Transcribed from the 1860 William Skeffington edition by David Price.
Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.





                              PLAIN SERMONS


                               PREACHED AT

                       ARCHBISHOP TENISON’S CHAPEL,

                              REGENT STREET.

                                * * * * *

                                    BY

                          JAMES GALLOWAY COWAN,

                                MINISTER.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                              Second Series.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:

                   WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163, PICCADILLY

                                  1860.




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_—_FIRST SERIES_.


  Plain Sermons, preached at Archbishop Tenison’s Chapel, Regent Street.
  Fcap. cloth, price 3s. 6d.




CONTENTS.

                                                                  PAGE
                              SERMON I.
                         DEPENDENCE UPON GOD.

                       Philippians, iv., 5, 6.
The Lord is at hand.  Be careful for nothing; but in                 1
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let
your requests be made known unto GOD
                              SERMON II.
                     JUDGMENT HERE AND HEREAFTER.

                          Malachi, ii., 17.
Where is the God of Judgment?                                       16
                             SERMON III.
                       THE WORLDLING REPROVED.

                     St. James, iv., 13, 14, 15.
Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into         32
such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell,
and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the
morrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapour, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  For
that ye ought to say, If the LORD will, we shall live, and
do this, or that.
                              SERMON IV.
                           THE UNKNOWN GOD.

                         Acts, xvii., 22, 23.
Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too          48
superstitious.  For as I passed by, and beheld your
devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD.  Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him
declare I unto you.
                              SERMON V.
                      FAITH AND ITS BLESSEDNESS.

                          St. John, xx., 29.
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed:              66
blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
                              SERMON VI.
                      FAULTLESSNESS BEFORE GOD.
                          (INNOCENTS’ DAY.)

                         Revelation, xiv., 5.
They are without fault before the throne of GOD.                    76
                             SERMON VII.
                        PAST MERCIES REVIEWED.
                          (NEW YEAR’S EVE.)

                         Genesis, xxxii., 10.
I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all         92
the truth, which thou hast showed unto Thy servant; for
with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am
become two bands.
                             SERMON VIII.
                           WORKING FOR GOD.

                          St. John, ix., 4.
I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day:        108
the night cometh, when no man can work.
                              SERMON IX.
                    CHRIST’S TRUEST MANIFESTATION.

                         St. John, xiv., 22.
LORD, how is it that Thou will manifest Thyself unto us,           126
and not unto the world.
                              SERMON X.
                    BLESSING ACCORDING TO PRAYER.

                       St. Matthew, viii., 13.
And JESUS said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou         146
hast believed, so be it done unto thee.
                              SERMON XI.
                      CHRIST STILLING THE STORM.

                       St. Matthew, viii., 26.
And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little         161
faith?  Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea;
and there was a great calm.
                             SERMON XII.
                          UNITY WITH PEACE.

                       Ephesians, iv., 1, 2, 3.
I, therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, beseech you that ye   179
walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are called, With
all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing
one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace.
                             SERMON XIII.
                        THE LAW IN THE GOSPEL.

                           St. Luke x., 25.
What shall I do to inherit eternal life?                           193
                             SERMON XIV.
                          PRESENT SALVATION.

                       II. Corinthians, vi., 2.
Behold, now is the day of salvation.                               211
                              SERMON XV.
                           CHRIST TOUCHED.

                          St. Mark, v., 30.
And JESUS, immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had          228
gone out of Him, turned Him about in the press, and said,
Who touched my clothes?
                             SERMON XVI.
                         PREACHING PARABLES.

                          Ezekiel, xx., 49.
Ah LORD GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?           245
                             SERMON XVII.
                      LIVING AND DYING UNTO GOD.

                      II. Corinthians, v., 8, 9.
We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the          264
body, and to be present with the LORD.  Wherefore we
labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted
of Him.
                            SERMON XVIII.
                           RELIGIOUS ZEAL.

                          II. Kings, x., 16.
Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD.                        276
                             SERMON XIX.
                       CHRIST’S COMING DESIRED.

                        Revelation, xxii., 20.
Even so, come, LORD JESUS.                                         289
                              SERMON XX.
                           TRUE PROSPERITY.

                         Genesis, xxxix., 2.
The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.             305




SERMON I.
DEPENDENCE UPON GOD.


                           PHILIPPIANS, IV., 5, 6.

    _The Lord is at hand_.  _Be careful for nothing_; _but in everything
    by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
    made known unto_ God.

“THE Lord is at hand.”  It is doubtful whether this admonition is
designed to recommend the foregoing precept, “Let your moderation be
known unto all men,” or whether it introduces and enforces the
injunction, “Be careful for nothing.”  It may well do both: on the one
hand, exhorting the disciples to lead (and that manifestly) an unworldly
life, seeing they were so shortly to be taken out of the world; and, on
the other hand, cheering them in their sorrows, suppressing their
anxieties and quickening their faith, by the remembrance, that comfort,
and peace, and perfect bliss would soon be theirs—“The LORD is at hand.”

The second advent of our LORD was always in the mind of the apostles.  It
is thought that they even counted upon its literal occurrence in their
lifetime, as though the prophecies of it were among the things to be
fulfilled before that generation passed away.  Without subscribing to
this view, against which many objections may be taken, it may be readily
admitted that, as they were uncertain how soon it might happen, as they
had no ground for concluding that it would _not_ be in their time, so
they rightly laboured to impress upon the disciples its _possible_, if
you will its _probable_ nearness.  Besides, they knew that, virtually, it
would be soon: for if CHRIST came not speedily in the flesh, speedily
they would be called out of the flesh to Him, and then would cease the
pleasures and cares of this world, and then would begin the possession
and enjoyment of things eternal.  How necessary then, that they who were
but pilgrims and strangers here, living a life that was soon to be ended
and accounted for, should be warned against excess of worldliness,
against building houses where they were but permitted to pitch tents,
against turning aside out of the path of pilgrimage, and wasting or
abusing the time for journeying!  How cheering, too, for those who were
perplexed, or burthened, or afflicted, to be reminded that perplexity,
and toil, and grief were only passing clouds, and mere inconveniences by
the way—that soon they should be rid of them altogether, and should only
be allowed to remember them to magnify their appreciation of attained
rest and glory!  And here let me observe, that the admonition “Be careful
for nothing,” is not in this place a reproof of the worldling, coming
across him in the path of mammon worship, of earthly aggrandisement, of
forgetfulness of eternity, of GOD, of heaven, but is rather a
consolation, an encouragement, for those, who while walking, or
endeavouring to walk, in the right way, are depressed and hindered by
trials, and perplexities, and afflictions.  There are cares which man
makes for himself, for which he is to be blamed, whereof he deserves to
eat the bitter fruit.  There are other cares which he suffers
involuntarily, which GOD imposes upon him as discipline, which Satan
thrusts upon him as temptations.  With regard to the last, the
Christian’s cares, St. Paul offers advice and consolation, saying in
effect—Sink not beneath them, poor pilgrim; groan not on account of them;
let them not distract your aims and desires from the right object of
solicitude and hope.  Weigh them in the right scales against the glories
that are coming, and they will surely be found light.  Measure them
beside the joys of eternity, and they will be seen to be brief and
transitory.  “The LORD is at hand” to relieve you of them all, at His
second advent, by the unclothing of death, by carrying you to Paradise.
Be comforted, rejoice, rouse ye, and, without distraction, pursue your
hopeful course.  “Be careful for nothing.”

We know the force of such an exhortation in earthly things.  We know by
experience how light is the labour which leads to rest, how possible it
is to smile through present tears at the prospect of coming joy; what
pains, and self-denials, and dangers, and encounters, are readily
embraced by those whom ambition prompts, and approval cheers, and reward
awaits.  Nothing is too hard to bear, nothing too dear to relinquish,
nothing too formidable to meet, nothing too much to do; the hands that
hung down are lifted up, the sorrow is banished, the toil becomes
pleasure, we rush to the fight, we delight in the race, forgetting the
past, disregarding the present, hastening onward to the future, the rest,
the victory, the prize, the glory.  It is easy, then—not altogether, but
comparatively—to obey the precept, “Be careful for nothing” in view of
the prospect, “The LORD is at hand.”

But, after all, I cannot but think that something better than a prospect
is hinted at in the text.  The apostle goes on to urge, “In everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
unto GOD.”  He does not say, “Make light of present cases, on account of
coming consolation.”  He does not bid the downcast lift up their eyes to
the hills, whence by and by cometh their help.  It is not “Bear, endure,
encounter in hope,” but, “Get rid of what burthens you, by laying it upon
Him, Who is near, by your side now, to take it.  Be careful for nothing;
put every care upon GOD (the LORD who is at hand to take it), by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving.”  I say this is something better than
a prospect; better, because of its superior influence, and better,
because of the immediate relief.  The teaching of Advent, all important
as it is, too often affects but little such poor creatures of the present
as we are.  We are exhorted to look back to the first coming of CHRIST,
to see what He suffered and did for us, what a foundation He laid for us
to build on.  We are exhorted to look forward to the second advent, to
consider what CHRIST will do, to anticipate the glorious completion of us
in Him as the building of GOD.  We obey, and we are moved to faint
gratitude for the one, to faint hope of the other.  The retrospect and
the prospect considered, we both see from what rock we were hewn, and
into how beautiful a fabric we shall be fashioned; and, unless we are
very incapable of feeling, in the view of past and future, we strive to
accept thankfully and to sanctify duly the present.  But, oh! how little
constraining is the influence of a Saviour who _once_ visited the earth,
of a Judge who shall _by and by_ visit it!  How dim is the remembrance of
long past mercies! how distant is the prospect of heavenly consolations!
Earth is now present with all its attractions and rewards.  The world,
the flesh, and the devil are now assailing and afflicting us with their
many temptations.  How can we resist the seen, and heard, and felt
fascinations?  How can we fill up the present void, and lull the present
pain, and endure the pressing trial, by proposing to ourselves the hopes
of the future?  Does the promise of food to-morrow fill the hungry
to-day?  Does the sight of the physician’s prescription on the instant
stay the pain and progress of inflammation?  Will a drowning man float
till by and by a rope is brought and thrown to him?  Will a discomfited
army rally and conquer, because reinforcements at some future time will
reach the field?  In each of these cases, the prospect will have _some_
influence, but will it be adequate to the occasion?  Must not the present
be met by the present?  Do we not need, besides a Saviour of the past,
and a Judge of the future, a LORD of the present?  Yes, verily, and we
are assured that we have Him in the words, “The LORD is at hand,” and
advised how to avail ourselves of Him in what follows, “Be careful for
nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known unto GOD.”

We are too apt to have but a religion of the future; to forget that there
is _at hand_ a LORD and Helper; to act as though the first opportunity of
serving GOD were in the hour of death, as though the blessings of reward
and favour were only to be had in heaven; to treat GOD, in short, as if
He were only the GOD of a future world.  Such teaching as that of the
text reproves and corrects us.  As other passages of Holy Writ instruct
us to make GOD the aim of this present life, using life as an
apprentice-time to the profession of Christianity, as a season wherein to
prove ourselves and be proved, and to set forth His glory; “Whether we
live, we live unto the LORD.”  “Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of
GOD;” so the text bids us make GOD the guide and supporter of this life.
“In everything by prayer, with supplication, and thanksgiving, let your
requests be made known as to GOD.  And the peace of GOD, which passeth
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through CHRIST
JESUS.”

This is what we want to feel and act upon, that GOD is a GOD at hand, and
not a GOD afar off; that we may _now_ cast all our care upon Him, knowing
that He careth for us; that if we lay our burthen upon the LORD, He will
_now_ sustain us: that if we commit our way unto Him, He will bring it to
pass; that He waits to be gracious, not till this life is over, but only
till we make known our requests, till we pray and supplicate, and give
thanks.  In proportion as we do not realise and act upon these
assurances, we are blind to many of the charms, and insensible to many of
the helps and comforts of our holy religion: we frustrate, too, the
fulfilment in ourselves of the truth, that godliness has the promise of
the life that now is: we run the risk of becoming earthly-minded, of
being swallowed up of overmuch sorrow, of being cumbered with many cares,
of being snared away and taken captive by the devil, of making shipwreck
of our faith.

O brethren, do not suppose that GOD only dwells on the margin of the
haven, that we are left to steer our course, to buffet with the waves, to
struggle against the storm, to repair the shivered mast, to stop the
leakages, to sail into the harbour, and let down the anchor, and
disembark upon the shore before He meets us.  With Him as our Captain we
are to set out.  He as our pilot must guide us.  He must rule the waves
and bring us through them.  The way is His, as the haven is His; unless
He is with us throughout the first, we shall never reach the last.  Grace
is no reserved blessing.  Heaven is no distant home.  Grace is ever to be
had if we will seek it.  Heaven is everywhere, if we will but realise it,
for where GOD is, is heaven.

But GOD is not manifest to all.  His help is not given unsought.  The eye
of faith alone can see Him, the cry of faith alone be heard.  As He will
be served for reward, so will He be asked for grace: we must be alert to
see what help we want; we must be prompt to seek it.  We must acknowledge
Him, or He will not guide us.  We must cast our care upon Him, or He will
not take it.  Unless we are careful for nothing, because we have
committed our cares to Him, we must be full of cares, harassed by them,
troubled, afflicted, distressed; or, being careless, we shall be deemed
worthless, and left to drift upon shoals and into quicksands, and to sink
in the gulf of destruction.

Do I speak to those who are careful for many things?  I do not mean those
who are concerning themselves about worldly schemes, who would increase
their wealth, their power, or their pleasure, who, regarding earth as
their home, and resolving to make the most of it, are laying themselves
out for many days, proposing to pull down their barns and build greater,
to make to themselves a name, who are intent upon what they shall eat and
drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed, how they shall get their
full of pleasure, how they shall cull all the advantages, and avoid all
the disagreeables of life.  As the minister of GOD, I have nothing to do
with these, further than to cry out upon their folly and their sin, and
to warn them that unless they repent and relinquish their cares, they
shall be consumed by them.  But do I speak to those who setting before
them as the business of life, the service of GOD, as the end of life, the
glory of heaven, are yet, by personal infirmity, by peculiar exigencies,
and difficulties, and anxieties, by a frowning or fascinating world, by
the wiles of Satan or by any other means, so troubled, so distracted, so
drawn off from the pursuit of their object, and the entertaining of their
hopes, that they find themselves carnal when they would be spiritual,
standing still when they would be moving on, clinging to earth when they
would be rising to heaven, waging war when they would be enjoying peace?
Do I speak to those whose weak and carnal nature will not be enlisted in
the hearty pursuit of godliness; whose crying temporal wants distract,
and deafen, and deaden the yearnings of their better nature; whose
occupation in the world seems to contend, and too successfully, for the
best of their thoughts and aims, whose natural losses and deprivations
sadden and absorb them, creating a void which they cannot fill, taking
away a guide whom they used to look to, a support upon which they were
wont to lean; whose patient labours in well-doing have failed of success;
whose good is evil spoken of; whose many cares to train aright the
children whom GOD gave them, have been repaid by waywardness; whose
conscientious well-doing has brought upon them what should rather be the
reward of ungodliness; who, in short, have not found in religion what
they hoped for and honestly sought, and who cannot render to religion
what they would?  Do I speak to these?  Well! I ask, Have you sought to
get rid of care, by casting it upon the LORD? or have you rather asked
human counsel, and leant upon human support, and hewn out for yourselves
cisterns, and built for yourselves a refuge, instead of running into the
refuge of GOD?  Have you animated yourselves only by the thought of
distant help, of future peace?  Have you lost sight of the LORD at hand,
the GOD of Providence, knowing, causing or assenting to, and waiting to
guide, as you ask or ask not, the circumstances which try you?  Have you
realised that nothing happens but by His consent, and that His consent is
given or withheld, not by what He sees of you, but by what He hears from
you?  Do you pray—not simply uttering certain words put into your mouths
in Church formularies, or books of private devotion, not framing acts of
general adoration, of vague acknowledgments of dependence and prayer for
blessings, but presenting yourselves, in the utterance of your own
feelings, as in all things the servants of His will, the dependents and
petitioners of His grace?  Do you supplicate?  Is each ascertained want
laid before Him in all its detail?  Is every hindrance, every difficulty,
every desire made known to Him as soon as perceived by yourselves?  Is
your care cast upon Him?  Is He besought to take it, to relieve you of
it, to tell you what to do respecting it?  Can you say of all that now
tries you, that nothing is uncommunicated to Him, no relief, no guidance
unsought?  And do you in everything give thanks.  Ah, here, brethren, is
the test!  Here doubtless will many of you, who are clear hitherto, be
obliged to plead guilty.  You do not give thanks.  You recognise GOD as
Him from whom you may seek all.  You do not sufficiently acknowledge what
you have received.  Of many special gifts, of power to bear with many
trials, of guidance in various difficulties, of blessings continued and
troubles not made worse (an important item), you make no acknowledgment.
You know of many blessings for which you ought to be grateful: you may
guess at many more, and besides there are many which you do not know, and
cannot guess at, which yet doubtless have been poured out upon you, or at
least have not been taken away from you.  What of these?  What of
everything good in itself, or capable of being made good?  What of the
temptations, what of the afflicting providences of which you are the
objects?  You do not think, perhaps, that these are things to be grateful
for: but, remember, the command is, “In everything with thanksgiving.”
Yes, the prayer, without the thanksgiving, is not prayer.  It is only
part dependence.  It asks, it does not acknowledge.  It does not rejoice
that GOD is yet operating; that He is chastening if He is not rewarding;
that therefore, you are still the creatures of His providence, and may
hope for blessing if you do not frustrate it.

O mend all that is amiss, quicken all that is slow, revive all that is
ready to perish.  The LORD is at hand.  Cast all your care upon Him.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not to your own
understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct
your paths.  In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known to GOD.  See Him by faith Who is
invisible to natural eye.  Lean on Him Whom the arm of flesh cannot
touch.  Speak to Him in all your circumstances of weal or woe, of trial
or blessing.  Pray to Him for what you want, and acknowledge all that you
receive, of whatever kind, and ask Him what use to make of it.  So rid
yourselves of your cares, and then—I do not say that you shall be left
without trials, for GOD does not promise that, rather does He lead us to
expect trials as the signs and pledges of His love, but I do say that He
will give you nothing, and leave you nothing, but what is good for your
personal happiness and your eternal interest, and that in every trial,
whether sent by Him, or allowed to be inflicted by the agents of evil, He
will give you support, and guidance, and ardent hope, and abundant
consolation; yea, He will bestow on you His peace which passeth
understanding, and which, whatever your circumstances, shall assuredly
keep your hearts and minds through CHRIST JESUS, unto eternal salvation.




SERMON II.
JUDGMENT HERE AND HEREAFTER.


                              MALACHI, II., 17.

                       _Where is the God of Judgment_?

THE prophet had been complaining of the priests for neglecting to inform
and correct the people, and of the people for disregarding GOD’S
teaching.  Reasoning and remonstrating with them, and supposing them to
attempt self-justification, he tells them at last that they have wearied
the LORD with their words—by which he means their acted and thought words
rather than what they spoke—and in answer to the question, which he knows
they would put, “Wherein have we wearied Him?” he says, By presuming
licentiously that GOD is indifferent alike to good and evil, and has no
moral likings or dislikings—“When ye say every one that doeth evil is
good in the sight of the LORD, and He delighteth in them,”—or, if it were
otherwise, that at least He does not act upon His feeling—“Where is the
GOD of Judgment?” the manifestation of the discriminating, the rewarding,
or punishing LORD.  I do not propose to enlarge upon the text in its
historic relation to the Jews, but, applying it to ourselves, to show,
first, that the question, “Where is the GOD of Judgment?” is one which we
Christians often ask in perverse unbelief, or in sad infirmity; and,
secondly, that the question is one which in a better sense we should
often ask (as we do not), in order to discern His operations, to become
acquainted and impressed with the truth, that there is a judgment of all,
_here_ and _hereafter_.

“Where is the GOD of Judgment?”  I say that this question is often asked
in perverse unbelief, or in sad infirmity.  Practically, we too often
ignore the idea of judgment altogether.  Our reason suggests to us, that
if there is a moral governor of the world, then surely good will be
approved by reward, and evil marked by punishment.  The Bible plainly and
most positively assures us, that, as rational and responsible creatures
of GOD’S hand, we are subject to a judgment which His goodness, His
truth, His justice, His holiness, cannot omit to pass on our every act,
and word, and thought; that as purchased servants of CHRIST, we are set a
certain work to do, with the express understanding that we shall be
faithfully dealt with according to our treatment of that work, and are
put upon a probation whereof at the end CHRIST _must_ take account, for
He has been made LORD and Judge for that very end, and has received a
commission from the Father, which He may in no single instance depart
from.  Yea, more than that, it tells us that the immediate effect on us,
of all our good and evil, is _itself_ a judgment, contributing to the
formation of the character which shall adapt us, and so consign us, to
heaven or to hell.  I say reason and the Bible so instructs us; and yet
we practically ignore the judgment.  Of course I do not mean that we
strike it out of our creed, that we do otherwise than assent to it in
theory, that we altogether forget it in practice, but that we do not make
it the ruling principle of our lives—the impelling or restraining
influence of every thought and deed.  Am I not right?  Reflect, dear
brethren, how many wrong things you do or desire, with little hesitation,
with no compunction, with no fear of judgment!  Reflect, too, how many
good things you pass over or forego, or will take no trouble to attain,
through want of consideration of the reward that belongs to them, and
which therefore you are losing!  How ready are you to taste each cup of
pleasure, to be engrossed with the pursuits of this world, to withhold
what you should part with, to do what is wrong, to omit what is enjoined,
in forgetfulness of the fact that for all these things GOD will bring you
unto judgment!  How impatient, too, under trials, how slow in spiritual
work, how little interested in the love and attainment of godliness; as
though these things were all loss, and suffering, and uninviting toil; as
though there were no recompense of reward!  Yes, there is something in
the best of us, and much in the most of us, of practical disregard of
judgment.  Of course we know (and are in a measure influenced by the
knowledge) that by and by we shall stand before GOD, to be blessed or
cursed—that it is necessary, therefore, to secure a good hope of
acceptance, and to make our peace with GOD through JESUS CHRIST, and that
this is to be done by keeping all the ordinances of religion, and obeying
in spirit the whole moral code, and striving to love and serve the LORD
now; or at least by repenting of all that is amiss, and praying earnestly
for pardon and quickening of our faith, before we die.  But still, it is
not a _judgment_ that we contemplate—a real scrutiny of our life’s
ways—an actual weighing of us in the heavenly balance, that we may be
rewarded or punished for those ways, and accepted or rejected according
to our actual state.  We are wont to consider GOD as an arbitrary Being,
not absolutely bound by any laws, or promises, or threats, but free to
treat us as He will, and disposed, for CHRIST’S sake, to be favourable to
us—if we ask Him—without any regard to what we have been doing, and what
we actually are.  I am not sure that you will admit this.  But, brethren,
to help you to do so, consider how general is a vague trust to CHRIST’S
merits—and GOD’S goodness on account of those merits—to cover all
excesses and defects of duty, to accept any kind of character, as though
there were no rule of reward, and no necessary qualification for heaven!
How rare is the conviction, that while CHRIST’S merits are indeed the
only ground of our acceptance, and GOD’S mercy is exercised on account of
those merits, yet the merits and the mercy are applied to us on condition
that we do certain works, and attain to a certain character in the
strength of the Holy Spirit given to incline and enable us; that we are
to be rewarded or punished, accepted or rejected, strictly according to
the terms of that condition, and that the inquiry into its observance, in
the scrutiny of our past lives and of our present state, in the
pronouncing of them such as they were appointed to be, or the opposite,
and the bestowal of the reward or punishment, is a strict judgment, in
the passing of which the Judge has no room for arbitrary favour, no
option, if I may so speak, to do otherwise than, in view of the evidence,
to apply the fixed law—life for those whom it approves, death for those
whom it condemns.

Oh! there is a GOD of Judgment, and to us Christians there is no other
GOD.  CHRIST is full of merits.  GOD accepts those merits, and is full of
mercy on account of them.  We cannot magnify the merits too much, nor
rejoice too much in the mercy; provided (but provided only) that we
remember that they are applied by rule, and that we must observe the
rule, and be sure that GOD will in no wise, and in no case, depart from
it.  Trust to CHRIST’S merits; hope for GOD’S mercy, but count most
surely on judgment, as you are most surely the objects of it.

But, secondly, fully believing that there is a GOD of Judgment, the
questions arise, Where is He?  In what court does He sit?  When does He
judge?  The common notion (and my remarks have hitherto fallen in with
it) is, that He is only in a future world, and that He will not exercise
His office till the last day.  The notion is founded on a truth.  CHRIST
sits on the throne of GOD now, to send down grace, to intercede with the
Father, to rule the Church.  At the last day, and not before, He will
leave that throne, and come forth in His glorious majesty to judge the
quick and the dead, and to dispose of them in their appointed eternal
abodes.  We have a work to do, and a day set us to do it in, and account
will not be taken of it, and the hire given us, till the day is over.
There is a character to be formed ere we can enter heaven, and space, and
opportunity, and power, are vouchsafed us for forming it.  Respecting
these, then, judgment tarrieth.  And even when our individual time is
over, when our work ceases, and our probation closes, there are others
left to work and fashion themselves for eternity; and GOD has appointed
that we, without them, shall not be made perfect.  There is to be but one
glorious descent from the throne, one general resurrection, one great
assize, one gathering of the saints into the highest heaven, one opening,
and then one shutting for ever of the lowest hell.  When our day is over,
we must, probably, as others do, sleep a night in the grave, and then on
the morning of the Resurrection shall appear the GOD of Judgment.  But
surely, after all, there must be an earlier judgment!  When the body is
laid down, and begins its sleep, the soul does not lie down and sleep
with it.  “The body returns to the dust,” we are told, “but the spirit
goes back to GOD who gave it;” and lest we should imagine that this is
but a figurative way of describing a suspension of the spirit’s life, we
are informed in many places not only that it continues greatly alive and
awake, requiring a place of conscious abode, but that it is at once
disposed of by GOD, and in a manner which shows an immediate judgment of
it.  As soon as Lazarus died, he was carried to Abraham’s bosom, and
there was comforted: as soon as Dives died, in hell (a place of misery of
some kind) he lift up his eyes, being in torments.  “This day shalt thou
be with Me in Paradise,” was the promise of Him, Who could not promise
idly.  To be absent from the body is, for the saint, to be present with
the LORD, and a vision showed St. John the souls of the martyrs living
and pleading beneath the altar.  What does all this teach us, but that
the GOD of Judgment meets us at the gate of death, and there and then
judges and disposes of us?  It is somewhat speculative to inquire what is
the nature of the judgment.  It is beyond us to understand how an
immediate judgment is compatible with a future one.  We know not whether
GOD at first privately intimates what He will at last publicly pronounce;
whether this is the actual, that only the formal decision; whether the
scrutiny is now made, or only rehearsed; whether the soul is actually
tried, or only committed for trial, and in the mean time so dealt with by
immediate imprisonment, or liberation on pledge to appear, as to hint,
rather than plainly declare what shall be its ultimate fate; whether it
enters at once into a state of actual, though partial, experience of joy
or misery, companying with GOD, with CHRIST, with holy angels, or with
Satan and evil spirits; or whether it is left in an antechamber where it
but anticipates the future reward, and actually receives none of it.  All
this is mystery.  But certain we are, brethren, that death, is in some
sense the time of judgment, and consequently that in some way, at the
very moment of departure from this life we are confronted with the GOD of
Judgment.  Oh, that we could feel this!  What a precious time and talent
it would make our life; what an awful antechamber of GOD’S presence!  How
we should be deterred from doing evil; how stirred to do good!  How
should we be watching, staff in hand; how resolutely should we do our
work, how patiently should we suffer!  Could we then be at home in the
world, prone to sinful pleasures, distracted or engrossed by worldly
cares, indifferent to sin and holiness?  No, it would be impossible!
Could we be idle, if we knew that our work would so soon be scrutinised?
Could we delay the cultivation of a grace necessary for heaven, if we
knew that the time for acquiring it might so soon be over?  Could we
hazard the interests of eternity, if we knew that we were separated from
them, not by a wide and lasting world, not by many, many years of
forgetfulness in the grave, but only by a thin veil, through which they
might even now be albut heard and seen, which the next moment might be
rent in twain, which at the most, in a few short years, will be wholly
taken away!  Oh! brethren, we can risk our eternal hopes when they seem
distant—we dare not, we could not, if we felt them close!  Behold, the
judge is at the door!  Watch, lest it open and reveal Him!  Behold the
messenger is coming; be ready, for He may be sent to summon you to the
presence of the GOD of Judgment!

But we have not yet the full answer to our text.  GOD is everywhere.  He
fills heaven and earth with His presence.  And He is the same everywhere,
and at all times; the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and so He is
the GOD of Judgment, exercising judgment even in this life.  It cannot be
otherwise.  It belongs to His very essence to love righteousness and hate
iniquity.  When He wills, it is done; when He feels, He acts; what He
hates, He shrinks from—and if He shrinks, is it not judgment?  What He
loves, He clings to—and is not His presence favour, and support, and
blessing?  Brethren, I have often exhorted you not to shut GOD out of
this present world as if He belonged only to the future.  Live in the
world to Him.  “Wherever we live, we live unto the LORD.”  Live in the
world by Him.  “The LORD is at hand.  Be careful for nothing; but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests
be made unto GOD.”  And live in the world, under Him: for “The eyes of
the LORD are over the righteous, and the face of the LORD is against them
that do evil.”  Yes, the GOD of Judgment is _here_.  You know it was so
in Old Testament times.  The deed of righteousness then brought its
immediate reward; the deed of sin its punishment.  Murmur or disregard
drove away the pillar of fire, repentance and prayer brought it back.
You think it otherwise now perhaps, but “I am the LORD, I change not.”
The children of Israel were carnal babes, GOD therefore showed Himself to
their natural eye.  _We_ are men in CHRIST, and the vision, therefore, is
to our faith.  It was with perishable toys that _they_ were pleased: He,
therefore, rewarded or punished them with temporal things.  It is
differently, _in a measure_, that He deals with us; but not altogether
differently.  It is a mistake to suppose that GOD’S favour was always
testified to the Jews by prosperity, His displeasure by adversity.  Think
of Abraham, of Job, of Moses, of Joseph, of the ungodly in great
prosperity, and you will see the mistake.  Temporal circumstances were
more often, then, the tokens of spiritual, but the spiritual has always
been the reality; and in comparison with it, the token, not always
afforded, is immaterial.  Oh! do not suppose that when the Man CHRIST
JESUS came on earth as the messenger of grace, the GOD of Providence
departed.  More real and constant is His presence now, and more
invariable His action.  In respect of our service of CHRIST and
candidateship for heaven, there is a sense in which He leaves us unjudged
till the end.  But, in another sense, as He must, from His very nature,
be always judging, so are we Christians the special objects of His
judgment.  No winking at _our_ ignorance, no long-suffering with _our_
sin.  Enlightened and enabled, we are responsible, and immediately made
to answer, for all that is wrong; and, specially endeared to Him, we are
immediately rewarded for all that He approves.  And this judgment is
visible, if we will but look for it even in our temporal circumstances.
I do not say that the righteous are always what the world calls
prosperous, and the wicked always what the world calls unfortunate,
though that is not seldom the case, much more often than, in our rash
judgment, we suppose; besides, any kinds of temporal circumstances may be
made, and often are made, the sources of temporal reward or punishment;
but temporal things are not the best or the worst that GOD can give.
They are chiefly used by Him as means; and could I describe to you the
blessings which poverty and bereavement and disappointment and affliction
have produced, and the curses which have accompanied riches and success,
and immunity from loss and trial, you would see what effectual means they
are, and would readily exclaim, “_Here_ is the GOD of Judgment!”  But
there is a better and a worse judgment.  You know how GOD hardened
Pharaoh’s heart, because it was not softened; how He made Saul’s
perversity his punishment; how He stiffened Jeroboam’s arm that he could
not draw it in from the deed of sin; what a sinful security He brought
upon David for transgression; how Abraham grew rich by forsaking his
home; how Job resigned much and therefore received more; how Joseph,
fleeing from Potiphar’s wife, was made to prosper in all he did.  These
things are types of great realities—specimens of constant judgments.  GOD
stands over every man to watch what he does, and as soon as it is done,
He judges and rewards it.  Ah! let the wicked tremble at this, and let
the righteous rejoice at it.  A harassed or a calmed conscience may or
may not be an accompaniment of the judgment, but a judgment there will
surely be.  Do you want an illustration?  Why, then, should the man who
commits a trivial sin to-day fall into a greater sin to-morrow?  Why
should a little resistance qualify for a great one?  You say it is
natural.  If you mean by that that is _spiritual_, that it is the acting
influence of GOD’S providence, I agree with you; but not otherwise.  Man
is not his own destroyer, nor his own saviour.  It no more follows
naturally that a man should fall into a great sin after a little one, or
should conquer a strong temptation after overcoming a weak one, than that
he should soil his garments or his flesh much to-day, because he soiled
them a little yesterday, or that he should float in a flood because he
has turned aside from a pool!  It is a judgment that makes him sin again,
and a judgment that enables him to resist again.  In the one case, it is
the angry withdrawal of grace, and the giving up to a reprobate mind, and
the delivery to Satan; in the other it is the approving increase of
grace, and the sending of angels to keep off the fiends.  _Where is the_
GOD _of Judgment_!  Where, brethren, is He not, and when not acting?
This world is the throne of judgment.  Every moment is the trial time.
Every act, every word, every thought, brings down upon it, on the
instant, the sentence and the execution of the sentence!  Think of this
and act upon it.  The eyes of the LORD are over the righteous.  The face
of the LORD is against them that do evil.  Strive, then, each action to
approve to His all-seeing eye.  Know that it is always Advent; that the
books are always open, and the judgment always set, and the sentence ever
ready, “Blessed—or Cursed,” and angels and demons looking out and waiting
for the signal of approach.  The Last Judgment is the climax of the Death
Judgment, the Death Judgment of the Life Judgment.  Gain GOD’S approval
here, and keep it here, and you shall not lose it hereafter.  Forfeit it
here, and obtain it not again here, and you can never have it.  There is
no condemnation for them that are in CHRIST JESUS.  The rest are already
condemned; though the GOD of Judgment gives them yet the chance—(oh! let
them not trifle with it!)—that if they will appeal quickly, a fresh trial
may be granted; and if they have made CHRIST their Advocate, the former
sentence shall be reversed, and they, too, shall be blessed!




SERMON III.
THE WORLDLING REPROVED.


                         ST. JAMES, IV., 13, 14, 15.

    _Go to now_, _ye that say_, _To-day or to-morrow we will go into such
    a city_, _and continue there a year_, _and buy and sell_, _and get
    gain_: _Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow_.  _For what
    is your life_?  _It is even a vapour_, _that appeareth for a little
    time_, _and then vanisheth away_.  _For that ye ought to say_, _If
    the_ Lord _will_, _we shall live_, _and do this_, _or that_.

“GO TO.”  It is the language of rebuke, of remonstrance, and yet of
exhortation.  “Come, come, what are you doing? cease from it, for it is
wrong.  Come, let us reason together, ye that are forming worldly
schemes, and laying out plans and works for the future, counting not only
on _some_ continuance, but even on a definite time of your own marking
out, ‘We will continue there a year.’  Come, I say, be wise; consider
what your life is, how brief, how fleeting, how easily taken away—how
uncertain of continuance—and rule and consecrate every part of it, every
work, every prospective thought, with the limitation, ‘If the LORD
will.’”

Thus is the worldling reproved and exhorted—the man who is so foolish as
to reckon surely upon what he knows is very uncertain, who is so sinful
as to forget the providence of GOD, or at least not to submit himself to
it.  And, further on he is plainly told that this reckless confidence is
sin:—“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him
it is sin.”

Observe here, my brethren—and you will thereby see how directly this text
is addressed, not to very gross and carnal offenders, but even to such as
ourselves—that the Apostle does not cry out against the going into the
city and proposing to buy and sell and get gain there, or even against
the fixing of a particular period of sojourn; but against the doing of
all this _without reference and submission to_, _without dependence upon
the will and providence of_ GOD; without remembrance that there is no
certainty of life, and power, and opportunity.  “What is our life” “If
the LORD will?”

GOD does not forbid, rather He requires us to engage in worldly
occupations.  He has sent us into the world in need of food and raiment,
which the majority of us can only get by working for them, and has
endowed us with faculties and powers which have their legitimate exercise
in worldly pursuits.  There can be no question that by GOD’S appointment
man is to labour and trade, or employ himself in some way in worldly
things, for sustenance and for exercise of many of his powers.  And if
this is so, then neither can there be any question, that it must be
lawful to think in some way of the morrow, to provide what we shall need
in it, to consider and plan for our employment and gain in it.  It would
be quite impossible to carry on many callings—more especially those which
have distinctly the approval of GOD, as husbandry, for instance—if we
might not forecast, anticipate, provide, propose, and plan.  And if all
this may be done, then we may and must mark out particular works and
places, and specific periods of time, wherein to perform what we propose.
If a husbandman may not think of the harvest, how shall he do the duties
of the seed time?  If the merchant may not fix on a mart nor make
arrangements for sojourning there till he has disposed of his goods, nor
count the number of days which the ship will require for transporting
them, then how shall he know what wares to purchase? how shall he
persuade himself to have anything to do with merchandise?  Surely, he
must take for granted—or at least he must act as if he took for
granted—some certainty of time and opportunity, and so he must in one
sense presume upon the future.  Still, brethren, the very illustrations I
have chosen tell against counting on actual certainty.  The husbandman
ploughs in hope and sows in hope; but knows all the time that the fowls
of the air may rob him of his crop, that the needful rain or sun may be
withholden from it, that the worm, and the mildew, and the blast may
destroy it.  The merchant freights his vessel with full knowledge—(not
always without fear)—that fire or storm may cause it to be lost in the
sea, or that if it reaches the place of sale, there may then be no demand
for it.  Each is obliged to admit contingencies; to prepare and act as if
all power and all time and circumstances were in his own hands, while he
knows and feels that it is far otherwise; that much may be uncontrollably
against him; that he may be disappointed of all his hope.  Nor does he
omit altogether to provide for the contingency.  He asks, “What if I
should be disappointed, if my plans should fail, if the time should be
prolonged or shortened against my expectation?  What is to be done with
the gain, if anything happens to me?”  So he insures his vessel, and
gives directions whither to carry, or what to do with his merchandise if
aught should render it unsaleable at the proposed mart, and he makes his
will!  Wisely he takes into account what he calls “chance,” and therefore
sobers his expectations and rules his plans by the consideration of what
may happen to frustrate them!  A like consideration—not of “chance,” for
he does not believe in chance, but of the possible unexpected operations
of GOD’S providence—is to sanctify the Christian’s plans and
appointments, and to prevent him from becoming a worldling.  He may think
and say, what he will do on the morrow; he may set out on a long journey,
or propose to himself a week, a month’s, a year’s, a ten years’ sojourn
in some distant city; he may make ample and long preparations for buying
and selling, and getting gain; he may pull down his barns (if they are
not large enough) and build greater; he may entertain some thoughts of
possibly enjoying, after years of toil and care, an old age of ease and
happiness, and so may make provision for that happiness.  He need not,
and should not, be ever saying to himself, “It is of no use my
undertaking this business, I may not live to carry it out.”  “If I were
sure of life, I would remove this and alter that, but let it be now, it
must do for my poor uncertain days.”  (The world would stand still, if
men were to act, or refuse to act, upon such arguments as these,
arguments not suggested by God.)  No, brethren, whatever your calling,
follow it honestly and heartily; whatever your possessions, use them, and
use them so as to get the most legitimate good out of them, and do not
despise the opportunities and the goods which GOD has given you.  But
consider when you propose to yourselves anything which draws by
anticipation on the future, consider, I say, “What is my life?  It is
even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away,”
and qualify your scheme by saying to yourselves, “If the LORD will, I
should live and do this or that.”  Yes! and provide, as far as you can,
_lest the_ LORD _should not will_.  And here, brethren, we have suggested
to us another reason for admitting an “if” into our counsels, and for
allowing it to have its say, and for heeding well what it suggests.  The
Christian is allowed, and even required to follow a worldly calling, but
still he has a higher calling, which he must not neglect, which he must
most regard.  Life was not given him only that he might eat and drink,
and take his pleasure, and grow rich, and build palaces, and be filled
with knowledge, and perfected in accomplishments.  These are but the
lower employments of life, or its intermittent pastimes.  Its business is
religion—the laying hold on salvation, and following the holy service to
which we are bound, wherein we are apprentices and probationers for
eternal glory, and whereby we are allowed and enabled to lay up treasure
in heaven—the dedication of ourselves to CHRIST our Saviour, to live
under His rule, and by His grace; to set forth His glory in all we do; to
become qualified by unlearning and renouncing what is amiss, and
acquiring new tastes, and inclinations, and powers, and fashioning
ourselves after His glorious image for the state to which He will call us
when this life is over.  “If the LORD will I should live and do this or
that.”  How does such a suggestion break in upon and check the presuming
worldliness of the called of GOD!  “Here am I,” it makes him exclaim,
“actually laying myself out for the engrossing and long-continued pursuit
of worldly ends.  Yet GOD may cut short my life in the midst of it, and
if He does, without giving me time to resume my higher calling, to repair
what is out of order, to fill up what is wanting, to make my peace with
Him, to become fit for death—oh, to what in that case will my folly and
my sin bring me!  How shall I stand before Him at His awful Advent?  What
account shall I render of my neglected stewardship?  What will justify my
presumption in His delay?  What excuse my want of the wedding garment?
Surely He will deal with me as with one who knew his Master’s will, yet
did it not; who refused the glory which he was created, and redeemed, and
sanctified to render; who has preferred Mammon to GOD, earth to heaven;
who has contracted the worldliness from which GOD shrinks, and despised
the holiness which alone He will accept!”  It is an awakening, a
sobering, a solemn suggestion.  It reveals to him the anomaly, the folly,
the sin, the peril of his condition, whatever the kind of worldliness
which engrosses him.  He a servant of CHRIST, a votary of religion, a
worker for eternity, an heir of glory, forgetting his calling, neglecting
his best hopes and interests, perverting his time and powers, and
opportunities from their highest and most necessary use, to gratify self
with childish pleasures, to heap up gold, to make to himself a name among
the pigmies of the earth; to become admired or stared at for his
appearance or accomplishments; to excel in knowledge of languages, or
sciences, or history, or for any other earthly end; when not only what he
seeks must soon be yielded up (even if he succeeds in getting it), but
also through the seeking he must neglect all that GOD requires of him,
and forfeit all that GOD offers!  Oh, how silly, how sinful, how awfully
hazardous the course he is pursuing!

