THE
LOVE AND WISDOM
OF GOD
BEING A COLLECTION OF SERMONS
9.
K
EDWARD KING, D.D.
SOMETIME BISHOP OF LINCOLN
EDITED BY
B. W. RANDOLPH, D.D.
CANON OF ELY, AND PRINCIPAL OF ELY THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
igiO
X
/33
141405
MAY 1 9 1993
INTRODUCTION.
HT^HE sermons comprised in this volume were almost
entirely collected with a view to publication by the
Rev. H. T. Morgan (formerly Vicar of St. Peter and St.
Margaret, Lincoln), whom Dr. King had appointed as co-
executor with the present writer in regard to his literary
affairs. Mr. Morgan died on July 8th of this year, before
his arrangements with the Publishers could be completed.
It therefore devolved upon the surviving executor to carry
out his intention of printing a volume of the Bishop's
sermons.
The selection comprises various specimens of the late
Bishop's preaching ; there are five University sermons, all
preached at Oxford ; these are followed by five sermons
preached at Christ Church in his turn as Canon, including
his farewell sermon, which was delivered exactly a quarter
of a century before he died l ; then come three sermons
preached on special occasions at Oxford. These again are
followed by five sermons preached in Lincoln Cathedral ;
while the last twelve are a miscellaneous collection of ser
mons and addresses which include such different discourses
as a sermon at the Consecration of a new church, a paper
on Prayer read at the Nottingham Church Congress in
1 897, an Ordination sermon preached in the Bishop's
J On March 8th, 1885. He died on March 8th, 1910.
vi INTRODUCTION
Cuddesdon days, a sermon to Men only, a Missionary
sermon at St. Paul's, a School sermon, two Memorial ser
mons, Addresses given at a Quiet Day for Bishops during
the Lambeth Conference of 1897, a paper on clerical
study, and a sermon preached at the Festival of Lincoln
Theological College in 1888.
It is always a very different thing to read a sermon and
to hear one. This is specially true in the case of a preacher
like the late Bishop of Lincoln. His gracious and inspiring
presence, his appealing voice, his intensely sympathetic in
tonation, cannot be produced on the printed page, and
much, very much, is consequently lost. Those who knew
him best will agree that it seemed comparatively to matter
very little what he said ; it was his presence and his way of
saying what he had to say which seemed all-important ; the
magnetic attraction of his presence was in itself more than
half the sermon. It follows, therefore, that a volume of
his printed sermons can only suggest in a very attenuated
way the real effect of the preacher.
It was, however, thought worth while that his method
of preaching and teaching should not be altogether lost to a
younger generation, and the only way of securing this (with
whatever inevitable drawbacks) was to publish a volume
like the present.
They will at least show that the Bishop's mind was
continually at work as well as his heart ; he was a real
thinker, and used to take great pains in preparing his ser
mons, sometimes beginning them quite early in the morn
ing between four and five o'clock while he was still in bed.
In earlier years he wrote but little, and preached gener
ally from notes ; but latterly, as he found his memory less
reliable, and to avoid the strain of speaking extempore, his
practice was to write almost everything.
INTRODUCTION vii
Probably he was at his best among simple agricultural
people, as those who heard his Confirmation addresses will
easily understand ; for at such times he was audacious in
the simplicity of his illustrations, and indefatigable in re
peating them again and again until the dullest ploughboy
could not fail to understand what he was saying.
But his powers in the pulpit were in truth very versa
tile. He could speak to the mechanical engineers in
Lincoln Cathedral so that one of his hearers afterwards
said that he seemed more than any preacher he had heard
to enter into the mechanician's point of view. The sermon
at the opening of the new library at Keble College (one
of his earlier Oxford efforts) is a striking reminder of how
completely he understood what is meant by education and
educational methods ; while his sermon at the 4<DOth anni
versary of the foundation of Brasenose College (June,
1909) the last he ever preached in Oxford shows little
or no trace of any abatement of power. To continue to
be a teacher a man must read, and his paper read to the
Grantham Clerical Society will show how truly he was a
student to the end of his life.
There is no need to speak of his spiritual power.
Every sermon is an illustration of it, the note of deep
spirituality runs through them. The love of God, the
love of man, the need of humility and gentleness, the
power of sacramental grace, the reality of the unseen world
and of the life everlasting all this was the atmosphere in
which he habitually lived.
B. W. RANDOLPH,
THE ALMONRY, ELY.
Feast of St. Martin, 1910.
CONTENTS.
I.
UNIVERSITY SERMONS.
PAGE
I. THE CALL OF SAMUEL . . . . . . 3
"Speak, Lord ; for Thy servant heareth." i SAM.
in. 9.
II. THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA . . . .' . . 20
" / will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and
of a good courage." JOSH. I. 5, 6.
III. THE PROMISE TO JACOB . . . . -35
"Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all
places whither thou goest, and will bring thee
again into this land ; for I will not leave thee,
until I have done that which I have spoken to
thee of." GEN. xxvm. 15.
IV. LOVE AND OBEDIENCE , * . . . . .50
" Shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
Me, and keep My commandments" EXOD.
xx. 6.
V. ALONE, YET NOT ALONE . . . . . .68
" / am a stranger upon earth : O hide not Thy com
mandments from me." PSALM cxix. 19.
VI. THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD . . 83
" When He is come, He will reprove the world. 1 '
ST. JOHN xvi. 8.
CONTENTS
II.
CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS.
PAGE
I. SECRET FAULTS 97
" Who can tell how oft he offendeth 1 O cleanse
Thou me from my secret faults. " PSALM xix.
!3-
II. WHO is MY NEIGHBOUR? 105
" Who is my neighbour?" ST. LUKE x. 29.
III. SIN OVER-RULED . . .., . . 113
" Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with your
selves, that ye sold me hither : for God did send
me before you to preserve life. 1 ' GEN. XLV. 5.
IV. GOD'S COMMANDMENTS . . . . . .121
' l His commandments are not grievous." i JOHN v. 3.
V. FAREWELL SERMON . , . .. . . . 132
" 1 'will not leave thee, until I have done that which
I have spoken to thee of." GEN. XXVIH. 15.
III.
OXFORD SERMONS.
(MISCELLANEOUS.)
I. SEPTUAGESIMA . . 143
" In God have I put my trust : 1 will not fear what
man can do unto me" PSALM LVI. n.
II. KEBLE COLLEGE . . . . . . .155
"None of us liveth to himself." ROM. xiv. 7.
III. BRASENOSE COLLEGE . . . . . . .170
" What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt
know hereafter." ST. JOHN XIIL 7.
CONTENTS xi
IV.
LINCOLN SERMONS.
PAGE
I. THE SAINTLY LIFE . . . . . . .179
" Ye that fulfil His commandments and hearken unto
the voice of His words" PSALM cm. 20.
II. RAILWAY MEN . . 186
" Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ." EPH. iv. 13.
III. EASTER DAY . 193
" Yet thou shalt see the land before thee." DEUT.
xxxn. 52.
IV. EASTER DAY . . . 20
" Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, un-
moveable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord) forasmuch as ye know that your labour is
not in vain in the Lord." i COR. xv. 58.
V. MAN, GOD'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH . . . .206
" What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? and the
son of man that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest
him lower than the angels, to crown him with
glory and worship. Thou makest him to have
dominion of the works of Thy hands ; and Thou
hast put all things in subjection under his feet."
PSALM vm. 4-6.
V.
MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS.
I. THE CONSECRATION OF ST. AIDAN'S, CLEETHORPES . 215
" New wine must be put into new bottles; and both
are preserved." ST. LUKE v. 38.
II. PRAYER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL LIFE AND HOLINESS 221
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
III. ORDINATION 230
" Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and
ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth
fruit, and that your fruit should remain." ST.
JOHN xv. 1 6.
IV. COMFORT IN TEMPTATION 242
" I have heard of Thee, by the hearing of the ear, but
now mine eye seeth Thee ; wherefore I abhor
myself, and repent in dust and ashes" JOB
XLII. 5, 6.
V. Is IT WORTH WHILE ? ... 2 53
" And He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.
But rise, and stand upon thy feet : for I have
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee
a minister and a witness both of these things
which thou hast seen, and of those things in the
which I will appear unto thee ; delivering thee
from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto
whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to
turn them from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan unto God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them
which are sanctified by faith that is in Me"
ACTS xxvi. 15-18.
VI. THE FATHER'S BUSINESS 266
" Wist ye not that 1 must be about My Father's busi
ness ? " ST. LUKE n. 49.
VII. THE GENTLENESS OF GOD . . . . . -277
" Thy gentleness hath made me great." PSALM XVHI.
36. (Bible Version.)
VIII. IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE . . . . . .285
" These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the
other undone." ST. MATT. xxm. 23.
CONTENTS. xiii
PAGE
IX. POOR CLERGY RELIEF 294
" I see that all things come to an end : but Thy com
mandment is exceeding broad." PSALM cxix. 96.
X. ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH ...... 304
" Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee . . . /
will not leave thee, until I have done that which
I have spoken to thee of" GEN. xxvni. 15.
XI. A GOOD LAYMAN . 328
" Now I have prepared with all my might for the
house of my God" i CHRON. xxix. 2.
XII. CLERICAL STUDY ... . . . . . 336
I.
UNIVERSITY SERMONS.
V
THE CALL OF SAMUEL
"Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth" i SAM. in. 9.
r I "HE first days of October Term are often of life-long
importance to many who meet in this place. To
some they are the time for availing themselves of oppor
tunities hitherto too little regarded, the time for putting
in practice resolutions formed in the leisure and quiet of
vacation, the time for refusing to renew acquaintances
which cannot lead to lasting and valued friendships, the
time for checking old habits of indolence and self-in
dulgence which a few months of home-life have shown
plainly to be selfish and the cause of more serious anxiety
than was supposed the time, in short, for a fresh start,
the time for putting away more and more childish things,
and thinking more seriously of the work of life.
And to others it is altogether the entering upon a new
world a world, indeed, of which they have often heard
and often thought, about which they have had many
warnings, many fears and hopes, and in which the home-
life that is hardly left is still probably the greatest pro
tection from wrong, and the most present inducement
to do well. For all it is a serious time.
Many a man's after-life is more deeply affected than
1 Preached before the University of Oxford, in the Church of St.
Mary-the- Virgin, on Sunday, 19 October, 1879.
4 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
at first appears by his University career : it is not merely
the great difference of obtaining University distinction
and consequent provision for the outward circumstances
of life, but there is a whole inner world of higher life
which may be in those few years most seriously damaged ;
and though, please God, in after years the wounds in
flicted here may be healed, yet too often the scars remain,
and there is a loss, an irreparable loss at least for many
years, of most precious gifts the gifts of true confidence,
trustfulness in the truth, of gentleness, calmness, evenness,
love, joy, peace, and all those higher gifts which belong
to unbroken lives, and which dislocated lives, however
forcible in their way, seldom possess. Among the aids
to a higher life, perhaps few are more attractive and more
influential, especially to the young, than the biographies
of great and good men. In such writings the greatness
and goodness is not presented to us in mere abstract
terms, but all is connected with a person, and personality
is after all the true object of love, and love after all is
the great power in man. In the faithful record of human
greatness there is, too, an admixture of weakness and
effort, which brings the greatest somewhat nearer to our
own experience the patience, the frequent disappoint
ment, the honest labour, the anxiety, the unsatisfactori-
ness, of mere worldly success, the simplicity of the sources
of real happiness : all this, and far more, the biographies
of great men make known to us, and draw us as " with
cords of a man " l to follow in the same path.
Great men are not merely the children of their age,
the necessary outcome of the circumstances of their day.
True, the circumstances of our lives have an alarming
power over our very selves : true, of late years we have
learnt much of the priceless value of hereditary morality.
The newly-converted savage has not the powers which
1 Hos. xi. 4.
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 5
the descendants of civilized and moral men ought to and
may have. The neophyte must still be received with
care. Yet for all this, in great men we see something
more than the necessary result of the time, and place, and
circumstances in which they live in man we touch some
thing higher than the mere outcome of physical law. We
need to beware lest in this day of increased discovery of
the marvels of the world around us, of the beauties and
wonders with which this palace of a world is adorned, lest
after all we turn the palace into a prison-house, and leave
man not the king and priest of nature, but its prisoner and
slave.
It has been well said, " that according to the reading of
the world's story which (some) writers favour, the men
who appear to us to have shaped their own time, and in it
the times which came after, did but represent, embody,
and bring to a head the tendencies of their age ; which
would have been inevitably done by some other if they
had left it undone. These tendencies, in fact, are every
thing in their sight, the men are nothing. There is a cer
tain air of philosophy, a show of wisdom, in such an
explanation ... it is welcome to small men by an assur
ance which it seems to give that great men do not really
contribute to form and fashion the world any more than
themselves ; that there are none really great after all ;
that men do not mould events, but events men." 1 The
life with which the words of my text are connected, is not
indeed the greatest known to man, nor indeed should we
choose it as being more useful than many others for our
consideration ; yet the life of Samuel was an important link
in the chain of God's dealings with His people, and in some
respects may have especial lessons for us to-day, speaking
to those who are beginning, or re-beginning, the final pre
paration for their life's work.
1 " Gustavus Adolphus," Archbishop Trench, p. i .
6 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
The life of Samuel was great, regarding him as the
instrument which God chose for changing the civil polity
of His chosen people to Samuel was intrusted the in
auguration of the kingdom of Israel. The change was no
slight one. Changes in the polity of any people cannot
be contemplated without anxiety and risk to those who
make them ; in the case of Israel, the risk was peculiar.
The desire for an earthly king was an insult to the Lord.
The thing displeased Samuel when it was proposed ; never
theless he rose above the apparent difficulties of his work.
His trust in God was greater than in the means which
hitherto had been employed, and at the Lord's command
he gave the people their request ; and not only in the
civil polity of the Jews does Samuel mark an epoch, but in
their religious polity also ; Samuel stands at the head of
the great succession of prophets whom God sent to His
people. St. Peter plainly gives Samuel this position,
when he says, " Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel
and those that follow after"; 1 and greater still perhaps
was Samuel in the real history of the world as God and
angels see it, for he was the man called by God to anoint
David the king, the type of the Son of David, the Messiah.
We have then in Samuel, if not the greatest character we
could select, at least the character of one who stands out
among men with a prominence which may reasonably
arrest our attention.
First, then, I desire to call your attention to the re
corded fact, that this great character comes before us in
connexion with the dedication of the child by his parents.
We all know the story the solitude of Hannah, the pro
vocations of her adversary, the unspiritual suspicion of
the priest, her perseverance in the bitterness of her soul,
her prayers, her tears, her vow : " O Lord of hosts, if Thou
wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thine handmaid, and
1 Acts in. 24.
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 7
remember me, and not forget Thine handmaid, but will
give unto Thine handmaid a man child, then I will give
him unto the Lord all the days of his life " ; l and we know
how the Lord at last heard her prayer, and how in due
time Hannah went again to Shiloh, and took the child
with her, and brought the child to Eli ; and standing on
the very spot, as it would seem, where she had stood be
fore, poured forth her gratitude, and said : " Oh my lord,
as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by
thee here, praying unto the Lord for this child I prayed ;
and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked
of Him : therefore also I have lent him (or returned
him) to the Lord ; as long as he liveth he shall be lent
(or returned) to the Lord ". 2 What the future of the child
was to be the mother was not told, how great he would
become in the religious and civil history of her people
she did not know ; to her the gift was absolute and made
in faith ; her own comfort, her mother's pride, the revenge
upon her adversary, all this she sacrificed, and gave him
to the Lord. My brethren, is there not something here
written for our learning which we have not fully learnt ?
We see in Samuel the judge, the founder, it may be, of the
school of the prophets, a man who in his day was great, a
leader of thought, the benefactor of his nation, a character
which men might well wish to imitate, and whose greatness
parents might well envy for their sons. But will parents
do all they can to lend (return) their children to the Lord ?
If great men avail themselves of the tendencies of their day,
and raise their own, and help forward the generation that
follows if God is educating humanity, leading it, bringing
it to Himself may we not be keeping back the true pro
gress of our race by failing to place the highest power we
possess in the hands of the Ruler of all, by accepting these
immortal instruments from Him, but failing to give them
1 I Sam. i. n. z Ibid., vv. 26-28.
8 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
back to Him, to work His will as long as He may require
them ?
I know that I am approaching most holy ground, I am
aware that I am speaking of that which I cannot by ex
perience understand ; but I cannot shake it out of my
mind, and I am constrained again to say, Is there not
something here which we have not fully learnt ?
II.
But there is a second point in the record of the
life of Samuel which perhaps more immediately concerns
those whom I am addressing to-day, and that is, his call to
God's service.
How long the child Samuel had been with the priest
at Shiloh when the call of God came to him, we are not
told. It would seem that he was yet but a youth. A tra
dition among the Jews tells us that he was but twelve
years of age. The Bible is full of the history of the calls
of God. They have been made in various ways. To
Abram the simple word was given : " The Lord had said
unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I
shall shew thee 'V At another time the Lord appeared to
the same Abram in a vision. 2 To Jacob the call came in
a dream, and he heard those words which must ever find
a response in the hearts of all who are leaving their homes
for the first time, and setting out on the work of life :
" Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into the
land ; for I will not leave thee till I have done that which
I have spoken to thee of". 3 To Gideon the call was sent
in the appearance of an angel : " The angel of the Lord
appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with
1 Gen. xii. I. 2 Gen. xv. I. 3 Gen. XXTIII. 15.
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 9
thee, thou mighty man of valour 'V To the Prophet
Elisha the call came through the words and symbolical
action of a man of like passions with ourselves ; 2 and to
some of the Apostles by the open manifestation of the In
carnate Son of God Himself: "Jesus findeth Philip, and
saith unto him, Follow Me ". 3 To others the call came
through those whom Jesus had already called. " Philip
findeth Nathanael . . . Philip saith unto him, Come and
see." 4
Thus, the mode of the call has been various, and the
manner in which the call has been received has been various
also. Some have fled from it, as far as we know, never
to return ; like the rich young ruler, who, when called by
the Lord Himself to sell all that he had and follow Him,
" went away sorrowful ". 5 Some have fled from it for a
time, like Jonah, but afterwards repented and went ; many
accept in fear and trembling, overwhelmed with the sense
of their own nothingness, and unable to believe that their
services could be required by the Almighty. Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look upon God, and felt the
apparent hopelessness of a shepherd-slave influencing a
Pharaoh in the administration of his kingdom. "Who
am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should
bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt ? " Gid
eon could not at first reconcile with a Divine call the
apparently forsaken condition of the chosen people in his
own day, when compared with the manifestation of God's
power in days of old. " Oh my lord (he cried), if the
Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us ? and
where be all His miracles which our fathers told us of? " 7
He felt the littleness of his own social position, the apparent
hopelessness of his becoming a saviour in Israel. " Oh my
1 Judges n. iz. 2 I Kings xix. 19, 20. 3 St. John i. 43.
4 St. John i. 45, 46. 6 St. Matt. xix. 22. 6 Exod. in. n.
7 Judges vi. 13.
io UNIVERSITY SERMONS
Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel ? behold my family
is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's
house." l Others, indeed, have been enabled to receive
the call of God with greater calmness and more ready
trust ; it may be that this was a reward of their greater
innocence and simpler faith. Thus the child Samuel,
though at first he knew not the Lord, yet repeated
simply what he was told to say : " Speak, for thy servant
heareth"; 2 and more simple, more trustful still are the
words by which the greatest call that was ever made
to man was answered, " Be it unto me according to Thy
Word ", 3 God still calls men to His service, and the mean
ing of the call is the same as of old, though the manner
of the call is changed. It is " a claim from Almighty
God on the will and choice of man for a free and un
conditional service " ; 4 it means self-surrender, a perfect
readiness for all that may be required ; it may come
in various ways, by sickness, by accident, by the death
of friends, by the punishment in another of the same
sin we ourselves had almost committed ; or more com
monly, and perhaps more surely, by an inward increas
ing conviction, by the slow, yet overruling bearing of
experience, by that many-sided, complex kind of evi
dence which is made up of numberless warnings, en
couragements, unmistakable indications of the Divine
will. The great hindrance to this line of thought is,
with many men, that it seems too good to be true.
They cannot believe that God Almighty can really re
quire their aid in carrying out His great purposes with
mankind, and yet by all who rightly believe in God this
objection must be given up : we know that He employs
the means He has already made ; we know that man is
the crown and glory, the priest and king, of creation ;
1 Judges vi, 15. 2 i Sam. in. io. 3 St. Luke i. 38.
4 " Human Life and its Conditions," R. W. Church, p. 1 74.
THE CALL OF SAMUEL n
we are made to find out and master the forces of this
world, to subdue the earth, and have dominion over the
fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over
every living thing that moveth upon the earth : we are,
indeed, all made in the image and likeness of God, we
are so made that we can have communion with Him,
can walk with Him, can be fellow-workers together with
God. This is true of us all, and many of us from our
childhood have been taught to say, My bounden duty
is to prepare " to do my duty in that state of life unto
which it shall please God to call me " l this is true of
us all. We are all taught to expect to be called by
God. None are too poor, too humble, too little gifted
all are to be fellow-workers with Him.
There are others to whom this difficulty does not pre
sent itself, but they are discouraged by the toil and
drudgery which they find necessary for the work of life.
The lowliness of this labour seems incompatible with
the reality of a Divine call. But such persons must
remember, that God's calls to His service are to be re
ceived with the general scheme of His good will. We
are still to be lords of creation, but not with such ease
as we might have been ; in the sweat of our face we
must eat our bread. No gifts of genius can exempt
from toil ; the Son of God Himself, when in our nature
He dwelt on this earth, was tired and suffered.
God's call will not free us from wearisomeness none
can reach their full efficiency who will live without exer
tion. Effort is bound up in the life we have to live,
nay, it often is so that our chief gifts, the powers which
bring us most distinction, which are used by us with
the greatest ease, are made dependent for their full effi
ciency on the diligent and painful cultivation of powers
in which we shall never excel. With this condition of
1 Prayer Book Catechism.
12 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
labour there is often another, for which men are not
sufficiently prepared, the condition of waiting waiting
in preparation until the chief call of life fully comes.
Life is already a mystery to us even in this world we
know not to what we may be called, what our future
opportunities and responsibilities may be. Moses and
Daniel for many years seemed to be shut out from the
immediate service of God in Egypt and Babylon their
duty was to learn the highest lessons of wisdom and
learning which heathen philosophy could teach them.
They enriched themselves with these treasures. Moses
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Daniel
had skill in all learning and wisdom ten times better
than all the magicians and astrologers in the realm, yet
neither Moses nor Daniel knew to what account all this
learning would be turned. Many weeks, and months,
and years of laborious, painful learning were passed in
exile before they understood the meaning of their lives,
and before they could clearly see how patient learning
in heathen studies was the preparation for their future
call to the direct service of God. The truth is, the sense
of duty which tells us in early life to obey, to take
the task that is set us, to be sensitive and watchful for
the indication of the circumstances of our lives, this
sense of duty, this pressure of the light yoke of early
responsibility, is itself the call of God : not the great
call, which tells us what the chief work of our life is to
be ; but a real call, full of more future value than at the
time appears. Look back even now, my brethren, down
the pathways of your several lives, and see if there have
not been many points already in which God's call has
come to you with a meaning, and a value, which now
you are beginning to understand ; punishments, reproofs
at school, warnings, pleadings, wishes, looks at home,
which at one time seemed of but little value, but which
13
now are seen plainly to have a bearing on your present
position and your future prospects. Probably to most
of us the call which enables us to decide on our life's
work would come with greater clearness, and give us
greater confidence, if we attended more carefully to the
still small voices which come to us in the early days
of our preparation.
III.
There is a third and last circumstance connected with
the life of Samuel to which I desire to direct your atten
tion. The message which Samuel was called to deliver to
the people of his day, he was told plainly, was a message at
which the " ears of every one that heard it should tingle 'V
The message required that at once he should announce to
the aged Eli, the friend and protector of his youth, the
destruction of his family before God ; and later in his
ministry, the message required him to tell the very king
whom he had anointed for the people, that the Lord had
rejected him from being king.
The message which Samuel was called to deliver clearly
implied courage. And this, perhaps, is more commonly
needed than at first we suppose. Men take for granted
they are not cowards, but they do not always reckon on
the high degree of courage which a true life requires. We
may not all be called to deliver a message at which the ears
of all who hear it will tingle, but there is an element of re
proof contained in all messages of the truth, in whatever
line of life they are to be delivered. In all great lives there
is an element of reproof, and also of singularity and of
loneliness, from which men naturally shrink, and which
they require real courage to maintain. Each man has a
work to do, which is his own and not another's. And in
it, in some degree, he must be alone. From One only he
1 1 Sam. in. ii.
I 4 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
need never feel alone ; from Him who called him to the
work he has to do, and with Whom, and in Whom, the
life's work should be done. Here, then, my brethren, is
the one warning with which I will conclude : you have
come to this great University to prepare for your work in
life, you stand here as labourers waiting for the Lord of
the vineyard to call you, and set you the work you have
to do ; the Lord of this vineyard you know very well is
God. Listen to me, my brethren, and hear one solemn
word of warning. Your great danger while you are wait
ing in this place is this that you may lose your belief in
God.
It is not for me nor for any other man to tell you what
kind of service God will require of you. As soldiers or
physicians, as lawyers or priests, it matters comparatively
little in what form of service you serve ; the great question
of all questions is this : that there is a God, and that you
can live and work in conscious union with Him. This is
the real source of unchanging courage, of true confidence,
calmness, peace ; the consciousness that " I am " hath sent
me to do what I am doing. " I am " hath sent me
the source of all being, physical, intellectual, spiritual
" therefore shall I lack nothing ". Without this, when the
first ambition of life is satisfied, when, it may be, you have
obtained your first-classes and your fellowships, then life
will begin to seem to you uncertain, its use and value
doubtful, its end without meaning, and in the midst of the
circumstances which your friends will still speak of with
pride, you will be haunted by that worst of all evils des
pair and this will come from having lost your belief in
God. I do not say this to give you undue alarm ; it is
your greatest danger, but it need not overcome you. God
is faithful, Who will, with the temptation, also make a way
of escape. If you will do that which He will enable you \
to do, then you will find that He is faithful. He will not
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 15
suffer you to be tempted in this, or in any other way, above
that ye are able to bear.
Only be watchful, be careful, remember the principle
of the Divine support is this, " to him that hath shall be
given," to him, that is, who uses what he has this is God's
good pleasure. He helps those who help themselves ; it
is true of your whole being, physical, intellectual, spiritual,
and the Divinely appointed result of the whole man thus
acting in right relations to the circumstances of his life is
this : that he should believe in God.
It is God's own great gift, that He has prepared for us.
Then this will follow. Do not be alarmed because you
cannot give to another a simple proof of this your belief.
Such belief is not the mere product of reason and authority ;
it comes with the right use of reason and right obedience,
it fits in with the highest exercise of reason, and the fullest
harmonies of creation : but it is so intertwined with all
our being, our reason, our moral sense, our affections, our
will, that any proof, which addresses itself only to the
reason, leaves upon us a sense of incompleteness and dis
satisfaction. I am not thinking of objections to The Faith,
but of books on the side of Theism, of apologies for belief :
I thank God, I lay them down one after another with a
feeling of incomplete satisfaction. They may remove the
difficulties which have presented themselves to my reason,
but my belief rests upon something more than that hence
it is that I say to you, be not alarmed, because all that you
are able to say is, "I do believe, but then it is only some
how that I do ; I do not know perfectly, I cannot demon
strate my belief to another ; I do believe myself, but it is
only somehow, I know not fully how ". Just so ! that
only " somehow, I know not fully how," is the Divinely-
intended result of the right working of the complex being
that you are ; you know not fully how your own personal
1 6 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
identity has been continued amidst the ebb and flow of all
the grosser life which makes up the corporeal organization
which accompanies your inner self; you know not fully
how the spark of life you once received was kindled, nor
fully how it has even now become a ray, and will one day,
please God, become a glory yet you go bravely into life,
and trust. Do just the same with reference to your belief
in God. He made the evidence by which it is produced ;
He gives you the power by which the inference is made.
Do not be afraid of its apparent weakness ; enough that it
is His plan, His work, His way ; His strength is often
best known through our weakness.
One word of humble admission which I ought to make.
We Christians, who have been taught more fully than
other nations the true origin and end of our being, by the
additional light of God's Revelation, we know that man is
not now what once he was, what he was intended to be ;
we know that man, by his own fault, fell. This fall has
weakened his powers of belief in God ; it is not God's fault,
but man's, if God seems hard to see. Adam hid from God.
It might have been that man without labour, without pain,
without death, should have lived upon, and subdued, this
earth, and reigned in royal and holy splendour as the priest
and king of God ; but it cannot be so now. Not yet ! in
pain, in labour, in the sweat of our brow, we are to eat our
bread ; in pain, in labour, in undertakings that may involve
death, we men must work with God ; and this labour, this
pain, this sweat upon our brow, holds good when we try to
know God, to believe in Him, to hold to Him as our own.
It is not as easy as it might have been ; but the fault is ours,
not His ; it would not have been so difficult to believe, it
need not have been so, if man had always walked with God.
Yet, thanks be to God, His mercies fail not ; therefore
we are not consumed.
We are not so injured by the fall, but by the aid and
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 17
strength given us we can believe in Him, though often
with fear and pain ; that power which remains, which we
have, is part of God's old plan, according to which He
made man to know, to obey, and love Himself. What
I ask is, that you should trust Him in this, accept what
temptations, trials, labour, pain, He may think fit to give
you in your efforts to believe ; accept it as from a loving
father who chastens the son he loves ; but do not let your
inability fully to explain your belief, or the apparently fragile
powers by which you believe, do not let this cause you
any fear. The cause of the pain, you know, is man's
sin ; the Author of the powers by which you are enabled
to believe, you know, is Almighty God.
I have said that the message which Samuel was called
to deliver required courage. My brethren, we have in
this last half-year been watching, some with intense per
sonal interest, and all with national pride, the conduct of
our fellow-countrymen in the African war. They have
been true to the great name which, as Englishmen, they
bore ; but the honour of our country has not been upheld
without a vast amount of labour, pain, and death. There
is not, I should think, one person here who has not been
touched, during these last few months, by the youthful
faces and simple graves which our weekly pictorial papers
have made familiar to us all. They gave up their homes,
they laboured, they fought, they died, they did their duty,
they did their best, they gave up the pleasures of this
world at an age when life is generally most dear.
Brethren, many of them were not much older than
yourselves, they had their call in life, they followed bravely,
they are gone ; but such a price should not be paid for
nothing ; there ought to be to England, from their deaths,
a fresh flow of high and noble life : their calling they have
completed ; their example should give a new gift of cour
age to the nation. Many, no doubt, will be thrilled with
1 8 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
ardour, and join themselves to that true part of the militant
kingdom, the soldier's life. But whatever our calling may
be, there should be a real communion in the sacrifice which
our fellow-countrymen have offered ; an increase of work,
of endurance, of courage, throughout the national life,
should be part of the reward they have a right to expect.
To-day, my younger brethren, I ask it of you in one definite
form, while you are waiting here, preparing for the service
of your country and your God, I ask you to be brave in
maintaining your belief in God. Do not let the momentary
demands of sciences which are avowedly incomplete, nor
the want of sympathy from those who are busy about other
things, nor the respectful scepticism of the heartless eclectic,
nor the scorn of the intellect that is self-reliant let none
of these attacks from without terrify you, neither let the
apparent weakness of your hold upon God make you afraid.
Lean upon that arm, it will not fail you ; with that firm
support you may safely enter upon whatever calling God
may hereafter send you.
For the sake of Oxford, for the sake of England, for
the sake of the Truth, consider the responsibility before
you. Your danger lies in this : there are those who will
invite you to devote yourselves to education, to culture, to
perfecting your moral and intellectual powers, but for what ?
To give your aid to construct a society in which God is
not indeed denied, but, as far as human thought can do it,
omitted a society which shall stand and flourish whether
there be a God or no. Refuse to lend your lives to such
work as this ; be brave, and act upon your belief in God ;
let not labour, or pain, or death, turn you from the path
of this duty. There is work enough to be done at home
and abroad. You cannot wish to leave humanity as it is.
We look to you for help. What we want is men who are
brave enough to face the enemies of man in God's way, and
in His strength ; men who will have courage enough to deal
THE CALL OF SAMUEL 19
with man as God has told us to deal with him ; men whose
physical, moral, and intellectual powers have been cultivated
to their highest perfection ; men of patient, calm endurance,
unchanged by any suffering, however refined or however
brutal, standing in the whole armour of God, ready for
service as faithful soldiers and servants of Jesus Christ.
20 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
II. 1
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA.
" I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be strong and
of a good courage. " JOSH. i. 5, 6.
TWO thoughts are probably, more or less, in the minds
of most of us here to-day. One, that on this first
Sunday after Trinity we have completed again, by God's
mercy, another cycle of the teaching portion of the Church
year ; Advent and Christmas with the great lessons of the
Incarnation ; Lent and Good Friday with the old story
of the cross and the Atonement, the one full and perfect
sacrifice for the sins of the whole world ; Easter with the
fact and the mystery, the fact of the return again to life of
the Saviour, once crucified, dead, and buried, and the power
of the Resurrection, which St. Paul still prayed that he
might know, years after he had proved the fact ; the As
cension with the return of the Saviour to the love and glory
which He used to have with the Father before the founda
tion of the world ; not making in heaven any addition of
Persons, but the addition of another nature, placing our
human nature at the right hand of God, inseparable from
the one Divine Personality of the Son, an object of cease
less adoration to the Hosts of heaven, clothed in the robe
of His own peculiar glory. Whitsuntide returns with the
gifts for men, even the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Sanc-
tifier of Angels and men, the Guide of the prophets, the
breached before the University of Oxford, 19 June, 1881.
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 21
mysterious Author of the body of Christ, now come to
dwell with men and in men, making each regenerate man
His temple, and indwelling, edifying, perfecting Christ's
mystical body, the one holy Catholic Church. Lastly comes
the festival of the great mystery of Three in One, so far
beyond our injured faculties at present to comprehend, and
yet a mystery which we feel to be necessitated by the
words of Jesus whose goodness makes us sure that He
must be true ; a mystery which seems needed even by our
own experience that God is love, and by our inability to
imagine that love can live alone ; a mystery which already
corresponds to, and comforts, the deepest needs of men ;
the mystery in which we believe hereafter man's heart and
head will find most perfect peace. And the other line of
thought, though more simple, is, in its degree, the same,
viz. that on this Sunday we have also, by God's mercy,
completed another cycle of the teaching of our academical
year, and that in a few weeks or days most of us here to
day will be scattered to different scenes of work and rest,
to reckon up what we have gained in the last six months,
and to consider how it may be most profitably turned to
good account for the unknown future of our lives.
Both these lines of thought should leave us filled with
awe. There is much in both that may easily overwhelm
us with fear. The law of accident so strangely permitted
in a world overruled by an Almighty God, places the
youngest and strongest amongst us within the bounds of
uncertainty as well as the old and weak ; almost every
term, every vacation, the river or the mountains take from
us some for whom when too late we regret we have not
done more. The uncertainty of our lives, the uncertainty
of the lives of those whom we love, affords no unreasonable
ground to the natural man for anxious fear, and yet there
are things more fearful than accident, and bodily disease, or
death ; sickness of soul, misery of mind, shipwreck of the
22 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
faith. " What are we to do," men ask, who are no
cowards, nor wanting in a true estimate of the circum
stances of their life " what are we to do against the ad
vancing tide of what seems to us unfriendly thought, so
impetuous, and yet so steady and so wide ? " There are
reasons, men tell us, for looking forward to the future
with solemn awe ; signs about us which mean something
which we dare scarcely breathe ; the centre of gravity, so
to speak, of religious questions has become altogether
shifted, displaced ; anchors are lifting everywhere, and
men are committing themselves to what they may meet
with on the sea. If at the close of the teaching portion of
the Church's year, and at the end of another period of our
University course, we find ourselves threatened by some
such fears as these, we shall feel grateful for the wisdom of
the Church's counsel with which she prepares us for the
practical carrying out of the truths we have learnt, by
bringing before us in her lessons for the services of this
first Sunday after Trinity a portion of the history of the
life of Joshua, with which the words of my text are con
nected. " I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be strong
and of a good courage."
The leading trait in the character of Joshua as given to
us in Holy Scripture is courage. There are, indeed, other
points of character well worthy of our consideration and
imitation, as the Christian might well expect. The char
acter of Joshua, unlike that of many of God's servants,
stands before us in Holy Scripture without reproach. His
work was the conquest and distribution of the promised
land. In this he showed not only the valour of a warrior,
but the justice, gentleness, forbearance, humility, dis
interestedness of an exemplary ruler, leading his people to
victory, giving to each his inheritance. When they had
made an end of dividing the land for an inheritance by their
coasts, the children of Israel, we read, gave an inheritance to
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 23
Joshua ; he provided for others, and took nothing for
himself ; what he finally had the people gave him. They
gave him the city which he asked for, the rough mountain
track which remained over and above when others were
provided for Timnath Serah in Mount Ephraim. There
probably, when his public work was done, he spent the
remainder of his days in communion with God ; from this
retirement he came forth at the close of his life ; and in
his farewell addresses first to the elders and rulers, and then
to all the tribes assembled together at Shechem, we see the
habitual humility of his character in ascribing all the suc
cesses of his past life to God " for the Lord your God is
He that hath fought for you," " the Lord your God hath
driven out from before you great nations and strong ".
And yet in this his last address, though advanced in years
not long before his death, we see with his humility, his
courage undiminished, he has no wish to lord it over God's
heritage, and to bind them to their faith against their will ;
he tells them their duty, but bids them choose. " Now
therefore, fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and
in truth." " If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord,
choose you this day whom ye will serve." Here is a state
ment of perfect liberty, but of courageous warning ; he
puts the truth of their position plainly before them ; they
were to choose whom they would serve ; he taught them
this important moral truth that if men will not choose to
serve God, they will still be servants, that is, they will be
enslaved by Satan. " We have not the liberty to choose
whether we will serve or no ; all the liberty we have is to
choose our Master," and while he thus courageously leaves
to the people the freedom of their own choice he courage
ously avows before them all his own fixed determination.
" As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." He
was not afraid to give the people their freedom when he
had taught them ; he was not afraid of risking the loss of
24 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
their support by declaring his own mind. There are many
other occasions when his courage as a soldier and ruler
was conspicuous, but there is one occasion on which I will
dwell especially, as affording a valuable lesson to us at the
present time. Joshua was one of the two who alone had
the courage to bring a true report of the promised land ;
the cowardly and false report of the other ten had filled
the children of Israel with fear ; they were on the point of
revolt. " Let us make a captain, they said one to another,
and let us return to Egypt ; " then Moses and Aaron fell
on their faces before the assembly of the congregation, but
Joshua with Caleb stood forth and testified to the children
of Israel : " The land which we passed through, to search it,
is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then
He will bring us into this land, and give it us." Here
is the real lesson of Joshua's character, it is not merely
the example of a soldier's courage, but of intrepidity built
on faith ; he was not afraid of those who were avowedly
God's enemies ; he overthrew the Amalekites and Canaan-
ites ; he was not afraid of the defection and threats of
God's people, not intimidated to withhold his message be
cause other messengers of God feared to tell the truth ;
for forty years his message had no proof ; none of the un
believing and faint-hearted children of Israel were allowed
to enjoy the blessings they had refused to believe in, but
when their punishment was accomplished Joshua, and his
brother in faith and courage, came again to the promised
land, and God gave him the assurance of His support and
presence. " I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Be
strong and of a good courage."
Brethren, these things were written for our learning,
that we might have hope. Loss of hope, despondency, and
then indifference, are distinct forms of temptation to young
Christians in the present day. Too many who should be
the natural leaders of the young to fresh victories, and a
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 25
securer peace, bring back, as it were, an evil report of the
land, and discourage the people. Either they say the land
is altogether unknowable, a land of cloud and mist, there
is no certainty that there is any habitation there, much less
can we tell you the way ; what we have seen fills us only
with fear ; we can know nothing of this land of promise.
Egypt, we do know, life there is real and has some degree
of pleasure, let us choose new leaders and return ; or, if
language is not so plainly for rebellion, they speak of
Christianity as powerless to win the land that may be yet
before the people. Other sciences, they tell us, are ad
vancing, giving new and beneficial results to mankind.
Christian theology has lost its day, is out of fashion, has
done something perhaps, in the past, but is now exhausted.
If there are victories worth the winning for humanity the
cross is too old a weapon, we must look for something new,
something more in accordance with the needs of the times.
It is against this desponding, hopeless, untrue report, that
I desire to warn you, my younger brethren, as one of the
definite temptations of your day.
Christianity has plenty of untrodden ground before her ;
it is not all mist and doubt around us ; we can see already
many points where new victories may be won, and from
which further victories may reasonably be expected. We
have misused Christianity, we have neglected, and often
been untrue to, her first principles, and negligent in using
the powers she has given us. We have, as a nation, as a
University, as individuals, been too often only Christian in
name, and known but little of true Christian life and power,
and now we find ourselves surrounded by men who have
been more diligent than we have been, more persevering,
more brave in the hazard of their lives for the success of
the sciences they pursue, and we see them rightly winning
the due reward of their labours, the joy of discovered truth,
and the admiration and gratitude of men. As Christians,
26 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
we must confess too many of us have rested in an idle
security which has provoked attack ; we have known rightly
that God was with us ; but we have forgotten the law of
His presence and support, " to him that hath shall be given,
and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that
which he hath ". Thus, we may have brought ourselves as
Christians into a condition of suffering and humility. But
these are the conditions in which Christianity thrives best,
look round and see if it is not so.
Our position as Christian teachers is that the Christian
faith corresponds to the highest needs and condition of the
human heart and intellect. The Christian faith is the truth
in which perfected humanity will rest and rejoice through
all eternity ; but is humanity in its most perfect condition
already ? What is the intellectual condition of thousands
of nominal Christians? Is there no untrodden ground?
Is it all mist and doubt around us ? Do we not see, only
too plainly, masses of needless ignorance untrained, un
developed faculties ? Christianity has nothing to fear from
the development and perfection of man ; she comes from
Him who made man, and knows what is in man. It is
true, thanks be to God, in our own land we see the whole
country covered now with schools for the education of the
poor, but how long have they been there? How many
were there one hundred years ago ? We are surrounded
by hereditary ignorance ; we have to do with faculties
that have never been trained. If men are so much the
result of circumstances and so dependent on what they
have received from others as some men think, Christianity
then even in England is surrounded by untrodden ground
full of hope. It is not true that Christianity has been tried
by the masses of the people and found wanting, used, and
exhausted. The masses even of our own countrymen are
not so correctly spoken of as lost to Christianity as un-
reached by it, neither is the rejection, so far as it is re-
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 27
jection, the verdict of disciplined reason, but the sway of
passion. Anyone who studies the popular speeches of the
day and the unprincipled eloquence of many papers will
soon see how far even a rejection by the masses could be
regarded as a verdict from first principles and reason.
If there is uncultivated ground around us in the region
of the intellect, not less so is there in that of morals. It
may be our own fault in a large degree, but the fact
cannot be denied, that we are surrounded by wild tracts of
needless immorality. All ranks of society, in different
ways, must plead guilty here ; nay, we each know it in
our own lives ; we might have been much better than we
are. I do not say that all doubt or unbelief is the result
of sin, but us Christians, most of us have no grounds for
saying that Christianity has failed to give us all the light
it promises, if we consider the conditions of spiritual sight.
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
The thinly varnished paganism of many in the educated
classes, the almost inextricable confusion of commercial
morality, the thoughtless, habitual immoralities of the poor
all this, sad as it is, affords ground of hope for the
faithful Christian, ground of intense attractiveness, full of
possible victories and new and extended powers. Chris
tianity need not be, as some would depict her, sitting dis
consolate on the edge of a worked-out mine, conscious that
her treasures are exhausted, dreaming of suicide. If she
is true to her own principles, and not deluded to adopt the
methods of the world, she may be humbled for a time,
but she ought to be full of courage and of hope. The
world is not in a condition to say that she does not cor
respond to the needs of perfected humanity. And if this
is so of England and of the other lands where Christianity
has nominally held sway if we ought not to give up the
battle because there are numbers who have never been
enlisted in her ranks, and never trained in the use of the
28 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
weapons of her warfare, what shall we say if we look
round over the whole field of humanity and ask for the
verdict of heathen lands ? It is too early to say that
Christianity has failed to satisfy the wants of perfect
humanity, when as yet, also, only one-third of the human
race is Christian even in name. The work of Joshua was
to conquer the whole land. Our Jesus is the one Saviour
for all the world, He is the new head of humanity, not of
England, or of present Christendom only, but of all the
world ; all the aimless self-denial of the Buddhist, all the
Pantheistic yearnings of the Brahmin, all the loveless
theism of the Mohammedan, all the blind groping of the
wild and unlettered savage, will find their real rest and
satisfaction in Him. Thanks be to God that He is awak
ing us out of the selfish and self-destroying forgetfulness
of these millions of our fellow-men. The truth had better
be confessed, we settled down in our Christianity too
quietly, too contentedly, in England, and in Oxford we
had settled down, as it were, on the east side of the Jordan,
forgetful of the true conditions of our rest, that we should
go over armed with our brethren, and not think of the en
joyment of what is really ours until we have helped our
brethren to conquer the land which is for them. Our
troubles are full of hope. Here, brethren, is a field on
which new victories may be won ; here are conditions in
which our science of Christian theology may, by God's
help, show new results which may obtain the admiration
and gratitude of millions of immortal souls. Taken on
her own principle, Christianity, in the present day, may
require special courage, but she has no cause to despond,
as if the range of her labour, and discoveries, and victories
was exhausted. I cannot allude to this field of hope with
out expressing my deep thankfulness to Almighty God for
the high gift of faith and courage by which, in these days
of trial, He has enabled some from our University to take
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 29
bravely the creed and life of Christianity to the most
civilized and the most intellectual of the heathen world,
and to tell them, and to show them, that in Christianity
and Christian liberty they will find the truth and happiness
they have so long striven to obtain. May God enable
some of you, my younger brethren, to see the reasonable
ness of thus defending the Christian faith in Oxford, by
teaching it and living it in India. I have endeavoured
thus far to warn you, my younger brethren, against the
present temptation to despair of Christianity, as though
her future were over, as though her future were less hope
ful than that of other sciences, or less likely to be full
of new victories and blessings for mankind. And I have
desired to point out from the character of Joshua that
what is needed for the full conquest of our heavenly
Canaan is intrepidity built on faith. It has been said,
whether truly or not, that the Church was appointed to
undergo three persecutions, Pagan, Papal, and Infidel ;
and that the third of these which now seems to await her
will be more trying than either of the other two, yet, in
the end, more purifying. Whatever may have been
ordained for us, unquestionably the tendency of the
present age is in a great degree to unbelief. This, in
itself, is nothing new, it has been so, more or less, from
the first it will be so to the end. Yet it is our wisdom
to watch and see in what form the temptation comes. One
common way in which men are led on at last to unbelief
is by the rejection of the principle of media in their relation
to God. It is partly the result of pride and self-reliance,
and forgetfulness of the essential dependence of a creature's
life, but partly also the assertion of rights, once given to
man, of more immediate communion with God ; and an
impatient claiming of such royal and priestly relations as
may yet be his, through God's redeeming love, and for the
enjoyment and exercise of which man feels in himself an
30 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
innate capacity. The truth is, we were created for a better
world than this ; man is made for unveiled communion
with God, and all this life of Sacraments, and Bible, and
worship in times and seasons, with holy persons and holy
places, is in a way merely the discipline necessary in pre
paration for the higher life beyond ; and man's impatience
under the discipline, and his still unsatisfied longings, are
really full of hope, showing that he is a being made for a
life beyond this, where there will be no change of days,
and no temple, for the Lord God and the Lamb are the
temple thereof. St. Augustine looked forward to the time
when he should be free, even from the Divinely appointed
discipline of the Church, free from the use of Sacraments,
free from the need of the Bible, free from the repetition of
the Creed, free from the daily use of portions of the Lord's
Prayer " Forgive us our trespasses," " lead us not into
temptation," " deliver us from evil ". " When we shall
have got to heaven " he tells even the young whom he
was preparing for holy baptism, " when we shall have got
to heaven, shall we hear the codex read, we who shall see
the Word Himself, and hear the Word Himself, and eat
and drink Him as the angels do now ? Do the angels
need books, interpreters, and readers ? Surely not ; they
rest in seeing, for the Truth Himself they see, and are
abundantly satisfied from that fountain from which we
obtain some few drops. When we shall have arrived at
that place where we shall reign, no need will there be there
to say the Creed we shall see God ; God Himself will be
our vision ; the vision of God will be the reward of our
present faith." And yet, if St. Augustine thus claims our
capacity to live without the media, now prescribed, he is
explicit on the need of using the Divinely appointed media
now. " Call thy faith to mind, look into thyself," he
says, " let thy creed be as a mirror to thee ; let it be thy
wealth ; let it be, in a sort, the daily clothing of thy soul ;
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 31
say it every day, when you rise, when you are preparing
for sleep, rehearse your creed to the Lord rehearse it
be not weary of repeating it."
It is a source of anxiety indeed to some that the par
ticular doctrines of the Christian creed appear deduced
from texts of seemingly incidental character and insufficient
for the purpose. It is a true answer, I believe, to such
anxious fears that the doctrines in question are not de
duced from these and such-like passages, but that they are
substantially, if not in form, anterior to them in point of
time ; in a word, that the New Testament is written for
and addressed to Christians ; its readers are presumed to
have been previously instructed in the great truths of which
it speaks, and of which consequently it speaks indirectly
as of things already known and believed. The key which
unlocks the sacred treasures of the inspired volume, giving
force and authority to passages of seemingly unimportant
bearing, is provided by the Creeds and authoritative teach
ing of the Church, the form of sound words of which the
Apostle speaks, and for the due transmission of which our
Lord has provided in the constitution and polity which He
left to His Church, and in His promise to be " with them
always, even unto the end of the world " ; StSa^ and
StaSo^i? were joint watchwords of the early Church. The
tendency to reject the principle of media does not neces
sarily confine itself to the rejection of Sacraments, and the
form of the Creeds, but practically destroys the Bible by
treating it as any other book, and refusing it that reverent
obedience and diligent study to which it is entitled as the
medium of the will of God. Nor does the rejection of
this principle logically stop even here, but the one Mediator
between God and man is regarded as no true Mediator at
all, but a mere human example ; and truthfulness, purity,
manliness, are all that remain, in short, a morality without
any definite creed, or supernatural assistance ; forgetful of
32 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
the truth that " Purity is one of those things which
Christian ideas and influences produced, and which they
alone can save ". I have ventured to speak of grounds
for hope and courage even in connexion with the rejection
of this essential principle of Christianity ; too often no
doubt such rejection is the result of pride and undue self-
reliance, but in the inclination to reject the true position
of our Christian ministry, and to weary under the use of
sacramental teaching, I believe there may often be the
evidence of the existence of higher powers of spiritual life
which one day, if we are faithful in the use of the appointed
means of grace, we shall see when the life which is now
hid with Christ in God shall be made manifest with Christ
in glory.
Let me in conclusion, my younger brethren, remind
you of one other lesson which we may gather from the
life of Joshua ; we see him especially as the conqueror of
the Promised Land, the victorious warrior and man of
courage ; but before the battle of his life began, before it
was given him to lead his brethren in the war, we are told
that it was young Joshua, who was with Moses in the
Mount. This is a true preparation for a brave life ; a
youth spent in communion with God. To be a leader
implies standing out alone, and for solitude there is but
one remedy, the remedy of our Divine Master, " and yet
I am not alone because the Father is with me ". We
dare not go before our brethren unless it be in union with
God. Sin separates from God ; sin takes the heart out of
men, makes them fear to be alone, fear to lead. If you
would be free of all other fear, begin early to fear God ;
accustom yourselves to communion with Him, be with
Him on the mount, speak to Him from your heart in
prayer, listen to Him in His Word, study the revealed
record of His ways ; receive Him in His Sacraments ;
accustom yourselves to meditate on His attributes, His
THE COURAGE OF JOSHUA 33
Almighty power, His ability to save by many or by few ;
His omniscience, that He knows your downsitting and
uprising, that He is about your path and about your bed,
and spies out all your ways, that there is not a word on
your tongue but He knows it altogether, yea, and under
stands your thoughts long before ; meditate upon His
justice, His mercy, His goodness, His wisdom, His love ;
this is the secret of real courage. A youth spent with
God will make you independent of the terrors of the world.
The contemplation of poverty, failure, contempt of the
world and death, should be part of the elementary training
of every true follower of Jesus. It is involved in the
words " take up his cross daily " ; and such contemplation
will give you courage not only to endure the rougher
terrors of the sea or of war, but not to flinch from the
path of duty under the refined scorn of educated men, the
ridicule of uncharitable wit, or the misrepresentation of
the unscrupulous. It is true during your residence in this
place you may have but little time for anything except
your work, but in the weeks that are now coming, in the
rest of vacation, let some time be spent in more definite
and prolonged communion with God ; on the Mount with
Him you will learn His law, and by degrees you will see
what it means and how it is applicable to yourselves and
all mankind, even the love of God and love of man through
the aid of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ. Just
as to Joshua when he began the great work of his life at
the entrance of His work, the Lord revealed Himself as
the Captain of the Lord's host, so whatever may be the
special path which God has prepared for you to walk in,
whatever special difficulties may be before you, the same
Lord will make Himself known to you with a special and
sufficient clearness, assuring you of His loving presence,
guiding you in the difficulties of your duty, and encourag
ing you with words like those addressed to Joshua " I
3
34 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
will be with thee, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Be strong and of a good courage." One additional word.
To-day, while we would speak with hope and courage of
the future, we are especially reminded of the gratitude we
owe to founders and benefactors in the past men who by
their work, or munificence, have conferred blessings on the
University which we inherit. For one, too soon among
the past, I desire, to-day, to offer one humble word of
sincere gratitude. Professor George Rolleston is known
to many as a scholar, and a man of literature, as well as a
scientific man ; for his work, and for his life, many in
this University may well give mournful thanks to God
to-day. But I desire to express my humble thankfulness
over his memory, not merely because he was a scholar,
and a man of literature, and a scientific man, but because
he was equally scientific and devout ; not only because he
studied nature laboriously, honestly, but because he re
garded nature as the Art of God, and recognized among
all its forces the power of prayer. Such lives deserve our
sincerest gratitude. They are the answer to the sneer that
theology has no future with scientific men. They confirm
our brightest hopes and increase our courage. God grant
when our work in life is done we also may leave footprints
on this shifting sand, that may guide those who come after
in their journey to the Promised Land.
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 35
III. 1
THE PROMISE TO JACOB.
" Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places
whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this
land; for I will not leave thee until I have done that
which I have spoken to thee of" GEN. xxvm. 15.
SOME few years ago I read in one of our public gardens
a notice which ran in very simple terms, but which
contained, as it seemed to me, a truth that appealed to the
deepest instincts of man. " All persons," the notice ran,
" are requested to assist the society in the protection of
these flowers." There was no threat of punishment or of
compulsion, but every man's perception of the beauty and
value of that which was to be preserved was appealed to,
and he was asked to exercise his individual freedom for
the preservation of a common good.
This notice was, indeed, connected with but a simple
matter, but the truth it contains is full of awe indeed,
instead of fearing the simplicity of bringing this before
you, I fear far more lest there may be rashness in offering
to your consideration so solemn a truth, for that simple
notice suggests the removal of all restrictions, threats,
punishments, and simply appeals to each individual to
protect the beautiful and the good. But are people pre
pared for this? Do they know always what is really
1 Preached before the University of Oxford, 23 October, 1881.
3*
36 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
beautiful and what is good ? Can we trust to the power
of human nature, in the condition to which man has
brought it, to work so truly that it will always perceive
and support the good and the true ? Can we do away
with authority, and law, and force, and trust to people to
take care of themselves ? It does not seem so just now.
I have said this much because I do wish this morning
to make the venture, and to ask for your help, to ask you
to protect for the common good that which is beautiful
beyond all comparison with all created beauty, and more
effectual for man's happiness than all the flowers of Para
dise I mean even a belief in God Himself. I want to
ask you all to help in this, to help in the maintenance of
the belief in God.
Perhaps you were hardly prepared for this? You
have come up to the University expecting to learn, to
receive help, and afterwards, it may be, to help others,
and to teach ; but you were hardly prepared to be asked
for your help now at once, and for such an object as this,
the maintenance of the belief in God, and yet in His Name
I ask it. You cannot be altogether unacquainted with the
intellectual troubles of the present day. You have heard
of forms of misbelief and unbelief. You have been warned
against them. You have feared that they might come
upon you in this place. You may already at school have
felt their withering influence, and know something of the
fear that your faith might slip ; and here you will find
yourselves with many old safeguards removed. The
restrictions, compulsions, penalties almost everywhere done
away with, very little authority exercised to keep you in
the right faith. You have parted with home and its
thousand tender protective, authoritative influences, and
here, when you seek to rest, your head rests, it may be,
like Jacob's, on a pillar that is hard as stone ; and you
find us with old things very much broken up, brought back
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 37
to the consideration of the first principles of society and
individual life, discussing even the existence of the soul
and God. You have come among us at a time when there
are difficulties and dangers close at hand, all around you.
It is a great and serious time, but there is abundance of
power for you, and it is a day of splendid and increasing
opportunities.
It is in such a time I ask for your help. How, you
will reply, can we contribute anything that could be of
value in support of such fundamental truths as these?
If it were a matter of particular information and research
we could work willingly in so great a cause; but for such
fundamental truths as the belief in God and man, what
could we do that would be of any avail ? Brethren, it is
just because we have been brought to the consideration of
these fundamental truths, truths common to all, that now
all can help. We have been careless about God not
really living lives like creatures who are dependent upon
God, who derive their being from God, who exist in God,
and whose only reasonable life is to live for God. In the
last century, while men allowed that God existed, and
called Him the Creator of the world, yet practically they
excluded Him from the world He had created, and banished
Him beyond the limits of His own universe ; and in our
busy century how many thousands are there who have
enjoyed the wealth that God has given to England of whom
God might justly complain in the words of His Prophet,
" She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and
oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they pre
pared for Baal ". And this is true of us who are called
Christians, we who were to be " the salt of the earth," " the
light on the candlestick," " the city set upon a hill ".
There are millions in the world who do not yet know the
name of Christ. We have had this knowledge, but we
have too much forgotten the great object of our lives.
38 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
In the abundance of the treasures which God has unlocked
for us in our day, in the discoveries, inventions, the increase
of wealth and pleasure, and all the subtler means of enjoy
ment which modern society has obtained from modern
science ; in all this we have been, too many of us, as spoilt
children, forgetful of the Father's care, and love, and will,
whence all these good things have come. And this forget-
fulness is common to all classes of society the poor and
the rich, the learned and ignorant. How could God teach
us all to make us all feel our dependence on Him again ?
No scepticism about secondary matters, however connected
with the Life of Faith in reality, would do this. The
question of authorship, or the date of a book, or the
organization of the Church, these are more the questions
for the learned, the many can only enter upon them at
second hand, or in their results. But now, of late years,
God has touched all by letting us feel that He may go
away Himself ; yes, this is where we are the chasm which
is opening in our path, materialism, no moral life, no God,
pessimism, suicide. The existence of God and of our own
souls are the questions of to-day, and it is in this I ask
your help, and ask you to make it your life's work to
obtain this help from others.
But how, you will say, can all persons help in this ?
In what way can we speak of these great fundamental
truths so as to be understood by the unlearned, and con
vince all that all may give their help ? Brethren, I would
answer in these three words, Duty, Man, God.
