-~^
^
s7.
\A.
/)'
^->'i.^-
i^'^'*.
^^^r*^'
M
^t m^ak €amstl
OR, THE DUTY OF THE CLERGY AS TEACHERS OF THE PEOPLE, WITH
PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE RECENT JUDGMENT
IS THE CASE OF "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS."
A SERMON
PREACHED IN
'J'HE ABBP]Y CHURCH OF ST. MARY, SHERBORNE,
ON THE
SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT, FEB. 21, 1864,
AT THE GENERAL ORDINATION OF THE
LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY.
BY
HENRY PARRY LIDDON, M.A.
STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH ; ONE OF THE SELECT PEEACHEBS AT OXTOED
AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY.
PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST.
SECOND EDITION, REVISED.
OXFORD & LONDON,
RIVINGTONS :
OXFORD,
JOHN HENRY AND JAMES TARKER.
1864.
BAXTER, PRINTBB, OXTORD.
TO THE REVEEEND THE CLERGY
ORDAINED AT THE ABBEY CHURCH OF SHERBORNE, ON THE
SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT, 1864, THIS SERMON, PUBLISHED AT
THEIR REQUEST, IS DEDICATED WITH SINCERE AFFECTION
AND RESPECT BY THEIR BROTHER AND SERVANT IN JESUS
CHRIST.
'\
U«JC
\^J
Cj)^ Wil^ok €oxxnBd d 60ir.
ACTS XX. 27.
I HAVE NOT SHUNNED TO DECLAKE UNTO YOU THE WHOLE COUNSEL
OF God.
HERE is one of those passages in the New Testa-
ment, which make a forcible and direct appeal
to the heart and conscience of every man who has
undertaken or is undertaking to serve God in Holy
Orders. The words occur in that parting charge to
the Presbyters of the Church of Ephesus, which on the
eve of his going up to Jerusalem, at the close of what
is termed his third Missionary journey, the great
Apostle delivered on the strand at Miletus. They
are such words as escape men at the turning points
of life, at entering upon or taking leave of great
responsibilities — compressed, fervid utterances of the
deepest thought and of the strongest currents of
feeling — of thought and feeling which for the
moment will not be pent up and restrained within
the barriers of ordinary habit, or of studied reserve.
Even a saint may, nay, at certain times, he must
speak of himself: and so the great Apostle glances
hastily at the labours and sufferings which had marked
his sojourn at Ephesus ^ Then he points anxiously
to the lowering future : he tells his hearers the pre-
cise limits of his supernatural knowledge. The exact
a vers. 18—21.
B
2 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
form of each of the many trials before him he did not
know ; but he knew generally, that in every city
bonds and afflictions awaited him, and in parti-
cular, that he and they to whom he spake would
meet again in this world no more^ Under the
pressing urgency of this conviction, he predicts
the coming sorrows of the Church of Ephesus — the
Church indeed of St. Timothy and of St. John, but
also the Church of men who denied the central truth
of the Resurrection *" ; the Church of Hymen^eus, and
Philetus and Alexander ; the Church of the Nico-
laitans, whose morals were hateful (we are told in
the Apocalypse) to the Lord Jesus'' ; the Church,
as it might seem from St. John's first Epistle,
of some of the earliest heretics, who denied the real
Union of Godhead and Manhood in our Lord and
Saviour % Indeed, only a few years later, we see in
the two Epistles to Timothy the clear traces of an
organized opposition to Christian truth at Ephesus,
so formidable in its various intellectual activities,
that the stern energy of the Apostle's language in
the speech before us is only understood when read
by the light of a struggle, unlike to, and in some
respects more serious than, any other within the
limits of the Apostolical Age.
Casting his eye over this troubled future, St. Paul
utters a prophecy of mournful solemnity. ' 1 know
this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves
enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse
things to draw away disciples after themV He
»■ vers. 2-2. '-iy. <= 1 Tim. i. 20. 2 Tim. ii. 17, 18.
d Rev. ii. 6. ' 1 St. .Tolin iv 2, 3. ' Acts xx. 29, 30.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 3
exhorts them to watch : he commends them tenderly
to God : but he also recalls to them the full mea-
sure of then' personal responsibility. His ministry
had put them in entire possession of the truth as it
had come from heaven : and, if they fell into the
snares which lay thick around their future path, they
could not, when facing the knowledge and the
justice of God, attempt to shelter themselves under
the plea of ignorance. ' 1 take you to record this
day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For
I have not shunned to declare unto you, all the
counsel of God^.'
The whole counsel of God ! Such is the Apostle's
expression for that fixed body of Truth, which we of
this day name more commonly the Gospel, the Revela-
tion of Christ, the Faith of Christians. St. Paul says,
that he had declared the whole mind — that is, the
whole revealed mind — of God. Observe, of God. His
language excludes that conception of rehgious truth
which makes it merely the product of the truest, purest,
deepest thoughts of the highest and largest minds
among the sons of men. " Flesh and blood" had
not revealed to St. Peter the dignity and the claims
of Jesus \ "Flesh and blood" added nothing to that
Revelation of His Son which the Eternal Father had
made to the soul of St. Paul'. Resting on a Divine
Authority, and being human only so far as was
necessary, if it was to close with the intellect and
the heart of man, — human in its condescensions and
human in its sympathy, but in its truth and essence
Divine — the Gospel was for St. Paul unlike any other
object-matter that entered into his thought. It was
e vers. 26, 27. •■ S. Matt. xvi. 17. * Gal. i. 16.
b2
^ THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
sundered by a broad line of demarcation from all else
that seemed like it on this side or on that ; it did
not shade off into any either of the higher philo-
sophies or of the less sensual idolatries, of the time.
So absolutely and exclusively true did he deem this
Gospel-truth to be, that could an Angel from heaven
have been conceived as preaching any other, the
Apostle would unhesitatingly have held him " ac-
cursed''."
The whole counsel of God ! It was God's word,
not man's ; it was neither the result of a thoughtful
speculation, nor yet an approximative guess, nor yet
a cunningly devised fable. Being God's word, it
was as a zahole worthy of the best thought and
love that His creature could give it. That mi-
nistry of three months in the great Ephesian syna-
gogue ', and then the two years which followed
of laborious teaching in the School of the Rheto-
rician Tyrannus"', and last, but not least, the wide
publicity, the general attention", and the active
hatred of heathen foes which culminated in the
Riot of the Amphitheatre", had enabled the Apostle
to put forward the Gospel, the whole area of its
Doctrine, the many sides on which it attracted, and
awed, and subdued the soul of man — in unabridged
unmutilated completeness. 'All they which dwelt
in Asia (i. e. Asia Minor) heard the word of the
Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.'
This solemn and momentous day, may be the very
crisis of their destiny to those of us who are waiting
to receive a Commision from heaven, at the Altar
■■ Gal. i. 8. ' Acts xix. 8. "' Acts xix. 9.
" Acts xix. 10. 17. 20. <> Acts xix. 23—41.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. if
of this noble Minster. And the words of the Apostle
may serve us well, as a guide to our thoughts,
our aspirations, our resolves. These time-honoured
walls cannot but recall to a stranger some of the most
cherished memories of the Anglo-Saxon Church p;
while in their renewed beauty they speak not less
persuasively of the renovated life of the modern
Church of England. Can we forget to-day that
wellnigh eight centuries have passed since here at
Sherborne the Commission of Christ was handed on
by a predecessor of our Chief Pastor to those who
in the early ages of our national history sought to
serve God within the precincts of the Sanctuary ?
How vast, we feel, is the life of a Church, when
contrasted with the fleeting existence of her mem-
bers : yet how insignificant, when we place it side by
side with the Being of her Everlasting Lord ! His
Person, His Word, the Laws of His Kingdom and
of His Service, the results of His doctrine upon the
soul of man, are at this hour what they were at the
first, what they will be to the end of time. And
if instead of losing ourselves in vague reflection,
we would give a practical turn to our (it may be)
somewhat eager tide of thought and feeling, let us
fix our attention on this primal, this simple duty of
an ordained man — the declaration of the whole
counsel of God. When St. Paul asserts that he has
not " shimned" to declare it, the English word, and
yet more strongly*^ the original for which it stands,
p Cf. Handbook to the Abbey Church of St. Mary Sherborne,
by the Rev, E. Harston, pp. 32—38.
•J vTr((rreikdfi7]v, cf. Meyer in loc. Dr. Wordsworth sees in it a
nautical metaphor, which might have been suggested by the
scene before the speaker.
6 THE WllOLK COUNSEL OF GOD.
must remind us that there are many motives and
hindrances calculated to keep a man back from
doing that which must be done, if he fears his
God, if he cares for his own soul, if he has any true
love for the souls of those to whom of his own
free will he undertakes to minister.
1. Now one cause of failure in this primary duty
would seem to lie in a lack of religious knowledge.