What, then?  Shall he abandon it all in terror?  Shall he hate the world
and flee from it?  Shall he become a hermit, refusing to receive good,
and to do good in his generation?  Shall he give up his earthly calling,
foregoing the temporal advantages which are held out to him; not
exercising the powers which are entrusted to him; supposing that the GOD
who put him into this world, and qualified him to fill a place in it, and
stimulated him by pressing necessities, or by indwelling desires to seek
profit or pleasure, nevertheless meant him to have nothing to do with the
world; that because presently he is to die, now he ought not to live; but
to drag a sad, inactive, solitary, impatient existence.  Surely not!  His
place now is in the world, his work is in the world; he refuses GOD
service in not exercising his worldly calling; he gives up the means of
probation, and the opportunities of development and improvement in the
highest powers and best graces, and disqualifies himself for heaven, if
he fulfils not his destiny on earth.  Let him abide in his calling; let
him discharge its obligations; let him pursue its advantages, and cull
its pleasures, and perform all its bidding; but throughout all, let him
remember, and act upon the remembrance that he is not a mere worldling;
and to keep him from being absorbed in the world, or grovelling in its
pursuits, to quicken him in concern for higher responsibilities and
privileges, to impress upon him that all that is of the world is
temporary and fleeting, that the world is passing away from him, and he
from it, let him reflect frequently and seriously, “What is my life?  It
is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth
away;” and so let him temper the lower life (and raise himself above it),
by piously resolving that its present occupations, its plans and hopes
shall all be subject to the condition, “If the LORD will I should live,
and do this or that.”

That we all want to be influenced by such thoughts is too evident to need
proof.  The very best of us are wont practically to regard this earth as
our abiding home, or the only stage upon which we shall ever act a part,
and earthly pursuits and pleasures as the only aims and rewards of our
being.  We may write “D. V.,” or say, “If the LORD will,” after every
engagement, every proposed scheme.  We may make our wills and set our
houses in order, and purchase a burial place, and carry about a shroud,
and yet forget that we have to die.  Grey hairs, or enfeebled frames, and
the perceptible growth within us of the seeds of mortal disease, and sick
beds, and sudden deaths around us, may cause us momentary misgivings, may
make us perhaps permanently a little uneasy: but still we live on, as
though there were no end of life; we put off preparation for death, and
for another state after death, as though we could not die till we chose
to do so.  Not for want of knowledge, of constant testimonies and
reminders of the contrary are we thus confident (for we all know that our
life is but a vapour which the heat may presently dispel, or the wind of
the next moment cause to vanish), but because we do not feel ourselves to
be so entirely in the hands of an Omnipotent and mysteriously exercised
Providence, as to need to be constantly depending upon it, and asking of
it, “If the LORD will;” and so presenting to ourselves, in all its force,
the consideration that perhaps “The LORD may _not_ will.”  I speak to
men, and women, and children, full of present occupations and future
plans.  I bid you consider your occupations and review your plans.  Do
you imagine that the first may be at any moment interrupted, and the last
never begun to be carried out?  Some of you are almost exclusively
pleasure seekers; others, careless creatures of the present; others
intent upon business, or profit, upon obtaining power, or knowledge, or
fame; either reaping a worldly harvest now, or sowing for a future
worldly harvest.  Others are divided in care and desire between this life
and the next.  Others are in theory, and in much practice, living above
this world, using it but not abusing it, in it but not of it.  Put the
question to yourselves, all and each of you.  Do you feel your life to be
such a vapour, that it is in momentary risk of vanishing away; that only
if the LORD will, will it appear a little time; that possibly He may not
will?  You would say, “yes,” doubtless, if you were forced to answer
aloud, as you sit in church, interrogated by the messenger of CHRIST out
of the Bible, just as to a question out of the Church Catechism, you
would give an answer out of the Church Catechism.  But do you _feel_
“yes”?  Is it your sure and strong conviction?  Do your lives say “yes”?
I shall not be unjust to you, if I say that I stand in doubt of many of
you; that, alas! I have no doubt of some; that your hearts do not thus
respond; that your lives give a manifest contradiction.

Brethren, I am not here to accuse, but to admonish and help.  Let me
suggest, then, why you fail to realise such a palpable truth.  It is,
first, because you have an idea that the Advent is far off; and,
secondly, because, as I have reminded you in so many ways lately, you
shut GOD too much out of this present world.  The first disciples, as you
may see from St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s Epistles, were filled with the
conviction that the Advent was very near, that the next moment might
reveal it.  This did not take them out of the world, for they believed
that CHRIST would come to them in the world.  Neither did it make them
forsake their earthly calling, for they knew that it was in that calling
that they were to serve GOD, and to prepare for His coming.  But it
caused them always to have regard to the end, and it sanctified every
pursuit and plan with the thought, “The LORD may come,” and so constantly
suggested the proviso, “If the LORD will.”  We have no such conviction of
CHRIST’S nearness, and therefore have little reference to it, and are
faintly impressed with it.  We argue, the Judgment has tarried so many
years, it may therefore tarry many more.  Death has so long spared us, he
will not come to us yet.  We shall have time to finish our present
occupations, we can enter upon and execute many fresh plans.  We need not
raise a doubt, “If the LORD will.”

But, secondly, we shut GOD out of this present world.  We forget that He
is ever with us; that He is constantly exercising His providence over us;
that He is not ignorant, or indifferent, much less distant, when we
propose and proceed to execute; that it is by His exercised permission,
by His actual letting us go in anger, that we fall into sin; by His
inclining, and helping, and carrying us, that we think, and attempt, and
perform what is good; that thus watching and caring for us, and
surrounding us, He is at once the Witness, the Judge, the Rewarder of our
every thought and way; that consequently, when He has tried us enough, or
when we have long wearied Him, He is at hand to decide about us, and,
deciding, to execute the decision.  His forbearance and interference, the
length of the probation, the numbers and kinds of trial, are different in
different cases.  He knows what is right and sufficient for each, and He
applies it, and then He says, “It is enough.  Thy righteousness is as
length of days.  Well done, good and faithful servant;” or, “It is of no
use that thou shouldst be stricken any more.  Thou wilt revolt more and
more.  The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.  Depart from
me!”  And in either case the vapour is dispelled—it vanisheth away.

O for the full perception and realisation of this truth; that we are in
the hands of a watching, proving, waiting, judging, visiting GOD.  It
would be hard then to do or propose anything, without immediately adding,
“If the LORD will.”

Two concluding thoughts suggest themselves.

First, that life is of such different duration in different cases,
because we have individual capabilities and responsibilities, and some by
many trials and length of days are proved, others quickly and easily made
perfect, or wholly hardened; and because a discerning, ruling GOD is ever
at hand to close the trial at the fit moment.

Secondly, that we are individually kept uncertain of the duration of our
life, to counteract the sad proneness which belongs to us, of putting off
eternal interests, and following our own ways to the uttermost; to give
to every moment, and every act of life, such vital importance, that we
may fear to squander or pervert it; to keep us ever mindful of our latter
end, and always intent upon doing the LORD’S work, and preparing
ourselves for heaven; that the GOD at hand may never be slighted, and the
world be always so loosely held, that we may easily and readily let go of
it whenever the LORD will.

“Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city,
and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye
know not what shall be on the morrow.  For what is your life?  It is even
a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.  For
that ye ought to say, If the LORD will, we shall live, and do this, or
that.”




SERMON IV.
THE UNKNOWN GOD.


                             ACTS, XVII., 22, 23.

    _Ye men of Athens_, _I perceive that in all things ye are too
    superstitious_.  _For as I passed by_, _and beheld your devotions_,
    _I found an altar with this inscription_, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.  _Whom
    therefore ye ignorantly worship_, _Him declare I unto you_.

THE city of Athens was wholly given to idolatry.  It was crowded with
altars, dedicated to the supposed superior deities, to deified men, to
abstract virtues, Love, Truth, Mercy, and the like.  Whatever new god was
described and recommended to them was immediately recognised, and
thenceforth worshipped; and, besides, the Athenians’ love of something
new, led them to search out for and invent gods for themselves.  Hence it
came to pass, that there were more idols in that one city than in all the
rest of Greece: so that Satirist did not much exaggerate when he said
that in Athens you might more easily find a god than a man.  It belongs
not to our present purpose to consider how this arose; to contemplate the
strange coexistence of so much superstition and so much cultivation of
intellect, or to strive to enter into the feelings which animated Paul,
when his spirit was stirred within him at the sight of the city wholly
given to idolatry.  We pass on to the time when the Apostle stood on
Mars’s hill, in sight of many heathen altars, surrounded by Epicureans
and Stoics and disciples of many other schools of philosophy, some
striving to silence him, others intent upon hearing something new from
him—to meet the contentious gainsayings of the one, to enlist the
curiosity of the other; to make use of their various dispositions, of all
that he saw and heard, in promoting the glory of GOD, and, if it might
be, in leading them to salvation.

It must be borne in mind that some of these news-seeking Athenians
inconsistently enough contended with him, because he taught what was
novel; while others, on that very account, were favourable to him, hoping
that he would set forth some strange gods—some additional objects of
worship to whom they might erect altars.  “Ye men of Athens,” he said, “I
perceive from actual observation that you, more than other people, have
great regard for religion.”  This is the right meaning of the words
translated: “In all things ye are too superstitious.”  It is not likely
that the Apostle would have commenced a speech intended to conciliate and
enlighten them, with words that would at once affront them, and make them
deaf to all else he had to say.  Besides, it is clear from what follows,
that he is not directly calling upon them to abandon what was false, but
to understand and accept rightly a truth which they held in ignorance.
“I say nothing to you now upon the many gods whom you worship _by name_,
but, pointing to an altar inscribed to the Unknown GOD (it was probably
in sight) I answer those who contend with me for speaking about the
unknown, and gratify those who want to hear something new, by taking that
altar as my text, and preaching to you about ‘the Unknown GOD’—about no
new god, for He is already the object of your worship; but still about
one of whom much that is new to you may be said.  Give ear to me, ye that
are so full of reverence for the gods, while I describe to you an object
indeed of your present reverence, but one of whose nature and operations
and demands upon you, you know nothing.”

Respecting the existence of such an altar, we are told that the Athenians
through the very excess of their idolatry (which led them to look for
gods in every place and circumstance, and to ascribe every event, good or
ill, to the influence of some deity) had on more than one occasion, when
an unusually severe pestilence had visited them, which they could not
connect with any of their known gods, conjectured that it must be the
doing of some god whom they did not propitiate with sacrifices, and,
failing to find out who it was, and yet fearing to neglect his worship,
had caused altars _without names_ to be erected, and offerings to be made
to the nameless being; and that in course of time these altars came to be
described, and to bear a corresponding inscription, as severally the
altars of an “unknown god.”  There is no reason to suppose that they
meant to exalt that god above the others, that they had any clearly
defined ideas of the general operations of one unknown Being, much less
that they meant under that title to worship the GOD of the Jews; but with
a kind of natural instinct, a very vague feeling that something beyond
and above what they knew, existed, they had stumbled, as it were, in the
dark, upon a real truth, which was now to be revealed to them.  “Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship—Whom you are right in worshipping, but of
Whose proper worship you know nothing, Him declare I, and reveal unto
you.”  You know how St. Paul went on, meeting without mentioning the
errors of the various sects of philosophers, that there was indeed a GOD
who made the world, and all things therein; that He was not a mere idol
of wood and stone (“dwelling not in temples made with hands”), that He
had no such passions, and no such needs as they ascribed to Jove and Mars
and their deified men (“Neither is worshipped with men’s hands as though
He needed anything”), that He was not a sentiment—an ideal thing—a being
bound by fate—an indifferent spectator of men’s ways.  “He giveth to all
life and breath and all things.”  “In Him we live and move and have our
being.”  “He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in
righteousness by the man whom He hath chosen;” to whom He has borne such
signal testimony in raising Him from the dead; in whose name, and at
whose command, I come to tell you of the resurrection from the dead, and
to call you out of the ignorance which GOD will no longer wink at, and to
urge upon you repentance and preparation for judgment.  So he spoke of
the unknown GOD.  Some mocked, and refused to understand; some were in
doubt and difficulty, and wished to hear more; others began to know Him
who had hitherto been unknown, and clave unto the Apostle, and believed.
And shortly after Paul departed from Athens, never, as far as we know, to
visit again!

It would be interesting to consider the strange rise and spread of
ignorance which in course of time made the GOD, Who had been seen and
heard and walked with in Eden, and had never left Himself without
witness, wholly unknown to the creatures of His hand, and the objects of
His providential care; to contemplate the idolatry of ignorant heathen
man, not seeing GOD in all His works, not able to find Him even when
looking for Him and desiring to worship Him, believing in every god but
the true One, sometimes even offering sacrifices to devils; to discuss,
too, how it is the world by wisdom knows not, and never has known GOD,
that intellect cannot search Him out, that intellect has even blinded
many to whom the unknown GOD was plainly exhibited; to ask how much of
this is natural, how much unnatural, how much judicial—the punishment of
pride, the reward of loving darkness rather than light, because of evil
deeds.  But interesting as would be the consideration of “GOD unknown in
the world,” there is a more important theme suggested by the text for us
to dwell on, namely, “GOD unknown in the Church.”  “There standeth one
among you Whom ye know not.”  Let me speak to you on this, brethren.

Whatever may be the state and disposition of the people whom the
clergyman has to deal with in his various daily ministrations and his
intercourse with the world, once a week, at least, he addresses an
assembly in some sense given to religion.  As he stands in the pulpit on
the Lord’s Day he may adopt almost the words of St. Paul on the
Areopagus: “I perceive that you (and such as you) are more than the rest
of mankind GOD-fearing, taking an interest in religion, listening to its
teaching, partaking of its ordinances, supplicating, praising, serving
GOD.”

It may, indeed, occasionally be that some present themselves to see if
there is anything in the church for them to object to, or ridicule; that
others have come in conformity to the fashion, to hear something new, to
see and be seen; to make a show of respectability, to wile away an idle
time; and that many others, though proposing to themselves the observance
of a religious duty, are so formal, so listless, so unreal, that it
cannot be said of them that they are “given to religion.”  Nevertheless,
I repeat that the clergyman, as he stands in the pulpit, has before him
the best, _i.e._, the most religious of mankind; not mockers, and
revilers, and persecutors; not gainsayers, and despisers, and forgetters;
but real worshippers—more or less reverential and earnest, more or less
enlightened—of the true GOD.  But has he not in these same persons (as
St. Paul had in the Athenians) many worshippers of an unknown GOD?  May
he not venture to say to almost all, “Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him
declare I unto you.”  Christian worshippers, my brethren, often have many
idols, who share almost equally with GOD their interest and affections
and service.  They have, many of them, their “ism,” their Paul, their
Cephas, or Apollos, their favourite dogma, their preferences and
prejudices for some particular rites, and ceremonies, and modes of
worship.  In church, and out of church, their religion consists largely
in giving heed to these things: GOD is in their thoughts, but not in all
their thoughts, or not the chief, the engrossing object of their
thoughts; He is one of many objects.  You find this out if you listen to
their remarks after service.  “Such a chant went well or badly; the
preacher’s manner was pleasing, or the contrary; his language very
ornate, or very bald; the theme one they like, or one they do not like;
the rubric strictly observed, or strangely disregarded;” and so on.  Of
course, as all these things are means to an end, and as the end is
gained, or not gained, by their suitableness, or the opposite, it is
lawful and right to give them some consideration: but I put it to you,
brethren, whether they are not too often regarded as themselves the end;
as though, provided they were satisfactory, there was nothing more
wanting; as though they were rightly as much the objects of interest as
the GOD in Whose service they are used, or, rather, as though regarding
them were regarding GOD!

O brethren, we are too attentive to the system—too regardless of the
Centre!  We want to know—(to feel, I mean, for the Christian’s knowledge
is of the heart)—that GOD is above all—that where other objects have
anything like an equal share of attention, where they hide Him from us in
His pure essence and direct influence, there He is ignorantly
worshipped—that He is a Spirit, not a chant, a voice, a figure of speech,
a rubric, a turning east or west.  Through these we may reach Him; many
of them are steps and accessories to worship; but if in these we rest,
then we set them up as idols, side by side with Him, and prove that to us
He is but as the unknown god of the Athenians.

See, dear brethren, I beseech you, if aught of this old error clings to
you, and pray GOD to clear you from it, and resolve henceforth to strive
to keep clear.  Treat means as means—value them; be glad that they are
becomingly afforded you, and rejoice if they help you; but do not let the
best of them beguile you, nor the worst of them hinder you, from finding
and worshipping GOD Himself; from going away filled with thoughts of Him.
“I prayed to GOD; I praised Him; I held communion with Him; I heard the
things of GOD from His messenger, and have now to go and live by what I
have done, and received, and heard.”  These are the thoughts to take away
from church with you, and to prove to you that you wisely worship the
known GOD.

I have dwelt much on this part of the subject, because of the general
forgetfulness of it; a forgetfulness which prevents many from rendering
acceptable service to GOD, and from obtaining the full help and comfort
which religion affords to all who rightly use it.

But there are many other kinds of ignorant worship.  It is possible to
cast down all idols, and worship GOD alone, and yet err.  The so-called
spiritualist does this: the man who supposes that addressing himself
directly to GOD, is sufficient, without the use of appointed forms and
ordinances; who attaches no importance to baptism and holy communion; who
thinks that no grace accompanies their use, or that he can have the grace
without the sign; who says that praying at home is a good substitute for
congregational worship; who boasts that he can read a sermon for himself,
and a better one than he can hear in church; or that the Bible is
sufficiently clear to him without an interpreter.

Such an one ignorantly worships an unknown GOD.  He dictates, instead of
obeying; he chooses, instead of submitting to what is appointed for him;
he puts reason in the place of faith; he refuses to walk in GOD’S way of
salvation; he disputes the Divine wisdom in requiring him to be baptised,
and to partake of the Cup and Bread of Blessing; in warning not to
forsake the assembling of ourselves together; in asking, “How shall they
hear without a preacher?” in appointing a standing ministry; he rebels
against GOD, when he disregards these ordinances; he makes GOD a liar
when he presumes to deem them unnecessary.  Oh, he has great need that
the GOD whom he ignorantly worships, should be plainly declared unto him!

Again, that man ignorantly worships GOD, who substitutes the forms for
the life of religion; who supposes that a sanctuary service atones for
all want of service elsewhere; who prays in church, but not in his
closet; who hears the Bible read or expounded, but does not search it
diligently for himself; who receives sacraments, but does not foster, and
use, and develop the sacramental grace, which is entrusted to him as an
awful talent to be increased and accounted for; who balances the religion
of Sunday against the worldliness of the whole week; who every seventh
day eases his conscience of its sin, by sighing out the general
confession, and forthwith takes to himself the comfort of the declaration
of forgiveness, and then goes back to his old transgressions and
omissions, till the holy day comes round again.  Of course whoever does
this, or any part of it deliberately, is grossly, culpably ignorant of
the GOD whom he professes to worship; but it is not of such that I speak
now.  I have in mind professing Christians, persons who busy themselves
about religion, who are regular in their attendance on means of grace,
who never wilfully desecrate the LORD’S day, who knowing that unpardoned
sin separates from GOD, and that without grace, life is unblessed, are
anxious for pardon and grace, and frequently seek them in GOD’S appointed
ways; but yet, forget, are not impressed with the danger of a relapse,
and the sin of non-improvement, and so somehow or other, fall into a
routine of formal religion on Sunday, which is not in their thoughts,
except as a matter that belongs to next Sunday all through the week.
This is to worship ignorantly an unknown GOD—a GOD Who does not accept
intermittent worship, Who bestows pardon only on repentance and amendment
of life, Who gives grace for use, Whose sacraments are meals to sustain
life and strengthen for service, Whose Sabbath is a holy rest to refresh
for holy work, in Whom we live, and move, and have our being, Whose glory
is to be our constant aim, His presence our perpetual joy.  But these,
and many other ignorances—such as the disregard of particular attributes,
the picturing for oneself what GOD ought to be like, and so varying the
picture according to the fancy of him who draws it, instead of searching
how, and what manner of GOD He has declared Himself to be, and what
worship is appointed, and therefore acceptable—these, I say, are the
faults of individuals, or of certain classes only.  Let me now speak of
an ignorance, a respect in which GOD is more or less unknown, which
concerns us all.  And here, dear brethren, my object is not to censure,
to blame you for what you have not, but pointing out to you the GOD whom
Scripture reveals, to help you to correct what is amiss, to fill up what
is wanting in your conceptions of GOD, and so to attain to the
blessedness of knowing Him fully, and to discharge the duty of
worshipping Him in spirit and in truth.

Observe St. Paul, while acknowledging the religious reverence of the
Athenians, evidently deals with them as men who understood not the
truths, the objects, the blessings of religion; as those who when they
had built their altars, and celebrated their holy days, and offered their
sacrifices, thought they had fulfilled all that religion required of
them, and who expected to get nothing by their religion, but exemption
from certain grievous pestilences, or help perhaps in war—mere occasional
miraculous manifestations of dreadful power—who had no conceptions of
sanctifying influence, of moral responsibility, of rewards of
righteousness.  To them he declares GOD to be, One not far from them, One
whom they might find, in Whom they then lived and moved, and had their
being, Who henceforth would not wink at any ignorance, Who was at present
treating them, and regarding them with a view to a coming judgment.  Now
we are better (thank GOD, who maketh us to differ!) than these Athenians;
but still we want somewhat of the heart-knowledge which Paul would have
impressed on them.  We want to be more fully convinced that religion is
not a pastime, but a business; that not only duty, but interest,
momentous interest, is involved in it, especially that it is not a mere
concern and preparation and provision for the future, but a present
substantial reality; that GOD is not the object of distant worship; that
His wrath and His mercy are, not rarely, but constantly, being exercised
here; that He is not a departed LORD, Who has set us to do His work
against His return, and will take no account of us till some far off day;
that He has not left us unrewarded, unpunished, unhelped in the present,
not caring what we are, what we do, what we suffer, so as when He comes
back, we have either done what He appointed, or have assumed the position
of penitents for offence, and supplicants of compassion.

Is it not matter of experience that we are not sufficiently influenced by
the hopes and fears of religion, that we do not adequately reverence GOD,
or seek Him, and rest on Him, because we suppose that He is afar off, and
that all that we have to expect from Him, will only begin to be realised
in the next world?  GOD, as a present GOD, is too much unknown to us.  We
do not feel that He is now about us; that His eye is watching us, and His
arm upraised over each of us at every moment of our lives; that He is a
guest actually in us, to be honoured and waited on now.  We do not know
of His present closeness, of His immediate rewards and punishments, His
pleasure or displeasure, His instant succour, or instant withdrawal from
us, according to what He sees in us.  We do all, and bear all in distant
expectation, and therefore we do negligently, and bear feebly and
impatiently.  Could we realise the perpetual working, the instant
retribution, the very touching of GOD now, it would be easy to regard and
serve Him, it would be all but impossible to neglect Him.  No man could
prefer dross to gold, misery to bliss, death to life, if they were both
offered him at the same moment.  No one could hesitate whom to obey, whom
to trust, whom to fear, whom to love, if GOD were seen on the one side,
and fellow man on the other.  It is because GOD, and the things of GOD,
are supposed to be far off, that we first prefer the other, and then
practically regard it as that which alone has real existence.

Well, then, this is what we have to mend.  I have been urging the mending
on these Sundays in Advent, in striving to show you that there is a GOD
present to superintend, and provide, and care for you in this life, and
in every event and moment of this life; that there is an actual and
immediate judgment of every deed, good and evil, and that there is a
present business of religion, and a direct service of GOD to be now
attended to.  It is not head-knowledge that you want, but
heart-perception, and realisation.  You want to feel what you must know
(because the Bible has told you that GOD is a GOD at hand, and not a GOD
afar off); that godliness has the promise of the life that now is, as
well as of that which is to come; that the irreligious is condemned
already.  No expectation, no delay, no vision.  All fulfilled, immediate,
and substantially real.  You fancy, perhaps, that it cannot be so.  You
urge that it is contrary to your experience; you have served GOD, and not
been rewarded; you have trusted in Him, and not been supported; you have
sinned against Him, and not been punished.  Brethren, believe me, you
have not.  “Experience” means that which has been ascertained by trial.
Make trial, and all will be proved.  Devote yourselves now to GOD, follow
Him, give up for Him to-day, and you shall be rewarded to-day.  Sin
against Him to-day, and you shall be punished to-day.  Invoke His aid
to-day, and you shall surely have it.  Do not prescribe your own mode of
visitation.  Be sure that He will use His, and watch for it, and seek to
know it, and then you will have an experience to quote.  I only repeat to
you what He has said.  When you know Him, you will find that He is true.
Then wait on Him, acquaint yourselves with Him, serve Him in the present,
and look for Him in the present, and you will find Him in the present.




SERMON V.
FAITH AND ITS BLESSEDNESS.


                              ST. JOHN, XX., 29.

    _Thomas_, _because thou hast seen me_, _thou hast believed_: _blessed
    are they that have not seen_, _and yet have believed_.

DOES our LORD mean to say that there was no blessedness in the sight
which he then presented?—that it was not a precious privilege actually to
see Him, to hear Him, to be perceptibly with Him?  Would He, too,
withdraw and reverse the blessing He had formerly pronounced—“Blessed are
the eyes which see the things that ye see”?  Would He tell us that the
kings and prophets, who saw the promises only afar off, who fancied and
conjectured, and died in hope, were more blessed than the hearers of the
Sermon of the Mount, the spectators of the Transfiguration, the
companions of that three years’ ministry, the guests at Emmaus, the
disciple that reclined on His bosom?  No, surely!  The blessedness of the
Apostles, in certainly seeing, and being with CHRIST in the flesh, is, in
its peace and joy, a blessedness which stands pre-eminent and alone, and
must do till again He is seen in Heaven.  But peace and joy are not the
greatest blessings.  That which calms, that which gladdens, is nothing in
comparison with that which sanctifies and elevates; and there is a
blessedness which does this; and which, therefore, is greater.  It is the
blessedness which faith produces.  “Blessed (_i.e._, more blessed) are
they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”  Belief, faith—what is
it?  It may be described as the assent of the understanding, to that
which is not proved to any of our senses, but which appears credible
because of the testimony given to it.  We all have this faith, in human
affairs.  We all of us accept as true—are convinced of their truth, and
act upon the conviction—things which are not proved to us, but are
supported by reliable statement.  If you serve for wages, or sell goods
on credit, or become surety for another, or go out to seek a new home in
a distant land, you do it in faith.  You cannot see into the heart, and
be sure of the honesty of your employer, your customer, your friend; but
what appears, from what you are told by others of him, you rely on him.
And so again, you do not actually know that there is such a land as you
propose to seek, but you believe it, because of all that travellers have
said of it, of the goods you have seen, the letters you have read, which
are stated to have come from it.  Of course, as the testimony varies in
its credibility, this faith is of different degrees.  You have such faith
in your well-tried friend, in his integrity and his wisdom, that you
know, you say, that he will not deceive you, and that he cannot be
deceived himself.  Others, of whom you know less, you believe more
slowly.  Some, you think, are not qualified to give testimony; they have
the thing second-hand, or they were not competent to judge of what they
saw, and heard, and felt; or they are not truthful, and may wilfully
misrepresent: and even, in the best cases, faith is sometimes misplaced.
Therefore, your faith in human things, has always, perhaps (and should
have) a trace of doubt in it—sometimes is weak, sometimes fails
altogether.  It would be wrong and injurious to have equal faith in all;
but, on the other hand, to be always doubting, to refuse to believe
without seeing, would be misery, and folly, and mockery of self.  Divine
faith is different: the accepting (that is) of what is recommended to us
by the testimony of GOD, by well-proved miracles, by prophecies since
fulfilled, by any other of GOD’S witnesses.  This is perfect.  It admits
of no doubts and qualifications.  It is as sure of what it believes, as
if it handled, and heard, and saw it: yea, surer, for its own judgment
might be deceived; but GOD knows all things and judges rightly, and GOD
cannot deceive.  Therefore, when GOD reveals, we may not question the
plausibility of what is shown; we have no room for doubt as to His
opportunities of knowing, His truthfulness in communicating what is
narrated.  All we may do, is to ask—Has GOD spoken, are these things His
testimony?  And this we ought to do; for there is no blessing pronounced
by the text on the credulous, who take everything as from GOD, without
examination.  Thomas surely would have erred, if, simply because some one
told him of CHRIST’S resurrection, he had straightway believed it.  We
are exhorted not to believe every spirit, but to try the spirits whether
they be of GOD.  We have to examine miracles, to see whether they are
real or pretended, and prophecies, to see that they were not written
after the professed fulfilments, and all revelations, lest they should be
spurious.  Failing to do this, we might have followed Theudas, who came
to nought, or Joan of Arc: we might become Mohammedans or Mormonites.  We
have to guard against this; not to be credulous; to be sure that it is
GOD that speaks: but then, being sure, whatever He describes, however
incomprehensible or improbable, whatever He commands, no matter how
apparently unreasonable, whatever He promises, against experience,
against opinion, against hope, to accept all, and rely on all, and lead
the life of reliance.  Yes, brethren, this is the believing which alone
is blessed; the believing which leads to doing.  Faith is the evidence by
which we see things naturally unseen; it is the substance, the very
handled reality, of things naturally only hoped for; and which, by its
revelations of beauty and bliss, by its sanctions and persuasions, and by
all that it shows us of the present, and promises or threatens in the
future, makes us fly to GOD, and cling to Him, and depend on Him, and
live for Him, and look for Him.  Less than this—mere assent of the
understanding, without heart-embracing, and life-demonstrating, and
exercising—is not the belief that is blessed.  Faith without works is
dead, being alone.  If then, brethren, you would be partakers of the
blessedness promised in the text, you must have fully received, and be
acting upon the form of religion which GOD has given you.  You must have
implicit trust in Him for help and support and peace and blessing.  You
must know that whatever He has described is real, whatever He has
promised or threatened will surely be fulfilled, on the conditions He has
laid down; and you must testify and act upon your knowledge by a
corresponding life.  I do not say that all this is demanded of you in
perfection; that the hope of blessing is gone, if you fail of aught of
it: but I do say that, if in anything you distrust GOD, if you question
or demand further proof of, or are indifferent to anything He has
revealed, and deliberately do not live by it, then you cannot claim the
benediction of the text.

But it occurs to you to ask, perhaps, how it is that GOD selects
believing, rather than seeing, on any other way of reception for special
blessing.

Now, it is not necessary that GOD should account to us for what He does
or wills.  Creatures of His hand, we are made for Him; dependents on His
bounty, we must thankfully receive it in any way and form of bestowal.
But still there are reasons which may be briefly suggested for the
selection of faith.

First, then, faith embodies the entire trustful devotion to GOD, which,
above any assent to what is proved, any following of what is seen or
heard, magnifies the honour of GOD, and so sets forth His glory.  It owns
His truth, His providence, His love, and prompts to a free-will,
spiritual, glorifying service of Him.  Secondly, unless there are to be
perpetual miracles, faith alone can be permanently and universally
influential.  If we are to be guided by sight, or hearing, or touching,
then the revelations to one generation would have to be repeated to each
following generation, and those of one country performed again in every
other.  Thus CHRIST would have had to continue on earth, to have visited
every land, and been crucified and raised from the dead in every land, or
to have gathered all nations into Judea to witness what was done; and
this would have had to be repeated over and over again to our fathers, to
us, to our children, or else some would have been without the necessary
influence to serve, and love, and depend on Him.  And more than this,
since the sights we see and the sounds we hear, are soon over, and leave
but a faint remembrance behind, we should be imperfectly influenced by
them, when CHRIST ceased to speak; or when He passed into another place
we should be without our object of worship, our instructor or hope.  And
even if these objections can be met, still the perpetuity of CHRIST’S
visible presence, the beholding of His miracles, and hearing of His
words, would necessarily put a stop to all worldly occupations; would
make probation little more than a name; would constrain men by natural
influences to a carnal or slavish adherence to Him, or would drive them
into reckless rebellion, and instant and irrevocable condemnation.

But again, faith is more blessed because it has greater
privileges—because it reveals more clearly, brings nearer, than any sense
could do.  If you only hear a loved one, do you not desire to see him?
If you see him, are you not unblessed unless you embrace him?  And then,
is there not an influence, a way of communicating, that surpasses this—a
purer, a more spiritual influence, one which brings you together, and
keeps you together, and makes you one—love, which surpasses, which is
independent of, or only uses as accessories, the bodily senses?  We are
too apt, brethren, to talk of seeing as believing; to count sense above
feeling; to exalt what belongs to the body, above what belongs to the
mind or spirit.  Doubtless, the error arises from the way in which we
speak of faith giving way to sight in heaven, as though the eyes of the
body only, and not the mind and spirit, were to behold CHRIST then; as
though mental and spiritual perception were not better than bodily; as
though there were no assurance that faith is an abiding gift, and that,
therefore, while in heaven there will be much to gratify the eye of the
body, there will still be much more which faith alone can realise.  My
brethren, the greatest eternal blessedness will be vouchsafed to faith,
and the greatest blessedness of this state belongs to faith, because it
is the exercise of man’s noblest and best, and most reliable faculties,
far superior in excellence, far more certain in ascertaining the truth,
than ears, or eyes, or hands.

Once more, faith is blessed above seeing, because it grasps a set of
truths, and enjoys a class of pleasures which are different from those of
the senses, and which the senses cannot touch.  GOD the Father invisible
for ever, GOD the Holy Ghost, blowing like the wind where it listeth, so
that you cannot see whence it cometh and whither it goes, ministering
angels, spiritual influences, and consolations, and helps—what can ear,
or eye, or hand know of these?  But faith knows them, hears them, sees
them, handles them, and joys in them.  And this, brethren, exhibits the
nature of faith’s blessedness; that to it is revealed the whole spiritual
world; that the evidence which it needs, the object of its worship, its
Saviour, its LORD, its hopes and fears, and encouragements and promises
are never absent, and never missed, (but by its own dimness or voluntary
blindness) whatever may become of the outward signs and boding presences.
Picture to yourselves, brethren, the scene of that chamber where the
raised CHRIST stood manifest, in the posture of blessing, before His
adoring disciples.  Imagine what Thomas had before felt, and what he now
felt.  Then hear CHRIST say—“The bliss of this moment might have been
yours before, if you had sought to attain it by faith, and not by sight;
and what you now see may be yours for ever, for in spirit I shall ever be
with you, and by faith you may ever behold Me!  Blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed”; and that blessing, brethren, was
for us, if we will have it.  If we believe, then we are thus blessed.  If
we are not blessed, we may be.  O let us lay hold on this truth, let us
cultivate faith, let us pray to GOD for an increase of it, and let us
perpetually exercise it in beholding Him Who is ever with us, to pardon
our faithless sins, to restore us to His company, to breathe upon us
peace and blessing.




SERMON VI.
FAULTLESSNESS BEFORE GOD.
(INNOCENTS’ DAY.)


                             REVELATION, XIV., 5.

              _They are without fault before the throne of_ GOD.

JOB declares that GOD puts no trust in His saints; that He charges His
angels with folly; that in His sight the very heavens are not clean.
This language is, of course, figurative, and not to be taken literally;
but it well describes to us the transcendent holiness of GOD, and His
utter abhorrence of all evil.  In comparison of Him, heaven itself is not
pure, and angels, endued with wisdom, swift and constant to obey,
delighting in His will, even these are not perfect—fall far short of
perfection before Him.  Job would show us the distance between GOD and
man.  St. John, however, in the chapter of my text, would exhibit another
truth, not contradictory, but rather supplementary to Job’s, namely, the
nearness, through grace, of man to GOD.  The Apostle is describing, for
the comfort and encouragement of the tried and persecuted, a vision which
he had seen of some of those who have passed away from this world, and,
as a kind of first-fruits, are already with GOD and the Lamb; and he
says, that “in their mouth is found no guile; for they are without fault
before the throne of GOD.”

“Without fault,” means here, without spot or blemish; not only free from
actual transgression, but wholly untainted by corruption of sin—not
wanting in anything that belongs to the perfect character of the approved
of GOD.

