Sermons for the times

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

GIFT OF

Mr. & Mrs,
Bernard Berraan

Cornell University Library
BX5133.K55S4 1898

Sermons for the times.

3 1924 007 505 971

A Cornell University
y Library

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tine Cornell University Library.

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SERMONS FOR THE TIMES.

SERMONS

FOR THE TIMES

BY

CHARLES KINGSLEY

Hontion

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898

All rights 7-esen'ecl

Richard Glav and Sons, Limited,
London and Bungay.

Transferred to Macmillan and Co., 1863.

New Edition (Fcap. 8vo), 187-I,.

Nnv Edition (Crown 8vo), 1878,

Reprinted, i83i, 1884, 18S8, i8go, 1898.

CONTENTS.

SERMON PAGB

I. Fathers and Children i

II. Salvation 15

III. A Good Conscience 29

IV. Names 43

V. Sponsorship 58

VI. Justification by Faith 74

VII. Duty and Superstition 83

VIII. S0X5HIP 104

IX. The Lord's Prayer 116

X. The Doxology 132

XI. Ahab and Naboth 146

XII. The Light of God 160

XIII. Providence 172

XIV. England's Strength 188

XV. The Life of God 19S

vi CONTENTS.

SERMON PAGE

XVI, God's Offspring 213

XVII. Death in Life 223

XVIII. Shame 236

XIX. Forgiveness 250

XX. The True Gentleman 262

XXI. Toleration 278

XXII. Public Spirit 295

SERMON I.

'FATHERS AND CHILDREN."

Malachi IV. 5, 6.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord : And he shall turn the
heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

THESE words are especially solemn words.
They stand in an especially solemn and im-
portant part of the Bible. They are the last words
of the Old Testament. I cannot but think that it
was God's will that they should stand where they
are, and nowhere else. Malachi, the prophet who
wrote them, did not know perhaps that he was the
last of the Old Testament prophets. He did not
know that no prophet would arise among the Jews
for 400 years, till the time when John the Baptist
came preaching repentance. But God knew. And
by God's ordinance these words stand at the end
of the Old Testament, to make us understand the
beginning of the New Testament. For the Old
Testament ends by saying that God would send
to the Jews Elijah the prophet. And the New
Testament begins by telling us of John the Bap-

B

2 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm,

tist's coming as a prophet, in the spirit and power
of Elias ; and how the Lord Jesus himself declared
plainly that John the Baptist was Elijah who was
to come ; that is, the Elijah of whom Malachi pro-
phesies in my text.

Therefore, we may be certain that this text tells
us what John the Baptist's work was; that John
the Baptist came to turn the hearts of the fathers
to the children, and the hearts of the children to
the fathers ; lest the Lord should come and smite
the land with a curse.

Some may be ready to answer to this, ' Of course
' John the Baptist came to warn parents of behaving
' wrongly to their children, if they were careless or
' cruel ; and children to their parents, if they were
' disobedient or ungrateful. Of course he would tell
' bad parents and children to repent, just as he came
' to tell all other kinds of sinners to repent. But
' that was only a part of John the Baptist's work.
' He came to be the forerunner of the Messiah, the
' Saviour, the Redeemer.'

Be it so, my friends. I only hope that you really
do believe that John the Baptist did come to pro-
claim that a Saviour was born into the world — pro-
vided only that you remember all the while who
that Saviour was. John the Baptist tells you who
He was. If you will only remember that, and get
the thought of it into your hearts, you will not be
inclined to put any words of your own in place of
the prophet Malachi's, or to fancy that you can
describe better than Malachi what John the Bap-
tist's work was to be ; and that turning the hearts

I.] FATHERS AND CHILDREN. 3

of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the fathers, was only a small part of
John the Baptist's work, instead of being, as
Malachi says it was, his principal work, his very
work, the work which must be done, lest the Lord,
instead of saving the land, should come and smite
it with a curse.

Yes — you must remember who it was that John
the Baptist came to bear record of, and to manifest
or show to the Jews, The Angels on the first
Christmas Eve told us — they said it was The Lord,
' Unto you,' they said, ' is born a Saviour, who is
' Christ, T/ie Lord.'

John the Baptist told you and all mankind who
it was — that it was The Lord. ' The voice of one
' crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of
' tke Lord!

Tlie Lord. What Lord — Which Lord ? John
the Baptist knew. Simeon, Anna, Nathaniel, all
righteous and faithful hearts who waited for the
salvation of the Lord, knew. The Pharisees and
Sadducees did not know. The men who wrote
our Creeds, our Prayer Book, our Church Cate-
chism, knew. The Pharisees and the Sadducees
in our day, who fancy themselves wiser than the
Creeds, and the Prayer Book, and the Church
Catechism, do not know. May God grant that
we may all know, not only with our lips, but with
our hearts, our faith, our love, our lives, who The
Lord is.

Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is The
Lord. But who is He .'' The Bible tells us ; when

B 2

4 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm.

we have heard what the Bible tells us we shall be
able better to understand the text. The Lord is
He of whom it is written, 'And God said, Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness.'
And who is God's image and God's hkeness .'
The New Testament tells us — Jesus Christ. In
Him man was made. He is the Son of Man, who
is in heaven — the true perfect pattern of man : but
He is also the image and likeness of God, the
brightness of His Father's glory, and the express
image of His person. He is The Lord. He is
the Lord who instituted marriage, and said, ' It is
' not good that the man should be alone ; I will
' make him an help-meet for him.' He is the
Lord who said to man, ' Be fruitful and multiply :
fill the earth and subdue it.' He is the Lord who
said to the first murderer, 'Thy brother's blood
crieth against thee from the ground.' He is the
Lord who talked with Abraham face to face as a
man talks with his friend ; who blest him by giving
him a son in his old age, that he might be the
father of many nations. He is the Lord who, on
Mount Sinai, gave those Ten Commandments, the
foundation of all law and right order between man
and God, between man and man : — ' Thou shalt
' honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt
' do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
' Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false
' witness in courts of law or elsewhere. Thou shalt
• not covet thy neighbour's property.'

This is The Lord. Not a God far away from
men ; who does not feel for them, nor feel with

I.J FA THERS AND CHILDREN. 5

them ; not a God who despises men, or has an ill-
will to men, and must be won over to change his
mind, and have mercy on them, by many suppli-
cations and tears, and fear and trembling, and
superstitious ceremonies. But this is The Lord,
this is the babe of Bethlehem, this is He whose
way John the Baptist came to prepare — even He
of whom it is written, that He possessed wisdom,
the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for
this every-day earthly life of ours, which Solomon
sets forth in his Proverbs, in the beginning before
His works of old ; and that when He appointed
the foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by
Him, as one brought up with Him, and she was
daily His delight ; rejoicing alway before Him ;
rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth ; and
her delights were with the sons of men.

In one word, He is the Lord, in whose likeness
man is made. Man's justice is a pattern of His ;
man's love is a pattern of His ; man's industry a
pattern of His ; man's Sabbath-rest, in some un-
speakable and eternal way, a pattern of His. Man's
family ties are patterns of His. God the Father is
He, said St. Paul, from whom every fathership in
heaven and earth is named, that we may be such
fathers to our children as God is to us. God The
Son is He who is not ashamed to call us brethren,
and to declare to us the glorious news, that in Him
we, too, are the sons of God, that we may be such
sons to our heavenly Father — ay, and to our
earthly fathers also, as the Lord Jesus was to
His Father.

6 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm.

Yes — and even more wonderful still, and more
blessed still, the Lord is not ashamed to call him-
self a husband. Our human wedlock and married
love is a pattern of some divine mystery. ' Hus-
' bands love your wives, as Christ also loved the
' Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might
' present it to Himself a glorious Church, not
' having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be
' holy and without blemish.' Blessed words, which
we cannot pretend to explain or understand, but
can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall
find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful
in wedlock, that God's Spirit bears witness with
our spirit, that they are reasonable, blessed, true ;
true for ever.

This, then, was the Lord who was coming to
judge these Jews ; not merely a god, but The God.
The Lord, in whose likeness man was made ; who
had appointed men to be fathers, sons, husbands,
citizens of a nation, owners of property, subject to
laws, and yet makers of laws ; because all these
things, in some wonderful way, are parts of His
likeness. He was coming to this nation of the
Jews first, and then to all the nations of the earth,
to judge them, Malachi said, with a great and
terrible day. To lay the axe to the root of the
tree ; to cut down from the very root the evil
principles which were working in society. His fan
was in His hand ; and He would thoroughly purge
His floor; and gather His wheat into the garner,
for the use of future generations : but the chaff, all
that was empty, light, and useless, He would burn

I.] FA THERS AND CHILDREN. 7

up and destroy utterly out of the way, with un-
quenchable fire. He would inquire of every man,
How have you kept my image ; my likeness, in
which I made you ? What sort of husbands,
fathers, sons, neighbours, subjects, and governors,
have you been ? And above all, Malachi says, the
root question of all would be, what sort of fathers
have you been to your children ? What sort of
children to your fathers ? Does that seem to you
a small question, my friends ? Would you have
rather expected to hear John the Baptist ask, what
sort of saints they had been ? What sort of doc-
trines they were professing ?

A small question ? Look at these two little
words. Father and Son. Father and Son ! Are
they not the most deep and awful, as well as the
most blessed and hopeful words on earth } Do
they not tell us the very mystery of God's being .-'
Are they not the very name of God, God The
Father and God The Son, knit together by one
Holy Spirit of Love to each other and to all, who
proceeds alike from The Father and from The
Son .■■ And then, will you think it a light matter
to ask fallen creatures made in the likeness of that
perfect Father and that perfect Son, what sort of
fathers and sons they have been .•■ God help us
all, and give us grace to ask ourselves that ques-
tion morning and night, before the great and
terrible day of the Lord come, lest He come and
smite this land with a curse.

I have been led to think deeply and to speak
openly upon this solemn matter, my friends, by

8 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm.

seeing, as who can help seeing, the great division
and estrangement between the old and the young
which is growing up in our days. I do not, alas !
I cannot, deny the complaints which old people
commonly make. Old people complain that young
people are grown too independent, disobedient,
saucy, and what not. It is too true, frightfully,
miserably true, that there is not the same rever-
ence for parents as there was a generation back ;
— that the children break loose from their parents,
spend their parents' money, choose their own road
in life, their own politics, their own religion, alas !
too often, for themselves ; — that young people now
presume to do and say a hundred things which
they would not have dreamed in old times. And
they are ready enough to cry out that all this is a
sign of the last days, of which, they say, St. Paul
speaks in 2 Tim. iii. 4 — when men ' shall be dis-
' obedient to parents, unthankful, boasters, heady,
' high-minded, despisers of those who are good,
' lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.'
My friends, my friends, it is far better for us who
have children, instead of prying into the times and
seasons which God has kept in His own hand, to
read our Bibles faithfully, and when we quote a
text, quote the whole of it, and not just those bits
of it which help us to throw blame on other people.
What St. Paul really says, is that ' in the last days
evil times will come;' just as they had come, he
shows, when he wrote ; and what he means I will
try and show you presently. And, moreover, re-
member that Malachi says, that the hearts of the

I.] FATHERS AND CHILDREN. 9

parents in Judea needed turning to their children,

as well as the hearts of the children to their

parents. Take care lest it be not so in England

now. Remember that St. Paul, in that same

solemn passage, gives other marks of ' last days,'

which have to do with parents as well as with

children, and some which can only have to do with

parents — for they are the sins of gruwn-up and

elderly people, and not of young ones. He says,

that in those days men shall also be ' covetous,

' proud, without natural affection, breakers of their

' word, blasphemers ; having a form of godliness,

' but denying the power thereof Will none of

these hard words hit some grown people in our

day .' Will not they fill some of us with dread,

lest the parents now-a-days should be as much in

fault as the children of whom they complain ; lest

the parents' sins should be but too often the cause

of the children's sins ? Read through St. Paul's

sad list of sins, and see how every young man's

sin in it has some old man's sin corresponding to

it. St. Paul does not part his list, and I dare not,

and cannot. St. Paul mixes the parents' and the

children's sins together in his words, and I fear

that we do the same in our actions.

Oh ! beware, beware, you who complain of the
behaviour of children now-a-days, lest your children
have as much cause to complain of you. Are your
children selfish, lovers of themselves i" — See that
you have not set them the example by your own
covetousness or laziness. Are they boastful .' — See
that your pride has not taught them. Incontinent

lo FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [SERM.

and profligate ? — See that your own fierceness has
not taught them. If they see you unable to master
your own temper, they will not care to try to
master their appetites. Are they disobedient and
unthankful .' — See, well, then that your want of
natural affection to them, your neglect, and harsh-
ness, and want of feeling and tenderness, has not
made the balance of unkindness fearfully even
between you. Are your children disobedient to
you 1 — See that you have not taught them to be
so, by breaking your word to them, by letting them
see you deceitful to others, till they have lost all
trust in you, all reverence for you. Above all, are
your children lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God .'' — Oh ! beware, beware, lest you have made
them so, — lest you have been blasphemers against
God, even when you have been fancying that you
talked religion. Beware lest you have been teach-
ing them dark, cruel, superstitious thoughts about
God, — making them look up to Him not as their
heavenly Father, but as a stern task-master whom
they must obey, not from gratitude, but from fear
of hell, and so have made God look so unlovely in
their eyes that ' there is no beauty in Him that
they should desire Him.' Can you wonder at their
loving pleasure rather than loving God, when j'ou
show them nothing in God's character to love, but
everything to dread and shrink from .'' And last of
all, are your children despisers of those who are
good, inclined to laugh at religion, to suspect and
sneer at pious people, and call them hypocrites .'
Oh ! beware, beware, lest your lip-religion, your

I.] FA THERS AND CHILDREN. 1 1

dead faith, your inconsistent practice, has not been
the cause of it. If you, as St. Paul says, have a
form of godliness, and yet in your life and actions
deny the power of it, by living without God in the
world, and following the lowest maxims of the
world in everything but what you call the sal-
vation of your souls, what wonder if your children
grow up despisers of those who are good .' If
they see you preaching one thing, and practising
another, they will learn to fancy that all godly
people do the same. If they see your religion a
sham, they will learn to fancy all religion false also.
Oh ! woe, woe, most terrible, to those who thus
harden their own children's hearts, and destroy in
them, as too many do, all faith in God and man,
all hope, all charity ! Woe to them ! for the Lord
Himself, who came to lay the axe to the root of
the tree, said of such, ' If any man cause one of
' these little ones to offend, it were better for him
' that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
' that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.'

So it is too often now-a-days, and so it will be,
until people condescend to learn over again that
simple old Church Catechism which they were
taught when they were little, and to teach it to
their children, not only with their lips but in their
lives.

' The Church Catechism ! ' some here will say
to themselves with a smile, ' that is but a paltry
' medicine for so great a disease — a pitiful ending,
' forsooth, to such a severe sermon as this, to re-
' commend just the Church Catechism ! ' Let those

12 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm.

laugh who win, my friends. If you think you can
bring up your children to be blessings to you, — if
you think you can live so as to be blessings to your
children, without the Church Catechism, you can
but try. I think that you will fail. More and more,
year by year, I find that those who try do fail. More
and more, year by year, I find that even religious
people's education of their children fails, and that
pious men's sons now-a-days are becoming more
and more apt to be scandals to their parents
and to rehgion. If any choose to say that the
reason is, that the pious men's sons were not of the
number of the elect, though their fathers were, I
can only answer, that God is no respecter of
persons, and that they say that He is ; that God
is not the author of the evil, and that they say that
He is. If a child of mine turns out ill, I am bound
to lay the fault first on myself, and certainly never
on God, — and so is every man, unless the inspired
Scripture is wrong where it says, ' Train up a child
' in the way he should go, and when he is old he
' will not depart from it.' And the fault is in our-
selves. Very few people really teach their children
now-a-days the Church Catechism ; very few really
believe the Church Catechism ; very few really be-
lieve that God is such an one as the Church Cate-
chism declares to us ; very few believe in the Lord,
in whose image and likeness man is made, whose
way John the Baptist prepared by turning the
hearts of the fathers to the children. They put,
perhaps, religious books into their children's hands,
and talk to them a great deal about their souls :

1.1 FATHERS AND CHILDREN. 13

but they do not tell their children what the Church
Catechism tells them, because they do not believe
what the Church Catechism tells them.

What that is ; what the Church Catechism does
tell us, which the favourite religious books now-a-
days do not tell us ; and what that has to do with
turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, I
must tell you hereafter. God grant that my words
may sink into all hearts, as far as they are right
and true ; if sooner or later we are not all brought
to understand the meaning of those two simple
words, Father and Son, neither Baptism, nor Con-
firmation, nor Schools, nor this Church, nor the
very body and blood of Him who died for us, to
share which you are all called this day, will be of
avail for the well-being of this parish, or of this
countiy, or any other country upon earth. For
where the root is corrupt, the fruit will be also ;
and where family life and family ties, which are the
root and foundation of society, are out of joint,
there the Nation and the Church will decay also ;
as it is written, ' If the foundations be cast down,
what can the righteous do ? '

And whensoever, in any family, or nation and
church, the root of the tree (which is the conduct
of parents to children, and of children to parents)
grows corrupt and rotten, then ' last days,' as St.
Paul calls them, are indeed come to it, and evil
times therewith ; for the Lord will surely lay the
axe to the root of it, and cut it down and cast it
into the fire : neither will the days of that family,
or that people, or that Church, be long in the land

H FATHERS AND CHILDREN. [serm. I.

which the Lord their God has given them. So it
has been as yet, in all ages and in all countries on
the face of God's earth, and so it will be until the
end. Wheresoever the hearts of the fathers are
not turned to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the fathers, there will a great and
terrible day of the Lord come ; and that nation,
like Judsea of old, like many a fair country in
Europe at this moment, will be smitten with a
curse.

SERMON 11.

SALVATION.

John xvii. 3.

This is life eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.

BEFORE I can explain what this text has to
do with the Church Catechism, I must say
to you a little about what it means.

Now if I asked any of you what ' salvation ' was,
you would probably answer, ' Eternal life.'

And you would answer rightly. That is exactly
what salvation is, and neither more nor less. No
more than that ; for nothing greater than that can
belong to any created being. No less than that ;
for God's love and mercy are eternal and without
bound.

But what is eternal life .•■

Some will answer, ' Going to heaven when we die.'
But what before you die .'' You do not know ? can-
not tell ?

Let us listen to what God Himself says. Let
us listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word
of God, says. Let us listen to what He who spake

i6 SALVATION. [serm.

as man never spake, says. Surely His words must
be the clearest, the simplest, the most exact, the
deepest, the widest ; the exactly fit and true words,
the complete words, the perfect words, which can-
not be improved on by adding to them or taking
away one jot or tittle. What did the Lord Jesus
Christ say that eternal life was ^

' This is eternal life, that they may know Thee
' the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou
' hast sent'

To know God and Jesus Christ ; that is eternal
life. That is all the eternal life which any of us
will ever have, my friends. Unless our Lord's words
are not complete and perfect, and do not tell us
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, about eternal life, that is all the eternal life
any one will ever have ; and we must make up our
minds to be content therewith.

To which some will answer, almost angrily, ' Of
' course. The way to obtain eternal life is to know
' God and Jesus Christ ; for if we do not, we can-
' not obtain it.'

What words are these, my friends .■' what ra^h
words are these, which men thrust into Scripture
out of their own carnal conceits, as if they could
improve upon the speech of the Son of Man Him-
self .■" He says, not that to know God is the way to
eternal life : but rather that eternal life is the way
to know God. He does not say. This is to know
God and Jesus Christ, in order that they may have
eternal life. Whatever He says. He does not say
that. Nay, more, if we are to be very exact (and

n.] SALVATION. 17

can we be too exact ? ) with the Lord's words, He
says, that ' This is eternal hfe, in order that they
may know God and Jesus Christ.' Not that we
are to know God that we may obtain eternal life,
but that we must have eternal life in order that we
may know God ; that eternal life is the means, and
the knowledge of God the end and purpose for
which eternal life is given us. However this may
be, at least He says what the noble collect which
we repeat every Sunday says, ' That our eternal
life stands in the knowledge of God,' depends on
it, and will fall without it.

' That we may know God.' Not merely that we
may know doctrines about salvation, and the ways
of winning God's favour, and turning away His ven-
geance ; not merely to know what God has done
ages ago, or may do ages hence, for us : but to
know God Himself; to know His person. His like-
ness. His character ; and what He is, and what He
does, now and always ; to know His righteousness.
His goodness. His truth. His love. His mercy, His
strength. His willingness and mightiness to save ;
in a word, what the Bible calls His glory ; and
therefore to admire and delight in Him utterly.
That is what our eternal Hfe stands in ; that is why
God has given to us eternal life in His Son, that
we may know that. Oh, believe your Saviour
simply, hke little children, and enter into the joy
of your Lord. Acquaint yourselves with God, and
be at peace.

To know God ; and also to know Jesus Christ
whom He has sent. For St. John, when he tells

C

l8 SALVATION. [seem.

US that God has already given to us eternal life,
says also, that this life is in His Son. To know the
Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased,
because He is His perfect Son ; His exact likeness,
the likeness of that glory of His, and the express
image of that person and character of His, which
I described to you just now ; One whose life was
and is and ever will be eternally all love, and
mercy, and self-sacrifice, and labour, for lost and
sinful men ; all trust and obedience to His Father.
To know Him and His life, and to come to Him,
and receive from Him an eternal life, which this
world did not give us, and cannot take away from
us ; which neither man, devil, nor angel, nor the
death of our bodies, the ruin of empires, the de-
struction of the whole universe, and of time, and
space, and all things whereof man can conceive or
dream, can alter in the slightest, because it is a life
of goodness, and righteousness, and love, which are
eternal as the God from whom they spring ; eter-
nal as Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever ; and nothing but our own sinful wills
can rob us of them.

This is eternal life, and therefore this is salvation.
A very different account of it (though it is the
Bible account) from that narrow and paltry one
whiclvtoo many have in their minds now-a-days ; a
narrow and paltry notion that it means only being
saved from the punishment of our sins after we
die; and a very unbelieving, and godless, and
atheistical notion too ; which, like all unbelief,
hurts and spoils men's lives,

II.] SALVATION.

19

For too many say to themselves, ' God must
' save me after I am dead, of course, for no one
' else can ; but as long as I am alive I must save
' myself God must save me from hell ; but I
' must save myself from poverty, from trouble,
' from what the world may say of me or do to me,
' if I offend it.' And so salvation seems to have
to do altogether with the next life, and not at all
with this ; and people lose entirely the belief that
God is our deliverer, our protector, our guide, our
friend, now, here, in this life ; and do not really
think that they can get on better in this world by
knowing God and Jesus Christ ; and so they set to
work to help themselves by cunning, by covetous-
ness, by cowardly truckling to the wicked ways of
the very world which they renounced at baptism,
by following after a multitude to do evil, and
standing by, saying, ' I saw it not,' when they see
wrong and cruelty done upon the earth ; afraid to
fight God's battles like men of God, because they
say it is ' dangerous.' And so, in these evil days,
thousands who call themselves Christians live on^
worldly and selfish, without God in the world ;
while they talk busily enough of ' preparing to
meet God,' in the world to come ; dreaming, poor
souls, of arriving at what they call ' salvation '
after they die, while they are too often, I fear,
deep enough in what the Scripture calls 'damna-
tion,' before they die.

' But, say some, ' is not salvation going to a
place called heaven ? ' My friends, let the Bible
speak. It tells us that salvation is not in a place

C 3

20 SALVATION. [SERM.

at all, but in a person, a living, moving, acting
person, who is none other than the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let the Psalmists speak, and shame us,
who ought to know (being Christians) even better
than they, that The Lord Himself is Salvation.
The whole Book of Psalms, what is it but the
blessed discovery that salvation is not merely in a
place, or a state, not even in some ' beatific vision '
after men die ; but in the Lord Himself all day
long in this world ; that salvation is a life in God
and with God "i ' The Lord is my light, and my
' salvation, of whom then shall I be afraid f The
' Lord is the strength of my life, and my portion
' for ever.' This is their key-note. Shame on us
Christians, that we should have forgotten it for one
so much lower. ' The name of the Lord,' says
Solomon, ' is a strong tower : the righteous runneth
into it, and is safe.' Into it : not merely into some
pleasant place after he dies, but all day long; and
is safe : not merely after he dies, but in every
chance and change of this mortal life. My friends,
I am ashamed to have to put Christian men in mind
of these things. Truly, ' Evil communications have
' corrupted good manners ; awake to righteousness
' and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of
' God.' I am ashamed, I say ; for there are old
hymns in the mouths of every one to this day,
which testify against their want of faith ; which say,
' Christ is my life,' ' Christ is my salvation ; ' and
which were written, I doubt not, by men who meant
literally what they said, whatever those who sing
them now-a-days may mean by them. Now what

II.] SALVATION. 21

do those hymns mean by such words, if they mean
anything at all ? Surely what I have been preaching
to you, and what seems to some of you, I fear,
strange and new doctrine. And what else does the
Church Catechism mean, when it bids every child
thank God for having brought him into a state of
salvation 1 For mind, throughout the whole Church
Catechism there is not one word about what people
commonly call heaven and hell ; not one word
though 'heaven and hell' are now-a-days gene-
rally the first things about which children are
taught. Not one word is the child taught about
what will happen to him after death, except that
his body will rise again, and that Christ will be his
Judge after he is dead as well as while he is alive :
but not one word about that salvation after he is
dead, which is almost the only thing of which one
hears in many pulpits. And why, but because the
Catechism teaches the child to believe that Jesus
Christ is his salvation now, in this life, and believes
that to be enough for him to know .'' For if Christ
be eternal. His salvation must be eternal also. If
Christ's life be in the child, eternal life must be in
the child ; for Christ's life must be eternal, even as
Christ Himself; and that is enough for the child,
and for us also.

And with this agrees that great text of Scripture,
' When the wicked man turneth away from his
' wickedness, and doeth that which is lawful and
' right, he shall save his soul alive.' People now-a-
days are apt to make two mistakes about that one
text. First they forget the ' when,' and read it as

22 SALVATION. [SERM.

if it stood, ' If the wicked man turn away from his
' wickedness in this life, he shall save his soul in the
' next life :' but the Bible says much more than that
It says, that when he turns, then and there, that
moment he shall save his soul alive. And next,
they read the text as if it stood, ' he shall save his
soul.' Here again, my friends, the Bible says a
great deal more ; it says, that he shall save his soul
alive. Perhaps that does not seem to you any great
difference .' Alas, alas, my friends, I fear that there
are too many now, as there have been in all times,
who do not care for the difference. Provided ' their
souls are saved,' by which they mean, provided they
escape torment after they die, it matters nothing to
them whether their souls are saved alive, or saved
dead ; they do not even know the difference between
a dead soul and a live soul ; because they know
nothing about eternal death and eternal life, which
are the death and the life of eternal persons such as
souls are ; they say to themselves, if they be Pro-
testants, ' I hope I shall have faith enough to be
saved ;' or if they be Papists, ' I hope I shall have
good works enough to be saved ;' valuing faith and
works not for themselves ; yea, valuing — for I must
say it — Almighty God Himself, not for Himself
and His own glory, but valuing faith and works,
and the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
only because, as they dream, they are so many helps
to a life of pleasure beyond the grave ; not knowing
this, that living faith and good works do not merely
lead to heaven, but are heaven itself, that true, real
eternal heaven wherein alone men really live ; that

II-l SALVATION. 23

true, real eternal life which was with the Father,
and was manifested in Jesus Christ, whom St. John
saw living upon earth that same Eternal Life, and
bore witness of Him that His life was the light
of men ; that eternal life whereof it is written, that
God hath brought us to life together with Christ,
and raised us up, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus : — not knowing this,
that the only life which any soul ought to live, is
the life of God and of Christ, and of the Spirit of
God and Christ ; a life of righteousness, and justice,
and truth, and obedience, and mercy, and love ; a
life which God has given to us, that we may know
and copy Him, and do His works, and live His life,
for ever : — not knowing this also that eternal death
is not merely some torture of fire and worms beyond
the grave : but that this is eternal death, not to live
the eternal life which is the only possible life for
souls, the life of righteousness and love ; a death
which may come on respectable people, and high
religious professors, while they are fancying them-
selves sure to be saved, as easily and surely as it
may on thieves and harlots, wallowing in the mire
of sins.

For what is this same eternal death } The op-
posite surely to eternal life. Eternal life is to know
God, and therefore to obey Him. Eternal life is to
know God, whose name is love ; and therefore, to
rejoice to fulfil His law, of which it is written, ' Love
is the fulfilling of the law ;' and therefore to be full
of love ourselves, as it is written, ' We know that
' we have passed from death unto life, because we

24 SALVATION. [serm.

'love the brethren;' and again, ' Every one that
loveth, knoweth God, for God is love.' And on the
other hand, eternal death is not to know God, and
therefore not to care for His law of love, and there-
fore to be without love ; as it is written on the other
hand, ' He that loveth not his brother abideth in
death.' ' Whosoever hateth his brother is a mur-
derer ;' and ye know that no murderer hath eternal
life abiding in him ; and again, ' He that loveth
not, knoweth not God, for God is love.' Eternal
death, then, is to love no one ; to be shut up in the
dark prison-house of our own wilful and wayward
thoughts and passions, full of spite, suspicion, envy,
fear ; in fact, in one word, to be a devil. Oh, my
friends, is not that damnation indeed, to be a devil
here on earth, and for aught we know, for ever and
ever .'

Do you not know what frame of mind I mean ?
Thank God, none of us, I suppose, is ever utterly
without some grain of love left for some one ; none
of us, I suppose, is ever utterly shut up in him-
self ; and as long as there is love there is life and
as long as there is life there is hope : but yet there
have been moments when one has felt with horror
how near, and how terrible, and how easy was this
same eternal death which some fancy only possible
after they die.

For, my friends, were you ever, any one of you,
for one half hour, completely angry, completely
sulky? displeased and disgusted with everybody
and everything round you, and yet displeased and
disgusted with yourself all the while ; liking tc

II.] SALVATION. ;;

think everyone wrong, liking to make out that they
were unjust to you ; feeling quite proud at the
notion that you were an injured person : and yet
feeling in your heart the very opposite of all these
fancies : feeling that you were wrong, that you
were unjust to them, and feeling utterly ashamed
at the thought that they were the injured persons,
and that you had injured them. And perhaps, to
make all worse, the person about whom all this
storm had arisen in your heart, was some dear
friend or relation whom you loved (strange con-
tradiction, yet most true) at the very moment that
you were trying to hate. Oh, my friends, if one
such dark hour has ever come home to you ; if you
have ever let the sun go down upon your wrath,
and so given place to the devil, then you know
something at least of what eternal death is. You
know how, in such moments, there is a worm in the
heart, and a fire in the heart, compared with which all
bodily torment would be light and bearable ; a worm
in the heart which does not die : and a fire in the
heart which you cannot quench : but which if they
remained there would surely destroy you. So in-
tolerable are they, that you feel that you will
actually and really die, in some strange unspeakable
way, if you continue in that temper long. Do not
there open at such times within our hearts black
depths of evil, a power of becoming wicked, a
chance of being swept off into sin if one gives way,
which one never suspected till then ; and yet with
all these, the most dreadful sense of helplessness, of
slavery, of despair?— God grant that may not re-

26 SALVATION. [serm.

main, for then comes the mad hope to escape death
by death, to try by one desperate stroke to rid
oneself of that self which is for the time one's
torment, worm, fire, death, and hell. And what is
this dark fight within us ? What does the Bible
call it ? It is death and life, eternal death and
eternal life, salvation and damnation, hell and
heaven, fighting together within our hapless hearts,
to see which shall be our masters. It is the battle
of the evil spirit, who is the Devil, fighting with the
good spirit, who is God. Nothing less than that,
my friends. Yes, in those hateful and shameful
moments of pride, or spite, or contempt, or self-
will, or suspicion, or sneering, on which when they
are past we look back with shame and horror, and
wonder how we could have been such wretches even
for a moment, — at such times, I say, our heart is a
battle-field, on which no less than the Devil himself,
and God Himself are fighting for our souls. On
one side, Satan trying to bring us into that state ot
eternal death in which he lives himself; Satan, the
loveless one, the self-willed one, the accuser, the
slanderer, slandering God to us, slandering man to
us, slandering to us the friends we love best and
trust most utterly ; yea, slandering our own selves
to us, trying to make us believe that we are as bad,
ought to be as bad, and must always be as bad as
we seem for the time to be ; that we cannot shake
off our evil passions, that we cannot rise again out
of the eternal death of sin into the eternal life of
righteousness. And on the other side, the Spirit of
God and of His Christ, the Spirit of eternal life, the

n.] SALVATION. 27

Spirit of justice, and righteousness, love, joy, peace,
duty, self-sacrifice, trying to make us know Him
and see His beauty, and obey Him, and be at
peace ; trying to raise us again into that eternal
life and state of salvation which the Lord Jesus
Christ has bought for us with His most precious
blood.

Oh, awful thought ! Life and death, the Devil
himself, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, fight-
ing in your heart and in mine, and in the heart of
every human being round us ! And yet most
blessed thought, hopeful, glorious, — full of the pro-
mise of eternal victory ! For greater is He that is
with us, than he that is against us ; and He who
conquered Satan for Himself, can and will conquer
him for us also. No thing can separate us from
the love of Christ ; no thing, yea no angel, or
devil, principality, or power ; no thing, but only
ourselves, only our own proud and wayward will
and determination to the Devil's voice in our
hearts, and not the voice of Christ, the Word of
Life, who is nigh us, in our hearts, even in our
darkest moments, loving us still, pitying us, ready,
able and willing to help all who cast themselves
on Him, and raise us, there and then, the very
moment we cry to Him and renounce the Devil
and our own foolish will, out of self-will into God's
will, out of darkness into light, out of hatred into
love, out of despair into hope, out of doubt into
faith, out of tempest into peace, out of the death
of sin into the life of righteousness, the life of love
and charity, which abideth for ever. Oh, listen

28 SALVATION. [serm. ii.

not to the lying, slanderous Devil, who tells you
that by your own sin you have lost your share in
Christ, lost baptismal grace, lost Christ's love —
Lost His love ? His, who, were you in the very
lowest depths of hell, would pity you still ? His
love, who Himself went down into hell, and
preached to the spirits in prison, to show that he
did care even for them ? Not so : into Him you
have been baptized. His cross is on your fore-
heads. His Father is your Father : — and can a
father desert his child, even though he sinned
seventy and seven times, if seventy and seven times
he turn and repent ? Can man weary God ? Can
the creature conquer and destroy the love of his
Creator? Can Christ deny Himself? Not so;
whosoever thou art, however sorely tempted, how-
ever deeply fallen, however disgusted and terrified
at thyself, turn only to that blessed face which
wept over Jerusalem, to that great heart which
bled for thee upon the cross, and thou shalt find
him unchanged, the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever, the Lord of life and love, able and willing
to save to the uttermost all who come to God
through Him, and the accusing Devil shall turn
and flee, and thou shalt know that thy Redeemer
Hveth still, and in thy flesh thou shalt see the
salvation of God, and cry, ' Rejoice not against
me, Satan, mine enemy ; for when I fall I shall
arise.'

SERMON III.
A GOOD CONSCIENCE.

I Peter iii. 21.

The like figure wliereunto baptism doth now save us (not the putting
away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience
toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

THESE words are very wide words ; too wide
to please most people. They preach a very
free grace ; too free to please most people. Such
free and full grace, indeed, that some who talk
most about free grace, and insist most on man's
being saved only by free grace, are the very men
who shrink from these words most, and would be
more comfortable in their minds, I suspect, if they
were not in the Bible at all, because the grace they
preach is too free. But so it always has been, and
so it is, and so, I suppose, it always will be. Man
preaches his notions of God's forgiveness, his no-
tions of what he thinks God ought to do ; but when
God proclaims His own forgiveness, and tells men
what He has actually done, and bids His apostle
declare boldly that baptism doth now save us, then
man is frightened at the vastness of God's gene-

so A GO on CONSCIENCE. [serm.

rosity, and thinks God's grace too free, His for-
giveness too complete ; and considers this text
and many another in the Bible as 'dangerous'
forsooth, if it is 'preached unreservedly,' and not
to be quoted without some words of man's inven-
tion tacked to it, to water it down, and narrow it,
and take all the strength and life out of it ; and
if he be asked whether he believes the words of
Scripture, — for instance, whether St. Paul spoke
truth when he told the heathen Athenians that
they and all men were the offspring of God ; — or
when he told the Romans that as by the offence of
one, judgment came on all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of One, the free gift
came upon all men to justification of life ; — or
when he told the Corinthians, that as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ; — or
whether St. Peter spoke truth when he said, that
'baptism doth also now save us,' — then they
answer, that the words are true ' in a sense ; ' that
is, not in their plain sense ; true, if they were only
true ; true, and yet somehow at the same time not
true ; and not to be preached ' unreservedly : ' as if
man could be more cautious and correct in his
language than the Spirit of God, who inspired the
Apostles ; as if man could be more careful of God's
honour than God is of His own ; as if man could
hate sin and guard against sin more carefully than
God Himself.

Just in the same way do people stumble at cer-
tain invaluable words in the Church Catechism,
which teach children to thank God for having

III.] A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 31

brought them into that state of salvation. Even
very good people, and people who really wish to
believe and honour the Church Catechism, and the
Sacrament of Baptism, find these words too strong
to please them, and say, that of course a child's
being in a state of salvation cannot mean that he
is saved, but that he may be saved after he dies.

My friends, I never could find that we have a
right to take liberties with the Bible and the Prayer
Book which'we dare not take with any other book,
and to put meanings into the words of them which,
in the case of any other book, would be contrary to
plain grammar and the English tongue, if not to
common sense and honesty.

If you say of a man, ' he is in a state of happi-
ness,' you mean, do you not, that he is happy now,
not that he may perhaps be happy some day .■' If
you came to me and told me that you were in a
state of hunger, you would think it a very strange
answer to receive if I say, ' Very well then, if you
become hungry, come to me, and I will feed you ?"
You all know that a man's being in a state of
poverty, or of misery, means that he is poor or
miserable now, here, at this very time ; that if a
man is in a state of sickness, he is sick ; if he is in
a state of health, he is healthy. Then what can a
man's being in a state of salvation mean, by all
rules of English, but that he is saved .'' If I were
to say to any one of the good people who do not
think so, 'My friend, you are in a state of damna-
tion,' he would answer me quickly enough, ' I am
not, for I am not damned.' He would agree that

31 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm.

a man's being in a state of damnation means that
the man is damned ; why will he not agree that
a man's being in a state of salvation means that
he is saved ? Because, my friends, God's grace is
too full for fallen man's notions ; and therefore
there is an evil fashion abroad in the world, that
where a text speaks of wrath, and misery and
punishment, you are to interpret it exactly, and
to the very letter : but where it speaks of love, and
mercy, and forgiveness, you are to do no such
thing, but narrow it, and fence it, and explain it
away, for fear you should make sinners too com-
fortable, — a plan which seems wise enough, but
which, like other plans of man's wisdom, has not
succeeded too well, to judge by the number of
sinners who are already too comfortable though
they hear the Bible misused, and God's grace
narrowed in this way every Sunday of their lives.

But, my friends, we call ourselves Englishmen
and churchmen ; let us be honest Englishmen and
plain churchmen, and take our Catechism as it
stands. For rightly or wrongly, truly or falsely,
it does teach every christened child to thank God,
not merely that it has some chance of being saved,
when it dies, but that it is saved already, now, here
on earth.

Whether that is true or false is another question.
I believe it to be true. I believe the text to be
true ; I believe that why people shrink from it is,
that they have got into their minds a wrong, un-
scriptural, superstitious notion of what being saved,
and saving one's soul alive, and salvation mean.

III. J A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 33

And I beg all of you who read your Bibles to search
the Scriptures from beginning to end, and try to
find out what these words mean, and whether the
Catechism has not kept close, after all, to the
words of Scripture. It will be better for you, my
friends; it will be worth your while, to know
exactly what being saved means ; for to judge by
the signs of the times, there are, very probably,
days coming in which it will be as needful for you
and for your children to save your souls alive lest
you die, as ever it was for the Jews in Isaiah's or
Jeremiah's time, or for the Romans in St. Paul's
time ; and that in that day you will find the Cate-
chism wider, and deeper, and sounder than you
have ever suspected it to be, and see, I trust, that
in these very words it preaches to j^ou, and me,
and our children after us, the one true Gospel and
good news, which will stand, and grow, and shine
brighter and brighter for ever, M'hen all the paltry,
narrow, counterfeit gospels which man invents in
its place have been burnt up by the unquenchable
fire with which the merciful Lord purges the chaff
from His floor.

I told you this morning what I believe that
salvation was, — to know God, and Jesus Christ,
whom He has sent. To know God's likeness,
God's character, what God has shown of His own
character, what He has done for us. To know
His boundless love, and mercy, and knowing that,
to trust in Him utterly, and submit to Him utterly,
and obey Him utterly, sure that He loves us, that
His will to us is goodwill, that His commandments

P

34 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm.

must be life. To know God, and therefore to love
Him and to serve Him, that is salvation.

Now what hinders a little child, from the very
moment that it can think or speak, from entering
into that salvation 1 Not the child's own heart.
There is evil in the child — true. Is there none in
you and me .■" There is a corrupt nature in the
child — true. Is there not in you and me .-' Woe
to us if we have not found it out : woe to us if
we dare to think that we are in ourselves — or out
of ourselves either — one whit better than our
own children. What should hinder any child
whom you or I ever saw from knowing God, and
His Name, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit .?

Has he not an earthly father, through whom he
may know The Father .'' Is he not an earthly son ;
and through that may he not know The Son } Has
he not a conscience, a spirit in him which knows
good from evil .' holiness from wickedness — far
more clearly and tenderly than the souls of most
grown people do 1 and can he not, therefore,
understand you when you speak of a Holy Spirit,
a Spirit which puts good desires into his heart,
and can enable him to bring those good desires
into practice .■"

I know one hindrance at least ; and that is his
parents' sins ; when the parents' harshness or
neglect tempts the child to fancy that God The
Father is such a Father to him as his parents are,
and that to be a child of God is to look up to his
heavenly Father with dread and suspicion as to a

HI.] A GOOD CONSCIENCE 35

hard taskmaster whose anger has to be turned
away, and not with that perfect love, and trust,
and respect, and self-sacrifice, with which the Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled His Father's will and pro-
claimed His Father's glory : or when the parents'
unholiness and lip-religion teach the child to fancy
that the Holy Spirit means only certain religious
fancies and feelings, or the learning by heart of
certain words and doctrines, or, worst of all, a
spirit of bondage unto fear; instead of knowing
Him to be, as He is, the Spirit of righteousness,
and love, and joy, and peace, long-suffering, gentle-
ness, goodness, meekness, temperance : or when,
again, parents by their own teaching, do despite
to the Spirit of Grace in their own child, and
destroy their child's good conscience toward God,
by telling the child that it does not really love
God, when it loves Him, perhaps, far better than
they do ; by telling the child that its sins have
parted it from God, when its sins are light, yea, are
as nothing in the balance compared to the sins
they themselves commit every day, while they
claim for themselves clearer light and knowledge
than the child, and thereby condemn themselves
rather than the child ; when they darken and defile
the pure and beautiful trust and admiration for its
Heavenly Father, which God's Spirit puts into the
child's heart, by telling it that it is doomed to I
know-not-what horrible misery and torture when it
dies ; but that it can escape from that wretched
end by thinking certain thoughts, and feeling cer-
tain feelings ; and so (after stirring up in the child

D 2

36 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm.

all manner of dreadful doubts of God's love and
justice, and perhaps driving it away from religion
altogether by making it believe that it has com-
mitted sins which it has not committed, and de-
serves horrible tortures which it has not deserved),
do perhaps at last awaken in it a new love for God,
but one which is not like that first love, that child-
like love ; one which, I fear, is hardly a love for
God at all, but principally a selfish joy and delight
at having escaped from coming torments. This is
the reason, my friends ; and this hindrance, at least,
I know. I will not copy those parents, my friends,
and tell them, as they tell their children, that they
are bringing on themselves endless torture ; but I
must tell them, for the Lord Christ has told them,
that they are bringing on themselves something — I
know not what — of which it is written, that it were
better for them that a mill-stone were hanged about
their necks, and that they were drowned in the
depth of the sea. Oh, my friends, if I speak sternly,
almost bitterly, when I speak of parents' sins, it is
because I speak for those who cannot speak for
themselves. I plead for Christ's little ones : I plead
for the souls and consciences of those little children
of whom Christ said, ' Suffer the little children to
come unto me ; ' not that they might become His,
but because they were His already ; not that they
might win His love, but because He loved them
from all eternity : not that they might enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but because they were
in the kingdom of heaven already ; because the
kingdom of heaven was made up of such as them,

HI.] A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 37

and the angels who ministered unto them always
beheld the face of our Father who is in heaven.
Yes ; I plead for those children, of whom the Lord
said, ' Except ye be converted,' that is, utterly turned
and changed, ' 'and become as little children, ye
shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
Deep and blessed words, which are the root-rule
of all true righteousness ; which so few really
believe at heart, any more than the Pharisees,
and Sadducees, and Herodians of old did. Up
and down, all over England, I hear men of all
denominations saying, not, 'Except we grown
' people be converted and become as little
' children ; ' but, ' except the little children be
' converted, and become like us, grown people.'
God grant that the little children may not become
like too many grown people ! God grant it, I say.
God grant that our children may not become like
us ! God grant that they may keep through youth
and manhood, and through the grave, and through
all worlds to come, the tender and child-like heart,
which we too often have hardened iii ourselves by
bigotry and superstition, and dead faith, and lip-
worship ! And I can have good hope that God
will grant it. I can have hope that God will teach
our children and our children's children truly to
know Him whose name is Love and Righteousness,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as long
as I see His providence preserving for us this old
Church Catechism, to teach our children what we
forget to teach them, or what we have not faith
enough to teach them.

3B A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm.

Yes, I can have hope for England ; and hope
for those mighty nations across the seas, whose
earthly mother God has ordained that she should
be, as long as the Catechism is taught to her
children.

