusion — none of
these things can surprise them or offend them. They
know that the Mass is meant to work a great effect,
and not simply to edify them. They know that it is a
solemn act with stupendous consequences, and they fol
low it with fear and trembling. They stand as at the
mountain-foot, whilst the clouds roll across the moun
tain, and the lightning and the thunder are the liturgy,
and the trumpet, the voice of adoration and praise.
And they bless God, and ask themselves what they
shall give to Him for all He hath given to them. They
assist at Mass to pay their debt of worship to Him, and
to make a return for their creation, redemption, and

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 105

preservation. They come to Mass to obtain the grace
of penance, and the forgiveness of punishment. They
kneel down at the Sacrifice to obtain all the blessings
they stand in need of, for themselves, the Church, the
country, their children, their friends, and all the world.
Thus does our great High Priest offer Himself in
that perpetual ' clean oblation' of which Malachy spoke.
But He has instituted and ordained another rite now
that He abides upon the earth. In the Old Law they
ate of the victims which were slain ; and this to draw
nearer to each other in love and confidence, by partaking
in a common solemnity and eating of a common food.
Who could have guessed that the Christian was to eat
of the stupendous Sacrifice of the Law of Grace ? Com
munion is the completion of Sacrifice. But the Chris
tian communion is no mere symbol or ceremony. It is
the partaking of the Bread of Life. Our life, as we
have seen, consists in this — that we have abiding in us
Grace, or the Spirit which filled Jesus. All our Grace
comes from Him ; He is the Vine, we the branches into
which the sap must flow, or else we die. All the Sacra
ments are means for obtaining Grace or increasing
Grace, for the Blood of our Saviour flows in them all.
But the Eucharist, since it contains the Fountain of
all Grace, has an effect which is peculiar to itself. In
the Paradise which we lost by our forefather's transgres
sion there stood a wondrous tree. It was called the
Tree of Life. It did not confer the gift of life ; but
men and women were to eat of its fruit, and by eating to
be gifted with an immortality which sin alone could pre
vail against. The holy Eucharist is the Tree of the Life

106 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

of Grace. Standing in the midst of the new Paradise,
the ' watered garden,' which is the Church of Christ, it
preserves life to those who eat. The Blessed Sacrament
does not confer life on those who are dead in sin ; there
are other sacraments for that. But it is the food, the
life-blood of the living. It happens sometimes that a fire
kindled in the fields, when the air is sluggish and the
weather thick, languishes and dies down ; but if the wind
springs up, and the pure ether pours in from the regions
of the north, dispersing the dense and clinging mists,
then the dying brands leap into life again, and the tongues
of flame dart upwards to the sky. There is no higher
act of the soul in this life than to leap up in the flames
of love towards its God. It is a lofty act ; and a life of
such acts is a life angelic rather than a life of man.
Passion, frailty, ignorance — the fogs and the noisome
vapours of the clay that makes man up — put out the
fire of Charity. And the Eucharist is the keen, fresh,
and vital air which blows from lands of mountains and
of sunshine, laden with the fragrance of the morning
and the breath of pines and evergreens, bringing hope,
elasticity, and joy. It blows through silent cloisters,
on hearts which watch daily for its coming ; and the
noblest souls of this world, the contemplatives hidden
with Christ in God, live daily through it a life of
more ecstatic love. It breathes over the desert of the
world, freshening the hearts of those who are working
in the world, and gradually helping them to love God
above all other things. It fans the dying Charity of
those who perchance are in danger of losing Faith and
Hope. It strings up the nerves of young men and

THE ABIDING PBESENOB. 107

young women, of boys and girls, on whom temptation
has a strong hold, and keeps them from week to week, if
not always in God's love, at least in God's fear. Every
where, whenever the Christian soul turns towards the
Table of the Lord, from whence that good wind blows,
the passions of the flesh are weakened, the seven deadly
sins wither down to the roots, and the spiritual tempter
shudders and keeps off. We all know it. And there
fore the Priest in his pulpit cries out every Sunday,
Come to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The God
fearing man or woman says, solemnly and seriously, I
must keep regular in my Communions, or I fall. Sin
ners look up to holy Communion as the seal and sanc
tion of their reconciliation. Little children, as soon as
they can think, are taken by the hand and brought
near the sanctuary, and told in tender words as much
as they can bear about the gift which their Saviour
has ready for them when they shall be duly fitted to
come to His banquet. Thus the holy Eucharist keeps
up the Life which Jesus Christ came to give the world
abundantly. ' This is the Bread which cometh down
from Heaven, that if any man eat of it, he may not
die.'18 Thus the Sacred Body of the world's Saviour
touches the weak and frail flesh of heavily-burdened
humanity, and by that touch revives it and refreshes it.
Our body, by the emotions and instincts which have
their root in the flesh, is the chief prompter of our
sins. Jesus Christ has not only willed that the bodies
of His servants shall become the temples of the Holy
Spirit,19 and so members of Himself, but He deigns to
18 John vi. 50. » 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19.

108 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

consecrate this union by a Sacramental contact. Such
a union and contact would tend to make them like unto
His own sacred flesh ; and although the consummation
of this is reserved for the life to come, yet it hegins
here below. It begins in that purity, self-mastery, and
sense of responsibility with which the Christian feels
urged to treat a body, in which the Sacrament of loving
union has already implanted the principle and pledge
of glorious immortality. ' He that eateth My Flesh
and drinketh My Blood hath .life everlasting, and I will
raise him up at the last day.'20

The Abiding Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed
Eucharist is the explanation of many things in the Ca
tholic Church, which those without find it difficult to
understand, and which even we who are within do not
sufficiently think about. It explains how the Mass is
the sun and the centre of all our worship. It explains
the form of our churches, which we divide, as far as we
can, into three parts : the sanctuary, where the altar
stands, the presbytery or choir for the clergy, and the
body of the church for the faithful people. How striking
and sad it is to see the old Welsh churches still stand
ing and testifying, by their very look and shape, that
they were never meant for what they have now been
made ! It is the key to those mysterious rites and
ceremonies at the Altar at which strangers who enter
Catholic churches gaze with wonder, and which they
admire or despise with equal ignorance of what they
mean. Vestments, lights, ranks and grades of ministers,
genuflexions and signs of the cross — they are all part of

20 John vi. 55.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. 109

a Liturgy ; and a Liturgy means a solemn act of sacri
ficial worship. There is not a rite performed at the
altar, or a robe worn in the sanctuary, which has not a
deep meaning and a venerable history. And the
Blessed Sacrament explains why the Catholic Church,
though content with poverty, is fond of outward pomp.
It was Judas, if you remember, who murmured because
Mary broke the box of costly ointment to anoint her
Saviour's feet. There is nothing on this earth, to those
who have faith, so like a foretaste or feeling of Heaven
as a grand High Mass or Procession of the Blessed
Sacrament. The Church's children feel that the Pre
sence of Him who abides with them deserves all that
they can do to show their love. They give Him their
hearts first, and then, as far as may be, their money ;
their rich things, their time, and their zealous care.
They love to see their churches beautiful, their altars
sumptuously robed in the mystical white linen and the
precious stuffs which symbolise the garments of His
Body ; and they can have no greater privilege than to
sacrifice some costly thing which may minister to His
honour, and be near His Sacred Body. And there is
not a poor man, however hard the times may be, who will
not spare a penny to testify faith and gratitude for the
Gift which makes this world such a different world to
him.

The only reflection which can mar the joy and holy
exultation with which Catholics speak of the Abiding
Presence of Jesus is, that so many of us are lax and
backward in recognising it as we ought. The Blessed
Sacrament has a very small place in the lives of most

110 THE ABIDING PRESENCE.

of us, and a very slight hold upon our hearts. Mass,
even on Sundays, is not always attended ; on week
days the Holy Sacrifice is offered in almost empty
churches. Communion is neglected; many receive
Jesus Christ only once or twice a year ; others never.
The rite of honour and prayer which we call Benedic
tion, is little cared for, except perhaps on the. Sundays.
All day long the churches stand desolate and aban
doned, with no living thing to pay homage to the Pre
sence, and only the little light of the sanctuary lamp to
show that He is there. And yet, as I have said, to the
soul that has living Faith, the worship of the Blessed
Sacrament is the beginning of Heaven. When John
the Apostle, on that Lord's day in Patmos, heard him
self called by the mighty trumpet-voice, he turned and
saw a glorious vision. Seven golden candlesticks ; and
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, One like
to the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to His
feet, and girt about the breast with a golden girdle.
And His head and His hairs were white, as white wool
and as snow, and His eyes were as a flame of fire. And
He had in His right hand seven stars.21 Methinks I
have seen the shadow of this Apocalyptic vision here
down on the earth. We need not go far to find it. We
need not go where wealth and national recognition and
every element of grandeur make a Corpus-Christi pro
cession, even in this modern Europe, a greater pageant
than the world can show. But we may thread our way
through the streets of a great working town, and stop
at a door where the poor are going, as if it were their
* Apoc. i. 12.

THE ABIDING PRESENCE. Ill

home ; and we may enter a wide room where the poor
man is kneeling on his way from his work, and the
poor woman, who has snatched a moment from hard
care, and the child, whose best idea of home is that
solemn quiet chapel. We may take our place among
them, and look at the humble altar where zeal and
sacrifice have done their best; and there, when the
lights shine around, and the robed Priest bows down,
and the incense rises, and the children's voices chant,
we may see with reverent eye, on that lowly throne,
One like to the Son of Man — golden, and white, and
shining ; the gold not very bright to the outward eye,
perhaps, and the glory not overpowering; but the
scene is a reality, and the heart can feel it. For, after
we have read, and spoken, and discussed, yes, and
prayed and suffered — still it remains that we kneel and
adore the Blessed Sacrament before we can truly know
who is Jesus Christ.

THE SPIEIT OF FAITH;

OR,

Wtzt tmrst b0 ta Midst ?

1

BELIEF A NECESSITY.

THE prevalence of the present warm discussions on
Faith and Keason, on Belief, Knowledge, and Opinion,
has doubtless arisen from many partial causes. It is
partly that able and clear-seeing men have been trying
to convince the crowd of what they see themselves —
that it is inconsistent and foolish to hold fast to one set
of beliefs whilst rejecting another for which there is
quite as good ground and proof. It is partly that the
experience of at least three hundred years has convinced
inquirers that a revelation— especially an elaborate and
complex revelation — without a perpetual living voice
and tradition to guard and interpret it, must be utterly
inefficient and must surely crumble away. But it is also
because men of wide and candid views have begun to
feel that Belief of some kind will always be an absolute
necessity for the human race. Unless every man and
woman is to be a long-lived, gifted, leisured, candid,
philosophic inquirer, some men and women must live by

Belief. The fruit of this conviction has been various.

8

114 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

Some teachers of mankind have anxiously attempted tc
show men what or whom to believe. Others have
assured them they may believe without contradicting
their reason. And others, again, have contented them
selves with demolition and invective, speaking some
hard truths and much crude error, loudly proclaiming
that they will accept nothing but what they can see,
and having no message for the masses except exhorta
tion to make the most of the world they live in.

It is not my intention in these discourses to prove
the existence of revelation, or of the Church of Christ.
It is most useful and necessary to do both on occasion.

But I am convinced that what many souls require is,
not proof, but preparation. The evidence before them
is plain enough ; what they lack is the power to see.
And though this power is a gift of God's grace, it is
connected with a certain predisposition of heart and mind
which we may call the Spirit of Faith. My object is
to illustrate what one must du in order to believe ; what
moral and mental preparation we must have if we do
not wish to walk blind in the midst of light. There
are those who do not believe through indifference ;
who will not believe through mistaken pride or inde
pendence ; who cannot believe (as they affirm), however
much they long for Belief. And there are those also
who do believe, and yet whose faith is in danger, not so
much because they cannot prove it, or get it proved if
need be, but because with them the moral and intellec
tual groundwork of faith is not firm ; because the spirit
of free thought, so-called progress, and undevout criti
cism has reached even the inside of the fold.

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 115

In this and the four succeeding discourses it is my
intention, then, to endeavour to explain what is meant
by Faith and Belief, and what are their relations with
the reasoning faculty of man, with his will, and with
the supernatural grace of God ; in other words, why men
ought to believe and must believe ; whether men can be
lieve if they will ; whether Belief has anything to do with
the ordinary acts of a man's reasoning faculty; and
whether Belief is influenced in any way by that direct
action of God which we call by the name of grace.

'Faith' is a word that has had a long history in this
world. It has been the watchword of many a fight,
the motive of many a sacrifice, the burden of many a
prayer. Millions have held fast to Faith in their lives ;
thousands have testified to Faith by their deaths. Now
Faith, or Belief, in its primary and elementary concep
tion, is the acceptance of information on trust — on the
word of another. If I have never been in London, I
accept the fact that there is such a place as London,
and I accept it on the word of another. If I have never
tested the strength of wood and iron myself, still I
confidently enter a railway carriage, trusting to what
others have investigated and pronounced. But if I have
visited London, and if I have a sufficient experimental
knowledge of the materials used in carriage building
then I do not believe these things, but I know them.

It is evident, then, at the very outset of our inquiries,
that Belief must, of its own nature, play a very impor
tant part in human affairs. Consider the enormous
number of things which must be taken on trust — on the
word of another. The eye, the ear, the touch, are very

116 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

limited faculties. That portion of this vast universe
which they can tell us of is very narrow indeed. A
man would never eat his food, or set his foot to the
ground, or carry on any intercourse with his fellow man,
if he refused to believe. He takes it on trust that his
bread is not poisoned ; that beasts and materials may be
relied on ; that there are places for him to correspond
with which he has never seen. The bond of civilisa
tion is society ; man cannot rise to a civilised life, or
keep in it, without the help and intercourse of other
men. But society is held together by mutual trust and
confidence. No man, as long as he is sane and sober,
even demands ocular proof for everything he is called
upon to accept. For things past he believes the word
of his father and mother, or the accounts of those who
have written histories. For things distant he accepts
the report of his friends, of his correspondents, of the
public journals. He trusts his tradesmen; he confides
in the word of the mechanic, the man of business, the
lawyer, the doctor. If he refuses to believe, he must
shut himself up ; he must live a life that is no life, but
only a savage existence ; or rather he must soon cease to
live ; for unless a man believes he must die. It is
obvious to say, that on these subjects the wisest man is
he who trusts the least. But this is an exaggeration,
which merely suggests the truth, that whilst a man
finds it convenient to believe he must still exercise
caution. The most cautious must always find it neces
sary to take upon trust infinitely more than he can
examine and prove for himself

Now it is not easy to knagine anyone objecting to

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 117

believe merely because he considers Belief to be an un
worthy form of knowledge, or to be no knowledge at
all. We cannot understand a person saying, ' If I can
not find out a thing for myself, I had rather not know
it at all than take it on the word of another/ This
would be mere stupidity. Information which comes on
the word of another is real information in quite as true
a sense as information which we derive from our own
senses. If my friend or my newspaper — sources which
I know I can trust — inform me that prices have risen
in New York, or that a certain substance hitherto un
known is good for food, or that the weather was fine
or otherwise on such a day, at such a place, my in
formation is surely as real, as solid, as useful, as if I
had myself visited foreign lands and tasted strange sub
stances. There is only one question, and that is in regard
to the trustworthiness of my sources. But that sup
posed, I need not hesitate, waver, or doubt. Nay, mora
It frequently happens that under these circumstances
I cannot doult. There are many kinds of testimony,
and many instances in which testimony is employed
when the testimony is of such a sort as to compel assent.
Let us suppose, for example, that a trustworthy friend
walks into your house, and mentions that he left his
home at such an hour, or that he met and spoke with
such and such a person ; you are obliged to believe him.
You cannot help having that much additional know
ledge. It is true that, by an extraordinarily violent
mental effort, proceeding from some strong prejudice or
prepossession, you may so confuse yourself as to doubt at
last But with your mind in a state of quietness and

118 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

candour, on the first reception of the information you
assent ; the very make and texture of the human mind
compels you. It is no more possible for you, with your
senses in their healthy state, to help seeing trees and
houses when they stand before you and you look towards
them in the daylight, than it is for your minds to doubt
upon due and sufficient testimony. In short, Belief is
as real a means of information, as satisfactory to the
mind, and as cogent and effective in compelling assent,
as any kind of knowledge whatever.

But I will go further, and say, that in many cases
Belief is practically a much more useful kind of infor
mation than personal knowledge or experience. I do
not mean to say that a person can be more certain of
anything than of what he sees and hears and tests. But,
in the first place, as we have already seen, it is impos
sible to test or apply our senses to one hundredth part
of the things we must accept ; and, in the second, what
is required for practical life is conclusions, not facts or
bits of experience. This is a very important considera
tion. An investor, for instance, wants to know the
latest quotations on the Stock Exchange ; he does no
particularly want to know the hundreds of little bits of
fact that enable a reporter to telegraph these quotations
to the newspapers. If he were a reporter himself, he
would have to go and use his eyes and ears. Perhaps
he would use them very badly ; the occupation might
not suit him at all; and he might be wrong in his
practical summary and conclusions. But he goes to his
newspaper and believes, and he has all he practically
wants. Or, again, suppose that a man is ill in health,

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 119

and wishes to know what to do. It is perhaps con
ceivable, and within the limits of physical possibility, that
he should personally make such researches in chemistry,
physiology, and medicine as would enable him to find
out. But the thing is practically impossible ; that is to
say, it is impossible to all but persons possessing such a
combination of qualifications as is never found, or only
found in the rarest cases. What he does is to consult a
doctor, or at the least a book ; or he remembers what he
has been told before ; or he puts together two or three
facts and pieces of information acquired from books or
instructors, and so decides. And it is to be observed,
that the more he trusts to his own inferences (even
though these inferences are grounded on what others
have told him, as must be the case with most of them)
the greater danger is there of his arriving at a false
conclusion. The best thing he can do is to choose out
an expert, and simply believe him. The truth is, that
most of the conclusions of practical life, on which we
act every day and must continue to act, are highly
complex, and are the results of an enormous amount of
observation. We believe, for example, that the water
supplied to our houses will not poison us, that the bread
in the shops is not unfit for food, that stone will stand
the weather better than wood, that foul smells in the
streets mean fever; we believe that railroads, banks
docks, shipping are good things; we advocate tem
perance, or trades- unions, or free trade, or the oppo
site. And we do this mostly on trust. There is not
one man in a thousand of us who is capable of doing
otherwise. The average man or woman of the workers

120 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

and toilers of this world is not one who can either
investigate facts or put them together when found out.
Eyes and ears are not sharp enough, brain is not strong
enough, life is not long enough, to allow any of us to
make out a system, or even to investigate thoroughly
and independently one single conclusion. Belief, there
fore, is our resource, and we are wise in availing our
selves of Belief. It is the very condition of our daily
life. We are like men who must sail over a wide and
tossing ocean, and must make no delay ; and we do not
take our axes and go into the forest to cut down trees to
"build us ships ; we do not take our hammers and our
appliances and toil for years to make a vessel, that will
not sail when it is made ; we do not ransack markets
and stores for rigging and outfit ; but we step into a
ship that others have made before we wanted it; we
trust plank and cord and mast ; we trust pilot and
mariner ; and so we sail the sea of life.

These are general truths, and I have rather stated
them than tried to explain them. Yet the statement of
simple facts is often the best explanation of such facts.
It is undoubtedly of the utmost importance to remem
ber that the nature of man's mind and the conditions
under which we live are such that Belief, or the taking
of information on trust, must enter largely into our life.
But — and here we approach our subject more closely —
this important truth, which regards the whole of human
life, has a very special application to all matters relating
to worship, religion, and morality. Speaking broadly
and practically, as we must do when speaking about the
mass of mankind, we may say that no religious system

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 121

or worship, and no system of morality, is possible with
out Belief.

In -order to see this clearly, it seems to me that it is
sufficient to consider for a moment what we mean by
religion and morality. Eeligion means at least this —
the acknowledgment of one Supreme Being, our Creator
and our Last End, the loving Him with the whole heart,
and the serving Him faithfully. Morality means the
acknowledgment of a rule of right and wrong in our
actions. Now if we grant that the existence of God
may be dimly known by unassisted and personal reason,
still the necessity for Belief is absolute. Take the attri
butes of the Supreme Being — our idea of His justice,
mercy, purity, or power — and how far could the keenest
reason of the longest-lived sage travel unassisted over
such boundless regions of investigation ? And would
two men be found to agree when the investigation was
concluded ? And must the world be without intelli
gent belief in a God until loug-lived sages have uttered
their oracles, and those oracles have been found to
agree ? Set an ordinary man, with work and business,
to find out and demonstrate whether the Supreme
Being is infinitely just, or whether there is a future
life, and, apart from what he has from revelation, he
will not know where to begin. The subject is too
deep, and his faculties are too limited. If the matter
had been one of eyes and ears, he might at least have
made a start. But here he is like a man in a dense
fog, who knows not which is the north and which the
south. And, moreover, he has not the time which is
necessary for such an inquiry. And if he had time

122 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

and ability and inclination, yet it might chance — and
the chance would be almost a certainty, considering
the nature of man's mind and heart — that he would
decide, not according to cool reason, but according to
his own wish or want. Passion, temperament, cha
racter, circumstances, would be ready to prompt him,
and to show him what he ought to say. And so there
would either be no idea at all about God, or else there
would be a chaos of contradictory opinions, whims,
fancies, and daring assertions. And this would be true
all through the list of those grave subjects which
are included under the name of religion — such as
the soul, the existence of evil, sin, and suffering. I do
not speak of revealed religion; to that we shall come
presently. We are here concerned solely with asserting
the impossibility of any religion at all for the mass of
mankind without Belief. And it would be the same
with what we call morality. If men were left to find
out, each for himself, the rules of right and wrong, the
sacredness of duty, the comparative merits of good deeds,
and the essential element of virtue or of vice, we should
again have a mere chaos. If every generation or every
human being had to start afresh, and investigate whether
murder was unlawful, whether theft was morally wrong,
or whether to benefit one's neighbour was a good deed,
each generation and each man might come to a right
conclusion on some broad principles; but many men
would certainly not do so ; and there would be a shift
ing uncertainty and haziness about the rules of right
and wrong, which would not tend to make this world a

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 123

more agreeable place to live in. The mass of men must
take their religion and their morality, as they take their
daily bread, on trust. And, as a matter of fact, the mass
of men have always done so. We need not count the
barbarous races which have been, and which even now,
perhaps, are, the majority of mankind. We know how
they carry on their superstitions, their savage rites, their
childish observances, from year to year, from generation
to generation, from century to century. They step into
the beliefs of their fathers just as they dwell in their
fathers' houses or tents ; they take up their tribe's views
of God and immortality, as they assume its garb and its
weapons, its paint, its feathers, and its war-cry. No
one questions, no one doubts. If there is a change, it is
because some whimsical chief or despotic king orders
them to change ; whether they go on in senseless uni
formity or break their tradition by an equally senseless
innovation, it is always on trust and in belief. But if we
turn from barbarism to comparative civilisation we find
it always the same. There are two or three instances,
besides Christianity, of religious systems spreading widely
among cultured or partially-cultured people. What is
called Brahmiuism is one of the oldest forms of reli
gious belief or practice in the world. The millions of
the Indian peninsula adhere to it at this very day. It
has had its vicissitudes, its heresies, its sects. But try
to reckon the millions who have professed their adher
ence to it in the wide-spread Eastern lands where it has
flourished through the thousands of years during which it
has had a name in the world, and you may gather some
idea of how men take their religion on trust. Or look at

124 THE SPIEIT OF FAITH.

Buddhism — the senseless Nihilism or Pantheism which
contrived, some 2500 years ago, to draw away followers
from Brahminism, and whose members have grown to
be well-nigh one-third of all the human beings on the
earth at this moment. Of all these millions how many
units are there who have not taken their opinions, as far
as they have any, and their practices, such as they are,
from some king's edict, from some preacher's word, from
some ascetic's example, or from their father's or their
mother's lips ? Mahometanism, again, as long as it had
any vitality at all, consisted mainly in a blind personal
devotion to a man and to a book ; the Moslem was and
is a ' believer' who accepts a certain cry and practice
here on earth, and looks for a hope and a reward in
the heavens, because the Prophet and the Koran have
said so. And to pass to Christianity, what has turned
the best portion of the world to Christianity but belief
and trust? and what holds Christians to their profession
except the same ? It is a point we shall have to discuss
more closely later on ; but I may remind you here that
not only does the Catholic Church uniformly proceed on
the idea that men and women must be taught, that they
cannot make out their religion or keep their religion
unadulterated by their own thought and reflection, and
that ' Belief ' is the only practical way of getting
Christianity into men's minds at all; but it seems to
stand to reason that in no other fashion could the
workers and strivers, and the little children, get hold
of anything like steadfast and working principles of any
cmd. And this view, let us remember, is far from being
upset by an appeal to that form of religious thought

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 125

which claims the right to question everything — I mean, to
Protestantism even in its most Protestant form. I make
bold to say you never met a Protestant, were he as ex
treme as he could be, provided he held anything at all,
who did not hold upon trust and take even his Pro
testantism at second hand. There may be here and
there one who holds very little indeed, and who thinks
he has made out for himself what he does hold. If such
a one came under my own experience, I feel sure I
could show him that even he was going on trust ; that
his demonstrations were only 'Belief after all. But
waivin^ this, is it not certain that the mass of Protes
tants get their religion from their catechisms, their
preachers, their newspapers, or their mothers ? Is it
not certain that if a Protestant were ordered to strip off
all that he had received from another's hand, and to
retain only what he had won and woven for himself, he
would stand in a sorry plight ? Men delight, it is true,
in doubting, in calling in question established truth, and
in setting themselves above authority ; and, whatever
the achievement is worth, they no doubt succeed in
doing so. But they can only attack details — a point
here and a point there. They always retain far more
than they reject. They tear off shreds and they pick
them to pieces; but they still go clothed. Or if by
long and slow process men skilful of speech and sophism
have persuaded the unlearned man to part with the
garments his fathers handed down to him, it is only to
make him put on clothes of a different make, but clothes
all the same. Scepticism, or the rejection of all definite
truth, may be theoretically possible, but not with the

126 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

masses of mankind. And therefore they must have
Belief.

And here comes on the great and vital question. If
men must have Belief, or else have no religion, what
must they do to believe safely and usefully? Is there
anyone whom they can trust? Has Providence made
them what they are, with such necessities and such
deficiencies, and then left them to shift for themselves ?

As I have already said, it is my object, not so much to
prove, or to engage in controversy, as to explain and pre
pare. I have to point out the Spirit of Belief — what you
must be, what you must do, what you must have, and
whither you must bend your gaze, if you would believe.

In the first place, then, you must see that it is
highly probable that God would speak, or make a reve
lation. A man who is expecting a thing will be sure
not to miss it when it comes. The sailor who keeps his
eye anxiously on the horizon will catch sight of the ship
he wants to see the moment her masthead is above the
horizon. The watcher of the skies, who peers in the
night hours through his telescope for the coming star,
will see it and note it the moment its edge is projected
on his glass. The child who watches at the window for
its father in the dusk, or who listens from a sick-bed
for his step, will know the instant he is there. If there
is a God at all, no one can doubt that He must be a
God who cares for and who loves the things that He
has made, and who loves most and cares most for the
beings whom He has endowed with a reason to know
Him and a will which is bound to love Him more than
any other thing. He could not be a God who should

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 127

sit in the heavens — in some serene regions above the
changes and the storms of the earth and the air — and
take no heed to the hearts in which He had implanted
the divine fire of a longing love for Himself. To have
made rational creatures at all was a wonder that only
His own limitless power can explain, and that mys
terious love which the Infinite can shed upon the
finite. And, having made them, why should He stay
His hand at their birth ? Why should He leave them
in the conditions which the mere fact of being made in
volved ? Why should He not go on as lavishly as He
had begun ; and having gifted them with being, for no
reason beyond the effusiveness of His love, adorn them
with gifts above being and nature, out of the same con
straining yet most free generosity ? When the rich man
builds him a house on a spot which he has chosen, he
builds because he chooses; the place, the view, the
wood, the water, and the air have pleased him, and he
builds that he may live there. And having built, he
does not turn his back on the palace which his love has
imagined and his treasure created, but he dwells there
and spends himself upon it still. As he made it and it
is his, so he loves to adorn and glorify it. Whither
should his fancy turn or his plenteous wealth flow ex
cept to the spot where he first felt that his heart could
be satisfied ? So, if God has made us, there is no cause
to wonder at His wishing to do still more for us. He
was not necessitated to do more. But it seems to me
that when we contemplate Him creating, we know, we
feel, that He will not stop there. Creation itself, which
reason inexorably proves, is such a stupendous < reve-

128 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

lation/ so to speak, that the mind of the earnest man,
having somewhat grasped its immense significance, stands
waiting with an awestruck certainty for those further
demonstrations which he knows will come, of that in
effable motive cause which (if we dare speak in such a
human way) urged the Infinite to utter the fiat which
made the worlds. In one word, from the mere fact that
God has made man it is extremely probable that He
would help him, teach him, benefit him, more than his
mere nature could require or expect. And it would
seem that it was for this reason He left in man's soul a
capacity, a receptivity, a sort of vague want, which called
for more knowledge and more power. The want was
not imperious. Man could have lived without more,
but not well lived. The palace of the Great Builder
had been fashioned with spaces and heights, with great?
vaulted halls and mighty foundations for towers and
pinnacles, which awaited, in dumb show of supplication,
new plans and new lavishness — the colour, the gold, the
glory of a transformation. Man's soul, limited as it is,
has a vague yearning to know God better; a vague
vision of secrets beyond matter, beyond life ; a burning
wish for immortality, and a panting restlessness to know
what will come when the body shall be dissolved. It
cannot find out much for itself. It can, perhaps, make
out a glimpse here and an inference there. It may
spend the years of its allotted mortality in researches,
and may make a fresh step each year it seeks. But it
cannot get the key of the mysteries which lie around it ;
it cannot pierce the veil which hangs down on the other
side of the grave ; and if it find the heavenly fire and

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 129

light its torch at the flame, death comes, and the torch
drops in the dust, and the light is lost again to the world.
And God has allowed the human race to feel this. Al
though, as we shall presently see, He never did leave
mankind without a supernatural revelation, yet there
have been periods and races — long periods and wide
spread races — in which man's own wrong-doing has ob
scured that revelation. From the records of these times
and races we know that the human heart, left to itself,
when not brutalised by passion and bad custom, is
uneasy without revelation and grace. The best minds
sighed for God. Human nature, represented by what
was noblest among men, groped1 hither and thither,
seeking for God, if perchance it should find Him. Like
the Hebrew singer in the days of his dark fortune, it
cried to God from the wilderness, ' 0 God, my God,
to Thee do I watch at break of day. For Thee my
soul hath thirsted ; for Thee my flesh, 0 how many
ways ! In a desert land, and where there is no way
and no water.'2 If we had not Christ's light, such
would be our condition and our cry, unless we were
grovelling on the earth in sensual sin. And therefore I
have said, that the mere fact of being what we are
seems to point to the certainty that God will interfere
some way to help us, teach us, and raise us up.

And this He has done by giving us what is called
revelation. When we speak of revelation, we mean
that God has spoken to us, either Himself or by His
ministers — His prophets, apostles, or evangelists. We
mean that He has told us things which our reason,

1 Acts xvii. 2.7. * Ps. Ixii. 1-3.

130 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

though He gave us our reason, could or would never
have found out for itself. We mean that He has given
us information which we are to take upon trust— trust
ing to Him. This information is of two kinds; or
rather it regards two classes of subjects. First, there
are those matters about which we should have been
able to find out something for ourselves even without
His supernatural revelation; for instance, His own
existence, the spirituality of our souls, and our immor
tality; as also what are the broad rules of right and
wrong. On these matters we should have been able to
know something by the light of our reason. But what
we knew would have been so fragmentary, so much
mixed up with error, so difficult to get at, and so hard
to keep, that practically the mass of men would hardly
have known it all. And therefore God has revealed
much on these subjects, and told us clearly and simply
so much precious truth about Himself and His attri
butes, about our souls and the life to come, that the poor
man and woman, and the little child, have no difficulty
in coining to the knowledge of what will guide their
lives aright. But there is another class of subjects on
which God has spoken to us. He has revealed to us —
and here the word ' revealed ' is used in its full and com
plete meaning — things so deep and grand, things so
hidden and so impossible to predict, that only Himself
could have revealed them. They are called mysteries ;
and they comprise such truths as the Three Persons in
the Godhead, the taking flesh of the Eternal Son, the
coming of the Holy Ghost, the beatific vision after death,
and other * profound things of God.'

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 131

This is what we mean by Revelation; and we take
it upon trust from God. He has spoken, and we be
lieve ; and once we believe, we know it as well as if we
had made it out for ourselves ; nay, as I remarked
above, practically we know it a great deal better.

But you will say, Are we sure that God has spoken ?
Two classes of persons may ask this question : those
who really doubt whether God has spoken, and those
who already believe, but who want to be able to give an
answer to those who ask them. Are we sure, then, that
God has spoken ?

I answer that we are quite sure. You must admit
that it is, in the first place, highly probable that God
would wish to speak to man, and reveal to him things
which his natural reason would not have found out, but
which, nevertheless, his reason had a dumb blind know
ledge of— as a blind man has a knowledge of the sun.
You must admit also that Almighty God could easily
make His wishes or His revelation known to man. The
God who made us would surely find it possible and easy
to speak to us when He chose. There are many whose
unwillingness to believe arises from not seeing how
likely it is that God would speak, and how easy it is for
Him to speak if He chooses. But if we fully admit the
probability and the possibility that God has spoken, we
find at hand a positive proof that He has spoken.
There is a book called the New Testament. Looking
at that book, not as inspired, but merely as an ordinary
history, we cannot doubt, first, that a man called Jesus
Christ did once live; secondly, that He asserted He
was sent by God to teach God's revelation ; thirdly.

132 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

that He worked great miracles in proof of what He said',
fourthly, that He rose again from the dead ; and fifthly,
that a great number of persons accepted what He said
and believed in Him. Now I know that a few learned
men have denied some of these things. But the greater
number of learned men accept them. And as for those
who deny them, it is quite clear that they do so because
they deny both the probability and the possibility that
God should speak to man ; and in many cases it is be
cause they do not really admit there is a true God at all.
I boldly assert that no man who opens the New Testa
ment, previously admitting the probability and possibility
of revelation, will hesitate to accept the facts which the
New Testament relates. And if he does not admit the
probability and possibility of revelation — that is, of
God's speaking to man in a v/ay beyond the information
given by mere natural reason — he cannot admit there
is an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God; and there
fore he cannot admit a God at all.

It is a fact, therefore, that God has spoken. I could
begin from this present century, and show you how in
every century — nay, in every quarter of a century — up
to the time of the New Testament, when Christ Jesus
lived, there is testimony that He brought God's revela
tion to man. A thing which we can trace up like this
is certain. It has been handed down from age to age.

We began by saying that men must believe a great
deal — that is, take a great deal on trust — or they could
not live in this world. We saw how especially this was
true in the case of worship and religion. Belief, then,
which is so necessary for mankind, is also possible for

BELIEF A NECESSITY. 133

them. The great Almighty Maker who formed them
has also spoken to them ; and their wisest course, their
bounden duty, is to believe His word. If they must take
their religion in a great measure on trust, He it is whom
they are to trust. The Eternal Teacher sits and teaches
for evermore. Human princes and human sages have
commanded and have searched out, and men have been
none the better or the wiser. But to those who have
ears to hear the voice of the Lord there is light and
wisdom and peace.

H.

THE NEW-TESTAMENT TEACHING AS TO WHAT FAITH IS.

The obedience of faith. ROM. i. 5.

IN the last discourse I explained what it is to believe,
and I showed that Belief, in religious matters, means tak
ing upon trust a large number of truths relating to God,
His worship and His law ; and taking them on trust
because He has spoken. It might seem to some that
it was not necessary to take so many words to explain
this. But to me it seems that there are numbers of
people in this country who either do not believe because
they think Belief is a slavery, and unworthy of them, or
only half believe, because they have a sort of fear that
Belief will not bear investigation, and that the less you
think about your Belief the more likely you are not to
quarrel with it. Therefore it was useful to show that
Belief is a necessity for mankind, especially in religious
matters, and to point out briefly (what would take
volumes to develop fully) the complete certainty we
have that God Himself has spoken to the world and
left us His Word.

You may, perhaps, expect that now I shall proceed
to show you where and how God's voice is to be heard,
and to explain the authority of Holy Scripture, and of
the teaching Church which is revealed in Holy Scrip-

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 135

ture. This, however, is not precisely my purpose in
these instructions. Doubtless it is most important that
we should see that God has left His Church as the de
positary, the guardian, and the interpreter of His divine
revelation, which would otherwise be useless for the
masses of mankind. And doubtless also, during the
ensuing remarks, I may throw some light on the Church's
claims, which will tend to conciliate those who dispute
them. But my chief purpose at present is to inquire,
not so much where God's revelation is, as what sort of
a revelation it is; in what sort of a spirit we should
seek it, and what we should do in order to make it out
for ourselves, and get hold of it. To look for revelation
is to look for something divine ; and to attain it we must
understand something of God's ways. Faith — for that
is the name by which we call belief in revelation — is a
gift, an act of the mind which very much depends on
the state of the mind itself. We must, therefore, ex
amine in what shape God will speak or will appear.
And we shall find the answer to our question chiefly in
the pages of the New Testament.

It sometimes happens that a man who walks out into
the country to look for some house to which he has been
directed, comes upon it and goes by it without knowing
that it is the one he is in search of. And sometimes,
after hearing about a place for years, and for years
longing to visit it, when at last we get there and actually
see it, our anticipations are disappointed, and the reality
is very little like what we expected to find. It is a great
thing for a searcher to be sure of what he is looking for.
And when the human heart is searching for its God,

136 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

there is a special care and attention necessary in order
not to take some false image of God for God Himself.
The mightiness and majesty of Jehova is utterly and
infinitely different from the mightiness and grandeur of
man. God cannot show Himself as He is; for if He
did, the heavens and the earth would flee away, and be
no more. But, at the same time, when He does reveal
Himself, He does not ordinarily show Himself in the
form and the trappings of that glory and power which
are human. He does not want to be taken for His own
creatures. He does not wish to be measured by the
height of those infinitesimal mole-hills of the earth
which man takes for great mountains. If He cannot
show Himself in His own glory, at least he will not put
on the glory of man. He would rather choose the things
' that are not ' — the things which men call weakness,
baseness, poverty, and lowliness — that so His real glory
and real power might stand the less chance of being
misunderstood by those who had eyes to see. A man
who has accustomed himself to call things by the name
which the undisciplined and sinful human heart is in
the habit of calling them will easily pass by God, even
at the moment when God is very near him. When Elias
stood on the top of Carmel the Lord passed by him.
There was a great and strong wind before the Lord,
overthrowing the mountains and breaking the rocks in
pieces ; the Lord was not in the wind. And after the
wind, an earthquake; and the Lord was not in the
earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire ; the Lord
was not in the fire. And after the fire, the whistling of
a gentle air. And Elias heard the gentle wind, and he

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 137

knew it was the Lord. And he came out from the cave,
where the storm and the thunder had driven him, and
he covered his face with his mantle, and stood there at
the cave's threshold listening to the words of the Lord. l
He is the type of the heart that knows where to see God.
But most men act otherwise. They take the flash
and the noise and the rush of some earth-storm for the
manifestation of God. They are the men who in olden
times could not understand why Noe worked so patiently
for a hundred years at the Ark. If they had met a
wandering Eastern tribe in the deserts of Arabia car
rying the Ark of the Covenant, they would have de
spised them and passed by. If they had found their way
to Bethlehem on the night of the Nativity, they would
have thought they had made a mistake. They were the
men who met Jesus Christ by the lake of Galilee, in the
streets of Jerusalem, under the porches of the temples,
and saw in Him nothing but a mechanic, or an enthu
siast, or a man possessed by the devil. They are those
who in all ages have cried out 'Foolishness !' when they
have had the Gospel preached to them. For God is ' a
hidden God.' 2 It is His pleasure to disguise Himself.
Yet let us beware what we say. Which, after all, would
be the more complete disguise — that God should wrap
Himself in the semblance of miserable human pomp and
greatness, or should come, as He does come, lowly, meek,
and poor? Hath not the mind eyes to see the true
greatness under the humble outside ? Nay, is it not
true, is it not certain from the story of the past, that
the poor and despised instruments to whom God has

1 3 Kings xix. 11. « Isaiaa xlv. 15.