That man in his natural state is altogether faulty, that even in his
redeemed, and spiritualised, and sanctified state, while here on earth,
he has still many faults, are truths so plainly taught, so proved to our
reason and experience, that it would be idle to enforce them.  How, then,
can he ever stand faultless before the throne of GOD?  Now some would
answer, that for CHRIST’S sake GOD overlooks, that CHRIST, by His merits,
hides man’s faults; and so that the redeemed in heaven are not really
faultless, but that for CHRIST’S sake faultlessness is reckoned, imputed
to them.  This is what may be called the popular answer to our question.
But, brethren, how utterly wrong it is seen to be, when we consider that,
in order to exalt GOD’S mercy and His wisdom in contriving justification,
it sacrifices His truth and His holiness.  GOD cannot call the faulty
faultless.  He Who is Truth cannot enter with His Holy Son (Who is also
Truth) into a plan of deceit, by which, to Himself, to them, to angels,
to the whole universe, sin shall be presented as holiness.  GOD may agree
not to reckon with men for their sins, to forget the past, on certain
conditions to deal with the faulty as if they were actually faultless;
but He cannot—I say it advisedly, it is beyond the limits of His power,
as regulated by His truth—He cannot call evil good.  And, brethren,
besides, even if it were possible that by some strange agreement with the
Son, sinful man should be passed off as holy, still his sin, while it
remained, hide it, disguise it, call it by what name you will, must
separate from GOD.  Charity might forbear to punish it, or to make
mention of it.  Charity might even gild it over; but Holiness deals not
with the name, but with the reality; and holiness must shrink from sin
and thrust it away.  This ought to be the most readily perceived and
admitted of all Scripture truths, that GOD cannot tolerate near iniquity;
that—if I may venture reverently to use such words—even if GOD were
willing to receive to Himself an unchanged sinner, the actual reception
would be morally impossible; the same heaven could not contain holiness
and sin!  No, brethren, if the sinner is to enter heaven, it must be, not
because his name is changed, but his nature; he must be actually without
fault before GOD.  We see this to have been the case with those described
in the text: for it is expressly said, “In their mouth was found no
guile.”  Observe, it is not, GOD mercifully overlooked their guile for
the sake of His dear Son, the Guileless One; He charitably called them
guileless; but “in their mouth was found (the testimony of truth to the
searching of holiness) no guile: yea, for they are altogether blameless,
without spot or blemish.”  It is an actual, not an imputed faultlessness
that is thus described.  Now, how is it to be attained by sinful men?
And here comes in a second answer of popular theology.  At or after
death, CHRIST meets the departed, and by His resurrection-power quickens
that which was dead, purifies that which was corrupt, spiritualises,
sanctifies, and, as by a miracle, converts the sinner into a perfect
saint.  This is an answer only second in popularity to the one we have
been considering.  Those who urge it, believe that man is naturally
depraved, that, under grace, he retains much, almost all, his old nature,
that he is very faulty in deed, in will and affections.  They know that
he must be faultless to gain accession to heaven and dwell with GOD and
the Lamb, and this faultlessness they hope for and pray for; but there is
no effort to acquire it; there is no concern for the absence, the
continued absence of it; it is regarded as altogether a thing of the
future; the free and perfect gift—perfect at once—to the released soul
and the raised body.  Men who hold this view, are often better than their
creed requires them to be.  In love of GOD and devotion to Him, they
strive to abandon sin and cultivate holiness; but they have no definite
object in view of becoming faultless here, in order to be faultless in
heaven.  They seem to believe that they cannot get any nearer to
faultlessness whatever they do, and that those who have made no efforts,
ay, have even led ungodly lives, and, but for a few last sighs and
ejaculations, would have died ungodly deaths, are just as qualified, just
as fit in many cases, just as sure recipients of instantly converting and
perfecting grace in the next world!

But if this is so, why have we such solemn warnings, to the effect that
as the tree falls, so shall it lie?  “He that is righteous, then, shall
be righteous still.  He that is filthy then, shall be filthy still.”  Why
is it that in the representations which we have of the Judgment, men are
always dealt with according to what they were in life, “Inasmuch as ye
did it,” “Inasmuch as ye did it not”?  Why is the pound taken away from
him that did not seek to increase it, and given to him who had gained ten
pounds, and the commentary subjoined, “Unto every one which hath shall be
given, and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away
from him”?  Why is the boaster of his privileges—“In Thy name have I cast
out devils”—instantly dismissed with the words, “Depart from me, I never
knew you”?  Why are they reproved who called CHRIST LORD, LORD, but did
not the things which He said?  What did St. Peter mean when he exhorted
“Save yourselves;” and Paul, “Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling;” “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall;”
and CHRIST Himself, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to
give to every man according as his work shall be;” “Blessed are they that
do His commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may
enter in through the gates into the city”?  Surely all this, as with a
voice from heaven, calls on us to put away the delusion, that mortal life
is not a probation, that man has not a fitness to acquire in this life,
in order that he may be faultless in heaven.  The answer of truth,
brethren, to the question, “How can man be faultless in heaven?” is,
briefly, By praying, and striving, through the blessing of GOD, the grace
of the Spirit of CHRIST, and his own self-denial, and diligence, and
cultivated holiness, to become less and less faulty here.  After all, he
will never, on this side of the grave, be without spot or blemish, and
perfect in holiness.  Whatever CHRIST may do for him here, he will still
have much to be purged away, much to be quickened, much to be glorified.
But, be sure, there must be a seed-time here and a growing here, if there
is to be a harvest hereafter.  There must be a service, if there is to be
a reward; we must be faithful in a little, before we are made rulers over
much; there must be a fitness, a partial, a main fitness acquired here,
or no admission there to the inheritance of the Saints in light.
CHRIST’S work in us hereafter is not a transforming, but a completing, a
finishing, a perfecting work.  “To him that hath”—that is, that has made
use of and improved what he hath—“to him more shall be given,” and he
shall abound.  He who has traced in his soul and life the outline of the
features of the blessed JESUS, shall have the likeness filled up and
finished by the Divine artist, and be wholly conformed to His image.  He
who has kept down the flesh, shall have the power of the flesh destroyed
in him.  He who has sought after holiness, shall be made perfect.  A
great change; much taken away, much added, but not a transformation.  A
great work, which can only be done then, and only by CHRIST; but which
will fail to be done then if materials are not provided for it now; if
the foundation has not been laid, and the walls have not been raised, and
all made ready for the roof of GOD’S adding, and the capping of the tower
of glory.  Yes; this is the qualification, without which you cannot be
received, but, having it, cannot be refused.  Labour and pray to be
faultless here, and CHRIST shall at the end perfect your faultlessness,
and shall present you faultless before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy.  But the text seems to speak not of those who had washed
away defilements, had secured pardon of offences, had repaired faults and
made up deficiencies, in short, had been sinners, but, under the
operation of the spirit of CHRIST, were become saints; but of those who
never had been faulty, spotted, or blemished “These are they which were
not defiled with women, for they are virgins.  These are they which
follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.”  Of course, there must have been
the spot and blemish of original sin; but, apart from this—which CHRIST’S
applied purifying power and all-sufficient merits would entirely
remove—there seems to have been in the lives of these persons no actual
sin, no omission of righteousness.  Now, as there is no man that liveth
and sinneth not, it has been conjectured that the vision here exhibits
those who were taken away to GOD in their infancy, before they had the
power or the will to do good or evil, and who, therefore, as far as
actual deeds and feelings are concerned, not by work, or grace, or
conviction, but absolutely and from the first were faultless: and
probably the selection of the description as the Gospel for this day, the
festival of the Holy Innocents, has gone far to confirm this conjecture.
But, brethren, this surely is not the meaning, at least the full meaning,
of the words.  They describe freedom from defilement and following of the
Lamb as things that might have been otherwise.  They hold up for the
example and encouragement of those who were tempted to lust, and to
depart from following the living LORD, the praise and happiness of those
who are without fault in these respects; and therefore they suggest to
us, I think, as the most profitable and foremost thought, the
blessedness, the superior blessedness of those who never have contracted
sin, nor failed in holiness.

Men sometimes seem to fancy that the most glorious character in heaven,
the object of GOD’S fondest love, will be the once deep-stained and
wholly defiled, that have been washed in CHRIST’S blood till they are
become whiter than snow, the reckless, and rebellious, and blaspheming,
who have been subdued and converted; and that in comparison of these, the
mainly regular righteous life will almost pass unnoticed.  It is easy to
account for the supposition.  We read, without due consideration, of her
that sinned much, and was forgiven much, and therefore loved much; of the
returned prodigal rejoiced over more than the son who had remained at
home; of the joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over
ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance; of publicans and harlots
going into the kingdom of heaven before priests and scribes.  We forget
that these things were said to men who were not really righteous, but
self-sufficient; that they were an accommodation to their own kind of
reasoning; that they were the justification of special works and
feelings, and peculiar demonstrations.  Surely we are not to understand
by them anything more than that sinners were _at times_ more in CHRIST’S
thoughts than saints; that on the recovery of one lost sheep, the joy
over that one caused the rest for the moment to be put out of
remembrance.  Surely we are not to understand that GOD has less love for,
and shows less favour to those who have uniformly served and honoured
Him, than to those whose life has been one of contempt and rebellion, who
have refused to accept Him till they had made trial of all else; that
GOD’S power and glory are more magnified in the ultimate conversion of
such a sinner, than in the steady control and improvement of a life-long
saint; that in themselves the reformed drunkards and defiled are better
than those who were always sober and pure; that their memories are more
blissful, and their themes of praise more satisfactory; that they are
even equal in favour, in bliss, in manifested honour to those who were
undefiled and consistently obedient, whom Holy Scripture distinguishes on
this very account, of whom it relates, that they sing a song which no
other can learn, signifying that they have a peculiar privilege and a
peculiar joy!  Brethren, be sure it is not so.  GOD is abundantly
gracious to all who call upon Him, late as well as early.  No one,
whatever his past life, shall be refused who comes to Him through CHRIST.
In his late righteousness all his former sins shall be forgiven and
forgotten; they shall not once be mentioned unto him.  He shall have too,
the joy of the righteous, and shall dwell with GOD in heaven; but still
He Who makes one star to differ from another in glory, Who bestows
different measures of reward upon different capacities, and different
attainments, has a special interest and a superior blessedness for those
who have never been stained, who have always stayed in their father’s
house, and have obeyed His will and loved His voice.  In themselves they
are dearer to Him, as more like JESUS; and for them, He has seats closer
to the throne of CHRIST, and offices of honour near His person.

If this is so, if “faultlessness,” in the sense of never blotted, never
imperfect, is the state that is most blessed, then, brethren, we might
perhaps be tempted to envy the fate of those whom we commemorate to-day,
who suffered so early for CHRIST’S sake, and as soon almost as they were
born, were put to death.  We might judge, too, that the little ones whom
GOD so frequently takes away so soon after lending them, are summoned to
a higher blessedness than we can ever know; and therefore that not only
would it have been gain to die in infancy, but that it is positive loss
to live to years of discretion and responsibility.  Let us not err
herein.  We believe that the dear innocents, whose first consciousness is
of bliss in heaven, whose reason begins to develop, and their will to
exercise itself, only when sin is impossible, are not only unspeakably
blessed, but that GOD specially loves them, and folds them to His bosom
(as we did here), because of that innocence: no guile, no defilement—all
simplicity and trust.  Thankful then in their sober moments are all
bereaved parents who are assured of their departed little ones’ eternal
safety, and are spared the fears and anxieties, the heartrending
realisation of self-will developed, and the world’s evil example
followed, and the devil triumphant.  The LORD gave, and the LORD hath
taken away; and, in that He has taken away, from the evil to come, Oh!
blessed be the name of the LORD.

But, brethren, it is only because we fear for the future, that we
thankfully accept such a present.  Could we be sure that our little ones
would remain faultless, that they would not abuse the world, nor fall
into great error or misery, that they would grow in grace, and in the
fear of the LORD, and at length surely attain to glory; then, not from
selfishness, but for their sakes, we should covet length of days for
them.  And rightly, for there is a better faultlessness, and a
correspondingly higher blessedness than that of infants, who were allowed
no opportunity (and possessed no power) to contract fault: it is the
faultlessness of those who shrink from the allowed opportunity, who
restrain the possessed power, and overcome the persuading will, who pass
through the fire without the smell of it being left on their garments,
who make manifest by a life of self-denials, and resistances to
temptations, and patience and perseverance in well-doing, their
intelligent deliberate love of GOD, and hatred of evil.  These are the
tried, the eagerly accepted, the specially loved.  These do the LORD’S
work, and set forth the LORD’S glory.  These shall indeed be welcomed
with a “Well-done good and faithful servant,” for them shall be reserved
the best seats on the right hand of GOD; and they shall joy in GOD, and
GOD in them, with a peculiar joy, for they are likest unto CHRIST, Whose
spotlessness was preserved among so many defilements, Who with heart, and
mind, and life, consistently, unceasingly served GOD, and Who therefore
is highly exalted, and has a name which is above all other names.

Oh it is no mean privilege, brethren, which you forego, when you leave
the ranks of the faultless, when you shrink from duty, or yield to sinful
pleasure, or contract any stain of ungodliness.  Say not, “It is only for
once.”  It will surely be for more than once; but if it were not, still
from being faultless that _once_ makes you blotted and blemished.  Say
not, “I can repent by and by, and GOD of His mercy will accept me, and I
shall be myself again.”  You may not live to repent.  Sin may disincline,
the Spirit provoked may leave you; but even if you do repent—though GOD
will undoubtedly forgive, and in a sense restore you—remember, you can
never be as you were before.  You may be cleansed, but not as at first
clean; admitted to heaven, but not to the band of the one hundred and
forty-four thousand of undefiled; joined to the glorious choir of the
redeemed, but not allowed, not able to sing the peculiar song of the
faultless.

“But what,” some would say, “is the use of this preaching?  We are all
already faulty; we can none of us have a place among these choice first
fruits of GOD’S harvest.”  Brethren, faultlessness, pure faultlessness,
is no longer ours; but comparative faultlessness (and Bible
faultlessness, after all, is only comparative freedom from wilful sin)
may, and, I trust, does pertain to many of us; and for each degree of
nearness to faultlessness, if I understand the Bible aright, there is its
peculiar reward.  I would put you on your guard against losing that
reward, by sinking to a lower level.  I would urge you to hold fast what
you have, to subdue yourselves, to resist the world and the devil, to be
ever on the watch against danger, and to flee speedily from temptation,
if it is too strong to fight against, to seek strength and sanctification
in means of grace, to pray constantly (and strive constantly to make good
your prayer), that CHRIST would keep you from falling, and finally
present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding
joy.




SERMON VII.
PAST MERCIES REVIEWED.
(NEW YEAR’S EVE.)


                             GENESIS, XXXII., 10.

    _I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies_, _and of all the
    truth_, _which thou hast showed unto Thy servant_; _for with my staff
    I passed over this Jordan_; _and now I am become two bands_.

THESE are Jacob’s words.  They form part of the prayer which he offered
to GOD, when, on his return from Haran, he found that Esau was coming out
against him with four hundred men.

Mingled feelings must have possessed Jacob at this time; strange
remembrances must have been his!  Twenty years ago he had passed over
that Jordan—near which he now stood—in flight from an enraged brother,
meditating and preparing vengeance for an act of fraudulent injury.  What
a weary pilgrimage he had since followed; what sorrows, what desolations
had possessed his aching heart; how he had toiled and suffered wrong;
even now was fleeing from it!  Yet, those twenty years gone, he was
coming back, not to the prospect of peace and happiness, not to the hope
that his brother had forgotten his vengeance, or that he would easily be
reconciled to him; but to face a mindful, aggravated avenger,
strengthened by four hundred followers.  Surely he had fled and been in
exile to no purpose!  Surely, by deferring it, he had increased his
trouble!  It must have been that Jacob now acutely remembered the cause
of Esau’s anger; that he meditated on the mean advantage that he had
taken, the base fraud to which he had been a party, the lying, the
profanity of his lips, the evil deeds which led to evil consequences.
Ah! now he felt that man cannot sin with impunity, that transgression and
punishment are bound together as cause and effect, that vengeance, though
it tarry, though it slumber, though we run from it, and hide from it
many, many days, will yet accomplish its purpose, will surely repay!
Yes; and did he not feel that vengeance had even followed him; that he
had been its victim all those twenty years; that the frauds of Laban,
from first to last, and the strifes and dissensions of his own household
were the fruits of his deceit; that GOD had allowed them, that in a way
He had caused them in retaliation, in punishment of his sin!  What an
experience to him, what a proof to us, my brethren, that sin will surely
find us out!

But Jacob must have had other and different thoughts—thoughts which
preponderated.  As he called to mind his first passage over Jordan, did
not he remember the wonderful vision that was vouchsafed him of angels
descending to earth, ascending to heaven, in token of Divine providence,
of the intercourse between man and GOD?  Did he not remember the Voice
which promised to be with him, to keep him in all places whither he went,
to bring him again to this land, to give it to him and to his seed after
him?  Did he not look along those twenty years, and remember that GOD had
been with him, and that, by His command, he was now coming back; and did
he not hope, yes, even against hope, that GOD would be with him in the
coming struggle, that He would crown His mercy and goodness with a
present success, and with the establishment of himself and his seed in
the promised land?  And one other remembrance surely he had.  He
remembered the vow which in the fresh reverence of GOD’S presence, in
glad and grateful acceptance of His promises, he had solemnly made, “The
LORD shall be my GOD;” and he must have remembered how often he had
forgotten that vow, how generally he had slightly regarded it.  These I
suppose to have been the feelings and remembrances which filled the
breast of Jacob, when he uttered the prayer in which our text occurs.
Observe how that prayer exhibits the right ordering of these feelings,
making prominent, putting uppermost thoughts and acknowledgments of GOD’S
goodness; and, in the moment of greatest peril, pausing to review
mercies, and to give thanks!  There is no bitter lamentation of his hard
lot throughout those years of promised blessing; there is no pleading
with GOD, that if he had sinned he had surely been punished enough; there
is no mention of the merits of his contrite heart and amended life; there
is no angry feeling against Esau, no supplication that GOD would smite
and confound him.  It is a godly, a model prayer.  Betaking himself to
GOD in the hour of danger, as his only confidence and help, he humbly
urges no personal claim, but—that he is in the place of GOD’S commanding.
“‘Thou LORD that saidst unto me Return unto thy country and unto thy
kindred,’ I did not recklessly run into danger, I did not voluntarily
gratify the natural yearning of my poor heart.  Thou broughtest me here,
O LORD protect me here;” and then having put forth himself, though but
such a little way, and coming to consider GOD, Who had shown him such
wondrous goodness, Who had fulfilled for him so truthfully all His
promises, he exclaims, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies,
and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto Thy servant: for with my
staff—as a solitary, poor individual—I passed over this Jordan, and now I
am become two bands.  Deliver me, I pray thee.”

This seems to me, brethren, a fit theme for a sermon on New Year’s Eve.
Jacob, come back from Haran to Jordan, where he had made a covenant with
GOD, may well typify our return to-night to the sanctuary of GOD, whence
we went forth refreshed and pledged last New Year’s Eve.  Jacob’s
reflections—he is the pattern of a mediator—may well provoke us to ask of
the days that are past, to remember all the way which the LORD our GOD
has led us.  Jacob’s prayer shows us how to speak to GOD, what we should
feel in His presence on such an occasion as this, how to propitiate Him,
and to secure His defence and blessing in what lies before us.

I will not attempt, brethren, to picture the circumstances through which
you have passed in the year which is now all but ended; many of them I
could only guess at, many of them, to me, would be unimaginable.  Recall
them for yourselves and meditate on them.  They will teach you much, and
influence you much.  I will address you simply as those who have made a
halt in the journey of life, and who want now GOD’S blessing in the known
and unknown dangers, anxieties, sufferings, and labours that lie before
you in the coming year.

Well: let your requests be made known unto GOD with prayer; above
all—yes! I mean it—_above all_, with thanksgiving.

But, first, before you approach GOD, to speak to Him, to ask of Him, to
thank Him, be sure that you can say to Him, “I am in the way of Thy
commandments.”  If at this moment you are contentedly different from what
you know He would have you to be; if you indulge, or do not resolutely
renounce any besetting sin; if you deliberately neglect any positive
duty; if in will and affections, and aims, you are worldly and selfish,
and do not seek to be otherwise; if you are planning anything, or hoping
for anything which GOD does not approve; if you are shrinking from,
desiring to avoid, what He appoints; if you have not made up your minds
to try to be holy, to walk in the way of righteousness; then, brethren,
you are disqualified to pray to GOD.  He hears not such.  He has made no
promises to them: they are not His.  Go fashion yourselves (He will
mercifully give you grace to do it) into the character that He loves; get
you into the paths that He has marked out; turn your face towards the
Holy Land, and then come to tell Him of your felt unworthiness, to speak
His praise, to intreat Him to be with you, to defend and prosper you; and
be sure you shall be welcomed and blessed.

But, supposing you not disqualified to come, supposing you bent on
coming, consider now your right posture and deportment before GOD.  Ask
nothing of right, ask all out of felt unworthiness, and that, not simply
the unworthiness of the stranger, and alien, who want mercies which they
have never known, and speak to a GOD that has not hitherto been their
GOD, as the publican cried, “GOD be merciful to me a sinner;” but such an
unworthiness as belonged to the prodigal, such as he felt and groaned
under, when, reflecting on all the love and blessedness which he had
experienced in his father’s house, and had despised, and sinned against,
and seeing the Father coming towards him, ready to pardon, ready to
embrace, ready to lead him home again, he was humbled to the very dust
before Him, on account of his goodness, and declared himself unworthy to
be called His son.  Oh, my brethren, if you do not feel unworthy, when
you approach the all-good and all-holy GOD, and if the feeling is not one
enlightened by, and full of the remembrances of blessings already
received, you are unfit to ask for further blessings.  Not to have used
GOD’S blessings is great indignity; not to be thankful for them is base
ingratitude; but not to feel, that whether used or not used, appreciated
or not appreciated, they are many and undeserved—this is to deny that you
ever received them, or, claiming them as a right, to defy GOD to withhold
them!  Cultivate then, I pray you, this feeling of unworthiness; and,
that you may do so the more readily, review the mercies, the promises
made true which you have received; and tell out their number, their kind,
and their magnitude to the GOD Who gave them, and would have them
acknowledged.  “With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am
become two bands.”  Now the argument of these words is, “I do not come to
Thee, professing that I am a fit person to be helped, but I claim Thee as
a GOD who are wont to help such as I am.  I am not worthy of the least of
Thy mercies: but yet Thou hast shown me marvellous mercies.  I possess
now the evidences and pledges of Thy goodness.  Therefore I pray for, I
humbly count on further blessing, not because I am a holy man, but
because Thou art a good GOD, and My good GOD.”  It is an argument which
prevails with GOD.  He is pleased to see that we recognise His former
gifts, that we make _them_—and not ourselves, our love of Him, our
obedience, our prayers, and fastings, and study of His Word, and use of
His grace—the ground of application.  He likes that His consistent
faithfulness should be invoked; that since He has made a beginning, just
on that very account, He should be looked to (so as it be humbly), to
continue His work, and to accomplish it.  When you go to GOD to ask for
fresh blessings, you cannot take with you better and more effectual words
than those which make mention of, which exhibit as promises and pledges,
what you have already received.

But these words are not simply an argument for further help; they are,
besides, a free acknowledgment, a pure praise of what has been given.
They may be the plea of a beseeching heart, but they are besides the
tribute of a grateful heart; and it is in this sense, brethren, that I
specially wish you to adopt them to-night, and to make them a
thanksgiving to GOD for past mercies reviewed.  “With my staff I passed
over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.”  Jacob might have found
mercies enough to enlist his gratitude in any one year, or circumstance
of his exile and pilgrimage, and doubtless he reviewed each and all
particularly; but in his speech he comprehended all in a general mention
of them, and summed them up, and demonstrated them by pointing to their
effect.  “Now I am become two bands.”  Review your past mercies, consider
how GOD has been with you at all times, and has ever been doing you good.
Call to mind what progress you have been able to make spiritual or
temporal; what success has attended you; what friends have been given
you; what dangers you have narrowly escaped; what sicknesses recovered
from; what wounds been healed, what troubles overcome, what tears
staunched.  Have they not caused you, like Jacob, to increase from the
solitariness and poverty of that passing over Jordan, to the riches and
prosperity of the two bands?  Perhaps you say, you cannot trace such
progress; you are much the same outwardly and inwardly, as you have been
from the time that you can first remember.  Then, brethren, you can
furnish your own testimony, that GOD has dealt better with you than He
did with Jacob, that your first state, your continued state has been all
like his last.  O discern and bless GOD for those least heeded but
greatest mercies, the mercies which come to us at the beginning, and
follow us all the days of our life—the continued prosperity of our
family, the continued harmony and love, the bread always sure, the right
understanding early implanted, the fear of the LORD from our youth.
There is a way of travelling in our days which is so smooth, that often
we cannot tell that we are moving; and there is a manner of blessing, so
uninterrupted, so uniform, so without roughnesses and stoppages and ups
and downs, that if we be not on the lookout, we may fancy that we are not
blessed at all.  Let not this be your case.  Do not refuse to be
grateful, because all goes well with you, because there is nothing that
needs to be supplied, because nothing is taken away from you.  Rather,
let the measure of your blessedness be also the measure of your praise
and the strength of your resolution.  “Surely goodness and mercy have
followed me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the
LORD for ever.”

But your object, perhaps, “Mine has not been this life of uninterrupted
prosperity, but, on the contrary, one of continued adversity.  It is
Jacob’s first, not his last estate, that has been always mine.”  What do
you mean?  That you were not born rich, nor influential, nor of honoured
family?  That you have not the wisdom of the philosopher, the dignity of
the prince, the opulence of the successful merchant, the leisure of
independent private life?  That may be.  Your state may be the reverse of
all this, and yet be the state of the “two bands.”  External prosperity
in Jacob’s time was commonly, yet not always, the sign of spiritual
blessings; in Gospel days, with our better light, and greater power of
appreciation of the reality, the sign is not so often afforded,
frequently the most favoured are without it; yea, and often it abides
with the unblessed as the mocking substitute for true blessedness.  If
you are without GOD in the world; if you do not feel Him about your bed,
and about your path; if you do not live in His fear, and hope for His
mercies, and His rewards; if the thought of Him does not moderate your
worldly joy, and direct your aims, and leaven your worldly work; if His
comfort does not dry your tears, His strength support you, His grace
sanctify you, then—no matter what your outward state, and your
possessions, your powers, your happiness—you are poor and unblessed.  But
if He is thus with you in all your ways, if you have resolved, and are
keeping the resolution, “The LORD shall be my GOD,” then is yours the
state, or it is growing towards the state of the “two bands.”  One more
objection somewhat akin to this last, must be answered.  There are some
who say, “Mine was once the state of the two bands: it has long since
been—or it is fast becoming—solitariness and the single staff.  All thing
are against me.  Nothing that I put my hand to seems to prosper; I come
into misfortune; the fountains of joy are dried up; my hope, my stay, are
taken from me.  When I look back upon the past, I look as it were up an
incline down which I have rolled, or towards a pinnacle whence I have
been cast down.”  Now, of course, my brethren, all this may be the result
of the displeasure of GOD, consequent upon your sin, or neglect of Him.
Outward adversity is sometimes the effect of His wrath, sometimes it is
the chastisement of displeasure, and the discipline of correction.  If
then in your heart, you know that you deserve such wrath, or need such
correction (even then it is a blessing, and you ought to praise GOD for
it, but still) you may be sure that it is the mark of disapprobation,
something for you to grieve over, and seek to have removed.  But if the
testimony of your conscience is that you walk with GOD, then are these
so-called reverses very blessings, not declines but advances, not
hindrances but helps, tokens of GOD’S love upraisings of you towards
heaven.  Oh be like Jacob; count all mercy, get rid of selfishness, and
meditate as he did, and you will prove that all is mercy, and proclaim
it!  You will find, for instance, that the loss of wealth took away with
it the idol of your worship, the minister of your excessive pleasure;
that altered position broke down your pride; that worldly sorrow led you
to seek heavenly comfort; that the perfidy of so-called friends made you
cease to put your trust in man, and caused you to rely on the friend that
sticketh closer than a brother; that sickness and infirmity reminded you
of death, and stimulated you to preparation for judgment; that the loss
of those you loved, uprooted your clingings to earth, linked you to
heaven, revealed to you One whom you knew not; Whom above all you ought
to love; Who is better to you than sons and daughters; Who is the true
and abiding Father of the fatherless, and GOD of the widow.  No matter
what your circumstances, how many your troubles, I tell you on the
authority of God’s Word, that if you love Him, they all work together for
your good; yea, they are all good in themselves.  You will find them so,
if you rightly review them, and each of you will be able to say, as
truthfully as Jacob did, with much more meaning, because of your better
knowledge and superior blessedness in CHRIST, “I am not worthy of the
least of all the mercies and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed
unto my servant . . . I am become two bands.”

Try to feel this, brethren, and to express it this night to GOD; to tell
out your praises for the mercies of your past life, and, in the review of
them, to pledge yourselves to Him, that you will strive henceforth to
recognise blessings more quickly, to use them better, to be more grateful
for them.  Be these the thoughts and vows with which you consecrate the
last hours of a dying year.  But, knowing that so soon as you set out
again, your enemy, whom sin has given the advantage over you, will come
to meet you, to smite you, to turn you back from the Holy Land, forget
not this night to cry, “Deliver me, I pray Thee, O LORD.  Take away from
me the sin which exposes me to assaults, which makes me vulnerable.  Give
me Thy strength: go before me with thy blessing.”  Do this, brethren,
persevere in it day after day, night after night: wrestle with God,
refuse to let Him go—you shall surely prevail: GOD will yield all you
ask; and, in honour of your victory, He will change your name from Jacob
to Israel, that is, you shall no longer be remembered by the name of your
deceit and your sin.  You shall be known, known to angels, known to Him,
as princes, and prevailers with GOD.




SERMON VIII.
WORKING FOR GOD.


                              ST. JOHN, IX., 4.

    _I must work the works of Him that sent me_, _while it is day_: _the
    night cometh_, _when no man can work_.

I DWELL not on these words in their relation to the context.  I pause not
to consider whether their utterance was a justification of the
Sabbath-day miracle that was presently to be performed—“no opportunity
must be lost, no delay allowed of working the works of GOD”—or whether
they were but the thinking and resolving aloud (so characteristic of our
LORD), by which He kept ever in mind His great mission, by which He
continually stimulated and pressed on that human nature of His; willing
indeed, but yet weak, though not sinful; and made it vigorously
industrious in the work of GOD; or whether, once more, CHRIST here but
personified Christians, and spoke not of Himself, not to keep Himself
mindful and intent upon His work, but as their example and
representative, as though He had said, “A work of GOD will now be
manifested in the restoration of this blind man.  It will not be delayed
till the Sabbath is over.  See me serving GOD and serving Him now, by
instant doing of all possible work.  Consider me your example.  Let this
be your resolution, ‘I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it
is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.’”  It matters little to
us what feeling or motive immediately prompted our LORD to speak the
text.  His words at once commend themselves to us as those which we may,
which we ought to adopt, even if they belong primarily to Him; which,
rather, since they were the ruling maxim of CHRIST, must be the ruling
maxim of Christians.

Well, then, these are our words (and CHRIST has shown us how to fulfil
them), “I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the
night cometh, when no man can work.”

“Him that sent me.”  Have we yet to learn, my brethren, that GOD sent us
into this world; that we came not here by chance, or on our own account;
that we are not independent beings, free to wander about or linger to do,
or forbear to do, as we please?  By the will—for the accomplishment of
the purposes—of GOD, we are here on a mission, His messengers, His
agents, workers for Him.  GOD has made all things for His own use and
glory.  None of us liveth unto himself—He sent us forth.  He gave us a
charge.  He watches to see what we do with it.  He waits for our return;
rather, He appoints, and, whensoever He will, enforces our return.  And
what is the mission?  What has He sent us to do?  To work the works of
GOD, and make them manifest, to promote, to show forth His glory, to
become ourselves all that He would have us to be, and to light and guide
others to the same end.  Work for GOD!  How few ever think of such a
thing!  Work for themselves (and for others like themselves) for food to
eat and raiment to put on, for money, for power, for fame, for pleasure;
men understand this; they acknowledge the necessity of it, or the
inviting, constraining desirableness of it, and they do it—do it
generally, do it well, and heartily.  A really idle man, a man that works
not some works, is a rarity, an object of contempt when he is seen, a
despiser of himself.  But, work for GOD!  How many do that?  Who does it
heartily, and does it well?  Whose thoughts are full of it, whose deeds
accomplish it?  What fruits come of it?  There are some, not a few, thank
GOD! who can give a satisfactory answer to such questions; whose lives
continually give it, and whom GOD, for their works’ sake in CHRIST,
greatly approves.  But I speak now to the many, yea, I speak to all; for
the work of GOD so generally neglected, is by none perfectly performed.
To all, then, I solemnly address the questions: “Do you work for GOD?”
and “What work do you work for Him?”  You are tempted to justify
yourselves.  You are not the unbelieving, and rebellious, and profane of
our race.  You recognise a GOD of providence and grace, a moral ruler of
the world, a waiting Judge.  To this GOD you say your prayers, His word
you read, and reverence, and receive.  To Him you dedicate at least
several hours of each seventh day; by His commandments you order your
daily life.  You do no wrong to your neighbour by word or deed; you
strive to purify and sanctify your very feelings and thoughts; you
believe in a Saviour; you accept His salvation; you try to love Him; you
partake of His means of grace; you rest in Him, and look to Him for final
redemption, and something you do occasionally by way of persuading
others; and something you give for the furtherance of religious works.
It is well, brethren, if you do this; if you go through the form, and do
not inwardly contradict what is outward, but rather incline to it.

It is well, I say, because it is hopeful, it will, by grace, lead you
farther; but if in your heart and soul you recognise GOD, and believe in
a Saviour, then I am sure that you will not adduce what I have mentioned
as specimens of the works of GOD.  Acknowledgments that GOD ought to be
served, pledges of service, they may be, but works they are not.  And yet
some, perhaps, would urge, “When the question was put, ‘What must we do
that we may work the works of GOD?’ did not CHRIST answer, ‘This is the
work of GOD, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent”? and, say they,
“Does not this show that literal working, as we work in and for the
world, is not what GOD demands; that it is rather a mental assent, an
entertaining and exercising of feelings, a believing, a thankful, a
sanctifying remembrance of CHRIST’S work; a trust in it, a carefulness to
do nothing that will render it ineffectual for our salvation, that is
required of us?  Surely, CHRIST has done the work Himself; we have but to
accept it thankfully, and wait for it faithfully and holily.”

Now, my brethren, it may be easily shown that this is not believing in
Him whom GOD hath sent.  To believe in Him is to embrace Him as the
Author, and Finisher, and Giver of Salvation; to be assured that
salvation can only be had from Him, in Him, and on His terms; to learn of
Him, therefore—and, of course, of His Apostles and Evangelists after Him,
for to them even clearer teaching was intrusted—what are the terms, and
then to fulfil them resolutely and precisely.  Do you need that I should
quote the actual words, the chapter, and verse, in which CHRIST, through
the Spirit, tells us, that He has redeemed us to Himself; that He has
purchased us for a peculiar people zealous of good works; that He has
left us a definite work to do against His return; that on His return He
will judge and reward us by our works; that He will condemn as workers
against Him those who have not worked for Him; that it is vain to
acknowledge Him and not do the things that He bids; that He has left us
an example that we should follow His steps, in that He fulfilled all
righteousness, and went about doing good, and proposed to Himself, as
that which must be done, and done heartily and without delay, the works
and the manifesting of the works of GOD, and made it His meat and drink
to do the Father’s will; that He has said plainly, that whosoever would
not take up the cross and follow Him could not be His disciple.  O wo to
those who dare to say this means: Sit still in worldliness, and look at
and admire Him doing the labour and pursuing the path of godliness—that
He has attached all His promises to certain deeds; that He is ever
represented as judging, not what men have thought and felt, but what they
have done and become by doing; that by the Spirit He has commanded “Work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” and “Whether ye eat or
drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of GOD;” and “He that
gathereth not, scattereth abroad”?  Oh, my brethren, let us be honest; we
know, we dare not deny it, that a work, rather that many works are
imposed upon us by GOD, and that it will not do for us merely to think of
them, to sigh over them, to approach them carelessly, reluctantly, to
call preferred employments by their name; but that with clear
understanding with heart-devotion, with constant application and real
labour, we must do the works of Him that sent us.

And, now, what are the works?

The first, and most vitally important, is, to “work out our own
salvation;” not to attempt of ourselves to undo what Adam did; not by any
course of zealous doing to seek to recommend ourselves to GOD as
deserving a reward, to propose to purchase heaven, to go to GOD the
Father directly for it, and expect to get it from Him, either as a right
or as a gift of compassion: but, knowing that it is only to be had of
CHRIST, to seek it from CHRIST in appointed ways, in the measure, on the
conditions which He has prescribed for all, and to fulfil the conditions.
We are not naturally born in grace; we do not naturally inherit glory.
CHRIST, by right, the Saviour of all men, is, in fact, “specially” only
the Saviour of them that believe; of them who actually apply to Him and
depend on Him, and remain in communion with Him for grace; who serve Him
by fulfilling His commands and copying His example, who use His grace and
grow in it, and by its power transform themselves into the character
which alone can dwell in heaven.  Now, all this is work—real, anxious,
laborious work; this obeying of CHRIST, this imitation of His example,
and following in His steps, this putting off of the old man and putting
on of the new man.  Are you intent upon it?  Do you perform it?  Consider
the means of grace, prayer, praise, divine instruction, holy communion;
do you faithfully and diligently use them?  Read the Decalogue with the
commentary of the Sermon on the Mount.  Can you honestly say, All this I
keep and do?  Study the life of CHRIST—is your life like it: like it in
humility, in self-denial, in labour, in fact, in hope, in aim?  Examine
yourselves.  Are you cleansed from evil propensities—are you adorned with
Christian graces—are you fit in person, in will, in desire, for a heaven
full of holiness, whose employment will be the doing of GOD’S work, as
angels do it, whose relaxation, if I may so speak, will be the
contemplation and the praise of GOD?  What do you leave undone, what do
you transgress of GOD’S will?  What covetousness do you root out, what
evil tempers do you subdue, what rash zeal do you curb, what indolence do
you overcome?  Are you worldly, sensual, ill-natured, proud,
self-seeking?  Have you any trace of these stains upon you?  Are you
wanting in obedience, in patience, in holiness, in love of GOD?  You
cannot enter heaven, it would close its gates against you, you would flee
from it as a place of torment, while you are in such a state.  Now, what
are you doing, or attempting to appropriate CHRIST’S salvation, to secure
GOD’S approbation, to qualify yourselves in character, in taste and
desire for a purely spiritual, a gloriously holy heaven?  You know what
concentrated thought, what single aim, what diligent, anxious,
persevering labour are necessary to make you good scholars, able
statesmen, accomplished members of society, successful tradesmen, apt
mechanics; or, to descend lower, ordinary earners of daily bread.  You
may guess, then, what measure of these things is needed to perfect you in
saintliness, and therefore you are able to answer the question—oh, how
must you answer it?—whether you fulfil the acknowledged requirement of
the text, “I must work the works of Him that sent me.”

But, besides this, so to speak, selfish work, you have a work to do for
and upon others.  GOD Who wills to inform, and persuade, and save the
world, appoints men, appoints you to accomplish His will.  Like as
CHRIST, besides qualifying Himself to be the Saviour, had also to
proclaim, and recommend, and bestow salvation, so have you, while putting
yourselves in the way of salvation, and diligently pursuing it, to be
lights, and voices, and helping hands to others.  You are lights of the
world; you are ambassadors for CHRIST; you are your brothers’ keepers;
you are teachers of GOD’S Word, and advocates of His cause, and
treasurers of His gifts; you are under shepherds of CHRIST; you are
fellow workers with Him, and dispensers of His manifold grace.  GOD has
given you these offices, and He has placed you where you may exercise
them.  He has given you authority over your children, and servants, and
dependents.  He has lent you influence over friends and associates.  He
has planted you in the midst of crowds of ignorant, indifferent, ungodly,
that you may work for Him, in guiding, and persuading, and leading to
salvation, in making manifest His glory.  He has put into your power to
contribute something—into the power of some to contribute much—to the
various associations (which are, in fact, your agents), for doing the
work of GOD in building and endowing additional churches, in providing
more clergymen at home, in sending missionaries to the colonist and the
heathen.  You think, perhaps, that in the chief part of what I have said,
I have been describing the clergy, and not the laity.  But, brethren, the
clergy are nothing but representatives, representatives, on the one hand,
of GOD, teaching, exhorting, ministering grace in His name, by and from
Him; representatives, on the other hand, of your prayers, and praises,
and your works.  You know whose would be the blame, and how great the
blame, and how terrible the consequences, if the minister only confessed
to GOD and praised Him, and partook of His sacraments.  It is just the
same, if he only teaches, and exhorts, and visits, and tends, and
relieves; an empty sign, a mockery, a provocation of wrath, which will
surely descend on those who cause it to be unreal, on those who do not
make it real.  Ministers we are, coming from GOD to you, going to GOD
from you.  Oh, you cannot suppose that if you leave two or three
clergymen to deal with thousands of people, to inform them, to persuade
them, to become acquainted with their wants, to relieve them out of their
own poor means, you cannot suppose I say that in so doing, you are
working the works of GOD, that when you have said your prayers, and
listened to the sermon, and paid your pew rents, and dropped a
superfluous coin into the plate of an occasional collection, you have
obeyed and imitated CHRIST.  No, brethren, you are under no such delusion
of Satan.  An awful responsibility is indeed upon the clergy.  We have
sworn to give ourselves wholly to a work in which your part is to
support, and succour, and enable us.  We are pledged to forego
opportunities of acquiring fame, and gaining wealth and power, and taking
pleasure.  Wo to us, if we disregard the oath, if we cling to the things
which we profess to have renounced!  But if we fail, that will not excuse
you; and if we are faithful without your adherence, the reward will be
ours, the blood guiltily shed, or guiltily unstaunched, will be upon your
heads.  It is a solemn theme which I am discussing this morning, and I
dare not but speak plainly upon it.  Our fidelity will not profit you if
you are not helpers of us.  Our unfaithfulness, though we perish in it,
will be visited on you, if you do not enable us, if you do not constrain
us, by the power with which you should endow us, by the jealous concern
which you should have for our work, by the diligent co-operation which
you should exercise with us.  It is easy to say, that you are not
qualified for this, that your time is all engaged in your worldly
calling, that you cannot spare from the means of your support, from the
capital of your business, the money which the Church calls for.  But,
brethren, consider, that though GOD requires you to maintain yourselves
and your families, though your worldly callings are appointed for you by
GOD, though He allows you to give much time to them, to advance and
enrich yourselves by them, yet all this is on the condition that you do
not withhold from Him the direct service and offerings which constitute
the one thing needful, the reward of which is all that shall survive this
life, and this world!  It was the fashion once among religionists to
despise, to pronounce unclean (unfitting for the Christian), the use of
the world, its callings, its profits, its pleasures.  There is much
danger of an opposite fashion prevailing in our days.  The confining of
religious service and worship to the honest, respectable, intellectual,
liberal pursuit of some worldly vocation, “the religion of common life”
as it is called, being regarded, not as the companion,—rather the
handmaid—but the substitute (and a very good one, too) for pure spiritual
religion.  Both are wrong.  The Christian may use the world, and in the
right use of it he may be serving GOD.  But he must not abuse it; and he
does abuse it, if he allows himself to be engrossed by it; if he brings
himself to a state, if he continues willingly in a state, where he is
obliged to say, “I cannot spare any time or any money, my first thought,
and concern, and provision must be for this life.”