It is much more easy to be deficient in essential
knowledge of religious truth than we are apt to
assume. 1 do not contemplate the extreme case of
ignorance, whether this or that doctrine does or
does not lie within the limits of Revealed Truth.
For it would be simply immoral in a Christian
Teacher not to have learnt the frontier and out-
line of that sacred deposit of the Faith which
our Lord and Saviour has committed to His
Church to hold fast and to hand on to the end
of time. But far short of this extreme short-
coming, may we not too easily acquiesce in an
ignorance w-hich is scarcely less fatal to souls ?
May we not lapse into a habit of thinking and
speaking of the doctrines of the Gospel, as if they
were Hke soldiers in a regiment, — so many units,
each adding something no doubt to the collective
bulk and area of Doctrine, while yet in no way
essential to its organic completeness, and therefore
each capable of being withdrawn, without inflicting
any more serious injury upon the entire truth than
that of diminished size ? Do we not hear persons
talk of the articles of the Creed in this way, — as if
each article was a perfectly separate and new
truth, — as if each was, I might almost say, a
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 7
new and gratuitous infliction upon the reluctant
intellect of man, — as if each was round and perfect
in itself, and had no relations whatever to any truth
beyond it ?
Yet what does such language really prove but
defective knowledge in those (be they who they
may) who use it? They '^know" the doctrines of
the faith only as so many separate propositions. Of
the Great Whole, which lies beyond the words,
and the several sides of which the words do at
best but imperfectly represent, — of the Body and
Substance of the Faith, they know little or nothing.
They fail to perceive the connexion, the inter-
dependence, the organic unity of all truth that
rests on the authority of God. Their view is too
superficial to enable them to do justice to that
marvellous adjustment of truth to truth, of faculty
to object, of result to cause, which is a direct and
obvious perception to souls who gaze prayerfully
and steadily at the complete Revelation of Christ.
These really shortsighted persons do not miss a
revealed doctrine which is withdrawn ; nor are they
offended when a human speculation is elevated to co-
ordinate rank with the certainties of Faith. It seems
to them to be merely a question between more or
less belief ; between a larger or a smaller creed ;
between, as they would speak, a greater or a less
number of dogmas. But in reality, each truth,
touches, implies, has relations to, truths right and
left of it ; and these relations are so intimate and so
vital, that no truth can be withdrawn, and leave con-
terminous truths intact. The Faith is, if I may say
so with reverence, so marvellously compacted, so in-
O THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
stinct with a pervading life, as to resemble a natural
organism, 1 had almost said a living creature. Just
as St. James says of the moral law, that he who
offends in one point is guilty of all'', because of
the unity of the impaired principle ; and as St. Paul
teaches, that in the body of the Church, if one
limb or member suffer, all the members suffer with
it', in virtue of an internal and necessary sympathy;
so in the Creed, no one truth can be misrepresented,
strained, dislocated, much less withdrawn, without
a certain, and frequently an ascertainable injury
resulting to other truths which are supposed to be
still unquestioned and intact. For there are nerves
and arteries which link the very extremities of
Revealed Doctrine to its brain and heart ; and the
wound which a strain or an amputation may inflict,
must in its effects extend far beyond the particular
doctrine which is the immediate seat and scene
of the injury.
This powder of perceiving and exhibiting the deeper
internal relations and grounds of Christian Doctrine
might seem to correspond to that " word of know-
ledge " (Aoyoy yvwcrecos,^ which in his catalogue of
the gifts of the Spirit St. Paul distinguishes from
the " word of wisdom " (Xoyos crocpia^) — the faculty
of stating the truths and mysteries of the faith in
clear and precise language \ It is to be won
1 St. James ii. 10. ^ i Cor. xii. 26, 27.
' cro0/a namlich ist die hohere christlicbe Weislieit (1 Cor. ii. 6.)
an und fiir sich, so dass Rede, welche die Lehrstiicke (Mysterien)
derselben ausspricht klar macht, anwendet, u. s. w., Xoyos a-ocpias
ist. Damit ist aber die tiefdringende erkenntniss dieser Lebr-
stiicke, die speculative Erfassung und Einsicht und Verarbeitung
ihres Zusammenhangs, ibier Griinde, ihrer tiefern Ideen, ibier
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
partly by the culture and exercise of the sanctified
intellect in study, partly, nay rather specially, by
prayer for illumination and a habit of meditation
on Scripture and the Creeds. There are eminent
exercises of this gift within the limits of inspiration.
St. Paul's demonstration of the fatal antagonism of
the practice of circumcision to true belief in our
Lord's redemptive work, in the Epistle to the
Galatians, will naturally occur to us. Of uninspired
instances I may refer to that masterly and well-
known account of the connexion between the
doctrine of the Sacraments and the doctrine of
the Incarnation, which the English Church owes
to the mind, and which she studies in the language
of the great Hooker.
When a man possesses this gift of knowledge —
of 'knowledge' in the technical sense of St. Paul —
he will teach the whole truth not by an effort or
mechanically, but in virtue of an instinct. He will
be carried forward, from principle to application,
fi-om centre to circumference, from the heart and
brain of doctrine to its utmost extremities ; because
he sees, he cannot but see, its evident, its organic
unity ; because to mutilate it would be to him
scarcely any thing short of a moral and intellec-
tual agony. A living faith, informed by study,
and quickened and stimulated by prayer, can
hardly be guilty of accidental, never of culpable
reticence ; it cannot but * declare the whole counsel
of God.'
Beweise, ihrer Zielc, u. s. w. noch nicht gesetzt; eine Rede
aber, welche sich damit beschaftiget, ist Adyos yvwa-ecos. Meyer in
1 Cor. xii. 8.
10 Tin; WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
2. A second hindrance is lack of courage. To
speak for God to man, — for the just and holy God
to man sinful and wilful in his sin — requires nerve
and courage. To represent God as He is — as just
no less than merciful, as punishing sin no less
certainly than rewarding faith and holiness — this,
to be done well and honestly, requires courage.
Moses before Pharaoh, Samuel before Saul, Micaiah
before Ahab, Jeremiah before the Princes of Judah,
St. John the Baptist before Herod Antipas, St.
Stephen before the Sanhedrim, St. Paul before Felix
and Agrippa, and (in a sense altogether peculiar, and
unrivalled,) Our Divine Lord before the Jewish Priest
and the Roman Magistrate — these represent the
attitude and the fortunes of truth at the bar of
human nature. Human nature indeed is wretched,
and it craves for comfort — that, my clerical brethren,
that is our opportunity' ; but it is also proud, and it
resents humiliations, aye and it is strong, and likely,
in its own fashion and way, to express its roused re-
sentment. Of old they understood this well, who
went forth uplifting the cross, while yet baring their
breasts to death. They knew that the patient to
whom they were carrying the medicine that would
cure him would often refuse the draught, and would
punish the physician who dared to offer it. But
they loved man, and they loved and feared their
God too sincerely and too well, to infuse new
ingredients, or to withdraw any of the bitter but
needful elements of cure. They accepted civil and
social proscription ; they endured moral and physical
agony ; they embraced, one after another, with
' 2 Cor. i. 4.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 11
cheerful hearts, the very warrants and instruments of
their death, — because they had counted the cost, and
had measured too well the greatness of their task, and
the glories of their anticipated eternity, to shrink
sensitively back at the first symptoms of opposition,
or of difficulty. St. Paul might have foreseen the
conduct of Demetrius, and the tumult in the amphi-
theatre ; but this was no serious reason for considering
the worship of Diana as a sort of modified or im-
perfect revelation, or as any thing short of a hateful
he". He did not shrink from declaring the whole
counsel of God.
If I yet feared men, says the Apostle, I should
not be the servant of Christ \ The man who is
not in very deed emancipated from bondage to
any human fear, cannot do justice either to the
needs of his fellow-men or to the Rights of God.
He cannot be loyal to Truth. There are petty
oppositions, petty persecutions, indirect yet power-
ful influences, which will stay a man's hand, and
silence his tongue, even in this age and land of civil
freedom ; unless his conscience be quick and his
will strong, through a constant sight of One Who
is the Lord and the Subject of that Truth which
He proclaims. He will abridge, soften down, muti-
late his message, unless he have penetrated the
certainty that the fear of man bringeth a snare ^ —
" St. Paul's speech at Athens recognizes that element of
natural Religion whicli is at the bottom of all superstitions
however debased. What the Apostle really thought of the
Paganism of the Ancient World as a whole, is best understood
from such passages as Rom. i. 23 — 3'2.
^ Gal. i. 10. ^ Prov. xxix. 25.
12 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
to all indeed who would serve God in sincerity of
purpose, — to none, with such fatal and destructive
results, as to the man who undertakes to serve
Him in the Christian Priesthood.
3. The want of spirituality of heart and soul is
a third cause of defective representation of doctrine.
To speak for God to the souls of men, a man must
himself, in his inmost soul, have consciously stood
face to face with that truth of which he speaks^.
