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THE BEQUEST OF
EDWARD KAYE KENDALL,
Clerk in Holy Orders, M. A., D. C. L., formerly Professor in
this University.
i RiNITY UNIVEiV
i
SIX UNIVERSITY
SERMONS
r
SECOND EDITION
SIX SERMONS
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD, IN ST. MARY S
CHURCH,
IN THE YEARS 1837, 1838, 1839,
BY
SAMUEL (NOW) LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD
CHANCELLOR OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER
AND LORD HIGH ALMONER TO THE QUEEN.
" Let us follow after .... things wherewith one may
edify another." ROM. xiv. 19.
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1848
5/33
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE first two Sermons only of this set
have any direct connexion with each
other ; and it is important that they should
be read together : for some expressions of the
first, taken by itself, might seem to favour
that view which the second is specifically
intended to counteract. The Author is deeply
convinced that the combination of these two
views is an especial feature of Christ s Gospel :
that, whilst there is provided in it for every
penitent a full assurance of his free forgive
ness ; and whilst it is his duty as well as his
privilege to realise this truth, and bring it
clearly out, as the spring of his future obe
dience, instead of doubting the assured mercy
of his heavenly Father, there is in it also a
most clear declaration, that indulged sin does
deprave the moral nature ; put a man back
in his course ; and so leave him after repen-
vi ADVERTISEMENT.
tance, not, indeed, a whit the less accepted
of God in Christ, but, with evil done to his
own soul, and ground actually lost, which
repentance does not at once remove or re
gain, though it gives him anew the oppor
tunity of removing the one, and regaining
the other.
On giving these Sermons to the press, at
the request of many by whom they were lis
tened to with great attention, and by whom,
he trusts, they may be read with profit, the
Author desires to express his obligation for
different trains of thought, especially in the
fifth Sermon, to the conversation of a friend,
from an unpublished manuscript of whose
he has quoted a few words in the 154th page.
Many also of the thoughts contained in the
last Sermon, may, he doubts not, be traced
to the "Letters on the Kingdom of Christ,"
O 7
by the Rev. F. Maurice, which he had re
cently been reading when that Sermon was
written.
BRIGHSTONE RECTORY,
June, 1839.
CONTENTS.
SERMON I.
THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF PERMITTED SIN.
2 COR. vi. 1. Page
We then, as workers with Him, beseech you also
that ye receive not the grace of God in vain . 3
SERMON II.
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
LUKE, xv. 31, 32.
Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is
thine. It was meet that we should make merry,
and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and
is alive again ; he was lost, and is found . . 29
SERMON III.
Preached on Trinity Sunday.
THE TEMPER OF MIND IN WHICH TO RECEIVE THE
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES.
EXODUS, iii. 5.
And He said, Draw not nigh thither : put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground 65
viii CONTENTS.
SERMON IV.
THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING THE MORAL SENSE.
ISAIAH, v. 20. Page
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ;
that put darkness for light, and light for dark
ness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter! 99
SERMON V.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
MATT. iv. 1.
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wil
derness to be tempted of the devil .... 137
SERMON VI.
DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD.
1 COR. X. 31.
Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatso
ever ye do, do all to the glory of God ... 169
,
SERMON I.
THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF
PERMITTED SIN.
SERMON I.
" We then as workers together with Him, beseech you
also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain."
2 Cor. vi. 1.
THIS passage of Holy Scripture, with
which the Church meets us on the first
Sunday in Lent, contains an earnest charge
to all those who, of God s grace, have been
made partakers of the heavenly calling, not
to use carelessly their high privilege, or con
tent themselves with rendering a slight and
common measure of obedience. Bringing
before them the cost and hazard at which the
Gospel had been preached amongst them, it
urges them, on their part, to use its disci
pline aright, by " perfecting holiness in the
fear of God." It reminds us, in a word, of
the absolute necessity laid on us of em
ploying earnestly the means of grace now
afforded us for resisting present temptation ;
4 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
and not excusing lightly any sin, whilst we
build rashly on the chance of future amend
ment.
There was, no doubt, an especial fitness
in the address of such a charge to the
Church of the redeemed at Corinth ; lest, in
that learned and luxurious city, the Gospel
of Christ should be received as some new
form of speculative philosophy ; or lest its
gracious promises should be made the fatal
excuse of a loose and sensual life.
And no less appropriate is the caution to
our peculiar character in this favoured place.
To those who, in their signal opportunities
for a religious life, have here " received"
in large measure c< the grace of God/ it had
need to be a matter of anxious watchfulness,
that they " receive" it " not in vain :" lest,
hedged in by the necessary proprieties of a
religious life, and shining in the lustre of
hereditary piety, they forget that they are
hereby called to higher measures of per
sonal holiness, and so perchance, instead,
sink down contentedly into a speculative
orthodoxy of faith, and a self-indulgent de
cency of living.
OF PERMITTED SIN T . 5
Still more needful is it to those for whom
now first the stricter bonds of early disci
pline have been relaxed, and to whose un
ascertained character there seems to be
allowed a license of action which will be
withheld in after-life. They are on every
side invited to partake freely of present plea
sures ; while they are flattered with the
promised opportunity of a future repent
ance. They deem it natural, that the
thoughtlessness, or even the vice of youth,
should be succeeded by a more becoming
maturity; and their general acquaintance
with the Gospel of salvation still further sug
gests to them an undefined hope of pardon
and of grace. You, therefore, above all,
must we " beseech, as workers together with
Him, that ye receive not the grace of God
in vain ;" that you lose not your present-
opportunities of good, and inflict upon your
souls abiding injury. And when the cun
ning tempter takes up the whisper of evil
desire, and bids you " Rejoice, O young
man, in the days of thy youth, and let thy
heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth,
6 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
and walk in the ways of thine heart and in
the sight of thine eyes," we must remind you,
though it seem a stern message, that " for all
these things God will bring you into judg
ment :" that, by the very constitution of our
nature, these things have an enduring effect
upon us ; that they do not pass away, and
leave the character what it was before ; but
that they stamp upon it the abiding features
of guilt and shame. This is a point which de
serves our closest attention. Sin appears to
us in the separation of successive tempta
tions, as a number of unconnected actions,
which may at any moment be checked or in
terrupted : but the truth is, that every sin
has certain inward consequences ; that, not
only our acceptance with the holy God, but
our own moral constitution, is altered, by
the commission of every act of iniquity ; and
that even if the sinner could at once be for
given by God, by an act of sovereign and
partial favour, still he would not be in the
same condition that he was before ; because
there would remain in his very nature the
accursed consequences of past pollution.
OF PERMITTED SIN. 7
This is what shall now be put before you in
detail ; in the earnest hope, that when the
offered cup of the sorceress sparkles before
your eyes, you may turn away with loathing
from the draught whose enchantments must
work upon you so foul a transformation.
A very few words will suffice to establish
this first point that the commission of sin
has naturally a debasing effect upon the
moral constitution ; not even when passed
away leaving the soul in its former con
dition, but, by the very necessity of the
case, degrading and corrupting it. The
slightest observation of ourselves or others
must at once shew us that one sin paves the
way for another ; and that, not only by
growing into a habit, and so providing for
its own recurrence, but also by leading to
the commission of other acts of iniquity.
We see daily, that one sin prepares the
soul which harbours it for the admission
of evils different from itself in kind, and
which have no other connexion with it
than that they are of the same sinful na
ture : that, in the natural course of things,
8 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
the heart which has been polluted by loose
and evil living, soon begins to doubt, and
then goes on to disbelieve all which God
has taught us concerning Him and our
selves ; and so it happens commonly, that
a licentious youth is followed by an unbe
lieving age ; or at the best, that such an
old age is harassed and worn down by
haunting doubts.
So far is perfectly plain. And now notice
further, that it is altogether out of a man s
power to undo this evil, and replace himself
in his former state. This may be seen,
first, in the power with which sinful habits
oppress their victim. How common is it to
see men against what they know to be their
interest, against their strongest resolutions,
against their peace, and health, and charac
ter going on in a course of sin, to which
they are in slavery, even while they hate it.
These strugglings of the soul, in the sure
grasp of a sinful habit, are truly a fearful
sight to witness : to see the agony of
earnestness with which a man will resolve
against his sin in the pauses of temptation.
OF PERMITTED SIN. 9
and yet fall as soon as the hour of his
trial comes : to see him continue in
this bitter course of reluctant but repeated
transgression, bemoaning, perhaps, his mi
sery that ever he began it, until it is
closed, at last, by the hardened impenitence
of despair. Or if for awhile the evil habit
appear to be subdued, how constantly will
it again resume its sway ! The seemingly
extinct volcano has but slept to outward
observation, and its new eruption shews
that the inward tumult has always raged
without abatement. How plain, in these
cases, are the moral consequences of sin, and
the impotence of man to remove them !
And so they are in another case, which
seems, at first sight, to be an exception
to the rule. Outward circumstances will
often alter sinful habits, and the man
seems to be reformed : but a closer ob
servation does not confirm this flattering
promise. The passions of youth, perhaps,
have burnt out, and the more cautious
sins of maturer years have sprung up,
and in some degree conceal the blackened
c
10 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
soil. But no one can watch such persons
carefully, without perceiving, that, except
in its outward expression, the habit of the
mind remains unchanged; that sensuality
still rules, though its robe is more seemly,
and its sceptre gilt afresh. In the judg
ments such men form of others ; in their
secret lingering love of forsaken vice ; in
their bold familiarity with sin ; in a sleepy
conscience and polluted imagination, they
bear about with them a dreadful record of
past transgression. The act of sin is gone ;
but the stain is rather deepened than worn
out.
And earthly teaching knows of no cure
for such disorders ; it has no skill to undo the
effects of vice. You may, as in some hope
less cases of bodily infirmity, substitute a
different form of evil ; you may change the
disease, but man cannot cure it. You may
reclaim the sinner from open vice ; you
cannot renew him to holiness ; you may
exchange his ruling sin ; but you cannot
give him again the tender conscience, the
pure imagination, the unquestioning loyalty
OF PERMITTED SIN. 1 1
of affection, the reality and truth of ready
belief, with which God had furnished his
heart before sin had corrupted it. These
things man cannot restore : he has no foun
tain of perpetual youth for such enfeebled
souls ; human means may strike in the
leprous taint, but it cannot make the " flesh
to come again like unto the flesh of a little
child." With what an awful character does
this view of its effects invest permitted sin !
It throws some light upon the terrible
sentence of eternal death ; because it shows
the unchanging character, and explains,
therefore, the unchanged condition of a
soul which moral evil has thoroughly
defiled.
So much, then, for the natural conse
quence of sin : and now let us view it in
connexion with that general hope of future
restoration, through the working of the
blessed Spirit, by which many encourage
themselves in iniquity, and so, beyond all
others, " receive the grace of God in vain."
And here let it be remembered, that it
is the ordinary mode of the Holy Spirit s
12 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
working upon man, as revealed to us in
Scripture, and seen in life, with which we
have to do. For who shall dare to stake
his salvation upon an unwarranted hope,
that God will, in some unusual way, in
terfere in his behalf? The Holy Spirit,
then, we are taught, acts upon the minds of
the regenerate members of Christ s Church,
in suggesting good and restraining evil, not
by an irresistible constraint, but as on rea
sonable beings in a state of trial and dis
cipline. Even from the first dawning of
the moral powers, it thus acts upon us.
Who has not known, in his earliest years,
this secret voice reproving his childish
transgressions ? who has not known times,
when thoughts and desires better than his
own were stored within his mind ; times
when the affections yearn after what we
think God to be ? when the words of pious
teaching, which even from our infancy the
Church has spoken to us, and which seem
long since to have passed away, wake again
from forge tfulness, and as by a real pre
sence commune with our spirits? times
OF PERMITTED SIN. 13
when a longing for something better and
more real than this world can give, settles
upon our weary souls ; and we perceive that
even the best things in it are but a veil,
which severs us from God ? In these ways
the blessed Spirit acts upon our minds ; and
if in these He be not resisted, His holy work
will at the last, and in His good time, be
perfected within us : for when we are tried,
we answer to our trial ; and then " to him
that hath "shall more be given," and the
grace of God shall dwell in us more abun
dantly. And in our training, too, we answer
to our discipline ; for our own souls become
more pure there is more good wrought
into their nature, and their remaining evil
is continually subdued ; we live more in
the presence of Christ our Master ; we hear
His words ; and we grow almost unawares,
to love and serve Him better. Of old, it
was by a great trial, and, it may be, after a
sharp struggle, that the mind was turned
away from earthly and fixed upon heavenly
things; but now that the habit of acting
every day as in the sight of things unseen,
14 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
is more and more matured, it mounts up,
oftentimes, readily and of itself, towards
heaven.
And so, too, the power of temptations
to evil becomes daily weaker. In the be
ginning of the man s course there was more
sin within his heart ; and this sin was easily
stirred up, and not to be put down without
a struggle ; the conversation or the con
duct of others would suggest thoughts of
sin, and kindle within himself evil tempers
and desires : but now that he has striven
earnestly against these inclinations, and
they, by God s grace, have become more
strange to his soul> there is less within
himself to answer to evil from without ; the
trumpet still sounds before the gates of the
city, but there are within few rebels to give
heed to it : so that not merely are his reso
lutions against sin firmer than of old, nor is
it only that God s Spirit, dwelling more with
in him, arms him with a greater strength
against it ; but that temptations of them
selves diminish ; those things now no longer
harass him which are still a grievous trial
to infirm believers.
OF PERMITTED SIN. 15
But in him who communes with any sin,
the opposite to all of this is in a sure pro
gress ; for when he is tried, by the re
straints of God s grace aiding him against
some temptation, he fails, by giving way to
sin ; and then the Holy Spirit is grieved, and
withdraws His blessed influence. At the
same time moreover, his moral discipline is
changed into a progress in corruption : for
while good desires become less frequent in his
soul as the Holy Spirit leaves him, evil
thoughts spring up in it with greater abun
dance ; outward evil finds a ready correspon
dence in his depraved heart ; and as tempta
tions to sin of themselves decrease with
growing holiness, so do they multiply upon
increasing iniquity. To such an one the
simplest words of innocence become unhal
lowed allusions, tempting him to loose and
evil imaginations. As to a body weakened
by disease, the mere common air, when let
to breathe upon it, becomes a cause of sick
ness and of death ; so to these sick souls is
every ordinary accident of life a new occasion
of temptation, and a cause of sin. Every
16 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
sense becomes an inlet of corruption ; holy
things themselves do but stir up evil. The
words of sacred Scripture, or the teaching of
the Church, now only kindle trains of earth
ly thought or carnal imagination : even
" hillock of sand" can " make" a trembling
foot " to stumble ;" a spark can light up a
flame when all things are ready for the burn
ing. In this polluted mind and conscience
the dreadful threatening is accomplished
" The evil spirit enters into him, and dwells
there" makes the heart its accustomed
abode, so that at all seasons evil thoughts
spring up readily in it, and all desires of
good are quenched and extinguished. After
this, comes doubt ; and at the next stage, a
settled unbelief. When this new form of
temptation first presents itself, it is, perhaps,
regarded with alarm ; but the degrading in
fluence of sin soon destroys that reality which
marks the faith of childhood, and which,
even in maturer years, God s grace can keep
undestroyed. And now there is a secret
under-current of desires, which is helping on
these evil doubts ; for it is the interest of the
OF PERMITTED SIN. 17
wicked, that religion should be false ; and so
they soon fasten upon the mind, and grow
into unbelief. This is indeed, whatever we
may deem of it, an awful state when the
Spirit of the Lord is grieved, and He is gone;
when Satan has been tempted, and he is
come. And who that, counting upon future
aid, thus sins against the gift of baptismal
grace, who that receives in vain the gifts
and restraints of childhood, and youth, and
maturity, has any right to hope that he
shall ever desire again to return from that
iniquity which he has made his choice ; that
he shall ever seek in earnest to have the evil
one cast out, who, in the mightiness of his
accursed strength, he has brought to dwell
within him ; or that sin and its degrading
consequences shall be again dislodged from
his pampered sensual body, or debased and
polluted spirit? And have we not, then,
abundant reason to " beseech you, not to re
ceive the grace of God in vain," to beg you
to resist the tempting baits of sinful indul
gence, lest you now do that which you can
never again undo, lest you pollute a soul,
D
18 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
which, when once utterly corrupted, must
remain corrupt for ever, lest you now
stifle the whispered warnings of the blessed
Spirit, which would have carried on the
work of sanctification till you were meet
for heaven ; but which, once stifled, you
may hear again no more for ever, till they
change into the sentence of condemnation
and the clamours of hell ?
And here let me remind you distinctly,
that this guilt and danger are not confined
to great sinners ; that it is not so much any
positive degree of vicious excess which thus
affects the soul ; but the failing in your
moral probation, the neglecting to employ
aright the blessings God has given you in
his Church, and so turning those opportu
nities of grace into the means of pollution.
It is not, therefore, to daring sinners alone,
though to them above all, that this caution
belongs. The danger attaches to all those
who are not living up to the measure of
God s grace imparted to them ; who are
not employing their present circumstances
to obtain these intended blessings ; to the
OF PERMITTED SIN. 19
ambitious, the indolent, and worldly ; as
well as to the carnal and profane ; to those
who, by fixing them upon the trifles of
innocent pleasure, or the toys of worldly
distinction, are wasting that freshness of
youth and ardour of spirit which were
given them by God that they might search
out truth with a greater earnestness, and
follow His ways with a more zealous love ;
to those who are not using the religious
opportunities of this place ; as well as to
those who are delighting to find in it occa
sions of sin ; to those who are unlearning
the simplicity of childish piety, and making
the daily Church-offices a heavier bondage
and a wearier task ; as well as to those who
are learning to take an evil pleasure in the
orgies of intemperance and the sallies of
profaneness.
But in some, perhaps, this wholesome
fear may be even now relieved (for so, in
the mystery of this world, does one man s
sin become another s temptation) by the ap
parent escape of others from these perilous
consequences of a sinful youth. And yet
20 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
this is, in truth, a desperate calculation.
Were it the many, instead of the few, even
to appearance, who escaped, yet who could
assure us that we should not be found
amongst those few ? And what reasonable
man would venture otherwise on such a
hazard, where the stake is his eternal welfare ?
And even amongst these few and favoured
examples, how shall we discover who do,
after all, escape ? After-decency of life is
no proof of it whatever ; secondary causes
are abundantly sufficient to account for such
an outward change ; and who can look into
another s heart? Fearful, doubtless, too
often were the sight of such a soul, could
it be viewed as it is seen by God seen as
it appears to Him, in the coldness towards
heavenly things which overspreads a heart
whose early tenderness of religious emotion
has died away without producing habits of
active obedience, in its lurking unfaithful
ness under the means of grace, in its
allowed secret communion with evil ima
ginations, in its continually rarer acts of
repentance, and constantly increasing per-
OF PERMITTED SIN. 21
missions of sin, in its hypocrisy, in one
word, ripening into unbelief.
Are there then none recovered from this
state ? are none delivered even from these
depths of Satan? Doubtless, of God s
mercy, there are some ; and great monu
ments they are of the cleansing power of
His Holy Spirit. But even in that de
liverance there is nothing to encourage sin.
You presume upon their escape, in entire
ignorance of the particulars of their moral
discipline. Who can say surely of himself,
that he is indeed like them in guilt, that
he is not sinning against clearer knowledge,
against the sharper reproofs of a more
enlightened conscience, against greater re
straints of the blessed Spirit, that for him
this may not be the last trial, and these the
last sins on this side final impenitence ?
And, to take one case more, if you could
be sure of escaping at the last, yet still
there is nothing to encourage you in sin.