You have heard, or read, perhaps, that a contented, conscientious, and
cheerful abiding in and following of our worldly occupations, that even
the housemaid’s sweeping and cleaning may be religious worship; and there
is truth in the statement, otherwise the Apostle could not have exhorted
“Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of
GOD;” but, the Scriptural injunction means, “Prolong the remembrance of
your spiritual worship: testify your yearning to get back to it: keep the
face shining, when you come down from the glorious mount, so that while
the world demands your bodies, your souls, your hearts and spirits may
still be given to GOD, and even the bodily acts spiritualised by doing
them in submission, in holy observance of the will of GOD, in thankful
use of the means of support and helps to usefulness, which He thus
affords you.”  Worldly occupations and worldly goods are to the Christian
what meals, and recreations, and sleep are to men generally: necessaries,
supports of the lower life, refreshments, and invigorators for something
better.  Give yourselves wholly to these and you become sensualists,
idlers, sluggards; and give yourselves wholly to the world and you are
followers of Mammon and forsakers of GOD!  You see the right use of the
world, as far as this life is concerned, when the son toils to support an
aged parent, when the young man struggles to get on, that he may
establish a home, when the father seeks through his profession to provide
for his family, when the lover of literature diligently tries to make his
calling afford him money for books and time to read them.  This is
employing the world as a necessary means to a desired end.  And so you
see the right use of the world, in regard to a better life, in him who
labours and perseveres, and advances in it with the view of getting as
much out of it as he can for GOD.

Be sure that there are none so busy but, in the midst of their business,
they can think of what they like better; none so pressed for time, but
they can spare some of it, if they have a mind to; none so poor as to
have nothing to spend on what they covet.  So use the world, and, in
using it, you will work the works of GOD, because you will often take
from it, and often come out from it, for the direct and more purely
spiritual works of GOD.

But CHRIST, our pattern, said not merely “I must work the works of GOD,”
but I must do them “while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can
work.”  We know what that meant in His case.  He had taken human nature
in its weakness, and He had to bring it to its full strength, to fit it
for glory and exaltation to the throne of GOD.  He had in His life to
speak the word of GOD to many people, and in many places, and each
opportunity must be seized, or others would be forfeited.  He had to
relieve present sufferings, and to supply present wants; to meet
necessities while they were pressing.  Soon the time would come for Him
to go to the Father: then He must be perfect; then He would have no more
opportunity in the flesh for benefitting man and glorifying GOD; then He
could make no more preparation for the setting up of His Church.

The words have a similar meaning with regard to us; but in our cases the
necessity is more urgent, the delay more awful, because we have no fixed
time allotted us—“to-day, and to-morrow, and the third day I must be
perfected.”  Our life is to be taken from us without our consent, and may
be taken at any moment; we have not power to lay it down when we will,
and power to keep it as long as we will.  And, besides, we have not been
using each year, each day, each hour, to the best advantage.  We have
left undone much which we ought to have done, we have done much which we
ought not to have done.  We have all this to correct, and yet to give
full attention to the works yet remaining.

Look we in at ourselves, brethren, and see what requires to be done in us
before we are fit for heaven.  Listen to the cries of spiritual distress,
and consider what has to be supplied.  Think of the souls that are dying,
and will soon be dead, if we do not revive them.  Remember we what frail,
short-continuing, dying creatures we are; how soon at the latest, how
suddenly, it may be abruptly, without a moment’s warning, we may be
called to present ourselves, to be dealt with according to our fitness,
to give account of our works for GOD.

Let the arrival of a new year set us reviewing the past year, with its
catalogue of offences, of neglects, of things to be wiped out, debts to
be paid, progress to be quickened.  Let us heed well its injunction and
its warning, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,
for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave
whither thou goest.”  Let us look up for the opening clouds and listen
for the Advent voice, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me
to give to every man according as his works shall be;” and let us
instantly resolve and instantly begin to perform our resolution and
persevere in it, nor dare to forget it: “I must work the works of Him
that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.”




SERMON IX.
CHRIST’S TRUEST MANIFESTATION.


                             ST. JOHN, XIV., 22.

    _Lord_, _how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us_, _and not
    unto the world_.

ON the festival of the Epiphany, and on several Sundays afterwards, we
commemorate what are called manifestations of CHRIST; revelations and
exhibitions of Him, in His nature, His person, His might, His wisdom, His
various offices.  In one sense, CHRIST’S whole life, from the manger in
Bethlehem to the Mount of the Ascension, was a manifestation.  It was not
possible to see or hear Him, without becoming convinced—if open to
conviction—that He was different from all other men, and superior to
them.  His every deed, His every word, His every look, designedly or
undesignedly proclaimed “This is GOD manifest in the flesh!”  Still,
there were some particular exhibitions of Himself, which, from the
special circumstances attending them, the preparation made for them,
their peculiar importance, their wonderful effects, or their relations to
certain classes or individuals, are entitled to be distinguished from the
rest of that life-long Epiphany, and to be called _par excellence_ the
manifestations of CHRIST.

Of this kind, was the exhibition to the shepherds, and again, that to the
wise men of the East—prefiguring, commencing the manifestation to the
Gentiles; the declaration that He must be about His Father’s business,
the baptism by John, the show of His power in converting water into wine,
in cleansing the leper, in calming the troubled sea, in casting out
devils; the unfolding of His wisdom in speaking parables, the preaching
of judgment by the Son of Man—all of which are in turn commemorated at
this season.  Of this kind, again, were the teaching on the Mount, all
the miracles, the Transfiguration, the appearances after the
Resurrection, the Ascension, the wonders of Pentecost, the light that
shone from heaven on Saul journeying to Damascus, and the voice that said
“I am JESUS whom thou persecutest.”  These were all pre-eminent
manifestations, as being designedly full of significance, making special
revelations to special persons; displaying, so to speak, the chief
features of CHRIST, and teaching most important lessons.  Nevertheless,
they were rather preludes and signs of CHRIST’S truest manifestation,
than that manifestation itself—faint glimmers of coming light, rustlings,
warning movements, scarcely upliftings of the curtain that hung between
things spiritual and the would-be spectators of them—parables, and
prophecies.  They left not those who saw them where they were, but they
carried them not whither they would be or should be.  They bade them look
and listen; but they revealed not the sight, nor spake the word.  Strange
as it may seem, CHRIST was not truly manifested till the clouds of heaven
hid Him, and, in the flesh, He ceased to appear and speak till
judgment-time.  The truth was, as yet, not taught, but only hinted at,
and men were not yet ready for it, and could not receive it.  It is not
in what we call the Gospels, but in the Epistles, that the truth as it is
in JESUS is revealed.  It is not in the miracles of His earthly ministry,
but in the spiritual wonders which, after Pentecost, the Apostles wrought
in His name; that the real power of CHRIST, the power to bless, is seen
and felt.  All before was but a type, a shadow, a dream.  The antitype,
the reality, the waking vision, belong to apostolic days, and to the days
after them.  Then was the Gospel revealed, which before was only brought
nigh.  Then was the kingdom of Heaven opened.  Then did JESUS, through
the Spirit, begin to speak and show Himself openly and plainly to Jews
and Gentiles, and to draw all men to Him.  Then did spiritual wisdom
begin to enlighten, and spiritual power begin to enable the hitherto
blind and helpless.  Then first, even to the Apostles, and then, by them,
to the world, began to be displayed GOD manifest in the flesh.  Up to
that time, though He was in the world, the world knew Him not.  He stood
among them, but they did not see Him; He spoke, but they did not hear:
yea, though He had come to His own, they did not receive Him, till the
Pentecostal light made all clear, and the voice of the Spirit declared
“This is the beloved Son of the Father,” and the power of Divine grace,
enabled and constrained to believe on His name, to receive Him
intelligently and heartily, and through Him, and in a measure like Him,
to become sons of GOD.

Then and thus was CHRIST truly manifested, as it were in these last
times.

But there is even yet a better manifestation, one more really worthy of
the name—that, namely, which is made to the Disciples, but not to the
world.

In a sense, all that has hitherto been described was an external
manifestation—a manifestation to the world.  The Gospel was preached
openly, the credentials of its heralds were publicly exhibited, whosoever
would might hear and see; and only when they refused, and judged
themselves unworthy of eternal life, did the Apostles turn away from
them, or pass on to another place, shaking the dust off their feet as a
testimony against them.  Even the inward grace, the power to see
spiritually, to believe, and to accept CHRIST, was so far manifested to
the world, that it was offered to all, and was within the reach of all.
The Apostles, who taught men their need of salvation, and exhorted them
to save themselves, both showed them the way and promised them the grace
of salvation; and thus, therefore, was CHRIST openly, and with power,
manifested to the world.  But, in the chapter of the text, CHRIST makes
it a special promise to those that love Him, that He will manifest
Himself to them.  Judas (not Iscariot) rightly concludes that this is a
manifestation which shall be made to none but approved disciples; and,
accepting the promise, he ventures to ask, respecting its fulfilment,
“LORD, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto
the world?”

It must be borne in mind that the Jewish notion, a notion shared by the
disciples, was that the MESSIAH would manifest Himself in all the pomp
and power of a triumphant earthly prince, exhibiting Himself to the whole
world, ruling all the nations of the earth, and demanding the homage and
adoration of all men.  They waited in expectation that the kingdom of
Israel would be restored, that Jerusalem would become the capital of the
world, that CHRIST would sit visibly on a splendid throne, in the midst
of her, and that they would occupy the nearest places to Him of honour
and power.  This notion was still theirs, as we know, when CHRIST led
them out to the Mount of the Ascension; and we can well understand,
therefore, that Judas, and those with him, must at this time have been
greatly perplexed by the intimation, which CHRIST’S promise conveyed,
that He was only to be manifested to those that love Him.  It is out of
this perplexity—not, as I said before, questioning the fact of a partial
manifestation, but unable to understand it, and seeking
enlightenment—that Judas asks, “LORD, how is it that Thou wilt manifest
Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”

The words translated “How is it,” render possible a threefold
interpretation of this question. 1st. LORD, what has happened—how is it
come to pass that the original design (at least, what we suppose to be
the original design) of an universal manifestation is altered, and now
only a partial manifestation to be afforded?  2ndly. LORD, what has been
done by us, what special merits have we, whence is it that we are to be
so signally favoured, and others passed over?  3rdly. LORD, what kind of
manifestation will that be which some eyes only shall perceive?  In what
way wilt Thou reveal Thy presence to us, so that the world, in the midst
of which we dwell, into the midst of which, therefore, Thou must come to
us, shall not partake with us of the vision.  It is scarcely profitable,
perhaps, to consider whether or no the first interpretation is
admissible; nor need we attempt to decide between the second and the
third.  Let us rather combine them; and taking the question out of
Judas’s mouth, and adopting it as our own, let us reverently and
teachably ask, as we need, of Him who giveth wisdom liberally, “LORD, how
is it, on what account, and in what way, that Thou wilt manifest Thyself
unto us, and not unto the world?”

I.  On what account is He partial?  Why does He make us to differ?  Not
then, for any recommendation we had to His favour—for we were all
concluded under sin, and all guilty before GOD.  Not again, for any
merits or deserts in His service, for at the best, if we have done all
that He set us to do (and who has?) we are yet but unprofitable servants.
No! there was nothing which should make GOD respect and choose us before
others; and we have done no work for which we can claim reward.  GOD is
no respecter of persons.  It is impossible, by any mere natural deeds or
efforts to please Him.  We have all sinned and come short of His glory.
We all sin, and deserve wrath every day.  But CHRIST, Who would have all
men to be saved, Who has died for all, and risen again for all, and sent
down His Holy Spirit ready to justify, to sanctify, to bless all, has
nevertheless made the bestowal of His grace conditional.  He requires a
certain “receptivity” for it.  It is not thrust upon all, willing or
unwilling, proud or humble, GOD-fearing or GOD-despising.  Men must feel
their need of it; and, feeling their need, they must express it, at least
to Him, and must go to Him in His appointed ways to obtain it.  CHRIST in
sufficiency, in desire, the Saviour of all men, is, in fact, specially
only the Saviour of them that believe—believe with that impelling desire,
and that active faith, which make them flee to Him to be saved, and
earnestly ask of Him, “What must I do to be saved?”  And next, having
this fitness, this receptivity for grace, and so receiving it, CHRIST
requires men to treasure up the grace with reverence and godly fear; to
use it with diligence, with zealous effort, to improve it, to grow in it;
to strengthen it constantly by all appointed means of sustenance and
exercise; to accomplish with it all that He wills and directs to be done;
to be heartily grateful to the Author, the Sustainer, the Finisher of
Salvation.  “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is
that loveth Me, and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I
will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.”  So then it is only to
love that the manifestation is made; and love is proved by obedience, and
obedience is the hearty faithful performance, in the spirit as well as
the letter, of the expressed will of CHRIST.

And here, brethren, before we go further, let us see in the light of
these conditions, why it is that religious influences affect so little
the vast mass of mankind.  There is a manifestation of CHRIST to the
world.  He is ever speaking in their ears and showing Himself to their
eyes.  His Church, with its Bible, its means of grace and ministry, its
duration and extension, besides being a standing miracle, the infallible
credential of His divine authority, the proof of His wisdom and His
power, is a very exhibition of Himself, mighty and eager to save.  The
Spirit, which is with and in that Church, declares Himself to be able and
ready to enlighten, and persuade, and strengthen all, without exception,
without delay, if only they will come to Him.  And yet how many, not only
of the recklessly profane, the grossly carnal, the resolutely blind and
deaf, but of the well-disposed, the moral, the albut exemplary, have no
perception whatever of CHRIST!  How many so-called Christians, not only
in their business or their pleasure, when they turn away their eyes from
the manifested GOD, but even when they come up to the sanctuary, when
they read the Bible, when they kneel in prayer or stand to praise, when
they look Zionwards, when they are all attent, eyes and ears, yet see no
sight, and hear no sound of CHRIST!  The world which they have left is
remembered, and stands before them in a life-like picture.  The sights
they would not see, the sounds they would not hear, they cannot escape
from; but CHRIST, the object of their worship, in some sense the desire
of their eyes, they look for but cannot find; if He stands in the midst
of them, they know it not!

Is not this, brethren, the experience of many of you?  You do not, of
course, ever expect open visions, perceptions with natural eyes and ears
of a spiritually manifested Saviour; but do you not often fail to obtain
what you think (and rightly) you ought to aim at obtaining, a real,
though spiritual, a convincing, constraining, sanctifying, and cheering
manifestation of CHRIST?  Do you not often, do you not almost always find
just that wanting, which should make religion real?  “Oh!” you exclaim,
“would that when I kneel down in church, to make solemn confessions, to
utter supplications, to pray for pardon, for favour, for grace—oh! that
such a vision of CHRIST were afforded me, that I were possessed with such
feeling of His presence, as would prevent my turning away so readily from
the solemnity, to see who is coming into church, to admire or criticise
the dress or appearance of those beside me, to remember the worldliness
of yesterday, to anticipate the worldliness of to-morrow.  Oh! that when
I sit with open Bible before me, and slight and slur over its difficult
parts, and give little heed to the personal application of its histories,
and treat albut with indifference its exhortations, its warnings, its
promises, its threats—Oh! that some voice would recall me from my
wandering, and dispel my irreverence, and concentrate my devout attention
with its heard command, ‘Thus, saith the LORD, Hear what the Spirit
saith.’  Oh! that when I go about the world, and neglect my religious
duty here, and transgress it there, yielding readily to temptation,
hankering after, following worldliness, led by the persuasions, awed by
the frowns, constrained by the demands of the world, oh! that CHRIST
would stand at least before my spiritual vision, and utter to the ears of
my soul, ‘Forbear.  Take up thy cross.  Follow me.’  Oh, that He would do
all this for others too: for those whom I love, who go farther out of the
way, for the carnal, for the godless, for the souls that are carelessly,
that are deliberately perishing!  Oh! that for His own honour’s sake He
would openly show Himself and dispute—with the Devil, with Mammon, with
Pleasure, with Folly—the possession of the souls which He has purchased
for Himself!  Why does He not give some proof, why does He not exercise
some persuasion which must be felt, which could not be disregarded?  Oh!
that He would rend the heavens and come down; that He would cheer the
saint; that He would confound and convert the sinner by His manifested
presence.”

It is thus, if I mistake not, that we sometimes think and wish.  But,
brethren, the words which prompted Judas to speak, reprove our thoughts.
They show us that it is not by oversight, by defect, by mismanagement, by
any failure to accomplish what was intended, but by deliberate design, by
exact fulfilment of what GOD proposed, that the real, the strong
influences of Christianity are not brought to bear upon men generally.

CHRIST manifests not Himself fully to the world.  He never meant to do
it.  He never will do it, till he comes to judgment.

GOD, we are told, “will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom
He will He hardeneth.”  These awful words do not mean what some attempt
to make out of them—that there is an arbitrary election to salvation, and
so for all others an inevitable destruction.  They mean rather that while
His mercy is ready to flow, and is always flowing, if you desire it, you
must go to the fountain for it.  GOD is under no necessity to save all
men.  We do not confer a favour on Him by consenting to be saved.  His
glory will be manifested in destruction as in salvation.  He desires to
save us.  He will save us, and rejoice in our salvation, if we seek to be
saved: but if we are rebellious, or indifferent, if we will not comply
with the conditions on which only He will manifest His best presence to
us, then we must not complain, if He makes good His declaration, and
proves it by withholding Himself from us, that whom He wills (and in what
way He wills) on them He has mercy, and all others, though He long bears
with them, and gives them much time and opportunity for conforming to His
will, yet is He content, yea, determined to leave them in their hardness,
to confirm them in their hardness, because they will not be softened in
the way which He has chosen to prescribe.

Oh! my brethren, do not suppose that it is the weakness, the impotence of
Christianity, the frustration of the will of GOD that is demonstrated in
the world’s ungodliness, in the perdition of so many immortal souls.  No!
It is rather the power of Christianity to keep its own for its own: it is
the glorious vindication of the sovereign will of Jehovah to save whom He
will; it is the corroboration of CHRIST’S word, that none should come to
the Father but by Him; it is the terrible, deliberately-inflicted
punishment of those that will not come unto Him that they might have
life; it is the manifestation, so to speak, of His non-manifestation: “If
ye will not love me, holding my commandments and keeping them, then you
cannot be loved of My Father, and so cannot be loved of Me, and I will
not manifest myself to you.”

It is ourselves, brethren, and not GOD that must be changed.  The seed is
scattered over all the field, but it grows only in the good ground.  If
CHRIST is not manifest to us, it is because we have not complied with the
conditions of manifestation.  He is faithful to His promise, but we have
not closed with the promise.  Realising, then, that it is not binding on
GOD to save us—excepting on the terms which He has Himself laid down—and
presenting to ourselves the momentous interests at stake, let us comply
with GOD’S terms, and let us strive to do so gratefully.  Let us be at
pains to ascertain CHRIST’S will; let us diligently and scrupulously keep
it, endeavouring all the while to follow it, not as mere routine of
morality, but as active direct service of CHRIST Himself, and proposing
to ourselves, as the motive to its observance, gratitude for CHRIST’S
salvation, and as the reward of observance, the manifestation of CHRIST.
So doing, we shall soon find that there is a real, an unequalled power in
Christianity to attract and constrain us; we shall soon know how it is
that CHRIST will manifest Himself to His disciples, while He is hidden
from the world.

II.  I have left but little time for the consideration of the second form
of our question, namely, in what way CHRIST will manifest Himself only to
the chosen.  There is no need of a lengthy discussion of this subject,
because, with all our spiritual short-sightedness, we are not like the
Jews, we can have no difficulty in understanding the possibility of
CHRIST’S manifestation of Himself to whom He will, and at the same time
His hiding of Himself from all others.  We know that like as ghosts are
sometimes said to appear to but one of a roomful, so if it pleased
CHRIST—and in any other way which He pleased—He could stand visibly at
this moment before any one of us, and utter to that favoured ear
distinctly audible words, while the rest of us saw and heard nothing of
Him.

And there is no use in the discussion of the nature of CHRIST’S truest
manifestation, because even if the preacher had realised it in all its
perfect blessedness, his words would fail to describe what he had felt;
yea, the best possible description would be wholly unintelligible to the
natural man who perceives not, and cannot perceive, the things of GOD,
while it would be wholly unnecessary, rather would be solemn trifling
with those who have actually partaken of the blessedness.  No, brethren,
it cannot be spoken—and if it could, I believe, it might not be—how
CHRIST shows Himself to those who love Him and keep His commandments.  It
is only in its realisation that you can understand what the promise
means: “We will come unto Him and make our abode with Him.”  Go, fulfil
the conditions, and you shall receive the promise; and it shall disclose
to you its own wonders, and its own transcendent bliss, and its own
constraining power.

But though we may not describe the manifestation itself, we may observe
and recount the effects it produces.  The Israelites might not come up to
GOD and see Him face to face in the Mount, but they were allowed, and it
was good for them, to behold the shining of Moses’s face when he returned
from the Divine presence.  Doubtless, to many, it was an additional proof
of the being of GOD; to not a few it may have been an incentive to seek
the blessing of His favour.  And so, brethren, it may be with us.  Taking
knowledge of those who have been with JESUS, we may see on them some
reflection of His glorious self, some marks of a bliss which we shall
covet to share, which may stimulate us both to believe better in its
reality and to strive more earnestly for its fruition.  Yes! and
comparing ourselves with them very humbly, with unceasing prayer and
watching against false confidence, we may even discern on ourselves the
faint dawn, the first streaks of the Divine twilight, which tell (oh! how
unspeakable the bliss!) that the dayspring is about to mount above our
horizon; that the Sun of righteousness is about to shine into our hearts
with all His glory.

Consider, then, such as Abraham, who, after He had seen CHRIST—for CHRIST
was often manifest before the Incarnation—could himself resolutely
destroy his best earthly hope if GOD required it; Job, who, after the
vision of perfect holiness, abhorred himself and repented; Jacob, who
felt (and felt throughout his life, we may be sure) how dreadful, how
consecrated was the place where GOD was met; Joseph, who possessed a
power to resist effectually the sin, which so many dare to say there is
no resisting (“How can I do this great wickedness and sin against GOD?”);
Daniel, who entered courageously into a den of lions; Simeon, who longed
for death, and the enjoyment of the permanent vision, after he had once
seen CHRIST; Stephen, who died, almost like his Master, “LORD JESUS
receive my spirit;” and the many others, who endured and laboured, and
resisted, and persevered, and rejoiced in tribulation, and hoped against
hope, as seeing Him who is invisible.  Yes, brethren, consider these.
Think what they were, men of the same flesh and blood, of like
infirmities, and like sin with yourselves.  Think how they secured the
favour of GOD, by the same simple means which are within the power of the
least of you, yea, and more within your power than theirs, at least of
most of them, because of the clearer light, and the better grace of
Gospel times.  Think what a reflection they showed of the visions of
CHRIST which they enjoyed.  Think how real must have been their religious
life; how enviable their peace and bliss; what a glorious light they
afforded for the example and encouragement of other men; and be no longer
content that with all your faculties and opportunities, all your
knowledge and invitations, all your proffers of Divine grace, all the
perpetual revelations of CHRIST to those who desire Him, you yet should
never see Him; but resolutely accepting His terms, hold and keep His
commandments, and pray, and meditate, and labour to love Him.

Then plead and watch—you shall not plead in vain, nor watch very long—and
the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit will surely come unto you and
make their abode manifestly within you, cheering you with the light of
the Divine countenance, strengthening you with the strength of Divine
grace, moulding you more and more into the image of CHRIST (which must be
yours in perfection before you can partake of His fullest manifestation),
abiding with you here, and shining clearly even in the deepest darkness,
and by and by transplanting you, perfected in grace and spiritual
perception, to the place where CHRIST is always seen, with an eye that
shall never be dim, with a delight which, however it grows in desire,
shall be more than satisfied, as you behold His face in righteousness,
and are filled to overflowing with the fulness of His presence.




SERMON X.
BLESSING ACCORDING TO PRAYER.


                           ST. MATTHEW, VIII., 13.

    _And_ JESUS _said unto the centurion_, _Go thy way_; _and as thou
    hast believed_, _so be it done unto thee_.

WE must compare the narrative contained in St. Matthew’s Gospel with its
parallel in the 7th chapter of St. Luke, to obtain a clear and full idea
of the circumstances which preceded the healing of the centurion’s
servant.  St. Matthew records just so much of the history as would
illustrate the teaching that the Gentiles from afar should be received,
and many of the children of the kingdom cast out: St. Luke sets forth in
order all the particulars, small and great, which he had been able to
obtain from those who were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.

From the harmonised accounts we gather that a certain centurion, who had
renounced the worship of the “gods many,” and become a proselyte of the
gate, hearing of the miracles of JESUS, sent certain elders of the Jews
to beseech the exercise of His healing power upon a favourite servant,
who was grievously tormented, and at the point of death.  He does not
seem to have come at all himself.  The deep sense which he entertained of
personal unworthiness would alone have deterred him; and, besides, he
knew that there was a middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles,
and that as yet JESUS was not sent but unto the house of Israel.  The
elders, come to JESUS, seek to enlist His sympathy and active interest,
by pleading that the centurion, though not actually a Jew, was a friend
of Jews, and had done much for the support of the Jewish worship.  “He is
worthy for whom Thou shouldst do this, for he loveth our nation, and
himself hath built us a synagogue.  Come, then, and heal his servant.”
JESUS replies, “I will come and heal him;” and straightway sets out with
them.  But when He was not far from the house, the centurion, alarmed at
the temerity of his former request, and shrinking instinctively from One
so high and so holy, sent some of those around him to prevent further
condescension and trouble, on behalf of one so unworthy, and to suggest
that JESUS should but express His will (which he felt must be omnipotent)
from the spot where He stood: “Say in a word and my servant shall be
healed.”  The centurion had arrived at the knowledge of a great truth,
namely, that CHRIST’S power was not confined to the scene of His bodily
presence: and he described the process of reasoning by which he had
arrived at it.  “I am but a man, myself under authority, yet I have but
to say, Go, come, do this, and, lo! it is done by my servants here,
there, or wherever else I appoint, while I remain still.  How much more
shalt _Thou_ speak and be obeyed, Thou who art Absolute and Supreme in
authority, Whose will all the spiritual armies of heaven observe, and are
prompt and eager to perform.  ‘Speak the word only, and my servant shall
be healed.’”  When JESUS heard it, He marvelled and said to them that
followed, “Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel.”  Twice we read that our LORD marvelled—once at unbelief,
and once at belief.  And this is no mere figurative statement.  Our LORD
literally marvelled.  His human nature, much as He knew of what was in
man, was taken aback by the unexpected and extraordinary display, in the
one case of perverse blindness, in the other of clear spiritual
perception.  “Verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith.”
It is remarkable that our LORD selects the centurion’s _faith_ for
admiration.  He dwells not on his care and anxiety for his slave, on his
general good will and good deeds, on his consciousness of unworthiness,
his resolute humility, “LORD, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come
under my roof.”  No! it is his faith, to which JESUS gives this highest
praise.  That while he walked among His own people, who were taught of
GOD, and was haughtily and indignantly treated, yea, despised; that while
Jews saw and albut felt His power, and refused to acknowledge it, a
Gentile, at a distance, should be filled with reverential awe of Him,
should assert so confidently the fulness of His power, should have such
an insight into its spiritual working, should find and adduce proofs of
that power and its working, to satisfy himself, to plead to CHRIST—this
was, indeed, worthy of note; this was, as yet, unparalleled.  “I have not
found so great faith.”

We need not, however, suppose—in fact we must not suppose—that our LORD
meant to omit the commendation of the centurion’s other good qualities:
rather as they were all the fruits of faith, were they all praised in the
praise of faith.  Why did he love the Jews—why did he build them a
synagogue—why did he seek miraculous healing for his servant—why did he
employ Jewish elders as his intercessors—why did he, an important Roman
officer, feel unworthy of the company of a wandering Jewish peasant?  Was
it not through faith? faith in the true GOD, faith in the laws of His
worship, faith in His awful holiness, and no less in His merciful
goodness, faith in His manifestation in JESUS of Nazareth?  Yes, it was
all of faith, and it was all admired and praised when JESUS marvelled and
said, “I have not found so great faith.”  But still the highest faith—the
thing most marvelled at and chiefly commended, was the spiritual
perception of a bodily unseen LORD, the belief in His unlimited, and,
under all circumstances, available power.  “I have never seen Thee: yet I
know Thee who Thou art.  Thou art not here, yet with a word Thou canst
cause Thy power to be here, and to accomplish here all Thy will.”
Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed: and blessed
are they precisely in the way of their own wise choice, “Go thy way; and
as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”  It was great honour
given to CHRIST.  It was the opportunity of a wondrous manifestation, and
so we read, “The servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”

But shall we suppose that the centurion, by his humility and his faith,
deprived himself of the bliss of receiving CHRIST, that CHRIST,
_therefore_, turned away, and thought no more of him?  Even in that case
he would not have been without his reward.  The servant, who was dear to
him, was preserved and healed, the Jews, whom he loved, must have
honoured and loved him, when he had thus prevailed with GOD, and,
besides, what a conviction was his of the power of CHRIST, what a token
of approval, in the fact that he had, as it were, proposed his own
conditions for a miracle, and those conditions had been graciously
accepted and fulfilled!  He needed no vision after this to prove to him
that JESUS was the Son of GOD; no voice from heaven to speak to him
comfort and assurance of hope.  He had sought CHRIST.  He had found Him
and been found of Him.  Great was his reward; and his joy such as could
not be taken away.  He would have been greatly blessed, then, had no more
been done for him.  But did that CHRIST, Who bestows such honour on
humility, Who so loves them that love Him and His, Who has made the best
of His promises, yea, all of them to faith, did He, think you, give no
further token, no higher blessedness to that centurion?  Did He not
rather prove to him, that he had made a wise choice, that he had chosen
the best kind of blessing, in asking for spiritual presence rather than
bodily presence?  Did He not manifest Himself to him, in that peculiar
way of which the world knows, and can know nothing?  Did He not go, He
and the Father, and make spiritual and permanent abode with him?  Yes,
surely, this is all implied in the words, “Go thy way; and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee.”

This view of the subject has its evident lessons and promises for us.  Be
it ours, brethren, to learn and practice the lessons, and doubt not but
GOD will fulfil to us the promises.

In dismissing now the general subject, and attempting only to deduce
practical instruction from the words of the text, I would ask you to
notice first, the kind of answer which prayer gets; it is blessed in the
way it asks to be blessed.  When the elders besought our LORD that He
would come and heal the servant, then we read, He went with them.  When
presently the centurion, through his friends, urges, “Speak the word
only, and my servant shall be healed,” then CHRIST stays His own
progress, and sends on His grace.  “Go thy way; and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee.”

It is thus that prayer is generally answered: what we ask for, that we
obtain.  _Generally_, I say, yet not always; for our wise and good LORD,
when, in our ignorance, we prefer a wrong or a foolish request, sends us
rather what He knows us to need, than what we ask.  A father does not
give his beloved son stone for bread, nor a scorpion instead of a fish.
And it may be, yea, it often is the case, that we ask GOD for what we
think would support us, or be of some other benefit to us, when its
bestowal would cause us to stumble, or, perhaps, crush our spiritual
strength, or poison our spiritual life.  And then, I say, of His wisdom
and goodness, He sends us away _not empty_—oh, no! none ask of GOD and
obtain not, if they ask with right feeling—but blessed in a different way
from that we ventured to prescribe.  This truth is worth a little more
thought.  There are many of you, brethren, I doubt not, who have again
and again prayed to GOD (and very earnestly) to continue to you some
blessing which you were in danger of losing, or to confer upon you
something which you felt you wanted, and who yet were not answered
according to the prayer.  Perhaps, you were failing in business, or your
influence was being diminished, or your health breaking down, or your
child dying.  Well, you earnestly, humbly, with faith and strong tears
deprecated the calamity again and again; but still it came upon you as
though you had never prayed; or you asked to be lifted out of your
poverty or your misery, to be endowed with wisdom, to be made
influential; you loved, and prayed GOD to make you loved again; you
struggled to get a situation which was just what you needed, you prayed
continually that you might succeed.  It was all without avail.  “No
answer came.”

No answer came!  Say not that, brethren.  Assuredly, an answer did come,
if you prayed aright.  It may be that you did not get what you wanted, or
keep what was departing; for GOD knew your choice was an unwise one, and
therefore of His love would not grant it.  But He gave you a
compensation, and more than a compensation.  Just as when CHRIST prayed
that the cup of His last agony might pass from Him.  GOD rather
strengthened Him from heaven to endure the agony, and made it His way to
glory—so, when you have deprecated, or besought, against the will of GOD
choosing for you, He has enabled you to bear the calamity, to do without
the thing coveted, and has made all to work for your good.  What He does
it may be you know not now, but you shall know hereafter.  And when in
heaven’s light you see that the continued or bestowed prosperity would
have made you proud and ungodly, that power or influence (though you
meant it not) would have been perverted by you to your ruin, that the
child taken away, had it remained, would have destroyed itself, and been
a curse to you, that the disappointment, and the toil, and the suffering,
which you so prayed against, were just the things that planted and
nurtured in you Christian graces, and worked out for your glory—oh! then
you will see that GOD did answer your prayers, and you will bless him
fervently for sending His own answer instead of the one you dictated.

Meantime, in the light of this hope, remember always to add to your
prayers for specific blessings the holy proviso, “Nevertheless not as I
will, but as Thou wilt.”

But I said that generally, whenever, that is, there is no harm to
ourselves in what we ask, GOD gives us what we pray for; and I produced
proofs, which might be multiplied manifold that it is so.  “Go thy way;
and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”  Surely this is
worth a thought; not only, or chiefly, as showing us GOD’S marvellous
condescension and the efficacy of prayer, but as admonishing us that the
height, the amount, the nature of our blessedness, depends upon
ourselves, upon what we ask in prayer.  What a solemn consideration is
this!  GOD sits upon His heavenly throne, with listening ear and
outstretched hands; angels wait to waft our supplications to His
presence, the Holy Spirit to make intercession for us, the blessed Son to
present our cause and plead it!  It only remains for us to ask.  Whatever
we ask, if we are faithful, if it is good, we shall receive.  What we ask
not, that we shall not receive.  Think of that, brethren!  Call to mind,
as far as you can, what kind of prayers you have been wont to make.
Review your past and present state.  In anything are you spiritually
unblessed?  Have you only an inferior blessedness?  Ah! have you not all
that you prayed for?  Lack you not just that, which you never faithfully
sought?  This life, and the things of this life, have been often in your
thoughts, and in your prayers, for yourselves and for others.  You have
prayed that GOD would preserve you, that He would defend you from danger
and gross temptation, that He would give you health, and comfort, and
earthly blessing, that He would protect and prosper those you love.  You
have not prayed much for spiritual blessings, or you have been content
with supplicating inferior spiritual blessings.  A clean heart, a renewed
mind, lively faith, heavenly peace, joy in the Holy Ghost,—if these are
not yours, do you not know why?  It is because you never asked for them,
or, at least, never asked with that appreciation, that earnestness which
alone prevails with GOD.  GOD is willing to give them.  GOD has promised
to give them.  He stands ever ready to fulfil His promise.  But,
nevertheless, for these things he will be inquired of.  The measure of
the expressed desire is the measure of the supply.  Nothing less, in most
cases nothing different, and always nothing more, may you expect from
GOD, than that which you ask.  O let the knowledge of this truth kindle
in you desires, and teach you words wherewith to approach GOD.  Miss not
His choicest gifts for want of asking.  Prefer not for yourselves that
which is earthy, and poor, and fleeting.  Thrust not away—and you do
thrust away, if you do not woo—perfect spiritual blessedness.  When next
you kneel before GOD, whenever henceforth you kneel before Him, remember
that while He is the owner and ready-giver of all good gifts, it is yet
only what you ask that you will receive of Him.  As thou hast believed,
so shall it be done unto thee.

But, secondly, it is faith we see which gives force to prayer.  “As thou
hast believed.”  “Whatsoever ye ask, believing, ye shall receive.”  “Let
him ask in faith, nothing wavering.”  “Let not him that wavereth think
that he shall receive anything of the LORD.”  GOD would have us wait on
Him, with confidence in His sufficiency, with sure expectation that He
will give what we ask.  If we lack this confidence and this expectation;
if we make formal, rather than eager and hopeful requests; if we have any
misgivings as to the answer; if we secretly resolve what we will do, if
there is no answer; if we wait not, and watch not, for the answer, then,
brethren, we forfeit the blessing.  GOD heareth not such—we virtually ask
Him not to answer us.  We mock Him with the idle form of prayer.  O ye
who ask GOD for guidance, at the same time questioning yourselves as to
what ye shall do—ye that pray against temptation, and forthwith yield to
it—ye that profess to cast care upon GOD, all the while being full of
cares—ye that beseech Him to help you, yet go on helping yourselves—ye
that pray, and live as though you had not prayed, that call upon GOD, but
wait not for his answer—ye that are not certain, that feel not the
certainty, and act not, or forbear from acting upon it, that what you ask
you shall obtain, be sure that you shall go empty away, and that because
of your unbelief.  It is hollow formalism, it is fearful trifling, it is
blasphemous mockery, to ask without faith, without sure calculation upon
receiving.  You dare not treat an earthly friend so.  You shall not, with
impunity, treat GOD so!  Ah! here is the explanation of unanswered
prayer—prayer for that which is desirable and right—it was not offered in
faith; the answer was not expected, and relied on; the life did not
manifest expectation and reliance!  Would you indeed receive anything
from GOD?  Prefer your request, in full acknowledgment of GOD’S ability,
in faithful trust in His performance of all that you ask according to His
will, and show your faith by utter renunciation of all self-guidance and
self-dependence, by patient waiting, by steadfast resistance of all that
GOD forbids, and persevering pursuit of all that He commands.  Impress
this upon yourselves as the spirit of your prayer, and the rule of your
lives.  Make yourselves such as GOD hears.  Cleanse yourselves by the
power of His grace from sin, that you may be allowed to approach Him.
Arm yourselves with the godly resolution that, come what will, you will
serve the LORD; and seek, above all, His kingdom and the righteousness
thereof.  Examine yourselves, your peculiar wants and difficulties, that
you may inform your prayers, and make them pointed and particular,
expressing what you need and desire.  Then offer them, with felt
unworthiness, with holy adoration, in the certain conviction that He
hears you, that He can supply your need, that He will supply it; and take
to yourselves such just consolation and assurance, and let your life
manifest them, as if CHRIST, Who cannot lie and cannot fail, had audibly
declared to you, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done
unto thee.”