For see. This Catechism does not begin with
telling children that they are sinners: they will
find that out soon enough for themselves, poor
little things, from their own wayward and self-
willed hearts. Nor by telling them that man is
fallen and corrupt : they will find out that also
soon enough, from the way in which they see
people go on around them. It does not even
begin by telling them that they ought to be good,
or what goodness and righteousness is ; because it
takes for granted that they know that already ; it
takes for granted that The Light who lights every
man who comes into the world is in them ; even
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, stirring up in their
hearts, as He does in the heart of every child, the
knowledge of good and the love of good. But it
begins at once by teaching the child the name of
God. It goes at once to the root of the matter ;
to the fountain of goodness itself ; even to God,
the Father of lights. It is so careful of God's
honour, so careful that the child should learn
from the first to look up to God with love and
trust, that it dare not tell the child that God can
destroy and punish, before it has told him that God
is a Father and a Maker ; the Father of spirits,
who has made him and all the world. It dare
not tell him that mankind is fallen, before it has

in.] A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 39

told him that all the world is redeemed. It dare
not talk to him of unholiness, before it has taught
him that the Holy Spirit of God is with him, to
make him holy. It tells him of a world, a flesh,
and a devil : but he has renounced them. He has
neither part nor lot in them ; and he is not to think
of them yet. He is to think of that in which he
has part and lot, of which he is an inheritor. He
is to know where he is and ought to be, before he
knows where he is not and ought not to be : he is
to think of the name of God, by which he can
trample world, flesh, and devil under foot, if they
dare hereafter meddle with his soul. In its God-
inspired tenderness and prudence, it dare not
darken the heart of one little child, or tempt him
to hard thoughts of God, or to cry, ' Why hast
thou made me thus.'' lest it put a stumbling-
block in the way of Christ's little ones, and dis-
honour the name and glory of God. It tells him
of the love, before it tells him of the wrath ; of
the order, before it tells him of the disorder ; of
the right, before the wrong ; of the health, before
the disease ; of the freedom, before the bondage ;
of the truth, before the lies ; of the light, before
the darkness ; in one word, it tells him first of the
eternal and good God, who was, and is, and shall
be to all eternity, before and above the evil devil.
It tells him of the name of God ; and tells him
that God is with him, and he with God, and bids
him believe that, and be saved, from his birth-hour,
to endless ages. It does not tell him to pray that
he may become God's child ; but to pray, because

40 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm.

he is God's child already. It does not tell him to
lOve God, in order that he may make God love
him ; but to love God because God loves him
already, and has loved him from all eternity. It
does not tell him to obey Jesus Christ, in order
that Christ may save him ; but to obey Christ
because Christ has saved him, and bought him
with his own blood. It does not tell him to do
good works, in order that God's Spirit may be
pleased with him, and come to him, and make
him one of the elect; neither does it tell him,
that some day or other, if he is converted, and
feels certain religious experiences, he will have a
right to consider himself one of God's elect : but it
tells him to look man and devil in the face, he, the
poor little ignorant village child, and say boldly
in the name of God, ' I am one of God's elect.
' The Holy Spirit of God is sanctifying me, and
' making me holy. God has saved me ; and I
' heartily thank my Heavenly Father, who has
' called me to this state of salvation.' It tells
him to believe that he is safe — safe in the ark of
Christ's Church, as Noah was safe in the ark at the
deluge ; and that the one way to keep himself
within that ark is to obey Him to whom it be-
longs, who judges it and will guide it for ever,
Jesus Christ, the likeness of God ; and that as long
as he does that, neither world, flesh, nor devil, can
harm him ; even as Noah was safe in the ark, and
nothing could drown him but his own wilful casting
himself out of the ark, and trying to free the flood
of waters by his own strength and cunning.

III.] A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 41

It tells him, I say, that he is safe, and saved,
even as David, and Isaiah, and all holy men who
ever lived have been, as long as he trusts in God,
and clings to God, and obeys God ; and that only
when he forsakes God, and follows his own selfish-
ness and pride, can anything or being in earth or
hell harm him.

And do not fancy, my friends, that this is a mere
unimportant question of words and doctrines, be-
cause a baptized and educated child may be lost
after all, and fall from his state of salvation into a
state of damnation. Still moi'e, do not fancy that
if a child is taught that he is already a child of
God, regenerated in baptism, and elect by God's
Spirit, that therefore he will neglect either vital
faith or good works — heaven forbid !

Is it likely to make a child careless, and inclined
to neglect vital truth, to tell him that God is his
Father and loves him utterly, and has given His
only begotten Son to die for him .■" Is it not the
very way, the only way, to stir up in him faith, and
real hearty trust and affection towards God ? How
can you teach him to trust God, but by telling him
that God has shown himself boundlessly and per-
fectly worthy to be trusted by every soul of man ;
or to love God, but by showing him that God loves
him already .-' Is it likely to make a child careless
of good works, to tell him that God has elected and
chosen him, and all his brothers and school-fellows,
to be conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ,
and that every good, and honourable, and gentle
thought or feeling which ever crosses his little

42 A GOOD CONSCIENCE. [serm. in.

heart, does not come from himself, is not part of
his own nature or character, but is nothing less
than the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, nothing
less than the voice of Almighty God Himself,
speaking to the child's heart, that he may answer
with Samuel — ' Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth ? ' Is it likely to make a child careless
about losing eternal life, to tell him that God has
already given to him eternal life, and that that
life is in His Son Jesus Christ, to whom the child
belongs, body, soul, and spirit ?

Judge for yourselves, my friends. Think what
awe, what reverence, purity, dread of sin, would
grow up in a child who was really taught all this,
and yet what faith and love to God, what freedom,
and joy fulness, and good courage about his own
duty and calling in life.

And then look at the fruits which in general
follow a religious education, as it is mis-called ; and
take warning. For if you really train up your
children in the way in which they should go, be
sure that when they are old they will not depart
from it — a promise which is not fulfilled to most
religious education which we see around us now-
a-days ; from which sad fact, if Scripture be in-
spired and infaUible, we can only judge that such
is not the way in which the children should go ;
and that because it is a wrong way, therefore God
will not, and man cannot, keep them in it.

SERMON IV.

NAMES.

Matthew i. 21.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus.

DID it ever seem to you a curious thing that
the Catechism begins by asking the child its
name .'' ' What is your name .' ' ' Who gave you
this name ? ' I think that if you were not all of
you accustomed to the Church Catechism from
your childhood, that would seem a strange way
of beginning to teach a child about religion.

But the more I consider, the more sure I am that
it is the right way to begin teaching a child what
the Catechism wishes to teach.

Do not fancy that it begins by asking the child's
name just because it must begin somehow, and
then go on to religion afterwards. Do not fancy
that it merely supposes that the clergyman does
not know the child's name, and must ask it ; for
this Catechism is intended to be taught by
parents to their children, and masters to their
apprentices and servants ; by people, therefore, who
know the child's name perfectly well already, and

44 NAMES. [SERM.

yet they are to begin by asking the child his
name.

Now, why is this ? What has a child's name to
do with his Faith and duty as a Christian ?

You may answer, Because his Christian name is
given him when he is baptized.

But why is his Christian name given him when
he is baptized 1 Why then rather than at any
other time .■"

Because it is the old custom of the Church. No
doubt it is : and a most wise and blessed custom it
is ; and one which shows us how much more about
God and man the churchmen in old times knew,
than most of our religious teachers now-a-days.
But how did that old custom arise ? What put
into the minds of church people, for the last six-
teen hundred years at least, that being baptized
and being named had anything to do with each
other } Men had names of their own long before
the Lord Jesus came, long before His Baptism was
heard of on earth ; — the heathens of old had their
names — the heathens have names still ; — why, then,
did church people feel it right to mix a new thing
like baptism with a world-old thing like giving a
name .'

My friends, I feel and say honestly, that there is
more in this matter than I understand ; and what
little I do understand, I could not explain fully in
one sermon, or in many either. But let this be
enough for to-day. God grant that I may be able
to make you understand me.

Any one's having a name — a name of his own, a

IV.] NAMES. 45

Christian name, as we rightly call it — signifies that
he is a person ; that is, that he has a character of
his own, and a responsibility, and a calling and
duty of his own, given him by God ; in one word,
that he has an immortal soul in him, for which he,
and he alone, must answer, and receive the rewards
of the deeds which it does in the body, whether
they be good or evil. But names are not given at
random, without cause or meaning. When Adam
named all the beasts, we read that whatsoever he
called any beast, that zvas the name of it. The
names which he gave described each beast, were
taken from something in its appearance, or its ways
and habits, and so each was its right name, the
name which expressed its nature. And so now,
when learned men discover animals or plants in
foreign countries, they do not give them names at
random, but take care to invent names for them
which may describe their natures, and make people
understand what they are like, as Adam did for
the beasts of old. And much more, in old times,
had the names of men each of them a meaning.
If it was reasonable to give names full of meaning
to each kind of dumb animal, which are mere
things, and not persons at all, how much more to
each man separately, for each man is a person of
himself ; each man has a character different from
all others, a calling different from all others, and
therefore he ought to have his own name separate
from all others : and therefore in old times it was
the custom to give each child a separate name,
which had a meaning in it, was, as it were, a

46 NAMES. [SERM.

description of the child, or of something particular
about the child.

Now, we may see this, above all, in The adorable
Name of Jesus. That name, above all others,
ought to show us what a name means ; for it is the
name of the Son of Man, the one perfect and sin-
less man, the pattern of all men ; and therefore it
must be a perfect name, and a pattern for all
names ; and it was given to the Lord not by man,
but by God ; not after He was born, but before
He was conceived in the womb of the blessed
Virgin. And therefore, it must show and mean
not merely some outward accident about Him,
something which He seemed to be, or looked like,
in men's eyes : no, the Name of Jesus must mean
what the Lord was in the sight of His Father in
Heaven ; what He was in the eternal purpose of
God the Father ; what He was, really and abso-
lutely, in Himself; it must mean and declare the
very substance of His being. And so, indeed, it
does ; for The adorable Name of Jesus means
nothing else but God the Saviour — God who saves.
This is His name, and was, and ever will be. This
Name He fulfilled on earth, and proved it to be
His character, His exact description, His very
Name, in short, which made Him different from all
other beings in heaven or earth, create or uncreate ;
and therefore. He bears His name to all eternity,
for a mark of what He has been, and is, and will
be for ever — God the Saviour ; and this is tha
perfect name, the pattern of all other names of
men.

IV.] NAMES. 47

Now though the Christian names which we give
our children here in England, have no especial
meaning to them, and have nothing to do with
what we expect or wish the children to be when
they grow up, yet the names of people in most
other countries in the world have. The Jewish
names which we find in the Bible have almost all
of them a meaning. So Simeon, I believe, means
'Obedient'; Jehoshaphat means, 'The Lord will
judge ' ; Daniel, ' God is my judge ' ; Isaiah means,
' The Salvation of the Lord ' ; Isaac means, ' She
laughs,' as a memorial of Sarah's laughing, when
she heard that she was to have a child ; Ishmael
means, ' The Lord hears,' in remembrance of God's
hearing Hagar's cry in the wilderness, when Ishmael
was dying of thirst.

Especially those names of which we read that
God commanded them to be given, have meanings,
and to tell the persons who bore those names what
God expected of them, or would do for them. So
Abraham means, ' The father of many nations.' So
the children of both Isaiah and Hosea had names
given them by God, each of them meaning some-
thing which God was going to do to the nation of
the Jews. And so John means, ' Given by the Lord,'
which name was given to John the Baptist by the
Angel, before his strange birth, in his mother's old
age.

But we must remember that the heathens also
gave names to their children, though they did not
know that their children owed any duty to God, or
belonged to God, and therefore we cannot call their

48 NAMES. [SERM.

names Christian names. Yes, the heathens did give
their children names ; some of them give their chil-
dren names still. And there is to me something
most sad and painful in those heathen names, and
yet most full of meaning. A solemn lesson to us,
to show us what the fall means ; what man be-
comes, when he gives way to his fallen nature, and
is parted from Christ, the Head of man.

First, these heathens had a dim remembrance
that man was made in the likeness of God, and
lived by Faith in God, and therefore that men's
names were to express that, as indeed many of
their old names do. But, alas ! the likeness of God
in fallen man is like a tree without roots, or rather
a tree without soil to grow in. God's likeness in
man can only flourish as long as he is joined to
Christ, the perfect likeness of God, the true life
and the true light of men, the foundation which is
already laid, and the soil in which man was meant
to grow and flourish for ever, and as long as he is
fed by the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of
Life, who proceeds — never forget that, or you will
lose the understanding both of who God is and
what man is — proceeds not only from God the
Father, but also from God the Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And therefore, in the heathen, God's like-
ness withered and decayed, as a tree withers and
decays when torn up from the soil. And first, they
began to call themselves after the names of false
gods, which they had invented out of their own
carnal fancies. Then they called themselves after
the names of their dumb animals. So, Pharaoh

:v.] NAMES. 49

means, 'The Sun-God'; the Ammonites mean, 'The
people who worshipped the ram ,as a god ' ; Poti-
phar means, 'A fat bull,' which the Egyptians used
to worship ; and I could tell you of hundreds of
heathen names more, like these, which are ridiculous
enough to make one smile, if we did not keep in
mind what tokens they are of sin and ignorance,
and the likeness not of God, but of the beasts which
perish.

Then comes another set of names, showing a
lower fall still, when heathens have quite forgotten
that man was originally made in God's likeness,
and are not only content to live after the likeness
of the beasts which perish, but pride themselves on
being like beasts, and therefore name their children
after dumb animals, — the girls after the gentler and
fairer animals, and the boys after ravenous and
cruel beasts of prey. That has been the custom
among many heathen nations ; perhaps among
almost all of them, at some time or other. It is
the custom now among the Red Indians in North
America, where you will find one man in a tribe
called ' The Bull,' another ' The Panther,' and another
' The Serpent,' and so on ; showing that they would
like to be, if they could, as strong as the bull, as
cruel as the panther, as venomous as the serpent.
What wonder that those Red Indians, who have so
put on the likeness of the beasts, are now dying off
the face of the earth like the beasts whom they
admire and imitate .'

And this was the way with our own heathen
forefathers before the blessed Gospel was preached

E

5° NAMES. [SERM.

to them. It is frightful, in reading old histories, to
find how many Englishmen, our own forefathers,
were named after fierce wild beasts, and tried, alas !
to be like their names — children of wrath, whose
feet were swift to shed blood, under whose lips was
the poison of adders, and destruction and blood-
shed following in their paths, not knowing the way
of peace. The wolf was the common wild beast of
England then ; and there are, I should say, twenty
common old English names ending in wolf, besides
as many more ending in bear, and eagle, and raven.
Fearful sign ! that men of our own flesh and blood
should have gloried in being like the wolf, the
cruellest, the greediest, the most mean of savage
beasts ! How shall we thank God enough, who
sent to them the knowledge of His Son Jesus
Christ, and called them to be new men in Christ
Jesus, and called them to holy baptism, to receive
new names, and begin new lives in the righteous
likeness of God Hiniself i" — that as by nature they
had been the children of wrath, so in baptism they
might become the children of grace ; that as from
their forefathers they had inherited a corrupt nature,
original sin, and the likeness of the foul and raven-
ous beasts which perish, they might have power
from the Spirit of God to become the sons of
God, conformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ,
in peace, and love, and righteousness, and all
holiness.

And yet, in names there is a lower depth still
among fallen and heathen men ; when they lose
utterly the last dim notion that God intends men

IV.] NAMES. 51

to be persons, even as God the Father is a person,
and God the Son a person, and God the Holy
Spirit is a person, and so lose the custom of giving
their children personal names at all ; either giving
them, after they grow up, mere nicknames, taken
from some peculiarity of their bodies, or something
which they have done, or some place where they
happen to live ; or else, like many tribes of heathen
negroes, just name them after the day of the week
on which they were born, as some way of knowing
them apart ; or, last and most shocking of all, give
them no names at all, and have no names themselves,
knowing each other apart as the dumb animals do,
only by sight. I can conceive no deeper fall into
utter brutishness than that ; and }'et some few of
the most savage tribes, both in Africa and in the
Indian islands, are said — God help them ! — to live
in that way, and to have no names ; — blotted,
indeed, out of the book of life !

But is this the right state for men 1 No ; it 15
the wrong state. It is a disease into which men
are fallen ; a disease out of which Christ came to
raise men ; and out of which He does raise us in
Holy Baptism. Baptism puts the child into its
right state — into the right state for a human being,
a human soul, a human person. And baptism
declares what that right state is — a member of
Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the
kingdom of heaven. A member of Christ, and
therefore a person, because Christ is a person. A
child of God, and therefore a person, because a
child's duty is to love and trust and obey his

E 2

52 NAMES. [SERM.

father — and only a person can do that, not an
animal or a thing. An inheritor of the kingdom
of heaven, and therefore bound to cherish all
heavenly thoughts and feelings, all righteousness,
love, and obedience, which only spirits and per-
sons, not animals or things, can feel.

Now can you not see why baptism is the proper
time for giving the child a name .'' Because then
Christ claims the child for His own ; — because
having a name shows that the child is a person
who has a soul, a will, a conscience, a duty; a
person who must answer himself for himself alone
for what he does in the body, whether it be good
or evil. And that will, and soul, and conscience
were given the child by Christ, by whom all things
are made, who is the Light which lights every man
who comes into the world.

Thus in holy baptism God adopts the child for
His own in Jesus Christ. He declares that the
child is regenerate, and has a new life, a life from
above, a seed of eternal personal life which he him-
self has not by nature. And that seed of eternal
life is none other but the Holy Spirit of God, the
Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Lord and
Giver of Life, who does verily and indeed regene-
rate the child in holy baptism, and dwells with his
soul, his person, his very self, that He may educate
the child's character, and raise his affections, and
subdue his will, and raise him up daily from the
death of sin to the life of righteousness.

Therefore, when in the Catechism you solemnly
ask the child its name, you ask it no light ques-

IV.] NAMES. 53

tion. You speak as a spirit, a person, to its spirit,
to its very self, which God wills should never
perish, but live for ever. You single the child out
from all its schoolfellows, from all the millions of
human beings who have ever lived, or ever will
live ; and you make the child, by answering to his
name, confess that he is a person, an immortal soul,
who must stand alone before the judgment seat of
God ; a person who has a duty and a calling upon
God's earth, which he must fulfil or pay the forfeit.
And then you ask the child who gave him his
name, and make him declare that his name was
given him in baptism, wherein he was made a
member of Christ and a child of God. You make
the child confess that he is a person in Jesus Christ,
that Christ has redeemed him, his very self, and
taken him to Himself, and made him not merely
God's creature, or God's slave, but God's child.
You make the child confess that his duty as a
person is not towards himself, to do what he likes,
and follow his own carnal lusts ; but toward God
and toward his neighbours, who are in God's king-
dom of heaven as well as he. And then you go on
in the rest of the Catechism to teach him how he
himself, the person to whom you are speaking, may
live for ever and ever as a person, by faith in other
Persons beside himself, even in God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, as you teach him in the
Creed ; by doing his duty to other persons beside
himself, even to God and man, as you teach him in
the Ten Commandments ; and by diligent prayer
to another Person beside himself, even to God his

54 NAMES. [SERM.

heavenly Father, to feed and strengthen him day
by day with that eternal life which was given to
him in baptism. Thus the whole Catechism turns
upon the very first question in it — 'What is thy
name?' It explains to the child what is really
meant, in the sight of God, and of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and of the whole Church in earth and
heaven, by the child's having a name of his own,
and being a person, and having that name given
to him in holy baptism.

And if this is true of our children, my friends, it
is equally true of us. You and I are persons, and
persons in Christ ; each stands alone day and night
before the judgment-seat of Christ. Each must
answer for himself None can deliver his brother,
nor make agreement unto God for him. Each of
us has his calling from his heavenly Father ; his
duty to do which none can do instead of him.
Each has his ov/n sins, his own temptations, his
own sorrows, which he must bring single-handed
and alone to God his Father, as it is written, ' The
' heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger
' intermeddleth not with its joy.' There is a world,
a flesh, and a devil, near to us, ready to drag us
down, and destroy our personal and spiritual life,
which God has given us in Christ ; a flesh which
tempts us to follow our own appetites and passions,
blindly and lawlessly, like the beasts which perish ;
a world which tempts us to become mere things,
without free-wills of our own, or consciences of our
own, without personal faith and personal holiness ;
the puppets of the circumstances and the customs

IV.] NAMES. 55

which happen to be round us ; blown about like
the dead leaf, and swept helplessly down the stream
of time. And there is a devil, too, near us, tempt-
ing us to the deepest lie of all, — to set up ourselves
apart from God, and to try, as the devil tries, to be
persons in our own strength, each doing what he
chooses, each being his own law, and his own
master ; that is, his own lawlessness, and his own
tyrant : and if we listen to that devil, that spirit
of lawlessness and self-will, we shall become his
slaves, persons in him, doing his work, and finding
torment and misery and slavery in it. Awful
thought, that so many enemies should be against
us ; yea, that we ourselves should be our own
enemies ! But here baptism gives us hope, baptism
gives us courage ; we are in Christ ; God is our
Father, and He can and will give us power to have
victory, and to triumph against the world, the
flesh, and the devil. His Spirit is given to us in
baptism — that Spirit of God who is not merely a
force or an influence, but a person, a living, loving,
holy Person. He is with us, to give our persons,
our souls, eternal life from His life, eternal holiness
from His holiness ; that so, not merely some part
of us, but we our very selves and souls — we the
very same persons who were christened, and had
a name given us in holy baptism, and have been
answering to that name all our life, and were re-
minded, whenever we heard that name, that we
had a duty of our own, a history of our own,
hopes, fears, joys, sorrows of our own, which none
could share with us, — that we, I say, our own

56 NAMES. [SERM.

persons, our very selves, may be raised up again
at the last day, free, pure, strong, filled vi^ith the
life of God, which is eternal life.

And then, what blessed words are these from
the Lord Jesus, which we read in the book of
Revelation ? ' And I will give to him that over-
cometh, a new name.' A new name for him that
overcometh world, flesh, and devil ; that shall be
our portion in the world to come. A new name,
perfect like the name of the Lord Jesus, which
shall express and mean all that we are to do here-
after, and all that we have done well on earth.
A name which shall declare to us our calling and
work in God's Church triumphant, throughout all
ages and worlds to come : and yet a name which
no man knoweth saving he who receiveth it. Yes,
if we may dare to guess at the meaning of those
deep words, perhaps in that new name shall be
recorded for each man all that went on, in the
secret depths of the man's own heart, between
himself and his God, unknown and unnoticed even
by the wife of his bosom. The cup of cold water
given in Christ's name ; the little private acts of
love, and kindness, and self-sacrifice, of which none
but God knew ; the secret prayers, the secret acts
of contrition, the secret hungerings and thirstings
after righteousness, the secret struggles and agonies
of heart, which he could not, dare not, ought not
to tell to any human being. All these, he shall
find, will go to make up his character in the life to
come, to determine what work he is to do for God
in the world to come ; as it is written, ' Be thou

IV.] NAMES. 57

' faithful over a few things, and 1 will make thee
' ruler over many things.' All these, perhaps, shall
be expressed and declared in that new name, the
full meaning of which none will know but the man
himself, because none but he knows the secret
experiences and struggles which went toward the
making of it ; none but he and God ; for God will
know all. He who is the Lord and Saviour of our
souls, our persons, our very selves, and can pre-
serve them utterly to the fulness of eternal life,
because He knows them thoroughly and utterly ;
because He judges not according to appearance,
but judges righteous judgment ; because He sees
us not merely as we seem to others to be, not
even as we seem at times to ourselves to be ; —
but searches the heart, and can be touched with
the feeling of its infirmities, seeing that He himself
has been tempted even as we are, yet without sin ;
because, blessed thought ! He can pierce through
the very marrow of our being, and discern the
thoughts and intents of our hearts, and see what
we long to be, and what we ought to be ; so that
we can safely and hopefully commend our spirits
to His hand, day by day and hour by hour, and
can trust Him to cleanse us from our secret faults,
and to renew and strengthen our very selves day
by day with that eternal life which He gives to al]
who cast themselves utterly upon Him.

SERMON V.

SPONSORSHIP.

I Cor. XII. 26, 27.

Whether one member suffer, al! the members suffer with it ; or
whether one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with
it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

I HAVE to tell you that there will be a con-
firmation held at .... on the All

persons of fit age who have not yet been con-
firmed ought to be ready, and I hope and trust that
most of them will be ready, on that day to profess
publicly their faith and loyalty to the Lord who
died for them. I hope and trust that they will, as
soon as possible, tell me that they intend to do so,
and come to me to talk over the matter, and to
learn what I can teach them about it. They will
find in me, I hope, nothing but kindness and fellow-
feeling.

But I have not only to tell young persons of the
Confirmation : I have to tell all godfathers and
godmothers of it also. Have any of you here ever
stood godfather or godmother to any young person
in this parish who is not yet confirmed .? If you

SERM. V.J SPONSORSHIP. 59

have, now is the time for you to fulfil your parts
as sponsors. You must help me, and help the
children's parents, in bringing your godchildren
to confirmation. It really is your duty. It will
be better for you if you fulfil it. Better for you,
not merely by preventing a punishment, but by
bringing a blessing. Let me try to show you
what I mean.

Now god-parents must have some duty, some
responsibility or other ; — that is plain. If you or I
promise and vow things in another person's name,
we must be bound more or less to see that that
other person fulfils the promise which we made for
him : and so the baptism service warns the sponsors
as soon as the child is christened. ' Forasmuch as
this child has promised,' &c. ; and then we have a
plain explanation of what a godfather and god-
mother's duties are. ' And that your godchild may
know these things the better,' &c. : and finally,
' you shall take care that this child be brought to
the bishop to be confirmed.'

That is the duty of godfathers and godmothers.
Those who stand for any child do it on that under-
standing, and take upon themselves knowingly that
duty.

Now, I will not threaten you, my friends ; I will
not pretend to tell you how God will punish those
godfathers and godmothers who do not do their
duty ; because I do not know how he will punish
them. He has not told us in the Bible ; and who
am I, to deal out God's thunders as if they belonged
to me, and judge people of whose real merits and

fo SPONSORSHIP. _SERM.

demerits in God's sight I have no fair means of
judging? I always dread and dislike threatening
any sinner out of this pulpit, except those who
plainly bi'eak the plain laws which are written in
those Ten Commandments, and hypocrites : because
I stand in awe of our Lord's own words — ' Woe
• ■ unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for
' ye bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne,
' and lay them on men's shoulders, while you
' yourselves touch them not with one of your
' fingers.' There is too much of that now-a-days,
my friends, and I have no mind to add my share to
it. And sure I am, that any godfathers and god-
mothers who do their duty, only because they are
afraid that God will punish them if they do not,
will not do their duty at all. But sure I am also,
and thankful to God, that we cannot neglect any
duty whatsoever without being punished in some
way or other for our neglect of it. That is not a
curse, but a blessing : it is a blessing to us to be
punished. The only real curse of God in this life
is to be left unpunished for our sins. It is a bles-
sing for us that our sins find us out. For if our sins
did not find us out, we should very often, I fear,
not find our sins out. And, therefore, when I tell
godfathers and godmothers, not that God will
perhaps punish them for their neglect, but that He
does punish them for it already, I am telling them
.good news, if they will only open their hearts to
that good news.

For God does punish people for neglecting their
godchildren. Those who have eyes to see may see

v.] SPONSORSHIP. 6 1

it round us now, in this very parish, and in every
parish in England, in the selfishness, distrust, divi-
sions, and quarrels which prevail. I do not mean
that this parish is worse than others, or England
worse than other countries. That is no concern of
ours : our own parish, and our own evils, are quite
concern enough for us.

Are people happy together .? Do they pull well
together .' Look at the old-standing quarrels, mis-
understandings, grudges, prejudices, suspicions,
which part one man from another, one family from
another ; every man for his own house, and very
few for the kingdom of God ; — no, not even for the
general welfare of the parish ! Do not men try to
better themselves at the expense of the parish — to
the injury of the parish .^ Do not men, when they
try to raise their own family, seem to think that
the simplest way to do it is to pull down their
neighbour's family ; to draw away their custom ;
oust them from their places, or hurt their characters
in order to rise upon their fall .' so that though
they are brothers, members of the same church,
nation and parish, the greater part of them are, in
practice, at war with each other — trying to live at
each other's expense. Now, is this profitable .'' So
far from it, that if you will watch the histor}', either
of the whole world, or of this country, or of this
one parish, you will find that by far the greater
part of the misery in it has sprung from this very
selfishness and separateness — from the perpetual
struggle between man and man, and between
family and family : so that there have been men,

62 SPONSORSHIP. [SERM.

and those learned, and thoughtful, and well-meaning
men enough, who have said that the only cure for
the world's quarrelling and selfishness was to take
all children away from their parents, and bring
them up in large public schools ; ay, and even to
try plans which are sinful, foul, and wicked, all in
order to prevent parents knowing which were their
own children, that they might care for all the
children in the parish as much as if they were
their own.

A foolish plan, my friends, and for this one
reason, that it is driving out one evil by a still
greater one. It destroys the root to get the fruit ;
by destroying family life, and love, and obedience,
to get at the communion of saints, or rather at
some ghost of it. The real communion of saints
is founded on the Fifth Commandment — ' Thou
shalt honour thy father and thy mother;' and
grows out of it, not by destroying it, but by ful-
filling it, as the tree grows out of the root, without
taking away from the life of the root, but rather
by nourishing and increasing it. Now, the ancient
institution of godfathers and godmothers would, it
seems to me, if it were carried out honestly and
really, do for us what we certainly have not done
for ourselves as yet, and bind us all together as one
family. It would do all the good which those
fanciful philosophers of whom I first spoke, have
dreamt, without any of the evil ; and it would do
it because it goes simply on the belief that the
foundation is already laid, and that that founda-
tion is Christ. It says, because this child is not

v.] SPONSORSHIP. 63

merely the child of his father and mother, but the
child of God, the universal Father, therefore other
people besides his parents have an interest in him :
all who are children of God as well as he have an
interest in him ; for they are all his brothers, and
have a brother's interest in his welfare. Because
this child is not merely a member of the family
whose surname he bears, but a member of Christ, a
member of God's great adopted family, in the hearts
of every one of whom His only begotten Son, Jesus
Christ, is working ; therefore this child ought to be
an object of awe, and of interest, and love, and care
to every other member of Christ's Church. More-
over, the child is an inheritor of a heavenly king-
dom — a kingdom of grace — a kingdom of God, —
which is love and justice, and peace, and joy in the
Holy Spirit — all personal, spiritual, heavenly, God-
given graces ; — and he cannot have them without
being a blessing to all around him ; and he cannot
be without them, without being a curse to all
around him. If, in after life, when he comes to be
confirmed, he claims his inheritance in this heavenly
kingdom, he will be full of love, justice, peace, joy
in the Holy Spirit. If he refuses to claim his in-
heritance, and despises his heavenly birthright, and
lives as if he were a mere earthly creature, only to
please himself, and help himself, he will not be full
of those graces. And what then ? That he will
be full of their opposites, of course. If he has
not love, he will be unloving, selfish, hard, cold^
to yozt and yours. If he has not justice he will be
unjust — to you and yours. If he is not at peace

64 SPONSORSHIP. [serm.

he will be at war, quarrelling, grudging, envying,
backbiting — you and yours. If he has not joy in
the Holy Spirit, he will have joy in an unholy
spirit, for he must have joy in some spirit ; he must
take pleasure in some sort of way of thinking and
feeling, and some sort of life — in short, in some sort
of spirit ; and whatsoever is not holy is unholy,
whatsoever is not good is bad, whatsoever is not of
God's Holy Spirit is of the Devil ; — and therefore,
if the child as he grows up has not joy in the Holy
Spirit, and does not enjoy doing right and pleasing
God, and being like the Lord Jesus Christ, then he
will enjoy doing wrong, and pleasing himself, and
being unlike the Lord Jesus Christ ; and so he will
set a bad example, and be a temptation to all young
people of his own age, ready to lead them into
sin, and draw them away to those sinful and unholy
pleasures in which he takes delight, — whether it be
to rioting and drinking, or to uncleanness and un-
chastity, or to sneering and laughing at godliness,
and at good people. And that, as you know by
experience, may be the worse for you and the worse
for your children. Is that the sort of young person
with whom you would wish to see your children
keeping company .' Is that the sort of young
person next door to whom you would wish to live ?
Is not such a person a curse, just because he is a
person, a spiritual being with an evil spirit in him,
which can harm you, and tempt you, and act on
you for evil ; just as if he had been a righteous
person, with the holy and good Spirit in him, he
would have helped you, and taught you, and

v.] SPONSORSHIP^ 65

worked on you for good ? But so it is : we are
members one of another, and if one member goes
wrong, and gets diseased, and suffers, all the other
members are sure to suffer more or less with it,
sooner or later : you feel it so in your bodies — be
sure it is so in God's church. But if one member
is sound and healthy, all the other members must
and will be the better for its health, and rejoice
with it, and be able to do their own work the more
freely, and strongly, and heartily.

Just think for yourselves ; consider, you who are
grown up, and have had experience of life, the harm
you have known one bad man do, the sorrow he
will cause, even to people who never saw him ; and
the good which you have seen one good man, not
merely do with his own hands, but put into other
people's hearts by his example. Is not both the
good and the harm which is done on earth like the
ripple of a stone dropt into water, which spreads
and spreads for a vast distance round, however small
the stone may be } Indeed, bold as it may seem to
say it, I believe that, if we could behold all hearts as
the Lord Jesus does, we should find that there never
was a good man but that the whole of Christendom,
perhaps all mankind, was sooner or later, more or
less, the better for him ; and that there never was
a bad man but that all Christendom, perhaps all
mankind, was the worse for him. So fully and
really true it is in everyday practice, that we are
members one of another.

Now this is the principle on which the Church
acts. For the little unconscious infant is treated

F

66 SPONSORSHIP [set?m.

as what it is, a most solemn and important person,
who has other relations beside its father and mother,
as a person who is the brother of all the people
round it, and of all the Church of God, and who,
too, may hereafter do to them boundless good or
harm, and they to it.

Therefore we must have some persons to bear
witness of that, to remind the child himself, and
the whole Church, that he is not merely a soul by
itself to be saved, but that he is a brother, a mem-
ber of a family ; that he is bound to that family
henceforth, for good and for evil. And this the
godfathers and godmothers do : they represent
and stand in the place of the whole Church. In
one sense, every Christian who meets that child
through life, or hears of it, ought to behave, as far
as he can, as its godfather ; ought to help and im-
prove it if he can. But what is everybody's busi-
ness, says the proverb, is nobody's business ; and
therefore these godfathers and godmothers are
called out from the rest, as examples to the rest,
to watch over the child, and to help and advise its
father and mother in guiding and training it : but
not by interfering with a parent's rights, God for-
bid ! or by drawing away the child's affections from
its own flesh and blood ; for if a child be not taught
first to honour its father and mother, there is little
use in teaching it anything else whatsoever ; and a
godfather's first duty is to see that his godchild
obeys its earthly parents for the Lord's sake, for
that is right, and God's will, whatever else is not

Now just conceive — I am sure that you easily

Vl SPONSORSHIP. 67

may — wnat a blessing to this parish, or this part
of the country, it would be, were the duties of
godfathers really carried out and practised. Every
child, beside his father and mother, would have
some two or three elder friends at least, whom he
had known from his childhood, whom he could
trust, to whom he could go in trouble as to his own
flesh and blood. The orphan would have, if not
relations, still godparents, to comfort and protect
him. No one could go abroad without meeting, if
not a godparent, yet the godparent or godchild of
a -friend or a relation ; someone, in short, who had
an interest in him, and he in them. All would be
bound together in threefold cords of interest and
affection. How many spites, family quarrels, mis-
takes, and ignorances about each other would be
done away, if people would but thus simply enter
into that communion of saints to which, by right,
they belong, and bear each other's burdens, and so
fulfil the law of Christ. — Unless you think that
men are such ill-conditioned creatures that the
less they mix with each other the better. I do
not. I believe that the more we mix with each
other, and the better we know each other, the more
we shall feel for each other : that the more we help
people, the more we shall find that they are worth
helping ; that the more, in a word, we try to live,
not after the likeness of the beasts, selfish and
apart, but after the order and constitution of God's
Church, to which we belong, and which is, that we
are all fellow-members of one body, then the more
we shall find that God's order is the right, good,

F 2

68 SPOySORSHIF. [serm.

blessed order, by obeying which we enter into com-
fort of which we never dream as long as we lead
selfish, separate, worldly lives ; as it is written,
' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it
■ entered into the heart of man to conceive, the
' things which God has prepared for those who
' love Him,'

This may seem a fanciful dream, too fair to be
possible ; but what prevents it from being possible,
save and except our own selfishness and laziness ?

And as for what fruit will spring from it, I have
seen, by experience, the blessing of godfathership
and godmothership, where it is really carried out ;
how it will knit together, in sacred bonds of
friendship, not merely the children, but the grown
persons of different families, and give them a fellow-
feeling, a mutual interest, which will prevent a
hundred quarrels and coldnesses among frail human
creatures. And to those who are childless them-
selves, what a blessing to have their love and
self-sacrifice called out, by being bound in holy
bonds, if not to children of their own, at least to
children of God ! — to have young people to care
for, to teach, to guide, and so to win for themselves
in the Church of God a name better than that of
sons and daughters. And have no fear that by
bringing your kindness to bear especially upon your
godchildren you will narrow your love, and care
less for children in general. Not so, my friends ;
you will find that your love to your godchildren,
like love to your own children, will make all
children lovable in your eyes : you will learn how

v.] SPONSORSHIP. 6g

v/orthy of your love children are, what capacities of
good there are in them, how truly of such are the
kingdom of heaven ; and their simplicity will often
teach you more than you can teach them. Their
God-given instincts of right and wrong, truth and
falsehood, which come from the indwelling Word of
God, Jesus the Lord, will often enough shame us,
will teach us more and more the depth of that great
saying, ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,
Thou, O God, hast perfected Thy praise.'

Now try, I entreat you, all godfathers and god-
mothers, to carry out these hints of mine, and so
fulfil your duty to your godchildren, sure that you
will find it a blessing to yourselves as well as to them.

After all it is your duty. But do not let the
slandering Devil slander to you that blessed word.
Duty, and make you afraid of it, and shrink from
it, as if it meant something burdensome, and
troublesome, and thankless, which you suppose you
must do for fear of punishment, while you have a
right to see how little of it you can do, and try to
be let off as cheaply as possible. Beware of that
evil spirit, my friends, for he is very near you, and
me, and every man, whenever we think of our
duty. Very near us he is, that evil Jesuit spirit,
that spirit of bondage unto fear, which is continually
setting us on to find out with how little service God
will be contented, how human slaves may make the
cheapest bargain with some stern taskmaster above,
of whom they dream. And from that temptation
there is no escape, save into the blessed name of
God Himself — our Father.

70 SPONSORSHIP. [serm.

Our Father ! — whenever you think of your duty
to God or man, think .but of those two words.
Remember that all duty is duty to a Father ; your
Father ; and such a Father ! Who gave His only
begotten Son to die for you, who showed what He
was in that Son — full of goodness, perfectly loving,
perfectly merciful, perfectly just ; and then you will
not be inclined to ask how little obedience, how
little love, how little service, He will allow you to
pay to Him ; but how much He will help you to
pay to Him. Then you will feel that His service
is perfect freedom, because it is service to a Father
who loves you, and will help you to do His will.
Then you will feel that His commandments are not
grievous, because they are a Father's command-
ments, because you are bound to do them, not by
dread and superstition, but by gratitude, honour,
affection, respect, trust. Then you will not be
thinking of what punishment will come if you
disobey — no, nor of what reward will come if you
obey — but you will be thinking of the commandment
itself, and how to carry it out most perfectly, and
let the consequences take care of themselves,
because you know that your Father takes care of
them ; that He loves you, and therefore what He
commands must be good for you, utterly the best
thing for you ; that He only gives you a command-
ment because it is good for you ; that you are
made in God's image, and therefore God's will must
be for you the path of life, the only rule by which
you can prosper now and for ever.

Do try, now, all you who are godfathers and

v.] SPONSORSHIP. 71

godmothers, and for once look on your duty in this
light. Be sure that in trying to do your duty you
will bring a blessing on yourselves, because your
duty is to a Father in heaven. Be sure that, in
trying to better your godchildren, you will better
yourselves ; in trying to teach them, you will teach
yourselves ; in trying to bring them to confirmation,
you will indeed confirm, root, and strengthen your-
selves the more deeply in all that is good ; because
your godchildren are indeed God's children, and
whatsoever you do for them you do for His only
begotten Son Jesus Christ, as He Himself says,
' Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of
• these little ones, ye did it unto Me.' Do not be
afraid of trying ; you will have a hundred reasons
for not trying rise in your mind, the Devil will find
you a hundred lying excuses : ' It will be so diffi-
' cult ; and you do not like to interfere with other
' people's children ; and you have never cared about
' your godchildren yet, and it will seem so odd to
' begin now ; and the children may not listen to
' you ; and besides, you do not know enough to
' teach them ; you are not good scholar enough,
' good liver enough, you can't preach where you
' don't practice.' Oh, how ready the Devil is to
help a man to excuses for not doing his duty ; how
careful he is to keep out of a man's mind the one
thought which would sweep all those excuses to the
wind — the thought that this same duty, which he is
trying to make look so ugly, is duty to a loving
Father. Do not Hsten to his lies ; look up to your
good Father in heaven ; and try. It is God's will

72 SPONSORSHIP. {SERM.

that these children should be confirmed ; it is His
will that you should help to bring them to con-
firmation ; and if it is His will, He will help you to
do that will of His. It may seem difficult : but
try, and the difficulty will vanish, for God will
make it easy for you. You may be afraid of
interfering : believe that God's Spirit is working
in the hearts of your godchildren, and of their
parents also ; and trust to God's Spirit to make
them kindly and thankful to you about the matter,
and glad to see that you take an interest in their
children. You may seem not to know enough : O,
my friends, you know enough, every one of you, if
you have courage to confess how much you know.
Ask God for courage to speak out, and He will
give it you. And even if you are no scholar, be
sure that, as the old proverb says, ' Teaching is the
best way of learning.' Any parent, or godfather,
or godmother, who will try to teach their children
God's truth and their duty, will find that in so
doing they will teach themselves even more than
they teach the children. I say it because I know
it from my own experience. And for the rest,
again I say, is not God your Father .'' Therefore,
if any man be in want of wisdom, or courage, or
any other heavenly gift, let him ask of God, who
giveth liberally and upbraideth not, and he shall
receive it. For after all, when you ask God to
teach you, and strengthen you to do your duty, you
do but ask Him for a part of that very inheritance
which He has already given you ; a part of your
inheritance in that kingdom of heaven which is a

v.] SPONSORSHIP. 73

kingdom of spiritual gifts and graces, into which
you were baptized as well as your godchildren.

Try then, each of you, what you can do to bring
your own godchildren to confirmation, and what
you can do to make them fit for confirmation ; for
you are members one of another, and if you will
act as such, you will find strength to do your duty,
and a blessing in your day from that heavenly
Father from whom every fatherhood in heaven and
earth, and yours among the rest, is named.

SERMON VI.

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

EPHESIANS II. 5.
By grace ye are saved.

WE all hold that we are justified by faith, that
is, by believing ; and that unless we are
justified we cannot be saved. And of all men who
ever believed this, perhaps those who gave us the
Church Catechism believed it most strongly. Nay,
some of them suffered for it ; endured persecution,
banishment, and a cruel death, because they would
persist in holding, contrary to the Romanists, that
men were justified by faith only, and not by the
works of the law ; and that this was one of the
root-doctrines of Christianity, which if a man did
not believe, he would believe nothing else rightly.
Does it not seem, then, something strange that
they should never in this Catechism of theirs
mention one word about justifying or justification .'
They do not ask the child, ' How is a man justi-
fied.''' that he may answer, 'By faith alone;' they
do not even teach him to say, ' I am justified
already. I am in a state of justification ;' but not

SERM. VI.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 75

saying one word about that, they teach him to say
much more — they teach him to say that he is in a
state of salvation, and to thanl<: God boldly because
he is so ; and then go on at once to ask him the
articles of his belief And even more strange still,
they teach him to answer that question, not by
repeating any doctrines, but by repeating the simple
old Apostles' Creed. They do not teach him to
say, as some would now-a-days, 'I believe in
' original sin, I believe in redemption through Christ's
' death, I believe in justification by faith, I believe
' in sanctification by the Holy Spirit,' — true as
these doctrines are ; still less do they bid the child
say, ' I believe in predestination, and election,
' and effectual calling, and irresistible grace, and
' vicarious satisfaction, and forensic justification,
' and vital faith, and the three assurances.'

Whether these things be true or false, it seemed
to the ancient worthies who gave us our Catechism
that children had no business with them. They
had their own opinions on these matters, and spoke
their opinions moderately and wisely, and the sum
of their opinions we have in the Thirty-nine
Articles, which are not meant for children, not
even for grown persons, excepting scholars and
clergymen. Of course every grown person is at
liberty to study them ; but no one in the Church
of England is required to agree to them, and to
swear that they are true, except scholars at our
old Universities, and clergymen, who are bound to
have studied such questions. But for the rest of
Englishmen all the necessary articles of belief (so

76 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [serm.

the old divines considered) were contained in the
simple old Apostles' Creed.

And why ? Because, it seems to me, they were
what Englishmen ought to be — what too many
Englishmen are too apt to boast of being in these
days, while they are not so, or anything like it —
and that is, honest men and practical men. They
had taught the children to say that they were
members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors
of the kingdom of heaven ; and they had taught
t?ie children, when they said that, to mean what
they said ; for they had no notion that ' I am,'
meant ' I may possibly be ; ' or that ' I was made,'
meant ' There is a chance of my being made some
time or other.' They would not have dared to
teach children to say things which were most
probably not true. So believing really what they
taught, they believed also that the children were
justified. For if a child is not justified in being a
member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor
of the kingdom of heaven, what is he justified in
being .■' Is not that exactly the just, right, and
proper state for him, and for every man i" — the very
state in which all men were meant originally to be,
in which all men ought to have been } So they
looked on these children as being in the just, right,
and proper way, on which God looks with satisfac-
tion and pleasure, and in which alone a man can
do just, right, and proper things, by the Spirit of
Christ, which He gives daily and hourly to those
who belong to Him and trust in Him and in His
Father.

VI.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 77

But they knew that the children could only keep
in this just, and right, and proper state by trust-
ing in God, and looking up to Him daily in faith,
and love, and obedience. They knew that if the
children, whether for one hour or for their whole
lives, lost trust in God, and began trusting in them-
selves, they would that very moment, then and
there, become not justified at all, because they
would be doing a thing which no man is justified
in doing, and fall into a state into which no man is
justified in remaining for one hour — that is, into
an unjustifiable state of self-will, and lawlessness,
and forgetfulness of who and of what they were,
and of what God was to them ; in one word, into
a sinful state, which is not a righteous, or just, or
good, or proper state for any man, but an utterly
unrighteous, unjust, wrong, improper, mistaken,
diseased state, which is certain to breed un-
righteous, unjust, improper actions in a man, as
a limb is certain to corrupt if it be cut off from
the body, as a little child is certain to come to
harm if it runs away from its parents, and does
just what it likes, and eats whatsoever pleases its
fancy. So these old divines, being practical men,
said to themselves, ' These children are justified
' and right in being what they are, therefore our
' business is to keep them what they are, and we
' can only do that as long as they have faith in
' God and in His Christ.'

Now, if they had been mere men of books, they
would have said to themselves, ' Then we must
' teach the children very exactly what faith is, that

78 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [serm.

' they may know how to tell true faith from false,
' and may be able to judge every day and hour
' whether they have the right sort of faith which will
' justify them, or some wrong sort which will not.'
And many wise and good men in those times did
say so, and tormented their own minds, and the
minds of weak brethren, with long arguments and
dry doctrines about faith, till, in their eagerness to
make out what sort of thing faith ought to be, they
seemed quite to forget that it must be faith in God,
and so seemed to forget too who God was, and
what He was like. Therefore, they ended by
making people believe (as too many, I fear, do
now-a-days) not that they were justified freely by
the grace of God, shown forth in the life, and death,
and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ ; no : but
that they were justified by believing in justification
by faith, and that their salvation depended not on
being faithful to God and trusting in Him, but in
standing up fiercely for the doctrine of justification
by faith. And so they destroyed the doctrine of
free grace, while they thought they were fighting
for it ; for they taught men not to look to God for
salvation, so much as to their own faith, their own
frames, and feelings, and experiences ; and these,
as common sense will show you, are just as much
something in a man, as acts of his own, and part
of him, as his good works would be ; and so by
making people fancy that it was having the right
sort of feelings which justified them, they fell back
into the very same mistake as the Papists against
whom they were so bitter, namely, that it is some-

VI.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 79

thing in a man's self which justifies him, and not
simply Christ's merits and God's free grace.

But our old Reformers were of a different mind ;
and everlasting thanks be to Almighty God that
they were so. For by being so they have made
the Church of England (as I always have said, and
always will say) almost the only Church in Europe,
Protestant or other, which thoroughly and fully
stands up for free grace, and justification by faith
alone. For these old Reformers were practical
men, and took the practical way. They knew,
perhaps, the old proverb, 'A man need not be
a builder to live in a house.' At least they acted
on it, and instead of trying to make the children
understand what faith was made up of, they tried
to make them live in faith itself. Instead of say-
ing, ' How shall we make the children have faith
in God by telling them what faith is } ' they said,
' How shall we make them have faith in God by
telling them what God is .' ' And therefore, in-
stead of puzzling and fretting the children's minds
with any of the controversies which were then going
on between Papists and Protestants, or afterwards
between Calvinists and Arminians, they taught the
children simply about God ; who He was, and what
He had done for them and all mankind ; that so
they might learn to love Him, and look up to Him
in faith, and trust utterly to Him, and so remain
justified and right, saved and safe for ever.