138 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

entrusted Himself upon the earth are ever and again
found conquering the power and pride of the world;
crushing, breaking up, pushing aside, or subduing to
themselves the forces which seemed to be so mighty and
so absolute ? If we look aright, we can tell the power
of God under its seeming disguises. But the wisdom
which does not fix its end in the heavens, and which
lives in this world as if this world were its home and its
final destiny, and which calls things by the names of the
earth, is sure to go astray when it begins, as it thinks,
to look for God and God's ways.

The truth of this is never more clearly seen than in
the case of multitudes in this country who are looking
for, or perhaps think that they have found, what they
call the Gospel They take certain big and sounding
names from the world's vocabulary, and measuring by
them the revelation of God, they accept as much as they
can cover with these names. Wealth and material
power are names which earthly wisdom bows before;
and is it not true they go a long way in helping men to
choose their form of Christianity ? But if you say these
are vulgar notions, and educated and refined minds are
far above measuring truth by power to strike and power
to pay, I say that there are other words as dangerous
and as false. Liberty, Independence, Progress, Free
Inquiry — these are some of the notions which numbers
of people bring to test the Gospel by. If they find any
form of religion, like the Catholic Church, in which
these names are not held in high esteem (at least as
understood by them), then, like the Jews of old, they are
straightway ' scandalised/ It cannot be true. It can-

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 139

not be meant for them. Freedom is a glorious privilege
Progress is the inalienable birthright of the human race.
Independence is the prerogative of man's noble nature.
And being full of views like these, they settle down
with such scraps of God's word as seem to suit.

It is no wonder if men who look for God's truth
through such glasses as these do not see it in the Catho
lic Church. They have altogether misconceived what I
call the ' spirit ' of Faith. And it is well that we should
try to understand what that spirit is.

When Moses, in the solitude and the gloom of
Arabian deserts, came suddenly, as he drew near to
Horeb, on the startling apparition of the flaming bush,
he said, ' I will go and see this great sight.' And he
loosed his shoes from his feet, and hid his face. That is
a figure of the soul's behaviour in the presence of God's
revelation. The spirit of Faith is before all things the
spirit of lowliness of mind. It is because so many men
do not know what lowliness of mind is that they have no
practical notion of what it is to have Faith.

What is the meaning of God's revelation to man?
It means that He has spoken in order to let man know
things which he did not know, which he was always con
fusing, or which he could never have found out for him
self ; things so important that without the knowledge of
them his ]ast end would be frustrate ; things therefore of
vital moment about God Himself, the dispensation of
the world's salvation through Jesus Christ, the means of
remission of sins and of sanctification, and the true path
to the bliss of the heavens. Revelation is the light of
man, but it is also the voice of God. It means the most

140 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

wonderful condescension on the part of God. It means
the opening of heaven's doors — the admission to the
secret things of God's majesty. The revelation which
is in the world is dimly figured by that Shekina — that
glory which dwelt in the temple of Sion — before which
the Hebrew priest bowed down and adored. Revelation
cannot be approached except in an attitude of what may
be called the lowliness of worship. We come to it, not
to criticise it, not to improve it, but to learn and to act.
We cannot afford to lose one jot or one tittle of the
precious light. The temper of the believer is the temper
of Moses with unshod feet prostrate before the mys
terious Voice in the wilderness.

If we turn now to the New Testament, we shall find
that this was the view taken of revelation by those who,
we must admit, knew best how to describe it. Let us
first take our Lord and Saviour Himself. Everyone
must have observed how absolute, peremptory, and
magisterial He is in His proclamation of His holy
doctrine. He takes His seat and speaks as one having
authority. He is called the Master and the Teacher.
He does not propose His doctrine as a subject of dis
cussion or investigation ; He exacts it as an obedience.
He does not want inquisitive doubters, who will toss His
words from one to another; He demands a following of
devout disciples. He does not discuss; He appeals
sometimes to one or two obvious proofs of His mission
and divinity; but He contents Himself for the most
part with the word of rebuke, of reproach, of exhorta
tion, or of command. He has not come to argue with
the world, but to subdue the world. He points His

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 141

finger and He says, ' Come after Me ! ' ' Hear Me ! '
' Take My yoke upon you ! ' ' Learn of Me ! ' He
wants men who will obey. His favourite type is a
' little child.' He speaks of His teaching as the King
dom of God — a significant name; a mere philosopher
would have called it a system or a theory — and He
declares that none can come to it or enter it except those
who become 'little children/ It is the Kingdom of
God, because to believe is, first of all and above all, to
submit our minds to the claims of the God who made
us. And none but ' little children ' can enter, because
to make this necessary submission of the heart there
must be a single-mindedness, an openness to truth, an
absence of prejudice, such as is most fitly typified in a
young and innocent child. He reasoned, indeed, at
times ; it would be simply false to say that the work of
reasoning is not most important, under God's ordinary
providence, as a preliminary to Faith. But when He
gave proofs they were proofs of His mission (as I have
said) and of His divinity ; for His doctrine He merely
gave them His word, as He sat on the hill-side, or stood
in the boat of Peter, or walked in the porches of the
Temple. And the souls who believed in Him bowed
down before Him as they did so. The glance of His
eye, the tone of His voice, the gesture of His arm, the
words that He spake and the works He did —these drew
the multitudes after Him. Some will say this was un
reasonable in Him and rash in the believers. But they
had sufficient proof, putting prejudice and passion aside;
and it always has been, and is, and always will be, that
the crowd must not only have its mind enlightened to

142 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

see good reasons, but must have its heart impressed, be
fore it can thoroughly take them. The Hebrew leader
took the shoes from off his feet, and then he saw the
vision. And so Jesus, in His teaching, laid so great a
stress on 'poverty of spirit/ humility, and simplicity.
He had been prophesied as a king, and as a king
He came. Those who brought gifts to Him and bowed
themselves down, to them He gave His light and His
truth.

The Apostles of our Lord, His first heralds and His
commissioned preachers, took the same view of what
Faith is as their Lord and Master. Saint Stephen,
standing before the Jewish councils, calls the Jews a
4 stiff-necked people ' 3 — that is, a race which would not
bend to the yoke of belief. Saint Peter declares that the
preachers of the Gospel preached what they were
inspired to preach by the Holy Ghost.4 Saint James
exhorts the twelve tribes to be ' swift to hear ' the word
of God, which is able to save their souls, and to receive
it ' with meekness.'6 And no one can require to be
told how Saint Paul demands from his hearers the
assent of Faith as a duty and a virtue. It is most true
that Saint Paul argues and discusses ; but here is the
very reason of the gravity of his testimony. He reasons;
he never shirks discussion, or tries to shuffle out of a
difficulty. But with all that he lets his hearers feel that
with him Faith means something more than an answer,
or a definition, or the conclusion of a syllogism. He
lets them know that if they refused to hear him they
were resisting and despising ' not man but God.' 6 In

3 Acts vii. 51. « 1 Peter i. 12. 8 James i. 21. 6 Thess, iv. 8.

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 143

the very opening verses of the great argumentative
epistle of justifying Faith — the Epistle to the Eomans —
he calls Faith * an obedience.' 7 It is an idea that occurs
over and over again in the epistles. Take as a sample
that passage in 2 Corinthians : ' The weapons of our war
fare are not carnal, but powerful through God to the
destruction of fortifications, subverting of counsels, and
every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding
to the obedience of Christ.'8 The preaching of the
Gospel, in its effects on the minds of the hearers, is like
the advance of an army on a fortified town or a camp
strongly entrenched. It means overturning, throwing
down, destroying. Heights are stormed, plans upset,
devices brought to nothing. What fortified heights are
these? What counsels and loftinesses of thought?
None other than the human wisdom which comes to the
Gospel to criticise before it will submit. The state of
mind which Saint Paul expects to find in the true
believer is ' a captivity of the understanding/ ' an obedi
ence.' It is quite plain that Saint Paul would have had
little sympathy with independence of thought and free
inquiry. He would have said, as indeed he did say, to
the philosopher as to the uninstructed, ' You are a poor
weak creature, standing in need of light to save your
soul by ; I have that light, for to me is committed the
truth of God ; bow your knee, bend your head, and hear
what I say, and having heard, go and put it in practice.'
And it is easy to see that if Faith meant a ' captivity '
of the mind and an 'obedience' of the heart to the
v Romans i. 5. 8 2 Cor. x. 4, 5

144 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

Thessalonians and the Corinthians, it means the same
thing to Englishmen in the nineteenth century. The
early hearers of Saint Paul seem, in some instances, to
have been difficult to persuade that the spirit of lowly-
mindedness was the right spirit : just as an Englishman
now. But Saint Paul insisted. He told them he knew
that ' wisdom ' and ' prudence ' were great words in their
mouths ; but it was just this ' wisdom of the wise'* which
was to be destroyed, just this 'prudence of the prudent'
which was to be rejected. ' Hath not God made foolish
the wisdom of this world 1 ' It was the ' foolishness of
preaching' which was to save them that believe.9 In
other words, for Faith there was required a bowing down
or submission of the mind to what seemed at first sight
folly. The great Apostle had passed through the fiery
trial himself. It was the process of his own conversion
that he was describing when he said that Faith meant
the humbling of the heart. Before Saul believed in the
Lord Jesus he was smitten to the ground and lay pros
trate in the dust. When God's mercy overtook him
that day on the road near to Damascus, it was not in
the shape of a proof or a discussion. The power of God
struck down his body, and at the same moment humbled
his heart ; and as • he lay upon the ground he cried out
from the depths of his newly-found humility, ' 0 Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?'10 He was converted,
though he knew no creed or catechism yet. The Voice
that pierced his heart did not go on to instruct him.
Any instrument could do that now. Poor Ananias
could tell him all he needed to know. The work was
» i Cor. i 19, 21. 10 Acts ix. 6.

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 145

done; for the proud doctor, the learned Pharisee, the
busy and strenuous defender of his sect, was humble,
obedient, and contrite of heart.

The New Testament teaching and practice, then, in
regard to the great and fundamental virtue of Faith, ap
pears to be briefly as follows : He who wishes to prepare
himself for Faith must become as a ' little child.' Of such
is the Kingdom of Heaven. A child has no prejudices.
It has no strong passions. It does not scheme and con
trive for self. It is simple, open, and single-minded.
Such must be the believer. You will say, If a child is
all this, still it remains true that a child is more fre
quently deceived than a shrewd and grown-up man or
woman. Yes ; but the question is, not what is the best
preparation for escaping falsehood, but what is the way
to prepare for truth. God's revelation is a torch which
He has lighted Himself. It was His business to see to
that. It is ours to tear the bandages from our eyes,
and lift them up from the earth to where the brightness
gleams. A man need not be a shrewd reasoner, need not
be a great philosopher, reader, thinker, or scholar, to be
able to make out God's revelation. He need only be
guileless, unprejudiced, earnest. You will say, Then how
is it so many in this world miss God's light ? Because
they are sinful, prejudiced (though not always by their
own fault), or indifferent. Because they come, not to
submit, but criticise; to discuss and to pass sentence.
This is the wrong spirit. It is a spirit that will, perhaps,
save them from a mistake here and there ; from an error
more or less in some matter of detail. But when they
have criticised and questioned and settled everything

10

146 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

(if they ever settle anything), they will be as far from
the burning bush as ever. They will not have bowed
the head. They will be like men who calmly stand and
watch the rising flood when they should be swimming
for their lives. They measure and observe, they note
their lines and their angles ; and all the time the waters
they should boldly breast are rising dark and hungry
round them, till it is too late to swim away and be
saved.

In the second place, the New Testament teaches us
that Faith is an obedience. Obedience is a word men
do not like. Yet far the greater part of the world must
obey outwardly ; and if a man obey outwardly, and not
with the inward spirit also, he is either a coward or a
hypocrite. We must not only accept the Gospel, we
must ' obey ' it — as St. Paul says.11 Other teachers state
their doctrines and their theories, and persuade mankind
to adopt them. No speaker, pleader, or philosopher ever
dares to say 'Obey me/ save only he who speaks in
God's name. Here, acceptance is not merely a reason
able thing — it is a duty ; and resistance is rebellion and
sin. A man who comes to revelation with the idea that
he will please himself what he accepts and what he
rejects has not mastered the very elementary notion of
what is Faith. He must come prepared to bow to reve
lation the moment he sees it. And if you say that every
reasonable man would wish to do this — if he could only
see it — I answer, it is more uncommon than you sup
pose. There are many who never think of bowing their
hearts to God, even to God as far as they know Him ;

11 Romans i. 5.

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 147

and how can they expect that He will enlighten them
to know Him better ? There are many who are strong
in theoretical obedience, and who think they would
obey if they could hear the voice of God. But they have
never made themselves feel that perhaps He may, really
and actually, let them hear Him. They think of Him
as afar off. They are like the men who picture them
selves treading burning sands and suffering heroic hard
ships in far-off Africa, but never let the cold air in
upon themselves to test their endurance at home. They
think they would obey God, but they never pray to Him.
A virtue is no virtue until it is sublimated into an habi
tual prayer. And the obedience which many men think
they would pay to God's voice is proved to be but a
phantom or a fancy, because they are such utter
strangers to lowly heartfelt worship altogether. When
the poor beggar cried out, ' Oh Lord, that I may see ! '
Jesus opened his eyes. Many men's eyes are shut be
cause they let Jesus pass by and never with longing
heart cry to Him to help them.

And, thirdly, the Spirit of Faith must be one which
looks for a ' captivity.' Free-thought and Faith are as
opposite as light and darkness. The real consistent
free-thinkers know this, and do not care to hide it. But
there are multitudes of well-meaning people in tho
world who want to believe and yet be free to think as
they please. This cannot be. God's revelation means
a certain amount of definite information about the most
weighty matters, and a certain number of rules called
commandments. By one part of His revelation a check
is laid on free speculation ; by another, on license of

148 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

action. Faith is no mere vague feeling or pious senti
ment It is information. And all information limits
the freedom of thought, and ought, if right were always
done, frequently to limit the freedom of action. When
the mind knows the rules of Arithmetic, it is unable to
ihink anything which contradicts them. When we are
told that a war has commenced on the continent, or a
prince has spoken, or a parliament has come to a resolve,
conjecture and speculation on those precise points come
to an end. When a man wakes and finds himself on
the side of a precipice, he thanks the welcome dawn that
has let him know it. He must perforce walk the other
way; his freedom is restricted; but he will not now be
dashed to pieces. Thus revelation is restraint. It puts
a yoke upon the wanderings of the human intellect.
It checks the flight of the imagination, and saves
mankind a thousand wild and pernicious errors on the
gravest of all questions. But is this a 'yoke' or a
' captivity ' ? Is it not rather freedom and emancipation ?
Faith marks out certain boundaries, outside of which lie
darkness and danger. But, on the other hand, it is a
light which opens a new space to us. It beckons us to
discoveries we never should have dreamt of. It gives us
a new country. It is as if a princely leader placed him
self at the head of peasants and oppressed workers, and
led them out from their poverty and their wretched
homes to a new Western land, with mighty streams and
grand plains and lofty snow-clad hills, full of plenty and
of beauty. For no one knows what Faith can tell him
until he has placed its light yoke upon his neck. No
one can know how much is contained in the creeds of the

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 149

Church and the Holy Scriptures, until he takes them
with worshipful respect and reads them with believing
love. The Christian revelation is as the light of the
sun. If it did not exist, it would be necessary to create
it. It is so full of light and guidance, of thought for
great thinkers and for little thinkers, of food for great
minds and for smaller minds, that although it says on
many points ' Thus far and no farther/ yet it is free
dom, growth, and health to the soul. For it is not
restraint that stunts the soul ; but it is license which
ruins it. Large space, free air, and the rains of heaven
will make the forest trees grow ; and if the hand of the
forester interfere with skill, they will grow all the better.
But when they crowd together, and when every evil
growth is allowed to choke them, then the more the
rains fall and the sun shines the wilder, the poorer, the
more useless, and the more mean will age and growth
make every tree.

Having thus seen what sort of a spirit is the Spirit of
Faith or Belief in God's revelation according to the New
Testament, let us make one reflection in conclusion.

If an earnest man wanted to be a believer, in the
sense of our Lord and Saint Paul, I know not whither
he could turn except to the Catholic Church. He must
take some authority. He cannot stop at his Bible— for
his Bible is a book which does not explain itself. His
Bible is a book which contains the revelation about
God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Sacraments, Sin,
Justification, Sanctification ; but there are a hundred
contradictory opinions what the Bible means by them,
and the Bible does not explain itself. And therefore an

150 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

earnest man, especially if he be a busy working man or
woman, with little or no book-learning, is almost as
badly off with his Bible alone as without his Bible at
all And he cannot go to any of the churches, sects,
communions, or persuasions outside the Catholic Church,
because they, one and all, will tell him they have no
authority to explain the Bible. They will not claim
power to teach. They will say, We will assist you, but
you must find out for yourself. You must discuss,
criticise, choose, reject, and so form your religious creed.
And thus you must not come as a ' little child ;' you will
not have to ' obey ; ' and your opinions will be no
' captivity ' to you, because you can revise them and
even throw them aside at any moment. And when he
hears this he will know that their idea of Faith is very
different from that of our Lord and Saint Paul. His
first object, therefore, will be to find a Church which
professes to teach with authority. And it is this which
the Catholic Church professes to do.

Catholicism professes to teach. Our Lord left a
commission to the body of pastors to ' teach all nations '
with magisterial power. To them was delivered a body
of truth, comprised chiefly in the Scriptures. This
body of truth they have to guard, to interpret, and to
develop, as occasion may require. They, and their chief
Pastor by himself, have the power to speak infallibly on
matters of belief and morality. Their creeds, therefore,
and their solemn rulings are as the Word of God, which
he who wishes to be a believer must accept as a ' yoke/

She also professes to teach mysteries — that is, diffi
cult and obscure truths that we cannot make out more

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 151

than a very short way. And so she expects humility
of mind and bowing down of the heart

And the Catholic Church admits no doubting, no
examining, in matters once fully decided. She could not
do so, and still profess to be God's living witness.
'Grounded, settled, and immovable'12 — these are the
words of Saint Paul, which the Spirit of Truth inscribes
upon her banner.

And lastly, the Catholic Church professes to be an
enemy of what men call progress in religious matters.
Christianity is not like earthly discoveries or sciences ; a
science which a fallible man, slightly in advance of his
fellows, gains glory by inventing, and which other fal
lible men painfully bring to perfection. Progress in
science means the reversing of old notions, the appli
cation of new discoveries. It is true there is a kind of
progress in revelation — a progress like the advance of
the seedling to the state of the perfect tree. But it is a
progress along given lines, within given bounds, without
contradiction to the past. This progress the Catholic
Church admits and promotes. But to those who would
explain away the Bible, alter the meaning of the Incar
nation, or disprove the existence of God, she opposes an
attitude that is unchangeable. And so the aspirant to
Faith should not be astonished or repelled if he finds
that he must submit his views to her views. To the
Spirit of Faith, novelties are dangerous, private crotchets
are distasteful ; anything which does not grow on the
old tree is rotten fruit. The grand central pivots or
hinges of truth have been settled once for all by reve-
u Coloss. i. 23.

152 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

.

lation; the Catholic Church will not and cannot alter
them. She holds her teaching up, unchangeable, before
the world; and those alone who bow before her have
the Spirit of Faith.

This is not intellectual slavery. In one sense every
mind, as I have said, must be a slave to the truth. It is
no real freedom to allow a man to make as many mis,-
takes as he likes. But, besides, the mind of a man who
submits to the Catholic Church, having got definite and
consistent notions about the most important matters,
can afford to think and speculate over a thousand mat
ters that a consistent Protestant, who had to make out
his Faith for himself, could never get to. Putting Faith
on one side, how much more consistent, dignified, ana
thorough would newspapers and books be if they all
started from settled and consistent religious belief ! And
how fertile would intellectual men find those creeds and
dogmas which they are afraid of now! As it is, the
enormous books which Catholic theologians have written
about theology show how grand a field they find it
What would be the result now, with all our bookmaking
and increased culture? And belief in the Catholic
Church is not an uneasy constraint. It does not bind
up a man like the swathing bands wrap a mummy. It
rather clothes him as with a graceful and easy robe.
Belief, being perfectly natural to us all, comes to be
perfectly natural in religious matters. And the truth
is that Protestants believe quite as truly as Catholics,
though it is against their principles. They believe their
clergymen, their newspapers, their favourite books, or
their friends

FAITH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 153

If men must believe — as they must and will — it
would seem right there should be a body of men trained
in religious matters — devout, earnest, and leaning on the
past — to direct their belief. Otherwise, they will be at the
mercy of every self-made minister, self-taught preacher,
and illiterate spouter, who may choose to lead them cap
tive. Such a body of men we believe there is in the
pastors of the Catholic Church — with whom Christ has
promised to remain, and to send His Spirit to remain, all
days, even to the end of the world.

But this much is certain: that until men come to
recognise that Faith means an obedience, a taking up of
a yoke, a bowing of the head, a humbling of the heart,
there will be no such thing as Faith. There are numbers
at this moment whc call themselves believers, who only
believe through habit, and who hold themselves ready
to discuss or criticise whenever they seem called upon to
do so. And therefore there are numbers who seem to
believe, yet the spirit of whose Faith is dead or lan
guishing unto death. Let the inquirer procure for him
self, by God's help, the Spirit of Faith, and his catechism
will not give him much trouble to learn. And let the
believer pray that his Faith may be quickened, that his
heart may be ever ready to submit, and his mind to
learn, and his soul will stand firm in the midst of the
shock of controversy and the gainsayings of all enemies
whatsoever.

III.

PKEJUDICE AS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH.

THE Spirit of Faith, as we have seen, is a spirit of low
liness — of childlike obedience and of * captivity/ If the
heart of man were always as Almighty God made it
and constituted it in His first dealings with His crea
tures, man would have no difficulty in obeying and
submitting to the word of revelation. There would be
little or no error, because there would be the light, and
the heart prepared to see the light. But, as a matter
of fact, we know that if God's revelation be in the
world, there are, and always have been, a multitude of
men who, with more or less obstinacy, do not see it, and
do not accept it. I have hinted at the causes of this ;
but now it is necessary to look more closely into
man's heart, and try to discern what it is that- consti
tutes blindness in matters of FaitL For the state of
the soul which resists revelation, or any part of it, is
called blindness, as being a state of ignorance and
error; it is called rebellion, as being a resistance to
lawful authority; it is called carnal, earthly, and dia
bolical wisdom, as being anti-supernatural ; and sin, as
being a state of enmity to God and spiritual death.

It is a difficulty with many persons to see how Faith
can have anything to do with the will, and how Unbe
lief can be a wilful sin. If God's revelation is plain to

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 155

be seen, they say, we can see it ; if it is not plain, we
cannot see it, and that is an end of it.

I am not denying that Faith is, as a mental act,
elicited, not by the will, but by the intelligence. Faith
is a ' conviction/ an ' argument ' (that is, the result of
reasonable premisses). It is distinct from knowing or
seeing; but only because knowing or seeing means
direct personal contact with something, whilst Faith
means knowing on the word of another. Indeed, the
act of Faith, considered as a mental act, consists of two
acts : first, the knowing or seeing that God, who cannot
deceive nor err, has spoken ; and this is an act of know
ledge ; and secondly, the accepting the truths that He
has thus manifested, which is Faith properly so-called.
In regard to the first of these acts, reasoning must, of
course, precede. It must be proved that God has
spoken, and that the Catholic Church is His voice and
organ. These proofs may be of various kinds. There are,
for instance, the proofs based on the consideration of what
man is and requires, of God's goodness and power to do
as He pleases. There are, again, the direct proofs of a
revelation having been given ; proofs of the existence
and mission of Moses, of the occurrence of miracles, of
our Lord's mission and character, and of the signs that
He wrought. And, lastly, there are the proofs of the divine
office and endowments of the Church which He has left in
the world. All these proofs may be treated separately, and
they are generally so treated; but each head of proof derives
strength from being taken in connection with the others.

But I have already impressed upon you that I am
not so much directly proving anything in regard to

156 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

God's revelation as enabling you to prepare yourselves
to see it, wherever it is. Having admitted that Faith
is an act of the intelligence, in the sense in which I
have explained, I come now to draw attention to the
important fact that it is an act of the will also. It is
not meant that it is an act of the will in the same sense
as it is an act of the intelligence; but still it is an act of
the will. For it is with the mind as with the bodily
senses. The will can control the eye and the hand.
The will can bid the eye be shut to what is present, or
turned to what before was out of sight. And the will
can blind our mental view and turn aside our intellec
tual look quite as easily and with far greater subtlety.
It is a common saying that no one can be convinced
against his will Everyone knows that the views which
a man takes up, not merely in trivial matters, but in
things of the greatest importance, largely depend on a
thousand things besides mere evidence. A man's bring
ing up, his habits of life, his friends, his pride, his pas
sion — do not all these act upon his convictions and
generally mould them after their own shape ? There
are some self-evident truths, no doubt, to which it is
impossible to blind ourselves, however much we may
try. But as soon as the number of these truths is
exhausted, there begins the region where will and wilful-
ness can shut our eyes and turn us about. Deductions
and consequences which follow from the plainest and
most undoubted truths — even these can be evaded.
And at every step from overwhelming evidence towards
opinion, probability, and conjecture, the will and its pre
judices are more and more absolute, and interfere more

PREJUDICH AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 157

and more effectively. The ignorant, the ill-educated,
and the average-minded — in fact, the bulk of humanity
— are exposed to the danger of allowing their reason to
be blindfolded by the influence of their wants, inclina
tions, and passions. And even the most intellectual
and the most cultivated are sure to have their convic
tions tinged with a large infusion of their likings.

Now, a man's impulses and likings may arise either
from his human nature itself, or from external influences
brought to bear upon him. He may want or refuse to
do a thing merely because his innate passion prompts
him, or because he has been wrought upon till he has
acquired a second nature. It is of this second nature
of man — or, in other words, of prejudice — as an ob
stacle to revelation that I wish to speak in this dis
course ; leaving the consideration of the deeper subject
of man's own original nature for the next.

In the thirteenth chapter of the Acts is related the
history of the preaching of Paul and Barnabas at Anti-
och in Pisidia. On the Sabbath-day, in the synagogue,
after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, Paul,
rising up and hushing the wondering congregation with
a gesture of his hand, preached to them Jesus Christ.
Many conversions were made, and the week passed.
Then on the next Sabbath a very large audience — ' the
whole city almost ' — nocked to the synagogue, and Paul
preached again. ' And the Jews,' continues the inspired
narrative, ' were filled with envy, and contradicted those
things which were said by Paul, blaspheming.'1 And
thereupon Paul and Barnabas told them, in the plainest
1 Acts xiii. 45.

158 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

and boldest way, that since they rejected the Word of
God, it must be to the Gentiles they would speak for
the future. We have here an example of prejudice.
It is prejudice which is heightened by envy and evil
passions ; but there is no reason to suppose that the
Jews did really admit in their hearts the truth which
they rejected in their words of contradiction and blas
phemy. How far they sinned, it is impossible to say.
Prejudice against religious truth may be a deadly sin,
or it may be an excusable ignorance. St. Peter seems
to admit some excuse even for the crucifiers of our
Saviour ; they did it through ignorance, he says, as also
their rulers.2 And St. Paul's vehemence of antagonism
and prejudice against his Lord and Saviour was, to
some extent, mistaken zeal for God's honour. 'I, in
deed,' he told Agrippa and Bernice, and the splendid
audience which had assembled to hear him in the palace
of Festus at Caesarea — ' I, indeed, did formerly think
that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of
Jesus of Nazareth.'8 His eyes were blinded, until that
flash from the heavens near the gate of Damascus, strik
ing him with darkness of sense, made him see the light
of the Spirit. Prejudice may be deadly sin, or it may
be lamentable misfortune. Perhaps we may be allowed
to say that, unless there is sin in the way, prejudice
will disappear sooner or later. But, in addressing our
selves to the task of removing it, we should imitate the
spirit of St. Peter, and refrain from judging the hearts
of those we could convert.

The work of conversion is, on man's part, chiefly
8 Acts iii. 17. 8 Acts xxvi. 9.

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 159

the work of removing prejudice. When the revela
tion of God first comes to a man's door, it must of
necessity be met by a disposition to reject it. When
the Jews had Christ crucified preached to them, all their
tradition, expectation, and habit of thought rose up to
reject the novelty. When the pagan Eomans first heard
from Peter the name of the One God and of His Son,
it was as if an insane man had tried to turn aside by a
word the waters of the Roman Tiber. The stream of
settled thought, established custom, and proud history
was, to all human appearance, too strong to let the ne\*
dogma live for a generation. And the Apostles en
countered the strength of this torrent in every indivi
dual soul they came across. Even those nations which
were barbarous when the truth came to them were
prepossessed against the truth; like the trees on the
bleak Eastern shores, the minds of the peoples were
bent as the bitter winds of many a winter had bent
them. And what is true of paganism is true of he
resy. Born, nurtured, grown to man's estate in an
atmosphere of error— clinging to error all the more
firmly because it has mixed up with it some elements
of the truth— the population of a country which has
grown old in heresy is steeped to the very bone in pre
judice. Just the same ignorance and repugnance of
thought exists in our days in regard to such truths as
the Real Presence in the Eucharist and the Infallibility
of the Pope, as existed in the days of Tacitus against
the unity of God and the Incarnation of God the Son.

In order to understand better what prejudice is, let
us look at the sources whence it springs. Prejudice.

160 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

then, is a preoccupation or prepossession of mind and
feeling against truth. It is a state or disposition which
was not born with us or innate in us, but which has been
brought about by external causes.

And the first cause or source of prejudice is educa
tion. By education I do not, of course, mean mere
book-learning, mere reading, writing, and casting ac
counts ; I mean all those influences which from birth to
firm manhood go to mould and form the mind and heart.
I may remark, in passing, that the facts described and
summarised in the word 'education' make Protestant
ism, as a theory, impossible. The essence of Protest
antism, as an Anglican Bishop said lately, is that ' each
man forms conclusions for himself ' in matters of reli
gion. But, on the contrary, the fact is, and must be,
that the mass of men simply accept the conclusions in
which they are brought up. I say it must be so. To
form conclusions for themselves, they would have to
turn readers, scholars, thinkers, linguists, and philoso
phers. And the mass of men will never be anything
of the kind. The educated man may, perhaps, reject a
truth here and there, or adopt an opinion, or come to
a conclusion which he fondly thinks he has made out
for himself. But even if that be true, his general reli
gious practice will remain the same — will remain what
he was brought up in. This thought shows the power
of early bringing up ; and it leads me to say that if the
Catholic religion, for instance, be the true religion, the
prejudice against it which exists in men's minds in a
country like this is quite sufficient to account for its
being hated and avoided. Prejudice is a state of pre-

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 161

possession. To the prejudiced mind truth comes as our
Lord came on the night of His birth, and knocks at the
doors of houses in which there is no room ; they are occu
pied ; truth must stop outside. The ordinary English
man has taken in, since the first dawn of his reason,
thousands of impressions about the Catholic Church,
which he has accepted, for the most part, without an
attempt to verify them. His mother and his nurse have
shaped his imagination as the potter shapes clay ; and
the Catholic Church, to that child, is moulded by the
phrases, the epithets, the casual words, or the studied
depreciation of those who carried him in their arms and
held his hand in the days of his infancy. The light
which has shone upon him has come in through the
windows of his father's house, and his sensitive fancy
is coloured by its colour. What is begun at home is
continued at school. As he grows up, all the cham
bers of his brain and the avenues of his thought
are gradually filled with the 'idols' which he picks
up as he walks in his gradually-enlarging world. His
masters, his books, his schoolfellows, his clergymen,
all contribute to the furnishing of the empty and
receptive intelligence. The standards by which he
measures and judges, the pictures which stir his love,
his sorrow, or his hatred, the mottoes and master-
thoughts which lead him and guide him, are gathered
one by one ; and one by one, as years go on, they be-
come more and more a part of the very fibre of his
being. The fathers and mothers, the schoolmasters, the
clergymen, the books and newspapers of England— it
is these which make up English men and women And

11

162 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

you well know — I need not try to express — what the
majority of these 'educators' and fashioners of youthful
minds think and say about the Catholic Church. I am
not saying whether it is right or wrong. But if it is
wrong, it is the root and the reason of the strongest
prejudice that could be. The Catholic Church exists
in the thought and imagination of millions in this coun
try as an unscriptural, corrupt, intolerant, supersti
tious, arid absurd system of religious imposture. They
think it to be so, hold it to be so, not because they have
looked and seen for themselves, but because such is the
picture or figment which long-continued impression of
external influences, like some corrosive acid which marks
ineffaceable lines on the steel, has written upon their
brain. The majority hold it, alas, to their death — un
reasoning, contented, glorying in the opinions which
they have done little more to acquire for themselves
than they have done to merit the colour of their hair.
There is a comparative minority who read, inquire,
reason, and think out proofs with greater or less tho
roughness. But education has given its bias to them
and to their thought not a whit less decidedly than to
the unthinking multitude. When they read, they read
the books which take their own side. If they read an
impartial book, they see one half of every sentence, and
do not see the other. They are prepared to find one
set of arguments good and irrefragable, and the other
worthless and bad. In all their reading, writing, and
reasoning, they start with the fixed assumption, that the
Catholic Church is false and in the wrong. They do
not even allow themselves to suppose, as a serious possi-

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 163

bility, that she may be right and true. They see their
side of the shield ; they do not dream that the other can
be any other colour. They delude themselves with the
notion that they are above prejudice, and that they look
outside of their minds for real facts ; but all the time
the ' idols ' of education, of social impression, of general
atmosphere, are what they really see. Facts assume the
colours of their fancy ; arguments make no impression,
except so far as they lie along the straight and narrow
vista they are accustomed to see before them. The
Pope, to the educated or controversial Protestant, is a
figure stuffed out with rags and straw, made to be the
reason of a bonfire. The tradition of three hundred
years has shaped him ; arid from time to time the por
tentous shape is solemnly carried out, and every pass
age of Scripture which is capable of being used in
that sophistical way which logicians call inference of
the universal from the particular, or vice versd, and
every doubtful compliment in the Fathers, and all the
* facts ' which can be painfully raked from the gutters of
history — most of them utterly irrelevant as arguments,
even if true — all these stones and injuries are thrown in
his scarecrow face ; and then he is solemnly burned, while
mobs applaud. The Infallibility of the Church is an
imbecile fiction of the nursery, which the Protestant po
lemic, with contemptuous smiling, traces up the stream
of fable till it disappears like some meteor of the swamp.
He knows, before he starts, that it will disappear.
The Real Presence — a most awful question of fact,
if ever there was one — is an imposition, without a
shadow of foundation or authority. The Protestant dis-

164 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

put-ant knows it to be so. Starting with this certainty,
he takes up his Bible, and the literal becomes meta
phorical, and metaphor changes into naked fact. He turns
over the leaves of his Church history ; and wherever the
great fact comes up, he protests it is something else ;
and wherever it is absent, he cries out, ' Behold, it is
denied ! ' Possibilities in material substance and in sen
sation which he would admit at once if some experi
mental physical philosopher propounded them in a letter
to the newspapers, he scouts as incredible contradictions,
because they are required by the Church's belief in the
Blessed Sacrament. And so prejudice walks through
the moral and the material world, like some misshapen
fabled monster with fixed eye, which can see no colour
but the colour it was born to see — which cannot look to
the right or to the left, but only straight before it — for
whom the field of existence and of possibility is limited
to the narrow lines it moves along ; whilst the infinite
forests around are full of life and wonder — whilst the
untravelled ocean sounds unheeded along the shore,
and the spaces of the ether overhead are peopled with
worlds unthought of.

The prejudice which springs from education and
bringing up is the most absolute and invincible of all
forms of prejudice, because it is a prejudice which is
part of the mind's own growth. To remove it is not
merely to remove a veil or pull down a wall of partition,
but to burn out of the heart the marks which have
grown into its fibre. If the prejudice against the
Catholic Church which arises from education be a pre
judice (as Catholics know it is), one thing is certain ;

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 165

the Catholic doctrine has enormous difficulties to con
tend with. It is a difficult thing to alter the views and
general tone of thought even in the plastic mind of a
young boy or girl ; but when the mind, like the bones,
has lost its pliability and grown hard ; when the thought,
never very active, has settled down into stagnation ;
when the hopes and illusions of youth have given way
to the unemotional plodding, the routine mill-work which
makes up the lives of ordinary Englishmen, then what
lightning of eloquence or torrent of reasoning can efface
the old false ideas ? What beam of sunlight can pierce
into the darkness amid the cobwebs where the old ' idols'
stand, and make room among them for the truth ? Even
when the truth has made its way in, and the poor pre
judiced mind begins to see it, the wrench, the novelty,
the pain of letting go the old ideas, is a martyrdom
which Catholic priests often have to witness and com
passionate from their hearts. ' I am too old to change/
There is no cry so pathetic as this. It is the cry of the
sailor who has sailed his long voyage with prosperous
gales and carrying current, until his hand has grown
feeble with age, his rudder stiff, his ropes rotted, and who
just at sunset is horror-struck to see that he has missed
his harbour, and is running straight upon the whitening
surf. 'It is too late to change!' And yet he must
turn or perish.

Every allowance must be made for prejudice of edu
cation. God only knows how far each soul is answer
able for its own share ; but we know that the deepest
damnation will be for those who first established that
system of false teaching which has moulded the minds

166 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

of the generations in this country for the last 300 years.
Individual sins, private unbelief and wickedness are bad
enough ; but the teacher, the king, the minister of state,
who sets up error and leaves it as an inheritance for the
unhappy generations to come, what shall he deserve ?
He counterfeits God's own work. When God sows the
good grain of His word, he sows the cockle of false
teaching. They must both grow up together; the
Master will not separate them till the harvest ; but the
sower is His enemy.

I have dwelt upon the prejudice of education be
cause other sources of prejudice are trivial in their
effects compared with this. But it will be well to notice
briefly one or two of them.