For even where it has pleased God, by the
mighty powers of grace stored up for peni
tents within His Church, to heal in great
22 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
measure this early wound, who can estimate
aright either the pain of the process, or the
incompleteness of the recovery ? It is not
by less than a furnace-heat that such dross
is purged away, and the redeemed soul
which has communed willingly with sin
cleansed again from its pollution. It is, at
best, by a sore struggle that the conse
quences of sinful habits must be subdued :
" This kind cometh not out but by prayer
and fasting." How often against such an
one, in his secret strife with the enemy, do
long-past and perhaps forgotten transgres
sions spring up again in present tempta
tions ! How often, even in the process of
recovery, do hard, ambitious, unchaste, or
unbelieving thoughts well out from his
heart, and trouble the time of meditation or
the hour of prayer ! With what a weary
earnestness does he thirst for the purity
and simplicity of childhood, when evil
thoughts were as yet strange to his heart,
and God, and heaven, and grace, were,
without any struggle, invisible realities !
Though, of God s great mercy, his sun
OF PERMITTED SIN.
23
shines out again, and the stormy sky is
clearing over him, how far is he even yet
from the freshness of a holy morning ! How
painful, yet how just a sentence is it upon
many penitent souls, that they are thus
" made to possess the iniquities of their
youth !"
So far, indeed, from the example of these
recovered souls affording ground to any
for continuing in sin, the very language
of encouragement in which alone we can
address them, is a testimony to the bitterness
of its consequences. The very promises of
help, and all the gracious messages which
God has stored up in His Church to support
and cheer such returning sinners, even these
have a double sound ; and while they are as
balm to them, they should be a wholesome
terror unto you. We can, indeed, tell them
not to despair ; we can say, that even for
them there is a healing power in God s
grace : but we cannot promise them a speedy
deliverance from that bitter fruit of their
own ways with which they now are filled ;
we must rather bid them bear their burden
24 THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES
patiently, nor fret against God s way of
healing them, but take up the bitter cross
of present suffering, meekly acknowledging
that it is indeed a fearful thing to have
polluted a soul which God created holy.
Surely the knowledge of this difficult
and painful cure cannot encourage us to
trifle with the same disease. And even,
after all, they are commonly restored to a
condition far below that to which they
might have once attained. The whole
analogy of nature teaches us, that even if
the vital powers struggle on through early
sickness into the health of maturer years,
yet that they still bear in their diminished
power and energy the marks of former con
flict ; and so is it in spiritual growth. Few
of the most encouraging examples in God s
word, and but one of the bright lights of
Christian antiquity, give us reason to expect
in such recovered souls the perfect measure
of simplicity or peace.
And are the joys of sin worth even this
price ? Was it for this that you were born,
baptised, and striven with; for this that
OF PERMITTED SIN T . 25
the Church of Christ has shielded and in
structed and nourished you; for this that
Christ your Master fasted, fought, and died ;
for this that you were grafted into Him,
and He Himself given to dwell in you ? Oh,
no ; even on this, the fairest shewing, we
cannot too earnestly " beseech you not to
receive the grace of God in vain ;" for He
saith, " I have heard thee in a time ac
cepted, and in a day of salvation have I
succoured thee : behold, now is the ac
cepted time ; behold, now is the day of sal
vation." Bear ever in mind to what it is
that we are called, to a holy calling, to
company with saints, to copy angels, yea,
to be made like unto the Lord himself.
Struggle, therefore, earnestly against all
sin ; suffer not willingly its least remainder :
it is our privilege to live without it; let
us never fall below our right, but " press
towards the mark," that we may " perfect
holiness in the fear of God."
SERMON II.
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE
OF SIN.
SERMON II.
" Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have if
thine. It was meet that we should make merry,
and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and
is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
Luke, xv. 31, 32.
THE caution of the Apostle Paul to the
Corinthian Christians, " that they
should not receive the grace of God in vain,"
led, upon a former occasion, to the considera
tion of the fearful consequences of trans
gression in Christian men ; of that cleaving
moral taint which remains even in those
cases (few, out of many) where the sinner
is recovered from the snare of Satan; a
taint which weakens the soul in its new
efforts after holiness, and clinging to it
always long, sometimes even to the end,
prevents its full growth in purity and
peace. This is that consequence of moral
evil, which, in God s ordinary dealings with
30 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
His people, is not at once remitted on
repentance, and which remains as a bitter
and enduring warning to them, that they
should not tamper with iniquity, nor stain
the brightness of their Christian garment
by permitted sin.
But, besides this effect of wilful trans
gression, which is wrought within ourselves
upon our moral being, there is another,
every where declared in holy Scripture : an
effect, that is to say, upon the relation in
which we stand to God ; upon our state, as
well as upon our nature. The baptised
infant and the faithful Christian are, we
know, in very truth accepted of God in
Christ ; his anger is turned away from
them, and He is at peace with them. This
state of peaceful acceptance we know, too,
is wholly inconsistent with a course of
indulged sin, which must suspend, and, for
the time, do away to us as individuals the
blessing of pardon and acceptance. But
is it lost for ever? There is no second
baptism ; no new laver, whose waters
can be sanctified to the mystical washing
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 31
away of sin. But is there for the sinner
no assurance of forgiveness ? Is he to
go heavily, doubting long whether his re
pentance, though sincere, may be received;
and, at the best, to have a trembling
hope that he may at last be pardoned ;
whilst, in the mean time, he waits upon a
God who hideth away his face, or reveals
it rather as a severe exactor of deserved
punishment, than as a Father waiting to be
gracious ? Or, on the other hand, is there
to the baptised Christian who hath fallen
from God, and wandered into the evil ways
of allowed sin, is there still for him, upon his
turning unto the Lord, a full and free and
ready pardon, even as before his baptism ?
is there, from his baptism, that assurance of
a Father s waiting favour ? is there still, in
the blood of Christ, which by his sin he has
trodden under foot, a cleansing virtue for
him ; so that, whensoever he does turn in
truth, he may take to himself surely all the
promises of God, and look up again, without
doubting or distrust, to the loving coun
tenance of his heavenly Father ?
32 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
It is of peculiar moment that the an
swer to this question should be clear : both
because it lies so near to the very founda
tion of Christ s Gospel, that the personal
hope of numbers every where must depend
upon it; and because it will greatly influ
ence the whole tone in which they to whom
" the ministry of reconciliation" is com
mitted must address themselves to men.
Now, the parable of the prodigal son seems
expressly constructed by our Lord to be a
standing reply to this question in all ages
of the Church. The only other explanation
which it can receive, namely, that it was
designed to shadow out the election of the
Gentile Church, will by no means satisfy
the occasion or construction of the parable :
it may, indeed, bear this application ; and
its being found amongst the writings of
St. Luke, rather than in any other gospel,
seems to shew that it was so applied by the
disciples. But this is the very character of
all the words of Jesus ; springing from some
passing incident, and spoken to suit some
present case, yet so instinct with life, so full
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 33
of hidden meaning, that they contain en
during instruction for the Church, which
shall come out from them according to her
need, in ways and at seasons which were as
yet unknown to those who heard, or those
who recorded them. A passing examina
tion of the parable will best shew how far
every other exposition will fall short of its
requirements ; and how fully all its secret
meaning is brought out, when it is viewed
as a sketch of the full and free restoration of
the fallen Christian to the peace and safety
of an accepted son of the Most High.
And, first, for the occasion on which
it was spoken : " Then drew near unto him
all the publicans and sinners for to hear
him : and the Pharisees and Scribes mur
mured." Now it will perhaps at once
strike any attentive reader of the Gospels,
that the tone in which our Lord replies to
these murmurs is very different from the
severe denunciations and reproofs with
which he commonly addressed those hy
pocritical and self-deceiving men. He pro
ceeds to explain his conduct in the tone in
F
34 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
which he always spoke to a humble, puzzled
faith, rather than in those words of wrath
and fire with which he rebuked the proud
and captious caviller. And the reason of
this difference may assuredly be found in
this ; that, though the murmurs of the
Pharisees gave occasion to the parable, it
was not so much addressed to them as to
his own disciples, whose minds had been
distressed by the suggestions of these mur-
murers. It was a strange and startling
sight, to see the teacher of a purer faith,
the reprover of the secret evils of the
sanctimonious Scribes, thronged and sur
rounded by the most abandoned of their na
tion. The minds of the faithful few would
be naturally startled by it. Thoughts were
rising in their hearts, which He, who saw
their hearts, graciously vouchsafed at once
to still. And it is the more needful to
notice this, because it has an important
bearing upon the conclusion of the parable.
The question, then, which our Lord meant
to answer, was, why he permitted the
approach of these lost and outcast Jews ;
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 35
for such were the publicans, though classed
with heathen men, yet Jews and members
of the covenant ; and thence so peculiarly
odious to their nation, as the deputies and
instruments of the farmers of the Roman
revenue. The murmur of the Pharisees was
not that Gentiles thronged the Saviour ;
but that they gathered round him whose
sins had made them as heathens in the sight
of faithful Jews. To such He preached,
and not to the Gentiles ; for " He was
not sent, save to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel." To meet, then, this difficulty,
He frames a parable, which, in its strictest
sense, can reach those only who have fallen
from a covenant-relation with their God.
The two sons, who dwelt together in their
father s house, who with the first springing
of the feelings, and the first dawnings of the
reason, had felt and known around them
a father s love and kindness ; this can
properly and fully picture those only who
have received in infancy the great gift of
adoption, and have grown up, even from
the dawnings of their reason, within the fold
36 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
of God. And so the parable proceeds. The
subsequent separation of the sons speaks in
the same language as their former union :
the one left that which the other still re
tained ; the one fell from grace given, the
other still walked, in the main, in God s way;
the one deeply stained his robe of sonship, by
an open wandering from his Father s house
and a course of repeated sins ; the other kept
the commandments and ordinances of the
Lord, blameless of such great transgression.
Mark here, for an instant, in the his
tory of this sad fall, the rich inciden
tal teaching of the word of God. The
younger son gathered all together, and in
the far country wasted his substance in
riotous living. Now does not this suggest
the age, and the circumstances, and the
temptations most conversant with such
deep falls ? does not it hint to us the peril
men are in during the first burst of their
untutored passions ; and that of those who
leave their father s house, numbers are led
from it in the hot blood of youth, by the
mad baits of revelry and sensual pleasure ?
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 37
But to return : every feature of the
advancing parable is cast in the same
mould. The mighty famine which surprises
the reveller, at once dissolves the enchant
ment under the influence of which he had
despised the peaceful and quiet joys of his
father s house, and wandered madly forth
to seek his pleasure amongst strangers ;
and the first thoughts of his sobered and
miserable estate are remembrances and
longings turned towards the home which
he had lost. And surely, even this figure,
powerful as it is, is but a faint shadowing
out of the bitter awakening of the deluded
slave of sin and evil pleasure ; of the
gnawing sense of emptiness ; of the restless
craving after something real, and pleasure-
able, and true, which, sooner or later, must
overtake all who have " counted themselves
unworthy" of the heavenly gift, and turned
from the satisfying portion of the children
of God, to follow the empty and delusive
sorceries of the father of lies.
But as our Lord is here picturing the
course of one amongst those few that
38 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
escape, not of the many " dead that are
there" (Prov, ix. 18), he goes on to describe
the prodigal s return ; and all still speaks it
the description of the recovery of a fallen
son of the Most High. The first longings
after his father s home shew how truly he
had dwelt in it, and how far he had wan
dered from it. The first resolution, " I
will return unto my father s house, whence
I came out," speaks of restoration to a
state once enjoyed, and lost ; not of a first
receiving of the covenant-blessing. And
how was this rising thought of penitence
received ? was it chilled by a cold delay of
pardon ? was he left to trace his trembling
and doubtful steps to the home he had
so wantonly abandoned, with no cheering
intimation of the reception he should meet
with there ? and when he reached it, did he
wait in the vestibule, and take his place
amongst the servants ? or, after a long peni
tence, and years of doubt, and full proof of
amendment, at last, and hardly, receive one
cheering look from the countenance which
he had loved of old? " When he was
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 39
yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on
his neck, and kissed him." And it was
proclaimed a gracious day, and the fatted
calf was killed ; and the ring of sure
acceptance given to grace, and the best
robe brought forth to cover, this returning
prodigal. Words cannot surely be stronger,
nor a figure more expressive. The eye of
the heavenly Father rests upon the wan
derer ; a great way off He sees him ; whilst
his own heart, clouded over by his sin, and
weaned from God by wilful transgression,
though it begins to turn to Him with
longing, yet dares not look up with confi
dence ; whilst his highest hope is the room
of meanest servitude, and his just judgment
passed upon himself a perpetual exclusion :
even then His thoughts and ways, whose
thoughts and ways are not as ours, are
" thoughts of peace," to " give" to the re
turning wanderer " an expected end."
(Jer. xxix. 11.)
And even to the first acts of a sincere
penitence, surely there are here promised
40 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
some gracious marks of acceptance, as what
shall be given to the returning sinner.
Baptised, indeed, he cannot be afresh : but
does he lose by that ? No, truly ; for if he
were coming to baptism, seeking its first
washing from his guilt, it would profit him
nothing, unless he came in sincerity and
faith. The seal of God, indeed, would be
sure, but not for him : and now, if he comes
in sincerity and faith, the seal is still sure,
and is for him ; his baptism is on him, fresh
as when its waters glistened upon his infant
brow ; he is received into his Father s
house ; and there the words of gracious
promise, the blessed seals of holy euchar-
ists, and the fresh-springing fountain of the
Saviour s blood, these are sure and for him ;
and they are meant to carry to his soul the
same certain consolation which the holy
waters of baptism would be the outward
means of bringing, if he came as a cate
chumen, instead of coming as a penitent.
Yea, and doubtless God does, of his mercy,
put into these things a power and virtue,
which can in truth re-assure the heart of
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 41
trembling penitence. The ring and the
robe are not forgotten by the heavenly
Father, when He receives His wanderers.
" At the beginnings of religion," as our own
Bishop Taylor most beautifully words it,
" and at some other times irregularly, God
complies with our infirmities, and encou
rages our duty with little overflowings of
spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure and
delicacies in prayer ; so as we seem to feel
some little beam of heaven, and great re
freshments from the Spirit of consolation :
yet this is not safe for us always to have."
And do we not see, that these things are
given graciously of God to the tender
beginnings of a young penitence, that its
weakness may be encouraged ; that the
trembling, timid eye of the returning sinner
may be strengthened to look up, and to
read the joyful message of his pardon ?
And how exactly this accords with the
remainder of the parable ! They who sup
pose it to be directly spoken to the self-
righteous Pharisees become here entangled
with inextricable difficulties : for how can
42 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
the praise given to the elder son suit such a
character ? Where is his ready and habitual
service ; or where that higher and more
constant favour, which is a better portion
than the gracious mercies poured on the
returning wanderer ? So, too, in the other
clause of the similitude : before the elder
brother s offence can be made to suit the
jealousy with which the Jews regarded the
adoption of the Gentiles, a somewhat forced
application is required; for the gathering
of the Gentiles was not receiving back a
wandering brother into a state of privilege
higher than that offered to themselves ; but
the knitting into one new election with
themselves those who had been always
hitherto " aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, and strangers to the covenant
of promise." (Ephes. ii. 12.)
But none of these difficulties beset the
plain application of the figure. The faithful
disciples of Jesus, who watched anxiously
all His doings, felt the force of the murmurs
of the Pharisees, and had no answer for
them. His honour and His holiness were
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 43
dear to them ; and they knew not how to
meet the taunt, that " He received sinners,
and ate with them." To this faithful but
mistaken doubt His words were pointed :
they reproved at once and commended ;
they shewed that it was meet thus to wel
come the returning penitent ; whilst yet
they spoke of a still higher favour, as that
which was the portion of those who did not
thus transgress.
The difficulty of the elder son was not
that of a captious or a cavilling spirit. His
conscience testified to him truly, that he
had long been living in his father s service :
he now was grieved, and even wroth, but
it was through a zeal for his father s ho
nour ; and so the answer allowed his claim
of service, " Son, thou art ever with me ;"
whilst it justified the father s doings, by de
claring that these sudden marks of joy were
proofs, not that his wandering brother was
better than himself, but that he had been
worse ; that while they were the assurances
of present favour, they were, too, the very
tokens of past unworthiness, and far below
44 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
that full, peaceful, and habitual portion
which was his who had not thus offended :
like the first joy which waits on ease from
bodily distress, full of more sensible plea
sure, yet far inferior in its worth to vigorous,
established health. The timid and unsettled
mind of the unhappy wanderer needed these
outward marks, to re-assure his doubting
spirit ; but the faithful son can rest with a
humble, quiet confidence upon his father s
love : " The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him." " All that I have is thine."
And there is here a lasting lesson for the
Church of Christ. This difficulty, which
beset the minds of the disciples, is one
which has ever lingered in the Church,
ready to perplex some faithful souls, wher
ever a far wanderer has been brought with
singing back into her bosom. Many pages
of her history warn us of this tendency
to make the way of return narrower than
Christ has left it ; of an inclination to re
prove with harshness those sensible marks
of joy and favour with which the threshold
is crowned for the penitent ; of a Novatian
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 45
readiness to diet the returning sinner long on
doubts and fears, rather than to fling wide
the doors, and kill the fatted calf, and wel
come back to peace, and with rejoicing, the
weary and heavy-laden wanderer. And
this, let it be observed, not from self-
righteousness, nor by the Pharisees alone ;
but from a zeal for holiness ; and by the
more consistent saint, from a jealous regard
for God s honour ; mistaken, indeed, in its
application, and full of evil for the Church
where it prevails, but still to be treated with
respectful mildness, even when it is resisted
the most firmly : following in that very note
which was here set us by the Lord himself ;
" Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I
have is thine : it was meet that we should
make merry and be glad ; for this thy bro
ther was dead, and is alive again ; he was
lost, and is found." This difficulty, more
over, it is evident, will then be the most
trying to the faithful, when, as now, the rule
of discipline has been relaxed, and holy men
not unnaturally fear that to dispense with
openness the promises of free forgiveness,
46 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
would but encourage others to enter on the
deadly trade of alternate sinnings and re-
pen tings. At such a time, then, the Church
has need to guard especially against this
error of the elder son, lest a hlameably re
laxed economy of discipline should lead her
to a no less culpable restraint of doctrine.
Yet it may perhaps be objected, that to
make this full and free declaration of God s
ready mercy to those who have offended
grossly, after the sealed pardon and the
living grace have been applied to them in
holy baptism, is to contradict the practice
of the earlier and purer ages of the Church ;
the expressed longing of our own commina-
tion-service for the restoration of such
discipline ; and the consenting voice of all
antiquity. This were indeed a heavy charge;
and it deserves therefore some considera
tion here. To enter clearly into it, a brief
inquiry will be needful into the nature and
intention of that ancient discipline, which
seems, in some degree, to limit the full
flow of mercy to the penitent; and this
inquiry will, at the same time, throw much
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 47
light upon that language of antiquity, which
appears, it may he granted, at first sight, to
speak in another tone from that which has
been given to this parable.
This discipline, then, of which our prayer-
book speaks with longing, as the possession
of a purer age, was wielded with a two-fold
aim; to awaken, by the censures of the
Church, to true repentance, those who slept
in sin, " that their souls might be saved in
the day of the Lord :" and, secondly, to
admonish others by their example, and to
make them afraid to offend. It was, that is
to say, sanatory, for the profit of the careless
sinner ; and penal, for the profit of the
Church. With the first of these we are
not now concerned : it was a discipline for
the impenitent, to awaken them by Church-
censure unto repentance ; and can therefore
be no guide at all to us, as to our mode of
addressing those who, without such cen
sures, have been stirred up by the grace
of God to the beginnings of a penitential
sorrow. Our business is with the second ;
for this did directly concern the treatment of
48 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
the penitent offender. He was commonly,
we learn, in the first ages, admitted " to one
repentance and no more," if he fell, after
baptism, into great and deadly sin. After
this, he was kept sometimes for a space of
years, sometimes till the hour of death,
sometimes altogether, from the absolution
and communion of the Church.* But why
was he so banished? and how was he ad
dressed ? Not because Christ would not
receive at once even such returning peni
tents ; but because the Church judged it
needful for the purity of her communion, in
that age especially of pressing trial, and
that sinners might not learn to trifle with
her offices, to be thus rigorous and strict
in the employment of her discipline. For
even at this time she told the penitent,
whom in her zeal to keep it pure, she thus
thrust from her communion, that he might
seek and look for, at the hands of God, that
* Clem. Alexand. Strom, ii. cap. 13. p. 459. edit.