By doing which, my friends, they showed that
they knew more about faith and about God than if
they had written books on books of doctrinal argu-

8o JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. [serm.

ments (though they wrote those too, and wrote
them nobly and well) ; they showed that they had
true faith in God, such trust in Him, and in the
beauty and goodness, justice and love, which He
had shown, that they only needed to tell the
children of it, and they would trust Him too, and
at once have faith in so good a God. They showed
that they had such trust in the excellencies, and
reasonableness, and fitness of His Gospel, that they
were sure that it would come home at once to the
children's hearts. They showed that they had such
trust in the power of His grace, in His love for the
children, in the working of His Spirit in the
children, that He would bring His Gospel home
to their hearts, and stir them up by the spirit
of adoption to feel that they were indeed the
children of God, to whom they might freely cry,
' My Father ! '

And I say that they were not deceived. I say
that experience has shown that they were right ;
that the Church Catechism, where it is really and
honestly taught, gives the children an honest,
frank, sober, English temper of mind which no
other training which I have seen gives. I have
seen, alas ! Church schools fail, ere now, in training
good children ; but as far as I have seen, they have
failed either because the Catechism was neglected
for the sake of cramming the children's brains with
scholarship, or because the Catechism was not
honestly taught : because the words were taught
by rote, but the explanations which were given of
it were no explanations at all, but another doq-

VI.] JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 8i

trine, which our forefathers knew not : either Dis-
senting or Popish ; either a religion of fancies, and
feehngs, and experiences, or one of superstitious
notions and superstitious ceremonies which have
been borrowed from the Church of Rome, and
which, I trust in God, will be soon returned to
their proper owner, if the free, truthful, God-
trusting English spirit is to remain in our children.
I know that there are good men among Dissenters,
my friends ; good men among Romanists. I have
met with them, and I thank God for them ; and
what may not be good for English children may
be good for foreign ones. I judge not ; to his own
master each man stands or falls. But I warn you
frankly, from experience (not of my own merely —
Heaven forbid ! — but from the experience of cen-
turies past), that if you expect to make the aver-
age of English children good children on any
other ground than the Church Catechism takes,
you will fail. Of course there will be some chosen
ones here and there, whose hearts God will touch ;
but you will find that the greater part of the
children will not be made better at all ; you will
find that the cleverer, and more tender-hearted will
be made conceited, Pharisaical, self- deceiving (for
children are as ready to deceive themselves, and
play the hypocrite to their own consciences, as
grown people are) ; they will catch up cant words
and phrases, or little outward forms of reverence,
and make a religion for themselves out of them to
drug their own consciences withal ; while, when
they go out into the world, and meet temptation,

G

82 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, [serm. vi.

they will have no real safeguard against it, because
whatsoever they have been taught, they have not
been taught that God is really and practically their
Father, and they His children.

I have seen many examples of this kind. Per-
haps those who have eyes to sec may have seen
one or two in this very parish. Be that as it may,
I tell you, my friends, that your children shall be
taught the Church Catechism, with the plain,
honest meaning of the words as they stand. No
less : but as God shall give me grace, no more. If
it be not enough for them to know that God, He
who made heaven and earth, is their Father ; that
His Son Jesus Christ redeemed them and all man-
kind by being born of the Virgin Mary, suffering
under Pontius Pilate, being crucified, dead, and
buried, descending into hell, rising again the third
day from the dead, ascending into Heaven, and
sitting on the right hand of God the Father
Almighty, in the intent of coming from thence
to judge the living and the dead ; to believe in
the Holy Spirit, in the holy universal Church in
which He keeps us, in the fellowship of all Saints
in which He knits us together ; in the forgiveness
of our sins which He proclaims to us, in the resur-
rection of our body which He will quicken at the
last day, in the life everlasting which is His life, —
if, I say, this be not enough for them to believe,
and on the strength thereof to trust God utterly,
and so be justified and saved from this evil world,
and from the doom and punishment thereof, then
they must go elsewhere ; for I have nothing more to
offer them, and trust in God that I never shall have.

SERMON VII.
DUTY AND SUPERSTITION.

MiCAH VI. 6—8.

Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the

most High God ? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings ?

. . , . Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams ?

. . . . Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression ; the

fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ?
He .hath shewed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the

Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to

walk humbly with thy God ?

THERE are many now-a-days who complain
of that part of the Church Catechism which
speaks of our duty to God and to our neighbour ;
and many more, I fear, who shrink from complain-
ing of the Church Catechism, because it is part of
the Prayer-book, yet wish in their secret hearts that
it had said something different about Duty.

Some wonder why it does not saj' more about
what are called ' religious duties/ and ' acts of wor-
ship,' ' mortification,' ' penitence,' and ' good works.'
Others wonder no less why it says nothing about
what are called ' Christian frames and feelings,' and
' inward experiences.'

G 2

84 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

For there is a notion abroad in the world, as
there is in all evil times, that a man's chief duty is
to save his own soul after he is dead ; that his busi-
ness in this world is merely to see how he can get
out of it again, without suffering endless torture
after his body dies. This is called superstition:
anxiety about what will happen to us after we die.

Now if you look at the greater number of reli-
gious books, whether Popish or Protestant, you will
find that in practice the main thing, almost the
one thing, which they are meant to do, is to show
the reader how he may escape Hell-torments, and
reach Heaven's pleasures after he dies : not how he
may do his Duty to God and his neighbour. They
speak of that latter, of course : they could not be
Christian books at all, thank God, without doing so ;
but they seem to me to tell men to do their Duty,
not simply because it is right, and a blessing in
itself, and worth doing for its own sake, but because
a man may gain something by it after he dies.
Therefore, to help their readers to gain as much as
possible after they die, they are not content with
the plain Duty laid down in the Bible and in the
Catechism, but require of men new duties over
and above ; which may be all very good if they
help men to do their real Duty, but are simply
worth nothing if they do not.

Let me explain myself I said just now that
superstition means anxiety about what will happen
to us after we die. But people commonly under-
stand by superstition, religious ceremonies, like the
Popish ones, which God has not commanded. And

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 85

that is not a wrong meaning either ; for people take
to these ceremonies from over-anxiety about the
next Hfe. The one springs out of the other ; the
outward conduct out of the inward fear ; and both
spring ahke out of a false notion of God, which
the Devil (whose great aim is to hinder us from
knowing our Father in Heaven) puts into men's
minds. Man feels that he is sinful and un-
righteous ; the light of Christ in his heart shows
him that, and it shows him at the same time that
God is sinless and righteous. ' Then,' he says,
' God must hate sin ; ' and there he says true.
Then steps in the slanderer, Satan, and whispers,
' But you are sinful ; therefore God hates you, and
wills you harm, and torture, and ruin.' And the
poor man believes that lying voice, and will believe
it to the end, whether he be Christian or heathen,
until he believes the Bible and the Sacraments,
which tell him, ' God does not hate you : He hates
' your sins, and loves you : He wills not your
' misery but your happiness ; and therefore God's
' will, yea, God's earnest endeavour, is to raise you
' out of those sins of yours, which make you miser-
' able now, and which, if you go on in t'nem, must
' bring of themselves everlasting misery to you.'
Of themselves ; not by any arbitrary decree of
God (whereof the Bible says not one single word
from beginning to end), that He will inflict on you
so much pain for so much sin : but by the very
nature of sin ; for to sin is to be parted from God,
in whose presence alone is life, and therefore sin is,
to be in death. Sin is, to be at war with God, who

86 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

is love and peace ; and therefore to be in loveless-
ness, hatred, war, and misery. Sin is, to act con-
trary to the constitution which God gave man,
when He said, ' Let us make man in our image,
after our Hkeness ; ' and tlierefore sin is a disease in
human nature, and hke all other diseases, must,
unless it is checked, go on everlastingly and per-
petually breeding weakness, pain and torment.
And out of that God is so desirous to raise you,
that He spared not His only begotten Son, but
freely gave Him for you, if by any means He
might raise you out of that death of sin to the life
of righteousness — to a righteous life ; to a life of
Duty — to a dutiful life, like His Son Jesus Christ's
life ; for that must go on, if you go on in it, pro-
ducing in you everlastingly and perpetually all
health and strength, usefulness and happiness in
this world and all worlds to come.

But men will not hear that voice. The fact is,
that simply to do right is too difficult for them,
and too humbling also. They are too proud to
like being righteous only with Christ's righteous-
ness, and too slothful also ; and so they go about
like the old Pharisees, to establish a righteousness
of their own ; one which will pamper their self-
conceit by seeming very strange, and far-fetched,
and difficult, so as to enable them to thank God
every day that they are not as other men are ; and
yet one which shall really not be as difficult as the
plain homely work of being good sons, good fathers,
g-ood husbands, good masters, good servants, good
subjects, good rulers. And so they go about to estab-

vn.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 87

lish a righteousness of their own (which can be no
righteousness at all, for God's righteousness is the
only righteousness, and Christ's righteousness is
the only pattern of it), and teach men that God
does not merely require of men to do justly, and
love mercy, and walk humbly with their God,
but requires of them something more. But by
this they deny the righteousness of God ; for they
make out that he has not behaved righteously and
justly to men, nor showed them what is good, but
has left them to find it out or invent it for them-
selves. For is it not establishing a righteousness
of one's own, to tell people that God only requires
these Ten Commandments of Christians in general,
but that if any one chooses to go further, and do
certain things which are not contained in the Ten
Commandments, ' counsels of perfection,' as they
are called, and ' good works ' (as if there were no
other good works in the world), and so do more
than it is one's duty to do, and lead a sort of life
which is called (I know not why) ' saintly ' and
' angelic,' then one will obtain a ' peculiar crown,'
and a higher place in Heaven than poor common-
place Christian people, who only do justly, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with their God .'

And is it not, on the other hand, establishing a
righteousness of one's own, to say that God requires
of us belief in certain doctrines about election, and
'forensic justification,' and 'sensible conversion,'
and certain ' frames and feelings and experiences ; '
and that without all these a man has no right to
expect anything but endless torture ; and all the

88 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

while to say little or nothing about God's requiring
of men the Ten Commandments ? For my part,
I am equally shocked and astonished at the doc-
trine which I have heard round us here — openly
from some few, and in practice from more than a
few — that because the Ten Commandments are
part of the Law, they are done away with, because
v/e are not now under the Law but under Grace.
What do they mean ? Is it not written, that not
one jot or tittle of the Law shall fail ; and that
Christ came, not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil
it ? What do they mean ? That it was harm to
break the Ten Commandments before Christ came,
but no harm to break them now ? Do they mean
that Jews were forbid to murder, steal, and commit
adultery, but that Christians are not forbidden ?
One thing I am afraid they do mean, for I see
them act up to it steadily enough. That Jews
were forbidden to covet, but that Christians are
not ; that Jews might not commit fornication, but
Christians may ; that Jews might not lie, but
Christians may ; that Jews might not use false
weights and measures, or adulterate goods for sale,
but that Christians may. My friends, if I am asked
the reason of the hypocrisy which seems the be-
setting sin of England, in this day ; — if I am asked
wny rich men, even high religious professors, dare
speak untruths at public meetings, bribe at elec-
tions, and go into parliament each man with a lie
in his right hand, to serve neither God nor his
country, but his political party and his religious
sect, by conduct which he would be ashamed to

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 89

employ in private life ; — if I am asked why the
middle classes (and the high religious professors
among them, just as much as any) are given over
to cheating, coveting, puffing their own goods by
shameless and unmanly boasting, undermining
each other by the dirtiest means, while the sons of
religious professors, both among the higher and the
middle classes, seem just as liable as any other
young men to fall into unmanly profligacy ; — if I
am asked why the poor profess God's gospel and
practise the Devil's works ; and why, in this very
parish now, there are women who, while they are
drunkards, swearers, and adulteresses, will run any-
where to hear a sermon, and like nothing better,
saving sin, than high-flown religious books ; — if I
am asked, I say, why the old English honesty which
used to be our glory and our strength, has decayed
so much of late years, and a hideous and shameful
hypocrisy has taken the place of it, I can only
answer by pointing to the good old Church Cate-
chism, and what it says about our duty to God and
to our neighbour, and declaring boldly, ' It is be-
' cause you have forgotten that. Because you have
' despised that. Because you have fancied that it
' was beneath yo^j to keep God's plain human
' commandments. You have been wanting to
' " save your souls," while you did not care
' whether your souls were saved alive, or whether
' they were dead, and rotten, and damned within
' you ; you.have dreamed that you could be what
' you called " spiritual," while you were the slaves
• of sin ; you have dreamed that you could become

go DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

'what you call "saints," while you were not yet
' even decent men and women.'

And so all this superstition has had the same
effect as the false preaching in Ezekiel's time had.
It has strengthened the hands of the wicked, that
he should not turn from his wicked way, by pro-
mising him life ; and it has made the heart of the
righteous sad, whom God has not made sad. Plain,
respectable, God-fearing men and women, who have
wished simply to do their duty where God has put
them, have been told that they are still uncon-
verted, still carnal — that they have no share in
Christ — that God's Spirit is not with them — that
they are in the way to endless torture : till they
have been ready one minute to say, ' Let us eat
' and drink, for to-morrow we die ' — ' Surely I have
' cleansed my hands in vain, and washed my heart
' in innocency ; ' and the next minute to say, with
Job, angrily, ' Though I die, thou shalt not take
' my righteousness from me ! You preachers may
' call me what names you will ; but I know that I
' love what is right, and wish to do my duty ; ' and
so they have been made perplexed and unhappy,
one day fancying themselves worse than they really
were, and the next fancying themselves better than
they really were ; and by both tempers of mind
tempted to disbelieve God's Gospel, and throw
away the thought of vital religion in disgust.

And now people are raising the cry that Popery
is about to overrun England. It may be so, my
friends. If it is so, I cannot wonder at it ; if it is
so. Englishmen have no one to blame but them-

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 91

selves. And whether Popery conquers us or not,
some other base superstition surely will conquer us
if we go on upon our present course, and set up
any new-fangled, self-invented righteousness of our
own, instead of the plain Ten Commandments of
God. For I tell you plainly they are God's ever-
lasting law, the very law of liberty, wherewith
Christ has made us free ; and only by fulfilling
them, as Christ did, can we be free — free from sin,
the world, the flesh, and the Devil. For to break
them is to sin : and whosoever commits sin is the
slave of sin ; and v/hosoever despises these com-
mandments will never enjoy that freedom, but be
entangled again in the yoke of bondage, and be-
come a slave, if not to open and profligate sins,
still surely to an evil and tormenting conscience,
to superstitious anxieties as to whether he shall be
saved or damned, which make him at last ask,
' Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord .-' Will
' the Lord be pleased with this, that and the other
' fantastical action, or great sacrifice of mine 1 ' or
at last, perhaps, the old question, ' Shall I give my
' firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my
' body for the sin of my soul .' Shall I cheat my
' own family, leave my property away from my
' children, desert them to shut myself up in a con-
' vent, or to attempt some great religious enterprise?'
— Things which have happened a thousand times
already, and worse, far worse, than them ; things
which will happen again, and worse, far worse than
them, as soon as a hypocritical generation is seized
with that dread and terror of God which is sure to

92 DUTY AND SUPERSTITIQN. [serm.

arise in the hearts of men who try to invent a
righteousness of their own, and who foi^et what
God's righteousness is like, and who therefore for-
get what God is like, and who therefore forget
what God's name is, and who therefore forget that
Jesus Christ is God's likeness, and that the name
of God is ' Love.'

Now, I say that the Church Catechism, from
beginning to end, is the cure for this poison, and
in no part more than where it tells us our duty to
God and our neighbour ; and that it does carry
out the meaning of the text as no other writing
does, which I know of, save the Bible only.

For what says the text .''

' He hath showed thee, O man, what is good.'

Who has showed thee } Who but this very God,
from whom thou art shrinking ; to whom thou art
looking up in terror, as at a hard task-master, reap-
ing where He has not sown, who willeth the death
of a sinner, and his endless and unspeakable tor-
ment .'' The very God whom thou dreadest has
stooped to save and teach thee. He hath sent
His only begotten Son to thee, to show thee, in
the person of a man, Jesus Christ, what a perfect
man is, and what He requires of thee to be. This
Lord Jesus is with thee, to teach thee to live by
faith in thy heavenly Father, even as He lived, and
to be justified thereby, even as He was justified by
being declared to be God's well-beloved Son, and
by being raised from the dead. He will show thee
what is good ; He has shown thee what is good,
when He showed thee His own blessed self, His

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 93

story and character written in the four Gospels.
This is thy God, and this is thy Lord and Master ;
not a silent God, not a careless God, but a revealer
of secrets, a teacher, a guide, a ' most merciful God,
' who showeth to man the thing- which he knew
' not ; ' that same Word of God who talked with
Adam in the garden, and brought his wife to him ;
who called Abraham, and gave him a child ; who
sent Moses to make a nation of the Jews ; who is
the King of all the nations upon earth, and has
appointed them their times and the bounds of their
habitation, if haply they may feel after Him and
find Him ; who meanwhile is not far from any one
of them, seeing that in Him they live, and move,
and have their being, and are His offspring ; who
has not left Himself without witness, that they
may know that He is one who loves, not one who
hates, one who gives, not one who takes, one who
has pity, not one who destroys, in that He gives
them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts
with food and gladness. This is thy God, O man !
from whose face thou desirest to flee away.

Next, ' He hath showed thee, O man! Not
merely, ' He hath showed thee, O deep philosopher,
or brilliant genius ;' — not merely, ' He hath showed
' thee, O eminent saint, or believer who hast been
' through many deep experiences : ' but, ' He hath
showed thee, O 7nan! Whosoever thou art, if thou
be a man, subsisting like Jesus Christ the Son of
Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh ; thou
labourer at the plough, tradesman in thy shop,
soldier in the battle-field, poor woman working in

94 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

thy cottage, God hath showed thee, and thee, and
thee, what is good, as surely and fully as He has
shown it to scholars and divines, to kings and rulers,
and the wise and prudent of the earth.

And He hath showed thee; not you. Not merely
to the whole of you together; not merely to some
of you so that one will have to tell the other, and
the greater part know only at second-hand and by
hearsay : but He hath showed to thee, to each of
you; to each man, woman, and child, in this Church,
alone, privately, in the depths of thy own heart.
He hath showed what is good. He hath sent into
thine heart a ray of The Light who lighteth every
man who comes into the world. He has given to
thy soul an eye by which to see that Light, a con-
science which can receive what is good, and shrink
from what is evil ; a spiritual sense, whereby thou
canst discern good and evil. That conscience, that
soul's eye of thine, God has regenerated, as He
declares to thee in baptism, and He will day by
day make it clearer and tenderer by the quicken-
ing power of His Holy Spirit ; and that Spirit
will renew Himself in thee day by day, if thou
askest Him, and will quicken and soften thy
soul more and more to love what is good, and
strengthen it more and more to hate and fly from
what is evil.

Next, ' He hath showed thee, O man, what is
GOOD.' Not merely what will turn away God's
punishments, and buy God's rewards ; not merely
what will be good for thee after thou diest : but
what is good, good in itself good for thee now, and

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 95

good for thee for ever ; good for thee in health and
sickness, joy and sorrow, life and death ; good for
thee through all worlds, present and to come ; yea,
what would be good for thee in hell, if thou couldst
be in hell and yet be good. Not what is good
enough for thy neighbours and not good enough
for thee, good enough for sinners and not good
enough for saints, good enough for stupid persons
and not good enough for clever ones ; but what is
good in itself and of itself, The one very eternal
and absolute Good which was with God, and in
God, and from God, before all worlds, and will be
for ever, without changing or growing less or
greater, eternally The Same Good. The Good
which would be just as good, and just, and right,
and lovely, and glorious, if there were no world, no
men, no angels, no heaven, no hell, and God were
alone in his own abyss. That very good which is
the exact pattern of His Son Jesus Christ, in whose
likeness man was made at the beginning, God hath
showed thee, O man ; and hath told thee that it is
neither more nor less than thy Duty, thy Duty as
a man ; that thy duty is thy good, the good out of
which, if thou doest it, all good things such as thou
canst not now conceive to thyself, must necessarily
spring up for thee for ever; but which if thou neg-
lectest, thou wilt be in danger of getting no good
things whatsoever, and of having all evil things,
mishap, shame, and misery such as thou canst
not now conceive of, spring up for thee necessarily
for ever.

This seems to me the plain meaning of the text,

95 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

interpreted by the plain teaching of the rest of
Scripture. Now see how the Catechism agrees
with this.

It takes for granted that God has showed the
child what is good : that God's Spirit is sanctify-
ing and making good, not only all the elect people
of God, but him, that one particular child ; and it
makes the child say so. Therefore, when it asks him,
'What is thy duty to God and to thy neighbour.''
it asks him, 'My child, thou sayest that God's
' Spirit is with thee, sanctifying thee and showing
' thee what is good, tell me, therefore, what good
' the Holy Spirit has showed thee .? — tell me what
' He has showed thee to be good, and therefore
' thy duty?'

But some may answer, ' How can you say that
' the Holy Spirit teaches the children their Duty,
' when it is their schoolmaster, or their father, who
' teaches them the Ten Commandments and the
' Catechism .' '

My friends, we may teach our children the Ten
Commandments, or anything else we like, but we
cannot teach them that that is their duty. They
must first know what Duty means at all, before
they can learn that any particular things are parts
of their Duty. And, believe me, neither you nor
I, nor all the men in the world put together, no, nor
angel, nor archangel, nor any created being, nor
the whole universe, can teach one child, no, nor our
own selves, the meaning of that plain word DUTY,
nor the meaning of those two plain words, I OUGHT.
No ; that simple thought, that thought which every

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 97

one of us, even the most stupid, even the most sin-
ful has more or less, comes straight to him from
God the Father of Lights, by the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Duty, Faith, and
Obedience.

For mind — when you teach a child, ' If you do
' this wrong thing — stealing, for instance — God will
' punish you : but if you are honest, God will re-
' ward you,' you are not teaching the child that it
is his Duty to be honest, and his Duty not to steal.
You are teaching him what is quite right and true ;
namely, that it is profitable for him to be honest,
and hurtful to him to steal : but you are not teach-
ing him as high a spiritual lesson as any soldier
knows when he rushes upon certain death, knowing
that he shall gain nothing, and may lose everything
thereby, but simply because it is his Duty. You
are only enticing your child to do right, and
frightening him from doing wrong ; quite neces-
sary and good to be done : but if he is to be
spiritually honest, honest at heart, honest from a
sense of honour, and not of fear ; in one word, if
he is to be really honest at all, or even to try to be
really honest, something must be done to that
child's heart which nothing but the Spirit of God
can do ; he must be taught that it is his DUTY to be
honest ; that hone.sty is RIGHT, the perfectly right,
and proper, and beautiful thing for him and for
all beings, yea, for God Himself; he must be
taught to love honesty, and whatsoever else is
right, for its own sake, and therefore to feel it his
Duty.

H

98 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

And I say that God does that by your children.
I say that we cannot watch our children without
seeing that, though there is in them, as in us, a
corrupt and wilful flesh, which tempts them down-
ward to selfish and self-willed pleasures : yet there
is in them generally, more than in us their parents,
a Spirit which makes them love and admire what is
right, and take pleasure in it, and feel that it is good
to be good, and right to do right ; which makes
them delight in reading and hearing of loving, and
right, and noble actions ; which makes them shocked,
they hardly know why, at bad words, and bad con-
duct, and bad people. And woe to those who
deaden that tenderness of conscience in their own
children, by their bad examples, or by false doctrines
which tell the children that they are .still unre-
generate, children of the Devil, not yet Christians ;
and who so put a stumbling-block in the way of
Christ's little ones, and do despite to the Spirit of
Grace by which they are sealed to the day of
redemption. I see parents thinking that their
children are to learn the deceitfulness of the human
heart from themselves, and the working of God's
Spirit from their parents ; but I often think that
the teachers ought to be converted indeed, that is,
turned right round and become the learners instead
of the teachers, and learn the workings of God's
Spirit from their children, and the deceitfulness of
the human heart from themselves ; if at least the
Lord Jesus's words have any real force or meaning
at all, when He said, not, ' Except the little children
be converted, and become as you,' but, ' Except ye

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 99

' be converted, and become as one of these little
children, ye ' (and not they) ' shall in no wise enter
into the kingdom of heaven.'

Believe me, my friends, that your children's
angels do indeed behold the face of their Father
which is in heaven ; that there is a direct com-
munication between Him and them ; and that the
sign and proof of it is, the way in which they
understand at once what you tell them of their
duty, and take to it, as it were, only too readily
and hopefully, and confidently, as if it were a thing
natural and easy to them. Alas ! it is neither
natural nor easy, and they will find out that too soon
by sad experience : but still, the Divine Light is
there, the sense of duty is in their minds, and the
law of God is written in their hearts by the Holy
Spirit of God, who is sanctifying them, not merely
by teaching them to hope for heaven, or to dread
hell, but by showing them what is good.

And herein, I say, the simple and noble old
Church Catechism, by faith in God's Spirit, does
indeed perfect praise out of the mouths of babes.
Without one word about rewards or punishments,
heaven or hell, it begins to talk to the child, like a
true English Catechism as it is, about that glorious
old English key word, DUTY. It calls on the child
to confess its own duty, and teaches it that its duty
is something most human, simple, every-day, com-
monplace, if you v/ill call it so. I rejoice that it is
commonplace ; I rejoice that in what it says about
our duty to God, and to our neighbour, it says not
one word about those counsels of perfection, or those

n Z

ICX3 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm.

frames and feelings, which depend, beHeve me, prin-
cipally on the state of people's bodily health, on the
constitution of their nerves, and the temper of their
brain : but that it requires nothing except what a
little child can do as well as a grown person, a
labouring man as well as a divine, a plain farmer as
well as the most refined, devout, imaginative lady.
May God bless them all ; may God help them all
to do their Duty in that station of life to which it
has pleased God to call them ; but may God grant
to them never to forget that there is but one Duty
for all, and that all of them can do that Duty
equally well, whatever their constitution, or scholar-
ship, or station of life may be, provided they will
but remember that God has called them to that
station, and not try to invent some new and finer
one for themselves ; provided they remember that
they are to do in that station neither more nor less
than every one else is to do in theirs, namely, to do
justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
their God.

In a word, to be perfect, even as their Father in
heaven is perfect. To do justly, because God is
just, faithful, and true, rewarding every man ac-
cording to his works, and no partial accepter of
persons ; so that in every nation he that feareth
God and worketh righteousness is accepted by
Him.

To love mercy, because God loves mercy ; to be
merciful, because our Father in heaven is merciful ;
because He willeth not the death of a sinner, but
rather that he should turn from his wickedness and

VII.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. loi

live; because God came to seek and to save that
which is lost, and is good to the unthankful and the
evil ; and because God so loved sinful man, that
when man hated God, God's answer to man's hate,
God's vengeance upon man's rebellion, was, to send
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believed in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And to walk humbly with your God, because —
and what shall I say now ? Does God walk
humbly .' Can there be humility in God } Can
God obey } And yet it must be so. If, as is most
certain from Holy Scripture, man, as far as he is
what man ought to be, is the image and glory of
God ; if man's justice ought to be a copy of God's
justice, and man's mercy a copy of God's mercy,
and all which is good in man a copy of something
good in God : if, as is most certain, all good on
earth is God's likeness, and only good because it is
God's likeness, and is given by God's Spirit, —
then our walking humbly with God, if it be good,
must be a copy of something in God. But of
what .''

That, my friends, is a question which can never
be answered but by those who believe in the mystery
of the ever-blessed Trinity, The Father, The Son,
and The Holy Ghost. It is too solemn and great
a matter to be spoken of hastily at the end of a
sermon. I will tell you what little I seem to see
of it next Sunday, with awe and trembling, as one
who enters upon holy ground. But this I will tell
you, to bear in mind meanwhile, that if you wish to
know or to do what is right, you must firmly believe

102 DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. [serm

and bear in mind this, — that God's justice is exactly
hke what would be just in you and me, without any
difference whatsoever : that God's mercy is exactly
like what would be merciful in you and me ; and
that, as I hope to show you next Sunday, God's
humility, wonderful as it may seem, is exactly like
what would be humblein you and me. For I warn
you, that if you do not believe this, you will be
tempted to forget God's righteousness, and to invent
a righteousness of your own, which is no righteous-
ness at all, but unrighteousness. For there can be
but one righteousness — mind what I say — only one
righteousness, as there can be only one truth, and
only one reason. Forget that, and you will be
tempted to invent for yourselves a false justice,
which is dishonest and partial ; a false mercy,
which is cruel ; a false humility, which is vain and
self-conceited ; and you will be tempted also, as men
of all religions and denominations have been, to
impute to God actions, and thoughts, and tempers,
which are (as your own consciences, if you would
listen to God's Word in them, would tell you) unjust,
cruel, and proud ; and then you will be tempted to
say that things are justifiable in God, which you
would not excuse in any other being, by saying :
' Of course it must be right in Him, because He is
' God, and can do what He will' As if the Judge
of all the earth would not do Right ; as if He
could be anything, or could do anything, but the
Eternal Good which is His very being and essence,
and which He has shown forth in His Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, who went about doing good because

vii.] DUTY AND SUPERSTITION. 103

God was with Him. We all know what the good
which He did was hke. Let us believe that God
the Father's goodness is the same as Jesus Christ's
goodness. Let us believe really what we say when
we confess that Jesus was the brightness of His
Father's Glory, and the express image of His
Person.

SERMON VIII.

SONSHIP.

John v. 19, 20, 30.

Then answered Jesus, Verily, verily, I say unto you. The Son can
do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do : for
what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that
Himself doeth.

I can of mine own self do nothing : as I hear, I judge : and my
judgment is just ; because I seek not mine own will, but the will
of my Father which is in Heaven.

THIS, my friends, is why man should walk
humbly and obediently with his God ; be-
cause humility and obedience are the likeness of
the Son of God, who, though He is equal to His
Father, yet to do His Father's will humbled Him-
self, and took on Him the form of a slave, and
though He is a Son, yet learned obedience by
the things which He suffered ; sacrificing Himself
utterly and perfectly to do the commands of His
Father and our Father, of His God and our God ;
and sacrificing Himself to His Father not as a
man merely, but as a son ; not because He was in
the likeness of sinful flesh, but because He was

StRM. VIII.1 SONsmP. loS

The Everlasting Son of His Father ; not once only
on the cross, but from all eternity to all eternity,
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
This is a great mystery ; we may understand some-
what more of it by thinking over the meaning of
those great words. Father and Son.

Now, first, a son must be of the same nature as
his father, — that is certain. Each kind of animal
brings forth after its kind : the lion begets lions,
the sheep, sheep ; the son of a man must be a
man, of one substance with his earthly father ; and
by the same law, the Son of God must be God.
Take away that notion : say that the only-begotten
Son of God is not very God of very God, of one
substance with His Father, and the word son
means nothing. If a son be not of the same sub-
stance as his father, he is not a son at all. And
more, a perfect son must be as great and as good
as his father, exactly like his father in everything.
That is the very meaning of father and son ; that
like should beget like. Among fallen and imper-
fect men, some sons are worse and weaker than
their fathers : but we all feel that that is an evil, a
thing to be sorry for, a sad consequence of our
fallen state. Our reasons and hearts tell us that a
son ought to be equal to his father, and that it is
in some way an affliction, almost a shame, to a
father, if his children are weaker or worse than he
is. But we cannot fancy such a thing in God ; the
only-begotten perfect Son of the Almighty and
perfect Father must be at least equal to His
Father, as great as His Father, as good as His

io6 SONSHIP. [SERM.

Father ; the brightness of His Father's glory, and
the express image of His Father's person.

But there is another thing about father and son
which we must look at, and that is this : a good
son loves and obeys his father, and the better son
he is, the more he loves and obeys his father ; and
therefore a perfect son will perfectly love and per-
fectly obey his father.

Now, here is the great difference between animals
and men. Among the higher animals, the mothers
always, and the fathers sometimes, feed, and help,
and protect their young : but we seldom or never
find that young animals help and protect theii
parents ; certainly, they never obey their fathers
when they are full grown, but are as ready to tear
their fathers in pieces as their fathers are to tear
them : so that the love and obedience of full-grown
sons to their fathers is so utterly human a thing,
so utterly different from anything we find in the
brutes, that we must beheve it to be part of man's
immortal soul, part of God's likeness in man.

And in the text our Lord declares that it is so ;
He declares that His obedience to His Father, and
His Father's love to Him, is the perfect likeness
of what goes on between a good son and a
good father among men ; only that it is perfect,
because it is between a perfect Father and a per-
fect Son.

Father and Son ! Let philosophers and divines
discover what they may about God, they will never
discover anything so deep as the wonder which lies
in those two words, Father and Son. So deep, and

VIII.] soNsniP. 107

yet so simple ! So simple, that the wayfaring man,
though poor, shall not err therein. ' Who is God .'
' What is God like .' Where shall we find Him, or
' His likeness.''' — so has mankind been crying in
all ages, and getting no answer, or making answers
for themselves in all sorts of superstitions, idola-
tries, false philosophies. And then the Gospel
comes, and answers to every man, to every poor
and unlearned labourer : Will you know the name
of God .'' It is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit
of love, joy, peace ; a Spirit of perfect satisfaction
of the Father in the Son, and perfect satisfaction
of the Son with the Father, which proceeds from
both the Father and the Son. It needs no scholar-
ship to understand that Name ; every one may
understand it who is a good father ; every one
may understand it who is a good son, who looks
up to and obeys his father with that filial spirit
of love, and obedience, and satisfaction with his
father's will, which- is the likeness of the Holy
Spirit of God, and can only flourish in any man
by the help of the Holy Spirit which proceeds from
the Father and the Son.

Father and Son ! what more beautiful words arc
there in the world .' What more beautiful sight is
there in the world than a son who really loves his
father, really trusts his father, really does his duty
to his father, really looks up to and obeys his
father's will in all things .'' who is ready to sacrifice
his own credit, his own pleasure, his own success in
life, for the sake of his father's comfort and honour .?
How much more fair and noble must be the love

lo8 SO/VSH/P. tSERM.

and trust which is between God the Father and
God the Son !

I wish that some of those who now write so
many excellent books for young people, would
write one made up entirely of stories of good sons
who have obeyed, and worked for, and suffered for
their parents. Sure I am that such a book, wisely
and well written, would teach young people much
of the meaning of the blessed name of God, much
of their duty to God. And yet, after all, my
friends, is not such a book written already ? Have
we not the four Gospels, which tell us of Jesus
Christ, the perfect Son, who came to do the will
of a perfect Father ? Read that ; read your Bibles.
Read the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, keeping
in mind always that it is the history of the Son of
God, and of His obedience to His Father. And
when in St. John's most wonderful Gospel you
meet with deep te.xts, like the one which I have
chosen, read them too as carefully, if possible more
carefully, than the rest ; for they are meant for all
parents and for all children upon earth. Read
how The Father loves The Son, and gives all
things into His hand, and commits all judgment
to The Son, and gives Him power to have life in
Himself, even as The Father has life in Himself,
and shows Him. all things that Himself doeth, that
all men may honour The Son even as they honour
The Father. Read how The Son came only to
show forth His Father's glory ; to be the bright-
ness of His glory and the express image of His
person : to establish His Father's kingdom ; to

vill ] SONSHIP. 109

declare the goodness of His Father's Name, which
is The Father. How He does nothing of Himself,
but only what He sees His Father do ; how He
seeks not His own will, but the will of the Father
who sent Him ; how He sacrificed all, yea even His
most precious body and soul upon the cross, to
finish the work which His Father gave Him to do.
How, being in the form of God, and thinking it no
robbery to be equal with God, He could boldly
say, 'As the Father knoweth me, even so know I
the Father. I and my Father are one :' and still,
in the fulness of His filial love and obedience,
declared that He had no will, no wish, no work,
no glory, but His Father's ; and in the hour of His
agony cried out, ' Father, if it be possible, let this
' cup pass from me : nevertheless, not my will but
' thine be done.'

My friends, you will be able to understand more
and more of the meaning of these words just in
proportion as you are good sons and good fathers ;
and therefore, just in proportion as you are led
and taught by the Holy Spirit of God, without
whose help no man can be either a good father or
a good son. A bad son ; a disobedient, self-willed,
self-conceited son, who is seeking his own credit
and not his father's, his own pleasure and not his
parent's comfort ; a son who is impatient of being
kept in order and advised, who despises his parent's
counsel, and will have none of his reproof, — to him
these words of our Lord, the deepest, noblest words
which were ever spoken on earth, will have no more
meaning than if they were written in a foreign Ian-

no SONSHIP. [SERM.

guage ; he will not know what our Lord means ;
he will not be able to see why our Lord came and
suffered ; he will not see any beauty in our Lord's
character, any righteousness in His sacrificing Him-
self for His Father ; and because he has forgotten
his duty to his earthly father, he will never learn
his duty to God.

For what is the duty of the Lord Jesus Christ is
our duty, if we are the sons of God in Him. He
is The Son of God by an eternal never-ceasing
generation ; we are the sons of God by adoption.
The way in which we are to look up to God, The
Holy Spirit must teach us ; what is our duty to
God The Holy Spirit must teach us. And who is
The Holy Spirit .'' He is The Spirit who proceeds
from The Son as well as from The Father. He is
The Spirit of Jesus Christ, The Spirit of the Son
of God, the Spirit who descended on the Lord
Jesus when He was baptized, the Spirit which God
gave to Him without measure. He is the Spirit
of The Son of God ; and we are sons of God by
adoption, says Saint Paul ; and because we are
sons, he says, God has sent forth into our hearts
the Spirit of His Son, by whom we look up to God
as our Father; and this Spirit of God's Son, by
whom we cry to God, Abba, Father, St. Paul calls,
in another place, the Spirit of adoption ; and de-
clares openly that He is the very Spirit of God.

Therefore, in whatsoever way the Spirit of God
is to teach you to look up to God, He will teach
you to look up to Hirn as a Father ; the 'Father of
Spirits, and therefore your Father ; for you are a

VIII.] SONSHIP. Ill

spirit. Whatsoever duty to God the Holy Spirit
teaches you, He teaches you first, and before all
things, that it is filial duty, the duty of a son to a
father, because you are the son of God, and God is
your Father.

Therefore, whatsoever man or book tells you
that your duty to God is anything but the duty of a
son to his father does not speak by the Spirit of
God. Whatsoever thoughts or feelings in your
own hearts tell you that your duty to God is any-
thing but the duty of a son to his father, and tempt
you to distrust God's forgiveness, and shrink from
Him, and look up to Him as a taskmaster, and an
austere and revengeful Lord, are not the Spirit of
God ; no, nor your own spirit, ' the spirit of a man,'
which is in you ; for that was originally made in
the likeness of God's Spirit, and by it rebellious
sons arise and go back to their earthly fathers, and
trust in them when they have nothing else left to
trust, and say to themselves, 'Though all the world
' has cast me off", my parents will not. Though all
' the world despise and hate me, my parents love
' me still ; though I have rebelled against them,
' deserted them, insulted them, I am still my
' father's child. I will go home to my own people,
' to the house where I was born, to the parents
' who nursed me on their knee, I will go to my
' father.'

Fathers and mothers ! if your son or daughter
came home to you thus, though they had insulted
you, disgraced you, and spent their substance in
riotous living, would you shut your doors upon

112 SONSniP. [SERM.

them ? Would not all be forgiven and forgotten
at once ? Would not you call your neighbours to
rejoice with you, and say, ' It is good to be merry
' and glad, for this our son was dead and is alive
' again, he was lost and is found ? ' And would not
that penitent child be more precious to you, though
you cannot tell why, than any other of your chil-
dren ? Would you not feel a peculiar interest in
him henceforth ? And do you not know that so
to forgive would be no weak indulgence, but the
part of a good father ; a good, and noble, and
human thing to do ? Ay, a human thing, and
therefore a divine thing, part of God's likeness in
man. For is it not the Hkeness of God Himself?
Has not God Himself, in the Parable of the Pro-
digal Son, declared that He does so forgive His
penitent children, at once and utterly, and that
' There is more joy among the angels of God over
' one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and
' nine just persons who need no repentance ? ' So
says the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son
of God. Let who dare dispute His words, or try
to water them down, and explain them away.

And why should it not be so } Do you fancy
God less of a father than you are .-' Is He not
The Father, the perfect Father, ' from whom every
fatherhood in heaven and earth is named .' ' Oh,
believe that He is indeed a Father ; believe that
all the love and care which you can show to your
children is as much poorer than the love and care
God shows to you, as your obedience to your
earthly parents is poorer and weaker than the love

vni.] SONSHIP. Hi

and obedience of Jesus Christ to His Father. God
is as much better a Father than you are, as Jesus
Christ is a better Son than you are. There is a
sum of proportions ; a rule-of-three sum ; wort: it
out for yourselves, and then distrust God's love if
you dare.

And believe, that whatsoever makes you distrust
God's love is neither the Spirit of God vi^ho is the
spirit of sonship, nor the spirit of man : but the
spirit of the Devil, who loves to slander God to
men, that they may shrink from Him, and be afraid
to arise and go to their Father, to be received again
as sons of God ; that so, being kept from true
penitence, they may be kept from true holiness,
and from their duty to God, which is the duty of
sons of God to their Father in heaven.

Believe no such notions, my friends ; howsoever
humble and reverent they may seem, they are but
insults to God ; for under pretence of honouring
Him, they dishonour Him ; for He is love, and he
who feareth, that is, who looks up to God with
terror and distrust, is not made perfect in love.
So says St. John, in the very chapter wherein he
tells us that God is love, and has manifested His
love to us by sending His Son to be the Saviour
of the world ; and that the very reason for our
loving God is, that He loves us already ; and that
therefore He who loveth not knoweth not God,
for God is love.

Yes, my friends, God is your Father ; and God
is love ; and your duty to God is a duty of love
and obedience to a Father who so loved you anc'

I

H4 SONSmP. [SERM.

all mankind that He spared not His only begotten
Son, but freely gave Him for you. ' Our Father
which art in heaven,' is to be the key-note of all
your duty, as it is to be the key-note of all your
prayers : and therefore the Catechism is right in
teaching the child that God is his Father, and
Jesus Christ the perfect Son of God his pattern,
and the Holy Spirit of the Father and of the Son
his teacher and inspirer, before it says one word to
the child about duty to God, or sin against God.
How indeed can it tell him what sin is, until it
has told him against whom sin is committed, and
that if he sins against God he sins against a Father,
and breaks his duty to his Father .'' And how can
it tell him that till it has told him that God is his
Father .' How can it tell him what sin is till it
has told him what righteousness is .-' How can it
tell him what breaking his duty is till it has told
him what the duty itself is .■" But the child knows
already that God is his Father ; and therefore,
when the Catechism asks him, ' What is his duty
to God .'' ' it is as much as to say, ' My child, thou
' hast confessed already that thou hast a good
' Father in heaven, and thou knowest as well as I
' (perhaps better) what a father means. Tell me,
' then, how dost thou think thou oughtest to behave
' to such a Father } ' And the whole answer which
is put into the child's mouth, is the description
of duty to a father ; of things which there would
be no reason for his doing to anyone who was
not his father ; nay, which he could not do honestly
to anyone else, but only hypocritically, for the

Viii] SOJVSff/P. lis

sake of flattering, and which differs utterly from
any notion of duty to God which the heathen have
ever had just in this, that it is a description of
how a son should behave to a father. Read it for
yourselves, my friends, and judge for yourselves ;
and may God give you all grace to act up to it
— not in order that you, by ' acts of faith,' or ' acts
of love,' or ' acts of devotion,' may persuade God
to love you ; but because He loves you already,
with a love boundless as Himself; because in Him
you live, and move, and have your being, and are
the offspring of God ; because His mercy is over
all His works, and because He loved the world,
and sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved ; be-
cause He is The Giver, The Father of lights, from
whom comes every good and perfect gift ; because
all which makes this earth habitable — all justice,
order, wisdom, goodness, mercy, humbleness, self-
sacrifice — all which is fair, or honourable, or use-
ful, in men or angels, in kings on their thrones or
in labourers at the plough, in divines in their
studies or soldiers in the field of battle — all in the
whole universe, which is not useless, and hurtful,
and base, and damnable, and doomed (blessed
thought that it is so ! ) to be burned up in un-
quenchable fire — all, I say, comes forth from the
Father of the spirits of all flesh, the Lord of Hosts,
who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in work-
ing ; who spared not His only begotten Son, but
freely gave Him for us, and will with Him freely
give us all things.

I 2

SERMON IX.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.

Matt. vi. 9, 10.
After this manner pray ye : Our Father which art in heaven.

I HAVE shown you what a simple account of
our duty to God and to our neighbour the
Catechism gives us. I now beg you to remark,
that simple and every-day as this same duty is,
the Catechism warns us that we cannot do it with-
out God's special grace, and I beg you to remark
further, that the Catechism does not say that we
cannot do these things well without God's special
grace, but that we cannot do them at all. It does
not say that we cannot do all these things of our-
selves, but that we can do none of them. But I
want you to remark one thing more, which is very
noteworthy : that in this case, for the first time
throughout the Catechism, the teacher tells the
child something. All along the teacher has, as I
have often shown you, been making the child tell
him what is right, calling out in the child's heart
thoughts and knowledge which were there already.
Now he in his turn tells the child something which

SERM. IX.J THE LORD'S PRAYER. 117

he takes for granted is not in the child's heart, or
which, if it is, has been put into it by his teachers,
and of which he must be continually reminded,
lest he should forget it ; namely, that he cannot do
these of himself ; that, as St. Paul says, ' in him/
that is, in his flesh, ' dwells no good thing ; ' that
he is not able to think or to do anything as of
himself, but his sufficiency is of God, who works in
him to will and to do of His good pleasure, who
has also given him His Holy Spirit.

The Catechism, in short, takes for granted that
the child knows his duty ; but it takes for granted
also that he does not know how to do that duty.
It takes for granted, that in every child there is
as St. Paul says, ' a law in his members warring
against the law of his mind, and bringing him into
captivity to the law of sin ' (literally, of short
coming, or missing the mark) ' which is in his
members.' Now man's natural inclination is to
suppose that good thoughts are part of himself,
and therefore that a good will to put them in
practice is in his own power. I blame no one for
making that mistake : but I warn them, in the
name of the Bible and of the Catechism, that it is
a mistake, and one which every man, woman, and
child will surely discover to be a mistake, if they
try to act on it. Good thoughts are not our own ;
they are Jesus Christ's ; they come from Hini, The
Life and The Light of men ; they are His voice
speaking to our hearts, informing us of His laws,
showing us what is good. And good desires are
not our own : they come from the Holy Spirit of

Ii8 THE LORD'S PRAYER. [serm.

God, who strives with men, and labours to lift their
hearts up from selfishness to love ; from what is
low and foul, to what is noble and pure ; from what
is sinful and contrary to God's will, to what is right
and according to God's will.

This is the lesson which you and I and every
man have to learn : that in ourselves dwells no
good thing ; but that there is One near us mightiei
than we, from whom all good things do come ; and
that He loves us, and will not only teach us what
is good, but give us the power to do the good we
know. But if we forget that, if we take any
credit whatsoever to ourselves for the good which
comes into our minds, then we shall be surely
taught our mistake by sore afflictions and by
shameful falls ; by God's leaving us to ourselves, to
try our own strength, and to find it weakness ; to
try our own wisdom, and find it folly ; to try our
own fancied love of God, and find that after all our
conceit of ourselves, we love ourselves better, when
it comes to a trial, than we love what is right ;
until, in short, we are driven with St. Paul to feel
that, howsoever much our hearts may delight in
the Law of God, there is a corrupt nature in us
which fights against our delight in God's law, and
will surely conquer it, and make us slaves to our
own fancies, slaves to our passions, slaves to our-
selves, ay, slaves to the very lowest and meanest
part of ourselves : unless we can find a deliverer ;
unless we can find some one stronger than us, who
can put an end to this hateful, shameful war within
US between good wishes and bad deeds.