SERMON XI.
CHRIST STILLING THE STORM.


                           ST. MATTHEW, VIII., 26.

    _And He saith unto them_, _Why are ye fearful_, _O ye of little
    faith_?  _Then He arose_, _and rebuked the winds and the sea_; _and
    there was a great calm_.

IT was after a day of laborious teaching, that our LORD to escape for a
time from the crowds that thronged Him, to obtain rest and quiet, perhaps
to exercise His ministry in other places, commanded the disciples to
steer the ship, in which He had been teaching, across the sea of Galilee,
and to convey Him to the other side.  Immediately, it would appear, that
they set out, He laid Himself down and fell asleep.  Partaking of human
nature in its infirmity, though not in its sin, He was worn out with
labour, and absolutely required, yea, hastened to rest.  He sunk into a
deep sleep, then, as soon as He assumed the posture of repose.  But anon,
a storm arose.  One of those squalls (which so often come down upon lakes
surrounded by mountains) suddenly filled the air with boisterous wind,
and so upraised and agitated the waves, that they dashed over the ship,
and threatened it with destruction.  The disciples, many of whom were
fishermen, and others accustomed to occupy their business upon or beside
the water, must have been too familiar with storms to be easily
frightened.  The darkening clouds, the howling wind, the troubled water,
would, of course, arouse them to energy, warning them that they were in
danger, and requiring them to watch and labour to save themselves; and so
we can well imagine them running hither and thither, with anxious looks,
loosing or furling the sails, as might be necessary; avoiding quicksands,
and rocks, and shallow places; lightening the ship of dangerous burthens;
directing their course by the safest way, to the haven where they would
be.  But either they must have been sorry sailors, with coward hearts,
which we are not willing to believe, or their courage must have been
overcome by very unusual and imminent danger, ere they would have rushed
to their Master, and cried to Him, in terror, “LORD, save us, we perish!”
or, in rash reproach, “Carest thou not, that we perish?”  Yes!  I say,
there must have been unusual and imminent danger, and even something
more—some supernatural portent—thus to strike with terror, thus to fill
with despair.

However this may be, they cried unto the LORD, and the LORD heard them.
He had slept calmly through the roar of the wind—yea, even while the
waves washed over Him; but the cry of distress entered quickly into His
ear, and He awoke to answer it.  “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little
faith?” were His awakening words.  This is not a rebuke for coming to
Him; they had done right therein.  He would presently prove it by the
miracle He would work for them.  Neither is it an assertion that there
was no real danger, that they had been too easily alarmed: for an
inspired Evangelist, St. Luke, writing long afterwards, in the light of
what CHRIST now said and did, expressly states that the vessel was filled
with water, and that they were in danger.  No; it is an acknowledgment of
the danger, but it is also a pledge that it should be averted, and it is
a tender reproach for not being confident of deliverance.  “Why are ye
fearful, O ye of little faith?”  Am not I with you?  Do not I know your
wants?  Have I not power and will to relieve them?  Where is your faith,
in the prophecies of what I have yet to do, that you suppose I am now to
perish?  Where is the confidence which becomes my followers?—which
others, with less knowledge and encouragement, less ground of hope, have
so fully shown.  “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”  Yea, though He slay
me, yet will I trust in Him!  Thus He reproves, and calms, and assures
them in their trouble, and then He proceeds to deliver them out of it.
“He arose”—we read—“and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a
great calm.”  It was a wondrous manifestation of His Majesty.  It was a
gracious condescension to infirmity.  It was a proof, too palpable to be
resisted, too marvellous to be forgotten, that He is able to keep, and
that He will keep, in safety and in peace, those whose minds are staid on
Him, who commit themselves to His keeping.  Well may the disciples, in
the awful stillness of that calm, have been filled as much with
reverential fear as with admiration.  “They feared exceedingly, and said
one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the
sea obey Him?”  They had witnessed several of His epiphanies: they had
tasted of the water made wine; they had seen the leper cleansed; and had,
at least, heard on reliable testimony, that the centurion’s servant was
restored—yea, in the early evening of this very day, just before they
left the shore, JESUS had been casting out evil spirits, with His word,
and had healed all the sick that were brought to Him: but in their eyes
(whether they were right or wrong concerns us not now) this was a greater
miracle, greater in extent, greater in power, greater in the suddenness,
the certainty (felt by themselves, remember, as no other had been) and
the peace and joy of its effect.  Much must it have informed their
worship, much must it have increased their faith.  Power did it give them
to proclaim hereafter that they knew in whom they had believed, patience
to endure for His sake, in His strength; peace in persecution, comfort in
sorrow, hope amidst otherwise confounding terrors and dismay, that they
had actually experienced CHRIST’S salvation from destruction; that the
experience had been vouchsafed them as a pledge of His constant care;
that they had been told, on its account, to trust—never henceforth to be
fearful, and of little faith!

Of great importance, then, was that miracle of the Stilling of the Storm,
if it meant no more, and accomplished no more than this: if it only
showed, that on a large, as on a small scale, over elements, as well as
over diseases, on the sea no less than on the land, JESUS was “mighty to
save”; if it only furnished the eye-witnesses of His ministry with a
great instance of His gracious power; if it only prepared them for their
life of storms and difficulties, and supported them in their dangers and
distresses, and kept them faithful and joyful.

But, surely, it has more meaning, and more worth, than this.

First, it reveals to us, if I mistake not, a contention between spiritual
powers (the Son of GOD on the one side, the Devil on the other), followed
by a victory of the good, and a conspicuous defeat of the evil.  That was
no accidental raging of wind and waves, that was no operation of the GOD
of providence using the elements to accomplish good purposes which was
rebuked by the voice of the Son of GOD.  Rebuke would be meaningless
addressed to mere wind and wave: it would be blasphemous addressed to
GOD.  It is only when speaking to the Devil, to fevers and distempers,
the effects of demoniacal possession, to Peter or others, prompted by
Satan, speaking his words, doing his work, that CHRIST uses rebuke.  Here
then, surely, Satan was at work, and here he was confounded!  The enemy
of souls had never ceased to watch and seek to destroy the Saviour.  He
had stirred up Herod against Him in His infancy.  He had personally
assailed Him in the wilderness.  He was now using the elements, over
which much power is often allowed him, as we see in Job’s case, as his
agents of evil.  But with all his wisdom and perception, he knew not what
was in JESUS.  He thought once that he could as easily have made Him
sceptical as he did Eve, “hath GOD said,” “If Thou be the Son of Man.”
He thought now that while the Son of Man slept he was unconscious and
powerless.  And so in his folly he sought to wreck the vessel, and
overwhelm Him whom it carried in the depths of the sea.  Attempting this,
he did but give occasion for an additional manifestation of CHRIST’S
mission and power to destroy him and his works.  On the shore, before He
started, CHRIST had cast out devils.  On the shore for which He was
making He would again cast them out.  On the sea He now meets them, and
confounds them.  O what a mighty, what a galling conquest!  Satan had let
loose all the powers of the winds, he had lashed the waves into utmost
fury, the disciples were dismayed, the Saviour was asleep, the ship was
sinking.  “Only a few moments,” doubtless, he exultingly thought, “and
there shall be a second destruction of man, the kingdom shall surely
become mine, for there will be none to dispute it”—when, lo! the LORD
arose, and, with a word, made him undo the work he had done.  “Peace be
still;” and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm!  O signal
defeat!  O earnest of the promise that the head of the serpent shall be
bruised, that Satan himself shall be bound and trodden under foot, and
cast into the lake of fire, and shall deceive and vex no more.  Surely,
this is one of the chief scenes, one of the most mysterious and important
events, one of the most glorious manifestations of CHRIST’S life on
earth.

But this is not all its significance.  The miracles of our LORD were
acted parables—types of spiritual things—rather outward signs, not
themselves to be given up, but thereafter to be accompanied by inward
grace.

The ship on the sea of Galilee represents the Christian Church, or the
individual member of it.  The sea is the world; the storm, with its
adverse wind and difficult waves, figures the trials, the buffetings, the
persecutions, the fears of this mortal life; the disciples are the types
of weak yet willing human nature—both our warnings and our examples; and
CHRIST is Himself, yet, so to speak, but a figure of the true, dwelling
in His Church in each faithful member, often apparently unheeding,
unconscious, yet always our sure defence and deliverer, prompt to hear
when called upon, able to comfort, mighty to save.

That entry into the ship, and sailing forth into the sea, represents our
first journey, and each renewed journey to CHRIST, in Baptism, in
Confirmation, in Holy Communion, in every fresh repentance, every vow,
every act of worship.  Forth we go with Him.  All is calm and hopeful.
We seem to have to journey over quiet waters.  The shore of Heaven is
straight before us, and we are making for it.  But, as soon as we set
out, our envious, deadly enemy, hating our LORD, and hating us, plots our
destruction, and assays its accomplishment.  Soon trouble takes the place
of peace, winds of adversity toss and try us, hope begins to pale, terror
to dismay, the waters go even over our soul, and He who should calm us,
and sustain and cheer us, seems to have fallen asleep, to help us not, to
take no notice of us.  It is the hour of GOD’S trial, of the Devil’s
temptation!  What shall we do?  If we are wise sailors, like as I have
supposed the disciples to have done, we shall meet the occasion with
well-directed energy; we shall keep the vessel away from the quicksands
of pleasure, the shallows of pride, the rocks of offence, and the
whirlpools of sin.  We shall cast out the weight that drags us down,
sloth, indifference, besetting sin.  We shall bear up against the
boisterous winds of adversity.  We shall resolutely and perseveringly
pursue the straight course through the waters, making for, looking for
the shore.  Unless we do all this, we have no right to hope.  But we must
take care, lest in, ay, even by doing it, we lose our hope.  Satan
destroys many because they make no effort to save themselves; but he
destroys quite as many because they rely on their own efforts.  It is a
fact that we can do nothing by ourselves; that human wisdom,
self-reliant, is sure to be confounded, and human effort, independent, to
be paralysed.  But even if for the time we see what is right, and are
successful in doing it, he will enshroud us in such horrible darkness, he
will fill our ears with such dismal sounds, he will so toss and bewilder
and overwhelm us, that presently weariness, perplexity, and despair will
cause us to give up, to consent to our own destruction.  The disciples in
that storm-tossed ship seem to have been bringing themselves well nigh
into this ruin, first to have relied on themselves, and then to have
despaired of themselves, all the while forgetting Who was with them, Who
should have been their guide, Who was their sure protector, when, all at
once, before it was too late, they remembered and aroused Him, and called
Him to their aid.  It was their bliss to find that “the saint’s extremity
is GOD’S opportunity;” that it is never too late, before destruction, to
call upon Him and be saved; but they were not allowed to enjoy this bliss
unmixed with reproach for self-confidence and for want of confidence in
Him.  In all the storms and dangers which beset us on the sea of life,
let us take example from the disciples to call upon Him who can save us,
and let us also take warning from them, not to forget His company, or to
suppose that He forgets us.

Such seems to be a sketch of the interpretation of the meaning and
instruction for us of this acted parable.

And now, brethren, having learnt the general truth, let us pick out and
dwell upon some of its particulars.

And first, in setting out with CHRIST, expect storms and dangers.  We are
too apt to suppose that the war of life is to be waged only with men,
that the storms of life are only encountered in temporal things.  We can
well understand that it was otherwise, that it must have been otherwise,
with the first founders of the Church, with confessors in the face of
unbelieving Jews and heathen Romans, with the Reformers, with
missionaries now: but in our own case we calculate on a smooth and safe
journey over the sea of time to the shore of eternity, ay, and after many
days, experience, we say, confirms our calculation.  No sore temptations
try us; no conflict of good and evil principles tosses and tears us; no
despair threatens to drown us.  We have trouble enough in the world, in
earning our daily bread, in claiming and maintaining our own, in becoming
rich, or powerful, or famous, in ruling those who rebel against our just
authority, who would gainsay our words, and frustrate our efforts.  But
in spiritual things this is not the case.  We find it easy (I speak that
which the manifest lives and apparent feelings of what are called
respectable men justify my speaking) to follow the course which we would
in religion—we worship in church, we read the Bible and pray at home
without opposition.  It costs us no trouble to keep the letter of GOD’S
chief commandments.  We know nothing of spiritual wrestling, spiritual
fear, spiritual despondency.  Why should we?  Our ways are mainly
upright; our consciences not afraid, our duty plain and simple; and in
CHRIST, therefore, our hope sure.  I know that men think this (at least
they do not think otherwise), and in their lives they act it, even if
they dare not shape it into words.  But, brethren, if it is so with you,
look to it, for the calm is more deadly than the storm.  The Devil is the
inveterate enemy and the untiring assailant of CHRIST and Christians.
His whole being and energy are concentrated in the aim and effort to bury
the ark of CHRIST in the sea of eternal destruction.  If, then, you pass
over that sea, and are enshrouded by no darkness, beaten by no winds,
tossed by no billows, be sure that it is because CHRIST is not in your
company.  That Church has had its candlestick removed, which dwells in
security, peaceful and prosperous; and that individual has not CHRIST for
the tenant of his heart who experiences not what the storm-tossed vessel
typified.  Satan is intent upon destroying every one that is CHRIST’S.
If he attempts not your destruction, it is because he does not consider
you CHRIST’S—and, remember, though he is not all-wise, he is as an angel,
and an archangel in perception—because your vessel bears not CHRIST;
because you are on no journey with CHRIST to cast out evil spirits and
drive them over steep places into the sea.  O, my brethren, it is an
awful sign, a death-boding distinction, when Satan lets us alone in this
sea of life, and deems it unnecessary to keep us by violent efforts from
reaching heaven.  It is the expression of his informed and deliberate
judgment that we are not going thither!  O ye who dwell at ease and glide
smoothly along the journey of life, put back, take CHRIST on board, and
joy when you find in yourselves the signs of His presence, the assaults
of Satan, the warring within you of good and evil, the stirrings of
conscience, the flutterings of spiritual fear.  I do not mean become
morbid, and delight in what is mournful and terrible; but suspect and
refuse the peace which Satan offers without contest, and determine to
have only that which in CHRIST’S strength you win and maintain.

Next, consider the meaning of CHRIST’S lying asleep in the storm, and
interfering not to control it, till so earnestly called up.

In providence and in grace GOD delights, so to speak, to hide Himself,
though He exhibits the results of His works.  He is the Author of every
gift, and the Ruler and Promoter of its use; but He puts it into our
hands as His agents, and bids us with it accomplish His will.  As the
heart is the fountain of the blood which flows through our members, as it
is bone and muscle that give strength to the arm, so is GOD the Source of
grace to the soul, and the prevailing Power of our efforts.  Still, it is
not Himself prominently and foremost that does the work in the world, but
we from and by Him.  The explanation of this economy seems to be, first,
that He would have us walk by faith—remembering Him, relying on Him,
working for Him—rather than by right, constrained, whether we will or
not, without feeling or desire, or dependence, to see, and admit, and
feel His power.  And, secondly, that He would give us an individuality, a
certain dependent independence, which shall make us feel personal
responsibility, and allow us to deserve (in a sense) the recompense of
personal effort.  Thus, He leaves the fool to say, There is no GOD, and
rewards the faithful by revealing Himself to belief.  Thus, while there
is a GOD, while He is not far from us, while in Him we live and move and
have our being, we are required and stimulated to seek Him, to feel after
Him, and find Him.  Besides, or more properly _therefore_, we have to
call upon Him before He answers.  Even when He had determined, and
declared His determination, to bless the Israelites, He made the
condition, “Nevertheless, for these things I will be inquired of.”  He
would have us live by spiritual dependence.  He would have us communicate
to Him our wants.  He would have us draw down by prayer the supply.  And
this He effects by making it a law, that He will know nothing of us, at
least know nothing so as to heed for our good, but what we tell Him, and
will give us nothing but what we ask.  I have so lately enlarged upon
this subject that I will add nothing upon it now, but to bid you remember
the necessity and the power of prayer.

Lastly, consider what is taught by that remonstrance, spoken in the
interval between awaking and acting, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little
faith?”  I have already said that CHRIST did not disapprove the prayer,
but only the fear which had preceded it, the poverty of the faith which
accompanied it.  Neither did He demand of the disciples the impossibility
of being undisturbed in the midst of such perturbation.  It is
natural—natural even to the Christian full of grace, to be affected by
the circumstances which attend him.  CHRIST was so affected Himself, as
His prayers, and shrinkings, and watchings, and open teaching assure us.
He, who wept at human misery, though He was just going to put it to
flight; He, who shrank from the trial which He had deliberately and of
choice encountered, has sanctioned and recommended (shall I say
enforced?) by His example the same feelings in His disciples.  He does
not forbid us to be human, but only requires us to leaven humanity with
godliness.  Trials we are to have, and trials we ought to feel.  To be
stolid and callous is to be unchristian, for none ever felt trials as
CHRIST did.  But in our trials, while we feel, and weep, and shrink, we
are not to be faint-hearted.  We are to know in Whom we have believed.
We are, therefore, to bear them, and submit to them; but we are not to be
overpowered by them.  We are not to allow them to exercise such an
influence as to make us forget that there is One greater than the storm,
Who rules it even in its wildest raging, Who will cause it to cease when
it is fitting, Who will not allow it to overwhelm us if we are dependent
on Him in its continuance, if we hope in Him to stay it.  Terrible is the
darkness of the sky, powerful is the violence of the wind, drenching are
the waves, but the ship shall not sink, for CHRIST is in it.  Whatever,
then, the terrors and the trouble of the present, we have hope, we have
confidence in the future.  “Why art thou so cast down O my soul, and why
art thou so disquieted within me?  Hope in GOD for I shall yet praise
Him, Who is the health of my countenance and my GOD.”

Such is the teaching of CHRIST’S remonstrance.  And the time of its
utterance, the delay to assuage the storm, teaches this further lesson,
that in this life CHRIST will give us comfort in trouble, but not
necessarily deliverance out of trouble.  By and by He will indeed deliver
us.  But the best blessing here is not immunity, but trust and support.
There is a peace in war, a joy in sorrow, a strength in weakness, with
which the world and the Devil cannot intermeddle.  Seek we this, and be
sure we are wanting in what CHRIST delights to afford, if we have it not.
But having it, bear we patiently, thankfully, all outward commotion,
faithfully expecting the time, when openly, as already inwardly, CHRIST
shall arise and command “Peace be still,” and there shall be a great and
abiding calm.




SERMON XII.
UNITY WITH PEACE.


                           EPHESIANS, IV., 1, 2, 3.

    _I_, _therefore_, _the prisoner of the_ LORD, _beseech you that ye
    walk worthy of the calling wherewith ye are called_, _With all
    lowliness and meekness_, _with longsuffering_, _forbearing one
    another in love_; _Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in
    the bond of peace_.

IT was the prayer of our Blessed LORD—what an earnest prayer it was,
delivered in what solemn and affecting circumstances—that all His
disciples might be one, even as He and the Father were one.  He had
laboured to secure this oneness, by teaching them that there was the same
truth for all to receive, and the same work for all to do.  Individual
fancies and theories were not to be indulged, where the whole teaching
was of GOD; pride was not to exercise itself where everything was
received, and nothing earned; ambition was checked, by being told that,
by seeking, it should lose, that he who would be first should be last.
All were equal in position, all equal in privileges.  In serving one
another, in preferring one another—by this alone could they please GOD;
in this way only could they reach unto eminence.  Devoted to a common
LORD, directed by a common revelation, enabled by a common grace,
exercised in a common work, cheered by a common hope, surrounded with
common trials and difficulties—what could there be within, without, past,
present, or future, which should prevent them from all thinking the same
thoughts and doing the same works, sinking the individual in the company,
clinging to one another, labouring together, knit together in a holy
bond—“One LORD, one faith, one baptism, one GOD and Father of all, Who is
above all, and through all, and in all.”  To think for oneself, what was
it but to reject GOD’S truth; to act independently, but to forsake their
appointed work; not to serve and love the brethren, not to serve and love
the LORD; to separate from the Christian company, to go away from CHRIST?

Even if the Spirit had not been given to effect this unity, if the Gospel
had not enforced it by the plainest denunciation of heresies and
schisms—crimes classed by it with the worst and lowest, and most certain
to exclude from heaven; even if CHRIST had never prayed for their union,
nor taught them that they were to be united, still, if the disciples of
religion were like the followers of any other cause, it might have been
expected—it would have seemed morally impossible that it should be
otherwise—that the remembrance and love of their Master, the cause which
they had taken up, the knowledge of the way in which alone it could be
furthered, their common relationship, and interests, and aims, and hopes,
would have kept them in one body, would have bound them fast to each
other in the bonds of peace.  And, doubtless, it would have been so, but
for the influence and machinations of the evil one.  There could have
been no other fruit from such seed, but that the enemy sowed tares in the
same field.  In CHRIST, self had been denied and destroyed.  His Church
was to be the embodiment and propagator of self-denial, self-submission,
self-devotion.  Such a Church threatened antichrist with certain
destruction: for antichrist is the spirit of self—and selfishness
destroyed, where would be sin?  Therefore, the Devil sought to break up
or mar and impair the Church; and, to accomplish his object, infused into
as many of its members as he could, the very spirit of self, which it was
commissioned to destroy.  Alas! he was too successful in his fell work.
Soon self began to ask, “Why should I not choose what to believe—what to
do?  Why should I not make to myself a name, and claim for myself
authority, and power, and reverence?  Why should I not have private
views, and seek private ends?  Why should I suffer, and forbear, and seek
another’s good, rather than my own?”  The selfish question was father to
the selfish determination; and so, even in the Apostles’ time, the faith
was mutilated here and denied there—there were heresies, and schisms, and
strifes, and boastings of spiritual gifts, and withholding of temporal
substance from GOD, and indulgence of lusts, and hatings, and revengings,
and backbitings, and fightings, and denying of one another, among those
who were all called with one calling, enlightened and sanctified by one
Spirit, appointed to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
And so it has continued to the present time.  There is no such reasoning,
and questioning, and quibbling, and deciding for oneself what to believe,
about any other subject, as about the truth, which GOD has plainly taught
and has clearly defined.  There are no other divisions so numerous, so
lamentable, so strife-begotten, and strife-engendering, as in the one
body of CHRIST.  Pride, and ambition, and self-seeking, in all its worst
forms; evil suspicions, revilings, hatred, persecutions, have abounded,
and do abound, and boldly manifest themselves in that very community
whence self was to be expelled!  Many antichrists are in the world, but
as many in the Church.  The very heathen repel our attempts to convert
them, by bidding us first agree what to believe ourselves.  The worst of
men say they have a right to despise us for our bitter jealousies and
disliking of one another; and the taunt is common, and has been in some
measure provoked, that religion is only a mask, a cloak to hide men’s
basest passions and worst deeds.

It may be urged—it ought to be urged—that this is not altogether the
fault of Christians.  It was the will of GOD that the goats should be
allowed to mingle with the sheep, that the tares should not be rooted out
from among the wheat, that the net should contain small as well as great,
worthless as well as good fishes.  Hence they are “not all Israel, who
are of Israel.”  And so the bad feelings and deeds, the things which are
an offence and a reproach in Christendom, are to be charged not
altogether to CHRIST’S true followers, but to those who only in name are
Christians—to the world, in fact, intruding into, and mixing itself up
with, the Church.

Yes; this is so.  The world has sought and found scope in the Church for
the wild exercise of its reason, for profane speculations, and whimsical
fancies; for self-indulgence, too, in all its forms; for lusts, and
strifes, and false accusations, and enmities, and wickedness, of every
hue and measure.  The worst heretics and schismatics, the fiercest
persecutors, the bitterest accusers of the brethren, are evidently not
true followers, even in intention, of CHRIST; they are not rebels and
traitors, “they are not of us,” they belong to the enemy, and have stolen
into our camp; and are now mixing themselves with us, and confounding,
and harassing, and misguiding us, as part of the subtle warfare which is
being waged by Satan against us.  But still, alas! we are not clear.  Too
many who deserve to be called something better than nominal Christians,
too many—ay, even of the best of us—make no endeavour—that is worthy of
the name—to keep the unity of the Spirit; or, if they strive for unity,
forget the bond of peace.

It is very common to find a man who has been at much pains to find out
for himself the doctrines and requirements of Christianity, who heartily
accepts every article of the creed, who is scrupulously exact in keeping
all the ordinances, who would think himself guilty of no ordinary sin, if
he frequented the place of worship of another sect, or contributed of his
substance to their cause, who is yet all the while utterly indifferent to
the fact that almost every article of his creed, and every ordinance of
his Church, is ignored, and even denounced by some one or other of the
many bodies of men calling themselves Christian communities.  He thinks
it no business of his to defend the faith, or to vindicate the
ordinances.  Let every man look to himself, is his maxim, and leave
others alone; or, perhaps, if he is momentarily interested in the matter,
if a wish springs up that it were otherwise, he soothes himself, and
spares himself further anxiety and labour, by suggesting that Christian
charity would not interfere with another’s liberty.  “These others,” he
reasons, “have a religion, and follow it.  It is not altogether the same
as mine, but it is in many respects like it, perhaps in all essentials.
At any rate, it is better than none; it would be presumptuous to suppose
that they may not be saved by it.  Therefore, if I must help in
proselytizing any, it shall not be these mainly right, but the godless,
the followers of no religion!”

Now, brethren, such a man is utterly in fault: he is incurring the
Apostle’s reproach of being carnal, in allowing divisions; he is
offending against the very Christian charity which he thinks he is
exercising; he is unconcerned about the due honour of GOD; he is
disobeying the injunction to endeavour “to keep the unity of the Spirit.”
The question is not, whether a man can be saved in heresy or schism, but
whether any Christian, who honours GOD and loves the brethren, ought to
wink at heresy or schism?  And the answer is plain—he ought not!  Is GOD
honoured, is He pleased, when the creature, to whom He reveals Himself,
says, in effect, Thus much of the Divine account I will accept; the rest
I do not like, cannot reconcile with my private pre-conceived notions,
cannot see to be reasonable, therefore, I reject it?  Is GOD obeyed, when
His servant, instead of fulfilling His whole will, sets aside
capriciously, or for some selfish reason, certain positive precepts of
that will?  Is any Christian in a certainly accepted and safe state, or
in the way to it, who does not use, who ignores the need of, prescribed
means of cleansing and sanctifying?  And if he is not, how far is it
charitable, to let him remain as he is, without concern?  My brethren, we
all recognise it as the duty of every Christian to promote the knowledge
and acceptance of the truth.  Can we be said to discharge this duty, if
we care not about the mutilation or distortion of the truth?  We all
acknowledge that we ought to love one another, to have fervent charity
among ourselves.  Is it charitable—is it not culpably selfish—to have, as
we believe, the best, if not the only, right faith—and not to be
concerned that others have it not?  Is it not, too, strangely perverse to
admit, that those in separation are brethren, fellow-pilgrims,
fellow-heirs, to hope to meet them in heaven, and to think, and feel, and
live in perfect harmony with them for ever; and yet here not to be
concerned that we never can give them the right hand of fellowship—cannot
journey with them, and help, and make for the inheritance together—can
never even meet them in prayer and communion—must let them be as utter
strangers?  In earthly matters none of this would be tolerated, could
possibly be.  Why, then, can it be—why is it in religion?  Because we are
not jealous enough for the honour of GOD, because we do not truly love
the brethren, because we do not endeavour to keep the unity of the
Spirit!

But it is possible to err—there are many who do err—on the other side;
who, in their zeal for the faith, insist that all shall think and do
precisely as they do, or shall forego the name of brethren: who have been
at no pains to search out the ground of their own faith, and see how much
of it is derived from GOD, and how much from man; who make no distinction
between important and unimportant misconceptions; who class together the
wilful teacher of error and the misguided learner, the originators of
schism and the inheritors of it; who blame for their faults those whom
they should rather pity for their misfortune; who would make the path of
orthodoxy as narrow as possible, and excommunicate all whom they could
detect treading on its borders; who not only see nothing right beyond
their own Church, but are impatient of much that is within it; who split
the Church up into parties, and bring about the worst of
schisms—divisions, misgivings, and oppositions, among members of the same
household, continuing in the same house; who would have undue prominence
given to certain doctrines; who fight for or against certain ceremonies
and vestments, and certain kinds of music; who are ever looking for
something to protest against, to blame, or to pity, in their
fellow-worshippers or their ministers.  These men think that they do GOD
service (for I speak not now of the wilful); they are intent upon serving
Him; but it is like Saul before his conversion, with an ignorant and
persecuting zeal.  They want to establish and keep, what they think, the
unity of the Spirit, but they care not for the bond of peace.  If a
member of their own communion does not think as they do, they quarrel
with him, they bid him go, they would thrust him out: while, as for
members of other Christian bodies, they think worse of them, they speak
worse of them, they shun them more than they would an infidel or a
reprobate!  Let not this be thought exaggeration; not always, nor very
often, let us hope, do they come to this growth; but of this kind, alas!
too nearly of this measure there are not a few among both High Churchmen
and Low Churchmen; and in this direction works all zeal that is not fully
enlightened by GOD, that is not warmed with love for CHRIST, and love for
those whom CHRIST died to save and win.  Zeal is good, earnest contention
for the faith is imperatively required of every Christian, but so is
right knowledge and love.  Right knowledge, I venture to say, while
condemning actual heresy and schism, would often be content with creeds
in general terms, and would make much easier, than many strict
religionists conceive, the terms of communion, so as to include as many
as were really desirous of being included; and love, Christian love,
would sigh and sorrow over differences, and yearn after separatists; and
would labour, and persuade, and spend, and be spent, and wrestle in
prayer, to cement, to convert, to bring in.  O it is _self_ that is so
stern and strict in defining what is correct theology; it is antichrist
in his worst mood, that would thrust out or cut off a brother sinner!

My brethren, understand clearly that you are most solemnly bound to
accept yourselves, and to urge upon others, the whole teaching of GOD,
nothing less and nothing more; to render yourselves, to persuade others
to render, precise and perfect obedience.  You may not be indifferent
about others, but you must not be overbearing.  You are keepers and
helpers of the brethren, but you are not judges and avengers.  It is your
duty to honour GOD, and to maintain His honour; it is your mission to
persuade others to honour Him also.  GOD is honoured in unity, in
agreement, in faith, in union, in practice, and service, and worship.
You have then to promote this unity; but, as a pre-qualification, you
must have so entered into the mind of the Spirit, as to know—specially
for GOD’S missionary work—what liberty is allowed, and to feel, after
your poor measure, what CHRIST feels of love for each individual soul.
In the prosecution of your work, the text directs you—You are called with
one calling, the Gentile is included with the Jew; the aim is union, not
separation, that all may be saved.  By all means, save whom you can.  Be
lowly, let not self intrude, where CHRIST should be put forward; be meek,
let not self recoil where CHRIST would suffer; be patient, enduring,
long-suffering, slow to take offence, determined not to give offence,
bent upon returning good for evil, forbearing one another in love, making
every allowance for wrong training, for natural prejudices, for
individual infirmities—ay, and even perversities.  Be very zealous for
the unity of the Spirit; but be sure that you are breaking, not
promoting, that unity, wherever you sever or endanger the bond of peace.
Follow this advice—and I do not say you will root out heresy, and heal
divisions, but you will do much towards it.  Argument, and censure, and
ridicule, and remonstrance, and denunciation, and persecution, have been
trying, ever since the Christian era, to establish the unity of the
Spirit, and have rather destroyed it.  Try you, whether he was not
enlightened and sanctified by the Spirit, who said, and acted upon it,
“that one ounce of love could do more than many pounds of controversy.”
Men may be repelled from you, by your orthodoxy, your zeal, your
reasoning, your stout remonstrance.  They will be subdued by your
forbearance, and will come after you for your love!

To the best of you, I say, there is some indifference which you ought to
shake off.  To the best of you, I say, get farther from bigotry and the
spirit of self.




SERMON XIII.
THE LAW IN THE GOSPEL.


                              ST. LUKE, X., 25.

                  _What shall I do to inherit eternal life_?

WE have here the question of a Jewish lawyer, who is said, in propounding
it, to have tempted our LORD.  This does not necessarily, or even
probably, mean, that his object was simply to ensnare and entangle JESUS
in his speech: but rather that he was putting Him to the test, that he
might judge of the qualifications and orthodoxy of the New Teacher.  But,
besides this, he seems, from the commendation presently passed on him, to
have had a better motive; to have been like the scribe who was not far
from the kingdom of heaven, to have felt personal anxiety about
salvation, and to have sought from our LORD, in an honest, though
somewhat professional and self-sufficient manner, the resolution of a
real doubt.  “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  He had listened
to the words in which JESUS reminded His hearers, that they had greater
privileges than those who lived before them (“Blessed are the eyes which
see the things that ye see.  For I tell you that many prophets and kings
have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them,
and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them”), and
rightly concluding that they were an announcement of the arrival of
Gospel times, and the setting forth of their speaker as the Great Gospel
Teacher, he asked, what was there _new_ for him to hear and learn, and
what consequently remained for him to do, that he might inherit eternal
life.  The reply of our LORD is remarkable.  “What is written in the law?
how readest thou?”  There is nothing new, nothing taken away, nothing
added or altered.  I come, to fulfil the ceremonial law, to enforce the
moral law, what does that bind upon thee?  And he answering said, with
much wisdom—much spiritual discernment, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and
with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.  And JESUS said unto
him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live:” _i.e._,
shalt have eternal life.  Observe, throughout this lawyer’s speech, how
correct is his theology.  “What shall I do to _inherit_ eternal life?”
not to gain, to purchase, to earn it, but to inherit it.  “I do not claim
it as a profitable servant, I am not so foolish as to suppose that I can
procure it by any surrender, or exchange, or labour.  It comes (to those
to whom it comes at all) as an inheritance, to the children of the
covenant, the heirs of faithful Abraham.  And this heirship is not a
natural, but a spiritual one.  I am a Jew outwardly, but I do not
therefore claim to be certainly a Jew inwardly.  They are not all Israel
who are of Israel.  Abraham’s child according to the flesh, I would also
be, what I am not necessarily, what indeed I am not at all of mere
natural birthright, Abraham’s child according to the promise.”  And next
observe, how he seeks to secure the inheritance.  “What shall I _do_?”
Eternal life is not the reward of service, it is not the fruit of labour,
it is the privilege of a spiritual relationship; but still it cannot be
enjoyed by those who are indifferent about it, or by those who only
desire it.  It must be laid hold on by real active efforts; it must be
maintained by a particular course of conduct; salvation must be worked
out.  “What must I do” to secure it?  Truly he is an enlightened scribe!
He knows that eternal life is the free gift of a GOD, Who is no respecter
of persons; Who recognises no birthright, no personal merits; Who will
have mercy on Whom He will have mercy: but that yet grace does not fall,
as the rain from heaven, alike upon the barren and the fertile, the
thankless and the thankful, the careless and the anxious, the indolent
and the active; but is ever guided by a discerning and distinguishing
hand, is ever bestowed upon righteousness.  And so he asks, What is the
righteousness that inherits grace: knowing well what was the prescribed
righteousness of the law, how men were to be saved in times past; but
expecting that under the Gospel, an additional, perhaps a different
course was to be followed.

We have already seen that CHRIST referred him back to the law, as
revealing and enacting all that was necessary.  “What is written in the
law?  How readest thou?”  It is in his answer to this question that we
see chiefly the perfection of his religious theory and his great
intellectual superiority to the scribes generally.  For, observe, he does
not reply “We must be circumcised; we must be sprinkled with the blood of
goats and heifers; we must keep the Passover; we must wait on the
temple-services; we must give tithes of all that we possess.”  Nor,
again, does he say, “We must observe all moral precepts; we must refrain
from all idolatry; we must do justice and love mercy; obeying implicitly
the commandments of the two tables.”  No! in theory he is wiser than
that: he has no reliance on external rights and ceremonies: he is sure
that GOD demands something better than a servile conformity with certain
precepts and restrictions.  GOD, he knows, looks to the heart, requires
the spirit rather than, _i.e._, beyond the letter.  The law has taught
him this: Moses gave him from heaven ceremonies to perform, and moral
commandments to keep; but Moses told him, that mere outward conformity
with these things was not righteousness; that the law was spiritual; that
the acts done and refrained from under it were only exhibitions of a
principle which must reign within: “Thou shalt love the LORD thy GOD with
all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with
all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.”  Even so, “Thou hast
answered right,” said CHRIST.  “Thou hast learnt under the law, all that
the Gospel would teach.  To exhibit this is the bent of My life on earth,
to enforce it will be the mission of My Church.  Love is the fulfilling
of the law.  This do, and thou shalt live.”

It appears to me, brethren, that in this conversation, carefully
considered, we may find a clue to the satisfactory interpretation of
those perplexing sayings about the differences between the law and the
Gospel: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”  “Ye are not
under the law,” “the ministration of condemnation;” “The covenant that
was confirmed before of GOD in CHRIST, the law which was 430 years after
cannot disannul.”  “The Law and the Prophets were until John.”  “I am not
come to destroy the law.”  “This do and thou shalt live.”

It is a common notion that there is an essential difference, amounting
even to a contradiction between the law and the Gospel.  GOD is
supposed—as if He were an imperfect Being changing His ways
capriciously—to have suspended the Covenant of Grace which He had made
with Abraham, from the time of Moses to that of CHRIST, and to have given
the Jews in its stead a Covenant of Works, which He well knew they could
not keep, and under which, therefore, they were sure to be destroyed: or,
if He accepted any of them under the law, then, it is said, that inasmuch
as their obedience was of course imperfect, He must have been content
with less than He had required, and have disregarded His own decree, “The
soul that sinneth it shall die.”  Nay, more than this: that He dispensed
for a time with the merits of CHRIST’S atonement and the finding of
salvation through Him, and dealt with man on his own merits, and rewarded
him for an imperfect obedience.  But now, it is urged, all this is once
more changed.  The law, having served its purpose of showing men that
they could not obey GOD in the letter, having concluded them all under
sin by disallowing the things they were prone to, and requiring what they
could not do, having disappointed and balked them in their efforts to
obtain salvation by it, and so caused them to abandon its observance in
despair, and to inquire for another way of salvation—thus being a
schoolmaster to lead them to CHRIST—has now been wholly repealed; so that
we have nothing more to do with it, being brought out of bondage into
liberty, and what we find forbidden or required by it, is not forbidden
or required by us _because it is in the law_, but may be done or left
undone, notwithstanding what the law says, unless some eternally moral
principle, independent of Jewish sanctions and restrictions, would be
thereby violated!  I have put this in plainer and stronger words than any
of yourselves probably would use, or are accustomed to hear: but I have
not exaggerated the matter.  In proof, let me ask, Are there not many who
think the rehearsal of the Decalogue out of place in the Communion
service? who object to moral preaching as savouring of the obsolete law?
who talk about the “filthy rags” of their own righteousness, as if they
were something wrong in keeping in the law? who believe that CHRIST is
glorified most when they do least? who boast of a liberty to use or use
not ordinances and means of grace? who reproach others with being, for
instance, Sabbatarians? who speak of the GOD of the New Testament almost
as if the GOD of the Old Testament were another Being, of different
attributes, enacting different laws?  And even among those who have not
distinctly set the law and the Gospel in opposition, is there not a vague
notion that somehow the Old Testament does not concern us Christians, and
that our way of salvation is different from that of the Jews, and much
easier to follow?  O how do such persons reconcile with their notions
CHRIST’S teaching of the lawyer, whom He not only told to look for the
way of salvation in the law, but commended for finding it there, and
enjoined to keep it as the condition of salvation: “This do, and thou
shalt live.”