I am not ignorant that there are those who would not
be able to accept this, to whom there is no such thing as
moral life, who exist without a hope of any future ; of
such I am not speaking. God knows the difficulty of
every man's mind, as well as of his affections, and of his
will, and God will be the judge, and not man. But are
there not thousands who could not honestly plead that such
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 39
was their case ? I mean thousands who could not honestly
say they have not evidence enough to convince them of
their Moral Freedom ? What is the meaning of crime,
of justice, of right and wrong if there be no Moral Free
dom, no such things as Personality, Responsibility, Duty ?
Are there not thousands in all classes of society who could
not plead that these words were to them without meaning ?
Are there not thousands at this moment, in our own
country and in others, who could not say honestly that
they saw no difference between the lives of Garfield and
Guiteau, that morally the murderer and the murdered
seemed to them on a par ? What is the meaning of our
national indignation and sympathy if this is so ? It is to
those that I would speak, and ask for their help, to all who
are conscious of moral freedom, and all who know them
selves to be persons, and not things, not mere machines,
but men endowed with the awful dower of Personality.
Here, then, is the help which I ask you to give, as
needed in this day, the help of the evidences of your own
sense of responsibility.
"God, Duty, Freedom," says a modern writer. " These
three ideas form an inseparable Trinity, of which each
member stands or falls with the other two."
" These two," says another writer, " will stand or fall
together, God and Man."
In other words, in the moral freedom of man we have
the best image and likeness of God. In the discharge of
our duty, whatever it may be, we exercise our moral free
dom and witness for God.
See, then, the evidence, for which I am pleading, is the
evidence which all who believe in their moral freedom may
give, by a life of duty. Here is a mass of evidence to
which we all might contribute, confined to no particular
class, but a line of evidences for which we might turn,
even to the simple and the poor, as our Saviour Himself
40 VMVJB&SlTy SERMONS
turned when He said, " The lame walk, the deaf hear, the
poor have the gospel preached unto them ". And it may
be that we are coming to this, and that the poor and simple-
hearted will give the best evidence for God Himself, and
out of the mouths of babes and sucklings He will perfect
His praise.
If this be so, are there not many of us in this place who
must confess that we deserve the bitter punishment, even
of a sense of God's departure, because we have not in
former years witnessed for Him by the evidence of a sense
of duty as strongly as we might.
If learning and knowledge are among the privileged
duties and responsibilities of University life, have there not
been too many undutiful lives lived here ? Lives lived
with hardly one serious thought of duty to self or country,
or to the less favoured parts of the world, which, neverthe
less, God made, and redeemed, and loves ? May not this
fear now of the loss of belief in God be intended to make
us consider how we may all best witness for God, and then
lead us to realize what the preternatural capacities of
man really are, and to open our eyes to further responsi
bilities towards our fellow-men ? Oxford is increasing
in numbers, may we not hope that it will also increase in
real supernatural power ? I thank God I am enabled to
look upon these troubles of unbelief in this way. The
doubts are fundamental now, because they are intended
to reach all, they are permitted to touch all, because God
would awaken in all a clear sense of what man's personality
and responsibility implies, and bring all men nearer to one
another, and to Himself. The Divine presence may ap
pear to us as to the prophet in captivity by the river of
Chebar, as in a cloud, but let us remember, there was
a bow in the cloud, and brightness round about. Jeru
salem was to be besieged, taken, burnt ; even the Temple
was not to be spared. Israel, for a time, was to be con-
4*
founded, scattered, as a flock upon the mountain in a
cloudy and dark day, but the dry bones were to rise and
live. The sticks of Judah and Ephraim were to become
one in the hand of the Lord. The Temple was to be re
built with symbols of increasing holiness. The glory of
the Lord was to return into the Temple, and the river of
life-giving waters to flow forth from the House of the
Lord, increasingly ; waters to the ankles, even waters to
swim in.
If I ask you for your help then, in this great matter,
it is with the firm belief that you will be enabled, if you
will, to give it. Only in this, as in all else that is truly
great, in this life, not without labour, not without some
cost, some sacrifice, nay, doubtless, as in great victories in
war, not without some loss. What, then, are some of the
difficulties and hindrances that you will meet with, if you
endeavour by a life of daily duty to give the evidence of
your moral freedom and of your separate personality in the
midst of the great forces in which you live ? What will
hinder you when you try to realize this line of thought ?
First, probably, the feeling of your own littleness. " Two
things," said one of the greatest of modern thinkers, " fill
me with awe, the starry firmament and the responsibility of
man." We so often trifle with our powers of thought, we
are so careless in our ways of observation and inference, so
reckless in the licence we give our imagination, so little
thoughtful of our thoughts, that it is hard to persuade our
selves that our own powers can be strong enough to keep
us in firm hold of the truth ; we trust it will be so somehow,
but we scarcely think how, and when we consider the
powers that are ours, that make up our separate personality,
they seem so small, so insignificant, that their littleness fills
us with awe, as when we look up into the greatness of the
starry firmament above. But this need not alarm us, God
made us, and He made us for Himself, He made our
42 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
minds to know Him, and our hearts to love Him ; that
feeling of weakness is but a right consciousness of true
creaturely dependence. " In the midst of life we are in
death ; " but for His sustaining hand the thread of our
bodily life would break at any moment. We are not only
created but sustained by Him. " All things were made by
Him, and by Him all things consist," and we must trust
our minds to His sustaining Presence as well as our bodies.
The angels who endure the unveiled Presence of God are
creatures just as we are ; they have no inherent power to
exist, and yet they are enabled to know God, and to love
God, and to obey God perfectly, and He can enable us to
do the same. The apparent weakness of our powers only
redounds to His glory. All we have to do is to awaken
like Jacob from a dream, and admit that this world is still
the House of God : that the Lord is in this place, though
we knew it not.
But there is another hindrance and difficulty that
will probably deter you, if you try really to consider your
own moral freedom, and the life of duty which should
follow, and that is the sense of sin. The sense of duty,
more or less, in all of us, must produce the consciousness
of disobedience conscience, responsibility, remorse, are
three words which we must be prepared to face if we would
consider our separate responsibility and our moral freedom.
How can we take our stand with God, and say that for the
future we will walk with Him, and listen to His voice ?
How can two walk together unless they be agreed ? How
can we expect that He will trust us when we are conscious
that we have so often used our freedom to disobey His
voice ? it may be in one way or in another, but often it
is so that the fear of the past takes the heart out of men
for the future. It may be that we were deceived by others,
and hardly knew the wrong we did ; but the bondage of
evil habit makes us fear to speak of freedom as the experi-
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 43
ence of our own personality. It may be that idleness,
vanity, or a temper uncontrolled has brought us evidently
into a position where we need never have been, and from
which we know not how to escape ; or it may be that the
thought of the past brings not only the burden of our own
disobedience, but the, at times, hopeless agony of having
caused others to disobey, and we know not into what misery
of mind or body we may have led them. We dread to
think how far the ever-widening circle of our own evil
words or example may still be spreading ; all this comes
back with unmistakable reality when we turn ourselves to
consider what we are, what our duty was, and is, and ought
to be and from this consideration men often flinch, and
fear to consider what they really might be from the memory
of what they have been. But this need not be. There is
no man that sinneth not, all should be penitents in greater
or less degree, and the degree of guilt is not to be measured
by our acts so much as by our opportunities. God knows
how hard some have striven against sin ; God knows also
how wilfully some have fallen but none are wholly free
from sin. When Jacob left his father's house and slept his
first night alone at Bethel, he could not look back at a past
that had been quite free from all alloy, quite free from envy
or a mixed ambition, or deceit. His life, like the lives of
most of us, began with a high intention ; yet it was marred
by failure in the execution of it. Jacob's early life was
marred by deceit ; he deceived his brother and his father,
and all his life long he suffered from it ; his sin, the sin of
his boyhood and home life, followed him and found him
out continually. Laban deceived him, Rachel deceived
him, Simeon deceived him ; he was deceived about Joseph;
he feared some foul play for Benjamin; he suffered from
it. And yet God did not refuse to be with him, and His
presence preserved him not from suffering, but from further
sin his old sin was constantly before him, but it never
44 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
overcame him ; he suffered from deceit, but he never
sinned again by deceiving. His early sin gave him trouble,
but it did not rob him of God's continuing presence, did
not mar the work and purpose of his life. And it may be
the same with you, if when you try to realize the dignity
of your moral freedom, the memory of the past tempts
you to put away the thought ; be assured that this tyranny
may soon be over-past. That so much suffering, and
misery, and sin, and death should result from the moral
freedom of man does prove the exceeding preciousness of
the gift of personality, which God thought fit to grant, in
spite of the price that would be paid ; but it does not prove
that God cannot pardon and put away the sin. " The blood
of Christ cleanseth us from all sin " ; and, on our true re
pentance, the healing virtue of Christ's blood is ours. Nay,
if you will, you know Christ has left a ministry on earth
commissioned to give that pardon separately to every single
penitent soul, " Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted,"
are the words of Christ, " by His authority committed unto
me, I absolve thee from all thy sins," are the words with
which our Church directs us to carry out the commission.
The fear of the past need not intimidate you from the con
sideration of your moral freedom, or rob you of the hope
that you may yet give your life as evidence of the exist
ence of the one true personal God.
But there is another difficulty that may still, perhaps,
hinder you when you turn to consider the responsibility of
your own personal life it is the sense of singleness which
arises from personality. Every person is a separate being,
bound with the band of one individual will. There is a
sense of singleness in personality, and men shrink from
solitude and long for love, and love means union. No two
persons are alike, no two lives are to follow exactly in the
same steps. The world changes. Humanity is still in
progress, each person has some new work to do. Children
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 45
must be prepared to do what their parents never did,
though their parents' lives and prayers may be the very
powers which have raised the children beyond the parents'
reach. Each must be prepared to push the limit line of
science further, though the power to advance is gained by
the limit which we leave. All this makes real life single,
solitary, new, and many half-unconsciously shrink from
this singleness and fear to realize the units that they are,
and strive to surround themselves with forms of others,
and conceal from themselves their otherwise too intoler
able loneliness. Brethren, this fear need not again intimi
date you. Religion is not merely keeping a moral law.
The high end of realizing our personality is not only that
we may realize our moral freedom, and secure the sense of
duty, but I am asking you to exercise the liberty of your
personal freedom, that, proving the existence of a free
personality in yourselves, you may contribute one great
evidence of the personal existence of God, in whose image
and likeness you are made. This is true religion ; this the
intended end of our free personality ; not merely that we
keep the moral law, but that we worship the one true and
living God. Fecisti nos ad te domine et inquietum est cor
nostrum donee requiescat in te. " O God Thou art my
God " expresses the rapturous union of the created and un
created personalities in God and man. This was Jacob's
consolation when he slept that first night away from his
father's house : " Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee
in all places whither thou goest, I will not leave thee until
I have done all that which I have spoken to thee of". It
is the consolation of a personal presence that is offered,
and this consolation, we know, may be ours with a clearness
not revealed to Jacob ; he saw the ladder set up from
earth to heaven, and angels ascending and descending, as
evidence of the reality of the communion between himself
and God ; we know the real union between man and God
46 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
through Him, who is both God and man ; we have seen
greater things than Jacob saw, even angels ascending and
descending on the Son of Man ; through Him we know
we have access by one Spirit to the Father. The Son of
God has promised to be with us always till the end of the
world ; and, further, He withdrew His visible Presence
that another Comforter, as true a Person as Himself, might
be our companion with a closeness that no earthly com
panionship can equal. Nay, we know that so far from
mere obedience to a moral code being the aim and satisfac
tion of men's personal freedom, He has told us that the
reward of our obedience is the satisfaction of our Person
ality, the release from its sense of singleness in the con
sciousness of the presence of another Person in the union
of love ; even the promise of the indwelling companionship
of the Three Persons of the ever blessed Trinity, for He
who made us and redeemed us, has said, " If a man love
Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him,
and we will come unto him and make our abode with
him ". Personal devotedness to a Personal God is one of
the chief marks of a true religion. The Bible calls it
walking before the face of God, walking with God.
Christianity in its essential working, is not a religion of
detachment, but of attachment ; a religion not of fear, but
of love. It is the assurance of the companionship of a
Friend always able and willing to guide, check, and support
us in all dangers ; a Friend whose rod and staff will still be
with us, guiding, protecting, even through the valley of the
shadow of death ; a Friend whose constant companionship
ought to lift up our fallen countenance, and give us, even
now, on the journey of life, a brightness that should witness
to those who meet us of the reality of the companionship
we enjoy all this is no mere language of theoretical
theology, or excited devotional feeling, but may be the sure
experience of your daily lives. A singular sense of security,
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 47
a peculiar independence of place and time, a secret satisfac
tion, a quiet courage, an inward peace, an increasing hope,
a purer, truer, and more extending love these are some
of the well-known proofs of the reality of our personal
relation with God, and of His companionship with us.
This, then, is the way in which I ask all who are
anxious to maintain the belief in God, for themselves and
for others to contribute the evidence of their own Person
ality by a keen sense of duty. Moral freedom, Duty,
God, we have said, these three ideas form an inseparable
trinity, of which each member stands or falls with the
other two. This evidence you may contribute daily, and
many times a day. While there is such a mass of in
different, careless, thoughtless, irresponsible living, the air
is filled with vapours most prejudicial to the bright life of
faith. If each man who acknowledges a consciousness of
moral freedom would exhibit that personal freedom by a
life stamped with the mark of duty, many would be saved
from drifting into the moral and mental entanglements
of a useless life, and those who have real intellectual trials
would find themselves braced by an atmosphere from which
they could hardly fail to feel some benefit, and surrounded
by evidences which they could hardly fail to admire, even
though unable for a time to admit the joy of honest con
viction.
In what way your sense of duty should be discharged
each must determine for himself.
But in this place it is obvious your first duty is to
learn. We are all here to learn, some to teach as well as
learn, some at present only to learn but all to learn.
This is why we are here. No degree of ability excludes
you from the responsibility. See, then, for yourselves
whether you are doing your duty in these matters, exer
cising your moral freedom, giving your contribution to
the evidence for the existence of God by doing your duty
48 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
as learners in this place. Would not much idleness be
saved if this could be remembered, much time lost, and
money put to a better use the real work of the Univer
sity advanced, knowledge increased, and an atmosphere
created in which belief in God would be more likely to
prevail .
And if learning is your obvious first duty here, there
is another responsibility from which you cannot escape,
the responsibility of social life. Your amusements and
entertainments, your games and hospitalities have, of late
years, assumed a new measure of responsibility from the
increase of the members of this University. There are
different degrees of wealth, and culture, and social power
amongst us. If you do your duty here, you will guard
against such a selfish expenditure of what is indeed your
own, as will make it difficult for others not to run beyond
their means ; you will determine the limits of your ac
quaintances, not merely by your own pleasure but also by
your opportunities of offering to others the advantages
of your society. We may rejoice at the wider influence of
our University, but we should be careful to see that real
work is being done socially as well as intellectually.
But of these, and other ways, you know yourselves,
brethren, or rather He knows who promised His com
panionship to Jacob when he left his home, and promised
in spite of the failures of earlier years that He would not
leave him until He had done that which He had spoken
to him of, He, the same God, will be with you, and will
not leave you, if you will walk with Him, until He has
enabled you, if need be, to disentangle the entanglements
of earlier days ; and, in spite of surrounding dangers, and
future fears, He will make increasingly clear to you the
reality of His companionship, and the work for which He
has caused you now to be. Giving you more than you
ever ventured to ask or think, He will convince you that
THE PROMISE TO JACOB 49
those higher aspirations of earlier days were not boyish
fancies, but His Father's voice : all those higher things
that God at times speaks to you of, those longings for
truth, and purity, and usefulness, and unity, and love, in
which, and for which, you sometimes hoped your life
might be spent, all this shall be true, and you will see that
your separate personality finds its truest freedom, and
most restful joy, in abiding communion with the personal
God, and thus you will make the words of the Psalmist
your own, and, in doing so, help others to do the same :
" O God, Thou art my God ". " Shew Thou me the way
that I should walk in, for I lift up my soul unto Thee."
IV. 1
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE.
" Shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and
keep My commandments" EXOD. xx. 6.
I SEEM to have assumed it as my privilege when speak
ing in this place, that I may address myself more
especially to the young. It is true that having done this
now for ten years, some who were then occupying the
places of the young have passed up among the seniors and
are in places of authority. If they should be present now,
they will, I hope, with other seniors, pardon me if I speak
not so much to them as before them. These words which
I have read for my text will have been familiar to the
youngest even from his still earlier youth, for with many
of us they formed part, probably, of our childhood's
lessons, being part of the second Commandment you re
member the words : " Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or in the
water under the earth : thou shalt not bow down to them
nor worship them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate
Me ; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love
Me, and keep My commandments ".
1 Preached before the University of Oxford, January, 1883.
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 51
These words are, I know, the words of our childhood
but they contain a promise and principles of conduct
which should continue to guide us to our lives' end.
For there are three great statements in the text.
First There is the bountiful offer of mercy, " shewing
mercy unto thousands," i.e. in effect, mercy for all, for
such is indeed God's antecedent unconditioned will. He
made man for Himself, capable of loving, and of being
beloved. This is the meaning of the assurance, " In my
Father's house are many mansions," room for all. This
is the express revelation of His will, even of " God our
Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth " this is God's ante
cedent will towards us ; but equally is it His will, not
from mere arbitrariness, but from the necessity of His
nature, that we should obtain this mercy which is offered
to us, upon certain definite conditions, and two of these
conditions are contained in the text the conditions of
love and obedience : " Shewing mercy unto thousands of
them that love Me, and keep My commandments ". The
text, then, if taught us in our childhood, may still be
well worthy of our constant consideration, for it contains
the offer of salvation and its conditions. It is of these two
conditions that I propose to speak this morning, and
though they stand here in the true order, love being the
true source and spring from which the highest obedience
should flow, yet as practically with us, in our state of
disciplinary probation and development, the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so I shall speak of the
second condition first, for obedience is the true moral
atmosphere of beginners.
I.
One condition, then, of obtaining God's mercy is
obedience.
4*
52 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
But what am I to obey ? What does God want with
me? How shall I know? Some such rough thoughts,
at times, many of us have been disposed to admit, and
such may still find a response in the hearts of some here
to-day. Apparently rough and simple, such questions,
I know, require most careful and well-grounded answers,
and it would be impossible to meet all the difficulties that
might occur to us in any single reply, but I desire to ask
whether at heart some of you do not know sufficiently the
answer that should be given.
Can you say that you know no difference between right
and wrong ? Is the liar and the man of truth the same
to you ? Do you see no difference between the honest
man and the rogue ? I know that there are those who
would wish to stand aside if pressed even by so rudi
mentary a test as this, and if they do so honestly, I honour
them, and would gladly help them another time, if I could ;
but I feel called upon to appeal to the far greater pro
portion of men who could not, and would not, deny the
fact that whatever the contradiction of their lives may have
been, however varying the area over which the words
extend, yet neither now, nor at any time since their earliest
consciousness, could they say that right and wrong to
them had no meaning. May we go together, then, thus
far, that we admit the difference between right and wrong ?
A second step, will, I think, be then admitted to " right "
and " wrong " we must add the words " ought " and " ought
not " ; if we speak of right and wrong at all, we cannot
speak of them with the same indifference as we distinguish
between two different colours, and say this is white and
that is black, this is right and that is wrong ; but at once,
with more or less of force, we feel attracted towards the
one, and repelled from the other. In other words, the
distinction between right and wrong brings with it the
words " ought," " ought not," " responsibility," " duty ".
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 53
Very many, I think, will go with me thus far ; we may
differ from other people in what we think right, and not
always think the same ourselves, but what we think right,
and while we think so, we admit that thither the path of
duty should lead us.
Here it may be well further to remind you that in
this word "Duty" lies hid an inexplicable treasure, of
infinite value I mean our Freedom; we may not be able
to understand it, but is it not a fact which we are pre
pared to say we have, whether philosophers can explain it
to us or not. In the " I ought " is practically included
the " I can ". Which of us seeing a child fallen in the
streets, and in danger for its life, would not feel at once
more quickly than we can express. It is right that I
should save it, / ought, I can, I will ; and which of us,
had we stood amidst the recent ruins of that northern
factory, and seen the crushed, but inextricable limbs of the
poor sufferers, would not have longed indeed to have
worked miracles to deliver them, but still have turned
from the sickening sight without the feeling that we
ought to have delivered them because we could not. This
is so obvious to most of us, that we seldom stop to
think what treasures are contained in this sacred word,
Duty our power to know right from wrong the at
tractive force of the right freedom to act or not ; and
yet one of the greatest thinkers on these subjects, you will
remember, has said, " Two things fill the mind with ever
new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and
the more steadily we reflect on them The starry heavens
above, and the moral law within ".
But let me ask you yet again, whence comes this power
to distinguish right from wrong ? Here we may differ in
words, but in the existence of the power itself many will
agree. We may call it moral feeling, moral sense, Divine
reason, or use the word to which we have been accustomed,
54 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
conscience that power within us, which is so much of us,
that we feel content to make it one of the powers, with
which we will appeal in contending with the world for the
good of men. But once more, why do we give to this
mysterious power so much importance ? Why, if this moral
feeling, this conscience, is part of ourselves, why not deal
with it as we please, and listen, or not, as it may suit us ?
The real answer, I believe (though all may not be able to
give it), is because conscience does not speak as for herself,
but as for another. She brings us to a bar, not to ourselves,
but tells us of another, whom we fear and may resist, but
one higher than ourselves even God.
This it is which throws such a brilliant light on the path
of duty, wherever and whatever it may be, and makes it
Divine. Well, can we accept the well-known apostrophe :
" Duty ! thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace
nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission,
and yet seekest not to move the will by threatening aught
that would arouse natural aversion or terror, but merely
holdest forth a law which of itself finds entrance into the
mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence (though not always
obedience) a law before which all inclinations are dumb,
even though they secretly counter-work it ; what origin is
thus worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of
thy noble descent ? " This supreme obligation to the law of
duty, or the law of right and wrong for our own conduct,
has come before you already constantly in life, but during
these next years while you are waiting here with us, and
preparing to enter into the real work of your life, it should
come before you, my younger brethren, in one new and
especial way, viz. in determining your profession. What
will you do with yourselves for the next fifty years which
God may require you to live on this earth, and what will
become of you when you leave it ? Some men, quite from
their boyhood, have their future made plain to them ; but
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 55
with others it is not so, they are undecided, they do not
know what they are going to do. It is in such cases that
I am anxious that the law of duty should be more considered.
It is not always so, nor has it always been so ; hence part
of our present confusion and waste of life. Three principal
standards of authority we may recognize in this matter.
The one, which prevailed largely in former years, the
absolute parental authority, when sons were settled in
their professions with little or no regard to their tastes or
capacities, by the will of their parents. No doubt there
was much of good in this, the wider experience of the
parents, and the knowledge too of the youth, knowing him
often better than he knew himself, all this often saved years
which might have been wasted in vacillation, or prevented
a rash and irretrievable choice. But with these advantages
there was often much and serious loss. Many a life was
crippled, damaged, rendered comparatively useless, and
robbed of all its natural freedom, and growth, and power.
This was grievously illustrated in former days in the case
of those who were, so to say, forced to take Holy Orders,
or, as the phrase was, to enter the Church, without any
sufficient preparation, without any real inclination for the
work. Conscious of their own unfitness, at best, they per
formed their necessary duties honourably, but without
heart. From this principle of unquestioned parental
authority there has in our days sprung up a natural re
action, and the former " you must" of the parent has been
changed into the " I like " of the son. There is truth
also in this principle, and truth which was overlooked, or
disregarded before, arising from the varying personal gifts
and dispositions of the young ; but in vindicating a right
recognition for these gifts, too often a false principle has
been adopted, and the sole rule by which the momentous
question of a life's profession is determined, is the changing
rule of our own pleasure ; and the " you must " of former
56 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
days has been exchanged for " I like," or " don't like ".
It is this, perhaps, which explains the almost unaccountable
calmness and indifference with which some young people
reject the counsel of their elders, taking as the principle of
their conduct their own pleasure, with no past experience
to guide them, and reckless of the future, as if life were
endless ; the pleasure of the moment becomes the guiding
principle, and the principle of duty being put aside, the
incalculable momentary whim is all that can be appealed
to. What we seem to need is, to balance the reaction from
the over-parental " you must," and the ever-varying " /
like" by the mutual recognition of " I ought ". This
surely is the real ground of right action for each, and the
best hope of unity and common work ; when we act from
a sense of duty, which, if rightly conceived, will be the one
Will of God. Some such line of thought we should, more
or less consciously, go through if we desire to fulfil the
condition of obtaining the Divine mercy the condition
of obedience.
II.
But the sense of duty and obedience to the moral
law is only one of the required conditions ; there is another,
the condition of love " shewing mercy to thousands of
them that love Me, and keep My commandments ". If
there is need of care and self-restraint at this time in order
that your lives may be ruled with the moral law, there is
need of almost more care, lest you should be deceived by
this great obedience ; and while you win the approval and
admiration of the great moral sections of the world, yet fall
short of this first condition of obtaining God's promises,
and miss the mercy which He has promised conditionally
to give we had better consider it. It is possible to be
obedient to the moral law, and yet to forget the Lawgiver.
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 57
As many Deists with the physical universe admitted the
existence of God, and the work of a Creator, and yet
practically banished God from the world He had made,
regarding it as a mechanism self-regulating, that had
slipped from the hands of its Maker so the mere moralist
may acknowledge the supremacy of the moral law, and the
autonomy of the will, and practically banish God from his
consideration ; for him God simply looks on, the vast
machine of the moral universe is self-acting ; as far as
such systems of morality are concerned, God could be
dispensed with, since man has in himself a complete moral
basis for the only law which exists for him. Perhaps we
have not sufficiently considered that it is possible for men
in a sense to " hunger and thirst after righteousness," and
yet to ignore the authority of God ; possible for them to
confess that He is supreme, and yet never to identify Him
with that ideal law which they know they have violated,
and which they now want to fulfil. Such men desire moral
and spiritual excellence very much as they might desire
physical vigour and beauty, or large and varied intellectual
accomplishments. They do not recognize the Divine
authority, they care only for the perfection of their own
natures. If they appeal to God, they do not think of Him
as One Who has a right to require them to do His Will ;
they only rely upon His mighty and merciful aid to enable
them to be loyal to their own conscience, and to achieve
the ideal sanctity which haunts their imaginations. It is
not His law they have transgressed ; it is not His law they
want to obey. It is His only as it is theirs such a condi
tion of mere subjection to the moral law might produce
respect, reverence, obedience, but not love to fulfil the
condition of love we must rise above the impersonal law
to the Personal Lawgiver. How can this be ? Let me
say that here we need more help than has often been sup
posed. The truth, perhaps, for us to remember, when we
58 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
turn our thoughts upwards to find the one Lawgiver of
the many laws which claim our reverence and obedience
here is this That though man is free yet he is not inde
pendent. His freedom we claimed when we spoke of duty.
The " I can " implied the " I ought," but man can only
attain his full power to discharge all his duty by receiving
constant help from others external to himself. In our in
fancy we are helpless, and must perish but for the care of
others. Our bodies, our minds and characters, reach their
full development only by external aid. No man liveth to
himself, even with regard to his fellow- men ; and in
harmony with all this, when we would rise above the law
in our hearts to the Lawgiver Himself, we need His special
help. He has given it us in Revelation. True, " God did
not leave Himself altogether without witness, in that He
did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful sea
sons," so that " The invisible things of Him from the
creation of the world were clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead," and this was to be true of all men, for " He
made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the
face of the earth, that they should seek the Lord if haply
they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be
not far from every one of us ". And yet the sequel of
this teaching, and feeling after God, in the dimness which
man's own folly had brought over this once brighter and
diviner world, was failure ; and the verdict is, " Man by
wisdom knew not God ". The words from the lips of
the Roman Governor, " What is truth ? " and the inscrip
tion on the altar at Athens, " To the unknown God,"
seem to speak with sad truthfulness for the West, and in
the great religious systems of the East man must be said
rather to have lost himself than to have found God.
Absorption annihilation " A beautiful erection of moral
sentiment, but there it ends ". " The hugest, fairest,
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 59
nothing that ever was passed upon mankind." A " wild,
eccentric one-sided energy of the erratic will, allied to
frenzy rather than to morals, gigantic feats of self-torture
and self-stupefaction, but not action on the scale of our
whole moral nature, or worthy of that nature as we know
it " in short, Pantheism and Atheism are the outcome
of the religious systems of the East. For the rest their
gods were either many, and therefore limited^ or one
Supreme Being, without action, without will, the sub
stratum of everything, himself a nothing. I do not,
of course, forget the borrowed Theism of the Moham
medan, but, unless perhaps with a very partial limitation
in favour of China, we may adopt the somewhat humiliat
ing and sad conclusion that one small nation alone out of
all antiquity worshipped God, believed the universal Being
to be a personal Being, and this nation received help from
above, the gift of Revelation.
Here is surely a point worthy of your most careful
consideration ; the text offers mercy for thousands, mercy
for all, but on two conditions, obedience and love ; obedi
ence of a kind, we may practise to the moral law, but love
requires personality ; we must, by God's help, rise above
the contemplation of the law, to the person of the Law
giver, and love the law for His sake. " Lord, what love
have I unto Thy Law," and then love Him because He
is what He is. Brethren, do you see what lasting and
precious treasures these words of your childhood contain ?
How well they would guide you now through the number
less eddies and currents of religious or irreligious opinion,
with which here, as elsewhere, you must be surrounded.
You have indeed special work to do in this place, and
special work we may hope awaiting you in the world
which needs your help ; but you need great care lest while
preparing for your future work you violate the conditions
with which your unshaken faith tells you you can alone
60 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
hope for a reward when your work is over ; lest, losing
the very foundation of your faith, you wander through
life with nothing to await you but the annihilation of
your own soul, or a companionless immortality nothing
less than this is the question of your day the finding or
losing God. In our Revelation we have Him plainly
made known to us, and the conditions on which we shall
obtain His mercy. It is a matter of infinite moment to
you. Let me offer you some simple practical tests by
which you may know whether you are fulfilling these
conditions or not.
The test of obedience to the moral law is obvious, and
is always with you ; it means taking duty not pleasure,
or any other lower maxim as the rule of your life. We
have said this in its practical simplicity is obeying our
own conscience, in reality it is listening to the voice of
God. It is to act in the spirit of the prayer which ruled
perhaps the most influential human life that ever was
lived : " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " The
waste of life in this place has been deplorable ; if Oxford
were but in earnest, striving to know the Will of God,
preparing here to go forth to the world with the fixed
purpose to do His will, and to bring others to do the same,
a new unity and a new strength and a new brightness might
break forth over England, and through England over other
parts of the world. This disobedience, this variance from
the Will of God, is the one discordant note in Creation.
To bring this discord, arising from the abuse of man's
freedom, back again into harmony with the Will of the
one Lawgiver, was the object of the Incarnation and
Death of the Son of God ; it is the great work in which
God and the angels are engaged now, and for the issue of
which the saints in Paradise are waiting. It is sad, in the
presence of all this, to see so many amongst us apparently
so unconscious of what they might do.
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 61
I should have but little hope that these simple words
would command your attention, were it not for the help we
have now in this place from the terror of unbelief ; you
may live here now in this University, if you will, and
obtain the highest honours she can give, without owning
the name of Christ or God. A brilliant University career,
together with complete rejection or forgetfulness of God,
is open to you. You can be Atheists if you please. Into
this pit it is well that you should look down deliberately,
for it is a real one, and close at your feet. To save you
from this forgetfulness of God, I venture to recall you to
the grave importance of determining the maxim from which
your daily actions spring ; to decide on the principle
which is to determine the course of your life ; to bring it
home to yourselves that pleasure, or wealth, or power, or
honour, or knowledge, may be now largely attained with
out any acknowledgment of God. The circumstances
of your day give a new reality to the question, " What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul ". In your studies, in your amusements, in
your friendships, let the sense of duty, of right and wrong,
of the Will of God, prevail. In this way our present dis
tress may be over-ruled to free us from the sad sight of
selfish, useless lives, to bring us nearer to the Divine Will,
to bring us nearer to each other, and, purifying the motives
of our actions, bring us nearer to the one source of all
power, and thus enable us to raise humanity nearer to its
Divine pattern.
And yet, while we seek to regain a life of true obedi
ence^ we must not forget the primary condition of love.
What can be our tests for this ? If the test of a life of
true obedience is in some sort simple, the recognition of
conscience, the rule of duty, what practical test can we
adopt to know whether we are fulfilling the condition of
love ?
62 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
The first test I would suggest to you is this : What
use do you make of your Bible ? The step from obedience
to love, we said, implies the step from the impersonal law
to the personal Lawgiver ; and this, the belief in one
personal God, we said, required, for its fullness, the aid of
Divine revelation. Here, then, is one test our Bible. I
do not wish to speak now of the manifold blessings con
tained for us in this Divine gift, of the various kinds of
treasures which may there be found, critical, historical,
doctrinal, moral, spiritual, and others ; but I will refer
only to one benefit to be gained by the study of the Bible,
which I do not believe can be so gained from the study of
any other book, and that is the knowledge of the one
personal God. It is impossible to read the ancient his
torical Scriptures, and to suppose that they were meant to
teach that self-acting spiritual laws brought a flood upon
the old world, rained fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah,
destroyed the first-born of Egypt, excluded from the land
of promise Aaron and Moses, and nearly the whole genera
tion that crossed the Red Sea : whatever value may be
attached to the history it is too clear to be misapprehended.
It is a living Person, according to those ancient books,
who punishes the sins and rewards the righteousness of
men. The teaching of the prophets and of the Psalms is
the same. Few things are more magnificent than the
grandeur of the personal supervision both of kingdoms and
of men in the writings of the prophets ; of Babylon " my
battle-axe " and of Nebuchadnezzar " my servant ". And
in the Psalms it is the same. There is an ever-recurring
expression of a tender personal affection on the part of the
sacred poet to God, to which, says one, well qualified to
speak, " There is no parallel in the whole range of heathen
literature " " O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek
Thee," and that quiet echo of the human heart, " Seek ye
My face, Thy face Lord will I seek". And we Christians
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 63
have, besides all this, the manifestation of the Son of God
Himself, very God and very man, in the story of the
Gospel. In all this there is the constant presence of a
Divine Person, and, therefore, an object of our highest and
purest love. It is well to remember that the models of
heathen morals, wonderful and helpful as they are, are for
the most part self-centred, and while they rightly lead man
to respect and obey his higher self, yet they say very little
indeed definitely of God ; they may lead to a high degree
of moral excellence, but morality, not holiness obedience,
not love is the end. If our work here requires us to
spend many hours of the day in mathematics or physical
science, or on any mere systems of morality, we shall be
in danger of losing sight of the Lawgiver even in the
constant study of His laws, and thus be in danger of
failing to fulfil the condition of love. Let me say it as
plainly as I can ; if you neglect the study, the habitual
devotional study, of the one Book that above all others
makes known to you the one personal God, you will be in
danger of living a merely moral life, fulfilling in a sense the
condition of obedience, but falling short of the higher con
dition of love ; and a narrow, selfish, uninfluential hu
manity will be the result. Let me offer you another test,
which each can easily make for himself What is your re
lation to prayer? Prayer is not only the conditional
means upon which God will give us that which He will
give, " Ask and ye shall have," but it is also a means per
mitted by which we may hold communion and converse
with God. Prayer is a test of belief in a personal God.
We can obey, but we cannot pray to, a law ; we must rise
above the moral law to the one Lawgiver and the personal
God, and to Him we can speak. The mere moralist, the
obeyer of the moral law within, may, perhaps, feel a half-
conscious feeling of reverence for a being whose law he
obeys, but he does not necessarily worship Him ; it is the
64 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
homage which the conscience offers to the authority of the
eternal law of righteousness, transferred to a living person,
that is now required. We look for men who believe in
the one personal God, obey Him, love Him, and worship
Him. Here, again, your present circumstances require
the special exercise of your own intelligence and will. For
good, no doubt, in many ways attendance at the College
chapels has ceased, in many places, to be compulsory ; but
the obvious result of the position is this, that you need
not now pray at all during the whole of your University
career. What is your relation to this new liberty ? Let
me earnestly warn you : I do not say not to let sloth, or
idleness, or mere weakness of will, beguile you uninten
tionally to neglect the habit of your own private, personal
communing with God ; but do not allow even the pressure
of business, or the strain of hard mental work, deceive you
into the abandonment of the source of life, and truth, and
love. The man who never prays, never rises above him
self ; he may be moral, may be obedient to the moral law,
but he has lost one proof of his belief in the personal Law
giver to Whom the law was intended to lead him ; he has
lost one proof that he has a personal guide through the
perils of his life, he has lost one proof that he is preserving
the condition of love. If we can pray, we have faith in a
personal God ; we may deplore our coldness from time to
time, we may even pray from a sense of duty, many times,
but we have not lost the great condition of love, and we
know by experience how our hearts may become again as
the rivers in the south dry water-beds for a season, but
in due time flowing like a flood.
Let me give you but one more test by which you may
know whether you are fulfilling this condition of love, the
great condition on which God's plentiful mercy may be
obtained.
It is the test of the love of our neighbour. The
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 65
apostle of love has himself told us plainly : " If a man say I
love God and hateth his brother he is a liar, for if he love
not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God
whom he hath not seen ? " this is given us as a crucial
test. No doubt the first and great Commandment, the
well-spring and source of all, should be the love of God ;
but practically it is remarkable what prominence is given
in the New Testament to the second Commandment, the
love of man ; as though it were both the way to obtain,
and the proof of our having obtained, the love of God.
When St. Paul speaks of fulfilling the law, he enumerates
the Commandments of the second table, " he that loveth
another hath fulfilled the law for this, thou shalt not
commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal,
thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and
if there be any other Commandment it is briefly compre
hended in this saying, namely, ' Thou shalt love thy neigh
bour as thyself ". And our Lord Himself gave the same
prominence to this second table of the law when, in His
answer to the rich young ruler, He said : " Thou knowest
the Commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill,
do not steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honour
thy father and mother " ; and even more emphatic still
is His choice of the new Commandment by which the
disciples were to be known as His ; " A new Command
ment give I unto you, that ye love one another. By this
shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have
love one to another."
It is a sad satire on the failure of the mere moralist to
understand this which is given in the life of that well-
known, and for a time most popular and influential philo
sopher, who did more perhaps than any other to make
clear the excellence of the moral law as the ruling maxim
of our life, that he lived in his native town in Germany
for twenty-five years with his own sisters without ever m
S
66 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
seeing them. 1 True, the biographer adds, they were poor,
and in a humble station, and the philosopher had become a
Professor, and was much sought after true at the close of
his life, in his helplessness, he admitted that the paradox he
had adopted was false, " My friends ! there are no friends,"
but it is a sad illustration of the absence of love which may
exist with high efforts of obedience to the moral law it
shows us that a system of mere morality would be a poor
exchange for the religion of Him who, though He was rich,
yet for our sakes became poor, whose love was not confined
by the limits of family, or race, or dependent on the lower
accidents of wealth, or station ; but on the one capacity
co-extensive with humanity itself. " Whosoever shall do
the Will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother." Brethren, to share this boundless love we are
all called. There is mercy for thousands, numbers will
not exhaust it sin need not exclude from it. He can,
and will, heal our infirmities and forgive all our sin. The
conditions all may understand, and, by His grace, fulfil,
obedience and love. They are simple to speak of, but do
not tamper with them. They are fitted to your whole
being, and intended to control it, your whole mind, your
whole heart, your whole will. Do not think to substitute
one for the other, and obey without love, or love without
strict obedience ; neither morality without piety, nor piety
without morality, can satisfy the conditions given. At
first the will and love of God may seem to you but as high
ideas far off, like stars, incapable of attainment, and you
may stand and gaze like him of old who came forth from
hell but to " re-behold the stars " without any desire of
ascending ; and yet, by degrees, as obedience and love
have disciplined your soul, you will find the second ex
perience of the poet practically true. When he came forth
1 See J. H. W. Sheckenberg, " Life of Immanuel Kant," pp. 182 and 192.
LOVE AND OBEDIENCE 67
he was " firm and disposed to mount unto the stars," and
at last when life's discipline is accomplished, you will know
the profound wisdom and the blissful results of this two
fold condition of your childhood's lesson, and find desire
and will both turning, even as a wheel in smooth and even
revolution, by that same love which moves the sun and
other stars. Unto which endless bliss and intended har
mony of your being may God of His mercy bring you
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
68 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
V. 1
1 ALONE, YET NOT ALONE.
" / am a stranger upon earth : O hide not 'Thy commandments
from me." PSALM cxix. 19.
A SENSE of solitude, loneliness, dissatisfaction, unrest,
^*- has often been a characteristic of the faithful in all
ages. When God called the Father of the faithful, the
chosen type in so many ways of the true servants of God,
he went out not knowing whither he went ; and when he
came into the land of Canaan God " gave him none inherit
ance, no, not so much as to set his foot on ". Moses in
the land of Midian called his first-born Gershom, " For
he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land ". For
the children of Israel the memory of this characteristic was
made a law, " Love ye the stranger, for ye were strangers
in the land of Egypt ". In the Epistle to the Hebrews it
is given as a common mark, " These all died in faith . . .
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth ". It was so even with our Lord Himself ; " He
came unto His own, and His own received Him not ".
In His own family " His brethren did not believe in
Him ". Of His few faithful followers He foretold, " The
hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered,
every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone " ; and in
His last distress " all forsook Him and fled ". Thus the
breached before the University of Oxford, February, 1884.
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 69
first words of the text, like so many verses of the Psalms,
give expression to a common feeling among the children of
God : " I am a stranger upon earth ". In the language of
the faithful these are not the words of mere peevish im
patience, but a witness of man's high capacities, a token of
his " whence " and " whither ". When such persons call
themselves strangers they mean that they are here but as
passing guests. As sojourners they have settled in the
country, but it is not their own ; " they that say such
things declare plainly that they seek a country ... a
better country, that is an heavenly".
This is the high language of the saints, who speak of
themselves in this world as alone, yet not alone. But be
fore we can understand how these things can be, and make
this language honestly our own, many of us may have to
take many steps.
Some of us have, I hope, during the last few years made
real progress in realizing our true greatness through the
experience of loneliness and unsatisfied desires. Great
advantages have been offered to you in this University of
late years by the provision of instruction in new and varied
fields of study. And no doubt the separate study of these
several sciences has procured for us a considerable and
valuable increase of knowledge ; but at the same time there
has been given you a new liberty in matters of religion, and
some have tried to substitute for religion one or more of the
new fields of knowledge laid open before them. In some
cases here, as elsewhere, there has been an attempt, more
or less deliberate and complete, to put aside Christianity
and substitute for it the pure cultivation of the intellect, or
some branch of natural science, or some form of know
ledge for its own sake, independently of religion or morals.
And the result has been, in more cases than one, dissatis
faction, disappointment, a sense of loneliness, an experience
of not having found something which corresponds to the
UNIVERSITY SERMONS
/
whole self incompleteness, unrest ; so that now, when
the experiment has been made, many would sadly agree to
the statement that what the philosopher has found is, after
all, not what the man wants.
This may be a great step towards, if not upon, the
pathway of the saints ; it is, at least, a negative proof of
man's greatness. As Adam felt his solitude most when
the highest forms of creation beneath himself were brought
before him, that on them he might exercise the superior
faculties he possessed, so the attempt to enable man to find
his rest and satisfaction in the knowledge of the treasures
which nature has received for him is resulting, I believe,
in many cases, in making man feel his loneliness as a
stranger upon the earth all the more ; and all the increased
knowledge of the infinite marvels of the universe which
science has revealed, has only made man feel the more
acutely not only his own littleness but his solitude, just as
there is no loneliness so painful as being alone in a crowd.
There are other ways in this free age when everybody may
try what he pleases, as far at least as his personal religion
is concerned, in which men are proving the truth of the
first words of my text that they are strangers upon the
earth. Already some of you may be conscious of a mis
giving as to the power of money, or social progress to give
you perfect peace. This University has offered in new
abundance what is in reality a social opportunity to many,
and we rejoice that it has been so largely accepted ; but
what is the honest result to those who have experienced
the gain ? Does it lead you to think that you have here
entered on a path which will lead you to perfect rest ?
I think not. If I mistake not there has been more con
scious loneliness in this University of late than in former
years. Mere knowledge, mere possession of an increased
social position, leaves a great part of man still alone.
His knowledge, his rise in society, may be the result of
honest labour, and so most honourable to himself and use-
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 71
ful to others, but these are other and side considerations.
The simple experience from the new possession, regarded
as such, fails to satisfy, and leaves the man who has
honestly acquired it still a stranger upon the earth.
These last few years, by the help under God, of one 1
whose words and thoughts are with us, though we see him
no longer, many in this place, I believe, have been encour
aged to respect in themselves the consciousness of higher
capabilities than any material surroundings can supply or
satisfy. We have been set free from a material bondage.
Man, we find, desires something more than the pleasures
which the senses can yield, even in the purest and most
cultured enjoyment of form, and colour, and harmony of
sound. In all these things we have indeed made great and
real progress, and doubtless there are still great discoveries
to be made. The treasures of nature, and the wonders of
art will not be exhausted in our age, nor probably in any,
but amid all these high pleasures some of us have been but
realizing our solitude the more acutely, and seeking for
another companionship with light and goodness. The
distinction of right from wrong, the sense of duty, the
attraction to what is right, the peculiar satisfaction which
cleaving to the right, as right, is found to bring, the sense
of security, independence, freedom, which belongs to self-
respect and self-mastery, all this has led many to expect
that morality is the sphere in which man will find his
greatest freedom and development.
And we must indeed be thankful that our feet have
been placed upon this step ; it is a position full of honour
and promise. The pathway of duty is really Divine. But
if I mistake not, even here men are experiencing a new
solitude. " The moral point of view," we have been told
lately, "does not satisfy." Even this high pathway, so
full of new and lasting beauty, has been called a region of
x The allusion is probably to Professor T. H. Green, who died
26 March, 1882. Editor.
?2 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
weariness in which this or that human being, this or that
passing stage of culture, may rest for a time ; but for the
race, as a whole, it is pronounced impossible : in fact,
morality, we are told, is not final. Besides the continually
unrealized "I ought," we need the rest and the reality of
" I am ". Morality, in short, leaves man unsatisfied, still
a stranger upon earth, or as we are now told, " Reflexion
on morality leads us beyond it " ; it leads us to see the
necessity of a religious point of view. " Religion is more
than morality. In the religious consciousness we find the
belief, however vague and indistinct, in an object, a not-
self; an object, further, which is real."
This is a great point to have reached. To have chosen
the moral sphere as the sphere in which we will live, and
to have determined to tread the path of duty, come what
may, and to feel lonely as we go, and yet to persevere,
this is, I believe, a position full of hope ; surely it is an
experience of the first half of my text, " I am a stranger
upon earth ". Something of the kind they tell us who
have climbed among the snow-peaks of our highest moun
tains and stood in the purity of the fresh fallen snows, and
have gazed in the brightness of the rising sun it is
wonderful, glorious, ennobling, thrilling, heavenly, com
pared to the life of the man lounging in idleness in the
hotel or town below. But no, it did not satisfy me !
Where, then, is man's satisfaction to be found ? The
last half of my text will tell us : " Hide not Thy com
mandments from me ". Here the first great point gained
is Thy commandments. Man is no longer left alone
plodding on the path of duty in obedience to a law within,
but he has risen above the law, to the Lawgiver, he has
found a Companion, a Friend the personal God. Thy
commandment. Enoch walked with God, Abraham was
the friend of God. This is the rest and confidence of
the saints : " Surely I will be with thee ".
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 73
How this great step is to be made we cannot yet com
pletely say. It seems that God intended not to leave
Himself without witness in doing good, in sending us rain
from heaven and fruitful seasons, " so that the invisible
things of Him ought to be understood by these things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ".
It may be that there are powers in man which, when
harmonized in themselves, and restored to their intended
object, and empowered with the aid they are capable of
receiving, may enable us, even in this life, to have a far
more certain hold upon God, embracing Him with all our
faculties, than we have yet experienced. We have done
very little yet for Christian ethics ; we have studied and
taught ethics as known to the heathen, and we have as
sumed that our hearers were Christians, but there has been
as yet very insufficient consideration of the moral capabil
ities of mankind, when aided by the new supernatural
forces which Christianity has supplied. Humanity was
taken into personal union with the Godhead by the Incar
nation, not absorbed or destroyed, and the fruits of the
Incarnation are, in the case of most of us, certainly far less
than they might be.
We probably might lay hold of God much more really
than we do, both with our reason and our affection. This
is the great step which some still seem unable to take, the
step from obedience to a moral law, to communion with
the personal God ; to step from a commandment to 'Thy
commandment. The best of ancient heathen writers on
morals help us but vaguely and insufficiently. The
greatest Eastern rival of Christianity, numerically speak
ing, fails in both requirements, by the loss of the personal
God and the extinction of the personality of man ; and as
it seems, at least to some, this has not been set out as
clearly as we could wish in some of the books which lately
have helped us most. But if the text points to the remedy
74 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
for man's solitude, so it tells us the way in which the
remedy is to be found full, clear, restful faith in God,
such as the saints of old possessed, the reality of which
they were ready to witness to with the best proof that
men can give their lives. To have this faith we need
God's special help. It is a gift of God. Faith is not the
desperate leap of a moment ; it is ultimately the gift of
all we have, and are, to God ; but first, it is a gift from
God to us it is given us in the behalf of Christ, to be
lieve on Him, " By grace ye are saved through faith ; and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ". Faith is
the gift of God, not only in the object, but in the act.
St. Augustine has expressed this very fully : " Invocat Te,
Domine, fides mea quam dedisti mihi, quam inspirasti
mihi, per humanitatem Filii Tui, per ministerium Prae-
dicatoris Tui ". So the text, after confessing man's solitude
and dissatisfaction, " I am a stranger upon the earth,"
and pointing upwards to the only remedy, Thy command
ments, the will of the personal God, says : " Hide not,"
reveal to me, make clear to me what I vaguely feel must
be ; teach me, give me more light.
Here is the step we have come to, and it is a hard one,
too hard for a man to take alone, and so, alas, it becomes
to some a stone of stumbling, a rock of offence, for it
implies two things more help from God than we by
nature have. " To them gave He the power to become
the Sons of God, which were born not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
And, on our side, it implies surrender, acceptance " teach
me". Except we become as little children, we cannot
enter, we cannot take the first step. This, brethren, I be
lieve to be the exhortation that nature herself would give
to us, and to which the angels are longing to make us
attend, as they look down upon us in this busy place, and
to which God Himself, step by step, is calling us, as He
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 75
sees us toiling in our loneliness along the way. Sursum
corda all seem to say ; oh, that we might have grace to
answer Habemus ad Dominum.
But we must not expect to do this easily. We can
partly understand why it must be hard. We have to re
turn to neglected duty, and we know by sad experience
the double difficulty with which neglected duties are
weighted ; there is the original difficulty in performing the
task that we had to do, and the additional humiliation of
approaching it with a sense of the moral burden imposed
by our neglect. We know, too, how much harder it is to
go back, not to any inanimate thing at which with our bodily
strength we have neglected to work, nor as it were into the
realized presence of a moral law, but to go back into the
visible presence of the living Person whom we have neglected,
offended, hurt, and to say to him I want to tell you that
/ have done wrong to Tou. This close realization of two
personalities the / want to tell You I have done wrong
to Ton costs us an effort for which we try to invent all
manner of substitutes, but which, we feel, when we do it,
comes home to the very centre of our being.
In one way our return to God is harder than that, in
another easier ; it is harder, because He is perfect ; and
we must know, if we know anything, that we have offended
more than we know ; it is easier, because He is not as we
feel our fellow-men may be. He is not suspicious, or
selfish, or unwilling to receive us, or likely to make capital
out of our humiliation, and to triumph over us for the
future. We come back to Him who is perfect knowledge
indeed, and perfect goodness, but also perfect love. He
is sure to receive us ; He will not think less well of us for
the future ; He will not mistrust us or withhold His gifts.
" Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these ? '
are the words addressed to a returning and penitent
Apostle ; then take My flock, the flock that I loved better
76 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
than I loved My life, " Feed My sheep ". When the
penitent son " was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion on him, and ran, and fell on his neck,
and kissed him ". The old conditions of love and obedi
ence were offered again. The father accepted the son as
his son : " This my son was dead, and is alive again ".
Pardon, reunion, love, new opportunities were all freely
given. And yet the history of Christianity shows how
hard it is to keep in true relation these two fundamental
truths of man's happiness, our own personality and the
personality of God. It was one at least of the reasons why
the Reformation movement took such strong hold upon
Western Europe, that it was an effort to vindicate personal
responsibility, and to check man in the danger of sub
stituting the Church, or the ministry, or the mere use of
the Sacraments for the individual realization of personal
communion with the one personal God yet even so the
danger could not be for ever averted. The most in
fluential book of the Reformation period was written to
help individual souls to see in the Scriptures their direct re
lation to the Three Persons in one Godhead. It was rightly
seen that men may put the Bible, or their own faith, or
feelings, in the place of God, and lose, half-unconsciously,
the real end for which our Faith and the Bible are given.
The same difficulty is observable on the other side. There
is the danger of substituting the Saints, or the Blessed
Mother of Our Lord, or even the subtle substitute of our
Lord's own most Sacred Heart, which in Italy at least, as
one qualified to speak l has lately told us, has failed to bring
the people to the full knowledge and love of the Person and
Life of Jesus.
This picture given us of Italy by one who still loves his
country and his Church there, and who has suffered for his
1 1 think the reference is to Father Curci. He certainly says this
in his // Vaticano Regio. Editor.
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 77
love, is full of serious and solemn warning. There, he
tells us, nothing is thought of less, spoken of less than
Jesus Christ.
There the one subject you do not hear preached is Jesus
Christ, and His works, His miracles, His doctrines.
There the moral life is separated from Jesus Christ. There
the great desire of the believing and more thoughtful people
is to have more of the substance of the spirit and less
multiplicity and materiality of form, less of the Madonnas
and of the Saints, and more of Jesus Christ, by whom alone
the Madonna and the Saints are what they are. Brethren,
believe me, I do not quote these words in any bitterness of
controversial spirit, nor with any sense of self-righteous
superiority, but simply to show from this side of the picture
how possible it is, even when you have reached it, to slip
aside from that central condition of man's rest and happi
ness personal union with the personal God : " Fecisti nos
ad Te Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donee re-
quiescat in Te ". Where, then, is our safest course ? I do
not think that any answer can be given which will free
men altogether from danger, or place them beyond the
pain and discipline of temptation. We are responsible for,
and must expect to be tried and tempted in, matters of faith
as well as morals ; but as the true moralist would not cease
to repeat his convictions with regard to the right rules of
life, in spite of the thousand perversions of moral principles
and failures to give them effect ; so the true believer in
God should not be unduly discouraged at errors and failures
with respect to the faith, but should again and again avail
himself of every form of assistance, whether of persecution
or doubt, or any discipline that may be given him, to
separate the false from the true, and to place himself as
directly as he can in union with what he believes God's
great will to be.
In this spirit, not as hoping to save you from all future
7 8 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
temptation and danger, but as giving you at least a most
precious and comprehensive answer to the question, I would
refer you to the words of the text : " Hide not teach me
Thy commandments ". And if you ask what are God's
commandments, I will give you two answers, both from
the beloved Apostle, both among the last words with which
our Revelation closes. First, " His commandments are
not grievous ". Let this be a golden maxim with you, an
unalterable maxim, whatever the world without, or flesh
and blood within, at times may say. They are not griev
ous, they would not be if we received them as He enjoins
them. They would be grievous, it has been well said, if
put upon us all at once ; but they are not heaped on us,
but according to His order of dispensing them they are
given upon an harmonious and considerate plan, little by
little, first one duty and then another. If men will not take
their duties in Christ's order, but are determined to delay
obedience, with the intention of setting about their duty
some day or other, and then making up for lost time, is it
wonderful if they find it grievous and difficult to perform ?
that they are overwhelmed with the arrears of their great
work ? that they are entangled and stumble amid the in
tricacies of the Divine system which they find progressingly
enlarging around them ? Ask Him then to teach you ; ask
Him to reveal His Will to you His will with regard to
you ; say " Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? " And
say it trustfully, knowing that He will not put upon you
more than you can bear for " His commandments are
not grievous ".
This first as to His commandments, and then, next,
if you ask what God's commandment is, I would answer
again in the words of the beloved Apostle : " This is His
commandment, that we should believe on the name of
His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave
us commandment ". Brethren, I do not mean that by
ALONE, VET NOT ALONE 79
repeating these words I shall save you from all further
questionings, but I do believe that in giving them to you,
I have, by God's help, pointed out to you the way in
which you will attain the highest perfection of your own
capabilities, and the way by which you will best be able to
perfect the apparent, ay, and the unapparent capabilities
of others. Man being what he is, it is surely worthy of
the gravest consideration, if we have reason to believe
that we have found the key that will unlock such untold
treasures. Do not despise it because it seems so simple.
The rod of Moses which divided the hindering waters of
the Red Sea, the manger at Bethlehem, and the cross on
Calvary, were all of wood ; " quid enim prodest clavis
aurea si aperire quod volumus non potest ? Aut quid
obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil quaerimus nisi
patere quod clausum est ? "
Try it then : for yourselves first ; then, if you can
honestly say that by it you have learnt to know yourself,
and through yourself have risen by His aid above yourself,
and found Him in Whose image and likeness you were
made, so that with all humility yet reality you can say :
" Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none
upon earth I desire in comparison of Thee. As for me,
nearness to God is my good."
Then, go on to consider the rest of the commandment,
for this commandment is twofold ; believe on the Name
of His Son Jesus Christ, and then love one another as He
gave us commandment. This is the path in which man
will find his happiness ; this it is, and this only, that can
free man from the unnatural sense of solitude and give
him peace, the love of God and the love of man, the love
of God through Him who is both Man and God, and then
the love of man in God.
I cannot close these simple words on man's solitude,
and man's true companionship, and man's true source of
8o UNIVERSITY SERMONS
power, without taking an illustration of what I have said
from an event passing before us at this present moment.
All England, and I might say the whole of educated
Europe, and beyond, is watching with breathless anxiety
the bold adventure of one who has gone single-handed to
save the lives, not of his fellow-countrymen, but of his
fellow-men in the East. It is an heroic effort. 1 What
does he say is the secret of his courage ? What does he
aim at ?
His biographer tells us it is because his hope in all
things and his faith in God have never faltered, that his
strength has never failed.
His own words about himself are : " I do what I think
is pleasing to my God ; I go as straight as I can ; I am
quite alone, and like it ". Brethren, these words are a
commentary on the text ; and he adds : " I do not profess
either to have been a great ruler or a great financier, but
I can say this, I have cut off the slave-dealers in their
stronghold, and I have made the people love me ".
Surely this is a noble position for a man to have at
tained to. For my object I have set God always before
me, and my work is to knock off the fetters from human
ity. What the end of this career may be we do not
know, but such lives should, I think, make us look again
at those texts of the Gospel which we are apt to put aside
as altogether hopeless and too high for practice. " Seek
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all other things shall be added unto you ; " and " My
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish
His work ".
There are powers in the human will which we rarely, if
ever, see fully developed, because it is not in constant union
with the Divine Will. Religious fanaticism in India may
1 The reference is to General Gordon who had gone to the relief
of Khartoum.