IX.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 119

And then, if we will but cry with St. Paul, ' Oh,
' wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me
' from the body of this death .-' ' we shall surely,
sooner or later, hear a voice within our hearts, a
voice full of love, of comfort, of fellow-feeling for
us, — ' / will deliver thee, my child ; /, even I thy
' Father in heaven ; I will teach thee, and inform
' thee in the way wherein thou shouldest go ; and I
' will guide thee with mine eye.' And then with
St. Paul we shall be able to answer our own ques-
tion, and say, ' Who will deliver me 1 I thank God,
' that God Himself will deliver me, through Jesus
' Christ our Lord.'

This, then, is the reason why we need to pray :
because we need to be delivered from ourselves.
This is the reason why we may pray, because God
is willing to deliver us from ourselves, if we be
willing.

But every human being round us needs to be
delivered from themselves, just as much as we do.
Without that deliverance we cannot do our duty,
neither can they. And just in proportion as men
are delivered from themselves, will mankind do its
duty, and the world go right.

Now their duty is the same as ours ; and there-
fore the prayer which is right and good for us is
equally right and good for them. And what is
more, we cannot pray rightly for ourselves unless
we pray for them in the very same breath ; for the
Catechism tells us that there is one duty for all of
us, to love and obey and serve our heavenly Father,
and to love our neighbour as ourselves, beraii.se

I20 THE LORD'S PRAYER. [serm

they are our brothers, children of one common
Father, members of the same God's family as we
are, and their interest and ours are bound up
together. Yes, to love all mankind as ourselves ;
for though too many of them, alas ! are not yet in
God's family, and strangers to His covenant, yet
God's will is that they too should come to the
knowledge of the truth ; and therefore for them we
can pray hopefully and trustfully, 'Lord have
' mercy on all men, on Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
' heretics ; and bring them home, blessed Lord, to
' Thy flock, that they may be saved and made one
' fold under one Shepherd, through Jesus Christ
' our Lord, in whom Thou hast declared Thy good
' will to all the children of men.'

This is the right prayer. That all men may do
their duty where God has put them. That those
who, like the heathen, do not know their duty, may
be taught it ; that we who do know it, may have
strength to do it.

And therefore it is that the Catechism teaches
us the need of prayer, immediately after making
us confess our duty; and therefore it is that
it begins by teaching the Lord's Prayer, because
that prayer is the one, of all prayers which ever
have been offered upon earth, which perfectly ex-
presses the duty of man, and man's relation to
Almighty God.

It is throughout a prayer for strength. It con-
fesses throughout what we want strength for, to
what use we are to put God's grace if He bestows
it on us. Our delight in the Lord's Prayer will

IX.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 121

depend on what we consider our duty here on earth
to be.

If we look upon this earth principally as a place
where we are to pray for all the good things which
we can get, our first prayer will be, of course, ' Give
us this day our daily bread.'

If we look at this earth principally as a place
where we have a chance of being saved from
punishment and torment after we die, then our
first prayer will be, ' Forgive us our sins.' And,
in fact, that is all that too many of our prayers now-
a-days seem to consist of, — 'Oh, my Maker, give me
' my daily bread. Oh, my Judge, forgive me mysins.'
Right prayers enough, but spoilt by being taken
out of their place ; spoilt by being prayed before
all other prayers ; spoilt, too, by being prayed for
ourselves alone, and not for other people also.

But if we believe, as the Bible and the Catechism
tell us, that we and all Christian people are God's
children, members of God's family, set on earth in
God's kingdom to do His work by doing our duty,
each in that station of life to which God has called
us, in the hope of a just reward hereafter according
to our works, then our great desire will be for
strength to do our duty, and the Lord's Prayer will
seem to us the most perfect way of asking for that
strength ; and if we believe that we are God's chil-
dren and He our Father, we shall feel sure that we
must get strength from Him, and sure that we
must ask for that strength ; and sure that He will
give it us if we do ask.

But if His will is to give it us, why ask Him

122 THE LORD'S PRA YER. [SERM.

at all ? Why pray at all, if God already knows
our necessities, and is able and willing to supply
them ?

My friends, the longer I live, the more certain I
am that the only reason for praying at all is because
God is our Father ; the more certain I am that we
shall never have any heart to pray unless we believe
that God is our Father. If we forget that, we may
utter to Him selfish cries for bread ; or when we
look at His great power, we may become terrified,
and utter selfish cries to Him not to harm us, with-
out any real shame or sorrow for sin : but few of
us will have any heart to persevere in those cries.
People will say to themselves, ' If God is evil. He
■ will not care to have mercy on me : and if He
' is good, there is no use wearying Him by asking
' Him what He has already intended to give me:
' why should I pray at all ?'

The only answer is, ' Pray, because God is your
Father, and you His child.' The only answer ; but
the most complete answer. I will engage to say,
that if anyone here is ever troubled with doubts
about prayer, those two simple words, 'Our Father,'
if he can once really believe them in their full rich-
ness and depth, will make the doubts vanish in a
moment, and prayer seem the most natural and
reasonable of all acts. It is because we are God's
children, not merely His creatures, that He will
have us pray. Because He is educating us to know
Him ; to know Him not merely to be an Almighty
Power, but a living, loving Person ; not merely an
irresistible Fate, but a Father who delights in the

tx.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 123

love of His children, who wishes to shape them
into His own likeness, and make them fellow-
workers with Him ; therefore it is that He will have
us pray. Doubtless he could have given us every-
thing without our asking ; for He does already give
us almost everything without our asking. But He
wishes to educate us as His children ; to make us
trust in Him ; to make us love Him ; to make us
work for Him of our own free wills, in the great
battle which He is carrying on against evil ; and
that He can only do by teaching us to pray to
Him,, I say it reverently, but firmly. As far as
we can see, God cannot educate us to know Him,
The living, willing, loving Father, unless He teaches
us to open our hearts to Him, and to ask Him
freely for what we want, just because He knows
what we want already.

If I have not made this plain enough to any of
you, my friends, let me go back to the simple,
practical explanation of it which God Himself has
given us in those two words — father and child.

Should you like to have a child who never spoke
to you, never asked you for anything ? Of course
not. And why ? ' Because,' you would say, ' one
' might as well have a dumb animal in one's family
' instead of a child, if it is never to talk and ask
' questions and advice.' Most true and reasonable,
my friends. And as you would say concerning
your children, so says God of His. You feel that
unless you teach your children to ask you for all
they want, even though you know their necessities
before they ask, and their ignorance in asking, you

124 THE LORD'S PRA YER. [serm.

will never call out their love and trust towards you.
You know that if you want really to have your
child to please and obey you, not as a mere tame
animal, but as a willing, reasonable, loving child,
you must make him know that you are training
him ; and you niust teach him to come to you of
his own accord to be trained, to be taught his
duty, and set right where he is wrong : and even so
does God with you. If you will only consider the
way in which any child must be educated by its
human parents, then you will at once see why
prayer to our Heavenly Father is a necessary part
of our education in the kingdom of heaven.

Now the Lord's Prayer, just this sort of prayer,
is man's cry to his Heavenly Father to train him,
to educate him, to take charge of him, daily and
hourly, body and soul and spirit. It is a prayer
for grace, for special grace ; that is, for help, daily
and hourly, in each particular duty and circum-
stance; for help from God specially suited to enable
us to do our duty. And the whole of the prayer
is of this kind, and not, as some think, the latter
part only.

It is too often said that the three first sentences
are not prayers for man, but rather praises to God.
My friends, they cannot be one without being the
other. You cannot, I believe, praise God aright
without praying for men ; you cannot pray for men
aright without praising God ; at least, you cannot
use the Lord's Prayer without doing both at ones,
without at once declaring the glory of God and
praying for the welfare of all mankind.

IX.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 125

' Hallowed be Thy name.' Is not that a prayer
for men as well as praise to God .' Yes, my friends,
when you say, ' Our Father, hallowed be Thy name,'
you pray that all men may come at last to look
up to God as their Father, to love, serve, and obey
God as His children ; and for what higher blessing
can you pray .? Ay, and you pray, too, that men
may learn at last the deep meaning of that word —
father ; that they may see how God-like and noble
a trust God lays on them when He gives them
children to educate and make Christian men ; you
pray that the hearts of all fathers may be turned
to the children, and the hearts of all children to
the fathers ; you pray for the welfare, and the
holiness, and the peace of every home on earth ;
you pray for the welfare of generations yet unborn,
when you pray, ' Our Father, hallowed be Thy
name.'

' Thy kingdom come.' Is not that too, if we
will look at it steadfastly, prayer for our neigh-
bours, prayer for all mankind, and still prayer for
ourselves ; prayer for grace, prayer for the life and
health of our own souls 1

' Thy kingdom come.' — That kingdom of the
Father which Jesus Christ proved by His works on
earth to be a kingdom of justice and righteousness,
of love and fellow-feeling. When we pray, ' Thy
kingdom come,' it is as if we said, ' Son of God,
' root out of this sinful earth all self-will and law-
' lessness, all injustice and cruelty ; root out all
' carelessness, ignorance, and hardness of heart ;
• root out all hatred, envy, slander ; root them out

126 THE LORD'S PRA YER. [serm.

'of all men's hearts; out of my heart, for I have
' the seeds of them in me. Make me, and all men
■ round me, day by day, more sure that Thou art
' indeed our King ; that Thou hast indeed taught
' us the laws of Thy Father's kingdom ; and that,
' only in keeping them and loving them is there
' health, and righteousness, and safety for any soul
' of man, for any nation under the sun.' ' Thy will
be done ; ' — no, not merely ' Thy will be done ; '
but done ' on earth as it is in heaven ; ' done, not
merely as the trees and the animals, the wind and
clouds, do Thy will, by blindly following their
natures, but done as angels and blessed spirits do
it, of their own will. They obey Thee as living,
willing, loving persons ; as Thy sons : teach us to
obey Thee in like manner ; lovingly, because we
love Thy will ; willingly, because our wills are
turned to Thy will ; and therefore, oh Heavenly
Father, take charge of these wayward wills and
minds of ours, of these selfish, self-willed, ignorant,
hasty hearts of ours, and cleanse them and renew
them by Thy Spirit, and change them into Thy
likeness day by day. Make us all clean hearts, oh
God, and renew within us a right spirit, the copy
of Thine own Holy Spirit. Cast us not away from
Thy presence, for from Thee alone comes our soul's
life ; take not from us Thy Holy Spirit, who is
The Lord and Giver of Life ; whose will is Thy
will ; who alone can strengthen and change us to
do Thy will on earth, as saints and angels do in
heaven, and to be fellow-workers with each other,
fellow-workers with Thee, O God, even as those

IX.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 127

blessed spirits are who minister day and night to
all Thy creatures.

' Give us this day our daily bread.' People some-
times divide the Lord's Prayer into two parts — the
ascriptions and the petitions — and consider that
after we have sufficiently glorified and praised God
in the first three sentences of the prayer, then we
are at liberty to begin asking something for our-
selves, and to say ' Give us day by day our daily
bread.' I cannot think so, my friends. I have
been showing you that ' Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,' if we do
but recollect that they are spoken to our Father,
are just as much prayers for all mankind, as they
are hymns of honour to God ; and so I say of these
latter: 'Give us — Forgive us — Lead us not — De-
liver us ' — that if we will but remember that they,
too, are spoken to our Father, we shall find that
they are just as much hymns of honour to God as
prayers for mankind.

Yes, my friends, when we say, ' Give us this day
our daily bread,' we do indeed honour God and the
name of God. We declare that He is Love, that
He is The Giver, The absolutely and boundlessly
generous and magnanimous Being. And what higher
glory and honour or praise can we ascribe, even to
God Himself, than to say that of Him .' Next, we
pray not for ourselves only, but for our neighbours ;
for England, for Christendom, for the heathen who
know not God, and for generations yet unborn.
We pray that God would so guide, and teach, and
preserve the children of men, as to enable them to

128 THE LORD'S PRAYER. [serm.

fulfil in every country and every age the work
which He gave them to do, when He said, ' Be
' fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue
it' We know that our Father has commanded us
to labour. We know that our Father has so well
ordered this glorious earth, that whosoever labours
may reap the just fruit of his labour ; therefore we
pray that God would prosper our righteous plans
for earning our own living. We pray to Him not
only so to order the earth that it may bring forth
its fruits in due season, but that men may be in a
fit state to enjoy those fruits, that God may not be
forced for their good to withhold from them bless-
ings which they might abuse to their ruin. But we
pray, also, 'Give us:' not me only, but us; and
therefore we pray that He would prosper our
neighbour's plans as well as ours. So we confess
that we believe God to be no respecter of persons ;
we confess that we believe He will not take bread
out of others' mouths to give it to us ; we declare
that God's curse is on all selfishness and oppression
of man by man ; we renounce our own selfishness,
the lust which our fallen nature has to rise upon
others' fall, and say, ' Father, we are all children at
' Thy common table. Thou alone canst prosper
' the richest and the wisest ; Thou alone canst
' prosper the poorest and the weakest ; Thou wilt
' do equal justice to all some day, and we confess
' that Thou art just in so doing ; we only ask Thee
' to do it now, and to give us and all mankind that
' which is good for them.'

Thus we pray not for this generation only, but

IX.] THE LORD'S PR A YER. 129

for generations yet unborn ; not for this nation of
England only, but for heathens and savages beyond
the seas. When we say, ' Give us our daily bread,'
we pray for every child here and on earth, that he
may receive such an education as may enable him
to get his daily bread. We pray for learned men
in their studies, that they may discover arts and
sciences which shall enrich and comfort nations yet
unborn. We pray for merchants on the seas, that
the}^ may discover new markets for trade, new lands
to colonize and fill with Christian men, and extend
the blessings of industry and civilization to the
savage who lives as the beasts which perish and
dwindles down off the face of the earth by famine,
disease, and war, the victim of his own idleness,
ignorance, and improvidence.

And all the while we are praying for the widow
and the orphan, that God would send them friends
in time of need ; for the houseless wanderer, for
the shipwrecked sailor, for sick persons, for feeble
infants, that God would send help to them who
cannot help themselves, and soften our hearts and
the hearts of all around us, that we may never
turn our faces away from any poor man, lest the
face of the Lord be turned away from us.

So far we have been praying to our Heavenly
Father, first as a Father, then as a King, then as
an Inspirer, then as a Giver ; and next we pray to
Him as a For^wzx — ' Forgive us our trespasses.'
We have been confessing in these four petitions
what God's goodwill to man is ; what God wishes
man to be, how man ought to live and believe,

K

I30 THE LORD'S PR A YER. [SERM.

And then comes the recollection of sin. We must
confess what God's law is before we can confess
that we have broken it ; and now we do confess
that we have broken it. We know that God is our
Father. How often have we forgotten that He is
a father ; how often have we forgotten to be good
fathers ourselves.

We are in God's kingdom. How often have we
behaved as if we were our own kings, and had no
masters over us but our own fancies, tempers, appe-
tites ! We are to do His will on earth as it is
done in heaven. How have we been doing our
own will ! — pleasing ourselves, breaking loose from
His laws, trying to do right of our own wills and
in our own strength, instead of asking His Spirit
to strengthen, and cleanse, and renew our wills, and
so have ended by doing not the right which we
knew to be right, but the wrong which we knew to
be wrong. God is a giver. How often have we
loolced on ourselves as takers, and fancied that we
must as it were steal the good things of this world
from God, lest He should forget to give us what
was fitting ! How often have we forgotten that
God gives to all men, as well as to us ; and while
we were praying, give me my daily bread, kept
others out of their daily bread !

Oh, my friends, we cannot blame ourselves too
much for all these sins ; we cannot think them too
heinous. We cannot confess them too openly ; we
cannot cry too humbly and earnestly for forgive-
ness. But we never shall feel the full sinfulness of
sin ; we never shall thoroughly humble ourselves

IX.] THE LORD'S PRAYER. 131

in confession and repentance, unless we remember
that all our sins have been sins against a Father,
and a forgiving Father, and that it is His especial
glory, the very beauty and excellence in Him,
which ought to have kept us from disobeying
Him, that He does forgive those who disobey
Him.

And, lastly, in like manner, when you say, ' Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver,' &c., you are
not only entreating God to lead you, but you are
honouring and praising Him, you are setting forth
His glory, and declaring that He is a God who
does lead, and a God who does not leave His poor
creatures to wander their own foolish way, but
guides men, in spite of all their sins, full of con-
descension and pity, care and tender love. You
do not only ask God to deliver you from evil, but
you declare that He is righteous, and hates evil ;
that He is love, and desires to deliver you from
evil ; One who spared not His only-begotten Son,
but gave Him freely for us, to deliver us from evil ;
and raised Him up, and delivered all power into
His hand, that He might fight His Father's battle
against all which is hurtful to man and hateful to
God, till death itself shall be destroyed, and all
enemies put under the feet of the Saviour God.

SERMON X.

THE DOXOLOGY.

Psalm viii. i and sqq.

O I^ord our Governor, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth,

Thou that hast set Thy glory above the heavens !
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained

strength, because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the

enemy and the avenger.

THIS is the text which I have chosen to-day,
because I think it will help us to understand
the end of the Lord's Prayer, which tells us to say
to our Father in Heaven, ' Father, Thine is the
' kingdom ; Father, Thine is the power ; Father,
' Thine is the glory.'

The man who wrote this psalm had been looking
up at the sky, spangled with countless stars, with
the moon, as if she were the queen of them all,
walking in her brightness. He had been looking
round, too, on this wonderful earth, with its count-
less beasts, and birds, and insects, trees, herbs, and
flowers, each growing, and thriving, and breeding
after their kind, according to the law which God
had given to each of them, without any help of
man. And then he had thought of men, how

SERM. X.] THE DOXOLOGY. 133

small, weak, ignorant, foolish, sinful they were, and
said to himself, ' Why should God care for men

• more than for these beasts, and birds, and insects

• round ? Not because he is the largest and
' strongest thing in the world ; for I will consider
' Thy heavens, even the work of Thy hands, the
' moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained,
' how much greater, more beautiful they are than
' poor human beings. May not glorious beings,
' angels, be dwelling in them, compared to whom
' man is no better than a beast ? '

And yet he says to himself, ' I know that God,
' though He has put man lower than the angels,
' has crowned him with glory and honour. I know
' that, whatever glorious creatures may live in the
' sun, and moon, and stars, God has given man the
' dominion and power here, on this world. I know
' that even to babes and sucklings God has given
' a strength, because of His enemies — that He
■ may silence the enemy and the avenger ; and I
' know that by so doing, God has set His glory
' above the heavens, and has shown forth His glory
' more in these little children, to whom He gives
' strength and wisdom, than He has in sun, and
' moon, and stars.'

Now how is that .'' The Catechism, I think, will
tell us. The Doxology, at the end of the Lord's
Prayer, will tell us, if we consider it.

If you will listen to me, I will try and show you
what I mean.

Suppose I took one of your children, and showed
him that large bright star, which you may see now

134 THE DOXOLOGY. [SERM.

every evening, shining in the south-vi'est, and said
to him, 'My child, that star, which looks to you
' only a bright speck, is in reality a world — a world
' fourteen hundred times as big as our world. We
' have but one moon to light our earth ; that little
' speck has four moons, each of them larger than
' ours, which light it by night. That little speck of
' a star seems to you to be standing still ; in reality,
' it is travelling through the sky at the rate of
' 25,000 miles an hour.' What do you think the
child's feeling would be .■' If he were a dull child,
he might only be astonished ; but if he were a
sensible and thoughtful child, do you not think
that a feeling of awe, almost of fear, would come
over him, when he thought how small and weak
and helpless he was, in comparison of those mighty
and glorious stars above his head .'

And next, if I turned the child round, and bade
him look at that comet or fiery star, which has ap-
peared lately low down in the north-west, and said,
' My child, that comet, which seems to you to hang
' just above the next parish, is really eighty
' millions of miles off from us. That bright spot
' at the lower part of it is a fiery world as large as
' the moon, — that tail of fiery light which you see
' streaming up from it, and which looks a few feet
' long, is a stream of fiery vapour, stretching,
' most likely, hundreds of thousands of miles

■ through the boundless space. It seems to you

■ to be sinking behind the trees so slowly that

■ you cannot see it move. It is really rushing
' towards us now, with its vast train of light, at the

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. 135

' rate of some eighty thousand miles an hour.'
And suppose then, if, to make the child more
astonished than ever, I went on — ' Yes, my child,
' every single tiny star which is twinkling over your
' head is a sun, a sun as large, or larger than our
' own sun, perhaps with worlds moving round it, as
' our world moves round our sun, but so many
' milHons of miles far off, that the strongest spy-
' glass cannot make these stars look any larger, or
' show us the worlds which we believe are moving
' round them.'

Do you not think that just in proportion to the
child's quickness and understanding, he would be
awed, almost terrified .''

And lastly, suppose that to puzzle and astonish
him still more, I took a chance drop of water out
of any standing pool, and showed him through a
magnifying-glass, in that single drop of water,
dozens, perhaps hundreds, of living creatures so
small that it is impossible to see them with the
naked eye, each of them of some beautiful and
wonderful shape, unlike anything which you ever
saw or dreamed of, but each of them alive, each of
them moving, feeding, breeding, after its kind, each
fulfilling the nature which God has given to them
and told him, ' All the whole world, the air which
' you breathe, the leaves on the trees, the soil under
' your feet, ay, even often the food which you eat,
' and your own flesh and blood, are as full of wonder-
' ful things as that drop of water is. You fancy that
' all the life in the world is made up of the men and
' women in it, and the few beasts, and birds, and

136 THE DOXOLOGY. [serm.

insects, which you see about you in the fields.
But these Hving things v.'hich you do see are not a
millionth part of the whole number of God's
creatures ; and not one smallest plant or tiniest
insect dies, but what it passes into a new life, and
becomes food for other creatures, even smaller
than, though just as wonderful as itself Every
day fresh living creatures are being discovered,
filling earth, and sea, and air, till men's brains are
weary with counting them, and dizzy with watching
their unspeakable beauty, and strangeness, and
fitness for the work which God has given each of
them to do.'

And then suppose I said to the child, ' God cares
for each of these tiny living creatures. How do
you know that He does not care for them as much
as He does for you .'' God made them for His own
pleasure, that He might rejoice in the work of His
own hands. How do you know that He does not
rejoice in them as much as in you } Those mighty
worlds and suns above your head, which you call
stars, how do you know that they are not as much
more glorious and precious in God's sight than you
are, as they are larger and more beautiful than you
are 1 And mind ! all these things, from the tiniest
insects in the water-drop, to the most vast star or
comet in the sky, all obey God. They have not
fallen, as you have ; they have not sinned, as you
have ; they have not broken the law, by which God
intended them to live, as you have. The Bible tells
you so ; and the discoveries of learned men prove
that the Bible is right, when it declares that they all

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. 137

' continue to this day according to His ordinance; for
' all things serve Him ; that sun, and moon, and stars,
■ and light are praising Him; that fire and hail, snow
' and vapour, wind and storm, mountains and all hills,
' fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle,
' worms and feathered fowl, are showing forth His
' glory day and night ; because He has made them
' sure for ever and ever, each according to its kind,
' and given them a law which shall not be broken ;
' for all His works praise Him, and show the glory of
' His kingdom, and the mightiness of His power, that
' His power. His glory, and the mightiness of His
' kingdom might be known unto the children of
' men.

' And you ! — They keep God's ordinance, and you
' have broken it ; they fulfil God's word, you fulfil
' your own fancies. They have a law which shall
' not be broken, you break God's law daily. Are not
' they better than you .' Is not, not merely sun and
' stars, but even the meanest gnat which hums in the
' air, better than man, more worthy of God's love
' than man } For man has sinned, and they have
' not.'

Do you not think that I should sadden, and
terrify the child, and make him ready to cry out,
' Whither shall I flee from the wrath of this great
' Almighty God ; who has made this wondrous
' heaven and earth, and all of it obeys Him, except
' me — I a rebel against Him who made and rules
•dlthis.?'

My friends, I only say, suppose that I spoke thus
to your children. For God forbid that I should

138 THE DOXOLOGY. [SERM.

speak thus to any human being, without having first
taught him the Lord's Prayer, without first having
taught him to say, ' I believe in Jesus Christ, Very
' God of Very God, who was born of the Virgin
' Mary, and took m_an's nature on Him ;' without
having taught him to say, ' Our Father which art
' in heaven. Thine is the kingdom, and the power,
' and- the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.' So it is,
and so let it be : for so it is well, and so I am safe,
sinner and rebel though I be.

I would not say it, unless I had taught him this ;
for then I should be speaking the Devil's words, and
doing the Devil's work : for these are the thoughts
of which he always takes advantage, whenever he
finds them in men's hearts ; because he is the enemy
who hates men, and the avenger who punishes them
for their bad thoughts, by leading them on into dark
and fearful deeds ; because he is the Devil, the Slan-
derer, as his name means, and slanders God to men,
and tries always to make them believe that God does
not care for men, and grudges them blessings ; in
order that he may make men dread God, and shrink
from Him into their own pride, or their own carnal
lusts and fancies.

These are the thoughts of which the Devil took
advantage in the heathen in old times, and tempted
them to forget God — God, who had not left Him-
self without a witness, in that He gave them rain
and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food
and gladness — God, whose unseen glory, even His
eternal power and Godhead, may be clearly seen
from the creation of the world, being understood

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. 139

from the things which a^e made — God, in whom,
as St. Paul told the heathen, they lived and moved,
and had their being, and were the offspring of God.
This— that man is the offspring of God, and has
a Father in heaven — is the great truth which the
Devil has been trying to hide from men in every
age, and by a hundred different devices. By making
them forget this, he tempted them to worship the
creature instead of the Creator ; to pray to sun and
moon and stars, to send them fair weather, good
crop.s, prosperous fortune: to look up to the heaven
above them, and down to the earth beneath their
feet, in slavish dread and anxiety : and pray to the
sun, not to blast them to the seas, not to sweep
them away ; to the rivers and springs, not to let
them perish from drought ; to earthquakes, not to
swallow them up ; ay, even to try to appease those
dark fierce powers, with whom they thought the
great awful world was filled, by cruel sacrifices of
human beings ; so that they offered their sons and
their daughters to devils, and burned their own
children in the fire to Moloch, the cruel angry
Fire King, whom they fancied was lord of the
earthquakes and the burning mountains. So did
the Canaanites of old, and so did the Jews after
them ; whensoever they had forgotten that God was
their Father, who had bought them, and that the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, throughout
heaven and earth, were His, then at once they began
to be afraid of heaven and earth, and worshipped
Baalim, and Astaroth, and the Host of Heaven,
which were the sun and moon and stars, and

t40 THE DOXOLOGV. [serM.

Moloch the Fire King, and Thammuz the Lord
of the Spring-time, and with forms of worship
which showed plainly enough, either by their
cruelty or their filthy profligacy, who was the
author of them, and that man, when he forgets
that heaven and earth belong to his Father, is in
danger of becoming a slave to his own lowest
lusts and passions.

And do not fancy, my friends, that because you
and I are not likely to worship sun and moon and
stars as the old heathen did, that therefore we
cannot commit the same sin as they did.

My friends, I believe that we are in more danger
of committing it in England just now than ever we
were ; that learned men especially are in danger of
so doing, because they know so far more of the
wonders and the vastness of God's creation than
the heathens of old knew.

But you are not learned, you will say : you are
plain people, who know nothing about these won-
derful discoveries which men make by telescopes
and magnifying-glasses, but use your own eyes in a
plain way to get your daily bread, and you feel no
such temptations. You believe, of course, that the
kingdom and power and glory of all we see is God's.

Yes ; but do you believe too that He whom
people are too apt to call God, just because they
have no other name to call Him, is your Father }
That it is your Father's will which governs the
weather, which makes the earth bear fruit and
gladden the heart of man with good and fruitful
seasons ?

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. 141

Alas, my friends, if we will open our eyes, see
things in their true light, and call things by their
true name, we shall see many a man in England
now honouring the creature more than the Creator ;
trusting in the seasons and the soil more than he
does in God, and so sinning in just the same way
as the heathen of old.

When people say to themselves, ' I must get land,
' I must get money, by any means ; honestly if I can,
' if not, dishonestly ; for have it I must ; ' what are
they doing then but denying that the kingdom, the
power, and the glory of this earth belong to the
Righteous God, and that He, and not the lying
Devil, gives them to whomsoever He will ?

When people say to themselves (as who does not
at moments ?) ' To be rich is to be safe ; a man's
' life does consist in the abundance of what he pos-
' sesses ; ' what are they doing but saying that man
does not live by every word which proceeds out of
the mouth of God, but by what he can get for him-
self and keep fo'r himself ? When they are fretful
and anxious about their crops, when they even
repine and complain of Providence, as I have
known men do because they do not prosper as
they wish, what are they doing but saying in their
hearts, ' The weather and the seasons are the lords
'and masters of my good fortune, or bad fortune.
' I depend on them, and not on God, for comfort
' and for wealth, and my Heavenly Father does not
' know what I have need of 1 ' When parents send
their girls out to field-work, without any care about
whom they talk with, to have their minds corrupted

142 THE DOXOLOGY. [serm.

by hearing filthiness and seeing immodest beha-
viour, what are they doing but offering their
daughters in sacrifice, not even to Moloch, but to
Mammon ; saying to themselves, ' My daughter's
■ modesty, my daughter's virtue, is not of as much
' value as the paltry money which I can earn by
' leaving her alone to learn wickedness, instead of
' keeping watch over her, if she does work, that she
' may be none the worse for her day's labour.'

I might go on and give you a thousand instances
more, but they all come alike to this ; that when-
soever you fancy that you cannot earn your daily
bread without doing wrong yourself, or leaving
your children to learn wrong, then you do not
believe that the kingdom, the power, and the glory
of this earth on which you work is your Heavenly
Father's. For if you did, you would be certain
that gains, large or small, got by breaking the least
of His commandments, could never prosper you,
but must bring a curse and a punishment with
them ; and you would be sure also, that because
God is your Father, and this earth and all herein
is His, that He would feed you with food sufficient
for you, if you do but seek first His kingdom —
that is, try to learn His laws ; and seek first His
righteousness— that is, strive and pray day by day
to become righteous even as He is righteous.

Yes, my friends, this is one meaning, though
only one, of St. John's words, ' This is the victory
which overcometh the world, even our faith.' We
all see the world full of pleasant things, for which
we long; of necessary things, too, without which

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. i43

we should starve and die. And then the tempta-
tion comes to us to snatch at these things for our-
selves by any means in our power, right or wrong ;
like the dumb animals who break out of their
owners' field into the next, if they do but see
better pasturage there, or fight and quarrel be-
tween themselves for food, each trying to get the
most for himself and rob his neighbour. So live
the beasts, and so you and I, and every human
being shall be tempted to live, if we follow our
natures, if we forget that we are God's children, in
God's kingdom, under the laws of a Heavenly
Father, who has shown forth His own love and
justice. His own kingdom, and power, and glory, in
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if we
remember that, if we remember daily that the
kingdom, and power, and glory is our Father's,
then we shall neither fear storms and blights, bad
crops, or anything else which is of the earth earthly.
We shall fear nothing of that kind, which can only
kill the body, but only fear the evil Devil, lest,
by making us distrust and disobey our Heavenly
Father, he should, after he has killed, destroy both
body and soul in hell. And as long as we fear
him, as long as we renounce him, as long as we
trust utterly in our Heavenly Father's love and
justice, and in the love and justice of His dear
Son, the Man Christ Jesus, to whom all power is
given in heaven and earth — then out of the young-
est child among us will God's praise be perfected ;
for the youngest child among us, by faith in God
his Father, may look upon all heaven and earth.

144 THE DOXOLOGY. [SERM.

and say, ' Great, and wonderful, and awful as this
' earth and skies may be, I am more precious in
' the sight of God than sun, and moon, and stars ;
' for they are things : but I am a person, a spirit,
' an immortal soul, made in the likeness of God,
' redeemed into the likeness of God, sanctified into
' the likeness of God. This great earth was here
'thousands and thousands of 'years before I was
' born, and it will be here perhaps millions and
' millions of years after I am dead ; but it cannot
' harm me ; it cannot kill me. When earth, and
' sun, and stars are past away, I shall live for ever ;
' for I am the immortal child of an Immortal
' Father, the child of the everlasting God. These
' things He only made : but me He begot unto
everlasting life, in Jesus Christ my Lord. I seem
' to depend on this earth for food, for clothing, for
' comfort, for life itself: and yet I do not do so in

■ reality ; for man doth not live by bread alone,
' but by every word which proceeds out of the

■ mouth of God my Father. In Him I have eternal
' life : a life which this earth did not give, and
' cannot take away ; a life which, by the mercy of
' my Father in heaven, I trust and hope to be
' living when sun and earth, stars and comets, are
' returned again to their dust, and blotted from the
' face of heaven. For the kingdom, the glory, and
' the power of this world, and all other worlds,
' past, present, and to come, belong to Him who
' spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave
' Him for us, and will with Him freely give us all
' things.'

X.] THE DOXOLOGY. I45

And thus, my friends, may God's praise be per-
fected out of the mouth of any Christian child,
when He declares that God put man a little lower
than the angels only to crown him with the glory
and worship of having the only-begotten Son of
God take man's nature upon Him, and walk this
earth as a man, and live, and die, and rise again as
a man, that so He mig^t raise fallen man again to
the glory and honour which God appointed for
men from the beginning, when He said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness : and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and the fowl of the air, and the beast of the earth ;
and be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth and subdue it.

SERMON XI.

AHAB AND NABOTH.

I Kings xxi. 2, 3.

And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I
may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my
house : and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it ; or,
if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the vporth of it in
money. And Naboth said unto Ahab, The Lord forbid it me,
that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

YOU heard to-day read for the first lesson, the
story of Naboth and King Ahab. Most of
you know it well. Naboth's vineyard has passed
into a proverb for something which we covet.

It is good that it should be so. We cannot know
our Bible too well ; we cannot have Bible words
and Bible thoughts too much worked into our ways
of talking and thinking about every-day matters.
As far as I can see, the best days of England, the
best days of every Christian country of which I
ever read, have been days when men were not
ashamed of their Bibles ; when they were ready to
live by their Bibles ; to ask advice of their Bibles
about buying and selling, about making war and

SERM, XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 147

peace, about a:ll the business of life ; and were not
ashamed to quote texts of Scripture in the parlia-
ment, and in the market, and in the battle-field, as
God's law, God's rule, God's word about the matter
in hand, which was, therefore, sure to be the right
word and the right rule. People are grown ashamed
of doing so now-a-days ; but that does not alter
the matter one jot. We may deny God, but He
cannot deny Himself. His laws are everlasting,
and He is ruling and judging us by them now, all
day long, just as much as He ruled and judged
those Jews by them of old. The God of Abraham
is our God ; the God of Moses is our God ; the God
of Ahab and Naboth is our God ; neither He nor
His government are altered in the least since their
time, and they never will alter for ever, and ever, and
ever ; and if we do not choose to believe that now
in this life, we shall be made to believe it by some
very ugly and painful schooling in the life to come.

What laws of God, now, can we learn from this
story .?

First, we may learn what a sacred 'Crix'sxg property
is. That a man's possessions (if they be justly
come by) belong to him, in the sight of God as
well as in the sight of man, and that God will
uphold and avenge the man's right.

Naboth, you see, stands simply on his right to
his own property. ' The Lord forbid it me, that
' I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto
' thee.' I do not think that he meant that God
had actually forbidden him : it seems to have been
only some sort of oath which he used. He may cer-

L 2

u8 AHAS AND NABOTH. [serm.

tainly have had reasons for thinking it wrong to
part with his lands ; hurtful, perhaps, to his family
after him. Yet, as Ahab had promised him a
better vineyard for it, or its worth in money, I
cannot help thinking that Naboth's reason was the
one which shows on the face of his words. It was
the inheritance of his fathers, this vineyard. They
had all worked in it, generation after generation ;
perhaps, according to the Jewish custom, they were
buried somewhere in it ; at least, it had been theirs
and now was his ; he had worked in it, and played
in it — perhaps since he was a child — and he loved
it ; it was part and parcel of his father's house to
him, a sacred spot.

And so it should be. It is a holy feeling which
makes a man cling to the bit of land which he has
inherited from his parents, even to the cottage,
though it be only a hired one, where he has lived
for many a year, and where he has planted and
tilled, perhaps with some that he loved, who are
now dead and gone, or grown up and gone out
into the world, till the little old cottage-garden is
full of remembrances to him of past joys and past
sorrows. The feeling which makes a man cling to
his home and to his own land is a good feeling, and
breeds good in the man. It makes him respect
himself ; it keeps him from being reckless and un-
settled. It is a feeling which should not be broken
through. It is seldom pleasant to see land change
hands ; it is seldom pleasant to see people turned
out of their cottages. It must often be so, but let
it be as seldom as possible. One likes to see a

XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 149

family take root in a place, and grow and thrive
there, one generation after another; and you will
find, my friends, that families do take root and
thrive in a place just in proportion as they fear
God and do righteousness. The Psalms tell you,
again and again, that the way to abide in the land,
and prosper in it, is to trust in the Lord and be
doing good ; and that the wicked are soon rooted
out, and their names perish out of the land. One
sees that come true daily.

But to return to Naboth. He loved his own
land, and therefore he had a right to keep it. We
may say it was but a fancy of his, if he could have
a better vineyard, or the worth of it in money
Remember, at least, that God respected that fancy
of his, and justified it, and avenged it. When (after
Naboth's death) Elijah accused Ahab, in God's
name, he put two counts into the indictment ; for
Ahab had committed two sins. ' Hast thou killed,
and also taken possession .' ' Killing was one sin ;
taking possession was another.

And so Ahab learnt two weighty and bitter
lessons. He learnt that God's Law stands for
ever, though man's law be broken or be forgotten
by disuse. For you must understand, that these
Jews were a free people, even as we are. They
were not like the nations round about them, or as
the Russians are now — slaves to their king, and
holding their property only at his will. The law
of Moses had made them a free people, who held
their property each man from God, by God's Law,
which had said, ' Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt

I so AHAB AND NABOTH. [serm.

' not covet. Cursed is he who removes his neigh-
' hour's landmark.' And their kings were bound to
govern by Moses' law, just as our kings and rulers
are bound to govern by the old constitutions of
England, and to do equal justice by rich and poor.
But the wicked kings of Israel were trying to break
through that law, and make themselves tyrants and
despots, such as the Czar of Russia is now. First,
Jeroboam began by trying to wean his people from
Moses' law, by preventing their going up to worship
at Jerusalem, and making them worship instead the
golden calves at Dan and at Bethel. For he knew
that if he could make idolaters of them, he should
soon make slaves of them ; and he succeeded ; and
the kingdom of Israel grew more miserable year
by year ; and now Ahab, his wicked successor, was
breaking down the laws of property and wrongfully
taking away his subjects' lands. Perhaps he said
in his heart, ' I am king ; there is no law stronger
than I. I have a right to do what I like.' If he
did so, he found that he was mistaken. He found
that though he forgot Moses' law, God had not ;
that the law stood there still, because it was
founded on eternal justice, which proceeds for ever
out of the mouth of God ; and by the Law, which
he had chosen to forget, he was judged ; by the
Law of God, which deals equal justice to rich and
poor, which is, like God Himself, no acceptor of
persons ; but says, ' Thou shalt not covet,' to the
king upon his throne as sternly as to the beggar on
the dunghill.

And that Law stands still, my friends, doubt it

XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 151

not. Thanks to the wisdom and justice of our
forefathers who built the laws of England on those
old Ten Commandments, which hang for a sign
thereof in every church to this day. Thanks to
them, I say, and to God, the root of the law of
England is, equal justice between man and man,
be he high or low ; and it is a thing to bless God
for every day of our lives, that here the poor man's
little is as safe as the rich man's wealth : but there
is many a sin of oppression, many a sin of covet-
ousness, my friends, which no law of man can
touch. Make laws as artfully as you will, bad men
can always slip through them, and escape the spirit
of them, while they obey the letter : and I suppose
it will be so to the world's end ; and that, let the
laws be as perfect as they may, if any man wishes
to cheat or oppress his neighbour, he will surely be
able to work his wicked will in some way or other.
Well then, my friends, if man's law is weak, God's
is not ;— if man's law has flaws and gaps in it,
through which covetousness can creep, God's has
none ; — even if (which God forbid) man's law died
out, and sinners were left to sin without fear of
punishment, still God's Law stands sure, and the
eye of the living God slumbers not, and the hand
of the living God never grows weary, and out
of the everlasting heaven His voice is saying,
day and night, for ever, ' I endure for ever. I
'sit on the throne judging right; a sceptre of
' righteousness is the sceptre of My kingdom. I
' judge the world in justice, and minister true
' judgment unto the people. I also will be a

IS2 AHAB AND NABOTH. [serm.

' refuge for the oppressed, even a refuge in due
' time of trouble.'

O hear those words, my friends ! hear and obey,
if you love life, and wish to see good days ; and
never, never say a thing is right, simply because
the law cannot punish you for it. Never say in
your hearts when you are tempted to be hard,
cruel, covetous, over-reaching, ' What harm .-' I
break no law by it' There is a law, whether you
see it or not ; you break a law, whether you con-
fess it or not ; a law which is as a wall of iron
clothed with thunder, though man's law be but a
flimsy net of thread ; and that law, and not any
Acts of Parliament, shall judge you in the day
when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed,
and every man shall receive the due reward of the
deeds done in the body, not according as they were
allowed or not by the Statute Book, but according
as they were good or evil.

Another lesson we may learn from this story :
that if we give way to our passions, we give way
to the Devil also. Ahab gave way to his passion ;
he knew that he was wrong ; for when Naboth
refused to sell him the vineyard, he did not dare
openly to rob him of it ; he went to his house
heavy of heart, and fretted, like a spoilt child, be-
cause he could not get what he wanted. It was
but a little thing, and he might have been content
to go without it. He was king of all Israel, and
what was one small vineyard more or less to him .'
But prosperity had spoilt him ; he must needs have
every toy on which he set his heart, and he was

XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 153

weak enough to fret that he could not get more,
when he had too much already. But he knew that
he could not get it ; that, king as he was, Naboth's
property was his own, and that God's everlasting
Law stood between him and the thing he coveted.
Well for him if he had been contented with fretting.
But, my friends — and be you rich or poor, take
heed to my words — whenever any man gives way
to selfishness, and self-seeking, to a proud, covetous,
envious, peevish temper, the Devil is sure to glide
up and whisper in his ear thoughts which will make
him worse — worse, ay, than he ever dreamt of being.
First comes the flesh, and then the Devil ; and if
the flesh opens the door of the heart, the Devil
steps in quickly enough. First comes the flesh :
fleshly, carnal pride at being thwarted ; fleshly,
carnal longing for a thing, which longs all the more
for it because one cannot have it ; fleshly, carnal
peevishness and ill-temper, at not having just the
pleasant thing one happens to like. That is a
state of mind which is a bird-call for all the devils ;
and when they see a man in that temper, they flock
to him, I believe, as crows do to carrion. It is
astonishing, humbling, awful, my friends, what
horrible thoughts will cross one's mind if once one
gives way to that selfish, proud, angry, longing
temper ; thoughts of which we are ashamed the
next moment ; temptations to sin at which we
shudder, they seem so unlike ourselves, not parts
of ourselves at all. When the dark fit is past, one
can hardly believe that such wicked thoughts ever
crossed one's mind. 1 don't think that they are part

154 AHAB AND NABOTH. [serm.

of ourselves ; I believe them to be the whispers of
the Devil himself; and when they pass away, I
believe that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who drives
them away. But if any man gives way to them,
determines to keep his sullenness, and so gives
place to the Devil ; then those thoughts do not
pass ; they take hold of a man, possess him, as the
Bible calls it, and make him in his madness do
things which — alas ! who has not done things in
his day, of which he has repented all his life after ?
— things for which he would gladly cut off his right
hand for the sake of being able to say, ' I never did
that ? ' But the thing is done — done to all eternity :
he has given place to the Devil, and the Devil has
made him do in five minutes work which he could
not undo in five thousand years ; and all that is
left is, when he comes to himself, to cast himself
on God's boundless mercy, and Christ's boundless
atonement, and cry, ' My sins are like scarlet, Thou
' alone canst make them whiter than snow : my sin
' is ever before me ; only let it not be ever before
' Thee, O God ! Punish me, if thou seest fit ; but oh
' forgive, for there is mercy with Thee, and infinite
' redemption ! ' And, thanks be to God's great
love, he will not cry in vain. Yet, oh, my friends,
do not give place to the Devil, unless you wish,
forgiven or not, to repent of it to the latest day
you live.

And this was Ahab's fate. He knew, I say, that
he was wrong ; he knew that Naboth's property
was his own, and dare not openly rob him of it ;
and he went to his house, heavy of heart, and

XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 155

refused to eat ; and while he was in such a temper
as that, the Devil lost no time in sending an evil
spirit to him. It was a woman whom he sent,
Jezebel, Ahab's own wife : but she was, as far as
we can see, a woman of a devilish spirit, cruel,
proud, profligate, and unjust, as well as a wor-
shipper of the filthy idols of the Canaanites. Ahab's
first sin was in having married this wicked heathen
woman: now his sin punished itself; she tempted
him through his pride and self-conceit ; she taunted
him into sin : ' Dost thou now govern the kingdom
' of Israel 'i I will give thee the vineyard of Na-
' both.' You all remember how she did so ; by
falsely accusing Naboth of blasphemy. Ahab seems
to have taken no part in Naboth's murder. Perhaps
he was afraid ; but he was a weak man, and Jezebel
was a strong and fierce spirit, and ruled him, and
led him in this matter, as she did in making him
worship idols with her ; and he was content to be
led. He was content to let others do the wicked-
ness he had not courage to carry out himself He
forgot that, as is well said, ' He who does a thing
by another, does it by himself; ' that if you let
others sin for you, you sin for yourself Would to
God, my friends, that we would all remember this !
How often people wink at wrong-doing in those
with whom they have dealings, in those whom they
employ, in their servants, in their children, because
it is convenient to them. They shut their eyes, and
their hearts too, and say to themselves, ' At all
' events, it is his doing and not mine ; and it is his
' concern ; I am not answerable for other people's

156 AHAB AND NASOTH. [Serm.

' sins. I v/ould not do such a thing myself, cer-
' tainly ; but as it is done, I may as well make the
' best of it. If I gain by it, I need not be so very
' sharp in looking into the matter.' And so you
see men who really wish to be honest and kindly
themselves, making no scruple of profiting by other
people's dishonesty and cruelty. Now the law
punishes the receiver of stolen goods almost as
severely as the thief himself: but there are many
receivers of stolen goods, my friends, whom the law
cannot touch. The world, at times, seems to me to
be full of them ; for every one, my friends, who
hushes up a cruel or a dishonest matter, because he
himself is a gainer by it, he is no better than the
receiver of stolen goods, and he will find in the day
of the Lord, that the sin will lie at his door, as
Jezebel's sin lay at Ahab's. There was no need for
Ahab to say, ' Jezebel did it, and not I.' The pro-
phet did not even give him time to excuse himself;
' Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also
taken possession '> ' By taking possession of Na-
both's vineyard, and so profiting by his murder, he
made himself partaker in that murder, and had to
hear the terrible sentence, ' In the place where dogs
' licked the blood of Naboth, dogs shall lick thy
' blood, even thine.'