Oxon. Tertul. de Poenit. cap. 7 : " Collocavit in vesti
bule pcenitentiam secund-am," &c. Orig. Horn. 15. in
Lev. torn. i. p. 174.
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 49
mercy, of which the outward signs and
tokens could not here be granted him.
And this we take to be the explanation of
that language, which would seem, other
wise, to contradict the plainest invitations
of God s word. It was the language of a
Church administering discipline, declaring
the economy of that discipline, and shewing
what its limits were : it was no hint to
those who were readmitted to communion,
that they must doubt about the mercy
of their God. How, indeed, if it were
so, could St. Cyprian say, " That when
we drink the blood of the Lord and the
cup of salvation, we put off the remem
brance of the old man ; and our sorrowful
and heavy heart, which before was pressed
with the anguish of our sins, is now ab
solved and set at liberty by the joy fulness
of the Divine pardon?"* She claimed the
power to straiten or relax the full severity
of these her rules ; thereby marking that
she was acting with a view to what was most
expedient for herself, and not because the
* Cypr. Ep. 63. ad Csecil. p. 153. Oxon edit.
H
50 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
revealed will of Christ compelled her to this
harshness of demeanour with her wandering
children. And how otherwise could we
interpret, without contradiction, that rich
under-song of free encouragement which
mingles throughout the ancient writers with
these severer tones ? How could Gregory
Nazianzen reason with JSTovatian* " Dost
not thou admit of penitence ? wilt not thou
weep tear for tear ? mayest thou never
meet with such a judge ! Art not thou
moved with the pitifulness of Jesus, who
took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses ;
who came not to call the righteous, but sin
ners to repentance ; who willeth mercy, ra
ther than sacrifice, who pardoneth seventy
times seven ? " And how else can we un
derstand the words with which, as we are
told, St. Chrysostom was wont, in preach
ing, to encourage penitents, f that " a thous
and times, if occasion should require, they
* Orat. xxxix. p. 635 ; quoted by Suicer under
(.lETCLVOia.
f Socrates, lib. vi. cap. 21 ; quoted by Binghara,
Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. iv. 7.
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 51
should be admitted to repentance and re
ceived into communion ?" Or, again, where
St. Augustine teaches us that " God has
allowed three ways to obtain remission of
sin. 1. Baptism which cleanses us from all
manner of sins, original and actual, great
and small. 2. Prayer and daily address to
the throne of grace for sins of daily incur
sion, without which no man lives. 3. And
for greater and more heinous sins he has
allowed of a more solemn and particular
repentance ; and that either public, in
case of scandalous and public crimes, or
else private, between God and ourselves.
So that a sinner need not complain of God
for want of mercy, since there are so many
ways of dispensing pardon to us after bap
tism."*
What, then, is the fitting inference to
* Aug. de Symbolo ad Catechumenos, lib. i. cap. 7.
torn. 9, p. 294. " Propter omnia peccata baptismus in-
ventus est ; propter levia, sine quibus esse non possumus,
oratio inventa Ergo tribus modis dimittuntur
peccata in ecclesia ; in baptismo, in oratione, in huraili-
tate (majore) majoris poenitentiae."
52 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
be deduced from their severer language,
which would seem, at times, almost to re
strain the mercy of the Saviour ? We may
learn to lament, with our own Church, that
the rule of wholesome discipline is entirely
thrown aside ; but surely it can give us no
warrant to find a wholly different guard
for holy practice, in limiting the mercy of
our Lord. Because the early Church re
fused to re-admit offenders into her com
munion, yet bidding them hope in the
Lord, whose mercy was not narrowed in
and limited by such necessities as had re
strained her own, surely we may not admit
freely to communion the returning peni
tent, and then bid him doubt the goodness
of the Lord of mercy. This were rather,
with Novatian, to drive our sinful but re
pentant brother to despair; than, with St.
Paul, to forgive and comfort him, " lest he
be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow."
The full force, then, of this parable,
and of many other such-like passages of
holy Scripture, is not to be turned aside,
as if they belonged not to us : and while we
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 53
have such gracious promises given to us
freely to dispense, we need not fear or
hesitate to speak to sinners of the mercy of
the Lord. We need not deem of Christian
baptism as such a doubtful and deadly bles
sing that it can dry up, even for the great
est of transgressors, the fresh and healing
streams of a ready and assured pardon.
Certainly they have not learned so to speak
who, if any, were thoroughly imbued with
the learning of antiquity. Hear the words
of Bishop Taylor : " It is an uneasy pusilla
nimity and fond suspicion of God s goodness,
to fear that our repentance shall be rejected,
even although we have committed the great
est or the most of evils. We cannot think
or speak good things of God, if we entertain
such evil suspicions of the mercies of the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every
man is a sinner : < in many things we offend
all ; and < if we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves ; and therefore either all
must perish, or there is mercy for all ; and
so there is upon this very stock, because
Christ died for sinners, and God hath com-
54 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE or SIN.
prehended all under sin, that he might have
mercy upon all. It was concerning baptised
Christians that St. John said, If any man
sin, we have an Advocate with the Father ;
and he is the propitiation for our sins : and
concerning lapsed Christians St. Paul gave
instruction, that if any man be overtaken
in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such
an one in the spirit of meekness, considering
lest ye also be tempted. If we can forgive
one hundred thousand times, it is certain
God will do so to us : He glories in the titles
of mercy and forgiveness, and will not have
his appellatives so limited and finite, as to
expire in one act or in a seldom pardon.
Man s condition were desperate, and like
that of the fallen angels, if he could be ad
mitted to no repentance after his infant bap
tism : and if he may be admitted to one,
there is nothing in the covenant of the Gos
pel but he may also to a second, and so for
ever, as long as he can repent and return,
and live to God in a timely religion."*
Which last declaration of that holy bishop
* Holy Dying.
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 55
is worthy of all note ; for in it we are re
minded that in our zeal for holiness, we may
introduce such teaching as may sap the very
root of that which we desire to make a flou
rish. We cannot, indeed, alter or diminish
any word which God hath revealed of him
self, without injuring the cause of holiness ;
though this consequence is not at all times
to be seen beforehand with the same dis
tinctness : but in this case it is surely plain.
They who would blot out, or only cloud
over, the fair face of mercy to the guilty,
surely thereby bring on equally the night of
desperation that deadliest and most hope
less state of sin. For who has dealt with
sinners, or who has searched deeply into the
evils of his own heart, without finding that
a lurking doubt and distrust of God s readi
ness to pardon mingles ever with a state of
sin ; and that when we hold up before men s
eyes the blessings and the peace of holiness,
this misgiving mainly freezes up the streams
of penitence ? There is no such rest and
sweetness in iniquity, but that, when the
first fever-fit is passed, men, unless they be
56 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
reprobates, loathe secretly its ways ; the dregs
of its cup of pleasure are always bitter ; but
they are entangled, and they see not now a
sure escape ; and therefore they hold on in
its accursed paths, driven forward trem
bling often and reluctant ; and then, again,
grasping in their madness at the painted
fruits of bitterness which hang around them.
And so they go on unto destruction.
And therefore it is that they need to
hear of God s free mercy for repenting sin
ners ; therefore is this the golden key to
which alone the hardened heart will open ;
therefore is it that souls long dead to all
the threatening^ of the law have turned like
" the rivers of the south" at the sweet sound
of a Saviour s name : " There is forgive
ness with thee, therefore thou mayest be
feared." And in one important view, our
very lack of discipline makes it the more
needful that we put forward freely this most
wholesome doctrine; for in proportion as
men are left to themselves to manage the
particulars of their spiritual recovery, they
will be in danger of despairing, if it be sup-
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 57
pressed. The great transgressor, who took
of old his settled place amongst the weeping
penitents, had in that very care of the
Church for his recovery an assurance of his
ultimate escape. All her penitential dis
cipline spoke to him of future hope ; of an
appointed end ; of mercy in store, though
not in hand ; and so forbade his giving up
the strife, because he was not himself given
up. But he that is left to a solitary striving
with the evil one, whose own heart is the
only witness of his guilt and his misery ; he,
unless he be upheld continually by the sweet
cordial of promises and the rich messages
of mercy, is in great peril from the spirit of
desperation.
And whom does this not concern? Surely
there is not one who needeth not " to con
sider himself, lest he also be tempted." Or
who, again, shall measure out so nicely all
the proportions of his sin, that he can say
whether he is or is not shut out, if any be,
from the assurance of a present pardon ?
Where are the nice balances that shall so
weigh all the circumstances of temptation,
i
58 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
and all the grains of guilt, that he shall
know whether his be, in the sight of God, a
wilful sin, or the incursion of a pardonable
frailty ? Who, save the Judge of all men,
can graduate and measure out the nice de
grees of guilt ? Who, for example, is there,
that can strike the balance between luke-
w r armness of affection or a stunted charity,
amidst all the sheltering opportunities of a
religious life, and a greater and more scan
dalous offence in one who, without such
assistances, is forced to dwell in the near
neighbourhood of some great temptation ?
No doubt, with man this is impossible ; and
so it happens, that their self-culture will be
the most productive of good fruit, who, to
gether with their burning zeal for holiness,
hold the most firmly, and apply to them
selves most constantly, this blessed persua
sion of the Saviour s readiness to pardon.
For their humility is kept most fresh who
need not to extenuate their least offences:
their faith in God, and hope of heaven, and
charity to others is the most lively, who
dwell in the continual sight of a great debt
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF STN. 59
forgiven them ; the springs of a perpetual
contrition water them the most ; and, like a
tree planted by the streams in a goodly soil
beneath a favouring sky, they shoot out their
branches the most freely, until they be well
grown and ripened in the due proportions of
each Christian grace. For, in declaring to
the penitent the blessed promises of Christ s
most gracious Gospel ; in bidding him to go
back again to his baptismal covenant ; in
telling him to. take, with thankfulness and
nothing doubting, the seal of pardon in the
eucharist, we do not lead him to forget his
sins, or think lightly of their bitterness.
What healing power was lacking in the tears
of the returning prodigal? what lost they,
in their depth or bitterness, by falling on
the neck of a still-gracious father? This,
surely, is "to remember, and be ashamed,
and never open the mouth any more," be
cause of past iniquities, even when the Lord
"is pacified towards us."
God forbid that we should teach men to
make light of sin, or put it out of their re
membrance as a thing forgotten. No; let
60 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
them remember it, even when the Gospel
bids them hope that it is forgotten by the
Lord. Let them weep for it afresh, as they
see more of its defilement, and "go softly all
their days." It is the very glory of Christ s
Gospel, that it can combine a thankful as
surance of pardon with the deepest sense of
undeserving.
Nor, in good truth, need we fear that we
shall thus encourage men in sin. Have we
not other and safer guards, wherewith to
hedge up the evil paths ? May we not tell
the tempted, of that empty and craving fa
mine of the soul which must overtake the
wilful sinner in the far land of his own guilty
choosing ? Have we not to tell them of the
cleaving consequences of moral pollution ;
of the fiery darts of haunting doubt ; of the
weary bufferings with sinful thoughts ; of the
wasting sense of unreality in things unseen,
which wait surely upon a late repentance?
Is there not a guard against offending in the
painfulness of a slow recovery ; in the ha
rassing danger of a relapse ; in the smaller
power of standing, and the greater weight of
THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. 61
temptation ; in the lower measure of reco
vered holiness ; in the shame which dwells
about the very tokens of forgiveness ? Above
all, have we not this guard, that without re
pentance there can be no escape ; and that
repentance is not in man s hands ? that the
opportunity may not be given, or that the
grace may be withheld ; that the free Spirit
of God may be quenched ; that no one can
forecast the consequence of any sin ; and
that while, therefore, for the penitent, there
is forgiveness in the blood of Christ for the
multitude of his transgressions, there may
be, for him who chooses evil, damnation in
one sin ?
SERMON III.
THE TEMPER OF MIND IN WHICH TO
RECEIVE THE CHRISTIAN
MYSTERIES.
SERMON III.
" And He said, Draw not nigh hither : put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground." Exodus, iii. 5.
IT has ever been a part of the Church s
wisdom to inculcate the holy mysteries
of our faith by associating their remem
brance with the observance of certain festal
days ; and thus winning for them an en
trance through the affections, where the
dulness of the understanding, or the want
of learning, made men almost inaccessible
to other instruction. And in this she fol
lows closely the example set before her in
God s holy word; where the great mys
teries of Christ s religion are never laid
before us in the naked precision of dog
matical and systematic statements ; but ra
ther steal upon us amidst the dews of its
other gracious influences ; wrapped up in
parables ; entwined with the various actions
K
66 THE RECEPTION OF THE
and events of the holy life of Jesus ; drop
ped in the pregnant words of teaching
which were called from him by some pass
ing occasion ; or, at the clearest, hinted
as admitted principles in the apostolical
epistles. And thus, at this season of the
year, after tracing, in the grateful recol
lection of her feast-days, the life of Christ
from Bethlehem to Calvary; and on each
enforcing those great truths with which the
facts she celebrates are gemmed ; and then,
after waiting with the orphan Church for
the great gifts of Pentecost, she leads us
on this day to celebrate with reverend
thankfulness the highest of her mysteries,
whilst with adoring hearts we bow ourselves
before the Triune Jehovah. It will, then,
be strictly in the spirit of this day s services
to inquire with some little particularity
into the temper of mind in which the con
sideration of such high truths should be
approached, as well as the most natural
means of acquiring and preserving it.
On the very threshold of such an in
quiry, we are met by the caution which
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 67
checked the curiosity of Moses. The vi
sion of the Angel of the Lord in the bush
burning but unconsumed, stirred up within
his heart the desire of searching further
into the wonder which had startled him : " I
will now turn aside and see this great sight,
why the bush is not burned" (v. 3). So
ever speaks with its first impulse the curi
osity of man ; which would subject the won
ders of the nature and the presence of his
God to that scrutiny of the intellectual
powers by which he is accustomed to
examine the creation round him. But this
purpose is at once interrupted, and the
announcement of God s presence is followed
by the caution, " Draw not nigh hither :
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground"
(v. 5) ; teaching him, that reverence and
adoration, rather than the sharpness of ob
serving scrutiny, were the attributes with
which it became the creature to enter his
Creator s presence.
Here, then, is an intimation, that clear
ness of intellect is not that upon which
68 THE RECEPTION OF THE
mainly depends the right perception of
God s revelation of himself.
And this same truth we shall find re
peatedly recurring in the sacred pages.
To pass at once to the Christian reve
lation and the teaching of our Lord, how
manifestly is the same lesson to be found
in His declaration, that " Whosoever shall
not receive the kingdom of heaven as a
little child, he shall not enter therein !"
(Luke, xviii. 17). With all those faculties
for comprehension which depend upon the
perfection of the intellectual powers, a little
child is evidently unsupplied. What, there
fore, can prove more clearly than such a
declaration, that moral fitness, rather than
subtilty of intellect, is needed for receiving
rightly this revelation of Himself.
This, indeed, is but what we might rea
sonably expect; for as the Christian reve
lation, by its own profession, is not a mere
intellectual abstraction, but in its nature
and foundations is essentially moral, the
evidence on which it rests cannot, as in
abstract science, be addressed purely to the
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 69
intellect. To receive it rightly, the will
must assent to it no less than the under
standing. By no other solution can we
account for the wholly opposite conclusions,
even upon fundamental points, at which we
see men of the highest reasoning powers
arrive. For as, in all matters of necessary
truth, right reasoning from the same pre
mises must lead to the same conclusions ;
and as we see men, whose powers of rea
soning are above all question, come here
to opposite conclusions ; we must suppose,
either that something more than intellectual
power is needful to lead them right, or
that there is in this subject-matter no such
thing as abstract truth, but that to every
separate mind that which seems so to itself
is true. But as this supposition is destruc
tive of the very notion of revelation, which
requires that the doctrines it teaches should
be received as facts, true in themselves,
independently of all opinions, it only re
mains, that men s various conclusions must
be the result of some moral causes separate
from their mere intellectual powers.
70 THE RECEPTION OF THE
And if from this general view of the dis
crepancies of belief, we turn to the ex
amination of a single instance, we shall
find new light thrown upon the subject.
No one, perhaps, has thought at all
steadily of any of these mysteries of reve
lation, without being, in some measure,
troubled by the manifest difficulties with
which they are beset. Sometimes it is di
rectly in the very article of belief; and
< How can it be ? is the spontaneous lan
guage of the mind ; that is, the difficulty of
the subject suggests to us a temptation to
deem it impossible. At another time the
temptation takes another shape. The
words we have been taught to use, and
to which our lips and ears have long grown
familiar, sound new and strange to us : we
doubt whether we have not used them
always hitherto idly, and without attaching
any meaning to them ; that is, we are
tempted to deem of religious truth as an
unreality : we can scarcely persuade our
selves that it has ever been to us more than
a sound of words ; and then the air of un-
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 71
reality soon creeps over the whole. Or,
again, perhaps the temptation has arisen
from what seem to us to be the necessary
consequences of that which we are called
on to believe : some train of thought leads
us on, before we are aware, to something
which follows from it, and which is in it
self evidently absurd, or irreverent, or, in
some way, unbecoming the dignity of hea
venly truth ; that is, we are here tempted
to speculate and rationalise on that which
belongs to the province of faith, rather than
the reasoning faculty. Now, to one who
has cultivated with any care an habitual re
verence for holy things, the very glancing
of such thoughts over the mind gives deep
and instant pain : an overpowering sense
of its own weakness accompanies their en
trance ; a doubtfulness about all its conclu
sions ; an almost instinctive dread of whi
ther it may be led on ; a sense of the letting
go of the only anchor of the mind, and of a
floating off upon the restless ocean of uncer
tainty and doubt : the feelings and the rea
son seem at war, and the mind is very much
72 THE RECEPTION OF THE
in the condition of an ingenuous child, who
has been puzzled and distressed by the re
sults of some reasoning to which it knows
of no reply, and yet against which its filial
reverence instinctively rebels. And if, at
this moment, this pain, which is indeed an
intimation of the will of God, be duly at
tended to, the immediate impulse of the
heart is to cry out to Him for help ; to cast
itself upon its habitual persuasion of the love
and power of God, as on realities of which,
without reasoning, it is convinced by the
very necessity of its own nature; and in
the darkness of its confused searchings af
ter truth, to say, " that I know not, teach
Thou me :" and then the next step is to
practise what it does know, acting on the
promise, " If any man will do My will, he
shall know of the doctrine." And then the
effect of this conduct must evidently be to
form a habit of shrinking from doubt and
speculation ; and in the same degree to nou
rish and increase a reverent and affection
ate belief in what is revealed : and this not
from the power or subtilty of the intellect,
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 73
but from the moral qualifications of the soul
for receiving God s revelation of himself.
But now take the opposite case ; that of
one who had not been so carefully shielded
from irreverence of thought ; who had been
accustomed to think and to speak of holy
things with levity, or even to suppose them
to be fit subjects for the exercise of great
intellectual subtilty, and for our natural
powers of argument and discovery. The
entrance of sceptical or irreverent thoughts
could clearly give no instant pain to one
who belonged to the first of these two
classes; because his mind has become ac
customed to the sight of holy things mix
ed up with low and unworthy thoughts, and
there is nothing, therefore, to shock him in
such an association : moral evil, that is to
say, has robbed him of the first safeguard
of his faith, and made him less fit for re
ceiving the discovery of heavenly mysteries.