ALONE, YET NOT ALONE 81
show us what a controlling force over man's will may be
come. What new victories, then, over ourselves and others
might we not win, if we lived in less varying communion
with God ! Brethren, in a few days the season of Lent
will begin. That is a time set apart especially for self-
reflection. If I might offer you one rule to make your
Lent a time of real profit to you, I would say, " get time
to think " ; take the words of the Psalmist, " Be still, then,
and know that I am God ". Set apart some time each day,
and, whether with or without a book, be with yourself.
Do not be afraid, as far as you are able, to realize the
facts of your own existence ; self-knowledge, self-respect,
that is the first condition ; and then, as you reflect upon
what you are, what you have been, and what you ought to
be, then you will, I believe, desire to look above your
selves to One to pardon what has been wrong in the past,
and to be your guide and companion for the future.
Remember humility ; do not be too proud to pray ; ask
God to forgive, to help, to teach, and to lead you. Say
trustfully, " Hide not Thy commandments ". Then, in
union with Him, through the precious blood of Christ,
rise at Easter, and go forth in His strength to tell others
what God has done for your soul, and then let there be
courage. We have great opportunities now of giving
experimental proof of the power of the Gospel. The
bitter cry has reached us from one portion of the country.
It would reach us, at least, in as loud and bitter tones if
we only had ears to hear, and hearts to feel, from thousands
and tens of thousands of our fellow-beings, not only in
England, but in Egypt, and other lands ; and if we believe
that we have found the truth, if we are convinced that
what man really wants is to know and to do God's Will ;
if we believe that we know what that will is, even to be
lieve on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and to love
6
82 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
one another ; then let us be brave in the face of a world
which knows neither the source of its own misery nor its
true happiness, and in spite of any sacrifice that may be
required at our hands, let us resolve to devote our lives,
in whatever way it may please God to call us, to telling
the people that truth which alone can really make them
free.
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 83
VI. 1
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE
WORLD.
" When He is come, He will reprove the world." ST. JOHN
xvi. 8.
THIS, you will say, is a disappointing text for such a
Festival as Whitsuntide. We expected something
brighter, more hopeful. You might have spoken to us,
you will say, of some of those gifts of the Spirit which in
our hearts we long for, but of which we hear only too
little in the world Love, Joy, and Peace. You might
have helped us by reassuring us of the Inspiration of the
Holy Scriptures, which we still cling to as to no mere
product of the wit of man, but as the revelation of God's
Will, and which we find increasingly to be to us like no
other book. Or you might have helped us to see more
clearly how Jesus, the glorified but still Incarnate Lord,
is the Lord, the Head of the Body the Church, and in what
way while God is everywhere the Church is the covenanted
sphere of His perfect love. Or you might have told us
of the new Pentecostal gift of grace as it comes to each one
of us in the daily conflict with sin. You might have re
minded us of the new standard of moral life which we
have as Christians in the example of Christ, and of the
new powers which we have received by the coming of the
Holy Ghost to enable us to make that standard in our
degree our own. You might have assured us that sin is
1 Preached before the University of Oxford, May, 1894.
6*
84 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
not to reign over us, but that all things belonging to
the Spirit are to live and grow in us, and that to aim at
such a standard is not to throw ourselves from the pinnacle
of the Temple, but to walk on the level of the duty of
every Christian man.
Have you grown old, you will say, and forgotten what
the young men were when you lived amongst us ? Do
you not remember that many of us are struggling hard
with many difficulties and temptations? Have you for
gotten the intellectual strain which in many cases comes
of necessity from the nature of the subjects we are required
to study, but which we fear sometimes, from the pain that
we suffer, may be the beginning of doubt ? Do you not
remember that the highest intellectual attainments are no
necessary exemption from moral temptation, and that
success in athletics does not always make our own self-
mastery certain ? Have you forgotten that while we are
the objects of admiration to our companions and friends,
some of us are inwardly miserable, and would gladly give
up all for that inward peace and secret satisfaction, and
sense of security and growing hope, which are the result
of the Presence of the Spirit of God in the heart ? We
want sympathy and encouragement, and yet you come
back to us, and on Whitsunday speak to us of reproof:
" When He is come, He will reprove the world ".
No ! my sons, no ! I may have grown old, but I have
not forgotten, and no one who has ever been privileged to
know anything of the treasures which the heart of man
contains is likely to forget them. " When He is come,
He will reprove." When He, that is, who is the Spirit
of Truth is come, He will reprove or convict. That
He who is to reprove is the Spirit of Truth, and that He
is to reprove by conviction, suggests at once that it is of
no mere arbitrary exercise of authority of which I desire
to speak, and of no mere blind obedience, but rather of
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 85
attention to reasonable reproof, and of the need of cor
rective discipline.
If I am right in my inference, there is at the present
time in the world both a too great unwillingness to be
corrected, and also a too great unwillingness to correct.
This is perhaps partly due to the impatience which is a
natural result of the hurrying age in which we live. The
rise of the great commercial world in the present century
has spread a spirit of competition over us all. It is indeed
a new and marvellous manifestation of the secret forces which
an Almighty Father has prepared to promote the brother
hood of man, but, like all other forces in the hand of man,
it may be used injuriously. A desire for quick results,
and rapid exchange, leads us naturally to impatience under
correction, and tempts us to give up too quickly some of
those higher treasures, the excellence of which time and
experience would show. We cut down the vine and plant
another instead of pruning it. Another and wider-reaching
cause of our dislike of reproof or corrective discipline will
be found in the prominence of pleasure.
The application of the results of progress in physical
science to promote our comfort and pleasure through sight
and sound and touch is little short of miraculous. There
is indeed much in all this to make us thankful and rejoice.
That pleasure is now thought of in relation to a greater
number, is an increase to our own highest happiness still
greater is the joy, and more full of hope, from the fact
that the pleasures of many are becoming more reasonable,
that with the increase of intellectual culture a refining in
fluence is purifying the pleasures of the people and enabling
them to enjoy the pleasures of the exercise of their own
higher capacities.
All this is full of hope while pleasure is used as an
allurement, as a lawful secondary motive ; but there is
danger now when some would offer pleasure as the rule
86 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
and end of life. It is surely a cruel deceit to tell men that
pleasure is the true object and end of their being, without
any suggestions as to the kind of pleasure which you mean ;
the pleasures which last, or the pleasures which arise from
the quality of the action and not necessarily from the
action itself. If pleasure, pleasing oneself, is taken as the
true rule of life, men will naturally resent all correction and
discipline, and in the end find that they have incapacitated
themselves for the enjoyment of those higher pleasures of
which they were capable.
Is there not some danger of this in the modern system
of our schools ? The greater variety of subjects offered
for study has no doubt the advantage of offering oppor
tunity for the development of different capacities ; but is
there not a danger of a loss of self-control and self-discip
line, a temptation to choose a line of study which will
bring the greatest amount of pleasure at the moment, and
the loss ultimately of those higher and more abiding
pleasures which are the fruit of patience and perseverance
and the habit of self-control ? Valuable as athletics are in
schools for the development of bodily health and strength ;
valuable as they are as a safeguard against mental and
nervous exhaustion ; invaluable as they are as a never-
failing subject for innocent conversation, yet is there not
a danger, if masters are chosen simply for their athletic
powers, that we shall mislead the young by exciting their
admiration for forms of excellence which after all fall short
of those higher perfections which would make them ac
quainted with a higher happiness in themselves, and make
them sources of a higher happiness to others ?
When we look at our English Universities from the
struggling life which is moving England at the present
time, the thought continually presses itself upon us, Are
we doing all that we might to bring home to you the
seriousness of the responsibilities which your opportunities
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 87
here put upon you ? At your age there are thousands
who are earning their own living and striving to educate
themselves so as to obtain a share in the administration of
the government of the country, and the increased applica
tion of the principle of local government will give a new
stimulus to this zeal. Every village will have its oppor
tunities, and we naturally look to our Universities to send
us leaders.
But here the principle implied in the text comes home
to us with increasing force the need of reasonable re
proof, the need of corrective discipline. It is a special
danger of the day that leaders are so little independent :
success, popularity, to be in favour with the many, whether
boys at school or members of the Empire, this is regarded
as the first requirement. And yet it is difficult to see how
the young and the imperfectly educated can be .profitably
governed without reproof and discipline. Surely it would
be well if, instead of wishing to be leaders themselves, more
would strive so to train others that they might become
leaders in their day, or at least be able intelligently and
wisely to follow.
It is not that I would take from you the brightness
and happiness of your life here, or have you give up alto
gether those many forms of innocent amusement which
are the natural outcome of your youth and strength ; but
only I would ask you to reflect that the age in which you
live is watching you, that there is a growth in society
which by degrees puts away childish things and asks for
the thoughts and words and wisdom of men. It is that
you may not be a disappointment to your age, but be ready
to take that high place in it which your well-nigh unique
advantages here should justify you in taking, that I have
ventured to press upon you the need of keeping before
yourselves the more serious aspect of your life here, and of
guarding yourselves*against a thoughtless rejection of that
88 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
reproof and corrective discipline which are so necessary for
your future perfection.
But the danger of shrinking from reproof and discipline
applies not only to your own personal characters and your
efficiency in the work of life, it affects also the very doctrines
by which your lives should be ruled. Thus even with the
doctrine of the Atonement, there is a tendency with some
to take what appears to be an easier view, and to reduce it
to the comprehension of the natural reason. There is a
tendency to put out of sight, if not altogether to deny,
the vicarious aspect of the Cross. The desire may be to
relieve a mental strain and to exalt man by dwelling on the
truth of his incorporation in the Second Adam ; but is
there not a danger lest in the end we rob man of the
reality of that supernatural assistance by which alone he
can be reconciled back again to God, and become a par
taker of the Divine nature? There is a danger of so
stating the doctrine that while it may be a relief to our
pure reason, it would be an unutterable loss to our whole
being the truth that Christ died for us ; that as the
Good Shepherd He gave His life for the sheep. That
" God hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all " must
imply that Christ has done for us what we could never
have done for ourselves no mere natural culture of our
powers, nor any supernatural ennoblement of them, could
be sufficient.
God in Christ, by the power of the Divine nature,
wrought out in His manhood all that was necessary to re
concile God to man ; and God in Christ, through the life-
giving Humanity, is working out in man's nature all that
is necessary to reconcile man to God. Thus the satis
faction and the justice and holiness of God is a reality ;
but in both we pass beyond the limits of mere human
reasoning, and must be content to acknowledge with the
apostle, " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 89
and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are His judg
ments, and His ways past finding out ! "
In part our difficulties in recent years have arisen from
the attempt to retain the old words of the Christian faith,
but to explain them by a rationalistic meaning. We
must remember that the Christian faith implies not only
an object of belief but an act of believing ; and both are
a gift from God. In part also we have brought difficulties
upon ourselves by not considering the whole counsel of
God as He has made it known to us, but by choosing
what appears to be a simple and easier way. Thus the
doctrine of the Atonement has been considered apart from
the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Church, and so
the effect of God's redeeming love upon man, and of man's
share in his reconciliation with God, have been unduly
forgotten, till at last that one mysterious act which made
man's reconciliation possible is regarded as derogatory of
man's greatness and possible perfection.
No doubt the doctrine of the Church has been abused,
the spirit of the world has entered into her rulers ; and
pride and the love of power have influenced her teaching
until men have been tempted to reject her authority
altogether as being a kingdom of this world and not of
Christ. Such confusion and misuse of God's gifts might
well tempt us to despair, did we not believe in a stronger
than the strong, if we could not with confidence look up
to Him to-day who was to come to reprove the world, and
trust to His infinite wisdom and almighty power to reprove
the spirit of pride and the spirit of rejection, and to lead
us in His own good time and way into the full knowledge
of the truth, so that we may see the Church to be the
" pillar and ground of the truth," " the Body of Christ ".
Indeed, when we think of the spirit of ease and of the
world in its relation to the Church, we can see what need
there is to consider the work of the Holy Spirit in the way
90 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
in which I have endeavoured to direct your thoughts
this morning. In the Form of Ordaining of Priests in
the Prayer Book, one of the questions addressed to the
candidates is this : " Will you then give your faithful
diligence always so to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments
and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded,
and as this Church and Realm hath received the same, ac
cording to the Commandments of God ; so that you may
teach the people committed to your cure and charge with
all diligence to keep and observe the same ? " and the
answer is, " I will so do, by the help of the Lord ".
Observe the threefold nature of the promise here made
to minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and the
Discipline of Christ : not only the Doctrine and Sacra
ments, but also the Discipline of Christ. We wrong the
Church of England when we break her rules, and we pro
voke her adversaries to charge her with weakness when we
neglect to use her powers. We encourage confusion if
we fear to exercise her discipline. It is not any arbitrary
exercise of authority that I am asking you to consider, or
any interference with the liberty of the consciences of other
men, but the need of restoring that corrective discipline
which the Church of England desires for those who of
their own free will wish to be her members. Thank God
much has been done during the last sixty years to bring
home to her children the disciplinary blessings which the
Church of England offers to thousands of her children.
The Pentecostal gift has been made a reality by the exer
cise of the priestly office as it is committed to each in our
Church with the solemn words, " Receive the Holy Ghost
for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God
now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands
whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ".
For thousands we may rejoice and offer up our praise
and thanksgiving to-day to Him who came to reprove the
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 91
world of sin. We praise Him, we bless Him, we worship
Him, we glorify Him, we give Him thanks for the blessed
work that He has done. How many are there who, hav
ing been caught in the snare of the devil, when they knew
not what they did, can say to-day, " Through Thee, O
Blessed Spirit, the snare was broken and we are delivered ".
How many are there who, after living shut out in self-
excommunication, have through Him been brought back
to God, and found that peace which passes all understand
ing. How many are there who, in the hour of death,
have found through Him relief, and heard His voice who
said, " To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise ". All
this, brethren, is yours to-day ; most real and increasing is
the joy at Whitsuntide in the Church of England, among
the poor as among the rich. But, brethren, forgive me, if
even to-day I ask you to remember the severer side. He,
the Comforter, came to reprove : is there not a danger lest
we should forget the corrective discipline which our moral
nature requires ? The gift in Ordination is a power for
binding as well as loosing, and we have done next to noth
ing with regard to the former. It is not indeed peculiar
to the Church of England, but it is a result of the spirit
of undisciplined liberty which prevails at the present day
throughout the whole of Christendom. Contrasted with
the rules of the early Church, is there not ground for fear
lest our present practice should tempt men to think too
lightly of sin, and so deprive society of that moral strength
which the Church was intended to secure for her ?
In heathen lands this is being recognized, and degrees
of discipline have been restored : with ourselves at present
it rests with each individual penitent to be on his guard
and to aim at such severity of self-discipline as he believes
to be most in accordance with the spirit of the Church,
and most helpful to his own moral nature. " When He is
come, He will reprove ; " perhaps we who have been set
92 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
over you in the Lord have in these last days kept the
office of binding too much out of sight ; we have been so
anxious to win you to Christ that we may have been too
much afraid of reproof. It is in order that I may suggest
the remedying of this wrong that I have chosen these
words for my text to-day, " When He is come, He will
reprove ". Yet do not misunderstand me, my brethren.
Why is it that I desire that you should be sensitive to the
voice of reproof, and accept the discipline which may be
provided for you here ? Is it merely to check you, to put
you back, to crush the natural and right ambition of your
youth ? God forbid ! Nay, it is that you may be ready
to go forward into the great work of life which is awaiting
you. There are thousands and tens of thousands whom
you ought to be capable of leading. There are thousands
who are looking to you to be their leaders ; but how will
you be enabled to lead these thousands of your fellow-
countrymen, of whom some write and speak as though they
were a rebel army bent on the destruction of their country
and the Church ? How will you lead them ? Is not the
answer becoming more and more clear ? Not by the mere
exercise of power, not by the possession of wealth, not by
mere nobility of birth, not by superiority of intellect or the
possession of knowledge, valuable as all these undoubtedly
are, but rather by a certain subtle force of character, and
by the possession and manipulation of those altruistic in
fluences which find their way into the hearts of men of every
class and nation, and unconsciously but irresistibly claim
their allegiance. It is for this social efficiency that I would
ask you to be preparing yourselves now. In what that pre
paration chiefly consists we Christians ought not to have
any doubt. It is by our being conformed to the Image of
the Son of God. Only remember what that implies.
" He went down with them, and came to Nazareth,
and was subject unto them." Yes, for thirty years.
THE HOLY SPIRIT REPROVING THE WORLD 93
" Though He were yet a Son, learned He obedience
by the things which He suffered." Nay more, " I, if I
be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me ".
If we are to be conformed to His likeness, there must
be self-mastery, self-denial, and the spirit of self-sacrificing
love. Of the nine fruits of the Spirit, the first and the
last are ayoLiriq and ey/c/octreta. The world has become en
tangled by the abundance of the good things which it
possesses. The work that we ask of you in your day is
to go forth to show men by your words and by your
example wherein man's truer happiness lies to show men,
as well as teach men that it is more blessed to give than to
possess that selfishness is the ruin of self ; that the full
happiness of each is to be found in the happiness of all ;
that " if one member is suffering, all in their measure must
suffer with it " ; that mankind is a brotherhood : nay
more, that mankind is intended to be one body, even the
Body of Christ, and every one of us members in particular.
Forty years ago there was one who in this pulpit by
his word, and in this University by his example, taught
these things ; of whom it was said that " his noble life was
O '
a living commentary on the four Gospels 'V It is to the
same pattern which he took as the model for his own life
that in loving and grateful memory of his name I desire to
direct your attention to-day, that you may be ready for
the great work that is before you. Following that Pattern
you have nothing to fear. He knew what was in man,
for He made man. You need not be afraid ; what can
flesh do unto you ? only keep the true end before you,
and use the means which God has provided. Be strong in
the Lord and in the power of His might, and may the
Spirit of the Lord God, the Lord and Giver of Life, be
upon you, and lead you forth into this rich though sad
1 The Rev. Charles Marriott. See Dean Church's " Oxford Move
ment," pp. 70-81.
94 UNIVERSITY SERMONS
world, and enable you by your words and by your ex
amples to "preach the good tidings, to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prisons to them that are bound ; to pro
claim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of
vengeance of our God ; to comfort all that mourn ; to
appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment
of praise for the spirit of heaviness ".
So you may be blessed yourselves, and become a bless
ing to others.
II.
CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS.
SECRET FAULTS 97
I. 1
SECRET FAULTS.
" Who can tell how of the offendeth ? O cleanse 'Thou me from
my secret faults" PSALM xix. 13.
NEXT Sunday, as we all know, is Advent Sunday, and
we shall begin, God willing, a new Church year.
To-day we are come to the end of the long course of
Sundays after Trinity and another year is ended. To all
the completion of so large a period of time is a serious
matter, but for many here a year means a third of their
whole University life. One year more and many of you
will be gone, will have passed on into the great work of
life, and this University life, which seems so complete and
so lasting while it lasts, will be over. What should be our
thoughts at such a moment passing from the old year to
the new ? The text expresses at least one part of our
thoughts at such a time, and the part which should come
first, whatever may follow a thought which belongs to the
old year we are leaving, whatever may be our thoughts for
the future.
The awfulness of the judgments in the Gospel lies
really in their gentleness. There is no exaggeration, no
over-statement, no undue claim ; when we read them we
feel we should have nothing to say ; we feel the sentence
to depend on matters that are less than we expected. The
guests who were excluded from the marriage feast had
1 Preached at Christ Church on the Sunday before Advent, 1883.
7
98 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
done nothing in itself wrong. They all had excuses for
not obeying the call, and their excuses were innocent
the calls of business, the lawful duties of home, the land,
the yoke of oxen, the newly married lawful wife yet
these sinless engagements are the ground of their final ex
clusion. The salt which had lost its savour was to be cast
out and trampled under the feet of men. It had not be
come poison, it had done no harm, but it could do no good,
its uselessness was the ground of its rejection. The sloth
ful servant who had not misapplied or lost, but who had
not added to his lord's money is bound hand and foot and
cast into outer darkness. There is no crime laid against
Dives, the rich man who lifted up his eyes without hope
in the other world, except ease and neglect of the poor.
Not great and notorious sinners but those who had neg
lected in this life to visit the sick and clothe the naked and
feed the poor are chosen as the types of those who will be
placed on the left hand and go into everlasting punishment.
It is the gentleness, the calmness, the moderation, the exact
equity of these charges which make them so terrible. We
may be free from great and overt crimes, free from the
dominion of presumptuous sins, and yet fall under condem
nation. It was the consciousness of this exact equity of
God's judgments which caused the double prayer of the
Psalmist of which the text forms a part, " Keep thy servant
from presumptuous sins," and " who can tell how oft he
offendeth ? O cleanse Thou me from my secret faults."
i. There are some sins so secret that they almost cease
to be capable of being called sins, because we do not any
longer perceive them those sins which our former sins
have now prevented us from perceiving or feeling to be sin
ful ; that heaviness of ear and blindness of eye which pre
vents the heart from understanding and being converted
and healed ; a dullness to spiritual truth which now perhaps
from its very nature mercifully diminishes the guilt of
SECRET FA UL TS 99
each half-conscious act, but a dullness, a deafness, a blindness
which need never have been and for which we are respons
ible. For these our now almost unconscious offences we
need at least to be humble and to ask for pardon ; for we
have reason to fear that during the past year there may
have been many heavenly voices whispering around us
which we have not been quick enough to catch ; many
things our eyes might have seen that should have been to
us messengers from a higher world to be interpreted as in
dications of our heavenly Father's Will, had our eyes been
lighted with the fire of true wakeful, watchful love ; in
tended to remind us whence we are and whither we are
going. But we have missed them, and at the close of an
other year we fear that the ear has not heard, nor the eye
seen, nor the heart understood as fully as it might, had we
been what God intended we should be. From these my
secret sins, then, the sins which are unknown to me be
cause of my former sins, do Thou, O God, Who knowest
what I might have been, before another year begins, cleanse
me and set me free.
2. If such secret faults seem too secret to be any real
burden, there are other faults of whose existence we are
more sure, though the extent of the evil is not fully
known to us and therefore they may be called secret.
I mean those sins of omission which at the end of a year
lie scattered all along our path, indeed in places quite thick,
in heaps, too visible to forget. What have we not lost
by our shortened if not neglected prayers ? What might
we not have gained if our Communions had been better
prepared for, more water for Christ's feet, more oil for
His head, a truer kiss, a body held more in subjection,
a mind more practised in heavenly things, a purer and
a warmer love ? I know He came, I know He said nothing.
Ah ! but He noticed, He looked round as in the Temple
of old, though He did nothing then to cleanse. How
7*
ioo CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
much firmer might we be in the faith if we had read our
Bibles more regularly and prayerfully. How much more
familiar might we have been with heavenly things if we
had been more careful to spend our Sundays better, to be
more in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. What would
have happened if we had gone on more steadfastly in this
or that path of duty ? What turning in the road have we
lost just beyond where we stopped because the journey
seemed so monotonous, so dull, so straight, and so endless,
what new views of God's Will shall we never see ? What
persons now we may never meet whom we should have
seen and should have met had we kept the " there " and
" then " of our daily appointments ? We cannot tell, but
when we think of all the good things God has prepared
for us to walk in we may well feel that there are many
which we have missed. When we remember how many-
sided the joy appears when we have done what we ought to
have done, we may well suspect that every divergence from
the Divine pathway of duty has only led us into a less
profitable country, and that there are some things at least
which we have lost. For those our sins of omission and
the injury they have caused to ourselves we may well pause
for a moment before the old year is gone and say, " Who
can tell how oft he offendeth ? O cleanse Thou me from
my secret faults."
3. There is yet another form of secret sin which at
the close of the year we should do well to remember,
I mean the unknown harm which we may have done to
others. Like the widening circles on the surface of the
water when the child throws the pebble in the pool, so the
sins of our childhood and of other days have spread we
know not whither. It is possible (we must remember) to
lead others into sins which we have never committed our
selves. Arguments for mere love of amusement or display
of skill may raise doubts in the mind of another which we
SECRET FAULTS 101
have never felt and cannot answer. An expenditure which
to us may not be worse than waste may lead another into
embarrassments which will destroy the peace of years and
break the hearts of those who denied themselves to provide
what should have been more than enough. Our thought
lessness may lead another to break a heart whom we have
never known but it is through our fault that this heart
is broken.
Parents and those in authority may by undue severity
discourage a life and never know the evil they have done,
because they cannot tell what the life would have been had
their voice been more gentle, their hand lighter and the
real love of their heart less hidden. St. Paul warns us
plainly : " Parents, provoke not your children to anger lest
they be discouraged ". How many lives have withered
in the bud or failed of their full fruit from want of
sympathy. The thought of all the losses we may have
brought upon others through neglecting to remember
them in our prayers ; the " daily bread " which has been
cried for in the East of London and for which we should
have added our petition ; the hundreds night after night
trembling on the brink of ruin, whom one earnest supplica
tion, " lead us not into temptation," might have saved all
these and other injuries and losses which through our
fault, our grievous fault, have come to others may well
make us close with humility another year, using the words :
" Who can tell how oft he offendeth ? O cleanse Thou me
from my secret faults."
But what, you will say, should be the practical result
of such a line of thought ? Is it intended to take the
heart out of us for the coming year ? to make cowards of
us ? to make us turn and shrink away from the battle of life ?
No quite the reverse, the fear of God puts away all other
fear ; yet if such a line of thought has any meaning for
us, as we stand at the close of the old year and look back
102 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
over the past and then forward to the future, I do think
it should fill us with awe ; we should not leave the old
year in a self-righteous, high-handed way.
As our eyes are opened and we see more clearly what
we are and what our relation to one another really is ;
how much good we may do to one another, or how much
harm our position is like that of the patriarch Jacob
awaking out of his sleep at Bethel and exclaiming : " Surely
the Lord is in this place and I knew it not ; this is none
other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven ".
Yes, indeed, this is a true picture of our life here. We
are in a world which is, though fallen, still God's world
and God's house. We are standing at the gate which is
almost open and will open with the slightest touch and
ought to open for us into heaven. This pathway of our
last year's life was through God's world, a world full of
Divine witnessing and so will our pathway, God willing,
be through the next year. Such nearness to God and
Divine things ought to fill us with awe. This is the
first condition, not human fear, not cowardice, not loss of
heart, not fear of man, or of pain or death, nothing of the
kind, but " Holy Fear," the fear of the Lord which is the
beginning of wisdom. This is the first thing, to realize
God's presence in our hearts ; then the second will natu
rally follow, we shall fall down before Him in some act of
contrition. When we look back over the past year in the
light of His presence then the words come naturally to our
lips : " O cleanse Thou me from my secret faults ". It
would be wise, it is but seemly, to pause for a little while
before the new year begins, to place ourselves beneath His
Cross and ask that we too may be included in the prayer,
" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ".
And then when we have done all we ought to do to free
ourselves from the burden of the past, we may rise and
ask God to help us and stir up our will ; to show us how
SECRET FAULTS 103
to make resolutions for the coming year to carry out our
Lord's two commands, " Watch and Pray ".
I offer you suggestions for two such resolutions :
1 . More watchfulness. The results of carelessness are
so far beyond anything we should have expected in a world
watched over by an Almighty God, that unless we carefully
consider the matter we may be deceived. Lives lost at
sea, lives lost in the mines, railway accidents, flaws in deeds,
miscarriages of law, the death of others, self-destruction-
all these year after year are the result of carelessness, acci
dents, as we call them, arising from not paying proper
attention, thinking it would not matter, till it is too late.
It is true that for children it is enough to say, " I did not
mean it, I am sorry " ; but this is one of the childish things
which year by year as we become men we must put away.
" I did not mean it, I am sorry," ah, but the result remains,
a fallen countenance, years of misery, the opportunity is
passed. The gate through which we pass from one year to
another opens but one way, we cannot go back ; the past
is over. Let this then be one resolution for entering the
new year, to be more watchful, more alive to the secret
harm our carelessness may bring to ourselves and to others.
In other words, let us realize that which is the intended
result of our knowledge of right and wrong, a sense of re
sponsibility, a responsibility to do the right and avoid the
wrong. If this is really gained, our first footsteps in the
new year will be found in the pathway of duty, and that
pathway begins and ends in God.
2. Yet shall we need, even so, another resolution or we
shall fail, faint before the journey is over a resolution to
seek the aid of God. Let it be, in the simplest form,
whatever else we may add, a resolution to be more diligent
in prayer. A true sense of our responsibility brings a
burden which for us alone is intolerable ; but God has told
us how we may obtain relief and so cast our burden on
104 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
Him. " Ask, and ye shall have ." Watch, then, and
pray.
These simple thoughts, if carried out by us, as all can if
they will, would present a splendid picture for the opening
of the new year. The picture of a man cleansed even from
his secret sins of the past, restored to God, conscious of His
presence, full of holy fear yet not afraid, at peace with God,
bright with imperishable happiness, stepping bravely on the
path of his duty, not knowing whither it may lead him but
looking up to God for guidance and support, going forward
with a man's courage and a child's heart.
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? 105
II. 1
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?
" Who is my neighbour? " ST. LUKE x. 29.
MOST people's lives are so full of occupation and
anxiety that it may seem unkind and useless to
offer them any considerations that would appear to add to
their responsibilities. " We all have as much as we can do,
we have as much as we can bear," would probably be the
self-protecting exclamation of each one of us if asked to
undertake any duty beyond that we already have.
The sufferings or anxieties attached to our bodily health,
the consciousness of our power of work depending upon it,
and, it may be, the further consciousness of the dependence
of others upon ourselves, the anxieties which many have for
their own family, or near friends these and many other
kinds of anxieties are to be found so plentifully, without
going further than the narrow circle of our own homes,
that for many it seems enough if they can bear up against
the trial of the daily task which the round of daily duties
brings to them. And yet even from this point of view it
is not so needless, nor so unkind, as it seems at first sight,
to lead people even thus burdened to the consideration of
a wider field of responsibility, and perhaps of still greater
troubles than their own. There is a natural tendency in
all of us to exaggerate the troubles we feel ourselves and
to regard them as greater than those of other people. We
1 Preached at Christ Church, 19 August, 1883.
io6 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
know that a hand or a leaf held close before the eye will
shut out the whole immensity of the sun itself, the nearness
for the moment destroying all sense of proportion ; hence the
turning away from our sorrows to the troubles of others
has before now been rewarded by the consolation that our
difficulties are not greater, often not nearly so great, as the
difficulties of other people. The visit to the infirmary or
the hospital or the sickroom of a friend has raised not only
a spirit of benevolence and the desire to relieve others, but
what was less expected, a spirit of thankfulness for the
relative littleness of the sorrows we thought so great, now
seen in their true proportion beside the greater griefs of
other people. And once more, if our own lot be at pre
sent free from trouble, still more necessary may it be to
guard ourselves against a selfish forgetfulness of the suffer
ings of other people ; sufferings, it may be, in body, mind,
or spirit, endured by people with whom we are in constant
daily contact but of whom we have been totally unconscious
through our habitual prosperity.
The habit of consideration for others will save us from
this isolated selfishness, from the exaggeration of our own
sorrows or from a selfish forgetfulness of the troubles of
others.
What safeguards can we suggest against this danger.
The great remedy would seem to be that we should deter
mine with more care the maxim or principle which rules
our lives.
There are few, if any, who have any care for what is
called their " character " who would not be offended or feel
aggrieved if they were called ##principled people. An un-
principled man, a man of no principles, is admitted by all
respectable members of society to be faulty, and wanting,
in his relation both to himself and others. And yet, while
we are aggrieved if called unprincipled, how many there
are who have not really seriously considered what the
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR ? 107
principle of their lives is, who could not tell you as a
practical daily working rule what the maxim is which
governs their conduct. What happens to so many of us
is something of this kind. We reject the charge of being
unprincipled or without principle, and yet we cannot say
what the fixed rule of our action is, practically therefore we
act sometimes from one principle and sometimes from an
other. Sometimes it is the rule of pleasure which deter
mines what we do, we do it because we like it, or we refuse
to do it because we dislike it, just as children say " they do
not choose, but they will and they wont," according to the
whims of their own likes and dislikes. At another time
we are determined in our actions by what we consider to
be for our own advantage ; we do not think of others, or of
right and wrong, except indirectly as it may or may not
affect our own gain, we simply do what we do because we
think it is the best for ourselves.
Two things are clear with regard to such principles of
conduct.
First, that if either of these principles of action be
adopted exclusively, and in the simple practical meaning of
the words, i.e. if we have no : other rule for the governing
our actions than pleasure, or our own profit, we may be,
probably shall be, led very far away from the true path of
duty. A life of hard inconsiderate selfishness, or a life of
suicidal self-indulgence would be the probable result.
Secondly, while either or both of these lines of conduct
taken absolutely would probably lead to such evil results,
yet either or both of them contain a large measure of truth,
and require only to be taken in relation to other truth to
be of great practical value.
It is true that we ought to do the best for ourselves
when we have rightly learnt what Self means ; when we
have learnt that a man is something more than mere body,
that a man's life does not consist in the things which he
io8 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
possesses. Again, we may say that Pleasure is the true
final condition of man, if we know what man's real pleasure
is, the rest, viz., of the whole man through final union with
the Will of God. When we mean by pleasure the blessed
ness of the life of the blessed, a reunion with God through
Christ and Communion with the Saints in Him, a life,
that is, in God and with God at Whose right hand there
are pleasures for evermore.
In other words, pleasure and our own profit may be
ruling principles of our lives, provided they are conditioned,
as we say, i.e. over-ruled when need be by the one higher
principle of doing that which is right. It is this which
makes the true man of principle, the man who has deliber
ately chosen as the ruling principle of his daily life not
pleasure, or profit but the test of right and wrong such a
test is free from selfish ends and includes in a man's action
the implicit consideration of others. What is right for a
man to do implies the fulfilment of man's duty both to God
and man. It is in the language of Scripture setting life
and death before ourselves and choosing life. It is listening
to the voice of an instructed conscience ; it is obedience
to the Will of God. It is the " fear of the Lord ". It is
the man, the whole man in true harmony with himself,
with all creation, and with God.
Simple as all this may seem, it would be a great step
gained towards the perfection and the unity of humanity
if we could persuade first ourselves and then as many others
as we can to determine the principle of our actions, to ask
ourselves, Have I any fixed rule which governs my daily
life ? Have I any maxim, any test, which I at least intend
to apply in every case in which I doubt, and which I hope,
God helping me, to follow.
It is indeed a great position gained when a man sees
and determines upon what should be the right principle of
life. But when this is determined upon, another question,
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? 109
often of bewildering importance, almost of necessity must
arise, viz., What is to be the standard of my life ?
Accepting the maxim of life to be ceasing to do evil and
learning to do well, how shall I know when I have done
enough? What is to be the standard of my efforts to
do right ? How much good must I do ? Who is my
neighbour ?
The want of considering this question, and finding the
true answer, is a very common cause of loss of brightness,
of depression, and despondency, if not of envy and jealousy
and worse. If the false standards are once admitted, " I
must do as much as other people do, or as much as some
one particular person has done, or I must obtain such
power, such a reputation, such influence among men " ;
if these, or such-like false standards are admitted, a life of
perpetual uncertainty will be the result, and undue exalta
tion, or needless depression, the almost inevitable penalty.
The simple standard for every man to set before himself
is " the perfection of his own capacities ". This is the
true inference from our belief in God as our Creator.
The standard according to which our Saviour gave praise
or blame, is " she hath done what she could," and it is the
standard by which we shall all be judged. It matters not
whether we are entrusted with ten talents or five, or two
mites, the extent of our capacities belongs to God, the use
of them to us.
The condition of our approval rests on our using what
we have. " To him that hath (i.e. uses what he has) shall
be given." " She hath cast in all her living." " She hath
done what she could." The value may be 300 pence or
one farthing, the standard of excellence is the same, the
perfecting our capacities doing what we can.
For ourselves the constant recollection of this principle
is of the utmost importance, both as a safeguard against
the miseries of envy and the restlessness of an insatiable
no CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
ambition ; also, as forming the natural foundation for that
spirit of contentment and peace and cheerfulness which is
the outward expression of a true inward satisfaction.
But this apparently simple standard of acting up to our
capacities will lead us to great opportunities and great
responsibilities.
Christianity may be said in one sense not so much to
have changed the nature of virtue as to have enlarged its
area. To the educated Greek, the highest representative
at least of Western morals, the idea of a virtuous life, or
as we should say of a good life, was confined to a few
selected nations. The great mass of the world were
barbarians. The great masses even of the favoured Greek
nation were regarded as incapable of social responsibilities,
incapable of taking part in ministering to the well-being of
the State. In plainer words, the masses of the people
were regarded as mere goods and chattels, slaves and
instruments, for the convenience of the upper classes, in
capable of social rights and responsibilities, and therefore
according to the Greek view incapable of virtue.
Only those who were capable of taking part in the
well-being of the State had moral claims or capabilities
while the rest were instruments of their convenience. To
a Greek the answer to the question, " Who is my neigh
bour ? " would be very limited, limited to a few nations,
limited again to small circles within the nations themselves.
Christianity changed this and extended the area over
which man's capabilities and responsibilities were to extend.
" In Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew, circum
cision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all and in all."
This gives to the answer to the question in the text
an extended meaning wide as humanity itself; for all
nations were to be made members of Christ, He died for
all.
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR ? in
The answer given to the question of the text, " Who
is my neighbour," by the Parable of the Good Samaritan is
wide indeed. It would imply " every one whom we can
help," or who helps us, so that the answer is found by ask
ing two questions, " Who needs my help ? Whom can I
help ? " There is my neighbour.
So far, then, as I suggested at the beginning, the con
sideration of the words of the text will involve us in great
responsibilities.
Our separate lives are to be ruled not by pleasure, not
by our selfish profit, but by that which is right. The
standard of our actions is to be the extent of our capacities ;
the area of our responsibilities is wide as humanity itself.
Let anyone look calmly and deliberately round and see if
there are not many living obviously in ways below the
standard which they ought to reach ; such persons need our
help. It may be that their capabilities are apparent, that
they both could and would do more if sickness or mis
fortune or some obvious hindrance did not keep them
back. In such cases our duty is plain enough, the only
difficulty is the limit to our capacity to assist, it is not
possible to do all we would, but we ought to do all we
can ; our capacities should be used to the utmost to enable
others to reach the perfection which they might attain.
There is yet one step further. It is not enough to aim
at the perfection of our own capacities nor even to do our
utmost to enable others to remedy their obvious deficiencies.
If we would look out over the great field of humanity
with the true spirit of the neighbour of the Parable, we
must have faith in the unapparent capabilities of the people.
There are millions over the earth in heathen lands, thou
sands (I fear) in our own Christian land, whose capabilities
for their final destination in heaven are hard indeed to
see. Yet if they are not to be fitted for heaven, for what
will they be fit ?
ii2 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
What other place will there be besides heaven when
the earth shall have passed away, or be reserved for the
habitation of the redeemed ?
It is a readiness to see the spark of life yet remaining
in a fallen and half-dead humanity which constitutes the
very essence of the spirit of the Good Samaritan, the true
neighbour, with trustful readiness to help, believing, in
spite of appearances, in the possibility of a stronger and
better life.
On this Sunday, then, when the Parable of the Good
Samaritan is read to us as the Gospel for the week, let us
look out once more along the highway of life and see if
there be not some brother, some sister, in need whom we
have the power to help. Let us look both to ourselves
and others, and see whether we are doing our utmost to
perfect the capacities we have received, remembering what
we are, eternal beings made in the image and likeness of
God and intended for the companionship of God through
eternity. This is the intended end for all men, of all
nations, and all classes of society.
God employs various means, whole nations or indi
viduals, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, moments or
ages, peace or war, sickness or health, prosperity or adver
sity ; all these and more God as He pleases makes the in
struments of bringing man to his intended perfection. It
is for us to look carefully and see whether we are like the
Priest and the Levite avoiding our opportunities of being
fellow-helpers with God, or whether, like the Good Samari
tan, we are ready to have faith even in unapparent capabili
ties of the fallen and half-dead.
SIN OVER-RULED 113
III. 1
SIN OVER-RULED.
" Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that
ye sold me hither : for God did send me before you to
preserve life." GEN. XLV. 5.
r I ^HIS is a remarkable text : it might be dangerous to
make it the subject of a sermon if it were not
addressed, as on the present occasion, to persons of whom
it may be well assumed that they are fully persuaded of
God's holiness and justice. For what does the text say ?
The words, you remember, are the words of Joseph to his
brethren. They are words, that is, addressed to persons
who had done exceedingly wrong, and the purport of these
words is to tell these very persons not to be too much
grieved, not to be too angry with themselves, for that God
had over-ruled their sin for good.
Joseph's brothers had been guilty of many sins ; they
had been guilty of envy, they envied Joseph because he was
beloved of his father ; they had in their hearts been guilty
of murder, some of them at least would have left him to
perish in the pit ; they had sold their own brother as a
slave ; they had deceived their father and lied in deed if
not in word, bringing back the coat of many colours dipped
in blood. They continued their deceit even in the pres
ence of Joseph himself, saying, " One is not " in Joseph's
own language they had " thought evil against him," and
1 Preached in Christ Church, 30 December, 1883.
H4 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
yet it is after all this hatred and envy and deceit that the
words of the text are addressed to them.
" Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with your
selves, that ye sold me hither : for God did send me before
you to preserve life." I have chosen these words for my
text because they contain a message of consolation and
hope which I trust we are not wrong in taking to our
selves at the close of another year, and in storing up in
our memories to be used as a word of comfort when the
years of our life in this world shall be over and we be
called to our last account. For the words of the text lift,
as it were, the veil towards the close of a touching though
by no means blameless career, and they show us how, after
all, in the good providence of God even our mistakes
and sins may be over-ruled by His goodness to promote
our good and the welfare of others. I do not say
that they can be over-ruled to make ourselves and
others better than we might have been if we had never
sinned ; that is more than we are justified in inferring
from the text ; but the words do lead us to hope, when we
look back at the close of another year and review our
lives, that our mistakes and even our sins are not above
the control and the almighty mercy of our God, and that
He may not only check the evil we have done but over
rule it for His glory.
It may be perhaps right while we consider the consola
tion offered by the text to consider also the undoubted
testimony that God's word brings to the truth that sin
must be punished. God's rule and law is : " The wages of
sin is death ". " The soul that sinneth it shall die." " What
soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." " For every
idle word man shall give account." " God seeth not as man
seeth, but God looketh on the heart." " Out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts and these defile a man." " God is
about our path and about our bed." "There is not a
SIN O VER-R ULED 1 1 5
word in our tongue but He knoweth it altogether." Our
thoughts He " understandeth long before ". And it is not
only the chosen nation, the children of Israel, that God's eye
has so continually watched and to whom His ear has
listened, but it is clear from the Bible that God watches,
and has ever watched, the whole heathen world as well.
All men, wherever man is, are under His eye, and His
ear listens to their thoughts. The prophets, Isaiah, Jere
miah, and Ezekiel, have grouped together their chapters
containing prophecies of the heathen nations, and they are
a most valuable and serious contribution to our knowledge
of God's moral government of the whole world.
Thus Isaiah speaks of the pride in the heart of the
King of Assyria :
" O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, ... I will send
him against an hypocritical nation. Howbeit he meaneth
not so, neither doth his heart think so ; but it is in his
heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few. For he
saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and
by my wisdom ; for I am prudent. Therefore," saith
God, " I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the
King of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks." l
There is the same knowledge shown and the same
charge made against the sin of the heart of the King of
Babylon :
" For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God :
... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds ; I will
be like the most High. Therefore," saith God, " thou
shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit, and
the inhabitants of hell shall mock in their surprise at the
fall of the great one, and say, Is this the man that made
the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms ? "
Us. x. 5-7, 12, 13.
2 Is. xiv. 13-16.
8*
Ii6 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
Ezekiel reveals the same knowledge of the pride of the
King of Egypt who said :
" My river is mine own, and I have made it for
myself".
The same prophet points out the exultant envy of the
Ammonite in the day of Jerusalem's distress. " Because
thou saidst ' Aha ' against my sanctuary and because thou
hast clapped thine hands and stamped with thy feet and
rejoiced in heart, with all thy despite against the land of
Israel, therefore," saith God, " I will stretch out mine
hand upon thee and will deliver thee for a spoil to the
heathen."
But we need not look so far away to these great ex
amples of God's moral government of the world and the
consequent punishment of sin ; the whole history of which
the text forms a part gives us warning enough.
What the full measure of the suffering of Joseph's
brethren may have been we cannot indeed tell, but we
are told enough to know that it was serious.
We have the record of their humiliation in their bow
ing to Joseph the younger brother whom they had sold for
a slave ; we know how their own sin, deceit, found them out
in that they themselves were accounted as spies and could
not obtain credit when they spoke the truth.
We know the grief they caused their father when he
charged them with the lives of their brethren : " Me have
ye bereaved of my children ".
We know, too, how their sin burnt in their consciences
when they said one to another : " We are verily guilty con
cerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul
when he besought us and we would not hear, therefore is
this distress come upon us ". And we know of the mutual
self-reproach so characteristic of companions in sin when
Reuben answered them saying :
" Spake I not unto you, saying, do not sin against the
SfN OVER-RULED 117
child : and ye would not hear ? Therefore behold also his
blood is required."
This was many years after they had sinned, and yet
their sin, both the scene and the words connected with it,
are fresh in their consciences, as if all were before them still.
And, further, we know they paid that most constant
penalty of sinners they were continually afraid.
When they first discovered their money in their sacks'
mouth, their heart failed them, and they were afraid, say
ing one to another, " What is this that God hath done to
us ? " When on their return they were brought in kind
ness into Joseph's house their evil conscience betrayed
them, and we read, " The men were afraid because they
were brought into Joseph's house". And who can tell
the agony in which all the brethren came back with
Benjamin after the cup was found in his sack and fell
down before Joseph, and Judah said : " What shall we say
unto my Lord ? What shall we speak ? Or how shall
we clear ourselves ? God hath found out the iniquity of
thy servants." These are the bitter words of a man whose
sin had found him out. " What shall we say ? Who will
believe us ? " They are language expressing degradation
andj-uin. All this and more in the history with which
the text is connected is enough to warn us against thinking
lightly of sin because God can in His mercy make the
result less bitter than we deserve. We might add that the
bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt was in part a
result of the sin of Joseph's brethren. God over-ruled that
too for good and called His Son out of Egypt into great
nearness to Himself; but the pain and suffering which
God has over-ruled out of sin for man's good need never
have been ; man, as far as we can tell, might have become
fit for God's eternal companionship without the terrible
discipline of physical and moral pain. The angels who
kept their first estate seem to have done so.
n8 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
With this necessary caution against doing evil that
good may come, we may find in the text comfort and
support suitable for the close of the old year (when we
naturally look over the years that are past and may well
fear the evil results which our sins of omission and com
mission may have caused) ; suitable also, if I mistake
not, to the present time when the results of sin are being
so forcibly pressed upon us, and we are almost forced into
deeds of philanthropy by the increasing consciousness of
the misery that surrounds us. For there is a great stir
now all through the land ; the ignorance, and poverty, and
suffering, and misery of masses of our fellow-countrymen
are increasingly occupying the attention not only of indi
viduals but of the nation.
It is not that we would wish to check efforts to relieve
the suffering which is around us, God forbid, but is there
not a danger that people should be so occupied with many
forms of misery which are the result of sin, that they
neglect to look beneath the surface and see whence the
real evil has come ? The teaching of the text is that we
may trust God more than we probably do with the evil
results of sin, for that He can, and will, over-rule them
even for good ; while our truest work in the presence of
suffering is to draw nearer to God ourselves by a true
repentance, and then to seek to persuade all other sufferers
to do the same.
Thus the text finds its deepest and truest interpretation
in the words of St. Peter addressed to those who had
through envy sold and put to death One who should have
been to them closer than a brother : " And now, brethren,
I wot that through ignorance ye did it as did also your
rulers but those things which God before had showed by
the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer,
He hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be con
verted that your sins may be blotted out, so that there
SIN OVER-RULED 119
may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the
Lord."
St. Peter shows how even the unparalleled sufferings of
the Saviour were over-ruled by God for the good of all
mankind ; so that St. Peter might indeed have used the
words of the text : " Now therefore be not grieved, nor
angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither : for God did
send me before you to preserve life ". " In ignorance," St.
Peter says (at least to some degree), " ye sinned ; " you did
not mean to bring about the terrible results to which your
envy led you, you did not intend to do what nevertheless you
have done, " Crucified the Lord of glory " ; yet God has
over-ruled those results of your sin for good. For you the
best and truest relation to your sin is not to be over-anxious
about the result of misery which it has caused ; God is able
to deal with that according to His infinite wisdom and
mercy, and to over-rule it even to His glory and your good ;
but you must repent, and sin no more ; this is the spiritual
truth you have to learn when the presence of misery shows
you what your sin has done. Such probably was in the
mind of Joseph when he spoke the bold words of the text :
" Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves
that ye sold me hither : for God did send me before you to
preserve life ". He had seen the suffering of his brethren,
their humiliation, their distress, and though he knew they
had thought evil against him, yet he had seen how God had
over-ruled that evil for their good, and he bade them check
their grief and their anger against themselves and come to
receive the good things his unchanged brotherly love had
provided for them.
Brethren, I believe the spirit of this text is in accordance
with the mind and will of our God towards us at this close
of another year. Be not over-alarmed, it would say, at the
amount of misery you see around you in the world, and in
which, more or less, as a member of the nation, you feel a
120 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
responsible share. Do your best indeed to remove all the
misery you can, but regard all this in a trustful spirit
knowing that God is able to over-rule this outward misery
to higher and more lasting good.
Let the consciousness of misery which you see around
you rather lead you to ask yourselves, Whence came all this
suffering and death into the world ? And listen to God's
own answer : " By one man sin entered into the world and
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all
have sinned ". Listen to this and put away all your high
handed ways with God ; put away that scornful indifference
to religious things ; break down that pride which leads
you to the habitual assumption that you are right and your
neighbours wrong ; cease to seek the living among the
dead ; learn to try to make men happy. No longer halt
between two opinions. Look back over the old year, and
where your conscience tells you you were wrong, repent, and
trust that God will pardon ; repent, turn from the wrong
thing whatever it was. Do not be over-grieved or over-
fearful for any results that you might fear should follow,
but trust yourselves to God's forgiving love ; enter the new
year determined to live by God's help, like Joseph's brethren,
in closer brotherly love one toward another, and in more
thankful, trustful love towards your ever-merciful God.
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 121
IV. 1
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS.
" His commandments are not grievous"- i JOHN v. 3.
T HAVE spoken, my brethren, several times during this
-* year on the subject of the Ten Commandments. I
have done so from a desire to save any who from the
various opinions now current on religious matters might
be in danger of falling into the delusion that they did not
know what God would have them do, to save any who
might be tempted to make this imagined ignorance an ex
cuse for following their own pleasure.
I have desired further to lead you to see that these old
commandments, though written with an outward rough
ness which man's dullness of hearing required, are really
rules of love, rules for the training of the heart, rules by
which man may best reach the fullness of the heart's happi
ness its greatest activity and its most perfect rest in the
love of God and love of man.
I wished also to remind you on the highest authority
that these Ten Commandments are really only two, two
rules of love : " Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind. This is the first and great com
mandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself." 2
1 Preached at Christ Church, 18 November, 1877.
2 St. Matt. xxii. 37-39.
122 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
And now this morning I desire to add one other
thought to this same subject expressed in the words of my
text, " His commandments are not grievous ".
In the Parable of the Talents you will remember it was
the slothful servant who thought his master hard. It was
the servant who had made no use of the talent committed
to him who was afraid. In the text it is the Apostle of
the longest life, the longest service, the Apostle of love,
who tells us of his Master : " His commandments are not
grievous ". This is the key to the meaning of the words.
They are not grievous to those who receive them as He
enjoined them. Here let me remind you of the words of
one from whom so many of us have learnt in this place,
and whose words may still teach us.
" Christ's commandments viewed as He enjoins them
on us are not grievous. They would be grievous if put
upon us all at once ; but they are not heaped on us, ac
cording to His order of dispensing them, which goes upon
an harmonious and considerate plan ; by little and little,
first one duty and then another, then both, and so on.
" If men will not take their duties in Christ's order, but
are determined to delay obedience with the intention of
setting about their duty some day or other, and then
making up for past time, is it wonderful that they find it
grievous and difficult to perform ? that they are over
whelmed with the arrears of their great work, that they
are entangled and stumble amid the intricacies of the
Divine system which has progressively enlarged upon
them?"*
The truth is, my brethren, we are apt to forget even
we who profess to believe in God as the Creator of heaven
and earth that the world, this state of things through
which we are passing, is made by Him : no doubt it is
a marred world, confused and dulled in its intended beauty
1 Newman's " Parochial Sermons," Vol. I, Sermon viii.
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 123
by the fault of man a world influenced now for evil by
the Prince of this world, instead of being ruled by us, as it
might have been, in the perfect peace and order of our
original royal and priestly rights ; yet still for all this it is
the world that God made, and His presence still continues
to make it what it is. The providence of God under
which we live still rules over all. The pathway of our
lives lies still amid the intricacies of a Divine system,
which is intended progressively to enlarge upon us. It is
this forgetfulness which makes the text to many of us seem
so puzzling, so unreal. We forget as we enter into life
that we shall have to do with things which belong to One
who has a design, an end, an aim, One who has prepared
a way for us to walk in, and provided many means and
forces on the scale of an Almighty. Creator, who made all
things for Himself, and intended all things in this world
to work together for our good. We forget the greatness
of these forces, the reality of this design, and let ourselves
be as it were drawn thoughtlessly into this great man-
making machine of a world, and then wonder that we find
it hard and perplexing, and that some seem crushed be
neath its wheels. Life we then cry out is not easy, His
commandments are grievous ; but surely the fault is ours,
and not God's.
We shall do well then to remind ourselves at the be
ginning of life that we are already in a wonderful world,
that the pathway of our lives will lead us through the in
tricacies of a Divine system, which is intended progres
sively to reveal itself to us, and to bring us nearer to our
intended perfection and to God. Let me try, my brethren,
in a few words to point out to you two or three of the
chief groups of forces which form part of this Divine
system, and in which all of you in some degrees may ex
pect to have your share.
i. T/ie Fellowship of Love. First, then, as touching
124 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
the very beginning of our existence here, there is what
has been called the fellowship of Love. 1 Love is a great
force, or set offerees, most delicate, most subtle, most in
tricate, most Divine ; and yet how little considered, how
imperfectly prepared for, by most of us ! Marriage is
indeed a wonderful part of the Divine system, and full of
progressively developing power and blessing, instituted by
God in Paradise, before sin had confused and dulled the
pleasures He had prepared for us ; chosen as the symbol
of the great mystery of God ; given freely to all, rich as
well as poor, with no respect of persons. How imperfectly
do we prepare for it ! I do not speak of that miserable
refined system of human barter, when parents, for the sake
of politics or some worldly scheme, sell their children for
their own advancement, and condemn them to the slavery
of a loveless marriage ; but rather I am thinking of the
hundreds of thoughtless men and women who enter upon
this Divine mystery, yield themselves to the intricacies of
these heavenly forces, without reasonable consideration,
without any serious thought, without one word of prayer.
We are shocked when the results come before us, day after
day, alas ! in our daily journals, and we read of the heart
less forsaking, or brutal treatment, of one who should be
as another self, the symbol of the Bride of Christ. We
are shocked, too, hardly less, at the frequent applications of
richer men to be freed from a union that they might have
hoped would have had strength to stand even the shock of
death.
Men tell us these things must be, that a stricter rule
cannot be kept, that it would be grievous, and more than
men could bear. But why is this ? God's plan was one
wife, one Church. God hates putting away. The fault is
not with God, but with ourselves. There is force enough
in Love to keep us right if we use it right, if we prepare
1 Harless, " System of Christian Ethics ".
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 125
ourselves properly to enter the intricacies of its mysterious
power.
If men will enter these Divine intricacies simply for
the passing pleasure of outward beauty, it is likely that
they will find the yoke grievous, and the commands hard
to keep : but is there nothing more in man and woman
than mere outward form ? no inner life ? no fragment of
the Divine Image left, in which they were once both made ?
Here is the real ground of union, here lie the strongest
forces which make up the intricacies of the Divine system
of the fellowship of Love, not merely in outward rank, or
wealth, or perishable beauty, but in the inner powers of
mind, and heart, and will, and soul : yet how little are
these considered, how poorly cultivated, how rarely per
fected, among thousands who enter this fellowship, and
then wonder and complain that life is hard, and God's
commandments grievous! Men enter into these mysterious
forces, into relations which should be a constant evidence
of Christ's indissoluble Love. They exercise, it may be,
powers which no angel or archangel ever possessed. In the
birth of children, men add to the number of immortal
beings. They venture to unite two beings of marvellous
complexity, full of Divine intricacies ; two wills, two
minds, two hearts, two persons endued with capacities to
live on for ever. All this men do with little separate
previous preparation, and then complain that the fellowship
cannot be maintained, that love is powerless, and His
commandments grievous. My brethren, these things need
not be.
2. 'The Fellowship of Rights. Here is another fellow
ship, another set of forces, very powerful, which God has
prepared for us among the intricacies of the Divine system
in which we live, closely connected with the progressive
development of family life. It has been called the fellow
ship of Rights. No man can live to himself : we are all
126 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
bound together ; the family becomes the germ of the State.
Here again we do well to consider, before we find ourselves
in the violent eddying currents of political life : " The
powers that be are ordained of God 'V The outward forms
of government may be various ; the ordinances indeed
which we are commanded to obey are called " ordinances
of man " ; 2 as though to teach us that there is a human,
a changeable, a perishable element in the forms in which
the powers are expressed. The existence of this power,
this fellowship of Rights, is being daily more and more
realized amongst us. It is impossible any longer to con
tinue the national education as though it were the education
of separate units. Ethics, as it has been said, must be re
garded again, as of old, as the vestibule of politics : it is
not possible to continue exhorting children of any class
with mere moral maxims of individual morality ; they
must become conscious as they live on of the intricacies of
the combined forces of political and national life forces
which God has prepared for us, and intended to assist
humanity in its progress towards perfection and nearness
to Himself ; and yet, if we look around in England, how
many there are drifting on into the currents of those strong
forces, without any adequate preparation or prayerful care !
Even among those who can be said at all to consider the
matter, how selfish, how unworthy their ambition often is !
To rise in life from mere vanity or love of power, to obtain
wealth enough to be enabled to do nothing, these, and such
as these, are too often the real motives of many who rise at
all to the consideration of political power. No wonder if
in such ignorance, such want of preparation, the forces of
man's social life are found often to involve him in confusion
and tyranny, instead of bringing him to true liberty, to the
higher freedom from all that is demoralizing, from all that
1 Rom. xin. i. 2 i Pet. n. 13.
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 127
hinders his intended perfection and closer union with his
God.
3. 'The Fellowship of Grace. There is yet a third fel
lowship, a third group of forces, a third example of the
intricacies of the Divine system in which we may now be
the fellowship of Grace ; i.e. in simple language, though
perhaps not more easily understood, the Church.
Here is a Divine system, which is the perfection of
the fellowships of Love and of Rights : it is a universal
Brotherhood ; it is the Kingdom of Heaven.
What I have already said may, I think, reasonably have
provoked a feeling that I was speaking of matters almost
too secular for this place ; but now at least our thoughts
are turned in directions in which they may rise high
enough if we can follow them. The Church is the Body
of Christ, most truly and fitly joined to Him Who is Head
over all. In that Body there are forces wonderful, in
effable. There are forces powerful enough to deal with all
mankind ; forces powerful enough to cleanse us and make
us holy ; forces powerful enough to bring all our varied
wills and minds, differences of race and age, into a unity
which is intended progressively to enlarge upon us, until
each individual member is perfected according to the mea
sure of the stature of Christ, and all are one, even according
to the oneness of the Divine Likeness " one, as we are
one 'V We believe this is so, and will be so, for we con
fess our belief in One Holy Catholic Church. Surely, my
brethren, here are Divine intricacies worthy of serious
preparation ; yet how few regard them as they ought !