The second source of prejudice, then, is what we
may call the world. The world means men and women
— their aims, sayings, doings, and example, as far as they
affect ourselves. When worldly advantages are on the
side of an opinion, the mind is singularly open to see its
truth. And, conversely, when to embrace a view would
be to go against ' the world,' that view is difficult to take
in. What I have called 'the world' raises prejudice
against the Catholic Church by predisposing a man to
keep out of the Church whatever his reason tells him. It
acts in various ways. It may be, in the more respectable
circles, that a man would be cut by his acquaintance if
he became a Catholic. Instances of this happen every
week. It is singular that good, worthy, and well-meaning
people should have such a morbid horror of Catholicism.
It is not unfrequently the case that a man's friends
would think less of it if he became a Turk than if he

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 167

became a Catholic. And the feeling that he will have
to undergo this is enough to prejudice any man. It is
far worse when the embracing of Catholicism involves
the breaking asunder of the ties of family. There are
numbers who, irrespectively of truth or falsehood, are
shocked and agonised at the hold which Catholicism is
getting over them, or perhaps over some near relation,
merely from the anticipation of the family troubles it
will occasion — the reproaches of the father, the tears of
the mother, the separation, the novelty, or the tacit
reproach. * What would my family say if I became a
Catholic!' How many are held in bondage by this
thought ! They do not remember that they belong to
God first — to God only. The men and women about
them, even the nearest and dearest, have no claim upon
them which can stand between themselves and their
God. But the feeling is more than enough to create a
prejudice. And the world has hundreds of ways of
holding back the inquirer from the Catholic Church.
It points out that the newspapers sneer at Catholicism ;
that the Pope is the object of unceasing ridicule ; that
Catholics, in this country, are mostly poor, and, in
fact, Irish ; that Catholics are priest-ridden, and must
give up liberty and manliness of thought ; and, most
awful woe of all, that the ' public opinion' of the coun
try condemns Catholicism. And there are thousands
who -are predisposed against the Catholic religion by
such feelings as these. It is only too natural that it
should be so. When a man has formed himself a place
in the world, made himself a circle of friends, and is
living more or less according to the tone of thought and

168 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

opinion which is the tone of the majority of his nation,
his county, his town, or his village, it is very natural
that he should be indisposed to change. New truth, if
it be truth, is an unwelcome apparition when it draws
the curtains of his couch and bids him get up and suffer
uncertainty and discomfort for its sake.

A third source of prejudice is what we may call, in
old-fashioned phrase, the flesh. It is a man's lower and
baser self. It is the * law of sin in the members/ that
wars against the spirit. Ease, prosperity, sensuality,
absence of trouble and anxiety — these are what a man's
lower nature wants and seeks. Are there not many
who could easily see the truth of Catholicism were it
not that to become a Catholic they must suffer in their
worldly prospects, and lose money and money's worth ?
People have a vague idea (even those who are otherwise
ignorant) that the Catholic Church is a vigilant mis
tress. To become a Catholic it is not enough to appear
before a class-meeting or a congregation and pour out a
few unctuous phrases. There is confession ; there is the
searching examination and the painful avowal. Then
there is the Eucharist, with the Real Presence, and the
awful responsibilities which follow from the existence of
such an awful fact. The Catholic Church exacts a
real, vital, detailed religious life. Habits of cherished
sin must be given up. Careful self-examination must
' sweep ' the spirit Definite dogma and practice must
be willingly taken up and loved. All this predisposes
the flesh to dislike Catholicism, and to keep out of it.
When money, comfort, and sensuality combine as advo
cates in a cause, the opposite side has little chance.

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 169

They are all against the Catholic Church ; and may we
not be sure that the prejudice they create is the reason
why many young men are afraid to admit the possibility
that Catholicism is right? It is not that men con
sciously avow to themselves that it is their baser pro
pensities which hinder them from being Catholics. It
is that their lower self raises a mist which pravents
them from seeing what Catholicism is. It makes them
impatient of hearing about it. It gives them a personal
interest in not knowing it to be true. They are like
men who hurry out of the house, or turn quickly back
on the road, to escape an unwelcome messenger.

There is one other source of prejudice. If there arc
such beings as evil spirits, with power on earth, and if
the Catholic religion is the true religion, it is certain
that these spirits will not be passive in its regard.
When John the Evangelist heard the voice in Patmos
which told him what he was to say to the Seven
Churches, He who bade him write spoke of the 'syna
gogue of Satan,' and the 'seat of Satan,' the place
' where Satan dwelleth.'4 It was the Evil Spirit himself
with whom Jesus had to contend. It was the Evil
Spirit who inspired false teachers, and who stirred up
persecution. 4 Behold the Devil will cast some of you
into prison, that you may be tried.'6 And there is no
doubt the Devil is as busy now as then. He has power
over men who give themselves up to infidelity. He
possesses them. He does not make them rave and
foam like the possessed ones in olden times; but he
exercises a subtle influence on nerve, brain and mus-

4 Apoc. ii. 9, 13. • Ib. ii. 10.

170 TUE SPIMT OF FAITH.

cle, which makes them act, speak, and write against
the Church of God with a sort of fevered and frenzied
energy which they never show against any human insti
tution. They hatch deliberate and gigantic lies. They
wield the mighty powers of modern science for purposes
of elaborate and systematic misrepresentation. They
exercise a pressure on public thought as persistent as
the pressure of the air round about men's bodies. They
possess the ears of princes and powerful ministers.
They move armies ; and they make nations alter their
laws to oppress the Church of God. Such instruments
of Satan exist And the prejudice which they create
in the world — or, rather, which he creates by and
through them — is the prejudice which at this moment
hangs like a foul exhalation over the length and breadth
of European opinion. The young, the unthinking, the
multitudes who have no views except such as remain in
their minds from the reading of their newspapers, are
prejudiced against a system which is ' everywhere con
tradicted/ 6

Let me repeat that I am not speaking of those who
really think the Catholic Church is right, and yet, from
some base motive, refuse to submit to it. I am speaking
of those who do not see that the Catholic religion is
true ; who are prevented by their prejudices from look
ing at, or judging fairly, the arguments or the position
of the Catholic Church.

An inquirer, then, might fairly ask, How am I to
treat my prejudices ; and, in the first place, how am I
to know they are prejudices ? Is it not simply begging

• Acts xxviii. 23

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO JfAITH. 171

the question to say that I am prejudiced, and the Catho
lic believer not prejudiced, but only steadfast ?

This is an important question. And I answer it by
observing, in the first place, that, on the Catholic theory,
a true believer ought to have strong convictions (or
prejudices, as opponents will call them). The Catholic
believes in the Church as a living voice ; a voice which
instructs him in his infancy, impresses him in his child
hood, confirms and strengthens him in his mature age.
But a man who is not a Catholic has no theory of this
kind. He recognises no teacher with a right to shape
and educate his mind. From the use of reason in child
hood to the loss of his faculties in old age, every voice
which speaks to him of religion, and every influence
which tries to impress religious views upon him, is a
human fallible voice, which may be mistaken, and
which, in many instances, must be mistaken, because
contradictions cannot both be true. It is of no use to
say he has the Bible. The Bible is what the Bible
means ; and, to the non-Catholic, what the Bible means
is only what men make it out to mean. And therefore
my first point is this, that all non-Catholics should be
on the look-out, so to speak, for the existence of preju
dice in their own minds. They may just as easily be
prejudiced as not.

But I might admit that an honest unquestioning
bias is no harm at all ; and that the man who has such
a bias will not be accountable before God. And I am
even willing to admit that there are many of our coun
trymen who are at present in this state of what we call
1 invincible ignorance/ But, on the other hand, how

172 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

many there are whose convictions — not to call them by
the harsh name of prejudices — are tottering, shaking,
or just in the smallest degree tainted with bad faith ?
There are numbers of non-Catholics who know perfectly
well they have been utterly mistaken on one or two
plain matters of fact in connection with Catholic doc
trine. Perhaps they have found out that Catholics do
not pay divine honours to the Blessed Virgin Mary;
or that a priest cannot sell a man permission to commit
sin ; or, to descend to smaller prejudices, that the priests
do not always speak to the people in Latin. To these
I would say emphatically, You have been grossly mis
taken in one point ; look a little more carefully and you
will discover that you have still a good deal more to
unlearn. It is a duty to examine now. The pagans in
the early centuries believed that the Christians ate the
flesh of children, worshipped an ass, and committed gross
immorality in their religious meetings. The true reli
gion has always been misunderstood and slandered, like
its Lord before it. And remember that in England es
pecially, if the Catholic Church is the true Church, the
only wonder is how a Protestant can even so far get
over the prejudice of his bringing-up as to know her in
any degree as she is. If. then, you have the least reason
for doubting, inquire. If the house your fathers and
teachers have built for you seems to be sinking a little,
or letting in the rain by the roof, or the daylight by the
solid walls, get outside of it and look about you. If the
thing you took for a ghost, and were running away
from, shows a substantial foot under its white sheet, go
up to it, pull off the sheet and break the turnip-head

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 173

into pieces, and you will probably find that it is flesh
and blood. If the preachers and teachers who have
had the handling of you have committed themselves
undoubtedly on this point or on that, challenge them
thoroughly and see whether you have not been living
in the dark.

And the wisdom of this way of acting is shown all
the more strongly when you consider that you know
almost nothing of the Catholic Church herself. You
have kept away from her ministers, avoided her books,
scouted her professing members ; and you know that, if
the Catholic Church be not true, it is very certain she
might be so and you not be at all aware of it. You
cannot in fairness avoid making inquiry.

And there is a special reason why everyone is bound
to notice and inquire into Catholicism. The reason is
founded upon broad facts, undeniable and undenied.
The argument is briefly this: that certain facts being
admitted by all parties, the Catholic Church is the best
working hypothesis for harmonising and making men
act up to those facts. We may illustrate the argu
ment by what must have happened many times in the
world's history. When the unity, love, and justice of
God, and the fact of creation, were first preached to a
pagan people, I can suppose the preacher arguing thus :
You admit there is a divine power ; now if you will
attend to me for a short space, I can easily show that to
believe that divine power to be One, to be Good, to be
Just, and to be the Creator of all things, is far the best,
not to say the only, view which a reasonable man can
take. Or, again, suppose there were a nation who be-

174 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

lieved in the One God, but not in revelation ; then the
missionary might say : You believe in a God of love
and power, who made you ; and you see in yourselves
the existence of moral evil and powerlessness to good,
and the inevitable tendency of your nature to forget and
corrupt the grand truth you profess. Now, I preach
to you that God has spoken ; it is a reasonable and con
sistent theory at the very least ; it explains the how and
the wherefore of many things, and the way out of many
difficulties; therefore you are bound to inquire into it.
This is the least you can do.

Now I come to Catholicism. If there are any broad
facts upon the face of the New Testament, there are
three : first, the existence of some kind of teaching au
thority instituted by Christ ; secondly, some kind of a
ministry; and thirdly, some kind of Eucharistic pre
sence of our Lord. I suppose every attempt at a church
or a schism which has ever been made has embodied
these three points, in some shape or other. I suppose
there is not a believer in the New Testament who does
not admit them in some sense. What I infer, then, is
this:

It is certain that the Catholic Church has adopted
and works most thoroughly each of these central
thoughts. She holds that there is a living unerring
voice of teaching which speaks to all ages ; she holds a
ministry which does sacramental actions ; and she holds
the Real Presence of her Saviour in the Eucharist. And
therefore it is that I say she must be noticed and in
quired into. You cannot dismiss her with contempt
until you have patiently and painfully proved her to De

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 175

an imposition. And when you have proved her to be
an imposition, you will be like the man who cuts down
the solitary tree in the tropical desert and awaits the
coming up of the next day's sun.

What I have said hitherto applies to all non-Catho
lics, and is grounded simply upon the fact of their
having been brought up so. But there are particular
reasons why very many should be on the watch for
prejudice. There are some who doubt, and whose
doubts trouble them, rising like importunate spectres
which will not rest ; and they dread to listen to their
doubts, because they are afraid of what would happen if
they did. They are afraid of coming to know the
truth. They are afraid that a system which they have
so many personal grounds for disliking will turn out to
be the revelation of God. They are those who have,
perhaps, committed themselves to a loud and public
denial of the Catholic Church. They are those at
whose recantation the world will stand and wonder
To turn would be, in their case, to be laughed at, to be
avoided, to estrange dear friends, to abandon pleasant
positions. To become a Catholic would, perhaps, be
to lose their daily bread. And therefore they must be
unconvinced. They think, speak, and act against the
Church with a bitterness which is hard to bear some
times, but which we can excuse, because we know that
it comes from a troubled breast. ' Their madness is
according to the likeness of a serpent ; like the deaf asp
that stoppeth her ears : which will not hear the voice of
tiie charmers.'7 They are acting against light ; they

» Ps. Mi 5. *.

THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

are despising, not man, but the Voice of the Holy
Ghost.

A man who would act in good faith and be honest
with his God in the momentous question of revelation
must be sure that he is doing all that lies in him. He
must abandon all narrow and insular notions of religion.
The Church of God is over all the world, and before all
nationality. It is a kingdom not of this world, but
with a right to reign all the world over. He must keep
down or put away that personal feeling of dislike to cer
tain nations, classes, or individuals which tends to make
him dislike Catholicism itself. The feeling that Catho
licism is the religion of the poor and despised classes of
the community, and of the weak, the ignoble, and un-
considered nations of the world, though it rests on a
very one-sided induction, is a powerful prepossession
against the Catholic Church. It has always been the
same. You see it in Saint Paul You see it in the
book that the Neo-Platonist Celsus wrote in the second
century to keep cultivated Greeks and Eomans from
turning Christians. Moreover, the man who would be
sure that he is without prejudice must see that he is
not leading a worldly and sensual life. Personal sin
darkens the heart. Habits of sin stifle the impulses of
grace. If a man cannot assure himself, in all humility,
that he is in earnest about loving God above all things,
he cannot be safe from prejudice against God's light.
If he is given to sensuality, or if he is conscious of a
keen and clinging enjoyment of an easy and pleasant
life, he is very open to prejudice. If he grounds his
objections to Catholicism on liberty, on independence of

PREJUDICE AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 177

thought, on the right to be one's own master, then he
is almost certain to be wrapped up in prejudice ; for, as
the world understands these things, they are just what
the teaching of Gospel truth has been given to destroy.
And, finally, the heart that would be without prejudice
must pray. No soul that prays as Jesus would have us
pray can be lost. But argument and learning, natural
honesty and kindliness, all the natural virtues of the
friend and the citizen, though they are very good, will
not avail to bring a man to the light unless he prays.
Yes ; after all, God's grace being understood, a man
has his heart in his own hands. The heavy fogs and
mists which, in the intervals of wintry gales and rains,
roll over these Northern seas from which our islands
rise, are full of danger ; and at their coming on sea
men must be passive and wait till the laws of nature are
fulfilled and the skies are clear again. And the thick
mist of prejudice is a fearful danger to the soul of
man. Disaster, wreck, and ruin, worse than any the
senses can take note of, are in the path of the man who
walks in guilty prejudice. But he can disperse the
darkness and be free. He can raise his heart to God.
He can rise above the earth and its exhalations. He
can be sincere; he can resolve that he will do God's
will, whatever it may be; and he can pray without
ceasing. And the sun will shine out when the Lord so

12

IT.

WILFUIATESS AS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH.

But now you rejoice in your arrogancies. All such rejoicing is
wicked. ST. JAMES iv. 16.

PREJUDICE comes to a man from without. It is the
effect of early training, of lifelong teaching, of reading^
and of living in the world. It is the result of almost
imperceptible impressions, and yet its force, as an ob
stacle, is such as in many cases to defy human efforts to
remove it. It is like the snow which begins to fall, as
the darkness sets in, on roof and road, in little flakes
that, tome down silently all the night ; and in the morn
ing the branches bend, and the doors are blocked, and
the traffic on road and rail is brought to a stand
still. We have considered prejudice. To-day we
must go farther — deeper down into the heart. The
difficulty which man finds in Faith is not sufficiently
explained by any explanation which deals merely with
external causes. It is the heart itself, in its very con
stitution, as man now is born, which is the root of all
that holding back, that haughtiness or pride, which pre
vents the greater part of those who do not believe from
believing.

Whatever goodness there is in the human heart —
and on that head it is not necessary to speak just now —

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 179

it is certain, in the first place, that there is also a for
midable amount of evil; and, in the second, that the
evil is stronger, naturally, than the good. History, that
is fact, proves both these points. We can judge of
man's heart from the results of men's lives; and the
voice of cultivated antiquity joins with that of modern
Christianity, and even with the instincts of heathenism
and savage barbarism, in proclaiming that men's lives
have always been, and are, in a very great measure evil.
It has always been that evil is easier, more natural,
more spontaneous, and that good has had to be fought
for with sacrifice and abnegation; and evil has mostly
prevailed. And whence does this evil spring? Was
the heart made and constituted with corrupt and de
praved inclinations by its Creator ?

The Catholic tradition and teaching is, that man
was originally constituted in rectitude and supernatural
grace. The knowledge, love, and service of God was
his object in this world; the happiness of the blissful
vision was his destined end in the world to come. And
man's heart was ' right ;' that is to say, intelligence,
will, and sensibility were in harmony one with another,
and wrought together to the attainment of the grand
and ineffable last end. But in his happy and sublime
estate man's heart was still in his own hand. His will
was still free to choose. He was free to turn from his
Creator, and turn his back upon his grand destiny. He
could not be otherwise, consistently with God's designs
and his own nature. And consider what this freedom
of man's heart means. It means that man's heart has
the marvellous power of seeing good in anything which

180 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

exists, and of fixing itself upon that element or vein of
good, to the exclusion of other things that are really
better, and to the exclusion also of the Creator and His
blissful vision. It is true that these last are only other
names for pure, unmixed, and necessary good ; but still,
as long as the heart of man was to live in the world,
even the world of Paradise, it was not fully to appre
ciate this ; and therefore, though it knew %ore than
enough, and was drawn by a thousand chains to choose
and cling to what it knew so clearly, it had the power
of shutting its eyes and breaking every bond asunder.
There was something very near it — something lying
close to itself, nearer than the knowledge which it
had of the supreme objective good. The consciousness
of a rational creature necessarily begets that self which
lies at the bottom of all the movement of the human
heart. Self must be the motive-spring of choice. Self
may choose to annihilate self on earth; and in the
bliss of eternity self will be crowned, completed, and
ravished into ecstatic trance by the ineffable Vision
which it must possess, or be in misery for ever. But
self cannot die; and until it is bound and fettered in
the sweet entrancement of bliss, self may reject any
thing, or take up anything, in this world of passing
shows, and with no other motive, on final analysis,
than itself. This was the power which lay, not dead,
but living ; not even asleep, but slumbering, in the peace
of Paradise, at the bottom of Adam's heart, as he walked
in the primitive Eden, even in the presence of Jehova.
The moment came when it woke up, and wrought the
mischief that was in it to work Adam's sin was dis-

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 181

obedience, or pride. It was the assertion of that self
which he had in him. He turned his back upon his
Creator, and preferred a created good, mean and miser
able though it was ; but it was really self that he set
up in God's place when he said, ' I will not obey.1 And
the innate self or wilfulness of man never seemed to
slumber again after Adam's disobedience. Or rather,
it did learn to slumber, but not among the bowers of
Eden. In Paradise the whole heart was sound, the
whole intellect clear; and true good had come so na
turally to be loved and longed for that the heart was
peaceful in the very strength of its propension. But
after the fall, with the first parents and with us their
offspring, good has become arduous, because true good
is now more hard to see clearly, and because in the same
proportion as true good recedes from view the perverse
inward feeling which makes self all in all grows stronger;
and also because a hundred importunate sensualities
clamour at the heart's portals, and implore it to riot in
their company. Therefore good has become arduous ;
in other words, self is prone to evil, that is, to rest in
itself. And when it slumbers now, it is not, as I have
said, in the hallowed repose of peace, in righteous
strength, but rather in the degradation of a drunken de
bauch, when it has sunk so low as not even to struggle
against its pride and its passion.

No one can doubt that pride and passion are strong
motive powers in the actions which spring from man's
heart. That there is a higher element in the human
heart is true; what it is we shall see hereafter. But
none can dispute that St. Paul is right when he speaks

182 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

so much of the lower nature which a man feels working
within him ; of the * law of sin/ the 'law of concupiscence/
the ' old man/ the ' carnal man.' Man's will is still free ;
but it is more or less blinded, it suffers importunity, and
it is more easily thrown on itself as an end and object.
Passion or sensuality is the sensibility and activity of the
lower nature without the sanction of the rational will.
Passion is the stirring of sensual love or hate, of liking
or disliking, of want or repugnance, in the sensitive
powers. As man comes into the world now, reason can
not utterly silence and quell passion. Eeason can con
trol, direct, weaken. Eeason can act as a constitutional
monarch acts — with ingenious policy and management
endeavouring to stop the mouths of those who complain
and calm the violence of those who rebel. But reason
has no despotic power. Given the object, passion lights
up, smokes, and flames. And the heat and the smoke
of passion act upon the higher and nobler powers to
stifle them. Calm thought cannot subsist with passion.
The pure and serene regions of spiritual contemplation
are inaccessible to the heart that is filled with passion.
Sensuality is a hindrance to the realisation of that life
which is above us and around us. Spiritual matters
are, at the best, difficult of discernment. The sense,
which primarily supplies us with materials for thought,
too often prevents us from thinking them out. And
when the sense is indulged and given in to, spiritual
discernment dies. The heart is chained to the earth;
the idea of a future life or of an immortal soul is so dim
and so far off, that it has no effect on thought or con
duct; things beautiful, true, and of good report are

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 183

loathed ; prayer is all but impossible. This is what is
meant by a state of blindness, or hardness of heart.
Hardness of heart results from giving the rein to pas
sion. It is true that passion is born with a man ; but
it is born weak and puny. It may be stifled, subdued,
almost killed dead. If it is allowed to grow great, it
becomes a tyrant, and gets hold of every avenue and
spring of the heart. The drunkard with his drink, the
sensualist with his eating and drinking, the sluggard
with his sloth, the impure, with his degrading sin : all
these, when they sin, do not merely cast one more stone
upon the heap that God is one day to count, but they
tie one more weight about their own hearts that will one
day sink them in the sea.

Belief in God's revelation has had a great obstacle
in human passion. I have already slightly touched
upon this. But is it not self-evident ? God's revelation
speaks of an all-holy God, a strict moral law, and a
future retribution. Passion feels the present and lives
in the sensible. And therefore it acts on the reason like
one who holds the door fast and keeps the innocent pri
soner from the air and the sunshine. Or it is like soma
rabble rout who kill the very messengers who are
bringing hope and food to the starving town. Passior
is self; but it is of self that Truth hath said, ' He thai
loveth his life shall lose it/

And the other side of self is pride or wilfulnesa
Pride is not one sin. It is the mother of sins. It is the
accursed soil which grows a wilderness of sin. It is the
fire in the earth's bowels which bursts out in various
portents, but is always fire. At one time it shakes the

184 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

solid earth with tremblings and earthquakes ; at another
it pours itself out in blazing lava-streams upon the
farms and vineyards. Again, it thunders far over sea
and land, and again it sends up to heaven the black
smoke of its burning, now in a thin column, now in
mighty masses which blot out all the sky. So it is with
pride — which is another name for self. It looks at
itself and it is pride. It looks round about, and it is
vanity, conceit, ostentation. It looks at its neighbours,
and it is hypocrisy, or envy, or malice, or uncharit-
ableness. It looks to its God, its Maker, and then it is
indifference, or presumption, or blasphemy, or dis
obedience, or unbelief.

Unbelief ! Yes ; pride, or wilfulness, as I prefer to
call it, is at the bottom of an enormous amount of the
unbelief which exists in the world. Whatever may be
said of passion — and passion is a terrible obstacle to the
acceptance of revelation — it does not spread such a
thick night over the spiritual discernment as wilfulness.
For Faith is a yoke, an obedience, a captivity. And wil
fulness is a simple and complete natural aversion from
the bearing of any yoke, from the yielding of any obedi
ence. Wilfulness is that in our nature which rises up
against the being ordered or dictated to. Wilfulness
refuses a master and a law ; it would be its own master
and a law to itself. A man tryannised over by his pas
sion is often a believer in his heart ; and if passion dies
out, or the terrors of death and judgment suggest them
selves, he frequently shows that he believes, and uses his
belief (with God's grace) to rise again to love and justi
fication. But wilfulness is deeper in the fibre of the

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 185

heart than passion. It is so far natural to man that it
is born with him and grows with him; and though
reason (with God's help) may keep it within bounds,
it is never rooted out. A child is wilful, and its delicate
nerves and tender muscles oftentimes throb and quiver
with the current of will which runs through them and
comes out in temper, passion, spite, and disobedience.
A young man's first impulse when he sets his foot in
the real world is to do as he likes ; and he too often takes
care to do so, as far as is consistent with his worldly
prospects. The luxury of being one's own master is above
all other luxuries — even above money and the comforts
which money can bring. Wilfulness throws the mind
into attitudes of criticism, contempt of established
fashions, discussion of all that can be discussed. And
if any mind is not clever enough for discussion, it has no
difficulty in simple sturdy opposition. It is when the
body is strongest and the spirit highest that wilfulness
engages in deadly struggle with the maturing soul, and
perhaps conquers; and where it conquers we have a
man who is led by mere nature, and knows not God, or
virtue, or the bliss to come. Human wilfulness is es
sential opposition to God, who points out to man the
only way, and bids him walk therein. It repeats every
day the cry of him who first said, ' I will not serva'
Its spirit is the spirit of the evil one, who would rather
reign in hell than serve in heaven ; he is beaten, he is
without justification, yet for ever he mutters thus, and
strains the chain that holds him. This natural and car
nal wilfulness is the greatest obstacle to the acceptance
of God's revelation, to Faith. Whether there be ques-

186 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

tion of outwardly professing Catholics who are cold in
the Faith, or of the multitudes who give themselves
some of the numberless names of heterodoxy, or of the
millions who sit in the death-shadow of heathenism, the
preaching of the Faith is to them as though their nature
encountered a blow or a shock, and was hurt. It is a
stumbling-block. It is foolishness. They have words
to express what they feel. They talk of liberty, inde
pendence, free-thought ; of slavery, of the yoke, of the
fetter and the tyrant. And they are right. For belief
is a submission, a yoke, an obedience, a slavery. It is a
submission to the Creator. It is the yoke of Jesus
Christ. It is the obedience of reason to revelation. It
is the serving of God, and of the truth. It is true that
this is a royal slavery, a light and proud yoke to bear.
But the fact remains that it is a yoke. Let the heart
turn itself as it will, God's revelation, wherever it exists
in the world, must come to it as a law and a fetter. It
is as if some wounded animal, terrified and struggling
fiercely, were held by a merciful hand to be healed and
saved.

And there is no doubt that the calmly-reasoning man
will look upon this wilfulness of the human heart as a
wound and a weakness — not as health or strength. A
force can only be judged by what it does. If it does
what it is intended to do, its action is right and good ;
if it misses its proper aim, it only adds to the confusion
of the universe. The human spirit is a force : a power
more mighty in its movement than the great planets,
which, noiseless and unresisted, move through the
spaces of the ether. .Let the swiftly-whirling star keep

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 187

to its true path — to its everlastingly-appointed sphere
— and the fixed unchanging universal laws of things
work harmoniously to hold it up and help it on. Colli
sion, crash, and wreck lie outside its path. Let it swerve,
and there is ruin. But let it be true to itself, and there
is strength, swift progress, and perfection. The heart is
made for a purpose, and its laws are broadly writter on
its very constitution. It must worship and love its
Maker ; and the proof of this must is that it must, in
the long-run, possess its Maker, or be in anguish ever
more. Therefore pride or wilfulness is in itself as great
a deordination as would be the mad career of some en
franchised planet. It is as great a danger as if some
terrific material power, like water or fire, should burst
its containing bounds. But it is more than this with a
rational soul: it is a misery. It is a misery, because
the misguided force is really under the control of the
rational will, with God's grace, in the long-run. It is
a wound, because it is as if the soul, which ought to fly
upwards, and which has power within it do so, had
been stabbed, or crippled with a shot. And it is final
ruin, because the crash must and will come some day.

There are some who think, and even say, that to
resist is manliness. Pride or wilfulness is not manli
ness. No doubt it is natural to man, and part of his
fibre. But if any one is prepared to call everything he
finds within his breast by the approving name of manli
ness, his manliness is not the manliness which is worth
considering. Man has a controlling power within him,
which is reason; and reason, though dragged along by
wilfulness, can still direct and insist. And as reason

188 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

is that by which a man is a man and not a brute beast
reason is the only root of true manliness, and not the
inordinate self-assertion of wilfulness. Wilfulness is
merely the pirate who seizes the laden ship and in
drunken helplessness runs her on the rocks. Man is
meant for God, and is never manly when he sacrifices
himself to self.

And some put forward the great word, Freedom.
They say it is a man's prerogative to be free. It is
almost a social heresy in this country to say anything
in disparagement of Liberty. Generations have clam
oured for Liberty, fought for her, written about her,
sung about her, until we of the present day are
like men who are in the front of an excited mob,
and are forced to go forward with the crowd and
shout with them, on penalty of being knocked down
and trampled upon. Yet, after all, no reasonable man
would say that freedom is a good thing, merely be
cause it is freedom. The power to do as you choose
is a power ; and so is speech ; so is a sword. As speech
may be used to very bad purpose, and as a sword may
serve the ends of a murderer, so freedom may be as
easily used for wrong objects as for good ones. Freedom
to do right is indeed a great and precious boon. Ex
ternal coercion and internal persuasion, when employed
for evil purposes, are great evils and wrongs. And free
dom from the fetters which bind the hands from doing
good, or the heart from seeing right — this is truly a
good thing, to be longed for and even fought for. But
the mere liberty to do as you like is not a good thing,
but often an evil thing. License is not liberty. Now

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 189

it is just license which the human heart, left to the
promptings of mere nature, wants and works for. So
that these two watchwords, manliness and liberty, so
often in the mouths of men, are misleading and dan
gerous. Mere ' manliness/ in the popular sense, is no
more a virtue than a muscular strength is a virtue. A.
man is not good merely because he is strong or tall.
He is not commendable merely because he has a strong
propensity to please himself. Virtue— real, true, moral
excellence — is a thing of the reason, of deliberate choice,
of struggle. And therefore the mere lust of independ
ence is not a virtue. To be manly in 4he true sense of
the word you must not be an impulsive child or an ig
norant and wrong-headed savage, but a Christian man,
guiding your troublesome nature by the help of reason,
faith, and God's grace. For the higher and the nobler
part of man can only be developed and grow in the
light and the sunshine of revelation and of sacra
mental grace, and can only be thoroughly free to follow
its preordained course when there is a pressure on that
pride or wilfulness which would bind it to the chariot-
wheels of self.

The weakness of the human heart, then, and its
wounded state — in other words, its passion, but espe
cially its pride or wilfulness — are such that God's
revelation is disagreeable to it We may, therefore,
expect that if God's revelation does exist in the* world,
it will encounter the opposition of human nature. And
it is quite certain that, in the case of the Catholic
Church, this opposition is a potent and undoubted fact.
We have always had resistance and reproach ; and they

190 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

have come just from the quarters from which the history
of Adam's disobedience would prepare us to expect
them. First of all, in all ages and in all countries, the
bulk of mankind have been, at the least, very indifferent
to the voice of God's teaching and the precepts of His
law. It was so in the days when the Catholic Church
was the public Church of every state in Europe ; it is so
now in Catholic countries, as well as in the minority of
the population which is Catholic in a country like this.
There is always a tendency to shut the eyes to eternal
truth, and to resent the yoke of teaching. But opposi
tion with Catholics is mostly of a silent and practical
kind ; it seldom takes the form of explicit rebellion ;
and, by God's help, the hearts of multitudes repent and
they are saved. It is otherwise with non-believers.
They, of course, make no scruple of saying out what
they think ; and we find that the hardest sayings come
from those who may be presumed to be most smitten
with the taint of the fall, and possessed by passion and
pride. I do not allude merely to the fact that wherever
the Catholic Church has been forcibly overthrown the
blow has been given, as a rule, by a prince or potentate
who was personally an evil liver, and generally for mo
tives connected with his evil life. I do not care to
dwell on the fact that no view of the Catholic Church
can be so forbidding as that which is suggested to a
man by his darling sins and evil habits. But the start
ling fact is that the people who possess a great deal of
the mental motive power of the world — statesmen, poli
ticians, and public journalists — have, as a general rule,
hated us. Now we know that the general run of states-

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 191

men, for instance, are men who pursue objects which are
not at all supernatural or elevated in the Gospel sense,
but earthly, temporary, and material They work hard
to qualify themselves to lead their nation in its home
and foreign policy, in its concerns of trade, in its finance,
in its matters of police. They have rivals to distance,
powerful interests to conciliate, factions to reconcile.
They have to practise simulation, affectation, hypocrisy,
if nothing worse ; and their object is the material pro
sperity of the State, if not chiefly their own ambition.
To such the Gospel law is simply an impertinence. It
would not work It would interfere. Therefore they
must have none of it. They must keep it out when it
is not in, and banish and proscribe it when it is. This
is the reason why so many statesmen have persecuted
the Catholic Church. The Church professes to teach
independently of them, by a sovereign right conferred
by God. The rulers of states have different ends, dif
ferent views, other codes of right and wrong; there
fore they oppose the Church. And so far, at least, the
Church bears no small resemblance to that teaching of
Christ which St. Paul has called a captivity and an obe
dience. These men of the world do not care to persecute
a Church which does not pretend to teach. And what
is said of statesmen may be said of politicians generally
and of journalists. Men who aspire to teach the world
must either teach God's truth or their own private seem-
ings. And men who teach out of their own hearts, or
out of an evil tradition of merely human ideas, the more
they formulate and express their thoughts, the more
they drift from truth. Their ruling idea is that they

192 THE SPIRIT OJT FAITH.

can teach what should be taught. And therefore, in
their wilfulness, they must needs scorn the Church of
God. We should expect it. The multitudes do not
think much ; but the public writer must move on. He
must form opinions and take sides. And in the enor
mous majority of cases the human heart, the taint of
Adam, which he carries in him, will set him on the
wrong side. And therefore the Catholic Church ex
pects his opposition, and she has it. The statesman
studies material and temporary interests, the journalist
upholds free thought and free discussion ; and the Gos
pel of Christ comes in the way of both.

And I go farther. I venture to assert, not only that
it is perfectly natural to expect that politicians and jour
nalists will oppose the Catholic Church, if she be the
true Church, but it is also to be expected, that in a non-
believing country, the greater the (so-called) civilisa
tion, the keener will the opposition be. Civilisation
means, with most men, material progress and indepen
dent thought, creature comforts, physical science, and
indifference about religion. Civilisation, without Faith,
means simply greater enlightenment in getting the
greatest amount of gratification before death comes to
hinder us. It means greater consciousness, more proud
knowledge of things comparatively little to the purpose.
It means an elaborate indifference to the Kingdom of
Heaven. It means a more systematic cultivation of
passion and wilfulness. And therefore it means opposi
tion to the revelation of Christ, which points to heaven,
and exacts humble submission. And that is the reason
why modern civilisation hates the Catholic Church. A

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 193

civilisation which includes true Faith strengthens Faith
and preserves it ; but it is a positive barrier to it when
it is outside. It is a dragon which might guard a
golden fruit; but if the garden be already plundered,
its chief office is to keep away the anxious voyagers who
come with seed to sow the desolate soil afresh.

I conclude that it is human passion, but especially
human wilfulness, which makes some of the best-en
dowed minds of our day, and a great part of its civili
sation, resist the Catholic Church. Perhaps they know
not what they do. But it is their misery, if not their
fault. I might say that the most of those who clamour
about free thought and independence have little claim
to it I have shown that not one man in a thousand
really forms his religion for himself. In Protestantism
there is plenty of despotism ; not such as the Church
exercises, with calm maturity, leaning on the wisdom of
ages, but irresponsible, unreasonable, and almost savage.
Friends avoid friends ; parents disinherit children ; men
of what is called good position dare not attend a Catholic
sermon, for fear of the social consequences. But this
is a poor retort. I prefer to invite you to consider, once
more, the Gospel characters of Faith and the character
istics of the human heart, and to pray that weakness
and wilfulness may have nothing to do with keeping the
light from your eyes. Consider that Faith demands a
sacrifice. Christ offers us peace — not the peace of
sloth and indulgence, but the peace of calm and settled
belief. Consider the Church as some guide or moni
tor, stern of aspect, perhaps, and uncompromising, who
stands beside you on your journey whilst you deliberate

13

194 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

which way you shall turn, and briefly points out the
true and only path that leads you home. You perhaps,
if you are not in reasonable mood, fly into a passion with
your truthful adviser, and, merely to show that you are
free and independent, choose the way which leads to
death. You think you prove your manliness when you
allow your lower nature to play the tyrant over that
reason which alone constitutes the true nobility of man !
I dwell upon the spirit of wilfulness, and its mani
festations in the craving for independence and freedom,
and the pretence of manliness, because I believe it is the
very root of the world's opposition to the Spirit of Faith.
It is the spirit which is spoiling the world just now, as it
has spoiled many a region of the world before. Through
it men are led into the worst of heresies and the worst
of idolatries — the honour and the worship of themselves
and their own thoughts. Through it there is coming to
be no such thing as God or Jesus Christ, because man
kind, instead of looking outside of themselves to be
taught, look into their own uninstructed hearts, and set
up for worship what they find there ; and what they find
is sometimes as unlike the living God as any idol of
India or the Southern seas. It is the spirit of wilful-
ness refusing to be taught, which is confusing the limits
of right and wrong — which is making men deny virtues
to be virtues and sins to be sins, because they are too
independent to learn from others, or to follow any au
thority of times past or times present* It is wilfulness
which is the reason of the most melancholy sight the
modern world has to show — the huge and hideous waste
of the good qualities of able and earnest men, who go

WILFULNESS AN OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 195

wrong in all directions because they think it manly to
believe as they choose. They are conscious they have
neither time nor opportunities to search out what is right
for themselves ; they know they can only expect to make
out a few of the easier problems of humanity ; yet they
think it better to be content with shallow pools of water
in the wilderness than to seek the stream. There is
enough good-heartedness and earnestness round about
us to move the world, if God so willed ; but it is wasted,
because each man is for himself! The crowds follow,
indeed, authority, but not because it is authority. They
accept what is current because it is current and fa
miliar, and because they have no power to think any
thing out for themselves ; but they have no true rever
ence, submission, or lowliness of mind Their spirit is
not the Spirit of Faith, but the spirit of inert and pas
sive acquiescence. When the landslip comes, they slide
helplessly. And the higher minds, as I have said, are
only isolated guessers at truth. They sail, each in his
little boat, tossed hither and thither, touching at every
port, wrecked on every shore. And the world of reli
gious thought, in a country like this, is like the low
flats where a great river has burst its banks, and the
shallow waters lie far and wide, noisome, inefficient, a
ripple here or an eddy there, but without advance or
motion towards the sea. If men would, these waters
might return into the river's bed, and the banks might
be made high and strong, and the stream might flow
calmly on, full and resistless, carrying joy and useful
ness to men, and finding its home at last in the bound
less ocean. r

V.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST.
{Preached on Christmas-day.)