And so too in the second case : when
doubts or difficulties cross this man s mind,
instead of crying out to God for light, in
the darkness which is beginning to oversha-
L
74 THE RECEPTION OF THE
dow his soul, he at once sets his own intel
lect to work : no humbling sense of its
miserable weakness drives him instinctively
to seek a better strength : in vain is there a
Father s hand stretched out to succour him:
self-confidence knows not that its steps are
stumbling. " Ye will not come unto me
that ye may have life." He begins, there
fore, to reason; and in so doing, he una
wares encourages his danger : his tempta
tion, in truth, is to speculate, where he ought
to believe ; and, in his ignorance, he sets
himself to speculation, in order that he may
believe more rightly : he becomes, there
fore, of course, bolder and bolder in specu
lation ; the motes multiply before his eyes,
and cloud over more and more the ob
scured vision of God s truth. While he
thinks, perhaps, that he is loving truth
above all things, and seeking for it most
eagerly, he is, in fact, loving his own delu
sions; a passion for speculation and argu
ment is leading him captive where it will :
he thinks that he is sacrificing all for the
faith ; he is, indeed, sacrificing all for his
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 75
own besetting sin : and so the hardened
heretic, cast out of the communion of the
Church, and giving up, it may be, worldly
advancement, because he will adhere to his
own speculations, though he appears a
much more interesting object, because he
seems in one light to be suffering for his
love of truth, is, indeed, making the very
same sacrifice, on the very same ground, as
he who, for the grosser baits of animal in
dulgence, brings upon himself the same suf
ferings : he is, in truth, sacrificing all at
the shrine of his besetting sin ; a sin too,
which, though decked out with the seeming
glory of a spurious martyrdom, is, when we
look more closely, an exact copy of that
which we may reasonably class as the
greatest of offences, " the very snare of Sa
tan ;" for it is an instance of a reasonable
creature falling from his God, not by flesh
ly temptation, but by intellectual and spi
ritual revolt.
Here, then, as before, we are brought
to the conclusion, that the right perception
of God s revelation of himself, depends
76 THE RECEPTION OF THE
more upon the heart than upon the un
derstanding, and that to err here in fun
damental matters is a moral rather than an
intellectual failing ; that a pure and teach
able spirit is the main distinction of that
temper in which we should approach the
mysteries of the Christian revelation.
From this, then, it follows, first, that
man is responsible for his belief ; respon
sible, that is, just as he is for any other
branch of moral conduct : that it is, in
deed, a part of his trial, and a great one,
whether he will believe : that, as a right
belief is the only source and spring of moral
purity, so a wrong belief, where a true reve
lation is offered to us, is the undoubted fruit
of moral evil: and hence, that as in all
other parts of his probation, it is out of
the power of fallen man by his own might
and strength to do that which is right, so
especially is it out of his power to believe ;
but that, as in all other parts of his pro
bation, so too in this, obedience is within
the power of redeemed man, through that
blessed help of God s most Holy Spirit
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 77
which will not be withheld from those who
seek for it. Upon those secret springs of
the will, which must co-operate with and
quicken intellectual credence into saving
faith, is doubtless the first work of that
preventing Spirit which was given to us
at holy baptism : from that Spirit were
all the better thoughts and wishes of child
hood and of youth ; from it all those yearn,
ings after God, which, at some time or
other of their lives, all who watch them
selves may trace, by which He would draw
our spirits to Himself: and with this help
within our reach, we are most properly
responsible for our belief; not, indeed, as if
by a single act of the volition we could make
ourselves believe ; but as those who may
live in such an habitual state as will lead
assuredly to their believing or rejecting the
revelation of the Lord. Our blessed Savi
our s words are most express upon this point :
" He that is of the truth heareth my words."
" How can ye believe, which receive honour
one of another, and seek not the honour
that cometh of God only?" (John, v. 44.)
78 THE RECEPTION OF THE
What words could lay down more plainly
the existence of a necessary connexion be
tween the moral habits of the soul and the
reception of HIS heavenly teaching ?
And this leads us on to the second part
of our inquiry; for to be thoroughly con
vinced of the certainty of this connexion, is
one of the first means of maintaining a fit
temper for receiving these great mysteries.
So long as we in any degree deem of them
as of subjects into which we are to obtain
a peculiar insight by our own reasonings,
we shall find it impossible to repress that
pride of intellect, which, whilst it flatters us
with apparent discoveries, does, in fact, most
effectually shut out the light of truth. We
must be content to be learners, not discove
rers, in the school of faith ; receiving a reve
lation, not reasoning out conclusions : and
this temper we cannot maintain, unless we
come into God s presence remembering that,
so far only as He gives us to know Him can
we know aright ; for that we need perfect
purity to see Him as He is, and that we are
compassed about with infirmity. Then only
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 79
when the thought of His holiness and of our
corruption bows us to the earth, shall we
receive His teaching with the simplicity of
children ; fixing on the ground those eyes
which were ready to gaze too rashly at the
wonders of His presence, and be ready,
indeed, to " put off our shoes from our
feet," feeling that " the place whereon we
stand is holy ground."
To this conviction, moreover, we should
join a constant watchfulness, lest allowed
sin in any form, lest boldness of spirit, or
slothfulness in our use of holy things, im
pair the reverence of our souls. Here the
least checks of conscience, and the lightest
intimations of the Spirit of God, must be
watched for carefully, and diligently used :
and to quicken our vigilance, let us bear
in mind, if we have never been visited with
doubts, that for this we owe great gratitude
to God. Have we deserved to be thus ex
empted from them ? or rather, have we not,
at one time by carelessness and indolence
of spirit, and at another by the rudenesses
of an unsanctified boldness, invited their
80 THE RECEPTION OF THE
approach? What thanks, then, do not we
owe to Him who knoweth our feebleness,
and has spared us, of His mercy, so ex
ceeding hard a trial !
But if we have been, in any measure,
tried by them, there is only the more need
of our using with greater diligence the self
same means. The presence of doubts is not,
indeed, always in itself a proof of any irre
verence of soul : sometimes they are permit
ted to harass the faithful man as a trial of
his faith ; and when they come thus, and not
as the fruits of irreverence or negligence, it
is often against the most valuable minds that
they are aimed. The armory of Satan is
rifled to furnish weapons of offence where
with to injure those who are proof against
his commoner assaults. From this danger
no one is absolutely safe. There seems
clearly to be an intimation in the Gospel,
that our blessed Lord himself, when He bore
our feeble humanity, was tempted by the sug
gestion of doubts from the enemy without,
though no possible taint of evil, either from
the imagination, understanding, or will, ever
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 81
visited His soul; for to Him it was whis
pered from without, " IF Thou be the Son of
God," to insinuate, if it were possible, into
that most true-loyal soul some mistrusting
doubtfulness of His Almighty Father. The
suggestion, therefore, of doubts to the mind,
does not necessarily suppose the presence
of sin ; it does unquestionably suppose the
presence of danger, and therefore is a call
for greater watchfulness, for a more diligent
guard over the first tendencies of thought
towards irreverent speculation ; that the
fiery brands may be quenched or thrown
back before they have kindled so much as
a spark within. Whilst irreverence and
doubt are the objects of your greatest fear ;
whilst you would gladly retain a child-like
and unquestioning reverence, by abasing,
if need were, your understanding, rather
than gain any knowledge at the hazard of
your reverence ; you are doubtless in God s
hand, and therefore safe. Yet, as He works
by means, and as this danger evidently
threatens you, guard against it with a vigi
lant providence ; fly from doubts, rather
M
82 THE RECEPTION OF THE
than enter into conflict with them, remem
bering that "he who will fight the devil at
his own weapon must not wonder if he find
him an overmatch." * Fly, therefore, rather
than contend ; fly to known truths ; shelter
yourselves, ahove all, under the shadow of
His love and power, who is, in compassion,
Father of your spirit, and yet is the Lord
God Almighty : begin to act upon the truth
you do know, and your darkness shall be
turned into light. " Who is among you
that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice
of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and
hath no light? let him trust in the name
of the Lord, and stay upon his God" (Isaiah,
1. 10).
To these means must be added further,
as perhaps the greatest instrument of all
for preserving the unsullied clearness of a
reverent faith, that we be deep and con
stant students of God s holy word. We
know, indeed, and feel the blessing and
advantage of symbols, formularies, and ar
ticles ; of the whole amount of uninspired
* South.
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES* 83
transmitted teaching, with which God s pro
vidence has enriched His Church. We
doubt not, that in the consent of Christen
dom we can read the working of God s
Spirit on the souls of His children ; even
as we can trace the passage of the wind of
heaven by the ruffling of the waters under
neath its breath : and for these great helps
towards the due comprehension of revealed
truth we heartily thank God, using them
carefullv, and with reverence of spirit ; not
thanklessly and rudely throwing aside any
help (least of all so great an one), where
we are so weak, and where we so greatly
need great strength. But still, with another
spirit, and with far higher reverence, we
turn to holy Scripture : here are no weary
searchings of the soul, amidst the wayward
ness of individual fancy, for that track of
consent, which, when close to us, shews of
ten so faintly as to be almost lost, although
on the whole the eye can run along its
course ; but all is sure. It is not grains and
dust that we collect, golden indeed, and
precious enough to repay the toil of wash-
84 THE RECEPTION OF THE
ing, and sifting, and testing, and collecting,
though still but grains and dust ; it is rich
and solid veins of ore, which grow under
our hands. Now, the bearing of this differ
ence on the formation of a reverential habit
of receiving truth, is most direct. This un
questioning submission to a heavenly guide
is the very temper which we need ; and to
no other teaching but that of inspiration
can we thus absolutely yield up ourselves.
Nowhere but where we know that every
word is necessarily true, can we wholly
abandon the spirit of questioning what we
are taught, and with all our souls ask only
what we are to learn. Nor need it be con
cealed, that this caution becomes only the
more requisite at any time when the spirit
of theological research has been happily
aroused, and men have been sent from the
slight and unsatisfying prettinesses of the
moderns, to the more solid and severe
thoughts of earlier times. The energy and
wholesome zeal for learning, which then
succeeds to the listlessness of a superficial
season, leads men into new danger, Holy
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 85
Scripture they seem to know, because they
are familiar with its words ; and it appears,
therefore, as if other studies yielded more
return to the inquirer. There is more to
satisfy a restless curiosity ; there are more
apparent, superficial gains ; and so there is
great danger, lest, unawares, and whilst
their language changes not, men s secret
estimate of things should change ; lest, prac
tically speaking, holy Scripture be less
valued, in point of fact, its pages be less
searched ; and man s authority and second
ary fountains be mainly employed to quench
that thirst of the spirit which should be
slaked only at the living waters of God s
word.
This is no slight danger ; great is the
injury which may accrue from it to our be
lief. First, as you have seen, in its neces
sary effect upon our power of simply appre
hending truth, without the presence of a
questioning spirit ; but not this only, it
affects too our system of belief, as well as
our powers of believing. We do not, in
deed, as the Romanist declares, set men
86 THE RECEPTION OF THE
down unaided to draw out from holy
Scriptures for themselves a system of belief,
although we may not doubt but that from
them alone, if no more were given, men
might learn aptly, by the secret teaching of
the blessed Spirit, all truth needful for sal
vation : but more has been given ; and what
God has given, we dare not to slight. Our
creeds, and all the transmitted judgments
of the Church, are most precious aids ; and,
with the previous teaching of these stored
in their minds, we send men to the Scrip
tures, not to discover, by a curious scru
tiny or new inspiration, truths hitherto un
known, but that they may learn indeed, and
with a spiritual knowledge, truths old to the
Church, but, in this sort, new to them.
We would impress upon you, that the teach
ing of articles and schemes of faith is, by
the necessity of the case, dogmatical and
cold addressed to the understanding more
than to the heart ; and that the belief which
you will gain from learning Christianity
from them is, therefore, wholly another
thing from that which will possess their
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 87
souls who patiently and earnestly explore the
word of God. No truth is written in broad
er characters in every page of past Church-
history. Many are the heresies which have
sprung from a learned pride ; from ignorance
alone scarcely perhaps a single one none,
certainly, from ignorant humility. The only
theological knowledge which has saved men
from heresy has been this knowledge of God s
word. So, indeed, it must be ; the sands
of a faith adopted thus mainly by the in
tellect must be ever shifting ; they want
the compacting principle of moral obliga
tion. It is when the objective truths which
creeds and articles record in naked propo
sitions become subjective in our minds, by
being mixed up and united with the daily
upgrowth of our moral being, that our souls
are truly established in the Christian veri
ties. Take, for example, the great mystery
we this day celebrate. We learn in creeds
to limit and mark out our faith in the holy
Trinity; but be it never so right in its ex
actness, how different is such a faith from
that which has grown into the very consti-
88 THE RECEPTION OF THE
tution of our souls, when, prepared by this
previous teaching, we have come long to the
daily study of God s word ! for there we find
these same great truths spread through all
the length and breadth of its revelations,
flashing out like heavenly light from every
page, teaching us, in the sense of guilt, our
need of an infinite Saviour ; in the sense of
sin, our need of God s own Spirit dwelling
in us ; and then shewing to us the Almighty
Jehovah, before whose awful throne our souls
bow overpowered, as a reconciled Father in
Christ Jesus. For here the revelation of
mysteries is mingled by God himself with all
those appeals and applications which reach,
and mould, and influence the moral faculties.
All the elements which may be separately
found in human teaching are harmonised
and blended into the air of heaven. Its very
difficulties, as St. Austin most wisely teaches
us, are suited to our needs, and so framed as
to sharpen our desires for truth, whilst they
give to our faith the exercise and trial which
it needs.* This is the treasure hidden in the
* Obscurum aliquid est; non ut tibi negetur, sed ut
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 89
field; and cheap indeed would be its pur
chase, though a man should sell all other
learning to buy it. But this is only to be
gained from a patient and a humble study
of God s word. A mere argumentative ac
quaintance with the various passages which
seem to bear most directly upon controverted
doctrines will be no substitute for such a
knowledge : these will not breed within us,
for example, that hearty faith in the Trinity,
which grows up in the faithful man, as day
by day his soul is taught more to rest, in
times of darkness and distress, upon the
blessed assurance that he is justified before
a holy God by a living union with His own
coequal Son ; and as, in the weariness of his
daily struggle with the remainders of cor
ruption, he more and more brings out into
reality and life the true presence in his heart
of that Almighty Comforter who is working
with and in him, and who will at last make
him meet for the unclouded presence of the
exerceat accepturura . . . Voluit ut exerceris in pulsando ;
voluit ut pulsanti aperiret, &c. AUG. in PsaL cxlvi.
torn. iv. fol. 1644. ed. Benedict.
N
90 THE RECEPTION OF THE
Holy One. This is a true faith in the Tri
nity; widely separate, on the one hand, from
the unreality of the religion of the mystic,
who, resolving all faith into its inner life, in
his subtle search after the vital principle,
leaves go his hold of those great external
truths on which, as on the articulations of
the frame, all the rest of religion must de
pend : and, on the other, not less diverse from
that cold concinnity of intellectual adjust
ment which changes this great mystery from
a living principle of godliness into a mere
subtlety of dogmatic teaching.
Seek, we charge you, as you love your
souls, thus to use that sacred deposit which
on this day the Church brings out before
your eyes : turn not from it idly, as from
some ineffectual dogma of the schools ; gaze
not on it curiously, as on some fitting thesis
for skilful argument; but receive it with
earnest reverence ; lay hold on it with your
affections, as the very pith and kernel of that
blessed revelation which from it unfolds it
self in every part into a pervading principle
of life, and peace, and joy.
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 91
And hence follows again, on a different
ground, the same supreme importance of a
constant study of God s word ; for to no other
teaching may we trust, to carry out into de
tail the dogmas of our faith. Nowhere else
can we be absolutely safe from imbibing,
with the truth, some erroneous leaven, which
may work strangely and fearfully within us.
To this danger we must be exposed, when
we follow any uninspired expounder of doc
trine : his virtues and his faults, his circum
stances and those of the Church around
him, the peculiar aspect of the truth for
which he is compelled to strive, and the
especial errors which he is obliged to com
bat, all these, will, of necessity, impart a
certain colour to the faith as he delivers it,
and alter, in a certain measure, its effect
upon him who receives it. Those only can
we follow with absolute security who "know
these things" as "freely given to them of
God;" and who "speak" them "not in the
words which man s wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (1 Cor. ii.
12, 13). But even beyond this, great as it
92 THE RECEPTION OF THE
is, without supposing any charm to lurk in
the very letter of the Scripture, we may
look for a peculiar blessing on its teaching.
We need not fear, with our wisest divines of
the seventeenth century, to speak of "the
word as one of those arteries which convey
the Spirit to us."*
Hence, therefore, in a two-fold way, does
the faithful study of the Scripture, by in
creasing in us the gift of the Holy Ghost,
secure our receiving rightly the mysteries of
God : first, since it is the especial province
of the Spirit to reveal these mysteries, those
will the most surely grow in light who grow
in grace ; they who the most humbly seek
His teaching will be the most surely led on
into all truth. It is written in God s word,
"Ye have an unction from the Holy One,
and ye know all things" (1 John, ii. 20).
"The anointing which ye have received of
Him abideth in you, and ye need not that
any man teach you" (ver. 27). And there
is in such words a deep and blessed truth,
which must not be suppressed because it has
* Bishop Andrewes* Sermon I. on Pentecost.
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 93
been disfigured and debased by fanatical per
versions. There is a "teaching of the Spi
rit;" we may, as children, give up ourselves
to Him, and humbly trust He will enlighten
us. And then, secondly, besides the increase
of this direct teaching, we are thus made the
fitter recipients of His instruction ; for since,
as we saw before, the due reception of these
mysteries depends more on moral than on
intellectual fitness, they who by a growth in
grace are growing in holiness, are indeed
taking the surest way to purge the eyes of
their understanding, so that they may see
without speck or dimness what the Lord has
revealed of himself: "I have more under
standing than all my teachers ; for thy tes
timonies are my meditation. I understand
more than the ancients, because I keep thy
precepts" (Psalm cxix. 99, 100). And so it
happens here, as every where besides, that
for every sacrifice we make for God, he has
provided an abundant recompence. We call
on men, indeed, to mortify their thirst for
knowledge ; to abase their pride of reason
ing ; to become as little children : we meet
94 THE RECEPTION OF THE
the young man glorying in his untamed
powers of imagination, and we meet the wise
man glorying in his patient strength and
subtilty of reason ; and we tell them, that
they must be content to part with those most
valued attributes, and receive Christ s teach
ing as a little child. And these are great
requirements. But our rewards are not less
than our demands. We can promise, in
Christ s name, to those who will venture on
His word, the secure possession of that which
reason promises in vain. They who at His
call are willing to choose the path of a hum
ble ignorance, shall find it turn into the way
of surest knowledge. Though they sacrifice
some apparent boldness or subtilty of intel
lect, though they sparkle less with the out
ward dazzle of an assumed philosophy, yet
even their natural capacities will be in
creased and perfected. The patience and
docility which such self- discipline engenders ;
the quiet brightness of mind which follows
the clearing off of the mists of disfiguring
passions these are great aids even to the
natural faculties. The mind which has been
most deeply steeped in the morning dews of
CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 95
devotional exercises, will ever bear with the
most maintained freshness the parching heats
of deep and various study.
And if this be true as to objects of mere
intellectual apprehension ; if, with regard to
them, the boldness of self-confidence, and
the promises of an unpurged reason, are un
certain and deceitful, how abundantly more
true is it, if we take into our reckoning the
best and greatest objects which can occupy
the human mind, and the widest and most
lasting period for its active exercise ! for
these are closed for ever against all, save
those who will enter on the search through
the narrow portal of such a teachable sub
mission.
Even here on earth, what are all the
speculations of the reason, or the secrets of
science, to that knowledge of the Creator
of all things, which the humble and the con
trite gain? Wise, indeed, even for this life,
was the resolution " Credo, ut intelligam."
Faith demands the submission, but it insures
the perfection of the reason; it has a pecu
liar insight granted it into the highest and
the deepest things : " Saepe amor intrat, ubi
96 THE RECEPTION OF THE
cognitio foris stat."* And if, from this
world, where the mischance of a moment,
the burning of a fever or the wasting of an
ague, may rob us, unwarned, of all our most
valued stores ; if, from this short and uncer
tain condition, we carry on our reckoning
into the eternal world, all comparison is at
an end. "Blessed" then, indeed, "are the
pure in heart; for they shall see God"
(Matt. v. 8) : words for which our poor con
ceptions here can furnish no fit interpreta
tion ; but which suggests to us, certainly,
the highest satisfaction of our intellectual as
of our moral faculties; the full fruition of
those longings which God has planted in
our nature, and which here below can never
be completely met ; words which plainly
teach us, that the meek docility and child
like purity which Christ requires in his dis
ciples, will be, beyond all measure, overpaid,
when, before the throne of light, " we shall
see no more through a glass darkly, but face
to face;" when "we shall no more know in
part, but even as we are known" (1 Cor.
xiii. 12).