The fact is, the way of salvation has always been the same, since man
became a sinner.  Eternal life has always been a free gift in CHRIST.
Not for their merits or deservings does GOD love men; not by their own
inventions or labours do they procure acceptance.  The precious blood of
CHRIST shed (in effect) before the foundation of the world, has ever been
the fountain for sin; the intercession of CHRIST has ever been the means
of reconciliation; the grace of CHRIST’S sanctified human nature applied
by the Holy Spirit has ever been the leaven of regeneration, of
conversion, of perfection in holiness and fitness for the inheritance of
the saints in light.  But GOD has never been indifferent to the way in
which men receive His free gifts.  He at first created man for His own
glory, and He has redeemed, and would sanctify him for His glory.  He
made man to love Him, to depend on Him, to render Him the grateful homage
of a free-will service, to reflect His own glorious attributes of
holiness and love.  The sin of Adam and Eve was not that they ate of a
particular fruit reserved from them, but that they frustrated the end for
which they were created; that they found not their delight in the way of
GOD’S will; that they chose for themselves out of Him; that they doubted
His truth, gave themselves over to the influence and dominion of another
lord.  They would have sinned as greatly, as hatefully, had they
scrupulously refrained from the deed of sin, but in their hearts longed
after it, and in their hearts murmured against the restriction, and
disputed the importance or the justice of it.  And so the holiness of
pardoned man does not consist in the mere mechanical, servile, or selfish
rendering of outward obedience, in the number of enjoined things which he
does, and the number of forbidden things which he avoids; but in the
inward love and gratitude which he feels towards GOD, in his filial
reverence of his Heavenly Father, in his delight to carry out GOD’S known
will, and his anxiety to learn more, that he may do more of it, in his
heart’s beating, so to speak, in unison with GOD’S heart, and his life’s
reflecting GOD’S light and love.

To bring men to this state, that He may delight in them, that they may
glorify Him in all things, is the purpose and aim of GOD’S great scheme
of salvation; and, to forward that scheme, is, and has been, the object
of all His dealings with men of all times (when they have not been
judgments of wrath, because mercy was refused), whether they have been
encouragements or remonstrances, pleadings or rebukes, blessings or
chastisements, the promulgations of moral laws, the laying on or taking
off of positive or ceremonial commandments.  None of these things could
in themselves have made men what GOD willed them to be, loving children
of a loving Father; yet they had, or were designed to have, their effect
in bringing them back little by little to a right mind, and a right life.
But being used by a wise and discerning GOD, though their object was
always uniform, the use of them has varied, one being employed in this
case, another in that, according to the state of those on whom they were
to operate.  Thus Adam, fresh from the hand of GOD, full of knowledge and
intelligence, and holiness and love, was left, it would appear—but with
one commandment, the test of his integrity—to worship and glorify GOD as
his own heart and mind dictated; while the Jews, coming out of Egypt,
sunk in ignorance, given to idolatry, perverse in will and affections,
were dealt with as babes, albut without mind and without heart.  To them
it was necessary to declare, that there was but one GOD, to command them
to worship Him, to prescribe every particular of the worship, to bid them
not blaspheme Him, to hedge them in by numerous restrictions, to write
down every item of their duty, to encourage their obedience by immediate
rewards, to check their transgressions by instant punishments!  They were
treated, in fact, just as wise and fond parents treat little children:
their minds taught by pictures—brazen serpents, pillars of light and
fire, gorgeous tabernacles, sacrifices of bulls, and goats, and lambs,
burnings of incense, and the like—and their hearts and lives trained by a
course of discipline suited to their comprehension, and a system of
rewards and punishments which they could appreciate.  These things were
means to an end.  They impressed upon the Jews, that reverence and
obedience were due to GOD.  They taught them to look to Him for reward
and punishment, to love and fear Him.  But like the arbitrary discipline
we use with children, and the toys which we give or take away from them
according to their conduct, they were to be set aside (as far as they
were childish) so soon as more intelligent and better influences could be
employed, and the children be taught to use their minds and hearts, in
exercising reverence, and love, and fear, not in little observances and
restrictions, not in mere literal compliance with some particular
expressed laws, but according to the principle of love which would devote
itself entirely, and which uses all its powers to find out what is
devotion, and to practice it.

Thus, I say, the Jews were dealt with from Moses to CHRIST, and then men
were bidden to put away childish things—the Spirit being given to raise
them above childishness—and henceforth to render enlarged, enlightened,
loving service to GOD.  They were not released from reverence and
submission: very few commandments hitherto observed were repealed, save
those that were typical and ceremonial, and which, of course, gave way to
the antitype and to the new ritual of Christianity; but henceforth, they
were told, GOD would not be pleased with mere literal obedience: Do what
you did before, but do it in the spirit, and carry it farther, and search
about to see whether your own hearts and minds cannot regulate your lives
in things not prescribed.

Indeed, all this had been told them before, as the quotation of the
lawyer from Deuteronomy alone would suffice to show; but it was not so
strictly required of them as it is of us, because allowance was made for
their childish want of spiritual comprehension, and because the
perfection of obedience was postponed till the full strength was given to
render it, as well as the enlightened mind to understand it.

In Gospel times the law is spiritualised, the observance of the
commandments is extended beyond the outward life, to the very thoughts
and desires.  To covet is to steal, to lust is to commit adultery, to
hate is to murder!  Hence, while in one sense, our obedience is easier,
because we render it under the influence of enlightened minds and kindled
feelings, of love and gratitude—whereas, the Jew was perpetually crossing
and driving himself to keep a law which had no other recommendation to
him than that its observance preserved him from immediate chastisement—in
other respects, our obedience is not only more imperatively necessary,
because our privileges and responsibilities are greater, but it must be
more precise, because any wilful deviation from it—in us who are of a
mature and enlightened age—will surely indicate an unloving heart; and he
that has no love has no spiritual life!

This, after all, is the distinction between the good works of the Jew and
those of the Christian; not that the former sought salvation on account
of them, while the latter makes them but the tribute of praise and love
for salvation—for the Jew believed that he was saved by ordinances, not
by works—but that the Jew’s was the enforced obedience of slavish fear,
while the Christian’s is the spontaneous expression of filial love.  If
the Christian were perfect in moral perception, he would be a law to
himself, and would need but little of a written law; but not being thus
perfect, he finds his greatest help to glorify GOD, in the studying and
following of the Mosaic laws, which are samples and specimens furnished
by GOD, of acceptable works, and which, moreover, are a standard whereby
he may measure, not so much how near, as how far he is, from doing the
whole will of GOD.

This purpose, then, the law serves to Christians: it points out the ways
in which love should exercise itself; and so, by confronting the
negligent or transgressing, proves to them the absence or the
imperfection of their love.  The Christian is not free from the
observance of one jot or one tittle of it, though he is no longer under
the law, but under grace; but even if he has kept it all, he is not
necessarily accepted: he has not rendered service pleasing to GOD, if his
will is not better than his power, his heart larger than his deeds!  This
the lawyer knew theoretically; and yet, against his knowledge, he sinned.
When asked what the law required him to do, he answered rightly, that the
law required, above and beyond particular deeds, an impelling principle
of love for GOD, and, for His sake, for man also.  But then, when his
answer was commended, we are told that he, willing to justify himself
(which means, either to excuse himself for past imperfection, or to
attain presently unto the condition of the just, without becoming all
that was required of him) demanded, “And who is my neighbour?” showing
thereby, how much his heart was behind his mind; betraying the fact, that
while he professed entire devotion to GOD, he was really trying to find
out with how stinted and formal an obedience, he could win and keep his
favour.

In review of this history, let me suggest to you, in very few words, some
important truths.

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” is a momentous question for
each of you to ask of GOD, through His revealed word.  For the
inheritance never shall be yours, unless you observe the conditions upon
which it was promised; and one of those conditions (a most important
one), is, that you should pursue constantly a course of righteousness,
both to glorify GOD by prescribed service, and to acquire by spiritual
exercise the necessary character for heaven, without which none can enter
it.

To do righteousness—not simply to feel, or think, or speak righteously—is
what is plainly enjoined upon you.  Still, you must remember that you are
not to propose to yourselves, as the approved course, the observance only
of particular laws, the confining of religion to special times, and
places, and objects, and deeds; the mere walking in a clearly marked out
path, as though hands, and feet, and ears, and lips, without heart or
mind, could work out salvation; as though, too, it were not practicable
or desirable, that you should offer unto GOD any free-will service,
something besides what He has asked you to do!  Above all, having come to
understand, that while the fruit of religion is in the life, the germ of
it is in the heart; that without faith, and hope, and love, it is
impossible to please GOD; that the law to you is spiritualised; that you
are brought out of the bondage of servants into the glorious liberty of
sons; that not the mere letter of the law, but the spirit of it is to be
your guide; that outward deeds are not of themselves acceptable to GOD,
but only as signs of enlightened hearty feeling—things done in faith and
love; that worship in the temple is nothing, unless you worship out of
the temple likewise; that bowing the knee, and praising with the lips,
are an abomination, unless the spirit, too, is bowed and the soul
upraised; that bodily sacrifice alone is no sacrifice, that it needs the
broken and contrite heart, and the devoted spirit—while understanding, I
say, all this, and rejoicing in the reasonable, heart-sprung, spiritual
service of the Christian, beware lest you separate what GOD has joined,
or substitute free-will for commanded service, using your liberty
otherwise than as servants of GOD; carrying out, as you suppose, the
spirit of the law wholly in your own way, instead of keeping, while you
spiritualise the letter of the law.  “The time is come when, neither in
Jerusalem nor in this mountain, shall ye worship the Father,” does not
mean that appointed places of worship shall not be resorted to, but that,
besides, GOD shall be worshipped everywhere.  A yearly celebration of the
Passover is no longer necessary; but a continual feast is substituted for
it.  GOD seeks now to be worshipped in spirit and truth—that is, not
without the body, but in addition to the body, with the spirit.  The
letter by itself killeth, because it is formal, and leaves the noblest
powers and feelings of man unengaged for GOD; but the letter, as the
carrying out of the Spirit, is still so imperative, so vital, that he who
does not observe it foregoes the promise, “This do, and thou shalt live!”




SERMON XIV.
PRESENT SALVATION.


                           II. CORINTHIANS, VI., 2.

                   _Behold_, _now is the day of salvation_.

ST. PAUL, having just quoted a prophecy of Isaiah, which relates to an
accepted time and a day of salvation, in the text declares the fulfilment
of that prophecy: “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of
salvation.”  That which was then promised, is now performed; that which
was formerly but anticipated, and only embraced by faith, while yet afar
off, is now realised and brought near.  But the prophecy itself was
mentioned by the Apostle, to enforce an entreaty, “We then as workers
together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of GOD
in vain.  For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the
day of salvation have I succoured thee.”  It is evident, then, that St.
Paul would impress upon the Corinthians that men are in danger of
receiving the grace of GOD in vain, of not benefitting by all the
merciful and bountiful provision made through CHRIST for their
redemption, and justification, and sanctification, by not recognising
that this is the day of salvation, and so, not looking and preparing for,
and receiving a present salvation.

Salvation is, as you know, the result—possible in all cases; certain,
wherever the conditions are observed—of redemption by CHRIST.  In its
perfection, it is absolute freedom from the guilt, the taint, and the
power of sin, and complete, effectual, and abiding holiness of heart and
life.  It belongs not to our proposed subject to consider at any length
the destruction from which this is a salvation, nor the manner in which
it was wrought out for lost sinners by CHRIST, nor the blessedness of its
perfect possession and fruition, which can only be had in heaven.  We
have rather to do with what is present, than with the past and the
future.  We inquire not now, What has CHRIST done, or, What shall we
reach by and by, but, What ought we to do now?  What have we, or may we
have now?  In what respects, to what extent, is salvation a thing of the
present?

First, then, it is present in the offer to bestow it, and the
exhortations and influences to lay hold on it.  When CHRIST rose
victorious from the tomb, having paid the ransom for all the prisoners of
the law, and purchased the right and power of being their Saviour, He did
not immediately make all the men of His time actual partakers of the
privileges, nor did He provide that all who should thereafter be born,
should from their birth inherit the blessing, as from Adam they had
inherited the curse.  No man might say, “CHRIST has died and risen again,
therefore, I am certainly saved, without any reserve or delay on His
part, without any effort, almost without any desire, on my part.”
Salvation was then provided; rather, the fountain was then opened, and
began to flow; but each man in his turn, at the call of GOD, and in the
way of GOD’S appointment, was, so to speak, to help himself to salvation.
In other words, what CHRIST did, was not to take all who were then living
into an ark, and to cause all that sprung from them to be born and
brought up in that ark; but simply to build an ark, and leave it open for
all ages, and to offer helps to reach it, and to urge an entrance into it
upon all men, by the entreaties and promises of His love, and the threats
of His wrath.

We want to be impressed with this.  We are too apt to look upon salvation
as an accomplished fact, belonging to the past; to speak of the
blessedness of being born after the atonement has been made; to take for
granted that we are actually saved, rather than that we have a present
offer of salvation; and even to regard the ordinances of religion, as
Baptism and Holy Communion, more as ceremonies of thankful faith,
acknowledgments of obligation for past favours, than as means of laying
hold on a now offered, and, as yet, unattained blessing.

Think a moment, brethren: look into your ways and thoughts about
religion, and you will, perhaps, find that it is so with you; that,
whatever may be your theory, your practice does not assent to the truth,
that “Now is the day of salvation”; that you have now to be saved, yet to
be washed from sin, to have its power destroyed in you, to be qualified
for salvation, to lay hold on it, to work it out with fear and trembling,
as that which, though commenced, is not certain to be completed—which,
even when got, may again be lost.  It may occur to you, as an objection
to this statement, that you use means of grace, and somewhat diligently;
that you exercise yourselves in prayer, and by Christian discipline; that
you depend continually upon the ever-present grace of GOD; that you count
not yourselves to have attained; that you seek to go on unto perfection.
All this may be true, and yet—I beseech you ask yourselves whether it is
not so with you—the latent feeling may be, that salvation is a thing
inherited, already, in a measure, attained; and that what religion
requires of you, and what you render, is gratitude to the Giver, and a
due appreciation of the gift, sought to be testified and developed by a
becoming life, and an enlarging of the spiritual faculties, which by and
by will have so much more to exercise themselves upon.

But, secondly, is not this, it may be urged, a right view and feeling?
Is not this what the ministers of religion should labour to impress upon
the baptized: that they have received salvation—the grace of GOD, which
bringeth salvation?  Are we not taught by the Church, and by the Bible,
that in baptism we were born again, that we then became children of
GOD—and if children, then heirs, joint heirs with CHRIST; that we are,
therefore, from that new birth as actually the inheritors of a blessing,
as naturally we were inheritors of a curse; and that, thenceforth, it is
proper for us to say, “I heartily thank my Heavenly Father that he hath
called me to this state of salvation through JESUS CHRIST”?  It is even
so, brethren.  “Now is the day of salvation,” may mean to us Christians,
“now we _have_ salvation,” rather than “now it is only offered to us.”
It may be intended to stir us up to a consideration of our high calling,
to an appreciation of the great gift already bestowed, to a remembrance
of what GOD has already done for us, to a sense of His abiding presence.
There is no doubt—whether this text teaches it or no is another
question—that the disciples of CHRIST have a present possession, as well
as a present offer of salvation; and what I meant in the first part, was
not to hide this truth, but to guard against the error, to correct
whatever amount you might have of the feeling, that we have already a
final gift, so complete that nothing can be added to it, so altogether of
the past, that we can do nothing in the present, but acknowledge the
goodness of GOD in bestowing it, and wait on Him patiently and holily
till He is pleased to reveal to us the full excellencies of the gift, and
to enable us to enjoy them in the eternal heaven.  Above all, I meant to
protest against, to awaken from the fearful delusion, that CHRIST has
conferred absolutely on mankind, or upon any chosen number—the elect—the
salvation which, by His precious merits, He procured; that it is ours
independently of means of grace, without closing with present offers of
it, and making present exertions, and showing present appreciation of it;
that it can be ours at all, without earnest seeking and praying for it,
and strivings, and workings, and self-denials, and crucifyings of evil,
and growth in grace, and perseverance unto the end.  “By grace are ye
saved, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of GOD.”  Work out your
own salvation, each individual of you; make that your own which was once
procured for all that would have it; work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling.  Your salvation (I speak to the baptized) is _begun_,
you have _present_ salvation—_i.e._, you are in the way which leads to
salvation.  You have guaranteed to you, on conditions, the helps
necessary to attain perfect salvation.  You may derive, and should be
deriving, present benefits from your salvation, and you should experience
present joy in it.

You have, I say, present salvation.  You have been made members of that
One Body, which was sanctified, and which is able to sanctify all other
bodies that are joined to it: you are branches of that glorious tree,
whose sap, pervading every healthy branch, gives it present strength and
develops its beautiful growth, and by and by will produce the fruit of
everlasting life.  You have the life of CHRIST kindled in your souls.
Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost.  Now is the day of
salvation, and _present_ salvation, too; not merely past salvation
applied, not that you are washed in a lake whose waters _once_ flowed
from a glorious Fountain; not that you partake of a store of
sanctification, long ago laid up; but that now each individual of you is
operated upon by a present influence, deriving directly from the source,
the water of life, having sanctification produced in you by the
now-working and influencing Spirit.  Creatures of the present, there is a
present salvation for you; and that does not mean merely that you have
for yourselves to seek and lay hold of a ready salvation, but that a
merciful and grace-giving GOD, a loving Saviour, an indwelling Spirit,
are present with you, and personally operating upon you for your
salvation.

Dear brethren, try to understand and feel this.  Do not suppose that
GOD’S gifts are in any way separated from the Giver by time or by
distance.  Once for all, He resolved to give, but severally as each needs
and rightly seeks, He gives; and when He gives, it is not by messengers,
through long mediums, _but out of His own hand_.  The bread which we
break and the cup which we bless, are the communion of the Body and Blood
of CHRIST.  The bread is not the Body, nor the wine the Blood, nor is the
reception of them the way of applying to us any stored up blessings; but
when we keep the ordinance which CHRIST has appointed, then He fulfils
His promise of blessing us, and, with the sign, Himself the reality
enters into our souls.

                         There present in the heart,
                     Not in the hands, th’ eternal Priest
                          Will His true self impart.

And so of all other ordinances.  They are nothing, and give nothing of
themselves.  Their whole value—but what an unspeakable value it
is—consists in their being appointed ways of bringing us into direct
communication with a present GOD, our Father, our Saviour, our
Sanctifier!

But there is another view to take of present salvation—namely, that from
its very nature, it cannot be received at any one time in perfection, in
such a state as to need no care to preserve it, no sustentation and
renewal, no constant direction and blessing from the Author, and
Regulator, and Finisher of it.  It is spiritual life.  Who does not know
to what hazards life may be exposed, and how, from its very nature, it
requires to be fed with proper food, and kept in health, and exercised,
and developed?  It is a spiritual sap.  And what a mockery of life and
support to the branch, would be one single, separated, unrenewed
imparting from the vine, of the sap, which indeed ceases to be sap when
the flow from the trunk is interrupted!  The work of salvation is GOD’S
work, begun by Him, continued by Him, and to be completed by
Him—therefore, it must have His continued personal superintendence.  He
must work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Thus is salvation _present_ as distinguished from the _past_.

But in another sense it is now the day of salvation.  We have not to
expect it as a thing wholly future, we must not delay to close with it as
though there were a better time and way of doing that to be afforded
hereafter.  Salvation is present in its rewards and effects.

This, again, is a truth we need to be impressed with.  We are wont to
look too much to the future, to _hope_ to be with GOD hereafter, to
_long_ for salvation, to sigh for the season of sanctification.  By and
by we shall be comforted.  By and by we shall be strengthened.  By and by
we shall be holy and happy!  Thus it is that we only expect salvation,
that we persuade ourselves that we are not to receive anything here by
way of real spiritual joy and blessing, and that we are not required to
reach any high degree of spiritual excellence here!  But, brethren, how
unreasonable is this persuasion.  To believe that GOD is present with us
and operating upon us, and pouring out His benefits upon us all our
lives, and yet that we are none the better, that we do not derive any
blessedness from Him: or, again, to believe that GOD has given us
spiritual life, that He imparts to us, and constantly superintends, the
grace which justifies and sanctifies; and yet that we can, or at least
need make no use of this grace, not grow in it, not become purer, and
holier, that it is ineffectual, that we may consent to its being
ineffectual till life is over—O is not such a persuasion unreasonable,
are we not ashamed of it?  Imagine a mother not feeding or taking care of
her infant, and yet counting on its thriving! or, fondly and diligently
tending, taking care of her infant, and continuing to do so year after
year, yet perfectly satisfied though it gained no strength, did not grow,
nor walk, nor speak, nor show the slightest sign of getting out of
babyhood!  Imagine, I say, satisfaction with such a state, and hope all
the while, yea, conviction, that presently, when the usual number of
years were over the child would somehow be a man!  Or, imagine the
husbandman expecting a harvest without sowing, or ploughing; or planting
his field diligently, and rejoicing in refreshing rains, and ripening
suns, yet not disappointed if the ear did not ripen, or even if the blade
did not spring up; not concerned about it, not expecting it, sure of
harvest at the usual time, even if that usual time should be next week,
and there were yet no sign of a crop!  Imagine this! you say.  Such
imagination is idle; it is a mockery of common sense to suppose such a
thing possible.  Well, then, my brethren, what is to be said of the
spiritual nurses of the new life of GOD in the soul, of the spiritual
husbandman of the seed of grace in the heart, who do nothing towards, or
who expect nothing of present salvation?  Brethren, NOW is the day of
salvation, the day in which salvation is offered, in which it is actually
conferred, in which it should be working and growing, yea, and bestowing
its joy and peace.  If in aught of this it fails, be sure there is some
fault in yourselves—it is not that grace is of itself unreal, or
unproductive, but that you receive it in vain, that you do not
sufficiently heed and reverence it, that you do not sufficiently guard
it, and sustain and refresh it, that you do not sufficiently use it.

There ought to be in every baptized Christian, a gradual, steady, and
even perceptible Christian progress.  Our salvation ought to be ever
nearer and nearer than when we believed, not only in the expectation of
our complete adoption and removal to glory, but in our fitness for glory,
and desire and hope of it.  If we have the same evil tendencies, are as
easily overcome by the same temptations, have the same dislike or
imperfect taste for spiritual occupations, the same poor appreciation of
religious privileges and hopes as we had a year, a month, a week ago,
then assuredly our salvation stagnates, we are not using what GOD has
given us, we are not yielding to, we are resisting His living influence!
Grace, my brethren, is an useless gift, if it is to effect nothing: a
time of probation is an idle space, if there is no trial.  Faith is
little entitled to be called “the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen,” if it produces no spiritual conviction: and
as for hope—what kind of anchor is it to the soul, if it is ever
shifting, if it grasps nothing?

If any man is in CHRIST, he is a new creature, that is, he is becoming a
new creature, with new life, and powers, and energies, and tastes, and
aims, and hopes.  He will grow in grace if he has rightly received it,
and in the knowledge and love of CHRIST.  He will manifestly (at least to
himself manifestly) be putting off the old man with his affections and
lusts, and putting on the new man, which after GOD is created in
righteousness and true holiness.  He will endure trials more and more
patiently, as seeing more clearly Him who is invisible.  He will resist
temptations more easily, and do good more consistently and gladly, and be
more pained and more penitent after every sin.  He will have a growing
love of searching GOD’S word, and speaking to Him in prayer and praise,
and receiving Him in Holy Communion.  He will gradually be raised above
the world, and will soar higher in imagination and affection and hope
towards heaven.  Each day will have witnessed some advance—or some more
than recovery if there has been a relapse.  And when the night cometh,
the end of the day of attaining salvation, he will want but little to
complete his resemblance to CHRIST, his pattern, and to perfect his
salvation.

If, then, brethren, you would obtain an answer to the momentous question,
Whether you shall be saved, whether there is a good hope that you are in
the way of salvation, I would bid you not so much look back to your
Baptism and Confirmation, and count the number of your attendances on
Holy Communion, of the sermons you have heard, the prayers and praises
you have offered—though these are all great things—but rather, I would
say, ascertain whether you have present salvation, for the future depends
on the present; and to ascertain this, examine well whether you are
putting off the old man and putting on the new, as I have just described.
As another test—and a very great help in godliness, to which there is no
equal in feelings and exercises—inquire into your hope of future
salvation (by which I do not mean only your expectation, but also your
eager desire), and into your joy for present salvation.

If religion is a reality, it is a great reality.  Its immediate blessings
are so precious, and its prospects so transcendently glorious, that the
man who is not filled with joy and desire on their account, has no part
or lot in them, or is strangely culpably ignorant of his privileges and
his hopes.  No wonder that he easily yields to sin, that he finds
spiritual employments wearisome, that he makes no progress in salvation.
If GOD touches him and he feels not, if heaven has come down to him and
he knows it not, if glory is revealed to him, and he does not burn for
it, if CHRIST has put him in the ark and he is not comforted by the
immediate deliverance and counting on the perfect salvation—then, surely,
he has received the grace of GOD to little sanctifying, and so to little
saving purpose!

O let him beseech GOD earnestly and perseveringly to give him spiritual
sight and feeling, to fill him with joy and peace in believing, to make
him rejoice, not only for what he has, but for what he expects of
salvation; working, like St. Paul, in view of the crown laid up,
confident that, whether absent or present, he is accepted by GOD, knowing
that to depart is to be with CHRIST.

But, lastly, let him guard and pray against mistaking _present_ for
perfect salvation, the road and discipline and growth for heaven, for
heaven itself.  The possession which he has, precious as it is, is not a
perfect one; and, moreover, he may lose it.  Remember Paul’s care, lest
he should be a castaway, his caution to take heed lest we fall, his
fearful sayings about forfeited grace.  O brethren, seek as the best
immediate blessing and the best stimulus to godliness, an assurance of
hope in perfect salvation.  But be sure that it is founded upon the
reception and right use and evident growth of grace, upon present
salvation; and, withal, be not high-minded, but fear.  You know your own
frailties, the influences of the world, the subtlety and tremendous power
of Satan’s temptations.  Any of these is sufficient to make you wander
out of the right way, or stand still, or turn back, or to cause you to
faint in your spiritual course, and even to threaten the destruction of
your spiritual life.  You are sure of GOD, of His favour, of His
upholding, of His preserving you unto the day of perfect redemption; but
you are not sure of your observance of the conditions on which only you
may count on Him.  And if you disregard these conditions, then are you
plainly taught, by precept and example, that a neglected GOD will not
abide with you, and a resisted Spirit will not strive with you, and that
grace received in vain will be taken away.  Remember this, let it keep
you from presumption, make you watchful against temptation, always
clothed in the armour of GOD, and wielding the sword of the Spirit, and
abounding in the work of the LORD; praying, too, always, that the present
may be an earnest of the future, that the Spirit will sustain, and
sanctify, and perfect you, and that GOD, Who has begun a good work in
you, will perform it until the day of JESUS CHRIST.




SERMON XV.
CHRIST TOUCHED.


                              ST. MARK, V., 30.

    _And_ JESUS, _immediately knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out
    of Him_, _turned Him about in the press_, _and said_, _Who touched my
    clothes_?

A CROWD always waited on our LORD when He taught or walked openly.  In
this case, there was an unusually great crowd following and thronging
Him, because it had become known that He was on His way to work the
miracle of raising up a child from the point of death.  It is not hard to
guess what were the elements of this crowd.  First, there were the idle,
curious multitude ever to be found where novelty or excitement is
promised.  Then there were those who knew not why they were come
together, who were there because others were, who had no mind or interest
in the matter.  (There are always many of these in every crowd.)  Then
there were the scribes and lawyers, always talking about, listening to,
or disputing religious truths—never coming, or caring to come, to the
knowledge and practice of the truth.  Then there were the seekers after
loaves and fishes, who hoped to get something by coming.  Then there were
the entrappers and enemies of our LORD, seeking for witness against Him,
hoping to see some work done, to hear some word said which might form the
ground of accusation against Him.  And, lastly, there were some—a few
only—whom faith impelled to seek from Him the healing of their diseases,
the relief of their burthens; and whom love drew after Him, to see Him,
to serve Him, to dwell upon the gracious words that proceeded out of His
mouth.  Of the last class was a woman who had been afflicted with a
grievous malady for twelve years, who had tried all earthly means of
relief, and had grown worse under them, who was despised and shut out
from the company of mankind by reason of her visitation, who had become
destitute in seeking cure.  All things were against her.  Her misfortunes
were what many would describe as more than could be borne.  Her case was
hopeless.  Nothing seemed left to her but to succumb to helpless misery,
and wait in groans and tears for death—when, lo! a sudden gleam of
brightest hope burst upon her, there was a Physician Who could cure all
diseases, and His remedy was to be had without price!  It does not appear
whether the fame of JESUS had reached her in some remote place, whence
she had dragged her poor afflicted body, sighing and groaning, wandering
many days, searching in many places; or whether, being “accidentally,” as
men say, near where the crowd passed, she had now heard, for the first
time, of the new Prophet; and, gathering from the passers-by that He was
going to restore a dying damsel, concluded that the possessor of such
power, so graciously exercised, could and would heal her too.  Be that as
it may, she had full faith in His ability: “If I may but touch his
clothes I shall be whole.”  And, having such faith, she resolved to act
upon it, making her way through the crowd, and doing that, through which
her faith suggested the power would be transmitted.  How she came to
propose to herself, or who proposed to her, such a course, how much of
ignorance and superstition there was in it, is beside our present
consideration.  Her faith, her perseverance, her humility, are rather the
things to be noted.  Her faith, which was so strongly convinced of the
existence in JESUS, and the certainty of being able to obtain from Him
the grace of healing.  Her perseverance, poor, feeble, tottering woman!
which was not overawed by the greatness of the crowd, and did not give up
when she was dragged hither and thither, hard pressed here, shut out
there—perhaps even thrown down and trampled on more than once.  Her
humility, which—eager as she was for cure, bent, too, as she was upon
having it—made her fear the eyes of the crowd, though she cared nothing
for their thrusts and hard usage, which dared not face her Healer; which
caused her to shrink back from the first touch, and seek to hide herself,
and steal away with the blessing.

Pausing here for a moment, brethren, to consider that this woman, in her
malady, is a type of all who are affected with the disease of sin; that
in the fruitless issue of her recourse to earthly physicians, she
allegorises the vanity, the mockery, of all human expedients to restore
or ameliorate moral distempers; showing that such “remedies” do but cause
to suffer more, and make worse—pausing, I say, to consider this, and to
reflect that herein we have a representation of ourselves as sinners, of
our helplessness but for CHRIST, of our greater suffering and sure
deterioration, through our very efforts to become better without CHRIST;
reflecting on this, realising it, and feeling it, are we able to go on
and see in her discovering of the right Healer, in her efforts to be
healed by Him, in her faith, and perseverance, and humility, what we have
discovered, what we believe, and what we do, and what we feel?  O what a
pitiable sufferer is that, who hears with indifference or with lukewarm
inactive belief, that there is a Physician that can make well; who knows
that He is ready, that restoration is to be had, and yet does not seek
it; who even pleads infirmity as a reason for not striving to be cured;
who is deterred by the sight of a crowd that must be got through; who is
discouraged by the first obstacle, and gets up and goes back after the
first fall!  And how blinded are the senses, and how dead the feelings of
the sinner, who does not feel the degradation of his state, but makes
open display of himself before the crowd, and with a bold front and
unshrinking touch, comes to the All-pure and All-holy to be healed!
Learn, fellow sinners, from this poor woman, what your sin is, how
defiling, how miserable, how sure to grow worse under human treatment.
Learn, too, by Whom alone it can be healed, and with what efforts, and
what feelings, you must seek the healing.  For, consider how the
All-seeing eye and the All sympathising heart beheld and loved that
woman, for her deeds and feelings.  _Before_ she touched Him, the virtue,
the power of healing, was made ready to flow; and, as soon as she had
touched, she was called forth, and commended, and owned, and further
blessed: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be
whole of thy plague.”

Partly, no doubt, for the sake of others, this manifestation and speech
were made.  JESUS generally hid His wondrous works from the gaze of the
masses, and forbade that they should even hear of them by the hearing of
the ear: just as He concealed the meaning of His speech by veiling it in
parables, hard to be understood, that mere curiosity might not be
indulged, that faith might have some privilege over want of faith, that
needless provocation of His enemies might be avoided, and witness against
Him withheld, that those who He knew would see and hear in vain, might be
spared the greater condemnation of beholding and despising.  Sometimes,
however, an exception was made, and JESUS spoke and acted openly; that
those present might see, and those absent might hear of Him, and so come
unto Him and be saved.  This may have been the case here.  Or, more
probably, the manifestation was not so much for the multitude, it was for
the inner circle; for Jairus, whose faith needed to be prepared, for the
shock of the coming announcement—“Thy daughter is dead, why troublest
thou the Master any more?” or for better heeding of the injunction, “Be
not afraid, only believe;” for the disciples, too, whom He would thus
confirm in the faith, and prepare for their mission and sufferings, whom
He would thus enable to record for our instruction and comfort, the
things which JESUS has done, which He is ever ready to do again.  But,
specially, it was for the woman herself; that she might not suppose that
she had obtained _unknown_ possession of a blessing, or that it was the
mere touch which cured her, and not the All-knowing Healer, pleased by
her faith and so making effectual an otherwise useless act; that she
might become acquainted with Him, and so learn to love Him, and
gratefully remember Him, and by and by, when she came to know his will,
might delight to do it; that she might have something more than she
sought—this is ever the rule of CHRIST’S giving—the “Go in peace,” as
well as the “Be whole of thy plague;” that she might be taught, and we,
through her, that Divine mercy is ever to be acknowledged, and open glory
to be given to GOD.

The history is replete with profitable suggestions—lessons of faith and
practice.  Let us select three for present consideration.

First, let us observe, that we may throng and press JESUS, and yet not
touch Him.  “Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou who
touched me?”  Even so!  The idle, curious, controversial, captious
thronging is nothing accounted of: it is the touch of eager desire and
humble faith which alone is noticed.  At first, brethren, we are tempted
to think, that the most strangely indifferent, the most unblessed of men,
are those who do not join the throng, and press about the LORD JESUS.
That He is in the sanctuary, and men do not enter into His presence
there; that He is teaching the way of life, and men will not hear sermons
nor read the Bible; that He may be conversed with, and yet men will not
pray; that He may be touched, and yet sacraments are not received: this,
we think, is as strange as it is sad.  And so, indeed, it is.  But it is
stranger and sadder, that any should come into the Sanctuary, and not
perceive CHRIST’S presence; that they should hear and read without
learning; that they should use words of prayer and yet not be heard; that
they should press and throng JESUS in ordinances, and never touch Him;
deriving no benefit from Him, because they seek it not aright; being
beneath His eye, and yet unnoticed; crowding around Him, and upon Him,
and yet unfelt!  But assuredly, as of old it was, so it is now.  If mere
idleness brings men to the Sanctuary, mere observance of a decent
fashion, if they come only to hear and see something new, to wile away
the time which hangs wearily upon them, to gain themselves a good name as
respectable and pious, if they are watching to see, what may be
criticised, what may be talked about and condemned, if they are rendering
merely a formal obedience, and offering only an outward service—then, I
was going to say, CHRIST takes no more notice of them than if they were
not present; but I should rather say, He is wrathful against them for
being present.  He blinds their eyes, and turns away His own.  He is dumb
to them; they deaf to Him.  He yields nothing to them, though they seem
like Moses to have cleft the rock.  He feels them not, though they
squeeze and press!  My brethren, it may be that some of you have long
been in the company of CHRIST, have missed very few opportunities of
public worship, have become very familiar with the Scriptures, have often
repeated prayers and psalms, have been frequent communicants, and yet are
none the better in feeling and desire, have experienced no spiritual
relief, have no more love or perception of the truth, than if you had
been utter strangers to CHRIST, and never been near Him nor heard of Him.
Hence it may be that religion is to you but a name: it profits you not,
it affords you no delight, it exercises no influence upon you.  Would you
know why?  Because you have been but thronging and pressing, because you
have had no real sense of your misery, have entertained no real desire to
be relieved and blessed, and so have made no well-directed, persevering
effort to touch CHRIST!  You are, as you feel, no better, no wiser, than
if there were no CHRIST, or you had never been near Him!  And you will
never be wiser and better, however much you press and throng, till you
realise your want, and are convinced that CHRIST alone can relieve it,
and come to Him faithfully, resolutely, humbly, to touch the hem of His
garment, and be healed of your plague.  First, then, strive to know what
you want, and to be convinced that CHRIST can and will grant it; and,
then, feeling the desire of it, being sure from Whom alone it can be had,
and how it must be sought, draw near—with the feeling of necessity, with
the perseverance of desire, with the consciousness of unworthiness—and
effect the touch of faith.  You shall not, in that case, remain
unblessed; your plague shall be stayed, your faith shall be commended,
your effort crowned, your humility exalted; you shall have more than you
sought; enlarge your desire as you will, it shall be more than satisfied:
and He whom you would but touch, and then shrink away, shall call you
forth, and own, and bless you, and give you everlasting peace and perfect
salvation.

Next, let us observe, that nothing can keep back and nothing hide from
CHRIST.  We are sometimes tempted, in the deep sense of our unworthiness,
in review of the distance between us and the Healer, of the many
obstacles which intervene, to give up in despair, and say to ourselves,
“It is of no use trying, I am not fit for such a blessing, and if I were,
I cannot reach it.”  Now, consider, who could be more unfit, and who more
unable to approach CHRIST than this poor woman.  There was a positive law
which forbade her coming; her touch was pollution: yet CHRIST reproached
her not with disregarding that law, nor refused her because of it; and
when she touched He did not recoil, but encouraged her.  For _us_ there
is no excommunicating law.  From us CHRIST is pledged not to recoil.
“Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” is an invitation,
a positive command.  “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast
out,” is a most solemn pledge.  Why, then, should we shrink?  What shall
we fear?  And as for difficulties and hindrances, our own infirmities,
the opposition of the world or the Devil, the sneers of despisers, the
distance, the crowd, the hurrying on, can aught compare with what
threatened this woman, and what she overcame?  O are we not ashamed to
forego salvation, to keep away from CHRIST, to desist from determination
to reach Him, by any plea of personal infirmity, or of difficulty in the
way?  What in ourselves is worse than the twelve years’ growing,
enfeebling, overwhelming malady of this woman?  What in aught around us
is more impenetrable than the great crowd? and whenever was CHRIST as
distant from us as He was from her?  And then as to the discouragement
which Satan would suggest to us, that in our age we cannot, like this
poor woman, get anything from CHRIST by stealth; that the power to heal
flows not unconsciously; that He must see, and approve, and stay for us,
and even anticipate us; and that by reason of our insignificance and the
wide extent of His dominion, it is not reasonable to suppose that we
shall be observed—brethren, are we not assured, by the fact that _she_
was discerned, and watched for, and singled out from the great multitude,
that the gaze which is comprehensive enough to include all is particular
enough to distinguish each; that there is nothing beneath His notice;
that He can get through, and will get through, all that stands between us
and Him: that He who keeps vast globes in their orbits, takes thought
even for sparrows; that He counts the hairs of each individual’s head;
that He hears each sigh, and feels each sorrow; that the roar of the
universe is not louder in His ear than the feeblest cry of distress from
the lowest of His creatures?  O it is a blessed assurance, and one for
which we should be heartily thankful, that it was always when there was
most to distract, that CHRIST was most closely attentive; that it was in
the most dazzling glare that He saw most clearly; that it was when He
seemed most absorbed in other aims, that His notice and help were most
readily secured; that in the way to raise the daughter of Jairus, He was
so easily stopped to heal and bless the woman with the issue of blood!
No sight too insignificant to escape His eye; no sound too faint to reach
His ear; no crowd so great as to hide the individual; no object so
engrossing as to exclude from notice, or to hurry on from concern for the
least, the unworthiest of other objects!