How sad is the sight which our Lord beholds when He
looks down upon this redeemed earth, waiting on His
throne of expectation, waiting the issue of His militant
kingdom ! I do not speak of the 800,000,000 of human
beings who know nothing of the name of Christ, though
1 St. John xvii. 22.
128 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
it is sad to reflect that still but one-third of the population
of the world are Christians even in name ; but I am think
ing rather of the thousands in Christendom, yes, thousands
in our own country, who are indeed Christians in name,
but with what little consideration, with what imperfect
preparation, have they entered upon the intricacies of this
Divine system ? What should we say, if we beheld some
fair field ripe for the harvest ruthlessly trampled upon
by a heedless herd of cattle ? What would be our feeling,
if some garden, where wealth and art had gathered the
fairest and most precious, all that could most remind us of
the toilless tilling in the garden before the Fall, if here we
saw children, not in malice but in simple ignorance, making
for themselves wreaths and garlands of the flowers, and
playing with the seeds, thus marring the present beauty,
and scattering without a thought the hope of the future ?
What would be our indignation, if, in one of our oldest
libraries, in the chamber of our choicest treasures, through
the carelessness of keepers, we saw some silly idiot crumpling
and tearing the leaves of our rarest manuscripts which we
knew to be unique ? And yet, what are these paltry figures
compared to the reality of what the Saviour of the world
beholds when He looks down upon this earth which He
has redeemed ? How great is the harvest still unreaped !
How many thousands are there of bruised, crumpled,
crushed, wasted lives ! How many thousands does He
behold entering these Divine forces ill-prepared, entering
these fellowships of Love and Rights and Grace, with
thoughts most inadequate, and then complaining that life
is hard and love untrue, that power is oppressive and grace
insufficient, and His commandments grievous !
Brethren, let this suffice to indicate the line of thought
I wished to add this morning in speaking of His Com
mandments that they are not grievous ; they are not, i.e.
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 129
they need not be, they will not be, if we will but use them
as He enjoins them.
In conclusion, will you bear with me if I offer you one
word of disciplinary exhortation ? If you need care before
you enter these Divine intricacies which surround you, you
need time to think. This was the one point of advice
which St. Bernard chose when pressed by his friend
Eugenius, Bishop of Rome, to write something that would
help him in his own spiritual life " Vacare considerationi 'V
It is indeed nothing more than the Psalmist had said long
before : " Be still then, and know that I am God ". 2 You
will reply, I know, that your life here is a life of hurry and
pressure, that your work requires all your time ; that your
opportunities of acquiring information are so constant, and
so rare, that you are jealous even of hours of reflection.
This is so, I know ; but at least you will grant the authority
of the voice which calls you to cease from a Sabbathless
pursuit of knowledge, and to rest one day in seven. On
Sunday I may ask you to be still, to get time to think, to
consider the Divine origin of the world you are so soon to
enter ; and yet, brethren, the exhortation I desire to offer
you does not extend even so far as this ; it is not the whole
even of one day in seven that I am specially pleading for ; on
that day of rest you may fairly say we need rest, rest and
refreshment in the freshness of the open air ; this is indeed
true : few things could be better for you when the Morning
Service is over than to be free in the air of heaven. But
still I want you to consider whether it is not your duty and
your wisdom to return for the Second Service in this
church, and to accustom yourselves thus early to wait on
Him in Whose mysterious service your lives will soon be
spent. Attendance on the Evening as well as Morning
Service on Sundays would surely not be too severe a pre
paration for entering the Divine intricacies through which
1 S. Bern., "de Consid." 2 Ps. XLVI. 10.
9
1 3 o . CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
you will soon be passing ; and yet even in this I would not
lay upon you an unalterable rule. There may be times, I
can well imagine, when to keep away from this grander
service, and to kneel amongst your poorer brethren in some
village church, would give you a deeper stillness, and help
you to realize the advantages God has given you, and the
mystery of your present and future relation to the holy
poor. And even further than this, I can well imagine there
may be times when the best help of all would be to be in
no church at all, but to walk and walk on simply in God's
world of nature, talking with your friend, walking and
wondering, and planning and hoping, and preparing your
selves for the great work that is to come. All this I
freely grant ; but as the rule, I will earnestly ask you
to come back to this place of worship, to accept this word
of disciplinary exhortation, and avail yourselves of these
sacred opportunities to prepare for the life that is before
you.
What that life may be I cannot tell ; it may please
Him to give you to enter the fullness of the fellowship of
Love ; but remember it is a Divine gift ; prepare yourselves
now to receive it. Many of you will be called in different
degrees (some possibly in the highest) to share with others
the increasingly desired fellowship of Rights. Try now to
penetrate beneath the surface, and see the Divine intentions
in " the powers that be ". And higher yet it may be that
God will grant you to see the Divine forces which may be
exercised in the fellowship of Grace. Strive now to keep
your hearts pure, that you may see the Divine origin and
end of these powers, which may be your own and yours to
use for the salvation of your fellow-men. All this I ask
of you, not for my own sake, but for the sake of Him
Whom you will be called to serve. For His sake I ask
you now to prepare for His Divine service, that you may
be ready for the Divine system which you will find pro-
GOD'S COMMANDMENTS 131
gressively opening around you, and being ready that you
may serve Him without fear, and by the brightness and
happiness of your lives prove before the world the truth of
the assurance of the beloved Apostle that " His command
ments are not grievous ".
9*
132 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
V. 1
FAREWELL SERMON.
" I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have
spoken to thee of" GEN. xxvm. 15.
HT^HESE words are part of that comforting assurance
which God vouchsafed to the Patriarch Jacob on
that first night when he slept away from his father's house,
going out to the unknown future of his life's work. The
lives of the saints are recorded for our edification, to lift us
up above the average level with which the world is generally
content. Their perfections are to be to us examples of the
heights to which man with God can reach ; and yet it is
often the imperfections and faults of the saints which seem
to help us most, to give us comfort, to save us from despair,
proving to us that God can pardon and love again. The
concluding record of David's great sin is wonderfully rapid
" and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon,
and the Lord loved him ". So it was with the life of him to
whom my text refers. His life had not always been what
it was now to be. Jacob's life began in moral confusion.
True, there was no great moral flaw, such as in the life of
David, but there had been a want of perfect openness,
frankness, generosity in carrying out his highest aims. His
life as recorded to us starts in confusion, as in a moral
tangle. On that first night, when he had left his mother
who had spoilt him, and his father whom he had deceived,
1 Preached at Christ Church, 8 March, 1885.
FAREWELL SERMON 133
and his brother whom he robbed, however strong an inner
sense of right there may have been, we can hardly imagine
but that there must have been some sense of shame, and
sorrow, and fear. And yet to such a soul God in His
goodness came, and came quickly, and comforted him with
the assurance of His presence, and of His love, nay, of
His companionship, and of His abundant blessing.
" Behold ! / am with thee, and will keep thee in all
places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into
this land ; for I will not leave thee until I have done that
which I have spoken to thee of."
Is not this history very like our own ? When we look
back over the pathway of our life, how much wandering,
how much stumbling, how much halting, is there ! Even
if by God's goodness the true pathway has never been
wholly lost for long, yet our best intentions have been often,
like Jacob's, wrongly carried out, perhaps injuriously, more
than we know, to those whom still in the paradox of our
confusion we loved. In one way or another most of us
have to admit a tangle and confusion in the past. And yet
the other side of Jacob's history is true also ; there is that
mysterious " that which I have spoken to thee of," that
constant secret call which has accompanied us along the
pathway of our lives, often quite from childhood, telling us
to be better, telling us not only that we ought to be better,
but that we may be better ; that we can do better than we
have done ; a voice which all along has said, " Friend, go
up higher ". Not those voices of pride, and ambition, and
self-conceit, which we know so well ; not that debauchery
of the imagination castle building. No ; something quite
different from all that. " The go up higher " is a call to
new and harder spiritual effort, to rise higher above the
things of the world, implying more detachment, fresh self-
sacrifice, living in a spiritual atmosphere which, being
higher, will be, as it were, harder to breathe. Of the reality
134 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
of this mysterious voice, telling us of the higher path,
we are most of us thoroughly conscious ; and with this
mysterious " that which I have spoken to thee of " there
is yet the still greater comfort of the assurance of the com
panionship of God Himself ; this is the real stay and joy
of life.
This was the promise to the once entangled Patriarch
Jacob, and it may be ours. " I will not leave thee, until
I have done that which I have spoken to thee of."
And here you will naturally wish to say : " Put aside
now your manuscript and tell us plainly how this can be.
What do you mean by this consciousness of the companion
ship of God ? "
Brethren, you have compelled me to speak to-day, and
you have compelled me, in a measure, to speak of myself ;
I am to speak to many of you as for the last time, as leav
ing you ; and the consciousness of this necessity fills me
with myself, for in leaving Oxford I am leaving a home
endeared to me by memories which no other home in this
world can ever have ; for in Oxford the tenderest me
mories of my childhood, for ten years, were ever present
to me, as bright and loving as in the bright sunlight of my
youth. No other place of residence can ever give me
that. 1
And yet with all this, if I try to sum up the thoughts
with which I shall leave Oxford, I must express them in
the words gratitude and love. Never can I be thankful
enough for the forbearance and kindness which I have
received from all during the past twelve years, whether
members of this University or of the city. Coming
amongst you as I did, socially unknown, academically noth
ing, it has strengthened my faith to find men of all ages,
so infinitely my superiors in many gifts, willing to accept
such services as I could offer them, and not merely to
1 For ten years my dear mother lived with me in Christ Church.
FAREWELL SERMON 135
accept them, but to accept them with respect and gratitude,
and even love. This is a great possession to have acquired
in Oxford, and for it I desire to express, to all whom
it may concern, my sincerest gratitude. And yet, if
you will bear with me, this is not all I have to say. The
text speaks of God's companionship " I will not leave
thee".
In what sense is this real and true ? I must say
(though I may fail in my endeavour to explain what I
mean), it is true, thank God, and most real. And it is for
this, above all else, that I am enabled to say that I leave
Oxford with gratitude ; gratitude to Almighty God for a
firmer, fuller confidence in His presence.
But what, you will say, does this mean ? What makes
up this treasure of which you speak ? If I try and tell
you, it can only be in fragments ; yet I will try to tell you
what the treasure is which enables me to leave you enriched
and in peace.
First, there is the consciousness of personality. In
spite of all the supposed metaphysical impossibility of the
subject being its own object and the rest of it there
rests for me this fact, I am, and I know it. I am not
altogether without the consciousness of the agony which it
has cost some minds to get thus far, though to most it may
seem self-evident. For me it is a matter of profound
gratitude that the fact remains.
Then, with this, round about this, in this, I leave it to
you to arrange them as you please, I am conscious of pos
sessing certain powers, call them what you choose.
There is one, it is more pure than e/>o>9, it has more
mind in it than ^tX^crt?, it is more disinterested than <i\ia
in its ordinary meaning, it is independent of reciprocity, at
least from man, no earth-born word has ever expressed it
it is dyctTny we call it charity, or love. It is the power
which, rightly directed, will prevail.
136 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
If you ask me, as many have done, how is this power
to be cultivated and increased? I answer, by never using
it unworthily, then it will, as by its own nature, flow on.
It comes from a fountain that rises in hills higher than any
which this world has known, and its tendency is to rise to
its own level, and to carry you up beyond what you ask or
think.
And there is another power, or call it what you please,
different from love, which enables me to divide things, and
comprehend things again as under one general idea. The
exercise of this power produces a kind of ravishment as love
does, but it is not love. You may call it reason, or what
you please, it is that which made the great philosopher of
old say : " If I perceive anyone else, able to comprehend
the one and the many, as they are in nature, him I follow
behind as in the footsteps of a God ". It has, I have some
times thought, a recognition in the revealed record of
creation when, on the contemplation of the whole, an ad
ditional expression of satisfaction is given, " God saw every
thing that He had made, and behold it was very good ".
The contemplation of the one was pronounced good, but
the one in relation to the many " very good ". I know not
whether this is so, but I know that there is the power and
that it is the groundwork, at least, of infinite interest,
satisfaction, joy, and hope.
But my gratitude compels me to speak of something
more. The sight may be the keenest bodily sense, but
wisdom lies beyond its ken. Besides the true and false,
the right and wrong, which we apply to the result of num
bers, there is another right and wrong, a good and bad.
And of this some power in me, or with me, lying round
about my personality so that I cannot separate it from me,
speaks, and fills me with a peculiar awe. With this my
greatest pains or pleasures are connected. Call it con
science, or what you please ; it is a most precious and awful
FAREWELL SERMON 137
possession. And there is one more mysterious power with
which I am conscious of leaving you, it lies somewhere very
far back, deep down by, or in, my very being, it is most
mysterious ; sometimes so strong, sometimes so weak, able
to confuse all, and put wrong for right and right for wrong,
or able to command all, and hold all, even if it hold them
in obedience to another I mean the will, or call it what
you please. It means for me that I am free. It means
that I can feel all that I can feel, and see all that I can see,
and think all that I can think, which includes (with rever
ence, let me say it) even God Himself, and yet feel that I
am free ; free even to fight against the Almighty, or, God
helping me, to perfect my freedom in the bondage of His
love. These precious possessions are part of what I mean
when I say the text is true, " I will not leave thee ". And
yet you will probably say, after all, you have not been
speaking of God, but of yourself. Well, we speak of the
sunlight mostly by its effects upon the earth and sky.
We here in England go off to Switzerland and speak with
delight of the colours which we see there ; we never can
forget them. And there are some, I suppose, more
sensitive in their power of sight, who complain of the
colours of Switzerland as too heavy, and they press on to
Italy, and there enjoy the greater brightness and brilliancy
of the southern sun. Yet all these are but looking on the
earth, or, at best, the sky, while they tell us they are liv
ing in the enjoyment of the sun. So for us the Second
Table of the Commandments is often the way by which
we deepen our knowledge of the First. It has a marked
practical prominence, both in the words of the Apostles and
of our Lord. " Thou knowest the commandments," our
Lord said to the rich young ruler, " Do not commit adul
tery, do not kill," and then follows the rest of the Second
Table : " Owe no man anything, but to love one another,"
I 3 8 CHRIST CHURCH SERMONS
said the Apostle, " for he that loveth another hath fulfilled
the law ".
And yet by God's great goodness we Christians can
look up higher than our own nature, for we have seen
His nature descend, not to destroy, but to take up
humanity into the Godhead ; and so now our reason,
seeking back and back for a cause with a stop in it,
God helps by the gift of faith ; and, having felt after, at
last we find, God and lay hold of Him, as far as this
faculty can. And to our conscience now new light is
given, which makes indeed the shadow of sin seem darker,
but which also gives us that purity of heart which enables
us to see God, and with our moral power also we lay hold
of Him as far as this power can.
And to our love now new spheres are open, and all
men are found to be not too much for our capacity when
incorporated in the Body of Christ. <E>iXia will have
Kowuvia, and we find the true end of love in communion
with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and
with mankind in Him in whom God and man are One.
And our will now receives new strength from the new
example of His love, and from His grace ; and thus the
law of heavenly obedience becomes the pattern for our
life on earth, and we pray, " Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven " ; and though our will still gives us
some cause for fear, yet it begins to seem, at least, as strong
as the cord that binds our body and soul together, and we
feel the increasing hope that, at least, it would stand the
strain of death rather than in a deliberate and final choice
choose wrong for right.
And thus, while our faculties are taken up into com
munion with the Divine, the companionship of God be
comes a reality of our daily life, and our " exceeding great
reward ". And then besides, and with, all this, we have
the special consciousness of communion with the Incarnate
FAREWELL SERMON 139
Word. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever ; " and being so we know what to do and where
to find Him. He was fond of little children ; He " took
them in His arms and blessed them ". We find Him
when we feed His lambs ; in teaching, in feeding, in
amusing children, we find His presence there. He entered
into the social joyfulness of the marriage feast, and when
we rejoice with those that rejoice, and help forward the
mirth and all the merry fun of innocent amusement, we
feel Him there. He healed the sick, He fed the hungry,
wept over and raised the dead ; and when we follow His
example, we know the refreshment of His companionship.
But above all, in His own promised ways, in searching
the Scriptures to find Him, where two or three are joined
together in prayer, in His most holy Sacrament, here, as
far as it can be in this veiled militant kingdom, we are
one with Him and He with us and this, brethren, is
sufficient. It is not yet as clear as it will be hereafter ;
it is not yet as clear as we should like to have it, because
we have capacities which are not intended to be satisfied
here, but they shall be hereafter. In this life we are
to walk by faith. Every life, therefore, must be a new
venture, and requires courage. I leave you here without
knowing what changes may yet await you ; I go out my
self, indeed, not knowing what may await me.
But this I know that no changes, not even death
itself, need separate us from God ; and, being in union
with Him, we shall be in communion with each other.
May He then of His goodness reward you for all your
goodness to me in the years that are past, and in those
which remain may He refresh you with the conscious
ness of His own presence, and preserve both you and
me in His most holy love.
III.
OXFORD SERMONS.
(MISCELLANEOUS.)
SEPTUAGESIMA 143
I. 1
SEPTUAGESIMA.
" In God have I put my trust: I will not fear what man can
do unto me." PSALM LVI. n.
OEPTUAGESIMA Sunday introduces us into a new
^ portion of the Church's year. For the last few weeks
we have been enjoying the richness and brightness of the
Christmas and Epiphany Festivals. Those bright seasons
are now over, and once more the Church calls us to pre
pare ourselves for the harder season of Lent. And yet
observe, this is not done in any cold desponding or
fatalistic spirit ; but at once, at the very outset, the Church
points us to the sure and certain hope of the great Festival
of the Resurrection, and reckoning back from that great
Festival of Christ's immortal life she calls us during these
seventy days to consider what our own individual life is.
She calls us back to the first chapter of Genesis, and thus
invites us to consider what and who and of what kind we
are. You will remember how these words stand at the
beginning of S. Bernard's little treatise, " De Considera-
tione," " Get time to think ". It was the Saint's plain
rule for perfecting his friends' spiritual life. " Vacare
considerations" Consider what you are, the mystery of
the complex nature that you have ; who you are, what is
the special work which God has given you among your
1 Preached to undergraduates in St. Mary's, Oxford, Septuagesima,
1886.
144 OXFORD SERMONS
fellow-men to do ; what kind of person you are in the
position which you hold, how the duties entrusted to you
are discharged.
I do not forget that this is the kind of question which
has made the Oxford life of many so full of anxiety, per
plexity, and sometimes even of despair. Yet many who
have so suffered have in God's good time learnt to see that
they were afraid where no fear was, that the distress which
they suffered was not the product of doubt or unbelief,
but simply the necessary strain which our faculties ex
perience when they are exercised on the highest subjects to
which they can be directed, and thus many have found that
mental strain has led to greater mental strength and peace.
First, then, let me say that in most of our lives in the
present day there is a want of quietness, and this is more
or less necessarily so in your Oxford life. It is but a short
time that you are here. A year's work is crowded into
six months. You are constantly coming and going.
New subjects are continually being brought before you.
You see new fields of knowledge opening out around you
on all sides. You are pushed from one subject to another
by the inexorable pressure of examinations. You find
yourselves surrounded by characters of every kind and
of every degree of excellence, intellectual and moral.
All this tends of necessity to excite and dazzle you, and
to rob you of that separate individual quietness which
is implied in the words I have quoted, " vacare considera
tion^ " Get time to think ".
And this want of quietness leads almost of necessity
to a want of seriousness. It is right of course that your
age should have its own peculiar brightness and freshness
and light-hearted freedom from care. All lawful amuse
ments, all the merry fun and wit which make part of the
great social advantage of a University life all are yours.
But with all this some men, I know, have wished when
SEPTUAGESIMA 145
their Oxford life was over that they had paid more at
tention to higher things, wished that they had not put
off all serious thinking till they had to leave, wished that
they had not shrunk from the pain of thinking until with
it they had to bear the burden of the task of life.
Septuagesima Sunday is a call to you from God to
begin to make your plans for a profitable Lent, the
season which the wisdom of the Church has provided as
the special time for quietness and thought. It is not for
me to suggest any elaborate or definite scheme ; indeed
any scheme must 1 be adapted by each one for himself
according to his own needs. But pardon me if, with a
simplicity which was once allowed me in this place, I
venture to call your attention to a line of thought which
all ought to undertake, or to have undertaken, or to
substitute some other for the same end.
Quietness and consideration should lead a man to
self-reflection, to the serious conviction of himself and of
his own existence, the realization of self. Simple and obvious
as this may sound there are many who have not seriously
faced this consideration, for various reasons ; some no
doubt from the real intellectual difficulties of the problem,
but many more from the seriousness of the conclusions to
which such a consideration would bring them. As the
Scribes of old, when pressed by our Lord for an answer
concerning the Baptism of John, " was it from heaven or
of men," feared to reply " from men," because that would
have been to take a lower view than society at that time
was willing to approve, " for all men counted John as
a prophet," yet they feared to take the other alternative
and to say " from heaven," because they felt instinctively
that the truth was one, and to admit the first step would
involve them in practical conclusions which they were not
prepared to make. They took refuge therefore in a self-
made ignorance and said, " we cannot tell ". So from some
10
146 OXFORD SERMONS
such half-conscious fear of the real depth and importance
of the question many men deceive themselves into putting
aside as too simple the serious consideration of their own
existence.
See what such consideration would imply. The con
viction of our own existence, the recognition of our real
self, would lead us to such words as identity, simplicity,
unity. We are one, we are and have been and shall be
the same ; but these words involve us in serious responsi
bilities. If we are one and the same then there are re
trospective responsibilities reaching back to the first
consciousness of the freedom of our being. In such a
retrospective consideration of our lives there will be with
all of us more or less matter for anxiety, regret, sorrow,
remorse in a word, quiet, serious, retrospective reflection
on our being will bring us to the word Repentance. But
this is not all. If we are, and if we are one and indivisible,
then there is the consideration of the immediate future.
What are we going to do ? What is our life's work to be ?
Oxford life is in a sense narrow and limited. It seems to
be an end in itself while we are in it, it is in reality but the
preparation for what is to come. Some men seem to have
lost their aim and interest in life when they have got their
class ; their future is a disappointment to their friends and
to themselves. But the immediate future is again but
another stage towards the entrance of the perfect life which
we hope to enter through the gate of death. All this (as
you well know) is contained in the true conviction of our
own existence. If each of us in quietness and seriousness
were to make such thoughts his own, would it not remove
a stumbling-block from the way of some who fail to see
the value of our University life, and might it not save
some of us from vexation and remorse when the oppor
tunities of that life are over ?
I have said, so far, that quiet, serious reflection would
SEPTUA GESIMA 1 47
lead you to the conviction of the mystery of self-existence ;
but if you would be true to your own experience in the
consideration of yourselves I believe you would have to
acknowledge much more. For you will find yourself
endued with certain faculties, powers, call them what you
please, which are not yourselves but with which yourself is
intimately connected. Your own experience, if you will
reflect, is sufficient to prove their existence, while their
capacity, the mode of their development, their mysterious
relation and inter-dependence, may provide subject-matter
for most profitable scientific investigation. I need for my
present purpose only to mention three, of whose existence
a moment's reflection would make you conscious. You
have bodily powers, powers of sensation ; mental powers,
powers of understanding ; moral powers or powers of
conscience. Here let me ask you to attend to three things
in the consideration of these faculties.
First, their trustworthiness. They bring you into
true relations with real facts. They enable you to arrive
at truth. It is true that they need care and cultivation.
The body that is debauched by vice cannot give you all
the truth which the body is intended to bring you ; the
mind which is untrained cannot grasp the truth which it
is made to apprehend ; the conscience which is defiled and
uninstructed cannot see the truths which are its blessed
ness. Yet the point of view remains that our faculties are
to be trusted and neither abused by neglect nor wilfully
silenced in any particular that they would make known
to us.
A second necessary condition for the right considera
tion of our faculties is that each be confined to its own
sphere the bodily faculties cannot determine the con
clusions of the mind, nor can the intellect do the work of
conscience. As in the great Epiphany of the Incarnate
Truth at Bethlehem the method was not simple but com-
10 *
I 4 8 OXFORD SERMONS
plex. The wise men were guided by the Star, the King,
the Priests, the Book ; so is the method by which wisdom
teaches us now, not simple but manifold. She teaches us
all truth but not all truth in the same way ; our great
care should be not so to adore her in any one as to dis
grace her in any other.
The neglect of this has been one great cause of our
perplexities and entanglements and unbelief during these
last years, a neglect which I thankfully believe is passing
away, not by silencing our separate faculties but by per
fecting them under the patient unifying guidance of the
real self. It is thus by progress in universal culture that
truth will be found.
There is a third condition which I greatly desire to
press upon you that you may undertake the consideration
of your faculties rightly, and that is their sufficiency. I
know in this apparently simple statement I am making a
great assumption, namely, that you believe in God but
this and more than this I thankfully believe you would
readily grant. Yet practically many men fail to realize
the condition I have given. Hence in Oxford there is
so often much depression, despondency, loss of brightness,
loss of heart, and finally a failure to do our best ; yet our
best should be our aim, for it is our Lord's own standard :
" She hath done what she could ".
There is much at your time in life and in your life
here in Oxford to make this condition hard to keep the
competitive nature of many examinations, the existence of
prizes and distinctions by merit relative to one another or
to a required standard and not to the capacities you each
possess this, of necessity, while it stimulates exertion to
the utmost, tends to create a different standard to that
expressed by our Lord's words, " She hath done what she
could " ; tends according to the proverb to make the best
the enemy of the good ; tends to endanger true self-
SEPTUA GESIMA 1 49
respect, to discourage men in striving to do their best.
Again, the same depression and loss of heart arises not
uncommonly from the right anxiety to fulfil the hopes and
expressed expectations of parents and friends. This may
often have a truly ennobling and blessed effect, but this
standard is also sometimes mischievous, leading to un
natural and injurious exertion, or to a needless discourage
ment and depression. We need then real care to believe
in the negative as well as the positive side of the omnipo-
tency of God. What we have we have by His will.
This we easily acknowledge ; it is a harder act of faith to
add, " and what we have not we have not, equally by His
will ". If the Lord willed it so to be my powers might
have been greater than they are. Whatever I have is the
provision He has in His wisdom and in His love pro
vided for me. These are the powers He wishes me to
use. This is the standard He has willed me to reach. I
do not forget the reproof which the Divine Head of the
Church gave to the Angel of the Church at Sardis :
" I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou
livest and art dead. I have not found thy works perfect
before God." The works of the Church of Sardis had
surpassed all human expectation but were not perfect
7re7rX77/>&)/u,eW filled up to the invisible mark of excellence
which the great Head of the Church had intended her to
reach. But in these days there is need to remember the
other side of the truth, that man's ambition and ignorance
of our several capacities may often fix a standard higher
than God has intended us to reach, so that necessity re
mains for the consideration that our faculties are sufficient.
That our faculties are sufficient would be more easily seen
if we did not so arbitrarily define the limits of the sphere
in which they are to be used.
To one who has realized the fact of his own existence
through eternity, time and place should be matters of
150 OXFORD SERMONS
secondary importance. It does not follow that you have
not power to be useful to your generation because in
Oxford you have gained little or no distinction. The
simplest member of the University must have many gifts
that might greatly benefit thousands of his fellow-creatures,
and not only fellow-creatures but fellow-countrymen.
For not only in our large towns but in our country
villages there are thousands whom you could, if you would,
greatly benefit. It is not so much greater gifts that are
needed as the right consideration of their use and the
readiness to use them.
People clamour for a more careful cultivation of the
land, but the more careful cultivation of the people is far
more important. There are thousands of our own people
wasting like waste land, for the need of more particular
and careful cultivation. If you could look out over this
waste and see it as the Lord of the harvest saw it when
He said, " The harvest truly is greaf, but the labourers
are few," you would be relieved from that depression and
sense of uselessness which paralyses the lives of some in
the brilliant but narrow competition of University life,
and you would find that you had faculties sufficient to
enable you to live and grow in favour both with God and
man.
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean by this that
all must enter the Divinely appointed ministry of the
Church. Such are no doubt entrusted with special power
to help man in his highest needs, but as the true end of
man is God, so all who help to check man in his flight from
God, or to bring man back to God, all are taking part in
that great work of which our Lord has said, " My Father
worketh hitherto and I work ".
But, brethren, you will be impatient of all this and
desire to say to me, Why do you speak to us as if we were
not Christians ? Why do you keep down on the lower
SEPTUAGESIMA 151
edge of natural religion ? Forgive me the wrong ; I
have done it in order that I might invite all to join in
serious self-reflection, not that I would keep you on such
low ground for ever. Quite the contrary ; some of us
perhaps have lingered there already too long. Let me
offer you one simple line of Christian thought which I
would have you add to what I have already said. Self-
reflection will bring you to the consciousness of self ;
revelation tells you of another Personality which is also
with you, even the Divine Personality of the Holy Spirit.
It is our Lord's own promise, " I will not leave you com
fortless," desolate, orphans ; "I will pray the Father and
He shall give you another Comforter " ; " I will send Him
unto you " ; " He shall be in you ".
Only remember what the result of the presence of
this Divine Person is to be a threefold conviction. He,
our Lord tells us, when He is come, will reprove (or
rather convict) the world of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment. Here, then, we can see something of the lines
on which as Christians our thoughts might profitably
begin to dwell the consideration of our personality, and
with it the consideration of the Person of the Holy Spirit
and His threefold work. Let us consider it together but
a moment longer.
i. The first work of the indwelling Spirit, our Lord
says, is to convict the world of sin because they believe not
on Him. This is full of strangeness and above our natural
understanding. It is strange and contrary to our natural
expectations that the comforter who was to supply the
place of Jesus should begin by causing pain, the pain of
conscience, the pain of the conviction of sin. Brethren,
let me ask you to dwell on this ; it may help you if you
find it hard to draw near to God, if you suffer in your
efforts to escape from sin. But again, this work of the
Comforter is strange because it does not say that He will
152 OXFORD SERMONS
come to convict the world of sin because they believe not
in God but because they believe not in Me, and that is
Christ.
Dear brothers, here we must one and all fall down on
our knees and cry for mercy and for help. Through faith
in Christ is the only victory over sin, but no man can say
that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. This faith
is the gift of God. It cannot be built up out of the ruins
of our own reasonings and feelings or by the exercise of
any power we ourselves possess. Oh ! what self-surrender
does this imply. Septuagesima Sunday calls us to quietness
and self-reflection. Here is a line of consideration worthy
of every Christian. Has the Holy Spirit wrought in me
true belief in Christ ? Can I by the Holy Spirit's aid say
that Jesus Christ is Lord, Lord in heaven and Lord on
earth, Lord of the living and of the dead ?
2. This is the first work of the Holy Comforter, and
the second follows from it. " He shall convict the world
of righteousness because I go to the Father." This is the
ground of our hope. We see in the ascended Jesus man
restored to his right relation with God, man in peace and
happiness in the unveiled Presence of God. The Son of
God came down from heaven and took our nature as we
have it, only without sin, and in it He suffered, and paid
all that debt and ransom which was due to Himself as
God in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He
as the Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep.
He gave His life a ransom for many. He bear our sins in
His own Body on the tree. The Lord laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. By His stripes we are healed. All
this indeed leads us into depths we cannot fully fathom,
but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the
angels, now gone to the Father, crowned with glory and
honour ; we behold Him as our Righteousness, our way
of access, our Reconciliation, our Atonement ; we know
SEPTUAGESIMA 153
that in the good purpose of God He has quickened us
together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I
know, my brothers, how much more this short statement
contains, but I believe if you seek to understand it in the
right way, not in your strength but by the aid of the Holy
Spirit, you will be enabled to see how Christ is the Head
of the Church, and how in His Church all this is yours,
and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
3. There is yet one more main line of consideration if
we would consider the work of the Holy Spirit within our
spirit, the result of the Person of the Comforter dwelling
with our personality. " He shall convict the world of
judgment because the Prince of this world is judged."
Christ has conquered Satan : the Prince of this world
came, and found nothing in Him. He came " to destroy
the works of the devil ". " Through death He destroyed
him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." He
triumphed over him openly on the cross. The Prince of
this world is judged, therefore we should neither fear the
world nor love the world. " The Lord is my light and
my salvation, whom then shall I fear : the Lord is the
strength of my life, of whom then shall I be afraid ? Yea,
in God have I put my trust, I will not fear what man can
do unto me." These are easily spoken words, but you
will find, brethren, when you get out to the work of life
that they are hard to fulfil, impossible without the Holy
Spirit's aid. To live in the world and yet above it ; to be
hated by the world and yet to love the world ; to teach
people as they can bear it and yet to keep the faith un
changed ; to see where policy and principle conflict : to be
ready to work with others and to be true to one's own
convictions these are some of the entanglements which
the Prince of this world still makes use of as his snares ;
and if we would live as Christians in this world we need
154 OXFORD SERMONS
the conviction that the Prince of this world is condemned,
that his methods will not prosper, that he is a liar and his
end destruction. We need to realize our Lord's example
when Satan showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in
a moment of time, and offered them with all their power
and glory, and He rejected them. Nothing in the world,
riches, power, honour, none of these things can be an end
for man, at best they are but means to be used for God's
glory.
Listen, then, my brothers, to the Church's call to you
to-day. Resolve to make this coming season of Lent a
time for quietness and serious reflection. Ask God to give
you strength to see yourselves as you are in His sight.
Do not fear the pain which reflection may at first cause
you ; it shall not be greater than you can bear. The
Convictor is the Comforter, in His Almighty gentleness
you are safe ; and the object of His conviction is to free
you from the fear of the devil and of yourself and of your
sins ; to save you from living a discouraged, timid, shrink
ing life ; to enable you to see the greatness of the gifts
which God has given you in your creation, and the greater
peace and blessedness of your Redemption ; to enable you
to have as your own (when you go forth to the work of
life) the words of the Psalmist : " In God have I put my
trust, I will not be afraid what man can do unto me ".
" For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, and my feet
from falling, that I may walk before God in the Light of
the Living."
This is the true Freedom and Peace and Progress
which mankind is feeling after.
KEBLE COLLEGE 155
II. 1
KEBLE COLLEGE.
" None of us liveth to himself" ROM. xiv. 7.
" T CANNOT find," said a thoughtful writer not so
J- many years ago, " and I do not think the most la
borious student of different systems, or the person who has
most diligently examined his own thoughts upon them will
be able to find that more than three distinct doctrines re
specting the object of education are prevalent among us
the first, that education is the giving of information ; the
second, that it is the development of the faculties ; the
third, that it is their restraint."
If we consider this simple classification for a moment,
we shall, I think, at once decline to adopt the first and the
third, or to make education consist simply in giving infor
mation or in checking and restraining the powers which we
consider to be injurious. And if we take for a moment
the second of the three classes and make the end of educa
tion the development of the faculties, we shall still hesitate
to adopt it finally and exclusively without knowing more
exactly what that development means. That education is
the drawing out of something seems at once more immedi
ately to satisfy the meaning of the word ; but the educing
may be applied not to the attributes of the race, but
to the accidents of the individual ; and such an education
would surely be " not the education of a man's humanity,
1 Preached at the opening of Keble College Hall and Library on
St. Mark's Day, 25 April, 1878.
156 OXFORD SERMONS
but the indulgence of his individuality ". Rather we
must say, that such a simple threefold classification, how
ever clever, however useful for the discussion of the
different systems and the comparison of their several ad
vantages and defects, is practically not applicable if we are
intended to adopt any one of the three to the exclusion of
the rest for education such as we need must be an im
parting of information, a development and a restraint.
Our aim is not simply to add, nor simply to restrain, nor
simply to develop ; but, using all those methods, we be
lieve we truly educate when we educe, draw out, unfold,
not the accidents of an individual, or of a class, or of a
country, or of an age, but when we educe, draw out, unfold,
perfect that common humanity which is in every man,
wherever and whatever he may be.
To boys at school we who are older may look back
and see the reason of what we give them to do. Grammar
may be the necessary condition for expressing rightly
among their fellows the gift of reason which entitles them
among creation to the supremacy which they claim.
Arithmetic may be the beginning of that purest method of
expressing reasoning without the danger of the influence of
the feelings and the will which shows itself almost insensibly
in the most careful use of words.
All this and more, those who arrange the studies for
the young may be able to see ; but for the boys themselves
at school, things are, for the most part, just things as they
are. Their relations, their causes, their effects are not for
the time regarded. Obedience is the true atmosphere of
youth, both intellectually and morally. " Oportet discentem
credere " is practically necessary in a large degree, however
much the principle may be disparaged by such words as
" tradition " and " bias," and a natural dislike of authority
in any form. To boys things are just things, new, attrac
tive, beautiful, inspiriting, but still for the most part just
KEBLE COLLEGE 157
the things they are, and nothing more. Thus all boys are,
or ought to be, collectors of nearly everything collectors
careful, reverent, discriminating, untiring, complete, as far
as may be ; collectors, but little more.
But in the University the point of view for education
is greatly changed ; to know things as they are is found to
be not so simple as it once appeared, to define anything
absolutely is hard, to define the same thing differently in
relation to different scientific ideas is comparatively easy.
Things are found to be interlaced one with another ; there
is a web, a law, a will causing things to be, and keeping
them what they are. In the University education becomes
scientific. Men desire to study things in their relations,
their causes, and their effects. Men find themselves led on
from study to study, not as mere collectors, catching
butterflies as pretty things, but drawn on by the force of
scientific connexion, feeling the ground sure beneath their
feet ; changing the " oportet discentem credere " for the
no less needful " oportet edoctum judicare," understanding
the true relations of the separate things they have seen.
Thus things are found to be more wonderful than at first
they seemed to be. Everything has its relation, and every
group and harmony of those relations, every art and
science is found to be a mystery, and man's own being the
greatest mystery of all. And hence comes the great work
of the Universities, to make men. " The main object of
the University," it has been said, " must be the cultivation,
not of science, but of men ; " it has been said, indeed, that
the work of the Universities is to make men teachers of
men. I fear it would seem almost unreal, while things are
as they are, and so much elementary instruction has to
be provided, to adopt in simplicity such a statement, to
accept so great a responsibility, that all who come to the
Universities are to be teachers of men. And yet, I be
lieve, it might already be found to be largely true, if we
158 OXFORD SERMONS
regarded education as the educing, unfolding, perfecting
that which is universal in man ; if we regarded it as the
emancipation of the imprisoned spirit of humanity, as the
bringing forth in man that which looks upward, restraining
and crushing his downward tendency ; if we realized that
all powers are not gifts but trusts, not so much for rule
as for ministry. When men had learned their own true
scientific position in the relation of things, those who had
received the rare benefits of a University training would
look round and see that in some matters, in some places,
with some persons, they had the trust of gifts which would
incur the responsibility of teaching, if they earnestly de
sired to see true education realized by the attainment
through all humanity of that excellence which, if assisted,
it has the capacity to reach.
Here, then, is the fascination and the glory of the Uni
versity life, that in it a man finds his relation with all
things, and feels the commencement of a progress which
this life will not satisfy. While living in the present
moment he feels himself bound up with the past and with
the future ; with such aspirations comes naturally the de
sire to live with the greatest, with those whose minds and
lives have spanned the greatest distances of time and place,
and gathered into one the greatest measure of the humanity
common to us all. Such men are often, if anywhere, to be
found in the Universities, but such men are unhappily ac
cessible to but few. They are few in any country, or in
any age ; the mass of students cannot hope to know them
well ; hence it is that when men are seeking to be truly
educated, to unfold their common humanity, and desire to
be teachers of men, they have gathered round about them
selves the society of the great by founding libraries, that there
all may live with the greatest of all ages and all lands ; and
while living in their own country, retaining their own
language and their own habits, add to their national gifts
KEBLE COLLEGE 159
the gifts of their own and of other lands -and of other
times, to strengthen the power they have received, to push
the limit line of science a little further for those who are
to follow.
In the early days of European civilization this was done
from small beginnings and with great labour. In the
Episcopal and monastic schools of the Middle Ages, before
the age of printing, the teacher's instruction was often
written down by his pupils, and these notes became their
future book. Such men as Alcuin or Rabanus Maurus had
but small libraries at their command, but they were them
selves great in their day, and they lived where the best
libraries were to be found. They did their best to gather
MSS. whence they could, and to copy them was one of the
chief labours by which their monasteries obtained influence
and fame.
By slow laborious copying, by each poor student add
ing one or two books to the library of the school where he
studied, by such simple means did the libraries of those
schools, which were the forerunners of the Universities,
commence. And our great libraries, too, have known the
day of small things. We who have been watching the
present catalogue of our own University Library growing
to 700 volumes must not forget the first catalogue, pub
lished by Joseph Barnes in 1605, in one quarto volume,
consisting of 425 pages, with an appendix of 230 more ;
neither must the peace and silence to which we have so long
been accustomed in our present buildings make us forget
that this calm has not always been undisturbed. The Com
missioners of 1550 for the reformation of the University
visited, we are told, the libraries, destroying, without
examination, all MSS. ornamented by illustration or rubri
cated initials as being eminently Popish. Thus MSS. were
burned, sold to tailors' shops for measures, to bookbinders
for covers, and the like, until the books of the public library
160 OXFORD SERMONS
had all disappeared, and the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors
sold the shelves and stalls, and made a timber-yard of Duke
Humphrey's treasure-house. And even before this, again,
we might go back to the little chamber in St. Mary's
Church which Bishop Cobham, of Worcester, about the
year 1320 began to build, and which in 1409 became our
first actual University Library. And yet once more we
might go back to a day of even smaller things than this,
and call to mind the books kept in chests in St. Mary's
Church before Bishop Cobham's room was ready, the books
to be lent out under pledges, while others were chained to
desks, to be read only under such disadvantageous diffi
culties.
We who have inherited and enjoyed so much may do
well to call to mind these and such-like facts, to remind
us that other men have laboured and we have entered into
their labour, to teach us to be thankful for that which we
have received, and to lead us to consider also what we may
have to do for each day has its work.
It is true that to-day we are met to receive and express
our gratitude for a gift which has in part at least at once
overleapt the day of small things, and without the hamper
ing disadvantages of the chests and chains of St. Mary's,
or the narrow limits of Bishop Cobham's room, and with
out waiting for the munificence of a duke or a Sir Thomas
Bodley, has at once, by the splendid liberality veiled with
the highest modesty, of two anonymous donors, placed this
hopeful College in possession of a building for a library
which, if not a rival to the great library of the University,
is yet second to none amongst the buildings for the libraries
of our ancient Colleges. How great such a gift is we in
this world shall never know, but if there is any remedy for
the despair which must seize all men more or less when they
feel the unity there is in all things and the little they can
do, I can imagine few privileges greater, few gratifications
KEBLE COLLEGE 161
more real, few remedies more reasonably hopeful, than the
gift of a building in which the great of all ages and all
countries will be gathered together, and where the youth of
our own and coming generations may live with the greatest
on terms of an equality, which shall be limited only by
their own capacity to be equal ; where they may learn
that sense of proportion which will secure modesty and true
reverence towards those greater than themselves, a sense of
responsibility and devotion towards those whom they have
gifts to help. There, living with the greatest, they may
learn to live for all, and, strengthened by the experience of
the past, be patient and wise in dealing with the present,
reverent to preserve the unity they have received, but
brave to recognize the story of the world as the history of
a life which moves on by a law of progress to the end
which God has prepared for it, brave enough, therefore,
to plan for a future to which their present life in many of
its accidents will be but as a forgotten past. To be able
to give such a gift as this is indeed in the power of but
few, but to give such a gift when there is the power
belongs to fewer still. Such deeds in any age would be
heroic, but to us they are more, they are our Christian
victories, they are our evidences of Christianity, they are
the mark of the followers of Him Who said, " I have over
come the world ". Such wealth so dedicated does for
a moment enable us to see the meaning of the words
addressed to man, " Have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth". Such wealth means
dominion, power. Such a gift, for such purposes, in such
a spirit, tells us from Whom the power comes. For this
we are grateful, with a gratitude even beyond that which
the magnificence of the buildings must demand. We are
grateful for this evidence of the presence and power of the
truth. I said it would be right to-day to look back to
ii
1 62 OXFORD SERMONS
the labour of former days, both to teach us gratitude and
that we might be led to consider what we may have to do.
We must not forget then that while to-day we rejoice
at the great gift we have received in the magnificent build
ing for a library, yet the library, strictly speaking, is still to
come ; if this gift of such a building is a work which few
could hope to undertake, the accumulation of a library of
books is obviously beyond the work of any one, and yet
it is a work in which all may unite. This is the way our
libraries have grown up, by separate individual gifts, some
greater indeed, some less ; but the point for us to remem
ber to-day is that by the united contributions of many our
libraries have been formed. A mere glance at the list of
donors of our great University Library will show this.
There have been gifts from Archbishops and Bishops, from
Deans and Chapters, from ambassadors and consuls in
foreign lands, from ladies, from merchants, city aldermen,
from a young captain in the Navy. These and such as
these gave of their own collections or sent books from
foreign lands, and thus our library grew. And this ex
ample we must imitate. Some, indeed, may be enabled to
bequeath a whole library or a part as Laud and Ussher,
and Wake and Aldrich have left to us the privilege of
living with the greatest they could gather in their day.
Here in Keble is a building now in which the most jealous
collector need not fear to leave his treasures when in his
turn he realizes that he must leave to others the stones he
has gathered for building. We look to all friends of Keble
College to remember this. And all who are, or who may
be, educated within these walls, they, too, should remember
that to-day a place is prepared in which the great may be
gathered, and preserved, and influence generation after
generation of those who may enter here. All students of
this College should remember this, whatever their future
calling may be, whether called to work in the ministry of
KEBLE COLLEGE 163
the Church or in the State it matters not, in either calling
they may help. Whether as consuls or ambassadors in
foreign lands, they may send their contributions such as in
former years have been sent from Russia, and Syria, and
Turkey, and elsewhere. Or if no such immediate oppor
tunity should occur, we should remember the ancient gifts
of lands for the endowment of our libraries land in the
country like the farms of Bray and Cookham ; or houses
in the City like those in Distaff Lane gifts perhaps small
at the time, but such as may increase in value, and be
applied to this singular opportunity of yielding a fruitful
increase by being expended in the purchase of books to be
placed in a building round which generation after genera
tion of the youth of this country will be gathered, and
learn to live with the greatest while they learn and live
for all.
One special work in connexion with our new library
I will venture to suggest. I mentioned that in the
libraries of the schools, which were the forerunners of the
Universities, the work turned largely of necessity on the
copying MSS. I desire to suggest that that work ought
not to be wholly unprovided for now. True the art of
printing has done away with the first object for which
MSS. have been read and copied, but we need now men
who can read and copy MSS. and tell us that the printer
is printing that which he honestly professes to print ; in
other words, it is obvious, that to carry out any research
work in the way of criticism and amended texts we need
the help of those who have time and skill to examine un-
printed matter. The recent discoveries of the lost frag
ment of one of the earliest of our Christian records ought
to give us fresh hope and enterprise ; and I venture to
ask whether each separate faculty, or some faculties con
jointly, or each separate library, or some libraries conjointly,
might not do well to support one student or more whose
ii
1 64 OXFORD SERMONS
work should be to be skilled in this palaeography, and who,
being so skilled, should be ready for work at home or
abroad in the interests of literature, and at the disposal of
the society. That such a student should have been found
in Keble College and in connexion with this Keble Library,
would, I venture to think, add another ground of hope for
this hopeful society.
But if our immediate duty is with the library, we must
remember the full bearing of the old saying a monastery
without a library is like a citadel without an arsenal. The
books are not so much the work as the instruments with
which the work is done. What that work is we have
already described, as making men, teaching men to be
teachers of men ; and if with the thought of the new re
sponsibilities which this day's gifts bring upon us we are
asked what is there more in this our work that we can do,
in what way can we improve ? what do we want ? I
will venture to suggest one word in reply, which seems to
me to be required in the present state of our University
work that word is seriousness.
It is not that we desire to do away with all the mirth,
and merriment, and freedom, and fun, and liberty, and
laughter, which rightly belong to the unsuspicious days of
youth ; it is not that we would undervalue the true value
of amusements ; the rest and refreshment derived from
games and pleasures which take hold of us and absorb us
for the moment, and make us feel and see life from another
point of view ; it is not that we would forget how gently
we all are led along by secondary motives, and allowed
again and again to forget the Giver in the pleasure He
has given, for all this the sure and endless love of the
Father can allow in His children in its measure. But as
years increase do we not desire to see even children no
longer so childish, if childlike ; in the necessary interchange
of the grave and gay, do we not desire to see young men
KEBLE COLLEGE 165
acquiring the knack of trifling with gracefulness and being
serious with effect ? and ought we not to desire to see men
at our Universities beginning to realize their connexion
with the great subjects of their study, and feel something
of the sequence and unity of truth, some thirst and trem
bling arid awe when they begin such subjects as scholarship,
logic, ethics, and history, political economy, law, and the
study of the material manifestation of the Divine mind in
which we find we are ? We may look back with a smile
to the early Christian schools in Europe, when they taught
grammar only to read the Psalter, and music to sing the
Psalms, and arithmetic to calculate the recurrence of
festivals, and logic to refute heretics. But in their point
of view they were surely right, and we need the aid of
their example to help us now. They made God the end
and aim of all their learning and their teaching ; they had
the true principle of scientific knowledge, feeling after a
science of being ; they sought, if not so much to see the
relation of all things to one another, yet of all to Him.
The created work of each day, they remembered, was
declared to be good, but when all was finished it was pro
nounced very good, as though even to the Divine mind
there was an additional excellence and satisfaction in the
unity of the whole. This is what we need, not to dis
courage the scientific spirit, but to hold to the conditions
for its completeness. This is the seriousness we desire,
the awe which would come from the intelligent confession
that we are associated here on the principle of a common
relation to a Divine Being. Let one speak whose words
will ever, I trust, be received with reverence in this place.
" All things must speak of God, refer to God, or they
are atheistic. History without God is a chaos, without
design, or end, or aim ; political economy without God
would be selfish teaching about the acquisition of wealth ;
physics without God would be but the dull inquiry into
1 66 OXFORD SERMONS
certain meaningless phenomena ; ethics without God
would be a hazy rule without principle, or substance, or
centre, or regulating hand ; metaphysics without God
would make a man his own temporary God, to be resolved,
after his brief hour here, into the nothingness out of which
he proceeded. All sciences may do good if those who
cultivate them know their place and carry them not be
yond their sphere ; all may, in different degrees, tend to
cultivate the human mind, although no one human mind
has time or capacity for them all ; but all will become
antagonistic to truth if they are deified by their votaries ;
all will tend to exclude the thought of God if they are
not cultivated with reference to Him." This is what we
mean by the spirit of seriousness ; it is that men should
realize more fully here their relation to the circumstances
of their existence.
The danger with many is not so much unbelief as a
state of thoughtlessness, living on in the midst of unrealized
relations, drifting with the tide of popular opinion, rightly
feeling themselves wrong, but wrongly seeking a remedy by
denying the existence of the relations they have neglected to
fulfil. Our anxiety is not caused by any general and de
liberate unbelief, but our fear is that the deliberate unbelief
of the few should, so to say, practically dislocate the life of
the many, and Christianity and the belief in God be let go
by default. Our immediate danger appears to be lest in
the rightly provided variety of studies we should lose the
unity of aim ; lest men should enter into life not denying
but forgetting God, absorbed in the new wonders and bene
fits which separate scientific research affords, without con
sidering Him for Whose pleasure they are and were created
it is not want of intelligence, or want of labour, or willing
ness to work of which we would complain, but it is the loss
of aim, the loss of idea, the loss of God that we fear. If
KEBLE COLLEGE 167
Oxford could but realize its relation to England, and
through England its relation to the world, and the meaning
of the world in the sight of God, with what awe, with
what a thrilling sense of responsibility, with what genuine
seriousness, with what clinging to the Divine hand, would
every student and every teacher work in this place. Surely
a little reflection will show us that there is much yet to be
done.
A real consideration of what man is, of his relation to
his fellow-men and to God, the consideration that these
common capacities are in the poorest of mankind, ought to
lead all those who have had the privilege of University
teaching to the consideration of their responsibility as
teachers of men. We ought not to be content to leave
masses even of our fellow-countrymen in this land as they
are : there is much needless misery, much needless sin ; it
is not that all can be students or scholars, neither are the
higher gifts of scholarship or learning necessary for the ad
vancement of many of our fellow-men. A knowledge of
human nature, a knowledge of the world, social gifts,
practical gifts, gifts of common sense, gifts which touch the
heart as well as the head, are needed to enable men in many
conditions to realize the true relations of their life ; but
all this our University life may provide we have to-day
not only a gift which provides the intellectual requirements
of education, but in the magnificent hall and common
rooms we have provision for displaying all those social
powers which may be of inestimable value for cultivating
in others all those complex gifts which go so far to keep
up that wonderful and precious possession which we call the
English home.
And yet this does not exhaust our responsibilities. The
contemplation of what man is, and of his relation to his
fellow-men and to God, cannot be limited to our own land.
1 68 OXFORD SERMONS
England has special obligations to India, and to Africa, ana
Australia ; if we could see rightly our relation to the First
and the Fifth Commandments with what awe should we see
the world open out before us. Modern science is enabling
us more and more to bring the distances of this earth within
the power of the personal influence of man ; but we still
need consistent seriousness in carrying out these relations.
Parents will, I hope, some day see more the mystery of the
gift of children, and regard the world as too little for their
home. We do partially but not thoroughly understand
this. Men should take all the world into their considera
tion before they determine finally their relation to any
part. Such gifts as we have been receiving to-day the
College Library and the College Hall should be instru
ments of training for these ends.
And, lastly, for us such is no vain ambition, no foolish
dream ; we have the hall and the library, but to-day we
have yet another gift l which is the key to all our treasures
a widow's mite, indeed, giving in its immediate and
essential teaching more than all. There is but One Light
that lighteth all the world, and we Christians have that
Light. It is no mere human philosophy, no mere social
progress to which we trust ; but we trust in Him Who
is the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world. It matters not in what age or what country. All
things were made by Him, and in Him all things still
consist ; in Him we find our true relation to mankind ;
in His way, in His truth, and in His life, we may educate
not ourselves only, but the world. He knows what is in
man, He is the true educator of man. To know Him and
the power of His Resurrection, to realize the intended
relation of creation to Him it is this which we desire to
1 The reference is to the gift to the College, by Mrs. Coombes, of
Holman Hunt's picture "The Light of the World".
KEBLE COLLEGE 169
see men seriously considering, and after this consideration
seriously undertaking their part.
May He Who has borne with us so long, and given
us again so much, may He of His infinite mercy grant
that we in England, that we in Oxford, may know the
things that belong unto our peace before they are hid from
our eyes.
1 70 OXFORD SERMONS
III. 1
BRASENOSE COLLEGE.
" What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shah know
hereafter" ST. JOHN xui. 7.
HT^HESE words have, for many years, appeared to me
*- to suggest lines of thought valuable for all times in
places of education. They were true when spoken by the
Divine Master to the zealous, but impetuous, disciple.
They were true four hundred years ago, when Bishop W.
Smyth, my predecessor in the See of Lincoln, and Sir
Richard Sutton obtained the charter of foundation for the
King's Hall and College of Brasenose. They will, I be
lieve, remain true in years to come, when the stone which
we are about to lay shall have borne its burden for another
four hundred years and more. " What I do thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
The words suggest the consideration of the place of
authority in teaching. They convey the lesson contained
in the saying " oportet discentem credere ". In different
ways and degrees it is true of us all. We are all beholden
for what we know to assistance external to ourselves. The
principle is clearly stated, and rightly balanced in the words
of the inhabitants of Sychar to the Samaritan woman,
" Now, we believe, not because of thy speaking, for we
1 Preached in Brasenose College Chapel, on the occasion of the
Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Foundation, I June, 1909.
BRASENOSE COLLEGE 171
have heard for ourselves ". The words of these simple
people express for us the necessary correction which the saying
" oportet discentem credere " requires, by adding the saying
that should accompany it, "oportet edoctum judicare". The
men of Sychar were beholden to the woman in the first
instance for telling them, but afterwards they could judge
for themselves. The truth is not merely true because we
have been told it, but our own faculties know it to be so.
The place of authority in teaching is generally to be
seen without much difficulty in schools for the young. It
would, I believe, be true to say, as a guiding principle, that
the young had better learn what they are told. But if this
is obvious at the beginning of the education, it is not so
generally admitted that, when our training is comparatively
finished, as men, we should study what we like. And yet
this was the brave conclusion of the great Master Poet when
he had completed his disciplinary course of education :
" Expect no further speech or sign from me," he said to his
great pupil, " thy judgment is free, right, and sound, and
it were a fault not to act according to it : wherefore thee
over thyself I crown and mitre ".
If it be comparatively easy to determine the place of
authority at the beginning and close of our educational
course, for you, my brethren, the difficulty is at its height
as teachers in a University. For at a University many men
are standing on the Border Line which marks the difference
of studying what they have been told, from what they like.
Surely there has been great waste of time, and power, in com
pelling men to continue to study subjects which they have
little or no natural capacity to learn. Of late years there
has been indeed great progress in removing this difficulty.
The area of knowledge has been widely extended by the
introduction of new schools in our own University, and
by founding new Universities whose chief aim is to pro
mote the study of branches of knowledge of which formerly
172 OXFORD SERMONS
we heard but little or nothing. Yet the difficulty seems
to me still to deserve attention, and hence one great initial
aim of those who teach in our Universities should be to
help men to know themselves. I do not think this can be
rightly done without great patience on the part of the
teacher, nor indeed without great reverence also, regarding
all capacities, whether great or small, as God's gifts. And
to self-knowledge men need to be encouraged in the con
tinued effort for self-mastery, the living, that is, according
to the law of their higher self ; a law or standard of life
that they can clearly see, but do not always follow. How
many have left our University without reaching their full
strength because self-mastery was not put before them as,
in God's strength, their true aim.
To this self-mastery, or power to do what we believe
we ought to do, men need to be taught the duty of self-
culture, or the development of the powers which they see
they have. Self-culture is the duty of all, whether our
capacities are great or small. Genius gives no exemption
from labour, quite the contrary. How many lives never
attain their full efficiency because men do not persevere in
perfecting their lesser gifts, upon which the full exercise of
their chief gifts depends. Often that upon which we spend
much labour seems to bear but little fruit ; yet the labour
was necessary for the full exercise of our greater gifts,
which cost us little or no trouble. To these self-know
ledge, self-mastery, self-culture, I would add self-sacrifice.
No man liveth rightly if he liveth to himself. All the
complex social questions which are now pressing upon us
derive their chief dangers from selfishness, and will find
their true solution in love. Self-devotion, self-sacrifice
should be the end of self-perfection.
My brethren, I am well aware that you understand
these things far better than I do. But, as this is the first
time that I have spoken to you as Visitor, and may pro-
BRASENOSE COLLEGE 173
bably be the last, I venture to speak of these things
to encourage you to continue to persevere in applying
such thoughts in your relation with every man in our
College.
There has been in recent times a great increase of
educational opportunity offered in and through our Uni
versities, and many have fully availed themselves of these
privileges. But there still seems to me to be much unper-
fected, and imperfectly directed, power amongst us, which
might be of great value in raising and uniting society, not
only in our own country, but regarding humanity as a
whole. Looking at Oxford from a distance, and only see
ing it now in those who come from it, I could wish that
more came away with a better knowledge of what they are,
and of what they might become, and with higher ideals of
what their work in the world is to be. We need men with
high ideals and a sense of the duty of continued labour.
" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," are words
which should continue to ring in the ears of us all. We
need men who have learnt to plan their lives bravely, as if
they were going to live, though they should live them as
being ready to die. If all men would consider that they
ought to be prepared to live for forty or fifty years after they
leave the University, and if they left with a true self-know
ledge and a spirit of self-devotion, might not more good
work be done to raise and draw together the lives of our
fellow-men, and make all classes of society more nearly
correspond to the Divine plan ? We have increased the
area of the subjects of education. May we not hope to
increase the number of efficient labourers in the world,
which is God's field ? Many of you, my brethren, will
remember the lesson that Mr. Keble has taught us for this
season of the year, from the patient toil of Nature towards
all that God has entrusted to her care, whether it be great
or small :
1/4 OXFORD SERMONS
True to her trust, tree, herb, or reed,
She renders for each scattered seed,
And to her Lord with duteous heed
Gives large increase :
Thus year by year she works unfeed,
And will not cease. 1
It is just this, it seems to me, to which we need to
attend, the unceasing care to perfect each man's gifts,
whether they be great or small tree, herb, or reed. This
was the great Apostle's aim admonishing every man,
teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present
every man perfect in Christ. That, I believe, is the true
standard and ideal for all places of education throughout
the world, and throughout all time the Standard, the
Pattern of the Perfect Man Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do not misunderstand me, dear brethren ; I have not
quite forgotten what young men are. I remember their
absorbed interest in athletics, and the great moral, as well
as physical, value of such exercises. I remember their
intense delight at the first conscious growth in Intellectual
Power, and their insatiable desire for knowledge. I re
member the overwhelming interest in the outlook over
the world in the pages of history. In these and other
ways of physical, intellectual, and moral development the
teacher should ever be in candid and sincere sympathy,
while still retaining the ideals that I have attempted to
suggest.
Such a condition of ideal contemplation on the part of
the teacher will, indeed, often bring with it the burden of
solitude. Loneliness and solitude are a necessary burden
of excellence : " What I do thou knowest not now ". The
highest mountain, the tallest tree is alone in so far as it
is the highest. The same is true of the philosopher, the
scholar, the poet, the musician, the painter, and the
1 " The Christian Year," Sunday after the Ascension.
BRASENOSE COLLEGE 175
athlete. Each, in so far as he excels, is alone. It is true
that it is one of the greatest privileges and joys of life in
a University that in it, more than anywhere else, com
panionship in excellence is possible. But under the
ordinary conditions of life loneliness is a great enemy to
excellence. Men are tempted to abandon their highest
excellence for the sake of a companionship on a lower level.
The true remedy would seem to be found in the pure love
of the truth itself, and in the consciousness of an increased
knowledge of God. " Dominus Illuminatio mea." " Yet
I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."
For four hundred years this College has continued to
teach many generations of men. If it please God may it
so continue and labour, and may the work we here are
about to inaugurate increase the area of its influence for
God's glory and the true happiness of our fellow-men.
IV
LINCOLN SERMONS.
12
THE SAINTLY LIFE 179
I. 1
THE SAINTLY LIFE.
" Te that fulfil His commandments and hearken unto the voice
of His words" PSALM cm. 20.
TO-DAY, as you know, is marked in our Church's
Calendar with the name of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln.
We are accustomed, in our domestic calendars of family life,
to keep with especial notice conventional cycles of times,
such as the silver and golden wedding, and yet each day
that is added after such points in unrecorded happiness
does not mean the falling of, but is rather the increase and
the deepening of our gratitude and love. So with us to
day, though we do not express our thankfulness and
reverence with the same fullness of outward expression as
we did on the occasion of the great anniversary last year,
yet we do well to repeat our thankfulness and praise to
Almighty God for His goodness in giving us the gift of
such a saintly example, and we may well pause and consider
whether there be any lesson that may be helpful for our
selves to learn at this present time. It is not necessary for
us to confine ourselves always to the consideration of the
particular events connected with each individual saint,
though it is well that such events should be recorded. We
o
may do well sometimes at least to see if we can discover
any general principle which has been the motive force as it
breached in Lincoln Cathedral on the Feast of St. Hugh, 1901.
12 *
i8o LINCOLN SERMONS
were of the life, and, it may be, independent of any parti
cular age or place, and therefore generally applicable to us
all. My text reaches indeed to a still further abstraction,
and points to a principle which is common to all those
whom we call Saints, and to the Holy Angels as well : " Ye
that fulfil His commandments and hearken unto the voice
of His words ".
What is it, then, that is here told us of the Holy
Angels, and which I venture to suggest we may ascribe to
the Saints generally and to St. Hugh, and apply even to
ourselves ? Two points are brought to our notice : They
do God's Will, and they hearken unto the voice of His
words ; that is, they not only do mightily and with all
their power the commandments of God as soon as they are
made known unto them, but they are ever intently listening
to catch the first intimation of His Will.
The Holy Ones, the Angels, and those whom we call
Saints, the truest, the highest, the most perfect servants of
God are here described as true servants are described to us
in another Psalm : " Behold, as the eyes of servants look
unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden
unto the hand of her mistress ". Such servants are de
scribed as being ready to catch the first and slightest
information of their master's will before the lips begin to
move or the mouth to speak.
Here, then, is the lesson I wish to learn with you to
day, when we are again called on St. Hugh's Day to think
of the lives of the Saints they do God's Will and they
listen for the voice of His words. How now do we stand
at the present with regard to this double test doing and
hearkening ? No doubt it is a busy age. There is a great
deal going on, and a great deal has been done. As a nation
we are able to say we have done a great deal. We point
to the wellnigh unparalleled fact of the vastness of the
British Empire, we talk of an Empire on which the sun
THE SAINTL Y LIFE 1 8 1
never sets. These are the common phrases in which we
speak of our present position in the world, and there is
more that we might add, something more than mere vast-
ness of territory and accumulation of wealth. As a rule,
where England's rule has been extended more has followed,
Order and Justice and Liberty, and at least a rough outline
of Morality in improved honesty and truthfulness of deal
ing and respect for life and property for rich and poor alike.
All this we have been enabled to do, and we may devoutly
hope that, although it has been done imperfectly yet,
speaking generally, it has been in accordance with the
Divine Will. And yet, while we may assert these facts
with truth, are we not conscious that such thoughts are
accompanied with some degree of anxiety and dissatisfaction
and even fear ? Are not many of us conscious more or
less of voices around us ; voices as from a distance, indis
tinctly heard ; voices as from some height above, calling
us up to something higher than we yet have reached ? If
we were to apply to ourselves the second test of the Saintly
Life and hearken to the intimation of the voice of the
Divine Will, should we not be able to make out with
sufficient clearness that there is something more that God
wants us, as a nation, to do? Do we not feel that our
great commercial life needs to be purified if we are to do to
others as we would have others do to us, if we are really to
love our neighbour as ourselves ? Do we not feel that if
we believe in God we ought to make a clearer acknowledg
ment of God as the Author and Giver of all the good
things we possess ?
Do we not also feel that we ought to make more use of
the world- wide opportunities for the open and definite preach
ing of the Gospel to the heathen, that calling ourselves
Christians, we ought to make our first care " the Kingdom of
God and His Righteousness " ? In " The Times " news
paper on Friday last there was an account of our oppor-
1 82 LINCOLN SERMONS
tunities in China, which must have stirred the hearts of all
who read it. It was there stated that in China the governors
of three provinces, each ruling over some twenty to thirty
millions of people, have lately applied for advice to the
Hon. Secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Christian
and General Knowledge in Shanghai, and for books to
educate the rising generation in China in Western ideas.
It lies with Christians of the West, the report goes on to
say, to see that in seeking for bread their fellow-creatures
in the new China do not receive a stone.
May not this be an intimation of the Divine Will, of
something more that God has prepared for England through
her world-wide influence to do ? May God give England
a listening heart, that she may hearken to the voices that
come to her from the borders of her Empire, from the ends
of the earth.
But it is not only for voices from far distant lands that
we need to listen if we would follow the example of the
Saints. Nearer home we need to hearken. In England,
it is true, God has enabled us to do much, and has blessed
us wonderfully. It is many hundreds of years since a
foreign army set its foot on English soil, and the wars that
we have been engaged in have been fought abroad. Peace
and prosperity have been given to us at home in abundance.
Riches and pleasures have been advancing in all classes of
society enormously, nay more, we have, we believe, made
real progress in the refinement of our pleasures. A few
years ago it was thought dangerous or unwise to add to
the number of holidays and half-holidays for those engaged
in business. Now, Bank holidays and weekday half-
holidays and shorter hours have become common, and are
looked upon with increasing favour. People have become
more reasonable and more refined in their pleasures. But
have we not still something more to do in the matter of
our pleasure before we can claim to be a holy nation such as
THE SAINTLY LIFE 183
those who belong to the Kingdom of God ought to be ?
Though we have done much in the way of improvement,
yet if we bring the test of hearkening to bear upon our
pleasures, is there not some ground for fear that all is not
quite right, not quite as it might be, not quite as it ought
to be ? For some people the cause of anxiety would be
as to the amount of time spent in pleasure ; with others it
would be as to the amount of money extravagance in
refined enjoyment ; with others it would be the question
of conflict between pleasure and duty our Duty to God,
our Duty to man. Do our pleasures lead us to neglect our
Duty to God ? What about our pleasures on Sunday ?
Do they keep us from our higher religious duties ? On
the Lord's Day do they keep other people from theirs
railway servants, domestic servants? But with most of
us, probably, the result of hearkening in the matter of our
pleasures would be to raise the doubt as to their moral
effect on our character as Christians. Are our pleasures
really recreations ? We were made in the image and like
ness of God ; we were intended to do His Will perfectly.
Do we find that our pleasures, our recreations, as we call
them, bring us nearer to the original purpose of our being ;
do they refresh us and give us new desires and strength to
do His Will? When we come back from the theatre,
when we come back from the assembly where there has been
music and dancing, when we have finished our novel, what
is our moral condition ? Have we ever any misgivings ?
I do not say that theatres or music or dancing or novels
are all necessarily wrong, but I venture to suggest the test
of hearkening with regard to our present refined pleasures,
whatever they may be, that they may be real recreations,
bringing us back again to the original purpose of our being,
leaving us refreshed, and more inclined, more able, to do
His Will to do it here on earth, more nearly as it is done
in heaven by the Angels and the Saints.
1 84 LINCOLN SERMONS
You will say that this is, after all, a very old and simple
truth, that it only means that we should strive to do God's
Will ; quite true, that is what it is ; only with addition,
for the text would teach us to do God's Will as perfectly
as we can, i.e. not carelessly or thoughtlessly, but thought
fully, with a reverent, watchful anxiety, hearkening for the
intimations of His commands. This is the excellence of the
Angels and the Saints, they do God's Will as far as He has
made it known to them, and they are ever ready waiting,
hearkening for the further voice of His Word. It may be
that upon our attention to this lesson at the present time
the future of our nation, as a nation, depends. It was so
with the people of Israel. God's lamentation over Israel
was, " O that My people would have hearkened unto Me ".
This lamentation over Israel we may make our prayer :
" O that England may hearken for the voice of His Will
in the discharge of her world-wide responsibilities ; O that
England may hearken to His voice as He speaks to us of
truthfulness in our great commercial life ; O that the
prosperity and pleasures of England may not lead her to
forget God ".
And yet, after all, we must remember that the nation
is made up of individuals. The question for us, for each
one of us, to take home to-night when we have been keep
ing the Feast of our Saint is this, Has God something more
that He wants me to do ? Let me pause for a moment
before this Festival of St. Hugh is over, and ask myself,
" Am I conscious of hearing as it were voices that call me
to do something that I leave undone, something perhaps
quite simple in the daily duties of home life ; to pay more
attention to the bodily wants of some sick or aged member
of the family ; to pay more attention to the religious edu
cation of the children ; to do my daily work better, to be
less selfish, and to think more of a neighbour's troubles and
wants ; to take a larger share in spreading the good news
THE SAINTLY LIFE 185
of the Gospel at home or even abroad ? " This is the way
to imitate the hearkening of the Angels and the Saints, not
to spend our zeal on cloud-born idols of this lower air, but
to listen for those purer strains above, that we may be
readier to spring to heaven, for that is where the voice of
the Lord conies from. It is the voice of the Saviour from
the throne in heaven saying to each of us, " Friend, come
up higher," by little steps, by doing daily duties better, by
loving God and loving our neighbour. That is the sum of
the Divine Will ; that is the ladder of the Saints ; that is
the way up which the voice of the Saviour is calling each one
of us, rich and poor alike, even to the place upon the throne
which He has gone to prepare for us ; that is the end of the
pathway of the Saints ; that is the meaning of keeping their
days, and of trying to follow their example ; that is the
end of God's Will for us, that we should be with Him in
Glory, in the Communion of the Saints, in the enjoyment
of sinless and endless love, unto which may God of His
undeserved mercy bring us all, for the sake of Jesus Christ
our Lord.
1 86 LINCOLN SERMONS
II. 1
RAILWAY MEN.
" Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the know
ledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" -
EPH. iv. 13.
IN this verse we have words which must touch the hearts
of all sincere Christians, of all who love the name of
Jesus, and who are being drawn by the Spirit towards Him
and in Him to one another. They speak of " Unity " and
" Perfection," they speak of all coming to a oneness of
faith, and to the full knowledge of the Son of God, not
only to faith in the Son of God as an intellectual assent
but to the true saving knowledge of Him which implies a
personal surrender and acceptance of His Will. They speak
of " Perfection," of the growth of the United Body of
Christians until it reaches the stature of the perfect man,
until the fullness of Christ is imparted to His Body and all
are Christ-like Christians having the mind and spirit of
Christ, because Christ lives in them. This is our true
standard, our hope and aim. But this perfect restoration
of humanity back again to the image and likeness of God
is not to be reached at once. By the use of many means,
by gradual approaches, God has been, and is, accomplishing
His Divine purpose. We are met together to-day to con-
1 Preached in Lincoln Cathedral on behalf of the widows and
orphans of railway men.
RAILWAY MEN 187
sider one of the manifestations of the Divine power which
God has permitted us to see in this century, and to remind
ourselves of our consequent responsibilities. This nineteenth
century, which is so near to its close, has been marvellous
in its vindication of God's original command and promise to
man to be fruitful and multiply and to replenish the earth
and subdue it.
It was indeed before the marvellous power which man
has manifested over the forces of the material world, over
stone and iron and coal and steam in the construction of
our present railways that the poet Wordsworth wrote the
words :
Yet I exult,
Casting reserve away exult to see
An intellectual mastery exercised
O'er the blind elements ; a purpose given,
A perseverance fed ; almost a soul
Imparted to brute matter. I rejoice,
Measuring the force of those gigantic powers
Which by the thinking mind have been compell'd
To serve the will of feeble-bodied man.
This triumph of man as God's vicegerent on earth we have
seen marvellously displayed in the railway system as it is
now extended throughout the civilized world. No rivers
nor mountains can withstand its steady progress. The
ends of the earth are, as it were, brought together ;
time and space are relatively gone. This triumph over
the material forces of nature is a great advance towards
the unity and perfection of man. Our railways are en
abling us to realize the oneness of humanity and the brother
hood of man.
They have made our great commercial life a quick
exchange of mutual interests and a strong bond between
the nations. Their rapidity and punctuality enable
statesmen to communicate without delay on the highest
interests of the political world. In India they are breaking
1 88 LINCOLN SERMONS
down the heathen distinction of caste, and without argu
ment enabling men to see that they can live together as
brethren. In Africa they are doing away with the last
excuses for the slave trade by providing a quicker and
safer transfer of goods. In times of war, as we have seen
lately in the Soudan, the railways are playing a new and
important part, alleviating the sufferings of the sick and
wounded and aiding the commissariat in providing pro
visions for the strong. In times of peace at home our
comfort, our lives seem so dependent on them that it is
hard to imagine how life could have been tolerated before
they began.
Our railways have a share, too, and no small share,
in the education of our country. Thousands from our
country villages are enabled now to visit our great cities.
National and international exhibitions and agricultural
shows are made possible, and thousands can go and look and
learn. And our railways have enabled thousands in our
crowded cities to come out and see the manifold beauty and
the marvellous mystery of the works of God in Nature ; to
see the carpet of flowers which God has provided for the
poor man's feet ; to hear the unpaid music of the birds ;
to see the wreaths of wild roses which the loving hand of
the Almighty hangs on our hedges, the walls of their work
shops who work on the land. Thousands are now enabled
to enjoy days of innocent rest and refreshment which before
was impossible. Scattered members of families meet at
Christmas and other times. Thus the perfection of the
individual and the unity of family life and the unification
of our social life as a whole are being gradually but surely
promoted. Our railways are, if we use them aright, helps
to the oneness and perfection for which the heart of
every good man hopes.
Observe, I say, that this will be so if we use this great
means aright, for we must remember there is danger in all
RAILWAY MEN 189
this physical and social progress. We must remember the
prayer which the great poineer of physical science would have
all its students use : " This also we humbly beg that human
things may not prejudice such as are Divine, neither that
from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling
of a greater natural light, anything of incredulity or in
tellectual might may arise in our minds towards Divine
mysteries 'V
The poet Wordsworth saw this danger, yet he had such
faith in God and confidence in man that he rejoiced and ex
ulted in " the animating hope that the time may come when
strengthened, yet not dazzled, by the might of their
dominion over nature gained, men of all lands shall exer
cise the same in due proportion to their country's need ;
learning, though late, that all true glory rests, all praise,
all safety, and all happiness, upon the moral law ".
He trusted the day would come when men would see
How insecure, how baseless in itself,
Is that philosophy whose sway depends
On mere material instruments how weak
Those arts, and high inventions, if unpropp'd
By Virtue.
" Excursion," Bk. vin.
And it is just here that I have a real satisfaction in
presiding on behalf of railway men to-day, because I truly
hope and believe that the character of those employed upon
our railways justifies the high hope that is indicated in my
text, and that the railway service is tending to the elevation
of our moral life.
I have said again and again, and I will repeat it here,
that I know few object lessons more full of ground for
thankfulness and hope than the whole body of our railway
men employed in different capacities upon our lines. Many
of them come from our country villages, and most of them
1 Lord Bacon, " Student's Prayer ".
190 LINCOLN SERMONS
have passed through our elementary schools, and if there
was no other return from our system of national education,
our railway men are, I maintain, a wonderful and invaluable
result. We must remember they are the creation of this
century. Such a body of men was unknown before. It is
not, I believe, too much to say that the railway system has
under God raised human nature and given us a body of
men physically strong, intelligent, sober, honest, civil, with
a Christian courtesy.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing
my own personal obligation for the assistance, kindness,
and courtesy which I am constantly receiving at the hands
of the railway staff. And not only would I thank them
for their kindness and courtesy and sympathy, but they
have delighted me and refreshed my spirit and revived my
belief in the growing perfection of humanity by the kind
ness and courtesy which I have seen them show to others,
to little children, to the old and infirm, and the mother
struggling in confusion with her boxes and her bairns,
a kindness and courtesy shown to the poor as well as to
the rich, a courtesy which, I believe, is the expression of an
honest and good heart.
Such a body of men, in spite of the dark deeds and
misery and vice which sometimes are forced upon our sight,
helps us to maintain our faith and hope in what we may
become. They point in the direction of the Divine Will
" Unity " and " Perfection ".
But I must remind you to-day, my brethren, that
there is a grave and sad side to this fair and hopeful
picture. The railway service though in itself (Deo gratias]
healthy, is yet in a peculiar degree, as you know, liable
to grave and distressing accidents. Many of those men
who minister so much to our individual comfort, and our
prosperity as a nation, often risk, and sometimes lose,
their lives for our sakes, and short of this there is much
RAILWAY MEN 191
to call forth our sympathy on their behalf. The broken
arm, the crushed foot, the broken leg, the back and heart
overstrained and injured in lifting the heavy luggage of,
I fear, a sometimes thoughtless and impatient traveller,
the night work and exposure to cold in winter, the loss
of sleep and change of hours of food, the risk of confusion
in their habits of private devotion when up at night and
sleeping in the day, the loss, I fear, too, often of the rest
on Sunday, the deprivation of bodily and spiritual refresh
ment by being still with God and in the Spirit on the
Lord's Day.
These are some of the grounds which need our thought
ful consideration and sympathy, for we must remember
when we talk of Unity and the Brotherhood of Man " that
the principle of mutual dependence is the fundamental
principle of corporate life ". In the body if one member
suffers all the members suffer with it. I have to ask you
then this afternoon before we part to remember the widows
and the orphan children of those who for our comfort have
played hazard with their lives. If we have enjoyed the
attention and kindness of these good men while they were
alive, let us not forget them, but take the opportunity of
showing kindness to their children and their widowed
o
homes now they are gone. We are sure that such kind
ness is not only welcomed by men, but it is right and
acceptable in the sight of God. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, " to visit the fatherless
and widows in their affliction ".
We must remember if we look for " Unity " and " Per
fection " in humanity that it is because Christ is dwelling in
them that they are becoming one, and therefore we must re
member the responsibility of giving or refusing help accord
ing to our Lord's own words, by which He tells us He will
test our actions at the great Judgment Day. " Inasmuch
as ye did it not to one of the least of these My brethren,
192 LINCOLN SERMONS
ye did it not to Me " (for Christ was in them), or, which
God grant we may all hear, " Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done
it unto Me " (for Christ was in them). Therefore will He
say to such : " Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world 'V May this be your reward, through the merit of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 St. Matt. xxv. 34.
EASTER DAY 193
III. 1
EASTER DAY.
" Tet thou shalt see the land before thee" DEUT.
xxxii. 52.!
OD'S ways are not our ways. " Men are impatient, and
for precipitating things ; but the Author of Nature
appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplish
ing His destined ends by slow, successive steps." And so
it is that we not unfrequently find that the things which
we think are against us are really making for our highest
good. We cry out, like the Patriarch Joseph of old, " All
these things are against me ". He thought that his sons,
Joseph, and Simeon, and Benjamin, had been taken from him
for their hurt, whereas their detention was but a part of
the Divine plan for the preservation and happiness of the
Patriarch himself and his whole family.
During the last few years many persons have been
sorely troubled by the criticism of the Old Testament.
Its composite character, the uncertain authorship of some
books, the change of dates, the use of fable these and other
points have so disturbed the minds of not a few pious
persons that many have ceased to find the comfort that they
formerly found in reading their Bible, and some, I fear,
have made this an excuse for not reading their Bible at all.
It has been a time of anxious trial to many good persons,
and yet there are, I believe, not a few, and their number
is, I hope, increasing, who would say that this trial has led
1 Preached in Lincoln Cathedral.
13
194 LINCOLN SERMONS
them on to a higher and surer peace. That the old book,
their Bible, stands out to them more clearly than ever,
above all other books, for the excellence of its moral and
spiritual teaching. The passage which I have chosen for
my text marks an epoch in the history of God's chosen
people. It is, as you know, part of the account of the
death of Moses. For forty years he had suffered their
manners in the wilderness, the manners of a people, appar
ently for the most part like wilful, wayward children, with
but little interest in the higher duties of a nation, ready to
murmur and rebel at any disappointment or inconvenience,
hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, ungrateful for their
liberty, and unmindful of the promises which God had
made to them. In the midst of such unsympathetic sur
roundings, Moses had continued to do God's will, till at last
the day of his release came, and God said unto Moses : " Get
thee up into the Mount Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, which
is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho ; and
behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children
of Israel for a possession : and die in the mount whither thou
goest up, and be gathered unto thy people. Yet thou
shalt see the land before thee."
Moses himself was not to pass over Jordan, he was
not to take any part in the earthly triumph of the people,
but he was allowed to see the land afar off.
Is not this history intended to convey a moral and
spiritual lesson to all of us ?
Moses was content to die without the earthly fulfilment
of that for which he had striven all his days. He was
content to hand over the leadership of the people to
another, it was enough for him that he knew that the
promises of God were true : " Yet thou shalt see the land
before thee ".
As Moses stood on the mount ready to die he was
conscious, as it were, that two streams were passing by
EASTER DAY 195
him. There was the stream of the people in whose hearts
murmuring and rebellion still remained. He knew that
after his death there would be those among the people who
would forsake the Lord, and following their own heart's
lusts bring upon themselves confusion and misery, and he
knew also that there should be the band of the faithful to
whom the promises of the Lord would come true though
for himself he was not to share their triumph. For him
it was enough that he was assured that God's promises
were true. How and when those promises would receive
their true fulfilment he was content to leave in the hands
of the Lord. He saw the land before him, he knew
that what God had promised was true, and he could die
in peace.
Are there not moral and spiritual lessons here which,
in different degrees, will suit us all ?
As we draw near to the end of our life in this world,
we are conscious how much there remains yet to be done.
We must be content to leave the work God has given us
to do in a very imperfect and incomplete condition. We
must be content to leave to others the completion of the
work which we have begun. We must not expect, as it
were, to pass over Jordan and share the final success.
Evils and troubles will remain when we are gone.
Progress will be made in things that are good and true
and beautiful, surpassing all that we have yet seen, and the
final victory will be for that which is good and beautiful and
true. Enough for us if we are assured of this. That is
for us the meaning of the text : " Yet thou shalt see the
land before thee ". The words are, as it were, a concrete
expression of faith. The history of the life of Moses is
intended to teach us this. All history finds its real inter
est and highest value in enabling us to see something of
the mind and purpose of God as it exists in the moral
government of this world.
13*
196 LINCOLN SERMONS
The history of God's people as recorded for us by the
inspired writers in the Bible often shows us something
more, and gives us glimpses of spiritual as well as moral
truth. This is evidently so in the case of the history of
the life of Moses. " By faith Moses, when he was born,
was hid three months by his parents, because they saw that
he was a proper child, and they were not afraid of the
king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was
come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the
recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt,
not fearing the wrath of the king ; for he endured, as
seeing Him who is invisible."
This is the key to the fuller meaning of the words of
my text : " Yet thou shalt see the land before thee ". It
was not the earthly value of the land that satisfied Moses,
but the land represented to him the truth of God's pro
mises, i.e. the reality of his faith. It was this that enabled
him to die in peace and leave the conduct of the work to
others.
And are not such thoughts applicable to the great
festival which the Church of Christ has ever kept at this
season of the year throughout the world and is keeping
still to-day ?
Surely speaking to a Christian congregation on the
evening of Easter Day it is not necessary to defend, by
physical or metaphysical arguments, the fact that Christ is
risen. Such arguments there are, when they are wanted ;
but Christianity is no mere system of thought based upon
reflection, it is a life rooted in faith, and faith is more than
an intellectual conviction. The springs of life are deeper
than all reasoning, and are to be found in the power to act
EASTER DAY 197
and love, in those primal instincts, and unconquerable emo
tions which cannot be reduced to formulae.
Surely such an attitude is in harmony with the method
of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. " Therefore,"
he wrote, " leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection ; not laying again the founda
tion of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards
God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands,
and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment,
and this will we do if God permit," just as a builder leaves
the foundation when it is once well laid, not perpetually
disturbing and relaying it, but advancing to the super
structure for which the foundation was laid. In the same
way St. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians is not proving
the love of Christ for His Church, but he argues that
husbands ought to love their wives according to the accepted
truth that " Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for
it ". The truth of the doctrine is assumed as a settled
thing ; it is the practical application that the Apostle urges.
So again in writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul is not in
the first instance proving the truth of the Resurrection of
Christ, but he refutes the error of some false teachers who
maintained that there was no resurrection of the dead, by
appealing to the fact which all Christians admitted, that
Christ had risen.
This, I think, should be our attitude to-day, the re-
assertion of our faith : " Christ is risen indeed, alleluia ! "
This is what we mean by the promise : " Yet thou shalt
see the land before thee ". The Resurrection of Christ as
the first-fruits makes sure to us the fact that death is not
the end of our life, there is a life for us beyond the
grave ; there is a blessed home beyond this land of woe,
There is a Land of Peace,
Good angels know it well.
1 98 LINCOLN SERMONS
It is this land that we have, as it were, brought nearer
' ' D
before us again to-day.
What, may we suppose, would be some of St. Paul's
practical conclusions for us on renewing our belief in the
Resurrection of our blessed Lord ? Might they not be
something like the following :
See that you keep your eyes fixed on the land that is
before you. " Set your affections on things above, not on
things on the earth. Seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God." Set God
always before you. Keep the high ideals that God has given
you always before you. Let them guide and regulate your
lives. Do not let any clouds or mists that may arise from
this world shut out from you the heavenly vision. Do
not let this continuance of evil round about you lower the
standard of perfection according to which your work should
be done. Continue to build on the one foundation that
has been laid. Christ is that sure foundation. Let His
will be the pattern according to which the work of your
life shall be done. He took our nature. He came to
be brother to everybody without any distinction of race
or rank or sex. Rich or poor, learned or unlearned, it
would make no difference if only they will do His will.
He died for all. His command is that we should love all
as He loved us. His prayer was that we all may be one.
Keep the high ideals that God has given you always before
you. Do not let the sense of imperfection in all you
have done tempt you to cease to labour or to be content
with a lower standard. Do not let this feeling of incom
pleteness make you unwilling to hand over to others the
work that you have begun. Be careful only to hand on
the Divine pattern as David did to Solomon, or to com
mission another to take your place as Moses commissioned
Joshua to lead the people over Jordan. Do not let the
fear of death intimidate you, either when you see it in
EASTER DAY 199
others or feel the approach of it in yourselves. In the Re
surrection of Jesus you can see that death is not the end
of life. Look steadily over the promised land that lies
before you. Listen to the words of Jesus : " To-day
shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," and for your friends
and for yourselves, you shall see that death is the gate of
Paradise, and that it is far better for them and for you to
depart and be with Christ.
This surely should be part, at least, of the meaning of
the text to us Christians parts of the result of the yearly
recurrence of the festival of the risen Saviour. There
should be with us all an increase of thankfulness and stead
fastness. " Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory
through Jesus Christ our Lord." " The Lord is risen
indeed." " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord."
O make but trial of His love,
Experience will decide
How blessed are they, and only they,
Who in His truth confide.
200 LINCOLN SERMONS
IV. 1
EASTER DAY.
" Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmove-
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch
as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord"
i COR. xv. 58.
r I "'HIS is, I think, a very suitable text on which to speak
to a Christian congregation on the evening of our
great Easter Festival.
All Christians, East and West, all those nearer to us
at home from whom we have sometimes to deplore our
unhappy division, agree in this great fundamental truth of
the Christian religion " Christ is risen indeed ".
And while all Christians agree that Christ is risen, so
do they mean by this Resurrection that Christ had died for
us, and by His Resurrection has proved that He was the
Son of God, as He had said. So St. Paul understood the
doctrine of the resurrection. It proved Jesus to be the
Son of God with power. To-day, when as Christians we
keep the great festival of the Resurrection, we declare our
belief that Jesus was the Son of God, that He died for us
and rose again for our justification. What can we want
more ? "If God be for us, who can be against us ? If He
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not, with Him, freely give us all things. It
is God that justifieth, Who is he that condemneth ? It is
Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, Who is even
1 Preached in Lincoln Cathedral.
EASTER DAY 201
at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession
for us."
There, dear brethren, is the true ground of a Chris
tian's joy on Easter Day. The Resurrection shows that
Christ was the Son of God ; thus the Son of God died for
us. Here, then, is pardon for all our sins. Here is pardon
and peace for us all. But there is more. Christ not only
died, but is risen again, and so there is new life and hope
for us. " Because I live," the Saviour had said, " ye shall
live also." Easter Day opens a new fountain of life for
us. " Christ is risen from the dead," and not only so, but
is " become the first-fruits of them that slept. For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
By the Resurrection of Christ we are to receive new
life from Him. As to-day we think of the risen,
living Christ, we ought to see in Him the fulfilment of
His own words. " I am the vine, ye are the branches."
When we think of the risen Saviour to-day, we should try
and picture Him to ourselves as the true Vine, and ourselves
as the branches drawing our life from Him. We need not
trouble ourselves by seeking to explain exactly the way in
which this Christ-life lives in us. Some great facts we
know, and a sufficiency of results has been given us to
enable us to trust in hope. The whole effect of the in
carnation of the Son of God towards humanity is not to be
seen in this life. Our life in this world down here now is
but a very small and imperfect part of the whole results of
the risen life of the Saviour. " Our life is hid with Christ
in God." He is not where once He was, in the manger in
the stable at Bethlehem. He is not now working in a
little village shop at Nazareth. He is not now hanging on
the cross on Calvary, but He is risen, He has ascended and
is on the throne in the full enjoyment of the love and
glory of the Father, angels, and archangels, and all the hosts
of heaven worshipping Him. And that is where we are to
202 LINCOLN SERMONS
be, in the place which the Saviour is preparing for us on the
throne with Himself. That is the true end, the real flower
and fruit of the Christ-life which we derive from the true
vine. But this world down here is, as it were, too cold a
climate for us to see what the real beauty of the fruit of the
Vine is. We can, as it were, only see the stem and the
leaves. But on Easter Day we do well to reassure our
selves of the promise that we shall one day see Him as He
is, and that we shall be like Him. This is the mental,
spiritual attitude suggested for us to-day by my text.
St. Paul, in the long chapter of which this text is the
close, had been proving the fact of the Resurrection of
Christ, and then he tells us what, in his mind, should be
the practical conclusion.
" Therefore," he says, " therefore my beloved brethren,
be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your work is not
in vain in the Lord."
To be steadfast, unmoveable. This is the first great
lesson for us to-day, to continue in this faith of our Lord's Re
surrection, grounded and settled, and not to be moved away
from the hope of the Gospel, which we have, as it were, heard
again to-day in the words, " The Lord is risen indeed ".
To renew our act of faith, to stand firm, and abide its re
sults. Our mental and spiritual attitude to-night, then,
should be one of trustfulness and hope. " O Israel trust in
the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy and with Him
is plenteous redemption." The Son of God has died for us,
and He shall redeem us from all our sins. Is not this a
lesson which some of us need at the present time ?
The watchwords of the day are progress, speed, dis
covery, competition, push, novelty, change. These are some
of the words which represent the state of things in which
we are now living. I do not say that they are altogether
wrong, but do they not seem to stand in strange contrast
EASTER DAY 203
to the conclusion of St. Paul's address to those who be
lieve in the Resurrection of our Lord ?
" Be stedfast, unmoveable." You will say that the words
do not refer to the same subject-matter. That is quite
true ; but then, what is the object of all this haste and
change and progress in which this world is so surely en
gaged. Is it for the kingdom of God and His righteousness ?
Is it for the pearl of great price of which the Gospel speaks ?
Could we to each question with the utmost stretch of charity
answer simply " Yes " ? Surely, if we find it so, at the best
it is only partially so, and that part which is so, is so chiefly
indirectly. It does not fulfil the command, " Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness ".
Is it not well, then, for us to-day to stand apart from
this blind rush of the modern world and to listen to the
Apostle's words : " Be stedfast," " stand firm," " be un
moveable ".
Observe, the Apostle's injunction is no excuse for idle
ness. On the contrary, his words enjoin work and imply
progress " always abounding in the work of the Lord ".
The patience of the Gospel is not a condition of unpro
fitable idleness, but representing rather the quietness, and
persistence and peace which the mystery of life requires
in order that she may do her work. It is the condition
required for the good seed that it may bring forth its fruit
with patience.
We who, by God's grace, believe in the good news of
to-day, " the Lord is risen indeed," will do well to examine
ourselves that we may see if we have the true spirit of de
tachment in which we ought to live with regard to the
things of this life.
It is not necessary that we should go out of the world ;
it is not necessary that we should give up all the good
things of this life which God Himself has given us, but it
is necessary that we should be ready to do so when and
204 LINCOLN SERMONS
as He pleases. It is necessary, therefore, that we should
preserve our inner spirit of detachment to all those things
that make life in this world dear to us. Wealth and
pleasure and success and honour and independence and
power, and even then the most subtle and sacred at
tachment of friendship and family life, all need to be
purified by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and held
by us in a conscious spirit of detachment. This is one of
our needs if we would enter into the full meaning of the
Apostle's words : "Be stedfast, be unmoveable," for this
can only be when our heart is detached from the constant
change of earthly things, and finds its rest in the great
unchanging truths of the Gospel. Let this be one of our
Easter resolves and prayers, that God may give us the true
spirit of detachment so that our hearts may be set at
liberty to do His Will. Then there will be no danger
that our patience will lead to idleness ; we shall be always
working, always advancing, always abounding in the work
of the Lord.
These last words show us the blessed and holy sphere
in which our life's work as Christians ought to be carried
on. It should be in the Lord. In Him, i.e. by His power
and in His way, for Him, i.e. for His glory, for " all things
were created by Him, and for Him, and in Him all
things consist ".
This brings out clearly another of our great needs in
the present day. We need to keep the true aim and object
of life more clearly before us. We are too often entangled
in our own net. We are blinded by the dust of our own
existence. Politics, education, social reform, and other
matters, in themselves not evil nor necessarily wrong, absorb
us, and leave us little or no time for God.
We need to set God more consciously before us, to
make His will and His glory more avowedly the guiding
principle and rule of all we do.
EASTER DAY 205
Our life, our work, our progress, should be always in
the Lord, then it will not be in vain. And may I not
to-night, speaking to you in our own Cathedral, in our
city, appeal to the evidence of the facts which God in
His mercy has lately shown us ? But a few weeks ago a
great effort was made, an effort made " in the Lord," after
much prayer and thought and united work, to preach the
old truths of the Gospel throughout the length and breadth
of our city ; l the preachers of our mission proclaimed with
fresh vigour and new ways of application the older truths of
the Gospel story that Christ, the Son of God died on the
cross for us, therefore there is pardon and peace for all ;
that Christ is risen indeed, then there is new life and hope
in the Lord.
Two great marks seemed to me to characterize our
mission power and peace. The churches were crowded,
and there was no bitterness, all passed off without any ill-
will. And not only so, but during the last week, has not
God given us further evidence that the work of the mission
has not been in vain.
Three hundred candidates, men and women, almost all
adults, have come forward to renew their baptismal vows and
receive the full gift of the Holy Spirit in the holy rite
of Confirmation. " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us but
unto thy name be the praise." This must be our first
thought, and then surely we may take up the words of the
Apostle " be stedfast, unmoveable," keep to the old paths,
hold fast the old faith. You do not want another Gospel,
a new theology.
Be patient, persevere, the Lord is risen indeed. Wait
for the Lord.
" Be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour
is not in vain in the Lord."
1 The reference is to a mission held throughout the city of Lincoln
shortly before this sermon was preached.
206 LINCOLN SERMONS
V. 1
MAN, GOD'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH.
" What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? and the son of
man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou madest him lower
than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship.
Thou makest him to have dominion of the works of Thy
hands ; and Thou hast put all things in subjection under
his feet" PSALM viu. 4-6.
r I ^HE object of this Psalm has sometimes been misunder
stood. It has been thought that the Psalmist's
object was to set forth the littleness and weakness of man,
and then finally by contrast to bring out the greater glory
and majesty of God " O Lord our Governor, how excellent
is Thy name in all the world ; Thou that hast set Thy
glory above the heavens " ; " For I will consider Thy
heavens, even the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the
stars, which Thou hast ordained ".
The Psalm appears to have been composed in the night,
perhaps by David, in one of the night-watches of his sheep,
when a youth on the hills of Bethlehem, for it is remark
able that there is no mention of the sun. He looks up to
the heavens and beholds the moon and the stars in all their
myriad brilliancy, hanging as they seem to hang in the
darkness of an eastern sky with a peculiar nearness and
splendour.
Such a contemplation of the starry heavens might in-
1 An Address delivered in Lincoln Cathedral to the Members of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 4 August, 1885.
MAN, GOD'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH 207
deed be a fitting ground for the thought of man's littleness
and God's greatness ; but such does not seem, on reflection,
to have been the Psalmist's purpose, but rather the reverse.
His object in the Psalm was not to make man feel his
littleness ; not to crush man, but to set forth the greatness,
the supremacy, the royalty of man ; and thus from man's
greatness as the king and lord of creation to rise to the
consideration of God's goodness from Whom all these
good things have come, and thus to God's own still greater
majesty as the King of kings and Lord of lords, Whose
glory and power are made manifest in that He has placed
man, apparently so weak, so small, in the midst of the
mighty forces which are around him (the moon and the
stars in the heavens, the beasts on the earth, the fishes in
the sea), and yet made them all obey him.
" What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? and the
son of man that Thou visitest him ? Thou makest him to
have dominion of the works of Thy hands ; and Thou
hast put all things in subjection under his feet ; all sheep
and oxen ; yea, and the beasts of the field ; the fowls of
the air, and the fishes of the sea ; and whatsoever walketh
through the paths of the seas."
Thus the true object of the Psalm is to show the great
ness of God, not by contrast with the littleness and weak
ness of man, but by the consideration of the strength and
greatness of man standing as God's vicegerent upon the
earth, to discover and command the mighty forces of
creation, and rule them in the name of God for the good
of mankind and for His glory.
It is, brethren, in accordance with this meaning of the
Psalm that I desire to offer you a sincere, hearty, and grate
ful welcome to this our ancient See and City of Lincoln.
The object of your Association, as I understand it, is
to promote the science and practice of mechanical engineer
ing in all branches of mechanical construction, and to give
208 LINCOLN SERMONS
an impulse to inventions likely to be useful, not only to
members of this Institution but to the community at large.
Now this means, surely, the scientific consideration of the
varied forces in nature, whatever they may be, whether of
light or heat, of coal or iron, of water, or of electricity,
and making them subservient to the wants and will of man.
It is, in other words, to put man in touch with the subtle
forces of creation which the Creator has placed round
about him, and thus to give to man a yet further extension
of the mighty monarchy which he already surveys.
The effect of your Association, then, is the gathering
of new jewels for a still more splendid crown for man. If
the general objects of your Association are so admirable,
so, I would venture to say, are such assemblies of the
members of your Association, as you have gathered here
in Lincoln, wise and good also.
As sciences work on to perfection, there is, practically,
a tendency to division. The village doctor is physician,
surgeon, dentist, oculist, aurist, all in one ; but if the
higher knowledge in the great science of medicine is re
quired, there must be division ; and different persons, and
different cities, and different countries must be visited,
before we can obtain the information we desire. It is the
same in other sciences.
In the great science of war (whose end and glory should
be peace) there is the same principle of division. With the
wild troops of uncivilized countries the innate and noble
bravery arms itself as best it can. In scientific warfare we
have infantry and cavalry, artillery, and, guiding them all,
the engineers ; and it is so (is it not?) with the civil en
gineer. Fifty years ago the business of the mechanical
engineer was general, the same man was the maker of
marine engines, locomotives, mill work, and engines for the
land ; now the locomotive and the marine engine occupy
separate interests. Nor is that all : in the beginning of the
MAN, GOD'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH 209
science the same man made many or all of the parts of the
engine on which he was engaged ; but in the progress and
consequent division of the science, one firm will devote
itself to one kind of machinery, and one set of men to one
particular part of the particular engine that is to be made.
The danger of such separation is obvious : it narrows
the interests of the workman, it drops a man down from
the scientific consideration of the whole to the construction
of a particular part, it causes him to lose sight of the various
forces which other industries are discovering.
What is needed then in the progress of science is to
keep the separate parts into which it is constantly dividing
constantly re-invigorated, by bringing them into relation
with the scientific principle which is animating the whole.
You need to teach the individual artisan, or the depart
mental engineer, to connect phenomena with law, acts
with principles, effects with causes ; to teach him, in a right
sense, to philosophize, that is to attain to true enlargement
of mind. It is for this reason (among others) that Schools
of Art and Mechanics' Institutes are so valuable, because
they lift up the intelligent mechanic out of the groove of
his daily work, and refresh and enlarge his mind by the
sight of the principles and laws which govern the details of
his daily toil; and hence it is that these Conferences of
your Association appear to me to be so wise, because they
enable the followers of one kind of scientific discovery to
contribute their results to others ; they offer an opportunity
for mutual interchange of results from the separate con
sideration of the common work. Such Conferences provide
a remedy for the evils of scientific division, refreshing and
re-invigorating the several parts by a consciousness of their
scientific unity.
It is not for me to attempt to enter in detail on the
treasures you have brought with you for each other's good ;
the interest of them must be, I feel sure, intense. There
210 LINCOLN SERMONS
will be possibly new suggestions for bringing into profit
able subjection forces which we feel and see around us, but
which we can still so little use : the regular pressure of the
tidal wave, and the wild gusts of the winds. Are there not
forces in the air above us which may enable us in years to
come to move through the shifting clouds as safely as we
move now over the once apparently insuperable dangers of
the sea ?
There will be doubtless suggestions for economy in the
use of the forces we can already control : the saving of
waste in all kinds of coal, the reduction of friction, the
simplification of construction with the increased complexity
of action in machinery, the multiplied effects of a single
motion.
There will be, too, the unselfish consideration for those
who are to come after us, and the desire for the discovery
of new combinations by which the less precious materials
may be used with the more costly : so as to leave to those
who follow us not only the treasures of our own inventions,
but the example of unselfish thrift in the stores of the best
material left unexhausted.
These, and many such-like suggestions, are not for me
to make : rather it is my duty now to point out to you the
sincerity of my words when I bid you a hearty and grateful
welcome to our ancient See and City of Lincoln. I do so
as the last, and unworthy, occupant of this ancient See,
which unrolls a list of Bishops running back in unbroken
succession for more than eight hundred years. The times
have changed, and great social progress has been made in
England during these centuries ; and yet it is our boast
and glory that we teach the same faith unchanged which
was once delivered to the saints a faith which we believe
will remain unchanged, and yet be found equal to the needs
of humanity as its capacities develop.
It is because I believe the tendency of the results of
MAN, GOD'S VICEGERENT ON EARTH 211
your Association to be in harmony with the ancient faith
that I was able sincerely to bid you a hearty welcome to
our See and City. For surely your labours are tending
more and more to restore man to his original position of
dignity and power, as a king upon this earth.
Consider for a moment. Are you not eliminating the
lower kinds of toil, and substituting mechanical contrivance
and intellectual skill for brute force, making the inanimate
irrational forces obey man's will, and do his rougher work ?
Last week when I was visiting the docks at Grimbsy, I
could not but admire the ease and grace with which the
hydraulic crane, worked without effort by a lad of sixteen,
lifted the ship's cargo with noiseless regularity, and placed
it, with a gentleness that seemed almost human, in the
truck standing ready on the line. It was impossible not
to admire such a simple scientific triumph, and in that
combination of power and quietness to see a model of that
" gentleness which when it weds with manhood makes the
man ". And all this you do, not to make men idle, but to
relieve them from the burden on the lower faculties, that
they may be free to exercise and develop the higher.
And as you are eliminating the lower kinds of toil, are
you not also eliminating space ? The sea is no longer a
bar of separation between man and his fellow-men. We
pass over its waters, smooth or troubled, with more speed
and regularity and safety than our forefathers travelled on
their native land. Our railways, our telegraphs, our tele
phones, are eliminating space, and bringing the ends of the
earth together. And what does all this tend to prove, but
that God made " all nations of one blood " ? And what
are all these your scientific achievements eliminating space,
but so many right hands of fellowship and goodwill,
stretching across the world to bring men into unity and
brotherly love?
And once more, is it not the pride and boast of your
14*
212 LINCOLN SERMONS
scientific improvements not only to save labour, but also to
save time ? With the aid of machinery work is done in
a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth part of the time in
which it could be performed without it ; and yet increased
rapidity of production, and of transit, is, I believe, among
your most constant ambitions.
And what does all this tend to show ? Surely this :
that man is not the creature of an hour, but destined for
eternity ; that his life is not to be for ever spent in toil
and separation from his fellow-men ; but rather that man's
true estate (as God would have him be) is as a deathless
king, reigning in harmony and brotherly love with his
fellow-men throughout eternity.
See, brethren, how sincerely I could offer you a grate
ful welcome to our ancient See and City, as fellow-helpers
in reclaiming the true position of man as the lord and king
of nature's forces. Only, brethren, let me be honest, and,
before I conclude, give you one word of warning, that you
may be sure these words are spoken in sincerity and not
in flattery. The greatness of the prize before you may
tempt you to forget God. Man rules the earth as God's
vicegerent ; as God's vicegerent man must wear His
crown. This is man's true position, as lord of this earth
and controller of its forces, in union with his fellow-men,
giving God the glory. This is man's true greatness to
live in loving adoration of his God. This Revelation
teaches us in the vision of the elders casting their golden
crowns before the throne ; and to this your scientific as
sociations I trust will tend, setting man free from his
lower labours, and uniting him closer, and yet closer, to
his brother man and to his God.
V.
MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS.
ST. AID AN' S, CLEETHORPES 215
I. 1
THE CONSECRATION OF ST. AIDAN'S,
CLEETHORPES.
" New wine must be put into new bottles ; and both are
preserved" ST. LUKE v. 38.
PHESE are our Saviour's own words, and therefore we
may be sure they are full of many-sided wisdom
and love, tending to the glory of God, and the well-being
of mankind. The literal interpretation of the words was
more obvious in the Eastern countries,, where they were
spoken, than is the case with us. In the Eastern countries,
as many of you will know, the bottles commonly used were
made of the skins of animals which became worn and
weakened in the course of years, and unequal to bear the
pressure of the fermenting of the new wine ; thus the
strong new wine required the strong new bottle, or the
bottle itself would be marred and the wine lost. New wine,
therefore, must be put into new bottles, and then both would
be preserved.
Under this simple Parable the Saviour would teach us
the far-reaching truth that progress needs preparation. If
you want the new wine you must prepare new bottles.
This principle of the need of preparation before pro
gress is far reaching, and applicable in many ways.
We all know that the ground must be prepared if it is
to yield a full harvest ; we know that animals must be
trained if they are to be fit for the service of man ; children
1 Preached after the Consecration of St. Aidan's, New Cleethorpes,
8 July, 1906.
216 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
need the discipline of school, and to practice obedience in
their home life if they are to be ready for the station of
life to which it may please God to call them ; and educa
tion must not cease with childhood, the young man or
young woman, if he or she is to make use of the education
of childhood, must still continue to learn ; continuation
schools, evening classes, the opportunities of apprenticeship
must all be attended to, if we would make the necessary
preparation for our progress in life.
Thus the truth of the text is constantly before us, new
wine must be put into new bottles.
As the text is true with regard to the ordinary condi
tions of this life, so is it true with reference to our highest
interests in matters of religion.
The event which has made the greatest difference in the
condition of the world and done most to advance the true
progress and well-being of mankind is the incarnation of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Even the most superficial
observer can see that the foremost countries in the world,
the countries which are most civilized, are those which bear
the name of Christian ; there may be (alas, we know there
are) many imperfections, but nevertheless the nations which
call themselves Christian are the foremost nations of the
world.
This great event in the progress of the human race, the
Incarnation of the Lord, was prepared for by a great pre
paration. It was, we are expressly told, in the fullness of
time that the Saviour came. The language and philosophy
of Greece, the world-wide system and government of the
Roman Empire, the special revelation to the Jews as we
have it in the Old Testament, all prepared the way for the
coming of Christ. He was the True Vine from which the
new wine was to be made, and the world was duly prepared
to receive Him.
Immediately before the Saviour came, St. John the
ST. AWAN'S, CLEETHORPES 217
Baptist was sent to prepare the way before Him, and when
the Saviour commenced His ministry we read that He
appointed other seventy also, and sent them out two and
two before His face, into every city and place whither He
Himself would come.
And now, we can see how this great principle applies
to us to-day, when we are commemorating the consecration
of your new church. First, let me remind you that it has
not come among you all in a moment ; secondly, let me
remind you that you will still need to carry on your pre
paration in order that you may go on to have the full
blessings which we hope your new church may yet bring
you.
First, then, let me remind you that this church has not
come amongst you all in a moment. Many of you are
aware that the beautiful chancel of your church is a loving
gift in memory of one who for thirty years and more
laboured in Grimsby. Some of you will remember him as
Curate of the Parish Church, many more will have known
him as the Vicar of St. John's, all will testify to his un
affected, unambitious, loyal, hard work, in which by word
and example he was a faithful witness for Christ, and pre
pared the way for Christ to come to many souls. Many
of you he will have prepared for Confirmation and your
first Communion. Many as they think of Canon Hutch-
inson will feel that both in the church and in social life he
drew them nearer to God. In many ways he prepared the
way for this church.
In Westminster Abbey there is a tablet erected in
memory of the two brothers John and Charles Wesley, and
on it are inscribed amongst others these words : " God
buries his workmen but continues His work ". So it is
to-day, he being dead, yet speaketh. Not a little of the
church work which has, thank God, been advancing lately
in Grimsby is owing to the good work of preparation which
2i 8 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Canon Ainslie and Canon Young and Canon Hutchinson
have done in former years, and to-day we reap the fruit of
their labours. And not only so does our text apply, but
more closely still, in your own district of St. Aidan's, you
have been preparing for nearly three years for your new
church, and many of you, I am sure, would say how valu
able that time of preparation has been to you. The teach
ing and example of your good vicar has enabled you to
understand and value your new church in a way that you
could not have done some years ago ; the Consecration
Service yesterday was real to you, you value the font and
the lectern and the pulpit and the prayer-desk and the
altar ; you can say with a new reality " I had rather be
a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the
tents of ungodliness. One day in Thy courts is better
than a thousand."
We love the place, O God,
Wherein Thine honour dwells.
The joy of Thine abode,
All earthly joy excels.
Thus you have already realized in yourselves the truth of
my text : " New wine must be put into new bottles ; and
both are preserved ". Preparation is necessary for true
progress, but then we must riot be content to rest with
the mere fact of having our new church built. The real
Church is not made of bricks and stones, but of living
stones, the souls of men and women ; it is the Body of
Christ, and Christ is the Living Head.
The spiritual Church of this parish (of which this
building is the type or shadow) will, we hope, live and grow,
and bring forth fruit, more abundantly, as a fruitful vine ;
and fruit that will remain, when we are gone, according to
the words which I have already quoted to you : " God
buries His workmen but carries on His work "
ST. AWAN'S, CLEETHORPES 219
The progress of the whole Church depends, under
God, on the preparation of its several parts. All must
unite and work together, some in one way, some in another,
some as members of the choir, some as Sunday school
teachers (or it may be as religious teachers in our day schools),
some as district visitors, some in promoting the innocent
recreation and amusements of the young in clubs and
games, and others in religious guilds and Bible classes and
classes of edifying instruction. All must try and prepare
themselves individually, and help to prepare others so that
the whole body of the Church may " grow up into Him
in all things which is the Head, even Christ, from Whom
the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of
the body unto the edifying of itself in love ".
The love of God and the love of our neighbour are the
vital powers which flow through the stem and the branches
of the True Vine and give us the new wine.
The love of God will lead us to be constant in our
devotion, by ourselves, with our families, in our attendance
on the services of our Church, in frequent reception of the
Holy Communion. The love of our neighbour will show
itself in acts of kindness, visiting and relieving the sick,
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, in being " kind
and tender-hearted one towards another, forgiving one
another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us ".
All such acts of Christian kindness will prepare us to
receive in larger measure the new wine, which Christ the
True Vine has prepared for the true members of His Church.
Thus we shall come to understand better that the Church
is the body of Christ, and that we are individually its
members while Christ is the Living Head. So that in the
Church we shall find communion with Christ, and in Him
with one another. This is what a parish should be. All
220 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
should be united together in God, through Christ, by the
power of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of love. Then we
should enjoy the new wine, which is the fruit of the spirit,
the fruit of the Spirit of Christ, love for Jesus.
But this is not all ; our preparation and our progress
do not end in this life. The Church on earth is to prepare
us for the Church in paradise and then in heaven. We,
like the Saviour, must set our faces as though we would
go to Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above, the heavenly
city.
Our Sundays here are to remind us that there still re
mains a more perfect rest for the people of God. Make full
use, then, of your new church, avail yourselves of the rich
blessings which God has provided for you in it, through
the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. So will God
strengthen and refresh you with the new wine now, and
prepare you for that good wine which God ever keeps to
the last. And when the journey of your life is over you
shall enter the New Jerusalem to dwell there for ever more,
free from all pain of body, free from all doubt or anxiety
of mind, free from all sin of deed or thoughts, where death
will be swallowed up in victory, and we shall be at leisure
to see God in eternal peace, having become citizens of the
New Jerusalem, the City of God.
God grant that this may be the result of this new
Church of St. Aidan's.
PRA YER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL LIFE 221
II. 1
PRAYER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL
LIFE AND HOLINESS.
Point of View. I trust that I may interpret
the title of the paper which I have the privilege of
reading to you, as intended to give me the point of view
from which my few words should be spoken.
" Prayer in Relation to Personal Life and Holiness."
This I take to be at once an act of faith, and an expression
of thankfulness ; and I believe it expresses correctly the
position in which, by God's goodness, most of us now are
in relation to " Prayer ". I mean that it assumes the
mystery of personality, and in doing so frees me from the
necessity of troubling you, at any length, with an apologetic
defence of the reasonableness of prayer. It is, indeed, the
position to which many true scientific inquirers have come.
They have come to the life, and there they have stopped,
not because they have discovered an absolute end, but be
cause they are conscious that our present powers of reason
ing and analysis are exhausted, and yet the mystery of
personality and of life remains. Thus the attitude of many
true scientific inquirers might be well expressed by the
words of the Psalmist : "I see that all things come to an
end, but Thy commandment is exceeding broad ". Far away
in the inaccessible light I see life and will.
Reference to some Principal Objections. While, how
ever, I gratefully accept the position which I have in-
1 A Paper read at the Church Congress, Nottingham, October, 1 897.
222 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
dicated, it may not, perhaps, be altogether useless if I
remind you of some of the principal objections which have
been alleged against the reasonableness of prayer, and which
may have had a more or less baneful influence on the con
fidence and earnestness of our own devotions.
It cannot, I think, be denied that there have been
special influences in the scientific and religious thought of
our day which are adverse to the devout use of prayer ;
and with regard to which we should do well to examine
ourselves in order that we see how far, by God's
goodness, we have escaped without injury. The special
dangers to which I refer arise from the prevailing loose
ideas regarding God and the Bible, and from the growth
of physical science.
These objections are generally directed to one limited
aspect of prayer, the aspect of petition, and they may be
considered under two heads, theological and philosophical.
The theological objections are drawn from a supposed in
congruity between the attributes of God and an act of
petition : as, for example, prayer is said to be inconsistent
with the attribute of God's omniscience. If God knows
all things, He knows what we want, and therefore it is
superfluous to tell Him. It is surely enough to reply that
fore-knowledge does not necessarily imply fore-ordination.
God is the " Everlasting Now," and knows what was, and
is, and is to come, not with any sequence of time, but by
the exercise of His own eternal nature, " All things are
open and naked to Him with Whom we have to do " ; but
it does not follow that God is Himself the immediate
cause of all. Otherwise God would be the author of evil,
and man's freedom would be a fiction. Though we cannot
fully understand the mystery of our free will, yet, as Bishop
Butler has said, we certainly are as if we were free, and all
individual forethought and action is based on that supposi
tion, as indeed are all the rewards and punishments of social
PRA YER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL LIFE 223
life. Man thinks it not unreasonable to act for himself,
and to regard others, as if free will were a reality, although
he admits that God knows beforehand what He will do.
God's omniscience, therefore, need not necessarily exclude
the free act of man's prayer. In saying this we are con
scious of touching upon a twofold mystery omniscience
and man's free will which we cannot fully understand.