* Gerson.
SERMON IV.
THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING THE
MORAL SENSE.
SERMON IV.
" Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ;
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ;
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter /"
Isaiah, v. 20.
THE prophet is bewailing, in this chap
ter, the general corruption of his nation,
and the judgments which that corruption
was fast bringing on it ; " Therefore are my
people gone into captivity because they have
no knowledge :" and then, turning from the
general doom of all, he pronounces a more
emphatic censure upon those who had se
duced them from their God ; " Woe unto
them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity,
and sin as it were with a cart-rope ! Woe
unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
that put darkness for light, and light for
darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter!"
The direct force, then, of this woe, is
pointed against those who, by their princi-
100 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
pies or conduct, lower the moral and religi
ous standard around them. There are many
features of society peculiar to this place,
which make this a most appropriate warn
ing, and call, therefore, for your most serious
attention to its meaning. The subject which
it opens is two-fold, leading us, first, to note
especially the guilt of thus inflicting injury
on others; and then the self-accomplishment
of this great woe upon those who act as the
corruptors of their brethren.
Now a very little reflection may convince
us how sore an evil is such conduct, and
how great a condemnation it entails. For,
first, the current conventional standard of
society around them, is, alas ! even in this
Christian land, the main principle by which
the great mass of the better sort of people
regulate their conduct. For one who refers
truly to the law of God, hundreds may be
found who act upon the common maxims of
society. In each profession, and in every
rank of life, this is the common law of con
duct. To obey this, no self-denial is too
strict amongst the better sort of men ; and
THE MORAL SENSE. 101
to go beyond this, is taken for a sign of ec
centricity, if not of madness. The most scru
pulous observance of the truth, for instance,
is required within these limits, and the most
unscrupulous untruth allowed immediately
without them. So absolute indeed is this
conventional morality, and so much are the
habits of society at large, and the conduct of
its individual members, formed upon it, that
the sudden removal from the world of all
the rules and sanctions of our holy faith, as
of an exploded fable, would scarcely produce
any instant effect upon society. For the time,
and until the general standard had been
lowered down, they would go on very much
as they do now : the same restraints would
check the same rebellious passions, and the
same inducements call out the same amount
of usual and expedient virtues. But thus it
would be for a time only ; for those upon
whom personally our holy faith exerts no di
rect influence, are greatly affected by the
higher general tone of morals it has intro
duced. But for the faith of Jesus, the actual
standard, vicious as it is, would have been
102 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
infinitely lower ; and that lower standard
would be an incalculable curse. The higher
standard is a continual preparation for some
thing better; and the lower standard affords
a constant readiness for greater abomina
tions. If we could follow the inquiry into
the detail of cases, we should see how
many were prepared for great and hopeless
depths of vice, by living where the common
tone around them was brought very low ;
and, on the other hand, how those who by
such secondary motives had been preserved
from open iniquity, had been gradually led,
of God s great goodness, to far better things
by his preventing grace.
And all this applies, in no small measure,
to those who do act in some degree upon true
Christian motives, as well as to the world
at large. We cannot but observe, how diffe
rent in temper and degree is the religion of
one age from that of another ; and how, for
good or for evil, its general standard may be
altered by a few leading minds in any gene
ration. And that which we thus see on a
large scale in general society, may be easily
THE MORAL SENSE. 103
traced down to individual instances : one
man, endued with no more than the cheap
talent of personal popularity, will soon lea
ven those round him with his own vices,
lower their perception of evil, accustom them
to sin; and, acting through each one of them,
as a centre, upon their own acquaintance
and connexions, lower again, in a less de
gree, but still distinctly, their sense of evil :
and so, whilst he seems to himself, at the
worst, to be but seeking thoughtlessly for
pleasure, whilst he is a cause of pleasure to
all those around him, he is, in truth, doing
Satan s work with all the faculties which
God has given him, and bringing on his
soul the awful woe denounced against the
eminent corruptors of his people.
Nor is the converse of this picture less
true. Nowhere does there rise up one emi
nent in holiness, an earnest follower of our
adorable Redeemer, without the fruit of his
secret prayers, and silent watchings, and
earnest communion with God, being soon
traced, not by an evident and noisy follow
ing, but by the secret, leaven-like working
104 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
of better principles, stealing, through God s
gracious blessing, on the hearts of one and
of another, and thus raising all around him
the general standard of holiness and zeal.
This is true every where, but it is emi
nently true in society constituted as it is
amongst us in this place. The tone of a
college at any given time is set, to a re
markable degree, for good or evil, by a few
decided characters, far more than by exter
nal rules or by internal discipline.
This, therefore, it becomes us especially
to bear in mind : never can we live for our
selves alone ; but least of all can we do so,
placed as we are here. An influence for good
or for evil is daily going forth, from our
tone in society, from our common words and
actions, the effects of which no man can cal
culate. We are, whether we know it or not,
leading others to assume a higher standard,
by that we set before them; or breaking
down gradually the impressions which shield
them from evil, and rendering them an ea
sier prey to the great enemy of souls. Who
shall reckon up the value of those common
THE MORAL SENSE. 105
opportunities in the midst of which we live?
How many, whom on earth our eyes shall
never see, may rise up at the great day,
when all secrets shall be known, to call us
blessed, for the incidental good which visited
their souls, from our secret prayers, or open
self-denial ; or even from the copy of these
graces transmitted through another from our
selves ? Doubtless every golden link shall
then be seen and numbered ; and while all
the glory of salvation is given to its Lord,
they who have " turned many to righteous
ness shall shine as the stars for ever and
ever."
Nor is the counterpart of this picture less
important : it is one of the most fearful
characters of sin, that its consequences are
wholly out of our control. No man can stay
the stone which he has rashly set in motion ;
and he who has lowered the religious stan
dard of another cannot undo his mischief.
He may, of God s mercy, turn himself, and
his sin may be forgiven ; but still it may go
on working death to others ; and at the day
of reckoning, surely, even to the ransomed
106 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
sinner, such a sight as then may be disclosed
must be appalling to his soul ! others lost
through him, though he himself is saved.
Something of this bitterness was felt upon
that noted death-bed where the reclaimed
unbeliever felt that his own unfailing hope
in a Redeemer s blood was saddened, on the
brink of death, by the remembrance that his
example and his writings were still endur
ing to ruin other souls. Then was written
on his conscience, in all the living energy
of realised conviction, that there must be
an enduring woe for those who had taught
others by their sins to " call evil good, and
darkness light."
But another part of the woe here pro
nounced is perhaps still more important, and
to that we shall do well to turn our thoughts.
It is one especial part of their punishment
who are thus engaged in lowering the moral
standard of society around them, that they
must be, in a still greater measure, injuring
themselves : and here the mischief is certain.
Their example may, by possibility, be almost
inoperative upon others ; they may, though
THE MORAL SENSE. 107
this will seldom happen, hut they may, find
none around them whose moral powers they
can lower and debase : but one there must
be one living, reasoning, enduring being,
whom every such offender must destroy ;
whose judgment of good and evil he cannot
but debase ; whom he must surely rob of this
the best gift of his God, and that one is
himself; the true, the very man within. For
how "shall a man touch pitch and not be
defiled?" We have no other way, let us
remember, of transmitting moral evil than
by contagion : we must, in the first place, be
ourselves the victims of that which we con
vey to others ; and our own moral standard
must first, and especially, be lowered by that
evil which is seen in our example, and is
lowering the standard of society around us.
This is a subject of such vast import
ance, to those too, especially, who are first
entering fully upon life, that it well merits
a more patient and particular examination.
There is then within each of us a power
or faculty by which we judge of good or
evil, and which we call conscience, or the
108 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
moral sense. This is evidently given to us
by God, either as a part of the original
composition of our souls, or as a fruit of his
common and universal influence within the
hearts of men : for we see it every where
present in man, as far as observation can
extend, in some form of action or other. It
is, too, a faculty of internal judgment,
which does not result from a process of
reasoning, but acts with far greater rapidity
and power : it pronounces at once its de
cision, acting most readily, perhaps, in the
very beginning of life, when the reasoning
powers have scarcely been developed. Nor
can the reason directly affect its judgment.
It is in vain that we strive to silence its
voice by the cunning sophisms with which
we too often endeavour to bribe its deci
sion : it acts by a more direct and certain
rule. And this power was intended, doubt
less, by God, to be our great aid in resist
ing sin ; to be the watchful guardian of
the approach of evil ; and, by the instant
pain it can inflict, to oppose the immedi
ate pleasure with which sin is ever baited.
THE MORAL SENSE. 109
Through it, too, the Holy Spirit of the Lord
acts upon our souls, quickening their natu
ral power, and by it speaking to us in the
inner silence of our own hearts : and to
those who yield themselves to its commands,
when thus strengthened from above, it be
comes an absolute control, and the promise
is fulfilled " Thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk
ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand,
and when ye turn to the left" (Isaiah, xxx.
21). For thus it is that life, and energy,
and reality, .are given to that teaching of
revelation by which our reason is instruct
ed ; that which the reasoning faculty coldly
and slowly admits as truth, being hereby
made a living part of our moral perceptions.
And hence follows the exceeding import
ance of guarding carefully this great gift of
God to every one of us as individual be
ings: for although we cannot, by a direct act
of the reason, alter, or, at our immediate
volition, silence, the decision and the voice
of moral consciousness, we may, by a course
of actions, altogether debase, and even for
1 10 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
the time extinguish it. In examining this
part of the subject, it is impossible to se
parate wholly, even in idea, the acting of
God s Holy Spirit through the conscience
from the very faculty of conscience itself ;
for that which affects the one affects the
other. Sin, in any shape indulged, grieves,
we well know, the blessed Spirit ; it is a re
sisting of His gracious influence, a stopping
of the ear to His heavenly teaching ; and
He does leave those who does resist Him,
and thus deprives them of that highest bles
sing, the indwelling of the Holy One, which
keeps the conscience quick and tender, and
guards from defilement the first springs of
thought, putting into our hearts good de
sires, and quenching in them at once the
fiery darts of the ever- watchful evil one.
But sinful conduct has, too, an effect
upon the natural conscience ; and when in
dulged, must surely debase and stifle it.
Whenever resisted, its voice of condemna
tion is clear, and its reproof so painful as
scarcely to be borne : but if the feelings
which have been thus excited pass away,
THE MORAL SENSE. Ill
they are not again so deeply or readily pro
duced. Each repetition weakens still fur
ther their effect, until, by such neglect, the
voice of conscience is as surely blunted, as
it is impossible at once, and by a single act
of the volition, to arrest its instant sentence.
It is not merely that we acquire the powqr
of disregarding its voice, though this is
something, but it is that the judge himself
becomes corrupted. The ready perception
of right and wrong is lost. Habits ever
form for us a platform, from which, as from
ground already made, we mount to higher
measures of good and evil : conscience
ceases to rebuke that to which man has
become accustomed. Thus she learns to
converse with new sin with less reluctance :
testifying less against it, she is more easily
overborne by sophisms ; and thus her in
nate powers are lost ; for he that has thus
tampered with his conscience finds at once
that he cannot, even if in some moments of
conviction he would, restore to it its early
quickness and purity of judgment. He has
taught it to call " evil good, and good evil ;
1 12 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
to put darkness for light, and light for dark
ness ; to put bitter for sweet, and sweet for
bitter." Woe unto him ! He has lost so far
the great boon of the inner ray with which
the Lord had gifted, as with the candle of
His lighting, the darkness of man s heart ;
and it is not in the mere power of his own
will to set it in its place again.
This is the debasing work of all allowed
sin upon the moral powers of man ; and it
is of great moment to observe how from this
it follows, as a certain truth, that there is a
necessary tendency in any one allowed form
of evil to prepare the soul for receiving
others. From the general inclination of the
heart to yield itself to one reigning sin at
one time, this fact is oftentimes forgotten,
and men speak as if some sins (moderate
licentiousness, for instance, whilst it is deck
ed out with the liveliness of youthful spi
rits, were rather a drain to the evil of the
soul, and tended to prevent the cold and
morose selfishness which seems to be a sort
of opposite to diffuser and more joyous vice ;
whereas, in truth, every single sin indulged
THE MORAL SENSE. ] 13
prepares the soul for others, even those of a
most opposite exterior, as soon as the form
of temptation or the room of opportunity are
changed. The dominant sin is all, perhaps,
that the spectator notices ; but it is seeding
all around it other poisonous plants, which
are rooting in the soil beneath its shadow,
and will shoot up in their turn into a more
visible predominance. And so the riotous
selfishness of youth is the best and surest
preparation for the peevishness or moroser
selfishness of age. It is the curse not of
absolute sterility, but rather of a fatal fruit-
fulness with which all sin has been endued
fruitful is it " after its kind :" different,
indeed, are its progeny, and manifold in
shape and form, but all alike inheriting the
serpent s nature, all stinging and polluting
the unhappy soul which has yielded up it
self to be their haunt ; for every sin in
dulged, by banishing the Spirit of the Holy
One, and lowering the moral standard,
makes the inroad of a new temptation easier
and more natural. And here is the unseen
connexion whereby, as by channels hid un-
Q
114 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
der the earth, streams which lie far apart
are secretly united, springing up again in
some new quarter, to the surprise of all,
when they have been long buried and for
gotten ; and thus it is, that by allowed in
iquity a soul becomes most deeply and uni
versally depraved.
But though the actual practice of sin
is thus the surest and the readiest way of
depraving the moral standard, it is by no
means sufficient, in order to prevent this
woe, that we watch against the absolute of
fence of vicious practice. Many other
means will, to a great extent, produce the
same effect ; and it may be therefore not a
little useful to follow this subject out some
what further.
There is, then, after vicious practice, no
thing of which they who would preserve
their moral sense unclouded should more
cautiously beware, than a needless acquain
tance with sin. The first and evident form
in which this danger meets us, is from the
company of evil men. A thousand causes
may make it natural or pleasant to us to enter
THE MORAL SENSE. 115
lightly into it, and we go without a thought
of yielding up our principles ; at first, per
haps, regretting the loose tone around us,
and even hurt at the unwonted sight of guilt.
But let no man thus trust himself upon for
bidden ground. Not to rebuke sin, is to be
gin to copy it. No man in such a state can
know the full amount of evil he is uncon
sciously imbibing ; how far, by the cunning
revelations of the outskirts of iniquity now
made to him, his dread of its accursed na
ture is being stolen from him ; how far, by
the seducing influence of example, he is
learning to do evil. To allow the company
of evil men, is to haunt the antechamber of
destruction ; it is the most ascertained and
ordinary method of defiling our own con
science.
But the principle extends much further.
There are many who shun evil company,
and yet allow the same temptation under
different forms. It seems clear that man be
fore the fall was unable to realise what moral
evil was : it was only by losing innocence
that he gained this knowledge. The bait
116 THE DANGER or DEPRAVING
of the tempter was, that he should become
" as God, knowing good and evil ; " and
when he fell, this false promise was fearfully
fulfilled : he gained the power of knowing
evil, but, unlike the holy God, he lost his
innocence in gaming this knowledge. And
if in idea we can place ourselves again in
that blessed state of innocence, surely we
ourselves must feel that we could not realise
what evil is ; that we could not truly con
ceive how there could be any sweetness in
rebelling, even by one evil thought, against
the just and holy will of God. And in all
its subsequent degrees this connexion be
tween knowing evil and being tainted by it,
is, practically speaking, far more close than
men are willing to imagine. Curiosity still
tempts us ; the thirst for knowing how and
what others feel is strong upon us; and hence
the common wish " to know the world and
life ; " hence the interest taken in the morbid
anatomy of their wicked hearts, which the
great talents of some evil men have dressed
up with every pleasurable artifice. Hence
every temptation of the kind. But now trace
THE MORAL SENSE. 117
the effect of all such intercourse with evil
upon the moral sense. The first impression
made on one in whom it is quick and lively,
by the sight of any wicked action, is horror
at its guilt ; he sees it, that is to say, in its
relation to God s will. Even before he rea
sons on it, the tender sensibilities with which,
like some blessed instinct, God has endued the
heart which is comparatively pure, awaken
all his feelings, and set him on his guard.
But let him live in the voluntary sight of
this same action, and how soon will all these
feelings fade away ! He grows to view the
sin as a fact ; his reason still admits its evil ;
but his heart s ready testimony to its hate-
fulness is gone. Then comes habitual pa
tience of the sight of sin, then an interest in
its details, an assimilating of himself in feel
ing and imagination with the sinner; and
how can this be without the moral standard
being lowered, and darkness already, in a
great measure, taken to be light ? From this
point the downward steps of evil are too ge
nerally rapid. The practice of iniquity will
not be delayed much longer ; and this, and
118 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
an increasing "knowledge of the world," will
soon induce him to suspect that all truth and
virtue are but cunning veils for vice. He
will first doubt, and soon disbelieve, the very
existence of truth and holiness; his own
moral rule, that is to say, will be so ab
solutely bent and falsified, that he will no
longer mark that there is any difference be
tween the just and the unjust ; in the grow
ing darkness of his heart, good will be put
for evil, and evil taken to be good. And to
this miserable end has the curiosity of know
ing evil led many, step by step, who never
dreamed that they were changing, to their
ruin, the blessed peace of ignorance for such
a fatal knowledge of iniquity.
But perhaps the question is even now ris
ing, How can this supposed duty of avoiding
the knowledge of iniquity, be consistent
with that wisdom of the serpent which is to
blend in the disciples of our Master with
the " harmlessness of doves ? " We are not,
surely, to go forth into the world ignorant
of all its evil, and, like children, or those
who, through weakness of the understand-
THE MORAL SENSE. 119
ing, have learned nothing from experience,
to trust every one, and view none with sus
picion ? this surely would make us useless
to all, or even oblige us to " go out of the
world." This question is well worthy of a
practical reply ; for by just such sugges
tions the temptation of our natural curiosity
is plied and aided by the cunning enemy of
souls, who, under the false pretext of sup
plying us with necessary knowledge, would
thrust us on a deadly search, which can end
only in the poison of our spirits ; whereas
the truth which it contains should lead us
to another course.
There is undoubtedly a knowledge of evil
which is necessary for our due discharge of
ordinary duties. It is possible "to be men
in understanding," and yet " children as to
vice" (xaxi a, 1 Cor. xiv. 20) ; and if we will
search, we may find the provisions God has
made to secure this very end. It is their
privilege " who by reason of use have their
senses exercised to discern both good and
evil" (Heb. v. 14). It must, that is, be
learned, in some way or other, in the prac-
120 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
tice of God s will and in the progress of the
Christian life ; and how this is, we may
soon see.
There are some remarkable provisions by
which the Christian s power of discrimina
tion can be formed, without encouraging an
evil curiosity, or courting any familiarity
with vice. For, first, it will grow gradually
with the growth of our self-knowledge. Alas !
we bear evil always about with us ; and if we
search ourselves, we must become acquainted
with it. Yet even here we need a caution,
for our very self-inspection may become the
means of self-defilement. If curiously, and
to gratify by the inquiry the excitement of
a morbid spirit, we search into ourselves, we
may lose even in this search the power of
rightly estimating evil ; whilst we puzzle our
selves until we are lost hopelessly in the
labyrinth of mixed desires and questionable
motives. But there is a provision made by
God, by which we may maintain our purity
of conscience, whilst thus, by exercise in
searching our own hearts, we gain the know
ledge of iniquity ; for if, as in His sight, and
THE MORAL SENSE. 121
with a true thirst for reformation, we do try
our practical obedience both of heart and
life, we pass this danger by unharmed. The
feelings with which our heart has been
endued would become, here as elsewhere,
blunted by indulgence, if we sought into our
selves for the purpose of awakening them,
and then allowed them to pass fruitlessly
away : but if the search be dictated by a
longing thirst for holiness ; if each sin dis
covered be brought forth and slain before
the Lord; if the healing tree of Christ s cross
be ever cast into the waters as quickly as
we taste their bitterness ; if fresh supplies
of grace are sought to cleanse the heart, and
a deeper contrition striven for as we dis
cover further offences ; then, by this active
conduct, the passive feelings of the heart
are kept unblunted ; while, as effort grows
daily into habit, they have done their work ;
and the higher moral standard which such
communing with God, and such gifts of His
free grace maintain, purges even at the mo
ment the senses which are " exercised in
evil." The knowledge of " the plague of
122 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
his own heart" to which the Christian thus
attains carries with it humbling, healing
thoughts higher reverence for God s ma
jesty, a more entire dependence on His
grace, a livelier trust in the Redeemer, and
so at once pacifies and regulates the con
science.