Oh, my friends, whatsoever you do, keep clean
hands and a pure heart. If you touch pitch, it will
surely stick to you. Let no gain tempt you to be
partaker of others men's sins ; never fancy that, be-
cause men cannot lay the blame on the right person,
God cannot. God will surely lay the burden on

XL] AHAS AND NABOTH. 157

the man who helped to make the burden ; God will
surely require part payment from the man who
profited by the bargain ; so keep yourselves clear
of other men's sins, that you may be clear also of
their condemnation.

So Ahab had committed a horrible and great sin,
and had received sentence for it, and now, as I said
before, there was nothing to be done but to repent ;
and he did so, after his fashion.

Ahab, it seems, was not an utterly bad man ; he
was a weak man, fond of his own pleasure, a slave
to his own passions, and easily led, sometimes to
good, but generally to evil. And God did not exe-
cute full vengeance on him : his repentance was a
poor one enougli ; but such as it was, the good and
merciful God gave him credit for it as far as it
went, and promised him that the worst part of his
sentence, the ruin of his family, should not come in
his time. But still the sentence against him stood,
and was fulfilled. Not long after, as we read in the
second lesson, he was killed in battle, and that not
bravely and with honour (for if he had been, that
would have been but a slight punishment, my
friends), but shamefully by a chance shot, after he
had disguised himself, in the cowardice of his guilty
conscience, and tried to throw all the danger on his
ally, good King Jehoshaphat of Judah ; ' and they
' washed his chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the
' dogs licked up his blood, according to the word of
' the Lord, which he spake by Elijah the prophet.'

So ends one of the most clear and terrible stories
in the whole Bible, of God's impartial justice. May

IS? AHAB AND NABOTH. [serM.

God give us all grace to lay it to heart ! We are
all tempted, as Ahab was ; rich or poor, our tempta-
tion is alike to give place to the Devil, and let him
lead us into dark and deep sin, by giving way to
our own fancies, longings, pride, and temper. We
are all tempted, as Ahab was, to over-reach our
neighbours in some way ; I do not mean always in
cheating them, but in being unfair to them, in caring
more for ourselves than for them ; thinking of our-
selves first, and of them last ; trying to make our-
selves comfortable, or to feed our own pride, at
their expense. Oh, my friends, whenever we are
tempted to be selfish and grasping, be sure that we
are opening a door to the very Devil of hell him-
self, though he may look so smooth, and gentle,
and respectable, that perhaps we shall not know
him when he comes to us, and shall take his coun-
sels for the counsel of an angel of light. But be
sure that if it is selfishness which has opened the
door of our heart, not God, but the Devil, will come
in, let him disguise himself as cunningly as he will;
and our only hope is to flee to Him in whom there
was no selfishness, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came
not to do His own will, but His Father's ; not to
glorify Himself, but His Father; not to save His
own life, but to sacrifice it freely, for us. His selfish,
weak, greedy, wandering sheep. Pray to Him to
give you His Spirit, that glorious spirit of love, and
duty, and self-sacrifice, by which all the good deeds
on earth are done ; which teaches a man not to
care about himself, but about others ; to help
others, to feel for others, to rejoice in their happi-

XI.] AHAB AND NABOTH. 159

ness, to grieve over their sorrows, to give to them,
rather than take from them — in one word, The
Holy Spirit of God, which may He pour out on you,
and me, and all mankind, that we may live justly
and lovingly, as children of one just and loving
Father in heaven.

SERMON XII.

THE LIGHT OF GOD.
[Preached for the Chelsea National Schools. '\

Ephesians v. 13.

All things which are reproved are made inanifest by the light : for
•whatsoever is made manifest is light.

THIS is a noble text, a royal text ; one of those
texts which forbid us to clip and cramp
Scripture to suit any narrow notions of our own ;
which open before us boundless vistas of God's love,
of human knowledge, of the future of mankind.
There are many such texts, many more than we
fancy ; but this is one which is especially valuable
at the present time ; one especially fit for a sermon
on education ; for it is, as it were, the scriptural
charter of the advocate of education. It enables
him boldly to say, ' There is nothing I will refuse
' to teach ; there is nothing which man shall forbid
' me to teach ; there is nothing which God has made
' in heaven or earth about which I will not tell the
' truth boldly to the young.'

For light comes from God. God is light, and in

SERM. XII.] THE LIGHT OF GOD. i6i

Him is no darkness at all. And therefore He
wishes to give light to His children. He willeth
not that the least of them should be kept in dark-
ness about any matter. Darkness is of the Devil ;
and he who keeps any human soul in darkness, let
his pretences be as reverent and as religious as they
may, is doing the Devil's work. Nothing, then,
which God has made will we conceal from the
young.

True, there are errors of which we will not speak
to the young ; but they are not made by God :
they are the works of darkness. Our duty is to
teach the young what God has made, what He has
done, what He has ordained ; to make them freely
partakers of whatsoever light God has given us.
Then, by means of that light, they will be able to
reprove the works of darkness.

For whatsoever is made manifest is light. Our
version says, ' Whatsoever makes manifest is light.'
That is true, a noble truth ; but I should not be
honest, if I did not confess that that is not what
St. Paul says here. He says, ' That which is made
manifest is light' On this the best commentators
and scholars agree. Our old translators have made
a mistake, though in grammar only, and have sub-
stituted one great truth for another equally great.

'Whatsoever is made manifest is light.' We
should have expected this, if we are really Chris-
tians. If we have faith in God ; if we believe that
God is worthy of our faith— a God whom we can
trust ; in whom is neither caprice, deceit, nor dark-
ness, but pure and perfect light ; — if we believe that

M

1^2 TitE LIGHT OF GOD. [SERM.

we are His children, and that He wishes us to be,
Hke Himself, full of light, knowing what we are and
what the world is, because we know who God is ; —
if we believe that He sent His Son into the world
to reveal Him, to unveil Him, to draw aside the
veil which dark superstition and ignorance had
spread between man and God, and to show us the
glory of God ; — if we believe this, then we shall be
ready to expect that whatsoever is made manifest
would be light ; for if God be light, all that He has
made must be light also. Like must beget like,
and therefore light must beget light, good beget
good, love beget love ; and therefore we ought to
expect that as true and sound knowledge increases,
our views of God will be more full of light.

Yes, my friends ; under the influence of true
science God will be no longer looked upon, as He
was in those superstitions which we well call dark,
as a proud, angry, capricious being, as a stern task-
master, as one far removed from the sympathy of
men : but as one of whom we may cheerfully say,
Thy name be hallowed, for Thy name is Father ;
Thy kingdom come, for it is a Father's kingdom ;
Thy will be done, for it is a Father's will ; and in
doing Thy will alone men claim their true dignity
of being the sons of God.

Our views of our fellow-men will be more cheer-
ful also ; more full of sympathy, comprehension,
charity, hope ; in one word, more full of light. If
it be true (and it is true) that God loves all, then
we should expect to find in all something worthy
of our love. If it be true that God willeth that

Xit.j TitE LIGHT OP GOb. t53

none should perish, we should expect to find in each
man something which ought not to perish. If it be
true that God stooped from heaven, yea stoops
from heaven eternally, to seek and to save that
which is lost, then we should have good hope that
our efforts to seek to save that which is lost will
not be in vain. We shall have hope in every good
work we undertake, for we shall know that in it we
are fellow-workers with God.

Our notions of the world — of God's whole uni-
verse, will become full of light likewise. Do we
believe that this earth was made by Jesus Christ ? —
by Him who was full of grace and truth .? Do we
believe our Bibles, when they tell us, that He hath
given all created things a law which cannot be
broken ; that they continue as at the beginning,
for all things serve Him .' Do we believe this ?
Then we must look on this earth, yea on the whole
universe of God, as, like its Master, full of grace
and truth ; not as old monks and hermits fancied
it, a dark, deceiving, evil earth, filled with snares
and temptations ; a world from which a man ought
to hide himself in the wilderness, and find his own
safety in ignorance. Not thus, but as the old
Hebrews thought of it, as a glorious and a divine
universe, in which the Spirit of God, the Lord and
Giver of life, creates eternal melody, bringing for
ever life out of death, light out of darkness, letting
his breath go forth that new generations may be
made, and herein renew the face of the earth.

And experience teaches us that this has been
the case ; that for near one thousand eight hundred

M 2

1 64 THE LIGHT OF GOD. [seRM.

years there has been a steady progress in the mind
of the Christian race, and that this progress has
been in the direction of light.

Has it not been so in our notions of God ? What
has the history of theology been for near one
thousand eight hundred years ? Has it not been a
gradual justification of God, a gradual vindication
of His character from those dark and horrid notions
of the Deity which were borrowed from the Pagans,
and from the Jewish Rabbis ? a gradual return to
the perfect good news of a good God, which was
preached by St. John and by St. Paul i" — In one
word, a gradual manifestation of God ; and a gra-
dual discovery that when God is manifested, behold,
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all .■'

That progress, alas ! is not yet perfect. We still
see through a glass darkly, and we are still too apt
to impute to God Himself the darkness of those
very hearts of ours in which He is so dimly mirrored.
And there are men still, even in Protestant England,
who love darkness rather than light, and teach men
that God is dark, and in Him are only scattered
spots of light, and those visible only to a favoured
few ; men who, whether from ignorance, or covet-
ousness, or lust of power, preach such a deity as
the old Pharisees worshipped, when they crucified
the Lord of Glory, and offer to deliver men, for-
sooth, out of the hands of this dreadful phantom of
their own dark imaginations.

Let them be. Let the dead bury their dead, and
let us follow Christ. Believe indeed that He is the
likeness of God's glory, and the express image of

XII.] THE LIGHT OF GOD. 165

God's person, and you will be safe from the dark
dreams with which they ensnare diseased and super-
stitious consciences. Let them be. Light is stronger
than darkness ; Love stronger than cruelty. Perfect
God stronger than fallen man ; and the day shall
come when all shall be light in the Lord ; when all
mankind shall know God, from the least unto the
greatest, and lifting up free foreheads to Him who
made them, and redeemed them by His Son, shall
in spirit and in truth, worship The Father.

Does not experience again show us that in the
case of our fellow-men, whatsoever is made manifest,
is light .■"

How easy it was, a thousand years ago — a hun-
dred years ago even, to have dark thoughts about
our fellow-men, simply because we did not know
them ! Easy it was, while the nations were kept
apart by war, even by mere difficulty of travelling,
for Christians to curse Jews, Turks, Infidels, and
Heretics, and believe that God willed their eternal
perdition, even though the glorious collect for Good
Friday gave their inhumanity the lie. Easy to per-
secute those to whose opinions we could not, or
would not, take the trouble to give a fair hearing.
Easy to condemn the negro to perpetual slavery,
when we knew nothing of him but his black face •
or to hang by hundreds the ragged street-boys,
while we disdained to inquire into the circumstances
which had degraded them ; or to treat madmen as
wild beasts, instead of taming them by wise and
gentle sympathy.

But with a closer knowledge of our fellow-crea-

1 66 THE LIGHT OF GOD. [serm.

tures has come toleration, pity, sympathy. And as
that sympathy has been freely obeyed, it has justi-
fied itself more and more. The more we have tried
to help our fellow-men, the more easy we have
found it to help them. The more we have tru.sted
them, the more trustworthy we have found them.
The more we have treated them as human beings,
the more humanity we have found in them. And
thus man, in proportion as he becomes manifest to
man, is seen, in spite of all defects and sins, to be
hallowed with a light from God who made him.

And if It has been thus, in the case of God and
of humanity, has it not been equally so in the case
of the physical world ] Where are now all those
unnatural superstitions — the monkish contempt for
marriage and social life, the ghosts and devils; the
astrology, the magic, and other dreams of which
I will not speak here, which made this world, in
the eyes of our forefathers, a doleful and dreadful
puzzle ; and which made man the sport of arbitrary
powers, of cruel beings, who could torment and de-
stroy us, but over whom we could have no righteous
power in return .■' Where are all those dark dreams
gone which maddened our forefathers into witch-
hunting panics, and which on the Continent created
a priestly science of witch-finding and witch-destroy-
ing, the literature whereof (and it is a large one)
presents perhaps the most hideous instance known
of human cruelty, cowardice, and cunning } Where,
I ask, are those dreams now } So utterly vanished,
that very few people in this church know what a
great part they played in the thoughts of our fore-

XII.] THE LIGHT OF COD. 167

fathers ; how ghosts, devils, witches, magic, and
astrology, filled the minds, not only of the ignorant,
but of the most learned, for centuries.

And now, behold, nature being made manifest, is
hght. Science has taught men to admire where
they used to dread ; to rule where they used to
obey ; to employ for harmless uses what they were
once afraid to touch; and, .where they once saw
only fiends, to see the orderly and beneficent laws
of the all-good and almighty God. Everywhere,
as the work of nature is unfolded to our eyes, we
see beauty, order, mutual use, the offspring of per-
fect Love as well as perfect Wisdom. Everywhere
we are finding means to employ the secret forces of
nature for our own benefit, or to ward off physical
evils which seemed to our forefathers as inevitable,
supernatural ; and even the pestilence, instead of
being, as was once fancied, the capricious and mira-
culous infliction of some demon — the pestilence
itself is found to be an orderly result of the same
laws by which the sun shines and the herb grows ;
a product of nature ; and therefore subject to man,
to be prevented and extirpated by him, if he will.

Yes, my friends, let us teach these things to our
children, to all children. Let us tell them to go to
the Light, and see their Heavenly Father's works
manifested, and know that they are, as He is, LigJit.
I say, let us teach our children freely and boldly to
know these things, and grow up in the light of them.
Let us leave those to sneer at the triumphs of
modern science who trade upon the ignorance and
the cowardice of mankind, and who say, ' Provided

i68 THE LIGHT OF GOD. [serm.

' you make a child religious, what matter if he does
' fancy the sun goes round the earth ? Why occupy
'-his head, perhaps disturb his simple faith, by
' giving him a smattering of secular science ? '

Specious enough is that argument : but short-
sighted more than enough. It is of a piece with
the wisdom which shrinks from telling children that
God is love, lest they should not be sufficiently
afraid of Him ; which forbids their young hearts to
expand freely towards their fellow-creatures ; which
puts into their mouths the watchwords of sects and
parties, and thinks to keep them purer Christians
by making them Pharisees from the cradle.

My friends, we may try to train up children as
Pharisees : but we shall discover, after twenty years
of mistaken labour, that we have only made them
Sadducees. The path to infidelity in manhood is
superstition in youth. You may tell the child never
to mind whether the sun moves round the earth or
not: but the day will come when he will mind in
spite of you ; and if he then finds that you have
deceived him, that you have even left him in wilful
ignorance, all your moral influence over him is
gone, and all your religious lessons probably gone
also. So true is it, that lies are by their very nature
self-destructive. For all truth is of God ; and no
lie is of the truth, and therefore no lie can possibly
help God or God's work in any human soul. For
as the child ceases to respect his teachers he ceases
to respect what they believe. His innate instinct
of truth and honour, his innate longing to beheve,
to look up to some one better than himself, have

XII.] THE LIGHT OF GOD. 169

been shocked and shaken once and for all ; and it
may require long years, and sad years, to bring
him back to the faith of his childhood. Again I
say it, we must not fear to tell the children the
whole truth ; in these days above all others which
the world has yet seen. You cannot prevent their
finding out the truth : then for our own sake, let
us, their authorized teachers, be the first to tell it
them. Let them in after life connect the thought
of their clergyman, their schoolmaster, their church,
with their first lessons in the free and right use of
their God-given faculties, with their first glimpses
into the boundless mysteries of art and science.
Let them learn from us to regard all their powers
as their Heavenly Father's gift ; all art, all science,
all discoveries, as their Heavenly Father's revela-
tion to men. Let them learn from us not to shrink
from the light, not to peep at it by stealth, but to
claim it as their birthright ; to v/elcome it, to
live and grow in it to the full stature of men —
rational, free, Christian English men. This, I
beheve, must be the method of a truly Protestant
education.

I said Protestant — I say it again. What is the
watchword of Protestantism 1 It is this. That no
lie i.s of the truth. There are those who complain
of us English that we attach too high a value to
Truth. They say that falsehood is an evil : but
not so great a one as we fancy. We accept the
imputation. We answer boldly that there can be
no greater evil than falsehood, no greater blessing
than truth ; and that by God's help we will teach

I70 THE LIGHT OF GOD. [Serm.

the same to our children, and to our children's chil-
dren. Free inquiry, religious as well as civil liberty
— this is the spirit of Protestantism. This our
fathers have bequeathed to us ; this we will be-
queath to our children ; — to know that all truth is
of God, that no lie is of the truth. Our enemies
may call us heretics, unbelievers, rebellious, political
squabblers. They may say in scorn. You Protest-
ants know not whither you are going; you have
broken yourselves off from the old Catholic tree,
and now, in the wild exercise of your own private
judgment, you are losing all that standard of doc-
trine, all unity of belief. Our answer will be — It is
not so : but even if it were so — even if we did not
know whither we were going — we should go forward
still. For though we know not, God knows. We
have committed ourselves to God, the living God;
and He has led us; and we believe that He will
lead us. He has taught us ; and we believe that
He will teach us still. He has prospered us, and
we believe that He will prosper us still : and there-
fore we will train up our children after us to 'go on
the path which has brought us hither, freely to use
their minds, boldly to prove all things, and hold
fast that which is good; manfully to go forward,
following Truth whithersoever she may lead them ;
trusting in God, the Father of Lights, asking Him
for wisdom, who giveth to all liberally, and up-
braideth not ; and it shall be given them.

I have been asked to preach this day for the
National Schools of this parish. I do so willingly,
because I believe that in them this course of educa-

XII.] THE LIGHT OF GOD. 171

tion is pursued, that conjoined with a sound teach-
ing in the principles of our Protestant church, and
a wholesome and kindly moral training, there is
free and full secular instruction as far as the ages of
the children will allow. Were it not the case, I
could not plead for these schools ; above all at this
time, when the battle between ancient superstition
and modern enlightenment in this land seems fast
coming to a crisis and a death struggle. I could
not ask you to help any school on earth in which I
had not fair proof that the teachers taught, on
physical and human as well as on moral subjects,
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help them God.

SERMON XIII.

PROVIDENCE.

Matthew vi. 31, 32, 33.

Be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, what shall we
drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these
things do the heathen seek :) for your Heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things
shall be added unto you.

WE must first consider carefully what this text
really means ; what ' taking no thought for
the morrow ' really is. Now, it cannot mean that
we are to be altogether careless and imprudent ; for
all Scripture, and especially Solomon's Proverbs,
give us the very opposite advice, and one part of
God's Word cannot contradict the other. The
whole of Solomon's Proverbs is made up of lessons
in prudence and foresight ; and surely our Lord did
not come to do away with Salomon's Proverbs, but
to fulfil them. And more, Solomon declares again
and again, that prudence and foresight are the gifts
of God ; and God's gifts are surely meant to be
used. Isaiah, too, tells us that '/he common work
of the farm, tilling the ground, sowing, and reaping,

SERM. XIII.] PROVIDENCE. 173

were taught to men by God ; and says of the
ploughman, that ' His God doth instruct him to
discretion and doth teach him.' Neither can God
mean us to sit idle with folded hands waiting to be
fed by miracles. Would He have given to man
reason, and skill, and the power of bettering his
mortal condition by ten thousand instructions if He
had not meant him to use those gifts .'' We find
that, at the beginning, Adam is put into the garden,
not to sit idle in it, nor to feed merely on the fruits
which fall from the trees, as the dumb animals do,
but to dress it, and to keep it ; to use his own
reason to improve his own condition, and the land
on which God had placed him. Was not the very
first command given to man to replenish the earth
and subdue it .■" And do we not find in the very
end of Scripture the Apostles working with their
own hands for their daily bread ?

But what use of many words .'' It is absurd to
believe anything else ; absurd to believe that man
was meant to live like the butterfly, flitting without
care from flower to flower, and, like the butterfly, die
helpless at the first shower or the first winter's frost.
Whatever the text means, it cannot mean that.

And it does not mean that. I suppose, that three
hundred years ago (when the Bible was translated
out of the Greek tongue, in which the Apostles
wrote, into English), 'taking thought' meant some-
thing different from what it does now: but the
plain meaning of the text, if it be put into such
English as we talk now, is, ' Do not fret about the
morrow. Be not anxious about the morrow.' There

174 PROVlDENCk. [sERM.

is no doubt at all, as any scholar can tell you, that
that is the plain meaning of the word in our modern
English, and that our Lord is not telling us to be
imprudent or idle, but not to be anxious and fretful
about the morrow.

And more, I think if we look carefully at these
words, we shall find that they tell us the very
reason why we are to work, and to look forward,
and to believe that God will bless our labour.

And what is this reason .' It is this, that we
have a Father in heaven ; not a mere Maker, not a
mere Master, but a Father. All turns on that one
Gospel of all Gospels, your Father in heaven. For
our Lord seems to me to say, ' Be not anxious for
' your life, what ye shall eat, or drink, or wear. Is

■ not the life more than meat t Has not your
' Heavenly Father given you a higher life than the

■ mere life which must be kept up by food, which
' He has given to the animals .'' He has made you
' reasonable souls ; He has given to you wisdom
' from His own wisdom, and a share of the Light
' which lights every man who comes into the world,
' the Light of Christ His Son ; He has created you
' in His own likeness, that like Him you may make
' things, be makers and inventors, each in his place
' and calling, each according to his talents and
' powers, even as your Heavenly Father, the Maker
' and Creator of all things. And if He has given
' you all these wonderful powers of mind and soul,

■ surely He has given you the less blessing, the
' mere power to earn your own food .' If He has

■ made you so much wiser than the beasts, surely

XIII.] PROVIDENCE. ifS

He has made you as wise as the beasts.' ' And is
' not the body more than raiment ? ' Has He not
given you bodies which can speak, write, build,
work, plant, in a thousand cunning and wonderful
ways ; bodies which can do a thousand nobler
things than merely keep themselves warm, as the
beasts do ? Then be sure, if He has given you the
greater power, He has given you the less also. And
as for fine clothes and rich ornaments, ' Is not the
body more than raiment .' ' Is not your body a
far more beautiful and nobler thing than all the
gay clothes with which you can bedizen it .'' If
your bodies be fair, strong, healthy, useful, it
matters little what clothes you put upon them.
Why will you not have faith in your Heavenly
Father } Why will you not have faith in the great
honour which He put on you when He said at first,
' Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,
• and let him have dominion over all things on the
' earth ' ? Be sure, that God would not have made
man, and given him all these powers, and sent him
upon this earth, unless this earth had been a right
good and fit place for him. Be sure that if you
obey the laws of this earth where God has put you,
you will never need to be anxious or fret ; but you
will prosper right well, you and your children after
you. For ' Consider the fowls of the air, they
' neither sow, nor reap, and gather into barns, and
' yet your Heavenly Father feeds them ; and are ye
' not much better than they >' Surely you are, for
you can sow, and reap, and gather into barns. And
if God makes the earth work so well that it feeds

IJ'S PROVIDENCE. [SERM.

the fowls who cannot help themselves, how much
more will the earth feed you who can help your-
selves, because God has given you understanding
and prudence ? But as for anxiety, fretting, re-
pining, complaining to God, ' Why hast Thou made
me thus ? ' what use in that ? ' Which of you by
taking thought can add one cubit to his stature ? '
Will all the fretting and anxiety in the world make
you one foot or one inch taller than you are ? Will
it make you stronger, wiser, more able to help
yourself? You are what you are : you can do what
God has given you power to do. Trust Him that
He has made you strong enough and wise enough
to earn your daily bread, and to prosper right well,
if you will, upon this earth which He has made.
And why be anxious about clothing .'' ' Consider
' the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil
' not, neither do they spin ; and yet Solomon in all
' his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' But
man can toil, man can spin ; your Heavenly Father
has given to man the power of providing clothes
for himself, and not for himself only, but for others;
so that while the man who tills the soil feeds the
man who spins and weaves, the man who spins and
weaves shall clothe the man who tills the soil ; and
the town shall work for the country, while the
country feeds the town ; and every man, if he does
but labour where God has put him, shall produce
comforts for human beings whom he never saw,
who live perhaps in foreign lands across the sea.
For the Heavenly Father has knit together the
great family of man in one blessed bond of mutual

xill.j PROVIDENCE. i77

need and mutual usefulness all over the world ; so
that no member of it can do without the other, and
each member of it — each individual man — let him
work at what thing he will, can make many times
more of that thing than he needs for himself, and
so help others while he earns his own living ; and
so wealth and comfort ought to increase year by
year among the whole family of men, ay, and
would increase, if it were not for sin. Yes, my
friends, if it were not for that same sin — if it were
not that men do not seek first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness, there would be no
end, no bound to the wealth, the comfort, the
happiness of the children of men. Even as it is,
in spite of all man's sin, the world does prosper
marvellously, miraculously ; in spite of all the waste,
destruction, idleness, ignorance, injustice, and folly
which goes on in the world, mankind increases and
replenishes the earth, and improves in comfort and
in happiness ; in spite of all, God is stronger than
the Devil, life stronger than death, wisdom stronger
than folly, order stronger than disorder, fruitfulness
stronger than destruction ; and they will be so,
more and more, till the last great day, when Christ
shall have put all enemies under His feet, and
death is swallowed up in victory, and all mankind
is one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ, the
righteous King of all.

But some may ask. What does our Lord mean
when He says, ' That if we sought first the kingdom
' of God and His righteousness, all these things
' should be added to us 1 '

N

178 PROVIDENCE. [serm.

I cannot tell you altogether, my friends ; for eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered
into the heart of man to conceive what God has
prepared for those who love Him. But this I can
tell you, that these things are taken from men,
instead of being added to them, by their not seek-
ing first God's kingdom and His righteousness. I
can tell you, as the Prophet does, that it is the sins
of man which withhold good things from him ; be-
cause though, as the Prophet says in the same place,
God sends the good things, and the former and
latter rain in their season, and reserves to men still
the appointed weeks of harvest, yet men will not
fear that same Lord their God ; and therefore those
good things are wasted, and mankind remains too
often miserable in spite of God's goodness, and
starving in the midst of God's plenty.

If you wish to know what I mean, look but once
at this present war. I do not complain of the war.
I honour the war. I thank God from the bottom
of my heart for this great and glorious victory, and
I call on you to thank Him, too, for it. I am none
of those who think war sinful. I cannot do so, for
I swore at my baptism to fight manfully under
Christ's banner against the world, the flesh, and the
Devil ; and if we cannot reach the Devil and his
works by any other means, we must reach them as
we are doing now, by sharp shot and cold steel,
and we must hold it an honourable thing, and few
things more honourable on earth, for a man to die
fighting against evil men, and an evil world-devour-
ing empire, like that of Babylon of old, or this of

xiil.] PROVIDENCE. 179

Russia now, that he may save not merely us who
sit here now, but our children's children, and
generations yet unborn, from Russian tyranny, and
Russian falsehood, and Russian profligacy, and
Russian superstition. I say, I do not complain of
this war ; but I ask you to look at the mere waste
which it brings, the mere waste of God's blessings.
Consider all the skilful men now employed in
making cannon, shot, and powder to kill mortal
men, who might every one of them, in time of
peace, have been employed in making things
which would feed, and clothe, and comfort mortal
man. Consider that very powder and shot itself,
the fruit of so much labour and money, made
simply to be shot away, once for all, as if a man
should spend months in making some precious
vessel, and then dash it to pieces the moment it
was made. Consider that Sevastopol alone ; the
millions of money which it must have cost — the
stone, the timber, the iron, all used there — in making
a mere robber's den, which might all have been
spent in giving employment and sustenance to
whole provinces of poor starving Russians. Con-
sider those tens of thousands of men, labouring day
and night for months at those deadly earthworks,
whose strong arms might have been all tilling
God's earth, and growing food for the use of man.
And then see the waste, the want, the misery whicli
that one place, Sevastopol, has caused upon God's
earth.

And consider, too, the souls of mortal men, who
have been wasted there — no man knows how many,

N 2

i8o PROVIDENCE. [serm,

nor will know till the judgment day. Two hundred
thousand, at the least, they say, wasted about that
accursed place, within the last twelve months. Two
hundred thousand cunning brains, two hundred
thousand strong right hands, two hundred thousand
willing hearts : what good might not each of those
men have done if he had been labouring peacefully
at home, in his right place in God's family ! What
might he not have invented, made, carried over land
and sea .■" None dead there but might have been
of use in his generation ; and doubtless many a
one who would have done good with all his might,
who would have been a blessing to those around
him ; and now what is left of him on earth but
a few bones beneath the sod "> Wasted — utterly
wasted ! Oh, consider how precious is one man ;
consider how much good the weakest and stupidest
of us all might do, if he set himself with his whole
soul to do good ; consider that the weakest and
stupidest of us, even if he has no care for good,
cannot earn his day's wages without doing some
good to the bodies of his fellow-men ; and then
judge of the loss to mankind by this one single
siege of one single town ; and think how many
stomachs must be the emptier, how many backs
the barer, for this one war ; and then see how man
wastes God's gifts, and wastes most of all that most
precious gift of all, men, living men, with minds, and
reasons, and immortal souls.

And whence has all this waste come } Simply
because these Russian rulers have chosen to seek
first, not God's kingdom, but their own. Instead of

xni.] PROVIDENCE. 181

behaving like God's ministers and God's stewards,
and asking, ' How would God our King have us
rule His kingdom?' they have laboured for their
own power, conquering all the nations round them,
removing their neighbour's landmark, and wasting
the wealth of their country on armies, and for-
tresses, and fleets, with which they intended to
conquer more and more of the earth which did
not belong to them. Because, instead of seeking
God's righteousness, and saying to themselves,
' How shall we be righteous, even as our Heavenly
' Father is righteous, and how shall we teach this
' great people to be righteous likewise ? ' they have
sought their own pleasure, and lived in profligacy,
covetous and cheating almost beyond belief; and
instead of behaving righteously to the people, or
teaching them to be righteous, they have crushed
down the people, stupefied and corrupted them by
slavery, and maddened them by superstitions which
are not the righteousness of God, till they have
made them easy tools in their unjust wars, and are
able to drive them, even by force, like sheep to the
slaughter, to die miserably in a cause in which, even
if those unhappy slaves conquered, they would only
rivet their own chains more tightly, and put more
power into the hands of the very rulers who are
robbing them of their earnings, dishonouring their
daughters, and driving off their sons to die in a
foreign land. Ah, my friends, if these men had
but sought first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness ; if the great wealth, and the wonder-
ful industry and prudence of Russia had been but

182 PROVIDENCE. [SERM.

spent in doing justly, and loving mercy, what a rich
and honourable country of brave and industrious
Christian men might Russia be ; a blessing, and
not a curse, to half the earth of God !

Let us pray that she will become so, some day ;
and we may have hope for her, for she is but young,
and has time yet for I'epentance.

But some may say — indeed, we are all ready
enough to say — ' Then the evil of this war is the
' Russians' fault, and not ours ; and so in every
' other case. In every other evil and misery they
' are rather other people's fault than ours. If we do
' our duty well enough, and if other people would
' but do theirs, all would be well.'

We are all apt to say this in our hearts. But
our Lord does not say so. His promise is to all
mankind : but His promise is to each of us also.
When He says. Seek ye first God's kingdom and
righteousness. He speaks to you and to me, to
every soul now here. Believe it, my friends. The
more that I see of life, the more I see how much
of our sorrow is our own fault ; how much of our
happiness is in our own hands ; and the more I see
how little use there is in finding fault with this
government, or that, the more I see how much use
there is in every man's finding fault with himself,
and taking his share of the blame.

I do not doubt that if the whole people of Eng-
land, for the last forty years, had sought first God's
kingdom and God's righteousness, and said to them-
selves in every matter, not merely ' What is profit-
able for us to do .'' ' but ' What is riglu for us to

XIII.] PROVIDENCE. 183

do ? ' we should have been spared the expenses and
the sorrows of this war : but as for blaming our
government, my friends, — what they are we are ;
we choose them. Englishmen like ourselves, and
they truly represent us. Not one complaint can
we make against them, which we may not as justly
make against ourselves ; and if we had been in
their places, we should have done what they did ;
for the seeds of the same sins are in us ; and we
yield, each in his own household and his own busi-
ness, to the same temptations as they, to the sins
which so easily beset Englishmen at this present
time. I say, frankly, I see not one charge brought
against them in the newspapers which might not
quite as justly be brought against me, and, for
aught I know, against every one of us here; and
while we are not faithful over a few things, what
right have we to complain of them for not having
been faithful over many things ">. Believe, rather
(I believe it), that if we had been in their place,
we should have done far worse than they ; and
ask yourselves, ' Do I seek first God's kingdom
' and God's righteousness ; for if I do not, what
■ right have I to lay the blame of my bad success
' on other men's not seeking them } ' To each of
us, as much as to our government, or to the
Russian empire, is Christ's command ; and each
of us must take the consequences, if we break it.
Let us look at ourselves, and mend ourselves, and
try whether God's promise will not hold true for
us, each in his station, let the world round us go as
it will. Be sure that God is just, and that every

1 84 PROVIDENCE. [SERM.

man bears his own burden : that the righteous
should be as the wicked, that be far from Thee, O
God ! Shall not the judge of all the earth do
right ? Be sure that those who trust in Him shall
never be confounded, though the earth be moved,
and the mountains carried into the midst of the
sea, as it is written, 'Trust in the Lord, and be
' doing good ; dwell in the land, and work where
' God has placed thee, and verily thou shalt be
' fed."

But have we done so, my friends ? have we
sought first God's kingdom and His righteousness ?
have we not rather forgotten the meaning of the
text, and what God's kingdom is, and what His
righteousness is ? Do not most people fancy that
God's kingdom only means some pleasant place to
which people are to go after they die ? and that
seeking God's righteousness only means having
Christ's righteousness imputed to us (as they call
it), without our being righteous and good our-
selves ? Do not most of us fancy that this very
text means, ' Do you take care of your souls, and
' God will take care of your bodies ; do you see
' after the salvation of your souls, and God will
' see after the salvation of your bodies ' ? a mean-
ing which, in the first place, is not true, for God
will do no such thing ; and all the religion in the
world will not prevent a man's having to work for
his daily bread, or pay his debts for him without
money ; and a meaning which, in the second place,
people themselves do not believe ; for religious
professors in general now are just as keen about

XIII.] PROVIDENCE. i8s

money as irreligious ones, and even more so ; so
that covetousness and cunning, ambition and greedi-
ness to rise in life, seem now-a-days to go hand in
hand with a high religious profession ; and those
who fancy themselves the children of light have
become just as wise in their generation as the chil-
dren of this world whom they despise.

No, my friends, that is not the meaning of the
text ; and when I ask you. Have you obeyed the
text >. I do not ask you that question ; but one
which I believe is something far more spiritual
and more deep, something at least which is far
more heart-searching, and likely to prick a man's
conscience, perhaps to make him angry with me
who ask.

Do you seek first God's kingdom, or your own
profit, your own pleasure, your own reputation .■•
Do you believe that you are in God's kingdom,
that He is your King, and has called you to the
station in which you are to do good and useful
work for Him upon this earth of His } Whatever
be your calling, whether you be servant, labourer,
farmer, tradesman, gentleman, maid, wife, or widow,
father, son, or husband, do you ask yourself every
day, ' Now what are the laws of God's kingdom
' about this station of mine .-' what is my duty here .''
' how can I obey God, and His laws here, and do
' what He requires of me, and so be a good servant,
' a good labourer, a good tradesman, a good master,
' a good parish officer, a good wife, a good parent,
' pleasing to God, useful to my neighbours and to
' my countrymen ? ' Or do you say to yourselve.s,

1 86 PROVIDENCE. [serm.

' How can I get the greatest quantity of money
' and pleasure out of my station, with the least
' trouble to myself ? ' My dearest friends, ask
yourselves, each of you, in which of these two
ways do you look at your own station in life ?

And do you seek first God's righteousness ?
There can be no mistake as to what God's right-
eousness is ; for God's righteousness must be
Christ's righteousness, seeing that He is the ex-
press image of His Father. Now do you ask
yourselves, ' How am I to be righteous in my
' station, as Christ was in His ? how can I do my
' Heavenly Father's will, as Christ did ? how can I
' behave like Christ in my station ? how would the
' Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been
' in my place, when He was on earth ? ' My
friends, that is the question, the searching question,
the question which must convince us all of sin, and
show us so many faults of our own to complain of,
that we shall find no time to throw stones at our
neighbours. How would the Lord Jesus Christ
have behaved, if He had been in my place when
He was upon earth .'

My dear friends, till we can all of us answer that
question somewhat better than we can now, we
have no need to look as far as Russia, or as our
forefathers' mistakes, or our rulers' mistakes, to find
out why this trouble and that trouble come upon
us : for we shall find the reason in our own selfish,
greedy, self-willed hearts.

Oh, my friends, let us each search our own lives,
and repent, and amend, and resolve to do our duty,

xni.] PROVIDENCE. 187

as sons of God, in the station to which God has
called us, by the help of the Spirit of God, which
He has promised freely to those who ask Him.
And now, this day, as we thank God for this great
victory, let us thank Him, not with our lips merely,
but with our lives, by living such lives as He loves
to see, such lives as He meant us to live, lives of
loyalty to God, and of usefulness to our brethren^
and of industry and prudence in our calling, and so
help forward, each of us, however humble our
station, the glory of God ; because we shall each of
us, in the cottage and in the field, in the shop and
in the mansion, in this our little parish, and there-
fore in the great nation of which it is a part, help
forward the fulfilment of those blessed words. Our
Father which art in heaven ; Thy kingdom come ;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ; and
therefore, also, the fulfilment of the words which
come after them, and not before them ; Give us
this day our daily bread.

SERMON XIV.

ENGLAND'S STRENGTH.

2 Kings xix. 34,
I will defend this city, to save it for mine own sake.

THE first lesson for this morning's service is of
the grandest in the whole Old Testament ;
grander perhaps than all, except the story of the
passage of the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law
on Sinai. It follows out the story which you heard
in the first lesson for last Sunday afternoon, of the
invasion of Judea by the Assyrians. You heard
then how this great Assyrian conqueror, Senna-
cherib, after taking all the fortified towns of Judah,
and sweeping the whole country with fire and
sword, sent three of his generals up to the very
walls of Jerusalem, commanding King Hezekiah
to surrender at discretion, and throw himself and
his people on Sennacherib's mercy ; how proudly
and boastfully he taunted the Jews with their
weakness ; how, like the Russian emperor now, he
called in religion as the excuse for his conquests
and robberies, saying, as if God's blessings were on
them, 'Am I now come up without the Lord against

SF.RM. XIV.] ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. 189

' this place to destroy it ? The Lord said to me,
' Go up against this place to destroy it ; ' while all
the time what he really trusted in (as his own
words showed) was what the Russian emperors
trust in, their own strength and the number of
their armies.

Jerusalem was thus in utter need and danger ;
the vast army of the Assyrians was encamped at
Lachish, not more than ten miles off ; and however
strong the walls of Jerusalem might be, and how-
ever advantageously it might stand on its high hill,
with lofty rocks and cliffs on three sides of it, yet
Hezekiah knew well that no strength of his could
stand more than a few days against Sennacherib's
army. For these Assyrians had brought the art of
war to a greater perfection than any nation of the
old world : they lived for war, and studied, it seems,
only how to conquer. And they have left behind
them very remarkable proofs of what sort of men
they were, of which I think it right to tell you all ;
for they are most instructive, not merely because
they prove the truth of Isaiah's account, but be-
cause they explain it, and help us in many ways to
understand his prophecies. They are a number of
sculptures and paintings, representing Sennacherib,
his army, and his different conquests, which were
painted by his command, in his palace ; and having
been lately discovered there, among the ruins of
Nineveh, have been brought to England, and are
now in the British Museum, while copies of many
of them are in the Crystal Palace. There we see
these terrible Assyrian conquerors defeating their

190 ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. [serm.

enemies, torturing and slaughtering their prisoners,
swimming rivers, beating down castles, sweeping on
from land to land like a devouring fire, while over
their heads fly fierce spirits who protect and prosper
their cruelties, and eagles who trail in their claws
the entrails of the slain. The very expression of
their faces is frightful for its fierceness ; the coun-
tenances of a ' bitter and hasty nation,' as the Pro-
phet calls them, whose feet were swift to shed
blood. And as for the art of war, and their power
of taking walled towns like Jerusalem, you may see
them in these pictures battering down and under-
mining forts and castles, with instruments so well
made and powerful, that all other nations who
came after them, for more than two thousand years,
seem to have been content to copy from them, and
hardly to have improved on the old Assyrian
engines.

Such, and so terrible, they came up against Jeru-
salem : to attempt to fight them would have been
useless madness ; and Hezekiah had but one means
of escaping from them, and that was to cast him-
self and his people upon the boundless m^ercy, and
faithfulness, and power of God.

And Hezekiah had his answer by Isaiah the pro-
phet : and more than an answer. The Lord took
the matter into His own hand, and showed Senna-
cherib which was the stronger, his soldiers and
horses and engines, or the Lord God ; and so that
terrible Assyrian nrmy came utterly to nought, and
vanished off the face of the earth.

Now, my friends, has this noble history no lesson

XIV.] ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. 191

in it for us ? God forbid ! It has a lesson which
ought to come nearer to our hearts than to the
hearts of any nation : for though we or our fore-
fathers have never been, for nearly three hundred
years, in such utter need and danger as Jerusalem
was, yet be sure that we might have been so, again
and again, had it not been for the mercy of the
same God who delivered Jerusalem from the Assy-
rians. It is now three hundred years ago that
the Lord delivered this country from as terrible an
invader as Sennacherib himself; when He three
times scattered by storms the fleets of the King of
Spain, which were coming to lay waste this land
with fire and sword : and since then no foreign foe
has set foot on English soil, and we almost alone,
of all the nations of Europe, have been preserved
from those horrors of war, even to speak of which
is dreadful ! Oh, my friends ! we know not half
God's goodness to us !

And if you ask me, why God has so blest and
favoured this land, I can only answer — and I am
not ashamed or afraid to answer — I believe it is on
account of the Church of England ; it is because
God has put His name here in a peculiar way, as
He did among the Jews of old, and that He is
jealous for His Church, and for the special know-
ledge of His Gospel and His Law, which He has
given us in our Prayer-book and in our Church
Catechism, lighting therein a candle in England
which I believe will never be put out. It is not
merely that we are a Protestant country, — great
blessing as that is, — it is, I believe, that there is

192 ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. [serm.

something in the Church of England which there
is not in Protestant countries abroad, unless perhaps
Sweden : for every one of them (except Sweden and
ourselves) has suffered, from time to time, in-
vading armies, and the unspeakable horrors of war.
In some of them the light of the Gospel has been
quenched utterly, and in others it lingers like a
candle flickering down into the socket. By horrible
persecutions, and murder, and war, and pillage,
have those nations been tormented from time to
time ; and who are we, that we should escape .■"
Certainly from no righteousness of our own. Some
may say. It is our great wealth which has made us
strong. My friends, believe it not. Look at Spain,
which was once the richest of all nations ; and did
her riches preserve her } Has she not dwindled
down into the most miserable and helpless of all
nations .' Has not her very wealth vanished from
her, because she sold herself to work all unrighte-
ousness with greediness .■•

Some may say. It is our freedom which makes
us strong. My friends, believe it not. Freedom is a
vast blessing from God, but freedom alone will pre-
serve no nation. How many free nations have fallen
into every sort of misery, ay, into bitter slavery,
in spite of all their freedom. How many free na-
tions in Europe lie now in bondage, gnawing their
tongues for pain, and weary with waiting for the
deliverance which does not come t No, my friends,
freedom is of little use without something else —
and that is loyalty ; reverence for law and obedi-
ence to the powers that be, because men believe

XIV.] ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. 193

those powers to be ordained of God ; because men
believe that Christ is their King, and they His
ministers and stewards, and that He it is who ap-
points all orders and degrees of men in His Holy
Church. True freedom can only live with true
loyalty and obedience, such as our Prayer-book,
our Catechism, our Church of England preaches to
us. It is a Church meant for free men, who stand
each face to face with their Heavenly Father : but
it is a Church meant also for loyal men, who look
on the law as the ordinance of God, and on their
rulers as the ministers of God ; and if our freedom
has had anything to do (as no doubt it has) vvith
our prosperity, I believe that we owe the greater
part of our freedom to the teaching and the general
tone of mind which our Prayer-book has given to
us and to our forefathers for now three hundred
years.

Not that we have listened to that teaching, or
acted up to it : God knows, we have been but too
like the Jews in Isaiah's time, who had the Law of
God, and yet did every man what was right in his
own eyes ; we, like them, have been hypocritical ;
we, like them, have neglected the poor, and the
widow, and the orphan ; we, like them, have been
too apt to pay tithe of mint and anise, and neglect
the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy,
and judgment. When we read that awful first
chapter of Isaiah, we may well tremble ; for all the
charges which he brings against the Jews of his
time would just as well apply to us ; but yet we
can trust in the Lord, as Isaiah did, and believe

O

194 ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. [serm.

that He will be jealous for His land, and for His
name's sake, and not suffer the nations to say of
us, 'Where is now their God ? ' We can trust Him,
that if He turn His hand on us, as He did on the
Jews of old, and bring us into danger and trouble,
yet it will be in love and mercy, that He may
purge away our dross, and take away all our alloy,
and restore our rulers as at the first, and our coun-
sellors as at the beginning, that we may be called,
' The city of righteousness, the faithful city.' True,
we must not fancy that we have any righteousness
of our own, that we merit God's favour above other
people ; our consciences ought to tell us that cannot
be ; our Bibles tell us that is an empty boast. Did
we not hear this morning, ' Bring forth fruits meet
' for repentance : and think not to say within your-
' selves. We have Abraham to our father ; for God
' is able of these stones to raise up children to
' Abraham.' But we may comfort ourselves with
the thought that there is One standing among us
(though we see Him not) who will, ay, and does,
' baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire,
' whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly
' purge His floor, and gather the wheat into His
' garner,' for the use of our children after us, and
the generations yet unborn, while the chaff, all
among us which is empty, and light, and rotten,
and useless. He will burn up (thanks be to His
holy name) with fire unquenchable, which neither
the falsehood and folly of man, nor the malice of
the Devil, can put out, but which will purge this
land of all its sins,

XIV.] ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. 195

This is our hope, and this is the cause of our
thankfulness. For who but we should be thankful
this day that we are Englishmen, members of
Christ's Church of England, inhabitants of, perhaps,
the only country in Europe which is not now per-
plexed with fear of change, while men's hearts fail
them for dread, and looking for those things which
are coming on the earth } a country which has
never seen, as all the countries round have seen, a
foreign army trampling down their crops, burning
their farms, cutting down their trees, plundering
their towns, destroying in a day the labour of years,
while women are dishonoured, men tortured to make
them give up their money, the able-bodied driven
from their homes, ruined and wanderers, and the
sick and aged left to perish of famine and neglect.
My friends, all these things were going on but last
year upon the Danube. They are going on now in
Asia : even with all the mercy and moderation of
our soldiers and sailors, we have not been able to
avoid inflicting some of these very miseries upon
our own enemies ; and yet here we are, going about
our business in peace and safety in a land in which
we and our forefathers have found, now for many a
year, that just laws make a quiet and prosperous
people ; that the effect of righteousness is peace,
and the fruit of righteousness, quietness and assur-
ance for ever ; — a land in which the good are not
terrified, the industrious hampered, and the greedy
and lawless made eager and restless by expecta-
tion of change in government ; but every man can
boldly and hopefully work in his calling, and ' what-

O 2

196 ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. [serm.

soever his hand finds to do, do it with all his might,'
in fair hope that the money which he earns in his
manhood he will be able to enjoy quietly in his old
age, and hand it down safely to his children, and his
children's children ; — a land which for hundreds of
years has not felt the unspeakable horrors of
war ; a land which even now is safely and peace-
fully gathering in its harvest, while so many coun-
tries lie wasted with fire and sword. Oh, my
friends, who made us to differ from others, or what
have we that we did not receive ? Not to ourselves
do we owe our blessings ; hardly even to our wise
forefathers : but to God Himself, and the Spirit of
God which was with them, and is with us still, in
spite of all our shortcomings. We owe it to our
wise Constitution, to our wise Church, the principle
of which is that God is Judge and Christ is King,
in peace as well as in war, in times of quiet as well
as in times of change ; I say, to our wise Constitu-
tion and to our wise Church, which teach us that
all power is of God ; that all men who have power,
great or small, are His stewards ; that all orders
and degrees of men in His Holy Church, from the
queen on the throne to the labourer in the harvest-
field, are called by God to their ministry and voca-
tion, and are responsible to God for their conduct
therein. How then shall we show forth our thank-
fulness, not only in our lips, but in our lives .'
How, but by believing that very principle, that
very truth which He has taught us, and by which
England stands, that we are God's people, and
God's servants .' He has indeed showed us what is

XIV.] ENGLAND'S STRENGTH. 197

good, and our fathers before us ; and what does the
Lord require of us in return, but to do the good
which He has showed us, to do justly, to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with our God ?