Lastly, let us observe that power to heal was ready to flow wherever
there was a channel made for it.  We are not, of course, to understand
that CHRIST healed unconsciously; that any mere formal touch secured, as
it were, without the violation of His will, the grace which He was
anointed to bestow; but we are to understand, that such is the law of
grace, that where there is a demand there is a supply; that like as the
thirsty sand surely drinks in the rising wave, like as a sponge absorbs
the water into which it is plunged, so the sensibly void heart, the
yearning desire, the faithful effort, the moral fitness, is sure of what
it wants and seeks, if it is found in the place where what it wants
exists.  It is one of the most wonderful, most mysterious, and at the
same time most sure effects of CHRIST’S incarnation that human nature,
needing and desiring, put into communion with Him, possessing,
overflowing, shall have by the necessary operation of an invariable law,
the thing which it wants, and which He has to bestow.  There is no
chance, no mere probability in the case: CHRIST is the ever-flowing
fountain; if you stand beneath, the water must come over you.  He is the
root full of sap, if you are one of the branches joined to Him, the sap
shall flow into and permeate you.

It is this which makes ordinances effectual signs of grace; means, not by
which grace may _perhaps_ be bestowed, but by which it is _sure_ to be
bestowed, if they are rightly used.  The woman, whose history we have
been considering, might have been disappointed in her hope: for CHRIST
had not taught her, nor made her any promise, nor prescribed to her any
course; but He has so enlightened _us_ in the mystery of His Incarnation;
He has so pledged to us His grace; He has so shown us how to obtain it,
that we may most confidently say, “If I may but touch, I shall be whole.”
Grace, the manifold grace of CHRIST’S glorified body—the source of
sanctification and every blessing, is ready to flow, and will flow as
soon as He is touched.  Of course, as we have seen, this touch must be
directed by right feeling; but still, observe, there must be a touch.
“Thy faith hath saved thee.”  Not because it kept thee still, sighing
for, talking of, waiting for Me, but because it roused thee, and made
thee encounter so much, and do so much to come and touch Me.  Faith gives
quality to the touch, but, after all, the touch secures the blessing.  So
it ever is.  The touch necessary, and the touch effectual.  “He that
believeth _and is baptized_ shall be saved.”  “Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”  The water
of Baptism is the laver of regeneration.  The bread which we break, and
the cup which we bless, are the Communion of the Body and Blood of
CHRIST.  Using the outward part rightly, you do certainly receive the
inward grace: for as soon as CHRIST is rightly touched, and these are
appointed ways of touching, immediately—as it were, spontaneously—virtue
to heal goes out of Him.

Let it not, however, be supposed, that this view of the way of healing
and sanctifying makes CHRIST a servant of grace instead of the LORD of
grace; that it directs us to a mere storehouse to help ourselves, instead
of sending us to a living, loving, discerning Saviour, of Whom we are to
crave the help and blessing which are His to give as He will.  No,
brethren, it exalts ordinances, but only because they are CHRIST’S
ordinances, the clothes in which He is clad, as He walks among us, the
garments through which power to heal is transmitted from Him to us.  The
use of these things without a sense of unworthiness, without humility and
faith, is like the thronging of CHRIST by the crowd, not only
unprofitable, but rude and profane; and this sense of unworthiness, this
humility and faith, together with the power and perseverance to act upon
them, are all the gifts of CHRIST, seed sown, increase given by Him
according to His will.  Look, then, to the Physician, as well as to the
remedy, to the Giver of grace as well as to the Channel of grace; and,
knowing that without Him you can do nothing, and except from Him receive
nothing, beseech Him to enable you to seek grace rightly, and then to
bestow it freely, not for any worthiness, for any feeling, for any deed;
but simply because of your necessity, out of His boundless love.




SERMON XVI.
PREACHING PARABLES.


                              EZEKIEL, XX., 49.

        _Ah_ LORD GOD! _they say of me_, _Doth he not speak parables_?

EZEKIEL had been commissioned with the utterance of a warning, in
figurative but very intelligible language, that GOD was about to bring a
great calamity upon Jerusalem and all Judah; that young and old, good and
bad, should be affected by it—“I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall
devour every green tree and every dry tree”; that the judgment should be
irresistible “the flaming flame shall not be quenched,” and the
destruction universal; “all faces from the south to the north shall be
burned therein.”  According to some expositors, as soon as he received
this commission, concluding from his past experience that the Jews would
profess not to understand his message, or would say, that it was an
exaggeration, or that it did not apply to them, and so disregard it, he
entreated of GOD, in the words of the text, that such an excuse might be
taken away by the delivery instead of a plain and unmistakeable warning:
“O LORD, not a parable.  Thy people will not heed parables.”  Whereupon
GOD, in gracious condescension to His prophet, in determination to be
heard and understood by the people, substituted for this first message,
not indeed wholly unfigurative language, but a simpler parable, which
carried with it to all its own interpretation.  But it is better, I
think, to suppose, that Ezekiel does not here anticipate the people’s
perversity, and so persuade GOD at once to withdraw His words; but that
he narrates and grieves over the actual reception which the message,
faithfully delivered, had encountered.  The people would not hear it.
They said it was obscure: a parable, an enigma, a poetical exaggeration.
GOD did not speak to them by it; or, if He did, they could not tell what
He said.  “Ah! LORD GOD—alas! it is the old tale—I told them Thy words,
but they would not hear; they turned away from me, saying, Surely we
cannot understand him.”

Whichever was the case, whether Ezekiel only expected, or actually
experienced this treatment, we are sure that it was not wholly on account
of special obscurities which veiled the matters he had to declare, nor on
account of any special deafness and hardness of heart which belonged to
that people.  For every Christian teacher has had reason to anticipate,
has actually endured the like from Christian congregations.

Often and often in preparing for the pulpit, is the preacher tempted to
set aside some important theme, to withhold some wonderful truth, to
forbear even to suggest some glorious consolation, because he believes
that in uttering it, he will not have the ears, or, if he has the ears,
he will not have the minds of his hearers; that they will not understand
his saying; and so, of course, will not receive it.  Often and often,
too, when having used the full liberty of a Christian prophet and
whatever ability GOD has given him, of simplifying to the utmost, and
recommending with all his energy, the Gospel message, he is constrained
to feel, he is made, perhaps, by men’s open speech to know, that he is
regarded as the setter-forth of unmeaning, extravagant, or inapplicable
words.  Of course, this charge is not always unfounded.  We are not
inspired: we often speak our own words; our minds may not have rightly
conceived the subject we would discuss, or we may be wanting in ability
to express clearly what we understand.  Under various influences we do,
too, at times speak more or less extravagantly, and our knowledge and
discretion are not so complete, that we invariably select what is
precisely suited to our hearers.  In such cases, we ought to expect, we
have no right to complain of, the rejection, the disregard, or the
fruitlessness of our preaching.  But, brethren, when we are sure that the
fault lies not in the preacher, when he has taken pains to enter into and
reveal the mind of the Spirit, to teach what he knows GOD would have you
understand and believe, to urge what he knows GOD would have you do, to
describe and recommend what he knows GOD would have you love and
seek—when he has done this, and you receive not his words, excusing
yourselves by saying that he is obscure, or over-strict, or fanciful, or
enthusiastic, or anything else—oh! then has he not a right to complain to
GOD? yea; and is it not his duty to remonstrate with you?  Brethren, we
charge not such as you who are here assembled with the wilfulness of
Ezekiel’s hearers.  In you we do not suppose there is any actual
unbelief, or deliberate dislike of the truth.  It is not forced in your
case upon unwilling ears: for you come to hear it.  It is not rejected
because you hate it.  Nevertheless, we have somewhat against many of you
of Ezekiel’s complaint, respecting your treatment of the read or preached
Word of GOD.

We have to complain, brethren, that many of you are under the mistaken
notion that you have almost a right to select the preacher’s theme, at
least to dictate its mode of treatment; and that if your right is
disregarded, then you are justified in excusing yourselves for not
profiting or heeding.  Bear with me, beloved.  Is it not the case, that
you sometimes find fault with the subject of the sermon?  You do not want
to hear so much about man’s depravity: you do not like the preacher to
make such a point of observing religious ordinances: what a high standard
of morality he sets up; how strict is the holiness he describes; why will
he discourse of the horrors of hell?  So, again, of the manner of
treatment.  You do not care for argument; you cannot enter upon theories;
you are weary of quotations of historical illustrations; the style is too
florid, or too bald: it is poetical; or it is commonplace; or somehow it
is not what you like; and therefore—I would not say you turn away from
it, but you do not try, as much as you ought, to heed it; and you excuse
yourselves for not improving under it by blaming the preacher.

The fact is, there is too often a great forgetfulness of the fact, that
when the preacher speaks to you it is your part to be as listeners and
learners of GOD.  It is not for you to choose the subjects, nor to
dictate the method of teaching.  It is true, perhaps, that your taste and
aptitude are greater for some subjects than others: it is true that you
are more easily enlightened, and impressed, and influenced in some ways
than in others.  It is natural, and I would not say it is wrong, for you
to prefer those subjects and ways; but be sure nevertheless, that it is
the very contrary of wisdom and humility, of reverence for GOD, of regard
for duty and interest, not to give the most earnest heed to whatever GOD
says to you through His servant, to dare to treat it lightly, because
either of the topic or the way of handling it.  When a message comes to
you from GOD, surely it is no reason for not receiving it, that you would
prefer a message about something else!  And if the diction in which that
message is clothed is hard or distasteful to you, while you may lament
it, may ask for an explanation, may solicit consideration for your taste,
or help in overcoming your distaste, you may not on any account disregard
what has been said.  The word gone forth shall not return.  Where the
seed has been sown, increase shall be expected.  The day is coming, when
all your opportunities and means of knowing GOD’S will, and all your
incentives to serve Him, shall be taken account of by Him Who has
afforded them, and then shall the worst preacher, the most apparently
obscure and inapplicable sermon you ever heard be a witness for or
against you, to testify what regard you had for GOD’S message, what
humility, what teachableness, what readiness to receive and to do what
was clear, what anxious diligence and pains to understand what was
obscure.

Brethren, you may choose what subjects you will hear discussed in the
secular lecture-hall, and if you do not like the entertainment you may
refuse to be entertained by it, and resolve to hear no more of it, to
dismiss it altogether from your thoughts.  But you do not come to church
to be entertained; you have no option there of selecting or rejecting.
It is your misfortune (though it may be his fault) if the preacher does
not interest you, or the sermon immediately commend itself to your mind,
and to your heart; but, being there, you must hear whatever is said, and
however it is said; and having heard, be sure you must give account to
GOD of the hearing!  Settle this in your minds, impress yourselves with
the solemn authority of the preacher, and with the importance and
responsibility of heeding him, and it will be very seldom that you will
object even in thought, “Doth he not speak parables?”

But there are particular complaints, about which I would say a few words
specially.

First, there is a complaint against the preaching of mysterious and
profound truths.  If the preacher dwells upon such a subject as the
Incarnation of CHRIST, the nature of CHRIST’S presence with His Church,
of the Spirit’s indwelling, or the rationale of the efficacy of the means
of grace; or if he attempts to explain any difficult text, no matter what
pains he may take to simplify the subject, how he may labour to show its
importance and to recommend its consideration, he is met at once with the
objection that he speaks parables, and so with a tacit refusal to heed.
“Why puzzle one’s brains,” it is urged, “with such matters, when there
are so many simple themes and easy lessons in the Gospel.  I cannot
understand such things.  They are too profound.  The preaching of them
may be clever, but it is thrown away upon me.  I do not want to work and
task my mind, but to warm my feelings.”  Such is the reward the preacher
often gets for taking unusual pains to edify his hearers!  Such is the
wilful, the determined ignorance of many of GOD’S people respecting those
truths, the understanding of which most concerns them, and honours Him.
It ought to be sufficient to correct these unwise and unwilling, to
remind them that whatever GOD has revealed He requires to be accepted,
and that as there can be no acceptance of that which is not understood,
it is a foremost duty of the Christian preacher and the Christian learner
to employ themselves in the solution of Scripture difficulties, and the
comprehension of revealed mysteries.  Such objectors do not intend it,
but they grievously slight GOD when they refuse to heed so much of His
teaching, yea, they even cast a slur upon His wisdom in striving to teach
what, according to them, cannot be learnt.  And are they not unjust to
themselves?  Have they really such narrow and shallow understandings, so
impossible to widen and deepen?  Would they confess to such incapacity if
they were listening to a scientific lecture? would they complain if the
lecturer introduced them to new facts, showed them fresh experiments,
suggested to them explanatory theories, sought to make them wiser than
they were?  Would they shut their ears at the sound of the first new
term: would they shrink back at the first invitation to tread upon
unfamiliar ground; would they protect themselves against being
enlightened, by claiming to be hopelessly ignorant?  Would they not
rather make the most of the opportunity, opening ear and stretching mind
to catch all they could, finding pleasure in being carried beyond and
above themselves, resenting indignantly a hint that the thing was out of
their reach, professing, somewhat ostentatiously pretending a greater
delight and fuller understanding than they really had?  O why is it the
fashion to claim to be so wise in secular matters, to boast of ignorance
in religion?  It is well, indeed, that men should not sham to be wise in
GOD’S presence, but it is ill, very ill, that they sham to be ignorant,
or that they should be content to be ignorant when they might be wise,
ignoring and disowning the powers which GOD has given them!

Take these remarks, dear brethren, into your serious consideration.
Remember that GOD has given you intelligent minds, in order that you
might think of and serve Him with understanding.  Much, indeed, about Him
is absolutely incomprehensible; much has He designedly withheld; before
many mysteries, has He put up the warning, “Draw not nigh hither;” but
much has He told you plainly, and much has He propounded in sufficiently
obscure or difficult terms, to task and exercise your minds in their
necessary unravelling.  With respect to these things, as it is only by
much resistance that you can withstand the temptations to which you are
exposed; as it is only by great efforts that you can acquire the holiness
without which no man shall see the LORD, so is it, only by real and often
hard study, that you can attain unto the knowledge of which GOD has made
you capable, and in which He bids you grow.  The elementary, the vitally
necessary truths of the Gospel are, it may be, within the immediate
comprehension of the simplest and most uncultivated understanding; but
shall it, therefore, be said to you, shall you be allowed to say of
yourselves, that you need not be concerned about anything beyond?  Would
you be satisfied if you had only so much secular education as would
enable you to spell out sign-post directions?  Would it be no reproach to
you, having so many faculties and opportunities, only to be able to read
and count?  Would you miss nothing of duty, of interest, of pleasure, if
your intellect were uncultivated, if you were wholly unacquainted and
totally unable to appreciate arts and sciences, poetry, music,
literature, or any facts or theories not connected with your worldly
calling, not necessary to procure your daily bread?  Would not life be
irksome and intolerable, if held only on such terms?  Would you not be
ashamed of attempting to hold it on these terms?  Would you not consider
that you were robbing yourselves of all that was worth having?  Would you
not admit that you had missed and ignored your high calling, your power
to be enlightened and wise beings, and had sunk shamelessly and guiltily
to the level, below the level—for he answers the end of his creation—of
the irrational brute?  And shall you who feel such shame for worldly
ignorance, shall you who make such efforts to gain secular knowledge, who
are ever widening your minds, and storing up in them as much as they will
hold, who delight in growing wiser and more learned, who will study
unwearily, and exercise all your intellect, and consume I know not what
time, in unravelling the worthless mystery of some enigmatical line in a
poem of fiction—shall you contentedly pass over the difficulties, and
remain ignorant of the mysteries which meet you in nearly every verse of
the Word of GOD?  Shall you be otherwise than glad and attentive when the
preacher draws your attention to them?  Shall you even unfairly and
ungratefully charge him with _speaking_ parables, when he is really
_explaining_ parables?

Dear brethren, it is rarely that the public preacher, who has to take
thought for the simpler ones of the flock, can enlarge upon profound
truths.  When he does, take care that you make the most of the rare
occurrence, and compensate for the forbidden frequency, by diligent
private study, by ready use of that individual aid which the clergyman is
as rejoiced, as he is bound, to afford you.  Acquaint yourselves now, as
far as may be, with GOD, and the things of GOD.  Furnish yourselves with
the answer, the want of which was such a reproach to Nicodemus, to the
question—“How can these things be?”  Show, at least, as much interest in
salvation, in sanctification, in heaven, in eternal bliss, as will lead
you to inquire what they are, and require, and promise.  Get now the germ
of that knowledge, which is to expand hereafter albut to an infinite
grasp, and is to revel in spiritual science.  Cast away the reproach of
knowing not; provide against the doom which awaits him that improves not
the talents entrusted him: “From him that hath not, shall be taken away
even that he seemeth to have.”

There is another class of objectors—to another kind of preaching.  Those,
namely, who resist the force of plain exhortations to repentance,
self-denial, submission, obedience, holiness, and the like; by persuading
themselves that the preacher urges these severely and unduly.  Doth he
not speak parables, they say, exaggerating—describing ideal duties?
Surely, what he urges is not the thing really required of us; surely, if
we escape not with impunity, yet some allowance will be made for our want
of it.  Would he bring in all guilty?  Would he cross every delight and
desire of our life?  Would he expect us so to subdue the spirit, so to
overcome natural impatience, as never to resent, to shrink, to murmur?
Must obedience be so uncompromising, so constant, so perfect, to be
obedience at all?  Is holiness so imperatively necessary?  Surely the
preacher is unreasonable, he is extravagant, he speaks parables.  These
objectors are easily answered.  In this matter no teaching of our own can
be more explicit, more exacting, more positive, and more unsparing, than
that of the New Testament.  When we enforce these things, we are backed
by an authority which cannot be questioned; and are able to prove that
our words are those of soberness and truth.  “Except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish.”  “If any man will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”  “Whosoever doth
not this, cannot be my disciple.”  “Whosoever loveth me, keepeth my
commandments.”  “If any man love not the LORD JESUS, let him be anathema
maranatha.”  “Without holiness no man shall see the LORD.”  Are these
words parables, are they untrue, figurative, extravagant?  And if not,
what that we say, or can say, on this head, may be resisted or slighted,
under the plea, that is a parable?

Once more.  When we discourse from the pulpit, on a living and near
Saviour, an indwelling Sanctifier, a surrounding spiritual tempter, on
heaven or hell, on enduring as seeing Him who is invisible, on having our
conversation in heaven, on the evidence of things unseen, on the feeling
and grasping, so to speak, as though they were substantial and at hand,
of things hoped for—oh! then, how many there are who hear us as though we
were dreamers or narrators of fables, speakers who should be allowed some
poetic license; who, to make their speech attractive, or perhaps from the
spontaneous dictation of their enthusiasm, use figures of rhetoric and
speak parables!  I do not mean that these persons wilfully take up this
position, that they are intentionally, or in desire, gainsayers of the
truth, but merely that they do not enter into its conception, and cannot
rise to its height.  They lag behind, they are earthy, they see only the
visible, feel only the tangible to bodily senses.  The temporal to them
is real; the spiritual, not through unbelief, nor obstinacy, nor moral
blindness, but from infirmity, and earthly-mindedness, and
unspirituality, is regarded too nearly as unreal; and, therefore, when it
is discoursed upon, they seem to be listening to empty dreams, and the
preacher to be displaying flights of fancy.

Dear brethren—I speak to such—I know that many of you wish it were
otherwise; you would that your mind could conceive, and that your heart
could feel, these truths.  In your best moments, you more than suspect
that the preacher is right after all, and you are wrong; that _you_ are
dreaming, and not he; that his words are a parable only to those who will
not see and hear.  It is not in man to afford you much help, in coming to
a right state.  If I refer you to the Bible, which we do but echo from
the pulpit, you will still say, Ah! but does not this, too, speak
parables?  If I bid you go and exercise your reason, or consult others
who have done so, it is more than possible that you will come away from
the consultation—alas! many do—more convinced than before that we _do_
speak parables, that each one is a GOD to himself, that there is no other
devil than a man’s own evil passions, that there is no hell but in a
remorseful conscience, that eternity does not mean “for ever!”  No; there
is no help for you in man, in yourselves, or in others.  You must,
indeed, purify and elevate your affections, so that they may wish for
better things; you must bring down your reason from the high seat where
it sits, and speculates, and dictates; you must try to accept the truth
that the natural man cannot receive nor judge of spiritual things; but,
then, you must go to GOD Himself, and humbly, teachably, earnestly ask
for that spiritual discernment which alone can see, and feel, and love
the things of GOD.  Do this, not once, but often; not negligently or
hastily, but earnestly and perseveringly; and presently, if not all at
once, yet gradually, most surely, your spiritual eyes shall be opened,
you shall see GOD, you shall love CHRIST, you shall perceive the motions
of the Holy Spirit.  The invisible world shall be unveiled, and shall be
found to contain all the beauties, all the horrors, and to hold out all
the hopes and fears, to be as real, as near, as sure to be ours, for weal
or woe, according as we are, or are not, Christians, as the preacher or
the Bible, of which he is the expounder, asserts.  Thenceforth you will
not complain of spiritual teaching that it is parabolic, of strong
assertions of the obligation of Christian graces, that they are
immoderate, too exacting, too severe.  No! heart and mind will testify,
and life will approve, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no
proverb.”  Yes; and knowing somewhat of GOD, and your relation to Him,
and desiring to know more, whenever in your private reading of the Bible
a difficulty meets you, or whenever the preacher discourses, as it seems,
in parables, you will give the most earnest and interested heed, to see
if you cannot divine the mystery; and failing that, instead of remaining
in willing ignorance, you will use all the means placed within your
reach, the comparing of parallel places, your commentaries, and the
private instructions of your clergyman, pleading all the while with
CHRIST, and urgently beseeching of Him, “LORD, thou knowest all things,
declare unto me this parable.”

Thus doing, you will soon find that to you it is given to know the
mysteries of religion; and the knowledge, sanctified by the Spirit, will
assuredly work in you a greater love of GOD, a more consistent and more
successful pursuit of holiness, a growing taste and eagerness for that
better state, whence ignorance, in all its degrees, shall be banished for
ever, and where we shall know even as now we are known.




SERMON XVII.
LIVING AND DYING UNTO GOD.


                          II. CORINTHIANS, V., 8, 9.

    _We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body_,
    _and to be present with the_ LORD.  _Wherefore we labour_, _that_,
    _whether present or absent_, _we may be accepted of Him_.

THE apostle had been speaking, in the preceding chapter, of the troubles
and persecutions which he daily endured, and of the hopes and
consolations—the life by faith rather than by right—which made their
endurance easy.  Having touched upon the theme, he could not but enlarge
upon it; and doing so, his ardent expectations carried him out of the
present, and made him covet and attempt to grasp the future.  Before his
enlightened eye and spiritualised heart, his affliction was light and its
continuance brief; the present state was but as a tent, quickly to be
taken down, and then in its place should be digged the deep foundation
and reared the abiding edifice of a building of GOD eternal in the
heavens.  Outstretched, then, were his thoughts, and desires, and earnest
were his prayers, not so much to get rid of what he had, as to attain
what he hoped for and was promised.  He knew indeed that the tabernacle
must be removed; that his present state must cease—either by actual death
or by a change, which the quick at CHRIST’S coming must undergo, much the
same as death; he felt the burthen which was upon him; he yearned and
groaned to be rid of it; but looking to the end he disregarded the way;
dwelling, not upon the change but what was to come after it, he sought
not death, but life.  He longed, not to be unclothed, but clothed upon.
Nay, recognising the good, and so the desirableness of this life,
shrinking too naturally from the thought of dissolution, he would keep
the present till he had the future, he would have what he wanted _added_
to what he possessed, rather than _substituted_ for it.  Present life was
in many respects dear to him; he would that the evil were purged away
from it, and the good left; and then that the good were augmented,
enfolded, absorbed by the transcendent, satisfying perfect blessedness
which GOD had promised, and for the attaining whereof He had bestowed His
effectually working Spirit.

At this point he seems to have sobered himself, or perhaps rather to have
designedly exhibited the latent soberness and contentedness which had
guided him all along.  “We are confident,” he says, that is, of good
cheer, well comforted, easily bearing what is, patiently waiting for the
future; preferring, indeed (if a preference be allowed), to be absent
from the body and fully present with the LORD; but still chiefly
animated, not by a selfish yearning for the quickest attainment of peace
and glory, but by the noble, GOD-adoring ambition, of being and doing
that which is divinely approved.  “Wherefore, in view of all that is and
shall be, we make it our chief aim, we devote ourselves, not so much to
reach heaven, to gratify self, as whether on earth or in heaven, to enjoy
the approval and favour of God.”  “Be silent,” he would say, “ye groans
for deliverance; check yourselves, ye eager aspirations for glory; let
principle rule rather than desire, and let the principle be, whether we
live let us live unto the LORD, whether we die let us die unto the LORD.
Let not dying or living be the engrossing thought, but that whether we
live or die we may be the LORD’S.”

In this, as in so many other respects, our bright exemplar, Paul, shows
us both what we may allow and what we should aim at.

And first he shows us that even the saint—the approved of GOD—may shrink
from the thought of dissolution.  “We groan, being burthened, because”
(this is the right translation) “we would not be unclothed,” we would not
die.  I envy not the man—there is something unnatural, yea, and
unspiritual, too, in him—who does not shrink from the first thought of
death coming to himself or to those whom he loves.  For death, in its
best form, is a remembrancer of the wrath of GOD against the sinner, and
it is in a sense a triumph—no matter that it is short—it is a defiling
and withering touch—no matter that it shall soon be wiped away, and its
blasting undone—of the foul and fierce enemy of GOD and holy man.  It is
that, too, which cuts asunder the ties which we are allowed and
encouraged to fasten here between ourselves and loved friends and
delightful pursuits and pleasing possessions.  It is that, too, which
abruptly closes the period of probation and preparation for heaven; which
stays all cleansing and perfecting, which says imperatively to us, “No
more shall you remove, no more shall you acquire—as you are shall you
face GOD—stereotyped are you for eternity.”  It is that, too, which
enthrals and deadens the one half of us, though it liberates and quickens
the other, which separates the body from GOD, while it joins the spirit
to Him, which, while it exalts the latter to Paradise, consigns the
former to the grave, to corruption, to temporary annihilation.  Terrible
is death to many, awful to all—undesirable even to the saint—and only
tolerable because not so much of the soul’s immediate gain as of the
body’s future hope.  For if it were proposed to us to choose for eternity
between perfect disembodied bliss, and very imperfect bliss in the body,
there is no one, I conceive, who knows the capabilities of the body, both
of rendering to GOD and receiving of Him, who would not prefer, and I
think rightly, life in the flesh to life out of it.

The words of St. Paul exhibit in himself, and seem to allow in others,
this shrinking from dissolution, this desire to keep the body, albeit
changed, perfected, caught up into the heavens; to be spared the pulling
down of the earthly tabernacle, even to make way for the heavenly eternal
building.

But St. Paul goes on to show that this desire was secondary to that of
exchanging faith for sight, imperfection for perfection.  He would not on
any account remain earthy: he longed for the fullest and most glorious
presence of GOD, and if it needs must be that the desired change and
attainment could only be brought about by dissolution, oh, then he was
ready, he was willing rather to be absent from the body.  He returned
from the shrinking; he rallied from the fear; he was confident, well
content, and desirous to die.

And herein he is the pattern of a true Christian.  He is not so in love
with death that he can see nothing in it to shrink from or fear, nothing
to disturb him.  He does not so hate this life as to hurry to be quit of
it.  With all its trials, and disappointments, and hindrances, and
miseries, there is much in it which is dear to him, in which he finds
delight, from which he is loth to part.  GOD, too, is felt here, and seen
by faith, and bestows appreciable blessings; here GOD’S work is to be
done, here GOD’S glory to be promoted.  Therefore “to live is CHRIST.”
But still there are greater and better things beyond.  There is a place
where trouble never comes, where happiness is perfect, whose company, and
possessions, and pleasures, are such, that nought on earth is worth
having or thinking of in comparison of them.  There is a state in which
GOD’S work may be done as angels do it, without hindrance from within or
without; in which glory to GOD is easily, and fully, and delightfully
rendered.  There is a presence of GOD which is visible and palpable,
where His voice is clearly heard, where He is beheld face to face, where
the everlasting arms are substantially felt as they embrace and uphold,
where His love is perfectly realised and enjoyed, and perfectly
reciprocated.

What can be valued, or can interest in comparison of all this?  What can
content that is short of this?  What can deter from the seeking of this?
what valley seem dark and uninviting at the end of which this glory
shines? what way be dreary and lonely, along which GOD’S rod and staff
are offered as supporters and comforters?  This being the end and the
aim, if to attain it death must be passed through, then welcome death!
We are confident, full of cheer at the prospect, eager to set out—“To die
is gain.”

But the best feature of the Christian, as exhibited in St. Paul, remains
for us to gaze on.  After all, it is not the holiest ambition to aspire
to heaven; it is not the highest vocation to enrich and perfect self.
GOD has made us capable of heavenly bliss.  He offers it to us.  He would
have us seek it; He blesses and will reward the seeking.  But still He
did not make and redeem us, He does not sanctify us only or chiefly for
this.  The Christian’s vocation is the service of GOD.  The end of his
being is the glory of GOD.  And so our chief thoughts, and aspirations,
and endeavours, are not to be deliverance from troubles, perfection in
joy, getting out of the present into the future, exchanging earth for
heaven; but, being and doing what GOD approves, wherever, in whatever
circumstances, GOD appoints.  “Wherefore we labour, that whether present
or absent we may be accepted of Him;” that whether it pleases GOD to come
to us while we are in the body, or to call us to Him out of the body, He
may find us prepared for what in either case awaits us; “for we must all
appear before the judgment-seat of CHRIST, that every one may receive
according to the things done in the body.”

The Christian may shrink from the first thought of death, and wish not to
be unclothed.  He ought to aspire to heaven, and that he may reach it, be
well content, willing rather, to be absent from the body.  But above all
he must labour in whatever state he is, therein so to be serving GOD, as
to have His present acceptance and always to be prepared for His coming
judgment.

We want to feel this and to act upon it.  To put self with even its most
innocent instincts and best interests and noblest aspirations somewhat
aside, that GOD may be more nearly all in all; to be less filled with
groaning and coveting on our own account and more occupied in serving and
glorifying CHRIST.  It is well not to love this world, to have realised
its vanity and misery, to have broken the links that would bind us to it,
to refuse to find our perfect joy in aught that belongs to it.  It is
well to yearn for deliverance from all that vexes and hinders and hurts;
to desire ardently—even to pray earnestly and continually for—presence
with the LORD, and all that that presence implies, in Paradise, in
Heaven.  But when by GOD’S grace we have come to this state, we are not
perfect, we have not _begun_ to be perfect.  No! we have only qualified
ourselves in mind and heart for the commencement of that which is
demanded of us in life, the single, contented, glad, immediate, and
constant service of GOD in the state and circumstances in which He has
placed us.

Brethren, we are all dwelling in tabernacles, tents that have no firm
foundation; which are to be taken down and soon.  The general judgment
may tarry, CHRIST may not come in His glorious majesty, and meet us while
in the body: but if not then _death_ will surely come, and out of the
body we must go to meet CHRIST.  How soon shall that be?  How soon shall
we meet Him?  Do you ever give these things a serious thought?  Do you
ever consider that the apparently capricious last enemy is wont to take
the young and strong as often as the old and feeble, and, _as_ he
chooses, sometimes to sound the warning note from afar off, sometimes to
come silently, suddenly as a thief in the night?  Do you feel—I single
out each man, each woman, each child that hears me, and in GOD’S name I
ask that individual—Do you feel that _you_ may be Death’s next victim,
that ere the day is over you may be gone to your account, or at least the
seeds of mortal disease may be beginning to grow in you?  Oh, do not
resist this appeal by persuading yourselves that the thing is improbable.
Let it be enough that you know (and you do know) that it is possible,
and, if possible, that you ought to entertain the possibility.

Well now, let me farther ask, Are you prepared, are you preparing to die?
Are you going to leave the vast concerns of an eternal state to the
consideration of a moment, a moment too which may be denied you, if not
by the instant cutting of life’s thread, by mortal fears and lingerings,
and recoilings, by the engrossing pains of the body, by the locking up of
the senses in stupor or delirium?  Are you putting off concern; heedless
of thought and preparation for meeting GOD?  Are you calculating upon
being able to think and feel aright when you will, to ask and obtain
pardon for all that is wrong, to be excused for all deficiencies in a
moment, to do the work of life on a sick-bed, to satisfy GOD with the
dregs of the cup of life, to become a passive recipient of the necessary
holiness which GOD bids all acquire actively?  Do you suppose it will
suffice to think of these things when the doctor tells you you cannot
recover; to send for the clergyman to teach and move you when the faculty
of heeding is well nigh gone, to pray for you, if you are unable to pray
for yourself, to sigh over your body, if, alas! the soul has fled?  Or
are you now more or less possessed with religious thought and feeling,
sitting loose to this world, weaning yourselves more and more from it,
nerving yourselves for the last hour, sighing over and confessing your
sins, trusting to CHRIST’S mercy, aspiring to heaven, praying for
acceptance?  Whether you are indifferent to or merely postponing concern,
for self’s best interests, or whether you are already absorbed by self’s
best interests, let me remind you—without presuming to set any bounds to
GOD’S mercy, without disputing that GOD has sometimes received those who
first turned to Him on a death-bed, without caring to satisfy those who
want to know how little religion will save a man—let me remind you, I
say, and do not be weary of the repetition, that to be truly acceptable
to GOD, it is not enough that you entertain some religious thoughts, and
go through some religious forms at the last, or even that you are filled
with religious thoughts and feelings all your life long, you must be
serving GOD now, in the day of your ability, at the call of every
opportunity, in whatever state and circumstances you are placed, doing it
as so much work set you to do and presently to be scrutinised and
accounted for, rendering it as the faithful, grateful homage of a
pardoned and sanctified and loving sinner.  Let this be your rule, a rule
to be observed not only in theory but in practice also; not only in the
rendering of obedience, but in the treating of all that you have, and the
accepting of all that happens to you, as from the LORD—“Whether we live,
we live unto the LORD, or whether we die, we die unto the LORD.”




SERMON XVIII.
RELIGIOUS ZEAL.


                              II. KINGS, X., 16.

    _Come with me_, _and see my zeal for the_ LORD.

JEHU, the son of Nimshi, one of the captains of Israel, had been selected
and anointed by Divine command, to supplant King Joram, to smite the
whole house of Ahab, and to avenge the poured-out blood of GOD’S
servants, the prophets.  It is easy to account for the choice of such an
agent.  GOD, we believe, performs no miracle unnecessarily.  When what He
wants exists already, He searches it out and uses it; instead of making a
new creation, or changing and converting what, so to speak, comes first
to hand.  At this time He had need, for His purposes respecting Israel,
of a man bold, impetuous, full of vigour, prompt to undertake, resolute,
courageous, uncompromising to perform.  Such an one pre-eminently, was
Jehu; and therefore, said the LORD, “I have anointed thee king over the
people of the LORD, even over Israel, and thou shalt smite the house of
Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets,
and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel.”

We know with what alacrity Jehu assumed his office, and set about the
discharge of its stern and bloody duties; how he drove furiously to slay
Joram, assailing him the while with loud reproaches for tolerating the
wicked doings of Jezebel; how he caused Ahaziah, king of Judah, to be
slain; how he commanded Jezebel to be thrown from the window, and trod
her under foot; how he effected the wholesale slaughter of seventy
persons of King Ahab’s sons, of all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and
his priests, until he left him none remaining; and how, too, returning
from this destruction, he met forty-two of the brethren of King Ahaziah,
and caused them all to be slain at the pit of the shearing house.  The
words of the text introduce us to his last recorded deed of this kind,
namely, the destruction by subtlety of all the followers of Baal, and the
suppression of his worship throughout the land of Israel.

In reading this narrative, the questions naturally arise, How far were
the deeds of Jehu a performance of the Divine will?  Was Jehu in any
respect, and if so, in what, a holy character?  Under what influence did
he act, and forbear to act?  May we consider these questions rightly, and
learn from them lessons of wisdom by GOD’S grace to be carried out into
holy practice!

There is, then, no doubt, because we may read the command for it, in
plain words, that GOD willed the destruction of Ahab’s whole house and
the extermination of the abominable idolatry of the Zidonians.  Jehu
seems, indeed, to have been unnaturally ready for the executioner’s
office, to have discharged it savagely, and to have availed himself of
what is never needed or allowed in GOD’S service, of subtlety, fraud,
lying: but still, making allowance for excesses, arising from his natural
disposition, from his professional familiarity with deeds of blood, and
probably from a proud misconception of the authority under which he
acted, it must be admitted that, in the main, Jehu so far did the will of
the LORD.

Under what influence, prompted by what feelings, he did it, is a question
less easy to answer decidedly.  There are some—and not a few—who say that
his animus was altogether bad; that carnage was his delight; and that he
wickedly, and for his own pleasure and private ends, availed himself of
the Divine commission, and served himself under the pretence of serving
GOD.  That Jehu was selfish there is great reason to believe, and
something shall be said on that head presently; but that he was a
hypocrite, that his principle, the motive under which he acted, was
wholly bad, is proved not to be the case by the inspired commendation of
him.  GOD has made even the wicked for Himself, He uses them to
accomplish His purposes (as He did the Assyrians to punish the
Israelites, Satan to try Job, Judas to betray our LORD); but in such
cases as they do of freely devised wickedness, what He overrules for His
own good purposes, He condemns and punishes them for their offence,
though He makes use of it.  Now, in Jehu’s case, He praised and rewarded,
and so there must have been something right in him: “And the LORD said
unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right
in mine eyes and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that
was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the
throne of Israel.”  And the promise was fully realised.

It seems clear, then, that Jehu’s deeds not only accomplished the Divine
will, but that they were done with that design; in obedience and in zeal.
They were a soldier’s exact observance of orders, they were the fruits of
a servant’s devotion to his master.

We should be able to leave this statement without qualification were it
not for two passages in the chapter of the text: the one, that in which
Jehu makes such boastful mention of his doings, “Come with me, and see my
zeal for the LORD;” the other, that in which the inspired writer records,
“Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to
sin, Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that
were in Bethel, and that were in Dan.”  From the first of these we are
compelled to infer that there was an evil leaven pervading his best
obedience; and from the last, that other feelings often influenced him
beside zeal for GOD, and other lords had dominion over him; so that he
wilfully desisted or was deterred from doing all that was required of
him.  Hence it is plain that we must revise our estimate of his
character, to account both for his zeal and want of zeal.

The most satisfactory way of viewing him, to make him at all consistent,
is to suppose that, after all he was not a changed and converted man, and
did not act from spiritual feelings; but that he was hitherto employed in
pursuits congenial to his natural taste, and so found his own pleasure in
doing the LORD’S.  In the destruction of Ahab’s race and the overthrow of
Baal, the soldier exercised the profession which he had chosen and loved.
In daring exploits and deeds of blood, he found a carnal gratification.
Moreover, he was all the while strengthening and advancing his own cause.
His throne was unsafe while any of Ahab’s posterity survived to dispute
it with him, his people’s allegiance was not sure while there was any
link with the Zidonians remaining; and the LORD’S displeasure at the
idolatry of Israel, he well knew, would show itself again, as it had done
before, in the withholding of prosperity from them, and allowing them to
be harassed by their enemies.  It was, then, a congenial and politic
course which he had hitherto followed.  It may have been done with
greater ardour and satisfaction, because it was the LORD’S will; Jehu may
not at the time have had any distinct perception of the workings of a
lower motive, but still he would, doubtless, have done all, and done it
as readily and effectually had he owned no allegiance to GOD, and
received no Divine command.  This view of Jehu seems to be corroborated
by the fact, that when the time was come for him to serve GOD in
comparative quietness, he served Him not; and when the performance of the
Divine will in rooting out schism, threatened to break up the separation
of Israel from Judah, by restoring the worship at Jerusalem, then he not
only desisted from the work of reformation, but gave his countenance to
the old error, and encouraged the people to go after the golden calves,
that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.  And so that which he would
have others consider, and which, perhaps, he even believed himself, was
zeal for GOD, was chiefly the indulgence of his own passions and the
service of self; and it came to pass, that he who had done well, even
according to all that was in GOD’S heart, henceforth took no heed to walk
in the law of the LORD GOD of Israel.

Such was Jehu’s zeal—a natural, or mixed, is not wholly selfish zeal, the
zeal of Saul who sought to slay the Gibeonites, but spared Agag alive;
the zeal of the chief priests and Pharisees who put CHRIST to death, and
demanded Barabbas to be released; not the zeal of Phinehas, of Josiah, of
Him who was always straitened till He did His Father’s will; zeal not so
much immoderate or blind, as blemished and partial; not being always
zealously affected in a good work.