This is true also of that necessary inter
mixture with the evil of the world around
him from which the disciple of our Lord
cannot escape ; for here is the same safe
guard. He is called, perhaps, by God s
providence into some station which compels
him to see the sins of evil men ; and if his
call be clear, he must not, doubtless, shrink
back from it to guard his innocence ; but
let him enter on it, knowing to the full its
danger, remembering that many strong
men have fallen down before the spells and
witchery of vice, which at first was hateful
to them, but which ere long subdued them,
when they had learned to gaze calmly on
her accursed features. And how is he to be
protected ? by remembering for what cause
alone the Lord can call his witnesses to bear
THE MORAL SENSE. 123
the neighbourhood of sin, and where their
strength is to be found. It can only be to
rebuke it, that God s servant is called on to
witness sin ; never does He require one of
His to bear patiently its sight. Interest,
ambition, softness, cowardice, each and all
of these in turn may entice him to stand by
in silence whilst his God is mocked ; but it
was not that he thus might earn the bribe
of worldly prosperity, that he was called out
by God to face His foes he was not sent to
Bethel to feast on Jeroboam s dainties ; no
if he must see sin, let him see it to reprove
it, and let him reprove it in the might of
God ; not in the self-confidence of a carnal
strength or self-possession, but even as the
meanest instrument of Him who is almighty;
and with such a safeguard, at God s call, we
may walk unharmed even in the fire of pre
sent sin. Special grace is ever given to
those whom He calls on to endure special
temptation. " When thou passest through
the waters, / will be with thee."
And here, as before, we may trace the
provision God has made for this security in
124 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
the nature He has given us. For the feel
ings of grief and shame which are naturally
roused by the first sight of sin, and which of
themselves will die away with each repeti
tion, if, from curiosity or the love of excite
ment, we call them into fruitless exercise,
these, when they lead us to strive against
the evil which we see, grow into a living
habit of resisting sin ; and this habit keeps
the conscience quick and tender, and,
through the blessing of God s grace, puri
fies and strengthens the power of moral
judgment beyond all other means of whole
some exercise.
Thus it is that God s especial witnesses
have borne, amidst an evil generation, the
burden of His holiness and truth. Thus, by
boldly resisting sin, in His strength and in
His sight, have they learned to view with
deeper shame and sorrow the iniquity whose
secrets they discerned, until, weary of this
evil earth, they have cried one by one unto
the Lord, with the prophet on the mount of
God, " I have been very jealous for the
Lord God of Hosts, because the children of
THE MORAL SENSE. 125
Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown
down thine altars, and slain thy prophets
with the sword" (1 Kings, xix. 14).
But how wholly different a state of mind
is this from that " knowledge of the world"
which has learned to doubt of the existence
of virtue, to suspect all of secret vice; which
is the very essence of practical unbelief, and
the foulest debasement of a man s own moral
powers ; and which is, as we have seen, the
fruit, not only of habitual sin, but of seek
ing for acquaintance with iniquity, not to
work its reformation, but to gratify our
curiosity, or stimulate our feelings. Who
can estimate too highly the horrors of this
state, when " forasmuch as men did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, he has
given them over unto a reprobate mind?"
(Rom. i. 28). Who can deem too terribly
even of that condition which does but bor
der on this hopeless end ? Day by day its
misery increases ; and, in exact proportion,
grows too its hopelessness. Excess eats out
the very faculty of natural enjoyment with
which the earlier days of sin are for the
126 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
most part gladdened. Youthful sins are
generally pleasurable, and so they continue
till their bonds are firm ; but the gilding
soon wears off the chain. The mouth of
the net is strewed with tempting baits ; but
when the soul is once entangled, there are
no more of these, and it is driven on amongst
the meshes. The sins of mature years, and
still more those of age, are not even tricked
out with the appearances of pleasure. No
man thinks that the griping covetousness, or
the cold selfishness, or the peevish irritation,
or the cynical asperity of later years, are
pleasurable even to their victims ; and yet
these only are the gifts which vice has in
store for those who graduate in her school.
And, as it becomes more wretched, a state
of sin becomes at the same time more hope
less. The Holy Spirit of the Lord for
sakes more and more the polluted dwelling-
place; the moral judgment is thoroughly de
filed, and scarce, even in the extremest cases,
knows what is sin and what is not, until it
comes to " rejoice in iniquity." And what
is there what can there be, in God s world,
THE MORAL SENSE. 127
here or hereafter, for him who is " given
over to a reprobate mind," save the " black
ness of darkness for ever ?"
And even in the instances which reach
not to this extreme ruin, how sore a loss is
that of a tender conscience ! Though, of
God s infinite mercy, the soul is awakened
to repentance ; though the blessed Spirit
puts into it a desire to return and every
such desire, as His gift, is a sure earnest that
it may return that the Lord waiteth to be
gracious that Christ Jesus will receive him,
and deliver him from sin ; yet still how
great is its loss ! We do see that, by the
working of God s grace, tenderness of con
science and the quickness of the moral judg
ment return even to those who have gone on
in sin ; and therefore do we preach Christ s
blessed Gospel to them, not paring down or
limiting its full efficiency, as if we secretly
feared to use our remedy, but boldly telling
even them that there is a power in it to heal
their deadliest leprosy. Yet still the loss is
great. It is a weary road that such must
travel ; and warns us to keep earnestly this
128 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
good gift of God, rather than to hope to
gain it back again when lost.
To take but two examples. How hard
is it for men who have once lost it, to regain
the full measure of entire sincerity and
that not in the entanglements of practice
only, and under the pressure of old temp
tations, but even in the judgment. How
hardly do they get again the ready indigna
tion against little conventional or personal
deceits with which their soul was once free
ly stored ; how long do they need to pray,
and watch, and weep, and keep the blessed
company of holy words and thoughts, and
seek for grace most earnestly, before they
attain to such a state of soul that, readily,
instantly, and without an effort, they can in
any measure see all things around them as
they are seen by Him who is the God of
truth !
Take one other instance. It is one pecu
liar blessing of childhood, that every thing
around it is real ; as every thing around the
hardened worldly sceptic is unreal. In re
ligious truth this is an especial blessing, and
129 THE MORAL SENSE.
it depends mainly on the clearness of the
moral sense : and they who have, even in
the lower degrees, tampered with conscience
nay, who have not watched closely to
maintain its power and life are sure to
suffer here : they will be continually tempt
ed to admit religious truth as an intellec
tual fact, rather than to assimilate it to their
inner constitution by their moral powers ; to
see what is right, and to approve of it in a
certain speculative manner, and yet to feel
that they do not in truth prefer it, and so do
not indeed practise it. This is a most pain
ful and wearisome temptation, and not the
least so because it peculiarly besets holy
things, reading the word of God prayer
meditation and the use of sacraments.
Nay, the more we are conversant in holy
things, without setting our inner heart on
them, the more it assaults us ; until, like the
miserable prophet in the first lesson for this
day, who " loved the wages of iniquity,"
even the word of the Lord becomes to us a
sound, and the visions of the Almighty as a
dream ; and, like him, though our " eyes be
130 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
open," it is but "in a trance " and as an un
reality that we see the very truth of God.
Out of such a state we cannot reason
ourselves we must live ourselves out of it.
We must, that is, by communing with God,
and living in His sight, and seeking heal
ing grace from Him, repair slowly this our
loss. But how much better is it, not to in
cur it ! for which purpose our care must be
extreme. We must strive not only against
injuring our souls by sin or needless ac
quaintance with iniquity, even in its least
offensive features ; but we must watch over
our use of holy things, guard against the
first temptations which would lead us to
treat religion rather as a science than an
art a thing to be learned rather than to
be lived; against all exaltation, or sepa
ration even, of the forms of piety above or
from their essence ; against the taking up
certain religious views, and then defending
and maintaining them in argument, as an
exercise of the intellect and a triumph of
party, rather than seeking silently and so
berly to learn truth upon our knees, and to
THE MORAL SENSE. 131
shew it in our lives ; walking with the Lord
in secret communion, and before men, in an
easy and unostentatious denial of ourselves.
For this is what we need : that truth should
be made one with us, purifying all our mo
ral judgments, and be " in us as a well of
water, springing up unto eternal life." But
they who think lightly of such care, or wea
ry of such diligence, are sure, as they grow
older, to be tried with this temptation : to
find the reality of unseen things diminish ;
to feel the veil of unreality drawn more and
more between themselves and the eternal
world ; and as it would " profit us nothing
to have all faith, so that we could remove
mountains," whilst we lack Christian " cha
rity," so is the most splendid outward piety,
and the most convincing tongue, and the
subtilest and clearest intellect exercised on
holy things, but a miserable barter for the
realising simplicity of a childish faith, taught,
by God s Holy Spirit, the plainest saving
truths of Christ s Gospel. They, too, who
acquiesce in such a state, live ever in the
neighbourhood of a still greater danger :
132 THE DANGER OF DEPRAVING
doubts of God s truth are ever ready to fall
upon such souls, to eat out all the reality of
things unseen ; to come most thickly at holy
seasons, when the weary spirit would most
be free from them ; and to settle ever here
after in the heart as their accustomed haunt.
For peace, then, as well as for safety, let
us strive to keep in all its brightness this
most precious jewel, and " exercise" our
selves^ like the great apostle, to " have a
conscience void of offence towards God and
towards men ;" and for this end mainly let
us take with us these two cautions.
First, that with the lowest thoughts of
our own worth or goodness, we yet strive
to keep always alive within us a reverence
for our own souls ; that we remember whose
image they bear, whose blood hath been
shed for them, whose Spirit dwells within
them ; that we think of them as a great
trust, as the very jewels of Christ s crown,
given to us to keep and brighten for eter
nity : that we bear in mind how sin must
soil and injure them ; and then how sure
must be the loss, how uncertain the re-
THE MORAL SENSE. 133
covery. And so, in the very hotness of
temptation, instead of thinking of trans
gression as a trifle, and therefore being
overbaited by the sweetness of the lure, we
shall, of God s mercy, see something of its
most accursed nature, and of the loss and
damage it must bring upon us.
To confirm which safeguard, endeavour
to bear always with you a remembrance of
God s nearness to you. Strive practically
to view things as they should seem to those
with whom the Holy One is present. This
will keep your moral standard pure, and
its weights perfect as the balance of the
sanctuary : this will help you, amidst the
low tones of conventional morality, to refer
all to that pure commandment of the Lord,
which " giveth light unto the eyes." Walk
ing thus with Him will fill your soul with
awe, as one whom God hath made ; with
fear, as one whom the Lord must judge ;
and yet with grateful assurance, as one
whom Christ hath " redeemed from the
hand of the enemy."
SERMON V.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
SERMON V.
" Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder
ness to be tempted of the devil." Matt. iv. 1.
IN all parts of the Christian s life, he that
would walk steadily and surely must keep
his eyes fixed upon his great Exemplar ; but
especially when trials wax severe, and the
way is truly strait, will he need such solace
to his weakness ; and there is no rough place
where his Master has not left the imprint
of his footsteps ; there are no sufferings, toil,
or temptations, through which He has not
passed before us ; "He was in all points
tempted like as we are;" whatever is our
burden, its weight is known and familiar to
Him to whom we have to look for strength.
For this reason it is, doubtless, that on
Sunday next, the first in Lent, the Church
meets us in the gospel of the day with the
record of our Lord s temptation. She would
thus seasonably animate our fainting resolu-
T
138 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
tions ; for whatever the softness of these easy
times may whisper, she did undoubtedly in
tend to call men in that season to practise,
in some way or other, more than usual self-
discipline and mortifying of the flesh ; and
knowing how distasteful are such exercises
to the common run of Christians, and the
various temptations to which such a season
must expose them, she meets them at its
opening with the record of their Master s
fasting and temptation, to be at once their
best example, and their chief support in such
a course.
Now, it will not be questioned by any who
watch closely the working of their own or
others minds, that a great part of the force
and power of our blessed Lord s example
here is lost on men, through their slipping
it aside, by secretly imagining that, after
all, His case and theirs are wholly different.
They read of His being tempted ; and as
they do not disbelieve the Scriptures, they
admit in a certain way that He was ; that
is, they never question it. But practically
speaking, and meaning by temptation such
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 139
temptations as they yield to, they do not
believe that He was tempted : they have a
secret reserve " Christ was tempted, as
far as He could be tempted ; but how could
He who was God as well as man be really
tempted ? what was there in Him to tempt ? "
By such and such-like questions the practi
cal example of our Lord is wholly set aside ;
and men lose the benefit which was designed
for them in holy Scripture, when in it were
noted down these awful struggles of the
prince of darkness with the Captain of our
salvation.
This is, in fact, the leaven from which
the earliest heresies arose ; it is an attempt
to explain the great mystery of the incarna
tion, by resolving the human nature of our
Lord into an economical appearance. As
such, it shows in two ways forcibly the
great importance of accurately holding, and
distinctly bringing out, the dogmas of the
Christian faith : first, because it exhibits
what is always doubtless true, though it can
not always be so clearly traced the con
nexion which there is between a weakened
140 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
Christian life and a creed unsound even on
those points which men call subtle and ab
struse : and, secondly, because it shews how
heresies spring, not from some peculiar tem
per of their time, but from the common
tendencies of our fallen nature ; and how,
therefore, we may look for their return, if a
watchful jealousy for ascertained conclusions
be at any time remitted in the Church. Pe
culiar seasons, indeed, favour the growth of
one or other form of error, and aid its full
development; but it is as spring draws forth
the verdure of the earth : the various seeds,
dormant hitherto, but now apparent in their
growth, were ready there, or the sun and
showers had never called them into an evi
dent life : and the seeds of error are in the
heart, waiting to spring up again, when the
creeds and symbols which suppressed them
have lost amongst us their vitality and power.
For both these reasons, then, to give life
to the example of our Lord, and to keep
up the Church s witness against latent he
resy, it will not be in vain to bring out, in
some detail, the doctrine which these rising
thoughts oppose.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 141
That doctrine is the true incarnation of
the Son of God; to receive which rightly,
these four truths, opposed to as many ancient
heresies, must be distinctly apprehended.
1. That the eternal Son of God was in
very deed of one substance and glory with
the Father, God of God, Light of Light ;
severed only into the person of the Son, in
the unity of the Godhead, by the addition to
" the substance of God " of " this property,
to be of the Father."*
2. That this eternal Son or Word of God
did, in the fulness of time, take unto Him
self our very nature, through the miraculous
power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of
the Virgin Mary ; so that henceforward He
was truly man, in body, mind, and soul, as
much as before this He had been truly God.
3. That in His one person these two dis
tinct natures were not confused together,
the Godhead ceasing to be truly the God
head through mixture of the manhood there
with, or the manhood ceasing to be in very
deed humanity through the alliance of Deity
* Hooker.
142 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
thereto ; but each in one person preserving
the essential limits of their own true several
being, unmixed and unconfused. And,
4. That this union of two natures was
strictly in one person ; since the old error,
which maintained the existence of two per
sons in the Christ, must in truth do away
with one, either by making two Christs, one
God, the other man ; or else by destroying
the unity of His Godhead or His manhood.
Of these four great truths, the subject of
Christ s temptation is conversant mainly
with the second and the third.
For, first, to be truly tempted, Christ must
be truly man. Unless His temptations, His
sufferings, and His death, were all wrought
in appearance only, there must be that na
ture truly in Him which is capable of these
accidents. And this, in its fullest signifi
cance, is the doctrine of the catholic Church.
That Christ did truly take our nature to
Himself, of the very natural substance of
His virgin-mother, with a body truly and
really derived from hers ; and as a body, so
also the higher parts of our mixed nature,
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 143
a mind and will dwelling in a reasonable
soul. And to the full perception of this
truth, it must be noted, that the nature He
took was the human nature as it was in His
mother ; not, as some have fancied, the na
ture of Adam before his fall ; for how should
He have obtained that nature from the Vir
gin Mary, who herself possessed it not ? and
if He had, how could He have been " in all
points like as we are, sin only excepted?"
for we know not that in Adam s body were
all those sinless infirmities which dwell in
ours, and which indeed we acknowledge in
our Lord s. Before the fruit of the forbid
den tree had poisoned the currents of his
blood, we know not that pain, and weariness,
and sickness, could have invaded that body
which from God s hand had come forth
"very good," and which, we doubt not, by
the fruit of the tree of life was to have been
strengthened till it could not taste of death.
But the body which our blessed Lord as
sumed was subject, like our own, to those in
firmities which have not in them the nature
of sin, and yet which sin has brought into
144 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
our nature. He was weary and a-thirst with
His mid-day journey; He was faint with buf
ferings and scourgings, and the heavy bur
den of the cross ; agony of mind wrought
fearfully on His body. He was, as we are,
liable to death. And herein was shewed His
marvellous love, "in taking," as St. Bernard
saith, "my flesh upon Him, my very flesh,
not that which Adam had before his fault."*
The contrary opinion has arisen from the
pious but mistaken fear, lest in allowing that
Christ took the very nature of His mother,
we should unawares allow that He took what
was sinful : but the true answer to this ap
prehension is, that the Eternal Son took to
Himself, in the womb of the Virgin, not a
human person, but humanity humanity,
which, if it had been impersonated in one of
us would have been sinful, but which could
not be sinful until it was a person, and was
* " In quo enim magis commendare poterat benigni-
tatem suam, quam suscipiendo carnem meam ? Meam,
inquam, non carnem Adam, id est non qualem ille habuit
ante culpam." ST. BERN, in Epiph. Serm. I. sec. 2.
vol. i. p. 796.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 145
never a person till it was in the Christ.
" To His own person He assumed a man s
nature. The flesh, and the conjunction of
the flesh with God, began at one instant. . .
And that which in Him made our nature
uncorrupt, was the union of His deity with
our nature. *
Here we approach the second great truth
which now concerns us, namely, that these
two natures, though thus conjoined in one
person, were not confounded the one with
the other ; that neither was the proper God
head of the Son diminished by inferior ad
mixture, nor the humanity swollen out of
the true limits of its essential properties by
the alliance of Deity. To it, indeed, Deity
added that infinite worth which made it a
fit sacrifice for sin ; to it, that grace of unc
tion unmeasured, by which it was held up
ever without spot of iniquity : but still each
nature was separate and unconfused ; and
thus, in the unity of the Godhead, could
Christ declare on earth that the Son of Man
was in heaven; thus could He truly suffer
* Hooker s Ecclesiastical Polity* v. p. 52.
U
146 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
and die in His human body, though the
Godhead is impassible and immortal; thus
could He, in His human soul, be "in an
agony," though Deity can never suffer; thus
could He pray, " Father, not my will, but
thine be done," while He could declare, " I
and my Father are one." Here, then, was
the provision made for the reality of His
temptation; for in whatever way Satan can
approach us from without, by the influences
of a spiritual presence, as suggesting to the
imagination, and throwing into the mind,
that which is at once temptation, and be
comes sin as soon as the will has given to it
the first beginnings of assent ; in this same
way are we enforced, by the verity of His
human soul, to believe that the Son of God
could be approached by Satan. " For," to
use the words of Hooker, " as the parts,
degrees, and offices of that mystical admi
nistration did require which he voluntarily
undertook, the beams of Deity did in ope
ration always accordingly either restrain or
enlarge themselves." So that, to make His
exposure to temptation perfect, we must sup-
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 147
pose no sinless avenues to its approach which
in us are open, closed in Him. The fiery
darts, indeed, found in that most true, loyal
soul no sinful tendencies on which to fall;
they were cast hack at once from the con
fines of His imagination hy a will truly in
accordance with the will of the Father,
and dwelt in beyond measure by the pre
sent influence of the Spirit of all grace. So
that, with a perfect exposure to temptation,
spot of sin there could be clearly none ;
and so is fulfilled in Him the declaration
that "He was in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin." Such are the
mysterious truths we must keep clear in our
remembrance, if we would view aright this
wonderful relation.