Oh, my friends, come frankly and joyfully to the
Lord's Table this day. Confess your sins and
shortcomings to Him, and entreat Him to enable
you to live more worthily of your many blessings.
Offer to Him the sacrifice of your praise and thank-
fulness, imperfect though it is, and join with angels
and archangels in blessing Him for what He is, and
what He has been to you : and then receive your
share of His most perfect sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving, the bread and the wine which tell
you that you are members of His Church ; that
His body gives you whatsoever life and strength
your souls have ; that His blood washes out all
your sins and shortcomings ; that His Spirit shall
be renewed in you day by day, to teach you to do
the good work which He has prepared already for
you, and to walk in the old paths which have led
our forefathers, and will lead us too, I trust, safe
through the chances and changes of this mortal
life, and the fall of mighty kingdoms, towards
diat perfect City of God which is eternal in the
heavens.

SERMON XV.

THE LIFE OF GOD.

Ephesians IV. 17, 18.

ITiat ye walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their
mind, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

YOU heard these words read in the Epistle for
to-day. I cannot expect that you all under-
stood them. It is no shame to you that you did
not. Some of them are long and hard Latin words.
Some of them, though they are plain English
enough, are hard to understand because they have
to do with deep matters, which can only be under-
stood by the help of God's Spirit. And even with
the help of God's Spirit we cannot any of us expect
to understand all which they mean : we cannot
expect to be as wise as St. Paul ; for we must be as
good as St. Paul before we can be as wise about
goodness as he was. I do not pretend to under-
stand all the text myself: no, not half, nor a tenth
part of what it very likely means. But I do seem
to myself to understand a little about it, by the
help and blessing of God ; and what little of it

SERM. XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. igg

I do understand, I will try to make you understand
also.

For the words in the text belong to you as much
as to me, or to St. Paul himself. What is true for
one man, is true for every man. What is right for
one man, is right for every man. What God pro-
mises for one man. He promises to every man.
Man or woman, black or white, rich or poor, scholar
or unlearned, there is no respect of persons with
Him. ' In Christ Jesus,' says St. Paul, ' there is
■ neither male nor female, slave nor freeman, Jew
' who fancies that God's promises belong to him
' alone, or Gentile who knows nothing about them,
' clever learned Greek, or stupid ignorant Barbarian.'

It is enough for God that we are all men and
women bearing the flesh, and blood, and human
nature which His Son Jesus Christ wore on earth.
If we are baptized, we belong to Him : if we are
not baptized, we ought to be ; for we belong to
Him just as much. Every man may be baptized ;
every man may be regenerate ; God calls all to His
grace and adoption and holy baptism, which is the
sign and seal of His adoption ; and therefore, what
is right for the regenerate baptized man, is right for
the unregenerate unbaptized man ; for the Christian
and for the heathen there is but one way, one duty,
one life for both, and that is the life of God, .of
which St. Paul speaks in the text.

Now of this life of God I will speak hereafter ;
but I mention it now, because it is the thing to
which I wish to bring your thoughts before the end
of the sermon.

200 THE LIFE OF GOD. [serm.

But first, let us see what St. Paul means, v/hen
he talks about the Gentiles in his day. For that
also has to do with us. I said that every man,
Christian or heathen, has the same duty, and is
bound to do the same right ; every man. Christian
or heathen, if he sins, breaks his duty in the same
way, and does the same wrong. There is but one
righteousness, the life of God ; there is but one sin,
and that is being alienated from the life of God.
One man may commit different sorts of sins from
another ; one may lie, another may steal : one may
be proud, another may be covetous : but all these
different sins come from the same root of sin ; they
are all flowers of the same plant. And St. Paul
tells us what that one root of sin, what that same
Devil's plant, is, which produces all sin in Christian
or Heathen, in Churchman or Dissenter, in man or
woman — the one disease, from which has come all
the sin which ever was done by man, woman, or
child since the world was made.

Now, what is this one disease, to which every
man, you and I, are all liable .'' Why it is that we
are every one of us worse than we ought to be,
worse than we know how to be, and, strangest of all,
worse than we wish and like to be.

Just as far as we are like the heathen of old, we
shall be worse than we know how to be. For we
are all ready enough to turn heathens again, at
any moment, my friends ; and the best Christian in
this church knows best that what I say is true ;
that he is beset by the very same temptations which
ruined the old heathens, and that if he gave way

XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. 2oi

to them a moment they would ruin him likewise.
For what does St. Paul say was the matter with the
old heathens .'

First he says, ' Their understanding was dark-
ened.' But what part of it .'' What was it that
they had got dark about and could not understand .-'
For in some matters they were as clever as we, and
cleverer. What part of their understanding was it
which was darkened ? St. Paul tells us in the first
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. It was their
hearts — their reason, as we should say. It was
about God, and the life of God, that they were dark.
They had not been always dark about God, but
they were d.a.rkened; they grew more and more dark
about Him, generation after generation ; they gave
themselves up more and more to their corrupt and
fallen nature, and so the children grew worse than
their fathers, and their children again worse than
them, till they had lost all notion of what God was
like. For from the very first all heathens have had
some notion of what God is like, and have had a
notion also, which none but God could have given
them, that men ought to be like God. God taught,
or if I may so speak, tried to teach, the heathen,
from the very first. If God had not taught them, they
would not have been to blame for knowing nothing
of God. For as Job says, ' Can man by searching
find out God ?' Surely not ; God must teach us
about Himself. Never forget that man cannot find
God ; God must show Himself to man of His own
free grace and will. God must reveal and unveil
Himself to us, or we shall never even fancy that

202 THE LIFE OF GOD. [serm.

there is a God. And God did so to the heathen.
Even before the Flood, God's Spirit strove with
man ; and after the Flood we read how the Lord,
Jesus Christ the Son of God, revealed Himself in
many different ways to heathens. To Pharaoh,
king of Egypt, in Abraham's times ; and again to
Abimelech, king of Gerar ; and again to Pharaoh
and his servants, in Joseph's time ; and to Nebu-
chadnezzar, king of Babylon, and to Cyrus, king of
Persia ; and no doubt to thousands more. Indeed,
no man, heathen or Christian, ever thought a single
true thought, or felt a single right feeling, about
God or man, or man's duty to God and his neigh-
bour, unless God revealed it to him (whether or not
He also revealed Himself to the man and showed
him who it was who was putting the right thought
into his mind) : for every right thought and feeling
about God, and goodness, and duty, are the very
voice of God Himself, the word of God whereof
St. John speaks, and Moses and the prophets speak,
speaking to the heart of sinful man, to enlighten
and to teach him. And therefore, St. Paul says,
the sinful heathen were without excuse, because, he
says, ' that which may be known of God is manifest,
' that is plain, among them, for God hath showed it
' to them. For the invisible things of Him from the
' creation of the world are clearly seen, being un-
' derstood by the things which are made, even His
< eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are
' without excuse.' ' But these heathens,' he says,
' did not like to retain God in their knowledge ; and
■ when they knew God, did not glorify Him as

XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. 203

' God, and changed the glory of the Incorruptible
' God into the likeness of corruptible man, and
' beasts and creeping things.' And so they were
alienated from the life of God ; that is, they became
strangers to God's life ; they forgot what God's life
and character was like : or if they even did awake
a moment, and recollect dimly what God was like,
they hated that thought. They hated to think that
God was what He was, and shut 'their eyes, and
stopped their ears as fast as possible.

And what happened to them in the meantime 1
What was the fruit of their wilfully forgetting what
God's life was } St. Paul tells us that they fell
into the most horrible sins — sins too dreadful and
shameful to be spoken of ; and that their common
life, even when they did not run into such fearful
evils, was profligate, fierce, and miserable. And
yet St. Paul tells us all the while they knew the
judgment of God, that those who do such things
are worthy of death.

Now we know that St. Paul speaks truth, from
the writings of heathens ; for God raised up from
time to time, even among the heathen Greeks and
Romans, witnesses for Himself, to testify of Him
and of His life, and to testify against the sins of the
world, such men as Socrates and Plato among the
Greeks, whose writings St. Paul knew thoroughly,
and whom, I have no doubt, he had in his mind
when he wrote his first chapter of Romans, and
told the heathen that they were without excuse.
And among the Romans, also. He raised up, in
the same way, witnesses for Himself, such as

i04 tHE LIFE OF GOD. [serM.

Juvenal and Persius, and others, whom scholars
know well. And to these men, heathens though
they were, God certainly did teach a great deal
about Himself, and gave them courage to rebuke
the sins of kings and rich men, even at the danger
of their lives ; and to some of them he gave courage
even to suffer martyrdom for the message which
God had given them, and which their neighbours
hated to hear. And this was the message which
God sent by them to the heathen : that God was
good and righteous, and that therefore His ever-
lasting wrath must be awaiting sinners. They re-
buked their heathen neighbours for those very
same horrible crimes which St. Paul mentions ; and
then they said, as St. Paul does, ' How you make
' your own sins worse by blasphemies against God !
' You sin yourselves, and then, to excuse yourselves,
■ you invent fables and lies about God, and pretend
' that God is as wicked as you are, in order to drug
' your own consciences, by making God the pattern
' of your own wickedness.'

These men saw that man ought to be like God ;
and they saw that God was righteous and good ;
and they saw, therefore, that unrighteousness and
sin must end in ruin and everlasting misery. So
much God had taught them, but not much more ;
but to St. Paul he had taught more. Those wise
and righteous heathen could show their sinful
neighbours that sin was death, and that God was
righteous. But they could not tell them how to
rise out of the death of sin, into God's life of
righteousness. They could preach the terrors of

XV. I THE LIFE OF GOD. 205

the Law, but they did not know the good news of
the Gospel, and therefore they did not succeed;
they did not convert their neighbours to God.
Then came St. Paul and preached to the very same
people, and he did convert them to God ; for he
had good news for them, of things which prophets
and kings had desired to see, and had not seen
them, and to hear, and had not heard them.

For God, who at sundry times and in divers
manners spoke to the fathers by the prophets, at
last spoke to all men by a Son, His only-begotten
Son, the exact likeness of His Father, the bright-
ness of His glory, and the express image of His
person. He sent Him to be a man : very man of
the substance of His mother, the Blessed Virgin
Mary, at the same time that He was Very God,
of the substance of His Father, begotten before
all worlds.

And so God, and the hfe of God, was manifested
in the flesh and reasonable soul of a man ; and from
that time there is no doubt what the life of God is ;
for the life of God is the life of Jesus Christ. There
is no doubt now what God is like, for God is like
Jesus Christ. No one can now say, ' I cannot see
God, how then can you expect me to be like God .■' '
for He who has seen Jesus Christ, as His character
stands in the Gospels, has seen God the Father.
No one can say now, ' How can a man be like God,
and live a life like God's life 1 ' for if any one of you
say that, I can answer him : ' A man can be like
' God ; you can be like God ; for there was r^nce a
'man on earth, Jesus, the son of the Blessed Virgin,

2o6 THE LIFE OF GOD. [serm,

' who was perfectly like God.' And if you answer,
' But He was like God, because He was God,' I can
say, ' And that is the very reason why you can be
like God also.' If Jesus Christ had been only a
man, you could no more become like Him than
you can become clever because another man is
clever, or strong because another man is strong :
but because He was God The Son of God, He can
give you, to make you like God, the same Holy
Spirit which made Him like God ; for that Holy
Spirit proceeds from Him, the Son, as well as from
the Father, and the Father has committed all power
to the Son ; and therefore that same Man Christ
Jesus has power to change your heart, and renew
it, and shape it to be like Him, and like His Father,
by the power of His Spirit, that you may be like
God as He was like God, and live the life of God
which He lived ; so that the Lord Jesus Christ,
because He was a man like God, showed that all
men can become like God ; and because He was
God, Very God of Very God, He is able to make
all who come to Him men like Himself, men like
God, and raise them up body and soul to the ever-
lasting life of God, that He may be the firstborn
among many brethren.

Now what is this everlasting life of God, which
the Lord Jesus Christ lived perfectly, and which
He can and will make every one of us live, in pro-
portion as we give up our hearts and wills to Him,
and ask Him to take charge of us, and shape us,
and teach us .' When we read that blessed story
of Him who was born in a stable, and laid in a

XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. 207

manger, who went about doing good, because God
was with Him, who condescended of His own free-
will to be mocked, and scourged, and spit upon, and
crucified, that He might take away the sins of the
whole world, who prayed for His murderers, and
blest those who cursed Him — what sort of life does
this life of God, which He lived, seem to us ? Is
it not a life of love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, patience, meekness ? Surely
it is ; then that is the likeness of God. God is
love. And the Lord Jesus' life was a life of love —
utter, perfect, untiring love. He did His Father's
will perfectly, because He loved men perfectly, and
to the death. He died for those who hated Him,
and so He showed forth to man the name and glory
of God ; for God is love. The name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is love ;
for love is justice and righteousness, as it is written,
' Love worketh no ill to his neighbour : therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law.' And God is
perfect love, because He is perfect righteousness ;
and perfect righteousness, because He is perfect
love ; for His love and His justice are not two
different things, two different parts of God, as some
say, who fancy that God's justice had to be satisfied
in one way, and His love in another, and talk of
God as if His justice fought against His love, and
desired the death of a sinner, and then His love
fought against His justice, and desired to save a
sinner. No wonder that those who hold such doc-
trines go further still, and talk as if God the Father
desired to destroy mankind, and would have done

2o8 THE LIFE OF GOD. [serm.

it if God the Son had not interposed, and suffered
Himself instead ; till they can fancy that they
are Christians, and know God, while they use the
hideous words of a certain hymn, which speaks of

' The streaming drops of Jesu's blood
Which calmed the Father's frownmg face.'

May God deliver and preserve us and our children
from all such blasphemous fables, which, like the
fables of the old heathen, change the glory of the
Incorruptible God into the likeness of a corruptible
man, which deny the true faith, that God has
neither parts nor passions, by talking of His love
and His justice as two different things ; which con-
found His persons by saying that the Son alone
does what the Father and the Holy Spirit do also,
while they divide His substance by making the vdll
of the Son different from the will of the Father,
and deny that such as the Father is, such is the
Son, and such is the Holy Ghost, all three one per-
fect Love, and one perfect Justice, because they are
all three one God, and God is love, and love is
righteousness.

Believe me, my friends, this is no mere question
of words, which only has to do with scholars in
their libraries ; it is a question, the question of life
and death for you, and me, and every living soul
in this church, — Do we know what the life of God
is ? are we living it .' or are we alienated from it,
careless about it, disliking it ?

For, as I said at the beginning of my sermon.

XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. 10^

we are all ready enough to turn heathens again ;
and if we grow to forget or dislike the life of God,
we shall be heathen at heart. We may talk about
Him with our lips, we may quarrel and curse each
other about religious differences ; but let us make
as great a profession as we may, if we do not love
the life of God we shall be heathen at heart, and
we shall, sooner or later, fall into sin. The heathens
fell into sin just in proportion as their hearts were
turned away from the life of God, and so shall we.
And how shall we know whether our hearts are
turned away, or whether they are right with God }
Thus : What are the fruits of God's Spirit .'' what
sort of life does the Spirit of God make man live .''
For the Spirit of God is God, and therefore the
life of God is the life which God's Spirit makes
men live ; and what is that .-' a life of love and
righteousness.

The old heathens did not like such a life, there-
fore they did not like to retain God in their know-
ledge. They knew that man ought to be like God :
and St. Paul says, they ought to have known what
God was like ; that He was Love ; for St. Paul
told them He left not Himself without witness, in
that He sent them rain and fruitful seasons, filling
their hearts with food and gladness. That was, in
St. Paul's eyes, God's plainest witness of Himself
— the sign that God was Love, making His sun
shine on the just and on the unjust, and good to
the unthankful and the evil — in one word, perfect,
because He is perfect Love. But they preferred to
be selfish, covetous, envious, revengeful, delighting

P

2IO THE LIFE OF GOD. [sERM.

to indulge themselves in filthy pleasures, to oppress
and defraud each other. Do you ?

For you can, I can, every baptized man can take
his choice between the selfish life of the heathens
and the loving life of God : we may either keep to
the old pattern of man, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts ; or we may put on the new
pattern of man, which is after God's likeness, and
founded upon righteousness and truthful holiness.

Every baptized man may choose. For he is not
only bound to live the life of God : every man, as
the old heathen philosophers knew, is bound to
live it : but more. The baptized man cmi live it :
that is the good news of his baptism. You can
live the life of God, for you know what the life of
God is — it is the life of Jesus Christ. You can live
the life of God, for the Spirit of God is with you^
to cleanse your soul and life, day by day, till they
are like the soul and life of Christ.

Then you will be, as the apostle says, 'a partaker
of a divine nature.' Then — and it is an awful
thing to say — a thing past hope, past belief, but I
must say it — for it is in the Bible, it is the word of
the Blessed Lord Himself, and of His beloved
apostle, St. John : ' If a man love Me, he will keep
' my commandments, and my Father will love
' him, and we will come to him and make our
' abode with him.' ' And this is His command-
ment,' says St. John, ' That we should love one
another.' ' God is Love, and he who dwelleth in
Love dwelleth in God, and God in him.'

God is Love. As I told you just now, the

XV.] THE LIFE OF GOD. 2U

heathens of old might have known that, if they had
chosen to open their eyes and see. But they would
not see. They were dark, cruel, and unloving, and
therefore they fancied that God was dark, cruel,
and unloving also. They did not love Love, and
therefore they did not love God, for God is Love.
And therefore they did not love loving : they did
not enjoy loving ; and so they lost the Spirit of
God, which is the Spirit of Love. And therefore
they did not love each other, but lived in hatred
and suspicion, and selfishness, and darkness. They
were but heathen. But if even they ought to have
known that God was Love, how much more we .■'
P"or we know of a deed of God's love, such as those
poor heathen never dreamed of. God so loved the
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son to die
for it. Then God showed what His eternal life
was — a life of love : then God showed what our
eternal life is — to know Him who is Love, and
Jesus Christ, whom He sent to show forth His
love : then God showed that it is the duty and in
the power of every man to live the life of God, the
life of Love ; for He sent forth into the world His
Spirit, the Spirit of Love, to fill with love the
heart of every man and woman who sees that Love
is the image of God, and longs to be loving, and
therefore longs to be like God ; as it is written,
' Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for they shall be filled : ' for righte-
ousness is keeping Christ's commandment, and
Christ's commandment is, that we love one another.
And to those who long to do that, God's Spirit

P 2

212 THE LIFE OF GOD. [serm. xv.

will come to fill them with love ; and where the
Spirit of God is, there is also the Father, and there
is also the Son ; for God's substance cannot be
divided, as the Athanasian creed tells us (and
blessed and cheering words they are) ; and he who
hath the Holy Spirit of Love with him hath both
the Father and the Son; as it is written : ' If a man
' love Me, my Father will love him, and we will
' come unto him, and make our abode with him.'

And then, if we have God abiding with us, and
filling us with His Eternal Life, what more do we
need for life, or death, or eternity, or eternities of
eternities ? For we shall live in and with and by
God, who can never die or change, an everlasting
life of love, whereof St. Paul says, that though pro-
phecies shall fail, and tongues shall cease, and
knowledge shall vanish away, because all that we
know now is but in part, and all that we see now
is through a glass darkly, yet Love shall never fail,
but abide for ever and ever.

SERMON XVI.
GOD'S OFFSPRING.

Galatians IV. 7.

Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son ; and if a son, then
an heir of God through Christ.

I SAY, writes St. Paul, in the epistle which you
heard read just now, ' that the heir, as long as
' he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though
'he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors,
' until the time appointed by his father. Even so,'
he says, we, ' when we were children, were in bond-
' age under the elements of the world : but when
' the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His
' Son made of a woman, made under a law, to re-
' deem them that were under a law, that we might
' receive the adoption of sons.'

When we were children. He is not speaking of
the Jews only ; for these Galatians to whom he
was writing were not Jews at all, any more than we
are. He was speaking to men simply as men. He
was speaking to the Galatians as Ave have a right
to speak to all men.

Nor does he mean merely when we were children
in age. The Greek word which he uses, means

214 GOD'S OFFSPRING. [serm.

infants, people not come to years of discretion.
Indeed, the word which he uses means very often
a simpleton, an ignorant or foolish person ; one
who does not know who and what he is, what i3 his
duty, or how to do it.

Now this, he says, was the state of men before
Christ came ; this is the state of all men by nature
still ; the state of all poor heathens, whether in
England or in foreign countries.

They are children — that is, ignorant and unable
to take care of themselves ; because they do not
know what they are. St. Paul tells us what they
are. That they are all God's offspring, though
they know it not. He likens them to young
children, who, though they are their father's heirs,
have no more liberty than slaves have ; but are
kept under tutors and masters, till they have
arrived at years of discretion, and are fit to take
their places as their father's sons, and to go out
into the world, and have the management of their
own affairs, and a share in their father's property,
which they may use for themselves, instead of
being merely fed and clothed by, and kept in sub-
jection to him, whether they will or not. This is
what he means by receiving the adoption of sons.
He does not mean that we are not God's children
till we find out that we are God's children. That
is what some people say ; but that is the very
exact contrary to what St. Paul used to say. He
told the heathen Athenians that they were God's
children. He put them in mind that one of their
own heathen poets had told them so, and had said,

XVI.] GOD'S OFFSPRING. i\$

' We are also God's offspring.' And so in this
chapter he says, You were God's children all along,
though you did not know it. You were God's
heirs all along, although you differed nothing from
slaves ; for as long as you were in your heathen
ignorance and foolishness, God had to treat you as
His slaves, not as His children ; and so you were
in bondage under the elements of the world, till
the fulness of time was come.

And, then, God sent His Son, born of a woman,
born under a law, to redeem those who were under
a law — that is, all mankind. The Jews were keep-
ing, or pretending to keep, Moses' law, and trying
to please God by that. The heathens were keep-
ing all manner of old superstitious laws and cus-
toms about religion which their forefathers had
handed down to them. But heathens, and indeed
Jews too, at that time, all agreed in one thing.
These laws and customs of theirs about religion all
went upon the notion of their being God's slaves,
and not his children. They thought that God did
not love them ; that they must buy His favours.
They thought religion meant a plan for making
God love them.

Then appeared the love of God in Jesus Christ.
As at this very Christmas time, the Son of God, Jesus
Christ the Lord, in whose likeness man was made
at the beginning, was born into the world, to re-
deem us and all mankind. He told them of their
Heavenly Father ; He preached to them the good
news of the kingdom of God ; that God had not
forgotten them, did not hate them, would freely

2i6 GOD'S OFFSPRING. [serm.

forgive them all that was past ; and why ? Because
He was their Father, and loved them, and loved
them so that He spared not His only begotten
Son, but freely gave Him for them. And now God
looks at us human beings, not as we are in our-
selves, sinful and corrupt, but he looks at us in the
light of Jesus Christ, who has taken our nature
upon Him, and redeemed it, and raised it up again,
so that God can look on it now without disgust,
and henceforth no one need be ashamed of being a
man ; for to be a man is to be in the likeness of
God. Man was created in the image and likeness
of God, and who is the image and likeness of God
but Jesus Christ.'' Therefore man was created at
first in Jesus Christ, and now, as St. Paul says, he
is created anew in Jesus Christ ; and now to be a
man is to partake of the same flesh and blood
which the Lord Jesus Christ wore for us, when He
was made very man of the substance of his mother,
and that without spot of sin, to show that man
need not be sinful, that man was meant by God
to be holy and pure from sin, and that by the Holy
Spirit of Jesus Christ we, every one of us, can
become pure from sin. This is the blessedness of
Christmas-day. That one man, at least, has been
born into the world spotless and free from sin, that
He might be the firstborn of many brethren. This
is the good news of Christmas-day. That now, in
Christ's light, and for Christ's sake, our Father
looks on us as His sons, and not His slaves.

Therefore is every child who comes into the
world baptized freely into the name of God. Bap-

xvi.l GOD'S OFFSPRING. 217

tism is a sign and warrant that God loves that
child ; that God looks on it as His child, not for
itself or its own sake, but because it belongs to
Jesus Christ, who, by becoming a man, redeemed
all mankind, and made them His property and His
brothers. Therefore every child, when it is brought
to be baptized, promises, by its godfathers and god-
mothers, repentance and faith, when it comes to
years of understanding. It is not God's slave, as
the beasts are. It is God's child. But God does
not wish it to remain merely His child, under tutors
and governors, forced to do what is right out-
wardly, and whether it likes or not. God wishes each
of us to become His son. His grown-up and reason-
able son. To know who we are ; — to work in His
kingdom for Him ; — to guide and manage our own
wills, and hearts, and lives in obedience to Him ; —
to claim and take our share as men of God of the
inheritance which He has given us. And that we
can only do by faith in Jesus Christ. We must trust
in Him, our Lord, our King, our Saviour, our Pat-
tern. We must confess that we are nothing in our-
selves, that we owe all to Him. We must follow in
his footsteps, giving up our wills to God's will : do-
ing not our own works, but the good works which
God has prepared for us to walk in ; and then we
shall be truly confirmed ; not mere children of God,
under tutors, governors, schoolmasters and lawgivers,
but free, reasonable, willing, hearty Christians, per-
fect men of God, the sons of God without rebuke.

Oh, my friends, will you claim your share in the
Spirit of God, whom the Lord bought for us with

2i8 GOD'S OFFSPRING. [serm.

His precious blood, that Spirit who was given you
at your baptism, which may be daily renewed in
you, if you pray for it ; who will strengthen and
lift you up to lead lives worthy of your high call-
ing ? Or will you, like Esau of old, despise your
birthright, and neglect to pray that God's Spirit
may be renewed in you, and so lose more and
more day by day the thought that God is your
Father, and the love of holy and godlike things ?
Alas ! take care that, like Esau, you hereafter find
no room for repentance, though you seek it carefully
with tears ! It is a fearful thing to despise the
mercies of the living God ; and when you are
called to be His sons, to fall back under the terrors
of His law, in slavish fears and a guilty con-
science, and remorse which cannot repent.

And do not give way to false humility, says St.
Paul. Do not say, ' This is too high an honour for
us to claim.' Do not say, ' It seems too conceited
' and assuming for us miserable sinners to call our-
' selves sons of God. We shall please God better,
' and show ourselves more reverent to Him, by
' calling ourselves His slaves, and crouching and
' trembling before Him, as if we expected Him to
' strike us dead, and making all sorts of painful
' and tiresome religious observances, and vain
' repetitions of prayers, to win His favour ; ' or by
saying, 'We dare not call ourselves God's children
' yet ; we are not spiritual enough ; but when we
' have gone through all the necessary changes of
heart, and frames, and feeling, and have been con-
vinced of sin, and converted, and received the

XVI.] GOD'S OFFSPRING. 219

' earnest, God's Spirit, by which we cry, Abba,
' Father ! then we shall have a right to call our-
' selves God's children.'

Not so, says St. Paul, all through this very Epistle
to the Galatians. That is not being reverent to
God. It is insulting Him. For it is despising the
honour which He has given you, and trying to get
another honour of your own invention, by obser-
vances, and frames, and feelings of your own. Do
not say, ' When we have received the earnest of
' God's Spirit, by which we can cry, Abba, Father !
' then we shall become God's children ; ' for it is
just because you are God's children already — just
because you have been God's children all along,
that God has taught you to call Him Father. The
Lord Jesus Christ told men that God was their
Father. Not merely to the Apostles, but to poor,
ignorant, sinful wretches, publicans and harlots, He
spoke of their Father in heaven, who, because He
is a perfect Father, sends His sun to shine on the
evil and the good, and His rain to fall on the just
and on the unjust. The Lord Jesus Christ taught
men — all men, not merely saints and Apostles, but
all men, when they prayed — to begin, ' Our Father.'
He told them that that was the manner in which
they were to pray, and therefore no other way of
praying can we expect God to hear. No slavish,
terrified, superstitious coaxing and flattering will
help you with God. He has told you to call Him
your Father ; and if you speak to Him in any
other way, you insult Him, and trample under foot
the riches of His grace.

220 GOD'S OFFSPRING. [serm.

This is the good news which the Bible preaches.
This is the witness of God's Spirit, proclaiming
that we are the sons of God ; and, says St. Paul
in another place, ' our spirit witnesses ' to that
glorious news as well. We feel, we know — why,
we cannot tell, but we feel and know that we are
the sons of God. When we are most calm, most
humble, most free from ill-temper and self-conceit,
most busy about our rightful work, then the feel-
ing comes over us — I have a Father in heaven.
And that feeling gives us a strength, a peace, a
sure trust and hope, which no other thought can
give. Yes, we are ready to say, I may be miser-
able and unfortunate, but the Great God of heaven
and earth is my Father ; and what can happen to
me .'' I may be borne down with the remembrance
of my great sins ; I m.ay find it almost too hard to
fight against all my bad habits ; but the Great
God who made heaven and earth is my Father,
and I am His son. He will forgive me for the
past ; He will help me to conquer for the future.
If I do but remember that I am God's son, and
claim my Father's promises, neither the world, nor
the devil, nor my own sinful flesh, can ever prevail
against me.

This thought, and the peace which it brings, St.
Paul tells us is none of our own ; v/e did not put it
into our own hearts ; from God it comes, that
blessed thought, that He is our Father. We
could never have found it out for ourselves. It
is the Spirit of the Son of God, the Spirit of the
Lord Jesus Christ, which gives us courage to say,

Rvi.] (SOD'S OFFSPRING. 221

' Our Father which art in heaven,' which makes us
feel that those words are true, and must be true,
and are worth all other words in the world put
together — that God is our Father, and we his sons.
Oh, my friends, believe earnestly this blessed
news ! the news of Christmas-day, that you are
not God's slaves, but his sons, heirs of God, and
joint-heirs with Christ ; — ^joint-heirs with Christ '
In what ? Who can tell ? But what an inherit-
ance of glory and bliss that must be, which the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself is to inherit with us
— an inheritance such as eye hath not seen, and
incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away,
preserved in heaven for us ; an inheritance of all
that is wise, loving, noble, holy, peaceful — all that
can make us happy, all that can make us like God
Himself. Oh, what can we expect, if we neglect
so great salvation } What can we expect, if when
the Great God of heaven and earth tells us that
we are His children, we turn away and fall down,
become like the brutes, and the savages, or worse,
like the evil spirits who rebel against God, instead
of growing up to become the sons of God, perfect
even as our Father in heaven is perfect .'' May He
keep us all from that great sin ! May He awaken
each and every one of you to know the glory and
honour which Jesus Christ brought for you when
He was born at Bethlehem — the glory and honour
which was proclaimed to belong to you when you
were christened at that font ! May He awaken
you to know that you are the sons of God, and to
look up to Him with loving, trustful, obedient

222 GOD'S OFFSPRING. [serm. xvi.

souls, saying from your hearts, morning and night
' Our Father which art in heaven,' and feehng that
those words give you daily strength to conquer
your sins, and feel assurance of hope that your
Heavenly Father will help and prosper you. His
family, every time you struggle to obey His com-
mandments, and follow the example of His perfect
and spotless Son, Jesus Christ the Lord !

SERMON XVII.

DEATH IN LIFE.

Romans viii. 12, 13.

Brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if ye through the
Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

DOES it seem strange to you that St. Paul
should warn you, that you are not debtors
to your own flesh .' It is not strange, when you
come to understand him ; certainly not unneces-
sary : for as in his time, so now, most people do
live as if they were debtors to their own flesh, as if
their great duty, their one duty in life, was to please
their own bodies, and brains, and tempers, and
fancies, and feelings. Poor people have not much
time to indulge their brains ; and no time at all,
happily for them, to indulge their fancies and feel-
ings, as rich people do when they grow idle, and
dainty, and luxurious. But still, too many of them
live as if they were debtors to their own flesh ; as
if their own bodies and their own tempers were the
masters of them, and ought to be their masters.
Young men, for instance, how often they do things

224 DEA TH IN LIFE. [serm.

in secret of which it is a shame even to speak, just
because it is pleasant. Young women, how often
do they sell themselves and their own modesty,
just for the pleasure of being flattered and courted,
and of getting a few fine clothes. How often do
men, just for the pleasure of drink, besot their
souls and bodies, madden their tempers, neglect
their families, make themselves every Saturday
night, and often half the week, too, lower than
the beasts which perish. And then, when a
clergyman complains of them, they think him
unreasonable ; and by so thinking, show that he
is right, and St. Paul right : for if I say to you,
My dear young people (and I do say it), if you
give way to filthy living and filthy talking, and
to drunkenness, and to vanity about fine clothes,
you will surely die — do you not say in your hearts,
' How unreasonable : how hard on us ! If we can
' enjoy ourselves a little, why should we not .'' It
' is our right, and do it we will ; and if it is wrong,
' it ought not to be wrong.' Why, what is that but
saying, that you ought to do just what your body
likes : that you are debtors to your flesh ; and that
your flesh, and not God's law, is your master. So
again, when people grow older, perhaps they are
more prudent about bad living, and more careful of
their money : but still they live after the flesh. One
man sets his heart on making money, and cares for
nothing but that ; breaks God's law for that, as if
that was the thing to which he was a debtor, bound
by some law which he could not avoid to scrape
and scrape money together for ever. Another

XVII.] DEATH IN LIFE. 225

(and how often we see that) is a slave to his own
pride and temper, which are just as much bred in
his flesh : if he has been injured by any one, if he
has taken a dishke against any one, he cannot
forget and forgive : the man may be upright and
kindly on many other points ; prudent, too, and
sober, and thoroughly master of himself on most
matters ; and yet you will find that when he gets
on that one point, he is not master of himself; for
his flesh is master of him : he may be a strong-
minded, shrewd man upon most matters but just
that one point : some old quarrel, or grudge, or
suspicion, is, as we say, his weak point : and if
you touch on that, the man's eye will kindle, and
his face redden, and his lip tremble, and he will
show that he is not master of himself : but that he
is over-mastered by his fleshly passion, by the sus-
piciousness, or revengefulness, or touchiness, which
every dumb animal has as well as he, which is
not part of his man's nature, not part of God's
image in him, but which is hke the beasts which
perish.

Now, my friends, suppose I said to you, ' If you
' give way to such tempers ; if you give way to
' pride, suspicion, sullen spite, settled dislike of any
' human being, you will surely die ; ' should you
not, some of you, be inclined to think me very un-
reasonable, and to say in your hearts, ' Have I not
' a right to be angry } Have I not a right to give
' a man as good as he brings ? ' so confessing that
I am right, after all, and that some of you think
that you are debtors to your flesh, and its tempers,

Q

226 DEATH IN LIFE. [serm.

and do not see that you are meant to be masters,
and not slaves, of your tempers and feelings.

Again. Among poor women, as well as among
rich ones, as they grow older, how much gossiping,
tale-bearing, slandering, there is, and that too
among people who call themselves religious. Yes,
I say slandering ; I put that in too ; for I am cer-
tain that where the first two grow, the third is not
far off. If gossiping is the root, tale-bearing and
harsh judgment is the stem, and plain lying and
slandering, and bearing false witness against one's
neighbour, is the fruit.

Now I say, because St. Paul says it, ' that those
who do such things shall surely die.' And do not
some of you think me unreasonable in that, and say
in your heart, ' What ! are we to be tongue-tied .■'
Shall we not speak our minds .'' Be it so, my good
women, only remember this : that as long as you
say that, you confess that you are not masters of
your tongues, but your tongues are masters of you,
and that you freely confess you owe service to your
tongue, and not to God. Do not therefore complain
of me for saying the very same thing, namely, that
you think you are debtors to your flesh — to the
tongues in your mouths, and must needs do what
those same little unruly members choose, of which
St James has said, 'The tongue is a fire, a world of
' iniquity, and it sets on fire the whole course of
' nature, and is set on fire of hell.' And again :
' If any person among you seem to be religious, and
' bridles not his tongue, but deceives himself, that
■ person's rehgion is vain.'

XVII.] DEATH IN LIFE. 227

Again : — and, my good women, you must not
think me hard on you, for you know in your hearts
that I am not hard on you ; but I must speak a word
on a sin which I am afraid is growing in this parish,
and in too many parishes in England ; and that is
deceiving kind and charitable persons, in order to
get more help from them. God knows the tempta-
tion must be sore to poor people at times. And yet
you will surely find in the long run, that ' honesty
is the best policy.' Deceit is always a losing game.
A lie is sure to be found out ; as the Lord Jesus
Himself says, ' There is nothing hid which shall not
be made manifest;' and what we do in secret, is
sure, unless we repent and amend it, to be pro-
claimed on the housetop : and many a poor soul, in
her haste and greediness to get much, ends by getting
nothing at all. And if it were not so ; — if you were
able to deceive any human being out of the riches of
the world : yet know, that a man's life does not con-
sist in the abundance of the things which he pos-
sesses. And know that if you will not believe that,
— if you will fancy that your business is to get all
you can for your mortal bodies, by fair means or
foul, — if you will fancy that you are thus debtors
to your own flesh, you will surely die : but if you,
through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the
body, you shall live.

And by this time some of you are asking, ' Live ?
' Die .'' What does all this mean .' When we die
' we shall die, good or bad ; and in the meantime
' we shall live till we die. And you do not mean
' to tell us that we shall shorten our lives by our

Q 2

228 bEATH IN LIFE. fSERM.

' own tempers, or our tale-bearing, though we might,
' perhaps, by drunkenness ?'

My friends, if such a question rises in your mind,
be sure that it, too, is a hint that you think your-
self a debtor to the flesh^to live according to the
flesh. For tell me, tell yourselves fairly, is your
flesh, your body, the part of yourself which you can
see and handle. You ? — You know that it is not.
When a neighbour's body dies, you say, perhaps,
' He is dead,' but you say it carelessly ; and when
one whom you know well, and love, dies, — when a
parent, a wife, a child, dies, you feel very differently
about them, even if you do not speak differently.
You feel and know that he, the person whom you
loved and understood, and felt with, and felt for,
here on earth, is not dead at all ; you feel (and in
proportion as the friend you have lost was loving,
and good, and full of feeling for you, you feel it all
the more strongly) that your friend, or your child,
or the wife of your bosom, is alive still — where
you know not, but you feel they are alive ; that
they are very near you ; — that they are thinking of
you, watching you, caring for you,— perhaps griev-
ing over you when you go wrong — perhaps rejoic-
ing over you when you go right, — perhaps helping
you, though you cannot see them, in some wonder-
ful way. You know that only their mortal flesh is
dead. That their mortal flesh was all you put into
the grave ; but that ikey themselves, their souls and
spirits, which were their very and real selves, are
alive for evermore ; and you trust and hope to
meet them when you die ; — ay, to meet them body

XVII.] DEATH IN LIFE. 239

and soul too, at the last day, the very same persons
whom you knew here on earth, though the flesh
which they wore here in this life has crumbled into
dust years and ages before.

Is not this true .•■ Is not this a blessed life-giving
thought — I had almost said the most blessed and
life-giving thought man can have — that those whom
we have loved and lost are not dead, but only gone
before ; that they live still to God and with God ;
that only their flesh has perished, and they them-
selves are alive for evermore t

Now believe me, my friends, as surely as a man's
flesh can die and be buried, while he himself, his
soul, lives for ever, just so a man's self, his soul, can
die, while his flesh lives on upon earth. You do not
think so, but the Bible thinks so. The Bible talks
of men being dead in trespasses and sins, while their
flesh and body is alive and walking this earth. It
talks, too, of a worse state, of men twice dead ; of
men, who, after God has brought their souls to life,
let those souls of theirs die down again within them,
and rot away, as far as we can see, hopelessly and
for ever. And what is it which kills a man's soul
within him on this side the grave, and makes him
dead while he has a name to live .-' Sin, evil-doing,
the disease of the soul, the death of the soul, yea,
the death of the man himself. And what is sin but
living according to the flesh, and not according to
the spirit .'' What is sin but living as the dumb
animals do, as if we were debtors to our own flesh,
to fulfil its lusts, and to please our own appetites,
fancies, and tempers, instead of remembering that

23° DEATH IN LIFE. serm.

we are debtors to God, who made us, and blesses
us all day long ; — debtors to our Lord Jesus Christ,
who bought us with His own blood, that we might
please Him and obey Him ; — debtors to God's
Holy Spirit, who puts into our minds good desires ;
— debtors to our baptism vows, in which we were
consecrated to God, that He, and not this flesh of
ours, might be our Master for ever ?

This is sin ; to give way to those selfish and evil
tempers, against which I warned you in the begin-
ning of my sermon, and which, if any man in-
dulges in them, will surely and steadily, bit by bit,
kill that man's soul within him, and leave the man
dead in trespasses and sins, while his body walks
this earth.

My friends, do not fancy these are merely far-
fetched words out of a book, made to sound diffi-
cult and terrible in order to frighten you. God
forbid ! When Scripture says this, it speaks a
plain and simple truth, and one which I know to
be a truth from experience. I speak that which I
know, and testify that which I have seen. I have
seen (and what sadder or more fearful sight .' )
dead men and dying walk this earth in flesh and
blood ; men busy enough, shrewd enough upon
some points, priding themselves, perhaps, upon
their cleverness and knowledge of the world, of
whom all one could say was. The man is dead ;
the man is lost, unless God brings him to life again
by His quickening Spirit : for goodness is dead in
him ; the powers of his soul are dead in him ; the
hope of being a better man is dead in him ; all that

xvn ] DEATH IN LIFE.

231

God wishes to see him be and do, is dead ; God's
likeness and glory in him is dead ; he thinks himself
wise, and he is a fool in God's sight ; for he sees
not God's law, which is the only wisdom : he thinks
himself strong, but he is utterly weak and helpless ;
for he is the slave of his own tempers, the slave of
his own foul lust, the slave of his own pride and
vanity, the slave of his own covetousness. Oh, my
friends, people are apt to be afraid of what they
call seeing a ghost — that is, a spirit without a
body : they fancy that it would be a very shocking
thing to meet one ; but as for me, I know a far
more dreadful sight ; and that is, a careless and a
hardened sinner — a body without a spirit. Which
is uglier and ghastlier — a spirit without a body,
or a body without a spirit ? And yet such one
meets, I dare not think how often.

What sadder sight, if you recollect that men
need not be thus ; that God hates seeing them
thus ; that they become thus, and die down in sin,
in spite of God, with all heaven above, and God
the Lord thereof, crying to them. Why wilt thou
die } What sadder sight .' How many have I
seen, living, to all intents and purposes, as if they
had no souls ; as if there were no God, no Law of
God, no Right, no Wrong ; caring for nothing,
perhaps, but drink and bad women ; or caring for
nothing but scraping together a little more money
than their neighbours ; or caring for nothing but
dress, and vanity, and gossiping, and tale-bearing ;
and yet, when one came to know them, one saw
that that was not what God intended them to be ;

232 DEATH IN LIFE. [serm.

that He had given them hearts which they had
hardened, good feelings which they had crushed,
sound brains which they had left idle, till one was
ready to weep over them, as over something beau-
tiful and noble ruined and lost ; and looked on
them as one would on a grand tree struck by light-
ning, decayed and dead, useless, and only fit to be
burned, with just enough of its proper shape to
show what a tree it ought to have been. And so
it is with men and women : hardly a day passes
but one sees some one of whom one says, with a
sigh, ' What a worthy, loveable, useful person, that
' might have been ! what a blessing to himself and
' all around him ! and now, by following his fallen
' nature, and indulging it, he is neither worthy, nor
' loveable, nor useful ; neither a blessing to himself
' nor to any human being : he might have been
' good for so much, and now he is good for nothing ;
' for the spirit, the immortal soul which God gave
' him, is dead within him.'

My friends, I would not say this, unless I could
say more. I would not say sad words, if I could
not follow them up by joyful and hopeful ones.
It is written, ' If ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die ; ' but it is written also, ' If ye, through the
' Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye
' shall live.' It is promised — promised, my friends,
' Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and Christ shall give thee light'

Through the Spirit, through God's Spirit, every
soul here can live, now and for ever. Through
God's Spirit, Christ not only can, but will, give you

xvii.] DEA TH IN LIFE. 233

light. And that Spirit is near you, with you.
Your baptism is the blessed sign, the everlasting
pledge, that God's Spirit is with you. Oh, believe
that, and take heart. I will not say, you do not
know how much good there is in you ; for in us
dwells no good thing, and every good thought and
feeling comes only from the Spirit of God : but I
will say boldly to every one of you, you do not
know how much good there may be in you, if you
will listen to those good thoughts of God's Spirit ;
you do not know how wise, how right, how strong,
how happy, how useful, you may become ; you do
not know what a blessing each of you may become
to yourselves, and to all around you. Only make
up your mind to live by God's law ;, only make up
your mind, in all things, small p.nd great, to go
God's way, and not your own. Only make up
your mind to listen, not to your own flesh, temper,
and brain, which say this and that is pleasant, but
to listen to God's Spirit, which says this is right,
and that is wrong : this is your duty, do it. Search
out your own besetting sins ; and if you cannot
find them out for yourself, ask God to show you
them ; ask Him to give you truth in the inward
parts, and make you to understand wisdom in the
secret places of your heart. Pray God's Spirit to
quicken your 'soul, and bring it to life, that it may
see and love, what is good, and see and hate what
is wrong ; 'and instead of being most hard on your
neighboijr's sin, to which you are not tempted, be
most hjjtrd on your own sin, on the sin to which you
are mfjst tempted, whatsoever that may be. You

234 DEATH IN LIFE. [serm.

have your besetting sin, doubt it not ; every one
has. I know that I have. I know that I have in-
clinations, tempers, longings, to which if I gave
way, my soul would rot and die within me, and
make me a curse to myself, and you, and every
one I came near ; and all I can do is to pray God's
Spirit to help me to fight those besetting sins of
mine, and crush them, and stamp them down,
whenever they rise and try to master me, and make
me live after the flesh. It is a hard fight ; and
may God forgive me, for I fight it ill enough : but
it is my only hope for my soul's life, my only hope
of remaining a man worth being called a man, or
doing my duty at all by myself and you, and all
mankind. And it is your only hope, too. Pray
for God's Spirit, God's strength, God's life, to give
your souls life, day by day, that you may fight
against your sins, whatsoever they are, lest they
kill your souls, long before disease and old age
kill your bodies. Make^ up your minds to it.
Make up your minds to mortify the deeds of the
body ; to say to your own bodies, tempers, long-
ings, fancies, ' I will not go yqur way : you shall
' go God's way. I am not yoijr debtor ; I owe
' you nothing ; I am God's debtor, and owe Him
' everything, and I will pay Him hcyiestly with tlie
' service of my body, soul, and spirit. I will do
' my duty, and you, my flesh, must arid shall do it
' also, whether it is pleasant at first, or \aot : ' and
be sure it will be pleasant at last, if not-, at first.
Keep God always before your eyes. Ask j^ourself
in every action, 'What is right, what is my\duty.