He nmst speak of God as one who has known at
once His dread awefulness and His tender love;
of sin, as that which he feels to be the one master-
evil, and with which as such he has struggled in
good truth within his secret self; of C/irist, His
Person, His propitiatory and atoning Death, His
life-giving Sacraments, as of the Person and Acts
of a dear Friend, loved with the heart's warmest
and best affection, which yet adored with the deepest
homage and by the chiefest powers of his prostrate
spirit; — of Eter/iitij as of that for which he is himself
making daily solemn preparation ; — of prai/er, and
the care of conscience and the culture of purity and
truth within, as of things of which he knows some-
thing by trial and exercise, perhaps even something
more by failure. Himself a redeemed sinner speaking
to sinners who need or who have found their Re-
deemer, he will speak in earnest. The issues of
endless life or endless death may hang upon his
words ; but his strength must lie in the profound
conviction that he is but the instrument and organ
of One Whose livery he wears before the eyes of
men, and without whom he can do nothing.
1 St. John i. 1 — 3.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 13
Christian Preaching may be defined either as Speak-
ing for God, or as Speaking to souls: but whichever
definition a man keeps most prominently before him,
he must aim in the pulpit at making a spiritual
as distinct from a merely literary effort. Above
him is the Father of Spirits, dwelling in light which
no man can approach unto. Before him is the
human soul, strong, subtle, intricate, with untold
capabilities for good and evil, for joy and agony.
Surely he cannot but keep close to those great
truths which warm the heart and nerve the will,
and raise the whole spiritual being from sin to
holiness, from death to life, from the miseries and
degradations of mere nature to the sanctities and
magnificence of grace. But if the preacher should
himself stand outside the spiritual life ; if prayer,
communion with God, discipline of the will, culture
of the affections, — if these things should seem to
him but an extravagance or a fanaticism, and if the
Faith of the Church be only lodged in his under-
standing, as an important fact in the history of
opinion, or as the bare result of an arithmetical
calculation ; then it is not difficult to see how he
will presently fail, as a matter of course, to declare
the whole counsel of God. His thought will drift
naturally away from the central and most solemn
truths to the literary embellishments which surround
the faith ; he will toy with questions of geography,
or history, or custom, or scene, or dress ; he will
reproduce with vivid power the personages and
events of long-past ages, it may be with the talent
of a master-artist ; he will give to the human
side of Religion the best of his time and of his
toil. In doing this he may, after the world's measure.
14 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
be doing good work ; but let us not deceive ourselves
— he will not be saving souls. Souls are saved
by men who themselves count all things but dung
that they may win Christ, and be found in Him'' ;
and who, even it' they be men of refined taste and
of cultivated intellect, know well how to subordinate
the embellishments of Truth to its vital and soul-
subduing certainties. Especially if a man should
take refuge in the literary aspects of Scripture,
because he is not sufficiently assured of its leading
truths to reproduce them with the accent — the
accent which the people understand so perfectly —
of simple unfaltering conviction ; then the contrast
between his graceful but relatively useless disqui-
sitions, and the glorious Creed of the Church of
God — which in its integrity alone responds to the
profound yearnings of the soul — will be painful in
proportion to the opportunities which he has missed,
and to the powers which he has abused.
4. Once more ; here, as in the whole field of
ministerial labour, let a man work and pray for the
grace of an unselfish spirit. Let him endeavour to
strangle the love of self by the love of God and the
love of man. For without charity, though a man
should speak with the tongues of men or of angels,
he will do nought for the real good of his hearers,
or for the glory of his Lord. Selfishness will spoil
everything. How often are not we, the Representa-
tives of Christ, constrained to rebuke ourselves, hum-
ble ourselves, condemn ourselves, by the words which
we speak from the Chair of Truth ! Some there
have been who have yielded to the fatal temptation
of being, what they call, consistent. They tone down
^ Phil. iii. 8.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
God's message to the miserable level of their own felt
shortcomings. They make of the Gospel a Gospel
of acquiescence in sin, rather than a Gospel of re-
demption from it ; they profess to see in it a
patronage of the flesh, and a recognition of the
world, 1 had almost said, a co-partnership with the
Evil One. Alas ! who can doubt, that unless
a man can speak, in simple sincerity, as for Christ
and from Christ, — careless though his words should
only reach his people at the manifest expense, nay,
through the deep humilation, the self-inflicted, self-
adjudged penance of their Minister — it must needs
go hard with him hereafter in the day of account.
Better it surely were never to speak at all, than
to make the Lord of Purity and Light a seeming
accomplice in the crime and darkness of His creature!
far better were silence than the advocacy of an im-
poverished— a mutilated — a false Gospel — a Gospel
robbed of all that is mysterious, awful, supernatural,
divine ; because forsooth, to preach the perfect Truth
which came from heaven is unbecoming for one who
lives, and who feels that he lives, as if it were not true!
Even the double-hearted prophet, who knew that he
had much to win by falsehood, could not but tell the
Pagan King, who would fain have subsidized his in-
spirations, ' Whatsoever the Lord telleth me, that will
I speak V And can we, beneath the Cross of Christ,
so pander to self, as to " handle the word of God
deceitfully ?" Dare we say less than what we know
to be Truth, because we know also that Truth in its
fulness would be our condemnation ?
Or take another illustration of the need of an
miselfish spirit. It is possible, nay probable, that
•1 Numb. xxii. 38; xxiii. 12. 20; xxiv. 13.
16 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
we may liave what are called favorite doctrines,
sections or sides of Truth through which God has
in a special sense spoken to us, moved us, sancti-
fied us, (as we trust) saved us. Of these, no doubt
we can speak with more power, because with
more intimate perception of their bearing on the
secret springs of life and death. But we also
speak of such points with less of moral and
intellectual effort than of others ; and this greater
facility is likely to be the real cause of our giving
them an undue prominence in our cycle of teaching,
while we endeavour to whisper to our consciences,
and to persuade our friends, that these points are the
essentials of the Gospel, and that all the rest is com-
paratively unnecessary. Thus men teach the Atone-
ment, and ignore the Sacraments ; or they teach the
need of faith, and ignore the need of love and holiness ;
or they teach the beauty of our Lord's character,
and forget His Propitiatory and Sacrificial Death ;
or conversely, they insist upon the outward duties
of religion, and do scant justice to the spiritual and
internal forces of the soul. We must teach all that
God has revealed, because He has revealed it,
leaving it to Him to touch one soul by this,
and another soul by that portion of His Revela-
tion. Even within the limits of inspiration, St. Paul
preached faith, and St. John love, and St. James
practical energy, each giving prominence, (but no-
thing more) to these several sides of the Christian
life, while yet each preached it as a whole. No
man of modesty and thoughtfulness would make
the narrow circle of experiences that have passed
within his own soul, the absolute standard of the
truths and powers which may act on others : and
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 17
no duty is more difficult or more serious than that
of detaching ourselves from the influence of ''fa-
vorite doctrines," and, as far as may be, teaching
the whole truth in its integrity to all to whom we
owe it, as the gift of God. And the Proper Lessons
and Epistles and Gospels of the Church Service,
enable us to correct our natural tendency towards a
choice of texts and subjects which fall within our own
more contracted area of thought and feeling : so that
in making it a rule always to preach from the Ser-
vices of the Day, or at least on a subject suggested
by the season, we make provision against one of
the chief temptations to teach something less than
the whole counsel of God. Nothing, however, but
a spirit of genuine self-sacrifice, nothing but a
true love of the souls of men, can enable a man so
to forego his own predilections, so to throw himself
into the state of mind, and points of view, and
peculiar difficulties, and narrower or broader horizons
of his hearers, as to lose himself, and the little
history of his own spirit, in the mighty work of
proclaiming in its perfectness the Truth of God.
We know how the great Apostle combined this
perfect consideration for others, with an unflinching,
chivalrous loyalty to the claims of Truth. ''Though
I be free from all men, yet have I made myself
servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And
unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain
the Jews ; to them that are under the Law as under
the Law, that I might gain them that are under
the Law ; to them that are without law, as without
law, (being not without law to God, but under the
law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are
c
18 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
without law ; to the weak became I as weak, that
I might gain the weak ; I am made all things to all
men, that I might by all means save some*." How
could self-sacrifice be more unsparing ? By whom
could the duty of declaring the whole counsel of
God be more forcibly proclaimed, than by a man
who gave up all else to enable him to discharge it ?
Under ordinary circumstances, my brethren, it
might be natural at this point to leave the principles
which have been insisted on to your mature re-
flections, and to the obvious force of their intrinsic
truth. The duty before us is sufficiently plain ; and
the risk of wearying you might well lead me to
pause, if it were indeed possible to do so. But I
yet owe something to the promptings of conscience,
and to the Rights of God. Nor would your judgment
be harsh or unreasonable, if you should interpret
my silence as to a matter of pressing and public
anxiety, as something less easily to be pardoned
than mere failure to satisfy the many claims of this
great occasion. Such silence would in fact be nothing
short of notorious treachery to the whole spirit and
drift of those kindling words, which it has been my
endeavour to recommend and illustrate.