But there is one other feeling apt to pos
sess our minds, and rob us of the sense of its
reality, and therefore of its practical effect.
When we read of the tempter approaching
with his wiles Him whom we thus know to
be the Lord incarnate, God the maker of
all being, we have something of the feeling
with which we read of those imaginary con-
148 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
flicts in which man is supposed to strive
against beings of a higher order : we feel,
that is, as if there could be no real contest ;
that it is but the apparent acting out of
what would be naturally impossible. When
we compare the paltry baits with the infi
nite worthiness of Him to whom they were
proffered, we feel so sure of the conclusion,
that, knowing the craft and subtilty of the
tempter, we cannot believe that he could
thus attempt to turn aside the perfect up
rightness of God s only Son.
Here, then, we need the recollection, that
to him had not been made the revelation
we possess of Christ s eternal power and
Godhead : that from him was kept secret, as
St. Ignatius writes, " the virginity of Mary,
and Him who was born of her, as also the
death of our Lord ; three of the mysteries
the most spoken of in the world, yet done
in secret by God:"* that all he knew was,
that this was the Champion of man, the
Holy One of God, the second Adam, with
whom, as with the first, was to be his great
* St. Ign. ad Ephes. c. 19.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 149
struggle for the dominion of this world. He
knew that he had triumphed once, by like
temptations, over the same nature unfallen :
that, when it came pure from God s hands,
very good in its own essence, and dwelt * in
by the gifts of God s grace, even then it had
not availed to resist his crafts ; and how
should it fare better now? What so far
greater power could be allied with it, as to
make that which had since fallen and be
come acquainted with infirmities unnum
bered, yet able to resist his might ? Ages
too of temptation had sharpened his subtilty :
not a saint along the whole line had he ever
left untempted not one had perfectly re
sisted temptation. One more such triumph
over David s Son as that which he had
gained on David, and man was his for ever;
* See Bishop Bull on the State of Man before the
Fall. "That our first parents, besides the seeds of na
tural virtue and religion sown in their minds, in their
very creation, and besides the natural innocence and
rectitude, wherein also they were created, were endowed
with certain gifts and powers supernatural infused by the
Spirit of God ; and that in these gifts their perfection
consisted." Prop. ii. p. 1091.
150 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
his malicious hatred gratified, and God s
purposes of mercy turned aside.
How exactly then, in this view, does the
history of this temptation accord with all
that is revealed to us of Satan. Here is the
same craft in conception, the same boldness
in daring, the same certain limits both to
knowledge and to power, the same sure de
feat in issue. What is this but the whole
history of his resisting God ? of the baffled
strivings of malicious craft against the calm
sovereignty of the Almighty.
And when we look at the temptation in
this light, how strikingly does it fall in with
the whole course of God s revealed deal
ings! Throughout the Old Testament Satan
is scarcely mentioned ; and in the New he
is less emphatically the enemy of God than
of Christ, as if between the prince of this
world and the Son of Man must lie the
mighty struggle. Such, says St. Augustine,
was the scheme of all God s dealings : " Di-
abolus non potentia Dei, sed justitia superan-
dus fuit."* It was to be a moral conquest,
* St. Aug. de Trin. xiii. cap. 17.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 151
not one of power alone, by which the enemy
was overcome ; for if it were not so, there
could have been no resistance of God s will,
" nam quid Omnipotente potentius ? " and so
no display of all His moral attributes in
man s deliverance. Thus every where in
the New Testament, as here in the wilder
ness, -it is a struggle between Christ and
Satan : and his evil agency is now revealed
and manifest ; possessions now show their
real character ; Satan s baffled counterwork
ing comes to light wherever the Redeemer
enters. And here is the peculiar key to the
temptation of our Lord. It is at the open
ing of His ministry ; just as before its close
there was one more such evident and open
struggle with the spirits of evil, when it was
again "their hour and the power of dark
ness" not that the intermediate time was
free from such fierce strife, but that these
are more expressly stated, to reveal to us
the whole complexion of that life-long strug
gle. And in this first, especially, its charac
ters are plain. It is an evident meeting of
the leaders in this great encounter. The
152 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
Christ is led up to it by the Spirit ; He goes
as the bearer of humanity, the aAuOtvo^ ai/0pw-
wof, the Son of Man as the second Adam,
the federal Head of all, " the one true and
perfect flower which had ever unfolded it
self out of the root and stalk of humanity."
He is led into the wilderness, " in desertum,"
as Aquinas has it, "quasi in campum cer-
taminis." As the second Adam, " He did
this," says St. Basil, "mystically, to free the
first Adam from his exile, for he was cast
into the wilderness from paradise." He was
led there to be tried by evil ; and as within
Him evil could not be, the tempter came to
Him: the evil was from without: the
tempter came, not probably in the grossness
of a visible form, but as he comes to us,
casting the secret spells of sense and earth-
liness upon the imagination, and seeking
thereby to seduce the heart and will. The
very form and nature of the several temp
tations carries back our thoughts to man s
last great struggle with the evil one in the
person of the first head of his race. In each
case it is through the bodily appetite that
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 153
the tempter first seeks to insinuate his poi
son. " Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden ? " " If thou be the
Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread." So too in the following temp
tations, the same springs are touched in
either case : " Your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods ; " so ran the lying
promise to arouse within them empty and
vain-glorious wishes. " If thou be the Son
of God, cast thyself down ; " and again, "All
these things will I give thee." So he sought
to succeed the second time.
Nor let the reality of the temptations here
again escape our notice. It was, as a whole,
an evident suggestion that He should avoid
the life of pain and trial which lay all mark
ed out before Him. And there are two
points in His after-life which give us some
insight into the reality and strength of this
temptation : the one is, the severity of that
reproof with which He checked the same
suggestion from the mouth of Peter " Get
thee behind me, Satan ; for thou art an of
fence, cWi/JaAof, unto me ! " The other the
x
154 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
exceeding sorrowfulness of that prayer at
Gethsemane, when He sought, that " if it
were possible the cup might pass from"
Him.
And so the struggle went on, but not to
such an issue as before. No frauds or wiles
of Satan could seduce His loyalty, who now
in human nature wrestled with the evil one.
The " prince of this world had nothing in
Him ;" he fled abashed at the rebuke, " Get
thee hence, Satan ; for it is written ;" and
" behold angels came and ministered unto"
their Lord.
The many lessons of practical wisdom
which flow from this astonishing narration,
illustrate strikingly the close connexion of
the dogmas of our faith with the conduct
of a holy life. A few of them shall now be
noticed.
First, then ; nothing can more tend to
raise within us due apprehensions of our
blessed Master s sufferings for us, than the
contemplation of this scene. And this frame
of mind lies very near to the foundation of
a Christian temper. It is, indeed, easy to
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 155
speak at random on the subject, and to have
the mouth full of words about the Saviour s
sufferings ; but it is not easy to have their
memory stored up within the heart : to
walk amidst the distractions and the plea
sures of this life, as the children of the
bride-chamber when the bridegroom is
gone : to be as those were who had learned
to look to Him for all things, and to lean on
Him always : to check the flood-tide of
youthful passion ; and to sanctify the bustle
of mid-life cares ; and to sweeten the mo-
roseness of age ; and to abate an overdaz-
zling joy ; and to cheer a pressing sorrow,
with the heart-remembrance of Him who
was the King of Glory, and who for us
walked this miserable earth for thirty years
and more, as the man of sorrows, acquaint
ed with grief. This is hard ; for it is hard
to " walk by faith, and not by sight." And
there are few means more useful for attain
ing to this temper, than the following out in
thoughtful meditation such a subject as is
here opened to us. We are apt to take a
general view of the sufferings of our Lord ;
156 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
we have heard of them from our infancy ;
and the very constant hearing of them tends
to make their impression on our minds the
duller : we admit them, and that is all : we
pass a sort of fantastic sleight upon our
selves; it is as if His sufferings had not
been real. Follow up, then, such thoughts
as here open on us to redress this grievous
injury to our Redeemer: see that His suf
ferings were most real : that every bodily
agony told on Him who was perfect man :
that every struggle and anguish of soul was
to Him deeper and more cutting than to
any child of Adam : that for Him to wrestle
with Satan, to bear his presence and sug
gestions, to look on sin, to see His Father s
countenance in clouds, to endure for us His
wrath, that these were real and most
utterly unfathomable depths of sorrow. Re
member, too, their voluntary character.
Men cannot escape from suffering : it is
their utmost reach of obedience when they
taste without refusing the cup from which
they cannot turn aside: but HE drained it
calmly to the dregs, who could have turned
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 157
away from it ; who as man was tried with
the continual temptation so to turn, and
who therefore renewed in every moment
the entireness of self-sacrifice to sorrow.
To have stored up within our hearts such
true remembrances, does indeed lie near
to the foundation of a Christian character ;
for from them must flow the actions and
affections by which the Christian is dis
tinguished from other men. What else can
make us " endure hardness as good soldiers
of the cross?" What else can truly shew
us, that a dreamy, sentimental, self-indulgent
temper, wide in its concessions of indulgence
to all others so they thwart us not, but widest
to ourselves is not the temper of a Chris
tian soldier? Surely to the heart which
walks in the continual presence of his Mas
ter s sufferings, there must be more reality
in self-denial and in bearing of the cross
than ordinary Christians dream of: surely,
in many a moment when he too might yield
to softness of spirit, or be dazzled with the
shows of the gilded scene around him, there
will be the whisper of an inward voice re-
158 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
minding him, " Forasmuch as Christ hath
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
likewise with the same mind" (1 Pet. iv. 1).
How is it that the path which HE walked is
so unlike to ours ? His so rough and strait,
ours so wide and easy ? Must there not be
something in the ordinary standard of a
Christian life which will not endure in the
day of trial ? Is there not much which makes
even death fearful, and which must therefore
make judgment horrible ? If a sharp fit of
sickness startles Christians, how will they
with no better preparation bear the midnight
cry, or hear the sound of the trumpet as it
waxes louder and louder ?
And as this subject will thus yield us
both motives and measures for obedience, so
too will it supply us with directions for the
due resisting of temptation. For this end,
doubtless, was its history recorded in the
Scriptures ; for this end, in great measure,
was it suffered by the Lord.
" Tentari se passus est Imperator, ut do-
ceret militem dimicare." *
* S. Aug., Serm. li. 2. vol. v. p. 283.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 159
" Pati te docuit, et patiendo te docuit."*
A broad light is thrown by it on every
part of temptation. We see the need of
watching alway. No height of piety is a
sufficient safeguard against danger. He who
dared to molest with his accursed frauds
the very Lord of Glory when the brightness
of His majesty was veiled in our humanity,
will not fear to assault any of His followers.
We must therefore be prepared for conflict :
not merely, as the easy scepticism of the
day will readily admit, with the principle of
evil, but with an actually living, subtile, and
most powerful enemy. If this temptation
teaches us one single lesson, surely it is this.
The principle of evil can mean nothing else
than our own inward inclinations to it. By
this our Master could not have been tempt
ed, for He had within no evil inclination :
either, therefore, He could not be tempted,
or it must be by a spirit external to himself,
and having, therefore, truly a separate exis
tence. It is, therefore, a most explicit com
ment on the written word of caution, " be
* S. Aug., Serm. cclxxxiv. 5. vol. v. p. 1144.
160 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
sober, be vigilant ; for your great adversary
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour."
But more than this ; we see the sort of
wiles against which we must watch that
the evil which seems farthest off is often
times the nighest. The fast of forty days
had surely shewn the absolute dominion
with which the flesh was curbed in Him to
whom the tempter came; yet is his first
temptation a suggestion that He should turn
the stones around Him into bread. And who
that has watched over himself has not known
times when the sharpness of some main
tained fast has been directly followed by the
enticing frauds of carnal imaginations, or the
severity of some difficult sacrifice succeeded
by an intruding train of earthly and self-
seeking thoughts ?
We see, too, with how prompt a readiness
the forms of temptation are exchanged. It
is not one, and then rest. From sensuality
and doubt, how easily did Satan turn to pre
sumption, and from that pass over to the
baits of earthly glory, as instruments where-
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 161
with to beguile that human heart which
only was for ever proof against his snares !
And so, when we have resisted the coarser
temptations of sensuality, or a thirst for
worldly advancement, how readily do self-
applauding thoughts spring up to poison the
purged soil of the heart ; or, when we have
shut out the louder solicitations of evil, are
we drawn unawares, and, if need be, by the
very words of holy writ, into an attempt to
worship God in some new way, and so to
approach his altar with the abominable of
fering of a party-zeal or self-taught service !
And so, all through the struggle, how full
of teaching is our blessed Lord s example !
With what a perfect patience did He endure
the struggle to the end ; not as we are wont
to do, fretting under it, and peevishly long
ing for the " rest of the garner,"* while it is
God s will that we should still be " planted
in the field !" And yet, with this entire pa
tience, how prompt was His resistance, never
yielding for a moment to that which He
endured to the end ! How directly was the
* " Alia est agri conditio, alia quies horrei." S. AUG.
Y
162 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
sword of the Spirit raised against each fol
lowing temptation, and how did it pierce
through the fraud ! " Behold," says St. Au
gustine, f " the Prince of martyrs setting
forth an example of contention ! . . . . For
what cause did He suffer Himself to be
tempted, but that He might teach us how
to resist the tempter? The world promises
its fleshly pleasure ; reply to it, But God is
more to be desired. The world promises its
honours ; . . . . tell it, That God s kingdom
is more glorious far. The world promises
unhallowed knowledge; reply to it, That
only the truth of God is infallible." Let
this one thought of God meet every seduc
tion of the tempter, and they will all fall
down before it.
And but once more : As in this tempta-
f " Adtendite martyrum Ducem exemplorum certa-
mina proponentem Quare se permisit tentari, nisi
lit doceret resistere tentatori ? Promittit mundus carnalem
voluptatem ; responde illi, Delectabilior est Deus. Pro
mittit mundus honores ; . . . . responde illi, Altius est
omnibus regnum Dei. Promittit mundus superfluas vel
damnabiles curiositates ; responde illi, Sola non errat ve-
ritas Dei." Id., Serm. cclxxxiv. 5.
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 163
tion there is full instruction how we ought
o
to strive against the evil one, so is there too
a sure earnest of our victory. Satan dared
indeed to assault our Lord, but he did not
triumph over Him. Here all his practised
frauds were vain and fruitless ; and He over
came the devil in our nature, that we might
be partakers of His triumph. From us, as
we are taught, He took flesh, that we from
Him might have salvation. " In Him we
were tempted; in Him we vanquish Satan."*
He who in our flesh rebuked Satan in
the wilderness of Judea, hath pledged His
word to every member of His body mysti
cal, " Resist the devil, and he shall flee from
you." He knows Satan s strength, and He
knows our weakness, not by the poverty of
our most earnest description, but by the
remembered reality of His own struggle.
"He hath suffered being tempted, that He
might know how to succour them that are
tempted." He hath passed through the bat-
* " In illo nos tentati sumufi, in illo nos diabolum
superamus." S. AUG. Exercit. in Ps. Ix. 3.
164 THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST.
tie ; but He will not forget those whom He
hath left to follow Him. He is God, over
all ; but He has not ceased to be the Vir
gin s Son. We go not, in our extremity, to
one who " cannot be touched with the feel
ing of our infirmities, but who in all points
was tempted like as we are, yet without
sin." Let us trust more in His sympathy,
and cast ourselves more truly on His care.
Every doubt and fear, every fierce arrow of
sore temptation, hath been aimed at Him
before it can harass us ; and He who resisted
all will now let His strength be perfected in
our weakness. He sees our secret tears, our
unsuspected struggles, our hidden conflicts
with the enemy ; and He ministers strength
to our weakness. He is near, though the
eye sees Him not. He is ready to succour,
when we seem forsaken; He "will not suf
fer you to be tempted above that ye are
able;" He "will make a way to escape;"
and at the darkest hour, so that our souls
cleave to the word of promise, we shall be
delivered, and even these bufferings of Sa-
THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. 165
tan be seen to have been for our advantage;
and then when we too, in the power of
Christ, and, it may be, after a sore struggle,
have conquered the evil one, the devil shall
"depart from" us, and " angels come and
minister unto" us.
SERMON VI.
DOING ALL TO THE GLORY OF
GOD.
SERMON VI.
" Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye
do, do all to the glory of God. " 1 Cor. x. 31 .
THIS is one of those brief and wonder
ful sentences of which God s word is
full. Uttering the deepest things with the
easiest and most familiar simplicity, they
are passed over by too many as ordinary
sayings, with little in them worthy of espe
cial notice ; whilst, in truth, that very sim
plicity is the mark of their divine original :
they are often those hidden secrets of wis
dom for which ages and generations have
strained and pined in vain, but which are
now, by God s teaching, put into the mouths
of very babes and sucklings.
So is it here. In these few words, which
charge us " to do all to the glory of God,"
there is that truth after which the best
earthlv philosophy was always reaching forth
170 DOING ALL TO THE
in vain : there is the very pith and conclu
sion of the Gospel of Christ our Lord : there
is the living practical end of its teaching to
every one of us as reasonable beings : there
is that which in as far as we realise and act
out, we truly and indeed are Christians : for
there is that living and practical revelation
to us of our restoration to our due and pro
per place in God s world, without which life
must be to us a riddle, and we ourselves a
fruitless puzzle.
Let us then follow out this subject, and
see, first, how it involves the solution of the
dark mystery of our life and of ourselves.
When, then, the most thoughtful men of old
looked forth into the world around them,
how lost and confounded were all their spe
culations ! They saw every thing in broken
lights and endless contradictions : good and
evil, pain and pleasure, misery and joy,
were so closely and so strangely mingled,
that the whole constitution of things was
hopelessly entangled. They knew not how
a good God could permit or cause such mi
sery, nor how an evil God should mingle so
much blessing with his curses.
GLORY OF GOD. 171
And if from others and without, they turned
their thoughts and their examination inward
on themselves, they found the darkness
thicken over them : they themselves were to
themselves the greatest puzzle and contra
diction of all. There was such a mixture
of what was great and what was small ; of
high desires and purposes, and of low and
miserable aims and actions ; of what was al
most too bad even for this earth, and what
was evidently fitted for, and aiming after,
something far better than it, that they
knew not how in any way to solve the per
plexing enigma. They could not settle
wherein their chief good lay ; what was the
true end and object of their lives ; or whi
ther time was bearing them. They knew not
whether, as some taught, their bodily sensa
tions alone, and things palpable, were reali
ties; or whether, as others maintained, these
were mere incumbrances, which they might,
as their inclination lay, either despise and
trample on, or indulge, as things foreign to
themselves. But, above all, the voice of
God within themselves haunted and dis-
172 DOING ALL TO THE
tracted them : that unwritten living law,
which they continually transgressed, tor
mented and embarrassed them. The clearer
became this moral sense in any, the greater
must become the strife ; because the sense
of sin, without the knowledge of an atone
ment, was the most distracting apprehension
to man. So that "he walked" indeed "in a
vain shadow, and disquieted himself in
vain." Dark shades were all around him,
look which way he would ; but the thick
est darkness of all was within, when from
others he looked into himself.
Now, on all this strife and confusion rose
the blessed Gospel of Christ, as a healing
and a harmonising light. Confused and
blended forms severed themselves into their
peculiar proportions ; causes and conclu
sions were united ; broken lights were
gathered into one. In the world around
might now be seen the work of a good and
holy God, marred by the sin and wilfulness
of His creatures. There was this clue to
the continued entanglement, that He was
even now working to bring good out of evil.