Lord, Thou wilt give us peace ; for Thou hast wrought all our
works for us. ISAIAS XXVL 12.

THE Lord and Prince who was given to the world on
the night of Christmas we love to call the Prince of
Peace. It was the title by which he was hailed in the
Psalms and the Prophecies. It is the name which best
suits the proclamation which angelic heralds sang forth
to the world when they filled the midnight with their
melody: 'Glory to God' and 'Peace to man!' His
office was to be, to spread his peaceful empire over all
the world ; to give to men a true, firm, and lasting
peace. And to symbolise this His purpose He willed
to come down to the earth in the midst of the most
profound peace. War had ceased in the world. The
clash of arms had died down and died away. The Eo-
man power peacefully grasped the conquered world.
From the shores of Britain to Tartary and to India the
legions were peacefully encamped, watching from their
lofty entrenched hills or from their walled cities the
populations that no longer thought of resisting them.
Judaea and the Holy Land were at peace. In the
phrase of the old historian, ' the land rested/ Fighting

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 197

had ceased. Eoman soldiers garrisoned Sion ; Roman
tax-gatherers sat at the receipt of customs ; Roman
judges administered the laws. And He was born in
quiet peaceful Bethlehem — Bethlehem, among whose
cottages, hidden in their vineyards, cornfields, and olive-
gardens, even the stir caused by the enrolment was no
thing more than a village festival. The world at peace
— the land at peace — the city at peace — the cave in the
hill-side most peaceful of all : thus were things disposed
when the way-farers of Christmas eve sought for a lodg
ing. And in the words of Holy Scripture, ' When all
things kept silence, when the night was in its middle
course, Thy Almighty word, 0 Lord, came down from
the throne of his royalty.' l

Thus we love to dwell upon the lessons of peace
that Christmas brings. And yet is it not a strange
peace that Christ the Lord has brought upon the earth ?
Does not His own life, do not His own words, seem to
contradict the angels and the prophets : * I came not to
bring peace, but the sword ' ? These aje His words.
And did He not come, as Isaias prophesied, to pull down,
to build up, to root out, to destroy? Was he not, in
fant as He was, still the mighty God ?

We cannot understand His peace unless we can un
derstand His power. There is a peace which is death,
or solitude, and there is a peace which means the quiet
and noiseless working of mighty force ; and the peace
Christ came to bring was of the latter sort. He came
into the world a power ; a principle of life. He came to
1 Wisdom xviii. 14.

198 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

give men power to lead a very active and a very ener
getic life. He came with His hands full of the most
powerful gifts. His object in coming was not to hush
things into the silence of the tomb, but to set up a life
and a power which, great as it was, should act silently
and swiftly, as long as it acted under His own hand.
But if it lost His own motion and direction, it was to
recoil with hideous ruin.

Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. These are
the two stupendous forces that lie within the small com
pass of that infant form.

Christ, our Lord and Saviour, is Master of two
worlds; and one of them the mass of mankind will
hardly recognise. The world of the natural is the world
of things as they are in their nature — matter, physical
life, mind. The world of the supernatural is the world
of things to which the gift of God has added a beauty
or a power which their original make or composition
does not demand, and could never rise to by itself. The
existence of tlie world or realm of the supernatural fol
lows from one fact — the fact that God has wished man
to have as his last end no less a beatitude than the vi
sion of Himself face to face, even ' as He is.' 2 Human
nature was to live for ever (so its Creator wished) in the
fires of the Beatific Vision ; and therefore it was to be
gifted with a gift which should enable it to merit that
Vision, and to look upon it without being consumed. The
gift is called Grace here below ; when the passage of
death is passed it is called Glory. But both before the
judgment and after it, the gift is a real gift of the soul
• 1 St. John iii. 2.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 199

not a mere extrinsic relation or denomination. There
are no legal fictions with Almighty God. If He calls
a man holy, he is holy; if He looks upon him with
favour, he is favoured ; if He holds him gracious or
acceptable, he has grace. And it is the realm of grace,
with its sources in God's good-will, its effects as a state
or a power on the soul of man, its results on bliss ever
lasting, which is summed up in the word supernatural
Of this world Jesus Christ is Creator and King.

Hitherto, in the preceding discourses, we have looked
at what might be called the earthly aspect of Faith.
We have been considering Faith chiefly as a state or
an effect in man's nature. We have viewed it with
reference to the Gospel teachings, with reference to
prejudice, and with reference to the wilfulness of the
heart itself. Not unfrequently, it is true, our glance
has been raised from the earth to the heavens. We
have all along recognised that the source of Faith is
higher than any earthly level ; and now it is necessary
to enter more minutely into this consideration. To say,
and to try to impress on the heart of man, ihat Faith is
a gift of God, is in many ways the most important part
of the task of one who seeks to prepare minds for Be
lief; and therefore I have begun to-day by speaking of
the power of the Prince of Peace. For Faith, though
not absolutely the beginning of the exercise of His su
pernatural power in the heart, is the beginning or foun
dation of His permanent reign therein.

What has been said on the subject of Faith will
probably have led many of you to lay it down as certain
that to have Faith, or to hold it, is a very difficult thing.

200 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

Although Belief is so natural to us that a great part of
our rational life is made up of simply believing, yet to
believe in the Gospel and to believe in the Church, we
must, it would seem, both put strong pressure upon
ourselves, and resist with great determination several
adverse influences. And this is true. Faith is not
easy to the unassisted human heart. If I were saying
all that had to be said on the subject, I should add, that
Faith without help from above was impossible. But there
can be no doubt that it is difficult. To believe, the mind
must have a power of keen sight and of far sight, in
order to be able to see things distant and things un
noticed by the crowd ; a sight like that of the sailor,
whose eye is trained to see the coming sail when as yet
it looks a mere speck on the line where land and sea
meet. To believe, there must be a conscious inward
exertion — a gathering up of will-power — a clinging fast
with intellectual grasp. In other words, Belief or Faith
(granting it to be a desirable thing) is a virtue ; for the
old and the true meaning of virtue is the activity of
moral and spiritual power towards good. But virtue
must be in a man before it can come out of him. If a
man does an act of kindness, it is because he is kind;
if he behaves justly, it is because he is just. It is the
same as in physical matters; if a man deals a heavy
blow, or runs swiftly, it is because he is muscular and
healthy.

To believe, then, as God would have us believe, we
must possess the virtue of Faith.

A man who hears this might, if he knew no better,
cry out in despair, How can I get the virtue of Faith ?

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 201

But all of you who know the Catholic teaching are aware
that God's providence has provided for us here, through
the blood of Jesus Christ. To those who know where
to look for the virtue of Faith there is no difficulty in
finding it The truth is, that God is ready to give it to
vs. When God gives a man a virtue, that virtue is said
to be infused. God 'pours' the grace of it into his soul.
Such virtues begin to exist in the heart on a certain
day and hour ; the greatest of them without any merit,
or procuring, or practising on the part of man. It is
thus that we believe that there come into our hearts the
three great theological and preeminently Christian vir
tues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. They are God's work
within us, not our acquisition. They are given directly
by God's hand. They are like the rain of heaven, fall
ing on the hill-tops, and gathering into great pools in
the hollow places, or rushing in white streams down the
furrowed mountain-side. They are instantaneous in
their coming, copious, and mighty. Whilst the virtues
of human nature itself, though they too may come or
may be increased in the same way, are most often like
the scanty supplies of water which toiling and panting
men carry up to barren heights where the rain of heaven
does not fall.

It is the presence of these ' infused ' Christian virtues
in the soul of man which constitutes his supernatural
life. In the case of infants, they are infused by the
Sacrament of Baptism. It is not meant that an uncon
scious child can believe, can hope, or can love its Maker:
but it receives a real power in its soul — a power which
will remain latent until its body and its brain mature,

202 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

but a power which is quite as real as its reason or its
immortal soul itself. To the conscious and mature mind
of a grown-up man or woman, this life and these virtues
come in various ways, and they have various states and
vicissitudes. In such a one, the gift of Faith is pre
ceded and heralded by other emotions of grace. Faith
may be found without love ; and Faith of this kind is
dead Faith, from which no living work can proceed. But
Love can never be without Faith. And, finally, even
Faith itself may be deliberately sacrificed and lost. As
to the moral virtues — the virtues of the dutiful child,
the loyal subject, the kindly neighbour, the honest man
— these are 'christianised/ so to speak, by the light
and warmth of the three virtues which are Christian
by excellence. The moral virtues, without 'these three,'
are the virtues of a pagan — good qualities, and praise
worthy, but useless unto life everlasting. And they are
nut only christianised by their presence, but purified
widened, strengthened, made heroic. They are weapons
or tools which would not avail us to build mansions be
yond the barriers of this earth ; but when the nand of
the Spirit grasps them, they become transfigured with
the strength of the Spirit.

And, to complete this brief account of the supei-
natural life, two other of its phenomena must be no
ticed. The first is, the continual stream of 'actual'
grace which Almighty God, through the blood of Jesus,
lovingly rains down upon every soul of man : good de
sires, fervent purposes, sorrow for sin, and every holy
emotion. And the second is the sevenfold gift of the
Holy Ghost. Though all grace is a gift, yet there are

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHEIST. 203

seven marked and peculiar graces which are especially
called gifts. They are read in the prophet Isaias ; and
they are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge,
Fortitude, Piety, and the Fear of the Lord. These are
something more than the soul's life, even though that
life be the life of grace. Have you ever seen some
mighty beast crouch down in silence before the up
lifted finger of a man ? Have you ever seen the eye
of a child light up with intelligence and love at the
word of injunction uttered by a wise and kind master ?
Or have you ever meditated in silence on the scene
which once took place on the shores of Genesareth,
when Peter and Andrew, James and John, left father
and mother and all things at the call of a voice and the
gesture of a hand ? The Holy Spirit is our Master and
our Teacher ; and it has pleased Him to put certain
gifts into our hearts, when He is there, by which we
feel Him when He moves us to act — certain chords or
springs which vibrate to His voice, and answer to His
touch; so that we are docile to His inspirations, and
easily follow whither He leads. These gifts are the com
pletion of the supernatural life. It is these gifts, fully
used, unimpeded by little sins (great sins, I need not
say, banish them altogether), which carry on to perfec
tion the growth of the holiness of those heroes of the
supernatural life whom we call the Saints.

It is difficult to get a hearing when one preaches
the fact of the supernatural life. Even of those who
read the New Testament and accept it, many do not
really admit such a realm or region as I have been de
scribing. Possibilities such as these are, no doubt, very

204 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

awful, and give human life a colour and meaning which
may easily startle any one who thinks seriously. But
New Testament phrases contain the whole truth oa
which we have been insisting. What else can be meant
by such expressions as ' putting on Jesus Christ/ ' put
ting on the new man/ 'being engrafted on Christ/
' walking in grace/ and ' washing our robes in the blood
of the Lamb ' ? The supernatural life has a principle
of its own, an object of its own, acts of its own, processes
of its own. You cannot see it or measure it, but there
it is, under your eyes, in the men or women whom, per
haps, you sit beside or pass in the streets. Those who
live the supernatural life seem outwardly not very dif
ferent from other men ; and they join in the world's
business as other men do. But they have thoughts,
powers, a food, a living principle, and an elaborate life,
such as the world never guesses. Sometimes the super
natural shines out. It does so when the world sees men
ready to die — dying perhaps — for faith and justice ;
when men sacrifice themselves for their brothers' souls ;
when they are united to God after a special manner ;
and whenever grand examples of Christian heroism are
given to the wondering world. The supernatural,
though a secret power and a hidden one, is the greatest
power in the world. It is the power of the Cross ; it is
the power of the Spirit. Though evil must ever be,
and scandals come, no specific form of evil or scandal
ever finally puts down the supernatural. Philosophers
tell us that hidden fire moulds this globe of ours. There
is a hidden fire at work among you, about you, under
you, which is continually acting on the world. It works

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 205

mostly in silence, carrying out its appointed ministry.
But it bursts out in volcano eruptions sometimes ; and
the houses that kings have huilt, and the vineyards and
the gardens which have grown green and have ripened
on the earth above, are shaken, are ruined, and are
swept away. How many times the mere force of hid
den supernatural power — faith, love, prayer, penance —
has changed the surface of the world !

And every soul of man is meant to live this super
natural life. Every soul which does not live this life is
dead. But the souls which possess it, possess something
which makes them eagles in flight, giants in strength.
There was once that Samson was set upon by his own
countrymen and carried off to be delivered up to the
Philistines. They beset his home in the cave of the
rock, and they seized him, and bound him with ' two
new cords ; ' then they marched him out to the Philis
tine host, which was encamped in the very land of Juda
itself, in a spot afterwards famous to all time as the place
of the Jawbone. The Philistines saw their enemy and
their scourge dragged in bonds to be surrendered to their
power, and the whole army was in joyful commotion,
and rushed forward with shouts of triumph to take pos
session of him. But mark what ensued ! ' The Spirit
of the Lord came strongly upon him ; and as the flax is
wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the
bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed.
And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass
which lay there, catching it up, he slew therewith a
thousand men.'8 The phrase which is so familiar to

8 Judges xv. 14.

206 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

Holy Scripture when describing the great actions of the
ancient heroes — the Spirit of the Lord fell upon him—
is the phrase which best of all expresses the state of the
soul which is possessed of the supernatural life of God's
grace. It is the giving of the Spirit, no longer as for
merly, 'by measure/ to special individuals for special
purposes, but in abundance. ' You are sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise/ * says St. Paul. And according
to St. Paul, we are to walk (that is, to live and act) in
the Spirit ; the Spirit dwelleth in us, is given to us, is
spread abroad in our hearts, and gives us hope and
strength. It is this Spirit of power, filling the heart
as He formerly filled the Holy of Holies in the Temple,
who snaps asunder the bonds of sin, and enables men
and women with the poorest and meanest of natural
capacities to put so many hosts of opposing difficulties
to flight, and win their way to Jerusalem at last.

We are speaking about Faith, and we seem to have
embarked on the wide subject of the whole supernatural
life. And it is natural to have done so. The battle of
the cause of God's revelation must be fought on the
question of Faith ; for Faith is the position, the narrow
pass in the mountain chain, by which the soul must
enter into the peaceful realm of habitual grace and
charity and Christian virtues. The world is divided
into two clearly-marked divisions by the line where Faith
begins. On the one side are the unbelievers ; that is
to say, either the darkness of the heathen, to whom
Christ's tidings have not been preached, or the indiffer-
4Eph. i. 13.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. .207

ence of the incredulous worldly who live only for the
time that passes away, or the opposition of the reasoning
sceptics who do not see, or the hostility of the apostates
who have seen and grown blind again. On the other
side are those who believe; either those whose Belief is
living by charity, and shows itself in good works, or
whose Belief, though dead as far as merit or acceptable-
ness is concerned, is yet a real quality or habit, wrapping
the poor sinful soul about, keeping alive some disposi
tions to grace, some preparation for repentance, some
inclination to virtue, some fond remembrance of past
devotion; just as the soldier who has deserted his
colours may still wear his uniform till it turns to rags,
and still cherish, unconsciously perhaps, the erect bear
ing, the firm step, the trained skill which he learned
under the banner of his duty.

The question of Faith, then, is in many respects the
question of the hour. Give the preacher an audience
who believe, and he can hope to startle them into fear,
or to raise their hearts to the love of God. But to
preach to a generation which does not believe is as if
one spoke to those who had shut the door and left the
speaker out in the cold. And therefore what has been
said about the supernatural life and infused virtue, since
it applies in the closest way to Faith, is of extreme im
portance. There are some who find Faith difficult to
attain, and yet who long for Faith ; and there are others
who are indifferent or hostile to Faith. The first should
be encouraged to hope and trust, and to petition the
Giver of all good gifts. The latter should bethink
themselves that they are like men who walk the earth

208 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

and yet argue about the ether of the planetary spacea ;
on our theory they cannot expect to arrive at true
knowledge about matters of revelation. For we believe
that Faith is an infused gift of God, and a virtue of the
Spirit.

Let it be observed, therefore, that Faith is a gift not
merely in the sense that God has given us revelation.
It is doubtless a great and stupendous gift that the
Creator bestows upon the world when He speaks to it
and reveals truths which it would either have perverted
or never known. But it is not in this sense that I am
now calling Faith a gift. God has given us the 'objects'
of our Belief; but He also gives us the 'faculty' of Be
lief itself. In describing this faculty, as in describing
other moral and spiritual faculties, we are obliged to
speak chiefly of its objects ; we best explain what it is
by mentioning what it can do. But it is a distinct thing
from any of its acts, and from all of them.

But in calling Faith a supernatural quality or faculty
which God 'infuses/ we are not denying that it resides
in or qualifies the natural human intelligence. It is our
own mind and will which believe ; and Belief is not an
act which goes on outside of them or independently of
them, as if some bright spirit from the heavens were to
animate a human body. It is the 'heart' which believes
unto justice, as it is the 'mouth' which confesses our
belief unto salvation.6 Faith is a supernatural gift, but
it rests on nature and glorifies nature ; just as the rain
bow, whose arch is in the skies, seems to stand upon the
wood, the hill, the meadow, which it transforms.

1 Romans x. 10.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 209

It is this transformation of human minds and hearts
which shows how great a gift is the gift of supernatural
Faith. In the first place, it is a gift which makes the
heart look up directly to God, its maker and its last
end. There is a sense in which God is the only object
of Faith. The reason is that belief means an accept
ance of God's revelation because it is God's revelation :
it means the clinging to dogma, to creed, or to formu
lary, because God has made it known. Nothing can
come within the scope of Divine Faith which is not part
of the revelation of God. Faith, therefore, is the faculty
which takes note of the communications that have
reached the earth from the awful silence of the heavens.
God speaks to our hearts and beings in maiiy ways, and
we have many sensitive organs that tell us of His word
and His will ; but when He deigned to speak in accents
which human nature could not claim to hear, He also
gave us a new sense to take such accents in. He spoke
in the tongue of the Kingdom of Heaven; it was a strange
tongue to the beings whom He had made of clay. Even
the immortal spirit, made after His own likeness, had no
key to it. But that immortal spirit could receive, if it
could not demand. It could look up to the clouds
where the fiery chariot was whirling out of sight, and
long for the prophet's mantle. And the mantle fell;
the spirit received the gift of Faith, and new visions,
fresh realms of truth, which prophets had not guessed
at and ancient saints but dimly seen, were opened to
every ' little one' on whom the gift had come. It was a
gift which created a new world. It discerned things
essentially invisible to sense or mere mind. It peopled

14

210 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

this world below with innumerable existences, hidden
under the curtains and the mists of matter. It set up
for all humanity the ladder of the patriarch — which
rested on the barren earth, on the stone that was his
pillow, and at whose summit were the" open heavens and
God Himself, whilst radiance streamed down and angels
flitted to and fro. It was the ' argument,' or solid con
viction of 'things unseen;' the 'substance,' or firmly
grasped reality, of what was 'hoped for.'6 By it, and
by nothing else, was rendered possible the life, the way,
the conduct, which lead to the Beatific Vision. It ' real
ised' God in this world, and that after the deeper and
more awful fashion in which He is revealed by His own
word.

If there is such a wonderful gift and endowment of
the soul as Faith, it is no wonder that, in spite of wil-
fulness and in spite of prejudice, there is such a thing
as ardent belief in God's revelation. I have said that
Faith is a gift which is bestowed upon the heart in
order to enable it, as by some new faculty, to live and
move in an invisible and supernatural world — or, in
other words, to realise God the Creator. The difficul
ties which prevent the heart from accepting or looking
for this invisible supernatural world are chiefly, as I
have also said, hesitation as to the proofs of revelation,
prejudice or preoccupation, and wilfulness. Now no
religious system or theory could deal with these difficul
ties which did not, like the Catholic Church, start with
the supposition that Providence has destined for man
a special gift or endowment to help him over them,
e Heb.xL 1.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 211

Take the first. Hesitation as to the proof of revelation
arises either from inability to see the force of the proofs,
or, more commonly, from inability to get rid of some
staggering objection. The proofs of revelation are not
so strong and overwhelming to us as the proofs of
many far less important matters. They are sufficient
to prove its existence ; especially they are sufficient to
prove the existence of a teaching Church. But since
they lie in a sphere which the mind of the ordinary
man and woman of the world's millions is not familiar
with, and since they have to be held with an earnest
grasp as motives and master-thoughts, the human mind
must be helped to take them in, and helped to hold
them. There is many a truth which men do not ac
cept merely because it is crushed out of sight by the
rush of other truths ; arid there is many a conviction
which lies asleep and is hardly a conviction. And reve
lation might be, and would be, no better than such a
truth and such a conviction to the multitudes were it
not for the special gift of Faith. The objections to
revelation are none of them, perhaps, unanswerable ;
but if they were, it must be remembered that an un
answered difficulty (unless it be a proof positive of the
opposite) may often confront us without making us
waver in our belief. The answers to our difficulties
may lie, like the explanations of wind and weather, ir
spheres we cannot investigate. We must often be con
tent with seeing that undoubted facts do not contradict
us, without always being able to harmonise every fact
with our position and theory. And, remembering this,
we can always see, when dealing with the difficulties of

212 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

revelation, that there would arise difficulties a hundred
times more serious if revelation were itself a fiction.
But it is a part of the weakness of the human mind to
be unable to look at an argument as a whole. A small
particular difficulty is frequently quite sufficient to pro
duce doubt or disbelief in matters where there should
be unhesitating acceptance. And the gift of Faith is
meant to remedy this weakness, as far as revelation is
concerned. By it the mind receives a certain magnetic
attraction to divine truth. By it the intelligence so
concentrates its gaze upon God's Word that the difficul
ties on this side and on that are but slightly felt. By
it, above all, the mental faculties of the humble Chris
tian are raised to that grand generalisation which in
matters of science only the master-minds attain, that a
vast, grand, and harmonious system cannot be seriously
endangered by difficulties of detail ; that when a man,
basking in the sunshine, feels a sudden chill, it is more
reasonable to suppose that a little cloud is passing over
him than that there is no sun.

The influence of a gift like Faith on human preju
dice need hardly be pointed out. Prejudice is the pre
occupation of the mind by views which the heart takes
kindly to. Prejudice is more than difficulty ; it is men
tal attitude ; it is, as it were, a form of intuition. And
it may be dishonest. If prejudice be dishonestly held>
the gift of Faith, by disposing the heart to prefer the
kingdom of God to the world and the flesh, tends indi
rectly to dissolve it. And if it be honest, the gift de
stroys it by, so to speak, altering its focus. The mo
ment new truth can be got within the range of mental

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 213

sight, or the sight itself be distracted to see otherwise
than straight 011 in front, prejudice begins to die. And
Faith helps prejudice to look over its gaol-wall; to note
the disregarded fields and pastures on either side of its
iron road ; to catch sight of many a diamond lying in
the dust of its own unwatered track ; and when preju
dice has thus been induced to admit there is goodness
and truth elsewhere than it had all along taken for
granted, the dawn of the day is not far off.

As for wilfulness — that moral obstacle which bars
out Belief as the sand-bank blocks the harbour's mouth
when the tide is low — the gift of Faith is given to de
stroy it utterly. The gift of Faith bends stubborn
necks and bows down lofty thoughts. If Belief is an
obedience, a captivity, a humbling of the heart, a gift
was needed before Belief could be prevalent in the race
of man. Belief is as much a moral act as it is an act
of the intelligence. It demands pious and devout sub
mission to the teaching of God, humility and docility
towards the voice of God's Church, and a sensitive
search for, and joyful acceptance of, every jot and tittle
of divinely-inspired or divinely-protected teaching. The
heavenly gift of Faith is meant, not merely to sharpen
the intellectual sight, but to fill the heart with worship.

When all these various conditions are combined —
when proof and argument are steadily realised, when
objections and difficulties are passed by, when preoccu
pying mental habits have been dissolved, when humility
and piety reign in the will — then Belief is what is called
firm. And firmness is the result of the gift of Faith.
It is this great gift which enables the child whose brain

214 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

has just matured enough to let its spirit act, to adhere
without hesitation and without rashness to that ' form
of words ' which it has already made its own. It is this
gift which makes the rude untaught poor, the working
man, the poor man's wife, the millions of the fields and
the streets, not only acquiesce in their Faith, but cling
to it, act upon it, fight for it, or die for it. It is this
gift which brings the rich, the intellectual, and the noble,
in the flower of their age and the maturity of their
powers, to the feet of men who are often their inferiors
in everything but the being the dispensers of the mys
teries of God. It is this gift which inspires a horror of
heresy and a distrust of dogmatic science ; which secures
a kindly reception for first tidings of the miraculous ;
and which moves believers to reverence every utterance
of Popes and pastors. It is this gift, often half-smoth
ered under a load of worldliness and vain solicitude,
which lives in the hearts of Catholics, which prompts
them to many a generous labour or sacrifice for the
Church, which opens their ears tc the word of God, and
brings them to the sacred tribunal and the holy table.
It is the want of this gift of Faith which leaves clear
sighted men in unbelief, honest men in heresy, good-
hearted men in antagonism to Catholicism, and proud
men in darkness ; and it is the weakness of the gift
which not unfrequently makes Catholics ashamed of
their profession, or keeps them aloof from their pastors or
their fellow-Catholics in sentiment or in practice. For
Faith is the ' victory which overcomes the world ; ' 7 it is
the precious root of life which the Lord when He comes

' 1 John v. 5.

FAITH THE GIFT OF JESUS CHRIST. 215

in the latter day shall hardly find, alas ! in all the
earth.

Let no one, then, believer or unbeliever, forget that
Faith is a gift of Jesus Christ. Let the Catholic who
too often trifles with his Faith by indifference, by criti
cism, and by too ' liberal ' views, remember that he is
entirely in the hands of God. If the divine influx
ceased, his Faith would wither up and be found no
more. And let the honest inquirer be fully persuaded
that the knowledge of history, of controversy, and of
grammar is of little use without humility of mind, per
sonal goodness, and earnest prayer. The object of these
discourses has been to show that the preparation for
Faith must be a preparation of the will ; that Faith is a
moral and voluntary act, and not the necessary submis
sion of the intelligence to overwhelming light ; that the
Spirit of Faith is not that of criticism and discussion, but
of captivity and obedience ; finally, that Faith is not an
acquisition, but a gift. There has been no desire or in
tention of undervaluing study, research, and contro
versial writing or preaching ; in God's providence all
these things are most valuable. But the light of the sun
is of little use as long as the shutters are closed.

And if I were asked for one royal road to the hap
piness of Faith, I should answer, with all the Saints,
that it is prayer. No one who prays can be lost God
wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge
of the truth. But He has not promised to save those
who are so immersed in the pleasantness or the business
of this life as to give Him no share in their thoughts
and none of the worship which is His right. We must

216 THE SPIRIT OF FAITH.

bow to His majesty and beg for His precious gift. We
must make ourselves feel, with all the fervour of our
heart, that we are helpless if He do not help us, and
blind if He do not enlighten ua And He will hear the
prayer of the humble heart. Be sure that He will hear.
Whether it be that He gives us new reasons or helps us
the better to penetrate old ones ; whether He send us a
man, or a book, or an inspiration ; whether He cast us
down as with a lightning stroke, or lay his hand gently
upon our eyes and ears, let us be assured that He will
hear ua If He must send His angel from the heavens
to teach us, then His angel will be sent. But it is He
alone, and not ourselves, who can open our eyes and let
us see the light,

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

All these, being approved by the testimony of Faith, received not
the promise ; God providing some better thing for us, that they
should not be perfected without'ua. HEBREWS xi. 39, 40.

OUE subject this evening is the ' Sacraments.' I hope to
make clear what is meant by a Sacrament, and to point
out what kind of proof there is in the New Testament
for the existence of Sacraments. 1 spoke last Sunday
of the ministry of the New Testament. 1 drew your
attention to the fact that the New Law was to be a new
dispensation of grace , its ministers to be more powerful
and its ordinances more effectual. The ancient law was
glorious, as St. Paul tells us ; yet in comparison with the
new it was the ministry of death, of condemnation. It
could confer no life, though the neglect of its ordinances
entailed death. It was a stepmother who did not feed
the children, yet thrust them out to perish if they trans
gressed. It was a house wherein the ' shadows of good
things' dwelt, not the 'very image.'1 The tabernacle of
skins which the wandering tribes bore about with them,
and set down on the soil of the wilderness beneath the
shadows of the rocks of Sinai — which they pitched with
their tents and struck again when the trumpets sounded

»Heb. xl; Col tt. 17.

218 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

the march — this was a figure of the whole dispensation.
And the temple of stone, of cedar, and of precious metals
which succeeded the tabernacle of the wanderings, and
was itself its reproduction in nobler materials, carried
the figure on to the coming of Jesus. It was a house
in which God's glory dwelt, wherein His favour rested
upon prayer ; but nothing within its walls could touch
the body of a man and heal his soul. An ' ampler and
more perfect Tabernacle' came.2 A House of a different
kind was built up, not made with mortal hands. It did
not contain, as the former tabernacle had done, only the
'shadow of good things to come/ It contained the very
image of them. That is, it contained things which are
designated in Holy Scripture by such names as ' the
promise/ 8 ' some better thing/ * the * very image/ But
even the things of the New Testament, be it remarked,
great as they were to be, were not the consummation.
Yet another dispensation was to come and all would be
over— the vision of the brightness of God in our eternal
home and country. But the Christian dispensation was
to stand midway between mere ' shadows ' and blissful
realisation. There was to be in it sufficient reality to
distinguish it utterly from the law of types, ceremonies,
and external purifications. But it was to be sufficiently
symbolical itself, and sufficiently dependent in the ex
ternal and sensible, to make it very different from the
heaven to which it was to lead.

As I have already remarked (but it is a remark which
is most important), this prerogative of the New Law
could not mean merely that grace was to be had ; be-

1 H«b. lx 11. * Heb. XL 39. * Heb. XL 40.

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 219

cause grace, and the self-same Saviour's grace, had
always been at hand ever since the promise; but it
must mean that the Law itself, as a dispensation, as a
ritual, as an economy, as an outward arrangement, was
to have the power and the virtue of imparting grace. It
was to be a house with a deep well of pleasant and
healing waters, which were to give life to those who
drank. It was to cover the Saviour's fountains ; and
the gifts which had been from the beginning were now
to begin to be through the medium of a dispensation.
It is very few of those outside the Church who seize
the true sense and significance of the Catholic sacra
mental system. The word ' Sacrament ' has not had
always, or exclusively, the sense in which it is used in
the pages of the Catechism. In the New Testament
' Sacrament ' usually means a secret and sacred thing.
Thus the great doctrines of the Christian revelation are
called Sacraments. It is in this sense that St. Paul, for
instance, speaks of the ' Sacrament of the will of God,
which He Himself hath made known to us.'6 The
word is also used in early ecclesiastical writings to
mean a 'sign of a sacred thing,' of whatever kind,
established by divine authority, or even by human in
stitution. But the word ' Sacrament,1 as now used in
the Church, has a very much more momentous meaning.
With us, a Sacrament is a sign, indeed, but a sign which
differs from other signs, or symbolical acts, in its efficacy
and what it signifies. It is a sign which signifies
sanctifying grace, and not only signifies it, but pro
duces it. The ancient Jewish washings and lustrations
»Eph. i. 9,

220 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

signified spiritual purity, but did not effect anything.
Christian Baptism not only signifies interior cleansing,
but really and efficaciously, if no obstacle be present,
brings it about

I can imagine a well-disposed critic raising an objec
tion here. What right, it will be said, has the Church
to change the meaning of the word Sacrament? If
Sacrament in the New Testament only means a 'mystery'
or a ' doctrine/ how is it that you make out Sacraments
to be such wonder-working rites or ceremonies ? The
answer is that we do not attempt to prove the Catholic
sacramental doctrine from the occurrence of the word
sacrament in the New Testament. Sacraments, in the
Catholic sense, do doubtless come within the range of St.
Paul's use of the word ; because they form » part, and a
very important part, of the Christian revelation. But we
take our own definition of the word, and we assert (and
prove) that the thing answering to this definition really
does exist in the pages of the Now Testament — although
the name Sacrament may not be applied to it. Sacrament
had a wide meaning when St. Paul wrote ; it is now re
stricted to a narrower sense. Such changes of the signi
fication of words occur in all languages and in every art.
Thus the word ' parliament,' which originally meant an
assembly of men whom the sovereign consulted or
listened to, and which in neighbouring countries never
meant anything more important than a superior law-
court, means, with us in England, the supreme assembly
of the nation. What we call Sacraments were known as
such to the Apostles (so we contend), although they did
not apply the name of Sacrament exclusively to them.

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 221

How the gradual narrowing ot' the word came about it

is easy to understand. The word is a Latin word. It

was never really the equivalent of the Greek word

' mystery.' It always denoted something which, whilst

it was sacred and secret, was also symbolical. What

could be more natural, therefore, than that it should by

degrees begin to cling to those most important sacred

signs which were at once symbolical ceremonies and

essential portions of Christian teaching. But, after all,

the application of a term is not extremely important.

If the thing can be proved tc exist, most persons will

not quarrel about the name. Names are important, no

doubt. They are the purses into which we put the

mintings of our mind ; and we shut them, and put them

in our pockets ; but we can always open them again and

reckon what they contain. With the Church, names

are very venerable. She will not meddle with a doctrinal

or scriptural name if she can help it. Names are handy

for learned clerks, for theologians and for priests ; but

to the unlettered or unskilled they are indispensable.

To them a name is, first, the outward shape and picture

of a doctrine or a truth, and then the centre or nucleus

round which new notions gather, like ice gathers in

a winter's night round the twig which dips into the

stream. And names are not only pictures, more or less

elaborated, and capable of indefinite deepening of lines

and colours, but they are banners that wave out and fire

the heart, and touch a thousand springs of memory and

association. And therefore the Church is wary in

suffering a name to be changed. When lawful growth

and natural alteration have made verbal changes ex-

222 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

pedient, she lets the changes come. But otherwise she
knows that to alter well-known names is like pulling
up a growing tree and planting it afresh in different
soil

I give the following definition of a Sacrament : ' An
outward sign of inward grace, ordained by Jesus Christ,
by which grace is conveyed to our souls.' First of all,
a Sacrament is a sign, or a significant and symbolic
action. Thus in Baptism, there is a pouring of water,
rendered still more significant by the accompanying
words, ' I baptize thee.' Thus in Holy Orders there is
the external symbolical rite of imposition of hands,
joined with the words, ' Receive the Holy Ghost'

In the second place, this sign must produce real
interior grace. A rite or ceremony, however holy,
which did not affect interior grace, we should not call
a Sacrament. Thus, there is the beautiful ordinance of
the Washing of the Feet, which takes place on Maundy
Thursday. Christ washed the feet of His disciples, and
He commanded us to wash one another's feet. In
compliance with this command, the ritual books of the
Church for Holy Week have a solemn service of the
Washing of the Feet, and princes, nobles, bishops,
superiors, in imitation of their Lord and Master, wash
the feet of a certain number of their fellow-Christians,
as a protestation that they desire to be humble as
Jesus Christ was humble. This rite is not a Sacrament,
because although it is a significant ceremony, and also
instituted and recommended by Christ, there is no
indication that it is meant to confer interior grace. The
Scriptures do not say so, and the Church has not learnt

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 223

so. But the case is very different with Baptism, or
with Holy Orders, as we shall see.

Thirdly, the sacred signs or ceremonies which produce
grace do not produce it by their own power. It is
evident, on the very surface, that unless Jesus Christ,
who promulgated the New Law, instituted such rites,
out of the plenitude of His power, no such rites can
exist No being who had not the power of the Godhead
could establish such a dispensation as this. In the
nature of things, there is no connection whatever
between an external washing or anointing, even if
accompanied by expressive words, and the inner sanctifi-
cation of the spiritual soul. It would be the grossest
materialism to assert that water could confer grace, by
its own nature or natural properties. The cause of the
interior grace, therefore, in the soul of the recipient is
not the water, or the oil, or the laying on of hands, or
the priest's words, but it is God's power in and through
these outward acts. When the priest baptizes, it is
Christ who baptizes. When the bishop confirms, it is
Christ who confirms. When the penitent in the
confessional listens to the words of absolution, it is
Christ who absolves. And so through the list. It is
evident, then, how falsely and foolishly those who
believe in the Sacraments are taunted with believing in
magic. Magic is the use of words or signs for the
purpose of obtaining the assistance of the evil spirits ;
or at least, with the object of obtaining effects with
which the acts have no connection. But we, in using
the Sacraments, invoke the name of the Lord our
God, who made both heaven and earth ; and we quote

224 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

His own word to prove that He meant us to use them,
and meant to operate by them. This is not magic.

Fourthly, when we say that no acts on the part of the
recipient are required, the words must he carefully ex
plained. If a vessel be full of sand or mud, you cannot
pour pure water into it. It is full. Eemove the obstacle,
empty and cleanse it, and then the water may be poured
in. The removing of the impediments is necessary ; but
this is not the same thing as the refilling of the vessel.
Thus it is with the Sacraments. In those who receive
a Sacrament (putting infants aside, in whom there can
be no obstacle to Baptism, because they are unconscious),
certain interior acts are required, which constitute the
removal of hindrances. Thus, if a grown person have to
be baptized, he or she must believe, must hope, and must
begin to wish to serve God. But these acts do not justify.
It is only when, in addition to his having removed
impediments in the shape of unbelief and deordination
of will, the candidate submits to the rite of Baptism,
that he is cleansed and made just. Something similar
occurs in all the Sacraments. For instance, in the
Sacrament of Penance, the words of absolution would
be of no use unless there preceded them, in the heart of
the recipient, a true sorrow for sins and the beginnings
of the love of God; hut even with these dispositions,
justification does not ensue until the words are pro
nounced I do not say that, in some cases, justification
does not precede Baptism or Penance. This is possible ;
because God is not bound by His own laws ; and intense
acts of His love are both Baptism and Absolution. But
in the great multitude of instances this is not so. The

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 225

Sacraments are meant for the multitude. And in
the cases in which the Sacrament of the Spirit
precedes the sensible sign, still it is part of God's law
that that sensible sign should be submitted to ; and
an unwillingness thus to submit proves peremptorily
that there is no true love of God, and therefore no
operation of the Spirit, and therefore no justification, on
the part of those who thus say they love their God yet
refuse to obey His commandments.

These things being explained, let us apply to the New
Testament, and endeavour to discover whether this sacra
mental view, so explained, finds any countenance there.
Are there any sacred signs, instituted by Christ, by which
grace is conveyed ? Do justification and sanctification
come by outward visible arts ?