At no age of the Church could the ambassadors
of Christ have afforded to forget the Apostle's ex-
ample of " not shunning to declare all the counsel
of God." But never was the force of that example
more needed than in our own day. Illustrations indeed
press so urgently upon the mind, as it ranges over
the recent history of the Church, that the preacher's
» 1 Cor. ix. 19— -i-^.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 19
embarrassment lies in the very liberty of his choice :
but one illustration, I doubt not, will have occurred
to many of us Hving at this time, and hving, my Lord
Bishop, under your Lordship's jurisdiction, in this your
Diocese of Salisbury, with painful but irrepressible
prominence. My brethren, it would be an affect-
ation, if I should profess to suppose you ignorant of
a recent Judgment, proceeding not indeed from a
spiritual but from a temporal court ; which, although
it professes, and that eagerly ^ to avoid all attempts
at formal determination of doctrine, yet does un-
questionably determine the legal sense and value of
doctrinal formularies, and, as doing this, has and
must have, practically and morally, no little weight
with large classes of our countrymen. That Judg-
ment would seem, among other points, to have ruled,
that it is permissible in law for a clergyman to ex-
press a ''hope" for the final restoration of the lost.
No man can know any thing of his own sinful heart
who does not know how much there is within him
which is ready to welcome such a permission ; but
the question is a question not of the inclinations of
a sinful creature, but of the Revealed Will of a Holy
'' " With respect to the legal tests of doctrine in the Church
of England, by the apphcation of which we are to try the
soundness or unsoundness of the passages libelled, we agree
with the learned Judge in the Court below that the Judgment
in the Gorham case is conclusive : — This Court has no juris-
diction or authority to settle matters of faith, or to determine
what ought in any particular to be tlie Doctrine of the Church
of England. Its duty extends only to the consideration of
that which is by law established to be the Doctrine of the
Church of England, upon the true and legal construction of her
articles and formularies." Judgment (Guardian, Feb. 10, 1864.)
c2
20 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
God. May we, consistently with That Will, indulge
that " hope ?" Assuredly not. For nothing is more
certain than that by the terms of the Christian reve-
lation any such hope is delusive and vain, since it
is opposed to the awfnl Truth, that they who die
out of favour with God and are lost, are lost irre-
vocably, lost for ever. If Holy Scripture is still to
be our Rule of Faith, Scripture, I submit, is decisive.
If Hooker's well known caution as to the interpre-
tation of Scripture, ^' that where a literal interpreta-
tion will stand, the farthest from the letter is com-
monly the worst" is still to be kept in mind, that
rule will preclude any serious doubt as to the real
mind of Scripture in this solemn matter. Scripture
is no less exphcit as to the endlessness of the woe
of the lost soul, than as to the endlessness of the
scene or instrument of its punishment. Isaiah
speaks of the ' everlasting burnings %' Daniel of ' ever-
lasting contempt V our Lord of ' the everlasting fire'
once and again % St. Paul of ' everlasting destruction'
or ruin', St. Jude of ' a blackness of darkness which
is reserved for ever*'.' Three times speaking of the
penal woe of the lost, the Apostle of Love uses an
expression of energetic redundancy and force : he
says that it lasts ' unto ages of ages\' Just as the
« abi^ npin Is. xxxiii. 14. ^ Obiy pS-13 Dan. xii. 2.
e rb TTvp TO aiuiviov. Matt, xviii. 8; XXV. 41.
f oXe6pov alaviov, 2 Thess. i. 9.
^ Ois 6 ^6<pos Toil cTKOTovs fls Tov alcovu T(Trjf)r]Tac. Jude 13.
b The smoke of tlieir torment ascendeth up for ever and ever,
ets alavas aMvcov, Rev. .xiv. 11; els tovs alavas rwv aituj/wi/, Kev. xix. 3,
and Kev. xx. 10. The language of Isaiah from which this is
taken would certainly seem to refer to a more than temporal
judgment on Edom and other nations. Is. xxxiv. 9, 10.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 21
elect will reign in heaven for ever and ever', as
holy souls desire that God may be glorified for ever
and ever*", as Jesus Risen from His grave is alive * for
evermore'/ as in His glory He shall reign for ever
and ever"", as the very Life of God Himself is de-
scribed by saying that ' He liveth for ever and ever"/
so is this same measure applied to the punishment
of the lost souls °. Are we to say that a period of
limited duration is all that is meant to be ascribed
in Scripture to the glory of the blessed in heaven, to
the Glorified Life and Reign of Jesus, to the very
self-existent Life of God Himself, in order to enable
ourselves to rest in the conception of a Purgatory
beyond the Final Judgment, as less shocking to our
'consciousness' than the Behef in Hell? And if
not, can we certainly determine that as applied to
Hell, this phrase has an altogether narrower sense
than that which we ascribe to it in such passages as
apply it to Heaven or to the Reign of Christ? Modern
scepticism has tampered with the word " Eternal/'
just as it has emptied ' Salvation/ * Atonement,'
* Grace,' — nay the very Name of God Himself, of
their natural meaning. But "everlasting" means
neither more nor less that than which lasts for ever.
True indeed it is that the Hebrew expression which,
when apphed to future time, answers to the English
'for ever/ does in particular instances mean some-
thing less than boundless duration. But this is
the case only where a hmitation is forced upon the
word by the subject to which it is applied. Ori-
ginally the word does imply indefinite, — the nearest
' Rev. xxii. 5. '' 1 Tim. i. 17. Heb: xiii. 21, &c.
' Rev. i. 18. " Rev. xi. 15. " Rev. iv. 9, 10;
V. 14 ; X. 6. " Ubi sup.
ii^ THli WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
approach, perhaps, which the human mind can
make to infinite, — extent of continuance. Taken
at its lowest range of meaning, it means an existence
co-extensive with that to which it is apphed^. In
the New Testament, there is a substantive which
varies with the various meanings of this Hebrew
word*^; but there is also an adjective derived from
that substantive, which at least, as used in the New
Testament, does not so vary^ but means what we
p Dvi^, properly that which is hidden ; as ai^phed to future
time, that which is lost to sight in the distance. Instances of
the narrow range of the word may be found in Gen. ix. 12.
Ex. xii. 14 — 17; xxvii. 21; xxviii. 43. Lev. x. 15, &c. Not
however in such passages as Ps. xlv. 7 ; Ixxii. 5. 17 ; Ixxxix. 37.
where Rationalists limit the woi'd in deference to their own
prejudices against the Messianic predictions. Nor again in
salutations 1 Kings i. 31 ; Neh. ii. 3; Dan. ii. 4, &c. since in
these cases, the true force of the expression is to be measured
by the belief of the Jews in the immortality of the soul. Of
what range of meaning the word is really capable will be best
understood from a consideration of the following extract from
Gesenius : " vera teternitatis notio in vocabulo nostro iis in locis
inest, qui immortalem summi Numinis naturam spectant, quod,
vocatur Dbil? 7M Deus ieternus Gen. xxi. 33 ; Jer. xl. 28.
D^i27n Tl in teternum vivens Dan. xii. 7. (cf. obil?? •"'^'7 vivere
in Eeternum, immortalem esse instar deorum [Dei] Gen. iii, 22.
Job vii. 16), Cui tribuuntur nbil? nSy"iT brachia teterna
Deut. xxxiii. 27. et de Quo dicitur b« r^rSt^ obil? 1^! Dbirp
Ps.xc. 2, ab teternitate ad ieternitatem, Tu es Deus. Ps. ciii. 17.
cf. Ps. ix. 8; X. 16; xxix. 10; xciii. 2." Thesaurus sub
voc. czibi?-
1 alav. Although, as Bretschneider remarks, "partim Grse-
corum more usurpatur." Like Db*)37 its original meaning was
that of unlimited duration, and the narrower senses were
imposed upon it subsequently. "Aristoteles alicubi scripsit
alav dici quasi altv wv." Vorstius Hebraism. N. T. ii. 39.
"■ That in the LXX, aiavios like aiiiv, when applied to future
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 2o
English mean by " everlasting." And it is this
last-named word which is used in the passages
principally under discussion. If it should be pre-
cariously contended that this word implies positive
endlessness of continuance, as little as it admits of
any defined limitation of continuance : it may at least
be observed, that as used in Scripture of the penal
misery of the lost, the expression ' eternal' is fixed
in the sense of endless duration by two considerations.