The review of such a character may be very profitable.  How many of us,
my brethren, are very warm, very exact in serving GOD, in the things to
which we are naturally inclined?  How many of us, if we bid not others
(as we too often do), “Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD,” at
least flatter, and puff up ourselves, in the contemplation of the service
which we are rendering to GOD?  How many of us have only just as much
zeal as squares with our own desires or interests; and in all else,
either desist when GOD urges “Go on,” or persevere when He cries
“Forbear!”  The zealous man has been advised, by a great moralist, always
to suspect that pride, or interest, or ill temper, is at the bottom of
his zeal.  Provided we guard against the grave error, so prevalent in the
last century, of despising and condemning all religious zeal, it is well
to entertain this suspicion—of ourselves, I mean—till we have proved it
to be false, or by repentance and amendment have made it false.  For who
does not know how much a proud, carnal, selfish, ill-tempered man or
woman may do in the service of self, which has the appearance of zeal for
GOD?  What pious labours men will undertake, if they happen to be in the
path of their natural inclinations!  What warfare they will wage against
sins that they have no mind to!  What platform speeches they will make,
what pamphlets or letters publish, against the disciples of a religious
school to which they do not belong!  They are zealously affected; they
come out and are separate; they are enthusiastic, energetic, noisy; they
put forth all their own strength; they invoke the civil power; they would
have authority from the synagogue, if it were to be had, to punish all
who do not conform; they smite with the sharp sword of a bitter
persecuting tongue or pen; they work, they speak, they give, they fight,
they endure—all, they say, in zeal for the LORD; and yet, if you follow
them into the quiet scenes of life, if you come upon them where self has
nothing to gain or enjoy, or where it has anything to lose or fear
losing, to all appearance they take no heed to walk in the law of the
LORD GOD.  It is very likely that they are not communicants; that they
are irregular in their attendance at Church, or greatly wanting in proper
demeanour and devotion when there; that they aid but seldom, and
slenderly, in the spread of religion around them, and the relief of GOD’S
poor; that they are rarely seen to open the Bible; not men of prayer;
exhibiting tempers, and following ways which belong not to the holily
zealous; tolerating beneath their own roof, or within the reach of their
influence, something as hateful in the sight of GOD as the calves that
were in Bethel and that were in Dan.

O how many who are zealous at one time, are without zeal at another!  How
many who make a great show of religion, and talk much about it, and
contend in public for it, are utter strangers to its real influence, are
wholly without love for it!  How many, too, who honestly consider
themselves zealous for GOD, are only serving Him in the bent of their
natural inclinations, and taking no heed to Him, where self must be
denied; like men of cold temperament, despising bodily indulgence, yet
making a god of mammon; prodigals, inveighing against covetousness;
destroyers of the temple of Baal, restorers of the calves of Bethel and
Dan; saints in some things, devils in others!

O ye who boast of zeal, or claim to have it, take care that ye have it
towards GOD, and that ye are constant in it!  Distrust the energy which
works only at times, and in some directions.  Suspect the feeling which
excites and fills with ardour to-day, but is listless and dead to-morrow;
which chooses for itself what to do for GOD, what to think of GOD, what
truth to meditate on chiefly, what practice alone to follow.  Zeal for
GOD is entire, regular, consistent devotion to Him.  It fills the whole
man with all spiritual desires and feelings; it works out in the whole
life; albeit, it is generally calm, and sober, and quiet, not boasting
nor thrusting itself forward, not making much ado.

Do not suppose, brethren, that in speaking thus on the subject of zeal, I
would discourage, in any degree, the entertaining of a fervent spirit, or
would allow, for a moment, that strong feeling and strong expression of
it, and manifested earnest activity, are, in the slightest degree,
incompatible with real religion.  On the contrary, I would maintain that
there is no religion at all in the man or woman who is not—allowing for
the differences of temperament—stirred within by it, and impelled to
speak of and act upon it; who is afraid, or unwilling, or negligent, to
show it.  Zeal, I maintain, is good—nay, is necessary; zeal, which makes
one burn with the glowing thought of immortality, which rouses one to
ardent work and holy contention; which finds, and _must have_, its vent
in the speech; which shows itself designedly, that it may impress others,
and set forth the glory of GOD.  Only, I would have you judge of that
zeal in others, and find it in yourselves; not in what Jehu did, but in
what he omitted, and ought to have done; not in that which indulges
natural desires, but in that which crosses them; not in that which
secures worldly advantages, but in that which disregards, and even
sacrifices them; not in that which exists, or is quickened only in times
and places of excitement, but which burns brightest and highest, and
spreads farthest, in solitude and silence; not where there is immediate
praise, or glory, or notoriety, in the sight of men, but in that which is
seen alone by GOD.  Seek to be zealous, rest not till you are zealous,
for there is no service of GOD, no acceptance with Him but through zeal:
but expect to find your zeal, know that there only GOD will find it, in
your deep conviction of sin, in the fervour of your penitence, in the
uncompromising persecution of your own lusts, in the crossing of your own
will, in the refraining from that you would naturally choose to do, and
the performance of that you shrink from through worldly motives, in the
earnestness of your prayers, in the frequency of your acts of communion,
in the diligence of your searching of the Scriptures, in the munificence
of your private charities, in the strenuousness of your efforts to do
good to others, in the secret contemplation and desire of heaven, in the
soul’s appreciation of your high calling, in faithful love of GOD in your
hearts!  Have such zeal, and manifest and exercise it as often and as
consistently as the Holy Spirit enables you, and then the whole of your
life, within and without, from first to last, shall have the commendation
which Jehu’s at the beginning had; and an infinitely better promise shall
be fulfilled to you, Ye shall sit on the throne of heaven with CHRIST,
and reign with Him for ever and ever.




SERMON XIX.
CHRIST’S COMING DESIRED.


                            REVELATION, XXII., 20.

                        _Even so_, _come_, LORD JESUS.

AS it was the common belief of the early disciples that CHRIST was to
come in His glorious Majesty, to render unto every man according to his
works, so was it a common desire, a frequent prayer, that He would come
quickly.  They were not content with being merely mindful of the fact
that He would come at some time, they were not merely anxious to be
prepared, lest He should come soon; but they looked for His coming, they
hasted towards it, they loved the thought of His appearing.  Some of
them, expecting that they should not taste of death till He had actually
appeared to them in His fullest glory, looked ever with eager eyes for
the opening of the heavens, and the revelation of the Son of Man: others,
believing that it was through the gates of death that they should enter
into CHRIST’S presence and realise His Second Advent, wished to die,
courted death, yea, hardly resigned themselves to the Divine will, that
they should as yet continue in the flesh.

Perhaps you may think that this was a natural rather than a spiritual
frame of mind.  On earth their portion had all along been one of sorrow
and suffering, and evil reproach; and prophecy bade them look on for
aggravations of what they already endured, and for many additional and
greater troubles.  What wonder, then, that they struggled to escape from
the present, that they shrunk from the future, that they prayed that
CHRIST would speedily come to them, or that He would speedily take them
to Himself!  What wonder that St. Paul, for instance, amid his toils, and
perils, and sufferings, and revilings, and failures, and disappointments,
with the prospect of nothing on earth but sorer persecution and greater
trials, should desire to be absent from the body, and to be present with
the LORD!  What wonder that St. John, so cruelly entreated by foes, so
disregarded by should-be friends, when in the isle of his banishment the
voice of his LORD told of His speedy coming, should promptly and ardently
respond to Him, “Even so, come, LORD JESUS.”  Having nothing, and
expecting nothing that flesh could desire; enduring much, anticipating
more that was undesirable, grievous, hateful, what wonder, you would ask,
that they yearned in their hearts to be delivered from such bondage, and
to be transferred to the abode of peace and glory: that they offered
frequently and fervently those Advent prayers, “Thy kingdom come,” “LORD
JESUS receive my Spirit,” “Even so, come, LORD JESUS”!  Even had they
expected no hereafter, had they supposed that the coming Judge would
annihilate them, or that the grave would bury them in eternal
forgetfulness, it would still have been natural for them to have courted
and prayed for the cessation of toil and the end of suffering.

So some persons are wont to reason.  It is natural, they say, for those
to whom this world is a blank or a sea of troubles, to set their hopes on
another world.  It is natural for those whose life here is all weariness,
to be desirous to give up that life, even though they shall have no life
hereafter.

But is it really natural?  Does affliction naturally make us look
heavenwards?  Does a troubled life naturally reconcile us to the thought
of speedy death, yea, and cause us to desire it, to pray for it?

On the contrary, do we not often find persons unspiritualised by
affliction?  Do not many maintain that their worldly troubles are the
hindrance of religious thought and practice?  Is not death by very
instinct shrunk from by well-nigh all, and most by those whose
circumstances seem to recommend it as naturally the greatest good?

You hear those who are vexed or thwarted, or oppressed, or wearied,
exclaim in some moment of impatience or despondency, “I am weary of my
life.”  You find some so worn out, like Job, by long and accumulated
troubles, that they continually sigh, and from the heart, “Oh! that I had
given up the ghost!”  You hear the thoughtless, the proud, the obstinate,
protest “I had rather die.”  But let them be taken at their word, let
Death show himself to be really close at hand, to be coming to them, and
they will recoil with horror from his touch, and piteously cry to be
spared.  Occasionally one is found who, lacking patience and perseverance
to extricate himself lawfully from pressing difficulties, or, mad with
vexation because he cannot accomplish some worldly scheme, or because he
has been frustrated in some wickedness: or because having done the
wickedness, he fears to face the worldly consequences of his deed, not
merely says that he wishes to die, and prays for death; but then and
there ministers it to himself.  Yet even in such cases, while he would
escape from life, he does not deliberately seek death.  Nay, when he
finds he is encountering death, he often desists from his half-done deed,
or, if it be too late for that, shrieks frantically for others to rescue
him.

There are exceptions to all these rules, when men really wish to die,
when they deliberately court and procure death; but they are sufficiently
rare to vindicate the truth, that they are not natural.

Certainly the desire and prayer of the first disciples to be removed from
this world were not natural.  They did not despair in difficulties.  They
were not unwilling to endure continued trials and sufferings.  They were
not disgusted with life.  All that CHRIST required of them they burned to
do; all that He laid upon them they rejoiced to bear; and while aught was
undone or unsuffered, they chose and desired to remain; and even then, it
was not exhausted nature asking for rest, it was not weariness or dislike
of life’s lot which prompted the prayer, “Even so, come, LORD JESUS:”
they gloried in their then vocation, they loved their appointed work;
they would not relinquish it, they would not be unclothed, but clothed
upon, advanced, and perfected: they loved CHRIST, and so yearned to see
Him; they loved His service, and so coveted a state in which it could be
more fully and uninterruptedly rendered; they loved other men, the alien
and the outcast, and so longed for the day when all the kingdoms of the
world should become the kingdoms of the LORD and of His CHRIST, when
every soul should be subject to and rejoice in His rule!  They looked for
CHRIST’S coming, not because they supposed it would release them from His
service, and transfer them to an abode of luxurious immunity and rest and
glory; but because they thought it was the necessary prelude to full
usefulness, to entire submission to His will, to unremitted, glorious
service under His perceived eye, and in the perfection of His strength.
They thought death was gain, and they desired it, not as the time of
sleep, the chamber of inactivity and oblivion, but as the door, the short
passage, which led into a world wherein the kingdom of CHRIST was fully
set up, and wherein they should unceasingly experience His rule, and act
as its agents.  They prayed that GOD would shortly accomplish the number
of His elect, not with the carnal desire that their enemies might be
confounded, and that those then without might be kept without: nor yet
with selfish impatience for their own promised reward; but that the work
of grace might be effectual, where now it seemed to be received in vain;
that the darkness which encompassed so many might be dispelled, that all
Israel might be saved, and might join them in glorifying GOD.

This was the feeling which prompted their Advent prayers; this was the
feeling which they laboured to arouse in those to whom they spoke, and in
us, for whom they wrote.  When St. Paul tells us, that to him to live was
CHRIST, and to die was gain, that he desired to depart and be with
CHRIST, though he was content to remain, he shows one of the many
respects in which we are to be followers of him.  When St. John records,
that he replied to CHRIST’S announcement, “Behold, I come quickly,” “Even
so, come, LORD JESUS,” he personates the Church and every acceptable
member of it, and shows us the attitude and the feeling which becomes
each one of those who wait for the LORD’S appearing; even as St. Peter
does in direct appeal: “What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy
conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of
the day of GOD?”

Alas! brethren, how far are we below the appointed standard of acceptable
discipleship!  How little is CHRIST’S Second Advent in our minds, even as
a mere doctrine, a truth of Scripture!  How small is the influence which
it is allowed to exercise on our thoughts and affections, and lives!  How
seldom do we suggest to ourselves the possibility of its nearness!  How
faintly, if at all, in what mere words—words, which do not spring from
feelings, and are not illustrated by actions—do we pray for its speedy
arrival!

Even those among us, who are rightly mindful, who study to be prepared at
all times, lest speedily and suddenly the Son of Man should come forth to
judgment, or should send forth the angel of death to bring them to His
bar—even these can scarcely be said to desire the coming, which they
think of and prepare for: much less to pray for it, and to do what in
them lies to hasten it.  Even if we are faithful servants, able to render
a right account whenever it shall be called for, we dread rather than
hope for the day of our LORD’S return.  Even if we have our lamps trimmed
and oil with us in our vessels, if instead of slumbering, we are
watching, would it not still be to us an unwelcome cry, “Behold the
bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him”?  What would be the first
feeling of the best of us, if at this moment an angel stood revealed, and
announced “The day of the LORD is come”? which of us can honestly,
heartily say now, “I would not live always.  I would not live till
to-morrow, if GOD graciously willed that I might die to-day?”

Of course there are many reasons why we should shrink from an immediate
advent.  We all of us need to cast off some works of darkness: something
is wanting in the spiritual armour of the best accoutred.  We feel that
we have much work to do for GOD before the night cometh; we have many
graces to cultivate and many others to acquire, before we shall be fit
for CHRIST’S coming; and, besides, naturally, the unprovided for, the
unprotected, the unguided, that will be left behind, if we go, tempt us
to linger, with eyes earthwards; and fashion chains to bind us down.  But
setting aside all this, supposing it all changed, so that we were fit in
all other respects for heaven, and nothing and no one on earth really
required us, does not conscience convince us that still we would rather
not go yet, that we shall be the better pleased the longer we are allowed
to stay, that our real prayer (that which our feelings suggest, though
our mouths dare not utter it, nor our minds dwell on it) is “LORD JESUS,
come _not_ quickly.”

Why is this?  I do not mean why is it in the case of the wilful, the
sensual, the worldly—there is no need to ask the question of them;
CHRIST’S coming will be their utter confusion, and the immediate
forerunner of their destruction.  It is easy to understand why _they_
wish him to delay.  But why is it in the case of the truly penitent, the
reformed, the faithful, the holy, the comparatively ready for CHRIST’S
kingdom of glory?  The foremost reason seems to be that they have never
had the courage to meditate calmly and sufficiently on death.  The first
thought of death alarms them.  And this is natural, for death is part of
the punishment of sin, and all that reminds of sin should alarm.  But it
is only the _first_ thought that alarms.  If they would give it further
consideration, they would see that death is deprived of his sting, that,
monster as he appears, to them he is harmless.  “There is no condemnation
for them that are in CHRIST JESUS.”  Death is not their enemy, but their
friend.  In fact, he is death no longer.  He is an appointed minister to
take them out of what might be more properly called death—this mortal
life—and introduce them into real life.  He does not separate them from
CHRIST, but joins them more truly to Him.  It is not a dark, bottomless
pit, with sides that cannot be climbed, to which he brings them, but a
short valley leading from the plain of this world to the city of glory,
which he that enters passes through in a moment, ay, and less than a
moment, and is new born for eternity.  Bring yourselves, brethren, to
believe this, to feel the reality of it, to be sure that the moment your
body falls asleep in JESUS your spirit is wafted to Paradise, and begins
to rest consciously on CHRIST, and to company with the spirits of the
just departed.  Then, though the nearness of death may for the moment awe
you—because it is the antechamber which leads directly into the presence
of so much holiness and glory—it will have no power to fill you with
dismay, no undesirableness to make you shrink from it.  No, brethren, you
will think much of it, you will patiently hope for it, you will
anticipate it and watch for it, and when it draws nigh, you will welcome
it with joy, and hasten to be transferred by it from mortal life to
immortal!

Another fault is, that CHRIST is not sufficiently in all our thoughts.
Our religion is too much of mere routine; our obedience is mechanical,
unintelligent; our holiness is acquired, because of an imposed necessity;
our faith is but historical.  We do not feel what St. Paul felt when he
said, “To me to live is CHRIST.”  By which it is clear he meant much more
than that CHRIST’S service was his one employment, CHRIST’S rewards his
one expectation, CHRIST’S grace his only strength.  He did not simply
look back to a crucified Saviour, nor forward to a coming Judge,
believing himself to be made a servant, and to have by and by to render
an account, to be liable to a judgment of his service; but meanwhile to
have no LORD near and over him.  No! the CHRIST that had departed in the
flesh was felt to have come back in the spirit.  St. Paul saw Him by
faith, knew Him, walked side by side with Him, served Him personally,
derived constant grace from Him, loved Him, and felt His love.  CHRIST
was the Alpha and Omega of his being, the beginning, the motive power of
all his thoughts, and words, and deeds, the companion of all his ways,
the object of all his aims: CHRIST the power of GOD unto salvation,
CHRIST a very present help and comfort, CHRIST the hope of glory.  Life
was full of CHRIST in its experiences, its aims, its delights, and hopes.
Gladly, therefore, would he retain it as long as GOD willed; but knowing
that death was gain, that after death CHRIST would be more palpably with
him, that he would be more able to appreciate CHRIST, that heavenly joys
would then be added to the joys he had on earth, he still longed for his
departure, he desired ardently to be clothed upon, he loved the thought
of CHRIST’S final appearing, and his whole life acted the prayer which
St. John uttered, “Come, LORD JESUS.”

Brethren, you must live as Paul did, you must appreciate life as he did,
if you would desire death as he did.  You must acquaint yourselves with
CHRIST by study and meditation, by the Spirit’s invoked aid.  You must
think of a living LORD as well as of a dead Saviour.  You must have
reference in all your ways, not only to the first advent and to the last,
but, also, and I would even say chiefly, to the constant advent.  You
must have come to perceive that the promise is fulfilled, “Lo, I am with
you alway.”  You must endure as seeing Him who is invisible.  You must
carry CHRIST about with you.  You must do all to the glory of Him, felt
to be near, to be served and glorified.  When you would go anywhither,
your first thought must be, “Will CHRIST accompany me?  Except thy
presence go with me, O LORD, carry me not up hence.”  When you have aught
to do or suffer, your realisation of a near and available helper must
make you begin with the prayer, “O LORD, raise up thy power and come
among us, and with great might succour us.”  Gratitude for benefits
provided so long ago will never prompt you to render due Christian
service, vague expectation of inconceivable joys will never quicken your
steps Zionwards.  You must know CHRIST, feel Him, converse with Him,
depend on Him, and then, while you enjoy the life here, you will yet
yearn for a place and a condition where you can have perfectly and
uninterruptedly what now for so many reasons you have but in small part,
and, “Thy kingdom come,” “Even so, come, LORD JESUS,” will be your
fervent and frequent prayers.

I have spoken all along as if what we call “death” were the coming of
CHRIST, which you ought to desire and pray for, because we have all come
to take for granted that in our several cases death will surely precede
judgment, that CHRIST will not be revealed in our time.  I need scarcely
remind you, that we do not know that; that at any moment the final advent
might take place, and so each one of us be caught up alive—and never see
death.  If then, when you desire more of CHRIST, you think that through
the gate of death is the probable way of gaining it, and so look for
death, you must not forget that there is another way, and that you may
possibly first meet CHRIST face to face there.  Be your desire to be more
fully with CHRIST, and submissively leave to Him to decide how that
desire shall be accomplished, through death or without death.  But in
either case remember that your ultimate thought should rest upon the
final advent, and your most fervent prayers be for it.  Though you gain
much by dying, being freed from many hindrances of perception of CHRIST,
being made more fit for His presence, seeing Him more clearly, feeling,
and hearing, and loving Him better, your state and privileges will still
be imperfect.  You must stand before Him in glorified bodies before you
are capable of being and receiving all that He graciously designs; and
all the elect must stand there with you before His perfect gifts shall be
bestowed.  God does not will that we, without them, should be made
perfect.  The final advent, then, is to be the frequent subject of our
prayers; the speedy completion of all God’s preparatory measures, the
swiftest communication, far and wide, of the knowledge of His name and
will, the quick filling up of the number of the elect.

This we are to pray for, and this we are to aid in accomplishing.  CHRIST
will come when all is ready, and He has left us to make ready.  First to
prepare ourselves, then to prepare others.  When this work of the
forerunner has been done, the LORD Whom ye seek will come.  He does but
tarry till men be told of His coming, and persuaded to look for and
desire it.  When we tell them, when we persuade them, we hasten His
coming—that coming in perfect glory to bestow in perfection on us, on
all, that which, till then, at the best must be imperfect.

Should not this quicken our own growth in spiritual things? should it not
prompt us to admonish, and persuade, and help others? should it not impel
us to give more substantial aid to, to interest ourselves more about, to
pray more frequently and really for the success of missionary enterprise,
that those who have heard of CHRIST may be found out in their
forgetfulness, and reminded of Him, that those who are as yet strangers
and aliens may be brought into His household, and made fellow heirs with
us, and expectants of His coming?




SERMON XX.
TRUE PROSPERITY.


                             GENESIS, XXXIX., 2.

         _The_ LORD _was with Joseph_, _and he was a prosperous man_.

IF you were asked, brethren, to make a list of what you consider
prosperous men, what kind of persons what you put into it?  Those, I
doubt not, with whom all goes smoothly, who come in no misfortune like
other folk, who have riches in possession, acquire fame, are exalted in
honour; whose wishes are largely gratified, whose every project succeeds;
who, in short, experience no reverse, no temporary withdrawal or
suspension of good fortune, and peace, and pleasure.  What is the first
prosperous man that comes into your mind?  Perhaps, a successful
speculator, who years ago made what is called a “lucky hit,” and has gone
on repeating it, till he has become a millionaire.  Perhaps, a
professional man, whom fortune took by the hand as soon as he set out,
and who has been hurried along with giant strides, favoured, flattered,
well remunerated, till he has reached the summit of success.  Perhaps,
some uniformly thriving, respectable, happy tradesman, whose business
prospers, who is always able to pay his way, can afford time and money
for pleasure, and has good heart and health to enjoy it; in whose
household there is no strife or division, no sickness, no vacated place;
all present success, or bright hope.  Or, perhaps, you fasten on an
artisan, who is never out of work, who always meets with considerate and
liberal employers, whose sobriety and uprightness, and other good
qualities, are recognised and respected abroad, and rewarded by comfort,
and affection, and well-doing at home.

But it is a clergyman who bids you select: so you must look about with a
religious eye.  Then you pick out, perhaps, those who are naturally
endowed with good will and resolution, and are strong to perform it; who
have been early trained in the right way, so that doing good has become
habitual and comparatively easy; who have no overwhelming concern about
the support of their lower life, are not distracted by worldly cares or
by the claims of society upon them, nor much exposed to unspiritual
influence; who have no immoderate passions, encounter no sore
temptations, but _can_, without hindrance, and _do_, from desire, live
calm, and easy, and creditable lives.  These, you would say, are
prosperous men, and so, in a sense, they are—very prosperous—and far be
it from me to say, wrongly, or unhappily prosperous.  We know, indeed,
what snares riches bring with them, how many grave responsibilities are
imposed upon all to whom much has been given, how dizzy one becomes
through standing on a great height, and how easy and dangerous it is to
fall from it.  We know, too, that constant success is apt to make us
self-reliant, forgetful of GOD, proud, imperious, uncharitable; and that
uninterrupted peace and happiness in this world too often beguile us,
softly indeed, but surely, out of all thought of heaven.  And once more,
we know that an even temperament and an untempted life may easily lead to
routine-religion, to self-righteousness, to spiritual apathy and
deadness.  On these accounts, we must not count them _surely_ happy who
prosper in the world; but, on the other hand, we may not judge their
state certainly unhappy; nor deem the desire to be like them necessarily
wrong or unwise.  _If_ we can make sure of both worlds; _if_ we can have
the best of this, and not lose the other; _if_ no harm will happen to our
spiritual state, and no fitness for it be unattained and unkept; _if_ GOD
will be surely with us, while we _thus_ prosper—then religion does not
require, rather forbids, that we should give up our good things, that we
should forbear to seek them, to use them, and to rejoice in them.  All
these various states may, or may not be, truly prosperous.  Wherefore be
not rashly carried away with admiration and desire of any of them; be
slow to judge unfavourably of them, or to refuse, if you be called to any
of them.

But what I would have you chiefly note now is that there are other kinds
of true prosperity; rather, that if you would find out who truly prosper,
and whether you yourselves are truly prosperous, you must look for other
signs than those of worldly success and happiness; you must not conclude
that the inward part, the very substance of prosperity, is wanting,
because the outward life is sorely tried, and thwarted, and deprived, and
saddened.

The Spirit of Truth describes, in the chapter of the text, a truly
prosperous man.  Three several times, in a few verses, is Joseph’s
prosperity put prominently forward.  Now just think what his life had
been, and was, and was yet to be!  He had been motherless from an early
age; his father’s love made him the object of his brothers’ envy and
hatred.  He was thrown into a pit to die, and only escaped death to
become a slave in a foreign land to a heathen master.  Ere long he was
made the victim of a foul accusation; he was thrust into prison, and
there detained many long years; and when, at last, a hope of deliverance
dawned upon him, he was cruelly disappointed by the king’s servant, whom
he had kindly tended and reassured in trouble, and another two years of
incarceration, of suspense worse than despair, had to be endured!  Yet
was he _all the while_—mark that!—a prosperous man.  The Scripture does
not say or mean that _by and by_ he attained to a prosperity, in which
all his former adversity was forgotten.  It is of the present, not of the
future, that prosperity is predicated.  Nor may we suppose that there was
but a _show_ of adversity, that Joseph was really what we call prosperous
all the while, in that he enjoyed many advantages, that he made steady
way towards greatness, that his troubles were but as the toils and
difficulties which, in a measure, the most successful have to encounter;
or the just merits of misdeeds and the correction of faults.  Up to the
time of his release from prison, all through the years which Scripture
says were prosperous, every hope and aim had been frustrated.  It was not
that he had difficulty in entering upon his work, that he had much to
resist and suffer from its pursuit; but that after it was done, the
reward of it was denied him: he only climbed the hill, to be rolled back,
just as he reached the summit.  His child’s life commended him to the
love of his father, _therefore_ he was thrust out.  He won the good-will
of his master, was diligent in his work, which prospered in his hand; was
trustworthy and trusted, rose to be overseer of the house, and _then_,
when he had good hope of his freedom and of returning to his yearned-for
home, without any fault of his, he was degraded, branded with infamy, and
cast into prison.  Here, again, he deserved prosperity: the very jailor
acknowledged it, and honoured and well treated him.  The door, too,
seemed to be opening for his deliverance, when a fellow-prisoner went
forth full of his praise, an eye-witness of his sorrow, to make mention
of him to Pharaoh—but alas! the most strange forgetfulness took
possession of the butler, and for two years the name of Joseph never
crossed his lips, nor thought of him entered his mind.  And even when
delivered out of prison, and exalted by Pharaoh, he became but a chief
_slave_, next the throne in dignity, second to the king in power, but
still not free to return to his home, still kept ignorant whether his
father was yet alive!  Was this what we can call, by any stretch or
limitation, “prosperity”?  And mark, that all his trouble came upon him,
not only _in_, but _for_, his well-doing.  In obedience to his father, he
went to visit his brethren, and thus afforded the occasion of selling him
into bondage; because he did his duty to Potiphar, he was put into
circumstances of danger; by refusing to sin against GOD, he incurred the
reproach and punishment of sin; by honestly asserting before Pharaoh, “It
is not in me, I am nothing but a servant,” he lost the opportunity of
obtaining what the king would have been most ready to give him, and
afraid to refuse, absolute freedom.

My brethren, you and I can hardly bear with trials, and sufferings, and
reproaches, and ill-treatment, when we dimly suspect, or are actually
conscious, that we have deserved them.  How should we murmur, and cry
out, and kick, and rebel, if we were thus treated for well-doing!  With
what words should we answer him who sought to calm and comfort us in such
trouble, by assuring us that we did wrong to count it adversity, that it
was indeed prosperity!

Yet GOD says that Joseph was a prosperous man.  It is evident, therefore,
that we know not the meaning of prosperity, and must search in His
dictionary for the interpretation of it.  It is soon found: the first
part of the text supplies it—“_The_ LORD _was with him_.”

Ah! here is light from heaven.  Prosperity does not mean the state of
careless independence; being what we will, having what we desire,
accomplishing what we propose: it means, the state of dependence, of
being kept and ordered by GOD’S providence, treated as He wills, used in
accomplishing His purposes.  _By right_, we are GOD’S, by creation, and
redemption, and sanctification, sent into this world, reconciled and
restored after defection, enabled and commissioned to do the will of GOD.
We are as much the agents of His purposes as the elements, or any other
of His creatures; and it would be just as reasonable, were it possible,
for the sun to complain that it is sometimes covered with clouds; the
rain, that it has to descend and be absorbed in the earth, or lost in the
sea, or scattered in snow; the wind, that it must blow when and where He
pleases, as for us to say of any state into which we are brought, of any
work to which we are put, or of any calling off from it, “I like not
this; I am not prospered.  All these things are against me”!  We have no
right to independence; we ought not to be independent, and if we are, it
is either because we have forsaken our appointed service, or because GOD
deems us unfit for it, and, therefore, uses us not!  A chief part of
Joseph’s prosperity, remember, consisted not in the advancement of
himself, but in the accomplishment of GOD’S work: “_That which he did_,
the LORD made it to prosper.”

But _by privilege_, as well as by right, are we GOD’S.  We are not mere
tools in His hand: we are living agents, intelligent to understand His
will, free to do it or decline it, capable of loving it.  We are,
therefore, taken into His counsel, made fellow-workers with Him, treated
all along by Him according to our merits, finally rewarded according to
our work; not, however, in the way of our own choice, but of His.  O if
we realised this, and did our part according to the belief, we should
never murmur at, or question anything that is appointed us, or befals us.
For what does such questioning amount to, but an assertion that GOD does
not make the right use of us, or that He does not treat us worthily?  And
what is that, but to deny His wisdom, His justice, and His love?  No man,
who is worth a thought, counts it adversity, that he is bound by the
conditions, and must accept the trials, and do the work of his chosen
earthly calling, that he is obliged, for instance, to serve in his shop,
or pore over his books, or risk storms at sea, or face the dangers of
war; that, in short, he cannot be and do what he will, but must obey the
law of circumstances—why, then, should he reverse all this in his divine
mission and heavenly calling, and demand a liberty, an immunity, a
choice, which common sense would tell him should not and could not be
granted?

But there is another, a chief consideration, which should incline us to
be sure that the ordering of GOD’S providence is the conferring of True
Prosperity.  GOD uses us, indeed, as servants, and appoints us our
individual work out of the several circumstances around us.  But He
likewise makes us His friends, and uses the circumstances around us, as
ministers to us.  It is in them that He speaks to us and visits us; it is
by them, that He rewards and punishes us now; it is through them that He
disciplines and trains us, and perfects us for heaven.  We were not made
for them, but they for us.  And what shall we be saying of the Artificer
and the Superintendent of their use if we question their general fitness,
or the special application of them to ourselves?  “Sorrow is not good for
me.”  “I am ruined by that disappointment.”  “Through taking that stay
from me, I am become helpless.”  “Removing me thither is overwhelming me
with adversity.”  These, my brethren, are not only the expressions of
ingratitude, and the reasonings of unbelief, they are the dictations of
arrogant presumption dethroning the wisdom of GOD, and putting our folly
in its place.  We have no right to choose for ourselves: and if we had,
how could we do it?  Is not GOD wise to know what is best for us?  Is not
He good to apply it?  Should we not fear the fulfilment of any hope, the
accomplishment of any purpose of our own, and cry, “O LORD, not as I
will, but as Thou wilt.  Except Thy presence go with me, carry me not up
hence”!  Should we not accept with full resignation, with heartfelt
gratitude, any imposed condition, and say, “It is the LORD, let Him do
what seemeth Him good,” “It is good for me to be here.”

We may reason this out, and the example of others proves it, and our own
experience confirms it.  Admit the fact, that the LORD was with Joseph,
_i.e._, that He used him as His agent, that He loved him, and designed to
deliver him from evil, and to bless him to the uttermost; and then look
along his life to see whether wisdom and love did not guide all his
circumstances to this end.  It was GOD’S will that Joseph should cause
Jacob to come into Egypt, and should sustain him there.  How every step
of his seeming adversity helped to accomplish this will!  The telling of
his dream engendered the hatred of his brethren; that hatred sold him to
the Midianites, the Midianites brought him to Potiphar, the false
accusation cast him into prison, in the prison he interpreted the king’s
butler’s dream, and therefore he was summoned to interpret the king’s
dream, and for so doing made the ruler of Egypt, and the dispenser of
corn to the famished nations.  This brought the sons of Jacob to him:
this enabled him to dispose of them according to the will of GOD.  Thus,
“that which he did the LORD made it to prosper.”  And then of his
personal prosperity.  Was not his father’s preference likely to spoil
him?  Did he not run daily risks from the hatred of his brethren?  Was
his best state that of an honoured slave in Potiphar’s household?  Was it
well that he should daily encounter the temptations of his mistress?  Was
there no good discipline in that prison-life?  Did not deliverance come
at the fitting moment, rightly so late, under such circumstances?
Supposing he had chosen for himself, what else could he have chosen that
would have been better, or as good as GOD’S choice for Him?  And if,
brethren, we look along _our_ lives in the light of GOD’S providence, is
it not just so with us?  Supposing us to be faithful servants of GOD, has
not all that has happened to us been for our good?  Was it not well for
us that we were removed from the state in which we were being spoiled,
becoming selfish and proud?  Was it not good for us to be afflicted?  Did
not some earthly loss make us seek to fill the void with heavenly
consolation?  Are we not now better—better in fact—better in hope—because
GOD has prospered us in His own way, than if we had had what _we_ thought
prosperity?  Yes, surely; and had we been wise, in the hour of our worst
trial, we should have known that we were truly prosperous, in that GOD
was with us, that His jealous love had taken us from the foolish fondness
that was spoiling us, from the bitter envy that would not rest till it
had destroyed us, from the secular prosperity that would soon have made
us forget our birthright, from the temptation that sought to defile us!

If we have been wanting in this wisdom hitherto, let us fill ourselves
with it now.  Let us accept everything that befals us in the path of
faith and obedience as true prosperity; true prosperity, not only because
it is accomplishing by us GOD’S wise purposes, not only because it is
advancing us to glory, but because, it is the felt, the immediate, wise,
loving operation on us of a present GOD, present to sustain, to comfort,
to sanctify, to bless, present under a better covenant than that with
Joseph, present more graciously, and more effectually; GOD the Father of
our LORD JESUS CHRIST, GOD the Son, who has given Himself for us, and has
promised to be with us always even to the end of the world, GOD the Holy
Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, bringing near and applying
true prosperity, and fitting us for it, and enlightening us to see it,
and causing us to rejoice in it.

                                * * * * *

                            GLORY BE UNTO GOD.

                                * * * * *

              F. Shoberl, Printer, 37, Dean Street, Soho, W.




_Published by_
WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, 163, PICCADILLY.


                                * * * * *

              BY JOHN JACKSON, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT: Sermons preached before the University of
Oxford.  Second Edition.  Fcap. 8vo, 5s. 6d.

THE SINFULNESS OF LITTLE SINS.  _Contents_:—I. The exceeding Sinfulness
of Sin.  II. Sins of the Temper.  III. Sins of Pride and Vanity.  IV.
Sins of the Thoughts.  V. Sins of the Tongue.  VI. Sins of Omission.
Tenth Edition.  Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

    “A very earnest and practical little volume, suited to all ages and
    classes.”—ENGLISH CHURCHMAN.

REPENTANCE: ITS NECESSITY, NATURE, AND AIDS.  _Contents_:—I. The
Necessity of Repentance.  II. The Nature of Repentance.  III. The
Properties of true Repentance.  IV. The Aids of Penitence.  V. The Aids
of Penitence (continued).  VI. The Pardon of Penitence.  Sixth Edition.
Fcp. 8vo, 3s. 6d.

THE PASTOR WHOLLY GIVEN TO HIS OFFICE.  An Address to Candidates for Holy
Orders.  Fcp. limp cloth.  1s.

THE SPIRIT OF THE WORLD, AND THE SPIRIT WHICH IS OF GOD.  A Sermon
addressed to the Newly-confirmed, and preparatory to the Holy Communion.
Third Edition.  1s.

                                * * * * *

JOB: a Course of Lectures preached in the Parish Church of St. James,
Westminster, on the Fridays in Lent, A.D. 1855.  By JOHN EDWARD KEMPS,
M.A., Rector of St. James.  Fcp. 8vo.  3s. 6d.

                          _By the Same Author_.

THREE SERMONS ON THE WAR, preached in the Parish Church of St. James,
Westminster.  _Contents_:—I. “Be not High-minded.”  II. “The Lawfulness
of War.”  III. “Humble yourselves.”  Fcp. 8vo, 2s. 6d.

                                * * * * *

HINTS TO DISTRICT VISITORS, FOLLOWED BY A FEW PRAYERS SELECTED FOR THEIR
USE.  By FRANCIS HESSEY, D.C.L., Incumbent of St. Barnabas, Kensington.
Third Edition, cloth.  6d.

                          _By the same Author_.

CONFIRMATION QUESTIONS, IN SIX PAPERS.  Intended for the use of the
Parochial Clergy in preparing Candidates for Confirmation and First
Communion.  Price 2d.

THE SCHOOLBOY’S WAY OF ETERNAL LIFE: HIS RELIGIOUS MOTIVES, TRIALS, AND
DUTIES.  A Course of Twelve Short Lectures.  By the Rev. EDWARD
HUNTINGFORD, D.C.L., late Fellow of New College, Oxford.  Fcp. cloth.
3s. 6d.

                          _By the same Author_.

THE VOICE OF THE LAST PROPHET.  A Practical Interpretation of the
Apocalypse.  Fcp. cloth.  7s.

                                * * * * *

SERMONS IN DIFFERENT STYLES.  Preached at St. James’s Church, Piccadilly.
By the Rev. JOHN RICE BYRNE, M.A.  Fcp. cloth.  2s.

HYMNS FOR USE IN CHURCH.  Collected by the Rev. H. W. BURROWS, B.D.,
Perpetual Curate of Christ Church St. Pancras.  Third Edition.  1s.

THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE.  Twelve Sermons, preached at St. Luke’s,
Berwick Street.  By HENRY WHITEHEAD, M.A., Curate of St. Matthew’s,
Westminster.  Fcp.  8vo.  4s.

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON EVIL THOUGHTS: wherein their Nature, Origin, &c.,
are Considered; with Rules for their Restraint and Suppression.  By
WILLIAM CHILCOTT, M.A.  New Edition.  2s. 6d.

    “It is brimful of poetical feeling, of deep philosophy, and of
    imperishable truth.”—CHURCH AND STATE GAZETTE.

A HELP TO THE PROFITABLE READING OF THE PSALMS FOR CHRISTIAN PEOPLE.  By
EDWARD WALTER, B.A., Rector of Langton, Lincolnshire.  Fcp.  8vo.  4s.

CONVERSATIONS ON HUMAN NATURE FOR THE YOUNG.  By the late Mrs. CONYNGHAM
ELLIS.  With an Introduction by SAMUEL, Lord Bishop of OXFORD.  Fcp. 8vo.
3s. 6d.

SUMMER EXPERIENCES OF ROME, PERUGIA, AND SIENA, IN 1854, AND SKETCHES OF
THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF NAPLES.  With Illustrations.  By Mrs. J. E.
WESTROPP.  Post 8vo., 7s. 6d.