XVII. DEATH IN LIFE. 235

what would God have me do ? ' And so far from
finding it unpleasant, you will find that you are
saving yourself a thousand troubles, and sorrows,
and petty anxieties which now torment you ; you
will find that in God's presence is life, the only life
worth having, and that at His right hand are plea-
sures for evermore. Oh, be sure, my friends, that
in real happiness you will not lose, but gain without
end. If to have a clear conscience, and a quiet
mind ; if to be free from anxiety and discontent,
free from fear and shame ; if to be loved, respected,
looked up to, by all whose good word is worth
having, and to know that God approves of you,
that all day long God is with you, and you with
God, that His loving and mighty arms are under
you, that He has promised to kc;ep you in all
your ways, to prosper all you do, and reward you
for ever, — if this be not happiness, my friends,
what is .''

SERMON XVIII.
SHAME.

Romans x. ii.

For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not he
ashamed.

M

Y friends, what this text really means is one
thing ; w.'^at we may choose to think it
means is another tijing — perhaps a very different
thing. I will try and \show you what I believe it
really means.

' Whosoever believeth din Him shall not be
ashamed.' It seems as if St. IPaul thought, that not
being ashamed had to do with\salvation, and being
saved; ay, that they were almost the same thing :
for he says just before, if thou\doest so and so,
thou shalt be saved ; for with thev heart man be-
lieveth unto righteousness, and wifih the mouth
confession is made unto salvation ; /o}\' the Scrip-
ture saith, ' Whosoever believeth on Hirtri. shall not
be ashamed ; ' as if being ashamed was e;he very
thing from which we were to be saved. A\nd cer-
tainly that wise and great man, whoever Sie was

SERM. xvill.l SHAME. 437

(some say he was St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in
Italy), who wrote the Te Deum, thought the same ;
for how does he end the Te Deum ? ' O Lord, in
Thee have I trusted : let me never be confounded,'
that is, brought to shame. You see, after he has
spoken of God, and the everlasting glory of God, of
Cherubim and Seraphim, that is, all the powers of
the earth and the powers of the heavens, of Apostles,
Prophets, Martyrs, the Holy Church, all praising
God, and crying ' Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
' Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of the majesty
' of Thy glory; ' after he has spoken of the mystery
of the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of
Christ's redemption and incarnation, and ascension
and glory ; of His judging the world ; of His
government, and His lifting up His people for
ever ; after he has prayed God to keep them this
day without sin, and to let His mercy lighten upon
them ; after all this, at the end of this glorious
hymn, all that he has to say is, ' O Lord, in Thee
have I trusted : let me never be confounded.'— All
he has to say : but that is a great deal : he does
not say that merely because he wants to say some-
thing more, and has nothing else to say. Not so.
In all great hymns and writings like this, the end
is almost sure to be the strongest part of all, to
have the very pith and marrow of the whole matter
in it, as I believe this end of the Te Deum has ;
and I believe that whoever wrote it thought that
being confounded, and brought to shame, was just
the most horrible and wretched thing which could
happen to him, or any man, and the thing above

238 SHAME. [SERM.

all others from which he was most bound to pray
God to save him and every human being.

Now, how is this ? First, let us look at what
coming to shame is ; and next, how believing in
Christ will save us from it.

Now, every man and woman of us here, who has
one spark of good feeling in them, will surely agree,
that coming to shame is dreadful ; and that there
is no pain or torment on earth like the pain of
being ashamed of oneself : nothing so painful. And
I will prove it to you. You call a man a brave
man, if he is afraid of nothing : but there is one
thing the very bravest man is afraid of, and that is
of disgrace, of coming to shame. Ay, my friends,
so terrible is the torment of shame, that you may
see brave men, — men who would face death in
battle, men who would have a limb cut off
without a groan, you may see such, in spite of all
their courage, gnash their teeth, and writhe in
agony, and weep bitter tears, simply because they
are ashamed of themselves, so terrible and unbear-
able is the torment of shame. It may drive a man
to do good or evil : it may drive him to do good ;
as when, rather than come to shame, and be dis-
graced, soldiers will face death in battle willingly
and cheerfully, and do deeds of daring beyond be-
lief: or it may drive him to do evil; rather than
come to shame, men have killed themselves, choos-
ing, unhappy and mistaken men, rather to face the
torment of hell than the torment of disgrace. They
are mistaken enough, God knows. But shame, hke
all powerful things, will work for harm as well as

XvllI,] SHAME. 239

for good ; and just as a wholesome and godly-
shame may be the beginning of a man's repentance
and righteousness, so may an unwholesome and
ungodly shame be the cause of his despair and
ruin. But judge for yourselves ; think over your
past lives. Were you ever once — were it but for
five minutes — utterly ashamed of yourself .' If you
were, did you ever feel any torment like that ? In
all other misery and torment one feels hope ; one
says, ' Still life is worth having, and when the sorrow
' wears away I shall be cheerful and enjoy myself
' again : ' but when one has come to shame, when
one is not only disgraced in the eyes of other
people, but disgraced (which is a thousand time's
worse) in one's own eyes ; when one feels that people
have real reason to despise one, then one feels
for the time as if life was ?wt worth having ; as if
one did not care whether one died or not, or what
became of one : and yet as if dying would do one
no good, change of place would do one no good,
time's running on would do one no good ; as if
what was done could not be undone, and the shame
would be with one still, and torment one still,
wherever one was, and if one was to live a million
years : ay, that it would be everlasting : one feels,
in a word, that real shame and deserved disgrace
is verily and indeed an everlasting torment. And
it is this, and the feeling of this, which explains
why poor wretches will kill themselves, as Judas
Iscariot did, and rush into hell itself, under the
horror and pain of shame and disgrace. They feel
a hell within them so hot, that they actually fancy

240 SHAME. [SERM.

that they can be no worse off beyond the grave
than they are on this side of it. They are mis-
taken : but that is the reason ; the misery of dis-
grace is so intolerable, that they are willing, like
that wretched Judas, to try any mad and desperate
chance to escape it.

So much for shame's being a dreadful and hor-
rible thing. But again, it is a spiritual thing : it
grows and works not in our fleshly bodies, but in
our spirits, our consciences, our immortal souls.
You may see this by thinking of people who are
not afraid of shame. You do not respect them, or
think them the better for that. Not at all. If a
man is not afraid of shame ; if a man, when he is
found out, and exposed, and comes to shame, does
not care for it, but ' brazens out his own shame,' as
we say, we do not call him brave; we call him
what he is, a base impudent person, lost to all
good feeling. Why, what harder name can we call
any man or woman, than to say that they are
' shameless,' dead to shame 1 We know that it is the
very sign of their being dead in sin, the very sign
of God's Spirit having left them ; that till they are
made to feel shame there is no hope of their mend-
ing or repenting, or of any good being put into
them, or coming out of them. So that this feeling
of shame is a spiritual feeling, which has to do with
a man's immortal soul, with his conscience, and the
voice of God in his heart.

Now, consider this : that there will surely come
to you and me, and every living soul, a day of
judgment ; a day in which we shall be judged.

xvill.] SHAME. 241

Think honestly of those two words. First, a day,
not a mere time, much less a night. Now, in a
day there is light, by which men can see, and a
sun in heaven which shows all things clearly. In
that day, that brightest and clearest of all days, we
shall see what we really have been, and what we
really have done ; and for aught we know, every
one round us, every one with whom we have ever
had to do, will see it also. The secrets of all our
hearts will be disclosed ; and we shall stand before
heaven and earth simply for what we are, and
neither more nor less. That is a fearful thought !
Shall we come to shame in that day .■" And it will
be a day of judgment : in it we shall be judged. I
do not mean merely condemned, for we may be
acquitted : or punished, for we may be rewarded ;
those things come after being judged. First, let
us think of what being judged is. A judge's busi-
ness is to decide on what we have done, or whether
we have broken the law or not ; to hear witnesses
for us and against us, to sum up the evidence, and
set forth the evidence for us and the evidence
against us. And our judge will be the Son of
Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is sharper than a
two-edged sword, piercing through the very joints
and marrow, and discerning the secret intents of
the heart ; neither is anything hid from Him, for
all things are naked and open in the sight of Him
with whom we have to do. With whom we Jiave to
do, mind : not merely with whom we shall have to
do ; for He sees all now, He knows all now. Ever
since we were born, there has not been a thought

242 SHAME. [SERM.

in our heart but He has known it altogether. And
He is utterly just — no respecter of persons ; like His
own wisdom, without partiality and without hypo-
crisy. O Lord ! who shall stand in that day t O
Lord ! if thou be extreme to mark what is done
amiss, who shall abide it ? O Lord ! in thee have
I trusted : let me never be confounded !

For this is being confounded ; this is shame it-
self. This is the intolerable, horrible, hellish
shame and torment, wherein is weeping and
gnashing of teeth ; this is the everlasting shame
and contempt to which, as Daniel prophesied, too
many should awake in that day — to be found
guilty in that day before God and Christ, before
our neighbours and our relations, and worst of all,
before ourselves. Worst of all, I say, before our-
selves. It would be dreadful enough to have all
the bad things we ever did or thought told openly
against us to all our neighbours and friends, and to
see them turn away from us ; — dreadful to find out
at last (what we forget all day long) that God
knows them already ; but more dreadful to know
them all ourselves, and see our sins in all their
shamefulness, in the light of God, as God Himself
sees them ; — more dreadful still to see the loving
God and the loving Christ turn away from us ; —
but most dreadful of all to turn away from our-
selves ; to be utterly discontented with ourselves ;
ashamed of ourselves ; to see that all our misery
is our own fault, that we have been our own
enemies; to despise ourselves, and hate ourselves
for ever; to try for ever to get rid of ourselves,

XVIII.] SHAME. 243

and escape from ourselves as from some ugly and
foul place in which we were ashamed to be seen
for a moment : and yet not to be able to get rid of
ourselves. Yes, that will be the true misery of a
lost soul, to be ashamed of itself, and hate itself
Who shall deliver a man from the body of that
death t

I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. I
thank God, that at least now, here, in this life, we
can be delivered. There is but one hope for us
all ; one way for us all, not to come to utter shame.
And this is in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has said,
' Though your sins be red as scarlet they shall be
' white as wool ; and their sins and their iniquities
' will I remember no more.' One hope, to cast
ourselves utterly on His boundless love and
mercy, and cry to Him, ' Blot these sins of mine
' out of Thy book, by Thy most precious blood,
' which is a full atonement for the sins of the whole
' world ; and blot them out of my heart by Thy
' Holy Spirit, that I may hate them and renounce
' them, and flee from them, and give them up, and
' be Thy servant, and do Thy work, and have Thy
' righteousness, and do righteous things like Thee.'
And then, my friends, how or why we cannot
understand ; but it is God's own promise, who
cannot lie, that He will really and actually forgive
these sins of ours, and blot them out as if we
had never done them, and give us clean hearts
and right spirits, to live new lives, right lives,
lives like His own life; so that our past sinful
lives shall be behind us like a dream, and we

R 2

244 SHAME. [SERM.

shall find them forgotten and forgiven in the day
of judgment ; — wonderful mercy ! but listen to it
— it is God's own promise — ' If the wicked man
' turneth away from all his sins that he hath com-
' mitted, and keep all my statutes, and do that
' which is lawful and right, he shall surely live,
' he shall not die. All his transgressions that he
' hath committed, they shall not be mentioned to
' him : in his righteousness that he hath done he
' shall live.'

They shall not be mentioned to him. My
friends, if, as I have been showing, the great
misery, the great horror of all, is having our sins
mentioned to us in That Day, and being made
utterly ashamed by them, what greater mercy
can we want than this — not to have them men-
tioned to us, and not to come to shame ; not to
be plagued for ever with the hideous ghosts of our
past bad thoughts, bad words, bad deeds, coming
all day long to stare us in the face, and cry to us
while the accusing Devil holds them up to us, as if
in a looking-glass — ' Look at your own picture.
' This is what you are. This fool, this idler,
' this mean, covetous, hard-hearted man, who
' cared only for himself; — this stupid man, who
' never cared to know his duty or do his duty ; —
' this proud, passionate, revengeful man, who re-
' turned evil for evil, took his brothers by the
' throat, and exacted from them the uttermost
' farthing ; — this ridiculous, foolish, useless, dis-
' agreeable, unlovely, unlovable person, who went
' through the world neither knowing what he ought

xviii.] SHAME. 245

' to do, nor whither he was going, but was utterly
' blind and in a dream ; this person is you yourself
' Look at your own likeness, and be confounded,
' and utterly ashamed for ever ! ' What greater
misery than that ? What greater blessing than to
escape that ? What greater blessing than to be
able to answer the accusing Devil, ' Not so, liar !
' This is not my likeness. This ugly, ridiculous,
' hateful person is not I. I was such a one once, but
' I am not now. I am another man now ; and God
' knows that I am, though you may try to shame me
' by telling me that I am the same man. I was
' wrong, but I am right now ; I was as a sheep going
' astray, but now I am returned to the Shepherd and
' Overseer of my soul, to whom I belonged all the
' while ; and now I am right, in the right road ; for
' with the heart I have believed God unto righteous-
' ness, and He has given me a clean heart, and a
' right spirit, and has purged me, and will purge me,
' till I am clean, and washed me till I am whiter
' than snow ; I do not deny one of my old sins ; I
' did them, I know that ; I confess them to thee
' now, oh accusing Devil ; but I confessed them to
' God, ay, and to man too, long ago, and by confess-
' ing them to Him I was saved from them ; for with
' the mouth confession is made unto salvation. And
' what is more ; I have not only confessed my own
' sins, but I have confessed Christ's righteousness ;
< and I confess it now. I confess, I say, that Christ
' is perfectly righteous and good, the Perfect Pattern
' of what I ought to be ; and because He is perfectly
' good, He does not wish to see me remain bad and

246 SHAME. [SERM.

sinful, that He may taunt me and torment me with
my sins, as thou the accusing Devil dost : but He
wishes to make me and every man good like Him-
self, blest like Himself; and He can do it,and will do
it, if we will but give up our hearts to Him ; and I
have given up my heart to Him. All I ask of Him is
to be made good and kept good, set right and kept
right ; and I can trust in Him utterly to do that ;
for He is faithful and just to forgive me my sins,
and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. There-
fore, accuse me not. Devil ! for thou hast no share
in me : I belong to Christ, and not to thee. And
set not my old sins before my face ; for God has
set them behind His back, because I have re-
nounced them, and sworn an oath against them,
and Christ has nailed them to His cross, and now
they are none of mine and none of thine, but are
cast long ago into the everlasting fire of God, and
burnt up and done with for ever ; and I am a new
man, and God's man ; and He has justified me, and
will justify me, and make me just and right ; and
neither thou, nor any man, has a right to impute to
me my past sins, for God does not impute them to
me ; and neither thou, nor any man, has a right to
condemn me, for God has justified me. And if it
please God to humble me more (for I know I
want humbling every day), and to show me more
how much I owe to Him — if it please Him, I
say, to bring to light any of my past sins, I shall
take it patiently as a wholesome chastening of
my Heavenly Father's ; and I trust to all God's
people, and to angels, and the spirits of iust men

XVIII.] SHAME. 247

' made perfect, that they will look on my past sins
' as God looks on them, mercifully and lovingly, as
' things past and dead, forgiven and blotted out of
' God's book, by the precious blood of Christ, and
' look on me as I am in Christ, not having any
' righteousness of my own, but Christ's righteous-
' ness, which comes by the inspiration of His own
' Holy Spirit.'

Thus, my friends, we may answer the Devil,
when he stands up to accuse us, and confound us
in the Day of Judgment. Thus we may answer
him now, when, in melancholy moments, he sets
our sins before our face, and begins taunting us,
and crying, ' See what a wretch you are, what a
' hypocrite, too. What would all the world think of
' you, if they knew as much against you as I do 1
' What would the world think of you, if they saw
' into that dirty heart of yours ?' For we can answer
him — ' Whatever the world would think, I know
' what God Himself thinks : He thinks of me as of
' a son who, after wasting his substance, and feeding
' on husks with the swine, has come home to his
' Father's house, and cried. Father, I have sinned
' against heaven, and before Thee, and am no more
' worthy to be called Thy son ; and I know that
' that same good Heavenly Father, instead of
' shaming me, reproaching me, shutting His doors
' against me, has seen me afar off, and taken me
' home again without one harsh word, and called to
' all the angels in heaven, saying, " It is meet that
' we rejoice and be glad, for this My son was dead
' and is alive again, he was lost and is found." And

248 SHAME. SERM.

' while Almighty God, who made heaven and earth,
' is saying that of me, it matters little what the
' lying Devil may say.'

Only, only, if you be wandering from your
Father's house, come home ; if you be wrong, en-
treat to be made right. If you are in your
Father's house, stay there ; if you are right, pray
and struggle to keep right ; if the old account is
blotted out, then, for your soul's sake, run up no
fresh account to stand against you after all in the
Day of Judgment ; if you have the hope in you of
net coming to shame, you must purify yourselves,
even as God is pure ; if you believe really with your
heart, you must believe unto righteousness ; that is,
you must trust God to make you righteous and
good : there is no use trusting Him to make you
anything else, for He will make you nothing else ;
being good Himself, He will only make you good :
but as for trusting in Him to leave you bad, to
leave you quiet in your sins, and then to save you
after all, that is trusting that God will do a most
unjust, and what is more, a most cruel thing to
you ; that is trusting God to do the Devil's work ;
that is a blasphemous false trust, which will be
utterly confounded in the Day of Judgment, and
will cover you with double shame. The whole ques-
tion for each of us is, ' Do we believe unto righteous-
ness.'"' Is righteousness what we want .? Is to be
made good men what we want 1 If not, no con-
fessing with the mouth will be unto salvation, for
how can a man be saved in his sins .'' If an animal
is diseased can it be saved from dying without

xviii.] SHAME 249

curing the disease ? If a tree be decayed, can it be
saved from dying without curing the decay ? If a
man be bad and sinful, can he be saved from
eternal death without curing his badness and sin-
fulness ? How can a man be saved from his sins
but by becoming sinless ? As well ask, Can a man
be saved from his sins without being saved from his
sins ? But if you wish really to be saved from
your sins, and taken out of them, and cured of
them, that you may be made good men, righteous
men, useful men, just men, loving men, Godlike
men ; — then trust in God for that, and you will find
that your trust will be unto righteousness, for you
will become righteous men ; and confess God with
your mouth for that, saying, ' I believe in God my
' Father ; I believe in Jesus Christ His Son, who
' died, and rose, and ascended on high for me ; I
' believe in God's Holy Spirit, which is with me, to
' make me right ;' and your confession will be unto
salvation, for you will be saved from your sins.

Always say to yourself this one thing, ' Good I
' will become, whatever it cost me ; and in God's
' goodness I trust to make me good, for I am sure
' He wishes to see me good, more than I do my-
' self; and you will find that because you have con-
fessed, in that best and most honest of ways, that
God is good, and have so given Him real glory, and
real honour, and real praise. He will save you from
the sins which torment you : and that because you
have really trusted in Him, you shall never come,
either in this world, or the world to come, to that
worst misery, the being ashamed of yourself.

SEEMON XIX.

FORGIVENESS.

Psalm li. i6, 17.

Thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou delightes!

not in burnt offering.
The sacrifice of God is a broken spirit : a broken and a contrite

heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.

YOU all heard just now the story of Nathan and
David, and you must have all felt how beauti-
ful, and noble, and just it was ; how it declares that
there is but one everlasting God's law of justice,
which is above all men, even the greatest ; and
that what is right for the poor man is right for
the king upon his throne, for God is no respecter
of persons.

And you must have admired, too, the frankness,
and fulness, and humbleness of David's repentance,
and liked and loved the man still, in spite of his
sins, as much almost as you did when you heard of
him as a shepherd boy slaying the giant, or a wan-
derer and an outlaw among the hills and forests of
Judasa.

But did it now seem strange to you that David's

SERM. XIX.] FORGTVENESS. 251

repentance, which was so complete when it did
come, should have come no sooner ? Did he need
Nathan to tell him that he had done wrong ? He
seduced another man's wife, and that man one
of his most faithful servants, one of the most
brave and loyal generals of his army ; and then,
over and above his adultery, he had plotted the
man's death, and had had him killed and put out
of the way in as base, and ungrateful, and treacher-
ous a fashion as I ever heard of. His whole con-
duct in the matter had been simply villanous.
There is no word too bad for it. And do you
fancy that he had to wait the greater part of a
year before the thought came into his head that
that was not the fashion in which a man ought to
behave, much more a king .'' — that God's blessing
was not on such doings as those .' — and after all not
find out for himself that he was wrong, but have to
be told of it by Nathan ?

Surely, if he had any common sense, any feeling
of right and wrong left in him, he must have known
that he had done a bad thing ; and his guilty con-
science must have tormented him many a time and
oft during those months, long before Nathan came
to him. Now, that he had the feeling of right and
wrong left in him, we cannot doubt ; for when
Nathan told him the parable of the rich man who
spared all his own flocks and herds, and took the
poor man's one ewe lamb, his heart told him that
that was wrong and unjust, and he cried out, ' The
man who has done this thing shall surely die.* And
surely that feeling of right and wrong could not

2S2 FORGIVENESS. [SERM.

have been quite asleep in him all those months, and
have been awakened then for the first time.

But more ; if we look at two psalms which he
wrote about that time, we shall find that his con-
science had not been dead in him, but had been
tormenting him bitterly ; and that he had been
trying to escape from it, and afterwards to repent
— only in a wrong way.

If we look at the Thirty-second Psalm, we shall
see there he had begun, by trying to deceive him-
self, to excuse himself before God. But that had
only made him the more miserable. ' When I kept
silence, my bones waxed old through my daily
' complaining. For Thy hand was heavy on me
' night and day : my moisture was turned to the
' drought of summer.' Then he had tried sacri-
fices. He had fancied, I suppose, that he could
make God pleased with him again by showing
great devoutness, by offering bullocks and goats
without number, as sin-offerings and peace-offer-
ings ; but that made him no happier. At last he
found out that God required no sacrifice but a
broken heart. That was what God wanted — a
broken and a contrite heart ; for David to be
utterly ashamed of himself, utterly broken down
and silenced, so that he had nothing left to plead
— neither past good deeds, nor present devoutness,
nor sacrifices : nothing but, ' O God, I deserve all
' Thou canst lay on me, and more. Have mercy
' on me — mercy is all I ask.'

There was nothing for him, you see, but to make
a clean breast of it ; to face his sin, and all its

XIX.] FORGIVENESS. 253

shame and abomination, and confess it all, and
throw himself on God's mercy. And when he did
that, there, then, and at once, as Nathan told him,
God put away his sin. As David says himself, ' I
' said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord, and
' so Thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.'

As it is written, ' If we confess our sins, God is
' faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
' cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'

And now, my friends, what lesson may we learn
from this 1 It is easy to say, We have not sinned
as deeply as David, and therefore his story has
nothing to do with us. My friends, whether we
have sinned as deeply as David or not, his story
has to do with you, and me, and every soul in this
church, and every soul in the whole world, or it
would not be in the Bible. For no prophecy of
Scripture is of private interpretation ; that is, it
does not only point at one man here and another
there : but those who wrote it were moved by the
Holy Ghost, who lays down the eternal universal
laws of holiness, of right and good, which are
right and good for you, and me, and all mankind ;
and therefore David's story has to do with you and
me every time we do wrong, and know that we
have done wrong.

Now, my friends, when you have done a wrong
thing, you know your conscience torments you
with it; you are uneasy, and discontented with
yourselves, perhaps cross with those about . you ;
you hardly know why : or rather, though you do
know why, you do not like to tell yourself why.

254 FORGIVENESS. [serm.

The bad thing which you have done, or the bad
tempers which you have given way to, or the per-
son whom you have quarrelled with, hang in your
mind, and darken all your thoughts : and you try
not to remember them : but conscience makes you
remember them, and will not let the dark thought
fly away ; till you can enjoy nothing, because your
heart is not clean and clear ; there is something in
the background which makes you sad whenever
you try to be happy. Then a man tries first to
deceive himself. He says to himself, 'No, that
sin is not what makes me unhappy — not that;'
and he tries to find out any and every reason for
his uncomfortable feelings, except the very thing
which he knows all the while in the bottom of his
heart is the real reason. He says, ' Well, perhaps
' I am unhappy because I have done something
' wrong : what wrong can I have done .' ' And so
he sets to work to find out every sin except the sin
which is the cause of all, because that one he does
not like to face : it is too real, and ugly, and hum-
bling to his proud spirit ; and perhaps he is afraid
of having to give it up. So I have known a man
confess himself a sinner, a miserable sinner, freely
enough, and then break out into a rage with you,
if you dare to speak a word of the one sin which
you know that he has actually committed. ' No,
' sir,' he will say, ' whatever I may be wrong in, I
' am right there. I have committed sins too many,
' I know : but you cannot charge me with that, at
' least ; ' — and all the more because he knows that
everybody round is charging him with it, and that

XIX. FORGIVENESS. 255

the thing is as notorious as the sun in heaven. But
that makes him, in his pride, all the more deter-
mined not to confess himself in the wrong on that
one point ; and he will go and confess to God, and
perhaps to man, all manner of secret sins, nay, even
invent sins for himself out of things which are no
sins, and confess himself humbly in the wrong where
perhaps he is all right, just to drug his conscience,
and be able to say, ' I have repented,' — repented,
that is, of everything but what he and all the world
know that he ought to repent of

But still his conscience is not easy : he has no
peace of mind : he is like David : ' While I held
' my peace, my bones waxed old through my daily
' complaining.' God's hand is heavy on him day
and night, and his moisture is like the drought in
summer : his heart feels hard and dry ; he cannot
enjoy himself ; he is moody; he lies awake and
frets at night, and goes listlessly an d heavily about
his business in the morning ; his heart is not right
with God, and he knows it ; God and he are not at
peace, and he knows it.

Then he tries to repent : but it is a false, useless
sort of repentance. He says to Himself, as David
did, ' Well, then, I will make my peace with God :
' I will please Him. I have done one wrong thing.
' I will do two right ones to make up for it.' If he
is a rich man, he perhaps tries David's plan of
burnt-offerings and sacrifices. He says, ' I will
' give away a great deal in charity ; I will build a
' church ; I will take a great deal of trouble about
■ societies, and speak at religious meetings, and

256 FORGIVENESS. [serm.

• show God how much I really do care for Him
' after all, and what great sacrifices I can make for
' Him.'

Or, if he is a poor man, he will say, ' Well, then,
' I will try and be more religious ; I will think more
' about my soul, and come to church as often as I
' can, and say my prayers regularly, and read good
' books ; and perhaps that will make my peace
' with God. At all events, God shall see that I
' am not as bad as I look ; not altogether bad ;
' that I do care for Him, and for doing right.'

But, rich or poor, the man finds out by bitter
experience how truly David said, ' Thou requirest
' no sacrifice, else would I give it Thee. Thou de-
' lightest not in burnt-offerings.'

Not that they are not good and excellent ; but
that they are not good coming from him, because
his heart is still unrepentant, because, instead of
confessing his sin and throwing himself on God's
mercy, he is trying to win God round to overlook
his sin. So almsgiving, and ordinances, and prayer
give the poor man no peace. He rises from his
knees unrefreshed. He goes out of church with
as heavy a heart as he went in, and he finds that
for all his praying he does not become a better
man, any more than a happier man. There is still
that darkness over his soul, like a black cloud
spread between him and God.

My friends, if any of you find yourselves in this
sad case, the only remedy which I can give you,
the only remedy which I ever found do me any
good, or give me back my peace of mind, is

XIX.] FORGIVENESS. 257

David's remedy ; the one which he found out at
last, and which he spoke of in these blessed
Psalms. Confess your sin to God. Bring it all
out. Make a clean breast of it — whatever it may
cost you, make a clean breast of it. Only be but
hojiest with God, and all will come right at once.
Say, not with your lips only, but from the very
bottom of your heart, say, ' Oh, good God,
' Heavenly Father, I have nothing to say ; I am
' wrong, and yet I do not know how wrong I am ;
' but Thou knowest. Thou seest all my sin a
' thousand times more clearly than I do ; and if I
' look black and foul to myself, oh God, how much
' more black and how foul must I look to Thee !
' I know not. All I know is, that I am utterly
' wrong, and Thou utterly right. I am shapen in
' sin, conceived in iniquity. My heart it is that is
' wrong. Not merely this or that wrong which I
' have done ; but my heart, my temper, which will
' have its own way, which cares for itself, and
■ not for Thee. I have nothing to plead ; nothing
' to throw into the other scale. For if I have ever
' done right, it was Thou didst right in me, and
' not me myself, and only my sins are my own
' doing ; so the good in me is all Thine, and the
' bad in me all my own, and in me dwells no good
' thing. And as for excusing myself by saying
' that I love Thee, I had better tell the truth, since
' Thou knowest it already — I do not love Thee.
' Oh God, I love myself, my pitiful, miserable self,
' well enough, and too well : but as for loving Thee
• — how many of my good deeds have been done

S

258 FORGIVENESS. [serm.

' for love of Thee ? I have done right from fear
' of hell, from hope of heaven ; or to win Thy
' blessings : but how often have I done right really
' and purely for Thy sake ? I am ashamed to
' think ! My only comfort, my only hope, is, that
' whether I love Thee or not, Thou lovest me, and
' hast sent Thy Son to seek and save me. Help
' me now. Save me now out of my sin, and dark-
' ness, and self-conceit. Show Thy love to me by
' setting this wrong heart of mine right. Give me
' a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit
' within me. If I be wrong myself, how can I
' m.ake myself right 1 No ; Thou must do it.
' Thou must purge me, or I shall never be clean ;
' Thou must make me to understand wisdom in
' the secret depth of my heart, or I shall never see
' my way. Thou must, for I cannot ; and base
' and bad as I am, I can believe that Thou wilt
' condescend to help me and teach me, because I
' know Thy love in Jesus Christ my Lord. And
' then Thou wilt be pleased with my sacrifices and
' oblations, because they come from a right heart
' — a truly humble, honest, penitent heart, which is
' not trying to deceive God, or plaster over its own
' baseness and weakness, but confesses all, and yet
' trusts in God's boundless love. Then my alms
' will rise as a sweet savour before Thee, oh God ;
' then sacraments will strengthen me, ordinances
' will teach me, good books will speak to my soul,
' and my prayers will be answered by peace of
' mind, and a clear conscience, and the sweet and
' strengthening sense that I am in my Heavenly

XIX.] FORGIVENESS. 259

' Father's house, about my Heavenly Father's busi-
' ness, and that His smile is over me, and His
' blessing on me, as long as I remain loyal to
' Him and to His laws.' Feel thus, my friends,
and speak to God thus, and see if the dark stupefy-
ing cloud does not pass away from your heart —
see if there and then does not come sunshine and
strength, and the sweet assurance that you are
indeed forgiven.

But how about this old sin, which caused the
man all this trouble ? He began by trying to for-
get it. I think, if he be a true penitent, he will
not wish to forget it any more. He will not tor-
ment himself about it, for he knows that God has
forgiven him. But the more he feels God has for-
given him, the less likely he will be to forgive him-
self. The more sure he feels of God's love and
mercy, the more utterly ashamed of himself he will
be. And what is more, it is not wise to forget our
own sins, when God has not forgotten them. For
God does not forget our sins, though He forgives
them ; and a very bad thing it would be for us if
He did, my friends. For the wages of sin is death :
and even if God does not slay us for our sins, He is
certain to punish us for them in some way, lest we
should forget that sin is sin, and fancy that God's
mercy is only careless indulgence. So God did to
David. He then told him that though he was for-
given he would still be punished, 'The Lord has
' put away thy sin ; nevertheless, the child that
' shall be born unto thee shall surely die.' Punish-
ment and forgiveness went together. Ay, if we will

S 2

26o FORGIVENESS. [serm.

look at it rightly, David's being punished was the
very sign that God had forgiven him. Oh, believe
that, my friends ; face it ; thank God for it. I at
least do, when I look back upon my past life, and
see that for every wrong I have ever done, I have
been punished : not punished a tenth part as much
as I deserve ; but still punished, more or less, and
made to smart for my own folly, and to learn, by
hard unmistakable experience, that it will not
pay me, or any man, to break the least of God's
laws ; and I thank God for it. I tell you to thank
God also, whensoever you are punished for your
sins. It is a sign that God cares for you, that
God loves you, that God is training and educating
you, that God is your Father, and He is dealing
with you as with His sons. For what son is there
whom His Father does not chastise .'' It is a bitter
lesson, no doubt ; but we have deserved it : then
let us bear it like men. No doubt it is bitter :
but there is a blessing in it. No chastisement at
first seems pleasant, says the Apostle, but rather
grievous : yet afterwards it yields the peaceable
fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised
thereby. Be exercised by it, then. Let God teach
you in His own way, even if it seem a harsh and
painful way. We have had earthly fathers, says
the Apostle, who corrected us, and we gave them
reverence. Shall we not much rather be in sub-
jection to God, the Father of Spirits, and live }
For suffering and punishment is the way to Eternal
Life^to that true Eternal Life which is knowing
God and God's love, and becoming like God. As

XIX.] FORGIVENESS. 261

the Apostle says, God chastens us only for our
profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
And as king Hezekiah says of affliction, ' Lord,
' by these things,' by sorrow and chastisement,
' men live ; and in all these things is the life of
' the spirit.'

May God give to you, and me, and all mankind,
as often as we do wrong, honest and good hearts
to confess our sins thoroughly, and take our punish-
ment meekly, and trust in God's boundless mercy,
in order that if we humble ourselves under His rod,
and learn His lessons faithfully in this life, we may
not need a worse punishment in the life to come,
but be accepted in the last great Day for the sake
of Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour.

SERMON XX.

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

I Cor. xii. 31 ; XIII. i.

Covet earnestly the best gifts : and yet shew I unto you 1 more

excellent way.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have

not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

MY friends, let me say a few plain words this
morning to young and old, rich and poor,
upon this text.

Now you all, I suppose, think it a good thing to
be gentlemen and ladies. All of you, I say. There
is not a poor man in this church, perhaps, who has
not before now said in his heart, ' Ah, if I were but
a gentleman ! ' or a poor woman who has not said
in her heart, 'Ah, if I were but a lady ! ' You see
round you in the world thousands plotting and
labouring all their lives long to make money and
grow rich, that they may become (as they think)
gentlemen, or, at least, their sons after them. And
those here who are what the world calls gentlemen
and ladies, know very well that those names are
names which are very precious to them ; and would

SERM. XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 263

sooner give up house, land, money, all the comforts
upon earth, than give up being called gentlemen
and ladies ; and these last know, I trust, what
some poor people do not know, and what no man
knows who fancies that he can make a gentleman
of himself merely by gaining money, and setting
up a fine house, and a good table, and horses and
carriages, and indulging the lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life ; for these
last ought to know that the right to be called gen-
tlemen and ladies is something which this world
did not give, and cannot take away; so that if
they were brought to utter poverty and rags, or
forced to dig the ground for their own livelihood,
they would be gentlemen and ladies still, if they
ever had been really and truly such ; and what is
more, they would make every one who met them
feel that they were gentlemen and ladies, in spite
of all their poverty.

Now, people do not often understand clearly why
this is. They feel, more or less, that so it is ; but
they cannot explain it. I could tell you why they
cannot ; but I will not take up your time. But if
they cannot explain it, there are those who can.
St. Paul explains it in the Epistle. The Lord
Jesus Himself explains it in the Gospel. They
tell us why money will not make a gentleman.
They tell us why poverty will not unmake one :
but they tell us more. They tell us the one only
thing which makes a true gentleman. And they
tell us more still. They tell us how every one of
us, down to the poorest and most ifi;norant man

264 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

and woman in this church, may become true gen-
tlemen and ladies, in the sight of God and of all
reasonable men ; and that, not only in this life, but
after death, for ever, and ever, and ever. And
that is by charity, by love.

Now, if you will look two or three chapters
back, in the Epistle to the Corinthians — at the
nth and I2th chapters — you will see that these
Corinthians were behaving to each other very
much as people are apt to do in England now.
They all wanted to rise in life, and they wanted to
rise upon each other's shoulders. Each man and
woman wanted to set themselves up above their
neighbours, and to look down upon them. The
rich looked down on the poor, and kept apart
from them at the Lord's Supper ; and no doubt
the poor envied the rich heartily enough in return.
And these Corinthians were very religious, and
some of them, too, very clever. So those who,
being poor, could not set themselves up above
their neighbours on the score of wealth, wanted to
set themselves up on the score of their spiritual
gifts. One looked down on his neighbours because
he was a deeper scholar than they ; another, be-
cause he had the gift of tongues, and understood
more languages than they ; another could prophesy
better than any of them, and so, because he was
a very eloquent preacher, he tried to get power
over his neighbours, and abuse the talents which
God had given him, to pamper his own pride and
vanity, and love of managing and ordering people,
and of being run after by silly women (as St. Paul

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 265

calls them), ever learning and never coming to the
knowledge of the truth. And of the rest, one
party sided with one preacher, or one teacher, and
another with another ; and each party looked down
on the other, and judged them harshly, and said
bitter things of them, till, as St. Paul says, they
were all split up by heresies, that is, by divisions,
party spirit, envying, and grudging in the very
Church of God, and at the very Table of The Lord.

Now says St. Paul, ' Covet earnestly the best
gifts : and yet show I you a more excellent way ; '
and that is charity ; love. As much as to say, I do
not complain of any of you for trying to be the
best that you can, for trying to be as wise as you
can be, as eloquent as you can be, as learned as
you can be : I do not complain of you for trying to
rise ; but I do complain of you for trying to rise
upon each other's shoulders. I do complain of
you for each trying to set up himself, and trying to
make use of his neighbours instead of helping
them ; and, when God gives you gifts to do good to
others with, trying to do good only to yourselves
with them.

For he says, you are all members of one body ;
and all the talents, gifts, understanding, power,
money, which God has bestowed on you, He has
given you only that you may help your neighbours
with them. Of course there is no harm in longing
and praying for great gifts, longing and praying to
be very wise, or very eloquent ; but only that you
may do all the more good. And, after all, says
St. Paul, there is something more worth longing

266 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

for, not merely than money, but more worth long-
ing for than the wisdom of a prophet, or the
tongue of an angel ; and that is charity. If you
have that, you will be able to do as much good as
God requires of you in your station ; and if you
have not that, you will not do what God requires of
you, even though you spoke with the tongues of
men and of angels. Even though you had the gift
of prophecy, and understood all mysteries, and all
knowledge ; even though you had all faith, so that
you could remove mountains ; even though you
had all good works, and gave all your goods to
feed the poor, and your body to be burned as a
martyr for the sake of religion, and had not
charity, you would be nothing. Nothing, says
St. Paul, but sounding brass and a tinkling cym-
bal — an empty vessel, which makes the more noise
the less there is in it. If you have charity, says
St. Paul, you will be able to do your share of good
where God has put you, though you may be poor,
and ignorant, and stupid, and weak ; but if you
have not charity, all the wisdom and learning,
righteousness and eloquence in the world, will only
give you greater power of doing harm.

Yes, he says, I show you a more excellent way
to be really great ; a way by which the poorest
may be as great as the richest, — the simple cot-
tager's wife as great as the most accomplished
lady; and that is charity, which comes from the
Spirit of God. Pray for that — try after that ; and
if you want to know what sort of a spirit it is that
you are to pray for and try after, I will tell you.

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 267

Charity is the very opposite of the selfish, cove-
tous, ambitious, proud, grudging spirit of this
world. Charity suffers long, and is kind : charity
does not envy : charity does not boast, is not
puffed up : does not behave itself unseemly ; that
is, is never rude, or overbearing, or careless about
hurting people's feelings by hard words or looks :
seeketh not its own ; that is, is not always looking
on its own rights, and thinking about itself, and
trying to help itself ; is not easily provoked :
thinketh no evil, that is, is not suspicious, ready to
make out the worst case against every one ; re-
joiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ;
that is, is not glad, as too many are, to see people
do wrong, and to laugh and sneer over their fail-
ings : but rejoiceth in the truth, tries to find out
the truth about every one, and judge them honestly,
and make fair allowances for them : covereth all
things ; that is, tries to hide a neighbour's sins as
far as is right, instead of gossiping over them, and
blazoning them up and down, as too many do :
believeth all things ; that is, gives every one credit
for meaning well as long as it can : hopeth all
things ; that is, never gives any one up as past
mending : endureth all things, keeps its temper,
and keeps its tongue ; not rendering evil for evil,
or railing for railing, but, on the contrary, blessing;
and so overcomes evil with good.

In one word, while the spirit of the world thinks
of itself, and helps itself. Charity, which is the
Spirit of God, thinks of other people, and helps
other people. And now : — to be always thinking

268 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

of other people's feelings, and always caring for
other people's comfort, what is that but the mark,
and the only mark, of a true gentleman, and a
true lady ? There is none other, my friends, and
there never will be. But the poorest man or
woman can do that ; the poorest man or woman
can be courteous and tender, careful not to pain
people, ready and willing to help every one to the
best of their power ; and therefore, the poorest
man or woman can be a true gentleman or a true
lady in the sight of God, by the inspiration of
the Spirit of God, whose name is Charity.

They can be. And thanks be to the grace of
God, they often are. I can say that I have seen
among plain sailors and labouring men as perfect
gentlemen (of God's sort) as man need see ; but
then they were always pious and God-fearing
men ; and so the Spirit of God had made up to
them for any want of scholarship and rank. They
were gentlemen, because God's Spirit had made
them gentle. For recollect all, both rich and
poor, what that word gentle-man means. It is
simply a man who is gentle; who, let him be as
brave or as wise as he will, yet, as St. Paul says,
' suffers long and is kind ; does not boast, does
' not behave himself unseemly ; is not easily pro-
' voked, thinketh no evil.'

And recollect, too, what that word lady means.
Most of you perhaps do not know. I will tell
you. It means, in the ancient English tongue, a
person who gives away bread; who deals out
loaves to the poor. I have often thought that

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 269

most beautiful, and full of meaning, a very mes-
sage from God to all ladies, to tell them what
they ought to be; and not to them only, but to
the poorest woman in the parish ; for who is too
poor to help her neighbours ?

You see there is a difference between a Christian
man's duty in this and a Christian woman's duty,
though they both spring from the same spirit. The
man, unless he be a clergyman, has not so much
time as a woman for actually helping his neigh-
bours by acts of charity. He must till the ground,
sail the seas, attend to his business, fight the
Queen's enemies ; and the way in which the Holy
Spirit of Charity will show in him will be more in
his temper and his language; by making him
patient, cheerful, respectful, condescending, cour-
teous, reasonable, with every one whom he has to
do with : but the woman has time to show acts
of charity which the man has not. She can teach
in the schools, sit by the sick bed, work with her
hands for the suffering and the helpless, even
though she cannot with her head. Above all, she
can give those kind looks and kind words which
comfort the broken heart better than money and
bodily comforts can do. And she does do it, thank
God ! I do not merely mean in such noble in-
stances of divine charity and self-sacrifice as those
ladies who have gone out to nurse the wounded
soldiers in the East — true ladies, indeed, of whom
I fear more than one, ere they return, will be added
to the noble army of martyrs, to receive in return
for the great love which they have shown on earth,

270 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

the full enjoyment of God's love in heaven : — not
these only, but poor women — women who could
not write their own names — women who had hardly
clothes wherewith to keep themselves warm —
women who were toiling all day long to feed and
clothe their own children, till one wondered when in
the twenty-four hours they could find five spare
minutes for helping their neighbours ; — such poor
women have I seen, who in the midst of their own
daily work and daily care, had still a heart open to
hear every one's troubles ; a head always planning
little comforts and pleasures for others ; and hands
always busy in doing good. Instead of being made
hard and selfish by their own troubles, they had
been taught by them, as the Lord Jesus was, to
feel for the troubles of all around them, and
went about like ministering angels in the Spirit
of God, which is peace on earth and goodwill
towards men.

Oh, my friends, such poor women seemed to me
most glorious, most honourable, most venerable !
What was all rank or fashion, beauty or accom-
plishments, when compared with the great honour
which the Lord Jesus Christ was putting upon
those poor women, by transforming them thus into
His own most blessed likeness, and giving them
grace to go about, as He the Lord Jesus did,
doing good, because God was with them !

Then I felt that such women, poor, and worn,
and hard-handed as they were, were ladies in the
sight of that Heavenly Father, who is no respecter
of persons ; and felt how truly a wise ancient has

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. ■rjx

said, — ' It is virtue, yea, virtue, gentlemen, which
' maketh gentlemen ; which maketh the poor rich,
' the strong weak, the simple wise, the base-born
' noble. This rank neither the whirling wheel of
' Fortune can destroy, nor the deceitful cavillings
' of worldlings separate ; neither sickness abate,
' nor time abolish.' No ; for it is written, that
though prophecies shall fail, tongues cease, know-
ledge vanish away, and all that we now know is
but in part, yet charity shall never fail those who
are full of the Spirit of Love, but abide with them
for ever and ever, bringing forth fruit through all
eternity to everlasting life.

But what sort of virtue ? Do not mistake that.
Not what the world calls virtue ; not mere legal
respectability, which says, I do unto others as they
do unto me ; which is often merely the whitening
outside the sepulchre, and leaves the heart within
unrenewed, unrighteous, full of pride and ambition,
conceit, cunning, and envy, and unbeHef in God :
not that virtue, but the virtue which the Apostle
tells us to add to "our faith, the virtue from above,
which is the same as the wisdom from above, which
is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be en-
treated ; in one word, the Holy Spirit of God, the
Spirit of Divine Love and Charity, which seeketh
not its own, which St. Paul has described to us in
this epistle ; the Holy Spirit of God, with which
the Lord Jesus was filled without measure, and
which He manifested to all the world in His most
blessed life and death.

Ah, my friends, this is not an easy lesson to

272 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

learti. Christ's disciples and apostles could not
learn it all at once. They tried to hinder little
children from coming to Him. They rebuked the
blind man who called after Him. How could
the great Prophet of Nazareth stoop to trouble
Himself about such poor insignificant people .''
They could not conceive, either, why the Lord
Jesus should choose to die shamefullyj when He
might have lived in honour: it seemed unworthy
of Him. They were shocked at His words. ' That
be far from Thee, Lord,' said Peter. Afterwards,
when they really understood what that word ' Lord,'
meant, and what sort of a man a true and perfect
Lord ought to be, then they saw how fit, and proper,
and glorious, Christ's self-sacrifice was. When, too,
they learnt to look on Him, not merely as a great
prophet, but as the Son of the Living God, then
they understood His conduct, and saw that it be-
hoved an only-begotten Son of God to suffer all
these things before He entered into His glory.