Where that word is applied to our home in Heaven,
time, varies in its meanings with the senses of CD^IS? is
clear from the passages given in Trommius, s. v. But,
when the Gospel had " brought life and immortality to light"
more distinctly, the use of the word atavios was limited
(within the precincts of the New Testament) to the idea
(taken at the lowest) of indefinite continuance. It is used
seventy-one times in the N. T. It is an attribute of fo)?)
forty-four times. St. John never uses it in any other con-
nection ; and it occurs twenty-three times in his writings. In two
cases only is it possible to argue fairly that the word may have
a limited meaning. (1) Philemon 15. alaviov avrov anexos, where
however Bretschneider (Lex. Man in voc.) construes the word
" ilium in sempiternum, scilicet, quia Christianus factus jam
vitse seternse particeps erat." So (to omit others) Huther in
loc. " Die christliche briiderliche Verbinduiig in die Ewigkeit
reiche." (2) St. Jude 7. irvpos alaviov 8ik7]v, where Pol. Synops. in
loc. observes that the natural construction of the whole passage
is that " Eas urbes incensas instar exhibere ignis ffiterni, qui
irapios expectat." The remarks of Huther apply to our
E. V. irvpos alcoviov construiren De Wette, Arnaud mit den
folgenden 8lktjv inrexovaai, weil dieses sonst zu entblosst stiinde :
allein das Feuer, womit sie bestraft sind, konnte von Judas
nicht wohl das ewige Feuer gcnannt werden ; dies ist stehende
Bezeichnung des Hollenfeuers, dem die im letzen Gerichte
Verurtheilten iiberliefert werden ; darum ist es besser imp. alav.
mit 8ety/xa ZU verbinden ; jene Stadte sind SIktjv inexovaai ein
Exempel des Ewigen Feuers. Brief des Judas, p. 217.
24 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OE GOD.
the hopes and longings of men gladly do justice
to the natural force of human language. But
it is noteworthy % that no stronger expressions
are applied any where to the Eternal Life of the
Blessed in Heaven, within the New Testament,
tlian are also used to describe the endlessness of
the pains of Hell': and therefore the notion that
* alaviov in N. T. 2. dicitur omne quod est finis expers,
niaxime id, quod est post hujus vitte mundique decui'sum
eventurum. Hue pertinent omnia ilia N. T. Ipca, in quibus
formulae : irvp alaviov, Kpiais alavios, Kpijxa alaviov, KoKaais aiapios,
C<ofi (Bo^a, aaTTjpia) alcovios reperiuntur, V. c. Matt, xviii. 8. xix. 16.
XXV. 41. 4G. JNlarc. iii. '29. Rom. ii. 7. 2 Tim. ii, 10. Heb. v, 9.
Quemadmodum cnim formulis nvp alaviov et sqq. poenee perpetuaj
peccatorum, quas impii post banc vitam luent, sorsque eorum
misera J'utura non inlcrrupta iudicantur, ita opposita formula:
fft)i) aiiivi.05 perennis felicitatis piorum post mortem status et
conditio significatur, quse 2 Cor. iv. 17. aliivLov ^apos 8d|r;y, Luc.
xvi. 9. ax^"^^^ alcovioi, Heb. ix. 15. aldtvios KkrjpovopLa, et 2 Pet. i. 11.
alojvios ^aaiKeia rov GeoC appellatur. Scbleusner. Lexicon, p. 67.
So too Bretscbneider (Lex. Man. in v.) who after quoting
all the passages in which the word alavios is applied to
blessedness or woe, observes, ' Alwvios in foi'mulis fco)) alav. irvp
alatv. 86^a alav. Kokaais, oXedpos, Kpip,a, ffpiais alcov. scmpitenium
nunqiiam Jiniendum indicare dubio caret, quum prsemia seque ac
poenre post resurrectionem sempitevnse quoque baberentur a
Judteis. Vid. test. Aser. in Fab. Cod. Pseud. V. T. i. p. 693.
potissimura Psalter. Salom. Ps. 3. vers. 13. J 5, 16. ubi ^ dTrwXeta
Tov apapToikov els rov alava ; piorum for) aicoi'tos autem, ovk iKKel-^et
en. p. 31.
' Commenting on the use of alavios in St. Matt. xxv. 41.46,
with refeience to endless life and endless death, St. Augustine
observes : " Si utrumque seternum, profecto aut utrumque cum
fine diutumum, aut utrumque sine fine perpetuum debet intel-
ligi. Par pari enim relata sunt, hiuc supplicium aeternum, inde
vita aeterna. Dicere autem in hoc uno eodemque sensu, vita
seterna sine fine erit, supplicium aeternum finem habebit,
multum absurdum est. Unde, quia vita aeterna sanctorum sine
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD, 25
of the two states Heaven only is endless, finds
no support from the language of Scripture, but
rests solely upon a human speculation external
to it. On the other hand, ' eternal' is not the
only attribute applied in the New Testament to
the state of punishment : the word is illustrated
and defined by other terms which necessarily fix its
true meaning. The Baptist speaks of the penal fire
as ' unquenchable^' Our Lord Himself adopts the
word; He thrice said of the "worm" of a sinful
conscience that "it dieth not," and that "the fire"
of its punishment " is not quenched''." The prophet,
whose language is quoted, had used ^, future tense y,
the Divine Speaker, before whose Eyes the unseen
world is spread out — on this side in all its unspeak-
able Beauty, on that in all its unutterable Woe — uses
a present, as describing the fact yet more vividly.
If endless punishment could be described in human
words, no words could exhaust the description more
absolutely than the recorded words of Christ. They
admit of no limitation ; they are patient of no toning
down or softening away ; in the page of the Evan-
gelist, they live for all time before the eyes of men,
in all their vivid, awful power. If Jesus Christ has
told us any thing certain about the other world,
fine erit, supplicium quoque seterrmm quibus erit, finem procul
dubio non habebit." De Civ. Dei, xxi. 23. Even Hagenbach,
who quotes this passage, observes : " It is superfluous to quote
other Fathers, inasmuch as they all more or less agree." Hist.
Doct. vol. i. p. 387.
" TTXip acr^ecTTOV. Matt. iii. 12.
* ety TO TTvp TO acT^ecTTOv' ottov 6 ctkcoXij^ avTa>v ov TeXevTq, Kai to nvp
ov cr^evpvTai. Mark ix. 43, 44. 46. 48.
y n550 ^^ D^HI, Is. Ixvi. 24.
26 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
we can not doubt tliat the Penal fire must last
for ever. But may the soul be withdrawn from the
punishment ? or may it be annihilated ? Few
Christians have dared to say 'yes' to the first of
these questions ; to the second, fewer still. For
there are Words of Christ which seem expressly
designed to prevent any misconception. He speaks
of a * punishment/ no less than of a * fire,' which is
" everlasting ^" And we are told, that as " he that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting Hfe;" so *'he
that believeth not the Son shall not see hfe, but
the wrath of God abideth on him '." ** Abideth
y St. Matt. XXV. 41. 46. After noticing the classical distinction
between KoXaa-is and rifuopia, (Ar. Rhet. i. 15. Plat. Prot. 323, e.)
Archbishop Trench observes, (Synon. N. T. i. p. 28.) " It
would be a very serious error, however, to attempt to transfer
this distinction in its entireness to the words as employed in
the New Testament. The Kokaa-is alavios of Matt. xxv. 46, as it
plainly itself declares, is no corrective and therefore temporary
discipline; it can be no other than the dddvaros n^icopla (Josephus,
B. J. ii. 8. 11), the d'iSioi rtp-coplai (Plato, Ax. 372, a), with which
the Lord elsewhere threatens finally impenitent men (Mark ix.
43 — 48) ; for in proof that KoXaa-is had acquired in Hellenistic
Greek this severer sense, and was used simply as punishment
or tonnent, with no necessary underthought of the bettering
through it of him who endured it, we have only to refer to such
passages as the following : Josephus, Ant. xv. 2. 2 ; Philo, De
Agricul. 9 ; INIart. Polycar. 2 ; 2 Mace. iv. 38 ; Wisd. of Sol.
xix. 4. This much, indeed, of Aristotle's distinction still
remains, and may be recognised in the sacred usage of the
words, that in KoXaa-is the relation of the punishment to the
punished, in rifuopia to the punisher, is predominant."
" John iii. 30, f} opyf) rov Qeov pevd eV avrov. Compare the
Psalmist's, "Ti^ =1«"?? i^^ n'^r'^V (xlix. 20.) with the earlier part
of this text. The true force of these words can only be set
aside by the a priori and unwarrantable assumption that the
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 27
on him;" — then if he die in unbeHef, he still
exists, though in his woe — then he is not delivered
from it. " Abideth on him : " the piercing words
seem to ring on from day to day, from year to
year, from century to century, from cycle to cycle
of measureless periods ; we feel at this moment that
eighteen centuries have not blunted their edge, or
lessened their solemnity and power. If so (you
reply), it were better never to have lived, than
to live and be lost. Unquestionably. Our Lord
states this truth with equal clearness. He said of
one lost soul, of one who had been blessed with
the high privilege of His Companionship, but who
fell so deeply as to betray Him to His enemies
for money, ' Good it were for that man if he had
never been born V There are undoubtedly critics who
treat these words as they might treat an exclamation
in some heathen Dramatist ; as if the sentence had
been uttered in a free rhetorical spirit, and with no
thought of the meaning — the vast illimitable meaning
— which they really contain and convey. But you
can only thus empty the Words of Christ of their
native power, if you will consent to forget that they
are theWords of One Whose horizon was not bounded
by the things of time. The Lord of Life and Death,
fixing His Eye in deepest woe, yet with unfaltering
precision, upon a creature whom He willed to save,
yet who spurned His Salvation — thus rules in the
fulness of His knowledge, in the tenderness of His
Love, that non-existence had been better than an
endless life of the soul was a truth unknown to the Hebrew
Psalmists. Compare Konig. Theologie der Psalmen, p. 329 sqq.