There are three sorts of texts in the New Testament
regarding the mode in which the Kedemption of Jesus
Christ is conveyed to the soul of sinful man. First,
there are those texts in which justification is said to
come from an interior act ; for instance, from faith, from
the fear of God, from repentance, and from the love
which flows from repentance. Many of my hearers
would supply me at once with abundance of texts of
this kind. Justified by faith, saved by repentance,
sanctified by charity — these are expressions exceedingly
common in the New Testament. There is a second class
of texts — the texts which attach justification or sancti
fication to an external condition. Among such external
acts or signs are, for instance, the preaching and hearing
of the Gospel, the being baptized, the imposition of hands,
the eating of the Eucharistic bread, the anointing of the

15

226 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

sick with prayer, and the binding and loosing of sins.
I will not weary you with quoting a text for each of
these external acts ; but you know that grace or holiness,
in some sense, is annexed to each of them. I pass on to
point out a third class of texts. There are numerous
texts which join the internal act and the external sign
together. Thus, our Lord says, 'Whoever believeth and
is baptized, shall be saved.'8 Thus St. Peter says,
'Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the
remission of our sins.'7 These texts prove that the
two kinds of acts, the interior and the exterior, do
not exclude each other. They are mutually com
patible. A man coming to Christ must believe; but
he must also be baptized. These texts are very signifi
cant, because they express the Catholic doctrine that
the Sacraments justify, but that, in adults at least,
human acts must prepare the way. For we do not ex
clude human acts ; but we maintain that God's own act,
through the Sacraments, really confers grace.

If we look a little more closely into what the New
Testament says of one Sacrament, that of Baptism, their
power of giving real grace comes out more clearly still.
Our Lord and Saviour had taken hold of the simple,
natural ceremony of Baptism, a ceremony which had
been used in some shape by many peoples over a wide
surface of the earth, and, glorifying it as He did
with many humble and weak elements, lifted it up
into a dispensation conferring grace and Church mem
bership. He went down into the water Himself, and
as the Precursor, in fear and reverence, allowed the

6 Markxvi. 16. 7 Acts ii. 88.

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 227

stream to flow over His sacred body, the waters received,
so to speak, the spirit of holiness, the Spirit brooding
over them as in days of old ; and the Baptism that was
to come was to be the Baptism of the Spirit. Christ
adopted Baptism. 'Unless a man be born again, of
water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the King
dom of Heaven.'8 Thus He spoke to that convert of
His who came to Him by night. ' Go and make dis
ciples of all nations, baptizing them.' He said this
to His Apostles at the solemn moment at which He
was giving them their final charge. This is, without
doubt, the institution of a sacred sign. So the Church
has always understood it. St. Paul speaks of it as being
a well-known ceremony, calling it 'the laver,' or bath 'of
water, with the Word of Life.'9 But this outward sign
conveyed grace. 'He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved/ To be saved means to be endowed
with sanctifying or habitual grace. The same expres
sion occurs in the Epistle to Titus, where St. Paul says,
* He hath saved us by the laver of regeneration ' (bath
of the new birth) ' and renovation of the Holy Ghost.' 10
And the practice of the Apostles fully confirms their
teaching. St. Peter, in the very first sermon he
preached, said to the Jews who asked him what
they must do, 'Repent, and be baptized every one
of you for the remission of sins, and you shall re
ceive the Holy Ghost.' u St. Paul, in his speech on
the stairs of the castle of Jerusalem, cites the words
spoken to him by Ananias, at Damascus, 'Arise, and be

8 John iii 5. 9 Eph. y. 26 ; viii

30 Titus iii 5. " Acts ii. 38.

228 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

baptized, and wash away thy sins/12 In a passage
already alluded to, St. Paul speaks of the laver or
bath of regeneration. All the Fathers have under
stood this to refer to baptism. Calvin himself ex-
pre^ssly agrees with them.13 Protestant interpreters
of recent date, as Bishop Blomfield, coincide. But
what is a bath of regeneration ? It is a bath or
washing by which the new birth is given us — which
is justification through Jesus Christ. There is, again, a
remarkable passage from St. Peter's first epistle : 'Once
the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noe,
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is
eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto baptism
being of the like form doth also now save you (not
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the
answer of a good conscience towards God), by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.'1* As the ark saved
Noe and his family, so baptism saves Christians by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Baptism is a
mere empty ceremony, what did St. Peter mean by
this ? Thus I believe it is perfectly evident from the
New Testament that the sign of Baptism was instituted
by Jesus Christ, and endowed with power to save, to
regenerate, to sanctify.

It is well that we have the evidence for Baptism so
clear in Holy Scripture. The admission of baptismal
regeneration, rightly understood, is the admission of all
the Sacraments. It is the admission of the principle of
sacramentalism that an outward act produces, by the

u Acts xxii. 16. 13 Calvin in Epist ad locum.

14 1 Peter iii. 20, 21.

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 229

will of Jesus Christ, an interior spiritual effect. I could
go on to speak of the imposition of hands, of the
anointing with oil, of the eating of the bread of the
Eucharist, and of priestly absolution. But it is enough
for my purpose to have explained what a Sacrament is,
and to have illustrated this explanation by the text of
Holy Scripture.

There are some who shrink from committing them
selves to a religion of forms and ceremonies (as they
express it). They have heard so much of certain
catchwords, such as 'superstition/ 'change of heart/
' worshipping in Spirit and in Truth/ that they have
a great prejudice to conquer before they can even give
a fair hearing to the sacramental view. Now super
stition is an offence against the supreme duty of worship.
It consists in placing spiritual efficacy in things in which
there is none. Thus the Catholic doctrine of the Sacra
ments is as far as possible from superstition. It clings
to the very words of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church
uses certain rites because He has instituted and ordained
them.

In the next place, the Catholic sacramental doc
trine, so far from dispensing man from interior
spiritual activity, rather demands it and promotes it.
No adult can receive a Sacrament (speaking broadly)
without spiritual acts and dispositions on his own part ;
acts of faith and hope, the turning away from sin, the
raising of the heart towards God. But the objections
of objectors arise from their not seeing that a large
amount of spiritual activity may exist without interior
grace and acceptableness ; and that even where both

230 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

grace and activity exist, further grace may be possible —
higher powers and increased sanctity. Grace, whether
taken in the sense of that first or primary sanctification
by which man becomes regenerate, or as meaning that
secondary increase which supervenes upon the first, is
not a product of man's acts, and does not lie within the
scope of his mere free will. It is from above. The
skies rain it down ; and unless they do rain it down, no
earthly machinery, no human efforts, can water the
barren clay of man's nature. And it is partly to put
us in mind of this that the dispensation of the
Incarnation and the whole sacramental system is in
stituted. Man must be helped by his Creator. And to
obtain that help, he must bend down his own thought
and will No one can love unless he can worship ; no
one can worship unless he believes ; and no one can be
lieve unless he humbles his heart The belief which
leads to worship is not the being convinced of certain
intellectual truths, as one takes in, for instance, the
lesson of an earthly science. Belief is a virtue of the
heart, as well as of the mind. And the sacramental
system is meant to foster this. If a man says, 'I can
not submit to baptism/ 'I cannot kneel to priest or
bishop,' 'I cannot be anointed,' he only says, in effect, I
cannot humble myself to my Creator's ordinance.

And it is not true to say that an ordinance of interior
humiliation would have sufficed without anything ex
terior. God knoweth our frame, and He knows it would
not. What does the sacramental system imply, as to a
man's behaviour ? It implies a visible authority to whom
he must submit, active effort to prepare and to receive,

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 231

contact with a human ministry who are his superiors in
this respect, and a sort of endurance of the very elements,
the humble creatures of water, oil, bread, or man's word,
which are the instruments of supernal grace. It is the
proud Naaman going humbly to wash in the despised
Jewish stream. The external act, embraced with loving
dutifulness, spreads the glow of loving humility in the
heart ; like rude toil and the endurance of elementary
inclemency, it makes the blood flow more quickly, and
it braces the bodily fibres with health and energy. We
are body and soul, sense and spirit, nerve and intellect.
Willingly to bend the neck, not only humbles the soul,
but helps it to remain humble; what impresses our
senses affects the spirit, and what disciplines our nerves
reaches also to the very incorporeal thought and helps
to mould it aright. Therefore God has given us, first
the Man Christ Jesus, and then the Sacraments, in which
He still subsists. He who bends to this outward minis
tration, and lives with simplicity in the midst of it, soon
learns what it does for him, above and beyond the
treasures of spiritual life which it pours upon his heart.
It teaches him and it stimulates him. The spiritual
and invisible truths relating to God and the world to
come are easily lost sight of in a world of occupation
like this. In some climates the air is always pure and
clear, and the hills and the far horizon are visible as if
close at hand. In ours, except on some few favoured
days, the hickness of fog and mist hinders the view,
and sometimes altogether shuts out the outlines we are
most familiar with. So it is in our spiritual nature.
Anything that reminds us of God and of our souls is a

232 THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST.

blessing to us. Thus the churches, with their solemn
spires and the voices of their bells, the words of preachers,
and the examples of good men are valuable to us. And
thus the sacramental system aids us. The Sacraments
teach us. Living among them, as those who daily walk
in a gallery of paintings or sculpture, we learn the
meaning of the things we see. Each Sacrament is a
symbol, always present, never moved away, of doctrine
and institution. Baptism tells us of sin and grace,
Confirmation of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Eucharist
of our Lord Himself, and mystenes too numerous even
to allude to, Penance of the future state and of present
guilt, the last Unction of death and preparation for
death, Holy Orders of the visible teaching Church, and
Matrimony of the holiness of the Christian family —
and every one of these preaches to us the never old tale
of the coming of our blessed Lord, and of the efficacy of
His precious blood. And the sacramental system has a
peculiar power in making us what is called 'realise*
divine truth. Take the Sacrament of Penance. You
may read a long time about repentance and the guilt of
sin, and you may remain cold and unmoved ; but if you
enter a Catholic church and see the people waiting to go
to confession, you begin to realise what your reading
means. You see old people and little children, people
dressed comfortably and people in rags, busy shopkeep-
ing people, young men, young girls, kneeling about,
serious and earnest, thinking about their souls' concerns,
and doing their best to excite themselves to a sorrowful
feeling for their offences against their loving Creator.
It is a great lesson. It means reality, and it is a reality

THE GOOD THINGS OF CHRIST. 233

to the heart of the spectator. And it ought to lead him
to make a reflection on the dispositions of people who
live in the sacramental system. Do they worship less
in spirit and truth than their neighbours do ? On
the contrary. The system directly increases interior
fervour. It is a well-known pyschological fact that
however strong an interior emotion is, if you put it into
activity, it grows stronger in the very act. A hammer
wielded in empty air makes little noise, but bring it
down on stone or metal, and you have noise and heat.
An anger that smoulders in the mind glows red if you
strike the man you are angry with. And so the interior
virtues of love, worship, faith, sorrow, lowliness, never
burn so intensely as when some sacramental duty is to
be performed. Which of us feels sorrow for sin so
bitterly as at the moment we have nerved ourselves
to seek our confessor and implore absolution ? Whose
love of Jesus ever burns so brightly as at the moment
he comes to partake of His sacred flesh in the Holy Com
munion ? To receive *, Sacrament is like sitting at the
feet of OUT Lord, looking in His face, touching the hem
of His garment. The interior feelings, which before re
mained shut up in the inmost citadel of our intellectual
nature, spread forth upon our whole heart and being, and
seize all the points of action and the gates of emotion;
and we are transformed from merely decorous Christians
to lovers of our Lord Jesus Christ. Would that men
understood this! The Sacraments, then, are symbolical
rites, signifying grace and conferring it. They are ordained
by Jesus Christ. They have their efficacy from His blood.
May He give all here light and grace to partake of them,

CHRIST AND THE SINNEK,

Ascending on high He led captivity captive : He gave gifts to men.
EPH. iv. 8.

THE question of how we are to be justified is the most
momentous question we can ask. It is none the less
serious because so many men disregard it, and so many
even deny that it is a question at all. The denial of
the existence of grace and of the fact of regeneration is
becoming more and more common in this country. You
cannot engage in a friendly argument with a chance
acquaintance without running the risk of finding that
the world of the spirit is an unknown world to him; that
he does not admit the invisible and the supernatural,
except, perhaps, so far as to hold that there is a being
whom men call God ; that the whole line of argument
which starts with the truth that the human soul stands
in need of a sanctification over and above its mere
nature, is out of the horizon of his ordinary thought.
Men engaged all day and every day in busy work, in
exciting occupation, diversified by social enjoyment and
such pleasure and amusement as they have time for, are
naturally strangers to the things of faith. ' The animal
man/ says St. Paul — that is, the man who lives a merely
natural human life — ' perceiveth not the things that are
of the Spirit of God, for it is foolishness to him, and he

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 235

cannot understand/1 This is to be expected. It is
difficult for any man to enter into an art or a business
which he has not cultivated. If a business man, for
instance, understands poetry or painting, or if a profes
sional man has a cultivated appreciation of languages,
of music, or of some art that is not his owu, he knows
that he has had to get it by years of patient training
and observation. It is no wonder, then, that so many
men, having the worldly bias they have, do not appre
ciate the inner life of the spirit. And what they cannot
understand they find it convenient to deny.

But as long as we admit the existence of an omnipo
tent God, and of a spirit in man made to God's image
and destined to know and cling to Him, we cannot deny
that we have another life besides the life we live by our
bodily sense and natural reason. The loftiness of man's
nature and its grand aspirations and possibilities prove
what its end and object must be ; whilst its littleness, its
subjection to the flesh, its dependence on the visible and
the sensible, show that there is disorder somewhere.
Therefore the human heart, whose first want is to be
able to cling to its God, must be purified, elevated, and
strengthened. The Christian revelation, of original sin,
natural corruption, redemption through Christ and
strength in His precious blood, is the only key that will
fit this difficult lock. It is the only hypothesis which
consistently explains everything. And it is only with
extreme peril that any man or woman can reject the
teachings of revelation about justification and grace. A
man may feel no want of grace, and see no outward

1 1 Cor. ii. 14.

236 CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

difference between the sinner and the saint ; he may be
unconscious of higher aspirations and contented to live
for a thousand years, if he might, in a world which he
by no means dislikes ; but he carries about in his very
bosom what he cannot get rid of. His heart was made
for God, and God it must have. Blindfolded, cheated,
and besotted as it may be for a few years, a dissolution
will come ; earthly elements will go asunder under the
touch of death, and the immaterial imperishable spirit,
left alone, the mist cleared away, and the veil drawn
aside, will know its last end and see the Being for whom
it was made. And unless it is holy, it must be dragged
from His face for ever.

God might have justified us without the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ ; but for the beauty of justice and
the example of all ages He has willed the present
glorious dispensation. The merits of our Saviour are
the treasures of the world's holiness and grace. The
application of those merits to the soul of each man and
woman is the very end and object of the Christian
religion. It was for this that prophecies were made
and promises given; it was for this that types were
instituted and figures foreshadowed good things to
come. It was for this that God thundered from Sinai, that
Moses gave his law, David chanted immortal prayers,
and Isaias wrote his song in ecstatic visions. It was
for this that Jesus sent forth ministers and promised to
abide with them ; it was for this that, before He went
up on high, He gave these gifts to men which were to
convey to them, every one, the bounty which His sacred
hands and precious words dispensed as long as He was

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 237

visibly in the flesh. This instruction concerns the
method of our justification.

We obtain grace and even possibly justification, as I
have said, not only by the Sacraments, but also by
prayer. But the Sacraments, which also include prayer,
are the ordinary means of justification and salvation.
And, therefore, it is useful to explain more precisely the
mode in which we receive grace from the Sacraments,
especially from those Sacraments by which we pass
from the state of sin to the state of justification. To
many the great stumbling-block to belief in the Sacra
ment of Penance, for instance, is their persuasion that
Scripture teaches that we are justified by Faith.
They have been brought up to hear this said, and to
believe it. They have been accustomed to hear that any
other doctrine destroys the infinite merits of Christ.
Now I believe that with most people in these days
there is a confusion of thought here which may be
easily removed. The Catholic Church professes the
doctrine of Justification by Faith, but not by Faith
alone. Faith, in the case of grown-up persons, is a
condition and also a cause of justification. There are
various classes ot cause. There is the cause primary
and the cause secondary, partial cause and total cause,
subjective cause and objective cause. Faith, understood
in its true and scriptural sense, is a true cause of justifica
tion. The word Faith is sometimes strangely abused.
Luther first, and Calvin more elaborately afterwards,
taught that Faith was a confidence that Christ had died
specially for you, that you were predestinated and your
sins forgiven. The foundation of this pestilential

238 CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

teaching is that Christ died only for the elect ; whereas
He died for all. Faith, thus understood, has no other
reasonable motive or proof than interior persuasion,
which may as easily as not be mere feeling, enthusiasm,
or sentiment ; and its consequences are a freedom from
all law, and liberty to sin freely. I wonder how
reasonable men could ever pervert a scripture term so
widely. There is literally not a single text in which
the precept ' Believe ' means ' Believe you are justified.1
Surely the wildest advocate of infallibility never
reached such a depth of unreason as to insist on a man's
believing himself to be what is not only not proved, but
from the very nature of the case, totally incapable of
proof.

1. — Faith, in the New Testament, is not a confi
dence about your own state, but a belief in something
external to yourself. It has, doubtless, more than
one shade of signification. In the Gospels it most
frequently means a believing trust in our Lord's power,
holiness, or Divinity. ' Can'st thou believe ? ' said our
Lord to those who asked Him for help. When Jesus
Christ had departed from the earth, and had left His
revelation in His place, the word Faith took in not only
His own sacred Person, but His whole teaching. Instead
of denoting a single act and a simple look of trust, it
came to signify a permanent spiritual state, and a widely-
generalised spiritual view. Faith, to those who saw
Jesus in the flesh, was the tender confidence of the
child, who either has no troubles, or, when he has, looks
only into the face of his mother; in those who were
gathered to His fold after He was gone, it was like the

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 239

grounded and rooted trust of the wife in the love and
strength of the husband whom she has learned to know
through many chequered years. The well-known
definition in the first verse of Heb. XL ought to leave no
doubt in any one's mind as to what is meant by Christian
Faith. It is an Argument' or proof — that is, an
intellectual and spiritual view — of things that the
senses do not see. It is the ' substance ' or subsistence,
as far as possible, of the things we look forward to.
It presents us with the unseen ; it puts the future into
our hands. You see that Faith means a belief in
something external to ourselves. Such is the description
of that Faith which plays a part in Justification. Look,
for example, at Romans x. 8, 9, where St. Paul mentions
as a condition of salvation the belief and profession of
the Incarnation — the 'Word which we preach/ And
in Hebrews xi. 6, he says that all who ' approach God '
to be saved must ' believe that He is and that He is the
rewarder of those who seek Him.'

2. — But, secondly, Faith even thus understood, is not
the only factor in Justification. It is perfectly evident
from Holy Scripture that at least five other acts are
required on the part of a grown-up person. These are —
Fear of God, Hope, Love, Contrition, and the purpose of
keeping God's Commandments. Faith, entering the
mind like a ray of heavenly light, makes the heart realise
at once the terror of God's justice and the kindness of
His mercy ; and then spring up Fear and Hope. ' The
beginning of wisdom' (that is, of Justification) 'is
the Fear of the Lord.' 'We are saved by Hope.'*

9 Romans viii. 24.

240 CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

Divine Hope, like an angel sent down from heaven to
raise our hearts to what is prepared for us there, points
to God and His personal love, which thereupon begins
to spring in our hearts. Then our sinfulness becomes
loathsome to us, and we are pierced with sorrow, and iji
accents of contrition we utter promises to keep for the
future those commandments we have too disgracefully
transgressed. ' Repent,' said our Lord to those who came
to Him seeking life. ' Repent/ cried out St. Peter and all
the Apostles, who, after their Lord's example, sought out
sinners to save their souls. Thus, even with real Chris
tian faith, many other dispositions are required before
the heart is regenerate and sanctified.

3. — You will say: Surely these are dispositions
and preparations enough ? When a man believes, fears,
hopes, loves, and proposes to begin a new life, he must
be justified in heart. What can Baptism, or the
Sacrament of Penance, do more for him ? In addition,
however, to all these dispositions, he must receive one
or other of those Sacraments — Baptism if he has not
received it, Penance if he has. I do not deny that he
may perhaps be justified before he receives the Sacrament ;
but he must, at least, intend to receive it, and as soon as
possible put his intention into practice. But here I must
call your attention to a most important remark. As
long as these dispositions are not intense, a man,
with all of them existing in his soul, is not yet justified.
Let me remind you that justification is the work of an
instant and not a process. It is not like the gradual dawn
of day, during which the light increases so imperceptibly
that you can tell it is increasing only by comparing

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 241

widely distant intervals. It is rather like the sun-rise
itself. At one moment, as you gaze across the level
waters to the East, no portion of the fiery disk can yet
be seen, though the reddening clouds and the growing
light herald his coming. Then, in an instant, as you
look, the luminary surges above the waves, and reigns
in the heavens as yesterday. There is no medium for a
man's soul He is either a sinner, or just. He is either
the object of God's wrath, or of His gracious pleasure.
He is worthy either of hell-fire, or of Heaven. He
deserves either the company of the demons, or the bliss
of the beatific vision. Not but that there are degrees of
guilt, even in deadly sin ; and there are degrees of justice
and holiness in the regenerate ; and a man who dies just
may still have imperfections to cleanse away. But the
sinner, if he is a sinner by one deadly sin, is hateful to
God ; the just, however many lesser stains and blemishes
may be upon him, is substantially the friend of God ;
and if he dies so, he is perfectly secure of the bliss of
the heavens, even though he must pass through the
purifying fires of purgatory first. So that his justifica
tion is instantaneous and complete. Now the disposi
tions which I have described need not by any means go so
far as that complete turning of the heart to God which
alone can justify without the Sacraments. They do not
contain among them a perfect act of love, or a perfect
act of sorrow ; and nothing else will justify in the ab
sence of the Sacrament. And it is because perfect acts
are hard to make that Jesus Christ has left us the Sacra
ments. Christ supplies, by influence from without, the
deficiency of our internal spiritual acts. He thus realises

16

242 CHUIST AND THE SINNER.

the prophetic description of Himself; ' Strengthen ye the
feeble hands and confirm the weak knees. Say to the
faint-hearted, take courage and fear not. . . . God Him
self will come and save you.'4 * He shall feed His flock like
a shepherd ; He shall gather together the lambs with His
arm. It is He that giveth strength to the weary.' 6 Faith,
hope, fear — these are the weak and feeble efforts of man,
themselves not without grace; the Good Shepherd supplies
the rest. So that faith is really a cause and root of jus
tification ; it is the root and beginning of every superna
tural process. There is no beginning, or progress, or per
fection of supernatural justice in this life, which, on man's
side, does not spring from faith as from its root, rest on
faith as on its foundation, and which, even on the side
of sacramental efficacy, does not suppose faith as a
primary condition. St. Augustine says, ' A man is said
to be justified by faith and not by works, because faith
is the first gift, and faith draws on the rest, that is those
works, as they are called, which make up a life of
justice/8 It is thus that the doctrine of the Catholic
Church reconciles text with text, and allows to faith, to grace
and to sacraments their several shares in the justification
of the soul of man. To illustrate this — for illustration
is here as good as proof — let us take a Sacrament which
is much misrepresented and misunderstood by non-
Catholics, I mean the Sacrament of Penance. The
Sacrament of Penance is a Sacrament with which by
the Priest's absolution, joined with contrition, confession
and satisfaction, the sins are forgiven which we have

• Isaias xxxv. 3, 4. 6 Ib. xl. 11, 29.

6 St. Augustine on Predestination, chap. vii. i*r, 12.

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 243

committed after Baptism. Penance is the Sacrament
of the sinful multitude. When baptismal innocence has
been forfeited by wilful deadly sin, there is no hope for
the sinner except from the Sacrament of Penance.
There are very few, therefore, who do not need this
Sacrament For ourselves, my brethren, we know well
how absolutely needful some means is to take away the
sins we have committed since Baptism and to reconcile
us once more to God. Let us take a man of middle age,
who has lived a careless and God-forgetting life. In his
childhood he was taught to know God and to raise his
heart to God in prayer. When he found himself free
from the yoke of teaching and obedience, he looked
round on the world to make it as pleasant to himself as
he could. He looked for money ; he learnt to strive and
to slave for money, perhaps. And he looked for pleasure.
He felt the stirring of desires and inclinations, and he
was not scrupulous in giving in to them. He led a free
life , a life of hard but not unpleasant work, mingled
with all the enjoyment he could get. He forgot his God.
He became unconscious he had a soul And now the
prayers of his youth have faded out of his memory, as
an exile forgets the tongue in which he was born.
Over and over again he has deliberately broken the
commandments, either in personal sin, in dealings with
his fellow-men, or in utter neglect of the worship of God.
The true description of his soul is that it is black, odious
and hideous in the sight of God. Ezechiel described it
when he wrote the account7 of the abominations
which he saw when he looked through the secret door into

1 » Ezech. viii. 10.

244 CHKIST AND THE SIGNER.

the temple upon the hidden sins of the people of Israel.
He beheld every form of creeping things, and living
creatures, the abomination and all the idols of the children
of Israel ' ; and the sinners were crying out. ' The Lord
seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth/ So
disgraced, so disfigured and degraded are the souls of thou
sands who pass for respectable men. In their mature age
and their whitening hair, their passions may have died
down and the rush of youthful ardour may be past and
gone. But the sins of their youth are on their souls ; and
the sins of their maturity — the sins of God-forgetting,
are as deadly in the sight of God as the sins of passion
and pleasure. Let us suppose that such a sinner seeks
for pardon, reconciliation and justification. If he
believes in the Catholic Faith, he knows what to do.
He must be sorry ; he must discover all his consider
able sins to a Priest ; he must have a firm resolution to
avoid them for the time to come, with God's help ;
the Priest absolves him, and he rises up a reconciled
soul. It will be well to note here the principal facts.
1. — The Sacrament of Penance is not a mechanical
appliance to which you go for forgiveness as you
would go to a tradesman or a mechanic for food or for
furniture. It requires stringent preparation on the part
of the applicant, and many spiritual acts — sorrow, exami
nation, humiliation, purpose of amendment. But observe
its extreme importance. The Catholic teaching is that
the generality of men, even when they turn away from
sin, with some love of God, are too weak in their dis
positions to be justified ; and yet the Sacrament, super
vening upon even these poor dispositions, justifies.

CHKIST AND THE SINNER. 245

Here is the beauty of the New Law. Justification is
not merely for the strong and the fervent, but for the
weak, the feeble, the lukewarm, and the frail. Not for
the impenitent ! No, certainly not. The strayed sheep
must not resist ; but if it will only resign itself with a
little sorrow and a little love to its Saviour, He will
take it on His own shoulders and carry it home. 2. —
The Priest does not really stand between you and God.
If your sorrow and your love are sufficiently powerful,
you are justified before the Sacrament, though you must
still go to confession for obedience' sake ; but if your
dispositions are not powerful enough to justify you, this
outward rite comes to your assistance, and so far from
interfering with Grace it brings it down upon you when
otherwise you would have been without it. And all
that the Priest does he does by the power of Christ and
in His name. Whose sins he shall forgive they are for
given. 3. — Faith is absolutely necessary in the Sacra
ment of Penaoce — faith in God, in the Holy Trinity, in
Jesus Christ, and in His whole Revelation. But faith
does not of itself suffice. 4 -Look at the profound
wisdom of the institution as a whole. What are our
chief difficulties after we have once conceived the
desire to turn to God ? God's help being supposed, there
are three difficulties about our interior spiritual activity,
the difficulty of certainty or definiteness, the difficulty of
warmth or fervour, and the difficulty of strength. The
Sacrament of Penance meets all these. First, as to de
finiteness in our interior acts. The sinner who begins to
turn to God experiences a great deal of that condition
of will which the wise man describes — * he willeth and

245 CHKIST AND THE SINNER.

he willeth not.1 At times he would be virtuous, abandon
his sin, and turn to God. But he finds it difficult to
bring matters to the point. His best thoughts wander ;
he is like a man in a mist, he has no definite idea where
he is. His past life is blurred and blotted, he is
tempted to let it pass. And the consequence is that
most men, even with good desires, let the past alone, and
content themselves with an indefinite idea they will be
better for the future. Now the practice of the Sacra
ment of Penance makes this impossible. The penitent
has to examine his past life, not with foolish or nervous
solicitude, but with fair exactness ; he has to get a sort
of catalogue of his doings before his eyes. This not
only impresses him with a true idea of his sinfulness,
but it shows him what to do for the future, and, what
is more than all, it makes him, on a certain day and
hour, lay his sins as in a bundle at the feet of his
Saviour's Cross, and there and then work up his heart
by prayerful meditation to detest them utterly, and to
resolve on a new life for the future. Thus he becomes
sure of his interior disposition. In the same way he
becomes earnest or intense. Self-examination, definite-
ness of place and time, the humbling of ourselves before
a fellow-man like our confessor — all this makes us
earnest. These things rouse resistance too thoroughly
in our lower nature not to make us very intense and
determined. Just as a man never knows he has eviJ
passions till some one crosses him, so the practice of the
Sacrament of Penance, like a cross placed on us by Christ
Jesus, intensifies our interior acts, and so increases
our merit. And, lastly, the Sacrament helps our weak-

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 247

ness. For it is intended to give a special strength to
our resolutions of amendment. Over and above the
justification which the words of absolution bring, they
convey also the special sacramental grace of persever
ance in well-doing. My brethren, this is the Catholic
teaching and practice. We maintain that such is the
true interpretation of the Scripture. We have all
antiquity at our back. This is a most weighty con
sideration. The question is, What did Jesus Christ
intend ? Nothing can tell us so well as the proof of
uninterrupted practice. There have been Christians
and Christian practice ever since our Lord departed.
From the moment when Peter and the eleven turned
away with sad hearts from the spot on Olivet where
they saw Him for the last time, to this moment in
which a certain number of Christian hearts are thinking
of Him and His teachings in this place, there is an un
broken chain of men who have called themselves
believers. There must be a tradition on the subject of
the Sacraments, and if there is a tradition we should
give it very great weight. I am not speaking of the
authority of the Church's teaching. I am referring
only to that purely historical evidence which is derived
from the immemorial theory and practice of a per
petually-renewed corporate body. And it is to be
remembered that the question of sacramental efficacy
which we are now discussing, is from its very nature
a matter in which Christians of all ages must have held
decided views. The Sacraments are either absolutely
necessary for spiritual welfare, or they are perfectly
optional and comparatively unimportant. A Christian

248 CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

inquirer, therefore, who finds himself, in this latter half
of the nineteenth century of our Lord's era, anxious to
know what Jesus Christ intended the Sacraments to be
and to effect, cannot do better than inquire what the
stream of Christians of all times have thought about it.
There is no doubt that those whom our Lord instructed
concerning the kingdom of God during the forty days of
His glorified life, must have known what He meant.
The Apostles must have known what ensued when they
baptized and imposed hands. The men whom they sent
forth to carry on their teaching must have known what
the Apostles taught. The pupils whom these instructed
must have learnt the lesson as well. And the know
ledge cannot easily have died out. In a few generations
there were too many Christian centres in the world for
anything which Christ had taught to be utterly lost and
forgotten. If one great Church or See had disputed,
ignored or denied any truth such as this, a rival Church
and See would have always spoken, and cried out
innovation. Tne teaching of the Christian past, there
fore, in the Sacraments cannot be disregarded. If a
man takes his Bible, and having withdrawn himself be
yond all advice or assistance to study it, comes back and
says he has found out the truth on a point like this, the
probability will be that his opinion is worthless. I
must briefly point out what it is that the past tells us.
If I divide the eighteen centuries of Christian history
into two unequal parts at a point about three hundred
years ago, I obtain a most remarkable result. During
the fifteen hundred years that make the first division,
I find that the sense of Christian people is perfectly

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 249

unanimous as to the real efficacy of the Sacraments.
Not only do we find writers, century after century,
expressing without hesitation this view, but there is
positively no sign that anyone thought differently. I
am aware that, if you look very narrowly into some of
the dark corners of Church history, you do light upon
a name, once and again, of some one who denied there
were any Sacraments at all, or of those who denied that
certain of the Sacraments are truly Sacraments. But
the name or names, were I to mention them, would
sound ridiculously unknown to my hearers. They are
names which never divided the world, as Arius or Pela-
gius did. The phalanx of the Fathers, the army of
historians, the saints, the bishops, the doctors, all
through the fifteen hundred years, as far as they speak
at all, are simply unanimous in holding that what
Christ taught was that the sacramental actions are
interiorly efficacious. I do not know whether it is
worth while to quote testimonies; but I give one or
two as specimens. It will not be disputed that this
was the faith of the Church — that is, of all Churchmen
— for at least the three hundred years immediately
before the Reformation. We need only take up such a
book as the Theological Summa of St. Thomas of Aquin
to see this. This was a book which during those three
hundred years every teacher and scholar in Divinity
read, commented, discoursed, and criticised. But the
most utter of its opponents never opposed it in regard
to its teaching on the efficacy of the Sacraments. St.
Thomas wrote exactly three hundred years before the
date of the Augsburg Confession. Only a few years

250 CHKIST AND THE SINNER.

after he wrote, a great Council of the English Church
was held at London, in the Cathedral Church of St
Paul. Among the many decrees which were made in
that Council for the good of religion, there is one —
it is the second in the printed edition8 — which is
entitled De Sacramentis. It opens with this short
preamble : — * The Sacraments are, as it were, the
heavenly vessels in which are contained the remedies
of salvation.' There is no mistaking what the Bishops
of England thought in that day about the Sacraments.
Such instances as this — the one from a universal text
book, the other from a national Church Council, prove
perfectly and completely what was the universal belief
of the time. And if from the middle ages we pass to
the epoch of the great Christian Fathers and Doctors,
we hardly know where to pick out a witness. Shall it
be Chrysostom at Constantinople ; or Augustine in
Africa ; or Ambrose at Milan ? Shall it be the Councils
of the East or of the West? Shall we invoke Tertullian
the Latin, or Origen the Greek? Their words are written
in books; you may read them there. Within the last year
or two a great British publishing firm has been bringing
out an excellent and faithful English translation of the
works of St. Augustine (among other translations). St.
Augustine wrote a series of Homilies on St. John's
Gospel. Let any hearer read for a few pages almost
anywhere in that book, and he will be almost certain
to light upon some sentence like the following cele
brated one — ' Where does water get this power from, to
touch the body and cleanse the heart ? ' 9 It is nearly

8 Harduin, Tom. vii. 293- • Tract in Joan, 80.

CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

a reproduction of an oft-repeated axiom of an earlier
Father; it is like Tertullian's formula— 'The flesh is
washed, and the soul is purified ; the flesh is anointed,
the soul is consecrated ; the flesh is marked with a sign,
the soul is protected ; the flesh is overshadowed by the
imposition of hands, the soul is illuminated by the spirit'
This witness wrote less than two hundred years after
our Lord's Ascension, and no one contradicted him for
1200 years. To come back to the dividing line between
the two periods of which I spoke. It is difficult to know
how to characterise the period of what is called the
Reformation. As in earlier ages there are names, and
writers, and disputants. But they do not agree, even on
essential matters of Faith and practice. And, what
makes them more difficult still to describe, they not
only disagree with each other, but each one is incon
sistent with himself. It is really impossible to say
what Luther, or Calvin, or Zwingli meant to say about
the Sacraments. But this much is certain. None of
them agreed with the generations which had gone before
on the number of the Sacraments. And they all denied
real sacramental efficacy. Luther, by degrees, arrived
at his doctrine of salvation by Faith alone. In his
gradual progress to this point, ancient beliefs were
swept aside and crushed. There is no need to point out
that it makes the Sacraments no Sacraments, but only
means for exciting devotion. The forms of the Sacra
ments were only exhortations ; they wrought nothing by
their own power through Christ. The spirit was every
thing; the outward act nothing. Luther, to whom I

10 Tertull. de Resurrect cam. 8.

252 CHRIST AND THE SINNER.

refer as the type of Protestantism, or rather Luther's
doctrine, met with two significant rebuffs. The first
was from those who carried it too far. The Anabaptists
utterly rejected every outward form, rite, or observance.
They abolished even preaching. And Luther said some
of his most savage words against the Anabaptists, who
were thought by most people to be merely showing the
lawful out-come of Luther's own principles. His other
rebuke came from a different quarter. I have already
alluded to a celebrated document called the Augsburg
Confession. It was a paper drawn up by the Lutheran
party at Augsburg in 1530. The first clauses stated
that there were three Sacraments — Baptism, Holy Eu
charist, and Penance. The Confession was drawn up as a
defiance of the Pope and the Catholics. But it was
thought that, for that very reason, it would find favour
with the schismatical Greek Church. It was accordingly
sent to Constantinople and submitted to the Patriarch.
This was in 1575. Luther had been dead thirty years ;
but the theologians of his own town of Wittenberg had
sent this embassy to the Patriarch. They received their
reply. 'The Catholic Church and the Greek,' said the
Patriarch Jeremy, 'teach seven Sacraments' and he named
the seven, as a Catholic child in this Church would name
them. 'These,' he concluded, 'are the Sacraments of
God's Church, handed down by tradition both as to their
number and as to their substance.' It is exactly three
hundred years from this present year that this answer
was given. The Greek Patriarch had no love for the
Church of Rome. It is not too much to say that he
would have had a great temptation to stretch a point in

CHRIST AND THE SINNER. 253

favour of Eome's enemies. We may conclude from this
what a weight of censure is implied in his answer to the
Lutheran deputation. It is not merely that he differs
from them. He points solemnly to the long line of saints,
pastors, and doctors, and the uninterrupted popular be
lief, which constitute Christian tradition ; and he tells
them they are innovators. Eight or wrong, they do not
take Christ's words in the sense in which the whole
Church of every age has agreed to take them. And
therefore he must hold them as strangers and heretics.

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

And it came to pass after the Angel departed from them into
Heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us go over to Bethlehem
and let us see this word which is come to pass, which the Lord hath
showed to us. LUKE ii. 15.

WHAT the shepherds went over to Bethlehem to see was
the greatest event which had ever happened in the world
up to that time. In a cave on the hill-side on which
rose the cottages which made up the village of Bethlehem
an infant was lying on straw. As the shepherds went
'with haste' from the place where they were keeping
the night watches over their flocks to the neighbourhood
of the little town, no one seemed to be aware that any
thing very unusual was taking place. The Bethlehemites
were occupied with a public matter that was happening
at the time — the enrolment for the census. The public
caravanserai was crowded, and there were numbers of
strangers in the place, who went where they could.
There was some little excitement even during the hours
of the night : there was suffering and privation, and
perhaps there was feasting and hospitality among the
few who were better off. But the presence of Mary, of
Joseph, and of the infant Jesus was only the presence of
one poor family the more. It was regarded as much —
and as little. Yet this was a fact more stupendous than

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 255

the Deluge, or the passage of Israel out of Egypt. This
was an hour more full of fate to the world than the hour
when the commandments were given amid the thunders
of Sinai. Why were not the flood-gates opened ? Why
did not the fire flash in the sky and the terrifying
thunder roll from horizon to horizon ? Why did not
God, the Maker, the Ruler, speak with some awful voice
and warn the careless world of what was coming to pass?
God did speak. Heaven was opened. No storm
gathered, no fires darted to the earth. The sky was
bright, as it only is in those Eastern climes. The thou
sand stars shone out, lifting up the eye and the thought
to infinite space in unknown depths. They shone on
the fields where David had wandered, where Booz had
been master, where Ruth had gleaned. There were
others watching in those fields that night, and it was to
them that God spoke. The Angel on a sudden stood
near them on the plain, as once an angel had stood be
side Abraham, and Jacob, and Gedeon. The brightness
of his garment of glory radiated around him, making
startling splendour in the dim midnight. It was to
them — to those poor, unconsidered men — that the
message from Heaven was sent, and the great fact of
all time announced. God seemed to hold His hand,
and to keep His thunders hushed. Only for a moment
do we catch a glimpse of the awfulness and majesty of
what was happening, when suddenly a thousand angels
join their brother and sing, ' Glory in the highest,' and
disappear — like the wing of a mighty host which is
sweeping with banner and triumphant chant past the
confines of the earth in the joy and glory of that blessed

25 tt THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

night — and then the song ceases high up in the heavens,
the light fades out, and the stars shine quietly again.
But the shepherds have heard. And they hasten to
Bethlehem to look upon the ' Word ' which had been
announced to them.