But the Scribes and Pharisees never understood
it. To the last they were puzzled and angered by
that very self-sacrifice of His : He must be a bad
man, they thought, or He would not care so much
for bad men. ' A friend of publicans and sinners,'
they called Him, thinking that a shameful blame
to Him, while it was really the very highest praise.
But if they could not see the beauty of His con-
duct, can we .'' It is very difficult, I do not deny
it, my friends, for the selfishness and pride of
fallen man : it is difficult to see that the Cross was
the most glorious throne that was ever set up on

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 172,

earth, and that the crown of thorns was worth all
the crowns of czars and emperors : difficult, indeed,
not to stumble at the stumbling-block of the Cross,
and to say, ' It cannot surely, be more blessed to
give than to receive : ' difficult, not to say in our
hearts, ' The way to be great is surely to rise above
' other men, not to stoop below them ; to make
' use of them, and not to make ourselves slaves to
' them,' And yet the Lord Jesus Christ did so ;
He took on Himself the form of a slave, and made
Himself of no reputation : and what was fit and
good for Him, must surely be fit and good for us.
But it is a hard lesson to the pride of fallen crea-
tures : very hard. And nothing, I believe, but
sorrow will teach it us : sorrow is teaching it some
of us now. We surely are beginning to see, that
to suffer patiently for conscience sake, is the most
beautiful thing on earth or in heaven : we begin to
see that those poor soldiers, dying by inches of
cold and weariness, without a murmur, because it
was their Duty, were doing a nobler work even
than they did when they fought at Alma and
Inkermann ; and that those ladies who are drudg-
ing in the hospitals, far away from home, amid filth
and pestilence, are doing, if possible, a nobler work
still, a nobler work than if they were queens or
empresses, because they have taken up the Cross
and followed Christ ; because they are not seeking
their own good, but the good of others. And if
we will not learn it from those glorious examples,
God will force us to learn it, I trust, every one of
us, by sorrow and disappointment. Ah, my friends,

T

274 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

might one not learn it at once, if one would but
open one's eyes and look at things as they are?
Every one is longing for something ; each has his
little plan for himself, of what he would like to be,
and like to do, and says to himself all day long,
' If I could but get that one thing, I should be
' happy : If I could but get that, then I should
' want no more!' Foolish man, self-deceived by
his own lusts ! Perhaps he cannot get what he
wants, and therefore he cannot enjoy what he has,
and is moody, discontented, peevish, a torment to
himself, and perhaps a torment to his family. Or
perhaps he does get what he wants : and is he
happy after all ? Not he. He is like the greedy
Israelites of old, when they longed for the quails ;
and God sent the quails : but while the meat was
yet in their mouths, they loathed it. So it is with
a man's fancy. He gets what he fancies ; and he
plays with it for a day, as a child with a new toy,
and most probably spoils it, and next day throws
it away to run after some new pleasure, which will
cheat him in just the same way as the last did ;
and so happiness flits away ahead before him ; and
he is like the simple boy in the parable, who was
to find a crock of gold where the rainbow touched
the ground : but as he moved on, the rainbow
moved on too, and kept always a field off from
him. You may smile : but just as foolish is every
soul of us, who fancies that he will become happy
by making himself great ; admired, rich, comfort-
able, in short, by making himself anything what-
soever, or getting anything whatsoever for himself

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 275

Just as foolish is every poor soul, and just as un-
happy, as long as he will go on thinking about
himself, instead of copying the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thinking about others ; as long as he will keep
to the pattern of the old selfish Adam, which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, the long-
ings and fancies which deceive a man into expect-
ing to be happy when he will not be happy ;
instead of putting on the new man, which after
God's likeness is created in righteousness and true
holiness : and what is true holiness but that very
charity of which St. Paul has been preaching to
us, the spirit of love, and mercy, and gentleness,
and condescension, and patience, and active bene-
volence .'

Ah, my friends, do not forget what I said jusl
now ; that a man could not become happy by
making himself anything. No. Not by making
himself anything : but he may by letting God
make him something. If he will let God make
him a new creature in Jesus Christ, then he will be
more than happy — he will be blessed : then he will
be a blessing to himself, and a blessing to every one
whom he meets : then all vain longing, and selfish-
ness, and pride, and ambition, and covetousness,
and peevishness and disappointment, will vanish
out of his heart, and he will work manfully and
contentedly where God has placed him — cheerful
and open-hearted, civil and patient, always think-
ing about others, and not about himself ; trying to
be about his Master's business, which is doing good ;
and always finding too, that his Master Christ sets

T 2

276 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. [serm.

him some good work to do day by day, and gives
him strength to do it. And how can a man get
that blessed and noble state of mind ? By prayer
and practice. You must ask for strength from
God : but then you must believe that He answers
your prayer, and gives you that strength ; and
therefore you must try and use it. There is no
more use in praying without practising than there
is in practising without praying. You cannot learn
to walk without walking: no more can you learn
to do good without trying to do good.

Ask, then, of God, grace and help to do good :
Pray to Him this very day to take all selfishness
and meanness out of your hearts, and to give you
instead His Holy Spirit of Love and Charity,
which alone can make you noble in His sight ;
and try this day, try every day of your lives, to
do some good to those around you. Oh make a
rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it,
never, if possible, to lie down at night without
being able to say, ' I have made one human being
' at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or a
' little better this day.' You will find it easier than
you think, and pleasanter : easier, because if you
wish to do God's work, God will surely find you
work to do ; and pleasanter, because in return
for the little trouble it may cost you, or the little
choking of foolish vulgar pride it may cost you,
you will have a peace of mind, a quiet of temper,
a cheerfulness and hopefulness about yourself and
all around you, such as you never felt before ; and
over and above that, if you look for a reward in

XX.] THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 277

the life to come, recollect this — what we have to
hope for in the life to come is, to enter into the
joy of our Lord. And how did He fulfil that joy,
but by humbling Himself, and taking the form of
a slave, and coming not to be ministered to but
to minister, and to give His whole life, even to
the death upon the cross, a ransom for many .■'
Be sure, that unless you take up His cross, you
will not share His crown. Be sure, that unless you
follow in His footsteps, you will never reach the
place where He is. If you wish to enter into the
joy of your Lord, be sure that His joy is now, as
it was in Judaea of old, over every sinner that re-
penteth, every mourner that is comforted, every
hungry mouth that is fed, every poor soul, sick or
in prison, who is visited.

That is the joy of your Lord — to show mercy;
and that must be your joy too, if you wish to enter
into His joy. Surely that is plain. You must
rejoice in doing the same work that He rejoices
in, and then His joy and yours will be the same ;
then you will enter into His joy, and He will enter
into yours ; then, as St. John says, you will dwell
in Christ, and Christ in you, because you love the
brethren ; and you will hear through all eternity
the blessed words, ' Inasmuch as ye did it unto
' one of the least of these little ones, ye did it
' unto Me.'

SERMON XXI.

TOLERATION.
[Preached at Bideford, 1854.]

Philippians III. 15, 16.

And if in any lliing ye shall be otherwise minded, God shall reveal
even this to you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained,
let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

MY friends, allow me to speak a few plain and
honest words, ere we part, on a matter which
is near to, and probably important to, many of us
here. We all know how the Christian Church has
in all ages been torn in pieces by rehgious quarrels ;
we all know too well how painfully these religious
quarrels have been brought home to our very doors
and hearts of late.

Now, we all deplore, or profess to deplore, these
differences and controversies. But we may do that
in two ways : we may say, ' I am very sorry that
all Christians do not think alike,' when all we
mean is, ' I am very sorry that all Christians do
' not think just as I do, for I am right and in-
' fallible, whosoever else is wrong.' The fallen

SERM. XXI.] TOLERATION. 279

heart of man is too apt to say that, my friends, in
its pride and narrowness, and while it cries out
against the Pope of Rome, sets itself up as Pope
in his stead.

But there is surely another and a better way of
deploring these differences : and that is, to say to
' oneself, ' I am sorry, bitterly sorry, that Christians
' cannot differ without quarrelling and hating one
• another over and above.' And then comes the
deeper home-thought, ' And how much more sorry
' I am that I myself cannot differ from my fellow-
' Christians without growing angry with them,
' suspecting them, despising them, treating them as
' if they were not my fellow-Christians at all' Yes,
my friends, this is what we have to do first when we
think of religious controversies, to examine our own
hearts and deeds and words ; to see whether we too
have not been making bitterness more bitter, and.
as the old proverb says, ' stirring the fire with a
sword ; ' and to repent humbly and utterly of every
harsh word, hasty judgment, ungenerous suspicion,
as sins, not only against men, but against God the
Father of Lights, who worketh in each of His
children to will and to do of His good pleasure.

But some will say, ' We cannot give up what we
believe to be right and true.' God forbid that you
should try to do so, my friends ; for if you really
believe it, you cannot, even if you try ; and by
trying you will only make yourselves dishonest.
But does not that hold as good of the man who
differs from you ? God will not surely lay down
one law for you, and another for him ? ' But we

zSo TOLERATION.

SERM.

are right, and he is wrong.' Be it so. You do
not surely mean that you are quite right ; perfect
and infalHble .' You mean that you are right on
the whole, and as far as you see. And how can
you tell but that he is right on the whole, and as
far as he sees 1 You will answer that both cannot
be right ; that yes and no cannot be both true ;
that a thing cannot be black and white also.

My friends, my friends — but where is the religious
controversy, the two sides whereof are as clearly
opposite to each other as yes and no, black and
white .■" I know none now ; I have hardly found
one in the records of the Protestant Church since
first Luther and our Reformers protested against
Romish idolatry. On that last matter there should
■ be no doubt, as long as the first two command-
ments stand in the Decalogue; but, with that
exception, it would be difficult to find a dispute
in which the truth lay altogether with one party.
The truth rather lies, in general, not so much half-
way between the two combatants, as in some third
place, which neither of them sees ; which perhaps
God does not intend them to see in this life, while
He leaves his servants each to work out some
one side of Christian truth, dividing to every man
severally as He will, according to the powers of
each mind, and the needs of each situation.

True we have the infallible rule of Scripture ;
but are our own interpretations of it so sure to be
infallible .'' Inspired, infinite, inexhaustible as it is,
can we pretend to have fathomed all its abysses,
to have comprehended all its boundless treasures ?

XXI.] TOLERATION. 28 (

The pretence is folly. True, again, it contains all
things necessary to salvation ; and those so plainly
set forth, that he who runs may read, and the way-
faring man, though poor, shall not err therein. And
yet does it not contain things whereof even St.
Paul himself said, that he only knew in part, and
prophesied in part, and saw as through a glass
darkly ; and are we to suppose that they are
among the truths necessary to salvation .'' Now
are not the points about which there has been, and
is still, most dispute, just of this very number } Do
they belong to the simple fundamental truths of
the Gospel ">. No. Are they such plain matters
that the wayfaring man, though poor, can make
up his mind on them for himself.' No. Are they
one of them laid down directly in Scripture, like
the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, or the
Creeds .■' No. They are every one, as it seems to
me, whether they be right or wrong, abstruse de-
ductions, delicate theories, built up on single and
obscure texts. Surely, if they had been necessary
for salvation, the Lord would have spoken on them
in a tone and in words about which there should be
no more mistake than about the thunders of Sinai,
and the tables of stone fresh from the finger-mark
of God. And He has spoken to us, my friends,
on other matters, if not on these. His promises
are clear enough, and short enough, though high
as heaven and wide as the universe. There is
one God, and one Mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus, the only-begotten Son
of God ; and whosoever believeth that Jesus is the

282 TOLERA TION. [serm.

Christ, is born of God ; and if any man sin, we
have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our
sins. And again, ' If any man lack wisdom, let
' him ask of God, who giveth liberally, and up-
' braideth not, and he shall receive it.' ' For if ye,
' being evil, know how to give good gifts to your
' children, much more shall your Heavenly Father
' give His Holy Spirit to them who ask Him.'

These are God's promises — simple and clear
enough : and what are God's demands .■" Are they
numerous, intricate, burdensome, a yoke which
neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear }
God forbid again ! — ' He hath showed thee, oh
' man, what is good. And what doth the Lord
' require of thee, but to do justly and to love
' mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God .' '
And lest thou shouldest mistake in the least
the meaning of these words, He hath showed
thee all this, and more, by a living example
fairer than all the sons of men, and through lips
full of grace, in the blessed life and blessed death
of His Son Jesus Christ, the brightness of His
glory, and the express image of His person. To
this, at least, we have already attained. Let us
walk by this rule, let us all mind this same thing ;
and if in anything else we are differently minded,
God in His own good time will reveal even that
to us.

Is not this enough, my friends "i Then why
should we bite and tear each other about that
which is over and above this.' If any man be-

XXI.] TOLERATION. 283

lieves this, and acts on it, let us hail him as a
brother. After all, let our differences be what
they will, have we not one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above
all, and through all, and in us all ? If this is not
bond enough between man and man, what bond
would we have ? Oh, my friends, when we con-
sider this our little life, how full of ignorance it is
and darkness ; within us, rebellion, inconstancy,
confusion, daily sins and short-comings ; and
without us, disappointment, fear of loneliness, loss
of friends, loss of all which makes life worth
having, — who are we that we should deny proudly
one single tie which binds us to any other human
being ? Who are we that we should refuse one
hand stretched out to grasp our own ? Who are
we that we should say, ' Stand back, for I am
holier than thou ? ' Who are we that we should
judge another ? to his own master let him stand or
fall — ' yea, and he shall stand,' says the Apostle ;
' for God is able to make him stand.'

Think of those last words, my friends, they are
strong and startling ; but we must not shrink from
them. They tell us that God may be as near those
whom we heap with hard names, as He is near to
us ; that He may intend that they should triumph,
not over us, but with us over evil. And if God be
with them, who dare be against them ? Shall we
be more dainty than God .■■ And therefore I have
never been able to hear, without a shudder, words
which I have heard, and from really Christian men
too : ' I can wish well to a pious man of a different

2S4 TOLERA TION. [SERM.

' denomination from mine ; I can honour and
' admire the fruits of God's Spirit in him ; but I
' cannot co-operate with him.' When I hear such
language from really good men, I confess I am
puzzled. I have no doubt that their reasons seem
to them very sound ; but what they are I cannot
conceive. I cannot conceive why I should not
hold out the right hand of fellowship and brother-
hood to every man who fears God and works
righteousness, of whatsoever denomination he may
be. We believe the Apostles' Creed, surely .' Then
think of the meaning of that one word, The Holy
Spirit. To whom are we to attribute any man's
good deeds, except to the Holy Spirit .' We dare
not say that he does them by an innate and
natural virtue of his own, for that would be to
fall at once into the Pelagian heresy ; neither dare
we attribute his good deeds to an evil spirit, and
say, ' However good they may look, they must
' be bad, for he belongs to a denomination who
' cannot have God's Spirit.' We dare not ; for
that would be to approach fearfully near to the
unpardonable sin itself, the sin against the Holy
Ghost, the bigotry which says, ' He casteth out
devils by the Prince of the devils.' Surely if we
be Christians, and Churchmen, we confess (for
the Bible and the Prayer-book declare) that every
good deed of man comes down from the One
Fountain of Good, from God, the Father of
Lights, by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit.

Then think, my friends, think what words we
have said. We confess that the great, absolute,

XXI.] TOLERATION. 285

almighty, eternal God, in whose hand suns and
stars, ages and generations, hell and heaven, and
all which is and has been, and ever will be, are
but as a grain of sand ; who has but to take away
His breath, and the whole universe would become
nothing and nowhere ; the utterly holy and right-
eous God, who is of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity, who charges His angels with folly, and
the heavens are not clean in His sight — we confess,
I say, that this great God has condescended to
visit that man's soul, and cherish it, and teach it,
and shape it (be it ever so little) into His own
likeness : and shall we dare to stand aloof from
him from whom God does not stand aloof? Shall
we refuse to walk with one who walks with God ?
Shall we refuse to work with one who is a fellow-
worker with God, to love one whom God loves, to
take by the hand one whose guest God has become ?
Shall we be more dainty than God ? more fasti-
dious than God ? more righteous than God ? more
separate from sinners than God ? Oh, my friends,
let us pray that we may love God better, and know
His likeness more clearly ; that we may be more
ready to recognise, and admire, and welcome every,
even the smallest trace of that likeness in any
human being, remembering that it is the likeness
of Christ, who was not merely The Teacher of all
in every nation who fear God and work righteous-
ness, but the Saviour who ate and drank with
publicans and sinners : and then we shall be more
careful how we call unclean what God Himself has
cleansed with His own presence, His own grace

286 TOLERATION. [serm,

His own quickening and renewing and sanctifying
Spirit.

Be sure, be sure, my friends, that in proportion
as we really love the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall
love those who love Him, be it in never so clumsy
or mistaken a fashion ; and love those too whom
He loved enough to die for them, and whom He
loves now enough to teach and strengthen. We
shall say to them, not ' Wherein do we differ ">. ' but
' Wherein do we agree .' ' Not, ' Because I cannot
' worship with you, thereforet^I will not work with
' you ; ' but rather, ' I wish that I could worship
' with you ; I will whenever and wherever I can, as
' far as you allow me, as far as the law allows me,
' as far as your worship is not in my eyes an
' actually sinful thing : but, be that as it may, we
' can at least do together something better even
' than worshipping, and that is, working. We can
' surely do good together. Together, let our de-
' nomination or party be what it may, we can feed
' the hungry, clothe the naked, reform the prisoner,
' humanize the degraded, save yearly the lives of
' thousands by labouring for the public health, and
' educate the minds and morals of the masses,
' though our religious differences (shame on us that
' it should be so !) force us to part when we begin
' to talk to them about the world to come.'

For are we not brothers after all .' Has not
God made us of one blood, English men, with
English hearts .■' Has not Christ redeemed us
with one and the same sacrifice ? Has not the
Holy Spirit given us one and the same desire of

XXI.] TOLERATION. 287

doing good ? And shall we not use that spirit
hand in hand ? Look, look at the opportunities
of doing good which are around you ; look at God's
field of good works, white already to the harvest ;
and the labourers are few. Shall these few, instead
of going manfully to work, stand idly quarrelling
about the shape of their instruments, and their
favourite modes of using them 1 God forbid !
True, there are errors against which we are bound
to protest to the uttermost ; but how few .■' The
one real enemy we have all to fight is sin — evil-
doing. If any man or doctrine makes men worse
— makes men do worse deeds, protest then, if you
will, and spare not, and shrink not: for sin must
be of the Devil, whatever else is not And there-
fore we are bound to protest against any doctrine
which parts man from God, and, under whatsoever
pretence of reverence or purity, draws again the
veil between him and his Heavenly Father, and
denies him free access to the Throne of Grace, and
the feet of Jesus, that he may carry thither his
own sins, his own doubts, his own sorrows, and
speak (wondrous condescension of redeeming
grace ! ) speak with God face to face, and yet live.
For this we must protest; for this we must die,
if needs be ; for if we lose this, we lose all
which our reforming forefathers won for us at the
stake, ay, we lose our own souls ; for we lose
righteousness and strength, and the power to do
the will of God.

For to shut a man out from free access to God
and Christ is to make him certainly false, dishonest.

288 TOLERATION. [serm.

cowardly, degraded, slavish, and sinful ; as modern
Popery has made, and always will make, those over
whom it really gains power. This is the root of
our hereditary protest against Popery ; not merely
because we do not agree with certain of its doc-
trines, but because we know from experience, that
as now taught by the Jesuits, with whom it has
identified itself, its general tendency is to make
men bad men, ignorant, dishonest, rebellious ; un-
worthy citizens of a free and loyal state.

And there are practices against which congrega-
tions have a right to protest, not only as Christians,
but as free Englishmen. Congregations have a
right to protest against any minister who introduces
obsolete ceremonies which empty his church and
drive away his people. Those ceremonies may be
quite harmless in themselves, as I really believe
most of them are ; many of them may be beauti-
ful, and, if properly understood, useful, as I think
they are ; but a thing may be good in itself, and
yet become bad by being used at a wrong time, and
in a way which produces harm. And it is shocking,
to say the least, to see churches emptied and
parishes thrown into war for the sake of such mat-
ters. The lightest word which can be used for such
conduct is, pedantry ; but I fear at times lest the
Lord in heaven should be using a far more awful
word, and when He sees weak brethren driven from
the fold of the Church by the self-will and obsti-
nacy of the very men who profess to desire to bring
all into the Church, as the only place where salva-
tion is to be found, — I fear, I say, when I see such

XXI. TOLERATION. 289

deeds, lest the Lord should repeat against them
His own awful words : ' If any man scandalize one
' of these little ones who believeth on Me, it were
' better for him that a millstone were hanged about
' his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths
' of the sea.' What sadder mistake ? Those who
have sworn to seek out Christ's lambs scattered up
and down this wicked world, shall they be the very
ones to frighten those lambs out of the fold, instead
of alluring them back into it ? Shall the shepherd
play the part, not even of the hireling who flees and
leaves the sheep to themselves, but of the very wolf
who scatters the flock ? God forbid ! The Church,
like the Sabbath, was made for man, my friends :
not man for the Church ; and the Son of Man, as
He is Lord of the Sabbath, is Lord of the Church,
and will have mercy in its dealings rather than
sacrifice. The minister, my friends, was made for the
people : and not the people for the minister. What
else does the very name ' minister' mean .' Not a
lord who has dominion, but a servant, a servant to
all, who must give up again and again his private
notions of what he thinks best in itself for the sake
of what will be best for his flock ; who must be,
like St. Paul, a Jew to the Jews ; under the law to
those who are still under the law ; and yet again
without lav/ to those who are without law (though
not without law to God, but under the law to
Christ) ; weak with the weak ; strong with the
strong ; that he may gain men of all sorts of
opinions and characters by agreeing with them as
far as he honestly can, and showing his sympathy

U

290 TOLERATION. [serm.

with each as much as he can ; and so become all
things to all men, that he may by all means -save
some. Oh, my friends, who can read honestly that
glorious First Epistle to the Corinthians and not see
how a man may have the most intense earnestness,
the strongest doctrinal certainty, and yet at the
same time the greatest freedom, and charity, and
liberality about minor matters of ceremonies and
Church arrangements, and practical methods of
useful'ness ; glad even that Christ be preached by
his enemies, and out of spite to him, because any
way Christ is preached ?

But, my friends, if it is the right of free English-
men to protest against such doings, how shall it be
done ? Surely in gentleness, calmness, reverence,
as by men who know that they are standing on holy
ground, and dealing with sacred things, before the
Throne of God, and beneath the eye of Jesus Christ.
Not surely, as it has been too often done, in bitter-
ness, and wrath, and clamour, and evil-speaking,
with really unjust suspicions, exaggerations, slan-
ders, (and those, too, anonymous,) in the columns
of the public prints. My friends, these are not
God's weapons. Not such is Ithuriel's magic spear,
the very touch of which unmasks falsehood. This
is to try to cast out Satan by Satan, to make evil
worse by fighting it with fresh evil. Oh, my friends,
if there is one counsel which I would press on all
here more earnestly than another, it is this — never,
never, howsoever great may be the temptation, to
indulge in anonymous attacks on any human being.
No man has a right to do it who prays daily to his

XXI.] TOLERA TION 291

Father in heaven, Lead us not into temptation.
For it is to lead oneself into temptation, and that
too sore to resist ; into the temptation to say some-
thing which one dare not say, and ought not to say,
were one's name known ; the temptation to forget
not only the charity of Christians, but even the
courtesies of civilized life ; and to shoot, from behind
the safe hedge of anonymousness, coward and en-
venomed shafts, of which we should be ashamed, did
the world know that they were ours ; of which we
shall surely be ashamed in that great day, when the
secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. I speak
strongly : but only because I know by bitter expe-
rience the terrible truth of my own words.

And consider, my friends, can any good result
come from handling sacred matters with such ra.sh
and fierce hands as they have been handled of late ?
For ourselves, such evil tempers only excite, irritate,
blind us : they prevent our doing justice to the
opposite side — (I speak of all parties) — they put us
into an unwholesome state of suspicion, and tempt
us to pass harsh judgments upon men as righteous,
and perhaps far more righteous, than ourselves :
they stir up our pride to special plead our case, to
make the best of our own side, and the worst of
our opponents' : they defile our very prayers ; till^
when we ought to be praying God to bless all man-
kind, we catch ourselves unawares calling on Him
to curse our enemies.

For those who are without — for the infidel, the
profligate, the careless — oh, what a scandal to them !
What an excuse for them to blaspheme the holy

U 2

292 TOLERATION. [serm.

name whereby we are called, and ask, as of old, ' Is
this then the Gospel of Peace ? See how these
Christians hate one another !'

While for the young, oh, my friends, what a
scandal, again, to them ! If you had seen (as I
have) pious parents destroying in their own chil-
drens' minds all faith, all reverence for holy things,
by mixing themselves up in religious controversies,
and indulging by their own firesides in fierce denun-
ciations of men no worse than themselves ; — if you
will watch (as you may) young people taking refuge,
some in utter frivolity, saying, ' What am I to be-
' lieve ? When religionists have settled what religion
' is, it will be time enough for me to think of it :
' meanwhile, let me eat and drink, for to-morrow I
' die ;' — and others, the children of strong Protestant
parents, taking refuge in the apostate Church of
Rome, and saying, ' If Englishmen do not know
' what to believe, Rome does ; if I cannot find
' certainty in Protestantism, I can in Popery ;' — if
you will consider honestly and earnestly these sad
tragedies, you will look on it as a sacred duty to the
children whom God has given you, to keep aloof as
much as possible from all those points on which
Christians differ, and make your children feel from
their earliest years that there are points, and those
the great, vital root points, on which all more or
less agree, which many members of the Romish
Church have held, and, I doubt not, now hold, as
firmly as Protestants, — adoption by one common
Father, justification by the blood of one common
Saviour, sanctification by one common Holy Spirit

XXI.J TOLERATION. 293

And believe me, my friends, that just in propor-
tion as you delight in, and live by, these great doc-
trines, all controversies will become less and less
important in your eyes. The more j'ou value the
living body of Christianity, the less you will think
of its temporary garments ; the more you feel the
power of God's Spirit, the less scrupulous will you be
about the peculiar form in which He may manifest
Himself Personal trust in Christ Jesus, personal
love to Christ Jesus, personal belief that He and He
only, is governing this poor diseased and confused
world ; that He is really fighting against all evil in
it ; that He really rules all nations, and fashions the
hearts of all of them, and understands all their
works, and has appointed them their times and the
bounds of their habitation, if haply tliey may feel
after Him and find Him : personal and living belief
that the just and loving Lord Christ reigneth, be the
peoples never so unquiet ; — this, this will keep your
minds clear, and sober, and charitable, and will make
you turn with disgust from platform squabbles and
newspaper controversies, to do the duty which lies
nearest you ; to walk soberly and righteously with
your God, and train up your children in His faith
and fear, not merely to be scholars, not merely to
be devotees, but to be Christian Englishmen ;
courteous and gentle, and yet manful and self-re-
straining ; fearing God and regarding man ; growing
up healthy under that solemn sense of national duty
which is the only safeguard of national freedom.

And, meanwhile, you will leave all who differ
from you in the hands of a God who wills their

294 TOLERATION. [serm. xxi.

salvation far more than you can do ; who accepts,
in every nation, those who fear Him and work
righteousness ; who is merciful in this — that He
rewards every man according to his work ; and
who, if our brothers be otherwise minded from us,
will reveal even that to them, if we be right : or,
again, to us, if they be right. For we may have to
learn from them, as well as they from us ; and both
have to learn much from God, in the day when all
controversies and doubts shall vanish like a cloud ;
when we shall see no longer in part, and through a
glass darkly, but face to face ; while all things shall
be bright in the sunshine of God's presence and of
the countenance of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON XXII.

PUBLIC SPIRIT.
{Preached at Biileford, 1855.)

I Corinthians xii. 25, 26.

That there should be no division in the body ; but that Ihe members
should have the same care, one of another. And whether one
member suffer, all suffer with it ; or whetlier one member be
honoured, all rejoice with it.

I HAVE been asked to preach in behalf of the
Provident Society of this town. I shall begin
by asking you to think over with me a matter
which may seem at first sight to have very little to
do with you or with a provident society, but which,
nevertheless, I believe has very much to do with
both, and is full of wholesome spiritual instruction
for us all.

Did it ever happen to any of you, to see a mob
of several thousands put to instant flight by a mere
handful of soldiers ? And did you ever ask your-
self how that apparent miracle could come to pass .?
The first answer which occurred to you, perhaps,
was, that the soldiers were well armed, and the mob
was not : but soon, I am sure, you felt that vol-

49^ Public spirit. [serri.

were doing the soldiers an injustice ; that they
would have behaved just as bravely if every man
in that mob had been as well armed as they, and
have resisted till they were overpowered by mere
numbers. You felt, I am sure, that there was
something in the hearts and spirits of those soldiers
which there was not in the hearts of the mob ; that
though the mob might be boiling over with the
greediest passions, the fiercest fury, while the sol-
diers were calm, cheerful, and caring for nothing
but doing their duty, yet that there was a thought
within them which was stronger than all the rage
and greediness of the thousands whom they faced ;
that, in short, the seeming miracle was a moral and
a spiritual miracle.

What, then, is this wonder-working thought
which makes the soldier strong 1

Courage, you answer, and the sense of duty.
True ; but what has called out the sense of duty .'
What has inspired the courage .■■ There was a time,
perhaps, when each of those soldiers was no braver
or more steady than the mob in front of them.
Has it never happened to you to know some young
country lad, both before and after he has become a
soldier ? Look at him in his native village (if you
will let me draw for you the sketch of a history,
which, alas ! is the history of thousands), perhaps
one of the worst and idlest lads in it — unwilling to
work steadily, haunting the public-house and the
worst of company ; wandering out at night to
poach and caring for nothing but satisfying his
gross animal appetites ; afraid to look you in the

xxn.] PUBLIC SPIRIT. 2gf

face, hardly able to give an intelligible, certainly
not a civil answer ; his countenance expressing only
vacancy, sensuality, cunning, suspicion, utter want
of self-respect.

It is a sad sight, but how common a sight, even
in this favoured land !

At last he vanishes ; he has been engaged in
some drunken affray, or in some low intrigue, and
has fled for fear of the law, and enlisted as a
soldier.

A year or two passes, and you meet the same lad
again — if indeed he is the same. For a strange
change has come over him : he walks erect, he
speaks clearly, he looks you boldly in the face,
with eyes full of intelligence and self-respect ; he is
become civil and courteous now ; he touches his
cap to you ' like a soldier ; ' he can afford now to
be respectful to others, because he respects himself,
and expects you to respect him. You talk to him,
and find that the change is not merely outward,
but inward ; not owing to mere mechanical drill
but to something which has been going on in his
heart ; and ten to one, the first thing that he begins
to talk to you about, with honest pride, is his regi-
ment. His regiment. Yes, there is the secret
which has worked these wonders ; there is the
talisman which has humanized and civilized and
raised from the mire the once savage boor. He
belongs to a regiment ; in one word, he has become
the member of a body.

The member of a body, in which if one member
suffers, all suffer with it; if one member be honoured,

298 PUBLIC SPIRIT. [SERM.

all rejoice with it. A body, which has a life
of its own, and a government of its own, a duty
of its own, a history of its own, an allegiance
to a sovereign, all which are now his life, his
duty, his history, his allegiance ; he does not now
merely serve himself and his own selfish lusts :
he serves the Queen. His nature is not changed,
but the thought that he is the member of an hon-
ourable body has raised him above his nature. If
he forgets that, and thinks only of himself, he will
become selfish sluttish, drunken, cowardly, a bad
soldier ; as long as he remembers it, he is a hero.
He can face mobs now, and worse than mobs: he
can face hunger and thirst, fatigue, danger, death
itself, because he is the member of a body. For those
know little, little of human nature and its weakness,
who fancy that mere brute courage, as of an angry
lion, will ever avail, or availed a few short weeks
ago, to spur our thousands up the steeps of Alma,
or across the fatal plain of Balaklava, athwart the
corpses of their comrades, upon the deadly throats
of Russian guns. A nobler feeling, a more heavenly
thought was needed (and when needed, thanks to
God, it came !) to keep each raw lad, nursed in the
lap of peace, true to his country and his Queen
through the valley of the shadow of death. Not
mere animal fierceness : but that tattered rag
which floated above his head, inscribed with the
glorious names of Egypt or Corunna, Toulouse or
Waterloo, that it was which raised him into a
hero : he had seen those victories ; the men who
conquered there were dead long since: but the

xxii.J PUBLIC SPIRIT. 299

regiment still lived, its history still lived, its honour
lived, and that history, that honour were his, as well
as those old dead warriors' : he had fought side by
side with them in spirit, though not in the flesh ;
and now his turn was come, and he must do as
they did,and for their sakes, and count his own life
a worthless thing for the sake of the body which he
belonged to : he, but two years ago the idle, selfish
country lad, now stumbling cheerful on in the teeth
of the iron hail, across ground slippery with his
comrades' blood, not knowing whether the next
moment his own blood might not swell the ghastly
stream. What matter ? They might kill him, but
they could not kill the regiment : it would live on
and conquer ; ay, and should conquer, if his life
could help on its victory ; and then its honour
would be his, its reward be his, even when his
corpse lay pierced with wounds, stiffening beneath
a foreign sky.

Here, my friends, is one example of the blessed
power of fellow feeling, public spirit, the sense of
belonging to a body whose members have not
merely a common interest, but a common duty, a
common honour.

This Christian country, thank God ! gives daily
many another example of the same : and every
place, and every station affords to each one of us
opportunities, — more, alas, I fear, than we shall
ever take full advantage of : but I have chosen the
case of the soldier, not merely because it is perhaps
the most striking and affecting, but because I wish
to see, and trust in God that I shall see, those who

joo PUBLIC SPIRIT. fSERM.

remain at home in safety emulating the public
spirit and self-sacrifice which our soldiers are show-
ing abroad ; and by sacrifices more peaceful and
easy, but still well-pleasing unto God, showing that
they too have been raised above selfishness, by
the glorious thought that they are members of a
body.

For, are we not members of a body, my friends ?
Are we not members of the Body of bodies, mem-
bers of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the
Kingdom of Heaven ? Members of Christ — we,
and the poor for whom I plead, as well as we ; per-
haps, considering their many trials and our few
trials, more faithfully and loyally by far than we are.
Theie are some here, I doubt not, to whom that
word, that argument, is enough : to whom it is
enough to say. Remember that the Lord whom
you love loves that shivering, starving wretch as
well as He loves you, to open and exhaust at once
their heart, their purse, their labour of love. God's
blessing be upon all such ! But it would be hypo-
crisy in me, my friends, to speak to this, or any
congregation, as if all were of that temper of mind.
It is not one in ten, alas ! in the present divided
state of religious parties, who feels the mere name
of Christ enough of a bond to make him sacrifice
himself for his fellow Christians, as a soldier does
for his fellow soldiers. Not one in ten, alas ! feels
that he owes the same allegiance to Christ as the
soldier does to his Queen ; that the honour of
Christianity is his honour, the history of Chris-
tianity his history, the life of Christianity his life.

XXII.] PUBUC SPIRIT. 301

Would that it were so : but it is not so. And I
must appeal to feelings in you less wide, honour-
able and righteous though they are : I must appeal
to your public spirit as townsmen of this place.

I have a right as a clergyman to do so : I have
a duty as a clergyman to do so. For your being
townsmen of this place is not a mere material acci-
dent depending on your living in one house instead
of another. It is a spiritual matter ; it is a ques-
tion of eternity. Your souls and spirits influence
each other ; your tastes, opinions, tempers, habits,
make those of your neighbours better or worse ;
you feel it in yourselves daily. Look at it as a
proof that, whether you will or not, you are one
body, of which all the members must more or less
suffer and rejoice together ; that you have a com-
mon weal, a common interest ; that God has knit
you together ; that you cannot part yourselves
even if you will ; and that you can be happy and
prosperous only by acknowledging each other as
brothers, and by doing to each other as you would
they should do unto you.

It may be hard at times to bring this thought
home to our minds : but it is none the less true
because we forget it; and if we do not choose to
bring it home to our own minds, it will be sooner
or later brought home to them whether we choose
or not.

For bear in mind, that St. Paul does not say, if
one member suffers, all the rest ought to suffer with
it : he says that they do suffer with it. He does
not say merely, that we ought to feel for our fellow

•502 PUBLIC SPIRIT. [serm.

townsmen ; he says, that God has so tempered the
body together as to force one member to have the
same care of the others as of itself ; that if we do
not care to feel for them, we shall be made to feel
with them. One limb cannot choose whether or
not it will feel the disease of another limb. If one
limb be in pain, the whole body must be uneasy,
whether it will or not. And if one class in a town,
or parish, or county, be degraded, or in want, the
whole town, or parish, or county, must be the worse
for it. St. Paul is not preaching up sentimental
sympathy : he is telling you of a plain fact. He is
not saying, ' It is a very fine and saintly thing, and
' will increase your chance of heaven, to help the
' poor.' He is saying, ' If you neglect the poor,
'you neglect yourself; if you degrade the poor,
' you degrade yourself. His poverty, his careless-
' ness, his immorality, his dirt, his ill-health, will
' punish you ; for you and he are members of the
' same body, knit together inextricably for weal or
' woe, by the eternal laws according to which the
' Lord Jesus Christ has constituted human society ;
' and if you break those laws, they will avenge
' themselves.'- — My friends, do we not see them
avenge themselves daily .' The slave-holder re-
fuses to acknowledge that his slave is a member
of the same body as himself; but he does not go
unpunished : the degradation to which he has
brought his slave degrades him, by throwing open
to him the downward path of lust, laziness, un-
governed and tyrannous tempers, and the other
sins which have in all ages, slowly but surely,

xxn.l PUBLIC SPIRIT. 303

worked the just ruin of slave-holding states. The
sinner is his own tempter, and the sinner is his own
executioner : he lies in wait for his own life (says
Solomon) when he lies in wait for his brother's.
Do you see the same law working in our own free
country ? If you leave the poor careless and filthy,
you can obtain no good servants : if you leave them
profligate, they make your sons profligate also : if
you leave them tempted by want, your property is
unsafe : if you leave them uneducated, reckless, im-
provident, you cannot get your work properly done,
and have to waste time and money in watching
your workmen instead of trusting them. Why,
what are all poor-rates and county-rates, if you
will consider, but God's plain proof to us, that the
poor are members of the same body as ourselves ;
and that if we will not help them of our own free
will, we shall find it necessary to help them against
our will : that if we will not pay a little to prevent
them becoming pauperized or criminal, we must
pay a great deal to keep them when they have
become so .'' We may draw a lesson — and a most
instructive one it is — from the city of Liverpool, in
which it was lately proved that crime — and especi-
ally the crime of uneducated boys and girls — had
cost, in the last few years, the city many times
more than it would cost to educate, civilize, and
depauperize the whole rising generation of that
city, and had been a tax upon the capital and in-
dustry of Liverpool, so enormous that they would
have submitted to it from no Government on earth ;
and yet they had been blindly inflicting it upon

304 PUBLIC SPIRIT. [serm.

themselves for years, simply because they chose to
forget that they were their brothers' keepers.

Look again at preventible epidemics, like cholera.
All the great towns of England have discovered,
what you I fear are discovering also, that the
expense of a pestilence, and of the widows and
orphans which it creates, is far greater than the
expense of putting a town into such a state of
cleanliness as would defy the entrance of the dis-
ease. So it is throughout the world. Nothing is
more expensive than penuriousness ; nothing more
anxious than carelessness ; and every duty which
is bidden to wait, returns with seven fresh duties at
its back.

Yes, my friends, we are members of a body ; and
we must realize that fact by painful experience, if
we refuse to realize it in public spirit and brotherly
kindness, and the approval of a good conscience,
and the knowledge that we are living like our Lord
and Master Jesus Christ, who laboured for all but
Himself, cared for all but Himself; who counted
not His own life dear to Himself that by laying it
down He might redeem into His own likeness the
beings whom He had made ; and who has placed
us on this earth, each in his own station, each in
his own parish, that we might follow in His foot-
steps, and live by His Spirit, which is the spirit of
love and fellow-feeling, that new and risen life of
His, which is the life of duty, honour, and self-
sacrifice.

Yes. Let us look rather at this brighter side of
the question, my friends, than at the darker. I will

XXII.] PUBLIC SPIRIT. 305

preach the Gospel to you rather than the Law. 1
will appeal to your higher feelings rather than to
your lower ; to your love rather than your fear ; to
your honour rather than your self-interest. It will
be pleasanter for me : it will meet with a more
cordial response, I doubt not, from you.

Some dislike appeals to honour. I cannot, as
long as St. Paul himself appeals to it so often, both
in the individual and in bodies. His whole Epistle
to Philemon is an appeal, most delicate and grace-
ful, to Philemon's sense of honour — to the thought
of what he owed Paul, of what Paul wished him to
repay, not with money, but with generosity.

And his appeal to the Corinthians is a direct
appeal to their honour : not to fears of any punish-
ment, or wrath of God, but to the respect which
they owed to themselves as members of a body,
the Church of Corinth ; and to the respect which
they owed to that body as a whole, and which they
had disgraced by allowing an open scandal in it.

And his appeal was successful : they took it just
as it was meant ; and he rejoices in the thought
that they did so. ' For this, that ye sorrowed after
' a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you,
' yea, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation,
' what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what
' revenge ! In all things you have approved your-
' selves to be clear in this matter.' •

Noble words, and nobly answered. My friends,
you, too, are members of a body : go, and do like-
wise in the matter of this Society's failing funds.

* * * » *

X

io6 PUBLIC SPIRIT. [serm.

May I boldly ask you to alter this to-day? This,
remember, is no common day. It is a day of thank-
fulness. The thankfulness which you professed, and
I doubt not many of you felt, on Thursday night,
has not evaporated, I trust, by Sunday morning.
You have not yet forgotten — I trust that there is
many a one who will never forget — what you owe
as townsmen of this place, to God who has pre-
served you safe through the dangers and sorrows
of the past autumn. You owe more than one debt
to God. You owe, all England owes, thanks to
Him for the late bounteous harvest, thanks to Him
for the present prosperous seed-time : think what
our state might have been with scarcity, as well as
war, upon us, and pay part of your debt this day.
You owe a thank-offering for the cessation of the
cholera ; a thank-offering for the sparing of your
own lives ; — pay it now. You owe a thank-offering
for the glorious victories of our armies : — pay it
now. You belong, too, to an honourable body,
which has a noble history, and sets you many a
noble example ; show yourselves worthy of that
body, that history, those examples, now.

And what fitter place than this very church to
awaken within you the thought of duty and of
public spirit i" — this church which stands as God's
own sign that you are the townsmen, the repre-
sentatives, ay,' some of you the very descendants,
of many a noble spirit of old time i" — this church,
in which God's blessing has been invoked on deeds
of patriotism and enterprise, of which the whole
world now bears the fruit i" — ^these walls, in which

XXII.] PUBLIC SPIRIT. 307

Elizabeth's heroes, your ancestors, have prayed
before sailing against the Spanish Armada, — these
walls, which saw the baptism of the first red Indian
convert, and the gathering in, as it were, of the
firstfruits of the heathen, — these walls, in which
the early settlers of Virginia have invoked God's
blessing on those tiny ventures which were des-
tined to become the seeds of a mighty nation, and
the starting-point of the United States, — these
walls, v/hich still bear the monument of your
heroic townsman Strange, who expended for his
plague-stricken brethren, talents, time, wealth, and
at last life itself For, to return, and to apply, I
hope, to your consciences, the example of the
soldier with which I began this Sermon : — shall
it be only on the battle-field that the power of
fellow-feeling is shown forth ? Shall public spirit
be only strong when it has to destroy, and not
when it has to save and comfort ? God forbid !
Surely you here have a common corporate life,
common history, common allegiance, common in-
terest, which should inspire you to do your duty,
whatsoever it may be, for the good of your native
place, and to show that you feel an honourable
self-respect in the thought that you belong to an
ancient and once famous town, which though it
may be outstripped awhile in the race of commerce,
need never be outstripped, if you will be worthy
sons of your worthy ancestors, in that race to
which St. Paul exhorts us ; the race of justice and
benevolence, the noble rivalry of noble deeds.
Oh, look, I beseech you, upon this church as its

3o8 PUBLIC SPIRIT. [serm.

old worshippers, the forefathers of many of you who
sit here this day, were wont to look on it. Remem-
ber that this church is the sign that you are one
town, one parish, one body ; that century after cen-
tury, this church has stood to witness to your
fathers, and your fathers' fathers, that all who
kneel within these walls are brothers, rich or poor ;
that all are children of one Father, redeemed by
one Saviour, taught by one Spirit. This, this is
the blessed truth of which the parish church is
token, as nought else can be — that you are one
body, members one of another, and that God's
blessing is on your union and fellow-feeling ; that
God smiles on your bearing each other's burdens,
and so fulfilling the law of Christ. Look on this
church, and do to others as this church witnesses
that God has done for you.

And now, some of you may perhaps have been
disappointed, some a little scornful, at my having
used so many words about so small a matter, and
talked of battles, legends, heroes of old time, all
merely to induce you to help this Society with a
paltry extra thirty pounds. Be it so. I shall be
glad if you think so. If the matter be so small, it
is the more easily done; if the sum be paltry, it is
the more easily found. If my reasons are very
huge and loud-sounding, and the result at which I
aim very light, the result ought to follow all the
more certainly ; for believe me, my friends, the
reasons are good ones. Scriptural ones, practical
ones, and ought to produce the result. I give you
the strongest arguments for showing your Chris-

XXII.] PUBLIC SPIRIT. 309

tian, English public spirit ; and then I ask you to
show it in a very small matter. But be sure that to
do what I ask of you to do to-day is just as much
your duty, small as it may seem, as it would be,
were you soldiers, to venture your lives in the cause
of your native land. Duty, be it in a small matter
or a great, is duty still ; the command of Heaven,
the eldest voice of God. And, believe me, my
friends, that it is only they who are faithful in a
few things who will be faithful over many things ;
only they who do their duty in everyday and trivial
matters who will fulfil them on great occasions.
We all honour and admire the heroes of Alma and
Balaklava ; we all trust in God that we should have
done our duty also in their place. The best test of
that, my friends, is, can we do our duty in our own
place 1 Here the duty is undeniable, plain, easy.
Here is a Society instituted for one purpose, which
has, in order to exist, to appropriate the funds des-
tined for quite a different purpose. Both purposes
are excellent ; but they are different. The Offer-
tory money is meant for the sick, the widow, and
the orphan ; for those who cannot help themselves.
The Provident Society is meant to encourage those
who can help themselves to do so. Every farthing,
therefore, taken from the Offertory money is taken
from the widow and the orphan. I ask you whether
tliis is right and just .' I appeal, not merely to your
prudence and good sense, in asking you to promote
prudence and good sense among the poor by the
Provident Society ; I appeal to your honour and
compassion, on behalf of the sick, the widow, and

3IO PUBLIC SPIRIT. [serm.

orphan, that they may have the full enjoyment of
the funds intended for them. Again, I say, this
may seem a small matter to you, and I may seem
to be using too many words about it. Small .''
Nothing is small which afifects not merely the tem-
poral happiness, but the eternal welfare, of an im-
mortal soul. My friends, my friends, if any one of
you had to support yourself and your children on
four, seven, or even (mighty sum ! ) ten shilhngs a
week, it would not seem a small matter to you
then. A few shillings more or less would be to
you then a treasure won or lost ; a matter to you of
whether you should keep a house over your chil-
dren's heads, whether you should keep shoes upon
their feet, and clothes upon their backs ; whether
you should see them, as they grew up, tempted by
want into theft or profligacy ; whether you should
rise in the morning free enough from the sickening
load of anxiety, and the care which eats out the
core of life, and makes men deaf and blind (as it
does many a one) to all pleasant sights, and sounds,
and thoughts, till the very sunlight seems blotted
out of heaven by that black cloud of care — care —
care — which rises with you in the morning, and
dogs you at your work all day (even if you are
happy enough to have work), and sits on your
pillow all night long, ready to whisper in your ear
each time you wake; 'Be anxious and troubled
' about many things ! What wilt thou eat, and
' what wilt thou drink, and wherewithal wilt thou
' be clothed .•■ For thou hast no Heavenly Father,
' none above who knowest that thou needest these

XXII.] PUBLIC SPIRIT. 311

' things before thou askest Him.' Oh, my friends,
if you had felt but for a single day, that terrible
temptation, the temptation of poverty, and debt,
and care, which leads so many a one to sell their
souls for a few paltry pence, to them of as much
value as pounds would be to you ; — if, I say, you
had once felt that temptation in all its weight, you
would not merely sacrifice, as I ask you now to do,
some superfluity, which you will never miss ; you
would, I do believe, if you had human hearts
within you, be ready to sacrifice even the comforts
of life to prevent him whose heart may be breaking
slowly, not a hundred yards from your own door,
(and more hearts break in this world than you
fancy, my friends,) from passing through that same
dark shadow of want, and care, and temptation
where the Devil stands calling to the poor man all
day long, ' Fall down, and worship me ; and I will
relieve those wants of thine which man neglects !'

I have no more to say. I leave the rest to your
own good feeling, as townsmen of this ancient and
honourable place, — remembering always who it was
who said, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
' of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto Me.'

THE END.

Richard clay k^ii r^oN-s, libiited, London and bungaV.