^ St. Mark xiv. 31. Compare St. Mark iv. 29, and viii. 36, 37.
28 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
undying being, which in the abuse of its free-will
His creature had made an unending misery. It
cannot be maintained that the Words of Jesus are
true, if at any conceivable point of a distant future
any restoration to heaven is possible for Judas. For
beyond that point, however distant, there would still
stretch the vision of a still illimitable Eternity ; in
which the restored soul would find in the presence
of God, a "fulness of joy" which would redress the
balance, and would speedily reduce a purgatory that
had lasted even for ages to a scarcely perceptible
speck in a past existence. Unless the human soul
be not necessarily immortal, Judas lives : unless the
Words of Christ be untrustworthy on the question
of Life and Death, Judas lives in woe. There is
no escape : the unspeakable awfulness of our Sa-
viour's language is precisely tJiis, that it does leave
no room for any reversal of the doom of the be-
trayer— of the man whose epitaph was thus traced
by the finger of Infinite Knowledge and of Infinite
Love, — " Good were it for that man if he had never
been born."
A few gifted minds such as Origen^ have made
*• The passages which best illustrate his deliberate opinion are
in formal treatises, (De Prin. i. G. Contr. Celsura, v. 14, 15.)
In his popular teaching, he sometimes expresses opinions
which seem to foreshadow the later Doctrine of a purgatory
before the Judgment, (Horn. vi. in Exod. no. 4. Hom. iii. in Ps.
xxxvi. no. ]. quoted by Lumper 0. 595,) or which at least say
nothing inconsistent with it. He admitted however that his
doctrine of a final awoKaraaTacris (of men and devils) might
be dangerous to the unconverted. ' For most,' he says, ' it is
enough to know that sinners will be punished. It would be
inexpedient to say more: since there are persons whom the
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 29
shipwreck, from whatever causes, of this Article of
the Christian Faith. But amidst the rare aberrations
of genius, the behef of the Christian people has been
such as might have been expected, from the tenor
of the Words of Christ. And it is particularly observ-
able how in the early ages of the Faith, the martyrs
standing before their heathen judges, felt one after
another that their choice lay between a transient
pang of suffering and an endless woe^ Not that
the error which is connected with the name of
Origen has been repudiated by no process less rude
and irregular than the action of popular sentiment.
Apparently during his life-time and certainly after his
decease, the speculations of the great Alexandrian
were condemned by councils of the Church*^; and if
fear of Eternal Punishment scarcely restrains fi'om giving
themselves up to wickedness with all the evils that follow
on it!" Contr. Cels, vi. 26. He speaks of belief in eternal
punishment as morally useful although not true, (F^om. in
Jer. 19. tom. iii. p, 507, 508. ed. Migne) when commenting on
Jer. XX. 7, thus admitting the adaptation of the Revealed Truth
to the wants of the human soul. This conviction seems to have
coloured his popular teaching. (Hom. 7. in Exod. 0pp. ed.
Migne, vol. ii. p. 347, where he quotes Is. Ixvi. 24.)
« Euinart Acta Sincera. Passio Stfe Felicitatis (p. 23.)
circa 150. Passio S. Maximi, circa 250 (p. 133.) Maximus
is described as a plebeian who was engaged in trade. When
desired by the Proconsul to sacrifice, that he might escape
the torture, he replied, " Hsec non sunt tormenta quse pro
nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi inferuntur, sed sunt unc-
tiones. Si enim recessero a Domini mei prseceptis, quibus
sum de Evangelio Ejus eruditus, vera et perpetua mihi mane
bunt tormenta." Other examples might be cited from Ruinart :
they shew what was the simple, unhesitating faith of the
Early Church.
^ Origen was silenced and deposed by two successive synods
so THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
equivocal language on the subject of endless punish-
ment is to be discovered in a stray writer here and
there by the student of Patristic Literature, he will
almost invariably observe that its force is destroyed by
language of an opposite drift, which the same writer
has elsewhere employed. Nor is it pretended that
there is any serious ground for doubt as to the
Catholic Belief of the Church, as evidenced by the
consent of her Representative Fathers^ But, let us
note it well, they who to-day deny the truth in
held during his hfe-time. His leading tenets were condemned
at Constantinople in 540. " The erroneous doctrines (says
Archdeacon Churton) which Origen had taught, or which others
taught in his name, were condemned as heretical ; and among
them the doctrine of the future restitution of fallen spirits
and of evil men. See this very fully proved hy a Church
Historian, who has given it the fullest examination. Natal.
Alex. Hist. Eccl. Ssec. iii. Diss. xvi. And this is admitted
by the best-informed enquirers of our own Church, as by those
of foreign Churches. See Bishoj) Pearson, Minor Works, i. 413.
and the able Life of Origen in the venerable Archdeacon of
Westmoreland's Biogra2iliies of the Early Church, ii. 114. 133."
(Guardian, March 9, 1864.) To the objection that Origen
was not condemned by any of the First Four General Councils,
it has been well replied, " that each Council did the special
work of its osvn emergency, and not other kinds of work;
and that Origenism wa& not a pressing question in 325, 381,
431, or 451." (W. B. in Guardian, March 16, 1864.) It is at
least certain that the Sixth General Council declares the Fifth
to have assembled for the purpose of condemning Origen and
other persons, thereby endorsing the anathema of the Synod of
Constantinople in 540. (Routh. Script. Eccl. Opusc. ii. 232.)
e See Petavius de Angelis, lib. iii. c. 8. It will be observed
that Petavius quotes language from Gregory of Nyssa, and
Gregory Nazianzen, which may fairly outweigh those passages
of doubtful import in their writings, to which appeal has recently
been made.
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. ^ 31
question, or who rashly express " hopes" that the
Faith of Christendom may not be true, oppose
themselves not merely to the decrees of Councils
and to the consent of Fathers, nor yet merely
to the ' popular' belief of centuries, nor to the
reign of a world-wide Tradition. Nor do they
merely controvert a Hebrew Prophet or a Christian
Apostle, and take up the position of those incon-
sequent Rationalists, who, respecting nothing else
in Holy Scripture, still profess to respect as Divine
and Infallible the recorded Words of Christ For
it is face to face with Him that they stand in con-
troversy*^: it is His sentence, in Whose disclosures
concerning the world beyond the tomb, we Christians
place our hopes for life and for death, that they
arraign at the bar of what is at best a section of
contemporary opinion. Our Lord and Saviour, with
what would be generosity in a mere man, but with
what in Him doubtless was provision against the
known weakness of His creatures, has not bequeathed
to His Servants or Representatives the responsibility —
f Observe the force of the following admission from a writer,
of whose relations to the true Faith of the Church of Christ no
unfair estimate will be formed from the fact of his being one of
the live authorities referred to with approbation by M. Eenan, in
his recent " Vie de Jesus." (Int. p. vii.) M. Reuss has been
citing St. Matt, xxv, 30. 41 sqq. and some similar passages:
" Toutes ces peintures," he says, " sont claires et simples; elles
n'offrent rien d equivoque ; il n'y a pas un mot qui trahisse una
arriere-pensee, qui nous fasse entrevoir une signification cachee,
qui les reduise a une valeur purement figuree et parabolique. II
est evident que les narrateurs qui nous servent ici de guides, ont
pris tout cela au pied de la lettre et qu'il ne leur est pas reste
une ombre de doute a cet egard." Reuss. Theol. Chretienne,
tome i. p. 249, Deux"»e edit.
32 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
nay the odium — of proclaiming those stern and awful
certainties ; He has Himself heralded, at one and
the same time, the penalties and the benedictions
of His Gospel ; He has unveiled the Eternal Pit
Himself, in phrases and words as urgent and positive
as those whereby He has opened heaven to all
believers ; and fifty generations of Christians have
believed and confessed that His Authority is final,
and that to tamper with His Revelations is only
more obviously foolish than it is perilously blas-
phemous.
Brethren ! I seem to interpret to myself the
thought of your hearts : men are won, you say, by
the mercies rather than by the terrors of the Lord.