It needs the contrast between the lowliness and
obscurity of the first Christmas and the mightiness of
the change which it has wrought in the world to enable
us to read its lessons aright. The great temptation to
the world has always been to look for the grandest re
sults from merely natural causes. Physical power pro
duces physical consequences, and moral qualities moral
effects. Nature works by her own laws, and human
nature, left to itself, follows the law of human nature.
But there are higher effects and greater facts than either
physical or moral ones. There is a spiritual order ; and
even if that spiritual order rests on nature's laws and
partly follows them, yet it includes a whole world which
mere nature cannot touch. And the temptation is to
reckon spiritual results by physical and moral causes ;
in other words, to judge of the influence of a fact on the
supreme spiritual order by the size of the fact, measured
by its visible or moral attributes. The generations, like
the one our Saviour addressed, are always 'seeking for a
sign.' They look round about for something that will
dazzle or awe them; and as soon as they see it, they are
ready to exclaim: 'Here is the engine that will turn the
world round!' Kings, conquerors, sages, discoveries,
books — all these have been hailed in turn as 'signs.' But
the generations have been always mistaken. The only
'sign' that has been worth considering has been the

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 257

sign of Jonas the Prophet; when there has been a dis
appearance, a burial, a dying, a failure. This is the
only 'sign' that has been followed by a mighty resurrec
tion. The Incarnation — the stable at Bethlehem — be
trays the secret of God's ways of working. He works by
paradoxes, and by failures. He works by what the world
pronounces impossibilities, and by what the world judges
to be absurd and inadequate means. He designs instru
ments which baffle natural reason, and combines things
which the common sense (as it it is called) of men pro
nounces to be incompatible. You cannot understand
creation itself. A creature, whether it be a seraph or a
grain of dust, demands infinite power and infinite wisdom;
and how the Infinite could act with a finite result is
beyond our explanation. How creatures could come
into existence and yet God be no better off and no
different ; what sufficient motive could induce the Divine
mind to create at all ; how the Hand of the Infinite holds
up the universe, and yet the universe is not the Infinite :
all these questions are incapable of full explanation.
We know them as facts, but they seem to be paradoxes.
Only, they are paradoxes which we must entertain, or
else the great and most real paradox lies in wait for
us — the denial of the existence of God.

Consider, again, man's own nature. He is made up
of body and spirit ; of body which seems only a varying
group of earthly elements, and of spirit which soars to
abstract truth ; of senses which thrill with colours and
sounds, with gross contacts and nerve-currents, and of
soul which can control, neglect, direct, and rise above
all these. He is base and splendid, perishable and

17

258 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

immortal, material and spiritual, aspiring to good yet a
prey to evil. If it were possible to do it, men would
deny such a thing as human nature. They would say,
' It is impossible. You cannot join a body and a spirit
thus together/

And coming to the Incarnation, we light upon
another Divine paradox. Who could have thought it
possible that the Eternal Word should be made Flesh,
and dwell amongst us ? The power of God can easily
use men, and all creatures, as its instruments ; speak by
their mouths, guide their hands, inspire them with
any thoughts or designs. But how could poor finite
humanity and the immensity of the Deity be joined
together so that but one Person should result ? — how
could the everlasting be in time ? — the Infinite be a
little child? — the immortal King die upon a Cross?
Yet these three things — the fact of creation, the nature
of man, and the Incarnation — are the groundwork of all
religion and worship. Move one of these foundation-
stones from its place and the ruins bury you.

When we go on to speak of God's way of working by
what seem to be 'failures/ we speak chiefly of His
workings in the supernatural order. Yet in this regard,
even creation itself teaches a lesson. Nature's laws
are assuredly no failures. They are certain, inexorable,
infallible. Yet we may observe how silent they are,
how unobtrusive, how apparently yielding. The glories
of the forest, and the autumn harvests of fruit and
flowers were once little seeds which men buried in the
soil; and dark days came, with chilling rain and
blustering winds, during which the seeds lay rotting

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 259

and forgotten. But they sprung up irresistibly when
the hour came. Man battles with nature, with climate,
with soil, with noxious influences. As he advances,
armed with his science, nature seems to yield and
consent to compromise. But man sleeps, hesitates,
neglects, dies, and nature comes on again and calmly
rules, as the ocean breaks down sooner or later the sea
walls which man forgets but for a winter to watch and
care for. Man himself is an example of the weak
thing beating down the strong. Man, naked, defence
less, keenly sensitive, with no strong instincts like the
brutes, yet lives and gathers treasure and rules the
earth and the things that are therein. So sure it is that
apparent weakness, obscurity, silence and non-resistance
mark the very strongest powers of which we have any
knowledge.

But there are some forces which lie deeper down
than others. And it is these which make the least show
upon the surface. Our Lord Jesus Christ was to
regenerate and to rule, not the physical universe, but
the world of man's soul. And Jesus Christ came in
weakness and in failure — as it appeared. Weak enough
He seemed in all truth, on that night when the shepherds
went up to look for Him. A little new-born Babe,
without speech, or use of limb, or seeming consciousness.
A cradle of a beast's manger, in the hole of the hill-side
which the beast shared with Him. A mother, who
was a poor maiden from an obscure village, and at that
moment away even from her poor home. A foster
father who worked at a lowly trade, unknown not only
to the rulers of the Empire, to the governor of the

260 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

province, to the Jewish priests, to the nation of the
Jewish people, but even to the very peasants who
slept or talked a few dozen yards from his rude shelter.
Attended by a half-dozen shepherd people, unlettered
and simple, wondering with all their might. Heralded
by angels, but proclaimed only in the solitary fields,
where only a few peasants heard the message. Who
could know Him ? Who could see in Him as He lies
there the Eternal Word of God, the brightness of eternal
light, the unspotted mirror of God's majesty ? Instead of
immensity, terror, and overpowering glory, there is
littleness, innocent feebleness, infancy. He speaks not.
He does not proclaim Himself, He seems purposely
hidden away, He is lifted in others' hands and makes
no resistance. There is coming in and going out, and
He does not notice. There is talking and discussing,
and He seems not to hear. Think of this, and think
that this is purposely done and contrived by the infinite
wisdom as the very best means of working the salvation
of men. And think that power not only lurks there
hidden under these weak surroundings. Power is
actually generated by and through them. It is the
nature of that kind of power to exist so and to work so.
Partly because God wishes His own special work to be
quite distinct from human work ; partly because the
spiritual insight which brings men to see and feel the
Almighty present under the outward semblance of a
little child, is the most precious of all gifts. And,
therefore, to show forth His own greatness and glory,
and to excite and kindle our faith and the spiritual
activity of which faith is the only groundwork, God

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 261

humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and
being formed in the likeness of a man,1 nay, of a little
child, born in a stable, ministered to by Mary ever
Virgin, protected by Joseph, watched by humble shep
herds, and utterly left alone by all the world beside.

My brethren, Almighty God does not change His ways.
Therefore it cannot be a surprise to us if we find that
some of His greatest works in the law of grace are still
looked upon as paradoxes, and if He still seems to hide
Himself when the world is impatient for proof and activity
and outward show. There is one matter in which the
Incarnation seems to be daily renewed and the circum
stances of Bethlehem to occur over and over again. On
Christmas Day we are naturally led to think about
the Eucharistic presence of Jesus to the end of time.
There is no season of the year which seems better to
suit the Blessed Sacrament than the season of Christ's
birth. That holy Sacrament, it is true, commemorates
His passion. Yet the awfulness and the suffering of
the Cross, which we have before us at Passiontide, are
past for ever. It is true also that the Body which we
break is the same Body which is glorious for ever more.
Yet the splendours of the resurrection, the glory of the
ascension, the triumph of the heavenly courts, are out of
our sight in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.
But what we see does bring Bethlehem to our minds.
He comes upon the altar when the words of might are
uttered, as He came once into the world. Our churches
are Bethlehem ; once more His servants are bidden to
seek Him in the place of His rest, the place He hath
1 PhUip. ii. 7.

262 THE BLESSED BACEAMENT.

chosen. ' Behold we have heard of it in Ephrath, we
have found it in the fields of the wood.'2 Once
more it is not in the palaces of kings, in the halls
of the noble, or the busy streets that He is to be
found. Once more 'faithful people' hasten up like
the shepherds of old, passing by the places where
the world is merry and occupied, passing through the
crowds, deferring the claims of their nearest and
dearest. For the message has come to them. The
message has not been vouchsafed to many of the great
or prominent ones of the world. Jesus in His Eucha-
ristic presence is not recognised or known universally
in a country like this. Those who hasten to Him are
often the poor and the unlettered. His worshippers
come to Him whilst there is darkness and indifference
round about. And when they enter the new Bethlehem,
or House of Bread, they see Him, not cradled in a
manger, but wrapped up under the forms of the sacra
mental species. They look upon the appearance ot
bread and of wine, which hide Him as the swathing
bands of old. He lies there as silent, as apparently
unconscious, as passive and as meek as He lay in His
mother's lap on the first Christmas Day. He is moved
this way and that, and He does not heed ; He is adored,
and takes no notice ; He is, perchance, dishonoured, and
He does not seem to know. His servants try to show
Him reverence. They cannot emulate the love and
purity of Mary or of Joseph. But they try to give
Him honour outward and inward. Outwardly, the
churches and the altars manifest their care and love.

1 Psalms cxxxi. 6.

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 263

Pure white linen, lights, and flowers symbolise their
reverence. Sacred vestures, mystic ceremonies, reverent
rites which have grown up during the whole of the
Christian centuries, and most of which are full of
historic significance, have succeeded to the simple
ritual of the stable. Yet they feel that, do what they
may, Jesus is born in a stable still. They feel that the
costliest temples which can be built on this earth are
but as the dwellings of beasts in comparison with His
greatness. They know that the best gold, the most
gorgeous vestments, the most beautiful ornaments, the
rarest flowers, all the brilliancy that kings or nations can
command, are very little to Him. None are more con
scious than themselves that the most splendid ceremonial
is poor and mean compared with what He deserves.
And it is one of the touching features of the Blessed
Sacrament, just as we are touched in the narrative of
Bethlehem by the simple statement of the poverty and
humbleness of His birth, that we find Him contented
to put up with human ministrations, with poor earthly
preparations, nay, often with real poverty and misery
in the surroundings to which He condescends when He
comes amongst us. It is this lowliness, this meekness
and silent helplessness, which appeal to our hearts. It is
this simplicity, this trusting of Himself in our hands
that overcome our indifference and our coldness. It is
this undeniable proof that He is here for us and for our
salvation, and because He indeed loves us, that captivates
all our affection and makes our love overflow.

It is a sad truth, which interferes with the fulness of
our joy even on a festival like this, that so many of those

264 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

around us cannot find all this in the Blessed Sacrament.
We ought to know that, as long as world lasts, something
like this must be. There are one or two unbelieving
questions recorded in the Gospels which remain the
type of many questions which will be asked to the
world's end. In earlier times the favoured Hebrew
could not see how it was possible for God to save His
people by means of a desert and a wandering. ' Can
God prepare a table in the wilderness?' they said.
' How can this man give us His Flesh to eat ? ' was the
counterpart of the question, when a greater than Moses
promised them the true Manna from Heaven. ' Can a
man forgive sins?' 'Can He have God for His Father?1
1 Is not this the carpenter's son? ' — this kind of question
is what the world is asking now, as the Jews asked of
old. How can Jesus Christ be present under the form
of bread? — this is what so many ask in our days. We
can picture to ourselves some moderately instructed
Hebrew being taken to the Stable at Bethlehem whilst
the Child was still there, and told that this was the
Saviour of the world and the Word made Flesh.
Probably he would not have been able to accept it. He
would have said, ' How can God become man ? How
can the Infinite become a little child ? How can a
child without speech save the whole w«ild and open the
gates of Heaven ? '

It is obvious that this is a dangerous style of question.
So many things can be done which cannot be understood
by human intelligence that it is not safe to commit our
selves to assertions of impossibility. When matters of
fact are visible to the eye, or matters of testimony are

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 265

proved beyond reasonable doubt, it should require a very
strong feeling of our own competency to make us venture
to say the thing is impossible. The Catholic doctrine,
supported by Scripture and demonstrated by the tradition
of every age, is that the bread becomes Christ's Body,
and therefore Christ Himself. How can anyone dare to
say this is impossible ? The difficulty, I need not say,
is to conceive how a human body, with its tissues and
bones, can be really present within the narrow circle
of the Host. But suppose that material substance is
only force, and that neither shape, nor dimension, nor
outward contact is necessary to its existence — then the
difficulty vanishes. No doubt, material substance in its
usual and natural condition subsists with dimension and
contact ; just as the waters of the Jordan rolled on con
tinually to the sea of the desert until that moment
when they were arrested and stood still at the passage
of the Ark. God commands material substance as He
commands every created thing. And we have a deci
sive Scriptural instance which proves that the very thing
which Catholic Faith demands in the Eucharist has
occurred outside of the Eucharist and is accepted by all
believers in the Bible. On the very day of our Lord's
resurrection, He stood suddenly in the room in which
His disciples were assembled ' and the doors were shut.'3
His body after his resurrection was a true and real Body.
He takes special pains to make this clear to the wondering
and doubting disciples. * See My hands and My feet, that
it is I Myself ; handle and see : for a spirit hath not flesh
and bones as you see Me to have.' * Therefore this time the
3 John x*. 19. * Luke xxiv. 39.

266 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

human body of Jesus passed through walls or closed
doors ; and to have done so it must have been, for the
instant at least, without dimension, shape, or external
contact. Every one of us believes this, for otherwise
the incident is simply inexplicable, being either false or
absurd. But what has been may be again. And the
Body of our Lord may exist in the Eucharist in this
respect like it existed when it passed through material
substance on the evening of the Kesurrection. And the
Catholic doctrine is no paradox, though it may seem so.
Neither is our doctrine a paradox on another head. We
often hear it said that the doctrine of the Eeal
Presence contradicts the testimony of the senses. Bread
we see, bread we taste, therefore bread it is and remains.
I cannot imagine a man who believes in the Bible, and
in the power of God to work miracles, making this ob
jection in good faith. An Infidel — a man who has
thrown inspiration overboard, and discarded revelation
and the supernatural — might consistently make it, and
would have to be answered ; but such a man would
attack the Incarnation itself in the same breath. But
a Christian cannot argue thus, on full reflection. Our
senses are under Almighty God's overruling control,
just like the air and the waters, the forces of the earth
and of the sky. What is seeing or tasting ? It is a
physical change or inimutation of a certain sense or
organ, causing that vital reaction of the soul which we
call 'knowing.' Such inimutation of the organ ordi
narily proceeds from the influence of an external object,
or is the lingering effect of a past sensation. But it is
in God's power to have it otherwise. He can make us

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 267

see appearances when there is nothing but appearances,
as He made Tobias see the body which the Angel
Raphael seemed to have, and which the Angel afterwards
told Tobias was not a body at all.6 He can also make us
not see a thing when it is truly present, or seem to see ap
pearances in a thing which are quite different from what
are really the thing's own appearances. You remember,
for instance, how the eyes of the disciples going to Emmaus
were ' held' that they should not. know our Lord.8 They
saw Him, talked to Him, and ate with Him ; they saw
features and heard the accents of a voice ; but neither
the features nor the voice were those familiar ones they
knew so well. It was not that our Lord altered His looks
nor the tone of His voice ; but their eyes were ' held.' In
the Blessed Eucharist there is the appearance of bread
when there is no bread, and there is the Body of our
Lord without Its appearances. What is there impos
sible in this ? And it is not as if God deceived us.
When He interferes with natural law He does so for a
serious purpose and at rare intervals. When He ' holds'
our senses that we see not the thing really present in
the Eucharist, He does so by a rare and most excep
tional act, P.nd He gives us the most solemn warnings and
assurances that He has done so. And thus the apparent
paradox is no paradox at all.

It is true that a great and powerful assistance on the
part of the grace of God is necessary before man's mind
can believe in the Eucharist. He requires Faith. Faith
is a gift of God. It is that supernatural faculty by
which we assent to things which we cannot see, and

5 Tobias xii. 19. 6 Luke xxiv. 16.

268 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

assent on God's authority. It is a light of the mind ;
but it is more than this. It is an * obedience,' as St.
Paul calls it. In believing, the mind has not so much
to struggle against as the heart. The heart is rebellious
to authority ; it dislikes submission ; it abhors mystery ;
it rejects being treated as a child. All this must be got
over, and much more, and divinely-infused faith is the
only influence which can conquer here. This is the
reason why we must pray for Faith and for increase of
Faith. Faith, like an angel from Heaven, stands beside
us as we watch upon earth, in the dimness of night.
Its brightness shines round about, and we hear the
message which sends us to Bethlehem. And it is when
we have found Jesus that we recognise the reason why
He comes so really, so familiarly, and so humble. The
reason is, that He wants to take possession of our
affections. This is the reason of the Incarnation, with
all its touching circumstances ; and this is the reason of
the Eucharist. The peculiar grace of the Eucharist,
following its reception, is ardent devotion. It is a grace
few people believe in. Eeal affection for Jesus Christ
is not common now, especially outside the Catholic
Church. Indeed, I am not sure but that many non-
Catholics would object to it on principle, as making
religion too much an affair of sentiment. But the
commandment is that we love God with our 'whole
heart.' Some can give God their * mind/ and even their
' strength/ but not their heart. Yet if we have not
given our heart we are either not His, or very pre
cariously His. Everyone understands the difference
between cold approval of a thing or a person, and warm

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 269

enthusiastic affection. The difference is like that
between the cold, wan sunlight of a December noon-day
hour, and the burning, all-day long heat of July. When
we devoutly and affectionately love, our love does not
lie shut up in the depth of our spirit, but spreads over
imagination and fancy, heart and nerve, through all the
reaches of our being. We have pictures of Jesus in our
thoughts, presenting themselves unsought for. We have
Him before our eyes as He lay a babe upon His mother's
knee, as He stood in the Temple hearing the doctors, as
He taught, as He suffered. Our love is thus made deep,
and wide, and tender. His name raises a thousand
associations, like the miniature of a dear departed face,
or some relic which reminds us of youth, or home, or
days of happiness long past. Religious emotion is not
the essence of religion ; religion lies deeper ; but emotion
and feeling make religion more thorough, more sure,
and more easy. A man may be alive when his face is
pale, his limbs cold and stiff, and his pulse almost gone ;
but he is safer and better when there is colour in his
cheeks and warmth through all his limbs. But men
and women seem to reserve all their tenderness now for
one another — for child, or wife, or husband. They
accept God, but hardly love Him ; and so the nationalists
come and tell them God is not a person at all, but an
abstract thing, a law, a principle. Against this fatal
teaching God came in tne IT lesh ; God remains in the
Eucharist. The Eucharist is the carrying out of the
principles of the Incarnation. But there were few who
found Him at Bethlehem; and so there are few who
truly find Him in the Eucharist. If any here are

270 THE BLESSED SACRAMENT.

anxious to find Him, let them be aware that the
dispositions which lead to Him are lowly and filial
devotion to God, the earnest desire to save our immortal
soul, the avoidingpersonal sin, and earnest, never-failing
prayer.

GRAND CHRISTIAN LITURGICAL ACT.

Jesus Christ, offering one Sacrifice for our sins, for ever sitteth on
the right hand of God. HEB. x. 12.

I PURPOSE to speak to-night, and on next Sunday night
(by God's help), on a subject which can never be
sufficiently enforced or explained — I mean the holy Sa
crifice of the Mass. To Catholics, the Mass is the centre
of all their worship, their devotion, and their spiritual
life. As for non-Catholics, if our Lord has really
instituted and left behind Him such a gift and such a
command, it is easy — or rather it is not easy — to under
stand how much they lose as long as they do not recog
nise it And as it is impossible but that every
non-Catholic, unless he is very ignorant, must have some
doubts or suspicions that the Catholic doctrine of the
Mass is Christ's doctrine, it is the plain duty of all to
endeavour to understand the proofs of the doctrine and
the meaning of the institutions.

I say that no non-Catholic can help having suspicions
of this sort. For he has only to glance over the very
surface of the history of the Christian Church. If there
is one thing more certain than another it is that, from
the beginning, there has been a Eucharistic service or
celebration of some kind

272 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

There is a word translated * ministering ' or to ' mini
ster* in the New Testament which, in the original
Greek is * liturgizing ' or ^oing through a solemn, ex
ternal, orderly, public act of worship, with gestures and
ceremonies. If we compare two passages of the Acts of
the Apostles, we shall find the meaning of this word
illustrated in a striking manner. In xix. 22, it is stated
the Apostle Paul sent away into Macedonia ' two of those
who ministered to him.1 The word used here is the
ordinary Greek word for ' serving ' — the same as is used
in vi. 2, of ' serving at tables/ But when, in xiii. 2,
the holy writer says, * As they were ministering to the
Lord and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to them, Separate
unto me Saul and Barnabas/ the ministry indicated is
of a very different kind. The word is ' liturgizing/ or
' performing the liturgy ; ' and we cannot doubt that the
inspiration or revelation here related was given at a
more than usually solemn and devout Eucharistic
service. This word, adopted from current Greek speech
by the sacred writers, under the inspiration, of the Holy
Ghost, immediately passed into the sacred terminology
of the Christian Church. A great many non-Catholics
think that the Mass is a modern invention due to the
innovating and arbitrary action of Eome. But the essen
tials of the Mass can be proved to have been as they are
now, and even to have been fixed in something like the
same order as now, from the year 1 50 downwards. We
clearly see in the writings of St. Justin Martyr, who
died in the year 139, that there were lessons and
readings from the Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists,
as there are now. The altar was covered with linen.

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 273

The bread and the chalice with wine mingled with a little
water were presented. The 'Sursum corda' and the Pre
face followed. The words of consecration, accompanied
by the sign of the Cross, were pronounced. The Host was
broken. There were prayers for the living and the dead.
The Pater Noster was said. Holy Communion followed.
The faithful were taught to say, ' Lord, I am not worthy,'
when they went up to communicate. With some
differences, these rites can, therefore, be proved to have
been used almost from apostolic times universally — that
is, in Jerusalem, in Alexandria, in Antioch, in Eome, and
in due time in Constantinople, in Africa generally, in
Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The writings of the great
Fathers of the Church are in fact full of allusions from
which we can in great measure reconstruct the Eucha-
ristic liturgy as it was carried out in the several cities
and countries where they lived.

In England, for 500 years before the so-called
Reformation, to say nothing of the 400 years before
that, the Mass (as is proved by published books and
non-Catholic authorities) was simply the Roman Mass
as said in this Church at this day ; and no writer that
I ever heard of has even ventured to assert that there
was any noticeable difference, except in one passage,
omitted in our present liturgy, which seems to imply
communion under both kinds ; though it is certain that
our forefathers did not communicate under both kinds.

Thus we have before us the fact, clear and indisput
able, that a solemn Eucharistic service has been a dis
tinctive rite and teaching of the Catholic Church from
the apostolic age to our own. That this service is

18

274 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

substantially the same as what is now known as the
Catholic Mass is also most clearly evident. And so far
as there is any diversity in the modes of performing this
grand act which have prevailed in so many countries,
among such various peoples, and in the course of so many
centuries, it would be most easy to show in detail how
the Eoman Mass of the present day — not the only
existing liturgical form of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but
by far the most widely spread — is a legitimate and
natural development in which essentials are unaltered,
and in which every addition or alteration in the
accessories is based upon enlightened Christian truth
and is sanctioned by venerable tradition. It is certain,
moreover, that if the ancient Eucharistic services are not
now legitimately represented by the Catholic Mass, they
have utterly died out and have no successors at all. In
no one of the many varieties of Protestantism is there
found any rite that can even pretend to be the survival
of the ancient Eucharistic liturgy. The Communion
service of the Anglican Church may be taken as the
nearest approach to a liturgical service. But the
Anglican ' Communion service is only a Communion ;
there is no offering, much less any sacrificial form or true
and real priest. And it is only a small proportion of
Anglicans, not including, as far as I know, one single
Bishop exercising legal jurisdiction, who think there is
anything more in it than a commemoration of our Lord's
Last Supper. It was characteristic of the Reformation
to suppress the Catholic Mass which in its substantial
features was, and is, identical with the liturgies of the
third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Wherever Protestan-

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 275

tism began. to prevail, the whole outward worship of the
people was at once altered ; for the great feature in
that worship was the liturgy. The Eucharist may
be said to have disappeared. People, no doubt,
took the Sacrament, as it was called, and take it.
But the grand liturgical rite was done away with ; the
altar was removed, and made way for a common table ;
the lights were put out ; the Eucharistic vestments were
abolished ; the priest was no longer a ' massing ' priest ;
the old churches, and especially the grand cathedrals,
became in great measure useless, and by degrees unin
telligible, for the few people who remained to take Com
munion after the congregation had gone out seemed
rather to be following their private devotion or fancy
than carrying out the most solemn of the ordinances of
Jesus Christ. Nothing need be said of the various forms
under which some of the Nonconformist bodies celebrate
the Lord's Supper. Their authorities would be the first
to proclaim that such a rite, in their chapels, had only
the slightest connection with the liturgy of a Basil, or a
Chrysostom; of Jerusalem, of Constantinople, or of Eome.
For better, or for worse, the Nonconformists and the large
majority of Anglicans would admit that the idea of the
Eucharist with them is an idea substantially and essen
tially different from that which prevailed in East and
West for 1500 years before the so-called Eeformation.
They would admit this ; and perhaps they would glory
in it. But to any serious-minded and reflecting Protes
tant it must be a terrible claim to make — an awful chal
lenge to pmt forward. Christianity with and without a
Eucharistic sacrificial liturgy is Christianity with two

'276 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

very different meanings. If they are right, Christianity
is a religion without a public liturgical act ; if they are
wrong, they must he said to be in the dark in regard to
an integral, a substantial, and even an essential portion
of the religion of Christ

It is both easy, and at the same time very difficult, to
explain or describe what the Mass is. In its external
aspect it is clear, evident, unmistakeable. In its hidden
essence and nature, it is one of these ' high things of
God, which, like everything connected with the
Incarnation, touches both the lowly earth and the
lofty heavens. When Jacob laid his head upon his
stony pillow on a night long ago in a rocky desert in
the land of Canaan, he saw the heavens open above
him as he slept, and heavenly spirits coming down and
going up. And he called that place the ' house of God'
and the ' gate of Heaven ; ' and he consecrated an altar
there. That revelation was a figure and a type of the
heavenly influences which were to pass from heaven to
earth — of the worship and longing that were to pass
from earth to heaven — wherever the God-man should
set His foot, or leave the imprint of His word and His
institution. And the vision of the sleeping Patriarch is
fulfilled best and most completely in the Christian
Church and the chief adornment of the Christian
Church — the fixed and stable stone of the Christian
altar.

The altar of the Christian Church is not, like the stone
of Bethel, set up in one only spot of the earth. The roof
of the Christian temple is not seen only among the hills
and the ravines of one historic site in Palestine. The

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 277

altar of Christianity is at this moment well-nigh as
widely to be found even as the name of Christian. It
stands, in old Christian lands, canopied by great cathe
drals ; in the dim sanctuaries of old parish churches ;
amid the colour and the freshness of temples which only
date from yesterday. In countries where the Faith is
lost, the altar has survived or been set up again ; some
times in a hired room, sometimes in the humble cottage
of a believer (who is surely blessed as Obededom when
he harboured the Ark of the Covenant on his threshing-
floor !) ; sometimes again in the schools of children ;
sometimes under a roof which the pence of the poor
and the sacrifices of the rich have combined to raise
aloft. In the lands of the heathen, the altar is pushed
forward wherever the light of the Gospel advances ; on
the clearing of the forest, on the tropical banks of
African rivers, among the huts of far-off savages, the
priest sets up a Bethel — a house of God ; sets up his
little altar and makes ready for his Mass. The
missionary in China or in Africa does this day what
Peter did in Antioch, Paul in Pagan Rome, Mark
in Alexandria, a hundred Popes in the Cata
combs, a thousand Bishops and martyrs in the
red and hunted days of the persecutions. Between the
day when Peter first went through the Eucharistic
liturgy and the breaking of bread in Jerusalem, and the
Mass which was said this morning, how many centuries
and how vast a stream of human life! Between the
wooden altar, existing still, used by St. Peter in Rome,
and the thin slab of stone which the Lazarist or the
Capuchin carries painfully under tropical skies or in

278 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

the frozen zones of Western Canada, how various a
history and how long a tale if the tale were told ! Mass
in the Catacombs, when the fierce band of the heathen
persecutor often burst in and slew the Pontiff at the
altar ; Mass in old churches like those of Ravenna, amid
the splendour of a Christian Eoman civilisation, doomed
to die ; Mass in bowers of green branches in German
or English forests ; Mass on the wild sea-islands of the
Western coasts, said by the monks of St. Columba or
St. Ninian ; Mass in the Saxon monasteries of England,
— Wearmouth, Whitby, Papon, Peterborough, Sherborne;
Mass in the glorious cathedrals of the middle ages,
thronged with the great, the rich, the brave, and the
poor; Mass in the little parish churches of Wales,
whose very shape, divided as they are into sanctuary,
presbytery, and nave, preaches eloquently of what used
to take place there; Mass in days of persecution,
among the hills and in the remote cabins of faithful
Ireland, in the hiding-places of England and Wales ;
Mass, again, in happier days, when our altars once more
are seen and our offerings are not torn from us — here is
a sketch of that long and various historic chain which
has never been broken and which still goes lengthening
out, until the last priest shall say the last Mass before
our Lord shall come to judge the world. And no one

can tell no Angel's pen could write — all that the Mass

has been during these Christian centuries to the succes
sive generations of Christian people. To the priest, the
Mass has been the daily bread of grace, of strength and
of consolation. To the people, it has been religion,
worship, devotion, the lifting up of the heart, the eleva-

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 279

tion of the mind to higher things in the midst of worldly
work and solicitude. To Christian flocks, the Sunday
Mass has been union, light, and consolation. To the
Christian nation, the solemn Mass has been triumph,
thanksgiving, sorrow, union of mind in the presence of
our Saviour Jesus Christ. Kings have first put on their
crowns at Mass, parliaments have begun their sessions
with it, justice has opened her courts by assisting at it,
universities have begun their labours by solemnly at
tending it The Mass has been the grand feature of a
Christian marriage. And the solemn Mass of Kequiem
has sanctified mourning and taught the bereaved how to
be resigned, whilst it has carried the best of all comfort
to the departed soul. Of what the Mass has been to
individual souls, the story is only known to God. There
come out in that stupendous commentary upon the Incar
nation which is called the 'Lives of the Saints/ proofs the
most ample how the Mass has in every age been the
joy and the chiefest treasure of souls which have given
themselves to Jesus Christ. When we read that St.
Dominic could hardly get through Mass for weeping, and
that St. Ignatius took a year to prepare himself for his
first Mass, we understand that these illuminated hearts
knew divine secrets hidden from other men. If
Vincent de Paul and Francis de Sales, who always
reminded men of the face and presence of Christ, were
more completely transfigured to His likeness when
saying Mass, it seems only natural that it should be so.
If contemplatives like Blessed Henry Suso could not
say ' Sursum ccrda ' without opening the floodgates of
heavenly revelation which seemed to be infinite, at what

280 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

other time would such a visitation be more in place ?
Great pastors, like Thomas of Canterbury and Charles
Borroineo, would never let a day go by, in health or in
sickness, without standing at the altar of God. We
read of holy men, pale, thin, and wrinkled with trouble,
work, and age, whose faces became transformed to youth
and colour and strange beauty when they were cele
brating Mass. We read that devoted men, like John
Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the brothers of the
Christian schools, were so illuminated during Mass, that
people knew it and lay in wait for him to ask him
questions as he left the Church — questions he was often
too rapt in God even to hear. We read that great
ladies, like St. Hedwig of Poland, and Blessed Margaret
of Savoy, thought it a part of their high office and duty
to assist as often as possible with all their Court at the
public Mass in the church. And it is related of a
saintly Christian heroine like Joan of Arc, that on her
perilous journey to seek the king, she would say each
morning to her knights, ' Is it possible to hear Mass ? '
And when she was in camp before the enemy, at sunrise
she would seek the church, and there in her armour would
kneel in the midst of the soldiers at the holy Mass. Of
another hero, John Sobieski, it is well known how on
that never-to-be-forgotten 12th of September, with the
Turk between him and Vienna, he began the day of his
triumph by hearing and serving at Mass. These are
single pearls of a glorious history, gleamed from the
records of a thousand years and more. But each of those
years has had its tale of days, and each day its glory of
masses, and of every Mass in all that time might be

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 281

written, were they known, records of grace given, of de
votion, and of heavenly visitation. Here, in a non-
Catholic country, the Masses are few, in comparison
with the multitudes of the people, and even with the
numbers of old churches where Mass once was said.
And perhaps even the few Masses which there are, are
poorly attended, considering what the Mass is. But what
the Mass has been it is now ; and those who are happy
enough to be able and willing to come, in the dawn
of the winter's morning or at the opening of the
summer's day, to this altar, or to other altars, could tell
as their forefathers have told how truly they have
' tasted and seen that the Lord is sweet.'

To explain adequately the meaning and essence of the
Mass, we should have to begin with the mystery of the
Real Presence. But at this moment we have no
leisure to dwell upon that. Let me only say this. All
who believe in the Bible, believe that ou the day of our
Lord's Insurrection He appeared in the midst of His
disciples, 'the doors being shut.'1 That is, His real
and true Body, as His soul assumed it when He rose
again, passed through material substance. I do not
say this is the same as that which takes place in
the consecration of the Eucharist ; there, the substance
of bread is destroyed, the appearance only remaining ;
but what everyone must see is that if our Lord's
Blessed Body could pass through stone and wood and
yet still be a true Body and not a phantom, there
is nothing contrary to reason in its being present in the
-Host. Much more might be said upon this point ; but
1 John xxii. 19.

282 THE GEAND LITUKGICAL ACT.

my object is to remind those who have a difficulty in
accepting literally the words, ' This is My body/ that
the very least that can be said is that we do not know
enough about the state and conditions of a glorified and
(in a sense) spiritualised body like our Lord's to be able
to pronounce by our own reason that such a presence is
impossible.

Taking for granted, then, that the duly ordained
priests of the Christian Church have the power given
them, by the will of her Head and Founder, Christ,
to consecrate and bring down on the altar, the Body and
Blood, the Soul and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, we
may best describe the Mass by saying that it is the
liturgical service which contains the Consecration, with a
preparation before it, and with intercessory prayers and
holy Communion after it. It would be impossible for me
now to describe, or even to name singly, the different
rites of the Mass. There are books which do it ; and
frequently, from the pulpit, the Catholic pastor explains
to his flock, and to strangers, the holy and august forms
and ceremonies which surround the mystical immolation
of the Lamb without spot. Let us all remember this ;
— there is not a ceremony of the Mass, not a prayer, not
a genuflection, not a vestment worn, which has not been
prescribed by ancient saints, if not by the Apostles
themselves, and which has not upon it the stamp and
the sanctity of a hoary and a venerable tradition. There
is not a symbol of office in the country — not a crown
or a flag, a chain or a robe, which is not of yesterday,
compared with the stole and the chasuble of the priest
at the altar. Such things must not be mocked at.

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 283

Bather, they must be studied by believers and non-
believers alike ; and you may be quite certain that no
one will study them without finding himself nearer to
the light and the truth which they symbolisa

But, omitting all consideration on the present occa
sion of the surroundings of the great liturgical Christian
act, what is its essence, its substance, its innermost heart
and core ? The Catholic answers at once : The unbloody
Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

At the word Sacrifice the mind pictures bloody rites
and dying victims ; it imagines the knife, the axe, the
fire. Of such a kind were many Sacrifices under the
Jewish Covenant ; such Sacrifices were found the world
over, under every climate, among believers in God, as
well as in every variety of paganism and idolatry. And
the universal prevalence of Sacrifice, and even of Sacri
fice in blood and death, points to a primitive revelation
of Divine worship, of the sinfulness of the world and of
the need of expiation. But there were sacrifices, and
true sacrifices, without the shedding of blood. The de
struction of lifeless things was, under certain conditions,
Sacrifice, as when wine was poured out upon the ground ;
and as when bread, corn, wine, oil, first-fruits, and incense
were offered to God under the Jewish law. What was
offered must be destroyed ; not always literally destroyed,
but changed, depreciated, smitten, cast forth, banished,
or in some sense marked as alienated from man's use,
never more to be used by him. Thus there was in the
Old Law the Sacrifice of the two goats for sin : one was
slain ; the other was driven forth into the wilderness :
both were sacrificed.

284 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

When the time came for the Great Sacrifice, the
sanctification of all Sacrifices and the consummation of
all, the Sacrifice of God made Man, we know — and may
the thought never leave our hearts ! — that His Sacrifice
was one of blood ; the altar was the Cross, the priest and
the victim Himself. Lifting up His sacred Heart to His
heavenly Father; adoring, worshipping, expiating, im-
petrating, with the deepest acts of that most holy
Heart ; using the sharp sword of His immense sufferings
to intensify those mighty and sovereign acts of oblation ;
He offered Himself, He smote Himself, He died upon
the Cross. All was finished. No other Sacrifice could
be. It was complete and full, as the fountains of God's
power and loving kindness are full, for evermore.

But whilst Jesus sitteth at the right hand of God,
immortal and impassible, man is born, man lives, man
is weak, and man falls into sin. The fountains of grace
are full; but how is the child of Adam to approach
them? Let him believe and pray; it is enough, say some.
I also say it is enough ; but belief and prayer are gifts
too, and man is weak, distracted, occupied, tempted,
blind, and sensual. Therefore, to apply the Sacrifice of
the Cross — to kindle the fervour of faith, to fan the
flame of prayer, to attract the heart to sorrow and
amendment, to lift poor human acts into divine efficacy
— the loving Heart of Jesus has thought of a device,
and a device which only His love could have carried
into effect. He has decreed that the Sacrifice of Calvary
shall be renewed every day as the days go round.

But Jesus could not suffer any more ; He could not
be pierced again and die as on Good Friday, He must,

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 285

therefore, endure some mark, some real change of state,
some moral death. Some mystical knife must wound
Him. Some humiliation must smite Him, some annihila
tion, some pouring out, some destruction.

Now, look upon the little round of the Host, just
consecrated by the word of Christ's minister. That is
Jesus Christ. Yes, under that lowly appearance, in
that little circle, beneath that poor appearance of
common bread. Imprisoned, bound, subject, moved
hither and thither — is He not annihilated ? Is He not
slain? Truly, really smitten with the sword of the
word — truly slain upon the altar? And when the
chalice is next separately consecrated, though in that
chalice there is the whole Christ, and not merely the
precious blood ; and though, had Christ so willed, the
Sacrifice would have been true and complete in a
single consecration, yet that second consecration marks
with almost dramatic emphasis the mystical blood-
shedding, and the fact that the Mass is intended to
commemorate the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross.