All we say is that we may, at least, know enough to know
that prayer is not inconsistent with the state of things in
which we find we are. It may well be that our merciful
Saviour knew we should feel this difficulty, and therefore
while He has told us to pray, He also told us that " our
Heavenly Father knows " all the things of which we have
need before we ask Him.
Again, it has been said that prayer is inconsistent with
the immutability of God ; that it is derogatory to the idea
of God's excellence to suppose that He would change His
purpose on account of man's petition. But immutability
does not necessarily imply necessity from any external
cause. The only immutability to which God is bound is
the unchangeableness of the perfection of His own nature.
God cannot be unjust or untrue because He is Who He
is. In speaking of the volition of God, it may help us to
remember the terms which theologians have used. God's
Will, they say, may be regarded as antecedent, and conse
quent or conditional ; that is, that God includes in His
way of willing man's use of his own free will. God's Will
is that all men should be saved, but this is conditioned by
man's repentance and faith. That God should include
man's use of prayer in His Will to give him what He knows
that he needs, shows no weakness or instability of will,
though it may show God's actions to be determined by
conditions which we can but imperfectly understand.
Another ground alleged for the unreasonableness of
prayer is based on God's greatness and the insignificance of
224 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
man. Can it be supposed, they say, that He Who governs
the whole universe should be influenced in His actions by
so insignificant a creature as man. This argument seems
to me to be unworthy of a scientific mind ; for surely the
infinite perfection of the several parts, together with the
magnificence of the whole, are the very signs which dis
tinguished the handiwork of God. Professor Airy could
say the wonders of the microscope are as great as those of
the telescope. But I mention this objection because it
falls in only too easily with the materialistic tendencies of
the age, and should be met by the question, " What is
great in the sight of God ? " It should be considered in
the light of the Saviour's words, " What shall a man give
in exchange for his soul ". If we would be clear of the
baneful influence of this objection, we must convince our
selves that a man's life consisteth not in the things which
he possesseth.
The other line of objection is the philosophical. This
objection has been increasing around us ; not really from
its own inherent power, but from the attractive and truly
beneficial results to be obtained from the study of the
physical sciences, and from the disqualifying effect which
the sole study of the physical sciences produces upon our
minds for the study of moral and spiritual things. Physical
science may have been studied with such success as to pro
duce a real reputation, and the moral and spiritual faculties
in the same person may remain abortive from the want of
use. There are some persons who do not object to the
use of prayer in the sphere of morals or spiritual things,
but who consider it unscientific if applied to the temporal
and physical wants of man, such as preservation from sick
ness in times of plague, or famine in time of drought ; and
the reason alleged is that prayer is contrary to the scientific
principle the reign of law but what does all this mean ?
Is it not simply this, that every consequent must have its
PRAYER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL LIFE 225
antecedent ? and is not the Will of God a sufficient ante
cedent ? Certainly the man who throws a stone high into
the air knows that there is a place in the laws of nature for
man's free will to exercise itself without interfering with the
great law of gravitation.
It is said that to think of the mechanism of the uni
verse as liable to suspension or change, is to cast a slur on
the handiwork of God in the creation of the world. Is
this a sound argument ? As far as we know the relation of
mind and matter, does not man's mind and purpose remain
superior to all its best and greatest mechanical achieve
ments ? " Not failure, but low aim is crime," and shall
we venture to say that the Divine mind could have no
further purposes than are expressed in the works which we
see ? Those who believe in a Creator must certainly admit
that the Will of God is a sufficient antecedent, and produces
physical results. Prayer is, therefore, no violation of the
principles of law. I have said nothing of the arguments in
favour of prayer, but it is obvious to all who accept the
Bible as God's Word, and who believe in our Lord, in His
works and in His example, and in the universal teaching of
the Universal Church, and I might add in the almost uni
versal assent of mankind, that prayer is not only not con
trary to the right conclusions of the human faculties, but
is an assured act of faith. 1
Some Practical Suggestions. For the sake of the young,
or those who are still beginners in the Christian life,
may I add a few practical suggestions on what might be
called the disciplinary aspect of prayer ? Parents ought
to teach their children to pray, and to help them to form
the habit under the tender discipline of parental authority.
As life advances, and the special dangers and needs of the
1<( The Life of Prayer," by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings, 1877.
" The Efficacy of Prayer," the Donnellan Lectures for 1877, by John H.
Jellett, B.A.
15
226 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
soul become known to each individual, no one book of
devotions can be expected to be sufficient. I suppose the
history of our experience is the same for all. We have
been obliged to compile for ourselves a form of prayers
from different sources. The general construction of such
a compilation may be the same -confession, petition,
intercession, thanksgiving and each of these parts may be
enriched as our circumstance may require. I will venture
to suggest one source from which such a compilation might
be made. Might we not make more use of our Book of
Common Prayer ? Besides the prayers and the Litany,
which obviously suit the needs of individual souls, might
we not make more use of other prayers in our Prayer Book
which are needed for the well-being and growth of the
Body of Christ ? Such as, for example, the prayers for the
well-being of the Church, the collects for the Ember
seasons, the collects for the fifth and sixteenth Sundays after
Trinity, or the collects bearing on social difficulties, such as
that for the fourth Sunday after Easter that the wills and
affections of the people may be set on the true riches ; or
the collect for the help of the angels, as that for St. Michael's
Day ; or those for the increase of the saintly life amongst
us, as that for All Saints' Day ; and the collects in com
memoration of the particular saints.
Again, might not many, with a little effort, make more
use of the Daily Office ? Though not obligatory, except, of
course, upon the clergy, the quiet, elevating influence of our
daily service will be found to be very great. If it cannot
be said in church, some portions of it the Psalms and
lessons, with some of the prayers might be said at home.
This leads me to say, how much yet remains to be done
to make our churches practically " houses of prayer ". If
the churches were always open, and if more attention and
common sense were bestowed on the arrangements for
kneeling, many who can have no place for quietness in their
PRA YER IN RELATION TO PERSONAL LIFE 227
own small homes would be grateful for such an opportunity
in the church. If church architects, and others concerned,
would seriously attend to this, I believe they might greatly
assist the religious life of our people. Besides the use of
the daily office, many persons find that they are able, with
a little self-discipline, to observe in some degree what have
been known for many centuries as the Hours of the Church ;
perhaps few can keep them in a full and set form, but I have
known many persons in all classes of society who have found
great help and comfort from observing this practice. I
know of one working-man, an engine-driver, who in his
own way observed this ancient custom, and I have no doubt
there are many others. Many of us have been touched by
seeing this custom observed among the simple peasants in
Tyrol and in Switzerland ; why not in England ?
Let me conclude these elementary remarks on the dis
ciplinary use of prayer by adding two more words. First,
that this use of vocal prayer should be regular ; whatever
we think we ought to do in this matter, self-control, self-
discipline, a sense of a duty to be discharged, should make
it regular. Secondly, with the habit of vocal prayer, some
kind of mental prayer should be commenced early in our
religious training. I mean the habit of thinking about the
things of God. Formal meditation may be too difficult,
but there should be at least some regular thoughtful reading
of the Bible, and other religious books, so that our minds,
as well as our hearts, may become accustomed to conscious
communion with God.
Conclusion. May I add a few words in conclusion ?
As we advance in life we see that the real point for care
and anxiety is not so much the saying our prayers (though
they still have to be said) as the abiding in the spiritual
condition which is essential for the full efficacy of prayer.
" If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask
whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you " (St.
15*
228 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
John xv. 7). " What must be, then, our chief prayer ?
Surely this, that we may ourselves abide in Christ more
truly than we do. This prayer is the foundation of ac
ceptance in all other prayers. It is not enough that the
prayer be such as Christ would approve. The life must
be kept free from all that Christ would disown. The
power of prayer is proportionate to the freedom of the
heart from every alien subjection." 1 " If I incline unto
wickedness with my heart," the Psalmist says, " the Lord
will not hear me" (Ps. LXVI. 16).
This is the condition into which the struggle of our
probation should be leading us ; we do not need the
continual argumentative proof for the lawfulness of prayer.
We know what Hooker has called its two uses ; Prayer
is a means conditional upon the use of which God will give
us the good things which He has prepared for us ; there
fore we must pray, and not faint. It is also a means per
mitted by which we may present our lawful desires to God.
The soul that is in habitual communion with God finds its
natural expression in constant ejaculatory prayer, or more
often still in the unuttered aspirations of the heart. It is
in this way that I believe many more prayers are heard in
heaven than are audible on earth. Thousands, whom we
least suspect of devotion, pray.
In fallen Israel are there hearts and eyes
That day by day in prayer like thine arise,
Thou knowest them not, but their Creator knows.
" Christian Year," Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
To these secret desires the Holy Spirit conjoins His own
unutterable intercession, and the Father answers the poor
man's prayer according to the mind of the Spirit, far
beyond anything that he could ask or think.
The increased use of mental and ejaculatory prayer,
1 " The Final Passover," R. M. Benson, Vol. II, pp. 36, 317.
PRA YER IN RELA TION TO PERSONAL LIFE 229
the more frequent turning of the soul to God in secret,
a growing sense of thankfulness for God's mercies in the
past, more trustfulness and hope in looking to the future,
more restful joy in our Eucharists this would seem to
be something of the condition implied in the words
" praying always," something of the right condition of
the soul as a part of the mystical Body of Christ, so that
it may be a fitting instrument for the indwelling inter
cession of the Holy Spirit in the Communion of the
Saints.
Poi nella quarta parte della vita
A Dio si rimarita,
Contemplando la fine che 1'aspetta,
E benedice li tempi passati.
Dante, II Convito, Canzone Terza, 136-140.
Come, labour, when the worn-out frame requires
Perpetual Sabbath : come, disease and want ;
And sad exclusion through decay of sense ;
But leave me unabated trust in Thee
Father of heaven and earth 1 and I am rich,
And will possess my portion in content.
" The Excursion," Bk. iv.
230 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
III. 1
ORDINATION.
" Te have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained
you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that
your fruit should remain ." ST. JOHN xv. 16.
ONE of the many penalties attached to error is the dis
turbance which it causes to the balance of the truth.
It is not merely that a man may err from the truth, and in
his error suffer, but the balance of the truth itself will with
difficulty be restored. When men add to the truth, there
follows usually a reaction, and men will take away from the
truth before the balance comes true.
The first part of the text affords an example of what I
mean : " Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you ".
Brethren, are we not in danger, on account of the errors of
some who have overstrained this truth, of losing an in
tended comfort and confidence from the thought of God's
electing love ? We know, indeed, how in years past, one,
very jealous for the power, and love, and glory of the free
grace of God, did make very strong claims for this power
of the freedom of His grace. And we know, too, how in
later times, one, pressed perhaps by the reaction which
men's thoughts had suffered from the wrong unsettling
additions to the truth, thought he saw a remedy for the
doubt and uncertainty which surrounded man's relation to
God, in the eternal fixed decrees and we have suffered
1 Preached at the Primary Ordination of the Right Reverend the
Lord Bishop of Winchester, in the Cathedral Church of Winchester,
19 December, 1869.
ORDINATION 231
from this. This cruel exaggeration of the power of Divine
grace has made men recoil altogether from the thought of
God's electing love. There was a time when Christians
gloried in the strength of the thought of God's eternal
purpose in His dealings with His Church ; unterrified by
later errors they were strong in the truth of God's election,
yet humbly dependent on His free grace, and watched with
prayer the freedom of their own will. For there is a true
doctrine of election, there is, indeed, a reality in the call of
God, and it is intended that we should consider it. Our
own Church, thanks be to God, has brought the balance
true, still many are afraid to take the comfort which the
restored truth is intended to afford. Many of us, I believe,
are afraid to speak of their election and their call as giving
any real ground for such a brave life, as a man should live
if called by the Almighty. Consider, brethren, for a
moment, how clearly our Church has taught us this truth.
In the baptism of our children we pray that they may
" ever remain in the number of Thine elect " ; in the
Catechism they are taught to say separately they believe in
" the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me and all the elect
people of God " ; in our daily service we pray that God
would make His " chosen people joyful " ; and, lastly, at
the close of this life, once more we pray that God would
be pleased to " hasten His kingdom and shortly accomplish
the number of His elect ". We need not fear, then, but
that God does still call us. We are taught to believe this.
He calls us in the general calling to the predestined pri
vileges of His grace, and further still He calls us to our
particular position in His kingdom, bidding us, one and
all, to do our duty in that state of life to which it may
please Him to call us. And thus, brethren, to-day, He,
the eternal and everlasting God, would question and examine
you " whether ye believe that ye be truly called according
to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ," and whether you will
232 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
" give yourselves wholly unto this office unto which it has
pleased God to call you ".
Only let us be clear that we hold this great and
strengthening truth without error. This call is not irre
sistible ; man's will remains free, yet God does not call us
on account of any goodness we possess, but in and out of
His own power and love. He from His own power and
love calls us, in His own wisdom He knows how He can
call the creature whom He has created with a free will.
There is no contradiction in God. He calls us, and yet
we are free, free to follow or to fly. Brethren, you must
face this question. Either it is a simple unreality when you
declare your belief that you are called of God and moved
by the Holy Ghost, or it is a most precious truth. Surely
what you mean is this, that before the ages were, God
knew everything that He would do. Yes, He foresaw
you, He determined your existence. He did not forget
you when he set the stars in their courses. He did not
forget you, each one of you, He determined that you should
be. He foresaw this, and planned your life, and He willed
that you should come and serve Him. We believe that if
you be truly called of God He foreknew it from the begin
ning. All through your lives that has followed you. In
spite of many contradictions, in spite of many apparent
failings, your will being free, and no good thing in you for
God to look on, yet He did not change His purpose. He
continued to love and to call you, and He has called you
here to-day. It is true that looking back upon your life
there may have been many contradictions ; so it has been
with others who have been called to God's service before
you. So it was with David ; there had been contradictions
in his life, yet he did not relinquish the confidence of God's
electing love. At the close of his life, surrounded by the
princes of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the captains
of the companies, the king stood upon his feet and said :
ORDINATION 233
" Hear ye, my brethren and my people . . . the Lord God
of Israel chose me before all the house of my father to be
king over Israel for ever, for He hath chosen Judah to be
the ruler, and of the house of Judah, the house of my
father ; and among the sons of my father He liked me to
make me king over all Israel ".
This is the simple history of the election of that royal
heart, " He liked me, of His own free love He took me ".
There had been indeed sad contradictions, his will had
been free and it had fallen from God, yet God had not
forsaken him ; in the same freedom of his will, by God's
preventing grace, he turned. He had " been a prodigy
unto many," yet God, he declared, " had taught him from
his youth up until now ". Not fate, not chance, not mere
force of circumstances, but the hand of God's electing love
training his free will from his youth until this was the song
of his old age : " He liked me, He chose me, He taught
me, He gave me the pattern of His house, He made me
understand in writing, by His hand upon me, all the work
of the pattern ; verily I have been a monster, a prodigy,
unto many, but He did not reject me, He trusted me
with the pattern of His Church ; this, then, is the answer
to the riddle of my life, ' He liked me ' ".
So, surely, it was with St. Paul. There were many
contradictions in his life. Ananias, though commanded
by the Lord Himself, thought the persecutor of the Church
could not be fit for the service of the Saviour, could not
be an object of the Divine election : " Lord, I have heard
by many of this man," were his words of righteous in
dignation, and yet what was the Lord's reply ? " Go thy
way, for he is a chosen vessel unto Me." I have chosen
him ; his will indeed is free, and has been ever so, and in
that freedom he has persecuted Me, yet I have truly called
him. Go thy way, trust to My omniscience, My justice,
and My love ; he has erred, he shall suffer. " / will
234 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
show him what things he must suffer," yet he is " a
chosen vessel unto Me ". Neither, brethren, in St. Paul's
case was this all ; not only were there contradictions from
without, but there were contradictions also from within,
and yet God's electing love was true. In Jerusalem, in
the Temple, in a trance, the contradictions of his early
life came fresh before the new Apostle, and for a moment
seemed to overbear the power of his call. " Lord," he
exclaimed, " they know that I imprisoned and beat in
every synagogue them that believe on Thee ; and when
the blood of Thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was
standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the
raiment of them that slew him." Here all the detailed
circumstances of his early life came fresh before him, and
for the moment his mission seemed impossible, and yet,
brethren, we know the answer that was given, " Depart,
for / will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles ". The
same God who had separated him from his mother's
womb, and called him, had not forsaken hirn in spite of
the apparent contradictions from within and from without,
from the fears of Ananias, and from the fears of his own
heart. St. Paul is revealed to us as a chosen vessel, as
one sent by the Lord Himself. This, then, brethren, is
the confidence and comfort I would offer you from these
first words of my text, " Ye have not chosen Me, but I
have chosen you ". In spite, it may be, of many contra
dictions in the opinions of men without, in spite of many
misgivings from your own hearts within, we are brave to
believe that if you have been honest, if really true, you
may rely upon the electing love of God to-day, and
strengthen and comfort yourselves with the thought that
it is not you who have chosen this ministry of your own
proud self-will, but rather that you have been from youth
up until now gradually assenting to the voice of His
electing love, that He has chosen you because He liked
ORDINATION 235
you, nay, because " He loved " you, and " gave Himself
f :>r " you, and that He Himself will send you, giving you
a pattern of the work He wills you to do, and by the
power of His own Presence enable you to fulfil it.
If we turn now to the second point in the text, " I
have chosen you, and ordained you," it may perhaps seem
for a moment fanciful to apply these words to the special
service of to-day, but whatever wider meaning they may
have, this special reference to the ministry is plainly in
cluded in it. The same word rendered here " ordained "
occurs in other places with evident reference to the ministry.
In the address to the Church of Ephesus, " Take heed
therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the
which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers ". So,
again, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, speaking of
the Divine appointment of the offices in the Christian
Church, " God hath set some in the Church ". So, again,
St. Paul, the chosen vessel, speaks of himself as " put in
the ministry ". And, again, " whereunto I am ordained a
preacher and an Apostle " ; and, again, " whereunto I am
appointed a preacher and an Apostle ". In all these pas
sages we find the same word that we find in the text. We
shall not be wrong, then, I venture to think, in applying
it to the great object of our gathering here to-day. I have
chosen you, and I ordain you. This, brethren, will bring
the real question before us, Who is it that ordains, is it
God or man ? I would have you answer bravely, " God,
and not man ". This is the second point to which, by
God's help, I would now call your attention. It is God
who ordains, and not man ; or, if you will, it is God by and
through man. It was God the Holy Ghost who made
them overseers over the Church at Ephesus ; it was the
very same Jesus whom Paul persecuted, who set him in
the ministry, and it is the same Jesus Christ who now
appoints men to the ministry of His Church. This is an
236 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
all-important point ; if it were not for this truth, this
service would be most unreal, most superstitious. See to
this then, brethren. Be clear in your own minds as to
the existence of these supernatural powers. I speak to you
as to people who believe in God. Consider, then, what
that belief must imply. We believe that God from the
first existed, before anything was made, perfect in power,
in wisdom, in holiness, and in love ; that according to the
pleasure of His own will He called out of nothing this
state of things in which we are, though uninjured then by
sin ; that He placed upon this wonderful creation of our
earth man as a priest and king made in His own image
and likeness, to rule and serve, to work and worship : then,
that God rested. But why did He rest on that first
Sabbath ? was it because He could do no more from
exhaustion ? had the Almighty in the first creation brought
before Himself a correlative Almighty ? was He weary ?
were His attributes exhausted ? Nay, not so ; we know
that He rested not from exhaustion, but from a satisfied
will. But then, brethren, consider what must follow, if
He rested not from exhaustion, but from a satisfied
will ; then there remained in rthe Godhead powers un
expressed ; then there existed, besides these forces let loose
in this world's creation, other powers, powers supernatural
as well as natural ; then, too, there remained a wisdom
unexpressed, beyond the wisdom of this world, a super
natural wisdom, as well as natural, in the Godhead, unex
pressed after the first creation, there remained more secrets
than were then made known. There existed supernatural
power and supernatural wisdom. Then it was easy for
God, from time to time, to let loose these powers and to
work miracles ; it was easy for Him to speak the words of
prophecy, and to foretell what He had ever known. The
eternal everlasting Now had no need to travel through our
ages, and to learn by a long experience : He knew from
ORDINATION 237
the beginning what the sequence of kingdoms would be,
and He foretold it before man could have learned by ex
perience that kingdoms should rise and fall ; in a word, in
the fullness of time, you know what took place, how He
sent forth His only Son to be a new Centre in this creation
of ours, a source of power, and wisdom, and holiness,
hitherto unexpressed. This is the great hope of Chris
tianity, not merely old truths discovered, but a new revela
tion, new truths made known, and not merely new truths
manifested, but new power given to know and live according
to the truth revealed. Thus the Incarnation was the great
Epiphany of the power and wisdom kept secret at the first
creation. God the Son was manifested, and " made unto us
wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemp
tion ". The history of this great Epiphany of Christ,
brethren, you know well how He lived and died and rose
again, and, in our nature, ascended up to heaven, making no
addition to the Persons of the Divine Godhead, but adding
another nature ; how there, at the right hand of the Father,
He received the promise of the Father, the gift of the
Holy Ghost, the new gift for men, which gift of God from
God and through God we are met here to receive to-day.
This is the great question I would ask you to settle in
your hearts to-day : Is there a supernatural as well as a
natural ? are there other powers which we may obtain from
God besides those expressed in the original laws of nature ?
Oh, settle this question in your hearts, I pray you : all
who have come here to-day to join in the ordination of the
candidates for the ministry of our Church, ask yourselves
that question which our Saviour Himself put regarding
the ministry of the Baptist : " Is it of heaven, or of men ?
answer Me ".
Let us now consider, shortly, the rest of our text,
"I have ordained that ye may go". Observe, then,
first, there is no limit set. You are told to go. It is like
238 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
those limitless words of the noth Psalm : "The Lord
shall send forth the rod of thy power out of Zion " : out
of Zion, from the city of God, from God, but with no
limit. Oh, then, give yourselves up to Christ. Let Him
send you where He will. Settle it in your heart that with
your Ordination vow you are pledged " to go ". It may
be that you will have to give up much that is pleasant, the
comforts of home, the enjoyment of uninterrupted study,
the society of the learned, the security of being under
authority, the blessing of being ignorant of the sins of
many people. In these and in many other ways there is
much that you may have to leave. You are emphatically
" to go," and it will be hard for you in many ways, yet it
is the lot of those who would have their commission from
Christ. It was the lot of His first disciples ; it must
have been hard for them, hard to go and relinquish the
privileges of the Divine presence they so much enjoyed.
Consider these words yet once more. It may be that you
have not all prepared your hearts enough to give up every
thing for Christ ; it may be, indeed, that you have resolved
to give up the luxuries of the world, but not what I must
call the luxuries of religion ; it may be that you are still
religiously selfish. Away, then, with this. Go wherever
God may send you ; go without wishing to have every
thing arranged for your own tastes and for your own
comfort ; without wishing to have everything in accord
ance even with your own religious desires. Go in the
spirit of perfect self-surrender, of thorough self-devotion,
simply for Christ. There should be no limit. Christ
gives you your commission, and to Christ you must give
it back. Go wherever He may send you, conscious of
your own Divine commission, but free from a spirit of
religious complaint. If things are not just as you would
wish, if your people do not understand you, if they do not
realize your Divine mission ; if the services are poor, the
ORDINATION 239
church mean, and the people dull and with little relish for
the doctrine you would teach them if this be so (and in
some cases it certainly will be), then beware of religious
selfishness and a spirit of religious complaint. Consider,
I pray you, how it was with your Master, and be content
that it should be the same for you. Think of Him enter
ing His Father's house, and consider what He endured.
Surely one could have imagined that all would have been
prepared for His coming, that all would have been there
in devout attendance, angels and archangels, men and
children, young and old, all hushed in deep devotion in
that house of prayer. But we know it was not so. He
found His Father's house a house of merchandise ; cattle
and the din of business surrounded Him, and instead of
the enjoyment of devotion His work was rough and mean
indeed ; gathering the very litter of the beasts, He was con
tent to make for Himself a scourge, and in the confusion of
the beasts and the anger of the people to cleanse the temple,
which for Him at least should have been the house of
prayer. Surely this is an example of mortification of
religious sensitiveness which we should do well to re
member. Take it with you, then, brethren, and go to
your work full of zeal but uncomplaining, ready by God's
help to work where He may send you, thoroughly,
heartily, lovingly.
Lastly, my brethren, while you go to this work re
member you are to bear fruit ; you are to go not to be
idle, but to work, to bear fruit, and to bear a fruit which
shall remain. Consider, then, one of the first conditions
of this spiritual harvest. We are to reap that which
others have sown. Be very considerate, therefore, and
tender, for all you find, wherever you first may go.
Remember that you are to bear fruit, but not yet. In
patience the good ground yields the good fruit, in patience
the husbandman labours, watching for the early and latter
240 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
rain. Be content to work slowly, respecting others, their
labour, their difficulties, their wishes, their feelings, their
habits, it may be even their unreasonable prejudices.
With all this be patient. When you first enter the field
of your labour try and work with others as far as you may ;
if you are to reap what others have sown, be content to
leave for others the harvest of your own labours ; and yet
remember, your fruit, though it may not be seen or
gathered by yourselves, is to remain ; that is the happy
part of your labours. Others may toil for riches, and
honour, and power, but all these must pass away. You
work for eternal souls, for the fruit that is to remain. Be
very careful, then, not to change the old truths for the
sake of winning a harvest of present popularity. You
have to work for a fruit that is to remain, not a fruit
that is to be seen and gathered now. Take care of
the old truths, the deposit which has been handed down
to you. Do not barter them for any present popularity,
or abandon them for any threatening adversity ; and while
you thus contend for the old truths, take care to be very
slow to adopt new usages and new ways, which can only
be recommended on the ground of a present expediency.
You may have to teach truths that for the present may be
unpopular ; you may have to keep your hands back from
means which seem to be popular ; beware of the temptation,
and remember you are to work for the future, for the fruit
that will remain. And while you so labour, remember with
whom you work, you are to be fellow- workers of God.
If you would have the world believe this, if you would
desire the world to know that you are Christ's disciples,
put away all the needless prejudices of your own selfish
whims and fancies. Let the world see that you love
one another, and that for the love of Christ, and to win
souls for Christ, you will part with any pleasures however
lawful in themselves ; and by this we may be sure you
ORDINATION 241
will best convince the world for whom you work. Be
full, then, of love one to another, full of tenderness, and
while you would magnify your office by dwelling on its
Divine authority, dwell, too, on God's Fatherly love, and
be patient with the spirits for whom you labour. " Peace
able," " gentle," " easily intreated," these are some of the
marks of the higher wisdom to which the Holy Spirit will
give witness.
In conclusion, brethren, let me gather up what I have
attempted to say. We believe that you are called of God,
yet your will is still free, and your final answer is still
unmade. In a few moments you will be asked by God's
high servant if you believe this call to be yours. Oh, if
any doubt, let him now, in the face of this congregation,
depart ; it were better far to withdraw now, in the presence
of this great people, than to be untrue to God. Your
will is free, and the call is a real call. Answer it, if you
can, truly, gratefully, and then be brave, and backed by
the consciousness of God's Almighty Presence go forth to
your work. It is with the devil and with principalities
and powers in heavenly places that you will have to con
tend ; and backed by the consciousness of the Almighty
Presence alone will you be able to stand in the world and
fight. Go, then, gratefully, bravely, yet humbly ; seek not
great things for yourselves, but look for the stone in the
great building which Christ would have you lay. Though
its place be low, and beneath the sight of men, others will
be building when you have passed away. Though your
ministry, in itself, should attract but little attention in the
world around, though your name should be little known
beyond the flock over which the Holy Ghost shall appoint
you, enough if it be said of your ministry, as was said of
the Baptist's, "John did no miracle, but all things that
John said were true, and many believed on him there ".
16
242 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
IV. 1
COMFORT IN TEMPTATION.
" / have heard of Thee, by the hearing of the ear, but now
mine eye seeth Thee ; wherefore I abhor myself, and
recent in dust and ashes." JOB XLII. 5, 6.
I SHALL take it for granted, my brethren, that as you
give up the pleasures of a walk on a Sunday afternoon,
increasing as the pleasure is with the opening of spring
time, you wish to be in earnest, and you wish those you
are come to hear to speak plainly and to the point. I
have wondered in what way I could help you, God helping
me. What I could say to you, which I could feel tolerably
certain must be important for you, at least for some. I
have thought that inasmuch as we are all men, of one
common nature, all liable to the same passions one with
another, what would help me would probably help you too,
and therefore the thoughts which God has given to me, and
which seem to me to be useful, may by God's grace be
useful to some of you. I wish then to offer you, if I may,
by God's help, some thoughts of comfort in the great
battle of temptation. I will take it again for granted that
we have been trying, so far as we can, to keep the season
of Lent. We are nearly at the close of it, and I suppose
again, your history is mine, that you regret that you have
done so little. Every year one has to make the same
1 Preached to men at SS. Philip and James's Church, Oxford, during
Lent, 1876.
COMFORT IN TEMPTATION 243
regret, time goes so quickly, business presses so much
one thing pushes out another and we find ourselves at the
last Sunday, even now entering on this last Holy Week,
and yet so little is done ; and we find that this year was,
more or less, like the last, liable to temptation and trouble.
If so, let me try and offer you some thoughts of comfort
regarding this constant temptation. I have chosen my
text from this book of Job, a book which suits well this
season of the year, for in the early days of the Church it
was very often read at this time, and the reason is not
hard to see. We know that during this week we shall
have to think of One, tempted, betrayed, buffeted, perse
cuted, put to death, and yet perfectly innocent. And so
here in this book of Job among its mysterious uses we
have this, the bringing before us of a man to be buffeted,
persecuted, tempted by Satan. As people used to stand in
the olden days in the amphitheatre and watch a great
battle going on, so here God lets us stand and see, as it
were, a great scene of temptation.' The first point I would
beg you to notice is, who is at the bottom of it all ?
Who is the cause and author of our trouble and temptation
in the world ? It is plain from this account that it is the
devil, it is Satan himself. Here in the book of Job the
veil is lifted, and we read, " that on a day when the Sons
of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan
came amongst them, and the Lord said, ' Whence comest
thou ? ' ' And then the permission is given to him. The
Lord said (speaking of Job), " Behold, all that he has is in
thy power, only upon himself put not forth thy hand ".
So Satan went forth and began to trouble and to tempt
Job. First, while his sons and daughters were eating and
drinking in their brother's house, the Sabeans fell upon the
oxen and asses and took them away and slew the servants,
one only escaping to tell the tale. Then came a fire from
heaven and burnt up the sheep and the servants that
16*
244 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
watched them. Then a band of Chaldeans fell upon the
camels and carried them away, and slew the servants, one
only being left to tell the tale. Then a great wind from
the wilderness smote the four corners of the house where
Job's sons were feasting, and they were all killed. Yet
still closer did the trial come, the devil insisted that if he
might be allowed to touch Job's body and give him pain
and sickness that then he would yield, and God gave him
that power, yet telling him to save his life. Then the
devil smote him with sore boils. And yet, I may venture
to say, the temptation came closer even than that. There
is something closer to a man than his property, his children,
something, I may venture to say, dearer to a man than even
his own body. And what is that if God give him the
blessing, but the wife of his heart ? Yet Satan stirred up
the wife of Job so that she became the means of temptation.
His wife said, " Dost thou still retain thine integrity ?
Curse God and die." All this suffering was allowed to
try him, to see if he would turn against God, and at the
bottom of it all was the Evil One. It was not the power of
the wind, it was no chance fire, no mere wild malice of the
Chaldeans, no natural necessary outbreaking of a bad
constitution, it was no mere woman's petulance, but the
fire from hell, an evil blast coming from the Evil One
himself. We know that suffering, sickness, and death
came into the world by one man's sin, and that man sinned
because he was tempted of the devil, so here all this suffer
ing and trouble came from the devil. You may ask what
is there of comfort in this. Here, brethren, is the com
fort. Did you not mark that while all this trouble, this
power of the wind, and fire, and sickness of body, is
brought upon Job by a force which he is not able to
resist, yet did you not mark that the devil himself was
thoroughly under the control of God. Most precious, most
comforting it is to note in this great drama of temptation,
COMFORT IN TEMPTATION 245
that while it reveals to us who it is that is contriving our
ruin yet that he is thoroughly under the control of God.
When he asks to have this power to tempt Job, God gives
him his orders quite plainly, " only upon himself put not
forth thine hand ". No further than God will permit can
the devil touch him. Here, I say, then, is comfort. Do any
suffer from loss of property, sickness in their family, loss
of children, loss of friends, sickness and weakness in their
own body, perhaps some sickness early in life, which they
are afraid may undermine the strength of their constitution
to such a degree that they will not be able to do a life's
work ? Is this so ? Or is there temptation of soul, per
haps so hard that at times men are also tempted to despair.
Here is our comfort. All your trouble is from the Evil
One who cannot go beyond what God will permit. Let us
look at another point in this history and which again, I
think, is a comfort for us, and which I gather, not from
the source of the temptation, but from the man's age.
What is the age of this man who is brought on to the
scene as it were to be represented as one tempted and
buffeted by Satan ? Mark you this, he is not a young
man, he is a man, we are told, who is, as we should say,
settled in middle life ; he is a married man with ten
children. We know also that he was a man of great
wealth. He is not at the beginning of life, but is one
who, as we should say, has won his position, and is settled
in life, and yet in that stage of his life he enters upon this
arena of temptation.
This warning is far too little attended to by people. It
is borne out by other passages of Scripture. We know of
Abraham that he had a great temptation, but when was it ?
When he was a boy ? Not so ! Abraham's great trial
came not till he was more than a hundred years old. We
know ^that David had a great temptation which was the
blot of his life, but when did it come? Not when a
246 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
shepherd boy upon the Jiills of Bethlehem. Not when he
was a young man in the army of Saul, the favourite of
women and of soldiers in the court of Saul. No, not till
he had passed his early life, and had sat upon the throne of
Israel and turned forty years of age, did the devil come
upon him with that overwhelming force which threw him.
Think again of St. Peter : we know that he fell, cursed,
swore, and denied our Lord, but was it when he was a boy,
or young man ? Not so. St. Peter, we know, was a
married man on in life, and it was then that the devil came
upon him with that great trial under which he fell. Again,
we know that St. Paul had some mysterious trial or temp
tation, a thorn in the flesh, from which he anxiously prayed
to be delivered, but when did it come ? We only know of
it when he was a grown man, an Apostle striving to serve
Christ. And, if I may mention, even at an infinite dis
tance, the example of our Blessed Lord, which this week
comes before us. How old was He when He stepped into
the arena of temptation to fight for us ? Thirty years of
age, when He was within three and a half years of the end
of his life. And if our life is to be threescore years and
ten, we are not to suppose that when we have passed
twenty-one, or thirty, forty, fifty, or even sixty years, that
we are then beyond the age of temptation. Nay, it was at
the end of life that the saints of God and our Lord Him
self were tempted, for no man can doubt that it was not
the mere temptation in the wilderness that our Lord en
dured, but the devil came to Him as on Good Friday, in
that darkness on Calvary, and in the scoffs by which he
tried to make Him come down from the cross. When we
read this book of Job which seems expressly to be given to
show us the conflict which is going on between man and
Satan, we must mark carefully what is the age of the man
who is brought into the arena to fight ; he is not a young
man of eighteen or twenty, but a man on in middle age,
COMFORT IN TEMPTATION 247
married, with ten children, settled and wealthy in life.
You will say again, where is the comfort ? Are then we to
be afraid all our lives ? Not so, not afraid, because as you
have seen, the author of all this temptation is under the
control of a higher power, therefore, not afraid, but on your
guard all your life. The soldier who is on his guard is not
necessarily afraid. Still, where is the comfort ? Surely it
is here that people need not be so surprised, and depressed,
and melancholy, and almost driven to despair when they
find themselves liable to temptation late in life. The world,
I know, uses different language from this ; it talks of men
marrying and settling and getting into business and doing
well, and supposes that now you will be comfortable, and
so please God you may be ; but I am bound to tell you that
though you may be settled and comfortable so far as this
world goes, you are not to suppose that you have got be
yond the age at which temptation can reach you. There,
I think, is the comfort. Men sometimes say, " Ah, but
married life brings such cares, it is so difficult not to be
over-anxious about children ; as I get on I find it so difficult
to know what to do, to trust to be peaceful ". People who
are working well in this prosperous England say, " Ah, but
if you knew the difficulties of life in commerce, how often
a man making a princely fortune has to question himself
whether this or that transaction is really strictly honest in
the sight of God ? " Yes, that is anxiety. And many a
man will say, " Ah, yes, I get on in the world, but in my
soul I do not know how I am getting on. I feel sometimes
as if I was living on a volcano, that the ground would
break up under my feet ; that I shall altogether go wild
and break down ; my thoughts are so wayward they will
not worship ; my dreams tell me that if it was not for the
check wakeful reason puts upon me, I should be a devil in
myself." Yes and worse, but you need not think yourself
so very odd, my brethren, if thoughts like these are yours ;
248 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
you need not be surprised if your thoughts wander, if you
find your tempers irritable, if you feel life hard, trouble
some, and weary. The Bible will tell you that not only
when you are young, but on, on in life, trouble, difficulties,
aggravations, sufferings, temptations, are what we must
expect. Many men, I think, are too much depressed, too
much out of heart. They shut themselves out from Com
munion, consider themselves altogether as if they were not
good, and could not be good, because they feel so near to
what is bad that a little more would make them altogether
lost. So we have here a man buffeted and tormented, and
all this when he was well on in life. There is yet another
point in this history which must not be missed, and which
is another ground of comfort, even greater than the last.
Consider what is the character of the man who is here so
tempted. Is he a bad man, an outcast, one that God has
given up, too bad for God to look after or care about, and
so he is handed over to the devil ? Not so. We are told
especially that he was " perfect and upright, one that feared
God and eschewed evil ". One who not only looked after
himself but looked after his children, we are told, " And it
was so when the days of their feasting were gone about,
that he sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the
morning and offered burnt-offerings according to the num
ber of them all," for he said, " It may be that my sons have
sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job con
tinually." This is the sort of man who is brought into the
arena to be buffeted by temptation. Now this is a ground
of great comfort. People sometimes are tempted to despair
and say it is hopeless to strive, the power seems so strong
against them. I reply, not hopeless, be not fearful, but be
on your guard. There is a controlling hand, Satan can go
only so far. Again, some say, " I am inclined to give up
trying to be a good man ; I have tried so long, and find
the difficulties grow greater ". I reply there is no reason
COMFORT IN TEMPTATION 249
why you should despair, the age at which temptation is
revealed as going on in the Scripture, is greater perhaps
than your age. Or again, you may be tempted as men are
to say, "I must be somehow displeasing to God, He must
mean to cast me off at the end. He never could allow me
so to suffer. I seem so buffeted and tormented, He never
can allow me to be one of His saints at last." I call your
attention again to the book of Job. The man there
brought down to be tempted by Satan is not a bad man,
but one just and perfect, one who feared God, and in a
godly way took care of his children. My brethren, that
gives one a deep comfort, if we have faith enough to see
it. We do not know what the rest of our lives is going to
be. No one here knows when he will die, or where. We
know that we shall die, and that is all. We do not yet
know what remains in the pathway of our several lives, or
what snares may yet be put in our road by Satan. We are
not yet on the eternal shore, the haven of rest where we
would be. We have not yet quite passed over the waves
of this troublesome world, and we do not know what con
trary winds may yet blow before we reach that rest. We
may feel perhaps that if we could only get on a little more,
into a little place of security somehow, and become a little
more independent, then we should be safe. But I am afraid
many a man when he has got a little more only becomes
proud and independent of God, or slothful ; he finds he is
not at rest. We do not know as yet what remains in the
battle of life, therefore we do not yet know how much
trouble, suffering, humiliation, we have to endure. It is
humility that temptation is meant to teach. It is not
meant to intimidate and make a coward of a man, but it is
meant to make him mistrust himself, in order that he may
trust in God. And we do not know how much protection
we need. We may be suffering, not because God is
offended with us, not because He has seen that we are
250 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
going wrong, but just as He made Job to suffer, who was
upright and good. We may be made to suffer just as St.
Paul was. He had that thorn in the flesh which he prayed
to Christ to remove and He would not, not because Paul
was bad, not because he was not to be saved at the last, but
lest, we are told, if the trouble was taken away he should
be over-much exalted by the good things God would give
him. God is so kind, so loving. He wishes to give us so
much more than we are able to receive, to ask for or hope
for, that He is obliged to humble us and let us be beaten
down, not that He may cast us off, but that by over
throwing the pride in us He may give us more largely at
last. I say it is a word of comfort to us that this man who
is here brought to be tempted, is described as perfect and
upright and one who loved God. Let no man then say in
despair, I have been so often attacked by evil thoughts and
tempted by the devil that I cannot be loved of God. Not
so. Job probably was tempted and buffeted more than you
have ever been, and yet the record of his character is
written, not by the blind judgment of man, but by the
omniscient eye of the all Holy One Himself, and we read
that he was perfect and upright. And to-day, on Palm
Sunday, and in this last holy week, we ought not to want it
pressed home to us much that it need not necessarily mean
that we are bad and disliked by God because the devil
buffets us. Look at Jesus Christ this week ; who ever
suffered as He suffered? Stripped, scourged, mocked,
spitted on, and yet we know He was God as well as man
perfect God and perfect Man the beloved of God. That
is the true mystery, and that is why this lesson from Job
suits Passion time, and suits people who are striving to do
well, that is why you may treat the scourge of temptation
as comforting, because it is not the lot of the lost, but the
normal condition of the saved. Through suffering we are
COMFORT IN TEMPT A TION 2 5 1
to be made perfect. The Captain of our salvation trod
that way, and we must follow in His steps and be prepared
to suffer with Him, if with Him we would reign. Let me
then gather up shortly what I have tried to say. I say that
this book of Job will give to the man who reads it care
fully comfort in his temptations, because it shows who it is
that tempts him the devil and that he can only go as far,
and no further than God permits. Therefore, be not
afraid, but watch. Again, it shows you at what age the
man was buffeted ; therefore, if you feel temptations keep
ing on trying you, do not despair, the age at which Job is
revealed as being tempted is for our comfort. Thirdly,
if you are tempted to think that so much trouble must
mean that you are bad, think of this man and his upright
life. And we know what the end of His sorrow was, it
was, " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,
and now mine eye seeth Thee ". Yes, that was when temp
tation had done its work, not when it overcame him, it
purified the man, gave him a clearer vision of God, now I
can see Thee with mine eye, and " therefore I abhor my
self ". Temptation is sent to make me mistrust myself and
cling to Christ, and know that but for Him I should be
lost. This I confess to God, Satan is stronger than I, but
not stronger than Christ and I. And remember the end.
God gave to Job twice as much as he had before, and
greater still. He tells those who had been troubling him
to go to him and he should pray for them and they should
then be accepted. So this man who had suffered so much
is not only not to be lost himself, but the end of the drama
is that he is seen in the favour of God Himself, declares
that he enjoys the vision of God, and people are told to go
to him and ask him for his prayers. Yes, my brethren,
many a man has gone through that course since Job's day,
he has been buffeted, tempted, but clinging to Christ, with
252 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Christ has conquered ; then when he was converted, h?.s
strengthened his brethren, praying for them, working for
them ; not contented, so to speak, with his own salvation,
but doing all he can to work with Christ to renew others.
Is it not a lesson of comfort ?
75 IT WORTH WHILE? 253
IS IT WORTH WHILE?
" And He said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise,
and stand upon thy feet : for I have appeared unto thee
fot this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness
both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those
things in the which I will appear unto thee ; delivering
thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom
now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and
inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that
is in Me" ACTS xxvi. 15-18.
"^HESE words must ever form one of the great charters
-*- of Missionary work ; they are wonderfully compre
hensive. They were, indeed, originally the charter with
which the Divine Head of the Church delivered to the
great Apostle his commission to preach the Gospel first to
his own kinsmen, and then to the Gentile world ; but they
contain, as we should expect, the germs of the commission
which will be needed by the Gospel messenger till the times
of the Gentiles have been fulfilled, and Israel has been
grafted in again, and the number of the elect completed
until the militant kingdom is over.
One of the greatest temptations by which the devil
1 Preached on 23 June, 1886, on the occasion of the 1851!! Anniver
sary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
at St. Paul'* Cathedral.
254 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
hinders the spreading of the Gospel in the present day is
the apparently simple but fatal suggestion, " Is it worth
while ? "
It comes to us at home when we are called upon to make
an offering for this great work, which would really cost us
something the gift of our own lives, or the lives of our
children, or something considerable of our worldly goods.
We make excuses, indeed, to ourselves about climate, and
the injury of health, and risk of life, and family duties, and
the like. But none of these reasons really touch the heart
of the matter ; they are put aside not only at once, but
with thankfulness, when the sacrifice is accompanied by the
prospect of great commercial success, or military glory, or
the high honours which are accorded to successful diplom
acy. Parents part with their children for these things,
and the children are ready to go ; but if the call be for
Missionary work, then the temptation comes, " Is it worth
while ? "
If this temptation comes to us at home, still more
powerfully I believe does it come to those who have taken
the first step, and know the greatness of the sacrifice
which they have made. The absence of the sense of any
great spiritual want is, I believe, one of the greatest trials
which the preacher of the Gospel has to meet. In India,
and in other heathen countries, where civilization has
awakened many interests, and offered satisfaction to some
desires, worldliness and self-satisfaction, are, I believe,
among the most insuperable difficulties with which the
Missionary has to contend. Possessed of religious systems
which have an authority from being ancient ; which give
opportunities for the exercise of the subtle, if not strong,
Oriental mind ; which have flashes of moral light that
may well attract attention ; and with all this of their own,
receiving from Christian countries the material helps and
comforts which civilization brings with these and such-
IS IT WORTH WHILE? 255
like possessions, the civilized heathen world wears an air
of comfort and self-satisfaction which does not invite in
terference, even if it does not resist it. Why should I
not leave them alone ? Will it make any real difference
whether I teach them Christianity or not ? Is it any good ?
And though this condition of contentment takes a different
form among the less civilized nations of the world, yet I
believe it is there also ; and among the natives of Africa,
or in the islands, the difficulty is rather to convince them
of their spiritual needs than to tell them of the remedy.
The sense of not being wanted, not being the least under
stood, the dullness of the Missionary's reception when he
arrives, after great sacrifice, full of zeal to impart the life-
giving message to thirsting souls this, we believe, is one
of the Missionary's greatest trials.
It is indeed no new trial. The dull reception of the
Missionary of our own day is the same in kind with that
which awaited the Divinely commissioned Apostle on his
arrival at the great centre of the heathen world. "We
neither received letters out of Judaea concerning thee,
neither any of the brethren that came showed or spake any
harm of thee." Could any reception be less inspiring or
fall more flat ? Indeed, we might rise far higher and say
that this is but following the example of Him who " came
to His own, and His own received Him not ".
But this temptation under the simple form of the
question, " Is it any good ? " is, I believe, specially a
temptation of the Missionary of the present day. The
reaction from our former state of ignorance regarding the
religions of the heathen world has led to an undue valua
tion of the fragments of the truth which they undoubtedly
contain : the high spiritual aspirations of the Vedas, the
theism of the Koran, the practical maxims of Confucius,
the careful asceticism of the Buddhists all this and more
with which you are all acquainted, has left a tendency on
256 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
some minds to minimize unduly the difference between the
Christian and non-Christian state. The same tendency
also follows from the separation in our day of Christianity
from education ; the immediate advantages to the uncivilized
world even of secular education are so manifestly great
that there is a tendency to ask, " What more is needed ? "
We have been civilizing the world this century more
diligently than Christianizing it, and we are in danger now
of being dazzled by sparks of our own kindling.
In striking contrast with this danger stands the great
mission charter which I have chosen for my text.
What is the teaching of the text then on this point ?
How does the heathen world jappear in the sight of God ?
What does the heathen world really want in the judgment
of Him who made it ? in the judgment, that is, of Him
who made man and knows what is in man, knows what
his capacities are, and what his future circumstances may
be, who knows what may be the sum of his happiness.
We have in the text our Lord's own reply.
1. And first, let us observe that the charter begins
and ends with the personal Jesus. " I am Jesus," are the
opening words, " Faith in Me," is the close. This is the
beginning and end of the Missionary's power and message :
Jesus^ His birth, His death, His resurrection, His ascen
sion, the living, reigning Jesus. Whatever agencies are
used, whatever secondary methods may be necessary
war, conquest, civilization this is the A and H of it all,
from Him, and in Him, and to Him all must be, or all
will fail.
2. Next, the great heathen world, as seen by Him
who is the Light of the World, who lighteneth every man
that cometh into the world, is nevertheless declared to be
in a state of darkness they are blind, they do not see the
real abiding objects of sight ; the Apostle was to go and
open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light ;
IS IT WORTH WHILE? 257
KO\OV nothing visible is good was
the saying of one of the earliest of Christian martyrs, and
it is true relatively to the invisible. The soul, the mind,
the heart, the inner powers of the heathen man were
known to Him who made them, and have unused capaci
ties like rudimentary sight-powers which have never been
developed by their true use in the light.
3. But further, in the eyes of Him with whom we have
to do, all things are naked and open. Both systems of
creation lie plain before Him. He is the Maker of all
things, invisible as well as visible. We cannot see these
things as He sees them, but He sees the hosts of evil spirits,
the principalities and powers which, under the power of
their chief, make up the army of the evil one ; and the
heathen world He tells us is in an especial way under their
sway. Therefore another object of the charter is declared
to be " to turn them from the power of Satan unto God,"
" to deliver them," as the Apostle afterwards himself ex
presses it, " from the power of darkness, and translate them
into the kingdom of the Son of His love ".
The great heathen world, as Christ sees it, is living in
an especial way under the organized power of Satan.
4. A fourth condition of the heathen world, as it lies
beneath the eye of God, is also given in this great charter of
Missionary work a condition which we might have ex
pected from what has been already said, the condition,
namely, of sin. The heathen world needs forgiveness and
sanctification and this is not accomplished by the varnish of
modern civilization, even though it be laid on by Christian
hands. The charter tells us how, and how only, it is to be
done " by faith that is in ME " " that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are
sanctified by faith that is in Me ".
And this interpretation of the Apostle's great commis
sion we know to be true from the writings of the great
17
258 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Apostle himself. St. Paul sets before us very clearly, by the
aid of the Holy Spirit, what the condition of the heathen
world really is ; the immeasurable distance between being
X&YHS X/HCTTOV and ev X^ICTT<W. The non-Christian world,
according to the great Apostle, is living in " darkness,"
walking according to a standard of time, according to the
course of this world, according to the evil principle of the
Satanic kingdoms, " according to the prince of the power
of the air ".
Their intellectual powers, he tells us, are darkened by
deep-seated ignorance, and dissipated and depraved by
vanity ; their heart and feelings are deadened through
ignorance of the true nature and object of love ; they do
not really live, they are " dead in trespasses and sins ".
It is hard, indeed, to hold fast to this teaching of the
Apostle in presence of civilized heathenism, bound together
as we are with it in our empire, interlaced by the many
bands which make up the strong brotherhood of commerce,
wonderful as are the sights in international exhibitions.
And yet the Apostle to whom this charter of Missionary
work was first given sums up the difference between the
non-Christian and the Christian state with unmistakable
clearness ; he gives a fourfold result of the unchristian life,
the life x<o/olg Xyatcrrou.
1 . They are alienated from the commonwealth of Israel
indeed they are alienated from the life of God, from the
true principle of life, from the life of God in the soul.
2. They are strangers to the covenants of promise.
3. They have no hope.
4. He does not hesitate to say, they are without God
in the world.
This is, indeed, a terrible picture. They are without
Church, without promise, without hope, without God.
This seems hard to believe amidst so much that is so
beautiful in the heathen world, both of handiwork and
IS IT WORTH WHILE? 259
thought. Their very idols are of silver and gold, and yet
the history of religions bears out the Apostle's statement ;
they are, after all, human the work of men's hands.
Hardly one, if one, of the nations of the world has been
able to grasp, and to establish the worship of the one true
God without the aid of revelation. The invisible things
of God might indeed be known by the things that are seen ;
but practically, the world by wisdom has not known God ;
practically the peoples of the world are but feeling after
God if haply they might find Him. Practically " nature
suspects a God, but cannot prove it " ; and consequently
the outcome of pagan philosophy in the East is pantheism
or polytheism ; and in the West man was left unable to
raise himself above himself, with no sure conviction of the
existence of a personal God, or of the continuance of his
own personality ; without any promise, without any sure
and certain hope, when this life is over in truth, without
God in the world.
If it may be said that " monotheism is implied in the
ordinary religious language of the heathen world," it must
be added that it is but " as a sort of quiet background of
belief waiting to be called into actuality at the approach of
light".
It was to take this light, the light which was " to lighten
the Gentiles and to be the glory of the people Israel," that
the great Apostle was commissioned and went. It seemed
to him worth while. If ^CO/HS XptcrroO implied the life of
vanity and uncertainty, a life of alienation from God the
life ev Xpio-Tw he knew most certainly implied a real
belief in God ; an access laid open to the presence of God ;
a conscious nearness to God ; restoration back again to
God. " O God, Thou art my God." Unity, reunion
between man and God, and man and his fellow-men, peace
on earth, man indwelt by God.
This was part at least of what he conceived to be con-
17*
260 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
tained in the words of the charter of his commission, " that
they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among
them which are sanctified by faith that is in ME ".
This brings us to the answer to our question, " Is
it worth while ? " To the spiritual eye, to one who sees
things at all as God sees them, there can be no doubt. It
t> '
is not necessary to press the full force of the preposition
X&tyHS in the phrase ^CO/HS X/aiorov to its strictest meaning.
It may be intended from the frequency of its use to be
interpretated with the liberty that partiality in diction re
quires. We need not puzzle ourselves with the seeming
contradiction between this phrase and the opening sentence
of the Gospel of St. John, " All things were made by Him ".
He, therefore, in a sense must be in them and they must
be in Him. We need not decide the final destiny of all
whom God has been pleased to call into being, and with
the great philosopher, theologian, and poet of the Middle
Ages exclude from Paradise all who have not been baptized.
We may leave all this to God's most perfect equity and
love. But still the facts 7 remain, and it is easy for the
spiritual eye to see what the condition of the heathen world
is in the sight of God ; and the practical answer to our
question, " Is it worth while ? " is clear enough. It is
worth the sacrifice of our substance and our lives, without
affecting to grasp the whole mystery of God's dealings with
the heathen world.
The facts which we do know are sufficient the capaci
ties of man for misery and happiness, for degradation and
glory, as we know them in the light of revelation.
The nature of God as we know it in the faith of Jesus
Christ.
The condition of the non-Christian world as we know
it from the Word of God.
The means by which they may be translated into the
kingdom of the Son of His love.
75 IT WORTH WHILE? 261
These facts which we Christians know are enough to
make the answer plain. It is worth while nay, it is our
bounden duty, if we are Christians at all, to give anything
and everything that God may ask, to make one Christian
soul.
But then comes the question, How ?
We have been lately told the answer to this question
also.
From the sixteenth century " the Propagation of the
faith has passed into the hands of Societies " : x but then we
have been told by the same high authority and I think
the telling contains a warning " our Missionary Societies
are not in any sense the Church ".
So far, then, our position is clear. It is worth while to
spread the Gospel, and the mode by which it is to be spread
is now by Societies.
But on this arises a matter apparently simple, but really
of vital importance : it is the nature of Societies, like all
other ordinances of man, to perish ; there is but one
Divinely appointed Religious Society which will never fail,
and that is the Church. What security then have we, men
naturally ask, that these Societies will continue ? And 1
believe the answer will be found in some such words as
these : So long as Societies are imbued with the spirit of
the great charter with which the great Head of the Church
commissioned the Apostle of the Gentiles, so long as the
Society is in true harmony with the spirit of the Church
and vitalized by her living power. The question histori
cally requires great care, because it is the glory of our
Societies that they undertook this glorious work in days
when the lamp of the Church's life was burning low.
Historically our Missionary Societies were working before
the full organization of the Church was ready. Now
thanks be to God that Divinely appointed organization is
1 Archbishop Benson's "Sevenfold Gifts," p. 213.
262 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
ready, and men are watching with some anxiety to see how
far the Societies adjust themselves to the full operation of
the completed organization of the Church how far, that
is, they can be regarded as real organs of a living body,
aiding and not hindering the action of the head and heart.
It is a momentous question, for the body is none other than
the Body of Christ, and if Societies are to be accepted as
His organs they must be instinct with His Spirit, even the
spirit of self-sacrificing Love that Love which knows no
bounds but death. The terms of the great charter appoint
the Gospel Messengers to be Witnesses^ Martyrs ; and in
will, if not in act, the commission given through our
Societies should be the same. We may be thankful that
the Society for which I ask your aid to-day has this past
year received a proof of renewed confidence by gifts to the
general fund exceeding the gifts of any previous year since
its foundation exceeding the gifts to the general fund last
year by 11,000, and the gifts of 1874 the highest
previous amount by 9,000. This, considering the de
pressed financial condition of the country, is a matter for
sincere thankfulness, being an evidence, I trust, of the piety
of our people and of their confidence in our Society.
But still these sums are not enough ; they are not
enough to give Christianity a fair chance. From every
side of the Mission field, more or less, the cry comes for
more money and more men. The Lord of the harvest
looks down on the fields and sees the harvest ready and
great, but not enough labourers willing to offer themselves
to gather in the grain.
In Africa, in Zululand, the position of the English is
critical, but not, I believe, hopeless, if we can send at once
support. We have as a nation lost the influence which was
at first given us, but we still, I believe, hold an increasingly
influential position among the disunited bands of that un-
75 IT WORTH WHILE? 263
settled country. The best gift which England can give is
the gift of Christianity, together with all the blessings of
civilization which accompany it.
In India the true apostolic and evangelistic Bishop of
Lahore wants more money to enable him to finish his
cathedral, that it may in any sense represent England's value
of the English Church.
In Burmah God is still showing His long-suffering
good-will to our Empire, and offering us fresh opportunities
for spreading the Gospel, the mighty issues of which no one
can foretell ; but it is obvious that Burmah gives us a new
opportunity and a new responsibility for what seems to be
the last great prize reserved for the Christian cross to win,
the mysterious millions of China. Thank God, during this
century, and largely by the aid of the Society for which I
ask your support, great things have been done : but the
sums of money given are not large enough in proportion to
the power of the Empire with which God has entrusted
England ; and still less are they enough in proportion to
the inestimable value of the Gospel which we are com
manded to spread.
Consider then a moment here, in the quietness of the
house of God, how the heathen world still looks in God's
sight. It is still in darkness, still under the power of Satan,
still separated from Him by sin ; and this darkness, this
spiritual tyranny, this wall of sin, is not removed by war,
and conquest, and commerce, and civilization without re
ligion. Whatever external changes these great influences
may produce, still, in the sight of God, the heathen world
is but as children playing in the forest by night, playing
amidst scorpions and serpents whose sting is deadly, playing
on the edge of pits and precipices whence a further fall
might be finally fatal.
God the Father sees them, He does not forget that He
264 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
made them, that they are His children. God the Son from
His throne in heaven sees them, and knows that for them
He died as well as for us. God the Holy Ghost sees them,
and He knows the exact degree in which each has responded
to the whisperings of conscience which He has never failed
to give. But as God looks down from heaven in the power
of His love, He knows that the darkness and evil tyranny,
and the separation caused by sin can only be removed by
one power, and that is the knowledge of the truth as it is
in Jesus.
God knows the capacities of His children. He knows
their means, and these means are placed in our hands to
withhold or to give.