Would it not be more accurate to say with St. Au-
gustine, that the terrors of the Lord drive us men
to take refuge in His unspeakable mercies ? Is it
not a fact, familiar to every clergyman, is it not a
matter of personal experience to some at least in
this vast congregation, that the undefined, haunting
fear of an endless woe does again and again guide
unquiet souls to seek peace and safety in kneeling at
the foot of the Cross, and in tasting of that Plente-
ous Redemption, which flows from the Wounds of
Jesus ? Are there not now resting in Paradise souls,
who owe their predestined crowns and thrones to that
first sharp pang which pierced their spirits, when,
many years since, on earth, in the midst of a course
of sin, they first realized the certain existence of an
endless Hell ? You urge that there are higher
motives than terror, for religious effort. Undoubt-
edly. It is better to love God for His own sake,
than to love Him for the sake of the blessings
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 33
which He gives, or the woes from which He saves.
But He who made the human heart knew more per-
fectly what motives are really needed to act upon it,
than the theorists who proclaim what they would
propose as the revision of His work. He knew that
more men are moved by fear than by love : and that
man may be educated to love fearlessly, if he begins
by cultivating that fear which is the beginning of moral
and spiritual wisdom. Certainly we cannot exaggerate
the mercies of our redeeming Lord : they are simply
infinite. But side by side with them lie also His
judgments, unexplored and infinite ; so that the
^ great deep' is their symbol in the world of nature ;
and His judgments are equally with His mercies
an integral part of the Truth of His Revelation,
nay of His Being : they are equally a part of His
' whole Counsel' as it has been made known to us
men ; and it is our business, as clergy, to proclaim
them. To do so, many of us solemnly pledge
ourselves this day before God and man. We owe
it, my brethren of the laity, to our God ; we owe it
to Jesus Teaching and to Jesus Crucified ; we owe
it to the terms of our commission, and to the claims
of our consciences ; but we owe it above all to your
undying souls to tell you the plain, unmutilated
truth. We dare not, like the serpent in Paradise,
whisper to you here within the precincts of the
Church of God, that you may cherish a ' hope' that
God's threats may after all be false. To tell you
that in the future world the only alternative to
Heaven is a Purgatory, might indeed earn for
us, at the present crisis of thought in England, a
momentary popularity. But if it were morally in
D
34 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
our power to sacrifice one truth of the Creed, we
could not thereby insure the rest. We could not
stop at '* expressing a hope" that the punishment
of the wicked may not be final. On the one side,
an Eternal Heaven might easily become both to the
philologists, and to the metaphysicians, as problem-
atical a thing as an Eternal Hell. On the other,
that infinite Price which our Lord paid upon the
Cross that He might save us from a boundless
woe, would soon be rejected as needless ; and we
should reduce His propitiatory Sacrifice to the
level of a moral triumph. From that it were but
a short step to the denial of His Godhead. For, as
a perfect act of faith in a single truth has already,
before perceiving it, grasped other truths by im-
plication ; so a deliberate rejection of a single truth
entails the rejection, first in principle, and afterwards
avowedly of other truths beyond. Here is our danger.
Fear you we may not : but you may shame our weak-
ness by bidding us tell you the truth, or you may
tempt us in speaking to you, to " prophesy smooth
things,' or at best to substitute the ' hay, wood, and
stubble' of the things of time, for the unchangeable
realities of the other world. If we dare not be
honest with you ; if through want of spirituality, from
a selfish instinct that we should condemn ourselves
in your eyes, we should shrink from a higli and
soul-controlling doctrine — woe, woe to us ! One
day we know side by side with you, but with greater,
far greater responsibilities than yours, which we
have freely chosen to bear, we too, your ministers,
must stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ. How
shall we then make answer to the stern and terrible
THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD. 35
rebuke of our Master, how shall we endure to hear
your deserved reproaches, your wail of remorse and
agony, if now, through cowardly fear of man, or any
false refinement, or weakly acquiescence in the
polished unbelief of the hour, we hide from you
one half of our Master's message ; justifying by our
silence the taunt of His enemies, that in this ase
we fear to preach what He Himself announced
as certain ; or banding ourselves with them, in
saying that He was at least in part mistaken, and
that the men of to-day have improved His Gospel
by eliminating its severities ?
And you, my dear brethren, who now are pressing
forward to receive your various powers from the con-
secrated Hands through which to-day, as ever before
and to the end of time, Christ our Lord reigning
in His Church bestows them — bethink you, I pray, at
this the most solemn crisis of your lives, of that great
Day which cannot be distant, and which may be very
near. Bethink you now, as you receive your talent
of the account which you must then render for its
due improvement. Pray that you may be fearless, as
speaking for the Mighty God ; but pray too that you
may be loving, and humble, as becomes sinners, who
remember their own sins, while in God's name they
dare to counsel their brethren. If we of the Clergy
feel in our very hearts that we may be lost, as easily,
nay rather, by reason of our greater opportunities,
much more easily than other men ; we shall speak
of Hell, not as a threat which we flourish without
measuring its awfulness, but as a fact, present to the
eye of our spirits ; we shall think and speak of it
as of a common danger — just as of Heaven as of
D 2
36 THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD.
a common Hope, and a common Home. Let us by
God's grace resolve to be true ; let us pray God to
make us true — true in our inmost selves — and true
to that counsel of God, which it is our duty to
proclaim to man. God indeed is severe and stern
with the self-reliant ; but for the self-distrustful and
the prayerful He is a tender and most indulgent
Master, whose service is not less the highest joy,
than it is the highest freedom. Even on earth for
every earnest, simple, truthful, unselfish spirit among
the servants of the Church, there is a foretaste of
the imperishable Reward above. It may be en-
joyed, and that abundantly, in the cottages of
the poor, in the pulpits of the Sanctuary, on the
steps of the Altar. Stephen may still ennoble the
lower grade of service by a sacrifice of self which
opens heaven, and which Jesus owns as the first of
martyrdoms. And there are mercies, blessings,
crowns that fade not away*^ — for those who though
afar off, yet by word and act, faithfully witness to
the justice and to the grace of their God, and who
standing beneath the Cross of the Redeemer of the
world, wield, according to the measures of their
ministry, the consolations of the keys of Peter,
the powers of the sword of Paul.
' 1 St. Peter v. 4.
APPENDIX.
The following Lilany has already been offered to the
public in another shape. It is here reprinted by the per-
mission of its Compiler, — the revered Author of the Christian
Year. The fulness with which it exhibits the mind of
Scripture as to the solemn question of Eternal Punishment,
will remind the reader how much of the Scriptural argument
has been left altogether untouched in the pages of my
Sermon. The Litany is little less than the skeleton of a
treatise; and can hardly fail to convince fair and reasonable
persons that the truth recently impugned is an essential
feature of the Teaching of our Divine Lord. But the
cause of truth will be best promoted, and the Compiler's
intention most strictly complied with, if the Litany be
used, and that frequently and earnestly, in the manner
suggested by its name and form.
H. P. L.
Ettans ot our ^.orti's WLnminqfi.
I.
0 God the Father, King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible,
O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, begotten from
everlasting of the Father,
O God the Holy Ghost, Eternal Spirit, proceeding
from the Father and the Son,
O Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity, Three Persons
and One God, Which is, and Which was, and Which is
to come,
— Have mercy upon us.
Remember not. Lord, our offences, nor the offences of
our forefathers; neither take Thou vengeance of our sins:
spare us, good Lord, spare Thy people, whom Thou hast
redeemed with Thy most precious blood, and be not angry
with us for ever.
Spare us good Lord, and be not angry with us for ever.
38 LITANY OF OUR LORd's WARNINGS.
II.
S. Jude g 1, Jesu, Who of old didst reserve the fallen angels in
Pet. ii. 4. everlasting chains nuder darkness unto the judgment of
the Great Day, —
Gen. iii. Jesu, Who to our fallen parents didst declare Thyself
the true and just Judge, and didst condemn them for
ver. 17. listening to him who said, " Ye shall not surely die,"
2S. Pet. Jesu, Word of God, hy Whom the old world w^as,
' ■ ' and was destroyed by water, and the world that now is
is reserved unto fire for perdition of ungodly men.