Such then is the essence of the Mass. Such is the
great outward, solemn, liturgical act, which is the
renewal and commemoration of the Sacrifice of the
Cross. God could have brought us near to the fountains
of our Saviour's blood without this act, or any act.
But the great rule revealed in and by the Incarnation
is, that He everywhere institutes and ordains in such a
manner as to make it easy for man to approach God and
God's mercy. * Copiosa apud Eum redemptio.' His
Eedemption is not only sufficient but overflowing —
overflowing in the fulness with which it reaches ths

286 THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT.

nature of man and man's weaknesses. Thus in the
Mass, every spring and root of human nature is touched.
In the Real Presence we have the Incarnate God in our
midst, partly by faith and partly by the senses ; in the
consecration we have the act of Calvary renewed; in
the whole Mass, we have a liturgical service capable at
once of arousing the private devotion of an individual,
and of lending itself to the widest emotions of a
community or a nation; a service which may be gone
through in a dim corner of the Church by one priest
with a few worshippers, and yet which is appropriately
accompanied by all that is grand in architecture, in
music, and in ornament, and may be attended by
thronging thousands. We have this most real and
striking act multiplied every day, brought home to every
heart and soul. Every morning the mighty intercessor,
who pleads for us for evermore, stretches out his arms
in the midst of people. How much more true now is
that word of the Prophet in his affliction, ' Thy mercies
are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.'2
Yes, how great is the faithfulness of our Saviour Jesus
Christ. For us men, and for our salvation, He once
came and died ; for us He seems unable to rest in the
Heavens, coming down again with far more efficacy than
the angels who flashed upon the earth in the olden times;
coming and remaining in Sacrament and Sacrifice, in visi
tation and in grace ; ever ready, ever waiting; so that no
man who is of good will can miss His redemption, and
Aone can be lost but by his own fault ; and, chief of all
His mercies, immolating Himself day by day on those

5 Thren. iii. 28.

THE GRAND LITURGICAL ACT. 287

altars where it is His dearest wish that His servants
should draw near and use the salvation that He brings
in His hand.

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

The Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said. . . I have
chosen this place to myself for a house of Sacrifice. ... My eyes shall
be open and my ears attentive to the prayer of him that shall pray in
this place ; for I have chosen and have sanctified this place, that my
name may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain
there perpetually. 2 PABALIP. (called in the Hebrew the Chronicles)
vii. 12, 15, 16.

IN considering the Holy Sacrifice devotionally and practi
cally, our first thought is of the marvellous nearness of
God which the Mass implies. To be near to God — that
is, to have Him present to our mind and our faculties,
and to have our hearts lifted up to Him — this is the
precious puipose and object of our mortal life. It was
to bring about this nearness that God the Son became
Man and dwelt amongst us, in the Incarnation. This
nearness is the reason of the whole of that beneficent
legacy which Jesus in ascending to Heaven has left
behind Him. His spirit dwells by grace in oui souls.
His hand is on us, in the Sacraments. His voice reaches
us, in the perpetual teaching of the Church. His real
Presence makes a home for itself in our midst, as a
friend might dwell a few doors from us. And the
moment of His nearest approach to us — the moment
when, taking every circumstance into consideration, He
comes most truly into our presence and we most deeply
take His presence in — is the moment of the Mass. In

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS. 289

a Sacrament you have a true touch of Christ's hand, of
a kind which no merely human hand could effect. In
Holy Communion; you have a visitor Who, as He dwells
with you a moment and passes away, leaves the fragrance
of His presence lingering for many an hour in your heart
and will. But in the Mass, you have the very Sacrifice
of the world's redemption applied to your own soul and
body. When you kneel before the altar, you are in the
presence not merely of the great God, Who is every
where, but of God in the flesh which He has put on to
attract you to Him; you have not merely God in the
flesh, but that God doing His most stupendous work.
The Blessed Sacrament, had it been given us without
the Mass, were a wonderful gift and treasure, the Holy
Communion an unfathomable depth of condescension ;
but consider how much more there is in the Mass. Not
merely the beautiful and consoling presence, as of Jesus
when in His infancy He slumbered on His mother's
breast, to all appearance an unconscious babe; not merely
the sw eet visitation of the Master Who turned His look
on Peter or allowed John to rest upon His bosom ; but
besides all this, Jesus in His greatest action — the action
of Calvary ; the awful action of the Kedemption ; the act
which angels and men had looked for and longed for ;
the act which nature trembled and hid herself to witness ;
the act which shook the foundations of all this world
and reached downwards into all the chambers of the
grave and the dread prison house of the world below.
This is the act of the Mass. Of the two grand universal
acts of Christ Jesus, the redeeming Sacrifice and the
Last Judgment, the latter, the Judgment, will be done in

19

290 THE HARVEST OF THE HOLT MASS.

overwhelming publicity, in the actual presence of every
human creature summoned by the angels before His face.
But the former, the universal Sacrifice, was once and
for all done in obscurity — in a corner of the earth, in a
remote city, in the loneliness of Calvary, in the gloom of
the darkened sun ; once and for all; yet only to be made
as widely known as the Judgment itself, as widely seen
as the Cross will be seen when it comes in the clouds of
Heaven, as widely heard as the very summons of the
angel's trumpet. For that act lives and survives in the
Christian Mass. The Mass is the great Christian Sacri
fice not multiplied, but applied. The Sacrifice exists;
in the Mass, it exists for us who are present at it, and
for all men. The cataracts of the heavenly deep were
broken up when Jesus said, 'It is finished,' and the
bounteous and merciful rain has been falling ever since;
and the rainbow made by Faith upon those never-ceasing
showers of grace gladdens the heart of man wherever
the sun can shine; and as no two gazers ever see just
the same rainbow, but each sees the radiance refracted
to himself, so the great Sacrifice repeats its power and
multiplies its many-hued arch of grace and peace the
world over. It is this reproduction of the action of the
Cross which makes the Mass a moment of such special
union and association between God and His creatures.
On Calvary, the Saviour of the world did an act which
was full of wonderful efficacy ; in which the Supreme
God was supremely worshipped, the just God adequately
propitiated, the bounteous God abundantly thanked, the
mighty God efficiently besought for grace and help.
That these things should be done is the particulai

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS. 291

interest of every single soul of man and woman. That
each soul should, however feebly, take a part in doing
all this is the object for which that soul was made, and
the price of its citizenship in the world to come. And
in the Mass, Christ does all this continuously and un
ceasingly ; and our being present at Mass means that
He does all this especially on our behalf ; and, more
than that, He takes up our own poor and ineffective
acts, and lifts them up to Heaven ; catches them up in
the very whirlwind and mounting eddies of His own
infinitely strong and perfect acts, and so carries them to
the throne. And, according to the rule of the Incarna
tion, as human acts ascend, divine power comes down ;
the soul of him who is present at the Mass is strength
ened and refreshed by the virtue of the Cross and Pas
sion, as men are refreshed when the long dryness has
given way and the welcome rain has come at last. In
one word, Jesus Christ, in the Mass, takes up the human
creature who assists at it and holds his poor heart fast
within the burning circle of his own heart, and so the
adoration and the holocaust of both go up to the Father
together, and the creature is changed and lifted by that
unspeakable embrace and union.

I am sure that very many of us have singularly de
fective ideas as to what our Lord really docs in the Mass.
That great act is so quiet, so brief, so frequent, that we
have grown too accustomed to it ; and custom has led to
mattention, and inattention to indifference. We are going
on under a great mistake. The Mass is a serious matter,
both for priests and for people. The priest labours, but
if he does not sanctify the Mass in himself and in his

292 THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

flock, his labour is barren. The people come to church,
perhaps, and say their prayers ; but if they do not sanc
tify the Mass, by undemanding about it and following
it with burning hearts, they might almost as well belong
to a sect or a heresy. They have to understand what
Christ does. Two great things have to be done, and with
both they are concerned. The first thing is to discharge
the world's duty and debt to God. The second is to
obtain God's grace and mercy for the world. And under
these two grand and wide divisions of the work of the
great Priest of the Mass, there comes also each man's
own share in paying that debt and in obtaining tha fc grace .
The debt which Christ pays — the mighty homage which
He offers — is two-fold. He pays adoration, and He ren
ders thanks. In other words, the first object of the Mass
is the acknowledgment of the supreme dominion of God
over all created things, and of our subjection to God and
dependence on Him. You have read of sacrifices, in the
Bible and elsewhere. You may perhaps remember some
picture of a sacrifice — for instance that of Noe, after he
had left the ark and the waters had almost subsided.
There was the altar with its stones ; the patriarch with
the sacrificial knife ; the victim on the altar ; the flames
and the smoke mounting up into the heavens ; and men
and women in attitude of adoration round about. In the
Mass there is a fair linen cloth spread on the altar ; no
knife, no blood, no flames ; and there is a priest and a
victim, and there are worshippers. The priest is the great
High Priest, Whose throne is above all the heavens, Who
acts there through a minister on whose head has been
.aid the hand and the power of the apostolic succession.

THE HARVEST OP THE HOLY MASS. 293

The worshippers round about can see no smoke ascending
to the skies. But they know — we all know — that a
spiritual homage goes up from that Immaculate Lamb,
and from the Heart of that great High Priest, of such
mighty power and efficacy, that every Mass that is
said would suffice to pay the debt of the adoration
of a million worlds. For it is the homage of the heart
of the God-man, and therefore its value is simply in
finite, as are all the acts of a Divine Person. How
glorious it is to think that the Omnipotent, Who is
worthy of power and glory and blessing, here receives to
the utmost limit the homage which He ought to have !
If the circling worlds which compose some vast system
in the spaces of the universe were to lose their depen
dence on their central sun, and to wander without law
in their mighty courses, then there would be crash and
ruin universal. But when the huge and flaming ruler
of their orbits holds them in his grasp, and they move
in all their strength and beauty, one within another's
track, doing homage and paying service, then there is
harmony and bsauty, the reign of law, the exquisite
completeness of order on the grandest scale. When the
moral universe — the world of man's heart — is withdrawn
from dependence on its Creator and its God, the crash
may not be audible as yet, and the ruin may seem to be
delayed, though both will come as sure as death will
come. But there is no sight of beauty and of grandeur
which ought to touch our inmost nature with so ex
quisite a joy as to know that the greatest of all the
universes — the universe of immortal souls — is in the
order and the splendour of its real dependence on

294 THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

God. One day, and that not far off, this necessary law
must and will be vindicated and prevail. At the judg
ment the interposition of the immortal King Himself
will end whatever disorder or disobedience there may
be. But meanwhile, in the Mass, the Heart of that
King made man rights the universal system of all this
world ; because that Heart offers homage, and that
homage is human, and yet greater than all humanity.
Then the Creator of Heaven and earth receives from this
earth w.hich He has made the due which eternal law
requires ; and we, His creatures, who know Him in part
and wish to give our hearts to Him, are rightly filled
with joy inexpressible to know that the Sovereign
Majesty is fitly worshipped and perfectly adored. This
happens in the Mass. In all the centuries, hearts of
men have worshipped and sacrifice has been made;
God has always accepted the offering of a simple and
humble heart; but what is man's offering to the
Majesty of the Infinite ! In all the ages of duration
since they began to be, the Angels have worshipped
with jealous ministration round the throne of their
King. But all their adoration, all the incense of their
censers, all the gold of their crowns, all the music of
their hymns and harps, have not amounted to what was
more than finite — it has all been bounded, limited,
circumscribed. Round the Christian altar they with
you throng and pray; you visible, they invisible but
not unfelt ; and they, like you, find the thought which
moves them most to be, that now is the King of all
Kings worshipped to the utmost limits even of that
infinity to which limits are unknown.

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS. 295

The second object, or end, of the Mass is Thanks
giving. From this, it takes the name of Eucharistic.
Thanksgiving is almost another name for worship.
But it implies a new and a touching relation to God.
We should have been bound to worship merely by
our creation, whether or not He had done any other thing
for us — if that were possible. But it is not possible,
considering Who God is and what we are. It is not
possible but that His infinite goodness should have
done more than was merely implied in the fact of
creation. This is not the moment to rehearse the
benefits and the loving-kindnesses of God the Father of
Heaven. There is one which stands out from all the rest.
What would it have profited us, sings the Church in
her Liturgy, to be born, unless we had also been granted
the gift of Redemption? It is for the gift of our
Redemption that the Mass is specially intended to
thank Almighty God. Redemption means the coming
of Jesus — His life, His passion, His example. It means
His eveiiiving Presence, His Sacraments, His word of
truth in our midst. It means grace, a good life, a happy
death, and the pledge of life everlasting, which is the
blissful vision of our Creator's face. It means all that
life is worth living for. In the Mass Christ offers, and
we offer with Him, the never-ceasing clean oblation
which thanks God adequately for all this. You will
observe how the name of Eucharist, or thank-offering,
has become attached to the Mass, and to the Blessed
Sacrament. The reason seems to be that, taking man
kind as they are, if they will only remember God's great
mercies and be thankful for them, the purpose of the

296 THE HARVEST OF THE 'HOLY MASS.

Mass is fulfilled. Thanksgiving, as I have said, includes
worship, and it includes love. When the faithful flock
of Christ assembles round His altar, it is expected to
adore and worship, it is true ; but its adoration and
worship have an object, not far away in the unexplored
distances of Heaven, but very near — even before their
eyes. They have the God-man before them ; His
mighty attributes of deity are not so visible or so
prominent as His lowliness, His suffering and His re
deeming mercy; therefore, if they are grateful to Him, if
they are touched with His kindness and softened by
His human life and suffering, it is enough ; they do
worship, they do adore, not perhaps with the abstract
contemplation of pure spirits, but with that emotion of
the human heart which the Incarnation has turned
into worship, and which the sacred humanity has
spent itself to attract and to sanctify.

Thus far we have considered how the holy Mass pays
the world's debt to God; pays it completely, because the
priest and the victim is Jesus the Son of God ; pays it
for us personally, by associating us, when we assist at it,
in the mighty oblation, the grand spiritual holocaust
which goes up for evermore from earth to Heaven. We
pass on now to speak of that which comes from Heaven
to earth — of the mercy which is showered down on the
whole world, on the living and the dead, and more
particularly on all who assist. The third fruit, or effect
of the Mass, therefore, is propitiation. And here we
enter upon a wide field of meditation. The Sacrifice of
the Cross fully propitiated Almighty God, and paid a
full and superabundant ransom for sin ; a ransom rich

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS. 297

enough to extinguish all pain and punishment, even the
fires of hell itself, But we know that the great
Sacrifice has not actually applied its propitiatory effect
to every human soul without some further means. To
deny this would be to assert that all men, possessed of
free-will as they are, whatever be their actual sins and
evil will, are all and always justified and sanctified, and
will all be saved. But if this were true, what need of
Church or Sacrament, or of Bible, or revelation; what
need of the ten commandments, or what is the sense of
the preaching of Christ ? Therefore the propitiation of
the Cross has to be applied. Putting aside Baptism,
and the Sacraments generally, and also prayer, I say
that the grand means of applying the propitiation of
the Sacrifice of the Cross is the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Were I urging a man or a woman to hear Mass as often
as possible, I would say, Come to Mass as you would
have come to the foot of the Cross on Calvary, and be
washed from your sins and your guiltiness in the Precious
Blood. I do not say that the Mass directly forgives
sins, like the Sacrament of Penance does. But it moves
God to give the graces of repentance. It gives reflection,
it gives sorrow, it gives good purposes, and it gives the
desire of confession. And take notice that the Mass
infallibly has this effect : that is, if it is offered for a
sinner it infallibly obtains for him actual graces of
contrition, unless that sinner is at the moment wilfully
hardening his heart. If, on the other hand, the sinful
being for whom it is offered has already begun to believe,
to fear God, and to turn to Him, then that Mass will
infallibly lead him to complete his repentance by a

298 THE HARVEST OP THE HOLY MASS.

good confession (if he can go to confession), and to
receive the pardon of his sins. But the propitiatory
power and virtue of this most holy Sacrifice does not
stop here. We have seen how it brings about the
forgiveness of sins; but the punishments of sin often
remain to be paid after sin is forgiven ; I mean, those
penalties which must, unless they are remitted, be
undergone either in this life or in purgatory. The
Mass, by its own direct and immediate efficacy, remits
these dark accompaniments of our fallen state. What
visitations are prevented by the Mass, what pain averted,
we cannot precisely define, for one particular case is
different from another ; one man is better disposed than
another, one man may be benefited by affliction, another
not Nevertheless, this general principle is certain;
that the Mass makes satisfaction, and does so without
fail and infallibly, in regard to all punishment for sin,
in respect to all who are in the grace of God, whether
they are living or dead. Not all pain is remitted by one
Mass ; and as to how much is forgiven by each Mass we
do not know ; but it is probable that the better our dis
positions are, the more is forgiven us ; and with regard to
the departed, we may suppose that God takes into
consideration the degree of devotion and piety in which
they died. Thus, by the triumphant device of the
Sacred Heart, the Sacrifice of the Cross diffuses its
healing power over all the world of human interests.
It not only kills out deadly sin in the way we
have seen, but its beneficent effects reach to every
pain, to every suffering, to every trouble and sorrow
which sin, even when there is security against hell-fire,

THE HAKVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

299

has brought upon the world. Man has to co-operate in
this. The great flood of mercy does not reach men
unless there is some agency of man ; the human priest,
the human presence— such must ever be the management
of God, Who, although He made us without consulting
us, will not, and cannot, save us without our co-operation.
But what has man to do ! How slight, how easy is the
effort which he is called upon to make in comparison
with the power which he puts in motion ! It is like the
act of a child who presses the lever which controls the
barriers of the flood ; one touch and the deluge pours
over the plain. Yes, one touch, one little act, and the
divine flood of our Saviour's mercy pours over the living
world, and over the graves of the just who sleep in
Christ. One Mass, and the fetters fall from the limbs
of imperfect men, fetters invisible now, but not the less
real in the future chastisement they ensure. One Mass, and
scourges are turned away from nations and from flocks.
One Mass, and judgments which are hanging over those
who are dear to us are prevented and changed to mercy.
One Mass, and blessings, spiritual and temporal, so far
as God sees they will profit, are poured out from the
hand of Him Who ever longs to bless, on the souls, the
bodies, the interests, the lives, the aspirations of Christian
men and women, who happily understand how near is
the Lord. And one Mass brightens the realms of
Purgatory, as the serene morning lifts the mists of the
night ; sending souls to their longed-for Heaven, lighten
ing the longing of those who stay, hastening their purifica
tion, and shortening the painful schooling which those
have to undergo in the world to come, who have not

300 THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

sufficiently cared for or desired in this the blissful vision
of their Creator.

There is & fourth fruit of the Mass, a fourth object
of this most holy Sacrifice, and it is that of impetiation ;
that is to say, the Mass obtains for us all graces, spiritual
and temporal. Practically, we have spoken of this
already. But the difference between the Mass as a
propitiatory and as impetratory is this : propitiation
means that it satisfies for sin, and removes the effects of
sin ; and since the removal of evil means the obtaining
of good, such propitiation so far includes impetration.
But, in truth, if there were no such thing as sin, and
never had been, the Mass would have been the great and
beneficent principle, like the sun in the skies, which
produces, fosters, ripens and distributes all the harvest
of sweet and bounteous gifts, which the heart of the
Father delights to bestow upon the children He has
made. Even on this fallen earth we may sometimes
leave the thought of sin and sin's consequences out of
our thoughts. Even in fallen nature there are those
who are pure, who have never fallen from God, or who
have repented. God does not allow even sin — even that
evil will of man, which He seems to forbear to meddle
with, because He has made man free — He does not allow
even this to shorten His might or contract His goodness.
God has His saints — saints who are of every degree, from
her, the Immaculate One, who never had in her favoured
nature any slightest root or growth of sin, to the young
child who is pure but not safe; fromthehighestcontempla-
tives and the heroic lovers of the Cross to the ordinary good
and Christian man or woman, who loves God above all

THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS. 301

things but struggles with many temptations. The grand
source of holiness is the Mass, and holiness includes every
good and perfect gift which cometh down from the Father
of lights. The Apostles drew their heroic resolution from
the Mass. The martyrs found their strength in the
Mass, the Virginstheir purity and their self-denial, every
confessor of Christ his contempt of the world. The
conversion of the world has been wrought, the institu
tions of Christendom built up, Christian nations made
strong and stable by the Mass in their midst. In our
own days, missionaries draw from the Mass their courage
and their hope, hard-working priests their comfort, and
all the pastors of souls the fruitf ulness of their ministry.
In the Mass the Christian family finds its unity, its
mutual love and forbearance, the father comes to Mass
and goes away with more strength against temptations ;
the mother with greater patience and sweetness ; the
children with desires to resist their passions and to
give their hearts to God. In the Mass the young man
should pray for the fear of God, for chastity and for
sobriety, for he will obtain them all ; at the Mass the
young woman may bow her head and whisper her
petition for steadiness, for self-denial, and for as much
happiness as God her Father knows she ought to have—
and she will surely have all she prays for. Here should
thesorrowfulcome,andtheheavy-burdened;hereshould
the poor and theneedy be gathered together; here should
all those whoseekthe Lord— that is,seek His knowledge,
His love, and His help— find themselves on their knees,
as around the throne of tlieir King and Master— Who
having spent Himself and been spent, even to the last

302 THE HARVEST OF THE HOLY MASS.

drop of His blood, for their sakes, sits now here in His
mercy-seat with no other object, with no other wish than
that all should come and carry away the treasures of
His love.

One word in conclusion. If this is what the Mass is,
why do not men value it more ? I cannot tell. But I
want to preach it to you. That perhaps is one way of
making this flock at least think more of the Mass. I
will not ask you to come to Mass on the week mornings,
though many do; and there are many more who live
close to the church who could manage to come. But I
will ask you to do this : Make the most of a Mass when
you hear one. Never miss Mass on Sunday. Do not
be afraid of a long Mass. Do not be idle during the
Mass. Use your prayer-book, or say your rosary, or
worship and ' ask ' God, out of your own head, following
the priest. At a High Mass, use the time you are not
kneeling to think, to look forward to the consecration,
to rouse up your hearts to greater fervour and devotion.
But be sure to make the most of every Mass you hear,
and then I not only hope, but I know, the kingdom of
God is at hand for you, and for all, and His fear, His
light, His service, His love, and His consolations will be
yours, and will remain with you, sanctifying the days
and the hours as they pass, until the last hour strikes
and the real day begins to break.

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD.

Looking upon Christ the author and finisher of Faith. HEBKEWS
xii. 2.

IT is only by knowing Who, and What, is Jesus Christ,
that we can answer a question which in these days most
certainly requires an answer. What is Christianity ?
This instruction and the two which immediately follow
will be devoted to giving such an answer to this inquiry
as may lead some who call themselves Christians to
search their hearts and see whether it truly is as they
think. I take for granted that a Christian must believe
in God, worship Him and serve Him. I assume that
a Christian must accept the Divine authority of the
Bible, and acknowledge and fairly live up to the ten
commandments. Neither can anyone even pretend to
be a Christian who does not in some sense recognise the
Divine mission of our Lord Jesus Christ I can imagine
that I hear some one interpose here and say, ' Surely
this is enough ! What more must a Christian profess,
what more must he do, than this ? ' Our special pur
pose will be to answer this question. In answering it,
some things will be said with which, probably, all will
agree; while some things, on the other hand, will be
opposed to the views of one person, and others of
another. I say frankly, I do not know the precise views,

304 JESUS CHRIST BEVEAIfl GOD,

on many of the matters which will enter into these
instructions, of any of my non-Catholic friends. They
are probably attached to some church or sect; they
probably look up to some particular minister or
preacher ; but it is well known that, even on matters
which all admit to be important, churches and denomi
nations are very vague and indefinite ; and the most
assiduous frequenter of church or chapel will without
scruple take leave to differ from the doctrine he there
may hear preached. I may add that, as you will
readily believe, I undertake to speak on the meaning of
Christianity, precisely because I believe that a con
siderable number of persons who call themselves
Christians are mistaken on this very point. We do
not become Christians, that is, followers of Christ, by
calling ourselves so. It is necessary to hold, to profess,
and to do, all that Christ Himself commands or pre
scribes. No one can doubt that the most important
element by far in the true comprehension of what
Christianity is, is to understand Who or What is Jesus
Christ Himself. It is possible to conceive religion
without Christ, but not Christianity. The Hebrews
worshipped God and saved their souls, not indeed with
out all reference to Christ, not without being saved by
Christ, but without knowing Him. The heathen
throughout the world were saved, when they were
saved, through Christ's passion, but by the knowledge
and worship of the true God, without the explicit
knowledge of the Saviour that was to come. But when
He came He established a new religion. Before He
spoke to the world men were bound to believe in God,

JESUS CHRIST EEVEALS GOD. 305

in the world to come, in sin and in retribution. In our
days if a man only believes or accepts as much as this
he is not a Christian at all. The Apostles said to their
converts, ' Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.' They did
not say, believe in God, believe in the future life, or in
the judgment. This much those converts were already
presumed to hold. When St. Peter received into the
Church and baptized the Eoman officer Cornelius, not a
Jew, be it observed,1 he knew that the convert was
already a 'religious man/ 'fearing God/ 'giving alms/
'working justice,' and ' acceptable to God.' Nay, before
baptism was administered the Holy Ghost fell upon
him, and he was thus proved not merely to be in the
state of sanctifying grace, holy and "justified, but
miraculously visited from on high. Yet St. Peter does
not say, This is enough ; on the contrary, he preaches to
him Jesus Christ. Peace, he tells him, comes through
Jesus Christ, Who is Lord of all. He had specially
commanded His Apostles to preach Him to the people.
He was the judge of the living and the dead. By His
name all received remission of sins who believed in
Him. And having thus instructed him, he commanded
him to be baptized. And it is at the end of this very
history, though not in immediate connection with it,
that the inspired writer notes how at Antioch the
disciples were first called Christians.

Let us try, then, to draw out what it was that our
Lord's coming added to religion; for that it added a
good deal is quite evident. Here it is not necessary
that we should speak at any length of the way in which

1 Acts x.
20

306 JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD.

our Blessed Saviour Himself wrought our salvation.
That He delivered us, ransomed us, paid a price for us,
opened Heaven for us, we take for granted. But it will
not be denied that this 'redemption* does not mean
that all are actually and necessarily and finally saved,
else all would be actually saved, and you and I would
be in Heaven at this moment He saves us, but He
wills that we labour to save ourselves. Therefore He
has not only brought about our salvation (as He could
have done by a single act of His will, even without
coming down from Heaven), but He has died for us, and
died a very terrible death ; and not only died, but lived
a life ; and not only lived, but taught ; and finally, not
only died, and lived and taught, but left behind Him a
Church, and a system of Sacrifice and Sacraments.

God the Son became Man, in the way He did, in order
that we, the creatures whom He has made for Himself,
might be brought nearer to God on earth, and so make
more secure that final and everlasting happiness which
has been promised to us as our inheritance. He is the
Way, the Truth and the Life. No one cometh to the
Father— that is, to God— but by Him. These words2
were addressed to the Apostles on the night before the
Passion. Thomas wanted to know how to reach the
Father — how to get to God. In His answer our Lord
let him know three things : first, that in order to attain
God (by worship, or by prayer) there was no need to
look beyond Himself. 'Lord, show us the Father/
' He that seeth Me, seeth the Father also. How sayest
thou, Show us the Father ' ? Secondly, that what was
8 John xiv. 6.

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD. 307

asked of God, in the name of Jesus, would be done by
Jesus Himself. 8 ' Whatsoever you shall ask the Father
in My name that will I do.' 4 * If you shall ask Me
anything in My name that will I do.' Thus Jesus is
God, and we obtain all good through His name. And
thirdly, there was to be a perpetual presence of this
same Jesus among men6 — ' I will not leave you orphans,
I will come to you.' He was to ascend to Heaven — 'Yet
a little while, and the world seeth Me no more,6 but you
see Me, because I live, and you shall live.' This
cannot refer to the last judgment, for all the world will
see Him then, but to some perpetual presence and
working, to be primarily discerned by Faith in the
Church to the end of time. It was realised when the
Holy Ghost was given, and exists at this moment.

We may thus draw out, then, the purpose of our
Lord's coming as He did. He came, first that He might
reveal to us more vividly God, and the truth of God, and
so give us light in darkness ; secondly, that He might
give us a new and easier way of worshipping said praying;
and lastly, that He might be more effectually present to
strengthen and succour us in our weakness and our con
tinual sins. These three heads will give us all the
definiteness we require in these considerations on
Christianity; and we begin with the first.

Religion, however it may be defined, contains in its

definitions the two most difficult words that have ever

been used in the world. Eeligion signifies the relations

between God and man, or between man and the Infinite

• John xiv. 13. * John xiv. 14. • John xiv, 18.

• John xiv. 19.

308 JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD.

Creator. ' God ' and ' man.1 None of us can understand
either. ,God is simply the Infinite, and our thought and
our imagination fail in the effort to reach Him ; whilst
man having been created with an immortal spirit, like to
God, not in infinity, but in spirituality, and destined for
God, cannot be understood unless we can understand
God Himself.

The problem of finding God, of attaining to the
knowledge of God, has been the great task of all earnest
men, of all great thinkers, since the world began. There
is that in the soul of man which at least indicates that
God exists. But to know Him, to hold Him fast — this
has been the difficulty. As the light of the primitive
revelation faded out, the nations of the world lost sight
of what had been shown to man in the earliest days, of
the knowledge of God which existed even after the gates
of Paradise had been closed. But their wise men, their
'seekers/ their thinkers, have left us records of their
questionings, their glimpses and their longings. The
religions of the East have preserved for us the thoughts
of men who were not altogether in the dark as to the
oneness and the holiness of God. The great men of
Greece and of Eome have left us their testimonies to
the existence of a Supreme Euler of all things. Even
the dim and inadequate traditions of savages and
barbarians exist to tell us of the yearning of the human
heart for one who will reward or will avenge after this
life is over. But to the keenest intelligence, to the
purest heart, the idea of the Infinite God has been hard
to grasp ; and to conceive that He could and did love
and cherish those human creatures who were so distant

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD. 309

from Him, was harder than all. We have no eyes with
which to penetrate the ' inaccessible light ' of God, no
ears to hear Him as He speaks in His own voice, no
faculties to feel Him as He really is. His love, which
our reason forces us to admit in theory, would seem to
be as far off as the light of some most distant star, and
as cold, too t In the 37th chapter of the Book of Job
— that wonderful record of Gentile thoughts about the
great God — the friend of Job exclaims, as if he were
summing up all that nature had hitherto done, 'We
cannot find Him! We cannot find Him! ... He is
ineffable ! Therefore men shall fear Him, and all that
seem to themselves to be wise shall not dare behold
Him.'*

The Jewish race were better off. They knew more
about God. He appeared to them by angels, and He
spoke to them by angels and by prophets. Yet the
great Prophet of the Old Testament had to declare that
their Jehova was 'a hidden God.'8 And in that book
which closes the Canon of the Old Testament — the Book
of Machabees — a book which is full of the name of God,
and of His unity, His might, His mercy, and His
judgments — a book which is a living witness of the
wonderful hold which belief in the one true God had
upon the thoughts and the policy of the Jewish race —
we find everywhere the sentiments of obedience, of
confidence, and of awful fear ; but we never find mention
of love.

The difficulty, then, of bringing God within the reach
of man's faculties was, in the nature of things, very

7 Job v. 21, 23. • Isaias xlv. 16.

310 JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD.

great. Man's faculties are not to be despised. He can
make out a great deal more than he can see. He can
look at nature and read her testimony to her Maker.
He can read in her beauty, her law and her order how
grand and mighty He must be Who made these things
first. From the land and the ocean, the plain and the
forest, the plants and the beasts, there goes up for ever
an inarticulate psalm of testimony, which man's intelli
gence can understand, to the reality and the glory of the
Creator. From the knowledge of his own heart, and
from the history of men in their generations, a man
finds that he has in his nature the seeds of the know
ledge of truth, of virtue, and of justice — everlasting ideas
which no barbarism can root out and no depravity can
smother. He cannot help believing in the final triumph
of what is good, and in an everlasting peace in the
victory of the right. That is the way his heart is made,
and he requires no logic to see what is plainly evident
to eye-sight. But all this, valuable as it is, falls a long
way short of the attainment of God. It proves God,
but it does not bring Him into our homes and under our
sight. But how can it be possible, it will be asked,
to reach God in this life ? The finite faculty cannot
see the infinite. This was the problem to solve — a
problem worthy of God Himself.

When Jesus, on that famous journey to Jerusalem
from Galilee for the last time, entered the smiling and
prosperous city of Jericho on an afternoon in early spring,
a rich man, who had made much of his money dis
honestly, wanted to see Him as He passed by. This
man was Zachseus. But he could not see Him for the

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD. 311

crowd, and he was short of stature, and he climbed up
into a tree. Then Jesus, coming past, stopped and
spoke to him. He said, 'Come down.' Zachseus was
happy enough to see Him at his leisure and to his
eternal gain. And what did he see ? A Man with a
band of disciples, a Man with a sweet and majestic
look, a Man with a history and a name; and yet the
everlasting Jehova, Who had created him and all the
world besides. This — this was the answer of omni
potence to the cry of humanity, Show us the Father —
show us our God ! The wise among men had answered
the question in their way. They had advised weak and
puny human nature to use this means and that — to get
higher up, to lift itself by its own power, to climb on
this and on that. But when the moment arrives, God
says, ' Come down ! Come down from your pretended
wisdom, from your pride, from your criticism, from
your self-sufficiency ! The world is to be saved, and to
be saved by the presence of its God ; but be prepared to
set human judgments aside and to accept the methods
and the fashions of God, for God is to be seen in the
stable and on the Cross!'

In truth, the great effect and change wrought in re
ligion by that stupendous event called the Incarnation
was to bring our God before our faculties to make us
see Him. The Infinite stoops from the Heavens. He
might have given us the price of our salvation and passed
by. He might have flung us the boon of life everlasting
and left us to ourselves. He might have lingered for a
time, as a laden vessel lingers to leave food and comfort
at a barren island, and then been seen no more. But

312 JESUS CHEIST REVEALS G9D.

He has done very differently. He has entered into this
world. He is now among the number of human things,
and a part of the world's history. He has determined
there shall be no mistake about His human nature. He
was born at Bethlehem ; His mother's name we know ;
He has a story ; He has spoken and He has acted ; and
He has died. And He has summed up all His human
attributes and incidents in a most sweet and mighty
name, which is like a picture of Him to hang in every
home, a banner to lead every good cause, and a hymn
of music to cheer every struggling heart. And thus He
stands before the men and women of that vast crowd
which He is bent upon saving. He stands before their
faculties — their eyes, their ears, their fancy and their
feelings; He walks among them, speaks to them, and
blesses them. No 'inaccessible light* conceals Him
now; no rolling clouds are His covering, and the firma
ment of Heaven has been exchanged for the solid earth.
Now truly is realised that boast of His old Hebrew race,
that no nation hath its gods so near to it as Jehova is
to them.9 For the straining of men's eyes hath ceased,
the chafing of their hearts is at rest. That which they
longed to see and to know, they have before them. That
bright vision which the Heavens held so jealously is
spread out at their feet. We have heard Him in
Ephrata (Bethlehem), we have found Him in the fields
of the woodland.10

St. John, the type of those who are truly Christians, and
not Jews or Gentiles, exclaims: ' See what manner of
charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should

•Deut. iv.7. Ps. czxxi. 6.

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD. 313

be called, and should be the Sons of God.' n The Incarna
tion, in revealing God, has revealed to us God's love for
us. God's love is no longer merely that denomination
of infinite goodness which, whilst most real and adorable,
is difficult to conceive by our faculties and hard to
express by our words. It no longer shines like a cold
and distant star in the blue sky at night. It is now,
besides all that it ever was, the love of a man for his
brethren. It is now no longer only an attribute of the
Deity, but the thrilling of a human heart. For there
is only one Person in Jesus Christ— the person of God.
Yet He has a real human nature, with nerves, senses,
feelings, and in a certain reverential 'sense, even
'passions;' it being always understood, first, that His
human impulses were utterly and completely under the
control of His most glorious intelligence and of His
divinity, and, secondly, that no shadow of sin or
imperfection ever came nigh to His royal purity and
perfection. The human soul which ruled this glorious
Body was perfect in all knowledge and endowment, all
science being infused therein, and the beatific vision
shining always before it. Every grace and perfection
which the human spirit is capable of was its portion by
sovereign right ; and it is in connection with the mag
nificent adorning of the human soul of Christ that we
have, in the eleventh chapter of the prophecy of Isaias, the
revelation of the names which describe the fulness of
the grace of the Holy Spirit ; for, we are told, there
rested upon Him the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of

u 1 John iii. 1.

314 JESUS CHRIST BEVEALS GOD.

wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and
of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness,
and He was filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord
It was the emotion, the pure, holy, sublime, but human
act, of this grand soul and body that was now to be the
love of God for men, without for an instant ceasing
to be what it had been before in the depth of the
eternities. He, whose will, and mind, and heart, and
nerves vibrated and quivered with most pure love of
His brethren — He was nothing less than the Infinite
God; and therefore that human emotion of love was
the love of God for men. This was truly a new
religion.

It need not be said that, if now there was a new kind
of love of God for man, so man found a new way of
loving Him back. Henceforth it was not the intellect
alone which was to be drawn and attracted by love, but
it was the whole man. Man is very complex. He is
made up of a hundred faculties, powers, appetites, and
aspirations. His intelligence is, in theory, independent
of the whole mob of his powers and longings ; but we
know that, in practice, his noblest part has a very hard
fight, and that oftentimes it is dragged from its throne.
Thus, except for the Incarnation, our intellectual hold on
God and God's truth would be in far greater danger than
it is. For now the sweetness of Jesus has captivated
every faculty of man. We have only to meditate on
Bethlehem, on Nazareth, or Gethsemane, to feel our own
hearts breaking their earthly bonds and yielding sweetly
to the thought of God's will and God's love. We have
only to look at the crucifix, to feel our very sympathies

JESUS CHRIST REVEALS GOD. 315

and passions, instead of opposing our understanding,
taking its part, and joining with it in declaring that there
is no evil but sin, and that we shall never rest till we
give our whole heart to God.

Thus, whilst to a Christian God is all that He was to
a Hebrew, He is also much more. He is still the God
of psalmist and of prophet, of king and of patriarch.
He is still the only One, the zealous God, the Mighty,
the Just, the Faithful and the Merciful ; He is still the
Eewarcler and the Avenger. But He has come— oh! how
much nearer ! And as He has come nearer, we see-
how much more plainly ! — how sweet, and lovely, and
loving He is ; we not only know, but understand how
He loves us, and we have less difficulty in loving Him
again.

Thus God reveals Himself in Christ. Jesus is the
Word of God, hidden in the bosom of the Father from
all eternity, one in substance with the Father, mani
fested in time to men, and by His very manifestation
revealing God and God's love ; revealing, also, the value
of those immortal souls of ours for whose well-being
such stupendous things have been brought about.