Once more let us repeat our simple question, "Is it
worth while ? " Let us bring it home to ourselves. Let
us paint the picture as simply as we can. Let it be of two
soldiers, two comrades in arms, whose hearts a common
faith and common dangers have made one. Let it be in
the evening when the battle is over and one is sitting in
his tent ; but alone, the other is not there. Let it be your
duty to tell the news ; I will not say that " his friend is
dead " I need not say that " he is mortally wounded "
but only that "he is missing " that you do not know
whether he will come back, and if so, how ? and then reflect
what the result would be ! Would there be any question
ing " Is it worth while for me to go ? " " May he not
perchance return unharmed ? " Nay, you know it could
not be so ; you know what a fire of love would inflame the
whole being of the friend ; how food, and rest, and life
would in one instant be forgotten, and one only thought
would be endured : " My life for his life ; what is there
that I can do, if there be but a chance of rescue ? " Change
the circumstances but a little ; what if the friend to whom
you brought the tidings was bound by a sense of duty not
AS IT WORTH WHILE? 265
to leave his post, and in the agony of his love asked you to
go instead would you, could you, coldly answer, " Is it
worth while ? We only know that he is missing ! "
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small*;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
266 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
VI. 1
THE FATHER'S BUSINESS.
" Wist ye not that I must be about My Father s business ? "
ST. LUKE n. 49.
" I ^HESE are the first recorded words of the Saviour,
and they are His own explanation of the surprise
and pain which He had caused where we should have least
expected it to His parents. " Son, why hast Thou thus
dealt with us ? Behold, Thy father and I have sought
Thee sorrowing, and He said unto them, How is it that
ye sought Me ? Wist ye not that I must be about My
Father's business ? "
As they are His first recorded words, so we might
expect that they would have a reference to the beginnings
of all lives. Humanity is progressive under the perfecting
hand of the Creator ; there is growth and progress, but
progress implies movement, and for the finite implies
separation, leaving, parting we go forward and we leave
what is behind. This is a condition of the progress of
society. Every new invention is a surprise and a disap
pointment a surprise and joy to the inventor, and a
disappointment and loss to those whose previous discoveries
have been eclipsed. When we push the limit line of
science forward, we enable others to go further than we
have gone. It is the fate of successful statesmen to see
1 Preached at the First Festival of the Theological College, Lincoln,
on Tuesday, 27 November, 1888.
THE FATHER'S BUSINESS 267
their own most cherished measures, towards which they
have striven as to a place of rest, regarded by their younger
companions in the State as but halting-places for a new
departure. In all these natural spheres of life a certain
degree of surprise and disappointment is implied, and so
the text finds a constant application : " Wist ye not that I
must be about My Father's business ? "
And if we bring these words into the higher sphere of
morals and religion, then they come home to us with a
sharper meaning. They apply to almost every family just
when it seems to have regained the happiness which, after
the Fall in Paradise, was lost. Just when the family circle
seems complete, and parents begin to enjoy the presence of
their children, then the voice of duty calls first one, and
then another, and, in spite of all the natural ties of filial
and brotherly love, the family circle must be broken and
the home left, and the words of the text are heard even in
the Christian family, not without some sense of pain and
disappointment. " Wist ye not that I, too, must be about
My Father's business ? "
But the words have yet a sharper meaning when we
consider them in relation to religion. In the present con
fusion of Christianity, in different ways and degrees,
children often find themselves unable to continue satisfied
with the teaching of their parents. For a time, no
doubt, obedience is the best rule for the young, but, as
years increase, and the moral and intellectual faculties
increase, and the gift of faith increases too, the child,
though baptized, and thus incorporated into the Body of
Christ's Church, sees with increasing clearness the risk of
living on outside the fullest sphere of God's covenanted
grace ; and the words of the text are heard with a terrible
reality of surprise and disappointment in families of our
pious Nonconformist brethren, when the Holy Spirit opens
the hearts of the children to hear the voice of the Father
268 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
calling them back into the fullest Communion of the Church,
and the child takes up and repeats the words of the text,
" Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's busi
ness ? " Such a moment is, indeed, too often not only one
of surprise and disappointment, but of perplexity and the
deepest distress.
And once more these words have come home to many
of you, my brethren, who, in these last days, have been
called by God to be of the chief members of His mystical
Body the Church. I say " chief members," because if the
increase of spiritual life amongst us has enabled us to re
gard the Church not simply as absorbed in, and represented
by, the clergy, but rather as one mystical Body united to,
and animated by, Christ the one living Head, yet none
the less does the ministry stand forth as the Divinely ap
pointed organ of that body, and the ministers of the Church
are seen still to be members having their special work to
do, as men commissioned with authority and powers which
are not pledged to any other.
These special powers entrusted to the Christian ministry
have caused us to see the need of a special training and
manner of life. Our Ordination is in a very real sense a
separation. By many of us this truth has had to be main
tained, not without disappointment and pain to those whom
we most love, and at whose feet we would most gladly sit
for guidance : but the voice of our Ordination call has
been too clear to be disregarded, and we too have found
sanction and support in the words of the text : " Wist ye
not that I must be about My Father's business ? "
It has been a bitter trial to many loving sons and
daughters to feel constrained to go forward in the presence
of their elders. Parents as well as children would do well
to ask God to teach them the real meaning of the Fifth
Commandment, so that there may be no want of harmony
between the earthly and the heavenly Father's voice ; and
THE FATHERS BUSINESS 269
yet children, I believe, may find comfort in the thought
that hereafter they will see that they have been raised above
their parents' desires by the very power of their parents'
prayers, for God is wont to answer us, in His mercy, above
what we ask or think.
So far, my brethren, the words of the text may have
represented more or less the experience of our own lives, but
there comes a time in the lives of most of us (perhaps some
of you have not yet reached it, and my words may help
you when you do), when the words return, as it were, to
their more original meaning and the Saviour seems to claim
them again as His own and to apply them to His dealings
with us. We used them perhaps at first when we entered
the ministry to justify to our parents that life of peculiar
separatedness which the ministry we had chosen demands :
but after a while we find the position changes, and we
begin to see the reality of our ministerial call more clearly.
We had indeed to accept the call, but the call itself dated
back long before we had accepted it, far away in the eternal
purposes of God. We begin to find that it was He
who separated us even " from our mother's womb " the
words became unmistakable : " You have not chosen Me,
but / have chosen you and ordained you ". We begin to
understand that the work of the ministry is the Saviour's
work carrying out His Father's love. The Saviour takes
His own words back again on His own lips and repeats
them to us : " Do you think that I can leave you as you
are? The work that I chose you to do is My Father's
work ; wist ye not that I must be about My Father's
business ? " It is then that the words addressed to St.
Peter become clear : " Verily, verily, I say unto Thee ;
when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst
whither thou wouldest ; but when thou shalt be old, thou
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not ".
270 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Then we begin to realize how much of self after all
there has been in our ministry, even when we thought we
were making self-sacrifices. Then we begin to see that
the service required in His ministry needs not only great
activity but a terrible purity of motive. We may indeed
remember how mercifully He has led us on by secondary
motives, but we have to learn that if He is to do His
Father's work and finish it, these permitted motives must
be purified ; our minds and wills must be brought more
closely into union with God's Will. Often what we have
to learn is that our wills, and it may be our hearts too,
have to be broken if we are to work effectively in the
ministry of the Crucified. Our work, we begin to see, is
not to be done so much for pleasure as from a sense of
duty our feelings have less influence over us, our prin
ciples more.
" He must be about His Father's business," and His
Father's Will is that all men should be saved. He came
to offer Himself a ransom for all, and He has given to us
the ministry of Reconciliation. The Cross was the instru
ment of union. We, too, must learn something of the
power of suffering, and learn in suffering not to fear but
to hope. The lesson is no new one men and women
with broken hearts have lived on and worked wonders
with Christ.
If we look back we can learn that this has been so of
old. The Canon of Scripture, both of the Old and the
New Testament, was purified through the fire of persecu
tion. The Creeds were the outcome of fears and perplexity,
of controversy and contradiction ; men's hearts failing them
for fear, and yet through it all God was carrying on His
own business, working out His own loving will to teach
man the truth, and to reconcile man back again to Himself.
The lives of His first Apostles He perfected in this manner.
The sufferings of the " Chosen Vessel," the great Apostle
THE FATHERS BUSINESS 271
of the Gentiles, were marvellous the perils of his own
life, the anxiety for his friends, the disappointment in
those who forsook him and fell away, the gathering hostility
against him, besides the continual care of all the Churches.
This was all part of the Saviour's intended discipline for
his soul when He said to Ananias, " Go thy way, I will
show him how great things he must suffer for My Name's
sake ".
Other men have laboured and we have entered into
their labours, but the Father's business is not yet complete.
The Saviour must work still in His Father's house, even
in the house of God which is the Church of the living
God, until the number of the living stones is prepared for
the inhabitation of God : and we must be prepared to take
our share in the labour that remains. It is for this object
that we are gathered here to-day. It is the object of our
College to prepare men for the Divine ministry of Christ's
Church, to continue that Divine organization of the Chris
tian ministry which the Preface to our Ordinal asserts to
have been in the Church " from the Apostles' time ".
The object of Theological Colleges is to secure minis
terial efficiency. This is an age of technical education.
The sciences in their progress have of necessity divided.
The several organs of the body, the eye, the ear, the foot,
are seen to involve forces of such complexity, and such
Divinely arranged intricacies of organization as to require
the attention of separate departments of the great medical
profession, and separate hospitals have been formed for their
study and their treatment. And as with medicine and the
law, so it is with the queen of sciences Theology. She is
being better understood at least in her needs ; those who
believe in her existence have begun to treat her with more
reasonable respect. To be a theologian indeed requires
many gifts and special opportunities such as possibly, can
rarely be found except in our Universities or in our
272 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
cathedral cities, but this is not necessary for the parish
priest ; his business is the cure of souls. He will indeed
require the knowledge of all theology to a certain degree
dogmatic theology, moral theology, and the scientific adap
tation of them both to the needs of individual souls, which
we call ascetic theology. These in some degree are needed
by all, and may, I think, be sufficiently taught in a Theo
logical College, provided those who enter have received a
sufficient previous education, and possess the aptitude re
quired, and are willing to continue their studies during the
whole course of their after ministry.
In the day of technical or departmental education the
demand made upon the clergy is, not unreasonably, " minis
terial efficiency ". They should be fitted for their own
work in order that they may be " workmen who need not
to be ashamed". This implies, no doubt, many things,
but the centre of it all, without which the rest is practically
useless, is " personal holiness ". If we are to undertake a
spiritual charge, the cure of souls, we must be spiritual
men, men of sincere, unaffected, inward piety, men of prayer ,
by which I mean (not merely men who are persistent in
the recitation of Offices, right as that is, but) men who
have realized what Hooker calls the twofold use of prayer
" as a means conditional, to procure those things which
God hath promised to grant when we ask" and " as a
means permitted by which we may express our lawful
desires, though we know not what the event may be "
men, that is, who know the privileges of having access to
the Father in the power of the Spirit through the media
tion of the Son.
We need clergymen of this kind before the people will
have sufficient confidence in us to let us guide them in
their own devotions. We ,must know what prayer and
worship mean ourselves before we can hope to direct and
lead the worship of the people. We must do it with
THE FATHERS BUSINESS 273
them " in spirit and in truth," and not merely tell them
what they ought to do. We must say to them, and mean
it when we say it, " O come, let us worship, and fall down
and kneel before the Lord our Maker ". We must make
more use of prayer on their behalf ; we must, like Moses,
Daniel, and Ezra, lay their causes to heart, and pour out
our own souls to God for them.
We need men who are " strong in the Lord and in the
power of His might," men who have thought out, as far as
they can, their own relation to God, and who have realized
the strength of the complex proof on which it depends,
men who have walked in the threefold light of their own
faculties, of revelation, and of the Church, and have seen
how the three agree and lead back to one.
We need men who have disciplined their reason by
endeavouring to discern and speak the exact truth, without
fear of the reproof of man, and without the desire of his
praise.
We need men who have endeavoured to keep a con
science void of offence, not only in the sight of men, but of
God ; men who can, like Bishop Andrewes, pray God to
" crucify the occasions of their sins " ; men who have
striven to cleanse themselves from all filthiness not only of
the flesh, but of the Spirit ; men who exercise " them
selves unto godliness, perfecting holiness in the fear of the
Lord ".
It is to such men that people will come for help in their
spiritual needs, to open their grief, and, if need be, ask for
the balm which the priest alone is commissioned to give.
Anybody, of course, can prove that Confession and Absolu
tion are the doctrine of the Prayer Book of the Church of
England (to be offered freely by every priest), but it will
be there as a useless dead letter unless it is taught by a
holy priesthood.
We need men the eyes of whose hearts have been
18
274 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
opened by the power of the Holy Ghost, so that they can
" say that Jesus is the Lord," the Lord of the dead as of
the living, who can see Him crowned with many crowns,
the King of all Creation, Lord in heaven and Lord on
earth, who can see Him in His power at the right hand of
God, " far above all principality and power and might, and
every name that is named not only in this world, but also
in that which is to come," men who, by the power of the
Holy Spirit can see this same Jesus, with all power given
unto Him in heaven and on earth, to be the Head of the
Church, which is His Body.
We need men who, by the power of the Holy Spirit,
have comprehended something of the breadth, length,
depth, and height of the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge ; men who are rooted and grounded in and
constrained by this love ; men who will be patient with
sinners and those who are ignorant, and careless, and " out
of the way " ; men who will wait and watch for single
souls, as the Saviour did for the woman of Samaria at the
well, though she was a woman of a false theology and
a broken character ; men who will love and not grow cold,
but who, having loved, like Jesus, will " love to the end " ;
men who know the Church to be a true Society, and as
such to possess all those natural assistances which the wisest
of the heathen of old sought to secure for the individual
by his relation to the State ; men who see the Church to
be Divine in her origin, in her organization, and in her
powers a Divine Society of which Christ is the living
animating Head men who see that the Ordinances of the
Church are not barriers between the soul and its God, but
the appointed means by which the soul shall return to God
by the mediation of the one Mediator, Christ both God
and Man men who desire to draw all men within the fold
of the visible Church of Christ because she is the cove
nanted sphere in which the powers of Reconciliation are
THE FATHER'S BUSINESS 275
pledged to operate, men who desire all men to come
within the Church, because there they will find their true
relation to God, and to their fellow-men. In her they
are reconciled back to God and reunited to man in the
Communion of Saints, and in her receive new powers that
this twofold communion may endure for ever and ever.
This is the work, brethren, which we have entered
upon ; this is the work which the Saviour has called us to
do ; we must not be surprised if He sees we still need
further preparation for His service. You, my brethren,
who have come back here to-day will be looking back to
the first feelings with which you began His service. Per
haps you have found it harder than you thought ; perhaps
you are surprised at the indifference and the ignorance
which still prevails with regard to the Church amongst
your people ; perhaps as priests when visiting the sick you
have felt unable to use the Office which the Church has pro
vided for her children ; perhaps you are disappointed with
your brethren of the clergy around you ; perhaps you are
surprised and disappointed with yourselves. Brethren, do
not be disheartened ; these and such as these are the trials
by which the priests of the Church of England are being
tried ; they often are not understood, not wanted, not
cared for, isolated, lonely, unnoticed, unknown by the
world ; and all this has to be borne too often now in poverty
which cannot be expressed, and it may be in actual sickness,
or under the intimidation of declining health. So are
many priests left now, but it shall not be for nothing. It
is all under the Saviour's eye. He is watching, He is
working, it is His Father's business that He is about, mak
ing the English priesthood holy ; not simply intelligent, not
simply moral, but holy. The Saviour is watching, and the
people are watching too. Whatever they may be themselves
they expect that if the Church is Holy the Ministry will
be Holy too a city set on an hill cannot be hid.
18*
2 ;6 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel
but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are
in the house. Ye are the light of the world. It is the
Saviour's way of carrying out His Father's business to fill
you with His Holy Spirit, and place you among the people
that they may see your good works, and glorify His
Father which is in heaven. Let Him trim the lamp as He
may think best. Trust yourselves to Him. He is not
only interested in your own salvation, but in the ministry
to which He has called you. His methods may surprise
you and disappoint you, but trust Him. He is about
His Father's business ; he is making you a holy priest
hood that you may bring the people of England back
again into His one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.
I have confined myself, brethren, on this your first
gathering, to this one requisite for the ministry holiness.
Whatever else may be required of learning, and wisdom,
and toil, this is essential, for " without holiness no man can
see the Lord," and, indeed, it is the promotion of this
practical holiness which the great Apostle considers to be
the end of the knowledge, which, as an Apostle, he
claimed, for he speaks l of the full knowledge of the truth
which leads to practical piety a life of holiness.
1 Titus I. i. : eTTiyvwcriv dX^^etas TT}S /car'
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 277
Vll.i
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD.
" 'Thy gentleness hath made me great" PSALM xvui. 36
(Bible Version).
SUCH was the reflection of the author of this Psalm as
he looked back over the course of his life. It was not
his own natural gifts, not his great valour, not his own
cleverness, much less his own goodness, but simply the
gentleness of God, by which he would account for his
having reached that position in life which had raised him
above so many of his fellow-men, and which had been
truly great because by it he had been a help and blessing
to many. " Thy gentleness hath made me great." He
could only think of himself as of one who had been " put
up with," as we say. It is the language of a guileless
heart and true humility.
I have ventured to choose these words for my text
this morning, because I feel that in many ways they repre
sent the mind and character of him of whom for a few
moments, I desire, by God's help, to speak to you. There
is no need for any words of excitement to stir your feelings ;
your memories and your love will do far more than my
words.
The first characteristic, perhaps, of my dear brother
which would strike any one was his great strength and
1 Preached in Leigh Church on the First Sunday after Easter, 1893,
in Grateful Memory of the late much-beloved Rector, Canon Walker
King, M.A.
2 ;8 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
courage. In younger days this was the silent admiration
of many, though physical strength was not scientifically
trained and recorded as it is now. In later years it showed
itself in that strong spirit of fearless independence which
made him indifferent to much of public opinion, which he
neither feared nor courted. Singularly free from mere
worldly ambition, he had no desire for popularity, but was
content to remain doing his duty in the position to which
God had called him. He was happy if all went well at
Leigh.
And with this strength and courage was that rarer gift
which is only, I think, to be seen in perfection where cour
age and strength exist in a high degree the gift of gentle
ness. Nowhere did his strength and courage show itself
more truly than in the sick-room and by the bedside of the
suffering and dying. When all was confusion and fear, he
would be calm, quiet, strong, inspiring confidence in others
by his own strength. Many of you must have seen this,
as I have myself. It was that " gentleness which, when it
weds with manhood, makes the man ". This was one
of his great characteristics and real sources of power. In
these days of self-advertisement and pushing, his spirit of
gentleness and retirement possesses a rare value : always
ready to listen to what other persons had to say ; never
over-bearing or pushing to obtain his own way, he would
rather give way and let others do as they pleased, provided
only it was not wrong. This spirit of retirement, of un
obtrusive gentleness, especially in those who are placed
in positions of authority, is worthy of great attention as
being most precious in the sight of God, Who " giveth grace
to the humble," and most valuable as a means of raising
the finer moral and spiritual qualities in those with whom
it has to do. " Thy gentleness," the Psalmist said, " hath
made me great : " and it was this gentleness and freedom
from all that was sharp and hard which enabled many of
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 279
you to come so close to him and to enjoy, and profit by,
his real friendship.
And this leads me to mention a third characteristic
which you will not have forgotten. I have mentioned his
strength and gentleness, and the third I will mention is
affection. Call it what you please affection, kindness,
love the little children will know what I mean, and so
will any of you who have been in trouble. Always ready
to help, and not only to help (as some might be tempted
to help) for the sake of gaining power, but from a real
kindliness of heart that gave one help in a wise and prudent
way, but with a tenderness of sympathy which almost con
cealed the gift lest the finer feeling of the heart should be
wounded by receiving.
I will mention no more, but will apply this practically
to yourselves. How was it that there was such a singular
bond of good-feeling between yourselves and him ; such a
rare degree of admiration and confidence and restful love ?
It was, I believe, because he suited you. But what does
that mean? It means (does it not?) that there are ele
ments in the Leigh character which specially corresponded
to his. And so I venture to think it was. The Leigh
men, with their lives of frequent danger upon the water,
had an especial attraction for him, and the courage which
your daily life required fitted you to see the kindred virtue
which was in him. And, with this courage, the constant
presence of powers of wind and wave, which were beyond
your own control, gave you, if I mistake not, a gentleness
which enabled you in the midst of your often rough and
hard work to appreciate that tenderness which you found
in him. Nor need I stop here. Your good-heartedness,
friendliness, kindness, affection, love (call it what you
please), was of far greater value to him than the emptiness
of the world's applause. He did not care for the world's
praise when he knew he had your hearts. He valued a
28o MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
true heart, and he found it in you, and you found the
same in him. You suited one another as men of strength
and gentleness and love.
But we must remember that the text says, " Thy
gentleness hath made me great ". In the Prayer Book
version the words run, " Thy loving correction hath made
me great ". This suggests the possibility of improvement,
the need of discipline, and a high standard to be reached.
The effect of the gentleness or loving correction of God
was to raise the natural character of the Psalmist to a higher
level than he could otherwise have reached. It should be
the same in the application which I have ventured to give
to these words this morning. You know that together
with the natural characteristics of which I have spoken,
and which made you at one, there were always present the
higher supernatural gifts of the Word and Sacraments, by
which he desired to raise you above himself. This is,
I think, what he would desire to raise the natural gifts of
the people of Leigh to their highest perfection. This then
is the lesson which I desire to leave with you this morning.
Think, then, again of those marks in his character which
you valued so highly, and see how by God's grace the cor
responding features in your own character may be raised
to the standard of perfection, which God would have you
reach so that you may be truly great in His sight.
i . Your strength and courage. " Be strong in the
Lord and in the power of His might." As good soldiers
of Christ fight manfully under His banner against sin, the
world, and the devil. Fight the battle in yourselves.
Give the devil no quarter, in deed, or word, or thought.
" Put on the whole armour of God," that you may be able
to stand. And, as you resolve to resist the world, the
flesh, and the Devil, so resolve to resist all errors of doc
trine, and to contend for the faith. Be ready, when called
upon, to " fight the good fight of faith," and " contend
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 281
earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," so that
you shall do what you can to realize the standard of perfec
tion which the Prayer Book lays down as the standard
which every priest should aim at. " See that you never
cease your labour, your care, your diligence, until you have
done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty,
to bring all such as are, or shall be, committed to your
charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of
God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ,
that there be no place left among you either for error in
religion or for viciousness of life." This is the standard
of the Prayer Book of the Church of England.
2. But, with the resolve to stand firm and true in the
defence of God's truth, remember the lesson of gentleness
implies patience and long-suffering, and waiting for God's
good time and for one another. The progress (thank
God) of the Church of England has been wonderful in the
last fifty years. There is indeed much yet to be done,
many prejudices to be put aside, much ignorance to be
enlightened, much indifference to be awakened. We need
to remember the words of the text, " Thy gentleness hath
made me great ". God has waited patiently for us and
brought us up to where we are. Let us try to do to others
as God has done to us, and by gentleness to lead them on
and make them great. While there is life, there is hope :
the penitent thief was accepted at the eleventh hour. The
grace of God is as strong to-day as then. Even the end
of a wasted life God will not reject if it be offered with a
contrite heart, with true faith in the power of the Saviour's
Blood. In this morning's lesson we heard the terrible
history of the rebellion of Korah and his company ; how
he rebelled against God and the chief ministers of His
Church ; how God "created a new thing," and the earth
opened her mouth and swallowed them up. And yet in
after years, in God's good time, when patience had had her
282 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
perfect work, it is from the sons of this very Korah that
we [have some of the most devout and fervent Psalms, 1
which were sung in the Temple Service ; e.g. Psalm 84,
" O how amiable are Thy dwellings, Thou Lord of Hosts.
My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the Courts
of the Lord : my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living
God." " I had rather be a door-keeper in the House of
my God than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness." " O
Lord God of Hosts, blessed is the man that putteth his
trust in Thee." It may encourage us to be patient with
those who oppose us, if we remember that these are the
words of the descendants of that Korah who rebelled against
God and His Church.
Let all impatience, then, all harsh judgments of others,
all self-seeking, be put aside, and all love of power and the
desire to be first. Rather let us strive to take the lower
place, " in honour preferring one another ". Then, when all
is over, and we are set down at the Supper of the Lamb,
and the Bridegroom comes in to see the guests, and the
great reversal of human judgments shall take place, and the
first shall be last and the last first, may we hope to hear
His voice saying to us, " Friend, come up higher ". Mean
while, " let patience have her perfect work," and let gentle
ness be the characteristic of your strength.
3. But there is yet a third gift which I would desire
that you should seek to perfect and make great, and that
is the kindness of heart, the gift of Love. This is the
mark which the Saviour Himself chose by which His
disciples should be known. " By this shall all men know
that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another."
Friendliness, sincerity in friendship, true-heartedness, a
tenderness of feeling for one another in your joys and
sorrows ; to weep with those that weep and rejoice with
those that rejoice. Let this be your aim. Be ready to
1 Psalmi 87 and 88 are also ascribed to the sons of Korah.
THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 283
forgive if anyone should do you wrong, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Put away all unkind
words and uncharitable judgments one of another. The
tongue, if we do not take care, cuts like a sharp razor.
" The tongue," St. James tells us, " is a fire that is set on
fire of hell : " and the careless word may kindle a flame
that we may never be able to put out. St. Paul bids us
" do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of
the household of faith ". Christianity should be a true
Friendly Society, in which, if one member suffers, all the
members, as far as they can, should suffer with it. We
ought, as far as we can, to try to " bear one another's
burdens ".
But St. Peter seems even to add something beyond this
when he says, "to brotherly love add charity," i.e. besides
the special love which should exist in the Brotherhood of
Christianity we should strive to add a love for all men.
To brotherly love add love. This would make you anxious
to do something beyond your own parish, even beyond
your own nation I mean, to do something for spreading
the Gospel among the heathen. Christ died for all, and a
true Christian love wants to see all men come back to God
through Christ, and in Christ to be reunited to one another.
God is the Father of all, and nothing less than the Brother
hood of Man can satisfy the heart of man. To be one in
Christ, this should be our aim : then shall we understand
what it is to belong to the Church of Christ, which is His
Body. " Ye are the Body of Christ and members in
particular."
The life of this Body flows from Christ, the living
Head, Who was dead but is alive again, and liveth for
evermore. In this Body death hath no power of separation.
The Church on earth and the Church in Paradise are one.
Our belief is in one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.
" I am persuaded," saith the Apostle, " that neither death,
284 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus." It is to the en
joyment of endless, sinless love with God and with one
another to which we may look forward who have striven
to live together in this world according to His Will. Unto
which endless happiness may God of His mercy bring us
with all those who are not separated from us by death,
though they have gone before.
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE 285
VIII. 1
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE.
" These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone" ST. MATT. xxm. 23.
WE have been told recently by one of the most brilliant
writers on scientific thought that authority and
custom have an important place in the foundations of our
belief. " At every moment of our lives, as individuals, as
members of a family, of a party, of a nation, of a Church,
of a universal brotherhood, the silent, continuous, unnoticed
influence of authority moulds our feelings, our aspirations,
and even our beliefs. It is from Authority that Reason
itself draws its most important premises." 2 " Mere early
training, paternal authority, or public opinion, were causes
of belief before they were reasons ; they continued to act
as non-rational causes after they became reasons." 3 This
is indeed nothing new, but it is a relief and an encourage
ment to hear the new leaders of scientific thought confirm
ing our old beliefs.
It is a relief to find the error of extremes, which were
at one time current, removed, and to be assured that we
are not merely the irresistible, unreasoning results of our
circumstances on the one hand, nor left wholly dependent
1 Preached at St. Edward's School, Oxford, on the Commemoration
Day, 12 June, 1895.
2 Balfour, " Foundations of Belief," p. 228.
3 Ibid., p. 223.
286 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
upon our own reasoning to make out for ourselves, with
out any external assistance, the axioms and premises of
all scientific knowledge. This truth was made known to
us long ago in the balanced sentences of Lord Bacon,
" oportet discentem credere : oportet edoctum judicare "
He who would learn must trust : it is the duty of the
instructed to judge ; to judge, that is, for himself, and ap
prove to himself the truth which he has received. The
truth indeed implies both the elements of surrender and
acceptance which are involved in all faith. The truth
lies for us on the surface of the familiar Gospel story :
" Now we believe, not because of thy saying ; for we
have heard Him ourselves, and know".
" Mere early training, paternal authority, or public
opinion, were causes of belief before they were reasons."
Do not these words represent a large part of what we
mean by the advantages of our Public Schools ? " Early
training," " authority," " public opinion ". If we were to
try to sum up our ideas of the many blessings which we
associate with our Public Schools, and to express them in
single words, would they not at least include the follow
ing : " Honour, Duty, Authority, Liberty, Manliness,
Simplicity, Truthfulness " ? " It is a shame to tell Arnold
a lie ; he believes one," is a representative saying. And
to these we must add a bond of brotherhood, a love for
the old school, such as was seen at the five-hundredth
anniversary of Winchester two years ago.
The state of our Public Schools in the last century, and
in the beginning of this, has been well depicted for us in
the following words : " Good, elegant, and accurate scholar
ship was certainly encouraged, and grammar was well
hammered into boys' heads. A still larger class of boys
caught an air and style from the atmosphere of the
place, and learnt gentlemanly manners. And, perhaps,
in these traits we have the principal results which the
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE 287
public-school system as such aimed at. Many moral
and religious boys, doubtless, came every year out of
them ; but morality and religion were hardly the aims of
the system ; and the notions of the latitudinarian ^and
political economist respecting the relation of Church and
State had almost found a counterpart in the relation of
the master to the boys in our Public Schools. The in
stinctive feeling, though it would not have been formally
confessed, was, that good scholarship, and not good
morals, was the legitimate aim of the schoolmaster as
such ; that, much as the latter might have rejoiced, as
a man, in seeing a good moral and religious tone grow
up in his boys, still he had little to do, as a master,
with the boys' consciences : that the particular uses of
a school were to teach him Greek and Latin, and not
religion ; and if the former only were learnt that was
the boy's and not the master's look-out. ' What has
the State to do with teaching Religion ? ' the political
economist triumphantly asks. And ' what has Scholar
ship to do with Religion ? ' was a question which many a
good kind of man asked, who had the sincerest respect
separately for both.
" The old-fashioned Schoolmaster of the eighteenth
century was a useful State instrument for keeping up
a gentlemanly and aristocratical standard of Education.
Methodical, strict, and upon a theory, as much as his own
inclination, pompous, he regarded his office and dignity
rather in its official light, as the headship of a department,
than as involving a living contact with heads and hearts.
A stiff barrier of form kept him at a distance from the
real minds he had under him, and the abstract school
intervened between himself and his scholars. He was a
respectable functionary in the service of Education, but
was rather her bedel than her champion ; and the dignity
of the mace quelled the row and silenced the murmurer,
288 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
without much aid of the deeper and more refined reverential
feelings."
If this is a fair representation of the old public-school
system as it was in the last century and in the beginning
of this, we gladly admit that great advances have been
made in the last sixty years. Arnold went to Rugby
with the determination of making the school religious.
The late Bishop of Salisbury and the present Bishop of
Southwell worked with the same aim, and in their teaching
followed more closely the lines of the Church ; other great
men have done the same. Still when we think of our
great Public Schools there seems to be a hiatus somewhere ;
they please our mental palate rather than our soul, and a
deep sympathy and a moral yearning at the bottom of our
nature is left more or less untouched by them. 2
That this was the case ultimately with the teaching
of the great Headmaster of Rugby, in spite of all his
marvellous centrifugal moral influence, no real English
Churchman could deny. The Priesthood, Sacraments,
Apostolical Succession, Tradition, and the Church, were
to him parts of the heresy of the Oxford Judaisers to whom
he was fundamentally opposed. But short of this, as
parents who were members of the Church of England
realized for themselves more clearly the value of the bless
ings which in the Church of England were preserved for
them, they desired above all things that their children
should receive the same in those earlier years of their life
when " early training, (paternal) authority, and public
opinion " are practically such strong causes of our belief.
Many desired this who could not but look back over their
own lives with some feelings of regret that their earliest
association with religion had been so cold and wanting in
1 J. B. Mozley, " Essays/' Vol. II (1878), pp. 7, 8, 9.
2 Suggested by Professor Mozley on Miss Bremer's novels, " Essays,"
Vol. II, p. 25.
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE 289
that love for the Church, which as our Spiritual Mother
she has a right to claim. Such persons felt the painful
self-consciousness, and other greater disadvantages with
which a person is encumbered who only comes to realize
the meaning and the value of the Church's Life in middle
age.
And surely all this was not without reason. It was
not only the anti-sacerdotal and anti-sacramental con
clusions, which to many minds seemed to follow from
the Rugby teaching, that created dissatisfaction, but the
quickened Church instinct began to feel a want even in
that which was regarded as the very type and model
of our public-school system ; I mean even in the great
Wykehamist motto, " Maners makyth man," and in the
enthusiasm for " Domus ". That the old familiar motto
means far more than the mere outward polish of the
world, that it is something which lies in the heart and
nature, not merely of the noble born and wealthy, but
of nature's true sons however humble their immediate
origin might be that it is the manners, the mores, the
character, which makes the man : all this might be seen ;
but were not the " manners," the mores, too often allowed
to remain on the level of the old pre-Christian virtues
prudence justice courage temperance? Self-know
ledge, self-mastery, self-culture, all this, and far more,
might be included in the motto, without reaching that
higher level of morality which distinguishes Christian from
heathen Ethics.
Heathen morality, or Deistic morality, such as may be
found in a Christian country, will not really satisfy an
awakened Christian conscience.
The same line of thought is applicable even to the
mystic sound of " Domum ". One who has perhaps more
right than any living man to speak on the life and teach
ing of our great schools, the present Bishop of Southwell,
19
290 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
admitted that there might be an imperfect tendency even
in the bonds of brotherhood which made their school their
" House," their " Home," that other schools at least had
thought of Wykehamists as very ready, if possible, to carry
that virtue to the excess of a vice, as being always ready
to stand Wykehamist to Wykehamist, as brothers of one
great family. 1
We need not call this a " vice," but it does not repre
sent the most perfect form of virtue. The human heart,
the heart of a Christian boy, is capable of something more
even than this ; he is capable of loving a more extended
brotherhood. He not only will understand the words
" stet fortuna Domus," with a religious reverence, know
ing that " except the Lord build the house, their labour
is but lost that build it " ; but he is capable of thinking
of, and of loving, another " House," even the House of
God, that is "the Church of the living God, the pillar
and ground of the truth ".
This may perhaps appear to some to be visionary, and
too fanciful for the education of boys, but might not the
same be said of the warning given to fathers by St. Paul :
" Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest
they be discouraged ". Not much fear, some will say, of
discouraging the average English boy ; but may there
not have been something higher in the Apostle's mind
than we usually connect with the lives of boys? some
thing such as that which found expression in the relation
between the Apostle and St. Timothy, of which we get a
glimpse in the mention of his mother, his Bible, his tears
a boy who was ultimately a Saint not unworthy to be the
beloved companion of St. Paul ? May we not " discourage "
the young lives of those who have the vocation to the
highest form of Christian self-sacrifice, whether in the
O '
service of the Church or State, unless we put before them
1 "Guardian Report," 2 August, 1893.
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE 291
the standard which Christ Himself has given us, and pro
vide them with all those supernatural means of assistance
which the Church in her threefold ministry of Word,
Sacraments, and Discipline, is commanded to give ? In
the present day, in all walks of life, we need a greater
manifestation of what the Christian life can be. We want
the old Scriptural word " Saints " to be a reality again in
the nineteenth century; we want it here in England, not
as a matter of antiquarian interest, or as a foreign exotic, but
as something that has the power and beauty of natural life
and growth, thoroughly loyal to the English Church and
nation. It has been, I believe, with some such thoughts
as these that during the last fifty years attempts have been
made in several quarters to found such schools as this
whose Festival we are gathered here to keep to-day not
with any forgetfulness of the heroic and saintly lives which
have come forth too from our great Public Schools in our
own time, Bishop Selwyn, Bishop Patteson, Dr. Pusey, Lord
Selborne, and many others, whose lives have been the
strength and glory of England : still less in any vain spirit
of rivalry with the intellectual advantage possessed by such
great and ancient institutions ; but from the feeling that,
after all, the awakened religious consciousness in the
Church of England felt a want in the present administration
of these ancient schools which the spirit of the age seemed
in no way likely to provide for. With this object Glen-
almond and Bradfield and Radley and Bloxham, and the
great group of Woodard Schools at Lancing and Hurst,
and Ardingly, Denstone, Taunton, Ellesmere were begun.
At first, as was natural, there may have been some
failure in consequence of the reaction from the general
intellectual teaching to the personal spiritual training of
individual souls, but now we believe the true balance is
being obtained, and there is a work to be done by such
schools as I have mentioned, and by St. Edward's, which
19*
292 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
with God's blessing will answer to the quickened desires
of Christian parents and the highest needs of their sons.
It is not to be expected that these modern schools will be
able to compete in all ways with the old institutions, but
we think that St. Edward's has given proof of a strength
that is satisfactory for the present, and which bids fair
for a further growth. Already 800 boys have passed
through the school, and more than eighty are in residence
at the present time. With the morality and the religious
character of the boys, the promoters of the school have,
I believe, every reason to be thoroughly satisfied, and to
be thankful for it, while, with regard to the intellec
tual distinctions, eight scholarships at the Universities in
the last three academical years is, I believe, above the
average of many schools, considering the proportion of
numbers.
The truest test, however, of the value of a school is to be
found rather in what Lord Selborne called " a mediocrity
of the golden kind ". Not to produce prodigies, but to
do the greatest good to the greatest number ; to turn out,
of the average boys, honest boys healthy in mind ; to
turn out useful men, capable of serving Church and
State in every way in which they may be called, not
self-seeking, but always ready to do their best men fit
to take the higher places in Church and State, and men
fit to take the lower places also in Church and State to
do good work whether it be in the sight of mankind or
removed out of sight.
Such a work we verily believe St. Edward's aims at
doing, and, by God's help, will be found capable of accom
plishing.
Two words in conclusion.
First, to any parents, or friends of parents, who may
be here to-day. Let me ask you to consider the reality
and importance of the special advantages which are
IDEALS OF SCHOOL LIFE 293
offered by St. Edward's, and then, if you value them, to
do what you can, directly or indirectly, to secure the
efficiency and permanence of the school.
Lastly, to any members of the school who may be
present, whether as Old Boys or present members. Let
me ask you to consider the reality and seriousness of
the causes from which your school has sprung. It is
the result of a great quickening of life throughout the
country both in Church and State. You will find an
awakening world awaiting you ; far more capable of ap
preciating a high standard of character and work than it
was sixty years ago. You will find opportunities for the
exercise of all your capacities, however various they may
be. Do your best to perfect them. Throw yourselves
heartily into the life and work of the school while you
are here ; in your studies, your amusements, your friend
ships. Only remember the future. In your studies, re
member you come here not so much to read as to learn
how to read. In your amusements, let them be such as
shall help you to work : in your friendships, let them be
such that you may enjoy the memory of them when you
are men.
It is true that " Maners makyth man " : character is
real power. Prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance,
are its old foundation. Simplicity, sobriety, modesty,
docility, innocence, cheerfulness, are amongst the best
ornaments of youth, and give the best promise of a noble
manhood. Faith, hope, and love are the gifts that will
enable you to bring them to their highest perfection.
The Home of Nazareth is your perfect model ; obedience,
and increase in the twofold love, to God and to one
another.
294 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
POOR CLERGY RELIEF.
" / see that all things come to an end : but 'Thy commandment
is exceeding broad" PSALM cxix. 96.
" T SEE that all things come to an end." This half of
* my text, taken by itself, may seem to strike a de
spondent and pessimistic note, ill-suited, indeed, to our
great object to-day. Yet I am not without hope, if it
please God to guide and assist us in our thoughts, that
these words may lead us to look below the immediate and
obvious surface of things, and disclose to us thoughts for
our consideration which may fill us with new hope, and
enkindle in our hearts new desires to do yet more than we
have done to promote the glory of God and the highest
welfare of our fellow-men. It is true, certainly, of this
nineteenth century, which is now so soon to change and
pass away and, please God, give place to another yet greater,
that it has been a century of wonderful changes. In it we
have seen many things come to an end. Think for a
moment of our modes of transit and intercourse one with
another. In some parts of England we may still see the
pack-saddles in which the pack-horses carried their burdens,
and the carrier's cart is still an object of interest and im
portance between the country villages. Through the
introduction of steam and machinery, and the newly open
ing forces of electricity, what changes we have lived to see !
1 Preached at St. Edmund's Church, Lombard Street, in connexion
with the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, 1896.
POOR CLERGY RELIEF 295
Over land and water, through mountain and across plains,
nothing can stop us. Man has gradually proved the
reasonableness of the command given to him to subdue
the earth. He has travelled all over it ; we whisper to
one another across and around it. Machinery has wellnigh
supplanted mere physical labour, and mere brute force, like
silver in the days of Solomon, is little accounted of. It is
skilled labour that is in the market to-day. Our railways,
our steamships, our telegraphs, our telephones, have re
latively brought space and time to an end. Many things
have been removed and passed away ; but what a magnifi
cent and wonderful vision has been opened out to us of
a world-wide brotherhood through the instrumentality of
our modern mercantile life !
And as it is in these matters that affect our daily life
and the social progress of our race, so we shall see that the
same truth holds good if we look at those laws and cere
monies by which God has revealed to us His own methods
for the moral and spiritual education of mankind with
which my text is more directly concerned. " I see that all
things come to an end, but Thy commandment is exceed
ing broad." If we look hastily and superficially at the
code of laws and ceremonies and enactments which God
has made known to us in the Old Testament Scriptures,
we may be tempted to doubt whether the Bible could be
regarded seriously as a Divine plan for the education of
man. So many of the laws concerning sacrifices and ritual
ceremonies seem to be local and temporary, and therefore
transitory. We feel that they could not last, that they
must come to an end ; yet we know, if we look a little
beneath the surface, we can detect an underlying and
interior meaning which we feel to have an enduring value.
If men at times and in certain moods felt inclined to com
plain that in the multitude of ceremonial details they failed
to see the importance and abiding value of the Divine
296 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
command, the reply of the prophet was ready at hand :
" He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; and what
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " This
was the inner meaning and will of God. The outward
ceremonies might come to an end, but here was a command
ment exceeding broad a commandment which is as broad
as man's common nature, a commandment which is as
eternal as the Divine attributes of justice and love, a com
mandment which tells us that in all our dealings with our
fellow-men we are to deal justly, but to remember mercy ;
to know the letter of the law, but to remember that in its
administration the perfection of law is equity, to do justly
and love mercy ; to remember the law, but not to forget
the Lawgiver ; to walk humbly with our God.
We may carry this one step further. If in some moods
we may be inclined to speak of old laws, of sacrifices and
ceremonies, as hopelessly numerous and burdensome, the
Saviour's gentle voice should check us, and show us that
the fault really lies with ourselves, from the shallowness
of scientific insight, and that the commandments of God,
after all, are but two the love of God and the love of man.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets. My brethren, here is a commandment broad
enough and strong enough, and which can never wax old
and pass away the twofold cord of the love of God and
the love of man. This is the bond which will keep all
things as they should be the bond of love. We see that
all things come to an end, " Change and decay in all
around I see " ; but if we have but an ear to hear what the
real commandment and will of God is, if we hold fast the
twofold cord of love of God and love of man, we shall be
kept from any pessimistic fears, we shall see that the com
mandment is exceeding broad, stretching on from glory to
glory.
POOR CLERGY RELIEF 297
And now, brethren, let me endeavour to apply these
thoughts to the very important object that has gathered us
here to-day. It is obvious that there has been a change of
a very serious kind in the sources of the Church's wealth.
Some, indeed, might be inclined to take the first half of my
text as only too truly representing the revenue of the
Church " I see that all things come to an end ". In old
times the first great source of the Church's wealth was,
no doubt, the bequest of land. The original possessors,
whether by conquest or by other means, set apart as a free
gift to God certain portions of their land, and charged it
with a charge for ever for the perpetual maintenance of the
services of Almighty God, and for the provision of the
blessings of the Gospel to their people. The tithe of the
land was no gift of the State, nor was it enforced upon the
individual by any authority of law ; but it was originally
the free gift of the individual owner in acknowledgment
of God, the Giver of all. The Christian owner of lands
believed that " God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life " ; he believed
that Christ loved him, and gave Himself for him. And it
was from dwelling on this thought that God first loved him
and gave Himself for him that he was led to desire to give
of his best to God ; and the best that he had was his land.
But we have lived to see a change. The value of land,
at least for the present, has to a very large extent, and
beyond all expectations, decreased. The agricultural con
dition of our country is one of our country's greatest
anxieties, and the original and chief source of the Church's
wealth has failed. Are we to say, then, " I see that all
things come to an end," and to fold our hands in despair ?
God forbid ! Whatever the future of our country may
be, I can see no justification for such despondency. God's
arm is not shortened ; He has not forgotten to be gracious
298 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
to us. The position and power of England is wonderful ;
her wealth is marvellous ; her world-wide influence, com
pared with her territorial insular littleness, is beyond our
understanding. If the value of land has decreased in this
century, a new source of wealth has been discovered. All
that is needed is to remember the twofold cord which,
amid all the changes through which the world in her pro
gress shall pass, will keep things as they ought to be the
love of God and the love of man. This is the command
ment of God, and it is exceeding broad, reaching over to
us to-day. Plain it is and easy to be understood, and as
applicable to the untithed and untithable wealth of modern
days as it was to the land. This twofold golden cord is as
strong as in the days of old. We need no other power,
but what we do need is to bring this power to bear on the
changed circumstances of modern wealth and life. This
cannot be accomplished by man alone ; it is not within the
sphere of natural religion ; it requires the supernatural
assistance of God's Holy Spirit to know the things which
God hath prepared for them that love Him. We need
God's help to know in what man's highest good consists.
It is a step above philanthropy that we are considering to
day, high and magnificent as the step of philanthropy is.
To-day we are considering the dedication of our sub
stance for the support of the clergy of the Church of
England that is, for the maintenance of the ministers of
the glad tidings of the Gospel. It is the Gospel of Christ
which, we believe, meets man's highest need. Other gifts
of philanthropy our institutes, our clubs, our model
dwelling-houses, our parks, our museums, and palaces for
the people, our infirmaries, our hospitals all these have in
a great measure indeed a Christian origin, and have often
been the evidence of a truly Christ-like spirit ; but they
belong rather to those things which will come to an end.
The Gospel is far broader and reaches much further even
POOR CLERGY RELIEF 299
beyond the grave, on into Paradise and Heaven. That is
what the true end of man requires : he needs provision for
his eternal happiness. In this season of the Ascension,
when we think of our Lord upon His throne, very God
and very Man, we can see what the real end of man is
intended by God to be ; we can see what the end of all
religion really is : it is the reunion of man to God and, in
God, the reunion of man to his fellow-men. This is the
fulfilment of God's exceeding broad command. This is
the meaning of the twofold golden cord the love of God
and the love of man. Thank God there have been noble
examples of dedication of modern wealth for God's glory
and man's highest good. I speak only of what I have seen
myself. We have seen the example of the Gibbses, and
Barings, and Basses, founding and refounding colleges,
building and endowing churches, dedicating, that is, their
wealth definitely for men's highest spiritual good. Here
is, I believe, our true ground and real reason for the hope
that is in us. The same power which made provision for
the Church is with us still ; nay, I would even go further,
and say the power of England is with us in the Church of
England, even in purer form than it was at times in the
days of old. As God trains and educates His people He
brings them into clearer relations to His truth, into closer
union with Himself. In days gone by men at times gave
from secondary and mixed motives. A church or an
abbey was sometimes the amends, the set-off, as it were,
of a violent and unbridled life. We owe, I believe, St.
Hugh of Lincoln to the murder of St. Thomas a Becket,
but all these secondary and mixed motives have come to
an end. In the Church of England we do not ask men to
purchase their pardon by the dedication of their wealth ;
we tell them of what Christ has done and is doing, and
will do for them ; we tell them that Christ came into the
world to save sinners ; we tell them of God's love, of His
300 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
pardon for all those who truly repent and unfeignedly
believe His holy Gospel ; and we leave it to the Holy
Spirit to bring home these truths to the heart of each, so
that the love of God may be the constraining power. We
love God because He first loved us, and if God so loved
us, then, it is plain, we ought to love one another.
You see, then, brethren, the greatness of what I am
asking of you in this service to-day. I am asking not
merely for your alms, as they will be presently collected,
greatly as we need them, but 1 am asking you to consider
with me what is the real source to which we must look for
the continued support of the Church that is, to our know
ledge of God's love to us and our consequent duty to love
God and to love one another ; and I am asking you to
support those whose high privilege and duty it is to make
known these truths to the people.
And this forces me to state plainly what our present
position is. It is not so much for the general and per
manent endowment that I am pleading, greatly as this is to
be desired, but I have come to ask you to help us, if you
can, in our immediate distress and danger, pointing out
that if the present distress and danger is averted there are
sound reasons for believing that the permanent maintenance
of the Church will be secured. The present needs of our
clergy, owing to the unexpected fall in their incomes, are
very great. There are more than 21,000 English clergy,
and a very large proportion of these have only the small re
muneration of^ioo or ,200 a year while on actual duty,
with no provision for sickness or pension for old age.
During the past year 1238 applications were made to us
for assistance, and you will easily understand how reluctant
many are to make known their needs, and how much hidden
secret suffering these 1238 applications suggest. Of these
976 cases were relieved with grants from $ to 25 ; 38
were assisted with gifts of clothing you can understand
POOR CLERGY RELIEF 301
what that means. The amount of anxiety and disappoint
ment and wounding of the finer feelings produced by this
state of things can only be appreciated by those who have
seen it.
One of the greatest and most serious causes of distress
is the inability of many of the clergy to educate their
children. Many of the daughters are compelled to under
take work for which their bodily strength is ill adapted, or
to over-tax their mental powers by endeavouring to educate
themselves while they are obtaining a bare subsistence by
teaching others. Many of the sons are obliged to leave the
country, and seek a living where and how they can. May
I endeavour to arrest your attention on this point ? There
are, I believe, few ways in which the present poverty of the
clergy is becoming a greater danger to the Church than
through the loss to the Church of the sons of her clergy
for her future ministers. The very youths who in former
years would have been educated at some public school and
passed on to the Universities and then been ordained,
bringing with them an amount of knowledge and culture
and tone and social efficiency to enable them to be an ele
vating influence among the people these men we cannot
get, they must go abroad ; they are in the Far West, or in
Australia, or in Africa. Meanwhile, there is danger that
the Church should be compelled to accept as candidates for
her ministry men who, however excellent in themselves, do
not possess those finer qualities of character which, as a rule,
are the result of more than one generation of culture, and
which are of such inestimable value as examples to the
people of what real education is. There would be few
better ways of helping the poorer clergy and the Church at
large than by helping the clergy to educate their sons for
the ministry.
I need not say more ; you can only too easily fill in the
rest of the sad picture for yourselves. When sickness
302 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
comes into the family where the income is 100 or 200
a year, what can be done ? If sickness comes upon the
clergyman himself, where is the money to provide for his
duty ? How are the doctor's orders to be obeyed for the
needs of convalescence if by God's mercy the man is spared ?
How are they to get change of air ? Where is even the
carriage for the drive ? The pony and the trap are in too
many cases among the things that were sold. And if
death comes, what then ?
It may be, it often is, that they have struggled well
and hard, kept their house in repair, and paid dilapida
tions. But what is the poor widow to do ? She must
leave her home. They may not be in debt, but they can
not have saved, and there are no pensions. Her children,
how can they support her ? They are too often only half-
educated, struggling for a bare subsistence themselves.
Where is she to go ? If a son or a daughter can receive her,
who can pay for the moving ? She must part, at least,
with some of the few remaining memorials of better days.
My brethren, it is to meet such cases of immediate distress
and anxiety that I ask your support to-day. It does not
seem right that such unexpected and undeserved distress
(for, as a rule, there is no fault to be found) should be
allowed to continue without an effort to relieve it.
But it is not merely for the relief of personal distress
that I am asking your consideration and your help to-day.
It is for the maintenance of our clergy, for the support of
the ambassadors of Christ, to provide the means for bring
ing the blessings of the Gospel to the poor. It is a moment
of anxiety, but it is a moment of great opportunities.
England is, at least, one of the Teutonic nations which are
now the leading forces in the world. The revival of life
in the Church of England during the present century is
acknowledged by all ; the zeal and self-devotion of her
clergy perhaps never were greater. The increase of educa-
POOR CLERGY RELIEF 303
tion among all classes is enabling them to appreciate the
historic continuity and grandeur of their Church and the
purity of her teaching. The people are beginning to under
stand better that the Church of England is the Divinely
appointed way in which the blessings of the Gospel have
come to us. They see more intelligently, and they know
better by experience that the pearl is of great price. The
Church is again taking a first place in the hearts of the
people. I am asking you, my brethren, to help us to-day
that these blessings which seem so near and in increasing
abundance might not be let slip through the inability of the
clergy to continue their labours under the present serious
distress. When the people of England know intelligently
and by experience what the Church of England is, they will
not let her fail. Even now we have examples of noble self-
sacrificing liberality, and these examples are to be found
among the poor as well as among the rich, only we need to
have them increased a hundred and a thousandfold. It will
be increased when people see the beauty and the power of the
twofold golden cord the love of God and the love of man.
All things may come to an end, but this commandment, we
shall see, is exceeding broad.
3 04 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
X. 1
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH.
i.
" Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee . . . / will
not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to
thee of." GEN. xxvm. 15.
THE object of a Quiet Day is to be with God. It is
one way in which we may try to fulfil the Divine
command, " Be still then, and know that I am God ". We
all know too well how pressed our lives are how our read
ing is absorbed by sermons, and our prayers by intercessions
for others. We have very little time to realize the pres
ence, and guidance, and love of God for ourselves.
When Eugenius, Bishop of Rome, pressed his old friend,
St. Bernard, to write something to help him in his own
spiritual life, St. Bernard, as you know, wrote his little
book, " De Consideratione ". He was afraid lest his old
companion should be so busy with the work of his great
position that he would not get time to think, so he said to
him, "Vacare considerationi," and surely our only safe
guard and ground of confidence, and hope of perseverance,
is in the reality of the presence, and guiding hand, of God.
This was the promise to the father of the faithful, " Fear
not, Abram : I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great re
ward ". This was the ground for confidence given to Gideon
1 Given on the Devotional Day to Members of the Lambeth
Conference, 30 June, 1897.
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 305
when, feeling his own littleness and natural unfitness to be
a deliverer of his brethren, he cried out, as we are often
tempted to cry, " Oh, my Lord, wherewith shall I save
Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I
am the least in my father's house." And the Lord said
unto him, " Surely I will be with thee" and so in my text
the Lord said to Jacob, " Behold, I am with thee, and will
keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring
thee again into this land : for I will not leave thee until
I have done that which I have spoken to thee of ".
Jacob's life had not begun quite as he must have wished ;
but God in His love came to him and spoke words to him
which must have assured him of his acceptance, and that
the memory of the past was not to take the heart out of his
future ; for though the moral law must be fulfilled, and
Jacob would suffer, yet God had prepared a work for him
to do ; the secret yearnings of his heart for higher things
were God's voice. God had called him, and He would not
leave him till He had done all that He had spoken to him of.
God has a purpose for our lives ; we are not compelled
to follow it we are free but if we really try to do His
Will He will show us what He would have us do, and He
will not leave us.
Our object then to-day is to be with God to ask Him
to take away any barrier that may have grown up between
our souls and Him.
To ask Him to set us right wherein we are wrong, to
help us to love what He loves, and to will what He wills,
and to repent of all that we have done against His will,
and in disregard of His love.
To ask Him to refresh us with a renewed consciousness
of His presence and of His love.
We are to try to lay down the burden of our work for
a few hours ; to lift up our hearts afresh to Him and say,
Lord, what is it that Thou wouldest have me to do?
20
3 o6 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
" Show Thou me the way that I should walk in, for I lift
up my soul unto Thee."
And now, in the Holy Communion, let us thank Him
for this assurance of His continued favour and goodness
towards us, and humbly beseech Him so to assist us with
His grace that we may do all such good works as He has
prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
II.
MOST REVEREND AND RIGHT REVEREND BRETHREN,
I. Apology. I need hardly take up your time with
words of apologetic regret for the unexpected circumstances
which have caused me to be placed in the position in which
I am to-day. You yourselves will recall occasions in your
own experience when trustful obedience, whatever might
be the result, was your only course. I will, therefore,
only ask you for your sympathy and your prayers. One
special difficulty besets me on this great and very rare
occasion, and that is that very much of the little that I
know was learnt from books which you yourselves have
written, or is the result of turns of mind which you your
selves have given me by your conversation, so that the
only source of knowledge from which I can hope to draw
anything that I do not know that you have already known
is the source of my own experience. This is indeed very
simple and humble compared with your own, but to me,
at least, it is real ; and, if one speaks at all, one must speak
with a sense of message. Forgive me, then, if I should
speak with too much earnestness, or seeming presumption,
about things which are to you simple and obvious ; to me,
at least, they have been, and are, real.
II. Text. St. Mark vi. 30. "And the disciples
gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all
things, both what they had done, and what they had
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 307
taught." Here, then, we may find a guide for the first
employment of our thoughts to-day when we come apart
to be with the Divine Master, who sent us forth. Let us
look back over our lives and see how the account we shall
have to render stands, how it stands when arranged under
the double column as the first Apostles arranged theirs,
when they came back to Jesus and told Him all that they
had done, and all that they had taught. The column of
what we have done may stand pretty well. This is a busy
age, and Bishops, thank God, are expected to work, and
the danger perhaps is being over-busy, doing too much,
and forgetting the other column of what we have taught.
This column of what we have taught, for some of us at
least, will include what we have suffered. How far we
have, for our own sakes, or for the sake of others, borne
the heat and burden of the day, and shared in, and helped,
the mental sufferings of our fellow-men.
With some of us this has been very real, and very
fundamental, it has involved us in the honest consideration
of the very existence of morals. Five and twenty years
ago this was not so easy a question as, thank God, it is
now. Natural science, as it was often too exclusively
called, was the star in the ascendency, promising to lead
us to results which were often most beautiful, most attrac
tive, and full of real benefit to mankind but some were
over-fascinated by the new inquiries, and so accustomed
themselves to the new methods of obtaining truth that
they forgot, and even lost the capacity for using, evidences
which would lead them to the discovery and possession of
truths of another kind. Then men were raised up to help
us, 1 and we regained the conviction of the reality of our
own personality. The " / am /, and I know it," became
a fact full of priceless power and hope. Moral phenomena
became our facts as sure as those of any other science : we
1 1 would refer especially to Professor Green, of Balliol College.
20 *
308 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
learnt not to be ashamed to say we did not know all.
Others were getting to know enough to see that they could
not explain everything. There were found to be mysteries
on both sides, and it was not thought unscientific to admit
it. Our personality we might not be able satisfactorily to
define, but we were sure of its reality ; and inseparable
from it we found reason, and will, and love. We saw a
difference between right and wrong, quite different from
the difference of colours ; a difference which caused an
attraction, or a revulsion to our whole being.
We felt we were free free to do right, and free to do
wrong. We could do either, but we knew we ought to do
right, our feet stood again on the Divine pathway of duty.