GLORY or GOD. 173
This world was the skirt of His garment ; in
it He was dimly visible even now to faith,
as He one day would be to open sight: the
shadows which had blotted creation hasten
ed themselves to fly away. But most espe
cially on himself, and on the marvellous
mystery of his own nature, had the light of
heaven fallen. Now he saw why he was so
full of greatness and littleness ; now was in
terpreted the longing of his spirit for some
thing higher than himself; and, what was
of far more moment than all speculative
knowledge, now the groaning misery of his
conscience was healed. He saw that the sin
which had tormented him, and of which be
fore he knew not whether it was or was not
part of his own very self, was not himself,
but was his enemy ; that it was this which
had broken his relation to God ; and in
breaking that relation had taken from him
all the true end of his being ; had armed
God s purer creation against him, and bid
it reject him, a polluted and unholy be
ing, from endeavouring to mingle in the
service of a holy God; yea, beyond this,
174 DOING ALL TO THE
had armed himself against himself had
brought the strife which had consumed him
within his own heart. But he now learned,
also, that God had wrought wonderfully to
bring him back again into this relation to
Himself ; that his Lord had taken his very
nature, that, through the mystery of the in
carnation, He might constitute Himself anew
the perfect and righteous Head of the fallen
race, and so present him again as holy and
acceptable before God : that this had been
done for him ; and that he, as having been
through baptism united to this his Head,
might now look up again to God his Father
without doubt or terror, as one reconciled
to him in Christ Jesus.
Here, then, the mystery was solved : he
took again his place in God s creation, as in
a Father s family : now, when he met with
sin or misery, whether in himself or in the
world around him, it was not as a mystery
and a wonder, but as a detected enemy as
the foe of his own peace and of his Father s
glory. He knew his place in God s world,
and he knew the secret of its apparent con-
GLORY OF GOD. 175
tradictions : he could take that place, and
walk amongst those contradictions, and
hear, with a living meaning flowing forth
from them, the words, " Whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God." And all this
depended, not upon the theoretical admis
sion of some alleged truths, but upon the
actual restoration of his relation to God as a
Father, by his being engrafted into Christ
the very Son. This privilege was his, as
being a member of the Church of the re
deemed, whose special charge it is here on
earth to " shew forth the praises of Him
who hath called them out of darkness into
his marvellous light."*
All this, moreover, in the second place,
is not the solution of a merely speculative
difficulty ; it is the very practical spring of
a new activity of life. Every man who has
not learned to look upon himself, and all
around him, in this light, must be infected
more or less with the benumbing spirit of
the Manichsean philosophy : he cannot see
clearly God s hand in this His visible gar-
* 1 Pet. ii. 9.
176 DOING ALL TO THE
ment of time. The leaven may work secret
ly, but it must be there : it may lead him to
make his religion principally a speculation
to satisfy himself with better feelings, though
his works are evil : or if not this, yet to
have, as it were, two selves ; one, that which
mingles with this world as if it were hope
lessly corrupt ; one, that which retires wheij
it can into the purity of the mount : it may
do even less than this ; it may lead him to
delight to dwell in thought upon the service
he shall render his Master in another world ;
enduring this life as a necessary preparation
for it, rather than living it as but another
scene of the next : but it must diminish that
hearty, straightforward earnestness of service
with which he can serve God, who sees that
in this life, in his place in the Church, he is
as much accepted of God, and has as much
a part of His work to do is as truly a fel
low-worker with Him as he shall ever be
in the world to come.
As, moreover, this view of his restored re
lation to his God gives him the true spring
for present exertion, so does it restore his
GLORY OF GOD. 177
broken relations to his fellow-men, amongst
whom, and for whom, he is to work. Be
lieving firmly, as he does, not that a few out
of mankind have been restored by Christ to
the peace which they had lost, but that this
has been wrought by Christ for the whole
race of man, every man has, through Christ,
become again his brother. A new and a
heavenly light has been poured upon every
earthly connexion and relationship : they
are now all glorified. He has given up all to
Christ ; but it has been to receive all back,
as from the dead. All are figures and sym
bols of heavenly things : and not figures
and symbols only, but instruments too, and
opportunities of heavenly working : God is
working through them, and he is working
with God. He does not need to undervalue
them, lest he should dwell too much upon
them ; he delights to exalt them, because in
exalting them he is exalting instruments of
God s own appointment.
Again, as the perception of this restored
relation thus quickens his energies in work
ing for God, so too does it give him a happy
A A
178 DOING ALL TO THE
liberty and freedom in his work. He is
working for God, and with God s provi
dence; he need not perplex himself about
results : these are God s, not his. No doubt
he will be tempted, like others, to aim at
ends which seem to him to be good, instead
of contenting himself with the means which
he may know are good : but then he sees
that this is a temptation he does not en
courage himself in it ; and this by degrees
works in a man a noble freedom and liberty
of action. It is from this that great deeds
spring ; it is in this spirit that a man can be
contented to labour in the Church for some
good end, which may not be accomplished
for ages to come ; which may bless future
generations, when it has been forgotten on
the earth, that such an one as he ever lived
upon it ; " for his judgment is with the
Lord, and his work with his God. 7 * And
this spirit of liberty, as of God s freedman,
will in a marvellous way animate and ennoble
all that he does. In his works and labours,
it will take away those low present ends
* Isaiah, xlix. 4.
GLORY OF GOD. 179
which ever haunt and enfeeble self-servers
and self- worshippers. In his intercourse with
others, it will deliver him from the need of
those petty distinctions by which men who
live on lower rules seek to mark out for
themselves a separate path of holiness. In
a high and noble sense, " all things are law
ful to him." The arts and knowledge of this
world, all its triumphs and its stores, these
he dares to take and to use freely as gifts of
his God ; as having been made free of crea
tion ; as knowing that all things are sanctified
to him. And this gives a glory to all his
occupations ; whilst it keeps him from sinful
exultation in any. There can neither be
great nor small in services done to God;
His greatness makes all equal. Whether he
be ruling an empire, or ministering to a beg
gar, what matters it, if he is ministering as
God s freedman ? He knows that it is re
deemed man s greatest shame to take up
with any thing below his Father s approba
tion to lose himself in his work. So that
here is a provision made for the true dignity
and nobleness of his service ; of which all
180 DOING ALL TO THE
self-service must despoil him, by thrusting
him from his place in God s new world, and
setting him to work again, like the heathen
man of old, as one who knew not, or held
not, his rank in the family of God. And
this will reach down to the meanest things
to the service even of his body, as well as of
his spirit : for that also has been redeemed
through the incarnation ; that has been al
ready glorified by his oneness with Christ
his Master. Now, " whatsoever he does,
even if he eats or drinks, he can do all to
the glory of God." And this reaches to the
most inward parts of his whole being; it
does its work upon those secret springs of
the will by which the man is moved and go
verned. The mystic may talk of self-anni
hilation ; but it will be only talk, and unre
ality. That at which mysticism aims is here
in truth. For he that has thoroughly re
ceived this blessed knowledge of his restored
relation to God his Father, is convinced that
God s will is right ; and when he feels the
rebellion of his own will against God s, he
does not need to seek for self-annihilation,
which no one gifted with the great gift of
GLORY OF GOD. 181
conscious individuality can in truth seek for,
because he knows that which resists, not
to be himself, but the sin within him which
is his own truest enemy : and seeking, there
fore, for God s aid, he strives only the more
earnestly to cast out that which can so taint
his will as to make it rebel against his true
self as much as against God.
See, then, how much is included in these
words : they are indeed the very practical
embodying of all Christianity ; they describe
that which follows of necessary consequence
from a faithful apprehension of that relation
to his God to which man has been restored
by Christ ; that which is so truly the Chris
tian character, that as far as we have it,
and no farther, are we Christians indeed.
Therefore doubtless is it that this princi
ple, which, with all their Teachings forth after
truth, no other system could supply, is so of
ten and so emphatically enjoined upon us in
the New Testament Scriptures. Therefore
are we bidden " to glorify God in our body
and our spirit, which are God s :* therefore
are we reminded that none of us " liveth to
* 1 Cor. vi. 20.
182 DOING ALL TO THE
himself, and no man dieth to himself; but
whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or
whether we die, we die unto the Lord;"f
because it is the turning-point of a mind
truly submitted or not to the service of the
Lord our God.
And yet probably many amongst us are
even now turning from themselves the prac
tical application of this truth, and secretly
purposing to allow, as heretofore, within
their hearts, low aims and barren earthly
motives, on the plea that " to do all to the
glory of God" is an overstrained attempt,
except for some few saints of a higher level
and a nobler service than the common run
of Christians can hope to reach ; or, at all
events, that it is a species of service which
they can hardly render, who, with full hands
and busy heads, are just entering upon the
throng and bustle of life, at a season and in cir
cumstances unapt for that speculative frame
which such a sanctified life must demand.
To meet these fatal excuses for conduct which
is, in truth, rebellion in God s world against
f Rom. xiv. 7, 8.
GLORY OF GOD. 183
God s will, and therefore the fruitful seed
of misery, let us look somewhat farther into
the question ; for a very little inquiry will
shew us the hollowness of these excuses.
What, then, is our life here, as faith re
veals it to us ? It is the opportunity of per
forming certain outward actions from certain
inward motives, on the necessary condition,
that every outward action will strengthen
the inward motive from which it springs,
and make it tend towards growth into a
habit ; this tendency, moreover, being acce
lerated, if its direction be evil, by the cor
ruption of our nature if good, by the gra
cious influences of the blessed Spirit of God.
Thus, then, the opportunities of outward
action offered to each one of us are the
seeds of our future character for good or for
evil, in time and in eternity ; for our whole
being is a progression, a part of which is in
time, a part in eternity, the whole colour of
which must remain fixedly of that hue which
here in time it has assumed. Thus, then,
this busy opportunity of working, which is
made, as we saw, the excuse for not doing
184 DOING ALL TO THE
all to God s glory, is, in fact, our special
call to do all from this very motive : for he
who enters on every day s actions in this
spirit, strengthens the upgrowth of this spi
rit within himself: he who performs them
from a worldly spirit makes himself worldly.
It is this which will, and must, colour his
whole being. The time for that speculation
to which he looks for healing will never
come ; and could not heal him, if it did
come. Be the work which is set before him
great or small, it matters not. He who is
performing the greatest works, as men speak,
in a selfish spirit, is by each one increasing
in himself selfishness and self-worship ; he is
contracting his sphere lowering the tone
of his spirit severing himself more and
more in the littleness of his own individu
ality from God and greatness degrading
himself amongst God s creatures casting
himself out of his own place in God s great
world-scheme making his own littleness,
or some paltry, miserable scheme of this
earth, instead of God, a centre to himself.
So, too, he whose lot is cast amongst what
GLORY OF GOD. 185
men call small things, but who is perform
ing those small things with an eye fixed on
God, he is truly raising himself, and sowing
seed of promise in God s world-field : every
action is raising his inner true moral being,
and preparing him for visible greatness in
the coming dispensation of realities.
Without this great truth, surely the ine
qualities of this life would be intolerable to
thoughtful men. To see noble spirits borne
down in poor men by poverty and want,
would be more than we could bear. But
this at once redresses all such apparent
wrongs ; it abolishes all difference of great
and small, since the small and great of hu
man measure are shadows and unrealities ;
and all things alike, according to their use
by us, are the seeds of that which is truly
and for ever great.
And it is this which constitutes the real
evil and curse of worldliness : it is truly
the state of a moral being, who has degraded
himself by a course of low-motived actions.
Now and then the foul moral deformity of
such a state is laid bare even to man s eyes,
B B
186 DOING ALL TO THE
by some great outbreak of corruption, which
shews how all the deep, and therefore un
seen, foundations of morals had been sap
ped, by what shewed outwardly as such a
mild and negative form of evil. But, for the
most part, this deformity is not manifested
outwardly. For as worldliness, in its very
nature, is the exaltation of selfishness, it
tends to curb the excesses of those parti
cular appetites which, for the most part,
cause outbreaks of sin visible to man s eyes,
just in the degree that it thoroughly per
vades, and therefore poisons, a character.
But the character is not a whit the less
thoroughly poisoned : the man has become
a confirmed self-worshipper the meanest
and most degrading form of soul-idolatry;
and the mildness, therefore, of the evil in its
outward indication, only makes it the more
dangerous ; because it has no outward shew
wherewith to alarm its victim. Here, again,
is another instance in which the seeming
inequalities of this life are redressed ; for
the higher and the nobler are a man s em
ployments here in this stage of his being,
GLORY OF GOD. 187
the greater is his danger of sinking una
wares beneath this deadly disease. The
poor and the despised may indeed grovel
so low, that their whole soul may be fixed
on their work, and themselves in it ; and
even in the lowest actions of life, be en
grossed by immediate ends, and become
through them self -worshippers. But the
danger of those whose calling is higher is
infinitely greater. High stations, which fill
other men s eyes, and lead to conspicuous
actions, are greatly open to this danger. In
tellectual pursuits, the improvement of the
mind, success in study, these are still more
likely to become ends in themselves, and are
therefore still more hazardous.
Most perilous of all are sacred things
the work of the ministry, the service of the
sanctuary because most full of recurring
temptations to become objects in themselves,
to satisfy the mind by their magnitude and
inherent sweetness, and so to become veils
between the soul and God; veils splendid
indeed and glorious, but therefore all the
more dangerous ; so that they shut out the
188 DOING ALL TO THE
true light of heaven from the soul of man.
For here, too, he is lost, if he contemplate
himself, his own emotions or his services,
instead of God their object ; if he watch the
reflection of himself upon the glass, instead
of looking steadfastly through it to God.
Who, then, more need this earnest ex
hortation than ourselves ? who amongst us,
so much as those who are the busiest about
the greatest things? for this temptation
waits upon business, and besieges manly
souls. The frivolous and the idle fall be
fore less worthy temptation ; this wrestles
with the strongest and the best; it seizes
upon those who are able and who are long
ing to do great things for man ; who are
thirsting for knowledge, and spurning under
their feet all save that which seems great
and real. This subdues them, too, beneath
the shadows which they seem to despise.
Even in his longing for self-improvement,
the man is unawares encouraging the growth
of that which must most thoroughly degrade
him. For such is man s condition, if he
stands alone ; his greatest gifts become his
GLORY OF GOD. 189
chief betrayer ; his exaltation is his surest
downfall. " They who know not that they
need a comforter will surely be without the
grace of God . . . dum miseriam non senti-
unt, non attendunt misericordiam."* He
who makes any end short of God the ruling
object of his soul is a traitor to the divinity
which God has planted within him. To
slave in the most menial drudgery, with a
heart rising from it to God, is a greater
and more worthy service for the true man
within, than to rule a universe with a soul
which rests in itself. He is truly and indeed
the greatest, whose soul with the heartiest
and most entire devotion goeth forth out of
itself towards the Lord of all : " vere mag-
nus est qui magnam habet charitatem." f
If, then, we have such need of this earnest
exhortation, let us spend a few minutes in
inquiring how, with God s blessing, we may
most hope to fulfil it ; to nourish within
ourselves this only worthy habit of doing
" all to the glory of God."
* St. Bernard. Serm. ad Epiph. i. p. 796.
t Thomas a Kempis.
190 DOING ALL TO THE
A few hints only are possible ; amongst
which take this first, that you strive to
possess your souls with a higher estimation
of the will of God. As self-worship is in
truth your danger, bring yourself into the
presence of Jehovah, and the idol of man s
majesty must fall before Him. Imprint upon
your very soul the infinite greatness of
God s service ; that it must be done by
every creature in this world, reluctantly or
freely, in earth, in heaven, or hell. That
what you do for Him, He does through you,
" quod fit a te, Ipse facit in te ; "* that when
you pray, " thy will be done," you ask, in
truth, but that you may do it willingly ; for
by you it must be done, " fiet enim voluntas
Dei in te, etsi non fit a te." |
Then, secondly, to this reverence for
God s will add this, that you strive to
realise your true position in this world, as
one whom Christ hath redeemed. See your
self in Him. Let not sin and fear, or false
humility, sever you from this ; cling to this,
your relation unto God in Christ ; see that
* St. Aug. Sera. 65, p. 325. f Id., ib.
GLORY OF GOD. 191
it rests on God s acts, not on yours ; that
it is to be the ground of affection and obedi
ence, not obedience or affection the ground
of it. For without this, God s majesty and
might must be to us a continual terror. His
will cannot be the will of a Father, unless
we so look unto Him. If this sight of God,
as brought nigh to us in Christ, be but
dimmed and clouded over, it will rob us of
our power of acting always with a single
eye fixed upon His glory ; for it will turn
the approving face of a most loving Father
into the terrible countenance of a most se
vere Judge. But looking thus to Him will
throw a new and heavenly light on all
around us ; every common incident of life
will glow with it. In the natural relation,
for example, of child or brother, we shall
see His appointment ; we shall see a whole
provision of powers, which from infancy,
and before reason dawned, have, through
the affections, been fitting us to realise what
heavenly affections were ; have been draw
ing us out of self-aims and self-worship,
whilst we knew it not; teaching us to act
192 DOING ALL TO THE
for others ; to let affection grow out of rela
tionship ; to give up a proud independency,
and rejoice in a humble and affectionate de
pendence upon others ; and so to make us
more able to rejoice in the true Brother of
our souls, and go out of our selfish little
ness to love and serve the great and eternal
Father.
We may trace most strikingly, on every
side, this connexion between a sense of rela
tionship to God, and a humble and affec
tionate discharge of family engagements.
We may see it in the difference between the
family life of Judea, and that of every pa
gan state ; we may trace it in the marked
moral superiority of early Rome to Greece,
those five hundred years in which divorce
was a thing yet unheard of, and the appoint
ments of the family life were still preserved,
being those also, in which we see in Roman
mythology a straining after the paternal
character in God : the Zi\>$ of Greece be
comes the Zeu Pater, the Bacchus the Liber
Pater of Rome. And it would not be a
hard matter to trace out this same fact in
GLORY OF GOD. 193
modern times ; the history of social life in
France and England might alone establish
it. So, too, in every other appointment of
our lives. All have this hidden power within
them, which, if we will, we may draw out.
So that a right sense of our condition as re
deemed men is most closely wedded to a
due esteem for relative duties ; and it, too,
acts again on them ; for each one is exalted
out of a mere earthly bond, or even an un
real symbol of eternal things, into real and
true parts of our whole being and advance
ment. For this is God s own witness : " if
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ;
old things are passed away ; behold, all
things are become new : and all things are
of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ."*
And then, lastly, and as springing out of
this by natural connexion, take, as the third
rule, that you strive, as far as may be, to
sanctify every act and undertaking by a
special reference to this, your heavenly Fa
ther. Every separate act, indeed, of the
* 2 Cor. v. 17.
c c
194 DOING ALL TO THE
life cannot, by a conscious operation of the
soul, be thus offered up to God; and as the
habit becomes more dominant and usual,
the consciousness of its separate acts must
become less specific. But as a general rule,
offer up your acts to God. And this will
best and most truly be done, as by a direct
reference in thought to Him when possible,
so at other times by those more solemn and
stated services of self-dedication and com
munion with Him to which you are invited
in the worship of the Christian Church.
Though you may not store your manna,
God will grant you day by day a daily por
tion. Let the dews of early prayer con
secrate the* morning s study, and the day s
obedience. Let the service of the chapel
fit you for the service of the lecture-room.
Let the weekly communion sanctify the
opening of the week. Well and wisely,
brethren, did our holy ancestors lay these
deep and sacred foundations of human learn
ing and advancement ; well did they know
the blessedness of mingling prayer with
study of opening every separate period of
GLORY OF GOD. 195
our lives with separate devotions ; of arming
us in morning prayer for that day s trial ;
cooling by the evening service the fevered
and heated mind ; beginning a term of study
by solemn prayers and the blessed eucha-
rist : that so we might learn to sanctify
every day unto the Lord ; to walk before
Him in a continual feast; that our souls
might be open to the healing influences of
His most Holy Spirit ; and we, earthly as
we are, might of His goodness learn this
blessed lesson, in all things to look up to
Him, and even whilst on this earth, and yet
afar from home, " whether we eat or drink,
or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of
our God."
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