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

The Lord hath appeared from afar to me. Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love, therefore have I drawn thee, taking pity on
thee. JEREMIAS xxxiii. 3.

LAST Sunday we considered how great a revelation of
God and of God's love He made in becoming man in the
way He did. We now go on further to consider what
an effect this revelation has had on a man's worship of
his Maker. From what is to be said on this head
it will appear still more clearly what is meant by
Christianity.

It is probably not necessary to prove to anyone here
present that worship is the principal duty of man.
Man has many powers ; bat there is one thing
which distinguishes him from all other beings in this
lower world, and that is his Eeason. It is by his reason
— that is, by his intelligence and his intellectual will,
that a man is a man. He grows, like the plants ; he
feels and moves, like the brute creation ; but he thinks,
judges, reasons, and has aspirations on a higher level
altogether than any other creature. If some men and
women strangle their higher nature and have no use for
their best faculties, we say they are brutes, and we
ought to ask pardon of the brutes for saying so, for a
degraded human being is as much lower than a brute as
a dead animal is more unpleasant than the lifeless clod
beneath our foot. If, then, our intelligence and our

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 317

rational will are our principal faculties, it is their
occupation and exercise which is our principal work
and duty. But about what must they be exercised ?
Without doubt, chiefly about the very best thing that
exists ; that is to say, about the Being Who made them,
made them like Himself, and made them in such a way
that, in the long run, and when the true life begins, they
will be intolerably miserable unless they are near Him.
If a man's only happiness lay in the possession of lands
and riches far over the ocean, he would be a fool and a
criminal if he did not think about them and desire
them. But this is putting it in a very cold and incom
plete way. Our supreme Good — our last end — is not a
thing, but a Person. God, though we cannot adequately
comprehend Him, is all that we call a Person, and far
more. Now, we can speak to a person, and hear him
speak ; we can enter into society with him and into
communion of various kinds ; and we can love him, or
hate him, as may be. Therefore, as reasonable beings,
we are bound to think of God, to listen to Him, to
speak to Him ; and, considering Who and What He is,
our thought and our speech to Him must take the
shape of adoration, praise, self-offering, petition, thanks
giving and sorrow for all that is amiss. It is these six
' acts ' which constitute worship, which is therefore the
principal duty of every rational being. The word
'principal' includes four things. It means, first, that the
duty of worship must be exercised by itself and for it
self so as to take up a considerable portion of our lives.
If we pass our lives, or even a year, a month, a week, or
a day of our lives without worshipping God, we are

318 JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

doing wrong, in a greater degree or in a less. If,
secondly, we worship or adore anything but God, we do
grievous wrong. If, again, we turn away from God to
the inordinate love or the preference of anything that is
not God, we do wrong, and we offend Him. And,
finally, if we do not direct towards Him all our
thoughts, our words and our acts, all our business and
our pleasure, and every conscious movement of any
of those powers and faculties which our reason can con
trol, then again, in proportion to the gravity of the
circumstances, we fail in our duty of worship. This is
the meaning of our saying that worship is the principal
duty of man.

Having laid down these principles in regard to
worship, I think I hear you make the objection that if
this be man's chief duty, the world at large sadly fails
in fulfilling it. Our purpose, however, is not exactly to
point out that. It is to see how the coming of Christ
has made worship easier ; to understand what Christian
worship Is , and so to take advantage to the utmost of
the salvation of Christ Jesus.

The coming of our Lord, as we have seen more than
once, was intended to bring God within the reach of our
very limited faculties. In regard to worship our human
faculties are limited in two ways : we forget God
altogether because He is out of sight, or we are inclined
to give Him shape and size and colour like a created
and material thing. The first weakness leads to worldli-
ness, the second to idolatry. Worldliness is not a very
good word to express what we here mean. We do
not mean atheism, that is, rejection of God's existence;

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 319

neither do we mean flagrant and open crime. But we
mean the state of men — and there are millions of them
among Christians — who simply, or mostly, live for the
present life ; who work, or play, merely, or chiefly, to
be as happy as they can on this side of death, and leave
God out of their lives. We may return to these
unhappy men and women, for it is for them, most of all,
that the Incarnation requires explaining and enforcing
in these days. But let us here observe what the
idolaters were, or are. The idolater is one who is very
likely in good faith, simple and ignorant. He was born,
perhaps, in his idolatry and knows no better. There
have been millions of poor people, since the world began,
who worshipped idols because they did not know any
better, and who will not be blamed by God for that.
Indeed, whatever may be said of the sin of those who
introduced idolatry, or who may have shut out the
light from the heathen races and peoples, the general
state of idolatry is treated by the Holy Scriptures rather
as a state of darkness and misfortune than as one of
perversity or crime. But who can estimate the depth
of such a misfortune! The false ideas of prayer, the
absence of true rules of right and wrong, the ignorance
of how to turn to God or be sorry for sin, and the
consequent abandonment of soul and body to passion,
to pride, and to sensuality — these are only a few of the
results of heathenism. Yet, see how the poor, ignorant
people seem to strive in their darkness to find God !
As St. Paul said at Athens, they seemed to feel about
and grope after Him, so truly is the instinct of Him
written in our natures. They made figures of gold and

320 OESUS CHKIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

silver, of iron and clay, and they fondly imagined that
the attributes of deity resided in the figures they had
made. They had ideas that there must be power
somewhere, and beauty, and wisdom, greater than any
on earth. They felt how cruel was life, and how blind
and deaf was nature and the world, and they cried out
to these shapes to help them, to protect them, to avenge
them. They wanted their god near them, and they
liked to see his face, and his arm, and his footstool;
they loved to feel that the walls of their temples shut
in a mysterious power which was different from any
other power; which might hurt them, but which also
might be their friend. We cannot, perhaps, in these
days understand the force, in human breasts, of the
idolatrous impulse; because Christianity has so com
pletely satisfied all there was good and natural in it,
whilst lifting up into serener regions all those aspirations
which make men long to see their God.

The task, therefore, of the Omnipotent, Who had
resolved to save us, was to attract men's faculties to
Himself in such a way as at once to extinguish idolatry
and to force men to remember Him. The work was
done when God the Son became Man and was called by
the glorious name, Jesus. Nothing could have attracted
men better than this. He stood before them — He
stands before them — and He says, 'I am Jehovah;
worship Me ! I am a Man like yourselves ; adore Me,
praise Me, offer yourselves to Me, pray to Me, give your
thanks and sorrow to Me ; for you need go no further ;
L am the eternal God ! ' And men and women, hearing
about Him, picturing Him to themselves, falling in

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 321

love, if I may use the expression, with His unspeakable
attractiveness, have been drawn to worship Him, to find
His worship easy, nay, to spend their lives in His
worship.

If we consider a little more attentively, we find that
the attractiveness of the Incarnate God is of a threefold
sort. The first attraction is the attraction of human
interest The idea of God without the Incarnation,
though not without deep and solemn interest, is to man
either a blaze of light or a shadow. When we look up
to heaven, the light fatigues us and makes all things
indistinct ; when we look to earth we see indications of
the presence of our God which (except on very awful
occasions) are faint like the track of the wind across
the deep, or the flicker of pale lightning on a summer
night. Meanwhile, with all our goodwill, with all our
best endeavours to keep Him before our faculties, there
is a varied and changing multitude of human
interests which get in our way and occupy us in spite
of ourselves. Ourselves, our work, our pleasures ; our
friends and their concerns; nature, science, art and
history — these dispute the claims of God upon our
interest, and therefore on our worship. We are like
children whom their mother's voice is calling, yet who
are distracted and taken up by flowers and toys and
play. What has our Saviour done ? He has placed
Himself among human things, in order that, as human
things attract our unstable thoughts, He might at least
be able to enter into competition with other human
things on their own ground. He has a Name and a
history, He has a Mother, and the history of His birth

21

322 JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

into this world is a picture which for tenderness and
serene majesty has no rival in the records of the world.
He is known to us by innumerable holy words and
touching actions, each of which deepens the hold which
His character has upon our thoughts, as a skilful painter,
line by line, makes the ideal live upon the canvas.
If we are drawn by things noble and beautiful, then He
is most noble and beautiful in heart and soul and mind.
If we are drawn by wisdom, then no one has ever been
so wise as He. If power and might have charms for
our fancy, the story of our Saviour tells us of wonders
greater than any human hero has ever been dreamed to
do. The study of Him, of the endowments of His
human soul, of the powers of His intelligence, of the
heights and the depths of His unspeakable grace,
with the Godhead overshining it all, has afforded the
Saints more to think about and to adore than most
of us are even able to conceive. The picture of His
face — as a child, a youth, a preacher, a sufferer — this
has been denied us, but denied us because indeed it is
better so; for no features, however perfect, but will
grow common at last. Whereas, as it is, we know He
had the face of a man, and looked out from His eyes on
saint and sinner, on nature and humanity ; but faith, or
fancy guided by faith, fills up an outline that is never
twice the same, yet never false, save that it is inade
quate. We have the pages of holy writ; the pages
which have described Him since He came, and the
more marvellous pages which told what He would be
like to generations long before ; we have gospel and
psalm, prophecy and canticle; and as we please we

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 323

weave a precious fabric of all sweet and grand and holy
epithets which inspiration has used therein to shadow
forth the beauty of the fairest among the children ol
men, and, as the veil of a tabernacle, we fling it over the
face we shall never see till the judgment-day. But,
somehow it is always His face, and it always seems
as if it were familiar. We meet it at every turn of our
earthly life. If we have been taught to know Jesus,
there is hardly anything which does not remind us of
Him, so intimately is He linked with the human
interests of this world. Infancy, poverty, labour,
suffering, are all somehow bound up with His memory
and bring Him back to us. The Cross is over all the
world ; and the Cross, as we may see in the Catacombs,
was originally the two first letters of the name Christ,
as it is written in Greek. His name is connected with
a land the most famous of all lands, and a book the
greatest of all books. Literature is full of Him, and so is
art. The interior of a Christian Church, if it is com
pletely and truly Christian, brings Him to mind in a
hundred symbols and shapes and scenes ; and the
Christian altar holds what is Himself, present to our
faculties half by sense, half by faith, in a way analo
gous to that in which He shows Himself to us in the
Incarnation itself. Thus, the picture of Jesus may
and should seize, fill, and occupy our unstable hearts.
From childhood upwards, the scenes of His earthly life
should be our alphabet, our earliest reading, our
chiefest knowledge. He has come in order to attract
our hearts; and the more He is known the more
He will attract. Devotion and worship may be said to

324 JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

depend on our being penetrated with the story of the
God-Man. Those who know Him not, who have not
been familiar from infancy with Bethlehem and
Nazareth, with Thabor and Calvary, cannot worship
either as fervently or as continuously as Christians are
intended to worship. Whilst, on the other hand, those
who have used their eyes and their ears, their faith and
their mind, to take in tl/e picture of His blessed life,
find prayer natural and worship easy ; and even when
the world has got hold of them, and the flesh has
allowed them to turn their back on their God, a time
comes when some scene in that most holy lite brings
repentance to their souls, and, as though in very deed
Jesus had turned and looked upon them as once He
looked on Peter, the sweet attraction of His humanity
leads them back in sorrow to His feet.

The second attraction of the Incarnation is the
attraction of condescension, or the drawing of the
heart to the lowliness of Jesus Christ. Our Lord and
God has placed Himself in the world, but He does not
stand before us cold and majestic. We see one Who
loves us ; we cannot doubt of His love, because He lets
us plainly see it. What is it that softens a man's
heart to another man almost more that anything else ?
It is to see that that other man has been seeking for a
chance of being kind to him. When, in our struggles
or our misfortunes, we meet with a kindly look, or feel
the grasp of a friendly hand, or are conscious of the
support of a stout and honest arm, we are not men if
we are not moved and melted. The great struggle is
the struggle for the endless life that is coming; and tha
great friend is the Lord Almighty Who has stooped

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 325

from the heavens to persuade us to trust fondly in His
love for us. To Him, the Everlasting, our love, or our
safety, could make no difference, until He took a human
heart which could really feel our perversity and our
ingratitude. But for that very reason He came down
and took it. And having come He lets us see, by word
arid gesture and work, that He wants us to come to
Him ; not allows us, but wants us. He tells us that
He came 'to seek and to save.' He pictures Himself
as a Good Shepherd, Who feeds and protects His sheep,
and giveth His life for them. He labours among men
and women, among poor and rich, innocent and sinful,
among children and grown-up people, as a sign and a
proof of what He wants the whole world to understand.
It is this condescension, this stooping, reaching out His
hand, waiting, seeking, and helping, which makes the
Incarnation the masterpiece of the divine Wisdom. If
He were not both God and man, there would not be so
much in it. If He were not man He could not conde
scend; and if He were not God, the condescension would
be very different. It is the combination of lowliness
with awful majesty ; it is the fact that He Who deigns
to plead is He who claims to be worshipped — it is this
that not only vanquishes the heart of man, but makes
it so easy for that heart to worship, when worship is
gratitude to a Brother, confidence in a Pastor, trust in a
Teacher, and affection for One Who for our good has
given His very life.

The third attraction of God Incarnate is the attraction
of suffering, or the drawing of the heart of man by the
pains and the sorrows of God made man. Here we are

326 JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

in the presence of a mystery. Why should God have
chosen to suffer ? Not because God the Father delights
in blood or torments. Not because we could not have
been saved without it. But, to put it very briefly, because
without the intensifying touch of the fire of suffering,
that grand and pure Act of His sacred Heart which
saved us, would have lacked, on its human side, the
white heat of complete perfection. For suffering
intensifies. If we love God, and turn to Him in any
kind of worship, suffering, accepted, intensifies the act
of our heart. Jesus, therefore, suffered. Suffering took
His hand when he entered into the world, and walked
by His side all through His life ; and she never left Him
until the Cross had finished its work, and the spirit and
the body parted for a time. That He has suffered is a
part of the deep attraction of His Incarnation. It is not
difficult to understand how much easier it has become
to worship God since God has suffered. There are
chiefly two reasons. The first is this. Suffering makes
a good part of the life of all of us. Now, suffering is
useless, and indeed hurtful, to our souls, unless we
accept it lovingly, and are strong under it. But to
accept suffering is to turn to God with acts of worship
ping resignation ; and to be strong, means to resolve
and to pray for strength ; both, again, acts which we
must make to God, or we do not make them at all. But
God Himself has suffered ! Could anything induce us
more strongly to fall at His feet in resignation, or to
implore Him for courage and resolution ? Or rather, I
will appeal to experience, and I will ask if, ever since
Gethsemane and Calvary, the heart of man has not

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 327

found its best strength, its deepest resignation, in the
sorrows of its Saviour ? Because He has suffered, He
knows better than anyone can know what suffering is.
He is not likely to turn a deaf ear to anyone who
comes to Him, bearing in his body or his heart those
wounds and bruises, those thorns and nails, which He
chose so deliberately as the best choice for Himself. This
is the way in which He draws those who suffer to trans
form their sorrows into worship at His feet. But this is
not all. The sufferings of the Incarnate God attract in a
deeper way. There is no more powerful emotion of the
human heart than that of compassion. Pity or compassion
takes the heart into its own hands, and does not wait
for cold reasons or the considerations of prudence. And
when a man acts justly or kindly, how much hotter and
more intense is his justice or his kindness when his
heart, at the same time, is touched with pity. But who,
my brethren, among all the wise men of old times in
all the world, could ever have foretold or guessed that
it would ever have been possible to worship the Ever
lasting God with the worship of compassion ? Yet so
it has come to pass. This powerful spring of human
action is now, by a master-stroke of divine wisdom and
attraction, a moving force in drawing us to worship.
Pity is strong enough, as we well know, to make us
forget our duty very often; but here it drives us to
God. The scenes of the Gospel become so many moving
pictures to make us love our God the more. The more
we meditate, the more we understand how He must
have suffered. Our hearts are stirred with pity at the
roughness and rigours of Bethlehem. We think of His

328 JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY.

poverty, and of His mother's, and we feel ourselves
grow warm within. We follow the sternness of His
apostolate, and we are filled with sympathy. The dark
mystery of the Agony, the more we understand it, the
more it seizes and thrills our soul with grief. The
scourges, the thorns, the scoffings, and the blows easily
reach the very fibres of our own feeling, once we allow
ourselves to dwell upon them. And the Cross itself,
since that terrible drama which went slowly through in
the eclipse outside the walls of Jerusalem, holds within
itself so many living lightnings of pity to thrill the
heart which touches it, that it alone suffices to soften
all human hardness and draw all human love to Him
Who hangs thereon. Thus, compassion for the suffering
Jesus has, in all the Christian centuries, led to reflection
and repentance. Compassion has led to the sacrifice of
self. Compassion has been the worship of millions,
who have clung to the Crucifix as their book, their
science, and their treasure. One of the marks or 'notes'
of true Christianity is to make much of the Crucifix. The
Crucifix is the picture, the summing up of all those
innumerable sufferings of our Saviour which He chose
for Himself as His best choice. Our Churches display
the Crucifix on their altars, as a sign of Christian belief
and practice. Our books are full of the sacred Passion.
Our Saints have said that tears, or pity, for the
sufferings of our Lord are very dear to Him, and
will bring us deeper into His bosom in the coming
life. And there is no one who has been taught
Christianity as it should be taught who does not
understand how that sacred Passion and Death draw

JESUS CHRIST MAKES WORSHIP EASY. 329

his heart to sorrow and repentance, to worship and to
love.

From these considerations on the threefold attractive
ness of the Incarnate God — the attraction of human
interest, the attraction of condescension, and the
attraction of suffering — we may conclude, I think, that
Christian worship is intended to be aided and assisted
by the contemplation, under all its various aspects, of
the sacred Humanity of our Lord and Saviour. A
worship, therefore, which does not worship the God-
Man ; which does not dwell on the circumstances of
His life ; which does not adore Him, pray to Him,
practise self-offering to Him ; a worship which does
not make a great deal of His sufferings and practise
pity for them ; a worship which deprives little children,
and the uneducated, and the poor, yea, and the rich and
cultured, of pictures of the Infant Jesus, of pictures ot
Him symbolising His sacred Heart, above all of His
cross and the figure that is nailed thereon ; such a
worship is not complete or adequate Christianity,
because it fails to take advantage of what Christ has
given-

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

I beseech you, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ. 1 COR.
iv. 16.

HAVING considered what Christ has revealed to us, by
His coming, as to God and God's love, and also as to
God's worship, we now come to inquire what effect the
Incarnation has wrought upon the world in regard to the
service of God in general.

For although man's principal duty is Worship, still,
being what he is, he has many duties besides. These
duties arise either from the law of God or the law of
man. The law of God is made known to us in two
ways ; either by the light of natural reason or by direct
revelation. By nature and reason we perceive that we
must serve the Creator, that we must honour our parents,
take care of our children, obey the laws of the state,
steal not, kill not, refrain from wronging our neighbour,
and repress our carnal appetites. God's revelation has
partly renewed and confirmed this law of nature, and
partly added certain new precepts. Finally, the law of
man binds us in certain matters, spiritual as well as
temporal, where man has the right to impose obedience.

It is unnecessary to say that the general question of
God's service, apart from our worshipping Him by the
heart, is of the gravest importance. True, external

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 331

service is useless without interior worship. To obey
God's law outwardly is unprofitable unless we also obey
it with the heart; and to obey with the heart is to
worship. To be kind to others is unprofitable unless
we turn the heart also to God in or before the act of
kindness, explicitly or implicitly; and such turning of
the heart is worship. Unless worship accompanies
whatever our hands do, and all the steps of our feet,
much of our life is barren, sterile, and unproductive;
and it is to be feared that, through our failing to direct,
purify, and intensify our more active life by interior
worship — in other words, by prayer and self-offering —
the lives of many Christians are to a great degree
smitten with the sterility here referred to.

But, for all this, exterior service and obedience is of
no small use in regard to interior ; it is a proof, a sign,
and an intensifying of our interior love and worship.
Made as we are, and living among such surroundings as
we do, duties of various kinds are as necessary for us as
our very being and constitution. Man is bound to help
his fellow-man and to abstain from wronging his neigh
bour just because he and his fellow-men are made in
the way they are. To assert, therefore, that we love
and worship God, and yet to refuse to serve man, is to
assert a lie. On the other hand, to be zealous in doing
God's will and law is a proof and a sign that He is
really dear to us. It is necessary to insist on this,
because the self-deception of the human heart is so
great in its possibilities that you do find men who
persuade themselves that they can worship their Maker
without keeping His law. The truth is, their feelings

332 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

deceive them. You will find men and women who (as
they express it) feel ' good ' on a Sunday, or feel ' saved
at a meeting, or whose tenderness is excited by out
Blessed Saviour's sufferings, or again, who long in a
kind of way for heavenly rest — and yet these very
persons were habitually unjust in their dealings, or given
to impurity, or the slaves of temper and passion ; and
they take no pains to get out of the mire of their
sinful life. These people are, as I have said, sometimes
themselves under a delusion. Their feelings are real
enough at the time ; but their delusion is to think that
feeling is love and worship. Love and worship may
overflow into the feelings — well and good ; the feelings
help to make our worship easier ; but love and worship
are in the reason, not the feelings. To understand, to
resolve, to resist, to offer the heart, to regret sin — these
are acts of worship ; and they cannot be real without
affecting our external actions. And, as just now observed,
when our external life of service is in accordance with
our interior life of worship, then what we do intensifies
our love and worship. We are told by scientific men
that light is colourless in itself ; the lovely colours of
the universe are the result of light being stopped or
reflected by something solid; and even the heavenly
blue of the cloudless sky would not be there were it
not for certain innumerable minute particles of matter
which seize and translate the flood of radiance, itself
too subtle for the sense to apprehend. So, the work of
our hands and the service of our lips and the ministra
tions of our bodies give colour and intensity to the
ethereal liftings-up of the soul; they increase the heart's

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 333

devotion, and by their very resistance— by the very fact
that they make a call upon our resolution, our courage,
or our self-denial— they give fresh heat to the spiritual
impulse from which they proceed.

If, then, our -Blessed Lord came to save us, as He
undoubtedly did, and if the service of God and obedi
ence to God's holy law are of such supreme importance
to our spiritual well-being, it is quite certain that His
coming must have had an important bearing upon our
service. In other words, Christian service of God must
be, to some degree at least, a different thing and an
easier thing than service would have been had not
Christ come.

The first remark which will occur to everyone is,
that the very revelation of God's nearness to us and of
His love, which He has made in the Incarnation,
attracts man's heart to obey Him and makes service
easier. There are one or two among the Psalms of
David which recount at great length the mercies and
benefits of God to His chosen people. Psalms Ixxvii.
and civ. are of this kind, written in the time of
David himself, if not earlier. Their object is, to rouse
the people to remember God and to serve Him by the
thought of His benefits and His tender mercies : ' that
they may put their hope in God ... and may seek
His commandments. That they may not become like
their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation/1
' that they might observe His justifications and seek
after His law/ 2 Nothing can exceed the fervour and
tenderness with which the Psalmist dwells upon the
i Pa. Ixxvii. 7, 8. £ Ps. civ. 45.

334 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

marvellous works of the God of Israel : ' Sing to Him,
yea, sing praises to Him ; relate all His wondrous works.
. . . Seek ye the Lord and be strengthened, seek His
face for evermore. ... He is the Lord our God, His
judgments are in all the earth.'3 And then the stirring
record of the olden time is unrolled, and the great
names of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, of
Canaan, of Egypt, of Sinai and of the Wilderness, are
poured forth in Lyric phrase to kindle the hearts of
those who heard. But the God Who did all this to
bind His people to Himself has done things far more
marvellous since then. Compare with these Psalms of
the Old Testament the opening words of the Canticle
of the last of the Prophets — I mean of the patriarch
St. Zachary, given at the beginning of the Gospel of
St. Luke. ' Blessed be the Lord God of Israel '—why ?
' Because He hath visited and wrought the redemption
of His people/ The call of Abraham, the blessing of
Jacob, the story of Joseph, the Eed Sea, and the Land
of Promise — all these are but figures of some ' better
thing/ which has been vouchsafed to us. Can anyone
forget the Lord that was crucified ? Can anyone refuse
to obey the Babe of Bethlehem? Can we shut our ears
to the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount ? What is
Pharoah and his yoke in comparison with sin and the
demon ? What were the wonders of Egypt to the
mighty cry of Jesus when He said, ' It is finished ! ' and
the darkness vanished for ever? The black rocks of the
desert and the forty years' wandering are less terrible
than to grope and stumble through our mortal life with-
* Ps. civ. 2, 4, 1

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 335

j>ut the guidance of our Lord and Master; and the
Promised Land, which Moses was forbidden to enter
and only looked on from afar, was but a shadow of that
life and vision and peace which our Saviour has con
quered for all of us by His precious blood. For He
came, as the father of the Baptist said, that, ' being de
livered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve
Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him
all our days/4 What a Psalm would David have to
write now, if he lived in these days, to celebrate the
Life and Passion of that Saviour Whom He so clearly
foretold ! Or rather, what hymns and songs of praise,
as fervent as the Psalms of old, have been written in
all ages by the Christian saints, and are even now a
part of the Church's liturgy and of the people's prayer,
celebrating day by day the benefits of Christ our Lord,
and the gratitude and obedience we owe Him Who hath
done so much for us. The Advent Vespers are over in
most churches by this hour to-night ; but the Church's
children have been singing the "Conditor alme siderum,"
the Advent Vespers Hymn.

Bright Maker of the starry poles,
Eternal Light of faithful souls,
Christ, our Saviour, oh ! espouse
Our cause and hear our humble vows.

Who, that Thou mightst our ransom pay,
And wash the stains of sin away,
Wouldst from a Virgin's womb proceed,
And on the cross a victim bleed J

* St, Luke i. 7^

336 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

Whose glorious power, Whose saving Name*
No sooner any voice can frame,
But heaven and earth and hell agree,
To honour them with trembling knee.

So sings the Church in Advent; and so, adapting her
lyre to the circling seasons, she sings as the year goes
round.

But there is much more than this to be said of the
service and the obedience which the Christian — that is,
the true follower of Christ— ought to pay, and can pay,
to his Maker and his Father. Love and gratitude are
strong motive powers. They will often move men to
do even heroic things for those whom they gratefully
love. But there is this difference between the service
of God and the return of gratitude to man, that whereas
our gratitude may, and probably does, really confer a
benefit upon our fellow-men, we can give nothing to
God which He has not already. When we render loving
service to our friend, our heart expands with a glow of
affection ; or at least we have the satisfaction of seeing
that he is pleased and benefited ; and in either case our
trouble is more than half repaid. But we serve God
for our own good, and not for His advantage. Our
service of Him, moreover, is something that we do to
ourself. We offer Him our heart, our hands, our
tongue, our whole being ; but our offering, our service,
consists, in a great measure, in purifying, restraining,
directing, and ennobling our being and its faculties.
Our service of God is not, therefore, a simple act of
gratitude, a single burst of enthusiasm, aa isolated
impulse of generosity. It is rather a living up to rule,
a continuous discipline, a training, a schooling, a syste-

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 337

matic plan of life. To serve God we have to be
moved, it is true, by impulses of love, and, if possible,
of enthusiasm ; but we also want a rule to follow. To
learn our lesson of living is not an easy thing, although
the means are not wanting ; but to learn it and also to
live up to it is more difficult still.

Here, then, was matter for the wisdom of the All-
Wise ; to plan a salvation which should supply weak
and erring man, not only with a rule of life, but with a
force that should make him learn it and keep it.

It is well known that there is one way of teaching
a rule of conduct which is often successful when all
other means fail. That way is the way of Imitation.
The teacher of children does not, at first, say many
words to the infant, or give it long rules or explanations.
He shows it a picture, or he uses gesture, or he tells a
story ; and the infant mind drinks in rules and prin
ciples by concrete examples. In the most important
matters, the human race are only children to the end. If
they can see a thing done, that thing looks easier. If
a good man passes by, they mark what they must do to
be good. If saints and heroes draw the eyes of men
upon them, then men are struck with what is done, and
from the dazzling actions of sanctity and heroism they
take in, more by feeling than by reasoning, the laws
and principles which make saints and heroes. It is
precisely this marvellous force and attraction of Imita
tion that the Incarnation has brought to bear upon the
heart of man ; but in a way which only divine Wisdom
could ever have found out, and nothing but divine Love
have carried through.

338 JESUS CHKIST AND HOLINESS.

We may here remark, as in substance we have
remarked before, that for men to be able to imitate God
Almighty is a marvel which no wise man of this world
could ever have predicted. It is another of the conse
quences of the union in one Person of the divine and
human nature. This Person — this Lord and Saviour,
Who was born of a woman yet reigned from ages of
ages, Who obeyed yet was the Omnipotent, and Who
died yet is the ever-living life — has taken His place
among men. He has taken human infirmities (without
sin), felt human troubles, battled with human difficulties,
exercised human virtues with His human heart and soul
The very things which His people and flock have to do
in order to be saved, these He Himself has set Himseli
to do. In His life He exercised worship and prayer ;
He lived as a child with parents ; He lived as a man
with neighbours ; He helped the poor ; He worked for
His bread ; He suffered for righteousness. Greater
things than these He also did ; but His more wondrous
works did not take Him out of the rank of real men,
or make His human nature a sham or His human
actions a delusion. He really felt pain ; He really
obeyed ; He really humbled Himself ; He was really
kind to others ; He really and truly prayed. Were
there any room in Christian faith for suspecting that
His human actions were not real, the power of His
example would wither away. When the angel Raphael
accompanied the Hebrew youth in human form, he only
seemed to be a man ; he seemed * to eat and drink ; ' but
his body was a phantasm, a shape ruled and directed by
the angelic spirit. But Christ, besides that He was Goa,

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 339

had, and has, a body and a soul ; He is true man. Vv hat
is the reason of that curious sympathy which moves the
heart of man to imitate the noble and the good ? It is
very difficult to analyse; but it certainly exists, and it
can be described. Example, alas ! can attract to evil as
well as to good But evil is not hard and difficult like
good; and yet our poor weak hearts, when they see good
example, are warmed and moved, as if some secret fibre
of their own nature were touched. Good example is
made up of two elements — the sight of what is good and
the sight of a living person who is doing good. Man's
soul, if you give it fair play, thrills at the sight of what
is beautiful, true, and good ; and man's heart, if it be
not a degraded heart, thrills at the sight of the living,
palpitating efforts of another heart to be good and to do
good. We cannot explain it; it is the way we are made.
But when the Incarnate Word is the example, then the
sympathy of our natures must necessarily rise high and
strong, like some great earthly tide which all the in
fluences of the heavens have combined to draw to its
height. That eternal love which could not rest patiently
in the inaccessible eternities, but found its way amongst
men; that love which has made the Infinite our brother,
our shepherd, and our comforter; that love which came
to seek on earth that 'jewelled robe ' of suffering which
it could not find in the heavens ; that unspeakable love
walks the narrow human road, carrying the knapsack
of human concerns, its hands grasping the staff of
a man, its feet, wounded by the stones of life, its face
set to the object and goal of human existence. See
Him go by ! Thank God, He is familiar to us. We

340 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

are urged and moved to try to be even as He is.
We say, in the secret hours of our prayer and our
thought : ' He is meek and gentle ; would that I could
crush and keep down my pride and my passion ! He
is poor, having no house for His head, often without
food and without money ; my own greed, and my cove-
tousness and my ceaseless solicitude — how they separate
me from Him ! He is kind and sweet and merciful
spending Himself on others ; I will try to be considerate,
and kind ; to help to save souls and to cherish the poor
and the helpless. His life is a life of hard labour,
willingly taken up, unshrinkingly carried through ; as
long as I seek ease and sensuality, I am no soldier of
His ! He loves suffering ; I, perhaps, cannot even
understand why He does so ; but oh ! how unlike Him
as He passes by with His Cross and Crown of Thorns,
how unlike Him am I who dread to suffer and who spend
my life in trying to avoid it !' Reasonings like this prove
more to the Christian heart than volumes of argument
and advice. To be in sin, and to feel, when one reads of
Jesus or hears Him spoken of as the festivals come
round — to feel that we are strangers to Him, are
utterly unlike Him, and have no part or lot with Him
— surely, even hard hearts must be disturbed at this !
To learn of Him, because He is meek and humble of
heart, to come after Him, to take up our cross and follow
Him — this must be sweet, this must be life and light
and consolation to every heart which has learnt or tasted
Who He is — that Christ Whose name we beat-

Thus the life of our Blessed Saviour, His deeds, His
words and His sufferings, continually attract Christiana

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 341

to a life of obedience, of purity, and of worship in a

word, to the service of God and the keeping of all God's
commandments. But there is still something more.

It is a precept of the Lord that we should be ' perfect',
even as our Heavenly Father is perfect.5 In all ages
and countries men have sighed after the ' perfect ' life.
For a man has to choose and discriminate between end
and end, between means and means. A tree grows
according to its nature and its surroundings ; a beast
follows its natural instincts, and does not judge or make
rational choice. But men must choose ; and a bad
choice makes a bad man, a good choice a good man.
But what to choose ? What to aim at ? What path to
take ? What life to lead ? These questions are, no
doubt, partly answered by reason, and wholly by reve
lation. We know quite well what we are made fop
Whom we must serve, and what we must do to serve
Him. But it is only Christians who know what the
'perfect' life is, only those who really understand
Christ's example, it is only those who fully comprehend
how to make the very most out of the complex actions
and decisions which make up the career of a human life.
There is no such thing as absolute perfection in the
life of any merely human person. When we are
commanded to be ' perfect ' it is meant that we must
be comparatively perfect— less imperfect. The word
' perfect/ as used by our Divine Lord, is the same word
that we meet with so frequently in the Old Testament
—where the chosen people are called upon to give to
God 'a perfect heart;'6 where the heart of Asa is said to

6 Matthew v. 48. « Par. xv. 17,

342 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

be perfect, whilst Amasias7 is said to have done what
was good, yet not with a ' perfect heart/ The word
suggests a certain unreserved service, a zeal, a complete
ness, the result of which differs so widely from merely
ordinary goodness, that it may he without exaggeration
called ' perfection.' Now what is a man's perfection ?
Undoubtedly, it is hest expressed in our Lord's own
words ; it is, to love the Lord our God with our whole
heart and mind and strength. Other things are
included in it Just as the mixture of many elements and
the power of fire go to the making of the well-tempered
blade of the sword, or the marvellous strength of the
death-bearing cannon. To give the whole heart, then,
to God is perfection. It is the perfection, as it is the
duty, of all, without exception. There is not one per
fection for priests and another for the laity, one for
monks and nuns and another for worldly people ;
all are bound to give their whole heart to God ; and
the more fervently, completely, and constantly this is
done, the greater is the perfection of the Christian heart.
But what is it that interferes with our thus giving the
whole heart to God ? What is it that turns the heart
away, interrupts its love, diminishes its fervour? The
answer is plain. Our surroundings. The things, occur
rences, places, people, round about us. In other words,
what the spiritual books call Creatures ; or, in other
words again, the different classes of things summed up
in the names of money, honour, and pleasure. To keep
these troublesome things at a distance, then, would be
to give our love of God a chance of being perfect ; just
' 2 Par xxv. 2.

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 343

as a wall built round a fortress keeps the enemy outside,
and, though not impregnable itself, gives the defenders
time to meet the assaults of the foe. To keep away
money or the love of money, to keep away esteem and
honour, to keep away sensuality and pleasure, is to
ensure a certain degree of perfection ; and to keep them
away systematically, by rule, and for a long time, is to
go a long way towards making our life continuously and
systematically perfect.

I ask you now to look at the life of our Lord and
Saviour. We must take for granted that He knew
what kind of life it is that is best adapted to make
a man's life perfect. What, then, do we find to be the
character of His life? I can sum it up in four
words : poverty, obscurity, obedience, suffering. Observe
that He deliberately chose it so. He might con
ceivably have come among us as a great king, rich
beyond all dreams, mighty and honoured, visibly
glorious and blessed as He is now in the heavens. He
had a work to do, viz., to convert the world, which, had
we been consulted, we should unanimously have asserted
would have been best promoted by wealth and power.
But with this before Him as His purpose, and knowing,
as He did, what was the very best means He could
adopt, He chose poverty, obscurity, obedience, and
suffering. He chose them to receive Him into the
world, as courtiers receive their sovereign. He chose
them as the pillars of that humble house of Nazareth
where He spent nearly thirty of His precious years
He chose them to lead Him to Jerusalem and to conduct
Him to Calvarv : and when He died and these His four

344 JESUS CHBIST AND HOLINESS.

faithful companions separated at the foot of the Cross,
they went into the wide world and they have carried
Christ's name upon them ever since.

Now you will see what I mean by the Imitation
of Christ. No Christian is a real Christian who does
not acknowledge that poverty, contempt, and suffering
are the BEST. It is net enough to say that we must be
resigned to what God sends us; we must also confess
that they are the means of perfection, which a true-
minded Christian would not only tolerate, but choose ;
choose, because they are the best means to intensify the
love of our hearts for God. In the Church, this tradi
tion has always been kept up. Voluntary poverty has
always been practised by many and esteemed by all.
Self-denial in many lawful pleasures has been looked
upon as most meritorious. Self-inflicted suffering has
been enthusiastically chosen, as a stimulus to love, by
all who have been devoted to the service of God. The
existence of religious orders, with fixed and stable vows
which prevent them from possessing or enjoying, which
bind them to celibacy and to obedience, is a proof of
that Christian instinct which urges the Christian heart
to erect around itself a barrier against the temptations
that surround it. This ideal of the perfect life may
have been realised fully by few; it is certain that it has
influenced tens of thousands so to strive after it that
they have been drawn nearer to God, and that their
human lives have a right to be called, in a certain true
and real sense, perfect lives. It is certain, also, that,
like a beacon which shines out over the stormy ocean,
this ideal of the perfect life has guided many a man

JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS. 345

and woman who have never reached it ; has made them
correct and check their hearts, withdraw themselves
from too great an affection to the world, and sigh with
a feeling that purified them and elevated them, after a
perfection they were not strong enough or brave enough
to acquire. The history of the Saints, the story of the
desert and the cloister, of those who have given up
innocent pleasure and sought out unnecessary pain, has
made the whole world more pure and more sweet, as the
ocean storms purify the valleys of the inland. And
never was there a time when such an ideal was more
required than now. Refinement, luxury, selfishness
even in doing good — these are the plagues of the world
wherever the world has the means. Purity of heart
strictness of thought, carefulness as tc personal sin —
where are these to be found ? External respectability,
the keeping of the law, are, it would seem, all that many
men aim at ; wherever it is possible they are soft, self-
indulgent, and careless of personal sin. And as long as
we have forms of Christianity which deny the ideal of
the perfect life, which mock at voluntary poverty,
which contemn voluntary chastity and obedience, and
which ignore altogether the ascetical life, we shall have
a sort of service of God which is maimed and imperfect;
people worshipping God with the lips, but their hearts
far from Him.

Let our conclusion then be that the Imitation of
Christ is part of the purpose of the Incarnation ; and
that those are blind who do not see that Poverty,
Obscurity, Obedience, and voluntary Suffering are
written all over the Gospel record. The Christianity to

346 JESUS CHRIST AND HOLINESS.

which Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience are dead virtues
is a dead Christianity. To be living Christians we must
be imitators of Christ, with the Apostles, the Martyrs,
and the Saints.

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