Gen. xix. Jesu, Lord, Who from the Lord didst rain brimstone
xxii. 29 • ^^^ ^'^ °^' ^^ heaven on Sodom and Gomorrha, and didst
2S.Pet.ii. set them forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of
5; S J"'^*^ eternal fire,
Heb. xii. Jesu, Who in the figuie of Esau hast taught us that
there may be a condition where is no place for repentance,
Isa. xxxiii. Jesu, Who by Thy Prophet hast told us of everlasting
burnings,
S.Luke Jesd, Who by Thy Forerunner hast threatened un-
quenchable fire,
S. Matt. § 2. Jesu, from Whose lips, full of grace, came thrice
V. 29 ; (ixe ten'ible mention of " the whole body cast into hell,"
S. Matt. X. Jesu, Who didst bid us fear Him which is able to
28 ; S.Luke destroy both soul and body in hell,
S. Miitt Jesu, Who didst warn us against a relapse which should
xii. 45 ; make the last stale worse than the first,
2g ^^^"^^i- Jesu, Who didst tell us over and over of the furnace
S. Matt, of fire, and of the outer darkness, where is weeping and
xiii.4.2,50 j^- f^ggjj
ore; vm. o o '
12, &c. Jesu, Who didst declare it possible for a man to "lose
^•-^i'"- his own soul,"
XVI. 26;
S.Mark Jesu, to whom the foolish virgins will come asking
viii. .36. fyj. entrance in vain,
S. Matt.
XXV. 1 12. Jesu, Who by one and the selfsame word, "everlasting,"
S. Matt. jjjjg{ described the sentence both of bad and good,
S^MarkLx. Jesu, Who didst mention not only the worm and the
**• 46> 48; fjie ^juj their worm and their tire, — what each one sufl'ers, —
cf. Isa. , .
Ixvi. 24. as undying,
— Hare mercy upon us.
LITANY OF OUR LORD's WARNINGS. 39
Jesu, Wlio vouchsafing to interpret Thyselt, hast declared,
that Everlasting Fire means the Everlasting Punishment of"
those who shall be on the Left Hand,
§3. Jesu, Who in tender love didst say to Judas, S. Matt.
" Good were it for that man if he had never been born," ^^^' '
Jesu, Whose own word it is, " He that believeth and is s. Mark
baptized shall be saved, but he that believeih not shall be^^*^^-
damned,"
Jesu, Who hast told us of the Resurrection of damnation, S. John v.
as well as of the Resurrection of life,
Jesd, of Whom we have learned that a man may S. John vi.
become as a devil,
Jesu, Whose threat it is, " Ye shall die in your sins;" S.John
and " Whither 1 go ye cannot come," ^'^^' '
Jesu, Who likenest them that abide not in Thee to aS.Johnxv.
withered branch whose end is to be burned, -.' ^■^"•'^^'
o.
Jesu, Who by Thy Apostle hast taught that to some the2C0r.ii.l6.
Gospel is as a savour of death,
Jesu, Whose revealing from heaven shall be everlasting 2 Thes.i.9.
destruction from the Presence of the Lord to them that obey
not the Gospel,
Jesu, Who tellest the Hebrews of some that cannot be Heb. vi.
renewed unto repentance, '^ ^'
Jesu, from Whom final impenitence can look for nothing Heb. x. 27.
but " fiery indignation,"
§.4. Jesu, Who by two of Thy loving Apostles speakest2S.Pet. ii.
of some for whom " the mist of darkness is reserved for -J'," ,' '
Jude 13.
ever," and of " a latter end worse than the beginning,"
Jesu, in Whose presence the worshippers of the Beast Rev. xix.
shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, ^^•
Jesu, Who hast ordained that the smoke of their Rev. xiv.
torment, as the smoke of Babylon, should go up for ever ^^> ^^^* "^^
and ever,
Jesu, Who didst shew to Thy loving Disciple how those Rev. xx.l5.
not written in the Book of Life shall be cast into the lake
of fire,
— Have mercy tipon us.
40 LITANY OF OUR LORd's WARNINGS.
Rev. xii.8, Jesu, Who didst cause the Father's voice to be heard,
saying, " The cowardly, and the unbelieving, and the
abominable, aiid murderers, and whoremongers, and sor-
cerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which
is the second death,"
Rev. xxi. Jesu, into Whose city none shall enter that defilelh, or
27. worketh abomination or a lie, but they that are written in
the Lamb's Book of Life,
Rev. iiii. Jesu, some of Whose last words were, " He that is
*^- filthy, let him be filthy still;" his probation having come
to an end.
Rev xiii. Jesu, from Whose home the unclean, the cruel, the
16. profane, the false will be finally excluded.
Rev. xxii. Jesu, Who art coming quickly, and Thy reward with
12' Thee, to give every man according as his work shall be,
— Have mercy upon us.
in.
From everlasting damnation :
From all blindness of heart :
From contempt of Thy word :
From self-will and self-reliance ; from going after our
own inventions ; from following a multitude to do or
believe evil :
From wresting Thy Holy Scripture; from mistrusting
Thy holy Church ; from bigotry and indifference ; from
partiality and prejudice; from respect of persons; from
making God's Word of none effect by man's tradition :
From hastiness and sloth ; from presumption and
cowardice; from levity and scornfulness in judgment, and
from taking part with the scorners :
From the suUenness of Cain ; from the unbelief of
Sodom ; from the bitter and tardy cry of Esau ; from the
hardness of Pharaoh ; from the self-deceit of Balaam ;
from the relapsing of Ahab ; from the despair of Judas;
and from the portion of the devil and his angels:
— Good Lord, deliver us.
LITANY OF OUR LORd's WARNINGS. 41
From the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death :
In the time when iniquity aboundeth ; in the days when
the Son of Man shall hardly find the faith in the earth;
in the revelation of Antichrist ; in the horn- of our own
death ; in the passing away of heaven and earth ; and in
the eternal judgment :
— Good Lord, deliver us.
We sinners do beseech Thee to hear us, O Lord God ;
and that it may please Thee to restore unto thy Church
perfect unity both visible and invisible :
That it may please Thee to look down with pity upon
the Reformed Catholic Church in the British Empire, in
its long and sore distress by reason of unhappy divisions :
That it may please Thee to grant unto our Bishops and
Pastors and all congregations committed to their charge,
so to cherish the bond of peace, that they may not in any
degree forfeit the unity of the Spirit :
That it may please Thee to fill the successors of the
Apostles with the spirit of power and love and of a sound mind,
that by the Holy Ghost so dwelling in them they may
keep Thy good deposit both of doctrine and Sacraments:
That it may please Thee to bestow on our gracious
Queen Thy special grace, that she may be crowned
hereafter as a true Defender of the Faith :
That it may please Thee to endue those who make
our laws, and judge in our courts, with a true sense of
the mind of Thy Church, as well as with a spirit of
equity as between man and man :
That it may please Thee to give unto us all a right
judgment and a steady and courageous will, faithfully and
lovingly to hold fast Thy form of sound words, not in the
letter only but in the spirit :
That it may please Thee to make our hearts silent and
submissive for the unreserved receivings alike of Thy
promisings and Thy ihreatenings :
— Have mercy upon us.
42 LITANY OF OUR LORD's WARNINGS.
That it may please Thee to convert and pardon all who
disbelieve Thy threateniiigs of etenial woe, and cojisciously
or unconsciously cause any to disregard them :
That it may please Thee to forgive us all that has been
light, profane, or careless, in our thoughts, words, and ways,
as concerning eternal things, and all that may have en-
couraged the same in others :
That it may please Thee to keep continually in our ears
the sound of Thy Fatherly warnings, that we may be both
ashamed and afraid to offend Thee ; and do Thou often
recall to our minds the thought, " What if I should be lost,
and lose my Saviour for ever ?"
That it may please Thee to grant unto us a deep
sense of Thy mysterious love, for the quieting of all
scruples, doubts, or misgivings, which the craft of the
devil or man, or the infirmity of our nature, may at any
time work within us :
That it may please Thee now and always, in all our
trials, and in the trials of our Church and country, to guide,
chasten, and uphold us by Thy good Spirit, and cause
Thy warnings of everlasting death to become unto us words
of eternal life :
V.
0 Lamb of God,
Have mercy, and spare us.
Have mercy, and hear us.
Have mere}-, and save us.
Antiph. Yet a little while is the Light with you : walk
while ye have the Light, lest darkness come upon you :
for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he
goeth.
V. I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O Lord;
R. And received comfort.
1 am hoiTibly afraid
For the ungodly that forsake Thy lata.
While ye have the Light, believe in the Light;
That ye may be the children of Light.
Jesus said, Father, forgive them ;
For they know not what they do.
Yet a little while.
LITANY OF OVR LORd's WARNINGS. 43
Collect. O Jesus, Who hast made known to Thy
servants another death besides that which separates the
soul from the body ; deliver us not, we beseech Thee, into
the bitter pangs of eternal death. And that we, with all
those for whom we are bound to pray, may escape the sad
sentence of final separation from Thee; grant us, we
beseech Thee, courageous and dutiful hearts, truly and
lovingly to accept Thy most true and merciful warnings :
keep this Church and nation from believing a lie, and
from denying or doubting any part of Thy Gospel;
and perfect in us the love of the truth, that we may
be saved through Thy merits and mediation, \Mio livest
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without
end. Amen.
The Lord bless us, and keep us. The Lord make His
face to shine upon us, and be gracious unto us. The Lord
lift uj) His countenance upon us, and give us peace, both
now and evermore. Amen.
BAXTER, PRINTEH, OXFORD.
">v/^1
'^-
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11