We saw the exceeding excellence of moral beauty in others
quite apart from wealth, or rank, or intellect ; we saw it
in the poor, we felt the thrill of it in ourselves. And
from the recovered vantage ground of the Divine pathway,
we were led to look upward, and we received new assurances
to our belief in a personal God not as a mere intellectual
conclusion, but as the outcome of our entire personality
acting as a whole our reason, our affections, our will we
realized afresh the necessity of offering ourselves, our souls,
and bodies, as a complete burnt-offering to God. We
felt that we could not afford, so to say, to let go our hold
on God by any one part of our nature ; God had so dis
tributed the evidences of Himself to our whole being, that
our duty towards God was evidently to believe in Him, to
fear Him, and to love Him with all our heart, all our mind,
all our soul, all our strength.
Thus the study of ethics acquired for us a new reality,
we saw more clearly its relation on the one side to the
despair of materialism, and on the other to the Divine
pathway of duty leading up to the living God.
But there was more. This suffering, through which
we had passed in order that we might regain with a new
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 309
clearness, and sense of responsibility, the conviction of the
reality of heathen ethics, we have learnt to regard now as
the merciful discipline of God to enable us to realize the
new standard, and the new forces which have been given
to us as Christians. Sixty years ago the Christianity of
all members of our Universities was assumed, we were
taught ethics, morals, chiefly from the heathen books, and
it was assumed that we should appreciate and assimilate
what was true, and good ; and reject, or correct, by our
habitual Christianity what was wrong, or imperfect. This
worked well enough, perhaps, for its day, until the trial
came, and men were tempted to exchange their Christianity
for a heathen moral code. Then we were forced to ask our
selves what would be the loss ? What advantage then hath
the Christian ? And the answer was, " much every way ".
True and beautiful as the pre-Christian morality was
teaching us prudence, justice, courage, temperance
pitiably wonderful as the heights were to which their
greatest minds had attained, feeling after God, Who yet
remained an unknown God, we saw the need of adding to
the four cardinal virtues of the older code the three theo
logical virtues of Christianity faith, and hope, and love
not merely adding them as something more of the same
kind, but accepting them as newly manifested means of
placing us in relation to new and richer truths, which
brought new power into the moral forces we already pos
sessed, and made them capable of attaining a higher per
fection ; not destroying the law but fulfilling it. Our
happiness, we saw, was not to be found in the mere exer
cise of our highest faculties, but in being brought into the
presence of the true personal God. We saw that we must
no longer be self-centred, but that we needed to go out
of ourselves ; and we saw how God was revealed in the
face of Jesus Christ, and how through Him, in the power
of the Spirit, we had real access to the Father. We, too,
3io MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
learnt to say again, " Fecisti nos in te Domine et inquietum
est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te ".
We realized that Christian morality meant a new
standard, even the measure of the stature of Christ that
a true Christian should be a Christ-like man. We realized
that Christianity meant not merely the manifestation of a
new example, but the gift of new power, that the Incarna
tion was the moral force by which the Image of God in
man was to be restored. And we saw that this line of
thought could not stop here ; it could not stop in the con
sideration of the individual. With a clearer belief in God,
all history became instinct with a new dignity and value,
as showing the working of the Divine mind in the higher
sphere of His handiwork. This led one of you, my
right reverend brethren, 1 to say that the study of modern
history, i.e. since the Incarnation, when compared with the
study of ancient history, was like the study of the living
body compared with that of the skeleton. " That it is
Christianity that gives to the modern world its living
unity, and at the same time cuts it off from the death of
the past."
Nor could we stop here in the consideration of the
world under the general influences of Christianity. It
was obvious that there is a society called the Church,
claiming to be the covenanted sphere of the Divine love ;
not the exclusive sphere, not hindering God from working
elsewhere, but having the promise that we shall find Him
there " The place that He had chosen to put His Name
there ".
This led to a great increase of interest in the study of
Church history. The threat of our disestablishment helped
it, but the observable point is not so much the increase in
the knowledge of the facts of Church history as the higher
point of view with which it is regarded. The Acts of the
1 " Lectures on Modern History," by W. Stubbs, D.D.
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 311
Apostles, as the starting-point, has been called " the Gospel
of the Holy Ghost," and it has been so called from the
desire to trace the operation of the Holy Spirit in the
Church, and to see its growth as the Body of Christ, de
riving its life from Him, the living, ever-present, ruling,
guiding Head. This has been coming into view, thank
God, with increasing reality. This has given a new interest,
a new reverence, and a new value to the study of the his
tory of the Church.
" The Apostles gathered themselves together unto
Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done,
and what they had taught." If we to-day could make use
of these words for the guidance of our thoughts, we might
each ask ourselves what has been the effect of the events
of the last fifty years on my own teaching ? How far,
since I was made a Bishop, has the pressure of the secular
part of my work, the ceaseless letters, the routine of busi
ness, and much that is exhausting, and yet that has little
in it that is spiritual or even of an elevating, intellectual,
or moral character, taken my mind away from these higher
things ? Moses, we read, was angry with Eleazar and
Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, because they had burnt the
sin-offering and not eaten it, " seeing it was given to them
to bear the iniquity of the congregation ". How far,
since we were made Bishops, have we taken our due share
in the intellectual and spiritual troubles of our people, and
made them our own, eaten their sin-offering and not burnt
it ? It is true that when Aaron offered as his apology
the sad circumstances in which he was placed, his apology
was accepted ; " when Moses heard that, he was content ".
And we, too, may humbly hope, that He who knows
all things will look mercifully on the confusion and low-
ness of our present lives. Yet shall we not do well to
remember the double column of the Apostles' report, and
pause to consider how far we are doing our best to prepare
3 i2 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
an account of what we have done and what we have
taught ?
III.
"Search the scriptures (or, ye search the scriptures); for in
them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are they
which testify of Me. And ye will not come to Me, that ye
might have life''' ST. JOHN v. 39.
I cannot speak to you, my most reverend and right
reverend brethren, of the higher criticism ; it is for you
to speak to me of that, but I wish to venture to call your
attention to this text, in which the Saviour finds fault
with those who apparently did spend a good deal of time
over the Scriptures, with a certain amount of belief, and
yet stopped short of what the Saviour wanted them to learn.
They were inclined to rest in the letter of the Old Testa
ment instead of interpreting it by the help of the Living
Word ; they were inclined to repose where they should have
been moved to expectation ; they set up a theory of holy
Scripture which was really opposed to the Divine purpose
of it : " Ye search the scriptures, and ye will not come to
Me, that ye might have life ".
It was Charles Marriott who used to say, though as
you know he was a true scholar, and quite willing that
scholarship and honest criticism should have full freedom
to do its own work he used to say : " The utmost that
criticism can do is to prepare a correct text for the reading
of the Spiritual Eye ".
My learned and saintly predecessor, Bishop Christopher
Wordsworth, wrote, as you know, a Commentary on the
whole Bible. It is obvious that any person undertaking
such a task as that could not be expected to do full justice
to each single word ; but I would venture to submit that
if anyone would read consecutively the Prolegomena to
the different books of the Bible in Bishop Wordsworth's
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 313
Commentary, he would get a most valuable insight into
the spiritual connexion and articulation and scope of the
whole revelation of God's Will, so as to feel that he was
following the Saviour's own method of teaching the old
Scriptures, when beginning from Moses, and from the
prophets, He interpreted to His disciples in all the Scrip
tures the things concerning Himself. Christ is really the
key to the Old Testament ; there are things written in the
Law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms
concerning Him the Law is our schoolmaster to bring us
unto Christ.
Going back for a moment to the rudimentary con
siderations which I ventured to mention this morning, I
have seemed to find a real and helpful sequence of thought
in these seven words : " Duty," " Conscience," " God,"
"Scripture," "Christ," "Church," "Holy Spirit" ; and I
have found it useful to myself to exercise myself on these
words, and I have suggested them to others, cautioning
them to beware of thinking that they can do their duty
without recognizing the claims of conscience, and to be
ware of thinking that they will be able to keep their con
science as it ought to be unless they acknowledge God,
and to beware lest they lose their hold on God, without
the aid of His own revelation, the Bible, to beware of
thinking that they believe the Bible unless they believe in
Christ, to beware of thinking that they can partake of
Christ with all the fullness that may be theirs, except in
the way that He has appointed, through His Church, and
finally, to beware of thinking that they can do all these
things in their natural strength without accepting the gift
of the Spirit.
And so again, I have found it useful, in some cases, to
suggest the consideration of these words in the inverse
order. To caution some persons against thinking that
they are living in the Spirit unless they are willing to be
314 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
guided by the Church. To caution some to beware of
trusting to their zeal for the Church unless they really
look to Christ, to the example of His life, the reality of
forgiveness through the atoning power of His death, and
the power of His resurrection ; to beware of thinking that
they will be able to keep their hold on Christ unless they
search the Scriptures with the view of coming nearer to
Him, of growing in grace and in the knowledge of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; to beware of trusting to
a mere knowledge of the Scriptures unless they set God
always before them, obeying their conscience as His voice,
and showing their obedience by doing their daily duty,
however humble it may be. Some simple considerations
of this kind, such as any poor person might understand,
might be found to preserve a living relation to the truth,
and to give unity and power to the life. 1
The danger against which the Saviour warns us in the
text is the danger of not coming to Him as the source of
1 Some such mental exercise on the principal parts of our faith might,
I think, be useful not only to deepen our knowledge of the several parts,
and to enable us to see their relation as a whole, but also to accustom our
selves to the limits of our knowledge in such matters. Some years ago,
when I was thrown a good deal with young men, I often found them
frightened at themselves, fearing that they were falling away into unbe
lief. The truth often was that they had never accustomed themselves to
think on what they believed. In those days nearly every fundamental
truth was being examined, and discussed Morality Personality Revela
tion the very Being of God.
Complete, and intellectually satisfactory, knowledge on any of these
great subjects was not to be attained. That kind of satisfaction, as Bishop
Butler had warned us, not being intended for man, mere consideration
upon such infinite lines of thought necessarily strained men's minds to the
uttermost ; and the pain and anxiety connected with such efforts some
young men, not unnaturally, mistook for doubt. "They were, in fact,
afraid where no fear was." Their faith was sound, but they needed to
accustom themselves to the relation of their faith and their reason. Hence
the habit of some sort of consideration of the chief parts of our faith (as
different minds may need) may be useful.
ADDRESSES A T LAMBETH 3 1 5
our new life. We may stop short even in a wrong study
of the Scriptures as well as in other ways.
It is obvious, for example, that we may stop short in
the wrong use of ritual. I know no better guide in this
matter than the advice given by Bishop Butler in his Charge
to the clergy of Durham in 1751 : "Nor does the want
of religion in the generality of the common people appear
owing to a speculative disbelief or denial of it, but chiefly
to thoughtlessness and the common temptations of life.
Your chief business is to beget a practical sense of it upon
their hearts. . . . And this to be done by keeping up, as
we are able, the form and face of religion with decency and
reverence, and in such a degree as to bring the thoughts of
religion often to their minds ; and then endeavouring to
make this form more and more subservient to promote the
reality and power of it. The form of religion may indeed
be where there is little of the thing itself, but the thing
itself cannot be preserved amongst mankind without the
form" (p. 314).
Unless we bear this in mind, unless we make the ex
ternals of religion more and more subservient to promote
the reality and power of it, we may be like the Jews who
searched the Scriptures but would not come to Christ that
they might have life ; the mere external enjoyment of
ritual is in truth only a modern form of Epicureanism, in
fact materialism, and has no attraction for the really spiritu
ally minded among our people, and no true power of
spiritual edification ; but this is, I think, thoroughly ad
mitted by religious people, though it is not always under
stood by the young.
We have regained, I thankfully believe, a real position
in morals. Real progress has been made in whole classes of
our people. Our railway men are an instance of this ; they
are an object lesson of a real rise in a large section of the
people, being, as a body, sober, intelligent, and honest, and
3 i6 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
courteous ; and further, both amongst them and others,
in all classes of society, there has been a great increase of
care in personal religion ; there are, I thank God, not a
few in all classes, amongst the highest, and amongst our
artisans and agricultural poor, who are living what we might
call saintly lives.
But real and great as this moral progress has been, and
with individuals far more than moral, it is just here that,
with all humility, but with the most sincere earnestness, I
am anxious to ask you to consider the application of my
text. It is possible for us to be earnestly and successfully
engaged in searching the volume of God's Works, which do
testify of Him, to be so interested in the recovery of natural
religion, in the mysteries of conscience, and in the power
and value of a moral life, that we may stop short, and
be thinking of repose when we ought to be in a state of
increased expectation.
The new forces in society, the newly extended political
power among those who constitute the middle and lower
classes of modern society, and the increased power of
pleasure in all classes, are so strong that there is a danger of
their determining a condition of life, which is indifferent to
the claims of Christianity, or which it is at least difficult to
reconcile with the natural meaning of the Gospel and other
portions of Divine revelation. Modern society may still
preserve the form and phraseology of Christianity, but lose,
if not deny, the power of it.
Now what I am anxious to say is, that in the face of
these new forces, and in order that we may direct them
aright, some of us at least need to make our way of reading
the Bible more real.
These new social forces have been gaining great strength
in late years ; my fear is that some of us have not grown
proportionately in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. Some of us have been so occupied in securing
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 317
the reality of morals that, I fear, we do not give to Christ
the place which as Christians we should ascribe to Him.
Those who were engaged in the great work of the
Oxford movement, and who spent their labour chiefly on
the Scriptures and the early Fathers, seem to me to have
done this better than some of us do now. Fifty-four years
ago Charles Marriott wrote : " Whoever has entered in by
Him (i.e. by Jesus Christ as the door), is in a position
whence he may discern the true life and meaning of all that
is in the world, of all that really concerns man here.
What is the aim of political science, but that which has
begun to be realized in His kingdom ? What is the aim
of moral philosophy, but the saintly character, the transcript
of His ? What is liberty, but choosing the Father's Will ?
What is Christian education, but fulfilling the mystery of
His Birth, and our new birth in Him ? What is reason,
but a par taking of the Light that lighteneth every man that
cometh into the world ? What is poetry, but the burning
of the heart when He is near ? What is art, but the striv
ing to recollect His lineaments ? What is history, but the
traces of His iron rod or His Shepherd's staff. This sacred
bearing of all science and literature is not a mere abstrac
tion but a living truth. The one reason why we are apt
to find history or literature dull and uninteresting, is that
it has been commonly viewed in a false light. The king
dom of Christ, the striving of His saints with the world,
the cravings of humanity for His truth, the shadowy forms
of error or imperfect truth that have been caught at in its
place, these are things that historians and critics too com
monly forget to bring out, and students to look for ; but
they are what afford real and vital nourishment to the mind." ]
This was written fifty-four years ago. Have we dur
ing that time grown in the knowledge of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ anything like in proportion to the
1 Sermon by Rev. C. Marriott. Oxford : Parker, 1843.
3 i8 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
growth of our knowledge of the things of the world ? If
not, is there not a danger lest we should fail to see their
true relation, and guide aright their increasing power?
Here, then, is my simple message, that in the midst of the
growing forces round about us we should look again into
the words of the revealed will, and so read and weigh them
that by the aid of the Holy Spirit we may learn more of
the things that have been given us of God, and see better
how to guide ourselves, and others. May I suggest the
sort of passages which I fear some of us pass over as if they
could have but little real meaning ?
Rom. v. 10 : " For if, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life ". Do we
realize this ?
And again : " And not only so, but we also joy in God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now
received the atonement ". Then why is our countenance
so often fallen ?
Or again, Rom. vm. 2 : " The law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin
and death ". Is the law of the spirit of life the law of my
life ? We know that " to be spiritually minded is life and
peace ".
Or yet again, 2 Cor. vn. I : " Having therefore these
promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defile
ment of flesh and spirit ". What is defilement of spirit ?
" Perfecting holiness in the fear of God " is this my
standard ? Do I remember the words of the Master, " Be
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect " ?
Or the words of the Apostle, Col. i. 28 : " That we
may present every man perfect in Christ". Whatever
meaning we may give to reXeioj/, is this the standard we
unreservedly aim at for ourselves and for our people ?
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 319
And once more, Col. in. 10 : " The new man which
is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him
that created him". Do I hope that something correspond
ing to this is going on in me ? If so, do I find that my
love is purer, less partial, less prejudiced, so as to be
rightly independent of race or class, and that Christ is all
and in all?
By these, and other texts of Scripture, we might examine
ourselves to see if we may hope that we are not giving way
to a form of Christianity which is the outcome of the new
forces in the world, nor are being tempted to repose on a
morality that may free us from the inconveniences of sin, and
satisfy society, but that we search the Scriptures with the
earnest desire to surrender ourselves, and to come to Christ,
knowing that " where He is, there is safety and plenty " ;
for as Charles Marriott said, fifty-four years ago, " Medita
tion on Him, prayer to Him, learning of Him, conformity
to Him, partaking of Him, are the chief business of the
Christian life ". Oh ! if we had only made it so, how much
happier, how much stronger, we might have been ; how
much stronger to help others, and to make them happy !
IV.
" Thy gentleness hath made me great" Ps. xvm. 35.
" / Paul beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ"
2 COR. x. i.
I have ventured to speak of the danger of stopping
short of that true union with God in Christ, which as
Christians should be ours. I have suggested that such a
warning may be needed now, when new forces are develop
ing around us, and producing ways of life, and a conven
tional Christianity which in some ways it is difficult to
reconcile with the natural interpretation of the Gospel and
other parts of Revelation.
320 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
" Ye search the Scriptures, . . . and ye will not come
to Me that ye might have life." The remedy suggested
for this danger was a more real way of reading our Bibles,
a prayerful and patient waiting for the unfolding of the
meaning of the deeper texts, and this in order that we may
first keep before ourselves, and our people, the true
standard of personal Christian Ethics. Our aim is nothing
less than perfection : we are to be perfect as our Father in
heaven is perfect. Our aim is the restoration of the image
of God in which we were originally created.
Christ has come to show us what that image was. " He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."
Our aim, then, is to be Christ-like Christians. This
endeavour to set the life of Christ before ourselves as a
practical guide of life, as a pattern for the formation of our
own character, was first definitely brought home to me by the
example of Charles Marriott. When Constantine Prichard
wrote his little "Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans"
he dedicated it to the memory of Charles Marriott. Mr.
Prichard was, as some will remember, a Fellow of Balliol,
and therefore a scholar, and accustomed to the accurate use
of words, and yet his dedication ran thus : " To the memory
of Charles Marriott, whose noble life was a living com
mentary on the Four Gospels ". A Christ-like clergy would
make it so much easier for the people to believe that we
are what we are, and would help them reverently to use,
and esteem, the Apostolic ministry which has been pre
served for us in the Church of England.
We need to keep before ourselves this standard of
personal Christian Ethics, and to consider the reality of the
new forces which have been given to us through the Spirit,
by which the new standard may be attained " For we are
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works "
(Eph. n. 10). This concerns us as individual Christians.
But then, next, we need to search the Scriptures to see what
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 321
are the real grounds on which our hopes for unity rest,
what are the forces which are making for unity, and what
must be the conditions of our relation to these unifying
powers.
Even the heathen moralists could see that the individual
man could not realize his full perfection unless he entered
into, and rightly used, his social relations. They saw that
ethics should be regarded as the vestibule to politics, and
we Christians know that we should train ourselves and our
children, not merely as separate units, but to be " citizens
of the great communities of the civilized world and the
Church," and we know that these great communities, if
rightly used, are of the utmost importance for perfecting
the individual life.
And yet here again, I would venture to submit, some
of us need to read our Bibles with increasing reality. The
Church is not merely a human society, and therefore mor
ally helpful to the individual life ; but, as Christians, we
need to consider what being in Christ means. To be in
Christ, Charles Marriott taught us, " does not merely mean
being placed in a system which Christ established, or which
depends on Him, or which is formed on the basis of His
acts and doctrine ; but rather a baptized Christian implies
a real union with a living body, the life of which is in Him
a real introduction into the midst of heavenly powers
by virtue of union with Him, a real state in which we are
related to Him as branches to a vine, although that rela
tion may be forfeited by our unfruitfulness ".
This will suggest at once many texts which need care
ful consideration, and the aid of the Holy Spirit " Who
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God ". For,
as St. Chrysostom says, " There is need of spiritual wisdom
that we may perceive things spiritual ".
First, then, there is the great passage in that Holy of
Holies of Holy Scripture, the iyth chapter of St. John ;
21
322 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
" That they may be one, even as we are one ; I in them,
and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one ".
Here we have the great assurance that the desire of
our hearts is real. Unity is the true goal to which we are
pressing, and it shall be; Koivwvia is the natural end of
<i\ia, but it has been well pointed out here that if we take
our Lord's words as a pledge of what one day shall be, we
must be careful to follow our Lord's example. He speaks
of unity, but He speaks of it in prayer. He prays for it :
" Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that
believe on Me through their word ; that they may all be
one ". He prays for it, but He does not tell us how it
shall be brought about, or when.
This is our first duty to retain the idea in prayer.
Then there are other texts based on figures taken from
earthly things, and therefore necessarily inadequate, but
still real and true.
There is the figure of the temple implying a real
Divine presence in us, a real union with God.
i Cor. vi. 19 : "Know ye not that your body is a
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have
from God ? " This figure of the temple is presented to us
in another passage with the thought of progress. We,
though temples, are regarded as living stones: "Jesus
Christ being the chief corner stone in whom each several
building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple
in the Lord ; in whom ye also are builded together for a
habitation of God in the Spirit ". This thought of progress
in growth towards a greater unity is more plainly set before
us in the figure of the vine. There we have the idea of
union sustained through organic life. " I am the Vine,
ye are the branches." " He that abideth in Me, and I in
him, the same beareth much fruit." " Abide in Me and I
in you." This figure illustrates the text, " Because I live
ye shall live also ".
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 323
It suggests the idea of an assured provision of life ; it
is like the vision of the golden candlestick in the Prophet
Zechariah, where the several lamps are seen to be connected
with the golden bowl, and the bowl with the living olive
trees on either side of the golden candlestick ; it is indeed
far more than the vision of the golden pipes.
But the figure of the body carries us still further, and
suggests a sensible organic union, and illustrates the text,
" In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and
ye in Me, and I in you ". Nothing could be more defin
itely expressed than the oneness of the body, and the
reality of the several members, in spite of any difference
of race or class : " For by one spirit are we all baptized
into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we
be bond or free ; and have been all made to drink into one
spirit ". And again : " Ye are the Body of Christ and
members in particular ".
And as we are thus taught the reality of the organic
unity of the body, so are we taught the reality of our
relation to Christ as the Divine, ruling, guiding Head.
It was the belief in the greatness of the power of Christ to
us-ward, as Head of the Church, which formed the special
subject of one of the Apostle's prayers for the Christian
disciples at Ephesus.
The Epistle is written to the Saints which are at
Ephesus, and to the Faithful in Christ Jesus ; and yet the
great Apostle says that he ceased not to make mention of
them in his prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of Glory, would give unto them a spirit
of wisdom and revelation that the eyes of their heart
might be enlightened, that they might know what is " the
exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe,
according to the working of the strength of His might
which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from
the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the
21 *
324 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and
might, and dominion, and every name that is named not
only in this world but also in that which is to come ; and
hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be
Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body,
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all ".
Just as the Apostle prayed for himself, in the Epistle
to the Philippians, several years after he had vindicated the
fact of the Saviour's Resurrection to the Corinthians, that
he might know the "power of it ; so for the Ephesian con
verts he prays that a spirit of wisdom and revelation might
be given to them to open the eyes of their hearts that they
might see the power of Christ as Head of the Church.
And there is yet a further application of this figure
of the body which, if possible, would suggest a still closer
oneness with Christ.
The Church is spoken of as the Bride of Christ.
" The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the
Head of the Church." He speaks of this mystery as a
well-known truth ; he does not argue, as we might now
be inclined to do, from the analogy of the relation of the
husband towards the wife, but the Apostle puts it the
other way ; he takes it for granted that the Ephesian
Christians knew that " Christ loved the Church and gave
Himself for it ". Therefore he argues they ought to love
their own wives, as Christ loved the Church.
This is indeed a great mystery, but it is not the less
true.
These considerations are, in truth, most practical.
The idea of the body should suggest holiness in ourselves ;
it should keep us free from envy or jealousy towards others.
If one member is honoured, all are honoured with it ; it
should lead us not to be suspicious of, but to welcome,
diversity of gifts ; it should teach us not to require the
outward expression of Christianity to be exactly the same,
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 325
but to allow a liberty for difference of race and class.
India, and Japan, and China may well have their own con
tributions to offer for the perfecting of the Body of Christ.
And this thought of the love of Christ towards the
Church as His Bride should fill us with new hope. The
thought that Christ will Himself sanctify the Church in
order that He may present it to Himself a glorious Church
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, should give
us a wider and a fuller hope ; for it leads us to think of
the Church not only as the Divinely appointed means for
accomplishing our individual salvation, but rather that our
individual perfection is required for perfecting the Bride of
Christ ; " to the intent that now unto the principalities and
the powers in the heavenly places might be known through
the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the
eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord ". The Holy Spirit is not only, so to say, engaged
in working out our individual perfection, but He knows
the whole mind and plan of God, and He sees the part
of the Body which we are wanted to supply, and He is
preparing us for that. He knows the whole plan of
the House of God, which is the Church of the living
God, and He has come down to the quarries of this
earth to prepare the living stones for it we are " God's
building ".
And now may I conclude by referring to the words of
my text, " Thy gentleness hath made me great " ?
The well-known texts of Scripture which I have been
quoting to-day tell us something of the high privileges to
which we have been brought. " God, being rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we
were dead through our trespasses, quickened us together
with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us
up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly
places, in Christ Jesus : that in the ages to come He might
326 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus."
When we think of these high privileges, and of what
we have been, and are, as a nation, as a Church, as indi
viduals, we can only say it is of the Lord's mercy that we
are not consumed. He has indeed been a Father to us.
He has waited for us. His patience and gentleness have
spared us that we might see how great the position is to
which He has called us. We have lately been rejoicing at
the goodness of God towards us as a nation. We have
witnessed the proofs of the world-wide influence of the
British Empire, and the lesson which I think most thought
ful people desired to lay to heart on that day was the
triumph of moral power the exhibition of the moral forces
by which the Empire has grown up and is maintained,
" Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith
the Lord of Hosts ". It was the recognition of English
justice in India, and liberty in her Colonies, and goodwill
to all ; the influence of a woman's character on her people ;
the good feeling between the police and the people ; it was
the exhibition of these moral forces which gave us the
greatest ground for thankfulness, and confidence, and
hope. It is indeed a great responsibility to belong to
such an Empire, but to-day we have to think of a still
greater responsibility, of a more widely extending and a
higher influence. The Anglican Communion is not con
fined to the limits of the British Empire. Not long ago
we were reminded by one who was competent to speak
how the " centre of gravity of the world's influence has
changed from the Mediterranean nations to the Oceanic,
from the Latin to the Teuton, from the Catholic to the
Protestant 'V This suggests the greatness of the position
in which we find ourselves to-day, and it may be well for
us to remind ourselves of the words, " Not by might, nor
1 " The Study of History," by Lord Acton, p. 24.
ADDRESSES AT LAMBETH 327
by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ".
If the great lesson of the display of England's greatness
was the excellence of moral power, it is for us to witness
to the truth that the source of moral power is the Spirit
" by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ".
Organization does not produce life, though life may
produce organization but the secret of the power is the
life. The people have seen, and appreciated, the beauty
and the value of moral power ; it is for us, as the stewards
of the mysteries of God, to save them from disappointment
by showing them the greater beauty and the higher value
of the Spirit.
It is this that I have been wanting to say. There are,
thank God, many members of the great Anglican Com
munion now who are looking to us to guide them and to
lead them in the spiritual life. This is being made clear to
us by the lives which we can see in all classes of society,
among the poorest as well as among the richest and how is
this to be done ? " Not by might, nor by power, but My
Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts ; " not by giving way to the
temptation to introduce human authority in the sphere of
things that are Divine ; not by putting obedience in the
place of truth ; not by trying to make the truth stronger,
or more attractive, by additions of man's devising ; but by
handing on to the people in its purity, and therefore in its
strength, the faith once delivered to the saints, as it has
come down to us in the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Church, and as it may be proved, " by the most certain
warrant of Holy Scripture ".
It is for this guidance in their spiritual life that I
believe many in the great Anglican Communion are looking
to us to-day. God grant that we may not disappoint them.
Only, if God has waited for us, and led us to see the great
ness of our position to-day by His gentleness, let us
remember to be patient and gentle towards others.
328 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
XL 1
A GOOD LAYMAN.
" Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my
God." i CHRON. xxix. 2.
'HPHESE words are recorded for us as spoken amongst
the closing words of a very great life : they sum up
the thoughts of the speaker, and give us the ground of his
satisfaction on looking back over the days that he had
lived. They are not the words of a High Priest, as might
have been supposed, nor of any member of the priestly
family, but they are the words of a layman who had
lived a busy life, who had been occupied in the affairs of
the world, but who in looking back over his life found his
chief satisfaction in the fact that, amid all the various cir
cumstances of his life, and amid all the great events in which
he had been engaged, he could honestly say that he had
kept as an inner purpose and intention of his heart the
preparation for the house of his God. It is this that makes
the example of the speaker of the words of my text so
valuable for us to-night ; they are the words at once of a
man who lived a busy layman's life, and they are the
words of a man who was, we know, " a man after God's
own heart ".
The words of my text are
" I have prepared with all my might for the house of
my God."
1 Preached in Nettleham Parish Church on Sunday, 16 May, 1897,
in Grateful Memory of Sinclair Frankland Hood.
A GOOD LA YMAN 329
Now I want you to consider for a few moments what
a help you have had in this parish by the Christ-like char
acter of one who has been living amongst you as one of
yourselves, as a layman entering into all the different em
ployments and amusements of life, but who ever kept an
inner desire to promote God's glory here on earth, to draw
nearer and nearer to God Himself, and to bring other men to
do the same. This was the mark which was really character
istic of him ; it is this which makes his memory so precious
to us now, and which will, please God, make it so fruitful in
the future. You all know what his life was. He entered
simply and naturally as a layman into a layman's life,
but he never made any of his occupations an excuse for
diminishing his attendance upon God. He entered upon
family life with all the freedom and happiness which belong
to an English home, but that home life ever trended towards
the house of God. All the members of that household,
as you know, delighted to help in the services of the house
of God, some playing, some singing, some decorating, all
contributing gladly in whatever way they could. There
were no excuses heard in that household to get away from
the services of the house of God. And as it was in the
home so it was in the parish. He was Chairman of your
first Parochial Council, not standing apart because it was
a new thing, but taking his share in the work, desirous
to promote your good. His whole aim was to draw
nearer to God himself and to get others to do so too.
As Churchwarden he was not content with the mere
honour of the name and dignity of the position, but he
delighted to take his part in the services, by serving at
the altar, by reading the lessons, or carrying the cross or
banner in procession. And not only was this so in the
home and in the parish, but his influence spread out into the
county. He gave himself to county business, and was
a trusted and honoured Magistrate on the county bench.
330 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
He did not keep away from these civil and secular en
gagements, and yet they never secularized his life : he
kept through all his inner purpose of drawing nearer and
nearer to God himself and of getting other people to do
the same. You know how he was a member of our Diocesan
Conference, and how he was listened to there as a man who
had given his mind and his heart to the questions which
concern the Church. He was listened to when speaking
in defence of the rights and liberties of the Church of
England, because people felt that his life was in corre
spondence with his words ; people knew that he was not
merely trying to push the advantages of the Church of
England because it was established by law, but because
from his heart of hearts he believed that Church to be a
Divine society, which Christ Himself had founded, and
into which he desired all should be gathered in the Com
munion of the Saints.
Besides taking his part in our Diocesan Conference,
you know he was chosen, with three others, out of the
whole Diocese to represent the Laity in the House of
Laymen at Westminster. This is the highest gathering
we have of the Laity of the Church of England. There
again it was the same, he spoke with freedom because he
had nothing to hide. And yet again in simpler ways in
the management of his own property, in the anxieties, and
difficulties, and despondencies of those who live upon the
land, while he knew them all, yet he retained his inner
thirst after God, and the desire to lead all others to Him.
These few imperfect words may help us to call to
mind how much we have to be thankful for in the example
of him whom we so much loved, and whose loss we
mourn. And yet while we mourn for ourselves, for him
we may rejoice when we think as Christians of the state
of the departed ; for though we know but in part, yet we
know enough to say that their state in Paradise compared
A GOOD LAYMAN 331
with ours on earth is " far, far better ". Let us look at
it for a moment and recall what we know.
1. First, then, we know they live. Death is not the
end of life but an event In life ; we pass through the
valley of death to the land of promise on the everlasting
hills. This is plainly expressed in the concluding clause
of the Creed in the Baptismal Service, " everlasting life
after death ". And the words of the Saviour are unmis
takable in the parable of the great Judgment, when the
wicked shall be finally separated from the good, and the
good shall go into life everlasting.
2. But there are other words of the Saviour which tell
us not only that we shall live, and not die, but that we
shall enjoy a life of consciousness. The words of the
Saviour on the cross to the penitent thief imply this, " to
day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise ". This not only
implies that the penitent malefactor would be alive after
death, but that in that life in Paradise he should have
power to recognize and know the Saviour. " To-day shalt
thou be with Me " would have no consolation, no honest
meaning, if the state after death were mere existence in
unconscious sleep.
The souls of the departed then live in Paradise with
the power of recognizing the souls of others ; for the Body
of the Saviour was resting in the grave, and the body of
the penitent thief was left on the ground, or thrown away
to be destroyed, yet, in Paradise, that very day their souls
met, and they knew it.
3. Further, we may reasonably believe that the souls
of the departed increase in knowledge. It would seem
to follow of necessity from their condition of conscious
existence, and the power of recognition. In the nearer
Presence of God, among " the innumerable company of
angels," and " the spirits of just men made perfect," it
would seem inevitable, as far as we are able to judge, that
332 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
there should be a wonderful progress in the knowledge of
holy things. There are two passages which seem to con
firm this view. One in the twelfth chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, where the writer, enumerating the
privileges of Christians in this world, states definitely that
they are come to, that is, have communion with " the
spirits of just men made perfect " ; this certainly implies
a consciousness of communion between the spirits in
Paradise and the saints on earth. How this is we are not
fully told. We may well leave it in the words of the
prayer which Mr. Keble used to use : " Grant us such
a measure of communion with them as Thou knowest to
be best for us ". The other passage which seems also to
teach us that there is increase in knowledge, while the
souls are resting and waiting in Paradise, is in the parable
of the rich man and Lazarus. The spirit of Abraham
there speaks to the spirit of the rich man (implying the
power to give and receive knowledge), and says, "they
have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them ".
Now it is obvious that Abraham had died many years
before Moses and the prophets were born ; this knowledge,
therefore, of Moses and the prophets must have been
acquired by Abraham after death, that is in Paradise.
4. One more passage we may notice, the sixth chapter
of the Revelation, verses 10 and n. There it is plain
that the departed have the power of prayer. The souls
under the altar "cried with a loud voice, saying, How
long, O Lord ? " It appears, further, that they retain
a consciousness of their former life on earth, for they say,
" How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? "
It appears, too, from this passage that the souls of the de
parted are capable of receiving knowledge, for "it was
said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season ".
It appears, too, from this passage that they are, while in
A GOOD LA YMAN 333
Paradise, capable of receiving additional comfort and
glory, for it says, "white robes were given to every one
of them ".
The thought of the life of the souls in Paradise may
help to reconcile us to bear the loss which their departure
must in many ways bring upon us. For when we think
even of the little that we know of their perfect and in
creasing happiness we would not wish them back again.
Their life above is, as the Apostle tells us, " far, far
better " than our life here below. Our life in this world
is but as our school days, to prepare us for our real life
above. Parents do not wish to keep their children always at
school ; when their children are ready, then they are glad
to see them go forward and enter upon the fuller life in
the world for which they have been preparing. It would
be folly to wish them back again at school ; so it would be,
if our faith were but stronger, with those who leave this
life for the higher and better life above. When the days
of their preparation are over, and the Master calls them to
"go up higher," it were folly to wish them back again
from a life of safety and peace to a life of uncertainty and
toil. It is true " we know in part " only, as the Apostle
says, what the joys of that blessed life in Paradise must be ;
but we know enough to make us thankful for those " who
depart hence in the Lord ". At present when we read the
book of nature, or even the book of Revelation, we are
but as persons reading in a book with crumpled, or miss
ing, leaves ; there is much which we desire to fill in, " we
only know in part " ; but hereafter, there above, we
shall " know even as we have been known " ; there we
shall see, as it were, all the disordered leaves of our present
knowledge arranged in perfect order, in the one volume of
God's most perfect will, bound with the bond of His
eternal love :
334 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Nel suo profondo vidi che s'interna,
Legato con amore in un volume,
Cio che per 1'universo si squaderna.
Dante, "Paradise," c. xxxin. 85.
At present, it is true, we only see " in part," but if we
look with the eye of faith on the wonders with which God
has surrounded us in this world, and remember that they
are His handiwork, then we shall be able to read the book
of nature in the spirit of Christ's parables, and learn some
thing of the ways of God. Every spring-time shows us a
resurrection after the apparent death of winter the trees
and flowers were " not dead, but sleeping ". It is a constant
miracle of wonder and delight to me to watch through the
early days of spring the still, dark, and dead-like stems of
the trees in our orchards. It seems so unlikely that the
dark, dull stem should ever be the channel for a life of
beauty and of self-production. Inch after inch, as the eye
rises from the ground, there seems no hope of any future
glory, and yet, when the appointed time has come, we see
the miracle of its organic life performed, and blossom after
blossom is unfolded, and then the full fruit is formed. To
all the life-power is conveyed, undisturbed by the separate
perfection of each. Each bud, and blossom, and fruit
receives its due allotment through the living organism ;
there is no forgetfulness and no confusion. Millions, and
millions of millions, at last receive the beauty and the
fruitfulness of which in the days of its early growth there
was no sign or hope. So, if we could see above the myriad
stars, we might behold the souls in Paradise clothed with
a beauty and a glory of which the life on earth could give
us no true conception, but which is theirs, quite naturally,
according to the supernatural laws by which God will
perfect the beauty and the fruitfulness of the branches of
the True Vine.
With these high hopes before us, and in loving memory
A GOOD LAYMAN 335
of him whose bright example will, I trust, enkindle in our
hearts whatever our calling in life may be, the earnest
desire to work for " the house of God, which is the Church
of the living God," I will conclude my imperfect words
with the prayer in which our Church teaches us to com
memorate all her saints : " O Almighty God, Who hast
knit together Thine elect in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical Body of Thy Son Christ our Lord ; Grant
us grace so to follow Thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and
godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys,
which Thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love
Thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"
336 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
XII. 1
CLERICAL STUDY.
EVER since Mr. Moore asked me to read a paper, and
I assented, I have been in a state of terror.
I do not venture to read a paper, but to offer a few
notes, suggestions, or remarks on reading.
Most of us probably would agree that we might have
done better than we have done in the matter of reading.
We have not taken the same pains to develop our intellec
tual faculties as the other faculties we possess. Men know
that :
1. They must pay attention to, and exercise, their
bodily powers to keep them in health and efficiency.
2. Their moral powers need continual and constant
exercise, or in some way or other they may fall.
3. Of their intellectual faculties there is often no very
great consideration and care ; if they do not consider them
selves intellectual men the matter is allowed to drop. To
those to whom this remark applies, perhaps one of these
simple remarks may be of use.
I. One great good to be got from reading is that we
gain a real solid conviction of our own ignorance. Bishop
Stubbs has said that he was sure the delivery of one of his
own statutory lectures would be good for himself, because
it would leave him wiser at the end of it than at the be
ginning ; that is to say, he would have the limits of his
own ignorance more clearly defined. Prof. Mozley, who,
1 A paper read at the Grantham Clerical Reading Society, 1 4
January, 1 897, at the request of the Rev. Canon Dodwell Moore, Vicar
of Honington.
CLERICAL STUDY 337
I venture to think, is one of the real thinkers of our day,
has said in the concluding chapter of his book on the
" Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (ch. xi.): "It
were to be wished that that active penetration and close
and acute attention which mankind have applied to so
many subjects of knowledge, and so successfully, had been
applied in somewhat greater proportion than it has been
to the due apprehension of that very important article of
knowledge, their own ignorance ".
And, as you all know, this conviction of our own
ignorance is one of the most prominent and valuable
features in the system of Bishop Butler.
It is after all only what St. Paul has told us that we
know in part (e/c pepovs 'yap ytvwcr/cojLtev). But it was the
forgetfulness of this which led to the weakness of the great
systems of the schoolmen in the Middle Ages. They
were tempted by the desire for intellectual scientific com
pleteness to add connecting pieces of their own invention,
instead of, as Lord Bacon says, being content to have
breaks and chasms in their system, and to cry out, " O the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways
past finding out ! " It is the forgetfulness of this condition
of partial knowledge which has placed the modern Roman
Church in such a perilous position, allowing herself to be
led on by the popular desire, to have everything defined
and made plain, "howbeit," as Hooker said, "oftentimes
more plain than true".
This seems to me to be most important for us to re
member in the Church of England at the present time,
with the pressure of modern Romanism on the one side,
and the desire for secular scientific knowledge on the other.
We must not be afraid to say, apn y 'LVOKT KM e/c [jLepovs, and
one of the best ways, I think, to be convinced of one's
ignorance is to try to know.
22
338 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
Anyone who looks over the map of Europe will see
that there are a great many countries besides his own ;
anyone who will read a few centuries of history of his own
country will find that there have been a great many people
in the world besides himself; anyone who will study any
branch of physical science will soon see that there is more
beyond ; real knowledge ends in mystery. Pardon me
for dwelling on what seems so obvious ; but it is a real
reason for continuing to read, that we may be able to say
with reality, apn yusaxTKu IK /ae/aovs.
It is a matter not for pride but for thankfulness that
hitherto the clergy of the Church of England have been
better educated than the clergy of any other part of
Christendom, but from different causes it is an obvious
fact that men are now being ordained who have not had
the same opportunities, which most of us had, of knowing
how much there is that they do not know. It is more
than ever, therefore, important that we should all continue
reading, that we may preserve the condition so favourable
to true humility and be ready for the gift of faith. Let
this be a watchword for the Church of England, a/m
yLvaxTKO) e/c /xepous.
II. We see then a reason for continuing to read ; but
then what shall we read ? Of course as clergy we have
made a special promise that we will be " diligent in reading
the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the
knowledge of the same " ; and in the Charge to Priests we
are exhorted to the " daily reading and weighing of the
Scriptures ".
I cannot speak to you about this because I am sure
many of you are much more able to teach me ; at any rate
it ought, if handled at all, to form the subject of a separate
paper, or of several papers.
I will only add that of the many analogies that have
been pointed out between the Word of God and the works
CLERICAL STUDY 339
of God there is one which always seems to me to be most
true and gives me constant satisfaction it is this, that with
the works of God the Laws of Nature are so simple that
a man of ordinary observation can understand them suffi
ciently to get a living ; and yet they are so profound and
full of secret value that the study of them will repay the
acutist intellect and the longest life. So with God's Word,
it is so simple that he who runs may read it, and learn the
truths necessary for salvation, and yet the Book of books
will interest and repay the life-long study of the greatest
scholars and profoundest thinkers.
Dr. Kay (whom many of you will know as one of the
best scholars in Oriental as well as European languages)
told Canon Crowfoot on his death-bed that for a large
portion of his life he had spent eight hours a day in the
study of the Bible, and his only fear was lest he had made
it too much a matter of intellectual enjoyment.
One practical word I should like to add for the en
couragement of the special object of your society. I
believe a thorough and profound knowledge of our Bible
would be one of the best ways of commending the Church
to our religious Nonconformist brethren. A clergy
" mighty in the Scriptures," not only in the letter but in the
spirit, would, I believe, be one of the most powerful instru
ments to effect home re-union.
III. But now let me raise the question again in a
general way, what shall we read ? This is a very common
question, though sometimes it is made as a half-complaining
excuse, I would read, but I don't know what to read, or
where to begin. What can we say in reply ? To answer
this, I would say there must be a liking the will, the
desire, the taste.
As learning commences with young people, they are
required to read. They read under the head of duty, of
authority. When we were young we had to learn our
22 *
340 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
lessons, so we are apt to connect reading simply with
authority or duty. There is indeed a most profound truth
in this ; authority in relation to reason has its right place
with the young, with beginners " oportet discentem cre
dere," he who would learn must trust ; but there is another
line which should always go with this, " oportet edoctum
judicare," the man that is instructed must judge, i.e. judge
for himself by the perception that the truth which he has
been taught is true.
The need of referring learning, not merely to obedience,
but to the taste or judgment of the individual learner, as soon
as possible, has led of late years to the introduction of what
is called the modern side in schools, to suit boys' different
tastes and gifts ; and with this has come about the introduc
tion of new schools in our Universities, the History School,
Physical Science School, Theology School, etc. This all
points to the same truth, the value of referring your line
of study, your reading, to your own tastes and gifts. I
need not remind you of the dangers connected with this
line of thought, especially with regard to the young. I
mean the danger of neglecting a sufficiently general educa
tion, before the specific study begins, to enable the learner
to know sufficient of cognate subjects, for all knowledge is
more or less complex. But I am venturing to speak to
those whose preparatory education is over, and who still
want to know what to read. The suggestion which I offer
to them is consider what you have a taste for, what you
like, what you are interested in ; and then consider to what
scientific idea your taste belongs, under which of the chief
divisions of the sciences your taste is included ; then try
and study that science to which your taste belongs. You
will soon find that your simple taste will unfold itself like
the acorn into the oak, with roots, and stem, and branches,
and leaves, and flower, and fruit. What seems at first but
a little spark will spread itself out into a ray and then a
CLERICAL STUDY 341
glory, in this scientific development of your taste you will
find the true discipline of your intellectual powers, you
will find that you will be led into new and wider fields of
knowledge, and yet there will always be a "zusammenhang,"
a connexion, which will preserve your own personality (or
rather which your own personality will preserve), and you
will have a sense of reality, and not feel like a cut flower,
very beautiful for a moment but soon to wither ; you will
feel that you are rooted and grounded, you will feel the
power and pleasure of life and growth, you will always keep
young in your desire to know more, and in your old age
you will still be fat and well-liking, having been planted
in the house of the Lord, having persevered, i.e. in that
pathway of knowledge on which God placed you, having
exercised the gifts which He gave you.
I might give you an example of what I mean from the
life of Von Moltke, one of the greatest characters, I ven
ture to think, of this century. It was, if I remember
rightly, from the oration delivered at his funeral that I
got my information. The key to his mind, the preacher
said, was an aptitude for topography ; he had an eye for
the lie of the ground ; hills, rivers, woods, whatever was
visible, he seemed to take them all in. This led him to
practise sketching, and sketching accurately ; this to study
ing surveying ; while at Constantinople he made what we
should call an ordnance survey of the country all round
Constantinople for the Sultan ; while at Rome, in atten
dance on one of the German Princes, he surveyed all the
Campagna, and made maps and plans. This led him to
notice any peculiar objects, an old tower or bridge, then
he wanted to know who built it, where the people came
from. This led him to read history and to consider the
relation and connexion of nations. This led him to study
the languages of the different nations, of which he knew
five, including Russian. Hence, when the French and
342 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
German War broke out, Von Moltke knew the lie of the
country, its resources, its history, the character of the
people. And I cannot help reminding you how with all
this accumulation of knowledge he preserved his magni
ficent simplicity and self-effacement, and tenderness of
heart. On the wall of the little chapel, which he built in
his grounds at Kreisau, over against his own coffin and
the coffin of his dear wife, is a beautiful crucifix, and
above it is the text, "Love is the fulfilling of the law".
On the blank leaf at the end of his wife's German copy
of the New Testament, which Von Moltke always kept
on his dressing-table since his wife's death, he wrote his
six favourite texts ; the first and the sixth are the same,
" My strength is made perfect in weakness ! " Such was
the inner tenderness of this outwardly iron man !
What I am trying to say comes perhaps to this in
answer to the question, " What shall I read ? " I would
say, " What do you like ? " " What is your taste ? "
When that is settled then a hundred other questions, how
much to read, how to find time, will solve themselves ;
for where there is a will there is a way.
Where we get wrong is, I think, very often from a
false humility, from a want of proper self-respect, from
not recollecting that responsibility does not so much de
pend on the number of the talents committed to our care
as on the fact that any have been committed. We may
leave the number of them to the wisdom and love of
Him Who gives. We need to remind ourselves that
there is a negative as well as a positive side to the omni-
potency of God. What we have we have by His Will,
and what we have not we have not also by His Will.
We might put the matter perhaps more simply in this
way. The first thing is to settle seriously what our taste
or gift is, then to find out the best books on that subject
and to study them (a fondness for flowers would lead to
CLERICAL STUDY 343
botany ; gardening, to botany and chemistry ; music, to
the study of it scientifically and the best models) ; we injure
ourselves and do not exercise our minds if we only read re
views and small books which tell us ready-made conclusions.
This leads me to make another remark, and that is
the value of making some books our lifelong companions.
"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise." Mr.
Gladstone told us the other day who his four principal
teachers are : St. Augustine, Aristotle, Bishop Butler,
Dante. These, if read carefully, could not fail to have
a great influence on the formation of the mind.
I need not say how, above all, this refers to the Book
of books, that is a matter of course ; but I should like to
remind you of this wonderful privilege which God has
given us through books, that we may have the companion
ship of the great of all ages and countries ; it is wonderful
and invaluable !
This points to the value of reading the same book
more than once, I should say over and over again, be
ginning at different points, and sometimes the whole.
Dean Burgon told me he saw written in Bishop Pearson's
copy of " Hesychius," in the Library at Chester, " Hunc
Librum perlegi," then the date, and the next year,
" Hunc Librum iterum perlegi ".
Genius is no exemption from labour. " Painters,
poets, musicians, sculptors, philosophers, all teach us the
same lesson of attentive reverent observation and per
severing labour." Darwin on "Earth Worms" is a
o
wonderful example of this.
Languages regarded as Keys. Of languages in them
selves I have no right to speak, they belong to the science
of Philology, and imply the gifts of a scholar, which I am
not in any language, including English. And yet I have
found languages very useful to unlock treasures which
have been most pleasurable and helpful to me.
344 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
It is obviously a great loss not to know what other
people in other countries are writing and doing. To
speak a foreign language probably requires residence in a
foreign country, or the companionship of a foreigner, but
I see no reason why any of us should not learn to read
foreign books and reviews and newspapers. The " Revue
Internationale " is a common point for Eastern and Western
theologians ; the " Deutscher Merkur " is the old Catholic
organ and very interesting. I may remind you of Bishop
Pearson's words, speaking of languages as part of the
requirements for a theologian, " Tres in titulo crucis con-
secratae sunt". Bishop Pearson's " Minor Works," Vol.
I, p. 404.
History. There is another great subject on which I
should like to say a word, that is the study of history,
and to direct your attention to two points :
1. The enormously increased facilities for studying
the facts, the extension of the area of historical knowledge,
the many epochs of history and groups of great men, the
rise of the History Schools in our Universities.
2. The deeper view of history as manifesting God's
government and discipline of the world ; Christian history,
and pre-eminently Church history, as showing the power
of the Incarnation.
A knowledge of Church history is most valuable to us
in the Church of England, both in our relation towards
Rome and Dissent. One of the great causes of weakness
with regard to Roman claims has been the neglect to study
the history of the Church in the Middle Ages. For years
our Bishops were content to require of Candidates for
Holy Orders the first five centuries and the Reformation,
i.e. a clean jump of 1000 years, during which time the
papacy grew up, and invented and enforced her claims.
One great reason for the merciful failure of the late Papal
Bull has been the greater diffusion of historical know-
CLERICAL STUDY 345
ledge. People knew too much to be affected by such
statements.
The importance of studying secular history and
specially the history of our own constitution, in reference
to political power which is now passing into the hands of
the people, is obvious ; and with this the study of political
economy as being the scientific study of the social prob
lems of our day.
Poetry. I have little right indeed to speak on this
mysterious power, but I should like to venture two or
three remarks.
I would strongly recommend anyone to read at least
the first six of Mr. Keble's Pr<electiones. His view, as
you may all know, of poetry is that it is the spontaneous,
almost irresistible, outpouring of the heart and mind :
" My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus
musing the fire kindled : and at the last I spake with my
tongue " : we go to the poets as to the fountains and
springs in the hills, to draw thoughts which are fresh and
pure, original and Divine.
Poetry being thus the language of the heart is often
the language of love ; and as love kindles love, poetry
helps to keep the fire burning in our hearts. For this
reason, among others, I think we might do well to study
the poets as a safeguard against the danger of which Bishop
Butler warns us : " We are got into the contrary extreme,
under the notion of a reasonable religion : so very reason
able as to have nothing to do with the heart and affections,
if these words signify anything but the faculty by which
we discuss speculative truth ". Bishop Butler, Sermon
xiii, " Upon the Love of God ".
I hardly like to mention the names of any of the poets.
There is much to be gained from the old classical poets.
For ethical information Shakespeare may be constantly
studied ; and Spenser's " Faerie Queene " presents a noble
346 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
moral ideal in a chivalrous form, well calculated to thrill
young men ; but there is a coarseness belonging to the
age which our ladies need hardly know of.
Schiller I have read with great pleasure, but he generally
leaves me sad, not rising above vaterland and heimath, i.e.
above human things. Martensen says that this was the
reason which made Thorvaldsen design Schiller's statue
with the head bent ; but I should be sorry to say that he
never looked above and beyond.
Wordsworth always seems to bring me into a wonder
fully clear and healthy atmosphere, and to lift me up.
His constant philosophical reflections I enjoy, though some
might think, I suppose, that they make his poetry heavy.
Dante is, of course, the great " companion" for
teaching us to observe the simplest things in nature, and
ethical phenomena, and for the full light of theology, as
he knew it, there is nothing, that I know of, near him.
I am too old to master Browning, but younger people
say he is most wonderful.
I need hardly add that I hope we all read our Keble
every week.
Novels. I have read, I feel sure, far too few. Of
course we should only read good ones, i.e. those that have
a good tone. I believe that novels should have a real place
in our reading, to quicken our imagination and keep alive
our sympathy. A novel enables a person to look into
other conditions of life, and see their dangers and advan
tages without the risk of actual participation.
A few words in conclusion. I have not ventured to
speak on that which is the special subject of our study as
clergymen the Holy Scriptures for reasons which I
have mentioned. I have confined myself to a few remarks
on reading generally ; let me now remind you of the
point of view to which our general reading as clergymen
should be directed.
CLERICAL STUDY 347
"We are to lay aside the study of the world and the
flesh."
Our studies are not to be for worldly gain, or the
selfish enjoyment of the lower pleasures. We are not to
seek knowledge as a means of obtaining money or power,
though other people may lawfully do this. Nor are we
to seek knowledge for vanity's sake, to obtain the reputa
tion for knowing "Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc
sciat alter" (Persius, Sat. i.) ; but our general reading
is to be directed to the better knowledge of the Scriptures,
and the better discharge of our priestly office ; we are to
draw all our studies this way.
Our aim in reading is to know more of God and of
His ways, to know this for ourselves that we may do
better, and to know this so as to help others to know
and do the same. Now it is this which seems to me to
secure the true unification of all knowledge, and to enable
us to keep our promise as priests to draw all our studies
this way.
It is because in all true knowledge we draw near to
God that reading and study have such an alluring and
refreshing pleasure. This indeed was known, in part at
least, to the heathen philosopher, who said man's true
pleasures were to be found in the exercise of his highest
faculty, reason, on the highest objects. This exercise of
the mind in the discovery of the truth has its own alluring
delights, and reward ; but we, with the light of Christian
revelation, can see more clearly what the cause of that
high pleasure is, it is the drawing near of the mind to
God ; the knowing more of His ways that we may know
Him more, and knowing Him more that we may love
Him more ; for so our minds and hearts will be at rest.
This is the conclusion which the Duke of Argyll says, in
" The Reign of Law," is forced upon us : " The more we
know of nature the more certain it appears that a multipli-
348 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
cation of forces does not exist, but that all her forces pass
into each other, and are but modifications of some one
force which is the source and centre of the rest" (p.
296).
It is this perception of the inner working of the Divine
mind and life that gives the interest, the dignity, and the
value to the study of history. It was this which enabled
Prof. Stubbs to say that the study of modern history com
pared with ancient history was like the study of life com
pared with that of death, the view of the living body
compared with that of the skeleton (p. 15). "It is
Christianity," he writes, "that gives to the modern world
its living unity and at the same time cuts it off from the
death of the past. The Church in its spiritual work, the
Church in its intellectual work, the Church in its work
with the sword, or with the plough, or with the axe ; the
soul and spirit of all true civilization, of all true liberty,
of all true knowledge . . . such an influence, so wide in
its extension, so deep in its penetration, so ancient in the
past and in the future eternal, could by itself account for
the unity, the life of modern history ; the life, the soul
of a body which thrills at every touch" (p. 18).
It is this which made Lord Acton in his inaugural
lecture say : " I hope that even this narrow and disedifying
section of history [i.e. modern history] will aid you to
see that the action of Christ, Who is risen, upon mankind,
whom He redeemed, fails not, but increases" (p. 31).
It was this which enabled Lord Acton again to quote
with approval the saying of Leibnitz : " History is the true
demonstration of religion " (p. 100).
It was this that made Bishop Ellicott in his last Charge
express the desire for a more living study of Church
history. We need not merely to study the annals of
Councils and the names and dates of great men, but to
trace the growth of the life of Christ the Church is His
CLERICAL STUDY 349
Body, and He is its living, guiding, ruling, vivifying
Head.
The Acts of the Apostles, which is our first Church
history, he calls "The Gospel of the Holy Ghost".
This consideration of the " One Good " (i.e. God) and
of His action in the creation and redemption, and the per
ception of His living presence all around us, as the true
cause of our love, Dante has beautifully set out in the
account of his own examination by St. John in the 26th
canto of the ' ' Paradise " :
1 . Lo Ben, che fa contenta questa Corte,
Alfa ed Omega e di quanta scrittura
Mi legge amore o lievemente o forte.
2. Ed io : Per filosofici argomenti,
E per autorita che quinci scende,
Cotale amor convien che in me s' imprenti :
Che il bene, in quanto ben, come s' intende,
Cosi accende amore, e tanto maggio,
Quanto piii di bontade in se comprende.
3. Ma di' ancor, se tu senti altre corde
Tirarti verso lui, si che tu suone
Con quanti denti questo amor ti morde.
To this Dante replies by referring to the creation, to
his own existence, to the atonement, and to the hope of
life which that death gave, and then concludes with the
words :
Le frondi, onde s' infronda tutto 1' orto
Dell' Ortolano eterno, am' io cotanto,
Quanto da lui a lor di bene e porto.
I fear I have failed to say anything of practical value ;
what I have been trying to say comes to this the value
of referring our reading to a scientific idea, for these
reasons :
i. It will save us from desultory reading, requiring
real mental effort.
350 MISCELLANEOUS SERMONS
2. It will keep a high standard before us through the
contemplation of the ideal.
3. It will help us to fulfil our promise to draw all our
studies to the great end of kn'owing and doing God's Will,
and of helping others to know and do the same. The
scientific method leading us on to seek the cause and the
relation of phenomena, as distinct from the mere knowledge
of phenomena as such, will draw us towards the .first .great
Cause of all, and so enable us to set God always before us,
and to live and walk in the presence of God, in the very
spirit of our Lord's parables.
ABERDEEN : THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
BX 5133 K55L6 1910 TRIM
King, Edward,
The love and wisdom of God
141405
BX 5133 K55L6 1910 TRIM
King, Edward,
The love and wisdom of God
141405
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